Movies: Margaret Tait

A palindrome created on film. Features interaction between a couple with the recurring line 'Madam I'm Adam'....

In 1990s Edinburgh, Barbara Thorburn reflects on memories of her poet mother, Greta, and her tragic death....

Brightly coloured animated figures dance to the traditional tune 'John MacFadyen', as played by the Orkney Strathspey and Reel Society in this hand painted piece by Margaret Tait....

This film poem evokes childhood happiness on the island of Orkney. Footage includes wildflower meadows, toddlers playing in garden, friends fishing together and images of the sea....

The minutiae of daily life on Edinburgh's Rose Street in the fifties is presented in this impressionistic documentary piece....

Unedited slates from a film called 'Survivor' filmed by Margaret Tait. Footage includes outdoor landscape and garden scenes, a fire burning in field and a man drinking tea in his study. [There appears to be no coherence to the footage] See also Addi...

The three portrait sketches of the title are called 'Claudia', 'Fernando Birri' and 'Saulat Rahman'. Presumably made when Margaret Tait was a student at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematographia, Rome....

Starting from its source, this film tells the story of the Orquil Burn, Orkney....

The first in a series of films for the Rural Cinema Scheme in the Orkneys, it records the return to the island of Wyre of Neil Flaws, a farmer, and his family at a time when the drift from the northern isles of the Orkneys was of concern to some Orca...

Margaret Tait described this title as 'An eightsome reel played by Orkney Strathspey and Reel Society, recorded in about 1955 - 1956, later transferred to 35mm optical stock with clear picture and gradually painted over the years. Eights of different...

'Titles within the film are: Numen of the Boughs, Old Boots, Speed Bonny Boat, Lapping Water, Incense, Aha, Brave New World, Things, Terra Firma. A poem started in words is continued in images - Part of another poem as an addition to the picture - So...

A documentary about the life and works of Margaret Tait....

"Starting with a six-line script which just noted down a kind of event to occur, and recur, my aim was to construct a film with its own logic, its own correspondences within itself, and its own echoes and rhymes and comparisons, all through close exp...

An experimental piece of film-making by Margaret Tait, featuring three children at play in a burn and garden, splashing and having fun playing with water....

"Touches on elemental images; air, water, (and snow), earth and fire (and smoke) all come into it." - MT...

Affectionate observational shots of toddlers, school age girl and very new baby....

Chinese Geese in Orkney....

"Carlo and Rafaella are going to Rome for the first time. They have specially planned a journey they must make so that they can have a whole day together alone".. . so starts this film following the (mis)fortunes of these two young lovers. [Presumabl...

"This is a landscape study of an Orkney croft, with the figure of the crofter, Mary Graham Sinclair, very much in the picture. The croft is West Aith, on the edge of a small loch, which almost every passing visitor stops to photograph or draw or pain...

Drawing on a wealth of unseen archival material and unpublished notebooks, the film weaves a complex and personal portrait of Margaret’s life, from the perspective of a fellow artist sensitive to the potential Margaret envisaged for film as a poetic ...