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Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 7:19 am
by MichaelB
From a BFI press release:
NIL BY MOUTH (1997) – Blu-ray World Premiere, September 16
The Blu-ray World Premiere of NIL BY MOUTH (1997), Gary Oldman's directorial debut, is a disturbing portrait of a dysfunctional South London family, starring Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke.
Re: Nil By Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 12:22 pm
by Zot!
I think "harrowing" is a fair assessment.
Re: Nil By Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 12:37 pm
by swo17
I only know this as the film that once held the record for most swears (which has since been broken a few times)
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 2:06 pm
by colinr0380
Its a
great film (NSFW: Language) with a fantastic performance by Kathy Burke (better known for her BBC comedies at the time) in particular.
It might just be because both films feature career best performances from Ray Winstone and both are directed by actors but I would love to see the similarly harrowing
The War Zone get some more attention too.
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 2:13 pm
by MichaelB
Both films are also conscious tributes to Alan Clarke, who got career-best performances out of them in Made in Britain (Roth’s first!) and The Firm.
And I believe an early association with Clarke didn’t exactly hurt Ray Winstone either.
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 4:09 pm
by jazzo
colinr0380 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 2:06 pm
Its a
great film (NSFW: Language) with a fantastic performance by Kathy Burke (better known for her BBC comedies at the time) in particular.
It might just be because both films feature career best performances from Ray Winstone and both are directed by actors but I would love to see the similarly harrowing
The War Zone get some more attention too.
Better than Crystal Skull?
Easy joke. Sorry.
Both performances are astonishing, although Sexy Beast has to fall somewhere in there.
Re: Nil By Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 4:56 pm
by domino harvey
swo17 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 03, 2018 12:37 pm
I only know this as the film that once held the record for most swears (which has since been broken a few times)
I believe it was specifically the record holder for the word "fuck" until
the Wolf of Wall Street, discounting that documentary on the word "fuck," which I think is cheating to count!
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 5:05 pm
by swo17
But then apparently the Trailer Park Boys movie Swearnet beat them both
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 5:11 pm
by domino harvey
I got about fifty seconds into a YouTube compilation of Swearnet's "Best Parts," and I'm now pro-censorship
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 5:16 pm
by colinr0380
I suppose the South Park movie would be in the running too, although that
varied its swear words up a bit! (NSFW: Language)
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 5:22 pm
by domino harvey
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 7:01 pm
by MichaelB
That’s only a list of films using the word “fuck”, but I’d be pretty staggered if Nil by Mouth didn’t score very highly indeed when it comes to films using the word “cunt”. I’m struggling to think of an obvious challenger.
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:15 pm
by McCrutchy
This is excellent news. I always wanted to see this film, but I was put off by the lack of a film-speed version with the original 5.1 audio. The UK DVD has 5.1, but I'm quite sensitive to PAL speed-up with English-language films, while the US DVD from Sony was another of their bizarre Dolby Surround-only jobs like
The City of Lost Children, even though the film was released in Dolby Digital and Sony's 8-channel SDDS system theatrically. And I looked into a
Japanese DVD, only to find that the DVD (and the film?) is heavily cut in Japan by about
nine minutes (!), also has only 2.0 audio, and apparently never got a second pressing, so it is far out-of-print, anyway.
I hope Oldman is involved with the Blu-ray and that Winstone and Burke are involved in the extras. As I recall, neither the UK or US DVDs had any real extras, other than perhaps a trailer.
EDIT: Just saw that we'll have to wait for September...goodness me!
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2018 2:11 am
by colinr0380
One great thing I remember seeing at the time was a segment of Channel 4's very short lived single season attempt at doing a serious film show Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 1998 (which has pretty much fallen into obscurity now and has an almost un-Google-able for information title that inevitably only brings up the Robert Downey Jr film), which instead of just interviewing Kathy Burke about Nil By Mouth instead took her to the cinema to review Hal Hartley's then latest film, Henry Fool. I seem to recall that she was a big fan of the filmmaker!
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:30 am
by M Sanderson
What happened to this release?
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:33 am
by MichaelB
Still happening, as far as I'm aware, but I gather it was announced prematurely.
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:44 pm
by zedz
MichaelB wrote:Both films are also conscious tributes to Alan Clarke, who got career-best performances out of them in Made in Britain (Roth’s first!) and The Firm.
And I believe an early association with Clarke didn’t exactly hurt Ray Winstone either.
Yes, of all the major directors Oldman and Roth had worked with, Clarke is the one they emulate. I’d love to see The War Zone rescued. A beautifully bleak film.
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 10:34 pm
by flyonthewall2983
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 10:46 pm
by domino harvey
Thought that was gonna be a link to the documentary on the word “fuck”!
Nil by Mouth
Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 4:26 am
by MichaelB
South Bank Shows are pretty much impossible to licence these days. Believe me, I’ve tried.
From what I gather, although they’ve licensed them in the past, ITV’s policy now is that they’re too much hassle (since they insist on doing all relevant rights clearance at their end) for too little reward (since the fee as a mere BD extra isn’t going to amount to very much).
This is why Arrow’s Taviani Brothers box lacks the SBS on the making of Kaos (despite me getting its original producer/director firmly on my side), and why Indicator’s Scum is similarly bereft.
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 10:09 am
by cdnchris
Criterion seems to licence them left and right, with Local Hero being the most recent. Are they doing it in bulk making it more worthwhile or are they just ponying up more money? I always find them invaluable so it's a real shame not to get them on other titles.
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 10:41 am
by MichaelB
It could be the by-product of an older deal struck before the recent change of policy. Either that or they are indeed spending much more money.
But I don’t recall a UK boutique label managing to get hold of a South Bank Show since the BFI’s Werner Herzog box.
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2022 2:29 pm
by MichaelB
Full specs announced:
NIL BY MOUTH
A film by Gary Oldman
Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles
25th Anniversary 4K remaster by the BFI National Archive
BFI Limited Edition 2-disc Blu-ray, iTunes and Amazon Prime release on 5 December 2022
See the new trailer
here.
In honour of its 25th Anniversary this year, the BFI National Archive remastered Gary Oldman’s directorial debut, NIL BY MOUTH (1987) in 4K. Following its world premiere at the 66th BFI London Film Festival, NIL BY MOUTH was released in cinemas and on BFI Player at the beginning of November. On 5 December it comes to Blu-ray, released in a Limited Edition 2-disc set. Gary Oldman himself contributed to the special features and worked closely with the BFI on this release. A retrospective season of his films is currently taking place at BFI Southbank, running until 29 November.
An uncompromising, double-Bafta winning portrait of a particular milieu of working-class family life in southeast London, where its writer and director grew up, NIL BY MOUTH is a powerful, astute, authentically foul-mouthed account of unfettered machismo, booze and drugs, petty crime and domestic abuse.
The performances are mesmerising throughout, with Ray Winstone as the volatile and self-pitying Ray, Kathy Burke (who won Best Actress at Cannes) as his longsuffering wife Val and Charlie Creed-Miles as her junkie brother Billy. Shot and scripted in a deceptively casual realist style reminiscent of John Cassavetes, this profoundly personal and humane film eschews sensationalism and sentimentality to illuminate a vicious circle of abuse and criminality. A dark but dazzling masterwork.
Special features
• Newly remastered in 4K by the BFI National Archive and approved by writer-director Gary Oldman
• Audio commentary by Gary Oldman and Douglas Urbanski
•
Setting The Record Straight (2022, 51 mins): Gary Oldman in conversation with film critic Geoff Andrew
•
A Slice of Life (2022, 22 mins): Ray Winstone looks back on his Bafta-nominated performance
•
Talent is Worth Trusting: Douglas Urbanski on Nil by Mouth (2022, 16 mins): Gary Oldman’s long-time collaborator and the producer of
Nil by Mouth discusses how the film came to be made
•
Fearing the Worst: Charlie Creed-Miles on Nil by Mouth (2022, 28 mins): the actor discusses his role as Billy, from his audition to some of the key scenes in the film
•
People Were Queuing For Any Role (2022, 16 mins): casting director Sue Jones recalls her work on the film
•
Mother (1994, 7 mins): the only surviving footage recorded by Gary Oldman for an unrealised documentary about his mother’s life and experiences
• Deleted scenes (1997, 38 mins): a series of deleted scenes selected by Gary Oldman
• Galleries – a selection of stills and rare production materials from Gary Oldman’s personal archive
•
Children (1976, 46 mins): written while still a student, Terence Davies’ film has an uncompromising honesty that is echoed in
Nil by Mouth
• Trailer (2022)
• ***First pressing only*** 80-page book featuring new writing by Douglas Urbanski, Kat Ellinger, Philip Kemp, and Jason Wood, plus archive pieces from Time Out and Sight & Sound. Also includes contributions from Lou Thomas and Gary Oldman, and never-before-seen original storyboards from the film
Product details
RRP: £24.99 / Cat. no. BFIB1347 / 18
UK / 1997 / colour / 128 mins / English language, with optional subtitles for the Deaf and partial hearing, and audio description original aspect ratio 1.66:1 // Disc 1: BD50, 1080p, 24fps, 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, PCM 2.0 stereo audio (48kHz/24-bit) // Disc 2: BD50, 1080p, 24fps, Dolby Digital stereo audio (48kHz/16-bit)
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:11 pm
by jazzo
This set looks spectacular. I see no mention of region coding. Is it, by any chance, region free?
Re: Nil by Mouth
Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2022 12:51 am
by Finch
