DVD/150: HITORI MUSUKO (The Only Son) (Yasujiro Ózu, 1936)

Five years after Japanese cinema embraced sound films, Yasujiro Ózu finally made his first talkie, the moving HITORI MUSUKO aka THE ONLY SON.

Mothers sacrificing for their children was a popular film subject but Ózu's version has no resolution, just an open-ended sadness.

Ózu insisted on filming at the abandoned Kamata studio, closed because it was impossible to film talkies there because of an adjacent train line - so Ózu could only film between midnight and 5am when the trains stopped running! 

In 1923, in rural Shinshu, widowed factory machinist Tsune tells her young son Ryosuke that, despite her low wages, she will find the money for his secondary school education, and even college.

Thirteen years later, Tsune finally visits Ryosuke in Tokyo but is quietly shocked that he lives in a ramshackle suburb, is on low wages as a night-school teacher - and is married with a baby son.

Shelf or charity shop?  A resounding shelf.  I wonder if Joan Crawford knew she appeared in Ózu's first sound film?  Probably not but there she is, in full film magazine glamour, pinned to the wall in Ryosuke's humble home.  Films feature again when Ryosuke takes his mother to see the German film musical UNFINISHED SYMPHONY only for her to fall asleep during it. It is a 'funny' moment but it is more touching than anything else.  Ózu's deliberate, hypnotic pace lulls you past the plot points until you arrive at two scenes where mother and son reveal their pain - Ryosuke apologizing for any disappointment his life has given her and later Tsune's revelation that supporting him has left her homeless and living in the factory - and you realize how much you have grown to care about them.  There are no villains, just the acceptance of fate not being kind. Choko Iida delivers a wonderfully nuanced performance as Tsune, Shin'ichi Himori is fine as Ryosuke and, again, Ózu finds a great role for his stalwart actor Chishu Ryu; here he plays the teacher, about to move to Tokyo, who pursuades Tsune that her son is bright enough to invest in his further education.  The irony being that Tsune and Ryosuke visit him and she discovers he is cooking in a cutlet cafe in an industrial area of the city.  The final scene of Tsune, snatching a few minutes rest from being a factory skivvy, is heartbreaking.

Exit Through The Giftshop - Pictures At An Exhibition: 21 today

The 21st look at postcards from galleries and museums..

1) THE DANCERS (1911 - 1912) - Duncan Grant

I bought this all the way back in 1997 at the Barbican's Modern Art In Britain 1910-1914 exhibition,  I was struck by the tension between the five figures, frozen in a hypnotic dance that seems tribal.  In 1911, Duncan Grant had completed his first version of THE DANCERS which was much more precise and vividly coloured.  I prefer this version which seems more mysterious and grave.

This version is a more post-impressionist take on his original, his vivid brushstrokes using colours more subdued and muted.  In 1909, Grant had visited Matisse in the artist's studio in Paris which confirmed his interest in the direction Matisse and his fellow post-impressionists were exploring.  This was fully confirmed in 1910 when he visited Roger Fry's first exhibition of the post-impressionists at the Grafton Gallery in London.

2) LE TERRASSE DE MÉRIC (1897) - Frédéric Bazille

 

This was bought at the excellent Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris which, as the name suggests, holds a large collection of works by Monet as well as other Impressionist painters.  I have a soft spot for Bazille who has never really had the props owed to him, partly because of his wealthy background and more sadly, because his career lasted six years before his death in battle during the Franco-Prussian War, aged only 29.  Bazille had always had a love of painting but his family insisted he study medicine as well in Paris.  He failed his medical exams, so switched whole-heartedly to art, having already met Renoir and Sisley. 

 

Frédéric was well-known for being a staunch friend. supporting his artist friends with money, studio space and materials.  His best works feature his family - as seen here on the terrace of his parents' home - and I love the formality and exactness of his work, you can almost feel the sunshine in the terrace. For me there is something that suggests Henry James about it, the feeling of secrets held by the characters.  Bazille puts himself into the painting, he is the very tall man on the right.
 

3) PORTRAIT OF GIOVANNA TORNABUONI (1489-1490) - Domenico Ghirlandio

 

 

Another lovely painting in another lovely museum!  Mrs Tornabuoni is currently residing in the cool modern surroundings of Madrid's Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.  I hope she has a good agent because her profile is all over the giftshop... what's that?  Oh that's sad.  I wonder if she ever wondered while she was alive if she would be famous?  Well I am talking about her 533 years after her death during childbirth.

 

Two years after her demise, her husband requested that Ghirlandaio paint her portrait; luckily he had already featured her in his frescoes in the Tornabuoni chapel within Santa Maria Novella in Florence.  This glorious portrait has the late Giovanni facing the source of light which illumnates her elongated neck and wistful expression while also accentuating the golden silk of her gown adorned in Florentine detailing and the rich brocaded tunic she wears beneath it.  Her blonde hair in a bun and ringlets is captured beautifully and on the shelves behind her are a bible and a string of coral beads to denote her piety.  A Renaissance masterpiece...

4) EL CABALLERO DE LA MANO EN EL PECHO (1578-1580) - El Greco

I bought this mournful chap in the Prado, across the road from where Giovanna lives at the Thyssen-Bornemisza.  Many years ago I used to think El Greco was the greatest of painters but - now that I have seen them - I find them a bit ghastly, all those elongated faces with watery eyes and over-done colours, but I was struck with the restrained elegance of The Nobleman With His Hand On His Chest.

 

He has the usual elongated El Greco face but the restrained palette of black, grey and white tones it down and the painting of the white lace gives it real detailing.  Although the subject has never been definitively identified, some think it might be Cervantes.

5) SKIFFS ON THE RIVER YERRES (1877) - Gustave Caillebotte

When I visited the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, I was thrilled to find an exhibition of one of my favourites, Gustave Caillebotte, an artist who was equally at home in town or country.  His paintings of Paris show a city embracing modernity and it's citizens finding their place in the wake of Hausemann's rebuilding.  But he also found much in the countryside to inspire him: his father moved the family 12 miles outside Paris to the town of Yerres when Gustave was a young teenager and he did this painting of canooists on the river that ran by the town, one of several with this subject.

In his vividly painted composition, we observe three canooists - and one who has just glided out of our field of vision - as they paddle along the fast-flowing river on a sunny day.  The sunny day is wonderfully realised by the shiny surface of the river and the blaze of green trees overhanging the water; Caillebotte's excellent rendering of the reflections in the water really gives you an immediate sense of the reality.  I also like how the diamond-shaped paddles carry your gaze further back along the river to the lone canooist taking his time.  Like Bazille mentioned above, his independant wealth meant he never had to struggle to survive as an artist and in the last 11 years of his life he stopped exhibiting while becoming a keen garden and boatwright.  Like Bazille too, Gustave died far too young aged 45.

DVD/150: LAST CHANCE HARVEY (Joel Hopkins, 2008)

A romance which wins you over thanks to Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson's chemistry but it's a close thing.

Jingle composer Harvey arrives in London for his daughter's wedding but discovers his ex-wife's partner is to escort her down the aisle.  Harvey leaves after the ceremony but misses his flight back for an important meeting and is sacked over the phone.

At the airport bar, he notices Kate reading alone and tries to engage her in conversation.  She is dissmisive at first but softens when she hears his troubles.

Kate is single, tired of uncomfortable blind dates organized by work colleagues and harrassed by her emotionally needy mother.

Harvey tags along with Kate to her reading class and they flanneur along the South Bank, realising kindred spirits.  

Kate pursuades Harvey to return for his daughter's reception which he invites her to...

Love appears when you are not expecting it...

Shelf or charity shop?  A contender for the DVD limbo of the plastic storage box.  If you are lucky your leading actors have a great chemistry and, luckily for LAST CHANCE HARVEY, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson have it in spades.  The film comes alive in their scenes together, also when it concentrates on Emma Thompson's perceptive performance, but Joel Hopkins' direction and script offers no surprises as the cliches whizz by: the testy first meeting, the shopping montages, the dancing montages, the 11 o'clock spanner in the works, and the inevitable race against the clock ending.  Eileen Atkins is wasted as Kate's mother, a role that beggars belief.  The always-dependable Bronagh Gallagher as Kate's matchmaking colleague stands out from a supporting cast that barely rises above forgettable. Mind you, for a film that relies heavily on London locations, there is only one glaring fail - they walk over Hungerford Bridge and are next seen walking towards it.

The 20th Exit Through The Giftshop - Pictures At An Exhibition

...and finally we get to the 100th postcard!

1) ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1923) - Man Ray

I bought this at the National Portrait Gallery's excellent Man Ray retrospective in 2013.  I was immediately struck by his wonderful photograph of the 24 year-old Ernest Hemingway who stares at us out of the darkness.  Wearing a soft cotton shirt, a tie and woolly jumper, he looks handsome, brooding and contained.

Hemingway was married and living in Paris at the time of the photograph working as the foreign correspondant for the Toronto Star newspaper.  More importantly he was moving in the modernist circles of Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Ezra Pound and, later that year, would publish his first collection of short stories and poems. What a face, what a photograph..

2) CAVALCATA DEL MAGI (detail) (1459-1461) - Benozzo Gozzoli

 

I bought this on our first visit to Florence when we visited the imposing Palazzo Medici-Riccardi; inside the Palazzo is the small Magi Chapel which houses the remarkable Gozzoli fresco on all four walls. showing the lavish process of the three wise men to visit Christ, along with various members of the all-powerful Medici family, their noblemen and the last Byzantine Emperor John VIII.  Smirking here in a yellow tunic is Caspar the youngest of the Magi which is believed to be based on Lorenzo de Medici.

Like the Sistine Chapel, here you are surrounded by art but due to it's smaller size, you can appreciate it all the more.  Gozzoli was a pupil of Fra Angelico and helped him with several of the San Marco cell frescos and the Niccoline Chapel in The Vatican.  Because of it's intimacy it is easier to become fascinated by the masterly detailing on the clothes and livery, the jagged landscape, the draughtsmanship of the animals and the many faces on display.
 

3) UGO FOSCOLO (1939) - Antonio Berti

 

I was immediately struck when visiting the wonderful Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence by the Byronic sweep of this statue of Ugo Foscolo - if only I knew who he was!  I had never heard of him but he was obviously importatnt to stand alongside the graves of Michelangelo, Galileo and Rossini.

It turned out I was right about the 'Byronic sweep' as Foscolo was a 19th Century Italian poet, writer on politics and critic.  He moved to England for the last eleven years of his life and died aged 49 in Turnham Green of all places.  44 years later, his remains were reburied in Santa Croce as part of a reclaiming of Italian civic heroes after the unification of Italy.  Over 60 years later, Berti's romantic sculpture was added.

4) HOLY FAMILY WITH THE INFANT ST JOHN THE BAPTIST (1506-1508) - Michelangelo Buonarroti

I bought this at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence which is the home for this remarkable rondo by Michelangelo.  It was commissioned by the merchant Agnolo Doni and Michelangelo completed it before he started work on the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.

The circular form must have challenged Michelangelo as to it's content but he painted a complicated but remarkable image. The Virgin Mary kneels on the ground in a beautifully-draped gown and twists to accept the baby Jesus from Joseph seated behind her. It could be ungainly and awkward but Michelangelo's solid fleshy figures and blocks of colour make your eyes travel around the painting with ease.

5) THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM (1822-1826) - John Martin

Who needed cinema in the 1820s when you had John Martin on tour?  I bought this at Tate Britain's John Martin exhibition in 2011 featuring his huge historical and biblical landscapes.  This is actually his second smaller version on the subject which now resides in Manchester University, the original resides in the Tate archives.

John Martin's paintings were hugely popular and they would be toured around the country with special lighting effects to summon up the right reactions of shock and awe.  Needless to say the critics viewed his paintings less than the public did and there is something soulless about his work, it's gargantuan with huge skies and tons of lowering clouds of smoke with tiny figures washed up on the shores across from the doomed cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum but where is the emotion?  You decide...

Exit Through The Giftshop - Pictures At An Exhibition #19

 Memories of treasures past...

1) CLOISTER OF SAINT ANTONINUS, SAN MARCO, FLORENCE (1436-1446) - Michelozzo

A favourite place in Florence, this is the cloister you enter into when you visit the San Marco convent.  From the busy square of the same name, you suddenly find yourself in the tranquil cloister with a large fresco of Saint Dominic with the crucified Christ by Fra Angelico facing you at the end of the first corridor. To your right is the entrance to the former pilgrim's hospice which houses many works by Fra Angelico in a single large room.  

The site of a monastery since the 12th Century, in 1437 the occupant order of monks were ordered to leave, making room for the Dominicans from the nearby village of Fiesole.  Finding the buildings in a bad state of disrepair, the monks requested help from Cosimo Medici The Elder who commissioned the architect Michelozzo to rebuild San Marco.  It's a must-see when visiting Florence.

2) AMERICAN GOTHIC (1930) - Grant Wood

An icon of 20th Century American painting, Grant Wood's AMERICAN GOTHIC has had a life of it's own from being used for endless parodies and instant cultural references.  I saw this at the Royal Academy's 2017 exhibition AMERICA AFTER THE FALL which looked at American art from the 1930s. Wood was born in Iowa in 1891 and started painting at an early age, drawing on the midwest landscape and people that surrounded him and he would later teach painting at the University of Iowa.  He died the day before his 51st birthday of pancreatic cancer.  

He lives on in his work and of course with AMERICAN GOTHIC, a painting of his sister Nan and his dentist Dr McKeeby!  The American Gothic alludes to the tall window in the farmhouse behind the couple.  Wood rejected all the reviewers who thought it must be a satire of mid-western people and said he meant it to be an honest representation, it is certainly hard to view without all the parodies coming to mind.

3) MAN OF SORROWS (1441) - Fra Angelico

One of the many stunning frescoes on the first floor of the San Marco convent (after you have past through the lovely cloister as seen above).  This is in cell 26 and the cell paintings were never meant to be seen by anyone but the Dominican monks who occupied the cells.  That is why the cell frescoes have a distilled quality to them, these are for meditation on the subject - here the suffering of Christ. 

Christ stands in his tomb presenting his wounds to a sorrowful Mary and the kneeling Saint Thomas.  What I love about it is the startling background: the cross, spear and sponge are physical objects of the crucifixion while - almost in filmic cut-aways - Christ is seen being kissed by Judas, St Peter being identified as an apostle, Christ is spat at and beaten with sticks while 30 pieces of silver are passed from hand to hand.  It's wonderful...

4) DUNCAN GRANT IN FRONT OF A MIRROR (1915-17) - Vanessa Bell

This was bought at the Dulwich Picture Gallery's fine exhibition of paintings by Vanessa Bell in 2017.  No doubt painted at Charleston, the painting gives an immediate sense of intimacy as Duncan poses with a coloured towel draped over his head, staring at himself and Vanessa in the mirror.

Duncan and his lover David Garnett had declared themselves concientious objectors during World War I which led to Vanessa finding Charleston Farmhouse in Firle to move into so the couple could stay there too while working as fruit farmers.  Friends since 1909, Vanessa and Duncan would briefly become lovers during this period which resulted in the birth of their daughter Angelica in 1918 - a fact that was kept from her until she was 18.

5) MADONNA OF HUMILITY (1440) - Fra Angelico

I bought this at Amsterdam's Rijks Museum where one of Fra Angelico's paintings of the Madonna of Humility is on permanent display.  Fra Angelico had a particular talent for this style of Madonna and child interpretation, representing not so much a static religious image but more of a tender moment caught between mother and child.

The glorious colour is lost in the postcard reproduction but Mary's blue cloak drapes and folds around her, the delicate gold edging coming and going among the folds.  This blue is offset by the rich gold of the emroided cloth that serves as a backdrop as well as the pattened golden cushion that she sits on.  A heartwarming rendition of a over-familiar image.

Exit Through The Giftshop - Pictures At An Exhibition #18

Memories from when galleries and museums were open...

1) SELF PORTRAIT WITH CERISE RIBBONS (1782) - Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun

 

This was bought at the wonderful Le Brun exhibition that was on at the Grand-Palais in Paris which I saw in 2016, the first ever retrospective of her portraits both pre- and post-revolution.  

Elisabeth, aged 27, looks out at us fresh-faced and apple-cheeked, a vision of prettiness with her hair tumbling naturally to her shoulders.  Her soft white dress as accenuated by the bright cerise pussy-bow and sash, and the black lace shawl and jaunty plumed hat.  For a working portraitist, it also served as unoffical advertising, showing the fashionable women of Paris that she could paint them like this too.

2) LADY AGNEW OF LOCHNAW (1892) - John Singer Sargent

A century on from Le Brun, the society painter of choice was John Singer Sargent who, like Elisabeth, gave the sitter exactly what they wanted only with more insight.  The commission came through from the 9th Baronet of Lochnaw Castle to paint his wife Gertrude (née Vernon).  I bought this at the National Gallery of Scotland where she sits in residence.

A glorious portrait, Sargent always managed to give the impression of capturing his subjects 'live', negating the length of time it would have taken to paint.  Her full white dress is accentuated by the mauve sash which also ties in the tones of the silk backdrop and French upholstery of the chair.  She holds a white rose in her lap and languidly drapes her arm over the arm of the chair to hold the chair frame.  She stares directly at Sargent and at us, almost saying "Kiss all this opulence...".

3) STATUE OF EBIH-IL (circa 2400 BC) - unknown

This glorious chap is Ebih-Il, the superintendant of the ancient city of Mari, now in Syria, sculpted at his prayers.  I made his acquaintance at the Louvre in Paris where he is currently residing.  He was discovered in 1934 by French archaelogist André Parrot at the site of the temple of Ishtar.

He is seated on a whicker seat and wears a bulky skirt of animal skin. What makes it stand out however is the marvellous rendering of his face with his happy smile and the vivid blue of his lapis lazuli eyes.  He stands - or sits - just over 20 inches tall and I would head straight for him when the Louvre let me run around with a shopping trolley.

4) THE RAISING OF THE SON OF THEOPHILIS (detail) (1428-1484) - Masaccio and Filippino Lippi

Part of the marvellous fresco cycle which adorn the walls of the Brancacci Chapel within the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence.  The frescos can only be viewed on short timed visits through the cloisters next to the church so the vibrant paintings are not damaged by constant visitors.

I was immediately drawn to this group of observers who rather dispassionately are watching Saint Peter raise a young man from the dead.  Their faces are remarkable and you will definitely have seen them walking along the streets of Florence to find the church of Santa Maria del Carmine. My personal favourite is the man second from the right, turning to his neighbour with a resigned look on his face. Work on the frescos started in 1425 by the painter Masaccio but he stopped when he had to travel to Rome in 1428 where he died aged only 27.  Filippino Lippi completed them 55 years later!

5) THE LAOCOON GROUP (possibly circa 27BC and 68AD) - unknown

One of the most iconic works of art, it's wonderful to see it in 'the marble' and to realise you are looking at a statue that Pliny The Elder wrote about.  If Laocoon and the lads hadn't suffered enough, they are missing a couple of limbs - and a bit of upraised snake - but it does not detract from the overall power of the work and your feeling of helplessness observing it.  The postcard was bought at the Vatican where the statue stands in the Pio-Clementino Mueum.

The Trojan High Priest Laocoon's fate was written about by Sophocles in a now-lost tragedy and by Virgil who tells of him throwing a spear at the Trojan Horse and being killed along with his sons by venomous snakes sent by the god Poseidon.  Sophocles had another take on it and sexed up the tale by having the gods send the snakes to kill his sons in revenge for him breaking his vow of chastity to the god Apollo.  The huge statue was re-discovered in 1506 and Michelangelo was one of the first to inspect it - you can definitely see the influence in his work.  The statue's actual date is still widely open for conjecture and there is no definite idea if it is Greek of Roman.  What most - apart from silly old John Ruskin - are agreed on is it's tragic power.

DVD/150: THE INNOCENTS (Jack Clayton, 1961)

Jack Clayton had read Henry James' ghost story THE TURN OF THE SCREW when young; as a director he only made eight films, luckily THE INNOCENTS was one of them.

20th Century Fox owned the rights having bought a 1950 Broadway adaptation called THE INNOCENTS by William Archibald.  Clayton had Archibald write a screenplay but was disapponted he delivered a straight ghost story with no ambiguity.

John Mortimer gave it a more Victorian flavour, but it was Truman Capote who wrote the final chilling adaptation. 

With Freddie Francis' astonishing cinematography and Jim Clark's editing, Clayton made an extraordinary, disturbing film that haunts the memory.

Onscreen throughout, Deborah Kerr subverts her prim screen persona as Miss Giddens, the inexperienced parson's daughter who becomes the governess of two small orphans.

She soon suspects the house is haunted by two dead servants and determines to save the children... but from what... and whom?

Shelf or charity shop?  Haunting the shelf; the perfect combination of director, script, cast, cinematography and editing, THE INNOCENTS' ominous shadows grow longer and more chilling as the years go by.  Having to use Fox's Cinemascope process, Freddie Francis keeps the focus in the centre of the screen but one is always aware of the shadows at the edges which might hold terrors.  The film's triumph is it's ambiguity: are Miles and Flora haunted by the malevolents ghosts of Quint and his mistress or is Miss Giddens projecting it onto them through her inexperience and puritanical upbringing?  Clayton leaves it up to the viewer - exactly how he told Deborah Kerr to play it.  Kerr is sensational, slowly becoming unhinged by the forces around her - or inside her.  Clayton was gifted with two remarkable child actors Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin, he never gave them a full script but only gave them the lines for the scenes as they filmed them so they play their characters totally in the moment. Megs Jenkins is fine as housekeeper Mrs Grose who cannot protect the children from Miss Giddens' suspicions, and there is a marvellous cameo from Michael Redgrave as Miles and Flora's uncaring, London-based uncle, more than happy to give the untried Miss Giddens complete control over them.  The ghosts are memorably played by Peter Wyngarde and  Clytie Jessop.