The Guardian review of Dreams of a Life
I’m very pleased to see Carol Morleys film ‘Dreams of a Life’ doing so well both at the box office and in review - my wife and i went to see it quite a few weeks ago, and irrespective of my involvement in it, it is a story that we both keep returning to. It seems to lodge itself in the mind a little and offer new perspectives on itself at surprising moments.
It’s funny as much of the recording was done on a pretty basic setup as i was in the early years of my career as a recordist when i first started working with Carol - 2006 i think. A lot of it was done with barely a mixer to speak of - just a sound devices mix-pre, before upgrading to an SQN 4s. The mic was my first boom mic - a Sennheiser 416 - on a stand, with an early incarnation Zoom H2 recorder (mostly used for wildtracks) as the main recorder! With only a minijack input, i had a 12 pin hirose to stereo minijack converter cable, and on a couple of occasions i had problems with the minjack connection becoming scratchy and noisy at the slightest movement. I remember during one interview i had to sit and hold the connection and try and keep the rest of my body extremely still to avoid aggravating it. Any movement necessary had to be timed to be during a non-vital moment to avoid spoiling the recording which was a little stressful.
But the majority of the dialogue in the film is simply what we heard and recorded in those interviews; i love the way Joyce is rebuilt purely from the recollections of others. I heard recently that as much as 80% of our recollection of events is incorrect - we remember things the way we want to remember them, rather than exactly as they happened. If that’s the case then i think it speaks well of Joyce that she was remembered so evocatively by so many people.
Below are a few different reviews and reactions to the film - Kermode put it in his top 10 of 2011!
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian
Kermode and Mayos review from Dec 16th
— Posted by Matt in Uncategorized | No Comments
