Loud and Ruffled

It's coming. Next month, the new movie "Tristan and Isold(e)" opens in the US. (Watch the trailer at here.)

It's never too early to starting raising these questions:

Where is Morholt? Even though he isn't around for long, he is vital to the story. If Tristan doesn't kill Isold(e)'s kin, and she doesn't accordingly hate him, then why do you need the potion? Does that mean we don't get to meet Tantris? Where is Isold(e) of the White Hands?

The movie's music was composed by Anne Dudley. What's next for her? A movie about Don Juan? An adaptation of Henri Murger's Scenes from the Bohemian Life? ETA Hoffman?

Why spell Isolde the German way if you're going to pronounce it the English way? (Though, in this day and age, maybe I should just be relieved she isn't iSolde.)


The movie's tagline gives reason to reflect. "Before there were Romeo and Juliet," it tells us. For people interested in opera or medieval literature, it's sometimes hard to remember how little currency the story actually has these days. Look at Dante's description in Canto V (in Allen Mandelbaum's translation):

"She is Semiramis, of whom we read
that she was Ninus' wife and his successor:
she held the land the Sultan now commands.
That other spirit [i.e., Dido] killed herself for love,
and she betrayed the ashes of Sychaeus;
the wanton Cleopatra follows next.
See Helen, for whose sake so many years
of evil had to pass; see the great Achilles,
who finally met love--in his battle.
See Paris, Tristan..."
V.58-67

This who's-who of classical lovers has just one person whose legend is remotely Dante's contemporary: of course, it's our boy Tristan. Would a modern-day Dante, when thinking of famous lovers, put Tristan high on the list? Probably not. On the other hand, it's impossible not to know about Romeo and Juliet. (Look up both Tristan and Romeo in the dictionary. Once Tristan held the same general meaning that Romeo now occupies.)

I suppose that's the one good thing this movie can do: it can put Tristan back on the map, so to speak. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but perhaps a few people out there will decide to pick up a copy of Gottfried von Strassburg or a record of Wagner's opera.



By way of epilogue: I wonder how I would have reacted had I been in Munich in the summer of 1865. Would I be asking questions about where Isolde of the White Hands was still? I'd like to think that I would have been enchanted by the Tristan chord and all its delights and ambiguities, but I suppose it's impossible to say.

Open your Mind, but Close your Ears

It's difficult to live any time in China without amassing a giant DVD collection, which necessarily inlcudes some less than, shall we say, mediocre movies. Somewhere along the line, I acquired a copy of "Mona Lisa Smile." (I had my reasons.)

The year was 1953. A visionary teacher opened new worlds to her students. In one scene, she opens a crate to unveil something truly special -- a brand new painting by Jackson Pollock. "Look beyond the paint," she says. "Let us try to open our minds to a new idea."

The late 40's and early 50's was a very productive time in American classical music. Elliott Carter, John Cage, Milton Babbitt, Paul Hindemith, Roger Sessions, and Conlon Nancarrow were all active then, to name a few.

So, what new ideas (albeit from the 50's) do they embrace on the soundtrack of this scene? None. Standard issue neo-romantic movie soundtrack drivel by Rachel Portman (the composer behind that Little Prince opera).

So, we should open our minds to new ideas in visual art, but should keep our minds closed to music?

I watched the scene again, with the sound muted and "Music of Changes," which dates from 1951, playing on the stereo. Suddenly, the conceit was much less cheesy, and the sequence was in synch with its theme. Maybe some eyes would have been opened, instead of rolled.

However, I'm holding a movie that seeks to expose sexism in the 1950's to far too high a standard.