Robert Redford gives the annual Nancy Hanks Lecture at the Kennedy Center Tuesday night. Redford “the iconoclast, the Hollywood director who founded the Sundance Institute to raise new generations of filmmakers outside the corrupting influence of the studios and commerce, has the most sweetly arcane ideas about art and artists. He believes, for instance, that art is good for the soul, that it can keep kids off the streets, and that it can correct the ill drift of society. He knows Hollywood puts money before art, but is consoled by the fact that without art they can’t make money. He’s also impatient with efforts to silence artists, with the ridicule heaped upon those who express political views when they should know that such talk is better left to highly paid, professional, partisan political pundits.”
Tag: 09.10.03
Barnes & Noble Closes Down Its E-book Business
BarnesandNoble.com was one of the biggest boosters of e-books. But the company has shut down its e-book division. “BN.com’s decision comes at a time when e-book sales are reported to be steadily growing, the number of retail outlets for e-books is increasing and a host of new reading devices are entering the market. It was BN.com, in collaboration with Microsoft, that led the push to sell e-books when it launched an e-book superstore in 2000.”
Another Try At Reinventing The Chicago Theatre
The “storied but troubled” 3,800-seat Chicago Theater has been the scene of many failed attempts to make it profitable. A new deal would transform the theatre into a “center for the performing arts active 200 nights a year.”
Art Of The Pitch – It’s Still About A Good Idea
The Toronto Film Festival holds a movie pitch competition, in which filmmakers present pitches for movies they’d like to make. Some of the presentations are incredibly elaborate. But this year’s winner had a more modest pitch. Demian Resnick “didn’t wear a costume, as did two filmmakers who wore gaudy prom dresses while pitching a project about growing up in the 1980s. And Resnick didn’t have any pre-filmed scenes, like a filmmaker from Vancouver used in pitching her idea for a comedy vehicle for former SCTV star Dave Thomas and his brother Ian. Instead, Resnick just stood under a spotlight and earnestly read his cards.”
In Canada – 30 Percent More Artists… And Increased Funding
The number of artists in Canada has grown 30 percent in the past decade. “The Canada Council’s government funding has increased almost 70 per cent in the past seven years, reversing the effects of several years of deep cuts. More money, more grants; more grants, more art: Art lovers should rejoice at the news, shouldn’t they?”
Goading Kakutani
A few years back , novelist Leslie Epstein tried to goad New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani into reviewing his book by buying tiny text ads in the Times (“YOO-HOO! MY CUTE KAKUTANI!-Leib Goldkorn is calling” read one). It didn’t work. Indeed, Kakutani got the paper to stop running them. So now Epstein has a new book out and this week he got word that Kakutani was reviewing it…
Leni Riefenstahl’s Packed 101 Years
“Her most perceptive critics paint a picture of Miss Riefenstahl as a female Faust, who made a pact with Hitler in order to fulfill professional ambitions. So spectacularly did she use slow-motion photography and telephoto lenses, so dramatically did she wed inspirational music to inspirational image, that Miss Riefenstahl created the grammar of the sports movie, influencing the way TV sports events and movies such as Chariots of Fire were framed and shot.”
Me-Too-itis
Books seem to arrive in flocks these days. “Name any high-profile subject and you can pretty much bet that if one house is publishing a book on it, another house won’t be far behind. Much of the time, competing titles on the same topic appear within weeks of each other.”
Dia:Beacon – Mindless Optimism?
Hilton Kramer doesn’t like much about the new Dia:Beacon building (or the art inside). “Most of the art in the Dia:Beacon collection requires huge amounts of space. Yet notwithstanding the gargantuan quantities of art that Dia:Beacon easily accommodates, so vast are its exhibition spaces that the place itself strikes the visitor as sterile and forlorn. Visitors wander about its endless interior with vacant stares and silent lips—not so much looking at the art as looking for it, even when they are in its immediate physical presence. Sooner or later, they are found huddling together for succor around the abundant wall texts, which, although easily read, tend to be even more confounding than the objects and spaces they are meant to illuminate.”
Twelve-Year-Old Settles Download Suit
The mother of the 12-year-old music downloader sued by the recording industry has paid to settle the suit. “Brianna LaHara, of New York, was one of 261 people served with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA). She has admitted swapping music online, and her mother has agreed to pay $2,000 to settle the case.”