Even if a movie is ultra-violent, it can’t afford to get an NC-17 rating. “An R rating means a child cannot be admitted to a movie without an adult or guardian. An NC-17 rating means no children are admitted. With such a rating, most mainstream newspapers will not run ads. But more important, video stores like Blockbuster will not offer the DVD’s on store shelves. And mass-market retail chains like Walmart, where studios can earn as much as 50 percent of a movie’s revenue, will not sell them, either.”
Tag: 10.21.03
Opera At The Crossroads
“The future health and development of opera depends on it embracing the whole of society, and that means being a part of society and being prepared to change as rapidly as society itself. We have to find a way of recovering a fundamental sense of adventure, challenge and interaction – a modern world demands nothing less. However, the desire to keep everybody happy – from paymasters to reviewers, from the conservative and wealthy to the modish and wealthy – has created a strange climate of catch-all, in which it is sometimes difficult to understand whether we are being offered vision, excellence, audience-pleasers, or a competition for who can produce the glossiest international brochure.”
Saving Raphael For God And Country
A prominent curator attacks the British government for not stepping up to keep Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks from being sold to the Getty and moved to the US: “Can anyone seriously suggest that the country would not be much much poorer without the great works of art in this exhibition? The National Gallery is the greatest place in the world for the study of early works by Raphael, and that’s where the picture should be. For God’s sake! If it’s not Raphael then it must be the work of some even greater artist whose name is currently unknown to us. Of course it’s a Raphael.”