dirac

I take the point but almost any movie, no matter how enthusiastic, that depicts young children performing and competing under circumstances of such intense pressure is going to present material of ambiguous import. Dargis was pointing out that the movie makes no mention of the level of YAGP’s involvement in the project. I expect that wasn’t an issue at the Maryinsky.....

Regarding Freud and "Bright Star" - good point about Freud, Drew. I found "Bright Star" much better than expected (link to discussion here) and it's by no means an Austen knockoff, although that was a perfectly reasonable surmise on your part - and perhaps the overlap in period helped Jane Campion to get the project off the ground, now that I think about it. ("Becoming Jane" is closer in approach to some of the historical fiction we're discussing here and it is a bit Georgette Heyer, freely taking liberties with the known facts. Wasn't a bad little movie, though.)

Neryssa, all of this is to some extent subjective but it's quite easy for reviewers to misread books. I've read reviews of books that were inaccurate in large ways and small. When one is dealing with fiction then the subjectivity factor comes into much greater play, but it's still perfectly possible for a critic to be completely off base.

Thanks, cubanmiamiboy. Sounds like a depressing evening, I fear. Tell us more about the play. How were the voiceovers used, for example?

Given the extensive input YAGP had over the content of the film, it would be strange if they were not pleased: Manohla Dargis' review, also in the Times: Also:

I agree, Drew...at a certain age Newman was almost inhumanly perfect. I also agree that decorum probably prohibits a "hottest" discussion, a much more subjective category, although in terms of sheer heat generated from the screen it just has to be Brando...oops, so much for decorum. True, Quiggin, Newman was never in the same league as an actor as Clift or Brando and he'd be the first to admit it, I expect. (Another one of his jokes was about the actor whose career collapsed overnight when his eyes turned brown.) In the early years he could be downright wooden and I didn't think he was wholly successful as a character actor later on. But he was a skilled film actor and a very great star. I wouldn't class Dean with Clift or Brando in terms of talent, although he was still very young, and in many respects I'd say Brando stands alone. Tennessee Williams thought the advent of the Brando phenomenon contributed to Clift's personal decline and he may have been on to something. I think there was room for both of them but perhaps Clift didn't feel that way.

Hm. I'm not sure this is an accolade any of the gentlemen in the poll would be terribly interested in receiving. Like Quiggin I do find our options a bit limited (here's a link to an earlier thread with a related discussion). I wouldn't agree that Newman is too late or not pretty enough, though. He was quite fetching in his debut, The Silver Chalice, the picture that caused him to vow publicly never to take another role that required him to wear a cocktail dress. Newman was about the same age as Brando and only about five years older than Dean, and indeed the untimely demise of the latter gave his career a boost when Newman assumed the lead in Somebody Up There Likes Me that was planned for Dean. Often the prettiest boys in the era under discussion, which I take to be the Fifties, were not nearly as talented and/or famous (or their period of time at the top was brief)............

Morris entertains the audience in a post-performance Q&A in Santa Barbara.

His head is a little small for his body, I think - unusual among movie stars, where usually those proportions are reversed -- and his still-boyish looks can be a problem for his credibility, J. Edgar being the latest example. I don't think of him as a heartthrob but he's a very good actor. Like him or no, there's no question that his appeal fueled much of the repeat business that made Titanic great box office. Also, it's easy to see why Rose likes him - he shows courage and comes to her rescue but there's nothing threatening or oppressive about his kind of masculinity. (I remember Russell Baker complaining at the time that he didn't have any masculinity.)

It was a gamble back then for Cameron to go with relative unknowns from indie pictures for his leads and it paid off for him (and them) big time. He chose well - two of the most talented young actors around and of course DiCaprio's appeal for girls contributed to a lot of the picture's financial success. DiCaprio and Winslet made "Revolutionary Road" together. An interesting choice for them and it's well worth seeing.

I wasn't speaking to the particular suitability of "This American Life" for television but the general desirability of having your show on television. I used it as a random example of a show moving to TV.( I've never been a regular follower of the show in any format, having only listened to the radio show a few times and the TV series twice, by accident.) I am a regular viewer of PBS, so I do hope the performing arts don't cut the cord any time soon....

I would think from most (not all) perspectives a successful show on the networks or cable remains for the present at least as desirable a platform as a podcast, but it could be me.

I wasn't commenting on the suitability of "This American Life" for TV, although I quite agree with you on that point (I suspect the show would have lasted longer on HBO, say, which tends to give its failing shows more than two seasons unless it features racehorses that keep dropping dead). I merely meant that the creators of a series would still prefer to get on television in whatever way if that's an option for them. "This American Life" would never have made it to the networks but I expect those behind the series would have been thrilled if it could.

Broadcast TV faces challenges, to be sure, but it's not breathing its last just yet although certainly that could happen. "This American Life" lasted only a couple of seasons on Showtime but I expect they'd still prefer to be there if they could. Yes, indeed.

It certainly wouldn't be worth it if Ovation is all you want - that's IMO, others may disagree. But I rarely watch the channel, the programming is just not that great. (That said, bundling is still generally cheaper for the consumer - for the most part it would be prohibitively expensive to pick and choose channels individually.) Adding to my previous post that it's not that I don't see your point, Kathleen. Certainly the performing arts do have to look to the new media as well.

Thank you, California. Exactly. I also note that even for people with more money, cable isn't exactly picking up the slack, even the channels like Ovation that are ostensibly devoted to arts programming (and the frequent and long commercial breaks make the shows almost unwatchable for this viewer).

I would have to disagree and quite strongly. That time may come but it is not yet. Not everyone has broadband, not everyone gets to the theater at 10 am on Saturday or a weeknight (assuming the theater feeds are even making it to your area). PBS is still public television -- for everyone. You don't need cable, you don't need internet access, just a TV. The performing arts community should continue to have a presence there. People are still watching PBS, including older people, and they're not dead yet and they give money. We also don't know how people's habits may change as they age or how the technology will change.

It's done.

Yes. It's a perfectly legitimate genre. One or another may not like it, a famous and controversial example being Styron's "The Confessions of Nat Turner" -- but it's done all the time and frequently done well. I don't have a problem with liberties taken with the history, depending, obviously, on how far they go and what they are; again, this is is something that the novel form allows the writer to do and on occasion may compel him to do in order to provide shape to the narrative. I did wonder about a recent effort that took Laura Bush as subject, who is obviously very much alive even if she is a public figure. Thanks for that, Quiggin.

Gotcha. Haven't read those. "Lincoln" isn't narrated by anyone. The story is told through the eyes of John Hay, one of Lincoln's secretaries. Very different book, in tone, approach, and I would say intent, from "Burr," which is lively and irreverent. He used Charlie Schuyler again for "1876." And I now recall that Charlie's mistress in "Burr" was the unfortunate and quite non-fictional Helen Jewett. But I digress....

Yes, I forgot Charlie. Nonetheless, substantial passages of the book are related in the first person by Burr. (The choice not to use the first person allows Vidal to elide those episodes in Burr's life where we don't know quite what went on, among other things; I rather doubt he employed the device of Charlie because he had any special qualms about getting inside Burr's head.) Another good one, "The Persian Boy," by Mary Renault, qualifies for your third person requirement, but not quite, because the Persian boy of the title is also a historical figure. Offhand I can't think of too many novels of the type we're discussing that would fulfill your requirement perfectly.....of which titles were you thinking?

As I probably mentioned upthread, it seems to me the whole point of choosing the novel form is to allow the writer the freedom to engage in such imaginings.( "Burr," which not only doesn't employ a fictional third party but assumes the first person, is a particular favorite of mine.)

From The Wall Street Journal. Hanging in there.

For the record, "The Sun Also Rises" is a roman à clef, not The Master's Muse, which is more along the lines of the Irving Stone novels mentioned earlier in this thread (and could be regarded part of a contemporary trend with female public figures as subjects). I brought up the former to point out that "violations of privacy" by novelists are nothing new and from what I understand of O'Connor's treatment, hers seems respectful enough, whereas some of Hemingway's friends got the back of his hand.

I'm not sure how Brubach could properly undertake such a project, given how she described Le Clercq's zeal for privacy in her article and the objections she raised to O'Connor's effort, but perhaps I'm missing something. If there are in fact no objections to the book on principle but only to the fact of O'Connor's being an "outsider" and therefore unworthy and/or unqualified then it's hard to see what all the fuss is about.