We take a different film per episode and explore its relation to autism. Sometimes this is obvious - perhaps there is an autistic character, or a theme of neurodiversity. Sometimes this is less obvious - it may be that one of our contributors has seen autism expressed in the movement of the camera or the use of sound. Join us for explorations through a neurodivergent cinematic spectrum!
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We take a different film per episode and explore its relation to autism. Sometimes this is obvious - perhaps there is an autistic character, or a theme of neurodiversity. Sometimes this is less obvious - it may be that one of our contributors has seen autism expressed in the movement of the camera or the use of sound. Join us for explorations through a neurodivergent cinematic spectrum!
Harold & Maude (1971) dir. Hal Ashby, with Andrew Brenner
Autism Through Cinema
1 hour 13 minutes
2 years ago
Harold & Maude (1971) dir. Hal Ashby, with Andrew Brenner
We've made a brief sidestep into TV for the first half of episode #41 because we are joined by the wonderful Andrew Brenner, Headwriter of the CBeebies show Pablo. For the uninitiated, Pablo is an animated show about an autistic boy and his imaginary animal friends and has been a staple of CBeebies since 2017. Andrew talks us through how the show came to be, how it developed, and the importance of working with autistic performers. Three particular episodes of the show are discussed, all of which are freely available to view on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b097bs09/pablo
It's also worth mentioning that we have previously featured one of the voice actors from Pablo, the brilliant artist Sumita Majumdar who joined us for episode #23 to talk about Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story. Do scroll back through our archive to find it!
Following the Pablo chat, Andrew, Janet, Alex and Georgia move on to discuss the 1971 Hal Ashby film Harold & Maude. The film's two outsider protagonists are considered in autistic terms, as is their unusual age-gap relationship. Empathy comes under examination, which is found to be lacking in the stiff typical characters that surround the central pair, before the discussion turns to how the two central characters buck the conventions of gender expectations.
Towards the end, Andrew gives a shout-out to our crossover episode with Talking Images in which co-host David Hartley talks about another of Ashby's films about an outsider: Being There. Here's the link to that episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ACULrwtGxYWM867qPxpdU
Huge thanks to Andrew for joining us!
Autism Through Cinema
We take a different film per episode and explore its relation to autism. Sometimes this is obvious - perhaps there is an autistic character, or a theme of neurodiversity. Sometimes this is less obvious - it may be that one of our contributors has seen autism expressed in the movement of the camera or the use of sound. Join us for explorations through a neurodivergent cinematic spectrum!
