Change Your Image
easelpainter-1
In the early 1970's I trained and worked as a television make-up artist. From 1973-'74 I shifted gears and worked as an assistant stage manager in Children's Theatre. The Tintookies Company toured the eastern coast of Australia, and then later to South Asia.
From 1977-1987 I worked as a illustator in advertising and publishing. However it was easel painting that I finally settled on as a vocation, and it is this that I now devote my time to. In my spare time I enjoy reading books on art,psychology, and ideas. Film remains a keen interest, and the past two years I have been restoring and revising the 16mm movie I made 35 years ago.
Reviews
The Cabinet of Caligari (1962)
Confused Mental States?
NOTE SPOILER: Unlike some readers and viewers on this site I found this version of "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" intriguing in its use of dialogue, artistically well intentioned, and part of an ever widening and popularizing of clinical psychology at the time the film was made. The lead actors give their all, and rather than being a re-make of the original German expressionist horror film, the film neatly details the delusion and paranoia surrounding one person's experience of breakdown, with its associations of denial, and distortions of the world outside the self. Working against the film is the cheap trick of borrowing the original German title.
Krajinka (2000)
Gritty Charm and Heart
I recently saw this wonderful film on Australia's multi-cultural network, SBS Televsion. Martin Sulik - a comparatively young film artist - Directs his film with assurance and gentle humour. Krajinka' ('Landscape') is constructed around a narrative suite, with each story building to reveal a potted history of Slovenia. These are ironic and tragic stories seen through the eyes and lives of Sulik's down-to-earth characters. Each story has its genuinely moving momments, but the film never stoops to sentimentality.
Trio (1950)
A Jolly Stiff Upper Lip, What?
This is the second British Rank film to adapt the stories of Sommerset Maugham to film. All but one story from 'Quartet' does not travel well into the contempory era; and the actors speech is decidedly "clipped", as only British pre-1950's actors delivery can be. In anycase 'Trio' seems tighter and more filmic than the first film adaptation.
One of the problems these two films can't overcome is that their source material was written 25-30 years prior to the films. Consequently, by the 1950's Maughm's (pre-war) popularist "small morality" storyteling seemed rather quaint, if not downright coy.