“Endlessly interpreted, passionately admired, and, in some quarters, heatedly despised, Stanley has been brand-name fodder for polemical crossfire since at least The Making of Kubrick’s 2001, a compilation edited by the writer Jerome Agel in 1970. The first great American director to hone his craft outside the Hollywood studio system, Kubrick left behind a relatively spare legacy of 13 feature films in a 40-year career. But when he died, in 1999, at age 70, the hit-to-miss ratio was as impressive — and controversial — as any in motion-picture history.”
Tag: 07.31.07
Does Corporate Sponsorship = Artistic Compromise?
“Over recent years, Shell has sponsored the National’s innovative Connections programme, producing theatre for young people by leading playwrights. It was a project that, as Nicholas Hytner said, had everything: ‘exciting new plays, committed and inspired performers and an audience that wants to be challenged, provoked and entertained’. But it took the support of a multinational oil company to make it possible. Not everyone is comfortable with this sort of creative relationship.”
His Arts Center Strapped, Exec Gets $1.2 Million Bonus
“Not long before the Citi Performing Arts Center decided to make drastic cuts to its popular summer production of Shakespeare on the Boston Common, its board agreed to pay president and CEO Josiah Spaulding Jr., a $1.265 million bonus. That payment came on top of Spaulding’s annual compensation of $409,000, plus $23,135 in benefits. … Spaulding has presided over five straight years of budget deficits, cuts to programming, and a dramatic drop in performances at the Wang and Shubert theaters, which the Citi Center operates.”
Black Sci-Fi Fans Create Their Own Space
The fantasy and science fiction genres are particularly well suited to explorations of issues like race and culture. “But some in the speculative-fiction community complain that a number of their white contemporaries no longer tackle these subjects. … In the last decade, sci-fi/fantasy fans of color have begun creating their own communities. These spaces are necessary in a world where they stand out as geeks among blacks, and as ‘the other’ in the speculative-fiction world.”
National Archives In Deal To Let Amazon Copy Its Films
“The National Archives and Records Administration announced yesterday that it has reached a non-exclusive agreement with Amazon.com and one of its subsidiaries to reproduce and sell to the public copies of thousands of historic films and videotapes in the Archives’ holdings. … Archives and CustomFlix officials stressed yesterday that the agreement is non-exclusive, unlike the controversial semi-exclusive deal the Smithsonian Institution struck recently with the cable television network Showtime.”
Was Bergman The Greatest 20th-Century Artist?
“No single artist can stand for all the traditions of film (and film itself plays a more limited and ambiguous role in the media economy than it used to), and Bergman was undeniably a middle-class white European from an affluent, highly homogeneous society. Maybe we can agree that Bergman was the greatest of the 20th-century artists who tried to adapt the traditional craftsmanship of European theater to a new cultural form. Maybe we can agree that he believed in art as a redemptive, spiritual, even magical force, and did much to carry that ancient view of art into the movie theater.”
Bronze Off The Table, Getty And Italy Resume Talks
“Days before a threatened cultural embargo was scheduled to take effect, the J. Paul Getty Museum has resumed negotiations with the Italian government over 46 of the museum’s disputed antiquities — opening the door to a possible agreement. … The apparent breakthrough comes after an eight-month deadlock and was made possible when Italy took off the table what had been a key sticking point in the talks: the fate of the so-called Getty Bronze, a 4th century BC statue of a young athlete found by Italian fishermen in the 1960s.”
Often, Your Subconscious Brain Calls The Shots
“New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there’s a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like ‘dependable’ and ‘support’ — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it. Psychologists say that ‘priming’ people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.”
Read Better, Live Longer
“Older people who lack ‘health literacy’ — that is, they cannot read and understand basic medical information — may be paying a high price. A new study finds that they appear to have a higher mortality rate than more-literate patients. … But, writing in the July 23 Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers say that one particular characteristic of a poor education, low reading skills, may alone account for much of the problem.”
“La Cage” Star Michel Serrault Dies at 79
“Michel Serrault, a French film star known internationally for his role as the temperamental drag queen Zaza in the original film version of ‘La Cage aux Folles,’ died on Sunday at his home in Honfleur, France. He was 79. … Mr. Serrault, who appeared in more than 130 films, worked with some of the most celebrated directors in French cinema, among them Claude Chabrol.”