The Guardian - UK (2022-04-30)

Saturday 30 April 2022 The Guardian •

National^33

Depp-Heard trial

Booze and pills blot

Hollywood mystique

Edward Helmore

A

mber Heard has sat

impassively through

10 days of Johnny

Depp’s $50m (£40m)

defamation case

against her stemming

from their volatile, 15-month

marriage. Next week, the 36 year-

old actress will get to present her

version of events in support of a

$100m counter claim for nuisance.

The trial between the pair has

been an unedifying spectacle of a

horrifying relationship that so far

only Depp has had the opportunity

to present to the court.

in any way enviable. Instead, it has

been a painful story of substance

abuse, a deeply dysfunctional

marriage , professional woes and

plotting.

The court was told last week

that the American Civil Liberties

Union (ACLU) had written the draft

of the now infamous Washington

Post article upon which this legal

action is based, and off ered it to

the newspaper to coincide with the

release of Heard’s Aquaman fi lm.

Heard, the ACLU’s general counsel

testifi ed, had pressed to go further,

identifying herself as an abuse

survivor, but her lawyers excised

the passages lest they violated her

divorce non-disclosure agreement.

Depp’s generali sed argument –

that he was docile as a prescription

opioid addict, but wrestled with

a “monster” when drinking, was

coupled with observations made

yesterday that household alcohol

spending dropped from $160,000

a year during their marriage to

“virtually nil” today. Some of

that spending, Depp’s accountant

testifi ed, went toward Heard’s taste

for $500-a-bottle Vega Sicilia wine.

The tableau presented to the

court this week included images

of Depp’s exploded fi nger after a

fi ght in a rented house in Australia

that caused $50,000 in damage.

The testimony, provided by

a succession of aides, agents,

concierge doctors, psycho-

analysts, housekeepers, doormen

and bodyguards, has left the

impression of a dysfunctional

environment that might have been

brought to account sooner if there

had been fewer resources and

enablers to support it.

Public opinion is so far siding

with Depp. According to a

Rasmussen Reports national

telephone and online survey , 40%

of those polled said Depp was

probably telling the truth, 10%

th ought Heard was probably telling

the truth.

Some have raised concerns that

the trial, coming so soon after the

Will Smith-Chris Rock Oscars slap,

has bought the entire construct of

Hollywood celebrity into disrepute

• as a dissertation on fame as a
  personal curse – re-enacted in a
  suburban courtroom.
  Still, even 20 or 30 years ago a
  defamation trial like the Depp-
  Heard case would probably have
  drawn more attention , said Derek
  Long, an assistant professor of
  media and cinema studies at the
  University of Illinois Urbana-
  Champaign , but it could in time
  attain some larger signifi cance.
  “Depp is marshalling cancel
  culture as part of his defen ce
  because it connects to the culture
  wars in a way that is unique to this
  moment ,” Long said. “So it may
  be less about facts of the case and
  more about the buzzwords.”

Removal of varnish transforms

Constable’s Waterloo Bridge

Harriet Sherwood

Arts and culture correspondent

Layers of yellowed varnish have

been painstakingly removed from

a John Constable painting of Water-

loo Bridge to reveal new detail of the

early 19th -century Thames skyline

and a bright blue sky.

The painting – the largest created

by Constable – “has been dramatically

transformed by the conservation

treatment ”, said Sarah Maisey , a

senior remedial conservator for

paintings at the National Trust, which

undertook the work.

Experts spent more than 270

hours removing several layers of

badly yellowed varnish that had

obscured and dulled the detail of

the Embarkation of George IV from

Whitehall: t he Opening of Waterloo

Bridge, 1817.

“There had been some earlier

tests which showed that this paint-

ing would respond really well to

varnish removal, but it has been a

particular delight to see the quality

of the improvement,” said Maisey.

“There were challenges. It had

been painted and varnished at dif-

ferent stages, so care had to be taken

to ensure that the solvents being used

to thin and remove the varnish layers

didn’t also aff ect the paint layer. We

are delighted with the fi nal result.”

Constable, who mostly painted

pastoral scenes, is believed to have

been infl uenced by Canaletto’s depic-

tions of water pageants in Venice. The

painting shows the royal barge and

other barges on the Thames about

to set off for the opening of Waterloo

Bridge, which is in the background.

Constable is thought to have been

present when the bridge was opened

by the prince regent on 18 June 1817.

In 1942 it was replaced by a modern

concrete structure.

John Chu, a senior curator of

pictures and sculpture at the National

Trust , said: “Constable’s painting of

Waterloo Bridge, full of the pageantry

and colour of urban life, is a signif-

icant contrast to the quiet country

scenes he is more famous for. ”

The painting was never exhibited

in Constable’s lifetime, remaining in

the artist’s studio until his death in

1837. It passed through several hands
      before reaching Anglesey Abbey in
      Cambridgeshire. After the conser-
      vation work it will return to hang in
      the abbey’s library, where the pan-
      els and shelves are made from timber
      salvaged from the piles of the bridge
      when it was dismantled in 1936.

The damage to each of them

from their marriage, divorce and

subsequent highly public and

epic legal battles is conspicuous.

Heard walked away with a $14m

settlement under California’s

communal property no-fault

divorce laws, using the threat of

a restraining order to negotiate

for more, but little in the way of a

movie career. Depp, too, lost work,

having being dropped by Disney’s

Pirates franchise when allegations

of domestic abuse against him were

made by Heard in 2016.

And for both, the long days of

testimony have taken the sheen off

any sense the public may have had

that either of the actors’ lives of

apparent wealth and glamour were

Supposed costs

of ‘vampire

devices’ based

on zombie data

Alex Hern

Technology editor

As households look for opportunities

to cut the bills, headlines suggest-

ing you can save hundreds of pounds

by turning off unused chargers are

appealing. But, experts say, such

claims about “vampire devices” are

more like a zombie statistic.

One recent report from British Gas

claimed “Brits could ... save an aver-

age of £110 per household per year by

simply fl icking a switch ”. The energy

provider claimed that 23% of British

energy bills were caused by “vampire

electronics, those that continue to

drain power when left on standby”.

But that statistic comes from a 2015

report from the US National Research

Defen se Council , based on analysis

of homes in California , and con-

sumers may struggle to make some

of the suggested savings: a third of

the “always on” electronics identifi ed

are “recirculation pumps, fi shponds,

aquariums, and protected outlets in

bathrooms, kitchens and garages”.

Craig Melson, associate director for

climate, environment and sustaina-

bility at techUK, said: “Things have

dramatically improved since those

studies were fi rst carried out. Pro-

cessors are low power, screens have

switched from LCD to LED technol-

ogy, fridges and washing machines

have become more effi cient. ”

Melson suggested examining “eco

mode” settings on TVs and games

consoles, turning off features such as

auto-updates to reduce standby use.

British Gas did not reply to requests

for comment.

 A conservator

fr om the

National

Trust works

on Constable’s

painting of the

1817 opening of

Waterloo Bridge

PHOTOGRAPH:

JAMES DOBSON/

NATIONAL TRUST

▲ Amber Heard: to speak next week

▲ On the stand: Johnny Depp