the intercostal clavicle

Hiatus: 50 songs

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 16:11:00 +0000

Contemplating three years' cultural diet. Secondly, the music.

Returning to Edinburgh has kicked the blog back to life after three years of repose. Having already picked over the best films I've seen during this hiatus, now comes the opportunity to select fifty music tracks I have discovered (belatedly in many cases), and which then took me over and were played again and again.

Many songs have brought fun – those which found me dancing on repeat include Basement Jaxx, Lizzo, Camp Lo and Teena Marie. Some have a more emotional pull and will always, for me, be tied to a time and place; the Mark Kozelek, Francis Harris and Aretha Franklin tracks have each had an impact.

There is music new and old to consider. New music has taken a back seat the past few months whilst I have become thoroughly obsessed with Andy Kellman's excellent and comprehensive R&B blog. It's been a deep and extended dive into this world, only partially reflected below; but I am sure I will resurface at some point soon to try some fresher produce again. These things happen in cycles.

This list might not consistently reflect the very best music I have heard in this time, although much of it is sublime. These grooves and jams are the ones which embedded themselves. This is a more personal list than the films and compiling it a more personal quest. The fifty tracks tell a story of three years of my life.

A Spotify playlist appears after the list, which is presented in High Fidelity-style autobiographical order. Please listen.

Matthew Dear – Her Fantasy
Toy – Heart Skips a Beat
Spoek Mathambo feat. Yolanda – Let Them Talk
John Talabot feat. Pional – Destiny
El-P – Request Denied
Villagers – The Waves
John Grant – Pale Green Ghosts
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five – Fireworks
Basement Jaxx – Back 2 the Wild
Deerhunter – Dream Captain

Arctic Monkeys – Crying Lightning
Oneohtrix Point Never – Boring Angel
Tricky – Aftermath
Kelela – Bank Head (Extended)
Lizzo feat. Sophia Eris – Batches & Cookies
Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra – Strange Fruit
Triosk – Lost Broadcast
David Bowie – Jump They Say
Wild Beasts – Wanderlust
Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle – Gustavo

Jimmy Hughes – Steal Away
Jimmy Scott – Sycamore Trees
Kate Bush – Lyra (The Golden Compass)
Ono with The Brother Brothers – Yes, I'm a Witch
Digable Planets – Rebirth of the Slick (Cool Like Dat)
Zebra Katz feat. Njena Reddd Foxxx – Ima Read
Yarbrough & Peoples – Don't Stop the Music
Bonobo – Noctuary
Teena Marie – I Need Your Lovin'
Camp Lo – Luchini AKA This Is It

The Time – 777-9311
Stevie Wonder – Do I Do
Zapp – More Bounce to the Ounce
George Benson – Turn Your Love Around
Cherrelle – I Didn't Mean to Turn You On
Shabazz Palaces – Forerunner Foray
Francis Harris – What She Had
Aretha Franklin – Call Me
The S.O.S. Band – Just Be Good to Me
Michael Jackson – Who Is It

Rick James – Big Time
Donny Hathaway – Giving Up
Herbert – Something Isn't Right
Blackstreet feat. Dr. Dre & Queen Pen – No Diggity
Erykah Badu – On & On
En Vogue – Hold On
Gladys Knight & The Pips – Midnight Train to Georgia
Bobby Womack – Across 110th Street
Ann Peebles – I Can't Stand the Rain
Ólafur Arnalds & Alice Sara Ott – Verses

Note: sadly, Breakdown by Prince and The Screams of Passion by The Family (written and mostly performed by Prince) are not available on Spotify. Happily, this made room for Kate Bush and George Benson. Enjoy!

Hiatus: 30 films

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 20:50:00 +0000

Contemplating three years' cultural diet. First, the films.

As life took a new direction, I all but disappeared from Googleable terrain three years ago, retreating elsewhere. Now I emerge from that hidden place, blinking into the light, into a very different world.

The hidden place was Yorkshire. As I negotiated my new life, God's Own Country cocooned me in an embrace of Northern matter-of-factness and unspeakably good pork pies. Now it's back to Edinburgh and time to reflect on a three-year interruption of normal service.

Here are thirty of the finest films I saw during the Yorkshire hiatus. Every one of them is recommended with a watch-this-now urgency. Admittedly, that is logistically difficult – but I beg you to make the effort.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Th. Dreyer)

Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch)

Footlight Parade (1933, Lloyd Bacon)

Dodsworth (1936, William Wyler)

Midnight (1939, Mitchell Leisen)

Great Expectations (1946, David Lean)

The Asphalt Jungle (1950, John Huston)

Ace in the Hole (1951, Billy Wilder)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, Elia Kazan)

Summertime (1955, David Lean)

Bigger Than Life (1956, Nicholas Ray)

Punishment Park (1971, Peter Watkins)

The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

Fanny and Alexander (1982, Ingmar Bergman)

Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam)

Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch)

Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988, Terence Davies)

Raise the Red Lantern (1991, Zhang Yimou)

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997, Werner Herzog)

You Can Count on Me (2000, Kenneth Lonergan)

Talk to Her (2002, Pedro Almodóvar)

Tomboy (2011, Céline Sciamma)

Skyfall (2012, Sam Mendes)

Amour (2012, Michael Haneke)

Stories We Tell (2012, Sarah Polley)

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, Joel & Ethan Coen)

Her (2013, Spike Jonze)

Under the Skin (2013, Jonathan Glazer)

Boyhood (2014, Richard Linklater)

Birdman (2014, Alejandro G. Iñárritu)

Honourable mentions: The Last Laugh (1924); Flesh and the Devil (1926); Love Me Tonight (1932); Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933); a host of Barbara Stanwyck movies; Oliver Twist (1948); Un Chant d'amour (1950); Orphée (1950); A Face in the Crowd (1957); Anatomy of a Murder (1959); The Hustler (1961); Onibaba (1964); The Elephant Man (1980); In the Mood for Love (2000); McCullin (2012); Zero Dark Thirty (2012); Lincoln (2012); 12 Years a Slave (2013); Calvary (2014).

And a final big up to The Lego Movie and the films of Derek Jarman.

Thanks, Yorkshire.

Man Ray Portraits

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 11:41:00 +0000

Photography of a surrealist's friends and lovers

A dominant figure of Dada and Surrealism, Man Ray worked prolifically throughout his career in Paris and Hollywood. Of the many media and forms in which he worked, the current exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (up from the National Portrait Gallery in London) brings together many of Ray's photographic portraits, illuminating this facet of his art.

The 1930s Parisian portraits are joyfully vivid. The artistic world, where everybody who was anybody was photographed by Ray, is opened up to us – from fellow Dadaist Marcel Duchamp to Gertrude Stein, taking in a heap of writers, composers and filmmakers. This is the Paris for which we yearn. The panoply of celebrity continues throughout the exhibition's chronology, including later portraits of Virginia Woolf, Pablo Picasso and Catherine Deneuve and work for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Vanity Fair.

Beyond this voguish set, there are dazzling works depicting Ray's series of muses: Kiki of Montparnasse, Lee Miller and his wife of 37 years, Juliet. There is a hint of a more private world here, as well as some of the exhibition's boldest artistry; it is in these works that the aesthetic capacity of photography is pushed forward. The solarization technique Ray developed with Miller is striking still, also featuring in a wonderful 1955 portrait of Leslie Caron. Meanwhile, the famous, sublime Le Violon d'Ingres from 1924 encapsulates so much of its time and place (the exoticism of the turban, the surreal violin f-holes and the exquisite beauty of Kiki herself) that it shines of its own accord.

In concentrating on photographic portraiture, the exhibition only hints at the breadth of Man Ray's innovation. Through the photographs and magazine spreads, we glimpse other aspects of his prolific and playful work: assemblages, films, a chess set, a preposterous smoking device. The portraits of Stravinsky, James Joyce and Yves Montand are all marvellous to see. But perhaps most interesting of all is how we imagine Man Ray's surrealist conceptions and constructions fitting into his Paris–Hollywood world, as we see it through his portraits.

Amour

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:52:00 +0000

These thoughts on Michael Haneke's beautiful study of ageing I left unfinished in January, forgot about and have now rediscovered. Here they are, as a short review.

In their eighties, Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) live a comfortable life together in Paris. They were music teachers and they are still lovers of the piano and its music. This is Anne and Georges at the start of Amour, both captivating already. Then, Anne suffers a stroke and the film becomes a study of what happens next, as life inevitably unfolds. The relationship she shares with Georges is transformed and shaken, there is daily horror and indignity, difficult family relationships are exposed alongside reminders of past success.

Amour is a masterful film from director Michael Haneke, bleak but intensely emotional. There are moments which are frightening, especially that first attack, and Anne's continual decline is shockingly rapid. And though the film develops gradually, the pace is never slow. This is riveting cinema, and at its centre is the astounding acting of Riva and Trintignant. Meanwhile, dramatic impetus comes unobtrusively from the flash-forward of the opening scene – how did Anne's corpse come to be alone, undiscovered?

Haneke shows us human spirit as both resilient and fragile. The meaning of deepest love is first suggested to be, and then strongly tested as, a duty towards the person to whom we are attached and share our lives. Amour's uncompromising approach is underpinned by a fearless gaze at the response to a natural but unfathomable reality. The question at the root of the film is: what, in the end, does love entail? Instinctive protection perhaps, or an understanding of need. Haneke does not answer the question – in fact, I suspect he believes we can never know. We just have to wait; it is terrifying and wonderful.

9

Django Unchained

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:05:00 +0000

Oh hi, blog.

Django Unchained hits us blasting and smirking, bestrewn with Morricone and enormous type. This is unmistakably a Quentin Tarantino concoction. But this time, 'unmistakable' suggests a lack of surprise. Now, Tarantino cannot be boring and Django Unchained is characteristically wild and precise in its execution(s). This is the story of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) and a slave called Django (Jamie Foxx), who travel through the Old South to rescue Django's wife (Kerry Washington) from the control of a plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his sinister house-slave (Samuel L. Jackson). It is entertaining, of course.

However, whilst always funny, brutal or smart, it does not often enough mash all three together with the imagination of Reservoir Dogs or Inglourious Basterds. They still coincide in key scenes, for instance the first appearance of Waltz. He approaches two slavers and their 'property', and what follows is a shock of amusing words ("Last chance, fancy pants") and cleverly plotted mayhem. Waltz is bright and strangely convincing and, although Schultz is not quite a match for Basterds' Col. Landa, he carries much of the film, taking on its humour and human flaws and virtues.

Meanwhile, DiCaprio and Jackson inhabit Tarantino's line between evil and charm. The director knows so well how to seduce us with such characters. That line he paints is thick and lurid, unlike that etched in black by Wilder and Hitchcock, and from it his films get their drive (certainly those of the last decade). Here we have DiCaprio's sickening 'mandingo' fights, dogs and hammer, all surveyed with a grin; the film kicks accordingly. Both characters (DiCaprio's monstrous Calvin Candie and Jackson's monstrous Stephen) get great and gleeful moments.

Tarantino has set out to emulate the spaghetti western in Django Unchained, taking it to the South and piercing it with slavery. Doubt starts to surface. Humour amid the bloodiest of violence, a feature of the genre, does not always work (the bags-as-hoods skit raises a laugh, but feels out of place). There are stylistic quirks and vintage Morricone cuts on the soundtrack – but you had those in your movies already, Quentin. Are we to take them at face value here? Having the spaghetti served up in a real-life, actual, mock spaghetti western breaks the surprise. Then once Jamie Foxx starts to get his Kill Bill on, those quirks seem to dissipate anyway; so by the time we reach the huge set pieces and shoot-outs in the film’s final act, our sense of place – Mississippi and Italy – has been lost.

Foxx is Django. The D is silent (this is a cool character). Django is a sharp shooter and a sharp dresser. He is a man who loves his wife and is bitterly injured by her foul treatment, which is atrociously believable. His initial tussles with Candie are highlights and allow us to believe that at the centre of Tarantino's audacious story is a fresh character capable of real power and justice. But something is lost as he starts to deliver explosive revenge. He is a cool character. He is an icon, a symbol, a Quentin Tarantino concoction. Django is a vessel for violent catharsis – here to talk funny, act brutal and look smart. For justice to be done, for African Americans to be emancipated on the screen, he must be more than that. But it is entertaining, of course.

7.5

Waltraud Meier & Joseph Breinl

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:27:00 +0000

After something of a silence I return, boldly reaching into the deeper blogosphere.

Fortunate enough to be part of this year's official blogging team for the Edinburgh International Festival, my first assignment has been posted here. I saw mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier (dressed in splendid pink) singing Lieder at the Usher Hall, accompanied by Joseph Breinl on piano. It was all jolly good fun.

In all, I will be seeing seven concerts at the EIF this year (some assigned, others of my own volition). The International Festival has long been my favourite of the patchwork of festivals going on in Edinburgh each summer. Look out for the reviews to see why.

Books: Lively, Chabon, Isherwood

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:26:00 +0000

Coming back for more... Thoughts on three novels, each by an author to whom I was returning for a second taste. All are fast becoming favourites.

According to Mark – Penelope Lively
Eighteen months ago, I read Penelope Lively's masterful Moon Tiger, which I adored. Wanting more, I turned to this earlier book, in which married literary biographer Mark Lamming is researching writer Gilbert Strong, and soon becomes infatuated with Strong's granddaughter. Some of the most interesting aspects of According to Mark are its pre-echoes of Moon Tiger. A central chapter adopts a distinctive feature of that book's structure, retelling one vignette from separate viewpoints. The theme of historical perspective is also key, contemplating how one can consider from a distance the multiple stages of one person's life simultaneously. Mark reflects how "Strong he knew over a lifetime and all of him at once".

In Moon Tiger, this is developed even further, as the imperious Claudia Hampton writes a "history of the world as selected by Claudia". Mark struggles with his biography's subject, knowing information is missing ("lies and silences") and his perspective cannot always fit. The title provides a big clue. Penelope Lively's art is in framing all of these complex ideas within a modern, funny love story, the characters vividly etched. Perhaps According to Mark does not match Moon Tiger's perfect balance, its sensual world and elegiac romance. But it is another enjoyable, insightful novel from a completely undervalued author.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union – Michael Chabon

I next decided to revisit Michael Chabon, having read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay some time ago. This later novel inhabits the world of Chandler and Hammett, complete with spiky dialogue and epigrams. Hard-drinking detective Meyer Landsman attempts to solve a pleasingly complex murder plot, taking in his family's past, Jewish lore and chess. Chabon's wild spin is to place the story in an alternative reality, in which the setting is the Jewish homeland, but that homeland is Sitka, Alaska. The realization of this reality is mostly convincing, sometimes contrived; the wondrous writing is riveting.

What Chabon brings to the genre is a sympathetic and complete human story. The characters struggle as much against their past sorrows as against the present criminal underworld of Alaska. The series of conversations between Landsman and his boss/ex-wife Bina are electric and absorbing. Both bantering and mournful, the relationship forms the book's core. Meanwhile, familiar from Kavalier & Clay is Chabon's irresistible technique of separating key lines of dialogue with profound, aching prose. "Sweet God, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" asks Bina. Not until after a rumination on divine intention, chromosomes and faith do we get Landsman's reply: "Only every time I see your face." The writing may be pared down, hard-boiled, but the novel is rich.

Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood

A companion novel to Mr Norris Changes Trains, Goodbye to Berlin is also based on Isherwood's real-life experiences in Berlin during the early 1930s. As before, the city backdrop is remarkable and vibrant, from underground clubs to squalid tenements. Hidden within this backdrop, deathly poverty, neighbourly suspicion and the rise of Nazism all hum, as Isherwood presents a sequence of indelible character sketches. As the hum grows louder, so the fractured world of Christopher's circle of misfits seems set to dangerously unravel. That we know what happens next makes this possibly the darkest light read that I have ever come across.

It seems light because Isherwood's smart style is infectious and a joy to read. The portraits are funny and the relationships warm. Squabbles abound in his cramped accommodation, which he shares with his wittering landlady, a prostitute and a barman, among others. The most wonderful character of all is struggling actress Sally Bowles (on whom Cabaret is based), gleaming with make-up but vulnerably waifish. She uses gentleman friends for money and necks a never-ending series of Prairie Oysters (a concoction of raw egg and Worcester sauce – "They're about all I can afford"). Smiling on top of her sadness, Sally is flippant and careless. Painfully, we know that Berlin's smile back is fading.

Edvard Munch: Graphic Works from the Gundersen Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:54:00 +0000

Lithographs and woodcuts, landscapes and eyes

As he became increasingly renowned, printmaking proved a successful way for Edvard Munch to disseminate his work. Moreover, repeated iterations provided an opportunity to alter the mood and dynamics of each print. Changing the ink and paper colours for example, or the absorbency of the paper, shifts the focus and intensity. There are many examples in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art's well-presented exhibition (running till September) where multiple iterations are displayed side by side. Rather than diluting the work, the vivid differences focus us more intently on the image.

The rippling anguish of Munch does not always appeal to me completely. However, new aspects were revealed in this collection, more so than by any admittedly casual glance I have given his work before. The exhibition highlights the key theme of landscape, and how Munch's wandering figures are affected by their surroundings. Loneliness pervades, as the landscape seems to either envelop or emanate from the desolate subjects. There are expanses of water, foreboding forests and swirling skies. Munch had heard a scream "coursing through nature", he said of the experience which led him to paint The Scream.

A rare print of that ubiquitous image is here, and the background landscape is repeated in the nearby Anxiety (shown in two versions). Nature screams indeed. From these prints, the figures stare intensely, hollow-eyed. The piercing eyes in Munch's work strike us throughout – take the masterly self-portrait, or Woman with Red Hair and Green Eyes. They are either weary and sunken or frighteningly desperate. Again, the variety inherent in the printmaking process subtly changes these emotive characteristics within the same image.

The exhibition, taken almost entirely from a private Norwegian collection, focuses on the short period 1895–1902, and so the style is generally unvaried. The lonely figures and the swirls are repeated from room to room. Whilst it might be even more enlightening to see the original paintings on which some of the prints were based, there is enough to engage to the end. Certain pieces stand out, including The Sick Child and the powerful Two Human Beings. Meanwhile, I was drawn to the more stylized forms of woodcuts Kiss IV and Head by Head, striking and vibrant. Nature encroaches still, through the heavy-grained texture, but here perhaps there could be deliverance from the anguish.

Prometheus

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 18:22:00 +0000

Oh, the (deluxe and grand) humanity.

Ridley Scott has returned, to cinema screens and to glories past. He offers us Prometheus, a prequel of sorts to the magnificent Alien. The hype has been big: it remained unclear quite how directly the new film would relate to the old, but the trailer was tantalizing. On arrival, Prometheus is quite its own film. It is also mostly a success – a large, bold and engaging action-horror. That it misfires on several counts turns out not to matter too much. The fun outweighs the over-egged statement of themes and sketchy characters.

Fassbender-bot is not sketchy.

Intriguing archaeological discoveries are discovered. Maybe they indicate that humans originate from a distant planet – the crew of Prometheus has been sent into space to look into it. The scientific team is headed by the religious Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace). She is in a relationship with another scientist, Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). In actual charge is Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), who is an important person from the company which has sent the ship out. Keeping everything running smoothly is the gloriously blond robot-butler David (Michael Fassbender-bot).

Prometheus thrives foremost as a spectacle: exciting action sequences tear through a beautifully realized environment. One of the best of these sees the crew fleeing a tremendous storm on the alien world. The grim and repulsively organic monster horror (an Alien trademark, of course) is also suitably visceral. Visually, Prometheus is deluxe and grand. It lacks the original Alien's pleasingly grubby aesthetic and unnerving restraint – by the point the horror reaches the operating table, it has become a little too much and too often. But on its own terms, this film is dazzling.

Alongside this, the story raises some big questions about the origins of humanity. Unfortunately, this develops into Prometheus' most damaging weakness. It is very disappointing, since the film could have been lifted to impressive heights by such themes, were they handled well. But the big questions lose their impact, being repeatedly and blatantly laid out before us.

We are spoon-fed the issues. Why and how are humans on Earth? Are we disproving God? Is this not very important indeed? (These questions are largely paraphrased from the dialogue.) In one slightly embarrassing scene, Shaw and Holloway meet sexily and have a Creation-of-Life discussion, before moving on to feel some Creation-of-Life emotions and then enjoy some Creation-of-Life sex.

This is definitely important.

It does not help that most of the characters are not particularly interesting, with little added to the stock roles for the actors to enjoy. Rapace and Marshall-Green do not make much of an impression, the tech guys are tech guys, and Charlize Theron plays a bitchy bitch. For reasons mostly unclear, she refuses to like or help anyone in any way; it does not matter who they are or what they want or need. It is uninteresting, although Theron is good. Guy Pearce's casting, meanwhile, is simply bizarre.

But there is hope. Fassbender-bot is wonderful as David. He is an android to embrace: rather too perfect, blankly charming and sinister too. Does he have his own motives? With an Aryan sheen, he consciously (and a little campily) emulates the airs and hair of Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. I am only annoyed that the film occasionally requires him to speak in Alienese (so foreign-sounding, we are encouraged to think). But then he utters such lines as "It's quite all right," and we cheer in our seats. He's so beautifully polite! I love Fassbender-bot.

It is quickly apparent that Prometheus will not touch Alien. But the grandeur of the attempt is admirable and it does not tip into folly, despite the creakily exposed shot at loftiness. Prometheus does not quite succeed through its philosophy or humanity; ultimately, it is the spectacle and the android which make it worthwhile.

7.5

Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:27:00 +0000

Repression and bigotry in Bloemfontein

François van Heerden (Deon Lotz) is a married Afrikaans businessman, whose ordered life masks secretive homosexuality. When he meets Christian (Charlie Keegan), the handsome son of an old friend, he is fixated. But ugly prejudices and shame constrict him and the result is confusing torment, threatening to explode. Writer-director Oliver Hermanus' film Beauty (the first Afrikaans language film to compete at Cannes) is an intimate study of repression. Obsessive behaviour, anger and bigotry are all just beneath François' bland surface. It is suggested that there have been violent outbursts in his past.

More than anything however, we pity François. Beauty is slow-paced and thoughtful, offering the time we need to sympathize whilst we despise his actions. This can come at the price of dramatic flow, and occasionally the film is in danger of halting. But Lotz's simmering performance holds Beauty together, powered by tight close-ups and a steady gaze (from both Lotz and Hermanus). It is a measured and convincing portrayal of a deeply conflicted man, thrashing out for a happiness he does not understand, as emphasized by the elegantly effective final scene.

Hermanus has a keen sense for beauty indeed and the film is carefully composed and subtly lit. Several taut scenes quietly unfurl in the evening by lamplight, in the bedroom or around a dining table; muted blues and greens dominate the screen. Sustained long shots are poised and exteriors are stark with heat. From the start, Francois' voyeurism is matched by wide, intensely focused shots, with distant dialogue unheard. The beauty is carefully underlined by a delicate musical score from Ben Ludik (alongside his Invisible Nightclub project).

There is also a dose of awkward humour. When François secretly meets with a group of middle-aged men for sex, there is an embarrassing scene of introduction and beer-drinking before they may begin. It is reminiscent of Mike Leigh, even if the milieu is a tad different. Bigotry stings all the fiercer when it comes: there is a searing flash of racism and objections against "faggots" (a defensive machismo operates here). The subsequent attempt at casual conversation is grimly funny.

Without this, Beauty's slow burning desperation could end up simply bleak. There are moments which bear this out. A pounding club scene is potent, but almost literally sickening; cathartic sexual violence pushes us even closer to the limit. But Hermanus tackles his subject bravely and largely with restraint, as reflected in Lotz's central performance. From this restraint, Beauty gains its power.

Dracula: the Music and Film

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 31 May 2012 15:53:00 +0000

Children of the night. What music they make.

Bela, Philip and friends (photo credit: widdowquinn)

Unassuming and droll, Philip Glass surely ranks amongst the Pleasantest Composers Ever to Have Lived. His enormous commercial success and widespread appeal has more to do with his complete lack of pretension than any surrender of integrity. This was the third time I have seen him perform live. The success of Dracula was more variable than that of the similarly presented Koyaanisqatsi (at last year's Edinburgh International Festival), but to see Glass amble onstage and applaud him starry-eyed is always a pleasing experience. I'm a fan.

This performance at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (another in their recurring Minimal series) featured the Kronos Quartet alongside the man himself and Michael Riesman (a Philip Glass stalwart since forever), both on keyboards. They performed Glass' 1998 score, accompanying a screening of the 1931 Tod Browning film. Bela Lugosi's flickering image loomed over the auditorium and the music see-sawed ominously. The combination works well, with the drawing room elegance of the string quartet adding momentum and a little extra menace to the film. (It featured no score originally, being such an early talkie.)

To my usually more purist mind, the film benefits from this extra drive. Despite its cultural impact and abundance of iconic images, Dracula does not entirely convince as a whole. Its faults also caused the performance in Glasgow to sag occasionally. Chiefly, for much of the second part of the film, the characters stand stiffly in a parlour and talk – "I'll be waiting for you in the library," and so on. The early sound recording is thin and at times became inaudible beneath the rich Kronos sound. The score suddenly seemed too busy or unnecessary, fighting a one-sided battle against weedy dialogue and exposition.

Much stronger, both in the film and consequently in the concert hall, are the purely visual sequences – for instance Renfield's coach ride and arrival at Castle Dracula, and Dracula's bedroom attacks. The Gothic romanticism of Dracula is given the setting it craves and Browning, Lugosi and Glass all work at their best. The music brings renewed life to the film at these moments and the effect is exciting; Glass also does well not to obscure the best and most famous speech in the film, as Count Dracula makes his first appearance.

And so the success of the live performance worked in tandem with that of the film. It flourished when the emphasis was on atmosphere, and it was frustrated by staginess. The musicians certainly played solidly throughout, and when the scurrying music ran well beyond the final frame, we were given time to focus on the music alone. It was one of the highlights of the evening. The film being rather brief, I wished that there could have been more besides. But of course, I always wish to see more of the pleasant Mr Glass.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 – SCO

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:23:00 +0000

Discovery, surprise and cornicing

Gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh.

How exciting to hear Beethoven's Choral Symphony live for the first time. I was already very familiar with the piece, I reckoned. I have studied it and listened to it many times (sometimes on big headphones). I confidently informed my fellow Beethoven-goer that it would be “long and awesome”. I stand by that, but I could not really predict anything besides. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra's final Edinburgh concert of their 2011/12 season was a first for me, unleashing the Ninth in the Usher Hall and revealing much more than I had expected.

The pairing was a selection of six movements from Beethoven's The Ruins of Athens. It proved a suitable hors d’oeuvre, not least because of its famous Turkish March, foreshadowing that unexpected ‘Turkish’ interlude in the symphony’s finale. Beyond that, the bass-rich chorus and sensitive woodwind writing gave the SCO (under conductor John Storgårds) a chance to impress with its beautifully balanced sound. In particular, I was rather taken with the March and Chorus which finished the selection. It could be Haydn at first, for its Classical poise. But as the orchestral music unfurled, we were treated to the sort of gleaming, unbuttoned, Pastoral loveliness which characterizes the third movement of the Ninth.

Onwards to the Ninth itself, and I was struck by how the music can retain so many hidden corners. It remains surprising and fresh. Maybe that is natural, given there is so much of it and its range is vast. But also it is often wild and unexpected, right from the strangely unanchored opening notes. The tremulous and snaking coda to the first movement still raises hairs; the kettledrums in the Scherzo still prompt a laugh. Its huge and twisting depth resists familiarity. It is a characteristic which brought to my mind other supposedly familiar ‘greatest’ works of art. I am surprised yet by the Ninth, just as I am surprised yet by Citizen Kane, The White Album, Guernica.

Of course, live performance sheds the brightest light on these hidden corners. For instance, that third movement loveliness I have mentioned. The clarinets and horns played together, and I was transported to somewhere quite above the Usher Hall’s cornicing. Why had I not noticed that sound before? Again, the balance and proportion of the SCO brought the music into focus. The sound was crisp and clear. The only surprise which seemed to jar came with the dancing C major fortissimo near the start of the Scherzo (let’s not get into bar numbers), when the strings’ pedal seemed to drown out the whirling woodwind chorus.

The Ode to Joy finale could barely fail to miss; by this point, sheer elation carried us along. More surprises here, with startling shifts and turns – much of the movement borders on the eccentric. I had tremendous fun. The SCO Chorus and the soloists were spirited, particularly the commanding young bass Jan Martiník. The orchestra's energy never seemed to let up, and the frenzied last few bars were ecstatically received. Ears ringing with joy, I left beaming. I had discovered so much in this piece I knew so well.

The Iron Lady

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:40:00 +0000

A facile history lesson, plus mighty acting

Meryl Streep won her third Oscar and much else for the leading role, but The Iron Lady attracted mild controversy on its release. An old woman struggling with dementia, Margaret Thatcher talks to her dead husband Denis, and recalls her life and work. The depiction of mental ill health was criticized as disrespectful by a smattering of Tories, including some who had even seen the film. Streep points out that this says more about our discomfort with mental frailty, and wonders whether there would have been outcry if Thatcher had, say, a problem with her lungs.

Don't panic, her lungs are fine.

What of the film? Streep gives a remarkable performance, particularly as the elderly Thatcher (in a magical feat of make-up). Mannerisms and impersonation are contained within a wonderfully convincing portrayal of a mind and body gradually failing with age. And the controversy is ill-founded. These scenes, especially those earlier in the film, are the most interesting by far. From here, the acting, structure and mildly daring concept could combine to produce an absorbing, intimate biopic.

Sadly, the interest dissipates much too quickly as we are soon shunted around snapshots of Thatcher’s career. It starts with a perfunctory glimpse of her childhood, Oxford education and early romance with Denis. There is some strong writing from Abi Morgan, which foreshadows later moments in office and in old age. But Thatcher’s ambition and aspirations are presented cosily and nostalgically, so that there is no real impact, and any insight is facile. It also seems lightweight because it all flashes by so quickly, no scene lasting more than a few minutes.

More Heseltine needed. Ouch.

This is symptomatic of the film as a whole, and ultimately what damages it most. We rattle through a unique career at high speed, striving to cover every key event. Moments that should be revealing, such as the decision to sink the Belgrano, vanish before genuine intrigue can develop. We must move on to the 1983 election; we must jump to the present day once more (if only to be reminded that Mark Thatcher is a tosser – there really is no need). Director Phyllida Lloyd lacks patience and faith, even with good writing and acting at hand.

It means we get no grasp on Thatcher beyond a basic history lesson (the stock footage is the most enlightening), and often only the merest hints at her relationships with family, colleagues and adversaries. Anthony Head and Olivia Colman, as Geoffrey Howe and Carol Thatcher, have the best interaction with Streep, but Jim Broadbent’s hectoring ghost-Denis soon becomes annoying. Meanwhile, Richard E. Grant’s circling vulture by the name of Michael Heseltine is near-ridiculous and Michael Foot is not referred to by name once. Even the mighty Meryl suffers from the scattered structure, robbed of dramatic momentum; come the Poll Tax, power-mad Thatcher just seems daft. She even momentarily reminded me of Edina Monsoon.

Margaret Thatcher was certainly never daft. She had conviction and claws. Despite the best efforts of the actors and make-up department, these are attributes lacking in Lloyd’s film. Poor Tilda notwithstanding, the award season adulation for Streep was deserved. But her generous performance serves an unworthy whole – and that's not how the Thatcher story goes.

Minimal Extreme

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 22:20:00 +0000

Going through to Glasgow for Einstein and dazzling Flux

For the past couple of years, Glasgow's Concert Halls have been hosting weekend-long festivals celebrating Minimalism in music, from visionary 1960s beginnings to current manifestations. Among the attractive features of these weekends are the inexpensive hour-long concerts in the afternoon. These are imaginatively programmed and feature top performing artists, and I decided to make the trip across for two of the latest. This time the festival came with a qualifier: Minimal Extreme. I had a preparatory pint.

David Lang: genial

The first concert was devoted to an interesting composer with whom I was unfamiliar, David Lang (in attendance and providing a short and genial introduction). It began with two pieces in differing moods. Ark Luggage, for soprano and string quartet, received its premiere. It lists ninety-two things Noah may have brought on the Ark, as proposed by Peter Greenaway. The Smith Quartet and Else Torp were crystalline in the gently oscillating piece, which came across as a curious but pleasing vignette. Then came Pierced, a pounding concerto for piano, cello (amplified here) and percussion, with the tremulous Smith Quartet alongside. It is an ominous and thrilling piece.

The main course was The Little Match Girl Passion, Lang's Pulitzer Prize-winning choral work based on a mixture of Hans Christian Andersen's story and Bach's St Matthew Passion. Performed beautifully by four singers from Theatre of Voices, with sparse percussion, it is static and haunting. I only felt restless when the concert overran by nearly half an hour, after a late start and a fair amount of stagehand fuss throughout. I sadly forwent my inter-concert gin.

On to the second concert, another predominantly vocal offering but a rather different affair. Titled “Glass/Flux”, we reached back into Minimalism's earliest years. The five Kneeplays from Philip Glass' seminal opera Einstein on the Beach were interspersed with pieces by the composers from the Fluxus group. In the 1960s, this varied collective of artists and musicians developed forms of conceptual art and 'event' performance, extending the work of John Cage.

The rarely heard selections here were dazzling, masterfully performed by Ars Nova under the direction of Paul Hillier. The pieces favour simplicity and blur distinctions between art forms. La Monte Young's Composition 1960 #7 was in progress as we entered the hall, the singers quietly humming a perfect fifth, marked in the score “to be held for a long time”. This established a mood of hushed continuum; we moved from piece to piece largely without applause.

The Fluxus offerings were playful, Dadaistic and often fiendishly difficult. In Dick Higgins' Hank and Mary, four singers recited “Hank shot Mary dead”, each repeating every word a different number of times. It created a scattered and hilarious cascade, a kind of exploded cantus firmus. Meanwhile, Paul Hillier's solo performance of Genesis by Emmett Williams played a clever trick with broken word sounds, intoned whilst he extinguished a dozen candles in turn. Both pieces could not help but break the audience's stillness: there was spontaneous applause at their close.

The Kneeplays are choral tours de force. Glass involves the singers in complex counting patterns with added violin and fragments of poetry. Ars Nova, Hillier and violinist Jonathan Morton were again impressive and a joy to watch. How I wish I could see the revived Einstein on the Beach on its current world tour. The inspired presentation here, mingled with Fluxus, was exciting and something I would love to have shared – another success for the Glasgow's Minimal series. Philip Glass will be at the next instalment in person, and my ticket is already booked.

The Black Pirate

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:33:00 +0000

A silent film adventure in gala surroundings

The Hippodrome in Bo'ness is one of the most splendid venues for film in the land (let's say Empire). It is a pearl, its facade of elegant curves topped by a glowing red sign, and festooned today with a red carpet and bunting. I was also greeted by 'God Save the King' bunting, free rum and enthusiastic staff. The occasion was the closing night of the second annual Festival of Silent Cinema, capping an inspired programme shown over the weekend. The venue and the festival make such a heartening combination and I was won over instantly.

Douglas Fairbanks awaits within.

After many years of decay and dereliction following its closure in 1980, the Hippodrome has been fully restored, housing a smiling horseshoe auditorium complete with balcony and stage. It is also celebrating its centenary this year – Scotland's oldest cinema, built in the post-Edwardian, pre-Art Deco industry of 1912 Bo'ness. The brainchild of local man Louis Dickson, who produced 'topicals' and wanted to exhibit them, the building was designed by Matthew Steele.

Sadly, I missed the Festival of Silent Cinema apart from this final gala event. The evening was great fun, perfectly pitched between professional presentation and local spirit by festival director Alison Strauss and producer Shona Thomson. Speeches and presentations preceded a screening of beguiling hundred-year-old footage from the Scottish Screen Archive, depicting herring fishing at Yarmouth.

The main event was The Black Pirate, starring and produced by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr (with inventive live musical accompaniment from Jane Gardner and Hazel Morrison). This 1926 adventure was made at the height of Fairbanks' swashbuckling career, showing him off at his acrobatic and heroic best. Showing him off, in fact, in exciting two-strip Technicolor; The Black Pirate was one of the very first all-colour feature films. It was a treat to see Park Circus' restoration of this film, in its charming pinkish glow. Difficult to produce and project, Technicolor was an expensive process, and it is a measure of Fairbanks' status in 1920s Hollywood that he was able to invest so much in his film.

To swashbuckle.

He is undoubtedly the sole star of The Black Pirate. Although there is the requisite comic relief, docile romance and swarthy villainy, it all pales beside Fairbanks. He leaps fearlessly about the ship, displaying trademark athleticism which had already coursed through films such as The Mask of Zorro and The Thief of Bagdad. Cutting rigging to soar to the masthead, scaling down sails by means of his sword: these are clichés of the cinematic pirate, quoted and parodied so many times. It is refreshing to see the real deal, saving the day with grins and musculature (amusingly dressed in black shorts and little else).

Orson Welles saw in Fairbanks “a kind of charm, a kind of dash, a sort of innocent arrogance that has never been since on the screen”. I was fascinated to see this legend in action for the first time. To be able to do so in the setting of the Bo'ness Hippodrome was rather special, and an adventure.

Freedom of Speech – Speech Debelle

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:48:00 +0000

A successful return with a hidden edge

Following Speech Therapy was not going to be easy for Speech Debelle. That album won the Mercury Prize in 2009, but its disappointing sales led to a spat with her record label. They now seem to have made amends, and Speech's second album has arrived. She sounds confident and her music has moved forward, often offering a tougher response to the intimate jazz–hip hop of before.

Having so much fun, she's a new age thespian

The singles Studio Backpack Rap and I’m with It are marvellous; both are catchy and immediate dancing tunes. The cracking drums and synths of Studio Backpack Rap provide a driving background to Speech’s excited delivery (including a hilarious lesbian/thespian rhyme). It opens the album with a blast and is the highlight of the whole record. The four-on-the-floor beat which breaks out in the final minute is an irresistible invitation to dance, a genius coda to my new favourite song.

Meanwhile, I’m with It has an upbeat disco-soul vibe. It claps and sings, bringing a welcome breath of fresh air to an often downbeat album. But while nothing else can match it for exuberance, there is plenty to embrace among the more subdued songs. In particular, Blaze Up a Fire fascinates, with its relaxed groove and changes of gear.

It features Roots Manuva and Realism, and its call-to-arms lyrics turned out to be so prescient of the riots in England last August that Debelle released the song on the internet as the news broke. She had on her hands a perfect encapsulation of that specific time, noting in her explanation of the free release, “These young people are not aliens dropped down from outer space on Friday night.”

Following this, the sweeping strings and spacious production of Elephant in the Living Room lend a nocturnal trip hop feel to its break-up story, and X Marks the Spot is spiked with electric guitar fuzz and a dub-like beat. After the power of Studio Backpack Rap, this sound is what characterizes the first half of Freedom of Speech; the mood is low-key, but there is a hidden edge, in both music and words.

The edge is dulled by Angels Wings. Its acoustic sound is reminiscent of Debelle's debut, but lacks the skittering jazz tint which lifted that album. Here, the sound is soft but doesn't move with the emotional weight the personal words deserve. More than anything, at the climax we are admiring the drumming (which is great throughout the whole album). Coming as it does after a run of slow-burning tracks, the momentum is lost.

I'm with It notwithstanding, the second half of the album is then less engaging than the first. Despite Collapse's menacing, piano-heavy backing, Speech's rhymes come off as naive, as she takes on environmental catastrophe and the evils of oil. There are some amusing barbs (“You'd better call some Ray Mears quick, son”), but what prevails is anger without heft. The sound of Eagle Eye directly continues that of Collapse, this time sticking it to the Man. It's good, but by this time things are starting to get wearing.

But at the end, the blissed-out Sun Dog lets in a ray of light. It shuffles along, with Rhodes piano and cello rising from the mist. The quick-fire verses also give Speech a liberating chance to show off her vocal skill. The cathartic and crashing ending feels unnecessary, but it's one of the most beautiful tracks on the album, leaving us with a high.

Speech Debelle has made some great music here. Hers is a promising, maturing talent, and Freedom of Speech is an exciting album. I shall be listening closely to whatever comes next.

7.5

Carnage

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:07:00 +0000

Venomous jibes from Roman Polanski

By the time Kate Winslet is thrashing tulips against her hosts' coffee table, she has reached the drunken nadir of a middle class nightmare. Two couples have torn themselves and each other apart, sliding from clipped politeness to sniping to screaming. There has been bickering and insult, there has been projectile vomit. The horrifying descent is the basis of Roman Polanski's enjoyable and uproarious latest, Carnage, and is acted out with zest by Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly and Jodie Foster.

Before the vomit.

The film is based on Yasmina Reza's play, God of Carnage. Alan and Nancy Cowan (Waltz and Winslet) visit Michael and Penelope Longstreet (Reilly and Foster) after their sons have been involved in a playground fight. This apparently satisfies their immaculate, right-on parenting needs. But some ropey cobbler and a few unguarded exchanges are all that is needed to unravel the delicate veils of tolerance and decency. The inevitable decline unfolds entirely within the Longstreet apartment over the course of a brisk eighty minutes.

The film's origins on the stage are evident, and Carnage has received some critical stick as a result. The dialogue can be declamatory and the set-up is a little artificial. It is tempting to see Polanski's work as no more than a filmed play, adding little to a live theatre experience. But the film does work well on its own merits. It appeals visually and has a wonderful quartet of actors at its core. Foster and Reilly are amusing as a couple whose cultured, liberal facade is constructed by one and secretly resented by the other. Meanwhile, Winslet and Waltz are even better and even more miserable: she is uneasy and snappish, he is self-involved and wolfish.

With these four in control, deadly humour is the film's greatest strength. After some drily observed early dialogue, the best moments come in the second half, some of them very funny indeed. The actors relish the broader, wilder comedy here. As inebriation takes hold and accusations pile up (involving livelihoods, hamsters and so on), venomous jibes rip preciousness apart. Jodie Foster is hysterically laughing as she proclaims: “My husband has spent the entire afternoon drying things!”. I could not help but wish for things to take an even nastier turn, but the film refuses to become untethered from the real world and soar into total farce. On reflection (and as my co-filmgoer observed), that is a large part of its success.

"I don't have a sense of humour, and I don't want one."

The single-set device is clearly inherited from the stage play. The characters seem trapped, drawn back in whenever they try to leave. It lends a Buñuelian touch; or, as Winslet slurs, “Why are we still in this house?!”. Polanski is masterful enough not to be put off, creating an aesthetically interesting piece out of the static setting. The actors are positioned in various oppressive combinations around the screen. The camera angles are deliberately uncomfortable: a little too high or too low, in tight close-up and deep focus tableaux. Polanski is also not tempted to open up the script beyond the apartment. As Hitchcock saw it (discussing Dial M for Murder), why would you? Easy for him to say perhaps, but Polanski rises to the challenge just as keenly.

On a similar note in fact, according to ever-neckerchiefed director–cineaste Peter Bogdanovich, Hitchcock's view was simply: When the batteries are running dry, take a hit play and shoot it. Polanski is energized here, no doubt, along with his splendid and game cast. Together they have produced a cinematic scherzo, with claws. I think Hitch himself would have enjoyed it.

Shame

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:49:00 +0000

Fractured relationships and empty promiscuity

Within a few years, artist-turned-director Steve McQueen has made a strong impact. Following Hunger, Shame is his second film. It also stars Michael Fassbender, here playing Brandon, a man consumed by sexual addiction. He indulges this to an extreme degree, behind the protection of a highly controlled, successful daily existence. Things unravel following the intrusive entrance of his unstable, needy sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) and a romantic liaison with a colleague. Shame is not a comfortable watch, and the explicit sexual material borders on the harrowing, but it is a brilliant, modern film.

Brandon is a mesmerizing character. His manner is appealing but distant, his surroundings modern and sparse. He is a lonely man, entombed by a routine of escorts and pornography. Steve McQueen captures this loneliness with carefully composed shots, Fassbender frequently alone on-screen, wandering the city streets or stalking his characterless apartment. Like Taxi Driver before it, Shame studies alienation in New York; Brandon disconnects himself, finding little solace in empty promiscuity.

The fractured relationship between Brandon and Sissy brings to the film a vibrant, sad centre. Initially, we wonder if it is, or has been, incestuous. We are even surprised to learn that they are siblings after their uncomfortably open first scene. There is a great deal of unspoken history and tension, deftly hinted at as the story progresses. Most haunting is one line spoken by Sissy on Brandon's answer machine: "We're not bad people – we just come from a bad place." It asks many questions about their past, the answers to which we can only fathom by grimly witnessing the brother and sister in the present. Does it refer to the shame of the title?

Both Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan give genuinely brave, nuanced performances. The result is not draining, but enthralling, notwithstanding the bleak material. Sissy is desperately vulnerable, but Mulligan does not portray a one-note victim. We sympathise with her, despite her wayward dependence. Meanwhile, Fassbender is magnetic as a man who keeps lust and rage barely contained behind an anonymous facade. As Brandon is increasingly provoked, theses urges become dangerously exposed. The effects build steadily, and Fassbender's control is captivating.

Brandon's affair with a colleague, Marianne, expands the character further. They go on a date, a beautifully acted scene which stands out as perhaps the best in the film. It is amusing and charming, but nervous; in a wry touch, the awkward atmosphere is punctured by a waiter's interjections. We feel Brandon is connecting with Marianne, the lust and the rage evaporating. Intimacy, however, is something he ultimately cannot handle. Nicole Beharie is wonderful as Marianne, and with only two key scenes, she is underused.

Shame is marvellously put together. The screenplay (by McQueen and Abi Morgan) is well paced, the photography gleams and Harry Escott's music chills, built on slowly climbing melodic lines. It is a meditative film, made entrancing by the work of the actors, and its strengths are never overwhelmed by the ugly human story it tells. It will stay with me.

8.5

We Were Here/A Useful Life

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:46:00 +0000

It was a week of intense cinema-going, including award season catch-ups and some hidden gems. Here are two of the gems, courtesy of the dizzyingly rich current Filmhouse programme.

We Were Here

This documentary by David Weissman chronicles the impact of HIV/Aids in San Francisco, following its outbreak in the early 1980s. The story of Aids at that time is familiar, but the scale and suddenness of the disaster still shocks; around 15,000 people had died of Aids in San Francisco by the mid-1990s. The phenomenal response of the gay community of the city is the central focus of We Were Here. As love and hedonism plummeted headlong into fear, the reaction was one of compassion and activism.

The film is a well constructed look at this “San Francisco model” throughout the worst years of the epidemic, placing the personal experiences of just five interviewees within a wider picture of political debate and changing attitudes. The speakers describe a painful, inspiring history of care, research, campaigning and loss. In general, they are engaging, able to lift the sober mood. The accounts are absorbingly honest; recollections of weariness, feeling overwhelmed and unable to continue to help, resonate just as much as those of community and pride.

Most eloquent and affecting of all is artist Daniel Goldstein. His story (among the thousands) is tragic – he is the sole survivor of his entire circle of friends and lovers from the start of the epidemic. Emotional but clear-eyed, Goldstein gives us the strongest feel for the time and place. His is a well-rounded insight, taking in his deep connections with the San Francisco gay scene and involvement in early clinical trials. And his personal grief is balanced by his human response and reflection, which he offers without ego or sentiment. I was pleased that he had the final word in this film; the rays of hope at the close are powerful, breaking through the darkest imaginable clouds.

8.5

A Useful Life

Jorge's independent cinema is in severe financial straits. Its projection systems are decrepit and support is dwindling. Jorge must fix things. He must also get Paola, the university lecturer, to join him for a coffee. It is a delicate problem for a quiet man, and makes for a rather fun little film. There is not much depth, but there are enough surprises and wry smiles to sustain the short running time. And it is the first Uruguayan film I have ever seen. Tick.

The look is pleasingly low-key. It is a grainy, off-the-cuff vignette, but it still has moments of elegance. Shots of Jorge ambling up and down in front of prints of Muybridge's galloping horse are beautifully lit, as are those of him strolling through the university quads. Meanwhile, the interiors of the cinema's projection rooms and offices are appealing in their run-down, sagging aspect. This black-and-white film is noticeably grey.

The key attraction is undoubtedly optimistic cineaste Jorge, a likeable schlump with a Hitchcockian jowl. Portly, shambling, and accompanied by rather eccentric music selections on the soundtrack, he sometimes wanders aimlessly and sometimes dances on staircases. He also gets an expensive haircut on a whim. Without actor Jorge Jellinek's splendid countenance and misshapen gait, there would be something sorely missing from the film. But instead we give a little cheer every time he heaves into the frame. Let's hope he gets the girl.

Top 109 Motown songs

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:02:00 +0000

Happy birthday, Motown! Fifty-three years ago today, the first single was released on Tamla Records. It was Come to Me by Marv Johnson, a pleasing slice of doo-wop with surprise flute. I love Motown and happily devour it to excess. There is so much of it, after all – so many genius takes on the famous Sound of Young America beat.

Below are my 109 favourite Motown songs, starting with the very best. It is a list I put together over two years ago, following a request from a faraway friend. Perhaps the request didn't specify quite so many tracks, arranged in order; obsession just works that way. Of course two years later, I'm sure I could minutely rearrange it (and again tomorrow), but I shall hold myself back.

A lot of the choices seem obvious (they are classics after all), but hopefully there are enough surprises to lend a personal touch. There is a noticeable lean towards the Four Tops and Stevie Wonder. I don't care, because the list is mine. What is important is that all of these songs fill me with joy. They make me dance and cry. Motown was a hit machine at the poppier end of the soul spectrum, often lacking the grit of Southern soul. But to me, that does not make the music any less valid or powerful. The voices sing, the music snaps, and my feet dance...

1. Reach Out I'll Be There – Four Tops (1966)

2. The Tracks of My Tears – The Miracles (1965)

3. What Becomes of the Brokenhearted – Jimmy Ruffin (1966)

4. Superstition – Stevie Wonder (1972)

5. Every Little Bit Hurts – Brenda Holloway (1964)

6. Dancing in the Street – Martha & The Vandellas (1964)

7. I Want You Back – The Jackson 5 (1969)

8. Where Did Our Love Go – The Supremes (1964)

9. This Old Heart of Mine – The Isley Brothers (1966)

10. I Heard It Through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye (1968)

11. Get Ready – The Temptations (1966)

12. Go Ahead and Laugh – Kim Weston (1964)

13. I Wish It Would Rain – Gladys Knight & The Pips (1968)

14. Stop! In the Name of Love – The Supremes (1965)

15. Ain't No Mountain High Enough – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (1967)

16. Money (That's What I Want) – Barrett Strong (1959)

17. Didn't You Know (You'd Have to Cry Sometime) – Gladys Knight & The Pips (1969)

18. What's Going On – Marvin Gaye (1971)

19. I'm Gonna Make You Love Me – Diana Ross & The Supremes and The Temptations (1968)

20. Higher Ground – Stevie Wonder (1973)

21. Just a Little Misunderstanding – The Contours (1966)

22. I Was Made to Love Her – Stevie Wonder (1967)

23. I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) – Four Tops (1965)

24. Baby Love – The Supremes (1964)

25. Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder (1976)

26. Please Mr. Postman – The Marvelettes (1961)

27. Baby I Need Your Living – Four Tops (1964)

28. Living for the City – Stevie Wonder (1973)

29. Stoned Love – The Supremes (1970)

30. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) – Marvin Gaye (1971)

31. Uptight (Everything's Alright) – Stevie Wonder (1965)

32. Shotgun – Jr. Walker & The All Stars (1965)

33. A Simple Game – Four Tops (1972)

34. Love Child – Diana Ross & The Supremes (1968)

35. My Girl – The Temptations (1964)

36. I Want to Go Back There Again – Chris Clark (1967)

37. Standing in the Shadows of Love – Four Tops (1966)

38. You Can't Hurry Love – The Supremes (1966)

39. My Cherie Amour – Stevie Wonder (1969)

40. Love Hangover – Diana Ross (1976)

41. Ooo Baby Baby – The Miracles (1965)

42. Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) – Frank Wilson (1965)

43. You're All I Need to Get By – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (1968)

44. Twenty-Five Miles – Edwin Starr (1969)

45. (Come 'Round Here) I'm the One You Need – The Miracles (1966)

46. Bernadette – Four Tops (1967)

47. As – Stevie Wonder (1976)

48. Super Freak – Rick James (1981)

49. For Once In My Life – Stevie Wonder (1968)

50. You Keep Me Hangin' On – The Supremes (1966)

51. Papa Was a Rollin' Stone – The Temptations (1972)

52. Come and Get These Memories – Martha & The Vandellas (1963)

53. (I'm a) Road Runner – Jr. Walker & The All Stars (1966)

54. Nowhere to Run – Martha & The Vandellas (1965)

55. I'm in a Different World – Four Tops (1968)

56. You've Made Me So Very Happy – Brenda Holloway (1967)

57. Do You Love Me – The Contours (1962)

58. The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game – The Marvelettes (1966)

59. Without the One You Love (Life's Not Worthwhile) – Four Tops (1964)

60. Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) – Marvin Gaye (1971)

61. It's the Same Old Song – Four Tops (1965)

62. Got to Be There – Michael Jackson (1971)

63. Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing – Stevie Wonder (1973)

64. Actions Speak Louder Than Words – Mable John (1961)

65. Helpless – Kim Weston (1966)

66. Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever – Four Tops (1966)

67. I'll Pick a Rose for My Rose – Marv Johnson (1967)

68. My Guy – Mary Wells (1964)

69. Behind a Painted Smile – The Isley Brothers (1968)

70. I Got a Feeling – Four Tops (1967)

71. I'll Be There – The Jackson 5 (1970)

72. Number One in Your Heart – The Monitors (1966)

73. Leaving Here – Eddie Holland (1963)

74. Still Water (Love) – Four Tops (1970)

75. Live Wire – Martha & The Vandellas (1964)

76. I Heard It Through the Grapevine – Gladys Knight & The Pips (1968)

77. Love Having You Around – Stevie Wonder (1972)

78. Can I Get a Witness – Marvin Gaye (1963)

79. Going to a Go-Go – The Miracles (1965)
80. Heaven Must Have Sent You – The Elgins (1966)

81. Too High – Stevie Wonder (1973)

82. No Matter What Sign You Are – Diana Ross & The Supremes (1969)

83. Who's Lovin' You – The Jackson 5 (1969)

84. My Baby Loves Me – Martha & The Vandellas (1966)

85. All Your Love – Brenda Holloway (unknown: unreleased until 2002)

86. The Tears of a Clown – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (1967)

87. Something About You – Four Tops (1965)

88. Take Me in Your Arms and Love Me – Gladys Knight & The Pips (1967)

89. I Wish – Stevie Wonder (1976)

90. Heat Wave – Martha & The Vandellas (1963)
91. It Takes Two – Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston (1966)

92. Brick House – The Commodores (1977)
93. Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over) – Four Tops (1966)

94. Whisper You Love Me Boy – The Supremes (1965)

95. Cloud Nine – The Temptations (1968)

96. Your Precious Love – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (1967)

97. I Can't Give Back the Love I Feel for You – Rita Wright (1968)

98. Who's the Fool – Singin' Sammy Ward (1960)

99. ABC – The Jackson 5 (1970)

100. Chained – Paul Petersen (1966)

101. Keep on Running – Stevie Wonder (1972)
102. Ain't That Peculiar – Marvin Gaye (1965)
103. Don't Leave Me This Way – Thelma Houston (1976)
104. Just My Soul Responding – Smokey Robinson (1973)

105. My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me) – David Ruffin (1969)

106. One Day in Your Life – Michael Jackson (1975)

107. Ain't Too Proud to Beg – The Temptations (1966)

108. Shop Around – The Miracles (1960)

109. When I'm Gone – Mary Wells (1964)

The Artist

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:36:00 +0000

Charm, compromise and Uggie the dog

The Artist is taking over the world, award ceremony by award ceremony. Written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius, it is a personal project which has enjoyed remarkable success. Most remarkable of all is that this is a silent film, a bold decision which is paying off miraculously. I was curious, of course.

Jean Dujardin plays George Valentin, a star of the silent screen struggling to adjust to the transition to sound. Having been instrumental in the rise of Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), he sees her career soar from bit-part dancer to sound film phenomenon, whilst his grinds to a halt, with only his dog to console him. Altogether, The Artist is a bright-eyed, sparky look back at Hollywood's biggest upheaval, A Star Is Born by way of Singin' in the Rain and Sunset Boulevard. There are cloche hats, top hats, irascible studio bosses and butlers, all wrapped up with newspaper montages and elegant intertitles to charm even the rookie nostalgist.

It works well and the novelty concept of making a silent film to tell this story is clever, furnished with comic asides, a dash of Duke Ellington and a handsomely costumed cast. It is also a stroke of genius in itself that this is not an art house experiment but a break into the mainstream, attracting press coverage and award season glory. Although maybe that's Harvey Weinstein's genius, coupled with that of the dog (oh hi, Asta).

Unfortunately however, Hazanavicius' style doesn't always fit, taking the swing out of The Artist's thing somewhat. In creating a love letter to the late silent era, he gently apes its spirit, but seems to have wavered along the way. The result is a compromise, not reaching back to the 1920s, but rather settling for a generic 'classic' look. Instead of the urgent inventiveness of the best silent movies, The Artist has more in common with the poised studio-era films of the 40s and 50s, just with the sound removed. Chronology takes a bit of a hit too – had Valentin really not seen nor even heard of sound film until 1929, when hit musicals were already being released?

There are certainly times when things click. The silent films-within-the-film are fun (up there with the best of Lockwood and Lamont), and occasionally the old-school box of tricks is opened. At one point, chattering mouths materialize around the screen to taunt Valentin, and there is a rather brilliant surrealist moment when the soundtrack terrorizes him after his first exposure to synchronized sound.

Meanwhile, bursts of spirited Cotton Club jazz punctuate Ludovic Bource's impressive score. But the score, lush and romantic, again suffers mildly from period wanderlust. When a section of Bernard Herrmann's music for Vertigo appears, it sits comfortably in a way it shouldn't. It is a puzzling moment. The music is gorgeous of course, but why is it used here? It makes one wonder if other references, to the likes of The Battleship Potemkin, are little more than a film school checklist.

All of this is maybe beside the point in the midst of an enjoyable ride. It might all be a glossy surface, with a story not quite original or snappy enough to dispel every gripe, but The Artist is fun to watch. The actors, including Dujardin, John Goodman and James Cromwell, help enormously. Most special of all is Bejo. Peppy is a charming and believable creation – her winning smile caps a delicate tragicomic performance, with which Bejo steals the film. The final scene is a hoot, too. We come out smiling. Perhaps The Artist is not a love letter after all, but a winking postcard.

7.5

Margaret

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:13:00 +0000

Adolescence and city living, in the ultimate limited release

Margaret is about Lisa (Anna Paquin), a 17-year-old student from a well heeled part of New York, and the people around her. The story is ignited by an accident, when Lisa distracts a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) who then misses a red light and kills a woman. The bus driver is not punished and Lisa resolves to bring him to justice, pulling in and arguing with an interesting supporting cast, including her mother (J. Smith-Cameron), her geometry teacher (Matt Damon), and the dead woman's best friend (Jeannie Berlin).

Margaret's tiny release comes after it spent years languishing in post-production hell, the subject of various lawsuits. The film is long, and director Kenneth Lonergan was under pressure to produce a two-hour cut. The released version is a compromise at two and a half hours. Unfortunately this compromise can show, although what remains is still a beautiful study of relationships in a large city.

Everybody's talkin' at me.

At the centre of the film is Anna Paquin's performance, which is tremendous. It is an honest examination of the contradictions of late adolescence – the invisible line trod between confidence and vunerability, assurance and naivety. Lisa does the wrong thing more than once, and she is at times easy to dislike, truculent and opinionated. But the fragile remnants of childhood persist in Paquin's portrayal as a dully attractive glow. I was reminded of Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan more than once.

Although Lisa is trying to assert herself in the adult world of New York City, she is not an adult; it is a fact she has to confront repeatedly. She may be the dominant force in her ethics class or with her awkward admirer Darren (John Gallagher Jr., who I would have enjoyed seeing more of), but more often she finds herself dealing with figures of authority, almost powerless. There are teachers, policemen, lawyers, and eventually the machinations of a corporate-led legal system. She sees her reasoning as obvious, but she is shouted down or brushed aside. Perhaps she is overly dramatic; perhaps she is just too young.

Of course, New York is more than a city – it is a sprawling metropolis. Much of the film's drive comes not just from the relationships between the characters, but how they interact with and respond to the urban environment. From the opening shot onwards, we return to images of crowds jostling in the street and look up at skyscrapers reflected in skyscrapers. Spaces referred to outside of New York seem out of reach: Lisa's father's Californian beach house, her teacher's Indiana upbringing, a planned excursion to New Mexico.

Meanwhile, the city is cluttered and busy; at one point Lisa remarks how many people must be living in one block. Lonergan shows us a place where it is difficult to make oneself heard, and where a stage actress's daughter from the Upper West Side is out of her depth visiting a bus driver's family home.

Sequences focusing on city life give the plot the space it needs, and unfortunately it is perhaps this space which has suffered from the editorial knife forced on the film. As the end of the film is reached, the plot begins to rattle along, as loose ends are tied up and different strands of the story are crammed together. Meanwhile some subplots, such as Lisa's mother's romance with an admirer (Jean Reno), become stranded without the extra running time. It mars the film and halts its flow, which is a shame.

But Margaret still works, an emotional urban film with a thread of natural humour. It is a haunting portrait of a teenage girl's difficult, sometimes desperate climb to emotional maturity.

Reading in 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:58:00 +0000

At the start of 2008, I resolved to remedy my woeful reading habits by reading twelve books in twelve months. I failed – three years in a row. Last year, I actually achieved the goal and celebrations were held throughout my flat. Here are the books I read.

The books (sans Harry Potter)

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

A year after finishing Sense and Sensibility (my first taste of Austen), I went in for the kill. Jane Austen is renowned for her wit, yet I was still surprised by how much she was making me laugh. Not always entirely to my taste, but undeniably elegant, and the social commentary has just the right level of bite. Subsequent viewing of the Joe Wright film and 1995 BBC series completed an enjoyable immersion.

2. American Pastoral – Philip Roth

This is an obliterating book, and I loved reading it. Exploring recent American history with unforgiving emotional force, Roth often rants. But this is also funny and fiercely passionate. The extended finale set piece, a dinner party from hell, is astonishing. I happily remember reading this in a lovely Seattle coffee shop, where I picked up my bookmark.

3. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

And in Seattle is where I bought this African American classic, whereupon the shopkeeper sang at me. At first, I was not sure if I could take to the rich style of Hurston's prose. But I was drawn in, mostly by its sharp observation ("She knew because she looked"). The world of this book is sultry; the magnificent hurricane scenes stick with me.

4. My Word Is My Bond – Roger Moore

An anecdotal deluge. Roger Moore is warm and self-effacing, almost to a fault. Little depth is offered, but many of the stories work well. Yes, some of them raise suspicion, and there are definitely some dodgy facts, but pictures of Roger in knitwear and so on make up for all that.

5. Flashman – George MacDonald Fraser

This was a joy, and Harry Paget Flashman is a brilliant hero: funny, rude, caddish, cowardly. Crucially, the whole adventure gets its teeth from the accurate historical detail. Set amid the First Anglo-Afghan War, the characters are real and vivid and the action is exciting. It is magical that the mixture of romp and realism works so well. I intend to become a devotee and work my way through the series.

6. Darkmans – Nicola Barker

A mammoth, sprawling, ridiculous book. Set among the estates and motorways of Ashford, and taking 800-plus pages, the action is minimal; instead we have a patchwork of impish wordplay and irrepressibly dark urges. It is a puzzle with clues wherever you look for them: for instance, the precocious child inhabited by the spirit of Edward IV's jester. The past is literally haunting the present, perhaps the key to the farce. For me, it worked (despite the exhaustion) mainly because of its sense of mischief.

7. The Voice That Thunders – Alan Garner

Seattle bookmark

A collection of essays and lectures. Garner is formidably intelligent, but unfortunately he knows it. The spare writing style is admirable and informed points are made on our place within landscape and history. However, arrogance muddies the depth, and I became ever frustrated by Garner's rigid lack of sympathy. The almost nonsensical passages on mental health also jar. In all, less appealing and thunderous than it ought to be.

8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone – J. K. Rowling

I was almost completely uninitiated into the Potter universe before taking on this first instalment. I hope to explore further, having been entertained, if never gripped. I hear the other books are also popular.

9. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett

Sam Spade steps back off the screen, but he still gleams, snarling and wonderful. The style is exciting, sometimes hilarious; the mean streets of San Francisco are a backdrop for such sentences as "His eyes burned yellowly". I love the John Huston film, and I am so familiar with it, that I was struck by how faithful an adaptation it was. Hammett's book speaks just like Bogart, Greenstreet and Lorre. It is brilliant.

10. The Dain Curse – Dashiell Hammett

I went for the Dashiell Double. This was less engaging than The Maltese Falcon, and much more episodic. Too many characters were piled in by the finale, but there was still plenty of hard-boiled joy at hand.

11. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

My second Dickens. A wonderful gallery of characters (down to each supporting role) give life to an unexpectedly dark story of redemption through humility. Dickens' genius is to enable us to sympathize with Pip throughout, despite his actions and his pride. Meanwhile, Miss Havisham is a genuinely marvellous creation. Great Christmastime reading.

12. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors, and this is a mini-masterpiece. As with The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, we have a defensive narrator who reveals more than they intend, through their natural, chatty delivery. This time it is an artist who worked in Japan between the wars, and again we are looking back, piecing together a dark past almost without realising. It is elegiac and perfectly paced – a beautiful book.

The best films of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:28:00 +0000

At the end of the year, we as humans are inclined to reflect, look back and create lists of the things that were the best something. Doing a much better job than last year, I saw thirty-one new releases at the cinema in 2011. I was sad to miss Blue Valentine, Le quattro volte, Take Shelter and plenty of others. But here are my top twelve.

1. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Unusually, this was a film that gave me what its trailer (possibly the most exciting of the year) had promised. The paranoid Cold War atmosphere glows from the screen, bathed in the tawdry oranges and browns of the 1970s. The acting is subtle and powerful, the merest glance from Gary Oldman giving us Smiley's weariness and compassion together. The complex plot is tightly handled and tense throughout. And most importantly, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is more enjoyable than any other new film I saw this year. I loved it.

2. True Grit
Everything comes together perfectly in the Coen Brothers' offering this year. But most special of all is the acting. Jeff Bridges' hilarious, slurring marshal and Matt Damon's preening Texas Ranger are pitch perfect and naturally funny. But the film is carried by young Hailee Steinfeld; strong, confident and magnetic. Also, there seemed at one point to be a bear riding a horse. This is Coen territory par excellence.

3. A Separation
This Iranian film was a revelation. It is a deft portrait of life in modern Tehran, with divisions across religious and class barriers serving as the backdrop to an escalating drama. We eavesdrop, the camera often observing from another room through a window or door, and the tension is at times nearly unbearable.

4. The Tree of Life
Terrence Malick returns. This is an intimate family story played out on the cosmic stage. The Big Bang, dinosaurs, the afterlife(?): they all make an impact, but the real focus is on the boys growing up in 1950s Texas. Whispered narration, dream-like memories and incredibly beautiful photography are spell-binding. It is unique.

5. The Deep Blue Sea (my review here)
Terence Davies returns. This strong, rich adaptation is released from staginess by elegant direction, surging music and impeccable acting. Absorbing.

6. Senna
A Formula One documentary astonishing enough for those of us who have no time whatsoever for the sport. The presentation of the archive footage could hardly be done better and the story is fascinating. This is exciting, incredible and tragic.

7. Drive
The Year of the Gosling reached its peak here. An ultra-violent and super-slick story in which the relationships shine strongest. Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan are wonderful, always.

8. Black Swan
Not as crazy as I had expected, or perhaps hoped. And then the last thirty minutes happened. An enjoyable feast of loud Tchaikovsky and body horror. Its greatest success might be its seam of dark humour.

9. The King's Speech
I maintain that The Social Network was the better film, and that Colin Firth and Jeff Bridges won their Oscars the wrong way round. But The King's Speech is still a British prestige picture of the best kind. The scenes with Firth and Geoffrey Rush are funny and impressive. As a friend pointed out, a classic sports film (without sport).

10. Weekend (my review here)
Andrew Haigh's breakthrough is well written and well acted, brought into focus by attention to tiny details. A film about a gay romance that is completely, unselfconsciously universal.

11. Win Win
One of the most purely enjoyable films I saw this year (see also Albatross). It is a rare thing: unassuming, funny, heart-warming, intelligent. It cannot fail to be liked.

12. Hanna
Saoirse Ronan and director Joe Wright together give us beauty, humour and violence: a warped fairy tale with delicious visuals. In all, a blast with a Chemical Brothers soundtrack.

There they are. Honourable mentions go to 127 Hours, Never Let Me Go, Albatross, Beginners, The Skin I Live In, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and Tabloid.

Finally, of the other films I saw this year, my favourites include The Social Network, Days of Heaven, Rocco and His Brothers and F. W. Murnau's Faust. If there are any of those you have not seen, I can highly recommend you toss your internet to one side and seek them out as soon as possible. They are all wonderful.

Have a great 2012, everybody. Be happy.

The Deep Blue Sea

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:52:00 +0000

The opening of The Deep Blue Sea is amazing. Hester (Rachel Weisz) is attempting suicide, gassing herself in a dingy post-war London flat. From here, we jump around her past, seeing her with her staid and solid husband (Simon Russell Beale), seeing her with her lover Freddie (Tom Hiddleston). She meets Freddie, she makes love to him, she attempts suicide. And this whole non-linear narrative display is accompanied by Barber's Violin Concerto. It is loud, sometimes drowning out dialogue. The fragments of the story are bound together by romanticism and regret in the music.

The cinematic magic here belies the stage origins of Terence Davies' latest film. Based on Terence Rattigan's play, the story follows the three main characters in a patchwork of scenes. Hester is trapped in a suffocating marriage to Sir William Collyer, a judge in thrall to convention and to his disapproving mother. In Freddie, she finds excitement, but it is driven by lust and the need for an escape. As Freddie proves to be cruelly unreliable, so Hester finds herself on the brink of emotional collapse and isolation.

That we are watching a play on film is sometimes clear. However, we can rely on the remarkable actors to carry us through. The plot itself is also absorbing, with barbed twists spiking scenes which seem otherwise static on screen (when Sir William confronts Hester outside her flat from his car, for example). But often Davies employs elegant devices to transform the play into cinema which enthrals, while staginess is banished. As characters argue, the camera deliberately intrudes by jumping between them, so we see them face on in turn. It glides over sheltering Londoners in a Tube station, as Hester recalls the war. And there is the opening montage, with music surging across the images.

Music plays an important role in The Deep Blue Sea. This is apparently the case in much of Davies' work, although sadly I have yet to see more. Here the music makes a great impression, but its use is startlingly restrained. Barber looms large (would Walton have been more appropriate?), and a pub singalong of You Belong to Me melts into Jo Stafford's recording at a pivotal romantic moment. But much of the film is silent. Charged as the subject matter is, long pauses dominate and repress the emotion. The characters are struggling in this silence, and so the music has even more impact.

The three lead actors are captivating. Powerful passions ignite the silence and the outbursts. Simon Russell Beale simmers with suppressed rage; Tom Hiddleston can ably slide from caddish to hopeless in a single scene. But Rachel Weisz impresses most. She appears consumed by Hester's fragile and desperate desire to grasp something human through lust. It is a desire that lies at the film's core, and it is not always easy to watch. This is a steady, classical film and it hits deep emotions with small, masterful gestures.

8.5