The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger
By Kit Macdonald
The great English writer and art critic John Berger is the subject of this loving and absorbing documentary, a collaboration between Berger's longtime friend Tilda Swinton and the Derek Jarman Lab. Having left London in 1973 to settle in the tiny French Alpine village of Quincy, Berger spent the four and a half decades until his death in 2017 observing the rhythms of rural life and the gradual disappearance of traditional peasant farming. This film is divided into four seasonal chapters and explores different facets of his thinking, from his lifelong fascination with animals to his socialist politics and his ideas about art, memory and human connection.
Swinton joins Berger for an intimate conversation about memory and friendship, while the other sections combine philosophical discussion, pastoral imagery and family encounters. Rather than following the conventions of a biographical documentary, The Seasons in Quincy allows Berger’s ideas to emerge through landscape, conversation and everyday experience. A thoughtful tribute to a deeply humane and perceptive observer of the world.