papeetepatrick

I just watched this 'Swan Lake' with Wieneropernballeten, Lanchberry, etc., and would be interested to know something about this Nureyev-choreographed version. Is it the only taped version of Nureyev and Fonteyn? Much is wonderful, as I want to see anything of the young Nureyev, who's always glorious, even if I'm not crazy about the make-up and hair, as here; and also Fonteyn in anything. The surprising thing for me, not knowing that many productions, is dispensing with the traditional Black Swan music and using other music, some waltzes from the first act, I believe; I'm not sure there is anything that hasn't been heard earlier in the ballet in this version, and this probably has to do with how he wanted it danced. That Black Swan music is rather sorely missed by me, as it provides an obviously worldly sound that contrasts boldly with the ethereal Odette music. I would like to know if this is frequently done, or even if it has ever been done. Also, if there's another tape or DVD of Nureyev in 'Swan Lake' even without Fonteyn, but in the more usual version. Thanks.

I don't think if Ellroy is a writer you don't like the first time that there would be much point trying again--it's not like you confront problems such as those with Faulkner or Joyce. His mother was murdered and that contributed to his dark fixations (could possibly explain part of his continual cameos of Lana Turner, whose father was murdered, although her ease at producing scandal made it unnecessary to bother adding much to what was already there--Zeta-Jones is going to do her in 'Stompanato', which sounds all wrong, Keanu Reeves as Stompanato completely ridiculous) The actors in 'LA Confidential' are indeed excellent. You did it the reverse way I did. I don't actually object to leaving out, re-inventing, chopping up, or even adding new twists if they have vitality. What they did in the screenwriting here was something I hadn't ever seen before: they attached pieces of plot that Ellroy had written to pieces of other plots and subplots that Ellroy had written--but that were unrelated, i.e., they didn't think up new ways to direct the plot (perhaps too taxing and they could get away with this), they just culled other plots and made new attachments and assemblages. This would not have been particularly noticeable or offensive most likely if you hadn't read the book. It's rare that a book is improved by the film version--I thought Kubrick's 'The Shining' was one example, which got rid of that stupid Disneyfied Stephen King ending and made the horror last past your exit from the theater. Sometimes a miniseries is the only way to really do justice to something, but it's usually going to be an acknowledged classic, perhaps. I thought the Catherine Deneuve/Rupert Everett/Natassia Kinski/Danielle Darrieux 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' finally got it right even with the 1960's updating--that it was light-years more authentic than Glenn Close and company, not to mention Vadim and Moreau. Another good miniseries but not well-known is 'Lost Empires,' based on J.B. Priestley's novel about early 20th century English music hall. To me, it was also another rare example of a filmed version improving upon the book (which was nevertheless very fine, but had too sentimental an ending.) It's interesting to imagine how many filmed masterpieces would have occurred had sentimental endings been resisted--'Breakfast at Tiffany's' is maybe the worst example of wrong endings, for a movie that is otherwise a poetic gem. They're going to do 'The Black Dahlia,' DePalma directing and Josh Hartnett, Scarlet Johanneson, and Hilary Swank. Is in post-production now, and might be interesting.

Alexandra--what was Lar Lubovitch's 'Red Shoes Ballet' like? I had liked some of his work from the 70's like 'Clear Lake' and 'Joy of Man's Desiring' (danced by J. Solan--a classically trained dancer who later did a lot of work with Netherlands Dance Theater--when I saw it), but not the ice-skating Sleeping Beauty thing, which I saw on television. I recall that when the musical 'The Red Shoes' had a dreadful fate on Broadway, ABT was putting on the 20-minute + 'Red Shoes Ballet,' but I didn't get to see it; and wondered if it sometimes reappears in the repertory there.

I like the POB 'Cinderella' too, just watched it this weekend. In fact, it's the only one I've ever seen, but I'm not worried about that. I want to see the Royal Ballet version too, but I am not going to ever love the 'Cinderella' score as much as Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet,' which it reminds you of, but seems much paler on first listening. Only when the Prince and Cinderella dance is there, to my ear, music that is as stirring as is almost the entire score of 'romeo and juliet.' You should see this one if you haven't seen Sylvie Guillem, though (I hadn't) as she is rather startling and fabulous.

Now that you bring it up, I really was not very struck by the film adaptation, and can barely remember it even though I saw it only a few years ago. I even think the book is overrated--probably the most extraordinary image was of the sets strewn all over town--but again, it was more a portrayal of West's own depression than of anything as it really is: Because that was the business of Hollywood, those sets were supposed to be all over the place to make the movies. Also again, there is literally a 'wrong mythology' literature about LA. In the late 70's, there was a very long VVoice article by the art critic Peter Schjeldahl that gave thousands of examples of what-have-you, concluding with 'what a horrible, horrible city it is.' Who says? Woody Allen? Some people care what his opinion of LA is, there are others who've written about it with a deep understanding of it by living in it, rather than just desires for superior posturings. 'Sun-drenched quasi-slums' is a good phrase, and one of the great LA cliches, not to mention they do exist (and often are more 'un-quasi' than they appear, going right along with the sleight-of-hand and illusionism policy). 'Mulholland Drive' does a particularly good job of these, they are almost a homage to the 'San Berdoo' of 'Locust.' And maybe that one finishes the genre off, because it's profound. Thanks for 'Inside Daisy Clover.' I hadn't even known it was a book, though once enjoyed the Natalie Wood movie.

I've left out James Ellroy's hard-hitting thick pieces of pulp. I've done 'LA Confidential' (far superior to the movie because the subplots were all chopped up and reattached to other pieces of plot, or just left out, like the smut racket, central to the novel) and 'White Jazz,' which is terrific. By now, I can't remember the names of the other ones, but I think they were 'the Black Dahlia' and 'The Big Nowhere.' Hilarious rips on 50's celebs in there.

'The Day of the Locust' is one of the Los Angeles classics and very fine in many ways. In a 2001 article in Los Angeles Magazine, Tom Carson wrote about some of the overly feverish types of writing that have been done on Los Angeles, due to its uniqueness in containing Hollywood and the subculture that that has produced. He cites a part of 'Day of the Locust' that I had thought was a little overdone too, having to do with someone trying to spruce up their residence with some 'plaster, lath,' something else (sorry I don't have the book handy) and how there was 'nothing sadder' than this. Carson said he was just 'talking about real estate.' I agree, West was just indulging in despair fantasy in that passage. I've read some of the most ridiculous things that attempted to 'capture Los Angeles,' and they have most often been by New Yorkers being condescending to it. I don't have any more patience with this sort of literature than John Gregory Dunne did, as it's almost always condescension, and always hyperbole. I'm a New Yorker that happens to think Los Angeles is a fantastic and extremely original town--I admit it's scary in some tricky ways, but it's got it's own character, so I get out there usually once a year. Someone once wrote that 'Los Angeles is the horizontal, mobile version of New York', and I am very much in sympathy with this--relaxing, laid-back, but with many (by now) of the cultural attractions of New York. The movie of 'Day of the Locust' is a pretty good adaptation, I thought, and Karen Black is excellent. But her character was yet more scathing in the book, when toward the end she is singing a song at a lewd party with lyrics 'I'm a vi-pah...' which she was, long before Johnny Depp's Viper Club came into existence.

I used to think you had to attend a live performance, and that's all I did, many years of NYCB especially. I no longer do think that's 'the only thing' the deeper you get into it (and it's not even enough if you really want to study it really exhaustively). The live performance is the real thing, of course, but when you want to study the works more carefully, you even need the taped performances. You can go back and forth when you want to take another look at something closely. Actually, take a look through the NYPLibrary catalog and you will see that there are hundreds of VHS and DVDs: I know, because I am checking at least 10 out per week, and watching at least one a day. Last night I watched, for example, the 'Ultimate Swan Lake' tape from the Bolshoi, 1984. This is the one hosted by Gene Kelly and has Bessmertnova and Bogatyrev. Well, the corps de ballet is so magical I feel cured of that ABT broadcast from 'Dance in America.' And, at least in this one case, I would much rather have seen this Bolshoi performance on television than the ABT one live, with all its cuts and various other hateful things I'll be kind enough not to enumerate this time. Of course, if it's a fantastic performance and production, I'd prefer to see it live, but you don't hear music when you're studying scores either, at least you don't hear it with your physical ear, but rather with your mental ear. Frankly, I'm not all that concerned with ballet's 'elitist image' problem, as I think there are attempts to get it less and less pristine. I'm much more worried about creeping slobbism than I am of snobbism that could 'threaten democratization' (and possibly even proletarianization) of ballet. If ballet can survive without excessive 'democratization', it will be all the better off, IMO.

I don't think ballet is more esoteric than modern dance or opera or classical music to the general public. It is simply being marginalized by TV and one-dimensionalism of all kinds. However, it is more overtly and healthily sexual than opera perhaps (but not necessarily more than modern dance), and this is a puritanical country, preferring abstinence and pornography by turns to being simple and direct about something so basic.

Leigh--I thought more about your post about the suspicion of training, which I agreed with, but we do leave something out. Helene has pointed toward this with the fact that Americans are willing to part with hard-earned funds for sports far more frequently. Americans also love very highly-skilled sports which are not considered arts as such--they are always involved with the Olympics, with figure skating, gymnastics, with the diving and skiing competitions, etc., even leaving out basketball, baseball, and football. So it's more than training, because all the sports require immense training. It's Arts training, and this has as much to do with 'Europe envy' as it does with suspicion of training--your example of oenophiles is but one. So that, if in the 20th century ballet and classical music were widely disseminated in America, it was still mostly European work that was performed and even the greatest 'American' choreographer is Russian, melting pot ideas notwithstanding (he was Maryinsky/Ballet Russes immigrant, not Ellis Island). Cultures developed over many centuries become more and more formalized. Americans got all the modern conveniences and money without developing a culture that would have time to formalize to anywhere near that degree. So American culture in a general sense is more informal. That's another area of sharp distrust--the formal. You are often considered to be putting on airs in America when you are just not interested in using pop language (or sometimes, even using bad grammar is part of a community's requirements for membership.) In both classical music and ballet, the bulk of the repertoire is European, still. Maybe 5% is homegrown American by now, but the greatest artistic American contributions have been in the more popular domains. Americans who have therefore not had the opportunity nor the inclination to get at least a rudimentary familiarity with ballet and classical music tend to resent those who have, and think of them as snobs, as you mentioned. In fact, we often do seem like snobs, but it is not more our fault, and I never worry about it. I've always been fascinated by the one-letter difference between 'snob' and 'slob,' though. Incidentally, scientific training, mathematical training also require great training, and these are not considered very suspect. Bart--I think I read that in the 19th century, ballet dancers were not often considered to be of particularly high character, and that some, in fact, did have to supplement their stage income in not the most lofty ways. That is like those 30's musicals of upper-class attitudes to their children, as Dick Powell, writing songs for what they considered low-class Broadway.

Of course, and this is the part of what you wrote yesterday that I fully agree with, because it goes without saying that the rich can buy the most expensive things. Some of them will be knowledgeable up in the front row, some will be continuing their pursuit of a conspicuous consumption project held over from many of their other activities...however, as anyone who was also at the performance at NYCB on Balanchine's 100th birthday will back me up, while we all shared a toast of vodka and pastries led by Peter Martins, the only person who was allowed on the stage who was not a dancer was the head of the Balanchine Trust, Barbara Horgan. That means that even if Lesley Stahl and some other big names were not on assignment that night, their $40,000 or so didn't get them past the front row--not that I'd imagine someone like Ms. Stahl was capable of having a vulgar thought like that in her mind. And I just picked her out as one well-known name I've seen in the Playbill: She's also very likely one of the ones in the 'rich rows' who'd have a very cultivated perception of what she was so generously helping to support.

I can't say I disagree with a word of that, and the most refined part of it is the suspicion of training. This is true, because with training comes another language, as it were, and this is always in the classical arts an anti-redneck language. (I don't mean it's only urban, but that it's just opposed to the coarse and uncouth.)

Tee hee--I like the pop-up thing, but only because I've never seen the red thing...I imagine I could deal with it.

Of course the money has to come. But you describe as well how it's meant to bring in those who aren't rich or 'well-heeled.' I'm a 'classical artist' myself and with, some would say, an objectionable tendency toward 'elitism.' On the other hand, I also know that the Arts are something that fill the whole social spectrum. While it's true that written history is the history of the ruling class, it is not true that unwritten history is only the history of the ruling class, or that it's a less important history. It can be passed down by the well-known various traditions, and is valued quite as highly by all those echelons of society as that in the wealthy or well-to-do classes. Ballet, of course, does have its royal roots, and then has evolved into a sophisticated urban phenomenon; my own problem has been wanting it to stop with the urban, but it's not going to just because I'd prefer it. And while you are right that rich patrons receive prestige and influence (deservedly so unless they get too pushy about it), they do not affect the creative process nearly all the time. However 'poorer' in money the artists are, it is they who determine ultimately what kind of art is produced most intimately, because they are closer to the actual moment of creation. When necessary, they are also sly enough to 'pull a fast one' on some of the smug bluestockings who think money can determine total access. The other aspects of a culture, the political for example, colour what any given period in the Arts looks like. (this is not a discussion of 'art as politics', I well know that isn't done here, nor do I wish to. Only to point out that political climate and economic climate are bonded very closely, and both influence the Arts hugely.) Sports have long had elitist strains in them, according to which sports. Golf and polo have not had the same social status as has basketball, for example. This is all written up in Veblen's 'Theory of the Leisure Class.' Ultimately, the arts are for everyone who can make use of them, but if one group is singled out, such as 'the arts are for the well-heeled,' then it could equally be said that 'the arts are for artists', because it is they who know most thoroughly how art works best--and are the ones who make it. they also talk to each other in a different way about their particular art from the way they discuss it with others. A clear example is the art historian or musicologist, who can never, no matter how much a connoisseur, know painting, sculpture or music the way the painter, sculptor or violinist can. So that although certain arts like ballet do have an audience that is mostly educated at very least, there are plenty of faithful 4th ringers who are very important to the continued survival of ballet, just to use one example.

That's highly exaggerated.

From today's NYTimes Opinionator, here's the other side of the question: 'In “The Fray,” Slate’s reader forum, pseudonymous poster “kurtosis” responds to Bryan Curtis’s examination of soccer as a cosmopolitan affection among youngish American intellectuals: “I actually enjoy the World Cup, but this tendency in the U.S. to view it as some sort of refined art is bizarre. It is as if we were to one day hear that French intellectuals had developed a fascination with NASCAR racing or the Super Bowl.” '

On the 'Potential Story Lines for Ballets' thread, Mel mentioned that Petit had done a ballet of Proust, but did not mention Marcel and Albertine specifically, after Bart and I had been toying with various possibilities for ballets out of Proust characters and situations. This is probably because the Marcel/Albertine is not the whole Petit piece, but I don't know. (I checked again since writing the above, and it is an extract. I'd be interested to know what the rest of the ballet is like.) In any case, it's on the 'Natasha' tape with Makarova as Albertine and Denys Ganio as Marcel. I had originally thought this was a possible subject, but am glad it has already been tried, although with not terribly successful results, in my opinion. The reasons are twofold: It seems unlikely, but Makarova is entirely convincing as Albertine while Ganio is not as Marcel, but only because he is too virile and energetic--you don't get any sense of the sickly Marcel. However, he looks fabulous in this and two other pieces with Makarova (especially Petit's 'Carmen,' which is quintessentially Parisian. The second reason is worse: Saint-Saens is all wrong for anything Proustian. He's a good ultra-extroverted composer, good for fetes, circuses, crowds, even Odette and Swann going out in Paris to be seen dressed properly, but I can't think that he had much concern with subtlety. His idea of subtlety is perhaps like the subtlety of spun sugar. His best works, as the delicious 2nd movement from the G Minor Piano Concerto, which is a perfect confection, are super-charming but not dramatic. In that same work, you have a first movement which is full of 19th century melodramatic bombast and is appealing in a somewhat fatuous way. You can even imagine something done for Baptiste and Garance more easily than for Marcel and Albertine, who produce one of the most introverted parts of the whole novel. Anyway, that answers that about that episode of 'Recherches', and I do think once is enough for it. The tape is wonderful, though, with Ms. Makarova's wonderful natural humour all over the place; I imagine most here have watched it. I don't know much about her personally, but I perversely hope she threw some big diva scenes backstage. Why, she can even pull off yellow hair, so I hope she was sometimes difficult to get along with. I did read she said Nureyev dropped her once, which is funny whether true or not.

I always feel as though the dancing inspires me to focus on my own movements, however much less rarefied. Watching great ballet quickens me physically, even though I can't do any of the things I just saw on stage. It's possible to make your everyday movements more focussed and composed if you can keep images of the ballet dancers in your mind. In fact, there's not a thing I find of more use in a 'practical' sense than the way watching ballet energizes me physically. I don't know if others find this happening to them, but it immediately results in brain-sharpening and more composing of the movements so that you take care and do things more precisely. Since I've been concentrating more on Ballet Talk on keeping ballet in mind a large amount of the time, I haven't spilled anything and have broken only one wine glass. I think it's just a matter of keeping the music and some of the images going in your mind; this isn't some precious thing, it just is a matter of focussing on the presence of one's own movements.

As a musician, I want to learn about dance notation to a degree at least, and then juxtapose it to the musical scores. I'm interested if musicians do a lot of this, and if, say, people in ballet orchestras often know ballet notation. As far as falls from innocence go, the fall is good for getting the knowledge, but I do think you can get the sense of wonder back even with the knowledge, because I can always get it back for music eventually. I do think, however, that you have to sometimes leave off all technical concerns in your mastered discipline for temporary periods if you want to get the sense of innocence, wonder, whatever you want to call it--that can be a kind of discipline in itself, in that you learn to leave off all the intellectual part and let the pure sensation be replenished. Of course, since music is so much a part of ballet, I can even use ballet as a means to recapture the wonder of music itself while I learn about ballet--because when I am trying to learn what I don't know about ballet, I can suspend consciousness about the music and hear it in a more instinctive way again, and quite as if I were not a musician. This started with the more obviously great music, as with Balanchine's and Ashton's use of Ravel, as well as MacMillan's Prokofiev in the Czinner 'Romeo and Juliet', but, lo and behold, I watched a Kirov tape of 'Le Bayadere' last night, and even sold my soul to Minkus. It was so well-played by the orchestra under this stern-looking conductor, I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. My only problem with learning more about the technical aspects and some dance notation is fear of being too lazy to do it! My first step is to follow more orchestral scores along with the ballets. I've done this now with 'La Valse' to the Ashton. Now I've got the 4 volumes of Baletnoe tvorchestvo: Spi︠a︡shchai︠a︡ krasavit︠s︡a. v. 1 by Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich, 1840-1893. Gos. Muzykalʹnoe being brought in from Lincoln Center Library to follow along with. I fully believe that adding as many elements as possible adds to the greatest kind of joy in all the Arts, at least for me. When it feels like labour, that's maybe not fun, but it does then pay off.

Of purely curio interest is Norma Shearer as 'Herself/Juliet' and John Gilbert as 'Himself/Romeo' in 'Hollywood Revue of 1929.' It's considerably less effective than 'The Pearl Ballet' in the same film, with James Burrows's wonderful singing of an adorable period song, and sublime Erte costumes. (Plus Marie Dressler, Anita Page, Joan Crawford's 'dancing', fantastically leaden pointe work in 'That Low-Down Rhythm' and all sorts of other OT things...I highly recommend.)

Dirac--I, too, love 'The Little Sister.' I knew some things would come up from you here that I'd forgotten, esp. 'Myra Breckenridge,' which is crucial (I even enjoyed the movie, although Maltin gives it BOMB status.) Need to take a look at the Viertel, never read any of his things, nor David Freeman either. You've reminded me of Tryon's 'All That Glitters' also, which is confusing, maybe halfway roman a clef, I couldn't always tell, but he was good at producing this febrile star-struck atmosphere. You're right, non-fiction Hollywood studies is not only tens of thousands of books, but hundreds of categories, so best to limit to fiction. Haven't read any of Mme. Collins's masterworks, and may be able to keep resisting somehow.

Since this board has a very avid, even scholarly core of film buffs as well as ballet fans, I'd be interested to know if you'd share your reading of all kinds on film in case I've missed any. I'm an avid reader of Hollywood lit and have always liked films about Hollywood and Los Angeles. In fiction, I've explored the Hollywood Novel fairly well. They all fascinate me, even the bad ones to a degree. But good ones off the top of my head are 'The Last Tycoon,' 'What Makes Sammy Run,' 'Play It As It Lays,' 'The Day of the Locust....' At some point, big writers want to start writing about Hollywood frequently enough, as John Updike in parts of 'In the Beauty of the Lilies' or that unusual eulogy in The New Yorker 'Why We Loved Lana Turner.' I can also remember liking John O'Hara's 'the Big Laugh' and lots of parts of John Gregory Dunne novels such as 'Playland'. The best writer of Industry-based fiction today is probably Bruce Wagner. I think his 'Cellular Trilogy' and the other novels are all good, but especially 'Still Holding.' Exceedingly unrestrained language and very graphic 'adult situations,' as they say, but quite a writer. There's a good novel by Dirk Bogarde called 'West of Sunset.' Raymond Chandler is not exactly a 'Hollywood novelist', but that's the kind of Romantic L.A. that makes him one of the owners of the place. Thousands of non-fiction books, too. Some of my favourites have been 'City of Nets,' both Kenneth Anger 'Holly Baby' books, parts of Didion's 'The White Album,' parts of Dunne's 'Quintana and Friends'. There is fine writing by Aileen Bowser on Griffith and all the 'diva lit' bios. I can't remember nearly all of what I've read, but maybe others will mention some of them--a vast body of writing.

Well, this seems worth pasting here, from Bentley's well-known March, 2005 NYReview of Books piece: 'It is telling, though disturbing, that perhaps the most poignant image to emerge from Balanchine at one hundred is an advertisement for Movado watches (a corporate sponsor of NYCB) featuring Darci Kistler, Balanchine's last angelic messenger and adored child-woman, whose rich but uneven career, sadly thwarted by injury upon injury, echoes like a cry in the dark since Balanchine's death. In the full-page ad, her beautiful, mournful gaze, twenty years after losing her maestro, peers like a blond widow out of a black web. She, the last muse of the Man Who Knew Time, is posed with her arm across her neck like a noose. Balanchine taught his audience and his dancers how to bear loss with grace, and the serene sadness evident in Kistler's enigmatic face is the visage of a woman whose loss indeed has been great.' Jacobs's piece is fascinating (especially on 'Pelleas and Melisande'), but she says Nichols is the last Balanchine ballerina. Is Kistler not considered a 'Balanchine ballerina?' Sometimes I think people are resentful of Kistler, that she is respected grudgingly more than loved. I agree about the 'non-omniscience', but Farrell's movement toward a becoming-omniscience is all the more admirable given that omniscience is not possible. She sometimes seems to me like a combination of the ultimate dream-woman and a nun (fortunately looking only like the former onstage; I haven't seen her offstage since she was about 24, and she was all gleam then). To be omniscient, you would have to be seductive and non-seductive; and even though she may be some of both, the evidence seemed to favour the non-seductive, and gives the work a lot of its 'splendid isolation.' (stolen from Colette about Mae West, but I can't think of anything on my own that's that good.) To be omniscient and omnipotent, you'd not only have to be the best, but also be able to do everything better than everyone else, you might even have to be omnipresent. Since no artist (nor anyone else) is omniscient, 'the Man Who Knew Time' is a bit overly purple, since Balanchine was one of them, but not the only one.

Definitely the impressive way to work at these things. I've watched that 1964 'Sleeping Beauty' 4 times since you first posted about it, and finally figured out what the Rose Adagio is. This is on the wrong one of your threads, but I think that the grey colour of the Lilac Fairy is just that non-state-of-the-art filming. Sometimes it does look lilac, and then only the top part does. I think the faded-looking colour is pretty, though, because they sometimes look like paper dolls. Have a good trip! As faux pas said, you might like Masina in 'Cabiria' when you get the chance to see it. She and her husband were great people.

Well, that's legit, but have you also seen 'Nights of Cabiria' and 'Juliet of the Spirits?' You might feel the same way, I just happen to love Ms. Massina. But again, that's just personal preference, means nothing. There's a hilarious big hunky actor in 'Cabiria' that dances with Massina in the most amazing comical way, he hulking over tiny little Massina. I'll go fetch his name...Amadeo Nazzari--very cool moment. She's also in 'Il Bidone' with BRODERICK CRAWFORD! Fellini really did know how to do some weird casting, what with Anita Ekberg sublime-busted in 'La Dolce Vita.'