Page 13 - 13_Bafta ACADEMY_Judi Dench_ok

At an age when many become set in their ways, The National Film Theatre continues to go from strength to strength. The 50th anniversary cel- ebrations taking place through- out the year on the South Bank are as much about looking ahead as looking back. It’s a clear sign that the venerable old institution will continue to evolve.
“The whole year is certainly going to contain a series of major retrospectives that cele- brate the NFT’s history,” explains Adrian Wootton, newly appoint- ed deputy director of the bfi with continuing responsibility for its collections.
“In January, for example, we kicked off with the first really com- prehensive retrospective of Akira Kurosawa’s work for 25 years, and it was very appropriate that we started with him because he was one of our very first guests. In fact he was at the opening of the NFT’s new building when we actu- ally moved into the one we’re in now, he was there when Princess Margaret opened it.”
In those austere post war years the National Film Theatre was established with a pretty ambi- tious brief, to bring classic cinema to British audiences, showing films from its own collection as well as showcasing contemporary films that weren’t available anywhere else in the UK.
“There’s always been a strong educational ethos about the
NFT,” Wootton adds, “but I think there was that overwhelming sense that the NFT was estab- lished so that audiences would see material that just wasn’t accessible elsewhere and would also get to meet and engage with filmmakers.”
At the time the NFT began film was only just becoming recog- nised as something more than ethereal entertainment medium, something that might qualify as ‘art’. Television, pre-Coronation, was not widespread either and was valued even less. But pre- serving and celebrating TV soon became a part of the NFT brief.
“We have the largest film and television archive in the world, and a very significant percent- age of what we hold, curate and then showcase is television.”
In January, for example, there was a rare screening of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn Of The Screw in an 1959 ITV production, directed by Peter Morley. February and March will see the complete works of the late Alan Clarke in the largest ever TV retrospective dedi- cated to an individual at the NFT.
Explained Wootton: “What’s also become extremely impor- tant is the opportunity to look at styles of filmmaking and great filmmakers’ work completely in the round - to have retrospectives that aren’t just the film work but are the film and television work.
“For instance, when we did Robert Altman last year it would
have been nonsensical of us just to do a film retrospective. Altman himself says that some of the greatest work he did was on tele- vision in the 50s.”
And as these 20th century art forms are challenged by newer, more experimental media the NFT is just as keen to preserve them, charting their development as they go.
“We have also stressed our close connection to other art forms,” Wootton adds. “We’ve done things that are performance related in terms of music, literature, the visual arts and new media. There are various programmes of digital work that are showcased as part of the NFT’s remit.
“We’re currently in the process of working with the DTI and vari- ous other electronic media sup- pliers, to make the NFT an explicit test bed for new technology, so that we will hopefully be even more interconnected with the digital world over the course of this year.”
It looks like a busy few months ahead. Events are set to include the personal recollections of NFT members, staff and patrons, a weekend of free events as well as the continuing presentation and celebration of current movie releases.
There are other major retro- spectives in the offing too, most notably a look back at the work of Sir Alec Guinness, a bfifellow, whose incredibly diverse body of
work spanned the lifetime of the National Film Theatre.
But no-one is standing still at the NFT. Plans are currently being drawn up to develop a new site, possibly in place of the existing one, that will combine the bfi library with a cutting edge NFT film complex.
“We’ve recently appointed architect David Chipperfield to design the new premises that we’re working towards,” Wootton continues, “because we obvious- ly want to continue to run the NFT really well.
“Our ultimate desire is to have a new facility with five screens in the same building as a new bfi library and a new Museum of the Moving Image and a whole series of educational spaces. That’s the big project, as it were, and we’re using this anniversary to beat the drum and say ‘look at all the fan- tastic things we’ve done over the last 50 years... and look at the fantastic things we’re doing right now.’ Anwar Brett
Photos: Adrian Wootton, Deputy Director of the bfi; The Philadelphia Story, Peter Morley’s production of Britten’s The Turn Of The Screw and a pair of classics by Rohmer and Ray
nft
goes
gold
11