Viewing Pleasures

Yesterday, I visited London.  Along with some bookshops, I visited the Tates Britain and Modern - galleries I've visited before, but never been able to explore as much as I'd have liked - and the Courtauld Gallery - somewhere I've been meaning to visit for a while.

In the two Tate galleries, I noticed a number of other visitors taking photos, often quite prolifically.  It's something I find irritating, without being entirely sure why.  It doesn't particularly interfere with my viewing, at least no more than the behaviour of other visitors; and, although much of the work in Tate Modern is still covered by copyright law, the gallery staff didn't seem overly concerned, so why should I be?

In Tate Britain, I finally got to see Millais' Ophelia, which wasn't on display the last time I visited.  While I was stood near to this painting, another visitor walked over to it, took a photo with her tablet and then moved on to the next painting she wanted to photograph.  Was this her only experience of the paintings, viewing them on the screen of her tablet?  I don't know.

I can understand why people take photos to remind them of where they've been, but it seems that for some gallery viewers, the only way they feel they can enjoy the experience is through the small screen of a tablet or digital camera. 

This reminds me of Kate Bush's plea to her fans not to film her recent comeback gigs, but it also reminds me of a painting on the wall opposite Ophelia, Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalott.  The painting is based on Tennyson's poem of the same name.  The poem describes a 'lady' forced by an unspecified curse to stay in a tower weaving.  Because of the curse, she is only able to watch the world reflected in a mirror.  Is this what we are becoming, people only able to appreciate the world through a small digital screen?

Perhaps I'm being a bit airy-fairy about it, but it does seem to make the act of visiting a gallery redundant.  If you want to look at images of paintings, there are places they can be seen online.  Surely, to visit a gallery is to admit that there is more to experiencing visual art than just looking at the pictures - an act that can now be done anywhere.

Hello, Jack White

Blogger provides me with some stats about how many visits my blog gets, which posts get the most views and where readers come from.  I'm not entirely sure how reliable or useful they are.  I will admit to being slightly thrilled that I had 53 visitors on Monday, but I am slightly bemused at finding that no post has been read more than twice this week.

Up until quite recently, one of my most viewed posts was, apparently, a slight thing I wrote 6 years ago, pointing out a passing similarity between the White Stripes and the Black Keys.  I must admit, I thought I was stating the obvious at the time, but now it seems that Jack White has got into a spot of bother for pointing out the similarity in a private email.

I don't want to start a feud with Jack White for obvious reasons, and I'm not suggesting for one minute that he got the idea that the Black Keys ripped him off from my blog - as I've already said, I thought that was obvious.  I'd just like to note that Jack White has now issued an apology.  Jack, if you are reading this, you might want to check out a previous post about the misguidedness of the public apology.

Very pretty, very touching, but little substance

I went to see The Book Thief this afternoon.  Like a few films I've seen lately, it was very well made, and beautifully photographed in particular, but ultimately rather unsatisfying.  Set in Germany in the immediate pre-war and early war period, the film is about Liesel, the daughter of a communist, who is sent to live with a foster family.  Unable to read, she is mocked by all of her schoolmates, bar neighbour Rudy, who has a crush on her.  She learns to read with alacrity, thanks to the tuition of her foster father; develops a fascination for reading, thanks, in part, to seeing a bonfire of books; and learns about injustice, thanks to Max, a young Jewish man being sheltered by her new family.  At the end of the films everyone dies: this isn't a spoiler, as the film is framed by a voiceover narrative from the personification of death, who reminds us right at the start that everyone dies eventually.

Ultimately, that is it: everyone dies eventually.  It's a universal truth; it's of universal relevance; but, I didn't need to sit through a two-hour film to be told this.  

Other than the ubiquity of death, we see the world divided into goodies - liberal, essentially kind-hearted (even if they hide it under a gruff exterior) and individualist by temperament and baddies - prejudiced, domineering and with a tendency to follow the crowd.  In Nazi Germany this means that only Liesel, her family and her admirer Rudy express any reservations about the burning of books, persecution of Jews and other minorities, and the war with Britain (and America, who ahistorically liberate Liesel's unidentified German town).  I'm by no means an expert on Twentieth-century German history, but I suspect it was more complicated than that.

The only undercurrent comes from the casting: Liesel and Rudy are played by the prettiest blonde children, while Rudy, a strong runner, has a fascination with Jessie Owens: he reenacts Owens' triumph at the 1936 Olympics, after rolling in mud in order to look black.  The intention here is honourable, but left me slightly queasy: giving the film the benefit of the doubt, I would like to think that discomfort was the intended effect in what is otherwise a rather bland film.

Cross-promotion

Not something I'd usually do, but regular readers might what to have a look at my new blog, set up especially to promote my writing career.

Irregular readers can safely ignore this and move on to something more interesting.

Line of Duty

For the past 6 Wednesdays I have been watching the second series of BBC2's Line of Duty, a drama series focussing on a police anti-corruption unit AC12.  I was slightly disappointed with the first series, which starred Lennie James as the corrupt DCI Gates.  I admire much of the work of the writer Jed Mercurio, but found it lacked the intensity of, for example, his medical drama Bodies.  

The second series proved to be much stronger.  Whereas in the first series, we knew Gates was corrupt and the journey was simply watching how the officers of AC12 pinned it on him, the second the took a more interesting approach.  From the outset suspicion falls on another DCI, Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawkes).  Denton is a more intriguing character than Gates.  An honest, and rather rule-bound officer, and something of a loner, she stands in stark contrast to the smooth, sociable and patently untrustworthy Gates.  From the outset there seems to be little doubt about her guilt; the question is why?

Except, it turns out there is a lot of doubt about her guilt.  The hypothesis the anti-corruption officers construct becomes increasingly rickety in the face of evidence - evidence seen by them and evidence seen only by the viewer.  Denton, meanwhile, blames superior officer and former lover DCC Mike Dryden.  While this initially looks like a desperate attempt to escape justice, the viewer, seeing her treatment on remand has to think again.  The officers, too, are convinced and Dryden is arrested.  This, of course, isn't the end, and by the final episode bets were back on again and everything was set up for the grand finale.

The grand finale, sadly, didn't materialise.  The hour-long episode unfurled, much like Jane Austen's 'tell-tale compression of the pages', but leaving more loose ends and less time to tie them up.  At around the forty minute mark, we were given an extended flashback that tied up several strands in a rather unsatisfying fashion.

To an extent, I think the exigencies of TV drama must take some of the blame: it is doubtless agonisingly difficult to plot six episodes to a set length, each containing its own dramatic arc, while contributing to the overall arc of the series.  Having seen and read a few of Mercurio's series and novels, I confess to being generally let down by the endings: it seems he is very good at creating characters and putting them into unusual positions, but he just isn't that good at resolving everything.

Line of Duty is still a great series.  There are enough loose ends, in particular the newly-revealed details of DS 'Dot' Cotton's nefariousness.  The moral ambivalence of the characters and the darkness of the dramatic world will make a third series welcome.  I just hope the ending's better next time.

West Midlands Folk Lounge

On Saturday, I visited the West Midlands Folk Lounge.  I generally feel uneasy with any kind of generic approach to - well, anything.  I can't like or dislike music on the basis of what label it has.  'Folk' seems the most nebulous genre, with the possible exception of 'indie' and of course the sub-genre from Hell, 'indie folk'.  What I find most upsetting about the whole thing is that I played in an acoustic duo in the late 90s, that I jokingly described as 'indie folk' because I couldn't think of a better description.  As self-delusions go, 'I could've been a contender' is one of the more ridiculous, but knowing discovering fifteen years after the event that you might have been in the forefront of something moderately interesting is rather galling.

Enough of my middle-aged frustrations.  The most interesting of last Saturday's act were Jenny Went Away. The three band members sing in various combinations and play guitar, violin, cajon and ukulele.  They look and sound like 'indie folk' might have done had it been around in the 1940s.  They lack the technique to be totally convincing, but that is easily remedied.

The most affecting were Driftwood Store, or rather a combination of Driftwood Store and The Mistakings - there is some overlap between the two group and Saturday's lineup contained members of both.  Again, there were three singers, arranging vocal harmonies in various combinations.  They also had a violin and one guitar, shared between two guitarists.  The vocals are ethereal and shockingly beautiful; the guitar was rudimentary, but none the worse for it.

What both acts share is a willingness to move away from the tired drums/bass/rhythm/lead/vocal formula that has dominated music for about a million years.  Did I enjoy the evening?  Apart from the unpleasant envy I felt at realising  some of these musicians are young enough to be my children, yes.