Beatniks are back in style

Submarine director Richard Ayoade was at Somerset House last night to give a talk on his cinematic influences as part of Film Four’s Summer Screen season. Ayoade sung the praises of Scorsese and Hitchcock but had a hard time with a Bergman double bill. “I’ve had some hostile times in cinema,” he recalled. “I missed the first five minutes of The Wolf and I casually said to the person next to me ‘has it been on long?’ and he lost it. Halfway through he started heavy breathing, then after the film he followed me and my friend, clapping and calling us beatniks.”

We had no idea retro insults were back in fashion.