“From demanding changes in plot lines that denigrate the Chinese leadership, to dampening lurid depictions of sex and violence, Beijing is having increasing success in pressuring Hollywood into deleting movie content Beijing finds objectionable.”
Tag: 04.24.12
Will This Be Off-Broadway’s Next Our Town?
The Barrow Street Theatre in New York’s West Village is where a Chicago production of Thornton Wilder’s play made headlines, ran for months, and turbo-charged director David Cromer’s career. Some Barrow Street producers were recently back in Chicago to check out playwright Ike Holter’s Hit the Wall, a new play about the Stonewall riots (which happened just steps from the Barrow Street).
Cologne Opera Director Who Threatened To Cancel Season Resigns
Roughly one day after he threatened to call off the entire 2012-13 season because he couldn’t get funding issues worked out with Cologne’s city government, Uwe Eric Laufenberg announced that he would step down as the opera house’s Intendant at the end of that season (which is presumably proceeding as planned), two years before the end of his contract.
What Thinking Feels Like, Depicted On Celluloid
“In her playful film, Lines of Thought, Aldworth attempts to answer a befuddling question: how do you describe how it feels to think? It may seem an impossible task, but Aldworth conveys it perfectly. A fast-moving line flits from place to place in a sketched brain – speeding through neurons, pinging through cortices.”
The Welshman Who’s Helping Jump-Start Indonesian Cinema
“Since he moved to Jakarta four years ago, [Gareth] Evans, a softly-spoken scion of the Brecon Beacons, has resurrected the Indo martial-arts film. His latest, a careening piece of John Woo-esque ultraviolence called The Raid, is winning the country some overdue global exposure.”
Rome’s Zaha Hadid-Designed Maxxi Museum Could Close
The administrators of the museum said last year’s losses were in part due to a 43% cut in government funding and had, in any case, been covered by profits carried over from the previous year. They expressed “surprise and concern” at the minister’s decision which “damaged the international credibility” of the museum.
Oxford Researchers: Shakespeare’s “All’s Well” Had A Co-Author
“Thomas Middleton has been revealed as the most likely co-author, according to in-depth analysis of the play’s vocabulary, rhyming, style and grammar.”
When Dancers Join Universities (Good And Bad)
“With the migration of more and more working choreographers into university environments, it’s clear that artists are able to continue to create both inside and outside of these institutions. While the halls of academia offer some distinct advantages, most particularly to oft-itinerant and nearly always-struggling dance artists, other challenges and demands can sap their time and energy in their new environment.”
Running Afoul Of Artist Copyright
“Artists’ copyright is frequently misunderstood. Even if a painting (or drawing or photograph) has been sold to a collector or a museum, in general, the artist or his heirs retain control of the original image for 70 years after the artist’s death. Think of a novel. You may own a book, but you don’t own the writer’s words; they remain the intellectual property of the author for a time.”
Egyptian Court Convicts Popular Actor For “Mocking Islam”
“A court found Egypt’s most popular comic actor guilty on Tuesday of insulting Islam in roles in films mocking religious hypocrisy, alarming liberal-minded artists and intellectuals already anxious about the growing power of Islamists here after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.”