papeetepatrick

Utterly charming article, Mashinka, thanks for posting it. Marvelous dotty things all the way through, and I wasn't expecting all that much, I like the famous role TGZiegfeld, but agree with her about TGE, never saw anything else. But things like this: 'You knew Garbo? ''Not very intimately, but yes. I always thought that after Nefertiti she was the most beautiful creature in the world.” are perfectly hilarious and characterful. This is funny too: The acting profession, she says, has nothing to do with intelligence. “I don’t believe in acting. I think that people in life act, but when you are on the stage, or in my case also on screen, you have to be true." I actually thought Robert Taylor's answer to "what is your ambition?' to be pretty good too, he was just trying to do some smooth talking, I imagine. 'In 1960, Fellini pressed her to appear in La Dolce Vita; one story has it that she turned him down after he insisted that she have on-screen sex with Marcello Mastroianni;' That needed an editor, 'have on-screen sex' means some kind of porn, soft- or hard-core, this means 'do romantic scenes with MM', I don't think people even used the phrase 'have sex' back then, but certainly even MM and Anita Ekberg didn't 'have onscreen sex'. But nice piece, I wouldn't have seen it, and one of my friends is every now and then bringing her up, we can never believe she's still alive.

You have not proven it, Nanarina, but it is clear how you feel about it. Fact is, picking out Hitler is not the best example, because even though 'state of the world' (at least at that time) was subject to destruction by his ideas, his artistic product was pretty wimpish. What you are trying to prove is that 'normal human beings' should be geniuses, and sometimes they are, and very many times they are not. Yes, even sadists can be artistic geniuses. I am sorry you find it difficult to accept this fact, but, for what it's worth, De Frutos does not come across as that particular anomaly. There are mad geniuses of all kinds, what is such news about that? And Simon is right about how valid it is to see something and think it's just 'silly' or 'upsetting', as he and Mashinka did, respectively. I think I would have found it silly too, and not the least bit upsetting. I don't like the idea of a pregnant woman being punched in real life at all, and don't especailly want to see it onstage; but it it's part of an artistic project, it should be left in if necessary. And how do you know it won't be valid? We were recently talking about Polancki. Quite apart from the current brouhaha, his then-pregnant wife Sharon Tate was repeatedly stabbed in 1969. That is WORSE than you or me having to see this onstage, even though seeing it onstage could, of course, still be gratuitous and even stupid. I wouldn't really mind seeing the de Frutos all that much, if I'd had a chance to see some of the works Simon listed, I would definitely have wanted to see it if I was become a fan, just to know all of his work. The point is some people are more delicate in their sensibilities than others. Not a single one of these images would have bothered me ONE BIT in the literal sense. I see worse on the streets of New York nearly every day. But it's not a 'threat to society', these explicit sex 'n' violence things, it's that some people just can't watch it. I don't like to watch violence in movies either, although I've changed my mind about wanting to see 'Antichrist', and some of my reasons are NOT GOOD! What I'm just saying is, you can try to stop all these things as you wish, but they are not going to--they are literally a part of the verious 'liberations' that started to be articulated in the 60s, and most of us are not interested in seeing the clock turned back. You cannot say you believe in 'freedom of thought' and then make the decision who gets this freedom of thought. And artists throughout history have gone to jail when they were determined that there work was going to be read, heard, seen, etc., and they were not going to be stifled by people whose fragile sensibilities should just have stayed home or made sure the kids went to church or what have you. What you keep doing is saying 'I believe in freedom of thought', and then immediately limiting it. And, you know, Van Gogh was mad, and Gauguin had syphilis. I think Schumann did too. There are Nazi composers, there are countless great artists even UNDER Hitler, it's just he was not one himself with his little wimpy landscapes. There were Emil Jannings, Leni Riefenstahl, Elisabeth Scharzkopf, Richard Strauss, and Arletty misbehaved with a German--she was also the great actress of 'Les Enfants du Paradis', and yes, she had to go to jail, but that's the breaks. It's just not as simple as you seem to want to make it, nor is it going to change from being complex either.

Well, of course I wouldn't, and one of the things of this thread is really to find out all about him and his dance gifts. Will we see him in New York? He does sound like a real adventurer.

Yes, obscenity can be opposed in limited areas, usually more elite ones. This is normal, and can sometimes work--just on a daily level, you can't behave in an obscene way in a courtroom, restaurant, etc. And numerous posters have made clear their opposition to Frutos's work, despite Simon's having outlined all the warnings. I agree with him, because Frutos has the right to display such a work if he can do so; what he's described are way more than ample warning, plus the additional 'just leaving'. But to try to 'supress works of art' which, according to Simon, Frutos's piece is (even if he doesn't think it's a good one, or rather at least he thinks Frutos is himself a 'real artist), then you are trying to suppress and censor works that you don't consider art because you consider them obscene. But there are many obscene works that ARE art; this is probably one of the major sources of contention on this issue, not only between you and me and others here, but in the bigger world of artistic judgment. That's why there are different definitions for obscenity and pornography; you can say that Genet is just an 'obscenist' (to coin a new word), but this is not the usual assessment of Genet, and he's just one of many. So it's a matter of perhaps deciding that 'no obscene materials can be works of art' and deciding that these CAN be censored and suppressed. Clearly, a number of people here feel that way. Good luck on that; because the law is not on that side even when it's not even a question of 'artistic worth': Work that is unquestionably worthless is protected just like the rest. But my main point is that whether or not you oppose obscenity (and/or when it's also just low pornography), it's protected as free speech when it is written or filmed or photographed material. That's why the issue of anti-obscenity is by now mostly a matter of at least keeping it out of a few highly civil areas--like, for example, at BT, we can write clever racy things, but we can't curse. That's good, I'm glad we can't. But I think what i am trying to say is if you're interest is anti-obscenity, you will naturally focus on the most populated regions of it; if your interest is keeping ballet that is obscene from getting onstage, it's as you say, write people, protest in individual ways. I suppose these actions can work from time to time, probably have. Artists usually are not concerned with this kind of thing, though, even if they are not themselves involved in work that isn't concerned with the slightest off-colour gesture or remark. They are far more concerned with unbridled free expression. I support this myself, and have no intention of stopping, of course. Which doesn't mean I want to see the Frutos; I don't care to. Simon wanted to check it out, and did, and I thought did a fine report on it.

Agree with everything Simon said, and anyway, obscenity is protected as free speech, at least in the U.S. That's as it should be, or just try to change it. Even if you got it changed for live performance, that's the LEAST of it. Obscenity is here to stay, you just have to know how to handle it and avoid it if you want. Oh yes, is this ever right on the money. I'd just add, of course, that with the net as you've pointed out, obscenity is also not just instantly available, it really renders issues of censorship a moot point, becauee the lively arts would never be more than a millionth-percent of all of it. If you're worried about too much obscenity, then no need to focus on rarefied forms like the occasional ballet, but rather where it's omnipresent.

We agree, Simon, that you were not damaged. Your energy is exemplary and inspiring.

Well, yeah, this thread has amply protected you from the new Frutos piece. As for 'omitting horrific ballets', I'm afraid I have to take a break without further ado. I have heard that 'PAMTGG' is horrific, but I didn't see that either. I KNOW that I thought Robbins's 'Glass Pieces' was 'horrific', but not because it didn't have any sex in it.

Well, that says it all to me. That was more than sufficient as I see it. Totally agree, and now that you mentioned the warnings (I'm not sure you or Mashinka told us about those earlier), I don't even see what there is to talk about except the piece itself as an artwork. Incidentally, remember as far back as the mid-90s, I believe, things about TV and internet devices to keep children off porn sites, but I'm sure the kids are smarter than the adults about tech things by now, and so that the net itself has, for all intents and purposes, rendered the very concept of censorship obsolete.

Censorship does not 'provide information', it censors things--which means prohibits certain ones, at least on the planet I live on. 'Watch if you want or decline' is what most of the rest of us are saying--a review can tell you that, or you can talk to people and find out. Censorship is something else. Some of dearest friends, including both of my sisters, would have totally freaked out if they'd seen this, but that's their problem, I tell them about these things so they can keep on with their sense of 'Southern-belle spotless women' that they are so into. I don't know why anybody would choose such a narrow view, but that is their business. Forget it for me, though, for example, and they think that is just fine that way.

I'm not making myself clear to you, even as of last night. I just said that artistic polemics toward the Catholic Church are not unknown, and they have to be allowed, that Catholic Church is 'made up of fallible human beings' is pretty lame to me. So are the CIA and the FBI made of 'fallible human beings'. And 'what good could the piece have done'? I already answered that. That was for the continuation of Frutos's work as Simon has outlined, even if this one is a 'mistake'. All great artists have a big BOMB. They have that right. And the value of what seems awful in the present may change radically. That's what I said, I wasn't arguing with you, which it seems you think I am. Actually, as we know, the Catholic Church is a quite ripe target for condemnation now, what with problem priests, etc., but it's not a concern of mine. It is just not that important when an important artist has a bomb, and fans should expect to 'be let down' from time to time. After all, they're not the ones doing the work, and they can't expect their heroes to be gods all the time. Some of the time yes, not all the time. But I'm just not emotionally involved with this.

Thanks, Simon. It's not just the dance itself but his stated intention to "annoy" the Catholic Church and to do so in order to be scandalous (not to be scandalous for some good societal end) that strikes me as adolescent. But you have explained why he hates the Church, and thanks for doing so. Is that different from what Fellini did in his films--except that it was more well-crafted and thought out? It's okay to do a pitiful protest against the Catholic Church, although that wouldn't keep the piece from being pitiful. I don't myself care to 'annoy' the Catholic Church, but that could certainly be seen as 'being scandalous for some societal good'. You do not need to have the goal of a 'societal good' always in your scandals, and most people don't. But if he hates the Church, it follows naturally that you do your own expression of the hatred, not what would be more 'seemly'. I don't hate the Catholic Church, as not one, but adoring much of the art that it has produced. But since we always talk of ballet in particular as not having to have any particular ideological, societal, or political goal, so that if there is just some desire to 'be bratty', which this sounds like, that just sounds like part and parcel of the rest of the piece. But I'd think that anybody who just wanted to 'annoy the Catholic Church' would at least think they were doing it for some kind of 'societal good', even if it was just their own idea that they had 'hurt feelings' of psychological hangups from being Catholic. That's cool.. My best friend is always going on about how horrible it was to be brought up Catholic. It's just the piece sounds horrible for all reasons described. Also, what Simon says sounds like it's a continuation of activist work he's long been involved with, so that this could well prove to be an important part of that whole oeuvre when looking back say in 7-10 years. Lots of artists have what they call 'evil works', which are loathed at the time, and they even often decry them themselves--albeit usually some years later, after the sense of epiphanic euphoria has passed. Lyotard's book 'Libidinal Economy' is almost always considered his greatest work, although it caused enormous protest, and he even repudiated it himself, calling it his 'evil book', but it's one of the best things he ever wrote, all about 'Little Girl Marx', and all phillosophers know it practically by heart.

Snuff films are sometimes said to be 'urban legend', and probably mostly are, but I find it difficult to believe that they have not been actually made in various vicious circles, and simply never circulated. There are hardcore sadists who have killed people in their cruelty, so i can't imagine they've never filmed any of it. All that stuff with Crispo back in the 80s has a 'snuff aura' to it, although it wasn't filmed. I can't imagine that they haven't been, although I admit i don't know anyone who has ever seen one. I just think that if Gilles de Rais and Erzbeth Bathory did what they did that it's not a very far leap in the modern day to capture these secret sadistic rituals on film. Come to think of it, there are very famous photographs that Georges Bataille has reproduced in one of his books of a torture to death of a Chinese man, I think it's called 'the thousand cuts', I have seen these horrific photographs, that's not substantially different from a snuff film, just not a moving picture.

Yes, that's a good thing to say about 'Pink Flamingos', I guess. Sounds fine to me. Don't know what you mean about the 'pc' crowd. They're all different stripes, I think. If you mean 'hipsters', then that might mean more tha type that go along with the pro-Polanski petition, I don't think anybody except the most extreme is interested in supporting a snuff film, so I think that's across-the-board objecionable. Non-violent pornography isn't the same, even if you think it can be art or never be art. I guess I draw the line at extreme REAL violence, or at least the most important line, and I don't know even the 'hippest, coolest' types who would find anything in a snuff film to do anything bot condemn. They need a basically criminal mindset, don't they? I do recall a clip of a man trapped in a midtown elevator that was going around some of the theory/media studies/philosophy blogs a couple of years ago. I thought all these socialist types, who are so deeply concerned with people they don't know more then their own even in many cases, who didn't realize what a monstrously cruel thing this was to observe as a curious spectacle (it was I think on 6th Avenue, oh yes, now I remember, in the McGraw Hill Building, in a car I had been in when I worked there back in the 70s, the elevator banks are still the same even though there's a lot of Morgan Stanley in it) were completely out of touch. It ruined the man's life to be stuck in this elevator and be unable to get any signal for help through all this time. That's a little like a snuff film. Some of these bloggers were making jokes about it, and I protested vehemently. Now, although the ballet of Frutos sounds trashy, I probably would just dislike it or think it was silly and maybe even funny in a low way, but looking at someone suffering is the worse. So I guess I don't quite answer your question, because these same people who thought it okay to laugh at the man trapped in the elevator were among those most involved in the (quite legitimate) protests against Abu Ghraib, the whole issue of torture that has been such an important issue in the last few years. Even so, i don't think even these childish people would support a snuff film, but you may have meant that as an extreme case, so I just answered as best I could.

Thanks kfw, oh I wasn't referring to this particular dance piece, and really probably would never be talking about a dance piece (although can we be sure?). I was thinking of PG, R, X ratings for movies, I guess, and was writing very fast, so I'm now wondering, though, do you also think the movie ratings shouldn't be age-limited. If the 'vile behaviours' are in a movie about paedophilia (which I guess is what you mean by 'vile behaviours'), they should not be censored if the movie is to to honest, but you bring up an interesting point: Should a ballet with all these extreme acts be different in its policy, in that what Mashinka has described to us may be outrageous, but there just shouldn't be any explicit-looking sex things that involve children. If the theme was still child molestation, or whatever kind of vileness, there could be a way of evoking it without being too explicit, which in thinking about it now, it probably ought to be forbidden in ballet choreography whereas some kind of simulation would probably be the norm in a 'realistic film', wouldn't it?

Yes, censorship is over. And it should be. I can't think of anything more implausible than pretending we could even do it, as if we could return to pre-porno days--at least not in Western democracies; there's plenty of it in the Arab world and others. The public either accepts or not, and underage people are kept out of things. Legal censorship is for the birds. Of course, there are 'snuff films'. That's definitely out in my book, but just vile behaviours onstage, with people acting like idiots, has to be allowed.

bart--that just brings up something interesting to begin with. I think I do cherish female opera singers more than I do the men, which is not quite the same with ballet, which is about equal for me. I also like many more female movie stars than I do male ones, although not better than the male ones I do like, Cooper and Mitchum, Delon, Rosanno Brazzi, a few others. Well, I don't think mine do, although they probably ought to more. I just think about the sound, although 'humanity' is definitely one of the things Callas is just overcome with every time she sings 'Tosca', which I didn't mention yet. And I love any number of 'five minuteses' in Callas's best Toscas. With Flagstad, it's just the best voice I ever heard in the peak period, I get knocked out by it every time I hear the early recordings. I don't know about 'Sempre Libera', that's a bit courtesan, but still very human, I just love to hear if perfectly sung, it's pure champagne. Well, I adore Cavaradossi in the early part of Act I, it is ravishing, so yes, there are beautiful men's things too. And in 'Meisteringser', there is Hans Sachs's gorgeous singing, but mainly Walther's conterst-winning song, and by the way, I must be senile, 'Meistersinger' is, if I have to choose one, my very favourite opera, and the Overture alone has enough 'five minuteses' of perfection in it to last me a long time, not to mention the whole opera. I LOVE this piece, because it's an opera about musicians of an era we wouldn't really know that much about if Wagner hadn't made it. And it's a happy Wagner opera. The Met production back in the mid-90s one of greatest things I've ever seen and heard. I also like a lot of 'Don Carlo' and also the corny things in 'Rigoletto' and 'Trovatore' when you've got a real virtuosos and ham to do them.

I apologize in advance.

Good point, agree, because that's the form that's 'in-between'. I think it seems to work better with just music than with opera or ballet, because live performances of opera and ballet filmed really make you want more, I find them less satisfying than recorded music, and would like to know if others feel the same. Actually, I find a recording of a 'live orchestra performance' to make me almost feel there, which I never feel with the others, but this may just be subjective, not sure. I think, though, it's because you really DO still have the full sound-world, whereas when the emphasis is on the visual and spectacle as well, you have substantially less of that when filmed.

Respectfully, Patrick, isn't 'degraded' a little harsh? It's true that recordings generally are made for music that was originally intended for a live audience, but I would hesitate to call a carefully crafted recording with a great cast made with attention and care for the music a degradation of that music - on the contrary. Dirac, I was just going along with what Quiggin said about 'losing its very soul'. I don't think it's 'degraded' myself (Benjamin uses 'depreciation', although that doesn't mean it's true either), no, just 'somewhat less' that a live performance (in important ways to most of us, although not those who think, perhaps, that technology improves everything, which is probably no one at BT), just as DVD's of ballet are less than live performance. Edited to add: In my post #32, I think I say it more clearly.

Some of these interpretations have some validity, Drew, but just to say about 'anti-aura': I think not, not really, insofar as he is talking about art apart from how it might be part of ideology, because clearly tbinks that 'loss of aura' has weakened art. The same can be found in Heidegger, when he talks about Greek statues of gods, in which he describes the statue itself as being the god. I remember being struck by that. What's important, without continuing to debate this, is that that phrase 'aura of the bad cult of the film star' was a kind of 'cheap aura' by comparison to the kind of aura more culturally immanent works once had. I often think of that phrase, because we certainly don't even have that particular 'bad aura' anymore. We still call them 'movie stars', but they are something else by now. So that what Quiggin said about recorded music 'losing its very soul', even though I don't personally think it myself to quite that degree, is valid to some degree, in that it's degraded from the aliveness of living art with a living audience, etc. Obviously the more 'aura' a work of art has, the more powerful, not the less, unless one is looking for a political or ideological 'use for art'. I need to reread the essay, it's been about 10 years. Here's an excerpt from the actual essay which may shed some light on what i was foccusing on, at least: 'The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. This holds not only for the art work but also, for instance, for a landscape which passes in review before the spectator in a movie. In the case of the art object, a most sensitive nucleus – namely, its authenticity – is interfered with whereas no natural object is vulnerable on that score. The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardized when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object.'

As far as I know, JFK didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize either. Yes, because his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis was brilliant, it's also true that it might not have been necessary had he not been so slack in his role in the execution of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Oh, good heavens, yes, i sure wouldn't pay for this thing, and it sounds as if you couldn't actually 'think about' it if you tried I'd look at it, but probably not respect it, but I'm just guessing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_A...al_Reproduction Here's the wiki entry. Yes, it is read that way by most philosophers, even if he also talks about how it leads to other political formulations and actions due to being mass-consumed. He talks about the 'shattering of the true aura' in these reproduction forms, the 'aura of the bad cult of the film star'. He disparages the editing process that makes of film a 'perfect orchid', and is being sarcastic when he says that. He cites Duhamel's loathing of the film. I brought it up because FILM is different in that it grows directly from live theater--it is still a kind of theater that is, yet, entirely different--it is a 'sleight-of-hand'. Recorded music, otoh, is an exact duplication, it is the same compostion, and we got used to that more easily, because 'recorded music' is not itself an 'art form', whereas film IS a new art form. That's it had uneasy early moments (and many still hate it, I frankly and most philosophers have long thought Benjamin misjudged film and think him wrong on this), but recorded music (or dance, as with Graham refusing any filming for most of her career, so that we're left with just a few filmed gems), is usually actually disparaged only by the performers thsmselves, at least in a very emotional way. For most people, they are getting a good reproduction of a work of music, and this is better than the one kind of filmed version of theater as well, IMO, viz., just filming a stage performance (because you know it's live, and you know you're just getting a perfunctory reproduction of something you didn't get to experience fully enough. So again, I think reproduced piano, violin, orchestral, operatic works pretty well, and maybe once in awhile better, because you'd sometimes rather hear a great recorded performance than a bad live one. I'd certainly rather hear Maria Callas's old records than have heard her live when her voice was so harsh. I don't have much use for 'legend events' with big divas', although I do consider them a legitimate and rich form of entertainment for those who do. But on records, you DO get the real music, even if you don't get the excitement of the occasion. There's nothing I love more Toscanini's record of 'Siegfried Idyll', and I don't think I've ever even heard it on a concert program. Quiggin, I just saw this, so maybe this post cleared it up. I really don't think much is lost in reproduced music except the sense of the excitement of the live performance, because at least all the sound is there, so I guess, I think the best 'mechanically reproduced' works of art that are those little more than exact duplications. i mean in the one sense, because I do think there is great film art, of course.

I don't think there should be limits, if only it's been proved that there obviously aren't, given what you've described. Such grotesqueries are probably something some artists need to do as some kind of therapy or self-purging, although a little deleuzian auto-critique wouldn't have hurt. Of course, it's not at all ill-advised that they might have done this for some lower venues, I'll agree with you there. I'd have to have seen it, but what it reminded me of was various pieces by Paul McCarthy, the totally crazed sculptor since way back in the 70s, I believe. There were all these sculpted figures and battery-powered to make the figures engage in various illicit acts. They're so elaborate (take up whole gallery rooms) it's hard to tell they're really pretty peanut-brained at first, but some of your descriptions I have only seen in McCarthy's big piese. I haven't even seen what you're talking about in modern dance, never would have imagined that it could be done in a ballet (is there pointe?). Sounds awful, but I don't think it's a bad thing to happen, because there's no way it could become at all influential, or even just trendy, for that matter. The title is amusing, is that really it 'Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez'. So graceless, no wonder what follows is some kind of crude burlesque. Now that I think of it, I would have liked to see it for the wrong reasons: It sounds hilarious in its idiocy. But I don't think you have to worry about it setting any woods on fire, becoming a sensation, etc. Just a curio, don't you think? and will evaporate after this seasion, won't it?

The music itself in the Wagner I listed, although I'm going to prefer some Sentas and some Parsifals (all important roles) to others. In the case of 'Boheme' first act, I want a sterling performance, but won't miss that the music is beautiful anyway--as in 'Marriage of Figaro', incidentally, which is the kind of thing less professional companies can do well enough, so that you don't demand perfection in the same sense. although you always aurally prefer the best. Wagner, forget it, it can't be done by anything but consummate professionals and be worth listening to; it's demanging enough as it it. 'Sempre libera' and other very technically difficult soprano arias the same for me. Yes, I'd prefer Flagstad to anybody else i have heard sing Wagner, though, even though they've been in person and she's only on recordings. And ditto Callas, on the early records. The production you can't experience so much on either recordings or even DVD's from Bayreuth all that much (although to a certain degree, as some of the Rings from there), but the music 'having to be live' doesn't really hold true so much because, even though many more dimensiona are there in live performance, all of us have grown up with recorded music, and the 'reproduced forms' are accepted after awhile. You have the classis Walter Benjamin text 'the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', which is very anti-film, and it had been even more so in earlier days. All these new forms have become accepted, but as for the music itself, you are hearing a real performance, even if it was performed in another time and place. I think this is to some degree true of dance too, but maybe less so, but those who attend very frequently don't usually agree, accept for defintiely valuing that we do, at least, have documents of Sizova/Sovoviev or Martha Graham doing a few of her own pieces. Hans mentioned Kiri, another of my favourites. I heard her several times in person, and when the voice was at its most gorgeous, I loved it either way--she was close to perfect a lot of the time, as well as being a gorgeous woman. I would add, though, that Wagner, in particular, is infinitely more effective in live performance. I can watch the old Zeffirelli movie of 'Boheme' and be totally enchanted, just as much as in an opera house.