Miseducation of Cameron Post is Good (ish)

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)

Directed by Desiree Akhavan

Film Rise, 90 minutes, Not-rated (brief nudity, language)           

★★★

The Miseducation of Cameron Post seeks to shed light on religious intolerance.  Its lead actress, Chloë Grace Moretz, is a champion of LGBT rights and the film’s director, Desiree Akhavan, is a Smith College graduate. These factors conspire to endear this movie to me, but they don't necessarily guarantee a quality product. So is The Miseducation of Cameron Post a good flick? The answer is “ish.”

The setup is simple and, in some ways, reflective of the film’s overall tendency to skim surfaces. It’s 1993 and Cameron Post (Moretz) is in love, but not with her boyfriend. She has been having hot and heavy make-out sessions with Coley (Quinn Shephard) that have moved from the experimental stage to reckless passion. The flash point comes on prom night when Cameron’s boyfriend discovers the two girls flagrante delicto in the back of a car. Cameron’s aunt Ruth­–Cameron’s parents died in a car crash–loves her niece, but Ruth is also a serious Christian who sees lesbianism as a sin and yearns for Cameron’s social and spiritual salvation. For her “own good,” Cameron is trundled off to God’s Promise, a Christian boarding school/conversion therapy center to be “cured” of her SSA (same-sex attraction).

God would need to work a miracle to get past some of the center’s basic contradictions, starting with the fact that sending someone with SSA to a facility filled with other gay people is akin to housing a sugar addict in a candy store. Plus, it would take a staff far more competent than Rev. Rick (John Gallagher, Jr.) and his psychologist sister Dr. Lydia March (Jennifer Ehle) to keep the lid on teen hormones. Their half boot camp, half evangelism approach doesn’t really get to the core of nature and identity, and the two consistently confuse compliance and games-playing with genuine conversion. Can you say inmates in charge of the asylum?

God’s Promise is at least an interesting collection of inmates. There is, for instance, a mixed race, prosthesis-wearing, attitude-oozing girl named–and I’m not making this up­–Jane Fonda (Sasha Lane), as well as Cameron’s blissed-out but not quite buttoned–down roommate Erin (Emily Skeggs). On the male side, there is Adam Red Eagle (Forrest Goodluck), a Lakota two-spirit (third gender), and his roommate Mark (Owen Campbell), who is outwardly the school’s star convert. Cameron, like most of the kids at God’s Promise, is mainly conflicted. She knows how she feels but worries that her aunt Ruth may be right about God and what she should want. Another intriguing character in this vein is stout Helen (Melanie Ehrlich), who would be mercilessly taunted in a regular high school. She possesses a great singing voice, though, and thinks maybe she can use it as an evangelical tool and clarify all of her identity issues. You can bet the farm that things will not go entirely as planned for anyone, even for those who yearn to become heterosexual.

This movie is in the spirit of films such as Saved! (2004), Jesus Camp (2006), and Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), though it’s not as good as any of them. Its strongest feature lies with strong performances from Moretz, Goodluck, and Lane. Each is in his or her early 20s, but easily look and act the part of high school adolescents. Moretz in particular appears poised to become the next bright young thing. She is the princess of cool detachment, even when she’s seething with anger, sadness, or resignation. Lane and Goodluck are more sly and enigmatic, but all three keep us just enough off balance to make us wonder what they will conspire to do. Ehle is also superb in her portrayal of an ice queen wearing an evangelical cloak.

This film won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, but in my estimation that was overly charitable. Too many of the peripheral characters are unconvincing cardboard cutouts. Gallagher’s Rick is a rah-rah, guitar-strumming come-to-Jesus minister, but he’s also so clueless that we wonder how he ended up in charge of anything, much less a band of vulnerable young folks. He also seems more goofy than charismatic. Skeggs’ out of nowhere break in character is exactly that: out of nowhere. Several other characters appear in cameos that are personality 'types,' but they lack the development to make them seem real. 

Akhavan’s direction, depending on your point of view, is either improvisational or overly passive. There is something to be said for giving actors wide latitude and, at times, her film-the-riffs approach captures the inner turmoil of the adolescent mind. It is, however, also a director’s job to impose a certain degree of coherence for viewers. It is perhaps an odd remark to make, but this would have been a far better film had it been nastier. Akhavan wants us to grapple with assumed/imposed versus inherent sexual identity, but the message that comes across most vividly is that God’s Promise personnel were incompetent.

Akhavan exposes the sanctimonious veneer of gay conversion therapy and, by extension, sanctimony and puffed-up piety. Still, what we see is a scratch on the surface. Her Christian heavies are more bumbling and comically inept than menacing or small-minded. This has the effect of pulling punches rather than delivering any sort of body blow to the essential arrogance of those who believe that God’s will has been delivered unto them in a small gift-wrapped box.

Rob Weir

A Dangerous Collaboration is a Page-Turner Mystery

A Dangerous Collaboration (March 2019)

By Deanna Raybourn

Berkley/Penguin, 336 pages.

★★★★

When 19^th century activists and writers began to discuss the "New Woman," I doubt that Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell was quite what they had in mind. Lucky for us. Raybourn's creation is a wonderful combination of fierce determination, pigheadedness, insight, and pluckiness. The New Woman was known for her independence and willingness to defy convention, but I don't know of any who secreted throwing knives in their corsets, were unabashedly carnal, were the "semi-legitimate" offspring of the notoriously randy Duke of Wales, or combined careers in lepidoptery (butterfly studies) and amateur sleuthing.

Everything about Veronica Speedwell is cheeky. Her name is also that of a spiky purple flower that looks a bit like loosestrife, and her partner in adventure is Revelstoke Templeton-Vane, who goes by the handle of "Stoker." One of the first literary figures to write the New Woman into his novels was Bram Stoker. Veronica and Stoker are not exactly lovers–he's recovering from a disastrous marriage–but Speedwell isn't a virgin and she wouldn't exactly kick Stoker out of her bed, or his brother either. In fact, controlling her animal instincts is an ongoing struggle as there's only so much Victorian society will countenance, even from its outliers.

The fourth installment of Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series is set in 1888, when Jack the Ripper is loose in London. But Veronica's attentions are directed elsewhere–off the coast of Cornwall to be precise. Stoker's brother, Lord Tiberius Templeton-Vane, puts forth an offer Veronica can't refuse: come with him on a short outing to St. Maddern's island, where a rare butterfly exists. There are odd extenuating circumstances. Ostensibly Tiberius is going to cheer up an old friend, Malcolm Romilly, whose lordship of an ancient castle has suffered because of his grief. Because the Romilly family is Catholic, Tiberius and Veronica must pose as affianced. The chance of seeing a butterfly thought to be extinct is lure enough for Veronica, though Stoker suspects it's just a ruse on his brother's part to seduce her. She reminds him in no uncertain terms–and our Ms. Speedwell isn't one to mince words–that she's 26, has no desire to be anyone's doormat or wife, and can take care of herself. Stoker, though, despises his brother, whom he sees as a scheming and amoral aristocrat. A sample of their mutual vitriol–Tiberius: "Peace, brother mine. I can feel you cursing me." Stoker: "And yet you still breathe…. I must be doing something wrong."

Stoker will also journey to St. Maddern's and there, things are odder still. Malcolm desires help is solving a mystery that has reduced him to melancholic torpor. It is the third anniversary of the disappearance of Rosamund, who vanished on the day she and Malcolm were to be wed. What happened? Did she flee? Was she kidnapped? Murdered? No one comes or goes from St. Maddern's in secret, so where is Rosamund? As another detective was fond of saying, the game is afoot. 

Without revealing anything, let's just say that truth will follow a very crooked path. The castle cast also includes Malcolm's reclusive sister Mertensia, who is happy only when tending the castle's extensive grounds, including a poison garden; Malcolm's widowed sister-in-law Helen, who is a medium who proposes to contact Rosamund in the spirit world; her 19-year-old spoiled brat of a son, Caspian; and a full household staff commanded by Mrs. Trengrouse, who has been at the castle since Malcolm was a lad. There is also a village full of eccentrics and fishermen, not to mention the bickering brothers, and various motives that are seldom what they purport to be. 

You might want to get the digital version of this book so you have one-finger access to the built-in dictionary. Ms. Raybourn has an exceptionally large vocabulary that is replete with now-archaic Victorian terms. She also has a puckish wit, such a description of a large castle fireplace "the sort for roasting half an ox or an annoying child." Raybourn engages in subtle gender inversion, such as making Veronica more rational, decisive, and sexually aroused than the men. I suppose some might complain that Veronica is too thoroughly modern at times, but it is a novel after all, not a work of history. If there is a weakness, it is that once the mystery is unveiled, what occurs next is telegraphed and predictable. I didn't care. I ripped through this book in two sittings and felt refreshed to indulge in the wit and passions of Veronica Speedwell, a Victorian for our times.

Rob Weir

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Capernaum a Trip to Hades You Should Take

Capernaum (2018)

Directed by Nadine Labaki

Sony Pictures Classics, 123 minutes, R (kids in peril)

In Arabic and Amharic (with subtitles)

★★★★★

In the Bible, although Jesus spent much of his ministry in or near Capernaum, he cursed the town and said it would be cast into hell for its lack of faith. Today’s Capernaum is in Israel and the namesake film is set in Lebanon, but Beirut is surely a candidate for a damned city. Once hailed as the “Paris of the Middle East,” Beirut has been a basket case since the 1975 civil war, a cesspool of warring factions.

Capernaum the film isn’t directly about Lebanon’s woes, yet it is. Director Nadine Labaki offers several wide aerial shots of Beirut and what we see is a bleak canvas of concrete, dilapidated apartments, rat maze streets, and roofs secured by cast off tires. When we zoom in to street level, we observe residents fashioning lives marked by improvisation, resignation, desperation, and detached misanthropy. It’s not the sort of place that’s kind to poor families or children. Zain’s family is doubly cursed. His father Selim has the enervated look of a man on the verge of giving up, though he can martial the energy to beat his children and impregnate his wife, Souad. There’s nothing like too many kids, grinding poverty, and domestic violence to make squalor seem even worse. The family survives mainly because their shopkeeper landlord cuts them a break, and that’s only because he wishes to marry their 11-year-old daughter, Sahar.

Capernaum is really Zain’s story. We first meet him in a courtroom, as he has been sentenced to five years in jail for stabbing a man and because Zain is suing his parents. Labaki tells Zain’s story in a non-linear fashion. We learn that Zain’s life was on the streets, where he hawked goods (including Tramadol), shoplifted, and did whatever he needed to survive. Zain (Zain Alrafeea) is probably around 12–he has no birth certificate–but he swears, smokes, and cavorts with the swagger of one twice his age. Zain’s fate is tied to his decision to disappear for a time, a journey that led him to an amusement park where he engaged in defiant acts of mischief, but also met Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw), an undocumented Ethiopian refugee trying to make ends meet and keep secret from her boss that she has a toddler son, Jonas. Zain soon moves in with Rahil and becomes a surrogate caregiver to Jonas. It is hard not to choke up as we see Zain pulling Jonas around in a cooking pot mounted to a stolen skateboard, or tying Jonas’ ankle to rope so that he won’t venture into danger as Zain hustles his wares du jour.

Some reviewers have compared Zain to Huck Finn. I get the analogy insofar as Zain, like Huck, is adept at fending for himself. But let’s not pull punches. Capernaum is a tough and affecting film, but there’s little of Twain’s humor in the telling. Zain will also meet a young Syrian girl who hopes to immigrate to Sweden. Let that sink in. How bad are things in Ethiopia and Syria if illegal immigrants come from such places to Beirut? If you’ve no stomach for children in peril, steer clear of Capernaum. Ms. Labaki does not try to bathe her film in gauzy sentimentality; hers is more of a fictionalized documentary style that uses blinding Mediterranean light to bring social problems into sharp, unvarnished focus. We get a glimmer of hope in the film’s final moments in which Labaki pays homage to Francois Truffault’s 1959 classic 400 Blows, but we get little sense–as we might in a Hollywood fairy tale–that everyone will live happily ever after. Lebanon is still a world of child brides, children abducted and sold, women with little control over their bodies, and chaos reigning supreme.

Zain Alrafeea is riveting and was quite a find; literally so as in real life he is a Syrian refugee who was illiterate when cast in the film. Alrafeea is now in Norway, but his future remains uncertain. Like I said, Labaki doesn’t trade in fairy tales. Capernaum has won numerous awards, including several at Cannes. It is a deeply moving film that, in most years, would be an odds-on favorite to win an Oscar as best foreign film. In 2018, though, it is at best the fourth best foreign film in a stunning field that includes Cold War, Roma, and Shoplifters. It is nonetheless a stunning journey into Sheol. Don’t look away because you don’t want to know about what Zain endures; watch because you should know.

Rob Weir

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Unsheltered Burdened by Preachy Tone

Unsheltered (2018)

By Barbara Kingsolver

Harper, 480 pages.

★★★

Barbara Kingsolver is always worth reading, but she’s not written a truly great novel since Poisonwood Bible (1998). Alas, Unsheltered is not her long-awaited return to literary glory. It’s a good book, but not a great one. Years ago the New Republic slammed her as the mistress of “calamity writing.” That’s harsh, but it’s beyond dispute that Kingsolver seeks to make proverbial Big Statements in Unsheltered.  

On the surface, it’s a simple setup: one badly constructed house, two families separated 140 years in time, and one locale: Vineland, New Jersey. The setting was carefully chosen. Vineland was the brainchild of utopian developer Charles K. Landis (1833-1900). In 1862, Landis began building an alcohol-free town based on progressive educational and political principles. As the name suggests, agriculture was to be the economic driver of the town, especially grape production*. Landis appears in the 1875 part of Kingsolver’s novel, a time by which some residents–including journalist Uri Carruth­–had come to believe Landis’s middle initial stood for “King.”

Landis and Carruth are historical figures, as is Mary Treat (1830-1923), a brilliant entomologist, botanist, and faithful correspondent of Charles Darwin. Most Vineland residents viewed her as eccentric, as women simply weren’t supposed to pursue such things in Gilded Age America. Kingsolver’s main focus, though, is on Treat’s next-door neighbors, the (fictional) Greenwoods. They live in a house that, like the Gilded Age, looks respectable on the outside but is structurally unsound. Thatcher is the poorly paid new science teacher who struggles to keep afloat a household that includes his materialistic wife Rose, her spirited tomboy sister Polly, and their snobbish widowed mother Aurelia. To make matters worse, Thatcher teaches pure science in ways that outrage his Biblical literalist colleague Cutler. Thatcher’s only solace is Mary, who introduces him to the Pine Barrens as a plein air laboratory.

Kingsolver’s chapters alternate between 1875 and 2014 and she’s good at parallelism. Our contemporary center of attention is the Tavoularis clan. Like Thatcher Greenwood, Iano Tavoularis is a struggling academic. He lives in Vineland because the college at which he was tenured went under, and Vineland is a cheaper base from which to commute to Philadelphia for an adjunct’s starvation wages. By the mid-20^th century, post-industrial Vineland was no utopia, and it certainly was not one in the wake of Hurricane Sandy (2012). Iano and his wife Willa are ageing former hippies with two adult children: Zeke, who wants to be an investor, and “Tig” (Antigone), a diminutive fireball eco activist who thinks it’s probably too late to save the planet. There is also Nick, Iano’s dying rightwing father, and Zeke’s baby, “Dusty,” whose mother is deceased.

There are other examples of parallelism. The Greenwoods have two dogs, Scylla and Charybdis. I’ll spare you the detour into Greek mythology, but they are the origins of the phrase “between a rock and a hard place.” Antigone’s name is also plucked from myth. The irreconcilable worldviews of Zeke and Tig are analogous to disputes between blind faith versus rational science explored in Thatcher’s Scopes Trial-like tribunal, the sensational trial of Charles Landis, Nick’s talk radio parroting, Willa’s quixotic quest to save her house, Zeke’s belief in money, and Tig’s apocalyptic warnings.

Kingsolver’s novel is well plotted, rich in detail, has well developed characters, and is an imaginative blend of fiction and history, but it's pretty damn obvious in its use of metaphors. The problematic house threatens to unshelter its inhabitants, but will it allow them to “stand in the clear light of day…?” In Kingsolver’s telling, we have the choice to follow convention or truth, unreason or fact, vanity or nature, and those who tell us what we want to hear or scientists. Landis is a metaphor for Donald Trump and in case you don’t get that Mary Treat remarks, “When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore all order.” Still uncertain? A Vineland mob harasses a defender of Darwin with chants of, “Lock him up.”

I am part of the choir to whom Kingsolver is preaching, but will she convince non-believers? Too much of Unsheltered is as subtle as a Facebook rant. Her message that humankind’s house is falling down is advanced through long sections whose didactic tone is similar to that found in Edward Bellamy’s famed Looking Backward (1888). Big chunks of the novel are informative, but the prose is limp.

Kingsolver also presents either/or binaries. Perhaps she's right that the time for nuance is past but then again, maybe she’s ambiguity-challenged. I admire her passion, but she could trust her readers more instead of becoming the scientific scold to Cutler’s evangelicalism or Willa’s idealism. I certainly wouldn’t dispute the view that Planet Earth, like Vineland, has become Paradise Lost. But Kingsolver doesn’t give us much space to dream that we might, in Joni Mitchell’s words, get back to the garden.

Rob Weir  

* Vineland was, for a time, the major supplier for Welch’s Grape Juice.

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Mackenzie Shivers: February 2019 Artist/Albums of the Month

Mackenzie Shivers is New York bred and based. She refers to her music as "piano-driven indie folk with a Celtic soul," and counts Tori Amos, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, and Aoife O'Donovan among her influences. I'd recommend you ignore labels or comparisons and just listen. I have just sampled two previously released EPs and material from her new record The Unkindness and my first thought is, "Who is responsible for keeping this woman a secret from me?"

The title track from Living in My Head (2016/18) is a fragile little song that is sweet and affecting. Shivers can sing high and reedy, but she's far from being a delicate songbird. She really works the band on "Disco's Dead," and her arrangement of it drifts toward a Cowboy Junkies-like foray into acid rock. When she goes staccato to sing of putting on "my shitty black dress and my shitty black shoes," we know she meant what she emoted in the previous line: "I won't cry for the departed, I won't cry for the afraid/But I'll cry for New York City, babe, cause they say she's turnin' gray." "Lily-Rose" also rocks around the edges and it features a common trait on this release: open quiet, build, get quiet again in the middle, and then let 'er rip. "Tell Me to Run," another ghosts of NYC song, showcases how Shivers constructs a song from spray-like tinklings of the ivories. When she shapes the melody to where she wants it, she breaks out the ornamentation.

Shivers wears her Celtic cap of the EP Ravens, right down to doing an amazing cover of the old Irish chestnut "Parting Glass." She uses repeated notes in a pulse-like fashion and keeps the composition spare until she's halfway through. But not even the strings toward the end disrupt the contemplative mood. On the titletrack she breaks out a harmonium for a voice atop drone effect that makes this original song sound as if it's ancient. On "Winter," her keys are as dark as a late November evening sky. But the standout track is "Forgiveness." On this one the plinky high notes get a workout and she lets them resonate. It's waltz time and the melody is so beautiful it brings tears.

From what I've heard of The Unkindness, Ms. Shivers has another winner on her hands. On the titular offering she sings, "Far across the darkness/I see a face like mine/Frightened by the shadows/That leave us far behind." It's very atmospheric and I get the Tori Amis comparisons on this one, but the ever so subtle and tasteful touch of strings on the outro reminds us that Mackenzie Shivers rides nobody's coattails.

Rob Weir

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2019 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts

It is often the case that the animated shorts are among the more interesting Oscar nominations. I wouldn't say that's the case this year, but there are certainly a few that deserve to be seen. The Academy has made a big deal out of the fact that there are more Asians, Asian Americans, and women represented. It might want to pay more attention to quality rather than ticking PC boxes; none of the 2019 films are path breaking.

As is customary, the five nominees are packaged with a few also-rans for theater release. If you poke about you can also see most of them online. My order of preference:

Late Afternoon, Directed by Louise Bagnall, 10 minutes (Ireland)

My favorite is this poignant little film from Ireland. An old woman—who bears the director's first name of Louise, though Bagnall is not elderly—sits in an arm chair as her daughter wraps her belongings for what we infer is a move to assisted living. As she sips a cup of tea, her biscuit breaks off and falls into the cup. This is the device through which Louise accesses youthful memories and flies through time, her red tresses flowing behind her. Bagnall uses watercolor imagery and leading lines to take us back and forward chronologically. Her film is sweet, poignant, and moving. ★★★★

Animal Behaviour, Directed by David Fine, Alison Snowden, 14 minutes (Canada)

Objectively speaking, the device of animals in a therapy session has been done before—many times. Nor is the straight cartoon animation likely to impress Oscar voters. That said, this one is the most fun of all the nominees. The shrink in command of this gaggle of emotionally wrought critters is Dr. Clement, a pit bull in touch with his inner Shih Tzu. All is fine until the session is forced to confront the gorilla in the room. Delightful chaos ensues. ★★★ ½

One Small Step, Directed by Andrew Chesworth, Bobby Ponitllas, 8 minutes (US/China)

This one is also sweet, though most of the buzz has been over the fact that it's thought to be the first American/Chinese joint animated venture. Luna is an Asian girl being raised by a single-parent dad. She dreams of being an astronaut; her cobbler father is content to play shoemaker to she who years for the stars. Do dreams come true? Exactly as we would have them play out? This one also tugs at the heart strings.★★★

Weekends, Directed by Trevor Jimenez, 16 minutes, (USA/Canada)

This is probably the dark horse candidate to win as it sports the most creative use of animation: shake effects applied to sketchy drawings that evoke atmosphere rather than aiming for realism. It features a little boy from a broken family who shuffles back and forth between his mother and his samurai-loving father. He is also a vivid dreamer. This one has attracted notice because several of its reviewers haven't done their homework and have tried to connect it to US policies on immigrants. Not only is that a stretch, it ignores the fact that the "space needle" seen in backdrops is from Toronto, not Seattle. Canadians have appropriately cried foul over such ethnocentric assumptions. ★★★

Bao, Directed by Domee Shi, 8 minutes, (USA)

Here's the odds-on favorite to win the Oscar and it's a piece of sentimental rubbish! Why is it favored? Two words: Disney/Pixar. An empty nester woman makes the film's namesake steamed dumpling, when one of them pops to life. She raises the little bao to fill the space in her heart vacated by her absent son. Oh, for Pete's sake! What a bunch of essentialist twaddle. Not to mention that we've seen this sort of dough figure (pun intended) animation from Pixar over and over and over. You might also recognize that this film is a boring and insipid spin on Pinocchio. Hand me the Pepto-Bismol. ★

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Wishing Box, Directed by Wenli Zhang, 6 minutes (USA)

Speaking of derivative, Wishing Box is a swashbuckling take on King Midas. A disappointed pirate opens a treasure chest and finds it empty. His pet monkey, however, manages to pull all manner of things from the box, especially bananas. If only the pirate could get the monkey to shift his focus from fruit to doubloons…  This is slight, but funny enough to keep your interest. (It is technically a 2017 film.) ★★★

Tweet-Tweet, Directed by Zhanna Bekmambetova, 11 minutes, (Russia)

Call this one the we-wuz-robbed pick. This Russian film has a precious animated sparrow as its only recognizable character, but more is afoot (another pun) than cuddly cuteness. Our little bird on a clothesline sees only pins, snow, and a pair of legs and shoes that balance upon the rope. Those legs and feet change and we soon learn that this is not the sort of rope we had imagined. Had this been a nominee, it would have been my choice as best in show. Note: The director's father, Timur, is also a noted name in film. ★★★★

Turner and Constable at the Clark a Mild Disappointment

Turner and Constable

Clark Museum of Art  (Williamstown, MA)

Through March 10, 2019

John Constable

JMW Turner

  

Few 18^th century British artists have gained as much fame–much of it posthumous–as John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. They are displayed side by side in a current exhibit at the Clark Museum of Art. Alas, the artists' reputations exceed the merits of the show.

Constable

Of the two, John Constable (1776-1837) was the more conventional in both his painting and in his private life. (He did go through a reckless spending spree around the time his beloved wife Maria died in 1828.) Constable is known for his genre landscapes and dramatic skies. Depending on how you feel about depictions of wind in the trees, Constable is either the master of that technique or Marcel Marceau with a paintbrush.

I confess that Constable is not among my favorite artists. Too much of his work is of grand houses in sylvan settings that look like treatments for a Downton Abbey spinoff. Constable also romanticized the British countryside. For me, his watercolors are more inspiring that his oils. In the Clark show, his small studies and downsized oils intrigue more than his larger canvases.

J(oseph) M(allard) William Turner (1775-1851) was, simply, a weird individual who was short on social graces. Call him the enfant terrible of his generation. His mother was mentally ill and many have speculated that "William," his chosen name of address, may have inherited some of her instability. He was a loner who never married, though he did father two children by his housekeeper. Turner was constantly short of money and often lived amidst hand-to-mouth grime. He also shocked his contemporaries with his crude behavior.

There was no doubting his talent and he gained entry into the Royal Academy of Arts, his personal quirks notwithstanding. If you see a conventional-looking Turner, chances are good it was painted for a Royal Academy show. My favorite works of his are his moody oils and his loose and gauzy watercolors. Turner's signature works often sport low contrast tones that jump to life because of a splash of contrasting hue–a red smudge or bright side lighting in a dark room, for instance. Turner may have been mad or eccentric, but he left behind an astonishing number off canvasses.

That last remark is the foundation for my summary of the Clark show: too many Constables and not enough Turners. The lack of Turners makes the overall show feel as if it is cut from the same monochromatic cloth. The opening display is an unintended metaphor for the show's deficiencies. The first is a beach scene from Constable titled "Yarmouth Jetty." (See above) It is splendid in all the ways Constable tends to be. As is often the case, he violated the rule of thirds by making a dramatic sky dominate two-thirds of the frame. Sailing ships lean into the picture and the red-capped draughtsman draws the eye to the left foreground. 

Contrast this with a Turner beach scene, "View off Margate, Evening." (See above). The two approaches to ships on the horizon couldn't be more different. Notice the red and black tones in the lower right that look as if Turner was attacking his canvas rather than painting it. Notice also the orange sail leaning right and wispy figures on the beach leaning left. On the other side of the canvas we see what appears to be a cargo ship, but you have to look closely or you might see it as a ghost image. Turner laid on paint thickly in some parts of the image and barely skimmed the surface with color on other parts. Constable pictures always look complete; Turner's look as if he has just stepped back to contemplate what comes next. They also move, whereas most Constables are more static.

Constable

Turner

Would that there were more side-by-side moments in the Clark show. It's a small exhibit that takes up just two rooms and oddly enough, it makes the absence of diversity more noticeable. It's as if one could exit after seeing the first two paintings, as they vividly highlight the differences between Constable and Turner. I will credit the Clark for choosing some smaller Constables to contemplate. I was drawn to his "Sketch for the Opening of Waterloo Bridge," probably because its energy and disorder reminded me more of Turner. Even then, I preferred Turner's "Tummel Bridge, Perthshire." Okay, I admit that might be personal, as I've crossed that Scottish bridge. (I assume/hope it has had structural improvements since Turner visited in 1801!)

I would not call the current Clark exhibit a failure. It's more like a much anticipated restaurant meal that turns out to fine, but not special.

Rob Weir