papeetepatrick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Little_Eatons Thanks again, leonid. I put this again, it might be the underscore lines are needed to make the link work. I also liked the photos of Ms. Travis in the obit, because there was one from 2009! and she looked great. I couldn't believe it. I already put a hold on the book Mrs. Travis herself wrote, but want to read Mr. Redniss's too, because they'll be in radically different styles--always the theatrical person's writing has a lot more flourishes and at least some of the facts, but then a professional biographer is needed to check some of these. just checked: Not sure why mine works and yours doesn't, they look the same.

Thanks for posting, leonid. I was about to post it myself, although I don't know the name. It made me think of some of the old gals I've always been fond of from the era who died in the last few years, like Anita Page (who was a movie star in some of the musicals of the very early talkie period like 'Broadway Melody of 1929', paired with Bessie Love), June Havoc (who was in vaudeville as a child)l and Ina Claire, who was in a number of these shows, even though we mostly know her from her classy performance with Garbo in 'Ninotchka'. Edited to add: Just read the article, and it's fascinating. I may well read the book about the family which was always performing. Was extremely interested that she was in love with Nacio Herb Brown, who wrote 'Singin' in the Rain', and that she thinks he (and Arthur Freed) wrote it for her. I then looked up 'Hollywood Revue of 1929', about which I've got a good bit of material published in a book, thinking she might possibly be one of the 3 girls singing it in 1 plastic raincoat (I think it's one, not two, will have to check), but couldn't find the name, but a lot of those people were uncredited in those early film revues. I do think that 'Hollywood Revue of 1929' was the first film use of 'Singin' in the Rain', and later the eponymous film would use the songs from both 1929 'Broadway Melody' (again the eponymous, as well as 'You Were Meant for Me') and 'Hollywood Revue'. I'm crazy about this whole Ziegfeld/Vaudeville milieu.

Abatt, thanks--that was exactly it, and since I didn't see it, it had a similar poetic echo or something like that just from the titles. I should have known from the 'evening-length' that that wasn't it, though.

sidwich, you've made me want to see this piece. Was this also done by NYCB about 3 years ago? Confused, because here we have ABT doing it, but I thought I remembered NYCB, although I didn't get to see it back then.

Just watched the trailer, I thought it unbelievably silly and absurd. If there's anything I don't go for, it's seeing a French-made film look like this, one sumptuous self-important cliche after another. It's bad enough when Hollywood does it.

The clip was fun, but I had never heard the song but once before--in a First Avenue club called the Grenadier sometime in the late 70s. The singer was not blue ribbon and was wearing a bad toupee, but I still remember the song just because it isn't like any other.

A Lena Horne sighting was a pretty big event even in New York. Right up there with legends like Nureyev, Callas, and Jackie O.What stays in my mind is how willing she was to talk openly about the institutional racism that permeated almost every facet of American life when she was growing up and beginning her career. She started doing this long before the Civil Rights Movement -- a time when "don't ask, don't tell" was the official party line and when bucking the rules could lose you your career. Horne asked the questions and told the truth. A great beauty, a wonderful musical artist ... she was also a woman wof courage who will have a place in American history for a long time. All of all that. This one breaks my heart, even though she did live to be old and had a wonderful life. Every time my friend and I would talk about the 'ones from the old days we still have left', I'd always say something about how 'we still have Lena with us'. I really hate to see her go, the happiness and earthiness of her singing and incredible tropical beauty is on record and film, the way she brings the sultriness to 'Love' in 'Ziegfeld Follies'...her way with 'One for My Baby'--I got a stor-ray you waunna know..' She'd sing with some Southern accent intact (most change from their speaking voice speech)..in her 1984 B'way show, she was talking about how 'I did NOT like California',and that 'they would say to me, now Lena, honey, get out the-ah and SMOULD-AH!!' I've often given her CD's as presents to friends and family. Once, in a PBS documentary about her, she came on with Tom Stewart of Channel 13, and while he supposed to be businesslike about pledge-driving, etc., at point he couldn't restrain himself, and said 'We've had scores of distinguished guests at Thirteen through the years, but I have to say none has meant quite so much...' to which she replied sassily 'You gonna give me a 7-year contract?' Just totally lovable. And she went on in the most amused way about how 'Miss Waters didn't want any of her own scenes fooled with', meaning Lena, of course, who was such a great beauty as well as singer. Really just the most elegant and warm lady in the world. I don't have any right to expect anyone to give any more than she did, but there was just something about having her still in the world that made one feel a bit better about it. It was all that salty sweetness of which she was the master.

'Elegant be-gloved', oh yes, that's what this one's all about I love it. And you know I had to write a couple of BT SB specialists about a year ago on the subject of 'strange lack of Queen's grief after Aurora's collapse', and I had totally forgotten that for 'composure in the face of grief', none could compare with Ms. McGorian. Happy Mother's Day, all! Edited to add: Thanks for clip, Cristian. When she does come to Aurora, she does show a great deal of facial 'grief-strickenness', as opposed to some I think I was inquiring about, who just more or less drop the young body and have this pragmatic 'well, I have to get on with life' attitude. Otoh, she does make a point of being even more photogenic than she already was!

Thank you for specifying, Cristian, I wondered what the Google Diddle thing was for today (they're getting better with those.) Made me think instantly of that Queen in the Royal Ballet Sleeping Beauty video we both liked--Elisabeth McGorian, who doesn't come across so much as fainting or grieving as ambitious, remember the one? She's gorgeous and looks like a socialite kind of Queen Mother. I'm not sure that was the thing I ought to think about on Mother's Day...

Fritz Lang's work is great, but the early part is more extravagant and spectacular. There's a good bit about Mr. Pena and the Argentine connection in Patrick McGilligan's 'The Nature of the Beast' (a well-named book, as Lang's sadistic and cruel treatment of his extras and crew is legend, and he was admired more than liked during the long Hollywood period). The making of 'Metropolis' is very detailed in this book, which I wrote about somewhere here a couple of years ago, and also Die Nibelungen --Siegfried. The luxury in which he worked in the 20s is literally astounding (I believe that's Ufa Studios, mostly), and I'd like to see the new footage. I think I first saw it at someone's apt. who liked to show films for parties, and then in the mid-80s saw the Moroder colorized version. I've watched it again last year, and it's always spectacular, although rather peculiar since some of Lang's greatest villains resemble him in not a few ways, and that goes for many of his Hollywood courtroom dramas as well as the first Mabuse (and maybe the others, but I haven't seen anything but the very long first one.) That image of the relentless clock-wheel that has always to be manned is surely one of the most powerful icons in all cinema.

Wow, I thought that one was unavailable. Can't believe it, that's got to be the old one with McBride that was the intro to ballet for some of us. I've been wanting to see it again for years. Very good news there, thanks, I am going to try to get one.

But that's exactly what my eternal searching in ballet has been about ever since I saw my very first performance Simon...the incomparably pleasant, deliciously enjoyable feeling of running away from the real world. And for some reason I suspect that I'm not alone on this. Interesting. I like it for both, flesh and blood is good, but then sylphs don't have it, so ballet has room for both. There aren't any sylphs in 'Liebeslieder Walzer', but some of those dancers that act those sophisticated couples have done their share of ethereal types, and I remember liking the dVD of Fonteyn in 'Ondine' when I saw it a couple of years ago. Would that be a kind of flesh and blood sylph, Simon? We would like to hear your considered thoughts on this matter.

The Times obit has been updated to give the cause of death as cancer, which I suspected, although without really solid reason. When I saw the clip you put up, miliosr, she reminded me of an old lady friend of mine who died at the same age almost exactly a year ago, although she had not had cancer, but rather heart problems, and 30 years previous had been very overweight. It's quite extraordinary that she was on the show just over 3 weeks before her death, and with such a sunny presence.

Especially the scene in the cemetery -- with the deceased sitting in rows of chairs, gradually losing contact with, and even interest in, the human matters that used to absorb them so much. I first saw this when very young and have never forgotten that particular scene, though most of the rest of the film has evaporated from my memory.Was this scene copied from the original stage production, I wonder? It certainly says "theater" rather than "movie" to me. Bart, I've just watched the cemetery scene a few more times, and the deceased are standing in the film, the cemetery is on a hill, and Emily is at the back, in rather shining white, and has just started talking to Mrs. Soames, her mother-in-law Mrs. Gibbs, and others, all of whom are standing with their backs to her, and just as you say, talking about 'losing contact with, and interest even, in the human matters that used to absorb them so much'. I still have the film with me, and may watch parts of it again, but I think there may be as many as 20 figures standing at various parts of the hill, not too far apart. It's very effective. I wonder if you also saw some stage productions which could have made the chairs be imprinted on your mind. I'd be very interested to see what you thought of the scene if you saw it again. So that that cemetery scene really is saying 'movie', not so elaborately, to be sure, but then 'Our Town' is only about simplicity. I have to say that the basic message of it never left me just from the reading in high school, although none of the earlier events in the town itself had any radiance to them as they do when you have the visual and aural enhancements. Reading a Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare (and dozens of others) can be very moving even on paper, but I didn't really appreciate 'Our Town' till I saw this. Also was thinking about Quiggin's remark about the Janet Leigh section of 'Psycho' being a little movie in itself. I think 'Born Yesterday' is like this, too, and similar in a couple of ways, although Billie Dawn is in it the full length of the picture. Most agree with me that the dumb blonde part is by far the greatest, showing as it does Holliday's sublime comic gift. As she becomes more brainy with her studies with William Holden, there are still entertaining parts, but it's actually a bit anticlimactic in the same way the 'Vera Miles section' of 'Psycho' is--not that we aren't happy Billie escapes the horror of her brute Broderick Crawford (I believe Paul Douglas did it with Holliday on B'way), but as a piece of art itself, the 'new Billie' is not nearly as uncanny as some of the 'dumb Billie', esp. when she's singing with that big tape recorder. Also interested in that three of these films that I've focussed on in this thread--'Our Town', 'Picnic', and 'Born Yesterday', all have William Holden in them. Yes, he was good.

Getting all into Shelley now, because of my friend Dominic Fox, whom I recently mentioned on the Twitter thread as the genius poet he is despite all (meaning the software writing, the Andrea Dworkin, and the fact that he twitters too, that he does heavy metal and sings folksongs to his own guitar playing, is a responsible citizen, oh it's just too much of a true embarassment of riches, he even allows Socialists to make him feel guilty for having gone to Oxford--although I bring that up, because he doesn't let that part show in the poems.) Dominic is following the example of Shelley's 'The Masque of Anarchy' in his new series 'After Slumber', for which he also hopes to write 91 poems, although not directly in parallel. He has written 12 thus far, and I didn't begin to 'get it' until # xi. This is the most exciting reading of a colleague I've done in years, not least because he discusses Shelley with me at some length, and also explains all sorts of archaisms he uses in the poems which are pretty restricted to Britain and never used in the U.S., past or present; and I also therefore expect to start 'Prometheus Unbound' forthwith, having been meaning to get to it for some 10 years now. I know the Aeschylus very well, although I've never seen it. Just yesterday, was quite thrilled to find the 'Prometheus Unbound' is on the net, for anybody who might possibly be interested. I imagine a lot more of these longer things are now online than even a year before. This is going to inspire me, while I also continue Auchincloss's 'La Gloire: The Roman Empire of Corneille and Racine', which is a series of essays on about 20 Corneille and Racine plays, and with the usual incisiveness.

Remember when she interviewed Suzanne, Patty, and at least one other NYCB dancer (one of the men, I think, maybe Ib Andersen) when they taped that programming at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville? She was charming and relaxed and a good interviewer, I was reminded of it a few years ago when Diahann Carroll interviewed Dionne Warwick, that strange thing of a celeb not known for being an interviewer, but now interviewing another or other celeb, it's a nice format when you can get it. That was the Baryshnikov period, but I recall that he was the only one who was dancing that didn't participate in the interview. I know little of Lynn Redgrave's work, and have been meaning to watch 'Georgy Girl' for the longest time, but just haven't. Never saw Corin in anything, but there was some performance maybe 10 years ago (?) in London, i think, with all three of them onstage, and there was this sensation of this ONSTAGE REAL FAMILY, I suppose somewhat like the Barrymores. I believe there had been many more problems with Lynn's husband long before the nasty business mentioned in the obit.

I heard the score of "Jeux" last night during this week All-Debussy Festival by the New World Symphony. Wow...that's some music to dance to... Those tempi kept changing the whole time, and the agógica was just crazy! Glad you mentioned this. I've known the piece most of my life, and then people mention it here from time to time, and even so I don't get around to matching up that it's the same music. Yes, I'd quite like to see that too. It sounds like one of the several important works made for Debussy.

Let me process this: the visual image becomes more important than the actual physical performance. Is the next step to replace live performances with animatronics? It almost sounds like Coppelia for the 21st century. Anything could happen. I liked Quiggin's use of 'photoshopping' for the actual physical cosmetic procedures, though; hadn't thought of pulling 'photoshop' off its own medium. That's cool. I'm not myself a fan of photoshopping even in reproduction beyond a certain amount of airbrushing (which is not the same thing, unless that's included by now under the general umbrella of photoshopping), but I have talked to people who do like this stuff. Only important because it proves that you can go further and further into this kind of visual stuff, which in the case of its remaining purely virtual, is all fantasy. Someone started talking to me about the 'allure' of certain kinds of photoshopping (I don't find it to be alluring, just fake). But when the 'photoshopping' goes into the physical, it's still mostly fantasy, but that's not always terrible if the result is sound. Again, not talking about ballet or dancers, we'd really need some dancers or their masters to tell us if their performance looked better or worse after the calf implants, etc. And cosmetic procedures do in some cases enhance the self-esteem of at least some of its users, even when they oughtn't IMO. I know a guy who had pec implants and those thrilled him (although I don't know how long), and also there have been lots of magazine stories about Joan Rivers's endless chemical peels, etc,. and how she got 'high on them'. Well, I really don't care, at this point she's definitely reached the point of diminishing returns and looks ghastly, but that's her business, if she's got the money.

This is easy, at least the 'most want to see'. 'Wuthering Heights' live with POB. I'm praying they'll bring it to New York in 2012, and I'm already saving for their engagement here. My second 'most-want-to-see' is 'A Month in the Country' with RB (only, for several reasons, including that they keep hold of it), if they can get it back up to Seymour/Dowell standard (apparently they haven't, acc. to Alexandra and others.)

I perceive this as a debate that has divided opinions, largely based on cultural issues. I think up until the likes of Jennifer Lopez or Beyonce started showing off their bodies all over the place instead of hiding it or altering it, the aesthetics vision on legs and thinness in the media was very inclined to the likes who possessed, let's say, the "boyish look", a la Madonna or Calista Flokhart... http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IiplnYqAHO4/SvPX...a+Keys!.jpg Good points, Cristian, and it has to do with pop culture vs. high culture too. The Balanchine thinness has long been discussed and critiqued, but I have usually read about problems stemming from it than noted it myself. I see a ballerina here and there who may seem very thin (as in Alessandra Ferri in the video with Corella of R & J), but I really haven't ever thought any female dancer's legs were 'too thin', in my opinion, except Vera-Ellen. I hadn't known of Lopez being so showy, but Beyonce, yes. And now that you bring it up, I recently watched a show of hers from Vegas: She overdoes the showing off, which is not really upsetting, because she's voluptuous and gorgeous beyond belief--but for that very reason it comes across slightly strange, because with assets like she's got, you don't need to work at it. I also like your terming Madonna as a 'boyish look', that makes it work slightly better for me, since I've always found her a very ordinary-looking girl who wants to be sexier than she is. Even with Beyonce's unnecessary 'extra in-your-face movements', I'd much rather look at her than Madonna any day; and I think neither are great singers, so that looks have more to do with the show than they do with great vocalists. As for cultural pressure put on women being greater than that on men, I don't know if that's all that obvious. But it could be because gay men (maybe even especially the most masculine) put greater emphasis on it--and on each other--than even straight men put on women (and women on themselves.) All the newer enhancements are not restricted to gay men, though, as straight ones want lots of the same 'enhancements', they get the same surgeries, buy billions of dollars in supplements, too. Such things as shaving the whole body of the male may be 'more gay than straight', I don't know. That started in the 80s and has never gone away--sometimes it looks good, sometimes it doesn't. There was a mid-90s cover story of New York Magazine entitled 'Are Men the New Women?' which interested me as a catchy phrase, and some of this tendency of men to spend lots of time primping was talked about. The mainstream actors of Hollywood seem to underplay this, except for the sculpting of bodies, as when you see how Tom Cruise's has been shaped in 'Eyes Wide Shut' (he does have a somewhat sculpted, artificial look in that, but this is nevertheless a superb shape). The increase in muscularity seems to be across-the-board increasing in men, although overweight people of either sex continue to have a hard time. There's also a Jungian text called 'The Adonis Complex', from about 2000, which goes into detail of many of the things Quiggin has linked to--guys who never think they have the muscles even when they do and even when they look in the mirror, and incredible eating disorders, breaking down into eating whole gallons of ice cream at once, that sort of thing. I do think, now that I think back on performances, that I've often thought many male dancers in tights had legs that were very thin, but that in itself never bothered me, and sometimes made their most difficult virtuosic dancing look all the more effective for being razor-like, especially when they're also tall. Advantages and disadvantages, but all of the artifice going into body modification of any kind is here to stay--the tattooing and piercing and extreme gymming all started in the 80s, and they're not going away. I guess we'll eventually have a thread about choreographers who have to 'take this into consideration', but the tattooing is already there, and presumably some of the dancers, in any case, know what they're doing when they get these procedures done. The worst problem IMO is the way some of the procedures begin to not be advantageous as time goes by, as has been documented, and which almost everybody has seen with bad nose jobs which start out looking good, but have a short 'shelf life'.

I like some procedures fine, good photoshopping on bodies is not so 'alien ideal' to all of us (it can definitely improve), but otoh I never thought about it in regard to ballet, nor knew that it was frequently done (although I should have, I think). The one dancer that sprang to mind was Vera-Ellen, who was the only dancer I even noticed with legs so thin I couldn't quit noticing even though I loved her dancing in the movies anyway. It's true that in that case, I found the thinness a little strange, and that that would have been a case in which implants would have improved the look if they were done properly and didn't interfere (I also don't know how long these have been done, surely not back in the 50s, though.)

Interesting that, and made me think of some non-literary examples, the first that popped into my mind was Martha Stewart, who certainly did exactly that--recover, and totally. Not that it wasn't all painful process, so it would also have something to do with the strength of the person. Stewart is definitely so strong that she even made the best of her prison time. Film stars' careers would be resuscitated after scandals, although the scandals are not usually completely forgotten. This may mean something more specific within the academic community, though. It is true that academic internecine wars do often seem very lilliputian from the outside, office politics can be like that too. I'm actually unfamiliar with Figes and all the other writers mentioned, the only Robert Service I know is the Yukon poet, and barely remember him. Plagiarism is indeed considered serious, and wasn't there a famous case in the 90s at the New Yorker, I forget the writer's name, Janet something? I do have to say that even though Kissinger's remark seems accurate, it's a little unfortunate that he's the source, since it comes off as snobbish from one who has know 'great power', etc.. But I've known academics with their letters of recommendation for jobs that are meant to present the applicant unfavourably, and there's a lot of lying and pretending going on, a dark underbelly as with all professions, maybe. Penelope Gilliatt once accused of plagiarism, I think even Doris Kearns Goodwin, the first was having a lot of health problems anyway, my memory is bad about Goodwin, she may have just been being careless, not sure if she's managed to fully restore her reputation (I used to just know her on Lehrer News Hour, which I haven't watched for years.) Myabe the sad part is that sometimes the scandals breathe too much new life into some careers, although I'm sure that remark about 'recovery from everything' is hyperbole.

Especially the scene in the cemetery -- with the deceased sitting in rows of chairs, gradually losing contact with, and even interest in, the human matters that used to absorb them so much. I first saw this when very young and have never forgotten that particular scene, though most of the rest of the film has evaporated from my memory.Was this scene copied from the original stage production, I wonder? It certainly says "theater" rather than "movie" to me. Bart, I've been looking at this some more. And here's first what wiki says: "The film was a faithful reproduction of the play except for two significant changes: the film used scenery, where the play had not, and the events of the third act, which in the play revolve around the death of one of the main characters, were turned into a dream that she awakens from, able to resume a normal life. Producer Sol Lesser worked with Wilder in creating these changes." Also the 3rd Act 'Emily Ghost' at her 12th birthday is very cinematic, with Scott in a luminous delicate aura. Her performance in this long scene is unlike anything I have ever seen anywhere else, it oscillates with incredible speed from joy to sadness, sometimes so much so you're not even sure which one it is, they seem to be simultaneous. And, since she had done the original Emily on Broadway, she could make you know from the days of the old ending when Emily really is dead, and it's not a dream as in the movie, not know that this ending has been changed. The scene in the cemetery, I agree, is very theatrical, but I think this is a great movie, without ever having seen a stage version. And I only discovered it a year or so ago, watching only because I was researching film scores of Copland and V. Thomson, authors of the 'American sound', with Copland's score here and in 'The Red Pony' and Thomson's beautiful scores for 'Louisiana Story' , 'The Plow that Broke the Plains' and 'The River'. The scoring, by the way, is part of what makes this open up as cinema, and Copland's score never fails to move. What interests me most about the way this film has become so important to me is that I not only never saw a stage version, whether amateur or professional, but had to read it in high school, and thought it was quite boring as just a piece to read. And it was. You get almost none of what Wilder has uniquely created just on paper. This film is definitely in my Top 10, and that doesn't usually happen later in life. I believe the 50s teenage romance film 'the Restless Years', with Sandra Dee and John Saxon, has 'Our Town' being doing by the high schoolers in it, but that's been many years, and I think it was never released to commercial vhs or dvd. These were the Best Actress nominees that year: * 1940 Ginger Rogers - Kitty Foyle as Kitty Foyle o Bette Davis - The Letter as Leslie Crosbie o Joan Fontaine - Rebecca as The Second Mrs. de Winter o Katharine Hepburn - The Philadelphia Story as Tracy Lord o Martha Scott - Our Town as Emily Webb I thought Joan Fontaine was excellent in 'Rebecca', but Scott was the best of all these IMO that year. Bette Davis good, too, and a good movie. Ginger Rogers getting the award for 'Kitty Foyle' is a little like Luise Rainer for 'The Good Earth', but the Oscars don't make sense, or at least not consistent sense. It's actually a relief to have changed the ending, given that we know Wilder himself worked on it, because it's nearly unbearable without it (and I'm not one for the happy ending usually.) In fact, I had forgotten from watching it only a year and a half ago, that it is changed into a dream. Watching it again last night, I was totally surprised at the ending. I think all this has to do with Scott's performance, and all of the other cast is blue ribbon as well. There were 10 Best Picture nominees that year, with 'Rebecca' winning, and 'Our Town again nominated. It's a fine film, too.

Sandy, I appreciate your consideration of what the performers have given, but I tend to be on the side of those who really do need to leave for a train, etc., and do not think that curtain calls are a part of the performance. Once the dancing is over, the performance is over, basically, as far as i'm concerned. I don't really expect the performers to be contemplating this, but I do think it's fine if people have to get out quickly. The curtain calls are important, but they are not the performance itself IMO. there are still plenty of people who do stay until the applause stops. I usually like an aisle seat, and I often don't stay beyond for the curtain calls, although I sometimes do, esp. if I have extra time and can go down even closer to the performers to get a better look at them.

I don't know which is shabbier - sinking to sock-puppetry or letting your spouse take the rap for it. That Figes was so inept at covering his own e-tracks makes the whole spectacle even more pathetic. If you're going to savage your rivals, do it with style. I agree, and I'm very familiar with people doing this, and have had it done to me. It is not nearly as uncommon as one might think for very distinguished people, but who are often going through a burnout period, or even an autumnal decline in their careers, to do this. I can't say I agree with you, dirac, that the internet makes people do things, or at least that's only half of it. If somebody lets it make them do these (all the ridiculous stalkings that really do go on on the net, and I know the details of friends who have been victim of this), they are also choosing to do it. Endless impersonation of other people is also done, all sorts of phony emails are sent, I've had this happen in these processes too, and the kind of person who insists on withholding his identity online is usually pretty cowardly, if s/he starts carrying it into someone else's offline life--some are even borderline hackers, and try to get security details out of you, although the hardcore hacker never uses anything so clumsy and directly personal. And yet I find on the blogs that it may even be the majority who use a pseudonym. At BT, people use them, but these are just for fun more than to hide names usually, and I don't believe anybody here writes with a moniker in order to hide their identity. Some who use them always identify themselves in pm's as a courtesy, I've noticed. Even I don't use my whole name like Mel and Alexandra do, but almost everybody knows it, and I wouldn't care if everybody did.