Duane Hopkins
Encyclopedia
Duane Hopkins is an English film director
, artist
and photographer, best known for directing the independent film Better Things
(2008).
as part of International Critics' Week. A dark, unblinking tale of rural adolescence, Field went on to win a host of prizes at festivals internationally. Hopkins followed Field in 2003 with his second short film Love Me Or Leave Me Alone, made as part of Film 4 and UK Film Council
’s Cinema Extreme
scheme for new British filmmaking talent. Love Me Or Leave Me Alone, ‘a study in the articulations and limitations of first love’, premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival
where it won Best British Short Film. Like Field it was highly successful; together the two films gathered over 30 international awards.
Hopkins then wrote and directed his debut feature film Better Things
. Shot on location in the West Midlands of England
, Better Things
premiered at International Critics' Week in Cannes
2008, where it was nominated for the Camera D’Or. A multi-narrative tale of love, yearning and loss amongst the young and old of a small town in rural England, Better Things
was widely praised by critics as a film that was both radical and nuanced. It was often noted for its use of cinematic technique and narrative approach to connect themes such as romantic need, the roots of drug addiction, and existential
notions of anxiety, purposefully against a contemporary, epic rural backdrop. Variety
stated: "Duane Hopkins follows his prize-winning shorts with visually distinctive first feature Better Things
. Beautifully shot with cast of eye-catching non-pros… gives a special twist to UK tradition of social realism
by juxtaposing the natural and the constructed." The Guardian
wrote that Better Things
"has a bold and brilliant insight at its heart" while The Independent
argued that "Hopkins is a director with an introspective subtlety uncommon in UK filmmaking", and in choosing Better Things
as its Film of the Month, Sight and Sound wrote "Hopkins’ film depicts, or rather creates, a piece of British social landscape that we have never quite seen before". Le Monde
made Better Things
its film of the week, comparing Hopkins' work to "the abstract violence of Alan Clarke
, and the lyrical harshness of Bill Douglas
...Hopkins clearly has a lot in common with such directors: he uses a harsh metaphysical darkness and an acute sense of formal composition.".
Hopkins has been described as being at the centre of an emergent 'British New Wave' alongside directors like Steve McQueen
, with Better Things
distinguished "by its technical and stylistic approaches to typical problems of British realism". His film work has been noted for its precise compositions and technical rigour, and for its poetic cinematic rendering of realist subject matter, characters and environments.
Hopkins also works in the fields of photography and moving image art. His first solo gallery exhibition Sunday, a collection of single and multi-channel moving image installations, opened at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
in March 2009. Sunday deals with contemporary British youth and the relationships between identity, psychology and environment. The format of the individual pieces within the Sunday collection is that of multiple images knitted together to form multi-screen scenes, each working in different ways with atmosphere and narrative. The impression formed is suggestive of a social-realist
fairy tale
– the subtle interaction of realist
, surreal
and romantic
tropes. With Sunday Hopkins was said to have "created an experience that is entirely separate from the conventions of sitting in a cinema. He generates a portrait of youth that has a matter of fact, harsh reality to it and a psychological intensity that is unnerving." Sunday was also exhibited at galleries in Liverpool and Yokohama in 2009.
Hopkins produces the work of other filmmakers through Third, a company co-founded with producer Samm Haillay. With Third Hopkins has produced Daniel Elliott’s Venice-winning short film The Making of Parts and Berlinale-winning Jade. In 2010 he co-produced the feature film debut of the artist Gillian Wearing
, titled Self Made.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and photographer, best known for directing the independent film Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
(2008).
Career
Hopkins' first short film, Field, made in 2001, premiered at Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
as part of International Critics' Week. A dark, unblinking tale of rural adolescence, Field went on to win a host of prizes at festivals internationally. Hopkins followed Field in 2003 with his second short film Love Me Or Leave Me Alone, made as part of Film 4 and UK Film Council
UK Film Council
The UK Film Council was set up in 2000 by the Labour Government as a non-departmental public body to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee governed by a board of 15 directors and was funded through sources including the...
’s Cinema Extreme
Cinema Extreme
Cinema Extreme is a major UK short film funding awards scheme, created in 2002. The scheme is funded by the UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund and Film4 and managed by The Bureau with the aim "to seek out and develop filmmakers with a distinctive directorial voice and cinematic flair"...
scheme for new British filmmaking talent. Love Me Or Leave Me Alone, ‘a study in the articulations and limitations of first love’, premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival
Edinburgh International Film Festival
The Edinburgh International Film Festival is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival...
where it won Best British Short Film. Like Field it was highly successful; together the two films gathered over 30 international awards.
Hopkins then wrote and directed his debut feature film Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
. Shot on location in the West Midlands of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
premiered at International Critics' Week in Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
2008, where it was nominated for the Camera D’Or. A multi-narrative tale of love, yearning and loss amongst the young and old of a small town in rural England, Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
was widely praised by critics as a film that was both radical and nuanced. It was often noted for its use of cinematic technique and narrative approach to connect themes such as romantic need, the roots of drug addiction, and existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
notions of anxiety, purposefully against a contemporary, epic rural backdrop. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
stated: "Duane Hopkins follows his prize-winning shorts with visually distinctive first feature Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
. Beautifully shot with cast of eye-catching non-pros… gives a special twist to UK tradition of social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
by juxtaposing the natural and the constructed." The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
wrote that Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
"has a bold and brilliant insight at its heart" while The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
argued that "Hopkins is a director with an introspective subtlety uncommon in UK filmmaking", and in choosing Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
as its Film of the Month, Sight and Sound wrote "Hopkins’ film depicts, or rather creates, a piece of British social landscape that we have never quite seen before". Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
made Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
its film of the week, comparing Hopkins' work to "the abstract violence of Alan Clarke
Alan Clarke
Alan Clarke was a television and film director, producer and writer, born in Wallasey, Merseyside, England.Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, including work for the famous play strands The Wednesday Play and Play for Today...
, and the lyrical harshness of Bill Douglas
Bill Douglas
William Gerald Forbes Douglas was a Scottish film director best known for the trilogy of films about his early life.-Biography:...
...Hopkins clearly has a lot in common with such directors: he uses a harsh metaphysical darkness and an acute sense of formal composition.".
Hopkins has been described as being at the centre of an emergent 'British New Wave' alongside directors like Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen (artist)
Steve Rodney McQueen CBE is a British artist and filmmaker. He is a winner of the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival, a Turner Prize and BAFTA.-Early years:...
, with Better Things
Better Things (2008 film)
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
distinguished "by its technical and stylistic approaches to typical problems of British realism". His film work has been noted for its precise compositions and technical rigour, and for its poetic cinematic rendering of realist subject matter, characters and environments.
Hopkins also works in the fields of photography and moving image art. His first solo gallery exhibition Sunday, a collection of single and multi-channel moving image installations, opened at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is an international centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne alongside the Gateshead Millennium Bridge in Gateshead, North East England, United Kingdom...
in March 2009. Sunday deals with contemporary British youth and the relationships between identity, psychology and environment. The format of the individual pieces within the Sunday collection is that of multiple images knitted together to form multi-screen scenes, each working in different ways with atmosphere and narrative. The impression formed is suggestive of a social-realist
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
– the subtle interaction of realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
, surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
tropes. With Sunday Hopkins was said to have "created an experience that is entirely separate from the conventions of sitting in a cinema. He generates a portrait of youth that has a matter of fact, harsh reality to it and a psychological intensity that is unnerving." Sunday was also exhibited at galleries in Liverpool and Yokohama in 2009.
Hopkins produces the work of other filmmakers through Third, a company co-founded with producer Samm Haillay. With Third Hopkins has produced Daniel Elliott’s Venice-winning short film The Making of Parts and Berlinale-winning Jade. In 2010 he co-produced the feature film debut of the artist Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing OBE RA is an English conceptual artist, one of the YBAs, and winner of the annual British fine arts award, The Turner Prize, in 1997. On 11 December 2007, Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London....
, titled Self Made.
Filmography
- Field (2001)
- Love Me Or Leave Me Alone (2003)
- Better ThingsBetter Things (2008 film)Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other...
(2008)