Photography of a surrealist's friends and lovers
A dominant figure of Dada and Surrealism, Man Ray worked prolifically
throughout his career in Paris and Hollywood. Of the many media and forms in which he
worked, the current exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (up
from the National Portrait Gallery in London) brings together many of Ray's
photographic portraits, illuminating this facet of his art.
The 1930s Parisian portraits are joyfully vivid. The
artistic world, where everybody who was anybody was photographed by Ray, is
opened up to us – from fellow Dadaist Marcel Duchamp to Gertrude Stein, taking
in a heap of writers, composers and filmmakers. This is the Paris for which we
yearn. The panoply of celebrity continues throughout the exhibition's
chronology, including later portraits of Virginia Woolf, Pablo Picasso and
Catherine Deneuve and work for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Vanity Fair.
Beyond this voguish set, there are dazzling
works depicting Ray's series of muses: Kiki of Montparnasse, Lee Miller and his
wife of 37 years, Juliet. There is a hint of a more private world here, as well
as some of the exhibition's boldest artistry; it is in these works that the aesthetic
capacity of photography is pushed forward. The solarization technique Ray developed
with Miller is striking still, also featuring in a wonderful 1955 portrait of
Leslie Caron. Meanwhile, the famous, sublime Le Violon d'Ingres from 1924
encapsulates so much of its time and place (the exoticism of the turban, the
surreal violin f-holes and the exquisite beauty of Kiki herself) that it shines
of its own accord.
In concentrating on photographic portraiture, the exhibition only hints at the
breadth of Man Ray's innovation. Through the photographs and magazine spreads,
we glimpse other aspects of his prolific and playful work: assemblages, films,
a chess set, a preposterous smoking device. The portraits of Stravinsky, James Joyce
and Yves Montand are all marvellous to see. But perhaps most interesting of all
is how we imagine Man Ray's surrealist conceptions and constructions fitting into
his Paris–Hollywood world, as we see it through his portraits.
These thoughts on Michael Haneke's beautiful study of ageing I left unfinished in January, forgot about and have now rediscovered. Here they are, as a short review.
In their eighties, Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) live a comfortable life together in Paris. They were music teachers and they are still lovers of the piano and its music. This is Anne and Georges at the start of Amour, both captivating already. Then, Anne suffers a stroke and the film becomes a study of what happens next, as life inevitably unfolds. The relationship she shares with Georges is transformed and shaken, there is daily horror and indignity, difficult family relationships are exposed alongside reminders of past success.
Amour is a masterful film from director Michael Haneke, bleak but intensely emotional. There are moments which are frightening, especially that first attack, and Anne's continual decline is shockingly rapid. And though the film develops gradually, the pace is never slow. This is riveting cinema, and at its centre is the astounding acting of Riva and Trintignant. Meanwhile, dramatic impetus comes unobtrusively from the flash-forward of the opening scene – how did Anne's corpse come to be alone, undiscovered?
Haneke shows us human spirit as both resilient and fragile. The meaning of deepest love is first suggested to be, and then strongly tested as, a duty towards the person to whom we are attached and share our lives. Amour's uncompromising approach is underpinned by a fearless gaze at the response to a natural but unfathomable reality. The question at the root of the film is: what, in the end, does love entail? Instinctive protection perhaps, or an understanding of need. Haneke does not answer the question – in fact, I suspect he believes we can never know. We just have to wait; it is terrifying and wonderful.
9
Oh hi, blog.
Django Unchained hits us blasting and smirking, bestrewn
with Morricone and enormous type. This is unmistakably a Quentin Tarantino concoction.
But this time, 'unmistakable' suggests a lack of
surprise. Now, Tarantino cannot be boring and Django Unchained is
characteristically wild and precise in its execution(s). This is the story
of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) and a slave called Django (Jamie
Foxx), who travel through the Old South to rescue Django's wife (Kerry
Washington) from the control of a plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his
sinister house-slave (Samuel L. Jackson). It is entertaining, of course.
However, whilst always funny, brutal or smart, it does not
often enough mash all three together with the imagination of Reservoir Dogs or
Inglourious Basterds. They still coincide in key scenes, for instance the first
appearance of Waltz. He approaches two slavers and their 'property', and what
follows is a shock of amusing words ("Last chance, fancy pants") and cleverly
plotted mayhem. Waltz is bright and strangely convincing and, although Schultz
is not quite a match for Basterds' Col. Landa, he carries much of the film, taking
on its humour and human flaws and virtues.
Meanwhile, DiCaprio and Jackson inhabit Tarantino's line
between evil and charm. The director knows so well how to seduce us with such
characters. That line he paints is thick and lurid, unlike that etched in black
by Wilder and Hitchcock, and from it his films get their drive (certainly those
of the last decade). Here we have DiCaprio's sickening 'mandingo' fights, dogs
and hammer, all surveyed with a grin; the film kicks accordingly. Both
characters (DiCaprio's monstrous Calvin Candie and Jackson's monstrous Stephen)
get great and gleeful moments.
Tarantino has set out to emulate the spaghetti western in
Django Unchained, taking it to the South and piercing it with slavery. Doubt
starts to surface. Humour amid the bloodiest of violence, a feature of the
genre, does not always work (the bags-as-hoods skit raises a laugh, but feels out
of place). There are stylistic quirks and vintage Morricone cuts on the
soundtrack – but you had those in your movies already, Quentin. Are we to take
them at face value here? Having the spaghetti served up in a real-life, actual,
mock spaghetti western breaks the surprise. Then once Jamie Foxx starts to get
his Kill Bill on, those quirks seem to dissipate anyway; so by the time we
reach the huge set pieces and shoot-outs in the film’s final act, our sense of
place – Mississippi and Italy – has been lost.
Foxx is Django. The D is silent (this is a cool character). Django
is a sharp shooter and a sharp dresser. He is a man who loves his wife and is
bitterly injured by her foul treatment, which is atrociously believable. His initial
tussles with Candie are highlights and allow us to believe that at the centre
of Tarantino's audacious story is a fresh character capable of real power
and justice. But something is lost as he starts to deliver explosive revenge. He
is a cool character. He is an icon, a symbol, a Quentin Tarantino concoction.
Django is a vessel for violent catharsis – here to talk funny, act brutal and
look smart. For justice to be done, for African Americans to be emancipated on
the screen, he must be more than that. But it is entertaining, of course.
7.5
