September 7, 2024 • 31 mins
Our peerless host was, frankly, getting a little tired of having to discuss nudity and sexual content so often, but, as luck of the draw would have it, Sirens emerged from his sea of DVDs and called to him. Join him as he delves beneath the surface of this 1994 film starring Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, and Elle Macpherson. He explores some of the symbols and motifs, discusses the setting, critiques the acting, and, yes, has a few things to say about the film's copious amount of flesh on display. See where this little artsy drama gets placed on the shelf.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're very contemptuous of shrinking violets, aren't you, Mr. Lindsay?
(00:03):
Dear Stella, I'm a shrinking violet myself.
I choose to live not in the real world, but in here.
I flee from the real world into my little studio,
and there before me is the unlimited canvas of my imagination.
(00:31):
Welcome to Shelf Criticism.
Meet your host, Stephen, a scholar of literature and film by day,
and by night, a cinematic archaeologist
with a penchant for everything from art house to popular to out-white trash cinema.
Over the past quarter century, Stephen has amassed an eclectic DVD collection,
now occupying five shells of a curio cabinet in his living room.
(00:53):
Each week, he bravely selects one of these titles to dissect,
drawing him as he unearths everything from obscure gems to cinematic missteps.
From blockbuster hits to forgotten flops,
each film gets the critical once over it probably doesn't deserve
but will absolutely receive.
So grab your popcorn and settle in.
It's time to dive into the diverse world of Shelf Criticism.
(01:24):
Welcome to another episode of Shelf Criticism.
That's 14 episodes in, and I have been blown away by our listenership,
spanning from the US to Europe and even a few in South America.
Yet I am still waiting upon our venerable neighbours to the north.
What gives, Canada? Come on, you Canucks want to hear this?
I've even discussed a couple of questionable made-for-TV films
from your fine country.
(01:45):
Whenever I upload an episode and start tagging it,
nudity pops up frequently.
Originally added during my talk on the Wicker Man,
though not my first venture into discussing the bare human form,
as seen with Mulholland Drive,
I'm not prudish nor particularly fixated on nudity.
Rather, I believe films should freely explore all facets of human experience,
sexuality included.
(02:06):
I mean, we're all born with our bits, and they're with us until we part, mostly.
If it's properly rated and intended for consenting eyes,
the fuss often baffles me.
Yet the topic recurrently surfaces,
making me worry about sounding like I have a Hugh Hefner-level obsession.
I don't. The aim of this podcast was to pluck DVDs from my collection randomly,
commenting on them without much preselection.
(02:27):
Though I did set some boundaries and arrange them in a certain way,
and said things like, no superhero films, at least for season one,
had to put a few horror movies back because there were too many of them
and they were overrepresented.
But still, about half of the films that I've talked about so far
have nudged me towards a discussion on cinematic display of skin.
It's not like my collection is overly risque either.
It's just mostly random selection, and I mean, some of it's not even my fault.
(02:50):
I could have discussed the breakup without ever mentioning
Jennifer Aniston's notorious crack scene, and not the drug,
but it was a significant talking point upon its release.
Every review mentioned it. What am I going to do? Ignore it?
I say all this as a disclaimer.
I am not obsessively focused on nudity, nor do I ignore its context in film.
However, today's film, 1994's Sirens, directed by John Digan,
(03:12):
compels a discussion around societal norms, innate desires,
and crucially, the unclothed human body.
We're so out of touch with our passions.
I mean, I'm such a bourgeois little thing,
too scared even to reveal myself to a pint.
Get in.
I'm going to start walking around without any clothes on,
(03:34):
because all clothes are just ostentatious figments
of middle-class imagination.
It's central to the film's theme, examining the boundaries of art and eroticism.
I am going to strive to talk about other aspects of the film, I promise,
but when the frank subject matter arises,
I will handle the topic with the academic respect it merits.
(03:55):
But as always, listener discretion is advised.
Let's dive into a film that challenges societal perceptions of nudity
and sexuality head on.
First of all, my shelf pick, of course, Sirens.
The front of the DVD cover, the very top,
gives us a quote from Siskel and Ebert,
two thumbs up, enchanting, sensual.
(04:15):
Hold you spellbound, says Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.
May I just quickly interject here that I see a trend in blurbs
of praise on DVD covers.
The ones from years past tend to lean towards respected, well-known artists
and respected, well-known critics.
Those over the later years sometimes lean towards things like,
this is good stuff, said some random dude on an entertainment site
(04:35):
that has maybe 100 regular visitors.
I've forgotten how long ago and what film it was,
but I remember once seeing an ad on cable TV
for some film that had been out a couple of weeks,
and it was nothing but fawning quotes from Twitter users.
I don't think I need to explain how that differs
from Peter Travers approving of your film.
The picture is that of Elle MacPherson in a pond,
the water up to her waist, bareback to us,
(04:57):
and then the principal cast listed,
Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, and of course, Elle MacPherson.
This was of course MacPherson's first film role
after being a well-known supermodel for years.
She has very prominent billing here
and in the advertising for the film as well.
And it's not exactly misleading
because she does have a lot of screen time.
Beneath that, we have the title, Sirens,
and then the enchanting new film
(05:17):
by award-winning director John Digan.
Flipping the DVD over to the back, we have the following synopsis.
Australia in the 1930s.
The church is shocked by a Norman Lindsay painting
of a voluptuous naked woman on a cross.
A young minister and his wife, Estella,
are dispatched to Lindsay's country house
to persuade him to withdraw the painting from a coming exhibition.
They encounter a Bohemian household
(05:38):
where the artist lives with his wife and three beautiful models.
The models entice Estella into a world of sensuality
which she had always suppressed.
Like the models, she is beguiled by a striking man
who lives in the bush nearby.
Estella is forced to explore her own sexuality
and her newfound liberation threatens all that has come before.
Just in keeping with my finding something grammatically questionable
(05:58):
about every cover copy, the last sentence is two independent clauses.
Thus, there is a comma missing before the end.
I know, it's nitpicking, but still, this is for a DVD of a major film.
They should at least know where their commas go.
How I came to own it.
So the film was from 1994,
which meant I would have been 16 or 17 when it came out.
It certainly flew under my radar.
I'm sure I was probably too busy watching what?
(06:20):
True Lies, Speed.
I do remember talking to a fellow classmate in English major
after our advanced comp class,
which would have meant this was fall of 99, maybe spring of 98.
I could look it up to be sure, but it really doesn't matter.
We were having a discussion about symbolic portrayals of Eden and the fall,
and I'm sure using pedantic terms like pre-lapsarian and post-lapsarian,
(06:41):
and laugh if you want, but during my current research,
I talk a lot about this with animal attack films.
I may have even published and presented on something along these lines.
At any rate, she mentioned sirens, which I had never seen.
When she insisted I check it out, I did just that.
I'm sure I went to the local rental place down the block,
grabbed a copy of the VHS and stuck it in the old player.
I liked it.
Said classmate and I talked the next week
(07:02):
about how many apples and snakes there were in the film.
Coincidence? Yeah, come on.
After that, I forgot it existed.
Incidentally, I will keep that classmate anonymous for obvious reasons,
but she did go on to get a PhD and is teaching at a university not far from mine.
So should you be listening, hi.
But the DVD itself has a sticker over the original barcode,
one of its own that reads, above it, Rogers Video.
(07:24):
Since there is a tiny town not 10 minutes from where I currently sit,
called Rogers, I'm going to assume that it probably was bought previously viewed from there.
And since my wife had lived at this house for nearly a decade before I moved in,
I'm assuming it was one of the titles I inherited from her.
We never watched it together, never talked about it.
Honestly, I wasn't really cognizant it rested on my DVD cabinet
until I started this podcast.
I can tell you she probably didn't like it.
(07:45):
It's a bit too slow and cerebral for her,
and there's nothing wrong with that.
She just had different tastes than I did.
And it's not like I always want Curaçao or Fellini.
Sometimes I, too, just want to watch Michael Bay blow stuff to kingdom come.
When we look at the critical reception,
critics, on the other hand, don't seem to hate it.
It sits at a 72% on Rotten Tomatoes,
and Metacritic gives it a fairly decent 64 score.
(08:08):
Metacritic fans are pretty consistent, giving it a 6.5.
While on Rotten Tomatoes' popcorn meter,
which is what they call their user score now,
it plummets to a 41%.
I will again articulate my suspicion
that Rotten Tomatoes generally attracts a more popular, less discerning crowd.
I can see how your casual moviegoer would not care for this film.
It's far more artsy and challenging than most popular films,
(08:28):
and I can also see how the much ballyhooed sexuality of the film
may have drawn some eyes that would have otherwise been disappointed.
As a matter of fact, the third review on Rotten Tomatoes simply reads,
softcore porn and still bad.
I would contend that one could immediately dismiss any one-sentence review.
In academia, we're taught to support our claims.
Also, the movie is a far, far cry from softcore porn.
(08:50):
There's a difference in a film that has a little nudity
and a Shannon Tweed direct-to-video flick from the same mid-1990s time period.
Ebert loved the film, giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars.
His review, as always, is cleverly written,
but despite some good turns of phrase, there isn't much really to delve into.
Besides, I feel as though I over-represent him on this podcast,
despite him, of course, being one of the greatest film critics in recent memory.
(09:13):
But to shake it up, I'm going to look at Marjorie Baumgartner's review
from the Austin Chronicle.
On more than one previous episode, I have bemoaned how major media outlets
tend to remove film reviews from years prior.
I will say the Austin Chronicle,
while nowhere near the caliber of, say, a New York Times or Rolling Stone
or Variety, can also usually be counted on to have their archives
neatly stored and available to the public.
So, just a quick shout-out to that paper.
(09:34):
Keep doing what you're doing.
Let's start with a summary.
Baumgartner writes,
Sirens is a well-acted, though prurient, little tale set in 1930s Australia.
The Archbishop of Sydney has asked the Reverend Anthony Campion
to make a special trip to the mountain retreat
of controversial artist Norman Lindsay
to try to persuade him to withdraw from exhibition
his painting The Crucified Venus
(09:56):
that contains the offensive image of a nude woman.
By church standards, the British Campion is something of a hipster.
Young, well-educated, free-thinking, recently married,
though common standards would see him as a prim and repressed soul.
Campion brings his young English bride, Estella,
with him to Lindsay's mountain hideaway,
and while there, she undergoes a sensual awakening.
Though the film's events are fictional, Lindsay was an actual artist,
(10:18):
and the flap over his Crucified Venus is historical fact.
And I will, just going back to Ebert's review,
say I did have that one question mark with his.
Ebert says the plot, let's see,
is perhaps vaguely inspired by another legendary British bohemian,
Augustus John, an artist whose models and mistresses were interchangeable
and who delighted in scandal.
I looked up John's and did some reading on him,
(10:39):
and while there are plenty of nudes in his oeuvre,
they are nowhere near as scandalous as Lindsay's.
Even if they were, and even if this were the pre-Google days,
one would think someone like Ebert would have the wherewithal
to do a bit more digging.
But no, from my understanding, many of the paintings,
including the infamous Crucified Venus one sees in the film,
are actual works from Lindsay.
In fact, the film was shot at the house where Lindsay lived and worked,
(11:00):
now turned into the Norman Lindsay Gallery,
and looking over their website, the filming locations are evident,
though there does seem to be far fewer statues,
and I doubt any of them will move or walk away.
That's just a guess.
Also, this review is from March 25th, 1994,
yet Baumgarten uses the word hipster.
I knew it had been around for a long time, I think since the 1940s,
but I didn't know it was that common abuse at the time.
(11:22):
Cool. Baumgarten goes on to state,
headed by model Elle MacPherson in her acting debut,
these artist models are portrayed as some airbrushed playboy spread
on the girls of Norman Lindsay.
They are supposed to be sirens,
but they come across more as a feebly softcore pretense of art.
I'm still scratching my head trying to understand that one.
Airbrushed? Playboy?
(11:43):
Lindsay was known for his Rubenesque,
to use the term on the back of the DVD,
voluptuous models, and the film tries to emulate that.
According to the Chicago Tribune, MacPherson gained 20 pounds
just to look more like one of Lindsay's models.
I'm guessing Baumgarten is making this claim
because all the female principal cast is completely nude
at numerous times in the film,
but at no point does it feel like a playboy spread.
(12:04):
The single supermodel of the cast deliberately made herself
more Zoftig for the role,
and none of the others are built like the stereotypical nude model.
This critique from Baumgartner
perhaps reflects a broader cultural discomfort with nudity
that transcends mere aesthetic presentation
and taps into deeper issues of body image and representation in media.
And here we are again with that word softcore.
Clearly people have no idea what that means.
(12:26):
I can't believe I'm having to explain this,
but there is a huge difference between sex and nudity,
particularly as it's portrayed in film.
Sirens is admittedly chocked full of nudity,
but there is so little actual sex.
There is an incredibly steamy scene between Estella and Lewis,
the blind handyman, but it is only very suggestive.
Nothing else.
The most explicit sex scene, and I'm doing air quotes
(12:48):
even though you can't see me there,
actually takes place just moments earlier
between Estella and her husband Tony,
and it is simply both of them fully clothed,
at least what is visible beneath the blankets
as he moves around on top of her
while she looks bored and blasé.
It's actually extremely subversive
that the closest thing we get to peering in
as an audience to an actual moment of intimacy
is perhaps the least sexy part of the entire film.
(13:11):
Baumgartner concludes,
the drama is intellectually schematic rather than viscerally felt,
which is a drawback in a movie about an awakening of sensuality.
Despite this, the performances are excellent,
especially those of Hugh Grant as the young cleric
and Sam Neill, Jurassic Park, as the legendary artist.
Grant manages to capture all the self-deceptions of a prude
who thinks himself a hip guy.
(13:32):
Sirens director Digan, the year my voice broke flirting,
the wide Sargasso Sea,
has shown these soft core tendencies in previous films,
but nowhere is it as prominent as in his current work.
Sirens is unable to rise above its intrinsic prurience.
And there's that word again.
Look, wide Sargasso Sea,
incidentally it's wide Sargasso Sea,
(13:53):
not the wide Sargasso Sea, no definite article,
not in the title or the Gene Reeves novel it's based on.
Ah, English teacher in me just keeps coming out.
But accuracy matters.
Anyway, that film, Wide Sargasso Sea,
received an NC-17 rating when it was released.
And of all the films that were arbitrarily stuck with this rating,
this flick may be the most baffling.
There is actual portrayals of sex in it,
(14:14):
and perhaps a better case can be made
for using the word soft core with this film,
but it's far more tame than at least a dozen other films of the era
I can name off the top of my head
that never had to fight for an R rating.
As for her concluding sentence,
does this film possess intrinsic prurience?
I think that's a safe accusation,
but what Baumgartner fails to realize
is that that is exactly the point of the film.
(14:34):
It's a film of sexual awakening for one repressed woman,
a film about one artistic libertine
declaring his personal philosophy of a different,
albeit transgressive way of life.
A large portion of the premise of the entire narrative,
as a matter of fact, is being prurient
and perhaps even reveling in it.
The story could not be told effectively or probably not at all
with a sanctimonious Victorian buttoned up to the neck
(14:56):
kind of presentation.
I realize I'm in full agreement that a film focusing only
on such licentious subject matter
and using such concupiscent images on screen
might not be worth watching,
but this film is more than just that.
Though the TV Guide review is uncredited
and is no longer available,
the blurbo meta critic says something that I do agree with.
Sirens is a rare, genuinely erotic film
(15:16):
that's a pleasure to watch
even when its characters are fully clothed,
and that's what I think Baumgartner is missing.
In her review, she's ironically playing Hugh Grant's
Father Campion to the audience's Norman Lindsay.
As far as my take, I don't know that I've ever been
this torn over film on this podcast,
particularly after a re-watch.
I generally disagree with most of the critics who watched it
and thought it was simply a vehicle to show boobies on celluloid.
(15:39):
There's so much more going on than this.
Digen is clearly pushing us to delve into the debate being had
between Father Campion and Lindsay,
and as a director, he doesn't really proselytize,
which is commendable.
Clearly, we're meant to side with Lindsay,
and much of Campion's arguments,
though historically in keeping with
and perhaps even being progressive for the time,
come off as laughably old-fashioned and prudish.
(16:01):
Still, at no point does Campion ever seem like the bad guy.
It's a credit to the script,
and particularly to a Hugh Grant,
to be able to pull off such a nuanced portrayal.
And to be fair, Baumgartner did note that, and I agree.
Campion is not the bad guy, not even close.
Matter of fact, he's downright likeable.
It's clear that even Lindsay enjoys the antagonistic tey-da-tey,
and he admits as much at the dinner table
(16:21):
on the Campion's final evening.
It's a delicate approach by the writer-director.
The film itself is incredibly well-acted,
which I'll touch on in just a moment.
It's also beautifully shot.
The locations are lush and green, filled with natural beauty.
Digen enjoys showcasing the Australian wildlife,
especially the snake that seems to slither all about
the idyllic commune of the Linsies,
(16:42):
though other fauna are also present,
including one kangaroo that comes out of nowhere
and provides, intentionally or otherwise,
a pretty interesting jump scare.
The lake where the women bathe is lush and inviting,
and even the dusty roads that lead to the equally dusty town
are not without their scenic charm.
The interiors are also eye-catching,
rich with detail, from the dining room to the studio.
(17:03):
They're filled with deliberate touches,
not only showcasing some of the historical Lindsay's actual paintings,
but there's even a modeled ship, which is biographically accurate.
It's clear that Digen has deeply studied Lindsay's life
and has spared no attention to detail.
That said, I wasn't as impressed with the film
this time around, and it's really hard to put my finger on exactly why.
I mean, decidedly, it is for different reasons
(17:24):
than that of Baumgartner's pearl-clutching dismissal.
Despite all the aforementioned strengths,
there still feels like something is missing.
Perhaps it's the lack of a recognizable structure of a plot.
I mean, really, it's a series of vignettes that, sure, overlap,
and there's some clear arcs, but in the end, it feels a bit disjointed.
And this scattershot approach might mirror
(17:44):
the unstructured lifestyle of the Lindsay commune,
but it also risks alienating viewers
who look for a more traditional narrative arc.
Despite its aesthetic and thematic richness,
the film's loose structure might be why it doesn't resonate
as strongly on subsequent viewings.
And gorgeous as the film is,
it's often almost melodramatic in its set design,
especially in the night scenes,
(18:04):
which seem to be deliberately overlit in places and overdark in others,
creating an artificial chiaroscuro which feels uncanny,
like a set piece, even though it was shot on location
and not on a soundstage.
Furthermore, Digen tends to pump fog into the night,
which billows and rolls across too thick, too present.
Perhaps this is the point, to make it feel like a place
that could never truly exist, a utopia.
(18:26):
I mean, the word literally means nowhere.
I can't help but think it feels heavy-handed.
Likewise, the opening scene of the ocean liner in Black and White
looks so phony that it must be deliberate.
And I can't tell if it's really supposed to be the liner
that took the campions from their English home to the land down under,
or if it was a fantasy.
And maybe we weren't supposed to know, I don't know.
But speaking of heavy-handed, the symbolism is anything but subtle.
(18:47):
Aside from the incredibly obviously fake ocean liner at the opening,
there's also a wooden replica of said ship
floating in the fountain at the Lindsay Estate,
being beaten down by the heavy water drops falling on it.
There's also a photo of the Titanic on the train at the end of the film.
And of course, all that fits in with the theme.
The painting Lindsay is working on, after all, is called Sirens,
as is the name of the film. Get it?
(19:09):
Yeah, they were known to sink ships in mythology,
but it goes further than that.
The models daily go for a swim at the watering hole,
giving us many visuals of women submerged up to their waist,
and at least two of them topless,
mimicking the domain of the mythological sirens.
There's also several mentions of Ulysses,
from Father Campion mentioning that he's quoted the Joyce novel to Lindsay,
to the name written on the sailors' cap on the train.
(19:31):
Ulysses, of course, Odysseus in Greek,
famously had himself tied to the mast of his ship
so he could hear the song of the sirens,
but not give in to the temptation of their allure.
All the while his sailors had their ears plugged with beeswax.
I'm not sure what's exactly supposed to be said here.
Did Campion have metaphorical beeswax in his ears?
Was Estella playing the part of Ulysses?
(19:53):
As she seemed to have a sexual awakening,
is the suggestion that she didn't in fact drown after hearing their song?
Or maybe we're not supposed to figure it out,
aside from being a series of related images and illusions.
There are plenty more.
On the shelf above Estella's bed, there's a vase of flowers.
Pedals from a yellow rose keep falling off and brushing against her face as she sleeps,
usually when she's having a dream.
(20:14):
Her dreams, suffice to say, are part of her awakening.
That the rose is yellow is interesting.
Perhaps red would have been too on the nose, pun intended.
Yellow roses are usually regarded as a symbol of friendship,
though in the Victorian era, which was not too long before this film was set,
they were seen as a symbol of jealousy.
In researching it, I also see a lot of claims
that yellow roses symbolize rebirth or a new beginning,
(20:35):
which would be very fitting.
I'm just not sure how reliable florist websites are
when it comes to researching such topics.
The snake and the apples are very easy to decipher.
My only issue with them is that they are everywhere.
We see the snake several times,
and I understand each time it precludes a moment of temptation,
but it's way overused.
And then there's this one time the snake slithers up on the porch
(20:55):
where there's a cup of tea sitting
and sort of wraps itself around it and pulls it off the porch.
He... did that mean something?
I'm open to suggestions. Somebody help me.
And then there's also, of course, the aforementioned statues.
Lindsay was a sculptor, and his home turned museum has a statue garden,
though from looking online, it appears that Digan has loaded the premises down
with more than there actually are.
(21:16):
One in particular happens to just be Elle MacPherson painted
as if she's made of stone.
And of course, near the end of the film,
that statue casually turns and walks off into the dark of night,
very foggy night, as statues are known to do.
Why? Who knows? Why not?
All this isn't subtle, and I don't think it's intended to be.
However, it makes the film come across as deliberately artsy
and not in a good way.
(21:37):
It feels shoehorned in.
Visual flourishes that are self-congratulatory and pedantic.
As much as I like some of Peter Greenaway's work,
this is my biggest gripe with him, too.
I think Digan was going for something similar,
almost deliberately pulling us out of the experience
and forcing us to acknowledge the artificiality.
I just don't know that it works.
As far as standout performance,
(21:58):
the film's focus seems to be on Estella, played by Tara Fitzgerald,
and her sexual awakening, and it works well.
If there's a secondary focus, it would be on Giddy,
played by Portia de Rossi, which is fun to watch.
And even if it doesn't come to quite as satisfying of a resolution,
it does get a wrap up.
To have such names as Hugh Grant and Sam Neill attach to the project,
neither of them seem to get the amount of screen time one would expect.
(22:21):
Neill, in particular, is neglected.
He does great with what he has, but it's just not enough.
More than anything, he looms and lingers,
almost like the creator of this libertine Eden,
smugly observing what he has created and set in motion,
come to fruition, in between working on his paintings.
Grant gets much more screen time, but feels more like a construct,
the foil to Lindsay's hedonism.
(22:42):
There's not a single weak performance, from my perspective.
I was especially impressed by Elle MacPherson's performance,
simply because it was her first foray into acting.
Plenty of actors have crossed over into film from being a supermodel,
but not all of them have the chops to really do so.
For every Emily Radikowski,
who's been at least competent in everything I've seen her in,
there's a Cindy Crawford, who may look nice on screen,
(23:03):
but is stilted and wooden as a hobby horse.
MacPherson is more than competent, she's talented.
In fact, after this film, Miramax signed her for a multi-picture deal.
And it's been ages since I've seen her in Jane Eyre or If Lucy Fell,
so I don't recall how impressed I was with her in those roles.
I do kind of remember rage-hating If Lucy Fell,
but that's just because I didn't like the film.
I'd forgotten MacPherson was even in that one.
(23:25):
I do remember her being at least good in The Edge,
which of course I know well because, you know, bear, animal attack film.
Still, I'm gonna have to give this standout performance
to Portia de Rossi playing Giddy, the maid turned model,
though still clinging to her modesty.
She's jokingly portrayed as a bit naive or guileless, if not unintelligent.
Still, her charm just seeps through.
Though Sheila, that's MacPherson's character,
(23:47):
and Prue, Tizapora Molluck's character, tease her relentlessly.
It's always in good fun, and she seems to take it that way,
laughing alongside them.
She's always smiling, always charming,
and you just can't help but fall in love with her.
Giddy is a far cry from Lindsay Bluth on Arrested Development,
but that just goes to show the range of this talented actress.
It's also worth noting that, like Ayl MacPherson,
(24:09):
this was her first credited role in a film.
As far as I'm concerned, she stole the show.
For cultural context, I'm gonna focus a little more
on this figure of Norman Lindsay.
It seems like Australians know him very well,
but again, he's not a very well-known figure,
at least to my studies and what I know about art and literature.
He's also a novelist.
We'll just look a little bit at his life
(24:30):
and some of the interesting facts about him, perhaps.
The historical figure of Lindsay is fascinating,
but it's also problematic.
As portrayed in the film, Lindsay's work
was often considered scandalous and immoral.
As late as 1986, writing in the Australian tabloid The Age,
art critic Alan McCullough said of Lindsay, quote,
he exaggerated grossly the erotic and sensational elements.
(24:51):
The people he drew were always in shocking taste,
whether nude or clothed,
and his humor was the sick humor of the Roman Forum.
Well, it's very fitting that McCullough mentions the Romans
because early in his career, Lindsay drew 100 pen and ink
illustrations of Petronius's The Satyricon,
which is a first-century satire of Roman society and excess
that, trust me, is a must-read.
(25:13):
Fittingly, Lindsay is not merely portrayed as a debauchee
embracing a free spirit,
but also as a caring father to his two daughters.
Historically, Lindsay also wrote perhaps
the most beloved Australian children's book
called The Magic Pudding.
He also wrote 11 novels, among them
the semi-autobiographical The Age of Consent,
which was, of course, turned into a film in 1969
starring James Mason and, in her first appearance,
(25:35):
Helen Mirren.
I really like that film, though I will be the first to caution
that despite being a comedy,
it does deal with some sensitive matters.
It is hard to ignore the racist ideas of Lindsay.
In particular, he showed disdain
for Asian, Black, and Jewish people.
He called the non-representational style of modern art
that was on the rise a malady
and blamed it on a Jewish conspiracy.
(25:56):
And this goes without mentioning his belief
that women were inferior to men.
While Cyrus portrays him as a progressive figure,
these aspects of his ideology
present a stark contradiction,
challenging us to reckon with the complex realities
of this historical figure.
Just a little bit of trivia and we'll wrap this thing up.
In the scene where the campions attend the local church on Sunday,
(26:16):
the earnest preacher, as he is credited,
is played by writer-director John Digan.
I did find it amusing, after being spurned
by the blind handyman,
that Giddy says she's going to swear off men.
Of course, Portia de Rossi came out as a lesbian later in life
and would go on to marry Ellen DeGeneres.
Pamela Rabe, who plays Rose, Lindsay's wife,
as well as one of his models,
(26:36):
has a relatively prolific screen and television career,
but is more known for being a stage actress.
She's been in such Shakespeare plays as
All's Well That Ends Well,
Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale,
and Hamlet, where she played Gertrude.
She's also been in Tennessee Williams,
The Glass Menagerie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,
and Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.
All right, we will get down to self-esteem.
(26:57):
Whether you need a reminder or this is your first time,
the way that this works,
I have five shelves on my DVD cabinet,
so I take the bartender's model.
The good stuff goes on the top shelf,
rotgut goes on the bottom shelf,
and then we have second shelf, mid shelf, fourth shelf in between.
This film is so well acted.
It's also beautifully shot.
(27:18):
It does a decent job of presenting opposing sides
of a complex issue,
and while clearly siding with one party,
it's at least nuanced enough to respect
and reveal the humanity of the other side.
It's artsy and at least on the surface, it's thoughtful.
Yet there's something about it,
something almost inarticulable,
because I can't say it doesn't work.
I think it's a decent film,
(27:39):
but something keeps it teetering on the edge of greatness
without ever being able to fully cross that line.
I used the term over-directed in an earlier episode,
and I feel like this film is the same.
Though not as rank an offender,
it does in some ways remind me of American beauty in that aspect.
There's a danger of being too clever for one's own good,
and I think Sirens checks that box.
Thus, I'm going to be placing this film on...
(28:01):
...
...the middle shelf.
It's not bad. It's actually kind of sort of good.
But it's not really, really good.
By definition, mid shelf is good films
that have a few flaws or aren't quite as impactful,
but still enjoyable and worth your time.
This one is certainly worth one watch at least,
(28:21):
unless you are a father camping
and not quite as progressive as you might think,
or if you're offended by nudity,
or if, for crying out loud,
you have no idea what the term softcore actually means.
At day's end, Sirens dwells in the complexities of art and morality,
challenging viewers to reconsider
their own boundaries of taste and decency.
While it may not ascend to the cinematic summits it labors towards,
(28:41):
its attempt to navigate these choppy waters
is both commendable and visually compelling.
For those willing to engage with its lush portrayals
and thematic provocations,
Sirens does promise at least a thought-provoking journey.
For those who fear the Siren song,
plug your ears with beeswax and move on.
Whew, okay.
I made it through this episode.
(29:01):
I hope showing that the discussion around this film,
like many others I've already covered,
should be far more than just a simple acknowledgement
that it has some bare skin in it.
Undeniably, it's not a family-friendly flick,
but Sirens transcends mere titillation.
Thankfully, we'll get a break.
Lucky for me, my next shelf pick isn't Basic Instinct
or anything by Tinto Bras or Jeff Franco.
Instead, it's a nice thriller,
set in the tropical paradise of the Bahamas.
(29:24):
It's PG-13.
It does feature a perpetually shirtless Paul Walker
and Jessica Alba in her bikini best,
but it's more than just Siren's light, I hope.
Still, let's be honest,
the film's sun-kissed skin was as much a selling point as any.
Either way, we've got the beautiful sapphire expanse of the Caribbean,
the intrigue of sunken treasure,
and the stigma of a universally panned release coming up next week.
(29:46):
We'll be taking a deep dive into the blue.
The film is currently streaming on Macs,
so if you want to go relive the film that is,
well, at least it's colorful, you can check it out there.
If you do watch it and want to talk about any points,
feel free to shoot me an email, steven at shelfcriticism.com.
That's S-T-E-P-H-E-N.
You can also find the podcast on Facebook at Shelf Criticism.
(30:07):
And don't forget about my other podcast, Real It,
where I am joined by my colleague, The Stupendous McKenzie.
You can find that just about everywhere you get your podcast fix,
as well as our official website, realitpodcast.com,
and social media at realitpodcast.
Remember, that's R-E-E-L, as in a film reel.
And until next time, DVD aficionados,
(30:28):
remember to treat yourself to a little shelf indulgence of your own.
Amelia, sing us home.
MUSIC PLAYS
Shelf Criticism is an Owls of Palace production.
(30:49):
This podcast is in no way connected
with the educational institutions the host is employed by.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the host
and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other organization
with which he is affiliated.
Most images displayed are public domain.
Images and stills from films, descriptions of scenes
and passages from books are used for educational and critical purposes
(31:10):
and not for profit and therefore fall under the terms of fair use.
MUSIC PLAYS
I should have warned him about the redbacks.
What are they?
Small spiders with big teeth.
(31:33):
They live under toilet seats, usually.
How do you know if they're there?
By the screams.
You're very contemptuous of shrinking violets, aren't you, Mr. Lindsay?
(00:03):
Dear Stella, I'm a shrinking violet myself.
I choose to live not in the real world, but in here.
I flee from the real world into my little studio,
and there before me is the unlimited canvas of my imagination.
(00:31):
Welcome to Shelf Criticism.
Meet your host, Stephen, a scholar of literature and film by day,
and by night, a cinematic archaeologist
with a penchant for everything from art house to popular to out-white trash cinema.
Over the past quarter century, Stephen has amassed an eclectic DVD collection,
now occupying five shells of a curio cabinet in his living room.
(00:53):
Each week, he bravely selects one of these titles to dissect,
drawing him as he unearths everything from obscure gems to cinematic missteps.
From blockbuster hits to forgotten flops,
each film gets the critical once over it probably doesn't deserve
but will absolutely receive.
So grab your popcorn and settle in.
It's time to dive into the diverse world of Shelf Criticism.
(01:24):
Welcome to another episode of Shelf Criticism.
That's 14 episodes in, and I have been blown away by our listenership,
spanning from the US to Europe and even a few in South America.
Yet I am still waiting upon our venerable neighbours to the north.
What gives, Canada? Come on, you Canucks want to hear this?
I've even discussed a couple of questionable made-for-TV films
from your fine country.
(01:45):
Whenever I upload an episode and start tagging it,
nudity pops up frequently.
Originally added during my talk on the Wicker Man,
though not my first venture into discussing the bare human form,
as seen with Mulholland Drive,
I'm not prudish nor particularly fixated on nudity.
Rather, I believe films should freely explore all facets of human experience,
sexuality included.
(02:06):
I mean, we're all born with our bits, and they're with us until we part, mostly.
If it's properly rated and intended for consenting eyes,
the fuss often baffles me.
Yet the topic recurrently surfaces,
making me worry about sounding like I have a Hugh Hefner-level obsession.
I don't. The aim of this podcast was to pluck DVDs from my collection randomly,
commenting on them without much preselection.
(02:27):
Though I did set some boundaries and arrange them in a certain way,
and said things like, no superhero films, at least for season one,
had to put a few horror movies back because there were too many of them
and they were overrepresented.
But still, about half of the films that I've talked about so far
have nudged me towards a discussion on cinematic display of skin.
It's not like my collection is overly risque either.
It's just mostly random selection, and I mean, some of it's not even my fault.
(02:50):
I could have discussed the breakup without ever mentioning
Jennifer Aniston's notorious crack scene, and not the drug,
but it was a significant talking point upon its release.
Every review mentioned it. What am I going to do? Ignore it?
I say all this as a disclaimer.
I am not obsessively focused on nudity, nor do I ignore its context in film.
However, today's film, 1994's Sirens, directed by John Digan,
(03:12):
compels a discussion around societal norms, innate desires,
and crucially, the unclothed human body.
We're so out of touch with our passions.
I mean, I'm such a bourgeois little thing,
too scared even to reveal myself to a pint.
Get in.
I'm going to start walking around without any clothes on,
(03:34):
because all clothes are just ostentatious figments
of middle-class imagination.
It's central to the film's theme, examining the boundaries of art and eroticism.
I am going to strive to talk about other aspects of the film, I promise,
but when the frank subject matter arises,
I will handle the topic with the academic respect it merits.
(03:55):
But as always, listener discretion is advised.
Let's dive into a film that challenges societal perceptions of nudity
and sexuality head on.
First of all, my shelf pick, of course, Sirens.
The front of the DVD cover, the very top,
gives us a quote from Siskel and Ebert,
two thumbs up, enchanting, sensual.
(04:15):
Hold you spellbound, says Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.
May I just quickly interject here that I see a trend in blurbs
of praise on DVD covers.
The ones from years past tend to lean towards respected, well-known artists
and respected, well-known critics.
Those over the later years sometimes lean towards things like,
this is good stuff, said some random dude on an entertainment site
(04:35):
that has maybe 100 regular visitors.
I've forgotten how long ago and what film it was,
but I remember once seeing an ad on cable TV
for some film that had been out a couple of weeks,
and it was nothing but fawning quotes from Twitter users.
I don't think I need to explain how that differs
from Peter Travers approving of your film.
The picture is that of Elle MacPherson in a pond,
the water up to her waist, bareback to us,
(04:57):
and then the principal cast listed,
Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, and of course, Elle MacPherson.
This was of course MacPherson's first film role
after being a well-known supermodel for years.
She has very prominent billing here
and in the advertising for the film as well.
And it's not exactly misleading
because she does have a lot of screen time.
Beneath that, we have the title, Sirens,
and then the enchanting new film
(05:17):
by award-winning director John Digan.
Flipping the DVD over to the back, we have the following synopsis.
Australia in the 1930s.
The church is shocked by a Norman Lindsay painting
of a voluptuous naked woman on a cross.
A young minister and his wife, Estella,
are dispatched to Lindsay's country house
to persuade him to withdraw the painting from a coming exhibition.
They encounter a Bohemian household
(05:38):
where the artist lives with his wife and three beautiful models.
The models entice Estella into a world of sensuality
which she had always suppressed.
Like the models, she is beguiled by a striking man
who lives in the bush nearby.
Estella is forced to explore her own sexuality
and her newfound liberation threatens all that has come before.
Just in keeping with my finding something grammatically questionable
(05:58):
about every cover copy, the last sentence is two independent clauses.
Thus, there is a comma missing before the end.
I know, it's nitpicking, but still, this is for a DVD of a major film.
They should at least know where their commas go.
How I came to own it.
So the film was from 1994,
which meant I would have been 16 or 17 when it came out.
It certainly flew under my radar.
I'm sure I was probably too busy watching what?
(06:20):
True Lies, Speed.
I do remember talking to a fellow classmate in English major
after our advanced comp class,
which would have meant this was fall of 99, maybe spring of 98.
I could look it up to be sure, but it really doesn't matter.
We were having a discussion about symbolic portrayals of Eden and the fall,
and I'm sure using pedantic terms like pre-lapsarian and post-lapsarian,
(06:41):
and laugh if you want, but during my current research,
I talk a lot about this with animal attack films.
I may have even published and presented on something along these lines.
At any rate, she mentioned sirens, which I had never seen.
When she insisted I check it out, I did just that.
I'm sure I went to the local rental place down the block,
grabbed a copy of the VHS and stuck it in the old player.
I liked it.
Said classmate and I talked the next week
(07:02):
about how many apples and snakes there were in the film.
Coincidence? Yeah, come on.
After that, I forgot it existed.
Incidentally, I will keep that classmate anonymous for obvious reasons,
but she did go on to get a PhD and is teaching at a university not far from mine.
So should you be listening, hi.
But the DVD itself has a sticker over the original barcode,
one of its own that reads, above it, Rogers Video.
(07:24):
Since there is a tiny town not 10 minutes from where I currently sit,
called Rogers, I'm going to assume that it probably was bought previously viewed from there.
And since my wife had lived at this house for nearly a decade before I moved in,
I'm assuming it was one of the titles I inherited from her.
We never watched it together, never talked about it.
Honestly, I wasn't really cognizant it rested on my DVD cabinet
until I started this podcast.
I can tell you she probably didn't like it.
(07:45):
It's a bit too slow and cerebral for her,
and there's nothing wrong with that.
She just had different tastes than I did.
And it's not like I always want Curaçao or Fellini.
Sometimes I, too, just want to watch Michael Bay blow stuff to kingdom come.
When we look at the critical reception,
critics, on the other hand, don't seem to hate it.
It sits at a 72% on Rotten Tomatoes,
and Metacritic gives it a fairly decent 64 score.
(08:08):
Metacritic fans are pretty consistent, giving it a 6.5.
While on Rotten Tomatoes' popcorn meter,
which is what they call their user score now,
it plummets to a 41%.
I will again articulate my suspicion
that Rotten Tomatoes generally attracts a more popular, less discerning crowd.
I can see how your casual moviegoer would not care for this film.
It's far more artsy and challenging than most popular films,
(08:28):
and I can also see how the much ballyhooed sexuality of the film
may have drawn some eyes that would have otherwise been disappointed.
As a matter of fact, the third review on Rotten Tomatoes simply reads,
softcore porn and still bad.
I would contend that one could immediately dismiss any one-sentence review.
In academia, we're taught to support our claims.
Also, the movie is a far, far cry from softcore porn.
(08:50):
There's a difference in a film that has a little nudity
and a Shannon Tweed direct-to-video flick from the same mid-1990s time period.
Ebert loved the film, giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars.
His review, as always, is cleverly written,
but despite some good turns of phrase, there isn't much really to delve into.
Besides, I feel as though I over-represent him on this podcast,
despite him, of course, being one of the greatest film critics in recent memory.
(09:13):
But to shake it up, I'm going to look at Marjorie Baumgartner's review
from the Austin Chronicle.
On more than one previous episode, I have bemoaned how major media outlets
tend to remove film reviews from years prior.
I will say the Austin Chronicle,
while nowhere near the caliber of, say, a New York Times or Rolling Stone
or Variety, can also usually be counted on to have their archives
neatly stored and available to the public.
So, just a quick shout-out to that paper.
(09:34):
Keep doing what you're doing.
Let's start with a summary.
Baumgartner writes,
Sirens is a well-acted, though prurient, little tale set in 1930s Australia.
The Archbishop of Sydney has asked the Reverend Anthony Campion
to make a special trip to the mountain retreat
of controversial artist Norman Lindsay
to try to persuade him to withdraw from exhibition
his painting The Crucified Venus
(09:56):
that contains the offensive image of a nude woman.
By church standards, the British Campion is something of a hipster.
Young, well-educated, free-thinking, recently married,
though common standards would see him as a prim and repressed soul.
Campion brings his young English bride, Estella,
with him to Lindsay's mountain hideaway,
and while there, she undergoes a sensual awakening.
Though the film's events are fictional, Lindsay was an actual artist,
(10:18):
and the flap over his Crucified Venus is historical fact.
And I will, just going back to Ebert's review,
say I did have that one question mark with his.
Ebert says the plot, let's see,
is perhaps vaguely inspired by another legendary British bohemian,
Augustus John, an artist whose models and mistresses were interchangeable
and who delighted in scandal.
I looked up John's and did some reading on him,
(10:39):
and while there are plenty of nudes in his oeuvre,
they are nowhere near as scandalous as Lindsay's.
Even if they were, and even if this were the pre-Google days,
one would think someone like Ebert would have the wherewithal
to do a bit more digging.
But no, from my understanding, many of the paintings,
including the infamous Crucified Venus one sees in the film,
are actual works from Lindsay.
In fact, the film was shot at the house where Lindsay lived and worked,
(11:00):
now turned into the Norman Lindsay Gallery,
and looking over their website, the filming locations are evident,
though there does seem to be far fewer statues,
and I doubt any of them will move or walk away.
That's just a guess.
Also, this review is from March 25th, 1994,
yet Baumgarten uses the word hipster.
I knew it had been around for a long time, I think since the 1940s,
but I didn't know it was that common abuse at the time.
(11:22):
Cool. Baumgarten goes on to state,
headed by model Elle MacPherson in her acting debut,
these artist models are portrayed as some airbrushed playboy spread
on the girls of Norman Lindsay.
They are supposed to be sirens,
but they come across more as a feebly softcore pretense of art.
I'm still scratching my head trying to understand that one.
Airbrushed? Playboy?
(11:43):
Lindsay was known for his Rubenesque,
to use the term on the back of the DVD,
voluptuous models, and the film tries to emulate that.
According to the Chicago Tribune, MacPherson gained 20 pounds
just to look more like one of Lindsay's models.
I'm guessing Baumgarten is making this claim
because all the female principal cast is completely nude
at numerous times in the film,
but at no point does it feel like a playboy spread.
(12:04):
The single supermodel of the cast deliberately made herself
more Zoftig for the role,
and none of the others are built like the stereotypical nude model.
This critique from Baumgartner
perhaps reflects a broader cultural discomfort with nudity
that transcends mere aesthetic presentation
and taps into deeper issues of body image and representation in media.
And here we are again with that word softcore.
Clearly people have no idea what that means.
(12:26):
I can't believe I'm having to explain this,
but there is a huge difference between sex and nudity,
particularly as it's portrayed in film.
Sirens is admittedly chocked full of nudity,
but there is so little actual sex.
There is an incredibly steamy scene between Estella and Lewis,
the blind handyman, but it is only very suggestive.
Nothing else.
The most explicit sex scene, and I'm doing air quotes
(12:48):
even though you can't see me there,
actually takes place just moments earlier
between Estella and her husband Tony,
and it is simply both of them fully clothed,
at least what is visible beneath the blankets
as he moves around on top of her
while she looks bored and blasé.
It's actually extremely subversive
that the closest thing we get to peering in
as an audience to an actual moment of intimacy
is perhaps the least sexy part of the entire film.
(13:11):
Baumgartner concludes,
the drama is intellectually schematic rather than viscerally felt,
which is a drawback in a movie about an awakening of sensuality.
Despite this, the performances are excellent,
especially those of Hugh Grant as the young cleric
and Sam Neill, Jurassic Park, as the legendary artist.
Grant manages to capture all the self-deceptions of a prude
who thinks himself a hip guy.
(13:32):
Sirens director Digan, the year my voice broke flirting,
the wide Sargasso Sea,
has shown these soft core tendencies in previous films,
but nowhere is it as prominent as in his current work.
Sirens is unable to rise above its intrinsic prurience.
And there's that word again.
Look, wide Sargasso Sea,
incidentally it's wide Sargasso Sea,
(13:53):
not the wide Sargasso Sea, no definite article,
not in the title or the Gene Reeves novel it's based on.
Ah, English teacher in me just keeps coming out.
But accuracy matters.
Anyway, that film, Wide Sargasso Sea,
received an NC-17 rating when it was released.
And of all the films that were arbitrarily stuck with this rating,
this flick may be the most baffling.
There is actual portrayals of sex in it,
(14:14):
and perhaps a better case can be made
for using the word soft core with this film,
but it's far more tame than at least a dozen other films of the era
I can name off the top of my head
that never had to fight for an R rating.
As for her concluding sentence,
does this film possess intrinsic prurience?
I think that's a safe accusation,
but what Baumgartner fails to realize
is that that is exactly the point of the film.
(14:34):
It's a film of sexual awakening for one repressed woman,
a film about one artistic libertine
declaring his personal philosophy of a different,
albeit transgressive way of life.
A large portion of the premise of the entire narrative,
as a matter of fact, is being prurient
and perhaps even reveling in it.
The story could not be told effectively or probably not at all
with a sanctimonious Victorian buttoned up to the neck
(14:56):
kind of presentation.
I realize I'm in full agreement that a film focusing only
on such licentious subject matter
and using such concupiscent images on screen
might not be worth watching,
but this film is more than just that.
Though the TV Guide review is uncredited
and is no longer available,
the blurbo meta critic says something that I do agree with.
Sirens is a rare, genuinely erotic film
(15:16):
that's a pleasure to watch
even when its characters are fully clothed,
and that's what I think Baumgartner is missing.
In her review, she's ironically playing Hugh Grant's
Father Campion to the audience's Norman Lindsay.
As far as my take, I don't know that I've ever been
this torn over film on this podcast,
particularly after a re-watch.
I generally disagree with most of the critics who watched it
and thought it was simply a vehicle to show boobies on celluloid.
(15:39):
There's so much more going on than this.
Digen is clearly pushing us to delve into the debate being had
between Father Campion and Lindsay,
and as a director, he doesn't really proselytize,
which is commendable.
Clearly, we're meant to side with Lindsay,
and much of Campion's arguments,
though historically in keeping with
and perhaps even being progressive for the time,
come off as laughably old-fashioned and prudish.
(16:01):
Still, at no point does Campion ever seem like the bad guy.
It's a credit to the script,
and particularly to a Hugh Grant,
to be able to pull off such a nuanced portrayal.
And to be fair, Baumgartner did note that, and I agree.
Campion is not the bad guy, not even close.
Matter of fact, he's downright likeable.
It's clear that even Lindsay enjoys the antagonistic tey-da-tey,
and he admits as much at the dinner table
(16:21):
on the Campion's final evening.
It's a delicate approach by the writer-director.
The film itself is incredibly well-acted,
which I'll touch on in just a moment.
It's also beautifully shot.
The locations are lush and green, filled with natural beauty.
Digen enjoys showcasing the Australian wildlife,
especially the snake that seems to slither all about
the idyllic commune of the Linsies,
(16:42):
though other fauna are also present,
including one kangaroo that comes out of nowhere
and provides, intentionally or otherwise,
a pretty interesting jump scare.
The lake where the women bathe is lush and inviting,
and even the dusty roads that lead to the equally dusty town
are not without their scenic charm.
The interiors are also eye-catching,
rich with detail, from the dining room to the studio.
(17:03):
They're filled with deliberate touches,
not only showcasing some of the historical Lindsay's actual paintings,
but there's even a modeled ship, which is biographically accurate.
It's clear that Digen has deeply studied Lindsay's life
and has spared no attention to detail.
That said, I wasn't as impressed with the film
this time around, and it's really hard to put my finger on exactly why.
I mean, decidedly, it is for different reasons
(17:24):
than that of Baumgartner's pearl-clutching dismissal.
Despite all the aforementioned strengths,
there still feels like something is missing.
Perhaps it's the lack of a recognizable structure of a plot.
I mean, really, it's a series of vignettes that, sure, overlap,
and there's some clear arcs, but in the end, it feels a bit disjointed.
And this scattershot approach might mirror
(17:44):
the unstructured lifestyle of the Lindsay commune,
but it also risks alienating viewers
who look for a more traditional narrative arc.
Despite its aesthetic and thematic richness,
the film's loose structure might be why it doesn't resonate
as strongly on subsequent viewings.
And gorgeous as the film is,
it's often almost melodramatic in its set design,
especially in the night scenes,
(18:04):
which seem to be deliberately overlit in places and overdark in others,
creating an artificial chiaroscuro which feels uncanny,
like a set piece, even though it was shot on location
and not on a soundstage.
Furthermore, Digen tends to pump fog into the night,
which billows and rolls across too thick, too present.
Perhaps this is the point, to make it feel like a place
that could never truly exist, a utopia.
(18:26):
I mean, the word literally means nowhere.
I can't help but think it feels heavy-handed.
Likewise, the opening scene of the ocean liner in Black and White
looks so phony that it must be deliberate.
And I can't tell if it's really supposed to be the liner
that took the campions from their English home to the land down under,
or if it was a fantasy.
And maybe we weren't supposed to know, I don't know.
But speaking of heavy-handed, the symbolism is anything but subtle.
(18:47):
Aside from the incredibly obviously fake ocean liner at the opening,
there's also a wooden replica of said ship
floating in the fountain at the Lindsay Estate,
being beaten down by the heavy water drops falling on it.
There's also a photo of the Titanic on the train at the end of the film.
And of course, all that fits in with the theme.
The painting Lindsay is working on, after all, is called Sirens,
as is the name of the film. Get it?
(19:09):
Yeah, they were known to sink ships in mythology,
but it goes further than that.
The models daily go for a swim at the watering hole,
giving us many visuals of women submerged up to their waist,
and at least two of them topless,
mimicking the domain of the mythological sirens.
There's also several mentions of Ulysses,
from Father Campion mentioning that he's quoted the Joyce novel to Lindsay,
to the name written on the sailors' cap on the train.
(19:31):
Ulysses, of course, Odysseus in Greek,
famously had himself tied to the mast of his ship
so he could hear the song of the sirens,
but not give in to the temptation of their allure.
All the while his sailors had their ears plugged with beeswax.
I'm not sure what's exactly supposed to be said here.
Did Campion have metaphorical beeswax in his ears?
Was Estella playing the part of Ulysses?
(19:53):
As she seemed to have a sexual awakening,
is the suggestion that she didn't in fact drown after hearing their song?
Or maybe we're not supposed to figure it out,
aside from being a series of related images and illusions.
There are plenty more.
On the shelf above Estella's bed, there's a vase of flowers.
Pedals from a yellow rose keep falling off and brushing against her face as she sleeps,
usually when she's having a dream.
(20:14):
Her dreams, suffice to say, are part of her awakening.
That the rose is yellow is interesting.
Perhaps red would have been too on the nose, pun intended.
Yellow roses are usually regarded as a symbol of friendship,
though in the Victorian era, which was not too long before this film was set,
they were seen as a symbol of jealousy.
In researching it, I also see a lot of claims
that yellow roses symbolize rebirth or a new beginning,
(20:35):
which would be very fitting.
I'm just not sure how reliable florist websites are
when it comes to researching such topics.
The snake and the apples are very easy to decipher.
My only issue with them is that they are everywhere.
We see the snake several times,
and I understand each time it precludes a moment of temptation,
but it's way overused.
And then there's this one time the snake slithers up on the porch
(20:55):
where there's a cup of tea sitting
and sort of wraps itself around it and pulls it off the porch.
He... did that mean something?
I'm open to suggestions. Somebody help me.
And then there's also, of course, the aforementioned statues.
Lindsay was a sculptor, and his home turned museum has a statue garden,
though from looking online, it appears that Digan has loaded the premises down
with more than there actually are.
(21:16):
One in particular happens to just be Elle MacPherson painted
as if she's made of stone.
And of course, near the end of the film,
that statue casually turns and walks off into the dark of night,
very foggy night, as statues are known to do.
Why? Who knows? Why not?
All this isn't subtle, and I don't think it's intended to be.
However, it makes the film come across as deliberately artsy
and not in a good way.
(21:37):
It feels shoehorned in.
Visual flourishes that are self-congratulatory and pedantic.
As much as I like some of Peter Greenaway's work,
this is my biggest gripe with him, too.
I think Digan was going for something similar,
almost deliberately pulling us out of the experience
and forcing us to acknowledge the artificiality.
I just don't know that it works.
As far as standout performance,
(21:58):
the film's focus seems to be on Estella, played by Tara Fitzgerald,
and her sexual awakening, and it works well.
If there's a secondary focus, it would be on Giddy,
played by Portia de Rossi, which is fun to watch.
And even if it doesn't come to quite as satisfying of a resolution,
it does get a wrap up.
To have such names as Hugh Grant and Sam Neill attach to the project,
neither of them seem to get the amount of screen time one would expect.
(22:21):
Neill, in particular, is neglected.
He does great with what he has, but it's just not enough.
More than anything, he looms and lingers,
almost like the creator of this libertine Eden,
smugly observing what he has created and set in motion,
come to fruition, in between working on his paintings.
Grant gets much more screen time, but feels more like a construct,
the foil to Lindsay's hedonism.
(22:42):
There's not a single weak performance, from my perspective.
I was especially impressed by Elle MacPherson's performance,
simply because it was her first foray into acting.
Plenty of actors have crossed over into film from being a supermodel,
but not all of them have the chops to really do so.
For every Emily Radikowski,
who's been at least competent in everything I've seen her in,
there's a Cindy Crawford, who may look nice on screen,
(23:03):
but is stilted and wooden as a hobby horse.
MacPherson is more than competent, she's talented.
In fact, after this film, Miramax signed her for a multi-picture deal.
And it's been ages since I've seen her in Jane Eyre or If Lucy Fell,
so I don't recall how impressed I was with her in those roles.
I do kind of remember rage-hating If Lucy Fell,
but that's just because I didn't like the film.
I'd forgotten MacPherson was even in that one.
(23:25):
I do remember her being at least good in The Edge,
which of course I know well because, you know, bear, animal attack film.
Still, I'm gonna have to give this standout performance
to Portia de Rossi playing Giddy, the maid turned model,
though still clinging to her modesty.
She's jokingly portrayed as a bit naive or guileless, if not unintelligent.
Still, her charm just seeps through.
Though Sheila, that's MacPherson's character,
(23:47):
and Prue, Tizapora Molluck's character, tease her relentlessly.
It's always in good fun, and she seems to take it that way,
laughing alongside them.
She's always smiling, always charming,
and you just can't help but fall in love with her.
Giddy is a far cry from Lindsay Bluth on Arrested Development,
but that just goes to show the range of this talented actress.
It's also worth noting that, like Ayl MacPherson,
(24:09):
this was her first credited role in a film.
As far as I'm concerned, she stole the show.
For cultural context, I'm gonna focus a little more
on this figure of Norman Lindsay.
It seems like Australians know him very well,
but again, he's not a very well-known figure,
at least to my studies and what I know about art and literature.
He's also a novelist.
We'll just look a little bit at his life
(24:30):
and some of the interesting facts about him, perhaps.
The historical figure of Lindsay is fascinating,
but it's also problematic.
As portrayed in the film, Lindsay's work
was often considered scandalous and immoral.
As late as 1986, writing in the Australian tabloid The Age,
art critic Alan McCullough said of Lindsay, quote,
he exaggerated grossly the erotic and sensational elements.
(24:51):
The people he drew were always in shocking taste,
whether nude or clothed,
and his humor was the sick humor of the Roman Forum.
Well, it's very fitting that McCullough mentions the Romans
because early in his career, Lindsay drew 100 pen and ink
illustrations of Petronius's The Satyricon,
which is a first-century satire of Roman society and excess
that, trust me, is a must-read.
(25:13):
Fittingly, Lindsay is not merely portrayed as a debauchee
embracing a free spirit,
but also as a caring father to his two daughters.
Historically, Lindsay also wrote perhaps
the most beloved Australian children's book
called The Magic Pudding.
He also wrote 11 novels, among them
the semi-autobiographical The Age of Consent,
which was, of course, turned into a film in 1969
starring James Mason and, in her first appearance,
(25:35):
Helen Mirren.
I really like that film, though I will be the first to caution
that despite being a comedy,
it does deal with some sensitive matters.
It is hard to ignore the racist ideas of Lindsay.
In particular, he showed disdain
for Asian, Black, and Jewish people.
He called the non-representational style of modern art
that was on the rise a malady
and blamed it on a Jewish conspiracy.
(25:56):
And this goes without mentioning his belief
that women were inferior to men.
While Cyrus portrays him as a progressive figure,
these aspects of his ideology
present a stark contradiction,
challenging us to reckon with the complex realities
of this historical figure.
Just a little bit of trivia and we'll wrap this thing up.
In the scene where the campions attend the local church on Sunday,
(26:16):
the earnest preacher, as he is credited,
is played by writer-director John Digan.
I did find it amusing, after being spurned
by the blind handyman,
that Giddy says she's going to swear off men.
Of course, Portia de Rossi came out as a lesbian later in life
and would go on to marry Ellen DeGeneres.
Pamela Rabe, who plays Rose, Lindsay's wife,
as well as one of his models,
(26:36):
has a relatively prolific screen and television career,
but is more known for being a stage actress.
She's been in such Shakespeare plays as
All's Well That Ends Well,
Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale,
and Hamlet, where she played Gertrude.
She's also been in Tennessee Williams,
The Glass Menagerie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,
and Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.
All right, we will get down to self-esteem.
(26:57):
Whether you need a reminder or this is your first time,
the way that this works,
I have five shelves on my DVD cabinet,
so I take the bartender's model.
The good stuff goes on the top shelf,
rotgut goes on the bottom shelf,
and then we have second shelf, mid shelf, fourth shelf in between.
This film is so well acted.
It's also beautifully shot.
(27:18):
It does a decent job of presenting opposing sides
of a complex issue,
and while clearly siding with one party,
it's at least nuanced enough to respect
and reveal the humanity of the other side.
It's artsy and at least on the surface, it's thoughtful.
Yet there's something about it,
something almost inarticulable,
because I can't say it doesn't work.
I think it's a decent film,
(27:39):
but something keeps it teetering on the edge of greatness
without ever being able to fully cross that line.
I used the term over-directed in an earlier episode,
and I feel like this film is the same.
Though not as rank an offender,
it does in some ways remind me of American beauty in that aspect.
There's a danger of being too clever for one's own good,
and I think Sirens checks that box.
Thus, I'm going to be placing this film on...
(28:01):
...
...the middle shelf.
It's not bad. It's actually kind of sort of good.
But it's not really, really good.
By definition, mid shelf is good films
that have a few flaws or aren't quite as impactful,
but still enjoyable and worth your time.
This one is certainly worth one watch at least,
(28:21):
unless you are a father camping
and not quite as progressive as you might think,
or if you're offended by nudity,
or if, for crying out loud,
you have no idea what the term softcore actually means.
At day's end, Sirens dwells in the complexities of art and morality,
challenging viewers to reconsider
their own boundaries of taste and decency.
While it may not ascend to the cinematic summits it labors towards,
(28:41):
its attempt to navigate these choppy waters
is both commendable and visually compelling.
For those willing to engage with its lush portrayals
and thematic provocations,
Sirens does promise at least a thought-provoking journey.
For those who fear the Siren song,
plug your ears with beeswax and move on.
Whew, okay.
I made it through this episode.
(29:01):
I hope showing that the discussion around this film,
like many others I've already covered,
should be far more than just a simple acknowledgement
that it has some bare skin in it.
Undeniably, it's not a family-friendly flick,
but Sirens transcends mere titillation.
Thankfully, we'll get a break.
Lucky for me, my next shelf pick isn't Basic Instinct
or anything by Tinto Bras or Jeff Franco.
Instead, it's a nice thriller,
set in the tropical paradise of the Bahamas.
(29:24):
It's PG-13.
It does feature a perpetually shirtless Paul Walker
and Jessica Alba in her bikini best,
but it's more than just Siren's light, I hope.
Still, let's be honest,
the film's sun-kissed skin was as much a selling point as any.
Either way, we've got the beautiful sapphire expanse of the Caribbean,
the intrigue of sunken treasure,
and the stigma of a universally panned release coming up next week.
(29:46):
We'll be taking a deep dive into the blue.
The film is currently streaming on Macs,
so if you want to go relive the film that is,
well, at least it's colorful, you can check it out there.
If you do watch it and want to talk about any points,
feel free to shoot me an email, steven at shelfcriticism.com.
That's S-T-E-P-H-E-N.
You can also find the podcast on Facebook at Shelf Criticism.
(30:07):
And don't forget about my other podcast, Real It,
where I am joined by my colleague, The Stupendous McKenzie.
You can find that just about everywhere you get your podcast fix,
as well as our official website, realitpodcast.com,
and social media at realitpodcast.
Remember, that's R-E-E-L, as in a film reel.
And until next time, DVD aficionados,
(30:28):
remember to treat yourself to a little shelf indulgence of your own.
Amelia, sing us home.
MUSIC PLAYS
Shelf Criticism is an Owls of Palace production.
(30:49):
This podcast is in no way connected
with the educational institutions the host is employed by.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the host
and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other organization
with which he is affiliated.
Most images displayed are public domain.
Images and stills from films, descriptions of scenes
and passages from books are used for educational and critical purposes
(31:10):
and not for profit and therefore fall under the terms of fair use.
MUSIC PLAYS
I should have warned him about the redbacks.
What are they?
Small spiders with big teeth.
(31:33):
They live under toilet seats, usually.
How do you know if they're there?
By the screams.
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