Tribute To Michael Grigsby: Rehearsals (2005); We Went To War (2012)
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
Tribute To Michael Grigsby: Rehearsals (2005); We Went To War (2012)
Note special times
17.30 REHEARSALS (45 min)
18.30 WE WENT TO WAR (77 min)
Michael Grigsby (1936-2013) made over thirty documentary films in a career spanning nearly fifty years, almost all for British television companies. Starting at Granada in the 1960s, on the pioneering series World in Action and Disappearing World, his work was distinguished by allowing its subjects to speak for themselves, invariably without commentary or questions being heard. He would also take his films back to the communities that he portrayed, which were often grateful to have their concerns aired so candidly. Tonight’s programme pays tribute to Grigsby’s extraordinary empathy for ordinary people under stress in very different contexts. Of three films he made in Northern Ireland, Rehearsals in the last, showing musicians and artists, cautiously optimistic after the bitter years of ‘the Troubles’.
We Went to War returned to a small town in Texas, which Grigsby had first visited in 1970 to interview former soldiers who had recently served in Vietnam. Unlike most of Grigsby’s work, this was shown theatrically, and Peter Bradshaw praised it as ‘like a short story by Larry McMurtry’ in its portrayal of lives scarred by their experiences of a distant war.
Rebekah Tolley, producer of We Went to War, and John Furse, who produced Grigsby’s Time of Our lives, will be present to discuss his work and career.
Contact name: Matthew Barrington
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