The Villa Borghese

If you like to dream about the history of cities, you should read this article (At Rome's Heart, Villa Borghese, February 28) by Roderick Conway Morris in the International Herald Tribune, about the extraordinary park in Rome known as the Villa Borghese. The motivation is a special exhibit, Villa Borghese: Princes, Arts and the City in the 18th and 19th Centuries, which is being shown at a building called the Villa Poniatowski, a recently restored exhibition space on the grounds. The exhibit (open until March 21) commemorates the handing over of the massive park and set of buildings, once the private home of the Borghese family, to the city of Rome and the opening of the gardens to the public, 100 years ago.

The villa's original owner, Scipione Borghese, was named Cardinal by his uncle, Camillo Borghese, who was elected as Pope Paul V in 1605. He became extraordinarily wealthy because of his uncle's favor, money that he spent on building the villa and on a renowned collection of art. You can see a selection of some of the more famous works of art still at the Villa Borghese. In 1803, one of the Borghese descendants made an eventually unhappy marriage to Pauline Bonaparte, the sister of Napoleon, who was famously sculpted by Antonio Canova as Venus victrix, or Venus reclining in victory (completed from 1805 to 1808; image at left from Francesco Pini at DolceVita). Canova's lesser-known bust of Pauline is one of the works on display in this special exhibition. Napoleon's interest in classical art led him to remove to Paris a large collection of classical pieces from his brother-in-law's collection in the Villa Borghese, which became the foundation of the Louvre's antiquities collection. Another work in the exhibit is an oil painting from 1838 by Diofebi, showing the Porta del Populo entrance to the park. You may also want to see some more photographs of the grounds, or you can read Henry James's account of his visit to the place in 1873, as well as much more information and other images on the Villa Borghese from Roberto Piperno's Rome Art Lover. One of the best assortments of images of the Villa Borghese can be viewed at this CNN feature from 1998, by Elsa Klensch (Museum marvels: Rome's Villa Borghese is restored and renewed).

The Britten Are Coming! The Brodsky Quartet Does Washington — by Jens Laurson

This is a follow-up piece on the concert reviewed on February 23. This is the first double review in ionarts history, although this was not the first concert that both ionarts music critics have happened to attend.

The Brodsky Quartet is from Manchester, England. Their namesake, Adolf Brodsky, had been an important violinist and teacher in their native city, where they founded this group 32 years ago. Their unusual longevity has kept Ian Belton (second violin), Paul Cassidy (viola) and his cellist wife, Jacqueline Thomas together since their inception. Only recently did 20-something Andrew Haveron replace Jacqueline Thomas’ brother, Michael, as first violinist. The impression they make on stage is not necessarily one that I would expect from a string quartet. Andrew Haveron looks younger than his 27 or 28 years. With the goatee and well-rounded face, he looks like a college frat boy. Ian Belton, a small, sturdy man, resemble a Red-Meat cartoon character. His five-o’clock shadow looks like it was painted on. Paul Cassidy reminds of the teacher in South Park but more likely a classical musician. His wife, finally, looks perfectly charming and normal. She, too, is the member who is dressed least conspicuously. Paul Cassidy (who champions a zebra-like striped sports jacket on the Brodsky Quartet's Web site) wears a vest, as do his colleagues who man the violins. Over their unironed or unironable shirts we have matte/shiny patterns in black and aubergine and Cassidy's tank-gray vest with infusions of canary yellow and ultramarine. It resembles a flak jacket or live vest more than a part of someone’s closet.

The program started with Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet no. 1 in D Major, op. 25. His first of three, it is perhaps least like his output of that time (World War II) and somewhat belies works with which I am more familiar, like Peter Grimes, which had its inception at around the same time. The work opens with shimmering and light notes, accompanied by hardy plucking on the cello before that rough treatment turns into a more conventional pizzicato. The violins hover over the audience in slowly progressing patterns. Three against one. This set-up does not change until the first movement's Allegro vivo sets in. Much more conventional a string quartet format now, it has half the pulse of Bartók but twice the melody of Tippett.

Further down the movement, the shimmering, hovering strings plus accompanying cello-plucks (with big pauses) return in their high registers. The viola takes over some of the predominant parts, and the rhythm of the movement finally establishes itself halfway through. It finally gets a bit of the drive that I find so seductive in the 20th-century string quartet repertoire. The shimmering theme comes back once more and firmly establishes itself as the quartets calling card. (Feeble, frail, and flimsy: should that be "fistelty"?) Whistly and whimpering to cello sounds, it fades away. A few attacca notes and some whimsy make an end of it.

Allegretto con slancio gets the pulse started right away. Britten achieves this very simply but effectively with one or more instruments playing a driving rhythm in the spiccato style. (Spiccato, saltando, sautillé, or even arpeggio: if a reader knows which exactly the Britten score calls for, I'd be interested in finding out.) The piece charms me reasonably well but leaves me less impressed than I had hoped it would. The Andante calmo starts beautifully with a gray, weeping melody: not so much fresh-cut tears but rather bitter resignation. It culminates in impotent rage before subsiding and letting the first violin whine along to the continuous, monotonous bows of its three companions. It remains enjoyable for these ears, but for several moments I find it distinctly lacking purpose. Towards what seems the end the andante climaxes nicely before pausing only to add a subtle and soft afterthought that gets picked up for another run—handing off to the once again prominent viola and expanding the natural lifespan of this movement by half. The puckish cello guides a similar but shorter rise to the andante's third life before a sustained light note on first violin actually ends it.

Molto vivace, the final movement, trades whimsy among the instruments but turns quickly into a hearty bout. Jacqueline Thomas and her cello raced while her three male colleagues on the smaller instruments performed similar musical patterns. "Carefree" is the word that I conjured immediately. Speed-demon-like pizzicati interspersed with intense and chromatically bent exultations by force of "instrument-scrubbing" ended the piece abruptly and well, leading to generous applause.

Franz Schubert's "Rosamunde" String Quartet in A Minor (D.804) was next. The opening Allegro ma non troppo was amiably, though not perfectly, played; although very satisfactory, it lasts forever. The Andante finally arrived and left the impression of a children's mobile. Menuetto: Allegretto and Allegro moderato rounded out this half of the program with admirable playing but ultimately remained uninspiring. The word was "nice" or "quaint" in its more negative connotation.

After the break it was Tchaikovsky's String Quartet no.1 in D major, op.11, that awaited the audience. A very smooth and gliding beginning was gentle enough but not boring and ready to pick up speed or energy or both along the way. A rather full sound was summoned from the players. In several moments the first violins' uncleanliness bugged me. With little new material or ideas introduced, the piece babbled along just fine until it got a little excited toward the end of the first movement. For the most part it seemed best just to sit back and casually enjoy a (surprisingly?) nice and long string quartet that is amiable but soon exposes itself as one of the lesser works by maestro "Petr Il'ich Chaikovskii" as his name might be spelled more accurately. The Andante cantabile, like its predecessor, starts out most amiably. Mr. Haveron's three-year-old violin (by Polish master violin-builder Zygmuntowicz, who also made the Emerson String Quartet's instruments) sounds lush and thick even through the entirely muted sections of this movement. The five-note theme (made up of three distinct notes) that makes the core of this work is shared among the instruments to intone a lament.

The Scherzo: Allegro non tanto e con fuoco enjoyably worked its way toward the end of the evening. A fine evening for sure, but almost certain not to entail an encore. In brevity lies the soul of wit—the scherzo stayed true to its name. Allegro giusto is the finale's marking. Unlike the sometimes excruciatingly slow Schubert earlier, the Brodsky Quartet went to work on these parts as though they just remembered that their cars were parked in the no-parking zone. They seemed to get more into the piece, and with them went I. The finale is perhaps not quite ravishing, but a consoling finish. A faux ending: soft recapitulation of previously stated material and a very soft line led to a finishing frenzy in highest tempi and reasonably rousing applause.

After the concert, which was fine but ultimately disappointing for lack of energy and excitement, everyone in my company disagreed with each other. Britten was the only good thing; no, it was horrific. The Tchaikovsky was astounding; no, it was pleasant at best. The Schubert was stupendous; no, it put me to sleep. What is true is that the Britten, as nice a piece as I find it to be, is probably not of the same quality as some other modern string quartets. More importantly, it was not played with the passion and excitement that would communicate to a Britten neophyte why and how to like it. The performance of the Brodsky Quartet was good enough to please those who know the work, but miles away from making converts. But not every concert can be conscious-altering and life-changing. Sometimes "good" has got to be "good enough."

Destino

I have already mentioned Destino, the lost film project that Salvador Dalí worked on for Walt Disney in 1945 (see post on February 18, The Center of the Universe, According to Dalí). This short film, finally realized by a team of animators led by producer Roy Disney from the remaining work done by the surrealist artist, can be viewed in most places as a freebie before the French animated movie The Triplets of Belleville. This is exactly how I saw both movies this past weekend, at my new favorite moviehouse, the E Street Cinema (see post on February 7, The Return of the Art Movie).

As the story goes (reported by Jason Silverman in this article in Wired, November 12, 2003; and by David D'Arcy on NPR, where you can see two clips from the film), Dalí had worked on films with Luis Buñuel. When in the United States during the Second World War, he worked on Alfred Hitchcock's movie Spellbound and, at that time, met Walt Disney at a dinner party at Jack Warner's house (oh, to have been a fly on the wall!). As improbable as the partnership may seem at first, Disney agreed to make a short animated film based on Dalí's ideas, as an illustration for Armando Dominguez's song "Destino." What is most tantalizing about the film as it has been completed is the glimpse at what might have been: Dalí, who was becoming more and more fascinated with images that move, producing mainstream animated film with the backing of Walt Disney. Keep in mind that this collaboration dates from a time prior to Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and Sleeping Beauty (1959). My mind swims when I think of how these films, greats of American animation, would have looked with someone like Dalí in the studio. Alas, in spite of an affinity for the surreal (the matching of Disney and Dalí is perfectly natural, when you have a moment to recover from the shock of learning that it actually happened), Uncle Walt bowed to financial pressures and canceled the project.

The movie is beautiful visually and a fascinating mixture of the two masters, with some qualities clearly Dalí and others clearly Disney. The heroine, for example, a ballerina, is not much different from any of the lead female characters in the classic Disney films I listed above: her body type, facial characteristics, hair, and movements are remarkably similar to those of Cinderella, Alice, and Aurora (see this image, for example). However, quite atypically for a Disney animated film, this ballerina wears a provocatively transparent and clinging slip of clothing. It is then stripped away from her by, I think, quite phallic one-eyed alien creatures, imprisoned in a sort of pit, before she slips into a vulva-shaped shell that falls to the ground below (see the sketch at the bottom of this article about the project, or you can watch a clip of this section of the movie from NPR's feature on the movie).

Almostly entirely on the Dalí side of this equation are the settings and backgrounds. The film opens on the desert-like beach that the painter depicted in so many of his works, like the Enchanted Beach with Three Fluid Graces (1938), The Madonna of Portlligat (1950), and, most famously, The Persistence of Memory (1931). My understanding is that these beach backgrounds are rather accurately rendered scenes of Portlligat Bay, in Spain, which featured importantly in the landscape of the painter's dreams, because it was near where he grew up in the town of Cadaqués. (He ended up having his permanent house there, when he returned from the United States, and it is now a museum.)

Also prominent in the movie are the optical illusions that were one of Dalí's favorite games, as in Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938). (This was the subject of an exhibit of the painter's works that came here to the Hirshhorn in 2000.) The ballerina's silhouette appears in the rocky background, as the bell in a monastery tower, between two merging faces carried by turtles (definitely the self-portrait of Dalí on the right and perhaps the portrait of Disney on the left—see this image and this image). The main subject here is sexual longing, and the male character begins first as a sort of relief sculpture, until he melts into reality and eventually becomes a baseball player. The two characters are not able to unite, as the sand flows away to reveal a sort of castle ruin that continues to separate the couple, whose fluctuating natures also prevent them from coming together.

However, there are those unmistakable Disney qualities, too, like the warbling choir that is heard on the soundtrack toward the end of this short film (for lack of a better term, what I call the "Disney 'ah' chorus"). Dalí's trademark paranoic-critical ants swarm from a crack in a stone hand, but Disneyesque birds and moths are also prominently featured. Although the film is mostly the work of modern-day animators, based on Dalí's work, it is easy to see from the result why the self-proclaimed "Pope of Surrealism," André Breton, excommunicated Dalí from the circle of the surrealist elect (prior to the work with Disney, but still relevant). Breton rearranged the letters in Dalí's name to make the anagram Avida Dollars (hungry for dollars), which pithily expresses Breton's hatred of commercialism. In spite of all that, Destino is something you should see on the big screen, if you can. If not, Disney will release a collector's edition DVD later this year.

Golliwog's Cakewalk

One of my piano students has recently begun to work on Claude Debussy's rag-inspired piece "Golliwog's Cakewalk," the last movement in his petite suite pour piano called Children's Corner (1906–1908). (The original cover of Debussy's suite, shown at left, comes from D. Barton Johnson's online essay Nabokov's Golliwoggs: Lodi Reads English 1899-1909 in the Nabokov journal Criticism from the International Vladimir Nabokov Society at Penn State.) I had not practiced this piece myself since I was in high school, and I now have the chance to remember how much fun it was for me to learn as my student works on it.

When this student expressed an interest in the piece, I felt that I had to explain what it was about: in other words, I had to show him what golliwog and cakewalk meant. An excellent online essay on the history of this disgusting racist image (The Golliwog Caricature, by Ferris State University sociology professor David Pilgrim, who is the curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia there) gives a detailed history of the golliwog and shows numerous images. Artists have been fascinated with the golliwog image, such as Damali Ayo (see his show last year at the Mark Woolley Gallery in Portland, Oregon) and Kara Walker. The Golliwog character was made into a very popular children's doll, owned by the young Nabokov and by Debussy's daughter, which was the inspiration for the composer's drawing on the original cover and for the piece itself.

The cakewalk was a sort of dance or stepping competition for a prize of cake, sponsored by a plantation owner and featuring his own slaves who were allowed to mock the airs of their masters. This entertainment was often reproduced in minstrel shows, those horrible sentimentalizing idealizations of plantation life, featuring white actors in blackface, which were one very important influence on the creation of American musical theater. (See the covers of some of these minstrel show cakewalk publications, such as Dusky Dudes Cakewalk and Colored Aristocracy Cake Walk, both from 1899, just a few years before Debussy's suite.)

It's hard for me to know what to do when I get to the point in a survey class that deals with 19th-century America. Some people think that we should just allow this part of music history to disappear into oblivion: don't let students play "Golliwog's Cakewalk" any more and don't teach them anything about the minstrel show. I admit that it does bother me to teach these subjects and have the students be exposed to these worst expressions of American institutional racism and find them funny. Maybe it really would be better just never to introduce today's students to these parts of the past. Ultimately, however, I value truth too much to edit these things out of our understanding of history.

When I looked through the catalogue of Debussy's works, I discovered that Debussy, perhaps to capitalize on the popularity of "Golliwog's Cakewalk," also composed another cakewalk pour piano in 1909 called Le petit nègre (The little negro), which I have never heard or played.

Ysaÿe Something You Don't See!

Continuing their exciting Sunday concert series, the National Gallery of Art presented its 2485th installment (see the program and notes by Elmer Booze, in .pdf format) in what turns out to be an astounding 62nd season of the William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin Concert Series. On February 15, it was the Ysaÿe String Quartet that was going to delight the audience in the packed West Garden Court of the National Gallery’s West Building. Among the attendees was His Excellency, Jean-David Levitte, Ambassador of France, visibly excited about this young French quartet’s performance.

The Ysaÿe String Quartet, named after the turn-of-the-century French composer and violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, was founded in 1984 and had been catapulted onto the international scene with their 1989 debut at the Salzburg Festival. It is rare to get the visceral energy of young players coupled with over 15 years of international experience in music making of the highest order. In these four musicians—Guillaume Sutre, Luc-Marie Aguera, Miguel da Silva, and François Salque—the listener does get it. Their complete Mendelssohn String Quartets and the Mozart "Haydn" Quartets have been much-enjoyed examples of their art in my CD collection. Both, now available in the Universal Classics Trios series, are bargains not to be missed. As is usually the case with string quartets, seeing them live adds another dimension to the experience.

The last string quartet I heard at the National Gallery was the Zehetmair Quartet (on January 26, 2003) performing Schumann, Bartók, and Cage ("stupendous does not even come close to conveying that night") leaving me with high expectations. This much already: there was no reason for disappointment! Having come a bit later than usual to the National Gallery I was lucky to find a seat inside the West Garden Court, luckier even to find one with at least some sight of the musicians. Peering from behind one of the large pillars, I was able to make out the two violins. Mr. Sutre on first was in plain sight, and Mr. Aguera had a twig from one of the trees in front of the stage add contrast to his image. Messrs. Salque and Da Silva (on viola and cello, respectively) were well hidden behind the trunk and petioles of this oversized shrub.

That wasn't a distraction from Haydn's String Quartet op. 54 no. 2 in D Major, Of course, the acoustics were not stellar behind the pillar, but the sonorous tone from the quartet reached me there, too, with delight. The opening Vivace is an all-around pleasant and (not surprising, really) lively thing. It sets the enjoyable and elated mood into which the Adagio enters with its haunting melody. A masterpiece of an adagio, it has a somber, moving and melancholic quality. (This is one of Haydn’s specialties: one need think only of the adagio-only composition Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze [The seven last words of our savior on the cross].) It takes no effort to let yourself be swept away by it. The cello provides for much of the serene basic melody, while the violins support it first unisono, only to soar above it later, never destroying the earthy and bittersweet quality of it.

==>> Continue reading this review.

Brodsky Quartet at the Library of Congress

On Friday night, the latest group to perform in the series of free concerts at the Library of Congress was Great Britain's Brodsky Quartet (see photograph at right). (For some information about this concert series and the historic Coolidge Auditorium, see my post on August 31.) As their biographical information in the program puts it, "Unlike the majority of string quartets, the members of the Brodsky Quartet play standing up, intensifying communication among them and giving a real edge to their performance." More precisely, the violinists and violist stood on the stage (with violist Paul Cassidy, in particular, weaving maniacally and somewhat distractingly behind his music stand). Cellist Jacqueline Thomas—who, incidentally, is Mr. Cassidy's wife—was seated on a black podium that elevated her to the eye level of the other players. Two of the three pieces that they played are featured in their recording Tchaikovsky and Britten String Quartets, from 2002.

Breaking form with most of the Library of Congress concerts, which put a work of new music or a commission of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in the second position before intermission, the Brodsky Quartet began their concert with the String Quartet no. 1 in D Major, op. 25 by Benjamin Britten. Mrs. Coolidge commissioned this quartet when Britten was in the United States during the dangerous years of World War II, after she met Britten and his companion Peter Pears at the home of mutual friends in California. Britten spent the summer of that year composing it, and it was premiered in Los Angeles in 1941, with a second performance here at the Library of Congress later that fall. As the always excellent program notes of Tomás C. Hernández (of the Music Division of the Library of Congress) relate, Mrs. Coolidge awarded Britten the Coolidge Medal "for eminent services to chamber music" at that concert, in honor of her birthday:

The presentation of the Coolidge Medal was "quite an alarming ceremony," Britten wrote his sister, "but Mrs. Coolidge, who is really a sweet old thing, made things easier by publicly referring to me as 'Benjy', which made everyone smile sweetly."

Some listeners find this quartet to be atypical among Britten's compositions, because it has more dissonant and challenging sounds than you might expect in his music (for example, François-Xavier Avajon, writing on his Web site, calls this quartet "le moins attachant des trois, le moins proprement brittenien" [the least attractive of the three, the least truly Brittenish]). I really enjoyed listening to this piece. The first movement oscillates between two basic sonic territories, the tragic sounds of the opening Andante sostenuto (the three higher instruments on long, sustained, very high, dissonant harmonies, with the cello on slow, somber pizzicati) and the bubbling movement of the Allegro vivo. The second movement (Allegretto con slancio) is in a basic triple meter that is destablized with Stravinskyesque rhythmic shifts, which was played by the Brodsky Quartet, it seemed to me, somewhat fast for allegretto. The astounding third movement (Andante calmo) luxuriates in a gorgeous homophonic stasis, moving in and out of dissonant harmonies and several times blossoming into a massive major chord. The fourth movement (Molto vivace) was played at an appropriately very fast tempo, which underscored the Haydnesque pauses that Britten uses here. There are some remarkable effects and some real moments of furied frenzy, which was very exciting.

==>> Continue reading this review.

I Found Milton Avery — by Mark Barry

Although he was never lost to me, I have learned a lot of biographical information about Milton Avery (image at right) that I didn't know before from the exhibit Discovering Milton Avery: Two Devoted Collectors, Louis Kaufman and Duncan Phillips at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. (through May 16). For one, how much he struggled as an artist with both his art and his finances, and how important the support of his wife Sally and daughter March were to him. For all the attention his work gets these days, it wasn't so throughout his career. This exhibit focuses on his two primary collectors: first came friend and patron Louis Kaufman and then Duncan Phillips, who gave Avery his first museum exhibit. (For more information, see the piece on Kaufman and Avery broadcast by NPR on Thursday.)

What I enjoyed most was the chance to see a progression of work, starting with Winter Riders (c. 1925, the first Avery painting purchased by Duncan Phillips), which has an impressionist feel to it, possibly Degas, to the three still lifes of 1928, of which Still Life With Pop Bottle has a Picassoesque, early cubist sensibility, while Still Life with Iron, Plant, and Bananas is all Matisse. My favorite of this period is the beautiful portrait Sally Avery with Still Life. It reminded me of Honoré Daumier’s linear quality, but the more I looked there was the strength of a John Singer Sargent portrait, a grand picture of a simple woman.

From the late 20s through the mid 30s Avery was finding his personal voice. By his 1938 self-portrait Milton Avery in a Grey Shirt with "The Chariot Race" he had arrived. Here is a confident man: the image of the chariot in the background makes him look a bit devilish, and the paint is his own unmistakable style. Contrast this portrait with The Convalescent (self-portrait in a red sweater from 1949), painted after his first heart attack. It's a chillingly honest picture of a man confronting his mortality, with turquoise eyes peering out of a ghostly white mask. However, I can tell this is not a man ready to quit: his brilliant red shirt and wiry golden hair say, I'm still here.

This bold new style is evident in the simplified shapes of Girl Writing and broad planes of color in Chinese Checkers (c. 1941). The same boldness serves Avery well in his landscapes. Nature is dominant in Shells and Fishermen: an undulating blue sea and sky approach as one, while a somewhat ominous ledge threatens to gobble up the two unsuspecting fishermen; even the shells in the foreground are their equal. In Bird and Breaking Wave, a small bird is perched on a rock, surounded by a dark purple sea. Billowing waves are about to come crashing down, but the bird somehow feels safe on its fleshy perch; there is redemption. Man and nature are one in California Landscape, as the warm golden shore embraces a pale green sea and sky, very Japanese.

One room is dedicated to notebook entries, dry-point etchings such as Reclining Nude or Rothko with Pipe, monoprints, and woodblock prints. Avery was quite prolific, constantly drawing portraits, still lifes, and landscapes, always searching: it sure inspired me to get to work.

The last gallery is saved for large canvases that were painted in the late 50s and early 60s. Grey Rocks, Black Sea (1957) and Rolling Surf (1958) are as abstract as he gets, the essence of his quest for the pure shape and weight of color, and again in Pink Meadow (1963) with that wonderful blue blob, a precurser to Richard Diebenkorn and David Hockney. These large canvases are a tightrope walk: to pare the image down to the essential is a huge challenge. For example, the black brushstrokes in Rock and Wave (1959) don't hold: they're too haphazard, and every stroke has to count. There is success in this room, but I can't help but think of his protégé Mark Rothko. When it comes to the size, shape, and weight of color in a minimalist format, he is more successful. It's also a bit unfair, since the period around 1950 is Rothko's prime and toward the end of Avery's career. But, then again, without the influence of Milton Avery where would Rothko have been?

Mark Barry (www.markbarryportfolio.com) is an artist working in Baltimore.

In the Cut (DVD) — by Todd Babcock

Sometimes films come along that have the noblest intentions, where you can actually see what they were trying for, even as they miss their mark. Films like these are the most difficult to evaluate, or more to the point, to come to some agreement on because there are those who will apologize for them and some who won't. Some years back, a writer friend and I got into a vicious discussion concerning the film Higher Learning (1995): I thought it a bit pretentious and heavy-handed, and he was thrilled with it. After many hours of debate and many tangents, we came to a ceasefire based on the understanding that he could see what director John Singleton was attempting, while I stated that I didn't pay ten dollars for someone's film school project.

Well, much time has passed since then, and I have come to realize that we are all paying for director's film school projects. It's just a matter of who gets the better grade. Or, maybe more to the point, any filmmaker worth his weight in celluloid is going to try and do something they don't know how to do or step beyond what they know, and we should be forgiving of their failures and missed marks. Having actors dance around product placements in connect-the-dots filmmaking may be good for marketing and budgets, but it certainly doesn't open the door for any type of inspiration. (Please refer to the section The Ashton Kutcher File for reference.)

So, now, yes, I have softened to where if I see a step of growth and risk in a film that flops around in search for something great, I will gladly relinquish my tight-fisted ten spot in hopes that this is a step in the right direction. Mind you, many films that don't find their mark never even see the blessed green light of distribution, so there is a filtering process that probably eliminates more movies that we would actually want to see over much of the predigested dreck we are submitted to year round. (Once again, please refer to the aforementioned file.) Don't even get me started on the world of television, where I read pilot after pilot that I think are ingenious and groundbreaking only to see pick-ups for those that fill x, y, and z of placement on the network ingredients (I'm sure Coupling made perfect sense on paper in light of the coming Friends departure). But I digress.

In the Cut (2003) Buy it from Amazon.

With this caveat, I highly recommend seeing In The Cut (DVD new release) by Jane Campion (The Piano, Holy Smoke) for all the things it does achieve in light of its obvious shortcomings. Based on the book of the same name (by Susanna Moore), In The Cut is the story of Franny Thorstin (Meg Ryan) a lonely, yet independent teacher/writer who becomes entwined with a police detective (Mark Ruffalo) when a body part of a victim she had recently seen in a bar gets discovered in her garden. The plot seems pretty basic: there is a serial killer about and Franny gets involved with the detective who she suspects could be the very murderer himself. Yet, with such a simple premise, we somehow lose sight of the plot altogether.

Many times I have left the theater dismissing a film because of its overladen special effects. Apologies are made in excess because, well, that's why people went in the first place. This argument had been employed to the aid of recent Matrix sequels, Daredevil, and any number of F/X spectaculars. I would make the argument here that the acting and environment of In The Cut are its special effects. While the murder plotline and its conclusion fade to the background, Campion and her cast keep you so completely immersed in their tangible world that you find yourself not minding. It's only when the film begins to reach its conclusion that you realize that you are watching a thriller at all. That is a testament to the work of Ryan and Ruffalo, both of whom take daring steps forward in their acting careers.

Much has been made of Meg Ryan taking her clothes off in this film and the graphic nature of the sex it depicts. I would argue that the bolder step was the stripping down of Meg Ryan herself: Meg Ryan the corporation, the quirky romantic, America’s Meg. Here she is plain, sometimes harsh, and yet more beautiful than I've ever seen her. Campion has inspired devotion from these two fine actors, to the point that the trust bleeds through every moment. If this is where Meg Ryan has decided she can go, or must, I will gladly pay for her evolution. It's a bold move any way you cut it and not an altogether easy one when one considers what she has to lose.

==>> Continue reading this review.