Blackpaint 627 – 20th Century Wars, Vampires and Top Shots

Cold War (dir. Pavel Pawlikowsky, 2018)

Polish film, black and white, concentrating on a love affair within a folk music collective in the early 50s.  The musical director starts to have sex with a young and talented performer and the affair deepens for both of them, as communist politics are increasingly imposed on the material and performances of the ensembles.  Folky tributes to comrade Stalin have to be performed to ensure the enterprise can continue.  MD defects in Paris, talented young performer stays.

The affair continues when she also defects a year or so later – but they row drunkenly and she swans off back to Poland in a huff.  And so it goes, through the 50s and on; can’t live apart, can’t live together.  At last, it’s resolved, in a way that recalls scenes from Bela Tarr’s “Satantango” and the end of Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”.  Not the resolution, that is, but the setting in which it takes place.

The music of the various ethnic groups heard in the film is fabulous and strange; there is some terrific jazz piano.  Sex is presumably problematic for #Me Too enthusiasts, since the girl is quite young at the beginning of the film, the man older and in a position of some authority – not that I’ve heard or read any adverse comment.  Foreign film, not lascivious, so presumably it’s OK.

Aerial Top Down Shots (cont.) –  

Tried to keep track of these as I said last time, but they are everywhere now – not only in the classy drama  and nature progs and adverts, but even in “The One Show”.  Almost obligatory.

The Night Porter (dir, Liliana Caviani, 1974)

Great transgressive film, big scandal at the time – Dirk Bogarde as a Nazi version of Aschenbach, Charlotte Rampling in braces, singing and posing for the camp guards and being rewarded with a severed head.  But even here, I find some unlikely similarities to “Cold War” (forbidden love, obsession, fascist/communist opposition to the couple, suicide).

Dracula, Bram Stoker.

Just reread this and I was surprised to find it was one of those books (Lord of the Rings, Stephen King’s “It”) where a sacred fellowship is formed to perform the impossible task of – saving the world, basically.   But,unbelievably, after losing poor Lucy to the Nosferatu and having to stake her through the heart and cut her head off to save her soul – they leave Mina to sleep alone, so that Dracula can get at her.  I see I have written “Unbelievably”…

Nevinson at British Museum, Print Room (room 90)

OK films over – now for the pictures on walls.  Nevinson was in a medical unit at or near at the front in WW1 for a few months.  He became one of the leading British war artists, along with the likes of William Orpen, and Paul Nash.  my favourites below.  the second is, of course, not a war scene, but a street in New York.  There’s a great view through a Paris window that’s just like  a Matisse…

 

 

Richard Smith at Tate Britain

This has reappeared on the wall at TB; meant to put it up last time but forgot.  I think of it as the lion’s mane.

I’ve finally done some painting again and the results are below.

 

Isthmus

 

Flayed 

 

Crashing Out

Blackpaint

28/09/18

 

 

Blackpaint 626 – Talking Pictures, Blake and his Followers – and the Demon

Talking Pictures Channel

This is worth checking every night, if you are (like me) a fan of British cinema in the 50s, 60s and 70s; three recent offerings below.  They tend to come round again in a week or two.

Live it up (dir. Lance Comfort, 1963)

Steve Marriot, later of the Small Faces, third from left, shouting at the back of Heinz Burt’s head.  A group of GPO dispatch riders form a beat group led by David Hemings and go through a set of unlikely adventures, before getting their inevitable hit.  It features Kenny Ball’s Jazzmen, Sounds Incorporated, Gene Vincent and Patsy Ann Noble.  The blond Heinz Burt of the Tornados looks, on his motorbike, rather like Sting on his scooter in the much later Quadrophenia.

Villain (dir. Michael Tuchner, 1971)

The great Richard Burton as a London gangster, clearly with a touch of Ronnie Kray.  Here he is with his boyfriend, Ian McShane.  There’s a good payroll robbery, lots of claret flying about; McShane has an interesting abstract mural over the bed in which he entertains his rich “dolly birds”, as they were known in those unenlightened days.  I remember seeing the trailer for this years ago; Burton glares at the rubberneckers as he is arrested and roars: “Who are you looking at?”  Back comes the answer from the posh voiceover: “You’re looking at the face of a villain!”  Nostalgic scenes of railway arches and wasteland around Battersea Power Station.

Night of the Demon dir.Jacques Tourneur (1957)

With the great Niall MacGinnis as Karswell the satanist (MacGinnis played Captain MacMorris in Henry V).  That’s the demon in the picture, by the way, not MacGinnis.  The film is based, loosely, on the MR James story, “Casting the Runes”.  Brilliant demon, very convincing; sure I’ve seen him on some Italian cathedral walls…

Tate Britain, Blake and followers

In the upper reaches of Tate Britain, reached through the Turner galleries, are two rooms, one devoted to William Blake, the other to various followers.  I’ve included pictures by Ceri Richards and Stanley Spencer, which I think are great and as a contrast, one of several by Cecil Collins – which are perhaps not so great.

 

Ceri Richards, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night…

That owl with the shroud looks very Graham Sutherland to me.  At first, I thought the corpse was a dead bloodhound…

 

Cecil Collins

 

Stanley Spencer, The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon (1921)

 

Elsewhere in Tate Britain – 

Ceri Richards, Two Females

Painting and collage, almost a sculpture really; by way of contrast with the one above.

 

Peter Lanyon, Wreck

A favourite of mine is now back on the wall at TB.  Noah’s Ark jumps the shark – and the red guitar.

 

Malcolm Drummond, Girl with Palmettes (1914)

Fabulous portrait by Drummond, a member of the Camden Town Group, who died in 1945.  I love those patches of pink and green on her neck and face.  Though it was a Scottish Colourist like Cadell or Fergusson at first.

 

Top Shots – 

– or top down aerial shots, as I believe they are correctly known.  These are the ones you often now get on opening credits, that once would have involved a helicopter or light plane.  Presumably drones are now used and top downs are everywhere.  Examples on British TV (although not necessarily British made): Cardinal, Wanderlust, Picnic at Hanging Rock; think I’ll count them this week.

Two pictures of mine, this week:

Bloody Glacier

 

Ochre Bolt Hole

Blackpaint

4/09/18