London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival: homage to Pier Paolo Pasolini

After an intense reading week in which I tried to finish an essay about Hitchcock, John Ford and authorship I finally have some time to write.

A couple of days ago the BFI sent me the programme for the London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, while I was looking at the calendar to see which events to attend I was delightful to find this:

Three events will take place between the 16 and 17 March: Pasolini's last words directed and produced by Cathy Lee Crane ( Sat 16, 21:00 STUDIO, or Sun 17 20:50 NFT3), Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom directed by Pasolini ( Sun 17, 18:10 NFT1), and Queer Pasolini, an engaging talk on the tensions between his political positions and his queerness ( Sun 17, 15:00 - 17:30 BFI REUBEN LIBRARY).

My surprise is due to the fact that his films didn't have an easy life in Italy, his own country. He was poet, writer, director, screenwriter, actor and journalist, but his persona hasn't always been entirely recognized, but mostly obstacled. We shouldn't forget the treatment he received by the Catholic Church, it's inevitable when a religion has such a strong influence on an entire country as Italy. His short film based on a reconstruction of the Passion of Christ entitled La Ricotta, released in 1963, was immediately confiscated and Pasolini accused of offence to the religion of state.
The Italian Constitution was proclaimed on 1 January 1948. The articles 7 and 8 clearly state the division between the State and the Church, and the freedom of religion.
However, he was condamned to 4 months of prison.

Between his films I find his adaptations from literary works very interesting. For example. he adapted the Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and of the Arabian Nights. He dedicated this trilogy to life, I think it's brilliant because it shows how interested he was in other cultures and traditions, in accepting the otherness.

In these days, especially, remembering great Italians, those people who honoured my country with that great thing called CULTURE, is my consolation. Believe me, honor Pasolini and recognize his homosexuality would still be difficult in Italy today.

The BFI not only homages him with these events, but with an entire retrospective between the 1 March and the 9 May.

I hope I'll have the chance to see most of his films, in a city that does not criticize people for their sexual orientation, their being different and unique. Thank you London e grazie Pier Paolo. Sometimes you need to go away to find your roots.

"L'Italia cioè non sta vivendo altro che un processo di adattamento alla propria degradazione. [...] Tutti si sono adattati o attraverso il non voler accorgersi di niente o attraverso la più inerte sdrammatizzazione."

Pier Paolo Pasolini

P.S. : this quotation is in Italian, because its meaning is particularly connected to what is happening in Italy right now. History repeats itself.

Valentino: Master of Couture

On a January snowy weekend my flatmates and I decided to cross Waterloo Bridge (believe me it was a brave action with that weather) and visit the Somerset House to see the fascinating Valentino: Master of Couture Exhibition.

Personally, this experience was very emotional, since the fashion designer Valentino Garavani is Italian and he represents a great achievement for the Italian name in fashion. 
He dressed stars such as: Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Sophia Loren, Meryl Streep, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, and many others.

The Exhibition will be on until the 3rd March, so, if you haven't been there yet hurry up and reward your sight with 130 examples of legendary style.
Since we weren't allowed to take pictures I've tried to find some of the most significant pieces in the show.

I think the structure of the exhibition is the element that immediately caught my attention.

First of all, visitors have the possibility to read newspapers cuts and personal letters from Jackie O., Grace Kelly, Sofia Loren, and many others to Valentino.
I found these very useful for whom is interested in the world of fashion because they take us, even if for a little time, back to the past, through the history of both Valentino's career and the lives of some of the most iconic women in the world.

After this first passage the visitors will go upstairs and find themselves protagonists of a very fancy catwalk. While we walk in the middle of the room Valentino's creations surround us along with elegant chairs reporting names of celebrities to suggest the idea of a real fashionshow.

In the last part spectators can admire the awesome and extremely elaborate wedding dress Valentino made for Princess Marie Chantal of Greece in 1995.
Last, but not least, we have access to the Valentino Garavani Virtual Museum, which makes us recall his entire career, especially through the words of his business partner and friend Giancarlo Giammetti.

Now I'll leave you to the pictures hoping they'll trigger your curiosity.

A/W 1967/68 Green satin one shouldered evening gown with sequin and strass embellishment. Worn by Jacqueline Kennedy on an official visit to Cambodia.

S/ S 1968 White ecru georgette evening dress with lace appliqué detailing. Worn by Jacqueline Kennedy for her wedding to Aristotle Onassis.

 

A / W 1992/93 Black velvet and tulle evening gown with white ribbon detailing. Worn by Julia Roberts, actress, to the 2001 Oscar Ceremony.

A / W 2002/03 Red taffeta dress with remboursé train detail. Worn by, actress, Anne Hathaway to the 2011 Oscar Ceremony.

S / S 1959 Red tulle evening dress with corsage detailing in the skirt using rose couture technique.

Wedding Dress of Princess Marie Chantal of Greece

 "I am like a freight train. Working on the details, twisting them and playing with them over the years, but always staying on the same track." 

Valentino Garavani

Characters come first!

The title of this post comes from the authograph Deborah Nadoolman Landis signed on my Hollywood Costume copy.

It was October and she was presenting the event "A Creative Collaboration: Edith Head and Alfred Hitchcock". The event was part of the BFI London Film Festival and it was a great possibility to meet the artist who combines fashion and films' characters together through the great art of costume design.

Deborah Nadoolman Landis - Costume Designer

Deborah Nadoolman Landis is the legendary costume designer of The Blues Brothers, Animal House, Indiana Jones and Michael Jackson's red jacket in Thriller. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for Coming to America in 1988.

In her research work for the organization of the Hollywood Costume exhibition, hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum, she directly interviewed Edith Head and went through archives to show the audience her original sketches for Hitch. If I think about it I'm still breathless for the awesome Grace Kelly's dress in one of Rear Window's scenes.

Hollywood Costume - V&A Publishing, 2012

To sum up this event and Hitchcock's attitued towards costume design in his films I want to use Edith Head's words:

" Unless there is a story reason for a color, we keep the colors muted, because Hitchcock believes they can detract from an important action scene. He uses color, actually, almost like an artist, preferring soft greens and cool colors for certain moods."

The fundamental rule of costume design is to think about the characters first and always.
Costume designers take the characters' personality and story and make them live through costumes.

Now I want to give you a glimpse of the Exhibition. First of all, it was a breathtaking travel to the past, and the best thing was that you could see both the history of fashion and the history of cinema.

To give you some examples, some of the most incredible pieces, in my opinion, are Vivien Leigh's green dress from Gone with the Wind, Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's long black dress and pearl necklace, Dorothy's red shoes from The Wizard of Oz and Marlene Dietrich dress from Angel.

Vivien Leigh - Gone with the Wind (1939) - Costume designer Walter Plunkett

Marlene Dietrich - Angel (1937) - Costume designer Travis Banton

Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) - Costume designer Hubert de Givenchy

Tippi Hidren - The Birds (1963) - Costume designer Edith Head

Kim Novak - Vertigo (1958)- Costume designer Edith Head

There was an area dedicated to costume drama and a section dedicated to De Niro's and Meryl Streep's transformation in films.

Marie Antoinette (2006) - Costume designer Milena Canonero

 "All his costumes become so much a part of his character. It's not something he's just thrown on - he really inhabits the clothes." Costume designer Rita Ryack on Robert De Niro.

"Costume is incredibly important. That's costume, that's decision, that's your inner world manifesting because you just don't feel right in the wrong thing." Meryl Streep on costumes.

Unforgettable costumes from the early era of cinema, Charlie Chaplin's suit for example, but even more modern costumes from Titanic, Moulin Rouge, Fight Club, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Kill Bill and many, many others.

Charles Chaplin (1915)

Kate Winslet - Titanic (1997) - Costume designer Deborah L. Scott

Nicole Kidman - Moulin Rouge (2001) - Costume designers Catherine Martin and Angus Strathie

I think the images and the clothes speak for themselves, so I'll leave you to your Hollywood dreams with a sincere thanks to Deborah Nadoolman and her efforts to preserve these wonderful examples of the collaboration between two great arts, costume design and cinema.

" I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make - up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on to the stage, he was born."

Charles Chaplin

The Man behind the Camera

The film finished an hour ago, and on my way back home I've tried to hold on to all I was feeling while watching Hitchcock.

It would be too simplistic to say that it's a great film, and a must-see for whoever loves films, Hitchcock and, above all, how these films are made. It would be too simplistic too to say that Anthony Hopkins' and Helen Mirren's performances are precious and intense portraits of two great artists.

Yes, two artists, because, you see, a director can be a genius, as Hitchcock was, but the important thing to notice is that Alma Reville wasn't only his wife, and life companion, she was an artist, an excellent screenwriter, and, as the film shows, she was even greater in the editing room. Hitch chose well, he couldn't have found a better woman, a companion sharing both life and love for films with him.

There is so much you can find if you dig deeply into the film's corpus: references to classical Hollywood cinema: the studio system, the power of producers, the censorship. We see exactly what Hitchcock had to go through (even if he already was a successful and appreciated artist) to find the approval for his film. Psycho.

He wanted to be different, he wanted to leave his sign through something that could give him a thrill, the thrill he felt when he first started making movies.
In one scene he is talking to Alma about financing the film with their money. She asks him: "Is it really what you want to do? Isn't it because so many people are saying no?"
And he replies saying that when they started working together they had no money, they took risks and they invented new ways of making films because they had to. He wanted to feel those feelings again.

If a single piece of a dialogue could explain the entire inner world of a single director this would be the piece.
Taking risks, because making movies is an art, is free expression, is exploration, and is thrill. It is a love story which lasts a lifetime, because behind those works of art there are the artist, his thoughts, his touch and signature, his final cut.

The film's other great achievement is reached through the freshness and lightness it uses to deal with the intricate personality of Hitch, his problems with alcohol, his marriage, the obsession towards his blonde leading ladies, his nightmares concerning the film.

The film's style is very accurate, with an incredible attention to details, in the Hitchcockian style, the mise-en-scene is fantastic: costumes and colours, taking us back to 1959, the sequences on the set highlighting some of the epic scenes of Psycho as Marion's escape and the shower-scene.
It's especially thanks to the subtle and sarcastic lines of the script that the picture works so well: every single detail is important and remarkable to reference to Hitchcock's career: the beginning and the ending shot as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, TV series running between 1955 and 1962, the reference to The Birds at the end of the film,and many others that an attentive viewer will appreciate.

As the film reminds, Hitchcock never won an Oscar, but he was prized with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979, if you're interested I recommend to watch this video on Youtube in which the critic and director Francois Truffaut pays homage to Hitchcock:

In addition to this I highly recommend the book from which the film was adapted: Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello, first published in 1990.

"I am just a man hiding in the corner, with a camera...watching. My camera will tell you the truth." 

Emotion Pictures

First of all: Hi to everyone! I've been living in London since September and I've always thought about starting this blog. I'm a first year Film Studies student at the King's College of London.

This won't be a chronological blog, because I think that all forms of art exist and persist in time, so you will have a mixture of new and old.  And, since I'm extremely convinced that each expression of art is connected to the others, they are complementary in a way, I will talk about fashion applied to films, adaptations from literary works to the screen, and so on.

London is a lively and vibrant place for the arts, especially in the Southbank area where I live, and where you can find the BFI (British Film Institute), the National Theatre, the Globe Theatre, the Southbank Centre and, with a ten-minute walk, the Tate Modern.
 
I won't write, or try to write, "scholarly" articles (believe me college is enough for that), but I want to share writings about the first impressions. Those feelings you have when you read the last line of a book, listen to the lyrics of a song for the first time, look at a painting, costume design clothes, and, especially when you see the words THE END on a screen. 

The poet William Wordsworth talked about "emotion recollected in tranquillity", but, I think that when we elaborate our thoughts too much they don't conserve that freshness anymore. 

For long scholarly articles, reviews, etc. tons of books, journals and magazines exist. 
But here I want to use the "eyes wide shut" technique. When we look at something with semi-closed (or semi-opened) eyes, but we are still looking, without too many reflections, but with our reactions to words, music and images.

Wim Wenders, German filmmaker I really admire, named his collection of essays and reviews Emotion Pictures and said in the introduction:

"Images are fragile. Most of the time words don't translate them well, and when they have carried the image to the other side the emotion has all run out of it. Writing has to be careful with (E)motion Pictures."