Then I have an awesome 4 part series from John Berger, who wikipedia tells me is "an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a college text."
No kidding. Anyway Ways of Seeing is actually a very interesting way to look at the purposes of visual art, how people perceive that art, and how the oil painting tradition of Western Europe has influenced how art is used today.
What I liked most about this series is how much Berger concentrates on personal reactions to art and keeping honest about what the messages these pieces of art are portraying. In the first couple episodes, he takes time to discuss art with first, a group of children and how they perceive a painting, and second, how a group of women feel about how women are portrayed in nude portraits. I think it helps his argument immensely by taking it outside of the blue-background studio where his talking head bits are recorded. The series also does a good job of letting a viewer make conclusions for themselves, quietly juxtaposing pictures, but then also emphasizing that this was on purpose to send a message. How meta!
Anyway, take 2 hours and watch the whole series. Part 1 of each episode and a description below:
Episode 1: An interesting view on how reproducing great works of art has decreased it's worth in terms of it's original intent/setting, but also how that has increased the value of works of art so much that it has become its own religion. He also touches on how cinematic elements changes art for a television screen.
Episode 2: How the female nude is different from just nakedness, how that is linked to female identity, and how the principles of female nudes in oil paintings are still seen today.
Episode 3: Berger discusses the messages from the oil portrait tradition (basically, "I'm rich"), and how paintings opened the doors for consumerism.
Episode 4: Focuses on modern advertisements and what they cause a consumer to do (imagine a potential future), and how that compares to oil paintings of the past. It also touches on how absurd it's become.
For whatever reason, I'm always keeping tabs on movies/tv shows/books that I will recommend future daughters/nieces/little girl BFFs. I'm keeping an eye for my fellow sisters, I guess. Anyway, I perused the young adult section of the library today and remembered that there are slim pickin's for anyone looking for something not obsessing about image or boys or wallowing in self pity (take a look at the series described as "Desperate Housewives for teens." Gag). Anyway, I'll just take whatever dreck future little girl in my life is watching/reading and burn it, and then make her watch Penelope.
Penelope is fairytale of sorts about a girl cursed with a pig nose thanks to an old family curse. Forced into hiding by an oppressive media, she meets possible suitors (fellow bluebloods) that can break her curse through a two-way mirror. Unfortunately, once she shows her face, men tend to run out of the second story window. One of her especially repulsed suitors (Cranford's Simon Woods) manages to leave before signing a gag agreement and tries to tell the media about the pig-monster that he saw. His only sympathy comes from a reporter (Peter Dinklage) who lost his eye in pursuit of this story years before. They hire Max (James McAvoy), a down on his luck gambling blue-blood with shaggy hair, to help break the story with pictures. Max becomes one of the suitors and while he's waiting to see Penelope's face, develops a friendship with her. But of course he's outed as helping reporters, and cast out of the house despite his affection for her.
So Penelope decides that she's had enough of being rejected and watching guys run out of her house and decides to go out to the real world with a scarf around her face and her mom's credit card. She soon meets leather wearing delivery girl Annie (Reese Witherspoon) who quickly befriends her, despite the scarf. Penelope learns to be on her own without her parents, and eventually takes the scarf off and learns to like herself--even with her nose.
Some things I like most about Penelope:
1. Penelope learns to love herself and become her own person first and foremost. The romance isn't front and center of the movie. For example, the reveal that Max is working for reporters isn't the biggest drama in the movie and happens fairly early on in the movie. If anything, the romance is just icing on the cake. Delicious, delicious icing on the cake.
A cute game of chess across the window where Max tries to convince Penelope to go out of the house with him.
2. Reese Witherspoon as Penelope's real world friend is adorable. I haven't seen Witherspoon in anything recently that I've enjoyed, so it was refreshing to see her play a low-key supporting role. And I enjoyed that the friendship seems genuine and sweet, like girl friendships should be.
Manic pixie dream girl?
3. It's stylized without being too twee. The set design and costuming are quirky, but not bizarre or wholly unrealistic. And the characters are a little stereotypical, but are refreshingly subdued. Even Catherine O'Hara's overbearing mother role keeps from getting too shrill.
Even the payphone is a little offbeat.
4. Christina Ricci is now officially my actress of choice for interesting girl-friendly movies. I may have been mildly obsessed with Casper, Golddiggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain, and That Darn Cat at certain times in my life. Penelope may or may not join that list now.
The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare's most ridiculous plays. I read part of it when I was a in a history of performance class as part of this heinous dramaturgy project that later got aborted. I never finished it, mostly out of the laziness of my heart, but also because I find reading Shakespeare plays really boring. Seeing a good production, however, is fun.
But The Taming of the Shrew is probably best seen live. I've never had that pleasure, but the play just cries for an audience to goad on the cruelty of both Katherina and Petruchio.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton spar in the 1967 film version of The Taming of the Shrew sporting great cleavage and a great beard, respectively.
I'm all for mutual insults. In fact, that's the backbone of many great romantic comedies (see: It Happened One Night, When Harry Met Sally). However, The Shrew takes a much discussed misogynist turn in which Katherina is "tamed" by physical, mental, and emotional torture by Petruchio. I can see that maybe being entertaining if done in a very joking and brash way since Petruchio seems to get genuine amusement out of the whole situation.
Physical domination: eeeeh.Please also note Elizabeth Taylor's intense eye shadow.
However, in a more faithful adaptation of the play seems to require a sudden and unexplained submission to by Katherina to her somewhat lunatic husband Petruchio. In that way, I wasn't quite sure I found Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 film version that amusing so much as mildly disturbing. I think there needed to be a bit more farce for it to be enjoyable, which the oft cut framing device seems to provide.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that it's a fairly outdated play that has always been a little creepy. However, the updated version part of the BBC's ShakespeaRe-told* in 2005 gives enough motivation behind both Katherine and Petruchio.
I find myself attracted to Rufus Sewell in his BAFTA nominated role as Petruchio. Mostly when he says "I want you to have all my babies." But I'm also impressed by how well he wears those boots on his wedding day.
Katherine (the pocked sized Shirley Henderson) is a politician who's goals to move up the ranks are threatened by her frighteningly temper and shrill yelling. Petruchio (Rufus "I'm actually quite endearing" Sewell) seems to have genuine affection for Katherine (in addition to his gold digging which he's rather upfront about), and his lunatic antics seem to be his crazy way to win her over.
That's about a foot difference in height. I find that endearing.
Plus, the ending speech where a woman's duties to her husband are enumerated are also applied to a man to his wife, thus making things more whimsical and less sexist. Although it's still odd.
I think I may be in love with this adaptation. Here's a little taste when our lid finds his pot:
Right? It's just ludicrously cheesy, but made for TV in Britain seems so much classier, right?
End notes: I didn't mention the Bianca and her many suitors storyline, but that's mostly because it's rather dull. Who wants to hear about the popular girl? Not me, unless you make her likable, like in the teen adaptation 10 Things I Hate About You (also, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt being one of the suitors makes that plot more endearing exponentially).
And for the curious both the 1967 and 2005 versions are found on YouTube here and here. Enjoy.
Raging Bull (1980) was nominated for many awards and is highly rated in many "best films ever" lists. It won Oscars for Robert De Niro's performance as the fallen boxing champion Jake La Motta and for best film editing by Thelma Schoonmaker. These are deserved awards. De Niro brings his A-game, ranging from a fit young scrapper to a fat has-been. And the boxing scenes are magical, combining classical music, quick editing, slow motion, and fog to an already legend-implying black-and-white film.
However, I did not care for this film. Never has Martin Scorsese's knack for capturing the male gaze been so apparent. Yes, the character La Motta is sexist, so having the film treat the women as mere objects of desire makes sense. But watching a man order a woman around as to how she can pleasure him is just sickening--if not tedious--to watch, not to mention the more blatant physical abuse. And even when the women in Raging Bull do fight back or divorce, it comes off as mere annoyance rather than a deeply emotional event. Again, this reemphasizes La Motta's perspective, but it sucks and I don't want to see it reemphasized in the film's overall perspective.
And besides my feminist rantings, Behind the Music and E! True Hollywood Story episodes have told the tale of the fallen star enough times that this film doesn't seem as fresh as it may have in 1980. I doesn't help either that I saw Casinobefore this, which has a similar De Niro/Pesci fighting about a blonde woman moments, just with less mafia and actual adultery.
In the end, I wish there was less sexist asshole and more boxing, for I could watch slow motion boxing set to Pietro Mascagni all day.
Opening scene from Raging Bull.
The Elephant Man, another heavily nominated film of 1980, appeals to my taste for the bizarre. The black-and-white filming in this case made the story of 19th century John Merrick, or the Elephant Man, seem more like an urban legend. Though an odd story about a highly deformed man, it's based on a true events (though the script sensationalizes some of the accounts found in The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences and The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity). It somehow walks a fine line between respecting the life of the Elephant Man and exploiting the fantastic elements in his life. It also managed to keep something that features sideshow freaks from getting campy and something so life-affirming from getting saccharine.
One of the most effective devices in showing John Merrick's journey from freak to full human is how the character is filmed. Certainly, Mr. Merrick's face has monstrous elements. The beginning of the film finds him being gawked at, first as part of a side show and later as part of Dr. Treves' anatomical lecture. David Lynch's decision to hide Merrick's face and body at the beginning borrows suspense-building techniques from horror films, keeping the audience in the same trepidation that the characters around him are. But as Dr. Treves' starts to bring out Merrick's humanness, mostly in the form of oral communication, he is finally shown on the screen as much as the other characters, no longer hidden behind is deformities.
The two main protagonists are played as good men without it coming off as sanctimonious. John Hurt, as John Merrick, manages to bring out genuine goodness and intelligence from behind the heavy makeup required for the role; Anthony Hopkins brings a clinical but kind air to his role as the anatomist Frederick Treves, with a healthy dose of conflicted feelings toward his treatment of Mr. Merrick. These two fit well into a film that in some ways almost feels like a Charles Dickens tale, with no good villains, dirty streets, and upper-class slumming.
But this is a David Lynch production, so it's not completely cheesy so much as vaguely surreal and somehow beautiful.
Opening scene from The Elephant Man.
Post script: Despite my obvious preference between the two films, I can't choose between these two gorgeous scores. Raging Bull makes violence beautiful with its use of Italian opera, while The Elephant Man finds beauty after a journey through strange and haunting circus themes. But they are both absolutely lovely soundtracks.
"Intermezzo" from Raging Bull composed by Pietro Mascagni (again, because I can't resist):
The romance of Italian opera.
"The Elephant Man Theme" from The Elephant Man composed by John Morris:
