Gianlorenzo Bernini's Damned Soul
"Great stuff, mate" said someone sticking his head through the window of the cab about to take me to St Pancras. "Caravaggio; what a bleeder!"
Too right. Music to my ears. Vox populi, vox dei. And a whole lot better than Carpo Marx in the Sundays giving us all a hard time about the first episode of The Power of Art. We did know we were taking a risk beginning with the most in-your-face of the eight films, lots of sweaty aggression and heavy pathos, but then that was what Caravaggio specialised in. One reviewer complained about the "script" which the actors had to work with but that script ("smell the artichokes") was drawn entirely from the court records of Caravaggio's trials and punishments.
Two years writing, filming and editing the series and finally the programmes are out there: a moment of nervous exhilaration, trepidation, and the novel Jane Austen would have written if she had been Jewish: Pride and Paranoia. And so brilliant, so unexpected, that amidst the nose-holding and precious whining, there are critics who do in fact get what we're trying to do with this series; drop people into the worlds where these paintings and sculptures got made; restore the sense of peril to the making of art, without compromising an up-close look at the work itself. A generously thoughtful article by Ben Lewis in Prospect; and little bouquets from the Telegraph and the Mail muffle the inevitable sneering. We - Clare Beavan the series producer, my brilliant, tempestuously uncompromising creative collaborator and I - always knew that by making art documentaries which were dramatic stories, but faithful to the art history, to the documented story of a commission, were heading into trouble. But we were determined to stick to our guns.
Biography has nothing to do with art history, it would be said. Which would have been news to Giorgio Vasari in the 16th century. Art history and history are different realms, it's said. Mix them at your peril. But how do you not tangle them up when you're dealing with Jacques-Louis David the "pageant master" of the Jacobin Revolution?
Bugger the brickbats. We believe. And, on taking a look at programme two on Bernini, so, apparently do some of the people who hated programme two. David Chater in the Times, follows the kick in the balls "(After a catastrophic start") with the timely pat on the head ("the series miraculously levitates itself in both substance and style"). Gee, thanks, David.
To Nottingham then in fine fettle to show some clips at the Broadway Cinema and listen to the public - which seems to love The Power of Art. It's an evening of celebration. Our beautiful films shown on a movie screen (presenter - aaagh - as huge as King Kong) to a crowd of kids, grannies and everyone in between. One fierce soul at the back accuses me of doing "Lust for Life with a Well-Spoken Front Man". Love that. We get into heavy gladiatorial combat, both enjoying the scrap. And then a young woman in the book-signing line thanks me for getting her involved in history and archaeology at Nottingham University and insists I sign her own painting, which looks like an African village - tendrils, tall grass and straw hut. "But, Katie," I say, amazed, "it's your painting - there's your signature." "But it's yours too," she says in an accent that comes straight out of David Herbert Lawrence. "Please sign". And I do.
I realise that the TV, the writing, everything, it's all for the likes of Katie. So, for that matter, is art.
