On Aging

 

"Nightmare Alley" by Guillermo del Toro (2021)

This is something that I wanted to see for a long time and to my biggest regret, local cinemas just breezed it trough their programmes, without giving me chance to actually enjoy it on the big screen. I am also aware that there is a much older, 1947 black & white version available on youtube (with than current heartthrob Tyrone Power in a main role, going against the typecast) that I definitely must check out. But mainly, this is all-star cast and director is brilliant Guillermo del Toro whose "Pan's Labyrinth" is one of my all-time favourite movies so I really, really, really wanted to see this and was even ready to go to cinema by myself if no one wanted to keep me company. It surfaced online, Disney or one of those platforms, messed up my brain the whole evening, it was fantastic.

Not sure how much it differs from the original black & white version - somebody supremely gifted as del Toro has probably twisted it all around and gave it his own signature - but in this 2021. version, we follow a mysterious stranger Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) who is on the run from something and by chance he ends up finding a temporary job in a travelling carnival show with freaks, clairvoyants and sideshow attractions. Where he befriends the owner (Willem Dafoe) and seduces clairvoyant (Toni Collette) but his heart is taken by fellow performer Molly (Rooney Mara). Almost everybody here - except Molly - is some kind of freak and they all cheat, steal and lie - there is a specially gruesome scene where Dafoe explains him how he drugs lonely homeless alcoholics and keep them imprisoned in his freak show. With time Stan learns the tricks of the trade and becomes very successful as a mind reading medium - but its all a lie, since this is a technique that depends on coded messages and body language. 

This is only first part of the movie. In the second part we have ice queen Cate Blanchett as a psychologist Dr. Lilith Ritter who lives in some sort of crazy Metropolis-type buildings and plays a game of cat & mouse with Stan. It really gets very convoluted and difficult to follow - movie just goes on and on - maybe even better that I did not watch it in the cinema, after all. If anything, it feels almost like too much of a good thing - apparently the filming was stopped during lockdowns and director had time to fiddle around with it, but I had impression that it was almost overcooked. Like he had too much time on his hands and did not know when to stop adding more and more ingredients. So finally when the darn thing ended (after almost two very long hours) I sighed with a relief. I was constantly telling my companion that I don't get it and where is this movie going. But in retrospective I loved it and should probably watch it again. And definitely must see old black & white version.

What I personally find very interesting and fascinating in the movie is how we learn that these are all tricks and cheats but on several occasions there are moments where everybody (from Stan to Dr.Ritter) almost believes this is a real thing and its heartbreaking for both them and us as a audience to witness the disillusion and disappointment in their eyes, once they realise it was all just a trick. 

Lily Furedi, "Subway" (1934)

Bruce Springsteen

Duolingo two years

 

A friend recommended this to me exactly two years ago and even though I was busy with a regular school language lessons (I took private lessons and was doing school as well) I thought this sounds easy enough - somehow I managed to do 2 years without skipping it - the programme gives you chance to skip weekend - and even though I hear people complaining that is not serious or difficult enough, I must say that 5 minutes per day is just enough for me. It does not feel like terrible obligation and I can manage it fairly easily. I am quite proud of myself.

Exhibition: "All those Amsterdam people ... 1935-1975"

 

I went to see the oldest document that mentions Amsterdam and found something else, no less interesting: City Archives on Vijzelgracht has long been one of my favourite places in town, because they always have excellent exhibitions, interesting subjects and imagine the entrance is actually free (where for other museums you need to pay ticket) - I have my annual museumkaart anyway, but its just great to know I can bring friends here and introduce them to the place. Currently there is exhibition titled "All those Amsterdam people... Photos 1935-1975"  that covers citizens of Amsterdam from 1930s to mid1970s and majority of the photos was carefully selected black & white work from artists like Charles Breijer, Piet Goede, Dolf Kruger, Sem Presser and Maria Austria. 

I thought it was excellent, specially the post WW2 period with its little caffees and people smoking everywhere, totally different city than today. Sure, the only constant thing is change and its natural that city eventually completely changed its profile - these pictures bring celebration and melancholy at the same time. 

Happy Birthday Cleo Laine

One of my all-time favourite singers, Cleo Laine (officially known as Dame Cleo Laine) is celebrating 95 years these days and I just thought about her this morning. I have discovered Laine during my "London years" when I was much younger and always loved her voice, her beauty, her music - she started in post WW2 UK and established herself as British Jazz royalty together with her husband John Dankworth - together they performed around the world and created a brilliant body of work that covered everything from Jazz to movie soundtracks, pop, easy listening, Shakespeare sonnets and Carole King. Along the way she eventually became discovered in US where she won "Grammy"  in 1986, appeared on a theatre stage, in movies and musicals, opened a concert hall in her backyard (famous Stables) and recorded a long discography that is worth searching for, as her artistic inspiration resulted in many different directions and collaborations. 

One of the albums long out of print but still worth searching for is 1982. "Smilin' Through" with Dudley Moore. This elegant, classy and sophisticated collaboration sound so natural and spontaneous that its actually wonder why it did not happen before - Dankworths and Moore were old friends from back in the 1960s swinging London but it took forever for them to get together and collaborate on an album. In the meantime Dankworths became international Jazz sensation and Moore a Hoollywood star - its easy to imagine them meeting again somewhere in Los Angeles and planning this long overdue album together. It is also a welcome return to Jazz music for Laine who has spent a good part of 1970s recording middle of the road pop crossover music and its good to hear her doing what she does best. Moore is an excellent pianist, Laine sounds excellent as always and this is superb album, nominated for 1983. Grammy. 

Sun smiling

 

"A Nasa satellite captured an image of what appeared to be a happy face pattern on the sun earlier this week, prompting the US space agency to say the sun was seen “smiling”.

The Birthday of Amsterdam

Amsterdam is 747 years old now.

And we know it because the oldest document that mentions the name of the city dates from 1275 and it was signed by legendary Count Floris V (killed in that same Muiderslot castle that I have visited). The document itself is a tiny piece of goat skin and it mentions "Aemstelredamme" as Floris gives its citizens right to travel freely without having to pay tolls at bridges, locks, and dams. This toll-free document is the beginning of Amsterdam as a city and its on display in City Archives that i am re-visiting tomorrow. 

Gabriel Gruchy

 Gabriel Gruchy (1831-1906), French painter. The Old Flower Dealer, 1880-90.

Exhibitions

I have neglected my blog but in fact I was very busy with a lot of exhibitions. 

First, I went again again to Hermitage, this time because I wanted to share the exhibition with my friend Ruth who used to be my work colleague and we are constantly visiting cinema & museums together - I have enjoyed that exhibition very much and wanted to show it to her. To my biggest surprise she knew and recognised many of the people on the portraits, which completely blew me away and I was delighted that she knows about Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, etc. It was our first time together in Hermitage so we roamed around the whole building and later I even showed her a Holocaust monument nearby. 

Than I went to Van Gogh Museum - its one of the most totemic places in Amsterdam and I usually avoid it as a plague, because its focus of tourist attention, which means crowded and busy - but now I just had to see a new exhibition tribute to Austrian artist Gustav Klimt whom I knew and loved for a long time. So off I went, booked a ticket online, reserved a time slot and used my museumkaart membership - it was excellent! I have already seen Klimt's painting in Vienna but this exhibition presented several different faces of his talent, first as a classically trained painter, than in a full bloom of his fantasy work (inspired by no less interesting Dutch artist Jan Toorop) and later some quite amazing big paintings of nature. Sadly, Klimt was only 55 when he died (from combination of stroke and Spanish flu) but his work is immortal and timeless. 

We have visited only Gustav Klimt part of museum, the rest deserves another visit - the main building is large enough to spend the whole afternoon there.

The most recent exhibition I visited was in famous Nieuwe Kerk - 15th century church standing next to the Royal Palace and now serves as museum - I just love how this fantastic, historical place can always be completely transformed depending to occasion. At the moment they have exhibition about late Queen Juliana and her life - it was very well visited and quite crowded with locals, but also very interesting for me as I love history and don't know much about local royal family. Apparently its a family where first child inherits the throne and it just happened that three generations of women served as queens (husbands providing the children and living in the shadow) - the genetics are incredibly strong in the family and all these ladies resemble each other a lot - each of these ladies eventually abdicated in favour of their child who than took over the duties. It was very interesting exhibition and I was very pleased to be there, will probably go again because I need to show it to friends. 

Angus McBean

 

Yesterday I have mention Welsh photographer Angus McBean whom I just discovered (or so I thought) on the exhibition about love, artists and muses. But when I decided to find out more about him, it turned out I was very familiar with his work - to a certain point almost everybody is - its just that I did not know his name. You see, when I was much younger and lived in London, there used to be a poster outside of The National Portrait Gallery with a extremely attractive photo of Vivien Leigh and I always wanted that poster - that was Angus McBean, who, now I know, was kind of her official photographer trough several decades. 

Not only Leigh but he created beautiful studio portraits of the whole post-WW2 British theatre scene and everybody who was anybody in Covent Garden, the Royal Opera House, the Old Vic or Stratford-upon-Avon was subject of his work - this might explain why he was celebrated but not so known internationally as for example Cecil Beaton who worked for Vanity Fair and Vogue - however, his work had always a dose of very careful theatrically and drama, in addition to touches of occasional endearing surrealism that probably seemed weird back than but to me just signifies great sense of humour. 

Researching more about his work, I discovered that I am indeed very familiar with his photo portraits - many of them were actually legendary, thought people might not always recognise his name. By far the most famous picture he ever took might be the one gracing the debut album of four musicians from Liverpool - yes, it was McBean who took the cover photo of "Please Please Me" (and later similar, used for compilation "1967-1970"). He has worked extensively for record companies, so I actually own albums by Shirley Bassey and Cliff Richard with his photo covers. I just love his work. 

p.s. this is excellent photo portrait of young Quentin Crisp in 1941. 

"Love Stories - Art, Passion and Tragedy"

Since the beginning of war in Ukraine, our local Hermitage in Amsterdam has had cut all the connections with the state of Russia, therefore  we also stopped with exhibitions with art from St. Petersburg. The building has two beautiful large wings and for a while it all seemed a bit underused - one wing had selected pieces from Amsterdam History Museum while the other would display one important painting and than milk it for all its worth, the rest of the rooms covered in a story about it - while I understand the principle behind cutting the ties with Russia, still it left the beautiful palatial building depressingly empty. And since Amsterdam History Museum is closed for renovation anyway, I complained why they just didn't move the whole darn thing here. 

Well, here comes a new exhibition called "Love Stories - Art, Passion and Tragedy" and would you know its actually genuinely best exhibition here since a long time - finally the large space actually makes sense and its perfectly used. The exhibition is about love between couples, but also love as inspiration for art and sometimes even between two artists. It follows love & desire from sixteenth century portraits to contemporary photography. It was great fun to recognise some of these portraits from London's National Portrait Gallery and I must say this was excellent - also very visited and crowded so it was good to see the museum finally enjoying the attention as it should have.

Amongst other things I was curious about part about the muses & inspiration: muses are inspiration but they are not necessary part of love couple, as in photographs by Welsh photographer Angus McBean who has taken some excellent pictures by black dancer Berto Pasuka. I was very much intrigued with pictures of both the dancer and the photographer, curiously they spoke to me and I very much loved their faces - I even went online to find more about the photographer who apparently was arrested for homosexuality and sentenced to four yours in prison (he served two). 

"Jaws" by Steven Spielberg (1975)

Another movie that I have just seen and enjoyed very much was the very first cinematic smash from a movie God Steven Spielberg - this is the movie that put him on a map and even though he has been directing before, starting from here his international career took off, followed by "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and countless list of other successful movies. I know that in some circles he is the epitome of big budget Hollywood (and therefore, industry insider) but personally I make no excuses for the fact that his movies are great entertainment and escapism, therefore I no amount of nitpicking would ever make me forgetting my love for "E.T" or Indiana Jones or even his latest "West Side Story". 

I have no idea why I have never seen "Jaws" before - it could have been that the original screening happened while I was still too small and later it never came on TV. Subsequently, I have seen many Spielberg movies, in fact many of them fresh in the cinema (I still remember initial shock with "Jurassic Park") but this one was always at the back of my mind and finally this last weekend I decided to give it a go. It was excellent! In fact, much better than I expected from a 1970s movie - apparently the huge success of "Jaws" has changed the industry, starting from this point movies that were potential hits were released simultaneously nationwide and backed by huge advertising. Where previously the success of the movies depended on good reviews and summer was the low season for the cinema, "Jaws" has turned this all upside down and summer now became the best time for promoting blockbusters. Starting from here, new era arrives.

Movie itself is very interesting because between the lines the real monster is not shark itself but the local townspeople who refuse to close the beaches in the middle of the tourist season, fearing for their pockets and loss of profit if the visitors stay away. Death after death happens, it is very clear that there is a dangerous shark around the beaches and still they do everything to block efforts of sheriff (Roy Scheider) and a scientist (Richard Dreyfuss) who eventually prevail and team up with a hard-boiled local shark hunter (Robert Shaw). The movie is extremely watchable, despite its age and I enjoyed it immensely - except for Robert Shaw who, in my personal opinion was hamming it up too much and over-acting the role of the tough seaman - in comparison with the other two, he was just annoying, selfish and stubborn character. It was delight to see Richard Dreyfuss so young and fresh faced. 

"See How They Run" by Tom George (2022)

I have just pulled trough the monster flu that dragged on and on, leaving me completely exhausted to the point that I would just work and sleep. Apparently I was not the only one but that didn't help, it still alarmed me and I even took Covid test just to make sure its not something else - going to the cinema to see this, was the first sign that perhaps I am recovering, after all.

"See How They Run" was a delightful British comedy, kind if similar to "Knives out" (2019) so it is hommage to Agatha Christie type of mystery. Where latest Kenneth Branagh excursions in that same genre left me strangely detached and unimpressed (bombastic cinematography and big budget but no substance), these two were delight. I guess we could call them ensemble films because the most important thing about them is the teamwork, all star cast and their interaction. This latest one happens around celebrated Christie's theatre play "The Mousetrap" and the celebration of its 100th performance (I have checked, it has been 27 000 + so far) - naturally, the murder happens at the backstage of the theatre and there is perpetually hangover inspector (Sam Rockwell) and his hilarious, eager assistant (Saoirse Ronan) to solve the crime + the whole list of weird characters from the theatre world, including Agatha Christie herself (who gets to play with the poisons).

It was delightful! I was in the mood to see something entertaining and have always loved British cinema - half of witty quotes went above my head because I was too busy enjoying the madcap energy of the plot and excellent cast who has so obviously enjoyed themselves. True, it might confuse people who are not familiar with Christie or have never heard of The Mousetrap" but that is their problem and I see no reason why should the rest of us have to accommodate their ignorance (see occasional bad review). I was enjoying the movie so much that I didn't even mind a black actor playing Christie's archaeologist Max Mallowan - usually I find this type of politically correct casting just irritating but here the whole story was so zany that it made a perfect sense. In fact, I wouldn't mind if they create a sequel. 

Vacation and quality time

This year my birthday fell just around my vacation and as usual I had no intentions of travelling anywhere - I have travelled enough for one lifetime and have absolutely no intentions of spending time in a crowded airports, stations or anything that involves crowds. My perfect idea of vacation & rest is being off work but still here in the middle of busy city, with enough interesting things to do if I want to. 

One of the first places I visited was Museum Van Loon, a beautiful canal house that belongs to this family and open to the public - apparently it was some important family with properties in various places and they would spend a social season here, while living elsewhere. Its a very beautiful and quite glamorous building, but I wasn't interested in their wealth - what interested me the most was the living arrangements, how the servants had their space in the basement, etc. There is a quite spectacular garden and a coach house at the back, very quiet and serene place with atmosphere of a farm far away, completely silent and unlike being in centre of the city.

Another canal house was Willet-Holthuysen Museum situated at the end of Herengracht canal (and a walking distance from me) - I used to admire the garden and this was the first time ever to actually step inside. Completely different in personality, this one belonged to a couple where the bride Louisa Holthuysen was the one with the wealth and her husband Abraham Willet was a bohemian art collector. The couple was childless and left the property to the city, with request that museum bear both of their names. Unfortunately it seems that original furniture was sold out long ago by the early curators so what we see today is mainly reconstructed but the art and books collection is original. Again, there was a beautiful garden and a very touching collection of paintings of couple's pets. 

By far the most interesting visit was something I wanted to do for the longest time: again, the walking distance from me is a private collection called The Six Collection. This is a old and influential family that goes back for some 12 generations and mainly they are all called Six (with lots of sons called Jan Six) - originally from France, they moved to Amsterdam in 17th century and were always socialising with the most prominent citizens from the history. Trough marriages, family amassed a huge private art collection that is now on display but reservations must be made online - it was fairly easy and not complicated at all, the tour was conducted by a young student whom I left a nice tip - amongst other things on display, there were very interesting portraits of wealthy young brides wearing black dresses (black being expensive colour), ubiquitous portraits of dead children, a portrait that takes the whole wall of a room specially build to accommodate it and the best of all, a genuine Rembrandt portrait of one of the many men called Jan Six - this particular one was a mayor of Amsterdam and the painting was a gift from the artist, therefore his own vision and probably close to what he genuinely enjoyed (as opposite to ordered pieces). A famous painting "The Milkmaid" by Johannes Vermeer was also once here, but she was sold to Rijksmuseum and is now one of the most celebrated pieces there. 

I have also for the first time visited Artis Zoo that for the longest time I avoided, thinking that I probably won't enjoy seeing caged animals. Well, during one of my recent long walks I spotted a nice park across the canal and a giraffe in there - who was apparently perfectly fine in the open air - so I changed my mind and wanted to see it. It turned out a beautiful park with a lot of things to see, including insects, butterflies, lizards, lions, sea lions, elephants, giraffes, wolves, jaguar, zebra, monkeys, crocodiles, vultures, owls, etc. All the animals seem quite comfortable there and the space is relatively large, in fact the park is so big that afterwards I had to rest and take a nap - and still we have not seen absolutely everything. Seems like a place to visit several times to explore carefully all the details. 

Another landmark of the city is The Rembrandt House Museum that now I had visited for the very first time (it looks as this time I really took time to see all that I ignored previously). Contrary to what i expected, it was crowded but not too busy and the organisation was excellent - visitors were guided in direction that allowed them to explore perfectly reconstructed 17th century house. Bizarrely, we know into a smallest detail what was exactly in the house because all his properties were carefully listed and written down when Rembrandt became bankrupt and house was sold - thanks to these documents we are now able to completely reconstruct the interiors . It was very interesting, however, the thing that impressed me the most was a special kind of glass that allowed visitors to peek in the back side of the building but only on one side - if you look to the left (in private houses nearby) you can't see anything. So you can clearly see trough the window on the right, but the glass protects the view on the left. I have never seen such a thing and could not wrap my head around it.