THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/07/05 -- Vol. 23, No. 28 (Whole Number 1264)
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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Topics:
Frank Kelly Freas (1922-2005) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (letter of comment by Daniel Kimmel
and response by Mark R. Leeper and further
response by Daniel Kimmel)
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE AVIATOR (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
KUNG FU HUSTLE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
MODIGLIANI (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE REEL CIVIL, Ruth Rendell's
COLLECTED STORIES, THE DA VINCI CODE)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Frank Kelly Freas (1922-2005) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Those of us who got interested in science fiction in the 1950s and
1960s (or earlier) are finding us passing some unpleasant
milestones. It seems that many of the people who created the
science fiction we liked in those decades are getting old and
dying.
On January 2 we lost one of the people who gave science fiction
the excitement that I found it had when I was first discovering
it. Back in the 1960s when I would search the paperback racks in
drug stores and the magazine shelves at my local library I would
feel a sort of electric thrill when I saw the covers, many of the
best contributed by Frank Kelly Freas. When I first had pictures
of other worlds and the possibilities of the future Freas put a lot
of those images into my young and impressionable mind. Many of
the paintings told stories in themselves. For example:
http://www.cris.com/~karlh/SF/July_1964_500_opt.jpg
and
http://www.noosfere.org/showcase/images/AST_5602.jpg
Kelly Freas has always been considered one of the great
visualizers of science fiction, sometimes the greatest. Ten times
he won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist and there was a
time when he was thought to have an absolute lock on the Best
Artist award. He also won the Retro-Hugo for 1951.
Freas had a particular style that was instantly recognizable. I
think they had a texture that was characteristically his. I am
not sure what it was exactly. Regions in his paintings would be
impressionistic, yet other regions would be sharp and clear. He
would have carefully detailed faces. Maybe an artist could
describe better what exactly is the Freas style. As I am writing
this I am looking at several of his images and I would know they
are by Freas even if they were not so familiar. But it is
difficult to find a Freas painting that is not familiar. I can
see that texture in the way he painted Campbell that could only be
Freas.
http://24.131.35.125:8080/Schmitz/Campbell1t.jpg
I can look at the Martian that Freas used to illustrate the novel
MARTIANS GO HOME by Frederick Brown. The little green man with
the pointed ears is obviously whimsically painted, yet it still is
done in a realistic style that is not at all cartoonish.
http://www.noosfere.com/showcase/images/AST_5409.jpg
His works also included the NASA astronauts' crew patches and
posters.
Curiously I never knew at the time that he also was one of the
major art contributors to Mad Magazine and is credited with having
help shaped the famous image of Alfred E. Newman after the visage
was first created by Norman Mingo. It was a variation on a face
that appeared in advertising in the 19th century. And with
Freas's great fame in science fiction circles I am rather
surprised that in what is being written about him he seems to be
best remembered as an illustrator for Mad Magazine.
http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/freas10.gif
I think that he used a different texture and style so that while I
can always recognize one of his science fiction paintings, I don't
see the same style in Alfred E. Newman.
Freas's paintings were displayed at the Smithsonian Institution
and New York's American Museum of Natural History.
Perhap the science fiction image for which he will be best
remembered is the repentant robot for Tom Godwin's THE GULF
BETWEEN.
http://fanac.org/ProArt/Freas-03t.jpeg
Frank Kelly Freas was 82. He certainly will certainly be missed.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (letter of comment by Daniel Kimmel
and response by Mark R. Leeper and further response by Daniel
Kimmel)
Dan Kimmel responds to Mark's review of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
from the 12/31/04 issue:
For once I have a more nuanced opinion than Mark. :-)
While I have not formally reviewed "Merchant of Venice" yet, I
have been engaged in discussions on it as the resident film critic
in a Jewish Usenet group, so I've had to give this some thought.
First, let's dismiss the notion of "Shakespeare as bigot."
Shakespeare never met a Jew in his life (they had all been
banished from England previously and were not yet welcomed back)
and was apparently lifting the plot of Marlowe's "Jew of Malta."
The Jewish moneylender as villain was a dramatic convention of the
time and no more proof of Shakespeare's feelings than, to pick a
ludicrous example, the Marx Bros. being considered personally
"racist" on the basis of the "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm" number
in "A Day at the Races."
I found the film fascinating because I think a conscious attempt
was made to reinterpret the play, and not simply by playing up one
speech ("Hath not a Jew eyes...") at the expense of another. In
both the added prologue and the whole thrust of the film, the
director wants us to be aware of the antisemitism that would have
been unremarkable--and hence invisible--to Shakespeare's
audiences. "Merchant" is considered one of the comedies in the
canon. Not only does it end in multiple marriages but there's
some low comic business with the servants that was cut from the
film's script.
Indeed, the film is made as if this is not a comedy but one of his
tragedies, to with "The Tragedy of Shylock." Shylock is wronged
and justifiably offended, and his tragedy is that his wounded
pride is greater than the common sense which would have indicated
he should have quit while he was ahead. There are moments during
the trial where Shylock could have accepted a multiple return on
his loan and the humiliation of his foes, but -- as played by
Pacino -- he is so blinded in his anger he pushes on. And we come
to the end of the film not thrilled that the villainous Shylock
has been outwitted but deeply saddened at how he has become an
accomplice in his own downfall.
The subsequent scenes would traditionally be played for comedy,
with Portia and her maid gleefully twitting their beaus for being
so cavalier about their keepsake rings, and Shylock's now
Christian daughter entering into a marriage with her newly
enriched (at her father's expense) husband. Instead there's an
airlessness about those final scenes. These are people very full
of themselves who are blind to the injustice they have allowed to
happen.
Playing "Merchant of Venice" as a tragedy rather than a comedy is,
I think, a very appropriate choice for modern audiences, making
palatable an otherwise problematic play. By putting the biggest
name in the cast -- Pacino -- in the role of Shylock, the
filmmaker's signal that it is his story that is unfolding, and the
rest is mere window dressing. It may not be as much fun as Ian
McKellan's "Richard III" or Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado About
Nothing," but that, I think is the point. [-dk]
----
And Mark responds:
Okay, let me get to your more nuanced response to my review. :-)
Like most other people, I think you want to dismiss the notion
that Shakespeare could have been bigoted. I think of it more that
he was just being what was considered a reasonable man in his
times. People seem so anxious to defend Shakespeare because he is
so revered. We are so anxious to think of him as having 20th
Century (or 21st) values. The attitude was that he was a genius
so he must think like we do today. It is just not true.
You point out correctly that Shakespeare never met a Jew in his
life. Perhaps that is true. Do you believe that it is necessary
to know a Jew to be bigoted? The Egyptian made a TV movie based
on the Protocols of Zion. The Iranians made a movie recently in
which Jews steal organs of Palestinian children to keep Jews
alive. I would guess the people who made these films never met
any Jews in their lives either. Does that imply to you that they
are not really bigoted? Shakespeare had the attitudes of people
of his day and those were bigoted attitudes.
Also, when the principal filmmakers of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE were
on Charlie Rose someone, I forget who, said it was not really
based on THE JEW OF MALTA but on an actual trial. Other than the
fact there arguably is a nasty Jew in each who is defeated in the
end the stories seems very different. What similarities do you
see?
I am not certain in the case of the Marx Brothers if we would say
they were racist. It may well be in a gray area. On the other
hand the lust for Christian flesh and the equating of it with
money are very traditional libels against Jews. The flesh thing
is a variant of the blood libel. You say the antisemitism might
have been invisible to Shakespeare's audiences. It may have been
as invisible to Shakespeare. In this respect he was probably a
normal man in a society in which everyone was bigoted by today's
standards.
Incidentally, I prefer to use the term anti-Jewish over
antisemitic. Antisemitism is a euphemism to be able to say, "I
don't hate Jews, I oppose Semites." You might look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Marr) which says, "Wilhelm
Marr (1819-1904) was a German agitator and theorist, who coined
the term "anti-Semitism" as a euphemism for the German Judenhass,
or 'Jew-hate'."
Shylock in the Radford film is like Tamora in TITUS ANDRONICUS.
We see each offended and each wants to take a disproportionate
revenge. As with TITUS ANDRONICUS we do not root for either side.
We just think it is bad that things went this far. Shylock's
revenge is probably much more disproportionate than is Tamora's.
And it is worse than even that because Shakespeare makes Antonio a
nice guy whose nicety includes spitting on these ugly Jews. That
was considered a virtue, or at least not a fault, in Shakespeare's
day.
I think Radford tries to subvert the intention of the play, but
with only limited success. We live in better times and I hope
they stay that way. [-mrl]
----
And Dan responds:
I think here's where we meet in the middle. My point is that
Shakespeare wasn't motivated to write the play because he hated
Jews, but that his play reflected the prejudices of his society
which--perhaps unthinkingly--he had absorbed. You will sometimes
hear that Walt Disney was an antisemite. More likely he was a
product the early 20th century Midwest. Neither was a Judeophile,
but neither were they people who considered hatred of Jews part of
their self-identity.
[And on the term "anti-Semite"]
I'm well aware of the origins of the word. I have adopted the
view I learned from the folks running the National Center for
Jewish Film to write "antisemitism" as opposed to "anti-Semitism,"
since the latter implies there is thing called "Semitism" which
one is against. [-dk]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical, the most profitable
musical of the 20th century, comes to the screen with a lavish
production. Unfortunately the story has been somewhat "younged
down" and some nonsense added. It is not ideal, but it still is
arguably the best dramatic adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel.
Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Most people I know of who like the story of THE PHANTOM OF THE
OPERA were introduced to it by Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical
version. I was not. I read the novel as a young teen because of
its connection to horror film. It is a rare popular horror story
that is not based on science fiction or the supernatural but on
events that could occur. In fact, in the novel LE FANTOME DE
L'OPERA Gaston Leroux purportedly wove together events that really
did occur at the Paris Opera House. It is claimed that there was
a vagrant dubbed "the opera ghost" living in the huge underground
of the Paris Opera House, down where there was a near-lake that
was used as part of the structure to support the stage. There
supposedly was an incident where a chandelier improperly fastened
came lose and fell on the audience. And the great diva of the
opera house really was named La Carlotta.
Leroux wove from these incidents LE FANTOME DE L'OPERA, the story
of Erik, a man who had a great genius, but whose face was
nightmarishly disfigured from birth. (The 1943 version ignored
the text and suggested the Phantom was scarred by acid, and most
versions have taken to borrowing the idea that the disfigurement
occurred later in a dramatic accident.) In the original text,
after a distinguished but macabre career in Europe (where he was
shown in a cage as a carnival freak) and Asia Minor (where he
designed royal palaces with a multitude of secret passages) the
mysterious Erik helped engineer the Paris Opera House. Then he
secretly retreated from the ugliness of the world to live in the
Opera House's lower levels so he could delight in the beauty of
the music that filtered down from above. He is drawn to a chorus
girl by the purity of her voice, which he thinks with his tutelage
he can perfect. That is the backstory and that is where the
narrative of novel begins. Leroux, incidentally, never tells us
Erik is physically attracted to Christine, though of course the
dramatic versions play up that possible interpretation just like
they play up the possible the sexual frustration of Stevenson's
Dr. Jekyll. Sex sells tickets and may make the characters'
motives simpler and more comprehensible to the audience. Erik
seems instead to want to possess her only to perfect her voice.
[The story of Erik can be found at
http://www.litrix.com/phantom/phant028.htm.]
Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage play, essentially an operetta, is
actually the most accurate to the novel of any of the familiar
dramatic versions. It is more so than even the Lon Chaney version
which made Erik a mad escapee from Devil's Island. Leroux's Erik
is not mad and not an escapee. He is, however, wholly
unscrupulous and his knowledge of the baroque building of the
Opera House makes him almost a super-villain. Webber's telling of
the story is good, but the success of the musical is probably more
attributable to the splendor of the production and the
approachability of the music. Webber is no genius when it comes
to writing a musical. He is just popular. His themes are
pleasant and neither inventive nor demanding. He may be to
musicals what McDonalds is to hamburgers. I never thought he was
particularly consistent in where he reuses themes so they cannot
be considered leitmotifs. Yet his music for a scene always comes
out at least appropriate and usually effective. Here he adapted
his stage script with director Joel Schumacher.
While the play did not go into Erik's background, the film does
and gets it wrong. Apparently they wanted Erik (unnamed in the
film and played by Gerard Butler) to be a romantic attraction so
they have toned down his deformity. They have done what they
could to make him handsome when the upper right of his face is
covered. His face looks more like a man with scars from a fire
than like Leroux's Erik. Webber also takes about twenty years off
his age. To do this they had to claim that after he was displayed
in a carnival, a la the Elephant Man, he immediately fled to the
cellars of the opera house. Without his experience of travel, his
genius seems inexplicable. The script has the character Joseph
Buquet give an eyewitness account of what the Phantom looks like
and what he describes is the Lon Chaney phantom, not the Gerard
Butler phantom. Butler's singing voice is not perfect, but it
probably fits his character and the experiences the character has
been through.
Further, for some reason, the events have been moved from the
Paris Opera House to a fictional opera house, the "Theatre Opera
Populaire." This makes little sense since the catacombs beneath,
the incident of the chandelier falling, and the presence of La
Carlotta all fit the real Paris Opera House. And Paris of the
1870s probably would not have two such luxurious opera houses.
These changes and moving the chandelier incident were probably
done to give the film more of a punch ending. Also the chandelier
incident was filmed in a way to explain why in the staging of the
play the chandelier seems to glide diagonally rather than simply
fall.
Also playing in the film are Emmy Rossom (who played the dead
daughter in MYSTIC RIVER) as Christine Daae in a performance that
hits all the notes, but does not do anything special. Patrick
Wilson plays a particularly bland Raoul who may be remembered only
because he dresses like Lord Byron and has shoulder-length hair.
Frequently he looks like something off the cover of a bodice-
ripper paperback. Miranda Richardson and Simon Callow are
underused while Minnie Driver does a surprisingly good turn as a
vain and thoroughly unpleasant La Carlotta.
With production design by Anthony Pratt, art direction by John
Fenner, and set decoration by Celia Bobak the film has almost too
much to see. The garish sets have almost too much visual detail
to take in and frequently are expressionistic. Perhaps taking an
idea from THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, the graveyard scene is
commanded by two stone colossi. Taking another idea from Jean
Cocteau, wall candelabra seem to be held in place by live arms in
a scene that is almost a dream sequence. Minutes later we see
candelabra emerge from under water already lit.
As he did with EVITA, Webber wrote a new song for film version of
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. But at least this time it is under the
end credits so it is not too jarring for an audience who knows the
music of the stage play by heart. THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is a
film with some glaring faults, but it still is a magnificent
production visually. I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or
7/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE AVIATOR (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Martin Scorsese's biography of Howard Hughes is full of
the stories about the eccentric billionaire, but fails to bring us
into the mind of the man. Instead of showing the inner self of
the man, we learn little more than we could have from newspaper
clippings. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Popular actors Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio each act in a
biographical film for the winter film season. It is valuable to
compare them and see how different they actually are. DiCaprio is
the flashy and high finance maven Howard Hughes in THE AVIATOR and
DiCaprio is the much more modest J. M. Barrie in FINDING
NEVERLAND. These are two very different men in two very different
films. Barrie's love of children was mostly a quiet and private
thing. Hughes's love of shiny planes and flashy women was
plastered across the headlines of the newspapers and gossip
magazines of the world. Because FINDING NEVERLAND focuses in on a
short segment of the man's life where only a limited amount is
known, the film could fill in the blanks and make Barrie a warm
and comprehensible man, someone you would want to know. The film
about Hughes is more a scrapbook of much that was said about
Hughes from his twenties on, positive and negative, but does not
reach inside the man. So much was said about Hughes that the film
must rush to retell enough of the stories in its somewhat bloated
160-minute length and there is no time for Martin Scorsese to
reach inside the man and make him more real than an icon. Praise
for FINDING NEVERLAND would be to say it was a warm and loving
film. Praise for THE AVIATOR would be to say that yes, it was
pretty much all there.
The film covers Hughes's career from his arrival in Hollywood with
apparently more money than sense. As the story begins he is
producing for his film HELL'S ANGELS some of the most impressive
aerial footage ever caught on film. (See the film if you don't
believe it. What he created without special effects was
unsurpassed until CGI.) But his answer to every problem is to
throw more money at it. For the film he has assembled the largest
private air force in the world and he needs 26 cameras to make it
all work. To get the last two cameras he even tries to borrow
them from Louis B. Meyer.
Hughes was the heir to an oil equipment fortune and could use his
money to get whatever he wanted. This included fast planes and
faster women. He was a movie producer who was frequently lucky
though rarely tasteful. He liked sexy actresses and cultivated
relationships some of the most beautiful and most high profile
women. This included Jean Harlow (played by Gwen Stefani),
Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett in a magnetic impression of
Hepburn), and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale)
As Scorsese paints him in THE AVIATOR, Hughes is not a genius when
it comes to aircraft. Instead, he could afford to put good people
on his payroll and then he could be very demanding. He happened
along at a time when there was a lot of progress that could be
made in aviation and with a feel for how air equipment could be
improved he demanded those improvements of his very good staff.
It was a method that worked for him and his staff was able to
deliver to him many cutting-edge to aircraft. He wanted the
thrills of the new planes the way he wanted the thrills he got
from young starlets. He test flew the planes that were made from
him, occasionally crashing.
Then came 1946 and the crash during his test flight of the XF-11.
Scorsese shows us the crash in graphic and horrifying detail and
we realize the man is breakable. Until that point he seemed
unstoppable. But in seconds his life was turned around, and he
nearly dies. His lifestyle had been fed by the excesses of the
Roaring 20s, not dulled by the Depression, and then had been given
new life by the government's demands for aircraft in the war. His
affluent life style during some of the worst economic years in the
nation's history brought him worldwide notoriety. In moments the
tide was reversed. THE AVIATOR shows this as the signpost of a
tragic reversal of Hughes's fortunes. In spite of setbacks he is
forever a high-roller, buying TWA, but the wolves sense his
weakness and bring him down. The plot of his life is actually
fairly parallel to that of Tony Camonte, the main character in his
own film SCARFACE. Both make the right moves and are amazingly
successful, but over-reach themselves and see their empires
crumble. Alec Baldwin plays Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan-
American Airlines, who is one who goes for Hughes's throat. Here
Baldwin plays essentially the same cool but deadly character he
played in THE COOLER.
While predators are picking at Hughes from without, the personal
demons of his own obsessive-compulsive nature are eating him from
within. A fear of microbes that his mother instilled in him as a
little boy ate him from within. Small things will drive him off
the track of a conversation. A piece of lint would drive him to
distraction. His manias drag him into insanity. We see all this
happening. Leonardo DiCaprio goes through all the steps and
actually manages to look like Hughes as it happens. But we don't
learn anything we did not already know about Hughes.
This film tells a lot about what the world thought about Howard
Hughes without peering too deeply into the enigma. But, yes, what
there is to know about Hughes's history is pretty much all there.
I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: KUNG FU HUSTLE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: From the director of SHAOLIN SOCCER comes this satire on
the Shaw Brothers martial arts films, which is live-action but
takes on the style of a cartoon. It is a very funny film, even
for people who are not kung fu enthusiasts. Rating: high +2 (-4
to +4) or 8/10
Very few comedies actually make me actually laugh out loud. I did
not have high expectations of a film with a title like KUNG FU
HUSTLE. Martial arts films usually do not do much for me. To say
I laughed out loud is one of the highest compliments I can give a
comedy. All my low expectations were dashed. This film written
by, directed by, and starring Stephen Chow was the funniest comedy
I saw in 2004.
The scene is the 1940s and the story opens in a police station
with a super-elite squad of police being mopped up by the
incredible force of one legendary street gang. I mean these guys
are really tough. After totally destroying the police the gang
walks out to the street only to run into The Axe Gang. The gang
that the police could not stop is in seconds wiped out by the even
more incredibly powerful Axe Gang. These are people in their
suits, ties, and top hats that never even get mussed and are not
to be trifled with. The Axe Gang members are mean and they are
powerful. They also dance very stylishly. Their influence has
spread just about everywhere but to a little slum called Pig Sty
Alley. This looks like just a normal low-rent section of
Shanghai. The residents play off of each other in very normal
ways. Living there is not easy and it has made the denizens
tough. Now the super-powerful Axe Gang wants to take over the
streets of Pig Sty Alley. The smart money would bet on the Axe
Gang. But then the smart money doesn't live in Pig Sty Alley if
it is really smart. The Axe Gang finds taming this one little
slum neighborhood will take more than they could ever imagine.
This wild satire of old Shaw Brothers' kung fu films is live
action but has the level of reality of a Chuck Jones cartoon. The
unexpected and hilarious happens time after time, catching the
viewer by surprise. The mammoth battles are outdone by the
supreme battle. The supreme battles are brushed away by the
ultimate battles and the ultimate battles are pushed aside by even
more absolute battles. Stephen Chow previously directed SHAOLIN
SOCCER, a film that enjoyed great popularity worldwide. After
seeing KUNG FU HUSTLE I rented SHAOLIN SOCCER. Stephen Chow seems
to get better with every film. I give KUNG FU HUSTLE a rating of
a high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: MODIGLIANI (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Andy Garcia plays Amedeo Modigliani in a disappointing
account of his relationship with his model and lover and with
Pablo Picasso. The film builds to a rather melodramatic finish.
It may be a true story, but it is a very familiar one,
nonetheless. Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4) or 5/10
Amedeo Modigliani as seen in this film is a self-indulgent, self-
destructive artist who ruins other people's lives. In many ways
Andy Garcia as Modigliani is a carbon copy of Ed Harris's
portrayal of Jackson Pollock in POLLOCK.
The scene is Paris just after the Great War, when many of the
great artists of the world came together. There is Pablo Picasso,
Diego Rivera, Jean Cocteau, Maurice Utrillo, Bartoleme Murillo,
Chaim Soutine, and Modigliani. The film begins with a woman
asking the audience, "Have you ever loved someone so deeply that
you are willing to go to hell for him?" Then the film flashes
back to one year earlier. Immediately I asked myself that if this
rhetorical question to the audience is a fiction, as it has to be,
how could you go back one year earlier from a rhetorical question?
Anyway, let that pass. The woman asking the question is Jeanne
Hebuterne (played by Elsa Zylberstein). Hebuterne was
Modigliani's lover and model. The cutting edge lights of modern
art meet and socialize and the center of this clique is Pablo
Picasso. Somewhat outside the circle is Modigliani who takes an
unreasoning hatred to Picasso, never explained but probably
inspired by jealousy. He is the bad boy of the artist scene and
tries to taunt Picasso with questions like, "How do you make love
to a cube?"
The center of writer-director Mick Davis's script is Modigliani's
stormy relationship with Hebuterne. Her father rejects the artist
because he is Jewish. Her mother thinks that it will do no good
to reject him because he is her daughter's destiny. (Do real
people talk like that?) Picasso and Modigliani seem to go from
liking each other to hating each other for no apparent reason.
Meanwhile Hebuterne has to make some very difficult choices
between her family and her lover. Modigliani himself is very
obviously self-indulgent to the point of using the people who love
him. He will not control his use of drugs and alcohol in spite of
his tuberculosis. It is hard to believe that everybody Modigliani
met was so famous and more likely that Davis likes to drop famous
names into the script. The delightful Miriam Margolyes (who also
graced BEING JULIA in the same Toronto film festival) plays
Gertrude Stein. At times the script borders on the pretentious.
In Davis's vision, Modigliani has conversations with an imaginary
figure of himself as a boy. The most engaging sequence of the
film is Picasso and Modigliani meeting the aging Renoir who
obviously has more wisdom than the two combined. But the film
moves to a melodramatic climax of rather banal irony.
Right in the middle of the film there is an abrupt change of style
with a strange montage of the great artists working. Everywhere
else in the film the photography is high contrast with subdued
earth colors. The sky is drenched in white. Suddenly in this
sequence we have a rainbow sky and music with a heavy beat with
what sounds like rap in French. It feels like it is from a
different film or perhaps a music video. It is a jarring
stylistic touch that seems really out of place.
If this were the only film ever made about a temperamental artist,
this film might have been more impressive, but the material is
just too familiar and we are given no reason to care if Modigliani
lives or dies. I rate this one high 0 (-4 to +4) or 5/10.
[As background on the character, here is an article on Modigliani
I coincidentally wrote in the past:
Amedeo Modigliani is considered to be one of the greatest portrait
artists of the 20th century and his paintings have sold for as
much as eight million dollars, yet during his short self-
destructive life of 36 years he knew very few moments of success
or recognition of his style. He often had to resort to painting
patrons of Paris cafes and bistros for as little as five francs a
picture. He burned himself out on drink, hashish, sex, and above
all his art. He left a distinctive and indelible impression on
modern art.
Modigliani was born in 1884 in Leghorn, Italy. His family were
prosperous Jewish merchants. As a sickly child he had to give up
on a higher education and instead studied art. Modigliani's uncle
paid for the art education but died when the young artist was 21.
The artist Amedeo decided to go to Paris, the Mecca of
contemporary art. There with a small allowance from his mother he
created art, conversed with some of the great artists of the day.
This was the time of the Dreyfus trial, when French anti-Jewish
sentiment was at its peak. To show solidarity with his fellow
Jews he signed his work "Modigliani--Jew."
The good-looking young man quickly became addicted to drink and
high life that he could scarcely afford. Most of his serious work
in this period was in sculpture of first wood (railroad ties), and
then limestone (building construction materials). He would often
use a geometric style that would carry over into his painting.
When World War I broke out in 1914, these supplies dried up and he
turned to painting to a much greater degree. He made his poverty
a little more comfortable as a cafe sketch artist. For a while he
lived with English poet Beatrice Hastings. He painted her more
than a dozen times and got side commissions painting portraits,
none paying very well. Drink and hashish often ate what profits
he made. But his work went from notable to exceptional. His
style in portraits was geometric form and elongated features.
By 1915 Modigliani's work was being exhibited at art shows and by
1916 a one-man show was scheduled, but canceled before it could
take place when police raided the art gallery and confiscated the
nude paintings that made up a substantial part of his work. His
work steadily developed, but the bad health of his youth had been
returning for years. In 1917 he married an art student and the
two would have been happy together were it not for his health and
his drinking. In 1918 Modigliani had a daughter. His work
started earning reasonable prices, but it was too late to save him
from his drinking and its effect on his health. Late in 1919 his
illness turned to tuberculosis and he began spitting up blood.
One story says that he went to a friend's house and said the
Jewish prayer for the dead for himself. In January he died and
his wife committed suicide the next day. As is so often the case
with artists, his work grew more and more popular after his death.
And today he is considered one of the great modern artists of the
century.] [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Bruce Chadwick's THE REEL CIVIL WAR (ISBN 0-375-70832-4) takes a
distinct "anti-Southern" position, but nonetheless offers some
interesting viewpoints on films about the Civil War. I say "anti-
Southern" because Chadwick seems to see any indication that
Southerners were brave, or noble, or had any higher feelings as a
denial of the brutality of slavery. The result is that he
criticizes any film that doesn't show the South and Southerners as
completely without redeeming characteristics. On the other hand,
he does cover a lot of films which were far too slanted towards
the South, and it's possibly that this tendency has led to a
backlash from him. It's certainly interesting to read about all
the forgotten Civil War films of the first half of the 20th
century.
Ruth Rendell's COLLECTED STORIES (0-345-35995-X) is an omnibus of
four earlier collections: THE FALLEN CURTAIN, MEANS OF EVIL, THE
FEVER TREE, and THE NEW GIRL FRIEND. MEANS OF EVIL is a
collection of Inspector Wexford stories; I earlier reviewed one of
Rendell's Inspector Wexford noels, BLOOD LINES (in the 08/13/04
issue). The rest are stories which involve crimes, but they are
not necessarily mystery stories per se. They seem to be part of a
sub-genre that encompasses John Collier and Jeffrey Archer--
stories with a "twist". They are also reminiscent in tone to the
works of Patricia Highsmith, though not quite as creepy. (I find
it interesting that even though it contains two Edgar-winning
stories, this is mentioned only in the back blurb, not on the
front cover. Apparently the only genre award that publishers
think worth trumpeting on the front cover is the Hugo.)
I finally managed to borrow a copy of Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI
CODE (ISBN 0-385-50420-9). Given that the wait list at the
library is ridiculous, I expected something better. It is full of
the Fibonacci numbers, the Mona Lisa, and Leonardo da Vinci, it is
not a difficult book to read, and it at least somewhat works as a
thriller, but I cannot see what the fuss is over it as some sort
of great revelation. Or rather, if it were a great revelation, I
could understand the fuss, but it is a work of fiction. The
puzzles seem alternately too obvious or so arcane that no one
could ever figure them out. For example, the knight's burial was
obvious. For other puzzles, it's as if you had a sequence
1,2,3,5, and were asked for the next number. It could be 8 (if
it's a subset of the Fibonacci sequence), or it could be 7 (if it
is numbers not divisible by any other number), or it could be 6
(if it is numbers whose representations can be written as a single
curve without crossing a point previously drawn), or it could be
something else entirely. Also, despite what most readers seem to
think, the premise is not new (HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL by Michael
Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln is probably the best
known book about the subject). And as many have noted, what Brown
presents as fact is not. (For example, amazon.com reviewer Penn
Jacobs points out that the interpretation of the Council of Nicea
and the history of the early Church is just plain wrong. And
artist Shelley Esaak discusses da Vinci's "Last Supper" at
http://arthistory.about.com/cs/last_supper/f/john_v_mary.htm.
And finally, characters' decisions at the end of the book are not
believable (to me, anyway). NATIONAL TREASURE, often compared to
THE DA VINCI CODE, may not have been more convincing, but it was
at least more entertaining. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Etcoff's Law: Be wary of scientific dualisms.
For example: Brain vs. Mind, Mind vs. Body,
Emotion vs. Reason, Nature vs. Nurture,
Us vs. Them