Musings on art and modern audiences

  Far From the Madding Crowd : imperfect women Of all Thomas Hardy’s novels, Far From the Madding Crowd is probably not his most famous, but I think it’s definitely one worth examining closely. Hardy is a notoriously depressing novelist. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is a prime example, and Far From the Madding Crowd doesn’t escape without it’s own healthy dose of tragedy and despair, but that’s not what this post is primarily interested in. Instead, I think Far From the Madding Crowd gives us an opportunity to think about texts which have complex women at their centre, but are not categorically giving us a positive story about female empowerment and agency. Because the novel walks a fine line, it’s difficult to decipher any particular stance on feminism, whether by our modern standards or Hardy’s own. Women’s stories in Far From the Madding Crowd are complicated to say the least.  As we’ve established, Hardy’s female characters are highly nuanced. They are also, in this nove...

Stardust : the fairytale life  Neil Gaiman’s Stardust is a firm childhood favourite of mine, and quite possibly one of yours too. What makes it such a special story? Maybe it’s the sense of nostalgia and comfort, maybe it’s the magic of romance. Whatever that special something is, there’s no doubt Stardust has within it the recipe for a classic fairytale. Stardust is a love story, a fantasy, a battle between good and evil, a textbook fairytale, in other words. By all means, perhaps it should be boring with how conventional it is. And yet we can’t deny there is magic at work here.  Perhaps the answer lies with a lovesick young man called Tristan Thorn. Tristan’s story is, in brief, his journey to retrieve a fallen star to gift to his beloved Victoria (who happens to not care a wink for him) for her birthday. Simple enough? But of course, life is never so simple. Of course, things go slightly wrong. And therein, I think, lies the charm and magic of Stardust . Because if even ...

Brokeback Mountain : intimacy and its many forms In honour of Brokeback Mountain having recently ended its West End run in London’s new theatre @ Soho Place, I thought this would be an opportune moment to write about this story. Brokeback Mountain is a story many are familiar with, mostly through the 2005 film starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, and the West End production has given it new life through actors Lucas Hedges and Mike Faist in the roles of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, respectively.  Annie Proulx’s short story Brokeback Mountain is a deeply intimate portrait of two men in love, and that fact is clear on film and on stage alike. What interests me is how those different forms of the story operate in different ways to evoke that intimacy. How can a film be quite as intimate as live theatre? How can theatre speak directly to us in the way the narrator of a short story can?  I was lucky enough to watch Brokeback Mountain on stage with a friend, and when we s...

  Blade Runner versus Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? : What makes a human? When we see actors on screen playing a particular role, I think we often forget that those actors are real people in their own rights. So when those actors, real people, appear on our screens pretending to be robots, how can we not be drawn in by the powerful sense of the uncanny?  At its core, Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel and Ridley Scott’s 1982 film are both interested in how we define ‘human.’ Whilst in both the novel and the film, this has a lot to do with moral and ethical debate, it’s more obvious in Scott’s film that there is a visual element to these questions which is also very important. In brief, it’s telling an audience to look at a human actor on screen and ask them to believe not only that they’re performing a particular role but also believe they’re performing a non-human role. And that distinction is intentionally complex and layered. Not just for the sake of making us question wh...