Swoon: Three Centuries of Davidism

[Phantasmagoria]

(300 Years)

(300, like, the movie you know?)



Swoo n for David Wenham/Faramir/Dilios!

[princessFaz]

I get it!! Nice thread, Phan...

[AtinielofGondor]

Great new thread!

A Sonday morning swoon for the redheaded Spartan and Gondorian!

[SueB]

Yay, a new thread!!! Thanks for starting it, Phaz!!! Just have to remove a few last sheets pf plastic and sweep away the packing peanuts...

SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON for David/ Faramir!!!

Sue

[Phantasmagoria]

oh dear maccaronis


mmm, wow, study that face. Exceptional. Exquisite. ....excellent.

[PrincessOfIthilien]

I love that b/w pic Phan.....he reminds me of someone in it, but I can't think who. It's been bugging me for months.

Thanks for posting the link.

[meaningofhaste]

The "Sunday Mail" (South Australia), February 26, has a longish interview with DW about "Songs from the Yellow Room," plus some thoughts on "Answered by Fire," the Australian film industry, life with Kate and Eliza, and the horse from ROTK ("My horse hated me. . .everyone thought it was funny but me.").

SFTYR: "It's really fired up my creative juices and got the adrenalin flowing and it's extremely nerve-wracking packing in so much in such a short time. I wish I had six months to work on it." (Question: how do you fire up juices?)

Australian Film: "It's great to appear in films overseas and adopt accents and get nice pay packets, but I like being an Australian. I like using an Australian accent in my work. We should be doing more here to keep our industry and culture alive."

On family life: "I keep it private because I like to keep things normal, but we have a beautiful little girl and life is good."


WHY didn't the stupid interviewer ask anything about 300? Grrrrrr....

[meaningofhaste]

The 300 production blog http://300themovie.warnerbros.com/ has a new entry. It's more about Mark Twight, the fitnes trainer, and is essentially just a link to his philosophy of training. No references to the film or its actors whatever.

[LadyStefania]

Hi Fazguls -

Thanks for the new thread, Phantas. I wish we could get more info on "300," too, being as we're going to have to wait forever before that movie comes out. Regarding the info from the David interview that MoH quotes, he really is so pro the Australian cinema and arts. That's hard for us who aren't Australian and have to scratch around to get copies of Dave's Australian movies. I did get a charge out of him saying that he likes working with an Australian accent. Interestingly enough, last December when I did my own private LOTR trilogy showing, I remembering thinking Wenham's voice sounded strange as Faramir. I quickly realized that I subconsiously expected Faramir to have an Aussie accent.

And now, for shameless self-promotion, I just posted the newest chapter of "Avoidance" at Stories of Arda. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, this is a Faramir/Eowyn romance cast in Movieverse. It fills in black holes from the movies with scenes from the books and my own, not really twisted imagination. Two of our Fazguls, Raksha and SMOR are my Beta reviewers. Anyhow, if you are interested, follow the link in my signature. Raksha has a new short story up at SoA, and SMOR promises me she is in the process of updating her Eowyn story, "An Act of Desperation."

- L.Steff

[meaningofhaste]

The February results for MOME are out--quite interesting! It was fun and challenging trying to work a Faramir reference into all my votes. Are the fazgul going to push for Faramir in March, or is this all getting a little old?


Swooning for DW/Faramir, which combination never gets old!

[PrincessOfIthilien]

The February results for MOME ar out--quite interesting! It was fun and challenging trying to work a Faramir reference into all my votes. Are the fazgul going to push for Faramir in March, or is this all getting a little old?


Swooning for DW/Faramir, which combination never gets old!

I'm up for it.

I hope there will be some more support though as I'd rather we didn't vote at all than see him languish at the bottom of the poll - or even mid-table.

[AtinielofGondor]

I love your new sig pic, PoI .


SWOOOOOOONS for Josh and for a certain gingerhaired Steward!!!!

[sh_wulff]

POI

your sigpic...GUH


and yes I am voting Faramir.. because it was my birthday and I'd like him to win..oh I'll be voting for the 3rd Marshall on alternate daze


I tried to get a copy of that interview but was unable to

The "Sunday Mail" (South Australia), February 26, has a longish interview with DW about "Songs from the Yellow Room," plus some thoughts on "Answered by Fire," the Australian film industry, life with Kate and Eliza, and the horse from ROTK ("My horse hated me. . .everyone thought it was funny but me.").
[quote][/quote]

MOH is there ore to it and is it possible to transcribe the whole inter view here

pretty please!!!?

[Phantasmagoria]

hehe, nice finding Sh_wulff

and yeah, PoI's sigpic is awesome'd.

[SueB]

Hi, everybody!

Ooo, I'd like to add to the chorus of approval for PoI's new sig pic!! Very lovely...just look at all that blue!!

MoH, thanks for the link and the info on the interview! Poor David-wonder if he had to ride much for 300?

L.Steff, thanks for the heads up on your story! I'll be sure to check it out!

Beautiful images, Phaz!! Hmmm, looks like it's time to change the wallpaper!!

Have a great weekend, everybody!!

SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON for David/ Faramir!!

Sue

[meaningofhaste]

Sh_wulff, MIS has put the interview into Dessicated Coconut http://dessicatedcoconut.tripod.com/. Today's Adelaide Advertiser
has another article:

David walks on the Festival's wild side
By BEN McEACHEN
03mar06
TO get into the mind of a tortured artist, lovable Australian actor David Wenham walked the streets of Adelaide during its craziest period.

"I use walking, actually, to work," said Wenham, who was seen powering down Rundle St on Wednesday night, amid Fringe fever. "I walk and I go through the script in my head and see what ideas come to me.

"Basically, I am working the whole time I am walking."

His pavement pounding in Adelaide was preparation for a hotly anticipated event at the Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts, the "premier festival in Australia" according to Wenham.

In a world-first production, composer Gustav Mahler's Song of the Warth symphony will interweave with Wenham delivering six letters written by artist Vincent Van Gogh. Directed by Adam Cook, Songs from the Yellow Bedroom will have two shows only at Adelaide Town Hall tomorrow and Sunday.

The accomplished stage, television (SeaChange) and film actor (The Lord of the Rings) said Songs from the Yellow Room would be one of his most frightening assignments.

"It's one of the more difficult things I have ever had to do," said Wenham ahead of his first rehearsal with the 95-piece orchestra and two opera singers who will perform Mahler.

"I've got nothing, no props and such ... it's just me, using Vincent's letter, having a conversation with the audience.

Originally conceived by late theatre director Richard Wherrett, Yellow Bedroom allies Van Gogh and Mahler as contemporaries. Both were unstable artists in the late 1800s, their mental states affecting their work.

"He was struck by the similarity and the use of colour between Van Gogh and Mahler," Wenham said about Wherrett. He was also struck by Wenham's similarity to the Flemish master, a comment the actor had heard before.

"People have said I would be perfect casting if they ever did another movie about Vincent," he said.

Only becoming available for Yellow Bedroom two weeks ago, Wenham thought his schedule would prevent his seeing other Festival and Fringe shows. Having most recently worked on a mini-series about the build-up to the East Timor vote of independence, and feature film 300 in Canada, Wenham was not sure which acting medium he would turn to next.

"You can try to control your career, but you just never know what is going to come up next," he said.



STORIES IN THIS SECTION
David walks on the Festival's wild side
Smile, the world is watching
Off to a flying start
True blue
We're taking festive fun to the people
Terminal velocity
Danger! Machines in motion
Ticket special
National vow for Festival as Sheehy stays on
I spent large sums of money ... indulging my own tastes and interests
The big screen
Byrne, baby Byrne
New world view

There's a nice triple picture of David with the original aricle, which you can find by searching Google News. Question: was the picture taken for the larticle, and if so, can you spot any signs of the famed 300 training in DW's body?

And the first performance is tomorrow!! There should be reviews![/b]

[PrincessOfIthilien]

TO get into the mind of a tortured artist, lovable Australian actor David Wenham

Lovable.

[meaningofhaste]

Wot, POI, David is not lovable? How about: Adorable? Scrumptious? Delectable? Yummy? Bodacious? Inspiring! Elevating?

Sw ning for the lovable one!

[PrincessOfIthilien]

Wot, POI, David is not lovable? How about: Adorable? Scrumptious? Delectable? Yummy? Bodacious? Inspiring! Elevating?

Sw ning for the lovable one!

Indeed he is lovable - I used the grinning smiley to show a smug satisfaction about the description.

Delicious is another good one.

[lucidity]

Gee MoH, wherever do you find those tidbits? Fascinating!

And PoI, the sig pic is darling. What incarnation is that? It must be one I haven't seen yet, LOL.

[meaningofhaste]

Lucidity;

POI's current sig pic is from "Better than Sex," so you'd better break down and see it.

[LadyStefania]

Hi Gang -

I'm going to have to check out those new pictures of Dave. I want to see some from "Answered by Fire". I suppose we'll have to wait a long time before seeing anything from "300." Tonight I'm going to watch "Sin City." Yeah, I know it's violent. I'm prepared. I'm just curious to see what Frank Miller's vision is, after attending his talk at WonderCon.

BTW, if any of you have the 2006 Lord of the Rings Heroes calendars, you are now currently enjoying Faramir as Mr. March. It's not my favorite Faramir shot though not a bad one. Thing is, he looks so sweet in the picture, but in the film, I think that's where he says "Take them to Gondor" (in reference to Frodo and Sam). Talk about a performance with a lot of levels. He looks so gentle and sweet but he talks so tough and uncompromising.

Still Swooooning after all these years. Hope you all are well.

-L. Steff

[Athelas63]

Hey Ladies! Been too busy to check as often as I'd like, but thought I'd pass this along -

Remember my fanfic I said had been nominated for a Mithril Award? I was notified today I have made it to the semi-finals! Too cool, huh?

Love the bunny pic, and am also waiting anxiously for more info on 300.

And where the heck is the BOZ thread? No one takes care of anything anymore... grumble grumble... have to go clean one off myself....

SWOOOOOOOOOOOOO for Fazzy and that NOSE I see in the few pix of 300 available....

[princessFaz]

Hello ladies. Sorry I havent been around much but I'm off to Disneyworld for a few days. See you all later!

[LadyStefania]

I watched Sin City yesterday and was rather blown away--an excellent metaphor for such a violent film. You can't take it too seriously. It's almost like a science fiction film noir. It many ways it was quite lovely to look at. A definite graphic novel.

For those of you who read '300' and have seen 'Sin City,' are they similar. Miller's vision of the world is soooo bleak in 'Sin City.' But he was the co-director of 'Sin City' and not directly involved with '300.' '300' readers, is this book very bleak?

- Steff

[meaningofhaste]

Is "300" bleak? Well, everybody except Dilios dies. . . . I'd say it's more ultra-violent than bleak.

Here are a couple of reviews of "Songs from the Yellow Room." The concensus seems to be that David and the Australian Youth Orchestra were fine, but that the pairing of Van Gogh and Mahler really doesn't work as a dramatic presentation.

Copyright 2006 Nationwide News Pty Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Advertiser

March 6, 2006 Monday
State Edition

SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 32

LENGTH: 316 words

HEADLINE: Reviews;
A curious conglomeration

BYLINE: Raymond Chapman Smith

BODY:


Songs from the Yellow Bedroom

MUSIC THEATRE

Who: Australian Youth Orchestra with David Wenham, Bernadette Cullen, mezzo soprano, and Keith Lewis, tenor

When: Saturday and Sunday

Where: Adelaide Town Hall

Reviewer: Raymond Chapman Smith

SONGS from the Yellow Bedroom is a rather partial, theatrical conceit that intersperses (or interrupts) the six parts of Gustav Mahler's Song of the Earth with a selection of readings from Vincent Van Gogh's rhapsodic and revealing letters to his brother, Theo.

Das Lied von der Erde is arguably Mahler's masterpiece, an hour-long cycle that sets Chinese poems in a dramatic, powerfully moving sequence in which five highly contrasted ''Earthly'' songs are counterbalanced by a remarkable, 30-minute ''Farewell'' - a solitary meditation on eternity.

Van Gogh's letters, while certainly of interest, are clearly not his central work and the theatrical presentation of such intensely private musings serves only to put them at a further remove. David Wenham's mysteriously accented, drawcard recitation of the letters was, for this audience at least, inevitably effective.

Beyond Wenham's skilful presence, and a chair or two for props, it was a little difficult to discern what actually constituted this much-vaunted ''theatrical production''.

Allocated seating in the front row of the stalls - no doubt to absorb the full ''theatrical impact'' - I was able to hear and observe the fine sound and unerring intonation of the AYO's first violins at very close quarters.

The similarly impressive harps were also to the fore but from this bird's-ear position, the rest of the orchestra was relegated to the sonic background.

Conductor Diego Masson's tempi were uniformly slow to sluggish, with a caution that did little to articulate the complex fluidity of Mahler's phrasing.

Nevertheless, it was the 99 dedicated young musos of AYO who were the real stars of this curious occasion.

This one is from "The Australian."

Van Gogh and Mahler in parallel universes
Graham Strahle
March 06, 2006
Songs from the Yellow Bedroom.
Australian Youth Orchestra. Diego Masson, conductor and David Wenham, actor. Adelaide Town Hall, March 4 and 5.

SOME ideas look good on paper, but do not quite work in practice. Interspersing readings from Van Gogh's letters with Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) sounds like an intriguing idea. The artist and composer were almost contemporaries and similarly immersed in themes of nature, death and despair. Further, both shared a particular fascination with Asian artistic traditions, as borne out in the influence of Japanese prints on Van Gogh and in Mahler's choice of Chinese poems as the basis of his song cycle.

But the question is whether a meaningful link can really be made between these two figures. Director Adam Cook, fulfilling a vision of the late theatre director Richard Wherrett to undertake this project, certainly poses the question and makes one think about it.

Delivered with engrossing conviction by actor David Wenham, the readings laid bare Van Gogh's passionate idealism, his love of colour and nature, and his knowledge of his encroaching insanity. But juxtaposed against Mahler's music, the readings only served to highlight fundamental differences of personality and artistic purpose.

What became clear was that Van Gogh and Mahler are two parallel but dissimilar creative minds. The former is a fragile, heart-driven ego and recluse who finds in nature the richness of human experience. By comparison Mahler's art is more intellectual and symbolic: he uses the idea of nature as a metaphor for what humanity has lost, and he does so with irony.

Tenor Keith Lewis's singing in three of the songs generally captured the manically intense quality of Mahler's vocal writing, but it was too operatic in style and tended to gloss over nuances of meaning in the words. This was a pity because one naturally wanted to explore this dimension to find possible resonances with the Van Gogh readings. Varying her tone expressively, mezzosoprano Bernadette Cullen offered a more intimate view of Mahler's responsiveness to text; and her singing in Farewell, emphasising the song's implicit death wish, was able to highlight perhaps the only thing that Mahler and Van Gogh had in common: their preoccupation with morbidity.

If nothing else, this performance demanded a sense of colour in the orchestral playing, and in this regard the Australian Youth Orchestra excelled themselves. With Diego Masson at the helm, the 96 young musicians performed with remarkable vividness and control over Mahler's complex writing, both in the song cycle and in the adagio from his 10th Symphony.

I wonder what one reviewer mean by DW's mysteriously accented, drawcard recitation"?

[meaningofhaste]

Here's another review, this time from the Sydney Morning Herald, March 8. Intersting that there may be demand for an encore. And let's hope someone i nthe film industry notices and thinks its about time for another film about Van Gogh since "Lust for Life" with Kirk Douglas in 1956! (Actually there have been a lot of films/telemovies featuring Van Gogh since then--I was surprised to see how many).

**************

Music and visual artists have been interwoven in two festival pieces, Songs from the Yellow Bedroom (invoking Gustav Mahler and Vincent Van Gogh) and the dark cabaret Three Furies: Scenes from the Life of Francis Bacon.

David Wenham bore an uncanny likeness to Van Gogh as he read the tortured painter's letters to his brother. Wenham created a thoughtful portrait of the painter, eliciting the poetry of the letters written as Van Gogh's sanity disintegrated. The letters were interspersed with Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), performed with colour and energy by the Australian Youth Orchestra, with soloists Bernadette Cullen and Keith Lewis.

It seems a long bow, juxtaposing the composer and the artist. Yet they were almost contemporaries, shared a passion for nature and Asian traditions, and were preoccupied with mortality. The Sydney director Richard Wherrett saw enough parallels to have begun developing the project shortly before his death in 2001. The piece felt like a work in progress, which invites a visual element. And it invites a Sydney production, having been conceived in the city with its own Yellow House artistic movement.

[Phantasmagoria]

Some indie film snobs keep telling me nothing can beat or copy Lust For Life, but I'll go on a limb and still petition for a new one. I had no idea it was such an old film.

[meaningofhaste]

Who has seen "The Proposition," now that the DVD is out? Here are MIS's comments:

***********

Also, I finally got to see "The Proposition". Yikes. What a violent little flick. There were parts that nearly unwatchable, they were so horrific and brutal. Eden Fletcher is just the most loathsome little maggot, with his gray suit, fancy bowler hat, slicked-back hair, and high-pitched, insinuatingly plummy air..."Yes, Martha." "Thank you, Martha." Shieldmatron described him as "slappable". His voice is kind of a cross between Brett Sprague and a really evil Faramir.

You can tell David really relished the role. Another, less capable actor might have turned Eden into a foppish caricature. David stops just short of being over-the-top annoying.

********************

I took the liberty of posting this without consulting MIS, but she will be away from all DW boards for a while, and I thought it was too good to hold back.

Swooning even for the loathsome little maggot

[sh_wulff]

I did not see "the Proposition" at the movies for that very reason..I heard it was violent

I was going to ask..how does it compare re the Violence in "Dust".... that's prob as much as I can mange.. though is did find "the Boys" rather chilling too

thanks in advance

sw00n for he that does chilling and scary rather well

a handy man