Margaret Tait: Film Maker

Synopsis

This portrait of the film-maker Margaret Tait includes extracts from many of her productions. In interview with video artist Tamara Krikorian, Tait talks about her introduction to the cinema in Italy and her move to Scotland where she began to make her own films. She discusses the important influences of poetry, music and Eastern philosophy on her approach to film-making. The film shows the wide range of styles Tait has adopted in her career, from the documentary and film portrait to the use of poetic and musical structures and direct painting on to the film strip. Tait explains that her films are akin to poetry, using felt rather than logical connections, and playing on the relationship between image and sound. They have minimal or no narrative or argument, and are instead compositions in images, reflecting what Tait calls a "contemplative way of looking at things learnt in the East." Sometimes, as in PORTRAIT OF HUGH MACDIARMID (1964), the structure of the poems themselves inspire the form of the film. For Tait, it is important that the films are ‘open-ended’, needing the response and participation of an audience to bring them to life. Extracts are included from ON THE MOUNTAIN (1956-74), a record of a street in Edinburgh which juxtaposes new material with an earlier film of the same street: the film poems WHERE I AM IS HERE (1964) and AERIAL (1974): The BIG SHEEP (1966), which commemorates the clearances in the Highlands and COLOUR POEMS (1974), illustrating a "shaky memory" of the Spanish Civil War: and landscape films made in Orkney.

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Year of release

1983

Notes

Previously available from Concord Media but their distribution licence has mow lapsed. BFI currently handle queries for non-theatric screenings. (as of 2019)

Subjects

Film studies

Keywords

experimental film & video; MacDiarmid, Hugh (1882-1978); poetry; Film directing; Tait, Margaret

Credits

Director

Margaret Williams

Producer

Fiz Oliver

Contributor

Tamara Krikorian

Distribution Formats

Type

DVD

Format

Region 2 PAL

Price

£50.00

Availability

Sale

Duration/Size

35 minutes

Year

2012

Production Company

Name

Arbor International

Sponsor

Name

Arts Council

Name

Channel 4

Distributor (Hire)

Name

BFI Distribution

Email

bookings.films@bfi.org.uk

Web

http://www.bfi.org.uk/distribution External site opens in new window

Phone

020 7957 8938/8935

Address

21 Stephen Street
London
W1P 2LN

Notes

The British Film Institute is a specialist non-theatric rental distributor of international fiction and documentary films on 16mm and 35mm film, as well as VHS and DVD video. The holdings are so vast that only those titles available on DVD and HD Digital are listed in full on the website, so it is worth enquiring about specific titles that might only be available for hire in other formats. The BFI has partnered with on-line platforms such as lovefilm and blinkbox to deliver a selection of films to buy or rent in digital format, and others are streamed free of charge on the BFI’s YouTube channel or as dowloadable clips on the Creative Archive section of the BFI’s own website.