A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Denis Gifford (editor) British Film Catalogue: Two Volume Set - The Fiction Film, Volume 2, 1895-1994, p. 960, at Google Books

A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr, Penelope Fitzgerald

A Month in the Country featured film debuts or early roles of several notable British actors. Although it was the third cinema feature film to cast Colin Firth, it was his first lead role. Similarly, it was Kenneth Branagh's first cinema film, and Natasha Richardson's second. Conversely, it was the last role of David Garth who died in May 1988. [4] The film was shot during the summer of 1986 and featured an original score by Howard Blake. The film has been neglected since its 1987 cinema release and it was only in 2004 that an original 35 mm film print was discovered, due to the intervention of a fan. [3] Plot [ edit ] A Month in the Country Blu-ray review". highdefdigest.com. Archived from the original on 18 September 2016 . Retrieved 17 September 2016. A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY (1987) -- SCREEN ARCHIVES ENTERTAINMENT". 1.screenarchives.com. Archived from the original on 9 September 2017 . Retrieved 13 October 2017.

Searching for Months". Help Save This Film. amitc.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014 . Retrieved 29 September 2014. A Month in the Country begins with Tom Birkin going to Oxgodby after the war. Birkin settles in his not-so-glamorous temporary home to restore a newly emerged medieval work of art in this lush and charming Yorkshire village. Birkin, who has left behind a marriage and the horror of war, explores the beauties of the countryside while revealing the medieval picture. Set in rural Yorkshire during the summer of 1920, the film follows a destitute World War I veteran employed to carry out restoration work on a Medieval mural discovered in a rural church while coming to terms with the after-effects of the war. It’s 1920, at the start of the summer, and Tom Birkin has just arrived in “enemy country”, otherwise known as the north of England. He’s an expert in medieval church frescoes and has been hired according to the will of a recently deceased estate owner to spend a month restoring a 14th-century painting discovered under limewash in a Yorkshire village church. Recently separated from his wife, Birkin is a veteran of the war, betrayed by a twitch on the left side of his face.

J.L. Carr (Author of A Month in the Country) - Goodreads

In 2008, a higher quality print was located in the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles and a campaign began to have it restored and released on DVD. [23]So, if you can, please consider donating. We really appreciate any support you’re able to provide; it’ll all go towards helping with our running costs. Even if you can't support us monetarily, please consider sharing articles with friends, families, colleagues - it all helps!

A Month in the Country online - BFI Player Watch A Month in the Country online - BFI Player

I felt that if I couldn't do it in the present, suggesting internal pain by performance, then I wouldn't really want to do it at all. [7] For Cherwell, maintaining editorial independence is vital. We are run entirely by and for students. To ensure independence, we receive no funding from the University and are reliant on obtaining other income, such as advertisements. Due to the current global situation, such sources are being limited significantly and we anticipate a tough time ahead – for us and fellow student journalists across the country. The film was originally intended for television, but its producer Kenith Trodd upgraded his original plan to a cinema feature. [6] The original working title for the film was "Falling Man". Playwright Simon Gray was commissioned to write the screenplay, and Pat O'Connor chosen to direct. In contrast to the book, which is narrated as a recollection by Birkin as an old man, the film is set entirely in the 1920s, except for a brief moment towards the end. In initial drafts of the screenplay, Gray had included a narrator, but O'Connor felt this was not the correct way to present the story: Several members of the local community were used as extras in the film, and local children were recruited by the director to collect butterflies to be released out-of-shot to create a "summer feeling". There was some opposition to the disruption caused by the filming, and also problems involving unwelcome damage to a section of the interior plasterwork, which had to be restored after filming had concluded. [11] [12] Music [ edit ] Birkin gradually realizes he is dealing with a masterpiece: ‘A tremendous waterfall of colour, the blues of the apex falling, then seething into a turbulence of red; like all truly great works of art, hammering you with its whole before beguiling you with its parts . . .’ Just before he leaves Oxgodby for ever, he goes to look at the painting again and knows that, ‘whatever else had befallen me during those few weeks in the country, I had lived with a very great artist . . . And, standing before the great spread of colour, I felt the old tingling excitement and a sure- ness that the time would come when some stranger would stand there too and understand . . .’ If you care about novels, you should get hold of a copy of A Month in the Country. It is a great novel and will be read long after some of the detritus acclaimed these days has been flushed away by our blessed ally, Time.Set in 1920, the film follows the experiences of Tom Birkin, who has been employed under a bequest to carry out restoration work on a medieval mural discovered in a church in the small rural community of Oxgodby, Yorkshire. The escape to the idyllic countryside is cathartic for Birkin, haunted by his experiences in World War I. Birkin soon fits into the slow-paced life of the remote village, and over the course of a summer uncovering a painting begins to lose his trauma-induced stammer and tics. The titular ‘Month in the Country’ acts in the same way a good book can. It transports the novel’s troubled protagonist away from the traumatic outside world, though at times, the pain of the War still intrudes – such as when Birkin sees a photo of a dead fellow soldier and shouts ‘There is no God!’ into the evening air. Nature does not respond. A scene in which the secular Birkin is forced to step in as preacher further dramatises the turn of the century’s crisis of faith and the existentialist anguish prevailing in the face of an apparently meaningless world.

A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

a b c Filming information Archived 14 April 2013 at archive.today at amitc.org. Retrieved 22 July 2008 Nigel Andrews of the Financial Times found it "like a pastoral parable that has been left outside in the damp too long, causing its batteries to go flat" [18] and following a 2008 screening, Sam Jordison of The Guardian suggested "even though this film is (unusually) faithful to the book...it is really little better than inoffensive. Somehow the magic that makes JL Carr's book so precious is missing." [19]Carr was born in Thirsk Junction, Carlton Miniott, Yorkshire, into a Wesleyan Methodist family. His father Joseph, the eleventh son of a farmer, went to work for the railways, eventually becoming a station master for the North Eastern Railway. Carr was given the same Christian name as his father and the middle name Lloyd, after David Lloyd George, the Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer. He adopted the names Jim and James in adulthood. His brother Raymond, who was also a station master, called him Lloyd. Festival de Cannes: A Month in the Country". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 3 October 2012 . Retrieved 20 July 2009. A Month in the Country: A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the unchanging rhythms of village life he experiences a sense of renewal and belief in the future. During his stay in the village, Birkin develops an unspoken love for the vicar’s wife, Alice (Natasha Richardson) and forms a close friendship with archaeologist James Moon (Kenneth Branagh), who is also emotionally scarred by the conflict. As both men set about excavating the past, they also begin to reclaim themselves from the horrors of war.