11/2/2018

The Ballad of Shirley Collins

Rob Curry & Tim Plester, UK, 2017, 94 min.

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US Premiere
Introduced by filmmakers Rob Curry & Tim Plester
Special post-screening live performance by Rosali

Shirley  Collins  is  widely  regarded  as  the  20th  century’s  most  important  singer  of  English  traditional  song.  Alongside  her  sister  Dolly,  she  stood  at  the  epicenter  of  the  folk music revival  during  the  1960s  and  ‘70s.  However,  in  1980,  Shirley  developed  a  disorder  of  the  vocal  chords  known  as  dysphonia,  which  robbed  her  of  her  unique  singing  voice  and  forced  her  into  early  retirement.  Deliberately  eschewing  a  straightforward  biopic  approach,  Rob  Curry  and  Tim  Plester's  follow-up  to  their  award-winning  documentary  Way of the Morris  is  a  lyrical  response  to  the  life and times  of  this  totemic  musical  figure.  With intimate  access  to  recording  sessions  for  Shirley’s  first  album  of  new  recordings  in  almost  four  decades,  and  featuring  contributions  from  (amongst  others)  the  comedian  Stewart  Lee  and  David  Tibet  of  Current  93,  the result  is  a  meditative  and  carefully  textured  piece  of  portraiture.  Counterpointing  the  film’s  contemporary  journey  with  a  more  literal  one  taken  from  the  opposite  end  of  Shirley’s  life,  The  Ballad  Of  Shirley  Collins  also  proves  itself  to  be  something  of  a  time-travelling  transatlantic  road-movie  of  sorts,  utilizing  a  motherlode  of  archive  audio  to  recount  the  tale  of  her  seminal  1959  song-collecting  trip  around  America’s  Deep  South  alongside  her  then-lover  (and  legendary  ethnomusicologist)  Alan  Lomax.  Here  then  is  a  story  about  one  woman’s  battle  to  rise  again  from  long  silent  ashes.  A  story  about  heritage,  posterity  and  the  true  ancestral  melodies  of  the  people.  A  film  which  would  seem  to  be  suggesting  that,  during  these  turbulent  and  increasingly  untethered  times,  we  might  just  need  Shirley  Collins  now  more  than  ever.  

The Ballad Of Shirley Collins: TRAILER

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