The Neon Bible

It is night and a solitary train is shunting through the dark countryside. David, a sad 16- year-old boy, is in one of its carriages. As he stares out the window into the darkness, he sees scenes from his life, chunks of the past. Thus begins the poetic tale of a young boy growing up in America’s Southern Bible Belt during the 1940s with his father, who feels useless now that he has lost his job at the factory, and his highly-strung mother who is gradually sinking into madness. The arrival of Aunt Mae, a larger-than-life and somewhat liberated former nightclub singer, has a deep and lasting impact on David’s life.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.
Script: Terence Davies, based on the novel by John Kennedy Toole
Cinematography: Michael Coulter
Editing: Charles Rees
Music: Music Director: Robert Lockhart
Actors: Gena Rowlands (Aunt Mae), Jacob Tierney (David, aged 15), Drake Bell (David, aged 10), Diana Scarwid (Sarah), Denis Leary (Frank)
Production: Artificial Eye, Mayfair, Scala, Channel 4
Producers: Elizabeth Karlson, Olivia Stewart
Art Direction: Philip Messina
Costumes: Monica Howe
Production Design: Christopher Hobbs
Sets: Κristen Toscano Messina
Format: 35mm Color
Production Country: UK
Production Year: 1995
Duration: 91
Contact: Miramax Films, Jill Rosenjill.rosen@miramax.com

Terence Davies

He was born in Liverpool in 1945. He began his career under the auspices of the British Film Institute with a first short already showing autobiographical traits, Children. At the National Film School he made Madonna and Child, continued in his third short, Death and Transfiguration. These three works were brought together in what was to constitute The Terence Davies. Distant Voices, Still Lives, a masterpiece on post-war Britain, was his international revelation, winning among others the FIPRESCI Award at Cannes IFF, the Golden Leopard at the Locarno FF and the Critics’ Awards at both Los Angeles and Toronto. With The Neon Bible, Davies gave his career something of a new direction on adapting a novel by writer John Kennedy Toole and shooting the movie in the USA. His most recent film Of Time and the City, which was premiered in Cannes IFF 2008, reveals amasterly use of archivematerial in constructing an emotional and critical discourse on urban evolution in Liverpool over the last 50 years.

Filmography

1976-1983 The Terence Davies Trilogy:
Children(1976), Madonna and Child(1980), Death and Transfiguration(1983)
1988 Distant Voices, Still Lives
1992 The Long Day Closes
1995 The Neon Bible
2000 The House of Mirth
2008 Of Time and the City