Lumet’s Lessons: Preparing for Lucky Accidents

‘All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen.’
Sidney Lumet

Between 1957 and 2007 Sidney Lumet directed some 50 films. He gave us thrilling legal dramas, like ’12 Angry Men’ and ‘The Verdict’; gripping analyses of corrupt institutions, like ‘Serpico’ and ‘Network’; and searing psychological stories, like ‘The Pawnbroker’ and ‘Dog Day Afternoon’. He presented us with moral ambiguity, isolated anti-heroes and prisoners of conscience; flawed individuals struggling to find justice and truth. He was known as ‘the Dickens of New York’, ‘the actor’s director.’ And he taught us a great deal about the creative craft. 

‘If you prayed to inhabit a character, Sidney was the priest who listened to your prayers, helped them come true.'
Al Pacino

1. Start with Empathy

‘All good work is self revelation.’

Lumet was born in Philadelphia in 1924 to Polish immigrant parents who worked in the Yiddish theatre. He grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, studied acting at the Professional Children's School, and, from the age of 5, appeared in several Broadway productions and one movie. After attending Columbia University, he served as a radar repairman in India and Burma during World War II. On his return he enlisted as a member of the inaugural class at New York's Actors Studio. 

Lumet loved drama, but he realised that performing was not for him. So he set up his own theatre workshop and appointed himself director, while also teaching at the High School of Performing Arts.

His early experience gave him a life-long empathy with actors.

‘I understand what they're going through. The self-exposure, which is at the heart of all their work, is done using their own body. It's their sexuality, their strength or weakness, their fear. And that's extremely painful.’

Scene from 12 Angry Men

2. Turn Your Disadvantages into Advantages

In 1950 Yul Brynner, who was directing television dramas at the time, invited Lumet to join him at CBS. When Brynner left to star in ‘The King and I,’ Lumet took over. He shot two live shows a week: murder mysteries, comedies and original plays. His output included the innovative ‘You Are There’, a series that covered historical events – such as the death of Socrates and the Boston Tea Party - with modern news techniques.

In 1957 Lumet was commissioned to produce his first movie, ‘12 Angry Men’ starring Henry Fonda. A taut examination of the US jury system - shot in just 19 days - the drama played out in a claustrophobic jury room one sweltering New York summer.

From the outset Lumet displayed a thoughtful and imaginative approach to his craft.

‘It never occurred to me that that was a difficult thing to do, to do a whole movie in one room. You come in with a certain arrogance when you’re young… I knew that the way to do it was to turn what was seemingly a disadvantage into an advantage. As the movie went on, I made the room smaller:  the lenses got longer and longer, so that walls kept pulling in closer and closer, the camera kept dropping, dropping, dropping, so finally the ceiling was right over their heads. So that actually the whole piece kept contracting. And dramatically that’s what the movie was about.’

3. Be Whatever They Need You to Be

In the early phase of his film career Lumet was often tasked with translating stage plays onto the big screen. Between 1960 and 1962 he adapted classics by Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller. 

Lumet’s theatre background clearly impacted his style of movie direction. He rehearsed a minimum of two weeks before filming, and during that time he also blocked the scenes with his cameraman. Consequently, when it came to the actual production, he would usually shoot a scene in one take, two at the most, and he consistently delivered on time and on budget.

Lumet had a natural affinity with actors. He worked with them individually on their parts and he was happy to share ideas. He would often improvise dialogue and had the best exchanges incorporated in the script.

 ‘My job is to be whatever they need me to be. I’m no believer in any particular kind of technique. I’ll work any way they want to work.’

Image from The Hill

4. Trust Your Instinctive First Response

Lumet soon broadened his output beyond stage adaptations. His work tackled serious, psychological themes: the agonies of conscience; guilt and innocence; honesty and truth.

‘The Pawnbroker’ (1964), starring Rod Steiger, reflected on the enduring mental scars of a Holocaust survivor living in Harlem. ‘The Hill’ (1965), with Sean Connery, examined the brutality of a military prison. ‘Fail Safe’ (1964), again featuring Henry Fonda, exposed the ease with which Cold War misunderstandings could escalate into nuclear destruction. 

In selecting a script Lumet always trusted his gut.

‘I respond to a script or an idea completely instinctively, don’t try to analyse it, don’t try to fit it into a preconceived notion of what I want. And then, after a number of years, I can look back and I can say: ’Oh, that’s what I was interested in at that time.’’

5. Plunge in with Faith

Lumet extended this instinctive approach into the production process.

‘Self deception is really necessary to even go to work in the first place. Because the work itself is so hard you’ve got to be prepared to say: ‘I believe in this. I don’t see the problem.’ A kind of plunging in with faith.’

Lumet continued to be fascinated by the technical possibilities available to him in film. In ‘The Pawnbroker’ he used flashbacks to communicate the persistence of memory. In ‘The Hill’ he employed just three lenses: 24, 21 and 18mm. As the drama developed, he distorted the foreground and let the background recede to create the impression of escalating mental pressure.

Lumet compared his process to that of making a mosaic.

'Someone once asked me what making a movie was like. I said it was like making a mosaic. Each setup is like a tiny tile. You color it, shape it, polish it as best you can. You'll do six or seven hundred of these, maybe a thousand. Then you literally paste them together and hope it's what you set out to do. But if you expect the final mosaic to look like anything, you’d better know what you’re going for as you work on each tiny tile.’

Sidney Lumet with Al Pacino on the set of Serpico. Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex Features © Artists Entertainment Complex

6. Set the Mental Juices Flowing

Having grown up in New York during the Depression, Lumet witnessed a good deal of poverty and corruption. His films often focused on malpractice in the system and the fragility of justice.

‘If we are to have faith in justice we need only to believe in ourselves and act with justice. I believe there is justice in our hearts.’

‘Serpico’ (1973) starring Al Pacino, told the story of a whistleblower in the New York City police force, ‘a rebel with a cause.’ ‘Network’ (1976) presented Peter Finch as a news anchor suffering a breakdown, railing against the iniquities of modern media. ‘The Verdict’ (1982) featured Paul Newman as a washed up lawyer taking on a medical negligence case to salvage his career.

'I have always been fascinated by the human cost involved in following passions and commitments, and the cost those passions and commitments inflict on others.'

Lumet consistently aimed for more than entertainment.

‘While the goal of all movies is to entertain, the kind of film in which I believe goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing.’

7. If It Moves You, It’ll Move Them

For the most part Lumet was a social realist. He insisted on the most natural light and he edited his films so the camera was unobtrusive. He employed camera techniques sparingly and only in service to the core theme of the movie.

‘I hate technique for the sake of technique.’

Conscious that the urban environment provided a vibrant canvas for his work, and sensitive to the particular rhythms of his hometown, Lumet preferred to shoot in New York. 

‘Locations are characters in my movies. The city is capable of portraying a mood a scene requires…. New York is filled with reality; Hollywood is a fantasyland.'

Lumet often worked with true stories. 1975’s ‘Dog Day Afternoon’, based on real events that took place in Brooklyn three years earlier, starred Al Pacino as a small time crook who plans a robbery to pay for his partner's sex reassignment surgery. But the heist goes badly wrong and turns into a hostage situation under the media spotlight.

The film included an emotionally draining scene in which Pacino’s character calls home. Lumet incurred Pacino’s anger by asking him to do a second take. But the director had a reason. 

‘When we’re tired we weep more easily, we laugh more easily. We’re just wide open.’

Lumet didn’t double guess the public’s reactions. His driving principle was that if a shot moved him, it would move them.

‘If I'm moved by a scene, a situation... I have to assume that that's going to work for an audience.’

8. Prepare for Lucky Accidents

Lumet had a strong work ethic, developing more than one movie a year for most of his career.

‘If I don't have a script I adore, I do one I like. If I don't have one I like, I do one that has an actor I like or that presents some technical challenge.’

Inevitably this prolific approach led to as many failures as successes. 

I’m just a great believer in quantity – more chances for the accident to happen…I need one hit, so I can get the money for three more flops.’

Lumet believed that there was a price to pay for ambitious film-making.

‘Great scripts can be screwed up more easily. Because the demand that they make is so much greater. Is there anything more boring than a bad Hamlet?’

Lumet saw his role as maximising the chances of ‘lucky accidents.’

'The truth is that nobody knows what this magic combination is that produces a first-rate of work. I’m not being modest. There’s a reason some directors can make first-rate movies and others never will. But all we can do is prepare the groundwork that allows for the ‘lucky accidents’ that make a first-rate movie happen. Whether or not it will happen is something we never know. There are too many intangibles.'

1976 Sidney Lumet & Faye Dunaway on the set of 'Network'

9. Make Sure Everyone’s Going in the Same Direction

In the course of his career Lumet was nominated four times for a directing Oscar. But he never won. He lost out to some great movies: 'The Bridge on the River Kwai’, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and ‘Gandhi.’ In 1976 the Academy preferred ‘Rocky’ to Lumet’s masterpiece ‘Network.’ 

‘Everyone was saying we were going to take it all. And on the flight out to LA, [screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky] said, 'Rocky's going to take Best Picture.' And I said, 'No, no, it's a dopey little movie.' And he said, 'It's just the sort of sentimental crap they love out there.' And he was right.’

In 2005 Lumet was presented with an Honorary Academy Award. 

‘I wanted one, damn it, and I felt I deserved one.’

Lumet died at the age of 86 in 2011. 

In some ways, with his gritty depictions of the modern city and his concern for individual conscience and social justice, Lumet was a director in the neo-realist tradition. But in his empathetic relationship with his actors and his instinctive judgement, he also looked forward. And he provided us with a compelling definition of contemporary leadership in any field.

 ‘My job is to get the best out of everybody working on [the film]. And make sure we are literally going in the same direction. That’s why I’m called the Director.’

'Accidents will happen,
They only hit and run.
You used to be a victim, now you're not the only one.
Accidents will happen,
They only hit and run.
I don't want to hear it, because I know what I've done.’

Elvis Costello and the Attractions, ‘Accidents Will Happen'

No. 436

Edward Hopper: The Lonely City

Edward Hopper - Automat (1927)

'All I ever wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.’
Edward Hopper

I recently watched an insightful documentary about the artist Edward Hopper. (‘Hopper: An American Love Story’ (2022) by Phil Grabsky)

Hopper painted beguiling pictures of ordinary folk and everyday lives - individuals lost in thought; groups of people, each isolated and remote; private dramas played out in public places. He created a brooding world of alienation and ennui, and distilled a truth about the modern urban experience: that we can be living and working in a vibrant, bustling city, surrounded by entertainment, community and opportunity – and yet still feel terribly empty and alone.

'In every artist’s development, the germ for the later work is always found in the earlier. What he once was, he always is, with slight modifications.'

Hopper was born in 1882 in Nyack, New York, the son of a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in an affluent, intellectual Baptist household, and from an early age he was encouraged to draw by his mother. Having enrolled at the New York School of Art and Design, he subsequently took up a career in commercial illustration, a job he detested.

‘Well, illustration really didn’t interest me. I was forced into it by an effort to make some money, that’s all.’ 

Edward Hopper - Office At Night (1940)

In his early 20s Hopper made three trips to Paris, where he pursued his studies in literature, language, architecture and art. Naturally conservative, while in the French capital he avoided the avant-garde. He was a tall, shy, awkward young man, whose first romantic encounters were overwrought and frustrating. In 1910 he returned to the United States, and thereafter never left.

'I am very much interested in light, and particularly sunlight, trying to paint sunlight without eliminating the form under it, if I can.'

From the outset Hopper was fascinated by light and shadow, and he often painted urban and architectural scenes - stairways and window frames; porticos and pavements; turrets, towers and mansard roofs. His city pictures were sparsely populated, or devoid of people entirely. They had an eerie stillness.

Hopper’s early work was poorly received, rarely exhibited and seldom sold.  He remained on the margins for many years. This was all to change in 1923, when, on a summer painting trip in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the 41 year old encountered Josephine Nivison, whom he had known at art school. She was his opposite - short, talkative and sociable - and she set about taking this intense, introverted man in hand.

Nivison persuaded the Brooklyn Museum to include some of Hopper’s work alongside her own in a forthcoming show. One picture was purchased by the museum for $100, and from that point on he was set fair. 

Hopper and Nivison married in 1924 and settled into his Washington Square apartment in Greenwich Village, where they resided for the rest of their days. He was at last able to give up his job as an illustrator.

'The only real influence I've ever had is myself.’

Edward Hopper - Room in New York, 1932.

Hopper’s most celebrated paintings present seemingly mundane moments in the lives of ordinary people. They have a voyeuristic feel and sometimes their subjects are as if spied from a distance. (In his youth Hopper had enjoyed observing life in the streets, offices and residential buildings as he travelled by train into New York.) The viewer is invited to speculate: Who are these characters? What are they thinking about? What is really going on here? 

A bald fellow in a white shirt with sleeve garters sits on the sidewalk smoking a cigar, absorbed in his own private world. A middle-aged man methodically rakes the lawn of the garden adjoining his clapboard house. It’s 11-00AM and a woman with long dark hair leans forward in her armchair to stare out of the apartment window. She is naked but for a pair of flats. At the automat a lady in a cloche hat and jade green coat concentrates on her coffee. A woman in a pink slip perches on her bed and soaks up the morning sun. A pensive female usher, in smart blue uniform, leans against the wall of the movie theatre, her blond hair illuminated by a side lamp. 

There’s a cinematic quality to Hopper’s work. No surprise perhaps as he and Nivison often took trips out together to the movies or the theatre.

'When I don't feel in the mood for painting I go to the movies for a week or more. I go on a regular movie binge!'

When Hopper paints more than one subject, the characters rarely interact, touch or look at each other. We see them assembling in the hotel lobby, dining at the restaurant, reading on a train. They are together, but apart. An executive works at his desk, while nearby his assistant silently gets on with her filing. Three customers sit at the cherry-wood counter of a diner. Drinking coffee, eating a sandwich, smoking a cigarette. Each seems preoccupied. A smartly dressed couple relax at home. He reads the paper intently, she half-heartedly plays a few notes on the piano. 

There’s a melancholy sense of disappointment in these images; of boredom and bewilderment. What has happened? How did I get here? Is this it?

'Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.’

Edward Hopper - Self-Portrait (1925–1930)

In the mid-1930s Hopper and Nivison built a summer-house in South Truro on Cape Cod and they went on field trips for fresh material in their 1925 Dodge. They had a troubled, but enduring marriage. She subordinated her career to his, managing his appointments and sharing his reclusive life-style. He was generally withdrawn and aloof, and was rather dismissive of her art. He nonetheless used her as the model for all his female characters - just changing the faces.

Hopper was a slow, meticulous painter and he made many compositional sketches before he was comfortable with a scenario. His output could be as low as two pictures a year.

‘One good picture is worth a thousand inferior ones.’

He didn’t like interviews and he avoided explaining his work.

‘The whole answer is there on the canvas. If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.’

Once, when asked what his artistic objective was, he simply replied:

‘I’m after me.’

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this silent, secretive, introspective man was presenting us with his own sense of alienation and isolation; his own interior sadness.

'So much of every art is an expression of the subconscious that it seems to me most of all the important qualities are put there unconsciously, and little of importance by the conscious intellect. But these are things for the psychologist to untangle.'

Edward Hopper - New York Movie (1939)

It struck me that in the world of work we make many assumptions about our colleagues’ wellbeing and state of mind. We imagine that - because ours is a youthful, vigorous, convivial industry; because the city is such a dynamic, inspiring, populous place – our fellow employees are fulfilled and satisfied, content and connected. We put on parties, inductions and talks to fuel their enthusiasms. We send upbeat missives and promote unifying values. We celebrate success. But we too often fail to understand that many of our colleagues feel remote and detached. They are lost in the lonely city.

'I have tried to present my sensations in what is the most congenial and impressive form possible to me.'

Hopper died in his Washington Square studio in 1967. Nivison passed away ten months later. One of his last paintings simply presented sunlight and shadow falling across an empty room.

'Mother, I tried, please believe me.
I'm doing the best that I can.
I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through,
I'm ashamed of the person I am.
Isolation, isolation, isolation.’
Joy Division, ‘Isolation’ (S Morris / I Curtis / B Sumner / P Hook)

No. 435

Small Plates: Do Your Processes Liberate or Constrain?

Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) - Le petit pâtissier

‘Hi Matthew, Alice. It’s been quite a while. We’ve got lots to catch up on.’

My wife and I were meeting our friends in a rather cool Turkish restaurant. 

A waitress presented herself at the table with a welcoming smile.

‘Have you dined with us before? We have a small plates/sharing concept. We suggest you choose three dishes each and then see how it goes from there. They’ll arrive as they’re prepared by the kitchen.’

I’m conscious that I can no longer expect to enjoy my own preference of pie, potatoes and gravy at every dining establishment. The world has moved on. And indeed I’m aware that the Young People like the sociability and tasting opportunities afforded by small plates. 

And so I was happy to roll with it. 

‘That’s great. Excellent. Fire away!’

Of course, before we could hear about Matthew and Alice’s recent adventures, we would first have to embark on the rather lengthy process of dish selection.

‘How about some grilled mackerel with bulgur?’

‘Yes, and sourdough pide.’

‘Does anyone have any food sensitivities?’

‘We’ve got to try the house sucuk. It’s made with fermented green tomatoes.’

‘I don’t think we really need twelve dishes. We can always order more later.'

‘What’s cultured kaymak butter?’

There was a good deal of polite debate and discussion. Eventually the order was submitted and I could finally hear what Matthew and Alice had been up to…

But soon the small bowls started arriving. They continued to turn up sporadically every couple of minutes. And with each delivery came another interruption, in the form of a precise description of the particular dish before us.

‘Here’s the aubergine sogurme with almonds and a chicken and mushroom broth. Enjoy!’

In fact the food held centre stage for much of the evening, allowing very little time for other topics.

‘So Matthew, Alice, have you managed a holiday this year?’

‘Hold on a moment. I’ll just cut this mutton loin neatly into four.’

‘And how’s the building work?’

‘We only seem to have three of this dish. I’d be happy to skip it if everyone wants some.’

Of course, the meal was exceptional. And we ended up having a splendid time.

But I was struck by the fact that process can sometimes get in the way.

This can also be the case at work. 

Very often businesses embrace sophisticated systems for managing a task. There are timing plans, Gantt charts and sign-offs; kick-off meetings, briefs and briefings; reviews, catch-ups and check-ins. All designed to smooth a project’s path towards its destination. But sometimes the process can actually dampen enthusiasm, reduce spontaneity, increase expense and generally slow things down.

'Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.'
Confucius

Consequently some creative businesses renounce all operational discipline, claiming that invention and innovation cannot be harnessed and constrained. For them the best ideas emerge from a magical chaos.

I worked for many years at the ad agency BBH. It had a formidable creative reputation, but nonetheless saw an important role for process. It believed that structured procedures and orderly timelines could, in moderation and with expert application, provide the space to focus minds and the freedom for genuine inspiration. The company espoused ‘processes that liberate.’

Perhaps we should all review our day-to-day operational practices. Are they accelerating us in the right direction, or impeding our advance? Do they liberate or constrain? Do we have too much or too little process? 

My experience at the Turkish restaurant reminded me of an early ‘70s ad for Buitoni tinned ravioli. A big chap eats his pasta in silence for most of the commercial. At the end he looks up, and in a high-pitched voice proclaims: ‘Don’t talk. Eat!’

It amused us immensely as kids. 

Sometimes nowadays I’m inclined to articulate the opposite expression: ‘Don’t eat. Talk!’

 
'Nighthawks at the diner of Emma's Forty-Niner.
There's a rendezvous of strangers around the coffee urn tonight.
All the gypsy hacks and the insomniacs.
Now the paper's been read, now the waitress said:

'Eggs and sausage and a side of toast,
Coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy,
Chile in a bowl with burgers and fries,
What kind of pie?''

Tom Waits, ‘Eggs and Sausage'

No 433

The Truth and Beauty of Bill Evans: ‘Jazz Is Not a What, It Is a How’

Bill Evans in Copenhagen 1964. Photo © Jan Persson

‘Ultimately I came to the conclusion that all I must do is take care of the music – even if I do it in a closet. And if I really do that, somebody’s gonna come and open the door of the closet and say: ‘Hey, we’re looking for you.’’
Bill Evans

I recently watched a fine documentary about the life and work of jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans. (‘Time Remembered’, 2015, produced by Bruce Spiegel)

'Develop a comprehensive technique, and then forget that and just be expressive.’

With his unhurried, gentle, impressionistic playing, Evans created elegant, mournful works that meander with intent. Albums like ‘Everybody Digs’, ‘Portrait in Jazz’,’ Explorations’ and ‘Moon Beams’; legendary live recordings at the Village Vanguard, convey a sublime sadness. He teaches us to dig deeper and think harder in the quest for truth and beauty.

‘The jazz player, ultimately, if he’s going to be a serious jazz player, teaches himself.’

Born in 1929 in Plainfield, New Jersey, Evans began playing the piano at 4 or 5 and was classically trained. At 13 he fell in love with jazz, particularly admiring Nat King Cole and Bud Powell.

‘Jazz is the most central and important thing in my life.’

In 1955 Evans moved to New York, installing his piano in a small, cramped apartment on 83rd Street. He focused single-mindedly on making it as a musician.

‘At that time I made a pact with myself… I gave myself ‘til I was 30.’

Evans supplemented his natural talent with an incredible work ethic. He practised every available hour, took jobs performing in clubs in the evenings and carried a music notebook wherever he went.

'I like people who have worked long and hard, developing through introspection and dedication. I think that what they arrive at is, usually, deeper and more beautiful than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning.'

After producer Orrin Keepnews was played one of his demo tapes over the phone, Evans was signed to the Riverside label, the home of Thelonious Monk. His first album, released in 1956, sold only 800 copies. But he managed to catch the attention of Miles Davis, who took him on the road and enlisted him for the recording of the 1959 classic ‘Kind of Blue.’

‘I want to build my music from the bottom up, piece by piece. And I just have a reason, that I arrived at myself, for every note I play.’

Subsequently Evans formed a series of trios, the first of which, with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, was seminal. He embarked on a stunning period of music making. 

'Jazz music has always been a place where anything is possible.'            

Bill Evans. Seen here as he appears on the cover of the 2016 legacy release of the album ‘Some Other Time’

Tall and thin, sharp-suited; hair slicked back and wearing glasses, Evans played with his head hung over the piano, fingers lightly caressing the keyboard. There was a look of intense concentration on his face. With his own unique harmonic language; with melodies that floated, and rhythms that de-emphasised the beat, he created what Davis described as ‘crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall.’

Evans thought deeply about his craft. Though jazz was often regarded as somewhat cerebral, he sustained that it should always express emotions.

'It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not, it's feeling.’

Ultimately Evans held that his music should have a spiritual dimension.

'Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.’

I was particularly taken with this statement:

'Jazz is not a what, it is a how. If it were a what, it would be static, never growing. The how is that the music comes from the moment, it is spontaneous, it exists at the time it is created.'

In the creative professions we tend to treat ideas as precious commodities, stable and fixed. We worry a great deal about people stealing our strategies, copying our concepts. What if another Agency gets hold of our pitch deck? What if a competitor mimics our campaign?

'To imitate someone is to insult them.'

I’ve always felt that creative ideas are fragile, mercurial properties, worth little in the hands of rivals. Viewed through other people’s eyes our proposals generally come across as cold, hollow, flat and lifeless. Great concepts need to be articulated by the people who originated them; animated by advocates that believe in them. And then set free.

Like Evans, the best communicators invest their ideas with spontaneity and emotion; with personality and performance. 

Persuasion is not a what, it is a how.

'Keep searching for that sound you hear in your head until it becomes a reality.’

Evans was quiet and introverted. He lacked confidence, was hurt by criticism and for much of his life he was haunted by tragedy. In 1961 Lafaro was killed in a car crash. He was just 25. In 1973 Evans’ long-term girlfriend Ellaine Schultz jumped in front of a subway train after he ended their relationship. Six years later his beloved brother Harry, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, shot himself. 

Evans consistently turned to narcotics to dull the pain. He died in 1980 from haemorrhaging and bronchial pneumonia, the result of decades of substance abuse. He was 51.

Not long before he passed, Evans called his collaborator and friend Tony Bennett and relayed some advice:

‘Just go with truth and beauty, and forget the rest.’

'The scene is set for dreaming,
Love's knocking at the door.
But oh my heart, I'm reluctant to start,
For we've been fooled before.

The night is like a lovely tune.
Beware, my foolish heart.
How white the ever constant moon.
Take care, my foolish heart.’

Bill Evans and Tony Bennett, ‘My Foolish Heart' (N Washington / V Young)

No. 432

Gwen John’s Interior Lives: Seeing People As They Are, Not As We Would Want Them To Be

Gwen John, The Convalescent 1920-23

'If it isn’t right, take it out!’

I recently visited an excellent exhibition of the work of artist Gwen John. (‘Art and Life in London and Paris’ is at the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester until 8 October.)

John painted pensive women in austere rooms, in soft light and closely related colours. Her portraits have a haunting stillness. They capture her sitters somber, at ease, in repose. Perhaps we see something of their true selves, their interior lives.

‘I may never have anything to express, except this desire for a more interior life.'

Born in Haverfordwest, Wales in 1876, and raised in Tenby, John was the daughter of a dour solicitor and a frail, artistic mother who died when Gwen was 8. Educated by governesses, she studied at the Slade in London, the only art school in Britain that accepted female students at the time.

In 1904 John settled in Paris, finding work as an artist’s model and falling in love with the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Six years later she moved to the suburb of Meudon to be close to him. She would remain there for the rest of her life. 

'Decide on the subject, before sleeping, for the unconscious mind.'

Young Woman in a Red Shawl. Gwen John (1876–1939)

John’s women look contained and self-possessed. Often they sit with their hands on their lap and a slight tilt of the head; with dropped shoulders and a blank expression. A young brunette holding a black cat stares into the distance. A convalescent in a plain blue dress examines a letter, a pot of tea at her side. A woman reads a book by a gingham-curtained window, relishing the seclusion. 

John created moods of quiet isolation, of fragile presence, her sitters almost blending into their surroundings. Sometimes she added chalk to her paint to enhance the muted effect.

‘People are like shadows to me and I am like a shadow.’

When, after a decade, John’s affair with Rodin ended, she turned to Catholicism. She painted a series of portraits of the nuns at the local convent in Meudon, including a commissioned series of the order’s founder, Mère Marie Poussepin. These works perhaps provided the ultimate test of her art. The sitters’ habits and wimples suppress their individuality, but their personalities shine through in their eyes and expressions.  

Gwen John, Mère Poussepin 
© The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Univeristy of Birmingham

‘In talking, shyness and timidity distort the very meaning of my words. I don't pretend to know anybody well.’ 

From what we know of John, she was sociable and given to intense, passionate attachments, to both men and women. But she also clearly treasured solitude, as a subject for her art and as a precondition for her creative process.

‘A beautiful life is one led, perhaps, in the shadow, but ordered and regular, harmonious. I must stay in solitude to do my work.’

John began one notebook of 1912:

'Rules to Keep the World Away
Do not listen to people (more than is necessary)
Do not look at people (ditto)
Have as little intercourse with people as possible
When you have to come into contact with people, talk as little as possible
Do not look in shop windows’

For much of her life John was overshadowed by her flamboyant younger brother and fellow artist Augustus. In the exhibition there are two portraits, side-by-side, of Dorelia McNeil, Gwen’s friend and Augustus’ lover. Augustus painted her at the outset of their relationship, in 1903, with flushed cheeks and sensuous gaze, a yellow posy in her hands. In Gwen’s portrait from later that year, Dorelia, arms folded and wearing a simple black dress, looks straight at us with an expression of silent strength. 

We get a sense that, while Augustus painted the woman he wanted to see, Gwen portrayed her as she was.

There is a lesson for us all here. We carry around with us impressions of our friends and colleagues. We regard them through the prism of our own tastes, preferences, experiences and expectations. But often our assumptions do not tally with reality, and this can lead to misunderstanding, resentment and disappointment. Perhaps we should endeavour to regard our acquaintances and associates as subjects, not objects; to see people as they are, not as we would want them to be.

'I cannot imagine why my vision will have some value in the world. And yet I know it will. I think I will count because I am patient and recueilli (contemplative) in some degree.’

For much of John’s career her sole patron was an American lawyer and art collector, John Quinn. After he died in 1924 she struggled financially and her work tailed off. She stopped painting entirely around 1933 and took to gardening. 

In September 1939, as war descended on Europe, John wrote her will and travelled without any luggage to Dieppe, a town she had visited a number of times before. She collapsed in the street and died in hospital 8 days later. She was 63.

 
'Wish you gave me your number.
Wish I could call you today, just to hear a voice.
I got a long way to go,
I'm getting further away.

If I didn't know the difference, living alone would probably be OK.
It wouldn't be lonely.
I got a long way to go,
I'm getting further away.

A lot of hours to occupy, it was easy when I didn't know you yet.
Things I'd have to forget.
But I better be quiet now.
I'm tired of wasting my breath,
Carrying on and getting upset.'

Elliott Smith, 'Better Be Quiet Now'

No.431

Wham!: A Story of Youth, Pop, the Zeitgeist and Elegant Divorce

I recently enjoyed a documentary about the British band Wham! (‘Wham!’ 2023, directed by Chris Smith)

Between 1982 and 1986 Wham! embodied the exuberance of youth, the hedonism of dance, the effervescence of pop. They brought fun, style and aspiration to a country worn down by unemployment and social unrest. And in so doing they captured the sprit of the age: the desire to get away, the yearning to escape. 

‘The songwriting was dictated by our circumstances, the environment around us. We were fusing rap with disco and then we added pop.’
Ridgeley

George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley met at Bushey Meads School, near Watford on the outskirts of London. Michael was shy, awkward and insecure about his weight. Ridgeley was confident, outgoing and disruptive. They bonded immediately, wrote comedy skits and songs together, went clubbing, and, at the age of 16, performed in a ska band that fizzled out after a year. 

Unperturbed, Michael and Ridgeley recorded a £20 demo tape on a 4-track portastudio in Ridgeley’s front room, using a microphone strapped to a broom. Calling themselves Wham!, they took the tape - which had just 3 songs on it, only one of them complete - to the offices of music companies in London. All to no avail. 

Nonetheless they persevered, eventually tracking down a record executive that lived nearby, and in 1982 they signed a deal at a local café. The duo’s first single ‘Wham Rap!’ was lauded in the music press for its fusion of disco pop with lyrics that recognised the plight of the jobless in Thatcher’s Britain. 

'Hey everybody take a look at me,
I've got street credibility.
I may not have a job,
But I have a good time,
With the boys that I meet down on the line.
Wham! Bam!
I am a man.
Job or no job, you can't tell me that I'm not.
Do you enjoy what you do?
If not, just stop.
Don't stay there and rot!’
‘Wham Rap!' (Enjoy What You Do) (G Michael, A Ridgeley)

However ‘Wham Rap’ failed to chart and so piled added pressure on the band’s second single. Initially ‘Young Guns’, released later the same year, also struggled. But by a stroke of luck, Wham! was given a slot on hugely influential TV show Top of the Pops after another act unexpectedly pulled out.

Now supplemented by backing vocalists Dee C Lee and Andrew’s girlfriend Shirlie Holliman, Wham! made quite an impression. With a jaunty tune, engaging lyrics and a synchronised dance routine that involved high claps, purposeful pointing and arms sweeping the floor, they captured the hearts of young viewers.

‘There was a certain energy to the naffness… We went and did it in my mum’s back room. No choreographer is gonna come up with that sh*t.’
Michael

‘Young Guns’ rose to number 3 in the charts and at last Wham! was up and running. 

Interviewer: What style of music do you think’s going to be big in the summer of ’83?
Ridgeley: Ours.

Wham!’s songs evolved from the socially conscious concerns of the early releases to embrace more hedonistic, carefree themes. They seemed to distil the attitude of a generation fatigued by industrial strife, recession and deprivation.

‘I think what’s happening in England is that there’s a large escapist element creeping back into music now. Three or four years ago with the punk thing people were shouting. Now they’re not ashamed of being young, unemployed. They’d rather just go to a disco or a club and forget about it.’
Michael

George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley in 1984. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy

Pop had come to be regarded as trivial and ephemeral. Critics preferred angry rock, intelligent indie or cool jazz. But Wham! was proud to be a pop band, articulating broadly appealing romantic sentiments of optimism and escape.

‘Pop became a very dirty word in England for a good four or five years. We believe strongly in pop music as very valid. And I think people lost sight of that.’
Michael

There followed a succession of chart hits. Songs like ‘Club Tropicana’, ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ and ‘I’m Your Man’ expressed youthful vitality, desire and a lust for life. Numbers like ‘Careless Whisper,’ ‘Everything She Wants’ and ‘Last Christmas’ conveyed a tender sense of longing and loss.

'Somebody told me
‘Boy, everything she wants is everything she sees.’
I guess I must have loved you,
Because I said you were the perfect girl for me.
And now we're six months older
And everything you want, and everything you see
Is out of reach, not good enough.
I don't know what the hell you want from me.’
'Everything She Wants’ (G Michael)

With Helen 'Pepsi' DeMacque replacing Dee C Lee, Wham! embarked on a series of jubilant UK and international tours. Here they are in leather jackets and jeans; in short shorts, singlets and white socks. Here’s Ridgeley in red sportswear, Michael in canary yellow. And here they're wearing their Choose Life tees; tartan jacket with bootlace tie; RayBans and big smiles. Fantastic!

With success the tours got larger, the hair bigger and the jacket shoulders broader.

Michael finally received the affirmation and acknowledgement that he deserved and needed. Winning the prestigious Ivor Novello award for songwriting in 1985 brought him to tears. At the ceremony Elton John testified to his talent.

‘Probably for me one of the best songwriters I’ve heard out of Britain for a long time. I mean people tend to put Wham! down as a teenie bopper band that won’t last. And the people that put them down are the bands that won’t last. I’m experienced enough to know that… I compare him to Barry Gibb, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, people like that. …The man’s a great songwriter.’

Wham! was the first Western pop group to tour China. It became one of the few British acts to make it in the United States. And it sold more than 30 million records worldwide. The duo played their farewell concert at Wembley in June 1986.

‘Wham! was never going to be middle-aged. Or be anything other than that essential and pure representation of us as youths.’
Ridgeley

There are lessons to be learned here. About the imperative of persistence at the beginning of one’s career; about the value of youthful inspiration and the power of pop; about staying attuned to the zeitgeist.

Wham! Club Tropicana tour in 1983

Wham! also provide a case study in elegant divorce. 

Soon into the enterprise Ridgeley recognised that Michael had a superior songwriting gift. And so he ceded creative control to him, initially as writer, and subsequently as producer. 

‘The goals we set ourselves could only be attained really with the quality of songwriting that he was able to produce.’
Ridgeley

Ridgeley also saw that Michael felt constrained by the expectations of a youth-targeted chart pop act - particularly as the singer had privately confided to him that he was gay. They both agreed that Michael should forge a career on his own. 

‘I think it’s what he should be doing. It allows his own artistic creativity to expand. Which you’ve got to do, I think.’
Ridgeley

Ridgeley, rather admirably, was happy to accept a backseat role, and then an exit.

Interviewer (Terry Wogan): What are you going to do when it stops?
Ridgeley: What am I going to do? Hopefully I’ll retire with grace. Or do something with grace.

George went on to a massively successful solo career, addressing more adult audiences with more sophisticated concerns, and selling over 120 million records. Ridgeley retired, with grace, to Cornwall to surf.

This re-telling of the Wham! story had a particular resonance for me. 

I grew up in a pebble-dashed, semi-detached house in Romford, a town on the edge of London not unlike Bushey. When I went to university in 1983, I was naturally drawn to students with similar suburban upbringings. My friends came from Croydon, Orpington and Wembley; Bournemouth, Bedford and, erm, Monmouth.

The Second Years wore greatcoats and earnest expressions. They listened with furrowed brows to Joy Division, Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. We on the other hand sported white socks and cut-down loafers, pastel-coloured shirts and tank tops. We sang along to the jukebox, choreographed our own amateurish moves and danced the night away to soul, pop and disco. Everything was joyous, exuberant, carefree.

Dubbed the Wham! Boys and Girls, we were often mocked for our levity and triviality. 

We didn’t care. Perhaps we too were in tune with the zeitgeist.

Wham! © Getty

'Every day it seems my smile's a little harder,
And every day I seem to laugh a little less.
Living this way it seems my sky's a little darker,
You went away and left me lonely in success.
Can't you see I'm falling apart?
Can't you see what's happening to me?’
‘Blue’ (G Michael)

No. 430

Carrie Mae Weems: Reframe, Rethink, React

‘Painting the Town #3’ (2021) © Carrie Mae Weems/Jack Shainman Gallery/Galerie Barbara Thumm

I recently attended an excellent exhibition of the work of artist Carrie Mae Weems. ('Reflections for Now’ is at the Barbican Art Gallery, London until 3 September.)

70-year-old Portland-born Weems trained as a dancer, before taking up photography and branching out into film, writing and installations. Her work explores identity, power, race and social justice. She wants to make us think.

'That there are so few images of African-American women circulating in popular culture or in fine art is disturbing; the pathology behind that is dangerous.'

On entering the first room we imagine that we are being presented with a compelling group of abstract expressionist paintings - large blocks of bold black and brown applied over softer colours. But then we realise that these are in fact digital photographs. We are looking at the graffitied, boarded-up buildings of Portland after the 2020 demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd. The authorities have ordered that all slogans be over-painted. 

Protests have been redacted. Dissent has been erased. Voices have been silenced.

Carrie Mae Weems. Part of the series: From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried 1995-96

'The camera gave me an incredible freedom. It gave me the ability to parade through the world and look at people and things very, very closely.’

In another room we see nineteenth century photographs of Black Americans compiled by a scientist to support his racist theory of ethnic hierarchies. Weems has tinted these images blood red and added her own commentary.

‘You became a scientific profile/ a negroid type/ an anthropological debate/ and a photographic subject.’

The photographs are presented in circular form, prompting us to reflect on the man that originally pointed the camera. Who was he? What was he thinking? What was his intent?

'When we’re looking at these images, we’re looking at the ways in which Anglo America - white America - saw itself in relationship to the Black subject. I wanted to intervene in that by giving a voice to a subject that historically has had no voice.'

Carrie Mae Weems. The Louvre from Museums, 2006. © Carrie Mae Weems.

In another series of photographs, we watch Weems in long black dress standing with her back to us, outside the Louvre in Paris, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and other galleries and museums around the world. The images suggest exclusion, being made unwelcome, being shut out - from viewing and exhibiting; from having your story told; from history.

'It's fair to say that Black folks operate under a cloud of invisibility - this too is part of the work, is indeed central to [my photographs]... This invisibility - this erasure out of the complex history of our life and time - is the greatest source of my longing.’

Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Playing Harmonica),1990/99

Weems believes that many of society’s macro-problems begin in micro-relationships.

In her Kitchen Table Series she enacts a woman’s relationships with her partner, her child, her friends. We see anger, affection, boredom, isolation - all around the same simple domestic table under an unforgiving electric light.

'It's impossible to change the social without changing the personal - you have to put your money where your mouth is. And if you're not making those challenges at home, it's unlikely you'll make them in a larger setting.’

Consistently Weems asks us to look again, to look harder; to consider subject and object, medium and message; to reflect on agency and power. She demonstrates that by reframing an image we can be prompted to rethink our assumptions. And even perhaps to react.

‘Photography can be used as a powerful weapon toward instituting political and cultural change. I for one will continue to work toward this end.'

Carrie Mae Weems, portrait by Jerry Klineberg © Carrie Mae Weems

'Possession is the motivation
That is hanging up the God-damn nation.
Looks like we always end up in a rut
Trying to make it real — compared to what?’

Roberta Flack, ‘Compared to What' (G McDaniels)

No. 429

Yevonde: ‘Be Original or Die’

Joan Maude by Yevonde (1932). © National Portrait Gallery, London

'Be original or die would be a good motto for photographers to adopt.’
Yevonde

I recently attended an exhibition of the work of photographer Yevonde. (‘Life and Colour’ is at The National Portrait Gallery, London until 15 October.)

Yevonde captured the Bright Young Things of British Society between the wars. She was the first British photographer to exhibit colour portraits. She shot with style and a light touch, and her images were laced with classical and surreal flourishes. She celebrated beauty, personality, modernity  - and, above all, vibrant, thrilling, luminous colour. 

‘In no phase of modern life has women’s influence proved so stimulating as in photography.’

Yevonde Cumbers was born into a wealthy family in Streatham in 1893. She was educated at progressive schools in England, France and Belgium. Having joined the Suffragette movement, she was prompted by an ad in the newspaper Votes for Women to apply for a job at a portrait photographer’s. After a three-year apprenticeship, and with a gift of £250 from her father, at the age of 21 she set up her own London studio - styling herself Yevonde, or sometimes Madame Yevonde.

‘I took up photography with the definite purpose of making myself independent.’

Yevonde photographed society figures and stage stars, debutantes and dowagers. While her pictures were carefully staged and lit, her approach was informal and witty. This was the golden age of the illustrated press and her work often appeared in magazines like The Tatler and The Sketch. As she gained recognition, she increasingly took advertising commissions too. 

Orchids by Yevonde © National Portrait Gallery, London

‘In almost any other job I must have failed, but by great good luck I had adopted an art-trade-profession-science that, like myself, was not properly ‘grown up.’ I was carried along by a demand which exceeded the supply of the commodity.’

In the early 1930s Yevonde began experimenting with colour photography, using the new Vivex process. This technology employed three negative plates (cyan, magenta and yellow) exposed through a ‘one-shot’ camera and processed separately. Colour photography was frowned upon by the establishment at the time, but she embraced it with gusto. 

‘[Colour photography] has no history, no tradition, no old masters, but only a future!’ 

Red-haired actor Joan Maude is shot in a crimson shawl against a scarlet screen; painter Cathleen Mann, hand on hip, wears a salmon-pink jacket and cloche hat; film star Vivien Leigh, in a cornflower coat, stares into the distance with piercing ice-blue eyes. A model in a bright marmalade and marigold dress, with matching bonnet, clasps a bouquet of yellow orchids. These portraits are vivid, radiant, intense.

Dorothy Emily Evelyn (née Whittall), Lady Campbell as Niobe, Vivex colour print, June 1935 © Yevonde Portrait Archive

Yevonde’s women are surrounded by eye-catching props - flowers, frames and masks. They wear bold shades of lipstick and nail varnish; striking styles of jewellery. 

For her series ‘Goddesses’ Yevonde photographed society women in classical costumes and fantastical settings. Dido is bathed in eerie blue light. Niobe is shot close-up, her azure eyes shedding tears of misery. Minerva, in primrose silk gown, wears a helmet and carries a revolver.

‘There must be arrangement, elimination, imagination.’

Yevonde’s images reveal the changing fashions of the time - shorter hair, dropped waistlines, looser fits - as well as growing female independence. While we sometimes see women engaged in domestic tasks, they are also cycling, smoking, relaxing on the beach. Racing driver Jill Scott sports vermilion overalls, shoes and cap. Artist Natalie Sieveking regards us with casual confidence. A bespectacled debutante in a caramel dress reclines on a sofa engrossed in a scholarly tome.

A Day in the Life of a Debutante: An hour's serious reading (Betty Cowell) by Yevonde © National Portrait Gallery, London

‘The duties of a wife with a separate career have yet to be defined, and although complete unselfishness has always been considered a sure foundation for domestic happiness, I am not convinced.’

In 1939 the Vivex process went out of service and, with the constraints of World War 2, Yevonde returned to working in black and white. She continued to produce portraits and to experiment - in still life fantasies, montage and Solarisation. In 1968 she staged an exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of women’s right to vote. She worked up until her death at the age of 82 in 1975.

Yevonde teaches us to pursue our careers with passion and to embrace new technology with vigour. She also reminds us that colour can be exhilarating, startling, dazzling.

'If we are going to have colour photographs, for heaven’s sake let’s have a riot of colour, none of your wishy washy hand tinted effects.'

Yevonde with Vivex One-Shot Camera, by Yevonde, 1937, © National Portrait Gallery, London

'Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street,
Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly.
Loving him is like trying to change your mind,
Once you're already flying through the free fall.
Like the colors in autumn, so bright, just before they lose it all.
Losing him was blue, like I'd never known.
Missing him was dark grey, all alone.
Forgetting him was like trying to know
Somebody you never met.
But loving him was red,
Loving him was red.’
Taylor Swift, ‘Red'

No. 428

The Dynamics of Chat: Beware Meeting Inflation

Willian Roberts - The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring, 1915 ©The Tate

'A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.'
Mark Twain

I have occasionally thought that, were I of a more academic disposition, I would have enjoyed studying the art of conversation. 

It’s always interested me how some discussions – amongst certain people and in particular circumstances - run on fluently, without pause or hesitation, ranging enjoyably across subjects and themes; while other conversations stagger and stumble, falter and fail.

What is the appropriate balance of listening and talking? When is it best to pursue a subject or change it? What is the most productive combination of big and small themes, serious and light topics?

These questions would all form part of my dissertation.

'Polite conversation is rarely either.'
Fran Lebowitz

I recently read an article about the dynamics of chat. (‘Why Conversations are Better with Four People,’ The Times, 12 June)

Professor Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford, has established that the natural upper limit of most discussions tends to be four people.

‘You very rarely get more than four people in a conversation. In the normal run of things, when a fifth person joins a group, it’ll become two conversations within about 20 seconds.’

Alternatively, the addition of a fifth person takes the discussion into a ‘lecture situation’, whereby one person holds court and the other participants switch to audience mode. 

Dunbar explains that when we talk we strive at the same time to read each other’s thoughts; to see the world from each other’s perspectives. This process of ‘mentalising’ helps us navigate comprehension through the imprecise language, vague metaphors and ambiguous phrases of ordinary speech.

Since we can only track what a few people are likely to be thinking at any one time, there are limits on the number of participants in a vibrant discussion. This is why, Dunbar observes, Shakespeare rarely had more than four significant characters speaking in one scene.

'Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.’
Oscar Wilde

We may recognise this phenomenon from countless dinner parties. 

I confess that when we’re hosting an event I get a little uncomfortable if the discussion splinters and fragments - taking it as an indication that something is flawed in the well-planned social chemistry. Like a nervous sheepdog, I try to corral the conversation back around one theme. But then inevitably I lose control, or risk slipping into ‘lecture mode’ with one of my rusty gambits. It’s very stressful…

'Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.'
William Hazlitt

Dunbar’s study also has implications in the world of work. 

In the course of my career in advertising, I’m sure there was a good deal of Meeting Inflation: over the years my diary filled up with more meetings, in more formats, attended by more people. There were brainstorms, status meetings and team-building sessions; catch-ups, check-ins and kick-offs; information sharing workshops, planning conferences and performance reviews. And most of these gatherings were attended by more than four people.

With hindsight I think we were endeavouring to break from the traditions of top-down, didactic leadership: seeking to achieve broader representation across disciplines and hierarchies; aiming to make decisions more collegiate. But one has to wonder about the effectiveness of some of these sessions. 

Modern leaders need to be alert to the challenges of Meeting Inflation - mindful that despite the commendable demands for participation and partnership, robust debate and sound decision-making require fewer, not more, attendees. 

If we can reduce Meeting Inflation, perhaps we can raise interest rates.


'I can tell by your eyes
That you've probably been crying forever,
And the stars in the sky don't mean nothing to you,
They're a mirror.
I don't want to talk about it,
How you broke my heart.
If I stay here just a little bit longer,
If I stay here, won't you listen to my heart?’

Everything But the Girl, 'I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ (D Whitten)

No. 427

NDT1: Locations Can Be Characters in Their Own Right

La Ruta ©Rahi Rezvani 2022 for Nederlands Dans Theater

'Someone walks alone/cutting the night into fragments of roads
The night is wounded/ bleeding through the cracks of a dream
Wounds scatter/ the breath of animals asleep/ the perfume of lilies
Eyes close and open/ night remains night’
Gabriela Carrizo

A little while ago I saw a programme of dance by the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT 1 at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London). It was an evening of fierce athleticism, radical movement and provocative ideas. 

I was particularly taken with a piece directed by Argentine choreographer Gabriela Carrizo.

‘La Ruta’ plays out at night in fog beside a busy highway. There’s a glass bus shelter, which is occasionally visited by lonely strangers. There’s a workman in high-vis overalls repairing a junction box. We witness a road accident and a rescue. A seagull crashes against the bus shelter. Another workman comes along to paint some yellow lines. An irate woman falls out of a car with its headlights blazing. ‘F**k you!’ she cries, beating the bonnet with her handbag. She then desperately struggles to remove her trench coat. 

La Ruta ©Rahi Rezvani 2022 for Nederlands Dans Theater

The disparate cast stumble and spin, tumble and turn. And all the while they are accompanied by the incessant noise of passing traffic, by blaring horns, flashing lights and long shadows.

This is the stuff of a noir nightmare. And indeed from the outset we encounter curious characters that don’t seem to make much sense. A couple in kimonos; a man running about with a dead bird; a murderous thug throwing boulders. One poor soul has the heart of a roadkill deer transplanted into his chest. 

'It’s very difficult to organise a dream, because when you organise it, you wake up. When you take control of a dream, you understand that you are sleeping. This is why, to dream you need to be unprotected.'
Teodor Currentzis

Although we were witnessing a fragmented dystopian dream, the piece for me had a compelling coherence. It conveyed a strong sense of place: how it feels to be out late at night, by the side of a road, in the middle of nowhere. It suggested a desolate, unsettling world of loss and isolation; of violence and peril; of strange events and chance encounters.

‘La Ruta’ is bleak, surreal and curiously moving. 

I was struck by the way that this short 35-minute piece managed to mine a great deal from such a simple, ordinary setting. It prompted me to wonder whether, in the communications industry, we spend enough time considering contexts and environments. Do we settle for the commonplace and familiar, the stereotypical and cliched? Or do we create worlds that are vibrant and colourful; intriguing and evocative; rich with symbolism and emotion?

Surely locations can be characters in their own right.

'Come closer and see,
See into the trees.
Find the girl
While you can.
Come closer and see,
See into the dark.
Just follow your eyes,
Just follow your eyes.
I hear her voice,
Calling my name.
The sound is deep
In the dark.
I hear her voice
And start to run,
Into the trees,
Into the trees.’

The Cure, ‘A Forest’ (L Tolhurst / R Smith / S Gallup / M Hartley)

No. 426