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One Shot is a series that seeks to find an essence of cinema history in one single image of a movie. On a sunny afternoon in Liverpool a mother sits on the windowsill of a red-brick terraced house, her body perched precariously on the outside of the window as she scrubs the glass. The danger of the moment is felt through the eyes of her children who stare transfixed from the end of the hallway, willing her not to fall with the strength of their gaze. This scene occurs 20 minutes into Terence Davies’ Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988). By this point we have witnessed the brutal and unpredictable violence of Pete Postlethwaite’s father and we understand the consequences of a household without the love and protection of Freda Dowie’s mother. As the camera takes the perspective of the siblings, moving slowly toward the window, we are met with the...

Pete Postlethwaite and Freda Dowie shine in Terence Davies’s remarkable 1988 portrait of a working-class Liverpool family that is as gripping as any thriller

Its austere beauty, artistry and wrenching sadness are undimmed after 30 years, and there is nothing distant or still about it. Terence Davies’s early autobiographical masterpiece from 1988, is now rereleased in cinemas, and for all the formal technique and the theatrically controlled tableaux, the drama is vividly present and alive.

These are Davies’s scenes from the life of a white working-class family in Liverpool, during and after the second world war, scenes summoned up out of order by the family’s memories. They are ruled over by a terrifying dad. This is an impressive performance from the great Pete Postlethwaite – an abusive, violent man who might now be diagnosed with depression, but is nonetheless capable of humour and gentleness. Equally great is Freda Dowie as Mum,...

Catch up with the last seven days in the world of film

The big story

Ladddddiiiiiessss and gentlemennnnnn. Are you ready for an auteur smackdown? The Cannes 2012 line-up has been announced. Let's. Get. Ready. To rrrrrrrrrrrrr-read about lots of potentially brilliant films from great directors.

Top of a bill rammed with arthouse heavyweights are Jacques "The Warden" Audiard and Michael "Pain for pleasure" Haneke. The big-name brawlers enter the crowded ring with Rust & Bone - Audiard's drama about a killer whale trainer (Marion Cotillard) who loses her legs on the job - and Love, Haneke's film about a woman (Isabelle Huppert) who moves back in with her parents after her mother suffers a stroke.

Other fighters looking to make their mark on the canvas include Ken "The Realist" Loach (The Angels' Share), Walter "Highwayman" Salles (On the Road) and "Massive" Abbas Kiarostami (Like Someone in Love). They'll be heading into...

'Everything really happened – but I had to tone down my father's violence'

Terence Davies, director

The film came about from a commission from the BFI production board, though it was only for [the first part], Distant Voices. I asked them to let me make part two [Still Lives], and they held it for two years to release as a feature-length film.

Everything in the screenplay happened. I had to tone down my father's violence because if I'd put the real levels in, nobody would have believed it. I thought it would be a cathartic project, but I suddenly realised all that suffering was quite arbitrary, and my mum was unlucky to have married him. It was strange directing actors imitating my family, because you have to have an aesthetic distance, and they have to find the characters themselves.

When you're the youngest of 10, you don't see events fully, you just feel intense moments. And life...