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: Artdaily.org (9-3-09)
They survived two fires, the onslaught of robbers, and the effects of four thousand years underground. Now, these masterworks from an Egyptian tomb of the Middle Kingdom (2040–1640 BC) will be on view in a special exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), from October 18, 2009, through May 16, 2010. The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC showcases funerary objects discovered in Deir el-Bersha, a necropolis in central Egypt, by the joint Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts Expedition in 1915. It includes the famous painted "Bersha coffin," the mummified head of one of the tomb’s two occupants, and hundreds of items deemed necessary for a comfortable afterlife in ancient Egypt. This find represents the largest Middle Kingdom burial assemblage ever discovered and sheds light on the grand lifestyle enjoyed by local governor and priest Djehutynakht and his wife, Lady Djehutynakht. The conservation and reconstruction of many of the items—damaged by grave robbers in...
Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 12:00
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SOURCE: Slate (8-31-09)
I wrote a piece in yesterday's New York Times about Sophie Tucker, whose earliest recordings, some almost a century old, have been released for the first time in decades on a new CD. I describe Tucker's rise from the burlesque and variety stage circuit to vaudeville stardom and note her origins as a "coon shouter"—a performer of blackface songs.
In Salon, Sady Doyle has written a response to my Times article titled "Can a feminist hero do blackface?" Doyle says some generous things about my piece. She also writes: "Rosen begins his piece with a list of Tucker's nicknames, but leaves one out: ‘Queen of the Coon Shouters.' Her fame came through minstrelsy." Later, Doyle concludes that "without letting Tucker off the hook," the singer's eventual abandonment of blackface performance and "move towards authenticity" makes her "worthy of lasting consideration."
Strictly speaking, Doyle is wrong on the facts...
In Salon, Sady Doyle has written a response to my Times article titled "Can a feminist hero do blackface?" Doyle says some generous things about my piece. She also writes: "Rosen begins his piece with a list of Tucker's nicknames, but leaves one out: ‘Queen of the Coon Shouters.' Her fame came through minstrelsy." Later, Doyle concludes that "without letting Tucker off the hook," the singer's eventual abandonment of blackface performance and "move towards authenticity" makes her "worthy of lasting consideration."
Strictly speaking, Doyle is wrong on the facts...
Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 00:37
SOURCE: The New Nixon (8-17-09)
Unguided Missal? Mass composer Leonard Bernstein in 1971.
Last week on The New Yorker’s website, music critic Alex Ross wrote three articles based on newly released Freedom of Information Act-obtained government documents regarding inquiries into composer-conductor-polymath Leonard Bernstein’s politics. They include an 800-page FBI file, memos from the Nixon White House Special Investigation Unit (aka Plumbers), and several taped conversations between RN and Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman regarding the impending premiere of Bernstein’s Mass at the opening of the Kennedy Center in September 1971.
Alex Ross is to music what Pauline Kael was to movies. Both New Yorker critics share a...
Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 00:36
SOURCE: History Today (9-2-09)
First to Fight was launched yesterday, September 1st 2009, 70 years after the German invasion of Poland. The new book is part of a project to promote the recognition of the role of the Polish armed forces in Britain’s war effort. Contributors to the book and supporters of the campaign include leading British statesmen and military leaders such as Baroness Thatcher, General The Lord Guthrie, former chief of the Defence Staff, HRH The Duke of Kent, Winston S. Churchill MP, grandson of the wartime Prime Minister, and Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer.
Based on the personal stories of Poles who fought on various fronts, in the air, on the land and at sea, First to Fight recalls Poland’s six-year struggle against the Nazi forces. It also features a number of texts which are published for the first time, including the English translation of Stalin’s signed order to execute 14,736 of the Polish Officer Corps at Katyn Forest in 1940.
Approximately 500...
Based on the personal stories of Poles who fought on various fronts, in the air, on the land and at sea, First to Fight recalls Poland’s six-year struggle against the Nazi forces. It also features a number of texts which are published for the first time, including the English translation of Stalin’s signed order to execute 14,736 of the Polish Officer Corps at Katyn Forest in 1940.
Approximately 500...
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 10:04
SOURCE: Independent (UK) (9-2-09)
Rare manuscripts by war poet Edmund Blunden are being published online by Oxford University.
The Edmund Blunden Collection, which is launched tomorrow, contains previously unseen material assembled from archives in the UK and the US, including his family's private collection.
The collection, part of Oxford University's First World War Poetry Digital Archive, contains extracts from the writer's Minute Book, a private scrapbook he put together after the war.
Previously unpublished poems and letters sent home to his family while he was on active service have also been included on the website...
The Edmund Blunden Collection, which is launched tomorrow, contains previously unseen material assembled from archives in the UK and the US, including his family's private collection.
The collection, part of Oxford University's First World War Poetry Digital Archive, contains extracts from the writer's Minute Book, a private scrapbook he put together after the war.
Previously unpublished poems and letters sent home to his family while he was on active service have also been included on the website...
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 10:01
SOURCE: Independent (UK) (9-2-09)
It is almost a quarter of a century since Orson Welles died in late 1985, but the small matter of dying hasn't really curbed his career. Since then, Welles manifestations have been as plentiful as ever. Fresh controversies emerged about his work; new versions of some of his movies have been released; he has been the subject of several biographies; and the quest to complete his film The Other Side Of The Wind has continued.
The fascination with Welles as magician, raconteur, outrageous ham and mountebank remains undiminished. Some formidable actors have played the great man on screen in recent years. In 2006, Danny Huston – son of Welles' friend John Huston – took on the role in Oliver Parker's Fade To Black (2006). Scottish actor Angus Macfadyen was recruited by Tim Robbins to play Welles in Cradle Will Rock (1999). Liev Schreiber portrayed him in Benjamin Ross's television movie RKO 281 (1999) about Welles' battles with the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (James...
The fascination with Welles as magician, raconteur, outrageous ham and mountebank remains undiminished. Some formidable actors have played the great man on screen in recent years. In 2006, Danny Huston – son of Welles' friend John Huston – took on the role in Oliver Parker's Fade To Black (2006). Scottish actor Angus Macfadyen was recruited by Tim Robbins to play Welles in Cradle Will Rock (1999). Liev Schreiber portrayed him in Benjamin Ross's television movie RKO 281 (1999) about Welles' battles with the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (James...
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 09:58
SOURCE: Artdaily.org (9-2-09)
The Art Gallery of New South Wales Grand Courts, home to Rubens, Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Hogarth, Delacroix, Leighton, Constable, Gainsborough and Australian artists, Roberts, Streeton, McCubbin, Lambert, Bunny, Phillips Fox, Gruner and Ashton, will re-open to the public in ‘grand’ style on the Gallery’s open weekend (September 12 & 13) with more than 50 free events.
Some of the most significant and iconic paintings in the world hang permanently on the walls of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the thirteen grand old courts. These rooms were the very first rooms of the gallery to be built in 1897 in typically grand Victorian style and scale.
These elegant rooms house Sydney’s premier collections of both European art, from the Renaissance to Impressionism and Australian art, from colonisation to the end of the nineteenth century. It’s also the area where some of the greatest Australian artists walked. Roberts, Streeton and the young George...
Some of the most significant and iconic paintings in the world hang permanently on the walls of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the thirteen grand old courts. These rooms were the very first rooms of the gallery to be built in 1897 in typically grand Victorian style and scale.
These elegant rooms house Sydney’s premier collections of both European art, from the Renaissance to Impressionism and Australian art, from colonisation to the end of the nineteenth century. It’s also the area where some of the greatest Australian artists walked. Roberts, Streeton and the young George...
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 09:51
SOURCE: allpics4u.com (9-1-09)
BERNIERES SUR MER
Typical Norman house located along the beach at Juno Beach.
(Photo : Conseil Régional de Basse-Normandie / Archives Nationales du CANADA)
BERNIERES SUR MER
Canadian troops going ashore on Juno Beach on D-Day, 6 June 1944.
(Photo : Conseil Régional de Basse-Normandie / Archives Nationales du CANADA )
...
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 02:26
SOURCE: The Telegraph (9-1-09)
Titian’s 'Venus of Urbino’ is among the world’s sexiest paintings. Who was the man behind the masterpiece?
There she lies, sprawled on a bed that fills the breadth of the picture, her teenage flesh sheathed in a creamy, golden glow, wearing nothing but a ring, a bracelet and a faint smile which seems simply to be saying, “Here I am – what are you going to do about it?”
This is Titian’s Venus of Urbino, one of the sexiest paintings ever created, one of the masterpieces of Western art – an image that lurks in your consciousness whether you’re aware of it or not. It’s a painting that has been endlessly revisited by other artists through the centuries (not least Velasquez, Goya and Manet) in works that play with the tension between the nude as Platonic symbol – of love, beauty, bodily perfection – and the irresistible gawp-factor of a naked woman on a bed.
But what makes Titian’s painting unique, and uniquely erotic, is the unreadable expression in the...
There she lies, sprawled on a bed that fills the breadth of the picture, her teenage flesh sheathed in a creamy, golden glow, wearing nothing but a ring, a bracelet and a faint smile which seems simply to be saying, “Here I am – what are you going to do about it?”
This is Titian’s Venus of Urbino, one of the sexiest paintings ever created, one of the masterpieces of Western art – an image that lurks in your consciousness whether you’re aware of it or not. It’s a painting that has been endlessly revisited by other artists through the centuries (not least Velasquez, Goya and Manet) in works that play with the tension between the nude as Platonic symbol – of love, beauty, bodily perfection – and the irresistible gawp-factor of a naked woman on a bed.
But what makes Titian’s painting unique, and uniquely erotic, is the unreadable expression in the...
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 01:44
SOURCE: Google News (8-31-09)
NEW YORK — Iron Man, Captain America and Thor may be nearly invincible, but they can also be bought.
In acquiring Marvel Entertainment Inc. for about $4 billion, Walt Disney Co. inherits a bevy of comic book characters whose history is almost dramatic enough to deserve a prequel of its own. And what could be a better ending than Hulk moving in with Donald Duck?
Marvel Comics, now a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment Inc., was founded in 1939, a year after Disney released one of its biggest hits: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Even Stan Lee, who would become an integral figure in Marvel's history and arguably its most public face, was a fan.
"The first expensive book I bought by saving my pennies was called `The Art of Walt Disney,'" Lee said in an interview Monday. "I loved their cartoons: `Pinocchio' and `Bambi' and `Snow White' — all of them."
The first issue of Marvel Comics, released by...
In acquiring Marvel Entertainment Inc. for about $4 billion, Walt Disney Co. inherits a bevy of comic book characters whose history is almost dramatic enough to deserve a prequel of its own. And what could be a better ending than Hulk moving in with Donald Duck?
Marvel Comics, now a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment Inc., was founded in 1939, a year after Disney released one of its biggest hits: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Even Stan Lee, who would become an integral figure in Marvel's history and arguably its most public face, was a fan.
"The first expensive book I bought by saving my pennies was called `The Art of Walt Disney,'" Lee said in an interview Monday. "I loved their cartoons: `Pinocchio' and `Bambi' and `Snow White' — all of them."
The first issue of Marvel Comics, released by...
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 22:52
SOURCE: Times (UK) (9-1-09)
Britain’s security services planned to intern the father of the actress Zoë Wanamaker in the event of a national emergency because of his communist links.
MI5 and Special Branch, alerted by the US Embassy in London, kept a close eye on Sam Wanamaker, a successful actor and director, after he fled a crackdown on communism in the United States with his young family in 1951.
The Wanamaker brief also shows that Special Branch kept a file on Michael Redgrave, the actor father of Vanessa Redgrave, because of his interest in “left-wing cultural activities”.
The secret memos and other correspondence, released by the National Archives, demonstrate the heightened sense of paranoia during the initial years of the Cold War...
MI5 and Special Branch, alerted by the US Embassy in London, kept a close eye on Sam Wanamaker, a successful actor and director, after he fled a crackdown on communism in the United States with his young family in 1951.
The Wanamaker brief also shows that Special Branch kept a file on Michael Redgrave, the actor father of Vanessa Redgrave, because of his interest in “left-wing cultural activities”.
The secret memos and other correspondence, released by the National Archives, demonstrate the heightened sense of paranoia during the initial years of the Cold War...
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 16:07
SOURCE: Artdaily.org (9-1-09)
The National Gallery of Australia today announced its latest acquisition The sacred bull Nandi, vehicle of Shiva, acquired with the generous assistance of Roslyn Packer AO.
In the form of a humped Brahman bull, the Nandi is an important work of early Indian art from the 11th to12th centuries and is the only significant sculpture of the popular Hindu image in an Australian public collection.
“We are very grateful to Roslyn Packer, who is a longstanding member of the National Gallery of Australia’s governing Council and chair of the Acquisitions Committee. Her continued support and commitment in assisting the National Gallery in building Australia’s finest collection of Asian art has been crucial to acquiring this work,” said Ron Radford AM, Director of the National Gallery of Australia.
“The large stone image of Nandi, associated with Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and creation is a superb example of the sculpture of the great South Indian...
In the form of a humped Brahman bull, the Nandi is an important work of early Indian art from the 11th to12th centuries and is the only significant sculpture of the popular Hindu image in an Australian public collection.
“We are very grateful to Roslyn Packer, who is a longstanding member of the National Gallery of Australia’s governing Council and chair of the Acquisitions Committee. Her continued support and commitment in assisting the National Gallery in building Australia’s finest collection of Asian art has been crucial to acquiring this work,” said Ron Radford AM, Director of the National Gallery of Australia.
“The large stone image of Nandi, associated with Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and creation is a superb example of the sculpture of the great South Indian...
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 09:30
SOURCE: Artdaily.org (9-1-09)
A spacious edifice from the Roman period (third century CE) – apparently a mansion that belonged to a wealthy individual – was recently exposed in the excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out in the 'Givati Car Park' at the City of David, in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park. The excavations are being conducted at the site on behalf of the IAA and in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority, and are underwritten by the ‘Ir David Foundation.
According to Dr. Doron Ben-Ami, the excavation director on behalf of the IAA, together with Yana Tchekhanovets, “Although we do not have the complete dimensions of the structure, we can cautiously estimate that the building covered an area of approximately 1,000 square meters. In the center of it was a large open courtyard surrounded by columns. Galleries were spread out between the rows of columns and the rooms that flanked the courtyard. The wings of the building rose to a height of two stories and...
According to Dr. Doron Ben-Ami, the excavation director on behalf of the IAA, together with Yana Tchekhanovets, “Although we do not have the complete dimensions of the structure, we can cautiously estimate that the building covered an area of approximately 1,000 square meters. In the center of it was a large open courtyard surrounded by columns. Galleries were spread out between the rows of columns and the rooms that flanked the courtyard. The wings of the building rose to a height of two stories and...
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 09:29
SOURCE: Wired (8-28-09)
Perhaps the best thing about NASA’s military provenance is that the agency picked up the armed services’ habit of making patches.
We’ve long loved the Most Awesomely Bad Military Patches series that our sister blog, Danger Room, runs. Then, earlier this week, space collectors bid up the accidentally limited edition Stephen Colbert treadmill patch to more than $175 on eBay...
... The patches above were drawn and worn by the wives...
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 00:22
