dirac

Thanks for reporting back, miliosr and koshka. Fashion magazines tend to have an uncommonly high number of ads because in essence the articles are just excuses for the ads, and indeed many of the features include blatant plugs for the advertisers. That's fashion. However, a lot of the most striking photography is done for the ads, as well, so without them there wouldn't be that much to read. VOGUE does come up with some genuinely interesting articles occasionally, but the ads are the raison d'etre of the magazine.

The Swiss arrest Roman Polanski.

The heads up is much appreciated, atm711. This sounds like a fascinating read.

Alex Ross zaps the new Tosca. They seem to cost a lot of money, though. It will be interesting to see how that all works out.

Thanks for posting, Ray, and let us know your thoughts once you've started the book. I too would be interested in hearing from anyone who's read it.

Maybe the great and the awful. I've gone back and forth to it over the years many times since I've first seen it. It's the diamondback snake in Godard's bestiary of films according to Manny Farber, with its long tracking shots and "ping pong" pans, its "snakes and funerals" cinemascope aspect ratio. And it's got Fritz Lang and amarillo-back Casa Malaparte and the red Alfa Romeo well before "the Graduate." It's the source of Barbara Kruger's "approprated" "When I hear the word culture, I take out my checkbook." You know, Quiggin, I almost went back and changed my wording to 'great and awful' and then I didn't get around to it. You could be right about Moravia-Morante, although I always assumed that the Karina-Godard bustup was one of the subjects of Contempt. (Of course, it could be it just happened around the same time.) I thought Godard was cribbing his landscapes and aspect ratio from Antonioni, the caricature of the vulgarian American producer would have been Too Much from a hundred yards, and the best things about it were Lang and the Alfa Romeo. On the other hand, Coutard does some of his best work, and much of the film is gorgeous to look at. I need to see it again. It didn't help that the relationship between Piccoli and Bardot reminded me of the husband and wife in the Monty Python "Marriage Counselor" sketch.

She was Balanchine's closest friend in the company in his last years, which didn't hurt. Her body was athletic, with un-ballerina like chunky muscles from her early training, and she probably would have a hard time getting hired today. She was shown to best advantage in the roles Balanchine custom made for her (I think the tally was one new role a year all through the seventies until Balanchine took sick, a remarkable run) and without her experiments like Variations pour une porte et un soupir probably wouldn't have happened. On video she looks good in Stravinsky Violin Concerto, a role in which Balanchine exploits her unusual qualities brilliantly, and very beautiful as one half of the principal couple in Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze, I think. The Emeralds is bad, though. She was resented by some observers because she took over a lot of Farrell roles during the latter's exile and the consensus, which is probably correct, was that she wasn't much of a replacement, although she worked very hard. I remember with amusement von Aroldingen telling Robert Tracy that their styles weren't very similar. "I had more elevation. She never had elevation."

I agree with bart that the Zeffirelli Turandot was ghastly, but I liked this Tosca -- and have good thoughts for Zeffirelli because of the Tosca he did for Callas back when. He seems to have done a splendid job by the opera and his diva. He's got an axe to grind, of course, but Zeffirelli may have a point about Luc Bondy, too.

Enlightening thought. As usual bart, you give me something to think about (not to mention your balanced perspective). Very true. Nice to hear from you, Sandy.

I'm inclined to agree, kfw, although as richard53dog notes, there is bound to be some rejiggering. One wishes that people would remember the adage that if it ain't broke...... Thanks for telling us your reactions, YID. I hope others will, as well.

Thanks, Mashinka. It struck me as I was thinking about it that I could think of very few classic movies that either woman had appeared in. El Cid with Charlton Heston and Loren comes to mind - it s a visually impressive film, underrated, (and Loren is visually impressive in it - so is Heston). Two Women was good. That's about all I can think of offhand, perhaps others can name more. Given the length of Loren's career it's not much, when you think about it. Contempt is a film I go back and forth about, it's that Godard combination of good and awful. There's more, alas:

Not well received, evidently. Would be interested to hear from BTers who see the production.

True. But then I wouldn't be surprised if something like "High Extensions - Grrrr!' wasn't a stand-alone topic at one point or another.

I think one's love for a dancer is often very "personal and subjective" and what I enjoy about this thread topic, especially if one sticks to it very strictly (which turns out not to be that easy), is that it isn't about garden variety disagreements. Rather, it's a chance to come out of the closet if you thought Ulanova was a bad actress or Fonteyn an overrated Aurora or Sibley and Dowel a mismatched partnership... NOT the place to debate whether Yvonne Borree is up to the demands of the Balanchine repertory. At the same time, it's useful to recall that our evaluation of dancers (not just love or aversion, but evaluation) isn't solely personal and subjective -- objections to Makarova's tempos may be a matter of taste to some degree, but her tempos were often super slow and one could have a reasonable argument about what impact that had on the the interpretation of different roles. You can't make me dislike Makarova --one of my all time favorites--but you can explain to me why her dancing felt artistically unsatisfying to you in some respects and explain it in such a way that I can "see" what you mean regarding tempos and how they may have distorted choreography. And, on the other hand, I can try to explain what is inventive or intriguing about a particular musical choice she made or why I think it worked interpretively. That type of argument is a little different from 'agreeing to disagree' though in the end one may just agree to disagree as a matter of courtesy or respect . . . or getting off the internet. What comes through in the discussion as well is that some evaluations, like some matters of personal taste, are inflected by particular traditions of training, choreography, and presentation -- also not simply a personal or subjective matter. Still, when the subject is "dancers that everyone loved but that you didn't," taking the word "everyone" pretty seriously, then the discussion is bound to have more than a dash of purely personal taste mixed in... Wonderful post, Drew. Thank you. The distinction between 'love and aversion' and 'evaluation' is worth remembering not only for the purposes of this thread but in many discussions on BT.

I think high extensions weren't too popular on BT back then, either, Hans. Any other updates for 'vulgar,' or elaborations on old complaints?

Thank you for posting, leonid. Very few actors are ‘forced’ into retirement – the pattern is that the offers begin to slow, or become less attractive. For actresses, this process generally kicks in around forty or thereabouts. Respectfully, leonid, I never said otherwise. I meant that Bardot and Loren don’t pop up on my personal radar screen because the foreign language movies of the era that captured my attention usually don’t feature them – I’ve seen a lot of Deneuve, Karina, Vitti, Ullmann, et al. but not much of Bardot or Loren. Very true – she wasn’t ‘done up’ in the manner of the time, and her hair had an impact similar to Brando’s T-shirt.

It's not a silly question at all, innopac, and indeed the question arises regularly on BT, in this old thread for instance, and if you type 'vulgar' into the search engine quite a few others will pop up. The word tends to attach itself to dancers with a tendency to flamboyance or extremes (even Farrell used to get called vulgar in her youth) and whether it's an accurate description will depend very much on individual taste, as bart's quote suggests.

Good point. I couldn’t find one straight off, but here’s one from a few years ago. The hair is as untamed as ever. (The article accompanying the photo is interesting – I didn't know any of that.)

It is a nice line, even if it did remind me of Woody Allen’s related crack about ripening and then rotting...... I don't think that's quite to my point (although I figured someone would choose to take my words that way, and I had second thoughts about them). I think my intended meaning is clear enough as written, so I’ll just leave it there.

Thank you for the link, Mashinka. A thought-provoking article. I cannot say that either lady is a favorite star of mine – they just didn’t make enough movies I’m interested in seeing – but it’s good to read an article that places Bardot in pop history. Bardot's career took off in the late fifties, a time when things were loosening up in matters of sex but feminism hadn't raised its ugly head to spoil the menfolk's fun, and the Bardot phenomenon made mass marketable the desire of great numbers of men to have sex with very young women. I note that Bardot’s career was over by forty and her career faded with her youth – nothing exceptional there, just the usual fate of the typical female star I see the point, but also wonder if this is such an unalloyed Good Thing. There’s nothing fun about getting older, but it used to be that it brought with it some authority, and middle-aged women who try to look like their daughters are locked in a battle they are bound to lose. Selling beauty products and fashion to young girls is good business for advertisers but not always so great for the kids. I don't really see the upside in all this for other women lacking Bardot's, uh, 'mobile contours,' but perhaps I am missing something. I remember reading in Cynthia Powell Lennon’s first memoir that when they were first dating John had an obsession with Bardot, so Cynthia tried to please him by dyeing her hair, shortening her skirts, and wearing fishnet stockings. If making nice girls feel obligated to look cheap is liberation, then I guess we should all be grateful to Brigitte.

Putting that quote in context, Croce was talking about the retention in NYCB’s repertorty of Balanchine ballets that were not classics, but still worth preserving. ‘Ballo’ is anything but dull IMO and I think Ashley is wonderful in the video. It’s in San Francisco Ballet’s repertory too and although I haven’t seen anyone who quite has Ashley’s zip (and her height has a lot to do with it, too) it’s a little gem. I’d have to disagree there. Martins performing ‘Chaconne’ is one of the most dazzling pieces of dancing available on video I’ve ever seen. He looks great and the dancing is thrilling.

It sometimes happens that a biographer winds up not liking and/or respecting her subject very much, and that may well have happened to Kavanagh. However, in many respects Nureyev simply wasn't a very appealing man personally despite some fine qualities, and it wouldn't surprise me if a biographer found that ultimately the cons outnumbered the pros. Such a conclusion, if reached, can be fair comment and not necessarily an attack or hit job. Contemporary biographies in general often have Too Much Information in the bedroom department, but I didn't find all of those details irrelevant or salacious, either. I preferred the Solway book overall as a full biography but if you're seriously interested in Nureyev you do have to read Kavanagh, too.

Shearer always planned to keep working after her marriage, but apparently it got harder as the children started arriving. She shifted to acting in the hope that it would be somewhat less demanding than dancing, but the theatre is also tough on family life, especially for a woman, and eventually she stopped entirely. Thanks for the pix, rg.

Thank you, Quiggin. Sounds like some wonderful reading.

Leigh's review of the Groovaloos in today's Post: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/thea...EFdvXxM3jJYjYIO