“In order to make a film of one of China’s most famous novels, the multimillion bestseller, Wolf Totem,” Andrew Simpson “has 18 months to raise a pack of Mongolian grassland wolves to sit, snarl and fight on cue.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
George Orwell On Why He Wrote
“Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don’t want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.”
Great Artists And Their Early Reviews
A few samples: Jung on Picasso: “paradoxical, unfeeling, and grotesque unconcern for the beholder.” Breton on Kahlo: “[her art] is a ribbon around a bomb.” The Spectator on Lucian Freud: “the human form defeats him because he does not observe it as he does dead birds.”
The New Indian Cinema: Sex, Crime, And Censorship
“[There’s] a movement towards exposing the hypocrisies of Indian society about sex, drugs, development and injustice. And it’s a movement that is not going unnoticed.”
Rembrandt Drawing Found In Scottish Attic
“The sketch came to light after the owner found it in a wardrobe and contacted Christie’s. Even from initial photographs, their experts were sure it was by the 17th-century Dutch master.”
Chinese Authorities Invent New Charges (Bigamy?) Against Ai Weiwei
“Chinese police told dissident artist Ai Weiwei on Thursday he could face bigamy and pornography charges and barred him from travel, despite lifting strict bail conditions imposed after his detention.”
What’s Really American About American Ballet Theater
Artistic director Kevin McKenzie: “The composition of the company has always been about 60 percent American and 40 percent everywhere else. And what became American about everybody was, the Cubans started to look at the English who started to look at the Russians and thought, if I could partner like that and jump like that and turn like that. That’s what’s American. They reinvent themselves.”
How Tap Dancing Died, And The Came Back To Life
Brenda Bufalino talks about the disappearance of venues for tap shows through the 1950s and ’60s, as rock ‘n’ roll took over, and about the Tap Renaissance of the 1980s, of which she was at the forefront.
Clive James Says He’s ‘Getting Near The End’
“The Australian star, best known for his ITV show Clive James on Television, but also a prolific novelist, poet and cultural critic and commentator, was diagnosed with leukaemia, kidney failure and lung disease in 2010.” In an interview on BBC Radio 4, he said, “I don’t want to cast a gloom, an air of doom, over the programme but I’m a man who is approaching his terminus.”
Putting The Exorcist Onstage – Without The Money Shots
“A desecrated statue of the Virgin Mary. A forebodingly steep outdoor staircase. A girl whose head twists all the way around her body and emits something thick, green and unpleasant from her mouth.” These are among the famous images we will not be seeing in playwright John Pielmeier’s stage adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel (and not William Friedkin’s film version).