Three Films

I seem to go to the cinema quite rarely these days. I see the big Marvel films like 'Black Panther' and 'Avengers: Infinity War' but that tends to be about it. So it was quite a surprise to find myself seeing three films in three weeks about three people.

'The Happy Prince' is the culmination of Rupert Everett's love affair with Oscar Wilde and tells the tale of what happened to Wilde after he was released from Reading prison and went to live in exile on the Continent. I saw Rupert Everett play Wilde in 'The Judas Kiss' a few years ago and that production apparently helped to get this film off the ground. With all the production agencies, producers and assistant producers in the credits at the end, he's obviously put in a lot of work to raise the finance to get the film made.

Rupert not only plays Wilde but he also wrote and directed the film, clearly a labour of love. The film took a little while to get going but it was worth it and I loved bookending various episodes in Wilde's life  by him telling the story of 'The Happy Prince' to a couple of street urchins.

'McQueen' is a documentary about the short life of Alexander McQueen and his rise to prominence in the fashion world before his death at the age of 40. The film is a thing of beauty in itself, very elegant and measured. There is lots of footage from the time as British fashion took off in the '90s, with clips of Isabella Blow and others who were all at the centre of it with McQueen.

There was also footage of some of his spectacular fashion shows and a gob-smacking moment when robots open fire with paint onto a beautiful, pristine white dress the model is wearing. That was a wow moment and I preferred the dress after the paint job (such clever robots). The thing that was missing for me was the lack of explanation or exploration of what went wrong to rob him of his joy - drugs are mentioned and there's footage of McQueen speaking about cocaine, but nothing about what set him off on that path. The film ends with his suicide the night before his mother's funeral - all that creativity snuffed out by success and money. If you get a chance to see the film then please do so, it's well worth seeing and is beautiful in its own right.

'Carrington' is a film from the '90s about the artist Dora Carrington and her love for Lytton Stratchy. That puts her into the Bloomsbury group of artists. She was a star pupil at the Slade School of Art before the First World War alongside Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash and others. She wasn't bothered about exhibiting her work, she painted because she wanted to paint for herself and for Lytton and that's probably why she isn't more well known. The film was screened as a one-off at the National Gallery.

Carrington is played by Emma Thompson and Lytton by Jonathan Pryce and it's a strange and touching tale of their platonic and deep love for each other, having their own lovers but always coming back to each other and sharing their joys, tears and lives. It ends with Carrington's suicide after Lytton dies.

Three films about three people, all artists, all dead while still young (Wilde was 46, McQueen was 40 and Carrington was 39) and all have left their own legacy. There's currently a year-long season of Oscar Wilde plays in the West End, the V&A put on the big exhibition about Alexander McQueen a couple of years ago so what we need is a big exhibition of Carrington's works. She was prominent in 'The Crisis of Brilliance' exhibition a few years ago but it's time for a proper retrospective exhibition - yes, Tate Britain, I'm looking at you.

'Queer British Art 1861 - 1967' at Tate Britain

I popped into the Tate and headed to the new 'Queer British Art' exhibition, not really knowing what I'd find there. The dates for the exhibition are quite specific since 1861 was when the death penalty was repealed for sodomy and 1967 was the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain. I was a bit surprised to walk into the first room that was full of Victorian and pre-Raphael-lite paintings in big frames and a statue by Frederick Leighton RA. It was also the start of my confusion about what the exhibition was about. Perhaps the important thing is that it made me think?

Is this an exhibition about queer artists and their work (queer and otherwise in theme)? pictures of queer artists across the arts? Or... something else? There's the portrait of Lytton Strachey with his long fingers by Dora Carrington, a lovely and loving portrait of a gay man by a sometimes bisexual woman who loved him but why is it in this exhibition? There's nothing sexual in any way about the portrait other than the artist and subject are both sort of gay. But I don't see this as a 'gay' painting, I see it as a great portrait and as a letter of love between the artist and the sitter.

Then there are Duncan Grant's definite and defiantly sexual drawings of men together - he was gay and the subject is gay so they qualify, right? Then we have Leighton's naked young men in classical poses that are described as homoerotic but they looked like any other Victorian 'classical' stuff to me. It was fashionable and sold well so why does that make Leighton a 'queer' artist, particularly when he was known to be keeping his main female models in comfort? Or is the theory now that they his 'beards'? I suspect that Leighton's contemporary Alma-Tadema did more male nudes but he's not included in the exhibition.

A further room is the 'theatrical' room full of early photos and drawings of theatrical types from the Victorian and Edwardian eras up to a lovely photo of Danny La Rue. This, again, seems to suggest that the exhibition is about LGBT people rather than anything else. And the tempo changes again an in the 'Bloomsbury room'. I think I need to go back to see this exhibition again and see it with fresh eyes. What am I supposed to be seeing here and does it matter? Perhaps I'm over-thinking this and should see this as a exhibition about social change rather than an investigation into how 'queer art' might be different to 'straight' art.

I think my favourite paintings were the portraits such as Carrington's portrait of Lytton Strachey and William Strang's portrait of Vita Sackville-West called Lady With A Red Hat'. I've seen reproductions of this painting before but never seen the real thing in all it's rich gorgeousness of colour.  It's a really striking image fun of primary colours with Vita holding a pose. The red of the hat reflected in the red of the book and her green jacket and yellow skirt. The plain background really pulls the eye to her face, trapped between jacket and hat.  She's clearly going out to lunch and wants to read some of the poems in the book to her friends but has just stopped by for a quick portrait. Posing hasn't become a bore just yet but it soon will and the eyes will become steely.

I also really liked the portrait of Dame Edith Sitwell by Alvaro Guevara, full of colours with the rugs and her rich dress. It's a bit of an odd portrait that made me take a second glance.

I also liked the portrait of Joe Orton by Lewis Morley after his Christine Keeler photos. So, here we have a gay man imitating the pose of a women and what does this tell us about queer art? Is Orton just saying 'look at me, I'm as pretty as Keeler in my own way'? or is he just having a bit of fun. I suspect the latter.

I think one of the most 'queer' works on display (other than Duncan Grant's erotic drawings) was this painting by Henry Scott Tuke. At one level it's just a couple of young men chatting on a beach while their friend, or possibly a stranger, swims in the bay. Lovely sun-dappled skin and sea, a shingle beach and the lads full of life. One is naked so has possibly just come back from swimming or is about to plunge in. And then you notice the title is 'The Critics' and thats a train of other thoughts. What are they criticising? They're both looking at their possible friend in the sea so it seems like they're judging him in some way, maybe assessing their chances of a liaison with him and whether he'd be up for it? There were other paintings in similar vein by Tuke but I think this was my favourite.

It's an interesting exhibition despite confusing me as to what it was meant to be about. The main thing is that it made me think and that's a good thing.