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suzannnemillerhistoryandresearch · 1 year ago

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Suzanne Miller art history documents

Suzanne Miller returned to her hometown of Toledo, Ohio in the early 90s to complete her long-worked-on degree in Art History. This is deeply moving, considering her being an active part of art history itself. Suzanne Miller was awarded her diploma and BFA in Art History in May, 1994, shortly before passing from a previously-unknown illness. Her groundbreaking and vital work is housed at the University of Toledo's Ward Cannady Center. It is a great treasure of truly important writing and art.

Collages/boxes/objects by Suzanne Miller, later 1980s

CASTLE HOWARD

"Villas and Palaces, 1963" class paper 1993 or 1994

If you read in the newspaper that Woody Allen had submitted his design for Secretary Bentsen's new country house, you'd probably think it was a joke or a mis-print. Conversely, if you read that among Frank Lloyd Wright's posthumous papers there was discovered a batch of hilarious, rollicking comedies that he had written in the yawning intervals between architectural visions, you might find that hard to credit, because this is 1993 and artists tend to stay within a narrower range. In the 1700's an educated gentleman could pursue a number of arts and sciences and practice them if he excelled. Nevertheless it seems inexplicable that someone who had never studied architecture formally nor built anything should have been given such an important commission as the third Earl of Carlisle, Charles Howard granted to John VanBrugh, successful author or hilarious, rollicking comedies. There could be several things to consider: first, VanBrugh had spent four years in France at a time of splendid building, draughts of palaces and churches were available in print shops, so it is quite possible he was able to impress Lord Carlisle with his knowledge of the French principles of planning and his understanding of the grandeur and plasticity of architectural design. The second would be his knowledge of the theatre which like architecture is an intensely visual art and interestingly, movable scenery was coming into vogue. But more important, both arts are concerned with human beings and their activities in artificial surroundings. It's a matter then of scale and materials and imagination. His personality may have been a third factor as he was well-known for his wit and jovial nature.1

The early and the architect met most probably at the Kit Kat Club which by its' silly name doesn't sound promising and a gathering place of the educated elite which is what it was. As a young man, Charles Howard had been sent on the requisite Grand Tour all the way down to Italy where he saw Palladio's Rotunda, Roman buildings, Renaissance paintings and other things which greatly impressed him. When he succeeded to the title he took up parliamentary politics and was a patron to paints, sculptors and cabinetmakers when he decorated his London house. He owned Carlisle, a territory in York far up in the north of England, as far as possible from the culture and sophistication of London. The surroundings were small farms, its architecture entirely of the vernacular with no classical motifs anywhere. Around 1698 he conceived the idea of building a house up north that would be one of the most grandiose and flamboyant private houses in Europe. No one researching then or since can discover just why he wanted to build on such a scale but some guesses have been to show the status of the Howard family which stretches back to the middle ages. He had a passionate interest in heraldry as is shown by his library catalogue. 2

Before beginning, VanBrugh spent a summer visiting and studying various great houses in England. One precursor of Castle Howard would have to be Chatsworth where we find some motifs that may have impressed VanBrugh: fluted pilasters, the ornamental frieze and pediment, urns on the balustrade. We know, however, through his stream of letters that his plans for Castle Howard were already drawn before he reached Chatsworth. And of course the inspiration of the dome, the first to be built on a private house in England, transformed the design from a main block, which is more conventional to visual magnificence. 3

If VanBrugh was fortunate in his patron, he was as well in his colleague, Nicholas Hawksmoor, who as an architect long associated with Christopher Wren had the expertise to translate VanBrugh's ideas. He knew as well how to draw up contracts and rates of payment. It has, however, been well established that VanBrugh was entirely and exclusively responsible for the ideas for the house. Hawksmoor could do the math.4

What kind of a house is Castle Howard? It would be inadequate to describe it as a country house any more than you would call it St. Paul's the parish church of London. It is not in the vernacular of English architecture, at the time it was not universally admired. The understanding of buildings like Castle Howard and the

Blenheim Palace require a sense of historical development of Renaissance and Barqoue art. Castle Howard is in the monumental heroic style for which we have to look back to MIchelangelo. In an essay on St Peter's Goeffrey Scott says: "MIchelangelo has got away from the conception of architecture as a boy of classical bricks, limited and fixed in shape, to be arranged, and treats his units of design as high-handedly as in the dome he treated his laws of structure. He conducts, as it were, an orchestra of forms. These are 'liberties' which constitute 'Baroque' architecture culminating in Brammante, which have a law and logic of their own. It would be more exact to say that MIchelangelo sought to stress the energetic rather than the static physical implications in architectural forms."5

Knowledge of engravings and illustrated editions of Serilo and Palladio would not be sufficient to explain the "new manner" manifest in Wren and VanBrugh which could be characterized as a feeling for mass and for movement. Movement is hard to define in architecture since naturally nothing actually moves, but the sense that as you walk around the exterior of this kind of building, new compositional effects are continually presenting themselves, so you have an elaboration of recessions and projections in their facades.

The essentials of the design of Castle Howard are these: a central block crowned above by a high dome and flanked by two wings supported on a rusticated basement. The north facade or entrance facade have four pairs of Doric pilasters reaching two stories, the south facade or garden facade have equally enormous pilasters in the Corinthian order. One of the secrets of the facades is the alteration of plain surfaces with decoration. The south front pilasters have deep fluting which contrasts with the generally horizontal lines giving a dramatic balance. On the north side the pilasters are smooth but the vertical contrast is achieved by the eight niches along side the pilasters containing urns and statues. The immense scale of the facade is underlined by the two pillars at the door which look miniaturized beside the hight of the pilasters. The dome dominates the facades and although it was the first to be used for a private house, there is nothing hesitant or timid about it. it rises up on a tall drum as boldly as on any church.

it must be admitted that when examining Castle Howard we are confronting an theatrical illusion. Namely, that it looks and feels like a much larger house than in it is if the floor space is calculated. Instead of being a single block, two wings are pulled away form the main block, so to speak, and extended perpendicular to the main block. All the apartments are lined up for 300 feet on the South front, but in between the North and South fronts on either side of the Great Hall are blank spaces which nevertheless can't be seen from any exterior viewing. The house appears enormous with the grandeur Lord Carlisle and VanBrugh intended, an effect of controlled, ceremonial magnificence. One can see that this ingenuity in the use of space could have its disappointing side for some in that the visitor may feel the smallness of the rooms belie the grandiosity of the exterior. A feeling that expectations are not fulfilled inside. This is a fair criticism. Another criticism at the time was that because the two facades are of different architectural orders, the one Ionic, the other Corinthian, that the building presents a sense of unrelatedness, a lack of conformity, disjunction. This may be defended as Hawksmoor himself did on the grounds that "the North and South side can never be seen at the same time nor together from any diagonal." 6 Still it does infer that the building can't be contemplated in the mind as a satisfactory unit with all its elements interrelated. My view is that if you respond to the dynamic vitality of the pile, that would not dissuade you from admiration. To the extent that a house of such assertive grandeur could be said to belong to its surroundings, Castle Howard is harmonious to its environs in that all the stone for the house was quarried on the estate within the boundary of the park, while the limestone used for paving and courtyards came from another quarry within the vicinity.

From time to time building had to stop due to lack of funds so that although most of VanBrugh's design was realized, the East wing was not built until later by Thomas Robinson, a son-in-low of Lord Carlisle who clearly was unsympathetic to the masterpiece he nearly ruined, probably due to his association with Lord Burlington, a critic of the house the advocate of a movement for purer Palladian style that was to prevail. 7

Before judging such buildings as Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace it is important to understand what VanBrugh took to be the needs of his respective patrons. These were in part public and ceremonial and private and familial. As he stated himself, his priorities were "State, Beauty, and Convenience." He satisfied the first in his use of great halls, saloons and state suites. As to Beauty, it might be useful to note his colleague Christopher Wren on the subject in a fragmentary document published at the time in the Parentalia: "Views contrary to Beauty are Deformity, or a defect of Uniformity, and Plainness, which is the Excess of Uniformity; Variety makes the Mean. Varieties of Uniformity make Compleat Beauty: Uniformities are best tempered alternately or sometimes with more Variety." 8 As to convenience, he designed an arrangement of suites with drawing room, bedroom, dressing room and a cabinet or study to each suite, with a way out of each suite independently without having to pass through an anteroom. This meant that the patron could be protected from clients or petitioners he might not wish to see. This brings us to VanBrugh's introduction of the corridor in his design. This feature was as yet so little used that the architect had to explain the meaning of the word at times. He lined all the private apartment rooms along the South front and linked them by a 300 foot narrow, high-vaulted corridor. On the other side of the Great Hall he has another corridor which links the kitchen in the West wing to the dining palour with enough distance to avoid the noise and smells of the kitchen but not so far away that cold food would be the consequence, something which couldn't be avoided in the greater expanse of Blenheim Palace.

When turning our attention to VanBrugh's interior style, particularly the Great Hall, we find him using his architectural imagination with great freedom, especially in the Corinthian order of the massive piers under the dome. He also uses the idea of surprise vistas down the superbly vaulted corridors and in the Great Hall no staircase is allowed to break up and diminish the immense unbroken space. He places the stairs behind arches at each side of the hall so one gets glimpses through to arches to the stairwells beyond.

Sadly the beautiful ceiling, dome and wall paintings by Pelegrini were destroyed in a fire around 1928 so only photos remain of how light and exhilarating they must have been. 9

It would take another paper to describe the many splendors situated around the grounds of the estate, among them the beautiful Temple of the Four Winds, a mausoleum, obelisk, pyramid, gateways, walls and magnificent 40 acre wood allowed to stand in its natural state with its mature trees and only organized by winding paths.

Sometime around 1967, a philosopher/statesman, Sir William Temple wrote an essay in which he explored the possibilities of irregularity or asymmetry. He speaks of people who have lived among the Chinese who say in effect that anyone can plant things in a row, but to distribute them without apparent order and yet to achieve beauty is was the greatest reach of imagination. VanBrugh may not have read this essay but it is the same spirit of working with nature not just for control that the decision was made to leave the Wray Wood standing. Here is the approach to Castle Howard as described by Nigel Nichelson, "A sense of expectation is being created, as by the tuning of an orchestra before the curtain rises." 10

My fascination with Castle Howard goes back to the time I first saw it as the house used in the television movie of Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited. There is a seen in which one of the main characters, Sebastian, takes his new friend out in a car with the intention of showing him his family house, or more precisely to meet his nanny. He drives the car through a wooded area, along a silvery lake and suddenly there in the distance, past the lake up on a swell in the land is the most tremendous apparition of a domed structure all alone out there in the countryside with its complex silhouette, a varied skyline of urns, statues and domes. It stopped my breath for a moment. What was this place? Where was it? were questions that came to mind. The credits gave it as Castle Howard, Yorkshire. Yorkshire! What was such a grand place doing way up north so far from London? I wanted to know all about it and yet I didn't. I rather loved keeping it a mystery. This course of Villas and Palaces signaled the time to let the mystery be enlightened and study. This has proven to uphold Spinoza's view that intellectual understanding of a work of art increases one's pleasure. I have learned some things about this building and it still fascinates.

Castle Howard is still the home of the Howard family although according to Simon Howard currently in residence, members of the visiting public believe that the Marchmains of Brideshead still live there and want to know if Sebastian is still drinking too much! 11

NOTES:

THE BUILDING OF CASTLE HOWARD: Charles

Saumarez Smith, The University of Chicago Press, 1990

Ibid

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SIR JOHN VANBRUGH,

The Letters edited by Geoffrey Webb, The Nonesuch Press,

1928

THE BUILDING OF CASTLE HOWARD: Charles

Saumarez Smith, The Univeristy of Chicago Press, 1990

THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE: Gervase

Jackson-Stops and James Pipkin, Little Brown and Company,

1985

THE BUILDING OF CASTLE HOWARD: Charles

Saumarez Smith, The Univeristy of Chicago Press, 1990

MASKS AND FACDES: Madaline Bingham, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1974

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SIR JOHN VANBRUGH,

The Letters edited by Geoffrey Webb, The Nonesuch Press,

1928

THE BUILDING OF CASTLE HOWARD: Charles

Saumarez Smith, The University of Chicago Press, 1990 10. GREAT HOUSES OF BRITAIN: Nigel Nicholson, David R.

Godine, Publisher, 1989

11. THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE: Gervase

Jackson-Stops and James Pipkin, Little Brown and Company, 1985

EDNA BY CAMILLE

Professor Barlowe's Literary Criticism Class

11/2/93

My paper would interpret the character of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's story "The Awakening" applying her choices and fate the statements published by one particular feminist, Camille Paglia.

This feminist has placed herself in an opposing position to what she perceives as directional errors in current feminist trends. She writes, "I'm not trying to get rid of feminism. I'm trying to reform it, to save it, to bring it into the twenty-first century..." P. 274 in Sex, Art and American Culture. She has been called a neoconservative, a reactionary, and a pain in the neck in many quarters. She calls herself a dissenter and names her new "system" (my quotation marks) Italian Pagan Catholicism. Leaving aside the Catholic position on abortion and birth control and the appaling activities of Mother Theresa in India, the Church's chief propagandist and how Paglia would justify this, I would concentrate on her brand of feminism as it might apply to Edna. Briefly, it would go something like this: Edna, far from being someone who should represent a danger to the male, but female-in-collusion societal structure as she was historically viewed and suppressed should be seen as a hopelessly ineffectual defeatist, and failed Romantic.

Pagila would see Edna as a wealthy, pampered woman who never thinks beyond her circumscribed world even when she's looking at the sky. Edna is her own obstructionist. As she observes the women in her world, Adele seems consumed by her role as wife and mother. Edna finds both roles inadequate to her longings. One might look to a wildly heightened paralell in the perpetually pregnant mistress of Franz List and the liberated George Sand in the movie IMPROMPTU.

Another model for Edna, Madmoiselle Reisz, a professional pianist, is seen by Edna as paying too great a price for her art, as disagreeable and somewhat friendless. Her one sustaining bond with life is her love for Robert, as in "life's delirium" (PG 76), "The Awakening". Edna concludes that her love for Robert will end someday and indeed she hastens that end. Edna's failure in Paglia's view would be in her inability to "take personal responsibility for her own identity" P. 36, Sex, Art and American Culture. She chooses death instead.

Paglia avows that she wants a "feminism that stress courage, independence, self-reliance and pride." P. 304 Ibid. These strengths are renounced by Edna because she never attained them. Paglia, moreover, is again and again vehemently impatient with the presentation of women as victims and a lack of understanding of the tremendous influences of the dominant culture. Paglia wants a society in which the above qualities were encouraged in women, instead of self-sacrifice, marital ownership and biological determinism. But Chopin is describing a society in which such aims are not only discouraged but punishable and despite some advances are still prevalent if not increasing in more violent forms. It is not ultimately fear of punishment that disheartens Edna fatally, but, I would suggest, the terrifying loneliness of choice.

The Meaning of the Mark David Rosand

Transcription or original writing - unclear

1. Leonardo was the son of a notary part of whose function was to write documents. Probably Leonardo learned at an early age how to form his letters. His first preserved drawing dates 1473, is a landscape with deep perspective and is considered a key monument in the development of landscape representation. At the top is an inscription in a graphically flurry of panache which suggests how much he enjoyed writing as well as drawing.

The next sheet we have of his features two male heads looking at each other, one old, one young. Above is an inscription with even more elaborate flourishes, so much so that writing becomes drawing.

By drawing Leonardo could explore the study of contrasts, youth and old age, horse and lion. This dialectic was Leonardo’s preferred mode. He draws parallel profiles Eventually he codified his researches in physigonomy, as a teaching devise. He uses the nose, mouth, chin and forhead. He shows three types of noses; concave, convex and straight. He is not pretending to catagorizes natures variety but to be used as an aid to memory. It is through the contour line that he commits things to memory therby making them available to the imagination. “When you wish to remember something you have studied do this: when you have drawn the same object so many times that you have it in your memory, try to execute it without the model.” Leonardo later discovers a correspondence between the form of motion in nature and the motion of his own hand in drawing. With pen or chalk in hand Leonardo saw better, as in the complex movements of water. His drawings of water are not diagrams, they are theoretical images of how water must behave. He knew that outlines did not occur in nature, but rather are a useful convention, but for all his deep pictorial involvement with aerial perspective, sfumatura and chiarosuro, he could still concieve of the world as a dynamic linear system. “The air is full of infinite lines straight and radiating, intersected and interwoven, without their displacing one another, and they represent for every onject the true form of their cause.” On the basis of hand, eye cordination he is actually aware of the process: “When you are drawing and beginning a line, be sure to look over the whole body that you are representing for whatever may lie in the direction of the line you have begun.” The act of drawing is an act of projection, of self-projection. Drawing records what has been seen and is known, but not after the fact: it is simultaneous with, identical to perception. Line made the world imaginable.

3. Saul Steinberg

Paul Klee 1. An active line on a walk

2. the same line, accompanied by complementary forms.

(SEE DETAIL IN FILE Suzanne Miller Steinberg Klee)

2/25/94

Our class was privilged to view the Rubens exhibition at the museum today. One of the attendants, without looking at our tickets didn't want to let us in. She was a rude, snappish sort of person who when she realized her mistake, apologized in an equally rude manner! Some people, who totally lack charm, should not be allowed near the public! Ms. Autry, a sensitive, civilized person, seemed baffled by the woman's behavior. In the Age of Vulgarity I am always grateful if not amazed when people are courteous.

I'll try to put my mind on re-wind and play over some impressions without trying to formulate them as yet. First Rubens, an early work, a large male nude and great bird pecking at his liver! I remember the myth of Prometheus who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. Surely one of the first Mediterranean Martyrs. Rubens presents him with all that glorious musculature learned in Italy. It made me think how wonderful nudity must have looked in cold climates with people always bundled up and hidden beneath masses of clothing - no central heat of course. Rubens gave them flesh that spoke of wealth.

I'm jumping around - energy, bold diagonals of the foreshortened body, the eagles wing span. Close-up. Long shot in the corner landscape. Film can't do that, not quite.

Rubens' small oil sketches, all that vitality in a small space. There is something in Shakespeare ... "Though I may be bounded by .. ? .. I count myself as a king of infinite space." Too bad my library is all in cardbaord boxes else I could look it up. But the idea was there again when after lunch, coming upon the Rembrandt etchings in the hallway. There was Amsterdam, a precise set of tiny marks on the horizon! The world in inches, no, fraction of inches.

And another thing, how Rembrandt and Ruisdael unnervingly select the right line, or mark that says bark, leaf, clump of earth, roof, whatever, this multitude of marks, this variety of strokes is greatness and I feel so blessed to be able to recognize it.

Now i see the rude woman at the counter in a new light she is a guardian at the gates of Paradise. I became the Romantic at the drop of a hat pin. Must look at the Dutch - look at life and don't flinch!

Rubens - Rembrandt, contemporaries. Poles apart. And where is Van Dyck, a quiet genius waiting in the wings when he steps on stage, what he has to say! I'll have to wait and find out.

Meanwhile we are in Holland and last night it snowed and I really was in Holland, not just in these studiest but outside my door shovelling a path to the driveway, loking around me. The trees showing their bare branches against the sky, a landscape, the mirror image of which hangs on the museum wall! I am learning to see with Dutch eyes.

3/2/94 Outside Question

What would you choose to paint, collect or write about and why, in 17th century Dutch art.

Written by Hannah De Groot, 1662, Amsterdam

When my dear husband died here in Amsterdam he left me a wealthy widow. Our son runs his father's shipping business so I am free to indulge my passion for art. My husband was a most tolerant man in most things but he took the Protestant sanction against religious images too seriously in my opinion. He would however agree to my purchases of landscapes, or still life paintings and so I began to be a collector. I enjoyed seeking out among the many artist living and working in our busy city, the very best I could find and learning how to compare their achivements. There were few critics to guide me in this so I trained my eye by looking at copies and engravings of past masters. This, however, was not always helpful because our artist had often gone in a different direction from the great Italians. The pictures our artist were painting looked so much like our life itself. I soon learned, however, that they were far more than mere copy-cats of nature. They were profound students of nature who used their skills and observations to make effects of light or imaginative arrangements. For example we purchased a painting of flowers by Ambrosius Bosschaert which show didn't bloom at the same time of the year. Each is so carefully observed and placed just so each seems an individual. The artist combined these so we could enjoy them during the long winter months. My husband greatly appreciated still-lifes of objects which remind people of the transience of life. He liked explaining to guest what each of the objects represented. But he did not approve of paintings, whether in food or silver, on display. I, myself, enjoy looking at such pictures as Herr Van Beyeren paints for the sheer delight they give to the eye.

We made a visit to Antwerp a few years ago and I managed to enduce my husband into viewing some of the works of the renown Rubens. He was cold to some of them because of the veneration of saints but what I didn't expect was how appalled he was at the nudity in the paintings with mythological subjects. "Paganism, pure paganism!" he kept exclaiming, "I thought we were rid of that evil!" I thought them dazzling in their energy and complexity. But it made him more receptive to our down-to-earth Dutch painting so that when it came to purchasing a wonderful Rembrandt, he didn't hesitate.

I find what I like to collect now are drawings and etchings. As I get older my eyes do not seek so much stimulation as oil painting provides. I am soothed and enchanted by the line, stroke and markings which conjur miraculously to convey an image in etchings and drawings. For city and landscapes and narrative event I prefer Rembrandt. For the human body Rubens is my choice and for faces, Van Dyck. Like most collectors I don't know when to stop. I am thinking of moving to a home in the English countryside where I would have larger rooms for it. Only my own death will end my passion for art.

3/2/94

Came across some writings of the French critic Roger de Piles (1635-1709) in A Documentary History of Art, Volume II. He devised this rating system (men seem to love that sort of thing they are still using it for television and movies and the President!) for the top painters in Europe and which goes like this: he divides degrees of perfection into twenty parts in 4 different categories, composition, drawing, colour, and expression. He says, “The twentieth degree is the highest, and implies sovereign perfection; which no man has fully arrived at. The nineteenth is the highest degree that we know, but which no person has yet gained. Looking over the chart I see that only four artists out of 57 rate an eighteen - Guercino for composition, Sareio for drawing and expression, Rubens for composition and Titan for color. Rembrandt does fairly well but only rates a six in drawing! I would quarrel with that but he gives Michelangelo a pitiful four in colour and that’s probably fair especially once Titian came along. So much for the Olympics! In his writing he shows true sensitivity to the use of chiaroscuro in painting and an appreciation for the relatively new genre of landscape.

3/5/94

Subjects I need to explore in the future:

The Counter-Reformation

I have a workable, just adequate, in other words mediocre understanding of just what went on. Need the best on this subject.

Protestant symbolism.

When people revolted against the Catholic Church they rejected an enormous number of symbols through which the Catholic Church had expressed it's doctrine. These were images of great power as it was no small matter to reject them. One concept they could retain was the battle of good and evil. Virtue and vice were to fill a vacuum created by icon-bashing.

Look into this further, too. Catholic elements in Renaissance art wasn't all there was, there was paganism in the blood stream; suppressed, disguised, bursting out and all kinds of erotic strangeness! Michelangelo's grotesque females, Leonardo's deceptive Mona Lisa, Botticelli's strange sadness, and what to make of Donatello's David! After studying the foreright Dutch how wonderfully bizarre the great Italians seem to me. I'm expressing this in a sketchy, off-the-top manner because I want to formulate it all so that it makes an argument that I can support.

University of Toledo document - "Missing Questions" 3/16/1994

2/22/94 In Class Question

Can a landscape painting be expressive to the same degree as a figurative painting?

No, never. Landscape for a western artist is almost always a projection of human emotions, tranquil or quiet it doesn't matter. The western male artist always imprints himself, reads himself, interprets himself in the greater world around him. This is his arrogance and his greatness. In this meaning that I've given it landscape can be a mirror of some of man's feelings and responses but never the full range. Rembrandt always needed the human figure to represent what he needed to convey. Clouds and trees would never have sufficed.

The Seghers landscape gives one a sense of nature's power and grandeur - awesomeness and that it is a welcome release from human concerns. I feel that landscape offers that escape.

With Aristottle with the bust of Homer we are free to contemplate a contemplating man. We may think of the poet of war, the examination of ethics and nature, we may wonder what Aristotle might think Humer would make of his own time, but whatever it may be, the face in deep thought is a thoroughly human consciousness. Nature has no consciousness. It cannot contemplate itself, it can only be.

3/4/94 In Class Question

Establish some of the major style changes which separate

Hals' Young Man and Women at an Inn 1623 from Jan Steen's Easy Come - Easy Go 1961

These two works are separated by 78 years. Hals may have been making a statement about the folly of indulgence but it seems to me the joy of painting for its own sake is what comes across in the immediate sense of viewing. His figures are right up close to your eyes, their setting is in a corner of the canvas.

Jan Steen on the other hand is stepping back and presenting a little theatre piece, a frozen play in the stage. Steen is interested in recording human behavior. Rembrandt is interested in exploring the possibility of understanding human behavior. But not only that - when humans are met with a moment of truth of an event - that it what Rembrandt

was moved to wanted to express.

Jan Steen presents situations in middle class domestic life which illustrate a moral or lesson. His is an anecotal art while Rembrandt's is a universial art.

3/4/94

How are Steen and Rembrandt involved with symbolism through the depiction of visual reality?

After a brief exercise in Symbolism with the early work of the man counting his money I don't see any evidence of Rembrandt relying on symbolism to carry his meaning. Nevertheless Steen fulfilled an important role in both showing society what it was doing and letting it decide for itself what conclusions to draw. Rembrandt was fishing in deeper waters and his particular search has carried on in art.

In The Lovesick Young Woman, Steen uses a painting on the wall of Venus and Adonis to tell us this is an incident of lovesickness, the child as cupid playing with arrows. There is sly wit in Steen's work and a refined and polished style which engages us in humanities little foibles.

TWO MASTERS

University of Toledo school paper, March or April 1994

Could two major artists living at the same time period and not all that far away from each other display the very opposite of intentions in nearly every aspect of their art? In the art of the West they can in a way that would be impossible in the arts of China or India. Rubens in Antwerp, Rembrant in Amsterdam chose the same subject at one point in their careers, Christ's Descent From The Cross. They both are free by now to use space in a dynamic rather than static way by the use of diagonals and foreshortening. But any similarity rather ends there. Rubens uses ascending and descending diagonals which he surrounds with spirals or curves supporting the diagonal of Christ's body. Rubens' figures are massive compared to Rembrandt's humble human figures. In the Rubens for all their forceful movement the figures supporting Christ's body have a classical grace which belies the weight they are bearing but adds an effect of supernatural power. Rembrandt stresses the humanity of Christ, and the all too human cruelty behind his betrayal represented by the impassive observer in opulent clothing. The figures holding the body to keep it from falling feel its weight.

Rubens move on to ever more complex compositions with figures swirling and hurling themselves in spaces seemingly driven by great forces but actually driven by Rubens' sweeping compositions.

Rembrandt meanwhile moves away from his early dramatic narratives such as The Blinding of Samson to an ever more contemplative art in which a simple reaching out, an embrace, a hand over the heart is gesture enough. Rembrandt sought to illuminate an inner drama for all that light was his principle method. He understood that tenebroso was more than an effective technique, it was the key to his deepest feelings that light moves through primordial darkness. For Rubens purposes light plays no part. He throws the switch, the lights go up and the story begins.

Rembrandt burns his pictures with thick impasto applications. He is in no hurry. When it is appropriate he can use a smooth polished technique. Rubens chooses the polished technique for most of his major works but when he paints oil sketches his brush flies and he conjures up a whole figure in a few strokes.

Delacroix called Rubens "the master chef" for his color ingredients. Rembrandt uses rich blacks and browns as a setting for his focus on the inner life. Perhaps it can be said that with Rubens, composition and color are complex, with Rembrandt the humanism is complex. They are each expressions of the great and diverse streams of Baroque Art.

4/15/94

Proposal for a paper on Venitian painting comparing its development to Florentine painting in the sixteenth century. I will focus on the two styles called in Italian, disegno and colorito, and discuss these two terms as they apply to Titian, the Venitian and Leonardo, the Florentine who were contemporaries, including in my discussion Giorgione and Bronzino as well as other painters who contributed to the development of ground and medium of the new kind of painting bringing in some of the writers who observed what was happening at the time.

I will give some background of the two centers of art although I will make no attempt to parallel the differences in painting in the two cities being due to the great differences in them except in the broadest general suggestion. I will, however, try to show certain influences which caused Venitian painting to take the turn it did.

I feel it important to emphasize that despite his great innovations, Titan was not a revolutionary in the modern sense as it began in the early 20th century. He was well within the aesthetic principles of the Renaissance in so far as they were intent upon capturing nature in the two dimensions of painting, as well as the canon of iconography to which he was faithful. His work contains no historical irony.

2. I would describe the ground of canvas as the hard ground of wood and plaster and how this affected Titan’s confrontations with the canvas.

4/21/94

As an Art History major I am doing an independent studies program this quarter. I've chosen to focus on 16th Century Venetian painting with an emphasis on Titian. He has been credited as the first Renaissance painter to fully explore the effects of light and color in painting. While it is true Leonardo did explore the nature of color, his paintings reveal that he still thought of color in terms of light and dark, and not a "property" or light itself in so far as our eyes experience color.

Titian's achievements fit perfectly with this course in light and color. I have seen microscopic photographs of his paintings which take a small section and in a cross section that reveal the many layers of pigment and glazes applied on top of each other in order to create his luminous effects particularly in flesh. Light penetrates the transparent glazes and returns to the viewers with subtle color messages. He also understood how a dark surround enhances the intensity of the lighter areas. Titian opened up the world of color for generations to come.

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thewineauctionroom · 2 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://wineauctionroom.com/report-on-summer-live-auction-announcing-the-date-of-next-online-auction/

Report on Summer Live Auction & Announcing the Date of Next Online Auction

Thanks to all our bidders and wine friends who came to the salesroom and those who participated online in the first live auction of 2023, Summer Rare & Fine Wine Live auction last Tuesday, February 7.

When the unusual summer weather outside is rather wet and windy, nothing satisfies like a bottle of quality aged fine wine. When the macroeconomic environment is also bleak, fine wine can, again, provide needed respite. Pleasingly, fine wine markets ended last year in good form and kept performing well in the past two months despite ongoing volatility in other markets and economies.

Here at The Wine Auction Room, we had a swag of online bidders who helped us to reach another great sale. 2005 Domaine de la Romanee Conti Romanee St Vivant Grand Cru took the highest hammer win on the night at $5875, followed by 2006 Petrus at $4700.

Bordeaux has seen slightly subdued performance over the past year, shadowed by the rapid growth of Burgundy and Champagne regions, although it still has delivered the most stable growth in all fine wine over the last decade. Both 2004 & 2008 Chateau Margaux 1er Cru Classe sold for $775.50. 2010 Chateau Angelus sold for $587.50, while 2010 Chateau Pichon Longueville Baron de Pichon Longueville 2eme Cru Classe scored $470. And a bottle of 68-year-old Bordeaux, 1955 Chateau Rauzan-Gassies 2eme Cru Classe sold for $423.

We had a great selection of big formats in this auction. Both 2008 Tenuta dell’Ornellaia 3000ml and 2003 Chateau Montrose 2eme Cru Classe 3000ml achieved $1762.50. 2001 Penfolds Grange Bin 95 1500ml reached $1292.50, followed by 2002 Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia 1500ml at $1175. 2009 Chateau Lynch Bages 5eme Cru Classe 1500ml achieved $728.50. 2006 Marchesi Antinori Tignanello 1500ml sold for $681.50. NV Chateau Gardet & Co Chigny les Roses 6000ml scored $587.50. And 2008 Chateau Gloria 1500ml sold for $235.

Penfolds outperformed all other brands across all categories. 6 bottle OWC 2008 Penfolds Bin 95 Grange scored $4935, also a 6-bottle OWC, its 2002 vintage sold for $4371. 1996 Penfolds Kalimna Block 42 got snapped at $705, and 2007 Penfolds Bin 707 sold for $305.50.

Other highlights worth mentioning are 2003 Quinta do Noval Porto Vintage Nacional reached $1175; 1996 Domaine Jean Grivot Echezeaux Grand Cru sold for $987; and 1993 Vega-Sicilia Valbuena 5° achieved $293.75. Great buys!

All prices include Buyers Premium excludes GST.

Thanks again to our loyal supporters and wine community who made this live auction another success. For those who just want to grab a few bottles of something nice on the go, don’t forget to check out the latest arrival to our everyday retail selection at www.wineretailroom.co.nz. Apart from our carefully curated wine selection, we also offer niche whisky, premium glassware and harder-to-find wines. Our boutique selection offers items to suit all tastes, pockets and occasions.

Our next auction will be an online event from midday Wednesday, February 22 to 7pm Sunday, March 5. The full catalogue will be published soon, so be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and keep yourself in the loop.

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therobertfrasergang · 2 years ago

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Robert Fraser and Magritte

"The Apple logo was directly inspired by a Belgian, the surrealist painter René Magritte (1898-1967).

In an interview with Johan Ral in 1993, Paul McCartney remembers: "There's a great story about that. I had this friend called Robert Fraser, who was a gallery owner in London. We used to hang out a lot. And I told him I really loved Magritte. We were discovering Magritte in the sixties, just through magazines and things. And we just loved his sense of humour. And when we heard that he was a very ordinary bloke who used to paint from nine to one o'clock, and with his bowler hat, it became even more intriguing. Robert used to look around for pictures for me, because he knew I liked him. It was so cheap then, it's terrible to think how cheap they were. But anyway, we just loved him ... One day he brought this painting to my house. We were out in the garden, it was a summer's day. And he didn't want to disturb us, I think we were filming or something. So he left this picture of Magritte. It was an apple - and he just left it on the dining room table and he went. It just had written across it "Au revoir", on this beautiful green apple. And I thought that was like a great thing to do. He knew I'd love it and he knew I'd want it and I'd pay him later. [...] So it was like wow! What a great conceptual thing to do, you know. And this big green apple, which I still have now, became the inspiration for the logo. And then we decided to cut it in half for the B-side!"

The painting which became the inspiration for the Apple logo is actually called Le Jeu de Mourre (The game of mora) and dates from 1966.

The title was found by Magritte's friend, the Belgian poet Louis Scutenaire, and is probably a play of words on Les jeunes amours (Young love), the title of a work by Magritte showing three apples. The game of mora is "a game in which one of the players rapidly displays a hand with some fingers raised, the others folded inwards, while his opponent calls out a number, which, for him to win, has to correspond to the total of the raised fingers".*

(*) From: René Magritte - Catalogue Raisonné, edited by David Sylvester. Menil Foundation/Fonds Mercator, 1993"

(info from eMattson Art)

"In my garden at Cavendish Avenue, which was a 100-year-old house I’d bought, Robert was a frequent visitor. One day he got hold of a Magritte he thought I’d love. Being Robert, he would just get it and bring it. I was out in the garden with some friends. I think I was filming Mary Hopkin with a film crew, just getting her to sing live in the garden, with bees and flies buzzing around, high summer. We were in the long grass, very beautiful, very country-like. We were out in the garden and Robert didn’t want to interrupt, so when we went back in the big door from the garden to the living room, there on the table he’d just propped up this little Magritte. It was of a green apple. That became the basis of the Apple logo. Across the painting Magritte had written in that beautiful handwriting of his ‘Au Revoir’. And Robert had split. I thought that was the coolest thing anyone’s ever done with me. When I saw it, I just thought: ‘Robert’. Nobody else could have done that. Of course we’d settle the bill later. He wouldn’t hit me with a bill." - Paul McCartney, quoted in Groovy Bob

"Magritte’s picture, which dates from 1966, late in the artist’s life, appears as number 1051 in Volume 3 of the catalogue raisonne of the artist’s work. The authors of that weighty and learned tome, assembled under the editorial supervision of David Sylvester, quote the somewhat unilluminating Larousse dictionary definition of Mora, or Mourre, as “a game in which one of the players rapidly displays a hand with some fingers raised, the others folded inwards, while his opponent calls out a number which, for him to win, has to correspond to that of the total of raised fingers”; and they go on to speculate that Magritte’s curious choice of title is probably a play on words, a pun on the phrase “Les jeunes amours” (“young love”), which the artist had already used for the title of an earlier picture showing three apples rather than one. They add that they “have not been able to examine the picture” and record its whereabouts simply as “Private Collection”." From andrewgrahamdixon.com

I think that's the painting.

The fact that it isn't framed or matted or protected in any way is giving me agita. This is why people pay Julian Baumgartner piles of money to restore their paintings. I hope it's not stuck up there with Blu-Tack.

Update: it was moved sometime in 1967:

And one more, cos it was moved again:

I believe this photo is from late 1968 or early 1969. Still not framed, jfc Paul, treat your art with some respect.

I've seen Magritte paintings in person and they're fantastic. Robert knew his business.

#robert fraser #rene magritte #au revoir #apple #Le Jeu de Mourre #paul mccartney

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britesparc · 3 years ago

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Weekend Top Ten #525

Top Ten Non-Disney Movies to Give the Disniversity Treatment

This week – having finally seen The Batman – I was going to do an updated ranking of Batman-adjacent movies (including, sigh, the Justice League ones). But then I thought it was a little unfair, as I’ve not watched the Burmacher* era or, really, the Nolan trilogy for quite a few years. So I’ve parked that, and if I get my act together, I’ll try to rank them around the time Battinson arrives on Blu-ray. Spoiler alert: Mask of the Phantasm will still be number one.

And that leads me to segue into what this week’s Top Ten will be about! Every now and again I like to bang the drum for something that I, personally, am really into at the moment, even if it’s not necessarily surmounting the zeitgeist. And one of my favourite podcasts right now is Disniversity. For the uninitiated, this is a podcast where film journalist Ben Travis and academic Dr. Sam Summers go through the Disney animation catalogue film by film, discussing what works and what maybe hasn’t quite aged as well. It’s really interesting, partly just because of their thoughts and opinions, but also because Summers is able to place these films in the specific context of when they were made. What was it like at Disney at that time; was the company doing well; what other pop-cultural things were swirling round in the ether; and what was the competition up to? All of these factors help to shine and interesting light on some very well-known movies, and the critical appraisal of the pair has also been food for thought as I re-watch and in some cases re-evaluate classic films.

So this week – with little further preamble – I’m going to imagine a similar analytical gaze being cast on some other animated classics. Er, maybe I should say “classics”; I’m not implying international treasure status for all of the films here! But even a failure can be an interesting failure, and I think these are ten films that I’d love to hear more about. What were the dynamics behind their development? Who were the chief creative forces? Were they produced in response to something, maybe in the market or maybe in the culture? I think there’s lots to discuss!

As it’s me, I’ve got my usual arbitrary rules. I’ve tried not to have too many from one studio – you could do something like this on Dreamworks or Ghibli alone. Similarly I’m trying not to just do “greatest hits” – the “best” animated films of the last however many years. And I’ve utterly nixed anything by Disney at all, so no Pixar (there is a Fox film in there, because it was made before Disney bought ‘em, and because – I think – it represented a concerted attempt by Fox to get onto the animation bandwagon in the late ‘90s). Oh, one final thing – no combo anim/live-action movies. So no Space Jam, Cool World, or Osmosis Jones. Sorry.

The Transformers: The Movie(1986): yes, well, might as well get the obvious one out of the way. But lots to talk about! In development at the same time as the first season of the animated show, it’s funny that just as kids were falling in love with Optimus Prime and the rest, writers were planning their gory deaths. Great cast – Nimoy! Idle! Welles! – and a great soundtrack. But it’s the film’s relative failure that might be most interesting, how that impacted subsequent Hasbro properties (such as the GI JOE movie), and also the film’s legs as the franchise’s most important landmark, defining much of what followed.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm(1993): yeah, the otherobvious one. Developed as a TV spin-off that would have gone straight to video, it was granted a theatrical release (which may have entailed some tinkering I believe) where it flopped. But talking about Batman: The Animated Series in any capacity is very interesting, and it’s worth looking at the origin story presented here, contrasting it with the stories in Batman ’89, Batman Begins, or The Batman.

Heavy Metal(1981): the only one on this list I’ve never really seen, but a really interesting story. A none-more-eighties slice of sexy fantasy mayhem, adapted from a long-running cult magazine, it’s notable for it’s sex-n-violence approach to animation, its great soundtrack, and the laundry list of unlikely stars involved in its creation (Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, John Candy, Eugene Levy…!). I’ve really wanted to see this since it was discussed on one of my other favourite podcasts, the much-lamented 80s All Over.

The Flight of Dragons(1982): one of several films here that I remember from my childhood but haven’t seen in ages. And, truth be told, I know nothing about it. Who made it? Why? How? I mean, sure, I could Google it, but I’d rather someone told me all about it on a podcast. Also, is it as good as I remember? Are there fascinating stories associated with it? And why did it seem to take till the 1980s for non-Disney animated movies to start to become commonplace?

Anastasia (1997): ah, here we go. There was much fanfare here as 20thCentury Fox leaped into the animation game with both feet, mustering an all-star cast to tell a musical adventure story about a princess. Weird in that it’s sort of based on reality, but a very skewed interpretation of the Russian Revolution. Also notable in that it spawned a sequel/spin-off starring the weird bat sidekick of the big villain. So was it a massive failure? A success? Why didn’t Fox really seem to compete with Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks on the regular? And as for the historical “inaccuracies” – let’s be honest here – what the hell were they thinking. The world must know!

My Neighbour Totoro(1988): I didn’t want to go too deep on Ghibli stuff as I think it’s getting adequately covered elsewhere. Plus I might end up with ten Ghibli films. But this is really where it all began; their first huge success. How did Ghibli began? What were their guiding philosophies right at the beginning? How did Totoro – the film and the character – shape the studio going forward? And has there ever been a more accurate depiction of young sisters on film? Plus they could get my eldest to be their special guest, as it’s her favourite film.

The Prince of Egypt(1998): another one that marks the beginning of era – arguably a more successful one than Fox…? This was the first Dreamworks animation, and it was really Jeffrey Katzenberg sticking it to his old bosses at Disney. A concerted attempt to beat them at their own game with a sweeping historical animated music that also yearned to be important. Once the likes of Shrek really solidified the Dreamworks brand, this got kinda forgotten, but it’s really very good and deserves a bit of love.

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!(2012): this is just here because I love it to bits and because I want a bit of Aardman on the list. It might not be the most interesting story, because you don’t have the behind-the-scenes turmoil and intrigue that their aborted deal with Dreamworks represented – clashes over Chicken Run, having to make Flushed Away in CG, all that jazz. But why pick such a random book to adapt? What inspired them to cast the likes of Hugh Grant and David Tennant? And how did it feel to make a film that’s borderline perfect but still was something of a failure at the box office? And – and! – why am I asking so many questions in this list?!

The Secret of NIMH(1982): Don Bluth was a Disney animator who pegged it with a load of his colleagues and set up shop elsewhere, trying to make films to out-Disney Disney; a precursor to Katzenberg, in a way. And he was hugely successful, especially with An American Tail a few years later. But this is the more interesting story, I think, although I don’t remember it as well; a dark adventure tale starring a mother who’s just after some medicine for her sick child. There must be many fascinating stories around its development.

The Adventures of Mark Twain(1985): another one that I saw as a kid – many times, I think – but that I only remember in part. Weird, scary, Claymation parts. My memory is that it’s a deeply disturbing collection of tales, with some truly otherworldly visuals, as some kids take a tour through the stories of Mark Twain. The talent behind the camera are worthy of discussion but really it’s just how batshit this thing is – or at least, how I remember it – that’d make an interesting podcast.

Heh, just realised I’ve not put a CG animation on there, choosing Egypt over Antz. Oh well. And I didn’t have room for Akira! What was I thinking?!

Also: go listen to Disniversity, it's great.

*Burton-and-Schumacher, just in case that wasn’t clear.

#top ten #films #movies #animation #animated film #transformers #batman #dragons #mark twain #disniveristy

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mishinashen · 4 years ago

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The Kitchen Door by Frederick Frieseke, 1911

In the summer of 1906, Frederick Frieseke settled in Giverny where the landscape, sunshine and freedom to paint as he wanted inspired him to remain there for almost two decades. Led by French Impressionist Claude Monet, Giverny was an artist colony that had been favored by American artists including Theodore Butler, Willard Metcalf, Richard Miller, Theodore Robinson and Guy Rose. Notice of the group of American Impressionists appeared swiftly in the press. In October 1887, a critic for The Art Amateur suggested that the development of an Impressionist expatriate style was immediate and profound: "Quite an American colony has gathered, I am told, at Givernay [sic], seventy miles from Paris, on the Seine, the home of Claude Monet, including our Louis Ritter, W. L. Metcalf, Theodore Wendell [sic], John Breck, and Theodore Robinson of New York. A few pictures just received from these young men show that they have got the blue-green color of Monet's impressionism and 'got it bad.'" ("Boston Art and Artists," The Art Amateur, 17, no. 5, October 1887, p. 93, as quoted in R. H. Love, Theodore Earl Butler: Emergence from Monet's Shadow, Chicago, Illinois, 1985, p. 59) After arriving in Giverny, Frieseke lived in Theodore Robinson's former house, next door to Monet. The intricate and extravagant garden of the French Impressionist painter had a significant impact on Frieseke while his own house also had a "beautiful old garden, running riot with flowers, vines and trees." (W.H. Gerdts, Monet's Giverny: An Impressionist Colony, New York, 1993, p. 172) Frieseke's work in Giverny often incorporated his garden whether as seen through a window of an interior or as the backdrop for a model. "Frieseke's garden paintings reflect the simple, though hardly rustic, everyday life if relaxed enjoyment of sunshine and flowers and reading. Summertime leisure dress was the norm; for the models perhaps a kimono." (D. Sellin, "Frieseke in Le Pouldu and Giverny: The Black Gang and the Giverny Group" in Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist, exhibition catalogue, Princeton, New Jersey, 2001, p. 88) Two dominant themes developed among the Americans in Giverny. As noted by Dr. William H. Gerdts, "they opted primarily for landscape work, while others who were more concerned with the figure, applied the strategies of Impressionism to the more traditionally acceptable themes of radiant children and ideal, even virginal young women, and eschewed the scenes of modern, usually urban life, found in the streets, theatres, and cafés, subjects preferred by many of the French figurative Impressionists." (American Impressionism: Masterworks from Public and Private Collections in the United States, Switzerland, 1990, p. 12) Frederick Frieseke focused on the latter, preferring "monumental images of women, single or in pairs, clothed or nude, and posed either in domestic interiors or in garden settings." (Monet's Giverny: An Impressionist Colony, New York, 1993, p. 172) In The Kitchen Door, a woman wearing a flowered kimono is enveloped in variegated flowers and vines as she steps out of the resplendent light into a darkened kitchen. Conveying a romantic parallel between the woman and flowers, Frieseke blends her into the background essentially placing a "flower" within the flowers. The artist noted, "My one idea is to reproduce flowers in sunlight. I do not suggest detail by form, [but use] strokes of color in oil to produce the effect of vibration, completing as I go...If you are looking at a mass of flowers in the sunlight out of doors you see a sparkle of spots of different colors--then paint them that way...Often one obtains accidental notes out of doors which really construct a picture...I usually make my first notes and impressions with dashes of tempera, then I paint over this with small strokes as I have to keep it as pure as possible or the effects of brilliancy will be lost." (C.T. MacChesney, "Frieseke Tells Some of the Secrets of His Art," New York Times, June 7, 1914 as quoted in Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist, p. 88) The Kitchen Door is an example of Frieseke's balanced and symmetrical compositions, emphasized by the centered doorway. The flowers throughout the garden as well as on the woman's robe provide an opportunity for the artist to add pattern to the composition. Dr. Gerdts has noted that "it was Frieseke who introduced into the repertory of Giverny painting the concern for rich, decorative patterns, related to the art of Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, and the other Nabi painters. There are patterns of furniture, patterns of parasols, patterns of fabric and wall coverings, patterns of light and shade, and patterns of flowers, all played off one another in bright sunshine...." (Monet's Giverny: An Impressionist Colony, p. 172) In The Kitchen Door, as in other works from this period, the artist's use of sunlight, the direction and texture of his brushstrokes and contrasts of light and shadow create a patterned harmony reminiscent of the Post-Impressionists. Ultimately, Frieseke's depictions of the female either in or outdoors, stand as masterpieces within his oeuvre. His ability to play with light and technique and imbue his models with an air of independence continues the venerable art historical tradition of female representation and positions the artist as one of the most venerated American Impressionist painters of women.

#art #american art #impressionism

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grigori77 · 5 years ago

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The Works of Ridley Scott - My Top Ten

So I decided I’d drop another series of big post lumps of spam on you guys by rocking my favourite directors’ works by rating my personal favourites of each, and I figured what better place to start than my absolute number one, so here we go - these are my very favourite films of my absolute cinematic IDOL, the master of British auteur filmmakers. Enjoy ...

10. EXODUS: GODS & KINGS

It takes a really ballsy filmmaker to try and make a big budget live action Ten Commandments movie after Cecil B. DeMille’s monstrous Technicolour epic, but guts is something Scott’s never been lacking in, and the result is one of his most striking offerings of recent years, a meaty revisionist take on the Book of Exodus that jettisons most of the mysticism to concentrate on the gritty human struggle at its heart. It’s the story of two warring brothers and the lengths each is willing to go to in order to achieve their opposing ends, and while Scott typically delivers BIG TIME on the spectacle and immersive world-building, where he really shines is as an actor’s director, here rightly focusing on the deeply complex relationship between Christian Bale’s Moses and Joel Edgerton’s Pharaoh Ramesses II. The end result is a lesser known but no less worthy swords-and-sandals epic than his signature entry to the genre.

9. PROMETHEUS

Like many fans of the Xenomorph saga he helped create, I was excited but also understandably wary of his return to the franchise with a proposed “prequel”, and to be honest as an Alien movie this actually is a bit of a mess, trying a little too hard to apply that connective tissue and ultimately failing more than it succeeds (indeed, as a franchise entry, direct sequel Alien: Covenant is a far more successful effort). Personally, I’ve always preferred to simply consider it as a film in its own right, and as a standalone sci-fi horror thriller this is a CRACKING film, insidious, atmospheric, moody and magnificent in equal measure, Scott weaving a sense of dangerous mystery and palpable dread throughout that grips from enigmatic start to devastating finish. Noomi Rapace is an excellent Ripley-substitute, but the true breakaway star of the film is Michael Fassbender as twisted android sociopath David, just as chilling as the horrors he unleashes on his unsuspecting crewmates.

8. THELMA & LOUISE

To be brutally honest, Ridley’s output in the 1990s was largely unimpressive (White Squall left me cold, while 1492: Conquest of Paradise was technically brilliant but discouragingly slow and disjointed, and I think we can all agree cinema would be better off if GI Jane had never happened), but at least he got the decade off to a strong start with this beautiful, lyrical, heartfelt and undeniably powerful tale of unerring friendship triumphing against fearful odds. It may have been directed by a man, but it was written by a woman (Callie Khouri, creator of TV’s Nashville, who rightly won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for her astounding work) and is unapologetically told from a woman’s point of view, which is finally becoming an accepted thing in blockbuster filmmaking, but back then it was still a new concept, and you have to applaud Scott for being one of its pioneers. It may be most well known these days for giving Brad Pitt his big break, but the film’s focus is VERY MUCH on Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon as the titular friends, forced to go on the run after an innocent night out goes horribly wrong. After becoming one of THE hot ticket date movies of the 90s, it’s still fondly remembered for its heartfelt message, gentle humour and powerful climax.

7. BLACK RAIN

Probably the closest Ridley ever came to capturing his brother Tony Scott’s more popcorn-friendly brand of super-slick, glossy blockbuster fare was this Japan-set fish-out-of-water cop flick, but he couldn’t help adding a real weight and substance to the final product, and the result is one of my very favourite thrillers of the 80s. Michael Douglas was riding high after his Academy Award win for Wall Street, but his performance as hot-headed maverick NYPD detective Nick Conklin has always been my personal favourite, and he shares strong chemistry with a young Andy Garcia as his wise-cracking partner Charlie Vincent, but the film’s understated secret weapon is heavyweight Japanese character actor Ken Takakura as Masahiro, the stoic, by-the-book Osaka police inspector they’re forced to team up with in order to capture rogue Yakuza underboss Sato (a deliciously feral turn from the Yūsaku Matsuda in his very last screen role before his death just months after the film’s release) and bust an international counterfeiting ring. This is definitely Scott’s glossiest film, but there’s hidden depth behind the neon-drenched visuals, the expertly staged set-pieces perfectly countered by a robust story, precision-crafted character work and bucket-loads of emotional heft (especially surrounding the film’s high point, one of the most devastating character deaths in cinematic history). It may not be held in the high regard of many of his more “sophisticated” films, but in my opinion it’s just as worthy of recognition, and I’ll defend it to the death.

6. THE MARTIAN

Scott’s last truly GREAT film (to date, anyway) is also one of his most effortlessly likeable, a breathless, breezy and thoroughly FUN adaptation of the bestselling debut novel of space-exploration geek Andy Weir. Matt Damon must have been born to play Mark Watney, an astronaut in the third manned mission to Mars who is accidentally left for dead on the surface when the crew are forced to evacuate by a catastrophic dust storm; alone and with no means of escape, Watney must use all his scientific smarts to survive long enough for NASA’s desperate rescue mission to reach him. He’s a thoroughly endearing everyman hero we can’t help rooting for, self-deprecating and oozing sass all day long, and in his company the film’s two-and-a-half hours simply RACE by, while one of Scott’s strongest ever supporting casts (which includes Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean and a glorious scene-stealing cameo from Donald Glover) once again proves that he really is one of the very best actor’s directors around. Thoroughly ingenious, visually stunning and frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious, this is definitely Scott’s most endearing film to date, about as perfect a popcorn flick as you’re gonna find outside the MCU …

5. KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (Director’s Cut)

Certainly the most maligned film in his oeuvre, this has perhaps the most troubled production history of ALL his works, famously mauled in post as 20th Century Fox rushed to get the still unfinished feature ready enough for its summer 2005 release, the clunky theatrical cut understandably met with mixed reviews and somewhat underperforming at the box office. Thank the gods, then, for Scott’s unerring perfectionism – he couldn’t rest with that lacklustre legacy, so he knuckled down and produced what is, in my opinion, the very best of all his director’s cuts, reinstating an unprecedented FIFTY MINUTES of missing material which doesn’t just flesh out character arcs but frequently creates an entirely new, far richer and MUCH more rewarding overall narrative, and the final feature was met with thoroughly well-deserved critical acclaim. Not only is this one of my favourite Ridley Scott films, it’s one of my very favourite historical epics PERIOD, a magnificently rich, sprawling saga of blood, sex, honour and courtly intrigue as we follow blacksmith-turned-knight Balian (Orlando Bloom in one of his very best roles) on his quest for redemption in the Holy Land at the height of the Third Crusade. This is still one of the director’s most expensive films, and EVERY PENNY is right there on the screen, each scene designed to perfection and dripping in astounding period detail, while the sweeping cinematography is some of the very best in his entire catalogue, and the battle sequences so expansively vast they even put Gladiator’s opening to shame. So, far from being his greatest folly, this was ultimately one of Scott’s greatest triumphs, and I can’t recommend it enough.

4. BLACK HAWK DOWN

In my opinion, this is the absolute PEAK of Scott’s cinematic achievements to date as an action director – almost two-and-a-half hours of relentless blood, bullets, smoke and terror that’s as exhilarating as it is exhausting, as emotionally uplifting as it is harrowing, quite simply the DEFINITIVE portrayal of the bonds of brotherhood forged by men under fire. The film tells the story of the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, 24 blood-soaked hours in which US military forces were trapped behind enemy lines and besieged on all sides by hostile Somali forces after a botched raid saw two Black Hawk helicopters shot down, precipitating a snowballing military catastrophe and a bitter fight for survival. Certainly the film takes many liberties with the historical accuracy (then again that’s pretty much Hollywood’s standard approach regarding true story war movies), but there’s no denying it perfectly captures the desperate chaos the soldiers must have faced on the day, throwing the viewer headfirst into a dusty, noisy hell and refusing to let him out again. The action sequences are some of the finest I have EVER seen committed to film, but the film has just as much heart as guts, tugging our heartstrings and jerking plenty of tears because we really come to care about these boys and what happens to them. Intense, rousing, explosive, provocative – definitely the action highlight of Scott’s oeuvre.

3. ALIEN

It may have some decidedly humble beginnings, but the opening chapter in the other jewel in 20th Century Fox’s sci-fi franchise crown is now considered to be THE greatest science fiction horror film of all time, and rightly so – it’s a textbook example of a flawlessly-executed high-concept “haunted house in space” flick, a master-class in slow-building atmospherics, sustained tension and some truly hair-raising shocks that are as fresh and effective today as they were back in 1979. Not bad for something that started out as a pulpy B-picture script from Dan O’Bannon (co-writer and star of John Carpenter’s cult feature debut and one-time student film Dark Star). The cast is stellar (ahem), dominated OF COURSE by then pretty much unknown young upstart Sigourney Weaver in what REMAINS the greatest role of her decidedly impressive career, but the true star of the film is the creature itself, the late H.R. Giger’s twisted, primal design teased with consummate skill to maximise the stealthy effectiveness of what has become the definitive extraterrestrial nightmare fuel of sci-fi cinema. Ultimately I’m more of an Aliens fan myself, but I don’t deny that this is a MASTERPIECE of the genre, and I f£$%ing LOVE IT.

2. GLADIATOR

It may have been usurped by Kingdom of Heaven as Scott’s most ambitious film, but his first dabble in swords-and-sandals cinema remains the best of his historical epics, and at the time proved to be a MASSIVE shot in the arm for what had long become a flagging, largely forgotten genre, spawning a veritable LEGION of bandwagon-jumping followers. Needless to say, NOBODY does this better than Scott, who brought the opulent excess of ancient Rome and its vast empire to vivid life in all its bloodthirsty, duplicitous detail, from the back-stabbing intrigues of the Senate to the life-and-death drama of the Coliseum. The script is rich and heady stuff (penned as it is by former playwright John Logan), exquisitely performed by a premium-cut cast (particularly impressive was the late Oliver Reed in his very last screen role) and bolstered by some of the most impressive battle scenes ever committed to film, but the true driving force of the film is the ferocious antagonism between the hero and villain, Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix both making the transition from rising-stars to genuine A-listers with major box office clout thanks to their truly electrifying performances. After his relative creative slump in the 90s, Scott’s first offering of the new Millennium proved the start of a major renaissance in his work, and thankfully it’s shown no sign of flagging since …

1. BLADE RUNNER

Not only is this my favourite film by my favourite director, but also what, if I was REALLY PRESSED, I would have to call my very favourite movie EVER. I’m gonna be waxing most lyrical about this in great detail when I drop my big-screen sci-fi Top Ten on here, so I don’t want to talk about it TOO MUCH here … suffice to say this has been a dominant fixture in my favourites since my early adolescence, when I first stumbled across it on TV one Saturday night, and even though it was the theatrical cut with its clunky voice-over and that ridiculous tacked-on happy ending, I was instantly captured by its searing visionary brilliance and dark, brutally nihilistic power, so when Scott finally released his first Director’s Cut I was already DEEPLY in love with this film. Sure, being a Star Wars fan, Harrison Ford will ALWAYS be Han Solo for me (along with Indiana Jones, of course), but my personal favourite role of his career is Rick Deckard, the sleazy, downtrodden and world-weary android-hunting gumshoe stumbling through his most deadly case in the mean streets of rain-lashed cyberpunk megalopolis Los Angeles circa 2019, while Rutger Hauer effortlessly steals the film as his mercurial nemesis, live-fast-die-young Nexus 6 Roy Batty. This is still THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FILM I HAVE EVER SEEN, the visual effects work still standing up perfectly today, the exquisite design work and peerless atmospheric cinematography rightly going on to inform and influence an entire genre of science-fiction both on the big screen and off, and I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who hasn’t already seen it. Deliciously dark, fiendishly intelligent and heart-rending in its stubborn refusal to deliver easy answers or present us with a cathartic HAPPY ending (no matter what the theatrical cut might want you to think), this really is as good as cinema gets.

There you have it, my top movies from the man I personally consider to be the greatest filmmaker around tody, and here’s hoping we’re gonna see a lot more from him yet ... Sir Ridley Scott, knight of the f£$%ing realm ...

#Ridley Scott #sir ridley scott #exodus gods & kings #prometheus #thelma & louise #black rain #the martian #kingdom of heaven #kingdom of heaven director's cut #black hawk down #Alien #gladiator #Blade Runner #greatest director of all time

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omniversalobservations · 4 years ago

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The Gamesmen (Summer 1993)

Catalogues are a bit of a relic now, it’s essentially a list of new releases in a magazine format — but in the 90s these things were a pure delight. They’d arrive, you’d flick through (“I want this game for my birthday, this one for Christmas”) and then you’d bug your parents for the next three months.

But here’s what The Gamesmen have done: they’ve put just about every single catalogue they ever made online on their homepage. You can flick through them and reminisce yourself into a nostalgia coma from which you might never wake.

Every single page has been uploaded, and uses that funky plug-in that allows you to almost physically flick between pages. Very appropriate here.

I love it. I didn’t even grow up in Australia and feeling all giddy inside.

Source: Kotaku

(image via Twitter)

#unofficial #Taz #Street Fighter #Lemmings #Mortal Kombat #Sonic #Wolverine #Super Mario Bros #Simpsons

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atlantisking · 6 years ago

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The late Hawaiian musician Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, did something rare in music. He redefined a beloved classic. His version of "Over the Rainbow" has the poignancy of Judy Garland's and the shimmering vulnerability, but these days it's heard so often on TV and in the movies, a younger generation may only know Israel's version. It's become so popular, it is now the most requested version of the song by far, according to music publishing house EMI. That's quite remarkable for a rendition with one voice, accompanied only by ukulele.

In 1990, Kamakawiwoʻole released his first solo album Ka ʻAnoʻi, which won awards for Contemporary Album of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year from the Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Arts (HARA). Facing Future was released in 1993 by The Mountain Apple Company. It featured a version of his most popular song, the medley "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" (listed as "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World"), along with "Hawaiʻi 78", "White Sandy Beach of Hawaiʻi", "Maui Hawaiian Sup'pa Man", and "Kaulana Kawaihae". The decision to include a cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was said to be a last-minute decision by his producer Jon de Mello and Kamakawiwoʻole. Facing Future debuted at #25 on Billboard magazine's Top Pop Catalogue chart. On October 26, 2005, Facing Future became Hawaiʻi's first certified platinum album, selling more than a million CDs in the United States, according to figures furnished by the Recording Industry Association of America. On July 21, 2006, BBC Radio 1 announced that "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World (True Dreams)" would be released as a single in America.

Facing Future is still the best-selling Hawaiian album of all time, thanks to one song.

Kamakawiwo'ole was also a big supporter and promoter of the independence of Hawaii and Hawaiian rights, he often spoke up about it and even poured it into his lyrics. A couple of those are "ʻE Ala ʻE" and "Hawaiʻi 78", in which among other lyrics he uses the state motto of Hawaii, "Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono", it can be roughly translated to "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness".

In the summer of 1997, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, by then one of the most beloved singers in the history of Hawaiian music, died of respiratory failure. He was 38 — and just beginning to see the huge success of "Over the Rainbow." Israel's body lay in state at Hawaii's Capitol building, a rare honor. Days later, he was cremated, along with his vintage Martin ukulele — the one he used to record "Over the Rainbow." The ashes were carried on a traditional Hawaiian voyaging canoe.

Learn more about him here

Previous posts celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month:

Duke Kahanamoku

Biuku Gasa & Eroni Kumana

#asian pacific american heritage month #🔱 ᵒᶰ ˢᵒˡᶤᵈ ᵍʳᵒᵘᶰᵈ ( ooc. )#[ i want to use this to remember great polynesian accomplishments in general tbh ]

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brn1029 · 3 years ago

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Here’s what went down on the first day of this month in music, in years gone by…

March 1st

1958 - Buddy Holly

Buddy Holly played the first of 25 dates on his only UK tour at the Trocadero, Elephant & Castle, London. Also on the bill was Gary Miller, The Tanner Sisters, Des O'Connor, The Montanas, Ronnie Keene & His Orchestra.

1961 - Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley signed a five-year movie deal with producer Hal Wallis. During his career, Elvis made 31 feature films and two documentary feature films.

1967 - The Beatles

Working at Abbey Road studios, London, The Beatles started recording a new John Lennon song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'. The song was inspired by a drawing his 3 year-old son Julian returned home from school with one day. The picture, which was of a little girl with lots of stars, was his classmate - Lucy O’Donnell, who also lived in Weybridge, and attended the same school as Julian.

1968 - Elton John

Elton John's first single 'I've Been Loving You' was released on the Phillips label, with lyrics credited to Bernie Taupin (although John later admitted that he wrote the song by himself, giving Taupin credit as an effort to earn Taupin his first publishing royalties). The song didn't chart.

1969 - Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison of The Doors was charged with lewd and lascivious behaviour after showing his penis to the audience during a show in Miami. He was found guilty and sentenced to eight months hard labour. Morrison died in Paris while the sentence was on appeal.

1973 - Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd released their eighth studio album The Dark Side Of The Moon in the US. It remained in the US charts for 741 discontinuous weeks from 1973 to 1988, longer than any other album in history. After moving to the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Chart, the album notched up a further 759 weeks, and had reached a total of over 1,500 weeks on the combined charts by May 2006. With an estimated 45 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide.

1975 - Eagles

The Eagles went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Best Of My Love', the first of five US No.1's for the band. The song was included on their 1974 album On the Border and was released as the third single from the album. According to Don Henley, the lyrics were written while in a booth in Dan Tana's Restaurant close to the Troubadour in West Hollywood.

1986 - Mr Mister

Mr Mister started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Kyrie', the group's second US No.1, a No.11 hit in the UK. Also the group's album 'Welcome To The Real World' went to No.1 on the US album chart.

1990 - Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson played the first night on her 120-date Rhythm Nation world tour at the Miami Arena in Florida. As part of the show Jackson's had a live panther on-stage, but after concerns were raised over safety of the crowds and several incidents of the panther urinating on the stage Jackson axed the cat from the show in the summer leg of the tour.

1991 - Frank Smith

Frank Smith from Air Supply died of pneumonia in Melbourne, Australia. (1980 UK No.11 single 'All Out Of Love', 1981 US No.1 single 'The One That You Love').

1995 - Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen's 'Streets of Philadelphia' won three Grammys for Song of the Year, Best Male Vocal Performance and Best Rock Song. The track was featured in the film Philadelphia (1993), an early mainstream film dealing with HIV/AIDS which stars Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington.

1997 - Motley Crue

A Motley Crue fan who claimed his hearing had been irreparably damaged after a show in New Jersey had his lawsuit thrown out of court. The judge told Clifford Goldberg who had sat near the front of the stage, knew the risk he was taking.

1997 - David Bowie

'Bowie Bonds' were issued on the US Stock Exchange. Linked to David Bowie's back catalogue albums with money earned on the bonds via interest from royalties, investors could expect to make an 8% profit in about 10 years.

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strayframes · 7 years ago

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Jet Li - China’s Hero

By Sam Cave

Beijing, 1963. A child is born into poverty, the youngest of five. By two years old, his father has passed away. His family can’t afford meat, so young Lie Liajie is often hungry but never complains. When he is eight years old, his mother enrolls him in a summer course for martial arts. He shows a natural talent for Wushu, and his instructor takes notice. The boy attends a non-sparring Wushu event. Soon after, the instructor refers him to Wu Bin, coach for the Beijing Wushu Team. With his family’s permission, he is allowed to join. The coach takes a special interest in the boy, making him practice twice as hard as the other students. The criticism is harsh and constant, but he has good to food to eat and a sense of purpose that will help him to rise above his environment - China’s rocky crossroads between the Great Leap Forward and Mao’s cultural revolution.

A few years pass. Once a year the team is allowed to go to the movies. They watch Shaw Brothers and Shaolin five venoms, and sometimes Jimmmy Chang. One night the team gets to see a film called Fist of fury, Starring a westerner name Bruce Lee. the older boys love the film, and they clap and cheer, some of them smoking cigarettes and drinking rice wine. Their instructor chaperones hush them but also smile and laugh. Even as strict as the coaches can be, these boys need to blow off steam. The boy sits and watches the film, wide eyed. A friend passes him a Coca-Cola but he doesn’t notice. He is mesmerized by Lee Little Dragon’s screams and whoops, his speed and tempo. It is not so much Bruce Lee’s skills - the boy has seen Wing Chun and Southern Style Kung Fu before many times. It is the pauses, the stare, the speed with which he executes each maneuver. These are the things that a young Lie Lianjie would incorporate into his own fighting style, as the years ahead transformed him into the Martial Arts idol in known as Jet Li.

Asian cinema is a vast genre, with very different subsets. When I think of Japanese film, I picture ghost stories and bloody action like The Grudge or Battle Royale. Korea has the darkly comic revenge films of Chan Wook Park (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance). John Woo (Hard-Boiled) and Wong Kar Wai (2046, In The Mood For Love) both hail from Hong Kong. Historically, Mainland China’s identity in film has been firmly rooted in martial arts and Wushu-style historical epic tales. This makes sense, since the Wushu novels of writers like Jin Yong hold a place not unlike Tolkien in Chinese literary culture. Jet Li’s characters in Once Upon A Time in China, Fist of Legend and Fearless are based on real historical figures, and the China depicted in these stories is an honorable, decent place worth fighting for. The nationalistic message is often heavy-handed, but considering the China of twenty or thirty years ago, perhaps people needed to believe in not just heroes, but Chinese heroes.

I first discovered Jet Li when I saw Lethal Weapon 4. He played a silent martial arts villain with a ponytail who could dismantle a gun in seconds. His pre-combat stare was like nothing I’d ever seen onscreen before. It is his trademark - when he glares at his enemy he eminates both pure calm and pure danger. LW4 was Li’s first time crossing over into American films, after making over 30 movies in China since his debut in the 1980’s. Becore Jet Li started acting, there was an effort to find a successor to Bruce Lee, as evidenced by the early films of another Chinese martial artist, Jackie Chan. Chan was ten years older than Jet Li, and had been trained at the Chinese Opera. By Contrast, Li’s training focused purely on martial arts. He specialized in Wushu from the age of eight. Unlike Bruce Lee, who broke with Kung Fu tradition to establish his own style of fighting, Jet Li would become a Kung-Fu formalist. His trained at the Shao-Lin temple and spent years becoming an expert in Northern-style Kung Fu. Before the age of 10, Li won gold medals at the All China Games, and his team performed for Richard Nixon at the White House. According to Wikipedia:

he was asked by Nixon to be his personal bodyguard. Li replied, "I don't want to protect any individual. When I grow up, I want to defend my one billion Chinese countrymen!"

Jet Li would not be groomed as Chan was, to carry on Bruce Lee’s legacy. Too much time had passed and the industry had moved on from Bruce-sploitation and the legacy of Enter the Dragon. When Li first emerged in the 1986 film Shaolin Temple, his Northern Wushu and Tai Chi background was evident in every move, every trap, every aerial spinning kick. His fighting and performing style harkened back to old-school Kung Fu films by Shaw Brothers like Five Venoms and (bla).

…

The storyline of a typical Jet Li film goes something like this: A guy from mainland China (cop, soldier, fill in the blank) is tasked with the responsibility of protecting someone or exacting revenge for a dead master. He goes to Hong Kong, Japan or America, where his upstanding and honorable values are called into question by his new surroundings. There’s a girl, a villain, and much flying of fists and feet until finally the hero returns to China, happy to be home (in The Defender, he is killed and his body goes back to China).

After a few years as a supporting, utility player, Jet Li got the role of a lifetime playing Wong in Once Upon A Time in China. The film, directed by Tsui Hark, was a retro/throwback style historical epic with sharp cinematography and high-flying wire assisted wushu fight choreography and stunts. It was a leap forward for Hong Kong film, and spawned 3 sequels with Li reprising the main role. The films that followed could be described as Jet Li’s Hong Kong period. Fist of Legend, The Defender (also titled Bodyguard from Beijing), The Enforcer, Meltdown, Hitman, Tai Chi Master, Swordsman series. The list goes on.

Some of these movies showcased Li’s martial arts skills better than others. Sometimes he had guns, like Chow Yun Fat in Hard Boiled. Sometimes he had a kid sidekick or a love interest. One thing is for sure - playing in a Hong Kong action movie in the 90’s was not for the faint if heart. Cut-rate action techniques and low-budgets loaned themselves to accidents. The fighting was often full-contact. Actors could end up with a face full of glass from explosions. Still, the Beijing Wushu prodigy found his place amongst other martial artists like Donnie Yen and Michelle Yeoh, churning out epics, gangster films and cop dramas for audiences in Hong Kong (now hurtling towards its handover to the mainland) as well as the rest of Asia and beyond.

The only unfortunate aspect of Jet Li’s Chinese catalogue lies in the poor production values of most of these films. The overdubbed English is poorly translated, the action has a cartoonish quality and the characters are usually stock and cheesy. In other words, they are typical ‘Chop-Socky’ Kung Fu films made in the style of Bruce Lee’s catalogue, before the technical achievements of later films like Crouching Tiger, Hideen Dragon and Iron Monkey. There are some clear exceptions, such as the Once Upon a Time in China series, expertly directed by Tsui Hark and featuring another Kung Fu prodigy, Donnie Yen.

Because they were made before the age of DVD and HD, Li’s films could only be seen by Western audiences in rare Chinatown screenings in a few major cities. In the late 1990’s a new pop culture trend would change this pattern, and the trajectory of Li’s career – catapulting the Wushu prodigy from China to the United States. When Wu-Tang Clan first arrived on the American hip-hop scene in 1993, no one was prepared. Their albums were soundscapes comprised of hard-hitting verses, skits, and samples from Kung Fu and martial arts films. Along with Nas, DMX and others, Wu-Tang popularized Jet Li’s films by referencing him directly in their music. Li noticed, and his late 90’s output reflected this unlikely alliance. Black Mask, Romeo Must Die, and Cradle 2 the Grave featured Li’s action sequences cut to high-energy hip-hop. The films were successful, proving that Jet Li’s Wushu could be imported to the West.

Like Jackie Chan, Jet Li’s late 90’s crossover into Hollywood films was inevitable. It was a career move probably not based on financial need (he was already wealthy), but more based on the fact that he had outgrown the Hong Kong film scene. After his role in Lethal Weapon 4, he starred in a string of ambitious but fairly crappy vehicles like Romeo Must Die, Kiss of the Dragon, and Cradle 2 the Grave. These films, though largely panned by critics, served the purpose of greater exposure to US audiences and access to directors and filmmaker

In 2006, Jet Li announced his retirement from martial arts movies. The final entries into Jet Li’s martial arts catalogue, all made around this time, are easily the best. Hero, Unleashed, and Fearless are examples of bigger-budget Jet Li, not so different from his Chinese films but with an emphasis on acting and emotional content.

Hero is an epic historical tale in the style of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In the film Li plays Nameless, an assassin tasked by an Emperor to eliminate those warriors perceived as threats to his his throne. Filmed in wild and beautiful colors with flawless cinematography, Hero is an example of contemporary Chinese cinema, and how much technical ground has been gained in the past 15 years. The film has been hopelessly replicated and borrowed from since its release in 2002, mostly due to its historical accuracy, dark tone and operatic fight sequences. It was at the time the most expensive mainland Chinese film ever made, and sits at the beginning of a trio of martial arts films by director Zhang Zimou, who before Hero was mostly known in art house circles for his dramatic collaborations with actress Gong Li.

The casting of Hero was an eclectic mix of non-martial artists and experts, with Jet Li (the mainland’s biggest star) in perhaps his biggest starring role to date. Donnie Yen, who at that time was still a supporting player, was brought in for the first fight scene. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, coming off the huge success of Wong Kar Wai’s In The Mood For Love, played the feuding lovers Broken Sword and Flying Snow. And Crouching Tiger’s Ziyi Zhang played Moon, the loyal servant. Leung and Cheung were both veteran Hong Kong actors, neither one from strictly martial arts but with 20 years of experience in all genres. Zhang came from a ballet background, and though she had a breakthrough performance in a Crouching Tiger, her martial arts skills were limited. Jet Li recognized her talent and mentored her on set, and joked about his short legs being the reason for his never trying ballet. It made sense for Li to reach out to the younger Zhang, also from the mainland and twenty years his junior. For so long he himself had been the young Wushu prodigy, but now at over 40 years old he was sliding into an elder-statesman role.

The action sequences in Hero used wires extensively - not just as a tool to exaggerate aerial jumps and spins but to make the characters fly and soar the air, dreamlike and surreal. This deliberate wire choreography may have been influenced by The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, but Hero has its own sort of Cecil B DeMille outrageousness to it that is totally out of balance with the serious tone. In fact, Hero is almost weighed down by its own sense of gravity, and is sometimes unintentionally funny when it’s adding more and more layers to each action sequence. (Arrows). It is here that Jet Li is the films saving grace. His sense of form, toughness and his skill not just as a martial artist but as an actor corrects the balance. When Li extends both arms in front of his face and slides his sword back into its sheath with a resounding and satisfying ‘click’, the film resets itself and we, the audience are given a break from the proceedings.

Unleashed raises a poignant question: can a man who has been reduced to an animal find salvation? In this film Jet Li plays Danny, a childlike soul with violent tendencies, trained since childhood to fight and kill on demand. His aggression is symbolized by a metal collar, which is controlled by his brutal ‘master’. Li is passive until the collar comes off, at which time he becomes an attack dog, dispatching his opponents in a flying, screaming rage. Unleashed is pure pulp, but it is elevated by the presence of Morgan Freeman (as Danny’s kind savior), and by Jet Li’s performance. Danny is a kid, full of wonder and innocence, but unable to escape the violence that has defined his existence. Li plays it with subtle, quiet emotion and dignity. The action in Unleashed is as usual exciting and well mounted, choreographed by longtime collaborator Yuen Woo Ping. There are even some darkly funny moments, like when Danny kills an opponent with one poke to the Adam’s apple. Yikes.

Fearless is an atypical Chinese martial arts film, because it shows the hero as lacking virtue (at least for the first half of the film). Li plays Huo Yuanjia, Godfather of Wushu and undefeated champion of Tianjin. After murdering a rival in the ring, the rival’s disciple takes revenge and kills Huo’s family. In his grief, Huo goes into exile and lives amongst simple farmers. Finally he returns home, humbled but also disgusted by the imperialist influx of foreigners taking over China. He begins to fight again, but this time for the honor and reputation of China – essentially for China’s place in the world. His final fight before dying from poisoned tea is against Tanaka, a Japanese samurai. It is worth noting that the Japanese occupation is a common theme amongst Chinese and Korean films. Both countries suffered under Japan at different times, and in the world of Fist of Legend and Fearless (two parts of the same story) the scars are still fresh. Fearless is actually titled Jet Li’s Fearless, and this film finds the actor back in his comfort zone of pure Wushu action and Chinese history. Where in Fist of Legend he reprised Bruce Lee’s performance in Fist of Fury as Chen Zheng, student of Huo Yuanjia and avenger of his master’s death, Li gets to play the master himself. Fearless is a mainland production, not as artsy as Hero and more in the vein of Once Upon a Time in China.

In the wake of Bruce Lee’s untimely death, the martial arts world was fractured. In the West, Karate was gaining speed and this popularity gave actors like Chuck Norris (a contemporary of Lee’s) and Jean-Claude Van Damme

It would seem the sun has set on Jet Li’s career. He left his audience wanting more, and with Disney hinting that he might return to his martial arts roots in Mulan, there may be more to see. In his personal life, Li occupies the rare position of the a mainland Chinese with wealth, who, now living in Singapore, is somewhat beyond the reach of the communist government. As a devout a Buddhist he has in fact visited the Dalai Lama (while making sure to voice his belief in a united China). He

So, the question remains. What is your favourite Jet Li movie? And why does Jet Li Matter? In the opinion of this humble critic, Jet Li Matters because China matters. Mainland China needed a hero during times of extreme transition, when the Western idea of the Middle Kingdom was that it was a place that manufactured plastic trinkets. Audiences got used to Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, and yes, Jackie Chan - as the heroes of Shao Lin or daring Beijing Police detectives, fighting their way through low-budget films made by an industry trying to keep up with the world, yet not afraid to have some fun in the moment. I still have only seen a handful of the original Jet Li movies, and so my perception of his work is top-heavy, weighed down by the performances from the end of a unique and amazing career. But what performances they are: Danny the Dog sitting next to Morgan Freeman at the piano, trying to find the courage to say his own name. Nameless and Flying Snow deflecting a sea of arrows with their swords, weightless in the air above a temple. And finally Huo Yuanjia, in the last moments of his life and with poison coursing through his veins, finishing his battle against Tanaka, Japan, Imperialist Britain, and himself. Jet Li Matters.

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