Petra

Ninel Kurgapkina Antoinette Sibley or Lynn Seymour?

That's quite the understatement, dirac, given that a good portion of humanity celebrated the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ last week.

bart, you wrote That's exactly what I meant, but you said it much better. In 'The Children of Men' James invented a world whose texture is even more tragic than our own (for most of us, anyway). I think she succeeded because her touch is so delicate. The movie was much more emphatic and therefore needed to end on a much less ambiguous note than the book.

I just finished reading "Engleby" by Sebastian Faulks. It was paced very well, so I didn't stop reading it, but I didn't enjoy it much either. The title character and narrator is a disaffected young man, and I didn't feel that the book had anything new to say that hadn't been said in earlier books like John Fowles' "The Collector". It is the first Faulks book I've read, and for some reason I was expecting more

I thought this was a very outspoken interview considering Part hasn't even left ABT yet. I feel very bad for Part. I know from experience how very difficult it can be to move to the US. On the other hand, even if no-one was doing much hand-holding, by now she should have learnt that Americans love people who can make lemonade from lemons.

In what movie was that? I remember her as the Queen in Jarman's "Edward II", but not as Elizabeth.

dirac, I think you are too easy on 'The Other Boleyn Girl'. Given the A-list cast and the huge amount of publicity this movie is getting, it really should be more than a garden-variety bodice ripper. Of course, having read the novel, I don't think it will be more than that. By the way, has anyone seen the British TV adaptation of 'The Other Boleyn Girl' with Natascha McElhone as Mary? So different from Johanssen.

This is a fascinating discussion. Thank you , Natalia, for bringing it up and thank you to all the responders for your detailed and passionate responses. I think that outside Japan, there is the impression that Japan is a ballet wonderland, so it is illuminating to read the Japanese perspective. I understand from naomikage that there are no state subsidies for ballet. Is this true for other arts? Are symphony orchestras subsidised? Are Japanese classical arts subsidised or is everything private?

I'm not sure what the answer - or whether there is an answer - to the question whether fashion and architecture are art or craft, but I do know that there has to be craft (or technique, if you prefer) before it can become art. There is no point whatsoever in a beautiful building if it doesn't facilitate and advance the purpose of the building, whether it's a residence, place of worship, library, etc. I also question fashion that only looks good on people with certain figures, in this day it is usually those with elongated and attenuated figures. One of the primary purposes of clothes is to flatter and beautify the person wearing the clothes, so if a designer is incapable of perfecting his craft to suit multiple bodyshapes, he isn't a very good designer (in my humble opinion). By the way, this discussion should probably distinguish between wearable works of art and haute couture. The work of Hussein Chalayan for example is art but it isn't necessarily haute couture.

Thanks, dirac. I've managed to get the hang of the 'quotes' but not of the 'links'... I loved Scheider in 'All That Jazz'. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that the scene where he gets up, can't move, swallows a bunch of pills, snaps his fingers and says 'It's showtime, folk' has always been a source of great inspiration to me - especially before job interviews. I never knew he was supposed to get de Niro's role in 'The Deer Hunter'. That would have been a very different movie. Scheider's persona has/had a lot more vulnerability than de Niro.

dirac, how does "The Savages" compare with "Away from Her"? That's also about a family coping with Alzheimer's, but I think that the focal point in "Away from Her" is the relationship between lucid husband and ill wife. Oh, and I know it was a long time ago, but Laura Linney was pretty gorgeous in "The Truman Show".

Unlikely. The socio-economic models of the US and Venezuela are pretty far apart.

Fascinating topic. Thanks, dirac, for bringing it to our attention. I think D. Nabokov is in a very tough position. His mother was the original executor of the estate and she should have destroyed the index cards / manuscript. By failing to do so, V. Nabokov made it clear that she considered that the index cards should not be destroyed. D. Nabokov is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Edited to add: The V. Nabokov I referred to is Vera, and not Vladimir. carbro, the article doesn't make it clear where and how Nabokov made it clear that he wanted the document destroyed. Do you know for sure that this request was part of a legally enforceable will?

And any prediction on the coaching of Watermill? According to the NYCB website, the ballet is as much "Eddie's" as it is "Jerry's". The marketing team (or whoever makes up the program names) have outdone themselves this time: All German and Some Tharp, Generation Next (the choreographer and all the composers on this program are dead!), French Cuisine (nothing to do with food, they really meant French Chic but decided that a one syllable word just wouldn't cut it)...

I recently saw this on cable and couldn't agree more with dirac's statement I haven't followed her musical career at all, but I now look out for her L'Oreal and AmEx endorsements.

And how about Anne Boleyn? You may all laugh at me but I am very partial to Genevieve Bujold in "Anne of a Thousand Days". I didn't like the book 'The Other Boleyn Girl' and I think Natalie Portman is a little miscast in period pieces, but I'll be interested to see what she does with Anne later this year. Scarlett Johanssen as her sexy, flighty sister should be well cast...

Because she still behaves like an ingenue, even though those days are long long long gone for her.

SanderO, you have made me feel very old at this moment because I never thought I would live to see the day that I would take exception to the phrase "Capitalism can ruin anything". Of course, the Academy Awards are about money and very big money at that. However, they are the symptom and not the problem. The problem is the bizarre business model practised by the US movie business, which means that in mainstream cinemas you see extremely short runs of a very limited number of movies, the blockbusters and only the blockbusters. Everyone is focussed on the first weekend, and if a movie doesn't make whatever is deemed to be enough that first weekend, then it is a 'flop' and removed. In this environment, there is no way for word-of-mouth or even for critical reviews to influence the audience. Marketing is also focussed only on the blockbusters. The award ceremonies and the film festivals have become almost the only way for smaller, non-blockbuster movies to publicise themselves. In fact, I think that in recent years, the award ceremonies (for film, not for TV) have celebrated relatively more 'esoteric' films than they used to, because the industry as a whole has dumbed down and nowadays the block-busters do not get to the Golden Globes, Academy Awards, etc. There are trashy movies in every country with a film industry. Being American, you just haven't seen them.

I'm going to wait and see if there will be a red carpet and acceptance speeches before I start analysing and making bets. I totally agree. This category used to be for the old, the young and the ugly - and that's how it should be.

I am very - almost unaccountably - saddened by this news. I was a fan of Heath Ledger as far back as 10 Things I Hate About You, an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew with Julia Stiles set in a modern-day high school. He was part of a virtuoso cast in Brokeback Mountain. He seemed to be willing to put his good looks aside for the sake of his art, something that is not usually required of young men.

I'm reading P.D. James' "The Children of Men". I saw the film adaptation on DVD last week and was so impressed that I immediately went to the library and took out the original novel. The book is written very well and is very engaging, as would be expected from James, but I'm having a hard time reading it for its own sake. The book is different from the movie in so many ways - plot details, physical setting, some aspects are more dramatic/dystopian in the movie and others are more dramatic/dystopian in the novel - and I find that I keep on comparing the two. Anyone else have this experience with this book or with others?

Over the last few years, mainly but not solely due to the internet, ballet dancers have become more and more visible and become more and more active in promoting themselves and their companies. A significant example is thewinger.com, which hosts a multitude of participants, writing on a very irregular basis about their activities, primarily professional activities. I know that a number of company websites like PNB have sections with dancer contributions. Other prominent extracurricular initiatives that I can think of are Kurt Froman's beautiful photo-book In The Wings and I know that a couple of NYCB dancers are filming a Jerome Robbins ballet, but I can't remember the details off the top of my head. I admit to having mixed feelings about some of these endeavors. On the one hand, I feel these extra-curriculars are an incredible opportunity for the audience to gain exposure to the dancers, especially the corps de ballet dancers. It is pretty amazing to read The Winger and to be able to gain some insight into a company like ABT from both a principal’s perspective and a corp dancer. It is also very generous for a company to support its dancers in this way, especially as there can’t be any immediate financial gain for the company. On the other hand, there is a distinct feeling that there is an invisible hand behind these independent projects. It is quite remarkable to compare Toni Bentley’s Winter Season to Froman’s book. Froman is a much happier person than Bentley was when she danced for NYCB, but interestingly her version preserves and even glorifies the romantic view of ballet. In Peter Martins’ preface to In The Wings (I can’t imagine Balanchine writing a preface to Winter Season), Martins writes that Froman has a unique perspective as he was “embedded†in the company. And for me, that’s how a lot of the web-sites and postings read: they give the official position, almost the party line. I don’t mean this as a personal attack on any one. This critique is also a critique of the zeitgeist and of the role of the internet. Today we are all individuals and we are all unique, but just as bellcurving academic grades shows us that in a world where everyone is an A student, there are no truly A students, so in a world where everyone is unique, no-one is truly unique. This post is kind of a continuation to the discussion to the audience-building thread, but as I had so much to say and it is off topic, I decided to open a new thread.

Maybe this is why I have felt that Depp has been playing the same character for the last few years. He started out as an electrifying actor - oddly unique yet chameleon-like, but he has been phoning it in more or less since Sleepy Hollow. (I sat out the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, so I don't know what I may have missed with that epic.)

I'm reading "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman, the first novel in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy. A good marketing slogan would be "Harry Potter for the thinking person". So far, it's good but not great. Due to my time constraints, I'm reading a chapter a day which is not optimal for this kind of adventure-fantasy.

My sincere condolences. Just a few hours before Jennifer's fatal crash, I drove the same road in the opposite direction. I was very relieved to get home as it was a very dangerous evening for driving. So sad that Jennifer and others did not get home that night.