The Elephant in the Room: The Films of Alan Clarke

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"Filmmaker Alan Clarke is acknowledged within the UK as one of the finest British directors of the last half century, but – no doubt thanks to the fact that the vast majority of his films were made for television – his work is more talked about than seen here in the U.S. His place in international film culture is secure if only because of the influence of his controversial 1989 work, ELEPHANT, which gave both its name and strong elements of its visual style and subject matter to Gus Van Sant’s Columbine school shooting-inspired 2003 feature. But as bold and remarkable as ELEPHANT is, it in no way encapsulates Clarke’s genius. This retrospective, which takes advantage of the heroic efforts of the British Film Institute to re-master and re-introduce the entirety of Clarke’s work for the BBC (some 23 surviving programs), represents an unprecedented opportunity for NYC audiences to experience the dizzying range and unwavering quality of Clarke’s films." —Anthology Film Archives