Page 14 - aruba-today-20231009

a14 people & arts
Monday 9 october 2023
Terence Davies, filmmaker of the lyrical ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives,’

dies at the age of 77

By Jill Lawless lyricism and often set in the
Associated Press 19th or early 20th centuries.
LONDON (AP) — British film- His 1995 film “The Neon Bi-
maker Terence Davies, best ble” was based on a John
known for a pair of power- Kennedy Toole novel and
ful, lyrical movies inspired set in the U.S. Deep South.
by his childhood in postwar “The House of Mirth,” re-
Liverpool, has died at the leased in 2000, starred Gil-
age of 77. lian Anderson in an adap-
Davies’ manager John Tay- tation of Edith Wharton’s
lor said the director died classic, and won the prize
“peacefully at home in his for best British Film at the
sleep” on Saturday after a 2001 British Academy Film
short illness. Awards. His 2011 film “The
Raised in a large working- Deep Blue Sea,” based on
class Roman Catholic fam- a Terence Rattigan play.
ily in the English port city, Starred Rachel Weisz as a
Davies worked as a clerk woman torn between her
in a shipping office and a dependable husband and
bookkeeper in an accoun- feckless lover.
tancy firm before enrolling Model and actress Agy-
at a drama school in the ness Deyn starred in “Sun-
city of Coventry and later set Song,” a hymn to rural
the National Film School. Director Terence Davies poses for portrait photographs at at the 2016 Berlinale Film Festival in Scotland released in 2015,
After making several short Berlin, Sunday Feb. 14, 2016. and Davies depicted the
films, Davies made his fea- (AP Photo/Axel Schmidt, file) life of poet Emily Dickinson
ture debut as writer-direc- ics Prize in 1988, and in 2002 Time and the City.” “Arguably, he doesn’t — played by Cynthia Nixon
tor in 1988 with “Distant was voted the ninth-best Michael Koresky, author even have imitators; no — in the 2016 film “A Quiet
Voices, Still Lives,” a dream- film of the past 25 years by of a book on Davies; said one would dare,” Koresky Passion.”
like — sometimes nightmar- British film critics. the director’s two auto- wrote on the British Film In- Davies’ final film, “Benedic-
ish — collage of a film that Davies followed it in 1992 biographical features “are stitute website. tion,” was based on the life
evoked a childhood of with another autobio- melancholy, occasionally The autobiographical films of World War I soldier and
poverty and violence leav- graphical film, “The Long harrowing, and are also in- opened the door to big- poet Siegfried Sassoon. It
ened by music and movie Day Closes,” and later re- describably beautiful, two ger budgets and more starred Jack Lowden, Peter
magic. The film won the turned to Liverpool for a of the greatest works in all mainstream films, still show- Capaldi and the late Julian
Cannes International Crit- 2008 documentary, “Of of cinema.” casing Davies' distinctive Sands.q

A man was encouraged by a chatbot

to kill Queen Elizabeth II in 2021. He

was sentenced to 9 years

the grounds of the castle despite conflicting diagno- In the hours before dawn,
asked, “Can I help, mate?” ses from different experts, he sprayed himself with
As a Sikh Indian, Chail he concluded that Chail solution to mask a human
wanted to kill the monarch lost touch with reality and scent and walked with his
to avenge the 1919 Jallian- had become psychotic, crossbow from a Windsor
wala Bagh massacre when but that the seriousness of motel where he had been
British troops opened fire on the crimes required him to staying to the castle. He
thousands of Indians gath- serve prison time. Chail will tossed a grappling hook
ered in Amritsar and killed first be returned to Broad- over the wall and climbed
hundreds, a judge said in moor Hospital, a secure over on a rope ladder.
This court artist drawing by Elizabeth Cook shows Jaswant Singh reciting the facts of the psychiatric facility where When the officer carrying a
Chail at the Old Bailey, London, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. crime. he has been receiving stun gun encountered him,
(Elizabeth Cook/PA via AP) Chail said the assassination treatment, and if deemed Chail said he intended to
was his life's mission, some- to be well enough in the fu- kill the queen, but he then
By Brian Melley and was caught with a thing he'd thought about ture, he will serve the rest of dropped the lethal weap-
Associated Press loaded crossbow nearly since adolescence, but his sentence in prison. on and surrendered.
LONDON (AP) — A Star two years ago. had only shared with Sarai, “The defendant harbored Chail, 21, pleaded guilty in
Wars fanatic who was en- “I’m here to kill the queen," the artificial intelligence- homicidal thoughts which February in London’s Cen-
couraged by a chatbot Jaswant Singh Chail, wear- generated “girlfriend” he he acted on before he be- tral Criminal Court to vio-
“girlfriend” to assassinate ing a metal mask inspired created on Replika, which came psychotic," Hilliard lating the Treason Act by
Queen Elizabeth II was sen- by the dark force in the bills itself as “the AI com- said. “His intention was not having a loaded crossbow
tenced Thursday to nine science fiction and fan- panion who cares. Always just to harm or alarm the and intending to use it to in-
years in prison for taking tasy franchise, declared here to listen and talk. Al- sovereign — but to kill her.” jure the queen, possessing
his plot to Windsor Castle, on Christmas Day in 2021 ways on your side.” Chail had planned his at- an offensive weapon and
where he scaled the walls when a police officer on Justice Nicholas Hilliard said tack for months. making threats to kill.q