Carol Morley

Last updated

Carol Morley
Carol Morley at the 58th BFI London Film Festival Awards.jpg
Morley at the 58th BFI London Film Festival Awards in October 2014
Born
Carol Anne Morley

(1966-01-14) 14 January 1966 (age 57)
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Director, producer, screenwriter
Years active1993–present

Carol Anne Morley (born 14 January 1966) [1] is an English film director, screenwriter and producer. She is best known for her semi-documentary Dreams of a Life , released in 2011, about Joyce Carol Vincent, who died in her North London bedsit in 2003, but was not discovered until 2006. [2]

Contents

Her older brother is the music journalist, critic and producer Paul Morley.

Early life

Born in Stockport, Cheshire, Morley left school at the age of sixteen to be a singer in various bands. [3] When she was thirteen she was in a band called The Playground, and later she was a part of a band called TOT.

Morley's father died by suicide when she was eleven and at the age of twelve she started drinking alcohol. After a traumatic experience due to alcohol Morley stopped drinking until she was sixteen. In 1982, the same year Morley left school, the nightclub The Haçienda opened in Manchester. Morley spent a lot of time at the Haçienda until she was 21 and left Manchester.

Somewhere in between 1986 and 1987 Morley left Stockport and Manchester to live in London. She decided to attend Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design where she studied Fine Art Film. [4] Morley graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1993 with an honours degree in fine art film and video. [5] She did not return to Manchester for twelve years and when she did it was to make her documentary The Alcohol Years. [4]

Career

Morley has written and directed a total of 12 films from 1993 to 2011, ranging in length from 3 minutes to 93 minutes. Morley made two degree films at Central Saint Martins, one of which is called Girl. Shot with 16mm film, this short film uses cross-cutting and devices of the genre melodrama to create a feeling of conflict and crisis. [6] The other degree film was Secondhand Daylight which was set in a fast food restaurant, and in which a group of young people talked about their problems. It too was shot on 16 mm film. [7]

I'm Not Here was inspired by the letter Alec Guinness wrote to The Times in which he complained about how little attention customers got in shops. The film concerns boredom and shop assistants. [8] In the short film The Week Elvis Died (15 mins), written and directed by Morley, we see 11-year-old Karen (played by Jennifer Williams) meet Tony Blackburn, played by Blackburn himself. Also shot on 16mm film. [9]

During her years at Saint Martins her feature debut film, The Alcohol Years, began to take shape. It is a documentary based on her years as a troubled youth (age 16-21) during the early eighties in Manchester, in which she spent a lot of her time in the Hacienda. [3] Five years of her life were lost due to heavy drinking and in the documentary Morley seeks to find out what really happened during this time by interviewing those she knew. [10] [4] It is directed and filmed by Morley and produced by Cairo Cannon, who produces Morley’s films. Together they own the company CAMP, Cannon and Morley Productions. [11]

Everyday Something is a short film (14 mins) from 2001 shot on 35mm. It is based on Morley's collection of newspaper cuttings and explores the unusual happenings in ordinary people's lives. [12] [13] In Return Trip (24 mins) Morley tracks down an old friend, Catherine Corcoran, and together they revisit India where they once travelled as teenagers. [14] Stalin My Neighbour (15 mins) deals with Morley's obsession about missing people. The main character Annie is obsessed with local history but trying to forget her past. [15] It was included on the same DVD as The Alcohol Years. [4]

The Fear of Trilogy (3 mins) was filmed with a mobile phone and was shot and edited in one day. [16] Her short film called The Madness of the Dance (18 mins) was finished in 2006. It looks into mass manias and individual obsessions like the "biting mania" and obsessive compulsive disorders like trichotillomania. [17] [18]

Morley’s first fictional film Edge was released in 2010 and tells the story of six guests trapped at the Cliff Edge Hotel during winter. [3] [19]

In 2006 the remains of 38-year-old Joyce Carol Vincent were found in her apartment, three years after her death. This inspired Morley to make the docu-drama Dreams of a Life , where actress Zawe Ashton portrays Joyce Vincent. [20]

She was a guest at the 4th annual Screen Stockport Film Festival , answering questions on her new film The Falling . [21] Morley's young-adult novel 7 Miles Out was published in 2015.

In May 2017 it was announced that Morley would be directing Patricia Clarkson in Out of Blue , an adaptation of Martin Amis' Night Train . Shooting began in October in New Orleans, Louisiana. [22] The film was released in 2018.

In 2021, filming began on Typist Artist Pirate King, a film written and directed by Morley based on the life of artist Audrey Amiss. The screenplay was written following Carol's extensive research on the Audrey Amiss archive at Wellcome Collection. [23] The film features Monica Dolan, Kelly MacDonald, and Gina McKee, and is produced with long-time collaborator, Cairo Cannon, alongside Jane Campion, Anne Sheehan, Reno Antoniades and Ameenah Ayub Allen. [24]

Filmography

Director

Producer

Editor

Awards and nominations

I'm Not Here

The Alcohol Years

Edge

Dreams of a Life

The Falling

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce Carol Oates</span> American author (born 1938)

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naomi Kawase</span> Japanese filmmaker

Naomi Kawase is a Japanese film director. She was also known as Naomi Sento, with her former husband's surname. Many of her works have been documentaries, including Embracing, about her search for the father who abandoned her as a child, and Katatsumori, about the grandmother who raised her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henrietta Moraes</span>

Henrietta Moraes was a British artists' model and memoirist. During the 1950s and 1960s, she was the muse and inspiration for many artists of the Soho subculture, including Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Maggi Hambling, and also known for her three marriages and numerous love affairs. She left her first husband, Michael Law, and married actor Norman Bowler, with whom she had two children. She later married the Indian writer Dom Moraes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwendolyn Audrey Foster</span> American scholar and filmmaker

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is an experimental filmmaker, artist and author. She is Willa Cather Professor Emerita in Film Studies. Her work has focused on gender, race, ecofeminism, queer sexuality, eco-theory, and class studies. From 1999 through the end of 2014, she was co-editor along with Wheeler Winston Dixon of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. In 2016, she was named Willa Cather Endowed Professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and took early retirement in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gillian Jacobs</span> American actress

Gillian MacLaren Jacobs is an American actress and director. She is best known for playing Britta Perry in the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2015) and Mickey Dobbs in the Netflix romantic comedy series Love (2016–2018). Other notable television roles include Mimi-Rose Howard in the fourth season of the HBO comedy-drama series Girls (2015) and Atom Eve in the animated superhero series Invincible (2021–present).

Joyce Chopra is an American director.

Carol Leigh, also known as The Scarlot Harlot, was an American artist, author, filmmaker, sex worker, and sex workers' rights activist. She is credited with coining the term sex work and founded the Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival and was the co-founder of BAYSWAN, the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zawe Ashton</span> British actress, playwright and narrator (born 1984)

Zawedde Emma Ashton is a British actress, playwright and narrator. She is best known for her roles in the comedy dramas Fresh Meat and Not Safe for Work, the Netflix horror thriller film Velvet Buzzsaw and for her portrayal of Joyce Carol Vincent in Dreams of a Life (2011). She will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Dar-Benn in The Marvels (2023).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marianna Palka</span> Scottish actress, producer, director, and writer

Marianna Bronislawa Barbara Palka is a Scottish actress, producer, director, and writer. She is the writer, director and star of the film Good Dick, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Veronica Ballestrini</span> Italian-American singer and songwriter

Veronica Jean Ballestrini is an Italian-American singer and songwriter. She has released two studio albums. Her self-made success story has caught national attention as Jon Caramanica wrote in The New York Times, "... When someone like Ms. Ballestrini arrives essentially unannounced and begins to attract attention, it’s significant."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriela Böhm</span> American filmmaker (born 1964)

Gabriela Böhm is an independent documentary filmmaker from Buenos Aires, Argentina now living in Los Angeles.

The DC Independent Film Festival (DCIFF) is a film festival in Washington, D.C. Launched in 1999, DCIFF exhibits features, animation, shorts and documentaries from around the world, focusing on cutting-edge ideas, new visions and advances in the craft of filmmaking. The festival hosts world premieres, seminars, and workshops, and also sponsors discussions on topics that impact independent filmmakers, in particular the annual "On the Hill" hearing hosted by the Congressional Entertainment Caucus. The festival includes a dedicated POLIDOCS section for documentary films that shed light on human rights, politics and social justice and an international high school film competition started in 2013. The festival also has an oral history collection program Going to the Movies documenting the role of movie-watching in US cultural history.

<i>Dreams of a Life</i> 2011 British film

Dreams of a Life is a 2011 drama-documentary film, released by Dogwoof Pictures, directed by Carol Morley and starring Zawe Ashton as Joyce Carol Vincent, a London woman whose remains were discovered in her home in 2006, just over two years after she had died.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sławomir Grünberg</span> Documentary producer

Slawomir Grünberg is a Polish-born naturalized American documentary producer, director and cameraman.

<i>The Falling</i> (2014 film) 2014 film by Carol Morley

The Falling is a 2014 British mystery drama film written and directed by Carol Morley. It stars Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh as best friends at an all-girls school. The film also stars Greta Scacchi, Monica Dolan, Maxine Peake, and Mathew Baynton. Production began in October 2013. The film premiered at the BFI London Film Festival on 11 October 2014 and was released theatrically on 24 April 2015 in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce Vincent</span> British unsolved death

Joyce Carol Vincent was an English woman whose death went unnoticed for more than two years as her corpse lay undiscovered at her bedsit in north London. Prior to her death, she had cut off nearly all contact with those who knew her. She resigned from her job in 2001, and moved into a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. Around the same time, she began to reduce contact with friends and family. She died sometime in December 2003. Her remains were discovered on 25 January 2006, with the cause of death believed to be either an asthma attack or complications from a recent peptic ulcer.

<i>Amy</i> (2015 film) 2015 film

Amy is a 2015 British documentary film directed by Asif Kapadia and produced by James Gay-Rees. The film covers British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse's life and her struggle with substance abuse, both before and after her career blossomed, and which eventually caused her death. In February 2015, a teaser trailer based on the life of Winehouse debuted at a pre-Grammys event. David Joseph, CEO of Universal Music UK, announced that the documentary titled Amy would be released later that year. He further stated: "About two years ago we decided to make a movie about her—her career and her life. It's a very complicated and tender movie. It tackles lots of things about family and media, fame, addiction, but most importantly, it captures the very heart of what she was about, which is an amazing person and a true musical genius."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Hyde</span> Australian film producer, writer and director

Sophie Hyde is an Australian film director, writer, and producer based in Adelaide, South Australia. She is co-founder of Closer Productions and known for her award-winning debut fiction film, 52 Tuesdays (2013) and the comedy drama Animals (2019). She has also made several documentaries, including Life in Movement (2011), a documentary about dancer and choreographer Tanja Liedtke, and television series, such as The Hunting (2019). Her latest film, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, premiered at the Sundance Festival on 23 January 2022, and was released on Hulu and in cinemas in the UK and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audrey Amiss</span> English artist

Audrey Joan Amiss was a British artist, whose art was re-discovered and recognised after her death in 2013. During her lifetime, Amiss was not well known as an artist and spent large periods of her life in psychiatric hospitals and units, often against her will and following arrest for civil disturbance. A feature film inspired by Amiss' life, Typist Artist Pirate King, was written and directed by Carol Morley and has its UK premiere in March 2023 at Glasgow Film Festival.

Typist Artist Pirate King is a 2022 British film written and directed by Carol Morley, about the life and art of artist, Audrey Amiss. It stars Monica Dolan as Amiss, as well as Kelly Macdonald, and Gina McKee. The film had its world premiere at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival on 19 November 2022; and a UK premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival on 8 March 2023 at Glasgow Film Theatre.

References

  1. "England & Wales Births 1837–2006". search.findmypast.co.uk. 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  2. "Dreams of a Life". CAMP Films. 19 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 "Profile: Carol Morley". The List. 9 December 2011. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Carol Morley Interview". moviemail.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  5. "Carol Morley". APEngine.org. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  6. "Girl". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  7. "Secondhand Daylight". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  8. "I'm Not Here". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  9. "The Week Elvis Died". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  10. "The Alcohol Years". CAMP Films. 19 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  11. "About CAMP". CAMP Films. 14 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  12. "FLAMIN – Everyday Something". filmlondon.org.uk. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  13. "Everyday Something". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  14. "Return Trip". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  15. "Stalin My Neighbour". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  16. "The Fear of Trilogy". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  17. "FLAMIN – The Madness of the Dance". filmlondon.org.uk. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  18. "The Madness of the Dance". CAMP Films. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  19. "Edge Movie Official Page". edgemovie.co.uk. Archived from the original on 18 December 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  20. French, Philip (18 December 2011). "Dreams of a Life". The Guardian . Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  21. "Screen Stockport Film Festival". screenstockport.co.uk. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  22. "Carol Morley to shoot Martin Amis thriller in US with Patricia Clarkson".
  23. "The amazing undiscovered life of Audrey the artist". the Guardian. 20 November 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  24. "'Typist Artist Pirate King': Monica Dolan, Kelly Macdonald & Gina McKee Set For Carol Morley Road Movie; Jane Campion Among Exec Producers — AFM". Metro International Entertainment. 4 November 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2022.