The Mad Monks Of The Pre-War (World War I If Anybody Is Asking) Germanic Art- Klimt And Schiele At The Boston Museum Of Fine Arts

The Mad Monks Of The Pre-War (World War I If Anybody Is Asking) Germanic Art- Klimt And Schiele At The Boston Museum Of Fine Arts    

Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele’s Twisted Fates in Paint

Cardinal and Nun (Caress), 1912, Egon Schiele.

Kneeling forms against an indeterminate background, two figures interlocked as one… perhaps this painting looks familiar? The work is a tongue-in-cheek play by Egon Schiele and a slightly sacrilegious homage to his master, Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. Rather than love and passion, these religious figures are caught in the act, stiff against religious vow.

The Kiss (Lovers), 1907-1908, Gustav Klimt.

The Mentor and His Star Pupil

With a nearly 30 year age difference, Schiele and Klimt had a mentor-student relationship that lasted throughout their artistic careers. From copycat styling to love triangle rumors, this twisted story is told in their paintings.

In 1907 a then-teenaged Schiele saw Klimt as an idol and sought him out. The two fostered an artistic friendship and elements of Klimt’s avant-garde style can be found in many of Schiele’s early works and drawings, including these:

Left: Portrait of Gerti Schiele. Right: Standing Girl in a Plaid Garment. Both by Egon Schiele, 1909.

The Love Triangle with Wally Neuzil

Klimt’s influence was never far away. He introduced Schiele to many gallerists, fellow artists, and models, including the perhaps infamous Valerie (Wally) Neuzil. Neuzil had previously modeled for Klimt, and is rumored to have been his mistress. In 1911 she moved with Schiele to Krumau in the Czech Republic and thus began a four-year affair with him. In 1916 she returned to her old lover, posing again for Klimt.

The Hermits, Egon Schiele, 1912.

Left: Portrait of Wally, Gustav Klimt, 1916. Right: Woman in black stockings (Valerie Neuzil), Egon Schiele, 1913.

In fact, Schiele slyly alludes to this shared love in his 1912 painting The Hermits. The artist depicts two male figures in a Klimt-esque embrace, who on second take appear to be the mentor (on the left) and student (on the right) themselves. Dressed in all black, these two “hermits” are one mass but two thin white lines in the background connect the couple to a wilting rose, red like the color of Neuzil’s fiery hair.

Muse Shared, Again?

Klimt and Schiele portraits also reveal another shared subject: Viennese society woman Friederike Maria Beer-Monti. She rang Klimt’s doorbell in 1915 and asked if she could pose for his artworks. The process took six months and, in that time, she is rumored to have been one of his many flames. Just one year earlier, she had been the subject of a work by Klimt’s mentee.

Left: Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer-Monti, Egon Schiele, 1914; Right: Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer-Monti, Gustav Klimt, 1916

Both artists were notorious for their affairs with women. Klimt, who never married, is said to have fathered 17 children with his muses. Schiele often found himself in hot water with the authorities for his choice of studio visitors, children and adult, who posed nude.

Breaking Conventions in Art, Too

As personal relationships grew more interconnected so did their artistic styles. The bright colors and elongated bodies in Klimt’s unfinished The Bride and the more jagged lines and gestural coloring in Schiele’s Portrait of Dr. Erwin von Graff would lead their contemporaries to a new – and more personal – way of thinking about color and form in art.

Left: The Bride, Klimt, 1917; Right: Portrait of Dr. Erwin von Graff, Schiele, 1910.

With a relationship based on mutual respect, Klimt and Schiele continued to support and guide each other through the art world. There was an obvious amount of humor between the two; only a prized pupil could have gotten away with such sheer parodies of his mentor.

And, by the way, here’s a more banal portrait of Wally that her artists’ paintings didn’t show:

Schiele and Neuzil in Krumau, Czech Republic, 1913. Image via Leopold Museum.

Gustav Klimt is currently abuzz in the pop culture world. Actress Dame Helen Mirren is starring in The Woman in Gold, a movie about Klimt’s painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geJeX6iIlO0

Learn more about Klimt’s life and career here: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-klimt-gustav.htm

For more on Egon Schiele’s romantic muses: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8507783/A-legend-laid-bare-Egon-Schiele-exhibition.html

Learn more about Schiele’s life and career here: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-schiele-egon.htm

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Once Again, When ABBA Exploded The Known Musical Universe And Put It On A Small Greek Island- Amanda Seyfried s “Mama Mia!-Here We Go Again” (2018)-A Film Review

Once Again, When ABBA Exploded The Known Musical Universe And Put It On A Small Greek Island- Amanda Seyfried s “Mama Mia!-Here We Go Again” (2018)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Intern Josie Davis

Mama Mia! Here We Go Again  (When I reviewed the original version of this film I was told by Greg Green the site manager to use this title to both avoid confusion with the earlier film since they both have the same theme and most of the same cast and to replicate the way the film has been publicized), starring the divine Meryl Streep in essentially a cameo role, Amanda Seyfried up close and personal on this one, Pierce Brosnan at one time the dashing James Bond in a few films in that series, Colin Firth who somebody told me used to be to be the King of England and gave it up for his boyfriend,  Stellan Starsgard who used to be a guy named Terry with a junkie wife who owned a glass house in Malibu but got too greedy and got wasted for his troubles, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski two members of the famous doo wop, no, disco, trio Donna and the Dynamos who tore up the stage when I saw them in New York City one night with my girlfriends from high school several years ago, music by ABBA, 2018         

*******

I mentioned in my review of the 2008 version of Mama Mia!  that I was thrilled to be writing my first film review for this publication, for Greg Green and now as agreed since he was happy with my first production I am reviewing the sequel. (Once again I should mention that Greg said the way things are in the publication business today that I had better mention that I was Greg’s daughter Elsa’s roommate in journalism graduate school at NYU-something about transparency otherwise the whole thing will stink of nepotism, so I have again written what he has asked me to do). I am working here as a paid intern to learn the journalism trade and right off the bat Greg had assigned me this Mama Mia! Here We Are film which I had just seen and loved. Not only that but since Elsa already told me that her father was very thorough I got to do a review of the first one as well which he told me was to get a fresh look from new eyes about the relative merits of the two. Zack James one of the friendly older writers here who wrote the review of the original helped me with his perspective although he said musicals were not his thing and he thought there were too many musical and dance interludes something I thought was great since the storyline was pretty simple. The conditions that an intern works under here are that, since we are not covered by Guild regulations, we are paid by the word so I was doubly thrilled to have two reviews to do since my rent would be coming up and I could use the money since my parents had told me after paying for graduate school I have to fend for myself. “Learn to fly” as my father put the matter in his usual gruff way.         

Maybe the reader did not need to know that last part again, the rent money and parent abandonment part but from the last review I mentioned  a funny, wise, kind of looking like a modern version of  Merlin the Magician older writer, Sam Lowell, told me that writers getting paid by the word went out with the Pony Express and it is a shame that they are calling what he called stringers “interns” to get slave labor to do the work otherwise assigned to active Guild members. Here is where he was wise-Sam, he told me to call him Sam, said to play the game for all it is worth, to write like he did when he was starting out say, 10, 000 words when everybody knew that the space available for the piece was maybe 3000 words. They had to pay for the former number no matter how much they edited the piece down once it had been assigned. Again I will write like crazy including what Sam me told to include that I have already written since Greg likes, allows his writers, I still like how that word sounds regarding me, to let the readership know some of the “inside” stuff about the publishing business, the hard-hat water cooler stuff so I will again oblige.      

Sarah Lemoyne, who went to NYU journalism school a few years before Elsa and me, told me before I finished my first review to avoid Sam Lowell like the plague and went out of her way to warn me again after Sam told Greg that I had “the right stuff.” Told me, again that it was only a matter of time before he would have me writing his reviews for him under his by-line and would keep me a stringer, intern I told her again like the category was brand new in the business, forever again using the example of what almost happened to legendary break-through by-line writers Leslie Dumont before she got her big break with Women Today once she saw the writing on the wall here. Sarah said I would probably, if Sam was in a rush, grab some studio press release and have me doll it up. Funny, Sam still seems like a kindly old man, for the old school who knows how to pay a colleague a compliment and give good advice and encouragement,  a little wizard and while Sarah seems to be the star amount the younger up and coming writers and is being championed by the legendary Seth Garth whom I first heard about at NYU I haven’t been here, haven’t been as Sam says around the water cooler long enough to get an idea of who the players are and what they have in mind. All I know is that I want to be a film reviewer, maybe books and music later, and that Sam has been nice to me and gave me this additional information once again and which has in the Sarah business proved true-this is a cutthroat business so keep your own counsel. Listen to what everybody who has something to say have their say and then discard most of it and just write that pure, fine high white line you studied about in school. And forget the fossil “pyramid” lead nonsense which went out with the pharaohs although they still teach that stuff like it was the new dispensation in the journalism schools.

I have heard from more than one source, actually several since the last review, that Sarah is “sweet” on Seth, he told me to call him Seth although I feel funny calling these older guys by their first names since in grad school when some high-blown journalist came through it was Ms. This or Mr. That, even though she has a partner, a woman, whom she is having an affair with. I still don’t know how to take what she has said about Sam, about him maybe taking dead aim at me which is ridiculous since he has his long- time companion Laura Perkins who also writes here (and who when I met her watched him like a hawk and still does especially after his water cooler praise of me to fellow writers). I see what this cutthroat stuff is all about more clearly now regarding people cutting people but I am just going to write my brains out so Greg can still say he made the right decision taking Elsa’s recommendation.

Here is the “skinny” a cute word that Sam said he coined way back when he was also young and hungry to let people know a little bit about the plot and whether they should bother to see the film if is a “dog.”  I had already telegraphed that I liked the sequel  so I was prepared despite Zack to like the original and I did although now I wished I had seen them in the correct order because I had not been   aware that Sam, played by Pierce Brosnan, had actually made Donna an honest woman, had married her which makes his grieving in the sequel make more sense.

Sam Lowell, actually Sarah Lemoyne said the same thing before I wrote my first review but I will still give Sam the credit since he has been so helpful, said that musicals don’t let plot get in the way of the Tin Pan Alley songs and the dancing when dancing is part of the project as here in a couple of spectacular episodes. And Sam was right on the face of it. The boy and girl had already met so that was no real factor-the real part was that young Sophie, played by Amanda Seyfried was desperate to get married and get the hell off the island prison of a hotel that her single-parent Mom, Donna, played by very versatile Meryl Streep, had dwelt in since she was born. She loves her beau but doesn’t want to wind up like her mother who drifted to the island after a whirlwind spree with three lovers when she was younger. That three lovers will again anchor the “controversy” central to the film-which one in pre-DNA times is the father she never knew taking a cue from Jack Kerouac among others in the unknown fathers pantheon (this courtesy of Sam who is something of an expert on the “beats” from the 1950s who I have heard of in passing but really don’t know anything about).       

Motivated by the desire to know who her father is, and to gain some peace of mind, she had invited the three likeliest candidates, Sam, Harry and Bill to the island to see “what is what” and also to have her “father” give her away in the time-honored tradition. Fine, except dear mother, dear Donna who as I mentioned in the cast line-up I saw with her group Donna and the Dynamos in New York City when I was in high school, who has raised her alone is pissed off that the three guys are around. That produced angst, alienation and a few heart-felt songs and dances between the two before the wedding bells ring but seemed to be resolved nicely by having Mom give daughter away-which seemed right. Hold the cameras though just as Sophie and her man, her Sky are about to tie the knot and unleash who knows what song and dance cascade at the reception Sophie calls the whole thing off after deciding that like any thoroughly modern Millie they should live together and see the world. In any case that new decision brings forth a cascade of song and dance so all is well that ends well. Except Sophie never does find out who her father is and the three guys are just as happy to cut her in thirds-metaphorically. And guess what as I have already mentioned Sam and Donna get married in Sophie and Sky’s place.

Fast forward five, six years, same freaking isolated hillside Greek island hotel with one big exception-Donna as passed through the shades, has died. Now Sophie is ready to seriously tie the Sky knot and have the wedding and reception at the slightly refurbished inn. Then the deluge as three suspect papas, and two Donna dynamos show up to get the kid and her beau through the freaking nuptials. And in the end they will but not before another round of doubt and wonder about what Mama would say, another bout on who Papa is, attempts to placate grieving Sam-stepfather- and plenty of singing and dancing at the drop of a hat. Like I said I did like this film, did like the singing and dancing but after two musical reviews I can see where Zack James might be right that a little goes a long way. In the interest of completeness there we are. (I hope that in 2028 there is not yet another sequel where I will have to tutor some young stringer about my take on the first two like I had to with Zack on the first one.     

As We Enter The Final Phase Of The 100th Commemoration Of World War I With Armistice Day-November 11, 1918-Thoughts On The Film “King Of Hearts” (1966)

As We Enter The Final Phase Of The 100^th Commemoration Of World War I With Armistice Day-November 11, 1918-Thoughts On The Film “King Of Hearts” (1966)

DVD Review

By Josh Breslin

  

King of Hearts, Alan Bates, Genevieve Bujold, 1966    

These days, apparently, we can no longer just go through our paces and do whatever review or commentary we were assigned but also have to comment on how and why we received the assignment from our still fairly new site manager Greg Green. Greg has encouraged, if not demanded, that we go to genesis, so the reader can be more informed about how the new field of on-line publication works with the new technology. These kinds of insights in publishing used to be reserved in the now old-fashioned hard copy days to insider memoirs by publishers, writers and editors. Greg has told me he is trying to demystify the whole process and get the story out while it is “hot” and fresh. 

That said, normally anything of late having to do with commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the end of World War I would be the purview of Seth Garth who has been running a couple of series the past four years (the duration of  that war from August, 1914 on until November, 1918) around the effect that the carnage had on the flower of the European youth especially the cultural worker, the writers, artists, poets, musicians, and occasional dancers who were engaged in this conflict along with the rest of their generation. He worked, is working still, on retrospectives for the extraordinary number of cultural figured killed or maimed in the war. And of those who maimed or not survived the war and as a result produced a very different kind of work, noticeably different than either their own pre-war work or that of the leading schools and academies in the various disciplines. The reason I got this review of the classic French film King of Hearts though, even though Seth very much wanted the assignment as part of his take on World War I, was that way back when, back in 1973 if I recall I had reviewed the film for The East Bay Other. I had actually seen the film in Cambridge where it played continuously for many years at the now long-gone Central Square Cinema to usually sold-out crowds and became a local cult classic which people would have contests over how many times they had seen the film or cite various lines from the film off the cuff for fun. Greg’s idea was for me to compare that first review with my recent re-watching (along with Seth and our respective companions) and do a comparison. Genesis over here goes.         

There are many quotes, many of them by military figures who should know the hard face of war and have opinions on its futility even if they cannot go the distance and in effect become conscientious objectors to war after the fact. Famously key Union Army General U. S. Grant said “war was hell,” bemedaled Marine Corp General Smedley Butler said “war was a racket,” Colonel James Johnson said after Vietnam that war was not a fit occupation for human endeavor and those who profess otherwise should be in an insane asylum, a mental hospital, a nut house is what he actually said but I wanted to soften the blow for today’s sensibilities about the mentally challenged. That latter comment gives me a segue into the film under review where the metaphor, and the reality of that statement meet.

We have all heard about the inmates running the asylum and in this case not only are they running the asylum but are running amok, harmlessly running amok during the catastrophe of war and who is to say that they are not better off for their troubles, Certainly compared with the inmates who are running the war which has come to their door. Let’s set the stage (Sam Lowell, good old, what did one young reviewer here call him, oh yes, wizened, Sam Lowell used to harp on giving the ‘skinny” but Greg Green has frowned on that expression since none of the younger writers and stringers know what the damn thing means) for this beauty of an anti-war film which stops everybody in his or her tracks when you see the very visceral comparison between the mentally ill asylum patients in their harmless splendor and the mentally ill guys running the rack on French soil toward the end attempting to kill every last enemy and a few extra if necessary in the fog of war, October 1918 to be more specific, tidying up the loose ends of the war machine, of the war that would end all wars if I recall somebody rashly said in defense of starting the whole thing at all.     

The Germans, facing defeat, facing mutiny in their navy and in some army units and unrest back home in the factories in dear Berlin, are in the last throes of their military activities in northern occupied France. As a parting gift they are setting up enough explosives to blow the whole town to kingdom come. Nice gesture toward armistice, right. The British who are in front of the town and who have been there for years it seems in the stalemated trench warfare that defined that conflict are informed of that provocation and are prepared to take measures to ensure that when they retake the town for their French brethren they too are not blown to bits. Fair enough. Those measures, rather that measure is to send an explosives expert, played by Alan Bates, to disarm the whole munitions dump. Problem, problem number one, really this private soldier doesn’t know thing number one about explosives being part of the messenger pigeon unit. From there it is one escapade after another as he tries, as any “good” soldier would to do as ordered. No luck, none really since he can’t decode the information headquarters has received about its location. Don’t worry in the end that dump will be neutralized. That’s the subplot anyway and would make this film a snorer with the silly antics around disarming the dump if there wasn’t a stronger message.

Here is the real deal. Since the Germans have left as have all sane citizens once they know the place is ready to blow the only ones who are clueless, who don’t know what is about to happen are the inmates, are the cuckoos in the insane asylum. Since the good Sisters in charge have scrammed the inmates open the door and walk into town where they make the place a playground for fun and amusement. Meanwhile that earnest private is trying to do his best to disarm the munitions-and is drawn into their doings-drawn in as their very own king of hearts for whom they have been waiting. Nice.

To make a long story short because both the antics of the “simple-minded” who somehow seem very sane and made me wonder why they were the ones locked up and the soldiery trying to disarm the dump need not detain us let’s get to the point, points rather which are drawn from this film. On the war front the Germans find out that the British have disarmed the munitions dump and march back into town and the British in turn assuming the coast is clear are ready to march in and do so. Enemies again they square off-not in the trenches of yore, none are around but each side going back to some bizarre and arcane 19^th century drill formation set up firing lines against each other. Bang, bang every freaking soldier is uselessly dead over this pratfall. Except our King of Hearts who was elsewhere hanging around a beautiful butterfly of a young woman, one of the inmates, one too delicate for the real world, played by Guinevere Bujold who many guys, maybe gals too, would lose sleep over. As the townspeople return and the King of Hearts sullenly goes back to his regiment, or what is left of it, the inmates seeing that reality is far from what it cracked up to be if what they witnessed with the combative soldierly was any example return to the asylum and lock themselves back in. Beautiful. Better, better still the King of Hearts torn maybe between two duties heads back up the road to the asylum. Desertion yes, but another beautiful scene.              

All Quiet on the Western Front, The Grand Illusion, Johnny Got His Gun may all be extremely good examples of cinematic excellence around the madness of World War I. Throw this one in the mix too and you will not be too far off.