This morning Raimund treated me with the following excerpt from a dramatisation of Mark Rothko as broadcast on the BBC...
What really caught my eye was the fact that here Allan Corduner's Mark Rothko differs so much from the portrayal of Rembrandt as done by Martin Freeman. Whereas Martin Freeman portrayed a human being still alive and surely not a figure of art history, Mark Rothko appears to be almost absorbed by being already some historic person, i e he has taken one decision and laments the fact that there is apparently no way back for him. He is Mark Rothko and he has to face all these people, i e gallerists, critics etc, and even more serve all of them. Apparently he has to stick to this one road he has chosen till the, in his case bitter, end. Rembrandt, certainly thanks to the wonderful Martin Freeman's decision to portray him as someone real, in Nightwatching on the other hand is much more alive and actively takes decisions, even such that would get him into big trouble with all the people he like Rothko depends upon. Maybe just maybe this is also the really big difference between the actual Rembrandt and the actual Rothko...Maybe in today's world artists do get more thoroughly corrupted by the art business. Thanks Raimund
As for the social status of the artist there is an interesting point raised in this movie, when first of all Rembrandt is confronted with his (humble) origins as a miller's son from Leiden, but yet more interestingly yet, when socially higher ranking people (his orderers) imply that he has dirty hands - though he proves to them that at that moment and in this situation they actually are as clean as theirs.
In a consequence the artist falls inbetween the working classes, having to live of their hands' work, and the ruling classes, who do not get their hands "dirty" and rather living of their prestige and intellectual/ financial background. I surely love the idea that the artist is the one, who by his own choice does not distinguish between those two possible attitudes/ ways of living, but he is the one incorporating both, thereby living what Derrida would call the "and/or" rather than the "either/or".
I still write a little every day: only a little, but I do write. And then in the evenings Levitan might come knocking at my window - 'Are you there, crocodile?' - and I let him in and we talk. He has terrible fits of melancholy these days, but if I tell him a funny story he rolls on the floor with pleasure and kicks his feet in the air. But his work is deteriorating: he no longer paints with a feeling of youth, but with a sort of bravura. I think the women have worn him out. It's impossible to paint a landscape without a feeling of pathos, of ecstasy, and ecstasy is impossible when you've gorged yourself. If I were a landsacpe artist I'd live quite an ascetic life: I'd have intercourse once in a year, and I'd eat once a day. Anton Checkhov, as quoted by the lovely Michael Pennington in his play "Anton Checkhov", cf Are You There Crocodile?-Inventing Anton Checkhov" by Michael Pennington, p 269.
Returning again to Swinging with the Finkels and revealing the scene I really loved, which was the one on the bench with the dog interspersed with this silly flashbacks - I was not sure if it was Grunge or the 70s but the wig was very weird. Here I had the idea that Martin was altogether in a different movie, something more romantic or screwball. Now this song came to my mind, which proposes a certainly more interesting aspect of swing(ing) and one that would secure lasting passion. Hope for everybody to be lucky enough to encounter it in real life ;).
PS: There is a difference between sex and eroticism, though spitefully it is not well-observed nowadays.
".........Where I was taught,
of your chaste daughter the wide difference
'Twixt amorous and villanous.........."
Oh je, I've watched Swinging With the Finkels and all I could be thinking of is the above phrase, especially since there were some really lovely scenes done on his own...He would need somebody with whom the chemistry is absolutely fab though - I'd suggest Amanda Abbington ;) and then there is this lovely song, with reference to milk and cow (Finkels) and One, Two, Three - certainly one of the best comedies ever, original script by a Hungaro-Austrian and directed by an exiled Austrian, lol!
Peter, I've been listening to an interview, where you stated that you do not particularly like Rembrandt van Rijn - an interesting contrast to Martin Freeman's perception he reveals on the DVD extras btw. Fact is I can definitely see why you do not actually love this person - pompous, self-absorbed. It reminded me of the fact that I used to paint monochromic abstract paintings just in red for several years, and only one single hue of red btw. As it was at the academy and people were passing by, this was noticed of course. So one day somebody commented: "You must be loving red"."On the contrary", I replied," I hate it, but that is fine because this way I can do whatever I like to it". Yet the outcome and truth was more complicated since by the end I was adoring red.
Maybe it's just Martin Freeman's excellent portrayal and the way he really achieved what he declaredly set out to do, which was play Rembrandt like a real person struggling with everyday problems and not the iconic painter, that made me feel deeply for this man - at the end I must admit I was in love. Yes, he is pompous and self-absorbed and frankly losing so much touch with reality as to set out to publically insult or accuse his powerful clients, makes it even worse. Self-indulgent idiot, who must show off his intelligence and who believes that nobody can get at him. And yet this is only one side, isn't it?! He could be Hamlet shouting out "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (the Netherlands)" and there is the moral disgust he is feeling at actually the same issues Hamlet is facing, murder, double moral standards, incest, colonialism. No, Amsterdam was not a nice place to live in and revealing it this openly - at least as far as the plot of this movie is concerned (I won't be commenting on wether I believeit to be historically correct because that's not a point that seems important to me, as this movie is a work of art and that's how it should be treated - anybody watching a movie and saying, yes ,this is the way it was, is a moron to me, sorry) - needs a disgusted and courageous person with high moral standards. So now we've got to a quite interesting point, something that varies from the usual perception of an artist as a morally at least questionable person, like in Anton Walbrook's favourite poem by his great-grandfather Wilhelm August Wohlbrück, it is the artist, who is just in giving each person his true deserts. I surely love the image of the eye at the end, and yes Peter, here you are right, we should learn to employ it properly and not superficially, and maybe I fancy also the idea that this eye might be love. Once more Martin Freeman is simply amazing in giving his character exactly this contradictory depth.
Imagine a team given just 48 hrs to create a short movie and then you've go the concept of 48 Hour Film Project. This is Far From Home Films' entry to the last year's London competition, and it deservedly won them some of the awards.
Basically it is a silent movie starring a mime and that's about all I'd like to tell about the story. For the thing that really intrigued me as a silent movie aficionado is that Lillian Gish insisted on the fact that silent movie acting was no mime and now here we've got people exactly playing with this idea. The mime really lives in his mime world, in contrast to the "real" world of his girlfriend. Yet the excellent Martin Freeman as the mime manages to subtly work out emotions that run beyond the mime's painted surface. If you come across it at a short film festival in your vicinity, be sure to catch it.
This is to document my review on imdb and maybe to give it some more depth because this will come to be a very complex matter and one that takes me again close to my heart and the person I used to be and hopefully still are, so let it begin.
This will not be your usual review, watch this space as I go along
watching this so far excellent movie.
The first scene I've chosen to watch was the scene in which Rembrandt
is drawing the dead Saskia, my first reaction and it was an emotional
response was that I was crying with my tears streaming down my face,
all the while I was intellectually realising that Rembrandt was
learning an important lesson at this very moment. Whereas in his works
and paintings he is the creator and god, he cannot for one iota change
or influence what is going on in the "real" world. His potency
regretfully does not stretch that far, moreover he has to submit to it
and feels as defenseless as a little child. Somehow lines from my
favourite Shakespeare play Cymbeline keep coming to my mind and so they
be here "You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love,;To have
them fall no more"! Indeed a moving scene and I'm sure that I've only
just scratched its surface. Important question raised what impact does
art have on life and vice versa?
Added August 16th: Now I've watched the opening scene I come to realise that my initial responses were correct, in a way I should have thought of much earlier. One of my favourite books is Memoires d'Aveugle:L'Autoportrait et autres Ruines/Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins. Basically it's the catalogue of an exhibition of drawings curated by Jacques Derrida. Its main topics are art, blindness and truth and it feels like Peter Greenaway is talking about exactly the same, add maybe the dilemma between art and life to it.
Other references watching the second scene would maybe escape people who are not really into the matter, but one of the hues of yellow is distilled from the urine of cattle that have been poisoned before. Just to show that this is a highly complex movie...
Ehre, wem Ehre gebührt, for his superb portrayal, which will still be subject of my future posts Martin Freeman needs to be tagged. His Rembrandt is a wonderful little fat man the like of William Turner or nowadays Howard Hodgkin - I believe this to be exactly the image Hodgkin once used.
I'm aware of the fact that this sounds highly provocative, but yet it somehow fits in the line of my last few posts. After it has been established by the commentary contained on the official DVD that in this scene from Sherlock
Benedict Cumberbatch was indeed - as I had been perceiving - very much worried about his tight suit and the vicinity of the swimming pool, I wonder if I'm also right about Martin Freeman's thoughts and what his bodylanguage and facial expressions are telling. My thoughts were the following: So I'm John Watson, Sherlock doesn't have a clue and will be surprised at the possibility that John may in fact be Moriarty. John won't let him be in doubt for long though and reveal his true state as the pawn in this lethal game as soon as possible. As soon as the word "heart" gets mentioned by John or rather Moriarty, John realises that everything Sherlock will have to offer is but a McGuffin, the real target is Sherlock and John is his most vulnerable point, so from this point onwards John will look for any opportunity to let Sherlock off this most dangerous hook disregarding his own life...I'm certainly intrigued by this histrionic potency of making my imagination run wild, very well done indeed.
One of my - regretfully presumed lost - favourite silent movies is The Magic Flame, it stars Ronald Colman in a double role as Tito, a circus clown, and Count Cassati, unscrupulous womanizer and heir apparent to the Illyrian throne. Tito accidentally kills Cassati on a row concerning Bianca, an aerial artist, and is forced to assume Cassati's part unless he would have to face a murder charge. Bianca presuming that Cassati has killed Tito sets out to assassinate "Cassati". Check it out on my site and there is also part of the translation of a French novelization here, drop down the "Novelization of Silents" button to be able to read more.
Regarding the short film The Girl Is Mime, I only now after contacting Tim Bunn realise the stunning parallels. For here there is also a mime/clown and a murder involved. Even down to some stills the resemblance is overwhelming. Yet one more reason for me to be absolutely anxious to watch it. Though I have been informed that I will have to be patient until late 2012.
Sometimes my beloved Christine's reaction "OMG", fits quite brilliantly into my life scheme. So again OMG, now I've joined Twitter and why? Because I'd love to tell the world or whomever that The Girl Is Mime seems to be a quite interesting short. Reasons why: I've always been fond of silent movies and aware of - I believe it was Lilian Gish's - assertion that silent movie acting was no mime. True, for people in silent movies behave and talk mostly naturally - unless there is slapstick going on - you just cannot hear them. Now I've watched regretfully only the trailer(s) and the making of of a movie that takes a mime as its protagonist, and as a consequence is a silent movie. It should unsettle me but instead it feels like a marvellous idea, because from all the looks of it, mime is presented as mime and yet the central protagonist's emotions are - from the alas to me limited look of it - wonderfully enacted. To me the best actors were always those - mainly trained in silent movies - that could tell you one thing in words and something completely different with their facial expression and body language. I strongly believe that The Girl Is Mime manages to play on exactly this antithesis and this especially with the help of one of the finest British actors. ;)
