Margaret Tait – Selected Films 1952-1976

Director: Margaret Tait
Year: 1952-1976
Language: English
Length: 110 mins
Format: PAL | R0
Colour: Colour and Black & White
Certificate: E

Synopsis

Margaret Tait was one of Britain's most unique and individual artist filmmakers. Over the course of 46 years she produced over 30 films including one feature, Blue Black Permanent (1992) and published five books of poetry and short stories, while living between the Island of Orkney and Edinburgh.

Tait described her life's work as consisting of making film-poems. She often quoted Lorca's phrase of 'stalking the image' to define her philosophy and method, the idea that if you look at an object closely enough it will speak its nature.

This clarity of vision and purpose with an attention to simple commonplace subjects combined with a rare sense of inner rhythm and pattern give her films a transcendental quality, while still remaining firmly rooted within the everyday. Tait once said of her films, with characteristic modesty, that they are born of "of sheer wonder and astonishment at how much can be seen in any place that you choose… If you really look".