Architect Daniel Libeskind says seeing Hitchcock’s “North By Northwest” changed his life. “Seeing people climb on George Washington’s nose and hang from the eyebrows of Teddy Roosevelt formed my eternal image of America, with all of its grandeur and illusion. Alfred Hitchcock captured me and took me on a journey into the adventure and unimaginable beauty of the sublime American continent. The movie is a testament to the visual power of film.”
Blog
A Place For Profile
In the “snail-paced, under-funded world of dance”, the launch of the new Place dance prize choreographic competition has been big news. It was originally the brainchild of John Ashford, director of the Place in London, who for years has been plotting to organise a high-profile prize for the art form. It wasn’t just the cash he was after – ‘though dance is still the Cinderella art form and always needs new money’ – but the recognition.”
Guantanamo In NY
Gillian Slovo’s play about Guantánamo detainees was controversial in London – so how would it play in New York? “For a novelist who has not previously written for the theatre, New York did seem rather unbelievable, and, it has to be confessed, not a little frightening. This is a play, after all, that centres on British Asians or British Islamic converts, people who had all got caught up in the events that followed the obliteration of the Twin Towers. How would Americans deal with it?”
Guillem – The Prima Diva At (Almost) 40
Royal Ballet star Silvie Guillem is almost 40. She’s “difficult, it is said, known for being arrogant and argumentative. She stormed out of the Paris Opera following fights with Rudolf Nureyev and took off for the Royal Ballet, where she had more rows, this time with Kenneth MacMillan. She said no to an amazing number of parts and, even where she said yes, she refused to do them in the usual ways or wearing the costumes that other people provided.”
Film-Festivals-Fit-All
These days there’s a film festival for every taste. “The big festivals, Sundance (ski bums and L.A. players), Toronto (largely sold out before it starts) and Cannes (essentially a massive scrum of 3,500 journalists), mean congestion in the streets, lineups for everything and a hierarchy of press, industry and VIPs that can overwhelm a mere film lover. Add the logistics of getting tickets, getting into the theatre — never mind a party — and the bigger fests can start to feel suspiciously like work. Fortunately, for someone willing to travel, there are so many festivals that there is an almost endless choice of alternatives.”
Get Shorty
Every year hundreds of short films are made. But aside from landing on the lineups of film festivals, shorts are rarely seen in movie theatres. “So why then, do so many Canadian filmmakers continue to produce them in such numbers? The answer is as complex and varied as the films themselves.”
Escapism vs. Confrontation
As America steamrolls towards a vitally important presidential election with bitter recriminations flying on all sides and wild-eyed fury replacing measured discourse, Philip Kennicott sees a distinct split in the art world, mirroring the polarization of the U.S. population. “The arts are sorting themselves out into two camps: one that prizes independence, provocation and even direct political engagement, and another that offers a refuge apart from controversy and argument. They are, in short, diverging down either a secessionist path (come with us, if you will) or a concessionist route (we will work to please as many as we can). Both paths have their promise and their danger.”
How Malcom Rogers Transformed The MFA
Outside of the Guggenheim’s Thomas Krens, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts director Malcom Rogers is probably the most controversial museum director in America. When Rogers took the job, he inherited an institution in considerable distress. He’s made changes, big changes. “There’s something so fundamentally annoying to the museum profession about the efforts to break the academy walls down and kind of rethink the role of great art museums in America. They’re so concerned about these fake, institutional standards that I don’t think these people ever look at Malcolm clearly. They immediately have glasses on that blind them to the end product, which I think is a healthy MFA.”
Malcom Rogers: Art Of The MFA
“There have been great shows during the Rogers reign. The Gaugin and Rembrandt shows of this past season are perfect examples. You couldn’t ask for more excellent exhibitions anywhere in the world. But there have also been some that seem the result of not wanting to spend the time or money to do right by the subject.”
Is Theater The Liberal Answer To Talk Radio?
British theater is unapologetically political at the moment, and plays satirizing the Bush and Blair governments are wildly popular with UK audiences frustrated by the unresponsiveness of their leaders to public sentiment. But so far, the newly activist theater community has coalesced entirely around one point of view – the liberal one – and no one in the theater community seems to have a problem with that. Still, with some theaters beginning to blend political fact with Orwellian ideological fiction, the liberal dominance of activist theater is sparking debate in critical circles.