Simon Farid
richard anthony and cleopatra taylor
at crescent arts, i am working on a large scale film installation(?) re-enacting elizabeth taylor and richard burton’s affair whilst playing and filming ‘cleopatra’ (1963). though in my re-imagining, they will be taking part in a stage version of shakespeare’s ‘anthony and cleopatra’. in this way, i plan to continue my inquiries into romance, simulation, agency, feminism and empire, and to further explore the role our bodies play in our lives.
Still from Film 'Like you're doing push ups, but you're not'
Degree Show Installation (Detail 2)
Nickolas and Carla Meet at a Party (Sculpture)
Still from Film 'Full Re-enactment Version 5' (7 mins)
Still from Film 'Interview with Carla Bruni' (2 mins)
Still from Film 'Nicolas and Carla's First Kiss Version 4
but why the obsession with a romance; around simon farid’s recent work with nicolas sarkozy and carla bruni
by beatrice wilford.
but why the obsession with a ‘romance’: a fairy-story played out between the beautiful princess and the proud statesman? what does the word even mean- it is french, after all- the first romances were medieval stories about knights eviscerating one another before indulging in illicit adulterous affairs, invariably with the king’s wife. this is not the case here, no: the ideology of the state would not allow the president anything less than a dior-clad virgin (well, probably not; for virginity see: diana). so how does ideology work then? and why choose romance? ideology recruits us all as subjects within the state by making us imagine that we are connected to it: to the symbols of power and governance as well as to the entire nation. so we become torchbearers for ‘frenchness’ (or otherness, if we are lucky) through believing that the word french says something about us. mais oui, oui, bien sur. one way to make us believe it is connected to us, or does say something for us, is to make us feel like the protagonists in its own private french love story. but how are we the protagonists? are we not simply voyeurs looking frigidly at the newsprint and computer screen? yes, but voyeurs to what? what has the ideology machine given us to gaze at- is there any visible consummation of the great love- any jouissance for the subjectified observer? no pleasure, no, not for the ones we look at, they only jog and spread their appropriate smiles (is there anything hidden behind their carla?). how impossible to think of the first passionate kiss of a statesman- a state head. his lips and his policies can never interrelate. think hard of his mouth and it is only of speeches. so this is where we become part of the love affair, an aspect of the romance, in imagination. in recreation. creating something makes us part of it. but where do we begin? how can you imagine a love affair between two strangers. this brings us back to romance, to the ideology of romance. imagining romance is like writing it for a mass market of women: its pattern is obvious and predetermined by cliché, by conventions of behaviour. how unsatisfying. big smiles and sedate walks, hand holding, executive style sex. this is what we are fed by the media machine as the acceptable face of government and love. but are we able to imagine better? all our images of romance come through the penetrative gaze of the camera, is there a way of generalizing about romance without this fictionalising frame? can we talk about intimate experience with others? worse. can we judge these experiences as intimate when, even outside the realm of state hegemony we are made subjects through a strict understanding of ‘what love is’ that has been fed us by films/ media/ and ancient literary tradition. does this pillow talk belong to you or cary grant/ katharine hepburn? the french phrases, the city and the etiquette: all of these prepare us for a love affair we model on that of the model and the president- successful, beautiful. if they are not creating ideology, they are part of an ideology that is creating us, a way of loving another, intimately, secretly, that is informed and performed by the same ideas we see on screen and in newsprint. a perfect kiss between lovers is beautiful, but do they not know it is- are they not referencing the last film they saw? are we not always already implicated in the same creative fictions we see around these two. perhaps we need a villain, a palin, to burst this romantic bubble. ‘you know she is so hot in bed’