See video links, transcripts and statements below:

Morning and afternoon sessions (videos)

Tuesday 29 November 2011 Morning session (Peppiatt/Davies)

Tuesday 29 November 2011 Afternoon session (Davies/McMullan)

Transcripts of interviews by interviewee:

Peppiatt transcript

Davies transcript

McMullan transcript

Statements:

Witness-Statement-of-Richard-Peppiatt

Witness-Statement-of-Nick-Davies

Nick Davies has admitted during the Leveson Inquiry that he doesn’t believe that the news media is “interested or capable of self-regulation.”

This idea is going to rub the wrong way many in the industry. But it is needs saying more often.  Given the skepticism that greets suggestions of self-regulation in other industries, including by the press, it’s not surprising that discussions are awkward. The press are terrified for the idea of political/corporate influence and red-pen censorship, but this argument comes from a delusionary position that current operations are a stalwart defense against those.

Accepting tabloid machinations as the divine sacrifice for the greater good of genuine reporting always sounded like bullshit. And it is. As Stephen Baxter succinctly offers, “the case for real investigative journalism would be so much clearer without a fog of intrusive garbage clouding our perceptions of what newspapers are there to do, and what they want to sell us.”

Not all journalists hold the same ethical values, in the same respect that not all bankers are scum-fucks. Journalism fails in its basic premise on a minute-by-minute basis, but succeeds much less often. Nick Davies is one of the good guys, and every once in a while the truth gets though. But by not doing its job, the PCC has neglected to protect its own industry from those who wish to reduce it to pictures of pretty women and ten-a-penny fuck-stories.

It’s 9.30pm on a cool summer night in Gawthorpe, a small village situated between Dewsbury and Wakefield. It has a population of nearly 3,000 and hosts the World Coal Carrying Championships every Easter.

I am sat at the dining room table of singer-songwriter, Ryan Spendlove, probably the village’s most famous resident.

The former Blueskins frontman is playing me a newly written song, entitled Not That Strong. Unsurprisingly it’s very good.

“This is another soppy one,” he warns me beforehand as he performs it with the same bluesy soul he offers on stage. He holds his guitar throughout the interview, occasionally playing small blues licks to punctuate his sentences or buy him more time while he thinks about my questions.

Two months ago he released his first solo album, Fable, through American indie label, CandyRat Records, and is spending his summer playing small festivals and one-off gigs, mostly throughout Yorkshire.

“It’s all been really positive feedback so far,” he says, “I haven’t had any hate mail or anything like that. It seems like the songs are appealing to lots of different people.”

Ryan is gifted with a friendly, generous Yorkshire charm,  pausing the interview only to make more tea.“I love tea,” he says. “I wish it got you drunk.”

Spendlove began performing in his late teens, singing on the street with friends.

“I liked the feeling of it and thought I’d better learn how to play the guitar,” he said. “I was 19 when I started the guitar and writing songs.”

The Blueskins tasted success with their 2003 single, Change My Mind, which was famously featured on an advert for Lynx deodorant.

The band finally broke up in 2008, for reasons he describes as one of those ‘musical differences’ situations and so decided to go at it on his own.

He sent demos out to a few small record labels. CandyRat registered their interest immediately.

“CandyRat got back to me the next day,” he said. “They asked what my plans were and then offered me an album deal. Three months later I was in Milwaukee.”

The resulting album is an open and raw musical display. The 12 tracks transcend blues, folk, gospel and reggae without ever giving up ground. There are no tricks or elaborate recording techniques, instead, he embodies a one-man-and-his-guitar way of doing things, writing and recording songs at home.

“It’s a tricky thing because, you know you’ll never force out a song,” he says. “You can’t just pick a guitar up and think, ‘Oh, I’m gonna write a really good song.’ If it was like that, every artist would make a masterpiece every day or every week.

“I just keep practising and playing and playing. Most of the time I won’t come out with anything, but sometimes I do and it works out pretty well.”

In spite of the album, Ryan Spendlove is very much a working musician, playing gigs where he can get them and supplementing his income by selling copies of Fable to new-found fans after his shows.

“It’s a different industry now, isn’t it,” he says. “The Blueskins were signed just before the time when labels stopped giving advances and we were lucky that we got one. But as long as I can pay my way, I’m alright. I am lucky, I’m doing what I want to do.

“I’m aware that it’s not easy to play your own music and earn a living.”

As the interview concludes, inevitably I ask what the future holds for Ryan Spendlove and if there is another album in the works.

“Ask the record label,” he shrugs. “I’ve got, like, three songs finished, and another three I’m working on. We’ll have to see. I’m thinking about moving to York and getting a boat. I reckon that’ll be my next move, saving up for a boat, a place where I can just jam and not bother anybody.”

Links:

Watch the video below to hear Ryan’s latest effort, Not That Strong

Buy his album, Fable, and see Ryan’s bio on CandyRat Records site here

Here’s my interview with Anamaria Marinca, star of Palme d’Or winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

Few people outside of film circles can attest that they know too much of Romanian national cinema. As an industry it is still in its infancy when compared against, say, France or Germany, but over the Noughties a strange thing has happened; Romania has planted its flag in the celluloid and staked a claim on film.

Among the flagships for many critics is Christian Mungiu’s raw and affecting 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (2007). Such is the power of its storytelling and the maturity of its intelligence, that it beat the likes of the Coens’ No Country For Old Men and Fincher’s masterpiece Zodiac to take home the much coveted Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Set in 1987, two years before the Revolution that would end Romania’s 40 year reign of Ceauşescu’s brand of Communism, the film follows student, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) as she aides her roommate, Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) in securing a dangerous ‘back-alley’ termination behind the backs of a regime that outlawed abortion twenty years previous.

To say the film is beautiful is to understate the seriousness out of which the concept is born. It is not a beautiful film in the traditional sense, but rather a tender and haunting tale of friendship and sacrifice in a world where choice is a privilege rarely bestowed.

Such was my admiration for the film and the performances that I decided to contact its lead actress, Anamaria Marinca, to request an interview. Marinca, who resides in London, is temporarily posted in Paris, having just finished filming the up-coming feature A Cloud in a Glass of Water (Un nuage dans un verre d’eau) by first-time director, Srinath Samarasinghe.

“I’m very, very excited about it.” She tells me during a Sunday morning telephone conversation, “For me, it’s an unusual film: It has a lot of special effects. It’s a fantasy-detective story told in a very imaginative way.”

A Cloud in a Glass of Water is currently in post-production, but the 32 year old actress has stayed on in France to rehearse for her role as Nina Zarechnaya in a production of Chekhov’s The Seagull. The play is directed by long-time friend, Christian Benedetti, and is set to play at the Theatre Studio in Paris throughout the month of March: A run that she (sincerely) invites me to attend. I ask Anamaria, who is fluent in Romanian, English and French, how different the process is when acting in a foreign tongue:

“A Cloud in a Glass of Water was in French. And The Seagull played in French. It’s strange for me to do a Russian play, in French, being Romanian, and living in London, but I’m doing it (laughs).

“I think that even if you are fluent in a certain language, it is a different thing acting in that language. It’s a question of form and meaning. In Romanian I never think of pronunciation or the syntax of the phrase, it all comes naturally. ”

Anamaria Marinca was born in Iaşi, Romania in 1978, where she would later received a degree in Fine Arts at the city’s University. In 2004 she moved to London where she divided her time between TV, film and theatre. Her CV is diverse: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure one year; a Sarah Kane play another, she has also worked with an array of acclaimed film directors: David Yates, Francis Ford Coppola, Julie Delpy and Oliver Hirschbiegel.

4, 3, 2 is probably a masterpiece, so to argue that Anamaria Marinca’s performance binds all of the elements together is no small thing. But her presence is really something to behold; appearing in almost every scene, she embodies the character with aplomb and a sense of fearlessness that never allows her pretty face to betray the complexity of gestures required to tell such a trenchant tale of one friend’s unconditional love for another.

In spite of the controversy that came from the film, for Marinca 4, 3, 2 was about a politico-spiritual catharsis, a national exorcism of past demons; how the draconian abortion laws had pushed Romania’s daughters to risking their lives: “It took 20 years to have the distance and to be able to transfigure these stories and to make it into art.” But what the filmmakers witnessed when the film began to show all over the world was that for some, the issue wasn’t so much in the past tense: “We hadn’t realized how strong the reaction would be in countries like Italy, Portugal and Mexico; the urgency of the issue. This time the reasons had to do with religion. In the latter countries, there were laws about to be voted on. Interestingly enough, the subject of abortion is always tangent to an ideology… “

As is often the case in matters such as these, 4, 3, 2 was a little too much for the religious faction of society; those incapable of accepting discussions on any issues that they deem black and white, as though discussion itself is paramount to promotion: “The Vatican had a very negative response. But what amazes me is that they never took the film for what it is,” she said, “It’s about friendship; it’s about the freedom of choice.  It’s not pro-abortion and it’s not against abortion, it’s just a fact and a story.  We believe in a cinema that asks the right questions. And that our public is intelligent and free to search to find their own answers.”

Anamaria chooses of her words carefully, for fear of expressing the wrong sentiment in a language that isn’t her first. For a young actress who has forged a career from such weighty subject matter, the need to be clear is understandable. She is very aware of the nature of the conversation, on what may be conceived as being intentionally loaded questions on my part. They aren’t, I am simply trying to make the conversation interesting.  But in spite of any reservations she may have talking to a complete stranger, she is blessed with an endearing honesty throughout.  “[When working] you get close to people in a quite short period of time,” she said, “ You live with a team 24/7 and so it’s compulsory to be open and to collaborate… Things come at a cost and one can often find oneself in a vulnerable position, but that is the nature of the work.”

It is a well known trope that the nature of acting (for the more gifted, at least) are in some sort of constant spiritual deconstruction of the human condition. Usually we assign this to Stanislavskian self-tormenting practices designed to break down the individual and reboot them as beast of existentialism. I have no real idea of Anamaria’s thoughts on ‘method’, but she appears to possess a strong, kind personality that is flecked with a clarity of spirit and an assurance of self:

“I think it’s a privilege for artists in general to make a living of their profession (most of them can’t – especially with the difficult time the world is going through). In a context where nobody finds time to stop for one moment we are given the chance to observe and meditate… in order to  capture , reflect , transfigure and represent  what we see.“

It is clear to me that Anamaria is strangely comfortable with the discomfort that comes with challenging oneself, with taking risks and trying new things. It would appear that her brand of moxie is paying off: She has won several awards at various international film festivals for her part in 4, 3, 2, received a BAFTA in 2005 for her role as Elena Visinescu in David Yates TV movie Sex Traffic, and has been named as one of European films’ Shooting Stars by the European Film Promotion Board. Not to mention universal praise from a gamut of industry critics.

But in spite of the accolades, she is grounded very much in the love of art. Not just in an abstract poetic sense, but in terms of tangible knowledge. When I bring up the significance of the Romanian New Wave movement, she reels off films faster than I can write them down.  Her displays a constant admiration for all who give their time in service to the craft of filmmaking, and I wondered whether she, herself, was considering a shift in direction: “I think we change, evolve in certain directions. Three years ago if you had asked me the same question, I’d have said, ‘I’ve never thought about it’. But now it’s another story, now I do think about it. I’m not sure if this desire will ever become a reality, but I just hope that I’ll see the signs and that I grasp the opportunity when it comes.”

Throughout the interview Anamaria is articulate and friendly, allowing the interview to run to over an hour on what is her only day off. The hardest thing is deciphering the words, choosing the best way to present someone who you have never met and only spoken to for a short time. And that is a strange and dangerous thing to try to do. But there is a definite sense that parts of the depth of her identity and understanding of all things has been nurtured by those with whom she has engaged with on a creative level: “I have had people in my life that have inspired me and have been very generous with their time and with their knowledge, and I can’t ever thank them. The best I can do is try and do a good job on the stage or on set. And pass whatever I learned and understood about this profession to my younger friends…” Judging from her performances, Anamaria Marinca has already returned the favour.

Many consider George Melies’s 1896 three-minute short, Le Manior du Diable (The House of the Devil), to be one of the first ever examples of a ‘Horror’ film.

The film opens in the courtyard of a mansion with a sinister looking bat circling. Said bat quickly transmorphs into a man: Satan! The Devil proceeds to conjure up a plethora of demonic spirits with impunity. That is until our noble warrior arrives to ruin the party. He battles heroically with the haters of all that is Holy; dispensing his own brand of justice with his trustly crucifix, sending them all back to the firey horror whence they came.

Although the intended meaning was one of mild humour rather than terror, nevertheless the signifiers of what would later become staple horror generic are present: gothic architecture, supernatural figures, the fight of good versus evil.

Is the film scary? Not a chance. Interesting? Yes. Because it is worth considering that maybe the fundementals of the Horror genre haven’t strayed that far, and in the case of movies, the complexities of human fear are largely unchanged.

Watch it below and see what you think.

However, there already seems to be a few strange choices and almost foolhardy absences cropping up, so i will be picking them apart, genre by genre in a typical ‘angry blogger’ type of way. And i’m gonna start with Romance.

Here is the List for the 25 Greatest Romantic Films Of All Time:

There is an inherent difficulty when discussing and dissecting genre films; many features no longer obey the conventions that established the precident, but can still be considered ‘romantic.’ As a genre becomes more recognisable the easier it is to play with, and that manipulation of the audiences expectation has led to some masterpieces.

But what makes a Romantic film? Do the lead characters really need to fall in love (Lost in Translation), or do existing lovers have to overcome some disruption to their equalibrium and get back on track (Eternal Sunshine of the Spottless Mind)?

I have no real passions about the romance genre, other than its given birth to some of the worst films of all time. But it has also given us many of the classics, and in terms of this list some of them don’t fair as well as they should.

My main gripe is with Wall-E, which is not a altogether a credable romantic film and shouldn’t be on the list – I suspect that someone is trying to be rather too clever with this choice. Only because if you were to replace the robots with humans the plot would seem a little ridiculous and romance a tad saccharine and action-movie-esque.

A Matter of Life And Death, Harold & Maude and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are all very respectable choices and could feasably have been placed much higher – particularly A Matter of Life and Death.  Also, Take out Say Anything…, replace it with Edward Scissorhands and find somewhere to put Brokeback Mountain.

Like I said, I’m no romance afficionado; they have the basics right so i’m not too peturbed. That said, the next genre I will shine a light on is ‘Crime,’ and that list is six kinds of fucked up!