The Long Day Closes (film)

The Long Day Closes is a 1992 British film directed and written by Terence Davies. It stars Marjorie Yates, Leigh McCormack and Anthony Watson. It was entered into the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.[1]

The Long Day Closes
Directed byTerence Davies
Produced byOlivia Stewart
Written byTerence Davies
StarringMarjorie Yates
Leigh McCormack
Anthony Watson
CinematographyMichael Coulter
Edited byWilliam Diver
Release date
22 May 1992
Running time
85 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

The film is set in Liverpool in the mid-1950s. The story concerns a shy 11-year-old boy, Bud, and his loving mother and siblings. He lives a life rich in imagination, centred on family relationships, church, and his struggles at school. Music and snatches of movie dialogue allow him to enrich his narrow physical environment. "Together these fragments", wrote Stephen Holden in The New York Times, "evoke a postwar England starved for beauty, fantasy and a place to escape."[2]

Cast
  • Marjorie Yates - Mother
  • Leigh McCormack - Bud
  • Anthony Watson - Kevin
  • Nicholas Lamont - John
  • Ayse Owens - Helen
  • Tina Malone - Edna
  • Jimmy Wilde - Curly
  • Robin Polley - Mr. Nicholls
  • Pete Ivatts - Mr. Bushell
  • Joy Blakeman - Frances
  • Denise Thomas - Jean
  • Patricia Morrison - Amy
  • Gavin Mawdslay - Billy
  • Kirk McLaughlin - Labourer / Christ
  • Mark Heath - Black Man

Music

The film uses 35 pieces of music, and uses the rendition of songs by Nat King Cole

Critic David Thomson in his April 2007 review of the film in the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine draws attention to the music that was used in the film, in particular "at the end of the film ... that mackerel sky and Sir Arthur Sullivan's 'The Long Day Closes' itself"[3] sung by Pro Cantione Antiqua.[4]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 83% approval rating based on reviews from 12 critics, with an average rating of 7 out of 10.[5] On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 85/100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[6]

A 2009 appreciation said:[7]

Working with the most basic and most ethereal of cinematic materials — time and memory — Mr. Davies has devised a mosaiclike film language. Childhood recollections are consecrated as moments out of time and assembled into a symphonic collage, guided more by emotional logic than by plot or chronology. The working-class milieu that tends to be associated with the drab naturalism of the British kitchen-sink school, here comes swaddled in sensory delights: stately tracking shots and overhead angles, gusts of Mahler and Nat King Cole. The overall effect is one of muted rapture, a swelling ecstasy held in check by a constant tug of sadness.

Awards & Nominations
Year Award Category Nominated work Result Ref.
1992Cannes Film FestivalPalme d'OrThe Long Day ClosesNominated[8]
1992Evening Standard British Film AwardsBest ScreenplayTerence DaviesWon
1992Valladolid International Film FestivalGolden SpikeWon

References
  1. "Festival de Cannes: The Long Day Closes". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 15 August 2009.
  2. Holden, Stephen (28 May 1993). "Turning a Gloomy World into a Sunny One". New York Times. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  3. David Thomson: Sound and Fury:Terence Davies, Sight and Sound, April, 2007. Archived 21 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  4. allmusic: Pro Cantione Antiqua - Biography
  5. "The Long Day Closes". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
  6. "The Long Day Closes Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 19 February 2016.
  7. Lim, Dennis (9 January 2009). "Remembrance of Liverpool Past". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  8. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104753/awards?ref_=tt_awd
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