Victor Hugo & abstract art

One of the many intriguing subjects in Marina Warner's new book Phantasmagoria is her chapter on the Rorschach inkblot test. It's fascinating because it suggests several progenitors of abstract art.

Herrmann Rorschach's inkblots were purely abstract shapes, though they were designed not as art but as psychological tools, as patients were asked to discern form and meaning from the symmetrical patterns. Rorschach's research [try saying that as a tongue-twister] began in 1921 (after abstract art had established itself), though more interesting are the earlier, similar experiments of Justinus Kerner.

Kerner also produced abstract, symmetrical inkblots (much earlier than Rorschach, from circa 1853 onwards), though he then added eyes, limbs, and other recognisable features, transforming them from abstract blobs to figurative images. These designs were known collectively as 'klecksographien'.

The real revelation, though (at least to me), is the work of Victor Hugo, who painted abstract images in ink circa 1850-1870. Hugo's 'tache' stain-paintings were created from random splashes of ink, prefiguring Abstract Expressionism by 100 years. Earlier this year, I wrote about early cinema progenitors, and it seems that abstract art may require a similar antedating.

The birth of abstraction in art is generally dated to the first decade of the 20th century. In 1908, Wilhelm Worringer published Abstraction & Empathy, and there was an explosion of geometric abstraction in painting circa 1913, including works by Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrain, Frantisek Kupka, Fernand Leger, Robert Delaunay, and Kazimir Malevich. Of these artists, Kandinsky is most often singled out as the father of abstraction.

Kupka's Amorpha: Fugue In Two Colours (1912) is regularly cited as the earliest abstract painting, though in fact it is a depiction of movement, thus not strictly abstract (though perhaps Futurist?). Arnaldo Ginna's 1908 painting Neurasthenia has been described as "probably the first abstract painting in the history of Western art" (in Cartoons, by Giannalberto Bendazzi, 1994), though I have not [yet] been able to find a reproduction of it.

However, the random tache paintings of Victor Hugo predate all these examples of abstract art. Hugo even titled one such painting Abstract Composition, and, while it is undated, it was probably produced in the early 1870s. The origin of abstraction is one of the most fascinating aspects of modern art, and perhaps Victor Hugo's Abstract Composition is the earliest candidate?

Ayodhya opera censored

Following the banning of Idomeneo in Berlin, another opera has been censored, this time here in Bangkok. Ayodhya, Somtow Sucharitkul's operatic interpretation of the epic poem Ramayana, was performed in Bangkok on three nights last week. Each of the performances was censored following intense pressure from the Ministry of Culture.

The opera's final scene, as originally staged, included one character, the demon Thotsakan, being fatally wounded. However, the Thai Ministry declared that, according to the tradition of 'khon' dance-drama, it is bad luck to depict Thotsakan's death, therefore they would not permit it in Ayodhya (even though Ayodhya is an opera, not a khon performance). Somtow, who has an extremely high reputation in Thailand and internationally, did fight the decision, though he later reluctantly caved in.

Phantasmagoria

Marina Warner's nonfiction books are an ideal combination of fascinating subject-matter (contemporary mythology) and all-encompassing text (drawing references from across the spectrum of culture).

The themes she discusses are often ecclectic. For instance, her history of ogres and monsters, No Go The Bogeyman, includes an appendix titled Going Bananas, discussing the cultural history of the banana.

Her examples are equally wide-ranging, as she cites classical references alongside fine art and contemporary popular culture. For me, it is this inclusivity that makes her such an interesting writer. She demonstrates a scholarly understanding of ancient historical sources, yet is also at ease when discussing 21st century media.

Warner's latest book, Phantasmagoria, is a study of visual representation of supernatural, ephemeral phenomena. She examines historical representations of the soul and spirit, from wax death masks to psychic photographers and zombie cinema. Again, the most impressive feature is the sheer range of both subject-matter (including ghosts, mirrors, ectoplasm, and the apocalypse) and references (for example: Ovid, Correggio, Poe, and MMORPGs).

Guardian Monthly

The Guardian newspaper has launched a new monthly magazine this month, Guardian Monthly. The Guardian is published daily in the UK, and it already has an international weekly version, Guardian Weekly. Whereas Guardian Weekly concentrates on news and analysis, Guardian Monthly's focus is on features and lifestyle. In England, I used to read The Guardian religiously every day, and in Thailand I now read it religiously every day online (at guardian.co.uk).

Guardian Monthly is aimed at an international audience, presenting the best features and articles from The Guardian's various supplements. At sixty-eight A4 pages, the launch issue is fairly flimsy, especially as the back half is an almost exact reprint of The Guardian's magazine supplement Weekend (free with the UK newspaper every Saturday).

Guardian Weekly is rather expensive, so I'm tempted by the cheaper Guardian Monthly, because it would be nice to receive a printed Guardian publication instead of reading it all online. Unfortunately, though, the first issue is too insubstantial to justify a regular subscription.

Canon Fodder

The September-October issue of the journal Film Comment contains a lengthy article by Paul Schrader, titled Canon Fodder. In the article, Schrader attempts something never previously tackled at such length: he explores the history of, and criteria for, a canonical list of necessary films.

There have been many previous attempts at compiling 'definitive' lists of classic films, sometimes selected by public votes, sometimes chosen by individuals or panels of critics, and sometimes distilled from polls of critics and directors. I identified the most frequent types last year. The acknowledged leader in the field is Sight & Sound's list of ten 'greatest films of all time', chosen by hundreds of international critics and published every decade (most recently in 2002); Citizen Kane has remained at the top of their list ever since 1962.

In his article, Schrader traces the fascinating history of the notion of artistic and literary canons. Inspired by Harold Bloom's The Western Canon, he then proposes and explains a series of criteria by which to judge the films of the past 100 years: beauty ("the bedrock of all judgments of taste"), strangeness ("unpredictable burst of originality"), unity of form and subject-matter ("this traditional yardstick of artistic value"), tradition ("The greatness of a film or filmmaker must be judged not only on its own terms but by its place in the evolution of film"), repeatability ("appreciated by successive generations, it grows in importance and context with time"), viewer engagement ("The great film not only comes at the viewer, it draws the viewer toward it"), and morality ("Good or bad resonance [is] beside the point. The point is that no work that fails to strike moral chords can be canonical").

Schrader is consciously elitist in his choices ("to counter the proliferation of popularity-driven lists"), and he also eschews auteurism ("I'd like to concentrate on films, not filmmakers"). Furthermore, he maintains that canons need not contain 'equal opportunities' quotas ("Genre and subject matter don't matter; nor do the age, race, and sex of the filmmakers"). His list is divided into three tiers.

Gold

1. The Rules Of The Game
2. Tokyo Story
3. City Lights
4. Pickpocket
5. Metropolis
6. Citizen Kane
7. Orphee
8. Masculin-Feminin
9. Persona
10. Vertigo
11. Sunrise
12. The Searchers
13. The Lady Eve
14. The Conformist
15. 8 1/2
16. The Godfather
17. In The Mood For Love
18. The Third Man
19. Performance
20. La Notte

Silver

21. Mother & Son
22. The Leopard
23. The Dead
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey
25. Last Year At Marienbad
26. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
27. Jules & Jim
28. The Wild Bunch
29. All That Jazz
30. The Life Of Oharu
31. High & Low
32. Sweet Smell Of Success
33. That Obscure Object Of Desire
34. An American In Paris
35. Salvatore Giuliano
36. Taxi Driver
37. Ali: Fear Eats The Soul
38. Blue Velvet
39. Crimes & Misdemeanors
40. The Big Lebowski

Bronze

41. The Red Shoes
42. Singin' In The Rain
43. Chinatown
44. The Crowd
45. Sunset Blvd
46. Talk To Her
47. Shanghai Express
48. Letter From An Unknown Woman
49. Once Upon A Time In The West
50. Voyage In Italy
51. Nostalghia
52. Seven Men From Now
53. Claire's Knee
54. Earth
55. Gun Crazy
56. Out Of The Past
57. Children Of Paradise
58. The Naked Spur
59. A Place In The Sun
60. The General

(In Film Comment's printed list, #35 and #50 were incorrect. Schrader wrote an erratum in the current issue, and the list above is the correct version.)

FACT

A new organisation, FACT (Freedom Against Censorship Thailand), has released a statement campaigning against Thai internet censorship, on their website at facthai.wordpress.com.

The Joy Of Swearing

The Joy Of Swearing is a self-styled "light-hearted look at profanity through the ages". The (slim) book is divided into chapters on swearing in films, songs, literature, and television.

As a pick 'n' mix of the past 100 years of swearing in the media, it's mildly entertaining. There is no history or analysis, though, so each chapter is merely a series of examples, with less than a page devoted to each one.

Also, there are absolutely no references, with quotations only vaguely attributed. For instance, a long quote from John McEnroe is cited as "[from] a BBC website recently". Of course, it's easy to check the exact details at google.com, but that wouldn't be necessary if the book cited its sources in full.

The Joy Of Swearing was written by M Hunt [no relation], a pseudonym for Alison Maloney. As I've said before, the best book about this subject is surely An Encyclopedia Of Swearing by Geoffrey Hughes.

The Unseeable

The Unseeable, the new film by Wisit Sasanatieng, is a ghost story set in 1930s Bangkok. A pregnant woman, Nualjan, has come to the city in search of her missing husband, and she stays as a guest in a rundown old mansion owned by the elusive Madame Ranjuan. The house and its grounds are haunted by a child, a hanging woman, and a gardener (amongst others), and the atmosphere is decidedly creepy. This is a traditional haunted house, complete with billowing curtains and creaky doors.

Nualjan is intimidated by the housemaid, Somjit, who is seemingly lifted straight out of Rebecca, with her high-necked black dress, stern demeanor, and sudden appearances. Indeed, the mansion in The Unseeable has a backstory and presence as foreboding as that of Rebecca's Manderley, and Ranjuan and Rebecca exert a similarly all-embracing power over their respective homes.

It's difficult to write much about the film's plot, principally because the atmosphere takes precedence over the narrative. (In Wisit's other films, the production design overwhelms the characters, though this is not the case with The Unseeable. Wisit's previous post-modern design schemes emphasised the artificiality of his films - however this is a compliment, not a criticism.)

For the most part, the film is composed of a series of tense sequences in which Nualjan encounters the mansion's various residents. She does give birth, though the baby's name and gender are not revealed. After a rather leisurely narrative progression, everything is rather abruptly explained at the end in a sudden twist.

The final, explanatory twist is similar to that of Art Of The Devil II, and The Unseeable was actually written by one of Art Of The Devil II's directors. The film's Thai-language title transliterates as 'having an affair with a ghost', which gives a fairly large hint. There is such a rapid series of expositional twists in the final reel that, rather than explaining everything, it makes things more confusing - I'm still trying to decide who is alive and who is dead at the end of the film.

The Unseeable is markedly different from Wisit's previous films, the brightly-coloured, camp melodrama Tears Of The Black Tiger and the modern fairytale Citizen Dog. The over-saturated colours are gone, replaced by a palette of muted browns evoking 1930s interiors. Much of the film takes place at night, in another contrast to the bright daylight of his previous work. (Though Wisit is popular on the international festival circuit, his films are a bit too quirky for domestic audiences. This may change with The Unseeable.)

Wisit wrote the script for Nang Nak, a hugely popular film about a man who doesn't realise that his wife is a ghost, and Thai cinema has been flooded with ghost films ever since. The Unseeable is therefore a 'safe', commercial choice, but Wisit is by no means selling out. It may be yet another Thai ghost story, though its period atmosphere seems to be frozen in time. (The spectral conclusion implies the cyclic nature of the story.) There is a sophistication and craftsmanship here far beyond most genre cinema.

Filthy Shakespeare

Filthy Shakespeare, by Pauline Kiernan, is a guide to William Shakespeare's most suggestive, innuendo-filled writings. Kiernan has selected extracts from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, and translated them into modern English.

The book is divided into over seventy short chapters, arranged thematically, each one discussing a different extract from Shakespeare's work. First, the original extract is printed, followed by a modern translation, and finally a mini glossary.

Kiernan's translations are specifically designed to highlight Shakespeare's sexual metaphors, though her graphic language takes away all of the original poetry and ambiguity - she may have been too blunt in her interpretations.

This is by no means the first book about Shakespeare's sexual language - there is an entire industry of stocking-filler titles about the bard's invectives. Kiernan's book is more intelligent than most, though it can't hold a candle to the true pioneer in this field, Eric Partridge. Partridge's book Shakespeare's Bawdy, an A-Z glossary of Shakespeare's puns, is the first and last word on the subject, though Kiernan doesn't even acknowledge it as a source.

One Step Beyond Forever!

I'm currently in the UK, specifically in Coventry, where Dech and I used to live.

One Step Beyond Forever! is the fourth book of official episode guides to The Simpsons, covering seasons thirteen and fourteen. Every episode has a double-page spread, featuring photos, a detailed synopsis, and quotes.

The book is dense with trivia, though there's just a hint of self-satisfaction in its lists of blink-and-you'll-miss-them visual jokes: it seems like the book is reminding us how clever The Simpsons is. But, of course, The Simpsons actually is that clever, so the self-satisfaction is well-deserved.

Kubrick exhibition in Belgium

The Kubrick exhibition, previously held in Germany and Australia, has moved to Ghent in Belgium. It is on show at the city's Caermersklooster from 5th October this year until 7th January 2007.

This post is from Brussels airport in Belgium, as I'm leaving the country after going to the absolutely amazing Kubrick exhibition here. The city of Ghent is charming, with its cobbled streets and Gothic churches.

I went to the exhibition with my friend and fellow Kubrick obsessive, Fili (of archiviokubrick.it), which was the best possible way to see it. It features various props from each of Kubrick's films, including iconic items such as the typewriter from The Shining and the 'starchild' from 2001. There are also pages from Kubrick's notebooks and scripts, and hundreds of previously unseen Kubrick photos.