Dido & Aeneas: A brief survey

La Morte di Didone (The Death of Dido) by Guercino, 1631. Image source: Classical Inquiries

Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1688?), the greatest opera in English, was written for parents' night at a girls' school. Possibly as a result, the original performances—there is evidence suggesting that there were at least two, one in 1688 or earlier and another in 1689—were only about 75 minutes long, including a prologue and the recital of a poem after the end of the opera (for details, please see The Mysteries of Dido and Aeneas). The music to the prologue has been lost, and we no longer recite poems after the curtain has come down; the surviving music can be performed in about 50 minutes.

The opera's tunefulness and brevity (it can fit on a single LP, and easily on a CD) has made it an irresistible recording project for several decades, and the role of Queen Dido of Carthage has been sung by a long list of renowned singers, including:

• Kirsten Flagstad (conducted by Geraint Jones, 1951),
• Teresa Berganza (Pierre Dervaux, 1960),
• Janet Baker (Anthony Lewis, 1962),
• Victoria de los Angeles (John Barbirolli, 1965),
• Tatiana Troyanos (Charles Mackerras, 1967, and Raymond Leppard, 1977),
• Emma Kirkby (Andrew Parrott, 1981),
• Lynne Dawson (René Jacobs, 1998),
• Susan Graham (Emmanuelle Haïm, 2003),
• Julianne Baird (Valentin Radu, 2007),
• Sarah Connolly (Steven Devine & Elizabeth Kenny, 2008).

On MusicWeb International you can read Ralph Moore's survey of 30 Dido recordings (his tastes aren't quite mine); the Dido discography on Wikipedia lists nearly 50 versions.

I'm going to do nothing so ambitious as Moore or Wikipedia. Instead, I'm going to offer notes on six recordings involving period-instrument ensembles and their HIP conductors (that's "historically-informed performance," although not everything HIP conductors do is historically justified, as we will see).

My mini-survey was inspired by my previous post on Venetia Murray's An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England. That post included a caricature by James Gillray in which the Prince of Wales is cast as Aeneas and his mistress Mrs. Fitzherbert as Dido:

"DIDO FORSAKEN. Sic transit gloria Regina [Thus passes the glory of the Queen]." George, Prince of Wales: "I never saw her in my Life." Steersman Charles Fox: "No, never in all his Life, Damme." Frederick North: "No, never." Edmund Burke: "Never." Caricature by James Gillray, published by Samuel William Fores, 21 May 1787. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D12994

(For a fuller explanation of the historical circumstances of the caricature, please see An Elegant Madness; for a discussion of its imagery, please see that post's footnote #4.)

The story being referenced in the caricature is from Virgil's Aeneid. The Trojan hero Aeneas, escaping from the destruction of Troy with a few ships and a few dozen men, finds shelter at Carthage, ruled by the widowed Queen Dido. At a court banquet Aeneas tells the harrowing story of the fall of Troy and his escape from the burning city. Dido, to her dismay, finds herself falling in love with the hero. Aeneas' fate, though, is to sail to Italy and found Rome, and when the gods send Mercury to remind him, he abandons Dido. She kills herself with a sword Aeneas gave her as a gift; as his ships sail away, Aeneas sees the smoke from Dido's funeral pyre rising behind them.

Nahum Tate's libretto for Purcell's opera alters Virgil's epic by removing the gods as agents of Dido's destruction and substituting a sorceress whose hate for Dido inspires her to send a spirit ("in the form of Mercury") to command Aeneas to leave Carthage. Dido does not commit suicide but dies of heartbreak. Schoolgirls could hardly depict self-murder, although the implication that Dido and Aeneas consummate their love at some point between the Palace and the post-coital Grove scenes (Aeneas sings "one night enjoy'd/the next forsook") is certainly eyebrow-raising—perhaps it was acceptable for unmarried young women to enact Dido's story as a cautionary tale. For more on the opera, please see Opera Guide 1: Dido and Aeneas.

In Gillray's caricature, the dialogue of the men in the boat and its repetition of "never" is likely a reference to the First Sailor's song from Dido and Aeneas:

Come away, fellow sailors, your anchors be weighing,
Time and tide will admit no delaying.
Take a boozy short leave of your nymphs on the shore,
And silence their mourning with vows of returning,
But never intending to visit them more,
No never intending to visit them more,
No never, no never intending to visit them more.

Discovering the caricature and its apparent quote from Dido and Aeneas sent me to listen to opera once again, and in choosing the link to the First Sailor's song I began to make comparisons among several performances. I limited myself to period-instrument versions of the opera, and ultimately chose six to survey, given in the table below:

Role	Arkiv Produktion, 1988	L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1992	Harmonia Mundi, 1993	Erato, 1994	Chandos, 1995	Rhombus Media, 1995
Dido	Anne Sofie von Otter	Catherine Bott	Lorraine Hunt	Véronique Gens	Maria Ewing	Jennifer Lane
Aeneas	Stephen Varcoe	John Mark Ainsley	Michael Dean	Nathan Berg	Karl Daymond	Russell Braun
Sorceress	Nigel Rogers	David Thomas	Ellen Rabiner	Claire Brua	Sally Burgess	Jennifer Lane
Belinda	Lynne Dawson	Emma Kirkby	Lisa Saffer	Sophie Marin-Degor	Rebecca Evans	Ann Monoyios
Second Woman	Sarah Leonard	Julianne Baird	Donna Deam	Sophie Daneman	Patricia Rozario	Shari Saunders
Witches	Elizabeth Priday Carol Hall	Elizabeth Priday Sara Stowe	Christine Brandes Ruth Rainero	Sophie Daneman Gaëlle Mechaly	Mary Plazas Pamela Helen Stephen	Shari Saunders Meredith Hall
Spirit	Kym Amps	Michael Chance	Christine Brandes	Jean-Paul Fouchécourt	James Bowman	Meredith Hall
First Sailor	Nigel Rogers	Daniel Lochmann	Paul Elliott	Jean-Paul Fouchécourt	Jamie McDougall	Benjamin Butterfield
Conductor	Trevor Pinnock	Christopher Hogwood	Nicholas McGegan	William Christie	Richard Hickox	Jeanne Lamon
Orchestra	The English Concert	The Academy of Ancient Music	Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra	Les Arts Florissants	Collegium Musicum 90	Tafelmusik Orchestra
Chorus	Choir of The English Concert	Chorus of The Academy of Ancient Music	Choir of Clare College, Cambridge	Soloists, plus Steve Dugardin (alto) and Jonathan Arnold (bass)	Collegium Musicum 90 Choir	Tafelmusik Chamber Choir

This is not an exhaustive list of period-instrument versions by any means. But just as I prefer the sound of historical instruments in this music, I favor a particular voice type in the role of Dido, which eliminated several possibilities.

Dido is a sorrowful figure from the first moments of the opera: the words of her first aria, addressed to her sister Belinda, relate her torment and grief at the love for Aeneas that as queen she must conceal. A young woman might be joyful at newfound love; Dido, older and wiser, understands that falling in love could be disastrous (as, indeed, it turns out to be).  Singers performing this role must combine both depth of emotion and nobility of expression. The role also spans a wide range, and requires a strong lower register.

So I prefer a mezzo-soprano Dido; high sopranos Emma Kirby for Andrew Parrott, Lynne Dawson for René Jacobs, and Julianne Baird for Valentin Radu have the wrong sound, to my ears, and so those recordings were not included in the survey. (I made an exception for Véronique Gens, one of my favorite singers, with William Christie.) I also prefer a baritone Aeneas and a mezzo-soprano or alto Sorceress, although having another voice type in those roles did not automatically eliminate a recording. (After all, we have evidence that at the original performances at Josias Priest's school Aeneas was sung by a young woman.)

Finally, the surviving music is scored for strings and continuo. Adding winds (as do both Jacobs and Emmanuelle Haïm) has no specific justification. Nor does repeating the first section of the overture (as do both Jacobs and Haïm), which has no repeat sign in the early scores. I far prefer versions that rely on the existing musical evidence over interventionist approaches that attempt to "improve" Purcell.

Taking my selections in chronological order:

The English Concert & Choir conducted by Trevor Pinnock. Image source: Presto Music

For Trevor Pinnock's version on Archiv, Anne Sofie von Otter has the requisite regal gravity. But at the words "Remember me" in her final aria von Otter sings "Remombah mah!," calling attention not to the despair of the character, but to the difficulty of singing the highest notes of the role. In his survey linked above, Ralph Moore says that "Von Otter’s final scene is up with the best." This pronunciation flaw is so obtrusive I can't agree; your judgment may differ.

Stephen Varcoe in the bass-baritone role of Aeneas sounds quite similar to tenor Nigel Rogers' Sorceress. While it could be a dramatic choice to depict both Aeneas and the Sorceress as linked agents of Dido's destruction, this feels more like Pinnock was simply following the tradition established in the 18th and 19th centuries for a male Sorceress. As for Rogers, according to Ellen Harris' Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, 2nd edition (Oxford, 2018), the earliest surviving manuscript of the score, from 1700, sets the Sorceress's part in the mezzo-soprano range; in later 18th-century sources the part is written for bass. I prefer a woman in this role; in any case, here I agree with Moore about Rogers that "there is little of menace or the macabre in his threats—he just sounds like a bloke singing the Sorceress' words."

Pinnock's tempos are stately, and as a result this version feels sluggish and lacks dramatic drive at key points. (Characteristically, Pinnock's overture takes 2:20, versus 2:04 for Hogwood, 1:54 for Christie and Hickox, and 1:51 for McGegan.) Taken together these issues are sufficiently bothersome for me to recommend against this version. However, Matthew Boyden in The Rough Guide to Opera, 3rd edition (2002), selects it as one of his top choices.

Chorus and Orchestra of The Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Christopher Hogwood. Image source: Presto Music

Speaking of blokes singing the Sorceress' words, bass David Thomas on Christopher Hogwood's L'Oiseau-Lyre version is even worse than Rogers. Singing in an exaggerated, affected way, Thomas sounds like a pantomime dame. Here is the Sorceress's first appearance, "Wayward sisters":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m81q1Lp9Xog

The witches have also been directed by Hogwood, unsuccessfully, to camp it up (Stowe in particular just sounds excessively nasal). Hogwood makes another odd choice: the First Sailor, Daniel Lochmann, is a boy treble, making incongruous his admonition to his fellow sailors to "take a boozy short leave of your nymphs on the shore." If David Thomas evokes a panto dame, the First Sailor sounds like he's wandered in from a production of Oliver. John Mark Ainsley is a tenor Aeneas, and although he has a good voice, I prefer a bass-baritone in the role.

Finally, Catherine Bott's mezzo-soprano is not particularly rich or resonant, particularly in the role's lower range, and her manner is strangely detached: when she sings "I am press'd with torment," she hardly sounds it, nor does her final scene sound like a woman facing the end of her hopes, and her life. (Bott does sing a beautifully floated and correctly pronounced "Remember me!"). With these substantial problems, I can't recommend this version either, although it is given an "Outstanding" rating in the Gramophone Classical Good CD Guide 2004.

The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan. Image source: Presto Music

I confess that I can't be fully objective about Nicholas McGegan's version on Harmonia Mundi: McGegan and his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra were in the pit for our first performances of the opera by the Mark Morris Dance Group, our Baroque opera conversion experience, and his was the first recording of this work we heard.

McGegan does make two missteps, in my view, which I'll address straight away. The first is casting contralto Ellen Rabiner as the Sorceress. Her pronounced vibrato and Wagnerian vocal style set her apart from the rest of the cast. Rabiner is a significant improvement over either Thomas or Rogers, and casting a low female voice in the role of the cave-dwelling Sorceress is a choice that could have worked extremely well. However, I regret that McGegan didn't opt for Jennifer Lane (who sings the dual roles of Dido and the Sorceress for Jeanne Lamon on the DVD of the Mark Morris production) or Judith Malafronte (who sang Dido and the Sorceress for McGegan when we saw the Mark Morris production live).

McGegan's second misstep is to immediately follow the final scene of the opera with Purcell's music for The Gordian Knot Unty'd. This is clearly done to fill out the CD, which would otherwise be only 50 minutes long. The contrast, though, between the moving final chords of Dido's death scene and the dance-filled incidental music to The Gordian Knot Unty'd is jarring. Fortunately this is a fault easily remedied by CD programming, playlist editing, or just hitting the stop button. Dido does not need any fillers.

The performances of the witches and sailors (soloists and chorus) are quite characterful. The witches have a kind of wild, sinister hilarity, and Paul Elliott's First Sailor is sung as an authentic-sounding Jack Tar. This theatrical approach may bother some listeners, but I find that (unlike Hogwood's) McGegan's direction doesn't go over the top, but rather enhances the flavor of the proceedings—this is, after all, a stage work.

But the glory of this set is Lorraine Hunt's Dido, a role perfect for her plangent mezzo-soprano. Hunt is regal and conveys deep feeling; a better embodiment of the tragic queen is impossible to imagine. Helped by McGegan's urgent pacing, Hunt also summons fierce anger in Dido's final confrontation with Aeneas, when she rejects his last-minute change of heart and promise to stay. And her sorrowful closing lament simply stops time. We are fortunate indeed to have this record of Hunt's performance.

Dido's first aria, expressing her foreboding about her developing feelings for Aeneas, "Ah! Belinda, I am press'd with torment":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz9aXLHIjzA

Hunt's performance makes this version my first choice. Hunt would go on to powerfully portray other tragic women, including Medea (Charpentier's Médée, recorded with William Christie in 1994), Irene (Handel's Theodora, recorded with William Christie in 1996), Phédre (Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, recorded with William Christie in 1997), Empress Octavia (Ottavia in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, at SF Opera in 1998), and Berlioz's Dido (Didon in Les Troyens, at the Metropolitan Opera in 2003). Her death from breast cancer at age 52 in 2006 was a profound loss.

Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie. Image source: Presto Music

Given the French influences on Stuart society in the 1680s—the mother of James II, Henrietta Maria, was French, and as a young man James served in the army of Louis XIV—it is certainly defensible to perform Dido and Aeneas in French style. And William Christie's version on Erato has many virtues. As with McGegan's recording, Christie's benefits from extensive experience in staged opera, and offers dynamism and drama (at 45 minutes it's the shortest version in this survey). It also has the suitably heroic Aeneas of Nathan Berg, and the excellent Sophie Daneman as Second Woman and First Witch. The Second Woman's recounting of the tale of Diana and Actaeon, "Oft she visits this lone mountain":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4yP26skIZg

However, there are also some noteworthy issues. Most of the cast (the British Daneman and the Canadian Berg aside) sing their English lines with light but detectable French accents. (Of course, French, Italian, and German audiences must frequently listen to non-native opera singers outright massacre their languages, so being bothered by this seems unfair; still.) Claire Brua's Sorceress "is a splendidly insinuating conception, with a slithering melodic style," according to the Gramophone guide; you may feel, as I do, that her sliding around the notes is overdone, as are the witches' sneering voices. As Dido, Véronique Gens has a lovely voice and beautifully expresses the tragic nature of character, but the role lies a bit low for her pure soprano. She isn't quite able to offer the vocal richness of Lorraine Hunt (see above) or Jennifer Lane (see below), particularly in the role's lowest range. 

Finally, Christie's chorus seems to be largely made up of the soloists. While this was a common practice in Italian opera seria, which typically only had one short final ensemble, it would probably not have been the case for this opera, where the chorus has such a prominent role and is onstage simultaneously with the principals. Not only does Christie's small chorus lack the impact of a larger group, but as Ralph Moore points out in his survey, their voices don't blend particularly well. 

I find these drawbacks to be significant; however, my reservations are not shared by the Gramophone guide, which gives it a "Recommended" rating.

Collegium Musicum 90 conducted by Richard Hickox. Image source: Presto Music

Richard Hickox's recording on Chandos served as the soundtrack for a BBC film of the opera directed by Peter Maniura, broadcast on PBS in 1996. In the film the setting was shifted from ancient Carthage to the Renaissance, with Hampton Court picturesquely serving as Dido's palace. Apart from giving the filmmakers the opportunity to raid the BBC's vast store of sumptuous costumes, the film's main virtue is to give Maria Ewing's Dido a visual dimension. She was one of the great singing actresses of her generation, and seeing her performance (despite the occasional lip-synching problems) adds to its impact. 

The visual dimension doesn't hurt the handsome Karl Daymond's portrayal of Aeneas, either. And having an Aeneas that is visibly younger than Dido works well dramatically: it implies that Dido sees in Aeneas her last chance of a great passion.

On CD, as a purely aural experience, Ewing's operatic vocal style, and particularly her prominent vibrato, is more bothersome. Here is "Your counsel all is urg'd in vain," Dido's final confrontation with Aeneas after she learns that he is leaving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW1Y18-dzyE

Ewing's dramatic engagement is not in question, but her vibrato is a matter of taste, and I prefer other singers in this role. But what's also apparent from this excerpt is that, perhaps due to his relative inexperience with opera, Hickox takes this dramatic scene at far too slow a pace; McGegan's and Christie's versions are both well under four minutes long, while Hickox takes nearly four and a half minutes. Although I think the film version is worth seeing, the combination of the slack pacing and Ewing's vibrato rule out the CD version of this performance for me. In his survey Ralph Moore disagrees, calling it "a top contender" and "highly recommendable."

Tafelmusik Orchestra and Chamber Choir conducted by Jeanne Lamon. Image source: Mark Morris Dance Group

This video preserves Morris' performance in the double role of Dido and the Sorceress in what is perhaps his most moving work. Jeanne Lamon's conducting emphasizes the opera's tragedy with slow tempos, perhaps to enable the dancers to more easily execute the gestural choreography. But as a purely musical experience it lacks the headlong, inexorable rush towards the final tragedy that McGegan's or Christie's version provides. 

Vocally, Jennifer Lane and Russell Braun are an excellent central couple. And, paralleling Morris' double role, Lane sings both Dido and the Sorceress (she is easily the best Sorceress in this survey). The double roles suggest that, as Joan Acocella writes in her great book on Morris (FSG, 1993), the Sorceress is "an anti-Dido," just as her coven of witches is the evil mirror image of the courtiers who surround the queen. The double casting may also suggest that the Sorceress is a self-destructive aspect of Dido. As Roger Savage has written:

It can be argued that. . .all the [female] characters in the opera are really personified aspects of Dido: Belinda and the Second Woman projections of her yearning towards erotic fulfillment, the Sorceress a formidable anti-self embodying all her insecurities and apprehensions of disaster contingent on her involving herself in any deep personal relationship, and the two solo witches nightmarish shadows of Belinda and the Second Woman. [1]

Barbara Willis Sweete's direction is sometimes distracting—we don't really need to see the singers floating on and off the screen again after their first appearance—but this film is an invaluable record of one of Morris' greatest works.

Highly recommended: McGegan, Harmonia Mundi; Lamon, Rhombus Media

---

1. Roger Savage, Producing Dido and Aeneas: An investigation into sixteen problems. In Michael Burden, ed. The Purcell Companion, Amadeus Press, 1995, pp. 445-468.

An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England

"VICES overlook'd in the New PROCLAMATION. To the Commons of Great Britain, the representation of Vices, which remain unforbidden by Proclamation, is dedicated, as proper for imitation, and in place of the more dangerous Ones of Thinking, Speaking & Writing, now forbidden by Authority." [1] Caricature by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey, 24 May 1792. Clockwise from top left: Avarice: Queen Charlotte and King George III. Drunkenness: George, Prince of Wales (later George IV). Debauchery: Prince William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV), and his mistress, the actress Mrs. Dorothy Jordan. Gambling: Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (holding dice cup). Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D12456.

Venetia Murray's An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England (Viking, 1999) could be subtitled "Aristocrats Behaving Badly." The upper classes of late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain ate and drank to prodigious excess, took drugs (snuff and laudanum), wore revealing clothes (tight pants and diaphanous gowns), spent outrageous sums pursuing the latest fashions, loved parties and disreputable pastimes (such as opera and theater, particularly if the actresses playing male "breeches roles" wore tights that revealed their shapely legs), slept around, and were stupendous snobs.

With material like this, Murray's An Elegant Madness is nothing if not diverting. She offers a host of scandalous and salacious anecdotes spanning the years 1788 to 1830, or roughly from the onset of George III's first major episode of mental illness to the death of his son and successor George IV. [2]

As the Prince of Wales and (from 1820) King of Great Britain, George IV was a notorious glutton and profligate. In 1785, in his early 20s, he had undergone a ceremony of marriage with the twice-widowed Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert. However, the marriage was invalid because under the Royal Marriages act of 1772 the Prince was required to receive the King's prior consent, which had not been sought and would not have been given, and under the 1688 Bill of Rights anyone marrying a Catholic was barred from the monarchy. The couple considered themselves married, and George called her "the wife of my heart and soul."

However, in 1787 during the Parliamentary debate about his debt relief, George had his spokesmen flatly disavow rumors of the marriage (which would, of course, have removed him from the line of succession). Charles Fox "declared, with the immediate authority of the Prince, to contradict the report of the Marriage in the fullest and most unqualified terms: it was, he said, 'a miserable calumny, a low malicious falsehood. . .a monstrous invention, a report of a fact which had not the smallest degree of foundation, actually impossible to have happened.'. . .Mr. Fox replied, that he did not deny the calumny in question merely with regard to certain existing laws, but that he denied it in toto, in point of fact as well as of law: it not only never could have happened legally, but it never did happen in any way whatsoever, and had from the beginning been a base and malicious falsehood." [3]

"DIDO FORSAKEN. Sic transit gloria Regina [Thus passes the glory of the Queen]." [4] Caricature by by James Gillray, published by Samuel William Fores, 21 May 1787. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D12994

The Prince was rewarded for his dishonesty: Parliament increased his annual income by £10,000, plus awarded him lump-sum payments of £161,000 to cover his immediate debts, and £20,000 for the renovation of his residence, Carlton House.

In 1794, in debt trouble again, George parted from Mrs. Fitzherbert permanently to clear the way for his marriage to Caroline of Brunswick. It was not a love-match; as with many royal marriages, neither party had seen the other before the marriage was contracted. George married Caroline only in order to have his immense debts paid off by his father and to beget a recognized heir. Having accomplished both objects (Princess Charlotte was born in 1796) he separated from her.

George took many mistresses, and one of them, the Countess of Jersey, was appointed as Lady of the Bedchamber to Caroline. It must have been galling to the Queen.

"The JERSEY Smuggler detected; — or — Good cause for Separation Discontent — 'Marriage vows, are false as Dicers oaths.'" Caricature by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey, 24 May 1796. Queen Caroline discovers her husband George IV in bed with the Countess of Jersey; behind the Queen, Princess Charlotte sleeps in a cradle. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D13023

George's separation from Caroline increased the popular dislike of George and sympathy for his wronged wife, which continued for decades. In January 1813 Caroline had written to George to protest his decree restricting her ability to see their daughter Charlotte, then 17 years old. She wrote, "I am at length compelled, either to abandon all regard for the two dearest objects which I possess on earth, mine own honour, and my beloved Child, or to throw myself at the feet of your Royal Highness, the natural protector of both." [5]

Caroline's letter received no response, on 10 February it was published in the Morning Chronicle. Jane Austen wrote to her friend Martha Lloyd on 16 February, "I suppose all the World is sitting in Judgement upon the Princess of Wales's Letter. Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband — but I can hardly forgive her for calling herself 'attached & affectionate' to a Man whom she must detest." [6]

After her husband separated from her, Caroline had taken her own lovers. As grounds for divorce George attempted to prove her adultery by Parliamentary investigations in 1807 and 1820, but without success. In company Caroline admitted that she was an adulteress: she'd slept with the husband of Mrs. Fitzherbert. Nothing like such a mis-matched royal marriage, of course, could possibly happen in our own time. . .

George spent vast sums on redecorating Carlton House, and on throwing huge balls and banquets. Murray reprints a menu from one of the banquets, held at the Brighton Pavilion on 15 January 1817, which featured 36 entrées and 32 desserts, plus many other dishes "pour extra."

"A VOLUPTUARY under the horrors of Digestion." [7] Caricature by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey, 2 July 1792. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D33359

While the Prince and his guests were gorging themselves into insensibility, millions of his subjects were going hungry. The imposition of the Corn Laws in 1815, the enclosure by wealthy landowners of common lands, the poor harvests of 1816 ("the year without a summer" due to the eruption of Mount Tambora), the rising price of wheat and bread, the factory owners' replacement of skilled workers with machines, and the economic slump following the end of the Napoleonic wars led to widespread immiseration.

Two weeks after the Brighton banquet the Prince's carriage was attacked and stoned in the street. Around this time demonstrations occurred in many areas including Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and London, and in March 1817, amid fears of insurrection, Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act and the Seditious Meetings Act. In August 1819 soldiers attacked a peaceful mass meeting of tens of thousands of people at St. Peter's Field in Manchester; more than a dozen men, women and children were killed in what became known as "Peterloo" (a sarcastic reference, of course, to the decisive British military victory at Waterloo). Meanwhile the Prince continued his enormous expenditures on his houses and his belly.

Whether George was deliberately setting the tone for the ton, or unthinkingly following the mores of his class and time, he was far from alone in his lack of personal and financial restraint. In 1809 it was revealed that the mistress of George's brother Frederick, Mary Anne Clarke, had been selling army commissions. For more than a century it had been the practice for regimental officer commissions in the British Army to be "purchased" (awarded on the payment of a cash bond); there was a long waiting list, and the prices were supposed to be fixed. Murray reports that the rank of ensign could be purchased for £400, while that of major cost £2600.

"The Bishop and his Clarke, or A Peep into Paradise." Caricature by Thomas Rowlandson, published by Thomas Tegg, 26 February 1809. Bishop [the Duke of York]: "Ask any thing in reason and you shall have it my dearest dearest dearest Love." Clarke: "Only remember the promotions I mentioned I have pinn'd up the list at the head of the Bed." Image source: British Museum

Clarke sold commissions to the highest bidder and then apparently added the names to the list of new commissions before it was signed by Frederick in his role as Commander-in-Chief. It seemed impossible for this to have gone on without Frederick's awareness (or, as Murray writes, connivance), and he was put on trial in the House of Commons. He claimed that he had signed the lists without reading them and was unaware that names had been added. After seven weeks of humiliating public evidence his defense succeeded, but he resigned anyway because there were 196 votes against him out of 474 cast. (Four years later he was reinstated.) Frederick ran up huge debts at gambling and may well have turned a blind eye to Clarke's side business.

Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (detail), by Thomas Gainsborough, 1783. Image source: National Gallery of Art 1937.1.93.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and her husband William Cavendish lived in a ménage-à-trois with his mistress Lady Elizabeth Foster, Georgiana's best friend (and possibly her lover as well as his). Lady Elizabeth bore the Duke two children, while Georgiana bore him three; Georgiana also had a daughter by her lover Lord Grey. Georgiana gambled for high stakes, and lost frequently; according to Murray, at her death her son inherited her gambling debts of over £100,000 (somewhere in the range of £3 - 6 million in today's money). Georgiana's son, who became the sixth Duke of Devonshire, also lived beyond his vast means; Murray writes that he died with debts totalling more than £1,000,000. Murray writes that "even the richest noblemen lived on credit" (p. 66), but it would be more true to say that only the rich, or those believed to be rich, could live on credit; for everyone else it was a cash economy.

Portrait of Lady Caroline Lamb dressed as a page. Image source: South London Guide

Georgiana's niece, Caroline Ponsonby, at 19 married William Lamb, and seven years later embarked on a passionate affair with Lord Byron. (It was Caroline Lamb who said of Byron that he was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know.") Byron ended the affair after a few months, but Lady Caroline continued to pursue him. At a party held in July 1813 Byron socially "cut" Lady Caroline by ignoring her, and in response she cut herself: she broke a wine glass and in front of the company tried to slash her wrists with the shards, and then stabbed herself with a pair of scissors. Ultimately she was carried out, bleeding and in hysterics, with her arms bound. She would go on to write a roman à clef about Byron entitled Glenarvon (1816), which was avidly read but resulted in her (temporary) banishment from society; Murray calls it "a silly novel, virtually unreadable today" (p. 154). After his affair with Lady Caroline, Byron would go on to father children (probably) with his half-sister Augusta Leigh and (certainly) with Mary Shelley's step-sister Claire Clairmont, as well as with his wife Annabella Milbanke Byron. [8]

Murray is an entertaining writer, but not always a careful one. There are examples of garbled sentences that somehow made it past both Murray and the copy editor. From early in the book: ". . .between 1789 and 1830, the population of Great Britain increased from eight and a half million in 1801 to almost twice that number by 1830: at the beginning of the period it was mainly rural, by the end nearly 50% urban" (p. 16). In other words, in 1830 the population was still more than 50% (or, as we might say, "mainly") rural. The points are clear—as England industrialized the population grew and more people lived in cities—but the expression is botched.

Some of Murray's statements are curious. In her chapter on men's clubs she writes: "Gambling and politics were yet to be condemned as mutually exclusive occupations. [Sorry, but when was that memo issued?] Membership of Brooks's, however, was by no means confined to politicians: other celebrities included Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, Horace Walpole, Gibbon, Sheridan, Wilberforce and the Prince of Wales, who joined so that he could talk to [Charles] Fox in comfort and privacy (and enlist Fox's support in parliament over his debts and other complaints against his father and the government)" (p. 161).

Among the "other celebrities" enjoying memberships "by no means confined to politicians" Murray names Edmund Burke, who served as a member of Parliament between 1766 and 1794; Horace Walpole, the youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and who served in Parliament from 1741 to 1768; Edward Gibbon, who was a member of Parliament in the years 1774–1780 and 1781–1784; Richard Sheridan, who was a member of Parliament from 1780 to 1806; and William Wilberforce, the antislavery campaigner who was a member of Parliament from 1784 to 1812. It's not clear why Murray doesn't consider men who held decades-long careers in Parliament to be politicians as well as writers.

"The UNION CLUB. We'll join hand in hand, all Party shall cease, / And Glass after Glass shall our Union increase. / In the cause of Old England we'll drink down the Sun, / Then toast Little Ireland, & drink down the Moon!" [9] Caricature by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey, 21 January 1801. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D12754

Murray calls both demonstrators and rioters "the mob," adopting the language of the class that made them desperate. She moralizes about debt, writing that dandies "based their lives on the premise that money fell from the sky and living in debt was not only normal, but somehow rather chic. . .This attitude to money, so alien to the twentieth century, needs to be seen in the context of its time" (p. 61-62). Later she writes that living in debt was "a curious morality, and one which would be unacceptable today" (p. 65). Of course, today almost every homeowner or possessor of a credit card is living in debt. If she means that borrowing money without any intention of paying it back is now unacceptable, a man whose companies filed for bankruptcy six times was elected as the U.S. President (after this book was published, of course). The rules have always been different for the rich.

An Elegant Madness does not offer in-depth discussions of Regency politics, economics, fashion, arts, food, or sex. But despite its limitations, it is enjoyable, not least for its black-and-white reproductions of caricatures by Gillray, Rowlandson, Cruikshank and others. I recommend reading it as background to the novels of the period, or for entertainment. After all, we're not the ones the upper classes of England forced off the land, threw out of work, maimed or killed in their factories and wars, and left to starve. The passage of time provides a safe buffer for our amusement.

---

1. From The House of Lords Journal, 21–30 May 1792: Seditious Publications, Proclamation [by the King] respecting, delivered: "Whereas divers wicked and seditious Writings have been printed, published, and industriously dispersed, tending to excite Tumult and Disorder, by endeavouring to raise groundless Jealousies and Discontents in the Minds of Our faithful and loving Subjects, respecting the Laws and happy Constitution of Government, civil and religious, established in this Kingdom. . .We therefore being resolved, as far as in Us lies, to repress the wicked and seditious Practices aforesaid, and to deter all Persons from following so pernicious an Example, have thought fit, by the Advice of Our Privy Council, to issue this Our Royal Proclamation, solemnly warning all Our loving Subjects, as they tender their own Happiness, and that of their Posterity, to guard against all such Attempts which aim at the Subversion of all regular Government within this Kingdom, and which are inconsistent with the Peace and Order of Society. . .And We do strictly charge and command all Our Magistrates in and throughout Our Kingdom of Great Britain, that they do make diligent Enquiry in order to discover the Authors and Printers of such wicked and seditious Writings as aforesaid, and all others who shall disperse the same." 21 May 1792; https://www.british-history.ac.uk/lords-jrnl/vol39/pp431-458 ^ Return
2. The Regency Era designates the period between 1811 and 1820 during which the Prince of Wales served as regent for his incapacitated father. While officially the period only lasted nine years, depending on the writer its boundaries are movable. Murray's view of the reign of George IV (1820–1830) as in many ways a continuation of the Regency Era seems reasonable, as does her choice to place the Regency's origins around the time of George III's first major breakdown and the introduction of the first Regency Bill in Parliament (the King recovered before it was passed). ^ Return
3. Charles Lansdale, Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert; with an account of her marriage with H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, afterwards King George the Fourth (London, 1856), pp. 191-192. https://archive.org/details/memoirsofmrsfitz00languoft/page/190/mode/2up ^ Return
4. Atop a smoking pyre of what look suspiciously like giant penises, Maria Fitzherbert as Queen Dido of Carthage clutches a crucifix and grasps futilely at the crown and other royal symbols being blown away by Prime Minister William Pitt and his ally Viscount Melville. At her feet are instruments of torture "For the conversion of Heretics," along with a crucifix and rosary, symbols of Fitzherbert's Catholicism. Sailing away on a battered boat named Honor towards a castle flying the flag Windsor, the Prince of Wales as Aeneas is saying "I never saw her in my life"; "No never" is echoed by his fellow sailors Lord North, Edmund Burke and the steersman Charles Fox. Their dialogue is a reference to the First Sailor's song from Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas (1688?):
   
   
   Come away, fellow sailors, come away, your anchors be weighing,
   Time and tide will admit no delaying.
   Take a boozy short leave of your nymphs on the shore,
   And silence their mourning with vows of returning,
   But never intending to visit them more,
   No never intending to visit them more,
   No never, no never intending to visit them more. ^ Return
   
5. Quoted in A biographical memoir of the much lamented Princess Charlotte Augusta (1818), p. 317. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b675834&view=1up&seq=339 ^ Return
6. Letter of February 16th, 1813, to Martha Lloyd. https://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/jprncwal.html ^ Return
7. Sitting in front of a heap of picked-clean bones, a stupefied Prince of Wales picks his teeth with a fork. Underneath the table are a pile of empty bottles; on the rug are objects related to gambling: a dice cup, a ledger reading "Debts of Honor Unpaid," another ledger entitled "Faro Partnership Account: Self, [Lady Sarah] Archer, [Lady Albinia] Hobart, & Co" [Archer and Hobart were both hostesses of high-stakes card parties], and a book entitled "Newmarket List," a reference to the Newmarket Racecourse. Behind the Prince is an overflowing chamberpot holding down unpaid butcher's, poulterer's and baker's bills, with an upaid doctor's bill on the floor. On the wall is a shelf holding a stand of jelly glasses and various remedies for digestive problems: a jar of ointment "for the Piles," a bottle labelled "Drops for a Stinking Breath," a large bottle of Velnos' Vegetable Syrup, a patent medicine said to cure "all Impurities of the Blood and Juices, (whether Scorbutic [scurvy] or Venereal)" (see Geri Walton's blog for more details), and a container of Leakes Pills, a supposed cure for venereal disease. Hanging above are a mock coat of arms with crossed knife and fork and a wine-bottle candle holder, and above the Prince's head a portrait of Luigi Cornaro, writer of a treatise on prolonging life through an ascetic dietary regimen, drinking from a glass labelled "Aqua" (information from Yale University Library Digital Collections). ^ Return
8. Caroline's husband William Lamb would go on to inherit the title of Viscount Melbourne and serve as Prime Minister under King William IV and his successor Queen Victoria. Byron's daughter with Annabelle, Ada, would become Countess Lovelace and a renowned mathematician who wrote the first algorithm for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine—she has been called the first computer programmer. ^ Return
9. From the National Portrait Gallery: "This scene of drunken debauchery was a response to a formal print published to celebrate the first meeting of the Union Club, founded after England and Ireland were united in 1800. In the original illustration of the grand inaugural dinner, the Prince of Wales presided over a convivial scene seated on an elaborate throne. Gillray's version highlights the contentious nature of the Union by showing the Prince lying drunk under the table. Above him, the opposition leader Charles James Fox is collapsed in a chair, his feet propped on the table. All those not incapacitated or fighting drink a toast to the Union. Prominent among them are the Irish MP Lord Moira in a green jacket and Lord Cholmondely who raises his hat. The well-known fop Sir Lumley St George Skeffington dances in tipsily from the far right on the arm of an Irish friend." ^ Return

The greatest films of all time? The 2022 Sight and Sound critics poll

The British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine has just released its once-a-decade critics' poll of the greatest films of all time. This is the eighth edition of the poll, and has some notable differences with earlier versions. [1]

But before I dive in, a brief preamble on the absurdity of "best of" lists, and especially best-of lists that compare works that are unlike (musical comedies, say, with documentaries), and most especially best-of lists that are numerically ranked. I'm not unaware that I've just finished providing lists of my favorite recordings, performances, books and movies enjoyed in 2022. But my lists make no claims that the works I've singled out as my favorites are "best" or "greatest," simply that, out of the tiny sample of the works I've personally experienced, they have given me the greatest pleasure—an obviously subjective and variable criterion. Also, my lists are generally not numerically ranked.

At most, ranked polls can provide a snapshot of the current average critical taste, but as we all know, critical tastes change, in part in response to cultural shifts. Of course, whose opinion the poll represents has also changed. In 1952 the poll was compiled from the ten-best lists of 63 critics from Britain, the U.S., and Europe; in 2022 the voting pool had expanded to "more than 1,600 of the most influential international film critics, academics, distributors, writers, curators, archivists and programmers," according to the BFI website. Finally, in 1952 it had been only 50 years since George Méliès' A Trip to the Moon (our distance from The Godfather and Cabaret); in 2022 the poll participants could select their ten best films from well over a century of world cinema. More than three-quarters of the films on the 2022 list had not yet been made in 1952.

So it's not surprising that in each decade the "greatest films of all time" change. Fully seven of the top 10 selected in 1952 are missing from the top 100 in 2022. These include Chaplin's The Gold Rush (#2 in 1952), Erich von Stroheim's Greed and Marcel Carné's Le jour se lève (tied at #7 in 1952), and David Lean's Brief Encounter (#10 in 1952). (Brief Encounter was one of my Favorites of 2011: Movies, and both it and The Gold Rush would be on the list of my favorite 100 films.)

Some changes, of course, are positive ones, and it's great to see women and Black filmmakers getting more recognition in the 2022 list. Making appearances for the first time:

• Agnès Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7, #14; The Gleaners and I, #67)
• Maya Deren (Meshes of the Afternoon, #16)
• Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, #24, my choice for the true Best Picture of 1989)
• Věra Chytilová (Daisies, #28, which I called "essential viewing")
• Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady, #30, one of my Favorites of 2021: Movies)
• Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep, #43)
• Barbara Loden (Wanda, #48) 
• Jane Campion (The Piano, #50)
  
• Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust, #60)
• Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, #60)
• Jordan Peele (Get Out, #95, an honorable mention in my Favorites of 2017: Movies). 

I suspect that there are some highly-ranked films in the 2022 poll that won't maintain their current positions in future polls. Five among them (limiting my comments to films I've seen):

• Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (#1): Laura Mulvey writes in her essay about this film, "Interest in gender in cinema and the objectification of women has gathered momentum, especially as awareness of the misogyny inherent in the industrial mode of production–what we call 'Hollywood'–has become widespread. [Of course, misogyny, sexual coercion and assault are rampant not only in 'Hollywood.'] Perhaps as the oppression of women in the film industry has attracted attention, fuelled by the #MeToo hashtag, so has the oppression of women on the screen itself, in its fictions and inscribed into film language." So perhaps #MeToo has now brought to the fore issues that Chantal Akerman depicted in Jeanne Dielman nearly half a century ago (although its importance has long been recognized; it was #73 in the 2002 poll and #36 in the 2012 poll). But is Jeanne Dielman the greatest film ever made, whatever that might mean? I have my doubts, and suspect that it is the "greatest film of all time" for our present moment.

• David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (#8): My choice for the true Best Picture of 2001. I've written that it is "a dreamlike neo-noir that turns nightmarish. Lynch masterfully creates an atmosphere of suspense and dread." But the eighth-best movie ever made? I think even putting it in the top 100 might be a stretch.

• John Ford's The Searchers (#15): Jonathan Lethem has written that "The Searchers is racist the way Huckleberry Finn is racist," and perhaps it is as complex and self-critical as he claims. Or perhaps another of his descriptions of the film, that it involves "giddy misogyny. . .[and] willful racism," is closer to the mark. I've only seen The Searchers once, when I was in college, and giddy misogyny and willful racism seem like pretty accurate descriptions of what I remember seeing that night. A film long overdue for critical re-evaluation.

• Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire (#30): an excellent film, but is it really better than (to choose almost at random) Ugetsu Monogatari (#95), Modern Times (#78), Metropolis (#67), La Jetée (#67), Sherlock Jr. (#54), M (#36), or City Lights (#36)?

• Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (#45): I think Kubrick's adaptation of Thackeray's novel is generally underrated and may deserve a place on this list, but in my version it would take the place of The Shining (#88). And while we're on the subject of Kubrick, why is Dr. Strangelove (#5 in 1982, and one of my ten favorite films) missing entirely?

Not only did Dr. Strangelove somehow fail to make the top 100, but the list is also lacking a number of other films and filmmakers. In alphabetical order, here are 15 directors that are absent from the list (and yes, I'm aware that they're all men):

• Pedro Almodóvar, one of the most visually distinctive filmmakers of the past four decades. Are neither Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown nor All About My Mother, to name just two, worthy of inclusion?

• Sergei Bondarchuk, War and Peace, one of my Favorites of 2019: Movies. This seven-hour, four-film epic includes vast spectacle—battle scenes featuring tens of thousands of extras—as well as emotionally intimate scenes where fates turn on a single remark or glance.

• Luis Buñuel, the writer and director of, among others, Un Chien Andalou, L'Age d'Or, Los Olvidados, The Exterminating Angel, Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, and That Obscure Object of Desire. A case could be made for any of these to be on the list.

• René Clair, À nous la liberté! (Give us freedom!), "his great masterpiece," although it was Clair's Le Million that tied with Renoir's La Règle de jeu and Lean's Brief Encounter at #10 in 1952. (In the 2022 list La Règle de jeu is #13; Le Million and Brief Encounter do not appear at all.)

• Jean Cocteau, La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast). The images of the Beast's castle are utterly magical.

• David Cronenberg, director of Naked Lunch, the brilliant film of William Burroughs' unfilmable novel, as well as The Fly, Crash, eXistenZ, and A History of Violence.

• Jules Dassin, blacklist victim and director of The Naked City, Night and the City, and Rififi.

• Louis Feuillade, writer-director of the silent-film serials Fantômas, Les Vampires, and Judex. If these were excluded because the episodes are not feature-length, I'll just point out that the great La Jetée (#67, and one of my ten favorite films) is less than half an hour long.

• Victor Fleming, The Wizard of Oz, another of my ten favorite films.

• Wojciech Has, The Saragossa Manuscript, which realizes onscreen the intricate, looping narrative structure of Jan Potocki's great 1815 novel.

• Werner Herzog, director of, among others, the movies Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Heart of Glass, Stroszek, Nosferatu, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, and the documentaries Lessons of Darkness, The Transformation of the World into Music, Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices, Grizzly Man, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Wings of Hope, Wheel of Time, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

• Jean-Pierre Melville, director of Bob le flambeur, Le Doulos, Le Samouraï, and Army of Shadows.

• Preston Sturges, The Lady Eve, which I called "the best of Sturges' movies"—that is, one of the greatest of all Hollywood comedies.

• Wim Wenders, director of Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire, and the documentaries Pina and The Salt of the Earth.

• Zhang Yimou, director of Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, and his masterpiece Raise the Red Lantern, as well as Hero and The House of Flying Daggers.

Of course, my questions about the poll don't end there. A number of movies that usually wind up on such lists are missing from this one, and for at least some of the following films I would correct the omission in my own favorites list:

• F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (#11) is on the list, but where is the horror classic Nosferatu?

• Jean Renoir's La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game, #13) makes the list, but where is La Grande Illusion, "perhaps the greatest anti-war film ever made"?

• Ingmar Bergman's Persona (#18) is his only film on the list, which omits art-house perennials Autumn Sonata, Fanny and Alexander, The Seventh Seal, Scenes from a Marriage (possibly ineligible because it was originally made for television), Smiles of a Summer Night, and Wild Strawberries (#10 in 1972).

• Satyajit Ray is represented by Pather Panchali (#35), but Charulata, The Chess Players, Mahanagar, The Music Room, or The World of Apu could be additional choices. And while we're on the subject of Indian directors, shouldn't Bimal Roy (Parineeta, Devdas, Bandini) and Guru Dutt (Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool, Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (dance scenes; dialogue scenes directed by Abrar Alvi)) also receive recognition? That one of the largest and most vibrant film industries in the world is represented by one film by one director is a major oversight.
  

• Noir is represented by Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (#78), Carol Reed's The Third Man (#63), and perhaps Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (#2), but also possibly worthy are Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (another of my ten favorite films), John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past, Charles Vidor's Gilda, Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai, or Wilder's Double Indemnity, my choice for the true Best Picture of 1944.

• Jean-Luc Godard's takes on the 1960s Pierrot le fou (#84) and Le Mépris (Contempt, #54) make the list, but should Mike Nichols' iconic The Graduate also find a place?

I can't help agreeing with the sentiments of the anonymous reviewer for the The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent Supplement in 1899, who wrote, "Most of the numerous attempts to draw up a list of the hundred best [works]. . .have been distressing failures." We can look forward to a Sight and Sound "greatest films of all time" list that fails differently in 2032.

Update 6 January 2023: The Guardian is reporting that Ni Zhen, the 84-year-old screenwriter of Raise the Red Lantern (1991), died last month. The cause of death was not announced, but the lede states that "A spate of deaths among celebrities and public figures across China has sparked concerns that the actual death toll from Covid-19 may be far higher than authorities are reporting."

---

1. In this post I will follow the naming conventions of Sight and Sound, in which foreign-language titles are often (but not always) translated into English.

Favorites of 2022: Movies and television

Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) and Granny (Angela Lansbury) in The Company of Wolves. Image source: CBS News

Given the flow and ebb and flow of COVID cases and the couldn't-care-less approach to mask-wearing that has become widespread (and, no doubt, is spreading widely), we're not going back to movie theaters for the foreseeable future. The only other way to see current movies (as well as most television series) is to subscribe to streaming platforms, which we also don't do. DVD releases are delayed (often, it seems, permanently), and so it's becoming harder and harder for us to see films released in the past twelve months. 

Public libraries have come to the rescue (as they so often do) by providing some current offerings through services such as Kanopy and Hoopla. But for those of us still wedded to physical media these are rich days for hunting, as people dump their (or their parents') collections. So, as I've been picking up DVDs for a song at various sales, the past year for us has been one largely of rediscovery. In previous Favorites lists I have focussed almost exclusively on movies and television shows viewed for the first time in the past 12 months, but for 2022 that would leave me with a list only a few items long. So this year I am listing my favorite viewing over the past twelve months, whether it was a watch or a rewatch, ordered chronologically. Two of the films that made my list, The Company of Wolves and Goodfellas, were rewatched in tribute to actors who sadly passed away in 2022, Angela Lansbury and Ray Liotta.

MOVIES

City Lights (1931). Starring Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, and Harry Myers; written, directed, and score composed by Charlie Chaplin. (First seen in the early 1980s.)

Perhaps this is a film that needs no recommendation. It is #36 on the just-announced 2022 Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time, and #11 on the 2007 version of the American Film Institute's "100 Years. . .100 movies" list (up from #76 on the 1998 poll, just behind (egad) Dances with Wolves). In case you somehow haven't seen it yet, the plot is simple, but describing it doesn't capture what makes the film so affecting.

Chaplin's Tramp saves a rich drunkard (Harry Myers) from suicide, and is befriended by him—at least, whenever he's drunk. When he sobers up, he no longer recognizes the Tramp and kicks him out of his house. One day on the street the Tramp encounters a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill), who mistakes him for a rich man; the Tramp falls in love. From these two threads Chaplin weaves an emotionally rich tapestry full of ironic contrasts: the selfish rich and the generous poor; the sighted who avoid seeing the suffering all about them, and the sightless who perceive it all too clearly. The film ends with one of the most pathos-filled scenes in cinema; if you can watch it with dry eyes, you are made of stronger stuff than I am.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cZxD-ihzmk

The Company of Wolves (1984). Starring Sarah Patterson and Angela Lansbury; written by Angela Carter and Neil Jordan, based on Carter's short story "The Company of Wolves" from The Bloody Chamber and other adult tales (1979); directed by Jordan. (First seen in 1984.)

The Company of Wolves, like the Arabian Nights, nests stories within stories. Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson), a girl on the brink of adulthood, falls asleep and dreams a series of fearful fairy tales recounted by her superstitious grandmother (Angela Lansbury). Her grandmother warns Rosaleen of the beasts that lurk within men, and the danger of straying from the path. But Rosaleen's mother (Tusse Silberg) assures her, "If there's a beast in men, it meets its match in women too." And what if Red Riding Hood encounters a devilishly handsome wolf. . .?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwXImpudjvU

GoodFellas (1990). Starring Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, and Robert De Niro; written by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese, based on Pileggi's book Wiseguy; directed by Scorsese. (First seen in 1990.)

Speaking of devilishly handsome wolves, Ray Liotta gives one of the best performances of his career as Henry Hill, a mobster who can never become a "made man" because of his Irish, rather than Sicilian, origins. Liotta somehow makes Hill—a brutal, mercenary opportunist—an appealing figure. We watch him slowly rise through the ranks, a career made perilous not only because he could be arrested at any moment, but also because his own compatriots in the mob might turn against him at any time. The "Do you think I'm funny?" scene, where Hill laughs at a story being told by Joe Pesci's psychotic gangster Tommy DeVito, only for the mood to change in an instant to one of deadly seriousness, is chilling.

Would it be heresy to say that Goodfellas is Scorsese's best film? The 2022 Sight and Sound poll thinks that honor belongs to Taxi Driver (1976, #29), which is certainly memorable, and the 2007 version of AFI's "100 Years. . .100 movies" list thinks it's Raging Bull (1980, #4). But when contemplating another rewatch I think I would reach for Goodfellas instead of either of those more critically acclaimed films. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ilzidi_J8Q

Honorable Mention:

Bad Education (2004). Starring Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, and Daniel Giménez Cacho; written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. (First seen in 2022.)

Drawing on elements of film noir, Almodóvar's Bad Education is filled with twists, turns, assumed identities, and obsession. Enrique (Fele Martínez), a film director looking for a new project, receives a visit from Ignacio (Gael García Bernal), an actor looking for work. Ignacio claims to be Enrique's first lover. The two met in boarding school and began a clandestine relationship, but were separated when Ignacio was expelled; they haven't seen each other since. Ignacio, now a transgender woman, has written a story entitled "The Visit," which he wants Enrique to make into a movie with himself as the star. "The Visit" details Ignacio's molestation at boarding school by a priest, Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho), and his attempt as an adult to blackmail the priest for the money for gender-reassignment surgery. But despite Ignacio's intimate knowledge of Enrique's past, is he really who he claims to be? 

Bad Education echoes aspects of classic films noir such as Out of the Past (1947) and Vertigo (1958). But for me the film it most closely resembles is the neo-noir Mulholland Drive (2001). As in David Lynch's film, in Bad Education there are so many layers of fictionality that it can become unclear in which narrative a scene is taking place, whether in the frame story, "The Visit," or in the film that Enrique ultimately makes (and that we, evidently, are watching). Immediately after seeing the film my partner and I discovered that we had very different interpretations of certain scenes. A movie that probably needs to be rewatched several times to untangle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLZuzDSYS74

Documentary:

Andy Goldsworthy: Rivers and Tides: Working with Time (2004). Directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer. (First seen in 2004.)

A fascinating look at the artist Andy Goldsworthy, who makes site-specific works entirely of found natural materials. We see Goldsworthy painstakingly creating both small-scale, ephemeral works, such as his icicle sculptures, as well as large-scale permanent installations such as his mortarless serpentine rock walls. Rivers and Tides, by allowing us to follow Goldsworthy's intricate process and by capturing both the creation and (often) disintegration of his environmental pieces, is a truer representation of his art than still photographs. Essential viewing if you are interested in art, or nature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pET5lN4vZc

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché (2021). Written by Celeste Bell, Paul Sng, and Zoe Howe; directed by Bell and Sng. (First seen in 2022.)

In my 2011 memorial post on Poly Styrene I wrote that "as a teenager she was the lead singer and songwriter for one of the best punk bands ever, X-Ray Spex. She was a nonconformist even among the rebels and misfits of punk rock: she was short, wore braces, wasn't rail-thin, designed her own clothes (often in bright colors, an anomaly in punk), and was multi-racial. She was smart, wickedly funny (her lyrics are great), and absolutely electrifying onstage. Her voice was and will remain unforgettable."

I Am a Cliché (named after the title of the B-side of X-Ray Spex's first single, "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!") is a biographical documentary made by Poly Styrene's daughter Celeste Bell and collaborators. It's an attempt to come to terms with her mother's legacy: her brief period of notoriety with her band X-Ray Spex, followed by decades during which she was a Hare Krishna devotée and struggled with bipolar disorder. A compelling film on multiple levels, it adds another dimension to the excellent Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story, one of my Favorites of 2022: Books.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stXSFuUOdeU

TELEVISION

Gentleman Jack (2019-22). Starring Suranne Jones, Sophie Rundle, and Gemma Jones; created by Sally Wainwright, based on the books Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister by Anne Choma, and Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority: The Anne Lister Diaries and Other Writings, 1833–1836 by Jill Liddington. (First seen in 2022.)

Gentleman Jack dramatizes four key years in the life of Anne Lister (Suranne Jones), a Yorkshire estate owner whose coded diaries, once deciphered, revealed her sexual relationships with many of the single and married women of her acquaintance. Over the period covered by the series, Anne returns to her estate, Shibden Hall; meets, seduces, and makes a symbolic marriage with a local heiress, Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle); and struggles against the suspicions of Ann's relatives and the hostility of their neighbors.

The series follows fairly closely what we know of Anne's life (and thanks to her diaries, that's a great deal), although it does add a number of unnecessary subplots in an attempt to heighten "dramatic interest," especially in Season 1; as the producers ultimately realized, Anne's story is fascinating enough by itself. I wrote in "No historical interest whatever: Anne Lister, part 6" that "a key reason to watch the show is the performance of Suranne Jones as Anne, who, naturally enough, is in virtually every scene of every episode. Unafraid to be unsympathetic (although the character softens a bit as the series progresses), Jones is an arresting presence onscreen. It's unfortunate that it looks as though Season 2 will be the last opportunity to see her dynamic portrayal of Anne Lister; in June it was announced that HBO would not renew Gentleman Jack."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uBYRcP44M4

Honorable mention:

The Best of Thunderbirds (1965-66). Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. (First seen a long time ago.)

"Thunderbirds are Go!" A product of the techno-optimism of the 1960s, the puppet series Thunderbirds ("Filmed in Videcolor and Supermarionation") mesmerized me as a young boy. Now that I'm a few years older, I am still amazed by the lavish detail of the sets, props, and special effects.

The immensely wealthy former astronaut Jeff Tracy has created the International Rescue team with his five sons Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon, and John (any resemblance to the Mercury 7 astronauts Scott Carpenter, Virgil Grissom, Alan Shepherd, Gordon Cooper, and John Glenn is purely intentional). From their private Tracy Island in the South Pacific (um, isn't the South Pacific the farthest point on average from everyone on Earth?), International Rescue launches its fleet of Thunderbird machines—a swing-wing rocket plane (Thunderbird 1), a huge cargo plane (Thunderbird 2), a rocket (Thunderbird 3), and a submersible (Thunderbird 4)—whenever danger threatens. Their actions are coordinated by Thunderbird 5, a space station usually manned by John.

Of course, we're in a future world where, for example, Jeff thinks nothing of launching Thunderbird 3 to send Alan's girlfriend Tin-Tin to meet him Paris for the weekend (in the James-Bond-like episode "The Perils of Penelope"), and passenger airliners are powered by nuclear reactors ("Trapped in the Sky"). (My partner and I couldn't help wincing at the huge environmental impact of International Rescue.) Some of the episodes seem, in retrospect, eerily prescient: in "Sun Probe" a crew of solarnauts loses control of their ship and plummets helplessly into the sun, anticipating the Apollo 13 accident; and in "Terror in New York City" the Empire State Building collapses, a pre-echo of the destruction of the World Trade Center. If you can overlook the Orientalist tropes—one of the main villains in the series is Hood, a criminal mastermind with a Malaysian lair—the series can be enjoyed for its sophisticated, film-like mise-en-scène, pre-CGI props and special effects, and technologically preposterous storylines.

Should you be interested in seeing the original of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's parody Team America: World Police (2004), the entire Thunderbirds series is available on YouTube, "free with ads."

Other Favorites of 2022:

• Recordings
• Performances
• Books