In this first event from Watershed's Decalogue season Nick James and Mark Cosgrove discuss the list Sight and Sound published in February 2010 of the 30 key films of the past decade, looking at how the first ten years of the 21st century have changed cinema.

From the impact of changes in technology; filmmakers' desires to do something new rather than create a masterpiece; the introspective world of slow cinema; the convergence of tv, art and cinema; the rise of women directors; the small scale personal works of essay films; Hollywood's loss of the ability to present a psychologically rich character; to the rise of feature documentaries and animation - all these areas and more are discussed with thoughts on the films from the past decade that point to the future of cinema.

Nick and Mark also dicuss Watershed's choice of the film of 2000, Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark. For both Dancer in the Dark is an example of hybrid in cinema, bringing together genres: the musical and the melodrama. Also the director is acknowledged as having a huge impact on the decade having caused critical ructions at both the beginning of the decade with this film and at the end with Antichrist (2009).

Nick James is the editor of the BFI's Sight & Sound magazine. Formerly a rock musician, Nick moved into film journalism, working for the London listings magazine City Limits. He became editor of Sight & Sound in 1997, and is the author of Heat, a book in the BFI’s Modern Classics series on Michael Mann’s film of the same name. In 2003 he presented the BBC4 documentary British Cinema: The End of the Affair.

Related Links:
www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/

Posted on Sun 28 Feb 2010.

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