Jane Treays

Jane Treays
Occupation	documentary film maker

Jane Treays is a British documentary film maker.

Early career

In 1984, Treays was a researcher working on documentaries for the BBC. She worked on the series Our House.[1] In 1988, she produced The Diary of Jack Dancy for Timewatch.[2] In 1995, she produced Situation Vacant, about the endurance test for the Royal Marines (a six-part series for BBC Two).[3]

Films

• I Don't Want to Be Remembered as a Chair (1990, Timewatch), about the Shakers[4]
• Painted Babies (1996), about child beauty pageants, which was watched by 3.5 million people[5][6]
• Under the Sun (BBC Two, 1998), about a male prostitute in Melbourne[7]
• Agas and Their Owners (BBC Two, 1998), "a quaint study of English class attitude"[8]
• Public Enemy: Mother and Son (ITV, 1999), about Sante Kimes[9]
• One Man, Six Wives and 29 Children: Real Life, about polygyny[10]
• Ken and Me, about William Roache and Ken Barlow (2000)[11]
• True Stories: Men in the Woods (Channel 4, 2001), about flashers[12]
• This Model Life, about fashion models, including Daphne Selfe and Ruth Crilly[13][14]
• Extraordinary Families: The Seven Wives of Alexander Spencer (Channel 4, 2005), about bigamy[15]
• What Sort of Gentleman Are You After?, about male prostitution[6]
• A Child's Life: Aged 12, and Looking After the Family (Channel 4, 2007), about young carers[5][16][17]
• The Man with the 7-Second Memory, about Clive Wearing[18]
• The Virgin Daughters (2008), about the American purity movement[19]
• Mum, Heroin and Me (2008)[20]
• Inside Claridge's (2012)[21][22]
• Land of Hope and Glory: British Country Life (2016, BBC Two), about the magazine Country Life[23]
• The Queen's Green Planet (2018, ITV)[24]

Treays made a film about travelling with The Rolling Stones on tour, but it has not been broadcast.[25]

Critical response

Treays has been compared to Molly Dineen, Lucy Blakstad and Nick Broomfield.[5][26]

She has been described as "a film-maker unafraid to ask a blunt question and capture a telling moment".[21]

John Crace, in The Guardian, wrote of her 2012 documentary Inside Claridges, "Director Jane Treays never actually appeared on camera, but she was a presence throughout with her off-screen questions. Unlike some documentary-makers who have the knack of putting their subjects on the defensive, she gnawed away at hers with love and was repaid time and again with delightful indiscretions ... Nor did Treays shy away from asking the difficult questions".[27]

Treays has said of her film-making, "I got better at it when I had children and I've got better since I've been divorced because of the sadness I felt. If I'd never experienced pain or sadness I would find it hard to identify. Documentary-making is an area people get better at as they get older. You have to know yourself. You have to be very tender in your relationship with the person you're making a film about ... everything I do is made with love and is about love in its many different forms and perversions."[5]

Her film True Stories: Men in the Woods (2001) was described by Gareth McLean in The Guardian as "On the whole interesting ... [but] Occasionally melodramatic and self-indulgent".[28] Anita Biressi and Heather Nunn place it within the genre of feminist autobiography and write that "the fantasy nature precisely depicted the act of telling and retelling a traumatic childhood event".[29]

Personal life

Treays is Cornish.[30] She was married to David Pearson, also a film-maker.[30] They have two children, and are divorced.[5][30]

References

1. "BBC doc series on homes from cottage to castle--BBC-2 autumn slot". The Stage. 21 June 1984. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
2. "TV Choice". Staffordshire Sentinel. 1 June 1988. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
3. "Candidates soldier on in quest to join the elite". Liverpool Daily Post. 5 January 1995. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
4. Bowe, S.; Richmond, P. (2007). Selling Shaker: The Commodification of Shaker Design in the Twentieth Century. Liverpool University Press - V. Liverpool University Press. p. 239. ISBN 978-1-84631-008-9. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
5. Thynne, Jane (22 January 2007). "Jane Treays: Up close and highly personal". The Independent.
6. Pink, S. (2006). Applications of Anthropology. Berghahn Series. Berghahn Books. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-84545-027-4. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
7. Greenaway, Sue (8 January 1998). "Last night's TV review". Western Daily Press. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
8. Davies, Mike (23 December 1998). "Going simply ga-ga for the Aga". Birmingham Daily Post. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
9. Keal, Graham (8 June 1999). "Gruesome lifetime of crime". Liverpool Daily Post. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
10. "Wedded bliss with six wives". Aberdeen Evening Express. 9 December 1999. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
11. "Ken and Me". Wicklow People. 28 December 2000. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
12. Treays, Jane (26 July 2001). "I can't forget the man in the woods". The Telegraph. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
13. Selfe, D. (2016). The Way We Wore: A Life in Clothes. Pan Books. p. 251. ISBN 978-1-4472-9193-0. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
14. "Best Documentary". Evening Herald (Dublin). 25 March 2003. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
15. Gordon, Stephen (13 March 2005). "Serial bigamist has no capacity for guilt". Sunday Life. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
16. Taylor, Caroline (6 February 2007). "Aged 12 And Looking After the Family, Channel 4". Lancashire Telegraph. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
17. Stacey, Pat (6 February 2007). "Children taking care of children". Evening Herald (Dublin). Retrieved 10 November 2023.
18. Stacey, Pat (10 February 2007). "Life on 'Zoo-TV' is cheap". Evening Herald (Dublin). Retrieved 10 November 2023.
19. Stacey, Pat (26 September 2008). "Creeps, weirdos and control freaks". Evening Herald (Dublin). Retrieved 10 November 2023.
20. Stacey, Pat (24 October 2008). "Things parents will do for kids". Evening Herald (Dublin). Retrieved 10 November 2023.
21. Gilbert, Gerard (1 December 2012). "Television choices: Book in for a rich experience at celeb-rated London hotel". The Independent. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
22. McGinty, Stephen (15 December 2012). "The Scot at the centre of the BBC's series on Claridge's Hotel, in London". The Scotsman. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
23. Chater, David (4 March 2016). "What to watch on TV tonight". The Times. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
24. "British Queen's secret passion for trees revealed". France 24. 10 April 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
25. Quinn, J. (2013). The This Much is True - 15 Directors on Documentary Filmmaking. Professional Media Practice. A&C Black. p. 93. ISBN 978-1-4081-3253-1. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
26. Bruzzi, S. (2002). New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. Taylor & Francis. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-134-73944-8. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
27. Crace, John (3 December 2012). "TV review: Inside Claridge's; The Fear". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
28. McLean, Gareth (31 July 2001). "Exposing the truth". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
29. Biressi, A.; Nunn, H. (2005). Reality TV: Realism and Revelation. Film and Media Studies. Wallflower. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-904764-04-5. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
30. Jarvis, Katie (11 February 2014). "Down by the river with David Pearson". Cotswold Life. Retrieved 10 November 2023.

External links

• Jane Treays at IMDb