dirac

NYT obituary.

An interview with August Kleinzahler in The Guardian.

In early photographs you see an attractive girl with baby fat, a lot of hair around the forehead, and yes, the nose is a tad chunky. She wasn’t a raving beauty like Shearer or glamorous like May, but she made herself beautiful and her features were perfect for the theatre. For sure.

I like that remark Balanchine is said to have made: "She's like a whale in her own ocean." Whenever I see “Diamonds” I’m always struck by the weight Balanchine made Farrell carry. As she once said, “In ‘Diamonds,’ I’m it.” And it’s not one of those dancer-proof ballets. If the ballerina does not command the stage there’s not much to watch.

You won't get flamed by me. Fonteyn was not a beauty, I agree. But on the stage it didn't matter, because there the charisma and skill of the performer can create the illusion of beauty. But she had pretty features, a lovely smile and figure, and, as she once noted, nice legs, and she made the most of what she had with impeccable grooming. She also photographed well in stills. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Hathaway is too beautiful to play her, though.

Being ‘very now’ can have its usefulness and value, even if it doesn’t last forever. I quite agree that shows with a topical bent tend to date quickly, but that doesn’t deprive the show of success or importance it had in its time, even if not many people are interested in poring over the DVDs these days.

Thank you for mentioning the movie with Vivian Pickles, mimsyb. I had heard of it but I’ve never seen it. It is true that depending on the story line chosen, there may not be much dancing involved. I guess in this case we can only wait and see!

She does have that million dollar smile, doesn't she, although the eyebrows need a little work. (But then I really like Anne Hathaway, so I’m slightly biased. A delightful talent.)

Agree with all of the above. I didn't see much of the sequel, but my impression from what I did see was that a) Arthur was missing and in a good ensemble who's who is always important and b) the series was out of gas, which happens. Thank you for posting this sad news, Helene. You couldn't make a series quite like Maude today. In some ways I fear we're going backward..... Edited to thank Helene for posting. I was really asleep at the switch as far as this thread is concerned.

True, but Ansanelli is a dancer. (If the makers of "Isadora" back in the Sixties had cast Lynn Seymour as in the title role, she wouldn't have been an exact physical match, but in spirit and style she would have been as close to Isadora as anyone could have gotten.) Duff also strikes me as a little young for the movie's time frame described in the article - she will be playing the middle aged Fonteyn, not the young dancer. So in the best of all possible worlds a suitable mature ballerina would be cast in the role, although no one springs to mind offhand. It may be, of course, that the filmmakers don't intend on showing much if any dancing, in which case the project would indeed be worth very little.... Thanks for commenting, everyone! Keep posting. (Edited to note that my comment was in response to Old Fashioned's post and not Helene's, which I didn't see before posting, and so I've altered this post slightly to reflect that.)

True, but that would only make a difference to the likes of us, perhaps. The general audience would see a beautiful ballerina with a general resemblance to Fonteyn, and that would be enough. I saw Duff in The Magdalene Sisters and yet another miniseries on Elizabeth I, and while she seems a good actress I can’t imagine her as Fonteyn. I find that often as not in ballet-themed films the ballet dancers are at least as good as any professional actors in the cast (and sometimes better)! I have not seen Tamara Rojo, but would she be appropriate?

Looking on the bright side, it's possible for even less than great movies about ballet to inspire new interest in the art. Perhaps this one will, as well.

I didn't mean he was a bad or limited actor. I meant he was unsuited for either role - not the type in the one case, and not a dancer in the other. (There are other ways, too, but it's off topic. Shouldn't have mentioned it in the first place, sorry, but I thought it was a passing remark that wouldn't inspire debate. Let's talk about the film, everyone. )

A film based on the latter part of Margot Fonteyn's life and career is planned. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1172991 Seems to me this can only be a mediocre effort at best. Apart from anything else, casting a non-dancer as Fonteyn means the dance sequences will have to be shot under less than optimal circumstances, and Duff seems about as appropriate a choice for Fonteyn as her hubby James McAvoy would be for Tito or Rudi. Oh, well.

The spectacle of Gloriana in a hacked off dress and stockings must have been edifying for the audience.

There’s a nice review on allmusic.com. The DVD will be out this summer, it notes, and I’m sure it will be broadcast on PBS. It sounds like a good film and I’m looking forward to it. Good for you, dufay. Thanks so much for starting this topic. I’ve really enjoyed reading all the responses!

The damage done at New York City Opera is summarized by Zinta Lundborg for Bloomberg News.

Congrats. And a shout out to The New York Times for employing multiple dance critics, even in these grim times.

Thanks for posting this, Ray. It's a hoot. I think it's okay to put it here in Other Arts - it could open the discussion to non-ballet related fiascos!

I don’t see it as a conventional narrative ballet, either. Too many scenes with too many in-laws, as Balanchine might say, and how would you stage the (fictional) meeting with Elizabeth and Mary? (You can try dramatizing the story without having the two queens meet, as Robert Bolt did in ‘Vivat!Vivat Regina!’ but it didn’t work for him and I don’t think anyone else would be able to manage it better.) It sounds inherently campy to me, but I could be wrong, of course. It has been suggested that Mary’s beheading, like Essex’s, was done a little crudely in order to set an example, but I doubt Elizabeth had anything to do with that. Elizabeth preserved Mary’s life for years when everyone else in the government was pressing for her execution and in spite of the fact that Mary plotted against her whenever an opportunity presented itself. Her father and grandfather would have taken much less time about it and been far less scrupulous about their evidentiary requirements. Mary's execution did have a special black comedy touch, when her head was lifted by its hair for display and separated from her wig, causing the head to drop and roll around on the ground. Graham revived it as an independent ballet later on. Arlene Croce compared and contrasted the two in Afterimages, I believe. I agree with bart, the tennis game is an inspired idea, although it wouldn’t work for ballet.

Thanks, Patrick. I also saw the movie of "Crash" without reading the book. I wasn't really tempted because I had trouble with the crash-sex-death nexus -- it may be prosaic of me, but I just don't see anything sexy about car smashups. Maybe a look at The Atrocity Exhibition would help. I loved "Empire of the Sun" - the book, that is. (The movie has a splendid first half and then goes downhill.) Of course, Ballard is one of those writers where it almost doesn't matter whether you like him or dislike him - even if you don't care for his writing it has influenced many other people whose work you probably do like.

J.G. Ballard has died at age 78. Related story.

Good to hear from you, vagansmom. I haven’t, but the book has certainly been talked about in recent months. I’d be interested to hear from any BTers reading it, as well. I remember The Jungle from high school. Thank heaven for the FDA, that's all I can say. Upton Sinclair once ran for governor in my home state of California in 1934 and lost, his opponents having run one of the dirtiest campaigns on record.

Leigh Witchel's review from the Post: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04182009/enter...arty_165039.htm

One running gag of the Jack Benny radio show was his receding hairline. Then the move to television and everyone could see that Jack’s hair was in pretty good shape, so that was the end of that joke. I”m not sure I’d say that scripted drama is on the wane, exactly. It’s moved around. The networks have more or less given up on made for TV films, miniseries, and the kind of serious drama traditionally reserved for the 10:00 pm slot (NBC moving Leno to that slot is a sign of the times, I think). But more and more of it has been relegated to cable – HBO, smaller outfits such as Showtime, and other cable networks produce their own dramatic series and movies. Makes you wonder what might happen if a talented young writer/producer turned up with some new ideas - could s/he defy trends and market forces?