Fortunately they were mostly harmless, although there was a deliberate nasty tackle on Jozef Sombat. After Sombat scored his goal, Halbturn was worried enough to want to cripple our star for at least that game. In the end it was a hard fought scrappy tie.

Former captain Michael Wernecker ended up in a bit of a battle with Halbturn keeper Rene Summer, who strangely was unable to take his own free kicks, but otherwise was screaming angry most of the game.

Here’s the photos, without titles and descriptions for now.

What is the point of a world without Russia?

or alternatively:

Why would we need a world without Russia?

or even:

What use to us is a world without Russia?

In Russian:

Зачем нам такой мир, если в нём не будет России?

The Russian is even clearer and pointed than the English, although I’ve done my best with the translations. If you read all three English versions, and hold all three in your head, you have a fairly exact understanding of just what Vladimir Putin said. I’d seen the clip in isolation but thought it came from Oliver Stone’s documentary The Putin Interviews (2017). I was also not quite sure of the wording.

I decided to do a bit of digging. It turns out that Putin had been speaking to Russian television anchor Vladimir Soloviev for his film World Order 2018 (Miroporyadok/Миропорядок 2018). The phrase is normally given without context in English.

I did find a high quality 2m12s clip of the (in)famous quote in context in Russian. But no how hard I looked I could not find a version with English subtitles. Here’s the clip with hand-translated idiomatic subtitles (by yours truly).

[fvplayer id=”27″]

The whole transcript is above. In context, it’s clear that Russia’s nuclear doctrine is no first strike, unlike the US nuclear doctrine, which allows “preventative” use. In response to the aggressive first strike US posture, Russia subsequently changed its nuclear doctrine in June 2020. The new nuclear doctrine allows use when the existence of the Russian State is threatened:

The Russian Federation retains the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear weapons and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies and also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat.

Given the public nuclear doctrine of the Russian Federation, I’m astonished at US efforts to threaten its existence. Perhaps Jens Stoltenberg, Mark Milley, Lloyd Austin and Ursula von der Leyen believe that Vladimir Putin is bluffing. I would suggest they more closely examine his track record of execution. Few current Western leaders seem particularly thoughtful and all seem inclined to groupthink. The genuine Kremlinologists and Arabists have been thrown out of the State Department and are held in disgrace in Europe.

I remember the days when Western leadership was still capable of listening to those who disagreed with them. Some select few were even capable of negotiation. We need that kind of leadership now.

After high school, Cousins was set to sign with Toledo or Western Michigan, until Mark Dantonio became the head coach at Michigan State in 2007. After Dantonio failed to sign his top targets at quarterback, he offered a scholarship to Cousins, which he accepted.

Does second team All Big Ten sound like a $50 million quarterback to you? His TD to interception ratio of 25 to 10 in senior year hints at some good judgement and solid underlying talent but that’s about it. No championships, always two or three games per college season lost. Hence the fourth round draft pick. In the pros, Cousins struggled for three years to keep his interceptions under his TD throws. There’s never been a quarterback to throw more 400 yard losing efforts than Kirk Cousins. As a runner, Cousins struggles to average 2.5 yards (which isn’t as bad as it sounds, as it means lots of times when under pressure Cousins avoids huge yards lost sack).

No contract a win-win situation for both sides now. Cousins refuses to sign a “deal”. Hence the Redskins will be paying maximum dollar for Cousins no matter what happens. Pro quarterbacks’ careers sometimes end in seconds. Even more often their form is cripple. There’s no guarantee that Kirk Cousins will survive next season in pro bowl capable health.

The highest rated, most decorated (Heismann, NFL Rookie of the Year, Pro Bowl as Rookie) in this training camp picture (Robert Griffin III) may not be in football this year. The highest paid quarterback in this picture is still Kirk Cousins despite not having a signed contract since 2015.

The Redskins really should have gone to the playoffs last year in 2016. Defensive inconsistency and Cousins’ inability to turn big yards into scores left them sitting home. If Cousins were the guaranteed $75 million quarterback he pretends to be, the Redskins would have made the playoffs last year. He might become that QB in 2017. The price tag can’t go much higher than where it is now.

From the team’s perspective:

1. Cousins will be very keen not to get injured (no guaranteed money).
2. Cousins will be keen to show that he is truly a franchise quarterback.

If he delivers what he has to, the Redskins will be delighted to pay the difference. If Cousins continues to flash hot and cold, the Redskins will be delighted to pay him accordingly or let someone else pay him. The Cousins situation is certainly one of the most interesting pro sports free agent/franchise player/negotiations to take place in years. Regardless of his eventual place in football, Cousins will have a place in sports law and contract negotiations courses for decades to come.

The evening began with a short extract from one of Toulon’s own most ambitious works, Swan Trilogy (Schwanentrilogie). I saw the full piece at its premiere in 2009 and Swan Trilogy has aged well. The giant eggs with cracks in them create impressive atmosphere while Dianne Gray looks fabulous as the Swan princess. Michal Zabavik is in great form. The live orchestra give the performance the feel of one Europe’s great cultural capitals like Moscow or Paris. It’s a pity the excerpt was so short.

The next pas de deux came from Roland Petit’s Proust ou les intermittences du coeur. Two men dance naked to the waist as equal partners. Beautiful shapes, tender movement. Gabriel Faurie’s Elegy for Violoncello and Orchestra provided a deeply moving acoustic background for what Toulon correctly noted as a masterwork. 1974 is like today. Rainer Krenstetter and Marian Walter’s communication via movement will be the best we see tonight. A perfect performance of Petit’s perfect piece.

Marian Walter and Rainer Krenstetter in Roland Petits
Duett from Les intermittences du Coeur

Aimless is just one year old, Dimo Milev won the Copenhagen International Choreographic Competition with his short reflection on life: “it’s not important where you go but with whom you go”. Style is Hong Kong cinema with rust coloured pants and flowered shirts. Tango music from Marc Ribot adds a sensual funkiness to slinky synchronous movement. Performer Tamako Akiyama moves like a young dancer in her timeless and trendy swan song.

Dimo Kirilov Milev und Tamako Akiyama in Aimless
von Dimo Kirilov Milev Foto Costin Radu

Fortunately the Graz Oper’s speaker system is good enough to mix with live orchestra. Jean Sibelius’s “Ariels Lied” mixes into nature effects in the next duet, another extract from Toulon’s own Swan Trilogy. Anne-Marie Legenstein’s costume for the white swan remains breathtaking, a tightly pulled gauze bodysuit with transparent sections, decorated with silver and jewels. Bruna Diniz Afonso did justice to Toulon’s finely wrought choreography but her partner Keian Langdon persistently let her down. He looks good but his movement was sloppy and neither his head nor heart were in the dance this night.

“Fifth Corner” tries to tell the story of solitary confinement through three dancers. We hear opera arias mixed with some synthetic beats but the mix feels like a posed cool. Three long-haired beardos in Mao suits are the dancers but for me the movement was second rate. Choreography credits are shared by Guido Sarli and Manuel Rodriguez. Perhaps the full Loser King from which “Fifth Corner” was extracted makes more sense: Loser King won prizes in both New York and Madrid.

Toulon takes us back again to Swan Lake with Pascal Touzeau’s two year old reinterpretation of the pas de deux from the second act. The music is original and gorgeously played by the Graz Orchestra but the movement is entirely new, in what is an almost naked Swan Lake. This is great dance from a ballerina in her prime. Anne Jung brings a ferocious German intensity to Tchaikovsky’s elegaic score. A slightly awkward Christian Bauch does his best but he’s not able to keep up with Jung. It would definitely worth the trip to Mainz to see an astonishingly refreshed Swan Lake with parallel love stories (Odette and Odile are twin sisters).

Anne Jung und Christian Bauch in Pascal Touzeaus Schwanensee Act II Pas de Deux

Tarek Assam’s Alter Ego brings two men together on the stage again to the pure industrial sound of Alva Noto’s Argonaut. Michael Bronczkowski is a big black miracle worker of a dancer, his long arms extend forever. His silken movement makes you wonder how there any white male dancers. Manuel Wahlen holds up his end but Bronczkowski absolutely dominates the stage in one of the best performances of the evening.

Stephan Thoss’s Between Midnight and Morning returns us to Swan Lake but in a peculiar parody with the focus on an Odette head over heels in love with Rotbart. Laia Garcia Fernandez has a tutu which goes up to her chin. With short runs and bodychecks, Fernandez bowls Tenald Zace over again and again in fits of jealously. The game is funny at first but we quickly tire of it, repetition of the same joke breaks the funny bone.

Phew. That’s part one done. Back to our seats. After the second half, the orchestra does not return nor does Swan Lake.

Chat Rooms 2 is a sneak preview of Rosana Hribar and Grego Lustek’s contribution to the new Oper Graz dance evening. Bostjan Ivanjsic comes out early with Laura Fischer where he takes over an armchair and squaks about love. Others join them in bright green, red, blue shirts to ask the same question while tumbling. “Do you still love me?” which is always followed up by “I have to be sure which side you are on.” “Your side of course.” Uncertainty in love is universal so the trope of funny voices amuses at first but Michal Zabavik, Thanh Pham, Clara Pascual Marti and the rest wear it to death. The entire audience breathed an audible sigh of relief at the end of the short excerpt.

The simple piano music of Yarosava Ivanenko’s Invisible Grace brought soothing relief to raw nerves. A very beautiful pas de deux between the choreographer himself and Heather Jurgensen offers subtle gestures, great feeling and amazing empathy. There’s only black costumes but fine choreography and emotional performance makes one forget anything except the music and the dancers. If you are anywhere near Kiel, check the Ballet Kiel program to catch Jurgensen.

Heather Jurgensen und Yaroslav Ivanenko in Invisible Grace

Grey boxes, grey glothes and grey movement are what Kevin O’Day brings to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, a work where good choreographers go to die. The sad duet between older men is art with a capital A, important with a capital I and boring with a capital B. Dance is not about death from old age, even if the boomers are getting older, but about passion and fire. Thoughtful and interminable.

Kevin ODay und Robert Glumbek in Four Seasons Photo Christian Kleiner

Hung-Wen Chen’s acrobatic dancing in V.V.V. quickly made Oper Graz much livelier. Half way through their leaps and flips, up come the house light. Lester Rene Gonzalez Alvarez asks the audience about games of chance before going back to horizontal and vertical floorwork. Veni Vidi Vici is very entertaining though the black and white costumes and the movement often seem very eighties (not necessarily a bad thing).

Hung Wen Chen und Lester Rene in Veni vidi vici von Hung Wen Chen

David Dawson’s brand new “Opus.11” is a choreographic reflection on the impossibility of truly coupling and life’s temporality. It was written for two retiring dancers. Tonight Courtney Richardson was majestic in the role written for Yumiko Takeshima. Raphael Coumes-Marquet’s movement seemed a bit too distant and self-involved, as though not only was he not interested in this woman, but no women.

Courtney Richardson und Raphael Coumes Marquet in
David Dawsons Opus11 Photo Costin Radu

Chat Rooms 1, another sneak preview, closed out the evening with a bang. Checkerboards of light and industrial banging grab our attention. Young star James Cousins does not seem to have a clear point yet in this preview. Oper Graz’s company looks good but in a fashion piece like this regal ice princess Sarah Schoch is clearly missing. A dancer like Schoch would add a visual edge to this fashion piece.

Throughout the evening, we had the pleasure of Toulon’s introductions and reflections on dance. Toulon’s mix of intellectual humour and pomp mostly charms. Toulon seems more self-conscious about his age than he needs to be. While dancers careers are short-lived, a choreographer’s need not be.

Toulon came up with a great promotional and fundraising idea: attractive black t-shirts with next season’s program on the back and a quote from Nietzsche on the front for €10: Most sizes sold out.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

Next year is Toulon’s final season in Graz. There will be a sixth International Tanzgala here next May. Graz is wonderful in May and so are Toulon’s dance galas.

A splendid respite from pas de deux from Don Quixote and La Bayadère.

Further reflections on the future

If I had any wishes for future Graz Tanzgalas they would be to have fewer pieces, but longer excerpts. I’d like to continue to see as many pieces with live music as possible, even if it doesn’t involve the whole orchestra (piano with cello for example live). There is a danger of hitting the same wells each time: it’s important to see dancers from new venues every year rather than the same dancers back with something new each year. Several repeating artists does provide some continuity though and artists in their prime often have five or six stupendous years in a row, so the right mix of repeating and new artists is a fine line to tread.

Horecna Contra Clockwise Witness 1

The Second Detail opens up with a huge bright grey rehearsal space with just the words THE at the front. Thin white horizontal lines dividge the strange into precise grids. The dancers are in the same grey as the floor. I’m not quite sure why Apple is getting away with suing Samsung for packaging as Forsythe had the iPhone and MacBook Air boxing under control back in 1991 in Frankfurt. This is an early great work.

Vienna State Ballet company looks great dancing Forsythe these days. Under Legris, they’ve acquired both the élan necessary and the discipline necessary to put it all together. Strangely, the men have improved more than the women (who have been excellent as along as I’ve been in Vienna). Particularly notable is strongman Vladimir Shiskov but Mihail Sosnovichi also delivers an imposing performance while Eno Peci and Alexis Forbasco look good too. All of the men have developed powerful lower bodies and are a joy to watch.

In Forsythe, Olga Esina is in her element. Her perfect and pure lines outclass any other ballerina in the Staatsoper (and most in the world) even before she starts to dance. Forsythe’s dry emotions don’t even leave her colleagues a chance to make up for catch up ground.

Indeed, the whole company looked great with Nina Polakova in good form alongside Reina Sawai and Rui Tamai. Prisca Zeisel was given one of the more substantial roles. In her third season, Vienna’s child phenomenon has grown into a beautiful woman but needs to lighten her footwork is she is to catch the likes Polakova, Papava or Esina.

Rafaella Sant’Anna enters in a Greek toga in a large role as a woman from another time who wanders into this world of perfect bodies and machine like precision. She negotiates with aplomb tricky balance between balletic grace and primitive movement.

There was no orchestra playing tonight and I wondered why the stage was not built over the orchestra pit. The only issue with the whole evening is that the dance somehow seems quite far away. With an orchestra that’s justified but with an empty pit it makes little sense. In the end, the orchestra did arrive for Lander.

The second ballet “Contra Clockwise Witness” is the work of Slovak expatriate Natalia Horecna, a relatively young choreographer who only recently gave up her place as one of the stars at Netherlands Dance Theatre. I worried Horecna would just be another NDT dancer recycling what she’d seen as a poor reflection of the original.

The stage opens with choreographer dancer András Lukács with this head in a noose. It’s a lovely reference to Jeune Homme et la Mort which will follow Contra Clockwise Witness through its development. Three male angels of death gather with Greig Matthews as a imposing leader. The skull makeup, his two metre frame and fierce dancingf frighten like a good horror film.

At first we think it’s an execution but it appears to be more a suicide. While Lukács fathoms his own death a naked Andrey Kaydanovsky (curiously the other serious choreographer among active Staatsoper dancers) slides up behind him. Kaydanovsky will be Lukács spirit/shadow henceforth. Kaydanovsky represents mortality.

Five dancers in transparent gowns have entranced us now, Rafaella Sant’Anna keeping pace as a ballerina now in an excellent group of angels. The most remarkable movement was Avraam, whose movement is entirely otherworldly, controlled and abandoned at the same time. Céline Janou Weder and Ketevan Papava kept Avraam a close pace.

We then start to see episodes from other people’s lives as Kaydanovsky reads a magic silver book of tales. Emlia Barancowicz dances a charming comic book can-can, all gypsy red with a virile Mihail Sosnovichi with no pants and flowing hair. Alas they both die, falling through the floor.

The good angels leave us and we face hysterical dark angels in wigs, who shout in unison at us. In the back of the stage there is a giant door. Kaydanovsky tries to penetrate but he is pushed away by two male hands. Frantic Paganini violin solos animate ballerina shadows who circle the stage like abandoned wraiths. Two lovers push through long white tunnels to unite in the center of the stage naked, again Sosnovichi and Baranowicz. Now we get film music, as if from Hollywood but here à propos. The whole stage shakes with the low notes (whoever did the technical prep did a great job, I’ve not heard canned music sound so convincing in a dance performance). They shiver in the dark.

Lukács eventually wakes from his nightmare and goes on to live. A happy ending to a dark piece.

Horecna’s work is profound and shows the full potential of dance. When united with dramaturgy and adequate staging, dance can be life changing. Grigorovich understood that and gave that gift to John Neumeier and it lives on Horecna. Dance is just an element to help reveal the essential, asking questions like what is the after life, do we have a soul, can lovers meet in the after life.

Horecna’s answers appear to be yes we have a should but the next world is more frightening than we could ever possible imagine. Contra Clockwise Witness like Swan Lake or Giselle is the kind of work one can see again and again and find something new each time. This is a masterwork and Manuel Legris should be applauded for bringing it to the main stage in Vienna.

Horecna was with us tonight in Vienna: it’s thrilling to see true living choreography on our main stage.

The last piece begins in the dark with dozens of legs in near blackness executing perfect fouettés. To cloying music from dead Dane Knudage Riisager on Carl Czerny’s original Etudes. For almost ten minutes. I think this is the first time in my life I have not enjoyed the Vienna Philharmonic.

Fortunately the lights came up and we could see almost the whole company from Dagmer Kronenberg to the beautiful Hungarians. We could admire how comfortable ballet dancers can make uncomfortable poses look. Cypriot Ionna Avraam looked especially at ease with the legs twisted.

From there it just went downhill. Apparently the theme was how beautiful and remarkable the ballet is.

Roman Lazik was the first fall guy as the perfect romantic hero, prancing around the stage. Of course, showboat Denys Cherevychko was right in his element piroetting for applause. Peculiarly Cherevychko’s leaps do not fly as high as his self-esteem. His Italian point man Davide Dato managed to outdance the ambitious Ukrainian.

Lead dancer Kiyoka Hashimoto acquitted herself well, considering the vacuity of the material. She didn’t allow her smile to smudge into a grimace and always moved with grace.

Etudes could just work with dancers of the calibre of Olga Esina and Ketevan Papava. With the second tier, it’s a frightfully dull experience. Even worse than watching ballet rehearsal. More like watching ballet class. Watching musicians play scales.

If you visit Ballett-Hommage, you will lose little if you leave after the first two acts.

splash image for pourquoi je danse – see video at bottom of post

This week the Ontario Arts Council announced OntarioDances.ca a program to connect dance companies with dance presenters.

For some reason there are only nine theatres included:

• Burlington Performing Arts Centre (Burlington)
• Capitol Centre (North Bay)
• Centre for the Arts – Brock University (St. Catharines)
• Flato Markham Theatre (Markham)
• The Grand Theatre (Kingston)
• Living Arts Centre (Mississauga)
• Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts (Oakville)
• The Registry Theatre (Kitchener)
• River Run Centre (Guelph)

Why just these nine? Where are the other theatres who get money from the Ontario Arts Council or Canada Council? Why can they not be mandated to participate? Have they been excluded as they are not good enough:? Should not a program like this be inclusive?

Remember the goal is to unite dance companies with theatres.

Amateurs are warned off:

We cannot accommodate information posted by amateur or recreational groups.

The only problem is who will decide what is amateur or recreational and what is professional. I’ve been to some professional performances (full time dance artists) which are so awful and risible there are no words for them. I’ve been to some amateur performances (people whose income is not dependent on dance) who have moved my soul.

In music, neither Lana del Rey nor Carly Simon could get gigs for years before they hit it big.

During that time, I worked as an overweight secretary in the offices of a production company. I pretended to type and take shorthand while extending my luncheon breaks to drown my sense of failure in more and more puff pastry and puddings.

What’s worse is that all this information is not offered to the world but locked behind closed doors.

What kind of portal does not allow the world to see what is there? Dance is not MI6 or CSIS or even the Ministry of Defence.

But go to http://ontariodances.ca and there is nothing for the public to see.

Hopeless. With friends like this, dance needs no enemies.

On the other hand, the video about what dance means to people, amateur and professional (I’d say about 80% of the people in this video are non-professionals in the sense of making the majority of their income from dance related activities) is pretty awesome.

Imagine being a world famous artist. Imagine designing national monuments. Imagine thinking that you are invulnerable to repression. Imagine speaking out against human rights abuses at your country’s Olympics (Olympics for which you designed stadiums). Imagine being warned to shut your fat trap. Imagine you keep talking. Imagine that a few months later they come to arrest you and lock you away for 81 days. Imagine you come back with the strict warning that if you continue to make an international media spectacle damaging to the regime which is buttering your bread, you will go away not for three months but forever.

If your imagination is rich, you will have just lived the three years of artist Ai Weiwei’s life who for many years had a blessed position as Lear’s fool in Beijing. His nonsense answers and ironic commentary on the regime probably even amused the higher party bosses. A useful fool.

Ai Weiwei is indeed a very amusing fellow. Roly-poly and self-deprecating, he’s the original class clown. He looks like the punchline of a Chinese joke with his straggly beard and round paunch. His art work is quite stimulating but at the end of the day he is an entertainer, a natural improviser. And apparently even a professional level blackjack player. Weiwei has not lost his passion for gambling, but now the stakes are considerably higher: his wealth and his freedom.

Naked ai weiwei: The caption (草泥马挡中央, “grass mud horse covering the middle”) to Ai’s self-portrait sounds almost the same in Chinese as 肏你妈党中央, “Fuck your mother, the Communist party central committee”.[Wikipedia]

Alison Klayman’s film captures Ai Weiwei at his best.

So when they do take him away we are very, very sorry. Even now I’m sorry.

1280px Sunflower Seeds by Ai Weiwei Tate Modern Turbine Hall

Thank heavens they bring him back. The Chinese are awfully clever. They thought about what we do in The West to people we wish to silence. We whack them economically. Everyone is guilty of some economic crimes. Willingly I pay tens of thousands of euros in taxes every month but I’m sure that a clever tax investigator could find bones in my books. Anyone in any kind of business or who has a home business, somewhere is guilty of something.

The penalties on the books are heavy. They are not often not enforced. Like in the Soviet Union, these penalties are there just in case. If you shoot off your mouth too much, economic shut down. It’s what the US did to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, via Paypal, Visa,  Mastercard and the banks. While pornographers spend up a storm on Visa (and even Paypal as long as they are not receiving payment), Wikileaks’s accounts were shut down and hence most of their operation.

So back to China, the clever Chinese and Ai Weiwei. When they let the big old clown back out on the streets, they hit him with tax fraud and confiscate one of his studios. They also demaind $2.5 million in cash. Ai Weiwei friends helped him raise the cash. The amusing thing is that Weiwei probably did owe the money. I don’t imagine a walled free standing compound in Beijing comes cheap. On top of that he regularly sells art abroad very expensively. No doubt he owes some additional taxes somewhere, just out of carelessness if not guile.

Birds Nest at Night

Apparently Weiwei keeps talking but he certainly seemed considerably more restrained after his detention and his fines than before. Measuring his words. Thinking before speaking.

Moral of the story: Chinese repression is awful but just a pale shadow of what we are up to in the West. True freedom does not exist inside empires. There are always interests greater than men.

Opening film at the Jeden Svet – One World Festival in Bratislava. Kudos to the director Nora Beňáková for choosing such a thought provoking opening gig. Slovensky Sporitelna Bank is general sponsor of Jeden Svet: glad someone in the financial world is interested in the free flow of information and the investigation of corruption. Jeden Svet is organised by Pontis Foundation who are in turn founded by The Foundation for a Civil Society who are curiously very active in Iran now. The world is a complicated and interwoven place.

Alicia Liu has expressed a very cogent American Chinese perspective on the Ai Weiwei’s life and Alison Klayman’s film.

Little did I know just 18 hours later, the Euro was to fall under its watchful walls. Despite, Bratislava’s castle’s air of history, the castle was in ruins for over a hundred years in Pressburg before the Slovaks rebuilt it in Bratislava.

I’m still astonished that Radicova foolishly linked her government AGAIN (this is about time number five) to a vote in Parliament. While she has been a very good prime minister, this death wish in the form of votes of confidence is an absurd game of Russian roulette.

Well now we’ll have an election. Hopefully the bailout package will still not pass. This EU becomes troublesome: a plaything of the international banks, like Congress in the United States. The majority of the European population is against these unlimited bailouts.

It’s somewhere near Alt Wien in the first district. The light is very distinctive and dark. Service is Mad Hatter-like from Alice in Wonderland. The waiter comes three times to ask you what you like to order but you never get your drinks. But’s always well-spoken and friendly.

Wunderbar post-MAK nite actress Jaschka Lämmert and photographer Rita Nowak

Wunderbar post MAK nite Jaschka Lämmert, Rita Nowak, and Irina Gabich

Wunderbar post MAK nite Jaschka Lämmert, Rita Nowak, Irina Gabich, Christoph some musician who stepped out of the original Shaft

Jaschka Lämmert can be seen now at Künsthistorisches Museum in the project 

Juliet Berto as Frederique, Jacques Doniol Valcroze at Etienne:
Life is just a giant chess game but for keeps

The problem with the film Out 1: Spectre is that it is all on the spot improvisation. If you’ve ever done much improvisation, you know that even when it goes well it usually takes some time longer to develop. There is a lot of going in circles to get the plane off the ground. Spectre One documents those circles. For the twenty five minutes of successful drama you are forced to sit through four and a half hours of film, three hours of which are actors warming up to their subject and another half hour just extraneous long shots.

Perhaps most interesting as a social document if we trust the director to accurately document avant garde theatre practice and mœurs of the time. Some contemporary French critics did praise the sociological side at the time, so let’s presume that the clothing and behaviour is correct. In that case, it is astonishing how much people smoked and drank in that time. They didn’t take it easy on the coffee either.

Out 1: Spectre ostensibly treats Balzac’s Thirteen: thirteen who consider themselves above society and who are willing to cooperate to break any laws to get what they want.

The Fat Director (Michel Lonsdale as Thomas) is one of the most irritating personalities to ever grace the silver screen. He has a huge head, a great big rump, tiny shoulders, persistently dirty hair. Throughout the film, he pontificates with his mouth full of nuts or sandwiches or booze or cigarettes. He manages to put his oily hands on every attractive woman crossing the screen. Partcularly incredible is when he sits on the bed stroking his ex-mistress Sarah, while his current mistress sits on the floor, even bringing water to Sarah at his request.

Very amusing is the scene where he shares an apartment by the seaside with the most beautiful actress of his troupe and a bearded youth. The relationship isn’t sorted out clearly but it looks like this Dionysian young acolytes are sharing the same bed with old Satyr. What Michel Lonsdale is doing to merit this very special treatment is difficult to fathom. His carnal facility must rival the gourmandise of his eating – a hideous image but at least one level on which one can engage with Spectre One – distaste for a personnage so strong that you can taste it. He seems to have built a cult of personality within the group.

The most engaging actor is Juliet Berto in her role as seductress/thief/blackmailer. The different tricks she plays to part foolish men and their money are entrancing for a man. Have you ever been a dupe to a broad on the make? Watch her performance and you know you have been. Her most formidable adversary is Etienne (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) who is one of the conspiratorial ringleaders. His gravelly voice and polite strength were incredibly impressive. Apart from a single scene at the end where he and Michel Lonsdaleare talking around the conspiracy, Doniol-Valcroze’s improvisation is the most fluent and convincing. You know that he’s dealt with any number of duplicitous women and is not phased by them in the least.

Jean Loud seems to be lost here. He is the glue binding all the different parts of the film together with this investigation of the thirteen.

My favorite director Eric Rohmer appears briefly in a cameo as a university professor discussing Balzac. Not a particularly convincing performance but an amusing enough inside joke. It’s amazing how old Rohmer was even back in 1972. Astonishing that he is still making movies. Eric Rohmer gave up on automobiles in his thirties and since then cycles everywhere (I am not sure that is presently true granted his age). Rohmer made the decision to abandon automobiles for environmental reasons. Hopefully, cycling/car abandonment has a very positive effect on my own long term vitality and productivity.

But in the end Out 1: Spectre disappoints. So much time for so little.

The image is also hideous. I don’t know what the original print looked like but what’s left in the can is a washed out pink and orange mess. You can hardly see the colours. The visual inadequacy of the material in this case is a substantial problem. Out 1: Spectre is most successful as a social document. In a social document, one wants to be able to clearly see the clothing and design, to taste and feel the surroundings.

So somebody saved some money with inadequate development facilities. No wonder they were worried about cost issues with dozens of hours of footage to tie together.

Curiously enough, the full Out 1 times in at twelve hours and forty minutes. It was supposed to be a miniseries for French television. TF1 refused to air it. Jacques Rivette didn’t want to see his work thrown away so he edited it down to the 225 minute version we saw. Apparently, the longer version makes more sense. I don’t have twelve more hours of my life to find out.

Timing in at 246 minutes and even longer, La Maman et la Putaine is otherwise the inverse of Out 1: Spectre. There are only three core characters. The action takes place in a minimum of settings (Café aux Deux Magots, a street by the Pantheon, a dormitory room and a filthy apartment).

All the three characters do is talk and drink. But the relationship lives its own life. Every moment is absorbing as you sink further and further into their psychosis and realise that despite their connection, a trainwreck is up ahead.

Most people are familiar with Jean-Pierre Léaud flippant work in Truffaut’s film as his own alter ego Antoin Doinel. Later in life Léaud slummed with half hearted efforts at acting. But here in La Maman et la Putaine, he is entirely persuasive as the café wastrel pocket philosopher. The line between life and cinema seems to disappear entirely.

While the text seems absolutely natural, it is in fact tightly scripted. None of the improvisational excesses of Spectre One. The difference in quality between these two similarly dialogue driven films from the same epoch with many of the same concerns should be a case study in the dangers of improvisation in the feature film format. A tight script makes all the difference between inspired and boring.

Both Bernadette Lafont and Françoise Lebrun are brilliant as Léaud’s companions in their ménage à trois.

Jean Eustache made few feature films in his relatively short life (43 years), committing suicide.

The one trait the two films have in common are the prodigous quantities of alcohol, coffee and cigarettes consumed.

No wonder most Parisians in their forties look a damn wreck.

References

It can be hard to find good information about Out 1: Spectre so here are some references to help.

Detailed plot entry at Wikipedia.
Jonathan Rosenbaum review with pics
A rather weak IMDB entry

Draft originally written in April 2009