John Logan’s taut, visceral two-hander, Red, features artist Mark Rothko at the height of his career. Viewed through the lens of his youthful new assistant, Ken, we witness Rothko at the pinnacle of his creativity, but struggling through the creation of a series of large paintings, commissioned as a series intended to feature in New York’s brand-new Four Seasons Restaurant. As Ken and Rothko paint, they challenge each other to ask big questions about art: what it takes to create it and what its role should be in the world. Set in the 1950s, and based on a series of real events, Red takes a compelling look at the ever-changing relationship between an artist and his creations.
“ROTHKO: (Explodes) 'Pretty.' That's our life now! Everything's 'fine'. We put on the funny nose and glasses and slip on the banana peel and the TV makes everything happy and everyone's laughing all the time, it's all so goddamn funny, it's our constitutional right to be amused all the time, isn't it? We're a smirking nation, living under the tyranny of 'fine.' How was your day? How are you feeling?
How did you like the painting? What some dinner?
Well, let me tell you, everything is not fine!! HOW ARE YOU?! HOW WAS YOUR DAY?!
HOW ARE YOU FEELING? I am not fine. We are not fine. We are anything but fine. Look at these pictures. Look at them!
You see the dark rectangle, like a doorway, an aperture, yes but it’s also a gaping mouth letting out a silent howl of something feral and foul and primal and REAL. A moan of rapture. Something divine or damned.
Something immortal, not comic books or soup cans, something beyond me and beyond now. And whatever it is, it’s not pretty and it’s not fine.I AM HERE TO STOP YOUR HEART” ―. “But how can you be Peter Pan? The Boy Who Never Grew Up? That's not you. You have egg on your collar. You can't fly.
You're not Alice. Alice was a blond little girl, I know it. You're lying to me.' And then they remember. What growing up really is: when they learned that boys can't fly and mermaids don't exist and White Rabbits don't talk and all boys grow old, even Peter Pan, as you've grown old.
They've been deceived. As if you've somehow been lying to them.
So following hard on the smile of remembrance is the pain in the eyes, which you've caused, everytime you meet someone.” ―. “ROTHKO: All those bugs – ach! I know, those plein air painters, they sing to you endless paeans about the majesty of natural sunlight. Get out there and muck around in the grass, they tell you, like a cow.
When I was young I didn’t know any better so I would haul my supplies out there and the wind would blow the paper and the easel would fall over and the ants would get in the paint. Oy But then I go to Rome for the first time. I go to the Santa Maria del Popolo to see Caravaggio’s ‘Conversion of Saul,’ which turns out is tucked away in a dark corner of this dark church with no natural light. It’s like a cave. But the painting glowed! With a sort of rapture it glowed.
Consider: Caravaggio was commissioned to paint the picture for this specific place, he had no choice. He stands there and he looks around.
It’s like under the ocean it’s so goddamn dark. How’s he going to paint here? He turns to his creator: ‘God, help me, unworthy sinner that I am. Tell me, O Lord on High, what the fuck do I do now?!’ KEN laughs.
ROTHKO: Then it comes to him: the divine spark. He illuminates the picture from within! He gives it inner luminosity. It lives Like one of those bioluminescent fish from the bottom of the ocean, radiating its own effulgence. You understand?
Caravaggio was –” ―. “ You would have loved Jackson. He was a downtown guy, a real Bohemian. No banker’s hours for him, believe you me. Every night the drinking and the talking and the fighting and the dancing and the staying up late; like everyone’s romantic idea of what an artist ought to be: the anti-Rothko. At his worst you still loved him though; you loved him because he loved art so much. He thought it mattered.
He thought painting mattered. Does not the poignancy stop your heart? How could this story not end in tragedy? Goya said, 'We have Art that we may not perish from Truth.' Pollock saw some truth.
Then he didn’t have art to protect him any more. Who could survive that?
I was walking up to my house last week and this couple was passing. Lady looks in the window, says: 'I wonder who owns all the Rothkos.'
Just like that I’m a noun. A Rothko.” ―. “ROTHKO: So, now, what do you see? – Be specific.
Red Play Script
No, be exact. Be exact – but sensitive. You understand?
Be a human being, that’s all I can say. Be a human being for once in your life! These pictures deserve compassion and they live or die in the eye of the sensitive viewer, they quicken only if the empathetic viewer will let them. That is what they cry out for. That is why they where created. That is what they deserve Now What do you see? ROTHKO: But do you like it?
Hp officejet 7110 print heads. If the product does not operate normally, see. Maintain the printer on page 18. There are no user-serviceable parts inside. Refer servicing to qualified service.
ROTHKO: Speak up. ROTHKO: Of course you like it – how can you not like it?! Everyone likes everything nowadays. They like the television and the phonograph and the soda pop and the shampoo and the Cracker Jack. Everything becomes everything else and it’s all nice and pretty and likable.
Everything is fun in the sun! Where’s the discernment?
Mark Rothko
Where’s the arbitration that separates what I like from what I respect, what I deem worthy, what haslisten to me nowsignificance.” ―. “CARROLL: In the place called Adulthood, there's precious few golden afternoons. They've gone away to make way for other things like business and housekeeping and wanting everyone to be the same, just like you, all the lives lived in neat hedgerows, all excess banished, all joyous peculiarities excised. It's grim and shabby. There are no Mad Hatters and there are no Cheshire Cats, for they can't endure the suffering of the place. ALICE: Please stop. CARROLL: That's the place called Adulthood.
I'm there now. You'll be there soon enough. And you'll never leave. But here and now, in this room, and on this glass plate, and in the story I'm writing, you'll never be there. And you'll never be hurt. And you'll never be heart-sick.
Red By John Logan Synopsis
And you'll never be alone. You will be beloved.” ―.
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |