A.O. Scott: “The salient question is this: Will any of the movies surfacing this fall provoke the kind of conversation that television series routinely do, breaking beyond niches into something larger? … Look back over the past decade. How many films have approached the moral complexity and sociological density of The Sopranos or The Wire?”
Tag: 09.12.10
Filmmaker Claude Chabrol, 80
“One of the founding fathers of the New Wave of French film, Chabrol was best known for his masterful suspense thrillers, subversive female roles and stinging critiques of the bourgeoisie. His first work, Le Beau Serge, was released in 1958 and he made more than 80 films, his last – [Bellamy,] a murder mystery starring Gérard Depardieu – released last year.”
The Long History of the Quran in America
The presence of the Muslim holy book in the US goes back at least to 1683. New England Puritans studied the Quran; Cotton Mather quoted it. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies (which survive today); Benjamin Franklin even “argued that Muslims should be able to preach to Christians if we insisted on the right to preach to them.”
Animals Have Made Us Human – Literally
Some anthropologists are concluding “that the unique ability to observe and control the behavior of other animals is what allowed one particular set of Pleistocene era primates to evolve into modern man. … [The] human story has been a collection of interspecies collaborations – between humans and dogs and horses, goats and cats and cows, and even microbes.”
After Major Downsizing, Boston Ballet Rebuilds
“Just two years ago, facing a financial crunch, Boston Ballet laid off staff and reduced the main company from 50 to 41. … This season, working on a budget of $24 million-$25 million, the main company roster is back up to 47, and further additions are planned over the next few years.”
BBC to Revive I, Claudius, with Derek Jacobi
“Jacobi, the actor who made his name in television in the title role of the groundbreaking BBC series … has returned to Robert Graves’s saga of ancient Rome for a new serialisation on BBC Radio 4 in November.”
“The Pause That Annoys”: Kvetching About the Apposite Comma
“The Chicago Manual of Style explains it this way: If you write ‘My older sister, Betty, taught me the alphabet,’ you are implying that Betty is your only older sister. But if you write ‘My sister Enid lets me hold her doll’ – with no commas around the name – Enid is not your only sister.” Commas thus become facts that need to be checked. But “[how] much time should you spend finding the answer – commas or no commas – to a question nobody’s asking?”
The Superstar of Stage Lighting
“Largely unknown by the public, [Jennifer] Tipton is revered within her profession, an interdisciplinary artist whose four decades of design have won her two Tonys, two Bessies, an Olivier, and a MacArthur ‘genius’ grant.”
The Very Sensible Barihunk: Daniel Okulitch on Sex Appeal in Opera
“It gets [an audience] in the door, but 20 rows back, no one can tell the difference. You really can’t. … “[If] you’re going to see Erwin Schrott or Anna Netrebko and they’re really hot and you tell [people] this enough times, even if they’re sitting 50 rows back they’re going to think, ‘Wow, I’m watching a really sexy, attractive person onstage.’ And their brain fills in what the eye is not catching.”