To describe a film as being “about memory” is almost as cliché as to say that it is “about time.” Few subjects are thought to be more suited to a temporal medium defined by its mechanical recording apparatus. Yet the films of the late Terence Davies are to my mind the rare works actually deserving of such a description.

By Michael Sicinski Is Terence Davies a radical conservative? Often one of the signs of a great artist is his or her ability to thwart the comfortable compartmentalization of our thinking, to dislodge the habits with which we navigate our ordinary existence. We are accustomed to thinking of a cinematic “mainstream,” organized around surface realism…