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The Ballad of Shirley Collins

Prof. Neil Fox is no stranger to the pages of Directors Notes, having contributed many an article over the years in addition to being interviewed for both his filmmaking work and his film festival co-directing. Today, however, we’re speaking to Fox about his latest venture as the author of the BFI book Music Films: Documentaries, Concert Films and Other Cinematic Representations of Popular Music, which is released by Bloomsbury Publishing today. Fox has long been writing on music films and the knowledge he’s gained over the years coalesces into a fascinating read that avoids the typical chronological structuring that comes with genre analysis and instead looks at the varying ways music films can be recognised as true cinematic artefacts. Joining us for a conversation below, Dn asked Fox about the overarching study he looked to produce with the book, the music films he feels deserve a reappraisal,...

This talkative documentary retraces the steps of pioneering musicologists Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins 60 years on

‘Relevant today more than ever,” says one interviewee in Southern Journey (Revisited), pointing out his Easy Rider pin badge. “Man went looking for America and couldn’t find it nowhere.” But this roving, loquacious documentary does its damn best to pin down the American soul, going on a road trip through Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi in the tracks of ethnomusicologists Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins on their 1959 “Southern Journey” in search of the south’s musical traditions.

Directors Rob Curry and Tim Plester are ostensibly about the music. Their first porch stop is with a Salem, Virginia woman whose dark, purposeful eyes are a spitter for her grandmother: Appalachian balladeer Texas Gladden, who was doorstepped by Lomax 60 years ago. There are heart-stopping performances, and we are apprised of the odd informational gem, lsuch as...

In his latest podcase/interview, host Stuart Wright talks with Tim Plester, the co-director of The Ballad of Shirley Collins – which is out now. The DVD with CD of the soundtrack is available from earthrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/the-…ey-collins

Widely regarded as the 20th century’s most important singer of English traditional song, Shirley Collins is someone who was born to invoke the old songs. Alongside her sister Dolly, Shirley stood at the epicentre of the folkmusic revival during the 1960s and 1970s. But in 1980 she developed a disorder of the vocal chords known as dysphonia, which robbed her of her unique singing voice and forced her into early retirement.

Deliberately eschewing a straightforward biopic approach, Rob Curry and Tim Plester ‘Way of the Morris’, is a lyrical response to the life-and-times of a totemic musical figure. Granted intimate access to recording sessions for Shirley’s first album (Lodestar...

Musicians The xx presents a curated programme; festival hosts world premieres of new films by Andreas Dalsgaard and Iris Zaki.

Cph:Dox will offer more than 200 films during its 15th event, which runs March 15-25.

In its five competitions (full list below), world premieres include Woman In Sink director Iris Zaki’s new film Unsettling, about Jewish setllers in the West Bank; The War Show director Andreas Dalsgaard’s The Great Game, about a man trying to find out if his grandfather was a spy; Emma Davie & Peter Mettler’s Becoming Animal, about how our relationship with nature has evolved; and Elissa Mirzaei & Gulistan Mirzaei’s Laila at the Bridge, about an Afghan woman trying to save heroin addicts in Kabul.

Highlights also include a specially curated programme by The xx; a focus on justice (films will include Pre-Crime, Recruiting for Jihad and The Congo Tribunal); and a film programme and art exhibition dedicated to social experiments (with films...