Friday night sees the launch of a book by Mark Cousins, a Belfast-born film director and critic who is “halfway to being a global superstar.”
Dear Orson Welles is a collection of film-related essays and memoirs by the Ballysillan-born Cousins and beautifully produced by The Irish Pages Press.
For Irish Pages publisher, Chris Agee, Mark Cousins is a “prophet in his own land.”
“I know Mark would baulk at the title of ‘prophet’ but one of the striking things about him is, despite his global reputation as a filmmaker, he’s not well known in his own place, Belfast. That’s a bit of a mystery as Mark is a truly great filmmaker,” says Agee.
Cousins has made groundbreaking TV series for the BBC, including Moviedrome and Scene by Scene and he has interviewed the biggest names in cinema, from
Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Lauren Bacall, to Jane Russell, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Lemmon, Janet Leigh and Rod Steiger as well as film directors from China, eastern Europe and all over Africa,
“Cousins grew up in north Belfast during the troubles and, like a lot of people, because of the oppressive tension that weighed down on people during that time, Mark found release in the cinema,” says Chris Agee.
“Although he doesn’t like to make a lot of it, he was bullied and his mixed-marriage family had to move.
“He felt, like so many of us, the dead and leaden hand of the troubles imbued in this place but his outlet was the cinema and by age 15, he was a real film buff, and it was in the dark of the cinema where he felt a sort of freedom and release.”
Cousins then moved to Edinburgh to do a film course and has stayed in the Scottish capital ever since.
Starting with Star Wars Mark absorbed all sorts of influences, from the most sophisticated to the most popular, and he made his own until he was able to create his own style.
Amongst these stylistically adventurous films is I Am Belfast which Agee calls “simply the best film ever done in Belfast”.
“One of the things the book teaches us is how to think visually, and in a meaningful and emotional way,” he says, “but I also think the book represents Mark’s emergence as a write.
“He himself has been somewhat hesitant about his own literary talent but that is totally unjustified.
“As I say on the dust jacket, Dear Orson Welles & Other Essays is not only an instant classic on cinema and visual thinking - but equally a work of distinct literary importance, infused with an inimitable style, and traversing the globe with recurring themes, deep feeling and characteristically bold ideas.”
In what Chris Agee calls “a homecoming”, Dear Orson Welles by Mark Cousins is to be launched tonight at Queen’s Film Theatre, starting at 6pm.
The launch will be followed at 7:30 pm by a special screening event, which will feature a highlight reel of film clips chosen by Mark, along with a Q&A. Mark’s new book will be on sale and refreshments will be available.