HEARD MELODIES ARE SWEET BUT THOSE UNHEARD ARE SWEETER -

John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn

Nevermades is perhaps an unusual strand for CINECITY because it is devoted to films that for various reasons – you cannot see. These are films that were either never made or never completed. What do Nevermades and their histories tell us about a lost and alternative history of cinema? Becoming aware of Nevermades leads us into that tantalising area of the counterfactual. What if, for instance, the unmade works of David Lean (Nostromo), Richard Attenborough (Thomas Paine), Terry Gilliam (Don Quixote) and Nic Roeg (High Rise) had been made? The enigmatic quality of Nevermades ensures that they remain forever unknowable, mysterious and unseen. They can never flop at the box office or provoke critical disparagement. They are often a director’s “dream project”, which would have (could have) been “the film of their career”. Equally, the reasons for a film’s unrealisation could have proven its downfall; unsuccessful structures, experimental narrative devices or tricky subject matter can wreck reputations. Nevermades (incomplete, rejected, not-yet-made or never-will-be) will always have a potentially transformative and disruptive effect.