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Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 9)

Part 8 Souvenirs The past is dangerously addictive. Nostalgia, especially second-hand nostalgia such as mine, often threatens to become an endless placebo in place of living. How alluring the past seems when we convince ourselves of having experienced it for a brief moment through culture and art. The ghost story writer M.R. James lived with this addiction to the past more than most. James…

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Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 8)

Part 7 Remembering Afterimage ‘At times,’ the Nobel Laureate and novelist Patrick Modiano writes, ‘it seems, our memories act much like Polaroids.’ This interesting thought comes from the semi-autobiographical perspective of a character in his novella Afterimage (1993). It is a narrative filled with strangeness, derived in part from the recollection of memories once forgotten; put to one side,…

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Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 7)

Part 6 Time and again, cinema seems drawn to Polaroid photography, often in unusual and tangential ways. Antonioni’s film, even if ultimately about 35mm photography, is not the only one to explore the strangely tangible qualities of space within photography (or the things contained within a photograph beyond the image). When looking at Polaroids, we perceive them spatially. By that I mean we…

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Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 6)

Part 5 In the Park I often find myself asking a question. ‘What film would I live in if I could?’ It is a question that belies my own rather childish need to escape reality. But, if I could live in a piece of film, it would probably be Michelangelo Antonioni’s celebrated swinging cult classic, Blowup (1966). It is more than a little questionable as a choice, but needs must. Based on Julio…

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Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 5)

Part 4 The French philosopher René Descartes believed that his recollections were evidence he was not dreaming. He knew he was not asleep and merely creating the world in his mind’s eye because he was surrounded by things possessing a context that he was aware of personally. ‘But when I perceive things of which I clearly know both the place they come from and that in which they are, and the…

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Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 4)

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2023 Review

It’s that time of year once again when I look back on everything I’ve watched and read (and wonder whether I should really get out more). While my interests have become a kind of prison, I couldn’t hope for a more entertaining one. So, here’s my review of 2023. Thank you for reading my work throughout the year, wherever you may have seen it. Cinema Fail Safe (1964) – Sidney Lumet Mafioso…

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Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 3)

Part 2 ‘We were here, too, once and please take care of us for a while.’ ‘With digital technology,’ wrote memoirist Annie Ernaux, ‘we drained reality dry.’ As digital creatures, we carry out an endless taxidermy upon our experiences in the ever frenzied pursuit of content. Ernaux’s poignant criticism echoes Susan Sontag’s earlier weariness at what cameras had done to our ability to simply…

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Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 2)

Part 1 Histories Polaroids are shackled to nostalgia. Its aesthetic perfectly embodies the past tense, especially in the cold light of today’s digital world. The presence captured, however, makes even the oldest photos whisper of the living moment as it happened. As an object, they are driven by this contradiction. Being so close to our lives charges these images with supernatural static. But,…

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Presence; or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 1)

‘There is a spectre inside every photograph.’ – Deborah Levy, The Man Who Saw Everything There comes a point when trying to get a book off the ground (i.e. published) where you have to accept defeat. As will no doubt become an increasingly familiar scenario, judging from my recent experiences with British publishing at least, the projects that fail to find a home on paper will eventually be…

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Deep Red; or Renditions of Murder

“But to learn to dye is better than to study the ways of dying.” – Sir Thomas Browne Writing He stalks with a lens, Short hair and floral dresses: Red, Deep red.                                                           The lens is a recollection, Occurring at a wooden desk, With a typewriter, Tapped by fingers, clothed in black leather; Dead skin masks for desperate hands. No…

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2022 Review

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Nettles (Influx Press)

For a long time, the only thing I ever had nightmares about was secondary school. The nightmares would vary in tone and scenario but often had several reoccurring themes. They would include the corridors of the school, the feeling of being stuck within the walls of the building and the rising embarrassment of failure in front of peers. No pleasure was greater than feeling that first taste of a…

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2021 Review

2021 has been a strange year. I’ve found it harder than 2020, in spite of getting more work and generally doing more things as we (briefly) returned to normal. It still just didn’t sit right. Perhaps it was simply because my previous years have been focussed around big projects coming out like book releases and this year was characterised by sitting on one until its release in 2022. Or perhaps,…

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Nettles (2022, Influx Press) - Preview

Nettles (2022, Influx Press) – Preview

I was in a cafe in the Alésia area of Paris in 2017 trading horror stories about school days with the writer Édouard Louis when the novel potential of some of my own childhood memories became apparent. I had met Édouard through a mutual producer and we were discussing film projects that were never to materialise. Having read The End of Eddy and loved it, we found much in common in our various…

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Beginnings: Jean Simmons

This article was originally commissioned as part of an ongoing series for Little White Lies. As the photograph was damaged by rain, and not wanting to revisit to re-do the photograph, the article is published here. Further installments of the column are ongoing and can be read here. One of the great screen presences of cinema’s Golden Age, Jean Simmons forged a strong career on both side of the…

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2020 Review

In what has undoubtedly been a cursed year, I have been thankfully kept sane by a number of things, namely films and books but also a few other outlets of frustration. Suffice to say, when you’re taking solace from a hobby for which the tagline is ‘In the grim darkness of far future, there is only war’, you can bet it has been a pretty tough year. My thoughts are with those who have had it much…