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

11 December 2024

A look for the ages and my annual reiteration of “Three Days of the Condor”

Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor”, 1975. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Paramount Pictures, Wildwood Enterprises

I’ve made a habit of watching Three Days of the Condor over the holidays. It’s a Christmas classic. But the word Christmas doesn’t even spark a line of dialogue. The jolly music heard over the radio or on the streets is the only indication of the time of year. And there’s that reality bite for you: Real life is what happens while people are artificially fed with fake holiday cheer. Even the snow-barren streets, although obviously cold and wintry, I have come to associate with winter much more than a dreamy snowy landscape. Dave Grusin’s musical score wouldn’t even have made sense in a dreamy snowy landscape, or cityscape for that matter. “He did an extraordinary score to that picture, kind of a jazz thriller score with a very bluesy love theme done on a saxophone, as I remember. He always got great players. That score was unique,” Sydney Pollack said about his frequent soundtrack collaborator. But it is the subtle bursts of holiday music that have this heightened effect of taunting Robert Redford’s character and throwing him deeper in this state of alienation and desolation when he finds himself not trusting anyone after his co-workers are shot and he is forced to take a hostage while constantly looking over his shoulder in order to stay alive. And look over his shoulder he does, from the start to the open-to-interpretation ending – is he, is each one of us, just an individual, just another face in the crowd? Timely, much?

Robert Redford plays CIA analyst on the run Joseph Turner in one of Sydney Pollack’s best political thrillers, set in 1974 New York. More than its star power, the film is a great thriller, which is what the director intended. The film has been, from the beginning, considered by critics to tap into the political sensibilities of the times and of a nation faltering from the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War and Watergate. And it did, but without knowing it.

Left: “Three Days of the Condor”, 1975 | Right: On the set of “Three Days of the Condor”

Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor”, 1975. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Paramount Pictures, Wildwood Enterprises

“I think that the critics are falling into all kinds of traps with this movie,” Sydney Pollack commented in an interview with Patrick McGilligan in 1976, reproduced in the booklet issued by the Masters of Cinema along with the blu-Ray edition of the film. “Absolutely falling all over themselves. Half the critics are looking at it as a serious political piece of propaganda and criticising it on that level which, God knows, wasn’t intended, the film was three-quarters finished before any of these CIA revelations began to happen. We were doing a straight thriller. That’s what we wanted to do. And we were shocked that as much of what we imagined, if you will, was coming to pass. We were absolutely dumbfounded. The attempt was, first of all, to make it faithful to the genre of a thriller. And within that, to explore certain ideas of suspicion, trust, morality, if you will; but it was not intended in any way as a documentary, I suppose, but as a warning – using the CIA almost as a metaphor, and drawing certain conclusions from post-Watergate America.”

But, probably again without Sydney Pollack’s or Robert Redford’s intention, Three Days of the Condor instantly became important on another front as well, as it is also one of the films men take their sartorial cues from. Women, too. It’s certainly one of my greatest sources of inspiration when it comes to personal style, and this belief was reinforced when a little while ago I listened to Bella Freud’s brilliant podcast, Fashion Neuroris, where she was talking to Kristin Scott Thomas (a fashion designer and an actor discussing clothes identity – yes, that’s the kind of fashion conversation we should listen to more often) about film costume inspiration, and Kristin Scott Thomas singled out Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor as just about her only American cinema inspiration in terms of personal style.

A popped collar on a grey herringbone blazer, a layered effect made from a combination of crew neck sweater,
chambray shirt and tie paired with blue jeans, the ease of this look has an appeal that has spun decades.

Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor”, 1975. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Paramount Pictures, Wildwood Enterprises

Robert Redford’s Joe Turner reads books all day and introduces codes and plots into a computer. His simple, preppy clothes are exactly what the character and his bookish job ask for, and the situation he finds himself in clearly seems insane just by looking at the way he is dressed – “I’m not a field agent, I just read books!” – but his all-American clothes are certainly worth taking inspiration from decades on. This may be a 70’s film, but it doesn’t look dated at all, maybe except for the wide shirt collar and the wide, tweedy tie, recalling Ralph Lauren’s beginnings in fashion – “I loved the look of the wide tie,” the designer remarks in his book, Ralph Lauren. “I had seen it on some stylish character like the Duke of Windsor or in a movie or magazine from the thirties.” He called his ties Polo “because it was a sport that had a sensibility that was sporty and international”, it was a new direction that really changed the way men were dressing.

Robert Redford’s Joseph Turner has a timeless sensibility in the way he dresses and looks a heck of a lot better than a lot of the men you see on the street today. Joseph Aulisi was the costume designer, but Redford’s wardrobe was most probably the result of a close collaboration between Pollack, Aulisi and the actor himself – Redford looks incredibly plausible in his role and in his clothes, having stated about Pollack that he was “the one director that seems to read me best”. Faye Dunaway’s costumes were designed however by Theoni V. Aldridge, and they are much more attuned to the fashion of the 1970s. Faye Dunaway plays a photographer, and her photographs feature empty streets, barren trees, silenced cities, everything in black and white. Joe Turner is first to realise she may have more in common with his alienation and desolation than she would care to admit or even realise. “It’s winter,” it’s her simple answer to his precise questions about her images.

Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor”, 1975. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Paramount Pictures, Wildwood Enterprises

As in the case of all cinema’s sartorial emblems, Redford’s day-to-day style has always seemed to come through in his films just as much as his style when in character has transcended the screen. There are two looks Redford is sporting in the film and they both exemplify New England campus attire. The kind of looks Redford’s bookish CIA researcher would wear, but also the kind of looks men can wear year in and year out, without giving the slightest importance to what is the latest this or that. There is a quiet in-ness about this style, which is as fresh and relevant as ever. Utilitarian, pared-down, confident, traditional, yet exuding modernity. The first one is described above, the second one has the blazer switched with the pea coat – smart it may be with its sturdy construction and anchor buttons, but this item is also ideal for fending off the bitter cold due to its closely woven texture. And the choice of hiking boots as footwear deserves points on its own – for one, they make a very individual statement, and secondly, I like when men are not shy of wearing boots in the cold, because men shouldn’t give up comfort and their natural sense of style for fashion. Joe Turner must and does understand the power of restraint, and his clothes are certainly a way for him to get there.

The popped collar may, on the wrong person, seem forced, overdone and too self-assured, but it serves a purpose here
and it’s when it is this seemingly unstudied that it becomes a detail of style.
“Three Days of the Condor”, 1975. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Paramount Pictures, Wildwood Enterprises

November newsletter: Aftermath, Circus Mirandus and Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

Photos: Classiq Journal

“I remember that winter because it had brought
the heaviest snow I had ever seen. Snow had fallen
steadily all night long and in the morning I woke in
a room filled with light and silence, the whole world seemed
to be held in a dream-like stillness. It was a magical day…
and it was on that day I made The Snowman.”

Raymond Briggs

Left: Window art by Ars Ana

Viewing

The Double Life of Véronique, 1991
Krzysztof Kieślowski

Here is a film that doesn’t want to give answers but take us on a journey, leaving us make our own sense of its meaning. Irène Jacob’s double role as two women, complete strangers, whose lives are mysteriously linked and connected through music, is a very tactile performance and fascinating to watch. Kieślowski leaves space for echoing our own personal interpretation, doubts and wonders and irrational feelings, he leaves space for something that is beyond the visual, he leaves space for the music. He finds he right balance between the obvious and the mysterious.

In Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969
Peter R. Hunt

Yes, Sean Connery was the first, and many argue, the ultimate James Bond, but it was also argued that from Dr. No through to You Only Live Twice, Bond had evolved into caricature while the films “were dominated by hardware, empty spectacle, and comedic gadgets.” And now, after 25 Bond films, we know we’ve come to love a Bond film that is so much more than pure entertainment. For that, I personally believe we have to thank Daniel Craig, Timothy Dalton, and even George Lazenby, because In Her Majesty’s Secret Service is one of the best Bond films. In my interview with Matt Needle, who a few years back carried out the daunting yet impeccably pulled off personal task of creating the posters for all 25 Bond films, when I asked him about his favourite Bond films, the illustrator said: “It’s either Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service or Goldeneye though. I love all three for different reasons. As mentioned, Goldfinger was the first Bond I saw, and Goldeneye was the first I saw at a cinema. And On Her Majesty’s Secret Service just feels so different but integral to the series to creatively move the franchise forward.”

From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball

But we do love each Bond film for different reasons (as Matt Needle mentioned above), don’t we? And who says we need a reason for another Sean Connery Bond marathon? After all, as Terrence Young (From Russia with Love, Thunderball) said, “The trouble with Bond films now is that people are trying to analyze them and explain them and their success. There is nothing to explain. They are just entertainment and their timing is right.”

The Snowman, 1982

Based on the timeless book without words by Raymond Briggs from 1978, the short film, also without words, is tender and telling in the most beautiful way. It’s about the wonder and innocence of childhood, and about true friendship. The power of childhood is about believing and imagination, not about seeing.

Ace in the Hole, 1951
Billy Wilder

Of all the great roles of Kirk Douglas, the antihero he played in Ace in the Hole – a down on his luck journalist, with a past, and a reputation that doesn’t help him much in securing a new job, and whose lust to develop a sensational story stops at nothing – must be my favourite. The film itself is a different kind of noir, a landmark for the genre, as Billy Wilder addresses the usual subjects of noir in an unusual manner. An in depth study of human deception, avarice and social position, and Wilder chooses to focus on the frail state of humans to depict a portrait of a society that is selling everything it can, no matter what the real cost is in terms of life preservation. The role of mass media is being analyzed bare naked – in this regard, the Spanish translation of the title, El gran carnaval, says it all.

Left: Quote by Haruki Murakami, from The T-shirts I Love

Reading

Circus Mirandus is like a day dream, because it keeps the wonder alive, the way a night dream hardly can because when you wake up you know it was just a dream. As soon as my son and I read it, it became a new classic.

Originally published in Japan in 1965, Take Ivy, with photographs by Teruyoshi Hayashida, set off an explosion of American-influenced “Ivy Style” fashion among students in the trendy Ginza shopping district of Tokyo. Capturing the unique academic fashion of the campuses of America’s elite, Ivy League universities, Take Ivy is considered a definitive document of this particular style. For a long time, it was only available in Japanese and hard to find. A small-run reprint came out in Japan in 2006 and sold out almost immediately. In 2010, it was finally published in English and it’s taken me more than a decade to purchase it. But that’s ok, because the style, with its timeless and transcendent appeal, has survived the decades and it always will. It truly is the American style that I love the most and one only has to watch Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor or All the President’s Men to understand why. Nobody has done the preppy look on screen quite like Robert Redford.

I do love an understudied topic within cinema, and poster design certainly is one – film costume also used to be one (but, thankfully, not that much anymore), which is why I have long been a fervent proponent of costume design as one of cinema’s most far-reaching influences. My many interviews with film poster designers and illustrators are proof of my affinity for the topic, so it’s only fair that the new book Film by Design: The Art of the Movie Poster came under my radar.

Listening

The soundtrack: The Double Life of Véronique

The podcast: Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud. The latest episode with Kristin Scott Thomas is brilliant! An actor and a fashion designer talk clothes identity. Bella Freud’s Sunday Stories are also wonderful to explore.

The album: Aftermath, The Rolling Stones

Making

“Imagine the world in a far away future, what will history tell about us? And what is the legacy we are leaving behind?” I feel that one of the things that draws Ana Gurduza, of Ars Ana, to create is our own human kind, in all its complexity, uniqueness and ephemerality, all beautifully interwoven by the imaginary. Ana is a maker. In ink lines, watercolour, illustration, ceramic objects and metal engraving. But she is more than a maker, because there is poetry in each and every one’s of Ana’s creations.

Exploring

The school of film that is Institut Lumière. “The institute is a public house that welcomes great, timeless films, wonderful forgotten films, lost amazing films, and historical films from all over the world. It is a house where our memory is kept alive, shared, and cared for. It is also a house of restoration and transmission. It is a cinema adventure and, thus, a human adventure.” – Irène Jacob (The Double Life of Véronique), president of Institut Lumière

On an end note…

People who don’t read are unable to have an opinion of their own on anything.

The regulars: The interviews, newsletters and podcasts I turn to every week and/or every month because they are that good. Craig Mod’s newsletters: Roden and Ridgeline. Soundtracking, with Edith Bowman. Alicia Kennedy’s newsletter. Racquet’s Rennae Stubbs tennis podcast. Gone to Timbuktu with Sophy Roberts. Wachstumsversuche, with Sarah Schill. Sirene Journal, Racquet, and Waves & Woods in print.

“For me, a certain sign of quality or class in art is that when I read,
see or listen to something, I suddenly get an acute, clear feeling
that somebody’s formulated something which I’ve experienced or
thought; exactly the same thing but with the help of a better
sentence or better visual arrangement or better composition
of sounds than I could have imagined.”

Krzysztof Kieślowski

Posted by classiq in Books, Culture, Film, Newsletter | | Comments Off

25 November 2024

Just the right girl: Gloria Grahame in “In a Lonely Place”

”In a Lonely Place”, 1950. Columbia Pictures

Humphrey Bogart wanted Lauren Bacall for the part. The Studio wanted Ginger Rogers. Nicholas Ray wanted Gloria Grahame. He was right. In a Lonely Place wouldn’t be the film that it is without Gloria Grahame. One of film noir’s most defining actors, Gloria Grahame brought even her femme fatale characters a raw, vulnerable sensuality. She was not simply pretty. Her glamour and sexuality hid surprising, unexpected emotional registers. Her bad girls were human. Her good girls had a hard-won strength. Her characters were smart, daring, warm. I can never quite figure out Gloria Grahame on screen.

“Were the cinema suddenly to cease to exist, most directors would be in no way at a loss; Nicholas Ray would,” Jean-Luc Godard wrote in the 1950s. “After seeing Johnny Guitar or Rebel Without a Cause, one cannot but feel that here is something which exists only in the cinema, which would be nothing in a novel, the stage or anywhere else, but which becomes fantastically beautiful on the screen.” I immediately visualize Gloria Grahame’s claustrophobic fear in a close-up with Bogart, or the sinister look in his eyes in another shot just because the light only falls on his face, or the rare moment of safety and security between the two at the nightclub right before the camera cuts to a shot of a Grahame’s suddenly worried face blocked by Bogart’s half-turned face, suspicion creeping in, in the direction of her looking. Cinema must belong to cinema. In a Lonely Place is one of the finest depictions of Hollywood, and one of the most poignant films noir, and yet Ray does not feel restricted in what he has to say by the limits of the genre, or by one-sided characters (their ambivalence is more realistic and sincere than most of the more conventional characters) there is something deeply personal and subtle behind his strong narrative and visually overwhelming obsession.

”In a Lonely Place”, 1950. Columbia Pictures

Dixon Steele (Bogart) is a troubled screenwriter whose early success has now a bitter taste after his latest professional failures. And his struggles with alcohol and a short-fused temper don’t help when he becomes the prime suspect in the crime of a young woman. She was the coatcheck girl at the nightclub he had attended the night before. He had asked her to accompany him home and explain to him the plot of a current bestseller which he has to adapt but refuses to read – that’s the extent of his contempt regarding the kind of work he is now being offered. Laurel (Gloria Grahame), Steele’s beautiful new neighbour, becomes his only alibi. Their paths had crossed the night before when Laurel passed between Dix and Mildred on the patio leading up to his apartment. Wearing a light-coloured coat, her hands in the pockets, “she glanced up at him, half-smiling, as she apologized”, definitely taking a liking to him. She also happened to see the girl leave his apartment.

Laurel has got her own troubled past, as a struggling actress scarred by life, and they find something in each other, something more than love, a gentle strength in the relationship that will develop between them.

When Laurel is brought in for questioning in the morning, she is wearing wide-legged slacks (I love this word because it always reminds me how Katharine Hepburn liked to say slacks instead of trousers – “Are you sure these too should be slacks? Fine by me if fine by you,” producer Joe Mankiewicz wrote to Hepburn on the trouser suit sketch of costume designer Adrian for The Philadelphia Story), a turtleneck, a checked jacket and flat sandals. Tomboyish is not just her look, but her attitude, too. “She sits down, spots a carton of coffee, tilts a paper cup to see if there’s any in it. Salt,” writes Bernard Eisenschitz in the book Nicholas Ray: An American Journey referring to the scriptwriter Andrew Solt, “was shocked by the vulgarity of her gesture (‘It’s wrong. A real floozie will do that, she never would’), failing to recognize either its primary meaning (Laurel was woken by the police and it’s still very early) or its secondary one (her frankness, her way of making what she wants quite clear).” She’s a natural. Dix, outwardly tough, inwardly vulnerable, knows it’s a good thing she’s on his side. With her encouragement, he can write again, and he’s content with his work. But their own demons are too strong and whatever hopes and dreams Steele and Laurel might have had, they are crushed too soon and too radically.

”In a Lonely Place”, 1950. Columbia Pictures

Cool and composed, with her elusive smile, eyebrows raised and voice slightly inflicted, she strides down the courtyard in straight-lined skirts and turtlenecks – “nu fluff, please”, Nicholas Ray’s script notes – revealing a buttoned-up, controlled character. The subtle, yet optimum effect of Gloria’s costumes are part of Ray’s visual design, alluding to deeper meanings behind appearance and words. “The simpler, more direct, more honest, better it will create Laurel, flesh and blood. She the same girl in her reactions to different situations,” Ray noted in the script. Her Jean Louis costumes, striking in their simplicity and timeless elegance, all buttoned up, even her evening gowns and fur-cuffed robe, are “both erotic and very time-bound, awareness of her body, the frankness of her desire, the ambiguity nevertheless of her eroticism,” further concludes Eisenschitz.

The risks she takes are not visible. Yes, she is the right girl, but sometimes it’s not enough.

”In a Lonely Place”, 1950. Columbia Pictures

In conversation with artist Tatsuro Kiuchi

Illustration by Tatsuro Kiuchi

Tatsuro Kiuchi is a Tokyo-based illustrator, painter and educator. He is one of the most influential illustrators in Japan, having contributed an extraordinary variety to the field and to the visual culture of our time. He creates art that attracts the eye, yet familiar and in total engagement with life and our surroundings; art that trusts the audience to be clear-eyed and capable of enthusiasm. With particular attention to composition, depth, color and light, Tatsuro Kiuchi’s illustrations feel actively, restlessly alive, yet foster a sense of warmth and tranquility.

In our recent interview for Beneficial Shock! magazine, Tatsuro Kiuchi and I talk about the artists he recommends to his students, the biggest challenge of illustrating movie posters and about recently tracing the film memories of his teenage years. You can read the full interview on the Beneficial Shock! website.

“By communicating, I am not talking about concepts, emotions,
and other things that are intangible, but I mean concrete things
that most people can immediately understand what is depicted,
such as flowers, vases, people, dogs, etc.
What you see visually is essential.
No matter how good the concept is, the illustration is not
so successful if it is not interesting for your eyes to look at.”

An illustration by Tatsuro Kiuchi for “Gobangiri”, a film by Kazuya Shiraishi

Instagram: @tatsurokiuchi

October newsletter: Beautifully dark Scandinavian autumn, a short bedtime story, and The Man from Laramie

Photos: Classiq Journal

”Savoring the promise of autumn just begun.”

Callum Robinson, “Treasure”

Viewing

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974
Martin Scorsese

I love how different this film is from Martin Scorsese’s other films. And I wanted to rewatch it just for Kris Kristofferson. The story of a woman, Alice (Ellen Burstyn), who takes the road and her life in her own hands. This is one of those great American road movies of the 1970s, bringing together elements such as the great outdoors, rock ‘n’ roll and characters who thrive in a new found freedom, and I am surprised why it is not considered as such. Everything happens so naturally and realistically on screen, in the story and between the actors, and Scorsese’s strong feel for characters is best felt both in Alice and in the depiction of the two contrasting male individualities, played by Harvey Keitel and Kris Kristoffersen. “Spending time with Kris when we made ‘Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ was one of the highlights of my life. What a sweet, warm family spirit we all shared on that picture — Ellen Burstyn, Diane Ladd, Alfred Lutter, and Jodie Foster, both so young, and Kris. His presence…the voice, the cool, benign manner, the way he moved… Onscreen or in person, he brought all of himself. He gave so much heart and humor to his character, and to all of our days shooting in Tucson. What a beautiful human being. What a great artist.” – Martin Scorsese

The Hunt, 2012
Thomas Vinterberg

If I were to describe the atmosphere in Thomas Vinterberg’s films, I would resume to the words the director himself used when he talked about his Danish films as opposed to his English language movies: “It seems that when I dip my hands into my own backyard, it becomes universal. When I reach out for the universal, the opposite happens.” In The Hunt, Mads Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a teacher by training but who now works as a daycare employee after he lost his job. He is professionally decent, caring, kind, and he is falsely accused by a kid of inappropriate behaviour. He suddenly finds himself standing alone in a hostile world. It shows how easily we judge, how easily we toss out friends. It’s heartbreaking and it shook me to the core. The only one who shows unconditional faith in him, besides his son, is his only true friend, his son’s godfather, and those scenes between them had a great effect on me, because they showed that it doesn’t take much, just a single word or gesture, to assure someone of your trust or shatter his confidence and make his world crumble. And the most harrowing thing about this remarkable film is that Lucas, often just through the look in his eyes, transmits what it must feel like to feel guilty about a crime he didn’t commit – there are no easy outs for the audience. Because when you are wrongly accused of something, even if you are proved innocent, there is an irremediable harm done, and everyone, except that one true friend, might still consider you guilty. That’s something unequivocally universal, too.

Spectre, 2015
Sam Mendes

This time around, I watched it for the Mexico City opening scene alone, where they recreated a magnificent Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival. A Halloween of sorts, the more authentic kind.

The Man from Laramie, 1955
Anthony Mann

Mann was not interested in the old idealized West and his westerns have something dark in them, going places other filmmakers altogether dismissed. In The Man from Laramie, James Stewart is an isolated character, eschewing stereotypes. It’s in Mann’s films, as well as in Hitchcock’s, when I like Stewart best, and when he has shown his best as an actor. It takes a director, it seems, to unleash an actor from relatable hero images and give him the trust and freedom to explore different characters and new personal depths.

Reading

Seven Gothic Tales, by Isak Dinesen.

The Simple Things, my latest discovery in magazines. From the editor’s letter (there’s nothing I loath more about a magazine, great as it may be in any other way, than one that lacks a beautifully written editor’s letter, and, thankfully, Lisa Sykes has a way with words) to the very last page, featuring a heartwarming short story, Treasure, by Callum Robinson, this magazine, and especially the October issue, appropriately titled “Weave”, is about the simple things and taking time to live well.

In the latest issue of Financial Times Weekend, Yuval Noah Harari (have you read Sapiens and Homo Deus?) writes the article Beware the march of AI beaurocrats, about the primitive AIs that are the social media algorithms, who “have reshaped the world, exerting enormous influence on human society” and the very “narrow goal, perfect for idiot servants” they have been tasked with: “to increase user engagement”. And that “in pursuit of user engagement, the algorithms made a dangerous discovery. By experimenting on millions of guinea pigs”, these primitive AIs “learnt that greed, hate and fear increase user engagement.” It’s so simple that it’s frightful.

Légende no.8: Nadal. Because one must. It’s the end of the most beautiful era in tennis as I’ve known it.

Listening

The album: Kristofferson, Kris Kristofferson

The soundtrack: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Making

During a recent trip to Copenhagen, strolling on one of the city’s most beautiful streets, Værnedamsvej, lined with wine and cheese shops, fresh flowers, and, some argue, the best café in the Danish capital, Italo Caffe, I found myself in front of the small contemporary art gallery HannemannLund by pure chance. The space is used as an exhibition room and also a studio, which makes it a very special experience. Artist and gallery owner Mette Hannemann herself was hard at work inside and incredibly welcoming. And truth be told, any artist who has a beautiful tennis artwork displayed would win me over in an instant anyway.

Exploring

Copenhagen and Denmark in the midst and mist of autumn. Not the best choice for autumn, one might argue, but when one’s spirit is undampened, and determined to have a taste of a noir Scandinavian autumn, all is alright, and then some, come rain, drizzle and fog. And rain, drizzle and fog did all come. Yet we found it beautiful – experiencing a city where bikes outrun cars played a fairly important part in it, I will admit. From walks in Fredericksberg Park, pastries at Hart Bageri, collecting illustrations from different cultural outposts, rummaging special Isak Dinesen and Hans Christian Andersen editions in bookshops, and art gallery and record store hopping, to a Nyhavn stroll from across the ship-lined canal for a better view, a day trip to Louisiana Museumn and Deerhaven, the amazing park just north of Copenhagen, where deers roam free, and a train journey through rural Jutland, it was by far one of the best autumnal trips and a fast route to becoming a Scandophile.

And finally, Tivoli. I have never been a fan of amusement parks, and I would only put foot in one just for my son, but then again Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen’s storied amusement park and Hans Christian Andersen’s own inspiration for writing The Nightingale, is in a league of its own. The imposing and equally elegant brick entrance alone feels like a passage into a world a fantasy. I’ve never been a fan of Halloween either, but then again Tivoli has its own take on it and makes it right. Tivoli just works for adults and children alike.

On an end note

If I could choose an exhibition to see this autumn, that would be Christiane Spangsberg’s The Play (Tennis, Horse and Butterfly are the three themes), which will be on display at Østerbrohuset, Copenhagen, November 24th. I have had a long-time appreciation for the timeless and minimalist art of Christiane Spangsberg and I wish I could have caught her show while in town.

“It seems that when I dip my hands into my own backyard,
it becomes universal. When I reach out for the universal,
the opposite happens.”

Thomas Vinterberg

”The Play” by Christiane Spangsberg / “Tennis” painting by Mette Hannemann / New Mags bookstore

Posted by classiq in Books, Culture, Film, Newsletter | | Comments Off