Nil by Mouth caused a considerable stir on its release. Twenty-five years later, the dust may have settled a little, but it remains a raw, vital film of its time, particularly as Gary Oldham has yet to follow it up. No complaints about an excellent BFI release.

Mother (Gary Oldman, 1994, 7 mins): the only surviving footage recorded for an unrealised documentary about his mother’s life and experiences Interviewed by Andrew, Winstone believes (correctly) that the part of Ray, even down to the character name, was largely written for him. It's hard to think who else at the time could have played the role. However, Oldman and Winstone didn't know each other, though they had in common the fact that that they'd both worked for Alan Clarke, and first met at Clarke's funeral. He compares the film with another role of his, a debut (and only) film by a fellow British actor as actor, Tim Roth's The War Zone, made two years later. Mother (1994, 7 mins): the only surviving footage recorded by Gary Oldman for an unrealised documentary about his mother’s life and experiencesNarrative cinema is a century and a quarter old now, and there are filmmakers (writers, directors or both) who have maintained a prolific output. Case in point, Ingmar Bergman, of whom I've reviewed so far twenty-four feature films in three sets, with one final set due in January 2023. Yet there is another end to this scale: directors whose output is valuable for being sparse. In his interview of Gary Oldman on this disc, Geoff Andrew cites Victor Erice, best known for The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), who has followed it at the time of writing with just two feature films, one of them a documentary, plus seven short films throughout his career. An even sparser output would be a single feature film, such as Charles Laughton, whose only directing credit was The Night of the Hunter (1957) and a masterpiece. Gary Oldman is another example. As with Laughton, his main job is as an actor, with an Oscar for Darkest Hour in 2017. Nil by Mouth, first released in 1997 and here restored for its twenty-fifth anniversary, remains his only film as director, one in which he does not act. (Having said that, it's his voice, offscreen, as a barman in the opening scene, and he can be seen coming out of a phone box fifty-two minutes in.) For whatever reason, and the fact that his film was a box-office flop was certainly one of them, Laughton didn't direct again. Nor has Oldman, though at age sixty-four as of this writing he certainly has the time still. He goes into this more in the extras.

Featuring career-best performances from Kathy Burke (winner of Best Actress at Cannes), Ray Winstone and Charlie Creed-Miles, all superbly supported by Laila Morse and Jamie Foreman, Nil by Mouth was awarded Best British Film and Best Original Screenplay at the 1998 Bafta awards. This intensely powerful and emotional landmark of British cinema has been remastered in 4K for its 25th anniversary by the BFI National Archive, and this release is the first time on Blu-ray anywhere in the world. Extras on this crisply restored BFI Blu-Ray include deleted scenes, storyboards and a detailed audio commentary. There are unimpressively shot interviews with Oldman, Urbanski, Winstone and Charlie Creed-Miles, who made his acting debut as a young drug addict. Fresh out of drama school, he clearly benefitted from a director who understood that long rehearsals, on the actual sets and locations, would produce the most realistic, convincing performances when the camera rolled. As well as the feature and the commentary, Disc One includes the deleted scenes and the trailer. The remaining extras are on Disc Two.

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Nil By Mouth" was first screened at the Cannes Film Festival on May 8th, 1997. Kathy Burke received Best Actress at the festival. In addition, Oldman would win a director's award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, three wins at the British Independent Film Awards with Best Performance by a British Actor in an Independent Film for Winstone, Best Performance by a British Actress in an Independent Film by Burke, as well as Most Promising Newcomer in any Category for Laila Morse, who made her debut in the film and also happens to be Oldman' sister. It also received two BAFTAs, with thea Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film and Best Original Screenplay for Oldman. It would receive a theatrical release in the UK from October 10th, though it was not particularly a box office sensation, as well as its release in other countries. While it was critically lauded all around, the small independent film was never given wide distribution in any country and word of mouth was well... nil. Oldman remarked that after showing the film to director Elaine May in a rough cut form, her companion at the time said he thought it was amazing and would never want to watch it again. Indeed the film is not easy to recommend for audiences as it is not the easiest watch, leaving a number of uncomfortable tastes that linger. While it would receive home video releases on DVD in some countries, it was a film that many were not able to experience. While there was praise it seemed to get overshadowed by the record breaking number of expletives rather than people seeing the film for its technical merits. Twenty-five years later, the film is being given its rightful place in cinema. Not just a one-shot film by Oldman in his so far only film as director, but as a lauded and influential piece of British filmmaking, continuing the tradition of filmmakers such as Ken Loach and Alan Clarke who pushed the boundaries of bleak yet hopeful realism cinematically. Newly recorded for this release, at first this comes over as a Gary Oldman solo commentary, as Urbanski doesn't speak for nearly fifteen minutes. A quarter-century on, they talk about the look of the film and the benefits of shooting in Super 16mm, and members of Oldman's family as they make their appearances. It doesn't overlap too much with both men's separate interviews on this disc. Setting The Record Straight (2022, 51 mins): Gary Oldman in conversation with film critic Geoff Andrew Urbanski talks about the project coming together and the final product, admiring what Oldman accomplished, while Jones recounts the off-the-cuff nature of casting the film. The two even get into the current landscape concerning being able to make films like Nil By Mouth or—in Jones’ case—casting in general, COVID having changed the landscape even further. The whole of the Terence Davies Trilogy has been released on DVD by the BFI, but not on Blu-ray. What the (I suspect, commercial) likelihood of it seeing an upgrade, now that nearly half of its running time has turned up as an extra on another release, remains to be seen.

Gary Oldman revealed himself as a filmmaker of uncompromising talent with Nil by Mouth, his debut and so far only directorial feature. Set on a council estate in New Cross, south east London (the area where Oldman himself grew up), a dysfunctional family encounters domestic violence, drunkenness, drug addiction and petty crime. Featuring career-best performances from Kathy Burke (winner of Best Actress at Cannes), Ray Winstone and Charlie Creed-Miles, all superbly supported by Laila Morse and Jamie Foreman, Nil by Mouth was awarded Best British Film and Best Original Screenplay at the 1998 Bafta awards. Three deleted scenes, all from timecoded video, but no they don't average thirteen minutes each. We do instead get repeated go-throughs of each scene. Oldman explains further in the booklet, including why each one had to go. The scenes are "Where's My Coke?", "Police Interview" and "Damp Walk Home".

Talent is Worth Trusting: Douglas Urbanski on Nil by Mouth(2022, 16 mins): Gary Oldman’s long-time collaborator and the producer of Nil by Mouth discusses how the film came to be made Nil by Mouth premiered at Cannes on 8 May 1997. Oldman and several of the male cast were there, but Kathy Burke wasn't. When word broke that she had won Best Actress, Besson arranged for her to be flown over to Cannes in his private helicopter, as her passport was out of date. Along with a British Independent Film Award for the same role, it remains the only major film award she has ever won. Although released by a major (20th Century Fox) in the UK, Nil by Mouth had a relatively "specialised" release, which meant that many of the people the film was made about and for were unable to see it, in a cinema at least. sound and vision