Michelle Williams

I adore Michelle Williams! It has all started with my spontaneous and solitary visit to the cinema where for the next few hours I sat in a half-empty theater (mid-week movie cravings galore) mesmerized by “Blue Valentine.” I have read about this film directed by Derek Cianfrance and was well aware of its tense emotional drama drawing attention to the falling out of the couple (Cindy/Michelle Williams and Dean/Ryan Gosling) that was previously madly in love. I left the theater altered, transformed in a deeply moving way that was a touch painful but ecstatically wholesome. I would say that there are only a few movies that have had such a tremendous impression on me. “Blue Valentine” is a genius film full of realistic human heartbreak, doubts, anger, disappointment and infinite tenderness. I will forewarn anyone on the verge or dealing with a recent breakup to stay away from it as it will make one miserable….and by that I mean excruciatingly sanity-threatening miserable!

“Blue Valentine” has been out for a few years and is undoubtedly worth checking out! However, of a more recent time frame, “My Week with Marilyn” (dir. Simon Curtis) is Michelle William’s new endeavor that once again surprises the audience with her acting versatility and tantalizing charm. “My Week with Marilyn” is an endearing film – blasé in its plot but salvaged by William’s sharp portrayal of Marilyn’s duality. Her acting plays with audience’s perception simultaneously presenting Marilyn as an innocent helpless child thrown into the turmoil of fame as well as clueing at her lurking manipulative undertones. 

Holidays

It is the beginning of January and the holidays are officially behind us... I wish we had snow here so we could hold on to the spirit of winter just a moment longer:

A glimpse at Everlasting

It is a second day of the new year which often brings a sense of melancholy and innermost evaluations of the past experiences and personal reflections. Today I have come upon a beautiful passage written by the Russian essayist Sergey Gortzev, known for his sharp descriptive miniatures of great depth. The one I post here today has such  degree of tenderness that I just could not possibly resist sharing it with my readers.
Without further pause, I present to you both the original version and my personal detailed English translation:

Он был старше ее на шестнадцать лет. Но при каждой новой встрече чувствовал что-то особенное и необъяснимое. Такое состояние невозможно выразить словами, об этом  сочиняют стихи. Чисто физическое влечение уходило на второй план. Он знал, что все физическое конечно, а его все больше влекла бесконечность…

Он все чаще ловил себя на мысли, что в очередной раз творится одна и та же история – сигналы посылает сердце, а глаза не могут наглядеться. И все же сейчас было не то, что раньше – сейчас было намного сильнее. И как же хотелось не ошибиться в своем выборе!

Но как это сделать в этом мире всеобщего притворства, обмана и измены?!

…Они стояли у карточного стола, и она собиралась уходить. Он, волнуясь, чуть дотронулся до ее руки и тихо попросил:

- Софья, сделайте мне одолжение.

Она опустила свои большие черные глаза и ответила:

- Да, конечно…

Он стал что-то чертить цветным мелком на коричневом столе.

- Сможете ли Вы прочесть то, что я напишу Вам только начальными буквами слов?

Он боялся, что она удивится столь странной просьбе и откажется. Она не удивилась:

- Не волнуйтесь, я смогу…

Он продолжил писать, а она пристально следила за его большой рукой и чувствовала, как все ее душевные силы и способности находятся на крайнем пределе.

Он оторвался от стола, и она увидела длинный ряд букв:

                              

                       В.М.И.П.С.С.Ж.Н.М.М.С.И.Н.С.

Молчание длилось не так долго, но обоим казалось, что время остановилось… Посмотрев ему в глаза, она медленно прочла:

- Ваша Молодость И Потребность Счастья Слишком Живо Напоминают Мне Мою Старость И Невозможность Счастья…

Напряжение сразу исчезло. Сердце забилось так сильно, что он почувствовал легкое головокружение. Она, ощущая его волнение, тоже была вне сознания всего земного.

Ей казалось, что теперь она все может, что нет на свете силы, препятствий, которых она не смогла бы преодолеть. Это не было ни предложением, ни признанием в любви. Оба понимали, что произошло что-то такое, что было выше любых слов. Это было родство душ. И это было Свыше…

Ее звали Софья Андреевна Берс.

Его звали Лев Николаевич Толстой.

Создатель подарил им тринадцать детей.

He was older than her by 16 years. But with every new meeting he felt something special and inexplicable. This condition could not be expressed in words, the poems were written about it. All the physical attraction took second place. He knew that all the physical was finite, but he was more and more tempted by infinity…

More often he found himself thinking that this time again the same story was being made – the heart sent the signals and the eyes could not stop admiring her. Yet this time it was different than the times before – this time it was much stronger. And how badly did he not want to make a mistake in his choice!

But what one had to do in this world of pretense, lies and betrayal?!

…They were standing by the cards table and she was about to leave. He, nervous, had barely touched her hand and quietly asked:

- Sofia, please, do me a favor.

She lowered her large black eyes and responded:

- Yes, of course…

He went to draw something with colored chalk on the brown table.

- Would you be able to read that, which I will write to you using only the capital letters?

He was afraid that she would be astonished but such strange request and would refuse him. She however did not get surprised:

- Do not get worried, I would…

He kept on writing as she watched his large hand, feeling how all of her mental strength and ability were charged to the limit. He finished writing and she saw a long row of letters:

Y.Y.A.N.F.H.T.E.R.M.O.M.A.A.I.O.H.

The silence lasted only a moment but both felt that the time had stopped… Looking him straight in the eyes, she slowly read:

- Your Youth And Need For Happiness Too Eagerly Remind Me Of My Age And Impossibility Of Happiness…

The tension had disappeared and the heart went on beating so fast that he felt a slight lightheadedness. She, feeling his nervousness, was also outside the realm of anything worldly. She felt that now she could do anything and that there were no more forces or obstacles that she could not overcome. It was not an offer or declaration of love. Both understood what had happened and that it was higher than any words could describe. It was the kinship of spirit. It was Everlasting…

Her name was Sophia Andreevna Behrs.

His name was Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

The Creater has gifted them with thirteen children.    

On Modernism

Modernism, from the French word “moderne” or the newest, modern, was a general name for the cultural and art-aesthetic movement beginning at the end of the 19^th and progressing into the 20^th century. In many respects, Modernist thinking has paved the way for the development and practice of the modern art. Modernism unites a set of independent art directions, such as expressionism, cubism or futurism, on both the social scale and its cultural and creative value. Those separate art movements, although all original and revolutionary in their opposition to the traditions of Academic art and restrictive Victorian code of conduct, often contradict each other in their creative ways of expressing reality. However, what unites them is the philosophical outlook on the truths and realities of the world that is emerging in philosophical inquiries of their contemporaries. Modernism becomes the culture of denying previously presupposed truths, anti-traditionalism that went against the norms of the previously admired academic style of painting. There is an overt split from the previously moral and historical, from “preaching” and educating and, instead, a major refocus on finding new ways of perceiving and expressing reality.

            

Sharply experiencing the disharmony of the world, expressed in Nietzsche’s proclamation that the God is dead with moral compasses abandoned to the state of chaos and no truth to be taken as certain (Wood 203-204), Avant-gardists and later Modernists are facing the world as severe, absurd and alienated. Since many previous notions of reality are no longer valid, questioned by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Freud, Modernist artists have to find new order and language to express art as both a way of self-expression of the artist and a hypothesis of the world truths as well as their continuous transformation. The artists search for answers in the present and try to glance into the future instead of reminiscing and rehearsing the events of the past. The departure from controlled structure and rigid moral undercurrents, let the philosophers, socialists and artists express their individuality and open their minds to possibilities unrelated to the past historical experiences. It allows them to go deeper, into discovery of true human self with its sensibility and, often, its agonizing irrationality and chaos. The thinking becomes fragmented as reflection of human unconsciousness and the state of events is less idealized and often presents itself realistically bleak and disappointing. The conceptual thinking becomes an inseparatable component of creative process making art a reflection of both the artist’s creative and spiritual process as well as the viewer’s reaction to it. In his essay “A Model of Modernism” Norman F. Cantor ascribes several defining characteristics of the Modernist movement, among which are the focus of disharmonious and fragmentary, functionalism and sexual openness (Cantor 45-47).  

 

 Pablo Picasso "Man with Violin"

Pablo Picasso "The Poet"

Pablo Picasso’s work, such as “Man with Violin” and “The Poet”, is highly fragmented, made out of fractions that separately could be identified but put together do not add up to an objective totality. By looking at “Man with Violin,” we see the nose of the musician, his mustache and a fraction of the violin but they do not add up to create his comprehensive portrait. Similarly in “The Poet,” the portrait once harmoniously combined seems to be like a mirror smashed against the concrete floor, its pieces scattered then put together at random, with the “scroll of paper” and the eyes and mouth of the poet placed at logically incomprehensible positions. There is no longer a predetermined pattern but a disharmonious composition lacking conclusive finish. However, the totality is not nonexistent but, instead, it is transferred from individual identities to relationships of multiple facets, their unique interaction and unity. Although we are not sure what to look for as totality we can still identify the fragments and process them as part of the reality seeking interpretation. Since there is no specific order in which fragments should combine in order to be perceived and understood, the elements of the cubist work become interchangeable and its composition becomes a link holding disassociated fractions. The fragments are put together by the mind of the cubist and processed by the mind of the viewer, thus, rendering the work highly subjective to interpretation.

 Giacomo Balla "Dynamism of the Dog on a Leash"

Marcel Duchamp 

"Nude Descending a Staircase No 2"

Giacomo Balla’s “Dynamism of the Dog on a Leash” is a great example of futurist work and its fascination with speed, power, machines and technology. The concern with simultaneity of movement in time is recorded by divisionist method of painting and interpretations of the abstract effects of light on the moving objects. The dog appears to be multi-legged with the image smudged and the leash appearing as forming a cone instead of a single line. The painting escapes its two-dimensional frame and introduces the concept of time as a new dimension. The speed as well as movement are closely analyzed and their function is broken up into fragments in order to be analyzed and understood from a scientific perspective. “Nude Descending a Staircase No 2” by Marcel Duchamp is another great example of fascination with how things work in motion set against the increment of time. The figure is fragmented and extended in time as though it was photographed at a very high speed smudging the movement in the air or simply recorded and put together as a continuous progression in time placed on a continuous line of action. The

beginning of 20^th century and Industrial revolution brought many developments to the inquisitive eye of both the scientist and the artist. The machines were studied with precision that transferred to the same scientific and physiological fascination with the movement of the human body in space, its function.

 Edouard Manet "Olympia"

Egon Schiele "Standing Nude Young Girl"

Edouard Manet’s “Olympia” is a new take on female nudity and sexuality. The academic tradition held that nude was a goddess and in her lack of clothing reflected purity. The nude was always a creation of imagination, referring to mythology or historical event. In Manet’s painting, however, the woman, who is no longer a creation of artist’s fantasy but an actual courtesan named Victorine Meurent, is not a nude but a naked temptress boasting sexually alluring boudoir mules and a red flower in her hair. She gazes at us with her shameless fearless eyes. The flowers in the hands of her servant and the hissing cat acknowledge a presence of the stranger in the room. Since the cat is directed at the viewer and so is the gaze of Victorine, there could be a logical connotation that the viewer becomes Olympia’s next trick. Egon Schiele’s “Standing Nude Young Girl” shows another side of exploration into the realm of sexuality. It no longer focuses on the beauty of the female form but, on the opposite, Schiele’s method of depiction, ascribed to the Expressionist style of painting, is harsh and almost repulsive and, instead, gives his subjects a soul full of vulnerability, insecurity and painful air of loneliness. Where depiction of “Olympia” is marked with artistic precision and vividness of color and shades, “Standing Nude Young Girl” looks like an unfinished sketch boasting little decorative elements besides the fragile naked frame of the girl and her helpless gaze.

             

The end of 19^th and beginning of 20^th century showed many new philosophical and cultural trends as well as forms and styles of creative expression, yet what united this time period under a single name of Modernism is dynamism of inquisitive search for new reality, innovative norms of perceiving and processing the world and pressing social responsibility for the community that was once rigid and highly divided but now, with technological innovations, is pressed closer together needing new strategies of communicating and coexisting.

Bibliography:

Wood, Robert E. Nietzsche’s Horizon. Placing Aesthetics. Ohio University Press, 1999

 

Cantor, Norman F. Modernism. The American Century. HarperPerennial, 1998

Great Minds: Honore de Balzac

"All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual"

The King's Speech

A magnificent gem that disappoints with the slow beginning yet simmers to perfection at finale. I am a bit at odds with this film and I will not pretend to claim it as my favorite movie of the year. I was intrigued by «The King's Speech» due to its rare 95% rating on the often capricious Rotten Tomatoes website as well as its impeccable reputation for gathering four Oscars at the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony. As I sat before the screen, I was overwhelmed in anticipation of the cinematographic magnificence that was to challenge and amuse me, surprise and make me think. All I have to say is that I remained in this state of awaiting till the final «speech» rolled in. I was, indeed, tantalized by the incredible performances of Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush who showed great range or acting depth and conviction to the characters. Was the film inspirational? Yes, it was uplifting and encouraging in its focus on endurance in the face of drastic setbacks and personal inadequacies. It also showed a kind and supportive bond between the timid yet powerful king and a daring and witty commoner. The movie was good but, for me, it was not excellent. It was, at times, unbearably slow and uneventful with most plot turns rather predictable and dull. However, I will repeat myself, the acting is worth checking out and finishing the movie to form your own opinion. Afterall, four Oscars must be worth a try : )

My Throne

That is quite a chair to say the least and I would not mind seating in it…in a stark white dress, sipping a glass of bubbly…nah, this chair demands a man’s drink – make it a whisky then!