Sunday, February 28, 2010

The big picture / Chaplin on set

prepares for his role as Calvero in Limelight. Photograph: W. Eugene Smith



The big picture: Chaplin on set

Charlie Chaplin checks his make-up while filming Limelight: The star returned to his music-hall roots in his final Hollywood film before he was exiled in Europe for his 'un-American' liberalism. Photograph by W. Eugene Smith

Peter Conrad
Sunday 28 February 2010

C
haplin, whose Little Tramp was an exemplary modern man, soon became a compulsory subject for modern art. Fernand Léger made a cubist Charlie from panels of painted wood, and Erwin Blumenfeld drew him as Christ limply dangling from a crucifix – a dejected saviour, shedding comic grace on an unworthy world. Edward Steichen photographed him as a capering faun, whose walking stick might be a magician's wand; Lee Miller, catching him in middle age, arranged his prematurely grey hair into radiant waves and made the imp – whose sexual escapades often got him into trouble with the law – look handsomely rakish. W Eugene Smith spent weeks on the set of Limelight, watching him mug and preen in front of the camera and issue orders behind it. Chaplin was 63 and soon to be exiled. When he left California for the film's London premiere in 1952, his permit to re-enter the US was revoked to punish him for his "un-American" liberalism.

Limelight took Chaplin back to his early years as a music-hall comedian. In Smith's photograph, the jaunty tramp is replaced by a tragic clown, whose mouth manages to smirk while turning down at the corners. He is ashen, even spectral: mimes paint their faces white because they want to join the company of the dead. His character's name is Calvero, which recalls the martyrdom in Blumenfeld's drawing; he dies onstage, of course.
The portrait at the mirror is also a self-portrait for the unseen photographer. W Eugene Smith was a tragic character, whose images, as Cartier-Bresson said, were "taken beneath the shirt and the skin", in the vulnerable vicinity of the heart. He photographed burials at sea during the Pacific war, spied on a Ku Klux Klan conclave, documented the ravings of psychiatric patients in Haiti, and wrecked his own health recording the misery of Japanese villagers poisoned by pollution.
The complicity between Smith's beatnik depressiveness and Chaplin's stoical despair enables the photographer to look behind the actor's pretence. The clown's persona crumbles when we see the jars that helped the actor assemble it and the tissues that will scrub the artifice off. Photography is about light and its battle with dark, and blackness seems about to engulf that white, bloodless face. Limelight, which illuminates Calvero's routines, gets its lunar glare from quicklime, which is also sprinkled on bodies to speed up their decay; the bulbs beside the mirror offer their own augury – are they not turned on, or have they burned out?
Chaplin here sadly prepares for a frolic that may be his final curtain, and Smith takes courage from his determination to challenge the encroaching night. The connection was momentary, as all photographs are. Ten years later Smith phoned Chaplin's home in Switzerland from his squalid Manhattan loft. The number rang for an age and the operator finally reported that no one was at home. Smith taped this pointless exchange, then filed the reel after labelling it "Last attempt to call Chaplin".



Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)


Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star in this musical comedy which lacks the wit of the original novel




Philip French
Sunday 28 February 2010


T
his 1953 musical comedy, among the last of its kind to be made before the coming of the widescreen, features a golddigging Monroe and a man-eating Russell as busty girls en route by sea from the States to Paris, France. There are a couple of well-staged numbers but less wit and style than are to be found in Anita Loos's demotic classic on which it's based. Released the year Playboy was launched, it features much characteristic 50s coarseness and leering. Gentleman Prefer Blondes is among the weaker works of a great filmmaker, whose two finest comedies (Bringing Up BabyHis Girl Friday) were made before the war and whose greatest film (Rio Bravo) was yet to come.


THE GUARDIAN



Saturday, February 27, 2010

My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

 

Arthur Holmes, who 'didn’t just tell you the facts you needed to know to pass the exam.
He took you on a journey around the world'.
Photograph: University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences


My hero 

Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey


Richard Fortey
Saturday 27 February 2010

T

here is usually no duller writing to be found than that lurking in textbooks. Thoroughness is the main virtue, accuracy the measure of excellence. Inspiration comes a long way down the list. Even though brilliant teachers may change lives, how often can that be said of textbooks?

This is where "Holmes" was so different. To give the book its full title: Principles of Physical Geology by Arthur Holmes, it was known simply by its author's name to generations of geologists. Sounds dull, doesn't it? But "Holmes" didn't just tell you the facts you needed to know to pass the exam. He took you on a journey around the world. Through his expert eyes you travelled deep into the African Rift valley or descended through the Grand Canyon. The mysteries of mountains were unravelled, the ocean depths plumbed. Tens of millions of years of history unwound their thrilling narratives. "Holmes" was not shy of using spectacular adjectives; his was the grandest of grand tours.

I became a student of geology. It was then I discovered that Holmes had devoted much of his scientific life to determining the age of the Earth. He pioneered methods of using the radioactive decay of uranium to measure time. Accurate measurement of Earth's antiquity had been a question that had plagued scientists since long before Darwin. Thanks to Holmes and his colleagues, the figure was pushed back beyond four billion years. Holmes, you could say, gave us time itself; we are still trying to grasp the complexities of its leisurely evolution. The discrepancy between our own brief life and the slow march of geological processes lies at the very heart of debates about climate change and human influence. Even today, everyone could benefit from reading "Holmes".

My hero was a little-known scientist from a now-defunct department at Nottingham University who helped us to realise that human duration is but a small punctuation mark at the end of the book of existence. We have to hope it isn't a full stop.


THE GUARDIAN





2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler 
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser

007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville

011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

036 My hero / Robert Lowell by Jonathan Raban
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner

041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson

051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal

2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
100 Thomas Tranströmer by Robin Robertson
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill

2012

190 My hero / Iris Murdoch by Charlotte Mendelson
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer

2015
2016



Saturday, February 20, 2010

My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry

 

Max Stafford-Clark, working with the Out of Joint threatre company.
Photograph: John Haynes


My hero 

Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry


Sebastian Barry
Saturday 20 February 2010

I

've known Max Stafford-Clark since 1992, when I met him at the Royal Court to discuss a possible commission. He shepherded the play I eventually wrote for him, found an astounding actor to be in it, resisted the doubts of various other agencies, and more or less changed my life and the life of my wife and then small children. This might be considered reason enough to have Max as my hero, and yet that is not all the reason.

We did two more plays together, and since 2004 we have laboured to put together a fourth. In 2006 we were to have a rehearsed reading of this play, but overwhelming news interrupted the plan. Max had endured three strokes, front, middle and back of the brain, all at the one time. It would have definitively felled Achilles. And certainly it was a long Herculean year before he worked again.

In rehearsal these last weeks, I realised very quickly that something indeed had happened to Max. Something unexpected, yes, but also miraculous. He had somehow augmented his nature, and had become an even greater man. He had met his difficulty with a sort of deep-bedded dancingness. For instance, he had sat with the play so intently, played his mind over it so completely, that it was like watching some heroic painter at work as he rehearsed it, willing to squeeze himself into a tight space to give life to a democratic vision. His actors came up to the gate of his inspiration like horses for apples. He was always, it seemed, well ahead of us, but didn't mind waiting till we caught up.

If I were a Queen's adviser, and not a renegade and disreputable Irishman, I would suggest him for a knighthood, an Order of Merit, a Companion of Honour. For in being his companion these last weeks we have all been greatly honoured

THE GUARDIAN





2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
006 My hero / Ted Hughes by Michael Morpurgo
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

013 My hero / Bob Moog by Don Paterson
014 My Hero / Sebastian Walker by Julie Myerson
015 My Hero / My Father John Gross by Philip Gross
016 My heroes in Postman's Park by Christopher Reid
017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey


2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller 
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
120 My hero / Graham Greene by Richard Holloway
134 My hero / Homer by Madeline Miller
146 My hero / Roald Dahl by Michael Rosen 
156 My hero / Barack Obama by Lorrie Moore

2013
167 My hero / Oliver Sacks by Hilary Mantel
169 My hero / Jean Rhys by Linda Grant
174 My hero / Alice Munro by Nell Freudenberger
176 My hero / Mae West by Kathy Lette
181 My hero / Lydia Davis by Ali Smith
184 My hero / Louise Bourgeois by Tracey Emin
185 My hero / Albert Camus by David Constantine
190 My hero / Iris Murdoch by Charlotte Mendelson
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer




Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Man Booker Prize 1986 / The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis


MAN BOOKER PRIZE 1986

Booker club: The Old Devils

 by Kingsley Amis


Kingsley Amis's 1986 Booker winner shows an unexpectedly sweet side of a writer often accused of misogyny and bitterness

Sam Jordison
Tue 16 Feb 2010


Kingsley Amis
 'The booze was beginning to get to him' ... Kingsley Amis (centre). Photograph: Graham Harrison/Rex Features
Viewed through the reverse telescope of history, Kingsley Amis's success at the 1986 Booker prize seems like the natural culmination of a long and distinguished writing career. One of the finest comic writers of his generation – century even – had done the natural thing and written a bloody brilliant book that easily scooped the country's top literary award.
At the time, however, it came as something of a surprise. There are notable similarities between the way Amis Snr was regarded then and his son Martinis now. Kingsley was widely seen as past his best before The Old Devils came out and more column inches were devoted to denunciations of what commentators imagined he thought than to the words he wrote. Unlike Martin, he also had the disadvantage of being a well-known drunk and (to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens) the booze was beginning to get to him and rob him of his wit and charm. Few expected the Old Devils to be as good as it was – but that just makes it all the sweeter.
"Sweet" is in fact the operative word here. Another surprise from a man so frequently accused of misogyny and bitterness is just how tender this book is – and how in love with love. 
The Old Devils of the title are old friends from Wales. Because they are mainly retired, their day starts winding down shortly after breakfast and so they start drinking. The men imbibe dangerous amounts in various unpleasant pubs, the women in various unpleasant kitchens. They bitch and moan and say outrageously rude things about anything and everybody, but – crucially – they all tolerate each other. They even put up with a chronic alcoholic called Dorothy. They just desperately try to keep talking whenever she's around so she isn't able to cut in with one of her interminable monologues about New Zealand tribal customs. (A task that is described with typical virtuosity as being "like trying to start a motorcycle in the path of a charging elephant.")

What's more, over the course of the book, they find a way to forgive each other's past transgressions, admit to past cruelties and even rekindle snuffed-out love affairs. Their memories about their shared experiences have become unreliable, they don't all have their own teeth and at least one of them has become convinced he is too fat and hideous to ever bother about again – but human warmth wins through. It's moving and life-affirming – all the more so thanks to Amis's frankness about the infirmity and imminent death faced by most of his characters.


But that's not to say the old rogue has gone soft. The novel is also satire of the highest quality. One of the main story strands, for instance, follows professional Welshman Alun (born Alan) Weaver and his return to "this land of river and hill" from a successful career he has carved out in London by banging on about his affinity to "Brydan" (a thinly disguised stand-in for Dylan Thomas). Cue countless barbed riffs on Pays-De-Gallic posturing. "If you ask me all the proper Welshman are leaving Wales," someone remarks. "I say, are they really? Well that's splendid news, by George," comes the reply. Most blunt (and wonderful) is the invitation: "Show me a Welsh nationalist and I'll show you a cunt."
There are also fine evocations of the thousand daily pinpricks of existence in the UK; of suburban ennui and its bored love affairs, of the indignities of age, of hopeless drunks, and of hideous modernised pubs and even worse untouched ones. The temptation here is to start reeling off supporting quotes again, especially some beauties relating to bowel movements and farting. The trouble is that quoting Amis never does him real justice. His comic genius relies so much upon build-up, context and impeccable timing that it can only be fully appreciated in its correct setting. You'll just have to take my word for it that I was laughing so much that I was frequently unable to continue reading. Or, better still, get hold of the book yourself. It's that rare and precious thing – a novel that is a delight from start to finish.