Patrick Russell
Senior Curator (Non-Fiction), BFI National Archive
UK
Voted for
| Film | Year | Director |
|---|---|---|
| Turksib | 1929 | Viktor Turin |
| Rain | 1929 | Joris Ivens |
| Gold Diggers of 1933 | 1933 | Mervyn Leroy |
| They Were Expendable | 1945 | John Ford |
| A Diary for Timothy | 1946 | Humphrey Jennings |
| Shane | 1952 | George Stevens |
| The Shetland Experience | 1977 | Derek Williams |
| Review 36th Year No. 5 | 1983 | Uncredited |
| Hurt | 2003 | Mark Romanek |
| Labour Party General Election social media launch video | 2019 | Uncredited |
Comments
Turksib
"And you could have it all / My empire of dirt"
Rain
"The needle tears a hole..."
Gold Diggers of 1933
"You are someone else / I'm still right here"
They Were Expendable
"Everyone I know goes away / In the end"
A Diary for Timothy
"If I could start again / A million miles away... I would find a way"
Shane
"My sweetest friend"
The Shetland Experience
"Full of broken thoughts... I would find a way"
Review 36th Year No. 5
"My empire of dirt / I will let you down / I will make you hurt". This work is viewable on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2WTOe1giA&t=184s
Hurt
A creative treatment of actuality.
Labour Party General Election social media launch video
"And you could have it all...
...A million miles away...". This work is viewable on Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/status/1189276879292960768
Further remarks
"Upon my liar's chair / Full of broken thoughts… The only thing that's real"
Archivists tend to be pluralists, with respect to what types of film they value, but as egocentric as anyone else with respect to which particular films mean the most to them personally. At any rate, those things are true in my case.
Moreover no individual in 2022, choosing ten from among all those films (i.e. moving image works) made since the late 19th century, can even sensibly attempt objectivity.
So whatever else this list is, it certainly isn't objective. It is, though, almost the same as the one I submitted ten years ago. The minor changes indicate an interest in representing how some traditions in film form and film function have, in our century, moved online. Especially those of short film (n.b. very many more short films have been made from the 1890s onwards than long ones).
This list very possibly looks chaotically idiosyncratic from the outside, though it feels coherent from the inside. In that there's a cluster of resonances bouncing between these ten films: resonances of purpose, genre and aeshetic, atmosphere and mood, and relationship of on-screen content to off-screen history. Many apt double bills here.
I'll stop there, lest I never stop. I've watched all of these many times and hope to watch them all several times more.