Mark Cousins has gained acclaim in both film writing as well as filmmaking. The two activities have such a high interplay that it is very safe to say that there is no way to draw any relations in between them using a Venn diagram. Cousins, aside from being a journalist, a scholar, a programmer, a documentarian, goes on to gain most of his notoriety on ‘The Story of Film: An Odyssey’ and its many editions such as ‘A Story of Children and Film’, and ‘The Story of Film: The New Generation’, but also for other, let’s say, non mainstream ‘The Eyes of Orson Welles’ is a letter to the film director who passed away in 1985, while ‘What is this Film Called Love?’ is a movie about a fictive sightseeing trip around Mexico City together with the Russian filmmaker, Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948), and ‘Bigger than the Shining,’ which is a film focused on copyright issues and the proposition of whether two people can really ever e the “same” film. The film was screened only once and then brutally slaughtered.
Cousins’ work is often quite intuitive and personal with project ideas stemming from a stroke of inspiration. Like ‘A Story of Children and Film’ which was conceived after viewing home videos of his niece and nephew which shows how the outcomes are likely to be erratic.
As with all other directors, it is impossible to analyze why this movie feels so spot-on where others seem undercooked. There are bound to be opposite opinions from the review that you are reading which is ‘The Storms of Jeremy Thomas’. It is one of Cousin’s most bewitching films. The biopic of one of the most influential movie producers in the last fifty years, Thomas depicts what type of road movie ‘The Last Emperor’, ‘Merry Christmas’, and Mr. Lawrence made. Thomas was his own biographer and set out from Britain’s Cannes film festival in a convertible Jeep, with plans to drive around town pondering on the significance and background of his work.
However, Cousins has a few films to critique which seems more like a fledgling to a lot of people. So this seems more intriguing than the rest, which enables him to sculpt a person rather than an environment to paint upon.
The name Thomas hardly rings a bell among organic movie patrons. He is a friend of Cousins and boasts quite a reputable profile. (He, for example, served in the broadcasting booth when Bertolucci’s ‘The Last Emperor’ won Best Picture Oscar). Thanks to the subject’s novelty, it is now possible for Cousins to present the audiovisual image of Thomas with the same histrionics that he deploys for self-portraying (Cousins is always present in every Cousins film).
And without further ado, we can now turn to ‘The Storms of Jeremy Thomas,’ which is coming out to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the RPO, an organization he established himself back in 1974. Thomas hails from a family of filmmakers (as well as his contemporaries, he would have been a neo baby in today’s industry) and Rebecca O’Brien, who worked with Ken Loach and Lynne Ramsay, calls him a producer’s producer.
The scope of his connections with the remarkable European filmmakers, and many others, is a unique pearl.” He worked on several films with Bertolucci including, “The Sheltering Sky,” and “The Dreamers,” Nicolas Roe, “Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession” and “Eureka” and “Insignificance,” and David Cronenberg (“Crash” is mentioned by Thomas as one of the most vividly remembered world premieres and while one critic declared it ‘beyond the bounds of depravity’ the Daily Mail used it as a headline).
To these aged Europeans, Who have may been exceptional once in Todorov’s concept of fulfilling the multiple antagonisms of civilization, Thomas, now aged 74, has always served as a curious camera subject even now more than ever while speaking. In Cousins; narrations, he does claim ‘driving like a teenager,’ such honor bestowed upon one is baffling. While also attributing cancer’s husband and the brush with death underwent us as survivors.
Most of Thomas’ interviews alongside Cousins appear to have included recordings conducted separate from the shoot to later be overdubbed over the footage of the trip to Cannes alongside the editing of the selected clips meant to accompany the career analysis. The separation between the narration from the image, while awkward at first glance, eventually reveals itself to be genius. The film plays more like a deathbed “exit interview” conducted by a very much alive subject, as well as capturing the essence of art cinema which would have fueled a young Jeremy Thomas’ creativity before he began his journey into producing.
In a stretch, Cousins’ narration goes on to explain how Thomas equates with Virginia Wolff alongside a few other artists, including painters J.M.W. Turner and Francis Bacon, as well as filmmaker Michael Powell, all of whom possess ‘quiet radicalism’. The merging of voiceovers is a perfect blend for the film’s context. Coupled with the intertwining of Thomas’ and Cousins’ voice-overs, it connects the film to its English roots during the late 19th and early 20th century where Thomas and other writers were aiming to explore the juxtaposed dimensions of personality and consciousness.
It’s also useful for the audience to be able to follow the different parts of the film which are dictated by the highs and lows of the interactions between Thomas and Cousins.
If you’re interested in discovering newer developments, bear in mind that Buffs will have scant access into the work done with Thomas’ competencies. The facts aforementioned, however, are intriguing and invaluable. Debra Winger’s and Tilda Swinton’s cinematic works pertaining to “The Sheltering Sky” with Thomas has led him to work on diverse projects including documentaries. Cousins interview them on their thoughts of Thomas, pours praises over his zeal and astoundingly resourceful nature. For Thomas, Winger and Swinton are kindred spirits with shared instincts that help to craft the major themes and intent of a movie. In his narrative monologue, Thomas also mentions David Bowie who was a star in the military drama “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.” Apart from the celebrities, there was also Marlon Brando, one of the most admired actors in the industry, whose last few movie roles included the Thomas produced Johnny Depp film “The Brave” which no one paid attention to. “best” as Thomas puts it. And then Tony Curtis.
At one point, Cousin’s narration becomes slightly more novel but note that there is no need for concern as it isn’t a big deal. This difference describes the creative minds behind the project. He could have been a part of the beat novelists simply dreaming with a switch to a different life. The movie is split into chapters with specific numbers dedicated to storms, with one titled “Sex” and the other “Death”. The quirkiness is quite striking when political issues are raised along with Thomas’ vision towards animations.
Cousin provides an explanation by claiming that his preferences for certain things were shaped by the films that Thomas made.
There’s a place for a documentary in cinematic society that laments the affectation of relentless corporatization of mainstream films which furthered the squirmy Puritanism that lacks physiological complexity and adulting sexuality. The “bad behavior” will always be labeled as such. The Storms of Jeremy Thomas encourages viewers to seek and broaden their horizons by consuming uncomfortable pieces of work. It depicts the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s to be the Golden era of generously funded movies for sophisticated adults rather than children. Some of the containment voyeuristic impulses that were dominant in cinema like the brother from the dreamers spying on his sister and the American boy making out with her have been acknowledged in film clips. Thomas produced Dom Emulate where the title character embarrassingly claimed a picture of his reproductive organ should be hung in the Louvre.
In an interview with Cousins Swinton Sudan Speaks says that cinema asks for visceral scenes. In his words, the best cinema is the one that seeks for that. Cousins commends Thomas for enabling important filmmakers to step right to the edge of the fine lines where art draws and go beyond because that is what the power of art is able to do.
Cousins himself participates in the movement by interspersing his thoughts about Thomas’ libertine sympathies (,”is the producer, the prince, a petrol head, a bohemian?”) with a video selfie taken while he is wading in the pool of the house Thomas rented in Cannes (full frontal but partly obscured by water).
“I like counterculture,” says Thomas at one point, and that is all there is to it. “I am not on a quest for the popular culture. Of course I love watching Spielberg, but they are just not what I am looking for. The most famous paintings are available to all, out in the first hall in the museum. Counterculture is something you sort of…you have to look for. You have to find it.”
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