PRESS REVIEWS
Selection for
The Jazz Baroness
The
Jazz Baroness goes beyond the
barrel of stereotypes the screeching monkeys of society use against the
intricate gusts of life swirling about us. Hannah Rothschild stands up
to the tornadoes of mystery and fact that underlie what we mean about
platonic love and the majesty that can define itself through tirelessly
committed support. Stanley Crouch, The Daily Beast "Pannonica
Rothschild's
story reads like one of those lurid and doomed romantic melodramas that
the reader just knows can only end with the tragic ruin of everyone
involved. " New York Daily News The film is especially
good as it limns the story of the filmmaker hoping to glimpse a piece of
her own family history. Huffington Post.
"Two worlds collide in
this scintillating jazz documentary." The Hollywood Reporter It’s a smoky film,
allusive, full of longing and foggy patches Joan Juliet Buck, Vogue
"Mesmerising" Stephen Frears
It's the most beguiling music film since
Eastwood's Straight No Chaser." Peter Florence, Director Hay Festival of
Literature and Ideas
It all makes for compelling viewing. The project, conceived and directed by
Hannah Rothschild, the baroness’s great-niece, is stylish and full of
emotional colour. A film-maker whose earlier work includes studies of
Picasso and Sickert, Rothschild has brought together a stunning cast of
contributors: Sonny Rollins and the jazz aficionado Clint Eastwood are
among those who add their reminiscences, while Helen Mirren reads.
By the end, you wonder why Rothschild had to fight so hard to get the film
made: the gruelling process of haggling with executives has taken no less
than eight years. Once, when it seemed the film might never be completed,
Rothschild received stirring advice from Rollins: “You have to finish it.
" This isn’t just her story, it’s our story.”
Clive Davis, Sunday Times
Selection for
Hi Society: the Wonderful World of Nicky Haslam
Rothschild's last film was a similar-sounding profile of society
decorator Nicky Haslam, glowingly reviewed by one critic as 'funny,
camp, melancholy and appalling'.
Ephraim Hardcastle, Daily Mail
For the socialite and interior designer Nicky Haslam a surprising number
of things turn out to be fun. Having a stalker, for instance: "So chic,"
he said brightly in Storyville: Hi Society – the Wonderful World of
Nicky Haslam. "We should all have one." Or spending three years of
his childhood paralysed with polio ("It was rather fun"). Or the hazards
of pre-Wolfenden homosexuality ("It was illegal still so that made it
much more fun"). He's also got a very long list of things that he thinks
are common, including swans, pronouncing the last t in "trait", scented
candles, wheat intolerance, loving your parents and queuing at
Annabel's. Fortunately, he probably doesn't have to do a lot of the
latter because Nicky is to the London scene what the silver lady is on a
Rolls-Royce. He attends up to five parties a night to exchange air
kisses and squeals of delighted recognition before moving on,
ceaselessly driving on through the crowd to where the flash of the
paparazzi cameras is brightest.
The Independent
You might pronounce Haslam absurd, a frantically self-renovating
social butterfly who should never have made it past the Sixties, but
there is something astonishing about his sheer devotion to his chosen
cause. For almost all of his 70 years, he has devoted every waking hour
to networking, party-going and rubbing shoulders with the wealthy and
beautiful.
His attitude is that nostalgia is worthless, and the only option is
to seize the present and advance glamorously into the future.
Adam Sweeting, The Arts Desk
it's a study of loneliness. It perfectly
illustrates the loneliness of the crowded life.
It's as good as Chekhov.
Cressida Connelly
"Brilliant"
Lucian Freud
"Hannah Rothschild has made a wonderful documentary about him"
Lynn Barber, Times
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