Guest blog by Andy Moore in our new series of blogs by people from The Hyde Park Picture House
With Self-Made, Turner Prize winning artist Gillian Wearing follows contemporaries Steve McQueen (whose 2008 film Hunger won the prestigious Caméra d’Or award for first-time filmmakers at that year’s Cannes Film Festival) and Sam Taylor-Wood from the art-world into the world of theatrically released feature films, and it’s a striking, powerful debut – a feature length documentary that explores the twin notions of fiction and reality, of performance and ‘natural,’ everyday behaviour.
As you might expect from an artist turned filmmaker, Self-Made begins in a way that unsettles from the get-go, the camera follows a man of about thirty through an unexceptional British any-town, a look of murderous intent on his face. The scene could be straight out of an Alan Clarke film, except the soundtrack consists of this strange, ominous chanting, a drone intermittently punctuated by sudden, animalistic shouts and cries that reverberate through the cinema. Without warning the man stops and turns, dropping the shopping bag he has been carrying and heading towards a pregnant woman who has been walking behind him, as he reaches her and we just know that something awful is about to happen the scene abruptly cuts to black as a final cry rings through the air.
We learn that this is one of several mini-films shot especially for the documentary based on the experiences of seven participants who underwent a method-acting course after responding to an advert Wearing placed in the press that read simply, “Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character. Call Gillian.” In Self-Made each of the seven participants devises their own mini-drama prompted by the memories, thoughts and feelings brought up by exercises that acting coach Sam Rumbelow takes them through.
We follow these seven people through this strange and frequently emotional process, gradually learning more about each of them in scenes that are often uncomfortable to watch but always utterly compelling, their revelations (and the short-films they each help to construct) are by turns shocking, violent, deeply personal and profoundly moving. Whether or not we believe that what we see during the workshop and talking-head sequences of Self-Made is genuine or a self-conscious ‘performance’ is sort of the point, the ‘blurring of boundaries’ in this regard being exactly what makes the documentary such a fascinating, if unsettling, watch.
Self-Made is by no means an easy film, but it offers a truly rewarding and moving journey for those who wish to take it. The film is only getting a very limited release in cinemas throughout the UK and will be at the Hyde Park Picture House for just the one screening on Saturday the 29th of October, don’t miss this opportunity to catch a truly distinctive and challenging work of cinema at one of the most beautiful art-house cinemas in the UK.
Catch it 3pm Saturday 29th October
Dir. Gillian Wearing
88 mins
UK 2011
Cert. 15