Back in May, my family and I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and enjoyed, amongst other things, its impressive collection of sculptures, including this beautiful piece from the great Italian neoclassical sculptor, Antonio Canova. The Three Graces were daughters of Zeus and companions to the Muses, and were a celebrated subject in classical literature and art. They are Thalia (youth and beauty), Euphrosyne (mirth), and Aglaia (elegance), and the goddesses are depicted huddled together, nude, hair braided and held atop their heads in a knot, the three slender figures melding into one in their embrace.
The sculpture is carved from a single slab of white marble. Canova’s assistants would have roughly hewn out the marble, leaving Canova to perform the final carving and shaping of the stone to highlight the Graces’ soft flesh. It was commissioned by John Russel, 6th Duke of Bedford, who visited Canova at his studio in Rome in 1814. Bedford was captivated by the group of the Three Graces which Canova had carved for the Empress Josephine, the estranged wife of Napoleon Bonaparte (“I frankly declare”, he is reported to have said, “that I have seen nothing in ancient or modern sculpture that has given me more pleasure than this piece of work”). Josephine had died in May of that year, and the Duke offered to buy the sculpture from Canova, but Josephine’s son claimed it (and that version is now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg) so Bedford commissioned a new one.
The completed statue was installed at the Duke’s home, Woburn Abbey. An 1822 catalogue of the sculpture at Woburn summed up the appeal of the work: “in the constrained flexibility with which their arms are entwined round each other; in the perfect symmetry of their limbs, in the delicacy of detail, and exquisiteness of finish, in the feet and hands; in that look of living softness given to the surface of the marble, which looks as if it would yield to the touch…this great sculptor has shown the utmost delicacy and judgement”.
It is indeed remarkable to get “up close and personal” with a great sculpture like this and marvel at the skill and delicacy required to achieve such an exquisite finish from a block of stone. Canova’s other masterpiece, Cupid and Psyche in the Louvre, elicits the same admiration.
David Mamet’s two-act play, Glengarry Glen Ross, was first staged in 1983, and won the Pulitzer Prize, remaining something of a classic of contemporary theatre. It was adapted for film in 1992, by Mamet himself, and it is almost a word-for-word transcription of the play, with the one exception being this: the most famous, most quoted, and most popular scene of the movie, which is the subject of this blog, didn’t exist in the play but was written apparently to bulk out the piece to film length.
In creating the scene, Mamet arguably sets the tone for the entire movie. The movie features the pressured lives of real estate salesmen played by Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin, struggling to close deals in this toughest of tough rackets, and about to receive a visit from Blake (Alec Baldwin), the motivational speaker from Hell, who has been sent from “downtown” to read the riot act. It’s excruciating stuff; it takes a while to dawn on the salesmen just how tough this grilling is going to be (“Put that coffee down. Coffee’s for closers only…”) and we grimace at the ritual disembowelling of the poor men (“You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?”).
Edifying it ain’t, but nonetheless it’s an acting masterclass from all concerned: Baldwin dishing out the flak; Lemmon like a rabbit in the headlights; Harris initially derisive and sceptical but then brow-beaten and forced to endure the spiel; Arkin submissive, silent. We can see and hear from the windows that outside is dark and the rain torrential; inside, the office is shabby and bleak and Blake is an unrelenting and pitiless tormentor. Now imagine you’ve just been told that you’re fighting to save your job in this month’s sales contest, in which first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize is a set of steak knives, and third prize is “You’re fired”. It’s stark, to say the least. You wouldn’t want to be in this game…
But hey, you’re not in this game — so sit back, relax, and enjoy not being on the receiving end of this verbal maceration and instead observe the equal measures of bravado and human frailty exhibited in this wonderfully uncomfortable performance by some great American actors.
In 1872, Claude Monet visited his hometown of Le Havre in the north west of France and proceeded to paint six canvases depicting the port “during dawn, day, dusk, and dark and from varying viewpoints, some from the water itself and others from a hotel room looking down over the port”. One painting from this series was to become very famous.
Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise) was debuted in April 1874 in Paris at an independent exhibition launched as an alternative to the official Salon de Paris exhibitions of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The exhibition, by a group calling itself the “Société Anonyme des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs etc” was led by Monet, along with other such future luminaries as Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. Two hundred works were shown and about 4,000 people attended, including, of course, some rather unsympathetic critics.
Monet described how he came up with a title for the painting: “They asked me for a title for the catalogue…it couldn’t really be taken for a view of Le Havre, so I said: ‘Put Impression’ “. While this title was apparently chosen in haste for the catalogue, the term “Impressionism” was not new. It had been used for some time to describe the effect of some of the naturalistic paintings emanating from the so-called Barbizon school of painters. However, it was in critic Louis Leroy’s review of the 1874 exhibition, “The Exhibition of the Impressionists”, for the newspaper Le Charivari, that he used “Impressionism” to describe this new style of work displayed, and he said it was typified by Monet’s painting.
This term, then, initially used to both describe and deprecate a movement, was taken up by all parties to describe the style, and Monet’s Impression, Sunrise was thus considered to have encapsulated the start of the movement. The rest, as they say, is history.
To opera buffs, Nessun Dorma has always been one of the great arias, but my, how the song’s profile was raised by its use as the theme song to the 1990 World Cup. That new audience, numbering in the scores of millions, associated the piece inextricably with the one voice, that of Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti. Many artists have recorded their own versions of the song – before and since — but it’s Pavarotti who is generally credited with performing the ultimate version of this song. The performance I embed below, from a show in Paris in 1994, shows exactly why it’s a justified claim. Pavarotti delivers an emotionally charged and hauntingly beautiful piece of musical theatre. Check out the emotion on his face at around the 2.40 to 2.50 mark.
Incidentally, for me, Nessun Dorma does not benefit from an English translation or an understanding of the song’s contextual meaning in Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot (though it concerns a prince, Calaf, and his attempts to win the hand of Princess Turandot), so I prefer to preserve its enigmatic majesty by ignoring its meaning and just letting it be. It’s truly powerful on its own.
Back in 2009, a few days after my mum’s funeral, my family and I, after a visit up to Blyth and on our way back, called into Durham Cathedral, significant for my mum’s stonemason dad having worked on this fine building. It turned out that it happened to be the day before Bobby Robson’s memorial service, and they were rehearsing for it as we arrived. Unsurprisingly, Nessun Dorma had been chosen to be a part of the memorial service (performed I believe, by vocal trio, Tenors Unlimited). Thus, in one of the world’s great cathedrals, and still raw from my bereavement, I heard the resounding strains of Nessun Dorma. An unforgettable moment.
Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, oh Principessa Nella tua fredda stanza Guardi le stelle che tremano D’amore e di speranza
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me Il nome mio nessun saprà No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò Quando la luce splenderà Ed il mio bacio scioglierà Il silenzio che ti fa mia
(ll nome suo nessun saprà E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir, morir)
Victoria Wood’s collaborations with Julie Walters over the years spawned many a rich reward. Wood’s wit produced great ideas for characters, and Walters’ instinctive comic timing and gift for nuanced physical comedy brilliantly brought those characters to life. The series of sketches around Acorn Antiques, for example, provided the ideal showcase for Walters to ham it up as the glorious character that was Mrs Overall, or more accurately, the gloriously inept actress that played the character in this send-up of low-budget, shoddily performed, daytime soap opera.
The showcase I have selected for this blog, however, is the sketch, Waitress (popularly known as Two Soups), in which Walters plays an elderly, deaf, shaky, and painfully slow waitress, serving a couple who are only too aware one of them has a train to catch and simply want a quick meal. This simple premise, replete with possibilities for that typically British comedy of frustration, is enough for Walters to take the ball and run faster and further with it than probably even Victoria Wood imagined at first.
Witness Walters’ shuffling gait, wobbly head and fixed smile — this is physical comedy of the first order, and we’re laughing before she opens her mouth. With her bad memory and dangerously maladroit handling of the crockery, this unfit-for-purpose waitress should have hung up her apron strings years ago, but for now let’s thank the forbearance of her employer as we enjoy this infuriating but hilarious performance. Needless to say, the couple’s plans for a quick meal are thwarted.
The Book of Kells, held in Dublin’s Trinity College Library, is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament. It was created in a Columban monastery in Ireland around 800 AD, and it’s a masterwork of Western calligraphy. It represents the pinnacle of insular illumination (“insular” deriving from insula, the Latin for “island” and referring to post-Roman art of Britain and Ireland). It is also widely regarded as Ireland’s finest national treasure, and although I haven’t yet made it past the pubs of Dublin to view it, it’s definitely on the list.
The illustrations and ornamentation of the Book of Kells are exquisite. The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with ornate, swirling motifs. There are figures of humans, animals, mythical beasts, along with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colours, all scribed onto leaves of high-quality calf vellum with iron gall ink (the standard ink used in Europe, made from iron salts and tannic acid extracted from oak galls) and colours derived from a wide range of substances imported from distant lands.
The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, in County Meath, which was its home for centuries. Its exact place of origin is uncertain, although it is widely thought to have been started at Iona and then later completed in the scriptorium at Kells itself. Regardless, it’s true to say that the Columban monks responsible for its creation had skills in calligraphy honed to a remarkable degree.
The last time my family and I visited York, we wandered outside York Minster but our indigenous frugality (being ourselves of Yorkshire soil) baulked at the then-recently introduced admission fee of £10 to go inside. If you too visit York and find yourself in similar frugal mode, let me advise you to take a hold of yourself, with an optional shake, and remind yourself never to put filthy lucre ahead of artistic splendour. For York Minster, as well as in itself being one of the great gothic cathedrals of northern Europe, and thus replete with the resplendent architectural beauty for which such cathedrals are known, contains also the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world, including the subject of today’s blog, the Great East Window.
Some call it England’s Sistine Chapel, and indeed, had it been done in paint, instead of in glass, it might well be considered a rival to Michelangelo’s masterpiece in Rome. However, stained glass has always fallen on the wrong side of that dividing line between fine and applied art, and thus it is seen primarily as a craft. Let’s not fall for that one. The great east window in York Minster is one of the triumphant achievements of the Middle Ages: 1,690sqft of artfully executed stained glass, recounting the story of the world from Creation to Apocalypse.
It was in 1405 that John Thornton of Coventry was commissioned to glaze the east end of the Lady Chapel. A copy of Thornton’s contract for the window survives, specifying that he was to draw all the cartoons, and paint a large number of the individual panels. For all this Thornton was paid a total of £56, and contracted to complete the job inside three years. For doing so, Thornton received a £10 bonus, and proudly put the date of completion – 1408 – at the very apex of the window.
Doubtless Thornton had behind him a team of glaziers, hired locally or brought with him from Coventry, but the painting on the glass would primarily have been his. It was Thornton’s task too to turn the commissioner’s highly theological and precise concept into a work of art. And this he self-evidently did.
While much medieval glass is dominated by reds and blues, John Thornton had a penchant for yellow as his base colour. In addition, the painting in Thornton’s faces had greater realism (and meticulously drawn hair) than his rivals. The typical Thornton face is sensitive, with eyes down-turned, a small mouth and a somewhat prominent nose. What Thornton was pioneering in his glasswork was the European style – new to England – known as International Gothic. It is elegantly stylised work; for sure, the York commissioners were buying cutting edge art, and, of course, good glass can’t be made without a cutting edge.
Three sailors on a road trip. Two Navy lifers, portrayed by Jack Nicholson and Otis Young, are assigned to escort the hapless 18-year old recruit, Meadows (Randy Quaid), from Norfolk, Virginia, to military prison in New Hampshire, after he was caught stealing from a charity, which unfortunately for him happened to be the favourite charity of the Admiral’s wife. “Badass” Buddusky (Nicholson) and “Mule” Mulhall (Young), are given a week to carry out their duty, and initially aim to hustle Meadows to prison while keeping his per diem expenses for themselves, allowing for a bit of holiday drinking and whoring on their way back.
As the disproportionate severity of the eight-year sentence handed down to Meadows dawns upon them, Badass and Mule change their objective; now they want to show Meadows the best time of his life before he is incarcerated. Numerous shenanigans ensue, as the three eat, drink and fight their way across a naturalistic 1970s America.
Nicholson is a marvel to watch. Initially in a sour mood and underwhelmed by this “detail” that has been handed to him out of the blue, eventually the realisation of freedom sinks in and the prospect of fun beckons, at which point Nicholson ignites. His character, Buddusky, soon shows why he got his “Badass” nickname. He lives in the moment, is highly impulsive, and never squanders an opportunity for a good time, like the scene in which he spots some Marines entering the public lavatories at the station. He promptly follows them in to start a ruckus, drawing Mule and Meadows into the caper by dint of military solidarity. After battering the Marines in typically chaotic fashion they charge recklessly and hilariously out of the toilets and the station itself to seek their next adventure.
The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, but it failed to win any, and good critical notices did not translate into box office success. A few months later, Chinatown exploded onto the scene, and The Last Detail was somewhat eclipsed. Nicholson would soon go on to win an Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — and quite rightly — but for me, his performance in The Last Detail is as fine an achievement as that role.
Witness two representative scenes: first, a simple master class in how to eat and relish a hamburger, Buddusky-style; and second, the infamous bar scene in which Badass completely loses it when the bartender refuses to serve the underage Meadows and contrives to push all the wrong buttons as far as Badass is concerned. The disturbing and highly intimidating over-reaction from Badass toward the bartender is then tempered by a huge release of tension on the sidewalk afterwards as they laugh like drains at their escapade. “I am a bad ass, ain’t I?” says Buddusky. Yes sir, you certainly are.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were arguably the most successful comedy team of all time, thriving during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s. Known and loved throughout the world under a large variety of names (among them Dick und Doof in Germany, Flip i Flap in Poland, and Cric e Croc in Italy), to the English-speaking world they were of course Laurel and Hardy: Stan the loveable simpleton and Olly the ambitious but pompous butt of many a “fine mess”.
The duo, like W C Fields and the Marx Brothers, had deep roots in stage and music hall before making the successful transition from stage to screen. Stan Laurel began his career, when he was plain Arthur Jefferson, as Charlie Chaplin’s understudy when they were both stablemates of “Fred Karno’s army”, Karno being an influential theatre impresario and pioneer of slapstick comedy. Oliver Hardy, meanwhile, was cutting his teeth performing vaudeville and working for the Lubin motion picture production company, appearing in scores of one-reeler movies, mostly playing the “heavy”.
Their paths began to cross when both worked for Hal Roach Studios in the early 1920s, but it was in 1927 that the two shared screen time together in the silent comedy films, Slipping Wives, Duck Soup, and With Love and Hisses. The positive audience reactions to the pairing was noted, and a comedy duo was born, and then cemented as they transferred so perfectly to the advent of the talkies.
Their comedy timing was impeccable, their physical comedy honed to perfection. With a pair of unmistakeable, born-for-comedy faces and physical morphology, just looking at a picture of them is enough to bring a smile to the face. Whilst so much early comedy has become dated, the comedy of Laurel and Hardy remains timeless, a whole eighty-odd years later. Testament to their enduring charm is the large group of modern-day Laurel and Hardy fans known as the “Sons of the Desert” (taken from their 1933 film of the same name) with chapters all over the world. A few years ago I took the family to a screen showing of some Laurel & Hardy reels at Birstall, and was both amused and reassured to see some of the chaps in the audience sporting the trademark Sons of the Desert fez! I was equally delighted to see my young daughters lapping up the physical comedy and giggling at these gags from a distant age.
Watch the clip of the two getting into typically amusing bother, with Olly, as usual, paying for his imperious and blustering treatment of Stan, by coming off considerably the worst, in the 1935 film, Thicker Than Water.
In 490 BC, the Athenian army defeated the invading Persian army in a battle on the plain of Marathon, roughly 26 miles north of Athens. According to legend, and brought down to us via the writings of Herodotus, Lucian and Plutarch, the Athenians then ordered the messenger Pheidippides to run ahead to Athens and announce the victory to the city. Pheidippides raced back to the city in the intense late summer heat. Upon reaching the Athenian agora, he exclaimed “Rejoice! We conquer” and then collapsed dead from exhaustion.
This trope, of the long distance chase to deliver vital news, we see again in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride (1860). This told the (highly embroidered) tale of Paul Revere’s valiant ride to Concord to warn the militia that the British were coming, thus promoting him in American culture to the status of hero and patriot of the American Revolution.
In the same spirit – though this time wholly imaginary – is Robert Browning’s How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. The poem is a first-person narrative told, in breathless galloping meter, by one of three riders, only one of whose horses, the narrator’s brave Roland, survives to fulfil the epic quest. The midnight errand is urgent — “the news which alone could save Aix from her fate” — but what that good news actually is, is never revealed. The sequence of towns flashing by between Ghent and Aix-la-Chapelle is true to life, though they are characterised only by the associated times of night, dawn, and day (also a feature of Paul Revere’s Ride) as the narrator charges through them.
This poem is one of my earliest memories of poetry, from schooldays, and its rollicking movement and sense of adventure resonates with me now as it did then. There is a recording of Browning himself reciting the poem on an 1889 Edison cylinder, but it’s far too crackly for our purposes, and besides, he forgets the lines and gives up after the first verse (“I’m terribly sorry but I cannot remember me own verses”) so instead I offer this more modern and professional version!
I I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; ‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; ‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
II Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
III ’Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; At Düffeld, ’twas morning as plain as could be; And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime, So, Joris broke silence with, ‘Yet there is time!’
IV At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:
V And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track; And one eye’s black intelligence, — ever that glance O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance! And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.
VI By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, ‘Stay spur! Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault’s not in her, We’ll remember at Aix’ — for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.
VII So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, ‘Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And ‘Gallop,’ gasped Joris, ‘for Aix is in sight!’
VIII ’How they’ll greet us!’ — and all in a moment his roan Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, And with circles of red for his eye-sockets’ rim.
IX Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.
X And all I remember is — friends flocking round As I sat with his head ‘twixt my knees on the ground; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.
Robert Browning
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