Simon Hitchman

Filmmaker/Writer. Filmmaker at Amarcord Media.
Writer at and music, books, cats. Father of two sons.

[Peter Hague @peterrhague]

Our lads need to channel the spirit of Harold Godwinson when they meet the viking hordes this weekend.

If we somehow get through and end up playing France in the final, then they need to STOP channeling the spirit of Harold Godwinson.

[Michael Warburton @For_Film_Fans]

Fellow MICHAEL CAINE fans will absolutely love this Film on the double Oscar winner as he walks us through his life from working class lad to international superstar by 1969. The best was yet to come…

CANDID CAINE: A SELF PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL CAINE (1969)

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

BOTD George Orwell!
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

BOTD George Orwell!
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

BOTD W. B. Yeats! “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” More than a century on, Yeats still feels less like a historical figure than a companion in trying to make sense of the modern world.

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

BOTD W. B. Yeats! “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” More than a century on, Yeats still feels less like a historical figure than a companion in trying to make sense of the modern world.

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

BOTD G. K. Chesterton!
“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.”
Poet of common sense, prince of paradox, and as relevant as ever.

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

BOTD G. K. Chesterton!
“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.”
Poet of common sense, prince of paradox, and as relevant as ever.

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

@TheCinesthetic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

Happy Birthday Bob!
Mr. Tambourine Man (Live at the Newport Folk Festival. 1964): https://t.co/QqCYp8bZD9

[Simon Hitchman @Simon_Hitchman]

Happy Birthday Bob!
Mr. Tambourine Man (Live at the Newport Folk Festival. 1964): https://t.co/QqCYp8bZD9

[Athenaeum Book Club @athenaeumbc]

In 1928, George Orwell went to Paris because he wanted to see what it was like to be poor.

He rented a cheap room, ran out of money faster than expected, and ended up washing dishes in hotel kitchens for twelve to fourteen hours a day.

The work was brutal in a boring way. Hot steam, greasy plates, shouting chefs, no breaks. You stood until your legs stopped working. When the shift ended, there was just enough time to eat badly and sleep before doing it again.

When he got sick, no one helped much. You missed a shift, you lost the job.

Later, in England, he lived among tramps and slept in shelters because he had nowhere else to go. He kept notes the whole time…

He turned the experience into Down and Out in Paris and London. The book shows what happens when life becomes logistical and dignity turns into something you can’t afford.

That period stayed with him. Long after he became famous, his writing never forgot how fragile comfort is, or how fast a person can slide from being someone to being invisible.

[Athenaeum Book Club @athenaeumbc]

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. It is easier to wage a battle against distant abstractions than to fight the quiet war inside one’s own soul. Yet this is the only war that ever mattered.”

— Leo Tolstoy

[Fascinating History @Fascinate_Hist]

What a subway train looked like on the Piccadilly Line in London, England in 1938.

[Poetic Outlaws @OutlawsPoetic]

“April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.”

― T.S. Eliot

[Criterion Collection @Criterion]

THREE NOIRS BY JACQUES TOURNEUR 🖤 Now playing on @criterionchannl! https://t.co/w5c41zkFJH

A master of mood, shadow, and dreamy ambiguity, the French-born director brought a sophisticated subtlety to his celebrated work in Hollywood. His command of atmosphere and darkly poetic sensibility were particularly suited to film noir, as seen in this trio of stylish, chiaroscuro-engraved favorites, including the stone-cold classic OUT OF THE PAST, a reverie of romantic doom starring genre icon Robert Mitchum in one of his definitive roles.

[𝙱𝚘𝚋𝚋𝚢’𝚜 𝙷𝚎𝚎𝚕 @SalvadorDafti]

The Kinks - The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains

Chugging along on top of a bastardised Howlin’ Wolf riff, with Ray singing as that very train. Refusing to modernise, proud of his authenticity, yet feeling like a relic in his own time.

1968.

[Athenaeum Book Club @athenaeumbc]

G. K. Chesterton explains that reading gives a man more lives than he was born with:

“A man who has read a thousand books is armed for life; a man who has read none is easy prey. The man who has read a thousand books has lived a thousand lives. He has seen cities he has never visited, spoken to men who died centuries ago, and walked in worlds that no longer exist. Reading does not merely inform him; it enlarges him. It stretches the boundaries of his own experience until he becomes something more than himself.”