The creative process is different for every person but history proves that being stuck in isolation – including in times of widespread disease – can inspire the creation of great artworks.
This is especially true when it comes to writers, according to Greek-Australian director Nadia Tass.
“The creative force continues whether we’re stuck inside a room or we’re in a paradise-like garden.
"And writers can just be in any place and do their work. They seem to be able to hibernate, to shut themselves off and do their work,” Ms Tass tells SBS Greek.
“There are some classic works that were written during pandemics. They remain an inspiration for modern works that continue to be told by producers and directors around the world."
Highlights
- Award-winning director Nadia Tass revisits examples of classic artworks produced during pandemics that continue to be celebrated today
- She says the creative driving force enables artists to “escape outside of the physical surrounds in mind and spirit”.
- The filmmaker shares how she has continued to produce art despite losing dear colleagues to the virus.
You might have noticed the Twitter frenzy a few weeks ago about Shakespeare writing King Lear while quarantined during the plague.
Although not historically verified, the theory is quite plausible given that the play’s first performance on record was in 1606, the year London experienced a major plague outbreak.
The theatre classic ranks on top of Ms Tass’ list when asked to provide a selection of her favourite artworks created under the shadow of a pandemic.
The play’s most recent screen adaptations, she says, include a 2018 BBC modern adaptation for TV, the ‘King of Texas’, a 2002 American production, and even Akira Kurosawa’s epic action-drama 'Ran' released in 1985.
Another notable pandemic-influenced work that stands out for her is ‘The Canterbury Tales’, which was adapted in a movie in 1972 by Italian director Paolo Pasolini.
The Globe in London performs its production of William Shakespeare's King Lear in 2008. Source: Photoshot/Getty Images
The collection of stories, authored by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century - in the aftermath of the Black Death’s peak in Europe - is considered a quintessential contribution to English literature.
“It certainly became a classic and it’s studied in many universities and high schools and there are modern works for stages everywhere that are created based on ‘The Canterbury Tales’,” Ms Tass says.
When it comes to more recent artworks produced under a pandemic, she says, Norwegian painter, Edvard Munch stands out for his “masterful” ‘Self Portrait with the Spanish flu’ created in 1919.
The expressionist, famous for his paintings titled ‘The Scream’, was an actual survivor of the 1918 influenza pandemic and used a series of self-portraits to depict the effects of the illness and his subsequent recovery.
Edvard Munch - Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu (1919) Source: Wikimedia commons
Austrian Egon Schiele, a renowned figurative painter in the beginning of the 20th century was also working on a quasi self-portrait in 1918. It remained unfinished, although that was the least of the painter’s woes.
The painting titled ‘The Family’ is said to depict himself, his wife and their unborn child. Before the end of that year, Schiele’s pregnant wife died after contracting the Spanish flu, followed by the painter himself, just a few days later.
Egon Schiele, The Family, (1918) Source: Flickr
How creative beings can “escape outside of the physical surrounds in mind and spirit”
Personal experience of disease certainly provides an in-depth perspective that can potentially feed into artistic creation, but is it pure chance that great artworks have been born in quarantine?
Ms Tass says it is more down to the individual artist than the isolation state they might find themselves in, whether enforced or voluntary, as in the case of the example she draws from personal experience.
“As a creative human being, I think it’s really hard not to create. It’s hard to stop yourself from thinking about ideas, your mind going to all these different places speculating ‘what if’ or ‘how can I solve’ [a problem] in different ways."
Ms Tass is the director of ‘Big Steal’ a ’90s teen comedy, which won three Australian Film Institute Awards and got another six nominations.
The script was written by her husband David Parker during self-imposed isolation following the back-to-back success of their previous two movies, ‘Malcolm’(1986) and ‘Rikky and Pete’(1988).
“There was such a big demand for our time that David was having difficulty sitting down and write the third movie.
Nadia Tass with David Parker during a past film shooting. Source: John Tass-Parker
“What we did was we hired a room in a city hotel, we put David in there and we said you’re not allowed to come out,” she muses with a laugh.
“So, there was this creative person in this boxy room with only a wall to look at and at the end of two weeks he had the script.”
Recalling being thrilled when she read the draft, Ms Tass credits the experience as “a testament to the fact that a creative being can really escape outside of the physical surrounds in mind and spirit.”
Artistic creation against all odds
The Greek-Australian filmmaker has not been immune to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following a precipitated departure from Los Angeles in late March catching the last available flight, Ms Tass’ return Down Under was marked by unfinished business and tragic events.
While in the mandatory 14-day isolation at her Melbourne home, she found out that the leading actor of the last play she directed that was still showing in the US had died after contracting the coronavirus.
Later, she received the same sad news for a playwright she was in talks with for collaboration, who succumbed to the virus and a friend of hers, also a director, who lost the battle with another disease amidst an overburdened health system due to COVID-19.
“It’s really crippling in so many different ways for each individual living under these conditions. But when you hear of somebody you know closely who has died because of this virus, I think this whole thing takes a different form and it becomes so real and so devastating and scary.”
The filmmaker says she has found consolation in quality family time and artistic creativity under the COVID-19 'new normal’.
Greek Australian director Nadia Tass. Source: Facebook
“When I was in the US, I was doing a documentary film about Oleg Vidov, a brilliant actor who escaped the USSR and eventually ended up in LA.
“To tell that story, what I need is a lot of interviews in different places around the world,” Ms Tass explains.
Given the situation, she has resorted to directing the shooting of interviews via Zoom and Skype, with the footage then sent to her editor who is working – also isolated - in Northern California.
At the same time, every evening her household is turned into a film set for a family project involving herself, husband David Parker, their son and his fiancée who currently live under the same roof.
Nadia Tass at a pre-coronavirus outdoors film set Source: John Tass-Parker
“My husband started writing a piece during a weekend and by Sunday we were shooting.
“It’s about a family under lockdown of a pandemic of some kind […] At the end I don’t know where it’s going to be showed but we’ll start marketing once the pandemic allows us to get out,” Ms Tass says.
Asked about how she describes her response to the COVID-19 crisis as an artist, she says it is pretty much encapsulated in staying inside “but travelling with the mind” with the help of “so many possibilities” offered by technology.
“I realised that when one door closes, others open.
“I never expected or even thought I would be doing all this unless I had to. I’m stuck in my study and thinking ‘how can I achieve this’ and then certain possibilities become real.”
