Monday 31 March 2008

All about Cuthbert

Tuesday March 25 - Thursday March 27, Durham, England

Associate producer Lucie Conrad joins the Art of Faith team for our shoot in Durham Cathedral:
The first thing that struck me when travelling up to Durham was how friendly Northerners are -- and how talkative! I spent the entire train journey trying to block out the voice of a fellow traveller recounting her life story to her poor neighbour as well as the packed train carriage. I must say I was relieved when I heard Durham announced on the tannoy. And then there was Durham Cathedral, towering over the city. I was here to join Ian to film the main features of the cathedral as well as to interview a member of its congregation.
When I arrived at the cathedral, having been taken there by another very chatty taxi driver, I was greeted by Ian and John, Head Porter at Durham Cathedral. John is quite obviously an old hand at filming and with his help and expertise our shoot went extremely smoothly.

We went first to the small Cathedral Museum which houses the remains of St Cuthbert’s coffin as well as other extremely valuable artefacts taken from his shrine. Durham Cathedral, you see, is all about St Cuthbert -- as I would find out the following day when we met our interviewee, Lilian Groves, Head Steward and a fountain of knowledge on Durham’s history. Lilian used to lecture at Durham University but retired in the early nineties. Since then, she tells us, she spends every waking hour at the Cathedral. As she begins to talk her eyes fill with tears and I can see that she is clearly deeply connected with this place. And once Lilian begins to speak it’s quite hard to stop her. There is so much information stored inside her that’s bursting to be communicated.
The most important thing she tells us is Durham’s connection with St Cuthbert. The Cathedral simply wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for him. Cuthbert was originally buried in Lindisfarne in 687 CE, and was then declared a saint when his body was dug up eleven years after his death and found to be completely intact. A shrine was set up in Lindisfarne, but soon the Lindisfarne community came under threat from the Vikings and they decided to start a journey to find a new home for Cuthbert’s shrine. Eventually they settled on Dun Holm, the current site of Durham Cathedral.
It is only really when you get inside this glorious Norman building that you realise quite how large the cathedral is. The thing that immediately struck me was the beautiful proportions of this building and its enormous pillars, some of which are engraved in a very unusual manner. Lilian told us how these pillars were carved by highly skilled masons and put together like a jigsaw puzzle. They are hollow inside but full of rubble. Lilian’s theory is that these stones are in fact of the original Saxon church which was built to house Cuthbert’s shrine, as no rubble was ever found at the cathedral site. Lilian also has plenty of other interesting things to tell us, including the fact that Durham’s nave ceiling has the first stone vault in the world.
One tends to think of places of pilgrimage as medieval ideas but we soon discover quite how present this idea is at Durham Cathedral. Lilian stresses more than once that this is a working building, not a museum. And so it is with dozens of busy Stewards in their red and purple gowns taking groups of students or members of the public around their beloved building. On several occasions our filming endeavours were set to clash with such group talks. But not for a moment was there a doubt about who would give way to whom. In Durham the Stewards rule. But with the help of the charming John, the shoot went smoothly, and Ian and I set off happily on our way back to London. (Lucie Conrad)

Thursday 20 March 2008

Welcome to Toxteth

Sunday March 16 - Monday March 17, Liverpool, England
When Ian & I first reached Princes Road Synagogue in the car, we went straight past it. It was only on the second drive along Princes Road that we realised we must have found our (unnamed) building. With rows of lofty Victorian terrace houses and deserted husks of houses of worship of various dominations, Princes Road in Toxteth, Liverpool, wistfully communicates a sense of a more prosperous era long since past. Nestled amongst all these houses and battered old churches, Princes Road Synagogue is initially somewhat unremarkable. The façade has character and contains notable elements reminiscent of the Dohany Street Synagogue or Central Synagogue New York, but on this run down street it seems somewhat muted.
Enter the synagogue, however, and a completely different visual experience is revealed. Princes Road Synagogue is like a small, beautifully vibrant and stylistically busy Dohany Street Synagogue. With one gallery and no central row of candelabras, the synagogue contains unique choir stalls perched above a stunning Byzantine-style Ark with a deep blue cupola, beautiful rose windows and an extraordinary variety of patterns on the walls and ceilings.
On Sunday we had little time to appreciate such detail however as we tip-toed around the galleries in order to film shots of a civic ceremony that was taking place below us that afternoon. The synagogue was packed with their congregation and various dignitaries of Liverpool, including the Lord Mayor and his entourage. We snuck around filming shots of a busy congregation and readings accompanied by melodious singing from the uniquely mixed choir, as conducted by our interviewee, Naomi Hoyland. In the last section of the ceremony Ian and I managed to creep up the small spiral staircase leading up to the choir stalls and grab some shots of Naomi conducting as the choir sungs their hearts out. Before we knew it the service was over and Eddie the caretaker was keen to lock up for the night.
Early the next morning we set about filming with Naomi, as she told us the story of how the synagogue came to be, who frequented it, its situation today and her own connections with the building. The synagogue had originally been created in the nineteenth-century for the wealthy Jews in Liverpool who wanted a grand synagogue to match their status -- the existing one in town was not opulent enough and anyway they wanted one nearer their smart homes. A competition was held and two Scottish architects, the Audsley brothers, won the commission. They had also built the Welsh Presbyterian Church on the other side of the street – which now very sadly sits as a Gothic shell, falling down and bordered up. The congregation all put in what money they could afford to fund the new building – as two plaques in the lobby attest. The Audsley brothers apparently travelled the world picking out beautiful and eclectic designs which they blended together for the interior of the synagogue. The congregation had never seen anything liked it and loved it!

Naomi Hoyland has attended the synagogue every Saturday since she was three years old. Her father and uncle had attended Princes Road since they were teens and when they discovered at the start of the Second World War that a bout of rhumatic fever counted them out of going to fight, they used their time wisely, acting as ARP officers and building up the Synagogue choir with members of their own family, including the very young Naomi. She and her cousin never left the choir and introduced their equally musical children to it from a very young age. The two of them now share the duties of conducting the choir and both are passionate about the survival of the choir, as well as of the building itself.
One of the most interesting moments during my interview was learning that the number of Jews in Liverpool is declining. All the children move out to Manchester and elsewhere. The ever-dwindling number of Jews makes it very difficult to maintain the synagogue (which is now a Grade I listed building) and sustain the congregation. It's for this reason that Naomi took on the task of synagogue tour guide, so that she can introduce to new people this wonderful building. She also showed me two beautiful lectern-chairs on the pulpit that her father had crafted for the synagogue several years ago, when he was 91. Seeing those two chairs and hearing about his life’s work for the synagogue, it gives me faith that Naomi Hoyland and passionate congregants like her are not going to let Princes Road Synagogue fall into the decline that has afflicted the other religious buildings on Princes Road. (Nonie Creagh-Brown)

Monday 17 March 2008

"When I work, I believe in God"

Thursday March 13 - Saturday March 15, Cote d'Azur, France

Two days in the south of France to film at one remarkable location whilst gale force winds and rain batter Britain. What’s not to like?
Vence, half an hour inland from Nice, is lesser-known that its close neighbour St Paul de Vence. It’s a real bustling town (unlike St Paul, which has become a medieval theme park overrun by tourist hordes and souvenir tat). Henri Matisse’s modernist Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary is on the hill overlooking Vence’s Roman walls. Uniquely, its creation was the first time that an artist entirely designed every detail of a monument, from the architecture to the furniture, the candlesticks and even the priest’s robes. As such it is a sacred art monument. For Matisse, “this work required me four years of an exclusive and tireless effort and it is the fruit of my whole working life. In spite of all its imperfections, I consider it my masterpiece”.

Artists have famously been drawn to this area in the hills above Nice since the 1920s and a heyday period saw Matisse, Braque, Calder, Leger, Picasso and Picabia amongst others dine regularly at a local hotel where famously meals were often paid for with canvasses.
Matisse settled in Nice in 1942 and a few months later, fearing a wartime evacuation, moved to Vence. He was 73 and in poor health recovering from intestinal surgery. For a couple of weeks he was looked after by a young nurse, Monique Bourgeois, with whom he struck up a friendship. She subsequently became a nun -- Sister Jacques-Marie -- and their friendship continued. In the local convent the nuns had no chapel and were using makeshift quarters in a garage with a leaky roof. When Matisse learned of this, after extensive discussions, he offered to design a chapel in the detail of which he immersed himself, beginning in 1947.
From the outside, the discrete chapel, used daily by both the nuns and the local community, can only be recognised by its blue and white roof tiles and wrought iron cross of crescent moons and golden flames. Inside, everything is white – walls, ceilings, doors, except for the yellow, green and ultramarine of the semi-abstract stained glass windows.

Most tourists only take a few minutes to visit the chapel, as it is quite small. But you really need to spend time in it, if you can, to experience the extraordinary way the sun floods through the windows, bathing it in colour as it moves round from the south-east to the south-west, creating changing patterns of reflected pools of colour on the white marble floor and the walls.
Our interviewee, Dominican Sister Marie-Pierre, still marvels at this changing play of light throughout the day and explains the use of just three chosen colours: blue, to represent the sea and the sky, green (nature) and yellow (the light of the sun and god). Crucially, the blue and green glass is transparent whilst Matisse agonised over finding the right opaque yellow glass before he was satisfied. Because yellow is associated with the creator and we cannot see God with our eyes, it would not have been appropriate for yellow to be reflected inside the chapel. The green and blue, however, reflect as green and violet, because intriguingly the red of the sun combines with the blue glass to form violet.
Sister Marie-Pierre tells us that when the chapel was consecrated in 1951 many of the sisters were at first deeply shocked by Matisse’s three ceramic murals, in particular by the Stations of the Cross on the end wall. These looked to them like badly scrawled images, but in time they got used to his radical drawing style. She also relates that Picasso was very jealous of his friend’s achievement. She doesn’t like to speculate on whether Matisse, a presumed atheist, became religious, quoting only the artist’s own reflections on his creative powers: “When I work, I believe in God”

She finds the chapel’s beauty, simplicity and serenity highly conducive to prayer. I ask her if she misses the decoration and trappings of a traditional church. “Why would I?” she replies with some bafflement. “We have everything we need here. Matisse really gave us a wonderful gift.” She is certainly right about that.

Filming completed, there’s just time for a drink at that hotel, the Colombe d’Or, to admire some more Matisses, amongst other great artworks, and to see photos of him on the hotel terrace from those extraordinary years. No culinary splendours to write about this time. We could only afford an aperitif, but I’m not asking for sympathy, as it came with toasted almonds, olives and top quality charcuterie. (Linda Zuck)

A "jewel" (and a Jimmy Jib) in Woking

Thursday March 13 - Friday March 14, Woking, England

Kairouan, Prague, Budapest, Istanbul, Singapore, Jerusalem… Woking

Should I confess that both the cameraman, Tim Knight and I are steeled for disappointment after the thrills of previous weeks? After all, we’re driving to an industrial estate on the outskirts of Woking. It’s early in the morning, it's drizzling and it’s cold. We’re stuck in traffic on the M25 and our uncharitable mutterings feel entirely justified.
That is, until we turn into Oriental Road, Woking and catch our first glimpse of the Shah Jahan Mosque. The first purpose-built mosque in Europe (outside of Muslim Spain), the Shah Jahan Mosque is a delightfully modest, compact and individual building – Tim and I take the drive-way round the entire building and are charmed by its dimensions, colour and other-worldliness. We head off, in much better spirits, for that staple of crew-food, the egg sandwich.

Awaiting us on our return is interviewee, Brother Khalil. Treasurer of the Mosque Committee, local resident and a convert from Christianity, Khalil proves a really able communicator, almost a born presenter. We take advantage of a break in the drizzle and Khalil performs an impeccable on-camera introduction to the Mosque.
Built in 1889 by orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, the mosque (part of a greater Oriental Institute) was designed to help acclimatise visiting dignitaries from foreign Islamic communities, and to offer them a place to worship.

Leitner died ten years on and the mosque fell into disuse – until a visiting Indian lawyer, Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, established an Islamic mission there. Daily prayers were commenced and soon an influential, articulate and passionate group of converts began to devote themselves to spreading Islam. One of the earliest converts was Lord Hedley who would later make a speech to the House of Lords reminding the British Government that there were more Muslim subjects than Christians in the Empire, and beseeching the Government to do a better job of representing them.
By 1924, there was a total Muslim population of 10,000 in Britain (mostly based around Woking). The population rocketed after the Second World War due to a large number of Muslim immigrants but conversely the influence of the Woking mosque declined as attention became re-focussed on the capital.

It’s a compelling story and it’s well told by Khalil. He talks to us outside the mosque and then takes us inside. He’s a great advocate of the building, describing it as one of the architectural “jewels” of Islamic art and I believe he’s justified. There’s something very pleasing about the building’s proportions and scale. The local worshippers are also very welcoming, and excited about what we’re doing.

We break for a late lunch and the afternoon is spent filming an in-the-car interview, partly to introduce a different quality to the film. It works pretty well but we’re concerned about the number of driving shots we have time to film (these will be cut around the interview). By the time we get round to filming some up-and-past car shots, the light is fading, it’s raining again and Tim and I are concerned about whether the interview will cut with the other images. I’m sure Holly, the editor, will let us know soon enough… in no uncertain terms.
The next day, and we’ve got the morning to film the mosque itself. We’ve even brought a toy. It’s a Jimmy Jib – a small-ish crane which can extend to over thirty feet and is often used to circle over studio crowds. We’ve tried to be quite spare with toys during the rest of the shoot; not only are they expensive but occasionally if the photography becomes too whizzy, the audience stops listening to the interviewee or looking at the building and instead becomes a little distracted by the snazzy moves.

That said, the Shah Jahan Mosque lends itself to the use of a crane – not only can one better appreciate the building’s design but one can also “locate” the mosque in its surroundings and, inside, get some extraordinary shots of the mihrab. If we’re careful, we think we can really lift the visuals of the mosque which might otherwise appear a little “flat” on a grey day.
Operating the crane is Arun and he’s ably assisted by an assistant, Jenny. It’s a remarkably skilful job and requires extraordinary precision, dexterity and control – the camera itself can be tilted or panned at the same time as the crane is being arced around or craned higher or lower. Add in controls of focus and exposure, and erm... the pressure of manoeuvring fifty thousand pounds-worth of camera within inches of walls, and I’m left in awe of Arun.

I’m delighted with the results, and even more pleased with Khalil’s interview – the Shah Jahan Mosque might not possess the visual splendour of the Dome of the Rock but it brings another, uniquely British flavour to the series. (Seb Grant)

Tuesday 11 March 2008

"O Jerusalem, the holy city"

Sunday March 2 - Thursday March 6, Jerusalem, IsraelA national carrier's check-in desk is frequently a microcosm of that nation, and the check-in desk for Israel's El Al Airlines at Heathrow is no exception: "Why are you going to Israel?", "For how long?", "Why have you recently been in Tunisia?" The questions continue, and then the X-rays and searches begin. My hand luggage is taken from me and only returned at the departure gate, and my bags are minutely examined. Fortunately, my father's instruction to "wear my smartest underwear" proves an unnecessary precaution.

It's all mildly irritating. and my schoolboy-before-the-headmaster over-politesse feels a compromise -- but it's a useful reminder of what I'll face in a few hours, and it's a small price to pay for visiting a country which has long been on my wish-list. The five-hour flight passes quickly and I'm met at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and driven to East Jerusalem. The journey takes just under an hour and our fixer, Sharon Schaveet meets me at the hotel.

Employing fixers is a somewhat risky business, and most production web-sites are flooded with the familiar request: "does anyone know of a good fixer in…(name of country here)". Find a poor fixer and the shoot can rapidly deteriorate into farce. Find a great fixer, and you'll start thinking that it's the best money one can spend on a production. Thankfully, Sharon is of the latter school. A wonderfully efficient tour-de-force, she allows nothing to defeat her -- police, soldiers, bureaucrats, crew-members, myself -- we're all cajolled, encouraged, charmed and threatened into line.
In an essential briefing Sharon warns me that the situation is particularly tense at the moment. Israel has launched a major offensive in Gaza and violence has spilled over into Jerusalem. Both Palestinians and Jews are extremely wary. It's going to be a fascinating few days.

My mission to Israel is two-fold. For the Islam film, I'm shooting perhaps the second most significant site (if we regard Mecca and Medina as one) in the Islamic world, the Dome of the Rock. And for the Judaism film, I'm spending a day at Masada, capturing one of the few remaining ruins of Second Temple Synagogues. In total I have three days.

Day One and we're blessed with sensational weather: an azure sky, a few clouds and no heat-haze at all. Perfect conditions. I'm picked up at seven in the morning and Sharon introduces me to the rest of the crew: driver Arie, director of photography Ofer and camera assistant Gabi. Later I'll meet the sound-man Nicholas. They're warm, relaxed and enthusiastic about the coming shoot.The Dome of the Rock is situated on one of the most contested sites in religious history -- a vast ancient platform known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary. In Islamic history, the Rock is the location for the Prophet Mohammed's encounter with the angel Gabriel and his ascension to Paradise, while for Jews, the Temple Mount is the foundation for their holiest of sites, the Davidic Temple.

Although governed by a ruling Islamic body, the Noble Sanctuary is nevertheless carefully monitored by Jewish police. The dynamic between the two nationalities at the gate is fascinating -- my absence of Hebrew or Arabic impedes any thorough insight but the uneasy truce is evident; there is much gesticulating and gesturing, some shouting, appeals for calm, much pointing at the crew and our equipment, occasional laughter and of course lots of guns.

Amid the stand-off is Sharon -- occasionally vociferous, mostly pleading. She's warned us beforehand that anything can happen at the entrance to the Dome of the Rock -- there are no guarantees that we'll be allowed to film, nor for how long. But she keeps on pushing. "She'll call the prime minister next," quips Ofer, awed by her persuasive prowess. She's been negotiating our access with both sets of officials for weeks.
And then suddenly, we're admitted. The crew is asked not to speak Hebrew and we're led inside the Dome of the Rock and into one of the most sacred sites in Islam, to the cave itself where it's believed Mohammed met with Gabriel. The Waqf or ruling Islamic officials have offered us an incredible privilege - filming permission here is very rare, and almost never with a large broadcast camera (we're shooting on HD), let alone a tripod.

We do not have a great deal of time but what we do film is remarkable. After twenty minutes we're hurried upstairs and once again given permission to film the interior of the Dome.We film what we can -- but one could spend days here. The tiling and mosaic glass is exquisite and the designs so varied and complex, mostly patterning but discernible are trees, flowers, vegetation and fruits. In the middle of the dome is the stone roof of the cave but extensive scaffolding hampers our view. There's not enough time -- the call for prayer is approaching and the next minute Sharon tells us that we have to leave the site. I protest, entreating her that we need time to shoot exteriors, but the decision is out of her hands. As quickly as we've arrived, we find ourselves outside the entrance gate.

It has not worked out quite as we'd hoped, although the interior access was remarkable. But without filming the exteriors, we don't have a film. Sharon is concerned too, and we decide to talk everything though over a coffee -- we walk down the Via Dolorosa. It's my first sight of street-level Jerusalem and I can't help staring: there are Armenian priests, Orthodox Jews, nuns, hawkers, bodyguards, soldiers and of course coachloads of tourists -- the mix of people is astonishing.
Once we've relaxed a little, Sharon says she'll work hard to convince both the Israeli policemen and the ruling Waqf to allow us access for the following day. She refuses to be drawn on whether it's likely but she'll do everything she can. In the meantime, we can spend some time sourcing a suitable roof-top to film the interview with our Islamic expert. We explore various options and eventually decide on the roof of the Austrian Hospice. It affords us a wonderful view of the Dome and we set for the interview.

Dr Marwan Khalaf is an expert in Islamic art and architecture and proves a gentle and knowledgeable interviewee. Among much else, he explains about the evangelistic role of the Dome of the Rock -- it was partly constructed to compete with (and surpass) other religious structures in Jerusalem, and he tells us too about the mathematical symmetry of the Dome -- 4 doors, 8 sides, 16 columns, 52 windows etc. It's a very constructive couple of hours and we end the day with some sunset shots from the Mount of Olives before a 6 o'clock lunch.

Day Two and Sharon has decided that the best thing to do is just to pitch up early at the Dome and try our luck. We squeeze in a sunrise shot first thing and then head to the entrance. Ofer and I exchange ideas about the routine which dominates much of filming -- "Hurry Up and Wait" -- and we shoot some general footage while waiting to hear news of progress. Sharon calls. If we come this minute, she thinks we can get in. She's right and once again we get access. Other crews don't fare so well -- there's a media ban in place and among others, the BBC are turned away.
One of the privileges of filming is the opportunity to look at buildings in significant detail, courtesy of a long lens. And the Dome doesn't disappoint -- the golden cupola steals the headlines but the windows, walls, even guttering are just as remarkable. Again it's a day of blue skies, and the structure looks wonderful. We could spend all day here, and another day too, but we've pushed our luck already and the governing Waqf have indulged our schedule to an incredible degree. We say our thank you's and leave the Dome of the Rock.

Except of course we don't. Just by the entrance of the Noble Sanctuary, two abandoned rucksacks have been identified as suspicious. We and our equipment are held at the gate as an explosives robot rumbles into action. We're ushered out of the sight-line and hear six muffled shots -- the sound of the robot shooting the packages. Predictably the rucksacks prove to be only that, but the situation doesn't help tension levels.
A coffee later, and we're filming street scenes, market scenes and Jerusalem establishing shots. Our final location for the day is the Western Wall -- often referred to as the wailing wall. It's one of those scenes with which one has become so familiar, but up close, the whole experience is of course far more vivid. We film right by the wall and I feel a touch uncomfortable at our proximity to the worshippers. Not so Ofer and, seemingly, not so the Orthodox Jews who continue, indifferent to our presence. The early evening is spent having dinner at Restobar. "Oh this place," remarks the camera assistant, Gabi, "you may remember, it was decimated by a suicide-bomber a couple of years ago."
Day Three and leaving Jerusalem behind us, we're driving alongside the Dead Sea on our way to Masada. Ever since seeing Peter O Toole in the 1981 mini-series of the siege, I've wanted to come here, probably along with many thousands of others.
The story of Masada is an extraordinary one. In 66 CE a group of rebels from a Judaic extreme sect, the Sicarii, surprised and overcame the Roman garrison at Masada. With cliffs rising 400 metres above the desert, the site offered a near impregnable natural fortress (complete with huge food stocks and its own well). In turn, the Romans besieged Masada, constructing a vast rampart which enabled the defenses to be breached. When the Romans entered the fortress in 72 CE, they discovered that all 936 inhabitants had committed suicide rather than face captivity. Dramatically symbolic, Masada is now Israel's second most popular tourist site.
Our focus for the day is Masada's synagogue. Not much remains - a few broken walls, pillars and the steps bordering the walls where worshippers would sit, pray and listen to readings of the Torah. A converted stable, the building is incredibly simple and pure; a rejection of the rich colour-schemes and ornate construction of the surrounding Roman buildings. Nevertheless, I find it beautiful -- concise, straightforward and modest.

Archaeological expert Avner Goren is our guide. He's a fabulous contributor -- experienced in the trials of television, he's both patient and charismatic, content to wait in the sun while we tinker with our set-ups. He draws a vivid account of the siege and is alive to contemporary parallels with Gaza. He also highlights the fact that for many Israelis, Masada is a symbol with which they no longer wish to be closely allied -- they don't want to be isolated from other communities or nationalities; instead they want actively to engage with them.
We film until 4pm and then catch the final cable car down the slopes. A few last sunset shots over the desert and we drive back to Jerusalem. One last supper and a flight home. At the hotel, I'm asked whether, for the journey to the airport, I'd prefer a Jewish taxi-driver or a Palestinian taxi-driver. Only in Israel. (Seb Grant)

Friday 7 March 2008

Bella Italia

Sunday March 2 - Thursday March 6, Rome and Ravenna, Italy
Sunday
Ian and I arrive in Rome in the late afternoon. What should have been no more than a thirty minute taxi ride from the airport into the city takes a staggering two and a half hours. The main route had been closed off because of an accident causing complete chaos. “Mamma mia! Tutto bloccato!” our driver informs us, and on several occasions along the way he crosses himself muttering under his breath whilst shaking his head.

Monday - Tuesday
We are here to film at St. Peter’s Basilica, which has entailed negotiating no less than three separate sets of permissions beforehand from London. Filming inside the basilica itself, filming in St Peter’s Square, and finally the right to put a tripod down just outside Vatican territory facing St Peter’s from a slightly greater distance on Italian territory.
The final paperwork and payments all have to be made prior to filming in offices in the Vatican (having first been vetted by the colourful Swiss guards), and then further away at the Comune di Roma, where it comically takes no less than three people to process, sign and stamp a six page document before handing it over.
I had forgotten how simply vast St Peter’s is. Conveying its enormous scale on film is almost impossible. On entering the building the eye is drawn down to the focal point of the interior, Bernini’s monumentally tall bronze canopy known as the baldacchino which stands over the altar. It's 98 feet high, the same height as a substantial building such as Rome's Palazzo Farnese, and yet it fits comfortably inside Michelangelo’s vast dome which rises above it.
TU ES PETRUS ET SUPER HANC PETRUM AEDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM ... (You are Peter and on this rock I build my Church) ... reads part of the inscription of Christ’s words to Peter in gold lettering over 2 metres high around the base of the dome. Of course the pun doesn’t work in English, but it does in French, Italian and of course Latin. I look up musing on what the equivalent English first name would have to be. Rock perhaps, as in ... Rock Hudson? It doesn’t quite do it. (Diana famously called Paul Burrell her rock of course.)
The following morning our wonderful interviewee speaks movingly about what St Peter’s means to him. Monsignor Roderick Strange was a student priest in Rome for much of the 1960s. More recently he was a chaplain at Oxford University for some years, and has spent the last ten as Rector of the Pontifical Beda College in Rome.

When we have finished our interview outside we are accosted by a local busker who, for no apparent reason, seems keen to let off steam and rant for some time at us about Berlusconi amongst other things. It is a little difficult to disengage ourselves from him politely (he is like the ancient mariner), but he could of course have a point about Berlusconi.

Later that afternoon we leave Rome for Ravenna, a drive which takes over five hours, departing Rome in warm sunshine only to encounter snow and hailstones just three hours later on the final tortuous stretch of road beyond Florence.

Wednesday - Thursday
It is freezing in Ravenna and our hotel resembles a mortuary. Our interviewee, a local art historian, Verdiana Conti Baioni, tells me that it was once a mausoleum, which only goes to confirm the ghostly feeling of the place.
The Basilica di San Vitale, however, is more than worth the journey here and the sub-zero temperatures. It is a tour de force. Here is a legacy of 6th century mosaic work arguably without equal anywhere in the world. Images, almost certainly decorated by Greek artists, include the retinues of the Byzantine emperor Justinian and his belly dancer-turned-empress wife Theodora. Sex and power at the court of Constantinople. And the vibrant colours – the gold backgrounds, the rich green meadows and deep blue skies – are dazzling. We think of the period when these mosaics were done as the dark ages, and yet San Vitale was a breathtakingly original departure and is quite simply exquisite.
In contrast with the distinctive octagonal shape of San Vitale, the next morning we film also at San Apollinare Nuovo built only a little earlier but in the basilican form with a long nave and side aisles (one of which helpfully has a tall scaffold tower obscuring a large section for restoration work). After those of San Vitale, the mosaics at San Apollinare Nuovo are the finest in Ravenna. One of them depicts urban scenes of the city, a reminder that Ravenna was once the capital of the declining Roman empire for more than seventy years in the 5th century and was later an important outpost of the Byzantine empire. It’s hard to believe today that this city’s career was so remarkable. It declined slowly and gracefully in the following centuries to be overtaken largely by Venice, and indeed it’s perhaps because the city was little heard from for a thousand years that most of Ravenna's art was left in peace.
It is still inhospitably cold and windy as we leave, and I am looked at with disbelief when I tell the hotel that we will be returning to significantly warmer and brighter weather in London.

And despite the blog editor's strictures ("enough food already"), the culinary highlight of the trip would have to be, for those that are interested, a small family-run fish restaurant that we came across in Rome’s Borgo Pio. “You have discovered Rome’s best kept secret,” an obviously well-heeled fellow Roman diner tells me. There are photos on the walls of a plethora of Italian celebrity regulars past and present, including Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni. I’m not sure I should reveal to you where it is, but I could be persuaded.
(Linda Zuck)

Monday 3 March 2008

2 days in Singapore

Wednesday February 27 - Thursday February 28, Singapore
It's Wednesday so it must be Singapore. The excellent Julie Delpy movie 2 Days in Paris has brightened my 12-hour flight and I arrive at a sparkling Changi Airport.

The reason for my visit is a visionary piece of Islamic architecture, the Assyafaah Mosque (pronounced Ash-ee-far). Designed by Tan Kok Hiang, the principal partner of Forum Architects, it's a building which aims to converse with the traditions of Islamic architecture while simultaneously embracing the values and aesthetic of contemporary Singapore. Having spent much of last weekend filming at Istanbul's more conventional Blue Mosque, I'm intrigued.

The schedule is extremely tight. HD camera equipment is a rare commodity in Singapore and its consequent hire-costs mean that we'll have to shoot everything in a single day. The forecast is promising clouds, gloom and rain.

To steel myself for the next day, I meet up with an old university friend, Nick Handel. An advertising executive, Nick provides a few useful pointers to the Singaporean mentality -- "it's looking to establish itself as the Switzerland of Asia." "Here you wear your wealth on your sleeve." Certainly the high level of cleanliness, efficiency and countless shopping malls appear to reinforce his conclusions. Nick also kindly indulges my passion for cliché -- we head to Raffles for a Singapore Sling (overly sweet, overly red and overly priced, but of course you still need to order one).
The day of the shoot, and it's an early start. We've decided to employ a local crew rather than take Ian out with us and so at 6.15 am, Malaysian-born camerman Yaw, and the Singaporean driver James arrive at the hotel. We head to the Esplanade (part of Singapore's waterfront) to catch the early morning sun and film some establishing shots of the city. There's more sunshine than I dared hope, and three-quarters of an hour later we're driving to the north of the city to the Assyafaah Mosque.
The mosque is immediately arresting by virtue of what's not there. No conventional minarets, no dome and seemingly no sides to the construction. It feels inclusive, relaxed, informal -- as much social centre as religious building -- an impression confirmed in an enthusiastic welcome by the mosque's manager, Abdul Aziz Awang.
Yaw warns that we won't have the sunshine all day so we take advantage of some bluish skies to film wide shots of the building. It's an opportunity to examine the mosque with a little more care and to think through some further questions with our interviewee, the mosque's architect , Tan Kok Hiang. There's also the chance to meet Micky, the affable sound-man for the day. But of course it's all working a little too smoothly. Blue skies, methodical cameraman, on schedule...
In this case, it's sound which proves our undoing. A surprise for seemingly everybody, a women's conference has been organised for the morning and the Imam's voice is amplified throughout the entire building -- there will be no chance to film the architect on site. We're all disappointed -- particularly as we've just met Mr Tan and have found him to be passionate, charismatic and extremely well-versed in religious architecture. Fortunately, he's gracious and agrees to be filmed in the open air amid the heat and humidity.

Except that next door to the mosque, three pile-drivers have started their thunderous rhythm. Micky goes to the construction site to see whether they'll take a break, but to no effect. It's no win -- Mr Tan has to be away by 11.30 and we're left to choose between deafening amplification and the pile drivers. The pile drivers win-out and we film the interview outside.
Without wishing to flatter the architect (or the film we're making) too outrageously, Mr Tan proves a fantastic guide. He talks through the tensions of a non-Muslim designing an Islamic building. He explains about the absence of a dome (Middle-East tradition, and impossible to maintain amidst the rigours of the Singaporean climate). He enages us with his decision to embrace the Arabesque in much of the design and he's frank about the challenge of working with an artist to realise the single minaret. Chatty and charming, we enjoy a very good couple of hours in his company.
The rest of the day, we're filming details of the interior and it's an opportunity to see the mosque in use. I'm incredibly impressed with Mr Tan's design -- the ablutions space is sleek, stylish and beautifully achieved. The mihrab and sloping qibla feel modern and relevant and there is a community feel to the building -- a breeziness and lightness -- completely different to the other mosques I've visited.
The day rushes on. Yaw applies himself tremendously and takes infinite care over his framing and moves. We break for a quick noodle-lunch and then it’s another three hours of filming interior details.
6pm comes and we rush to Orchard Road, a sort of Singaporean Bond Street to film shoppers and brand-names -- it's just a notion that we might be able to contrast the Assyafaah Mosque with the commercialism of Asia's Switzerland. We'll see...

We wrap at dusk and I head to my friend, Nick's house for supper. It’s not a late night -- Nick's wife is heavily pregnant and I'm flying out early next day. A taxi is ordered and right there I have the smallest insight into life in Singapore. "Your taxi will be with you in exactly four minutes." Sure enough, four minutes later, the taxi arrives. Only in Singapore. (Seb Grant)

Mosques, minarets and meze

Saturday February 23 - Monday February 25, Istanbul, Turkey
"You see these wires? They're connected to a bomb and I'm going to kill British people."

The man fixed his eyes on our cameraman.

"Good idea," responded our cameraman. "I'm South African."

This little exchange occurred in 2003, the last time Illuminations filmed in Istanbul. We were working on a BBC/Canada co-production entitled The World in Art and we had been accosted while shooting in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Five years on and we are filming there once again.
Istanbul is, without doubt, one of my favourite European cities: jaw-dropping architecture, incredible food (particularly the sauces, meats, fish and bread), a complex history -- and a generous, warm-hearted, proud population. We (Ian, Nonie and myself) are delighted to be making the journey. (Sorry, but this isn't just one of those paragraphs written to mitigate an uncomfortable opening story.)

Arriving late from Budapest, we are met at the airport by our fixer's colleague, Tunjay, and taken to our hotel just across the square from the mosque. One late meze supper later and we have agreed to meet early to film the sun rising from behind the minarets.
Time-lapse sequences (which can be sped-up to make time pass quickly) are frequently shot by resentful cameramen in isolated surroundings, at unearthly hours in challenging temperatures. Not this one. The hotel's breakfast room overlooks the Mosque and we enjoy the perfect view while stuffing our faces with exotic mueslis, fresh bread, juices and a few Turkish sweets. Oh yes, and of course there's the mosque...Frequently known by tourists as the the Blue Mosque because of its interior blue ceramic tiling, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is one of the must-see attractions of Istanbul. There is little question of its remarkable contribution to the Istanbul skyline -- constructed between 1609 and 1616, its six 60-metre minarets challenge the dominance of its older neighbour, the Hagia Sofia.

All sorts of myths have grown up around the disproportionally high number of these minarets (most mosques have four or less). One of the most popular is that the architect Sedefhar Mehmet Aga misunderstood Sultan Ahmed I's instructions for the design and confused the word "gold" with "six" -- in Arabic the words are phonetically very similar. At the time the Sultan was accused of presumption -- only Mecca had six minarets -- but Ahmed I eventually pacified his critics by financing the construction of a seventh minaret at Mecca.
Expounding truth, and exposing myth, our interviewee for the mosque is Dr Feridun Ozgumus, a Byzantine expert who is able to talk in great depth about both the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and the Hagia Sofia. I should have been smarter about picking interview locations (just too much human traffic) but once we're settled in the interior of the Blue Mosque itself, I feel that the interview becomes far more focussed and intimate. Feridun is extremely open in talking about his faith and what it means to actively worship in this incredible building. He's also kind enough to explain the various rituals involved in the Islamic act of worship. Interview complete, there's just time to snatch some final interior shots before we lose the sunlight. We enjoy a late supper and retire early.

The next day, Sunday, and we spend the morning filming at the Hagia Sofia. The building predates the Sultan Ahmed Mosque by almost a thousand years and yet to my eye, it's the more remarkable of the two buildings -- and this despite extensive scaffolding supporting the main dome.
Perhaps I'm just more accustomed to an ecclesiastical aesthetic - the Hagia Sofia was formerly a basilica before being transformed into a mosque (and now a museum) but somehow the proportions feel more appropriate - and yes, I suppose I've grown used to appreciating something figurative in buildings of worship (there are some exquisite mosaics still left in the first floor gallery, and on the ceiling and above the mihrab).

We spend the morning filming there and hear rather a good story about the scaffolding -- there's a popular rumour that the scaffolding will never be taken away; not because the restoration process is endless, not because it's structurally supporting the roof -- but simply it's a means of preventing any discussion on whether the museum should be returned to a place of worship. It's an engaging theory.
The afternoon and our fabulous fixer, Munir, pulls off something of a coup; he arranges for us to go to the top of the central minaret of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and take some shots of Istanbul and the Hagia Sofia. It's a real privilege, although once we're gasping for breath on a pitch-black stairway, we feel slightly less grateful. The views though prove worth it -- and when we get our feet back on the ground, we're exhilirated. Finally, there's a dash for the ferry which takes us across to the other side of the Bosphorus - partly to get some shots of the skyline and partly to boast that we've visited Asia.
Prague, Budapest, Istanbul - it's been a sensational experience to film in all of these cities, but on the final morning, the real pressure kicks in… what to buy other halves at the end of a shoot? For a trip like this one, somehow the airport shop just won't do. (Seb Grant)