Darren Conner: Memories of a Friend.

The man. 

On Sunday 19th June 2011, 5 years ago next month, my friend Darren Conner collapsed and died during a charity bike ride. He was only 40 years old and had been taking part in the 10th anniversary of the Lockerbie loop, a major fundraising event for Children first.

Some of you like myself would have first met this friendly and warm human being on Tuesday 2nd May 2006 on a ten week ‘Introduction to Film Studies Course’ at the Gracefield Arts centre here in Dumfries led by Darren, who was the Head of Film at the Cumbria Institute of the Arts. Any fear that this course would be dry and purely academic was soon dispelled and those of you that knew Darren would understand why. His humour, his love of the movies and his enthusiasm came across to all of us. In October the same year we moved to the RBC Film Theatre for a regular slot on a Monday night when the cinema had been traditionally closed.

The Plaque. 

When Alice Stilgoe became Film Officer Talk Cinema, as it was first called then, was incorporated into the main Film Theatre programme. Darren also became a programmer for the RBC. This arrangement lasted right up until his death.  The most memorable nights for me personally have been the ones where Darren interviewed a guest, for example Rab Buchanan twice  (That Sinking Feeling 1980, Gregory’s Girl 1981), Ian McCulloch (Zombie Flesh Eaters 1979) Morag McKinnon (Donkeys 2008), Peter Mullan (Neds 2010), the only time I’ve ever seen Darren nervous before an interview and not forgetting ‘John Shuttleworth’ (Southern Softies 2009). Without Darren’s unique personally and charisma the club would of never have become as popular as it was.

The Tree.

As a way of thanking Darren and to celebrate his life the RBC Film Club members, with the great support of the staff, decided to put on an evening to raise money to enable us to plant a tree and erect a commemorative plaque close to the cinema that he loved. Unfortunately the Acer tree was planted last December without giving notice so that club members could not be there. Following the more recent placement of the plaque it was decided give club members and RBC staff a chance demonstrate their fondness for the man. To this end we met on a lovely summers evening at the end of May just across from the cinema and overlooking the River Nith and Dumfries town. Each of us were invited, in our own way; to say something about the way Darren touched all our lives and to share a few fond memories. Following an introduction to give some context into Darren’s involvement with the RBC Film Club we all had a chance give our thanks. Rachel Findlay said a few words reflecting on Darren’s life and its influence on her own, Julie McMorran read out the lyrics of Where Do Children Play by Cat Stevens, a song that appeared in one of Darren’s favourite films Harold and Maude (1971) followed by a very moving rendition of The Smiths This Charming Man from Pat Pickering.  John Harvey said a few words and the evening was wrapped up by Alec Barclay who played a recording of Darren’s humorous remarks about the influence the film Gregory’s Girl (1981) had on his own life.

The friends and colleagues of Darren Conner. 

My friend was a descent and lovely human being and there aren’t too many of them about. And just to finish I would like to reiterate something that I have said before and although I have moved on still rings true for me today. Darren has been a great influence in my life since I first met him in 2006 and from my own personnel prospective I would like to thank Darren again for giving me the confidence and encouragement to start writing, something that I would never have thought about doing without his influence.  From the time I was a wee child I’ve always loved the cinema but Darren have made the experience so much more interesting for my self and I would imagine many others.

I did opine at the time of his death that the good Lord would hopefully provide a decent cinema for him, bet I know whose going to be doing the programming?

Withnail and I: An Evening to Remember Darren Conner.

It’s now just over a year since Darren Conner collapsed and died whilst taking part in a charity bicycle ride and this week at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre an evening was dedicated to remembering Darren. This year, as occurred last year with the special screening of Harold and Maude (1971), the staff at the cinema organised an evening not only to remember our friend and colleague but to raise money for another of Darren’s favourite charity’s this time The World Wildlife Fund.

The RBC Film Club, friends and staff enjoyed an informal get together with refreshments provided, thanks to who ever was responsible for that, followed by a screening of another of Darren’s favourite movies the black comedy Withnail and I (1987). There can’t be many of us who have never seen this movie, originally a box office failure and now described as one of Britain’s best cult films. Admittedly when I first saw this film some years ago I was not very smitten and did not find it at all amusing but what a difference a few years makes, it was like watching an entirely different movie. Perhaps it was the fact of watching it on a big screen with an audience of dedicated film lovers, but it was certainly laugh out load funny. It had some really great one liners emphasised by great comic acting from Richard E. Grant as Withnail, Paul McGann as “I” both of whom I believe were appearing in their debut feature films, Richard Griffiths as Withnail’s Uncle Monty and stealing both scenes’ he appears in was Ralph Brown as Danny the drug dealer, incidentally a dead ringer, in more ways than one, for a foreman who worked for me in the late seventies, but his name was Dave!!

Written and directed by Bruce Robinson (The Rum Diary 2011, Private Road 1971) it’s loosely based on his experiences as an out of work actor. The film, set in 1969, tells the story of two unemployed thespians Withnail and Marwood who attempt to drown their depressing life style in a continuous round of alcohol and drugs, plus the odd can of lighter fluid when times are really hard! Mistakenly imagining that the only way out, of what admittedly seems a continuous downward spiral, is to get out of town for a while. To this end Withnail approaches his Uncle Monty to borrow a country cottage he owns in the wilds of Penrith. But the boy’s stress levels are sorely strained finding that the countryside does not offer the respite they had hoped for.   Great evening, great film and a marvellous 60’s soundtrack, from the melancholic saxophone of King Curtis to guitar driven Jimi Hendrix tracks. Shame it has to have been for such a sad reason.

Ivan’s Childhood.

Ivan as played by Nikolay Burlyaev.

Andrei Tarkovsky is an original and unique artist who can never be accused of making films purely for entertainment. The Soviet directors debut full-length feature film was also my initial experience of this filmmaker, Ivan’s Childhood (1962) was the first film shown by Darren Conner at the RBC Film Club when it moved from Gracefield to the cinema proper. Contrasting a bright world of childhood reminiscences and the cruel, sombre reality of war, it caused a real sensation in World Cinema at the time of its release.  Ingmar Bergman said of the film: "My discovery of Tarkovsky's first film was like a miracle. Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. It was a room I had always wanted to enter and where he was moving freely and fully at ease.

Russia at war!

It was quite normal in wartime Russia for very young children to help out the war effort, not all children were sent away to the safety of the countryside like young evacuees in the UK, and many of those who survived where honored for their efforts. The film starts with a young boy, Ivan played by Nikolay Burlyaev, dreaming of peacetime and his mother, (Irma Raush, Tarkovsky wife) when the 12 year old awakes from his fantasies we find him in the middle of a war zone, crossing a vast swamp, carrying vital information for the Russian high command. Because of his size he is able to pass freely between enemy lines. The story unfolds highlighting the respect that the soldiers have for the young hero and how he is offered the chance to be sent away to military school but he insists on continuing his clandestine operations.

Ivan is respected and excepted by his colleagues.

Ivan’s Childhood is a good place to start Tarkovsky’s small but important oeuvre, it comprises a more or less standard narrative plus flash backs and dream sequences. Tarkovsky’s was the second attempt to film Vladimir Bogomolov’s 1957 short story, originally it was directed by Eduard Abalov but was aborted because the Russian Arts Council deemed the work ‘unsatisfactory and unusable’. Offered to Tarkovsky in June 1961, with half the budget spent and a revamped script, he readily accepted. With this film he breathed new life into the conventional genre of World War 2 punctuating his young hero’s last days with dreams and dark premonitions, a film that say’s more about the hardships of war than a great many other movies with much larger budgets and technical gimmickry.  An authentic and classic piece of work from this great director.

Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club’s 5th Birthday Celebration. 2006 – 2011.

You can't have a birthday without cake!

The RBC Film Club started life as an Introduction to Film Studies Course, which started on Tuesday 2^nd May 2006 at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries. Instigated by the then Film Officer Daniel Thomas and led by Darren Conner, Head of Film at the Cumbria Institute of the Arts, the course aims were to make accessible and ordinary the ideas and procedures of film studies. It was intended to organise the course around several non-specialist experiences of cinema: story, character and spectacle in order to develop an introductory level understanding and appreciation of key elements of film. The course incorporated screenings at the RBC. It all sounded very academic, but when we boiled it down most of the initial course membership just wanted to get a better understanding of film and talk about it.  The original course was for a ten-week period and it occupied a room in the Arts Centre with a very small television set to demonstrate the intricacies of the motion picture industry. The three films we saw during this period were the political thriller Syriana (2005), A Night at The Opera (1935) the Marx classic with its ain’t no Sanity Clause, one of the funniest gags in cinema history and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) an American drama set on the US/Mexican border.

The drawbacks of these arrangements were soon evident and Dan Thomas suggested we move to the RBC Film Theatre for a regular Monday night slot, a night when the RBC had traditionally been closed. These new arrangement’s started on the 16^th October 2006 with a screening of the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity. Also included in this second session was an invitation from Darren to join him at the City Cinema in Carlisle to attend the premier of Ghosts (2006) a drama film directed by Nick Broomfield based on the 2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster.

You don't have to be mad  to join the Film Club?

It was not until Alice Stilgoe replaced Dan Thomas as Film Officer that the club was incorporated into the main RBC Film Theatre programme and took the format that we all enjoy today. Without the late Darren Conner’s unique personally and charisma the club would of never have become as popular as it is. The most memorable nights have been the ones where Darren interviewed a guest, for example Rab Buchanan (That Sinking Feeling 1980, Gregory’s Girl 1981), Ian McCulloch (Zombie Flesh Eaters 1979) Morag McKinnon (Donkeys 2008), Peter Mullan (Ned’s 2010) and not forgetting ‘John Shuttleworth’ (Southern Softies 2009).

Following Monday nights Film Club birthday introduction from host Lindsay Taylor, a near capacity audience enjoyed a rare screening of Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1999 Italian classic Cinema Paradiso. The film tells the story, mostly in flashback, of Salvatore, a successful film director based in Rome who returns to his native Sicilian village for the funeral of his old friend and mentor Alfredo who was the projectionist at the local Cinema Paradiso where the young Salvatore, known as Toto, spent the happiest times of his childhood and developed his life long love of film. Alfredo not only passed on his projectional skills but also become a father figure to the fatherless Toto. 30 years have gone by since the successful Salvatore visited his place of birth and it’s the thought of going back for the funeral that brings out all his poignant memories including his teenage love affair with the beautiful Elena.

It’s watching movies of this calibre that reinforce your own love of the cinema. Its been described by Time Out as ‘A sweet hymn to the romance of the cinema” and that’s why it was such a good choice for our Film Club’s 5^th birthday, one that was made even better by the romance of some wonderful baking from our present Film Officer, a big thank you to Fiona Wilson, your chocolate cake was mouth watering. Roll on the next five years.

To many more successful years.

 Many thanks to Alec Barclay for the great photos.

Harold and Maude: A Special Screening in honour of its greatest fan.

It’s hard to believe that the black comedy Harold and Maude was released the same year that Darren Conner was born, 1971. Last nights special screening of Darren’s favourite movie was organised by the staff of the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre in his honour and to raise money for his favourite charities. I really can’t imagine that any other film theatre staff would arrange something so delightfully perfect to honour a friend and colleague. Very many of Darren’s film friends came to share this meaningful evening with the staff, Claire and her boys.

Hal Ashby, who did an equally good job directing Jack Nicholson in the 1973 comedy drama The Last Detail, directs a film which is the complete reverse of the normal youth culture type film, the free spirited individual this time is a 79 year old women Marjorie ‘Maude’ Chardin, played by the 75 year old Ruth Gordon. Maude befriends the 20ish Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) who is obsessed with death, drives a hearse, attends funerals of people he does not know and stages elaborate hoax suicides to gain the attention of his rich snooty controlling mother, wearily portrayed by the wonderful English actress Vivian Pickles. 

Harold and Maude’s love affair with its sexual liaison challenged the taboos of youth, aging, sex and even death. Which was probably the reason it was not particularly successful at the time of its release: it later gained international cult status in the true sense of the word and now is acclaimed as an American film classic.

I first watched this film with Darren some years ago, but last nights showing was quite meaningful in that I now realize why Darren loved this film so much. Maude’s mantra was much the same as his own, imparting kindness, understanding others, living for today and most of all having fun. As Maude demonstrated death is ultimately what gives life meaning.

Harold: You sure have away with people.

Maude: Well, they’re my species!