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Review | DREAMING OF JOSEPH LEES

April 10th 2010 05:35

FOX SEARCHLIGHT presents in association with the Isle of Man Commission
and Midsummer Films

DREAMING OF JOSEPH LEES

Release Date: 30 March 2000 (Sydney & Melbourne)

CAST: Samantha Morton, Lee Toss, Miriam Margolyes, Frank Finlay, Nick Woodeson, Holly Aird, Rupert Graves.

This is a great film, beautifully made. Directed by ERIC STYLES. This gem of a film is yet another really good drama distributed by FOX SEARCHLIGHT who have brought us FELICIA'S JOURNEY and BOYS DON'T CRY. Hats off to them because so far I've really found a lot to love about each of these movies.

This film is set in Somerset, 1958. It's a very intimate story about a young woman Eva (Samantha Morton) and her relationship with Joseph Lees (Rupert Graves) as affected by her little twelve year old sister Janie (Lauren Richardson).

Even though Somerset has that end of the earth feeling about it and the most entertainment offered to the community is Friday night boxing, live in the ring with local lads gloved up and punching for blood Eva is a quietly spirited woman who seems one moment away from realising there's a change about to take foot for women's rights. She spends her time working at the local saw mill and taking art classes in drawing with Signora Caldoni (Miriam Margolyes) a wonderful charcter who is everything one would hope an art class teacher could be. The rest of the time Eva is toiling at home either sewing and mending, cooking, or
parenting her little brother and sister. She lives with them and her father (Frank Finlay) whom she works for as housekeeper and compliant daughter.

All the time Eva dreams of Joseph Lees a beautiful man who lost a leg in a tragic accident. He has moved to Italy somewhere, but no one is really sure where he is. Eva is sure what he is - her true love, despite the gradual seduction of Harry (Lee Ross) the local pig farmer who has lost his own parents, "Ma was gone and Dad was out there hangin', like I would be, 'cause I'm like him!".

The young sister brilliantly played by Lauren Richardson is quite a little meddler. She manipulates Eva at times in ways that are almost telepathic, other times she opens mail for Eva and reads the contents before she givs it over all re-wrapped, sealed with angelic eyes and fingers. She is never malicious, it seems that she really is motivated by love, but her actions are vital to the unfolding of the plot. A wonderful young actor to watch - I should think we'll be seeing more of her work in the future. This role distinguishes her as quite a contender.

This whole film is a story about people being motivated by love and people being manipulated by love. Eva doesn't take long to move in with Harry and start sleeping with him, even though, as her father says "People will talk" it doesn't move Eva away from getting some love and
passion into her bleak life. Harry the pig farmer is an emotional mess. He gets a nose bleed whenever he gets nervous. He would possibly be the perfect guy for Eva if it weren't for Joseph Lees. Eva responds to the reality that Harry is available, Joseph is away somewhere, and pitied by most as if being a one-legged man means you are half a man. Harry's
emotional self-assurance is very strong, he sweet talks and dances Eva into his bed pretty easily.

When Harry discovers that Eva is 'in love' with Joseph Lees he goes into a frenzy of playing out the dramatic pattern of his parents' tragic life. Poor Harry is such an extremist he eventually breaks in to the saw mill and makes a quick job of emulating Joseph Lees.

Eva is torn between true love, and the love she settled for because she hadn't imagined there were any other options available.

I don't want to let anything out about the rest of the story. I do want to say that this film really struck me as being something of a historical fact. It could almost be the way half of the women on the planet were tied to their husbands (defacto or married) at the time. The
manipulation would be far more obvious today I imagine. I doubt a woman would be quite as alone today as Eva is. The isolation of the place is very strong. She's pretty much a slave to her situation - but she does break free, and not only in her dreams.

It's a really good film and it may well reach out and grab you as deeply it did me. I could see my own parents (from the UK) sort of going along and doing what they think is right at the time, only to discover that this isn't what they want. Well, half of 'them' anyway. The masculine force is very strong in the film, and the social/emotional pecking order is really precise. The extreme male behaviour is very childish, while the female behaviour is always so down to earth and realist that it's very matter-of-fact when it gets anything close to extreme. Really stimulating stuff.

A good drama unfolds - by that I mean a complex story, even though some times you may feel you know what's about to happen (probably because of Hollywood programing) it is not predictable as such. It is deeply moving without being manipulative, by the end of the drama you will have options yourself, and that is what makes it such a great entertainment.

I left the screening feeling quite overwhelmed, ready to be sad about it all, but then someone pointed out that I wasn't entertaining the other strong possibility provided. I think this gentle but savage film is as good, if not better than 'Snow Falling on Cedars' - very much in the same category. If you enjoyed Scott Hicks' masterpiece you will enjoy DREAMING OF JOSEPH LEES.

Rupert Graves creates yet another character who is totally desireable. I admire his choices as an actor. He doesn't seem stuck in the same role again and again. Of course I think he's as hot as most other gay men, but he positively glows as Joseph Lees. His struggle, humility and
brilliance makes for a wonderful journey. Rupert's fabulous performance is matched by Samantha Morton who has played roles in PEAK PRACTICE, SOLDIER,SOLDIER and as the teenage prostitute in BAND OF GOLD apparently 'rocketed to fame' (in the UK).

Maybe the relationship between Eva and Janie is as good as it is because Morton is a young actor working with another younger actor Richardson, and she has been able to share some of her experience with the little sister... but whatever it is, the dynamic between these two will have many women pining for the days they had with their own little sister, and also probably reminding them of how they would have strangled her if they knew what she was up to. There should be a new category placed in the awards system - "Most distinguished performances in the role of siblings" - I nominate these two deft actors, fantastic job brilliantly
realised.

Screenwriter Catherine Linstrum, Director Eric Styles, Producer Chris Milburn all deserve credit for.... well will I say it again? A really good film!

David Jobling. 17.03.00

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Horrockses Fashions | Review

April 9th 2010 04:55

Horrockses Fashions
Off-the-peg Style in the 40’s and 50’s

Christine Boydell

This beautifully constructed book comes from V&A Publishing, always reliable for well bound treasures. If you enjoy the stylish cotton frocks of the time, this is a book you will spend hours with. There is enough information here to give you a great insight into whom was designing what, and how it looked.

The original introduction of beautifully printed pre-shrunk cotton fabric was something of a revelation for the fashion market of the day. Unusual designs at the time, classics now. Broad skirts, pleated or ruffled, with some wonderful Alastair Morton design were (and remain) bright and bold, as well as scoping in more classy subtle but sheik looks. Morton is an important element in the Horrockses story. Much of the material design is his; he was creating forty new designs for fabric a year from 1947 until 1955. In the mid 50’s there were times when they bemoaned the notion that so many people were now beyond Morton’s open flowery designs, so often the placed over horizontal lines possibly not really helping the natural line of many women. Other designers included Margaret Meades, Pat Albeck and Graham Sutherland.

Ready to wear was a breakthrough not only in its look; it changed the way women’s fashion was sold. It is amusing to read about the exploitation department linking movie stars with certain outfits, presenting a type of exclusivity that would obviously hit a nerve. It still does today by all accounts. Just look at the whole Sex and the City phenomenon. Branding and presenting outfits that were ready off the hanger became one stream while another was lifting the mood and class value of the product based on its elegance and line.

Also a fascinating insight is the Painting into Textiles exhibition in 1953 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. How striking these works by painters such as Eduardo Paolozzi are.

The work that has gone in to put this book together is obviously meticulous. It’s a fine reference book as much as it is an enjoyable tome for inspiration. The colour photography and reproductions of of the highest standards.

Christine Boydell, a lecturer in Design curated the exhibition Our Best Dresses: the story of Horrockses Fashions for the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston and continues to work on another exhibition for the company. This fine example of her work will be a great blessing to many wanting insight and entertainment from the theme and the time.

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Review | Blind Company

April 6th 2010 12:10

BLIND COMPANY

written and directed by Alkinos Tsilimodos
cast includes Colin Friels, Samuel Johnson

Blind Company is one of those movies that probably looked great as a synopsis; in fact it would be a pretty good short story if it were all put together within say 1500 words.

Blind Company is also one of those films that the film establishment want to call important, and include in Film Festivals. I do not think of it this way. It is neither an important film or even a good film. I think it is a throwback to the dark ages of Australian film making where a long shot of a beach or a wooded coastal terrain is considered to be breathtakingly beautiful and therefore really important. A throwback to the style of critisicm that says We must find reasons why this film is worthy.

The cast is good mostly. The script is weak as water even though it has some tricky ways of delivering. The direction of the actors is an over indulgent mess at times and the acting as good as it is, starts to seem pretty two dimensional. What this film desperately needs is a plumper story along the lines of a Robert Altman or P.T. Anderson film to provide at least a few characters who are engaging, to balance out the pretty dreary collection we are expected to sit with for 90 odd minutes.

SPOILER ALERT

Apart from the tediously slow pace of the film, and the drab cinematography that attempts to idealise a patch of Tasmanian coast (Ooh ahh), the content of the story is too smart for it's own good.

Geoff is a man going blind (Colin Friels) alone, with his three legged dog in a well made luxury house on the remote Tasmanian coast. He takes the dog for a walk along the beach. He sits making confessions to his wife into a tape recorder. The wife (Gloria Ajenstat) comes over on weekends to clean and cook for him. It becomes clear that he is very unwell, and not a very nice sort of person.

When the man's nephew Josh turns up (Nick Barkla) we get to see a string of pretty ugly behaviours acted out demonstrably. The man and his nephew do not like each other it would appear; either that or they are so deeply in love with each other they can not face the mysterious circumstances like adults, so they behave like a pair of singed lovers mid-fight.

All too gradually we learn that Geoff is indeed here to die, of AIDS no less, and it seems he has left a line of young men behind him who he has manipulated into fucking in the ass as Josh eloquently puts it.

One such young man has recently killed himself because he was HIV positive. The inference being he was infected by Geoff. The young man's parents turn up to the hidden away house to deposit their dead son with Geoff in the form of a neatly packaged plastic bag full of ashes which he asked to be scattered on the beach in a note he left before killing himself.

So in a short blunt nudge we discover Geoff, is suffering from AIDS, has a history of seducing gullible young men and has another little secret up his sleeve to drop on his ever stoic wife.

The wife (Ajenstat) keeps pretty steely through the film. There is one scene where she and Josh have a little argument.

Josh : Did you know you married a fag?

Wife : He's bisexual; I knew he experimented when he was younger.

Yeah. Geoff is a bit of a mess. He is basically a paedophile who has been spreading his disease among his victims and is now slowly dying.

That's not the end yet, there's the constantly aggressive Josh. What a thankless character. He spends most of his time completely unable to express any actual feelings; he is just an aggressive, meth smoking, Porsche driving prig who has been coming on sexually to his fag uncle as he puts it, and is now rendered incapable of anything like common sense or tenderness or even polite conversation.

The climax (I wrote SPOILER for a reason) is met when Josh digs a grave for Geoff, brings the now totally blind Geoff to the edge of it and pretends to kill him by slapping a shovel on the ground next to his kneeling-at-graveside uncle. Oh the drama!

I think it is a nasty little film in desperate need of some reality and dare I say it, facts. There needs to be some counterpoint to this story for it to even come close to a great story let alone a good film.

It looks a little like Swiss cheese to me - it is so riddled with holes; for over twenty years we have had a category of male sexuality called men-who-have-sex-with-men-but -don’t-identify-as-gay. Geoff’s wife says he is bisexual. Yet there are no stories of young women he has slept with or infected; I think it is a safe bet that Geoff is a gay man trapped in a heterosexual life (not all that uncommon). The wife just can not cope with that.

Once she explains Geoff started having sex with her wearing a condom after years of not wearing one (so he is aware of safer sex), she accepted that he did not want to get her pregnant? Okay, I think that is a bit thin, but okay...

Doctors, even in Tasmania, would be very quick to refer a young man with newly diagnosed HIV to a counsellor wouldn’t they?

A young man who is sexually involved with his uncle is going to turn up and harass said uncle as he becomes more decrepit from a terminal disease isn't he; I mean that's the best strategy to deal with such a complex situation isn't it?

Well if he's a meth smoking twenty-something it's the obvious way to deal with it surely. That would be a closeted young gay man wouldn’t it?

For sure he is going to be nothing but aggro towards this man he loves who is dying - makes sense doesn’t it?

After all he is a young gay man of the 21st Century.

I could scream.

Every once in a while a movie comes along that deals with HIV/AIDS and love triangles in a really interesting and engaging way; no one ends up completely demonised or giving the audience so little information they walk away with a whole set of perspectives that are based on some writer's ill informed fantasy of what it must be like to be in this situation.

I hate it when someone, anyone, important film maker or not, makes something that just basically says this is a really awful man and these are the really awful people around him, and isn’t it all so horrible?

I hated it. The script has a few moments where it's tricky and well written, if you are willing to accept a whole lot of crap. That it has come out of Tasmania is no excuse either. Maybe 30 years ago we would expect this sort of dross to spew forth from a remote and some say backward place, but not now.

For heaven’s sake some of the most politically active gay men in this country are in Tasmania.

So, Blind Company for what it is worth, is a crap little film made in a way that some film academics bolt to call it challenging, and some critics say it makes the audience squirm in their seats - well maybe it is the content that is making them squirm; it plays into so many ill-advised myths surrounding HIV/AIDS and ah hem Bisexuality. I think it's most likely the audience are squuirming because we've all seen a bit of beach and we don't really need to sit through this much nonsensical scenery. How about a few more stories, characters, points of view?

I definately think it's the bloody tedious pace, the ridiculous story and the misinformed characters who would be just as cosy in a 1950’s Douglas Sirk film that make the audience squirm. For crying out loud.

Pity it was ever made, hope it gets buried in the mire. What a load of rubbish.

David Jobling

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Review | Sustainable Event Management

March 26th 2010 22:15

Sustainable Event Management
By Meegan Jones

Sustainable Event Management by Meegan Jones is a well researched and neatly designed guide to making your festival or large event the most environmentally friendly, leaving the least possible carbon footprint; making it a very timely book that will go a long way assisting those who are seeking to manage events, work in Community Development and apply necessarily thoughtful values and procedures in the process.

It has been a developing trend for quite some time for coordinators of big events to lessen the amount of rubbish and environmental impact on their sites. This is well evidenced in the book using profiles of Festivals such as the Glastonbury and Reading Festivals in the UK as well as Big Day Out and Peat's Ridge in Australia to name only a few. Other sites included are in the US, Denmark and Portugal so the considerations are not restricted to one terrain alone.

Bringing these concerns into one practical guide is a natural development of this trend to become more sustainable in business while being environmentally responsible and sustainable, and here, Megan Jones has done great work.

When you are dealing with groups of people that spiral into the tens of thousands all dwelling in the same area for any protracted length of time, taking stock of the way you do things saves a lot of money as well as time, energy, environmental impact, not to mention the comfort of that 85,000 strong crowd; and as time passes, if we are to see such things as Emissions Trading, increases of the price of water and energy resources, more Carbon Storing and other environmentally focused increases in costs, there need to be ways to practically implement the responsible checks and balances, you could almost call them ‘complementary therapies to your festival’. To use a simile, imagine the Festival’s good health were broken into the forces that give it life like it was a person, the finance to make it happen is its life-blood and the measures you take to sustain its life are the complementary therapies help keep it in good health.

Having this check list to go through, similar to the clip-board at the end of the hospital bed, you have something well thought through and clear at hand to double check and keep everything in balance I think it is brilliant and if I were trying to organise a huge event I would want it around to provide me with some of the wisdom it contains. Influencing the audience’s transport, socially responsible purchases, use of cleaning products in outdoor environments, recycling; everything I can imagine you’d need to know at this point in time has a credible representation here.

Jones describes it best in the Preface, calling it a journey towards sustainability with tips, production logistics, projects to undertake and practical solutions to common challenges I agree, I think it is a great practical guide to sustainable event management; an extremely useful book for students who would find it helpful in providing guidelines to sporting events, battle of the band events, music festivals and even school camps. So really it is safe to say it would be an excellent addition to all school and university libraries, as well as council and private libraries. Seriously, the standard set here is the highest I've seen in print.

David Jobling

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Adelaide Festival wraps up 2010

March 14th 2010 23:27

Paul Grabowsky delivered a fine Adelaide Festival, and now the mops, brooms and buckets are out cleaning up after. It was a fantastic festival, despite some of the more dodgey OHS issues I spied along the way.

Artistic Director Grabowsky was on the local television news saying he didn't care what critics said, calling them background noise. Well, fair enough Mr G. One thing to keep in mind is that while he may not care, it is one of the only ways people wanting to have some sense of trying before buying like to read a review or two before slapping their money on the table.

There are some things I will not fork out for until I've had some feedback on, be it a word of mouth mention or a review by a critic I trust, or feel I'm usually in opposition to, and so if they didn't like it I most likely would.

It's a little dangerous to hear a festival director say such a thing, but I guess he is still riding high on the greatness of the whole thing.

I'll be back to expand and improve on the overall wrap up a little later. I've seen several shows and will list the ones I thought were great.

The thing is, there were quite a few things where a little improvement could go a long way. I've been a part of the Sydney Festival and the Adelaide Festival in the past - and I think there are a few things that could lift the game of this local festival; lift it from really good to fantastic. So stay tuned.

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Surf Food by Nava Young

March 3rd 2010 21:45

Surf Food
The ultimate surfers cookbook
By Nava Young

Format: HARDCOVER
Publisher: Pandanus
Published: 2010
ISBN-13: 9780646522517

RRPrice: $39.95

This is one very sexy cookbook. The food, athletes and photography all layout the message of easy healthy munchies in a healthy lifestyle is fantastic; so let us break it all down to get a handle on why it reaches me with so much immediacy.

Here is my situation - most surfers in my extended family are lads between the ages of fourteen and sixty. The SURF FOOD book is placed nicely in this demographic. My mob will dash off to the beach at the crack of dawn or before to check out the swell along the coast - some of them live on the Southern coast of South Australia - Middleton, Seaford, Port Elliot, or the Southern coast of New South Wales - Kiama, Royal National Park and a few are perpetual travelers along the coast. The Surfers in this Ultimate Surfers Cookbook by Nava Young are from all over the globe, very exotic - very cool. They've surfed some swell.

Sometimes the crack of dawn dash involves ringing around a few mates, sometimes it does not. If they are lucky during the ring around, some mate will say he has something on the boil or bake. So breakfast is taken care of usually; the smarter the Surfer the more obvious it is to them that the sport requires energy.. food is the energy source, not a hit of Red Bull.

Most of them avoid fast food like take away burgers, chips, soft drinks because they appreciate the whole good food = good life equation, the older fellas, they've been warned by their Doctor to avoid too much fat and salt or maybe they have some political position that wards them off; vegan, vegetarian, pimples vs clear skin, there're plenty of good reasons to eat well when your mission is to ride the ocean.

Problem is not many of them, less than half out of about twenty blokes, would be willing to actually make a meal from scratch beyond toast with avocado and minced garlic or chili - it can not take too long - if there's swell there's swell and it may not last forever.

The women I know are actually the ones who meet at the exotic and rare almost all night take away and do the healthy fast food, Greek or Indian. They have a pragmatic approach, it may be pretty dull food but it is fast, and does not require too much thought.

Ever since my easy to use handheld food processor died from overuse (after a longish life of ten years) I have not had the constant container of homemade chili beans and onions in the fridge, so I am visited less and less for the quick hello, green tea and face feed.

I can usually throw a few things together myself because I am a single man in his forties on a low income, who likes to eat tasty fresh food more often than not. Now I have had some great input via Nava Young and her desire to keep track of the tasty meal.

Eduardo Bage for example has given me something to go with my sisters Barny Banana; (a banana frozen in the freezer on a summer day - nice natural treat). Cut up that frozen bananna and toss it in with Bage's Chocolate Stuffed Bananas

My immediate family used to have a kiosk on the cliffs at Seaford in South Australia so we all picked up some great tips from the surfers who frequented the place. They told us what they wanted to eat and we would work it out one way or another. With this book I've got a whole new selection of good food.

The great thing is any sporty type with half a brain can work some kitchen magic if they have clear direction and focus. The variety inside this cook book is broad, and funnily enough a lot of the food is so simple yet tasty you'll possibly wonder why you don't already have the knack of throwing it together. Heaps of snack food, including LB's Chocolate Chip Cookies Rock Cakes from Mark Richards and Pam Burridge's Orange Poppy Seed Cake. Now you can easily learn how to throw it together. It really is as simple as that.

Why is the book sexy? The photography is beautiful, lush. Not only great shots of the food, as you would expect, but an action shot and colour profile of each surfer means there's a lot to read about surfing. That's sexy.

The complexity seems to be in the foods taste rather than preparation process in all of these easy to follow recepies. The method is clear and simple always set out in clear dot points and if you keep in mind the lifestyle of a surfer - any athlete - you can understand the need for things too be uncluttered. It's an easy guide rather than cluttered up with reasons why we should eat beansprouts, it gives you basic direction to get something tasty right.

Food, sun and surf the Australian appeal is great, what a fantastic gift for a young guy or girl - these are great role models, the people who probably remain one of the essential ingredients to all of content, the surfers. They are the ones who have brought the recipes to Nava Young to begin with - although it seems she hunted them down rather than just let them drop into her lap - good on her.

Young has really created a great coffee table and kitchen book; a good survival guide for a young person out in the world wanting to figure out a few good meals easy and quick to make. Not too expensive - great gift.

David Jobling

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John Cale's Keynote Online

February 18th 2010 09:14

Watch and Listen to John Cale's Keynote Online

On February 15 underground rock royalty and founding member of the Velvet Underground, John Cale, cut the red ribbon for Modular and Sydney Festival's Circa 1979: Signal to Noise with a Keynote speech at the Seymour Centre.

Hipsters rubbed shoulders with electronic pioneers in a packed out York Theatre as Cale showed off a few snaps and described working with the likes of Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Happy Mondays, The Stooges and LCD Soundsystem before capping things off with a mind blowing rendition of "Heart Break Hotel."

If you missed the speech or want to listen/watch it again, ABC's Big Ideas are streaming it online.

January 28, 2010 at 10:23am in circa 1979: signal to noise

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Posted By: David Jobling - Category: Review, Live, Sydney Scene, Adelaide Scene, Melbourne Scene, Brisbane Scene, Perth Scene, Australia National , CD/DVD, News, Qstage

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Chamber Music Festival 2010

February 5th 2010 22:56

Chinese Gardens
Chamber Music Festival 2010

Musica Viva is pleased to support the Chinese Garden Chamber Music Festival

Following on from the success of the first ever Chinese music festival in Australia in February 2009, the 2010 Chinese Garden Chamber Music Festival will be held:

February 4th to 6th in Sydney’s Chinese Garden of Friendship (Download Brochure)

We are proud to announce that 2010 will feature three of China’s masters of the erhu, pipa and guqin, Xing Lu, Tong Ying and Jin Wei. These extraordinary, virtuosic musicians will join prominent Australian artists in performing Chinese and Australian works, both ancient and modern. You will hear some of the world’s best chamber musicians from both countries in the intimate and magical environment of the Chinese Garden including the Orava String Quartet, Chinese Australian Music Ensemble, cellist Patrick Murphy, percussionists Claire Edwards, Kevin Man and Timothy Constable and The Sydney Chinese Music Ensemble.

There will be six concerts over the three days – three ‘yum cha’ concerts, all beginning at 11.30am, and three evening concerts at 7pm each night. Tickets will also include stimulating pre-talks before evening concerts and an excellent Chinese meal. Wine will be available.

Only 147 tickets are available for each concert and bookings can be made through the Musica Viva box office on 1800 688 482

More information about the festival HERE

John Huie
Artistic Director

"John Huie is an Australian musician and arranger that has spent some considerable time in Hong Kong and China researching various world music styles, including film soundtracks for Golden Harvest and also a commemorative piece for the 1997 handover. Now based in Shanghai, he has put together a crack band of local musicians to recreate many of the 1930’s jazz songs that were the soundtrack to the city in its pre-war heyday. “Shanghai Jazz – Musical Seductions From China’s Age of Decadence” is the sublime result."

"After moving to Shanghai in 2002, he spent three years researching and reproducing the authentic songs and musical style of Shanghai in the 1930s. The albums Shanghai Jazz 1 and Shanghai Jazz 2, were released by EMI. Huie then continued to write for small ensembles using a combination of traditional European and Chinese instruments, which resulted in the release of New Shanghai, also with EMI.During this time he wrote a number of film scores including The White Countess by legendary New York based film duo Merchant Ivory." SOUNDPET

Read the review for last years festival by Peter McGill below

Venue: Chinese Gardens, Darling Harbour, Sydney

Dates: 5, 6, 7, & 8th February, 2009

Producers: Chinese Chamber Music Company | Musica Viva | Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority

February in Sydney is the perfect time to be sitting in the magical setting of the Chinese Gardens, Darling Harbour, and listening to chamber music. This was the inaugural festival which means that we will be treated to this event, hopefully, for many years to come. The music began just before dusk and on a gorgeous summer evening the Chinese Gardens couldn’t have looked more beautiful.

The proceedings began with a ‘Greeting to Country’ and the Festival was opened by the Governor of NSW Professor Marie Bashir AC. The Artistic Director of the Festival was John Z. Huie who is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium High School and has studied under Carl Vine. He lived for 15 years in Hong Kong, from 1991, studying the art of Chinese Chamber music. He was commissioned by the Hong Kong government to compose a piece, which he called “The Honourable Retreat”, for the handover from British rule back to China on 30th June, 1997. In 2002 he moved to Shanghai to research the complexities of that city's authentic songs of the 1930’s, later composing an album Shanghai Jazz, produced by EMI, and for which a tribute concert was held recently to honour his contributions. He has also written film scores, choral works, and produced, composed, and performed in various music ensembles.

Chinese instrumentalists performing with traditional instruments were a delightful highlight to the festival and the opening piece was Fang Yu on the ‘guqin’ which is one of the worlds oldest instruments.

The Shanghai Chinese Music Ensemble played a traditional Chinese folk song “Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye”, (English translation “Night Along The River”) with other traditional instruments and Lulu Liu played a ‘pipa’ solo called “Ospreys Sporting with Water”. In the second half of evening The Chinese Australian Chamber Ensemble with guest artists Professor Wang Zheng Ting (sheng)and Tony Wheeler (zhong ruan) played a traditional Chinese New Year piece. To round out the evening Australian pianist Michael Kierin Harvey performed “Goldfish” by Debussy and “Mephisto Waltz No.1” by Liszt.

Not all the music on offer was instrumental. We were treated to the pentatonic sounds of ‘pingtan’, a traditional Suzhou (Chinese) Opera, which has harmonies in pentatonic scales that align with the ancient instruments of China. Sung in Chinese and a little foreign to the western ear it was accessible because of its use of the pentatonic scale, quite an experience.

The music in this festival is out of the ordinary and the opportunity to experience the worlds’ pre-eminent practitioners playing instruments thousands of years old in their design is exciting and new to Australia. If you missed the Inaugural Chinese Chamber Music Festival put it in your diary for next year. I doubt you will be disappointed.

Peter McGill.

112

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REVIEW | Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story

March 4th 2009 11:39

Fifty years to the day that Buddy Holly died in an airplane crash, 3rd February, Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story opened at the Star City Casino in the Lyric Theatre. Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley on 7th September, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A. His nickname came from his mother who said she called him Buddy because Charles Hardin was too long a name for such a little boy. As a child he learned to play the piano, violin, and guitar. When he was 13 years old he teamed up with school mate Bob Montgomery and they performed bluegrass locally as Buddy and Bob. Holly's break came when the duo performed as support artists for Bill Haley and his Comets resulting in Holly being contracted by Decca Records as a solo artist. His solo career was uneventful so he formed his band The Crickets and begun recording at Norman Petty's studios in Clovis, New Mexico where they recorded their early hit That’ll Be The Day, the phrase taken from the film The Searchers, a repeated phrase of John Wayne's.

Petty had a strong belief in Holly and contacted people he knew at Coral Records to sign him. Coral was a subsidiary of Decca and this put Holly in the unusual position of having two recording contracts at the same time. It was in one of these early contracts that Holley became known as Holly due to a spelling mistake and he stuck with it.

Buddy Holly was progressive for his time in that he used unusual instrumentations - e.g. the celesta on “Everyday”, vocal techniques - his use of “uh” in the middle of words, and he crossed the racial divide when mistakenly booked to play the Apollo Theatre, New York which was an all-black venue and successfully wooed the audience. His influence on popular music was integral to its’ development, he also instigated a higher level of engineering in the studio by layering his recordings with multiple vocal and instrumental lines before overdubbing became the norm. Examples of this can be heard on “Words of Love” and “Listen To Me”.

Buddy has been seen here in Sydney before and has been playing somewhere in the world for nineteen years, had over 16,000 performances and been seen by an estimated 20 million viewers.

In Australia the title role is played by Scott Cameron who does an amazing job of re-creating the Buddy Holly persona. He not only sings the songs with the characteristics that are synonymous with Holly he also plays the guitar riffs with blinding accuracy.

It is well known that Buddy Holly died in a plane crash with two other music luminaries of the day namely The Big Bopper, Jiles Perry Richardson Jnr, and Ritchie Valens, Richard Steven Valenzuela. The Big Bopper (known to friends as ‘Jape’) was a DJ who carved a career out of speaking most of his lyrics and had a hit with Chantilly Lace. Ritchie Valens was the first Hispanic, American born rock and roll star with hits “Donna” and “La Bamba”.

Luke Tonkin plays The Big Bopper with panache. Ritchie Valens is played by Sydney actor Flip Simmons, he sings superbly and moves around the stage deftly with all the gyrations that Valens was renowned for.

The show not only brings back all the wonderful well known hits but gives an insight into the journey that Buddy Holly and the Crickets went on. How they began playing country music, then rockabilly, and the development of their own distinctive style. The creative team of Director Craig Ilott, Musical Director Peter Laughton, Set Designer Christopher Smith, Lighting Designer Kevin Cawley, and Sound Designer John Taylor, have created an excellent evening of rock ‘n’ roll entertainment.

Peter McGill.

Performance Times
Tuesday 8pm
Wednesday 1pm & 8pm
Thursday 8pm
Friday 8pm
Saturday 2pm & 8pm
Sunday 5pm

Address:
Star City Pty Limited
80 Pyrmont Street,
Pyrmont NSW 2009

Telephone Enquiries:
General enquiries and Administration: (02) 9777 9000
International callers: 61 2 9777 9000

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Posted By: David Jobling - Category: Welcome Release, Review, Qstage

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You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story | BOOK REVIEW

February 6th 2009 07:57

Way back in 1923 brothers Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack L. Warner incorporated their new motion picture company which continues to this day to produce major films.

Warner Brothers

You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story

Warner Bros. (WB) Studios’ 85th anniversary was celebrated in 2008 and part of the celebration was the release of, You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story, an illuminating new documentary produced, written and directed by award-winning filmmaker and Time magazine Senior Film critic Richard Schickel. Clint Eastwood narrates.

The documentary You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story was broadcast in the USA in three-parts. Now you can have much of the detail on your lap in the form of this beautiful hard cover publication written by Richard Schickel & George Perry, with a Foreword by Clint Eastwood. It's a handsomely covered coffee table book spins-off and ties-in to the five-hour PBS doco that Schickel wrote and produced. Full of essays on the studio's history from its humble beginnings through a variety of changes in corporate ownership.

Insights into characters such as John Wayne, George Cukor, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland and John Ford (to name a few) are quite fascinating. The political piquancy of WB is quite evident as you sort through the hard boiled Detectives and zany crazy comics, the very drunk Elizabeth Taylor (in Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?) who have all featured heavily in one way or another in the company's history.

Warner Bros. like all film production companies tend to reflect edgy or deeply held values of society - they'll swing from one extreme to another; sometimes it's high moral ground other times it's kooky sexy strangeness they explore. Producing films for example like Driving Miss Daisy and The Witches of Eastwick in the 1980's they were not only encouraging great emerging Australian film making talent, they were giving out a vast amount of information about injustice and intolerance, a very worthy thing to do even embedded in a drama or a comedy.

WB sold us Bonnie and Clyde, Cool Hand Luke, Gypsy, Risky Business, and What's Up Doc? and Schickel & Perry cover the studio's entire history with fantastic photographs from many many films.

Poster art from films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy is beautifully reproduced with full page glossy pictures from WB's all time classic, and one of the most remembered WB films of all time Casablanca. More recent films recorded in this great history of the studio include The Matrix and The Polar Express, Sweeny Todd, of course I could go on but I think the best advice for film lovers is go out and find this book, add it to your library. It will be a great coffee table book because it is more than a nice picture book, it's got history, guts and glamor for sure.

For more information about Richard Schickel and his work, visit www.richardschickel.com

David Jobling

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Posted By: David Jobling - Category: Welcome Release, Review, News, Qstage

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