Review

by Bruce Sylvester

With his melting watches and disembodied human limbs, Salvador Dali was perhaps the ultimate surrealist of the previous century. The movement’s early leader, Andre Breton, said that the goal of surrealism was to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality. But Dali also paid homage to his forebears in his own bizarre style. That’s the point of the Museum of Fine Arts’ astounding new show “Dali: Disruption and Devotion,” which brings together old masters that influenced him and his own works, reflecting and building on them in ways that only Dali could imagine.

The show reaches back to the Medieval Netherlands for works in the nightmarish vein of Hieronymus Bosch, moving forward to two of Dali’s heroes: his fellow Spaniards Goya and Velazquez. We see a few of his reimaginings of Goya’s Los Capricos along with the originals. Dali disassembled a 17th-century royal portrait by Velazquez and then fractured, pruned, and recreated it in a 20th-century way. Some people think that Dali’s trademark handlebar mustache was inspired by Velazquez’s, which we see in a royal portrait that includes him doing the painting.

Surrealists saw no need to present the human figure completely and accurately. In a painting of two adolescents, only one face has mouth, nose, and eyes. In another painting of two people, only one shadow is accurate. As for those expendable scientific laws such as gravity, water can spill up.

The show’s excellent wall notes point out that Dali used rhinoceros horns to show the perfect order of nature since the horn develops in a logarithmic spiral.

Dali lived from 1904 to 1989. Though his father was an atheist, Dali became a devout Catholic well into his adulthood. A minimalist “Christ in Perspective” done in red chalk on paper looks at Jesus from above at an angle that makes his torso look like a pelvic bone.

Elsewhere, the heads of three women standing together become in another sense the bottom of a larger bust of Voltaire. 

With about 100 items, the Museum of Fine Arts’ show “Dali: Disruption and Devotion” presents an artist who knew no bounds as he reconstrued classic art from earlier centuries that had thrilled and inspired him. The show is on view through December 1.

By the way, the show doesn’t mention this – it can’t mention everything – but Dali lived in the U.S. for various periods and did work for Walt Disney.

by Bruce Sylvester

Looking back to 16th-century Renaissance England, no fiction writer could invent the ruling Tudor family with oft-married Henry VIII, Bloody Mary, cautious Queen Elizabeth, and the boy king Edward VI, who became the monarch at age nine. Then there was the first Tudor king’s granddaughter Lady Jane Grey, a brilliant scholar. In 1533, at age 16, when her young friend King Edward died, Jane usurped the crown for nine days and paid with her life.

Premiering June 27, Prime Video’s eight-part series My Lady Jane fictionalizes and revises her story. She doesn‘t get beheaded, and she strives toward her goal of self-determination. The scriptwriters leave out her religious fanaticism in what Prime Video calls an alt-universe of action, history, fantasy, comedy, romance, and rompy-pompy.

The more a viewer has already read on the colorful Tudors, the more they can savor the subtleties in the script such as scenes that are fictitious but beneath the surface are very close to things that really did happen, examples being several scenes with Jane’s conniving mother and, more nobly, one with Edward’s loyal dog, one of the few creatures he could trust in a palace where treachery ran rampant.

This Renaissance sci-fi reflects an era when plenty of people knew that shape shifters – here called ethians – could change from one species to another in an instant. What a great way to get out of a jam. Ethians add a lot to the excitement. In folk songs of the day, women turned into swans, but here instead the soundtrack blasts “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie. This being historical fiction, the film can take any liberty it wants. Boy King Edward – a typical light-complected, red-haired Tudor – is played by an adult Black actor, Jordan Peters. On the other hand, Jane’s mother looks like her authentic portrait from back then, and Jane resembles descriptions of her by her contemporaries. Her power-hungry father-in-law, the evil Duke of Northumberland , is another matter. The doomed arranged marriage between his favorite son and Jane takes different surprising turns here than it did back in the 16th century.

My Lady Jane is based on a novel by Cynthia Hand and directed by Jamie Babbit, who previously brought us But I’m a Cheerleader. During filming, cast and crew could have nicknamed this one But I’m Queen of England. If only the real Jane or Jane here had wanted the crown rather than merely caving in to pressure and going along with a scheme her parents and in-laws hatched. Emily Bader plays Jane with appropriate strength of character, while Edward Bluemel plays her young husband in what the studio terms a romantasy. The real Jane Grey should have been as fortunate. As for the scene where Edward’s dog saves his life, in the real event the dog was shot to death by the would-be kidnapper, Edward’s uncle. Here the dog lives to tell about it.