A Film About Faces, ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’ Gets Another Closeup

Oh, to have been the casting director for “Distant Voices, Still Lives” (1988), a film undergoing a revival at the IFC Center. Priscilla John had already accumulated some impressive notches on her resume by the time she was pegged for the job, having cast films like “Passage to India” (1984), “The Sacrifice” (1986), and two episodes of “The Jewel in the Crown” (1984). She would go on to oversee fare as varied as “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988), “Amistad” (1997), and the much-maligned but very funny “Johnny English” (2003).“Distant Voices, Still Lives” must have been a treat for Ms. John, as it is, to a significant degree, a movie about faces. Throughout the film, the camera moves with glacier-like certitude, focusing on close-up or medium-range shots that rarely take in more than a handful of actors at a time. The characters are conspicuously choreographed within the framework of the screen’s edge and often look directly at the viewer. A photograph dominates the opening scene of the film much as the character who is in the photograph dominates his wife and children — that would be the patriarch of the Davies family, Tommy. Could there have been a better face for this part than Pete Postlethwaite? With his ruddy complexion, prominent cheekbones, and daunting brow, Postlethwaite radiated a flinty, chip-on-the-shoulder variation on prole. Steven Spielberg, it’s been reported, thought him “the best actor in the world.” Postlethwaite, a proud son of the working class, demurred.Of all the actors’ faces in “Distant Voices, Still Lives,” Postlethwaite’s is the most intensely configured — the most wound-up and potent. Tommy Davies is at the center of the picture, even though the time Postlethwaite spends on screen is limited. He is, in many regards, the villain of the piece, brooking no nonsense, often to violent ends, from his children and his perpetually put upon wife, Nell. The latter is played by Freda Dowie, for whom Nell Davies was likely her most prominent role. Dowie’s features, forever burdened but not immune to joy, are pivotal to the film’s tone. The rest of the cast is equally vivid in physiognomy and carriage, including bit players and hangers-on. Special mention should be made of the apple-cheeked Debi Jones, who plays Micky, confidante of the Davies children and a force of nature. She stands in jolly contrast to the sinewy Angela Walsh as her best friend Eileen.“Distant Voices, Still Lives” was the first feature by writer and director Terence Davies, who would go on to make “House of Mirth” (2000), the finest screen adaptation of Edith Wharton we have to date. Davies’s first three short films — “Children” (1976), “Madonna and Child”, (1980) and “Death and Transfiguration” (1983) — would later be anthologized. A piecemeal format lingers in “Distant Voices, Still Lives”: There was a two-year gap between “Distant Voices” and “Still Lives,” a lag that is most distinct in the shift between cinematographers. Although William Diver and Patrick Duval employed the colors and grain of period photography, Mr. Duval pressed harder on the film’s overall sepia tone, at times coming close to black-and-white. Given the nostalgic tenor of the picture, this tack underlines Davies’s hardscrabble take on family, friendship, and community in post-war Liverpool. A lot of time is spent in the local pub with all and sundry engaging in singalongs of a hit parade that is distinctly pre-rock ’n’ roll. Music is a vital part of the proceedings and is proffered as a balm, however fleeting, for tough times and fractious disagreements. “Distant Voices, Still Lives” insists on sentiment even as it makes a point of how the good old days weren’t always good. The structure of the film is trying; its fracturing of time and space, albeit softly stated, is an affectation that nags at even the most patient of souls. As Davies becomes more prone to cinematic overstatement during the second portion of the film — the obliterating white-outs are especially showy — we become less in tune with the travails of family and more distracted by the imperatives of the director. Should some auteurs be heard and not seen? That conclusion is too harsh for a film as tender and knowing as “Distant Voices, Still Lives,” but it is a mark of its shortcomings that one can’t help but entertain the thought.

A Film About Faces, ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’ Gets Another Closeup

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