Terence Davies Trilogy (DVD)

For the first time ever on DVD, from BFI Fellowship Awarded Terence Davies, The Terence Davies Trilogy. The Terence Davies Trilogy acts, as do his two later films, Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, as a reconstruction of his childhood and youth in working class post-war Liverpool. In his trilogy he uses alter ego Robert Tucker, a shy and introverted child who is assumed to be not as able mentally as his peers and so bullied by those around him. His home life is darkly overshadowed by his violent abusive father and his guilt over homosexual feeling, which is exacerbated by his strict Catholic upbringing. These dark and unhappy memories though are interspersed by his tender and warm feelings towards the entertainment culture springing up around Liverpool, listening to the wireless and visiting the cinema being favourite pastimes of his. Davies sticks to his fragmented, patchwork narrative to show the nature of his own personal memory, interspersed with snatched songs and surreal daydreams and so the audience can emphasise with his every grin and grimace. With Liverpool's City Of Culture recognition The Terence Davies Trilogy becomes ever more important as its appreciation of the pop culture which came out of Liverpool is accredited with Robert's happiness, and therefore Terence Davies' and his admission into cinema himself.