By Eliza Warfield.

Exploring the limits of pain, mental control, and danger are all concepts that have enshrined Marina Abramović’s performance art for the past fifty years. She is considered the figurehead of this form of artwork and is highly recognised. Her work is deeply visceral and requires the combination of her emotions, her body, resilience, and an interaction with the audience. By nature, her work is extremely controversial, she tests the limits of physical and mental endurance through public displays that include; ‘The Artist is Present’ (which involved 3 months of sitting opposite participating audience members in complete silence), ‘Rhythm 0’, (which explored the abuse of power – the audience were presented with 72 objects including a loaded gun and could subsequently use them in whatever manner they pleased on her). Finally, ‘Lovers’, (where she and her partner Ulay walked the Great Wall of China from opposite ends, to then meet in the middle to say goodbye to each other).

Abramović is now synonymous with performance art, referring to herself as ‘The Grandmother of such’. Her recent exhibition at the Royal Academy was testament to that. Extraordinarily, the first woman to have a solo show at the Royal Academy in 255 years, which is stupefying in several ways! (but that’s a different story). The exhibition in London is recreating performances of her early work. I went along to find out what these performances were like to experience in the flesh (in one case – literally!) .

The show includes several of her most important performances. One of my favourites was ‘Imponderabilia’ in which an entrance to one of the galleries is lined with two naked performers in a narrow doorway. The only way ‘through’ is to awkwardly, or not (if you have limited care or awareness for personal space), push through whilst attempting to not touch anything untoward or get a coat corner stuck somewhere (arguably worse). It’s a difficult manoeuvre, and one I found surprisingly confronting. The discomfort and willingness to participate is intended to vary person to person, making it a deeply personal encounter with the vulnerability of the human body.

The desire to go to this exhibition started from watching ‘The Artist is Present’ documentary, however in this instance it was slightly different as Marina wasn’t the focal performer at the RA. This is due to the fact the 76-year-old suffered a life-threatening embolism this year, rendering her too weak to perform any more so the options were reperformance, or I suppose, eradication.

In essence, after witnessing the recreated performances it made me question this… 

Is Marina Abramović, the ‘Grandmother of performance art’, by getting the works performed by others, compromising and diluting the power of her work? The raw vulnerability in her pieces are inimitable, it doesn’t matter that her actors are trained personally- surely they are attempting something acting can’t replicate. The actors haven’t faced the specific turmoil of her life, experienced her heartbreak, put themselves in front of death to challenge society and I certainly don’t think any of them sat in MOMA every day for three months in complete silence, ushering audience members to sit in front and then have the impact she generated. Can a second-generation performance artist EVER deliver a piece of performance art with remotely the same energy and power as its creator (especially MA) did? 

The reperformances I suppose offer a new perspective and opportunity for artists to give the work longevity; the new Van Gogh and Hockney experiences have exemplified this, but is this suited to her work? I think some do still provide the same feeling and are successful, this includes ‘Imponderabilia’ – it doesn’t matter which two naked bodies are lining an entrance, it still makes the audience uncomfortable and then challenge themselves looking inward. However, the new iteration of ‘House with a View’ just wasn’t as strong as Abramović’s. The performance involves being in this façade of a house for 24 hours a day over 12 days without any communication or form of entertainment. In this I would argue the actor didn’t quite replicate the authenticity and feed off the audience in the way she does, which makes a huge difference to the ‘success’ of the piece as there was a lack of connection between artist and audience. 

I am by no means berating her work, I deeply admire her, and I wish I got to witness a performance with her in my life. Marina Abramović’s work is not ephemeral art, it’s more worthy than that and with proper showings and documentaries, her work can still hold the same impact it did when she moved people to tears from sheer eye contact and commanding presence. In preserving her legacy, it’s imperative she remains at the heart of the narrative as the pivotal figure around whom her artistic journey evolves. In the reperformances the acting task itself is virtually impossible, but maybe that’s the difference between the new pieces that work and those that don’t… they require a really brilliant actor to play the role. Maybe this is why there haven’t been as good of a performance artist thus far. 

The exhibition is running until January 1^st 2024, so urge everyone to go and experience it for themselves, it is something special. I will certainly be going again… 

Link to Show:
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/marina-abramovic?gclid=CjwKCAiA0syqBhBxEiwAeNx9N9kR9weV03T0bYG3T0osq8jtY1rR_cuMJGiPBDlykRxaBtsu7QNY7hoC4EIQAvD_BwE

By Xanthe de Wesselow

It’s a Saturday night. Big city lights. “Bride to Be” sashes scatter every street corner with hen-dos en masse. A friend and I are venturing to Geordie land for a big night out.

We’re off to see Scouting For Girls at Newcastle’s O2 City Hall.

Dinner is booked in a cosy Italian on Dean Street. This sets the tone nicely and we imagine we’re on a hot date until the bill arrives, upon which we return to our cripplingly single reality and regretfully split the damage, taking it in turns to play Apple Pay roulette before we submit to a slightly embarrassing yet unsurprising decline on the first tap.

Remarking on Newcastle’s club scene looming large in comparison to our favoured Durham-bed-by-2:30 night out, we venture forth arm in arm and join the enormous queue that pours out of City Hall; practising lyrics and guessing the set list to pass the time. By the time two (slightly uninspiring) warm up acts have played and tiresomely repeated their Instagram handles to a somewhat uninterested audience, Clemmie has sore feet and I’m beginning to regret not watching Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging with her the night before, as I internally question how many lyrics I will actually know.

Revealing their latest retro album cover (The Place We Used To Meet) backdrop, the curtain eventually comes up and our qualms are dissipated as Roy Stride leads the band on stage with a palpable bundle of energy at his disposal. That undeniable boy band-esque melody strikes up, and soon the whole auditorium is cheering to “there’s a hole in my heart” before joining in by the time it’s “…and you’re the missing part” in a sort of teenage fangirl frenzy. Yet this is not exactly Newcastle’s demographic tonight. Far from it, the audience lacks a common denominator and instead we are surrounded by a varied multitude of people. Older couples, drunken mid-thirties friend groups, high-pitched, screeching women head to toe in pristine merch as well as the odd fifteen-year-old girl possie who are assiduous in their mission to spend the entire three hours sending filtered videos of themselves to their Snapchat fanbase. This eclectic mixture is a nod to Scouting For Girls’ longevity and deserved recognition that continues to stand the test of time.

The gig centres around this very fact. The band transport us on a whirlwind tour of their various albums in which Stride breezily mocks their youthful naivety during the early days (when he’s not singing or darting around the stage). Their humble roots are visibly touching: Ellard and Stride were Cub Scouts comrades while Churchouse met the lead singer on their first day at Queensmead School, West London.

We go back in time to 2007 – the release year of their debut album – to relive some of their teenage bedroom tracks where they would play together after school (newly tee-total Stride points to the latest album cover’s top floor window of his childhood home, cheekily telling us that it had to be open because he was always smoking out of it). The amateur sound of the early days are mimicked when an old, basic drum set and a couple of acoustic guitars appear, and all three men take centre stage as they nostalgically play It’s Not About You, I wish I was James Bond and Michaela Strachan from their debut album. This is when the crowd interaction reaches its peak: the crowd is split down the middle and we aggressively ping pong lyrics left to right, right to left, in a bid to be the loudest.

Peter Ellard, the unassuming drummer who holds each song together like a stoic pillar post at the back, takes the right side while Greg Churchouse, the bassist who’s sporting a wide smile that reaches the edges of his khaki baker boy hat, takes the left. Stride stands diplomatically behind his keyboard in the middle and tells Churchouse’s side we are having more fun when we shout ‘Just for the day’ louder than Ellard’s group (rather like that slightly over-enthusiastic deputy head figure at school, who would eagerly feed on the power trip during a morning’s assembly). It’s this charming schoolboy-ish crowd interaction coupled with the criminally catchy, serotonin filled songs that make this concert so euphoric.

Another highlight is Posh Girls. We are informed that the three ‘magic’ words are boys at school before Stride launches into the iconic opening bars. By the first chorus he has bounced his way up to the balcony, armed with a selfie stick. He’s now filming the crowd interaction as we enthusiastically chant the magic words expected of us, as though we’re in an artificial world where Roy Stride is our master. This time he plays the floor off against the balcony (“floor cheer, balcony cheer, floor, balcony, floor, balcony…”) and we hardly know whether he’s the lead singer of a boy band or the principal boy of a pantomime – all the same, Clemmie and I are just two of the of the hundreds of people immersed into this happy, childlike, dream land for as long as we’re robotically generated to follow Stride’s commands.

It’s true, his electric stage presence is making him the star of the show, although Churchouse and Ellard appear to be having just as much fun as their wide-eyed fans. As for newbie Nick Tsang, it soon becomes clear he is some sort of God of the music industry – his expertise on the guitar is wheeled out as and when for all the big stars in need of ‘elevating their sound’ or ‘enhancing their tracks’ (Sheeran, Capaldi and The Backstreet Boys have all been prone to the Tsang drug). Stride jests that a front row die hard, going by Louisa, knows the songs better than this fresh-faced guitarist himself, who simply grins and nods in return. His appearance on this tour may initially seem subtle yet it certainly packs a punch.

Whether or not it’s just another day at the office for Tsang doesn’t matter; his upbeat performance is adding a new dimension to a timeless boy band and no doubt a generous pay cheque helps to keep any glimpses of superficial showmanship at bay. But then again, who wouldn’t be having fun playing iconic English indie-pop music with this illustrious trio?

The night goes on in much the same way, with evenly interspersed songs from the latest album The Place We Used to Meet, which manages to go back to the band’s roots and hit the same, life-affirming notes as all the infamous favourites. This somehow amplifies the success of the older records, which come as a celebratory treat when the whole audience rejoices in knowing all the lyrics.

There is a rather low key ending when they sing the album’s opening song, Glow – a slower, melodic number. But the crowd isn’t easily fooled and it’s only a few repetitions of “One More Song” before the four men appear back in position and strike into a cover of Thank you and Goodnight, specifically for the aforementioned Louisa, who is screeching chaotically at the front.

Then, the moment we’ve all been waiting for finally arrives. With the triumphant opening chords, everyone erupts, relishing in the playful atmosphere for the final time. The pure animation that is felt in the room as we all sing in unison: “she’s so lovely, she’s so lovely, she’s so lovelyyy” is remarkable, and a true token of their songwriting genius.

Having felt hungover and slightly sorry for ourselves at the start of the evening, we left City Hall that night feeling quite the opposite. Scouting For Girls has entertainment, lightness, and stage presence in abundance and I urge anyone and everyone to buy a ticket for their 2024 tour. Having fun? Feeling down? Need to laugh? Just listen to Scouting For Girls. Their music is a kind of nostalgic solace that can be the remedy you never knew you needed.

By Zoe Worth

Paris, Texas is a work of exquisite beauty and is something written quite permanently in my memory. Wim Wenders’s stylish tale of weather-beaten drifter Travis Henderson, who finds himself a stranger in his own life, is wistful and haunting. Wenders contemplates the fragility of the Americana cult that dominated much of the era while also leaving us to reflect on lost memories.

Set in the profoundly American desert, the film is printed with a breathtaking sense of emptiness. We are introduced to amnesiac Travis who is in solitude for a reason he doesn’t remember or perhaps doesn’t know at all. Travis, dressed in a shabby suit and baseball cap, is America’s everyman. Henry Dean Stanton’s crusading face is both gaunt and visibly plagued by regret. Bathed in sunlight, Travis is painted with innocence. Wenders offers a poignant meditation on Americana. Akin to Kerouac’s On the Road, sometimes stamped with the ‘nothing happens’ critique, the lack of a linear journey is troubling. We are forced to celebrate and find meaning in the caprice and disarray. The directionless feeling is so familiar. We are reminded of the “heartbreaking potential of the present moment”. It is the art of looking for something that leads to catharsis, despite the complicated feelings of nihilism and nostalgia on the road. When Travis’s long-suffering brother Walt finds him, he is left with no choice but to confront the past. Wenders exhibits this encounter when Travis opens up about his long-forgotten dream to live in Paris, Texas.

Müller’s stunning slow-burn cinematography is utterly mesmerising. Jane and Travis’s romantic road trip is shot through the warm, hazy Super 8 film. There is so much tenderness and comfort in these scenes; contrasting the vast desert shots that precede and follow it. Natassja Kinski plays the gold-hearted Hollywood girl Jane: the American Dream. Part of Paris, Texas’s allure is its impressionability. It is irresistible to watch as the delicate nostalgia seeps through the old Super-8 videos and we find our own memories trickling into this intimate footage. Jane is undoubtedly ethereal, and we are awakened to what Travis is mourning. The disconnection of this scene from the rest of the film is strangely moving. Though we are watching the unfolding of their past, it feels like we are no longer watching a film but rather reminiscing about our own lives. Being so separate, we begin to understand the transience of such memories which are destined to break away.

The moody, elegiac score haunts the nearly two and a half hours of Paris, Texas. Cooder manages to evocatively mirror Travis’s odyssey through the empty Texan prairies. In pursuit of not only some resemblance of modernity, promised by Americana but also his lost past. The simple guitar twang ripples beneath the rare dialogue in the film – cutting through the silence. We are swept away by the power of the “scarcely uttered words”. Cooder sculpts a soundscape that is sad yet whimsical. Like the music, the memories aren’t completely gone but simmer gently beneath: always on the verge of surfacing.

Paris, Texas’s standout scene takes place in a sleazy peep show where Jane is first seen again by her long-lost lover Travis, who has been in limbo trying to find her. Featuring two elegantly wrought monologues, the irreconcilability of their past is finally unveiled. This scene begins with Travis’s sincere recollection of their romance, talking to Jane for presumably the last time. Her face is touched by every brutal revelation of her self-destructive past. Kinski’s sublime beauty encapsulates this, as she stares at the mirror looking for Travis, or rather answers. When she realises she cannot see him, her honesty flows even more in her pining monologue: “I walked around for some months talking to you. Now I don’t know what to say. It was easier when I just imagined you”. Her ice-cold voice shatters the one-way mirror, and we feel like she begins to recognise herself. Permanently separated by the mirror, and their past, these lovers see each other with a despairing clarity. This offers a stunning reflection on the timeless struggle of moving forward, one that ceaselessly taints the American Dream.

Melancholy and minimalistic, Paris, Texas’s charm lies in its subtlety. Even its oblique title gives it a somewhat surreal essence. It transcends the Atlantic creating a sense of distance and removal. Forged from the European eye, it leaves us to observe. It is the American Dream from the outside- for all its glamour and flaws. The perspective is truly unjudgmental. Its bittersweet ending where Travis watches Jane and Hunter’s reunion reminds us that though it may be pretty to long for the past, there is much to cherish in the present. In an act of touching selflessness, Travis sacrifices his romantic nostalgia for Jane and Hunter’s future. Paris, Texas, in a Hemingway-esque style, reminds us that the sun always rises even if the past is behind us. Wenders captures the lust for memories that will never satisfy the longing for something more enduring. We are left to hope that this family find this.

A gorgeous postcard of redemption and reverence; Wenders casts an eye on America as only an outsider can. It is as much about the words left unsaid and the things left undone. A brutally honest love letter to Americana- Paris, Texas is a film I will certainly come back to.

By Cosmo Adair and Emma Large

For a more thorough explanation of Immersive Theatre, please refer to Max Shanagher’s article “Teasing  the fourth wall”: A short Immersive Theatre manifesto,” pub. 6 November 2023.

Alexandria

Cosmo Adair

“Well, Fuck,” I thought to myself as the bouncer — the Roman one — confiscated my notebook and said, “That’s contraband.” This being immersive theatre, and me being supinely hungover, I didn’t want to interrupt his flow. I tried to discern whether this was a part of the play: in my head, I cursed the name of Max Shanagher (the co-director alongside Harry Threapleton) and pondered why he should invite us to review the play, only to pull off some cocky stunt and have one of his actors mug me and thus stymie my pen. 

By the time I’d reached the bar (their very own bar, with Rome/Alexandria-themed cocktails: Red Roman, Nile Iced Tea, and Death by Passion), I started to think, “You know what, I really need that notebook. In fact, there’s no way I could possibly write a review without that notebook.” And so, I ordered myself one “Death by Passion”, drank it quite quickly, and then returned to the bouncer and spoke with the proud authority of a tipsy critic: 

“Excuse me. I really hate to trouble you. But, you see, that notebook, I kind of need it actually. Of course, if — um —- only if that’s alright with you. But yes, I’m supposed to be reviewing this play.”

“What play?”

“Oh yes, sorry. Aha — I see now. It’s a Roman play, I believe.”

“Well, I’ll trust you this time.” Throughout our interaction, his face of cold, Roman hardness had not wavered. Lips sealed assertively, black moustache and dark sunglasses: he was Rome, or, rather, Rome-meets-humourless-celebrity-bodyguard. He was not  going  to break character. Generously, he handed over my notebook. And I immediately wrote this down: I thought it quite emblematic of the uniqueness of the experience offered by immersive theatre, and the challenges it poses both to its actors and to rather shy, awkward audience members such as myself. 

Antony and Cleopatra is the second piece of immersive theatre which Tully Hyams and Shanagher’s Walkabout Productions have put on, following the success of last year’s A Wilde Night. On entry, each theatre-goer is presented with a choice: Rome or Alexandria. In effect, this is a choice between politics and romance. I chose romance: I got love and Cleopatra, whilst Emma had to suffer the steely machiavels of Rome. Only four others chose Alexandria, whilst about fifty travelled to Rome: either, they are more serious, or else they haven’t read the play, I thought. Given that most of the last two acts happen in Alexandria, I assumed those in Rome wouldn’t catch the play’s ending. But they did: at the Battle of Actium, the divider between the rooms opened and I caught a glimpse of Rome through the red mist of Actium. 

Not only does the audience have to choose between Rome and Alexandria, but so too does Antony. That, to me, is the most successful element of the play’s staging: Ed Clark’s Antony flits between the rooms, endlessly, until he opts for a drunken Epicure Alexandria. But the characterisation of Antony, here, allowed for no doubt over his eventual choice: he was soft and effete, with a pony-tail, jewellery, and Doc Martens. He was always going to opt for Alexandria. This was effective when he was in Alexandria, but it did mean the central conflict of the play was slightly lost. Then again, I wasn’t in Rome; perhaps there, he was different. 

Cleopatras have always infuriated me. Shakespeare’s characterisation of her temperamental nature lends itself to shrill, shallow, and over-acted performances. But not here. Alexa Thanni was excellent: the swift mood-changes were carried off with a subtlety I doubted was possible — not least in a student  production. In Act 2, Scene 5, where Cleopatra beats the messenger, I usually switch off out of sheer irritation. Here though, Thanni  delivered a scene which was not only comic but possessed a psychological realism. Another such moment to note was just after the interval when Antony and Cleopatra kissed. It was so genuine as to make the viewer speculate as to whether Clark and Thanni might be following the lead of their forebears Burton and Taylor. 

Cleopatra was complemented by her supporting cast. Charmian, played  by  Clara Dammann, was especially good. The Alexandrian court is difficult to pull off – especially  given how most of the talking is done by Cleopatra, and so the courtiers have to show their presence and attention without much chance to speak. Dammann’s raised eyebrows, rolled eyes, and covered smiles all accompanied well the depictions of Cleopatra’s whims and hysterics. 

It was an interesting, thoroughly thought-out production, which made me consider these familiar characters and themes in a different light. I suspect it might be the first ever production of the play to take such an approach. The very feat of making the play work in an immersive fashion was impressive enough, but to do so with a student-sized budget and a student cast is yet more impressive. So, congratulations to all involved: not least to Shanagher, Threapleton and Hyams. And now, as Caesar says, “to Rome…” 

Rome 

Emma Large

​​The consequences of consuming several Death by Passions at 3:00pm on a Sunday afternoon hit me, rather unfortunately, during the launch of the Battle of Actium.

“Get away from the wall!” Caesar turned to us with a startling passion. “Get away from the wall!”

I, like the rest of the bumbling, bemused (potentially drunken?) audience, blundered uselessly to the left and stopped to await some further instruction from our ruler, as if the first hadn’t been clear enough. None of us had moved even remotely away from the wall.

“GET AWAY FROM THE WALL!” he roared.

Christ, I thought, we need to move. We scattered to the other side of the room to watch the partition, once deceptively solid, be rapidly drawn back, marking the dissolution of the geographical boundary between Egypt and Rome. The fourth wall and its tangible counterpart broke alike with dazzling intensity: the golden lights and secrets of Alexandria were revealed at last, like the glittering opening of a treasure chest. Those of us who had been cloistered in the purpled privacy of the Roman council room, envisioning Cleopatra from across the continents (summoned by Enobarbus’ famous lines, “The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne…”, still resonant in our ears), scanned the room for the Egyptians that we had heard rowing mutedly, from the other side of the wall. The play was not even at its interval, nor its dramatic climax; I had another Death by Passion yet to consume, but it was at this moment, the stage membrane shifting and permeable, that I understood the absorptive power of an immersive performance.

The stagnancy of the audience is fairly absolute in traditional theatre; we know our role is to sit quietly and to observe, to laugh and cry accordingly. In immersive theatre, I realised while stumbling to the other side of the stage during Max Shanagher and Harry Threapleton’s Antony and Cleopatra, the audience has no clue what their role is and what part they will be expected to play – and this is precisely its thrill.

In Rome, we were drawn from the margins to eavesdrop on the political quarrels of a fraught Roman council – until formally welcomed, by handshake, to the ‘Roman side’ – becoming equally complicit in their plot to win Antony back from Egypt’s seductions. Caesar (Olivia Clouting) simmered palpably with cool pride, his sudden flashes of fury both startling and exhilarating the audience, who were drawn into unnervingly close quarters in the small assembly room. The sultry, brooding movements of Octavia (Daisy Summerfield) provided relieving feminine contrast on a stage clustered with hearty Roman generals – to the credit of the all-female Roman cast (Antony omitted.)

Watching the performers flit around the central meeting table while they gesticulated and debated, I recognised that adapting Antony and Cleopatra into an immersive production had perhaps rendered it more open to interpretation than a traditional, more static performance. Each audience member, dispersed around the room’s edge, beheld every scene uniquely. As the actors circulated like the hands of a clock around a vital heart, the ever-darkening face of Caesar shifted in and out of view. The easing countenance of friendly Enobarbus (Francesca Singh) moved into my eyeline, before his back was then turned; I watched the left side of Mark Antony’s face (Ed Clark) as he protested indignantly to Caesar’s accusations, then tracked his right-hand side as he fled across the room. The dynamism afforded by immersive theatre electrified both the performance unfolding in front of us, but also our collective imagination. We wondered about the faces of the characters flashing out of our sight lines; about the events occurring in the neighbouring Alexandria; until the wall broke and all sprawled out before us as a figurative battleground between two nations, the room now bearing the strangely unifying quality of a no-man’s-land.

The play culminated in a thrilling final few scenes – the suicide of Cleopatra and her courtiers, I thought particularly moving. But as I left, I felt oddly guilty. Why? In his dying breath, Antony had reached out to me with his hand, a desperate supplication for help. I had stared back at him rather stupidly and recrossed my legs. You bitch, I thought to myself. Such a hopeless sentiment, I suppose, implies both the emotive power and incapacitating effect of immersive theatre – if I could have, I would have, Antony.

By Ed Bayliss

“My whole life has been movies and religion. That’s it. Nothing else.” 

(Martin Scorsese)

There exist three films in Scorsese’s portfolio that are explicitly tilted towards the lives of religious figures. This unusual trinity of films consists of The Last Temptation of Christ, Silence, and Kundun. The latter drifts from the bloody trials of Christianity into the meditative stillness of 20^th C. Buddhist Tibet, perhaps providing a refuge for the three times divorced Scorsese and the guilt of his lapsed Catholicism.   

In The Last Temptation of Christ, the titular Christ shockingly states: “I’m a liar. A hypocrite. I’m afraid of everything. I don’t ever tell the truth. I don’t have the courage. When I see a woman, I blush and look away. I want her…” While screening this film in 1988, the Saint Michel cinema in Paris was bombed and set alight. Scorsese’s rendering of Christ as a man wrestling with his own capricious animalism and a life scripted by a distant and unknowable God became indigestible for many. 

The filmmaker’s most recent ‘religious’ film, Silence, took us on a heavily theological journey through Christian persecution in Japan. The central question asked is one of the literal ‘silence’ of God and its relation to theodicy. Slow and brooding, but ultimately rewarding, this contemplative film, I think, mirrors a director who has recovered some sense of religious direction. 

What interests me most, however, is the veil of Catholic doctrine that falls lightly but definitely over Scorsese’s remaining films. I would like to expand upon what critic Roger Ebert has spoken of as “Redemption by Blood” and the centrality of blood itself to transformation – a fundamental tenet of Roman Catholicism. Scorsese lifts this Catholic mass inspired image, mangles it, and drops it into the avenues of the Bronx as he remarks in Mean Streets, “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home.” For directors like Tarantino, violence is style, but for Scorsese, it’s sacramental.

Critic Barbara Mortimer has identified a specific character type in the Scorsese oeuvre, the “postmodern person”; someone whose identity becomes a “matter of impersonation”. Such characteristics can be seen in Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver), Jake La Motta (Raging Bull), and Charlie Cappa (Mean Streets); all of whom attempt cleansing and redemption through the spilling of blood.  

For La Motta, a man who sees himself in the mirror but doesn’t know himself, the altar rails of the Catholic mass become the ropes of the boxing ring. The camera pans to blood dripping from the ring rope in an extreme close-up. Jake, having abandoned his wife and his brother, takes to bloodshed and endures physical punishment, a symbol of the sacrament, in a bid to effect a spiritual awakening of sorts. A passage from John’s Gospel closes the film resulting in images conjured which are very much in line with the act of redemption by blood. 

Alternatively, Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle, self-described as “God’s lonely man”, attempts to map himself as the hero of the narrative. At the climax of the film, we see Bickle stalk through a brothel wielding his Smith & Wesson handgun whose bullets rip through every man he comes across. We follow behind him as he is shot several times while blood, sacrificial blood, issues from all over his body. The words “Jesus loves you” are graffitied on the staircase wall as he ascends. Bickle sees himself as the postmodern-martyr; a title that necessitates death, so he attempts suicide, but his revolver is out of ammo. The ‘hero’ sits on a sofa, blood-soaked, with his head tilted upwards while closing his eyes acceptingly. Jodie Foster’s character collapses to her knees, weeping before Bickle, much like Mary Magdalene at the scene of Christ’s crucifixion.

Harvey Keitel’s character in Mean Streets seeks his redemption not in church but through sacrificing himself for his friend Johnny who is in debt to loan sharks. He admits: “Ten Hail Marys, ten Our Fathers, ten whatever … Those things, they don’t mean anything to me. They’re just words …” One can’t help but hear the pained voice of Scorsese through Charlie Cappa’s (nicknamed St. Charles) moral musings. At the concluding stages of the film, we watch Charlie’s efforts to drive Johnny and his cousin Teresa out of town as they are pursued by hostile ‘debt collectors’. Charlie crashes the car as he is shot in the arm and bleeds while kneeling beside the cleansing spray of a fire hydrant. This is, as critic Joel Mayward recognises, “religious cinema for non-believers.”  

Scorsese has said that he “wouldn’t presume to be God’s point of view.” And so, ultimately, he accounts for the loftiness of Christ’s trial by bloodshed in terms of the hardships of the everyman in search of redemption.         

By Maggie Baring

Recently, my father and I, both avid music listeners, formulated a revolutionary new musical theory: that the average listener of mainstream music is either a music or lyric listener. They either pay attention to how the melodies, rhythms or atmosphere of a song make them feel, or they listen avidly to what the singer is saying; unpicking each line and its possible contexts, meanings and implications. If you, like me, are in the latter category, and prefer songs crammed with intelligent, poetic and often deeply emotional lyrics, then you will, or at least should, be familiar with Noah Kahan’s music. 

Noah Kahan, on 19th June 2023, released a deluxe version of his third studio album, Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever), which came out in 2022. This re-release of songs, with the addition of seven brand new tracks, has prompted a resurgence in its popularity. Kahan, who has referred to himself as both “Jewish Capaldi” and “Folk Malone”, rose to stratospheric and mainstream popularity only in 2023, with the title track of his recent album, “Stick Season”, earning huge popularity due to TikTok. A long overdue review of Kahan’s seminal album is what follows. 

The album is unified by the strain of memory which flows throughout; Kahan’s history of mental health struggles, childhood memories and his path to fame. The result is an album which reads as a letter of love, and hate, to his Canadian hometown in Vermont. The opening track, “Northern Attitude”, introduces the mood of Kahan’s writing for this album as autumnal, with “Stick Season” meaning a local term for “this really miserable time of year when it’s just kind of grey and cold, and there’s no snow yet and the beauty of the foliage is done” (Kahan, 2022, interview for Genius). A mood of bitterness also pervades, with the song containing nostalgic (and, at moments, negative) depictions of Kahan’s hometown and community: “Forgive my northern attitude, I was raised on little light.” The final track completes this bookending technique of framing the album whilst also retaining a sense of journey as we listen. “The View Between Villages – Extended” also contains passionate lyrics about Kahan’s hometown, with the deluxe version spinning the song in a particularly sentimental direction, as the song echoes out of earshot with spacious guitar and Kahan’s stunningly sustained vocals. These give the impression of driving in the stillness of the countryside around one’s home, elated by a feeling of freedom and acceptance. Throughout the song unknown voices of hometown locals pierce the soundscape, talking lovingly about the town where they spent their lives. One female voice notes, “For me personally, I found the town big enough for anything that I wanted.” This draws attention to generational differences between Kahan’s elderly community and the youth of Vermont who, like Kahan, seek something better outside its small community. It develops upon the idea presented in “You’re Gonna Go Far”, which is written from the perspective of a parent encouraging their child to embrace their dreams and not feel guilty for leaving home. The sense of parental self-sacrifice in lines such as “while I clean shit up in the yard, you’ll be far from here”, convey the powerful contrast in life experience between the rural farmers of New England and their ambitious children. Whilst the album begins in bitterness and a feeling of stagnancy, the ending of the album suggests a sense of growth and catharsis, which comes to a crescendo in the final track. The most refreshing aspect of Kahan’s album is that he has not underestimated the power of an album as an impactful body of work, rather than a collection of unrelated singles. Not only as a songwriter did Kahan find this unifying motif helpful when creating the album, but it also reminds the modern listener of minute attention span that, in a world of thirty second TikTok snippets and catchy choruses, to stick with an album for the full hour-and-a-half experience can be just as rewarding. 

The beauty of the album, in my opinion, also comes from the fusing of modern issues, modern metaphors and modern subjects, with natural, historical and emotional imagery and language. The “good land”, the “curve of the valley”, “hibernation” and a pervading autumnal mood fuse combine with the modern world, perhaps even standing for Kahan’s own feelings when returning from the busy world of fame into the agriculturally dominated lifestyle of his hometown. Folk music’s reputation of pinpointing the specific and relating it to the greater picture can be spotted here profoundly, with mentions of travel restrictions due to COVID (“Stick Season”) signifying a greater sense of entrapment. Additionally, orange juice (“Orange Juice”) at a party signals the strength to battle alcoholism, and dialogue within a voice message (“Dial Drunk”) communicates an inability to move on from a past relationship. This technique of specificity is a hallmark of folk music; one which often tells stories in relatable ways to engage a listener. Kahan is following in the footsteps, perhaps in a slightly more mainstream way, of another Jewish-Canadian folk singer, Leonard Cohen, who died in 2016. His influence, especially in the Canadian music tradition as a whole, is profound, and there can be no doubt about his lyrical influence over the artists who came after him pursuing a career in the folk genre. Noah Kahan has taken this baton proudly and continues to elate fans with every new single he releases. His tour, which comes to England in February, is widely popular and selling out fast. This artist is definitely one to watch. 

By Edward Bayliss

The Phillipou brothers seem to be the next sibling duo to stamp their seal on the cinematic landscape of the 2020s with the release of their film Talk to Me, made available to the public this summer just gone. An A24 horror film that follows an increasingly esteemed pedigree from the same producers, Talk to Me offers challenging takes on the nature of the supernatural object (in this case an embalmed hand) and its teenage users. I apply the word ‘users’ here because this ceramic hand is presented as an article of obsession for the characters who take turns to enjoy its terrifying ecstasy of possession, all while filming it behind mobile phones. That is until the central character played by Sophie Wilde (embodying brilliantly the dizzying psychologies of childhood grief) believes she has contacted her dead mother through the ‘hand’ and unwittingly unleashes a paranormal presence.

Cue the inevitable line: ‘What if we opened the door but didn’t shut it?’

What follows is an effort spearheaded by Wilde’s character to amend the rift with the parasitic spirits of limbo, while peeling back the mystery surrounding the circumstances of her mother’s death. 

This film seems to be cut from the same cloth as The Babadook (2014), a fellow Australian production whose crew involved many of the same that are present in Talk to Me. Despite relatively low budgets, both films explore their respective objects of horror (the Babadook book & the embalmed hand) with a shrewd eye. 

The embalmed hand itself is a great object of cinematic invention. Unlike the doll of The Conjuring, or the blood stained hockey mask of Friday the Thirteenth, the hand has an implicit dexterity, angularity, and importantly, a grip; all of which give it an impression of uneasiness. It is white with graffiti all over, displaying its use over the ages by similarly curious teens. There is no heavy-handed discussion of the object’s backstory, and no such origin is questioned in any detail by any of the characters. We are told it is the hand of a medium, that’s it – the rest isn’t important to the plot so isn’t worth dissecting to a tedious degree, allowing for a good pacing and continuation of plot in real time. 

A great supporting cast convey convincingly the stubbornness and unforgiving nature of the contemporary teenager navigating relationships at a tricky time in life. They cover most archetypes of the college character, from shy misfits to smug socialites, albeit in a sensitive and reasonable fashion. The characters behave plausibly, while also allowing for decent plot development. Additionally, it must be said that the Phillipou brothers have their fingers on the pulse when they enjoy the strap-line, ‘Possession Goes Viral’, as they capture our era of internet crazes and trends in this absurdly horrific iteration of the phenomenon. 

The camera is at its most ‘involved’ in the possession scenes which punctuate the film with regularity. The lens flings itself with the possessed subjects, rotating and jolting as we the observers participate in the rituals with the teens. There is one very clever match-cut wherein our perceptions of horizontal and lateral plains are completely messed with by the camera work as the main character moves seamlessly from reality to her possessed state. Prosthetic effects are used with a potency that will satisfy any gore enthusiast, mainly thanks to a really ‘head banging’ scene relatively early in the film’s run time. 

Having not gone too far into the ins and outs of plot, the film does have a tangible and satisfying narrative; it begins with a flashback scene and returns there to embellish it later, suitably connecting the threads. The ending, however, is the exceptionally gripping moment in the drama which will stay with you for some time. Interviews reveal that the directors were sure that the horror would conclude with this twist regardless of what preceded it – I think this says something of its gravity. 

Talk to Me has enjoyed some celebrity among the releases of the year so far, and I’m not surprised. It brushes broad strokes across horror history – inviting us into the age old traditions of the candlelit séance and the cursed object all through the zeitgeist lens of the Phillipou pair. This feature directorial debut is one to watch.