Cassandra's Dream (2007) is a British-French-American film written and directed by Woody Allen. Filmed in the UK, it was released in 2007 in Europe and in January 2008 in the U.S..

The film was premiered in secret at Avilés, Spain on June 18, 2007.^[1] It was officially premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2007 and was already in theaters in Spain by November 3.^[2] The film had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2007.^[3]

Plot[link]

British brothers Terry (Colin Farrell) and Ian (Ewan McGregor) who live in South London, were raised by a weak father (John Benfield) who runs a restaurant, and a strong mother (Clare Higgins) who taught her sons to look up to their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), a successful businessman.

Both brothers decide to buy a sailboat which they name Cassandra's Dream, after the greyhound that won the race in which Terry won the money to buy the boat. Knowing nothing of Greek mythology, they are unaware of the ominous antecedents of this name: the ancient prophetess Cassandra, whose prophecies of doom went unheeded by those around her.

After a day sailing with their current girlfriends and while driving back home in a borrowed car, Ian crosses paths with beautiful actress Angela Stark (Hayley Atwell), with whom he falls in love.

The brothers' financial difficulties – Terry has a gambling problem, while Ian wishes to invest in hotels in California to finance a new life with Angela – lead them to ask for Howard's help. He agrees to help them, but asks for a favor in return: They must murder someone for him. He admits that he is about to go to jail because of accusations coming from Martin Burns, a business partner who plans to testify against him, and asks his two nephews if they can help to get rid of him. After initial reluctance, the two brothers agree.

They make two working zip guns from metal and wood, planning to burn them afterwards. In an initial attempt they wait in Burns' home; unexpectedly he is accompanied by a woman. Panicked, they leave and agree to commit the murder the next day.

In the next attempt they succeed in carrying out the murder, and burn the guns. Ian is content to move on as if nothing happened, but Terry is consumed by guilt and begins abusing alcohol and pills. This frightens his girlfriend (Sally Hawkins), who meets Ian to tell him about the situation, mentioning that Terry believes he has killed someone. Terry's behavior begins to get out of control, thus terrifying Ian. After Terry confides to his brother that he's thinking about turning himself in to the police, Ian goes to Howard for advice. Together, they agree there is no other alternative but to get rid of Terry. Ian then plans to poison Terry during a trip on the boat. In the end, however, Ian can't bring himself to kill his own brother and attacks him in a fit of rage. In the chaos, Terry knocks Ian down the steps into the cabin, killing him. Terry, who was already suicidal, snaps and drowns himself.

Cast[link]

• Colin Farrell – Terry
• Ewan McGregor – Ian
• John Benfield – Father
• Clare Higgins – Mother
• Ashley Madekwe – Lucy
• Andrew Howard – Jerry
• Hayley Atwell – Angela Stark
• Sally Hawkins – Kate
• Keith Smee – Terry's Track Mate
• Stephen Noonan – Mel
• Dan Carter – Fred
• Richard Lintern – Director
• Jennifer Higham – Helen
• Lee Whitlock – Mike
• Michael Harm – Estate Agent
• Hugh Rathbone, Allan Ramsey, Paul Marc Davis, Terry Budin-Jones, Franck Viano, Tommy Mack – Poker Players
• Milo Bodrozic – Milo Bodrozic
• Emily Gilchrist – Emily Gilchrist
• Tom Wilkinson – Howard
• Phil Davis – Martin Burns
• George Richmond – Bernard
• Phyllis Roberts – Burns' Mother
• Tamzin Outhwaite – Burns' Date

Soundtrack[link]

This is the first Woody Allen film since Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) to have an original score commissioned for it. The score was composed by Philip Glass.

This is the first Woody Allen film released with a stereo soundtrack. Allen previously eschewed stereo although often employing Dolby Stereo and Dolby Digital technologies to convey a higher quality mono soundtrack.^{[citation needed]} The film is stereo for its music only.

Critical reception[link]

The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of February 8, 2009, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received 46 percent positive reviews, based on 110 reviews.^[4] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 49 out of 100, based on 31 reviews.^[5]

In her New York Times review, Manohla Dargis wrote that Allen's film "is good enough that you may wonder why he doesn't just stop making comedies once and for all."^[6]

Damon Wise of Empire magazine concluded that Cassandra's Dream was "[a] clumsy, clichéd morality play that may actually represent the lowest point of Allen's recently chequered career."

Paul Jordan also compared the film to a morality play – but considered that praise: "Allen gets past the guard of a modern audience which would not have taken seriously the appearance of a Mephistopheles or an Old Scratch. Uncle Howard is a chilling 21st Century Tempter, fulfilling the heart's desire in return for murder and leading his nephews to terrible perdition".^[7]

In his "Best of the Decade" article, New Yorker critic Richard Brody called Cassandra's Dream one of the best films of the 2000s: "Few aging directors so cogently and relentlessly depict the grimly destructive machinery of life, and every time the word 'family' is uttered, the screws tighten just a little more."^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Cassandra's Dream at the Internet Movie Database
• Cassandra's Dream at Rotten Tomatoes
• Cassandra's Dream at Metacritic
• Cassandra's Dream at Box Office Mojo
• Cassandra's Dream at AllRovi
• DVD Talk discusses Woody Allen's dark side

Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan (1898, London); Cassandra in front of the burning city of Troy at the peak of her insanity.

In Greek mythology, Cassandra (Greek Κασσάνδρα, also Κασάνδρα,^[1] also known as Alexandra^[2]) was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. In an alternative version, she spent a night at Apollo's temple, at which time the temple snakes licked her ears clean so that she was able to hear the future (this is a recurring theme in Greek mythology, though sometimes it brings an ability to understand the language of animals rather than an ability to know the future).^[3] When she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions. She is a figure both of the epic tradition and of tragedy, where her combination of deep understanding and powerlessness exemplify the ironic condition of humankind.

History[link]

Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba and the twin sister of Helenus. She was said to have had red hair kept in curls, blue eyes,and fair skin and she was very beautiful, intelligent, charming, desirable, elegant, friendly, and gentle, but she was considered to be insane. Cassandra was described as the "second most beautiful woman in the world." Her beauty was even compared to that of Aphrodite and Helen of Troy.

Apollo's cursed gift to Cassandra became a source of endless pain and frustration to her. In some versions of the myth, this is symbolized by the god spitting into her mouth; in other Greek versions, this act was sufficient to remove the gift so recently given by Apollo, but Cassandra's case varies. From Aeschylus' Agamemnon, it appears that she has made a promise to Apollo to become his consort, but broke it, thus incurring his wrath: though she has retained the power of foresight, no one will believe her predictions.

While Cassandra foresaw the destruction of Troy (she warned the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own demise), she was unable to do anything to forestall these tragedies since no one believed her. Coroebus and Othronus came to the aid of Troy out of love for Cassandra. Cassandra was also the first to see the body of her brother Hector being brought back to the city.

At the fall of Troy, she sought shelter in the temple of Athena, where she was violently abducted and raped by Ajax the Lesser. Cassandra was then taken as a concubine by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. Unbeknownst to Agamemnon, while he was away at war, his wife, Clytemnestra, had begun an affair with Aegisthus. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus then murdered both Agamemnon and Cassandra. Some sources mention that Cassandra and Agamemnon had twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops, both of whom were killed by Aegisthus.

[edit] Agamemnon by Aeschylus

Ajax taking Cassandra, tondo of a red-figure kylix by the Kodros Painter, ca. 440-430 BC, Louvre

In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the king, treading the scarlet cloth laid down for him, walks offstage to his sure death at line 972. After the chorus's ode of foreboding, time is suspended in Cassandra's "mad scene", which does nothing to advance the action in any way.^[4] She has been onstage, silent and ignored. Her madness that is unleashed now is not the physical torment of other characters in Greek tragedy, such as in Euripides' Heracles or Sophocles' Ajax,^[5] but she speaks, disconnectedly and transcendent, in the grip of her psychic possession by Apollo,^[6] witnessing past and future events. "She evokes the same awe, horror and pity as do schizophrenics", an observer^[7] has noted, "who often combine deep, true insight with utter helplessness, and who retreat into madness." Eduard Fraenkel remarked^[8] on the powerful contrasts between declaimed and sung dialogue in this scene. The frightened and respectful chorus are unable to comprehend her. She goes to her inevitable offstage murder by Clytemnestra with full knowledge of what is to befall her.^[9]

Modern adaptations[link]

A modern psychological perspective on Cassandra is presented by Eric Shanower in Age of Bronze: Sacrifice. In this version, Cassandra, as a child, is assaulted by a priest of Apollo.

In the cult television series Firefly, the character of River is based on Cassandra: she is a genius and knows things, but was driven insane and speaks in jumbled riddles no one understands until it actually happens.^{[citation needed]}

In the DC comic The Sandman, Delirium, one of The Endless, who has some form of prophetic knowledge but, due to her chaotic nature, her prophecies almost never make sense until it is too late and no other character recognizes them.^{[citation needed]}

A similar situation occurred in Lindsay Clarke's novel The Return from Troy (presented as a reawakened memory), where a priest of Apollo forced himself upon Cassandra and was stopped only when she spat in his mouth. When the priest used his benevolent reputation to convince Priam that he was innocent of her wild claims, Cassandra subsequently went insane.

The myth of Cassandra is also retold by German author Christa Wolf in Kassandra. She retells the story from the point of view of Cassandra at the moment of her death and uses the myth as an allegory for both the unheard voice of the woman writer and the oppression and strict censorship in East Germany.

The author Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote a fantasy novel called The Firebrand, which presents a story from Cassandra's point of view. Marcus Sedgwick's novel The Foreshadowing features a protagonist named Alexandra who has the gift of foresight, though she sees mainly others' pain and death.^{[citation needed]}

In David Gemmell's Troy trilogy, Cassandra is credited with opening the mind of exiled Egyptian prince Gershom (Moses) to his own gift of prophecy. Cassandra got her gift after suffering from 'brain-fever' as a young child, and dies in the volcanic eruption of Thera.

In the section Cassandra of Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth, Florence Nightingale protests the over-feminization of women into near helplessness, such as what Nightingale saw in her mother's and older sister's lethargic lifestyle despite their education. The work also reflects her fear of her ideas being ineffective, as were Cassandra's.

In Hector Berlioz’s opera Les Troyens (1863), based on Virgil's The Aeneid, Cassandra commits suicide with other Trojan women as Troy falls, rather than being raped by Ajax. She dies with the word “Italy” on her lips, presaging (in prophetess mode) her cousin Aeneas’s eventual founding of Rome.

In the 2001-2011 television series Smallville, the Season 1 episode "Hourglass" features a character named "Cassandra Carver" (played by Jackie Burroughs),an elderly woman who can see the future.

In the 1997-2003 television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the seventh season episode "Help" features a character named "Cassie Newton" (played by Azura Skye),a teenage girl who can see the future, such as her own death, her best friend's history test results, the protagonist Buffy Summers' future battle with The First in "Chosen," etc.^{[citation needed]}

In The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch, the narrator gives each character a fake name to hide their identity (for the characters' protection). The name he gives the main protagonist is "Cassandra", or "Cass" for short, naming her after Cassandra of the myth, as Cass is always predicting dangerous events.

The motion picture Contact based upon Carl Sagan's novel borrows the myth with Jodi Foster playing the Cassandra figure and Matthew McConaughey as the Apollo figure.^{[citation needed]}

Showtime television series Homeland uses the same myth with Clare Danes as the Cassandra figure and Damian Lewis as the Apollo figure.^{[citation needed]}

An episode of BBC science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf called 'Cassandra' depicts the ship's crew dealing with a computer called 'Cassandra' who can predict the future with "an accuracy rating of 100%."

Modern usage[link]

In more modern literature, Cassandra has often served as a model for tragedy and romance, and has given rise to the archetypal character of someone whose prophetic insight is obscured by insanity, turning their revelations into riddles or disjointed statements that are not fully comprehended until after the fact. Some mythologies of the Arthurian Legends have Merlin living backwards, therefore telling of the future, that nobody believes.

In certain underground circles, in those groups of real and on-line communities of people where all aspects of psychic (or psi) abilities— and particularly, precognitive foresight— are accepted as a commonplace fact and not conjecture, the term "Cassandra Syndrome" has been coined to be a reflection of those who deliberately ignore warnings and predictions of any kind of impending trouble or doom because of disbelief, ignorance, skepticism, or just plain stubbornness when it comes to psychic abilities. When everything is all over, it is said that this person was a victim of the Cassandra syndrome. ^[10]

In his 2011 novel, The Diviner's Tale,^[11] Bradford Morrow names the protagonist Cassandra. She is a Diviner, also called a water-witch or dowser, who finds spots for wells and ponds in the back country, for farmers and developers. Cassandra foretells a murder that seems unlikely at first, and then impossible, but finally proves to be prophetic and leads to the discovery of a serial murderer.

Greek and Latin sources[link]

• Homer. Iliad XXIV, 697-706; Odyssey XI, 405-434;
• Aeschylus. Agamemnon
• Euripides. Trojan Women; Electra
• Bibliotheca III, xii, 5; Epitome V, 17-22; VI, 23
• Virgil. Aeneid II, 246ff
• Lycophron. Alexandra

See also[link]

• Apollo
• Apollo archetype
• Cassandra (metaphor)
• Jonah
• Novikov self-consistency principle
• The Boy Who Cried Wolf
• Tiresias

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Clarke, Lindsay. The Return from Troy. HarperCollins (2005). ISBN 0-00-715027-X.
• Marion Zimmer Bradley. The Firebrand. ISBN 0-451-45924-5
• Patacsil, Par. Cassandra. In The Likhaan Book of Plays 1997-2003. Villanueva and Nadera, eds. University of the Philippines Press (2006). ISBN 971-542-507-0
• Schapira, Laurie L. The Cassandra Complex: Living with Disbelief: A Modern Perspective on Hysteria. Toronto: Inner City Books (1988). ISBN 0-919123-35-X. (This work is mentioned in the Cassandra (Metaphor) page in the Wiki.)

Primary sources[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cassandra

• Virgil, Aeneid II.246-247, 341-346, 403-408
• Theoi Project: Cassandra, classical sources in English translation

Related information[link]

Brian John Peter Ferneyhough ( /ˈfɜrnihoʊ/,^[1][2] born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation. He has written for many different formations from solo, to chamber works, to orchestral pieces, to opera.

Life[link]

Ferneyhough was born in Coventry and received formal musical training at the Birmingham School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music from 1966–67. His teachers there included Lennox Berkeley, a respected teacher though a conservative figure who preferred the works of French impressionism to the internationalist avant garde.^[3] Ferneyhough was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1968 and moved to mainland Europe to study with Ton de Leeuw in Amsterdam, and later with Klaus Huber in Basel. Between 1973 and 1986 he taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, Germany.

His profile rose in the middle of the 1970s, as the Royan Festival of 1974 saw the premiere of Cassandra's Dream Song, the first of several pieces for solo flute, as well as Missa Brevis, written for 12 singers. In 1975, performances of his work for large ensemble Transit and Time and Motion Study III were given; the former piece being awarded a Koussevitzky prize, the latter performed at the prestigious Donaueschingen festival. In many of these events he was twinned with fellow British composer, Michael Finnissy, whom he became friends with during his student days.^[4] In 1984 he was given the title Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.^[5]

Between 1987 and 1999 he was Professor of Music at the University of California at San Diego. As of 1999, he is William H. Bonsall Professor in Music at Stanford University. For the 2007–08 academic year, he was appointed Visiting Professor at the Harvard University Department of Music. Between 1978 and 1994 Ferneyhough was a composition lecturer at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and, since 1990, has directed an annual mastercourse at the Fondation Royaumont in France.

In 2007, Ferneyhough received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for lifetime achievement, which includes a 200,000 Euro cash award.^[6] In 2009 he was appointed foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Works[link]

Ferneyhough's initial forays into composition were met with little sympathy in England. His submission of Coloratura to the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM) in 1966 was returned, with a suggestion that the oboe part should be scored for clarinet. However, whilst Ferneyhough did find it hard, one source of support came from Hans Swarsenski who saw the same thing happen to Cornelius Cardew; Cardew enjoyed a prestigious continental reputation, but a poor one in his homeland. Swarsenski said of Ferneyhough: 'I've taken on an English composer who is I think is enormously talented. If this doesn't work, this is the last time'. Ferneyhough continued to struggle, but the aforementioned Royan festival marked a breakthrough for Ferneyhough's career.^[7]

From here, Ferneyhough became closely associated with the so-called New Complexity school of composition (indeed, he is often referred to as the "Father of New Complexity"), characterized by its extension of the modernist tendency towards formalization (particularly as in integral serialism)^{[citation needed]}. Ferneyhough's actual compositional approach, however, rejects serialism and other "generative" methods of composing; he prefers instead to use systems only to create material and formal constraints, while their realisation appears to be more spontaneous.^[8] A recurring feature of his works is the use of rhythmic tuplet notation, and layered polyrhythms.^{[citation needed]} Unlike many more formally-inclined composers, Ferneyhough often speaks of his music as being about creating energy and excitement rather than embodying an abstract schema.^{[citation needed]} His pieces rarely use 12-note rows, but do include microtones and frequent use of glissando.^{[citation needed]}

His scores make huge technical demands on performers; sometimes, as in the case of Unity Capsule for solo flute, creating parts that are so detailed they are likely impossible to realize completely.^{[citation needed]} The compositions have, however, attracted a number of advocates, among them the Arditti Quartet, ELISION Ensemble, the members of the Nieuw Ensemble, Ensemble Contrechamps, Ensemble Exposé, Armand Angster, James Avery, Massimiliano Damerini, Arne DeForce, Friedrich Gauwerky, Nicolas Hodges, Mark Knoop, Geoffrey Morris, Ian Pace, Carl Rosman, Harry Spaarnay, and EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble.

Recently, he has started writing works which allude to past composers; his Dum transisset are based on Elizabethan composer Christopher Tye's works for viol.^{[citation needed]} In addition, the fourth string quartet references Schönberg.^{[citation needed]} One of his latest works, an opera, Shadowtime, with a libretto by Charles Bernstein, and based on the life of the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, was premiered in Munich on 25 May 2004, and recorded in 2005 for CD release in 2006. As is usual for Ferneyhough's works, the opera received mixed reviews.^[9][10][11] In addition, the production was picketed by a group called Militant Esthetix over the treatment of and association with Walter Benjamin, amongst other things.^[12]

Ferneyhough uses the software packages OpenMusic, PatchWork (PW) and the PatchWork successor PWGL.^[13]

Selected works[link]

Some works at Sound and Music include score samples

• Carceri d'Invenzione I for fl,ob,2cl,bn, hn,tpt,trb,euphonium, 1perc, pf, 2vn,va,vc,db [1121, 1111.2111] (1982) (analysis, score sample)
  (inspired by the "Carceri d'Invenzione by Giambattista Piranesi).
• Kurze Schatten II for solo guitar (1989) (essay, analysis, analysis, score sample)
• Bone Alphabet for solo percussion (1991) (score sample)
• Allgebrah for oboe and 9 solo strings (1996) (score sample)
• Incipits for solo viola, obbligato percussion and six instruments (1996)
• Unsichtbare Farben for violin (1999) (score sample)
• The Doctrine of Similarity for Chorus (SATB), 3 Clarinets, Violin, Piano and Percussion (2000) (score sample)
• Etudes Transcendantales (1985)
• Shadowtime (1999–2004), premiered at the Munich Biennale
• 5th String Quartet (2006)
• Plötzlichkeit for large orchestra (2006)
• Chronos-Aion for large ensemble (2007–8)
• Dum transisset I–IV for string quartet (2007)
• Exordium for string quartet (2008)
• Renvoi/Shards for quarter-tone guitar and vibraphone (2008)

Press quotations[link]

Ferneyhough has been called "the most controversial composer of his generation".^[14] "In the same year [1974], the performance of several of his works at the Royan Festival established Ferneyhough as one of the most brilliant and controversial figures of a new generation of composers".^[15] "Brian Femeyhough may well be one of the most important composers to emerge from the latter half of this century. Simultaneously famous and infamous, he is a controversial figure of world renown, bent on making the most out of music."^[16]

Positive/Neutral[link]

the superbly accomplished duettists Bruno Canino and Antonio Ballista rendered a service by opening their Wigmore Hall recital last night with Brian Ferneyhough’s Sonata for Two Pianos, first heard in 1967.

Ferneyhough combined an excellent ear for instrumental timbre with a keen structural sense. Extremes of dynamics, register and density characterize his textures, which are sustained by the constant transformation and elaboration of diverse rhythmic and harmonic cells, the expansion and contraction of which always holds the attention.

These harmonic and rhythmic elements appear singly but later interlock, are superimposed, and are finally broken up in a coda where the textural and structural density is gradually relaxed. And as the razor-edge precision of this performance made clear, Ferneyhough’s Sonata also succeeds as sheer sound, and releases considerable dramatic force through its exciting accumulations of energy, registral contrast and rhythmic complexity.^[17]

Few musical experiences can rival the first acquaintance with a major item of new music, especially when it is by a composer more often spoken about than performed. Such is Brian Ferneyhough, who last night conducted the London Sinfonietta in the premiere here of his Transit, an extended piece for vocal sextet and orchestra. … Transit is no less elaborate in texture and intellectual conception than earlier works by Ferneyhough known to me: its modus operandi is metaphysical (he is a disciple of Klaus Huber) yet dramatic and sonorous, too. The rich contrapuntal invention is clarified by shapely decorative melodic line, and the transition from two sorts of music, by mutual interference, to a third sort of sensuously as well as dialectically communicated. Concentration at either level is rewarded.^[18]

Funerailles had a way of convincing listeners that all these divergencies travel in a common direction, that they meet at key junctures and acknowledge a commonality. Mr. Ferneyhough's notation is maddeningly precise for musicians trying to coordinate its oppositions, but he does manage to reconcile the aimless with the carefully aimed and to do so with convincing irony.^[19]

Carceri d'Invenzione III (Prison of Invention III)—in which a red-hot clarinet solo sparks a whirlwind of fire that burns itself out to leave ashes of alto flute and percussion—is Mr. Ferneyhough's closest approach to the sound world of his compatriot Harrison Birtwistle: it is imposing and gradual, though figured with furious activity typical of its composer. … And La Chute d'Icare (The Fall of Icarus) is a gem. Listen to the star bursts of tuned percussion and string glissandos around the romping soloist at the start, or to the way the energy of the cadenza breaks out from the solo instrument in a spurt of piccolo. This is a rare noise these days: the exhilaration of discovery.^[20]

Two short Ferneyhough pieces were on the program, and neither was a problem for the uninitiated listener. One, Coloratura, for oboe and piano, was almost exactly what you would expect: florid writing for the oboe given an exciting performance. The other work, Mnemosyne for solo bass flute and additional bass flutes prerecorded on tape, was more interesting. It got deep into the lush, velvety sonorities of an extraordinary instrument we almost never hear. It moved slowly but was full of interesting texture and sound.^[21]

A day submerged in Ferneyhough's music leaves one's ears quite reborn. The Diotima Quartet took the lunchtime stage for the compact, brief Second String Quartet and the compact but extended set of Sonatas for String Quartet. Supple and spirited, these tightly controlled but loving performances teased out the translucent beauty of these works. First performed in 1967, the Sonatas transformed Ferneyhough's reputation, and the Diotimas made it easy to hear why. The painstakingly prepared main concert heard the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins in Ferneyhough's two orchestral scores to date: Plotzlichkeit, from 2006, and La Terre Est un Homme. … Sandwiched between them were the third Carceri d'Invenzione, a Pandora's box of delights for chamber ensemble, and the Missa Brevis performed by the BBC Singers, led by James Morgan. Plotzlichkeit['s] … exploration of recherche textures and flashed colour spectrums is both beautiful and thrilling. La Terre, monumental in its intensity and magnificent in its sheer chutzpah, projects a seething macrocosm of souls struggling against the odds to grace mere survival with meaning. With the BBCSO at their committed, inspirational best, Ferneyhough's violent cry against the void has been answered at last.^[22]

It was the moment we had been waiting for. Brian Ferneyhough's La terre est un homme, his succès de scandale of the 1970s, had not been performed for 30 years.… Legends had grown up around it—how musicians at the premiere had defaced their scores, how the second performance under Claudio Abbado was a mess. La terre est un homme had come to define who Ferneyhough was: the last Modernist, an unreconstructed devotee of density and complexity. And yet here was the BBCSO under Martyn Brabbins making perfect sense of it. Worse sins have been committed in the name of Modernism than this cauldron of quasi-choate shudders and shimmers, welling up with untamed energy as if from the very centre of the earth. Was it right that a 90-piece orchestra should devote five days of rehearsal to just 50 minutes of music? If the purpose of subsidy is to finance art that is not commercially viable, the answer must be "yes". The value of this Ferneyhough focus was to show not just that his music has become easier to play, but that it embodies more tradition, fluency and beauty than inherited opinion suggests.^[23]

Massive tidal waves of pent-up energy have to be controlled—or perhaps surfed, for there is an exhilaration in confronting these awesome sonic structures. There’s an aesthetic pleasure to be had too, not in terms of agreeable sonorities—though Ferneyhough’s music is richly and subtly textured—but in the complexity and originality of its soundworld. It frequently aspires, moreover, to the transcendental, even in a work such as Carceri d’Invenzione III, which pits itself against the prison walls of Piranesi’s famous etchings, seeking always to stretch the limits of the imagination. Ferneyhough also stretches the limitations of his performers, nowhere more so than in Plötzlichkeit, receiving its UK premiere. Consisting of over 100 small cells, with nothing in the way of systematic patterning or development to aid the ear, the latter score achieves the sudden inspiration of its title by constantly generating new, unpredictable material.^[24]

Brian Ferneyhough’s complex String Quartet No 6 gave the listener far more to chew on. At the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in November it seemed shorter, friendlier too. But you could still appreciate Ferneyhough’s game of plunging us into a dense jungle, then giving the vegetation more room to breathe. There’s unison playing at one point, and a cadenza from the first violinist, Irvine Arditti. Even with these simplifications our ears stayed under strain; worth it, though, for the composer’s magic sculpting of textures and gestures in a volatile world.^[25]

Negative/Neutral[link]

Ferneyhough's obsession with "model"-making itself results, inevitably, in the erection of a surrogate-metaphysics, a substitute universe of the artist's own making, and reflecting primarily his own arbitrary flights of ego-whim. (Fanfare, Volume 3 (1980), Issues 4-6, p. 86)^{[Full citation needed]}

Musicologist Peter Franklin commented of Ferneyhough in 1985: "whose works, and whose commentaries upon them, show every sign of synthesizing a final ne plus ultra of orthodox avant-garde conservatism"^[26]

The name of Brian Ferneyhough, who in the 1970s was England’s most prominent export to the heartland of modernist Europe and in the eighties consolidated a reputation as spiritual leader of the ’new complexity’, seems even today to be a byword for all that is best and worst about hard-line musical modernism. … Ferneyhough’s risks may have seemed too great at times, his compositional solutions failing to live up to his stimulating, endlessly questing diagnosis of the problems as a highly engaging public speaker, self-confident and articulate.^[27]

Brian Ferneyhough is one of the last of this school of people who go with simple arithmetic ideas rather than a musical score – we call them blackboard composers. Their forum is in the classroom, talking about the music.^[28]

His article, "Form, Figure, Style—an intermediate assessment," is as impenetrable as the title. What is an "intermediate assessment"? From Ferneyhough' s prose style it would appear to be jargon, wordiness, vague abstractions, and pretentious prose. Consider, for example, the following sentence, which seems like a mish-mash of structuralist theory: "One conceivable approach to a provisional resolution of the dilemma might be a renewed concentration on, and redefinition of, the term style itself: in particular, it seems vital to focus attention more intensively on the diachronic features of stylistic formation, since this alone promises a salutary counterbalance to views of style which concentrate on the simultaneity of diverse physiognomic features in some historically referential, but apparently extrahistorically utopian subjectivism."^[29]

Ferneyhough talked about the disruption of time and the structure of emblems as if they were as straightforward as, perhaps, the choice of form or the biographical impulse behind composition. He sounded either delusional or extremely pretentious, and indeed there were snickers in the audience. ... While his music could never be said to "sound nice", though, it arguably creates a space for rich reflection. … Ferneyhough's own Carceri d'Invenzione I was nearly incomprehensible to this listener. …^[30]

Brian Ferneyhough … His programme notes suggested that he might even have forgotten his mother tongue. "This multiplicity largely undermines the spirit of the original autonomous 'time slice' principle, leading to a sort of mirrored or negative hierarchy of material and form conveying a qualitative reformulation of the work's initial conceptual environment." Eh? … I came with open ears. I read and listened. I listened and read. Yet I came away from this performance defeated. Bafflement refused to give way to any enlightenment. I could make neither head nor tail of Ferneyhough's 20-minute work. I tried following the tiny fragments and their fleetingly intriguing textural journeys. At times the work seemed to be making sense as a mini-Mahlerian canvas full of intense collisions and sharp changes of tack. But it was all in vain. I was flummoxed in the face of what seemed like a starry sky of discombobulating chaos.^[31]

[...] Brian Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study II, for example. Here the main purpose seems to be an exhaustive examination of how far the performer can be driven by noise and impossible scoring before he is broken down and destroyed. In this sense it is an ugly and de-humanising piece. It exemplifies the way in which the composer-musician relationship can be pushed, and the antithesis of the aspirations associated with contemporary improvised music; yet (to my anger) such pieces generally acquire more credibility as 'works of art'^[32]

Anybody who was unfortunate enough to have sat through Ferneyhough's disastrous 'opera' Shadowtime a few years ago may be relieved to hear that the composer has salvaged something from the wreckage. [...] Les Froissements d'Ailes de Gabriel, is taken from Shadowtime, it is one of the extended interludes [...] The piece is the least successful on the disc, but there is still plenty of interest here, particularly the timbres and instrumental effects. In general, though, it seems that the rambling incoherence and lack of structural focus that plagues Ferneyhough's opera is as evident in the excerpts as it is in the complete work.^[11]

Bibliography[link]

• Boros, James, and Richard Toop (eds.). The Collected Writings of Brian Ferneyhough. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995. Review by Ian Pace
• Bortz, Graziela. Rhythm in the music of Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Finnissy, and Arthur Kampela : a guide for performers. Ph.D. Thesis, City University of New York, 2003.
• Duncan, Stuart. "Re-complexifying the Function(s) of Notation in the Music of Brian Ferneyhough and the “New Complexity”. Perspectives of New Music 48, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 136–72.
• Ferneyhough, Brian. Brian Ferneyhough by Brian Ferneyhough. Paris: L'Age d'homme OCLC 21274317 (French)
• Pace, Ian. [Review:] "Brian Femeyhough, Collected Writings, edited by James Boros and Richard Toop. Harwood Academic Publishers; Ferneyhough: String Quartet No. 4; Kurze Schatten II ; Trittico per G. S.; Terrain, Arditti String Quartet with Brenda Mitchell (sop); Magnus Andersson (gtr); Stefano Scodanibbi (db); Irvine Arditti (vln) with ASKO Ensemble c. Jonathan Nott. Disques Montaigne MO 7 82029. Ferneyhough: Prometheus; La Chute D'Icare; On Stellar Magnitudes; Superscriptio; Carceri d'Invezione III. Luisa Castellani (voice); Felix Renggli (fl); Ernesto Molinari (cl); Ensemble Contrechamps c. Giorgio Bernasconi, Zsolt Nagy, Emilio Pomarico. ACCORD 205772". Tempo new series, no. 203 (January 1998): 45–48, 50–52.
• Rosser, Peter. "Brian Ferneyhough and the 'Avant-Garde Experience': Benjaminian Tropes in Funérailles". Perspectives of New Music 48, no. 2 (Summer 2010):114–51.
• Schick, Steven. "Developing an Interpretive Context: Learning Brian Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet" (Subscription Access). Perspectives of New Music 32, no. 1 (Winter, 1994): 132–53.
• Tadday, Ulrich (ed.). "Brian Ferneyhough". Munich: Edition Text+Kritik in Richard Boorberg Verlag, 2008. (German)
• Toop, Richard. "Brian Ferneyhough's Lemma-Icon-Epigram". Perspectives of New Music 28, no. 2 (Summer, 1990): 52–100.
• Toop, Richard. "'Prima le Parole…' (On the Sketches for Ferneyhough's Carceri d'invenzione I–III)". Perspectives of New Music 32, no. 1 (Winter, 1994): 154–75.
• Whittall, Arnold. "Connections and Constellations". The Musical Times 144, no. 1883 (Summer): 23–32.
• Williams, Alastair. "Adorno and the Semantics of Modernism". Perspectives of New Music 37, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 1–22.

References[link]

External links[link]

Biographical

• Info at Brian Ferneyhough's publisher, Edition Peters – includes biography, works and selected discography
• Info at Stanford University Department of Music
• Living Composers Project

Interviews

• Interview (SOSPESO)
• Open questions for Brian Ferneyhough (also applicable to other composers of our day) – turned into an interview, since Ferneyhough replied (Stanford IP address...)
• NewMusicBox cover: Brian Ferneyhough in conversation with Molly Sheridan, July 22, 2005 (video excerpts from NewMusicBox)
• An Interview with Brian Ferneyhough by Felipe Ribeiro, James Correa, Catarina Domenici (Search Journal for New Music and Culture; Summer 2009)

Articles

• The Experience of Complexity by Larson Powell (Search Journal for New Music and Culture; Summer 2010)

Films

• Electric Chair Music / Time & Motion Study II; (film by Colin Still, cello: Neil Heyde, electronics: Paul Archbold)

Other

• Brian Ferneyhough wins 2007 Siemens Prize for Music
• Excerpts from sound archives of Ferneyhough's works.
• (French) A biography of Brian Ferneyhough, from IRCAM's website.
• Brian Ferneyhough at the Open Directory Project

Colin Farrell
Farrell at the premiere of Ondine at the Tribeca Film Festival, 28 April 2010
Born	Colin James Farrell (1976-05-31) 31 May 1976 (age 36) Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1996–present
Spouse	Amelia Warner (2001; divorced)
Partner	Kim Bordenave (2002–03; 1 child) Alicja Bachleda-Curus (2009–2010; 1 child)
Website
www.colinfarrell.org

Colin James Farrell (born 31 May 1976) is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such films as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T.. In 2008 he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role in In Bruges.

Early life[link]

Farrell was born in Dublin, the son of Rita (née Monaghan), a housewife, and Eamon Farrell, a footballer who played for Shamrock Rovers F.C. and owned a company importing and exporting canned goods in Dublin City.^[1][2] He was raised as a Roman Catholic.^[3][4] His uncle Tommy Farrell also played for Rovers. Farrell has two sisters, Claudine (who is his personal assistant)^[5] and Catherine, and a brother, Eamon Jr. When he was ten, the Farrells moved to Castleknock, a Dublin suburb.^[6] Farrell was educated at St. Brigid's National School Castleknock followed by Castleknock College and Gormanston College. Farrell unsuccessfully auditioned for the Irish group Boyzone when he was still unknown.^[7] Farrell attended The Gaiety School of Acting, but dropped out and was cast in the part of Danny Byrne on Ballykissangel, a BBC television drama. Farrell appeared on the show seven times from 1998 to 1999. He was inspired to try acting after being brought to tears while watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.^[8]

Career[link]

Farrell had small parts in television shows and films, including the BBC drama Ballykissangel in 1998, and his film debut in Tim Roth's The War Zone.^[9] In 2000, he was cast in the lead role of Private Roland Bozz in Tigerland, an American film directed by Joel Schumacher. Farrell's next American films, American Outlaws (2001) and Hart's War (2002), were not commercially successful, but his 2003 films, including Phone Booth, S.W.A.T., and The Recruit were well-received box office successes. Although he has a pronounced Irish accent, Farrell uses an American accent in some of his films including American Outlaws and his breakthrough role, Tigerland.

Farrell roles as a supporting actor include his performances as an ambitious cop who chases after a potential criminal, played by actor Tom Cruise, in Minority Report (2002), and as the skilled villain Bullseye in Daredevil (2003). Matt Damon was originally offered the Minority Report role but he turned it down to appear in Ocean's Eleven.^[10] Farrell said "he had no problem" that people knew he was the producer's fall back pick after Damon declined.^[11] The character of Bullseye is that of an assassin with perfect accuracy and deep-rooted pride of it. Farrell was attached to this role in December 2001, though initially he was considered for the lead role as Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, until Ben Affleck signed.^[12] Farrell was encouraged to keep his Irish accent as this version of Bullseye is from Ireland.^[13] Farrell had to read into Frank Miller's Daredevil comics to understand Bullseye "because the expression on the character's faces in the comic books, and just the way they move sometimes, and the exaggerations of the character I'm playing […] he's so over-the-top that you do draw from that. But it's not exactly a character you can do method acting for... you know, running around New York killing people with paper clips."^[14]

Farrell at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival

In late 2003, Farrell starred as a criminal who plots a bank heist with Cillian Murphy in the comedy Intermission, which held the record as highest-grossing Irish independent film in Irish box office history until 2006.^[15] In 2004, Farrell appeared in several independent films that received only a limited theatrical release in most countries, including A Home at the End of the World, which received some positive reviews.^[16][17] Farrell appeared in the title role of Alexander the Great in Oliver Stone's 2004 biographical film Alexander, which, while receiving some favourable reviews internationally, was poorly received in the United States.^[18] It was marked by controversy for portraying the ancient conqueror as bisexual, and received criticism from some historians for its portrayal of the ancient Persians,^[19] though others praised it for its accuracy in these regards as well.^[20][21] The movie grossed a total of $167 million worldwide, despite its poor showing within the United States, just exceeding its budget of $155 million.^[22]

Farrell's next film was 2005's Academy Award-nominated The New World, also a historical epic that was met with mixed reviews.^[23] Farrell played the leading role of Captain John Smith, the founder of 17th century colonial Jamestown, Virginia who falls in love with a beautiful Native American princess, Pocahontas, played by Q'Orianka Kilcher. The film received positive reviews, despite being released in only 811 theatres worldwide and having a relatively low box office gross.^[24][25]

The New World was followed by Ask the Dust, a romance film set in period Los Angeles and co-starring Salma Hayek. It received a very limited theatrical release and was not a financial success.^[26] 2006 brought more success in Farrell's career, as he appeared opposite Jamie Foxx in Michael Mann's action-crime film Miami Vice. The film was a box office success grossing a total of US $164 million worldwide.^[27] Farrell was next seen in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, which premiered in 2007 and was distributed in the U.S. in early 2008. Farrell's next film, Martin McDonagh's In Bruges, opened the Sundance Film Festival in 2008; Farrell received his first Golden Globe nomination and win for his role as Ray, a hired hitman. Shortly thereafter, he appeared in Kicking It, a documentary following six homeless men from different countries as they attempt to qualify for the Homeless World Cup. Farrell appeared on screen and provided narration. The film released simultaneously in theatres and television, airing on ESPN2 with a very short window to DVD release. Farrell received positive press for his involvement in the heartwarming true-life tale, and enthusiastic reviews for the two dramatic roles that preceded it.

On 11 January 2009, he won the Golden Globe award for Best Actor: Musical or Comedy for his role in In Bruges, in which he co-starred with Brendan Gleeson. The same year, he starred in Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, alongside Christopher Plummer. He was one of the actors, along with Johnny Depp and Jude Law, who helped complete the late Heath Ledger's role after he died before filming ended. They all played "Imaginarium" versions of Ledger's character Tony. He also took a supporting role as Tommy Sweet in Crazy Heart, alongside Academy Award-winning Jeff Bridges.

2010 saw the release of Ondine, a fantasy-drama directed by Neil Jordan, which stars Farrell as a fisherman. It also saw him star opposite Keira Knightley in the crime / romance London Boulevard. The film was directed by William Monahan, screenplay writer of The Departed and Body of Lies.

Farrell starred in the 2011 comedy movie Horrible Bosses, with Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and Jason Sudeikis, directed by Seth Gordon. The film focuses on a trio of employees who plot to murder their titular tyrannical supervisors.^[28] Later that year, Farrell played the lead role in the Fright Night remake.^[29] Farrell joined Anton Yelchin, David Tennant, and Toni Collette in this story about a charismatic vampire who moves in next to a high school student. The film was released by Dreamworks, with Craig Gillespie having directed.

Upcoming films[link]

Farrell at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival

Farrell is involved in a film adaptation of Flann O'Brien's metafictional novel At Swim-Two-Birds alongside Cillian Murphy and Gabriel Byrne. Actor Brendan Gleeson will direct the film, which was scheduled for release in 2010.^[30] In October 2009, however, Gleeson expressed fear that, should the Irish Film Board be abolished as planned by the Irish State, the production may fall through.^[31]

Additionally, Farrell is set to star in Columbia Pictures' Total Recall (a remake of the 1990 film of the same name), which filmed from May to September 2011 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Directed by Len Wiseman, the film is a new take on the Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi picture about a sleeper agent who is compelled to travel to a colony on Mars. Kurt Wimmer (Salt) wrote the script, which like the original is based on the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."^[32]

Personal life[link]

Colin Farrell was reportedly married to English actress Amelia Warner from July 2001 to November 2001.^[33] However, in December 2011, Amelia Warner said that the marriage ceremony was not legal.^[34]

Colin and British writer Emma Forrest dated for over a year, an experience she discusses in depth in her memoir Your Voice In My Head. According to Forrest, they had planned to have a child together, before he ended the relationship.

Colin and US model Kim Bordenave became parents of James Padraig Farrell, born in 2003, in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles. In October 2007, Farrell revealed that his son has Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder characterised by intellectual and developmental delay.^[35]

Farrell and Ondine co-star Alicja Bachleda-Curus have a son, Henry Tadeusz Farrell, born in October 2009^[36] One year after the birth of their son, Alicja Bachleda Curus and Colin Farrell decided to end their relationship. ^{[37][dead link]}

Friendship with Elizabeth Taylor[link]

Farrell had reportedly grown very close to Elizabeth Taylor shortly before her death and was one of the few non-family members to attend her private funeral.^[38] He recited the poem The Leaden Echo and The Golden Echo by Gerard Manley Hopkins at her funeral, requested by Taylor herself.

Drug addictions[link]

In December 2005, Farrell voluntarily checked into a rehabilitation treatment center for addictions to recreational drugs and painkillers.^{[citation needed]} His publicist commented that Farrell had started taking painkillers due to a back injury.^{[citation needed]}

Sex tape[link]

In July 2006, Farrell filed a lawsuit suing his former girlfriend, Playboy model Nicole Narain, and the Internet Commerce Group (ICG) over the unauthorised public distribution of a 14-minute sex tape that Farrell made with Narain in 2003.^[39] It was leaked to ICG who tried to release it publicly. A Los Angeles judge issued an injunction barring the sale, distribution, or display of the tape.^{[citation needed]}

Narain claimed that she did not give the tape to anyone and was not sure if or how copies were taken from her. She originally said that she would work with Farrell to ensure that it remained private, but Farrell said that Narain was trying to release it in order to damage his acting career and "make money out of it", which Narain denies.^{[40][41][dead link]}

A trial date for the Narain lawsuit was set for 17 July 2006, but the judge allowed Farrell and Nicole to mediate until 20 April. On 16 April, the two reached a settlement with confidential terms. However, Farrell's lawsuit against ICG continued with a trial date set for 21 July 2006.^[42]

Stalker incidents[link]

Farrell has a stalking restraining order against telephone sex worker Dessarae Bradford.^[43]. Bradford had twice attempted to sue Farrell, alleging abusive messages, but the lawsuits were dismissed due to a lack of evidence provided by Bradford.^[44][45] Bradford also failed a lie detector test on an i TV program while attempting to support her claims and stories.^[46]

On 20 July 2006, as Farrell was being interviewed by Jay Leno on the set of The Tonight Show, Bradford evaded security, walked on stage as cameras were rolling, confronted Farrell, and threw her book on Leno's desk. Farrell escorted her off the stage himself, telling the camera crew to stop filming, and handed her over to security. As Bradford was led out of the studio, she shouted "I'll see you in court." Farrell's response was, "Darling, you're insane!" NBC security handed her to Burbank police, who eventually released her. After Farrell apologised to the audience, describing Bradford as "my first stalker", the show continued filming and the incident was edited out of the aired broadcast.^[45] The following day, Farrell obtained a restraining order against Bradford.^[43]

Bradford has recorded a song entitled "Colin Farrell is My Bitch" and has self-published a book called Colin Farrell: A Dark Twisted Puppy.^[44]

Celebrity status[link]

Farrell was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2003.^[47] He was also voted sixth in the World's "Sexiest Man" contest by Company magazine that same year.^[48]

In 2007, Farrell joined other celebrities to become an official games spokesman for the Special Olympics World Games in Shanghai, China.^[49]

Filmography[link]

Awards[link]

References[link]