Tuesday 19 September 2023

Inception, dreaming and is Cobb 'awake' [whatever that is] when the film ends ? (work in progress)

Inception, dreaming and is Cobb 'awake' [whatever that is] when the film ends ? (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

26 July

Inception, dreaming and is Cobb 'awake' [whatever that is] when the film ends ? (work in progress)




Michael Caine, as a lecturer in an unspecified discipline at a French academy (which, however, we may rightly assume to be La Sorbonne), graces a scene close to the start of Inception [which, thanks to this word from the world of insurance, necessarily sounds like the start of the start], and then does not reappear until the closing ones.

From their conversation, we learn that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), whom he addresses as 'Dom', is his son-in-law and that he had once been one of his brighter students. (The credits tell us that Caine's character is called Miles, but we do not hear that name used.) Despite Cobb's seeming implication in the death of his daughter (Mal**, played by Marion Cotillard), Miles appears to have relatively few reservations about introducing Cobb to one of his current students, once he has first urged Cobb 'to come back to reality', and Cobb has argued both that, after what happened, he has to use what he was taught to do as he does (but cannot now be the architect of his own dream-deceptions), and, moreover, that the job that he is undertaking represents his only chance to be what Miles and Cobb want him to be able to be, a father to his children.

When Cobb asks for someone 'at least as good as' he was, Miles claims that Ariadne (Elliot Page) is 'better than' Cobb. (Apart from at the end of the film, where Miles meets Cobb at the airport, we see Caine do no more than effect an introduction to Ariadne. (If, that is, Cobb and co. have actually reached Arrivals...))


More to come...


























Appendix :





Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Saturday 9 September 2023

Barbie Tweets

Barbie Tweets

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

8 September

Barbie Tweets
Star-billing for Fanny Brice (Barbra STreisand) at The New Amsterdam Theatre













































Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Thursday 7 September 2023

The #MakeDishesLessAppealing Tweets

The #MakeDishesLessAppealing Tweets

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

8 September

The #MakeDishesLessAppealing Tweets












































Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Wednesday 5 July 2023

Operas ruined (with one letter) : Th'Agent's efforts at demolition

Operas ruined (with one letter) : Th'Agent's efforts at demolition

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

4 July

Operas ruined (with one letter) : Th'Agent's efforts at demolition





















































Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Tuesday 4 July 2023

On watching Asteroid City (2023) - and not giving a damn about seeing it again

On watxching Asteroid City (2023) - and not giving a damn about seeing it again

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

4 July

On watxching Asteroid City (2023) - and not giving a damn about seeing it again






More to come...





Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Friday 30 June 2023

Conflagration, Catastrophe and Christopher Nolan (work in progress)

Conflagration, Catastrophe and Christopher Nolan

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

30 June

Conflagration, Catastrophe and Christopher Nolan (work in progress)









More to come...






















Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Friday 23 June 2023

Maria Bartuszová at Tate Modern : Show finishes on Sunday 25 June 2023

Maria Bartuszová at Tate Modern at Tate Modern : Show finishes on Sunday 25 June 2023

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

23 June

Maria Bartuszová at Tate Modern at Tate Modern : Show finishes on Sunday 25 June 2023














Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Wednesday 14 June 2023

Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes : Jesus' parables of abundance or growth (good and bad) (work in progress)

Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes : Jesus' parables of abundance or growth

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

14 June

Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes : Jesus' parables of abundance or growth (good and bad) (work in progress)


This afternoon's live broadcast of Choral Evensong, on Radio 3, was from a very familiar Cambridge college chapel, led by Revd Dr Stephen Cherry, Dean of King's, and one reading (from The Old Testament) was from part of the story that Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber and famously adapted as Joseph and The Amazing, etc.



More to come...





































Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

#RoystonStationSnaps : Another, er, project proudly brought to you by #UCFF !

#RoystonStationSnaps : Another, er, project proudly brought to you by #UCFF !

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

12 June

#RoystonStationSnaps : Another, er, project proudly brought to you by #UCFF !






More to come...






Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Monday 12 June 2023

'Censorship' and cinema : Some Tweets

'Censorship' and cinema : Some Tweets

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

10 June

'Censorship' and cinema : Some Tweets


More to come...






Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Tuesday 6 June 2023

Kris Drever Band at The Stables [Wavendon, Milton Keynes] (work in progress)

Kris Drever Band at The Stables [Wavendon, Milton Keynes] (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

6 June

Kris Drever Band at The Stables [Wavendon, Milton Keynes] (work in progress)


A great evening at The Stables with Kris Drever and his friends, Euan Burton (double and electric bass plus vox) and Louis Abbott (perc, drums, guitar and vocals), including a fair sprinkling from the 2020 album Where The Air is Thin !

In the first set, Drever and his band gave us some poignant or reflective 'takes' on 'Sanday' (and its origins), 'I'll Always Leave The Light On' (and its origins) and 'More Than You Know' - after the interval, there was noticeably less 'chat', and this, as well as the energy in the songs chosen for it, helped the second set build.)










More to come...



































Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Wednesday 31 May 2023

Some Tweets on #AI and da Vinci

Some Tweets on #AI and da Vinci

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

31 May

Some Tweets on #AI and da Vinci







Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Thursday 20 April 2023

An incomplete review of Hilma (2022)

An incomplete review of Hilma (2022)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

1 November

An incomplete review of Hilma (2022)




It could well be that Hilma af Klint had a crush on Rudolf Steiner, met him twice only briefly, but took female lovers (seemingly under the nose of her family and of society at large) : whatever Steiner's actual status in her life, he only appears to be in the film, along with numerous deaths, to give it its rhythms.

However, if what just a quick look at Wiki* suggests happened is correct, matters were not as simple as Hilma chooses to tell her story :

In 1908 she met Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Anthroposophical Society, who was visiting Stockholm. Steiner introduced her to his own theories regarding the Arts, and would have some influence on her paintings later in life.

Several years later, in 1920, she met him again at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society. Between 1921 and 1930 she spent long periods at the Goetheanum.


By contrast, Edvard Munch, whose hug seems to be presented as puzzlingly shocking - although there is Strindbergian-style sex in the next room to the laying-out of af Klint's father (yet, given the circumstance and the film's generally Freudian tenor, it may betoken yet another unannounced dream ?) – could clearly have acted as a supporter, if his being so demonstrative had not been found insupportable.




ENDS



End-notes :

* From the item on Hilma af Klint at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilma_af_Klint.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Tuesday 11 April 2023

Easter Sunday at Snape – A further enquiry into the nature of things with Solomon's Knot (work in progress)

Easter at Snape – A further enquiry into the nature of things with Solomon's Knot (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

9 April

Easter Sunday at Snape Maltings – A further enquiry into the nature of things :
Solomon's Knot in Bach's St Matthew Passion, BWV 244 (work in progress)


No more so than would The Full Monty, given by I Fagiolini at Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge, during Cambridge Summer Music Festival (in 2005 ?), have been as when those performers sang that selection of Monteverdi's Madrigale under the same title, but in another venue, than Solomon's Knot, with J. S. Bach's St Matthew Passion, in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, will assuredly be as they and it were at Snape Maltings (on Easter Sunday) – or, for that matter, in Weimar's Herderkirche (on Good Friday).

Partly, there is site-specificity at play / stake and involved, and, if there are not, as at Britten Pears Arts, side-aisles and a central block of seats, one simply cannot have one's four-part choirs face each other across the stalls and flood the hall with sound in both directions. This was a moment that, probably as one had not envisaged - as one saw it approach - that it could be, was both moving and effective – just, in fact, as so much else was in what we saw and heard, which we had perhaps understood before, but not, in and at the same time, deeply felt in this way before. Or, then again, which we had sensed, but not so fully grasped and found tangible in its questioning force.


There is such power in solo or lead musicians (whether instrumentalists or vocalists) not being tied to following a printed score, and, when York Early Music Festival ran three or four recitals of Bach's solo compositions for, probably, violin, keyboard and cello, it was Alison McGillivray who, for this reason, communicated most directly – likewise the great Alisa Weilerstein, during Aldeburgh Festival, in a recital in Blythburgh Church.


More to come...


























End-notes :

* Probably familiar to so many, who have not necessarily had a chance to set foot within the chapel, from the service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's, with its processions and solemnity of ceremony (as televised and broadcast by radio) ?







Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)