This screening event is now cancelled, but we will be sharing Man with a Camera online on the weekend of 3rd April. Notification of that will be made on our social media channels and here also in due course.
Dear Green Place (1968) captures the genius of Italian born Scottish photographer Oscar Marzaroli. Directed by Marzaroli in 1968 and produced by Ogam Films, of which Marzaroli was a co-founder, the film’s clever use of soundtrack and commentary to fit the photographs being displayed adds depth to an already rich selection of Marzaroli’s work. Ewan McColl sings about seeing ‘a train set the night on fire’ from ‘Dirty Old Town’, as the film pans across an evocative image of a smoke billowing from a train leaving Glasgow Central Station.
Photographs of children playing in Glasgow streets and back closes are displayed to traditional Scottish folk song ‘Coulters Candy’ and some of Marzaroli’s wonderful images of outdoor spaces and parks in Glasgow are displayed to the song ‘You like the Sun’.
The commentary, written by Alasdair Gray, describes the changes in the city being documented by Marzaroli; ’a new kind of Glasgow is being built’. The theme of our memories in a changing city runs throughout the film as the commentary states ‘the city that I grew up in is fast disappearing, already many of the places of my childhood exist only in my memory’.
Running Time: 14 mins 33 secs
Man with a Camera (2014) celebrates the life and work of Glasgow's pre-eminent photographer, using some of the 50,000 shots taken over thirty years - a moving portrait of a love affair between a man and his city, and the affection in which he is held today.
Marzaroli's black-and-white photographs have become synonymous with a post-war Scotland in the throes of regeneration. They captured both the aspects of the old, such as the rag-and-bone man in the Gorbals or the cockle gatherers of Barra, and the paraphernalia of the new - cranes, towers and construction at Glasgow's Charing Cross.
As Glasgow's landscape changes once again and the high-rises that Marzaroli documented going up are gradually being razed to the ground, this film celebrates Marzaroli's remarkable photographic legacy.
Running Time: 29 mins 30 secs
Dear Green Place is available to view through the National Libraries of Scotland Moving Image Archive.
Many thanks to Hopscotch Films for their support in screening Man with a Camera.
All Images: © Oscar Marzaroli / The Marzaroli Collection
Banner Image: Contact Sheet 1964
Left Image: Oscar Marzaroli with friend and business partner at Ogam Films, Martin Singleton
