Sight&Sound - 04.2020

REVIEWS

April 2019 | Sight&Sound | 67

Reviewed by Graham Fuller

Seven years in gestation, Alla Kovgan’s

Cunningham is an atypical biographical

documentary, pleasingly devoid of contemporary

talking heads. As well as tracing Merce

Cunningham’s 70-year journey – which

made him modern dance’s Nijinsky and, as a

choreographer, the equal of Martha Graham

(for whom he danced from 1939 to 1945) and

George Balanchine – it captures for posterity

brief sequences from 14 of his most challenging

pieces. Kovgan restaged them for filming in

3D (echoing Wim Wenders’s Pina in 2011)

and, vitally, cast some of the last dancers from

Cunningham’s company, which, as he had

wished, disbanded in 2011, two and a half years

after his death and 58 years after its foundation.

Those of the new performances that replicate

Robert Rauschenberg’s sets and costumes – a

pointillist backdrop (originally spray-painted by

Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns) which the dancers

in their spotted bodysuits seem to emerge from

and fade into (‘Summerspace’, 1958); a dangerous

faux freeway strafed by the lights of speeding cars

(‘Winterbranch’, 1964) – emphasise Cunningham’s

technically complex and discomfiting

movements. Influenced by his interest in

anthropology, they radiate chaos and existential

isolation, which he was disinclined to discuss.

Dancer Sandra Neels says that Cunningham’s

claim he was just creating steps simply wasn’t true.

In contrast, Kovgan’s recreation of

Cunningham’s ‘Shards’ (1987) on a Manhattan

rooftop is marred by the camera’s grandiose

perspective from a circling helicopter. Similarly,

the re-creation of ‘Suite for Two’ (early 1950s) is

unnecessarily complicated by a shot that reverses

away from the duetting dancers over a pond and

(via an inserted scene of them dancing indoors)

ostentatiously dollies back to them above the

water. There’s similar fussiness in the biographical

sequences, which deploy split screens and angled

frames (with rounded edges) within frames;

priceless colour footage of Cunningham’s dancers

in the 1950s is annoyingly split into six moving

images. Pretty animal illustrations placed beside

stills of the company on the road in the early

days are as distracting as bits of separate footage

appearing nonsensically within strips of celluloid.

A Moscow-born interdisciplinary artist who

has filmed four previous dance documentaries,

Kovgan presumably wanted Cunningham

to be more expressive than, say, the visually

conservative biographical documentaries

made for PBS’s American Masters series, but

greater simplicity would have improved the

film. It’s hard enough for the layperson to

comprehend Cunningham’s choreographic

process – dependent on meticulousness and

randomness, the combining of legato and staccato

movements – and his counterpointing of John

Cage’s dissonant music. As for human drama,

Cunningham leaves questions unanswered: why

did Rauschenberg rudely sever his collaboration

with artistic soulmates Cunningham and Cage in

1964? How did the company survive a crisis that

left its coffers nearly empty? Flaws aside, this is an

invaluable primer for modern-dance neophytes,

while Cunningham devotees should love it.

Cunningham

Germany/France/United Kingdom/USA/The Netherlands/Belgium 2019

Director: Alla Kovgan

Certificate U 92m 34s

A non-fiction appreciation of the life and career

of Merce Cunningham (1919-2009), the American

dancer-choreographer who revolutionised modern

dance by disassociating movement from formal

representation and setting it at odds with the

musical accompaniment. The roughly chronological

narrative is constructed from archival footage and

stills, and includes excerpts from 14 dances freshly

staged and shot in 3D. Fragments of a Cunningham

radio interview are complemented by audio and

graphically rendered quotes from Cunningham

and his collaborators. They include composer John

Cage, who was Cunningham’s longtime companion;

artist Robert Rauschenberg, who designed sets

and costumes; and prominent dancers Carolyn

Brown, Valda Setterfield and Sandra Neels.

Produced by

Helge Albers

Ilann Girard

Alla Kovgan

Producers

Elisabeth Delude-Dix

Kelly Gilpatrick

Derrick Tseng

Written by

Alla Kovgan

Director of

Photography

Mko Malkhasyan

Editor

Alla Kovgan

Production Designer

Olivier Meidinger

Original Music

Volker Bertelmann

(Hauschka)

Location Sound

Recording

Oliver Stahn

Costume Designer

Jeffrey Wirsing

Supervising Director

of Choreography

Robert Swinston

Director of

Choreography

Jennifer Goggans

©Achtung Panda!

Media, Arsam

International,

Chance Operations

Production

Companies

In association

with Dogwoof

Achtung Panda!

Media, Arsam

International,

Chance Operations

With the participation

of Cow Prod, La

Maison, Sophie

Dulac Distribution,

Sovereign Films

Co-produced

with Bayerischer

Rundfunk/Arte,

Docworks, RSI

Radiotelevisione

Svizzera, Bord

Cadre Films

With the support of

Filmförderungsan-

stalt, Beauftagte de

Bundesregierung für

Kultur und medien,

Filmförderung

Hamburg Schleswig-

Holstein, Filmstiftung

Nordrhein-Westfalen,

Medien und

Filmgesellschaft

Baden-Württemberg,

Deutscher

Filmförderfonds,

Centre National

du Cinéma et de

l’Image animée,

MEDIA Programme

of the European

Union, Rockefeller

Foundation and Dance

Films Association,

Robert Rauschenberg

Foundation, Andy

Warhol Foundation

for the Visual Arts,

National Endowment

for the Arts

Supported by

Cinemart, Rotterdam

Film Festival, IDFA

Market, Amsterdam,

3D Financing Market,

Liege, Belgium,

French-German

mini-treaty

Made in conjunction

with the MFA in Film

Program at Vermont

College of Fine Arts

With the support of

IFCIC, the Guarantee

Fund for Cultural and

Creative Industries

Executive Producers

Stephanie Dillon

Anna Godas

Oli Harbottle

Lyda E. Kuth

Andreas Roald

In Colour

[1.78:1]

Some screenings

presented in 3D

Distributor

Dogwoof

Step lively: Cunningham

Credits and Synopsis

Rural England, the 18th century. Lara, sheltered

teenage daughter of widower Mr Bauer, is

disappointed when her friend Charlotte falls ill and

can’t make a promised visit. However, a girl of her own

age survives a carriage accident and is brought into

the Bauer household to recover. At Lara’s suggestion,

the girl – who affects to have no memories – takes

the name Carmilla. Lara and Carmilla become

close, though Carmilla remains mysterious. Miss

Fontaine, Lara’s governess, and Dr Renquist, the

local physician, begin to suspect that Carmilla is

responsible for Charlotte’s illness, and notice clues

that suggest she is a vampire. They drive a stake

through Carmilla’s heart, leaving Lara grief-stricken.

Produced by

Lizzie Brown

Emily Precious

Written by

Emily Harris

Additional Writing

Sean McConaghy

Based on the book by

J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Director of

Photography

Michael Wood

Editor

Rebecca Lloyd

Production

Designer

Alexandra Walker

Composer

Philip Selway

Production Sound

Recordist

Sara Lima

Costume Designer

John Bright

©Hysteria

Pictures Limited

Production

Companies

Tilly Films presents

in association

with Altitude Film

Entertainment a Bird

Flight Films and Fred

Films production

Executive Producer:

Tilly Films

Cast

Hannah Rae

Lara

Devrim Lingnau

Carmilla

Tobias Menzies

Doctor Renquist

Greg Wise

Mr Bauer

Jessica Raine

Miss Fontaine

Scott Silven

magician

Lorna Gayle

Margaret

Daniel Tuite

Paul the stableman

In Colour

Distributor

Republic Film

Credits and Synopsis

BBC’s 1970s run of classic ghost stories, which
extended from M.R. James and Dickens to Leslie
Megahey’s Le Fanu adaptation Schalcken the
Painter. The distinctive mix of folk tunes and
sinister electronic drone in Radiohead drummer
Philip Selway’s score also evokes such Carmilla
derivatives as John Hancock’s Let’s Scare Jessica to
Death and Stephanie Rothman’s The Velvet Vampire
(both 1971). But Harris – abetted by a nicely
undefinable Carmilla from Devrim Lingnau,
the only person in this whole film who seems to
smile, and then only slyly – shapes the material
to her own purposes, delivering a quietly shivery,
coldly angry fresh reading of a key gothic text.