This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by Martin Whiskin to discuss the films; Dead Man's Shoes, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Karman Line, and Avengers: Endgame.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club, I'm Chris DC and each week I'll be joined by
00:20a guest from Kent to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life.
00:26Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years
00:30and every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:35has a connection to the county.
00:38And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:41He works as a voice actor and podcast editor and spends the rest of his time doing dad
00:46stuff or playing music.
00:48He is Martin Whiskin.
00:51Great to have you on the programme Martin.
00:53Thank you very much for having me.
00:54Well I don't know Martin your choice of films in advance but I can see that you've gone
00:58for Dead Man's Shoes.
01:00This is Shane Meadows.
01:02It is yeah.
01:03This is one of those films that a few years ago they would have phases in the shops where
01:08all DVDs were a fiver and that was one that I picked up.
01:13They were always hit and miss.
01:14This one was definitely a hit for me.
01:17Yeah it's quite an old film, about 20 years ago I think so, it's just had its anniversary
01:23and a lot of impact if you watch it.
01:25And it's very Nottinghamshire set isn't it because Shane Meadows is one of the late 90s,
01:33one of the British talents who are very good at dealing with often, am I right in thinking,
01:37working class communities but dealing with all sorts of questions that maybe had been
01:42neglected in mainstream cinema.
01:44Yes, it's definitely set in one of those more run down areas, lots of things like violence,
01:49drug abuse, that sort of thing.
01:51It's extremely hard hitting.
01:54And when you saw this, I mean I'm guessing you've watched it many times, probably most
01:58recently as preparing for this, but what was the impact that this had on you?
02:03Like I just said it was extremely hard hitting but I think the two words I like to use about
02:07it is it's brutal but beautiful at the same time.
02:11It's really emotionally charged, there's a great contrast between, I don't want to give
02:15too much away for people that haven't seen it, but between the violence in it and the
02:21really delicate moments between the two brothers who are the main characters.
02:24Yes, and this is I think very important in terms of British cinema because I remember
02:29in the late 90s we had Phil Monti, we had Little Voice and Shane Meadows and this is
02:34the sort of filmmaking, I suppose Ken Loach might be seen as a precursor here, going back,
02:39well obviously Ken Loach is still making films but certainly from Kez in the 1960s, but giving
02:45a voice to a type of audience or to characters and to communities that are not really represented
02:53in cinema.
02:54But obviously his films tend to be Midlands or Nottinghamshire set.
02:58What was the particular appeal for you, is this universal, what is the particular catch?
03:04The grit I think, it feels very, very real.
03:07At the time I hadn't heard of Paddy Considine who was the main actor or his brother, I think
03:13it's Anthony Kibble, I can't remember his name, but yeah, they're both relatively unknown
03:18to me at the time and it just feels so down to earth and it was very low budget so it
03:24didn't have the big stars, it didn't have the big budget for big explosions, that sort
03:28of thing.
03:29It was something that you think in a way this could happen, it was very gripping in a very
03:34human way.
03:35And that's often what filmmaking can really do because obviously there are films which
03:39can take you out of your comfort zone, take you out of reality, but also there can be
03:42films sometimes that show you a version of life which we maybe don't want to know about
03:48or don't know about and it's what we do with that.
03:50I think that's the crucial question because the fact that you've picked this as one of
03:53your four best films, did you sort of watch this and feel in any way engaged to do something?
04:00Was there a sense of what do you do with this when you've watched a film of this calibre?
04:05One of the themes in it is all about brotherly love and sort of regret but also coming back
04:16into his brother's life and doing the right thing, trying to make amends with his brother.
04:21And it made me realise, this is going back 20 years probably when I saw it, I was a fair
04:27amount younger, and it made me think about my family more.
04:31I hadn't had kids by that point but my sister, my parents and how I should probably respect
04:37them a bit more and use my time with them better because the main character didn't.
04:44Yeah, I mean that whole notion of cinema never being a homogenous experience and I suppose
04:50sometimes it's whether you want the film to sort of take the real world away for a couple
04:56of hours or whether you want it to seep in and actually feel almost, maybe educationally
05:01but to say okay we need to know about these sort of communities, we need to know something
05:05about this so that something can happen, change can be effective.
05:09So it's cinema doing something that goes against the grain of what a lot of people would imagine
05:13cinema can do but doing it in a way that actually can be transformative, albeit not in the sort
05:17of way that we might conventionally understand.
05:20I think it's scratching the surface isn't it and sort of revealing what's beneath what
05:26people tend to ignore a lot or just don't want to know exists a lot of the time.
05:32And have you ever watched this with an audience?
05:35Have you sort of been, as I often do, watch it with other people and you sometimes sort
05:39of are interested in how they respond to it and you sort of measure their response and
05:44see whether that impacts on your own grasp of the film?
05:47I've watched it with one other person.
05:49I've yet to find someone who really loves it as much as I do because it is just so,
05:53and I've used the word already but it is so sort of brutal and it's very upsetting.
05:58It's a film where you could very easily cry a lot throughout it but the person I watched
06:03it with at the time, they didn't get it, they didn't enjoy it so.
06:06Okay, well we're going to find out now what you've chosen then, Martin, is your second
06:12chosen film and you've gone for The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings.
06:18So what made you, maybe very different to your first choice?
06:22Yes, very much so.
06:24This is one that, I was thinking about it this morning, and it's one that you can just
06:29be absorbed in and allow yourself to believe that this world exists and you can just forget
06:36about some of the issues maybe from Dead Man's Shoes for example and think about the issues
06:40of Middle Earth.
06:41But the reason that I picked this one is because, again, this was maybe going back 20 years,
06:45I missed it at the cinema when it first came out and I was terribly annoyed that I'd missed
06:49it because it would have been an amazing spectacle just because of how huge the world is.
06:54But it came to me at the right time, I think, and it really taught me about friendships
07:00and my family and I think, and I've always felt a little bit embarrassed about saying
07:05it, but I think these, the three Lord of the Rings films, made me a better person because
07:10of the themes within and I really learnt a lot from them.
07:14It sounds, although the canvas couldn't be more different in terms of the scale of a
07:20film made by Shane Meadows and then Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, but actually
07:25the motifs, the reason that made you want to watch this, sound actually remarkably similar.
07:30Yes, yeah, absolutely.
07:31It's all about, well, the fellowship, it's friendship, people coming together to do the
07:36right thing for a reason, you know, for a better reason and back to Dead Man's Shoes,
07:40he came back to do what he thought was the right thing into that film.
07:43But yeah, there's so many parts of all of the Lord of the Rings films that I can pull
07:48out and just think, I can watch them and just get quite emotional about them.
07:51There's so much power.
07:52Yeah, and I'm just thinking as well, because you mentioned that you didn't see this when
07:55it came out and I assume by that you mean you didn't see it on the big screen.
07:59But I didn't ask you about your first choice, whether you, you know, that is like a small
08:04screen experience or a big screen experience, but how do, you know, the actual way in which
08:09you watch a film and the location environment, whether it's cinema or at home, impact on
08:13your understanding of the film?
08:16I like to think that I would prefer watching it at home just because there'll be no extra
08:23noise coming from other people around me.
08:26And I've seen some of the reaction films that you can see on, or sort of the reactions people
08:31have in the cinema to these films when the big events are happening.
08:34I'm not sure if I'd enjoy that, everyone whooping and cheering and clapping and things, because
08:38I'd worry that it would take me out of the zone of watching that, you know, and believing
08:42that world.
08:43The same as if you hear a bad piece of audio or something can take you out of the zone
08:47of watching or hearing something.
08:49But yeah, so I think three of my films have been small screen experiences and one on the
08:54big screen.
08:55Yeah, and did you ever in later years get to see Lord of the Rings on the big screen?
09:00Still haven't, but I'm aware that they do marathons, so I'm...
09:04Did you see the other ones on the big screen?
09:06So you didn't see The Fellowship?
09:07All on the small screen.
09:08All on the small screen, yeah.
09:09All on the small screen, yeah.
09:10I mean, my experience often of going to the cinema is precisely that I need to watch a
09:14film more than once, because there are different audiences, different dynamics, and sometimes
09:18you get different responses from those in the audience.
09:21And a film like this, of course, which, where there's so much riding on it and people invest
09:25so much, I guess sometimes a repeat viewing, whether on the big screen or the small screen,
09:30is probably necessary.
09:31Yeah, absolutely.
09:33I think there's something that maybe the cinema does that I would have preferred is the amazing
09:39sound, of course.
09:40I've got some quite good speakers and headphones at home, but it's not the surround experience,
09:46which again, for something as vast as the Lord of the Rings world, would pull you into
09:51it so much more, I think.
09:53So that's one thing that I'm sad about.
09:56And of course, you've got the whole mythology around this with Middle-earth, and you've
10:01obviously chosen this one, but there's an argument, I would imagine, for looking at
10:05the entire trilogy.
10:07But this one, we've had guests on the programme before who've picked maybe the middle one,
10:11which is the one that, I remember in the Oscar stakes, that was the one that wasn't expected
10:14to win.
10:15I think it didn't get one of the, either Best Director or Best Film, didn't get one of those
10:20core nominations.
10:21I think it was Best Director.
10:24So why pick The Fellowship of the Ring?
10:27I think it was just because it's the start of the epic journey, of the epic film trilogy.
10:38And it's the one that pulled me into that world.
10:43And like I said, I still feel slightly odd saying it, but it changed my life, watching
10:47these films.
10:48So I always think back to that one, because that's where it started for me.
10:53And do you find then that you're sort of watching this, and either at the time, or maybe many
10:57years later, it stays with you?
10:59So in a way, the film has followed you throughout different stages of your life?
11:04Yeah, there's bits.
11:06I've watched them again over the past couple of weeks, but after I watch them again, there's
11:10still clips that I will pull out and watch on YouTube every couple of days.
11:15There's just some...
11:16This morning, before I came in, I watched a clip on YouTube twice, the same scene from
11:20the final film, just because it gives me tingles and pulls out so much emotion in me.
11:24I think I'll never get bored of watching those.
11:27Well, that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show.
11:32However, before we go to the break, we have a Kent Film Trivia question for you at home.
11:38Which Kent actor has a career currently spanning over more than 40 films?
11:44Is it A. Orlando Bloom, B. Emma Corrin, or C. Mark Rylance?
11:50We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:53Don't go away.
11:55Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:10Just before that ad break, we asked you at home a Kent Film Trivia question.
12:14Which Kent actor has a career currently spanning over more than 40 films?
12:19I asked, is it A. Orlando Bloom, B. Emma Corrin, or C. Mark Rylance?
12:25And now I can reveal to you that the answer was, in fact, A. Orlando Bloom.
12:30His first film debut was the film Wild in 1997.
12:33He was core cast through the Lord of the Rings film series, and most recent work includes
12:38The Cut and Red Right Hand.
12:41Did you get the answer right?
12:43Well, it is time now to move on to your next chosen film, and you've gone for the Carmen
12:50line, which I don't think I've heard of before.
12:54This is the only one that I've seen on the big screen out of the ones that I'd picked.
13:00And we saw it at the Golbenkian in Canterbury on a BAFTA short film night.
13:06And we didn't know what films were going to be shown, and this was one of them.
13:10And I think it was about 25 minutes long.
13:13And it's intriguing, special, and it's got Olivia Colman in it, so people can relate
13:23to her on a great level, I think.
13:26But it's absurd, but very sad, as well, at the same time.
13:32How many years ago is this?
13:34This would have been about 15 years ago, maybe?
13:38Before Olivia Colman, certainly before her Oscar-winning success.
13:41I think so, yeah.
13:42And tell me about this short film.
13:43So, 25 minutes, obviously stuck with you, and I'm guessing you saw other ones that evening
13:46as well.
13:47I did, and this is the only one I remember.
13:48Why is that?
13:49The reason is, well, the premise is it's a family, so a husband and wife and a daughter
13:56who's just studying for her exams.
13:59Daughter comes home one day, is a very grumpy teenager sort of thing, and the mum just starts
14:04levitating off of the floor.
14:07And she doesn't stop levitating, and through the whole film she's gradually getting higher
14:10and higher and higher until she reaches a part of space called the Carmen Line.
14:15And it's all about dealing with the loss of a loved one in this very absurd way that they
14:23treated it as an illness, this levitating, and they couldn't stop her from going up.
14:27There's nothing they could do.
14:28So, she was very slowly being lost from their lives.
14:33And it showed you in that short time so many different emotions, anger from the husband
14:38and denial because he didn't want to believe that his wife was fading away from him almost,
14:43but just in this really odd way.
14:45So, he was tying her ankles down, trying to...
14:48Her ankles broke because... and all this sort of stuff.
14:53Just in utter denial that she was going to be gone.
14:56The daughter was very aloof about it.
15:00The mum, Olivia Colman, she was very quickly accepted that it was happening, wasn't happy
15:05about it, but this is my lot now sort of thing.
15:08There's just so many different emotions and touch points in there.
15:11It was incredible, I think.
15:13Because from what it sounds like, you've got something that on the surface is bizarre,
15:19it feels like a fluke, but it's something that matters not because of, is this an hallucination
15:28or is it really happening?
15:29But actually, it's the impact on the other people, on the family.
15:32So, Steve, there's obviously into your third film now, similar kind of motifs.
15:38But that sort of sense here that it's something inexplicable, but it's what it does to the
15:42others.
15:43Am I right?
15:44That seems to be what matters.
15:45Yes.
15:46Yeah.
15:47And very sort of grief, loss, how to cope with that, maybe a bit of hope in there as
15:53well from the people that will be left behind.
15:56And it's a huge metaphor for an illness, but just a very bizarre way of framing it,
16:05I think.
16:06It was a very fine line.
16:07It could have easily been a comedy, I think, but because of the way, the acting in it,
16:14it definitely was not a comedy.
16:16It was harrowing to watch.
16:19And the film that comes to mind, actually, truly, madly, deeply similar in terms of dealing
16:25with the loss of a loved one and something inexplicable.
16:28That was always seen as a British version of Ghost with Alan Rickman, Juliet Stevenson.
16:33But from what you're saying here, yeah, it's a way that obviously stuck with you of all
16:37the films that evening because it was touching on something that resonated.
16:42There may have been a level of artifice in this film, but the human themes are the ones
16:47that stood out.
16:48No one can relate to a loved one passing away, and she passed away off into space.
16:55And it was just different to how we would expect it, but everything about it was so
16:58emotionally real that I think relating to that, for me, I felt a lot from that.
17:08And because you were watching this with an audience, unlike the other two films that
17:12you picked, did you feel the sense that other people were perhaps getting something similar
17:18out of it?
17:19Was there that feeling that this was the standout that evening?
17:23Was it just your personal apprehension here, or was there that sort of collective gasp
17:27that often does happen when you're in a collective environment?
17:30I think there was a gasp, but I was fully immersed in it.
17:35There was nothing to pull me out of that story for that 25 minutes.
17:38I was completely tunnel vision to that screen, but there was a few moments in there.
17:43So when she finally zooms off into outer space, that's it, she's gone sort of thing.
17:49Even though it was the way it was portrayed, almost like a rocket zooming off into space,
17:54it was heartbreaking, and it was very, very, very sad.
17:58It's time now to move on to your final chosen film, and again, you've done the same again
18:02here now.
18:03We've gone for a completely different sort of genre, but Avengers Endgame, Martin, has
18:09been your choice.
18:10Yeah.
18:11I think, again, it's one of those, and I'm not a huge sort of Marvel cinematic universe
18:18buff or anything like that, but there was a couple of years ago, after the final one
18:23had come out, I really wanted to watch all of them just so that I could, and maybe re-experience
18:29the Lord of the Rings type feelings that I'd had, because I knew it was an epic saga sort
18:33of thing.
18:34So the rest of my family weren't on holiday.
18:36I bought the four Avengers DVDs and just had them for, I think, through two nights.
18:40I watched two the first night and two the second night, and yeah, very similar emotions
18:44and feelings about that as Lord of the Rings.
18:47I'm a sucker for a team doing something in films.
18:51But how ironic that your family had gone away, and you're watching this film where it's all
18:55about family and coming together.
18:56So do you think it was the absence that made this all the more present for you?
19:00It may have been, yeah, and the intensity that I watched it at, because, like I say,
19:04I don't really get much time to watch films anymore, so watching something for six hours
19:09one night and six hours the next night, it was a huge rush of all of those emotions coming
19:14in there.
19:15Yeah, I did this most recently with the Smile films that are just coming out, and watching
19:19the 2022 one, not for the first time, but then the new one, and of course afterwards
19:23it all sort of merges together into one.
19:24Was that your experience here, or did any of them stand out?
19:27Well, obviously Endgame stood out, but why did this one stand out from the others?
19:32There's an interesting reason, I think.
19:35One of the reasons I wanted to watch them as well was because I'd seen some audience
19:38reaction clips on YouTube of some stuff that had happened in Endgame.
19:42I don't normally like that sort of thing.
19:45Like I said earlier, I much prefer a bit of quiet when I'm watching a film, but it was
19:49those really emotive cries of joy and amazement at some of the events that were happening
19:56in the film.
19:57I thought, I've got to watch it and see if I can feel that, and I did feel it.
20:01And the end of that sort of four parts, I know there's stuff that happens in between
20:05and beforehand that you really, I guess, should know about, but yeah, it's just another one
20:11of those special films, I think.
20:12And have you watched this since, and did you have the same effect?
20:17I have watched it since, and when it got to the part where I've watched a lot of reaction
20:22videos of people cheering, it felt a little bit lacking because I was so used to having
20:28those reactions.
20:29I still enjoyed it, but yeah, perhaps it's time to go back to the big screen to experience
20:37films.
20:38Yeah, because I find this sometimes, that a film can matter, and it could be the context,
20:42the person that you're with, or what it invokes.
20:44I found it with Get Out, actually, which had a great impact on me when it came out in 2017,
20:49but I saw it again recently on the big screen, and I saw it through a different lens and
20:53also re-experiencing my own life from that period, almost like the film conjured up all
20:59the emotions from the first time around.
21:01It sounds like it could have been the same with you, that you can never escape from,
21:05nor do you want to, that initial thrill that came from watching this.
21:09Yes, and I think there's always a risk, isn't there?
21:11You could end up being disappointed, and perhaps it's not as good as you first thought.
21:15And there was a little bit of that when I watched it, but I still think the whole thing,
21:19and all that comes before it, the three other parts, it is epic.
21:25It's just like Lord of the Rings, it takes you into another world, and you can just forget
21:29about stuff.
21:31And does it matter what other, as you mentioned, audience reactions, the same could go, because
21:36I read a lot of film criticism, but do you find that it can diminish rather than necessarily
21:42enhance your understanding of the film?
21:45Sometimes I like to read reviews of stuff that I found really good.
21:49Just to get different perspectives, and I do on occasion, if someone says something
21:54negative about what I perhaps thought was really good, I start to feel like I'm starting
21:59to believe their viewpoint as well, and that's, yeah, so it's a little bit of a worry sometimes.
22:04Yeah, and well that can be the thing, isn't it?
22:07Because I find that sometimes I come away from a film, and I need to read a review just
22:12to get some sense of maybe the counterpoint, just almost to sort of see what is the way
22:17in to this, and sometimes, even if I read lots of negative reviews, it enhances my sense
22:24that no, I really did like this film, because I'm disagreeing with all of that, but an initial
22:30review, an initial bad review, can really shape in a bad way your apprehension of a
22:34film, because you're expecting it to be something that may not be what you actually got out
22:37of it.
22:38I think I probably wouldn't have watched it if I'd have seen bad reviews beforehand, I
22:41just would have passed it off.
22:43And have you watched this film really recently?
22:47I watched this one two days ago, I think.
22:50And did it bring back some good memories, or were you like, oh, I'm not so sure?
22:55There's a lot of sort of fist-pumping bits in it, and there are moments where I probably
23:00could have blubbed like a baby as well, and I think I'll probably see different things
23:04each time, and as I sort of, as I'm getting older, I will just appreciate different parts
23:10of the story as well, whereas before, I would have just loved the action, but now I'm more
23:15into sort of the relationships and the underlying themes and emotions and stuff.
23:19Yeah, well, brilliant stuff.
23:21Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today, but before we go, if you live in
23:26Kent and want the chance to share four films of your choice, reach out to us at KMTV, and
23:33you might be invited in to be my next guest.
23:36But for now, many thanks to Martin Whiskin for joining us and being such a brilliant
23:41guest, and many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:44Until then, that's all from us.
23:46Goodbye!