British transport Films: 'The Scene from Melbury House'

     How can I introduce this rather wonderful little film? Where can I start? For in some ways there really isn't anything to it at all. Just a 15 min collage of images of west London shot in the early Seventies from the roof of a dull office block. It wasn't even meant for general release, but it's a little masterpiece, both social document and lyrical cinematography. Unlike the other films made by the BTF there is no agenda - no sales pitch, no desire to either educate or inform. Just 'pure' cinema.

     Now for a little explanation as to its production. Melbury House, that dull office block, in Marylebone, was the home to British Transport Films. (It has since been demolished and replaced.) As part of the training given by the BTF trainee cameramen were allowed to hone their skills using the unused ends of film rolls; like, I suppose, an artist might use scraps of paper.  These fragments were gathered together and edited by the head of the BTF Edgar Anstey himself, skilfully using Vaughan Williams' 'London' Symphony as the soundtrack, and the result really is something special.  Sometimes poignant, sometimes comic. Voyeuristic even as it captured the lives of local residents - a couple kissing, perhaps making-up, on a urine stained balcony; a woman standing naked in her kitchen. One feels that there is an attempt to say something metaphysical in these little collaged-together dramas. I have a rule of cinema (only the one) and that is simply that (repeated) shots of the sky in a film are a signal that the drama unfolding is to be understood as having universal if not cosmological or metaphysical significance. Think 'Ran' by Kurosawa, or 'Star Wars' by George Lucas. Indeed think of two whole genres of mythic film making: Westerns and Sci-fi. This isn't, I should add, a hard-and-fast sort of rule. Anyway this film repeatedly returns to views of the London sky - sunsets and storm clouds that form a poetic stream through the work. An attempt perhaps to capture all of London life and place it within a context of a greater physical and spiritual order.

     In atmosphere 'The Scene from Melbury House' is not so far removed from 'A Bigger Splash' by Jack Hassan. Both depict a slightly down at heal, shabby London. A low-rise London I have a sneaking admiration for - I say 'sneaking' because for some residents it was not a good place to be. In places it was quite dreadful. I suppose it was ever thus. 

     Here is the link to the BFI website.

The Scene from Melbury House

1973

Editor                    Edgar Anstey
Cinematography
Producer