Author Archive: Peter Jakobsen
Citizen Kane
"I'd make my promises now...if I wasn't so busy arranging to keep them"
(Dir. Orson Welles) (1941) The Most Famous Best Film in the World. Stunningly modern, stunningly Big, even today: when the RKO Radio signal and production credit fades, there it is in silently screaming faux neon: CITIZEN KANE. No film has ever made good on such immense ambition, no film has ever been so radically fresh in structure, tone, staging. It may take another art form to produce something as pure in its radical and daring arrogance. The opening is a morbid montage right out of S.T.Coleridge & Hammer Horror films – a “No Trespassing” sign, unofficial thematic emblem; an ascending cyclone fence, some iron tracery and…
Continue Reading →Birthday Boy
Birthday cheer
Richard Wagner (b. 22 May 1813) Happy 202nd anniversary to the Old Fellow! We present an image of the artist as a young Lohengrin, hope Placido sings a little Swan-King today and look forward to Wagner Society SA bash on Sunday (see below). “Mein lieber Schwann!” Sunday afternoon, 24 May, the Wagner Society of SA hosted a lunch and talk by Gillian and Nicholas Braithwaite. Jill is a violinist of note and Nicholas is the highly esteemed conductor (he led ASO from 1987 to 1991), he has recorded and conducted all over the world. The Braithwaites gave a sparkling talk on the…
Continue Reading →Long Live the King
"And it's the damage that we do and never know, It's the words that we don't say that scare me so..."
Elvis Costello (Declan MacManus) (b. 25 August 1954) He was at first, with the approval of management, tagged an “angry young rebel” as a result of more than a few brash words and deeds, and the coming of the New Wave in 1976. Add the reaction to him taking the sacred first name of Mr Presley, who would slide off his toilet to immortality just as his namesake was in the first flush of fame. Yet the label hardly stuck because Costello, though personally scratchy at times, is a dogged craftsman, a superb lyricist, a consummate performer and a lover of music in its many forms (witness, for example,…
Continue Reading →A New Leaf
"..rich...that's all I ever wanted to be."
(Dir. Elaine May) (1971) Henry Graham (Walter Matthau) has a big problem: his sizeable inheritance has dried up and as his disdainful uncle tells him, he is “an aging youth, with no prospects, no skills, no character.” The confrontation with Mr. Graham’s solicitor, Mr. Beckett, is a classic. After explaining with some difficulty to his client that he is broke, Beckett declares that “I have given you $550 of my own money for only one reason. Disliking you as intensely as I do, I wanted to be absolutely certain that when I looked back upon your financial downfall, I could…
Continue Reading →Bayreuth Was Closed
"We're here...who's singing at us?"
22 MAY: Happy Birthday, Richard! In May 2013, we drove into Bayreuth, figuring we would get our fill of tributes to the Master. However, the famed Festspielhaus was closed till bicentenary performances scheduled for June. No one seemed particularly keen on giving us information…surely they aren’t ‘over’ the Master? There appeared to be no direct road connecting to Richard Wagner Strasse. We drove the wrong way down a one way street* and at the corner of RW Strasse and Wannfried Strasse, an information booth attendant told us the Wagner Museum was closed. For a town that owes much to Wagner,…
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