film revu draft: medley

27.Iv.1430

Elizabeth' piracy is ok w/ Hollywood while Werner Herzog is let down on neutrinos. Not to mention Handel's conundrum.


Encounters at the end of the world (Werner Herzog, 2007)



Herzog gets invited to film in Antarctica. He offers us a delightful visit. He thankfully calls things as he sees them (and I appreciate how he sees things) - often very insightful though also often with those cognitive idiosyncracies (eg, a mixture of good intuition poetic idealism and naivety or ignorance) familiar from a certain caliber of stage and film directors (the masters).

(I have to admit , no matter how accomplished a stage or cinema auteur like Herzog are at the science of their own craft, sometimes when I read or hear them certain dissociations from reality appear, either as ignorance or naive or overly poetic idealism or just plain idiocy - a perspective different from what one gets when hearing scientists or mathematicians relfect on reality.)

Though often revealing and insightful, the discussion on neutrinos was a bit of a let down, because some important questions were not asked - though the director can hardly be faulted for that - it was the physicist who was weird.

This oeuvre combines some of the best of "nature" documentaries, and human subject ones offering a rare and coalescent mixture of both in one dose.

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Farinelli (1994)

Here's a film that would have been popular in the culture club and duran duran scene, though over a decade late.

I'd be interesting in reading what Dr. David Yearsley (articles) would say about it.

There is no escaping that the music and is sublime (particularly the Handel piece), the costumes exquisite, and the direction and acting talent not wanting.

I guess this film is to castrati sopranos (shouldn't that be soprani instead?) what Amadeus was to composers.

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Nixon/Frost (Ron Howard, 2008)

Despite any due misgivings about Ron Howard, in this mockumentary Frank Langella turns in a very engaging persona (all the more as I actually relate a bit - though unlike said Nixon, I never ordered any bugging or disgraced a high office).

I don't know whether his co-star, Michael Sheen delivers a believable David Frost , but at times parallels come up with people like Tony Blair - and generally, despite (or because of) being produced through american eyes , a distinctly british persona streams out with all its collusion with , dependence on and patronization of its transatlantic beast.

Actually, imagining for a moment that Watergate never happened, that Nixon never existed and that I knew nothing of it but what is recounted in this film, the scenario does make a fantastic drama which is very cleverly told.

And assuming Langella was interpreting a character from his own imagination, it would one of the deepest characters I have seen on film for a while - well since Il Castrato and Handel anyway :)

And in the end the step from normalcy into the abyss of evil is so close so easy that one can cross the line unaware and never be able to step back.

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Just like the past decade has seen a franchise of Marvel (and DCComics) adaptations, there is another subgenre that recasts historical queens in modern feminist personas (read 90s/00s but also 30s hollywood cultural gender biases).

Thus we have the usual culprits

Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: the golden age (2007)

Marie Antoinette (2006)

The affair of the necklace (2001)

The other Boleyn girl (2008) starring both the bipedal cow and the cross-eyed monster, in matching dresses to boot.

The tragedy is in all the presumptions about how the characters behaved , particularly in which circumstances they would formal or informal in their demeanour; removing any historical value - not even the costumes are reliable. In fact, they often seem over dressed for the occasion , as though the costumes are erroneously lifted out of portraits ignoring more mundane outfits - such as on hunt scenes.

juxtaposed with similar films from Europe or from other decades,

they differ from

Marie Antoinette (1938)

Fire over England (1937)

Anne of the 1000 days (1969)

Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

though the trends of Hollywood-style feminism still exist.

They also differ from the more multilayered and more history-friendly renditions in

La Reine Margot (1994) of cors is a classic, with almost Manara- or Caligula-style dirtiness in both the sense of grit and eroticism. (on any given day, it seems a Medici film series would make for interesting softporn viewing).

Juana la loca (2006), which deserves to be another classic - if only for the rarity of films treating the spanish-Dutch connection via the common Habsberg dynasty.

The order of colonization was Spain/portugal, then Nederlands due to the Spanish/port. habsberg connection, then the covetous copycat Britain in the 17th++ cent., then France 18th+, then Italy Belgium Germany and Terroristan in the 19th/20th cent. Austria and Prussia had their outre-mer adventures too in the 19th century - though rather timidly shortlived.

Meanwhile Hollywood treatments of the 15th century queen of England (Fire over England, Elizabeth: Golden Age) have no problem with her knighted pirates plundering and looting Spanish fleets (however ill-gained in 1st place) like (sirs) Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake - the former put to death after her demise. (At least Black Adder II made fun of them).

Yet it may not be long (maybe) before Hollywood expresses how much it gets its knickers tied in a knot over the modern day hoax of somalien piraten.