'On The Rocks' with Twombly and Monet

I should start by confessing that I'm left cold by many of Cy Twombly's paintings. I've frequently stood in front of the two versions of (Untitled) Bacchus at Tate Modern and never found myself drawn into the rich, red Dionysian furore. I can just about resist the urge - pushing it guiltily to the back of my subconscious - of seeking refuge in Kirk Varnedoe and the philistine's mantra of "This is just scribbles - my kid could do it", before moving on to another date with the amazing Rothkos that tower resplendently in an adjacent room. And yet, as the word 'frequently' indicates, I'm clearly curious about this difficult artist. 

Cy Twombly, (Untitled) Bacchus (2008)

Interesting, then, to encounter a provocative use of Twombly in Sofia Coppola's new film On The Rocks. First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It's an entertaining and amusing morality tale about male desire and female agency, that has Bill Murray alluding to his most memorable role in Lost In Translation. Coppola transports her earlier film's quasi father-daughter relationship - wisely, considering Murray's now beautifully wizened features - into an actual father-daughter relationship, lifting it from Tokyo and grafting it onto the streets of New York. There are allusions aplenty to Lost In Translation, and not only in the new film's knowing wink of a poster. The mesmerising Tokyo cityscapes are replaced with a softer mid-town Manhattan that is accompanied, not by the gorgeous cacophony of My Bloody Valentine, but the mournful and doomed longings of Chet Baker. Murray even gets to butcher another song, a kitsch version of Gene Autry's 'Mexicali Rose' rather than that 'hard' Roxy Music number 'More Than This'.

Bill Murray and Rashida Jones as father and daughter

  

But let's return to Twombly. Murray plays Felix, a divorced art-dealer and ageing Lothario, who is also the father of Laura who believes that her husband is having an affair. She confides this to Felix, who suggests that they trail the husband around town and secure proof. During the course of one of these stings, Felix persuades Laura to accompany him to a party thrown by an art-collecting client. And it's here that we find the Twombly. "I'm dying for that painting [(Untitled) Rome]" says Felix, before ushering his daughter into a secluded hallway to look at something extra special, one of Monet's many Water Lillies: Nympheas. Felix goes on and in a rare moment of sincerity voices the following thoughts:  

Felix: "That's something isn't it?"

Laura: "Beautiful!"

Felix: "I remember the first time I saw them at the Tuileries … the next day your mum and I drove out to the gardens at Giverny."

Claude Monet, Water Lillies: Nympheas (1906)

Indeed, it is not just the unadulterated beauty of the painting that is being praised here - the Monet, like the Twombly, is an original loaned for use in the film - but that it is meant to signify a moment in Felix's life when he was truly happy. It's also very clear that we are being invited to compare the two paintings and reach just one conclusion, less about the paintings themselves, but about those who collect and deal in them.  

That the Monet is placed in a secluded hallway, whereas the Twombly occupies pride of position in the drawing room-cum-salon, may just hint at some of the high-brow fatigue that gets attached to the works of Monet (or let's say it, an aversion to that which is popular with the 'unknowing' masses). Ask the general public which of these two paintings they would want adorning their home, and the majority - myself included, I'll add - would choose the Monet. That Felix's reminiscence conjures up lost happiness, let's the viewer know that this is where their own preference should lie. The Monet is suddenly revealed as a symbol of unpretentious authenticity, and one that we ignore at our peril.

As I say, I prefer the Monet to the Twombly - indeed, I prefer the Frenchman to the American. But I'm not sure the film's symbolic elevation is fair. Like Felix, I too have seen those lilies in their sunken home in the Tuileries and they are astonishing. I love paintings that invite you to lose yourself in their depths (like Monet's water lillies, the Tate's Rothkos also allow this immersion). 

Yet this is no reason to discard Twombly and, perhaps, by extension modern art - although, of course, Impressionism is already building a Giverny bridge towards Modernism and everything that follows. Felix is right. That Twombly is very much 'to die for'. It might not work as a romantic touchstone, but what it is, is provocative. With its blanched surface splattered with violent arterial reds, our initial reaction is to recoil. This is not the inviting surface of Monet's pond. The title gives us a rubric. In those violent phallic hints is there a suggestion of Rome's ruined columns, a masculine impulse - like Felix's - raging impotently? And look at that bloody hand-print, desperate and sinister. Oh yes, he'll die for that painting but not before attempting a final fling.

Cy Twombly, (Untitled) Rome (1961)

Returning to On The Rocks and that comparison to Lost in Translation perhaps flips the equation around. The earlier film leaves you with questions; this film ties everything up a little too neatly. There are no mumbled, indecipherable words drowned out by the traffic of Shibuya Crossing, nor much that leaves you with tricky, difficult thoughts about the dying of the light or the dangerous, almost irresistible, spell that loneliness and alienation can weave.

Therein, - albeit grossly simplified - lies Modernism's oldest chestnut: there are only questions, never explanations. Give me a Monet for my wall and a Twombly for my mind.