Searching for: Murray Martin
Films (Showing 3 of 31 results) (show all)
The Pursuit of Happiness
Amber Films 2008
When Amber founder member and key visionary Murray Martin died in 2007 the nature of the documentary the group was making in County Durham's horsey community the film changed. Recognised as a major figure in British film and photography history, he was loved and revered as a horsey man in the harness racing world. The film became an exploration of a filmmaker who became part of the world he documented; an exploration of how to be in this world.
The Bamboozler
Amber Films 2007
When Tyneside percussionist Bruce Arthur died in 2002, he left behind an Aladdin’s Cave of instruments, gathered from the four corners of the Earth – drums, gongs, wood blocks, marimbas, squeaky hammers, sound sculptures and much, much more. The collection occupied the whole bottom floor of his house and he left it all to his friend and ex-pupil Brendan Murphy. Amber’s film explores the story and how it led to the setting up of The Rumba Palace, a place for rehearsals, workshops and the sheer joy of hitting things well. And it follows sound sculptor Adrian Sander as he begins to make Bruce’s last ‘commission’, a thing of brass and bamboo: The Bamboozler. As Bruce’s wife Sue says, ‘Bruce liked to bamboozle people.’
Like Father
Amber Films 2001
Like Father portrays a family in crisis, focusing on the dislocations of grandfather, father and son. Pigeon man Arthur Elliott, a 70 year-old whose working life in the pit gave him a strong sense of identity and pride, is losing his allotment to the local authority's coastal redevelopment scheme. Working as a trumpet player, a teacher and a club singer, as well as running an agency for club acts, 40 year old, ex-miner, Joe Elliott can just about scrape a living out of his music, but he is losing his wife. 10 year old Michael Elliott, who is living with the pit village folklore and the wreckage of the coal industry, is left to grapple with his own realities. Each of the three generations is struggling to come to terms with the past and find the ties that bind them. The three separate, but essentially integrated worlds, unfold against the rich and extraordinary backdrop of East Durham's landscapes and locations.
Pages (Showing 3 of 6 results) (show all)
Weegee Portfolio - Interview with Sid Kaplan
from: Side Gallery
Murray Martin - The Album
from: Film Archive
Amber: The UNESCO Inscription
from: Film Archive
Exhibitions (Showing 10 of 15 results) (show all)
Murray Martin - The Album
from: Photography
Murray Martin was a founder member of Amber and the prime architect of the vision that continues to inform its work. These images have been selected from the many photographs that were collected and
The Pursuit of Happiness (2008)
from: Film Archive
Starting out as a film about the Coulsons, a horsey family in Craghead, County Durham, when Amber founder member and key visionary Murray Martin died in 2007, it became a documentary about a filmmaker who became part of the world he documented.
Exhibitions 1977 to 1999
from: Side Gallery
Complete Side Gallery exhibitions from its opening in 1977 to 1994, followed by an outline of activity between 1995 and 1999.
Maybe (1969)
from: Film Archive
A gentle documentary about the Shields Ferry on the River Tyne and its engine man, initiated while studying film at Regents Street Polytechnic by members of the group that was to become Amber.
Launch (1973)
from: Film Archive
The classic shot of the launch of an oil tanker at the bottom of a street has ensured the popularity of this beautiful documentary, opening up on the epic experience of shipbuilding communities. See a video clip
specialised in hand glassmaking for industrial markets, from fine capillary tubes to large carboys.
Available as VHS
Available as DVD
Horse Nation by Dean Chapman
from: Side Gallery
HORSE NATION
Dean Chapman
*Saturday 21 June to Saturday 23
Mai (1974)
from: Film Archive
The obsessive collector Mai Finglass was the landlady of Amber members Murray Martin and Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, when they were studying film at Regents Street Polytechnic. This beautiful documentary was the completion of a project they initiated as students.
Robert Doisneau
from: Side Gallery
One of documentary photography’s greats, Doisneau’s life’s work was a narrative of Paris. “In Paris, I know the town. I always need a lot of time, I have to be very familiar with a place, to
Quayside
from: Photography
A documentation from 1979 of the area of Newcastle where the collective is based, then under threat of redevelopment. The exhibition and publication (full text included here) featured photographs by Sirkka and, fellow Amber member at the time, Graham Smith. The work is linked to Amber's film Quayside.
The Filleting Machine (1981)
from: Film Archive
Rooted in his own experience of the North Shields fish quay and set on the Ridges estate, a powerful film drama written by Tom Hadaway.