Stuff included:

• Time and the City, Terence Davies 2008 
• Last of England, Derek Jarman, 1988
• Sentimental Journey, Araki 2015
• Ray's a Laugh, Richard Billingham 2000
• Musique concrete theory by Pierre Schaeffer
• Art of Noise, Luigi Russolo 1913
• Circle of Fire, A Sheffield Sound Map, Christ Watson 2014

Davies goal is “To try and capture what it was like to be a Liverpudlian growing up between 1945 when I was born, and when I left, which was 1973, and then contrasting it with the new city.” Consisting of archival clips he narrates his struggles and growing up in a city that, despite being the same thing (the church turned bar for example), his childhood feels like it's from a bygone era. 

Starting with this scene from childhood, Davies would secretly watch wrestling shows and would be “Choking with schoolboy guilt, and trembling with fear of wrath of god”. This might seem trivial today, as we all know most of wrestling is fake, but coming from a deeply religious family Davies isn't allowed to do this, and maybe to a certain extent maybe the boys in Liverpool? By showing something that isn't allowed for him, I have feel I know him personally, by knowing what is considered naughty. 12:50

In this scene people carry out their daily chores with a grand choir music in the background. The music turns the monotonous chores into sacred rituals, like how shaving and simply waking up is gilded now. I feel part of this bittersweet behaviour response comes from the fact that they are antiqued now; nobody delivers milk in to the doorstep, or uses the wood oven, or even clean the front steps with that much vigour. These activities shed light on the lives of the working class people, whom Davies was one of them. 20:51

Christmas is not exactly 'new' to me, but the way to 'properly' celebrate it (which I only got to experience this Christmas in Bury, St. Edmunds)  isn't just decorations and trees. As shown in this scene, people feast on exotic fruits, taking a loan to buy chicken, and being '"drenched in Chanel like his brothers and sisters just for this festive period. Despite the modest background portrayed in the scenes (and in real life), the characters underwent so much effort, and when Davies asks if we can feel the warmth of Christmas, I can.   24:40

This scene serves as like a transition shifting from personal to a collective.  Britain was part of the UN forces sent to Korea, and we can see the brutality of the war from the frozen hands and soldiers in the snow, while ironically the jovial song He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother plays in the background. It creates a sense of camaraderie definitely, but when it shifts to soldiers marching, doing drills and saluting to superiors, Davies questions their involvement, and a sense of confusion in the public. In addition, when the scene is about the Queen's coronation, everything is in colour, then jumps back to black and white when it's about the common joe. Davies was obviously fed up with the government, and it can be said that the working class in Liverpool felt the same way too. 27:49 

When Davies said "They board in black and white, disembark in colour" with the scene on people arriving to  their holiday destination, it symbolises the changing of attitudes; specifically about his fellow Liverpudlians started opening up. For example, they "had hoped for paradise, [but gotten] amor mundi (love of the world)" instead, which means Liverpool despite becoming less and less home to him, is changing for the better.  42:10

People grow up and mature, but they forget that places grow as well; when people visit old places they expect it to stay the same, which is impossible because the place is populated by exactly the people who grow and mature. The city, Liverpool is just as alive as Davies himself, and this documentary is kind of like an eulogy to the old Liverpool.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/oct/13/terence-davies-time-and-the-city

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzcQvRtXnYg

Last of England '88, Jarman

• Different from Davies, because instead of viewing it from a narrative perspective, Jarman's is felt from the heart
• Made in a period of turmoil and rebellion, Jarman rejected what a movie is normally supposed to be, and stuffed all the rebellious attitude and anti-politics of that era to create a charged atmosphere that defines what this movie is

• Firstly, this topless male first thrashed the painting Caravaggio's cupid painting before having sex with it
• Subject aside, the camera movement rapidly zooms in and out while shaking in all directions
• In the background a narrator recites a poem with prominent words including young men dying in Flanders, and the last of England

• Imagine rapidly switching between the two scenes above, one with a man with a tiara and a tutu and a what appears to be a nudist terrorist party with sparklers 
• Layer this with a throbbing headache music and pulsating transitions, this scene is dense with energy
  •  raw, primal and confusion 
  • You have dancing topless ravers clad in just a balaclava in a dark red room, juxtaposing with a somewhat graceful weird dancing man, I don't understand what is going on, but I feel 'charged'

• A man eating raw cauliflower next to a barrel fire pit, with an tv house-channel ad playing in the background
• Occasionally he vomits out the cauliflower mush 
• Towards the very end, this black and white scene feels apocalyptic
  • the hobo-esque barrel pit, raw cauliflower with the drab background makes this scene devoid of hope

It's a very emotional and 'edgy' movie, and I learnt that approaching movies from a narrative perspective doesn't always work. I was frustrated because I was seeking meaning and narrative, in a place where Jarman was actively opposed to all established norms. Jarman truly made me realise what cinema of attraction really means, which is interesting because the purpose of cinematography started out as that. So in a way this movie is stripping film of its narrative connotations, back to the marvel of emotions being played on moving images.

Chris Watson, Inside the Circle of Fire: A Sheffield Sound Map, 2013

Watson believes listening is a creative function. In his site specific installation, he creates a sound map of Sheffield, where he hopes familiar sounds, stripped out of their context can generate creativity. 

What's interesting is taking a sound out of its context, placing in a museum in a way that mirrors Sheffield, then seeing how people react to it. Movies are powerful because the video and sound are synced, now imagine it's just the sound without any visual input...As Watson puts it, it's not just nostalgia that they feel, but out of the cognitive dissonance something creative comes out.

http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/museums/millennium-gallery/exhibitions/past/inside-the-circle-of-fire-a-sheffield-sound-map

Luigi Russolo's Art of Noise 1913, and other stuff

Russolo, a Futurist himself believes the Industrial Revolution brought new sounds for us to hear. The speed, violence and sheer power of these machines made sounds never heard before, and that people lived in the silence back then. His manifesto Art of Noise is a landmark piece of text in sound, inside he explains the then-current instruments were lacking in their timbre and needed to branch out. Hence, he made Intonarumori, noise makers in Italian, acoustic devices that convey the vigour and energy produced by machines. In his manifesto, he set some rules down, all of them pertaining to breaking form the confines of classical instruments. I think the most important one is when he states the type of noise is infinite; man will always invent new ways to produce sound and mixing them all up in infinite. 

Sound isn't simply frequencies that oscillates molecules in the air forming pockets of compression and no compression that hits the eardrums which sends electric signals to the brain registering as tunes. Sound is always ingrained with other senses that we think of it as a byproduct, or just another confirmation for our senses. Russolo moves sound out of music, stating that they are the same then produces new sounds and calling it music too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYPXAo1cOA4

https://www.unknown.nu/futurism/noises.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20100305212012/http://120years.net/machines/futurist/art_of_noise.html

Pierre Schaeffer et al. @ Studio d'Essai on Musique concrete 1948

Schaeffer and his gang basically recorded daily noise in Paris, looped, spliced and manipulated tapes to make some 'sick beats'. Schaeffer tossed out the role of composer in a piece of music, added chance and randomness into the mix to produce what can be called the earliest electronic music (as the sound was translate onto tapes). 

Schaeffer basically pioneered early electronic music, and getting sound from the environment for his compositions. 

http://ears2.dmu.ac.uk/learning-object/musique-concrete/

https://www.britannica.com/art/musique-concrete