Thursday, August 16, 2007
More on Bergman
I have just watched two films - Persona and Autumn Sonata - by the late Ingmar Bergman. The last time I saw Persona I was sitting next to Nige in the Arts Cinema in Cambridge. I was knocked out then without fully understanding why. I was knocked out this time in a condition of complete understanding. Autumn Sonata, which I had not previously seen, is harrowing and beautiful. Those who dismiss Bergman as a mere miserabilist simply don't notice the astonishing formal beauties of his films. Anyway, I mention all this because I just came across this Samuel Beckett quote about that wonderful artist Jack Yeats. 'Yeats is the great of our time... he brings light as only the great dare bring light to the issueless predicament of existence.' Bergman in a nutshell.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Aah yes the Arts Cinema - those evenings of often bemused, but never so potent, awe and transport... And what a great quote on Yeats, especially apt for a painter with such an unremittingly dark, inspissated palette.
ReplyDeleteBut perhaps the worth of artists like Beckett & Bergman is in spite of rather than because of ideas like the "the issueless predicament of existence." The reason some art is felt as geater than others is because it is experienced by the self as being innately significant. The greater the art the more it is charged with significance; thus Beethoven is greater than Cliff Richard. And the only reason art can be experienced in this manner is because this category of significance is intrinsic to the mind & life. Beckett's isueless predicament, in its broad terms, in relation to art is a kind of reverse tautology, as were life denied of inner significance then it would be impossible for art to resonate with this meaninglessness.
ReplyDeleteA lovely Obit' to a man who could make you think, where his work could frame by frame be held as Art.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I think I saw some of Jack Yeats' paintings in the gallery in Dublin. Not sure I'm as impressed as you guys. Willie might've had the better idea, leaving painting for poetry.....
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