View From Malvern

Just returned from a couple of days staying with friends in Tewkesbury.
We spent Thursday afternoon walking in the Malvern Hills. The views from the tops must surely be the finest in the whole of England.

Roman Polansky

Another in the Taschen series of biographies of great film directors. For anyone who wants a concise and well illustrated guide the life and works of Polansky need look no further. Thoroughly recommended.

Just read and reading.

Anyone interested in British films in the 1950s and 60s will relish this illuminating and witty book. The chapter on Fraser's encounter with Bette Davis is worth the price of the book alone. Not to be missed!

Capote

At a department meeting four or five years ago we were discussing Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. During the conversation I remarked that the little boy in the book who came to visit every year was none other than Truman Capote. "Who?" was the response. "The writer of 'In Cold Blood', I replied. "Never heard of him." was the unanimous response.

It's an irony that at the time of the publication of 'To Kill a Mockinbird' Harper Lee's celebrity was eclipsed by that of her close friend Truman Capote and today outside of America at least he is little known, especially to a younger generation of readers and indeed filmgoers who have not heard of 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' let alone 'In Cold Blood.' Perhaps this new film will redress matters.

The new film deals with the period in Capote's life when he was setting down the controversial story of the shocking and brutal murder of the Clutter family in his non fiction novel, 'In Cold Blood'.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman portrays the manipulative, self absorbed Capote without descending to caricature. His performance has quite rightly won him Best Actor Award in this year's Oscars. His confrères give equally committed performances and they and the rest of the crew are expertly directed by Miller.

If there was any justice in Hollywood, this film or Brokeback Mountain should have won the Best Picture category instead of Trash, I mean Crash!

New DVDs This Week

Ben Hur

An Inspector Calls



Ryan's Daughter

Good Night and Good Luck

After one aborted attempt earlier in the week,I finally managed yesterday to get to see Good Night and Good Luck.
For me the film has a number of stylistic irritations which make it difficult to give it a thumbs up. Like for example: dialogue which is at times inaudible, (particularly the scenes involving Robert Downey), at some other times confusing, when too many people are talking at the same time. In my view the director takes overlapping dialogue to extremes. Camera work is at times deliberately out of focus and also often far too restless for comfort.
There's no arguing with any of the performances though, all which are committed. Good script too. But then a lot of that is down to Ed Murrow!

Reading this week.

Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf

New CDs this week

Brokeback Mountain - Soundtrack

Reading This Week

Brokeback Mountain
Story to Screenplay -
Annie Proulx
Larry McMurtry
Diana Ossana

It's Only A Movie
Charlotte Chandler

Manchester United - Carling Cup Winners 2006

They did it! Manchester United beat Wigan Athletic 4 - 0 in the final of the Carling Cup at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, yesterday 26th February 2006. Yours truly was there to witness it!

New DVDs - 'The Last Mitterrand'

Conversations about politics, love, life, literature, form the basis of this study of the last months in the life of the late french President Mitterrand.

Robert Guediguian directs a fine cast in this compelling picture. Michel Bouquet intelligently plays the dying president who recollects events in his life to journalist Antoine Moreau played by Jalil Jespert, who in turn tries and ultimately fails to wrest more detail of some of the less than transparent events in the life of the grand statesman.

The Last Mitterrand is a cerebral film, but one that doesn’t fail also to touch the emotions and one that I would commend to anybody who enjoys intellectual stimulus.

New CDs That I'm Listening to this Week

Elgar conducts Elgar: Cockaigne Overture, Enigma variations, Pomp & Circumstance Marches.
One of the most interesting tracks on this CD is a reconstruction by Ward Marston (the sound engineer who refurbished these items) of an 'accidental stereo' track of Elgar conducting the Cockaigne Overture. Marston has used some sophisticated digital technology and his 'golden ears' to synchronise two separate discs of the the sme recording session which were fed from two separate microphones. The result is obviously not true stereo, but none the less there is a sense of atmosphere and location of the various parts of the orchestra.


Glazunov: Symphony No.5 and The Seasons
Jose Serebrier & Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Nicely recorded accounts of these works. Highlight for me is the seasons which is a delight to hear.


Roger Quilter: Complete Folk Song Arrangements
Found the arrangements and delivery of these songs absolutely delightful. An added bonus here is the well balanced and natural recording of the piano and voice. A real bargain from Naxos.


Paul Lewis plays Beethoven Piano Sonatas Nos. 16, 17 & 18
Wonderfully sensitive playing from this most perceptive of young British pianists. Paul Lewis gave an equally impressive recital here in Manchester last December. I look forward to his return in March.


Leonard Bernstein: The Original Jacket Collection.
Such energy and passion is the mark of all the recordings in this box set. You'll either love these recordings or hate them. Personally I love them!

Wanderer Above A Sea of Fog - Caspar David Friedrich

Of all the German romantic artists, Caspar David Friedrich is for me the greatest. And his painting, 'Wanderer Above A Sea of Fog', is his most introspective and contemplative.

The Nightmare

Came across this painting by Henri Fuseli the Swiss artist other day. I had seen it before several years ago when I was doing some research about the German romantics. It disturbs and chills me as much now as it did then.

The Faces of Shakespeare?

A new exhibition about the images of Shakespeare opens at the National Portrait Gallery next month. Presented below are six of the most well known. Which is the real Shakespeare?

Man Utd:
Van der Sar, Neville (Vidic 69), Brown, Silvestre, Evra (Bardsley 81), Ronaldo, Smith, Park (Rooney 69), Richardson, Saha, van Nistelrooy.Subs Not Used: Fletcher, Steele.

Booked: Smith, Brown, Neville, Evra.

Goals: Park 6, Ronaldo 14, Saha 23, Ronaldo 86.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fulham:
Niemi, Rosenior, Knight, Bocanegra, Bridge, Malbranque, Elliott, Brown (Radzinski 46), Boa Morte, Helguson (John 76), McBride.Subs Not Used: Goma, Warner, Niclas Jensen.

Booked: Rosenior, Boa Morte.

Goals: McBride 22, Helguson 37.

Att: 67,844
Ref: M Atkinson (W Yorkshire).

This week I'm....

Reading:

The Reef by Edith Wharton

Listening to:

Symphony No.5 & The Seasons - Glazaunovunov - Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra - Jose Serebrier Conductor

Wolves 0 - 3 Manchester United

Kieron Richardson celebrates with other members of the Manchester United team as he helps secure them a place in the 5th round of the FA Cup.

This week I'm.............

Listening to:
Steven Bishop Kovacevich playing Beethoven concertos and sonatas.

Watching on DVD:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Jim Carrey

Going to hear at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester:
Bach - Contrapunctus (The Art of Fugue)
Mahler - Ruckert Lieder
Offenbach - Suite, Gaiete parisienne
Shostakovich - Symphony No.2, 'To The October Revolution'
Halle Orchestra - Mark Elder Conductor
Sarah Connolly - mezzo soprano
Halle Choir & RNCM Chorus

Munich

'Munich' is Steven Spielberg's latest film, and is based on the true life kidnapping and murder of the Israeli Olympic team by palestinian terrorists at the Munich games in 1972 and the bloody aftermath in which Mossad (the Israeli Secret Service) track down and murder the killers. So much is true; the rest of the film is at best conjecture and at worst gruesome fiction.

Spielberg is one of my favourite directors and I always look forward to seeing his latest films; Munich is no exception. This new film has all the ingredients of great thriller, but somehow for me it doesn't work. Frankly I felt uninvolved throughout the film and worst of all, bored throughout most of it. One of the problems is the length. A film that is over two and a half hours long has to have something to sustain me. This film had very little going for it. Usually good photography can, for me, compensate for a lot of a film's shortcomings, but alas there was little to please the eye. There were some interesting locations: Paris, London etc but all were photographed in such poor colour that they looked drab and characterless; Spielbergs colour pallette being limited to blues, greys and dun.

There is much gratuitous violence too. Spielberg doesn't spare the viewer any of the gory details of the numerous murders, which frankly after the first two lose their effectiveness. I found it tiresome having to watch one murder after another in such graphic detail. If Spielberg wanted to shock me, he failed, because after an hour I had become inured to the violence.

Frankly I couldn't wait till the end of the film. Had I rented it on DVD I would not have bothered watching it after the first hour.

I'm sure the film will find an audience - Spielberg's name will guarantee that, but I'm afraid this viewer won't be recommending it to anybody.

Manchester United 1 - 0 Liverpool

Who put the ball in Liverpool's net yesterday? Rio ferdinand!

Happy Birthday Mozart

This Friday 27th January 2006 sees the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

This Week's Listening

Piano Sonatas 19 & 14 by Franz Schubert: Paul Lewis
Noriko Ogawa Plays Schubert
Symphony No.7 'Leningrad by Shostakovich: Mark Wigglesworth conducts the BBC Orchestra of Wales

In the Concert Hall This Week

Thursday 26th January Bridgewater Hall Manchester: Beethoven Egmont Overture & Piano Concerto No. 2 - Soloist Christian Blackshaw; Shostakovich Symphony No.10 - Stanislav Skrowaczewski conducting the Halle Orchestra.

Brokeback Mountain

One day back in 1998 wandering through Waterstones in Manchester looking for something quick to read, I was struck by the cover of a new title by an unknown writer (to me at any rate) called Annie Proulx. She was also the author, so the jacket of the book said, of 'Shipping News'. It was only sixty-four pages long and had an intriguing plot. I bought it. I later read it in all of an hour. It is an irony that the book on which a film is made should take less time to read than the movie is to watch! However, whether one reads it or views it, Brokeback Mountain is a story that lingers long in the mind.

The movie arrives with a lot of ballyhoo: gay western, gay love story, Venice Film Festival winner, Golden Globe nominations, expectations of Oscars, best film of the year etc. This kind of hyperbole leads to very high expectations with the result that audiences sometimes come out of the cinema asking what all the fuss was about. I'm no exception. My critical facilities sharpen and almost dare the director and actors to prove it!

Well what of the film? What's it about? To start with it most definitely (in my book at least) is not a western. There are no guns and no cows; though I admit a lot of westerns often feature close male relationships, and to label it a gay love story would, I feel, trivialise it. This is a story about some very complex and deep emotions experienced by two men alone on a mountain in Wyoming. What these two men discover about themselves is (to them) at once both shameful and intoxicating. It is also ultimately destructive. It is in fact, a tragedy; a story of a doomed relationship.

In my view this is Ang Lee’s greatest piece of directing to date. He manages to obtain some truly great performances from Heath Ledger as the taciturn Ennis and Jake Ghyllenhaal as Jack Twist, who having been unsuccessful on the rodeo circuits is trying his hand at looking after sheep.

Lee handles the issues sensitively and at no time could one regard the film as salacious. Indeed I was at times genuinely moved by the intensity of the relationship of the two men.

This is a great film and one destined to become a classic. It deserves the praise heaped upon it.

This Weeks Listening,Reading & Viewing

• Whisky Galore (DVD)
• Bette & Joan; The Divine Feud by Shaun Considine (Still reading)
• Early Beethoven Quartets - Takacs Quartet
• Brokeback Mountain
• Symphony No.5 - Shostakovich - Concertgebou Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink

King Kong Review

My interest in King Kong was first generated way back last summer when I saw a trailer advertising the release of the film the following December. I was stunned at the recreation of 1930s New York and full of expectancy at the promise of further spectacle. In short I couldn't wait.

Well I have now seen it. Was it worth the wait? Well yes and no.
The film follows the basic outline of the original 1930s movie starring Fay Wray, but develops further the scenes in New York and on the island where Kong is captured. And this is for me the chief problem with the film: we sit waiting one full hour before we get a glimpse of Kong and then another hour before he is caught and taken off the island. Admittedly one sits in awe at the incredible realism created by the films digital artists, but I couldn't help but feel that much of it was self indulgent. The philosopy being: I can do it so I will.

I have to say though the cast were splendid. Joe Black and Naomi Watts had much competition from the special effects but in my view conceded nothing and both gave excellent performances.

Its a shame that someone at Universal couldn't persuade Peter Jackson, the films director, to lop off at least an hour of footage; preferably the jungle episode when one feels that the projectionist during reel change mistakenly inserted one from Jurassic Park! Jackson could quite easily have reinserted the deleted scenes later in a Director's cut DVD.

Judging by audience numbers at the cinema where I saw it, I rather suspect that King Kong will not recoup its huge cost.

In this month's The Gramophone magazine.

There's a good article in this month's issue of The Gramophone about George Szell, the much esteemed hungarian conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra known for his often unreasonable demands of players and management, and as a consequence the enemies that he made. Richard Osborne, the writer of the article tells of a remark made by Rudolf Bing, the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York: "Szell is his own worst enemy," said a sympathiser. "Not while I'm alive!" replied Bing.

A New Year Resolution

I can’t believe it, but it is eight months since I last posted anything on this blog! One of my New Year Resolutions is to remedy this unacceptable situation.

Thought For The Day

There's no future in the past.

This Week's Listening,Reading and Viewing

• Bette & Joan; The Divine Feud by Shaun Considine
• Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell & Kenyon
• Symphonies 88 & 99 by Haydn; Symphony No.1 - BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis
• Symphony No.5 by Anton Bruckner - Vienna Philharmonic conducted bt Nikolaus Harnoncourt
• Viola Voncerto in C Minor York Bowen; Viola Concerto in G Minor by Cecil Forsyth - Lawrence Power viola, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Martin Brabbins