Tag: staircase

Exhibition on Screen
Michelangelo
Love and Death

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 20 May 2025
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Michelangelo
Love and Death
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Director – David Bickerstaff – 2017 – UK – Cert. U – 91m

*****

Sixteenth Century Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo remains one of the greatest artists of all time, yet his overreaching ambition frequently proved his undoing – back out in UK cinemas to tie in with the 550th anniversary of Michelangelo’s birth from Tuesday, May 20th

“From a fountain of mercy… my suffering is born.” These words (voiced by James Faulkner as Michelangelo) accompany images of a present day sculptor (Marco Ambrosini) working away at a piece of marble in his studio. The writings of Vasari (voice: Lawrence Kennedy) take up the story. A boy was born to a noble family in 1475. Art Critic and Author Jonathan Jones places Michelangelo among the greats, like Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Picasso. He deals with the strangest, darkest and most difficult stuff. He is the original famous artist. He had two biographies written about him in his lifetime, and took great interest in them, helping bring them to fruition. He painted, sculpted, built architecture, wrote poetry, even built military fortifications. This was the time when artists started being regarded as creative geniuses, according to Art Historian Jennifer Sliwka. Vasari referred to Michelangelo and his art in terms of Divinity and then the Divine.… Read the rest

Tags 1475, 1530, 15th Century, 16th century, acolyte, Alessandro Cecchi, ambition, anatomy, ancient ruins, and Martin Clayton, architect, architecture, Arnold Nesselrath, Art Critic, art historian, artist academy, artists’ workshop, assistants, attack, author, Bacchus, Battle of the Centaurs, Bertoldo, Bible, biographer, biographies, block of marble, burning at the stake, cadavers, Carrara, Casa Buonarotti, Casa Buonorotti, Christ in judgement, Christian redemption, church, Clinical Anatomy, closed access, Colosseum, columns, commission, committee of artists, Condivi, Conservator, control freak, Cosimo de Medici, Creation of Adam, creative genius, crucifixion, cupola, David, David Bickerstaff, David Rintoul, Dawn and Dusk, dead Christ, decorative, delegate, design, Divinity, Donatello, Duomo, end of the world, engineering, English, Exhibition On Screen, eyes, facade, family, Florence, Florence Cathedral, flow, football, fortifications, frame, France, Francesca Nicoli, gay, gay sexuality, Genesis, German, God’s finger, grief, hands, Heaven, hiding, higher spiritual realm, Holly Trusted, imagination, impart life, interview, irrationality, Italian, Italy, James Faulkner, Jennifer Sliwka. Art, Jonathan Jones, Laboratoire Artistici Nicoli, language of architecture, Laurentian library, lava, Lawrence Kennedy, Leonardo da Vinci, library, London, Lorenzo di Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, male world, marble, Marco Ambrosini, Martin Gayford, Mary, medical science, Medici, Michelangelo, military fortifications, mother, motifs, motion, movement, muscular nude body, Neo-Platonist, New Testament, night and day, nudity, Office of Works, Old Testament, painter, painting, papal court, patrons, peace deal, Peter Abrahams, Phil Grabsky, Phillippa Abrahams, physical agony, physical beauty, Picasso, picture frame, pietà, poet, poetry, Pope Clement VII, Pope Julius II, Pope Leo X, Pope Paul II, power, Prints and Drawings, problem-solving, professor, punishment, quarry, religious art, Rembrandt, Renaissance, Rome, Royal Collection Trust, sacristy, San Lorenzo, San Lorenzo monastery, Santa Croce church, Santo Spiritu, sculptor, sculpture, self-portrait, Senior Curator, Sistine Chapel, Sistine Chapel altar wall, Sistine Chapel ceiling, sodomy, St. Peter’s Rome, staircase, studio, studying cadavers, tactile, Tania Kovats, teenage angst, The Battle of Cascina, the Divine, The Last Judgement, tomb, torment, touch, trams, turn convention on its head, UK, upbringing, V&A, Vasari, Vatican Museums, Virgin Mary, vision, volcano, wall of flesh, Warwick Medical School

Animation Features Movies

Chicken Run:
Dawn of the Nugget

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 8 December 2023
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Dawn of the Nugget
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Director – Sam Fell – Co-Director – Jeff Newitt – 2023 – UK – Cert. PG – 101m

****

Which came first – the chicken or the egg? Having escaped the farm for an island paradise, the chickens must break into and wreck a food processing factory masquerading as a holiday camp to lure unwitting chickens to their doom – out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 8th and on Netflix from Friday, December 15th

More than two decades after the original Chicken Run (Nick Park, Peter Lord, 2000), its poultry return. They can hardly escape from the farm again, having established themselves on a secluded island in a lake well away from human beings. So the original’s co-screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick, a veteran of The Rescuers Down Under (1990), James And The Giant Peach (1996), The Little Vampire (2000), Charlotte’s Web (2006), makes use of a number of very clever tricks to have the chickens break in to a facility that endangers chicken lives rather than break out of one.

He effectively redeploys the escapees from the original, but it being over two decades since its production, he races through what would be just over a decade in chicken years if their lifespans were comparable to humans and has the hero Rocky (voice: Zachary Levi) and the heroine Ginger (voice: Thandiwe Newton) get together and produce a family in the form of a daughter, Molly (voice: Bella Ramsey) , who in the opening minutes’ montage grows into a teenager.… Read the rest

Animation Art Features Live Action Movies

Hilma

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 28 October 2022
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Director – Lasse Hallström – 2022 – Sweden – Cert. 12a – 119m

****

Late in her life, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, today considered the world’s first abstract painter, remembers her life – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 28th

As Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (Lena Olin) takes a tram journey, she remembers key events and moments within it: she is haunted by the memory of her little sister Hermina (Emmi Tjernström), who tragically died when Hilma (Tora Hallström) was 18 and with whom she often played hide and seek.

Interested in drawing and painting from nature as a form of scientific inquiry – at her art school interview panel she lists mathematics, geometry, biology and astronomy as interests other than flowers – she meets up with other women studying technical painting and drawing in Stockholm, among them the wealthy Anna Cassel (Catherine Chalk) who becomes her lover and finances her as an artist – and becomes part of their group of five women artists interested in spiritism. She also studies the Theosophical writings of Madame Blavatsky and makes a particular connection to the Anthroposophist ideas of Rudolf Steiner.

Acknowledging these interests, the film infuriatingly refuses to explore them at any great depth, perhaps because it fears such ideas might prove controversial and perhaps because they might prove boring to a contemporary audience, it’s impossible to tell.… Read the rest

Tags Adam Lundgren, Anna Björk, art, art school, artist, astronomy, Benny Box, bereavement, biology, canvas, Catherine Chalk, Clare Holman, death, depth, Edvard Munch, Emmi Tjernström, exhibition, geometry, hide and seek. Drawing, Hilma af Klint, interview panel, Jazzy De Lisser, Jens Hultén, Lasse Hallström, Lena Olin, Lily Cole, Lukas Loughran, Madame Blavatsky, Maeve Dermody, Martin Wallström, mathematics, nature, non-figurative art, ocean floor, painter, painting, patriarchy, Paulius Markevicius, Rebecca Calder, Rudolph Steiner, science, scientific enquiry, sexism, siblings, sisters, slit-scan, sounding, sounding weight, spiral, spiral staircase, spiritual, spiritual world, staircase, Stockholm, Swden, temple, Theosophy, Tom Wlaschiha, Tora Hallström, vision, Wassily Kandinsky