The #DorotheaTanning Tweets

Sunshine after rain : moving from Bonnard to Dorothea Tanning at Tate Modern...

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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1 June

Sunshine after rain : moving from Bonnard to Dorothea Tanning at Tate Modern...

Deirdre (1940) ~ Dorothea Tanning

#Bonnard

Tanning could render a face, Van Gogh could render a face...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 4, 2019

By Room 8, the Dantean visions had closed in, and one would be surprised to learn that #DorotheaTanning didn't also know, e.g., Beckettt's Comment c'est or Francis Bacon (or he her work)

On till Sunday 9 June

* Danteesque ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 1, 2019

Dorothea Tanning ~ [Title and date to come]

Or is that 'Dante-esque' / 'Dantëesque' ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 2, 2019

Yet we see v. little of #MaxErnst (Tanning's fitting spouse*) to judge his sinister qualities, or #HansBellmer (rarely shown) ?

* The @Tate show tells us too little about the connection between Tanning and chess (probably the catalogue does ?), e.g. how often she played Duchamp https://t.co/rxGaqRa7uB

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 2, 2019

Some other Tweet :

We are so divorced from reality that it is only in street-names, etc., that some former parts of everyday life exist, such as Tan Yard, in St Neots :

We talk about 'getting a tan', tanning salons, etc., but wholly unrelatedly to the tanning of leather... pic.twitter.com/daVJsjnBbF

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 31, 2018

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

A #UCFF response to A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

This is a response to A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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27 May

This is a response to A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014),
as seen at Saffron Screen on Monday 27 May 2019 at 8.00 p.m.

#UCFF made a date with @Saffronscreen ['The Screen'] and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) - finally, for the latter !

Misguidedly 'sold' by @IMDb as 'Drama, Horror', it's but horror of the existential kind, which Cocteau gave us in Orphée (1950) :https://t.co/LrF2grA41n

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 27, 2019

Yet, as it builds (even if one cannot believe that it could, for logistic and other reasons, have been fully story-boarded in pre-production), the existential dimension shines out (e.g. is The Girl actually Death, as in Cocteau's film ?), and James Dean, etc., tributes fade out

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 27, 2019

The Angst is, e.g., that of H. P. Lovecraft, @russellhobanorg in his novels Fremder or The Medusa Frequency, or [an acknowledged influence on Russ] that of The Fair Beckoning One by Oliver Onions ; the ennui of early and later Jim Jarmusch, the Westerns that it references, etc. https://t.co/0agLxf3l8a

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 29, 2019

* Artefacts of its making ?

[It is, perhaps, a wonder that it was filmed ,or able to be completed at all... ?]

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 29, 2019

[...]

Now, once more, at the place that #UCFF finds itself of late referring to as The Screen :@SaffronScreen

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 27, 2019

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

Three Tweets [maybe more ?] about Woman at War (2018)

Three Tweets [maybe more ?] about Woman at War (Kona fer í stríð) (2018)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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16 May

Three Tweets [maybe more ?] about Woman at War (Kona fer í stríð) (2018)

A film that leaves #UCFF in need of a @Laphroaig - #womanatwarfilm - does not necessarily do so in a good way :

Not least during #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek, it isn't - properly understood - 'Hilarious and heartwarming' at all [as, one sees, @vulture appears to have described it] pic.twitter.com/k1dYzc9Dyz

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 16, 2019

A publicity poster for a paperback edition of Jordan B. Peterson's 12 Rules for Life - which had only been photographed for the purposes of ironically critiquing yet more fostering of the illusion of individualism (no better than many a cult ?) - now proves apt for other reasons. pic.twitter.com/MNpqA6y8Cd

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 16, 2019

Superficially similar to Rams (Hrútar) (2015), with its sororial element / rootedness in the Icelandic landscape, this film mixes the mayhem that comes from mistaking who Roger O. Thornhill is with the dual identities of Salt (2010) and comes up with something disturbingly dark.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 19, 2019

Postlude (with TAKE ONE) :

Meanwhile, over at https://t.co/mu8pD8p7oe, a discussion at @TAKEONECinema !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 21, 2019

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

Three Tweets about Tenebrae

Three Tweets about Tenebrae (during Festival of the Voice in Cambridge)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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9 May

Three Tweets about Tenebrae :

A concert at King's College, Cambridge, by invitation from Cambridge Early Music (in conjunction with Concerts at King's) for its Festival of the Voice,
on Friday 10 May 2019 at 7.30 p.m.

It was no surprise that @TenebraeChoir, performing during @cambsearlymusic's annual Festival of the Voice to-night at King's, were brilliant - but one had forgotten how gorgeous the tone-colours and individual voices are !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 10, 2019

The Twitter-profile says 'passion and precision', but the passion could be there in a single voice, giving us the introductory word(s) to sections in the Requiem Mass, and in Nigel Short's conducting, maintaining a sense of the whole, but giving appropriate pauses.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 11, 2019

The acoustic was that of the antechapel of @Kings_College, which was accommodated perfectly by choir and conductor in performances that, since the texts were interpreted in such a way that a variety of dynamics and textures could be heard, kept the attention of a hushed audience.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 12, 2019

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

Bonnard : Mirrors, photographic effects, alluring views through windows, and - of course - nudes*

Responses, by Tweet, to and during a visit to Pierre Bonnard : The Colour of Memory

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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3 May

Responses, by Tweet, to and during a visit to the [C C Land] exhibition Pierre Bonnard : The Colour of Memory on Friday 3 May 2019

By Room 4 at @Tate Modern, it is clear enough that #Bonnard :

* Couldn't depict a human face to save his life

* Can perfectly render a wash-stand

* Liked photographic effects such as mirror-shots or shaded extremes

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 3, 2019

* In Room 7, gives us one of these moody looks, in Paysage du Midi (1920-1921) as if the light fairy has dulled almost everything

* Loves a seducing exterior, seen through a window - breaking rules of photography

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 3, 2019

* Resolved around nudes, water, tables (especially laden with food) and table-cloths, distant views, mirrors - maybe as with Magritte's stock elements ?

* In Femme nue se baissant (1923) and famous Baignoire (Le Bain) (1925) occludes the face

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 3, 2019

This is probably the best of his views of the outside from indoors pic.twitter.com/A0RDlux8du

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 3, 2019

End-notes :

* But, never all that convincing usually with human faces, the best of these nudes are seen from the back...

Arguably, #Bonnard's 'best' nude - if a nude should be lively, sensuous and not merely observed - is not even in the show, however... pic.twitter.com/1rIlg6lgxY

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 3, 2019

Even so, it is puzzling that - as allegedly still true of 'glamour models' - the woman is naked, but obliged to wear black court shoes ? (In this case, they may actually be slippers, but in other nudes in the show, they are definitely shoes.)

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

This is a review (work in progress) of Scotch : The Golden Dram (2018)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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2 May

This is a review (work in progress) of Scotch : The Golden Dram (2018), which was shown at a special screening at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, on Thursday 2 May 2019 (and followed by a guided tasting of two expressions of Bruichladdich (they supplied the Scotch, wine and spirit merchants Bacchanalia the tuition))

Scotch : The Golden Dram* largely concerns distilling as it occurs on The Isle of Islay (which qualifies as a whisky region in its own right, and is especially known for a number of celebrated peated whiskies**), largely considering the distillery of Bruichladdich, and largely taking as its focus Jim McEwan, who, at the beginning of the century, oversaw the re-opening of the distillery (as a sideways move from decades at Bowmore, also on Islay, and the one visible – except on a day with mist on the intervening sea-loch – from the other).

This is not an unreasonable proposition, since, in common with John McDougall (whose memoir, pictured above, was authored for him by whisky writer Gavin D. Smith), McEwan is acknowledged as being from the tradition of having done every job in whisky-making, and therefore using an account of his life-story is well able to provide a general outline that would touch upon many topics (as well as celebrating McEwan's signoficant contribution, as judged by his peers, to the world of Scotch***).

However, one matter that features in McDougall’s book, but was not really touched upon here directly, is the speculative business per se of buying casks, and of the independent bottlers (such as Provenance, Gordon & MacPhail and Signatory) who release distilleries’ single malts under their name (i.e. labelled and packaged differently from the distillery’s own usual bottlings) : although we did see this side of things in the form of an interview with the proprietor of a firm that makes very high-end glassware for releases (where sometimes there might only be as few as a handful of bottles produced, and with matching price tags - which we could see, from a series of images of bottles and a caption to say what they sell for, in some cases go for amounts into the hundreds of thousands of pounds).


There are also some important health-warnings to be given concerning what this film does, and does not, seem to set out do – even if it may once have intended otherwise**** (a full-length documentary, which is, say, of ninety minutes to two hours, may typically have shot fifty times more material that has not been used). They may help indicate, even if the film-makers seem not to have considered the point very clearly, for whom and when it may be suitable, as it may assume too much for the general viewer ? :


1. The film does not, fully or in order, take one through the whole process of how whisky is made.

For this, a tour around a distillery that still runs a malting-floor is the ideal answer, and the film probably shows us the floor at Bowmore (does Bruichladdich have its own, as Kildalton, also on Islay, does ?). However, some might prefer Laphroaig, yet another Islay distillery, because the craic and the tours are always good, as it is not in the brand’s interests for the tour-guide to give a negative experience, such as reading the material from a laminated card (Jura, 2014) ; or not knowing, when asked, whether the temperature at which fermentation takes place is important (Bruichladdich, 2004).

Laphroaig recognizes that people have taken the trouble to travel to Islay to visit some of the distilleries (even if the serenity and sense of being away from the ordinary run of things also and always make the trip to Islay worthwhile) : the pity is that, with such a beautiful island, The Golden Dram does not use the best views, but only a few, fairly stock ones, to which it cuts away, and which serve as little more than punctuation).


2. Some of the stages in the whisky-making process are talked about in some detail, such as fermentation (which has its own section, with a heading). (However, although the film shows how the head rises on the liquid in the fermentation-vessel (the ‘wash-back’), which the yeast creates during fermentation, it does not choose to mention that it is kept in check – to stop it overflowing the vessel – by rotating blades inside the lid (‘switcher-blades’).)

For this reason, there are terms such as ‘low wines’ or ‘malted barley’ that are simply there in what speakers tell us, and left unexplained : from this documentary, we will not learn when and why the ‘feints and low wines’ are collected (which would explain what they are), or what the process of malting barley is, or what it signifies. Rather, seemingly because we hear McEwan relate that, as a teenager on the way to school, he was often enough persuaded when he passed Bowmore distillery to stop to help with what was formerly the only and very labour-intensive way of malting barley (before modern malting-works were designed, such as that at Port Ellen on Islay, on the site of the now defunct distillery of that name).

So, apart from a shot of barley grains that are germinating, we are presented with footage of part of what is still carried on in some Islay distilleries (here, presumably, Bowmore), but no context that helps us relate to why the barley on the malting-floor requires turning every few hours, which is done with a ‘shiel’, an implement that resembles a spade, but with a flat blade, made of wood.


[...]


End-notes :

* The original title, according to IMDb, was Scotch: A Golden Dream.

** So no one could quite take seriously the given name of the director, Andrew Peat…

*** Even if, perhaps, the film overdoes this aspect in places, and seems too much like a tribute (or even hagiography ?) ?


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

Everybody needs a friend ~ Greta

A response to Greta (2018)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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2 May

A response to Greta (2018)

Neil Jordan does 'lay it on a bit thick in places' in Greta (2018)...

Frankie (Chloë Grace Moretz) is from Boston, PA, and living in NYC, NY, for the first time, so Greta (Isabelle Huppert) must really be a lonely woman of a certain age who's suffered loss - whence black nails ? pic.twitter.com/Igk19FpSLz

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 6, 2019

Black nails : Just to raise doubts where Frankie should place her trust, her friend Erica (Maika Monroe) - a little more fittingly for her age and manner ? - also has black nails*.

It rates circa 7 / 10 (as it also over-relies not on the power of Huppert's screen-presence, but Javier Navarrete's use of v. high [or low - bowed db] string-tones), but Jordan deftly assimilates references such as Fatal Attraction (1987), Event Horizon (1997), The Future (2011).

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 2, 2019

Paint the black hole blacker

Now reviewed by @everyfilmneil, to much the same effect, at : http://everyfilmblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/328-greta-movie-review.html


End-notes :

* Or is the suggestion of some Lynchean dual-characterization (The Lost Highway (1997) or Mulholland Drive (2001)), where, on some level, Greta and Erica are the same person... ?


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

Right on key : Claire Martin and her 'European Quartet'* at The Stables

Right on key : Claire Martin and her 'European Quartet'* at The Stables

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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1 May

Right on key : Claire Martin and her 'European Quartet'* at The Stables on Wednesday 1 May 2019 at 8.00 p.m.

Absolutely, but also a fascinating and tight piano trio to back Claire - I call this her European Quartet - and a choice of repertoire that doesn't stick to 'standards', but gives us newly commissioned patter-songs, and many ways in which we regret love or not staying in love !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 31, 2019

From listening at @StablesMK on 1 May, and since to the new album, #UCFF safely and warmly concurs (though it has gravitated towards being a dilettante-style reviewer, i.e. too many enthusiasms, but unfortunately lacking stamina for the hard graft that gets the writing done) :

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 14, 2019

Claire is nothing but brilliant, wholly giving herself to music that she loves - whether evoking saké and love-making in rainy Tokyo, giving us a fresh take on 'I'm Not in Love' that brings out the pathos and irony, or the tenderness in 'Broken Wings', or in fiendish patter-songs

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 14, 2019

End-notes :

* Thinking, of course, of Keith J.


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

Kennington Bioscope Silent Comedy Weekend at The Cinema Museum - 27 and 28 April

A report on the Kennington Bioscope Silent Comedy Weekend (27-28 April 2019)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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28 April

A report from Sunday afternoon at The Cinema Museum on the
Kennington Bioscope Silent Comedy Weekend (27-28 April 2019)

Quality film material and cine-filled intros / talks !

Only able to come on Sunday, afternoon & evening ticket + fee cost less than my rail-fare :

An illustrated talk about Chaplin ;
Feature with his brother Syd + career intro ;
Three Charley Chase shorts ;
Show People + intro.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 30, 2019

Other Tweets :

https://t.co/5whvqc7uRo My remarks read at the screening W.C. Fields silent 'Running Wild', Saturday April 27 at Kennington @kenbioscope Cinema Museum, London. "Will be there with you in spirit sharing my grandfather, W.C. @WCFieldsTweets silent 'Running Wild' @DrHarrietFields

— Dr Harriet Fields (@DrHarrietFields) May 1, 2019

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

There are homecomings, and there are homecomings...

Some Tweets in response to Todos lo saben (Everybody Knows) (2018)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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8 April

Some Tweets in response to Todos lo saben (Everybody Knows) (2018), as seen at Saffron Screen, Saffron Walden, on Monday 8 April 2019 at 8.00 p.m.

In Todos lo saben (Everybody Knows) (2018) last night at @SaffronScreen, it really felt as we were in the tense suspicious centre of something happening, as if Ibsenesque secrets became discovered in Murder on The Orient Express* (1974) !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 9, 2019

As taught and intense as Celda 211 (Cell 211) (2009), Todos lo saben will not let us go, and we cannot but engage with it : in both, the age-old struggle around the life-blood of a daughter that makes the Oresteia of Aesychlus compelling for Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. pic.twitter.com/KUAMFOnMca

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 10, 2019

Here, a surprise is realizing that it's Asghar Farhadi, the writer / director of films such as Fireworks Wednesday (2006), The Past (2013), The Salesman (2016) - though the last does have a break brutality, too. Billed as a thriller, it is every bit that, and shreds our nerves ! pic.twitter.com/ytZYtzTKjF

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 10, 2019

Perhaps, and meanwhile one reflects on Pinter and what he gives us, in The Homecoming, with Teddy and Ruth - and how Farhadi's use of Ricardo Darín in the role of Alejandro subtly imports the presence of a figure like that of Donald Sutherland (and another lost daughter ?)... pic.twitter.com/QJKbPjYCCC

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 10, 2019

* A film scored by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, with his customary style and flair, and how we miss him at @ConcertsatKings as a real gent in duos with @CmartinJazz (and the occasional number or two where he accompanied himself) !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 9, 2019

Epilogue :

I can’t agree with this. One of the least suspenseful whodunnits I’ve ever seen. Not without its merits, I thought it was well shot certainly, and the director gets his money’s worth from his actors (at 2.5 hours it as least 30 mins too long) but do not expect to be thrilled.

— Rob Adam (@rob_adam123) April 10, 2019

3) I suggested the secrets that come out in the plays of Henrik Ibsen - if one doesn't credit Laura that she suspects that Paco is getting back at her, though, the film won't work in one's head. Dunno.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 10, 2019

Or, to give the closing words to @everyfilmneil, from the final sentences of his review (at www.everyfilm.co.uk) :

Farhadi has built a reputation through movies such as A Separation, The Salesman and my favourite of his films, The Past. Everybody Knows keeps up his tradition of keenly observed, tense drama. It helps that his most established cast to date are on great form.


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

No deal [so called] : An analogy in three Tweets

No deal [so called] : An analogy in three Tweets

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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31 March

No deal [so called] : An analogy in three Tweets

So-called 'no deal' - *considerable* 'benefits' in an analogy :

1. People grumble when clocks go forward, e.g. too hard to remember that it's adding an hour, so BST is probably an #EU law

2. Some people put their clocks back, and complain that it gets dark too soon ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 31, 2019

3. Our welcoming friend 'no deal', whom we rationally have no need to fear (so fearmongers should shut it !), opens up WTO terms* to the UK

* Which a former CEO of WTO says that no one would want (instead of the EU) ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 31, 2019

4. Forget the little mistake (at 2, above) of thinking that it's 4.52 p.m. now - I can say that it's 1.27 a.m., if I like, and you 3.33 p.m., and no one will be able to do anything !

QED

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 31, 2019

They feel abandoned by central government and either that 'it can't get any worse' or that it will be worth a bit of hardship to be 'able to make our own laws'

— Devon for Europe #NorthDevon (@NDevon4Europe) March 31, 2019

Of course they should. But they would like life to be simpler. Which is why it is the simple narratives that have traction with them, rather than complex explanations

— Devon for Europe #NorthDevon (@NDevon4Europe) March 31, 2019

That’s a good example of making it simple. We could do with more!

— Devon for Europe #NorthDevon (@NDevon4Europe) March 31, 2019

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

Lazzaro non mi piace molto

Five Tweets about Lazzaro Felice (Happy as Lazzaro) (2018) [and some links]

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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26 March

Five Tweets about Lazzaro Felice (Happy as Lazzaro) (2018) [and some links]

Of course, there's the Christ archetype, so it will be familiar when a trusting figure is also open to exploitation, viewed as possibly saintly, and yet rejected.

But these two films do all of that better - plus Kosmos gives us the alien sounds of telecomms and magical breaths.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 26, 2019

Bringing in what seems a current theme, with some elements of the family background of Shoplifters (Manbiki kazoku) (2018) [which was the winner at @Festival_Cannes (Lazzaro Felice was in the Official Selection)], the film tries to point so many messages, from Lazarus to leprosy.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 26, 2019

Essentially, this is a film, not a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder - such as his Netherlandish Proverbs - and maybe we tire of all that is telling us how life is and how it goes, and maybe a little predictable for it... ? pic.twitter.com/0WTuCjtvIN

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 26, 2019

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

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) : Some observations (work in progress)

Some observations (work in progress) about Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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24 March

Some observations (work in progress) about Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) (after a screening at Cottenham Community Cinema on Sunday 24 March at 7.30 p.m.)

* There are too many shots where we are shown Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), supposedly cogitating - it may be in such a film as Mamma Mia ! (2008), but, when Meryl Streep does it, we can see that she is thinking, not that she wants us to believe that she is thinking (nonetheless

* Some captions are, frankly, unnecessary - unless we are in a desperate state of ciné-literacy, it is obvious when it is [back to] the day of Live Aid, because we are re-visiting moments from the beginning of the film

* Some choices of scenes to shoot and / or in editing are not only clumsy, but make the film seem British in a bad way - cutting to Ray Foster (Mike Myers) when we do, as we knew anyway (and before this point in the history) what a massive hit the title-song was, seemed inept (and implausible of not only a nominee for, but the winner of (John Ottman), an Academy Award for 'Best Achievement in Film Editing'

* It is nice to have Lucy Boynton in the film, as Mary Austin, but one cannot think that some appearances / presentations of her are to please those who are not especial fans of Mercury, etc., etc., rather than for pure reasons of historicity

* The writing is clumsy, so, for example, Mary (Boynton) has gone from London to find Freddie in Munich : unless she doubts that she has the right address, there is no reason for the taxi to stay waiting (i.e. she clearly could not have envisaged the scene panning out as it does on arrival)


[...]


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

Com’era, dov’era : Claire Denis and L'intrus (2004)

This is a response to L’intrus (The Intruder) (2004)

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This is a response to L’intrus (The Intruder) (2004)

Watching L'intrus (2004), one immediately has to ask who this intruder is¹ – in the opening titles, the word itself is introduced with visuals that connote suspicious questioning [personne qui s'introduit dans un lieu ou un groupe sans y être invitée] :

Although there are other candidates², one is a male who is inexplicably seen killed at night and, in daylight, his body concealed, whereas another – who, as the film proceeds, certainly seems to intrude – is the perpetrator of these actions. On this question and many others, the film's largely non-directive approach chooses not to give an answer. However, this style of presentation does not wholly leave viewers to make what they will of that which director Claire Denis and her co-writer Jean-Pol Fargeau do show, because they still, at least, follow such conventions as signalling that the preceding sequence has been a dream³ by cutting to the sleeper (Louis), awakening in bed.

It is hardly uniquely true fact of Claire Denis' film that it leaves viewers to piece together what even the events consist in, let alone what they might signify, since a fairly arbitrary list of relevant film-references (i.e. a non-exhaustive one) would have to include the following (in order of date of release) :

* Mirror (1975) ~ Andrei Tarkovsky

* Eraserhead (1977) ~ David Lynch

* The Lost Highway (1997) ~ Lynch

* Mother and Son (1997) ~ Aleksandr Sokurov

* Code unknown (Code inconnu : Récit incomplet de divers voyages) (2000) ~ Michael Haneke


After the opening scenes², which serve to ‘leap-frog’ us to him, the film broadly follows Louis (played by Michel Subor), but, despite our seeing him engaged in his semi-naturist activities, and with his seeming delight in the company of his huskies, we cannot easily understand his living as he does, let alone why or for how long he has done so. In the film’s terms, he just is – depicted as he is, and how he is.

However, just as Denis does not always expressly delineate moving the location to another territory (or where it is – there are no captions, which in conventional films tell audiences ‘where they are’), so she does not leave more than partial clues as to matters such as : the passing of time (again, mainstream films often employ captions with the date and / or time) ; why we might be in that place now ; and what motivates the actions that we see. (As with the mise-en-scène, Louis Trebor is depicted in situ, and we derive any context in an incidental way.) Other continents are simply seen to be where Louis has travelled to, without the narrative contrivance of showing airport departure-boards as other films usually would (or planes taking off or landing), because that is all implicit in the change in what is in front of the camera.

Unlike in the case of Mirror, where Tarkovsky also has the same actor play mother and daughter, and so we must therefore concentrate to discern past from present, memory from scenes that have been imagined, Claire Denis may appear not to deviate significantly from time being seen in a linear way. Instead, in this film, time is rooted in the places to which Louis journeys - as a force from which the past emanates ? Yet, as part of Denis’ directorial telescoping of time, Louis has an operation without our knowing quite how, when or where, quite as if those things both do not matter and will not be allowed to matter to us – because we cannot ‘get behind’ what her fellow screenwriter and she choose to give to us in the artefact that is the film. Even so, Louis’ evident ill-health and a visit to the bank link us to his being away, and to the procedure, before all of which we had hardly heard speak.

We learn his desire for the future, and – in a scene with more dialogue than at any other point – of a ludicrous attempt to satisfy it, a moment that is not only a bizarre 'beauty parade', just between those holding it and taking part and us, but also a connection with the substitutionary universe of the early work of Yorgos Lanthimos. Louis seems satisfied with what happens, and we may accordingly surmise that he cannot be affected by what he does not know – we cannot escape the symbolism that we have seen the scars that the operation gave him now mirrored.


The film has a poetry to it, and there is a release of vibrant colour when a ship is launched, but there is nothing intrinsic to the film that still needs to be found : the act of creation is – engaging with it – in and through us. What would it be to search for greater meaning than this ? (Self-referentially, regardless of what Louis most wants, he almost certainly does not get what he decided that he was seeking.)

What Denis hints at is that, if it is seen as an observer, all life has a quality of mysteriousness – and therefore, perhaps, she suggests the fragmentary nature (or even obliquity) of what, even when we are actual participants, we understand of what is taking place ?


End-notes :

¹ With its title, a film can have us on edge, waiting to see how much (or little) relevance it will have to our interpreting what we will see / have seen : it may be pinned on when, at some telling moment, a character names the word or phrase (as, sensationally, in the closing line of Chinatown (1974)).

In Frances Ha (2012), it proves to be a quirky note that is sounded right at the end (in a visual joke) ; in Lady Bird (2017), it is what Christine insists on calling herself at high school (even if we might not unhelpfully delve into why, and think of the children’s rhyme) ; whereas Aquarius (2016) is named for the featured apartment-block, and its water symbolism.

² Is, for example, 'the intruder' the man whose vehicle has been waved through, on the other side, but who (indicated to stop once he has crossed) a much-congratulated sniffer-dog finds to have something hidden in a container of wipes ? (This man seems to play no further part in the film, but, later, other people are seen disappearing off, into the undergrowth and away from the headlights, during a drive along dark roads at night - are they intruders, too ?)

The customs officer who fêtes the sniffer-dog also proves not to be the film's concern, but is our link to what follows, after a slightly fetishistic sex-scene with her partner that centres on her uniform – might we not equally feel, at that moment, that it is we who intrude ?


³ Or, at the film’s outset (and after a medium shot of a border control), the national flags that we are shown establish that we are on the Swiss side.

Query : in the case of the last shot that we last see, which is followed by the closing credits (and so which cannot be announced in this way), can we even meaningfully ask whether is it 'real', or a dream / fantasy ?


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

LAU at The Stables with Midnight and Closedown

Some Tweets about Lau (@LAUMusic), in performance at The Stables, Milton Keynes

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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24 February

Some Tweets about Lau (@LAUMusic), in performance at The Stables (@StablesMK), Wavendon, Milton Keynes, on Sunday 24 February 2019 at 8.00 p.m.

The tracks listened to, and amazed by, are Iris, and make black white : this effects-pedal, sampling and looping, and sound-manipulating, Lau may not be to everyone's taste, who expected fiddle, guitar (and voice), and accordion, but it's a pleasure to watchand hear ! :)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 24, 2019

* #UCFF's now possessing what seems to be a Lau / Karine Polwart EP, that is not an inapt connection / comparison, because the former artefactually created and used a very specific performance-space, too...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 25, 2019

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Two Tweets in initial astonishment at the vividity and richness of image and meaning in Orphée (1950)

Astonishment at the vividity and richness of image and meaning in Orphée (1950)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2018 (25 October to 1 November)
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18 February

Astonishment at the vividity and richness of image and meaning in Orphée (1950)

The latter and her stunning performance - as well as the female fetishwear* - hitting all the right Servalan-type chords !

* Quite aside from which, the cleverness of the conception / script, the shots, the locations, the immersion in these worlds, the effects, the ambience...)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2019

Jacqueline Pearce RIP (Servalan)

Épilogue :

Freudian slip ?

'To do or die for' ? ;)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2019

To an extent also true of their Bound (1996), one can see how Lilly and Lana meld with the world(s) of Orphée (1950) in The Matrix (1999) : a proto-Trinity, mirrors aplenty, Neo as dreamer, appearance and substance....

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End-notes :

* Seen at Saffron Screen (the community cinema on the premises of Saffron Walden County High School, Saffron Walden, Essex).


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Titanic (1997) : revisionism, after the fact ?

Titanic (1997) : revisionism, after the fact ?

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10 February

Titanic (1997) : revisionism, after the fact ?

Via AOL [https://t.co/Dhzj97VAlp]

‘Titanic fans have long wondered why Jack (DiCaprio) couldn't climb aboard Rose's (Winslet's) door-turned-raft at the end of the 1997 movie.

‘Now, director James Cameron is addressing those "dumb-ass arguments" on BBC's Movies That Made Me.’

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'Plumb interjected "It's called...", as James added, "writing". The pair then laughed.'

To get shot (if omitted), the scene had been written. Decades on from Titanic, one can be revisionist of the director's career / films - but not let him unfairly bemoan 'dumb-ass arguments' ? https://t.co/ZFUQUT3AcC

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 10, 2019

In the RMS Titanic version of Verona, a member of the Montague family would not have been travelling steerage, and, although Cameron believes that his lovers, Jack and Rose, somehow mirror Shakespeare's couple, it is hard to see how :

Act V, Scene 1 (ll. 34-86), is spent on obtaining the poison. Shakespeare follows the source The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (Bandell trans. Brooke), Seeing Juliet (Scene 3, ll. 85-120), he does as planned, and takes the poison.

2 / 3

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Shakespeare omits detail from Brooke, including a prayer (ll. 2670-2688). Does Cameron ask Romeo to be 'smart' by knowing what only Friar Laurence does, that his wife is not dead, and that she could use his dagger ?

3 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 10, 2019

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What did Ezra Pound’s typewriter say to Dorothy Parker’s ? (work in progress)

Jottings about Can you Ever Forgive me ? (2018) (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2018 (25 October to 1 November)
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4 February

Jottings about Can you Ever Forgive me ? (2018) (work in progress)

Non-spoilery observations :

* Based, as Molly’s Game (2017) was, on Lee Israel’s own account of what happened*, one inevitably asks : Is being Based upon a true story a good enough reason to make a film ? **.

* The character of Lee Israel is not dissimilar to that of Oscar Isaac’s in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) - does one want to be inside her that much (even if the film better slants our understanding of her than that of The Coen Brothers) ?


The rest :

* She chucks away the typewriters and the other material (as if one, i.e. the Feds, could not infer their existence from the various artefacts that she produced, but they do not seem interested anyway) – yet, at the end of the film, Israel still has the note-paper that she had printed for Dorothy Parker (and the look-alike)

* Jack goes into one of the bookshops with the real letter from ?? in the collection at Yale (on his suggestion that she leave one of her copies there, and sells the genuine item), but he accepts only $300 for it – more inexplicably, as if the Feds could have been waiting for him there, he is next shown (after cutting away to Israel, waiting) being interviewed by them on the premises


End-notes :

* With, seemingly none of the consequences that were attendant upon Molly Bloom’s publication of her book…

** Since Big Eyes (2014) showed that a good reason is not a sufficient reason, and the screenplay has to / ought to make the story worth the telling.


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

Sounding different - and sounding just the same as always...

Perhaps, in disguise, some responses to a recital of string quartets in Cambridge...

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2018 (25 October to 1 November)
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31 January

Perhaps, in disguise, some responses to a recital of string quartets in Cambridge...

So, people will know mvts 1&3 well, which means that one cannot play them very differently (as with the famous one of the Chopin Mazurkas, Op. 17, or those amongst Rachmaninov's Op. 23 set) - yet is it an answer to make mvt 4 (marked Adagio) Molto adagio, and slow the Moderato ?

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A standard account or explanation of the poor reception of the first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Brahms (in D Minor, Op. 15) is that there was insufficient familiarity with the work, probably by players and audience alike, but does one - although there are people who go to certain orchestral concerts, because they want to hear works played just the way that they know them - want to allow the fact that one knows a work to solidify how it is to sound ? (More scope to change that, perhaps, as a solo performer, or a conductor, than if, say, the members of a string quartet or trio attempt to come to 'anbsp;democratic agreement' after arguing points over ?)

The gravity and stillness of the opening section lead to an Adagio that feels paced, and restrained. The rest of the performance is fine, but, apart from added stateliness in the Menuet (from the bass), does not ‘break new ground’.

So to what end that initial impression ? https://t.co/FnW5EvvTwY

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 1, 2019

Two theses here, then. One is that, accepted that there is an overlap between performance practice and playing a composition by Tchaikovsky in the style of Vivaldi (or vice versa), chamber musicians can easily respond to each other to avoid the familiar, and, by introducing small changes in emphasis, etc., they can bring us the piece with new ears.

The other is that one could, for example, adopt quite different approaches to the sound of the first two movements (Allegro and Molto adagio, etc., respectively) of the second of Beethoven's so-called Razumovsky quartets (Op. 59), but, if the Allegretto and Presto, in the nature of their playing, do not (or not easily) lend themselves to one's continuing in that vein, one may not meaningfully have transformed a listener's experience of the quartet as a unity.


What gives hope that music can be so, and artists give us a studied insight that shapes the whole piece, are such examples as :

* Imogen Cooper's three live double-CD performances of Schubert, where the care is in the structure of the individual programmes and in the way that she gives us a coherent reading of each work

* Likewise, when Angela Hewitt played the whole Book II (BWV 870-893) of Das wohltemperierte Klavier at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

* When Nicholas Collon conducted a programme of Vaughan Williams, Britten and Elgar at The Corn Exchange, Cambridge


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