Italics are mine

Movie "Leviathan"

Golden Globe Winner for Best Foreign-Language Film Leviathan is an amazingly good movie on a grand scale - gripping, compelling, and stunningly shot. I saw it the same weekend I saw Ballet 422, and a short review would be, movies like Leviathan make you understand what separates great movies from the undistinguished work of many less inspired filmmakers.

Now, the cinema being about nowadays Russia, you won't leave the movie theater particularly joyful, but the ending really delivers a punch with its sharp, pointed criticism at certain hypocrisies among forces in power, so you will leave with the feeling you were hit in the stomach and your jaw is still dragging on the floor, but in a good way. (Really.) Even today in spite of the many bad movies being made over the world and pretentious efforts at good movies that wallow into earnestness (won't name names, sorry), great cinema can still be made. Below is the trailer.

 Here is an interview published by The Guardian of director Andrei Zvyagintsev and the review of the movie also published in The Guardian. Reviews on the New York Times website and the rogerebert.com website also provide good insights into the movie.

(Spoiler alert! Skip this paragraph if you haven't seen the movie yet.) Many journalists have made the connection between the main story line and the biblical story of Job, but given the ending, I'm not sure if we really should be invoking religion here. What remains is a beautifully acted story with gorgeous cinematography - wide shots of characters, especially in their cars, under the overwhelming landscape of an Arctic town by the sea, full of rocks and cliffs - that highlights a dimension of fate or inevitability while the life of the main character unravels. 

Remarkable through and through.

Carrie Mae Weems at MFA Boston

I have to admit that until last week, when I attended her talk at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I hadn't heard of Carrie Mae Weems. It seems quite incredible, given that she won a MacArthur "Genius" award in 2013 and is one of the most respected contemporary artists working today, but what can I say, I have been busy with my own work. (I realized afterward that she was featured in the exhibition "When stars begin to fall" at the Institute of Contemporary Art, which I saw when it opened in February, but I didn't know the artist's name back then.)

Thankfully, the MFA hosts a fascinating series of events bringing some of the best artists to Boston to talk about their work - I was fortunate to see Nico Muhly in the same program in the fall, and Bill T. Jones in conversation with Theaster Gates in December. Obviously, when an institution like the MFA invites an artist, you can be sure you should pay attention. Not every artist is a great public speaker, so I never know what to expect when I head over to the Avenue of the Arts, but I ended up very impressed by Weems, her art and the way she talked about it. (Nowadays it is not enough to do great art, but you also have to be able to connect with your audiences and pull them into your story.)

But first, here is a short paragraph about Weems from the MacArthur Foundation website: "Carrie Mae Weems is a photographer and video installation artist examining the complex and contradictory legacy of African American identity, class, and culture in the United States. Her intimate depictions of children, adults, and families in simple settings document and interpret the ongoing and centuries-old struggle for racial equality, human rights, and social inclusion in America."

And here is the YouTube video from the MacArthur Foundation channel about Weems.

The New York Times published the edited transcript of a conversation with Weems after she won the MacArthur; she also talked in her speech at the MFA about her community work in Syracuse following the death of a child due to gang violence. The tragedy led her to create the Institute of Sound and Style, a summer program that lets teenagers approach art through work as videographers, technicians, photographers, recording engineers, and more.

Weems was the first African-American woman to receive a retrospective at the Guggenheim, just last year (at the MFA I think she mentioned she was actually the first African-American, period, to receive a retrospective at the Guggenheim, not just the first African-American woman, but I can't find this mentioned online and I'm not completely sure I heard it correctly). A catalog of the exhibition is available here. 

Weems has also been the subject of a segment on the popular PBS art series Art21. During her talk at the MFA, she mentioned the incident she discusses at the beginning of the Art21 video, namely, that Harvard threatened to sue her because she had appropriated certain images of African-Americans in its collection. She added a red tint and words on the photographs, and used the photographs to share her own message, so from my layperson's perspective what she did does appear to fall within fair use. Ultimately Harvard decided not to sue, although its behavior as described by Weems was puzzling, even after it decided against legal action.

I love, love, love the photograph "Roaming", which I believe Weems showed at the MFA (if not that specific one, another one very similar to it). What I love about it is that we and the subject look in the same direction - instead of having the subject face us - as if the woman was leading us somewhere, and I find the use of contrasts here absolutely remarkable. The video below is from the ART21 YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Review of "Ballet 422"

I saw two movies last week: Golden Globe winner "Leviathan", which is an absolute masterpiece, and documentary "Ballet 422", about the New York City Ballet's 422nd ballet, Paz de la Jolla, choreographed by Justin Peck. This post will be about "Ballet 422". The movie is so-so, and the only reason it is not awfully boring is because the ballet itself, of which we see glimpses during rehearsals, seems fantastic. (My favorite moments were those about tiny details that people in the audience may never pay attention to, such as the manner a young dancer presses his fingers on the ground or the way a girl's skirt twirls around her when she turns, which show the extreme care NYCB puts into its ballets.)

Peck, a soloist for NYCB, appears to be a very talented choreographer and the movie, if nothing else, is a very effective medium to raise awareness of his name and his prodigious talent among the general public. He was recently named Resident Choreographer of the company, and thus is sure to come under even heavier scrutiny in coming years. If the movie had been the videotaping of rehearsals and then of an actual performance of the ballet, with some sequences about Peck in between, it wouldn't have been a great movie but it would've been far superior than the actual movie that made its way to movie theaters around the country. (The actual movie has rehearsal sequences but they are very fragmented, and we only see mere seconds of the finished product during the premiere.)

Here are things a good documentary about this ballet would have done, from the perspective of someone who loves ballet but is not a specialist (I studied ballet as a child and teenager, but that was some time ago). It would have given real insights into Peck's creative process and helped bring forward his artist's statement - every artist has one, although some articulate what they do better than others. Did he pick the music or the dancers first? Why did he pick that specific music? Why did he pick those specific dancers? Does he have a theme in his choreographic work - is there something about his ballets that would make them instantly recognizable by a layperson? What did he try to achieve in this specific work? Does he think in terms of identifying a gap in the ballets the NYCB dancers get to dance otherwise and filling that gap? (Put another way, why does the world in general and NYCB in particular need his ballet?) Does he tell a story (it seems to be about two girls and a boy), is it about conveying certain emotions, or does he rather envision certain specific sequences that will serve as "signature pieces" and build the rest of the ballet around them? Why did he decide to attend the NYCB's Choreographic Institute to begin with?... and so on. 

Some of the answers can be found in Peck's interviews with the press. For instance, a New York Magazine article explains: "In his choreography, Peck loves off-balance movement and rapid directional changes, like pirouettes that finish askew; imperfections that render traditional steps anew and earn raucous ovations rare at the ballet." After reading this, I remembered sequences of the ballet shown in the movie where this seemed to happen, but the movie certainly did nothing to highlight Peck's signature style. While Rottentomatoes.com states: "[Director] Lipes chronicles Peck's creative process from its embryonic stages to its highly anticipated premiere, quietly observing as he balances a roster of musicians, designers, and dancers from this famed institution," I have found very little in the movie actually chronicling Peck's creative process, except a silent sequence where Peck is alone at home and plays the piano, presumably the tune of his ballet, presumably while he is thinking about the next steps in his choreography. I understand the world of ballet is a guarded world, but I'm not asking for state secrets. The result of the movie is spectacularly bland, although the ballet itself isn't. Videotaping an interview between Peck and a good journalist would have easily provided the insights that the actual movie so lacks. As NYCB Resident Choreographer, Peck seems destined for a great career, and the movie doesn't do him justice as a documentary that could still be watched years from now. (Or could have been, if it had been more interesting.)

In the end, people care about stories. They will care about a movie if it presents a compelling story - whether it is of the dance's genesis, the three dancers' career path, the rise of the choreographer from the ranks of the Corps de Ballet. Even the then-Kirov, not known for its openness during the Cold War managed to make an engaging ballet movie in the early 1980s when it chronicled students at its dance school, The Children of Theatre Street. If the Soviets could do it back then, surely we can it too now.

The ballet itself seemed great, which does redeem "Ballet 422" a bit. It helps that the movie's running time is only about 1 hour and 15 minutes. The movie does raise the visibility of Peck and the three principal dancers (Tiler Peck [no relation], Sterling Hyltin and Amar Ramasar) among the general public, but in the end it is little more than a tension-less infomercial on an admittedly great topic. I'll be sure to catch Peck's next ballet in New York City, though, so in that sense the movie hits its mark. 

Below is the movie's official trailer by Magnolia Pictures. 

Reading Alice Munro's "The Beggar Maid"

After taking a day-long course on Reading Alice Munro at Grub Street in February, I decided to try my hand at tearing apart my favorite Munro story among those we had to read for the course. Here is what I came up with – let me know what you think! The Beggar Maid can be found in “Selected Stories: 1968-94”, available in paperback, among other Munro anthologies.

The story is told from Rose’s perspective in the 3^rd person point of view and has 13 sections. (Sections refer to groups of paragraphs separated by blank lines.) Each of the sections is numbered below. Munro’s first sentence for each section is provided in italicized bold.

(1) “Patrick Blatchford was in love with Rose.” Introduction of the central relationship of the story, between Rose and Patrick, and the key features of that relationship: Rose’s surprise that Patrick loves him (element of tension there: why is she so surprised?), Patrick a graduate student with plans to become a historian professor, a bit older than Rose, difference in social circles/upbringing. Tension introduced by reaction of the elderly lady Dr. Henshawe, with whom Rose lives: “Oh, dear, I’m afraid he is after the wrong girl.” Section ends with a hint of darkness in Patrick’s personality. “But he was also full of cruel judgments, he was full of conceit.”

(2) “You are a scholar, Rose,” Dr. Henshawe would say. Rose at Dr. Henshawe’s house and then later talking to Flo (her stepmother) at home. Quick conversation with Patrick, who appears to have no idea that working-class people do not have an estate, money, stocks. Clearer element of tension related to social class between well-off Patrick and working-class Rose.

(3) And sometimes Dr. Henshawe would say, “Well, you are a scholar, you are not interested in that.” Short paragraph about Dr. Henshawe being a feminist who wants Rose to have high aspirations for herself and tries to open doors for her career-wise that Rose doesn’t really want to be opened.

(4) She had got to live with Dr. Henshawe by accident. First long scene of the story.

(5) She got a job working in the library of the college, instead of in the cafeteria. A man grabs Rose’s leg while she is working in the library, in a job she got thanks to Dr. Henshawe. Rose tells a young man what happened. This happens to be Patrick. This section also contains the key to the story’s title: Patrick says that Rose is like the Beggar Maid in the painting King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. Further hints at Patrick’s rather pretentious attitude when others don’t know things he knows and thinks they should know. Patrick is called “the heir of a mercantile empire” by Dr. Henshawe, although she exaggerates a bit. Tension here comes from Rose’s reaction to Patrick’s love: “It was what she had dreamed of; it was not what she wanted.” Shocking, provocative, out-of-character behavior of Rose in front of Dr. Henshawe’s door.

(6) “Do you love him, Rose?” said Dr. Henshawe. Short section about Rose in her bedroom, writing the beginning of a poem.

(7) Patrick shared an apartment with two other graduate students. Rose and Patrick have sex at Patrick’s apartment. Discussion of the relationship at the middle point of the story. (“Why should she doubt so much, she thought, lying comfortably in the bed while Patrick went to make some instant coffee,” “Patrick loved her. What did he love? Not her accent, which he was trying hard to alter, though she was often mutinous and unreasonable, declaring in the face of all evidence that she did not have a country accent, everybody talked the way she did.”) Trip to see Patrick’s family. 

(8) She took him to Hanratty. Visit to Rose’s family. (“It was just as bad as she had thought it would be.” 

(9) Patrick gave her a diamond ring and announced that he was giving up being a historian for her sake. Engagement. Patrick decides to drop plans to become a historian and go into his father’s business for Rose’s sake, although she hasn’t asked him to.

(10) She woke up early, got up and dressed, and let herself out the side door of Dr. Henshawe’s garage. Rose goes to see Patrick. She has realized she does not want to marry him, but does not say so directly.  First break up.

(11) Patrick wrote her a note: I don’t understand what happened the other day and I want to talk to you about it. But I think we should wait for two weeks and not see or talk to each other and find out how we feel at the end of that time. Section leads to the moment where she caves in against her best instincts and tells Patrick she loves him after all.

(12) When Rose afterward reviewed and talked about this moment in her life – for she went through a period, like most people nowadays, of talking freely about her most private decisions, to friends and lovers and party acquaintances whom she might never see again, while they did the same – she said that comradely compassion had overcome her, she was not proof against the sight of a bare bent neck. Glimpses of their future vaguely unhappy life together with Rose’s outbursts and Rose’s misguided pursuit of a vision of happiness through Patrick.

(13) She knew that was how she had seen him; she knows it, because it happened again. At the airport many years later, nine years after her divorce from Patrick. Loathing in Patrick’s eyes when he sees her.

 Last lines: How could anybody hate Rose so much, at the very moment when she was ready to come forward with her good will, her smiling confession of exhaustion, her air of diffident faith in civilized overtures? Oh, Patrick could. Patrick could.