Category: people

Words are, in the end, only words. But writers, and prize committees, must know more than anyone that words have power. Words have consequences, and we act accordingly. – Irish Times

Along with his brother Pierce and colleague Jayne Loader, “[he] gathered archival material that had been created to ease Americans into the nuclear age and turned it into The Atomic Cafe, an acclaimed, darkly comic documentary film released in 1982.” Also notable among his six directing credits are Blood in the Face (1991, about far-right groups such as the Ku Klux Klan), The Last Cigarette (about the worldwide marketing of American tobacco products), and Harvard Beats Yale 29-29. – The New York Times

Did he become a great conductor? No, he became a valuable conductor, championing the work of Canadian composers more than any of his contemporaries did. He knew the composers on a personal level, worked with them on their premieres and during his decade as music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra starting in 1958, he set a precedent that has sadly not been followed of making Canadian music a regular feature of his programming. – Toronto Star

When I perform comedy, I can still hear echoes of my influences coming through. Jack Benny, certainly, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Lenny Bruce, Steve Allen, Carl Reiner, too. But it is not Carl’s comedic advice I cherish. Rather, it was how he affected my everyday life, the part that has nothing to do with movies or acting. – The New York Times

“[He] brought a wry, genial sense of humor to nearly 700 cartoons published in The New Yorker over 35 years. They were set in conference rooms and homes, on desert islands and roadsides, at Heaven’s gate and in maternity wards.” – The New York Times

While the Czech-but-now-French author is known in much of the world for his pointed depictions of how the Communist regimes of Europe twisted the lives of regular people, he’s been viewed ambivalently or worse by many in the Czech Republic — not least because he got out of Czechoslovakia in 1975 and didn’t have to suffer through the final years of the Communist Party’s misrule. Now a new 900-page biography of Kundera has reignited criticism of and debate over the most famous modern writer the country has produced. – Global Voices

A native of Bermuda who settled in the UK after World War II, he performed — “against the odds,” he once said — to perform in 40 feature films as well as numerous TV movies and series. “His big screen roles ranged from James Bond’s secret service minder Pinder in Thunderball (1965) to the dictatorial president in Sydney Pollack’s thriller The Interpreter (2005).” – The Guardian

“[Roselyne] Bachelot, 73, is returning to politics after eight years working as a commentator in radio and television. Prior to that, she served as the minister of ecology and sustainable development under former President Jacques Chirac, then as health minister and minister of social cohesion under President Nicolas Sarkozy, always in rightwing governments.” – The Art Newspaper

Mr. Morricone scored many popular films of the past 40 years: Édouard Molinaro’s “La Cage aux Folles” (1978), Mr. Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982), Mr. De Palma’s “The Untouchables” (1987), Roman Polanski’s “Frantic” (1988), Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Cinema Paradiso” (1988), Wolfgang Petersen’s “In the Line of Fire” (1993), and Mr. Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” (2015). – The New York Times

Khan spent more than 60 years in the film industry. She “was a pioneer, one of the few women working behind the camera at a time when nearly all the technicians were men. She joined the industry as a 3-year-old child actress in the early 1950s, and she became an assistant choreographer at the age of 12.” – The New York Times