COMMUNITY CULTURE 

Jardín de amores, jardín de 

amores, Castigo liviano pudean 
merecer los amadores.

These words, projected unto 

me by some of the finest vocal 
chords at the University, have 
been ringing in my ears for 
some days now. Translated into 
English, the phrase means, 
“Gardens of love, gardens of 
love, those who love deserve 
only a slight penalty.” The 
piece, “Al tribunal de tu pecho 
vengo a pedirele Clemencia,” 
is from a 1967 set of songs 
called “Indianas” composed 
by Carlos Guastavino. Despite 
the language barrier and age 
of the piece, The Orpheus 
Singers were able to draw from 
the late Guastavino and, with 
their voices, create an impact 
on their audience. That is 
certainly something special.

This past Thursday, The 

Orpheus Singers, an ensemble 
with the School of Music, 
Theatre 
& 
Dance 
at 
the 

University, performed their 
second and final concert of 
the semester. The Orpheus 
Singers consist of graduate 
and 
undergraduate 
music 

majors in voice, choral music 
education, 
organ, 
piano, 

composition and harp, all of 
whom are conducted by Dr. 
Eugene 
Rogers’s 
graduate 

studio of Master of Music and 

Doctor of Musical Arts choral 
conductors.

This 
performance 
was 

called 
“The 
Poet 
Speaks 

of Love,” as the concert’s 
repertoire was chosen for each 
piece’s poetic description of 
love, ranging from playful and 
adoring to devoted, enduring 
and unrequited.

More 
than 
that, 
the 

performance included pieces 
from 
a 
wide 
selection 
of 

cultures and lingual origins. 
Director Dr. Eugene Rogers 
writes, “(t)he program, The 
Poet Speaks of Love, features 
a 
variety 
of 
music 
styles 

stemming from the diverse 
cultural background of the 
selected composers.”

Rogers 
included 
pieces 

extracted from choirs and 
conductors 
in 
America, 

Argentina, the British Isles, 
England, Canada, France and 
Brazil. Rogers also included 
works from composers both 
male and female, authors of 
varying ethnic backgrounds. 
It was clear that Rogers and 
his fellowship of conductors 
took care to truly explore the 
various perspectives of love in 
the world. This care made the 
validity and dedication of the 
group’s work visible, which 
has not gone unappreciated.

“The Poet Speaks of Love” 

was exhilarating, yet haunting. 
Each piece carried an explicit 
tone as given by its categorized 
heading 
— 
playful 
and 

adoring, passionate, devoted 
and enduring or unrequited 
— but each piece also held 
a more softly-spoken air of 
chanciness, precariousness.

Conducted by Eric D. Reyes 

with soprano Adriana Tam, 
“Nocture” from “Five Short 
Choral Works” by Adolphus 
Hailstork is written with a 
playful flow, inviting a lover 
to enjoy some of the world’s 
beauties. And yet the world’s 
beauties are presented as “the 
insects with their countless 
array of sounds,” “the black 
grass 
rustling,” 
“the 
suns 

floating (in the sky), each a 
fiery universe,” “the broad 
expanse” that is the night sky. 
All of these images are, to 
the writer, some of the finer 
qualities of the universe. But 
it is not difficult to see the 
underlying tone of darkness 
in the described beauty. The 
Orpheus Singers, so it seemed 
to me, picked up on the distinct 
tone, and presented Hailstork’s 
piece 
with 
the 
underlying 

grim mood. It was as though 
each performer knew that 
love, poetic as it may be, is not 
always light and certain.

It 
is 
always 
a 
joy 
to 

watch 
fellow 
students 
of 

the University pursue their 
interests, and it is even more 
enjoyable when these students 
can prescribe a unique message 
as The Orpheus Singers have 
done in their final concert of 
the semester.

The Orpheus Singers show
a mastery of choral music 

ZACHARY W.S. WAARALA

Daily Arts Writer

Television is running out 

of tactics. With tropes like 
the nagging wife and goofy 
husband pairing or the fun-
loving gang of friends falling 
flat on viewers who expect 
more, showrunners are forced 
to look for another common 

thread to string together their 
shows with. It appears that 
they’ve found one in the form 
of reimagining history. And it’s 
working: Amazon’s “The Man 
in the High Castle,” which 
looks at a world in which, 
after World War II, the Axis 
powers emerged victorious, 
was recently renewed for its 
fourth season. This plot device 
asks: You know that thing that 
happened a while ago that 
seems like a pretty big deal? 
Well, what if that thing ... 
didn’t happen?

Now, a new Polish-language 

thriller from Netflix, “1983,” 
is hoping to find success in 
its alternate reality. It takes 
place in an alternate world 
where 
terrorists 
attacked 

Poland in 1983, suppressing 
the 
Solidarity 
movement 

and 
subsequently 
Poland’s 

liberation from the Soviet 
Union. In this realm, the 
Iron Curtain never fell, and 
Poland has sustained a rather 
peaceful existence until a new 
resistance movement begins to 
materialize in 2003.

The main storyline follows 

Anatol 
Janow 
(Robert 

Wieckiewicz, “Blinded by the 
Lights”) a steely detective 
well past his heyday as a 
high-profile investigator and 
Kajeton 
Skowron 
(Maciej 

Musial, “Rodzinka.pl”), a naive 
young lawyer. The pair are 
each investigating a mystery 
of their own, but they are 
brought together to uncover 
the conspiracy that hast kept 
Poland under dystopian reign 
for so long.

Dystopian 
markers 
are 

prevalent throughout every 
scene of “1983.” The aesthetic 
is 
gray 
and 
dreary; 
the 

characters appear weathered 
and anxious. Everything from 
the title of the show to the 
dialogue is a heavy-handed 
reference to George Orwell’s 
foundational 
novel 
“1984.” 

Poland’s government is known 
as “The Party,” which is split 
into 
various 
“ministries.” 

There are even multiple too-
obvious-to-miss shots of the 
book just in case you really 
weren’t picking up what the 
show was putting down.

Despite 
the 
dystopian 

backstory, 
“1983” 
thrives 

more as a mystery than an 
alternative 
reality 
story. 

Change up a couple details and 
this true-crime show may as 
well take place in New York 
City with Mariska Hargitay 
leading the investigation. It is 
a gripping detective story, and 
that is what makes it worth 
watching. The idea of Poland 
under Soviet control is second 
thought, playing into a lazy 
and reckless trope that forges 
an image of totalitarianism for 
entertainment as dictatorships 
rage on in the real world.

There is no joy in imagining 

what life would be like if the 
bad guys won. Whether it’s 
“1983” or “The Man in the 
High Castle,” the answer is 
pretty clear to that what-if 
scenario. If the bad guys won, 

life would be — and stay with 
me here — pretty damn bad. 
Why imagine a society still 
ruled by the Nazis when there 
are real-life Nazis in a world 
where the good guys did win? 
Why thrust a free nation into a 
falsified dystopian state when 
there are countries living that 
as their true reality? “1983” is 
an interesting detective story 
within a tired context, falling 
victim to the privilege of being 
able to imagine “what if.”

Polish thriller ‘1983’ falls 
victim to American tropes

SAMANTHA DELLA FERA

Daily Arts Writer

NETFLIX

“1983”

Netflix

Episodes 1- 2

“1983” is an 

interesting 

detective story 

within a tired 

context, falling 

victim to the 

privilege of being 

able to imagine 

“what if”

TV REVIEW

FILM NOTEBOOK

Here are two things that 

seldom go together: horror and 
beauty. It seems like the very last 
consideration many of us have 
when turning on a scary movie is 
the potential for visual splendor 
or cinematic style. And most of the 
time, our expectations are right. 
Horror movies are largely defined 
by a crudeness, an uncomfortable 
manipulation of our sensibilities. 
They aren’t made to amaze us. 
They’re made to make us scream.

That’s not to say, however, that 

style and scares can’t coexist. 
In fact, they can come together 

with 
overwhelming 
synergy 

when placed in the right hands, 
and have done just that in some 
of the most memorable horror 
movie moments. Think about the 
terrifying simplicity of Kubrick’s 
tracking shots of the tricycle in 
“The Shining.” The razor-sharp 
editing and piercing strings of 
the now-legendary shower scene 
from “Psycho.” Heck, even the 
uncannily ominous atmosphere 
that Jordan Peele musters leading 
up to the final act of “Get Out” is 
a testament to the value of artful 
horror.

But if there’s any filmmaker 

who so consummately embodies 
stylish horror, it has to be Dario 
Argento. The Italian director 

made his best work in the ’70s 
and ’80s, and his sheer artistic 
control over these films renders 
them inimitable and profoundly 
subjective. His stories are often 
a blend of mystery, thriller 
and horror, striking a balance 
between the brutally tactile and 
the disconnectedly ethereal. 

Argento’s specific brand of 

horror does not sacrifice scares 
for style, or vice versa. Not only 
are the two features equally baked 
into the DNA of his filmmaking, 
but they are inseparable from one 
another. His films are probably 
most 
recognizable 
by 
their 

affinity for gore and their unique 
depiction of the human body. 
His murder scenes are a prime 

The visual glory of Dario 
Argento’s stylish horror

ANISH TAMHANEY

Daily Arts Writer

example of this quality. While 
initially jarring, the sequences 
turn intentionally cartoonish the 
longer one watches, showcasing 
ridiculously bright blood and 
limbs that seem more like the 
appendages of a doll than those of 
a human.

He is perhaps best known for 

his cult classic “Suspiria,” which, 
in the context of his evolution as a 
director, is a brilliant experiment 
in toying with the line between 
reality and fantasy. There are 
moments during the experience 
that not only ask one to question 
Argento’s reality, but their own as 
well. 

The lighting in “Suspiria” 

in particular is one of its most 
indelible aspects. Much of the 
film happens in the confines of 
a German dance academy, and 
every hallway is permeated with 
a ghostly red quality, whether 
by strange painted hues or some 
inexplicable source of crimson 
light. In one tension-filled scene, 
all the lights of the academy 
shut off, leaving us in temporary 
blackness only to give way to 
a 
new, 
pale 
night-vision-like 

perspective. The characters in 
the film can’t see this new light, 
lending the film the ability to bend 
and distort our perspective. By 
deftly intertwining the physical 
with the metaphysical, he allows 
viewers to interpret the film 
through a distinctly individual 
lens.

Director 
Luca 
Guadagnino 

(“Call Me By Your Name”) even 
recreated the movie with his own 

specific interpretation. His 2018 
remake of “Suspiria” showcases 
the variety of messages the 
original can impress onto its 
audience. He reinterpreted an 
admittedly simple story into 
something far more nuanced and 
political. Whether this choice 
was the right one is questionable, 
but it doesn’t matter either. It 
was 
inarguably 
Guadagnino’s 

own choice, a confident decision 
inspired by the ingenuity of his 
predecessor. That transition — 
the creativity of one filmmaker 
igniting that of another — speaks 
to the importance of films like 
Argento’s “Suspiria.”

There’s also something to be 

said about Argento’s fixation on 
artistically talented protagonists. 
Whether through the mystic 
dancing of Susie from “Suspiria,” 
the author of a serial killer novel 
that inspires a real-life copycat in 
“Tenebre” or a jazzy piano-player-
turned-murder-investigator 
in 

“Deep Red,” Argento relishes 
in the opportunity to connect 
the boldness of art with mortal 
danger. We’ve noticed a similar 
pattern even in Damien Chazelle, 
whose films “La La Land” and 
“Whiplash” 
depict 
the 
self-

corroding nature of musicians 
entrenched in their craft. While 
the 
two 
filmmakers 
clearly 

diverge in their subject material 
beyond this comparison, it is 
worth noting the tendency for 
directors in pursuit of artistic 
excellence to leak that excellence 
into their own characters. 

On the topic of music, it is 

impossible to even discuss Argento 
without any mention of his 
frequent collaborators, the Italian 
progressive rock band Goblin. 
The group’s auditory additions 
to his films are as disquieting 
and dreamy as the images they 
overlay. Goblin wrote twinkling, 
pulsating and at times operatic 
riffs that are somehow catchy and 
creepy at the same time. Their 
ability to seamlessly switch time 
signatures grants their scores an 
offsetting and incessant quality. 
Even a week after finishing “Deep 
Red,” I found it impossible to get 
the groovy soundtrack — or the 
film — out of my head.

An 
undermentioned 
and 

truly special effect of Argento’s 
signature subjectivity is this: 
His films can be as artsy or as 
uncomplicated as you want them 
to be. If you have the capacity 
to explore the various enigmas 
he posits, his heady symbolism 
and the significance behind his 
deceitful 
camerawork, 
those 

options are readily available. If 
all you want is to enjoy his movies 
for the twist-riddled, adventurous 
mysteries they are at face value, 
no one’s stopping you either. It’s 
easy to write off Argento as an 
artsy filmmaker purely for the 
horror-obsessed, but that couldn’t 
be further from the truth. His 
films are for anyone and everyone 
to see. At worst, they are exactly 
what you want out of them, and 
at best, they are deeply revelatory 
masterpieces that have elevated 
my understanding of cinema 
itself.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

6A — Monday, December 3, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

