papeetepatrick

It's a documentary in a literal sense, but not a reminiscing sort, and little biography. It's focussed mostly on this very short period in 1967, and there are no questions asked as such within the film. You see Villella talking, and he would have been responding to something or not that was suggested, but there would have been much that was cut to make the film--this makes it have more of a 'real film' quality rather than the usual 'at home with and up close to and personal...' documentary. The Bronx High School thing was, I believe, a separate television broadcast from even earlier. The way it is edited and cut is what makes it more like a film rather than the usual documentary, because the parts about the physical agony and the actual performing are what dominate it. Condensing it in this way makes it much more dramatic, rather than concentrating on his family background growing up, etc. So that it's more about a sense of immediacy and a moment in a specific present than a comprehensive thing about the whole milieu and/or history of his past. It's that sense of immediacy which set it apart from the Nureyev films I've seen.

Thanks quiggin, I wouldn't say it's quite a general call for a 'period of abstinence' from charming Mr. B. anecdotes (although we've all heard a lot of them), but just noticing when they serve a purpose and when they don't (as in a very serious sort of film like this one on Villella) and may serve as a protective device not so much for Balanchine as for some of his dancers and perhaps others. Although your point is probably well-taken on that, at least his own use does make sense and has logic, whereas too much quoting of them by some of the dancers tends to point up their own not having something to say that is more their own--at least some of time. In other words, if he needed them as a protective device, a certain amount of real control was necessary for him to exercise his dominance, but that is not threatened by the dancers being able to express some individuality of their own, without too much resorting to quotes from the master. And if they can't say a lot of it with their own expression, then the loss of individuality 'to a greater power' is maybe a little too apparent (although I'm sure there are plenty who feel this submission can never be enough, no matter who the master.) Villella is different from most of them in that his individuality asserts itself no matter what, perhaps more strongly than any at least of whom I've been aware. As Bart points out, he talks about Balanchine more now, but in this film--which is not just about a dancer, but about a very serious, intense moment: That evening performance of 'Rubies', if a certain injury occurs, may destroy his whole career--Balanchine is always honoured by what Villella says about the ballets themselves, e.g., in one of his quite thrilling rhapsodies he starts naming all the ballets he loves to dance in and they are, of course, all Balanchine ballets. What greater homage except to then go and dance them over and over? I mainly meant that in this film that it was all right to leave out 'Dear, you don't understand...' and 'But what does it mean?' 'Nothing', etc. Villella's relationship with Balanchine is inspiring, moving, but Villella by himself is also deeply affecting, not least that wonderful operatic smile--you can easily see that face in a lot of Verdi roles.

The net result is that, sure, they can do that if they claim that's the only way to go, but the musical film as an artistic film doesn't exist anymore if that's the only way they'll do it--and it did exist in past decades, albeit without a huge number of great works. If they're all just loud, they can still sell, but they won't be taken seriously as films anymore. There still do exist smaller good musicals on stage off-B'way, off-off-B'way, and in other cities too, and occasionally something worthwhile on B'way, but they're mostly like big ads for cars or something.

Oh dear, I didn't know that, so I take back what I said. Maybe she can sing, but they obviously thought she was not able to do the vocals for Piaf. I just looked it up and thought maybe they'd used some Piaf dubbing, but maybe that sort of thing is never done. Anyway, it's several voices who dubbed her. I just checked a YouTube of Kidman singing, and it's a good deal better than I had remembered, but 'Chicago', even if I didn't like it, is a big, garish vulgar thing to begin with (and I had enjoyed it on B'way despite its trashiness). 'Nine' isn't, and it needed somebody not concerned with the usual profits, but rather like Spacey when he made 'Beyond the Sea', somebody in love with it, maybe a European. While it's clear that most of the musicals have to go this big route and only think of bucks, it cannot be necessary for every single one of them to do it, and that's what's happening, and if there's no end on it, it will all be a series of theme parks at the movies every now and then. I expect that will happen, there are no signs it won't. And related, but , that generic version of 'White Christmas' has been announced to finally have a New York run in late November. The little NYT announcement called it a 'new version', but this is the same version that's been playing in different cities since 2000; they crank it up every season. I saw it in Los Angeles in 2005, and it's one of the most dreadful things I've ever seen, and I'm a lot mellower about that sort of thing when I'm out there and relaxing. It conveys nothing of the movie, which is no masterpiece, but has a lot of charm.

There is one good casting choice--Marion Cotillard, who has some of the most important songs as Luisa. Although till today, I just assumed she'd do 'Folies Bergere' and would be Liliane le Fleur. No, it will be Judi Dench--sounds absurd to me. Cotillard will undoubtedly do well, and she's following great work by Karen Akers in the part and very good work by Mary Stuart Masterson. I agree with most of what Faux Pas said otherwise, though, and wouldn't care to see it. This was too good a property to turn into this same kind of big thing, and I don't really think it was necessary to overstuff it with that many stars who aren't singers.

Thanks, chrisk217 and rg. I had read of Glinkaiana here numerous times, but never saw it. I don't think I even remember seeing it listed on programs, so that maybe it's not in the repertory that much; or I could have just missed it. Wouldn't really know Glinka's music automatically either. Is it still done by NYCB?

But this had already been going on in this film 3 years before there was marital conflict, and the current wife Janet was shown in it several times, including at their apartment and also trying to convince him not to do that 'Rubies' that night. It was hard to even find her listed on the internet, but they apparently divorced in 1970, 3 years after the performances focussed on in the film, which were in 1967, I think late fall. So he was already really over-scheduling, with the performances inside and outside NYCB. Do you think it was in his nature to want to perform almost constantly, despite the exhaustion? Of course, maybe he needed the money, they had a child, and then later I think he sued for custody, although others will know these details. The other sources I saw don't specify that Roddy is the child from the first marriage, and that there are two other children by his current wife. Anyway, Pat McBride was clearly not going through such troubles right then--but then my impression is someone in agony every time they're offstage is a very rare and especially heavy time, but in his case I suppose it may have been more frequent, I don't know. I like it when they talk about Balanchine regarding the dance--and would also have liked Balanchine to have been photographed in that rehearsal had he not objected. I just was glad to hear no recipes for coulibiac or roast veal and no personal advice or cute quips, a la 'Mr. B. always says...' That is all right sometimes, but it wasn't relevant to enormous physical agony, chiropractors and being determined to dance at any cost anyway. The absence of anecdotes of any kind was actually extremely refreshing; he seemed to be a kind of fantastically driven animal artist like Maria Callas, perhaps, and for this you need a solid individual profile first, secondly a disciple, which I thought came across--even if it was the only period in which he was quite like that: Alone. Anyway, thanks quiggin, I think you will love the film, and he's glorious in 'Rubies', not to mention 'Tarantella' and the others (even though in that 'Tarantella' you even see the exhaustion very pronounced onstage.) Edited to add: There was a piece he was dancing called something that sounded like 'Palinkia', but it's not listed in the NYCB repertoire. What is this, please? Thanks.

This is the most exciting Welcome person post I've ever read here. I hope you will post in all the forums, because your experience is wonderful and you know a lot about things that most don't. The Riverboats alone is pretty cool, but you are so versatile and must know just all sorts of things. Please, please, please--write all over the place!

'The Man Who Dances' must be unique in terms of its documentation of an overscheduled period in a dancer's career. Is it? Because none of the things on Nureyev or any of the female dancers give anything like the detail during this period when Villella collapsed in a matinee and then did 'Rubies' at the evening performance. He is in agony at all points offstage in this group of performances. I wonder if this was a pattern, this overscheduling. He doesn't even say no to Melissa Hayden when she needs to have him fill in for someone else during the period. It's a remarkable film, because those moments in his dressing room when he goes into these exclamations of ecstasies about the 'soaring' have an almost maniacal repetition to them which is very effective--just short jabbing phrases about the same thing over and over. It sounds slightly crazed at first, until you begin to realize that it's just that kind of verbal repetition that makes it so you really understand precisely what he means by the ecstasy he got in dancing. It is much better than any dancer I've ever heard talking about the sensation of dancing, because it is so enraptured that it is still attached to the dancing he's thinking about ('I feel really good right now', he says after a performance, 'although it will be different tomorrow', or something close to that). With other dancers, the talk of the dancing is more detached from the sensation itself. Patricia McBride was exquisite whenever she appeared or danced, and as a result of never speaking once in the film, was like an ethereal being around his intensity--without even mentioning that to see her dance is always to love her--she is perfect. I also very much liked that it was really about Villella more than it was Balanchine. Balanchine was fully respected, but he was not every other word the way it is in some documentaries about Balanchine dancers. It is enough that he owes everything to Balanchine and his choreography without having to say 'Mr. B'... 'Mr. B, this'... 'Mr. B. that'... every few seconds (and in the rehearsal with McBride with Balanchine in which 'he didn't want to be photographed', you still get fleeting glimpses of Balanchine, which is nice). This film of a Balanchine dancer was more like Nureyev's 'I am a Dancer', which might be unique among Balanchine-dancer films, and could be because Villella was Balanchine's great male star. As a film, I definitely find it better than any other I've seen about a particular dancer at work, better than Nureyev's films and better than any of those by and about other Balanchine dancers. The old Martha Graham film from the late 50s, early 60s is the only one I can think of that comes close to being a really fine film about the dancer and his/her art. There's just infinitely more about muscle and bone, how the muscles 'think' and behave, than in any other dancer films I've seen.

Well, Kathleen's explains a lot about this. I could never do it, because I would resent the listening taken away from music, and maybe it's really to a lesser degree that I also want to feel the book and read it. I've listened to only two read things on audiocassette, one was Gladys Cooper/Greenwood/Johnson/MacCowen/Redgrave in the 'Importance of Being Earnest' on Tuesday--but that was only because I couldn't get it in any other form--I'd have much rather seen any video of it, but did enjoy it because I know the play nearly by heart and could compare what I heard to well-known dialogue done by other performers. And then the other one was a few years ago, I listened to Penelope Keith read Jilly Cooper's 'Class.' But I was only listening to this like music, because Ms. Keith's voice is so special and I love to hear it. The work was mostly fluff, but she can bring that kind of snobbish thing to life. Also, I hear a kind of voice while reading a book, and that may be partially me and partially the author. A reader--unless it's the author, in which case I would sometimes be interested to hear it as when we hear them at public readings--adds a 3rd voice to it, and also annihilates the one I'm superimposing.

You get some of that on one of the old films, I think it's called 'Martha Graham in Performance', and is from late 50s, early 60s. 'Night Journey' is on there, and Martha and Bertram Ross and Paul Taylor are all in it. But I'm remembering a longish intro or little section in which she's getting ready to do Jocasta in her dressing room. She was so light and feminine and a touch coquettish. I think she even said something about this matter of 'light things', as opposed to all these mythologies with their tragedies she was always working with.

This is one of the most ravishing series of short films I've ever seen. Each features an extraordinary work and there are sometimes interviews with living architects. I intend to watch all 30, and have now already seen 9. You are taken through the assembly of these sublime buildings, and then there is no more of this 'Oh, well I hate the Pompidou Center', or 'The Palais Garnier is tacky' kind of thing so much, because you see the planning behind it. Aside from these, which were both excellent, I have also seen La Tourette Convent of Le Corbusier, which had assistance from Iannis Xennakis, better known as a composer (and part of his 'Metastasis' is heard toward the end.) The old Bauhaus Building is still in existence in Dessau. But the most dramatic I've seen is Liebeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, which is so often visited, there must be many here who have been there. This is literally breathtaking when you find that one of the few remaining buildings after WWII, an 18th baroque building, itself contains the entrance to Liebeskind's masterpiece, connecting two conflicting Germanys. The settings and prospects and history of all these buildings is as comprehensive as possible given the limitations of time, but thus far, Liebeskind's museum is the most dramatic. These films open up the world of modern architecture, which seems to be more impressive nowadays in most ways than do the other Arts. I certainly can't think think of anything new in opera, for example, that comes anywhere near the excitement of some of these buildings--some arts definitely have their great periods in previous centuries, we have to be happy with the occasional exception. But architecture continues, and it's lovely to find that it's not nearly all just more Frank Gehry. Liebeskind's site design for the WTC site is still to take off, of course, bogged down endlessly in battles, although the individual buildings will be done by other architects. The English voice-over is by one Judith Burnett, and this is a wonderful pleasure--superb spoken English, but not precious in that way some New Yorkers may associate with some of the old WQXR ladies. ARTE is a French-German culture television station, so some there may know these, as they are not usually shown here as far as I know, although they are in Switzerland and Belgium. Co-producers include Musee D'Orsay, Pompidou Center, National Center of Cinematography. There is a very metropolitan sensation to these films, modernity and freshness, and the two main filmmakers behind them are Richard Copans and Stan Neumann. I don't know how easily available they are though. They begin about 2000-2001, then continue over the next few years. Added: This is a different kind of architectural item (not exactly 'high art'), but very interesting, because it's one single property worth almost 4 time the 10 residences of John and Cindy McCain, which are being much talked about today: Candy Spelling keeps her gift-wrapping room intact. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/us/21con...9askM+4zhH75IEA

Well, they're not going to scrap anything corporate, Sander0, although they don't interest me either, at least I haven't had time to turn them on a single time. However, while it is good entertainment for many people and they should enjoy it, I don't think it hurts to look at this particular Olympics and be informed about its singularity within Chinese power: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/weekinre...amp;oref=slogin Nicholas Kristoff was also very good today on his experience in 'applying for a protester's license:' http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/opinion/...amp;oref=slogin There are other matters of interest in this particular Olympic Games, and those implications are fairly serious for all forms of entertainment, forms of which the Arts and ballet definitely are. While it is true that they are 'arts', it's also true that they, too, are entertainment, and that they, too, are businesses. But there really is no pretending that the arts are not embedded with corporate influence and money; and there's plenty of reason to think that much of this is beneficial to all these endeavours. Life itself is part-corporate, to greater and lesser degrees.

Oh, that's all right, Cristian. Sir Walter Scott wrote in "The Lay of the Last Minstrel": Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, "This is my own, my native land."? That's lovely I'd never heard this one, and I am so tired of people who don't understand something so basic.

I imagine it already was. It's not very hard to find out about the Soviet black markets, and that always means drugs, although I don't know what the comparison with 'evil imperialism' would be in terms of consumption.

Thanks, Gina, and I certainly understand what you are talking about too. I did enjoy 'Hairspray' while I was watching it very much, but it did not stay with me as a whole. 'Spiderman3'--forget it, I couldn't get through so as to be an informed viewer. It's the remakes of real classics that is the most disturbing. Before we knew that 'My Fair Lady' was definitely going to be remade as a musical, sidwich said that there was nobody who could do it now, most likely, and that Hollywood would need a big-name film star. Now that I've gotten used to the idea, I would maybe be interested if they made it with Kelli O'Hara and Jeremy Irons, but that still shows I don't want them to remake it at all, because I can only imagine it if it suggests what I already like; anyway, there's no possbility I get to cast it! 'Mamma Mia' sells because people love the ABBA songs and because Meryl Streep is still big box-office. It's possible I'd even enjoy it too if I had the time for it, but I have definitely found that there is some sort of technique in almost all of the recent film musicals that has been perfected that bombards the viewer as quickly as possible: It is geared to immediate gratification, and that is what I experienced with 'Hairspray' and 'Dreamgirls', but nothing at all of the latter has stayed with me, and only Pfeiffer from the former (which means the movie failed for me, because you are definitely supposed to remember everybody else and sympathize with their maudlin ways, not Pfeiffer's snake-in-the-grass.) 'Rent' didn't manage to engage me even while I was watching it, on the other hand. But I can see how I appreciate 'Hairspray', at least, for even just that momentary excitement, which we sometimes just need with no thought of 'posterity'.

THAT is one of the funniest lines I've ever heard. I am going to steal it and use it freely since I don't know who to credit it to. It does describe the sense of extreme imprisonment and sensory assault some of the recent movie products induce: I got it from watching the clip of 'Dancing Queen' alone, which is like a cross between rehashing some 'The Sound of Music' Alpine Frolics and Pied Piper of Hamlin, and the old Coca-Cola ad from the 70s 'I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmoneeeeeeeeeee....I'd like to give the world a Coke to keep it companeeeeeeeee....' But I've been seeing thousands of other signs of this in the big things, like the fact of a great actress like Rosemary Harris in 'Spiderman3', which I watched the other night. And it was 30 minutes when I turned it off!!! Fortunately, I was home so I was able to go ahead and kill myself...although I can't blame Rosemary for doing it for the bucks, of course. She's not trying to 'expand her range' by doing May Parker. The imitation of TV ads is very blatant by now, not just in 'Mamma Mia', but in almost all of the giant-scale productions.

While don't agree with many of Ms. Andrews' actions in recent years, I don't think there is anything inconsistent in saying that: 1) she enjoyed Ms. Hepburns' performance, and 2) she wished that she could have played the part onscreen. I think both are very possible. In "That Entertainment! III," Lena Horne says almost exactly the same thing of the Julie role in "Showboat" which she had been considered for and passed over because of the racial issue; she loved Ava Gardner as Julie, but she still wished she could have played the role. They aren't the same. Lena Horne and Ava Gardner were close friends. They adored each other.. I recently saw 'That's Entertainment III', and remember the scene you describe very vividly. No matter. Ms. Andrews didn't get to do Eliza onscreen and some of us are glad. Also, 'putting the stamp on that role' definitely means she thinks she had the authoritative Eliza for the musical and would have done it better; and that 'she understood why they did it at the time' surely means she doesn't so much any more. Many agree with her, but it doesn't matter. Maybe she can do Mrs. Pierce or Mrs. Higgins in the remake. Jane Greer was very effective in 'Against All Odds', although she was too old to play the part she'd originated in 'Out of the Past.'

I found a bunch of sites that describe it as a remake of the musical. Various other details, all of it sounds vulgar to me--maybe Day-Lewis, maybe he's not available because of 'Nine'. This should make it possible to remake Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, and Intolerance--all of it solidest corporate product, but new and improved, post-modern, dessicated duplication. Might as well just Xerox it.

I liked Stanley Holloway, but maybe Wilfred Lawson even better. Mainly, I thought 'A Little Bit of Luck' was more effective than 'Get Me to the Church..' except for those divine barmaids... That's the thought of someone who always has ballet in mind. Hepburn brought a sense of ballet to many of her performances. I never thought much of it either, but didn't think it bad exactly. But refresh me, please, on this slashing of the score, because I thought it had been mostly intact (I may never have seen it but once, and many years ago.) It's not one of my favourite musicals, but it is a lot of people's, including Rodgers. But please, please, if you haven't, see the old Fritz Lang 'LILIOM" with Charles Boyer, on which the musical was based. Ferenc Molnar was said to like Carousel, but I never liked it as much as the non-musical version. Boyer is young and swaggering in the part, and he can definitely act, and Madeleine Ozeray is exquisite as Julie, much more the fragile birdlike creature than the musical shows. You also get to see Antonin Artaud, the mad French actor, as the knife-grinder. Anyway, I'm a Fritz Lang freak, and think he is one of the greatest directors that ever lived (not an uncommon thought.)

Along the same lines, she also over-defends Pickering in front of Higgins and his mother, just to make her point to Higgins. Even though Pickering was just as much at fault in ignoring her after the ball, and went to bed almost immediately in 'Pygmalion' (not that he hadn't been kinder in the past, but still, not at that crucial point). In 'My Fair Lady', Eliza can never get his attention any more than she can Higgins's in the 'You Did It' scene. In fact, the very song itself proves Pickering's own insensitivity, even if temporary.

I thought the idea was that it didn't need to apply to Freddy - Eliza is merely taking her frustration about Henry Higgins out on him because he's an easier target. At least in the "My Fair Lady' interpretation (as opposed to 'Pygmalion). But it's never been my favourite part. Good pont, I hadn't thought of that, and likely so.

OMG those are so friggin' funny Somewhat different from Dr. Dre.... I love the way 'promiscuous' doesn't rhyme with any of the other words, and maybe she can sing it to Daniel Day-Lewis in the remake of 'Mamma Mia!'--'cause they're gonna hit it off big in NINE-A NEW MUSICAL-- which we'll be needing in a year or two, according to whether Viacom merges with MySpace or FaceBook in a hostile buyout. And all along I thought it was ex-royal Sarah Ferguson of Weight Watchers we were getting...I REALLY DID!!! The AP on my Verizon screen that announced that Day-Lewis would be doing his divertissement role about 10 days ago mentioned one 'Fergie', and I thought it was Prince Andrew's ex ('Stacey' already perilously close, and then you just go ahead with 'Fergie' just like she did. Never heard of this one, and think it quite *simulacrum* that she's lifted the moniker. There is probably a whole social set that never heard of the *Real* Fergie.)

Julie Andrews fans always say that. I tend to agree with critic David Thomson that Ms. Andrews is never interesting, although I tried to think so, and tried to like 'Victor, Victoria' and couldn't. I no longer even want to hear her voice in 'I Could Have Danced All Night', although she sang that well. Many people, including herself, think she will always own the role of Eliza in the musical, but many don't by now; I certainly don't, and I grew up with her Broadway albums. Having seen what Hiller did, which is a much less detailed role (in the sense that it is made much more extravagant in the musical) than Eliza of 'My Fair Lady' is, I looked closely this time at what Hepburn did in both parts of 'My Fair Lady', and I cannot see her as less than ideal. Her Cockney was much better than most will admit, and there is much more opportunity to show it off in 'My Fair Lady' than there had been in 'Pygmalion'. Really, Hiller just needed more material. Hepburn was an actress, and had proved it in 'The Nun's Story'. It's unfortunate she got stuck in those mannequin roles like 'How to Steal a Million' and 'Paris When It Sizzles', but of course she was not capable of going into the dark ranges too much. But that has nothing to do with Eliza, and I can't prove she was right for it any more than someone else can prove she was wrong. Many liked her--my brother came fresh from seeing Julie Andrews in the B'way 'Victor, Victoria', and said that 'My Fair Lady' was his favourite movie, that he thought it was so much better that Audrey Hepburn did it. Also that Julie Andrews was 'never sexy'. So what does he know? What do any of us know? Her more aristocratic mien played off well against Harrison. Incidentally, Ms. Andrews was more than gushy about Hepburn's Eliza during the period ("Oh yes, Audrey was just soooo wonderful in it"), and only retracted it after Audrey's death. She then said, in a PBS retrospective of her own career, 'Well, at the time I understood why they did it; but now, looking back on it, I really do wish I had put the stamp on that role'. Nothing was ever enough for her, and so, as her own star began to wane, she could no longer be bothered to appear generous. You didn't see the other rejected ladies getting big movie careers as consolation prizes, nor spending so much time on their self-importance after their initial disappointment. One thing that is never quite right in the musical is 'Show Me', simply because it doesn't equally apply to both Higgins and Freddy, and this the old 1938 proves (it only applies to Higgins, of course, but the song demands that it also apply to Freddy). It just seems like Higgins was right about 'female irrationality' for Eliza to keep singing 'Show Me' to Freddy, since, even if he's not interested in working, he's more than willing to make love to her and does then kiss her right there in 'Pygmalion'l and she tells him to do so again, and she does. I am very surprised that they didn't figure out a better way to deal with this in the musical, as the scene works a thousand times better in the original, with the policeman admonishing Freddy 'This isn't Paris, you know'. But frankly, the ascent to becoming a lady in 'Pygmalion' has little of the magic that Lerner gave it. Both the Ascot scene and the ball scenes are far more effective in 'My Fair Lady' (of course, there is no actually Ascot scene in the play), although some of the domestic comedy is better or as good in the 1938 version. The drilling of Eliza is not nearly painful enough in the old one, that is the one part that should be a little interminable. I dread any remake, but I doubt it will be with singing. A Gwyneth Paltrow type sounds okay, but ordinary, pedestrian.

And yet Howard is wonderful too. It's just I guess as years have gone by, I appreciate Harrison in a way I didn't at first--really until now (something like the way I'm finally beginning to understand Maria Callas, although in her case it's finally understanding the voice itself). Just this morning, I found this from Bryan Forbes's wonderful biography of Edith Evans: "There was a quality of silence about Edith's major performances that few, if any, equalled. She used silence, she listened, and this to my mind is one of the hallmarks of greatness in an actor. A great actor has an ear for the pause and can calculate its bearable duration with the exactness of a scientist. In comedy, timing is everything. Edith had it, Rex Harrison has it to perfection; dropping the laugh line into the silence like a stone falling to the bottom of a well." I may try to find Nesbitt in the film, Evans said that she and Gladys Cooper were the perfect beauties, but I'm not really familiar with Nesbitt, so I missed her. Agree Hiller is wonderful, but I've never seen her be anything else but superb. I'm so behind on some of the new actors I'm not even in on what Keira Knightley is like, what the joke is.