This was one of the craziest trip that I have taken. I flew out on Sunday night to New York for the two days IESG retreat meeting and flew back home on Wednesday night. What was common to the two flights besides being long transatlantic red-eyes was the fact that both landings were with almost zero visibility. New York welcomed me with a thick morning fog which made impossible the classical view of the Manhattan skyline, while in Tel Aviv a sandstorm reduced visibility to a few meters. The El Al pilots were probably less impressed than I was.
S-a-mbracat în zale lucii cavalerii de la Malta,
Papa cu-a lui trei coroane, puse una peste alta,
Fulgerele adunat-au contra fulgerului care
În turbarea-i furtunoasa a cuprins pamânt si mare.
The Maltese Knights dressed themselves in shining armors …
Such retells Mihai Eminescu, the Romanian national poet an episode in the heroic resistance of the Romanian prince Mircea (the Elder) against the Turkish expansion, and this verses learned by heart by any Romanian pupil are stuck in the common memory. Yet, mentioning the Malta Knights or the Knights of St. John in a poem about a battle that happened in 1395 is just a poetical license. Actually it’s only more than one century later, after 1531 that the knights arrive in Malta!
historical fresco in the State Rooms - the Siege of Malta
The Knights Hospitaller is one of the religious orders founded in Jerusalem during the period of the Crusades, more exactly in 1023, with the principal goal of taking care of the pilgrims in the Holy Land. It became a military order (as the Templar or the Teutonic knights) in the centuries to come. With the defeat of the Crusaders the St. John Knights had to abandon the Holy Land and settled in Rhodes but two centuries later that island fell under the Turks, so by 1531 there was no other new home for them in an Europe caught in the conflicts of the Reformation, but to resettle them in Malta. The Turks came after them, but the famous siege in 1565 put a stop to the Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean, in a military event event that marked and remained as milestone in the history of the island.
Grand Master de la Valette
The knights now completely ruled over the island for more than two centuries. They built the fortified city of Valletta with its historical buildings, impressive churches and picturesque streets. They managed the economy and ruled the island based upon the support of the pope and of the Spanish kings, until Europe and the church itself ran into social crisis in the 18th century culminating with the French Revolution and the ascension of Napoleon. When the French army occupied the island in 1798 they encountered almost no resistance. Part of the knights found refuge in Russia electing for a short time the Czar as Grand Master, the rest found refuge in Rome where the order is headquartered until today, focusing on welfare and hospital activities. Their presence in Malta nowadays is just symbolic.
Grand Master's Palace
A good place to learn about the history of the knights and the relation with Malta is the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta. It is located on the main street of Valletta, not an imposing building seen from the exterior, but with quite an interesting interior. It was one of the first palaces built in the city in the year 1571 by the Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette. The building houses today the office of the President and the House of Representatives of Malta in the State Apartments, and the Palace Armoury in the separate wing. The very impressive corridors are decorated with frescoes and portraits of the Grand Masters, as well as with elaborated ceilings with the symbols of Malta as they evolved in history.
ceiling of the State Rooms
office of the President
interior court of the Grand Master's Palace
The Armoury hosts an impressive collection of weapons and military equipment from the period of the knights. There are some impressive pieces acquired by the knights from the best manufactures of the Western Europe of the period, or captured from the battles with the Ottoman archenemies. The gathering of metallic pieces of armoury or helmets sometimes give the impression of the remains of an ancient field of battle cast in metal or maybe testimony to the visit of an alien race in these places. This is maybe what the knight of St. John were in their passing on the island.
I belong to a small and despised minority. I like Dan Brown’s novels and I declare it openly. Yes, I came out of the closet as they say. I liked ‘The Da Vinci Code’ book (not so much the film) and I said it. I was immediately buried under tons of sarcasm, irony, pity. What can I do? Historical mysteries are one of my preferred genres since I read Jules Verne’s books or Constantin Chirita’s ‘Ciresarii’ (Romanian speakers may know what I am talking about).
source www.imdb.com
‘Angels & Demons’ the book was written before ‘The Code’, but the movie comes after, so there is no need to explain too much about the expertise of professor Langdon (Tom Hanks) or why he is called to solve historical mysteries with religious symbols implications. It’s good that it’s so, because the last thing the script in this film has is credibility. Yes, I enjoy historical riddles, but they need some plausible justification to be inserted in the script, and this justification lacks here completely. Luckily I buy easily the conventions of such movies, so I sat back in my chair and enjoyed the action, which is a combination between James Bond and ’24’ with Rome and papal intrigues replacing Los Angeles (or New York in the last ’24’ season) and the US presidency, but with corpses popping up each round hour. Moreover, seeing again the beautiful setting of the streets of Rome one and a half month after my last vacation there was also cool.
This certainly does not make enough for a great film, or even for a great action film. My main problem with Ron Howard’s ‘Code’ was the fact that he turned the great actors that are Hanks and Tautou unto just good but not very interesting actors. Here Hanks still looks at least as amazed to be in this movie as his character is to be in the middle of all this action, while his partner is now the Israeli actress Ayelet Zorer, which I respect very much for other roles, and I am happy that she got such an opportunity to play with Hanks in a blockbuster but I do not think that they let her use it too well. Maybe in the next film in the series Hanks will be more lucky with a partner to be of interest to him 🙂 Overall, not a bad action film, not the best either, at parity with ‘The Code’.
This episode should have been about a place that I did not get to visit – the Mediterranean Film Studios. Resource-challenged Malta offers locations, studios, ans a special effect studios for sea scenes with two sets – one out in the sea, and one in the studios which provided just in the last decade the sets for making films like Munich, Troy, Gladiator, or Pirates of the Caribbean. A special government agency – the Malta Film Commission – is charged with supporting the local film services for the international film industry.
If we did not get to see the studios I could at least take some pictures in the coffee shop in Mosta of posters of classical films that were filmed on the island – witness to the fact that the history of film making here did not start in the last decade. So I decided to make of this episode a review of the milestones of the Filmed-In-Malta history of cinema.
Inspired from the history of the Maltese heroism during World War II, Malta Story made in 1953 and staring Alec Guiness brought up the island – then under British rule – to the attention of movie fans and especially of film makers all over the world. Locations, mild and predictable weather, inexpensive and English and Italian speaking crews made of Malta a location of preference especially for the genre of historical super-productions then emerging in the industry.
I do remember having seen Il Colosso di Rodi when I was a kind, it may have been at the Patria cinema where the first cinemascope screen in Bucharest was installed around 1960, and this may have been the first time I heard about and saw a fim of Sergio Leone, later to become the king of the spaghetti westerns.
I do not remember however The Robe, the first in a series of films inspired by the Roman antiquity and filmed in Malta. It was starring young star Richard Burton, and was made in the year I was born.
But then I could not miss Spartacus – the Stanley Kubrick deep dive in the history of the antiquity starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov. What a feast it was.
As we all know the Roman empire fell eventually, the last great film of the historical super-production era marked the event – Antony Mann’s Fall of the Roman Empire. Alec Guinness was back, and staring by him were Sophia Loren, James Mason and Christopher Plummer. The year was 1964, the year Malta became an independent country, and the year the Mediterranean Film Studios were founded.
If anybody is wondering – no, John Huston’s Maltese Falcon was not filmed in Malta.
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May 19, 2011
I probably need to make a correction here. It seems that none of ‘The Robe’, ‘Spartacus’, or ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’ was filmed in Malta. The information was based on the posters on the walls of the coffee-shop in Mosta which I assumed (or maybe was told by the local people, I cannot remember exactly) that they describe movies that were filmed at least in part on the island. However, according to IMDB, Malta was not a filming location for any of these films, neither are they mentioned at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_Malta.
Merci, Jean Pierre, for reading and commenting on this.
It is the first time that I am attending a concert in one of the Abu Gosh festivals events. Hold during the holidays season in the Arab village located on the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem close to the capital (also famous for the best humous in Israel) the festival takes place twice a year on Shavuot and Sucot in the ambiance of the local churches.
the church at Kiryat Yearim
The location of the church of Kiryat Yearim where the concert took place has a high historical and religious meaning. It is said to lay on the place where the house of Abinabad hosted the Ark of the Covenant (Aron haBrit) for twenty years before King David took it to Jerusalem. A byzantine church was built here in the 5th century, and on its ruins the present church, with a beautiful statue of Virgin Mary on its roof was built in 1924.
the statue of Virgin Mary
The concert I attended yesterday was one in a series of four concerts given by The University of Utah Singers, the principal guests of the festival which is dedicated to vocal music. It’s a well-known ensemble, with a very wide repertoire encompassing vocal music of many periods and genres, from baroque religious music, through Schubert and Brahms, until gospels and contemporary musicals. All were represented in the program yesterday, which in one and a half hour gave us a taste of the principal genres the choir approaches. The conductor was Brady Allred, and the acoustics in the church were perfect. I think that choir music – especially religious – sounds better in churches as in any other places, same as jazz music sounds better in clubs that in any other places.
the concert in the church
I especially enjoyed the Brahms Liebeslieder Walzer, with their exquisite music and fine words, each of the 18 songs is a short poem, kind of love haiku which can be enjoyed even if your German (as mine) is not perfect.
Am Donaustrande, da steht ein Haus
Da schaut ein rosiges Madchen aus
Das madchen, es ist wohl gut gehegt,
Zehn eiserne Riegel sind for die Ture gelegt.
Zehn eiserne Riegel – das is ein Spass:
Die spreng’is, als warensie nur von Glas
(A house stands on Donaustrande
A rosy maid waiting inside
The maid is properly protected
By ten iron locks at the gate.
Ten iron locks – what a joke:
I will break them as if they were made of glass)
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Nachtigall, sie singt so schon,
Wenn die Sterne funkeln.
Liebe mich, gelibtes Herz,
Kusse mich im Dunkeln!
(Nightingale, You sing so fine,
Under the sparkling stars,
Love me, my heart,
Kiss me in the dark)
the singers
There is quite a lot of the fine music of the University of Utah singers available on YouTube. Here are a few of them which I hope that you will enjoy:
Shavuot is the last festival in the series of Jewish holidays in spring, marking the start of summer in the geographical area of the Land of the Bible. I like this combination of sacred and earthly reasons of joy – the giving of the Torah and conclusion of harvest at the end of the rainy season, the all night study of the Bible and the tradition of the bikkurim (first fruits brought to the Temple in Jerusalem in the old days), the kabbalistic Tikkun Leil Shavuot and the eating cheese cakes.
The clip above is filmed at the Western Wall in the old city of Jerusalem, where huge crowds gather each year to celebrate the holiday. Music is beautiful as well.
Each time I see a film like ‘Nosferatu’ from the silent time period I cannot help reflecting how different the experience of watching movies was in the first three decades of the history of cinema. Even today when the big equalizer of cinema watching which is the home TV screen and the elaborated music that now comes together with almost any silent film should bring the experience closer to watching a contemporary film, the feeling of watching a different type of films, with focus on the image quality and actors expressive skills almost derives in the feeling that I am watching a different art – one that may even come closer to deserve the numeral seven in the order of classical arts.
source www.imdb.com
The 1922 version of ‘Nosferatu’ is considered as the first horror and vampires film in history, the opener to a series of films inspired by Briam Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ which by now seems endless and covers multiple genres beyond being a genre by itself. Is it a scary movie? Certainly not by the norms of the 21st century viewer. Yet one can find here many of the elements that will be used later not only by the Dracula series and vampire flicks, but also other genres of horror story- embryos of the Rocky Horror show are present in a scene where a science professor explains carnivore plants to his pupils, in other scenes rats and spiders show up in a premonition of their respective sub-genres. The quality of the film resides however in the complex settings, in the stylish costumes and in the camera work which brings to perfection the fixed camera style filling in the screen with shapes, movements, and suggestions. Also remarkable is the quality of the script and the fluidity of the story telling, F.W. Murnau succeeds to create a Gothic story with action plans which run in parallel just to meet at the maximum suspense point, a technique that will be used and brought to perfection later by directors like Hitchcock. And yes, the scenes that take place in Transylvania are quite well made, no big gaffes or historic mix-ups as it too often happens in other more recent ‘Dracula’ films. There is of course some real or fake ingenuity in the feminine character who sacrifices herself to the vampire for the greater community good, but this part is also in line with the quality naivety of other great silent movies.
I have seen on the European ARTE TV channel the digitized version of the film, based on multiple sources from the German and Czech archives. The youTube version is very similar in image, but differs in the interlude scripts (which are an important elements in the atmosphere setting) and the very inspired music score. Try to find to see this new version, it is worth the effort, and maybe to some extent closer to the original, although it is paradoxically the most recent. Director Murnau has left a legacy including this film and a few other considered today masterpieces of the German expressionist movie industry. By the the time he died the year was 1931, two or three years in the spoken film era, Murnau had moved to America, but never got to making the great movies of a career in the spoken film art, a career that we shall never know.
There is no ‘bad’ genre in cinema or literature or music I believe. There are just good films and bad films, good books and bad books, good pieces of music and bad pieces of music. So, saying that with ‘El secreto de sus ojos’ the Academy gave this year the Oscar prize for the best foreign language movie to a telenovela (soap opera) – a genre so popular all over the world which has a special flavor in South America and especially in Argentina – should not by any means be taken as an insult.
source www.imdb.com
The story line of Juan Jose Campanella’s film crosses a quarter of a century which for Argentina meant huge convulsions and transformation from the populist demagogy of the rule of the Perons in the 70s, through the brutal military right wing dictatorship at the end of that decade and the beginning of the 80s, until the full restoration of the democracy by the end of the century. It is a complex story, involving a brutal rape and murder which is being investigated by a criminal judge which tries to bring justice at all means, in a system that seems to be corrupt and incapacitated whatever the political system of the day. he story of passion allows the authors to make a deep and convincing reflection about the relativity of justice when faced with political and human weakness. However, beyond the satisfying thriller story it is the unconsumed love story between the investigator Benjamin Esposito and his superior, judge Irene Menendez Hastings that eventually takes over. This apparently impossible love, because of professional and social circumstances, gives the whole film an air of melancholy, and Soledad Vilamil as the judge is a fascinating screen presence, of an ageless and noble beauty that reminded that shines through the whole duration of the film and gives it the deserved title. Her partner Ricardo Darin seems a little too restrained, it is exactly the passion that never changes in a man which is once referred in a key scene that seems to lack to the actor.
Many of the elements remind indeed the telenovelas – the development of the action, the parallel threads, the romantic tone. There are however some differences, some in favor of the movie, other against it. There is no violin sentimental music score. There are moments of great quality in the scenes of the 70s representing bars or house interiors or the stadium, the viewer can not only visualize, but also hear, feel and the smell the period. Beyond the principal actress there is at least one more exquisite supporting performance of Guillermo Francella as Pablo Sandoval, the drunken, pathetic, and eventually heroic partner of Benjamin. Yet there is not enough time to develop all the subjects. The film at 127 minutes is too short for all threads to develop completely, the authors seem to have intended to say too much and had not enough time and space to extend, ans the result is that the dictatorship period seems to be treated in a quite superficial manner, and the story has two endings – one for the thriller and justice story, the other for the romantic thread, which do not really come together.
‘El secreto de sus ojos’ is not a bad film, quite the contrary. Having however seen two other of the films that competed for the Oscar this year, Haneke’s Das weisse band and the Israeli Ajami – I personally would not have been surprised at all if any of these two had won and not this one.
The Batsheva Dance Company founded in 1964, under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin since 1990, established itself as one of the most interesting and well known modern ballet companies in the world. We saw last night their last production ‘Bill’ at the Suzanne Dellal center in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Neve Tzedek, which became in the last decade one of the preferred entertainment areas of the city and a good place to spend a Friday night out with a friend coming to visit home from her remote California location.
‘Bill’ is created by choreographer Sharon Eyal and takes the style of the company to its extremes. It is one hour of dance in a conception that focuses on the bodies and movements of the dancers, getting rid of many of the other elements that come together with the usual dance performance – narrative, sets, colors. What we see on the stage are only the dancers, in monochromatic costumes and with their bodies painted the same color and lights, and the continuum of the trance – style music guiding their movements. The result is that as a viewer you can focus on watching the dynamics of their movements, which build the whole performance. I liked what I saw on stage, it was permanently interesting, surprising, expressive – with the dancers interacting between themselves and the group in a sort of endless tribal ceremony from an universe that was created in front of our eyes. Even if the concept may seem too abstract and repetitive to some (it was not for me) the talent and effort of the dancers in the hot almost summer-like conditions (with the air conditioning not working for unknown reasons) was rewarded by well deserved applause from the audience.
An extensive interview with choreographer Sharon Eyal can be read at http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/friday-supplement/a-dance-on-the-wild-side-1.291018.
Erica Hoffer este una dintre prietenele pe care le-am invidiat cel mai mult in aceasta primavara. Desi am avut ocazia sa vizitez de doua ori New Orleans-ul si sa-mi petrec ore si seri greu de uitat in cluburile de blues, jazz, cajun, zydeco ale orasului, niciodata mu m-am gasit acolo in perioada festivalului anual de jazz. Erica a avut aceasta sansa, de fapt si-a creat-o si programat-o ea insasi, si acum a avut bunavointa de a permite impartasirea impresiilor sale si cu cititorii blogului.
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M-am intors de curand din calatorie, si cum stiu ca printre listeni se afla cativa iubitori de jazz, de calatorii si de gastronomie va povestesc impresiile mele de la New Orleans. Orasul, istoria si specificul cred ca e cunoscut de toti. Ceea ce il caracterizeaza printre altele este muzica de jazz gen dixieland care s-a nascut acolo, iar abundenta cluburilor de muzica de toate felurile si atmosfera deosebita, as zice usor frivola datorita consumului inalt de alcohol fac ca New Orleans-ul sa fie sinonim cu muzica, petrecere, good time si de aceea e un loc natural pentru un festival de jazz cu totul deosebit. Numele festivalului este de fapt “Jazz and Heritage Festival” iar genurile de muzica sunt toate asociate cu New Orleans: blues, gospel, Afro-Carribean, rock, country, Cajun si tot ce exista intre ele.
(source http://www.nojazzfest.com/)
Festivalul a inceput sa se tina anual din 1970 si traditia e de doua weekends, unul de trei zila ultimul din Aprilie si urmatorul de patru zile la inceputul lui Mai. Locul este un stadion enorm de curse de cai aflat cam la marginea orasului in care sunt instalate 12 scene si corturi cu posibiltatea de concerte simultane care au loc intre 11 dimineata si 7 seara. Un bilet simplu de $50 (care nu ofera posibilitatea de sedere in jurul scenelor – acolo se sta in picioare, sau se sade pe iarba sau pe scaune pliante) te lasa sa asculti tot ce exista intr-o zi. In corturi exista scaune ca la un stadion, dar artistii vestiti apar pe “scene”.
Cum nu am fost inca niciodata la asa un festival am fost uimita in prima zi de ordinea desavasita in care au intrat un numar enorm de oameni in incinta festivalului. Totul era organizat extraordinar, transportul (shuttle, taxi ieftin, parcare), toalete chimice, doua zone de bufete, zone de vanzare de artizanat. S-au publicat acum numarul de oameni care au fost la festival: 375.000 in 7 zile!!
In speranta ca nu va plictisesc va povestesc ce mi-a placut din tot ce am ascultat in cele doua zile de festival. Primul spectacol care mi s-a parut grozav a fost grupa lui Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes care m-au molipsit cu energia lor frenetica. Am incercat apoi muzic Cajun care m-a lasat cam rece, dar am fost cucerita de muzica traditionala dixie la care,ca sa fie atmosfera completa, marsaluiau in ritmul muzicii o serie de oameni imbracati ca in Sudul de demult, cu palariile si umbrelutele respective. Cativa din ei nu erau in prima tinerete…
Grupele dixie pe care le-am ascultat au fost: Treme Brass Band si Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble
M-am indreptat apoi spre scena cea mai mare la care trebuiau sa apara Simon si Garfunkel. Ca sa nu stau prea departe am stat la tot spectacolul celor de dinaintea lor, grupul Funky Meters, care nu m-a emotionat. Simon si Garfunkel au cantat frumos, era emotionant sa-i vezi pe scena, dar cam asta era tot. Impresia generala din prima zi a fost in primul rand publicul, atmosfera de convivialitate a la Woodstock, buna crestere generala a participantilor.
A doua zi m-a impresionat cantareata Marcia Ball si iarasi muzica dixie cu atmosfera extraordinara. La cortul gospel am cazut peste un dirijor care cu tot dinadinsul a vrut sa ne bage in trans religios si asta era pacat.
Cateva cuvinte pentru gastrosoful nostru: dupa umila mea parere, in dorinta de a gusta din bucataria cajun renumita am mancat la “Mr B Bistro”, “Paul K” si “The Commander’s Palace”. Ultimul e pe departe cel mai bun restaurant din cele trei la care am fost.
