The Sales Speech in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

David Mamet’s two-act play, Glengarry Glen Ross, was first staged in 1983, and won the Pulitzer Prize, remaining something of a classic of contemporary theatre. It was adapted for film in 1992, by Mamet himself, and it is almost a word-for-word transcription of the play, with the one exception being this: the most famous, most quoted, and most popular scene of the movie, which is the subject of this blog, didn’t exist in the play but was written apparently to bulk out the piece to film length.

In creating the scene, Mamet arguably sets the tone for the entire movie. The movie features the pressured lives of real estate salesmen played by Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin, struggling to close deals in this toughest of tough rackets, and about to receive a visit from Blake (Alec Baldwin), the motivational speaker from Hell, who has been sent from “downtown” to read the riot act. It’s excruciating stuff; it takes a while to dawn on the salesmen just how tough this grilling is going to be (“Put that coffee down. Coffee’s for closers only…”) and we grimace at the ritual disembowelling of the poor men (“You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?”).

Edifying it ain’t, but nonetheless it’s an acting masterclass from all concerned: Baldwin dishing out the flak; Lemmon like a rabbit in the headlights; Harris initially derisive and sceptical but then brow-beaten and forced to endure the spiel; Arkin submissive, silent. We can see and hear from the windows that outside is dark and the rain torrential; inside, the office is shabby and bleak and Blake is an unrelenting and pitiless tormentor. Now imagine you’ve just been told that you’re fighting to save your job in this month’s sales contest, in which first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize is a set of steak knives, and third prize is “You’re fired”. It’s stark, to say the least. You wouldn’t want to be in this game…

But hey, you’re not in this game – so sit back, relax, and enjoy not being on the receiving end of this verbal maceration and instead observe the equal measures of bravado and human frailty exhibited in this wonderfully uncomfortable performance by some great American actors.

Alec Baldwin

 

 

Claude Monet exhibits Impression, Sunrise (1874)

In 1872, Claude Monet visited his hometown of Le Havre in the north west of France and proceeded to paint six canvases depicting the port “during dawn, day, dusk, and dark and from varying viewpoints, some from the water itself and others from a hotel room looking down over the port“. One painting from this series was to become very famous.

Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise) was debuted in April 1874 in Paris at an independent exhibition launched as an alternative to the official Salon de Paris exhibitions of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The exhibition, by a group calling itself the “Société Anonyme des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs etc” was led by Monet, along with other such future luminaries as Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. Two hundred works were shown and about 4,000 people attended, including, of course, some rather unsympathetic critics.

Monet described how he came up with a title for the painting: “They asked me for a title for the catalogue…it couldn’t really be taken for a view of Le Havre, so I said: ‘Put Impression’“. While this title was apparently chosen in haste for the catalogue, the term “Impressionism” was not new. It had been used for some time to describe the effect of some of the naturalistic paintings emanating from the so-called Barbizon school of painters. However, it was in critic Louis Leroy’s review of the 1874 exhibition, “The Exhibition of the Impressionists”, for the newspaper Le Charivari, that he used “Impressionism” to describe this new style of work displayed, and he said it was typified by Monet’s painting.

This term, then, initially used to both describe and deprecate a movement, was taken up by all parties to describe the style, and Monet’s Impression, Sunrise was thus considered to have encapsulated the start of the movement. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

 

Claude Monet

Luciano Pavarotti sings Nessun Dorma (1994)

To opera buffs, Nessun Dorma has always been one of the great arias, but my, how the song’s profile was raised by its use as the theme song to the 1990 World Cup. That new audience, numbering in the scores of millions, associated the piece inextricably with the one voice, that of Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti. Many artists have recorded their own versions of the song – before and since – but it’s Pavarotti who is generally credited with performing the ultimate version of this song. The performance I embed below, from a show in Paris in 1994, shows exactly why it’s a justified claim. Pavarotti delivers an emotionally charged and hauntingly beautiful piece of musical theatre. Check out the emotion on his face at around the 2.40 to 2.50 mark.

Incidentally, for me, Nessun Dorma does not benefit from an English translation or an understanding of the song’s contextual meaning in Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot (though it concerns a prince, Calaf, and his attempts to win the hand of Princess Turandot), so I prefer to preserve its enigmatic majesty by ignoring its meaning and just letting it be. It’s truly powerful on its own.

Back in 2009, a few days after my mum’s funeral, my family and I, after a visit up to Blyth and on our way back, called into Durham Cathedral, significant for my mum’s stonemason dad having worked on this fine building. It turned out that it happened to be the day before Bobby Robson’s memorial service, and they were rehearsing for it as we arrived. Unsurprisingly, Nessun Dorma had been chosen to be a part of the memorial service (performed I believe, by vocal trio, Tenors Unlimited). Thus, in one of the world’s great cathedrals, and still raw from my bereavement, I heard the resounding strains of Nessun Dorma. An unforgettable moment.

Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, oh Principessa
Nella tua fredda stanza
Guardi le stelle che tremano
D’amore e di speranza

Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me
Il nome mio nessun saprà
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò
Quando la luce splenderà
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà
Il silenzio che ti fa mia

(ll nome suo nessun saprà
E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir, morir)

Dilegua, oh notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle!
All’alba vincerò!
Vincerà!
Vincerò!

Luciano Pavarotti 2000

Julie Walters in Victoria Wood’s sketch, Two Soups (1986)

Victoria Wood’s collaborations with Julie Walters over the years spawned many a rich reward. Wood’s wit produced great ideas for characters, and Walters’ instinctive comic timing and gift for nuanced physical comedy brilliantly brought those characters to life. The series of sketches around Acorn Antiques, for example, provided the ideal showcase for Walters to ham it up as the glorious character that was Mrs Overall, or more accurately, the gloriously inept actress that played the character in this send-up of low-budget, shoddily performed, daytime soap opera.

The showcase I have selected for this blog, however, is the sketch, Waitress (popularly known as Two Soups), in which Walters plays an elderly, deaf, shaky, and painfully slow waitress, serving a couple who are only too aware one of them has a train to catch and simply want a quick meal. This simple premise, replete with possibilities for that typically British comedy of frustration, is enough for Walters to take the ball and run faster and further with it than probably even Victoria Wood imagined at first.

Witness Walters’ shuffling gait, wobbly head and fixed smile – this is physical comedy of the first order, and we’re laughing before she opens her mouth. With her bad memory and dangerously maladroit handling of the crockery, this unfit-for-purpose waitress should have hung up her apron strings years ago, but for now let’s thank the forbearance of her employer as we enjoy this infuriating but hilarious performance. Needless to say, the couple’s plans for a quick meal are thwarted.

Julie Walters

The Book of Kells (c.800)

The Book of Kells, held in Dublin’s Trinity College Library, is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament. It was created in a Columban monastery in Ireland around 800 AD, and it’s a masterwork of Western calligraphy. It represents the pinnacle of insular illumination (“insular” deriving from insula, the Latin for “island” and referring to post-Roman art of Britain and Ireland). It is also widely regarded as Ireland’s finest national treasure, and although I haven’t yet made it past the pubs of Dublin to view it, it’s definitely on the list.

The illustrations and ornamentation of the Book of Kells are exquisite. The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with ornate, swirling motifs. There are figures of humans, animals, mythical beasts, along with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colours, all scribed onto leaves of high-quality calf vellum with iron gall ink (the standard ink used in Europe, made from iron salts and tannic acid extracted from oak galls) and colours derived from a wide range of substances imported from distant lands.

The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, in County Meath, which was its home for centuries. Its exact place of origin is uncertain, although it is widely thought to have been started at Iona and then later completed in the scriptorium at Kells itself. Regardless, it’s true to say that the Columban monks responsible for its creation had skills in calligraphy honed to a remarkable degree.

John Thornton’s Great East Window at York Minster (1408)

The last time my family and I visited York, we wandered outside York Minster but our indigenous frugality (being ourselves of Yorkshire soil) baulked at the then-recently introduced admission fee of £10 to go inside. If you too visit York and find yourself in similar frugal mode, let me advise you to take a hold of yourself, with an optional shake, and remind yourself never to put filthy lucre ahead of artistic splendour. For York Minster, as well as in itself being one of the great gothic cathedrals of northern Europe, and thus replete with the resplendent architectural beauty for which such cathedrals are known, contains also the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world, including the subject of today’s blog, the Great East Window.

Some call it England’s Sistine Chapel, and indeed, had it been done in paint, instead of in glass, it might well be considered a rival to Michelangelo’s masterpiece in Rome. However, stained glass has always fallen on the wrong side of that dividing line between fine and applied art, and thus it is seen primarily as a craft. Let’s not fall for that one. The great east window in York Minster is one of the triumphant achievements of the Middle Ages: 1,690sqft of artfully executed stained glass, recounting the story of the world from Creation to Apocalypse.

It was in 1405 that John Thornton of Coventry was commissioned to glaze the east end of the Lady Chapel. A copy of Thornton’s contract for the window survives, specifying that he was to draw all the cartoons, and paint a large number of the individual panels. For all this Thornton was paid a total of £56, and contracted to complete the job inside three years. For doing so, Thornton received a £10 bonus, and proudly put the date of completion – 1408 – at the very apex of the window.

Doubtless Thornton had behind him a team of glaziers, hired locally or brought with him from Coventry, but the painting on the glass would primarily have been his. It was Thornton’s task too to turn the commissioner’s highly theological and precise concept into a work of art. And this he self-evidently did.

While much medieval glass is dominated by reds and blues, John Thornton had a penchant for yellow as his base colour. In addition, the painting in Thornton’s faces had greater realism (and meticulously drawn hair) than his rivals. The typical Thornton face is sensitive, with eyes down-turned, a small mouth and a somewhat prominent nose. What Thornton was pioneering in his glasswork was the European style – new to England – known as International Gothic. It is elegantly stylised work; for sure, the York commissioners were buying cutting edge art, and, of course, good glass can’t be made without a cutting edge.

Jack Nicholson plays Badass Buddusky in The Last Detail (1973)

Three sailors on a road trip. Two Navy lifers, portrayed by Jack Nicholson and Otis Young, are assigned to escort the hapless 18-year old recruit, Meadows (Randy Quaid), from Norfolk, Virginia, to military prison in New Hampshire, after he was caught stealing from a charity, which unfortunately for him happened to be the favourite charity of the Admiral’s wife. “Badass” Buddusky (Nicholson) and “Mule” Mulhall (Young), are given a week to carry out their duty, and initially aim to hustle Meadows to prison while keeping his per diem expenses for themselves, allowing for a bit of holiday drinking and whoring on their way back.

As the disproportionate severity of the eight-year sentence handed down to Meadows dawns upon them, Badass and Mule change their objective; now they want to show Meadows the best time of his life before he is incarcerated. Numerous shenanigans ensue, as the three eat, drink and fight their way across a naturalistic 1970s America.

Nicholson is a marvel to watch. Initially in a sour mood and underwhelmed by this “detail” that has been handed to him out of the blue, eventually the realisation of freedom sinks in and the prospect of fun beckons, at which point Nicholson ignites. His character, Buddusky, soon shows why he got his “Badass” nickname. He lives in the moment, is highly impulsive, and never squanders an opportunity for a good time, like the scene in which he spots some Marines entering the public lavatories at the station. He promptly follows them in to start a ruckus, drawing Mule and Meadows into the caper by dint of military solidarity. After battering the Marines in typically chaotic fashion they charge recklessly and hilariously out of the toilets and the station itself to seek their next adventure.

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, but it failed to win any, and good critical notices did not translate into box office success. A few months later, Chinatown exploded onto the scene, and The Last Detail was somewhat eclipsed. Nicholson would soon go on to win an Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – and quite rightly – but for me, his performance in The Last Detail is as fine an achievement as that role.

Here, we’ll see two representative scenes: first, a simple master class in how to eat and relish a hamburger, Buddusky-style; and second, the infamous bar scene in which Badass completely loses it when the bartender refuses to serve the underage Meadows and contrives to push all the wrong buttons as far as Badass is concerned. The disturbing and highly intimidating over-reaction from Badass toward the bartender is then tempered by a huge release of tension on the sidewalk afterwards as they laugh like drains at their escapade. “I am a bad ass, ain’t I?” says Buddusky. Yes sir, you certainly are.

Jack Nicholson as Badass Buddusky

Laurel & Hardy in Thicker Than Water (1935)

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were arguably the most successful comedy team of all time, thriving during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s. Known and loved throughout the world under a large variety of names (among them Dick und Doof
in Germany, Flip i Flap in Poland, and Cric e Croc in Italy), to the English-speaking world they were of course Laurel and Hardy: Stan the loveable simpleton and Olly the ambitious but pompous butt of many a “fine mess”.

The duo, like W C Fields and the Marx Brothers, had deep roots in stage and music
hall before making the successful transition from stage to screen. Stan Laurel began his career, when he was plain Arthur Jefferson, as Charlie Chaplin’s understudy when they were both stablemates of “Fred Karno’s army”, Karno being an influential theatre impresario and pioneer of slapstick comedy. Oliver Hardy, meanwhile, was cutting his teeth performing vaudeville and working for the Lubin motion picture production company, appearing in scores of one-reeler movies, mostly playing the “heavy”. Their paths began to cross when both worked for Hal Roach Studios in the early 1920s, but it was in 1927 that the two shared screen time together in the silent comedy films, Slipping Wives, Duck Soup, and With Love and Hisses. The positive audience reactions to the pairing was noted, and a comedy duo was born, and then cemented as they transferred so perfectly to the advent of the talkies.

Their comedy timing was impeccable, their physical comedy honed to perfection. With a pair of unmistakeable, born-for-comedy faces and physical morphology, just looking at a picture of them is enough to bring a smile to the face. Whilst so much early comedy has become dated, the comedy of Laurel and Hardy remains timeless, a whole eighty-odd years later. Testament to their enduring charm is the large group of modern-day Laurel and Hardy fans known as the “Sons of the Desert” (taken from their 1933 film of the same name) with chapters all over the world. A few years ago I took the family to a screen showing of some Laurel & Hardy reels at Birstall, and was both amused and reassured to see some of the chaps in the audience sporting the trademark Sons of the Desert fez! I was equally delighted to see my young daughters lapping up the physical comedy and giggling at these gags from a distant age.

Here, I have chosen a nice clip of the two getting into typically amusing bother, with Olly, as usual, paying for his imperious and blustering treatment of Stan, by coming off considerably the worst. It’s from the 1935 film, Thicker Than Water.

 

Laurel & Hardy

Robert Browning’s How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix (1845)

In 490 BC, the Athenian army defeated the invading Persian army in a battle on the plain of Marathon, roughly 26 miles north of Athens. According to legend, and brought down to us via the writings of Herodotus, Lucian and Plutarch, the Athenians then ordered the messenger Pheidippides to run ahead to Athens and announce the victory to the city. Pheidippides raced back to the city in the intense late summer heat. Upon reaching the Athenian agora, he exclaimed “Rejoice! We conquer” and then collapsed dead from exhaustion.

This trope, of the long distance chase to deliver vital news, we see again in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride (1860). This told the (highly embroidered) tale of Paul Revere’s valiant ride to Concord to warn the militia that the British were coming, thus promoting him in American culture to the status of hero and patriot of the American Revolution.

In the same spirit – though this time wholly imaginary – is Robert Browning’s How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. The poem is a first-person narrative told, in breathless galloping meter, by one of three riders, only one of whose horses, the narrator’s brave Roland, survives to fulfil the epic quest. The midnight errand is urgent — “the news which alone could save Aix from her fate” — but what that good news actually is, is never revealed. The sequence of towns flashing by between Ghent and Aix-la-Chapelle is true to life, though they are characterised only by the associated times of night, dawn, and day (also a feature of Paul Revere’s Ride) as the narrator charges through them.

This poem is one of my earliest memories of poetry, from schooldays, and its rollicking movement and sense of adventure resonates with me now as it did then. There is a recording of Browning himself reciting the poem on an 1889 Edison cylinder, but it’s far too crackly for our purposes, and besides, he forgets the lines and gives up after the first verse (“I’m terribly sorry but I cannot remember me own verses”) so instead I offer this more modern and professional version!

 

Robert Browning

Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Swan (1886)

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris in 1835 and raised by his widowed mother and his great-aunt, who introduced the young Camille to the piano and gave him his first lessons. The boy was a real prodigy, demonstrating perfect pitch at the age of two and giving his first public concert at five. Over the course of his long life Saint-Saëns was incredibly prolific: after writing his first symphony at 16 he went on to write four more, along with five piano concertos, three violin concertos, two cello concertos and some 20 concertante works.

Nor were his talents limited to music. He was profoundly knowledgeable about geology, botany, lepidopterology, and maths, and his celebrity allowed him to enjoy discussions with Europe’s finest scientists.

Of all Saint-Saëns’ astonishing output, though, the most famous is undoubtedly The Carnival of the Animals, composed in 1886. He hadn’t considered it a serious piece at all and in fact worried that it might damage his reputation. He needn’t have worried. The 13th and penultimate movement of The Carnival of the Animals, The Swan (Le Cygne), became acclaimed worldwide as The Dying Swan after 1905 when it was choreographed for legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova, who performed it about 4,000 times.

The legend of the “swan song” grew from the popular belief among the ancient Greeks that the mute swan is silent until its final moments of life, at which point it sings the most beautiful of all birdsongs. Saint-Saëns captures this idea in the music…and here we see ballerina Uliana Lopatkina effortlessly evoking in dance the gracefulness of the animal (almost entirely en pointe) and the heartbreak of its demise. Beautiful.

 

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