Where Eagles Dare
"Liebchen, Liz doesn't understand me..."
(Dir. Brian G Hutton) (1968) Clive James once wrote that the film that followed him about the world was The Naked Jungle. Our own bete noire is Where Eagles Dare. The Varnished Culture has gone to the cold heart of country Victoria, to take the waters and sweat out the toxins of popular culture, and what do we find, after a purifying mineral ritual, massage and facial? Where Eagles Dare on the television! P’s late father-in-law loved this film, and what red-blooded man wouldn’t? Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood talking English/German/American/English as they infiltrate a Nazi fortress deep in the Alps, gain vital…
Continue Reading →‘Stolen’ Towels and Sweet Revenge
Vines at Lyndoch: apart from its Barossa locale, they have nothing to do with this story
The Barossa Valley is justly beloved of wine buffs and travellers to South Australia, but from time to time, a local hostelry will just not come up to scratch. Best to shrug philosophical shoulders and move on, but we are all prone to cut up after particularly poor experiences, which stick like a bone in the throat. Many years ago, friends of The Varnished Culture suffered such an experience, having bought a couple of nights via an ill-advised travel auction. R felt compelled to write a letter of complaint. Redacted appropriately, this letter, dated 28 February, said as follows: “Dear__________ My…
Continue Reading →Egypt and Nubia
(Written by William Brockedon, lithographs by Louis Haghe, from drawings made on the spot by David Roberts RA) (1847) It may not be the most propitious time to visit Egypt or indeed the Sudan. Cheaper and safer to buy this sumptuous single volume Folio edition with the remarkable plates of David Roberts, a Member of the Royal Academy and a high master of in situ painting and (back at the studio, obviously) lithography. and today…
Continue Reading →Penguin Island
"Now, what would Pyrot do?"
(Anatole France) (1908) A brilliant and literary satire of the rise and fall of civilisation, replacing evolving man with evolving penguin, a flock of whom are baptised by the half-blind Abbe Maël and whose ascent takes the form of first clothes, the nascent concept of property, monogamous marriage, the rise of dogma and the renaissance, even the Dreyfus affair. Along the way, France savages the historian in a way that suggests the opprobrium he got for his Jeanne d’Arc was taken fairly personally. His penguinographer prefaces in perplexity, “We do not know exactly how things have happened, and the historian’s…
Continue Reading →Turandot
Anna May Wong as Turandot, 1937
(Opera Australia, Sydney Opera House, 18 July 2015) By Guest Reviewer The majesty of the Chinese culture is a background piece when put against the heart and soul of Puccini’s Turandot. Saturday night at the Sydney Opera House, amidst coats scarves and freezing conditions, we were engulfed by the warmth and escapism of this story. Being directed and choreographed by Graeme Murphy, the production was full of flowing moves, giving us moments of not knowing where to look. So much, so many and so… well at one moment I thought ‘opening ceremony’ meets mardi gras..but that is harsh. It may…
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