dirac

The Bushes were actually pretty good about promoting the high arts, on a personal level, with appearances at the Kennedy Center and invitations to the White House. Laura Bush was a great reader and well known for it. Policy was a different matter, and it’s possible Obama could make a real difference there. Thanks for sharing your thoughts from across the water, leonid.

How true. We forget how rare it is for power to be handed over peacefully in this way. At worst, the ex-President stands by with a grumpy look, but that's about as bad as it gets. The 'thorn and din' passage was awkward, I thought. It does improve after that. But this was a poem intended all along to be read aloud to a big crowd, so how it sounds is at least as important as how it reads. It's true that many poets don't read their own poems very well. W.C. Williams springs to mind.

I was so taken aback by 'when yellow will be mellow,' etc. that I'm afraid the nuances of Lowery's delivery escaped me. That's an interesting take, though. It might be best to keep to Alexander's poem. Her prosaic verse was a little too prosy, although I saw what she was getting at. (It didn't help that she followed the main event on the program, so a slight letdown was probably inevitable.)

Thanks for reviving this thread, innopac, and to everyone who's joined in. I love Chungking Express. I just saw Infernal Affairs again after a long time and it's as nifty as ever.

Thanks for posting, sandik. An article from late last year about Alexander. Nice gesture to have a poet read at the inaugural. In Japan, they’ve been doing the poetry thing all along, and members of the imperial family compose their own.

An obituary for the barrister and writer John Mortimer, dead at 85. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/books/17...imer&st=cse http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/books/17...imer&st=cse

I guess I don't see why a critic or commentator can't speak of an artist not living up to his potential, for whatever reason. We'll have to agree to disagree on that. McGoohan seems to have been a troubled man in some ways, and it's too bad an actor with his charisma and potential didn't accomplish more, although he leaves some fine stuff behind him, indeed a body of work of which many actors would be proud.

Also, Ice Station Zebra is a turkey but McGoohan still manages to make his presence felt. I thought he was excellent in Scanners as Dr. Ruth.

Thanks, innopac. I don't get over to BT4D as much as I'd like and this is indeed a good discussion!

Ava Gardner is a true goddess of the screen but I can’t say that she’s a case of great talent wasted, although it took some time for MGM to figure out what to do with her. Jennifer Jones -- You’re right, she didn’t have the stuff to be a major star and was pushed beyond her limits, but I kinda liked her when she was very young, in things like Portrait of Jennie and Love Letters. She’s rather charming in Cluny Brown, too. And I think she’s very good in The Song of Bernadette, whatever you think of the picture. Beat the Devil, too. Jones was inadequate in two camp classics, Ruby Gentry and Duel in the Sun, but I cherish them both anyway. In other words, I’m not a fan but Jones was in a fair number of pretty good movies, something I didn’t realize until totting them up just now. I guess it’s a question of whether Welles had, to borrow a phrase from Arlene Croce, a career that matched his talent . My feeling is that he didn’t, although I don’t downgrade him or think him any less of a genius for that.

I’ll take the conventional view that Welles did waste his talent, although the waste was not entirely his own doing. I’m grateful for the wonderful things he did give us but I wish for his sake and ours that there was more (and sometimes better). Regarding McGoohan, the article mentions tax problems, illness, and drinking. He left fine work behind him, but again I think it’s legitimate to wonder why such a gifted actor doesn’t quite have the triumphant career trajectory that could have been expected, despite leaving work of genuine value behind. I do agree that it can be impertinent to ask why someone walks away from fame of his own free will - as if there aren't other things of value in the world beyond the red carpet. Quiggin, I agree about Spielberg. Lucas I think has made the most of what he has.

A good obit of McGoohan in The Independent. Evidently he turned down Bond because he didn't approve of heroes who habitually carried guns (or of the Bond girl hanky panky).

Montalban was really quite versatile. He might have been a bigger star in movies if the era had been different and he had been given a wider range of roles to do.

Ricardo Montalban is also gone, aged 88. Not a good week. Scott Eyman remembers Montalban in The Palm Beach Post:

He was very much involved in the development of the series (which is on DVD). I have read that he turned down the role of James Bond in "Dr. No" on moral grounds.

I agree, erpollock, and I think you handled the situation well. (And welcome to Ballet Talk!) I can only imagine what Balanchine, who didn’t even like to see anyone leaning on a piano or using it as a barre, would think of dancers littering the floor. Littering is plain bad manners, not to mention illegal in many circumstances, and has no place in a theatre or anywhere else. Not only can it cause discomfort to others but it makes a public space ugly and unpleasing. I don't think dancers are any better or worse than anyone else – they’re just people, after all. Throwing your trash on the floor doesn’t make you a bad person, though – only a rude and/or thoughtless one.

That's true. You really don't think of Robbins as having a close connection to The Pajama Game.

Thank you for posting this, MakarovaFan. This is sad news. I never thought of McGoohan as being as much as eighty, but time does fly, doesn’t it. You are quite right, his body of work amounts to much more than his famous TV roles. Here’s the AFP story:

By happy chance, the movie just opened nearby and I went last night. It’s certainly worth catching. Shanley does a reasonably good job of opening up the play without opening it up too much. I could have done without some of the distracting shots where we’re looking up the actors’ nostrils and also the many scenes of high winds and stormy weather to signify spiritual and emotional turbulence. That’s right. In the movie it’s perfectly clear, as dramatized and in Hoffman’s performance. That seems to have been a conscious choice on Shanley’s part and I’m not sure it was a good idea. (Showing us Donald was necessary but also not ideal from a dramatic standpoint.) She was excellent. IMO, the scene itself did not work despite Streep’s and Davis’ best efforts, although it might have made slightly better sense if the mother was shown as somewhat detached, as described by atm711. I agree. She dominates the movie. I thought initially she was over the top but as the film went on I changed my mind about that. There’s a difference between ‘stagy’ and ‘theatrically heightened’ and I thought Streep was the latter. Her inflections alone were worth the price of admission. Thanks for commenting, everyone. Please keep them coming and I hope others who see the film will pipe up.

I haven't seen the Doubrovska movie - thanks for bringing it up, Helene. But Le Clercq gave a wonderful interview to Barbara Newman for "Striking a Balance" and although of course you can't hear her speak she does sound very "American, smokey, and direct" even on the page. She's straightforward and practical, totally without pretension (and far too modest - to hear her talk, she couldn't do anything).

Hi, sidwich. Good to hear from you. Robbins did co-direct, didn't he, so Wheaton wasn't completely off base. An honest mistake. Clearly, however, he didn't spend a lot of time fact checking his article.

The movie of "Doubt," written and directed by Shanley, is out. Has anyone else seen one (or both) versions?

Thank you for the link, Neryssa. The article is far from perfect, to say the least, but it is sympathetic and well intentioned. It may be that curiosity about this movie will lead to some people learning about Le Clercq and her career for the first time. That would certainly be a good thing.

The Farrell section is choice. I especially appreciated the Ballet Review interviews conducted by David Daniel with SF and Diana Adams (although the latter may have had a hard time getting a word in edgewise - reminded me of those fake interviews Nabokov used to concoct).

I add my thanks to Farrell Fan's. Christy's name was familiar to me, but I've never heard her sing, as far as I know. I'll look into these. Thanks, miliosr.