|
"'Allo, 'allo. In a bit of an artistic tizzy, are we?" The Louvre is a morgue in the eyes of the cheeky upstart who rejects ornamental worship, thus Henri Gaudier (Scott Antony) atop an Easter Island noggin scattering sketches to visitors. "Wipe your asses on it, but use it!" The muse has her own pursuit, Sophie Brzeska (Dorothy Tutin) and Truth: A Novel of the Spirit, platonic ardor is the foundation of their union. Impressionism is "a lot of cock," Vorticism is the hot thing during the 1910s. A midnight trip to the cemetery finds the material needed for "the neoclassical Torso," the art dealer breaks his appointment so the finished work is delivered via wheelbarrow and thrown through his window. The Ken Russell approach has a sculptural side, "every blow is a risk," chisel and mallet or, better yet, jackhammer. "Trench Mortar Firing a Grenade?" "No. Bird Swallowing a Fish." Allies are hard to come by, the suffragette (Helen Mirren) hurls Molotov cocktails and tears classical canvases as part of a ribald manifesto gleefully applauded by the protagonist. "Bring me a cup of paraffin, or an old sock soaked in scotch / Touched by concrete Venus with an old electric crotch." A dilettante, it turns out, with a militaristic daddy who's got little use for "fancy ideals" during wartime. Cocteau wonders what marble says as it's being carved, Russell exalts the hellion doing the carving. "Art is dirt. Art is sex. And art is revolution." The gargoyle's ditty (Chabrol's Les Godelureaux), the birdie in the dung pile (Valerii's Il Mio Nome è Nessuno). The anarchic spirit braves his foes, perishes in the battlefield, endures etched in stone. Lust for Life for the finish, the treasures speak for themselves. With Lindsay Kemp, Michael Gough, John Justin, Aubrey Richards, Peter Vaughan, Ben Aris, and Imogen Claire.
--- Fernando F. Croce |