Penda's Fen (DVD)

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There is so much to say about Penda’s Fen. It is, as the poet and curator Gareth Evans has written, ‘an outrider of its origins and the era of its making, a singular, far-seeing and multi-chambered work of art that has unravelled and reconstituted very many who have encountered it.’ It is ceaseless and profound, dangerous and delirious. It is, in words that are spoken to Stephen at a crucial scene in the film, ‘strange, dark, true, impure, and dissonant.’ Runaway Summer, The 1 9 7 1 (UK) 4 x 25 minute episodes Mary (Carol Davis) is spending the summer holidays at the seaside… Young Stephen, in the last summer of his boyhood, has somehow awakened a buried force in the landscape around him. It is trying to communicate some warning, a peril he is in; some secret knowledge; some choice he must make, some mission for which he is marked down.

Rural Worcestershire. 17-year-old pastor's son Stephen Franklin sits in his room writing about Elgar's 'The Dream of Gerontius' in an exercise book. The following morning, Stephen plays the organ at his school assembly and takes part in a debate in which he condemns a TV program that questioned the gospels' account of Jesus' life. He goes on to champion the role of family in Christian England. Spencer Banks is the principal actor in Penda’s Fen, playing Stephen Franklin, an 18-year-old in his final days at school. The BBC’s Radio Times magazine described the film briefly: Penda’s Fen was produced by David Rose who was head of English Regional Drama at the time and responsible for nurturing some incredible British writers and directors such as Alan Bleasdale, David Hare and Mike Leigh. It was Rose’s idea to bring David Rudkin and Alan Clarke together for Penda’s Fen. In his notes to the screenplay Rudkin wrote: Robin Carmody. "Penda's Fen". Elidor.freeserve.co.uk. Archived from the original on 4 September 2012 . Retrieved 5 September 2012. Paganism itself has, in many quarters, been reduced to a synonym for something witchy and cabalistic. The film, though, treats it as being about the politics of scale, and draws attention to the word’s etymology – of the village – to suggest that radical questions and alternative answers are present not out there in universities, museums or sanctioned citadels of learning, but closer to hand, on the ground beneath our feet. Penda himself becomes a symbol of heretical nationhood, of pre-Christian identity, of an imaginative wildscape which has the potential to redeem us from the lies and orthodoxies of state knowledge.

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The Dream of Gerontinus is about a journey through purgatory; a man searching for a place for his soul. Stephen is on a similar quest and has all his preconceptions shattered by finding out he’s not English, he’s not ‘pure’. At the end, the Father and Mother of England come to claim him as their own, but Stephen has irrevocably changed, not only by the information he has found out about himself but by the information he has discovered about the land. When I think of The Ghost Stories for Christmas series, I think of Lawrence Gordon Clark more than MR James. But of all the James adaptations, this is my favourite – a highly atmospheric piece of visual storytelling with a chilling climax. I find the simplicity of the filmmaking invigorating. No doubt born of limitation, this is cinema by way of TV. P enda’s Fen was first broadcast on Thursday 21st of March for the BBC1 strand Play for Today. It was written by David Rudkin (1936-) who rose to prominence in the ’60s with his play, Afore Night Come (1962). Rudkin was inspired by the playwright Harold Pinter, Rudkin, who saw himself as a political writer placed himself into the film as the reactionary playwright, Arne (Ian Hog) who lives with his wife (Jennie Heslewood, unfortunately only named ‘Mrs Arne’). At a debate in the local village hall, Arne is answering a question about the strikes which ground Britain to a halt during much of the 70s concluding in the ‘winter of discontent’. Arne is arguing against the assertion that the strikers are holding the country to ransom which was a common refrain at the time. Arne instead tries to divert attention to the government which he sees as secretive and malevolent. He dreams of naked classmates and of a demon (Geoffry Pennells) sitting on his bed. He sees an angel in a stream (Martin Reynolds) and meets quintessential (deceased) English composer Edward Elgar (Graham Leaman) who tells him the secret of his Enigma Variations.

Very formal in its presentation of religion and politics, from the school system on up, but still manages to interject new (and far older) ideas in counterpoint to the period and setting. What at first came across as something that might be strict and stodgy turned into an engaging coming-of-age tale in the form an older teenager, on the verge of manhood, who is troubled by questions of spirituality and god, while at the same time coming to terms with his own sexuality, and how all of this affects his understanding of his place in society.There has to be an Alan Clarke film in this season. Although it’s a real outlier in terms of his body of work, this was a touchstone when I was developing Enys Men. I’d be lying if I said I fully knew what the film means. As with Robert Bresson’s work, I prioritise feeling over understanding. Besides, even Clarke claimed to not really know what it was about.

Sorrell and Son 1 9 8 4 (UK) 6 x 50 minute episodes This six-part miniseries from Yorkshire Television begins during Britain's economic slump… Arne tells the villagers to think about what is really underneath them: ‘Farmland and pasture now, an ancient Fen. The earth beneath your feet feels solid there. It is not. Somewhere there the land is hollow. Somewhere beneath is being constructed, something – We’re not supposed to know. A Top Secret: we locals are not supposed to know it’s even there!’ The seventies was in the midst of the cold war with the constant threat of nuclear strikes as Russia and the US sought to outdo each other in arms. Britain was building a series of bunkers in readiness and living under the four minute warning. Odd how, like me, a lot of men seem to have seen the play in their teens and been unaccountably but deeply moved by it. It’s a kind of English Death of Salesman maybe, in that it cuts down beneath the defences and is saturated in the dilemmas and historical legacies & dilemmas of one particular culture. At school, Stephen tells his class of a dream he had about a demon sitting in the roof of his father's church. One of his classmates says Stephen does nothing for their house and should be boiled in oil. Later, at Arne's house, Reverend Franklin shows Arne the local paper's account of the burned youth. It claims that he was burned by a weather balloon. Arne doesn't believe it. On the way home, Stephen and his father discuss the Manichean belief that Jesus was just one of the sons of light in the eternal battle between good and evil. That night, Stephen dreams about an angel, the naked body of a classmate and of a demon sitting on his bed. The next morning, Stephen doesn't attend his school's military marching class and, on the way home, sees the reflection of an angel in the stream.The Dream of Gerontinus is considered by many to be Elgar’s masterpiece. It was composed for the Birmingham music festival of 1900 and its first performance was at Birmingham Town Hall. Due to its Roman Catholic theology, it was difficult for it to be played in Anglican cathedrals so a revised version was used until 1910. Both Elgar and Hubert Parry who wrote the music for Jerusalem were influenced by European composers. Again reiterating the point that nothing is really ‘pure’. The institutions that Stephen is so keen to be a part of at the beginning of the film, are becoming less attractive. Arne touches upon this in the debate when he describes miners, factory workers and the villagers as unsuspecting fodder for something bigger than themselves. Stephen’s mother (Georgine Anderson) warns him about getting an education, as factory workers pour like ants out of a factory and surround them. She describes ambulances going to and from the factory, as the workers are forced into an early grave. This is still applicable today, with The World Health Organisation estimating that 700,000 people a year are dying from stroke and heart disease, because of long working hours. With the rise of globalisation, we are outsourcing our factory workers who are in low-income countries working in factories, with scant labour laws protecting them. Can’t say how delighted I was that it made 76 in the Time Out list this week! And for a film that’s long been out of circulation! There IS a Penda after all!

Through a series of real and imagined encounters with angels, demons, and England’s pagan past, Stephen begins to question his religion, politics and sexuality. Matthew Harle is Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Barbican Centre and Guildhall School of Music and Drama.The play was released on limited-edition Blu-ray and DVD in May 2016. [8] In an essay published with the release, Sukhdev Sandhu argues that "Penda's Fen" "is, long before the term was first used to describe the work of directors such as Todd Haynes and Isaac Julien, a queer film". According to Sandhu, the play presents Stephen's discovery of his homosexuality as "a gateway drug to a new enlightenment" that "inspires heterodoxy". [9] See also [ edit ] The story is helped along with phantasmagorical imagery, both dark and light, by way of the young man's dreams and imagination. But ultimately these become set pieces in the greater story and its resolution. Pretty bold fare, I would think, for what was then a 1974 TV movie originally airing on British television. Penda’s Fen is a very simple story; it tells of a boy, Stephen, who in the last summer of his boyhood has a series of encounters in the landscape near his home which alter his view of the world… Penda’s Fen is visually striking and director Alan Clarke, later admitted that he didn’t really understand it. During an interview about his work, Rudkin said, ‘I am afflicted by images, by things that are seen, pictures of things, they are extraordinary, momentary, but they stay with me.’ He was talking about his play Afore Night Come, but could easily be talking about Penda’s Fen which features, angels, demons and other striking scenes.