Jack Bond
Directing
Biography
Jack Bond (born 1937) is a British film producer and director. He is best known for his work for The South Bank Show and his creative partnership with the British writer, actor and director Jane Arden (1927–1982) between 1965 and 1979. In 1965, Bond made a documentary film with Salvador Dalí, Dali in New York. Dalí had been based in New York city, particularly the St Regis Hotel, with his wife Gala since the 1930s. The film revolves around an ongoing interview of Dali by Arden about his creative process. This all takes place against the backdrop of social life and work including putting together two exhibitions of his work and a book, as well as various performance art displays including a final scene where Dali paints alongside a flamenco duo (singer José Reyes and guitarist Manitas de Plata). Commenting on the subject of his film, Bond observed "Dalí always knew exactly what he wanted and he got it. The doormen had to pay Dalí’s taxi fare. He was ‘grand’ in the real meaning of the word. He fitted New York like a glove, it was made for him, and The St. Regis was, and still is, the best hotel in the whole city. He was even able to paint there – he kept a special room as his studio." Working with Arden, Bond directed the award winning Separation (1967), produced The Other Side of the Underneath (1972) and co-directed Anti-Clock (1979). These three films were reissued by the British Film Institute on Blu-ray and DVD on 13 July 2009. Interviewed in 2013, Bond recalled how, as a result of the refusal of the UK film industry to screen Anti-Clock, he instead took the film to America. At a New York screening, one influential critic, although refusing to talk to Bond both before and after the screening, nonetheless gave the film a five star review. As a direct result of this review, the film was a hit in the USA and Bond received approaches for distribution for the film from UK distributors who had previously turned the film down, offers which were vehemently rejected by Bond. In 1988, Bond directed the feature-length film It Couldn't Happen Here featuring Pet Shop Boys, as well as the music video for their single "Heart". Even before the film received a title, it was devised as a compilation of interrelated music videos that together would form one ongoing plot, in a manner comparable to The Line, the Cross and the Curve. However, once Bond was appointed as producer and co-writer as well as director, the project expanded into a full fledged feature film. Since Arden's death, Bond had primarily worked as a director of TV documentaries, primarily on The South Bank Show during which time he covered such topics as Roald Dahl and Catherine Cookson. In this context, It Couldn't Happen Here marked a return to drama film making for Bond.
Known For
A therapist looks into the mind of a woman diagnosed as schizophrenic and finds, not madness, but tortured sexual guilt created by the taboos of society.
The Other Side of the Underneath
Pet Shop Boys Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant embark upon a journey across England - but which England? Is it the half-remembered England of their childhoods, or the brutal reality of Mrs Thatcher's late-eighties England? Along the way they come across many familiar (and sinister) faces. The movie also features some of the Pet Shop Boys' most popular records.
It Couldn't Happen Here
Separation concerns the inner life of a woman during a period of breakdown – marital, and possibly mental. Her past and (possible?) future are revealed through a fragmented but brilliantly achieved and often humorous narrative, in which dreams and desires are as real as the ‘swinging’ London (complete with Procul Harum music and Mark Boyle light show) of the film’s setting.
Separation
Filmmaker Jack Bond and Salvador Dali got together at Christmas 1965 to make Dali in New York, a highly entertaining film. Dali devoted two weeks of his life to creating extraordinary scenes for the film, performing "manifestations" with a plaster cast. A thousand ants and one million dollars in cash. When he confronts the feminist writer, Jane Arden, sparks fly. "You are my Slave! I am not your slave. Everybody is my slave." Dali recalls his meeting with Freud, "The last human relationship ever" About his wife, 'But for Gala I would be lying in a gutter somewhere covered with lice" Jim Desmond's dazzling cinematography captures the great artist painting as Flamenco virtuoso Manitas de Plata performs. Dali in New York is a rare treat for anyone who loves film and the living theatre of Dali's surreal universe.
Dali In New York
Expressionist painter meets existentialist surfer as legendary documentary filmmaker Jack Bond follows the journey of the brilliant young British painter, Chris Moon, as he navigates the perilous art world and a demanding, often excruciating, relationship with his work.
An Artist's Eyes
Uses two young western people as the mediators between the new gestalt initiated by Jung, Reich and Frederick Perles, and the magnetic chain of a Sufic master, finding that the East and the West, the scientific and the mystical, begin to hold together in a truly organic way.
Vibration
A complex and fascinating experimental exploration of time and identity, Anti-Clock is a film of authentic, startling originality. Brilliantly mixing film and video techniques, Arden and Bond's paranoid, psychological surveillance study of a career gambler turned clairvoyant unstuck in time captures onscreen the anxieties that have infiltrated the consciousness of so many in Western society.
Anti-Clock
From Sunrise Pictures, the long awaited Adam Ant documentary film, directed by Jack Bond. Featuring Charlotte Rampling, Mark Ronson, Jamie Reynolds, Allen Jones, John Robb.
Adam Ant: The Blueblack Hussar
A frank dialogue on sexual likes and dislikes that place between a man and his mistress in bed together.
Exit 19
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