Terence Davies died aged 77. The scouse director was one of the only voices who made poetry out of British social realism. Where Leigh and Loach lectured, Davies reflected. His films weren’t just rehashes of a harsh life; they were a beautiful tapestry of the mundane, meticulously tied together with absent threads of humour, quiet desperation and transcendent joy. 

Think back to those early works, those short films, those first two movies. Brilliance.

Not every Davies film was as brilliant as his first works. Passion-filled yearnings which cried out in pain over memories and nostalgia. Davies never enjoyed an easy life, a gay man coming of age in a homophobic time, a working-class home life and a struggle for financing until the day he died. But he was compassionate, and his works were never poverty porn with convenient narrative arcs which triumphed against insurmountable odds. He showed life as it was through his eyes.

Godard considered him one of the few British directors of any substance, and while that statement might be critical of too many, it shows the stature of Davies. Whose cinematic palette of elevatory melancholia showed how light can flash in the darkest places and how shadows can be cast on the sunniest day.

There’s a bitterness to his passing. He was an old man, but he still had things to say and show. His most recent film, Benediction, is worth a rewatch, and it’s quite sad that he was so excited to start shooting a new movie in November. We’ll never see that film, but I suspect we will see a reappraisal of his filmography in the wake of this news.