In a time when ‘modern’ classical music is usually experimental beyond being music, it has become common to suppose that film music has taken its place as its insufficient substitute. Classical radio stations comfortably play theme music side to side with Mozart and Beethoven, and many non-expert listeners probably maybe wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between some music composed especially for a modern or a twentieth century film, and melodies composed a century ago.

But does it ever happen that classical music fits perfectly in a film where it doesn’t belong? Does it signify the endurance of a piece of music? And when does the usage of a famous piece of music in a film, however beautiful and genius, become a cliché?

One of the key figures who muddled-up musical genres (and got scorned by the Italians for it), was Luciano Pavarotti, who perhaps not entirely sensibly had Donna Non Vidi Mai from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, as well as all the other famous tenor arias, on the same album as the main love theme from Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (Ai giochi addio). The curious fact is not the song’s quality, which is bittersweet and entirely memorable, but the fact that possibly even fifty per cent of opera connoisseurs wouldn’t be able to tell that it didn’t come from an opera. This is one of the rare instances where music used for a film comes into common knowledge independently, and survives. Another (almost clichéd) piece is the theme from Schindler’s List. When violinists such Izthak Perlman and Anne-Sophie Mutter go out to play it on stage, there is always someone in the audience who disapproves. He or she will never be able to detach that piece of music from the image of a concentration camp or Auschwitz. In the context of the film, it makes perfect sense. The theme from Schindler’s List is, as a piece of music, nothing special; it’s a beautiful melody on strings which modulates into a higher key. John Williams got lucky. But for all its very Jewish qualities, it’s possible to play it as a piece without an evocation of the film. Being a simple melody it has no extreme need of the sight of the film to be effective.

On the other hand, layering a film with already-known music is a technique. It’s an unsafe assumption to think that a famous piece of music will make a viewer cry whatever the action in the scene. When Patrice Chéreau’s La Reine Margot used Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique in its theatrical trailer, it was almost laughable to try to associate Tchaikovsky innermost problems in a work that premiered a few days before his death with the massacres on Saint Bartholomew’s Day. Tchaikovsky, a man so involved in the troubles of his soul and forgetting everyone else’s, would never have imagined that the Pathétique could be attached to any political event – even murderous.

Would it be right then, to say the same for Mahler and Rachmaninov? The Adagietto of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 was written out of love for Alma Schindler. Visconti used it as the finale in his Death in Venice, as Dirk Bogarde said, ‘matching every part of the music to the scene’. Bogarde later recalled that he hadn’t realised that when Visconti was instructing him in his direction, he had the music entirely in mind. When it came to presenting the film to Hollywood executives (who were and have usually been as far from European cinema as possible), the main man viewing it had one reaction: ‘What fantastic music! Who wrote it?’ Visconti replied that it was Mahler. The executive swiftly responded: ‘We should sign him!’ Does there come a time when the listener feels music better than its author? The Adagietto was a work of love, but for many people now is primarily associated with nostalgia and death – not happiness. It could have been that Visconti read into Mahler’s music better than even the composer knew. 

Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is scattered everywhere from film to film. It initially struck fame in Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, where ironically it almost represented more than what was happening on screen. Brief Encounter’s intention was being a simple story. Coward had written a play (dramatised by David Lean), about two simple middle-class people, one of them married, who fell in love. There was no death, terminal illness or suicide. In fact, the very manners of Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard were so reserved and tentative that on the surface, one wouldn’t be sure that they would even handle Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto. Based on superficial judgment, you’d probably think that a Beethoven violin sonata (in a major key), was more their ‘cup of tea’. So the concerto was used to provide the intentional contrast, with the music explaining much more than the characters do maybe at any point in the film. It stays effective because it keeps its own part in the film, expressing and realising the script, and at the same time doesn’t impede or intrude on the words or the action. The background music and a bland close-up of Celia Johnson’s face in the final scene just says it all; what the stiff upper-lip English could probably never express, unless they were the protégés of Byron or Keats.

Where does opera enter cinema? In the rarest of cases, the device is successful, and one in particular enters the mind: The Godfather, Part III. Most critics very unjustly wrote and spoke harshly of this film, which blended Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana ingeniously with a scene in which some four or five people are murdered (including the image of a dying priest dropping down past about eight flights of stairs). What the majority of filmgoers don’t know is that Cavalleria, as it is tenderly known, exemplifies the darkest corners of Italian society. It’s verismo – the 20th century early operatic genre which meant to show ‘real life’, not queens or courtesans. Those are real life too, but this particular ‘realism’ was based on grittiness, tough labour, and unjust suffering (like soap-operas). At the end of the opera the heroine Santuzza gets her former lover killed, destroying the life of his mother and his lover, as well as that of his lover’s husband – Turridu’s murderer. Once the opera finishes in the film (sung on stage by Michael Corleone’s son), Corleone’s daughter is killed and dies in his arms. Using the opera was a tight and perfect fit for a background against killing and revenge, because the opera’s climax comes from killing and revenge.

But opera can be used foolishly too. The acoustics make a difference. Gently played, a voice can sound harmonious, heavenly and atmospheric. In the Hollywood little-known film, Lorenzo’s Oil, based on a real-life couple’s search for a cure for their dying son, opera is used ubiquitously, together with parts of Barber’s Violin Concerto and Verdi’s Requiem. But sometimes as a background it acts to produce a certain feeling that accompanies a scene, rather than being predominant. A scene in another Hollywood movie, Philadelphia, in which Tom Hanks introduces opera to a man on death row, has been praised for its sentimentality. Rather, what happens in the scene is that the viewer can react to Maria Callas singing La Mamma Morta, but with her singing so loudly in the background, Tom Hanks is made to look ridiculous. Opera must be powerful in a film when the viewer doesn’t know it. But when they understand the context, the story and the voice, then surely what’s in front of it – the actors, the script, the colours of the film, usually serve to only block the music.

It’s true that film music has its own genre, and must not be confused with classical music or opera. They exist for themselves, and cinema exists for cinema. But what can, and must, be learnt by directors and music technicians is that while the role of music is a fraction of a film and not its whole, combining music to the screen (and stage) is an art. Strike, and great music can transfer its immortality to one scene or another. Miss, and you’ve just made a joke out of a great piece of music.

‘LONDON BEWARE, THE NORTH IS COMING’ screams the Facebook page of Manchester’s Doctrines in anticipation of their first ever show in the capital next Saturday. If their music is anything to go by, London should be quaking in its boots; the band have been busy making a name for themselves in their hometown as a force to be reckoned with.

It started just under a year ago when four students at Salford University decided to join forces in order to create an amalgamation of punk, hardcore and indie which would get people’s feet moving just as much as it would inspire them to punch their best friend in the face. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the band had released their first E.P., O This Body of Mine, I Renounce You, Your Style is a Crime, and it was good, it was very good. Imagine the vision and grandiosity of Titus Andronicus, the danceable basslines of Fugazi and the emotional lyrical intensity of Defeater thrown into a blender and seasoned with a heavy dose of visceral punk rock.

In fact, no word describes Doctrines better than ‘visceral’, certainly if their live performances are anything to go by. Every show sees a crowd of disciples often at least three or four people deep jammed against the stage, providing a perfect gang-vocal to accompany the guttural yet melodic howl of frontman Jamie Birkett. The rest of the room will be looking on in contented silence, unable to ascertain whether they are more impressed by the innovative riffs of guitarist Luke Rees or the face-melting force of the percussion unit.

Of course, any band – albeit with a bit of effort – can create an energetic live show, but Doctrines have the songs to back it up, and these two strands come together to prove that the band are one of the most exciting things to happen to Manchester’s music scene in the last year. London better watch out, because it’s about to get indoctrinated (excuse the pun) by some truly heartfelt Northern punk rock; that’s enough to leave any town bruised.

To choose to make one’s directorial debut with a piece of new writing about a Norwegian theatre academic is a bold – perhaps even foolhardy – move. I can say, then, with a little relief and a lot of pleasure, that Ed Bell appears to have pulled it off with some success.

The Burton Taylor can, at the best of times, err on being a rather stark venue: the set and costumes, being largely monochrome, deal with this well, and visually work together with the space to create an appropriately moody, Scandinavian feel. Lighting and sound decisions are judiciously made, and work well to lift the more ponderous aspects of the show.

I cannot say (from her rather Teutonic name) whether flame-haired leading lady Carolin Kreuzer’s accent is a conscious directorial decision or a fortunate casting opportunity: regardless, it helps to establish a thoroughly European soundtrack which adds much to the piece. She is to be commended for a truly captivating performance, well juxtaposed by consistently strong Dan Draper, who uses his physicality to striking effect. Actually, the acting in this first night was consistently excellent, let down only on very few occasions by slight quirks of the script. Writer Matt Perkins has been rather audacious in his choice of genre, and, though he does generally deliver, might have benefited from a more ruthless editor.

The script is itself very strange, and at times genuinely mystifying. Bell has worked well with its more allusive qualities, largely to fairly standard tropes of classic Noir pieces, to create a production that is fresh, interesting and, above all, a real pleasure to watch.

I urge you to take an hour out of your week to see this rather impressive piece: the cast and crew are to be commended on a solid, well-polished and tremendously interesting production.

Three and a half stars

The Flowers of War is a harrowing historical epic directed by Zhang Yimou, the man behind Hero, Houses of the Flying Daggers and the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

The Flowers of War is fictitiously set in 1937 Nanjing, China, in the midst of the Sino-Japanese war in which Christian Bale plays John Miller, an American mortician who is summoned to Nanjing to bury a deceased priest, only to take on the role of defending young schoolgirls along with an ensemble of prostitutes and escape from the invading Japanese army. On the surface, this may be a story of redemption since Miller arrives on the scene as a lazy drunkard and opportunist. Yet, when faced with the catastrophe of the Japanese invasion, he becomes a man of integrity and source of hope for the innocent schoolgirls and ‘fallen women,’ eventually ‘saving’ both them and himself. The story is narrated by one of the schoolgirls. Indeed, they symbolize the innocence of humanity, and also of China, and therefore must be preserved.

Rather than on focusing on the politics, the film is ‘more a movie about human beings and the nature of human beings,’ Bale highlighted to the BBC. The Nanjing massacre of 1937 was a terrible conflict that resulted in nearly 300000 Chinese civilians being slaughtered by the Japanese army after capturing Nanjing, China’s formal capital.

The story is one of many emotions, of courage, of life and death amidst savage atrocities. Nevertheless, one disappointing note is that the film takes a rather simplistic and narrow approach and fails to view from alternative angles. Unlike Yimou’s approach, Lu Chuan’s more nuanced and sombre City of Life and Death (2009), however does attempt to examine the impossible choices faced by the Japanese army during this infamous massacre period.

Overall, Flowers of War is visually impressive like most of Yimou’s films, from the striking photography to the frenetic battle scenes shot and staged with notable verisimilitude; the cinematography is indeed breath-taking at times. On numerous occasions, Yimou’ use of colour is immensely powerful: the women’s exotic qipaos and the bright stained glass window, moments in which colour shines through the jaded blur of war, ephemeral glimmers of hope which contrasts markedly to the shocking streaks of red on tips of bayonets. Yimou has achieved a credible and poignant job of retelling an incredibly difficult historical period through his trademark use of artistic cinematography.

4 stars

Two words: Diamond heist. Yes you read right, that is what this film is about. In the trailer it’s sold to you as a pacy action epic with a clever weave of plotlines and the kind of acting you can rely on to keep you on the edge of your seat. Unfortunately, the actual film didn’t quite match up.

The movie is about Nick Cassidy, an ex-cop desperate to clear his name after his conviction for stealing a diamond owned by Mr. Englander, an incredibly sinister property developer. And what does Nick Cassidy do to clear his name? Don’t laugh now: our ex-cop enlists the help of his brother and his girlfriend to steal, yes steal, the diamond to prove that Englander had it all along! Meanwhile Cassidy distracts everyone by pretending to be contemplating suicide on a window ledge. Pure genius. Although they put a lot of effort into it: there’s absailing, an explosion (which no one seems to notice) and a rather amusing scene involving a skateboard, this has more the effect of an extended episode of BBC 1’s Hustle than a real action thriller.

The problem is it’s just a little bit to formulaic. We start off with the mystery of the tough quiet escapee, there’s a car chase with a ridiculous stunt which no normal human being would ever survive, the police have no clue what it is going on and in order for the inevitable romance element, the negotiator has to join the ‘suicidal man’ on the ledge!

Despite all this, there were good bits. Regardless of its predictability there were some tense moments in there with Joey Cassidy struggling to execute his brother’s plan, the scene with ‘the jump’ and the shots of the sheer height of that hotel. A balance was provided by the amusing pairing of Jamie Bell (as Joey Cassidy – think Billy Elliot, Tintin, Jumper) and American actress Genesis Rodriguez (as Angie). Fortunately the comedic aspect did not detract from the urgency of the storyline. Also the best move by the makers was to cast Sam Worthington (Avatar, Clash of the Titans, Terminator Salvation) as he embodied the sense of his character’s desperation and soon the audience were all about ‘Team Cassidy’.

Overall a very predictable action movie carried off by a well-chosen setting and a varied cast. Although Worthington played his role well, he should be setting his sights higher. Worth an Orange Wednesday but definitely not unmissable.

3 stars

Seeing as this is Oxford, and we are all over-privileged geniuses, you’d think interesting things would happen more often. Well, on Friday 22^nd January 2012, ground was broken, a trail was blazed and sacred cows were exploded, by Matthew Cliffe of Merton College.

Through an incomprehensible feat of technology, Mr. Cliffe showed all twenty-two James Bond films. At once.

As foreplay, Mr. Cliffe (lavishly bow-tied) treated us to an introductory lecture, featuring a pie chart of ‘Bond villains by nationality’ (‘Bond villains who are foreign’ versus ‘Bond villains who are not foreign’) and his top five Sir Roger Moore facts. (Did you know that Sir Roger received an Oscar for Best Actor in 1973, after Marlon Brando refused his and Sir Roger took it home by mistake? Or that Sir Roger used to collect towels from hotels until a newspaper branded him a ‘towel thief’?) That’s not to mention the free martinis kindly laid on, and shaken, by Merton MCR.

Our first warning was the rattle of our seats as the T. S. Eliot Theatre trembled in front of the combined roars of twenty-two MGM lions. Then it began. A shifting wall of innuendo, sharks, explosions, chest hair, Bernard Lee’s disapproving face, glinting metal teeth, phallic symbolism, and Bond constantly coming round from one kind of unconsciousness or another. A Rubik’s Cube of wrestling gypsy girls, gambling, things built into watches, cats, more sharks, lasers, rockets and rubber pythons.

The sound rotated between the films every thirty seconds and frankly saved my sanity. The sight of twenty-two James Bond films at once is something not meant for this plane of existence, but mind and body could be kept together by focusing on the audio and the moments when it would switch from innuendo (‘I love an early morning ride.’ ‘I’m an early riser myself.’) to a fist fight, an explosion, a shootout, more innuendo, a curious accent (‘I am an outstanding pistol marksman, take my word for it, ja?’) or an inexplicable period of bird song.

The first walk-out was quarter of an hour in. About a hundred and twenty-five minutes later, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Casino Royale were still hanging on. As, indeed, was what was left of the audience. Finally, as we emerged red-eyed into the cold Oxford air, we swapped wordless glances and walked into the night, each knowing that our life would never be the same again.

Still, at least it was better than Quantum of Solace.

The Lincoln Players’ take on the classic musical modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet plays homage to the perfect blend of Bernstein’s music and Sondheim’s lyrics. The cosy Michael Pilch Studio seemed an unusual and challenging setting for a large cast production, a far cry from the West Side Story we imagine from the film. Only two boards stood on the black stage as the audience entered, adorned with the scrawl of the two gangs, a marking out of territory, and setting the atmosphere for a sparse production that used the intimacy of the venue and minimal props to allow the cast the space to move and dance with ease, and showing a high quality of direction from Laura Knight. The other challenge was squeezing a band into the studio as well as an audience, but the musical director, Joe Mason, did an excellent job of reworking the score to suit a small five piece band.

The leader of the Jets, Riff (Cameron Cook) gave an engaging performance, and was well supported by his lively gang of Jets. A particular highlight was the rendition of ‘Gee, Officer Krupke!’ which was performed with all the energy it deserves. From the opening prologue the antipathy between the Sharks and the Jets was clear, with some nicely directed hostile interplay. The dancing choreography was generally effective, especially as the show progressed, with the lively Mambo at the gym leading into the surreal but touching meeting between Tony and Maria. Henry De Berker made a charming Tony, giving an excellent vocal performance and hitting a highly impressive note in ‘Maria’, while Ellie Parkes gave an enchanting performance that climaxed with an intense, heartbreaking final speech, which undoubtedly caused some welling up from the audience at the least. Mitch Byrne’s Bernardo was suitably tense, with an impressive accent, the chemistry between him and the excellent Anita (Daisy Fannin) another highlight of the show. The rest of the cast were all impressive, including the few but menacing Sharks, Doc (Patrick Reid), Shrank (Howard McDonald), and the Shark Girls whose ‘America’ and ‘I Feel Pretty’ were suitably lively and fun. 

For a show that clearly had a limited budget, a very limited space, and had been put together in just five weeks, West Side Story didn’t attempt to do anything spectacular or be anything bigger than it could, but in doing so it became an enjoyable and intense production which I wish I could see again.

Impresario, dilettante and businessman; while Sergei Diaghilev (1872 – 1929) rather defies a single label, he remains best known as the founder of the hugely influential dance company, The Ballets Russes. Embracing all things modern and avant-garde, Diaghilev aspired to create new ballets instead of repeating classical favourites through the synthesis of dance, music and art. As a melting pot of artists, musicians and dancers who lived, performed and travelled together (touring Europe, the United States and South America) the company cultivated an international reputation that attracted stellar collaborations with the likes of Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky, Coco Chanel, Pablo Picasso, Natalia Goncharova, Vaslav Nijinsky and Henri Matisse.

It is perhaps no wonder that the V&A launched the centenary celebrations of the company’s first London tour with a sumptuous, interdisciplinary exhibition, ‘Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929’, that ran from September 2010 to January 2011. Diaghilev-fever seeped into the glossy pages of October Vogue with the ‘Russian Dolls’ feature, demonstrating the company’s enduring influence on women’s fashion by introducing an exotic individualism with harem pants, turbans and dramatic black kohl, encouraging a more androgynous sensuality in fashion.

In its contribution to the celebrations in April, The London Coliseum offered the Maris Leipa Charitable Foundation’s ‘Les Saisons Russes XXI’ performed by the Kremlin Ballet Theatre and St Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra under Alexander Titov. Seven reconstructed and newly produced ballets were presented over three nights, opening with ‘The Blue God’, a short, one-act ballet set in an ancient Indian shrine. The original 1912 production was a combination of Mikhail Fokine’s choreography with music by Reynaldo Hahn, a libretto by Jean Cocteau and designs by Léon Bakst; yet the details of its initial performances in Paris have been lost, with only photographs, designs and the musical score remaining. Since the ballet was never hugely popular in its time, Andris Liepa seized this opportunity not to revive, but to recreate the ballet for ‘Les Saisons Russes XXI’, setting the libretto to an alternative score and employing artistic director of the English National Ballet, Wayne Eagling, to choreograph the piece. The choice of ‘The Divine Poem’ and ‘The Ecstatic Poem’ by Russian composer, Alexander Scriabin was apt since the works were intended for performance in India with the idea of movement and lighting appealing to Scriabin’s aesthetic; whether it lent itself to the libretto and Eagling’s more modern style of movement was another matter since the contemporary choreography appeared more athletic than balletic. The exquisite and sensual pas de deux between the Blue God (Nikolai Tsiskaridze) and Goddess of Lotus (Ilze Liepa) almost redeemed the repetitive movements which characterised much of the performance.

The recreation of Bakst’s costume and set designs is best summarised in the words of my theatre companion: ‘nuts’. Whilst the costumes were identifiably Bakstian with their gaudy colours and strangely convincing Indian-meets-Russian-folk aspect, the giant snake projecting laser beams seemed, if not inauthentic, a little kitsch. ‘The Blue God’ was followed by a rendition of more eminent ‘Firebird’ which in contrast, was composed and choreographed simultaneously as Stravinsky and Fokine collaborated closely from its inception, resulting in an uniquely embodied performance. Whilst this integration of music and movement made for a much more satisfying second half, there was still something compelling about the unapologetic bizarreness and audacity of the former.

The events of the last eight months have brought this enigmatic dance company back to the fore, demonstrating its relevance through its legacy. Though celebrations are coming to a close, The National Portrait Gallery is showing the evocative ‘Ballet In Focus’ exhibition, featuring the photography of Bassano Ltd., Hoppé and Bert that captures the leading ballet stars of the twentieth century. It is worth even a short visit as you’ll still leave mildly infected by Diaghilev-fever.

This is an intriguing production in many ways. Heavily cut down and reconceptualised, Corpus Christi Owlet’s production of Othello sidesteps the question of race and instead concentrates on ‘the enemy within’; hence why it has been translated to a Cold War (German?) state and takes the appearance of a murder inquiry into the death of Desdemona. It’s a nice idea, although without the set it’s hard to get a feel of the aesthetic that I hope such an interpretation will conjure up. Particularly notable however is that Iago dictatates his speeches to a female typewriter sitting at a desk on the side of the stage whom he often interacts with. I am not sure whether it quite works or not, I didn’t get to see enough of the play to find out how it all ties together, and whether it is just a one trick pony used in the scene I saw, and then forgotten about for the rest of the play. It’s either genius or completely unnecessary. Time will tell.

Nevertheless, the cast is good, especially Sophie Ablett who plays Desdemona and Amelia Sparling as Emilia, who demonstrate a strong command of the script and of on stage chemistry, giving thoroughly enjoyable, moving and charming performances. Alexander Stutt as Iago also gives a menacingly wily twist to the famous role, which successfully becomes increasingly aggressive and haunting as the play reaches its climax. The same however can not be said for Othello himself, played by Moritz Borrmann. He can at times be electrifying, especially in scenes with Desdemona. In others, particularly those moments where he descends into madness, his characterisation becomes all too shouty, giving his audience little more than a shallow and unimaginative performance. The direction probably doesn’t help; there is a lot of walking around in circles, people squeezing past each other and crowds standing in lines. Borrman however, needs to show more purpose on stage and make us believe that Othello really is a commanding military figure. To really succeed he needs to entice his audience through a more carefully nuanced portrayal. Hopefully this will come with an extra weeks practice. 

3 stars