Monday, April 3, 2017
ARTS&LIVING
Iconic filmmaker shares wisdom with art students in ‘Make Trouble’
Dolce and Gabbana, and the celebration of culture in fashion
by Eran Sabaner
Executive Arts Editor
I PEN AMERICAN CENTER
John Waters, author of ‘Make Trouble,’ appears at Pen America/Free Expression Literature on May 5, 2014. Man, recently published it in book form under the name “Make Trouble” (2017). RISD students (or any student pursuing a degree in the arts) are inherently idealistic, as they seek to contribute to society by utilizing creativity. Waters is in agreement with this goal, as his career can be interpreted as an attempt to better society by challenging its norms.
The filmmaker, who self-identifies as “prince of puke” and “the people’s pervert,” has defined queer culture with his collaborations with drag queen Divine, contributed to the mainstream-ization of drag with his movie “Hairspray” (1988) and pushed the notion of filth see MAKE TROUBLE, page 8
FILM REVIEW
‘Life’ is a disappointing copy of ‘Alien’
Jake Gyllenhaal plays one of several astronauts on the International Space Station in ‘Life.’ by John Fedak
Assistant Arts Editor
As far as science fiction films go, those that play on the ‘trapped in space’ trope have much to offer, but also much to overcome. Jumpstarted by Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic “Alien,” this category of sci-fi films typically features characters who are forced to battle disaster, aliens or both, while attempting to escape from some sort of spaceship. The main problem with this genre is the lack of meaningful innovation. Most trapped-in-space films rely on good acting, special effects or plot lines in order to compensate for follow-
tuftsdaily.com
Antonio Bertolino Art-à-Porter
BOOK REVIEW
What makes a successful commencement speech? Perhaps the most crucial component is the speaker. Usually, the speaker must come from a background that meets the interests of the majority of the graduating class: while an 80-year-old litigator might excite prelaw students, biology majors might end up staring at their phones during the entire duration of the speech. With a student body that is more homogeneous in terms of its interests and majors, finding the right speaker might be relatively easier. But at any school, if the speaker is able to understand the set of values and aspirations the student body has, then the speaker will have no problem appealing them. Tufts seems to have settled on media personalities as having a broad appeal, at least for the past two years with actor Hank Azaria in 2016 and “Black-ish” (2014–present) producer Kenya Barris this year. The above reasons are precisely what make Rhode Island School of Design’s (RISD) choice to have John Waters as the commencement speaker for the 2015 graduating class. In fact, the speech was so popular that Waters, a filmmaker, actor and general Renaissance
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ing a somewhat unoriginal storyline. While 2017’s “Life” does a decent job of immersing the viewer in a cinematic experience, it ultimately falls flat, relying too much on a cliché story, effects and characters to truly be a hit. The story itself is very safe and feels familiar. The movie is about a crew on the International Space Station (ISS) who are waiting to intercept a capsule returning from Mars with soil samples. When they discover a single-celled organism amongst the samples, it seems as though humanity has reached a new era of discovery and understanding. However, as the organism begins to grow, the crew slowly realizes it might not be as benevolent as it seems, and
SKYDANCE MEDIA
after an accident allows it to escape, horror sets in as the crew frantically searches for the missing Martian. The acting is perhaps the film’s strongest point. The cast is robust, featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds in addition to international actors Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya. While these six actors compromise virtually the entire cast of the movie, they each bring a unique personality to the table, and their varied interactions aboard the ISS feel real and authentic. Everything from their jokes to their fears are rewarding to watch unfold on-screen. see LIFE, page 8
n the fashion world, few designers have been able to constantly draw inspiration from their national and cultural heritage and remain relevant for a long time like Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. Dolce, who is originally from a town near Palermo, never fails to incorporate visual motifs from the Sicilian tradition in his designs, such as daisies, lemons and Byzantine mosaics. The first way in which the two designers draw inspiration from their heritage is how they use Italian icons as muses for their fashion collections. An example of this is their Haute Couture show of Fall-Winter 2016-17, which celebrated the film star Sophia Loren, who acted as the designers’ muse for this show. Many dresses paid homage to Loren’s extraordinary legacy in Italian cinema, both through a celebration of her persona and through praise to Naples, which is where the actress is from originally. The show actually took place on the Neapolitan cobblestone streets, which caused several models to trip in their high heels. Nonetheless, the show glorified the uniqueness of Southern Italian culture in all of its facets, from religion to soccer, and the beauty of the Italian countryside. One of the most representative shows ever presented by Dolce and Gabbana was the Fall 2013 Ready-to-Wear. In many pieces of the collection, the duo referenced the Cathedral of Monreale, a Sicilian church full of mosaics dating back to Byzantine times. Like most artwork from this timeframe, the mosaics inside the Cathedral are largely covered in gold foil. This artistic element was reflected in many pieces that graced the Dolce and Gabbana catwalk, which were of a similar color. Moreover, many models wore dresses embellished with stones similar to the ones emperors and empresses would sport in Byzantine times, as illustrated by the same mosaics, all while wearing headdresses that looked like religious attire. The models seemed to be tiptoeing on a fine line between being a metaphor for the church of Monreale and for the figures that make up the Church as an institution. A contemporary artist who makes sculptural pieces that are visually similar to the mosaic-inspired Dolce and Gabbana dresses is El Anatsui. The Ghanaian artist is known for making works that draw inspiration from his heritage and specifically the technique that gives birth to ‘kente’ cloth, which is a type of fabric interwoven with cotton and silk native to South Ghana. El Anatsui, using this technique, sews together aluminum bottle tops to create cloth-like sculptures that are typically hung on walls. The aluminum gives these pieces a metallic quality that is astoundingly similar to the way mosaics present in the Monreale cathedral and the Dolce and Gabbana dresses reflect light. El Anatsui’s pieces are compositionally similar to mosaics in the way the artist creates a work on a large scale starting from minuscule parts. It is therefore evident that both El Anatsui and Dolce and Gabbana use their heritage as a source of creative and compositional inspiration when making their work. Antonio Bertolino is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. Antonio can be reached at antonio.bertolino@tufts.edu.