Matthew Westphal – Page 2003 – ArtsJournal Wayback

Why Garrison Keillor Opened A Bookstore In St. Paul

“The neighborhood bookstore shut down, and that left a gap in the lives of a lot of people – without it, they had to go to Minneapolis to buy books, and that makes no sense – Minneapolis is where you go to see documentary films or lectures on urban planning or dances with titles like Dimensions of Being.”

Watch The Mariinsky Ballet Take Class

“It is interesting to see any company in class, to glimpse behind the greasepaint and the glamour to see the sheer hard work and repetitive grind which makes onstage greatness possible. But it is particularly fascinating to watch the Mariinsky in action, partly because their dancers are so famous – but mainly because their style is so pure.” (includes video)

What Does Anna Karenina Look Like? How We Visualize What We Read

“Most authors wittingly or unwittingly provide their fictional characters with more behavior than physical description. Even if an author excels at physical description, we are left with shambling concoctions of stray body parts and random detail. We fill in gaps. We shade them in. We gloss over them. We elide. Our mental sketches of characters are worse than police composites.”

Amazon Exhorts Readers To Write Hachette CEO – And Misuses George Orwell in The Process

“Just to make sure the letter writers stayed on message, Amazon offered a list of talking points. The first one … was, ‘We have noted your illegal collusion,’ always an icebreaker in these circumstances.” Amazon’s post went on to say, citing a truncated quote, “Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.” That just isn’t so.

Opera Lovers Are Divided Over Met’s Labor Issues – And Some Just Don’t Wanna Hear About It

“Several expressed dismay that opera, which at its best offers not just escapism but also catharsis, is becoming mired in a polarizing, all-too-real postdownturn conflict.” Said one Pittsburgh fan, “When people go to the opera, those of us that love opera want to be transported. … This is really like taking away the magic. We just want to go and love it.”

Now Amazon Is Fighting With Disney, Blocking Pre-Orders

“Amazon isn’t accepting pre-orders of forthcoming Disney DVD and Blu-ray titles including Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Maleficent. It is the same tactic Amazon has employed in a bitter four-month spat with Hachette Book Group over e-book pricing.”

The Colorization Wars Are Back, Now Over Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska”

Payne and his colleagues did create a color version of the famously black-and-white 2013 release – but only because his contract with the studio required one, mainly for overseas television; Payne publicly said he hoped no one would ever see it. Now a premium cable/satellite service is presenting it – as a “world premiere”, no less – in the U.S.

Colorizing “Nebraska” And The Danger Lurking In Digitized Filmmaking

“Digital presentations of content in general make it a lot easier to deliver things in lots and lots of different ways. It’s good to have flexibility, but it also means there might be a point where it becomes almost impossible to make your vision available to people without agreeing in advance to make it customizable to the point where it ceases to be art at all.”

“Sick To My Teeth”: UK Jewish Film Festival Director Speaks Out About Controversy

“[Stephen Margolis] has spoken for the first time about the row that led to it being withdrawn from a north London theatre, and said he felt ‘sick to my teeth’ when the theatre’s director demanded to scrutinise the list of films to be shown.”

Author: Matthew Westphal