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Things I've Been Watching
May. 16th, 2021 09:46 amThe night before the night before last I watched a documentary (20 years old) about Nero's Domus Aurea- his golden house- the enormous palace complex he built in the centre of Rome after Rome burned down (which wasn't his fault). Parts of it have survived (because his successors buried rather than demolished it) and when it was discovered in the 16th century people like Raphael (actually there's no-one like Raphael- he was a one off) climbed down into it and looked at the frescoes by the light of pitch-pine torches and went "We have fallen so far behind..."
The current thinking is that Nero- like Richard III- has had a bad press. He was a poet pitchforked into a job that called for a hard man- thereby illustrating the drawbacks of the dynastic system. The ruling class hated him and the common people loved him- and, yes, it's true he murdered his mother but, then again,she was pretty awful...
The night before last I watched a documentary (7 or 8 years old) about the photographer Vivian Maier. It leaves one wondering how many great artists have disappeared from the record because they weren't pushy enough. Maier showed her work to almost nobody- certainly not to anyone who could have established her reputation- and was discovered, post mortem, by a young man who bought a trunk full of her negatives at a sale of stuff that had been abandoned in lock-ups. Maier worked as a nanny, never went anywhere without a camera slung round her neck- and produced at least 100,000 images- mainly of street life, mainly in New York and Chicago. She was at once utterly brazen- getting into people's faces and snapping away whether they consented or not (something I wouldn't dare do)- and also obsessively secretive about herself. Asked by someone who was only making friendly conversation what she did for a living she said, "Well, I'm a kind of a spy..."
Last night I watched Tumbblad- the Indian horror movie (3 years old.) My son recommended it. He likes ghastliness and I like spookiness and Tumbblad occupies the space where our tastes overlap. It's mythic, weird, beautifully shot. I've never really gotten into Indian cinema because there's just so much of it but maybe I've started now...
The current thinking is that Nero- like Richard III- has had a bad press. He was a poet pitchforked into a job that called for a hard man- thereby illustrating the drawbacks of the dynastic system. The ruling class hated him and the common people loved him- and, yes, it's true he murdered his mother but, then again,she was pretty awful...
The night before last I watched a documentary (7 or 8 years old) about the photographer Vivian Maier. It leaves one wondering how many great artists have disappeared from the record because they weren't pushy enough. Maier showed her work to almost nobody- certainly not to anyone who could have established her reputation- and was discovered, post mortem, by a young man who bought a trunk full of her negatives at a sale of stuff that had been abandoned in lock-ups. Maier worked as a nanny, never went anywhere without a camera slung round her neck- and produced at least 100,000 images- mainly of street life, mainly in New York and Chicago. She was at once utterly brazen- getting into people's faces and snapping away whether they consented or not (something I wouldn't dare do)- and also obsessively secretive about herself. Asked by someone who was only making friendly conversation what she did for a living she said, "Well, I'm a kind of a spy..."
Last night I watched Tumbblad- the Indian horror movie (3 years old.) My son recommended it. He likes ghastliness and I like spookiness and Tumbblad occupies the space where our tastes overlap. It's mythic, weird, beautifully shot. I've never really gotten into Indian cinema because there's just so much of it but maybe I've started now...
