Well done and congratulations, kjg.


Hope you didn't have to play Lucky Star on repeat, to the point where other household members became concerned for your welfare.


This was a competition I'm pretty content with. It was almost two years in the making — finally coming together after I discovered the wonderfully simple and understated Cross Bones Style video a few weeks ago. [You'll see that Cat Powers / Chan Marshall is also wearing multiple black rubber bracelets as a nod to Madonna.]

I'll post the reference answers on or before Sunday evening (13 September).

There will be bonus questions as well, which took me some time to prepare. If you choose to go for the bonus prize, you'll have until Wednesday night (16 September) to respond.

1.1 Name the person in the large centre portrait.

The name of the person in that portrait is Konstantin Chernenko. He was the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from February 1984 until his death in March 1985.

1.2 Even in the absence of a clear image, if one were seeking to identify the person to the immediate right of the large centre portrait, what guess would be reasonable, and why?

As the video is situated in the bureau of the Communist Part of Kazakhstan (as the opening text says) I guess that that person would be the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan which at that time was Dinmukhamed Kunaev.

His portrait is smaller than Chernenko's portrait and placed right of it because despite he is the leader of Kazakhstan, his country is still a Union Republic within the Soviet Union, the union where Chernenko holds sway.

2. In George Orwell's Animal Farm, the original Seven Commandments are as follows:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

What is the apparent name of the "friend" in the video?

The ‘friend’ in the video is a dog (a greyhound?) called Harry (Hårry Y Dǿg).

3. One of the many people featured in the video includes somebody with whom Nick Cave has a female-singer friend in common. Both of them have worked with this female singer.

In Cave's own case, it involved a song — the separate video for which references the character of a famous book, and a well-known painting by a British artist.

3.1 Name the character, the book, the painting, and the painter.

The character is called Ophelia, the book is called Hamlet, the painting is also called Ophelia, the painter is John Everett Millais.

3.2 Post the relevant separate video, as well as an image of the painting in question.

kjg

Your bonus prize is a hardcover book of two of my favourite novels, Animal Farm and 1984, with an introduction by one of my favourite writers / debaters / thinkers, Christopher Hitchens.

Also included as part of the package is a collectible American magazine with a stencil-image card insert, from two decades ago.


__________


Knowledge always impresses me, but knowledge in itself isn't especially interesting. What I'm far more drawn to is perceptiveness, investigative resourcefulness, tenaciousness, and the ability to problem-solve, including through logic and reasoning.

As is the case with the majority of these competitions, I try to ensure it's possible to work out or discover the answers to questions even if a participant is initially clueless about the subject matter.


__________


REFERENCE ANSWERS (with commentary)


1.  On the wall at the back of the stage where the band is performing, there are seven portraits.

1.1  Name the person in the large centre portrait.


The video's retro USSR references and the type of room where filming took place are important here. They suggest that the photos on the wall are of former senior Communist Party officials, presumably from the Secretariat and/or Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With respect to the centre portrait, its comparatively-larger size and position would typically be reserved for the most important figure in the Soviet leadership — the General Secretary of the CPSU.

Researching official portraits of the handful of people who held the position of General Secretary was therefore a natural first step. And given the aesthetic of the video, focusing most closely on the 1970s and 1980s would make sense.


The centre portrait is that of Konstantin Chernenko, who ascended (already in ill health) to the position of General Secretary on 13 February 1984, holding the office until his death on 10 March 1985.

It seems significant to me (especially given the possible political interpretation of Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow) that Chernenko was the last of the Soviet old guard before the Mikhail Gorbachev era of glasnost and perestroika:








1.2  Even in the absence of a clear image, if one were seeking to identify the person to the immediate right of the large centre portrait, what guess would be reasonable, and why?


For this purpose, let's assume the six smaller portraits in the video are genuine and historically accurate. It is then very plausible that those to the immediate left and right of the General Secretary are of individuals occupying key roles within the Soviet leadership at the time.

A strong contender for the number 2 position under Chernenko was his ultimate successor, Gorbachev. He would be my best guess for the photo on the right:





__________


kjg — The thought-process description in your response was an enjoyable read.

This was of greater importance to me than actually identifying the portrait. What people think matters less than how they think.

The fact you took Russian classes as a teenager impressed me as well.

Despite lacking the breadth of your foreign-language skills, I was able to find a translation of the opening text. Apparently, it contains a grammatical error, suggesting it wasn't written by someone whose mother tongue is Russian. My understanding is that it roughly translates as "Former Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan":






The Wikipedia page* for Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow also mentions that filming took place in Kazakhstan.

However, when assessing information available online, the issue of reliability is worth being extra cautious about. With Wikipedia, for example, I've often found the editors are too comfortable simply quoting existing written sources — without taking the requisite additional steps to verify accuracy.


Regarding the Fifteen Feet... video, the reference to a Communist Party premises looks to have been a case of creative and narrative license by the director and artists.

The identity and location of that building in the first image are unclear. But the former seat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakstan in the mid-1980s was a different edifice altogether — Akimat House on Republic Square in Almaty:






The video was actually shot in East London*, at the old Bethnal Green Town Hall* — which has since been converted into flats and the Town Hall Hotel*. The specific room is now a venue space at the hotel called Bethnal Hall*:










2.  In George Orwell's Animal Farm, the original Seven Commandments are as follows:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

What is the apparent name of the "friend" in the video?


Wikipedia extract:  According to Orwell, the fable reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union had become a brutal dictatorship built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin ("un conte satirique contre Staline"), and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".*


The "friend" seems to be a whippet. Based on the closing credits of the video, it looks to be named Harry or Hårry Y Døg:








3.  One of the many people featured in the video includes somebody with whom Nick Cave has a female-singer friend in common. Both of them have worked with this female singer.

In Cave's case, it resulted in a song — the separate video for which references the character of a famous book, and a well-known painting by a British artist.


Jason Donovan is among those in this video, and he seems to be having a splendid, messed-up time.

The female singer referred to is Kylie Minogue. She left Donovan for Michael Hutchence, the man who introduced her to Nick Cave. Minogue and Cave duetted on Where The Wild Roses Grow, a song the latter had written with Minogue specifically in mind.


3.1  Name the character, the book, the painting, and the painter.


Character: Ophelia
Book/play: Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Painting: Ophelia (1851–52), in the collection of Tate Britain, London
Painter: Sir John Everett Millais


[This question was drafted by me at some point last year. Shortly afterwards and to my chagrin, I realised the answers were immediately available to anyone simply checking the Wikipedia page* of that song. Nevertheless, the subject of Ophelia interested me enough to retain the question.

A similar situation occurred for another competition I was preparing — with respect to the UNKLE video for Rabbit In Your Headlights and it's apparent nod to the memorable road-tunnel scene from Alan Clarke's Made in Britain (1982)*.]



3.2  Post the relevant separate video, as well as an image of the painting in question.


Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ft. Kylie Minogue - Where The Wild Roses Grow (1995)
- uploaded by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds








NB: Recommended brief conversation between Drs Beth Harris and Steven Zucker at Tate Britain:


Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia [5:26]
- uploaded by Smarthistory on 2 April 2012

QUESTION


The pairing of works that are featured here rests on a general theme of artistic sources, influences, and (perhaps coincidental) similarities.

This was a red herring — at least with respect to the competition question, which focuses exclusively on the last piece:

In the video for Meds, the francophile and Placebo vocalist-guitarist, Brian Molko, experiences multiple hallucinations. One of these involves a framed print hanging on the wall in his hotel room. The young woman depicted in the image winks at him.

Name the artist who painted the original image, its title, and its year of creation.


________________


I need to step away from my laptop now, but will be back online tomorrow (Thursday) in the late morning UK time to check any answers.


In case no eligible member responds correctly beforehand, answers will be posted in 48 hours — at around 20:00 UK time on Friday 19 February.