If anyone’s entitled to have old ideas, it’s Leonard Cohen. His first book of poetry was published in 1956; his first album eleven years later. At seventy-seven, the Methuselah of Montreal could be forgiven for hanging up his trademark fedora; but his humour and humility remain intact.

Attendees at the listening party for this, his twelfth album, are greeted with typical self-deprecation: ‘I won’t be facing you during the playback, so you don’t need to guard your expressions’, and its lead-off single is a hymn of self-abasement. ‘Show me the place where you want your slave to go,’ Cohen begins over gentle piano, speaking more than singing these days. Redolent with the biblical imagery of stones and suffering, it has the complete exhaustion of a weary supplicant at the end of a long pilgrimage, laying an offering at an altar.

Many of the songs here are concerned with the imagery of conclusion, from the slow shuffle of ‘Going Home’ to the bluesy ‘Darkness’, its insistent three-note riff advancing like the footsteps of a monster in a horror movie. Cohen has always sounded like he’s writing his own epitaph; these days, he could use his voice as the chisel. What’s most striking here is its intimate centrality: it’s lacquered mahogany, and the production lets you see every grain. At the launch, his interviewer Jarvis Cocker comments on the feeling that the singer could be in the room with every single person listening. ‘I intend to,’ Cohen responds.

It’s this wit that rescues the work from morbidity; that allows it to be what it’s always been: ‘a manual for living with defeat’. Bathetic turns of phrase undermine grand conceits: ‘I dreamed about you baby/You were wearing half your dress/ I know you hate me/Could you hate me less?’ The sacred and the profane rub shoulders, and rather more besides.

Old Ideas is exactly the album you’d expect it to be; it’s not a title that promises novelty. ‘How old exactly are the ideas?’, one journalist asks its author. ‘About 2614 years,’ he deadpans back. Like most of Cohen’s work, it’s funny because it’s true.

4 STARS

In the past, Tim Hecker’s pieces have been described as ‘cathedral electronic music’. Ravedeath, his sixth solo album, is a direct response to this. Its foundations are a series of organ recordings from Fríkirkjan í Reykjavík, with the ‘overt spirituality and traditional theological elements’ of the sound removed. Hecker used to be ‘very wary of working with acoustic sounds. I thought it was a ham-fisted way of dealing with the real aesthetic issues: the limitations and insufficiencies of digital based music.’

In previous works, all acoustic instrumentation was pummelled beyond recognition, the source smothered. ‘I’m becoming more and more comfortable with letting traditional instruments not be cloaked in reverb. I’ve slowly brought in organic instrumentation over time but tried to do it in a way that keeps the potential for abstraction and sound transformation, and that liminality between being discernible, and not.’

Ravedeath, clocking in at 52 minutes, ‘buttresses up against contemporary penchants for short, digestible pop material; the alleged shorter attention spans of modern youths.’ The album functions as a continuous piece, but is subdivided ‘into shorter movements that keep the work’s integrity, but index it.’ Even so, ‘I always find the tracks a little underwhelming when taken out of the context of the work. I always want a piece of music to stand on its own, whether it’s a short piece or not. It needs to have an immediately suggestive quality to it that holds up outside of the context of the record.’

‘I’m not the kind of person who lines up my ten best tracks and presses burn on the CD player, album finished.’ This is the point at which Hecker starts to create an album, ‘which is a process of revisiting, layering and working the record like a composition.’

Hecker’s upcoming organ concert in London on 6th February ‘sold out in five days, still two months before the date. We try to make it work better for us since it’s so expensive setting everything up, buying the PA and miking up the organ, so for the first time in my life I decided to do two gigs in one night.’ For all the preparation, ‘you can’t really expect anything from the concert because there are so many unknowns. It relies on a sensitive feedback system between the organ (which runs through a computer and goes out of the PA system). You have both the organ filling the space in the traditional way, and the processed sounds being played through the PA system. The live space is associated with a lot of errors and things aren’t ideal, but there are also fleeting moments that are gone. I enjoy that aspect of it.’

The venue, St. Giles-in-the-Fields church, strikes me as an interesting one, as are most of the places Hecker is invited to play at – theatres and gallery spaces, for example. You rarely find him on the bill of the local O2 Academy. To him, ‘space is always an important consideration. Inappropriate places can ruin a concert.’

‘I would prefer the concert not to be in a religious space. It’s not saying that I’m going to deliver a spiritual experience just because the concert is in a church. I prefer secular spaces for that because they are stripped of any spiritual expectation.’ The spiritual connection is an obvious one for me. The density of the sound and the seemingly infinite layers envelope you. Although the message isn’t a spiritual one, there are ‘people who say they had a moment; a really great moment of loss of self, which is as much as you can ask for. I’m happy however people take it and try not to be too prescriptive about the correct way to digest my music.’

It’s tempting to think we might have seen and done with film-noir. One term bandied about is Chiaroscuro, a word to describe those blacker than blacks and whiter than whites. Or ‘femme fatale’, the deadly women with Jennifer Rabbit sized swinging hips. We shouldn’t fool ourselves in thinking we know the hard-boiled detective just because we know his name. It’s like only half-remembering a picture-book. 

‘Neo-Noir’ (Reservoir Dogs, Memento, Blue Velvet) certainly owes a great deal to the violent crime films of the 40s. The pseudo-philosophy babble of the Joker in The Dark Knightresembles closely the amorality offered by Orson Welles in The Third Man (1949). Atop a ferris wheel, Welles gives us an anarchic vision, offering his friend a hypothetical 20,000 dollars for every person he would kill: ‘Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever … Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare’. Yet our familiarity with noir’s obvious descendants can make us seek out the stereotypes and prevent our discovering more surprising films.
 
Parodies can grant us something of a side-ways perspective. Beat the Devil (1953) is director John Huston’s camp reworking of some of his earlier films like The Maltese Falcon(1941). The actors can’t take their roles seriously, as if film noir had already hardened into a cliché. Wide-eyed Jennifer Jones, sick of her dull husband, implausibly suggests to Bogart that ‘you could have him done away with’ or later, utters the unintentionally laughable: ‘I think you’re doctors, evil ones I mean’. Leaning in for the kiss, Bogart and Jones suppress a giggle just as the camera fades. It’s only a short step from here to Leslie Nielsen accident prone detective Frank Drebin of The Naked Gun, who spoofs the smart-talk of noir films. Without a badge, Drebin worries: ‘Just think; next time I shoot someone, I could be arrested.’ 
 
The only way to really discover noir is to go back and watch a medley of the films. The Maltese Falcon is one of the most entertaining. Sam Spade churns out one-liners faster than a bag of fortune-cookies: ‘I don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble’, ‘When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it’. Noir can be funnier than we expect. It can also be more brutal than Tarantino’s colorful homages, riddled with wanderers, addicts and implausibly violent veterans. Detour (1945), ends with Tom Neal tugging on a telephone cable winding under a locked door, inadvertently strangling a drunken Ann Savage to death.
 
Instead of referring to the manual, you’d be wise to follow Philip Marlowe of The Big Sleep (1946) and throw away the book which gives us ‘diagrams on page 47 of how to be a detective in 10 easy lessons’. Instead, pursue the Marlowe of Murder my Sweet into a drug induced nightmare, into the dark heart of the hard-boiled genre: ‘I dived in. It had no bottom.’ 

Doug Glatt is a goon, in more ways than one. The font of all knowledge that is Wikipedia tells us that a goon is ‘a personal bodyguard or a ruffian who is kept on staff to intimidate or batter people’. Doug does all of these things, and more. Somewhat ostracised by his brainy family, he is eventually signed to a Canadian ice-hockey team as in ‘enforcer’, which means he is to beat up anyone who gets in his team’s way. Because, you know, ice-hockey is the only professional sport where, not only does fighting occur an awful lot, but it seems to be actively encouraged.

This may seem like a new and unique plot, but actually, it’s been done before. And it will be done again. Slap Shot (1977) followed pretty much exactly this premise, and did remarkably well at box office, as well as being praised as the greatest hockey film of time, beating out stiff competition such as The Mighty Ducks, and, er, …(?) Whilst Goon was actually based on a true story, it plays out very similar to a song by Warren Zevon called ‘Hit Somebody’, and so the success of this movie must have been particularly tedious for filmmaker Kevin Smith, who is also in the process of making a hockey film based on that same song. Ouch.

The eponymous Goon is played by Seann William Scott, who surprises everyone but not simply reprising Stifler, but by playing a character who is somehow much, much dumber. However, he is good-natured at heart and his ridiculous bumbling lines and physical actions are really what make this film what it is: a laugh out loud comedy. It appears that director Michael Dowse really doesn’t give a puck when it comes to gratituous violence. The blood and gore in this movie makes the Canadian seal hunt look tame in comparison.

Starring alongside Scott are Liev Schreiber as Ross Rhea, the infamous enforcer of a rival team who Glatt will inevitably face at some point, and Alison Pill as Eva, a promiscuous local girl with whom Glatt falls in love. All in all, this film isn’t smart, nor does it try to be. It comes out, fists a-blazing, and doesn’t let up till the final buzzer, and it’s not just the laughter that’ll have you in stitches.

2 STARS

The thing that always captivated me about Margaret Thatcher was her voice. Rich and resonant, booming and sonorous, it gave her the ability to use such Churchillian rhetoric  as “I am in politics because of the battle between good and evil” and sound determined and compelling where most politicians would simply sound ridiculous. The Iron Lady succeeds at having Meryll Streep turn in a thrilling performance which embodies the mannerisms that made Britain’s first female Prime Minister so arresting a figure; this is fortunate because the film succeeds at little else. There are effectively two films here, the first following the elderly Thatchers struggle with dementia and the loss of her husband Dennis, and the other being a chronicle of Thatchers political career. The intention seemingly is to show the prizefighter at both the zenith of her powers and the pity of obscurity, a la De Niro in Raging Bull.

But the films screenplay is formless and mediocre, and never develops any of its themes nearly enough to deliver emotional resonance. Mrs Thatchers attachment to Dennis is somewhat touching, but for a love story to have any impact, the audience must be privy to the struggles of the couple throughout there relationship. There is a perfunctory scene before Margaret runs for leader of the Conservative Party where her husband accuses her of putting her family before politics, but this theme, which is still a cliché in the best political films, gets barely two minutes treatment and comes off as hackneyed and saccharine. Regardless of whether you agree with her politics, Margaret Thatcher was a woman who refused to compromise on points of principle and revelled in battle, whether against the Trade Unions, the European Commission, the Labour Party, the Argentinian Junta or those in her cabinet she derided as “wets.” But none of her adversaries are given more than a minutes screen time, and this makes it impossible for her battles to seem at all compelling. The film constantly stresses how she will never compromise or back down, but we never see Thatchers resolve truly tested, nor the consequences of her actions examined in any depth.

The film seems to have been made purely as Oscar bait for Streep, as the camera virtually never leaves her. Britain in this time of turbulence is shown through a few short, hectic montages of protest and conflict and the contrast between these styles is so jarring that they never gell; at no point do you ever get the feeling that Thatcher is the historical figure she was. Hollywood blockbusters rarely go into political depth, but at a time when the worldwide Neo-Liberal consensus of which she was so instrumental in implementing is starting to break down while her predictions about German hegemony in Europe or the infeasibility of the European single currency that were dismissed in 1990 as “paranoia” are being vindicated, a film that critically examined Thatchers legacy would have been timely and relevant. As it stands, The Iron Lady is quite forgettable.

TWO STARS

Borgen, produced by the broadcasting company behind The Killing, is a Danish political thriller in ten parts. The drama centers on Birgitte Nyborg, leader of the Moderate Party, as an unexpected turn of events places her in a position to become Denmark’s first female Prime Minister. The drama traces both what takes place in parliament and how this is reported by the media, focusing in particular on the television reporter Katrine Fønsmark.

Although the basis of the plot – Birgitte’s struggle to retain her honesty and ethics whilst being a strong leader of her party – gives it the potential to fall into cliché, her personal drama is presented in a way that is original and convincing. Her closing statement at the end of a televised debate bears worrying resemblances to Nick Clegg’s performance before the 2010 election, but is saved by Sidse Babett Knudsen’s charisma in her role and the deftly scripted combination of almost unbelievable but heartwarming promises with some comparatively concrete criticisms of current politics.

Furthermore, although Birgitte Nyborg (unlike the heroines of similar dramas, such as Sarah Lund in The Killing and Bel Rowley in The Hour) has a functioning family life, the director’s portrayal of her happy home life is neither abbreviated (it does not appear to be there purely to prove that she has one) nor romanticised: just as much care is put into these scenes as into those set in Parliament, resulting in the creation of a character who, despite being such an impressive woman, does not alienate her audience. Knudsen is the leading light of the drama, seamlessly combining a politician who is brave enough to change her policy on live television with a forty-something woman whose skirts are getting too tight.

Some would criticise the drama for its omission of actual politics and its focus instead on political practice — presumably to avoid bias – and would argue that to give one without the other is automatically to give a partial view of the political world (we are essentially persuaded that Birgitte must be the right choice for Prime Minister not because of her values themselves, but simply because she sticks to those values). I have no real objection on this count as Birgitte and her unstated policies are fictional, and hypocrisy seems to me just as pertinent a focus as political values.

4.5 STARS

Mephisto tells the astonishing true story of the progress of the most sexually and politically radical cabaret troupe of 1930s Germany, The Peppermill. The club was set up in 1929 by siblings Erika and Klaus Mann (children of the internationally famous playwright Thomas Mann). Erika established the club with the aim, which now seems charmingly naïve, of promoting communism through theatre. Klaus was a homosexual writer, slightly lost after a short-lived engagement to a childhood friend, and happy enough to write the sketches for his sister’s quirky theatre troupe. 

At the start of the 30s the club flourished with a string of risqué productions: they mocked Hitler’s traditional values and flaunted their social (and sexual) deviance. Their sketches depicted lesbian foreplay, they employed black dancers and their lead actor was a Jew. Mephisto tracks the real-life rise and eventual fall of the club, as members of the company were forced to flee from Germany or face arrest

When Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933, many of the left-wing actors and directors were forced out of Germany. This left a wealth of new positions suddenly available for those whose racial and political backgrounds passed Nazi inspection. The dilemma faced by Hendrik, the main character in Mephisto, was one that affected every actor who remained in Germany: whether to accept the job offers flooding in from theatres in Berlin and Munich (generally under Nazi control), or whether to reject them and let other, less scrupulous actors become the stars. Their decisions were usually pragmatic rather than principled. 

Of those who left Germany, most of The Peppermill club — including Klaus and Erika Mann – reformed in Switzerland where they continued their anti-Hitler performances. They quickly built up a huge fan base and spent several years touring Europe before the rioting  of Swiss Nazis in Zurich meant they had to move on. Next they tried America but the Yankee appetite for European political satire was limited, and their run ended after just a few weeks. 

Most of the troupe wandered back to Europe or lived out the rest of their lives in the States. Erika Mann started a relationship with one of the cabaret’s leading actresses (and then had affairs with several others). She became a journalist and at the end of the war she and Klaus were forced to leave America due to FBI investigations into their homosexual and communist activities. She moved back to Germany, eventually becoming one of the few female writers to cover the Nuremburg Trials.

Klaus coped less well and  found life in post-war Berlin unbearable. When his novel, Mephisto, was rejected for publication in Germany he committed suicide. And what of the character of Hendrik, who had stayed in Germany to progress his career? He was invited to join the Berlin State Theatre (now under Hitler’s thumb) and in a brilliant ‘meta’ twist made his name starring in a production of Faust as the man who sells his soul to the devil. 

Many from The Peppermill tried to recreate their old lives after the war. But the intensity of life as seen in Mephisto – the sex and the music and the politics – must have been uniquely thrilling and they never regained that sexual liberty.  In a sense they were the first hippies of the twentieth century. With their liberal attitude to sex and drugs and incestuous relationships, they took ‘free love’ to a new level.

‘Mephisto’ adapted by Ariane Mnouchkine is showing at the Playhouse from 22nd-25th February

 

The Oxford Playhouse is notoriously the most difficult of venues in Oxford to secure for student shows. The criteria are rigorous, and for a reason – there’s much more at stake and much more room for things to go wrong, especially given the scale and cost of such a production. Last week in Cherwell we discussed the current plethora of Pinter within Oxford, and given that he seems to be undergoing a small scale revival (at least among these dreaming spires) it is perhaps apt that the first student show at the Playhouse this Hilary will be The Hothouse, one of Pinter’s most accomplished (if lesser known) plays.

Ziad Samaha, who will be playing the ruthless Gibbs, is confident that the quality of the show will be above par. When asked how it compares to his previous credits he is keen to point out that ‘we’ve both been in shows where it’s been more about fun, more about your own recognition.’ Ruby Thomas, playing seductress Miss Cutts, adds that the rehearsal process indeed ‘feels more professional, but no less enjoyable for that.’ This professionalism appears to be echoed within the cast and rehearsal process itself. Ruby adds that she was pleasantly surprised by how ‘well behaved’ the boys have been, with a distinct lack of ‘banter’, given the amount of testosterone that must be flying around. Throughout the interview, both are eager to point out that rehearsals under Jamie Macdonagh, the director, are  dissimilar to that of the average student play; both stress his interest in the details, the little things.It is perhaps surprising then, that if Illyria Productions wished to create a play that is atypical of a student show, they opted for Pinter, given his immense popularity in Oxford at the moment. Pinter is the master, but surely one can have too much of a good thing? Ziad disagrees in this instance, pointing out that though Pinter is indeed popular student fodder, The Hothouse is not performed often, and as Ruby states; ‘there hasn’t been one at the Playhouse for a while, and with a larger team and more time and money’, it won’t occupy the territory of what Ziad describes as ‘the usual humdrum.’ 

When asked whether the themes of the play – totalitarianism, malign bureaucracy and subtly sinister institutionalism – though no doubt completely brilliant when they were first conceived, have perhaps become rather too well worn, almost to the point of cliché, Ruby directs my attention once again to the rehearsal process. She states that ‘one of the worst things you find in student productions of Pinter is watching people on stage who simply do not know what they are talking about. I mean, no-one does really, but the background work we’ve done ensures that there will be a real certainty coming from us, however uncertain the play remains’; this, she believes, will contribute heavily to keeping the play fresh.When the two are asked if they plan on continuing acting after Oxford, both reply in the affirmative, with Ruby stating ‘Most of the cast do.’ When pressed for advice for budding student dramatists, Ziad gives a simple and pragmatic reply: ‘Get in to student drama. Don’t get into student drama politics.’ Ruby agrees, adding, ‘You don’t have to be a thesp to enjoy drama; it’s all a big lie! If you like drama go and do a play, you’ll have a lovely time.’ Readers, take heed.

‘The Hothouse’ by Harold Pinter is showing at the Playhouse on the 1st – 4th February

Laid out on a table, surrounded by ordinary household objects, is a naked young woman, one hand dangling tentatively above her smooth white stomach. A young man gazes down her body and she is watched from the sides by a crowd of curious and accusing eyes.A young, half-naked woman is running through woods, one arm outstretched as if to strike, face contorted into a scream of rage, while in the background a besuited man dances with two creatures that are simultaneously trees and naked women.

Penny Wedding and The Rage of Syrinx are just two paintings from a collection of fantastical images that have emerged over the last 40 years from the mind of Kit Williams, surely one of the most imaginative artists at work in Britain today. ‘It’s as if years and years ago I was locked away in a windowless room, and I’ve had to paint my way out of it. The windows are paintings through which you can go into another world. It turns out that it’s the inside of my mind, that the other world inhabits.’

This other world is rich with imagery from nature and people, myths and legends, all painted with a meticulous attention to detail and the brightness of fairytale illustrations. Williams tells me, ‘I do not understand how abstract work works. My work is about people and how people think.’ He compares art to a swimming pool, where the modern artist is paddling in the shallow end, while he swims in the depths of storytelling.

The detail in Williams’s work is all the more extraordinary where it has expanded beyond the confines of the flat, rectangular canvas. When he couldn’t afford to frame his early work, the ever-inventive Williams turned to marquetry, gluing thin wood veneers onto a wooden background. The first frame made this way was assembled from a ‘make-your-own-galleon’ kit from a craft shop.‘It released me from the rectangle!’ Williams enthuses, ‘I was free then, I could go anywhere!’ And he went to mirrors, hinges, and secret doors, to the wing of a bird continuing into the wood of the frame, and even into 3D. When he was too poor to stop painting during two months backpacking around India in the 70s, Williams created a sphere inside a globe, that he kept fastened shut with an elastic band in his backpack while the oil paint dried.

There is a vast and fascinating body of work that could be discussed; however, when agreeing to be interviewed, Williams suggested that I choose just a few paintings that ‘caught my eye’. In 1979 Williams’ book Masquerade, a pictorial riddle which held the key to finding a golden hare buried somewhere in the British countryside, captivated the nation, and treasure hunters up and down the country searched for the prize for two years. However, Williams, tired of the media storm that enveloped him during the furore and afterwards, retreated deep into the Gloucestershire countryside where he could not be disturbed, now only exhibiting privately at his house. Our discussion was not to focus on the ‘same-old’ questions, but on the works that captured my attention.

When I saw Penny Wedding, the vulnerable, skinny young woman laid out like a meal, I couldn’t help but think that she was about to be raped. Williams wasn’t put off by my interpretation, but pleased. ‘With all my paintings, you have to be drawn towards it, and repelled from it in equal measure. And that’s what becomes exciting. Just being drawn towards something is “chocolate boxey”. Just being repelled by something is Tracey Emin, is Damien Hirst.’

Of course, the painting was far more complex than that. Williams said that his work was usually the ‘marriage’ of disparate ideas. A phrase or concept will ‘intrigue’ him, but ‘most often doesn’t have enough substance in it to make it work; so I store it in my memory. It might stay there for a day, a week, a year, ten years.’ Eventually another completely different idea arrives, and the painting is born. Penny Wedding, Williams told me, was a good example of the ‘two ideas’ – the first to arrive was ‘stored away’ for eight years. This was the penny wedding, a Scottish highland tradition in poor communities, where guests would place a penny in a wooden bowl. Everyone could afford it, and so the wedding was paid for.The Irish and Welsh Celtic tradition of ‘sin eating’ brought the painting to life. Williams explained, ‘When someone dies they are laid out, before the wake. The sin eater, who is a person in the village, is invited to the house. He or she is given a meal, roast taters and everything, set upon the coffin … So when he leaves, he takes the sins of the departed with him – he’s eaten the sins. The soul of the departed can go to heaven.

Yet these two strange tales gave rise to a painting depicting neither. The picture is of a bride who is an outsider, marrying into a poor fishing community where, as in Williams’ childhood, a room above a shop is hired for the wedding, and the presents laid out on the table. However, Williams explained, ‘She is not stark naked lying among the wedding presents. It’s how she feels – to be inspected by the whole family, to be quantified, to be judged. Meanwhile, the groom at the other end of the table can do nothing but look on helplessly, while his family, the leering grandfather, the jealous brother, the vain cousin, in the moving wooden doors of the painting, gossip and sneer, perhaps commenting on how thin the bride is. ‘The model was wonderfully skinny, with nipples like fried eggs on the table’,Williams told me.

The second painting that caught my eye, The Rage of Syrinx, has a wonderful immediacy: you can’t fail to be drawn to the young woman flying through the painting in a hurricane of rage. Here Williams was inspired by an Ovidian myth. But like all Williams’ paintings the story he tells is very much his own. In the original tale, the mischievous man-goat Pan pursues a young wood nymph, Syrinx, chasing her into a river bed, only to emerge with an armful of reeds, with which he invents the panpipes. However, in Williams’ mind, the tale has moved on. Syrinx is getting married and Pan has crashed her wedding, causing her fit of anger.

Williams tells me that Pan was always depicted by the Greeks with an erect penis, to show  that he was a ‘shameless hussy’. And sure enough, within the wooden frame, shaped like a screaming mouth, is the satyr. ‘I think this is the only erect penis in marquetry in the world. It’s yet to be disputed!’, Williams tells me with a grin.And, again, as with all Williams paintings, there are multiple meanings. He tells me that it is about pre-nuptial anxiety – losing the ring, the bridesmaids eloping, the hair that looks like a bed of reeds – but also about women feeling that they are ‘entrapped in a silken cage’, like Syrinx’ caged petticoat (a real one was created specially by Williams for his model to wear). I ask him whether he is qualified to say this, as a man. His eyes once again twinkle wryly, ‘It’s passive observation’, he laughs.

And I realise, having discussed only a few paintings, that we have whiled away over an hour. While Williams’ rich, narrative work may not to be to everyone’s taste, to hear him talk of it is to catch a glimpse into an inventive, imaginative and utterly unique mind.