A Story of Children and Film

Mark Cousins was the force behind a series of documentaries that were recently aired on TCM, The Story of Film an Odyssey, something on the order of 15 hours that looks through film as a worldwide journey. There was something with that that could at times bother me, but it still could also be fairly interesting even if it had its lulls.

However, in this, I feel more like Cousins is somewhere between laziness and simply inelegant. The framework he uses to set this exploration is, in my view, tenuous at best as he starts off with filming his niece and nephew, then attempts to use this video to highlight all the aspects that film depicts of children. The concept may sound quite original, but the way he pulls things out of that initial video is forced, at best, and while it's an attempt to create an overarching theme, it just doesn't hold up. The way he ties film into this initial video also seems to use the most tenuous of threads, including very forced links and strong attempts to create parallel situations that often are not present. While some of this is the same style that I saw in The Story of Film, it seems to really go to new heights here, milking such things as movies with balloons in them.

The point where it seems to really go beyond any reasonable credulity is when he begins using footage he had of a dog to remind him of the things about childhood that WEREN'T in the video of his niece and nephew, and when ha manages to use their grandmother stepping in shot but with her head above the frame as some way to create a series of links starting with Tom and Jerry, notable for its distinct lack of any kids in it. It also violated his initial statement that he was only going to focus on live-action.

What I've seen of him in the past was far exceeded here in terms of attempts to force symbolism and connections in increasingly convoluted ways. Additionally, without the historical element to provide a common theme, the film really gets lost in itself at points, and it spends far more time trying to be profound that in does really discussing those themes in a more substantive and cohesive way.

In THE STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM Mark Cousins offers a personal view of why children have been such a perennially popular subject for the movies. His central thesis - and it is a convincing one - is that cinema is a youthful art-form (only just over a century old), and hence likes to concern itself with the lives of young people. Through its very nature cinema can also conjure up imaginative dream-worlds similar to those created by children for various purposes - to cope with life, to enjoy the experience of playing, or to deal with psychological difficulties. These points are liberally illustrated with extracts from over fifty different films past and present from all over the globe. What is perhaps most paradoxical about the film, however, is that despite this global selection, Cousins' narrative is shot through with parochially British concerns such as class, accent and "poshness." This tension persists throughout the film: is Cousins trying to argue for the thematic universality of children's films, or is he trying to acknowledge socio-cultural differences? This issue is never resolved. Cousins also narrates the film: although he has a finely-developed sense of how particular sequences work in cinematic terms, his interpretations sometimes seem over-elaborate, preventing viewers from making up their own minds. Perhaps less commentary might have worked better for him. The film also raises other questions - although Cousins insists at the beginning that his survey will be restricted to live-action movies, he includes a sequence from TOM AND JERRY. While THE STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM is a well-researched, often insightful piece of work, it might have benefited from a more rigorous editorial (or directorial) hand.

I found this film tantalising, interesting and infuriating all at the same time. At times I found myself discovering hidden gems and film which I had never ever heard of, but other times, and more often than not, I was just left frustrated by how reaching some those links from clip to clip were, how far-fetched were some of the arguments and wrong were some of the readings and basically just how random it all seemed. It really felt as if Mark Cousins was so keen to try to include certain film clips (which he had to "fair deal" in order not to pay the copyrights, so he filled them up with pointless descriptions and analysis), that it didn't really matter whether they fitted or not: he just made them fit. Phrases like "a storm about to hit... just like adolescence" felt incredibly forced and actually quite up-their-own-self. And of course there were HUGE oversights too. Where was Bicycle thieves? And Kolya? Stand by me? The 400 Blows? Lord of the flies? Au Revoir les Enfants? ANd the list goes on... I was also amazed to see how ET was used 3 times (obviously the moon shot, but also two other moments which were beautiful but to me didn't quite illustrate the points Cousins was trying to make) but then when Cousins talks about adults cut off from frame, making the analogy with Tom & Jerry, he fails to mention ET, which is a wonderful example of how Spielberg keeps the camera a child's level all the time and keeps the adults out of frame as if they were not allowed to enter the children's world (except the mother, who's obviously special), until the moment ET is about to die (which is the moment Elliot really grow up). Incidetally, no animations? And finally the "family moments" were completely unrelated to the rest, despite the constant attempt to make it all relevant. Basically it was all just very very light despite all the pretences to be deep.