Liber Studiorum

Last week, I was wondering about the effectiveness of a work of art—could it add to its merit, or, on the contrary, work against it? This week, the same question arises again, this time regarding a film that is exactly a century old and whose historical context has completely disappeared: Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.

Let’s start with two simple observations: 1) it’s a masterpiece; and 2) every thought I had while watching this film has already been expressed by film theorists. L and I went to dinner at M’s place—he’s the boyfriend of our friend O. He’s charming but has a bit of an inferiority complex, and he keeps talking to us with great confidence about his film degree, clinging to it as if it were a rhetorical weapon, when all we really want is to have a normal conversation. When I told him we’d gone to see this movie for the first time, his first reaction was to energetically reel off what his college professors had taught him: the way Eisenstein films the crowd rather than the individual, as an American director would; the question of the man-machine; the cut-to-lions montage. That’s what we remember, a century later: the way the film’s direction supports political propaganda that no longer has anything to do with our present (the confrontation between the Eastern and Western blocs). In this regard, one could say that Battleship Potemkin is a film of formidable effectiveness: when I heard the opening notes of La Marseillaise, when I saw the pram hurtling down the stairs, and when, in the final minutes, the army chose not to fire but to join the mutinous soldiers, I had goosebumps—and yet, this film wasn't made for me, as in, in didn't convince me of anything; I didn’t walk out of the theater with my heart filled with communist fervor. I watched this movie out of context. But in a way, I saw something in it that would have been impossible for a viewer in 1926 to predict.

I had the same thought when I saw this movie for the first time as I did when I rewatched The Leopard a few weeks ago: the cinema of crowds has disappeared along with mid-budget films. Today, crowds are recreated with special effects—flattened and dulled. Artificial intelligence will likely further diminish any possibility of relying on real men and women rather than digital special effects. It’s strongly implied that, since the crowd isn’t the focal point, it must be reduced to mere scenery. Yet there’s something deeply political about filming a crowd. Visconti films the crowd from the perspective of a declining aristocrat, and Eisenstein films the crowd as if it were the main character, but in both cases, the crowd comes alive: each extra has their own distinct features, their own way of moving, and their own story that we can sense even through the simplest direction of the actors.

1536, Ava Pickett, theatrical performance

Can a work that is incredibly effective achieve the status of a masterpiece?

Eight days ago, my friend C and I were cheerfully making our way to the Theatre the Ambassadors in the West End to see a performance of 1536. I hadn’t chosen the play: C, who closely follows new French and London theater productions, had already added it to our March schedule. It was the play to see: a young playwright with a meteoric career, a historical subject that interested us both, and rave reviews. This cultural outing promised to be one of the highlights of our annual Glorious Weekend in London.

All our expectations were met. 1536 is undeniably a compelling play. The setting is simple: a single location—a field adjacent to a village near London—that serves as a clandestine meeting place for lovers, a spot to unwind after boozy village festivities, and, above all, a place for the three friends who are the play’s main characters—Anna, Mariella, and Jane—to meet. As in all good ensemble stories about young women, each has a unique personality: Anna is seductive, lively, cheerful, and talkative; Jane is naive, conservative, and a bit simple-minded; Mariella is pragmatic, serious, loyal, and hardworking. When the play begins, the audience catches Anna in the midst of a mischievous tryst with a young man who slips away once day breaks. He leaves before being caught by Jane, who arrives with earth-shattering news: Queen Anne Boleyn has just been arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. We never see the queen herself: news of her imprisonment trickles in bit by bit, leading up to the outcome that all viewers know: her eventual execution. But this outcome is not yet known to the three young women. How can they believe it, when only a short time ago the king was still madly in love with his queen? When he broke with the Church to win the right to marry her? The distress felt by Mariella, Anna, and Jane (whose first names were not chosen at random) is justified: as news from London reaches the residents of this ordinary, nameless, unremarkable English village, misogyny rises—and with it, danger.

The play is performed with passion; the clear script perfectly draws the audience into the intended state of simmering anxiety. Each scene ends with a sudden fade to black, revealing the white neon lights on either side of the stage, accompanied by unsettling music, much like in a thriller or horror film. As the situation worsens, we see the trap closing in on the three young women—but especially on Anna, the free-spirited, sexually active woman and ardent defender of her queen, while all the other characters have convinced themselves of her betrayal.

The message of 1536 is grim, relentless, and—as the libretto is quick to remind us—a very real possibility in the world we live in, which is imperceptibly sliding toward extremism and violence, particularly against women. One’s thoughts naturally turn to The Handmaid’s Tale. The execution is flawless.

So 1536 is a successful play. But does that make it a good play?

I was on the edge of my seat while watching the performance, but since last week, I’ve given it very little thought. A slightly discordant note lingered in my mind. The play had obviously captured my attention, but hadn’t it been just a tiny bit too easy? Henry VIII and his six wives still capture the imagination of the English, five hundred years after his death. One of the hit musicals of recent years is Six, the musical about—you guessed it—the six wives of Henry VIII. Here, the perspective shifts from royalty to the common people, but the hook—what will hold the audience’s attention—stems from the same idea: taking a well-known and beloved period in English history and offering a reimagining of it. There are no major surprises in the unfolding of events: as in a tragedy, each condemnation is delivered one after another by the men in the play. Jane’s father forces her into marriage with a cruel and violent man; Mariella’s cowardly lover stands by idly while the woman he claims to love is forced to act as a midwife for his own wife; and Anna’s lover turns out to be deceitful, treacherous, and dangerous. Tensions rise among the women as the question of their survival begins to be framed in terms of betraying sisterhood.

I want to take on a project for the summer: a book club, a movie marathon, summer homework. After considering all my options, I think I’ve found a format that will let me explore all of that. Every week, I’m going to try to write a review. I love reviewing books, movies, and music, but I never actually write them. In fact, I hardly write anything anymore besides what I have to write for work—which is already quite a lot. But I want to set myself a fun challenge for a few months. I’m convinced it will help me organize my thoughts. Here are the rules I’m setting for myself: I can review whatever I want—movies, music, literature, theater—whether the works have just been released or not, it doesn’t matter; however, they must be new to me. I have to write one review per week for every week of the summer—that’s fourteen reviews. One small caveat: I don’t trust my judgment at first glance, so I’m making myself wait a week between the time I experience the work and the time I review it. The first review will therefore begin exactly one week after June 21.