Blue Valentine - Film Review

You always hurt the ones you love; so if Cianfrance wreaks havoc on your heart, you’ll realise he dotes duly on his audience.

Director Derek Cianfrance’s second narrative feature opens skilfully with an ambient sequence of Frankie, the three-year-old daughter of protagonists Cindy and Dean, searching for the family dog at first light. The allusion to sentimentality is at once subdued and deafening. It calls to mind Stephanie Vaughn’s 1989 short story Dog Heaven. Vaughn’s canine plays out a complex suite of roles: simultaneously real and imaginary; the vehicle of memory, a childhood companion, a legend, a metaphor for the loss of innocence; the last breakwater of childhood ideals against an imminent front of reality. And so, with such soft, atmospheric gesture, we are delicately inducted into the greater sense of unease in this tale of middle-class, Anglo-American family life. With this symbolic canine vacuum revealed, the audience is gradually drawn in to the momentum of Cindy and Dean’s complex relationship: the missing piece of the puzzle becomes a catalyst for the progression of their story.

Through a tightly constructed, non-linear narrative, an intelligent, troubled, young mother Cindy (Michelle Williams) and endearing yet faulted Dean (Ryan Gosling) are gradually revealed to us, and ever so tangibly intertwined through each other’s projected dreams and unravelling shortcomings. Privy to the unfolding, one can’t help but wonder with whom their greatest sympathies lie. A bias that remains our choosing; as the crescendo of the love-story continues to allude us, for the symbolism doesn’t taint either party, it merely implies universal struggle.

Cianfrance is no stranger to the silver screen. In 1998 he captivated both audiences and critics alike with his debut feature Brother Tied. Since then he has seemingly honed his craft in the documentary genre: where he has addressed subjects from musicians the likes of Annie Lennox and Run DMC to crime photography and Hispanic culture. Blue Valentine firmly reinstates his talents at storytelling, where he displays the nack for capturing the peculiar nuances of kinship that call to mind more seasoned directors like Jim Sheridan, and his depictions of family life in In America or his recent reworking of Danish film Brothers.

Where does that leave our two Valentines? Dean’s final costume foretells a dark future for the everyman of iconic American culture: wearing a bald-headed eagle on otherwise black garb, as his family pushes him into obscurity. Our final image of the feminine family line, one of defiance and weakness: a grown woman beaten by her exhausted emotions, a young girl craving a father who never belonged to her from the outset. Blue Valentine, as the title suggests, proposes a world of doomed and sickly love: a world in which the eventual frailty of romantic relations wins out over the ideals of lovesick youth. A world which, against our best intentions, is fated against our survival. It predicts a future and a perpetual cycle, a dim forecast for lifelong love and the family unit. What of culture? The final scene occurs upon a backdrop of Hispanic family bliss, posing the question: is Anglo-America a dying breed? What is it specific to this culture and ideology that propels it to this end? 

a blog for all seasons

For those of you who haven't noticed the common thread of recent posts, a short synopsis is probably overdue. In The Fields was born out of an elective at Art School called Technologies in Painting: Vermeer to Richter which addresses a new concept within the history of painting each week. Our first class, along with colour mixing, looked at the use of text in painting. 


Within the elective, Justin Balmain, our lecturer has highlighted the use of online mediums as an area of development for us, as future fine artists, to be conscious of and active in. In conjunction with our weekly classes he has encouraged us to publish our work online and build an online community where open discussion and exchange of ideas can take place. Essentially the format is open, but with a view to a future as a working artist it does force us to encounter it from that perspective. For me this may mean using the medium as a means of building a private support network, within which I can share and discuss my work. It may equally mean creating an open public forum for discussion of art related topics, that may reference my work, or purely as a voice into the outside world to affect my internal drive on a personal level. Like learning a new word, when learning a new skill-set the variety and extent of the applications for that skill are only fully realised after actually acquiring it. Initially disgruntled at the idea of running a blog, I have been blown away by the outcomes of the exercise. 


The very nature of a blog is a fascinating one, it does seem to possess an energy of it's own and a momentum that, once begun and established, may well be a forceful one. I have included two links below of artists who I think are running blogs to great effect, for different reasons. Viewing different artist blogs inspires me to make further use of this medium. . . 


Mia Oatley is a Sydney-based painter who studied at the National Art School and is now quite successfully represented by Richard Martin here in Paddington. Her blog, although completely different to anything I could see myself doing, is engaging, up to date and quite probably an aid to her success as an artist. Mia's blog is a good reference for the format of a fine artist blog.
www.miaoatley.com.au/
www.miaoatley-mia.blogspot.com/


Tommy Kane is an ex-advertising exec in New York who has decided he would like to turn his hand to art. I tripped over his illustration website online at some point and although I don't like his paintings, much of his work, nor his angle on art, I do like his coloured pencil illustrations, the manner of his dialogue adjoining them and throughout his blog site. He is comic, self-effacing and openly candid - it draws you into his world; his morning or his travels, his fascination with the Korean aesthetic of his wife or.. whatever he chooses to sketch that day, in NYC or abroad. Tommy's blog is a good reference for the format of an informal internal network blog.
www.tommykaneillustration.com
www.tommykane.blogspot.com/

The Layering of Language

Contemporary Australian artist Imants Tillers’ work is owned by many of our state galleries across the country. Once known, his style is instantly recognisable. Some signature characteristics of Tiller’s work include the use of multiple canvas boards, layering of imagery within the work and, you guessed it, text.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney owns two such pieces. One hangs in the foyer to the Museum with the text Kunst Kapital scrawled across it (alluding to the value of art) and the other, White Aborigines, is currently on display on the top level of the gallery within the MCA Collection: New Acquisitions in Context 2010 exhibition.

White Aborigines is a large-scale work that draws people towards it from across the room. The one hundred canvas boards that make up the work, the monochromatic colour scheme, the frenzied finger-painting played off against the more stylised figurative elements and, of course, the nineteenth-century-type font in the foreground, this layering of text and multiple images; all work to make up one dynamic and challenging image. 

Tillers often chooses to use the German language for text in his works. This particular work reads “Man seiht dass es Spektakel gibt, Wenn Man sich durcheinander liebt” yet, even for native German speakers approaching the work, it’s no straightforward deduction. The text leads the viewer into the work and is a major key to uncovering it's meaning. Derived from a Wilhelm Busch quote it translates: "One sees that a spectacle ensues, if one loves disorderly". The word spectacle might also be read: turmoil. Wilhelm Busch was a nineteenth century cartoonist, poet and writer well known for his blackly humorous tale of Max and Moritz, who we can now determine are the central figures in the work. These young protagonists cause quite some drama through the course of their tale and, in the end, a spectacle indeed ensues, as one can read from Tillers' imagery. The title of the work now begins to reveal it's significance, in conjunction with the imagery it calls to mind the finger-painting of indigenous culture and the art throughout traditional caves that is evidence to the original inhabitants of this land. The title provokes the viewer to contemplate the history of anglo-saxon and indigenous relationships. Such a "disorderly" display of affection imposed by one culture onto another could only result on turmoil, and one contemplates the Stolen Generation. Tillers has done well to portray complex notions of identity, moral judgments, historical actions and ramifications, and the role they have played in ongoing tensions between Australians. All through the interweaving of text and image.

Imants Tillers. White Aborigines, 1983.

Speaking of Language in Art

There is a sequence of dialogue in a film by Marc Ottiker, Halbe Miete (2002), addressing art legibility and audience comprehension. The protagonist, Peter, is assisting a writer in assembling his storyboard.  The writer explains:

“The way I see it, the people sitting in front of the TV don’t feel challenged enough, which upsets them. Some feel like they’re being fucked with. 70% of the audience is not being challenged intellectually, but instead they focus on the other 30%.”

The writer believes a more complex structure to a work of art could more often than not be established. In my previous post I intimated that in painting I believe this “complex structure” consists of a work built entirely of images. I have found it an insult to my intelligence as a viewer that the artist would feel the need to use a much more commonly understood language, the written word, to expose meaning. Reflecting on it now I see another perspective, I may have acted some zealous puritan for imagery unnecessarily.

Contemplating the medium of film seems to enlighten the other side of the argument. Film gives us the perfect cohesion of aural and visual language in motion. Perhaps it’s a viable thing in painting also, this dual presentation of language. Perhaps it’s a beautiful junction: text and image. Essentially the two are fastened together so seamlessly that on serious contemplation it’s hard to actually separate them at all. Eco devotes an entire chapter to this very discussion entitled: The Perfect Language of Images in his bookThe Search for the Perfect Language. A contemplation for another post. For now, let’s keep it simple.

There is a depth to the written word equal to that of imagery: one that, like imagery, is not understood by all. We see this in the literary arts:

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

-Introibo ad altare Dei.

Excerpt from Ulysses, James Joyce

Both word and image have a duality to them, both exist as multiple things at once: an actual object, a symbol of meaning, an allusion to a history of meaning evoked throughout the history of art and literature. Using word and image together may well serve to amplify meaning or allow the subtle meaning present in one, to play off of meaning in the other: a dynamic unveiling.

And so I have come full circle. I see the merits for the use of text in conjunction with image in painting and drawing, beyond my instinctive reaction against it. I see the beauty of it. I wont judge it so harshly next I see it, and I may be more inclined to use it myself.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

What comes to mind when one thinks upon text in art? Particular artists? Particular artworks? In my mind Magritte comes forth. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. I encountered his work in a retrospective six years ago at the BA-CA Kunstforum in Vienna, Rene Magritte: Der Schluessel Der Traeume. Within it, I viewed a number of works dominated by text and remember being particularly taken by them, by what it meant that someone had used written language in art in this manner. Text in art was something I had not previously explored nor associated with Magritte past The Treachery of Images or Surrealism in general, for that matter. To me, painting was largely about the legibility of images. And yet The Treachery of Images tells us the image alone can be false or misleading. Indeed without the words this piece could possibly be the complete inverse of the meaning presented with words intact. This presents an argument for the use of text in art: accessibility of meaning.

So why do I find myself often reacting against it? Could Magritte not have simply provided any necessary text in the title of the works? Or, better yet, found a way to inscribe the meaning in an image alone? Was he just being lazy, or was the use of these two separate languages, that of imagery and that of text combined, the very point?

The aspect I wrestle with initially, when it comes to the use of text in art, is that I see the use of text as a schism with the pure language of imagery - imagery used alone. It’s not that I have anything against written language in itself. In fact language is something I am endlessly fascinated by, in many forms. It’s the mixing of text and image in painting that I am not entirely at ease with. It seems to make an easy route for an artist who cannot manage to convey his ideas through imagery alone. It seems to make an easy route for a viewer who cannot manage to read ideas in imagery alone. And so I find myself protective of imagery, as if of some sacred entity. As if entry into the legibility of imagery requires some sacred rite of passage. Which brings us closer to the crux of the matter: I enjoy that the meaning within a piece is guarded from plain view; I enjoy first encountering it and then unpacking it. I enjoy the nature of an encounter with an image as something that feels metaphysical compared with much of our other systematic interaction with the world. I enjoy that my rational mind is for this moment quieted. The use of text, a more commonly understood language, threatens that enjoyment; it threatens the entry point into an image as something intuitive by presenting a schematized entry point in a language we understand is read ‘left to right’. Instead, a unique, personal dialogue between artist and viewer is replaced by one more trivial, repetitive; having been had in exactly the same words, time and time again, by artist and passerby. That plane of existence where meaning is gained no longer seems otherworldly, the meaning no longer seems precious, just trite. The use of text threatens the traditional process of reading images, it opens up the image to a larger audience; one without the understanding of the specific language of imagery; it seems to deflate the meaning of art. And here I find myself on the argument against the use of text in art: the widened and altered access to meaning. 

Rene Magritte. The Treachery of Images, 1928/29. Oil on canvas.

Autumn has befallen us

In the opening scene of Kaufman's Synecdoche,  New York, one can just make out Rainer Maria Rilke's poem Autumn Day on the radio. Within the film it has it's own allusions to the protagonist's outcome.
In extracting my blog title from the poem, I mean it to project upon my blog something of what I feel Rilke's description of Autumn is: a dynamic entity, with the power to overthrow the Summer,  yet possessed with all the reflective solitude of Winter that it carries in it's wake.
I guess I'd like to achieve that force in the flow of my ideas in this medium.. 

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials,
and in the fields let the wind loose.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them two more southerly days,
urge them on to fulfillment and drive
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house will build none.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will wake, read, write long letters
and wander the alleys up and down
restlessly, when the leaves are blowing.

—Rainer Maria Rilke (1902)