Ways of Seeing

Ways of Seeing is screening at Watershed on Sunday 29 November, part of the John Berger at 100 season celebrating the life and work of the writer and painter. It's a film by Mike Dibb, and it shares its title with Berger's most famous book, Ways of Seeing.

The film takes that book as its starting point, and the season's curator quotes it to set the scene: "We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves." That's the core of what the film explores — how we read the language of images, and the way our own perspective shapes what we see. If you've come across the book before, the film is a natural companion to it; if you haven't, it's a good place to start with Berger's ideas.

As part of the wider John Berger at 100 programme, the screening sits within a larger look at his career as both a writer and a painter. Berger spent his life thinking about art, and Ways of Seeing is perhaps his most enduring contribution to that conversation, so it makes sense as a focal point for the season. It's the kind of thing that stays with you long after you've left the cinema, and it's worth seeing on a big screen.

The screening is at 14:00 at Watershed in Bristol.