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Product Description

THE LONG DAY CLOSES is the last of Terence Davies' (OF TIME AND THE CITY) outstanding autobiographical films exploring his childhood in '50s Liverpool. Following on from the award-winning DISTANT VOICES and STILL LIVES, the film follows Bud, an 11 year-old working-class lad on the cusp of adolescence. Having grown-up in the security of a loving family, Bud's idyll is challenged when he moves school. Suddenly the cocoon of his past is shattered as he tries to adapt to the challenges of his new academic environment. He escapes into a fantasy life fuelled by the glamour of the cinema and romance of the soundtrack of the era. In Davies' hands this stylised, atmospheric film beautifully captures the terrifying confusion and isolation of youth, the loss of innocence and the excitement of sexual awakening.

Product details

Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.33:1
Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches; 3.2 ounces
Director ‏ : ‎ Terence Davies
Media Format ‏ : ‎ NTSC
Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 24 minutes
Release date ‏ : ‎ December 15, 2010
Actors ‏ : ‎ Leigh McCormack, Marjorie Yates, Anthony Watson
Producers ‏ : ‎ Olivia Stewart
Studio ‏ : ‎ Film4 Library
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004GEB640
Writers ‏ : ‎ Terence Davies
Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1

Best Sellers Rank: #287,881 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #2,921 in Fantasy DVDs

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4.3 81 ratings

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Jay Dickson

Moments of being

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2014

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Many British cultural critics consider Terence Davies likely their greatest living director, and much of that estimation rests on this, his loveliest film. An excursion into memory, THE LONG DAY CLOSES may evoke Fellini (in its visions of the past rendered larger than life, as in the famous ship sequence in AMARCORD) and Dennis Potter (in its use of popular music not just to romanticize the past but to show its inevitable dissonances with its realities) while all the time seeming very much its own special and distinct creation. The tableaux Davies evokes--from its opening shot of a poor Liverpool residential street drenched in a downpour, to its great closing shot of a mottled evening sky--almost stop the heart with their beauty. The story is a patchwork of memories of the childhood of Davies himself, here called "Bud": the youngest by far of four children, the film documents a year of his life (at age eleven) that roughly covers 1955 to 1956. No great dramatic incidents occur in the story: no one take seriously ill, or runs away, or gets married, or even fights. The film is in an assemblage of "spots of memory" wherein Bud usually stays at the margins (he is usually seen poised on a staircase or in a window), watching or listening to his family and the people around him. Although adored by his mother and elder siblings he is always an outsider; newly aware of his budding attraction to men, he can't join in in his brothers' attractions to the opposite sex (their fiancees are in the house nearly as much as the children themselves), and stays forever aloof. Family socializing is a wondrous time for Bud, although he is almost always the only youngster included. The only time he sees his age peers are at school, which is presented as a noisy painful place governed by adults who despise children. His great sources of solace are in the Catholic church, where he is a devout practitioner of his mother's Catholic faith, in the local movie palaces (of which he is an equally devout follower), and the radio: Davies uses the popular music of the time--Nat King Cole and Doris Day--not simply to enhance the beauty of Bud's surroundings but also to create a thread of mass culture to unite the ages and genders of Bud's community.

The film could be a little much, especially in its treatment of Bud's loneliness: there are times when he veers dangerously close to Matt Lucas's "the only gay boy in the village" in his constant self-pity and sorrow. But the highly personal and subjective nature of the film renders all this allowable. Davies is so sure in his decisions and his tone that his romanticization of the past is ultimately proudly affirmed; what is more, he also even deftly deconstructs it as the film proceeds. Criterion's reissue of this film (with great sound and image restoration, and lovely extras) could not be more welcome.

17 people found this helpful

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Gary W. Phelps

The Long Day Closes

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2014

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Here is a DVD that is very instructive for family viewing. This is not a Movie about a Boy who became a pedophile or homosexual because he lost
his father to a terminal illness, and no one was interested or cared about him as a survivor. No nudity. This film by Terrence Davis is actually an autobiographical film about enchantment and melancholy in a boy growing up in Liverpool, London during the 1950s who just lost his Father due to cancer. This boy suffered deeply as his Father screamed for morphine and unconsciously physically, psychologically and emotionally abused him.
Family and friends sincerely attempt to have him realize what he experienced from his abusive Father was not his fault. Leigh McCormack plays the lead role as the boy, Bud, and his performance is sheer true-to-life genius! This boy, Leigh McCormack superbly enacted Bud's mood swings from fantasies to memories, fears to dreams. I believe this film is an excellent means for those who are dealing with a youngster who has lost a parent in similar circumstances. I have allowed such individuals to review my Blue-Ray/DVD 2 disc copy of The Long Day Closes, which they found very helpful and instructive for their needs while in mourning. Terrence Davies lived this as a youth in his own fashion and went on in life to carry on.
My compliments to the British for another superb film.

2 people found this helpful

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M. Jackson

Moving art

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2014

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This is a gorgeous film. It is about the "tween" gay experience--that time when awareness of ones sexuality occurs, but one is too young to really do anything about it. The fact that the boy is gay is established early in the film as he looks out a window noticing a particularly attractive and shirtless worker who winks at him. That's the end of any indication of the boy's homosexuality, except for how he relates and sees the rest of the world. He is obsessed with the movies and sees his hometown world in poetic terms. The film is about the boy's observations of everything from family to school to the influence of Hollywood. For some it may be long and it is light on story and there are no plot points leading from one to the other and culminating in some sort of satisfying end or message. It is just an exploration of a boy's experience in the world when that lens is colored by being gay. The DVD extras showing the creation of the film are very informative and add to the appreciation of this piece of art.

5 people found this helpful

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Jonathan May

Undiscovered Masterpiece!

Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2008

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Last evening I watched my old VHS tape of John Huston's "The Dead," which I like to watch every Christmas, and then I cast about for something appropriate to watch or read thereafter. Only "The Long Day Closes" would do. I sought out the old tape I had made from TV some years ago, and again it worked its enchantment. It too is about to wear out and the sound quality is poor. A pity neither of these great works is available on Region 1 DVD. They both soar over all the other Christmas-appropriate films.
I feared that "The Long Day Closes" might not continue to hold up. My fear was groundless. It has joined Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" as one of the great modern masterpieces about childhood. In a strange way it is one of the finest musicals ever made. The use of Debbie Reynolds singing "Tammy" over panning shots down on the heads of people in rows in a movie house, a church, and a school becomes a breathtaking climax. And its use of dialogue from other movies, particularly "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Great Expectations," is brilliantly handled.
Try to see this movie!

6 people found this helpful

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TwD

Great film

Reviewed in Canada on April 13, 2019

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Great film, great price.

One person found this helpful

D Borja

Excelente propuesta de registro de memoria y música

Reviewed in Spain on June 24, 2018

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Canciones y momentos pura nostalgia filmada

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Amazon Kunde

poetisch, essentiell und zeitloses Filmkunstwerk über die eigene KIndheit

Reviewed in Germany on July 29, 2018

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man braucht erst eine Weile, um der Art dieses Films näher zu kommen, taucht dann aber völlig darin ein.

In einer eigenartigen Atmosphäre spielt Davies hier wie ein Kind mit Szenen seiner Kindheit, Zitaten aus Filmen und präzise ausgewählter Musik aus der Zeit.

Und so ist neben der vordergründigen Darstellung der Lebens im Liverpooler Arbeiterviertel der 50er ein poetisches Kunstwerk über die Frage nach unserer (kindlichen) Existenz entstanden.

Damit ist das gelungen, was der deutsche Film niemals schaffen wird: Unterhaltung, Humor und Poesie nicht gegen die philosophische Tiefe auszuspielen, sondern sie dafür zu nutzen!

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K. Duffy

Interior Life of a Child

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2009

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The director describes the inner life of a young boy with a series of poignant and moving images that often get lost as we grow older. The family is beautifully drawn, and yet it is as though we are watching ghosts filtered through the young boy's dream-like existence. There is a beautiful scene, very short, where the boy looks from the house window and sees his brother, stripped to the waist, building a wall. Through brilliant direction and acting we know that the boy is filled with love and admiration for his brother, admiration for him as a beautiful man and love for him as his brother, as well as an almost primitive knowledge that things pass, that this moment will be gone. In the heightened, emotional life of the child where everything is highly significant, there is a poignant gap between the strange adult world and this precious small moment.
In a way this film describes how the limited view of the child, confined by the street, school, his friend, makes a whole universe in itself that is larger than the world of the adults around him, despite their mystique, their perceived freedom. At the end of the film the boy and his friend see themselves as part of the mysteries of the universe. They can make the natural leap from the small tragedies of their childhood world and the warm confines of a bustling working class household to the stars and planets that an inspired teacher has introduced them to. They can make that link. A masterpiece.

30 people found this helpful

David Hunt

Excellent et quasi Proustien

Reviewed in France on January 29, 2019

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Un film remarquable avec une musique qui soutien le déroulement avec sensibilité et tendesse

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Genre	Kids & Family, Fantasy
Format	NTSC
Contributor	Olivia Stewart, Anthony Watson, Terence Davies, Leigh McCormack, Marjorie Yates
Runtime	1 hour and 24 minutes
UPC	885444111129

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The Long Day Closes

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