Listen to the Gateposts

Patrick Keiller's London from 1994, narrated by Paul Scofield
Patrick Keiller’s London from 1994, narrated by Paul Scofield

I remember going to see Patrick Keillor’s London at the ICA back in 1994. I’d only been a year in London and I’d just moved in to a flat in Battersea. I loved the film and Scofield’s telling of a London flaneur Robinson. But one short scene near the beginning is the thing that resonated with my own wonderings. Pat has mentioned noticing with your body and there is nothing like being new to a city to heighten this.   The depiction of the gateposts (5’57” – 6’34″) is by a brief verbal introduction, followed by the laying of the sounds of the park over the locked off shot of the Victorian sandstone columns. I remember enjoying the simple device and the implication that the post absorbs and emits the sounds of the events in its range.

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