Thursday, 14 May 2015

Actual poetry


Well, you know. Unlike good wine, Hannah And Her Sisters is just getting worse with years. Because the person who made it married his adopted daughter (to say nothing of the alleged child abuse). Suddenly, all humour is sucked out of Annie Hall and Husbands and Wives is boring and predictable. Because… Well, you know.

And in light of Cate Blanchett’s recent revelations. You know there will be people, lots of them, who will genuinely start thinking that the Cousins episode wasn’t acting genius and who will refuse to watch The Dinner (her directorial debut) once it gets made. I’ve always been mystified by people’s ability to stop liking someone’s art once it transpires that this someone is not a perfect angel. Or has done something.

Maybe questionable. Maybe controversial. Maybe whatever.

Lifestyles, bad habits and criminal records tend to overshadow everything, and suddenly it’s as if art itself is not enough. Mark E. Smith is an abusive drunkard, but what if The Sub-Lingual Tablet is fantastic?.. There is a line here, yes, but I don’t know where it lies. Truth is, I don’t even want to know. Art is art, rest is for bores. 

Ezra Pound supported Mussolini. Shoot me, but that’s not what made him a worse poet than T.S. Eliot. Sometimes it’s the actual poetry.