“Argentina is home to the most exciting filmmaking in the world at the moment – and certainly, with the possible exception of South Korea, it is the core site of fresh work by women directors – if the country itself and the new voices emerging from it weren’t so disparate, drawing from European and American influences as well as the history of a Latin American country second only to Brazil in terms of film production. This achievement is amazing, considering the country’s new wave has risen from – and crashed against – economic ruin.”
Tag: 04.21.05
Movie Moguls And Their Outrageous Percs
Shocked by the salaries and percs that big Hollywood stars demand and get? Oh come now. The really outrageous feeding at the trough of greed is done by entertainment company execs whose philosophy seems to be ‘why spend a dollar when you can spend a million?’
Hollywood’s Theatre Drain
“Since the beginning of this year, four of Hollywood’s best and most established small-theaters companies — Open Fist, the Actors’ Gang, West Coast Ensemble and Theatre/Theater — have either been evicted or are considering leaving the Hollywood area due to redevelopment and rising property values. All have resided in Hollywood for years, establishing themselves in marginal neighborhoods. ‘Lip service is paid to the importance of theater and the theater community and yet there’s so little public support and certainly no public assistance’.”
Hollywood Goes To Africa
Has Hollywood discovered Africa? “Africa is almost as much of a ‘dark continent’ for moviegoers today as in the past. There’s a grim irony in this, at a time when headlines about western Sudan are crying out to the world for attention, just as events in Somalia did a dozen years ago. It takes catastrophe of huge proportions to focus American minds on African issues.”
Will Digitization Make Libraries Rethink What They Do?
So Google is going to digitize vast stores of the world’s books. “Most librarians and archivists are ecstatic about the announcement, saying it will likely be remembered as the moment in history when society finally got serious about making knowledge ubiquitous. But some of the same people believe Google’s efforts and others like it will force libraries and librarians to reëxamine their core principles—including their commitment to spreading knowledge freely. Letting a for-profit organization like Google mediate access to library books, after all, could either open up long-hidden reserves of human wisdom or constitute the first step toward the privatization of the world’s literary heritage.”
Just Where Does Sex Belong In Classical Music?
“You could say that classical music has sex on the brain, which, as D H Lawrence said, is a very bad place to have it. Bad or not, it makes for something jarringly out of tune with current notions of sexiness. How on earth can you combine the sublimated, secret yearnings of Brahms’s chamber music with the up-front sexiness of, say, Bond? The short answer is, you can’t. They belong to different worlds. It would be like adding lip gloss to the Mona Lisa.”
ENO’s Mixed Bag
Paul Daniel is leaving as music director of the English National Opera. “It has been eight years of musical and theatrical striving, and the results have ranged from epoch-making highs to disappointing lows. He bows out of ENO conducting the final opera of Wagner’s Ring, a gesture that should be climactically valedictory, but instead seems oddly flat, having been, on the whole, a critical flop.”
Why E.E. Cummings Matters
“In the long revolt against inherited forms that has by now become the narrative of 20th-century poetry in English, no poet was more flamboyant or more recognizable in his iconoclasm than E.E. Cummings. By erasing the sacred left margin, breaking down words into syllables and letters, employing eccentric punctuation, and indulging in all kinds of print-based shenanigans, Cummings brought into question some of our basic assumptions about poetry, grammar, sign, and language itself, and he also succeeded in giving many a typesetter a headache. That said, determining Cummings’ influence and his present stature in the poetry world calls for a more measured view.”
NEA Scales Back Plans For Traveling Exhibition
“The National Endowment for the Arts has scaled back a new initiative to send the best of American culture around the country and is starting with only a tour of visual arts. Earlier plans included dance and music components.” President Bush had asked Congress to approve $18 million for the “American Masterpieces” project, but legislators only appropriated $2 million, necessitating the cuts.
How About A Pope For The Rest of Us?
“For those of us who came to Manhattan precisely because you’re guaranteed never to meet anyone who has read the Left Behind series, America’s much-celebrated spiritual revival can have its trying moments.” But even the jaded and secular Tina Brown has to admit that Catholicism has made itself look awfully alluring over the weeks since the death of Pope John Paul II. But the election of Cardinal Ratzinger has sent what remains of the ‘religious left’ scurrying right back into hiding. “Secularists, humanists and quiet worshipers of an unpoliticized God have felt beleaguered, frustrated and unfairly disrespected. There’s no energy on the non-zealot side of the cultural debate. There’s no Voltaire, no Clarence Darrow, not even a Lenny Bruce to balance the stifling, censorious religiosity.”