Terence Davies

The Long Day Closes

The Long Day Closes

The Long Day Closes is the most gloriously cinematic expression of the unique sensibility of Terence Davies, widely celebrated as Britain’s greatest living filmmaker. Suffused with both enchantment and melancholy, this autobiographical film takes on the perspective of a quiet, lonely boy growing up in Liverpool in the 1950s. But rather than employ a straightforward narrative, Davies jumps in and out of time, swoops into fantasies and fears, summons memories and dreams. A singular filmic tapestry, The Long Day Closes is an evocative, movie- and music-besotted portrait of the artist as a young man.

Film Info

  • United Kingdom
  • 1992
  • 85 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.85:1
  • English
  • Spine #694

Special Features

  • New, restored 2K digital film transfer, supervised by director Terence Davies and director of photography Michael Coulter, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Audio commentary by Davies and Coulter
  • Episode of the British television series The South Bank Show from 1992, featuring Davies, footage from the film’s production, and interviews with cast and crew
  • New interviews with executive producer Colin MacCabe and production designer Christopher Hobbs
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Koresky

    New cover lettering by Jessica Hische; design by Eric Skillman

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New, restored 2K digital film transfer, supervised by director Terence Davies and director of photography Michael Coulter, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Audio commentary by Davies and Coulter
  • Episode of the British television series The South Bank Show from 1992, featuring Davies, footage from the film’s production, and interviews with cast and crew
  • New interviews with executive producer Colin MacCabe and production designer Christopher Hobbs
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Koresky

    New cover lettering by Jessica Hische; design by Eric Skillman
The Long Day Closes
Cast
Leigh McCormack
Bud
Marjorie Yates
Mother
Anthony Watson
Kevin
Nicholas Lamont
John
Ayse Owens
Helen
Tina Malone
Edna
Jimmy Wilde
Curly
Robin Polley
Mr. Nicholls
Kirk McLaughlin
Laborer/Christ
Brenda Peters
Nurse
Credits
Director
Terence Davies
Written by
Terence Davies
Produced by
Olivia Stewart
Executive producer
Ben Gibson
Executive producer
Colin MacCabe
Executive in charge of production
Angela Toppings
Director of photography
Michael Coulter
Production designer
Christopher Hobbs
Editor
William Diver
Costume designer
Monica Howe
Music supervisor
Bob Last
Music director
Robert Lockhart

Current

A Scene from The Long Day Closes
A Scene from The Long Day Closes
Thanks to Terence Davies’s distinctive filmmaking style, The Long Day Closes doesn’t quite feel like any other motion picture. This intensely moving, ethereal reverie on a brief happy period of the director’s often sad childhood in Liverpool du…
The Long Day Closes: In His Own Good Time
The Long Day Closes: In His Own Good Time

Terence Davies beckons the viewer into a private world of moods and sensations with this exquisite childhood reverie.

By Michael Koresky

Blue Christmas
Blue Christmas
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! But you wouldn’t know it from all of the melancholy Christmas films that have been made over the years. In this video essay, we investigate the longstanding tradition of bleak midwinters at the movies (A …
Worlds Away

First Person

Worlds Away

Obsessed with the lure of memory and the stigma of social otherness, Terence Davies’s The Long Day Closes inspires this writer to take her own winding journey into the past.

By Ella Taylor

Slipping Through the Cracks of Time in The Long Day Closes
Slipping Through the Cracks of Time in The Long Day Closes

British master Terence Davies makes evocative use of dissolves to create a slippery narrative structure driven by emotion and memory.

Stephen Cone’s Top 10
Stephen Cone’s Top 10

Stephen Cone is a Chicago-based filmmaker whose latest, Princess Cyd, opens in theaters November 2017.

The Men and Women of Terence Davies’s Cinema Worlds
The Men and Women of Terence Davies’s Cinema Worlds

The director spoke with novelist Steve Erickson about his film Sunset Song and the role of women in his work.