“Dream as if you’ll live forever. . . . . Live as if you’ll die today” — James Dean

There’s something strange and powerful about black-and-white imagery.
Stefan Kanfer

artist: Peter Nidzgorski, source: this isn’t happiness, tumblr via ffffound

photography: Steven Klein, source: Calvin Klein Underwear ad 2009, models:Eva Mendes & Jamie Dornan

photography: Elle Arden, Source: Black and White Zebra with Black Background

source: google, model: James Dean

source: Friends of Type via ffffound

source: k (1 of 11) en Flickr: ¡Intercambio de fotos!

source: google

photography: Ansel Adams, location: Grand Tetons, Wyoming

model: my grandaddy

source: google

source: google, model: Jimi Hendrix

photography: silja Magg, source: Women Management, model: Katarina Ivanovska

photography: Heidi Slimane, source: FormFiftyFive – Design inspiration from around the world

source: Hubble’s Black and White View of the Universe

source: google

photography: Peter Lindbergh, souce: Numero

source: Ampersanderson via ffffound

photography: Ansel Adams

photography: Allan Rostron

Source: High Society (1956), model: Grace Kelly

photography: David Byun, source: W Korea April 2009, stylist: Yahaira Familia

source: Japanese Numero April 2008

photography: Hugh Morton 1982, model: Jim Braddock  UNC vs Villanova

model: Ray Charles

models: Kennedy family

source: google

source: v-mag model: Naomi Campbell

source: NY daily news, model: Jesse Owens at 36′ Berlin olympics

source: google

photography: Mario Testino, source: German Vogue June 08

photography: Mario Testino, model: Naomi Campbell

photography: Otto Rogge, source: Ocean, Ottophoto

photography: Karim Sadli model: Abbey Lee

source: Beatles

photography: Robert Longos source: “Men in the Cities” series – 1980s via Ryan’s Facebook,

source: Boston Ballet

photography: Raffee, source: Kid in the Park via Raffee

source: Bright Idea Brilliantly Delivered on the Behance Network via ffffound

model: Filippa Hamilton

source: shuttle launch

source: Sand Dunes, Izismile

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson via 30+ Pieces of Inspiring, Funny and Interesting Advice – My Modern Metropolis

È uno di quei successi annunciati, New Moon, uno di quei film da record di incassi prima ancora che siano usciti. È così ogni volta che intorno a un’opera si crea un alone che lo rende qualcosa di più di un semplice film. Così è il caso di soffermarsi sulle ragioni di un successo annunciato.

La prima è quella che in termini commerciali si definirebbe “fidelizzazione”. Tra la saga di Twilight e il suo pubblico si è creato un legame solido e inscindibile che nasce già dai libri. Come Harry Potter,  quella di Twilight è una saga, una serie di libri, che racconta una storia che non si esaurisce, ma prosegue attraverso i vari volumi. I lettori così si sposteranno da un libro all’altro, in modo che ogni libro verrà letto probabilmente più di quello precedente. Come per la saga del maghetto, i libri di Stephanie Meyer creano un mondo, che i lettori vogliono continuare a vivere andando al cinema, per vedere come prenderà forma sullo schermo quello che fino a quel momento era vissuto nella propria immaginazione. Così probabilmente i lettori del libro saranno i più appassionati spettatori del film. E a loro se ne aggiungeranno altri. Rispetto ai titoli della saga di Harry Potter, quella di Twilight potrebbe essere svantaggiata dal fatto che i libri non hanno un nome come comune denominatore (i titoli non iniziano ad esempio con Harry Potter e…), ma dei titoli diversi. Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn (e ne arriverà prima o poi un quinto). Così al cinema i titoli sono stati raccolti sotto il nome The Twilight Saga.

Ma perché una saga abbia successo devono esserci dei contenuti. In questo senso la chiave vincente è stata travestire da horror quello che in fondo è un perfetto romanzo sentimentale. Non a caso in New Moon assistiamo a una serie di battute sul cinema, con Bella che dice di detestare i film romantici, e vorrebbe andare a vedere film d’azione, quasi che il regista volesse prendersi un po’ in giro. Perché New Moon, come Twilight, di horror ha ben poco. Non punta certo a spaventare: pensiamo che uno degli stilemi più spaventosi e spettacolari dei film di licantropi, le transizioni da uomo a uomo-lupo, qui avvengono all’istante, e il “mostro” altri non è che un lupo più grande. Invece il modello della storia di New Moon è uno degli archetipi delle sofferenza amorose, quel Giulietta e Romeo scritto qualche secolo fa da uno dei migliori “sceneggiatori” di tutti i tempi, Sir William Shakespeare, e citato in una delle prime scene del film. Anche qui ci sono due amanti divisi, non dal fatto di appartenere a due famiglie rivali, ma a due “razze” diverse, umani e vampiri (in questo il racconto potrebbe diventare una metafora della difficoltà delle coppie miste di oggi, ma non sembra mai andare in quella direzione). E il finale, in cui Edward, come Romeo, cerca la morte perché crede che la sua Bella, come Giulietta, sia morta, richiama proprio la trama di Shakespeare.

Ispirazioni celebri a parte, la saga di Twilight piace perché spinge all’identificazione. È narrata da un punto di vista prettamente femminile, quello di Bella, e riesce a cogliere molti degli aspetti tipici dell’adolescenza: il non sentirsi capiti, il non avere amici, la tentazione e il rischio di prendere una cattiva strada e di perdersi, il sentirsi diversi da chi ci sta intorno, unici, e il bisogno di ribadire, anche con rabbia, la propria unicità e la propria personalità. Bella, in New Moon, è diversa da tutti. Tra i vampiri della famiglia Cullen è l’unica umana, accettata ma mai fino in fondo, in costante pericolo. Ma è diversa anche tra i suoi simili, avendo varcato ormai una soglia dalla quale non può tornare indietro. E poi in New Moon, dopo l’innamoramento di Twilight, c’è la scoperta del sesso, del corpo, e di quel confine sottile tra amicizia a amore, come si vede nell’avvicinamento di Bella a Jacob. Per questo i film della saga Twilight sono dei film rivolti soprattutto a un pubblico giovane e femminile (e sono piuttosto odiati da quello maschile, vedi la guerra dei sessi scoppiata in rete). Lo dimostra la grande attenzione per pettorali e bicipiti che c’è in New Moon. In questo senso la cornice horror data alla storia (perché di cornice, e niente di più, si tratta) serve ad astrarre sentimenti e situazioni dell’adolescenza dalla realtà, a isolarli e renderli così più evidenti, assoluti. Le storie di Stephanie Meyer riescono, in parte, in quello in cui non riesce Moccia.

Cosa resta dunque dell’horror nella saga di Twilight? Non molto, diciamo una serie di suggestioni che servono a creare un’atmosfera intorno a una storia d’amore e di crescita. Stephanie Meyer prende una serie di figure archetipiche del cinema horror, il vampiro e il licantropo, e le svuota, interessandosi ai sentimenti e ai rapporti tra i personaggi, più che alle peculiarità dei tipi in questione. Succede il contrario di quello che capita spesso al cinema horror, dove le figure mostruose sono il cuore del film, e sono di volta in volta inserite in cornici storiche, sociali o culturali diverse, per tornare comunque prepotentemente al centro. Qui i personaggi sono il centro della storia, e sono essenzialmente caratteri con problemi e reazioni umane: il loro essere mostri è solo un contesto, un contorno, un colore. Ma al centro ci sono sempre le caratteristiche umane del personaggio. Così i vampiri non hanno il problema di non potere vedere la luce, o di uccidere gli umani a tutti i costi. E i licantropi non si trasformano con la luna piena, ma in seguito a emozioni rabbiose. Entrambi non diventano tali perché “non morti”, o morsi da altre creature, ma fanno parte di famiglie in cui tutti sono così. Quanto ai vampiri, assistiamo a una “normalizzazione” estrema della figura del vampiro. I Cullen sono persone normalissime, lontanissime dalla figura agghiacciante del Nosferatu di Murnau o di Herzog, ma anche dal Dracula di Bram Stoker di Coppola, e dai vampiri affascinanti ed eleganti anni Ottanta di Myriam si sveglia a mezzanotte, o dei dandy d’altri tempi di Intervista col vampiro, tratta dai libri di Anne Rice, e portata sullo schermo da Neil Jordan. Per andare incontro al suo pubblico, la saga di Twilight si avvicina a certi prodotti televisivi ai cui codici espressivi è abituato, cioè a serie che hanno sdoganato l’horror come prodotto per tutti, cioè Buffy, Angel e il recente True Blood.

La saga di Twilight è un perfetto esempio di film a target. Il che è interessante anche dal punto di vista commerciale, visto che permette di investire su un pubblico ben preciso. Ne è un esempio l’accattivante colonna sonora assemblando pezzi di gruppi rock, tra l’indie, l’emo e il dark, perfetti per accattivarsi il pubblico giovanile e costruire un’atmosfera oscura attorno al film. Ma, si sa, il rock è universale, e il risultato in questo caso è apprezzabile anche dai non giovanissimi. Tra canzoni dei Death Cab For Cutie, Killers e i nipotini dei Joy Division, The Editors, le cose più interessanti vengono da Thom Yorke, che, senza i suoi Radiohead, canta la sua Hearing Damage su un tappeto elettronico e cupo, che fa risaltare la sua inconfondibile voce, e dai Muse, con I Belong To You, che ripropongono il loro tipico sound con un tocco leggermente retro, vicino alle atmosfere di Feeling Good, la loro cover del pezzo reso famoso da Nina Simone.  

Prendete tutte queste premesse e metteteci quella enorme arma in più che ha il cinema: quella di creare icone e fissarle nell’immaginario in maniera indelebile. Certo, è presto, e probabilmente ingeneroso di parlare di icona, viste le vere icone che ha creato il cinema, per Edward Cullen. Ma rispetto all’aura di culto creata tra le adolescenti dai libri della Meyer, il grande schermo ha aggiunto il volto e il corpo di Robert Pattinson, diventato un vero idolo delle ragazze di tutto il mondo. La saga di Twilight lo mette in scena con un’aria alla James Dean, dimostrando di non volersi togliere nulla in fatto di esempi di ribellione giovanile. Il suo aspetto fisico, unito all’aura romantica del suo personaggio, ha fatto centro nel cuore di molte ragazze. L’attore londinese ha scatenato una mania che, restando nel mondo del cinema, non si vedeva dai tempi del primo Leonardo Di Caprio. In rete e nei negozi si trova qualunque cosa con il volto o il nome di Robert Pattinson, o del suo personaggio, Edward Cullen: magliette, tazzine, ombrelli, cappelli, borse, tende per la doccia e persino le mutande vanno a ruba. Robsessed (cioè obsessed by Rob, ossessionate da Rob) è il titolo di un documentario sull’attore (il dvd si trova in vendita su Amazon). La mania è totale. E come se non bastasse, Pattinson è anche un cantante rock, e tra qualche anno vorrebbe incidere un disco. Chissà come prenderanno le sue ammiratrici la notizia della sua love story. Chi poteva conquistare il cuore del bel Pattinson? Ma ovviamente la sua Bella, l’attrice Kristen Stewart. Dal set l’amore si sarebbe trasferito nella realtà, Edward e Bella si sarebbero impadroniti di Pattinson e la Stewart, facendo innamorare i due. Negli ultimi due mesi i due sono stati spesso fotografati insieme, e i giornali inglesi e americani stanno cavalcando la notizia. Che, diversamente dal solito, non sembra la solita trovata pubblicitaria. Speriamo che il loro amore sia meno tormentato di quello dei due personaggi. E che magari questo riesca a portare nei prossimi film un po’ più di chimica, di passione, di pathos. Cioè un tocco in più di realtà.

(Pubblicato su Movie Sushi)

Quiet morning…up way too early waiting for the next snow report in the morning to confirm there’s another foot or two of fresh snow.  I am losing count but the opening week has gone something like this: Saturday 70cm, Sunday 70cm, Monday 30cm, Tuesday 40cm, Wednesday 56cm and now Thursday another 53cm, Friday don’t remember…you do the math…it’s deep!  Can’t sleep…

Heard a gentle ‘hwump’ the other morning and thought for a moment it was an avi bomb echoing down the valley but looked out to see a small dark bird twitching on its side in my son’s sled beneath the window, wings folded tight to her chest, struggling to catch her breath and then still.  My wife and I watched silent, I turned to her and shook my head with my eyes and we finished getting our little boy ready for school.  Later that morning I returned, picked up the motionless little body and took her to a hollow in the rocky bank next to our home after holding her long enough to be certain she was not coming back.

I am reverent in these early days in the snow and of our friends who are not here to laugh and smile and tell us tales of just how deep it was or about the stupid trick they pulled or line they skied.  Only a week after Remembrance day and here we are heading up the mountains with that same anticipation we had when we were kids and this year (once again) there are fewer returning after their lives were cut short so suddenly…but if we listen closely between the turns and windswept lines we will hear their voices beneath the snow.

The first 70cm day was epic (what else do you call those days?)…dropping into the same lines I had just skied the last two days that had vanished.  The next 70cm day was beyond…literally too deep to turn on any of the terrain that was open and the usual trees and rocks my size were gone beneath the surface, the cliffs on top of Rat Fink, gone in two days…enough, stop thinking…sleep.

In the dream this opening week in Whistler has become, each day repeats like it did for Bill Murray in, ‘Ground Hog Day’…I get off the gondi goggles, gloves and zips all set, click the buckles on my boots and slide unnoticed past the crowds with that silent nod that says ‘Here we go…’ (aka ‘I’m local, trust me, you don’t want to follow me’)…but more than that it says, ‘I’m home’.  I slide past Green, right, a little left of right, nearly out of sight and slip between the markers without a second thought…like slipping into my favorite pair of jeans ‘that fit like  an old lover come back for more’ (Max Blagg).  A short hike over the roll, west wind at my back pushing, driving me to that bottomless familiar escape into the white…and beneath the snow echo the ageless muses of younger days like the soundtrack of my life.

The low base of “Love me two times…” sinks in and the voice of Jim Morrison reciting the Graveyard Poems of a forgotten era before my time…and, “the voices of singing women are calling from the far shore and they are saying, forget the night and live with us in forests of azure.  Meagre food or souls forgot.”  The constant sting of the wind numbs and the blur of white that suddenly surrounds is calling me home. ‘A little more right son, you know the way.’  Alone, together, like an old friend pouring one more drink for the drive home.  Punch drunk love-sick ramblings…like it’s the first time all over again. 

Higher right, roll, straight line, wind lip…pass a huge bomb hole the size of my body with a moments glance that snaps me back, awake.  No results from the blast, just a perfect round hole like a meteor evaporated on impact and left nothing to show but the crater…safe for now, game on, here we go.  There’s a small group of struggling searchers to my right too close to the tree line, too flat over there for today, and I instinctively cut left, air between the trees, drop weightless, land, and drop again when the ghostly cushion beneath the K2 Kahuna’s says, “yes, now”.  I run straight exhaling through the chest deep compression while the group stands still in time watching as the flash of red disappears into the glade at the bottom of the second pitch. Pine branches loaded with snow brush by and windows between the heavy trunks appear from my dreams and open one after another and I’m certain they close behind me as I pass…but I can’t look back.  I am ‘one’ with the forest, nearing unconsciousness, like Bruce Lee and, “the art of fighting without fighting…it is like a finger pointing to the moon.  Do not focus on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly brilliance.”  I let go, I release the inner turmoil to the wind and deny the inevitable collision of man and earth and focus beyond the trees, beyond the forest, until the voice fades and I am conscious again for a moment on top of a giant log.  I slide up and drop over the hollow gap below and find the muses waiting on the other side.

Five minutes to midnight or 3:28am, I don’t know which, and I am there throughout time with all the dead poets, friends and heroes who left before their time…James Dean, Jim Morrison, Bruce Lee, Trevor Peterson, Craig Kelly, Alex Loewe, Goran Kropp, Denis Fontaine, Heath Ledger, Shane McConkey…my cousin David at 16…and more.  In a world of exceptional people there are precious few who truly inspire and as they fall, each one in turn reminds me of the next.  It is so sad to say, ‘in turn’, like it was meant to be, by design.  The names and voices call us from the snow, and at home, far from the empty dreams we walk the halls as years pass and find our wives asleep and little boys and girls who woke up and crawled into our beds after a bad dream.  It is an all too true reminder that we take them with us when we do these things.  Like Shane said, there was a time when I too wrote I might never see 30 or 40 and yet here I am with their voices.

I imagine I see in those stolen moments what they saw and taste ‘the search’ at the tip of my tongue.  Unless you have fallen from a plane (a perfectly good one) and touched that awakening moment that commands you alive, or better commands that you question your life in a flash of white not knowing if you will surface from a wave or be forever one with the white light of an avalanche or slide down the pavement or dirt until the friction of the impact and the bone crushing clash of gravity and normal force make you stop breathing, you can’t imagine what they felt the instant before the inevitable.  It is like they say, your life flashes past in the blink of an eye, no, faster, and I mean your whole life before and beyond the chaos of disaster…the loves, the triumphs, the failures, the regrets, loved ones laughing, the dreams of your own seemingly inevitable funeral, that first ride on the Honda 50 motorcycle that had you hooked on speed, the children you have yet to hold, the dream of growing old with the one you love…all time and place and spirit combine and before you are lost, you are whole, and you know the truth in that fleeting moment before death and then, god willing, you are alive, thanking god (or whatever other divinity  you denied you implore the moment before) that you are alive.

My heart races…and then, at the open light at the end of the glade I slide to a stop and breathe…it’s nearly morning now.  I look up at the clock, check for daylight through the blinds, see the new day has arrived, and know if I listen closely the voices will be with me.

From a Portuguese ad agency, a set of ideas and their enemies. There are a whole lot more after the jump!

[via]

We just had to share this adorable shot with you.

It’s Dean at home trying on his new “Stella McCartney for GAP band jacket”. Perfectly combined with a classic white tee and his “My First Selvedge” jeans from Blue Blood. We think he probably looks even cooler than many of us here in the office.

But hey what else, if your mom is Glamour’s fashion editor Jetteke van Lexmond and your dad “Alex too cool for school Jaspers” International sales director here at Blue Blood.

We say, moms keep your daughters in when lil’ Dean will start riding his bike!

BB

p.s. We think Dean could very well become the next James Dean…

I recently shot a 1950’s style fashion shoot for my dear friend Jaimie, & these are some of the pictures after a black & white and film grain edit.

This is Steven, obviously an up-and-coming male model channeling his inner James Dean for lucky us.

more retro pics soon!

Movie guru Gavin Burke from Phantom 105.2’s Cinerama show is back. This time he has his sights set on ten actors who gave audiences great performances – just not the performances they were expecting. 

By Gavin Burke from Cinerama at Phantom 105.2, Dublin’s Indie Rock

JOIN CINERAMA ON FACEBOOK:

Next week Zac Efron ditches the basketballs, the dancing and the singing (well, kind of) to play an actor struggling with his first role in Orson Welles’ adaptation of Caesar. He plays the ‘Me’ in Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles and although the film works better when it’s ‘Orson Welles’ than when it’s ‘Me’, the boy Efron does okay.

The following is when actors do better than just ‘okay’ when subverting their screen personas…

10. Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo

Where Jimmy loses the plot. Completely. Stewart was America’s everyman – a war hero and an Oscar winner – and then he turns up as an acrophobic cop struggling to get over the death of his loved one, Kim Novak. He then spots another Kim Novak and sets about changing her into the original Kim Novak. ‘You’re safe with me.’ Not any more, Jimmy.

9. Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity

‘I always thought that Matt Damon was like a Streisand, but he’s rockin’ the s**t in this one.’ Paul Rudd was never more on the money than this line in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Damon was slowly coming good with Good Will Hunting and The Talented Mr Ripley but no one guessed he could pull off an action hero. This movie, and this performance, even made dinosaur Bond rethink his approach.

8. James Dean in Giant

He invented the teenager in East of Eden and honed it in Rebel Without A Cause, but in only his third movie he threw it all out the window with this mature turn. His Jett Rink is a lonely, disgruntled oilman, frustrated that rich boy Rock Hudson has landed Elizabeth Taylor. He never gets over it. And he doesn’t live to see it.

7. Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind

Russell Crowe is ‘all man’ in every movie. If he’s not jumping on your head in Romper Stomper, he’s threatening to send you to San Quentin on a kiddie-rapper beef in LA Confidential. Here, Crowe turns into himself and even looks weak as a paranoid maths professor. ‘I’m only here tonight because of you. You are the only reason I am… you are all my reasons.’

6. John Travolta in Pulp Fiction

We have to remember that before this Travolta was either in a bubble, on the dancefloor, in a T-Bird, in crap sequels (Staying Alive, anyone?) or in family movies about talking babies. Here he gives a great turn as a stoned hitman determined not to bed Marcellus Wallace’s wife. ‘Aw, man – I just shot Marvin in the face.’

5. Will Ferrell in Stranger Than Fiction

Ferrell stems his I-don’t-need-a-script-because-the-first-thing-I-think-of-is-always-genius, booming, larger than life antics of Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Old School for the quiet and reserved IRS man too shy to ask Maggie Gyllenhaal out on a date. He may also die. It all depends on Emma Thompson. ‘This may sound like gibberish to you, but I think I’m in a tragedy.’

4. John Cusack in The Grifters

Cusack made his name in wacky ’80s chase-the-girls movies like Better Off Dead, The Sure Thing, Hot Pursuit, One Crazy Summer and the sublime Say Anything, but in Jim Thompson’s The Grifters he plays a conman who may or may not enjoy a bit of how’s-your-father with his mother (Anjelica Huston). The Cusack we knew never came back: ‘Maybe I like it where I am.’

3. Pierce Brosnan in The Matador

Pierce was always a bit suave even before he donned 007’s tux, but no sooner had he quit that contract did he attempt to burn down everything James Bond is by playing the mentally unhinged and lonely hitman in The Matador. He even tries to hide his face behind a ridiculous moustache. ‘I wouldn’t do that for all the teenage t**t in Thailand.’

2. Robert De Niro in Midnight Run

De Niro flirted with black comedy before in The King Of Comedy and played the love interest in the soppy Falling In Love – not roles we associated with the method actor – but it’s Midnight Run that shows what a talent for comic timing the man has. And his determination not to put a cigarette out. ‘So here come two words for you: Shut the f*** up.”

1. Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love

Sandler’s angry comic persona was given a makeover for Paul Thomas Anderson’s slow-burning drama. Sandler plays Barry Egan, a shy businessman who is so emasculated by his sisters he can’t even allow himself to fancy Emily Watson. Then he straps on a pair and decides he’s not taking it anymore. ‘I have a love in my life that makes me stronger than anything you can imagine.’

Honourable mentions: Robin Williams – Dead Poets Society, Owen Wilson – Behind Enemy Lines, Bette Davis – Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, Jim Carrey – The Truman Show.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

For more movie chat from Gavin and Cinerama, click HERE.

TOP FIVES ARCHIVE

So we took a look at the characters of The Road. This got me thinking:

I was blown away by Viggo Mortensen’s performance in The Road, but I found myself asking, what other great performances impacted me and our readers?

Maybe it was Heath Ledger’s haunting portrayal of The Joker, the classic performance of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, or Kate Winslet in Titanic.

Whatever it is,

What do you think are the greatest performances of all time?

Comment below.

“People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live… [We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” - Albert Einstein’s letter to Otto Juliusburger

Bassman, Frank, Demarchelier, Weber, & Leibovitz

THE OLDEST 28-YEAR-OLD IN THE WORLD

I still don’t have a Twitter. I joined Facebook earlier this year, after being constantly bombarded by the electronic Facebook invites of my college mates from art school, I finally gave in. Sometimes, updating status, replying to messages, wall tags and photo comments are something I do to keep me company while retouching some of the images I took in Photoshop, in between photo shoots, waiting for my flight, waiting for my luggage, waiting for a friend in a coffee shop, just finished reading a book or done my research for my novel, Facebook somehow sneaked in to my routines, should I be worried? For all my growing readers and followers out there, I appreciate your emails and support, I  attended a worldwide blogger’s 2-day conference over the weekend to upgrade myself and literally everyone (about 200 bloggers, web developers, writers, coders) has a Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, together with their website and other contact details in their business cards or their blogs, I feel prehistoric, the oldest 28-year-old in the world who don’t Twit and a Facebook amateur compared to my niece who have used Facebook and Twitter since birth, now I’m worried.

MR. IRVING PENN 92

My favorite feature in Facebook is the “top five” list of everything you can think of, top five movies, top five sandwiches, top five Britney song, top five Sarah Palin books (although she has only one, hopefully), of course I don’t want to be left out by the other cool kids, so I made a couple of list of my own, like the hit “Top 5 Famous Dead People I Would Like To Invite For Dinner”– James Dean, Charles Darwin, Jesus Christ, Adolf Hitler, and Albert Einstein (I’m definitely sure 3 of them are vegetarian and I definitely got a lot of fb comments for that), and after browsing The New York Magazine in LAX, Aug 16, ‘09 interview of the famed photographer Annie Leibovitz (59 yrs. old), “Photography is not something you retire from, Photographers live to a very old age and work until the end.” (Lartigue lived to be 92, Steichen 93, and Cartier-Bresson 94.)  “Irving Penn is going to be 92 next month, and he’s still working.” Leibovitz said. I quickly made another “top 5″ last September 13 at 5:53 am (it’s still somewhere on my facebook wall), “The World’s Oldest Living Iconic Photographers” where Mr. Irving Penn topped the list at 92, shortly after a month (October 7),  Ms. Lillian Bassman (92) took Mr. Penn’s spot at the top 5.

FIVE LEGENDARY LIVING LENSMEN

It’s a youth-obsessed industry, a working fashion model’s age brackets from 14 to 21 and less than 1% of them work up to their 40’s (Claudia Schiffer 39, Christy Turlington 40, Naomi Campbell 39, and Kate Moss 35), but great photographers get to last twice or more than any great supermodel’s career in a lifetime which is fascinating and inspiring for a “late twenties” photographer like me, their career’s longevity and their resilience are something that a lot of “top” fashion photographers in their 30s or 40s at the moment can only dream of. It would be interesting to know if any of the five legendary living lensmen and women Twits or have Facebook “top fives” of their own. Two caucasian women, three caucasian men, two immigrants, three american-born, one photojournalist, one portrait photographer, two fashion/celebrity photographers, one fashion/art photographer, three have started with Harper’s Bazaar Magazine, and all based in the east coast, four in new york, one in miami, here are the updated list of “The World’s Oldest Living Iconic Photographers” still working today.

________________

Lillian Bassman (92)

A painter and an American fashion photographer, born in Brooklyn (1917) to a jewish immigrant parents from Russia (1905).

Bassman’s work as a fashion photographer started at Junior Bazaar (1940s) and Harper’s Bazaar (1950 -1965), by the 70s she abandoned fashion photography to work on her own photo projects, resulting to 40 years of life’s work (films and prints) thrashed, some salvaged hundred images re-appeared and her work was re-appreciated in the 90s. Her photography style is the high contrast, grainy finish, and geometric camera angles of her subjects.

In an industry ruled by “White Men (gay or straight)”**, Bassman is now one of the last two “great women” standing. And that is still an understatement for me.

**a future article you’ll find here in Dangerously Naive.

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Robert Frank (84)

An important American art/photojournalist, born in Zurich, Switzerland (1924) to a wealthy Jewish family.

Mr. Frank emigrated to the United States in 1947 and like Ms. Bassman started as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. He travelled to South America and Europe after the brief stint with the magazine, and like Ms. Bassman worked on his more personal works, and came back in the 1950’s to NYC for a group exhibition in MOMA and then moved to Paris. His frustrations with the control of the editors over his work colored his fashion magazine experience, nonetheless he moved back to New York, 3 years after the exhibition and worked as a freelance photojournalist and completely abandoning fashion photography altogether.

In 1958, “The Americans” was published, his widely celebrated photographic book cemented his position in the history of American photography.

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Patrick Demarchelier (65)

A French fashion photographer, born in 1943 to a modest family and started as a wedding photographer at the age of seventeen.

Like Mr. Frank, Mr. Demarchelier emigrated to New York (1975), Elle, Marie Claire and 20 Ans Magazine was the first stints he had as a fashion photographer after working as a freelance photographer/ assistants to such greats as Cartier-Bresson. He later worked for Harper’s Bazaar (like Mr. Frank and Ms. Bassman) and Vogue (1992-present). Demarchelier also is behind several blue chip campaigns including Dior, Louis Vuitton, Celine, TAG Heuer, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Lacoste, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, and became a household name after the 2006’s Meryl Streep film The Devil Wears Prada with the lines- “Did Demarchelier confirm?”, and “I have Patrick!”.

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Bruce Weber (63)

An American fashion/celebrity photographer, born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania (1946).

Mr. Weber’s first fashion photography work appeared in GQ magazine in the late 1970’s, shot Bloomingdales catalogs in 1978, Calvin Klein Campaigns in the late 1980s to early 1990s, introducing him to the American households. His photograph of supermalemodel Marcus Schenkenberg nude in the shower, catapulted him to celebrity status. Then later working with fellow celebrities like him, Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, Chet Baker, Chris Isaak, Harry Connick Jr., Jackson Browne and virtually all the stars in the hollywood’s walk of fame, the dead and the living. Today, he is behind the countless ad campaigns such as Calvin Klein, Pirelli, Revlon, Gianni Versace, Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch and unlike Mr. Robert Frank, Mr. Weber embraced the fashion industry and worked with virtually all the top fashion and celebrity magazines existing in the world today.

Mr. Weber’s work are mostly in black and white and homoerotic. (A House is Not a Home and Bear Pond to name a few of his numerous homoerotic nude photobooks).

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Annie Leibovitz (59)

An American portrait photographer, born in Waterbury, Connecticut (1949) to a modern dance instructor mother, and a lieutenant colonel father (US Air Force).

She took her first pictures in the Philippines while studying college, and to be with her family, after her father was stationed there during the Vietnam war. Ms. Leibovitz returned to the US in 1970 and started a career as a staff photogrpaher for Rolling Stone magazine, then in 1973 became its chief photographer (for 10 years) and helped defined the look of the magazine with her celebrity portraits of Mick Jagger, John Lennon, and like Mr. Weber the rest of the names in Hollywood’s walk of fame and virtually every celebrity that are in the headlines today, from President Obama to Miley Cyrus (for Vanity Fair Magazine).

Ms. Leibovitz’s signature style is the close collaboration to her subjects and on her earlier works are the more orange/yellow hue tint to the present work’s blue-ish purple hue. – Navo

Related Entry: http://naiveboy.com/2009/10/08/thank-you-mr-penn/

Conclui duas coisas: a)Este blog está precisando de imagens e b)Ainda não coloquei uma barra do Twitter aqui. A Explicação para o primeiro fato pode pedir um pouco de reflexão, já a segunda é fácil. Não sei como pôr aquela barra bonita do Twitter, que vem com minha foto e o logo do site, além de ser colorido. No WordPress, só consigo aquela sem graça de uma cor verde nojenta e com cheiro de orvalhos no lençol.

Já as imagens… É, quem pensou que o blog está entrando em decadência, acertou. É só um blog, podem todos pensar. Pra mim, mais que uma página virtual, é a minha pequena oportunidade de mostrar ao mundo o que se passa aqui, ainda que isso nem sempre seja possível e o amor ás vezes seja escasso e acabe rápido. E pra compensar a frieza causada por falta de imagens, eu ponho aqui uma bateria de três fotos que me atraíram e que eu acho bonitas. Se você compartilha do meu gosto ou não, the problem is all about you.

Meus sedentários pés em uma máquina de ginástica. [É sério isso?]

James Dean em Assim Caminha a Humanidade (Rebel Without a Case)

Igreja em Kiruna, norte da Suécia.

No Description is necessary.

Voy por Cervantes, son las 3 PM del domingo 1ero de noviembre y estoy pensando en una fila de mujeres que fuman. Es una fila bastante larga que empieza en Camino Real, sigue la calzada dura como una flecha, pasa frente de mí, penetra en la avenida Pezet y luego corre paralela al linde del club de golf, pierdo de vista tras el cruce con Portillo donde gira pocos grados hacia la derecha, presiento debe girar otra vez en el semáforo de la Avenida Salaverry, no sé donde va después. Sin embargo no es lo que normalmente entendemos como una fila de mujeres (si bien se parece mucho a una y aquí, entre nosotros, puedo decirte que alguien desprovisto de nuestra perspicacia o propensión a la bufa podría juzgar que es solamente una fila de mujeres, común y silvestre). Afortunadamente la distinción es obvia para el observador atento. Se contiene en un solo agudo motivo:

No es una concatenación de identidades discretas.

¿Qué quiere decir esto? Quiere decir que la fila que he imaginado no es una fila de mujeres reales. Sí está compuesta de mujeres, pero cada una de ellas no representa a una que exista en el mundo. Más bien cada una es la efigie laxa de un terrible momento en el tiempo. Así, cada una es en realidad la acumulación malhechora de muchas mujeres, todas aquellas que existieron para mí en un malhechor instante del tiempo, cualquiera que sea el indicado. Así, a lo largo de la fila cada elemento de ella esta casi repetido en el siguiente elemento y en el anterior, los cambios entre elementos contiguos –que representan el desplazamiento entre dos malhechores instantes– son mínimos y graduales, se requeriría un observador meticuloso para notarlos, sólo se hacen obvios a una distancia mayor, digamos con 20 elementos de separación, y de este modo la hilera de elementos conforma una cascada, un degradé de representaciones o efigies laxas o estatuas poco pulidas, más bien ensuciadas o enmohecidas, frías como bancas de parque en San Petersburgo en invierno, paradójicamente sólidas al mismo tiempo, sólidas pero laxas y frías y enmarañadas, vejatorias figuras imaginadas de todas las mujeres en un indigno espacio de tiempo –mi vida– cayendo desde Camino Real hasta Salaverry como una serpiente vituperiosa, intestinal destripada, vaginal ignominiosa, descomponiéndose incesantemente y con un dulce olor a ceniza.

Y de pronto la fila de mujeres se ha concretado a mi lado. Dicen que debes tener cuidado con lo que crees que es la realidad, pues la realidad será exactamente como tú la imagines. Es uno de esos dichos un poco cojudos, pero no parece haber sido del todo falso: de pronto la fila de mujeres se ha concretado a mi lado. Las puedo oler. Su caca todavía caliente, el café árabe y sus labios sahumados. La cháchara incesante me penetra por atrás, me excita también, me conmueve los testículos como si estos fueran recogidos por una mano tibia y maternal. El aroma del tabaco me trae memorias de lamidos inguinales: me presenta otra vez los ojos endemoniados del monstruo aquella vez cuando le di un orgasmo utilizando mis labios, entonces cuando efectivamente logró morir un poco, luego resucitar para destruirme. Oigo las risas del heliogábalo rampante que ha venido por mí corazón una vez más. Pero nada puede hacerme ya el heliogábalo. He mutado. Por la puta madre, he mutado. Luego, muy cool, me aproximo al heliogábalo caminando como si fuera un monstruo cualquiera. Ya conozco al heliogábalo, sus mañas, sus zonas erógenas. Y no le temo, estoy tranquilo –estoy cool–, no poseo más estrellas que pueda devorar. Si algo poseo, sólo poseo una pija en llamas. El heliogábalo ya se comió todas mis estrellas: ahora puede comerse mi pija en llamas. Miro la hora en mi celular. Tenemos tiempo para algunas inquisiciones.

A 3 metros de la fila, detenido, cuadrado tal Patton en el cine, les digo ya no las quiero chicas. Luego, a mi señal, marchamos todos, como en un desfile escolar. Marchamos en un batallón contenido y alegre, hacemos cuatro filas y formamos compañías de a 80, vamos así hasta la Avenida Arequipa. Allí hago una señal y la fila se vuelve a extender: cubre cientos de cuadras. Paso revista. Contento, me aproximo a la primera mujer y le doy un abrazo, junto mis brazos tras su espalda, la estrecho sinceramente entre mis brazos. Elijo a la segunda al azar, unos metros más allá: le escupo en los ojos. A la tercera no la toco. La cuarta es mi favorita y le doy un beso en el pecho, otro en la clavícula, abro su blusa y pongo un dedo húmedo sobre su pezón que, endureciéndose, me responde complacido. Luego vuelvo a la primera, pero levemente la esquivo, la humillo, la veo llorar. Busco a la quinta. Le doy por culo a la sexta mientras ella gime que me ama. Le grito a la séptima. Le digo a la cuarta que aún pienso en ella, que no importa que sea tan mala conmigo. Escribo una breve nota en una servilleta dedicada a la quinta. Le sonrío a la primera (quien aún no parece recuperarse de mi abrazo). Corro hasta la octava. Veo como se desnuda la décima. La vigésimo tercera me guiña el ojo. Me fela la décimo octava, se le entumecen los labios. Siento que extraño a la cuarta. Le regalo un chocolate bitter a la trigésima…

Entonces me alejo. Las miro, cual Patton en el cine, recapacito y les digo mentira chicas, en verdad las quiero mucho. Siempre las voy a querer.

Las conduzco hasta el Morro Solar. Marchamos del mismo modo, cruzamos Miraflores y después Barranco, comemos un helado en el malecón y después trepamos lentamente la cuesta. Una vez en la cima, les cuento cómo perdimos en la batalla de Lima. La bahía se abre amplia ante nosotros. Imito a mi profesor de historia y les digo que todo lo que vemos frente a nosotros es cosa del pasado. La bahía reposa, voluminosa pero vacía como un bowl lleno de coles. Les digo que todo lo que hemos sufrido juntos, ¡eso está en el pasado! (Es un pérfido juego de palabras: todo lo que hemos hecho es cosa del pasado, de un pasado inamovible e indestructible, rígido y profético, periférico y determinante, imposible de eludir. Lo único impresionante o contundente y cojudo es cómo cuántos no lo notan.) Les digo que yo conozco la identidad del soldado desconocido. Les cuento que mi abuelo tenía una forja –una metalmecánica– y como él hizo la estatua a imagen y semejanza de James Dean. Les cuento que James Dean era gay, muy gay. Les digo que James Dean amaba que lo atoren duro, muy duro, especialmente si quien lo hacía era Marlon Brando. Les digo que no vean This is it, que yo ya me compré el DVD (vengan a mi casa). Les digo que tengo un LP de Like A Virgin, que mi papá lo compró en Londres en 1985. Les hablo de Christopher Hitchens. Les digo que quiero ser un cowboy mormón. Les hablo de mis bigotes. Les hablo de mis nuevos zapatos de cuero en punta. Les hablo de metales. Les hablo de mi corazón.

Así hablo horas de mí, cientos de minutos de mí, hasta que finalmente les digo vamos, denme un cigarro. Lo enciendo, ellas encienden al mismo tiempo uno y entonces todos fumamos y vemos juntos el sunset desplomándose en la bahía: un durazno maricón que se hunde de cabeza en el océano como si el cielo fuera a matarlo arreciado –o intoxicado– por los fuegos fatuos que levitan sobre nuestros pestilentes cadáveres eyaculados. Mientras empieza a penetrar las aguas, una luz sebácea, brillantísima y fulgurosa empapa el morro árido, circunda el aire aciago –delgadísimo como una soga–, transforma en platino nuestras ropas y vela todo en un ruido gelatinoso y vasto pero aglutinador que no está compuesto sino del rumor de nuestras disueltas, siempre infames soledades. En el momento justo en que el cielo vira de un gigantesco fucsia a un sobrio y profundo azul marino, echamos nuestros cigarros a la arena y con la armonía del equipo ruso de nado sincronizado hacemos “El Twist”, destruimos la colilla con la suela de nuestro zapato derecho.

Waylon Payne is hitting Nashville early on a hot July morning. He’s driving a new used gold Mercedes Benz and he needs a shave and a shower and a couple cups of coffee. He’s been up late seeing old friends, which by his own admission is not a wise decision. He looks a little strung out and a lot like James Dean in Giant, in the scene just before Dean strikes oil. But this isn’t the movies, where even the messes are beautifully framed and everything seems to work out in the end. This is Payne’s life and he’s trying. “Lord, I’m trying,” he sighs.

It isn’t easy, though. Payne’s got bad habits, and he’s dragging around a family legacy straight out of a Tennessee Williams play, by way of Hee Haw. He’s had more lucky breaks than most, but he’s been kicked a lot harder too. The son of country singer Sammi Smith, of “Help Me Make It Through the Night” fame, Payne was raised by his conservative Christian aunt and uncle who disowned him when he was kicked out of seminary for having an affair with a monk, leaving him homeless and on the streets while still a teenager. He pulls down his shirt to reveal the man’s name tattooed over his heart. “I know who I am,” he says, defiantly. “I wear it proudly.”

Payne is sitting at a table outside a packed café when the member of a very successful country act—it would be hard to call them a band—walks past and glances at him. “Is that…?” Payne mutters. And then curses under his breath.

And what else could he do? Waylon Payne can write a better song walking back and forth to his weed dealer’s apartment than half the writers on Music Row could in a hundred years. In fact he has—listen to his 2004 debut The Drifter, a throwback to Guitar Town-era Steve Earle, forged during Payne’s days in L.A.’s honky tonk scene. On songs like “Her” and “Jesus on a Greyhound,” Payne writes with an incredible eye for detail and sings with all his might, sounding like a cross between the Replacements’ Tommy Stinson and Wayne “The Train” Hancock. You probably won’t be able to find it though. According to Payne, the label only printed 7500 copies and then sent him a bill for $150,000, which forced him into bankruptcy. Today, he disowns the record as “not real.”

Real is everything to him, and he comes out with it in rapid bursts, almost with a vengeance against the cold world of Southern euphemisms he knew growing up. When he speaks, half the time it sounds like a sermon and the other half it sounds like a confession. He veers between traditional country grandiosity–“Put me in the Opry, dammit! What else do they need? I got a hit record and I’m in the movies!” and “I’d like to have my own show on CMT, like a variety show, with an orchestra”—to things someone who wants to be in the Grand Ol’ Opry should never, ever say into a tape recorder. In the stereo of the Mercedes is a burned CD of four songs from his new album, Needles, that he is writing slowly down in Austin. There are stories behind those songs that Payne will tell you in full detail. But he shouldn’t.

He’s got new management that believes in him and a publishing deal. He’s also got a sleeper hit creeping up the charts with Lee Ann Womack’s “Solitary Thinkin’,” written by Payne in less than an hour in a Los Angeles bar. “A prostitute bar,” he laughs. “But I didn’t know it was a prostitute bar. I was just wondering why the drinks were free all night.” He’s heard rumors of a Grammy nomination for it. It’s sure good enough. “See, I initially started out as just a singer, because I didn’t think I had anything to say. I was wrong. If you have something to say, baby, sing it loud and sing it true. It will never hurt you. You can get away with a lot singin’ it in a song.”

Gay, high and possibly brilliant, Payne makes you wonder how much more he is going to get away with. With a voice that makes you believe every word he sings and an eloquence for heartbreak that harkens back to the classic country ballads he fell in love with as a kid, he’s the kind of guy you want to shake out of his own way. What’s he doing in a town like this, in a business that makes the hack who just walked past a millionaire and makes Waylon Payne plead to cut the record he hears in his heart and writes on slow lonesome walks wherever he finds himself?

Payne waves off questions like that. He truly does not care. Like he says, he knows who he is and he wears it proudly. “And I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I can walk onto any stage in any room, alone, with just a guitar and I’m great. I’m great.” The trick now is letting everyone else know. So he shows up for the meeting with his new manager, and later he swings by his publisher’s to play some of the new songs. He may not care, but he does have something to prove—and a head full of songs to prove it with. The question is will he slow down long enough to write them, or will he die trying.

–Ari Surdoval

James Byron Dean var verkligen ett stjärnskott. Han föddes den 8 februari 1931 i Californien.  Men efter hans mors plötsliga bortgång flyttade han till sin faster och farbror i Fairmount, Indiana.

När han gått ut skolan flyttade han först till LA och sedan till New York. I New York fick han en roll i en teaterpjäs vid namn ”The Immortalist”. Han blev sedan castad till filmen East of Eden baserad på John Steinbecks episka släktdrama med samma namn. Efter denna film där Dean spelade huvudrollen blev han en stjärna. Han fick huvudrollen i Rebel Without A Cause och en stor roll i The Giant. Hans nytänkande skådespeleri och karisma hjälpte honom att snabbt bli allas nya favorit.

Dean hade andra intressen utöver skådespeleriet, han skulpturerade, körde snabba bilar och hade regissörs drömmar. Den 30 September 1955 var han ute och körde sin bil, han blev mycket olyckligt påkörd så olyckligt att han direkt miste livet. De flesta fans kunde inte förstå att deras unge stjärna var död, Deans grav fick vaktas av polis dag och natt för att fans inte skulle gräva upp hans grav.

Vid Deans död hade bara East of Eden gått upp på biograferna, men trots att han bara gjort tre filmer är han en av Hollywoods kändaste personligheter.

Här är några kända scener med Dean, Enjoy;

Gårdagen var en väldigt trevlig dag. Skolan var ganska chill och rolig, god lunch och sedan en mysig fika med Miriam. Vi gick till Pause (dit jag drar med alla kompisar) och som vanligt tog jag en morotskaka och kopp Bombay Chai. Vi pratade om allt mellan himmel och jord och hade super mysigt. Sen gick vi hem till mig och såg på East of Eden. Det känns härligt att ha en kompis som också är galen i James Dean. Och du Miriam även om du inte är det än så kommer du bli det snart, det kan jag garantera! Hehe…

Gårdagens avsnitt av Skavlan var väldigt underhållande, om det är någon som inte har sett det är här en trevlig länk till det; http://svtplay.se/t/102974/skavlan

Jag avslutar dagens inlägg med en bild från filmen jag såg igår och ettt löfte om att snart får James Dean också en egen sida här på bloggen.

From Rebel Without a Cause to Easy Rider and now Crash, Dennis Hopper’s acting career spans six decades. But he is also a painter, photographer, writer and art collector. As he explains to Thomas Caldwell, it’s all about being creative.

"Self-portrait at the Porn Stand", oil on canvas by Dennis Hopper, 1962-2008

When I speak to Dennis Hopper he is in New Mexico, US, making the second series of Crash, a TV program based on the 2004 film of the same name. Hopper plays a wild character he describes as a Phil Spector type: “He’s a music mogul from the ’60s. He’s into orgies, drugs and all sorts of crazy insanity.” For those familiar with Hopper playing the deranged villain in films such as Speed (1994) this sounds like sensible casting.

The truth is, however, that Hopper has mellowed significantly, especially since his more excessive days during the ’70s. In conversation, he sounds a lot like the character he played in Elegy (2008); he is polite, amiable, full of admiration for his colleagues, and speaks slowly and deliberately.

Hopper, 73, is happy to reflect on his career, and talks passionately about what is clearly his favourite subject: art. Besides acting, he is a recognised painter, photographer, writer, director and art collector. His work has been exhibited internationally, and has been used on many magazine covers, including Vogue and Artforum.

Hopper may well emerge as a great American Renaissance Man of the late-20th and early-21st century. This would be an unlikely and unexpected outcome for someone who describes his own career as unfortunate. Indeed, after making Easy Rider (1969), one of the definitive counter-culture films of all time, Hopper’s cinematic career went through a tumultuous period. He has been sober for more than 20 years, but, as he has acknowledged previously, alcohol and substance abuse hit him hard during the 70s. It was during this period that he developed his tormented, wild and dangerous on-screen persona in films such as Wim Wenders’ The American Friend (1977) and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).

It wasn’t until 1986 that Hopper arrived back in Hollywood and revived his acting career, appearing in both David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, as the frighteningly primal psychopath Frank Booth, and in the more family friendly Hoosiers, for which he received an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor. These are two roles that Hopper looks back on fondly. However, he still regards Easy Rider as the high point of his career: “Being involved in the writing, directing and acting for my first film; accomplishing what I set out to do by showing the country and showing what was happening in the country at the time; and playing this goofy sort of sidekick. I’m very proud of that.”

Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider (1969)

Hopper and his Easy Rider co-writers, Peter Fonda and Terry Southern, not only received an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay, they created a film that still resonates 40 years on. In the film, Hopper and Fonda play a pair of drug dealers travelling across America on motorbikes. One of the many people they meet is a ‘square’ alcoholic lawyer – memorably played by Jack Nicholson, in a breakthrough role. Easy Rider was made independently from the studio system and its experimental approach to filmmaking captured an early representation of the hippie movement, which included communal living, drug use and the way such a lifestyle threatened the mainstream establishment.

Although Hopper acknowledges that Easy Rider is something of a time capsule in terms of fashion and music, its independent and rebellious spirit is still relevant today. “I’ve seen it recently with young audiences and they are very surprised. It hasn’t really aged at all.”

Easy Rider is just one example of how Hopper has both documented and contributed to some of America’s most exciting and influential cinematic and artistic movements. Now his direct involvement has been captured in an exhibition, Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood, which will be presented at The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne. When Hopper is asked how this exhibition reflects his career and legacy he is keen to make it clear that its focus is on the era rather than himself: “I think it’s more about the time that I was living. It really deals a lot with the art world in my life. My photographs deal with 1961 to 1967, with subjects like Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights movement and my involvement in the hippie movement. Then there’s my art collection, as I was very involved when Marcel Duchamp [the influential French artist] had his first retrospective in Pasadena in 1963. I was also very involved with Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol and all the pop artists of the 60s. That’s basically the history of my life besides being in films – and this all happened before I did Easy Rider. To walk through this exhibition is to walk from 1954 until now.”

"Paul Newman", gelatin silver print by Dennis Hopper, 1964

The year 1954 is significant, as that was when Hopper turned 18 and was contracted by Warner Bros. “I’ve been in the public eye for a long time. I forget about it at times. But then I’m rudely reminded!” As well as Martin Luther King Jr, Hopper has also photographed Warhol, singer James Brown and actor Paul Newman, although Hopper insists on clarifying the circumstances in which those photographs were taken: “I wasn’t doing assignments or anything. The people I photographed were friends of mine. I didn’t photograph a lot of movie actors because it wasn’t appropriate. It would have been an intrusion. They were being photographed all the time. Paul Newman was an exception because he was a really close friend.”

One of Hopper’s other iconic actor friends was James Dean, with whom he shared the screen in Rebel Without a Cause (1955; Hopper’s first film role) and Giant (1956). Hopper once described Dean as the most talented and original actor he had encountered. “I thought I was the best young actor in the world, and then I saw James work. I came out of playing Shakespeare at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. I’d never seen anybody improvise before. I was used to learning lines. It was a whole other side to acting – to live in the moment and have no preconceived ideas. That was not the way I was working. So when I came onto the set of Rebel Without a Cause and we started rehearsing I suddenly realised that he’d been working off the page and it was amazing to me. I’d never seen anything like it; doing it in the moment without preconceived ideas.”

Hopper also greatly values art that exists in the moment and reflects the time it was created. His own painting style is conceptual; influenced by abstract expressionism. A pivotal episode in his development occurred in 1962, when a friend who owned an art gallery in Los Angeles showed Hopper pictures of a cartoon and a soup can. “The cartoon was by Roy Lichtenstein and the soup can was by Warhol. Neither one of them had ever had shows before. I suddenly started jumping up and down and said ‘That’s it! That’s it! That’s the return to reality.’”

"Andy Warhol with flower", oil on vinyl by Dennis Hopper, 1963-2000

Hopper went to New York, where he met with Henry Geldzahler (then head of 20th-century art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art) and also pop artists Warhol, Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and James Rosenquist. “They were all the major players and they had never really had any shows at all,” recalls Hopper who, as well as being part of Duchamp’s first and only retrospective, was also part of Warhol’s first exhibition.

“Warhol was dabbling in the commercial area, doing silkscreen work and 20-foot high murals, while fine art was seen as something that was three-by-two feet. It was a different time and a different way of looking at things. Warhol and Lichtenstein stand a real chance of being remembered for their time because they did represent it.”

One of the more curious entries on Hopper’s resumé is his lead role in the 1976 Australian film Mad Dog Morgan, in which he played the notorious real-life bushranger Dan Morgan (alongside Jack Thompson). He loved the experience, describing the film as “way ahead of the curve”. And Hopper sounds delighted when I tell him that Morgan is one of many Australian ‘Ozploitation’ genre films from the 70s and 80s that are now being re-evaluated.

Dennis Hopper in Mad Dog Morgan (1976)

He also responds to concerns that Australia is not doing enough to make commercially viable cinema: “Look, Australian filmmakers are making great movies. They really are. Most of the time they are really hitting the mark. I can figure in my head what might be commercial and what might not be commercial, but in the end that isn’t really the filmmakers’ responsibility. The filmmaker should make his or her film. If they can get financing to make their film then they should make their film.” But Hopper does worry that filmmaking as art is being devalued by films that can turn a profit: “It’s all about what the big hit is going to be on the weekend.”

So how can people be encouraged to see more innovative movies? Hopper has an intriguing proposal: “I’ve always thought that when people build these cineplexes that they should have 10 theatres. Have one for the history of cinema to show old classic films, then have one for foreign films, and one for experimental and art films. Then the other seven can play the Hollywood game… After a year, people would start making a steady line into those other three theatres, because they’d want other people to see them standing in those lines rather than the others!”

It seems that Hopper is never going to be short of ideas or inspiration. There is a pattern running through his career: when one avenue for expression temporarily closes down, he finds another. So is Hopper one of those people who always feels compelled to create? “Yeah, that’s all I do. I never had to stop the things I did in high school, like taking photographs and painting, and that allowed me to have a cultural life. When I was young, most people were going skiing and going to the beach and doing other things. My mother managed a swimming pool so I didn’t need to be going there. I wanted to go to the art galleries. I wanted to find the artists that I liked. I wanted to meet them and I wanted to do that kind of work.”

Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood will be at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) from Thursday 12 November 2009 to Sunday 25 April 2010.

Originally appeared in The Big Issue, No. 341, 2009

© Thomas Caldwell, 2009

“Álmodozz, mintha örökké élnél; élj, mintha ma meghalnál.”

James Dean

Hello, James Dean.

I forgot what my idea was. But, I just realized I was born in the wrong decade. Also that I have readers! Hi, Jonathan! Hi, Melanie! Hi, Abby! AND That I’ve been too selfish to properly wish happy birthday to a special show!

PS

This was the only homework I did at home tonight:

I don’t why I haven’t pay that much attention to this good looking guy before, Mr. James Dean. One of the most popular moviestars in the 50ths. I can really imagine how different it was then, when there wasn’t as many actors as it is today. Must have been more special back then.

I’m gonna start watch some of Deans movies, “Rebel without a cause” and “east of eden”  for example, seems good!

I really like the name James also. It’s sounds very classy and handsome. If I have a son someday, I maybe name him that hehe:)

martes, 22 de noviembre de 2005

He dejado pasar los meses de este 2005 con la esperanza de que en algún escondido lugar de alguna publicación de gran tirada alguien te rindiese un pequeño homenaje; mis esperanzas se van desvaleciendo poco a poco a medida que nos acercamos al último mes de este año en que hace 50 que decidiste dejar de vivir. Y me he preguntado mil veces por la razón que puede mover a este intencionado olvido y tras hablar, comentar y cambiar impresiones con aquellos que sé positivamente que albergan la verdad, me he dado cuenta de que ese olvido intencionado viene de la mano de una ausencia de comentarios porque eres tan increíblemente actual que todavía puedes ser peligroso. Aquella imagen adornada de tejanos, camiseta blanca y cazadora roja, aquel pelo rubio alborotado, esa mirada díscola y desconfiada, el eterno cigarrillo colgado de tus labios que sonreían desafiantes a un mundo que te miraba de reojos… todo es actual. No han pasado años por esa imagen amada y deseada de rebeldía. Si tuvieses la posibilidad de pasearte por cualquier calle de cualquier ciudad del mundo, serías un chico de hoy, un rebelde, un antisocial. Sin embargo aún continuarías siendo diferente porque tu no tomaste esta postura, naciste rebelde.   

Así llegaste por primera vez a la imagen pública, el Rebelde sin Causa que alguien se atrevió a poner como título a un hombre que en sí mismo era la película entera. Después te colocaste al Este del Eden y tiraste piedras a los tejados. Qué forma más hermosa de rebelarse, mi querido ídolo rubio¡. Jugabas ya en el abismo de la bebida queriendo saber donde estaba el límite. Pero ese límite no aparecía quizás porque aún quería que vivieses un poco más. Tuneaste tu coche, lo mismo que hacías en tu película, para lanzarte en carreras sin destino, cuyo final era un precipicio por donde caen los débiles. Jugaste con una sexualidad indefinida, quizás también porque las mujeres te hicimos así, para que te acercaras aún más a los ángeles que pueden o no pueden ser a la vez bisexuales. Fumabas sin parar con ese desdén que tienen los dioses y mirabas al resto del personal con provocación inocente, sabiendo que pronto esa imagen se convertiría en bandera de lucha, de ley, de prohibición.  

Quién te iba a decir que todo eso era malo?. Nadie podía, tu mirada dejaba sin habla a cualquiera que intentara decirte que todo lo que hacías era malo, antisocial y depravado. Los ángeles son así, pueden permirtirse el lujo de hacer lo que les viene en ganas porque están por encima de las leyes de los hombres. Y en un alarde de humildad te reuniste con dos cadáveres andantes para hacer la última película: Gigantes; eso sí era verdad. Los tres llevábais el estigma de la maldición. La muerte estaba próxima y quisiste decir adiós desde la pantalla grande reunido con los otros dos iconos de una sociedad podrida. 

Después te lanzaste en la soledad por la carretera del adiós, con la fecha plateada que te habías mandado a construir para correr a 210 kms/hora por la recta final. Allí quedaste destrozado contra un árbol con tu único amigo, ese Porche que fué el simbolo de la rebeldía final. El ángel había muerto, pero como bien habías dicho, hay que morir joven para hacer un bonito cadaver.  

Yo no te conocí hasta diez años después de haber fallecido y precisamente viendo Rebelde sin causa que en aquellos 60´s bulliciosos y llenos de gritos de basta ya! se me hacía tremendamente familiar. Cuando me enteré que ese dios rubio y lleno de problemas había muerto 10 años antes se me antojo una broma de la historia. Y más aún cuando llegaron los 70´s y tu imagen se convertía aún y aún más familiar. Quizás los 80´s fueron un respiro para los muchos que conocían tu historia, pensando que no se volvería a repetir, eran tiempos de esperanzas. Sin embargo nos metimos en la recta final, lo mismo que hiciste tú con el Porche plateado y hoy más que nunca te has vuelto tan actual que parece imposible que esas fotos que miro no hayan sido tomadas ayer mismo. 

Siento en la profundidad de mi ser que tu imagen es quizás un reclamo de atención porque cada vez eres más actual, ni siquiera tus ropas te delatan. Ni tu afición a la bebida, ni tus noches locas en los garitos de mala muerte de cualquier ciudad; ni los insultos a la policía cuando eras detenido por gestos no acorde con la sociedad; ni el consumo de las drogas que en tu tiempo ya eran reclamo para la juventud, ni la indolencia de tu gesto con el cigarrillo colgado del labio; ni los gestos soaces; ni siquiera tu forma de pensar o de no pensar ha pasado de moda. 

Y temo mi querido Jim que en este memorandum que me he atrevido a hacer de tu 50 aniversario ni siguiera podamos tener simpatía por el diablo; sencillamente porque el diablo no se atrevió nunca a tentarte… con qué te iba a tentar?: con la belleza?, con los placeres carnales?, con las blasfemias?, con la riqueza?,…. no podía tentarte con nada porque tu alma vagaba desde hacía mucho tiempo por el Este del Eden, allí donde se ocultan los rebeldes eternos. 

Y seguramente tu único acto de valentía te costó la vida; quizás también porque los auténticos rebeldes tienen que morir joven, es la única manera de que sus ideas se conserven actuales. Y lo decidiste aquella noche, lanzándote a una velocidad de muerte por los caminos de la oscuridad. Ya no tenías nada más que hacer, habías logrado la gloria de ser quizás el icono más importante del siglos XX, el rebelde más insigne y quizás el único que tuvo la grandeza de morir cuando estaba en posesión de la rebeldía… unos años más y quizás el diablo te podría haber tentado con otros modos de vida y te hubieses convertido en un actor amoldado y moldeable. 24 años te dejaste en esta tierra, donde algunos dicen que aún vives. Los dioses no pueden vivir tanto, mueren jóvenes porque ya nacen viejos. 

Y ese chaval rubio, con aquel jersey de cuello alto negro que se multiplica por 27 en las imágenes del poster que está en mi dormitorio me mira de reojo otra vez, quizás incluso en alguna de esas fotos me sonría de manera tímida. Al fín y al cabo tenías debilidad por las mujeres mayores porque encontrabas el cariño que nunca tuviste de una madre. Y te sigues multiplicando en más imágenes que de manera casi insultante te dejaste hacer, esas imágenes que son ahora las que lucen en los pins de la actualidad, sin nombre y sin fecha. Algunos jóvenes los llevan en sus bolsos y cazadoras, no saben, no creo que ni conozcan quien era ese joven rubio que les mira de reojo. Sin embargo, la mirada es tan actual que casi es un mensaje: No confio en vosotros¡, pareces decirlo a voces, en medio de la borrachera continua que fue tu vida. 

Y pasa el 2005 y nadie en ninguna parte pone algo sobre tí. Quizás sigas siendo el enemigo público número 1 con que fuiste calificado en los medios de USA de aquellos tiempo. Un hombre solitario, entregado a todos los vicios conocidos oficialmente en aquellos oscuros años 50´s y sin embargo tan actual. 

Desde aquí mi querido James Dean tiro una piedra sobre tu tejado, ahora ya no existen ni tejado ni azoteas para poder tirar piedras; lo más colocarse con un rifle y tirotear a todo el que pasa por la calle. Ya ves lo impersonales que nos hemos vuelto que ni siquiera sabemos tirar piedras a nuestra propia casa.

Y termino mi querido Jim con ese recuerdo entrañable de alguien que te conoció con diez años de atraso pero que desde entonces te lleva en múltiples recuerdos más mentales que físicos. No voy a despedirme de tí porque sé que estas ahí fuera, andando por las calles como lo hacías en la famosa foto de NY, aquella que en blanco y negro nos enseñaba a un chico que fumaba y andaba ladeadamente desafiando a todo y a todos. Siempre te tengo presente porque aunque parezca una locura, siempre estas presente.  
James Dean murió hace 50 años, no pondré “que descanse en paz”, porque sé positivamente que “nunca descansará en paz”. 

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(Marion, 1931-Paso Robles, 1955). Tras cursar estudios de arte dramático en Nueva York, inició su carrera trabajando en pequeños teatros de Broadway. Su interpretación en El inmoralista, pieza teatral de A. Gide, le valió la oportunidad de firmar un contrato en Hollywood, donde, al año siguiente, rodó Al este del Edén, dirigida por Elia Kazan. En 1955 se puso a las órdenes de Nicholas Ray para protagonizar, junto a Natalie Wood y Sal Mineo, Rebelde sin causa, en la cual Dean daba vida a un adolescente incomprendido y en desacuerdo con la realidad que le rodeaba. Poco después actuó en Gigante, dirigida por G. Stevens a partir de la novela de E. Ferber y en la que Dean, en esta ocasión un peón de rudos modales, consolidó su imagen de joven inconformista. Dicha imagen, así como su férrea oposición a la guerra de Corea y su trágica muerte en accidente automovilístico poco antes del estreno de la película, lo convirtieron en símbolo para toda una generación marcada por sus ansias de libertad y en perenne conflicto con sus mayores.

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“Sueña como si estuvieses vivo todavía y vive como si murieses hoy mismo” (James Dean) 

 ® textos DAMADENEGRO2005  

Desde o dia que criaram o jeans ele nunca mais saiu de moda (thank god), o curinga dos looks pode aparecer com outras lavagens , cortes, modelos, para sair do básico.

O que está super acontecendo hoje em dia é o motorcycle denim, que é o jeans com cara de motoqueiro.

Além das manchas, os ‘acid jeans’, do tecido gasto e dos recortes diferenciados, o jeans pode aparecer com alguns zíperes em lugares estratégicos, ou algumas tachas pra mudar o vizoo e ficar mais agressivo.

Até nós mesmos podemos deixar aquele jeans abandonado no guarda-roupas, com cara de motorcycle, basta ter criatividade. Depois da mudança é só procurar um James Dean da vida por aí e ir ferver, dica!

Se inspire um pouco com os modelos abaixo pra arrasar: