The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

Official site now up. The film is going to be shown at this year's Edinburgh Festival:

http://whatisthisfilmcalledlove.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

sau wrote:Official site now up. The film is going to be shown at this year's Edinburgh Festival:

http://whatisthisfilmcalledlove.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mark's comments on Polly. From the Patron Saints section:

'Like many people with ears and a heart, I’ve been shaken, touched, haunted by PJ Harvey’s music over the years. A while ago she was kind enough to say some things about one of my films, The First Movie, about children and creativity in Kurdish Iraq. We started to communicate, I sent her some films, and then Timo and I used one of her songs to which to edit our rough cut.

And, as sometimes happens, we fell in love with the song. So I wrote to PJ Harvey, sending her the film…she not only gave us permission to use the track, but sent us two more, one of which sounds as if it was written for the film, but wasn’t.

The director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival told me, in an email, that there’s anxiety in this film. I think part of it comes from PJ Harvey’s music. This is a film of sunlight and storm clouds. Harvey’s music brings on the clouds. There’s something tenebrous about being middle aged, about watching life whizz past like a yellow ribbon on a fence (watch the film and you’ll get this reference!). I’ve never felt more alive than I do now, nor happier, and yet so much of life feels like leaving. Maybe that’s because friends have died, or because I’ve travelled so much, or because memories are so vivid and touching. What I know is that as well as the will to dance in the middle of one’s life, there’s the desire to howl at all that leaving. PJ Harvey, you helped this film howl.'

a little review of sorts from DIS...

First up was a screening of a rough-cut of What Is This Film Called Love?, Mark Cousins' charmingly self-indulgent love letter to travel, memory and Eisenstein filmed entirely on flip camera. (To justify my watching this on behalf of DiS, I should mention that it featured two brand new tracks from PJ Harvey – the first a swooping voice and piano number, the second a more menacing cut with a growling blues riff, both fabulous and potentially anticipating a more modestly organic direction following Let England Shake) http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4145 ... dis-review

Polly's official website said that one of the songs was To Bring you My Love, so I'm guessing that that was the bluesy song that the reviewer heard. Polly's official website said the two new songs are called Horse and Bobby Dont Steal.
I'm so excited for two new songs!

"two brand new tracks". One would think the reviewer would know TBYML if he heard it. On the other hand if any of Polly's songs could be described as "menacing with a growling blues riff" that would be TBYML.

Romario11 wrote:a little review of sorts from DIS...

First up was a screening of a rough-cut of What Is This Film Called Love?, Mark Cousins' charmingly self-indulgent love letter to travel, memory and Eisenstein filmed entirely on flip camera. (To justify my watching this on behalf of DiS, I should mention that it featured two brand new tracks from PJ Harvey – the first a swooping voice and piano number, the second a more menacing cut with a growling blues riff, both fabulous and potentially anticipating a more modestly organic direction following Let England Shake) http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4145 ... dis-review

Thanks, Romario. I - obviously - can't wait to hear these 2 new songs. Mouth-watering.

Perhaps I missed it, but I can't find any mention of a soundtrack release date for the 2 new PJ songs. Obviously would buy the tracks on iTunes once they're available.

Two reviews and an interview:

http://www.soundonsight.org/eiff-2012-m ... witterfeed" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.cinetalk.tv/post/26029816724 ... -this-film" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.thefilmpilgrim.com/features/ ... usins/8968" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'The PJ Harvey tracks that open and close the film are perfectly apropos, lovely and harsh the way only she can sound, and setting a tone by turns questing, nostalgic and regretful that suits the film entirely. In fact the whole soundtrack is pretty choice, with the all-over-the-map narrative allowing those PJ Harvey tracks to sit comfortably alongside the utter cheesiness of Tony Christie's "Avenues and Alleyways," which nestles up in neighbourly fashion to Bernard Herrman's "Vertigo" love theme (yes, somewhere, Kim Novak is scrubbing herself raw in the shower). And Cousins' inspirations are writ large too, not only Eisenstein’s theoretical work, but Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion and the poetry of Frank O'Hara all exert their pull in his mind, and therefore on the film's direction and narrative. If you're gonna borrow interest, they're pretty much impeccable sources.'

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... e-20120705#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'Mark Cousins On ‘What Is This Film Called Love?,’ PJ Harvey, 'Prometheus' & “The Sadness Of Time Passing”'...

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... g-20120714" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

“I’m always making things, and I did it to fill my three days. But no, I didn’t know what it would turn into. I knew I was being stimulated by thinking about Eisenstein’s ideas, so I went home and showed my editor: ‘I’ve just shot this thing, there might be something here and I know it’s from the heart.’ So we started to cut it (we cut very fast)...and we got it to 75 minutes and looked at it and thought ‘oh! There could be something here.’ And then we sent it to PJ Harvey.”

Cousins had included in the rough cut the PJ Harvey track “To Bring You My Love,” which is also in the final film, and sent the early edit to her to see if she would allow its use. Her response, he suggests, was instrumental in building his confidence about the project. “She sent me the most beautiful letter back saying she’d been inspired by the film and ‘Here are two new tracks as well, would you consider using them?’ And we used them, of course. So the first piece of music in the film is a PJ Harvey song that had never been used in public before, and it’s about Mexico -- by pure chance.”

He is well aware of the alchemical effect her tracks have on the film. “I said to [her afterwards] ‘Your music lifts this film off the ground,’ which I really think it does. Also what she does is she genders the film in a very interesting way. Surprisingly I would have made a more feminine film if it hadn’t been for PJ Harvey. Her music is hard and her voice is [growls huskily] so she provides this quite masculine element to what’s otherwise quite a gentle thing. I love that.”

What lovely comments, and interesting thoughts of her adding masculinity to the film. I'd love to be able to see it, and hear the new material of course.

Curious to see if anyone knows of additional UK screenings for this? It looks like there aren't any listed on the official site and the Facebook page seems to be a bit sporadic.

...was looking through the postcard session, seems to be a editing-story-sorta-like and find confirmation of PJ track TBML
http://whatisthisfilm.files.wordpress.c ... ard-84.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

edit:
and -+"you sad" sad song by PJH

sorry if it was written before

whats the betting these songs stay as part of the film soundtrack and are never released!! like a few of her other songs have in the past, I’m not getting my hopes up for a release!

are these songs available anywhere, or indeed the film itself?