Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ...
Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits
This page features links to reviews of movies, documentaries and exhibits with a historical theme. Listings are in reverse chronological order. Descriptions are taken directly from the linked publication. If you have articles you think should be listed on the Pop Culture page, please send them to the editor editor@historynewsnetwork.org.
SOURCE: International Herald Tribune (10-8-07)
SANTA CLARA, Cuba: Aleida Guevara March, the 46-year-old daughter of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, says she can bear the Che T-shirts, the Che key chains, the Che postcards and Che paintings sold all over Cuba, not to mention the world.
At least some of the purchasers truly cherish Che, she says. On Monday she was surrounded by thousands of Che fans wearing his image here in Santa Clara, where her father's remains are kept, and where she sat in the front row of a ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of his death.
Acting President Raúl Castro attended. A message was read from his older brother Fidel, who ceded power in August 2006 after emergency surgery, likening his former comrade in arms to "a flower that was plucked from his stem prematurely." But amid all the ceremony, what really gets to Guevara is the use of the man she calls "Poppy" in ways that she says are completely removed from his revolutionary ideals, like when a designer...
At least some of the purchasers truly cherish Che, she says. On Monday she was surrounded by thousands of Che fans wearing his image here in Santa Clara, where her father's remains are kept, and where she sat in the front row of a ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of his death.
Acting President Raúl Castro attended. A message was read from his older brother Fidel, who ceded power in August 2006 after emergency surgery, likening his former comrade in arms to "a flower that was plucked from his stem prematurely." But amid all the ceremony, what really gets to Guevara is the use of the man she calls "Poppy" in ways that she says are completely removed from his revolutionary ideals, like when a designer...
Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - 17:37
Comments
SOURCE: NYT (10-8-07)
For a pioneer of a movement called Minimalism, the composer Philip Glass has tended to think big in finding subjects for his operas. He has already taken on Einstein, Gandhi and Columbus. Now, in “Appomattox,” which had its premiere here on Friday night at the San Francisco Opera, Mr. Glass grapples with the bloody final weeks and complex aftermath of the Civil War. The work, with a libretto by the British playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton, focuses on the strained, embittered yet admirably dignified peace talks between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. Lincoln appears as a minor but pivotal character.
America is still coming to terms with the regional passions and racial prejudices that incited the Civil War. The story of Lee’s surrender in Appomattox Court House, a small town in Virginia, is a potentially rich subject for an opera. This earnest, sometimes alluring, frustratingly ineffective opera seems a missed opportunity.
Still, David Gockley...
America is still coming to terms with the regional passions and racial prejudices that incited the Civil War. The story of Lee’s surrender in Appomattox Court House, a small town in Virginia, is a potentially rich subject for an opera. This earnest, sometimes alluring, frustratingly ineffective opera seems a missed opportunity.
Still, David Gockley...
Monday, October 8, 2007 - 22:17
SOURCE: Independent (10-8-07)
The buildings are still there: the cavernous wooden-roofed studio where a 29-year-old Marlene Dietrich donned a silver top hat and suspenders and became a star overnight, and the brick blockhouse from which Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, began his cinematic tirade against the Jews.
Babelsberg, the German film studios that in the 1920s and early '30s won international fame as the Teutonic Hollywood, endured the trials of Nazi rule, the Second World War and Communism. But they emerged almost physically unscathed when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
Yet for more than a decade and a half since, the complex of studio buildings, outdoor sets and warehouses containing the world's largest collection of film props, seemed to hold little more than memories of Nazi brutality, Communist banality and a brief flash of inter-war genius.
Hollywood directors were slow to take up the chances offered by the post-Communist owners and even as recently as three...
Babelsberg, the German film studios that in the 1920s and early '30s won international fame as the Teutonic Hollywood, endured the trials of Nazi rule, the Second World War and Communism. But they emerged almost physically unscathed when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
Yet for more than a decade and a half since, the complex of studio buildings, outdoor sets and warehouses containing the world's largest collection of film props, seemed to hold little more than memories of Nazi brutality, Communist banality and a brief flash of inter-war genius.
Hollywood directors were slow to take up the chances offered by the post-Communist owners and even as recently as three...
Monday, October 8, 2007 - 21:57
SOURCE: LAT (10-7-07)
Review of Susan Tyler Hitchcock's 'Frankenstein: A Cultural History'
"Hear my tale," Frankenstein's monster begs his creator. "It is long and strange." In her cultural history of our favorite monster, Susan Tyler Hitchcock shows that the story is longer and stranger than the creature or Victor Frankenstein or even Mary Shelley could ever have imagined. The unloved horror has now been flourishing for almost 200 years. The response to it has ranged from early 19th century stage adaptations to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," from John Tenniel's cartoons to our own era's cautionary sermons about genetic engineering.
Hitchcock's journey down the murky back alleys of this saga began one Halloween at the University of Virginia, when she was scheduled to teach Shelley's novel in her literature class and wore a "lurid green face mask" to school. A surprisingly lively discussion resulted, with the students finding themselves both...
"Hear my tale," Frankenstein's monster begs his creator. "It is long and strange." In her cultural history of our favorite monster, Susan Tyler Hitchcock shows that the story is longer and stranger than the creature or Victor Frankenstein or even Mary Shelley could ever have imagined. The unloved horror has now been flourishing for almost 200 years. The response to it has ranged from early 19th century stage adaptations to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," from John Tenniel's cartoons to our own era's cautionary sermons about genetic engineering.
Hitchcock's journey down the murky back alleys of this saga began one Halloween at the University of Virginia, when she was scheduled to teach Shelley's novel in her literature class and wore a "lurid green face mask" to school. A surprisingly lively discussion resulted, with the students finding themselves both...
Monday, October 8, 2007 - 15:40
SOURCE: http://breakingnews.iol.ie (10-5-07)
Few films nowadays spare us nudity and/or sex scenes, so we might be forgiven for thinking Hollywood features were always that liberal. Not so.
‘Sex and the Silver Screen’ (Scanbox; €44.99) shows that movies have fought a long and often controversial campaign to open up the minds of censors. While ‘Deep Throat’ may have given explicit sex a profitable outlet, it’s hard to believe Hollywood was once under the grip of a regime where couples always slept in separate beds and even a kiss might raise the hackles of the moral police.
‘Sex and the Silver Screen’ (Scanbox; €44.99) shows that movies have fought a long and often controversial campaign to open up the minds of censors. While ‘Deep Throat’ may have given explicit sex a profitable outlet, it’s hard to believe Hollywood was once under the grip of a regime where couples always slept in separate beds and even a kiss might raise the hackles of the moral police.
Monday, October 8, 2007 - 14:48
SOURCE: NYT (10-6-07)
At about 7 last night, “The Encampment,” an installation of 100 19th-century-style tents by the Canadian artist Thom Sokoloski, was to open in an empty field at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island.
A year in the making, the tents represent the patients who once lived in the island’s smallpox hospital, the remains of which loom nearby. Inside each, volunteers would arrange artifacts to memorialize patients and other island residents. As a final touch, the tents were to be illuminated from within, so “The Encampment” would be visible from both sides of the East River, a glowing link to the area’s history.
A year in the making, the tents represent the patients who once lived in the island’s smallpox hospital, the remains of which loom nearby. Inside each, volunteers would arrange artifacts to memorialize patients and other island residents. As a final touch, the tents were to be illuminated from within, so “The Encampment” would be visible from both sides of the East River, a glowing link to the area’s history.
Saturday, October 6, 2007 - 14:59
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune (10-5-07)
In a city whose streets commemorate fascist pilots and other controversial figures, it should have been a rubber-stamped request: a street, a statue, maybe a school named in honor of Saul Bellow, one of America's greatest writers and a Chicago literary icon.
The request, made several months ago to Mayor Richard Daley's office by Bellow's longtime friend and University of Chicago colleague Richard Stern, was sent along to Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th.)
The request was promptly denied, Stern said.
Although Preckwinkle declined to comment for this article Thursday, Stern said he received a letter from the alderman saying she had heard remarks from Bellow she considered racist and because of those comments would not agree to name something after the author....
The request, made several months ago to Mayor Richard Daley's office by Bellow's longtime friend and University of Chicago colleague Richard Stern, was sent along to Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th.)
The request was promptly denied, Stern said.
Although Preckwinkle declined to comment for this article Thursday, Stern said he received a letter from the alderman saying she had heard remarks from Bellow she considered racist and because of those comments would not agree to name something after the author....
Related Links
J.E. Luebering: Saul Bellow, Race, and Chicago
Saturday, October 6, 2007 - 14:46
SOURCE: NYT (10-5-07)
Daniel Karslake’s documentary “For the Bible Tells Me So” won’t win any prizes for technique, but innovation surely ranks very low on this filmmaker’s to-do list. Mr. Karslake has said that the movie is mainly intended as a feature-length primer that can be deployed in arguments with homophobes.
Directorially, the movie is unremarkable, with one conspicuous and unfortunate exception: when Mr. Karslake apes the supercharged empathy of an episode of “Dateline” on NBC, right down to the verging-on-schmaltzy music. Otherwise, the interviews with scholars parsing the Old and New Testaments are paired with the expected archival photographs and illustrations of biblical scenes. “For the Bible Tells Me So” is, strictly speaking, an educational film, with the artlessness that that phrase implies.
The movie’s ensemble portrait of parents (many of them ministers) with adult gay or lesbian children strives to demonstrate that homosexuality is a genetic predisposition, not...
Directorially, the movie is unremarkable, with one conspicuous and unfortunate exception: when Mr. Karslake apes the supercharged empathy of an episode of “Dateline” on NBC, right down to the verging-on-schmaltzy music. Otherwise, the interviews with scholars parsing the Old and New Testaments are paired with the expected archival photographs and illustrations of biblical scenes. “For the Bible Tells Me So” is, strictly speaking, an educational film, with the artlessness that that phrase implies.
The movie’s ensemble portrait of parents (many of them ministers) with adult gay or lesbian children strives to demonstrate that homosexuality is a genetic predisposition, not...
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 21:35
SOURCE: NYT (10-5-07)
Daniel Karslake’s documentary “For the Bible Tells Me So” won’t win any prizes for technique, but innovation surely ranks very low on this filmmaker’s to-do list. Mr. Karslake has said that the movie is mainly intended as a feature-length primer that can be deployed in arguments with homophobes.
Directorially, the movie is unremarkable, with one conspicuous and unfortunate exception: when Mr. Karslake apes the supercharged empathy of an episode of “Dateline” on NBC, right down to the verging-on-schmaltzy music. Otherwise, the interviews with scholars parsing the Old and New Testaments are paired with the expected archival photographs and illustrations of biblical scenes. “For the Bible Tells Me So” is, strictly speaking, an educational film, with the artlessness that that phrase implies.
The movie’s ensemble portrait of parents (many of them ministers) with adult gay or lesbian children strives to demonstrate that homosexuality is a genetic predisposition, not...
Directorially, the movie is unremarkable, with one conspicuous and unfortunate exception: when Mr. Karslake apes the supercharged empathy of an episode of “Dateline” on NBC, right down to the verging-on-schmaltzy music. Otherwise, the interviews with scholars parsing the Old and New Testaments are paired with the expected archival photographs and illustrations of biblical scenes. “For the Bible Tells Me So” is, strictly speaking, an educational film, with the artlessness that that phrase implies.
The movie’s ensemble portrait of parents (many of them ministers) with adult gay or lesbian children strives to demonstrate that homosexuality is a genetic predisposition, not...
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 21:35
SOURCE: NYT (10-5-07)
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta has commissioned seven African-American artists to make works that respond to the civil rights movement. All the participants were born after 1968, the year of his assassination.
“These works will be responses to issues of race and politics from that era,” said Michael E. Shapiro, director of the High, who added that the museum planned to acquire the new works for its permanent collection.
The artists — whose mediums include painting, sculpture, photography, video, sound and light works — are Deborah Grant, Leslie Hewitt, Adam Pendelton, Jefferson Pinder, Nadine Robinson, Hank Willis Thomas and the artists collective Otabenga Jones & Associates. The work will be shown next summer at the High in an exhibition titled “After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy.”
“These works will be responses to issues of race and politics from that era,” said Michael E. Shapiro, director of the High, who added that the museum planned to acquire the new works for its permanent collection.
The artists — whose mediums include painting, sculpture, photography, video, sound and light works — are Deborah Grant, Leslie Hewitt, Adam Pendelton, Jefferson Pinder, Nadine Robinson, Hank Willis Thomas and the artists collective Otabenga Jones & Associates. The work will be shown next summer at the High in an exhibition titled “After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy.”
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 21:30
SOURCE: Newsweek (10-5-07)
Queen Elizabeth II is so last year. This season’s royal obsession takes us back to a perennial favorite, her 16th-century namesake, Elizabeth I. Since the dawn of movies, great actresses have crowned their careers playing the enigmatic Virgin Queen. Sarah Bernhardt portrayed her in a 1911 film, Bette Davis starred in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” in 1939 and again in 1955’s “The Virgin Queen.” Glenda Jackson was, in the 1971 BBC series, the best Queen Bess, say some ardent fans. Dame Judi Dench won an Oscar as the theatergoing ruler in “Shakespeare in Love,” and Helen Mirren played her on HBO (though not as brilliantly as her Oscar-winning turn as QE2). Even the flamboyant gay writer Quentin Crisp once had a go at old Queen Liz—which could’ve ignited those long-dead rumors that she was really a he.
But the greatest Elizabeth I may well be Cate Blanchett, who became an international star with her 1998 portrayal in Shekhar Kapur’s “Elizabeth.” Now she’s back on...
But the greatest Elizabeth I may well be Cate Blanchett, who became an international star with her 1998 portrayal in Shekhar Kapur’s “Elizabeth.” Now she’s back on...
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 21:07
SOURCE: Robert Tracinski at the website of Real Clear Politics (10-5-07)
October 10 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ayn Rand's classic novel Atlas Shrugged, so in the coming week we can expect to see a flurry of articles about the novel--many of which will, unfortunately, offer highly inaccurate descriptions of its meaning and significance.
That's a shame, because Atlas Shrugged is a novel that everyone ought to discover and grapple with, because it succeeds at something too few artists and intellectuals have had the courage to do.
The purpose of art and philosophy is to show us truths about human nature, about the nature of the world and our place in it. Philosophy names these truths explicitly, in literal terms; literature dramatizes these truths in concrete terms, revealing its insights through the actions and statements of the characters created by the novelist. A philosophical novel, like Atlas Shrugged, is supposed to do both of these things.
But too often both the philosophers and the artists have simply...
That's a shame, because Atlas Shrugged is a novel that everyone ought to discover and grapple with, because it succeeds at something too few artists and intellectuals have had the courage to do.
The purpose of art and philosophy is to show us truths about human nature, about the nature of the world and our place in it. Philosophy names these truths explicitly, in literal terms; literature dramatizes these truths in concrete terms, revealing its insights through the actions and statements of the characters created by the novelist. A philosophical novel, like Atlas Shrugged, is supposed to do both of these things.
But too often both the philosophers and the artists have simply...
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 19:31
SOURCE: Guardian (10-4-07)
While Hollywood produced dozens of Vietnam war epics and is now tackling Iraq, the French film industry has shied away from making gun-toting action movies about its own recent war history.
But one French director is attempting to redress the balance, giving the action-film treatment to the bloody saga of Algeria's war of independence against France between 1954 and 1962.
L'Ennemi Intime (Intimate Enemies), which opened in Paris last night, is being touted as a French Platoon, after Oliver Stone's war epic: a special-effects extravaganza that tackles the psychological horrors of the men fighting for the French colonial side.
But one French director is attempting to redress the balance, giving the action-film treatment to the bloody saga of Algeria's war of independence against France between 1954 and 1962.
L'Ennemi Intime (Intimate Enemies), which opened in Paris last night, is being touted as a French Platoon, after Oliver Stone's war epic: a special-effects extravaganza that tackles the psychological horrors of the men fighting for the French colonial side.
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 19:25
SOURCE: http://www.brynmawr.edu (10-4-07)
Susan Stryker, a historian, filmmaker and theorist whose work has been influential in determining the direction of the emerging field of transgender studies, will visit Bryn Mawr next week.
After meeting with students in two seminars in the College's program in gender and sexuality studies, Stryker will present and discuss her award-winning documentary, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria on Thursday, Oct. 11, at 4:30 p.m. in Carpenter B21.
Screaming Queens tells the story of a little-known uprising by transgender people in San Francisco's Tenderloin district in 1966, three years before the famous Stonewall incident in New York.
The Tenderloin was a red-light district and a ghetto for gender rebels who were subject to regular harassment by police. In the summer of 1966, a budding transgender-rights movement focused on the neighborhood tensions that burst out at Compton's Cafeteria one August night.
After meeting with students in two seminars in the College's program in gender and sexuality studies, Stryker will present and discuss her award-winning documentary, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria on Thursday, Oct. 11, at 4:30 p.m. in Carpenter B21.
Screaming Queens tells the story of a little-known uprising by transgender people in San Francisco's Tenderloin district in 1966, three years before the famous Stonewall incident in New York.
The Tenderloin was a red-light district and a ghetto for gender rebels who were subject to regular harassment by police. In the summer of 1966, a budding transgender-rights movement focused on the neighborhood tensions that burst out at Compton's Cafeteria one August night.
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 19:16
SOURCE: Times (UK) (10-5-07)
Schools should teach proper history not pop music, Sir Mick Jagger has suggested, after discovering that the Rolling Stones are now a topic on the GCSE syllabus.
Still rolling at 64, the rock icon was responding to a Bristol teacher who asked how best to present the cultural importance of the Rolling Stones to a class of eager history students.
Despite being the subject of numerous academic works, Sir Mick said it's only rock'n'roll and the Stones's importance in the grand scheme of things may have been overstated.
In a BBC News website question and answer session, Alison McClean wrote: "I am currently teaching my year 11 students about the impact of the Rolling Stones in preparation for their GCSE history coursework on Britain in the 1960s. How does Mick feel about being part of the history curriculum and, if he was sitting the exam himself, how would he describe the Stones's impact on Britain?"
Jagger, who passed O-level...
Still rolling at 64, the rock icon was responding to a Bristol teacher who asked how best to present the cultural importance of the Rolling Stones to a class of eager history students.
Despite being the subject of numerous academic works, Sir Mick said it's only rock'n'roll and the Stones's importance in the grand scheme of things may have been overstated.
In a BBC News website question and answer session, Alison McClean wrote: "I am currently teaching my year 11 students about the impact of the Rolling Stones in preparation for their GCSE history coursework on Britain in the 1960s. How does Mick feel about being part of the history curriculum and, if he was sitting the exam himself, how would he describe the Stones's impact on Britain?"
Jagger, who passed O-level...
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 19:09
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) (10-5-07)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has haunted millions of readers since its publication in 1818."But," asks Jonathan D. Gross, a professor of English at DePaul University,"what if someone came along and told you that the novel you remember so well from sophomore year English, a story so ingrained in popular culture as to warrant its own cereal (Frankenberry), wasn't penned by Shelley?" [Here.]
The latest such person to come along, he writes, is John Lauritsen, an independent scholar who argues in The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein (Pagan Press, 2007) that there is no way Mary Shelley could have created Frankenstein. For starters, Mr. Lauritsen says, she was just 18 years old when the novel appeared, far too young to have created such a masterpiece. In addition, he contends, the novel explores homoerotic themes beyond the grasp of a 19th-century woman. Mr. Lauritsen believes Mary's husband, Percy Shelley,...
Friday, October 5, 2007 - 18:07
SOURCE: NYT (10-3-07)
A few decades ago, before TV commercials became obsessively concerned with prostate problems, Jack Kerouac wrote a book called “On the Road.” It was greeted rapturously by many as a burst of rollicking, joyous American energy. People quoted the famous lines: “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn.”
In the Times review that launched the book, Gilbert Millstein raved that “On the Road” was a frenzied search for affirmation, a book that rejected the ennui, pessimism and cynicism of the Lost Generation. The heroes of the book savored everything, enjoyed everything, took pleasure in everything.
But, of course, all this was before the great geriatric pall settled over the world, before it became illegal to be cheerful.
“On the Road” turned 50 last month, and over the past few weeks a line of critics have taken another look at the...
In the Times review that launched the book, Gilbert Millstein raved that “On the Road” was a frenzied search for affirmation, a book that rejected the ennui, pessimism and cynicism of the Lost Generation. The heroes of the book savored everything, enjoyed everything, took pleasure in everything.
But, of course, all this was before the great geriatric pall settled over the world, before it became illegal to be cheerful.
“On the Road” turned 50 last month, and over the past few weeks a line of critics have taken another look at the...
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 - 23:42
SOURCE: NYT (10-2-07)
[In] recent months veterans of a once-storied Puerto Rican regiment, the 65th Infantry Regiment ... have gotten their due in a documentary called “The Borinqueneers,” which was first televised in New York over the summer and continues to be broadcast on public television nationally.
In a way, it is a passionate rejoinder to Ken Burns, whose World War II documentary drew sharp criticism from Latino and American Indian groups for initially ignoring their contributions during that war.
Noemi Figueroa Soulet, a New York actress who produced “The Borinqueneers,” understands why people were upset with Mr. Burns. But she set her sights on a different battle, in more ways than one.
“Why should we be begging Ken Burns for a few minutes in his series?” she said. “We have other guys we can cover ourselves. I really felt there was enough there to tell our story in a full program.”
The idea came to Ms. Figueroa Soulet in the late 1990s, after she saw...
In a way, it is a passionate rejoinder to Ken Burns, whose World War II documentary drew sharp criticism from Latino and American Indian groups for initially ignoring their contributions during that war.
Noemi Figueroa Soulet, a New York actress who produced “The Borinqueneers,” understands why people were upset with Mr. Burns. But she set her sights on a different battle, in more ways than one.
“Why should we be begging Ken Burns for a few minutes in his series?” she said. “We have other guys we can cover ourselves. I really felt there was enough there to tell our story in a full program.”
The idea came to Ms. Figueroa Soulet in the late 1990s, after she saw...
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 - 00:45
SOURCE: Sean Wilentz at oxfordamericanmag.com (10-1-07)
Almost half a century has passed since Freewheelin’, with reams of articles and years of reverence all piling up, and, still, too much Dylan isn't enough. Sean Wilentz plays the fly on the wall for Dylan's Nashville studio sessions for Blonde on Blonde, dissecting all the elements that contributed to the album's “3 A.M. aura”—the often grueling but ultimately brilliant all-night sessions leading to an album that just about deserves its own fiftieth anniversary.
***
A memory from the summer of 1966: Across the Top 40 airwaves, an insistent drum beat led off a strange, new hit song. Some listeners thought the song too explicit, its subject of wild lunacy too coarse, even cruel; several radio-station directors banned it. Despite the controversy over the lyrics about madness and persecution, or more likely because of it, the record shot to No. 3 on the Billboard pop-singles chart. The singer-songwriter likened the song, which really was a rap, to a sick joke. His name was Jerry Samuels...
Monday, October 1, 2007 - 19:07
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