Born into a family of ten children in 1945, Davies grew up in Liverpool, England. The future writer-director earned money as a clerk and an actor before making his first film in 1976. Largely autobiographical and concerned with the grip of memories both crushing and liberating, Davies's films tend to reflect his experiences growing up in a Catholic working-class family. The characters in his reputation-making features have been known to shatter the grim realism around them by breaking into song at the drop of a penny.

"The reason I began making films," Davies told Claus Christensen in 'A vast edifice of memories: the cyclical cinema of Terence Davies', "came from a deep need to do so in order to come to terms with my family's history and suffering, to make sense of the past and to explore my own personal terrors, both mental and spiritual, and to examine the destructive nature of Catholicism. Film as an expression af guilt, film as confession (psychotherapy would be much cheaper but a lot less fun)." Although his careful, leisurely constructs scream "Serious Filmmaker at Work!" Davies' is as irreverent and entertaining in person as, say, John Waters.

Davies attracted international attention at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988 with Distant Voices, Still Lives. Winner later that summer of the top prize in Locarno, "DVSL" has gone on to either charm or aggravate audiences throughout the world. Davies returned to Cannes with The Long Day Closes (1992) and in 1995 with The Neon Bible.

Glenn Myrent

Filmography (Davies wrote and directed)

The House of Mirth (2000)
The Neon Bible (1995)
The Long Day Closes (1992)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
Death & Transfiguration (1983)
Madonna and Child (1980)
Children (1976)