Playing at games, acting out names, guessing the parts they played
Peter Medak's films toy with notions of cosplay, masquerade, gamesmanship, and how power and permission structures figure into these human diversions. His filmography includes The Ruling Class (1972), The Changeling (1980), A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1971), The Krays (1990), and others, all which capitalize on these ideas. Sanity is fragile, ephemeral, and suspended from a very thin tether in all his films. This piece gets to the bottom of why Medak centers his work on such themes, and why they carry biographical weight for him personally.
Daniel Kremer
Director, Writer
Peter Medak
Self
Daniel Kremer
Narrator
Peter O'Toole
Archive
Glenda Jackson
Archive
Alan Bates
Archive
Peter Sellers
Archive
Room 23761%
Spider-Man: All Roads Lead to No Way Home67%
180° South72%
The Class of ‘9271%
Directed by John Ford70%
Extremis69%
Above Majestic73%
McQueen74%
John Candy: I Like Me78%
Public Speaking70%
A Plastic Ocean75%
Sherman's March67%
Lionel Messi: Destiny78%
The Summers of It - Chapter Two: It Ends71%
Report61%
Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition86%
Trainwreck: The Real Project X59%
As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty77%
The Cheshire Murders65%
Black Sheep72%
