Curator Stephen Brown Spotlights Édouard Vuillard and His Muses

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Thursday, 26 April 2012 00:27

Written by Laura Blum

Post-impressionist artist Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) ranks among the more intriguing characters in French art history. His penchant for intimate art and relationships is especially suited to the bespoke spaces of The Jewish Museum in the former Warburg mansion on Upper Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

From May 4 to September 23, 2012, art lovers can cozy up to the intricately patterned interiors, streets and gardens on view in the Museum's much-awaited exhibition highlighting his work and the patrons and friends who supplied inspiration. 

Dubbed Édouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940, the show was curated by art historian Stephen Brown, whose previous efforts at The Jewish Museum include work on exhibitions such as Action/Abstraction (2008) and The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice (1987).

FilmFestivalTraveler.com sat down with the curator at a local French bistro, Pascalou, whose delicate wallpaper -- and vin blanc -- Vuillard would have richly approved of.

Q: Why Vuillard, and why now?

SB: The exhibition was inspired by the acquisition of a painting by The Jewish Museum at auction. We were successful in buying the painting over the telephone from a sale in London.

Q: Can you divulge the mystery painting?

SB: The painting is entitled Lucy Hessel Reading. It shows a woman sitting in a bedroom, although exactly what kind of picture this is may seem unclear, even today. This picture was painted in 1913, on the eve of the Great War (1914-18).

Q: A Painter and His Muses gives Lucy a special wink.

SB: After 1899, Lucy Hessel, who was the wife of Vuillard's dealer, Jos Hessel, became Vuillard's model and "inspiratrice."

Q: And confidante and critic, correct?

SB: And in effect his lover of 40 years. It was a very French situation. It's somewhat removed from our experience in postwar America. But in those days it was not abnormal.

Q: Before Lucy there was Misia. Who were Thadée and Misia Natanson for Vuillard?

SB: Vuillard spent about 10 years trying to figure out what kind of artist he was going to be in the 20th century. And in doing that, he made a transition from the realm of the Natansons and this kind of anarchizing liberal but very wealthy circle of the cultural review called La Revue Blanche. At that time there was a social war on in Paris with the Dreyfus Affair.

[Leftist politician] Léon Blum was writing for the Revue, with pieces from Tolstoy and other great French and European writers.  They were doing Ibsen in the theater. You know, The Master Builder! Enemy of the People! -- all part of the incandescent vanguard at the end of the century. The milieu of La Revue Blanche came to an end because Thadée Natanson's money ran out. Thadée's relationship with Misia came to an end and she was hotly pursued by Alfred Edwards, the owner of Le Matin newspaper and probably one of the richest men in Paris.

Q: And Hessel had been waiting in the wings?

SB: Jos Hessel had been watching the [avant-garde] Nabis from the early 1890s to see who was going to be the new artist. Because in 1890, if you had an eye for painting, you could find young people who were great artists and whose work was still within reach. Jos would go to Vuillard and Bonnard and say, "Look, you guys are good, and I'm buying a few here and there from you, but I'm working at the Bernheim Gallery" -- which was the best gallery in Paris -- "so why don't you exhibit with us?” 

Q: Patrons abhor a vacuum. How did Hessel go about luring these artists?

SB: Jos was making sure that they came over to his Rue de Rivoli apartment. The salon of Madame Hessel was a very welcoming and exciting scenario for artists, writers, theater people and so forth. One of the scabrous tales that has been repeated in the literature is Jos's supposed remark to Madame Hessel, "Dear Lucy, you may count yourself lucky that it was Edouard that I wanted as my artist. Otherwise I should have had to impose Bonnard on you. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Q: Pass the absinthe…

SB: I doubt the Hessel circle drank absinthe, but, whatever it was, if you've seen the film La règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game), there you might find a powerful representation of the human passions and tensions beneath our story. Ultimately what really counted was art. It was a passion. Jean Renoir's film seems to have some points of contact with the subject of our exhibition.

Q: Was it based on this crowd?

SB: Renoir's film is a thinly veiled satire of upper-class French Jewish life between the wars. 

Q: Vuillard’s own family background wasn’t exactly aristocratic, was it?

SB: From his earliest childhood Vuillard was close to his mother. She was a strong woman who ran her own business purveying highly-crafted clothing to wealthy people who could both appreciate it and afford it. Her son made art for the wealthy and discerning also, for the rest of his life!

Q: Given the era’s fascination with psychoanalysis, Vuillard’s “Oedipal Complex” must have come in for quite a probing. To what extent was he attuned to the life of the mind?

SB: He analyzed himself regularly in his journal over a period of 50 years [from 1890-1940] -- analyzed himself and the way that he was feeling about things, his art and the kinds of things that he was doing, and also the people he was with. It's like being there.

Vuillard was in touch with himself in a way that may be difficult to comprehend in our age. The sensitivity of his character -- after 1930, after fascism -- seems distant from social developments. His journals were sealed after his death, until 1981.

Q: What sorts of things do they reveal?

SB: It was marvelous turning the pages of the journal -- they’re held at the Institut de France in Paris, where they remain unpublished. One can see how the artist was making drawings after Japanese printmakers and then transforming their design approach to his own world of contemporary Paris. You can see the transition. Draftmanship is an important part of his activity.

He is said to have sketched continually…this does not generally lead to presentation drawings; he's not doing it to impress you. He's doing it in order to discover a motif, this idea of the relationship between his conception and what could be put onto a flat surface. He's into visual language, as other modernist artists were, but in his own, highly-personal manner.

Q: He seems to be exploring more than just graphic dimensions, no?

SB: I think this really comes out in the photography. It's a very profound philosophy, not only of artistic creation but of being. It's about time and matter. One of the ways that this is transformed in the shorthand of visual art is the emphasis on the surface and the matter. He seems to be talking about the materiality not only of objects but also emotions and the relationships between people. On the other hand, the plunging perspectives suggest duration and time. 

Q: How cinematic.

A: Perhaps. [The artifacts in our exhibition] may indeed suggest a kind of proto-cinematic thought.

Q: New York’s last Vuillard exhibition was some two decades ago, at the Brooklyn Museum. What’s distinctive about The Jewish Museum’s approach?

SB: We believe this is a significant show, not in terms of the number of loans -- we have over 50 paintings -- but perhaps because the concept is somewhat different. The Jewish Museum is interested in returning the idea of social context to the understanding of an artist. But it's also a way of understanding this particular artist, whose work normally might be overlooked other than by connoisseurs.

His art was not a question of searching after trends, nor was it just a question of making pictures for wealthy people and then selling them back through a gallery or independently. What matters aesthetically in Vuillard is that his milieu became his subject matter. Vuillard, who never married, became the family of his patrons, and they were the ones who understood him. You can't really get to this without the context. 

Q: What points would you most want to highlight about the exhibition?

SB: Two things in particular: the artist and his intimates' highly aesthetic approach to life and what the philosophers have called "sociabilité"-- not simply a social view of art but the consideration of social life as a game. In the case of Vuillard, this performance supported his creative activity and provided its content, ultimately leading to the deeper human meanings or "truth" of his artistic creations. That's why he gravitated to the Hessels in particular. He could have gone on being a gallery artist, endlessly. But he needed a milieu because it gave him the source of his subject matter and helped him get his commissions and portraits.

Another point concerns the relationship between realism as the 19th century understood it and symbolism. It was this familiar mélange that Vuillard took with him out of the 1890s from the painter Edgar Degas and the poet Stéphane Mallarmé and transformed into exquisitely moving works of the 20th century.

Q: How does The Jewish Museum's current exhibition featuring Kehinde Wiley’s decorative paintings relate to Vuillard?

SB: Wiley too was using elements of decoration in his art -- an art which affirms the expressive potential of the human figure, in his own way. The decoration in Vuillard is interesting as a concept because it reflects how he used his visual language to create the emotional relationship between himself and what he observed, in artistic terms -- and the spectator's relationship to these representations.

Q: Some of Vuillard's interior scenes are deeply intimate. At the time were they seen as something of an emotional peep show?

SB: Perhaps. [Musée d'Orsay president] Guy Cogeval argues that Vuillard's artistic drive implied manipulation of his circle. As the scholarship shows, he was known to sink into social situations as an observer, adapting people to his creations and placing them in situations to feed his own art. He was shooting for aesthetic intensity all the time.

Vuillard didn't talk much. Perhaps photography was a technique that allowed him a kind of social justification, and also a way of distancing himself.

Q: Vuillard would have loved today's mobile gadgets.

SB: Maybe. The issue of interaction, of "sociability," has certainly informed our presentation of the artist. Social context and meaning are important for The Jewish Museum. We hope our focus will help to shed light on the achievement of an important 20th-century artist.

"Mirror Mirror's" Lily Collins Takes a Bite of the Apple Store

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Thursday, 12 April 2012 05:34

Written by Renzo Adler

When actress Lily Colins (The Blind Side) discussed her new movie, Mirror Mirror, at the Soho Apple Store it offered an interesting look into her fans [as well as herself]. Mixing journalists with the little girls, their mothers, fans of The Blind Side, and aspiring actresses the event opened a window into seeing how many young people strive to be actors, and how Collins was one of those people only a short while ago. She's used the talk as an opportunity to encourage others, rather than talk about a past she seems to want to leave behind.

Mirror Mirror
A reimagining of the Snow White fairytale by acclaimed director, Tarsem (The Fall, The Immortals)
stars Julia Roberts as the evil Queen, who Snow White (Collins) rallies against in pitched battle. Tarsem's previous film explored similar dark themes and featured graphic violence, but Mirror Mirror mixes family friendly action-comedy with romantic elements. The film retains his visual flair and the costumes designed by the late Eiko Ishioka (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) were memorable.

Following this Collins will be in The Writer.

Q: So Snow White, no pressure…

LC: I know! After I finished the movie, so many people were asking me if I was nervous to take such an iconic role on and I had to think. Because I wasn’t asked those questions before I started filming, and if I had been, I probably would have been a lot more nervous going into it because you realize all these little girls and adults have this idea of who she is in their head and it’s a lot to live up to.

But I wanted to make her a real girl that girls could relate to and not necessarily have her be this picture perfect vision that everyone has in their heads.

Q: So how did you approach this character that is so entrenched in people’s minds?

LC: I watched a lot of old black and white movie. I looked to Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, actresses that said so much in their eyes and didn’t have to say any words to convey a message and who held themselves very highly from their backs to their hands to their feet position. They just carried themselves in a way that is very classic and I wanted that to come across.

But I also looked at how kids react to good news and bad news. They’re very genuine and pure in their reactions and that’s who Snow White is at heart.

Q: She starts the film doe-eyed and ends bad ass. Was that always in the script or did you tweak her?

LC: We definitely played around with her character. The script went through many changes during filming. We’d go to set one day and there would be new pages, and new lines, but the theme of having her be this young woman who fought for what she believed in and grew emotionally and physically throughout the film and ends up being this young woman that saves the prince more than the prince saves her, was always an undertone throughout the process.

And it wasn’t an in-your-face feminist movie, it just had that undertone of a current young girl that can kick butt, that learns to sword fight, and ends up breaking the spell on the prince as opposed to the other way around.

Q: How did you end up acting? You used to do what I’m doing.

LC: I have loved telling stories since I was little. I did stage theaters and musicals and I started professional auditioning when I was 16 and I got told “no” a lot of times. I keep every script for every part I’ve auditioned for and the stack of no’s are up to here and the yes’s are down here.

It took a lot to get to here. There was a point where I was interviewing people that I was hoping to work with one day. And then once an audience gets to know you as yourself really well, it’s hard for them to accept you as a character. So it’s kind of picking what time felt right.

Q: What was a good piece of advice you got that kept you going?

LC: One casting director, the one that ended up casting me in The Blind Side, I auditioned for her twice before, and she just had this really warm feeling about her that she never made me feel intimidated when I went into the room because her constructive criticism was always, “maybe this isn’t the right project for you, but I look at lots of projects and maybe I’ll bring you back again.”

The third time she brought me in I was cast as Collins Tuohy, so it’s really about persistence and taking “no” as a constructive no and keep going, as opposed to “no, this isn’t for me, I’m going to stop.”

Q: How did that help you while working with Julia Roberts, who is not your friend in the film?

LC: No, not in the film. The second the director yells cut, she’s back to being Julia. She pulls my hair in the first scene you see the two of us together, and she physically pulled my hair out by accident because I got caught on my dress, and they yell cut and she has hair in her hand and she goes back to being a mother and says “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

It was really nice to have that connection when we weren’t filming. When the cameras were rolling, she was just horrible to me, and it gives me a lot of ammunition to use when I have to be horrible to her at the end. But I think just seeing how she interacts with everyone, and she doesn’t treat anyone on the crew differently from how she’d treat an actor and I think it’s really important to know that no matter how big you get it’s important to be true to who you are and treat everyone the same.

Q: How did you guys establish that dynamic of dislike and antipathy?

LC: Weirdly enough, it came naturally. There was no prepping or planning. She had her own vision of who she saw the Queen as, and I, as Snow White, had to innocently react to her. At the beginning, Snow White is almost void of personality, but she gains a personality throughout the film. So at the beginning I don’t know if she’s being mean to me or not, I just want her to like me.

So I’m just nodding and smiling at everything she says and just taking her meanness, but then I start to grow up and realize what she’s doing. It was just kind of a playful thing we had going on.

Q: In terms of the costumes, what was the toughest part? The corsets?

LC: Yes. Honestly, I don’t think I can ever complain about wearing anything ever again. They took about 25 minutes to put on the outfits, I was corseted every day, wore big ball-gowns, some of which had five layers, they weighed 70 pounds.

Heels, running in snow, wrestling, sword fighting. It’s a lot. I couldn’t go to the bathroom because they’d have to take everything off and then I’d hold up production and I had to sit on a stool, but by the end I would just collapse on the floor and look like a giant cupcake because I just didn’t care.

But they looked so beautiful that it was hard to complain.

Q: What aspects of yourself did you bring into her?

LC: On the set I grew more with spontaneity and just going with the flow of things. I like to bring a feisty nature to the role and I’m a very passionate person, so if Snow White is anything, it’s passionate. I really like to find the good in people in a world where there’s so much negativity.

It’s like when you meet someone for the first time you try not to judge anyone and just find an in. And she purely just sees the good, and that’s why it’s so difficult when she discovers that there is actually evil. She sees what the difference is between the two and how to deal with that as she grows up.

Q: What was your favorite fairy-tale growing up for you?

LC: Honestly, Snow White was a favorite. You would not find me without an apple in my bag. Everyday in class I’d have an apple for snack. It’s bizarre. I didn’t talk to birds, but I had an apple. And Aladdin. I love Princess Jasmine and that magic carpet and I knew every word to every song.

Q: How did this movie impact your career?

LC: I’m still auditioning all the time. The movie I’m doing right now in North Carolina [Writers], I fought for for nine months. I went in and went in and went in and I tried to convince me. This movie is amazing, but it shows me one way, so when you’re going after a role that’s maybe darker or older, you still have to prove yourself, I still had to prove myself.

But this was the biggest experience I ever had. A crew of hundreds, sets that were massive and being the character. I was on set every day, morning to night, training and working, and I never had an experience like that before. So it really prepared me for hard working, but it prepared me for this weird situation of talking to you all with these cameras going off.

It’s cool, but it’s all clickclickclick!

Q: What was the hardest part about playing Snow White?

LC: The hardest part was finding that balance between wanting to be that feminine fairy tale princess that you grow up loving, especially because this film is truly for the whole family, it’s an adventure comedy, so you want to appeal to little girls and be a fairy tale princess, but you don’t want to be a caricature fairy tale princess. You don’t want to be just a human animated person. You want her to have heart and soul and a reality to her, but you also want her to be feisty, so it’s about creating a balance.

Q: You poor thing, having to do those scenes with Armie Hammer…

LC: I know, it was hard work [laughs]. But his wife was on set a lot as well, so that meeting was awkward as well. But he’s awesome. He’s the perfect mixture of being goofy and aloof, but also a gentleman and intellectual.

He’s very much being that prince in real life. But he was an honor to work with.

Q: Did you take any props or costumes home?

LC: I have a sign that says “Snow White is dead.” That was kind of classic to have. And a dagger. Gotta have a dagger to protect yourself.

[At this point questions from the audience opened up]

Q: My question is what was it like working with Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side?

LC: Gosh, we’ve kept in touch, and I think that says a lot about who she is, because you say “keep in touch” when you’re even in school or a movie set, and she has stayed that mother, sister, friend figure to me. She’s so funny, and she just breaks down and talks like a valley girl or starts dancing like she did in The Proposal. She does that in real life.

But she’s such a joy and taught me a lot about humility, and staying true to who you are, she’s just such a class act, she’s awesome.

Q: This is my first time talking to a celebrity.

LC: I’m a normal person, it’s okay [laughs].

Q: Do you watch the ABC Once Upon A Time?

LC: Yeah, I do. I watch it every Sunday and I met Ginnifer Goodwin recently and she said “we’re both Snow White!” How cool, there’s three of us out there now. And it’s cool because we’re all different ages and we play the part differently as well. She’s really sweet too.

Q: What’s your dream role?

LC: Good question! I’d love to do an English period drama like Pride and Prejudice or something where I can use my sword fighting skills and have a British accent. It’d be kind of fun to be in a sweeping British drama.

Q: First off, I want to congratulate the genius of having Snow White talk at the Apple Store. I thought they should call it The Poison Apple Store. Which costume out of all the one you wore was your favorite?

LC: I’d have to say the wedding dress, because…

Q: Spoiler alert...

LC: Oh I’m going to ruin the movie, I’m sorry. I mean the “poster” dress [laughs]. It’s my wedding dress as well. I think because the colors are so vibrant and so iconic, and to me. I had many fittings with that dress. There’s a bow in the back, which makes it look like I’m a present, it’s just the cutest dress.

I also have a lot of fond memories with that dress. My two favorite scenes are the big song and dance number at the end where I do a Bollywood number in that dress and just sing and dance my heart out with about 300 extras, and there’s a scene with Julia at the end, no spoiler alert, which was the most surreal for me to shoot because it was very intense for the two of us and I’m in that outfit. So memories, and how beautiful that outfit was.

Q: Who do you look to for inspiration?

LC: Where are you from?

Q: England.

Lily: What part?

Q: Yorkshire, though I don’t sound like it.

LC: I’m from Guilford. I would love to work with Meryl Streep. She’s amazing. When you watch her you’re not watching Meryl playing a character, you’re watching a character. She’s radiant to me. And I love Colin Firth, I think he’s so classic and I would love to do a period drama with him.

I just met both of them, and no kidding, I started crying in front of Meryl Streep. I was like “I have to leave right now.” She’s incredible. And Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp for sure.

Q: Can you relate to your character?

LC: During the course of filming, I grew up a lot as Lily, but also as Snow White during the process. I found a lot of inner confidence that I didn’t know was there when I started and I opened myself up to spontaneity opened myself up to accepting help from others and realizing that’s not a sign of weakness, it just a sign of growing up and sometimes you need help from other people. And also being open to new experiences in life. Definitely passion and an inner glow from confidence and learning to believe in yourself.

Q: What was it like working with Tarsem? You look at something like The Cell and then this, it’s quite a departure from his other work.

LC: Right, I think he goes from extremes. He does The Cell, The Fall, The Immortals, which is very in your face with the swords, and the killing, and the gods, and then you go to a sweet fairy tale. He’s a master of taking what in his imagination and making it real because he told us about these concepts he had and showed us drawings and you nod and say “alright, how are you going to make this?” And then you see what he creates.

He’s one of the funniest human beings I ever met, with one of the best hearts, and he means so well, and he’s so creative and he makes you feel so a part of the process every day. He doesn’t forget to tell you how right you are for the role, or how well you’re doing, or give constructive criticism. And as an actor, it’s nice to know the person you’re working with every day believes in you like that.

Q: You said you started auditioning at 16, I’m interested in acting and I’m 13, and I don’t know when’s the right time to get started and take classes is.

LC: For me, I knew that’s what I wanted to do, but I also knew that I wanted to be with my friends and have my school time because that was always really important. So I auditioned for things before I graduated, but I think everything that happens, happens for a reason. So there’s a reason why I finished school and then got something, because I would have been taken out of school.

Maybe you’ll be really lucky and get told “yes” at your first job, which would be awesome, but you’re gonna get told “no” a lot, but that’s not to be taken personally. Everyone gets told “no” and it’s okay to be told “no.” You just take that “no” and you use whatever you felt in that room and learn from it and go to the next one and the next one and the next one.

And it may take you longer, and it may take you until the second audition, but it’s important to be okay with being told “no” because as long as you can maintain your sense of confidence in yourself, when you’re told “yes” it will be that much better. Just don’t get deterred, because I got told “no” a lot and it happens to the best of us.

Q: Why are you so beautiful?

LC: Wow [laughs]. Thank you.

Q: Most likely your mom.

LC: Yeah, good genes. No! What makes me feel the most beautiful is being happy and smiling. And I think I’m a happy person, but I feel very lucky to be doing what I’m doing and having my passion be something I can share and being in situations like this and talking to you guys.

It’s really fun for me and genuinely is really cool and I’m really happy. 

Mirror Mirror opens March 30.
To learn more, go to http://mirrormirrorfilm.com 

Actor Clive Owen Transfers Fears Through Intruders

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Tuesday, 10 April 2012 16:44

Written by Brad Balfour

For British actor Clive Owen, Intruders offered more of a psychological thriller to work with than a classic horror film -- something like a Hitchockian story filtered through a tapas taste. Spanish tapas, that is, since its Oscar-nominated director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has a bi-lingual, multicultural background.

Intruders outlines the tale of two children speaking different languages, in different countries and eras, who are united by the same nightmares of a faceless assailant who wants to possess them. The film really deals with virtual realities more than actual ones -- with its actors and audiences on a ride driving towards a tortured conclusion. Fresnadillo has tackled another favorite of the horror-fan set -- the rage plague-infected 28 Days Weeks Later.

Read more: Actor Clive Owen Transfers Fears...