Living in Rome

Tan Dun - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon | The Auditorium, Rome | 27 February, 2010

2010-03-01T13:36:00.001+01:00

It seemed particularly fitting in the very same week in which an Italian court took the outrageous decision to convict three Google executives of privacy violations, holding them personally accountable for a video that some teenage thugs had uploaded to YouTube, that Chinese composer Tan Dun should present the Italian première of a piece of music that celebrates all that is wonderful about the Internet and in particular, YouTube – The Internet Symphony "Eroica". Commissioned by Google and YouTube for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, in which musicians were selected via online auditions and even played the piece virtually via the Internet, it was performed on Saturday afternoon by the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. It's an exhilarating piece, with a clear nod to Beethoven's own Eroica, but with the entirely original and thrilling use of car parts in the percussion section such as clanking drum brakes.

In 2001 Tan Dun won an Oscar for Best Original Score for his soundtrack for Ang Lee's breathtaking Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the audience were treated to scenes from that film during the performance of another Italian première - a suite based on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with solo cellist Amedeo Cicchese stepping admirably into the very large shoes of Yo Yo Ma who played the haunting cello part on the original soundtrack.

At the start of the second half of the afternoon Tan Dun took time to praise both the Orchestra and the Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia effusively – in fact, the Orchestra were joined on stage by the Chorus for the world première of a suite based on the soundtrack for The Banquet, a Chinese film from 2006 which transposed Shakespeare's Hamlet to ancient China, and where Hamlet is a woman (played by the ubiquitous Zhang Ziyi). The music, he explained, explored the themes of a woman's love, revenge and desire. Originally played by the amazing Lang Lang for the film, for this live performance the talented young Italian pianist Giulio Biddau was the soloist.

Closing to rapturous applause after a stunning programme, the audience were treated to a final and completed unexpected surprise and another world first – an encore of The Internet Symphony with full chorus!

Tan Dun returns to Santa Cecilia this evening and tomorrow – highly recommended!

Watch the original global Internet mash up of The Internet Symphony below or click here to watch it on YouTube.

Susan Sarandon in Conversation - A Journey Through American Cinema

2010-02-28T17:52:00.001+01:00

The fifth edition of the International Rome Film Festival may still be some eight months away, but in the meantime The Fondazione Cinema per Roma kicked off its 2010 series of encounters with Hollywood actors and directors - Viaggio nel cinema americano (A Journey Through American Cinema) – yesterday evening, with an interview with Susan Sarandon in the sold-out Sala Petrassi at the Auditorium Parco della Musica.

Seen in person, Susan Sarandon really is stunningly beautiful, yet her droll, often self-effacing sense of humour, combined with a down to earth attitude, made for a relaxed conversational atmosphere with the evening's hosts, Antonio Monda and Mario Sesti, who asked questions mixed with clips from some of her screen performances, although on this occasion at her own request, there was a far longer Q & A session with members of the audience too.

The opening clip from the iconic Ridley Scott road movie Thelma & Louise led to probably the most detailed discussion of the evening about the specific development of any one role, as she discussed changes to the script and her own input as an actress in the shaping of Louise's character. Other clips - The Rocky Horror Picture Show (paired, somewhat bizarrely, with Shall We Dance); Atlantic City and Pretty Baby (both directed by Loius Malle); The Client and her Oscar winning performance in Dead Man Walking - served more as springboards to wider discussions about the state of cinema today. Asked what impact her older movies have on her when she watches them again, she laughed and said that very often she hadn't even watched them first time round, and instead preferred to focus her attention on her work on the set, rather than thinking too much about the final result. As a mother of three children, she also said that it was pretty much impossible to remain in character off a film set although challenging roles such as that of Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking stayed with her more than others.

Susan Sarandon is certainly no stranger to Rome, having lived here during the mid-1980s. Indeed, she had her first child here – actress Eva Amurri - with Roman film director and writer Franco Amurri after having been told she would never be able to conceive. I always tell people who have been trying to have a baby that they should just go to Rome and eat good food and it will happen – she joked at one point, and also pointed out members of her Italian family who were present in the audience.

At the end of the evening she seemed in no hurry to leave the stage and generously signed numerous autographs, shook hands with the fans who rushed to the stage and posed for photographs.

Galleria Sciarra

2010-02-21T18:21:00.003+01:00

On a wander through the centre of Rome the other day, I took a short cut through the recently restored Galleria Sciarra. Situated very close to the Trevi Fountain on Piazza dell' Oratorio, this gorgeous and utterly surprising arcade is easily missed, so I thought I'd post something about it here in our Discover Rome section, where we take a closer look at some of the hidden treasures in the Eternal City that are sometimes overshadowed by the city's more famous landmarks.

The arcade is named after the building's original owner, Prince Maffeo Sciarra, who in the late 1880s commissioned the architect Giulio De Angelis to design a glass-domed galleria to serve as a fashionable shopping centre for Rome. Painter Giuseppe Cellini decorated the space and the frescoes he produced are a wonderful example of the influence of English pre-Raphaelite art on Italian artists at the end of the 19th century, in their mixing of Renaissance decoration with images of contemporary women. In fact, the role of women in middle class society is very much at the heart of the fresco cycle, albeit in the traditional roles of mother, wife and housekeeper, as well as personifying the female "virtues", some of which are seen in the photo below:

Amabilis - streches out her arms in welcome;
Fidelis - points to her faithful heart, with a dog symbolically placed at her feet;
Misericors -is cutting her long hair and thus making a sacrifice.

Look out for this hidden gem next time you're in Rome!

Photos © Deborah Swain - All rights reserved

Snow in Rome!

2010-02-12T16:15:00.001+01:00

At the time of writing this post, watery sunshine and the palest of blue skies may have returned to Rome, yet earlier today the city looked very different - Romans and tourists were able to enjoy the rare treat of seeing the major landmarks of the Eternal City under a picturesque covering of snow!

It is extremely unusual for snow to fall in Rome – in fact, the last time the capital saw any significant snowfall was back in 1986.

The saints in the snow here are (from left to right): St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bernard, St. Benedict, St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Remigius.

Photo © Deborah Swain - All rights reserved

Josh Ritter and The Swell Season - Strict Joy Tour | The Auditorium, Rome | 6 February, 2010

2010-02-07T21:15:00.000+01:00

When I first read that the opening act for yesterday evening's The Swell Season concert at Sala Sinopli at the Auditorium Parco della Musica was going to be Josh Ritter, my expectations for the event were instantly raised. With an opening act of such a high calibre this had all the potential for being an incredible evening. Unfortunately, his presence wasn't heavily advertised, and he was forced to play with house lights up and the constant comings and goings of people taking their seats – and that unbreakable rule which says that an audience should always chat throughout the support act holds true in Rome too. It's to Josh Ritter's enormous credit, therefore, that with just voice and guitar (and a huge smile that was visible even from the gallery) he won over enough of the audience to elicit cheers and applause after each of his gorgeous and quirky folk songs – Kathleen, Snow is Gone, Girl In The War, Harrisburg are just some that I remember - and managed to silence most of the others impatiently waiting for the main event. I could have listened to him all night!

As one of the few people on the planet who hasn't yet seen Once, the movie that catapulted The Frames' front-man Glen Hansard and Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová into worldwide stardom as the group The Swell Season, I'll admit that I bought the tickets for the concert out of pure curiosity. As Glen and Markéta took to the stage, however, and were joined by The Frames to play Low Rising from the band's new album Strict Joy, I quickly realised I'd made the right call! Shifting between older and newer songs, mixed in with lots of chat from the charismatic Hansard, this was an evening of consummate musicianship combined with heartfelt intensity and passion. One of the many highlights of the evening – with a clear nod to his busking days – saw Hansard step away from the mic and play a totally unplugged Say It To Me Now, breaking the song midway to tell the story, at once funny and terribly moving, of his meeting an elderly woman who had lost a son in the 9/11 attacks. It's hard to imagine anybody even daring to cover Van Morrison's Astral Weeks – but Glen Hansard took that chance last night...and it was astoundingly good! Traditional musical influences were also given a moment in the spotlight when The Frames' violin player Colm Mac Con Iomaire played the haunting traditional Irish violin solo The Court Of New Town.

It was surely no surprise to anybody when the couple came back out on stage during the encore and sang two of the songs that so perfectly showcase just how well their voices fit together - Falling Slowly from the film Once - it won an Academy Award for Best Song - and Lies. As a brand new Josh Ritter fan I was thrilled to see him invited back out on stage during the encore for a stunning version of Come and Find Me, which this time saw him playing with both The Swell Season and the Frames. If the audience response to Hansard's attempts to get us to sing along to Back Broke and High Hopes earlier in the evening had been a little shy – uncharacteristic for a Roman crowd – that was all swept away during the closing number. Powerless to resist, we all stood up when ordered, shook ourselves and sang (and clapped and danced) to High Horses. A fantastic live band – highly recommended!

Watch Falling Slowly and Lies below or click here to watch on YouTube.

Watch Josh Ritter's Kathleen below or click here to watch on YouTube.

Rediscovering Dada and Surrealism at the Complesso del Vittoriano

2010-01-26T20:01:00.001+01:00

Whilst the Dada and Surrealism show currently running at the Complesso del Vittoriano claims to be the most important overview of the two revolutionary art movements ever shown in Italy, the inclusion of over 500 works covering oil paintings, sculptures and collages unfortunately proves to be more exhausting than exhaustive. The exhibition space at the Complesso del Vittoriano, with its funnel like corridor at the beginning, is difficult to manage at the best of times, but this has to be one of the most maddening shows I've seen for quite a while! I suspect the higgledy-piggledy hanging of dozens of works crammed together is a deliberate attempt to emulate the art salons of the last century, but it makes for a frustrating visit. The show clearly aims to include as many minor artists as possible, but there are simply too many also-rans – at least a third of what's there could easily have been excluded to allow some of the more important work space to breathe and also give people the chance to properly rediscover a handful of lesser known, yet important, artists.

For reasons that are hard to understand, for example, the gallery dedicates a large screen and several rows of seating at the start of the exhibition for a brief introduction by the curator Arthur Schwarz, whereas the excellent selection of Dada and Surrealist films such as René Clair and Francis Picabia’s Entr’acte (1924) are relegated to small screens dotted throughout the exhibition - strategically positioned, it would seem, to block the passage of other visitors who don't wish to stand and watch the movies as they play on a loop. Schwartz was personally friends with many of the Surrealists and has written extensively about them, amassing a huge collection of 700 pieces of Dada and Surrealist art over the years, which he then gave to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. An expert in his field, one gets the impression that he was given carte blanche with this show and that nobody else at the Vittoriano dared suggest trimming things down a little!

Be that as it may, there are still some wonderful items in the exhibition, hidden gems as it were, that thankfully make the visit well worthwhile. The small selection of collages by Kurt Schwitters is exquisite, in spite of minor irritations - the tiny Mz 293 is hung too high to see it properly, and Mz 253 is hung too low. I would personally have loved to have seen far more work by his fellow German Dada artist and pioneer of photo-montage Hannah Höch, although the inclusion of the haunting water colour Die Strassenjamer is an unexpected gift. British Surrealist Edith Rimmington makes a surprising appearance with a gorgeous London Transport poster for the London Aquarium – surprising because this particular work is barely Surrealist – whilst Magritte's masterpieces The Red Model (1934) and the later Castle in the Pyrenees (1959) rise above the masses as pure poetry.

Rediscovering Dada and Surrealism continues at the Complesso del Vittoriano until 7th February, 2010. If you're a die hard fan of Dada or Surrealism you'd better hurry – it's finishing soon!

The Red Model by René Magritte © Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands – Web resolution, fair use.

Arvo Pärt - Summa | The Auditorium, Rome | 23 January, 2010

2010-01-24T19:11:00.000+01:00

A week long series of events dedicated to the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt - Diario dell'anima – opened yesterday at the Auditorium Parco della Musica with a concert performed by the Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble in the presence of the maestro himself and conducted by his charismatic fellow Estonian Tonu Kaljuste. The setting of Sala Petrassi, the smaller of the three main concert halls, lent the evening an intimacy which was perfect for Part's minimalist and meditative music, with a programme of compositions that served as a marvellous Arvo Pärt primer, as well as an introduction to the festival itself.

The concert opened with the first of several special variations of early works, the hypnotic string quartet version of Summa; the haunting version of Fratres scored for four percussionists made its Italian debut, whilst the version of Spiegel im Spiegel, one of Part's most borrowed compositions for film and television, was performed for the first time ever with a score for bass flute and piano, written specifically for PMCE lead flautist Manuel Zurria. There were works for voice as well – again an entirely new version of Zwei Wiegenlieder – and L’Abbé Agathon, the most recent of the compositions performed, sung by soprano Arianna Savall, the crystalline purity of whose voice enthralled me.

The evening closed to rapturous applause with the composer stepping nimbly up onto the stage to join the performers for several curtain calls. Seeming in no hurry to leave the hall he spent some time shaking the hands of well wishers and even signed some autographs for admirers. A wonderful evening!

Click here for further details of forthcoming events in Diario dell'anima. Omaggio a Arvo Pärt.

Programme

Summa (string quartet version)
L’Abbé Agathon
Spiegel im Spiegel (new version)
Scala Cromatica
Mozart Adagio
Es sang vor langen Jahren
Fratres (Schlagzeuger) (percussion version)
Zwei Wiegenlieder (new version)

Niki de Saint Phalle at the Museo della Fondazione Roma – Final Days!

2010-01-10T20:20:00.000+01:00

After one of the best and also enormously popular art exhibitions of 2009 in Rome – Hiroshige: Master of Nature - the Museo della Fondazione Roma (Museo del Corso) continues to demonstrate that it is worthy of a place alongside the major galleries in the city with yet another marvellous show, this time presenting over 100 works by French-born sculptor, painter and performance artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002). As with the Hiroshige exhibition, this show guides the visitor through a thematic rather than strictly chronological selection of the artist's work via four main areas, or Memory Rooms – Origins, Nana Power, Spiritual Path and The Tarot Garden.

Admittedly, I came to this exhibition thinking that I didn't know her work at all, only to be reminded once there that she was (of course!) one of the creators of the Stravinsky Fountain, next to the Centre Pompidou, in Paris, which I'd seen and enjoyed so many times in the past. She collaborated on this public fountain with her long term partner in life and art, Jean Tinguely, whose impact on her work is charted in the section Spiritual Path and in works such as the dazzling yet deeply poignant silkscreen, Jean in My Heart, created in 1992, a year after Jean's death. This section, explored her inner world and included a large number of the California Diary silkscreen prints created during the 1990s. Charting her daily thoughts in a graphical jumble of words and images these pieces are a fascinating insight into what made Niki de Saint Phalle tick and are both moving and humorous, often within a single piece. When in Christmas, for example, which deals with the joys of laughter and love of life, she includes a reference to a sudden illness, we are saddened too by this intimate and shocking revelation. I spent ages pouring over them, following the circuitous route of her sentences written in her distinctive swirling font, determined to savour every word!

If the Shooting Paintings of the 1960s brought her notoriety - she quite literally shot at paintings with a rifle, thus opening bags of pigments which would then run down the canvas – for the most part her work is joyous and life affirming. She wore her heart (and influences) on her sleeve and whilst her own references to Gaudí and Miro are immediately apparent, the influence of her work on others wasn't mentioned – I saw shades of early Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring and most strikingly, the Beatles' animated movie Yellow Submarine.

The final spaces in the gallery were dedicated to the works for which she is arguably most famous - the brightly painted and curvaceous celebrations of the complexities of womanhood, the giant Nanas, and the sculptures built for the Giardino dei Tarocchi in Garavicchio, Tuscany (complete with sound effects of the wind blowing through trees and real autumn leaves scattered around the exhibits). Tragically, most of these figures were created in polyester resin, a substance known to give off highly toxic gases – although aware of the dangers, Saint Phalle continued working with this material until she eventually succumbed to emphysema in 2002, cutting short the life of this unique artist. Large scale stills from her art films covered entire panels throughout the show and a short sequence of film clips running on a loop completed this fine introduction to a fascinating artist and an extraordinary body of work.

This is a wonderful show, closing soon – catch it if you can!

Niki de Saint Phalle at the Museo della Fondazione Roma is curated by Stefano Cecchetto and continues until 17th January 2010.

New Flood Warnings for the River Tiber in Rome!

2010-01-09T11:14:00.000+01:00

Just over a year since the last dramatic flooding of the Tiber, water levels have once again risen alarmingly after days of incessant rain and Rome is at risk of flooding. I took this photograph of Castel Sant'Angelo last night from Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II where the Tevere had risen above the 11 metre mark. With weather forecasts giving more rain over the weekend the river is expected to reach 13 metres by Sunday.

Photograph © Deborah Swain - All rights reserved

Rome: The Painting of an Empire at the Scuderie del Quirinale – Closing Weeks!

2009-12-29T18:10:00.001+01:00

Art lovers visiting the Eternal City over the holiday period will have found themselves spoilt for choice with fine shows on offer in all the major galleries. For anybody here to immerse themselves in ancient Rome, however, the Scuderie del Quirinale's magnificent show Roma: Pittura di un Impero, which covers Roman painting from the 1st century BC to the 5th AD, should be a top priority.

It's a beautifully curated show – the lighting is necessarily low, yet the work is perfectly lit throughout and the large frescoes on the lower floor of the building are given enough gallery space to recreate a stunning semblance of the rooms and halls of the Roman residences they once adorned. Indeed, it came as little surprise to learn that the hanging of this exhibition had been orchestrated by somebody with a keen eye for set design – Italian theatre and opera director Luca Ronconi – and much of the work on the lower floor particularly, feels highly theatrical. The opening room includes a fresco from the Casa delle Maschere di Soluto in Palermo featuring a mask of Vecchio Pan – a nod to the highly influentially Greek art and theatre that came before. Further along, I was held captivated by the nearly nine metres of amazingly well preserved fresco from the triclinium (dining room) known as the Stanza Nera (Black Room) of Villa della Farnesina - highly decorative garlands of vine leaves hang loosely between improbably delicate white painted columns which divide the black, almost indigo, background on which the faint remains of unknown figures float in some strange, ethereal moonlit landscape...

The collection of Roman portraits on fresco, mosaic or even glass, as well as some of the most well-known Roman portraits from the Egyptian oasis of El Fayyum are the stars of the show in the upper gallery. I'd seen some of the painted funereal portraits in the British Museum in London but was once again amazed by the sheer modernity of Roman painting technique – daubs of colour and abbreviated marks that captured the essence of their subject and at first glance look stylistically so close to 16th century painting – and was more than happy to see them again here in this wonderful exhibition.

With over 100 pieces of work on display all told this is one exhibition you simply must see!

Rome: The Painting of an Empire at the Scuderie del Quirinale continues until 17 January 2010.

Merry Christmas - Buon Natale from Rome!

2009-12-24T12:03:00.000+01:00

We took a stroll over to St. Peter's Square at the Vatican yesterday evening. Whilst the traditional nativity scene was still under wraps and the lights on the 100 foot tall Christmas tree were off - the unveiling of the crib and the lighting-up of the tree will happen today, Christmas Eve - the monumental facade of St. Peter's Basilica illuminated at night remains one of the city's most evocative images.

Buon Natale!

More Alexander Calder at the Gagosian Gallery!

2009-12-21T13:33:00.001+01:00

If the major Alexander Calder retrospective at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni leaves you wanting even more then head over to the consistently excellent Gagosian Gallery on Via Francesco Crispi where there's also a small, yet rewarding, Alexander Calder exhibition running at present.

The show opens with a human scale steel sculpture from 1957- Five Points/Triangles - and closes with a handful of works on paper, but the heart of the show is without doubt the monumental sculpture commissioned for Mies van der Rohe's American Republic Insurance Company building in Des Moines, Iowa, - Spunk of the Monk (1964) – which stretches across one end of the main oval gallery like some enormous black steel spider. Whilst it shares the large space with only one other piece - Triumphant Red (1959-63) - a huge mobile spanning almost six metres and suspended from the ceiling, it was this work which immediately drew my attention. At the Palazzo delle Esposizioni show Calder's monumental sculptures are represented through smaller maquettes or photographs, but here the free standing work is large enough for visitors to walk right underneath its welded arches and fully interact with the piece.

Highly recommended!

Alexander Calder: Monumental Sculpture continues at the Gagosian Gallery at Via Francesco Crispi, 16 until 30 January, 2010.

Photo © Gagosian Gallery (Web-resolution, fair use)

Alexander Calder at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome

2009-12-10T20:38:00.008+01:00

Regular readers of Living in Rome will have realised that I'm a frequent visitor to the Palazzo delle Esposizioni which continues to be my favourite arts centre in the city. With its current exhibition of the work of American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976) its curators have once again chosen a perfect subject – it would be difficult to think of a more rewarding space than the cavernous central hallway and high-ceilinged rooms of the Palazzo for displaying his large, suspended mobiles, which sway, albeit gently, in the currents of air moving through the steel rafters of the restructured galleries.

This is an exhaustive show which covers not only sculpture from throughout his entire career – the earliest pieces, a dog and duck made from bent sheets of very thin brass, were created by Calder when he was only eleven! - but also numerous paper works, such as gouache paintings and some delightful early pen and ink sketches of animals. In spite of the scale of the exhibition, however, the work never feels crowded, with every item – be it a wire sculpture, a hanging mobile or a free standing monumental floor piece – given space to breathe. Hercules and Lion and the Guggenheim's wonderfully witty Romulus and Remus, two wire sculptures from 1928, are shown side by side and strongly lit against a white background – the shadows they cast emphasise perfectly how much Calder seemed to be drawing in space with wire.

Looking around me when I visited the show, I noticed that people were smiling more often than not as they gazed at the mobiles – captivated by how sheets of metal suspended on the thinnest of wires could evoke the fluttering, even trembling of leaves or snow flakes.

As the perfect compliment and to fully round out the Calder experience the upper floor of the Palazzo is hosting an exhibition of Photographs of Alexander Calder by Ugo Mulas, which gives a fascinating insight into his working methods, home and studio life. There is also a series of films being projected during the day - most notably by Marcel Duchamp – which feature the artist's work.

If you're in Rome over the holiday season be sure to catch this show! It's unmissable!

Calder is curated by Alexander S. C. Rower and continues at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni until 14 February 2010.

Photo of Romulus and Remus © Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Calder Foundation (Web-resolution, fair use).

No Berlusconi Day – The Purple Revolution

2009-12-06T14:14:00.007+01:00

After the overwhelming turn out in defence of press freedom in October this year when over 300,000 descended on Piazza del Popolo in Rome, people took to the streets again yesterday for No Berlusconi Day to demand the resignation of Italian Prime Minister and wannabe dictator Silvio Berlusconi.

This time round there were even more people – the organisers claim over a million participants (whilst the local authorities, rather predictably, claimed the laughably low figure of 90,000) – I witnessed hundreds of thousands of people in a seemingly never-ending stream of protesters dressed in purple who marched from Piazza della Republica along the streets of the capital to Piazza San Giovanni, which was quickly filled to capacity.

In what should be a wakeup call to the old guard of Italian politics this peaceful protest was organised entirely through the Internet, and in particular via social network Facebook – the initiative's Facebook page alone had over 360,000 virtual supporters prior to the march, which in itself made a mockery of the state's false participation figures.

Let’s save Italy, Let’s save democracy. Let’s ask for Berlusconi’s resignation

Read the full appeal in English here

All photos © Deborah Swain

Live Sonification of 'Aelita' by Gamers In Exile | Palazzo Delle Esposizioni | 29 November 2009

2009-11-30T19:19:00.010+01:00

Guido Zen and Valerio Camporini Faggioni aka Gamers in Exile, the critically acclaimed Italian electronic soundscapers, were in Rome on Sunday at the Palazzo Delle Esposizioni for a very special event – the Live Sonification of the 1924 Russian silent film Aelita: Queen of Mars.

The duo are no strangers to film soundtracks - last year they scored Biùtiful cauntri, an Italian documentary about illegal toxic waste dumping in Southern Italy, which against all odds, enjoyed both critical success and even a brief run in cinemas both home and abroad – but here, in creating the only sounds for a silent movie, they had constructed an entirely new sonic world for Yakov Protazanov's socialist science-fiction block buster!

The music - at times a hypnotically mechanical mash-up of found sounds, at others a haunting and lyrical expression of a character's mood - was always beautifully sympathetic to the images on screen. And what a film! Its incredible Martian sets are perfect example of Russian Constructivism and its impact on later Sci-Fi films of the 1930s and beyond was clear. Whilst its influence on Flash Gordon and Metropolis is often cited, the Martian soldiers didn't look so very different from Star Wars storm troopers to me!

The film was shown as part of a short season of films about space travel – Spaziale! - which coincides with the exhibition Stars and Particles. The Voice of the Universe

Stories by Matteo Peretti at Emmeotto Gallery on Via Margutta

2009-11-12T17:27:00.004+01:00

I have to admit that whenever I wander down Via Margutta and look at the private galleries it isn't often that I'm wildly impressed by anything I see there. All that changed the other day, however, when I happened upon Emmeotto and a show dedicated to the young Roman artist Matteo Peretti. I only intended staying long enough to kill time before a lunch appointment at my favourite vegetarian restaurant Il Margutta which is just up the road, but was so impressed I ended up being late for lunch and going back later for a second look!

Stories is a substantial exhibition which gathers together forty pieces of work, many of which are constructed from a jumble of assembled old toys and found objects – Toy Story would have fit equally well as a title for this show - with pieces ranging from free standing sculptures to bas-relief monochrome collages. Whilst there's something undeniably eclectic about the work - think Duchamp's readymades meets Jeff Koons – Peretti's takes his own very personal brand of pop art into the 21st century by putting an ironic spin on the genre with contemporary political and social references. Whilst some of the portraits might be a little obvious - the first piece on show, for example, is entitled George W, and is a grinning moss-covered chimpanzee head, whilst Barack is represented as a tiny man propping up a large globe – there are others such as Cinque, a monochrome Yves Klein blue surface teeming with melted and reassembled toys, tanks and guns, which are simply beautiful.

Anybody who has lived in this country or seen any TV in Italy will enjoy the humour in the hollowed out television carcasses such as Synthetic Brain - Ferrari crammed full of Barbie dolls and other figures like a chaotic Italian nativity scene or presepe. My favourite piece in the entire show, however, was Snoopy – a strangely haunting assemblage of toys with the recognisable Peanuts character in its midst. Ash grey in colour and with a matte almost dusty finish, it reminded me in some strange way of the figures at Pompeii.

As somebody who collects vintage action figures I often needed to put my feelings aside as I spotted Spider-Man and other more or less recognisable heroes in the mix and kept reminding myself that they had been sacrificed for a higher purpose! Highly recommended!

Stories by Matteo Peretti is curated by Martina Cavallarin and continues at Emmeotto until 21 November 2009

EMMEOTTO - Via Margutta, 8 - 00187 Roma

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Playing the Piano | The Auditorium, Rome | 28 October, 2009

2009-10-29T20:51:00.008+01:00

After the recent Rome film festival which focussed on the environment with its Cape Farewell: Art & Climate Change exhibition and events, it would be hard to imagine a better way of maintaining the creative continuity at the Auditorium Parco della Musica than with the presence of an artist who is not only a Cape Farewell collaborator himself, but also a composer of some of the most memorable film scores of recent years - Ryuichi Sakamoto. The concert, in a packed Santa Cecilia hall on Wednesday evening, opened with the haunting lament for the melting ice caps – Glacier – taken from his latest CD Out of Noise. Whilst a taped soundscape of dripping water and incidental noises reverberated through the theatre, Sakamoto crouched over one of the two Yamaha pianos on stage, reached inside and picked the piano strings. Last year he travelled to Disko Bay on the West coast of Greenland as part of the Cape Farewell creative team and recorded sound at the mouth of Sermeg Avangnardleq Glacier – I'm not certain if these background sounds were those he gathered there, but certainly echoes of the trip were evident. It was a stunning opening, which moved straight into the hypnotic Hibari with its myriad loops and variations on a single theme. After these first pieces Sakamoto then took the microphone and announced that he'd now be playing whatever the mood dictated...there would be no prearranged set list here!

In a performance of seemingly boundless tenderness and generosity he then went on to play for another two hours, including not only music from his early days with the Yellow Magic Orchestra such as the exhilarating Happy End, but also some of his most famous movie themes - The Sheltering Sky and of course, the Oscar-winning The Last Emperor. Curiously, this tour also sees Sakamoto duet with himself – whilst he plays one of the two pianos live on stage the second instrument “plays” a pre-programmed sequence, with the empty piano stool even spot lit during some songs. The brilliance of his performance soon won over the fidgety and coughing members of the audience – maddeningly at least a third of the people in attendance seemed to need to cough every few seconds during the quiet and intimate opening pieces – and as the evening progressed the audience response grew steadily warmer and warmer until rapturous cheers and applause eventually brought him back out on stage for three encores.

It would be hard to pick any highlights but Energy Flow, Thousand Knives, Bibo no Aozora and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence were sheer perfection.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's Playing the Piano is a carbon-free tour presented as part of Romaeuropa Festival 2009 and Santa Cecilia's It's Wonderful.

Video link

Photograph of Ryuichi Sakamoto on the Cape Farewell Disko Bay Expedition © Nathan Gallagher

Meryl Streep Dazzles Crowds at Rome Film Festival

2009-10-23T18:21:00.007+02:00

Try as the organisers might to hype up the events aimed at promoting home grown talent, the biggest crowd pullers this year at what is, after all, an international film festival, have been the big Hollywood names. Yesterday was no exception to the rule, with the arrival of one of the greatest actresses of all time and a true movie icon – Meryl Streep – here to present both her latest film Julie & Julia, in which she plays the part of legendary American TV chef Julia Child, and also collect the festival's lifetime achievement prize the Marc'Aurelio Alla Carriera (The Gold Marc'Aurelio Career Award). Following in the footsteps of previous recipients of the award, Sophia Loren and Al Pacino, she appeared on the stage in a packed Sala Sinopoli in conversation with festival stalwarts Antonio Monda and Mario Sesti, in what turned out to be a truly wonderful Encounter with Meryl Streep.

The evening began with a moving documentary about the actor John Cazale - I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale – introduced by the director Richard Shepard. Meryl Streep, who had been engaged to Cazale at the time of his tragically young death from cancer, had specifically requested that the documentary be shown prior to her appearance so that the audience would understand the importance of this man in both her life and on her work as an actress. The five films in which he co-starred - The Godfather, The Godfather II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter – are some of the greatest films ever made and this closer look at Cazale certainly made me want to go back and revisit all of them. There would be no need to ask further questions about their relationship in the following encounter – the film had already said it all - and as the titles rolled, the film was met with loud and respectful applause from the audience.

When Meryl Streep then appeared to rapturous cheers and an instant standing ovation, even the usually unflappable Monda and Sesti seemed momentarily starstruck in her presence, although an intimate conversational atmosphere was quickly established thanks to her warmth and humour. In fact, at the end of the hour or so she was on stage, the sensation one was left with was that of laughter – she irradiated serenity, stunning beauty and intelligence, but most of all, she was very funny and ready to laugh at herself. At one point she was suddenly plagued by strange electronic sounds and interference on her microphone. Joking that she was going to offer herself to NASA because of her importance to science, she went onto explain that computers, iPhones and other devices seem to die on her, and speculated that maybe she had a magnetic force field around her which was causing the interference, adding dryly: or maybe it's the diamonds I'm wearing! After watching a clip from her Oscar-winning performance in Sophie's Choice, and being asked about her ability to perfectly reproduce foreign accents, she blamed that on the magnetic force field too, saying it helped her pick up people's speech and mannerisms!

Having the chance to see Meryl Streep's affectionate impersonation of a mumbling Robert De Niro was priceless, whilst her description of how she reads a script – I look at scripts in the way that actors do: blah blah blah blah blah... ME ME ME... blah blah blah... ME! - brought the house down.

The evening was a mix of conversation and clips from her movies, with the snippets and questions from the hosts acting as a springboard to wider discussion – The Devil Wears Prada, Sophie's Choice, Kramer vs. Kramer, Manhattan, The Deer Hunter, Falling in Love, The Bridges of Madison County were all there, although it was the singing and dancing Meryl Streep in the Dancing Queen sequence from Mamma Mia! that closed the evening to huge cheers.

Seemingly in no hurry to disappear off stage, she stayed as long as the organisers would allow signing autographs for the many fans who rushed the stage at the end of the encounter.

Photograph of Meryl Streep © Francesca Gori

Video link

Hollywood comes to Rome - Richard Gere and George Clooney at Rome Film Festival

2009-10-18T11:04:00.005+02:00

If the opening night of the Rome Film Festival was a rather low key event, Saturday saw the festival ratchet the excitement up several notches as Hollywood came to town in the form of two of the world's most popular actors, George Clooney and Richard Gere. The red carpet and the open-air Cavea at the Auditorium were literally swamped with fans as Clooney - in town with the in-competition movie Up in the Air directed by Jason Reitman (2007 festival winner with Juno) – took a leisurely stroll up the red carpet, signing dozens of autographs and chatting to fans, whilst earlier in the afternoon, those of us lucky enough to grab tickets, were able to see Richard Gere in conversation in Sala Petrassi.

It was a relaxed and utterly charming Richard Gere who joined Antonio Monda and Mario Sesti on stage in what is now a traditional format in the Rome Film Festival Encounters, with conversation mixed with clips from notable screen performances and an extended Q&A session with members of the audience. Very early on in the encounter, in fact, Richard Gere asked that the house lights be raised so that he could see us - "now we're in this together!"

Kicking off with a clip from Days of Heaven, he spoke about working with the demanding but complex Terence Malick early on in his career, as well as his experiences with other legendary directors such as Francis Ford Coppola on The Cotton Club, illustrated by a clip of the trumpet-playing Gere, which prompted an affectionate credit to his mother for having sent him to music lessons as a child! Although there was nothing from Dr T and the Women he also spoke about the friendship and influence of Robert Altman. The sheer versatility of an all-singing, all-dancing actor who embodies something of Old School Hollywood was further highlighted by clips from his Golden Globe performance in Chicago and the more recent Shall We Dance, although inevitably a montage from his iconic roles in American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman brought the loudest cheers from the enthusiastic audience. Box office smash Pretty Woman – "even a tribesman in Borneo with a bone though his nose has seen that movie", he joked – was also on the roster, as was a dramatic court room scene from the thriller Red Corner, which with its Chinese political overtones would resound later in the encounter when Gere, a long-time Buddhist and friend of the Dalai Lama, was asked about Tibet. He answered thoughtfully and with some notable melancholy about the spiritual need for China to embrace the Dalai Lama in what will be the inevitable fall of Communism in China, and also added that the people of Rome were blessed to have a spiritual brother in His Holiness (who was made an honorary citizen earlier this year).

The Rome Film Festival may be still be a fledgling on the main circuit but with events of this calibre here's hoping it continues to go from strength to strength.

Movie Legend Sir Christopher Lee at Opening of Rome Film Festival 2009

2009-10-16T12:21:00.006+02:00

The fourth edition of the Rome Film Festival began yesterday on the very day that the balmy Indian summer that Rome had been previously enjoying ended abruptly, so it was a very chilly walk up the red carpet for the stars attending the European premiere of Danis Tanovic's war movie Triage. Possible because of the sudden December-like temperatures, crowds were noticeably thinner for this opening event than in previous years, and there were rumbles of disappointment when it became clear that the film's protagonist, Colin Farrell would not be appearing. However, the director Tanovic, and Farrell's co-stars Paz Vega and a true living legend of cinema, Sir Christopher Lee, were there. I'd rushed over to the Auditorium, in fact, when I heard that the recently knighted Christopher Lee would be appearing! He was greeted with spontaneous and respectful applause as he made his way up the red carpet, whilst Paz Vega signed autographs and posed for numerous photographs. The famously shy Margherita Buy, the Italian actress who is the “Madrina” of this edition, looked stunning, if visibly cold, as she braved her way through her obligatory photo call.

With Richard Gere, George Clooney, Meryl Streep and the Coen brothers lined up to appear later this week, hopefully the festival will gather more momentum and draw bigger crowds.

In what is almost a tradition at this festival, there was also a noisy political protest just prior to the arrival of the VIPs, when Gabriele Paolini - well-known to anybody who has watched the news on Italian television, for his attempts to disturb reporters by standing behind them during live outside broadcasts – suddenly appeared, megaphone in hand, and shouted a tirade against Silvio Berlusconi.

Rome Film Festival and Climate Change on Blog Action Day

2009-10-13T17:07:00.015+02:00

Today, 15 October 2009, is Blog Action Day 2009 when, once again, thousands of bloggers around the world all write a post about one important topic. After the success of the 2008 initiative when bloggers looked at Poverty, this year the focus is on Climate Change.

Today also happens to be the opening day of the Rome Film Festival, which will also be taking a very special look at the impact of climate change on our planet in the form of a multimedia exhibition on display in the exhibition areas of the Auditorium Parco della Musica. There will be a series of encounters at 18.00 every day, with the various artists involved in the project - Cape Farewell: Art & Climate Change - whose paintings, photographs and audio/video installations are the result of their own personal experiences encountered during trips to Cape Farewell, in Greenland.

Friday 16 October - Quentin Cooper and Suba Subramaniam will discuss Education

Saturday 17 October - David Buckland, David Hinton, Peppe Ruggiero and Esmerlada Calabria will tackle the subject of Cinema

Sunday 18 October - Max Eastley, Siobhan Davies and Jarvis Cocker will look at Music

Monday 19 October - Peter Clegg and Mario Cucinella will discuss Architecture

Tuesday 20 October - The Cape Farewell project creator David Buckland and Dan Harvey will discuss Art

The exhibition will remain open throughout the film festival from 9.00 until 23.00 each day, until 23 October and has been organised by the Cape Farewell Foundation in collaboration with the British Council, the British Embassy in Rome and the Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma.

The Auditorium Parco della Musica of Rome is on Viale Pietro de Coubertin, near the Palazzetto dello Sport, off Viale Tiziano.

Photograph © David Buckland
End of Ice, 2006 (detail)
Used with permission

300,000 in Defence of Press Freedom!

2009-10-04T16:53:00.005+02:00

Whilst anybody who has been following recent events in Italy might have expected this protest to be big, nothing could have prepared one for the sheer scale of the demonstration in defence of press freedom yesterday in Piazza del Popolo in Rome. The official start time was half past three but people had clearly begun gathering in the streets long before; when we got there a little later, the piazza was already full to capacity with more and more people, from the very young hoisted on shoulders of parents, to the elderly, who had braved the teeming masses to support the cause, arriving as the afternoon went on. It was as if, en masse, people had suddenly been shaken out of a protracted torpor, and at long last leapt into action. At first we found ourselves blocked at the entrance to the piazza, although from the vantage point of the steps of Santa Maria Del Popolo, could watch people arriving. All the participants, however illustrious, arrived through the main gate - the Porta del Popolo - and were applauded by the crowds as one person after another noticed them. Outspoken TV host Michele Santoro, whose show has been the centre of a recent media storm, was given a hero’s welcome, but the biggest cheers were reserved for the bravest of the brave. There was a sudden ripple of applause which grew into a crescendo of cheers and shouts of bravo!bravo! as Roberto Saviano, author of Gomorra, was seen pushing his way through the crowds surrounded by the bodyguards he sadly now needs, on his way to the stage.

Organised by the Federation of Italian journalists (FNSI) in defence of press freedom, this was surely the strongest protest ever against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s constant attempts to silence any criticism of his regime in the media. Predictably, the main news reports on both Rai 1 and Rai 2 last night spoke disparagingly of the event and underestimated attendance as being in the “tens of thousands” Pictures, in this case, speak louder than words...

La Fontana del Facchino - The Little Porter Fountain

2009-09-22T16:45:00.007+02:00

Welcome to the first of a new series of posts - Discover Rome - taking a closer look at some of the hidden treasures of Rome and some of my favourite Roman curiosities that are sometimes overshadowed by the city's more famous landmarks.

Whilst many visitors to Rome will have probably seen the statues of Pasquino or Il Babuino, it would be easy to miss the fountain which is my personal favourite of the so-called 'Congregation of Wits', otherwise known as Rome’s 'Talking Statues' - Il Facchino (The Porter).

Once situated on Via del Corso, this late sixteenth-century fountain of a water seller carrying a leaking barrel was moved to the side street Via Lata, in 1874, where it is found to this day, tucked away from the teeming masses of tourists and shoppers along the main street. Generally thought to be the work of Jacopo Del Conte, in 1751 the architect Luigi Vanvitelli attributed the statue to Michelangelo Buonarroti!

Traditionally, political satires known as pasquinades, written anonymously by the ordinary people of Rome to ridicule the ruling classes and the Pope, were attached to the talking statues. Whilst Pasquino is still covered with photocopied grievances and political flyers to this day, the craggy faced porter is pretty much ignored, apart from the odd bit of ubiquitous Roman graffiti.

Cindy Sherman at the Gagosian Gallery

2009-09-03T12:18:00.005+02:00

Earlier this year I wrote enthusiastically about the stunning Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery on Via Francesco Crispi. Clearly, that show was no flash in the pan, because the Gagosian is currently presenting another gem of a show with a series of portraits by New York photographer Cindy Sherman. The main oval exhibition space, which must surely require extra consideration when hanging a show, works particularly well as a location for these very large Sherman images. As ever, each of the photographs is a self-portrait of sorts, yet whilst the “real” Cindy Sherman is playing a carefully constructed part, hidden behind makeup, wigs and meticulously chosen props, as the viewer walks around the continuous, curved space, a sense of recognition in each of the faces grows, a sense of being surrounded by the artist herself. In fact, in the press release Sherman is quoted as saying:

I think they are the most realistic characters I have done. I completely empathised with them. They could be me. That's what was really scary, how easy it was to make myself look like that.

These studies of middle-aged affluent women, expensively dressed and set against studio-style backdrops illustrating the trappings of wealth and success, are unflinching in detailing every imperfection and tell tale signs of ageing, ultimately rendering these superficially successful women exposed and vulnerable.

A wonderful show.

Cindy Sherman continues at the Gagosian Gallery at Via Francesco Crispi, 16 until 19 September, 2009

Photo © Gagosian Gallery

Diabolik and Eva Kant at Palazzo Incontro

2009-08-02T16:06:00.010+02:00

The Italian anti-hero of comic books Diabolik and his partner in love and crime Eva Kant are the stars of the largest ever exhibition dedicated to their “diaboliKal life” at Palazzo Incontro. An absolute must-see for fans of this iconic Italian character known as The King of Terror, the exhibition includes masses of Diabolik memorabilia, posters, advertising billboards, scale models of some of his most exciting gadgets, and the Holy Grail of the entire show, the 10 original hand-drawn plates of the very first issue of Diabolik.

The show is entirely in Italian and there’s lots to read with detailed panels throughout the show, but for those of you visiting Rome over August who don’t speak Italian, it’s still worth a visit if you find yourself in the area, as there are many other items to look at - particularly in the Diabolik between science and science fiction section which is essentially a show within the main show featuring Franco Nodo’s scale models of Diabolik’s E-Type Jaguar.

I also particularly enjoyed The Diabolik Sisters, an Italian documentary showing on the ground floor about the life of Angela and Luciana Giussani, the creators of Diabolik.

Diabolik - Eva Kant: Una vita vissuta diabolikamente, curated by Vincenzo Mollica, in collaboration with Astorina, runs until 13 September, 2009

(Free Entrance)
Palazzo Incontro
Via dei Prefetti, 22