Musings on art and modern audiences

  Angels in America : LGBT history in mainstream arts What we consider “real” always undergoes some kind of shift when we’re at the theatre or cinema. The fact that Tony Kushner's 1991 play Angels in America relates very specifically to real life (the AIDS crisis in America, and real figures like Roy Cohn and his involvement in the Rosenberg Trials) complicates that sense of the real even further. As audiences, how do we then respond to what we’re seeing on stage or on screen? Does the fact that this is a “Fantasia on National Themes”, as the play’s subtitle tells us, mean that we find ourselves leaning into the fictionality of the play? Are we more comfortable in our seats knowing that ultimately this is fiction and can’t hurt us?  It’s easy, I think, for Angels to give us the impression that we have a way out, that we can just let the escapist experience of film and theatre wash over us. I don’t necessarily believe that’s how we ought to approach Angels . There’s no denyin...

Anna Karenina : a story for our time Anna Karenina is, I think, one of those novels that people think must be boring because it’s long and because it has a woman’s name for its title. Anna Karenina is, in my opinion, a true work of art, and a novel that in its huge scope and scale attempts something genuinely quite ambitious, and that is to understand humans’ relationships with one another, and our desire for relationships. I’m by no means saying that it’s a perfect novel, nor does it necessarily answer all questions, but as with all art, it makes the attempt all the same, knowing it cannot possibly be perfect. Now all this might sound very high and mighty, but Anna Karenina , for its status as a “classic” (whatever that means) and its reputation as “high literature” (whatever that means) is at its core still asking the basic questions that I think on some level we all want the answers to: what is love, how do we feel it, why is it so powerful, and can love truly conquer all?  ...

  Fantastic Mr Fox : Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl Wes Anderson’s filmmaking and Roal Dahl’s storytelling are a match made in heaven in Fantastic Mr Fox . There’s something very charming about the aesthetic of Anderson’s films, particularly this stop-motion animation adaptation, and Roald Dahl’s talent for poetic prose writing and characterisation. The joy of this adaptation is that it evokes the structure of the novel form whilst still being firmly a visual medium.  I remember when I watched this film for the first time, one of the things that really stuck with me was the insulting little song about Boggis, Bunce and Bean, because it was exactly how I imagined it. The cadence, the tune, the tone of the song, they all fit my imagined version of it. And then the rest of the film followed suit. The satisfaction that Anderson’s film aesthetics induce is in a similar realm to Dahl’s storytelling, and it’s an important part of the reader or audience’s experience.  But obviously...

Mary Poppins : a practically perfect adaptation? Few people seem to know that before Mary Poppins was a Disney star, she was a literary creation of P. L. Travers’ in a series of children’s books. It probably comes as no surprise that a children’s film has literary origins, but for anyone who has read the novel(s) and seen the read, it’s clear that there are actually plenty of differences between the two. The purpose of this post is not to be a spot-the-difference exercise because that would be dull. I’d rather consider why certain changes were made so that we have the idea of Mary Poppins we have now through Disney.  The major difference we should probably take into account first is genre or form. Disney’s musical film is charming and wonderful, of course, and Julie Andrews is practically perfect in every way, there’s no doubt on those accounts. In being a musical film Disney’s Mary Poppins is setting a particular tone for the story and giving it the energy of theatrical performan...

  Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot: introducing Hercule Poirot to new audiences Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot series can certainly be praised for (re)introducing Poirot to audiences. Personally, I have to say David Suchet will always be my Poirot, but of course to each their own. What I find most interesting about Branagh’s Poirot films is how exactly they seek to revive these stories. What makes these films any different to any previous Poirot adaptations? Why did Branagh choose these particular stories for adaptation?  Branagh’s choice of one of Christie’s most famous stories ( Murder on the Orient Express ) draws in audiences who are familiar with her work and those who might only just be getting to know Poirot. Here we’re being introduced to a new iteration of Poirot by placing him in a non-British context, unlike other Agatha Christie stories which place her characters often in British countryside or London (and this film opens at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem). Branagh is also establ...

  Pride and Prejudice : BBC’s 1995 miniseries gets it right The very last adaptation I thought I’d ever write a blog on would be a Jane Austen story. You may or may not already be familiar with my disdain for Austen’s stories, so this post might come as a relative surprise. However, I’ve recently been a bit more open-minded about Austen, having watched the 1995 BBC miniseries adaptation. Colin Firth may or may not have had something to do with that decision but that’s for me to know and you to wonder. I was not enchanted by Pride and Prejudice when I first read it many years ago, and I have to say the 2005 film did not help matters at all; the BBC miniseries, however, I think gets it right. Jane Austen, for her time as for ours, wrote to entertain. She wrote the stories she wrote because people expected to be entertained by books written by women. Because obviously women can only write frivolous drivel with no bite or backbone. Because obviously women can only write about topics t...

  The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes : investing in prequels I approach prequels with great caution. My worry whenever I see one being advertised - literary, cinematic or otherwise - is that the story exists simply to be a cash cow, because the creator doesn’t want to be forgotten about, or because they’re making a half-hearted attempt at satisfying the fans (see my earlier tirade against Amazon’s The Rings of Power for more of my thoughts and feelings on this matter. Spoiler alert: it’s not good.) What could make this worse? Well, probably a really bad adaptation. That would really be taking the biscuit.  With all of this in mind, you can imagine my concerns when Suzanne Collins’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was published, and its film adaptation announced shortly after. My copy of Collins’ book even has one of those stickers-that-aren’t-actually-stickers on the front cover announcing its impending transition to the big screen. To be honest, I didn’t approach The Ball...