Barry Norman talks classic filmBarry Norman was the doyen of film critics for a quarter of a century. Arts Editor Andrew Clarke spoke to him about classic movies and the art of good film criticism.
For more than 25 years Barry Norman was the face of British cinema-going. His instantly recognisable delivery, and his catchphrase “and why not?” which he still maintains was a Rory Bremner invention, made him the nation's favourite film critic.
Although Barry has been off our screens for eight years now, he likes to keep abreast of the recent releases -“film is in my blood” and likes to tour the country giving audiences a glimpse of the behind the scenes stories surrounding some of cinema's greatest moments.
Barry Norman recently visited Colchester's Mercury Theatre to reveal the inside story on four classics Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood and Dirty Harry.
“The films are chosen at random. They are not necessarily the best films ever made or even my own favourite films but they are all great movies, absolute classics in their own way, and I chose them because they each have a good story to tell.”
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So are there any movies released in the last ten years that he would be tempted to include, if the book were to be re-issued today?
“There are quite a few actually. I would certainly put Gladiator in there along with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and much more recently I would put Good Night, Good Luck, the George Clooney movie which tackled the McCarthy era witchunts, which I thought was absolutely brilliant. Brokeback Mountain is another film that deserves a place because it is a groundbreaker. It was one of the first Hollywood movies which came out and said that homosexuality is not such an evil thing. And I think that because it said it so outspokenly is why it didn't win the Oscar that year. They gave it to Crash instead which although it had a nice message that racism is rather nasty, it is something that we really ought to know by now.”
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