Valentino : Pale Hands, Where Are You Now?
May 27, 2020, 03:45 PM
Piece based on Rudolph Valentino image by Kenneth Lyons.
"The sepia-toned, high contrast 1925 photo portrait of silent movie star, Rudolph Valentino by renowned studio glamour photographer, Russell Ball, depicts a mid-shot Valentino, in profile, in a suit of the day looking beyond the frame in a fixed gaze. In his right hand, he holds a pipe, posed and in pause. The high contrast lighting employed throws a silhouette of the pipe in his hand onto his suit and casts a solid shadow behind him providing contrast and foregrounding to his light coloured suit. The jawline of the actor is strengthened and heightened by this attention to light and shadow. With this fixed gaze, carefully positioned posture and the elegant but firm manner in which his hand holds the pipe, this is portrait of contrasts - not only in studio technique but also in perception.
"The photographer’s approach to the portrait conveys a masculine strength in the sitter; a quality that wasn’t afforded him by many of his critics (mostly American males) of the day who found Valentino’s dandy-like style in his attention to dress, his performance style as a romantic lead on the screen and perhaps, his Italian heritage cast as the Latin Lover, somewhat of a threat to notions of the all-American male. An actor like Wallace Reid or Douglas Fairbanks in style and public persona, both screen contemporaries of Valentino’s, he was not!
"In 1923, while on strike from his studio and out of work, Valentino delved into the occult and Spiritualism, a fashion for the time and penned and published a slim volume of poems called, ‘DayDreams’. It was claimed by his ex-wife, costume designer, Natasha Rambova shortly after Valentino’s sudden death in 1926, that he wrote these ‘psychic’ poems while in a state of trance, communicating with his spirit guides and other writers who had passed. Also in 1923, Valentino recorded and released a popular song of the day, ‘Kashmiri Song’ backed by ‘El Relicario’. The lyrics of ‘Kashmiri Song’ were based on a 1901 poem, ‘The Garden of Kama’ by Adela Florence Nicolson aka Laurence Hope. These are the only two known recordings of the silent screen star’s voice. Both recordings have now entered the public domain. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/rudolph-valentino-1923
"My creative response to the Russell Ball portrait of Valentino, is to explore its contrasts as outlined above; the shadows, the light, the ambiguous personification of its sitter. I was also particularly drawn to the strength projected in, yet elegant handling of the pipe. In thinking about sonic textures and contrasts and curious as to whether any voice recordings of Valentino existed, I chanced upon ‘Kashmiri Song’. Listening to it and looking at the portrait, one lyric, “pale hands I loved” resonated immediately. Familiar with the story of Valentino and his ‘psychic poems’, I was inspired to create an invocation, a sonic seance of sorts calling on the spirit of Rudolph Valentino. The line, “where are you now” felt like the missing piece of a creative puzzle and the right fit for the medium of this sonic seance. With ‘Kashmiri Song’ now in the public domain, I decided to use only elements of this recording as the source for all of the sounds in my response, “Valentino : Pale Hands, Where Are You Now?” The sound piece needed to respond to the idea of contrasts perceived in the original photograph as well as the persona of the sitter. To this end, I maintained some of the grit and scratch contained in the original recording and employed extensive processing and sampling of the source recording to construct a lush, romantic and nostalgic reverie of tones and beats with which to play against its raw and scratchy artifacts; its light and dark."
Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
"The sepia-toned, high contrast 1925 photo portrait of silent movie star, Rudolph Valentino by renowned studio glamour photographer, Russell Ball, depicts a mid-shot Valentino, in profile, in a suit of the day looking beyond the frame in a fixed gaze. In his right hand, he holds a pipe, posed and in pause. The high contrast lighting employed throws a silhouette of the pipe in his hand onto his suit and casts a solid shadow behind him providing contrast and foregrounding to his light coloured suit. The jawline of the actor is strengthened and heightened by this attention to light and shadow. With this fixed gaze, carefully positioned posture and the elegant but firm manner in which his hand holds the pipe, this is portrait of contrasts - not only in studio technique but also in perception.
"The photographer’s approach to the portrait conveys a masculine strength in the sitter; a quality that wasn’t afforded him by many of his critics (mostly American males) of the day who found Valentino’s dandy-like style in his attention to dress, his performance style as a romantic lead on the screen and perhaps, his Italian heritage cast as the Latin Lover, somewhat of a threat to notions of the all-American male. An actor like Wallace Reid or Douglas Fairbanks in style and public persona, both screen contemporaries of Valentino’s, he was not!
"In 1923, while on strike from his studio and out of work, Valentino delved into the occult and Spiritualism, a fashion for the time and penned and published a slim volume of poems called, ‘DayDreams’. It was claimed by his ex-wife, costume designer, Natasha Rambova shortly after Valentino’s sudden death in 1926, that he wrote these ‘psychic’ poems while in a state of trance, communicating with his spirit guides and other writers who had passed. Also in 1923, Valentino recorded and released a popular song of the day, ‘Kashmiri Song’ backed by ‘El Relicario’. The lyrics of ‘Kashmiri Song’ were based on a 1901 poem, ‘The Garden of Kama’ by Adela Florence Nicolson aka Laurence Hope. These are the only two known recordings of the silent screen star’s voice. Both recordings have now entered the public domain. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/rudolph-valentino-1923
"My creative response to the Russell Ball portrait of Valentino, is to explore its contrasts as outlined above; the shadows, the light, the ambiguous personification of its sitter. I was also particularly drawn to the strength projected in, yet elegant handling of the pipe. In thinking about sonic textures and contrasts and curious as to whether any voice recordings of Valentino existed, I chanced upon ‘Kashmiri Song’. Listening to it and looking at the portrait, one lyric, “pale hands I loved” resonated immediately. Familiar with the story of Valentino and his ‘psychic poems’, I was inspired to create an invocation, a sonic seance of sorts calling on the spirit of Rudolph Valentino. The line, “where are you now” felt like the missing piece of a creative puzzle and the right fit for the medium of this sonic seance. With ‘Kashmiri Song’ now in the public domain, I decided to use only elements of this recording as the source for all of the sounds in my response, “Valentino : Pale Hands, Where Are You Now?” The sound piece needed to respond to the idea of contrasts perceived in the original photograph as well as the persona of the sitter. To this end, I maintained some of the grit and scratch contained in the original recording and employed extensive processing and sampling of the source recording to construct a lush, romantic and nostalgic reverie of tones and beats with which to play against its raw and scratchy artifacts; its light and dark."
Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian