A holiday that is always with you The film Modernists is a cleverly tailored Intertext, in which historical realities are intertwined with a large number of artistic metaphors, quotes from literature, references to different types of art and personal preferences of the director.
Let’s start with historical realities. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when modernism had already found its idols and its masterpieces in the mass of currents (Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism, Dadaism, etc.), there was an outflow of a large number of European representatives of the art world in the United States. There, their ideas, starting from 1913, were vividly picked up. But in the early 1920s, because of economic instability for Americans, life in Europe was much cheaper: many of them moved to the Old World, forming entire “colonies”. The center of cultural battles, as you know, was Paris.
In the salon at 27 Fleurus Street, Gertrude Stein gathered representatives of competing art programs and different nationalities, including young English-speaking writers who emigrated from the United States. Stein called them the “Lost Generation.” And with the light hand of Hemingway, who took this metaphor as an epigraph for the novel “The Sun Also Rises”, the term became the definition for a group of writers who expressed in their works disappointment in the achievements of civilization, pessimism and the loss of previous ideals (E. Hemingway, F. S. Fitzgerald, etc.).
The film’s main SOURCE line is dedicated to the life of American immigrants – artists, writers, musicians – in Paris in 1926. Thirty-three-year-old artist Nicholas Hart (Keith Carradine) has a lot of cash debt. His paintings for six years hang in one of the art galleries, no one buys them, however, the artist’s witty graphic sketches are constantly printed in the newspaper, they adorn the walls of the fashionable cafe “Selavy”. Hart's future depends on how he builds relationships with three highly active and unpredictable women: Rachel Stone (Linda Fiorentino), Libby Valentine (Genevieve Bujo) and Natalie de Ville (Geraldine Chaplin). The semi-detective history of his forgery of Cezanne and Modigliani’s paintings raises the question edge-on. Life in Paris is becoming unbearable. . .
One of the main regulars of the cafe "Selavy" is Ernest Hemingway (Kevin J. O'Connor). The novel “The Sun Rises” has already made him famous. Ernest is admired by café visitors. It is known to ordinary readers, many impose on him as friends. The ever-drunk writer utters profound quotes. All of them serve as a reference to his real works, both to those already written by the end of 1926 and to those that will be published much later.
The most important of them is The Holiday Book That Is Always With You (1964). Hemingway notes that “for Ernest, the words Paris and Happiness have always been synonymous.” He once said, “If you’re lucky enough to live in Paris when you’re young, wherever you end up, he stays with you.” These are the words that end the film of Modernity. Director Alan Rudolph delicately hints that the ending of the love story in his film is not the most important event.
Rudolph wrote most of the films he directed. In the script of Modernists, the core of the plot is the figure of Hemingway, who loved boxing, music, short writing style and was the first to use the Iceberg Principle to create artistic texts. These components Rudolph not only took as the basis of the plot (boxing fight Nick Hart with Bertie Stone (John Lawn) – the culmination of the film), but also actively used at the level of cinematic language.
All his characters don't say much. But they do it accurately and metaphorically. One of the fleeting dialogues in the salon of Gertrude Stein is indicative:
- Oh, that's rough. These Americans are ignorant!
- Yeah. They're still buying Picasso. Cubism woodcutters!
Modernists have always sought newness. The abundance of different trends allowed them to conduct a revision of the direction during the creation of masterpieces, and not after the recognition of them, as was the case in classical art. Rudolf successfully objectified this conflict of opinions in dialogues about the price and value of paintings created by artists. The 'masterwork' approach to the evaluation of works of art is already seriously outdated, and the commercial one is only gaining momentum.
Accurate satire in combination with subtle lyricism and filigree fantasy is the general feature of the entire work of Alan Rudolph. And in this film it is manifested as much as possible. But, as the main character of Modernists remained in the shadow of recognized geniuses of the early twentieth century, the film about them did not enter the number of cult. It is noteworthy, however, that in 1989, on the eve of the presentation of the Oscar statuettes, the film received three film awards “Independent Spirit”. Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography (Toyomichi Kurita), Best Supporting Actor (John Lone) were noted.
About the music used in the film, you can write a separate review. How skillfully it serves arias from the operas “Rigoletto”, “The Wedding of Figaro”, “Madame Buterfly”; how an American musician and composer Mark Isham wrote music (and received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for it); how French and American musician Charlely Couture played the role of taper in the cafe “Selavy” deserves close attention.
In my opinion, the film Modernists is a masterpiece. And to view cultural historians, art historians, film lovers is mandatory.