Monthly culture: January 2019
Tuesday, February 5th, 2019 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth05JAN19: The Favourite -- Greenwich Picturehouse -- ★★★★★
A film with three female leads, in which it's the men who wear makeup and wigs and are toyed with. Rachel Wiess' Sarah Churchill is an absolute delight: thoroughly competent, scheming and manipulative, and very much in love with her husband (could have done with someone better-looking than Mark Gattiss playing John Churchill) but also with her queen (though Sara, of course, has a better grasp of politics and statecraft -- or thinks she does). Olivia Colman's Anne, with her 17 rabbits representing the 17 children, and her greying hair, and her unprepossessing demeanour, is a masterpiece. Abigail (Emma Stone) is also remarkably physical for a woman of her time: I especially liked the scene where she wrestles in the mud with her future husband. And the wedding-night scene ...
Witty dialogue, moments of surprising poignancy, a cavalier way with history. I loved the costumes, which felt suitably opulent and excessive even though anachronistically black-and-white or denim; loved the dance scenes, reminiscent of the video for 'Stand and Deliver'; disliked the modern, monotonal bits of the soundtrack, and felt they could have done more with period music.
Despite the warning for 'very strong language, strong sex', I was not able to detect any of the latter. Unless non-explicit lesbianism is somehow 'stronger' than on-screen heterosexual couplings.
09JAN19: Doctor Faustus -- Wanamaker Theatre -- ★★★★
set
Production with an all-female cast and period-typical special effects which were remarkably effective. Faustus is played by Jocelyn Jee Esien, a woman of colour; Mephistopheles by Pauline McLynn, better-known as Mrs Doyle. Both performances were great: McLynn's elegant, world-weary devil was hypnotic and playful, and Esien's Faust embodied a glorious lust for life.
This was Marlowe done right: the scary bits were scary (especially Satan), the funny bits were actually laugh-out-loud funny, and Esien's gradual realisation of her doom was truly tragic.
12JAN19: Anglo Saxon Kingdoms -- British Library -- ★★★
Books! Lots of them! Some more beautifully illuminated than others ...
Saturday morning perhaps not the best time to visit: it was very busy and I spent two hours shuffling along in a crowd, skipping some exhibits because of the knots of people around them. By the end of it (Domesday Book) I was in pain and bad-tempered. But it was amazing to see the sole Beowulf manuscript, and the Alfred jewel, and the Lindisfarne Gospels. Marvellous that so much has lasted for so long.
I would have liked to see The Ruin -- I believe there is a manuscript of this, my favourite bit of Anglo-Saxon literature -- and more about what it might have been like to advacne into a land filled with the crumbling remains of Roman occupation.
I have a little list of improvements that could be made to the layout, including: not having the film about ink-making techniques on a small screen next to a splendid jewelled psalter; having captions in large print above the exhibits, not small print beside them; more seating, especially near bottlenecks; not letting people go the other way through the exhibition, e.g. starting at the end. (I know this means they can get more people through, and those people don't have to wait as long; but when one knot of people meets another knot coming the other way, there is Confusion.)
25JAN19: Ashurbanipal: King of Syria, King of the World -- British Museum -- ★★★★★
relief
tablets
A Friday evening viewing: it was much less crowded than Anglo Saxon Kingdoms, and rather better laid out (though to be fair the BM has a lot more space). The use of light was astonishing, from the simple stark lighting that brought out relief on stone panels to the coloured light showing how stonework would have been painted, and the highlighting of episodes in a relief showing a military victory. I was also awestruck by the towering cases of clay tablets from Ashurbanipal's library. And there were many exhibits on loan from other collections -- including a damaged stone relief from a German collection (Berlin?) that was damaged by Allied bombing in the Second World War.
This was a man who killed lions, sometimes with his bare hands; was responsible for his brother's death; decorated his garden with severed heads; declared himself 'king of the world' and defeated multiple enemies; valued learning and literacy and beauty; died in obscurity.
A film with three female leads, in which it's the men who wear makeup and wigs and are toyed with. Rachel Wiess' Sarah Churchill is an absolute delight: thoroughly competent, scheming and manipulative, and very much in love with her husband (could have done with someone better-looking than Mark Gattiss playing John Churchill) but also with her queen (though Sara, of course, has a better grasp of politics and statecraft -- or thinks she does). Olivia Colman's Anne, with her 17 rabbits representing the 17 children, and her greying hair, and her unprepossessing demeanour, is a masterpiece. Abigail (Emma Stone) is also remarkably physical for a woman of her time: I especially liked the scene where she wrestles in the mud with her future husband. And the wedding-night scene ...
Witty dialogue, moments of surprising poignancy, a cavalier way with history. I loved the costumes, which felt suitably opulent and excessive even though anachronistically black-and-white or denim; loved the dance scenes, reminiscent of the video for 'Stand and Deliver'; disliked the modern, monotonal bits of the soundtrack, and felt they could have done more with period music.
Despite the warning for 'very strong language, strong sex', I was not able to detect any of the latter. Unless non-explicit lesbianism is somehow 'stronger' than on-screen heterosexual couplings.
09JAN19: Doctor Faustus -- Wanamaker Theatre -- ★★★★
set
Production with an all-female cast and period-typical special effects which were remarkably effective. Faustus is played by Jocelyn Jee Esien, a woman of colour; Mephistopheles by Pauline McLynn, better-known as Mrs Doyle. Both performances were great: McLynn's elegant, world-weary devil was hypnotic and playful, and Esien's Faust embodied a glorious lust for life.
This was Marlowe done right: the scary bits were scary (especially Satan), the funny bits were actually laugh-out-loud funny, and Esien's gradual realisation of her doom was truly tragic.
12JAN19: Anglo Saxon Kingdoms -- British Library -- ★★★
Books! Lots of them! Some more beautifully illuminated than others ...
Saturday morning perhaps not the best time to visit: it was very busy and I spent two hours shuffling along in a crowd, skipping some exhibits because of the knots of people around them. By the end of it (Domesday Book) I was in pain and bad-tempered. But it was amazing to see the sole Beowulf manuscript, and the Alfred jewel, and the Lindisfarne Gospels. Marvellous that so much has lasted for so long.
I would have liked to see The Ruin -- I believe there is a manuscript of this, my favourite bit of Anglo-Saxon literature -- and more about what it might have been like to advacne into a land filled with the crumbling remains of Roman occupation.
I have a little list of improvements that could be made to the layout, including: not having the film about ink-making techniques on a small screen next to a splendid jewelled psalter; having captions in large print above the exhibits, not small print beside them; more seating, especially near bottlenecks; not letting people go the other way through the exhibition, e.g. starting at the end. (I know this means they can get more people through, and those people don't have to wait as long; but when one knot of people meets another knot coming the other way, there is Confusion.)
25JAN19: Ashurbanipal: King of Syria, King of the World -- British Museum -- ★★★★★
relief
tablets
A Friday evening viewing: it was much less crowded than Anglo Saxon Kingdoms, and rather better laid out (though to be fair the BM has a lot more space). The use of light was astonishing, from the simple stark lighting that brought out relief on stone panels to the coloured light showing how stonework would have been painted, and the highlighting of episodes in a relief showing a military victory. I was also awestruck by the towering cases of clay tablets from Ashurbanipal's library. And there were many exhibits on loan from other collections -- including a damaged stone relief from a German collection (Berlin?) that was damaged by Allied bombing in the Second World War.
This was a man who killed lions, sometimes with his bare hands; was responsible for his brother's death; decorated his garden with severed heads; declared himself 'king of the world' and defeated multiple enemies; valued learning and literacy and beauty; died in obscurity.
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Date: Tuesday, February 5th, 2019 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, February 28th, 2019 06:25 pm (UTC)