Category: people

“We’re always hearing about the ends of eras, but the recent death of the great actress Setsuko Hara really is the end of an era – the era of the classic Japanese film … Her death at the age of ninety-five, more than fifty years after her voluntary retirement from the screen – and from all public life – still comes as a shock. There’s now no one left of this astounding constellation of talent; and that she was by far the most emblematic figure of the era makes her disappearance reverberate even more strongly.”

“[She] was an acclaimed recitalist as well as oratorio-singer and opera-performer (in which her roles embraced Cherubino, Dorabella, Octavian, Niklaus as well as modern works like her husband, Christian Jost’s Hamlet). She was also a regular recording artist, appearing on, among other projects, Graham Johnson’s Schumann series for Hyperion … and [that label’s] Fauré song series.”

“One of [her] major achievements was the company and school she founded in 1970 in Mexico City … There she showcased a signature style that avoided folk dance but used Mexican composers and motifs to infuse even plotless neo-Classical ballets in leotards with a Mexican sensibility.”

“Ms Caballé, who is 82 years old and has avoided public engagements due to frail health since a stroke in 2012, admitted that she had pretended to reside in the low-tax principality of Andorra when in fact she had continued to live in Barcelona.” While her jail sentence has been suspended, she will pay fines totaling well over a quarter of a million euros.

Tshering Wangyel wrote, directed and shot at least two films a year – and for years carried a portable screen, projector and generator himself to villages throughout the Himalayan kingdom. His Bollywood-meets-Buddhism style ultimately became more popular with Bhutanese audiences than the Indian movies that had dominated the market.

““This business I’m in is very deceptive, in part because people don’t realize what it takes to do this. The body of knowledge that’s involved. Just as I have no idea what it takes to be an astronaut; I’m certainly not applying. But people have no qualms about applying to run a theater, and sometimes these are people who have never been to the theater.”

Truman Capote’s holiday memoir may be more famous, but Lee’s is arguably more heartwarming and certainly more momentous.

“When you are 8, one of the best parts of reading The BFG has to be the delightfully nonsensical words peppered throughout the story. The reader learns that one must not gobblefunk with words, for example, and how a few gollops of frobscottle is really all you need to feel hopscotchy again if you’ve been feeling sad. But the origin story behind the giant’s odd vocabulary is more serious and a little sadder than you might expect.”

“Zürn’s vision as an artist could not have been more pronounced, definitive, a product of great will under duress.”

Davis: “I stumbled onto the best profession to heal my childhood. The only one that lets you release and express whatever is ugly and messy and beautiful about your life. We’re in the business of creating human beings. The more we spew, and the more honestly we do it, the better. Try that on Wall Street. It’s why they throw all the kids with bad behavior into drama. We don’t care how screwed up you are. We actors love it.”