Distant Voices, Still Lives
| Distant Voices, Still Lives | |
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Movie poster
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| Directed by | Terence Davies |
| Produced by | Jennifer Howarth |
| Written by | Terence Davies |
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Release date
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29 September 1988 |
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Running time
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85 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Distant Voices, Still Lives is a 1988 British film directed and written by Terence Davies. It evokes working-class family life in Liverpool during the 1940s and early 1950s, paying particular attention to the role of popular music, Hollywood cinema, light entertainment, and the public house within this tight-knit community.
The film is made up of two separate films, shot two years apart (but with the same cast and crew). The first section, 'Distant Voices', chronicles the early life of a working-class Catholic family living under a domineering patriarchal regime. The second section, 'Still Lives', sees the children grown up and emerging into a brighter 1950s Britain, only a few years from rock 'n' roll and The Beatles, yet somehow still a lifetime away.
The film won the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association. In 2007 the British Film Institute re-printed and distributed the film across some of Britain's most high-profile Independent Cinemas, prompting The Guardian newspaper to describe Distant Voices, Still Lives as "Britain's forgotten cinematic masterpiece".
In a 2011 poll carried out by Time Out of the 100 greatest British films of all time, Distant Voices, Still Lives was third.
In Paul Farley's British Film Institute Modern Classics book on Distant Voices, Still Lives, Terence Davies describes how they chose the location for filming:
Kensington Street, Liverpool, L7 8XD This small street of Victorian terraced houses to the north of Kensington was the childhood home to Terence Davies and his family. The Victorian houses in Kensington Street were demolished in 1961 and replaced at a later date by a low-rise Council estate and two industrial units. However, houses very similar to those in Kensington Street remain to the south of Kensington in streets such as Albany Road, L7 8RG and Saxony Road, L7 8RU.
47 Whistler Street, London, N5 1NJ The central location for the filming of Distant Voices, Still Lives was chosen for its architectural similarity to Davies's childhood home in Kensington Street, Liverpool. 47 Whistler Street is a small terraced house in row of similar Victorian houses located in north London on the edge of Highbury Fields. The street can be accessed from the park via a small alleyway, or from Drayton Park, the main road behind the street. The houses on the west side of Whistler Street are bay-fronted and were chosen to depict the actual family home. The houses on the east side are flat-fronted and therefore rarely shown in the film sequences. However, a house on the eastern side of the street is used in the final scene where the group leave Tony's wedding celebration and walk into the darkness.
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