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Tag: Audrey Hepburn

January 24, 2013

“Wait Until Dark”‏

“Wait Until Dark” out-Hitchcocks Hitchcock,
this is not an unremarkable feat
 
the director, Terence Young, had already
managed the early James Bond films,
“Goldfinger“, and so had already
achieved noteworthy experience,
not to mention acclaim
 
here he delivers perhaps the most satisfying
suspense film ever
 
Audrey Hepburn is again more than luminous,
she claims again, following so many impeccable
performances, her inviolable spot as a veritable
legend and immortal goddess of art, though she
loses again the Oscar, this time to the other
incandescent Hepburn   
 
she chooses all her own clothes for the movie,
incidentally, in Paris
 
 
Alan Arkin has been equalled only recently, to
my mind, as a villain, by Heath Ledger‘s Joker
in “The Dark Knight“, a much less convincing,
however, movie, Richard Widmark was pretty
nasty too, come to think of it, in 1946’s “Kiss
 
when quizzed on why he didn’t get a nomination,
one, one would think, he should’ve had in the
bag, he replied, “You don’t get nominated for
being mean to Audrey Hepburn!” 
 
gotcha
 
or touché, as we say in French
 
 
you’ll notice that the entire movie takes place
in one setting, a restriction imposed by the
fact of being originally a play, which must
abide such constraints, see “Give ’em Hell,
Harry”
 
however, having been raised in French I fully
subscribe to the Classical imperatives of unity
of time, unity of place, unity of action, which
this play delivers in spades   
 
the impositions, when masterfully maneuvered,
deliver entertainment of an even more impressive
order, see “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” for
another celebrated such instance 
 
 
when “Wait Until Dark” was first screened lights  
were darkened “to the legal limit” during the
climactic scene
 
even in your well-lit viewing room, even over
forty years on, think of it, you’ll still need to
hold onto your seat, pacemaker 
 
 
Henry Mancini, however unlikely here, though
not especially ineffectively, does the music  
 
in the last scene he’s heartstoppingly hot
 
 
enjoy
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
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January 1, 2013

“A TOAST” – Brice Maiurro‏

though I’ve tried to restrain myself from too
effusive appreciation of this inspired poet,
again tonight, a not especially eventful
though completely pleasant New Year’s
Eve night, watchIng the effervescent
movie, “Charade“, with the ebullient
Audrey Hepburn and the equally suave
and captivating Cary Grant, at my mom’s,
inadvertently, a lesson in new, incidentally,
media savvy, foregoing antiquated television
for entertainment from her computer, I got
back home to the following Internet alert 
from evidently my presently favourite poet 
 
how could I wish anyone upon reading it, I
thought, a better New Year
 
I cede therefore to this supremely articulate
poet, who’s taken the time and his gift to
fashion a wish that I couldn’t’ve, nor had I,
articulated any better, had I found, I’m
sure, so instigating and grand a spirit
 
I had to pass it along
 
 
Richard  
 
                 _________________                     
 
 
 
lift up your spirits!
to this cataclysmic evening!
this parade!
of howling wolves! and monkeys!
to the altered perspectives!
of angels!
and their subjective
paradise!
 
let our warped worlds come together!
like pangea in reverse!
  
let all religions reside within us all!
and all around us!
 
this is my wish for you.
and all of you.
 
let us toast!
to the fact our irises
are all different colors!
and our pupils are
all
the
same!
 
let’s get lost!
in the rambunctious sound
of
actual
reality!
 
and remind our souls
that love
is not just romance:
it is
every breath
the flowers give us
and each one
we return to them!
 
parks
that are dead
in winter
and alive
with lush green grass
and wide-
eyed people
in summers!
 
let’s toast!
 
to the smell of rain!
to the taste of laughter!
forever! tonight!
and ever after!
 
 
           Brice Maiurro
 
 
 
 
 
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December 15, 2012

Evgeny Kissin – a bouquet of composers‏

midway in my considerations about music I
came to myself in a dark wood for the straight
way was lost, if I may paraphrase Dante for my
own purposes, I’d digressed to Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, Audrey Hepburn, and others, and
forgot what I had been talking about with
respect to the development of music, but have
been wonderfully, and perhaps even karmically, 
put back on track by this correspondingly 
 
Evgeny Kissin had provided a resplendent
haven’t yet finished enjoying often, but
found among his other Internet offerings
 
 
at first I wondered about the Schubert/Liszt
connection in the written introduction to the
program, they’d been united by a forward
slash, implying that there’d been some kind
of cooperation, but I hadn’t ever heard of
those two ever meeting  
 
upon very little investigation however I found
out that Liszt had merely transcribed of course
some of the Schubert lieder, something which 
Liszt was wont to do, Liszt transcribed
everybody and everything, most famously all
of Beethoven’s symphonies, writing them
up for piano only, so that more remote areas
could also enjoy them, in often even there 
aristocratic salon settings
 
lieder are songs in German, a lied, a song,
works Schubert produced in astonishingly
great number
 
 
Liszt was paraphrasing Schubert for his own 
Lisztian purposes of course, artists do that, 
which is to say he was giving them much
more Lisztian fanfare and, not unwelcome,
I might add, extravagance, Schubert could
be pretty dry, I think, in his lieder,
uncharacteristically, even his fun ones, 
despite their being ever so eminently
 
 
und der Bach“  from “Die schöne Müllerin“, one
of his song cycles,“Ständchen” from
“Schwanengesang“, another cycle, “Gretchen
 am Spinnrade“, and “Erlkönig” are all poems
of celebrated German poets Schubert set for
accompanied voice, and that Lizst, and Kissin,  
transform into something pretty special   
 
 
next on the program Schubert takes independent
flight with his wondrous “Wanderer” Fantasy,
opus 15, D760
 
 
a fantasy is not a sonata for having only one
movement, but note this fantasy goes through
all the motions of a sonata, fast, slow, fast, each
with its own structural contrasts, but without
any of the intervening pauses
 
so is a fantasy just a sonata without breaks, or is
a sonata just a fantasy with hiatuses, had the
sonata become a fantasy, had the fantasy
become a sonata, definitions were being
upended, then again that’s what revolutions
are about
 
before Beethoven this had been unheard of, 
when music hadn’t yet learned to actually talk,
mean something, Schubert, like Beethoven,
not only talks, not only narrates, as in for
 “Pastoral“,  nor either describes, as in
but actually speculates, ponders, moves 
metaphysically forward, in thrall to his
vagabond spirit much more than to his
wayward heart 
 
hence, incidentally, the more abstract, less
geographical, “Wanderer”, to compare with
for instance Liszt’s more panoramic
see also Caspar David Friedrich here for 
a close contemporary counterpart of his
in art
 
 
music has become no longer merely narration 
then but philosophy, it is finding its way like
the rest of us, and for the rest of us, to the
stars 
 
 
Bach then intervenes here with a Siciliana, a
Baroque composer in Kissin’s Romantic
clothing, but the shoe entirely fits, and
hauntingly, you’ll remember Bach was
composing for the harpsichord, which
had none of the piano’s resonance 
 
 
Brahms then returns us to a more abstruse
Romanticism, “7 Fantasies”, his opus 17,
pushes the limits of melodic continuity, you
can’t sing Brahms, you’re not even drawn to     
 
seven fantasies in one opus, incidentally,
suggests a sonata with seven movements,
with all of the permutations that have been  
suggested already for the fantasy I talked
about, it’s open season on sonatas, in
other words, and by extension their less
segmented fantasies  
 
it is the history of art 
 
 
the final piece is totally transcendent, some
incidental music from Glück, from his sublime
“Orfeo ed Euridice“, one of my very favourite
operas, Orpheus approaches the Underworld
in order to retrieve his beloved bride, we are
about to enter the Elysian Fields, the actual,
original Champs Élysées, or Elysium, with
him, the moment is unforgettable
 
others have led us into the Underworld, most
notably Homer in the “Odyssey“, Virgil in the
“Aeneid“, and of couse, somewhat more
recently but just, Dante in his “Divine Comedy“,
even Bosch in his “Garden of Earthly Delights”  
 
Glück is the one whose hereafter you won’t
not  remember  
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
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December 3, 2012

Arthur Rubinstein – Chopin Piano Concerto no 2 in F minor, opus 21‏

I’ve wandered far from Mozart, Mussorgsky,
Saint-Saëns in my consideration of the evolution
of music in the West, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
would have her say, and so would the irrepressible,
the irresistible, Audrey Hepburn, I could not but
diligently for these incandescent luminaries abide

but here, to step back into the purview, the sway,
the particular empyrean of, more specifically, music,
is Arthur Rubinstein doing Chopin’s Piano Concerto
no 2 in F minor, opus 21, a piece that is for some
reason or other not as celebrated, nor familiar, as
the First, after listening you’ll also wonder why

Arthur Rubinstein is nothing short of bristling here,
Arthur Rubinstein is the august and inspired herald
who reintroduced Chopin essentially to the late
Twentieth Century, after listening, after only even
just superficially hearing, you won’t wonder either
at his well deserved position among the stars

enjoy

Richard

psst: incidentally, Evgeny Kissin doesn’t give an inch
in his own stellar rendition of the First, just click,
here or above

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