Birdman
I think this is the best American film I have seen for years. I was about to say because the others are all superhero crap – but then so is this, in a way; not crap, but superhero. Michael Keaton is an ageing ex-superhero, Birdman, who is directing and leading in a Broadway version of a Ray Carver story, “What we talk about when we talk about love”. The preview stage has been reached and Keaton is struggling with self-doubt and contempt, an egomaniac co-star (Edward Norton, magnificent), a disaffected daughter recently in “rehab” (Emma Stone, also brilliant, below) …. and so on, can’t bother with all this exposition.
Anyway, the dialogue crackles, as does the jazz drum accompaniment, the story is absorbing and funny, sentimentality is kept in check (though not absent) and the acting is great, as are the long takes following the actors’ tracks backstage and out of the theatre in one memorable scene.
I can’t resist the urge to spot resemblances that has often (always?) been a feature of this blog; I glimpsed Gene Hackman in Keaton, Helen Mirren in Naomi Watts, Matthew McConnaughey in Edward Norton, Richard Dreyfuss in Zach Galifianakis – and in the huge-eyed Emma Stone, Lucian Freud’s painting of Kitty Garman strangling the kitten, below. Well, just the eyes really – and Kitty is just holding the kitty….
London Art Fair, Islington Business Centre
Unfortunately, this is only on for another day, but I daresay that some of the paintings below will still be unsold, if you want to buy them (although the first four are not for sale, being part of the Chichester Pallant House Gallery’s exhibition-within-the exhibition, so to speak).
Frank Auerbach, Reclining Head of Gerda Boehm – the best painting in the building, a more intense blue than appears here
Walter Sickert, Jack Ashore – you can see Jack in the background, but he’s not the main focus really – look at her left thigh; it’s made up entirely of loose dabs and strokes of white. I’m not sure why this is good, but it is.
Peter Lanyon – didn’t get the title;
Robyn Denny – again, no title, and I’m not sure that this is the right way up. It’s great though, from when he was doing AbEx stuff before going geometric and minimal.
The following were from various galleries showing at the fair:
Keith Vaughan
Keith Vaughan again – Two Figures
Margaret Mellis – love that red
Cadell – Ben More and Mull
Fergusson – Still Life with Fruit – I love these Scottish Colourists; there’s also a Melville, the Glasgow Boy, in the same display.
William Gear – Two landscapes, 1947 and 1948
Peter Kinley, Figure on a Bed, 1975
…and, as usual, several great Roger Hiltons, Allan Daveys, Gaudier-Brjeska figure drawings, Prunella Clough, John Golding – great stuff.
Conflict Time Photography, Tate Modern
Revisited this (see previous blog) and found a couple of things I missed last time:
- The collection of photos of Northern Ireland – irritatingly, these go up the wall too high to see them all properly (they are small), but there are some interesting ones low down – a couple of men or boys, tied up and covered with whitewash (?) wearing placards; one proclaims him to be a drug dealer to “underage children”). Also, the huge photo of a riot which seems to involve throwing of milk cartons – what does the big red circle indicate?
- The series of photographs of relics of Hiroshima. The lunchbox of a schoolgirl, contents carbonised; no sign of the girl. The uniform tunic, discovered in branches of a tree, of a schoolboy; no trace of boy. Single lens of eyeglass of a housewife; piece of skull found some weeks later.
- The odd, but fascinating jumble of photos and memorabilia contained in the little sub-exhibition of “the Archive of Modern Conflict”.
Still haven’t done any proper painting for a while, so some life drawings to fill the gap.
Life Drawings
Blackpaint
24.01.15
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