0:00:02 > 0:00:03On The Review Show tonight -
0:00:03 > 0:00:06Notoriety and excess in the Jazz Age.
0:00:06 > 0:00:10A celebrity photographer takes on death.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12Fame and the literary author.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14The shock of the old.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17And the horror of the returning dead.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20Plus music from Mogwai live in the studio.
0:00:25 > 0:00:28Tonight, my cultural flappers and gangsters
0:00:28 > 0:00:31are Sarah Churchwell, professor of American literature
0:00:31 > 0:00:33at the University of East Anglia.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Her timely book on Gatsby is also out soon.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39The critic Paul Morley, whose new book, The North, is about to appear,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42and writer and critic James Delingpole,
0:00:42 > 0:00:47author of 365 Ways To Drive A Liberal Crazy, amongst other books.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50We begin tonight with THAT film.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53The long-anticipated version of The Great Gatsby.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56It's directed by Baz Luhrmann, who made Moulin Rouge
0:00:56 > 0:00:58and Romeo And Juliet,
0:00:58 > 0:01:01and arrives almost 40 years since the last big screen adaptation
0:01:01 > 0:01:04of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11Set in the sultry New York summer of 1922,
0:01:11 > 0:01:16The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald's examination of the American dream
0:01:16 > 0:01:19and of an unsustainable culture of greed and excess.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24It centres on the story of Jay Gatsby,
0:01:24 > 0:01:26an enigmatic self-made man,
0:01:26 > 0:01:28renowned for extravagant parties
0:01:28 > 0:01:33which he creates with the intention of luring back his lost love, Daisy.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36You can't repeat the past.
0:01:36 > 0:01:37No.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40Why, of course you can.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45Luhrmann's Gatsby stars Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role,
0:01:45 > 0:01:48Carey Mulligan as the object of his desire
0:01:48 > 0:01:50and Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway,
0:01:50 > 0:01:55the film's narrator and perhaps Gatsby's only true friend.
0:01:55 > 0:01:59Major Jay Gatsby for valour extraordinary.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01That's right.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05The film bears the hallmarks of the director's flamboyance.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09With stylised sets, theatrical acting and extravagant costumes
0:02:09 > 0:02:13recreating Fitzgerald's world of the rich and reckless.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15Their cars were just a little bit faster,
0:02:15 > 0:02:17they were a little bit louder.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20The costumes are just a little bit more outlandish.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23And everything is just a little bit more extravagant
0:02:23 > 0:02:28to make you understand how enormously wealthy these people were.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31He's also chosen to film in 3D
0:02:31 > 0:02:33to draw the viewer into Gatsby's world.
0:02:33 > 0:02:36While the soundtrack, co-produced by Jay-Z,
0:02:36 > 0:02:40brings a contemporary edge to the sound of the Jazz Age.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46So, does Luhrmann's typically maverick take on Gatsby
0:02:46 > 0:02:50match the timelessness of Fitzgerald's classic cautionary tale?
0:02:51 > 0:02:54My life...my life is going to be like this.
0:02:56 > 0:02:58It's got to keep going on.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04So, Sarah, you could think that Baz Luhrmann's a perfect director,
0:03:04 > 0:03:07given the excesses of the age.
0:03:07 > 0:03:09Do you think his style does match the subject?
0:03:09 > 0:03:12No, I really don't think it does in an important way.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15Because the extravagance is so extravagant, it's so flamboyant,
0:03:15 > 0:03:18that what it misses is, you said in the clip there,
0:03:18 > 0:03:22it's a story about the unsustainability of greed and excess.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25And yet this is a film that doesn't want it to be unsustainable.
0:03:25 > 0:03:27It wants the greed and excess
0:03:27 > 0:03:29to keep going and going and going and going.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32And so the story is about disillusionment.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35It's about how this ends up being empty and hollow.
0:03:35 > 0:03:37And yet this is a film that is in thrall
0:03:37 > 0:03:39to the spectacles it's creating.
0:03:39 > 0:03:40I suppose, James, in some way,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43you could admire the scale of the production.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46I do agree very much with Sarah,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49it is a kitsch, pimped-up version of the book
0:03:49 > 0:03:53which has about as much in common with F Scott Fitzgerald
0:03:53 > 0:03:58as the James Cameron Titanic movie does with the real Titanic event.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00It's a completely different experience.
0:04:00 > 0:04:01And that's no bad thing.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05My 14-year-old son is going to love it, he's going to love that excess.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07He's going to love the fact that, um...
0:04:07 > 0:04:10- Is it West Egg or East Egg, where Gatsby lives?- West Egg.
0:04:10 > 0:04:15West Egg looks like a cross between the Disneyland castle and Sylvanian Families.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18It's weird. It's entertaining. It's like a pop video.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20Is there anything wrong with that?
0:04:20 > 0:04:22It's like Scooby Doo does Citizen Kane.
0:04:22 > 0:04:26It's Moulin Gatsby, it's Romeo and Gatsby.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28If you can abstract the fact that
0:04:28 > 0:04:31it's got very little to do with what we might think of as the book,
0:04:31 > 0:04:33and take it as one man's version
0:04:33 > 0:04:35of the idea that prose can be so resonant
0:04:35 > 0:04:38that this is the only way he could interpret, Baz Luhrmann,
0:04:38 > 0:04:41he's done his bit to interpret the magic of prose.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44So in that sort of way, I loved-hated it for a start.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48I loved-hated it. It wasn't over the top enough.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51I was hoping it was going to be a musical like Moulin Rouge.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53I thought it was going to be completely over the top
0:04:53 > 0:04:57with tonnes of Jay-Z in it. So that was slightly underwhelming.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00For me, too. I was hoping he would be more transformative.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03That it would move further away from the book.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06That's right. It has a strangely kind of pious relationship to the text,
0:05:06 > 0:05:08and yet seems to misunderstand it.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11So I kept having this kind of disjunction with it
0:05:11 > 0:05:13where it was like it wants to love the book,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16so much so that is actually throws letters onto the screen
0:05:16 > 0:05:17as part of the 3D experience.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19In a kind of a Sherlock style way.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23Well, it does, and yet it rewrites in very kind of key moments.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26The one that really struck me was that at the end of the book,
0:05:26 > 0:05:29Nick Carraway goes and looks at Gatsby's mansion in West Egg,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32this huge extravagant house that he built,
0:05:32 > 0:05:36and Nick describes it as this huge incoherent failure of a house.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39In this film, it's described as this huge incoherent house.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41Luhrmann had to remove the idea of it being a failure.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43He doesn't want this to be a failure,
0:05:43 > 0:05:47he wants it to be a success story. I agree that there isn't actually...
0:05:47 > 0:05:50He doesn't even have the courage of the extravagance.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52I suppose in some ways, he changes it,
0:05:52 > 0:05:56if you think about the narrator, if you think about Nick Carraway,
0:05:56 > 0:05:58because the framing device of this film
0:05:58 > 0:06:03is that Nick Carraway is in a rehab clinic,
0:06:03 > 0:06:06but he's being treated for alcoholism and looking back on this period of his life.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09That's just his handy filmic device.
0:06:09 > 0:06:14It's very difficult to make Nick Carraway into an interesting character.
0:06:14 > 0:06:15He is a cipher. He's the narrator.
0:06:15 > 0:06:19A bit like Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited.
0:06:19 > 0:06:21You've got that same problem.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Um...but I think we all agree, don't we,
0:06:24 > 0:06:28that this is an experience entirely different
0:06:28 > 0:06:30from anything to do with the book?
0:06:30 > 0:06:32It's interesting that I'm an un-fan of DiCaprio,
0:06:32 > 0:06:35I'm an un-fan of Carey Mulligan, I'm an un-fan of Tobey Maguire,
0:06:35 > 0:06:38but it didn't matter as such. They were lifted above it.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41For me, there were some great comic moments.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44The moment when Gatsby's introduced and DiCaprio turns out,
0:06:44 > 0:06:45it's almost Ken Russell.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49- Fireworks were going off.- In the best and worst sense of Ken Russell.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52You realise, oh, my God, Baz Luhrmann is the new Ken Russell.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55But again, as an experience, it's fantastic.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57I think the thing that strikes me about the film,
0:06:57 > 0:07:00is it keeps saying it's 1922 and it wants to be 1922,
0:07:00 > 0:07:03and yet it is a film that is profoundly not about 1922
0:07:03 > 0:07:05and it is profoundly about 2013.
0:07:05 > 0:07:07I think that's why 14 year olds will like it.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11But it's as if we get the Gatsby we deserve. This is...
0:07:11 > 0:07:13And the Gatsby we deserve is 3D.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17The 3D thing is interesting. What you realise about 3D, it's very old fashioned.
0:07:17 > 0:07:18So it actually works in a quaint way.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21- It's almost like art nouveau. - Like Cinemascope.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23It makes it ludicrous and preposterous.
0:07:23 > 0:07:25- And much cruder. - Yeah. Cruder and sillier.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28It's like finding elephants have been in your fridge
0:07:28 > 0:07:31and they've put footprints in the butter.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33But what the genius is that it's about this resonant prose,
0:07:33 > 0:07:36this 179 pages of resonant prose.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41Somehow, as much as it is tastefully tasteless, tastelessly tasteful,
0:07:41 > 0:07:43there is still an honour of the prose somehow.
0:07:43 > 0:07:47The fact that he's turned Nick Carraway into himself, in a way,
0:07:47 > 0:07:51and throws the words onto the screen, actually does work, I think.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54I also thought the use of music was very imaginative.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58I thought bringing in Jay-Z made the Jazz Age seem more edgy,
0:07:58 > 0:08:02- more dangerous than it would have been...- Less jazzy.- Less jazzy.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04No, more jazzy because of what it was.
0:08:04 > 0:08:06- It was a hybrid of lots of stuff. - Exactly.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09Certainly, Luhrmann has said that that's his intention.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12I agree with you the moments that Jay-Z scored that are original...
0:08:12 > 0:08:17I'm going to damn with faint praise, they don't not work.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20But then there's this extraordinary decision,
0:08:20 > 0:08:23which I thought was a really strategic failure,
0:08:23 > 0:08:26to bring in two really familiar pop songs into the soundtrack.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28So all of a sudden, we're listening to Back To Black
0:08:28 > 0:08:31and we're listening to Beyonce sing Crazy In Love.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34And I just thought, what you don't need are songs we already know.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37You need a new experience, if that's what you're trying to create.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39But what a moment when Beyonce does that.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41She's kind of whispering to her husband.
0:08:41 > 0:08:43- That's a weird moment. - It is a weird moment.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46That's like if I'm rich enough to have everything in the world,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49then I would have Beyonce whispering in my ear.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52But why are we in this Gatsby moment?
0:08:52 > 0:08:56I remember very well seeing the last big screen adaptation in 1974,
0:08:56 > 0:08:58Three-Day Week.
0:08:58 > 0:09:02And is it something about being in an economic downturn,
0:09:02 > 0:09:06looking back with nostalgia towards the good times,
0:09:06 > 0:09:08or with a moralising view?
0:09:08 > 0:09:10Clearly, Baz Luhrmann thinks
0:09:10 > 0:09:13it's a period to look back to nostalgically.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15The good old days when we were rich and happy?
0:09:15 > 0:09:17Yeah, exactly.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19There is something really quite nauseating
0:09:19 > 0:09:21about the excess of those parties.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23I have never been to a... Maybe I'm a sad person.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26I have never been to a party
0:09:26 > 0:09:28as much fun and as excessive as those parties.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31- They're just unreal.- Haven't you?
0:09:31 > 0:09:33The experience of drunkenness he depicts.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36But that's Luhrmann, it's not Fitzgerald.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38I think it's more about reinvention of a personality,
0:09:38 > 0:09:40which I think does chime with the times
0:09:40 > 0:09:42because I think everybody can do that now.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44They can use social media to invent who they are.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46In that sense, the Gatsby character's ahead of its time.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51Yeah. It is a post-modern take
0:09:51 > 0:09:53in that there's a party scene in Myrtle's apartment,
0:09:53 > 0:09:55who's Tom Buchanan's mistress,
0:09:55 > 0:09:56and that actually is a very kind of '60s feel.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59It's almost like they're tripping. It's not like they're drunk at all.
0:09:59 > 0:10:04- That's what I meant. I've never been that drunk in that way. - Neither have I.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07I don't know if they were drinking absinthe or what they were drinking,
0:10:07 > 0:10:10but it's certainly not how the book depicts it. But I think that...
0:10:10 > 0:10:14I will say that the one good thing about this movie for me
0:10:14 > 0:10:16that makes it stand out is DiCaprio.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20And I do think he is the best film Gatsby so far.
0:10:20 > 0:10:21That's not actually saying very much
0:10:21 > 0:10:24because Robert Redford, I think, is terribly miscast
0:10:24 > 0:10:26and actually does a very bad job in the '74 film.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30But actually, DiCaprio in colour, and it goes back to Paul's point
0:10:30 > 0:10:33about the self-made man being of our moment,
0:10:33 > 0:10:36I think DiCaprio pulls that off. He's the best thing about the film.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39OK. Well, you can make your own minds up
0:10:39 > 0:10:42because The Great Gatsby is in cinemas now.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44From an adaptation of a book
0:10:44 > 0:10:47regularly cited as THE great American novel
0:10:47 > 0:10:50to new books by two authors who enjoy
0:10:50 > 0:10:52towering reputations of different kinds.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55An 87 year old whose work has been revered
0:10:55 > 0:10:57by the likes of Susan Sontag and Richard Ford,
0:10:57 > 0:11:00but who's less well known outside literary circles,
0:11:00 > 0:11:02and after a six-year hiatus,
0:11:02 > 0:11:04The return to Afghanistan
0:11:04 > 0:11:08by the bestselling author of The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini.
0:11:10 > 0:11:14'So, then, you want a story and I will tell you one.
0:11:14 > 0:11:15'But just the one.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18'Don't either of you ask me for more.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21'It's late and we have a long day of travel ahead of us.'
0:11:23 > 0:11:28With his third novel, Hosseini returns to the familiar theme of separation.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31And the Mountains Echoed takes, as its starting point,
0:11:31 > 0:11:34a brother and sister, Pari and Abdullah,
0:11:34 > 0:11:37who are forced apart because of desperate poverty.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42'No-one in the village asked after Pari.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44'No-one even spoke her name.
0:11:44 > 0:11:46'It astonished Abdullah
0:11:46 > 0:11:48'how thoroughly she had vanished from their lives.'
0:11:50 > 0:11:53'This book speaks not only to my experience
0:11:53 > 0:11:54'as someone living in exile,
0:11:54 > 0:11:57'but also to the experience of people that I've known.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01'And it speaks to the experiences of people I have met in Afghanistan.'
0:12:02 > 0:12:06The book covers a sweep of history spanning several decades.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09And, as with Hosseini's previous novels,
0:12:09 > 0:12:12the stories are replete with betrayal, separation and tragedy.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18While Hosseini is renowned as a bestselling storyteller,
0:12:18 > 0:12:20American novelist James Salter
0:12:20 > 0:12:23is often described as a writer's writer.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26Set on America's East Coast, All That Is
0:12:26 > 0:12:29is Salter's first novel in over 30 years
0:12:29 > 0:12:32and follows ex-naval officer Philip Bowman
0:12:32 > 0:12:36as he navigates ambition and love in post-war society.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41"What's your name?" he called.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43"Vivian," the blonde girl said.
0:12:44 > 0:12:46He stepped closer.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50The book is another epic span across generations,
0:12:50 > 0:12:54charting Bowman's career as an editor in a publishing house
0:12:54 > 0:12:56and a succession of romantic affairs.
0:12:56 > 0:13:00All told in sentences constructed with meticulous care.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05'Her face was as if, somehow,
0:13:05 > 0:13:08'it was not completely finished,
0:13:08 > 0:13:10'with smouldering features,
0:13:10 > 0:13:14'a mouth not eager to smile,
0:13:14 > 0:13:17'a riveting face that God had stamped
0:13:17 > 0:13:20'with the simple answer to life.'
0:13:23 > 0:13:28So, Paul, James Salter, known as the writer's writer.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30Do you think the prose style in his new book,
0:13:30 > 0:13:32does it live up to that reputation?
0:13:32 > 0:13:35Well, I thought it did. Every word, every pause, every moment
0:13:35 > 0:13:38was just exhilarating and transcendent and I loved it.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42I'd actually not heard of that so much before I'd read it.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45As I was reading it, I was thinking, "He's like the writer's writer.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47"Technically, this is amazing."
0:13:47 > 0:13:49If you're interested in how to put together a sentence
0:13:49 > 0:13:52and how to make that up and then break a paragraph
0:13:52 > 0:13:54and describe things in a really powerful way,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56then he is technically someone you want to learn from.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59So, Sarah, a beautiful prose style,
0:13:59 > 0:14:04but does it go anything beyond one man's life, or does it need to?
0:14:04 > 0:14:07I certainly don't think that books with a beautiful prose style
0:14:07 > 0:14:09need necessarily to go beyond one man's life.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12That certainly can be sufficient.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14I agree with Paul that technically,
0:14:14 > 0:14:17it's very adept and it's very skilled.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21But I think that sense of insularity is strangely balanced
0:14:21 > 0:14:24against a kind of distance, as well.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26We actually never really get inside this guy's head.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30And we just watch him go through a series of episodes and a series of relationships.
0:14:30 > 0:14:33I think one of the beautiful things about the structure of the book
0:14:33 > 0:14:36is that it flows almost seamlessly then into the story of that person
0:14:36 > 0:14:39- and it will flow back to our protagonist...- That is amazing.
0:14:39 > 0:14:42It's very difficult to do and he does it beautifully.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46My problem is that what happens is over the course of this man's life,
0:14:46 > 0:14:48as he gets older and older,
0:14:48 > 0:14:51he has a series of affairs with women who get younger and younger
0:14:51 > 0:14:54and the prose starts to break down as he has these affairs with them
0:14:54 > 0:14:57because the prose gets very, very pornified in those scenes.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00You say pornified, but James Salter is renowned
0:15:00 > 0:15:02for the way he writes about sex.
0:15:02 > 0:15:04- I thought they were very good sex scenes.- Did you?
0:15:04 > 0:15:06For an 87-year-old man.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09And I'm just wondering, is this how it's going to be when one is 87,
0:15:09 > 0:15:12- thinking about sex in that kind of detail?- Exactly.
0:15:12 > 0:15:13Very impressive.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17There is a phrase when...and I know I have to speak delicately at this time of the night,
0:15:17 > 0:15:21but there is a phrase when he is having sex
0:15:21 > 0:15:24and it ends and he is described as
0:15:24 > 0:15:28being like a drinking horse.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32And it is not clear to me exactly how that image is supposed to work.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34There are a lot of mixed metaphors like that
0:15:34 > 0:15:36and it actually becomes ludicrous.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38- But what I love... - And it is an old man's fantasy.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41But what I love, though, is the technical challenge of aiming
0:15:41 > 0:15:45to describe the sexual experience itself is interesting.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48- And the fact that he goes for it and is known...- He does go for it.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51Well, he might not make it because it is the most difficult thing to do.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54But the fact that he's still going for it, he still goes there,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57to me, is part of the heroic sort of...
0:15:57 > 0:15:58ALL TALK AT ONCE
0:15:58 > 0:16:01- ..heroic quality. - Please don't act it out.
0:16:01 > 0:16:03Maybe you're missing out on the male experience.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07He's trying to describe the most intense experience with words. And that's pretty amazing.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11And does the intensity carry on with the emotional relationships?
0:16:11 > 0:16:15Because there's a certain extent to which it's true that they're episodic, aren't they?
0:16:15 > 0:16:18They don't actually, any of them, amount to very much.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22It's a different experience from reading the next book we're going to discuss.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26It's got heft. He's measured every word.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30"All night in darkness, the water sped past."
0:16:30 > 0:16:31That's his opening sentence.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34It probably took him days to think up that sentence.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36- Or months. Years.- Months. Years.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39And it requires contemplation and time.
0:16:39 > 0:16:43- And the incident is almost incidental.- It's just...
0:16:43 > 0:16:45But he lets it age, and what's wonderful
0:16:45 > 0:16:49is the way he will suddenly introduce you into where we are chronologically,
0:16:49 > 0:16:51with a little mention of 1963.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54I thought that was really crude. All of a sudden, he'll go, "Oh, JFK just died.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57- "Oh, and now he's got a new girlfriend."- You have no feeling.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00"Vietnam just happened, he's got a new girlfriend."
0:17:00 > 0:17:03You were flowing through time and then suddenly...a fixed moment.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06The combination of where we could be timelessly
0:17:06 > 0:17:09and then suddenly in time, I really enjoyed it.
0:17:09 > 0:17:11I think it plays...it's a very delicate game to try
0:17:11 > 0:17:14to write about the evanescence and impermanence of experience
0:17:14 > 0:17:18without writing something that has an evanescent relationship to the reader.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20It didn't pull me in as much as it pulled you guys in.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23Let's move on to our next book now and see how different that is.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27And that's And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31Very, very well known for his writing.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34Huge amount of sales, 38 million books.
0:17:34 > 0:17:36What did you think about this?
0:17:36 > 0:17:38I hadn't read him before because I really resented the fact
0:17:38 > 0:17:41that anyone can sell 38 million books.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44I didn't want to add to his riches.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47So I read this book ready to be unimpressed
0:17:47 > 0:17:48by this ghastly arriviste.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51And I have to say, I really enjoyed it.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54I think he's entertaining. He's a storyteller.
0:17:54 > 0:17:56Indeed, the first line is something about,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59"So, then, you want a story. I'll tell you one."
0:17:59 > 0:18:02And what he does then is tell you a series of...
0:18:02 > 0:18:04It's like the Arabian Nights. And you're entertained.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07It's a different world. It's almost like a brand.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10It's almost like a different set of skills is required
0:18:10 > 0:18:12to review this kind of object from Salter.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15And to an extent, I got the feeling, funnily enough,
0:18:15 > 0:18:17even though he sold 38 million copies
0:18:17 > 0:18:20and therefore he wants to perpetuate, that was part of it,
0:18:20 > 0:18:23the experimentation he was doing with chronology,
0:18:23 > 0:18:27that he really, actually, almost now wanted to be taken seriously in a Salter-esque way
0:18:27 > 0:18:30just for the beauty of his writing, rather than the 38 million copies.
0:18:30 > 0:18:31An ambitious structure.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34James mentioned Arabian Nights because we go from Afghanistan
0:18:34 > 0:18:38to Paris to California and many, many different characters.
0:18:38 > 0:18:39Absolutely.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42I have to say, I have sort of the opposite attitude to James
0:18:42 > 0:18:46which is I want to be careful not to sneer at something just because it's popular.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49If it's popular, it doesn't mean it can't be good in all kinds of ways.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51Including well written.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54Often, people have good taste, not only bad taste.
0:18:54 > 0:18:59But I read The Kite Runner and I hated it. I absolutely hated it
0:18:59 > 0:19:02because it seemed to me that it did the things popular fiction does wrong.
0:19:02 > 0:19:04- Well, that's saved me an effort. - I wouldn't.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08It's very melodramatic and it has good guys and bad guys.
0:19:08 > 0:19:10This novel seems to me a tremendous advance on that book
0:19:10 > 0:19:13and I agree with Paul that what is admirable about that
0:19:13 > 0:19:16is here's this guy who could completely just be resting on his laurels.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19- But it's part of the appeal... - He's trying to get better.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22Part of the appeal of The Kite Runner was because it came at a point
0:19:22 > 0:19:25when people didn't know very much about Afghanistan,
0:19:25 > 0:19:27a book about Afghanistan had real novel value.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30Absolutely. That definitely opens up the exotic side of the unknown
0:19:30 > 0:19:33that is told actually very generically.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35I found in this book, the Afghanistan elements are very generic.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38- He says he's not interested in that. - Absolutely.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41- I completely disagree with you. - I didn't get any Afghanistan from it.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44- I did.- You've been there. - I have been a couple of times.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48But what I thought was clever about it was this is the modern Kabul,
0:19:48 > 0:19:52you know, post the war, of the NGOs,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55the expatriate Afghanis coming back and boasting
0:19:55 > 0:19:57and I thought that was very specific.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00But what I find interesting, say compared to Salter,
0:20:00 > 0:20:02which in this instance we're doing,
0:20:02 > 0:20:05is there's something about the tying up,
0:20:05 > 0:20:08the tidying that you have to do when you're working in this world,
0:20:08 > 0:20:12as he is with 38 million readers, that it seems to be a lie,
0:20:12 > 0:20:16it seems to be not true. There's not a... It's manipulative because he cannot be true,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20because the truth, ultimately, is too devastating to really put into a kind of popular book.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24So what he does is he marginalises it. He says, "I'm not going to talk about the war. That's been done."
0:20:24 > 0:20:27And what he focuses on...it's an episodic book, as well, which we haven't said.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30It actually shares that with the Salter. What he actually focuses on
0:20:30 > 0:20:33is small individual relationships between parents and children.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37- That's actually the theme of the book.- That's a theme I thought particularly interesting,
0:20:37 > 0:20:40brother and sister. We don't hear about those in books.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44You have sibling rivalry between brothers, between sisters, but that brothersister relationship,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48- which is very important in South Asia, I thought he brought across that very well.- Yeah.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52I think we can be too sniffy about literature on the one hand,
0:20:52 > 0:20:54and popular fiction on the other hand.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58And after all in the 19th-century, there wasn't quite that distinction.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02You know, I read a few years ago, I read War And Peace for the first time,
0:21:02 > 0:21:07and one of the things that struck me was how unlike a classic it was.
0:21:07 > 0:21:09It was just a readable book
0:21:09 > 0:21:11with a good story and lots of fantastic characters
0:21:11 > 0:21:13and brilliant set pieces.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15- Or Dickens.- I don't think we need to be...
0:21:15 > 0:21:19- I don't think we need to put Hosseini in the calibre of Dickens. - Be very careful...to elevate these
0:21:19 > 0:21:24- to Dickens.- Exactly.- Especially at the end when it does sentimentalise to such an extent.
0:21:24 > 0:21:26That is the complement he is making.
0:21:26 > 0:21:30There's plenty of sentimentality in Charles Dickens.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34You know what, in a funny sort of way, I don't quite believe it in the way that he seems to do it.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38He's doing it as a writer of books that are brands
0:21:38 > 0:21:41and I think it's very different than the isolated sort of Dickens...
0:21:41 > 0:21:46The girl with the...whose face had been gnawed away by a dog.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49Do you think that was a bit too much of a grotesque,
0:21:49 > 0:21:51wheeled on for the sympathy value to show that he's got a...?
0:21:51 > 0:21:56I just thought it was fascinating to realise, and it has to be taken,
0:21:56 > 0:22:00considered, the world that he's in, which is the readers' club world
0:22:00 > 0:22:03and the book gets distributed first of all to all of these
0:22:03 > 0:22:05people before it goes to critics, so they're basically
0:22:05 > 0:22:08the people dictating what this book is, and it's interesting.
0:22:08 > 0:22:10Is he aware that he's now writing formula?
0:22:10 > 0:22:13Is he, you know, dismayed by that? Is he trying to break out of that?
0:22:13 > 0:22:19- It's improving.- It IS improving. - It's less formulaic. It's more creative.
0:22:19 > 0:22:21- It's more inventive. - He's better than Dan Brown.
0:22:21 > 0:22:23But what does that say about the early books, then?
0:22:23 > 0:22:26Is he now admitting that, in a way, they were REALLY manipulative,
0:22:26 > 0:22:28because really what he wants to do is...
0:22:28 > 0:22:30But if it had been completely formulaic...
0:22:30 > 0:22:34There's a point at which a surgeon could have saved a little girl's life.
0:22:34 > 0:22:36- Exactly.- No, no, no.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39It's absolutely on the formula NOT to save the little girl's life.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42It's an O Henry formula, but I think we're not being fair to it.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45I think every book should just be taken on its own terms.
0:22:45 > 0:22:49This is a very well written book about storytelling,
0:22:49 > 0:22:53with lots of quite touching relationships and some that are less successfully manipulated.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57But within that, taking it on its own terms, there is a new sort of book being written
0:22:57 > 0:23:01with the awareness of this new sort of audience that is in a way taking the place of the critic.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04A lot of people will like this book very, very much.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07I think it's guaranteed to add to the millions of Khaled Hosseini's...
0:23:07 > 0:23:10A lot of people like Coldplay.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14That's not fair. This is much better than Coldplay.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17"Better than Coldplay" I want to see that on the cover!
0:23:17 > 0:23:19You may well see it.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23You can find out more about both of those new books on our website.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27Now, to a new series from France which has been a smash hit
0:23:27 > 0:23:30with audience and critics alike there.
0:23:30 > 0:23:31Les Revenants - The Returned -
0:23:31 > 0:23:36is a supernatural drama which turns a familiar genre on its head.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42In a remote Alpine village, a number of residents are coming home
0:23:42 > 0:23:45unaware they've been away for some time.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48In fact, they all died years ago.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11The Returned answers the prayers of any bereaved parent,
0:24:11 > 0:24:12sibling or spouse.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21But as the dearly departed return to their former lives,
0:24:21 > 0:24:24the effects of that homecoming are extreme.
0:24:41 > 0:24:43Likened to David Lynch's Twin Peaks,
0:24:43 > 0:24:48the series presents supernatural events in an atmosphere of realism.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52With a sense of creeping chaos building as more
0:24:52 > 0:24:56and more of the undead reappear in their former homes.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08With its first foreign language drama in 20 years,
0:25:08 > 0:25:13can Channel 4 rely on Gallic ghouls to match the success of Nordic Noir?
0:25:21 > 0:25:23So Paul, we've got here the undead,
0:25:23 > 0:25:27but it couldn't be further from traditional zombie films on TV.
0:25:27 > 0:25:32I watched this without reading any of this stuff and I was disappointed when I read the stuff
0:25:32 > 0:25:36and it mentioned the Z word. I hadn't wanted to think of the zombies. I hadn't wanted to think of that.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39To me, it was something that was way beyond that, you know, it was...
0:25:39 > 0:25:45I think it's interesting it's gone out on Channel 4, in the sense that the modern television that is now
0:25:45 > 0:25:49becoming iconic and becoming both popular and critically important,
0:25:49 > 0:25:54Channel 4 haven't got any of that. Channel 4 is the worst channel ever. And Channel 4 have to do this now
0:25:54 > 0:25:57and in fact it's a sort of descendant, in a way,
0:25:57 > 0:25:59of something that Channel 4 once did once upon a time, which is
0:25:59 > 0:26:03the godfather of all this great television, which is Heimat,
0:26:03 > 0:26:06you know, this wonderful way of mixing... It's not novelistic,
0:26:06 > 0:26:10but it mixes great writing with a cinematic technique to create
0:26:10 > 0:26:11a new form of television.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15And so Channel 4 have managed to find one. And what's also interesting about that,
0:26:15 > 0:26:18certainly in terms of what we're just about to listen to later,
0:26:18 > 0:26:21is the fact that sometimes you can just be listening to great music
0:26:21 > 0:26:23but it's got this wonderful set of images over the top,
0:26:23 > 0:26:25this wonderful story, these great characters,
0:26:25 > 0:26:28this great setting, which is also important.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32The point is that, of course, nowadays, the most important character is where it's set.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35And the setting is quite extraordinary, isn't it?
0:26:35 > 0:26:37These mountains, and this rather ordinary little town
0:26:37 > 0:26:40in the middle of it that's imbued with a sinister feeling.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43Exactly. I mean, for me it's the setting of the ambiance,
0:26:43 > 0:26:47the atmosphere that it creates, this mood of foreboding,
0:26:47 > 0:26:49and you're just... And we only saw the opening episodes,
0:26:49 > 0:26:52but this sense that it's all just being established,
0:26:52 > 0:26:55and yet it just gets creepier and creepier,
0:26:55 > 0:26:58and you're just wondering exactly how... I think part of what's
0:26:58 > 0:27:01clever about it is that they're not, I don't want to give anything
0:27:01 > 0:27:05away but they're... As they're coming back, they're not menacing.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09And there are these teenage children, and as you say, the bereaved people who loved them,
0:27:09 > 0:27:12not just parents but also siblings and friends, are desperate for them to be back,
0:27:12 > 0:27:15and yet, there's this sense that something terrible is happening
0:27:15 > 0:27:19and yet, they're not frightening, they're not sinister figures. They're themselves.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22And because this is a plot which is spun out over eight episodes,
0:27:22 > 0:27:26it can afford to have its own pace, can't it?
0:27:26 > 0:27:29We are dying to... We've seen the first two episodes,
0:27:29 > 0:27:32we're dying to know what's going to happen next.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35Are these undead people, are they going to turn bad?
0:27:35 > 0:27:38Is it just going to go on in this glacial way?
0:27:38 > 0:27:42Can I just say what a treat it is to be here tonight in the same
0:27:42 > 0:27:44studio as Mogwai.
0:27:44 > 0:27:50Their soundtrack is absolutely perfect, that slow-burn moodiness.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53It's... I'd like to talk about this show all evening.
0:27:53 > 0:27:58It is just... You saw that wonderful scene where the pinned butterfly
0:27:58 > 0:28:02suddenly burst out of its glass cabinet
0:28:02 > 0:28:07and you get moments like that. You compared it with Twin Peaks it's better than Twin Peaks.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11We're talking up there with Game Of Thrones, I would say. That good.
0:28:11 > 0:28:15That is the trouble as well. The number of these we've got to juggle.
0:28:15 > 0:28:18You know, Game Of Thrones, I've got The Good Wife, I've got Hannibal,
0:28:18 > 0:28:22I've got Grimm, you know, I mean... Even Banshee.
0:28:22 > 0:28:23That is interesting.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26- You were talking about this being a new art form.- I think it is.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29The slow burn beginning, when? With the Sopranos, or, you know...
0:28:29 > 0:28:32Unexpectedly, television is this new art form,
0:28:32 > 0:28:36and it is this mixture of people coming from the world of novels,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39because in a way, they can't do it in the world of literature,
0:28:39 > 0:28:42people coming from cinema because they can't do it in the world of cinema
0:28:42 > 0:28:44because of commercial reasons, and they've found
0:28:44 > 0:28:47a place in television to create this new hybrid, and it is extraordinary.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50And television is attracting amazing directors.
0:28:50 > 0:28:53I mean, Baz Luhrmann - query after what we said earlier -
0:28:53 > 0:28:57- but Ang Lee, David Fincher, recently with House Of Cards. - Jane Campion's doing some.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01Yes, she's doing that New Zealand one. Exactly. I mean, what I really like about this,
0:29:01 > 0:29:05though, is that it doesn't have any of the apparatus of either
0:29:05 > 0:29:09the supernatural, at least in the opening episodes that we've seen.
0:29:09 > 0:29:12And even the children themselves, well, they're teenagers,
0:29:12 > 0:29:15but as they come back, they have no idea what's happened to them.
0:29:15 > 0:29:18They think they've just... she said, the girl who it mostly centres around,
0:29:18 > 0:29:22thinks that she was just sort of passed out for a while and she's come back and it's 10 years later.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26What I liked about it, it didn't rely on gore or horror.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29- Exactly. That's why the zombie would put me off.- It was sinister and frightening
0:29:29 > 0:29:33- but without... I didn't have to look away every five minutes. - Suspense it's using suspense.
0:29:33 > 0:29:40But there is a confidence about it. I think one of the things these TV epics have is space.
0:29:40 > 0:29:45They know that you're going to sit down and they don't have to grab your attention instantly.
0:29:45 > 0:29:47- They can just ease you into it. - And yet it does grab your attention.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50Yes, it does indeed, in a subtle way.
0:29:50 > 0:29:55Which becomes very gripping. TV has finally learned the art of the nonlinear.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59So the subtle going back and forward, the renewing, the replenishing
0:29:59 > 0:30:01the beginning again of a story. The finding of a new story.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04It's the novelistic pleasure of serial fiction.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07So people are finding the novel, alas, in television
0:30:07 > 0:30:10but maybe that might spin them out and go back into the novel.
0:30:10 > 0:30:12But it is novelistic. And yet not.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15We all can't wait until we can see the very next one.
0:30:15 > 0:30:17Have you got one there for us, Martha?
0:30:17 > 0:30:22If you're very good, I'll give it to you with your Coldplay CD!
0:30:22 > 0:30:25Now, The Returned is coming soon to Channel 4.
0:30:25 > 0:30:27We'll have music from the soundtrack to that series,
0:30:27 > 0:30:30and we will be hearing from Mogwai at the end of the show.
0:30:30 > 0:30:33But here they are now with their classic track, Rano Pano.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40We'll have more from Mogwai later.
0:34:40 > 0:34:42The photographer, Rankin, is renowned for his portraits
0:34:42 > 0:34:45of the fashionable and the powerful.
0:34:45 > 0:34:48The likes of Kate Moss, Madonna, Tony Blair and the Queen.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52His new exhibition in Liverpool sees celebrities again,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55but this time in death masks, as well as portraits of people
0:34:55 > 0:34:59with terminal illness, facing up to their own mortality.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03Meanwhile, the National Gallery's artist in residence Michael Landy
0:35:03 > 0:35:08has brought seven saints to life in gigantic moving sculptures.
0:35:12 > 0:35:17The National Gallery's collection is rich in Renaissance paintings
0:35:17 > 0:35:19of saints and their symbols.
0:35:19 > 0:35:21St Catherine and her wheel.
0:35:21 > 0:35:24St Michael and his scales.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27St Lucy and her eyes.
0:35:29 > 0:35:31Now, modern artist Michael Landy
0:35:31 > 0:35:34has breathed new life into these Old Masters
0:35:34 > 0:35:36in a series of giant kinetic sculptures
0:35:36 > 0:35:39created from recycled materials.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44I was surprised to be invited to become
0:35:44 > 0:35:46associate artist in residence at the National Gallery.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49Their concerns are to preserve and conserve artworks,
0:35:49 > 0:35:52whereas quite a lot of the time I destroy things.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55Landy's best-known work is Breakdown
0:35:55 > 0:36:00in which he and a team of disciples destroyed all of his worldly goods.
0:36:01 > 0:36:05With Saints Alive, Landy continues this dialogue with destruction
0:36:05 > 0:36:08and offers a fresh and irreverent perspective
0:36:08 > 0:36:10on familiar tales of martyrdom.
0:36:10 > 0:36:14I like the idea that somehow we've forgotten about the saints
0:36:14 > 0:36:16and they're just in a big junk heap somewhere
0:36:16 > 0:36:19and then some artist comes along and starts pulling bits out
0:36:19 > 0:36:21and says I'll have a Cosimo Tura arm,
0:36:21 > 0:36:27a De'Roberti chest and a Cima base and suddenly, I've got a Frankenstein kind of St Jerome.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36The new exhibition from celebrity photographer Rankin
0:36:36 > 0:36:39sees him exploring unfamiliar territory.
0:36:39 > 0:36:44Over the past four months he's created portraits of people facing up to death and mortality.
0:36:44 > 0:36:49From survivors of the 7/7 bombings to people living with terminal illness.
0:36:51 > 0:36:54I love Lou Page's image.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57We discussed the idea of having a shot
0:36:57 > 0:37:00where she is really beautiful and quite glamorous,
0:37:00 > 0:37:02then a photograph of her crying
0:37:02 > 0:37:04and then when we took the crying photograph
0:37:04 > 0:37:08it was just so brilliant and so strong.
0:37:11 > 0:37:14Rankin's images immortalise his subjects,
0:37:14 > 0:37:18empowering them to create their own lasting legacy.
0:37:18 > 0:37:20In fact, the show is called Alive
0:37:20 > 0:37:22because I didn't want it to be about death.
0:37:22 > 0:37:24I wanted it to be about the fact that people that are alive
0:37:24 > 0:37:26and so full of life
0:37:26 > 0:37:29especially people that have got any closeness with death.
0:37:30 > 0:37:34I've actually found it one of the most inspiring
0:37:34 > 0:37:39and definitely energising things I've ever done.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45We begin, James, with that Rankin exhibition
0:37:45 > 0:37:48and the idea that it was a celebration of life
0:37:48 > 0:37:52when people are facing death. What did you think of that concept?
0:37:52 > 0:37:55I'm a great fan of Rankin's fashion photography.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59This felt, to me, like your foundation year project
0:37:59 > 0:38:03where you are sent off to do something and the theme is "death"
0:38:03 > 0:38:07and he goes, well, I know, I'll photograph some people
0:38:07 > 0:38:10on the verge of death, some people who have, oh, I know!
0:38:10 > 0:38:12Survived near-death experiences.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15Oh, and here are some celebrity friends of mine,
0:38:15 > 0:38:18with life masks or death masks.
0:38:18 > 0:38:20It didn't seem to do anything more than that.
0:38:20 > 0:38:22The only bit of the show that really moved me
0:38:22 > 0:38:25and said anything about anything, I thought,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29was the collection of old photographs of his parents
0:38:29 > 0:38:31who'd died a few years ago.
0:38:31 > 0:38:37And you could connect with those, because they told a story.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41A mysterious shot with his father holding this fledgling he'd found.
0:38:41 > 0:38:46But the other photographs, what was Johnson Beharry VC doing painted yellow?
0:38:46 > 0:38:49It just seemed gimmicky to me.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52And the essence, the centre of it, was the photograph
0:38:52 > 0:38:55you come across when you first go in, which is those that are dying.
0:38:55 > 0:38:57And that has an interesting power,
0:38:57 > 0:39:01the idea of a celebrity photographer taking photographs
0:39:01 > 0:39:05to glamorise those people who want to be taken by the celebrity photographer, in a way.
0:39:05 > 0:39:08And there's something about it, if it had just settled at that,
0:39:08 > 0:39:11it probably would have had more power.
0:39:11 > 0:39:14The fact that then it has other things, it has people who work in the death industry,
0:39:14 > 0:39:18it has the death masks, it has the heart-shaped collection of family portraits,
0:39:18 > 0:39:22for me, I absolutely take on board that idea of the student element
0:39:22 > 0:39:27but also for me, also, it was a series of slightly gimmicky fashion spreads in a magazine,
0:39:27 > 0:39:30which is very pure to what Rankin does, but it didn't seem to
0:39:30 > 0:39:36lift it above, into approaching the idea of death and what death is in the way that he would hope.
0:39:36 > 0:39:40You see, I thought it rose above that idea of gimmickry
0:39:40 > 0:39:42with the death masks of the celebrities.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45Because, in the exhibition, it was the celebrities
0:39:45 > 0:39:47who we are used to seeing glowing and beautiful.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51They looked much older, all the lines were etched on their faces.
0:39:51 > 0:39:53They looked like the dead people.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56Whereas, the people facing terminal illnesses
0:39:56 > 0:39:59had been given this beautiful look to them,
0:39:59 > 0:40:01that was full of vibrancy in life.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05I went into this exhibition really braced, thinking
0:40:05 > 0:40:09this is going to be difficult to see, to look at terminal illness
0:40:09 > 0:40:13and to confront death, and this is going to be very challenging.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16The problem for me is that it wasn't challenging enough.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20And it's very difficult to talk about, because as you say, here are these people who are facing,
0:40:20 > 0:40:24with incredible courage, their own deaths.
0:40:24 > 0:40:28And of course they want to be presented in these glamorous and defiant and proud and brave ways.
0:40:28 > 0:40:31And that seemed the better part of it, how they wanted to be portrayed.
0:40:31 > 0:40:34Which is totally understandable. And yet, as artwork,
0:40:34 > 0:40:37what happens then is for those pictures to get their poignancy,
0:40:37 > 0:40:39they're totally dependent on the caption
0:40:39 > 0:40:42that explains that these people are actually dying
0:40:42 > 0:40:44because you don't see that in the image itself.
0:40:44 > 0:40:48That's interesting because I was wondering if, without that information,
0:40:48 > 0:40:51we would get a sense of these photographs with people in a different situation.
0:40:51 > 0:40:53I don't think we would, at all.
0:40:53 > 0:40:55There are some unbelievable looks in the eyes.
0:40:55 > 0:40:59Obviously the one we know very well is Wilco Johnson of Dr Feelgood.
0:40:59 > 0:41:02That's an unbelievable photograph in many ways
0:41:02 > 0:41:04because of what's in the eyes...
0:41:04 > 0:41:08He's so defiant, because he's decided not to have chemotherapy.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11And there's fear, too, and I found that in all of them.
0:41:11 > 0:41:13The one element I thought was transcendent
0:41:13 > 0:41:17was, ultimately, beyond all the other bits and pieces was what's in their eyes,
0:41:17 > 0:41:20because Rankin traditionally does that thing anyway, very front-on.
0:41:20 > 0:41:22Because otherwise, and I'm not being flippant at all,
0:41:22 > 0:41:25I'm being completely serious, otherwise, the fact is that
0:41:25 > 0:41:28we are all life in the midst of death. That's what life is.
0:41:28 > 0:41:31And so you end up with just these pictures and it's like, yeah,
0:41:31 > 0:41:34this is the experience of lots of people who are confronting death.
0:41:34 > 0:41:38I thought that the heart-shaped pictures of his parents was far and away the weakest part.
0:41:38 > 0:41:42And it was that studenty aspect. And I thought, you know what?
0:41:42 > 0:41:47I can't believe we have a heart-shaped collage, on the wall of a major museum.
0:41:47 > 0:41:50If you were not a celebrity...
0:41:50 > 0:41:53But more weak was Rankin himself appearing in the exhibition.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55Wasn't there something quite poignant about the family photos
0:41:55 > 0:41:57going back to what you were saying earlier,
0:41:57 > 0:42:03these were unposed photographs of an age where photography was far less commonplace.
0:42:03 > 0:42:07Yeah, but this is a sort of Tracey Emin trick, isn't it?
0:42:07 > 0:42:12This assembling collages of all the people you've known
0:42:12 > 0:42:13or slept with, or whatever.
0:42:13 > 0:42:17It just, I went expecting, because we don't talk enough about death.
0:42:17 > 0:42:21We're not like the Victorians who, their whole culture was about death.
0:42:21 > 0:42:23Now, we avoid it.
0:42:23 > 0:42:28And I thought Rankin is going to teach us about death. And he didn't.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32The Great Gatsby is more about death than this exhibition was.
0:42:32 > 0:42:34It is a terrible thing to say,
0:42:34 > 0:42:37but if we are talking about the ephemeral nature of existence,
0:42:37 > 0:42:40this, oddly, didn't do that, which is really weird, because
0:42:40 > 0:42:43some people in there are really going.
0:42:43 > 0:42:48And I thought, that is awful, in the end, that they have been manipulated into this situation.
0:42:48 > 0:42:49I thought...
0:42:49 > 0:42:52But they looked very proud of how they've been betrayed.
0:42:52 > 0:42:54Because some of those images are very beautiful,
0:42:54 > 0:42:58and one hopes that they are finding this inspiring and transcendent
0:42:58 > 0:43:01because I think, for the viewer, it's not.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04Let's move on to some other images now, in some cases
0:43:04 > 0:43:07rather familiar images, these images in the National Gallery,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10which have been manipulated and changed extraordinarily
0:43:10 > 0:43:15by Michael Landy. What did you think of Saints Alive? Great title.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18I think this show is a great success and it will be very popular.
0:43:18 > 0:43:20When my kids were smaller,
0:43:20 > 0:43:22I used to try and drag them into the National Gallery
0:43:22 > 0:43:24to give them some culture, and they always resisted,
0:43:24 > 0:43:28like Damien being dragged inside a church in The Omen!
0:43:28 > 0:43:32This is going to grab people of all ages in an interesting way.
0:43:32 > 0:43:34There's the Catherine Wheel.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37He's got this model of the Catherine Wheel,
0:43:37 > 0:43:41which is like a wheel of fortune. A wheel of misfortune!
0:43:41 > 0:43:43And there are various options, and sometimes,
0:43:43 > 0:43:46you're going to be "up on a wheel, torn to pieces",
0:43:46 > 0:43:50sometimes you're going to be, "you will be a virgin for the rest of your life". This is fun.
0:43:50 > 0:43:52Is that what you got?
0:43:52 > 0:43:54No, I got "torn to pieces on the wheel".
0:43:54 > 0:43:58But, what it does is it kindles your excitement about
0:43:58 > 0:44:02these actual works of art which are in the rest of the gallery
0:44:02 > 0:44:05and you want to go out there and check them out for yourself.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08You've seen the dress from the Memling portrait, the red dress,
0:44:08 > 0:44:12now you want to go and see the real one and see how it compares
0:44:12 > 0:44:15with these weird, Toy Story-esque sculptures.
0:44:15 > 0:44:17Quite a risk for the National Gallery to take.
0:44:17 > 0:44:19Michael Landy was saying this himself.
0:44:19 > 0:44:20As an artist, he is known for destruction.
0:44:20 > 0:44:24They could have ended up with a couple of Botticellis in a skip!
0:44:24 > 0:44:26But a great idea, that sense of replenishing
0:44:26 > 0:44:29the murky depths of history, that sometimes you don't look at.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33And suddenly, we're looking at these paintings that Landy has appropriated
0:44:33 > 0:44:35and they are unbelievably psychedelic and gorgeous
0:44:35 > 0:44:38and hallucinatory and fantastic and entertaining and hilarious.
0:44:38 > 0:44:42I thought, before this, that Landy was
0:44:42 > 0:44:45to his mentor, Jean Tinguely, the inventor of the kinetic sculpture,
0:44:45 > 0:44:47as Oasis was to The Beatles.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49And I've now slightly changed my opinion.
0:44:49 > 0:44:52I think it's more Todd Rundgren to The Beatles. And that's a good thing!
0:44:52 > 0:44:56Because, in many ways, it is an unbelievable rip-off of Tinguely,
0:44:56 > 0:44:58the whole idea of the self-destructive sculpture
0:44:58 > 0:45:00the whole idea of the building of these machines,
0:45:00 > 0:45:02but there's something about this that's so life affirming,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05so wonderful, the way that it illuminates some of the murky depths
0:45:05 > 0:45:09of the National Gallery, that it is, as you say, a wonderful, positive thing.
0:45:09 > 0:45:12You can go further back than the kinetic sculpture,
0:45:12 > 0:45:16to those kind of machines, to the Renaissance itself, and to Leonardo.
0:45:16 > 0:45:17He does these wonderful collages.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20There is a real sense that he's doing the mechanical drawings
0:45:20 > 0:45:22and the engineering drawings of a Leonardo.
0:45:22 > 0:45:23And up through the 18th century,
0:45:23 > 0:45:25those wonderful diagrams we've all seen,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28of the machines, and trying to create artificial life,
0:45:28 > 0:45:34and so there is this palimpsest of history that goes through.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37I absolutely loved this exhibition.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40It was hugely violent, though, hugely violent.
0:45:40 > 0:45:41Things fall apart...
0:45:41 > 0:45:46It is absolutely a must-see exhibition, and it's free, I think. You can just wander in.
0:45:46 > 0:45:48I recommend everyone go there. Can I just sound a note
0:45:48 > 0:45:52of old-fartishness amid all this praise?
0:45:52 > 0:45:54Which is that you go to the National Gallery,
0:45:54 > 0:45:57and you go into the different galleries,
0:45:57 > 0:46:00and you are blown away by the skill and craft and invention
0:46:00 > 0:46:04which went into the making of these wonderful paintings.
0:46:04 > 0:46:07Michael Landy is not a great draughtsman.
0:46:07 > 0:46:11When you see his drawings, they're not actually that good.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14And, you see the collages, and you think, "this is rather good."
0:46:14 > 0:46:19He's actually gone and recreated the cracked surface of these paintings
0:46:19 > 0:46:21and then you realise that he's just use a photocopier.
0:46:21 > 0:46:24And this is the problem about art colleges.
0:46:24 > 0:46:26I think, for me, it's very on the moment,
0:46:26 > 0:46:29this way of exploring history at the moment.
0:46:29 > 0:46:35And kind of working out what it is that we need to be concerned about.
0:46:35 > 0:46:39What it is we need to be concerned about in this period of history,
0:46:39 > 0:46:42about our past, and making it not something where we think
0:46:42 > 0:46:46these people are old and dusty and musty and should be dismissed,
0:46:46 > 0:46:49but they were great minds, and for me, Landy just reminded us,
0:46:49 > 0:46:52whatever his own skill is, that these were tremendous minds,
0:46:52 > 0:46:54and it just completely explodes in the present.
0:46:54 > 0:46:58It's actually a critical impulse that he's bringing here.
0:46:58 > 0:47:01He's reframing and contextualising and educating.
0:47:01 > 0:47:02You see it anew. It is like a great essay.
0:47:02 > 0:47:05He's making you look at details that you hadn't seen before.
0:47:05 > 0:47:09Bring your children, bring all your relatives. Go yourself.
0:47:09 > 0:47:11Both of these exhibitions are on at the moment.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13The Rankin exhibition is at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool
0:47:13 > 0:47:16and there's a Culture Show special in June,
0:47:16 > 0:47:18and you can crank up Michael Landy's sculptures
0:47:18 > 0:47:20at the National Gallery from Thursday,
0:47:20 > 0:47:22while they still stay standing.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25Now, with David Bowie this week showing us decadent priests
0:47:25 > 0:47:29and mutilated nuns, and an opera in Germany banned
0:47:29 > 0:47:31because of its Nazi setting,
0:47:31 > 0:47:34the power of art to shock audiences seems undimmed.
0:47:34 > 0:47:36That's nothing new. 100 years ago this month,
0:47:36 > 0:47:40one of the most shocking events in cultural history took place.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45It's hard to imagine the police being called to a modern ballet,
0:47:45 > 0:47:47but that's exactly what happened
0:47:47 > 0:47:51at the premiere of the Rite Of Spring in May 1913.
0:47:51 > 0:47:55The crowd whistled and jeered at the performance by Ballets Russes,
0:47:55 > 0:47:56with music by Stravinsky.
0:47:57 > 0:48:02The idea of Les Sacres du Printemps
0:48:02 > 0:48:07came to me while I was still composing the Firebird.
0:48:07 > 0:48:11I had dreamed a scene of pagan ritual
0:48:11 > 0:48:18in which a chosen sacrificial virgin dances herself to death.
0:48:18 > 0:48:23Told through a series of rituals, at the heart of Stravinsky's score
0:48:23 > 0:48:28is a primal chord which is repeated a total of 211 times,
0:48:28 > 0:48:31capturing the spirit of a new artistic age.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43But it wasn't just the avant-garde music
0:48:43 > 0:48:46that bewildered the audience in Paris that night.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49Vaslav Nijinsky's daring deconstruction
0:48:49 > 0:48:53of classical dance steps also sent shockwaves through the crowd.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58Now, the Rite of Spring's symbolic importance
0:48:58 > 0:49:01is being commemorated around the world.
0:49:03 > 0:49:06100 years on, many artists set out to shock.
0:49:09 > 0:49:13Bowie being banned from YouTube is useful publicity.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18So, does art still have the power to outrage cynical modern audiences?
0:49:18 > 0:49:20And should that ever be its aim?
0:49:20 > 0:49:22Thank you, everybody.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29Sarah, seeing these centenary celebrations,
0:49:29 > 0:49:32commemorations of the Rite Of Spring,
0:49:32 > 0:49:36do you think that's because of the intrinsic worth of the work,
0:49:36 > 0:49:40or is it because of its symbolism, its place in cultural history?
0:49:40 > 0:49:44For me, it's more important as an historical work
0:49:44 > 0:49:48than as a musical work, although I may be in a minority there.
0:49:48 > 0:49:51But it kicks off modernism.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55It's one of the great urtexts of modernism.
0:49:55 > 0:50:02And, as you said in that VT, it has a deconstructive mode,
0:50:02 > 0:50:05and that's taken over a lot of art over the 20th century.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09I think that it is, and I think it's important to mark those kinds
0:50:09 > 0:50:12of historical milestones in the cultural landscape.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16But, you know, as a piece of music, is it shocking any more?
0:50:16 > 0:50:18We've all heard it a million times.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20We've heard it in Fantasia, for heaven's sake.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23It's been completely made safe.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27But, is it an important piece of music? Of course it is.
0:50:27 > 0:50:29Do you think there's a certain nostalgia amongst artists
0:50:29 > 0:50:33for a point in time where police were called,
0:50:33 > 0:50:35where it really could cause such incredible reactions?
0:50:35 > 0:50:38There's the illusion of that. I think a lot of it is in hindsight.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42I think we look back, in hindsight, and realise where it was in history
0:50:42 > 0:50:44and a year later, the First World War started.
0:50:44 > 0:50:46And that gives the piece a greater resonance
0:50:46 > 0:50:50because it was tapping into cultural currents that were in the air
0:50:50 > 0:50:53that changed everything more dramatically, in a way.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57If the Rite Of Spring was played on Britain's Got Talent on a Saturday night, at seven o'clock,
0:50:57 > 0:50:59it would still cause a shock.
0:50:59 > 0:51:02But people nowadays have the chance to turn over.
0:51:02 > 0:51:04And I think that's what's changed, in a way,
0:51:04 > 0:51:07is that sense that, for a start, so many anniversaries get in the way
0:51:07 > 0:51:09of anything really happening.
0:51:09 > 0:51:11We are now being nostalgic for controversy, for shock.
0:51:11 > 0:51:15So it's very difficult to work out where the shock would come now.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18Where would shock come from? Apart from on Britain's Got Talent?
0:51:18 > 0:51:21Modernism and post-modernism were phases
0:51:21 > 0:51:23that the arts had to go through in the same way that
0:51:23 > 0:51:26you have to go through adolescence.
0:51:26 > 0:51:28You have to go through that ghastly teenage period.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31And now, we're living in a period, post-post modern,
0:51:31 > 0:51:34whatever you want to call it. And I think...
0:51:34 > 0:51:36What could shock us now?
0:51:36 > 0:51:38Artists are really struggling to find...
0:51:38 > 0:51:41Reality shocks us more now. Big events that happen shock us now.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45Stylistically, I don't think you could do much that is shocking.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48It would be more like breaching certain current taboos.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52For example, were anyone to be brave enough to do a sort of
0:51:52 > 0:51:55Muslim version of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ,
0:51:55 > 0:51:58then I think that would really shock people.
0:51:58 > 0:52:02But, that's because it's a taboo, not because of the aesthetic form.
0:52:02 > 0:52:04But that's the thing. Any kind of art that ever shocked
0:52:04 > 0:52:07was always because it took on a cultural taboo.
0:52:07 > 0:52:10It was taking on propriety, it was taking on sensibilities,
0:52:10 > 0:52:12so, when you have Manet's Olympia
0:52:12 > 0:52:14being scratched on the walls of a gallery,
0:52:14 > 0:52:16it was because it was breaking a taboo about nudity.
0:52:16 > 0:52:18And, can art still shock? Of course it can.
0:52:18 > 0:52:23Last week, as you just said, everybody walked out of a Wagner performance in Germany
0:52:23 > 0:52:26and it had to be cancelled because, people were hospitalised over it.
0:52:26 > 0:52:28So they were clearly shocked.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30That's the Germans being silly, isn't it?
0:52:30 > 0:52:32You say that, but that's the point.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35So then Parisians were being silly when the Rite Of Spring was played.
0:52:35 > 0:52:37- They probably were. - Of course they were.
0:52:37 > 0:52:39But audiences can be shock when you break taboos.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43But weren't Parisians being shocked because of the kind of dance steps,
0:52:43 > 0:52:48not because... Nazism is something that's in society.
0:52:48 > 0:52:52The shock of the Rite of Spring was to do with what was happening aesthetically.
0:52:52 > 0:52:54And a different kind of time from now.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57Obviously, there was a smaller focus on a smaller area of culture,
0:52:57 > 0:53:00so the idea that people got used to what a piece of music might be,
0:53:00 > 0:53:03of what a ballet might be, in a very small area, so therefore could be
0:53:03 > 0:53:07completely disconcerted that everything had changed.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10Whereas now, everyone can just turn the channel,
0:53:10 > 0:53:12they can just put up a different thing on their screen.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14It's very difficult to create a thing.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17Because people don't believe so much in the ideological properties of art.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20And also, aren't we suspicious of when we think
0:53:20 > 0:53:23- people are setting out to shock us? As a modern audience.- Yes. Yes.
0:53:23 > 0:53:27But I like this idea that the shock of the original Rite Of Spring
0:53:27 > 0:53:29was just confected shock.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33It probably was in the same way as Gerard de Nerval
0:53:33 > 0:53:36taking his lobster for a walk. I mean, that's pathetic, isn't it?
0:53:36 > 0:53:39- Exactly. Duchamp and his urinal. - It's just nonsense.
0:53:39 > 0:53:44They were a bourgeois audience that were being challenged,
0:53:44 > 0:53:46their pieties were being challenged.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49And that kind of audience doesn't like that.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52I don't think anything has changed except the taboos.
0:53:52 > 0:53:53Now, we have different taboos.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56And, if you break those taboos, people will be shocked,
0:53:56 > 0:53:58and they will try to scratch the pictures.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00And I don't think anything's changed at all,
0:54:00 > 0:54:02it's just that what we're pious about has changed.
0:54:02 > 0:54:06And who receives it, though. Because if you play certain things
0:54:06 > 0:54:09to a certain audience, at the moment, it would cause outrage.
0:54:09 > 0:54:13- But that doesn't happen any more. - The Danish cartoons.- It happens very rarely.
0:54:13 > 0:54:17And where it does happen now is much more realistic, terroristic,
0:54:17 > 0:54:20I mean, Stockhausen went very close to this
0:54:20 > 0:54:23with his discussion about 9/11. But there was a grain of truth in that.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27That that's, ultimately, what's completely changing the world.
0:54:27 > 0:54:32Where does the 21st century begin the way that it began in the 20th century because of Stravinsky?
0:54:32 > 0:54:34We're still waiting for it, in a way.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37Write an opera about a sympathetic paedophile
0:54:37 > 0:54:38and you will shock audiences today.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41But, it won't be where the 21st Century begins,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44in the way that this was where the 20th Century began.
0:54:44 > 0:54:45Well, if you want to...
0:54:45 > 0:54:47Maybe the 21st century begins right now!
0:54:47 > 0:54:49Well, there are countless centenary interpretations
0:54:49 > 0:54:53of the Rite Of Spring taking place around the country now.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56Thanks very much indeed to my old sports tonight.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59Paul Morley, Sarah Churchwell and James Delingpole.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02Next month, Kirsty will be looking at the new BBC adaptation
0:55:02 > 0:55:04of Philippa Gregory's historical novel, The White Queen.
0:55:04 > 0:55:08But as promised, we will leave you with more music from Mogwai,
0:55:08 > 0:55:11and a haunting theme from their soundtrack to The Returned.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13This is Wizard Motor. Goodnight.
0:58:51 > 0:58:54Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd