Irving Penn and the Politics of Placards

Posted on April 22, 2024 by billnichols99

A great exhibit of Penn’s work is at the de Young museum in San Francisco right now. It covers his full career and has arranged his work in a clear, engaging way with placards that help guide us on this journey of discovery.

For the most part.

Some don’t. Many do. They do neglect two things that struck me in general. One was his use of Ansel Adams Zone system where an image is best composed with the full spectrum from deep black to bright white. Penn’s images almost always do so. The total lack of smiles might be another not mentioned but even more is that lack of attention to the non-descript backgrounds Penn favored. Though mentioned, this quality is not fully appreciated. The vagueness forces us to read the profile or figure without hints and clues derived from what surrounds them, or worse, with the figure serving as a pretext to smuggle content in through the background (which can be done well but often isn’t). Penn wants us to focus on the figure not the ground.

And then there are the shots from Africa. Suddenly the placards have to remind us about Orientalism, the cultural sidekick to colonialism that primitivized, trivialized, demeaned or otherwise reduced the full humanity of others from other cultures. Why? Was Penn guilty of this? Can any western artist be free of it? How is it manifest in Penn specifically? One hint that Penn is not guilty, or only guilty of extended his fascination with portraiture to people of other cultures, is that the placards make no accusation and only “remind” us that the practice of Orientalism has caused much harm.

I suspect innocence more than guilt. I would put his images of native Peruvians, which receive no warnings of Orientalism, against his shots of Africans and suggest they are of the same nature and quality. Like Edward Curtis ennobling, dignified shots of Native Americans there is little that can be found sensationalizing, stereotyping, or demeaning in the images. They try to show people as they would wish to be shown, with Penn’s assistance. The willingness to display their bodies with the three African women seems driven by their elaborate patterns of cicatrization on their skins, a decoration comparable to the clothing shown by the Peruvians.

I could be wrong or this could be sign of how Cautious museums and other institutions feel they must be when doing the right thing looms so large.

Peru

Africa

WORLD CUP STORYTELLING and MORE

Posted on December 8, 2022 by billnichols99

Once upon a time, the story was the terrible deeds of the autocratic, despotic, perhaps barbarous government of Qatar. How they paid their way to become Host of the World Cup and how they treated not only the workers they grossly mistreated to build the infrastructure for one of the hugest, grandest events in all of sports but also expected fans to kowtow to their Prohibition era ways,all seemed headed toward a reckoning of some kind.

But no. Something happened.

It became a question of how fans would manage without beer.

The story shifted: now the games were on and all that merited discussion was who won and who lost.

Did journalism lose its moral compass in all of this?

Or was it the organizers and sponsors and fans and teams–all of whom did the ostrich thing and just said Get on with it?

I thought this might be an ethical question about reportage but it seems more a political question about courage: the courage to admit mistakes, to not conscience human rights violations, to refuse to abide by a Let’s Pretend there is no context for the pleasures we take in sports, to insist on principles above all.

It reminds me of the many appalling tales the waft around the NFL, the governing body for American football, from racist owners to sexist players, from minimizing concussions to overlooking domestic abuse.

Ditto for the ex-President who could be exposed as a sexist pig, in so many words, as well as a pathological liar, who could be the root cause of an attempted coup against our government and who wants to scrap our Constitution, but who only needs to wait out to the news cycle to go on his next outrageous act, indifferent to consequences that have yet to arrive (though they might, someday!).

Stories get told and our storytelling journalists can claim they just provide what we want to hear.

Perhaps it’s part of the loss of confidence in public institutions and public figures generally. What do you think?

Patrick Kelly and the Quirky Look of Things

Posted on February 28, 2022 by billnichols99

An exhibit at the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park, a building of fantastic design in my view by Herzog and de Meuron, the Swiss architects who did the Olympic arena in Beijing several years ago and many other astounding works, portrays the career of Patrick Kelly, a gay, Mississippi-born African-American of extraordinary talent who took Paris by storm until AIDS took him away at far too young an age.

Unlike the leaders of the fashion world who created out-of-this-world designs that sprang from their inexhaustible imaginations, Kelly, a bit like de Laurent and Gauthier, took familiar objects and fashions from dice or buttons to bolts of fabric or flags, and wove them into works that were distinctly his own. He invited us to see how simple things could be elevated to high fashion by the work of creative repurposing, and, along the way, subvert the often racist intent of many familiar icons from images of Aunt Jamima to the golliwog and even “Darkie” toothpaste. He did not try to escape his roots but to transform them, deploying a camp aesthetic to political ends but doing so with a whimsical, joyful zest that was rare in the refined world of high fashion. His work stands apart and always will.

A vast space but one the blends into the park as a monumental work of steel and glass never would

VIGIL, a TV Series

Posted on January 12, 2022 by billnichols99

A Scottish tv series with an “out there” premise that pays off in spades: 2 female detectives try to find out what happened on a nuclear submarine after a crew member dies.(It’s on Peacock.) Of course, he didn’t just die. He was murdered. And on a sub, that means a Big Problem. By now one detective is on the boat, despite having been in the family car when it plunged to the bottom of a lake and her husband died, but not her daughter, and the other one on land, bumping heads and tracing leads that include a nuclear disarmament group, a big time politician, MI5, Russian spies and American arrogance, plus numerous suspicious acting crew members, and multiple sabotage attempts aboard the HMS Vigil. Adding to the sizzle is the love affair that brews between the two women. One straight, one gay, both drawn to each other with inevitable tensions. Their love smolders. It’s like hot embers that just need a spark to roar into flames. The actors are fabulous throughout. Tension abounds. Feelings percolate. Danger awaits. It’s one of the best series I’ve seen in recent months.

Da 5 Bloods

Posted on June 28, 2020 by billnichols99

Spike Lee is a challenge and clearly intends to be just that. His films always contain “extraneous” elements that no Hollywood producer would want: shots of protests, MLK orating, violence in the streets, etc.–all in relation to a story based on The Treasure of Sierra Madre but shifted from white guys seeking gold in Mexico to black guys seeking gold in Vietnam. And the remains of their hero/leader, a too good to be true soldier who was killed in an ill-conceived mission. The Bloods return after all these years to a Vietnam that at first looks like an extension of any other tourist destination but quickly becomes the foil needed to bring out the damage these men have suffered for decades: PTSD in a single word. Especially Paul who remains in a jittery rage, ready to attack anyone, including his son, if they cross him and he is easily crossed.

Paul is the central character and not an appealing one. Lee tests us to like a guy so badly messed up. By the military that used black troops as cannon fodder, by buddies who can’t quite connect with each other, by Vietnamese who harbor hatreds of their own. The last point, like much in the film, stretches credibility. By most accounts modern-day Vietnamese have moved beyond the American War of some 45 years ago. Young men then would be in their sixties now. Young men now would not have been born until 20-30 years after the war, so why do two different young Vietnamese men say people like Paul killed their mother and father? Lee wants the rage to burst out everywhere but turns the Vietnamese into stereotypical bad guys, or the one “loyal” good guy, or the women who were whores and now prosper, etc. It’s a Frenchman who is the most conniving although a band of greedy thugs who covet the gold come a close second. At least they don’t promise one thing and then do another.

My comments are a bit of a jumble because the film is too and although I admired its power and the simmering turmoil inside the men, the film just doesn’t gel. It uses another culture, or distorts another culture, to bring out the issues and defects Lee wants to display in these damaged men, which range from wisdom and altruism, despite their sufferings, to the murderous, mad rage of Paul. He also stretches out the ending by some 15 minutes after it is clear how things end up by tacking on scene after scene as if one more scene will really nail the thematic nail on the head. They just add clutter.

I’m glad I saw it but wish we had a film on that war that gave a more balanced, more insightful portrait of what it was like for the America that resisted it, the soldiers who fought it, and the people whose country endured it.

San Francisco on Foot

Posted on May 26, 2020 by billnichols99

During the time of the plague–the virus mainly, more than the orange man in that white house–I have been taking long hikes in the city, first in Golden Gate Park, discovering nooks and crannies off the beaten path and now, along the bay side and the shore, south of the new Warrior stadium. Under siege now by the developer caste, and their paint-by-number, utterly hideous box buildings, mostly 2 or 3 story apartment complexes that could be anywhere, are always somewhere in the gray spectrum, and have absolutely nothing to do with the style or tone that distinguished this once unique city, it remains, so far, a largely neglected, semi-industrial zone. The photos catch parts of it, beginning, though with the UCSF medical complex which is a massive hospital/research array of buildings that have almost zero street level identity and hence feel barren even though some of the buildings are above average in their architectural distinction. South of there the waterfront is still mostly industrial and those two areas are where the photos come from so, if each is worth a 1000 words, it’s time to move to pictures.

4 balls, highly reflective, outside the Chase Center

See all the unbroken windows

Not cement

The jetty and the pier

More to come

Road Runner, TV series, and The Odyssey

Posted on May 25, 2020 by billnichols99

A character in Money Heist reminded me of Wile. E. Coyote who comes up with ingenious plans to capture the Road Runner, only to see them fail every time. He never learns and the characters never change. They just go through different challenges with the same results, akin to one definition of crazy. But, in this case, funny.
So: Aren’t many TV series, even some of the best like that? The basic qualities of the key characters are established early on and then they face challenge after challenge only to find a way to overcome them. Character development or change is rare since the appeal of the challenges is seeing how their fixed personality gets them through the problem: Saul Goodman’s resourceful efforts in Better Call Saul to work the legal system to benefit less than law-abiding citizens, Marty and Wendy Byrde’s incredible ability in Ozark to use their wits to outsmart gangsters and cartels, scheming locals and crooked politicians no matter how dire the circumstances? Money Heist explores a single robbery attempt over two seasons as challenge after challenge confronts the impressively resourceful robbers, who also have a political axe to grind with late capitalism!
And in others like The Bridge or Shetland or A Place to Call Home, the challenges may impede a murder investigation or test the mettle of an entire family, but the characters alter little while the challenges proliferate like a field of wildflowers.
But doesn’t this idea of fixed characters confronting severe challenges that they typically overcome with skill and wit not go back at least to The Odyssey? Do TV series owe an enormous debt not only to Chuck Jones and his amazing cartoons but also to Homer and his classic tale of an almost interminable quest to achieve a long-desired goal despite nearly insurmountable obstacles? Except in some TV series the hero’s journey doesn’t bring them home so much as the kind of predicament that invites another season. Stay tuned.

TV series: Herrens veje

Posted on June 15, 2019 by billnichols99

Among my favorite long form TV series (Top of the Lake, Breaking Bad, Legacy, A Place to Call Home, Last Tango in Halifax, etc) is Borgen, a Danish show about a female Prime Minister and her struggles over several years and against multiple adversaries.

Now I’d add Herrens Veje, as Netflix bills it, though it also goes by Ride Upon the Storm.
This is also by Adam Price, the creator of Borgen.

It is about a family with Lutheran priests in it for the last 250 years. The current patriarch and his two troubled sons form the crux of the show, with vital peripheral characters thrown in.
When I’ve been asked over the years to name films that deal with religious themes intelligently I find the list petering out after several Bergman titles and some of Scorsese. Now there is this series. Some will find anything that tackles faith, doubt, sin, betrayal, redemption, guilt, spiritual visions, and family drama over the top no matter what. Better to deal with bad guys and fallible cops. But Price tackles these themes with an honesty and detachment that does not invite us to believe in anything beyond our own power to be engaged by complex, soul-wrenching situations. There are no apologies and those who speak for the church, the Danish National Church in this case, are just as flawed as those whose doubts run deep.
It’s all in the particulars and this show has them in spades.

The use of close ups is particularly compelling. These are all faces that seem to suppress as much emotion as they express. The characters are tightly wound with desires, fears, guilts and longings and only a fraction of it gets openly expressed. It gives the scenes an enormous sense of tension and the whole series a great deal of suspense, even though there is no ticking time bomb or a serial killer on the loose or any of the other usual suspects.

I’m finding it a more thought provoking show than just about anything I’ve seen in the last few years. I hope you do too, or, if not, I hope you’ll let me know why not.

Document or Art?

Posted on May 27, 2019 by billnichols99

A friend is making an art project by shooting each flight of stairs in a five story building. There is a quiet, haunting quality to the work that struck me as quite impressive. It made me wonder if this casual, random shot I took of a new stairway railing to document its existence might qualify as art?

Does intention matter? Might something done for one reason fulfill another? Did Mr. Campbell think his soup cans would wind up in museums?

Heady questions and perhaps unanswerable, but there’s something worth pondering in all this. Anyway, here’s the photo I took; what do you think?

stair railing

Theranos and the Big Lie

Posted on March 31, 2019 by billnichols99

On Alex Gibney’s The Inventor

From NYT obit, 3/29/2019

“ I try to keep a certain level of quality of my films. I don’t do commercials, I don’t do films pre-prepared by other people, I don’t do star system. So I do my own little thing.”

–Agnes Varda

For someone to provide Errol Morris’ extraordinary footage of Elizabeth Holmes and her Theranos dream of blood-based lab work easily done in every home to Alex Gibney has resulted in the best Errol Morris film Morris never made. This gift to Gibney is not unlike the gift to Werner Herzog of the remarkable footage shot by Timothy Treadwell before he died, attacked by a grizzly bear. Herzog’s Grizzly Man distances itself from the self-serving intentions of Treadwell’s footage to question the very premise Treadwell lived by (namely, that he could live among wild grizzly bears as one of them, protecting them from harm.) It is also reminiscent of the gift of CBS videotapes of the McCarthy/Army hearings in the late 50s I believe that arrived at Emile de Antonio’s studio and became his brilliant Point of Order, a reedited version that exposed Senator Joe McCarthy’s ruthless, senseless, vicious style of personal attack, aimed, of course, of saving us from Communism. Gibney does the same. Morris’ initially prestigious assignment to bring an extra measure of glamor to Holmes and Theranos very well be vanishing from his resume at this very moment. His Theranos footage doesn’t gibe with his reputation for bringing out the self-deceptions his feature doc subjects have grown accustomed to as Gibney makes abundantly clear.

All the lovely portrait footage of Holmes inevitably exposes her as a poseur, intent on selling an unworkable and probably impossible idea to those naive enough to believe all the hype about Silicon Valley’s myths of miracle working. It merits close watching for the warning it issues to beware of snake oil salespeople, whatever their pitch. Hard questions needed asking and not Henry Kissinger, George Schulz, or other Board members, not the venture capitalists, not Walmart, which installed her grossly defective machines, not Errol Morris who took the money and added the charm as biden, asked them. Gibney does and the result is a powerful reminder of the power of power to corrupt.

Bill Nichols

San Francisco

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