The Rat King!

So, I was procrastinating and watching my favourite ballet, The Nutcracker (the 1990 Peter Wright version with the Birmingham Royal Ballet to get specific) and remembered how much I enjoyed/was scared of the Rat King scenes when I was little. I wonder if it said something about the person I would become that I always thought the mysterious magician was way more attractive than the 'knight in shining armour' style male lead.

Anyways, enough about me. Have a Rat King photo collage.

Try and procrastinate near pencils and paper, you'll end up drawing.

Another early concept; I'm trying to develop an illustration style.

For any Dungeons and Dragons fans among you, the purple blob was based on a Gibbering Mouther.

A discussion about The Devils and my attempt at a critical essay . .

Long time no blog. Ironically, my art blog has been so sparse because I've been busy with an art course. You'd think that would increase blog activity!

I'm currently preparing for a final exhibition which I will be posting about closer to the time (although it feels far to close for comfort as it is). One of our final assignments on the course was to write and personal essay about an art subject that interests us: a handily focused and narrow brief eh?

Anyways, here is my essay in which I hope I didn't get too over excited and completely meander around the question.

Irrespective of my writing skills (which you are more than welcome to constructively criticise by the way), I do feel the subject of The Devils very interesting one regardless of your knowledge of horror or film.




P.S. I do not own any of the pictures. They are the property of Warner Bros.

The Devils: Artistic Expression in Film and its Censorship

By Stella Frangleton

The winner of Best Foreign Film at the Venice Film Festival while, at the same time, being banned in Italy: The Devils (1971) has been the subject of an ongoing battle between film critics and film censors since its release - gaining both acclaim and castigation. Having only been seen in its full version at film festivals, the fullest version available is more than evidently an artistic vision of a tragic historical event. Even as a fairly hardened and liberal film fan, I must admit I found The Devils a difficult watch; however, it was difficult with a purpose and intelligence. I did not feel the empty exploitation of a thrown together exploitation movie; I was being made to feel uncomfortable because the director, Ken Russell, was trying to express a vision – an alarming vision, yes, but not one without thought and relevance. Had Russell expressed this in a painting or gallery, would he have received a similar butchering of his piece? I believe The Devils was treated such because the images are not simply to disgust momentarily (a construct unfortunate many shocking films follow). They have been constructed masterfully both for visual and emotional impact. In essence, it has been treated badly because it is made so well; it is affecting. I intend to examine art in film being treated differently from other art forms: how and why.

The Devils is, I believe, Russell's strongest morality play. It focuses on the important differentiation that needs to be made between true faith and the use of faith as a manipulative tool (the possessions at Loudon, the real historical event on which the film is based, being a particularly sordid example of the latter). One of the reasons critics claimed the film was not art is due to the explicit nature of some scenes, some going as far to call the film perverted or sadistic. I find this a somewhat redundant criteria, especially when considering revered painters; how many disturbing and sensual paintings come to mind when considering the work of artists such as Goya and Courbet? The scene that remains cut even from the current release is the scene that typifies Russell's pivotal concept; it is known, starkly, as 'The Rape of Christ'. The scene sees the nuns - driven into a frenzy by political schemers in an attempt to incriminate the powerful Priest Grandier for possessing the nuns - tear down a life size icon of Christ and ravish the fragments in a nightmarish fervour. These intense images, however, are intercut with a scene of the Priest Grandier, a troubled man who we have seen grow in purity as he connects with his faith more throughout the film, reach a sort of catharsis as he calmly takes communion alone in the countryside. As the corrupt reach their climax of depravity, Grandier reaches the climax of his faith. Interestingly, the head of the Catholic Legion of Decency in America at the time of the films release (Father Gene Philips) did not find fault with the sequence. He described it as 'portraying blasphemy, but it is not blasphemous' and felt that the a scene from The Exorcist (1973), wherein a possessed girl masturbates with a crucifix, was more offensive as it did not appear to discuss the vast separation between acts such as these and true Catholicism, which Russell does.

Other works have discussed the destructive marriage of church and state, notably Arthur Miller's 1952 play: The Crucible. Hysteria is a key aspect in both pieces – showing how the state can encourage it under the guise of religious piety, and how this leads to people acting on previously repressed feelings and grudges. Abigail is the main example of this in The Crucible; she uses the ensuing witch hunt to accuse the wife of the man she had had an affair with. Similarly, Jeanne Des Anges in The Devils goes so far with her denouncing of Grandier because she was attracted to him, something for which she received penance, and became resentful of him. Unlike The Devils, The Crucible did not get such a frosty reception from critics and authorities and I think this may not just be down to the more sexual content in The Devils. Miller was openly historically inaccurate; although he based it on a true event, as with The Devils, he made clear it was a work of fiction and had fitted the setting to his purpose. As The Devils was intended to be as accurate as it could be from the existing recordings it is much more gut-wrenching; there are vastly gorier and sexually overt films out there but they aren't as real or emotionally charged as Russell gets his to be. The work of Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion in particular, was brought to mind when considering images of charged emotion coupled with religious imagery such as in The Devils. Bacon described the image of the crucifixion as 'a magnificent armature on which you can hang all types of feeling and sensation' and he used his interpretations of it to express his disgust with man's inhumanity to man something; which I feel Russell was trying to express too. Both abandoned realistic imagery and made it bold and almost vulgar, I think, so the viewer couldn't ignore it. The Crucible may discuss similar issues to The Devils but it is not as determined to make the viewer feel the artists' revulsion at the atrocities they are citing.

Both Russell and Bacon were criticised for the alarming nature of their works however: Bacon's paintings were allowed to exist whereas Russell's film was not. What is the distinction between a traditional artist and an artist who works in film, that makes one viable for unsanctioned editing and the other not? I feel that film censors and critics either fear that people won't go into a film viewing it as art. Or, the censors are the people not viewing it as art and therefore miss the point. This seems all too true of the treatment of The Devils; Ken Penry, one of the BBFC censors at its time of release, even said 'We all took against the film . . . although we realised it was a very fine piece of filmmaking'. The tragic irony of this statement defines what is wrong with the continued suppression of The Devils full cut. Russell intended it as art; it has been received widely as such and yet the fear that some unsuspecting person will pick it off DVD shelf and feel compelled to write a strongly worded letter still overpowers the right to artistic freedom. I appreciate that what people's preconceptions of what they will view in a cinema probably aren't films like The Devils but to not be allowed to watch in our own homes is like trying to buy a painting but being refused of the grounds that we might not appreciate it 'correctly'.

The aspects of humanity portrayed in The Devils may be disturbing but they do exist – something I am trying to explore in my own work. Russell uses images to highlight aspects of human behaviour that he finds worthy of discussion: something I am trying to achieve in both photo and film media. Whereas, Russell's message is more focussed to state and religion – I would like mine to be more open ended. I want to know how viewers interpret the images painstakingly woven by people such as Russell. His context for The Devils is pleasingly ambiguous; while being able to be viewed as a period drama, the visuals allow it to attain a timeless dreamlike quality which I found interesting and have tried to incorporate into my own film piece. A strong enough sense of context to retain a connectivity throughout the piece but far removed enough to provoke deeper thought than simply threading the images together to create a story. I also agree strongly with Russell's belief in the strength and purity of humanity while being able to appreciate the baser aspects; I believe the more we embrace what is bad about ourselves the less energy we have to spend suppressing it and we can channel that energy into better things. I would like my exhibit to be one of exploration for the viewers; maybe they will love it, maybe it will repulse them. Either way, they will hopefully have explored a part of themselves which I believe is healthy to do so; as, I think, does Russell.

While I can appreciate why an alternative cinematic release may be sensible as a viewer is likely to be expecting entertainment, not challenging art, in a cinema I do not agree with suppressing the piece from public release. Any reason a censor may have for suppressing the film has to be linked to a fear of the public's misunderstanding (as there are far more explicit films available the 'inappropriate content' reasoning is redundant). However, any audience seeking out this film at an Art Cinema or on DVD is evidently not the audience censors are afraid of misunderstanding the film; therefore, the reasoning behind continuing suppression seems confused and irrelevant. The censorship of Russell's vision seems to stem from both censors' and critics' confusion as to whether film should be entertainment or art. I believe it is for the filmmaker to make this decision and their film should then be treated accordingly rather than artists having their work forced into being that which they never intended it to be.

Trying to make things that look ancient. 1st experiment.

Hello!

So, after seeing some of Markus Selg - an artist whose sculpture make you feel like you in a museum rather than a gallery. I thought I'd look into some of the artefacts he may have been referencing and decided to make my take on a Boli (here's a small article on them http://www.randafricanart.com/Bamana_Boli_PB.html).

It's plaster and straw. I think I'd like to try mixing some more organic materials into it as with the Boliw themselves; although I can't say I'll be going as far as blood which has been found in some Boliw.

Sorry the location isn't more glamourous but as the figure is LIFE SIZE it is flipping heavy!!!

What do you think?

Chicken wire base.

Back with a vengeance. PLASTER VENGEANCE!

Well, life is distracting. I've had muchos muchos going on recently - shows and projects all getting on top of me and, forgive me, the blog has suffered. But no longer!

I return with a piece made from a medium I haven't posted before: plaster. 

Plaster is weird. Temperamental. Easy to screw up. But if you take some time to get it right - its lovely!

This piece was based on a brief about childhood. I considered how much love I would invest in objects when I was young, something I think as adults we do less and less. I reminisced about toys and building blocks - probably not particularly well kept or expensive but that didn't matter back then - I can remember those objects from when I was 5 (and younger) better than I can remember half the things I've ever bought post 16. 

This piece is supposed to express how much of ourselves we pour into particular objects as a child; an oversized building block with a deep cast of my hand (so deep I was nearly part of the building block quite literally). It doesn't matter that the object is simple and plain - I am a part of it. 

Perhaps we should try and look at our possessions with the eyes of our child-selves once in a while.

We'd probably buy less for a start.

A few life drawings.

Here are a few different styles of life drawing - I'm not entirely convinced by my life drawing skills thus far but we shall see.

My face is a lamp.

Although a lot of people who have seen my latex face cast and been freaked out by it - I rather like it. Not in a narcissistic way but because of the texture and the eerie effect created by the thin latex in front of a light.

It is cast of a cast of my face (if that makes sense). The initial face cast was done with plaster and mod rock which creates, not only a good cast, but also adds an interesting texture unlike, say, alginate castings.

I think it looks a bit like an ultrasound.

The piece unlit.