Australia: The Wandjina Image

The use of the Wandjina image (the Aboriginal Rain Spirit or Cloud Being found in many rock shelter and cave art sites in the Kimberley region, Western Australia) is becoming increasingly controversial.

This is a detail from a bark painting by a well-known artist (RK, deceased, c.1927-2008). She painted many bark Wandjinas and certainly had the right to use the image, as did other members of her family.

Here is a poem about the Wandjina Rain Spirit:


Mamadai and Wanalirri
Where wandjina shelter.
The god-like face on rock and cave,
Mouthless image of creator.
Round eyes on bark, on canvas, slate:-
Make the rains come soon, come late.


I. M. Crawford, in "The Art of the Wandjina" (OUP, Melbourne, 1968), wrote:

"These Wandjina spirits have considerable powers and the Aborigines are careful to observe a certain amount of protocol when they approach the paintings, fearing that if they do not, the spirits might take their revenge...Should the Wandjinas be offended, the Aborigines believe that they will take their revenge by calling up the lightning to strike the offender dead, or the rain to flood the land and drown the people, or the cyclone with its gales which devastate the country".

It is not as if people hadn't been warned.

Cacoyannis in Conversation

Michael Cacoyannis (born June 11, 1922), one of the world's great film-makers, talked to me at length back in 1978, when my 8 page interview with him was published. This is the original illustrated interview, "A Sense of Belonging", as conducted and published in 1978. The text-only version appears in my book "Corfu Blues". Cacoyannis' masterpieces include Stella, Electra , Zorba the Greek and A Girl in Black.

See information about the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation.
See also a recent article about a new biography of Cacoyannis.

Walter Lassally talking about the filming of Zorba

Ingmar Bergman, Summer with Monika

Ingmar Bergman and Harriet Andersson (photo above and below, copyright Jim Potts).

Ingmar Bergman on Harriet, Laterna Magica, 1987

One of my favourite Swedish films by Ingmar Bergman is "Summer with Monika".

Did "Summer with Monika" really come out in 1953?

It still brings back memories of visits to the islands in the Stockholm archipelago.

If you want to practise your Swedish, here's Ingmar Bergman talking about "Winter Light".

Even better, an interview with Ingmar on Fårö, his favourite island

It's where I took the photograph above.

Here's a scene from Wild Strawberries.

Le Bonheur and Mozart's Adagio and Fugue

Does anyone remember the 1965 French film, Le Bonheur (Happiness)? It was directed by Agnès Varda.

I remember the soundtrack most of all, it had a huge impact: Mozart's Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K546.

The film seems dated now, but the music has haunted me ever since, especially an old Czech Supraphon recording (on LP) of the Czech Chamber Orchestra conducted by Josef Vlach (Supraphon J SUA10190: 0 SUAST50035) . It got an indifferent review in Gramophone in 1965, but I loved it!

Did the music influence the meaning of the film, or did the film change the meaning of the music?

Old Harry Rocks

If Sappho had found herself in England, instead of on Lefkas, she would have made her leap from one of these cliffs or rocks near Studland.

Britten, Les Illuminations

I must have six or seven different recordings of Benjamin Britten's "Les Illuminations", based on Rimbaud's sequence or group of poems.

I started reading Rimbaud in Ethiopia. I even visited the house where he is said to have lived in Harar. It is the Abyssinian Rimbaud who interests me most.

Since then, I have found myself in other parts of the world with Rimbaud associations, Brussels, Stockholm, Soho in London, the Troodos mountains in Cyprus.

I don't claim to understand all of his poetry. I like the sound of it. Britten has selected and captured the essence. I always find the opening Fanfare thrilling and arresting:

"J'ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage."

"I alone have the key to this savage parade".

The work was first performed in 1940 (two songs were performed in 1939). On the whole I prefer the recordings I have by sopranos rather than by tenors. It was originally written for Sophie Wyss.

La musique savante manque à notre désir.
Assez vu...Assez eu...Assez connu...Départ dans l’affection et le bruit neufs!


I can almost imagine Rimbaud declaiming these lines from "A Season in Hell" to the accompaniment of his Ethiopian harp:

"Ma journée est faite; je quitte l’Europe…les climats perdus me tanneront.Je reviendrai, avec des membres de fer, la peau sombre, l’oeil furieux: sur mon masque, on me jugera d’une race forte. J’aurai de l’or: je serai oisif et brutal. Les femmes soignent ces féroces infirmes retour des pays chauds. Je serai mêlé aux affaires politiques. Sauvé.
Maintenant je suis maudit, j’ai horreur de la patrie. Le meilleur, c’est un sommeil bien ivre, sur la grève".

Rimbaud's Poems, a selection in English translation by A.S.Kline;

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/French/Rimbaud1.htm


Related:

Hans Krása, 3 Lieder for baritone, clarinet, viola and cello after Rimbaud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP2SsKE_k7Q

Sensation (A.Rimbaud)

Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers,

Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue:

Réveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur mes pieds.

Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tète nue!

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien:

Mais l'amour infïni me montera dans l'âme,

Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien

Par la Nature, -- heureux comme avec une femme.

Nezval's Czech translation :

Vzrušení

Za modrých večerů si vyjdu po pěšině,

lechtán obilím, se brouzdat svěží travou;

a zasněn ucítím, jak vítr na mýtině

mi bude kroužiti nad rozcuchanou hlavou!

Ni slova neřeknu a nepomyslím na nic.

Však budu míti duši lásce otevřenou.

Jak cikán půjdu dlouho, dlouho podél hranic,

v nesmírné Přírodě, šťasten s ní jako s ženou.