James R | On 09, Oct 2016

Heard of BFI Player? Well, there’s also BFI Player+, a subscription service that offers an all-you-can-eat selection of hand-picked classics.

Every Friday, Mark Kermode highlights one of the collection’s titles with a video introduction. This week, it’s Red Road, the directorial debut of Andrea Arnold.

One of Britain’s best current filmmakers, Arnold has gone on to make such masterful movies as Wuthering Heights, Fish Tank and – premiering at this year’s London Film Festival – American Honey. This low-key drama/thriller, meanwhile, debuted at the festival in 2006, following a CCTV operator who uses the camera to watch an ex-convict and eventually becomes obsessed with him.

What else is available to stream? Every week, we bring you a round-up of the latest titles on BFI Player+:

Downhill

Ivor Novello plays a young man accused of getting a girl pregnant in Hitchcock’s underrated fifth film, which established one of the director’s most recognisable tropes: the innocent man on the run.

Woyzeck

Herzog takes on Georg Buchner’s play about a tormented soldier in this 1979 drama, which was filmed just a matter of days after the director finished his take on Nosferatu. 18 days of shooting by an exhausted cast and crew, including Klaus Kinski, added to the immediate, theatrical atmosphere.

The Gold Diggers

While celebrating the work of Hitchcock and Herzog, BFI Player+ still finds time to recognise the UK’s defining female filmmakers. A case in point in the addition of The Gold Diggers, the groundbreaking directorial debut of Sally Potter, who recently brought us the fantastic Ginger and Rosa.

To Have and to Hold

A woman finds that death will not part her from her deceased lover in John Hardwick’s 2000 short.

Underground

The BFI National Archive restoration of one of Anthony Asquith’s finest silent films. Underground tells the story of the lives and loves of four young working people in 1920s London. Parallels with life in the metropolis today are poignant, as we see the locations of the Underground, the pubs and shops in which the drama unfolds. Accompanied by a new score from Neil Brand.

 

A BFI Player+ subscription costs £4.99 a month with a 30-day free trial. For more information, visit http://player.bfi.org.uk.
 

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