Rendering # 9

The article published on the website http://ofwitandwill.com  is headlined Life of Pi: the Movie or the Book?

The author of the article, Shauneen Henrick, gives us a detailed comparison of the Oscar's 2013 nominee Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee, and the book of the same name on which the film was based.  The film received 4 Oscars.

Speaking about the book: Life of Pi, was written by Yann Martel. The author of the article emphasize that there are minor differences between the book and the movie. The book places greater emphasis on the zoo animals,the book is quite gory and violent in spots – the words “blood and guts” come to mind when the hyena and the tiger attack. Unfortunately Lee wisely decided to downplay this aspect of the book in film version. the book discusses religion in greater detail.

The recently released movie, Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee, is the story of Pi, a 16-year-old Indian boy who journeys to Canada in a Japanese freighter, the Tsimtsum, which sinks during a storm in the Pacific. His family and the animals from their zoo, which they planned to sell upon arrival in their new home, are lost. The film version is full of 3D effects. It's one of the main reasons of attracting so many visitors. It should be mentioned that all gripping scenec with the tiger seems masterful and deeply realistic.

Personally I like to read more than to watch, because while reading I can imaging everything that I've just read in my own way, in my own point of view. Unfortunately, I couldn't go to the cinema to "Life of Pi", but the book is perfect!

Film Review #1. Frida

FRIDA (2002)

Director: Julie Taymor
Genre: Biography, drama, romance
Lead actors: Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Geoffrey Rush, Antonio Banderas
Release Year: 2002
Country: US, Canada, Mexico
Run Time: 118 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Sinopsis: a the film is based on the book “Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo” by Hayden Herrera and represents a biography of the Mexico artist Frida Kahlo, who was seriously injured by the road accident and all her life had to suffer not only because of the pain, but also because of her imperious and brash husband - Diego Rivera.

Review:

Frida Kahlo(Salma Hayek) is a woman who doomes to suffer from the pain, having been injured by a trolley accident in her youth. Having a great abilities as an artist, after the accident she begins to paint. It allowes her as well as the love to live, boundless optimism, and permanent beleif in the best, to reach her fame and recognition. Meeting her greatest love - Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) - an outstanding talent, a drunkard and a ladies' man, brings Kahlo much happiness,an ability to see the world and to believe in the power of her talent. And yet, the same love causes her the biggest disappointment and suffering from disability Rivera to be faithful to one woman  up to the loss of its own, so desired child.

To my mind - the main theme of the film is love and optimism, because inspite of all difficulties in her life Frida finds energy and power for life and painting.

As for the actor’s performances, Salma Hayek, for instance, proved herself to be a great actress. She is a real talent! Hayek isn't playing Frida she is Frida. Actually it was her role. She feels Frida and passes all her states and emotions so subtly, that we begin to forget that Salma is just an actress.

I'm  impressed with this movie greatly! First of all, I learned a lot of interesting and entertaining about Mexican culture, not only painting, but also music, traditions and customs. Secondly, I believe that this is the best role of Salma Hayek in the movie. She seemes to live in the film and it is not surprising, because she is Mexican. Third, I discover for myself Frida Kahlo, she was truly an amazing woman. After watching the film, I wanted to learn more about her life and creativity and see some of her paintings. This film is the best work in the genre of biography, which I've watched. 

Pleasure Reading Part #2

Miranda is in Clegg's captivity for more than month. The only thing about which it is succeeded to agree - a bathroom once a week. Once a journalist comes to Clegg's house. His appearance shockes Clegg, because he doesn't wait for anybody, he just afraid of any guest at his home. The journalist tells to him that his house is the ancient estate and in all manuscripts about it is mentioned a chapel which he wants to photograph. His statement makes Clegg worrying, because he realizes, that illegally remodeled chapel is a bunker fot his lovely prisoner. 

Of course Miranda in any way wants to escape. She tries to write a letter for her relatives, to dig a tunnel out of the captivity...but all her efforts is in vain.
She tries to understand the reason for being a prisoner, but neither she nor even Clegg doesn't realize it.
The day of Miranda's liberation comes. On this occasion Clegg organizes a solemn supper for her(wih no guests however), where she initiates a little fire, for only the one aim - to escape this terrible place. However, this attempt fails, as Clegg's life is thoroughly planned.

Rendering #2

The article published on the website of the newspaper the Guardian on 23 February, 2013 is headlined Roy Lichtenstein: from heresy to visionary. The article reports the information about an American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, who by blending high and low art, tested the contradictions at the heart of our ideas about art.
Roy Fox Lichtenstein was born on 27 October 1923, and raised in New York City, the son of affluent middle-class parents. Surrounded by the art modern of the 1930s, influenced by the geometrical, modernist world of art deco and futurism, Lichtenstein also loved the superheroes of radio and film serials, and the popular music of his day, especially jazz. 
It shoked the society, but in November 2011, Roy Lichtenstein's 1961 'I Can see the Whole Room...and There's Nobody in It!' was sold by Christie's for $43.2 million.

The painting depicts a large black square, out of which a circle has been cut. From behind the circle peers the face of a jutting-jawed comic-strip man, illuminated by a bright backboard of yellow. He is looking through a peephole, at the viewer; above him a dialoge bubble declares that he can see no one in the room where we, presumably, are standing.
Lichtenstein created his works in a genre of abstract expressionism. Lichtenstein is just as willing to efface the image, and its maker, as his audience:in his 1978 Self-Portrait, he puts a blank mirror where the artist's head should be.
There are indications that during his life Lichtenstein wasn't poular ar all. But after his death far-seeing connoisseurs recognized something new and exciting, and  immediately began collecting him. Lichtenstein's paintings are far more technically demanding than it seems at first glance. He used a lot of careful techniques of handwork (drawing, tracing, painting, emphasizing brushstroke, line) with the reproduction and screening of found images.
It is necessary to emphasize that Lichtenstein's art is too lovable: too accessible, commercial, art "lite" for the merely acquisitive. Along with the other pop artists, Lichtenstein helped to suggest that any representation is mediated, emphasizing new ways of seeing in the age of the industrialized image.
In conclusion the author suggests that Lichtenstein's works are about perception and environment: apertures and camera shutters, peepholes and voyeurism, frame and screens define the way we view our surroundings.
His works aren't about form, they are about seeing. All his life he was excited about seeing things and now our task is to appreciare hs paintigs, try to understand his abstract concepts in popular culture. 

Rendering #1 Art

The article named Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos – review  Serpentine Gallery, London and was published on Sunday 17 February 2013. The article is written by Laura Cumming.

The article gives the reader information about Trockel and his exhibition at Serpentine Gallery. Rosemarie Trockel is an influential German artist in her 60s, probably best known for those knitted blankets which incorporated controversial logos – the Playboy bunny, the nuclear symbol – to make political art out of women's work. At the exhibition we could see a giant crab a metre from claw to claw, two beetles performing a ballet on film, a petrified hand...It feels like the little shop of horrors.
There are exquisite glass sea creatures and marvellous birds assembled out of soot, string and cardboard. There are miniature books densely inked with drawings of camels and dogs, and a huge print of a flamingo bent double like some freakish hairpin. There are many marvels in Trockel's Cosmos, to be sure, but none are actually by her.
Also there are the work of Judith Scott, an artist born stone deaf with Down's syndrome, whose wool-wrapped objects – nameless forms heavily bound in worsted and twist – speak of a powerful inner world.
Trockel has always avoided anything so conventional as a style, so she can match her own work to many other media.
The exhibition named 'A Cosmos review' and I think it isn't accidentally. This cosmos is very much her own. the Cosmos for her is the way she feels and realizes our complicated world. Most of the art by Trockel takes the form of late-flowering surrealism. She has a palm tree hanging upside down from the ceiling and a coffee table on which another severed leg is laid like an objet d'art and a filthy bluebottle landing on the cheek of a newborn in its pristine cot. (it impressed me greatly!)

Trockel is not attempting to elaborate any particular idea. In general I liked her way in art, her view on our changeable world. Her works impressed me mostly because of its singularity. I may compare her works of art with the Dali's works. there are some unusualness in it which attracts me.

Pleasure Reading Part 1

My Pleasure Reading is 'The Collector' by J.Fowels.

The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall, and collects butterflies in his spare time.
Clegg is obsessed with Miranda Grey, a middle-class art student at the Slade School of Fine Art. He admires her from a distance, but is unable to make any contact with her because of his nonexistent social skills. One day, he wins a large prize in the football pools. This makes it possible for him to stop working and buy an isolated house in the countryside. He feels lonely, however, and wants to be with Miranda. Unable to make any normal contact, Clegg decides to add her to his "collection" of pretty, petrified objects, in the hope that if he keeps her captive long enough, she will grow to love him. After careful preparations, he kidnaps Miranda by drugging her with chloroform and locks her up in the cellar of his house. He is convinced that Miranda will start to love him after some time. However, when she wakes up, she confronts him with his actions. Clegg is embarrassed, and promises to let her go after a month. He promises to show her "every respect", pledging not to sexually molest her and to shower her with gifts and the comforts of home, on one condition: she can't leave the cellar.
Clegg rationalizes every step of his plan in cold, emotionless language; he seems truly incapable of relating to other human beings and sharing real intimacy with them. He takes great pains to appear normal, however, and is greatly offended at the suggestion that his motives are anything but reasonable and genuine.
However Miranda wants to escape him, he offers it to her, but at the same time Frederick understands that he could never  let her go, because he has addicted to her, he loves her, but it is a very strange manifestation of deep feelings.

My Pleasure Reading

Year 1 Term 1 - The Thorn Birds by Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell
Year 1 Term 2 - Moonfleet by J.Meade Falkner
Year 2 Term 3 - Saturday by Ian McEwan
Year 2 Term 4 - Sense and sensibility by Jane Austen
Year 3 Term 5 - Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Year 3 Term 6 - The Collector by John Fowels