dirac

Obituary for the conductor Sarah Caldwell.

I was put off somewhat by the "Titantic" style posters and selling points. Fortunately, it was only a marketing strategy and the movie wasn't like that. I thought Focus Features did a fine job overall were probably right in the direction they took.

canbelto wrote: There was a high profile example just recently -- "Munich."

Thanks for that story, Mel. Those were the days.

Believe it or not -- more argument inspired by “Brokeback Mountain” – an exchange in The New York Review of Boosk between James Schamus, co-president of Focus Features, and Daniel Mendelson, whose essay on the picture was originally posted by Anthony_NYC. The letter and response are lengthy and worth reading in toto. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18846 Schamus: Mendelson: Mendelson wins this one, I think. Schamus has been dipping into way too much queer theory for the good of his prose. Regarding a minor point that’s raised here – it seems to me that Ennis is intended to be gay, not bisexual or a basically straight guy who’s just fooling around (the classic literary model of the latter being Bob of Gore Vidal’s “The City and the Pillar”).

Chiming in to say "welcome back," britomart. Good to hear from you. Points very well taken.

I confess I was bored during long stretches of Capote—the pacing is a tad funereal.

The 200th birthday of Edwin Forrest, the first great star of the American stage, is celebrated. A recap of his career by Paul Lieberman for The Los Angeles Times. The original star

Quite right. The terms "founder" or "founding" imply that the person(s) so characterized was present at the creation, which is obviously not the case here.

That was my thought also, but I don't have anything to back it up, either.

Yes. And the way they treat Harper Lee as if she were Capote’s toy poodle. I thought the contrast between Kansas and the big city was a bit broad, however.

Karen Kain cut her hair short late in her career, and in her autobiography she said it felt something like a declaration of maturity and independence (not a quote, my summary of her observations).

I'm surprised no one else saw Capote, considering the attention it received over the past year..... I pulled Annie Proulx's collection Close Range off the shelf to take another look at the story "Brokeback Mountain" -- I hadn't referred back to it since seeing the picture. I'm again struck by how faithful Ossana and McMurtry were to the story, and how they had to invent relatively little.

I tend to tire of Aaron Sorkin’s rat-at-tat style more quickly than not, but Sports Night was a good show. It's too bad. The Lady Eve is my second favorite Preston Sturges film, next to Unfaithfully Yours. Stanwyck is funny, smart, and sexy, and Henry Fonda was never so appealing before or after. It's delish.

To each his own. With all due respect, I thought Leung looked like a walk-on gigolo in a Warner Brothers production from the thirties (I did break down and see 2046), and it was unclear to me why the small army of mannequins fell for him like the proverbial ninepins. Helene writes: I just love Peter Riegert. Ditto. I thought the pickle guy as written was hopelessly implausible, but Riegert made him believable. I thought Amy Irving didn't deserve him. He was great in Local Hero, too. It was a shock to me a few years ago when he popped up in the short-lived series Sports Night as Peter Krause’s graying dad. Let's hope it's a trend.

I just saw Auteuil in Cache and he was amazing in that (so was Juliette Binoche). Crossing Delancey was mentioned more than once on this thread and elsewhere, so I thought I'd mention that it is supposed to be released on DVD some time this year, although I'm not sure of the date. Apparently there has been significant popular demand for it.

Money well spent.

A bit of both, I'd say. Very few people would have unmixed motives in such an instance. I thought the film was too hard on Capote, but I also think your friend is a bit hard on Smith and Hickock. (And is it okay to kill a family if you think you have a reason?). It is pretty clear that Capote could have done more to aid his chatty convict friends, whose legal defense was unimpressive, to say the least. He wouldn't have been handing them a get out of jail free card by doing so; he would have been doing his part to ensure they got a fair shake before the law as was their right. It's far from clear that they got that fair shake. I had occasion, in the course of doing some research on Capote, to note that more than one reviewer raised the question of a possible moral issue involved at the time of the book’s original publication. It’s a sticky situation. “Betrayal” is too harsh a word, though. Possibly, yes -- to stay alive. They weren’t buying time to get out of traffic school.

Dale, thanks so much. I cast my vote for: October 10, 1983 A Lincoln Center Special "New York City Tribute to Balanchine" Artists: Suzanne Farrell, Sean Lavery, "Mozartiana" Second choice, if one had been allowed: May 17, 1978 "American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House" Artists: Baryshnikov, Kirkland in "Theme and Variations"

I think we’re meant to understand that it is happier. Isn’t Alma pregnant at the Thanksgiving dinner, or was it just her dress? (Note, however, that Alma’s new hubby uses a wussy electric knife to cut the turkey. )

I'm cautiously optimistic about the film version. Rene Pape? Cool. Thank you for that link, Anthony_NYC. Peter Moores sounds like a good man to have around. Thanks also to everyone who's posted so far, and to Ed for the very useful description of the Chailley book, which I've heard of but not read.

Thanks for posting, Ed. It’s a very striking photograph, indeed, and the dancer is gorgeous. I thought it was interesting that the picture seems to present the young woman more as an athlete than a ballet dancer -- none of the usual toe shoes, tiaras, or tutus in sight. A deliberate choice, perhaps?

Anthony_NYC wrote: I said I’d post more on Munich and didn’t, so here are a few further remarks. The Distant Dad is a recurrent Spielberg trope and is very prominent here. Avner, the protagonist, has no fewer than three father figures: his actual father, who is ill in hospital and is never seen; Ephraim, the Geoffrey Rush character, who acts as counselor and mentor until Avner starts talking back to the principal; and the character known only as “Papa” played by Michael Lonsdale, who reminds Avner, “You could have been my son. But you’re not.” (That is, “Don’t take it personally if I have to have you shot, or something.”) I didn’t find the film boring or overlong, unusual for me in that I generally come out of the theatre these days thinking, “Cut fifteen minutes.” The effect of the consecutive hits carried out by the team is cumulative, and each one is different. As mentioned, the basic structure of Munich is that of the “Dirty Dozen” type thriller. Only here, things keep getting messed up, the operations are confused and/or untidy, bombs are too powerful or not powerful enough, etc. In return, the other side responds with its own bombings (“We’re in dialogue now,” says one of the Mossad guys (not a member of Avner’s crew) and he doesn’t sound displeased.) Most disturbing sequence for me: the scenes in which Avner and his men go after the woman who is responsible for the death of Carl (Ciaran Hinds). The killing has peculiar overtones; it’s almost a kind of sexual violation, and I wasn’t sure how to take it. It reminded me of another scene in a Spielberg picture, “Catch Me If You Can,” in which a hooker played by Jennifer Garner gets screwed by the con man hero (Leonardo DiCaprio) in every sense. In both episodes there’s the sense that a woman who uses her sexuality for ulterior motives is outside the law and deserves anything she gets. The final shot is as striking in its way as the end of “Brokeback Mountain.” I agree about “War of the Worlds." It gets off to a genuinely ominous start, and then goes nowhere. I was ready to drown Dakota Fanning like a rat, too. Edited to add the following: I forgot to add that the acting in Munich is uniformly good, and it’s too bad that in the recently concluded awards season, nobody got nominated for anything, perhaps it’s because there are few Big Scenes. I particularly liked Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Amalric, and Eric Bana.

Silvy, the Wikipedia entry for The Magic Flute is a decent place to start. Also a trip to the library can be very helpful, too – there are specific volumes devoted to the topic, and general opera reference books often have helpful bibliographies.

Thank you, silvy. Nice to know that all went well!