Tag: First World War

Exhibition on Screen:
Hopper:
an American Love Story

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 18 October 2022
No Comments on Exhibition on Screen:
Hopper:
an American Love Story
Sticky post

Director – Phil Grabsky – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 94m

*****

The story of American painter Edward Hopper, and how his artistic career was facilitated by his fellow artist wife Jo – originally out in UK cinemas on Tuesday, October 18th 2022, now available on home video (see bottom of review)

The latest entry in Grabsky’s generally excellent Exhibition On Screen series about art and artists covers the career of Edward Hopper to tie in with a major Hopper exhibition (Edward Hopper’s New York) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The big (and most welcome) surprise is that it charts not just Hopper’s life and work but also that of fellow artist Josephine Nivison, later his wife Josephine Nivison Hopper, whose career was largely eclipsed by his during his lifetime. To be fair, it doesn’t really go into her life before the point at which she became involved in his.

Hopper was born in 1882 and raised in the Nyack, New York house his parents had built (an enviable state, indicative of their and his time, which must surely influence one’s outlook on life). Religion and church were important to the Hoppers, but theirs was the brand of Christianity unafraid to engage with the outside world which at that time meant vast quantities of books and periodicals; the young Edward acquired a love of books from his avid reader father.… Read the rest

Tags architecture, art, art student, avid reader, Bob Dylan, books, buildings, business manager, Cape Cod, Christianity, church, Church Mission, creativity, Cubism, David Lynch, description, Edward Hopper, Exhibition On Screen, First World War, fleshpots, France, Greenwich village, Hitchcock, House by the Railroad, houses, husbands and wives, hustle and bustle, illustration, Jo Hopper, Josephine Nivison, Josephine Nivison Hopper, light, light and shade, Manhattan, mass, Montmatre, Montparnasse, New York, Nighthawks, painting, Paris, partnership, periodicals, Picasso, plein air, psycho, reader, religion, sexual trauma, shade, shadow, sketch outside, still image narrative, Truro, twentieth century, UK, urban landscapes, US, verbal description, Washington Square, watercolour, Whitney Museum of American Art, WW1

Features Live Action Movies

Benediction

Director – Terence Davies – 2021 – UK – Cert. 12a – 137m

****

The life of First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon, his homosexual lifestyle and his heterosexual marriage – out in cinemas on Friday, May 20th

It’s been five years since Davies’ previous film A Quiet Passion (2016) and the curious thing is, both these films have been about poets and poetry. The earlier film was about Emily Dickinson, with its discussion about religion and Christianity very much to the fore; the new film is about Siegfried Sassoon and while the Catholicism he embraced in later years is in the mix, alongside that element Davies’ research revealed others of far greater interest to the writer-director, notably that Sassoon was gay. As you might expect, the first half hour or so concentrates on the First World War, but more time is spent in the middle of the film exploring some of Sassoon’s gay relationships with a small section towards the end skimming over his later years and heterosexual married life.

Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) saw action in the First World War and had the utmost respect for the men under his command – and they for him. He was appalled by the conditions under which they found themselves serving.… Read the rest

Tags active service, Anton Lesser, Ben Daniels, Catholicism, chief medical officer, conflict, conversion, court-martial, Craiglockhart, Craiglockhart War Hospital, dance, Edinburgh, Emily Dickinson, fathers and sons, First World War, fit for active service, gay, gay illegal, gay relationships, gay sex, Gemma Jones, George Sassoon, Hester Gatty, heterosexual marriage, high command, homosexual illegal, hospital, illegal, Ivor Novello, Jack Lowden, Jeremy Irvine, Julian Sands, Kate Phillips, law, literary, marital breakdown, marriage, Matthew Tennyson, military command, narcissist, offspring, Peter Capaldi, poet, poetry, relationships, Richard Goulding, Robbie Ross, separation, sex, sexual preference, shell shock, Siegfried Sassoon, Simon Russell-Beale, Terence Davies, theatre, top brass, war, Wilfred Owen, World War One, WW1

Features Live Action Movies

Benediction

Glum heroes

Benediction
Directed by Terence Davies
Certificate 12a, 137 minutes
Released 20 May

Films about poets are few; however, the director Terence Davies has now made two in a row as different as their historical subjects. The earlier A Quiet Passion (Reform, April 2017) concerns the introverted, isolated, American spinster Emily Dickinson while the current Benediction is about First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) – a homosexual man when this sexual preference was illegal, before the word ‘gay’ was used to describe such things.

His Military Cross earned for bravery as a First World War officer drops into a stream then sinks, an image expressing Sassoon’s dissatisfaction with the way the war is being run, and the hardships endured by the troops. He writes in protest to the top brass, but instead of the court-martial and platform to speak he expects, he is diagnosed with ‘shell shock’, partly thanks to literary mentor Robbie Ross (Simon Russell-Beale). Sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh… [Read more…]

Full review published in Reform magazine.

Capital
In The
21st Century

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 23 September 2020
No Comments on Capital
In The
21st Century

Director – Justin Pemberton – 2019 – France, New Zealand – Cert. 12 – 103m

*****

An adaptation of Thomas Piketty’s controversial economic treatise Capital In The 21st Century – in cinemas from Friday, September 25th

The content of French economist Thomas Piketty’s eponymous book couldn’t be more relevant. Far from being dry economics, Piketty’s thesis begins that there has always been a minority of wealthy people whose wealth derives from nothing more than being born into wealth. They have done nothing to merit wealth. They do not own it because of any sort of achievement.

The industrial revolution, he argues, gave those with capital (financial assets) the means to substantially increase the amount of capital they own.

Throughout history, the rich have not looked after the whole of society but rather have merely defended their own interests, i.e. maintaining and if possible increasing their position of wealth. They have shown a disdain for the other 99% of people. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, society was broken into those two groups, wealthy and poor.

The rise of the middle class after World War One changed everything, with middle class people wanting their say in how things were run. Changes since the 1970s however threaten the power of the middle class and we may be seeing a return to a majority of very poor people beholden to a wealthy minority – unless we take the action necessary to prevent it.… Read the rest