Classiq - An online journal that celebrates cinema, culture, style and storytelling.

30 May 2018

Tennis As Art

There is Roger Federer – What is tennis if not the art of movement? There is Rafael Nadal – What is la terre battue if not the canvas brushed across by the strokes of the master of his art, the king of clay? And there is, of course, the Roland Garros poster art, 38 years of it, as I was talking in Monday’s editorial.

The French have made art part of the majesty of the French Open. The official posters have become a fascinating part of the tournament and have ranged from abstract images that one might never associate with tennis if it weren’t for the words Roland Garros, to very tennis-specific images. This year, Fabienne Verdier was the artist commissioned to do the French Open official poster. She chose to focus on the bounce of the tennis ball. She said: “I tried to portray the lightning speed of the player’s movements. The energy that they transmit to the ball in a movement full of spontaneity, vitality, power, precision and slide. And I imagined one of those unexpected bounces that take the opponent by surprise and force them, in the following rally, to surpass themselves once again in order to get one step closer to victory in Paris.”

But there is something more to it. Ever since I have been watching the tournament (it must be about 20 years), I have associated it with the beginning of summer. The entire clay season (my tennis surface of choice), culminating with the French Open, is like a prelude to my favourite season, preparing me for the magnificence of summer. Fabienne’s following words resonated so well with my feelings: “For me, Roland-Garros evokes those first warm days that herald the arrival of summer in Paris, when the intense light of May and June makes the ochre clay sparkle. As the sun races across the sky, the courts turn from amber to tobacco, from saffron to sepia, from ochre to red, from sienna to brown. During every rally, the balls collect this multicoloured dust and, like comets, leave enchanting lines of energy in their wake.”

But here are some of my all-time favourite French Open posters.

1984: Gilles Aillaud. The perspective of the crowd in the stands.

1995: Donald Lipski. “The magic of forms.”

1987: Gérard Titus-Carmel

1981: Eduardo Arroyo. The spirit of Roland Garros captured in just a few pencil strokes – a headband in the colours of France that tames the blonde hair as seen from behind of one of the world’s legendary tennis players and French Open winners, Björn Borg. This image from behind forces the eye to look at the horizon, which made the poster even more suggestive after the tournament ended as it marked the beginning of the end of Björg’s career, as the Swedish player won his last of his six French Open titles in 1981.

2017: Vik Muniz. It was one of the few times in the history of the tournament when the poster was based on a photograph, that of Gustavo Kuerten serving on clay, celebrating 20 years since the Brazilian’s win at the Roland Garros. However, the process was very interesting. “I started focusing on the colours, and I had to mix several pigments to finally get the precise shade of the clay. The colours truly are from all over the world, as the pigments come from Africa, Asia, and Australia. And since Roland-Garros is an international tournament, you’ve probably got elements in this clay from every nation represented here,” said Muniz. Once done, it was photographed, enlarged and then destroyed. “I see in this a similarity to the fact that a tennis match, the minute it is over, becomes part of our memory. […] And there is also a parallel with the drag net that sweeps away the marks on the court after every match.”

2016: Marc Desgrandchamps. “I created this poster based on photos of players over the past 60 years because it seems to me that tennis was perhaps more artistic. I found a tone and a color that interested me. It really has given the idea of restoring the attitude of the whole body in the shadow. The shadow carries in itself the representation of the body with the movement of the arms which is very important in tennis and the upper body.”

1996: Jean-Michel Meurice. “The surface of play.” The poster features a recurring theme in the artist’s work, the leaf. In the early 1980s, Maurice changed his manner of painting, basing his work on the imprint of a leaf used as a stencil.

2004: Daniel Humair. “Abstract narration.” The pulse of the French Open captured on musical rhythms by jazz drummer and composer Daniel Humair.

2003: Jane Hammond. “Rock, paper, scissors” were the starting point to develop a “very textured” image, Hammond told Tennis Week magazine in 2003. She made a wall of red clay, placed crumpled pieces of paper on it and attached cutout tennis figures to those. The words Roland Garros were also made of clay. “I wanted to associate two ideas: one, the red earth, which is a subject that I call ‘slow’, the other, the image of tennis, a game where speed is paramount. On the very tactile clay, these additions of movements look like a journey in time.”

1993: Jean Le Gac. The artist drew on a photograph taken from the magazine Vue, from 1930, showing John Van Ryn, an American Davis Cup player, during a break.

1982: Jean-Michel Folon. “A poster has no time, it needs to speak fast and hard on the walls of cities.” Surrealism inspired: a tennis ball is looming on the horizon like the sun through an opening window that is reminiscent of a clay tennis court.

1994: Ernest Pignon-Ernest. “RG is above all the land, so I preferred blood, which conveys a certain sensuality. The universal feelings expressed by this hand are interesting. Open and tense, this hand expresses the stake, but also the fight against weightlessness and self-transcendence.”

Related entries: A Sporting Life: Rafael Nadal / Editorial: Set Point / A Sporting Life: Björn Borg

Posted by classiq in A sporting life, Art | | 2 Comments

28 May 2018

Editorial: Set Point

The Editorial: thoughts, short stories
or essays about the world of cinema

Regardless of plot, there are two things I always pay special attention to in movies: costumes and settings. And in Luca Guadagnino’s coming of age film Call Me By Your Name, placed in Northern Italy in 1983, the set design is surely a point of focus. Production designer Samuel Deshors and first-time set decorator Violante Visconti di Modrone (Luchino Visconti’s grandniece) looked for a nostalgic yet eclectic and lived-in look and feel of the 17th century Lombardian villa that acted as the main set – the Italian director’s intimate knowledge of the region was what led him to Villa Albergoni in Moscazzano, near the town of Crema. The villa was basically empty when they first went in, Visconti recollected in an interview for The Spaces, so she had to give the house life and each room a story of its own. In the film, the entire villa is filled with antiques, books, music, paintings, objects of art, furnishings found in antiquarians or taken from other Italian houses, blending cosiness with grandeur; it looks like a family home with history. “Not everything has to sparkle, but everything must feel like it belongs,” the set decorator reflected.

That said, my being the tennis fan that I am, one of the first things that I immediately spotted was the official poster of the 1981 French Open on a wall in Elio’s room. I simply loved how that single piece of tennis memorabilia (although there are various ’80s references in the room) was able to set the film in time so easily. Speaking of which, starting with 1980, the grand slam tournament has entrusted its official poster to an artist every year. It’s a cultural symbol, just like the Cannes Festival poster. The 1981 drawing featured in the film was designed by the Spaniard Eduardo Arroyo. In just a few pencil strokes, he captured the spirit of the Roland Garros – a tricolor headband that tames the blonde hair as seen from behind of one of the world’s legendary tennis players and French Open winners, Björn Borg (he was the previous year champion and would be the winner again in 1981, setting his overall Roland Garros titles at six). Simple. Effective. Unforgettable.

photo: Guilio Ghirardi | movie set from “Call Me By Your Name

Posted by classiq in Editorial, Film | | Comments Off

24 May 2018

Listen to All This Jazz

And have a look at it, too. Because music used to not just sound, but look different, too. Just think of Miles Davis’ own creativity in everything he did – his music, his paintings, his album cover art, his clothing. His style was essential to his substance. Miles Davis was one of the greatest jazz musicians and one of the greatest music pioneers, and he remains a beacon of cool to this day. In this same regard, the presence his music had in movies is no less impressive.

Miles Davis composed the score for Louis Malle’s L’Ascenseur pour l’échafaud while he was in Paris for a run of shows in the November of 1957. Just under half an hour in its original form, the soundtrack, one of the best parts of the film, was composed and performed by Davis and his local pickup quintet (featuring three French musicians and the great American expatriate drummer Kenny Clarke), and it is worth hearing entirely on its own (click on video above to listen).

Miles Davis, The Blue Note Years, recorded at Blue Note Records, a symbol in jazz imagery:
the label’s album covers basically reflected what you were going to hear.
Photographer Francis Wolf, co-founder of the company, once said of the label:
“We established a style, including recording, pressing and covers. The details made the difference.”

Here is what Miles said in his autobiography about his experience on the film: “I went to Paris to play guest soloist for a few weeks. And it was during this trip that I met the French filmmaker Louis Malle through Juliette Greco. He told me he had always loved my music and that he wanted me to write the musical score for his new film, L’Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows). I agreed to do it and it was a great learning experience, because I had never written a music score for a film before. I would look at the rushes of the film and get musical ideas to write down. Since it was about a murder and was supposed to be a suspense movie, I used this old, very gloomy, dark building where I had the musicians play. I thought it would give the music atmosphere, and it did.” The music score was later released by Columbia and the album was called Jazz Track.

A collage with some of Miles Davis’ best albums and most creative album covers

“Miles Davis is the only musician who has captured the power and essence of Spanish music”, said Pedro Almodóvar in his autobiography, Almodóvar on Almodóvar . For the title sequence and one of the scenes in his film High Heels, The Spanish director used pieces composed by Miles in the sixties that were inspired by flamenco. “They’re very strange,” Almodóvar confessed. “The first piece, which we hear while Rebecca’s alone waiting for her mother is called “Solea”, meaning “solitude” in Andalusian.” Almodóvar used another Miles Davis piece, “Saeta”, from the musician’s album Sketches of Spain for another sequence, when Rebecca goes to the cemetery to throw a handful of earth on her husband’s coffin. “During Holy Week processions, penitents sing for the Virgin Mary. Their cries are called a salta. It’s a cry of pain, recalling the death of Christ and sung a capella. Miles Davis recaptured with his trumpet this form of the human voice. It’s an extraordinary achievement. Such a musical cry of pain is perfect for Rebecca.”

Elsewhere on screen, Miles Davis’ rendition of the Eden Ahbez masterpiece “Nature Boy” can be heard under Mediterranean skies in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley.

If you are in the mood for more jazz, here the playlist that’s been currently on repeat in our home:

Miles Davis – Lift to the Gallows (full album) / Miles Davis – So What / Ella Fitzgerald – Dream A Little Dream of Me /
Etta James – I Just Want To Make Love To You / John Coltrane – Giant Steps / John Coltrane – Moment’s Notice /   
Dave Brubeck – Take Five / Billie Holiday – All of me / Buena Vista Social Club – Chan chan/ Bueno Vista Social Club –
Pueblo nuevo / Hubert Rostaing & son Orchestre – Oui, C’est ca / Barelli & son Orchestre – Riviera   / Chet Baker –
Almost Blue / Duke Ellington – Rockin’ In Rhythm /   Ray Charles – Ain’t That Love   / Ray Charles – This Little Girl of Mine

Posted by classiq in Sounds & Tracks | | Comments Off

21 May 2018

Brigitte Lin in Chungking Express: A Tribute to John Cassavetes’ Gloria

At once hyperkinetic and hazily romantic, Chungking Express is the quintessential film about loneliness in the postmodern metropolis, in contemporary Hong Kong, as characters brush against one another throughout the daily rush but struggle to connect. Even the voiceovers are used not for narrative purposes, but in order to express the loneliness. “All the characters are basically lonely people,” the director says in the book WKW: The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai, “but being alone doesn’t necessarily mean they are sad. I would say the characters are more living in their own world than being isolated. And they are having fun with themselves.” The film has indeed an optimistic tone while managing to portray a very relatable story and show the real struggle of our modern-day society: communicating and connecting with one another.

Wong Kar Wai went out in the streets to shoot and he and cinematographer Christopher Doyle shot without permits around Lan Kwai Fong and Kowloon. There is a sense of improvisation and spontaneity throughout the entire film, which became hugely influential after its release, and the camera work not only underlines the fleeting nature of human relationships, but creates a trendsetting vision of the city in motion on the eve of the 1997 handover, with Hong Kong and its inhabitants hurtling towards an uncertain future.

The film took off when they shot the first scene with Brigitte Lin putting on the blonde wig on Nathan Road. Chungking Express comprises two separate but loosely interconnected stories – “We got the days and nights of 1994 Hong Kong on celluloid”, the director described it. Brigitte Lin appears in the first story, a neon-lit world of convenience stores, nightclubs and food stands, a world entangled in the tropes of gangster dramas. Brigitte, her generation’s biggest star, plays “a retired actress, à la Sunset Boulevard“, only the viewer does not know it. And that was the exact idea.

Brigitte was getting married and it was going to be her last film, so Kar Wai imagined her going out at night and playing different roles. “One night it’s A Streetcar Named Desire. The next night will be Gloria.” Brigitte Lin’s role in the film is that of a smuggler who is trying to escape the fallout of a bad deal and take revenge on the man who set her up. But that was in fact her character’s own fantasy, pretending to be somebody else.

And that somebody else is more likely to be Gena Rowlands in Gloria. Lin’s mysterious, unnamed character, dressed in a raincoat (not the only element referencing film noir iconography), a blonde wig, red sunglasses and Manolo Blahnik shoes, is definitely Wong Kar Wai’s tribute to John Cassavetes’ Gloria. Even the way she deals with all the Indian extras with no acting experience reminded me of Gloria’s toughness. Gloria means business, too, and she is not afraid to show it. Gloria also loves clothes. She cares about them. They are perhaps about the only thing she cares about. She suddenly finds herself on the run, but she takes her clothes and heels along. She doesn’t seem out of place in them running from the mob on the gritty streets of 1980s New York, those non-glamorized, non-touristy parts of the city deliberately picked by John Cassavetes to avoid the “Woody Allen movie” feeling. In one scene, Brigitte had to run, with all those extras chasing her around. And she wanted to wear sneakers. But William Chang, the costume designer, said, “You have to run in your Manolo Blahniks – it looks different.” So she did it. And it looks right. She’s in character.

“Somehow I’ve become very cautious.
When I put on a raincoat, I put on sunglasses too.
Who knows when it will rain, or when it will turn out sunny?”

photos: movie stills from Chungking Express | Jet Tone Production

Posted by classiq in Film, Film costume | | Comments Off

18 May 2018

One Day That Summer: Torres Del Paine, Chile

I love the mountain. My father is a passionate mountaineer and our family trips climbing the mountains remain some of my best vacations and most cherished memories. The feeling you have when you are on the top of the mountain has no comparison. For me, there is nothing that can beat that. Without much effort, you empty your thoughts and what you experience is absolute freedom. I understand why, for some people, the mountain is their life. All these emotions came back to me when I saw this photograph of Nadya Zim and especially after I read the story behind it. Here it is below, in the words of Nadya herself, a born storyteller.

Exclusive photographer stories from behind the lens.
One Day That Summer is an invitation to discovery,
to open your mind and eyes, to live life like you stole it.

“This is my first sunrise in Torres Del Paine, Chile. This is the moment when I understood I would never fully come back from Chile. I will be forever gone with the wind of the mountains of Torres Del Paine. Forever. When I was there at sunrise with the 70 mile an hour wind in my hair, in front of the lake that like an ocean covered me with the blue cold waves, it was so freezing, I was mesmerized by the mountains, the light slicing through the clouds, and the rainbows, and the moon. It all was rolled out before me like a celestial parade. Can all of it exist in one minute, in one second? Yes, it can! It’s indescribable… I felt so small in front of all of it. I felt like suddenly I am a galaxy myself. And there were tears on my cheeks non stop. The whole world was mine. It’s a strange feeling. But it was there. For me. For us. Alone. Together. And I stayed on the edge of the cliff while wind was pushing me all around. And there was nothing to protect me from falling far into the icy lake and, honestly, I wish I was brave enough to jump. No fence, for once. Pure freedom. I was melting in every drop of water, in every beam of light, in every breath of wind. Time was surreal.”

@nadyazim | nadyazim.com

More photographer interviews: One Day That Summer: Camel Safari, Kenya / My San Francisco/ One Day That Summer: Rome

Posted by classiq in Journeys, One day that summer, Photography | | Comments Off