All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
The Exeter Book
Anonymous
Translated from the Old English by Craig Williamson
(U Penn, 2017)
300 p.
The Exeter Book is one of four principal surviving sources for Old English poetry, and, of those four, it is the largest. It is a tenth-century codex that has been part of the Exeter Cathedral library since 1072. It is the sole source for almost all of its contents.
The collections of Anglo-Saxon verse I’ve looked at previously — the Junius Manuscript and the Vercelli Book — consisted of, respectively, four and six poems. The Exeter Book, by contrast, contains about three dozen poems, most of them fewer than 150 lines long, and it also contains about 100 verse riddles. This makes it a very interesting and surprising collection, but also makes it rather hard to summarize. Instead, I will write briefly about a few of the poems that particularly attracted my attention.
*
The Book begins with one of the longest poems: a triptych called Christ, the parts of which are a set of meditations on Advent and the Nativity, the Ascension, and the Last Judgment. They are thematically linked, but are not necessarily — and, in fact, probably not — all the work of one poet.
The Advent poems are partly based on the O Antiphons. Here, as an example, is the beginning of the poem based on the antiphon O Oriens:
O Radiance of dawn, brightest of angels,
Messenger of morning, righteous and rising,
Bright light of truth, splendor of sun,
Brilliant beyond stars, imbuing middle-earth
With the grace of growth in all seasons —
You are the illumination and enlightenment
Of all time and the world’s endless turning,
You are the God begotten of God,
Separate and Self, Son of the Father,
Gift and blessing of high heaven,
A child born who has always been
Before beginning, beyond ending…
(V, 1-12)
That, even in translation, is a strong, dense meditation on Christ as the light of the world. (For readers unfamiliar with Anglo-Saxon verse, you should be listening in this poetry for patterns of stressed syllables and alliteration in each line.)
Other of the Advent poems are in honour of Our Lady, such as the one which begins in this way:
O glorious maiden of middle-earth,
Purest of women, most precious queen,
How wisely and justly do all speech-bearers
Praise your name and bless your birthing
With joy in their hearts, delighting and saying
That you are the blessed bride of God,
Lord of the sky, Ruler of heaven.
The attendants of Christ, servants of God,
Proclaim and sing that with your virtue,
You are the Lady of the glorious hosts,
Hallowed in heaven by his primacy and power,
And Lady under heaven of all earthly hosts,
Even those dwelling in hell.
(IX, 1-13)
For me, this is fine devotional poetry, and I intend to revisit these Advent poems again during the Advent season.
The middle section of Christ describes the Ascension, but briefly. The bulk of the poem, apart from bridge sections which link it backward to the nativity poem and forward to the last judgement, is devoted to a charming plan I’ve never encountered before: the “seven leaps” of Christ. The “leaps” in question are (1) from heaven to the womb, (2) out of the womb, (3) onto the cross, (4) from the cross to the tomb, (5) the descent into hell, (6) out of the tomb, and (7) the ascent into heaven. It’s a delightful poem.
The final section of Christ is a stirring depiction of the judgment of the damned and the blessed, written with strong imaginative power.
**
Juliana is one of the few saints’ lives in The Exeter Book. St Juliana of Nicomedia was one of the martyrs of the early Church; she suffered under Diocletian. The poem is probably the work of Cynewulf, one of the few Anglo-Saxon poets whose name has come down to us.
The poem relates how St Juliana refused to marry a pagan and was, as a result, abused and imprisoned. She was visited in prison by a demon who, disguised as an angel, tempted her to compromise, and much of the poem is devoted to their dialogue. It is wonderfully done. The demon is marvellously suave and persuasive, which is already excellent, but, better still, Juliana sees through him immediately. Indeed, she is so feisty that her first response is to leap and throttle him! (One imagines, here, and with gratification, a correspondingly vigorous response were she confronted with one of our oily churchmen!) In any case, in what follows “the radiant maiden” forces the “hell-sprite, man’s fierce foe” to reveal himself and confess his evil intentions before she sends him back to hell:
Then the maiden released that soul-slayer
After his time of torment in the dark abyss.
The dread demon was a bearer of bad news,
Bound to tell the revolting truth
To a host of torturers, the tribe of hell.
That was not a good journey for him.
(561-6)
I would rank Juliana with the best of the saints’ lives known to me. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
**
The Exeter Book also contains a number of poems which scholars call “elegies” on account of their generally meditative tone and non-narrative subject matter. Later English poetry would make this type of poem more familiar to us; it is poetry that tries to capture a mood or feeling.
A good example is The Wanderer, written from the point of view of a man exiled from his home. It conveys a powerful sense of sadness and longing for what cannot be had again. The poet, bereft of home, sees that ultimately everyone shares his fate:
The wise warrior knows how ghostly it will be
When all this world’s wealth is a wasteland,
As middle-earth is now in many places —
Wall fragments stand, blasted by winds,
Covered by frost — ruined hallways in snow.
Wine-halls decay, lords lie dead,
Deprived of joys — the proud troop
Has fallen by the wall. War took some
On a long death-road; a bird bore one
Over the deep sea; the gray wolf shared
One with death; a sad-faced earl
Hid one in an earth-hole, a bleak barrow.
So the Maker of men laid waste to the world,
Until the old works of giants stood idle
And empty of the hall-joys of men.
(78-92)
Other poems of this kind in The Exeter Book include “The Seafarer”, “The Wife’s Lament”, and “The Ruin”. This is a side of Old English poetry that I have not encountered before.
**
One of the most unusual and intriguing poems in this collection is “The Rhyming Poem”. It is unusual because — it rhymes! This in addition to maintaining the usual requirements of Anglo-Saxon verse, of course. It is, as one can imagine, one of the most difficult poems to render into modern English, and Craig Williamson, so able and fluent in general, confesses his inability to do the original justice. I reluctantly agree with him. For example:
The will is weak, desire droops and curls,
No-faith follows, the heart heaves
Its last, its least — all harrows, all hallows.
Joy fades, lordships fall. Sin spreads
Its wide net, shame serves, pleasure pains.
Thus the world winds down. Hope drowns.
(55-60)
The original’s rhyming couplets are entirely missing, though he has managed to give us some internal rhymes. The style has become compressed and gnomic, though it is hard to know if this is a feature of the original poem or just an artifact of the effort to cram in all the poetry.
In any case, it is good to know that there is at least one rhyming poem in the Old English corpus.
**
Finally, I will say a few words about the dozens of riddles. Riddling is a poetic pastime that, unfortunately, has not had a distinguished career in subsequent English poetry. Tolkien gave us some rhyming riddles in The Hobbit, and I’ve little doubt he did so inspired by these Anglo-Saxon exemplars.
Here is one example, to give the flavour of the thing:
Head down, nosing — I belly the ground.
Hard snuffle and grub, I bite and furrow —
Drawn by the dark enemy of forests,
Driven by a bent lord who hounds my trail,
Who lifts and lowers me, rams me down,
Pushes on plain, and sows seed.
I am a ground-skulker, born of wood,
Bound by wizards, brought on wheel.
My ways are weird: as I walk, one flank
Of my trail is gathering green; the other
Is bright black. Through my back and belly,
A sharp sword thrusts; through me head,
A dagger is stuck like a tooth: what I slash
Falls in a curve of slaughter to one side
If my driving lord slaves well.
(Riddle 19)
Solutions to the riddles are not given in the Book, though in his notes Williamson solves them, or at least describes the solutions that have been proposed. (Some of the riddles, like the one above, are easy to solve, but some have never been solved conclusively.)
A few of the riddles rely on double-entendres for their misdirection. An example is Riddle 25.
I must say that in general I found the riddles to be great fun, but I was only able to solve a handful of them on my own.
**
As I said at the top, there is far too much in The Exeter Book for a blog post to handle. Reading through all these poems has been rewarding for me. Typically I would close my day by sitting down and reading one or two, more than once wishing that I had a scop to sing them to me! Those interested in learning more could profitably consult the Wikipedia page, which includes links to individual pages for roughly half of the poems.
Next in this collection of Old English poetry is Williamson’s translation of Beowulf. I’m looking forward to it.
Every year I like to plan a few listening projects around composers who will be marking significant birthdays and memorials in the year ahead. From a very thorough list (Thanks, Osbert) I have culled the following set:
Memorials
25 years
150 years
***
Birthdays
100 years
200 years
400 years
*
This is a pretty thin showing, and from this evidence I think we can confidently conclude that being born in a year ending 19 or 69 is a misfortune from a musicality point of view; the same holds true for those destined to die in such years. I expect there is a straightforward astrological explanation.
I have put Clara and Barbara on the list mainly because I thought it was interesting that two of the relatively few female composers were born in years for which the last two digits were the same. What were the chances? [*]
In a similar way, I mention Berlioz only because it seemed unduly audacious to leave him off. As far as I can tell, his principal redeeming quality is that Jacques Barzun admired him.
For me the highlight of the year is unquestionably the centenary of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who has been mentioned here several times over the years. I’ve planned a big listening project that will take me through all those of his compositions which have been recorded and are available — roughly 100, I believe. I note that the blog Lines that have escaped destruction, which is dedicated to Weinberg’s music, has planned a series of 100 blog posts for this year about various aspects of his life and work; I will be following it with interest.
Happy listening! As an envoi, here is the adagio section of Weinberg’s Sinfonietta No.2, played by Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica:
***
[*] This is a variant on the birthday problem. Suppose we have N female composers, and we want to find the probability that at least 2 of them share the final two digits of their birth year. There are Y = 100 possible such two-digit combinations.
It is easiest to calculate the probability that they do not share those digits. This probability is
assuming that N < Y and (of course) that each pair of year-digits are equally likely. This means that the probability that at least two of our ladies do share those digits in their birth years is
Since Y=100, the only variable is N, the number of female composers. It’s easy to find lists of more than 100, so the probability of having a collision on birth dates becomes 1. But my list above is limited to the cream of the crop, or at least the composers of no small repute, on both the male and female sides, and everyone knows that on those conditions there have been only a handful of female composers: St Hildegard, Barbara Strozzi, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, and another few of your choosing — maybe Gloria Coates, Judith Weir, and Lera Auerbach, but feel free to swap in your favourites. Let’s say ten in total. Then the probability of a collision on one of these lists is
which is higher than I expected! If we’re really strict and only admit those eminent five into the circle, the probability drops to about 10%. In other words, we are, quite possibly, witnessing this year an event that shall not be repeated for a decade!
The Religious Potential of the Child
Sofia Cavalletti
(CGS, 1992) [1979]
250 p.
For the past five years or so I have taught catechism to children who have ranged in age from about age 3 to age 8. My previous teaching experience having been to undergraduate and graduate students, and in the hard sciences, I have found teaching catechism to be a big change, and challenging in several ways. Naturally, there’s the challenge of presenting material in an age-appropriate way. There’s also the difficulty of choosing just what to teach, and in what order. And, of course, the always daunting matter of planning a craft.
Had you asked me a few months ago, I’d have assessed myself as a middling catechist. But today, having read Sofia Cavalletti’s book on catechesis for young children, I am ready to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I’ve been doing it all wrong all along.
Cavalletti is a foundress of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd programme, which began in Italy and has since spread around the world. I’ve not known much about it, apart from its existence. This book is all about the underpinnings of that program, which grew out of years of experience of teaching the faith to children aged 3-6.
**
Her principal goal is not so much to convey knowledge of the faith as to cultivate the child’s relationship with God. The emphasis is affective and personal rather than didactic and objective. Her desire is to encourage in the child a life hidden with Christ, a living spring, a planted seed. For her, the catechist’s role is to prepare the child to meet Christ, and then to withdraw, unworthy servant that he is. A catechist, she says, must know how to be silent.
A young child, she believes, has a capacity for quiet, even contemplative, prayer. Children are at ease with the transcendent; their relationship to God, especially at a young age, is naturally “open and peaceful”. Much of the catechist’s task is to cultivate an environment in which “open and peaceful” prayer can take place. To this end she recommends the creation of a quasi-sacred space, a ritual space (which, following, in this as in other matters, Maria Montessori, she calls an “atrium”). It is “not a place for religious instruction, but for religious life“; it is set aside for “recollection and silence”. Within this space Scripture is read to the children, in a solemn, ritualized manner, and elements of the liturgy, such as seasonal colours and candles, are present. Quiet time for reflection follows the slow reading. The children are given simple toys, related to the readings, to play with quietly. They are invited to draw or paint quietly. They are invited to pray. In her experience, children become pensive and recollected; the child’s “whole being vibrates, becomes tranquil, and rejoices”.
The prayer encouraged by this method is personal and spontaneous. She finds that it is typically expressed in short, essential phrases. “Jesus, you gave us light.” “Thank you because we are your sheep.” “Thank you, Jesus, for giving us our joy.”
This approach to catechesis is not didactic, but it nonetheless teaches, and the most important lesson, especially for children under 6, is, Cavalletti argues, that God loves them:
“No child … has ever been loved to the degree that he wanted and needed. For the child, love is more important than food… In the contact with God the child experiences an unfailing love.”
For this reason her catechetical approach is founded on a few themes that convey the love of God, the most important being the image of Christ the Good Shepherd, who loves his sheep and calls them by name. In her experience, this image of Christ is the most important key to unlocking the young child’s religious sense. In addition, she commends to the catechist the imagery of baptism and light, of Christ as a gift, and the Gospel parables about the Kingdom of God (the pearl of great price, the mustard seed, and so on). These images and parables are to be presented to the child without dumbing them down, and are not to be “explained, but left to unfold themselves within the child’s heart and understanding”. She dwells on these particular images and stories because, in her experience, children respond most fruitfully to them. Her criterion for assessing a child’s response is worth noting:
“If the child, in relation to a specific Biblical passage, only knows how to draw descriptive rather than interpretive illustrations, then it is better to avoid that text; it is obvious that his understanding of it has stayed on a level of superficiality.”
**
Notice what, by implication, she does not recommend to a catechist of the young. She does not recommend an emphasis on doctrine, after the manner of, say, the Baltimore Catechism. Neither does she recommend beginning at the beginning, with the book of Genesis, nor even with giving the child a barrow of Bible stories; her focus is almost entirely on the New Testament, and especially on the person of Jesus. The method is not historical, but a “method of signs”, leaning heavily on images, metaphors, and religiously rich symbols. She counsels against emphasizing rote prayers like the Our Father and Hail Mary, on the grounds that such prayers risk teaching children that prayer is a separate thing from life; her aim is to teach prayer, not prayers. Neither should the catechist talk much about morality; the focus is on God’s love, not judgment:
“The adult who wants to give children a moral formation should refrain from any promptings of the common kind in the moral order; instead the adult should announce God’s love and help the child to experience and enjoy it in reflection and prayer.”
All of this is specific to the age group under consideration: roughly 3-6. As children age, these counsels change: slightly older children will need moral counsel, and teenagers need heroic exemplars; the time will come for Bible stories and historical understanding; the time will come for set prayers and spiritual disciplines. But all, she argues, will be more healthy and more fruitful if built on a sound foundation of lived awareness of the love of God.
A corollary is the importance of beginning catechesis at an early age. Parish programs that begin at the age of 7 or 8, as is fairly common, are introducing children to God at an age when it is natural for them to think in moral terms, and this risks confusing the face of God for the child, who will tend to see God as a judge rather than a loving shepherd. One wonders if the famous phenomenon of “Catholic guilt” might be corroborating evidence for Cavalletti’s argument.
**
We have all, I am sure, had the experience of meeting a person who has just read a book on a difficult topic — education, for instance, or metaphysics — and is full of enthusiasm because, for the first time, he sees things clearly. We are reluctant to mention to him that if he were to continue in his reading, with another book, or five, or ten, he might no longer see things so clearly, or, rather, he might see that things are not so clear.
I, plausibly, am that naive enthusiast, for this is the first book about methods of catechesis that I have read. Nonetheless, I can only report that I found this book immensely stimulating and rewarding. I have often pondered how to encourage just this inner, hidden life between God and a child — not only with my students, but with my own children too! — but I have not known what to do. Cavalletti’s book is full of promising ideas that I’d like to try, if I can.
***
[Wonder]
Wonder is not an emotion of superficial people; it strikes root only in the person whose mind is able to settle and rest in things, in the person who is capable of stopping and looking. It is only through a continued and profound observation of reality that we become conscious of its many aspects, of the secrets and mysteries it contains. Openness to reality and openness to wonder proceed at the same pace: as we gradually enter into what is real, our eyes will come to see it as more and more charged with marvels, and wonder will become a habit of our spirit.
[Attention]
We should not alter too often or too rapidly the object of the child’s attention… If the child does not have the time to dwell on anything, then everything will come to seem the same to him and he will lose all interest in things.
The Civil War
Gaius Julius Caesar
(Landmark, 2018) [48 BC]
200 p.
Caesar’s Gallic Wars recounted his decade-long campaign to bring Gaul under the control of Rome. That tale ended in 49 BC, and is continued here, in Caesar’s first-hand account of the momentous events of the years 49-48 BC, during which Caesar and Pompey contended against one another for control of Rome itself.
Though Caesar had succeeded brilliantly in his Gallic campaign, and had been awarded multiple triumphs by the Roman Senate, and had seen his popularity rise, he had also made powerful enemies. In 49 BC, as he wrapped up his campaign abroad, those enemies, led by Pompey the Great, passed a resolution in Rome requiring him to disband his army or be declared a traitor. Caesar countered that he would do so provided that Pompey, too, would disband his army. (It was one of the marks of Rome’s political decline that an army’s first loyalty was often to its commander rather than to Rome, effectively giving powerful generals their own private armed forces.) Pompey refused, and Caesar, in turn, likewise.
Marching south from Ravenna, Caesar crossed the boundary between Cisapline Gaul and Italy proper — that is, he crossed the Rubicon — with his army intact, thereby violating Roman law and sparking the civil war. It is interesting to note that Caesar passes over this now-famous moment with hardly a comment; it was later writers — Appian, Plutarch, and others — who made much of it.
Fearing that Caesar would march on Rome, Pompey and many of the leading Romans fled south to Capua and then to Brundisium (modern Brindisi). Caesar pursued them and, rapidly building a barrier across the mouth of the harbour, very nearly succeeded in trapping Pompey then and there. But, as it happened, Pompey did escape to Greece where he began assembling an armed force to oppose Caesar.
Caesar, meanwhile, abandoning the chase, went to Rome to argue his case before the remains of the Senate, who decided that negotiations with Pompey should be attempted.
One might naively expect that the Roman civil war would be fought in and around Rome, but in fact this speech before the Senate is the only time in the war that either of the two principals was in the city. Instead, Caesar next proceeded on a course that I did not anticipate: he went north again, first to the southern coast of Gaul, where he established a siege of Marsilla (modern Marseilles), and then to Spain, where he fought a lengthy campaign for control of Ilerda. These episodes are properly parts of the civil war because these cities were loyal to Pompey. Before the year was out, both cities fell to Caesar.
Concurrently (in August of 49) one of Caesar’s deputies, Curio, was commissioned to lead a force against Pompey’s allies in Numidia (modern Tunisia). This ended in disaster for Caesar: there was a clever ruse on the African side, in which they faked a retreat, lured Curio out of his fortifications and into an open plain, where he was surrounded and his army slaughtered. It was the most significant victory for Pompey’s side to that point in the conflict.
With the coming of the year 48, a more direct conflict between Caesar and Pompey was looming. Caesar succeeded in crossing to Greece from Brundisium, and established a camp across a river from Pompey’s camp. A cunning attempt at a flanking manoeuvre by Caesar eventually settled down to a peculiar stand-off: both armies built semi-circular fortifications beginning and ending on the sea, with Pompey’s being entirely enclosed within Caesar’s (like this). It was peculiar because it resembled a siege, but the besieged — Pompey — had ready access to supplies from the sea, and therefore could, it seemed, hold out indefinitely.
But several things happened to break the stand-off. One was that two of Caesar’s senior officers were arraigned for corruption, and in response defected to Pompey’s side, taking with them valuable intelligence, on the strength of which Pompey mounted an attack on a weak point in Caesar’s fortifications, resulting in the deaths of many of Caesar’s men. Caesar’s side was weakened but not defeated. The second thing was that a variety of factors, especially a lack of fresh water, led to Pompey’s being forced to break his army out of the siege and flee, which he did.
Caesar again pursued, and the armies squared off again in August near Pharsalus. Caesar was outnumbered by a factor of two, and his cavalry was barely a tenth as large as Pompey’s. Pompey planned to use his superior cavalry to flank Caesar, but Caesar, anticipating this, placed a specially selected line of infantry to defend that same flank. When the battle began, this anticipation proved decisive; while the main lines fought, Pompey’s flanking manoeuvre failed and, instead, Caesar’s defenders moved around and flanked Pompey, causing the latter’s army to turn and flee for their lives. It was a rout: Caesar reports (how accurately is hard to tell) that he lost just 200 men in the day’s fighting, while Pompey lost 15000.
Pompey, for his part, failed to embody the noble Roman virtues in defeat. He first — before the battle was ended — retired to his tent, apparently stunned, and then, rousing himself, fled. He boarded a vessel and began a circuit of the Mediterraean. As news spread of Caesar’s victory, the tide turned against Pompey, and he was denied entrance at several ports. Eventually he decided to go to Egypt, counting on the support of the young ruler, Ptolomy, and his regents. But the Egyptians, too, could tell which way the wind was blowing, and Pompey was murdered at Ptolomy’s command while coming ashore. His was a sad and ignoble end.
**
The main contours of this story were familiar to me already, most recently from reading Appian, but it was a pleasure to go over them again, in more detail, and straight from the horse’s mouth.
I’ve already remarked that it was a sign of Rome’s immense power that the Roman civil war was fought, not in Rome, nor even much in Italy, but in Gaul, Spain, and Greece.
It is also worth noting a marked difference between Caesar and Pompey in the exercise of power. Pompey took the view that “He who is not for me is against me”; a lack of explicit support was taken as opposition and treated as such. But Caesar’s rule was “He who is not against me is for me”; cities that withheld support for Pompey were, in his judgement, on his side, and he treated them as such. The result was that people who were not sure which way the conflict would eventually resolve — which was most everyone — were more likely to favour Caesar. By not forcing them to take sides, Caesar didn’t create unnecessary resistance.
Another thing that emerges from this account, as from the Gallic Wars, is Caesar’s brilliance as a general. Again and again he wins by out-thinking his opponent, anticipating their plans or luring them into traps. Even taking into account the fact that it is Caesar himself telling us about his victories, it is hard not to be impressed by his superior tactics.
As was the case in the Gallic Wars, Caesar’s writing is always clear and well-organized. His focus is very much on military tactics and strategy, with occasional feints at politics. I have been reading from The Landmark Julius Caesar, an edition whose many virtues I have sung before. Simply put, I do not believe there is an English-language edition of Caesar’s writings to compare with it.
Accounts of Caesar’s subsequent military campaigns, in Alexandria, in Africa, and again in Spain, have also come down to us, though not by Caesar’s own hand. They are nonetheless included in this Landmark volume, and I think I will tackle them soon.
I had a rewarding year watching movies in 2018, somehow managing to cram quite a few into the nooks and crannies of my works and days. For this year-end list I’ve chosen ten of my favourites. Since they all have something to recommend them, I have not ranked them, but simply listed them in alphabetical order.
***
Paul Schrader is best known as a screenwriter for Martin Scorcese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull), and is also the author of a minor classic of film criticism in Transcendental Style in Film. These strands, and others, including his Reformed Christian upbringing, come together in First Reformed (2017), which he both wrote and directed. A middle-aged clergyman, played with weary sympathy by Ethan Hawke, presides over an historic, but moribund, Dutch Reformed parish. His congregation is so small that First Reformed’s day-to-day operations, including Reverend Toller’s own income, are paid for by Abundant Life, a friendly evangelical mega-church down the road. First Reformed is preparing to celebrate its 250th anniversary, and Toller is beset by troubles, both personal and political.
Schrader has said that the film is his tribute to a number of his best loved filmmakers, and one can catch the influence of Bergman and especially Bresson, whose country priest is never far away. It is a beautifully filmed and carefully put together picture. Like Taxi Driver, it takes a wild turn in the final act, so wild that it will confound many viewers; I was very nearly among them. But on reflection I lean toward admiration of the film’s boldness. Even if it is not believable as a realistic story, it works as a fable, and that fable is about — what? Maybe simply the hazards of our need for meaning; or the temptation to see politics as a substitute for faith; or, though it seems a cliché, the power of love to overcome violence and despair. It’s a complex, artfully constructed film, very much worth seeing.
*
The first and maybe best reason to see Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (2013) is that no other film shows Rome to better effect. To see the city filmed with such sumptuous beauty — and magically empty of tourists! — was a glorious consolation to me.
And that might well be the only consolation on offer. Jep — Jeppino, as he is once called, and fittingly — is a Roman socialite, one-time novelist, living off the fumes of his literary reputation and enjoying his posh creature comforts. Having reached his 65th birthday, he begins to take stock of himself, and, rightly, finds himself wanting. The film alternates between bacchanales and quiet, ruminative moments as Jep ponders how his life, and he himself, might acquire more weight and substance. He considers a variety of remedies: popularity, artistic creation, religion, sex, love. All, with the possible exception of some combination of the latter two, the film rejects with greater or lesser degrees of smugness. It is, in this sense, a spiritually dark film, blind to certain possibilities. An instinctive cynicism, which reveals itself most clearly in the film’s gorgeous opening sequence, is its chief defect.
Jep says he is lost because he was looking for the great beauty, but never found it. But were you really, Jep? Be honest.
Despite my misgivings, it is a film that grapples with a serious matter — the search for meaning in a world bereft of transcendence — and for this I honour it. That is seems to have nothing to say in the end is, first, honest, for there is no good answer given those premises, and, second, belied by the manner in which it is presented: saturated with a beauty that just might undermine the complacent immanence of Jep’s world. The film may be wiser than it seems at first blush.
*
At the beginning of Loveless (2017) a young boy goes missing; he is an only child, and his parents are in the throes of a separation. The police are called; search parties are formed; the boy must be found.
Except that the film cannot keep its mind on the plot. Instead it lures us into the self-involved, oh-so-understandable troubles of the boy’s parents, adults who have things on their minds, new lovers, and what they would no doubt call emotional needs. They are petty and selfish, and we, to the extent that we are drawn into their concerns, are subject to the same damning criticism. Not often have I felt so strongly that a film, as I watched it, was watching me with an unsparing eye.
There is wonderful art here: patient direction, fantastic lighting and cinematography, creative use of the camera. Like the director’s previous film, Leviathan, it moves slowly but surely. What I appreciated most was its withering, steely-eyed interrogation of that mother and that father. Here, friends, is a film about divorce that is cold as ice and entertains no excuses.
*
Ma Nuit chez Maud (1969), one of Eric Rohmer’s ‘Moral Tales’, is a closely observed study of the gap between ideals and actions, and of the difficulty of knowing the heart, whether our own or another’s. We follow Jean-Louis — a thirty-something man, articulate, somewhat lonely, a committed Catholic — who is invited by a friend to the home of Maud, a beautiful young divorcée. When the friend departs, Jean-Louis is left alone with Maud, and a long conversation, like a dance, begins, as she gently but persistently probes his integrity, and he, more brusquely and instinctively, hers.
Their encounter works on a metaphorical level — this was 1969, after all, and in that room we see the sexual revolution coming up against the Catholic order of marriage and sexuality, which, if nothing else, makes the film a fascinating cultural artifact — but it also works, and works quite beautifully, on a personal level, as a tale about two people who, though very different, find one another strangely fascinating. The film has a second act in which Jean-Louis falls in love with a Catholic woman; this section reconnects with the first in some surprising ways that reinterpret what we have seen before while reiterating and deepening the film’s main concerns. Altogether an excellent film.
*
I haven’t seen many film noir on par with Out of the Past (1947). Robert Mitchum plays a man trying to start again, but his past life of crime will not let him be, and he is forced back into that world in a final effort to escape. Mitchum is weary, imperturbable, and sometimes inscrutable, such that when the plot warms up we cannot be entirely sure his crossings are not double-crossings. Much the same could be said of the excellent femme fatale character, played by Jane Greer. It’s a film in which the men are as tough as you’d expect, the women are as beautiful as you’d hope, but people aren’t always who and what they seem to be.
Dialogue in film noir is often darkly witty, but I can’t think of a single film that surpasses this one in that respect. (Roger Ebert’s review gives some examples, and they could be multiplied.) The director is Jacques Tourneur, who also made Cat People, a superior film of the creepy sort. In any case, with an abundance of trench-coats and cigarettes, and style to burn, Out of the Past is highly recommendable.
*
In the contest for least-inspired movie title, one could hardly do better, or rather worse, than Personal Shopper (2016), but that blandness is a disservice to an involving film that never does what we expect, becomes more puzzling and fascinating as it proceeds, and concludes by increasing rather than resolving the tension it generates. The film is centred on Maureen, an American living in Paris, who is mourning the recent death of her brother, and, more than just mourning, is waiting for him to send her a sign from beyond the grave. He had been a medium of some talent, and Maureen believes that she has this gift too. And she does have experiences that could be, perhaps, signs, but are hard to interpret. The film gradually — too gradually for some, perhaps — builds toward a crisis in which something very dramatic occurs, although just what is hard to say. Like those messages Maureen seeks, the film, too, is hard to interpret.
I watched Personal Shopper twice this year, separated by several months, because I wanted to give my first enthusiasm for it a chance to wane before another sober viewing. On second acquaintance I am less convinced it holds together. Most vexing is that there does not seem to be any one interpretation of the film’s final half-hour that makes sense of all we are shown. Nonetheless, the film’s quiet exploration of desire and loneliness, underpinned by an excellent low-key performance by Kristen Stewart in the lead role, coupled with intriguing plot developments that had me watching and re-watching certain scenes with great attention, made it for me one of the more fascinating film experiences of the year.
*
It has been a decade since a Paul Thomas Anderson film won my admiration, but Phantom Thread (2017) did the trick. Anderson seems to have gradually left behind the Dionysian freedom of his early films in favour of something more controlled and subdued, and Phantom Thread is positively Apollonian in construction, classic in every respect, from its elegant camera work to its beautiful sets and costumes and masterclass acting. Within that graceful framework, however, he has given us a pretty bizarre tale.
The story is that of an artist — Reynolds Woodcock, a dress designer in London in the 1950s — and his muse, Alma, a younger woman whom he meets when she waits on his table one morning in a hotel. Reynolds has been through this before, typically retaining his young women until their value as a muse wears off. But Alma is different; initially overwhelmed by the glamour of the life into which she has been spirited, she cannily finds a way to make a place for herself. The film is very much a study of the complicated relationship that develops between these two.
Thus far the story sounds like one we’ve heard before, more or less, but Anderson has a way of taking his films where we do not expect them to go, and the final act of Phantom Thread strays well outside established conventions. Anderson has prepared the ground quite carefully, but subtly enough that I missed it on first viewing. As the film drew to a close I actually began to wonder — if you know PTA’s other films — whether Alma was going to drink a milkshake.
If the terminus of the story arc sits rather uncomfortably on my mind, the rest of Phantom Thread is of the purest and most luxuriant filmcraft. Daniel Day-Lewis, who gave one of the greatest film performances known to me in Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, gives a very different but, I am tempted to say, comparably impressive performance as Woodcock, a man of fastidious habits and sensitive temper into whom Day-Lewis disappears. That Vicky Krieps, as Alma, can hold the screen with him is high praise. There is a delightful vein of understated humour running through the film that adds sparkle, and everything about the production and direction is the work of a master.
*
I saw two good films this year with titles beginning A Quiet P. One was the thrilling blockbuster sci-fi alien invasion disability farm family pregnancy drama A Quiet Place, which caused me to carefully check all the staircases in my house for a particular hazard. The other was A Quiet Passion (2016), about an unlikely cinematic subject: Emily Dickinson.
To make a film on the life of a poet seems a daunting challenge; the cinematic potential of a woman sitting at a desk, pen in hand, are limited. But of course Emily Dickinson was a woman like other women, with a family, and views on religion and society, and the dramatic possibilities to be drawn from a network of close relationships between articulate speakers gathered in a sitting room are, as we have learned from Jane Austen, rich and delightful, and A Quiet Passion makes much of its slender material.
(Speaking of Austen, by a peculiarity of the casting — in particular, by having Jennifer Ehle play the handsome second sister — I was continually tempted to conflate this story with the famous Pride and Prejudice adaptation! In this parallel universe, our poet appears in the role of Jane, the slightly homely, taller, thinner sister who has a harder time in social circles. Never had I suspected that Jane was a poet! Sadly Mr Darcy makes no appearance, having drowned, perhaps, in the pond.)
The oddest thing about A Quiet Passion is the dialogue. In the first half or two-thirds, dialogue consisted largely of aphorisms, as though everybody was choosing lines from an Oscar Wilde anthology. Quite stagey. Strangely, this effect seemed to dwindle as the film progressed.
As much as I enjoyed the story, and I did, for me the principal attraction of this film was the direction. It is my first Terence Davies film, and I am now very interested in seeing others. The direction is careful, with slow pans and beautiful compositions, and transitions are managed elegantly. I had the impression that Davies is a superb craftsman.
*
Every year since 2011 I have named Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011) as my favourite film of the year. (Readers interested in why I love it might read this.) This year I watched it again, of course, but with a difference: a new, extended version of the film was released. The extended version adds about 45 minutes to the original 140 minutes, so it is a substantial augmentation.
Most sections of the film have been altered to some extent, sometimes just by brief insert shots. The most substantial changes are twofold: first, to the scenes with the adult Jack (Sean Penn), which are fleshed out and expanded from the modest material in the original version, and, second, to the long central section of the film devoted to life in the O’Brien’s household. To this section, which has always been the heart of the film, new story elements are introduced, including a dramatic storm sequence, and a new and quite upsetting plot development. The overall effect is to enrich the portrait of this family, deepening our appreciation of them. By giving this (fairly) traditionally narrative section of the film more weight, the new film has its feet planted more firmly on the ground than did the earlier, more enigmatic version. Something is gained, but also lost. And the new version clocks in at more than three hours; I don’t know how it is where you live, but for me it is hard to find three uninterrupted hours to do anything.
So, in the end, I’m not sure which version I prefer. My resolution, for future viewings, is to alternate until such time as one version wins my heart. In the meantime, The Tree of Life, Extended Version was my favourite film of the year.
*
The joys and pitfalls of young love are the theme of Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Shot in retro black and white, it tells the story of two young French lovers whose romance is interrupted by war but nonetheless continues to overshadow their lives. It is a beautiful but bittersweet film that just might break your heart in the end. Part of its beauty is its special conceit: it is entirely sung. There are no ‘big numbers’, just a steady stream of through-composed music that floats the film from its first scene to its last, with the singing a kind of heightened speech. Be careful, though: your jazz allergy may act up.
**
I have listed ten films. Most were easy to choose; a few were difficult on account of competition from other good films. Those that missed my list this year, and might have made it were my mood swings more erratic, were The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), La Fille inconnue (2016), Paper Moon (1973), and Top Hat (1935).
***
Best superhero film: Wonder Woman (2017), the greatest wonder of which was that it included a battle between two invincible characters that was not dull as dirt.
Best action film: American Made (2017), if it is properly called an action film.
Best musical: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).
Best animated: The Hobbit (1977), a weirdly folkadelic take on Tolkien’s tale that nonetheless managed to capture some of the childlike spirit of the book.
Best filmed stage performance: Romeo and Juliet, from the Globe Theatre; the best production of this play that I have seen, for stage or screen.
Started, but not finished: My Winnipeg (2007), in which my fledgling interest in Canadian cinema came to a sad end.
Watched, but not remembered: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); All About Eve (1950); The Assassin (2015).
Watched again: The Princess Bride (1987); When Harry Met Sally… (1989); The New World (2005).
Film rescued by a single scene: Paris, Texas (1984).
Film rescued by a single character: Cool Hand Luke (1967).
Disappointments: A Brighter Summer Day (1991), A Fish Called Wanda (1988).
Shortest films: Simon of the Desert (1965) [45m]; Steamboat Bill, Jr (1928) [1h10m]; Le Monde vivant (2003) [1h10m]
Longest films: A Brighter Summer Day (1991) [3h57m]; Ex Libris (2017) [3h25m]; Spartacus (1960) [3h17m].
Oldest films: The Great White Silence (1924); Steamboat Bill, Jr (1928); Pandora’s Box (1929).
Newest films: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Nov); Mission Impossible: Fallout (July); A Quiet Place (April).
Reges Tharsis et insulae munera offerent,
reges Arabum et Saba dona (Domino Deo) adducent.
Et adorabunt eum omnes reges terrae,
omnes gentes servient ei.
The kings of Tarshish and the islands will offer tribute,
the Kings of Arabia will bring gifts to the Lord God;
And all kings will adore him,
and all nations will serve Him.
I had another great year of listening to music, and I’ve selected, from the many that I enjoyed, ten recordings that I found particularly excellent. I’ll review them in rough chronological order, moving from medieval to modern.
***
Boethius: Songs of Consolation
Sequentia
(Glossa, 2018)
Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy has for centuries been read with profit, but would it not, like most things, be even better if sung? Several dozen poems are sprinkled through the text, and there actually is manuscript evidence from the ninth to the twelfth centuries that these poems were sometimes converted into songs. A Cambridge scholar, Sam Barrett, working with the musicians of Sequentia, with their many years of experience in early medieval song, have here attempted to reconstruct those songs, or at least, as the liner notes say, “to arrive at realisations informed by both scholarly insight and practical experience,” which is an admirably modest way of putting it. There is necessarily some guesswork involved, and I am not in a position to judge the merit of the scholarly argument. All I can say is that I have greatly enjoyed listening to the results. Here is a video describing the process the scholars and musicians went through, with some performance excerpts as well; it is well worth watching, as the disc is well worth hearing, not only for the music, if I can put it that way, but also for the novelty and interest of the project. Early music is so often a blend of scholarship and musicianship, and this is early music at its best.
**
En seumeillant
Dreams and Visions of the Middle Ages
Sollazzo Ensemble
(Ambronay, 2018)
The Sollazzo Ensemble was founded in 2014, in Basel, and now has two recordings to its credit, both tremendously good. This disc, bearing a nearly unspellable title (try it!), is built around the theme of “reveries, fantasies, trances, visions, [and] nightmares”. The music is fascinating: the group reconstructs, from medieval descriptions, a “discordant litany” in which a plainchant melody is harmonized dissonantly; they sing an apocalyptic “Song of the Sibyl” that was, for centuries, sung in Catholic churches during Advent; we get a Florentine lauda, which would have been sung in procession through the streets of the city; and we hear a simply splendid performance of the oft-recorded but ne’er-tamed Fumeux fume, which, if it was not actually inspired by a hallucinogen, might serve as one. This is fantastically difficult and intricate music, often, and just as often exceptionally beautiful and alluring. The Sollazzo Ensemble seems to have absorbed the refined idiom of this music into their bones.
**
Ockeghem & La Rue: Requiems
Diabolus in Musica, Antoine Guerber
(Bayard, 2018)
About 25 years ago Ensemble Organum made a recording of Ockeghem’s Requiem that was like nothing on earth: a big, bass-heavy sound, wild dynamics, and pervasive ornamentation of the vocal lines gave the piece, which can sound polite when done in the best English choral tradition, an alien cast. It was glorious — radical, yes, but defensible, because the truth is that we don’t really know what this music sounded like at the time it was written; the notated sources only tell us so much.
This new disc of Ockeghem’s Requiem from Diabolus in Musica seems, to my ears, to have that earlier recording in mind. It is sung, as before, by an all-male choir, giving it a rich, visceral sound, and the style is craggy rather than smooth, as though great blocks of sound, like tectonic plates, are moving around. It is not as radical as Ensemble Organum’s version of the piece, but is still very much off the beaten track. I confess I love it. They give the same treatment to Pierre de la Rue’s Requiem, a piece that I do not know nearly as well, and it sounds terrific too.
**
Antoine de Févin: Masses and Motets
The Brabant Ensemble, Stephen Rice
(Hyperion, 2018)
Everyone has their short list of favourites when it comes to medieval and Renaissance polyphony; yours, like mine, probably includes Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame, Ockeghem’s Requiem, Byrd’s Ave verum corpus, and the entire surviving corpus of Benedictus Appenzeller, but at the top of my heap sits Josquin’s gorgeous motet Ave Maria … Virgo serena. I’ve never sung it for an audience, but I’ve frequently sung it in the privacy of my car, or late at night, muffled, into a pillow, and I know it pretty well. Imagine my delight, therefore, to discover that Antoine de Févin, a little-known French composer active around 1500, wrote an entire Mass, his Missa Ave Maria, in which the music is based on Josquin’s motet. This practice, of basing a Mass setting on pre-existing music, was common at the time; Masses were written based on chant fragments (as in Josquin’s famous Missa pange lingua, for instance) or on popular songs (as in the rash of Masses based on the song “L’homme armé'”) or on pieces written by other composers, and Févin’s Mass falls into the latter category. What is special about it is simply that it is based on a piece that I particularly love. It is wonderful to hear Josquin’s original music adapted to its new setting, like seeing a familiar picture turned to a new perspective and recoloured. I have a new appreciation for the art involved in writing these homage Masses, and I think no single piece of music has given me greater pleasure this year.
**
Bach: Magnificat
Handel: Dixit Dominus
Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier
(Alpha, 2017)
From the Belgian group Vox Luminis come marvellous performances of two Baroque masterpieces: Bach’s Magnificat and Handel’s Dixit Dominus. Vox Luminis has been going from strength to strength in recent years, making a series of excellent discs of early music, and being justly showered with praise — including having Gramophone magazine’s “Recording of the Year” honours bestowed upon them. There is a luxurious quality to their music-making; they have an unusually rich sonority, both instrumentally and vocally, that gives nice body to these two joyful works. I am especially impressed by Dixit Dominus, which I’ve never heard done better.
**
Life
Igor Levit
(Sony, 2018)
The programme on Life is one Igor Levit crafted in response to the sudden death of a friend, and consists mainly of melancholy, quiet pieces expressing, naturally enough, his sorrow. We get some old chestnuts: Liszt’s transcription of Isolde’s Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and of the solemn march from Parsifal, Brahms’ left-hand transcription of Bach’s mighty Chaconne, and Schumann’s Ghost Variations. But there are also some rarities, like Busoni’s Fantasia after Bach, and some pieces entirely new to me, such as a substantial excerpt from Frederic Rzewski’s Dreams and, most notably, a half-hour-long transcription of an organ piece by Liszt (!). The recital closes with a meditative piece by Bill Evans, the jazz pianist, and even this does not ruin it. Some of this music might not be of the very highest quality, but it works together well as a programme, and the playing is simply magnificent. Levit’s playing seems to come from a place of profound stillness and attention. He is a very wonderful pianist indeed.
There’s more!
**
Mahler: Symphony No.6
Teodor Currentzis; MusicAeterna
(Sony, 2018)
It has been a long time since a disc of orchestral music has thrilled me as has Teodor Currentzis and MusicAeterna’s recent recording of Mahler’s Symphony No.6. I praised Currentzis last year for his way with Mozart, and the same passion and intensity are all over this Mahler recording. The opening march rhythm, which usually puts me in mind of an army on the move, here becomes the tread of an army of ferocious beasts, snarling and snapping, and this intensity continues through essentially the entire work. What is amazing is that Currentzis has been able to amp up the music, infuse it with quivering excitement, without also flattening it out. It is as though he went over every phrase, every bar, and thought about orchestral colour and balance, and found a way to clarify the texture while simultaneously amplifying weight and presence. Certainly I have heard details on this recording, especially from the low strings, that I have never heard before. It’s magnificent.
In fact, I’ve enjoyed it so much that I have begun to second-guess myself. Currentzis is an iconoclast. His orchestra goes to 11. My worry is that perhaps I am being seduced by a debased aesthetic: orchestral music for rock ‘n’ rollers, which is to the main tradition as Charles Atlas is to you and me — basically the same, but exaggerated. I am also a little wary of the unusual vividness and clarity of the sound: is this really the sound of an orchestra, or a sound collage made possible by close-micing and a sound board? I’m not sure, nor do I know what to make of my aesthetic concerns. I suppose that I will just keep listening, and trust my judgment. In fact, I think I’ll put it on again now.
**
Stravinsky: Music for violin, Vols 1-2
Ilya Gringolts, Peter Laul
(BIS; 2017, 2018)
I’m cheating a bit by grouping together two discs. The first volume narrowly missed making my year-end list last year; this year, in combination with the fine second volume, it makes the cut easily. Ilya Gringolts, accompanied by Peter Laul, tackles the music Stravinsky wrote for violin and piano. I recall that Robert Craft, Stravinsky’s amanuensis, once said that all of Stravinsky’s music is happy music, and that judgment is borne out by this collection, which is unfailingly delightful and interesting. Many of these pieces are minor, mere chips from the workman’s bench, but Stravinsky’s imagination did not run in dull channels. Some of the pieces are arrangements of his ballet music (including excerpts from The Firebird, Petrushka, and the “Suite Italienne” from Pulcinella). Gringolts plays them with poise and wit, which is exactly what they need, and he has superb sound.
The major work (appearing on Vol.2) is the Violin Concerto, surely the most amiable violin concerto of the twentieth century. Everybody and his dog have recorded it. Gringolts, supported by Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, does not, perhaps, give us a performance for the ages, but it’s a creditable, perfectly fine performance that I have enjoyed. It sits somewhat awkwardly alongside the smaller-scale chamber works that otherwise fill the discs.
**
Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus
Jean-Rodolphe Kars
(Piano Classics, 2017)
I have in my collection several recordings of Messiaen’s feature-film-length piano masterpiece Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus, surely the least catchy Christmas-themed music ever written — but wonderful music all the same. I might not have heard this one but for a laudatory review from a reputable source, and then another, and another. The recording has an interesting background story: the pianist, Jean-Rodolphe Kars, calls Messiaen his spiritual father, and in fact converted to Catholicism shortly after the recording was made. He then entered the seminary, and has served as a priest in France ever since.
That interesting story would be little more were it not matched by artistry of a high order, but it is. There is a wonderful spaciousness to Kars’ playing; Messiaen’s music can be extremely complex and multifaceted, but never sounds hectic or laboured in Kars’ hands. The claim that one can hear the difference between a world-class pianist who plays with devotion and one who merely plays as if with devotion is probably false, but nonetheless over the course of this long concert Kars’ musicality does cast a contemplative spell over the listener that I, at least, have not experienced with other pianists. This recording, made live before an Amsterdam audience in 1976 and reissued in 2017, is now my first-choice for this music.
**
Schnittke: Psalms of Repentance
Pärt: Magnificat and Nunc dimittis
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Kaspars Putnins
(BIS, 2018)
Several years ago I highlighted a recording of Schnittke’s Psalms of Repentance that, to my ears, wasn’t quite up to the expressive standards set by my reference version of this work, but that had superior sound and therefore a claim to serious consideration. In 2018 we got this new recording that takes the palm in both the artistic and technical categories, and therefore becomes the obvious first choice for a recording of a work that, I would argue, belongs on a short list of the greatest choral works of the 20th century. It’s a harrowing piece in some ways, the music an often thorny and agonized stew of dissonances, but it is very beautiful in its way, without gimmickery or self-indulgence. It is music that I love, and it is given here, by one of the world’s best choirs, the performance of a lifetime. After those haunting sounds, it is sweet relief to fall into the still pool that is the music of Arvo Pärt, Schnittke’s contemporary, fellow subject of Soviet power, and fellow convert to Christianity. Pärt’s Magnificat and Nunc dimittis have been recorded many times, including previous recordings by this choir, but he has rarely sounded better. This is my record of the year.
***
Addendum on popular music
The big box of outtakes from Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks sessions brought me great pleasure this year, but is not something I’m likely to listen to very many times, if only because it takes so long to get through it. My favourite new album this year was Sam Phillips’ World on Sticks; I usually find her characteristic combination of flint-dry voice, precise manner, and enigmatic lyrics beguiling, and this new record is no exception.
I have an appetite for melancholy in song, and this year I grew fat and juicy feeding on Patty Griffin’s “Rain”, from her 2002 record 1000 Kisses.
Oh Patty, where have you been all my life?
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All Manner of Thing 
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