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The specially created production on the renowned Glasgow photographer Oscar Marzaroli ‘Shades of Oscar’ is currently being shown on the Screen Machine , Scotland’s mobile cinema. Screen Machine and Street Level first shared this on-line during the lockdown of 2020 so we are delighted that it is being shown to audiences on the big screen. Oscar Marzaroli's photographs and films of Glasgow from the 1950s through to the 1980s captured a period of enormous change with images of people going about their lives in the city, at work and at leisure. Shades of Oscar is a 9 minute audio visual presentation, with voiceover by Marzaroli’s daughter, Marie Claire Marzaroli. In her poignant narration, she shares recollections of her father and reflects on the huge legacy that he left behind.
It is being shown before the 40th anniversary screening of Local Hero,one of Scotland’s best loved films, written and directed by one of its most celebrated directors, Bill Forsyth, with a strong cast including Peter Capaldi, Denis Lawson, Fulton Mackay and Burt Lancaster, with atmospheric music by Mark Knopfler. It tells the story of local people resisting the attempts of an American oil company trying to purchase the town and surrounding property in the fictional village of Ferness on the west coast of Scotland.
A footnote here is that Bill Forsyth cut his teeth as a young editor on Glasgow 1980, directed by Oscar Marzaroli in 1971, which explored the proposed development of Glasgow in the 1970s. Oscar was also on the set of ‘Comfort and Joy’ in 1983, where he took a photograph of Bill Forsyth and Clare Grogan (at an ice cream van), an image we included in our exhibition retrospective.
You can catch ‘Local Hero’ and ‘Shades of Oscar’ in various locations in the Highlands in the rest of June and throughout July, including Lochinver, Ullapool, Bettyhill, Golspie, Tarbert (Harris) and Daliburgh, and several more. For screening dates and locations see https://www.screenmachine.co.uk/calendar/
We have more exciting news to share soon regarding Marzaroli's Gorbals images... You will have to wait a little longer!
Image © Oscar Marzaroli / The Marzaroli Collection