Among other things, Benjamin Zephaniah is dub poet: he recites poetry over reggae rhythms. As Hungarian students, you are surely familiar with rap (anyone from Borsod?) and slam poetry. Dub poetry is similar in some aspects. It is politically conscious, for example. And you don’t have to be a wine-sipping, pipe-smoking, scarf-wearing poetry fanatic to enjoy dub poetry: it’s accessible to everyone. Its roots, however, are different. Do give Mr. Zephaniah a listen and enjoy his flow.
Month / February 2018
IEAS Pics: KLeaPho
Kántor Lea is our BA student. She has started taking photographs approximately 5 years ago: back then, she used a Bridge camera and now has switched to DSLR. She likes to take outdoor photographs the most and takes portraits, pictures of couples and nature the most. Check out more of her work on her Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/kleapho/
IEAS Film Club Podcast #4 – teaser for tomorrow
Join us tomorrow for the screening of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl at the Institute of English and American Studies, Studio 111 (Feb 27 18.00)!
The film is the story of high schooler Greg, who spends most of his time making parodies of classic movies with his co-worker Earl, and finds his outlook forever altered after befriending a classmate who has just been diagnosed with cancer.
Discussion of the film will be moderated by Kovács Réka.
You can listen to Bodnár Péter and Feldmann Fanni’s teaser conversation below.
See you tomorrow!
IEAS Pets: Lord Byron
Byron is the little lord of our first year MA student Kovács Réka. He chose our fellow student as his servant, and now they are living together in peace and harmony.
IEAS Music: Varga András and Yulius25
Varga András is our first year OMA student. He is the frontman of Yulius25 an this is his message to you:
Hello! We are a rock / hard rock band from Debrecen, Hungary. We like to mix meaningful lyrics with hard and tasty riffs. I am the singer of the band, and I thoroughly enjoy connecting with people before, during, and after our concerts. Come to our next gig!
Hope to meet you there!
– Bandi
FYE: Elly Smallwood
Elly Smallwood is a Canadian artist, born in 1989 in Ottawa, Canada. Smallwood graduated drawing and painting at the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2011 and continued her astonishing work. Her style is very spontaneous and full of energy yet, this roughness is paired with anatomical knowledge and technical expertise, working with themes such as fetish, female sexuality or LGBTQ sex. See more of her work on her official website or her Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/ellysmallwood/
All images used for illustrative purposes only.
IEAS Film Club Podcast #3: King Arthur – Legend of the Sword
Let’s start the new semester with a peek back to last semester’s English Majors’ Week!
The moderator of the Film Club screening, Bodnár Péter was joined by Molnár Gergely to have a conversation about the film and to try and save the King’s grace. Give it a listen! You can also read Péter’s thoughts on the film below.
Music to my Ears, My King
In the Film Club podcast on King Arthur – The Legend of the Sword I talked about some features of the aforementioned film with Gergely Molnár, some of which can be seen as a potential attempt of saving graces for the film. And the films seems to be highly in need of that, as the new King Arthur was not received with a critical appraisal. The film stands with a 29% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is less than graceful. On the other hand, the audience score is standing at a much stronger 69%, which might be thanks to the elements which we discussed in the podcast. One thing we highlighted that helped us enjoy the film more is the music. The melodies created by Daniel Pemberton helped deepen the immersion and he managed to create songs that not only supplement the scenes, but actually make them better. Although a lot of new films have a soundtrack which is quite good by today’s standards, it is not often that we have a soundtrack which saves the experience of a film that is otherwise far from perfect. The themes Pemberton created are so alluring and mesmerising, that they are stuck to my ears even to this day (which is – to be fair – a long time after the English Majors’ Week screening of the film, and even longer after I had first watched it). The tunes that leave this strong an impression usually belong to the titans of cinema soundtracks like John Williams, Howard Shore or Hans Zimmerman. If we take a look at Pemberton’s previous works, we can see that although he contributed to several good films, none of his works stood out as much as King Arthur.
When we look into the musical scores of the film, there are two pieces that stand out as the odd ones. Two songs that were not originally made by Pemberton. Both of them were, however, re-suited to the mood of the film, with which, once again, Pemberton worked wonders. One of them is Sam Lee’s “The Devil and the Huntsman,” which accompanied a long scene of the hero’s journey before the final battle. The scene was music video-like, and it felt more like the shots belonged to an overpriced video clip, rather than the music serving as a background. The other song is what originally was named “Lament – Light of Aidan” and its origins are clouded. One thing is for certain, “Light of Aidan” is owned by a companyfounded by Guy Ritchie, director of the film. He, alongside with Pemberton, decided to re-imagine the original, and name it “The Politics & The Life.” Not much has been changed compared to the original, only a lot more instruments got involved. What is special about this song for Hungarian viewers is that “Light of Aidan” was first used as a background music for a fan-made trailer of a video game, Halo ODST. All things considered, the music of King Arthur – Legend of the Sword might very well be its best feature, which leaves me sad, as a soundtrack as good as this could have reached greater heights with a better film.
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