You really should see…

The Lives of Others (Germany 2006) Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Before the Berlin Wall came tumbling down under the weight of accumulated frustrations and neighbourly envy, the secret police of the German Democratic Republic, known as the Stassi, had three hundred thousand informants and spies amongst its ranks.

 

Their goal, as the opening caption of this remarkable film tells us, was to “know everything”.

 

The ‘Lives of others’ tells the story of an informant, Wiesler, and his crisis of conscience as he listens into the life of writer, Georg Greyman.  Superiors tell the informant to track and monitor the everyday activities of the author-ostensibly to jail him for subversion, but in truth so the minister for culture can get to Greyman’s attractive girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. The informant proceeds to wire tap the author’s house and so we start down a tense alleyway of phantom cat and mouse.

 

The informant, a strict and loyal servant of his country, finds little on the pair in the way of wrongdoing. Indeed, Wiesler gradually finds himself disgusted by his superiors and their motives, and his loyalty soon switches. The results are tragic, yet worldly-making the film all the more poignant. There is no irrelevant drama here.

 

This is top class European cinema. What we see is what the people of East Germany dealt with everyday-so we can imagine that the events were half-expected. The narrative and the realistic performances of the actors create the tension. A fact compounded by an emotive but unemotional ending.

 

 

Bring us home the (Francis) Bacon – A citizen’s plea

Bacon’s studio in Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin

      Although Francis Bacon was born in Ireland, it is questionable how ‘Irish’ he felt. In order for a gay man of his talent to flourish, it was somewhat inevitable that he moved away from good old conservative and catholic Ireland to the flambouyant and happening London. When he left in body he also left in spirit and little reference is ever made of Ireland in his life beyond his teenage years.

         

          So when the great man’s studio was(fairly) recently given to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin it was a real coup for the city. Not only did it give that gallery, which was already a great gallery, increased kudos; but it also allowed Dublin to reconnect with one of its own. To embrace one of its runaways. To cuddle him in its arms and say: “we knew you had it in you but we had to send you away.” (It’s also great for marketing obviously) 

         The only pity of it is, that there are really very few paintings by Bacon in the Gallery itself-and what is there is incomplete. The poor galleries of Ireland are unable to compete with the likes of enlightened, and clearly tasteful, football chairmen  such as Roman Abramovich who recently purchased a triptych by Bacon for an astronomical if not nearly comical amount of money.

        What I’m saying is, we need some more Bacon. Feed us the art, feed us!

       So, if anyone has a spare Francis Bacon piece lying about, please send it to Ireland. Thanks. To Adam Clayton(we know you collect the stuff): If you have any up in that attic of yours give us a lend of them for a while-share the wealth! And if anyone is mulling over what to do with their Bacons when they’ve gone to that great gallery in the sky. Leave them with us, we’ll look after them. And to the Tate: when your finished your Bacon exhibition over there, any chance you could ship the stuff over here? Just for a while even.

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9/11- Seven years ago today- Where were you?

It was about half past four on a really hot day in Rome. I was leading a group of tourists along the Via Sacra in the Roman forum. Now if you know it at all, you’ll know it’s kind of in a valley. It’s like a little bowl down there, so it was really hot and the group were beginning to suffer.

There were only eight tourists that day as far as I can remember, all of them were from the U.S.A.- none of them New Yorkers. Everyone had had a pretty good time on the tour; the usual stuff about the ceasars and all their shenanigans seemed to go down well. They were a laid-back bunch, a nice group of Southeners.

As I was winding up the tour I noticed there was a kind of a commotion in the Forum, it was a particularly busy day but there seemed to be an inordinate amount of chatter ripping through the dusty site.

As I was thanking people, I noticed a slightly dodgy looking character leaning against a railing, watching us intently. He was standing, wearing shades and an open necked shirt, in the shade of a triumphal arch-that was built to honour the victories of Septemius Severus over the Parthians (present day Iran). He let me finish my speil and then approached us in a very calm fashion-I thought he was a cop for some reason.

“Are you American?”, he asked in a strong French accent.

“I’m not,” I replied, in a slightly,what do you want sort of a way. “But they are,” I said, pointing at the group of slightly baffled tourists.

“Well, I think I should tell you that a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Centre.”

I believe the Forum hadn’t witnessed such news for centuries.