Pendant brooch, Cartier London, 1923; altered 1928, Cartier New York. Emeralds, diamonds, platinum and enamel, 20.3 x 5.1 cm, Hillwood estate, Museum & Gardens, bequest of Marjorie Merriweather Post, 1973.

North Bay Art Blogger and Culture Maven for Marinmaven.com, Geneva Anderson wrote up an amazing review for the Cartier and America exhibition for her art blog, ARTHound.

Sometimes living in Marin means clinching your teeth and crossing the Golden Gate for some culture. Yesterday, I made the trek across the bridge with a companion to the Legion of Honor for this Cartier exhibition that will be around until April 18th, 2010. Anyone thinking that they know bling, should take a look at this collection from the late 19th century to the present. This is world class bling. There are really show-stopping pieces from a serpent necklace to Princess Grace Kelly’s engagement ring featured in the movie, High Society. From the opulent turn-of-the century garland style brooches, to modernist and orientalism of the 1920s, to the restraint of the War and Post-War era there is something for everyone who loves sparkly things.

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by Geneva Anderson

It’s film festival season again and nothing beats the San Francisco International Film Festival, which offers an exceptional program of global cinema—151 films from 55 countries in 34 languages with 54 West Coast, 9 North American, and 1 global premiere. Fortunately, a number of angels stepped up with generous financial sponsorship so the economic crisis would not impact the 15 day festival which draws over 75,000 people. I am especially attached to SFIFF because the programming is wonderfully diverse offering narrative features, feature documentaries, works from new directors, and shorts from all over the world that can loosely be divided into over 20 causes— the arts, environment, health, family issues, world culture, war, youth, and Cinema by the Bay (locals). All screenings include engaging Q&A with the directors, actors, and film crews. The festival takes place in San Francisco (Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Castro Theatre, and Landmark’s Clay Theatre) and Berkeley (Pacific Film Archive). Most of these films sell out, so buy your tickets in advance.

Here are Culture Maven’s picks, biased by an interest in local issues and environmental concerns: (for full film reviews and festival coverage visit ARThound)

“A Sea Change”: Dir. Barbara Ettinger (USA 2009, 84 min) Did you happen to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s penetrating article “The Darkening Sea” in the New Yorker? (Full-text version as pdf file here.) Norwegian grandfather Sven Huseby and his wife, director Barbara Ettinger were so impacted by Ettinger’s findings that they spent two years traveling all over the world and documenting the scientific impact of ocean acidification on sea life. The urgent and accessible message delivered by Huseby is that we have reached a turning point: CO2 is acidifying our oceans and this is going to dramatically alter life on our plant for coming generations. Ocean acidification is the flip side of global warming and if you have children, grandchildren or any investment in life as we know it continuing on this planet, this is a must-see film. This is our generation’s legacy and we need to both inform and change things now. Screens: Sat April 25, 3:45 pm, Mon April 27, 6:15 pm, Thurs April 30, 1:30 pm, all at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.

A special forum “Ocean Acidification: Imagining a World Without Fish” will take place Saturday April 25, 5:45 pm, following the screening with several of the experts featured in the film present to discuss the latest findings.

“Speaking in Tongues”: Dir. Marcia Jamel, Ken Schneider (USA 2009, 60 min) Is America’s commitment to remaining an “English-only” nation a wise course in an increasingly interconnected world? So far, thirty-one states have voted to make English their official language and even in liberal Palo Alto, a Mandarin language immersion program was viewed as extremely controversial and nearly stopped. “Speaking in Tongues” explores bilingual language immersion through the compelling stories of four San Francisco public schoolchildren enrolled in Chinese and Spanish language-immersion programs. The children enter immersion programs for different reasons and while they grow impressively at ease with the portal language offers, becoming impressive global citizens and much better students, their parents argue. Screens: Sun April 26, 3:15 pm, Sat May 2, 11;45 am and 3:30 pm, Thurs, May 7, 2:30 pm, all at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.

“Empress Hotel”: Dir. Allie Light, Irving Saraf (USA 2008) This film addresses the homeless and mentally ill who are residents of an innovative Tenderloin residential hotel, the Empress Hotel. Local academy-award film-making team Allie Light and Irving Saraf weave the residents’ amazing and unexpected life stories with their daily comings and goings in the tenderloin, building a living portrait of the struggles faced by an often overlooked part of our Bay Area community. Screens: Sat April 25, 3:15 pm, Mon April 27, 6:00 pm, Wed April 29, 6:15 pm, Thurs May 7, 12:15 pm, all at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.

“California Company Town”: Dir. Lee Anne Schmitt (USA 2008, 78 min) If you’ve ever driven across California and passed through an abandoned town located just outside a booming metropolitan area and wondered what happened “California Company Town” provides the answers. This portrait of wasting and forgotten California industrial boomtowns–established around certain industries and occupied by workers– documents their current condition with moving commentary against a backdrop of abandoned warehouses and factories and the rural beauty of California. Screens: Thurs April 30, 8:35 pm, PFA. Repeats: Sat May 2, 6:45 pm and Mon May 4, 3:30 pm, both at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.

“The Other One”: Dir. Patrick Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic (France 2008, 97 min) Forty-seven year-old social worker Anne-Marie is newly single after an amicable break with her (much) younger lover, Alex, whom she encouraged to find someone more appropriate for the long-term. He takes her advice but her replacement turns out to be another older professional woman rather than the gorgeous creative model-type that Anne-Marie imagined he should be with. What starts off as mild curiosity about the other woman morphs into out of control jealousy and a meltdown. Screens: Friday May 1, 4:15 pm, Sun May 3, 9:30 pm, Wed May 6, 6:00 pm, all at the Clay Theatre.

Each year the festival asks a culturally prominent public figure to address one or more of the pressing issues facing contemporary cinema. Mary Ellen Mark, voted by the readers of American Photo as the most influential woman photographer of all time, will deliver the 2009 State of Cinema address on Sunday May 3, 3 pm, at the Sundance Kabuki Theatres, giving a tour of her film-set images and discussing the legendary figures in her famous frames as well. She will also show us her photo essay “Twins.”

SFIFF52 tickets: available at www.sffs.org , or by phone (925) 866-9559 or in person at the main ticket outlet, Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. Price $12.50 general public.

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Lee Miller’s life at SFMOMA  
by Geneva Anderson

Most of us are vaguely familiar with Lee Miller… a talented artist born 100 years ago who lived her life both in front of and behind the camera.  She began as high-fashion model for Vogue, was Man Ray’s muse and apprentice and the celebrated subject of a great number of portraits by famous artists.   Miller’s own work embraced many different types of photography— from her striking surrealistic images and portraits of figures like Pablo Picasso and Charley Chaplin to her fashion and advertising work, to her documentary photography in Egypt and Romania to her well-known photo-essays of WWII through the post war period, when she snapped pics of her famous house guests at work.   SFMOMA’s  “The Art of Lee Miller,” which closes Sunday, September 14, examines Lee Miller in her glory and also manages to expose a great deal of her shadow side, equally as compelling.   The retrospective, which includes roughly 140 of her works, originated at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and was curated locally by Sandra Phillips, SF MOMA’s Senior Photography Curator.   
Is she worthy of all this attention?  Her war reportage alone qualifies her.  The astonishing breadth of her life stands in addition—a remarkable feat to some, others hold her beauty and how she capitalized on it against her.  Miller described her life as a “water-soaked jigsaw puzzle, drunken bits that don’t match in shape or design.”  Her extraordinary career and life are here, spread out in all their pieces—defying stereotypes and open to interpretation.

While Miller is well-known for her looks and the famous artists she bumped arms with and bedded, her childhood was no picnic.  Born Elizabeth Miller in 1907 in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York, she grew up on a farm with her two brothers.    A 1985 biography published by her son, Anthony Penrose, revealed that she was raped at age seven by a family “friend.”  If that were not harrowing enough, she suffered with gonorrhea for seven years until a treatment came out when she was 14.  As a teen, she frequently posed nude for her father, a serious amateur photographer.  One of his portraits, included in the show, from 1928, reveals a detached Miller, physically present but emotionally vacant. Those early traumas may explain the self-defense mechanisms and evasive behaviors that her son has written were her “hedgehog spikes.”   What we do know is that under the glamour, Lee Miller was a steely and driven survivor.  She positioned herself to capture a series of remarkable events in world history on film and was committed to her creative process throughout her life.

At age 18, Miller left for Paris where she studied stage design.  She returned to the New York to continue her studies and was spotted by the publisher Conde Nast and catapulted to Vogue cover girl fame.  She credited Edward Steichen, Conde Nast’s chief photographer, whom she sat for, for inspiring her to study photography and for a letter of introduction to Man Ray.  When she moved back to Paris in 1929, she took up with Man Ray, as his assistant and lover, helping him refine solarization techniques and honing own her skills.  She quickly became the muse of the Surrealist movement, inspiring

iconic imagery.  Man Ray’s radiant “Lee Miller: Neck” (1929) hails from this period.

By the 1930’s, Miller had sufficient experience to open her own portraiture studio in New York, Lee Miller Studios.  A good portrait, Miller told Mario Amaya, catches its subject “not when he is unaware of it but when he is his most natural self.”  Miller shot portraits for Warner Brothers and commercial works for advertising agencies and cosmetics companies such as Elizabeth Arden, Camay, Saks Fifth Avenue, etc.   She also made a number of solarized portraits, such as “Floating Head (Mary Taylor) (1933), reminiscent of Man Ray.  Her own “Self Portrait in Headband” (1933), for Vogue, shot in her studio, evokes the pure glamour of the era.  The lighting and composition are masterful as are the details–Miller’s coiffure, velvet wrap and sofa. Miller’s plastic tortoise shell headband, the advertising focus, is a curious detail in presence of her captivating beauty.  She lamented that much of her work from this period went unsigned.

Miller shut her studio down in 1934, married the prominent Egyptian businessman, Aziz Eloui Bey and set sail for Cairo, stepping into an atmosphere much like that depicted in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.  Overall, this was a flat creative period. She did not parlay her husband’s extraordinary connections into any large projects.  Instead, she took to the streets with her conspicuous Rolleiflex and made several stabs at capturing whatever she encountered, largely complicated by the fact that she was spotted first by her subjects.  She later took solace in desert expeditions where she captured remarkable architectural forms, such as the breast-like domes of Wadi Natrun monastery (1936) or the richly patterned Red Sea dunes “The Procession,” (1937), evocative of Paul Strand.

After a series of encounters with the British Surrealist Roland Penrose, who welcomed her into his Bohemian circle of famous avant-garde artists, Miller’s spirit and creativity seemed to soar.  She left her husband and set off for Bucharest, Romania, with Penrose, and thus began a 40 year collaboration that would lead to marriage.  They traveled to the Carpathian Mountains to record folk music for the Romanian national archive.  Miller captured rural village life, sharpening her recording eye for her documentary work to follow.  Her Surrealist sensitivities powerfully informed her gaze, from the odd rubber shoes made from car tires she photographed to the crosses in local cemeteries.

Miller’s strongest and most memorable work was done during WWII.  One of six female

accredited war correspondents, she was the only female photojournalist officially active in combat areas during WWII.  She covered the fighting in Normandy, the Liberation of Paris, the Nazi death camps and the closing scenes of war.  British Vogue or “Brogue” commissioned and published—sometimes in partnership with Vogue, New York—her remarkable stories and photo essays.  Her reportage from this period—in words and photos– and the actual issues of Vogue, spread out in glass curios with her work is the exhibition’s most riveting aspect.

Despite her excellent experience, connections and fame, the job was not easy to secure.  She started unpaid in 1940 at “Brogue” and turned up day after day trying to make herself useful until a position opened up.  From 1940-44, Miller photographed war-time London and was rewarded by seeing her photos published regularly–often full page—and fully credited.  She soon became Brogue’s most prolific photographer, competing with Beaton.

“Where is fashion going?” Brogue asked a panel of experts in September, 1944.  Miller’s powerful answer came in the form of her first war reportage, “Unarmed Warriors,” a visceral essay about front-line nursing in the aftermath of Normandy.  One of the most interesting aspects of this show is the opportunity to reflect back on history, through Vogue, a publication which has since slipped greatly.  The bizarre juxtaposition of Vogue’s high fashion and advertising glitz interspersed with Miller’s war reportage— stacks of skeletal bodies from the Buchenwald Camp at Weimar—is hard to swallow on many levels.  We wonder…how did Miller summon the strength juggle this all?   In October, 1944, she photographed bombs bursting during the assault of St. Malo.  In November 1944, she created a spread about the difficult conditions dressmakers faced in launching the Paris Collections, posing one model beside a bullet-riddled plate glass window looking onto the Place Vendome.  And on it went, flip-flopping between fashion and horror.   Miller’s world was one of successive levels of complexity, horror and absurdity.  She managed to keep the pins in the air, the ultimate surreal act of juggling.  Sensitive to light and drama, her best work exhibits a rich stark beauty, no matter the topic.  Vogue called the shots as to what was published.  As she tracked the war to the front, much of what she considered her best work was deemed too raw for publication. Her correspondence just before she died lament’s that many of her photos disappeared either during the war or had been thrown by Conde Nast in the years that followed.

The atrocities enraged Miller.   Instead of just writing about Germany complicity in the Nazi horror, she spoke through images. She staged a perfectly lit and composed portrait of the pretty young daughter of the Burgermeister of Leipzig post-suicide (1945).  This stands as a Surrealist illustration of what Hannah Arendt termed “the banality of evil.”  Under the title “Hitleriana,” (July, 1945) Miller gave Vogue readers a spectacular photo tour of Hitler’s Munich apartment to put closure on the war.  It was in this apt that she posed for David Scherman’s famous “Lee Miller in Hitler’s Bathtub” (1945) where she bathes naked in Hitler’s tub, her boots in the foreground, caked with mud from Dachau.

Miller wrapped up her reporting with post-war stints in Vienna, Hungary and Romania. She returned to London exhausted at age 39.  In May, 1947, she and Penrose married and four months later, their son, Tony, was born.  Suffering from post-partum depression and likely PTSD, Miller slumped.  In 1949, she and Penrose moved out of London to Farley Farm, in Sussex.   During the lackluster 1950’s, they  entertained a steady stream of international art-world friends—such as Miro, Picasso, Richard Hamilton, Alfred Barr, the director of New York MOMA.  Miller became moody, cooked passionately and drank.  Both she and Penrose had dalliances.  “Working Guests” her last Vogue project (1953), depicts her famous guests performing various farm chores with serious poses. Alfred Barr is depicted feeding the pigs.  Saul Steinberg wrestles a garden hose.

Miller compartmentalized her life, hiding her many accomplishments from her son to unravel posthumously.  Just before she died of cancer, in 1977, she took steps to recover some of her photographic past, answering correspondence from curators but it was her son who worked tirelessly after she was gone to make sense of the puzzle.

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This year’s San Francisco International Film Festival ( www.sffs.org ) April 24-May 8 offers a fabulous selection of some 175 films—dramas, comedies, documentaries, shorts, and more— from every corner of the globe.

Up Thursday, May 8 at the Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive at 3:15 p.m. is the West Coast premiere of Secrecy, Peter Galison and Rob Moss’ exploration of the world of U.S. government document classification, national security policy and growing secrecy. The film covers the history of the classification craze from World War II and the creation of the atom bomb through September 11 and recent abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Now, some 70 years following the creation of our national security system, are we living in a system where security erodes or enhances our security? In a single year, the U.S. government classified nearly five times the number of pages added to the Library of Congress at a staggering cost of about $8 billion to keep these unknown secrets secret. The film uses penetrating interviews with journalists, CIA analysts, lawyers, and others to explore recent troubling trends.

Peter Galison is a professor of physics and history of science at Harvard University and Rob Moss in an independent film producer and Harvard film professor who most recent film is “The Same River Twice.”

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