my 10 best films – “Copenhagen”
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Category: theatre to ponder
October 18, 2020
my 10 best films – “Closer”
“The Bolt” (c.1778)
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
________
in the spirit of recording my ten best
ever films, my favourite films of all
time, something that, at my relatively
advanced age, 71, I feel entitled to do,
however might some think me
presumptuous, others, not inaccurate,
I started last night with Closer
Mike Nichols directs, who also helmed
another of my ten favourites, Who’s
Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which, having
just watched it recently, I won’t again
soon, having been, once more,
devastated, I cry from the first roll of
the credits, bawl when the music
comes on, a theme that’s reverberated
with me through the several ensuing
ages, same as just happened again
to me with this one
The Blower’s Daughter, listen, tells
the story, breathes the essence of,
anguish, the tale itself follows, four
individuals, in a tight, literary, conceit,
live out the agonies of participants in
modern emotional interactions, or, at
least, my modern, 2004, it all takes
place in London, with a brief, though
revelatory, postscript in New York, in
order to tie loose ends together, they
are called upon, the performers,
consummate in every instance, Julia
Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman,
Clive Owen, however reduced might
be their full cast, a mighty, note,
professional challenge, to display the
myriad tragedies inherent in all loving
entanglements
try to find it, it ought to knock your
socks off
meanwhile, think about your own
best list, if you don’t suppose it’s
at all too early
R ! chard
psst: stick around, incidentally, for the
final credits, to Mozart’s
transcendental Soave sia il vento,
from his Così fan tutte, aptly,
and sublimely, introspective
June 22, 2020
“The Afternoon of a Faun” – Debussy / Nijinsky / Nureyev
“Faun and Nymph“ (1867)
Pál Szinyei Merse
________
to take a break, for a moment, from the
travails of Io, a heifer still, though her
father, Inachus, is aware of the situation,
and Hermes, messenger of the gods, is
out, on the orders of Jove/ Jupiter / Zeus,
to save her, and, at the same time,
inspired by the music Hermes tells Argus,
her many-eyed keeper, Pan, god of the
wilds, has been playing, with reeds he’s
been left with of Syrinx, the nymph he
would’ve loved had she not been
transformed into rushes, as imagined by
Debussy in his evocative Syrinx for solo
flute, as highlighted in my last instalment,
I could not not remember Debussy‘s
other similarly mythological, and intimately
related, work, his Prelude to the Afternoon
of a Faun, as modified itself by Vaslav
Nijinsky, legendary dancer and
choreographer, into an event that verily
shook the early 20th Century
retitled, L’après-midi d’un faune, The
Afternoon of a Faun in English, the
performance captures everything one
would gather from Ovid’s myths of its
primitive, primal, sensibilities
the faun, needless to say, is representative
of Pan, god of the wild, woodlands, a satyr,
part instinct, part man, see above
watch Rudolf Nureyev, then, his equally
celebrated successor, take on the role
Nijinsky made famous, without any
alterations made to the original 1912
production, however improbably,
though entirely successfully, we’re in
Paris, May 29, though transposed,
faithfully and superbly, to New York,
Broadway, 1979
proceed, however, at your own discretion,
The Afternoon of a Faun is steaming, it’s
about what happens when a young buck’s
fancies, implacable and irrepressible, turn
to love, not for the scrupulous, where does
love begin, it asks, and lust retire, or is it
the other way around, where does yin, in
other words, meet, become, yang
these are questions that more and more
begin to come up, you’ll find, in Greek
and Roman, and most other ancient,
for that matter, mythologies, something
that isn’t at all touched upon in the
Abrahamic traditions, Christanity, Islam,
Judaism, monotheistic, though they’re
at least as old, where nature, the place
of animals, vegetation, land, water, our
intimate interconnection with them,
don’t much, for better or for worse,
come up
I miss the wonder of the more
pantheistic, the pagan, perspective
enjoy
R ! chard
December 7, 2019
“Orfeo ed Euridice” – Christoph Willibald Gluck
“Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld“ (1861)
Camille Corot
_________
the question of the afterlife comes up
in several places in art history, from
very Homer to the present, my very
favourite is Gluck‘s opera “Orfeo ed
Euridice“, 1762
Orpheus, because of the sweetness
of his music, his ability on the lyre,
is granted, by the rulers of the
Underworld, the return, among the
mortals, of his recently deceased
beloved, Eurydice
the condition is that he not turn back
to look at her as he leads her back
to the world of the living, our
sensate world
it’s a journey I’ve taken often for its
utter enchantment and inspiration,
you’ll find it irresistible
watch, listen
you won’t want to not go back,
I didn’t
R ! chard
September 21, 2019
Piano Concerto no 1, opus 15 – Beethoven
Al Jolson, in “The Jazz Singer” (1927)
_________________
in order to abate my discomfort, my
consternation, after meeting up with
one of the candidates I considered
favouring in the upcoming election,
I put on Beethoven’s First, which,
incontrovertibly, from the first few
notes, did the trick, took me out of
politics and the uncomfortable
present, into metaphysical
pertinence, and magic
I’d referred to the issue of blackface,
a searing issue at present in the
media, I said, what about Laurence
Olivier doing Othello, Placido
Domingo doing the very same Moor,
not to mention Al Jolson doing,
unforgettably, “My Mammy“
but picked up that neither the
candidate, nor his mentor, standing
by his side, had any idea what I was
talking about
Placido Domingo, I said, one of The
Three Tenors, remember them
the aspiring representative indicated
a dim recollection, his accompanist
admitted to having nebulously heard
of him, them, somewhere
OMGess, I reared, I’m talking to the
next generation, maybe even the
generation after that, who have no
recollection, no understanding of
where I come from, it was, to say
the least, unsettling, discomfitting,
sobering
there was no one at home with whom
to commiserate when I arrived,
answering machines only at the end
of every line, I resorted, therefore,
not unwisely as it turned out, to the
said Beethoven, who was, as usual,
a lifesaver
listen
R ! chard
February 15, 2019
“Années de pèlerinage”, 2nd Year – Liszt
“Petrarch“ (c.1450)
Andrea del Castagno
___________
for John, who would’ve
been 60 today
though the suite might’ve started with
Bach’s string of dance pieces in the
early 18th Century, it becomes evident
during the 19th Century, after a lapse
of nearly 100 years, while it fell into
disfavour, that its resurrection as a
valid musical form might’ve kept the
original structure, which is to say its
several separate parts to make up a
whole, its movements, but that it
now was serving a different purpose
where music had, through to the early
Romantic Period, followed dance
rhythms, or variations of tempo,
adagio, andante, allegro, and the like,
it now presented itself as a background
for settings, be it ballets, as in
Tchaikovsky’s, plays, as in Edvard
Grieg’s celebrated , “Peer Gynt Suite“,
after Ibsen‘s eponymous play,
specific locations, as in Debussy’s
“Children’s Corner“, or more
expansively, both geographically
and in its compositional length,
these very “Années de pèlerinage”
of Liszt
this is in keeping with the exploration
of consciousness of that era, which
would lead to not only Impressionism,
but to Freud, and the others, and the
development of psychoanalysis
you’ll note that music seems much
more improvisational in Liszt than in
Chopin, or Beethoven, prefiguring
already even jazz, more evocative,
less emotional, more personal, not
generalized, idiosyncratic, a direct
development of the newly acquired
concept of democracy, one man, at
the time, one vote, one, indeed,
voice, however individual, however
even controversial
listen, for instance, to Liszt’s “Années
de pèlerinage”, 2nd Year, Italy
1. Sposalizio
2. Il penseroso
3. Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa
4. Sonetto 47 del Petrarca
5. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca
6. Sonetto 123 del Petrarca
7. Après une lecture de Dante: Fantasia Quasi Sonata
today you can listen to suites
from famous films, for instance
“Blade Runner“, the beat, in
other words, goes on
but note the renovations, find them,
I dare you, you’ll be surprised at
your unsuspected perspicacity
listen
R ! chard
December 22, 2018
from act 4, scene 3 – Othello
when Desdemona learns that Othello
suspects her of adultery, she asks
her maidservant
Dost thou in conscience think,–tell me, Emilia,–
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
Emilia, older, wiser, replies
There be some such, no question.
But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
“fall” in the second verse, for this is
indeed a poem, in iambic pentameter,
could easily be replaced by “fail“,
nearly even calls out for it,
homophones but for the timbre of
their vowels
say that their husbands slack, she says,
then lists the several manners in which
husbands might betray their marital
duties, by “foreign“, she means “other“,
foreign to the family circle
“laps“, incidentally, is a wonderful
metaphor to accompany “treasures“,
suggesting intimate physical contact,
much more so, say, than “hands“
would’ve, for instance, been
“restraint” means conditions, stress,
impositions
“scant our former having“, to diminish
that which formerly had been given,
of either material or psychological
goods – “having” is a noun here, not
a participle
“in despite“, which is to say, “out of
spite“
“galls“, a synecdoche for internal
organs, a synecdoche, the word
that means a part which signifies
the whole
“affection” is “lust“
we’re equal partners, Shakespeare
says, men and women, in a shared
humanity, indeed Shakespeare is
one of the first Humanists after
centuries of religious subjugation,
centuries of the suppression of
independent thought, a defining
notion, not incidentally, of the
Renaissance
R ! chard
November 11, 2018
“A Delicate Balance” – Edward Albee
“Theatre Drama“
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
___________
there are only a very few 20th-Century
American playwrights who’ve weathered
the rigours of time, two with several
successes, Eugene O’Neill, and
Tennessee Williams, but only one to
tower above those two with only one
work to outmatch them, Edward Albee,
his “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?“
is every inch a king
this is not an impossible feat, Margaret
Mitchell wrote her only book, “Gone
with the Wind“, a contemporary “Iliad“,
which will find its rightful place again
in world literature, note, when our own
too reverberant still times cede to the
concerns of another, less pertinently
fraught era, like reading “War and
Peace“, for instance, now that
Napoleon is long gone
“Gone with the Wind“, quick, name
another 20th-Century novel to top it,
seconds are too long, “Gone with
the Wind” is in our bloodstream,
like Walt Disney or Marilyn Monroe,
even if you’ve never read it, which
you should
but Edward Albee wrote another play
which deserves some attention, and
with redoubtable performances from
both the consummate ever Katharine
Hepburn, and from our own Canadian
tower of unutterable talent, Kate Reid,
abetted by masterful presentations
from no less than the revered Paul
Scofield and the iconic Joseph Cotten
when their supporting numbers come
up, here is a show to watch for, if
nothing else, those individual stellar
contributions
but “A Delicate Balance“, also an
incontestable masterpiece, is about
friendship, and tells a lesson you’ll
not soon forget, friendship is more
than, for better or for worse, just
knowing each other, it says, an
idiosyncratic, indeed recurrent,
Albee theme
cinematography, note, is, here,
dreadful, though actually in that
manner conceived, however
improbably, by an otherwise
noteworthy director, you’ll even
think they’ve shrunk his frame
but visual style shouldn’t let you
forego the play’s profound substance,
nor the triumphant work of its illustrious
cast, at the very top, mostly, of their
considerable, even defining, powers
watch
R ! chard
September 4, 2018
“The Kingdom of Scotland vs the Weird Sisters”
“‘Macbeth’, Act I, Scene 3, the Weird Sisters“ (1783)
_______
if you thought “The Kingdom of Denmark
vs Hamlet“ was fun, you’ll love “The
Kingdom of Scotland vs the Weird
Sisters“, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg presides, with
the assistance of four other eminent
American judges, over the case in
which the defendants, the witches
who encounter Macbeth, are accused
of concocting the murder of Duncan,
King of Scotland, by that unsuspecting
Thane of Glamis, soon to be Thane of
Cawdor, not only predicting it, but
verily perpetrating it
double, double, toil, indeed, and
trouble, topical allusions fly, pithy,
witty, pungent, delightful late night
comedy fare, but of a more esoteric,
effete order
R ! chard
August 26, 2018
the Kingdom of Denmark vs Hamlet
“Ideal portrait of Shakespeare“ (c.1775)
____________
since I’m on the subject of Hamlet,
here‘s the most fun production
I’ve seen since I can remember,
the trial of said Hamlet before
the High Court of the Kingdom
of Denmark vs Himself, for the
murder of Polonius, chief
counsellor of the new King,
Claudius, after the death of
Hamlet, père, brother to Claudius,
Greek, nearly, already, tragedy
Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court of
the United States, presides,
Abbe Lowell, counsel for both
Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump
recently in the matter of Russian
interference, argues for the
defense, while Jessie K. Liu, U.S.
Attorney for the District of
Columbia, is the prosecution
the stakes are high, not only for
Hamlet
the participants put on quite a
show, however erudite, they
all deliver in utter spades
you’ll relish the surprisingly
multifarious quotations you
might not, you thought, ‘ve
got, of Shakespeare, you’ll be
amazed to find that you’re not
that much out of touch with
these not so daunting, after
all, considerations
much art, in other words, is only
as far away as one’s curiosity,
one’s acknowledgement, much
of it is already in our system, in
our cultural DNA, all that’s
needed to take it in is our
attention
R ! chard
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