Hello, cultural stereotypes
Jane Eyre (2011) 06/17/2011
 
I think I'm a little Mia Wasikowska-ed out.  I just saw her in Alice not too long ago (meh), then liked her a lot more in The Kids are All Right and finally, with a few friends, went to see her in Jane Eyre, released earlier this year.  

She was well cast in the role of Jane--and it's got to be hard finding someone to play the 'plain Jane' who can also look as beautiful as Mr. Rochester saw her.  Ruth Wilson, for me, fit that ideal perfectly, but Wasikowska does a fine job.  Actually, all of the casting was fairly well done, I didn't really quibble with that, nor did I find anything wrong with the overall production, the sets and cinematography were both fantastic.  

Here's the thing.  I read the book in 7th grade and loved it.  I then watched the 2006 BBC miniseries and have now seen this.  While this version was a great 'Hollywood' version, it just wasn't fleshed out as much as I would have liked.  For the average viewer, 4 2 hour long episodes may be overkill, but for someone who has read and loved the book, delving into the tiny nuances of Jane's character, I needed MORE.  For that alone, I would give the edge to the 2006 version--it was as faithful as you can get to the book without rereading it to us.  

And really, 95% of the people watching the movie have probably read the book.  In this town, especially, I really can't imagine the average college student going to see Jane Eyre over Hangover II. Sad, but true.  Therefore, I would have liked a much more detailed adaptation, not one which felt rushed.  Key elements, including the whole Blanche Ingram episode and Mrs. Reed's death were simply glossed over quickly and really, it would have made a lot more sense if the movie had kept the whole part with Jane being related to St. John and his sisters, rather than randomly giving them money-again. 

Verdict?  Good introduction, but it doesn't feel complete enough for those who have read the book.  Those who haven't will probably be satisfied with it as a good movie.  

3.5/5 
 
 
Compare 1963:  Walter Laird and Lorraine Reynolds dancing Jive
to Donnie Burns and Gaynor Fairweather thirty years later
to 2010:  World Champions, Riccardo Cocci and Yulia Zagoruychenko
Not to take away from today's version, but I can't help but wonder how extreme ballroom and latin dance will get in the next 30 years.  
 
 
Apart from being outraged at the absolute atrocity of Alina Somova being given 2 Giselles, I was pretty desperate to go to the Kennedy Center this past week and just soak in the Mariinsky--even with Somova, they had a pretty awesome lineup for their Giselles--with Vishneva highlighting the role (she dances this at ABT all the time) and...Uliana Lopatkina.  This woman NEVER tours and she is widely acknowledged as the greatest classical ballerina in the past two decades.  Her artistry, technique, musicality are outerworldly and I've spent hours of my life on youtube watching her.   

Reading up on the Mariinsky, I was struck just how much ballet is passed down from dancer to dancer and how beautiful that tradition is. It's very unique to European ballet, where these stars are teaching with the schools and then are coaching within the main company, whilst American ballet places less of an emphasis on tradition.
Picture
Take Uliana Lopatkina.  She is truly the greatest dancer of this era, at least in Russia and likely the world (I can't think of anyone better).  She's technically brilliant and I've never seen any one dance so in tune with the music and story.  Her extensions are endless and are never tasteless, which makes her the last high-quality ballerina in the Mariinsky today.  I suspect once she retires, she'll be the head of the Mariinsky theater.  
Picture
Lopatkina didn't just accidentally end up that way.  Her former coach, Ninella Kurgapkina, headed up a formidable list of dancers and teachers.  Kurgapkina was one of the last graduates of Agrippina Vaganova and also coached many other famous dancers, including Zhanna Ayupouva and Olga Chenchikova, before dying suddenly in a car accident a few years ago.  She was also one of Rudolf Nureyev's partners before his defect
Picture
Lopatkina graduated from the Vaganova Academy in the 1990s under Natalia Dudinskaya, who, with her husband, Konstantin Sergeev, created and recreated the classics while also running the Vaganova Academy.  Besides being some of the most famous dancers of the 1940s, they were responsible for catapulting Alla Sizova, Irina Kolpakova and Yelena Yeveteva to the top.  
Picture
But finally, it all comes back to Agrippina Vaganova.  She was the creator of the "Vaganova style" and headed the famous Vaganova Choreographic Academy, which feeds directly into the Mariinsky.  Her pupils included Galina Ulanova, Marina Semenova, Olga Lepshinskaya, Ira Kolpakova, and Maya Plisetskaya.  She herself was trained by Marius Petipa, who created most of the famous Russian ballets, which are still danced today.  Vaganova's teaching style is still used today, nearly everywhere in the world, and elements are found in Bournonville, Balanchine, Petit, Bejart, and numerous choreographies around the world.  
Lopatkina is actually only a generation removed from Vaganova and she is now involved in coaching the younger dancers.  Other Vaganova graduates go back to the school to give back their knowledge.  That's what I love about watching ballet, for you can see various elements of famous stars in one person's variation. There's something special about this kind of knowledge, which can only be passed down through the memories and stories of each coach and each dancer
 
 
Since I'm done with my self-imposed exile from Netflix, I decided to watch a movie I had been meaning to see since the trailer came out mid 2009, but never got the time to.  An Education, directed by Lone Scherfig, is about a 16 year old school girl, Jenny, who strives to read English at Oxford.  Her very controlling parents, strict schoolteachers and friends constantly tell her how Oxford is the only means to anything in life, but Jenny meets an older man, David, who starts taking her to concerts, nightclubs, restaurants, exposing her to much richer cultural experience than she has ever seen.  Jenny is introduced to David's friends and David charms his way into Jenny's parents lives.  The relationship turns romantic, and peaks when David and Jenny visit Paris.  He proposes and she ends up dropping out of school.  However, she finds out that he is engaging in less than noble business practices and by accident, that he is married and has been playing this game with many girls for years.  Jenny realizes that she is as naive as her schoolteachers said she is, and after having been denied readmission to school, works on her own for her A-levels with her favorite English teacher and enters Oxford, very aware that there are no shortcuts to the life she wants to achieve. 

The cast was fantastic.   Carey Mulligan could easily have made Jenny likeable and preyed upon by David and his friends, however, she gave Jenny a youthful charm whilst also making us dislike her for her brattiness, idiocy (really, random stranger offers you a lift?) and air of superiority over those who are not "tres chic".  It's easy to see, though, how she could have been seduced into this kind of life, but in the end, we're left with the sense that she got off a bit easy and didn't learn very much.  The rest of the cast is equally excellent, with my favorites being Helen, David's nitwit friend and Jack, Jenny's suffocating father, who, in my favorite speech, rants about how Jenny's Oxford ambitions cost him money and therefore, she damn well better do well.  

Really though, I loved this movie for how it was made.  This didn't have as excellent as cinematography as A Single Man, but it came damn close.  The music was perfect--evoking post-war conservatism with the upcoming liberalism of Beatlemania.  The costumes were beautiful--again perfectly suited to the era without looking dated, almost in the same vein as Mad Men, but less...harsh and jarring.  

Ultimately, I'm quite a bit older than Jenny and therefore, am able to see just how affected and ignorant she is.  Randomly speaking in French, discussing Camus and existentialism and smoking cigarettes in an attempt to be sophisticated and worldly, however, giggling with her girlfriends about David and pouting with her parents in any effort to get her way.  We remember, as her schoolteachers are constantly tell her (why are they the only two reasonable people in the school), that she is not a woman, she is just a child and that she has a lot of growing up to do.  It's a good lesson for all of us.  

4/5 stars
 
8 1/2 01/02/2011
 
Saw the movie "Nine" the other day. Apart from the fact that I love Marion Cotillard in pretty much anything and Fergie "was" good in her solo, it didn't do it for me. There's a huge risk in filming musicals--they end up going ridiculously over the top and w/o the original cast, it falls horribly short. 

However, I did see, via Netflix, 8 1/2, the movie that inspired Nine. I love me some old movies, especially from the 50s and 60s. Personally, I believe that the French and Italians were wayyy ahead of Americans in filmmaking back then. 8 1/2 was made by Fellini, who also made La Dolce Vita. Like LDV, 8 1/2 has a fantastic cast (headlined by Marcello Mastroianni) which, unlike American movies, doesn't steal from the story, filming, or overall art. The movie is semi-autobiographical which adds to the impact--you feel as though Fellini is taking each of us on a journey into his mind.

The story is pretty convoluted. Basically, a conflicted director (Guido, played masterfully by Mastroianni) is in the process of making his latest film, with a deliciously over the top American actress as his muse. He is also carrying on an affair with a very unstable woman while dealing with his very very long suffering (and stunningly beautiful) wife--all of whom want this movie over and done with. However, this latest movie is bringing back flashbacks of Guido's formative years, including his experiences in Catholic school, meeting a prostitute named Saraghina, and his decision making between wife and mistress. The acting is, of course, sublime, but the star of the film is the directing--the angles, still shots, atmosphere--everything which on its own amounts to very little, but means so much to the final product.

Trailer

" My Dears... Happiness consists of being able to tell the truth without hurting anyone."
 
 
Frederick Wiseman's latest documentary--showing the day to day life of the artists and people who make POB what it is--one of the finest ballet companies in the world. The documentary is excellent--intimate w/o being invasive, all inclusive without being general and respectful without being sycophantic. Plenty of people have reviewed his film--it's a masterpiece, so I think I'll review the POB.

It's one of my favorite companies--when they do classical or neoclassical work. Unfortunately, the artistic directors have decided to go more contemporary, which demeans the tradition set forth by Lacotte and Nureyev. What I hate most about the company's direction is that the contemporary works aren't even that good. Roland Petit, Maurice Bejart, Pina Bausch, and John Cranko are the masters--because they choreographed ballets, not stomping around in bare feet. POB isn't a modern dance school, it is a classical ballet theater and should treat itself as such.

But when the company dances it's classics, you can see why it's one of the best companies in the world, after the Royal Ballet and Bolshoi. I'd place it slightly above the Mariinsky, but probably equal to the Royal Danish Ballet at this point in time. First and foremost, this is a technically perfect company. With other companies, I constantly complain that the feet are raggedy--not so here. No matter what, it can be the coldest performance emotionally, but the dancers do not let go about their technique.   If I were just looking at technique, I'd place POB at No1, but unfortunately, they do let emotion and feeling go sometimes, which is why the Bolshoi and Royal Ballet get the slight edge.  

The corps the ballet is the soul of any company. ABT tend to ignore it's corps, so after a breathtaking performance by two leads in, say, Swan Lake, the audience gets treated to the messiest cdb possible. POB is different. In the corps, every dancer dances the same--same arm movements, same timing, same leg height, same head movements. It's a perfectly run machine.   The standards are exacting--there is no room for anything below perfection.  Too often, companies take the 'rising stars' from competitions--but at POB, you get the sense that Mme Lefevere doesn't give a damn about how many trophies a candidate has.  

The individual dancers themselves are fantastic, but even better, their perfection is uniform. Though there have been some controversial decisions (more etoiles than principles? what?), each dancer is about as good as every other dancer--in different roles, yes, but it's not grossly unequal like at the Mariinsky, with Lopatkina head and shoulders above everyone else or ABT with it's 'stars' and 'dancers'. This is more like what the Bolshoi and Royal Ballet practice, and it's nice to see.  I like seeing a company where I can realistically imagine a corphyee, with the correct mentoring, becoming etoile.  

The movie featured Nureyev's version of the Nutcracker. I adore his choreography--it's so technically difficult--there aren't any moments of rest or stillness, but it's at once cohesive and musical. Nureyev is almost like a god at POB--everything they do has his influence (at least classically). It's almost as though the company is constantly paying homage to him and what he made the company into. 

But that's only when I watch the classical ballet. I wonder what he would say if he were to see the contemporary junk on the stage right now.
 
 
The DVD aspect of Netflix has been wasted on me, however, the InstantPlay is a godsend. I did buy a lot of movies too and found stuff on youtube, and I realized that I've been watching a lot of old movies, foreign films, indie films and critically acclaimed gems which won their Oscars quietly.  Britain has been well represented in my movie watching, that much is for sure.  

Kicked off the year with Gosford Park (2002). 5 stars, easily.  Screenplay is scathing and costumes, scenery and acting are brilliant.  Will watch again.  Alex/Aubz/Dan--Gosford Park viewing party?  Importance of Being Earnest is great too, but then, so are most things with Colin Firth.  Also saw The Damned United, good to see Michael Sheen, and it was gritty and harsh, but I'm not emotionally attached to soccer enough to really care.  Up in the Air was excellent, maybe only 4/5 stars, but still fantastic--George Clooney was appropriately unsympathetic, but how the hell airline travel is that glamorous is beyond me.  

Headed to The State Theatre quite a bit--saw The Young Victoria (2009), which was good, certainly well acted and beautifully designed, but quite a bit choppy and historically inaccurate in parts.  Also saw A Single Man (2009), which has made it to one of my alltime favorite films.  Colin Firth is heartbreaking, from beginning to end and the cinematography was exquisite.   Alex, we haven't gone for a while--let's fix that. 

Back to Netflix, I went, where He Knew He Was Right and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were next, in the BBC versions.  The latter was significantly better than the former, but in both cases, Self was unimpressed.  Also in my list of "see once, OK, all done", were Age of Innocence, Julie and Julia, Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View (in order of worst to best).  Wouldn't mind seeing the last two again--Helena Bonham Carter was great in these EM Forster adaptations.  

Finished watching Guess Who's Coming to Dinner--Hepburn, Tracy, Poitier are all fantastic, criticism of racism fantastically delivered and that final scene is all about Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn--he died very soon after.  Excellent movie, must-see.  Also on the list of Katharine Hepburn must sees?  The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby and Adam's Rib.  The first two are with Cary Grant, the last with Tracy and all three are classics.  Katharine Hepburn was amazing--there really is no one like her.  

Started to bid farewell to my childhood after seeing Alice in Wonderland (2010), Alice is all grown up too and Wonderland is too sinister for me.  From an artistry standpoint, this film was great and Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp are always stellar together--if only they had a better script.  Really left my childhood when I saw Toy Story 3 (2010).  It was a nice way to end things, bittersweet, but not terribly so.  The Paso Doble at the end was a nice touch.  

Watched my fair share of movies in Zurich.  Sandra, Julia and I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's, which melted my heart and Sandra's heart, but Julia, ever the loveable cynic, found her problems with it.  Went to Inception at the theater in Bellevue.  Best movie I saw this year--couldn't get over it. The ladies dragooned the men into watching Mamma Mia, and one of the guys, Tobias mentioned how the week prior, we had been seeing Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye.  At Jolene and Robert's, I saw the first 3/4s of Bandits, which was hysterically funny.    

Non-English speakers were represented too.  My postdoc recommended that I watch Tous Les Matins du Monde.  I should listen to him more often--it was absolutely perfect.  The music was, of course, beautiful, the acting, stunning, the cinematography, gorgeous and completely deserved of every honor.  Also saw I've Loved You So Long--seriously, I cried.  A lot.  It was simple and subtle, but it cut to the core.  Again, sobbed.  A Woman in Berlin was powerful and disturbing and brought to mind just how painful that entire era must have been.  8 1/2, an Italian film by the same guy who did La Dolce Vita, was...odd.  I liked it, to be sure, but there is something about it that reminds me a little too much of La Vita e Bella, beautiful films, both, but...showy and bombastic whilst French films are a little bit more subtle.  

The verdict?  I should be a British citizen. And the book is ALWAYS better than the movie. Not all BBC Adaptations are Pride and Prejudice worthy.  France needs to stop striking and start making excellent movies again, the Italians need to....find a different Fellini, Katharine Hepburn is stellar, as is Colin Firth and I didn't see a single movie made prior to 1950 this year--sad.  

I think, I think, that that's all--for now, at least.  I guess I didn't wander into 'old movie' territory as much as I thought I had, which is strange for me, but I'm also done with seeing mainstream films and am moving on to the ones no one seems to care about.  So, for 2011--I don't know...we'll see what I end up watching.  
 
 
She was famous for when she started talking in movies and her laughter (Garbo Talks! Garbo Laughs!).  I haven't seen any of her silent movies (remember, I despise silent films), but I have seen a good number of her movies from the 30s--which is when she was mostly active.  Garbo was very famous for cutting quite the tragic role--and was billed as such.  In fact, one of her comedy movies, made in 1939, Ninotchka, was advertised on the premise that Garbo laughs! (It was her first comedy--and her second to last film).  Garbo retired from films in 1941, after Two Faced Woman and instead became very reclusive and a cult phenomenon--with 'Garbo sightings" a popular paparazzi attraction.  She died in 1990, after nearly fifty years out of the public eye, which followed a 21 year film career, first in Sweden, Germany and then Hollywood.  Greta Garbo only made 27 movies, but any avid filmwatcher will argue that she was one of the most expressive and captivating actresses of her time.
Picture
I first saw her in Mata Hari, a forgettable film, if it were not her mesmerizing performance.  I didn't know what it was about her, but she had these gorgeously compelling eyes and it seemed as though there was something hidden in her expression--something she wasn't telling us. 

Then, I watched...Camille.  Oh my goodness.  I fell in love with her from that moment.  She was purely heartbreaking from start to finish, as Marguerite, the doomed courtesean, who falls in love with a young aristocrat (Robert Taylor).  Garbo is able to portray all emotions:  world-weariness, charm, resignation, elation, immense sadness, all with a hint of melancholy.  I'll admit, I cried, not at the end where she (predictably) died in Robert Taylor's arms, but when she came down a staircase with her rich lover, the Baron, after having sent away Robert Taylor's Armand for 'his own sake'.  Though she kept her posture upright and dignity intact, a simple glance at her face told all of us how miserable she really was.  It was the first time I realized the power of an actor's face over her words. 
In Camille, she is heartbreaking--but in a conventional, melodramatic way.  In Queen Christina, her masterpiece, she is equally devastating, but...this time, everything she portrays has an underlying layer of steely resolve.  This time, her voice almost steals the show--she delivers beautifully passionate speeches, but again, you can feel the inner strength of the character along with the vulnerability--one wrong slip and Garbo would crumble.  Garbo was at once regal and everyday, feminine and androgynous, but above all, she was mysterious in this movie, especially at the end, where she is left alone and has abdicated the throne of Sweden and is standing, like a figurehead at the ship.  The director instructed her to "think...of nothing" and the five and a half second closeup of her face shows us a blank, enigmatic gaze--where we, the audience are left to imprint our feelings onto her eyes.  Eyes that show every emotion are wonderful, but Garbo had the talent to strip away all feeling from her face.  I'm not sure any actor or actress today can match that.  
Picture

Of course, I've seen clips--Anna Karinena, Anna Christie, Grand Hotel. The last one remains burned into my memory, with Garbo as the melancholy ballet dancer, Grusinskaya, who famously says, "I vant to be alone".   Garbo mirrored that statement later, saying "I want to be left alone"--but left alone she never was whilst at MGM.  Instead, Garbo left films and lived a private life in New York City, ultimately leaving her fortune to her niece.  
Garbo was revered by her own (quite distinguished) contemporaries, such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Marie Dressler).  She was aloof, distant, cold, but capable of still portraying great passion.  Her eyes were at once haunted and full of life, wordly wise, yet ageless.  Garbo didn't love the camera, but she worked magic in front of it-and it was all instinctive.  Her acting was full of complexities, if one word could sum her up...it would be...enigmatic.
 
 
That's like saying Picasso created art, so he should be good at opera.  In fact, I'm 90% certain that doing ballet was the biggest detriment in latin dance.  I'm not sure why, but I get criticized more than those girls who can't keep a simple beat--and I get yelled at for my ballet-ey habits.  

Pros for doing ballet:  I have a very good knowledge of lines.  I can turn on a dime.  I have fantastic balance on one foot (really important for standard, when there's a rise and fall).  I (mostly) keep time very well.  Turnout--except I have too much.

Cons:  In Latin dancing, the entire upper body is supposed to be fluid and move separately from the lower half.  Not true in ballet.  The hips are always square (facing forward) and the upper body is rigid.  Is it any surprise that everyone complains that I have no body action?  My body has been trained not to move.  

Arms in ballet were in some combination of positions 1-5.  Shoulders down, elbows up, wrists down--creating a curving (rigid) line.  Arms in Latin need to move--like a sine function.  I'm getting better at it, but it's so much easier for me to keep that left arm in bras bas than it is to have it flapping around.  At least my fingers aren't awful--from the age of five, I've naturally held them the way ballet dancers should, thumb and middle finger slightly towards each other.  

Straight legs.  In ballet, the legs were constantly moving between straight, en arabesque, to en plie, to absorb the shock of the fast steps or the jumps.  My legs are also hyperextended, so they like to be slightly bendy.  It makes my Latin dancing look very uncontrolled and I've been told by everyone (seriously, everyone) to go fix it.  Again, people tell me to go fix things but no one seems to concerned with the hows.  

Expression.  Ballet is easy--all I had to do was listen to the music and figure out if it was happy and sad.  The best part is that the great pas de deux have expressions built into the choreography--I couldn't move an eyelash without it being scripted.  Latin? Not so much and it doesn't help when the partner tries to have some emotion; I fall over laughing.  I used to think I could get away with smiling and looking cute, but apparently not.  


In ballet, it's 'technique' first, showiness later.  As one teacher put it, we have no right to act like Odette and Odile if we don't have the footwork to back it up.  Ballet is exposed.  We are clad in black leotards, pink tights, hair in buns--so that everything, from our neck to our toes is on full display.  On stage, we wear tutus--a bent knee here and a turned in foot there will not go unnoticed.  In ballroom, the costumes expose in a different way--the body, the back; it's a distracting sort of exposure, with sparkles and sequins and flash--that can forgive any amount of lousy technique.  Also, in ballet, a lot of times, we dance solo--making us the only object of attention, or in a group, when our uniqueness singles us out.  In ballroom, we are fighting for 3 seconds of attention from six judges in a crowd of 24 couples.  Is it any wonder that the tall, bright orange costume couple will win over the short, sober gray dress couple?  


I wish I had had the strength to keep up pointe work-I think I'd be a thousand times happier doing ballet for hours in an old studio than I am doing ballroom dance. 

 
 
I've been really tired of seeing everything all jumbled up into one blog--ergo, I decided to compartmentalize like no one's business.  I have my 'book blog', of course and this one includes everything else--music, movies, the stage and most importantly, the ballet.  For my own sanity, I'd prefer to have as little about ballroom dance in here as possible--this is about art I enjoy wholeheartedly and my enjoyment of ballroom dance is sinusoidal, at best.  

I listen mainly to classical music.  I need something to keep me sane whilst studying and though I love Alex and Aubrey's indie playlists on Last.fm, the Decemberists are definitely not good for memorizing the Krebs Cycle.  Different recordings have different places in my heart-for example, I can talk for hours about Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto and how it SHOULD be played. 

I'm an old movie junkie.  Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, the list goes on and on and on.  I will watch contemporary films, but they better damn well be quality.  Foreign films hold a special place in my heart--French, German, Italian, Russian, Old Bollywood, I'll watch it all.  Of course, I love me some BBC adaptations, but in those cases, I must read the book first.  

Ballet--Get me started and I'll go for hours.  I just figured out today why Nureyev's choreography (for the Paris Opera Ballet) seemed jam-packed.  1.  It's trickier than most--with exquisite footwork  2. Most choreography, if they count in 8, give dancers a chance to rest at count 8 (or in and-8-and).  Nureyev makes them do something on that last count, even if it's holding a releve en pointe for an excruciatingly long half-beat.  Fun fact.  I think that really highlights how much I know about the ballet--I'm able to pick up on nuances like this and really go in depth into ballet technique and history.  Enjoyable.

So, enjoy the show, folks.  I'm opinionated, to be sure, a fact which I am quite proud of.