Film: Brzezina (The Birch Wood) 1970

“From my window in the sanatorium, I saw things that could have been beautiful if I had been able to touch them. But I never touched them and never will.”

In December I watched the Polish film “Brzezina” or “The Birch Wood” (1970) directed by Andrzej Wajda and based on a short story by Jarosław_Iwaszkiewicz. I found it just…. captivating! The title alone was alluring to me because I love birches and I find them the most poetic and gentle of all trees. The film is set in the 1920s and it starts with a pale and sickly looking yet smiling young man called Stanisław returning home to a cottage in the woods where his brother Bronisław, a widower, lives with his young daughter Ola. Stanisław, a pianist and a man who has travelled and seen the world, is at once enchanted with the peacefulness, greenness and fresh air of the countryside, but something is not quite right. The atmosphere is tense; Stanislaw may be smiling and delighting in nature but Bronislaw is clearly agitated, shouting both at his maid and at his daughter who, as we see later in the film, seems lonely and neglected, often by herself, playing with a broken doll, sitting on a swing or visiting her mother’s grave in the birch forest. The film is full of such poetic scenes; poetic both in mood and visuals. The birch woods and blooming meadows certainly provide a lot of visual delights.

A very poignant scene in the film is around the fourteenth minute; in the evening Stanislaw is playing piano and Bronislaw comes to his room and tell him that the music is going on his nerves, and Stanislaw, smiling a smile tinged with nostalgia, dreaminess and melancholy, responds by saying that the music is irritating him too because it reminds him of a world that he never really got to know well; a world that he can never return to. Later in the conversation Stanislaw admits to his brother that he returned home to die because he is suffering from consumption. Bronislaw, who had not so long ago lost his wife, is disturbed at the thought of death in his house again, but his sadness never manifests itself in tears and gentleness, but rather through drinking and shouting, especially at his timid daughter Ola who is obviously frightened of him in many scenes.

Bronislaw is a desperate broken man badly coping with his wife’s death, and the handsome starry-eyed Stanislaw is desperate to live, to taste the life that is seeping away from him like sand in a sand clock. His eyes shine with a desire for life to the point that it’s tragic. The film shows two people, two brothers, who have completely different situations in life and it compares their two different life philosophies, or approaches to life. Stanislaw would give everything just to be healthy and strong again, and Bronislaw seems oblivious to all the good things he still has in life, such as his sweet little daughter Ola, and he allows himself to sink into grief and bitterness, giving away the precious life he has, drinking it away, he is alive but not really living. When you think of Stanislaw, so eager to live and so enchanted with music, nature and the world around him, it truly seems ungrateful to treat life the way Bronislaw does, to waste it away, to be “dead” before you actually die. It almost seems a sacrilegious to throw life away. Still, there’s a very Slavic sadness to this film which I like a lot. Also, now that I think of it, Ola reminds me of one of my best friends from childhood whose mother had also died when she was very little, the same blonde hair and timidness…

Rainer Fetting: I Remember Standing By the Wall

Rainer Fetting, Yellow Wall (Luckauerstraße-Sebastianstraße), 1977

German painter and later also a sculptor Rainer Fetting was a part of an art movement called “Neue Wilde” which brought strong, bold colours, vibrancy and passion into the art scene dominated by minimal art and conceptual art. I already immersed myself in the mood of seventies Berlin through the film (and book) “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo”, musically through the three Berlin-era albums by David Bowie who found the city very stimulating artistically, and now visually through Rainer Fetting’s vibrant canvases. Fetting captured the Wall in many of his canvases from 1970s and 1980s in a particularly raw and expressive way. His brush strokes aren’t wild and strong as those of the original German Expressionists were, Fetting’s paints in a rather smooth way but his use of colour would have certainly shocked the art critic who was appalled by the paintings of the Fauvists in 1905. Still, do not let the vibrant yellow, red and purples fool you; these vibrant colours are a shiny, glamorous facade that conceal the underlying alienation. Back in the age of the original Expressionists, the Wall didn’t exist obviously, but Kirchner captured the spirit of the city in a similar way that Fetting did. In Wim Wenders’ wonderful film “Wings of Desire”, a young man, before committing suicide, laments how “the east is everywhere” and the wall that Fetting had painted here is what divides the two sides. Painting “Erstes Maurbild” shows the mystery of the other side; the windows with bars looks like a prison and one can imagine the chilling silence that lies on the other side; no tree, no birdsong, just concrete alienation which Fetting frantically transformed into a rainbow of colours. Painting “Mauer am Südstern”, with its visible brushstrokes and the subdued red and ocher shades reminds me the most of something that Ernst Ludwig Kirchner could have painted. And of course, when I think of the wall, David Bowie’s song “Heroes” comes to mind:

“I, I can remember
(I remember)
Standing by the wall
(By the wall)
And the guns, shot above our heads
(Over our heads)
And we kissed, as though nothing could fall
(Nothing could fall)

And the shame, was on the other side
Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever
Then we could be heroes just for one day

We can be heroes
We can be heroes
We can be heroes just for one day…“

Rainer Fetting, Erstes Mauerbild, 1977, tempera on canvas

Rainer Fetting, Mauer am Südstern, 1988

Rainer Fetting, Alte Fabrik (Moritzplatz) [Old Factory (Moritzplatz)], 1978, Dispersion on canvas, 165 x 196 cm

Book Review: Torn Apart: Life of Ian Curtis

“As for John Peel, although he went on to famously support The Fall, on his 1987 retrospective Peeling Back The Years, he noted: “I always think of them [Joy Division] in a rather romantic way, as being introspective and rather Russian… listening to them always makes me feel slightly central European.”

(Torn Apart)

Scene from the film Control (2007)

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone
(T. S. ELIOT – 1925; Ian quoted these lines in a postcard for Annik)

I have been a massive fan of Joy Division for a long time, but it wasn’t until July this year (a few weeks ago really) that I picked up the book “Torn Apart: Life of Ian Curtis” by Mick Meddles and Lindsey Read and I enjoyed it tremendously, more than I imagined I would. I picked it up in the library eager to read an interesting and amusing book, but I ended up enjoying it in a more profound and poignant way. I had already read Deborah Curtis’s (Ian Curtis’s widow) “Touching from the Distance” and while it was interesting, I wasn’t breathless when I closed the last page, and I got the sense that she was a bit bitter about some things and she also wasn’t the most objective person to write about Ian, and not the most informed one to write about the band when it came to things such as tours, recording and what when on backstage because she wasn’t there. “Torn Apart” gave a better broader view of Ian’s mind and the life of the band. It was great to hear Annik’s side of the story, see the letters Ian had written to her, at times very poetic and melancholy, at times very warm and humane, like when he writes about the love he feels for his dog Candy.

“Reflects a moment in time,
A special moment in time,
Yeah we wasted our time,
We didn’t really have time,
But we remember when we were young.”

(Joy Division, Insight)

Pic found here.

A short-lived band that sprung in the dark and dreary Manchester scene and ended with the suicide of the singer and lyricist Ian Curtis, leaving only two albums behind whose haunting beauty captivates till this day. A motif of transience and time lingers throughout “Torn Apart” and it is often indicates that Ian felt very old even when he was very young (he died two months shy of his twenty-fourth birthday) and he often felt he had to rush things in life; rush the marriage and family life, rush the band and albums, for there would be no time left for him. It is eerie to know that he felt that way, but also ironic because in the end it was he himself who stopped the clock of his time and no one else.

Laura Makabresku, Care.

“Ian and I were certainly very close emotionally and felt a lot for each other. I think I just came at the right time when he was in need of comfort, affection, tenderness and that my presence was soothing to him. He was very gentle and very soft and very caring. I think the fact that I was a foreigner was part of the attraction and also the fact that I was very kind and maybe more kind of refined than girls he had met before. Our relationship was very platonic and very pure and romantic but also quite abstract. He felt quite diminished by his disease and quite frightened of how it would evolve.” (Annik’s words)

In short, here are some things which I loved about the book and which I think every Joy Division fan would love to read about; I loved that (finally!) we get to hear Annik’s side of the story! Annik was a girl from Belgium who moved to London at one point and she was a fan of Joy Division and that is how she got to meet Ian. I really love Annik’s personality from what I’ve read and some of the things she said about Ian and their relationship and the letters that he wrote to her were so heartbreakingly beautiful; their gentle, ethereal and nearly platonic love touched the strings of my heart. I feel like Annik had a gift of truly understanding him and being there for him when he needed warmth and affection, like she says herself. Then, Ian’s personality and his interests. From Deborah’s book, he comes off as a real asshole sometimes, but in this book, from various sources, I got the image of a very polite, nice, gentle, introverted person. Here is what Annik says: “He was truly the nicest and kindest man I ever met in my life. He had a whole world inside him, a true understanding of mankind. You know how compassionate he felt, especially for the weakest. He opened my eyes on being compassionate; he really opened my heart to others, even to people very different from me. He felt a lot for others, for people who were poor or who didn’t have a very interesting life or interesting job. He really felt for them. He was a very kind man, very polite, very soft spoken.“

Control (2007)

The book really got deep into the nature of Ian’s struggles with depression and epilepsy and it was both fascinating and sad to read about it, but is helpful in understanding his sadness and eventual suicide. Along with depressions and epilepsy, a major trouble was the conflict of a failing marriage on one side and a blossoming relationship with Annik on the other side. He had responsibilities towards his family on one side, and Annik’s warm nurturing embrace on the other. Ian had no desire to hurt anyone, but enduring this conflict certainly added to his depression. Quoting the book again: “He was a gentle soul with genuine humility who really didn’t want to hurt anyone. And here he was in a position where he seemed to be hurting everyone close to him – his wife, his daughter, his girlfriend, his group, his friends, and even his fans.” Had he lived, I think he would have been happy with Annik. I loved hearing what Tony Wilson had to say about many things, and also his then wife Linsey Reade who co-wrote the book. I didn’t know that Ian spent a week at their house and listened to records with her in the living room just prior to his suicide. And lastly, I enjoyed reading about the sound effects and the method in which the maverick Martin Hannett worked on the albums.

“Indeed, the first bleak seconds of ‘Atmosphere’ convey an unparalleled intimacy through the close-up timbre of Ian’s voice. Lyrics that are awash in ambiguity – “Walk in silence… don’t walk away, in silence…” – suggest the head-in-hands desperation as a lover leaves for the last time; hollow moments of realisation, of a life lost, a killed passion, the final embers of dream. Ian’s voice might be the loneliest in the world as it hovers above Hannett’s simplistic mix, a flickering candle of truth, of grim realisation. Pop music was never meant to be like this: the fire of youth vanquished and an emotive power so effortlessly believable flowing through the lyrics. And then, slicing through the pitch black like a shard of glass, there’s the blinding white light of sound that cuts straight to the heart. The darkness of’ ‘Atmosphere’ rippled out across post punk Britain, a clash of light and dark which filtered slowly into the consciousness of others, not least The Cure’s 1989 masterpiece, Disintegration, which offers a reflection of ‘Atmosphere’ in varying degrees of grey on practically every sweet song. Faith, The Cure’s morose 1981 epic, would arguably side even closer.”

All in all, a very interesting and thorough book, but also very sad.

Ian and Annik in Control (2007)

Pulvis et umbra sumus

(We are dust and shadows)

Horace

David Bowie’s Moss Garden and Ukiyo-e Ladies Playing Koto

Chikanobu Toyohara (1838-1912), Koto Player – Azuma

David Bowie’s instrumental piece “Moss Garden”, the second of the three instrumentals on side two of album “Heroes” released in 1977, is a serene, tranquil oasis of light in the desert of darkness which makes the majority of the album’s sound. Situated between the fellow two instrumentals, dark and foreboding “Sense of Doubt” and equally grim “Neuköln”, the “Moss Garden”, strange and serene, is like a ray of sun on a moody, cloudy spring day that appears for a moment and disappears quickly behind the clouds. Bowie plays the traditional Japanese string instrument koto on the track and Brian Eno plays the synthesizer. “Moss Garden” is a delightful five minutes and three seconds of lightness and meditative, ambient ethereal sounds. So, one cannot refer to “Heroes” as to a dark album, why, one eighth of the album is uplifting. And then there’s the song “Heroes” as well.

It’s been quite some time since I discovered Bowie’s Berlin era songs, but this song lingered in my memory, and I think the reason for that is the eastern sound of the koto. I mean, how many rock songs are coloured by far-east sounds like that? Listening to this instrumental piece made me think of all the Ukiyo-e prints where beautiful Japanese ladies dressed in vibrant clothes are playing koto and I found a few lovely examples which I am sharing in this post. A lot of these Japanese woodcut prints (or Ukiyo-e prints) were made by Chikanobu, an artist who worked mostly in the 1880s and 1890s, the last fruitful decades for the art of woodcuts and in his work he mostly focused on beautiful women doing everyday things. I really enjoy the elegant simplicity of the woodcut above; how the background is clear but the lady’s purple kimono stands out and the focus is solely on her and her koto; back to bare essentials. I also really love Hasegawa Settei’s portrayal of lady playing kimono.

Toyohara Chikanobu, Preparing to Play the Koto, from the series Ladies of the Tokugawa Period, 1895

Toshikata Mizuno (1866-1914), Thirty-six Selected Beauties – Playing Koto

Hasegawa Settei, A Japanese woman playing the koto, December 1878

Toyohara Chikanobu (1838-1912), Playing Koto, c 1890s

Toyohara Chikanobu (1838-1912), Koto Player at 11 a.m. – Scenes of the Twenty-four Hours, c 1890s

Moss gardens are a special variety of Japanese gardens, the continuous flow of unending moss coated ground lets the person slowly fall into the dreamy and meditative state, and allows the eye to wander from one variety of moss to the other, the nostrils to inhale the rich, green, primeval scent of this old and grateful plant. I imagine it rich with water after a rainy summer afternoon. “A moss garden presents the opportunity to observe differentiations of colour that have never been seen before. The tactile and optical characteristics of the moss gardens are softness, sponginess, submarine wateriness and unfathomability. They are the exact opposite of the pebble gardens with their appointed paths, boundaries and stone islands.” (Siegfried Wichmann; Japonism)

When life gets overwhelming, one can sit for hours in such a garden and easily sink into a meditative state, thoughts drifting and problems fading. In a similar way, Bowie’s move to Berlin with Iggy Pop in 1976 was his way of finding clarity, anonymity and inspiration: “I had approached the brink of drug induced calamity one too many times and it was essential to take some kind of positive action. For many years Berlin had appealed to me as a sort of sanctuary like situation. It was one of the few cities where I could move around in virtual anonymity.“(Bowie with Rob Hughes and Stephen Dalton for Uncut Magazine) After the very depressing album “Low” released earlier the same year, 1977, album “Heroes” is the first step in the path of Bowie’s search for clarity and perhaps the song “Moss Garden” is the best expression of this new found quite, introspective feeling of serenity.

Keiko Yurimoto (1906-2000), Koto Player, c 1950

Berlin in the seventies was a grey, isolated and divided city with a world-weary self-regard. The youth suffered and junkies filled the subway stations, but a lot of bohemians, artists and musicians were drawn to that bleak, alienated and experimental atmosphere and relished in what the city had to offer. As Bowie said himself: “For many years Berlin had appealed to me as a sort of sanctuary-like situation. It was one of the few cities where I could move around in virtual anonymity. I was going broke; it was cheap to live. For some reason, Berliners just didn’t care. Well, not about an English rock singer, anyway.” He was just another weirdo in the city and everyone left him alone. The product of his fascination with the city were three albums; Low, Heroes and Lodger – today known as Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy”, by far my favourite era of Bowie’s music. Bowie said himself about the Berlin Trilogy: “My complete being is within those three albums.” (Uncut magazine) Enough said. I don’t really understand or share the wild enthusiasm for Bowie’s glam rock Ziggy Stardust era, I mean those are some great songs, but the Berlin era is the real thing, it sounds as if the mood of the times and the city with its bleakness and political division is woven into the music, to me it sounds like Berlin breathing and living.

1970s Fashion: Real romantics let longdresses set the mood

Some fun 1970s fashions, mostly from the first half of the decade, which I enjoyed looking at recently. And also the amusing descriptions from the original magazines!

October 1973. ‘Real romantics let longdresses set the mood.’

May 1973. ‘The good time begins when you step through the doorway and hear the beat of the band.’

August 1973. ‘He calls and says, “Let’s see a flick.” You say, “Fantastic,” then wonder what to wear.’

March 1977. ‘The soft prom look.’

March 1970. Skinny Bones by Thermo-Jac

April 1973. ‘The outfits that give you the best mileage, even when you’re not on the road, are the ones that mix well with each other…’

June 1973. ’…Splashy summer mixers, sunny little dresses, accessories you punch up in your own clever way…’

April 1973. ‘Here, sister-models Cindy and Lorraine try out long dresses. The kind that can stay home now, go to summer parties later.’

July 1972. ‘Crisp days call for easy pieces with plenty of options.’

September 1975. ‘How long has it been since you gave your jeans a rest and dressed up in something soft and pretty?’

August 1973. ‘What’s going over big in those good-looking school classics? Coats with neoclassic touches.’

February 1975. ‘The color of lipstock and the shine of gloss in one sheer, creamy lipstick.’

September 1975. ‘Challis charm in print with a streak of solid blue…’

May 1973. ‘How do you tie your prom look together…? You add little things here and there that say a lot about your personal style.’

June 1972. ‘Mix it up in a cling-top dress that goes anywhere.’

December 1970. ‘Natural Wonder by Revlon. For pretty young things.’

May 1970. ‘Puckering hug-tops bloom into ripply skirts and bring spring to full power.’

June 1972. ‘Get around in a puff sleeve T that stops short so your midriff can tan.’

July 1972. ‘Take a long skirt in a clan plaid that wraps to the side.’

December 1970. ‘Fresh. Free. Natural. That’s the feeling you get with Cover Girl.’

August 1973. ‘Getting back into dresses? Try a good two-piece plan…’

May 1973. ‘Summer whites get you into the good times, fast.’

May 1973. ‘Fabulous fashions bright-on for summer’

May 1973. ‘Forget the real world and dance the night away; celebrate, enjoy, tonight is for you!’

March 1970. ‘Wide-eyed slink. Come-on innocence. It’s marvelous to have it both ways with Aziza Smoke-Rings.’

January 1973. ‘Now’s the time to get sewing for spring, to stitch up dresses in just about the prettiest, girl-test prints ever.’

September 1973. ‘The fantasy feeling brings together color, shine and really romantic hair.’

October 1973. ‘For the traditionalist, the heirloom look of a Victorian dress in delicate white-on-white striped satin.’

January 1973. ‘Soft lines, feminine patterns – that’s what gentle dressing is all about.’

January 1973. ‘Inside Clairol’s beautiful new creme rinse is the breathtaking fresh essence of mysterious green herbs and enchanted flowers.’

January 1970. ‘Softly, prettily projected…’

November 1977. ‘Bold, gilded accessories add a glamourous touch t a very special evening.’

All the pics found here.

Syd Barrett and The Madcap Laughs: Madness, Solitude and Striped Floors

Syd Barrett’s debut album as a solo artist, “The Madcap Laughs” was released on the 3rd January 1970. The music has a bittersweet feel to it; the melodies are childlike and innocent while others take on darker sounds. The album is in many ways a musical portrayal of Syd’s state of mind at the time.

“We are all mad here.”

(Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland)

It was love at first sound with me and Pink Floyd’s early hits such as Arnold Layne, See Emily Play and Scarecrow; I intuitively felt that something very imaginative and strange was hiding underneath the exterior of your average great pop-song. Those were more than just pop songs that will be forgotten in a few years. They had the magic, the wittiness, the dreaminess that made them linger on in my mind. “Who writes stuff like this?”, I thought to myself. The genius behind the lyrics was Syd Barrett; at the time a drop-out art student from Cambridge who overnight found himself in the centre of the psychedelic underground culture. Music and art were fun for Syd, and coming up with witty lyrics and simple catchy tunes was easy for him because he seemed to have approached things in a childlike way, full of curiosity and wonder at the world around him, but the stress of the band’s success, the interviews, the popularity proved to be too much for him. The increasing consummation of the drug of the moment, LSD, did not help matters. His creative period with the Pink Floyd was short but strong, like an explosion, or a shooting star. Let me provide you with a few dates to show you just how fast it all happened; their first single “Arnold Layne” was released on 10th March 1967. And already, on 15th January 1968 Syd played his last gig with Pink Floyd.

Gustave Caillebotte, Wood Floor Planers, 1875

A new chapter in Syd’s life and musical career began. Alone in the loneliness of his Victorian pad in Wetherby Mansion in Earl’s Court Square, the Psychedelic Mad Hatter was slowly descending into a haunting state of introspection, melancholy and illusions. Into his new bohemian abode, he brought the stuff that remained after many moves around London; a small table, a mattress and a striped blanket, some scratched LPs, Penguin edition books by Shakespeare and Chaucer, barely touched canvases stacked against the wall. His room was his little imaginary world. The outside world did not matter anymore. The cheerful, fun-loving, chatty and friendly Syd was gone. The handsome young Englishman with messy black hair and velvet trousers was slowly going mad…. One morning, after having spent some time meditatively staring at his blanket, a painting by Gustave Caillebotte called “The Wood Floor Planners” suddenly came to his mind and he decided to paint the bare wooden floors of his room in stripes of orange and blue. The album cover shows Syd crouching in his room, a vase of daffodils next to him. He is sad and alone, yet his darkness intimidates me. Angry outbursts and fragmented conversation. Loneliness is seeping through the cracks on the striped floor.

Syd Barrett first entered the studio as a solo artist on 30th January 1968; just ten days after his last show with Pink Floyd, for what would be an unfruitful session. Sessions resumed in June and July produced songs Late Night, Octopus and Golden Hair; all featured on The Madcap Laughs. Peter Jenner, who had worked on these sessions claimed that they had not gone smoothly although he got on well with the singer. Shortly after July sessions Syd suddenly stopped recording, breaking up with his then girlfriend Lindsey Corner and then going off a drive around Britain in his Mini only to end up in psychiatric care in Cambridge. By the start of 1969 Barrett, somewhat recovered, resumed his music career and started working with another engineer Malcolm Jones, after both Jenner and Norman Smith (Pink Floyd’s producer at the time) had declined his request to work on the album. Over four sessions beginning on April 10th 1969. Syd had recorded songs Opel (a beautiful misty ballad that would not see the light of day until 1988), No good trying, No man’s land, Here I go and Love you. The sessions all together were not very productive because in those days recording four or five songs on just guitar in four or five hours wasn’t considered very productive. It was something the engineers tried to avoid.

“You feel me
Away far too empty, oh so alone
I want to go home
Oh find me inside of a nocturne, the blonde
How I love you to be by my side”

(Syd Barrett – Feel)

During the recording of the album Syd was also on Mandrax and he’d sit on a stool and then fall off it. Barrett and his friends were taking the infamous LSD-25, a powerful psychiatric drug still legal in UK those days. It was almost a religious-like experience for Syd, and many others who indulged. Syd really did believe the psychedelic revolution was flowing through him. The world was changing and he thought we should all be perfect beings, cool and groovy. Syd began taking acid regularly with enthusiasm many found alarming. It was in May 1967. that his eyes crazed.  At the time of The Madcap Laughs Syd had already completely surrendered.

The Madcap Laughs is an album filled with long forgotten symbolism. The songs are a mirror of Syd’s mental state of the time and in them he expressed, perhaps deliberately perhaps not, his loneliness and growing alienation. Though some of them have a cheerful rhythm like Love you, one can feel a spark of melancholy. In song Terrapin for example Syd shows his love of the blues while some of the songs sound more like a concept rather than a finished and polished song. This album features some almost child-like songs with optimistic melodies and ostensibly cute themes (Love you and Here I go) through darker and deeper subjects (Dark globe, Golden Hair and No man’s land) to melancholic cries for rescue from his loneliness and ever increasing alienation. Song Golden Hair is actually based on a poem by James Joyce.

This album and the following Barrett reflect not just his state of mind but also the atmosphere at the time, sorrowful end of the sixties whose optimism, innocence and mind-expanding ideas had faded away. By that time the hedonistic atmosphere of the Swinging London was long lost. Perhaps albums The Madcap Laughs and Barrett are a remembrance of the sixties for they were created at the dusk of this beautiful era; era which Syd belonged to and sadly died with.

The striped floors are aesthetically such a fun and exciting things. Syd chose to paint his floors in vibrant contrasting colours which gives the entire room a psychedelic touch, but I noticed the motif of wooden floor in many canvases painted by nineteenth century artists. Seeing the striped wooden floor stretching vertically or horizontally on the canvas is so exciting to me. Here are a few examples by Vincent van Gogh and Degas:

Vincent van Gogh, Bedroom in Arles, 1888

Edgar Degas, Deux Danseuses, 1879

Edgar Degas, The Dance Lesson, 1879

Edgar Degas, Dancers Practicing at the Barre, 1877

William Ratcliffe, Attic Room, 1918

The photo session for the album cover took place in the spring 1969. Most likely in March when daffodils were blooming and Syd had just finished painting his floor in orange and purple stripes. Proud of what he had done, Syd invited his friend Mick Rock to come over and take some photos. At that time Syd was living with Iggy The Eskimo who was a friend of Syd’s ex-girlfriend Jenny Spires. Iggy and Syd weren’t lovers but she was a good company. She answered the doors that day and welcomed Mick completely naked (not an unusual thing for hippies and free-spirited creatures of the time). When Mick arrived he found Syd in bed, still in his underpants; a moment he captured with his new camera Pentax he had just recently bought. After he’d got up, Syd donned a pair of trousers with colour stains on them; from the floor paint. Iggy, the groovy companion to this Mad Hatter of Psychedelia, added some kohl to his eyes to achieve that elegantly wasted look of a Poete Maudite.

The photos were created naturally, with no staging and posing. Mick worked with elements he had: a painted floor, a vase of daffodils, nude Iggy in the background and a huge Canadian car parked just in front of Wetherby Mansion for some outside shots. None of it was planned. Later that day, Storm Thorgerson arrived and his solo focus was the wonderful striped floor. He shoot photos in fading light placing a wide angled lens millimeters of the ground to achieve an Alice in Wonderland effect, giving the floor elastic quality. Syd just crouched by the fireplace and he looked natural; he spontaneously adapted to the background. His pose suggests defiant exhaustion and a dark edge of ‘knowing’. There was only one corner of the room that Syd hadn’t painted and that was the only clean angle if you didn’t want to expose this ‘set’ for what it was; a drab living room with a nasty electric fireplace. As long as he occupied his island-mattress surrounded by striped painted floor, reality and a world of possibilities remained outside his door. The photo that would eventually be the cover photo was also taken by Thorgerson.

I cannot put it in words how much I adore this album and the album cover and the striped floor. All of it has inspired me beyond words. I listen to “The Madcap Laughs” every time I paint my watercolours; it is such a pleasant, soothing, melancholy and dreamy music to provide background for dipping my brush in water, then in the paint… Syd’s fragile voice, his strange and witty lyrics, his yearnings for help and cries of loneliness that come out in some songs, all of it draws me into this strange ethereal world which I always occupy with one part of my mind. When I listen to this album, and also his follow-up “Barrett”, I truly feel like Alice when she found herself in the Wonderland; Syd is the psychedelic Mad Hatter and I follow him blindly, over the striped floor, crossing the yellow glow of the waning sun, to the spaces where only music remains, and I am free, free, free…

Also, grainy quality of the photo brings nostalgia and serves as a barrier between psychedelic vivid colours of the ’60s to more drab and sad reality that came with the seventies. Long gone is the multicoloured glamour of the ’60s Swinging London psychedelia and instead the cover of The Madcap Laughs suggests the ’60s decadence exposed and photos have that sad “party’s over” feel.

I have to take a moment in the end to give praise where praise is due and recommend you all the wonderful, amazing, fun and detailed book about Syd Barret called “Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd: Dark Globe” by Julius Palacios.

The Love Witch (2016): Psychedelia Meets Victoriana

Two autumns ago I watched this delicious eye-candy film called “The Love Witch” (2016) directed by Anna Biller and I loved it! Now, in these late October’s crimson leafy witchy days I find myself thinking about that film again and now I must tell you all to watch it too because it is just “wow”! It is fun, strange, sensual, vibrant, over the top and very aesthetically pleasing to watch.

I love him so much it just turns to hate
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday, you will ache like I ache…

(Hole, Doll Parts)

The main character is a beautiful witch Elaine, played by Samantha Robinson, whose long silky smooth black hair, dazzling outfits and vibrant eyeshadows catch the eye of many men in town, which is unfortunate for them because she isn’t just a witch – she is a love witch. Simultaneously, she is every man’s fantasy and his doom. Her victims just fall too much in love, and yes, ironically they die of too much love. Looking at Elaine, the way she walks the way she talks, it is easy to see why no man can resist her, there is a something magnetic about her, her figure oozes confidence and sensuality. In the opening scene, she is driving her pretty red car and explaining to us how she had to move because her former husband died a mysterious death and now she is partly blamed. She starts a new life in a small and charming little town of Arcata, California and moves into a beautiful Victorian house decorated in vibrant colours and garish designs which perfectly fit this witch’s taste. There she spends her time making spells and love potions, woodoo dolls and candles, and she also enjoys painting, tea and cake like a refined Victorian lady. After suffering from love in the past, Elaine was reborn as a witch and now she is determined to use that power to get what she wants from men, and not the other way around.

The time period isn’t strictly defined, it is supposed to be set in modern times but the aesthetic definitely draws heavily from late 1960s vibrant psychedelia and early 1970s with the Victoriana influence and the Edwardian era revival; the interior design of Elaine’s house and her costumes reflect this rich exuberant mix of styles. This film is extremely aesthetically pleasing to watch and it is what draws me to the film the most; aesthetic, if it’s the kind of world that I can imagine myself living in, if the characters are wearing the kind of clothes that I would died for, then I will watch the film, regardless of its other qualities, or lack of thereof. The aesthetic is everything.

All in all, Elaine just wants to find a man to love, and who will love her in return, but her mad intense search for this man has made her too desperate, and her witchcraft skills have made her too powerful, and so what started with an innocent understandable desire to be loved turned into a wild murderous fantasy. An officer she dated tells her in one scene in the bar “What you call love is a borderline personality disorder.” And indeed, her dark hypnotising eyes with long lashes and blue eyeshadow do have a look of madness in them. Also, she has no problem with burying people such as her unfortunate lover, she has done it before, she admits… Though it was his fault, he suddenly got so clingy and emotional after they had made love. He wasn’t the strong courageous prince charming that she is waiting for.

I am doll parts, bad skin, doll heart
It stands for knife
For the rest of my life

(Hole, Doll Parts)

“The Love Witch” feels entirely like someone’s fantasy, like an acid dreams translated into the art medium of cinema, which is wonderful! It’s a world seen through rose-tinted glasses, and it has its own logic. You know it can’t be real and these things can’t be real, but somehow you want to be drawn in and just savour all its colours and vivacity. The reason for this unique, dreamy feel to the film is probably because Anna Biller was practically its main creator; she is the film’s writer, costume designer, director, producer, art director, and editor. She wanted the film to look like it belongs to the era it was set in, and therefore the vibrant colours were used on purpose, in setting and in costumes, to emulate the look of technicolor films. Anne Biller said “I like to make films with a kind of dream logic. My films are a mix of reality and fantasy, or a mix of what is happening and what people wish was happening, or what they fear will happen.”

In one scene, her poor victim Wayne, a college lecturer, takes her to his cabin in the woods, but little can he sense that she put hallucinogenic herbs in his drink and that she will destroy him. She starts undressing and he is almost blinded by the bright rainbow of her coat. Here is how the dialogue goes:

“What the hell! Your coat, it’s so bright.”

“I always line my clothing.

“You have two selves. Dark and quiet that you show the world… who do you give that to? the Rainbow?”

“I give the rainbow to you. Right now.“ And she throws the rainbow-lined coat to him and proceeds to take the rest of her clothes off.

Now let’s take a look at Elaine’s to-die-for gorgeous costumes! Here is what Anna Biller said about them:

“It’s all stuff that I fantasize about wearing, outfits I would wear if I was that put together. I used to put a lot of time into my own wardrobe, but since I’ve been making films I’ve put a lot of that energy into film wardrobes instead. I love vintage-inspired clothing, and I used vintage patterns to create her wardrobe. I wanted her to look really stylish, but also to be dressed how I imagine a 1960s witch would dress. I know some girls who dress like Elaine, and I love the way they dress and do their makeup.” She also says: “I wanted the costumes to come from Elaine’s romantic self-fantasies. I made a lot of them, and also a lot of them were vintage.”

I love the emphasis Biller put on the costumes and how they are symbolically connected to the story:

“I like for the costumes to match sets or to be harmonious with them, so in the scene when Elaine is driving her red car I put her in a red dress with red accessories. Her dress is short and casual, since she is driving and it’s daytime. She is wearing a moonstone pendant, since that’s an occult piece of jewelry. She changes costume for the next scene in the tearoom, since that’s a pink room and features ladies in hats, so for that scene she wears an appropriate Victorian-style peach dress with a hat trimmed with flowers. Trish for that scene also wears a peach outfit, but hers is a pantsuit because she is a businesswoman. In the last scene at the bar, I have Elaine in a long dress which is in a Victorian style but feels defiant and witchy because it’s in a theatrical red polyester. I put her in this dress because she is defying Griff in this scene, and I wanted her to wear something that shows her power.” (read the whole interview here.)

I love that Biller designed the costumes to correlate to the scenes, so the colour and cut of Elaine’s dress can tell us much more than we might assume at first. On two different occasions Elaine is having a tea party, first with her friend Trish in a Victorian-style tea room where she is seen wearing a dusty peach-pink dress and a pink hat, and the other time she is at home alone painting and she made tea and cake and is seen wearing this delicate yellow and white dress. In these scenes, she is not a groovy vixen out to get her net victim, no, she is a delicate princess waiting for her prince charming to show up at her doorstep with flowers and chocolates. These two dresses show the influence of late Victorian and Edwardian era on design and fashion of the late sixties and early 1970s, I already wrote about it here. Pink and yellow tea dresses, like a delicate rose and primrose, sweet and nonthreatening. Here is what Anne Biller says about these outfits:

“The tea outfits were all vintage finds, but I had to do a lot of alterations to make them right. I looked for vintage Gunne Sax dresses specifically, wanting to give Elaine the look of those vintage Bradley dolls with the big eyes, and of the prom girls, bridesmaids, and Wild West gals you’d see in movies from the ‘60s and early ‘70s. The scene itself was inspired by an actual tea room I visited once where all the ladies wore hats trimmed with flowers, and pastel colors. I really saw Elaine in that setting, with all of her princess fantasies.” (more here.)

Now, at the end, my question is: how can I steal her wardrobe, and where may I apply to live there, in such a pretty Victorian house in sunny California in some undefined era which looks a lot like sixties????

The Princess and the Pea – Illustrations by Felicitas Kuhn

My fondest childhood memories are those tied to fairy tales and my mum reading them to me. Before I could decipher the letters, read the words and know their wondrous meanings, the evening was a magical time of the day when I sat in my mum’s lap and listened to her sweet voice bringing all the fairy tales and different characters to life. While she read, I would gaze at the illustrations mesmerised, soaking in every tiny detail. This is a situation similar to the one Syd Barrett sang about in the Pink Floyd’s song “Matilda Mother”:

“Oh Mother, tell me more
Why’d’ya have to leave me there
Hanging in my infant air
Waiting?
You only have to read the lines
They’re scribbly black and everything shines”

I loved Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty and anything to do with the princesses, but the fairy tale book that lingered in my memory was “The Princess and the Pea” illustrated by Felicitas Kuhn, an Austrian illustrator born on 3rd January 1926. Her illustrations are delightful and easily recognisable for their repetitive features; the characters all have round doll-like faces with rosy cheeks and large wide-set eyes, she uses vibrant colours and flat treatment of the surface with clear outlines, the background is often minimal so that the focus stays on the character. This particular edition of a well known fairy tale was published in 1971, and Kuhn’s illustrations are mostly from the sixties and seventies, although she continued working later on too. The beloved fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” was written by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen and originally published in May 1835 in Copenhagen. Andersen’s fairy tale was disliked by the critics at first and deemed as too ‘chatty’ and ‘lacking morals’, and likewise, Kuhn’s illustrations, although popular in many countries, have received criticism as well for being too simple and cheesy.

I highly disagree with the critics! And I am right because I gazed at those illustration with the eyes of a child and adored them, and now that I am older I am able to recall the magic of her art and write about it in a way I couldn’t have before. I think her illustrations are perfect for children and their imagination because they are whimsical, the characters appear idealised and cute and are dressed in clothes that are only partly historically accurate but also very pleasing to look at, the castles look like the place that you would wish to live it, with dozens of pink towers and little windows. She often incorporated delicate flowers as details, and just look at the dreamy soft pink roses that bloom next to Prince’s feet in the second illustration. My favourite illustrations from this book are the one where the princess gets a sponge bath from the maids, the scene where she dines with the prince, the one where she is sitting mournfully on the top of all those mattresses and feather beds, and the last one with their tender close-eyed embrace over the little pea. How rosy are their cheeks and how sweet their smiling faces?

Here is Andersen’s very short fairy tale “The Real Princess” accompanied by Kuhn’s illustrations:

There was once a Prince who wished to marry a Princess; but then she must be a real Princess. He travelled all over the world in hopes of finding such a lady; but there was always something wrong.

Princesses he found in plenty; but whether they were real Princesses it was impossible for him to decide, for now one thing, now another, seemed to him not quite right about the ladies. At last he returned to his palace quite cast down, because he wished so much to have a real Princess for his wife.

One evening a fearful tempest arose, it thundered and lightened, and the rain poured down from the sky in torrents: besides, it was as dark as pitch. All at once there was heard a violent knocking at the door, and the old King, the Prince’s father, went out himself to open it.

It was a Princess who was standing outside the door. What with the rain and the wind, she was in a sad condition; the water trickled down from her hair, and her clothes clung to her body. She said she was a real Princess.

“Ah! we shall soon see that!” thought the old Queen-mother; however, she said not a word of what she was going to do; but went quietly into the bedroom, took all the bed-clothes off the bed, and put three little peas on the bedstead. She then laid twenty mattresses one upon another over the three peas, and put twenty feather beds over the mattresses.

 

Upon this bed the Princess was to pass the night.

The next morning she was asked how she had slept. “Oh, very badly indeed!” she replied. “I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through. I do not know what was in my bed, but I had something hard under me, and am all over black and blue. It has hurt me so much!”

Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. None but a real Princess could have had such a delicate sense of feeling.

The Prince accordingly made her his wife; being now convinced that he had found a real Princess. The three peas were however put into the cabinet of curiosities, where they are still to be seen, provided they are not lost.

Wasn’t this a lady of real delicacy?”

5 Dreamy, Romantic, Coming of Age Films

I have been thinking recently about a few films that I love and I’ve noticed that a similar mood, theme and aesthetic connects them all. They’re all about young girls, all five have a romantic dreamy mood with a touch of mystery, a coming of age theme, and they are all aesthetically pleasing. If a film awakens my imagination, if it gives me delightful daydreams, then I will watch it. If I love a film, I will probably watch it many times because I love to soak all the details, gaze at the costumes and surroundings, and be a part of that dreamy world at least for an hour or two.

Faustine and the beautiful summer (1971)

Now, I already wrote a review for Faustine here, and that shows just how much I loved it! The film follows Faustine’s summer stay at her grandparents countryside house. She is a dreamy sixteen year old girl who loves nature and there are many beautiful shots of her hugging the wheat, kissing a tree, swimming nude, that mingle the love for nature with sensuality. She mostly spends time in her head, but also spies on her neighbours and eventually befriends them, and falls in love with one of them. Through a beautiful and dreamy aesthetic, the film shows Faustine’s growth and explorations, and touches topics that a girl her age could understand, such as the conflicts between daydreaming and living life, innocence and awakening sensuality etc. Chopin’s music is often in the background and there are many lovely and delicate scenes with a sensuous touch; Faustine indolently lying on the bed wrapped in nothing but white lace and eating cherries and strawberries, or Faustine running through the field of golden wheat and poppies which not only brings to mind the beautiful paintings of the Impressionists, but also the verses of young Arthur Rimbaud’s poem “Sensation”:

On the blue summer evenings, I shall go down the paths,
Getting pricked by the corn, crushing the short grass:
In a dream I shall feel its coolness on my feet.
I shall let the wind bathe my bare head.

I shall not speak, I shall think about nothing:
But endless love will mount in my soul;
And I shall travel far, very far, like a gipsy,
Through the countryside – as happy as if I were with a woman.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

The latest dreamy-romantic-coming of age film I watched about a month ago and found it amazing to say the least! The film is based on the novel by Joan Lindsay and is set in girls school in Australia in 1900. A seemingly idyllic world of white lace, smiles, pressed flowers, and yellow haired girls goes horribly wrong one day in February, Valentine’s Day to be precise, when girls go to a picnic with their teachers. A mysterious mood and a gorgeous Edwardian aesthetic are not the only interesting aspects about the film, the soundtrack with some classical music pieces and the title music with panflute played by Gheorghe Zamfir is so so dreamy and really fits the mood of the wild Australian nature, hot burning sun and those red rocks, you can listen to it here. The intro, which you can watch here, is in my view the most beautiful part of the film, skip to 01:23 and you will see the dream begin. Oh how I love their white gowns, them lacing their corsets, washing their faces in water with roses, reading Valentine’s day cards, oh so romantic!

Virgin Suicides (1999)

A film based on a book by Jeffrey Eugenides, and both are really good in my view. It’s about five sisters living with strict and pious parents in a nice, clean, safe and boring suburb of Detroit in the 1970s. Their home life is sheltered and claustrophobic, plenty of things are forbidden; boys, rock music, nice clothes, and it gets stricter as the story goes on. Shielding them from the world has created numbness, decaying mood and a desire for death. Both the novel and the film are told from the point of view of a few adolescent boys who observe and admire the girls from afar. Just like us, they couldn’t unravel the mystery behind their death nor know for sure what was in their hearts, and this is the aspect that creates a lot of intrigue.

The Beguiled (2017)

Another film by Sophia Coppola . When I started watching it, I thought it’s too slow and unadventurous, but the atmosphere of secrets and claustrophobia, and the gorgeous costumes kept me intrigued. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Thomas P. Cullinan and the story is set in a turbulent era of Civil War, in 1864, and revolves around pupils of a girls school in Virginia. Only five girls are left, with one teacher and headmistress, and so the atmosphere is a bit eerie. Their isolated existence is what gives the story its flair, similar as in “Virgin Suicides”, and I loved how the theme was explored. One girl saves a wounded soldier and everything intensifies from there because those pretty angelic faces and impeccable white gowns hide a lot of secrets and desires. The film beautifully captures their isolation, the are shown dreamily conjugating French verbs, clad in their white cotton dresses, alone in that big white mansion, completely unaware of what is going on in the outside world.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970)

I put this film last on the list although it should be the first chronologically, because it is more strange than dreamy, and more surrealistic and romantic and that makes it a bit different from the previous ones. “Valerie and her Weeks of Wonders” is a Czech film based on the same-named novel written in 1935 by a Czech avant-garden writer Vítězslav Nezval, first published in 1945, and described as “part fairy-tale, part Gothic”. The film is bursting with strangeness and plenty of things don’t make sense, so you needn’t seek logic, just embrace the dream. The main character is a girl named Valerie who is thirteen years old and we follow her life in the countryside with her grandmother who looks frighteningly pale. She has a friend named Orlík and often looses her earrings, her grandma disappears and another woman comes, a local priest is a vampire-like creature with a white fan… Everything is twisted and intriguing and very dream, but I have to add that this film is a bit different, a bit more weird, to the ones I’ve talked about before so that’s why I decided to put it last in this list. Also, I have already written a review on this film here.

 

I hope you decide to watch one of these films, and if you have any to add on the list of especially dreamy films with flowers, maidens and secrets, feel free to do so in the comments.

Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (1972) – A Review

A few days ago I watched a brilliant film called “Faustine and the beautiful summer” (original title: Faustine et le bel été) directed by Nina Companeez whose mood of dreams, romance, indolence and love for nature really struck a chord with me and I found a lot of things highly relatable, particularly the character of Faustine: her reveries, her carefree nature. Also, I wish I could just take her gorgeous outfits from the screen and have them in my wardrobe.

The plot is simple: a pretty sixteen year old girl called Faustine (played by Muriel Catala) is about to spent her summer holidays with her grandparents in the countryside. While there, she spends time wandering the woods and the meadows, discovering the secrets of nature as well as spying on her neighbours who are also there on holiday. She is ocassionally flirting with a fellow teenage boy from that family called Joachim, but mostly takes delight in rejecting him because she develops an interest in his uncle. She eventually befriends the entire family and visits them often, and spends time with Joachim’s female cousins who find her fascinating.

Everything is seen trough her eyes and it is almost like reading her diary, her memories of that summer. And through her eyes everything is magical and whimsical. There isn’t much that goes on in the film and it isn’t long either, only around an hour and a half, but the slow and sensuous mood that reminds me of David Hamilton’s photography from roughly the same years makes it a delight for me. Still, there is more depth to the film than it appears on the surface. For sure it is not a sugary and naive teenage romantic drama. Many conflicts linger throughout the film and surface one by one; conflicts between sensuality and innocence, real life vs dreams, observing life vs participating in it. Those are some things that anyone could relate to, but a girl of Faustine’s age and inexperience would particularly understand it, and that is another reason I loved the film. Not only do I love the aesthetic but the themes as well. And, Chopin’s music is played throughout the film as well.

There is a sweet sensuality lingering throughout the scenes; Faustine walking through the fields of poppies and pressing the golden wheat to her soft cheek, kissing the bark of a tree, the trace of milk left on Faustine’s lips as she puts down her mug, Faustine indolently lying on the bed wrapped in nothing but white lace and eating cherries and strawberries, Faustine talking to a delicate newborn poppy flower… and an ultimate feeling of being immersed in nature when she goes skinny dipping in a nearby lake while the rain is falling romantically and announcing the arrival of autumn. I adored one scene where she is running through fields of wheat and poppies, dressed in a white gown and wearing her straw hat with a long pink ribbon, running playfully as if she were a little girl and shouting “Summer isn’t over”, then throwing herself into the grass and gazing at the play of sunlight coming through the treetops and whispering: “Sunshine fills the air. Flowers of all colours. I drink you in, you make me dizzy.”

I love the coming of age theme and I can relate to Faustine feeling that everything is possible, seeing beauty all around her, and feeling rain of sadness falling on her sun-kissed skin from time to time, which are not the dark rains of autumn but the warm and transient summer showers that stir the soul but leave no scars. Throughout the film Faustine is constantly walking the tightrope between her daydreams and the real life around her. The last scene ends the film beautifully; she is dressed in a long gown, so elegant and grown-up, in an embrace with Joachim’s uncle and says: “And finally Faustine will enter the world through the blue door. Today my first kiss and in seventy years, at best, I’ll be dead.” It sounds as if she is narrating her own life, and it is unclear whether she is talking to him, herself or the trees all around them. From the world of daydreams, through a kiss, Faustine at last enters the real world and tastes its sweetness.

And now a few verses from Derek Walcott’s poem “Bleecker Street, Summer” which I discovered by serendipity last summer:

Summer for prose and lemons, for nakedness and languor,
for the eternal idleness of the imagined return,
for rare flutes and bare feet, and the August bedroom
of tangled sheets and the Sunday salt, ah violin!

When I press summer dusks together, it is
a month of street accordions and sprinklers
laying the dust, small shadows running from me.

These beautiful verses from John Keats’s “Endymion” which I loved last summer came to mind while I was watching the film:

…Now a soft kiss –
Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss,
An immortality of passion’s thine:
Ere long I will exalt thee to the shine
Of heaven ambrosial; and we will shade
Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;
And I will tell thee stories of the sky,
And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy,
My happy love will overwing all bounds!
O let me melt into thee! let the sounds
Of our close voices marry at their birth;
Let us entwine hoveringly!

I hope you enjoyed this review and that you decide to watch the film. I am glad I watched it now, in May, because I can look forward to another summer and hope that it is as sweet as the last one’s was, instead of pining for it once it passes.