Film n. 17: In the cut

Bloomsbury Days

Bertrand Russell, J. M. Keynes and Lytton Strachey

I know, I am supposed to write about cinema in this blog.
Sometimes, though, some of my passions mingle and I feel the urgency of sharing non-cinematographic things that, by the way, always interact with movies at a certain point!
Since I was very young, I have been a huge fan of British literature. Reasons would be too long (and too boring) to explain here, but I have read an enormous amount of English books, and fell madly in love with many English writers. Among them, Virginia Woolf always had a special place in my heart.

As you probably know, she was part of a group called Bloomsbury, named upon the London area where some artists met every week (back in 1905) at the Stephen sisters home: Virginia (later to be Woolf), and Vanessa (later to be Bell), a painter. The group included, among others, J. M. Keynes, Lytton Strachey, David Garnett, E. M. Forster, Roger Fry, Dora Carrington, Bertrand and Dora Russell. The Group's philosophy was derived from fellow-Bloomsburyite G. E. Moore who wrote in his Principia Ethica: "By far the most valuable things are the pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects". Maybe it is because I completely agree with this “principia” that I have always been extremely fascinated by this group and their way of living, very ahead of their time.

Besides movies based upon books by Bloomsbury authors (oh, so many of them!), cinema has sometimes represented Bloomsbury Group’s people on screen.
It’s been the case in The Hours (2002), by Stephen Daldry, taken from the novel by Michael Cunningham. The film relates the story of three different women, from different times, who have a connection through the book Mrs. Dalloway, written by Virginia Woolf. One of the women is the writer herself, played in a very over the top manner by Nicole Kidman (who, by the way, for this quite ridiculous interpretation won an Oscar as best actress). I loved the movie but I really didn’t like Kidman’s interpretation, which spoiled part of the pleasure of seeing it. Her Virginia Woolf wasn’t at all the one I have always imagined:

While it was exactly as I have pictured him in my head the Lytton Strachey played by a great and never enough appreciated English actor, Jonathan Pryce, in the movie Carrington (1995) by Christopher Hampton: 

Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson) and Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce)

The real Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey

Carrington tells the incredible and true love story between Lytton Strachey, a homosexual writer, and Dora Carrington, a straight painter. Even if impossible to “consume” (they sometimes share the same lovers as a subliminal way of being together), Strachey and Carrington loved each other from the moment they met, in 1916, until Strachey died of cancer at the age of 51, in 1932. Carrington (here beautifully played by Emma Thompson), considering life unbearable without Strachey, committed suicide two months after his death.

Lytton Strachey in a painting by Dora Carrington

This cinematic introduction is just an excuse to show you the pictures I have taken last week-end when, for the second time in my life (the first being in 2001), I went to visit Virginia Woolf’s house and Vanessa Bell’s house in East Sussex. I adored those places so much that I can’t resist sharing these images with you.
Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s place is called Monk’s House and it is located in the village of Rodmell. It is possible to visit both the house and the garden, where you can see Virginia Woolf’s writing shed (the famous Room of one's own): 

And, as you could see, nothing has really changed since the Bloomsbury days:

 More images from the garden:

And some images of the house (it was possible to take pictures also inside!):

If the house of Virginia Woolf was already plenty of decorations by the Bloomsbury painters, Charleston Farm, the house of Vanessa Bell, was the triumph of it. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to take pictures of the absolutely amazing inside, but have a look at the wonderful outside and at the magnificent garden: 

Le Blog de Zazie: not only good advice about movies, but also about places to see!
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Less than Zero

One simple question: WHY?

And I can imagine just the following three possibilities:

1 - Heavy gambling debts

2 - The richest cachet of cinema history

3 - A temporary mental illness

If it is not one of the above mentioned causes, I really DON'T/CAN'T understand why on planet earth Daniel Day Lewis could have accepted to play in a film like Nine by Rob Marshall.

Day Lewis, the GOD of acting, a man who changes accent at every movie, a man who played just with his left foot, a man who almost became a professional boxeur to play a boxeur, a man who spent weeks in jail to feel closer to Gerry Conlon, a man who scared to death the whole world playing the bad guy in Gangs of New York, a man who made look cool working in a Beautiful Laundrette of Brixton, a man who was simply irresistible playing a stiff dandy in A Room with a View (Cecil Vyse, I love you and I always will!), a man who left the audience speechless for his talent in There will be blood (I still have to find the right adjective to describe what he was able to do in that role, but I don't think it has been invented yet), my other favourite actor together with Jeremy Irons since I was 17, HIM, reduced to work in a movie where his producer is played (ok, ok, I'm using big words, here) by RICKY TOGNAZZI!!!!!

Stop the world, I want to get off.

NOW!

Based upon a Broadway musical vaguely inspired by 8 1/2 by Fellini, this movie tells the story of a big crisis. The one of Italian filmmaker Guido Contini, once a genius but now a director looking for inspiration and for a new story that could bring him back glory and success. Besides the problem of not having any idea for his next film (something he has in common with Rob Marshall?), Contini has to face other minor problems in his private life: his wife is sad because he is cheating on her, his lover is sad because she doesn't feel loved enough, his muse is pissed off because she doesn't have a script to work on and, on top of all that, he has to resist the assaults of an American journalist from Vogue who desperately wants to have sex with him (well, who can possibly blame her?). Poor Contini tries to escape this mess going away from Rome, but the mess is following him and he will be forced to take some decisions (at last!).

Nor the catholic religion neither the sweet memory of his dead mamma or the good advises of Lilli, his costumer designer and long-time friend, help him to find a solution, though. In the end, he looses everything: the wife, the lover, the muse, the film. But, after a couple of dark years in which he has the time to know himself better (and to grow a beard that is the only reason why it's worth to arrive till the end of this torture), here it is: back with a new and (apparently) great movie!

There are so many things I didn't love in Nine that I really don't know where to start.

First of all, every single detail, scene, character, dialogue looks/sounds extremely false. Everything is so fake that it is just unbearable (starting from Day Lewis exaggerate Italian accent). I've never seen/heard so many banalities about Italy and Italians all together in a single movie. Nothings is missing: the Vespas, Via Veneto, the beautiful women, the latin lovers, the priests, the prostitutes, Positano, il Vaticano, the mandolins in the background and... Sophia Loren!!! (in the worst role of her entire career). Strangely enough nobody is eating a pizza. The scene must have been cut at the final editing. Not to mention some of the songs with original refrains like Be Italian! or Cinema Italiano! repeated a hundred times.

Of Fellini's complex, grotesque and unique universe nothing is left here. The doubts, the deep pain, the despair, the lust that Fellini was able to transform in unforgettable cinema sequences, here are transformed in coarse, kitsch, loud and overloaded musical moments. Subtlety is not the favourite word in Marshall's vocabulary.

The presence of practically the whole Italian cinema (who's missing here?) in the movie is simply ridiculous. From Martina Stella playing badly, very badly the tipical Italian bimbo to the pathetic caricature of the Italian producer played by Tognazzi (you can't see the difference with that awful advertisement passing at the Italian TV a while ago). The only one who manages to give to his small part a charming touch is Valerio Mastandrea. Bravo!

But let's talk about the rest of the cast.

Nicole Kidman is playing the muse, but soon enough she will be able to play just the mummy. Is she still alive or we need to call some ER doctors? I thought she couldn't do worse than her part in Australia but she proved me wrong. Penelope Cruz is the lover and, ok, she is gorgeous, and nice and actually good, but in this movie she is such a damned cliché. Kate Hudson is the Vogue journalist and she is not even beautiful. What she is there for, exactly? Judi Dench (Lilli), well, is Judi Dench. She is perfect, as usual. She just needs to change her agent. The only one I really loved, is Marion Cotillard, Contini's wife. She is a very good actress, her role is nicely written and her two songs were the only two musical moments having a bit of heart and style. Maybe it is because you think about Giulietta Masina, looking at her, but finally I felt something and not just irritation when she was on the screen.

And Day Lewis? Well, he is going around, looking visibly lost.

In one of the last scenes, Contini is talking with Lilli and he said (thinking about his behaviour towards his wife): "I should etch idiot on my forehead, shouldn't I?"

For being part of a movie like that, yes Daniel, you definitely should.

I'd like to thank Nandina for giving me the idea of the gambling debts and for resisting with me until the end of the movie.