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Hello and/or welcome back! Regular readers will know that I rarely use this space to discuss work-related things, but I’m making an exception this week because I’m excited to share news of the exclusive streaming premiere (in the US and Canada) of the British playwright and filmmaker debbie tucker green’s ear for eye (2021)—an adaptation of her own 2018 play—on the Criterion Channel. It’s the first time that the film, which premiered in October 2021 simultaneously at the London Film Festival, and on the BBC and the BBC iPlayer, will be seen in North America.
I won’t say too much about ear for eye, because I think it’s best experienced as fresh as possible—that’s how I first experienced it, having not read the play. But I think our website copy does a good job:
Dynamic, absorbing, and visually inventive, ear for eye traces racial injustice across time and continents, detailing stories of struggle and triumph, oppression and uprising. This powerful, astonishingly realized film explores questions of demonstration vs. direct action, violence vs. nonviolence, the personal vs. the structural, boasting a brilliant soundtrack from artists including Run the Jewels, FKA twigs, and Kano.
If you’re not a subscriber to the Criterion Channel, you can sign up for a free trial. The bad news for my British readers, however, is that ear for eye doesn’t currently seem to be available on the iPlayer, or to have received any kind of physical media release. Obviously, I think this film should be widely available, so I hope that situation changes soon.
I’ve followed debbie tucker green’s work for years, and I think she is one of Britain’s most vital and unique creative voices. Her writing and dialogue is characterized by a mesmerizingly musical dexterity, and she has an exceptional ability to produce an emotional wallop when you least expect it. I’ll never forget the experience of seeing her play generations at the Soho Theater in November 2014—this three-part tale of three generations of a South African family lasted about thirty minutes (it remains the shortest play I’ve ever paid to see), and when the lights came up literally everyone in the room was sobbing.
tucker green is famously publicity-averse, so I felt fortunate to be granted an interview with her around the time of the UK release of her first feature, Second Coming (2014), which, as I wrote in the introduction to the interview for Sight & Sound magazine, is a “hushed and disturbing parable starring Nadine Marshall as Jax, a married woman who mysteriously falls pregnant. It doesn’t seem that her partner Mark (Idris Elba) is the father, so who is? Perhaps the clue is in the title.” Here—North American readers only, sorry!—is a list of places you can watch Second Coming, should you be curious. I think it’s great.
In writing this, I’ve reminded myself that late last year a new debbie tucker green radio play, Monday, dropped on the BBC. I haven’t listened to it yet, but I think I’ll do so now. Here it is!
Two quick recs from me this week, before I go. First, over at Pitchfork, I loved Jayson Greene’s witty, thorough, and beautifully written account of the long, bleak fallout from Robin Thicke’s song maudit “Blurred Lines”, which is now a decade old. Greene had me from the start:
It is worth remembering that when “Blurred Lines” first came out, people manifestly did not hate it. In fact, Robin Thicke was considered something of an underdog. This was an absurd designation for the large adult son of a sitcom dad, whose career was launched because jazz legend Al Jarreau financed the recording of his demo and passed it along to R&B superstar Brian McKnight.
You can read the full piece here.
Secondly, I’ve been stuck recently on “Love Town”, the 1983 classic disco-soul track by Booker Newberry III. I have the double cassette compilation “Now That’s What I Call Music 1983”—what would I have done without those Now compilations?—to thank for my initial knowledge of this ebullient song, which never fails to make me smile. I hope you enjoy it.
Until next week!
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