Author Archive: Peter Jakobsen
Hud
'Let's dip our bread in that gravy while it's still warm."
(Dir. Martin Ritt) (1963) Larry (Lonesome Dove) McMurtry’s novel Horseman, Pass By becomes Paul Newman’s best role, as cattleman Hud Bannon, all ‘barbed-wire soul’ who just can’t feel or do good, lusting after housekeeper Alma, rejecting noble father Homer and corrupting nephew Lonnie. A relentless tale of the harshness of life on the land, with a bitter foot-and-mouth twist, Ritt’s brilliant and stark production makes his version of Spy Who Came in from the Cold look like The Sound of Music. Great work by all, especially Newman, Patricia Neal incomparable as Alma, and Melvyn Douglas monolithic as the old man. “You’re an…
Continue Reading →Sporting Supporters
'Nothing unwholesome about baseball...'
Spring in Australia merges with sporting finals in a series of codes, but if your team has missed out, you can always fall back on uplifting or downbeat sporting films to fill (or at least, line) that emotional void. 1. The Underdogs Triumph Rocky A most unlikely hit, this film meanders around the back streets of Philly for what seems like years, and then down-an-almost-outer Rocky Balboa gets pummelled for 15 rounds but stays on his feet. Total schlock, but try to resist. Year of the Dogs …
Continue Reading →The Wider World of Arts
Florilegium # 1 by Joseph McGlennon
Spring Has Sprung Yes, okay, we are dubious about photography as fine art. It is not snobbery exactly, it’s just…well, never mind. But we like composite work that involves more than a lucky snap from a smart phone, such as the work of Chuck Close and the pretty featured image by Joseph McGlennon, Florilegium # 1, the recent winner of the Bowness Photography Prize. We don’t know much about the technicalities of the multi-layered effect, but we know what we like. The Return The Varnished Culture has not been assiduous enough to catch the Adelaide Theatre Guild‘s current production, The Return, by…
Continue Reading →Mr Turner
Mr Turner embraces the culture of varnish (by Thomas Fearnley, 1837)
(Dir. Mike Leigh) (2014) “Grrrrr.” Stoically holding back the memories of Dali’s opinion of J M W Turner (1775-1851) which we largely share, and of many of Mr Leigh’s previous films (a herd of head-in-oven slices of domestic life), The Varnished Culture settled down to see this handsome period piece on the famous British proto-impressionist. To our disadvantage, we had failed to recall the usual outcome of painterly biographies – more agony than ecstasy. It doesn’t look bad – lots of lovely brown and gold set pieces, a la Peter Greenaway, and a terrific re-creation of the Fighting Temeraire tugged to its last berth…
Continue Reading →Lucky Jim
From the not-so-merrie film
(by Kingsley Amis) (1954) Grand-daddy of English campus novels, a funny yet serious tale of angry young man Jim Dixon who rebels yet wants in; despises and embraces the bourgeois groves of academe and despite some hilariously bad behaviour, flourishes. Sex and alcohol are pursued with as much fervour as learning: it was ever thus, we suppose. But you haven’t lived till you follow the account of Jim’s keynote lecture on “Merrie England”
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