Feature
It can be revealed.
The special project I was working on in the summer is a feature-length interview film with/about Mike Hodges. MIKE HODGES – A FILM-MAKER’S LIFE. It’s included on the Blu-ray of CROUPIER, seen top left, from Arrow Films, coming in December.
It was a great job to have — I miss it. Mike was extremely generous with his time and energy. And Arrow and I are already thinking about doing more long career-covering pieces like this.
shadowplay 
October 1, 2022 at 3:34 pm
Great news !
Hope to be able to see the feature as soon as possible.
October 1, 2022 at 4:19 pm
Well done, D.C. Mike graciously answered some questions by email when I covered him in the http://www.sensesofcinema.com Great Directors section some time ago. I’m sure you did a superb job.
October 1, 2022 at 5:59 pm
Mike was very gracious and accommodating… and he has some stories to tell!
October 1, 2022 at 6:08 pm
That means I must get the DVD though I already have a UK version. I always make it an annual practice to send him a Happy Birthday email.
October 2, 2022 at 10:28 am
“Ehhh Mike, how many films you make?”
great stuff!
October 4, 2022 at 6:56 pm
Love Croupier, adore Mike Hodges! The Terminal Man is criminally underrated.
October 4, 2022 at 7:13 pm
Fully agree. So was I’LL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD on its initial UK release that I ran in my British Gangsters class in those days of reasonable enrollments.
October 5, 2022 at 12:20 am
I keep hoping for a Blu-ray release of Terminal Man in the UK. And it’d be nice if Croupier could be followed by a release of ISWID. I don’t really see why it wasn’t better liked, though I did find myself that I appreciated it more the second time, to the extent that sequences that seemed like longueurs became actual highlights. So I can’t put myself too far above the journalists Mike calls “arseholes.”
October 5, 2022 at 2:45 am
The film needs to be seen several times to be fully appreciated. It is not a none off, feel good film, but something demanding constant viewing which is the best of the cinematic experience.
October 5, 2022 at 11:11 am
And the last thing it needs is to be watched through the prism of Get Carter. The differences can be somewhat instructive, but criticising it for not being a hardboiled, ruthless revenge film is beside the point.
October 5, 2022 at 2:59 pm
Exactly, GET CARTER has become Mike’s CITIZEN KANE albatross. We both know he is a very diverse director and PULP must have freaked out the GET CARTER fans when it appeared. He full deserves this tribute you’ve just completed.
October 5, 2022 at 9:48 pm
Just received a very touching tribute from him, though he says he can’t really assess the piece without becoming “literally a wanker.”
October 6, 2022 at 1:23 am
Very like Mike Hodges.
October 6, 2022 at 10:15 pm
Saw BLACK RAINBOW a few months ago and duly plotzed. I link it to DEEP COVER (but that’s a long story). FLASH GORDON ruined my childhood.
October 7, 2022 at 1:26 pm
Mike, in his TV documentary days, explored the violent origins of unionization in the US, interviewing prominent figures in Detroit who’d been subject to assassination attempts, so the violence of Black Rainbow stems from real political facts.
October 7, 2022 at 3:37 pm
In his TV days, Mike also interviewed people like Godard and Orson Wellles. He had a very solid background in what was once good UK TV and I’m sure your documentary, David, will do full justice to his unique talents.
October 7, 2022 at 4:47 pm
I worry whenever I hear words like violence and unionization in the same sentence. Hope the guy is a legit lefty, and not a typical liberal opponent to collective bargaining. Don’t know his work very well, just a few of his more famous films. Not typing this, using the audio thingy. Forgive typos.
October 7, 2022 at 4:57 pm
You are obligated to get to know his work better rather than relying on “a few of his more famous films.” There is a world beyond FLASH GORDON so you need to do your homework this weekend.
October 7, 2022 at 5:24 pm
Thanks Teach.
October 7, 2022 at 5:37 pm
I’ve been watching movies that sustain a heightened sense of tension akin to horror. Mentioned DEEP COVER already — Criterion is running that one now, along with a wonderful Q & A with the film’s director. BLACK RAINBOW and DEEP COVER belong to a particular period. But they remind me of the 1960s Italian Gothic Horror films I love — particularly their ability to ride atmosphere. Noticing that certain kinds of horror movies are books — the viewer is drawn into an utterly artificial world, as if becoming an illustrated character, Not comic-book-y but…
October 7, 2022 at 5:39 pm
“Modernism… Post-Modernism……. Modernism.”
-KJ
October 7, 2022 at 5:50 pm
Like… There are movies that make me question the idea that movies are primarily visual. Black Rainbow is one of them.
October 7, 2022 at 11:33 pm
If you want to plug your new film at Chiseler, I’d love to run a spin-off article on “Mike”. I just learned of a growing community of outlier scholars who love our little magazine.
October 7, 2022 at 11:34 pm
You could emphasize Black Rainbow!
October 8, 2022 at 12:15 am
Mike is a legit socialist, and the violence he was talking about was union men like Walter Reuther getting shot, or severely beaten up.
October 8, 2022 at 12:48 am
Good to hear.
October 8, 2022 at 12:50 am
Our “socialists” in government recently gave weapons manufacturers $17B.
October 8, 2022 at 12:52 am
Hey, is it true that Mario Bava directed a good hunk of Inferno? And why aren’t YOU a socialist?
October 8, 2022 at 1:00 am
Or maybe you are the first socialist-auteurist thinker ever? I’m kidding, sort of. Auteurism always struck me as a middle-class power grab. And an essentially authoritarian worldview masquerading as love. Oh, I recently (FINALLY!) watched Last Year at Marienbad!!! Went nuts!!! Reminds me of Bunuel’s Exterminating Angel, but WAY MORE interesting to me personally, even though the politics are whatever.
October 8, 2022 at 1:04 am
Whatever happened to David Ehrenstein? He ok?
October 8, 2022 at 1:23 pm
Argento was ill for a day on Inferno and Bava stepped in – I think at the climax. It’s been overstated though. I don’t know what’s up with DE, I’m a little worried about him. I emailed, but no reply.
October 8, 2022 at 6:38 pm
Thanks. Yeah, I’m hearing some scary reports. Maybe there should be some collective outreach beyond the crowd-funding thing that happened. Been a minute since then.
October 8, 2022 at 9:13 pm
He’s back – check the Monroe post.
October 9, 2022 at 9:45 pm
Cool. I’ll yell at him.