MEDIA LIST
REVIEW
Channel 4’s innovatory Interventions examined.
LISTINGS: WEEK ONE 77 WEEK TWO 78
MIA
Glasgow. The connection between the films, as ever, is o r the city of Glasgow. Each film has taken the city as its starting point and used it as a subject, however tenuously. The interruptions are another facet of Channel 4‘s coverage of City of re a Culture year. ‘Glasgow has been such an important city for artists in recent years,‘ says A series of short ‘interventions’ will Januszczak, ‘that the prospect of unleashing soon be appearing on Channel 4. these youngtalents on the TV'screen excited me . . . immediately. Channel 4 took a risk in letting Tom Lappin anESIIgatCS. these wild. visual imaginations loose on the . screen, but the risk was worthwhile.‘ Don‘tbe too surprisedif, duringthe first four .. . .. _ . One ofthe films. David Mach’s snooker days ofJune, your enjoyment of the lager competition. pastiche ‘The Clydeside Classic’ featuring commercials on Channel 4 is rudely disturbed by ‘we invited artists from different creative Stephen Hendry drowning in a snooker table, an unannounced weird film about, you’ve disciplines; painting, sculpture, writing,‘ explains was shown in April to a reaction ofgeneral guessed it, Glasgow. series producer Jane Rigby, ‘We asked them to bemusement and disbelief. The unannounced It‘s all intentional and part ofa programme of submit an outline for a brief. maximum four nature of the films seems certain to cause viewers ‘television interventions‘ that will be hitting your minutes, intervention. They are all completely confusion, but, as Jane Rigby explains, this is Screen tour 0’ ttVe ttmes a day t" ‘the creeks and different from each other, made by different part of the exercise. ‘If you announce them, you eteVieeS between Programmes'- Channel 4'5 kinds of artists from Scotland. England and have to label them art. A lot of the time, when Commissioning Editor for the ANS, Waldemar Europe. Ron Geesin, the composer has done a you see art on TV. it‘s in a magazine programme Jahuszezak» SteetUtt)’ comments, ‘Usuatty When thing Called ‘Close Rap' which is a mini-drama format which gives it a very different context. All You get gremlins th the maehthe You want to get Which takes place in a Scottish close; David Hall these films are made specifically for the context rid Otthem- Here's a Project that actually has made a new film which looks at John Logic of television, with that in mind, and they are encourages them to ihteftefe like mad in the Baird’s invention of television — very quirky that works of art in their own right like a painting or a usual calm Otthe TV.‘ one — and Raoul Rodriguez, the Spanish artist. sculpture. The one thing you don‘t want to do is The tset’teS’ (it that's the right word) was has combined faces of Glaswegians from the very mediate between the work of art and the viewing produced by Scottish independents Field And young to the very old and mixed them with pub]ng Frame» based 0" an idea that originated in the postcard-type pictures of the city‘s main So remember, the ‘art' is the bit between the 1971 Edinburgh Festival. The artist David Hall landmarks,’ singing potatoes and the ‘I'Vc Got Mtne‘ song. made a series of ten works which were shot The children‘s films are the work of You have been warned Overnight and transmitted as i"termpttOhS 0“ SChOOtehttdten from Greenoek. WhOSe work was Television interventions are on Channel 4 STV- The 1990 VCTSth teattlfeS tour 0fthe developed in storyboard fashion in a youth throughout the day on 1—4 June. They can beseen Original Ha" tttmst th addition to thirteen new project called ‘Telly Pieces‘. The storyboards and in their entirety at the Third Eye Centre, Glasgow works and two films resulting from a children‘s videos will be on show at the Third Eye Centre in from Sat 9~—Sun 24. ' SEX AND FOOTBALL astonishing camera's eye view of every
stage in conception, foetus growth, all the way through to birth. Remember that dodgy Sixtiesme with Raquel Welch zapping around the human body in a miniaturised submarine fighting off white corpuscles and the like? Well forget it, this was the real thing, and no, ldon’f know how they got the camera in there.
The programme was refreshingly
Sex and football are the two prime elements of male conversation, and hence two vital ingredients in a typical night's TV. For those of you who thought that being an intematlonal hooligan involved little more than the English lads heading off to foreign climes every four years chanting ‘Two World Wars and one World Cup', ‘The
Greatest Game on Earth’ (STV) came as windmill-building people With a everywhere. We were treated to the matter-of-fact and mercifully "88 0t something of a shock. weakness for Sixties fashions and sight of him looking forlornly on as a any ‘pro-life’ movement-style
A product of the school of pop excessive drug consumption, but the player received treatment mm the emotiveness. The one slightly sociology, this football documentary, sight of Ajax Amsterdam fans on the physio in the club gym. Weird. disturbing moment was the conception narrated in a rather awe-struck fashion ramdalle Wildest: ththtls have Similarly divorced from reality was sequence, where the sight of all those by Bill Paterson, looked at the changed. How these relative llya, whose lifetime ambition to see his sperm rushing towards the cervix phenomenon of the fans. After a brief newcomers to the world of local Georgian club reach the Soviet unavoidably edhitfled "it the tmalle 0t look at the harmless gang of Brazilian thtefllattonat mayhem tate attains! the First Division was about to be Leeds United fans 18 years hence. ‘tlawks' who follow the less-than- eXllettS will probava be decided on the achieved, when they suddenly trashing some seaside town; "Ere we Latin-sounding Corinthians in streets of Sardinia. withdrew from the League as part of a go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go.’ (Tom downtown Rio, the programme moved POSSthty more ttttlhtehthll than the protest over Georgian independence. Laltltthl swiftly on to the more serious stuff of mob. was the tone Dell H389 Poor llya, you know what they say The Greatest Game On Earth 37" hooligans in Holland. (altimehtty the Leeds Uhtted 0t about mixing politics and sport . . . Mondays 7pm-
The Dutch always used to be Holland, trouble-Wise) tan. Who gave From the world of the unstable to “The The World Of The Unborn (Channel 4 regarded as a tulip-growing, up his job to follow the team literally World of the Unborn' (Channel 4), an Documentaries) Tuesdays 90m.
76The List 1—14June 1990