Blogcritics Author: Raquel Laneri

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Movie Review: Rebel Yell - The Irreverent Reverence of Marie Antoinette

Raquel Laneri — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:58:48 EST

Sofia Coppola’s anti-biopic Marie Antoinette opens with a blast of dissonant chords from post-punk group Gang of Four. “The problem of leisure/What to do for pleasure,” snarls frontman Don King as the opening credits (recalling Sex Pistols' typography) flash in hot pink. Briefly, our powdered-wig heroine (Kirsten Dunst, who starred in Coppola’s first film The Virgin Suicides) appears -- lounging on a chaise surrounded by multi-layered cakes as a servant rubs her feet. Leisure, indeed.While the opening alludes to the hedonistic lifestyle depicted later, it’s Marie Antoinette's most irreverent moment, exhibiting a self-awareness and moralizing absent from the rest of the film. Here we have the socialist Gang of Four singing about the dangers of excess, a visual representation of the historical figure’s most infamous (rumored) utterance (“Let them eat cake”), and a reference to the Sex Pistols' anti-royalist “God Save the Queen.” But the rest of the film is characterized by reverence toward its subject, as Coppola, using Antonia Fraser’s sympathetic biography, Marie Antoinette:The Journey, as her main source, attempts to paint a more humanistic portrait of the teen queen -- subverting the conventions of historical drama and biopic along the way.Coppola does this by transforming a nation’s history into something deeply personal. Marie Antoinette does not resemble an historic epic, despite the lavish costumes and set, but, rather, a teenager’s diary. Coppola’s narrative follows the “greatest hits” structure employed in the standard biopic: Marie’s marriage to the Dauphin (played by an appropriately bumbling Jason Schwartzman) and induction into Versailles, the death of her father-in-law Louis XV (Rip Torn), her coronation, her famous quote, her banishment from Versailles. Yet Coppola never lingers on these important or ceremonious events, favoring the moments in between: Marie reading Rousseau to her friends outside, gambling on her eighteenth birthday party, guzzling champagne, wondering why her husband won’t have sex with her, wandering around Versailles, listening to the other ladies of the court gossip about her, crying behind closed doors. Not the stuff of biopics, these tiny yet undeniably human moments create the film’s insular universe. Through cinematographer Lance Accord’s lens, Versailles (shot on location) is not so much opulent as it is otherworldly. When she first enters the palace, the alabaster-skinned Marie floats about in a dream-like state through the rooms, which look hollow despite the numerous pieces of upholstered furniture, ghostly music tinkles from an out-of-tune upright piano on the soundtrack. Indeed, Versailles does represent a dream -- or a coma. Once Marie makes the journey from her native Austria to France, she only leaves the palace grounds twice. She has no concept of the poverty-stricken France that exists outside the palace’s gated walls. The film, therefore, too ignores the outside world, for it has no bearing on Marie’s world of privilege and parties, nor on her isolation.Isolation? Yes, Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is an angst-ridden teen (she even dons Converse in one scene), and her Versailles the bubble world of high school. As Marie walks through the halls, the court members size her up, whisper to one another, surreptitiously giggle. “She looks like a piece of cake,” one woman says. “I wonder how long she’ll last,” clucks another one.The interplay between reverence and rebellion in Marie Antoinette is most apparent in the film’s soundtrack. Mixing classical pieces by Scarlatti and Vivaldi with post-punk ones by Bow Wow Wow and The Strokes, Coppola creates a sonic landscape that meshes with the enclosed world she creates for her characters. The music isn’t just a tool to get viewers to identify with Versailles, but it’s the way Coppola knows how to transport the her images to another dimension: when Marie’s carriage approaches Versailles for the first time, and Cure’s “Plainsong,” with its crashing cymbals and lush electronic layers kicks in, the awe and allure of the palace is magnified to epic proportions.Booed at the Cannes Film Festival, Marie Antoinette, with its questionable sympathies and eschewing of proper film conventions, is the work of a true rebel. Yet this isn’t some hipster’s reworking of the historical biopic as post-punk musical, it’s a humanist’s take on a controversial and misunderstood (at least in Coppola's view) historical figure and a revitalization of the film as biography.

Raquel is a graduate student studying arts journalism at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. She has written about fashion for Women's Wear Daily and Pittsburgh City Paper, film for Metro Times Detroit and literature for PopMatters. Check out her blog Electric Warrior

Perfumery As Artistry: Eau de Armpit, Anyone?

Raquel Laneri — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 04:08:06 EDT

I'll admit, I've never been a fan of perfume. I remember accompanying my mother to Sephora in New York as a little girl and running out after about five minutes, unable to withstand all the floral and musky odors. I also remember taking car trips and having to sit next to my grandma, whose perfume would seep every corner of the enclosed vehicle and make me nauseous. I still have problems with perfume. While I now can spend over five minutes in Sephora, I always race through the perfume section to the back, where the makeup is generally kept (except in Pittsburgh – where I grew up – where the scents line the walls, so I just try to stay in the center as much as I can). The only cologne I own is one from Origins, which has the faintest hint of ginger, and even that I only wear for special – or dire – occasions.But lately, I feel I have slighted the perfume industry and perhaps I should train my olfactory senses. Currently, I'm reading Axel Madsen's biography on iconic designer Coco Chanel, and Madsen goes into particular detail chronicling the inception of the equally iconic perfume Chanel No. 5. Since reading this chapter, I have stumbled upon articles about "odor artist" Sissel Tolaas and synthetic perfumes (both in the New York Times). Maybe my dislike for perfumes is more a lack of appreciation or understanding of perfumes. With practically every celebrity – from Sarah Jessica Parker to Jennifer Lopez to Paris Hilton – starting her own perfume, it's easy to dismiss the industry. I mean, if Paris Hilton can do it, how hard can it be? But what these recent readings on scents have taught me is that perfumes, sometimes, aren't just about smelling nice, and some bottled up scents can even be revolutionary or thought-provoking.For example, in the article "Synthetic No. 5," Chandler Burr contrasts natural sandalwood to a synthetic concoction used to simulate sandalwood, one of the advantages to the synthetic option being that it's eco-friendly: "The sandalwood forests of India are being destroyed at a terrible rate, and the price of natural sandalwood is skyrocketing" ($800 per pound). As Burr goes on, "One perfumer I know told me that because of this, he now refuses to use natural materials in his perfumes."There are all sorts of fascinating nuggets of information in the article, from deconstructing common myths and misconceptions about perfumes (American scents are artificial, French are natural; artificial scents are cheap) to breaking down a perfume's essence by its molecules. Perfumes aren't just an amalgamation of flowers that smell pretty, but elaborate scientific experiments.The birth of Chanel No. 5, weirdly, has been my favorite part of Chanel's biography. While reading about her affairs with composer Igor Stravinsky and polo player Boy Capel is all very fun, I know most of the gossip already. Reading about her working in the lab with perfumer Ernest Beaux is absolutely thrilling. It's funny, for an olfactory-challenged person such as myself, to read what individual scents appeal to others, or what ingredients make a good perfume. For example, Chanel comments on a sample in the lab with, "That smells like leaf mold, of wet grass, something refreshing. It will help soften the scent of tuberose." Leaf mold? Well, that sounds pretty gross to me, but if the longevity of Chanel No. 5 is any indication, leaf mold is hot. Chanel loathed the flowery perfumes popular in France at the time and wanted to create something musky and clean. To achieve this "natural" scent, Beaux and Chanel ended up choosing a concoction of 80 – 80! – different ingredients. This made Chanel No. 5 the most expensive perfume in the world at the time. And it still has this certain allure, a status-symbol quintessence about it. Chanel No. 5 means sophisticated elderly NY women with tweed suits lunching at Saks. Or the impossibly elegant Nicole Kidman, who did the ads for the perfume a couple years ago.The most fascinating scent-related reading I've come across, however, is the other New York Times article on Sissel Tolaas by Susie Rushton. A sort of avant garde perfumer, Tolaas develops scents simulating armpit odor and the streets of Paris. Her scents are like complex experiments. She has worn eau de armpit to a party (creating a juxtaposition with the scent by wearing a ballgown), simulated the scent of money to "find out if its hot, coppery perfume could improve performance in business," and displayed people's coats with labels of the smells detected on each one – one Prada coat had dog feces, soy sauce, codfish and Chanel No. 5 (natch), among other smells, detected. These experiments force us to consider how scent factors into, and affects, our everyday lives and also challenges us to think about preconceived notions about scent.Despite the celebrity perfume craze, perfumery is hard work. And the best perfumers aspire to something that transcends lavender and roses. While I'm not entirely sure I would buy a vile of man's sweat to dab at my wrist, I certainly can appreciate the perfume-as-art these iconoclastic olfactory scientists are creating.

Exhibit Review: Artist as Critic of Own Work - The 2006 Everson Biennial

Raquel Laneri — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 11:31:14 EDT

Leaving the 2006 Biennial, which ends on August 20, at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, no one painting or photograph lingers in the mind. Not Amy Ciesielski's wonderful photograph (Untitled #5) of a woman's well-manicured hand subtly reaching toward a man's rough one. Not Alyssa Foos' giant, gnarled ball with sticks (Knitted World Object). Not the Miranda July quirkiness of Rebecca Murtaugh's To Mark a Significant Space in the Bedroom #1, which rendered Murtaugh's bedroom completely covered with neon pink, orange and yellow post-its. Instead of thinking about the images, I was distracted by the placards. Next to each work of art hangs a placard with, in addition to the usual information -- title, artist -- commentary on the piece by the artist. The pretension displayed in most of these commentaries outweighs the potential power of the images themselves. And this year's theme, "Beauty Is in the Eye of the Artist," lends itself to unlimited possibilities for pretension or triteness.For example, LaFevre's Adirondack Dawn is a beautiful photograph of a twisted tree against a vibrant orange sunset. And then there's the placard, where LaFevre credits his photographing nature to his desire to glorify and spread the word of God. The photograph suddenly transforms from a piece of art to a picture you would find in a church calendar. If an image causes one to believe in God, then that's fine, but being told that you are supposed to get out of an image that God exists is evangelism.Peter Forbes' self-portrait, Beauty Is in the Mind of This Beholder (original, yes?), is a photograph of the artist with his face squished against a transparent surface. The placard reads, "My artwork is a vehicle for my creative expression and I find this beautiful!" All three sentences in Forbes' statement, by the way, end in exclamation points, the last one being "That is beautiful!" The placard makes the mildly amusing image insufferable in the exaggerated earnestness of the placard. It's easy to squish your face and claim this is creative expression and claim that this is beauty as a way of either mocking the term beauty or expanding its definition. Ryan Syrell attempts to do this, too, with his painting Arrows, a collage of kitsch artifacts such as smiley faces and Daisy Ducks. In his description, Syrell basically describes his piece as a critique of the grotesque with which society has become obsessed. But what's with the pair of breasts then in the picture? What is Syrell telling us by putting boobs and a woman's arched torso in his collage? Is he likening the female form to the crassness of materialism? Placing the female form in conjunction with Trapper Keepers and cartoon characters, in a painting described by the artist as "grotesque," is highly insulting and misogynist.The biggest problem with artists who fancy themselves provocateurs, like Forbes and Syrell, who think they defy societal conventions of beauty, is their works aren't challenging us in any way. If they really want us to think about societal conventions of beauty, why don't they really go out on a limb and show us an anorexic woman, or a someone going through plastic surgery, or a corpse decomposing, or even some street art or urban wastelands or even just a photograph or painting of someone trying to fit into this boxed notion of beauty -- a homely girl putting on mascara, a man trying on tortoiseshell glasses.London Ladd's painting, The Long Night, does this. In all blues and grays, Ladd's painting depicts a young black boy, his mouth pursed, his eyes hard and pensive, looking out on the urban landscape. The view is from below -- so we are looking up at the boy. The angle makes the subject's presence, as well as the towering (apartment?) buildings looming in the background, rather menacing, or at least disquieting. Ladd's painting has no accompanying words, so the viewer is able to fully bask in its beautiful, moody colors.Bryan Valentine Thomas' American Beauties basically accomplishes what Syrell's Arrows tried to do. Kitsch is brought to disturbing heights when two heads model Miss America-style tiaras composed of silver plastic toy soldiers. Thomas' work comments on the crassness of beauty pageants in the face of violence, but it does so in a way that's not overwrought or a complete eyesore. By creating something that actually looks pleasing, rather than an ugly mess of tacky images, Thomas makes the viewer question what his or her attraction to his models means.The best part of the exhibit was a series of illustrations by Simone Mantellassi. Evocative of Robert Crumb's surreal ugliness or even of Thom Yorke's crude sketches of spaceships and aliens, Mantellassi's ink or pencil sketches represent something concrete yet abstract. He draws images, but it's often unclear what they represent. Sometimes they are imaginary creatures; sometimes they are houses that stand on feet or hands; sometimes they are dogs' heads with rabbit ears. They are drawn on notebook or construction paper and framed in a variety of small, antique frames. The hastiness the streaks of pen or marker imply indicate the sometimes elusive, fleeting inspiration that dawns on an artist. Ideas creep up and they disappear almost right away, and these images capture an artist struggling to keep up with the fleeting images that flit in and out of his consciousness. There's a desperation that comes across in these drawings, a desperation to get them on the page. They remind one of Daniel Johnson's own prolific output as a way of exorcising the ideas and images that enslave him. Mantellassi keeps the elusive, dreamlike quality of his drawings intact by refusing to provide interpretations in his comments on the placard. He comments on technique rather than offering analysis of his work, which allows the viewer to create his or her own little world from Mantellassi's sci-fi inspired images.Much of the Biennial's art, however, is mediocre. Not terrible, not insulting, just boring, which makes the artists' commentaries all the more ludicrous. There's a passable rendering of flowers in a vase, straightforward photographs of nudes and a pastel of swans swimming in a lake: all of which claim to be insightful, subversive, thought-provoking, and what not. Probably the worst of these is Rebecca Gardino's Seeing the Beauty of Motherhood. Yes, it's every bit as inane as the title would indicate. A not-so-skillful rendering of her two daughters (whose faces look plastic), a garden, two eyes overlooking the garden (very New Age), and a girl walking on the beach overhead. Gardino's description: Motherhood is beautiful to me. A walk through my mother's flower garden is meaningful ... My daughters are beautiful and unique, and every day they grow into their own free spirit [sic] the same way my mother let me grow.