Artists on the screen, mainly

[selenak]

First of all, let me thank everyone who replied to my Alias question. I'll start hunting for the DVDs then.

melymbrosia reviews the film Artemisia here and brings up all the reasons why I didn't just dislike but resent it. Chiefly the change from Artemisia Gentileschi, a fascinating painter in the late Renaissance/early Baroque, being raped (historical fact) to having had a happy consensual affair (in the movie). Galling.

Meanwhile, Al Alvarez reviews Sylvia, the film about Sylvia Plath and her marriage to Ted Hughes. As Alvarez was friends with both and had in fact promoted their work during his time as critic-in-chief of the Observer, he found himself in the position of seeing his own alter ego as a part of the story as well. His judgement is interesting, neither a condemnation nor an unqualified praise. In connection to the earlier quoted Artemisia, the liberties he notices and does object appear to be trivial, though they are not really, as they all contribute to the characterisation of Plath and Hughes in the movie. Choice excerpt:

On the fateful weekend when Assia makes her play for Ted, for instance, the Hugheses and the Wevills go walking on Dartmoor. The scene, like all the others, is beautifully shot, misty and mysterious, but all you hear through the Turneresque glow is Assia's breathless 'How inspiring!', a remark that would have stopped Hughes dead, even if Assia had been Helen of Troy.

Later, the character who is supposed to be me looks deep into Sylvia's eyes and tells her she is beautiful and a great poet. Well, she was a great poet and by then I knew it. But if I ever start talking like that I want to be put down like a sick old dog.

I get his point, but it does make me smile, as I now can't the image of the fateful TH/Assia Wevill affair being stopped from beginning by Assia making Hollywoodesque remarks out of my head. On a more serious note, he thinks that the problem the film makers had - that they weren't allowed to use either Plath's or Hughes' poetry for the movie - ultimately worked to its advantage:

Towards the end, we watch her when her demons finally had her by the throat and she was turning out a poem a day, sometimes more, and all we hear of this turmoil is fragments - isolated lines and phrases jumbled together. Yet the impression this produces of a creative mind working flat out is oddly more convincing than any doom-laden, voice-over reading of a whole poem could ever have managed.

I'm still curious about and looking forward to seeing this film.

Also, I just might go and watch RotK for a fourth time - the spell hasn't been broken. Leafing through some of the extras in the Extend Editions of TTT again, I was struck, for the nth time, by how much work and passion went into making these films. Even the purest of Tolkien purists can't deny that this has been a labour of love for everyone involved. I'm not saying the results are flawless (though clearly I am tending more towards the adoration than to the condemnation end of the spectrum), but I can say I wouldn't want to have anyone else having made these movies.

One last link: butterfly on the parallels between Frodo Baggins and Buffy Summers.

And some squattered squees:

- the second drabble on celestial_templ is about Quark as well; clearly the dearth of Quark fanfic is about to end!

- Londo still won't shut up; now that he's embarassed poor Vir over at harvey1's journal, he's looking for G'Kar...

Comments

[kathyh]

Thanks for the Alvarez article. Very interesting and, as you say, entertaining on the difference between real life and Hollywood. Thanks also for the link about the parallels between Frodo and Buffy. Great point about Frodo's friends being selfless enough to let him go, and the Scoobies, fond as I am of them, being selfish in bringing Buffy back. I know they all suffered in Season 6, but I never really felt that the Scoobs entirely realised what they'd done to Buffy.