Sing It Out Baby, Sing It Out

Jean Mounet-Sully as Hernani in Victor Hugo's 'Hernani ou l'honneur castillan'

A few months back, I saw a London Weekend Television extended biographic interview - 'Lawrence Olivier - A Life'.

And I was reminded of a section in it today, watching early C20 film, with added wax cylinder audio track, of the great Comedie Francaise actor Jean Mounet-Sully (1841-1916) playing Oedipus in 'Oedipe Roi'.

In fact I was almost rolling round on the floor, shrieking and kicking my legs in the air, as Mounet-Sully melodrama-ed and sang his way through the Sophocles text - way way beyond what I thought was humanly possible. And he was considered the Great Classical Actor of the French theatre of his day!

Olivier touches on this 'phenomenon' in the context of the Royal Shakespeare Company of the same period and the delivery of blank verse ...

... with John Gielgud reflecting on how early in his career he must have seemed like 'an old operatic diva singing'!

At the beginning of the French footage, you'll need to listen behind the talking head for Mouney-Sully but by the end he's in full flight, singing out his 'aria'. Dramatic high notes, and seriously fortissimo!

So without further ado, buckle your seats belts ... so you don't do yourself a harm.

Any broken bones from tumbling your chair over?

But seriously, it's interesting to reflect on just how the measure of great acting (or anything much) is relative to the tastes and fashion of the time.

Time In The Electric Shock Therapy Room

Just couldn't resist having this post on the new blog - justification being it's not often I laugh out loud and long during a movie - tears simultaneously rolling down my cheeks are rarer. And the whole lot on a repeat viewing ... can't remember when.

I don't want to say too much about this scene just in case you haven't seen 'My Best Friend's Wedding', as if. Enough that it involves the Rupert Everett gay character fantastically and maliciously inventing how he supposedly met and fell in love with the Julia Roberts character - for the guests at an engagement party around a dinner table in a restaurant.

So some sharing with a serious risk of revealing my low sense of humour - 'low' said in the manner in Bette Midler in 'Divine Madness'.

Had to split the video to be able to upload it, so ...

Okay, let the brick bats begin - again, and even more for re-posting!

The Hazards of Couples Therapy

I pulled out an old fav movie this morning - 'The Ref' [1994] - and by the end of the first scene I had that big grin all over my face that only happens a very once in a while. And usually inspires sharing impulses. So here we go.

The film's about a couple (played by Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey) with 'relationship issues' - I was about to use the word 'dysfunctional' but suddenly (or not so suddenly) it seems very dated.

The scene I want to share is at the beginning and involves the feuding couple ...


... in a therapy situation with a Dr Wong ...


The situation of battling couples (perhaps incongruously) can have the potential to inspire good script dialogue. Add great comic timing from the two central protagonists. And blocked camera angles that synergistically promote the comedy. And a dose of broadly brushed satire - here, on the shrinking profession. And you have a serious 'sit back, relax and enjoy the show' situation.

Happy I shared?

Just Amazing What You Can Google Up!

Vaslav Nijinsky filmed in Vienna on September 12, 1945

As you must be aware by now, I'm an inveterate and serial googler - for which, I am reliably informed, there is no known cure or medication.

The up-side to this dangerous condition are nuggets like this is unique footage of the greatest of of all Ballets Russes dancers, Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950).

It was filmed in Vienna on September 12, 1945 by an Occupation-authorised cameraman, and presented to the world through Pathe newsreel footage.

The legendary dancer is seen walking out of the entrance of a building and then down a street, accompanied by a uniformed American news reporter.

Other images of the dancer in this period for comparison are ...

Vaslav Nijinsky and his wife Romola in Vienna, 1947

Vaslav Nijinsky and his wife Romola in Vienna, 1945

I've added music to the video from 'Le Spectre de la Rose' (music: Carl Maria von Weber, choreography: Mikhail Fokine, sets and costumes: Leon Bakst) - The Rose being one of Nijinsky's greatest early roles ...

Amazing stuff, eh?

C19 French Artists on Film!

Amazingly I just came across tiny pieces of film of four of the giants of C19 French art.

The first records the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) ...



... painting at home - first in his garden and then indoors ...

The second piece captures Edgar Degas (1834-1917), one of the founders of Impressionism but who preferred to be known as a realist ...



... walking past a cafe in a street in Paris past with lady ...

The third segment of footage captures the father of modern post-naturalistic (as opposed to realistic) sculpture, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) ...



... walking in and out of, and inspecting, a rather monumental perhaps antique building, and then posing in a garden, uncharacteristically top-hatted ...

The final film fragment shows famed Impressionist painter of water lilies, Claude Monet (1840-1926) ...



... talking to a gentleman outdoors, and then painting en plein air at the edge of a pond in his garden at Giverny ...

It all makes me wonder just what other film stock might still be out there, in some musty old archive/library/museum/cellar/wherever!

All in the Timing

This morning, I was watching this little clip of W C Fields being 'interviewed' on set some time in the 1930s.

The interviewer makes almost all of the jokes and Fields mostly just reacts - with a noise or a few words. Often drawled out in his inimitable style - way beyond what you'd think was humanly possible.

And it suddenly occurred to me - with no little surprise - that I was roaring with laughter ... in response to the great comic!

The clip is hilarious at the end where Fields feigns awkwardness at being the seeming butt of all these jokes, with an abrupt ...

'Let's get on with the script ... I've gotta work'

Followed, in a perplexed and pondering tone, with ...

'You bring up the funniest things'

It's all in the timing!

Thomas Edison - The Universal Exposition, Paris 1900

Paris - Highlighting the Pavilions and Sites of the Universal Exposition of 1900

Rummaging round my computer I found I had quite a lot more Thomas Edison footage of Paris in 1900 at the time of the Universal Exposition ...


So I thought I indulge myself - and try your patience - and put together another small video of some of the various bits I have.

Each of the titled photos below is for a section of the film ...

Eiffel Tower from the Trocadero Palace

La Place de l'Opera

L'Esplanade des Invalides

Les Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower 1

Les Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower 2

Dancing in Les Champs de Mars

Ascending the Eiffel Tower

So - again - sit back ... you know the drill by now!

Okay?

London 1903 - Thomas Edison Film Footage

Thomas Edison was (among many other things) traveling and filming in various parts of the world round the turn of last century.

He was in Paris for the Universal Exposition of 1900, catching a myriad of angles on the city, such as the carriages, buses and pedestrians at the Place de L'Opera ...

Paris 1900 - Thomas Edison Film Footage

... and in London in 1903 - again catching the life of the streets, though now in much clearer film footage due to the technological advances in film stock over the three years. Though - curiously - the camera is much more static.

Both these productions are (for me at least) like serious time traveling - you get up close and personal with ordinary people going about their daily business, like taking a taxi at one of the entrances to Hyde Park ...


... and catching boats at the Embankment on the Thames - perhaps to work ...


There's the general bustle of the traffic, with individuals occasionally moving into the middle or into the foreground to make a more human connection ...




There are familiar landmarks, such as the Law Courts ...


... James Gibbs's St Mary-Le-Strand ...


... and St. Margaret's Westminster and Big Ben ...


Familiar brand names flash up every so often, like old friends - just to bring this world a little closer to our own - such as Nestles ...


... and Lipton's Tea ...


And there's the (perhaps unexpected) chaos of the traffic in often dust-clogged streets ...




So sit back, relax and enjoy the show ...

London 1903 - Thomas Edison Film Footage

Any of the landscape familiar to you who know or visit London?

I remember more than I thought I would from my time there in my teens and early twenties.

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) - 'The Lady of the Lamp'

It's a recognized medical condition guys - and I'm taking pills for it.

But unfortunately I could stop myself guys doing it today.

So here's 'Florence Nightingale', the Nick Productions latest release. With the only recording of her voice as the soundtrack.

What do you think?

'The History Boys' - A Good Film from a Good Play

The Characters: Lockwood (Andrew Knott), Dakin (Dominic Cooper) and Posner (Samuel Barnett)

It's brave in the current sexual political climate to make a mainstream film about, among other things, sex and the secondary school system - without re-playing the Spanish Inquisition!

'The History Boys' has the creds of being based on the Tony award-winning play by Alan Bennett. And perhaps has been made more 'acceptable' still by casting actors obviously in their twenties as the final year British school students.

It puts the other side of things - that late teenagers have sexual awareness and desire, and that a teacher can become infatuated with his student. Without in any way condoning sex between students or between them and their educators. As Samuel Barnett (the Posner character) has reiterated in interview.

The film also explores the issues around the function and process of education, mainly by counter-pointing safer conventional approaches and propositions with the more risky quirky, slick, off-beat, glibe, often self-consciously controversial ones. A lovely example realizing the latter 'playing the education game' is a progressive teacher's suggestion to make the argument in an Oxbridge entrance essay for Stalin being a great man.

A well-structured piece of drama. A great script. And a really good cast. 

Dominic Cooper is the student Dakin - dark, teasing, cocky, provocative and self-possessed and aware. Idolising his 23 year old teacher, Irvin (Stephen Campbell Moore) - declaring he'd 'never wanted to please anyone more than him ... girls not excepted'. With this essentially straight character wishing at the end of the film to reward his mentor - in an offer to be sucked off. A date is planned but does not eventuate.

The piece is obviously from the theatre and there has been the wise choice of maintaining that style of dialogue delivery - rather big and slightly exaggerated with those pauses between lines that seem somewhat unnatural away from the stage. It would probably disturb the original script too much to be more realistic.

And there has been the fortuitous selection of the lietmotif music of 'Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered)' - sung originally by Rufus Wainwright and in this clip by the Lockwood character.

If you're interested in momentarily re-visiting this part of your life and all its issues, this piece is very well worth the look. I've looked several times already!!!

Anyone else seen it?

What were your reactions?

'Berlin: Symphony of a Great City' (1927) - A Silent Film Masterpiece by Walter Ruttmann

I've stayed in Berlin twice - once before the wall went down, and then again in 2003. I'd first become more than casually focussed on the city reading the novels of Christopher Isherwood. And then, during my second visit, by the ubiquitous and all-consuming concern over the lingering 'atmosphere of uncertainty', a collective state of mind which had gripped the metropolis since the Cold War and failed to dissipate after 1989. The largest city in Europe still only has a population of 3.3 million - New York is 20. For me, every day there seemed a Sunday.

So this film naturally caught my attention when it crossed my path.

It has innovative techniques for the period. But more importantly a strong pulsing rhythm which irresistibly carries you along, through the whole of this semi-documentary.

From slow glassy ripplings over water which gradually transmute into passing railway sleepers and carriage windows. And then telegraph poles. And, in a reverse angle from the carriage, out over houses and tenements and factories - as the train enters a still intact early C20 Berlin.

And on and on through this extraordinary film.

It's day break and the capital stirs. Long shots of down dark deserted misty streets. And scenes of workerless factory interiors. Shop window displays of women's lingerie.

The rhythm of the day begins, first signaled by a single piece of paper gently blown along a gutter. A man finally comes into the empty set, walking his dog. A cat skulks by, maybe mouse-bound. A few more people - and the pace imperceptibly quickens. Doors and windows open in cavalcade. In businesses and homes. The sun rises, throwing the first atmospheric shadows of the day.

And the symphony of the great city begins.

Through the rush of the working day.

And into the wilder activity of the evening jazz age clubs and bars.

A great watch!