Agnès Varda

Other Resources: Vincent Canby, Agnes Varda's Loving Work About Her Husband (New York Times, September 25, 1991) Peter Kemp, Jacquot de Nantes (Senses of Cinema, April 2004)

Agnès Varda, the only female filmmaker to come out of France's Nouvelle Vague, was married to another member of that movement, Jacques Demy, one of my favorite directors. At the National Museum of Women in the Arts last night, Agnès Varda was on hand for a screening of her 1991 film/documentary tribute to her husband, Jacquot de Nantes. As Mme. Varda explained in her introductory comments, she undertook this project in 1990, the beginning of the end of Demy's struggle with the illness that killed him. At the time, she explained, Demy was writing down as many of his childhood memories as he could remember, which he called Une enfance heureuse. Varda offered to write a filmscript and direct a movie based on Demy's happy childhood, which he agreed to let her do without interfering. As she explained, this project was "an adventure," recreating that part of a spouse's life which, in general, we are denied knowing "because we weren't there," childhood. She knew her husband's parents and brother, but only later in life. Demy, who survived to see much of the shooting and editing, was pleased by the film. Varda recounted one day on location, when all four of the family members were there to watch the shoot. Somewhat daunted by their presence, Varda asked Demy if what she was doing was alright, to which he replied, "Je suis là, je suis là," (that's me, that's me).

The movie follows the evolution of Jacquot, the little boy from Nantes, into Jacques, the filmmaker. Varda matches scenes that Demy recalled from childhood with the scenes she thinks they inspired, clips from Demy's movies inserted into hers, with the humorous device of a hand image pointing left or right to let us know we are shifting between cinematic worlds. She also manipulates our vision of Demy's past, often choosing to shoot scenes of the past characters in black and white, while the things that the young Demy saw (films, operetta performances, marionnette shows) are in color. Most devastatingly, the film is interspersed with shots of Demy, often in intimate near closeup, making us appreciate Demy not only for his films, but as Varda clearly did, as a person, as a body that she maps tenderly. She also uses an interview clip from the 1960s, which she told us she found at the Archives of Film and Television, where Demy describes his childhood memories of the Allied bombing of Nantes in September 1943, also recreated in the movie (but not in graphic detail, by conscious choice, as Varda explained). It changed him, Demy states, "and ever since, I have hated violence."

Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy, on location with the three young actors who portray him in the movie

Demy's father ran a mechanic's garage in Nantes, which was the inspiration for the mechanic character in Demy's best film, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. Varda shot the scenes in the garage (and the home that was attached to the garage) in the actual garage formerly owned by the Demy family. Varda explained that she wanted to have a scene showing the underground hole used by mechanics to work on the undercarriage of cars, which had been covered up. After getting the owners to agree to reopening that hole, she chose the spot that would be best for her filming (because of the light and camera placement), and the workmen discovered that it was exactly the place where the hole had been (which no one in the family could recall precisely). Varda also wanted to recreate the first little film studio in the attic above the garage, where Demy created his first experiments with animated film. The owners of the garage allowed them to go up into the actual attic, where there were layers of detritus left by previous owners. As they dug down through the refuse, they found the things actually left by Demy in the attic, including footage of the very teenage films he had made there and pieces of the homemade sets he had used. Both were in terrible shape but could be carefully recreated by experts, and they were used in the film.

What struck me most about the childhood shown was how much singing there was. I am always amazed, for example at a dinner with friends in France, how many songs (popular and otherwise) the average French person knows. This remarkable mélomanie may be disappearing, since it is more pronounced in general the older the person is. For Demy, growing up in a family that sang constantly and went to see operetta, it makes perfect sense that he would later make movies in which even the postman sings (or, as Varda remarked after the movie, the boy at the gas pump, will sing the words Super ou ordinaire?). I love Demy's musicals, conceived of as opéras populaires by Demy and his composer collaborator Michel Legrand, for this very reason. For Varda, the aura of happiness created by the music and singing softened the impact of often tragic stories (as in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which is, she said, "really a terribly sad movie"). What she shows in her movie is that singing can be part of a family's life, happy in spite of (perhaps because of?) the fact that the two brothers always share a bed, in the same room as their parents' bed. It's important for me to keep this in mind as a parent in a modern American city.

Agnès Varda's most recent film, Cinévardaphoto (2004), will be screened at the National Gallery of Art on March 6, as the Paris on the Potomac celebrations continue. Varda has also made other films about Demy, which I would like to see sometime: the documentaries The World of Jacques Demy (1995) and Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans (1993), about the shooting of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.

Available from Amazon: Agnès Varda, The World of Jacques Demy (1995)

Available from Amazon: Agnès Varda, Jacquot de Nantes (1991)

Available from Amazon: Jacques Demy, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964)

How Dare You!

First, we mourn because the NHL season has been cancelled definitely. Full stop. Now, they have the gall to dangle the possibility of a resurrection in front of us? I thought this was a joke, but there it is: Ira Podell, NHL season not totally dead yet; Talks resume Saturday in New York (Associated Press, February 19). OGIC, Tyler? Any thoughts?

Of course, all of this comes shortly after Ionarts has been cited both as conservative (in Tyler's recommendation to Armavirumque) and as part of the leftist intelligentsia by Ayn Clouter. I must be doing something right. I aim to be a conservative member of the leftist intelligentsia.

UPDATE:
Why do I allow myself to hope?

Almost a Review of the Aviv Quartet

Ionarts ran out of ears on Thursday, February 10th (mine were at the Kennedy Center for "America in the 40s"), and we did not get to cover the Aviv Quartet's concert of Shostakovich (Quartet No. 4), MacMillan, Beethoven ("Serioso"), etc., at the Library of Congress. In an odd way to make up for that lapse, I am putting up a review of that promising group's recital from the week before at the Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore.

As part of the Peggy and Yale Gordon Concerts at that Temple, the Aviv Quartet performed Beethoven's op. 18, No. 6, Prokoviev's second string quartet, Sir Ernest MacMillan's Two Sketches for String Quartet and, with the charming addition of pianist Einav Yarden, a student of Leon Fleisher's, the Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor, op. 34.

The delectable Beethoven quartet is one of the more charming string quartets he has composed and well suited the audience of grateful, casual Sunday concert goers, mostly advanced in age. The execution of the work with the catchy cello line in the opening Allegro con brio was performed well enough for the occasion. There was plenty of verve and lighthearted music-making to enchant, even if the occasional phrase was muddled, less than synchronized among the members, and individual notes took some liberties.

The beautiful MacMillan work got a sensitive and delicate reading that asked for more of this seldom heard but wonderful English composer. In the Prokofiev, Sergey Ostrovsky (first violin) and Evgenia Epshtein (second violin) were able to draw on their native Russian idiomatic advantage, but Haifa native Shuli Waterman (viola) and the Canadian Rachel Mercer (cello) went right along with them and delivered a jaunty, energetic, sometimes tender interpretation well worth having sought out.

Brahms, who claimed the second half, gave the audience more of what they wanted. (Prokofiev had cleared out a few of the less hardy listeners.) The acoustic of the Temple did not enhance the work when the textures were buried and the piano could not find room between the string instruments' wall of sound in front of it. But for all the mellowness (including tempi), there were moments of true beauty: an element that is, admittedly, difficult to remove from Brahms.

The Brahms in particular was under-rehearsed and the Quartet never gave more than it needed to for such a casual affair, and the violins often did not agree with each other on intonation, but then they had just recently gotten off their respective planes. The Quartet, that has won a contract with Naxos by virtue of their playing, was said to have given a superb performance on that Thursday in the Library of Congress that made people run out to get Shostakovich string quartets on CD.

You can read the review (Aviv Quartet, Hitting Rare Notes, February 12) by Cecelia Porter for the Washington Post, in which she asks the question, "why were two trifles of Ernest MacMillan included in this demanding program?"

Zao Wou-Ki in Fécamp

Images of Zao Wou-Ki's Paintings: Paysages intérieurs, 1947–2004 (Palais Bénédictine, Fécamp, through June 12) Recent Works by Zao Wou-Ki (Marlborough Gallery, New York) (another set of images) Académie des Beaux-Arts (Paris, France) Zao Wou-Ki ou la sérénité retrouvée (Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, 2003) Maîtres de l'encre (Masters of ink) (Musée de Pontoise, 1999)

Here's another one of those international art events, to go along with this post on Indonesian painter Srihadi Soedersono yesterday. An article (Les paysages intérieurs de Zao Wou-Ki à Fécamp, February 9) from France 2 Cultural News last week mentioned a new retrospective of Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki, at the Palais Bénédictine in the Norman town of Fécamp: Paysages intérieurs, 1947–2004 (through June 12).

The forty works on exhibit, often gigantic, illustrate the different creative periods of the Chinese-born artist and his progress from figural painting to abstraction. They derive from Zao Wou-Ki's various interior dream landscapes. Born in 1921, in Beijing, Zao Wou-Ki studied at the China Institute of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, where he learned the techiques of Chinese painting and of Western painting. In 1948, he landed in Paris, after 36 hours by boat. He settled in Montparnasse and, a day later, took in the artwork of the Louvre. Up to 1950 to 1952, his painting was figural, including still lifes, landscapes, architecture. As an inheritor of the Chinese calligraphic technique, which he had learned from the age of 5, he used the symbols and drew small characters in silhouette, standing out on a flat surface.

Little by little, Zao Wou-Ki abandoned features for gesture and mark, which eventually invaded his picture space completely. He worked in the area of form, color, light, painting abstract landscapes evoking clouds, waves, the ocean depths. "After 1954, I became, as one says, an abstract painter. I did not seek to be one. The problem of abstracting my painting from the influence of reality became a necessity," he says. His meeting with Henri Michaux was decisive. The painter and poet presented him to Pierre Loeb, his dealer. Michaux saw in his dream-heavy and poetry-laden universe a natural form of painting. "It's through nature that Zao Wou-Ki encloses himself, shows himself, that he is slain, that he is brought back to life, that he falls, that he gets up, that he is enthusiastic, that he is completely for or completely against, that he is bubbly...that he says that he is smothered," says Michaux.

Zao Wou-Ki has a special and longterm relationship with France: in 2002, he was elected as a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, taking the place of departed member Jean Carzou. His work was shown in 2003, as part of the Année de la Chine, in a major exhibit at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume (before it became the national photography museum; see this review from my visit there last July).

Zao Wou-Ki, Hommage à Michaux, three panels (1999–2000)

David Zinman Turns Water into Wine

The greatest thing ever to have happened to Baltimore's music scene—David Zinman—was in the neighborhood; only that this time he gave proof of his extraordinary ability with the rival orchestra, the NSO. I've been a long-standing admirer of Zinman's ability to make B-orchestras play like the finest ensembles anywhere, but even moreso of his dedicated, imaginative, challenging, exploring (yes, all that!) programming. He is not only a great conductor of orchestras, but also of his audiences. And then, of course, he manages to say new things about standard repertoire that we often think have been exhausted, interpretatively. (His phenomenally well-selling Beethoven and Schumann cycles are a case in point.)

Available from Amazon: L. van Beethoven, Symphonies 1-9, David Zinman, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich

Programming is a strength that can really only shine with a conductor in residence, and he could have been excused for a less than extraordinarily inspired program. But no: David Diamond, Music for Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet in five scenes. Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, KV 491, and Elgar's Second Symphony were on the menu.

Excuse me if I gush (I don't usually), but that is quite brilliant. Of course you cannot do wrong with the Mozart concerto. Little music is more perfect and beautiful, without equal in its field save Beethoven's 4th. But bookended by Diamond's appealing, sweetly flowing R&J opus (thereby keeping with the "America in the 40s" celebration, even if the concert was not officially part of it) and Elgar's symphonic masterpiece—played not nearly often enough outside of England—the Mozart became the core of an evening that presents 20th-century American and 20th-century English music: transatlantic cleavage on musical terms. North American, Central European, and British musical tradition at its finest and in a package that should have the audience ask itself with incredulity: "Whoever said we were afraid of 20th-century music?"

David Diamond, one of the finest American composers and sadly underexposed—though that has slowly begun to change over the last 20 years—delivers a splendid work, not unduly deep (that perhaps a link with the Mozart) and its broad flows, exposed instrumental parts, and quirky wit were all masterfully played by an NSO in, once again, top form. To watch David Zinman conduct, too, is a joy. Every move is exact, precise, has purpose, shows rather than alludes, directs rather than suggests, shapes rather than evokes. That is not to call him an automaton devoid of emotion. Emotion in a limp, shapeless body goes nowhere, but feeling introduced to a tight, trim body elevates a performance from orchestral sound to a moving concert experience. There are only a handful (or less) of orchestras in the world that are in such good shape that they can take suggestions alone and provide discipline and cohesion themselves. The NSO (much less the Baltimore SO) is not one of them.

Peter Serkin

For the Mozart, Zinman got the support of Peter Serkin (Serkin, jumping in for Radu Lupu at short notice, got Zinman's support in turn), son of Rudolf Serkin and grandson of one of the best violinists of his time, Adolf Busch. Zinman, not surprisingly, took the Mozart at a brisker tempo than usually heard, and the no-nonsense, crisp way in which Peter Serkin collaborated exquisitely, worked very well... and the further into the concerto they went, the more the benefits of this approach became obvious. It had very similar qualities to the ones for which I so adore the Mozart piano concerto recordings with Dennis Russell Davies and Keith Jarrett on Nonesuch (Set 1 and Set 2).

Elgar's Symphony No. 2, undoubtedly one of the greatest symphonic works from the Perfidious Albion, swept through the concert hall in all its magnificence, brooding and yearning and with more in common with Mahler's 9th than just the year of creation. The intense tremors of the first movement's Allegro vivace e nobilimente went right into my bones. Sitting back and enjoying Zinman's visible delight in making great music—and the NSO going along every step of the way with him—was all I was left to do for the remainder of the Elgar.

The second movement (Larghetto) was a triumph, cut and dried. The climax of the third (Rondo: Presto) is like being run over by a train, only far more awesome. (Not the least because the experience is generally survived by those without coronary weakness.) Moderato e maestoso, the fourth movement, sent me back into the cool night with delight of the highest order. It took me an hour to get the delirious grin off my face. Stupendous. (With three out of five recent concerts of the NSO so well played—Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony, Copland's 3rd Symphony, and this one—quality nights out might just become the rule at the Kennedy Center, not the exception!)

To experience this work live like that catapulted it into my personal list of favorite symphonies, on par with just about anything I have heard in concert. Alas, for a concert of this extraordinary quality in every detail, the Kennedy Center's Concert Hall was shamefully empty. There isn't going to be a conductor of Zinman's quality in our region, at least not on a regular basis, for at least another two years; no one ought to miss the chance to hear him. Chances to not miss it are given today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday), both at 8 pm.

UPDATE:
See also Daniel Ginsberg, Zinman & Serkin Bring Out the Best in the NSO (Washington Post, February 18).

Sankt Ludwig Frau

Wasn't it enough, you ask, to see La Fleming at the Kennedy Center Tuesday night? (I was there with fellow Ionarts critic Jens F. Laurson, whose review is forthcoming. For now, see the substantial review [The Flaws That Refresh: A Risk-Taking Renee Fleming, February 17] by Philip Kennicott for the Washington Post.) Apparently I needed to hear another diva's recital. Soprano Christine Brewer recently sang the role of Isolde in the new Tristan with video images by Bill Viola, premiered in a semi-staged version with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (see post from December 23, 2004), and she sang for the highly praised recording of William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and of Experience last year. She was here in Washington Wednesday night, to perform in the latest installment of the Shenson Chamber Music Concert series at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Even many Washingtonians are unaware that there is a small auditorium on the museum's fifth floor, where there are free concerts, films, and other events.

Her program's first half combined Richard Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieder with a set of four substantial Richard Strauss songs. These songs are the optimal vehicle for Ms. Brewer's rich, warm tone. This is a beautiful, full voice with considerable power and refinement. That mellowness was on display in my favorite of the Wesendonck-Lieder, the mysterious Im Treibhaus, cluttered with seconds. Ms. Brewer's accompanist, Craig Rutenberg, contributed superb playing to this recital, notably in the Strauss Wiegenlied (op. 41, no. 1), with its perpetual motion of harplike arpeggiation.

If the first half was perhaps a little somber, the lighter tone of the remaining program was made clear when Ms. Brewer appeared after the intermission, not in her black velvet gown with white collar and cuffs, but in black pants and shirt, with a billowing black and gold blouse. "I thought velvet was OK for February," she announced. The day's unseasonably warm weather also convinced accompanist Craig Rutenberg to return without his tailed jacket. "You can loosen your ties," Ms. Brewer advised the audience. The less serious content of the second half began with Benjamin Britten's Cabaret Songs, on poems by W. H. Auden (although he was not credited in the program). In these songs Ms. Brewer displayed her playful side (wolf-whistling in Calypso, for example), but it was Mr. Rutenberg who seemed to be having almost too much fun at the piano, with the driving locomotive sounds in Calypso, the catchy cha-cha rhythms in Tell Me the Truth about Love, and the sad tango of Auden's famous lament Funeral Blues.

The Britten was followed by three Harold Arlen songs (who is having an important anniversary this year, the Harold Arlen Centennial). These three songs from Saint Louis Woman (words by Johnny Mercer) are something of a signature piece for Ms. Brewer, who is a native of Saint Louis, and she made a recital recording by the same title. I did not need to be reminded of the fact that Harold Arlen wrote great song: Happy Anniversary, Harold! Ms. Brewer explained her last set of four apparently random songs as her "Flagstad favorites." They are, in fact, four songs she found on old programs, given to her by a voice teacher, from one of Kirsten Flagstad's American recitals:

• Now like a Lantern (Alice Raphael/A. Walter Kramer)
  
• Rain Has Fallen (James Joyce/Samuel Barber)
  
• Sea Moods (Kenneth G. Benham/Mildred Lund Tyson)
  
• Night (Charles Hanson Towne/Edwin MacArthur)

This was an interesting music-historical exercise, but the only song that I found particularly interesting was the one I already knew, the Barber. (Another enthusiast of American song, Thomas Hampson, recently sang this song as part of a Barber set at the Library of Congress.) This is not to say that Ms. Brewer's performance was not thrilling, especially as she soared powerfully in the final song. A single encore was something of a letdown. I would rather have heard some more Strauss instead of Lili's pretty little song Mira from Carnival. Anything from either of her upcoming opera appearances would have been welcome to my ears: she will be Queen Elizabeth I in Britten's Gloriana with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in June and Ellen Orford in Britten's Peter Grimes with the Santa Fe Opera in July and August.

Upcoming events at the National Museum of Women in the Arts that are on my cultural schedule include a screening of Agnès Varda's Jacquot de Nantes (a tribute to her husband, film director Jacques Demy, another member of the Nouvelle Vague), introduced by Varda herself (this Friday, February 18), and the next event in their concert series, a recital by Russian pianist Elena Bashkirova (May 4, at 7:30 pm).

UPDATE:
See also Daniel Ginsberg, Christine Brewer, A Superior Soprano (Washington Post, February 18).

Srihadi Soedarsono

I love reading about exhibits in other countries and, as regular readers of Ionarts know, often share that interest here. So an article by Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop (At 73, new horizons for an artist, February 9) in the International Herald Tribune was right up my alley. The latest work from Srihadi Soedarsono (b. 1931), one of the greatest living painters from southeast Asia, is being shown right now in an exhibit (Tracing Horizons [.PDF file], until February 24) at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute.

Srihadi Sudarsono [sic] says he has spent most of his life trying to depict the "essence of things" on canvas, from the spirituality of a temple like Borobudur to the movement of Javanese dancers. "I believe that the nature of my painting must always express the beauty and the elegance of the human soul," the 73-year-old Indonesian artist said in a recent interview. [...] The painter is known for his expressionistic interpretations of horizons and monumental landscapes as well as his exquisite and masterly use of color. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was also known for art with strong political content, especially during the early years of Suharto's New Order government. "An artist needs to relate to his environment. That said, I always saw my work as art with social or political themes, not political art," he said.

His latest works depict the spiritual Borobudur and the horizons of Java, but they also include a new twist: an experiment with paper pulp. "Srihadi has been working on horizons for many years, and the compositional format has become something of a thematic template, familiar to many observers of his work," said Joanne Lee, an independent art curator who wrote an essay for the exhibition's catalogue. "But this new body of work offers a few surprises aside from the use of the paper pulp medium, which in itself is interesting given Srihadi's veteran practice in oil painting."

There are images of a couple earlier paintings here and here. The gallery showing Soedarsono right now has only one image online.

Dip Your Ears, No. 29 (Fazil Say's Sacre)

Igor Stravinsky, Le Sacre du Printemps, (arr. for four to six hands) Fazil Say Telarc Stravinsky, Bach, Gershwin et al., Fazil Say Telarc 5CDs

The loss that is presumably incurred by transcribing an orchestral piece for piano—no matter how many hands—seldom makes for unreservedly convincing music. Fazil Say's account of Stravinsky's own transcription of The Rite of Spring, however, adds to the music, rather than subtracting from it. Bristling with raw energy, a rhythmicality that will convert any open-eared listeners, from Techno to Bartók fan, this short CD (32 min., with a bonus video clip) is one of the most outstanding discs I have heard, period. The sounds and rhythms Say elicits from the piano don't cease to amaze. From erupting dissonances and jostling bounces to eerie and creepy moments, this Rite, if I were only to own one—orchestral or otherwise—would be it. Glowingly recommended!

Unfortunately, Teldec has suspended this release. Grab what you can, while it is still available.
Edit: The recording, which enjoys a robust second-hand market, can also be had in the catch-all Say-on-Warner box listed on the left.