Ever since Alexis de Toqueville’s famous American road trip, French writers have been obsessed with deciphering America. French author Bernard-Henri Lévy has spent much of the past couple of years traveling the U.S. in an effort to get a read on the world’s most powerful nation that would ring true to both Americans and Europeans. But one of America’s foremost cultural assessors, the author and radio host Garrison Keillor, has some serious bones to pick with Lévy’s methods, and with his conclusions. “You meet Sharon Stone and John Kerry and a woman who once weighed 488 pounds and an obese couple carrying rifles, but there’s nobody here whom you recognize. [Eventually,] it dawns on you that this is a book about the French.”
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Indie Film Gets Its Own Caste System
This year’s edition of the Sundance Festival has cast a interesting light of some major changes taking place in the world of indie film. “A new class division appears to be defining the indie market, according to agents, producers and buyers, with the so-called mini-majors — most of them owned by the big studios — now mainly pursuing independent movies with the potential to earn substantial money at the box office, while leaving to smaller ‘micro-distributors’ the many titles that could well turn a profit, but at a much lower price.”
Selling The Sellers So You’ll Buy The Sale
Sotheby’s had a rough time of it this past week when it attempted to auction off an impressive array of still lifes and landscapes from the house’s “old masters” department. “Only half the offerings sold, bringing in a total of $5 million, below the $7 million-to-$10 million presale estimate. This was, however, only a small portion of two days of back-to-back old-master auctions at Sotheby’s, Thursday and yesterday, which brought more than $70 million.” So what makes one auction a success and another a failure? It’s about far more than the quality of the art.
What About Frey’s Enablers?
“In all of the attention focused on James Frey and his book “A Million Little Pieces” in recent weeks, two main characters in the drama — Mr. Frey’s literary agent and the book’s editor — have largely escaped scrutiny. But [this weekend,] a number of people in the publishing business suggested it was time for Kassie Evashevski, Mr. Frey’s agent, and Sean McDonald, who edited both A Million Little Pieces and Mr. Frey’s follow-up, My Friend Leonard, to talk about their roles in selling and shaping the books.”
Who’s Responsible?
James Frey is only the latest in along string of authors and memoirists recently exposed for fabricating all or part of their supposedly non-fiction work. But how much responsibility should a publisher bear for fact-checking such works? After all, memoirs are by definition works of personal memory, and as such, are often difficult to verify. Still, some literary agents and publishers are saying that the Frey Affair has been a major wake-up call for the industry.
Art As Black Market Collateral
As prices for contemporary art sold at auction have spiralled out of control, the number of major art heists has been rising as well, and there’s a very real connection between the two events. “Art is often stolen for use as collateral in arms and drugs deals or as a commodity that can be exchanged between criminal organisations… Art works often circulate in criminal networks… for years, only turning up by chance when police raids aimed at other illegal activities uncover them. But it is not uncommon for insurance companies to pay a ransom for the return of valuable works, and this underpins their value as illicit goods.”
Bringing Mozart Home
Thousands gathered on Friday in Salzburg, Austria, for the culmination of the worldwide celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Vienna Philharmonic performed, with Riccardo Muti on the podium and mezzo Cecilia Bartoli standing in for the hastily dismissed Renee Fleming. “There is much around Salzburg at the moment that smacks of unabashed exploitation of a composer whose relationship with it was, to put it mildly, ambivalent. But these concerts seemed to be genuine efforts to do right by the essence of Mozart.”
Getty Museum Director In Rome For Talks With Government
New Getty Museum director Michael Brand has this week’s reopening of the Getty Villa on his plate. But he’s not in LA. He’s in Italy meeting with Italian culture minister Rocco Buttiglione to discuss contested items in the Getty’s collection. “The Getty’s objective is to develop a fuller sense of all the evidence available regarding the objects in question. We want to be in a better position to continue our dialogue with the Italian government.”
Warning Labels – Truth In Memoirism?
The publisher of Augusten Burroughs’s “Possible Side Effects: True Stories”, has added a disclaimer sticker to the book’s cover: “Author’s Note: Some of the events described happened as related, others were expanded and changed. Some of the individuals portrayed are composites of more than one person and many names and identifying characteristics have been changed as well.”
Bloodless “Lestat” Might Die In SF
The new musical “Lestat”, based on Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles,” is in trouble in its San Francisco run, and might not make it to Broadway. “A production source says Warner Bros., which is producing the $12 million musical, has told the creative team that, unless the changes are sweeping and effective, the lid on the ‘Lestat’ coffin will be hammered shut in San Francisco.”