Notes Toward a History of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, 1969-77

Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Stanfield, Peter (2008) Notes Toward a History of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, 1969-77. Film International, 6 (4). pp. 62-71. ISSN 1651-6826. DOI Link to record in KAR http://kar.kent.ac.uk/12945/ Document Version Publisher pdf Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Below Poster for Jacques Articles Edinburgh International Film Festival Tourneur’s Anne of the Indies 62 | ilm international issue 34 Articles Edinburgh International Film Festival Below Douglas Sirk Notes Toward a History of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, 1969–77 By Peter Stanield Keywords: Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), ilm theory, ilm studies, auteurism, Lynda Miles, Peter Wollen, Claire Johnston, Paul Willemen Looking back over developments in British ilm culture since the late 1960s, one of the principal organizers of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), David Will, wrote that the Festival ‘arrived as an institution of oppositional culture in 1969’ (Will 1982: 20). During the 1970s the EIFF radically challenged the accepted idea of a ilm festival as a showcase for new releases and a benign cultural event designed to foster tourism and investment. Against the grain, the Festival gave a platform to ilm theory, experimental ilm, new European and world cinema, maverick ilm-makers and American exploitation movies. The paradox of an established organi- ‘During the 1970s the EIFF zation working as an instrument of resistance towards the dominant culture underscores the radically challenged the history of the EIFF during the 1970s, when the accepted idea of a ilm festival Festival became notorious for its provocations and interventions into ilm culture. No other as a showcase for new ilm festival has set the agenda for the way releases and a benign cultural that ilms might be viewed and understood as happened at Edinburgh between the Samuel event designed to foster Fuller retrospective in 1969 and the History/ tourism and investment.’ Production/Memory event in 1977. Uniquely among ilm festivals, the EIFF maintained not only a dialogue with ilm theory, but was also of Fuller but also of Roger Corman, Douglas a primary platform for its dissemination. Sirk, Frank Tashlin, Raoul Walsh and Jacques Over the course of eight years the Festival Tourneur. Fuller, Corman and Sirk attended ran the irst career retrospectives, not only the Festival and helped to establish its reputa- www.ilmint.nu | 63 Articles Edinburgh International Film Festival tion as an event that wholly encouraged the Last year the Edinburgh Film Festival was attendance and participation of ilm-mak- radically remade: out with drably conserva- ers, both new and old. It presented the irst tive features and solid documentary, in with European women’s ilm event, and was the Roger Corman, international underground and irst international ilm festival to be run by a the young idea. The idea was not only young, woman, it took the lead not only in gender but good. By choosing to lay the festival’s main politics, but also Marxism and ilm through accent on specialist weeks devoted to a par- events such as that built around Brecht and ticular country or school and on retrospectives the cinema, and, alongside the ilm stud- of the sort of ilm-maker rarely so honoured ies journal Screen, it broke new ground in its over here, the organizers immediately gave work on psychoanalysis and ilm. Beyond it a new twist, and removed it from the regu- these achievements in ilm theory, the Festi- lar rat race, in which too many festivals chase val presented cutting edge programming that too few ilms of any real merit. (Taylor 1969) gave screen space to an extraordinary mix of low-budget American movies, avant-garde The ‘young idea’ was driven by Grigor’s cinema and a formidable range of non-English- recruitment of two cinephiles and Edinburgh language ilms. EIFF also published a series University undergraduates Lynda Myles and of seminal auteur studies and two issues of a David Will. They were responsible for run- magazine dedicated to vanguard ilm criti- ning the university’s ilm society and had cism. Its intellectual legacy is crucial to any come to Grigor’s attention when they wrote an properly formulated history of ilm studies angry letter to the Scotsman denouncing the in Britain, and its eclectic programming bet- Festival’s conservative programming. What ter exempliied the vibrant and experimental Will and Myles brought to the Festival was a nature of international ilm culture during the knowledge of French ilm theory gleaned from 1970s than any other ilm festival of its time. the pages of Cahiers du Cinema and Positif and an enthusiasm for cultist American cinema, The young idea particularly that produced by maverick ilm directors such as Samuel Fuller. In order to Beginning in 1947, the EIFF’s remit was to help galvanize this interest they contacted show the best of international cinema, with Peter Wollen who had been writing about the guiding spirit of John Grierson as a heavy American auteurs for the New Left Review since inluence on early programmes. Emphasizing the early 1960s, and was now a leading ig- Italian neo-realist dramas and documenta- ure in London’s ilm culture as it was formed ries from around the world, Hollywood prod- around the British Film Institute’s educational ucts were notably absent from the Festival’s department and the Society for Education in early line-ups. By the mid to late 1960s the Film & Television, which published Screen. Festival had become a dull affair, little more than a showcase for ilms chosen by govern- Cinephilia and ment and industry agents, alongside ilms that had an often tenuous connection to Scotland, Samuel Fuller and British movies that carried the hallmark of respectability. In 1968 a young ilm-maker, With Peter Wollen in tow, Myles and Will Murray Grigor was assigned the job of direc- inaugurated a series of ilm retrospectives, tor. He helped to instigate a more proactive educational events and publishing ventures programming policy, with the Festival orga- that were groundbreaking as ilm festival nizers now selecting the ilms. Hollywood attractions, but were also highly inluential products were given a showcase, though on the emerging discipline of ilm studies. invariably these were from the independent The initial event organized by these young studios, particularly AIP. The Festival was lovers of ilm was the programming of the not, nor would it become, a shop window Samuel Fuller retrospective. Along with the for the latest American extravaganzas. The critics at Movie, Wollen had taken the lead in ilm critic for the London Times, John Russell Britain in writing about Fuller (Russell [Wol- Taylor, wrote approvingly of the changes: len] 1964). His championing of the director 64 | ilm international issue 34 Articles Edinburgh International Film Festival Below Sam Fuller was as much an act of provocation aimed at the critical establishment as it was an attempt to move ilm criticism away from a posture that depended upon received notions of good taste and the well-made ilm. In the same spirit of revolt, the EIFF organizers introduced Fuller to festival-goers with an aggressive verve: This retrospective is designed to give the irst fully comprehensive showing of his works in Britain, and is intended to demon- strate unequivocally that Fuller is one of the major ilm directors to have emerged from America since the war. There is no need to substantiate this claim. Fuller’s vindication lies in his ilms, which are obligatory viewing for anyone who claims to have an inter- ‘By the mid to late 1960s est in the cinema. (EIFF programme 1969: 36) the Festival had become a The organizers were putting on a show of dull affair, little more than a bravado, the unequivocal claim that Fuller showcase for ilms chosen was an important ilm director and his ilms were obligatory viewing was made in by government and industry the face of what they knew would be dis- agents…’ belief on the part of the old guard of festival patrons and cynical ilm fans. The high valuation given to Fuller’s ilms The key dificulty facing Grigor, Myles and by the organizers was as heartfelt as it was Will in their attempt to bring the Festival back provocative. The imprimatur placed on him to life was the competing shows in Venice, Ber- by being showcased at such a prestigious lin and Cannes. These were more prestigious, event had the effect of drawing a heavily better funded and had irst choice of the new demarcated line in the sand. As of 1968–69 releases. The EIFF was run on a shoestring with the Festival was no longer a purveyor of grants from the Scottish Film Council and Edin- middlebrow ilm fare; from then onwards it burgh Corporation, it had no industry sponsor- would assume an innovative, oppositional ship and, unlike its main European rivals, ilms face, offering a platform for cultish directors were not shown in competition.

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