As the aftermath of the Iranian election plays out and the world watches nervously, here’s a list of films that help explain – and, in some cases, have themselves affected – the country’s politics and society.
Tag: 2009
O Temperance! O Mores!
“[W]hat is most interesting to the anthropologist is the ease with which [Anglo-Saxon] puritan outrage can be displaced from one topic to another and the equal ease with which the thing formerly disapproved of can be overnight exonerated from all taint of sin. […] Puritans lack this sense of measured and temperate appetite. When sexual taboos were lifted, therefore, they found no further reason to refrain from indulgence. Since no virtue was at risk in our sexual transgressions, these ceased overnight to be transgressions.”
Emma Bovary Goes Interactive
“Thanks to an unprecedented international collaboration between scholars and volunteers, we can now trace the development of Flaubert’s masterpiece online, draft by draft.”
Prokofiev As Chronicler Of His Own Youth
“[His] diaries have nothing of the routine stamp; they are on occasion confessional but often resemble a series of sketches, like a novelist’s notes on people and events worth remembering. They were written when time allowed, sometimes a ‘chapter’ per month rather than daily or weekly entries. Prokofiev had ambitions as a writer … (Over the years, he penned a handful of rather good short stories.)”
The Bloomsbury Group And The Birth Of Modern Manners
“Its young mix of writers, thinkers, and artists stood at the vanguard of a shift in manners away from nineteenth-century formality and reticence and toward twentieth-century candor and playfulness. Male and female, mostly in their twenties, the Bloomsbury lot addressed each other by their first names, spoke openly about sexual matters, and, till the wee hours of the morning, reflected on how to spend their lives.”
The ‘Churchill Gene’ (Maybe Booze Does Make Some People More Creative)
The British prime minister said, “Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than it has taken out of me.” Debate has raged for centuries, of course, about whether alcohol aids the creative process. “Over the last few years, however, evidence has emerged that some have, if not a Churchill gene, then a creative cocktail gene.”
Get Thee To A Nunnery (Says Your Travel Agent)
“[M]onasteries have always been hospitable, obliged by the Rule of St Benedict to open their doors to whomever the Lord might send their way, [but] in secular times that hospitality has reached another level.” Yes, monasteries are becoming players in the travel market, from simple and contemplative guest retreats to four-star boutique hotels.
Was St. Paul The Ancient World’s Best Marketer?
“If you view Paul not just as a preacher but as an entrepreneur, … the doctrines that now form the most-inspiring parts of the Christian message are, in a sense, business tools. They are tools that let him use the information technology of his day, the epistle, to extend his brand, the Jesus brand, across the vast, open, multinational platform offered by the Roman Empire.”
PEN Joins In On O. Henry Prize
“In an era of economic uncertainty and consolidation, even the short story could use a little additional support: the Anchor Books imprint of Random House said that it had partnered with the literary and human rights organization the PEN American Center and would rename its annual ‘O. Henry Prize Stories’ collection the ‘PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.'”
A Playwright’s ‘Necessary Irresponsibility’
Stephen Brown, author of Future Me, a piece about pedophiles: “Writing a play about child abuse isn’t easy. But it helped when the [UK government’s] home office asked me to stop.”