INSPIRATION: ART & DESIGN

INSPIRATION: ART & DESIGN

I love the style of Andy Dixon’s paintings, the pinks, the blues and greens. It’s such an interesting concept to paint a room in which your own work hangs..

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/andy-dixon-alchemy-art-301018

FILM 1798: DUNKIRK

FILM 1798: DUNKIRK

TRIVIA: According to actor-director Kenneth Branagh, roughly 30 Dunkirk survivors, who were in their mid-90s, attended the premiere in London. When asked about the film, they felt that it accurately captured the event but that the soundtrack was louder than the actual bombardment, a comment that greatly amused director Christopher Nolan.

Christopher Nolan, along with his wife Emma Thomas and a friend, made the crossing from England to Dunkirk on a boat, the way the civilians would have done during the original evacuation. Nolan said it took 19 hours because of sea conditions.

After first-hand accounts of the Dunkirk evacuation revealed to Christopher Nolan how young and inexperienced the soldiers were, he decided to cast young and unknown actors for the beach setting.

Director Christopher Nolan rode in the Spitfire shown in the movie in order to get a sense of the aerial feel of the fighter plane, and to help him shoot and provide a realistic experience of the dogfights.

Told from three points of view: on the beach with the infantry (including Fionn Whiteheadand Harry Styles), the evacuation by the navy (featuring Cillian Murphy and Mark Rylance, showing how civilians came to the rescue) and then in the air (with Tom Hardyengaging in plane combat). Speaking about the narrative structure in "Premiere" magazine, Christopher Nolan stated: "For the soldiers who embarked in the conflict, the events took place on different temporalities. On land, some stayed one week stuck on the beach. On the water, the events lasted a maximum day; and if you were flying to Dunkirk, the British Spitfires would carry an hour of fuel. To mingle these different versions of history, one had to mix the temporal strata. Hence the complicated structure; even if the story is very simple. Do not repeat it to the studio: it will be my most experimental film."

The ticking sounds that serve as a crucial theme on the film's score were recorded by composer Hans Zimmer from one of director Christopher Nolan's own pocket watches. He then put the sounds into synthesizers and altered them in different ways for the soundtrack.

Charles Lightoller, the most senior surviving officer of the RMS Titanic, participated in the Dunkirk evacuation with his private motor yacht, "The Sundowner". The craft has been preserved by the Ramsgate Maritime Museum in England.

Dunkirk (2017) is the seventh film between Christopher Nolan and Michael Caine after Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Interstellar (2014). Caine appears in an uncredited voice cameo (he's the voice on the radio talking to a Royal Air Force officer early in the film) . Caine previously portrayed a Royal Air Force officer in the movie Battle of Britain.

The scene in which Tom Hardy's character's Spitfire lands on Dunkirk beach was real; done on location with an actual Spitfire in flight, and was the first time a plane landed on that beach since 1940. After the scene was completed, however, the Spitfire became stuck in the sand. There was subsequently a frantic rush to get the valuable Spitfire out off the beach before the incoming tides could damage it.

The film was shot on the actual beach at Dunkirk where the evacuation took place. When scouting for the film, director Christopher Nolan found a button from an English soldier's uniform in the sand.

BOOK 157: MOBY DICK: HERMAN MELVILLE

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851 during the period of the American Renaissance. Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler the Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale which on the previous whaling voyage destroyed his ship and severed his leg at the knee. The novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891, but during the 20th century, its reputation as a Great American Novel was established. William Faulkner confessed he wished he had written it himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world", and "the greatest book of the sea ever written".

"Call me Ishmael" is among world literature's most famous opening sentences.

Dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius", the work was first published as The Whale in London in October 1851, and under its definitive title in New York in November. Hundreds of differences, mostly slight and some important, are seen between the two editions. The London publisher censored or changed sensitive passages and Melville made revisions, as well, including the last-minute change in the title for the New York edition. The whale, however, appears in both editions as "Moby Dick", with no hyphen. About 3,200 copies were sold during the author's life.

The novel has been adapted or represented in art, film, books, cartoons, television, and more than a dozen versions in comic-book format. The first adaptation was the 1926 silent movie The Sea Beast, starring John Barrymore, in which Ahab kills the whale and returns to marry his fiancée. The most famous adaptation was the John Huston 1956 film produced from a screenplay by author Ray Bradbury. The long list of adaptations, as Bryant and Springer put it, demonstrates that "the iconic image of an angry embittered American slaying a mythic beast seemed to capture the popular imagination", showing how "different readers in different periods of popular culture have rewritten Moby-Dick" to make it a "true cultural icon".

Sorry, I haven’t been posting recently; I’ve been on holiday for two weeks.  For my, wait for it.. 30^th birthday present, my parents paid for me to go to New York. And then off on a cruise to Boston and Portland in America, and St. Johns and Halifax in Canada.

FILM 1251: FITZCARRALDO

TRIVIA: A real 340-ton steamship was moved over the mountain with a bulldozer, without the use of special effects.

Klaus Kinski was a major source of tension on set, as he fought virulently with the crew and raged over trivial matters. The natives where very upset about his behavior. Herzog has claimed that it went so far that one of the chieftains offered, in all seriousness, to murder Kinski for Herzog.

Based on a true story. Carlos Fermin Fitzcarrald was a Peruvian rubber baron, the son of an Irish-American father and a Peruvian mother, who developed the Madre de Dios basin by portaging a ship overland. It was disassembled, however, not moved intact. The rivers connected by the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald are the Rio Mishagua and Rio Manu; the Ucayali was part of the downstream shipping route. Fitzcarrald died at age 35 when his ship sank.

Was shot in English, since many of the actors on the set couldn't speak German.

Jack Nicholson was originally set to star, but left the production.

Another successful lady date to Crystal Palace and Greenwich