Sunday 20 December 2015

Gems and jewels : The Sixteen at Advent

This is a review of a concert given by The Sixteen under Harry Christophers

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

20 December

This is a review of a concert, with a programme entitled The Virgin Mother and Child, given by The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers, at Saffron Hall on Sunday 20 December at 7.30 p.m.

Those at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHall) who had heard The Sixteen (@TheSixteen) during one of their Choral Pilgrimages* might not have been expecting two things from the programme (even if they had, in passing and without much thought, noted that amongst what it was to include was John Tavener’s The Lamb) : the pieces were, by and large, not lengthy (the ones that took longest to perform were still probably little more than around ten minutes), and they ranged from plainsong to the work of living British composers (such as Howard Skempton and Alec Roth).

Although, for balance, some of the singers did move around at times, usually the six sopranos were in a row directly in front of Harry Christophers, with the other singers on long rostra behind them, with two shorter, angled ones at the sides.


Part I :

1. Plainsong ~ Puer natus est nobis
2. Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585) ~ Gloria from Missa Puer natus est nobis (1554 ??)
3. John Tavener (1944–2013) ~ The Lamb (1982)
4. Boris Ord (1897–1961) ~ Adam lay ybounden (1957)
5. Traditional ~ ‘Rejoice and be merry’
6. James MacMillan (1959–) ~ O Radiant Dawn (2007)
7. Gabriel Jackson (1962–) ~ The Christ-child (2009)
8. William Byrd (? 1539/1540 or ? 1543–1623) ~ Ave Maria (1605)
9. Plainsong ~ Nesciens mater
10. Walter Lambe (1450–1504) ~ Nesciens mater (latter decades of fifteenth century)


As a prelude to, and informative of, the Gloria from the mass by Tallis that was to come second (because this is what he has built into it), we heard the plainsong introit (1) Puer natus est nobis (‘Unto us a child is born’), with proper solemnity, but also ‘flow’. Initially sung with male voices, at ‘Cantate Domino’ the six sopranos (ranged in the front) came in, but we reverted to men for ‘Gloria Patri et Filio’. Then, however, all together and taking it from the top, with the sound of the setting’s reverberations, and the hesitantly circular effect of its repeated notes.

Run together with it, the (2) Tallis Gloria’s opening line was just a single vocalist, but soon we were fully aware, once again with The Sixteen, of some superbly beautiful individual voices (most obviously at the top), beautifully blended by the choice and care of conductor Harry Christophers (and with configurations of the performers changing to suit the needs of the repertoire). If one will, though, Tallis can easily seduce us from the words that he is setting with the sounds that are created within and between the parts. He is not alone in this regard (in a period of English choral-writing where one can sometimes feel lost – despite having and trying to follow the text), but, here and with this rendition, one did not need to encounter, as if out of nowhere, a cadence and a resolving chord to know where one was.

Moreover, Tallis does not run through the text in one, but makes quite a clear break after the line Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris : a fresh section, with entries that we could quite clearly hear coming in, and one where, on the next six lines (concerning The Lamb of God (please see below)), he was going to spend relatively more time. Christophers could be seen, calling voices out of the texture and into greater prominence, but he is unassuming as a conductor, and our attention was on the singers and their voices, although appreciating, in general terms, how he brought out warmth with the words Quonium tu solus Sanctus, and a building of energy with the concluding three lines. Surely, anyone unfamiliar with his choir was already as rapt as those who came to marvel again at how, in all respects, together they sound.



It was not explicit, so it may have been easy to overlook, but there was a link from Agnus Dei to (3) The Lamb. Most immediately evocative of re-watching The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (2013) (which uses a performance by The Choir of the Temple Church), Tavener’s The Lamb is of as great delicacy and subtlety as Blake’s poem**.

 Christophers had The Sixteen bring us the first four lines very gently. For the remaining six lines of the first verse, from ‘Gave thee clothing of delight’, there was an inward quality in the ensemble, and it gradually slowed, finally holding back distinctly with the closing line ‘Dost thou know who made thee ?’, provocative of contemplation. In the second verse, we moved through the text smoothly, until a principal point of focus was the pauses between words in ‘He became a little child’ – then, via an increasing ritardando (as with verse one), coming to another held-back last line. Encapsulated here, our response to the other-worldliness of Tavener’s preceding, and slightly Eastern, sound-world, which strikes home through the comparative simplicity of the closing cadence.


On seeing the same programme at St David's Hall, Cardiff, another reviewer (Nigel Jarrett, for Wales Arts Review (@WalesArtsReview)) comments :

Certainly John Tavener’s simple setting of William Blake’s The Lamb and the wondrous stasis of his O, do not move were placed in the programme to show how a miniature could sustain a mood or transform joy into ecstasy, a condition liable in music to outstay its welcome. The way they were sung here, with a lightness and intensity that belied their reputation for being diatonic potboilers meant to beguile the crowd, said much for the choir’s even-handed approach to its material.


If we felt that time moved slowly, with Tavener and Tallis, (4) Adam lay ybounden, Boris Ord’s only published composition, takes barely a minute (and, despite a longer text, ‘Rejoice and be merry’ is typically only half as long again) – hence the conceit, in the title of this posting, regarding the length of our gaze on a polished jewel (as against on a gem-stone). (They may be the exceptions amongst the published programme, but, of course, they are just as much part of what we sing or listen to before or during Christmas, so both can be found in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College (of which the former has, since Ord's time, remained a staple.)

This terribly familiar setting, because of its appearance in those broadcasts from King’s, of a fifteenth-century Carol [and can it be, as it seems (from Wikipedia®), that only British composers have tackled it ?] puts forward, with admirable concision (as of Chaucer’s shorter verse ?), the argument that The Virgin Mary being heavené queen causes the action, of taking the fruit in The Garden of Eden, to be blessed : it is through in a flash, and makes its point. In a piece that has very definite ‘waves’ of meaning, the group was to be less 'rounded' in a reverential way than, in the English choral tradition, is typical in a performance from King’s, and more in accord with the text’s human perspective.

Likewise with the story-telling of (5) ‘Rejoice and be merry’, into which - and with like momentum - we were led. Again, one can see and hear the choir of King’s College with it, balanced and measured : with The Sixteen’s mixed forces, and an affect fitting to the lyrics, they could bring us the first verse with just female (and very pure) voices, and contrast it with the men (and a particular tenor brought forward by Christophers) in the second. Then, pleasingly all together, and to close with very apt celebratory richness in the final verse : Who brought us salvation – his praises we’ll sing !


In this group of three, though, the real contrast was with James MacMillan (@jamesmacm) in (6) O Radiant Dawn, with a few lines of text (probably one-half of the number of words of ‘Rejoice and be merry’). However, as would expect from his work, and from the fact that the text is one of the Advent antiphons (together known as ‘O’ antiphons, from the opening sound of each), and that it is taken from his Strathclyde Motets, there is plenty of impact and reflection (and so exceeding the length of the other two pieces in total).

 We had the first important emphasis on the word ‘Come’ (an appeal, in the middle of the second line, to the Sun of Justice) – a word that is repeated twice, and with increasing harmony, which enthusiastically came across to us. Envisaging those on whom this Radiant Dawn needs to shine, we dropped to the word ‘death’ at the end of the third line. In the second group of lines, Christophers let us hear the accents in the quotation from Isaiah, but dropping off, only to rise – in this piece bathed in light – on the final word ‘shone’.

When MacMillan sets the opening three lines again, it was now with more prominence that – on arriving at ‘Justice’ (the preceding word to ‘Come’, where he had dwelt before) – we had repeated the phrase Sun of Justice. Then, starting softly, The Sixteen came up to a blaze on the word ‘Come’, and a stress on ‘shine’. In a five-times rendered ‘Amen’ (with the stress firmly on the first syllable), we ended in a gravely reverential way, with a handful of singers.


Also writing for King’s, and calling it (7) The Christ-child, Gabriel Jackson set G. K. Chesterton’s poem (an author sadly neglected, but for his Father Brown stories – for example, his excellent novel The Man Who Was Thursday). Familiar to us from other Carols, e.g. ‘The Holly and the Ivy’, but reaching back at least to the period of Middle English, this is an unchanging frame-work into which, each time, varying words are put.

 As has already been noted regarding other works, we heard phrases stand out like jewelled miniatures, such as were the world (right after the embodied ‘O weary, weary’) in the first stanza, and all aright as its closing words (just with female voices). From there, a wordless hum – which we will know from choral music in the liturgical tradition – became part of the transition from stanza to stanza. Back with the more overt implications of Chesterton’s poetry, there felt to be touch of cabaret, in accord with a description of ‘the Kings’*** as O stern and cunning, but dropping back to purity at, and in the light of, the ending of the stanza : But here the true hearts are (followed by a further hum).

In the third stanza, the point of intense drama was hearing – of the Christ-child’s hair – that it was like a fire, and, with the succeeding near-repetition in O weary, weary is the world, we heard less weariness in the line, and that latterly it was infused by female voices, and then concluded the stanza. A softer hum led to the piece's quieter resolution, our relishing the intense feeling, both of Julie Cooper’s high-soprano solo, and of the warm harmonies.


From a setting of nearly five minutes to Byrd’s of (8) Ave Maria, one of one-half its length (and not a complicated setting, even in the composer’s own terms****). One feels that William Byrd was specifically inspired liturgically, as he might well have been by its prohibited Marian content, status and significance. In it, Christophers brought a full and seemly sound from The Sixteen, and the final Alleluia tenderly lasted as a goodly proportion of the whole.


Unlike with Puer natus est nobis, the plainsong antiphon (9) Nesciens mater was rendered to us just by male voices, and then straight into (10) Walter Lambe’s composition for these words. It immediately sounded rooted in the plainsong approach, with prominent lower lines under the rest of the texture - maybe partly accounting for how it takes more than twice as long to perform than the Ave Maria ? (The text of both is five lines of almost similar length, except that the last line of the latter is just the word Alleluia.)

There was a slowing in sine dolore Salvatorum saeculorum (the second line), and then, with some energy, a more elaborate, decorated style emerged, with vowels being sustained for several bars at a time, and typified by the treatment of the word ‘angelorum’, which, in the lower voices, gave rise to the repeated sound ho. (In the hands of the wrong ensemble, it can sound like bogus laughter, hardly appropriate to a serious religious setting.)


Very clearly, in The Sixteen (@TheSixteen), this was the right ensemble, and the applause that the audience had had [to remember] to keep to between the groups of pieces, and to allow the next group to be performed without undue delay, showed it.



Part II :

 11. Tallis ~ Videte miraculum
12. Howard Skempton (1947–) ~ Adam lay ybounden (1999)
13. Richard Pygott (1485–1522) ~ Quid petis, O fili ? (later than 1530)
14. Traditional ~ ‘A child is born in Bethlehem’
15. Tavener ~ O, do not move (1990)
16. Alec Roth (1948–) ~ Song of the Shepherds (2013)
17. Peter Philips (1560–1628) ~ O beatum et sacrosanctum diem (1612)
18. Robert Parsons (1535–1572) ~ Ave Maria (late 1560s)



 As with the setting by Tallis that effectively opened the first half, (11) Videte miraculum was another of significant length (more than four times as long as Adam lay ybounden and ‘Rejoice and be merry’ together) – avowedly not a measure of worth, but the longer pieces necessarily work in a different way from the striking immediacy that those of ninety (or sixty) seconds need to achieve.

In the opening line, Tallis delays respectfully, first of all, on the word ‘miraculum’. Christophers had given another of the sopranos (i.e. not one of the ones credited as soloists) a prominent role, but, regrettably, her tone may have been a little harsh, or too forthright, to be right for this piece.In the four lines from the words ‘Haec speciosum’, we have the plainsong chant, and then jump back to revisit the preceding two lines (beginning ‘et matrem’). The effect is to make Mary’s virginity, coupled with her giving her joy at having conceived, the focus, before giving us plainsong again for the closing words (of, in context, faithful rejoicing) :

 Gloria Patri et Filio
et Spiritui Sancto


In Howard Skempton’s version of (12) Adam lay ybounden, we had something just as brief as Boris Ord’s, but much more restrained : apart from an echoic, Sotto voce quality to it, it only stepped out with a somewhat urgent character to the repeated Deo Gratias ! (which maybe felt provocative of anxiety not praise ?).

For (13) Quid petis, O fili ?, by Richard Pygott, The Sixteen had been significantly rearranged, replacing the row of sopranos across the front with a quartet of mixed voices (soprano, alto, etc.). The Carol began with its recurring short Chorus, from whose opening words it takes its title, and to which the text of the verse (sung by the quartet) leads up each time : at moments, one had been aware of the tone-colours of these chosen singers in the whole, but (necessarily) with the first verse they came to be appreciated more fully, and to delight, with the alto voice being especially lovely.

 The succeeding Chorus opened with tenor voices, before the others joined in, and then opened to a full sound. Mention of Mary in the second verse was coupled with a more expansive feeling, with the other voices treating of the words, and in a way that reminded a little of Monteverdi. This time, the Chorus seemed more reserved, and to be singing with dignity, the dignity of ‘her manners’***** on which the narrator is ‘musing’ in the last verse (sung without soprano voice, in which we might otherwise identify with Mary ?). The final line of the Chorus, beginning ‘O pater, o fili’, was expansive, but we nevertheless came to a thoughtful, quiet close.


In twelve lines - with the invariant closing line, about the sweetness of love, Amor, quam dulcis est amor ! [in which ‘dulcis’ kept coming to the fore] - (14) ‘A child is born in Bethlehem’ is another Traditional number that we might hear, in passing, at King’s in Nine Lessons and Carols : it is barely more than a minute long, so it was grouped with the two items that followed. Not that she did not succeed in it, but there was a quite exposed and difficult solo for Emilia Morton (soprano), with long notes, and not easy to lay against the rest of the texture.

Tavener’s second piece, (15) O, do not move, is from the same decade as The Lamb, and it was also characterized by softness of delivery, e.g. of the way in which, three times, we heard O, do not move. If we might borrow Arvo Pärt’s use of the word, there was a tintinnabulation on the opening word, also sung three times, of what serves as a response, Listen to the gentle beginning, where, when we were given the remainder of the text, it was tenderly, with oriental, descending intervals, and, more prominently than at the start, a hummed drone. Partly, as precious stones might, achieving its effect by the company in which it is placed, Tavener’s composition challengingly shone.

Alec Roth’s (16) Song of the Shepherds had been commissioned, by Little St Mary’s Church, in Cambridge, as a setting of words by Richard Crashaw (priest there from 1638 to 1643), and first performed, not at Christmas, but in April 2013. With eight verses of poetry, it was a flowingly and gently accented narrative-style composition, employing word-pictures to mark significant events, e.g. when we came to Gloomy night embraced the place (the second verse), or We saw thee in thy balmy nest (the fourth) : in that verse, Roth uses a little riff on the words We saw thee (which occur three times), but his general approach is legato, and, if there are subsidiary lines, they are easily followed. A piece of tones / moods, reducing (as the choice of possible resting-places is gradually eliminating) in forces at the end.


The Christmas motet (17) O beatum et sacrosanctum diem by Peter Philips, again noticeably shorter, was again part of the aspect of the programme that treated of The Nativity as such (as in the work (16) by Roth immediately before, or the two (13, 14) that preceded Tavener’s O, do not move). In the first, establishing verse, Philips is only lavish with notes to emphasize the phrase pro nobis, whereas, in the second, we heard several phrases embellished (such as in sono), after a repeat, with lively voices, of the opening line of praise Gaudeat itaque universus orbis. In the last verse, syllables were very clearly spaced, allowing for the effect of bell-sounds in descending figures, and we closed with a highly celebratory, extended Noë, noë.


As heard by Byrd (in the first half (8)), Robert Parsons had set the (18) Ave Maria, and we heard it likewise reverentially, and initially slowly, although there was a sense of it building, with the blessing Dominus tecum of the second line. However, there was an equal impression of falling back afterwards to be attentive and devotional, with Mary’s blessedness and that of Jesus (in her womb). A gentle ‘Amen’ concluded, with rise, fall, and cadence.



There was no enthusiasm to allow the concert to end there, and much for it to continue, so The Sixteen were persuaded to return, with two encores. (When they came back on stage, they took up new positions, in four groups : two at the back (a four stage left, next to a five), and two angled on the sides, with a five next to a four, and vice versa.)

First, the setting, by Michael Praetorius (?) (1571–1621), of the fourteenth-century text ‘Quem pastores laudavere’, sung with due reverence, and, as with other of the pieces that had been performed, relying for its effect relatively linearly, with the sound of one verse building on (or otherwise differing from) what preceded it. As Christmas was just days ahead, The Sixteen finished for the evening with another contrast, in ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’. Nothing flashy, but, with their combined vocal calibre, not unremarkable that they had given us a concluding Christmas piece that we could have joined in with – if we had dared !

 As it was, we thanked them for the quality and intensity of their singing with yet more applause : an evening of music with all the professionalism and interpretative spirit that one would expect.



End-notes

* The Choral Pilgrimages have perhaps tended to take longer settings for their focus, made by two or three composers who were either peers, or where the influence of an established one could be seen on someone younger ?

** For those who do not know the piece (or did not hear the concert), there is a recording of The Sixteen performing it here.

 *** Presumably meaning the Kings Herod (respectively, The Great, and Antipas) ?

**** Perhaps mistaking one’s Tudor composers, from a concert in which Stile Antico (@stileantico) had given works written in the reign of every Tudor monarch (at Beverley Early Music Festival, but not seemingly recorded as such), Byrd had been recalled as one whose density of layering had made the text (even with the programme) hardest to follow. If it was not he (and he had, rather, proved the rule by being the exception), Harry Christophers nonetheless indulged a question in the interval about the difficulty of bringing out the vocal-lines in performing Byrd’s work – as he necessarily would (as one realized, in putting the question !), he hoped that he managed.

As to Byrd and complication, though, he mentioned that The Choral Pilgrimage 2016 was going to feature an eight-part setting – it is as yet unidentified amongst many works by Byrd, listed on The Sixteen’s web-site : failing on 8 April, at the chapel at St John’s College, Cambridge (@stjohnscam), the nearest dates as yet announced appear to be Milton Keynes (28 September), or Kings Place (@KingsPlace) (3 November).

***** Likely to be close to its French origins in manière, and, at a guess, to mean something more like ‘bearing’, even than ‘behaviour’ ? Unlike with the other two verses, in a text (set in 1530) we might struggle to construe the full meaning of these first four lines, for example the opening pair Musing on her manners / so nigh marr’d was my main.




 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Saturday 19 December 2015

They weren’t clapping for me – they were clapping for a ghost

This is a review of Orion : The Man Who Would Be King (2015)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

19 December
This is a review of Orion : The Man Who Would Be King (2015)
(but with reference to Let’s Get Lost (1988))

 On the face of it, the documentaries Let’s Get Lost (1988) and Orion : The Man Who Would Be King (2015) about, respectively, jazz trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker, and Jimmy Ellis (known, in his time, because his singing voice closely resembled that of Elvis Presley), would appear to have a lot in common : both subjects, to follow a career in music, ended up doing so despite family ties, did not see all the money that their performing and recording should have earnt them, and were confronted by problems that arise from living in the public gaze.

The earlier film, directed by Bruce Weber, was seemingly not shown in the UK until 6 June 2008 (at Cambridge Film Festival (@camfilmfest) ?), turned out to be of older origin than it seemed, and posed questions to the viewer that Jeanie Finlay’s (@JeanieFinlay’s) Orion never does : what it was for, and can we see it as a documentary (rather than barely a musing about the overlap between memory and myth - please see below) ?

What might disguise such questions is that visually, that is from scene to scene, Angelo Corrao’s cinematography in Let’s Get Lost looks good. However, what works less well is, a little unnecessarily, giving us arty shots and angles, as if to give a stylistic complement – although it may just be that it only now seems stale – to having us believe that we witness ‘the chaotic, crazy world of jazz’. (Perhaps appearing rather dull, in not being so expressionistic, Bertrand Tavernier’s ’Round Midnight (1986) gives us many of the same perceptions*.)


Jeanie Finlay’s film makes visual connections that are more organic, and whose operation at the subconscious level is therefore more effective, because they do not explicitly bother us with what we are seeing, but their ‘rightness’, in alluding to relations between things, affects us – as, for example, when Jimmy Ellis feels obliged to move back to his childhood home of Orrville, Alabama :


As a whole that wonderfully coheres, Orion : The Man Who Would Be King is story-telling by the carefully edited use of images, sparing captions / graphic-devices, and interview footage (some of it, mainly in the case of Ellis, just audio), and, where accounts diverge of what happened, intelligently presenting the juxtaposition, and letting the viewer decide what to believe. So, for example, Orion employs [the link, to give the look of the film, is to its trailer from DOXA 2015] :

* In an effect suited to the period (and to evoking, ahead of time, the atmosphere of Nashville), dates of the relevant year, coming up into view, and popping like clusters in the air

 * In Alabama, tracking shots of fields and trees, and the imagery of fronds of vegetation, contrast and conflict with closing in on the rotating sky, and the dreamy effects of slow-motion and blurred, out-of-focus lights

 * When coming into Nashville proper, and, as we casually run a few blocks, being exposed to the unreality of this real place, with more lights superposed on the lights

 * What must have been publicity stills, with their fantasy temptation to the public : teasing back-shots of Orion, as if just he has taken off the mask that is extended in his hand

* Linked to Ellis returning to Orrville, and the tracking shots, moody guitar, with long reverberation and slight distortion

* Very compelling choices of recorded material of Jimmy singing, or talking about himself, and amongst the stills and other promotional material ~ NB most of Jeanie Finlay's Tweets in this review, as with the following one, were on the night when Orion showed live on Storyville (@bbcstoryville) on BBC Four (@BBCFOUR)





The film fits in clearly with Finlay’s interests in previous work of hers, such as The Great Hip-Hop Hoax (2013) (@hiphophoax) and Panto ! (2014) (@PantoFilm), and it may well be that she covertly identifies an incurable part of our nature, that we are drawn to fantasy** : she lets us look at that twilight world where people end up 'living a lie', whether more of their choice (as with Hoax’s Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain), or, as Jimmy Ellis does, hoping to launch a career by initially going along with a firm requirement (of promoter Shelby Singleton). (Even so, it is not as cut and dried as that, since, in Hoax, Boyd and Bain argue that experience showed that the music business would not take them seriously as Scots, and Ellis did have some earlier success, but in a way that kept having him explicitly distance himself from Presley (and, ironically, from being taken for him).)




 A very candid piece of audio that Finlay uses, of Jimmy Ellis saying what he did to try to have a career (and why), transcribes as :

 It was basically the only direction I could go. When you’re trying to get into the music business, I kind of look at it like a fella trying to get on a fast train : there’s no easy way to get on that booger. You just gotta jump up there and grab and hold onto something, and hope that you don’t fall.


In Ellis’ case, it was what Jerry Hatfield, a friend from his home town, described in these terms (referring to Shelby Singleton, Ellis’ promoter (and President of Sun Records, Nashville), who is later heard saying The more lies we told, the more people believed them [one of the tag-lines of Hoax is 'Lies about lies']) :

 Timing is everything. People were very, very emotional, and receptive to anything Elvis. Shelby Singleton came along, at the right time, with nothing more than a gimmick***, a gimmick - a despicable gimmick !



As Finlay was to comment, in the interview about Panto !** (regarding why she had wanted to make a film that followed a cast of amateur actors in Nottingham, who were staging a production of Puss in Boots) :

 I am obsessed with uncovering ‘the glimmer’ of the person underneath a portrayed persona. With actors, the potential for uncovering this is heightened, as I can explore the gap between on and off stage. The film touches on similar themes I have previously explored in my films The Great Hip-Hop Hoax and new film Orion - the desire for fame and the transformative role of the spotlight.



As well as in passages of audio where he is interviewed, we probably hear most significantly (and mainly on camera) concerning Jimmy Ellis himself (rather than the origins and adoption of the Orion persona) from his son Jim Ellis Jr, his friend Jerry Hatfield (mentioned above), and the guitarist (and member of Orion’s band) Nick Scott Petta. There is also his former girlfriend Nancy Crowson, who had to give him up, because she was not reassured, or satisfied, by being told that she was head of the line when he was on tour. (There are others who say the same, about how he was drawn to have many women around him.) However, although the film does not avoid the difficult parts of his life, it does not, unlike Let’s Get Lost, dwell on them as revelations (albeit with Chet Baker, we will know of him beforehand), and seek ways to influence our opinion of him :

Whereas much – that is to say, too much – is made, say, of how it happened that Chet Baker ended up losing his teeth from a violent incident that occurred in Paris, and whether what he claims in his account on camera is correct (for, time after time, words are spoken, similar to those of one interviewee : You’ll never really know when Chet is being sincere).

By presenting dissenting voices in such cases, the documentary does not appear to be serving anyone’s interests, except challenging Baker’s credibility : the person who had not only lately died, but who had also recently been extensively filmed for the purposes of the film (some of the time in set-ups, but not acknowledged as staged for the film till late on in it). (Even if, and not as he says, Baker had been attacked because of his ‘manipulative’ ways (and as a deliberate act to punish him), nonetheless he was attacked, and, one still gathers (whether his teeth were extracted singly, or all at once), playing the trumpet was compromised for him, such that it was unclear whether he would [be able to] do so again, because he now had dentures.)


Although a documentary about a person that is over-adulatory (perhaps Iris (2014), or Mavis ! (2015) ?) might not be very informative, at the same time one might ask of what service the feature film Hilary and Jackie (1998) was to the memory of Jacqueline du Pré as a musician. Whereas, of course, the memory that many have – of du Pré and of Baker – is largely in their recorded music (and associated photographs, or video), what survives of that of Jimmy Ellis clearly left a place for Jeanie Finlay to remind us of him.


Towards the end of his life, Ellis told one interviewer what he thought about whether he was happy :



Contrary to modern expectations, or what some of those might say who offer themselves as guides to what life is, Ellis went on to conclude his utterance with You’re happy to-day and sad to-morrow.









End-notes

* In a fictional scenario, if one credited as originating in the experiences of Bud Powell and others, where the real sax-player Dexter Gordon plays the invented one of Dale Turner.

** Though benignly in Panto !, there is still the same sense that the very charismatic actor in the production whom we come to see closely is honest that he most finds himself when, and through being, on stage. (Not unusually, the film is difficult to find, by name, on IMDb (@IMDb) : by looking at a list of Finlay’s films, one sees that it calls it Pantomime (2014) (only listing as Panto ! another film with that title from 2012).)

An interview with Finlay can be found on the BBC web-page from when the documentary screened for Storyville (on 23 December 2014, on BBC Four (@BBCFOUR)), and likewise an interview with her for when Orion first showed (16 November 2015).


*** * Contains spoilers * In time, employing that gimmick leads to the excerpts from two television interviews asking about it that we see, in the first of which Orion claims that he is from Ribbonsville, Tennessee, and says, when pressed, It’s hard to find [presumably, although the film does not choose to go into this aspect of the matter, with presenters hosting Orion who know who he is] :

Television presenter 1 : Why do you wear the mask, Orion ?

 Orion (fiddling with the mask) : Good question !
Orion : I’m not hiding anything. It’s a trademark, it’s an idea that the promotional people in Nashville, Tennessee, came up with. Shelby Singleton, who is the President of Sun Records, is probably known in the music business as one of the most flamboyant promoters in the business. He will do most anything to promote a product…

 Television presenter 2 (With surprise) : And you’re a product ?




 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Friday 18 December 2015

Pre-Christmas shorts, hosted by BFI Film Academy tutor Ryd Cook

Some Tweets about a film screening at CB1, Mill Road, Cambridge

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

18 December

Some Tweets (and other text) about this film screening at CB1, Mill Road, Cambridge on Friday 18 December 2015 at 7.00 p.m.

For those who do not already know Ryd Cook (@RydCook), who was hosting this event, a Tweet at the other end of this posting shows him (after the screening, and with pizza and blazing hair), or they may recall a guy who can be found at many times of day around The Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge (@CamPicturehouse), and is usually (invariably ?) sporting knee-length shorts (and almost as often a skateboard).



Quite concisely, when there was a lot of information that Ryd wished to convey, he introduced himself as a film-maker, on his own and others’ behalfs, who has taught (for six years) on the regional BFI (@BFI) Film Academy courses for 16- to 19-year-olds, and is a long-standing member* of Project Trident (@ProjectTrident), a collective of supportively like-mindedly zany individuals (at least one of whom is always involved in one of his own films**).



Ryd also thanked CB1 (@CB1Cafe) for the use of the space, Kim Bates (@Kimi_Maii, his producer) for making it all happen, and cinema colleagues Tony Jones and Trish Sheil for screen and projector, respectively (though Ryd started to confuse himself by trying to say it the other way around – not creatively instinctual for nothing !).





The first film that Ryd showed to us had been sent to him by Rory Greener (@rory_greener), who had been one of Ryd’s students.

 Afterwards, they had had a conversation about whether Rory wanted to try to get into a career in film, and (the answer to which Ryd said that he did not know about himself at that age) Rory said that he wanted to be a cinematographer. Ryd offered Rory some advice about how to do that, and was then very impressed by receiving Enough Rope from Rory, some months later.

 With some editing tips from Ryd, Rory had made a (slightly shorter) version, which is what we watched (and some people who had worked on the film turned out to be in the screening, whereas Rory had not finished for the term, and was not yet back)...





After an interval, and with only a very short introduction (those who had acted in the film were identifiable and could be spoken to afterwards), we came to Ryd’s film Aviatrix (2015) (#AviatrixFilm), which had been seen twice before*** : during Tridentfest [Project Trident] at Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (@camfilmfest / #CamFF), and at Hot Numbers, in Gwydir Street (@hotnumbers / #GwydirSt), before a screening of a feature film there.



In directing the cast through what is, much of the time, a chamber-piece, Ryd lets us see closely into their different characters through their faces and expressions, and in the spaces between what is said.

 In a nutshell, albeit rooted in our world, Aviatrix symbolically, shows us the power of inspiration when we feel able to trust others, and they are as much inspired as we are. (In literal terms, we could not be uplifted by what might follow the closing sequence, but we embrace it figuratively, because cinema allows for the depiction of important moments.)


To close, as he judged that it had a Christmassy feel (it certainly has wintry light and snow, and a cheerful soundtrack), Ryd left us with the couple of minutes of Frosty Afternoon, whose settings on streets in and around Cambridge many would have recognized.

 For those of us thinking of making a film, he stressed how simple the cameras on most phones nowadays make it, and that he had not intended to make the film, but had just started shooting on what he had available at the time (a BlackBerry). He urged us to do likewise, as his film has twice been shown at film festivals.

 The film can be seen here, and Ryd’s channel on YouTube (@YouTube) is http://www.youtube.com/user/RydianCook.


The man of the evening himself, seen as he should be, Ryd Cook




End-notes

 * Although closely associated with Project Trident, Ryd was apparently not one of the founders, but joined within the first six to twelve months. The group’s web-site is www.projecttrident.com.

 ** When it is a project with which Ryd is personally connected, such as Thrown (2011) (written by Dave Clark, @BlueCrayon77), or Aviatrix (2015) (also written by Dave Clark), he operates under the name Little Victories Films, and appends it to the film.

Thrown had been the first film of Ryd’s seen, but there seems to be no sign of a review :



It can be seen here, and Ryd’s channel on YouTube (@YouTube) is http://www.youtube.com/user/RydianCook.


*** Tweets from those venues here :








 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Monday 14 December 2015

A supple rendition of Messiah from a modern orchestra and its chorus

This reviews Messiah, performed by Britten Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia Voices

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

14 December (link to additonal review added, 22 December)

This is a review of Messiah, performed in Cambridge by Britten Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia Voices at West Road Concert Hall, conducted by Eamonn Dougan and led by Thomas Gould, on Tuesday 14 December at 7.30 p.m.





Part I

Adeptly keeping the movements ‘ticking over’ was one of the many strengths of this performance by Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) and Britten Sinfonia Voices, under the leadership of Thomas Gould (@ThomasGouldVLN) and the baton of Eamonn Dougan (@ejdougan).
With, for example, the recitative for accompanied bass ‘For behold, darkness shall cover the earth’, which runs into an air for bass voice (Robert Davies), the transition was smooth, and both from one movement to the next, and within them, the orchestra evoked a feeling of chiaroscuro that matched a text that told of the people that walked in darkness having seen a great light. Many believe that Charles Jennens, the librettist of Messiah (HWV 56), was also that of Israel in Egypt (HWV 54), which was premiered three years earlier, to the month (almost to the day), and one cannot easily forget the like moment when Israel is still in captivity*, and Pharaoh and the Egyptian people being visited by plagues…


In the following Chorus, ‘For unto us a Child is born’, one both experienced something like that halo effect, from a core group of instrumentalists, that one associates with Bach’s St Matthew Passion (BWV 244), and noticed how neatly the bowing and the turns, according to Thomas Gould’s example, were executed : in his writing, Handel has musically prepared us for the change of focus and for the pastoral mood that ushers in the nativity. Here, then, he gives us nothing more elaborate than a cadence, and no word-painting, at the end of the accompanied soprano recitative, when the shepherds were sore afraid.

 Nicely pacing the further sections of recitative, with these familiar Christmas passages from Luke’s gospel, Carolyn Sampson made us ready to be greeted by trumpets – and, nice though it can be to hear the expertise of playing a natural horn, we had the warm assurance that we were not going to get split-notes or wavering pitch from Paul Archibald and Jo Harris :




When, following this moment, Carolyn Sampson finally came to an air, ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion’, the string ensemble that we heard with her was nimble, and her voice was honeyed, with only a little vibrato in the higher register. Straight after, alto Iestyn Davies had a recitative, and then an air, and there seemed to be a tranquillity not just to such words as He shall feed His flock like a shepherd ; and He shall gather the lambs with His Arm, but to his voice itself. In another air, Sampson employed a little coloratura, and then there was a Chorus that closed Part I.



Part II

In the alto air ‘He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows’, following a short initial Chorus, Iestyn Davies was superbly judged as to pacing, and depth of tone – in a movement that is best with a careful and controlled overview, it was a delight to hear an approach gained from an experience of operatic roles put to good use.

As noted below (in the second paragraph, below, concerning Part III), and with Gould’s skilled leading, Dougan had chosen to emphasize the concerto feel in Handel’s score, probably in conjunction with how portamento was employed in the alto part. Thus, there were longer bow-strokes, but also Spring-like flourishes, and, with the string-colour, they made an excellent match with the celebrated purity of Davies’ timbre.


Particularly in the Chorus ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows’, Emma Feilding and Jessica Mogridge beautifully interpreted the writing for oboe, which one was excellently placed to hear**. The size of the orchestra (and of the venue) means that one can appreciate it as a pervasive aspect (rather than Handel’s occasionally using brass), which makes for a very significant part of the sound of the work. (It has not been noticed before, but, in the Kyrie of the Requiem Mass in D Minor (K. 626), is Mozart making a reference to Messiah here, with his choice of fugal-subject ?)


In an important sequence linked by tenor voice, two passages of accompanied recitative (the first was heard with vibrant, angular strings) led up to a very modern-sounding air. Before it, in the second section of recitative, Allan Clayton movingly gave us the hollow feeling of the Messiah in the situation described by the text, and in the deepening of the hurt, with the repeated words in the second half of the sentence :

 Thy rebuke hath broken His heart ; He is full of heaviness
The second air, after even more desolate words from Isaiah (He was cut off out of the land of the living ; for the transgressions of Thy people was He stricken), reapplies them prophetically, and the gospel perspective accordingly changes the viewpoint completely to the divine one (with But Thou didst not leave His soul in hell, nor didst Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption).

Although there is brief refreshment in the lovely soprano air ‘How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace’, in which we felt solace through Sampson’s voice, Part II continues, and concludes, in a less personal vein of theology in global terms : the refusal of God’s authority, rebellion against his rule, and the vanquishment of the rebels (when the libretto has ‘the Lord shall have them in derision’, Dougan had that laughter in the strings). Victory and a celebratory frame of mind are part of the pattern here.

 From the perspective of the Hanoverians, the way in which, just four years later, The Jacobite Rebellion was to be bloodily put down would be seen just in these terms, beginning by how it ended disastrously for the Jacobite cause at The Battle of Culloden (on 16 April 1746, again almost to the day).

In this performance of Part II, the Chorus 'Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth', with which it concludes, was attended with great dignity, but avoiding the not unusual sense of pomp (or, as far as one was aware, people standing in some sort of patriotic erectness), which can draw too much notice to the form, rather than the intention, of the libretto. A modest pause then preceded Part III.



Part III

 Maybe it was no more than having stayed three times near Fishamble Street in Dublin, and been taken, during a literary guided walk, to the site of the Great Music Hall there where Messiah had first been performed (on 13 April 1742), but there seemed to be an Irishness, in the lilt of the voice, and tone of the instrumentalists, to the famous soprano air that starts Part III, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’. Sampson was radiant, as she had been throughout the evening, and clearly relished embodying conviction in this number.

 In the opening alto air from Part II, one had been struck by the impression of early concerto-writing, with Dougan and Gould bringing out variations in attack and feeling between adjoining passages (please see the second paragraph, above, concerning Part II) : here, the delivery was much more legato, and with delicate flourishes. Continuing with the Chorus ‘Since by man came death’, we had contrasts in mood from soft to declamatory, as between ‘death’ and ‘resurrection’ – within each half of the two scriptural sentences, and between them.


When it came, soon after, to the equally famous ‘The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible’, trumpeter Paul Archibald perfectly accommodated the bass voice of Robert Davies, and in an ensemble whose sound had been integrated and equitably balanced all evening. A peculiarity of the setting (which was one aspect that the pre-concert discussion had addressed, though not this specific point) is the dual rendering of the word ‘raised’ here (and of other words earlier***), a question to which one was made alert from having read Claire Tomalin’s biography of one-time Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, Jonathan Swift.

When we first hear ‘raised’ in this bass air, it is as a one-syllable word : Tomalin tells us that, in Swift and Handel’s time, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a literary battle had raged, whether to make it the convention that such a word as ‘raised’, when the –ed ending is not separately sounded, should always be written ‘rais’d’. (With ‘sounded’ itself of course, used in the last sentence, there can be no doubt, because it inevitably has two syllables : in this sentence, then, if those arguing for the convention had not failed, we would now write ‘us’d’****.)

 To recap, when we first (and also in the repeat) hear the words ‘the dead shall be raised’, the word is one syllable, but, when Handel jumps straight back to focus on a shorter part of the phrase, he makes it two syllables. (Indeed, and as we may be used to in choral singing, look through the libretto of Messiah, and, in most words with an –ed ending, it is sounded.) No doubt musicologists have theorized why that is so in the case of this pairing, but the effect appears to be this : that we notice the word less the first time, but, when it immediately reappears in this two-syllable form, it allows Handel to dwell on it with the voice, and draw attention to it as an action.


The soprano air ‘If God be for us, who can be against us’ is the last item with a soloist in Messiah, and this was a very special moment. Not uniquely, the Sinfonia reduced here to a small group of instruments (which was probably Caroline Dearnley on cello, Benjamin Russell (bass), Stephen Farr (organ), with leader Thomas Gould), since one can hear other examples of this sort of treatment (or even, for example, see soprano Lynne Dawson here, with an ensemble [the clip has no acknowledgements] where, in much younger days, Stephen Cleobury is the conductor (but here just brings the players in)).

However, in playing obbligato for this air, Gould brought so much more expressiveness than in that example, and such sensitivity to playing to accord with Carolyn Sampson and her voice, that the experience was a thing of beauty : with one’s unquestioned mainstay for the piece in the group of Sinfonia players, the sense of adventurousness, even riskiness, in his playing, and how it fitted to her artistry, was compelling. As one says, the moment was very special, and (as, in contrast to those, say, in the St Matthew) it then almost made Handel’s task harder in achieving the effect of the concluding Choruses :

Given post-mediaeval precedents such as Palestrina, Handel is not the first person to set the single word Amen as a movement, but he is scarcely writing in that musical tradition (unless we remember that we are in Dublin ?). Yet does he do so here at such length that it might feel like pastiche (if not, maybe, an extended musical-joke ?) – certainly to begin with, and partly in relation to what preceded, one did wonder.





Possibly one is always wise to wonder, a little, at Handel and his exact motives, but in time the Chorus did build beyond feeling as though it were an exercise, and made an impressive and agreeable end to this evening with Carolyn Sampson, Iestyn Davies, Allan Clayton, Robert Davies, Eamonn Dougan, Thomas Gould, and the whole of Britten Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia Voices.








End-notes

 * Moses is, of course, looked to as a precursor to the figure of Christ, and likewise the deliverance from bondage and across The Red Sea.

** It is always nice to listen out for Sarah Burnett’s contribution, as the Sinfonia’s principal bassoonist, but doing so is made easier when there is a visual link, and podium and other players intervened this time.

*** For example, in the first Chorus in Part I (just after the air for tenor ‘Every valley shall be exalted’), when we first hear the words And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, that final word ‘revealed’ is two syllables, but it is then sounded as just one.

**** On account of how the dispute became resolved for ordinary writing (if not for scores), we now write raiséd, when we wish to indicate that it is two sounds, but our norm is not to put ‘rais’d’ for one (although one will find that form appearing in texts that have not been modernized when edited).

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Sunday 13 December 2015

Trying too hard to be strange ?

This is a review of The Lobster (2015) (seen at Saffron Screen)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

13 November (quotation added, 26 December ; link to a new review added, 1 January)
This is a review of The Lobster (2015) (seen at Saffron Screen)



 Director Yorgos Lanthimos (and his co-writer Efthymis Filippou) may tell us that they (intend to) subvert the notion of a film having a story with The Lobster (2015) – though they would hardly be the first, in the history of cinema, to set out to do so. Certainly, in the overlong first forty-five minutes¹, they may set up a situation that is relatively internally coherent², but it appears to be as a point of departure and contrast, and, until then, we could be frankly little less concerned or engaged with what is presented³.




In the original t.v. series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (with Arthur Pewty (Michael Palin) and his wife Deirdre (Carol Cleveland) visiting the marriage guidance counsellor (Eric Idle)), unexpectedly disinhibited behaviour was used to provoke both shock and laughter (partly through shock / embarrassment, partly through incongruity). However, it was never more than a sketch, to which an end – of sorts – was brought (after Pewty has challenged the counsellor and, being told to go away, just does so) : the script has the direction Arthur is then hit in the head with a chicken by a man in a suit of armour.

Fourteen years later, with The Meaning of Life (1983), one essentially has a loosely connected series of sketches (as The Pythons themselves describe it and its genesis in The Pythons' Autobiography By The Pythons (heard via the audio CDs of the interviews)). There, the topic is revisited, as a lesson on sex education to a class of boys abruptly changes gear and (again provoking hilarity, for the reasons given) becomes a practical demonstration of sexual technique⁴.



Into The Lobster, and - not for the first time - seemingly for no more than a gratuitous laugh (since the scene does not obviously have any bearing on what happens⁵), Lanthimos brings this familiar conceit, and adopts it as the inappropriate behaviour of two so-called loners (Colin Farrell (David) and Rachel Weisz (Short-sighted Woman)). In the film’s initial locale (which proves not to be unique in this regard), it dealt with, amongst other things, punishments for what the regime has decided are crimes, and retribution was both swift and Dante-esquely fitted to the offence : in all of this, a curious acquiescence, and with scant notion of rebellion or refusal. (Later on, as will be explored further, there is no sign that anything is different in another place, with other just as arbitrary prohibitions, and painful practices to secure compliance.)



If Farrell and Weisz’s [characters] bizarrely behaving in company has a meaning (beyond a laugh), it is, if not lost, almost submerged. Their trying too hard to look a couple (was Seydoux also meant to be one, with Smiley ?) has now become excessive, but we never did know the conceit behind their needing to be in the company of Seydoux’s parents and play up their status : earlier on, with his flowery speech, Farrell’s character had over-acted (more laughter), but it did not seem to have counted against him, but won him congratulation (though, one must repeat, seemingly purposelessly – what was all this pretence for (other than as a clothes-horse for gags), and to show Farrell better at it than someone else confronted in a shopping-centre).



However, if we do believe the narration (and it is open to question whether we should – please see below), the draconian prohibitions seemed never to have meant anything to Weisz and Farrell (the ‘love story’ that the poster promises ?). Indeed, beyond another joke - albeit, this time, in passing - with the idea of a coded, private language, there actually seems so much freedom (and absence of surveillance or control) that we have scant evidence of needing the elaborate communicative subterfuges of which we are told in the narration (designed, by making Semaphore sound like child’s play, to amuse : as can be seen in this video-clip, linked from the web-site of rottentomatoes.com, @RottenTomatoes).



In fact, having lovers with their (actually or imagined) unseen ruses is no more unique as a subject of comedy than the Pythonesque excess (and it may actually be from another Python sketch, where the team ridicules romanticism – if not from Woody Allen (doing the same with Russian literature) in Love and Death (1975) ?). For The Telegraph (though seemingly only as an endorsement, not as any review that one can conventionally find), Robbie Collin calls the film ‘dizzyingly funny’, but one has to ask, if so, how much other humour he knows, for the first part of the film, when it is not setting out to shock (which it manages with some skill), is arguably not breaking new ground, but doing no more than stringing together largely unrelated satirical material.



Too much, and not all that interestingly, revolves [the wisdom / content of] adages and truisms such as Alone in a crowd, Love will find a way, Birds of a feather flock together, Two’s company, three’s a crowd, and the film actually spends a lot of its extended opening doing no more than exaggerating, in the form of a rigid hierarchy, how those who are not in a couple can be ostracized (often in ways no less cutting than here, if more subtle). (Although we largely leave this setting behind, there is a foray back, but it also serves no clear purpose : it confronts selected people with the truth, but, at best, this sequence really only seems designed to challenge ourselves, with our on-screen desire for blood and retribution [as Haneke does in Funny Games (1997)], and not to move anything on in structural terms.)

The Lobster is well-acted and thought-provoking. It works as a commentary on the way that society conditions its population to pair off and the stigma which surrounds single people.

As a point of reference in Lanthimos' films, and not, of course, to say that he (or his co-writer Filippou) has to do the same again, their last feature-film Alps (Alpeis) (2011) (of which a review is, as yet, still incomplete) also gives us the arbitrary assumption and use of power, at times to violent effect, in a reality that resembles ours, but yet is of its own kind. (As one reviewer of The Lobster remarks (Nick Pinkerton – please see below), the world we are introduced to looks very much like our own in the present day—specifically Ireland, where the film was shot.)

Alps works by duration and disturbingly, by playing out a few strands, principally through one central character. What governs those strands, though not incomprehensible on the level of agreed rules (if agreed under threat), defies being accepted or assimilated because of what it demands. There, Lanthimos achieves his aim without additional elements, baffling us not as to those rules per se, but as to what it implies about this world that things are as they are – again, a world recognizably ours, and so it makes us ask, in our disquiet, why it came to be that way.

[This words displayed above are from a review by Neil White (@everyfilmdteled) who, seemingly insufficiently content with the demands of being Editor of The Derby Telegraph (!), every year sets himself a challenge (largely given by his Twitter-name) : to review it for his blog, trying to watch every film released in the UK, and clocking up hundreds in the attempt. He seems to have surprised himself by now warming to Lanthimos…]



If artistry does come into this film, it does not consist in an ill-judged and repeated failure to resist the temptation to tell a gag (even in the service of superficially giving The Lobster commercial credentials ?), or even in the ‘unconventional love story’ that the poster wants to promote : that part of the story may be, in terms of the rules that are accepted to apply to forbid it, subversive or transgressive, but one can still effectively ask So what ?, because, despite the blatant reference in the first few minutes, we are not talking of those in the position of a Winston Smith or a Julia.

[As alluded to above, there is underground activity, but scarcely in the same way (since it seems centred more on survival ?), and with no real rationale that the screenplay cares to give. At the same time, an absurdist claim could, of course, be made : to show what one will to challenge perceived notions of reality / rationality… Then one is in the territory of Holy Motors (2012), which, however much it may reference cinematic history, for some has a fairly tenuous basis for what it does, and one which also – much more extensively and explicitly – seeks to include discrete and disparate episodes by means of a very modest (undeveloped ?) linking device.]

Though maybe – just maybe – The Lobster is doing something, and much more subtle, that is to do with what it means to use an authorial voice (of, one has to suggest, doubtful reliability therefore) ? Partly on account of the bipartite nature of the film, the narrator is unplaced for a very long while : during that time, and in a cursorily fleeting way, the voice tells us what the loners, as a category, do that means that they behave indistinguishably and as a group. (It is another gag, this time oral, and at the expense of those who listen to electronic music (though headphones), but the jibe comes, and it goes : except to recur as a visual joke, with people in one place, but dancing separately to what they are listening to, it expendably seems to lack rootedness in the fabric of the whole.)


As elsewhere – in a distinctively brittle, almost dry, manner – we were told this so matter-of-factly, so unemotionally, that we might have started wondering why any of this is being told at all (and whether whoever the narrator is pictures it to herself as a story that, maybe unwillingly, she believes). Indeed, just after the brief initial scene, and the shot of Farrell over his right shoulder (which very gently telescopes in on him), we hear this voice, telling us what ‘he’ did, and how he chose his brown shoes : only was there the suggestion, right from the off, that this was an adapted short story or novella ?

The Lobster uses that form, and sometimes the voice-over is very present – and not always adding, but, by over-interpreting or even unnecessarily stating what can be seen, it acts to interpose itself between us and the on-screen world, i.e. an alienation technique (Verfremdungseffekt). (Other reviewers have commented on the stiltedness of the characters' speech. [So, for example, Nick Pinkerton (please also see below) writes all of them deliver dialogue in much the same mannered, tin-eared cadence : unvaryingly measured, stilted in tone, unnervingly to-the-point, and devoid of any softening niceties.] However, if one regards those who are speaking as created by, or creatures of, the narrator, that quality is put in another context : it remains, as it ever is, meaningless to talk about 'what really happened', but here the film is well nigh brought into existence by the voice that tells it.)

At other times, though, it is quite absent, and it seems possible that the device may have been abandoned, yet not, for example, with what happened in The Transformation Room : let alone how what, in general terms, is supposed to have happened there took place, we are kept outside the door that we see Farrell go through. The voice's ignorance (of what went on), that of the unknown 'she', becomes ours – but, in the first place, we only know any of this by placing credence in what the voice tells us, and we might wish to reflect on the silence and the lapse of time with which the film concludes…

 Of course, the deliberate allusion to Room 101 put one in mind of Nineteen Eighty-Four, but, along with thinking that we are in the dystopian genre³, it is probably a misdirection to see Orwell here any more than to make a connection that, in a way, is just as much there with Animal Farm.



For those in search of other thoughts :

* This review (from Nick Pinkerton, of Reverse Shot), from which there have been quotations above, may tell too much for those who have not yet seen the film, but is interesting...

* Peter Bradshaw, for The Guardian, has some good points to make, but lapses - in the third to the fifth paragraphs of his review - into telling us what happens, rather than why we should be watching. (As, for example, he did with a review of The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) (2013)).

* Finally, with the review by Demetrios Matheou (The Arts Desk), we have to bear with his worryingly getting his facts wrong (such as calling Farrell’s character John (not David), and saying that he has been widowed), but it is worth a read.



End-notes

 ¹ Except on the level that the film creates a desire, for this scenario in the screenplay not to continue as it is, which is then sated – even if we scarcely welcome what takes its place, or how that resolves…

 ² By contrast, those who have read in David Eagleman’s small collection Sum : Tales from the Afterlives will know the superlative concision and exactness with which he conceives of numerous different futures.

 ³ People who only choose to look at the world within the film as dystopian are thereby easily failing to credit that elements of it, at least, operate not only on the level of satire, but also of allegory : does calling this filmed world a dystopia, by imagining it as a possible future, thereby miss its applicability, as a deliberate distortion, to our present social norms, practices and trends (such as our expectations of couples, or of single people, and how they may tend to stay with their own kind) ?

 ⁴ Other examples surely abound, but Hale and Pace (not a little obsessed with a stereotypically sexual portrayal of Sweden) could not resist confronting a British couple with a Swedish one, being unnecessarily frank.

⁵ * Contains spoilers * If it is what did change anything (and not what, nearer the relevant time, we hear read aloud), we never have any idea, in all honesty, whether there is an ultimate and licensed aim that their Leader (Léa Seydoux), at whose instigation they are acting, when she, they and one other loner (Michael Smiley) make it The City for short periods, pretending that they belong there.

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Friday 11 December 2015

The Unthanks - live in two places (work in progress)

Live : The Unthanks at The Stables and The Union Chapel

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

12 November

Live : The Unthanks at The Stables and The Union Chapel

On Saturday 31 October, during their tenth-anniversary tour, The Unthanks made a stop at The Stables*, where they had been heard before, but probably just on one occasion. (Recollection is confused by also having seen A Very English Winter : The Unthanks at Aldeburgh Festival 2012, made for BBC Four.)

 Their playing number from that incarnation (as Rachel Unthank and The Winterset) substantially remain : Rachel and Becky Unthank themselves, and Niopha Keegan, with Adrian McNally (then their producer) taking the place of their former pianist (Belinda O’Hooley), and with guitarist and bass-player Christopher Price completing the five-piece line-up.



First set :

 1. Low Down in the Broom – Traditional (learnt from Nancy Kerr)

2. A sea shanty [‘One of the cleaner ones’] – Billy Rich

3. On a Monday Morning – Cyril Tawney [Cruel Sister]

4. I Wish - Traditional [The Bairns]

5. A Great Northern River – Graeme Miles [Diversions, Volume 3 : Songs from the Shipyards]

6. Mount the Air – Traditional [Mount the Air]

7. Annachie Gordon – Traditional (learnt from Nic Jones** ?) [Here's the Tender Coming]

8. Sea Song – Robert Wyatt [Diversions, Volume 1 : The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons, Live from The Union Chapel, London]

9. The Gallowgate Lad – Joe Wilson [Last]


 To start the gig, Rachel and Becky Unthank came onto the stage at The Stables (@StablesMK), without instruments except the duo of their voices, to sing (1) ‘Low Down in the Broom’ (which Becky had learnt from Nancy Kerr), followed by (2) a sea shanty.

 They said that they wanted to remind themselves and us how they had begun as a pair of sisters, desiring a way to get into folk festivals free. This evening, when trying to start the first number, even they were surprised to be reliving having the giggles, several times – eventually, they controlled setting each other off, after Rachel had remarked that they found, back then, that stopping drinking wine before singing helps.

 In the first of these a capella performances, The Unthanks were haltingly syllabic in how it was paced, with words carefully ‘placed’ in the air. They showed us that they were communicating, in strophic form, intense and heartfelt emotions, and, just hearing them, one was quickly reminded both of Rachel’s killer vocal timbre, and the ‘innerness’ of how their harmonies sound.

[On Thursday 10 December, when it came to the gig at The Union Chapel (@UnionChapelUK), it also began a capella (but they did not repeat the fit of giggling, of which there was no hint). Familiar with the format, one could seek to take in the space and look of the venue, with its feeling of inclusiveness from the fact that no one was very far from the stage.]
On hand-pumped harmonium (and with additional vocals), Niopha Keegan joined Rachel and Becky for (3) ‘On A Monday Morning’, and, when she opened with the lyrics, Rachel vocally embodied the feeling of devastating realization, and its rawness, in this song of the demands of ordinary working life. To it, Becky brought her own, smoky tone-colour in turn, and the treatment was exposed and hurt, maybe more so than on the first Winterset album Cruel Sister (which the band did not seem keen to acknowledge much afterwards).

Adrian McNally, no more wearing a dress than he did at the later gig [but there saying that he had never looked as masculine as when in one], came on for (4) ‘I Wish’. With a drone from the harmonium, and echoed by Becky’s voice, one had a strong sense of the devastation in Rachel’s voice, more so than on the album. Yet the piano part came across as a little too ‘arty-farty’ to be impressionistic (which was later explained by being told that Adrian was newly playing some of these numbers live), and the whispered words of doomed hope were too obvious to work well [and had greater effect at The Union Chapel].


With ‘A Great Northern River’, part of a project with Richard Fenwick at Tyneside Cinema, we welcomed Christopher Price, a multi-instrumentalist, and also described as ‘very cheerful’. (Originally from Barnsley, and now local, as a resident of Hitchin – with the inevitable comment that this attracted.) Becky’s voice was bright, but breathy, with Rachel’s sharper than it had been, and ‘longer’, and they were accompanied by gentle, inflected violin, and quiet guitar, the song ending with a little flourish from the latter. We were told that we would hear a five-minute version of (6) ‘Mount The Air’, in which Niopha gave us turns and inflections on violin, and, when Christopher came in on guitar, he used a plucked effect. The song was unknown as yet, and so such a very short vocal was unexpected (just eight lines in A Dorset Book of Folk Songs (1958)).


The number (7) ‘Annachie Gordon’ is taken from the third album (the first released as The Unthanks), and although it is said, of he of the song’s title, He’d entice any woman, it is more about Jeanie, and her unwilling marriage. Intensely and painfully so, but (wherever the song is recorded as dating to**) one cannot take its romantic representations of love and death literally, on the other hand. Thus there is a bitter contrast between ‘When she and her maidens / So merry should have been’, and Rachel, empty, with lines such as these, and our feeling bereft and aghast at what unfolds :

The day that Jeanie married
Was the day that Jeanie died



For no discernible reason (not at this remove, anyway - despite having consulted the original document, before transcription), the review-notes here mention ‘Man is the Baby’ (in connection with The Unthanks’ live recording, at The Union Chapel itself, of The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & the Johnsons). In fact, Becky quite clearly introduced (and, with a directness of tone, started the vocals to) something from the complementary part of that album, (8) ‘Sea Song’ by Robert Wyatt, stressing that, suggesting that she might sing it, Adrian had first introduced it to her. [She said so at both gigs, but, at The Union Chapel, was candid in admitting not then having appreciated the significance of the idea of covering the song.]

Both sisters were fully in their stride now [in both gigs, though one has forgotten, regarding The Union Chapel, which set it was in, or how many were then on stage – though, against this, an on-line set-list suggests that it was not played at all ?], but Rachel, in particular, brought rich yearning to the lyrics, which were overlaid on violin and harmonium. Later, there was what resembled a rumba bass-line from Christopher, who, when we went into an instrumental section, gave us a spooky, tapping bass-effect. At the end, the performance went up yet another notch, with the frankness and natural strength of Rachel’s voice.


In the first verse of (9) ‘The Gallowgate Lad’, there is the line Says she, quite dejected, I’s sad, and we heard the dejection feelingly extend to and with the held word ‘sad’, and the loss, because her Gallowgate lad*** has joined the militia. Forces of softly played violin, harmonium, bass and piano provided the accompaniment, until, with time, Niopha brought her line to fore, at first simple and free, then embellished. The rendition gave a real sense of desertion and desolation, and, at the end, the violin line came back in as a way of both acknowledging and departing from it.


More to come...



End-notes

* The Stables (@StablesMK) is at Wavendon, on the western outskirts of Milton Keynes.

** It appears (according to Wikipedia®) that the ballad is not known to have a basis in history (the place-name Buchan is mentioned, however, which is in Aberdeenshire), and that the original lyrics first appeared in North Countrie Garland (Maidment, 1824) and Ancient Ballads and Songs, Volume 2 (Buchan, 1828).

 Nic Jones recorded a version on his album The Noah’s Ark Trap (1977) (and so have various others, including Mary Black : for ease of comparison, the Wikipedia® web-page reports the text of the lyrics used in some of these versions).

*** Every stanza ends with a line that invokes him, with varying adjectives, e.g. My bonny bit Gallowgate lad.




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