Is The British Film Industry Dead?

“It makes no difference how often government ministers and quangos like the UK Film Council talk up the British film industry, it doesn’t exist. Let me repeat that: the British film industry doesn’t exist. It hasn’t existed for more than 30 years. In the past few decades we’ve had some very nice arts ministers, but they’ve been unable to help British films because of the impotence of their departments. The only route to a British film revival is through legislation, but no arts minister has had the power in Cabinet to make this happen – though some have tried.”

Is Modernist Architecture A Mistake?

“The history of modernist architecture is like a highway whose exits are abstract theories about what contemporary architecture should be. Instead of a home for architecture such as it knew when tradition ruled, each exit leads to a dead end. So the architect gets back on the highway to nowhere and heads for the next exit, and the next dead end. The result has been an extreme stylistic instability involving recurring discoveries of new modes of artistic dysfunction. You can’t make a city more beautiful on these terms.”

Will Pills Replace Psychoanalysis?

As we learn more about how the brain works, we are starting to understand how moods and feelings are controlled by brain chemistry. So what happens to pschoanalysis – talk therapy – that has been popular since Freud? “Advances in neurology, and especially in pharmacology, have called such therapy into question. When psychological and emotional disturbances can be traced to faulty brain chemistry and corrected with a pill, the idea that sitting and talking can treat a problem such as clinical depression might seem outdated.”

Opera North Embarks On Rebuilding

The UK’s Opera North is about to be ousted from its house for a year while the building is upgraded. “The £31.5m, two-phase renovation and building project involves, in the first instance, construction of rehearsal rooms and an overhaul of the auditorium. The second phase will see the 19th-century Assembly Rooms, next to the theatre, converted into a public space that will serve as a recital hall and room for education work.”

Remaking Denver

Denver is remaking itself “combining an old pragmatism with an intensifying progressive bent. Some longtime residents are worried the large flock of newcomers are reshaping Denver to resemble the coastal cities they left behind, while others celebrate the new push toward public transit and a vibrant downtown.”

Predock To Design $300 Million Human Rights Museum

Architect Antoine Predock has been chosen to design the new Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg. “The $300-million museum aims to be the largest human-rights institution and education centre in the world. Scheduled to open in 2009 or 2010, the museum will be built at the historic Forks site in Winnipeg, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers.”

Beleaguered Muti In New York

Riccardo Muti goes to New York to conduct the New York Philharmonic. At the end of rehearsal he spoke to musicians: “He made no specific mention of Milan, but the fabulous, brilliant and sometimes imperious Muti dropped whatever guard he had, and told the musicians how good they had been to work with, and how much he looked forward to their working together in the future.”