An adaptation of the novel has premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
UK writer Martin Amis, the author of novels including The Zone Of Interest and London Fields, has died aged 73.
His wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca, confirmed to the New York Times that he died on Friday (May 19) at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, with the cause given as oesophageal cancer.
It was the same day that also saw Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Nazi drama The Zone Of Interest premiere to “remarkable” reviews at the Cannes Film Festival, where it plays in Competition for the Palme d’Or.
UK writer Martin Amis, the author of novels including The Zone Of Interest and London Fields, has died aged 73.
His wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca, confirmed to the New York Times that he died on Friday (May 19) at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, with the cause given as oesophageal cancer.
It was the same day that also saw Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Nazi drama The Zone Of Interest premiere to “remarkable” reviews at the Cannes Film Festival, where it plays in Competition for the Palme d’Or.
- 5/20/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Martin Amis, the British author known for novels including Money, London Fields and The Information, has died. He was 73.
His wife, writer Isabel Fonseca, told The New York Times that Amis died Friday at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, following a battle with esophageal cancer.
The news comes as Jonathan Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest, which loosely adapts Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday to enthusiastic response.
Other film adaptations of his work include the 2018 feature London Fields that starred Billy Bob Thornton, Amber Heard, Jim Sturgess, Theo James, Jason Isaacs and Cara Delevingne. Amis co-wrote the film’s screenplay that was based on his 1989 mystery novel.
Born in Oxford, England, on August 25, 1949, Amis attended Exeter College at the University of Oxford. His first novel, The Rachel Papers (1973), won the Somerset Maugham Award.
His best known works are Money...
His wife, writer Isabel Fonseca, told The New York Times that Amis died Friday at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, following a battle with esophageal cancer.
The news comes as Jonathan Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest, which loosely adapts Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday to enthusiastic response.
Other film adaptations of his work include the 2018 feature London Fields that starred Billy Bob Thornton, Amber Heard, Jim Sturgess, Theo James, Jason Isaacs and Cara Delevingne. Amis co-wrote the film’s screenplay that was based on his 1989 mystery novel.
Born in Oxford, England, on August 25, 1949, Amis attended Exeter College at the University of Oxford. His first novel, The Rachel Papers (1973), won the Somerset Maugham Award.
His best known works are Money...
- 5/20/2023
- by Ryan Gajewski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Martin Amis, whose 15 novels were must-read books for British fiction lovers, died Friday at home in Lake Worth, Florida of esophageal cancer, his wife confirmed. He was 73.
Amis’s best-known work is a trilogy of novels: Money: A Suicide Note (1985), London Fields (1990) and The Information (1995). He also had a memoir, Experience, (2000).
A film adaptation of his Zone of Interest, a Holocaust drama, is screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and is considered one of the front-runners for the event’s Palme d’Or, its highest honor. The film is written and directed by Jonathan Glazer.
Amis’s father was author Kingsley Amis, part of the group of writers known as the Angry Young Men in the 1950s. He was best known for Lucky Jim. (1954).
The two had a rivalry, riven by political differences. Yet Martin Amis acknowledged that his father’s prominence played a role in his own success.
Amis’s best-known work is a trilogy of novels: Money: A Suicide Note (1985), London Fields (1990) and The Information (1995). He also had a memoir, Experience, (2000).
A film adaptation of his Zone of Interest, a Holocaust drama, is screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and is considered one of the front-runners for the event’s Palme d’Or, its highest honor. The film is written and directed by Jonathan Glazer.
Amis’s father was author Kingsley Amis, part of the group of writers known as the Angry Young Men in the 1950s. He was best known for Lucky Jim. (1954).
The two had a rivalry, riven by political differences. Yet Martin Amis acknowledged that his father’s prominence played a role in his own success.
- 5/20/2023
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
When you think of unadaptable novels, what's the one that comes to your mind? "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace? "To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf? For a select few of you out there, you might think about Saul Bellow's 1959 novel "Henderson the Rain King," a humorous yet deeply philosophical story about a middle-aged man's quest to figure out the meaning of life. Well, that's the most abstract way I could probably describe it, as he navigates this question after accidentally becoming the messiah of an African village. Yeah.
If you're not familiar with the novel, that may already cause a bevy of red flags to be raised, and we don't blame you for that. While the novel ends in a way that skeptical readers may not have anticipated, it's understandable why studios have been hesitant to greenlight an adaptation of Bellow's work.
That doesn't mean there haven't been attempts in the past.
If you're not familiar with the novel, that may already cause a bevy of red flags to be raised, and we don't blame you for that. While the novel ends in a way that skeptical readers may not have anticipated, it's understandable why studios have been hesitant to greenlight an adaptation of Bellow's work.
That doesn't mean there haven't been attempts in the past.
- 1/14/2023
- by Erin Brady
- Slash Film
Si Litvinoff, the visionary producer behind Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and the Nicolas Roeg-directed films The Man Who Fell to Earth and the Australian New Wave classic Walkabout, has died. He was 93.
Litvinoff died peacefully Dec. 26 in Los Angeles, his friend Shade Rupe announced. Rupe interviewed him for the Blu-ray release of Litvinoff’s groundbreaking 1968 film The Queen, which revolves around a national drag queen contest.
Litvinoff also produced the London-set All the Right Noises (1970), starring Olivia Hussey, Tom Bell and Judy Carne, and executive produced a Roeg-directed documentary about the 1972 Glastonbury Fayre music festival that featured performances by Traffic, Fairport Convention, Melanie and Arthur Brown.
In 1965, Litvinoff optioned Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange for a reported 500 and sent the book to Kubrick. While paying for screenplays by Burgess, Terry Southern and Michael Cooper, the producer sought Mick Jagger to star in it, all while Kubrick...
Litvinoff died peacefully Dec. 26 in Los Angeles, his friend Shade Rupe announced. Rupe interviewed him for the Blu-ray release of Litvinoff’s groundbreaking 1968 film The Queen, which revolves around a national drag queen contest.
Litvinoff also produced the London-set All the Right Noises (1970), starring Olivia Hussey, Tom Bell and Judy Carne, and executive produced a Roeg-directed documentary about the 1972 Glastonbury Fayre music festival that featured performances by Traffic, Fairport Convention, Melanie and Arthur Brown.
In 1965, Litvinoff optioned Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange for a reported 500 and sent the book to Kubrick. While paying for screenplays by Burgess, Terry Southern and Michael Cooper, the producer sought Mick Jagger to star in it, all while Kubrick...
- 1/6/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Click here to read the full article.
French author Annie Ernaux, whose autobiography Happening was adapted for the screen by director Audrey Diwan as the abortion drama under the same name that earned the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival 2021, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Swedish Academy unveiled the honoree Thursday, lauding her for “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots and collective restraints of personal memory.” Her other books include The Years and Getting Lost.
Ernaux “was born in 1940 and grew up in the small town of Yvetot in Normandy, where her parents had a combined grocery store and café,” the Swedish Academy noted. “Her path to authorship was long and arduous.”
The honor is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in 1895. The others are prizes in chemistry, physics and medicine,...
French author Annie Ernaux, whose autobiography Happening was adapted for the screen by director Audrey Diwan as the abortion drama under the same name that earned the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival 2021, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Swedish Academy unveiled the honoree Thursday, lauding her for “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots and collective restraints of personal memory.” Her other books include The Years and Getting Lost.
Ernaux “was born in 1940 and grew up in the small town of Yvetot in Normandy, where her parents had a combined grocery store and café,” the Swedish Academy noted. “Her path to authorship was long and arduous.”
The honor is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in 1895. The others are prizes in chemistry, physics and medicine,...
- 10/6/2022
- by Georg Szalai
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It’s hard to remember a moment in Hollywood when more production starts were announced or star commitments unveiled — witness Netflix’s slate of 70 films. The stars glow brightly in streamer heaven. And Donald Trump’s messy exit helped stoke the hubris.
The flurry of announcements may be a bit misleading, of course, since cutbacks and retrenchments still pervade the small print. Streamer hits like The Queen’s Gambit generate heat but, overall, subscriber churn has increased as subscribers sample a show, then cancel the service. This hasn’t kept the Netflix subscriber list from topping 200 million for the first time.
Still, the film business continues to flicker: Top Gun: Maverick has been awarded a hopeful July 2 release and the latest James Bond film, No Time to Die, may (or may not) re-appear in April, but Morbius, the Spider-Man spinoff, has been pushed back to October 8 along with most other tentpoles.
The flurry of announcements may be a bit misleading, of course, since cutbacks and retrenchments still pervade the small print. Streamer hits like The Queen’s Gambit generate heat but, overall, subscriber churn has increased as subscribers sample a show, then cancel the service. This hasn’t kept the Netflix subscriber list from topping 200 million for the first time.
Still, the film business continues to flicker: Top Gun: Maverick has been awarded a hopeful July 2 release and the latest James Bond film, No Time to Die, may (or may not) re-appear in April, but Morbius, the Spider-Man spinoff, has been pushed back to October 8 along with most other tentpoles.
- 1/21/2021
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
American poet and former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Gluck was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature Thursday, the world’s highest literary honor, “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal,” said the Nobel Committee.
She is the first American woman to win the prize since Toni Morrison in 1993 and one of only 16 women since the awards, established in the will of Alfred Nobel, began in 1901.
Nobel Committee chair Anders Olsson praised Gluck’s striving for clarity. “Glück seeks the universal, and in this she takes inspiration from myths and classical motifs, present in most of her works.”
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by The Swedish Academy in Stockholm.
Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, said in a video presentation Thursday, that he had informed Gluck of the award earlier in the day. “It came as surprise. A welcome one.
She is the first American woman to win the prize since Toni Morrison in 1993 and one of only 16 women since the awards, established in the will of Alfred Nobel, began in 1901.
Nobel Committee chair Anders Olsson praised Gluck’s striving for clarity. “Glück seeks the universal, and in this she takes inspiration from myths and classical motifs, present in most of her works.”
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by The Swedish Academy in Stockholm.
Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, said in a video presentation Thursday, that he had informed Gluck of the award earlier in the day. “It came as surprise. A welcome one.
- 10/8/2020
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
It will come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed the career of director Mark Romanek that his newest work, “Loop,” the pilot episode for eight-episode Amazon Studios series “Tales From the Loop,” is as visually arresting as it is conceptually bold and emotionally evocative.
Best-known for his work on some of the past two decades’ most audacious and powerful music videos and commercials, Romanek has accrued multiple Grammy Awards for his clips for stars from Fiona Apple to Johnny Cash, Taylor Swift to Michael Jackson, Jay-Z to Joni Mitchell, Nine Inch Nails to Madonna. Prizes at Cannes Lions and more have come his way for innovative, emotive spots for Apple, Tiffany, Nike and American Express, among others.
Romanek’s feature film resume is shorter, but just as powerful, with Robin Williams-starrer “One Hour Photo” and his adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” both visionary...
Best-known for his work on some of the past two decades’ most audacious and powerful music videos and commercials, Romanek has accrued multiple Grammy Awards for his clips for stars from Fiona Apple to Johnny Cash, Taylor Swift to Michael Jackson, Jay-Z to Joni Mitchell, Nine Inch Nails to Madonna. Prizes at Cannes Lions and more have come his way for innovative, emotive spots for Apple, Tiffany, Nike and American Express, among others.
Romanek’s feature film resume is shorter, but just as powerful, with Robin Williams-starrer “One Hour Photo” and his adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” both visionary...
- 5/22/2020
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “My Brilliant Friend,” Season 2, Episode 5, “The Betrayal.”]
Nearly every moment of “The Betrayal,” from the unstable Dutch angles of the cinematography to Max Richter’s chilling score, is building up to the episode’s final third like a horror movie. “My Brilliant Friend” has been operating on this track all season, with morbid flourishes in the visuals and sound design mounting toward an awful inevitability. Directed by Alice Rohrwacher, this episode is the season’s darkest and strongest hour yet.
More from IndieWire'The Midnight Gospel' Review: 'Adventure Time' Creator's Astonishing New Netflix Show'Better Call Saul' Review: Masterful 'Bad Choice Road' Sets Up a Season-Capping Standoff
This week, that came on the shoulders of a cast-aside Lenu (Margherita Mazzucco), now an enabling third wheel in the ongoing illicit affair between Nino and Lila, surrendering her virginity to Nino’s father, the shady railroad worker Donato Sarratore (Emanuele Valenti). Don fancies...
Nearly every moment of “The Betrayal,” from the unstable Dutch angles of the cinematography to Max Richter’s chilling score, is building up to the episode’s final third like a horror movie. “My Brilliant Friend” has been operating on this track all season, with morbid flourishes in the visuals and sound design mounting toward an awful inevitability. Directed by Alice Rohrwacher, this episode is the season’s darkest and strongest hour yet.
More from IndieWire'The Midnight Gospel' Review: 'Adventure Time' Creator's Astonishing New Netflix Show'Better Call Saul' Review: Masterful 'Bad Choice Road' Sets Up a Season-Capping Standoff
This week, that came on the shoulders of a cast-aside Lenu (Margherita Mazzucco), now an enabling third wheel in the ongoing illicit affair between Nino and Lila, surrendering her virginity to Nino’s father, the shady railroad worker Donato Sarratore (Emanuele Valenti). Don fancies...
- 4/14/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
(Warning: This post contains spoilers for “The Crown” Season 3 — and also British history.)
The sixth episode of the third season of “The Crown” features the introduction of an older Prince Charles, as he prepares for and gives his first almost king’s speech to his subjects at his investiture in Wales in 1969, a ceremony in which he formally assumed the title of the Prince of Wales.
In real life, Charles learned and recited this speech both in English and Welsh — and so did Josh O’Connor, the actor who plays the prince on Season 3 of Netflix’s royal drama.
“I learned the entire speech in Welsh. I know, yeah, pretty intense,” the British actor told TheWrap of his preparations for Episode 306, titled “Tywysog Cymru.” “I did a film years ago in Wales where I played a Welshman, but I didn’t speak any Welsh. But I feel a real affinity for...
The sixth episode of the third season of “The Crown” features the introduction of an older Prince Charles, as he prepares for and gives his first almost king’s speech to his subjects at his investiture in Wales in 1969, a ceremony in which he formally assumed the title of the Prince of Wales.
In real life, Charles learned and recited this speech both in English and Welsh — and so did Josh O’Connor, the actor who plays the prince on Season 3 of Netflix’s royal drama.
“I learned the entire speech in Welsh. I know, yeah, pretty intense,” the British actor told TheWrap of his preparations for Episode 306, titled “Tywysog Cymru.” “I did a film years ago in Wales where I played a Welshman, but I didn’t speak any Welsh. But I feel a real affinity for...
- 11/18/2019
- by Jennifer Maas
- The Wrap
This post originally appeared on Entertainment Weekly.
Whether he’s reading to kids at the White House, hitting up local bookstores on Black Friday, or giving recommendations to his daughters, President Barack Obama may as well be known as the Commander in Books.
Potus is an avid reader and recently spoke to the New York Times about the significant, informative and inspirational role literature has played in his presidency, crediting books for allowing him to “slow down and get perspective.” With his presidency coming to an end this Friday, EW looked back at Obama’s lit picks over the years...
Whether he’s reading to kids at the White House, hitting up local bookstores on Black Friday, or giving recommendations to his daughters, President Barack Obama may as well be known as the Commander in Books.
Potus is an avid reader and recently spoke to the New York Times about the significant, informative and inspirational role literature has played in his presidency, crediting books for allowing him to “slow down and get perspective.” With his presidency coming to an end this Friday, EW looked back at Obama’s lit picks over the years...
- 1/19/2017
- by Mark Marino
- PEOPLE.com
I interviewed James Ellroy, the great American noir novelist, at La's venerable Pacific Dining Car in April 2001. We were there to discuss his latest book, The Cold Six Thousand, but wound up tackling a myriad of subjects over our three hour lunch. Ellroy sported a snappy fedora that I said would have looked great on Meyer Lansky. He barked a laugh and removed it, displaying his bald pate. When he looked at my full head of 33 year-old hair, his eyes narrowed: "That thing on your head real or a rug?" "Real," I replied. Ellroy exhaled for what seemed like a full minute, then murmured: "Cocksucker." We were off and running.
James Ellroy: Bark At The Moon
The "Demon Dog of American Fiction" sinks his teeth into Rfk, Mlk and Vietnam with The Cold Six Thousand
If there were any justice in this world, and in the world of James Ellroy that's debatable,...
James Ellroy: Bark At The Moon
The "Demon Dog of American Fiction" sinks his teeth into Rfk, Mlk and Vietnam with The Cold Six Thousand
If there were any justice in this world, and in the world of James Ellroy that's debatable,...
- 5/27/2015
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
The National Film Preservation Foundation has launched a new blog, Access Alley. To celebrate, they've posted Josef Berne's "playful feature-length variety revue," Catskill Honeymoon (1950). Also in today's roundup: An interview with Agnès Varda, Karl Ove Knausgaard on Lars von Trier's The Idiots and Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris, a look at Saul Bellow's film criticism and Samuel Fuller on John Ford. Locarno will honor Marco Bellocchio, the New York Film Festival will devote a dual retrospective to Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin is coming to the States—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 5/12/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
The National Film Preservation Foundation has launched a new blog, Access Alley. To celebrate, they've posted Josef Berne's "playful feature-length variety revue," Catskill Honeymoon (1950). Also in today's roundup: An interview with Agnès Varda, Karl Ove Knausgaard on Lars von Trier's The Idiots and Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris, a look at Saul Bellow's film criticism and Samuel Fuller on John Ford. Locarno will honor Marco Bellocchio, the New York Film Festival will devote a dual retrospective to Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin is coming to the States—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 5/12/2015
- Keyframe
In 1994, Brent Staples, an editorial writer at the New York Times, wrote an account of Saul Bellow that was first published in The New York Times Magazine and then later as part of his memoir, Parallel Time. Raised in impoverished circumstances in Chester, Pennsylvania, Staples, who is black, described discovering Bellow upon his arrival in Hyde Park to attend the University of Chicago. Simultaneously in thrall to Bellow’s fiction and stung by Bellow’s fictional characterizations of black people, Staples “wants to lift [Bellow] bodily and pin him against a wall. Perhaps I’d corner him on the stairs and take up questions about ‘pork-chops’ and ‘crazy buffaloes’ and barbarous black pickpockets. I wanted to trophy his fear.” At the same time, “I wanted something from him … I wanted to steal the essence of him, to absorb it right into my bones.” Staples’s Times Magazine article, as riveting and...
- 3/23/2015
- by Lee Siegel
- Vulture
Sitting in a stack of pulpy old crime novels and lascivious short stories of hookers, gangsters and freaks may be a diamond in the rough. The book is about a heroin addict named “Frankie Machine”, it won the National Book Award in 1950, and Otto Preminger’s film adaptation starred Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak.
The book and the film, “The Man With the Golden Arm”, may ring a bell, but its author, Nelson Algren, is still buried in that stack of old books.
In the new documentary Algren, which got its premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 14, Nelson Algren is in the company of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. But his name has been forgotten, least of all in Chicago where he called home.
Since Algren’s heyday in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, his work’s legacy has seen the same pitiful fate...
The book and the film, “The Man With the Golden Arm”, may ring a bell, but its author, Nelson Algren, is still buried in that stack of old books.
In the new documentary Algren, which got its premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 14, Nelson Algren is in the company of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. But his name has been forgotten, least of all in Chicago where he called home.
Since Algren’s heyday in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, his work’s legacy has seen the same pitiful fate...
- 10/21/2014
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
“Do you think there’s ever been another movie like Heathers?” Winona Ryder asks in her tiny, forever-a-kid voice, and then listens quietly. She’s genuinely curious. Your brain races through the obvious choices. Mean Girls, Clueless, Jawbreaker—teen-girl comedies with a drop of caustic in their lip gloss. But in 25 years, no high school movie has ever come close to the bloodthirsty wit and sweet-faced nihilism of Heathers, the 1989 satire about an Ohio high school where suicide becomes a scrunchie-level fad. “I looove this movie—to the point where I talk about it like I’m not even in it,...
- 4/4/2014
- by Adam Markovitz
- EW - Inside Movies
Director writes open letter in support of his longtime casting director, who he credits as being instrumental in his films' success
• Woody Allen on Blue Jasmine: 'You see tantrums in adults all the time'
• Readers vote: the 10 best Woody Allen films
Woody Allen has weighed into the debate over whether casting directors should have their own Oscar by writing a letter to industry trade magazine the Hollywood Reporter outlining the contribution his own casting director, Juliet Taylor, has made to his films.
Allen writes: "My history shows that my films are full of wonderful performances by actors and actresses I had never heard of and were not only introduced to me by my casting director ... but, in any number of cases, pushed on me against my own resistance."
He continues: "If it were up to me we would use the same half dozen people in all my pictures, whether they fit or not.
• Woody Allen on Blue Jasmine: 'You see tantrums in adults all the time'
• Readers vote: the 10 best Woody Allen films
Woody Allen has weighed into the debate over whether casting directors should have their own Oscar by writing a letter to industry trade magazine the Hollywood Reporter outlining the contribution his own casting director, Juliet Taylor, has made to his films.
Allen writes: "My history shows that my films are full of wonderful performances by actors and actresses I had never heard of and were not only introduced to me by my casting director ... but, in any number of cases, pushed on me against my own resistance."
He continues: "If it were up to me we would use the same half dozen people in all my pictures, whether they fit or not.
- 11/1/2013
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
The Swedish Academy announced the recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature on Oct. 10, and the winner is…
Alice Munro! The short-story author is the first Canadian to win the coveted $1.2 million award since Saul Bellow took the prize in 1976. She is also one of only 13 female writers to be garnered this honor in the Nobel Prize’s 112 year history.
Alice Munro: ‘Very Grateful’ To Win Nobel Prize
After receiving the award, the 82-year-old writer released a statement expressing her pure gratitude: “I’m particularly glad that winning this award will please so many Canadians. I’m happy, too, that this will bring more attention to Canadian writing.”
Alice is no stranger to success. She is a three-time winner of Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s Award for Fiction as well as the recipient of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work.
But unlike most internationally praised authors,...
Alice Munro! The short-story author is the first Canadian to win the coveted $1.2 million award since Saul Bellow took the prize in 1976. She is also one of only 13 female writers to be garnered this honor in the Nobel Prize’s 112 year history.
Alice Munro: ‘Very Grateful’ To Win Nobel Prize
After receiving the award, the 82-year-old writer released a statement expressing her pure gratitude: “I’m particularly glad that winning this award will please so many Canadians. I’m happy, too, that this will bring more attention to Canadian writing.”
Alice is no stranger to success. She is a three-time winner of Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s Award for Fiction as well as the recipient of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work.
But unlike most internationally praised authors,...
- 10/10/2013
- by Indi A
- HollywoodLife
Alice Munro, a Canadian master of the short story revered as a thorough but forgiving documenter of the human spirit, won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, the Swedish Academy said. Munro, 82, is the first Canadian writer to receive the prestigious $1.2 million award since Saul Bellow, who left for the U.S. as a boy and won in 1976. Seen as a modern Chekhov for her warmth, insight and compassion, she has captured a wide range of lives and personalities without passing judgment on her characters. She is beloved among her peers, from Lorrie Moore and George Saunders to Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Franzen.
- 10/10/2013
- by Associated Press
- PEOPLE.com
A much more tranquil Rick Grimes? That's what Andrew Lincoln is promising as "The Walking Dead" makes its return.
The zombies' rampage continues when the AMC series' fourth season starts Sunday, Oct. 13, but survivors' leader Rick is now on the sidelines in the battle against them. The London-born actor who plays him believes the change gives a nice wraparound to the saga thus far, though how long Rick's relative peace will last is anyone's guess.
"I don't think it's spoiling anything by saying that," the friendly Lincoln confirms of the initially quieter place his character is in. "I can say this: The first season was very much about the man discovering this new world and searching for his family. The second season was a struggle for leadership, an ideology, which was Rick vs. Shane (Jon Bernthal) ... pragmatism over morality.
"The third season was very much a clash of two civilizations,...
The zombies' rampage continues when the AMC series' fourth season starts Sunday, Oct. 13, but survivors' leader Rick is now on the sidelines in the battle against them. The London-born actor who plays him believes the change gives a nice wraparound to the saga thus far, though how long Rick's relative peace will last is anyone's guess.
"I don't think it's spoiling anything by saying that," the friendly Lincoln confirms of the initially quieter place his character is in. "I can say this: The first season was very much about the man discovering this new world and searching for his family. The second season was a struggle for leadership, an ideology, which was Rick vs. Shane (Jon Bernthal) ... pragmatism over morality.
"The third season was very much a clash of two civilizations,...
- 9/20/2013
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Zap2It - From Inside the Box
“The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.” – Saul Bellow Gravity is a film worthy of being in the...
- 9/1/2013
- by Sasha Stone
- AwardsDaily.com
“The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.” – Saul Bellow Gravity is a film worthy of being in the...
- 9/1/2013
- by Sasha Stone
- AwardsDaily.com
Crime writer known for Get Shorty, Out of Sight and Hombre whose work served as a barometer of modern America
When Elmore Leonard's Stick was published in Britain in 1984, one newspaper called it "a fine first novel". At almost 60, the author would have been amused at such an accolade; it was, in fact, his 21st novel, and Leonard, who has died aged 87, had been selling his fiction regularly, occasionally to Hollywood. But the genres in which he chose to work often failed to attract serious critical attention: westerns first, then crime novels set in the contemporary urban hinterlands.
Westerns as a literary genre still lack respectability, but the craft and energy of Leonard's crime novels, which include Get Shorty, Out of Sight and Labrava, eventually made them impossible to ignore. Still, recognition came late: only in 1992 did the Mystery Writers of America grant him its highest accolade, the Grand Master Edgar.
When Elmore Leonard's Stick was published in Britain in 1984, one newspaper called it "a fine first novel". At almost 60, the author would have been amused at such an accolade; it was, in fact, his 21st novel, and Leonard, who has died aged 87, had been selling his fiction regularly, occasionally to Hollywood. But the genres in which he chose to work often failed to attract serious critical attention: westerns first, then crime novels set in the contemporary urban hinterlands.
Westerns as a literary genre still lack respectability, but the craft and energy of Leonard's crime novels, which include Get Shorty, Out of Sight and Labrava, eventually made them impossible to ignore. Still, recognition came late: only in 1992 did the Mystery Writers of America grant him its highest accolade, the Grand Master Edgar.
- 8/20/2013
- by Nick Kimberley
- The Guardian - Film News
He was the master of his genre, the Dickens of Detroit, the Chaucer of Crime.
Every novel Elmore Leonard wrote from the mid-1980s on was a best-seller, and every fan of crime stories knew his name. George Clooney was an admirer. So were Quentin Tarantino, Aerosmith, Saul Bellow and Stephen King, not to mention bellhops, waiters, accountants and millions of others.
Leonard, who died Tuesday morning at age 87, helped achieve for crime writing what King did for horror and Ray Bradbury for science fiction. He made it hip, and he made it respectable.
Every novel Elmore Leonard wrote from the mid-1980s on was a best-seller, and every fan of crime stories knew his name. George Clooney was an admirer. So were Quentin Tarantino, Aerosmith, Saul Bellow and Stephen King, not to mention bellhops, waiters, accountants and millions of others.
Leonard, who died Tuesday morning at age 87, helped achieve for crime writing what King did for horror and Ray Bradbury for science fiction. He made it hip, and he made it respectable.
- 8/20/2013
- by Cineplex.com and contributors
- Cineplex
An entertaining Hollywood novel by the son of a movie agent is packed with brilliant and wacky details
Beau Rosenwald does not immediately leap out as the kind of guy a reader would want to spend 400-odd pages with. We meet him in 1962, when he is in his mid-20s, in the Los Angeles offices of a talent agency. He is short, heavy, and sweat stains are forming crescents around his armpits as he waits for a meeting. "He had a tuberous face," the narrator of American Dream Machine, Beau's bastard son Nate, tells us, "lips damp and pursed like a trumpeter's, one eye slightly lower than the other like a disappointed hound's."
New in town from the east coast, Beau's one concession to quality is his brogues, made by Church's. The words of his mentor back in New York have clearly made an impact: "A man is judged by his persistence,...
Beau Rosenwald does not immediately leap out as the kind of guy a reader would want to spend 400-odd pages with. We meet him in 1962, when he is in his mid-20s, in the Los Angeles offices of a talent agency. He is short, heavy, and sweat stains are forming crescents around his armpits as he waits for a meeting. "He had a tuberous face," the narrator of American Dream Machine, Beau's bastard son Nate, tells us, "lips damp and pursed like a trumpeter's, one eye slightly lower than the other like a disappointed hound's."
New in town from the east coast, Beau's one concession to quality is his brogues, made by Church's. The words of his mentor back in New York have clearly made an impact: "A man is judged by his persistence,...
- 4/27/2013
- by Tim Lewis
- The Guardian - Film News
Ed Asner never expected "Hawaii Five-0" to turn into a 37-year gig for him.
That's the span of time between his first appearance on the original CBS crime drama and his reprising the role on the network's current reboot of the show. After appearing in an episode last March, the seven-time Emmy winner has his third round Monday (Oct. 1) in the same part: August March, a veteran smuggler and art expert now asked by the Five-0 police squad to help probe a lethal robbery.
"You have to pay for crime," the warm and frequently amusing Asner tells Zap2it about returning again as the character he first played in 1975 opposite Jack Lord. He reasons that in his latest return as March, working with Alex O'Loughlin as today's Steve McGarrett, "I have to pay for killing that beautiful girl who got dumped in the ocean. That bugged everybody.
"I have a...
That's the span of time between his first appearance on the original CBS crime drama and his reprising the role on the network's current reboot of the show. After appearing in an episode last March, the seven-time Emmy winner has his third round Monday (Oct. 1) in the same part: August March, a veteran smuggler and art expert now asked by the Five-0 police squad to help probe a lethal robbery.
"You have to pay for crime," the warm and frequently amusing Asner tells Zap2it about returning again as the character he first played in 1975 opposite Jack Lord. He reasons that in his latest return as March, working with Alex O'Loughlin as today's Steve McGarrett, "I have to pay for killing that beautiful girl who got dumped in the ocean. That bugged everybody.
"I have a...
- 10/1/2012
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Zap2It - From Inside the Box
Novelist, playwright and essayist with a complete mastery of the scene he described
Gore Vidal, the American writer, controversialist and politician manqué, who has died aged 86, was celebrated both for his caustic wit and his mandarin's poise. His public career spanned seven decades and included 25 novels, numerous collections of essays on literature and politics, a volume of short stories, five Broadway plays, dozens of television plays and film scripts, and even three mystery novels written under the pseudonym Edgar Box. After 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, he returned to centre stage with a series of blistering pamphlets and public pronouncements that led many, including his former friend Christopher Hitchens, to pounce on him. But Vidal never looked back.
Despite his output as a novelist and playwright, many critics considered Vidal's witty and acerbic essays his best work. Often published first in such journals as the New York Review...
Gore Vidal, the American writer, controversialist and politician manqué, who has died aged 86, was celebrated both for his caustic wit and his mandarin's poise. His public career spanned seven decades and included 25 novels, numerous collections of essays on literature and politics, a volume of short stories, five Broadway plays, dozens of television plays and film scripts, and even three mystery novels written under the pseudonym Edgar Box. After 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, he returned to centre stage with a series of blistering pamphlets and public pronouncements that led many, including his former friend Christopher Hitchens, to pounce on him. But Vidal never looked back.
Despite his output as a novelist and playwright, many critics considered Vidal's witty and acerbic essays his best work. Often published first in such journals as the New York Review...
- 8/1/2012
- by Jay Parini
- The Guardian - Film News
In a world more to his liking, Gore Vidal might have been president, or even king. He had an aristocrat's bearing – tall, handsome and composed – and an authoritative baritone ideal for summoning an aide or courtier.
But Vidal made his living – a very good living – from challenging power, not holding it. He was wealthy and famous and committed to exposing a system often led by men he knew firsthand. During the days of Franklin Roosevelt, one of the few leaders whom Vidal admired, he might have been called a "traitor to his class." The real traitors, Vidal would respond, were the upholders of his class.
The author, playwright, politician and commentator whose vast and sharpened range of published works and public remarks were stamped by his immodest wit and unconventional wisdom, died Tuesday at age 86 in Los Angeles.
Vidal died at his home in the Hollywood Hills at about 6:45 p.
But Vidal made his living – a very good living – from challenging power, not holding it. He was wealthy and famous and committed to exposing a system often led by men he knew firsthand. During the days of Franklin Roosevelt, one of the few leaders whom Vidal admired, he might have been called a "traitor to his class." The real traitors, Vidal would respond, were the upholders of his class.
The author, playwright, politician and commentator whose vast and sharpened range of published works and public remarks were stamped by his immodest wit and unconventional wisdom, died Tuesday at age 86 in Los Angeles.
Vidal died at his home in the Hollywood Hills at about 6:45 p.
- 8/1/2012
- by AP
- Huffington Post
AMC Scene from “Mad Men.”
Editor’s note: Every Sunday after the newest episode of “Mad Men,” lawyer and Supreme Court advocate Walter Dellinger will host an online dialogue about the show. The participants include Columbia University history professor Alan Brinkley, Stanford Law Professor Pam Karlan, and Columbia theater and television professor Evangeline Morphos. Dellinger will post his thoughts shortly after each episode ends at 11 p.m., and the others will add their commentary in the hours and days that follow.
Editor’s note: Every Sunday after the newest episode of “Mad Men,” lawyer and Supreme Court advocate Walter Dellinger will host an online dialogue about the show. The participants include Columbia University history professor Alan Brinkley, Stanford Law Professor Pam Karlan, and Columbia theater and television professor Evangeline Morphos. Dellinger will post his thoughts shortly after each episode ends at 11 p.m., and the others will add their commentary in the hours and days that follow.
- 5/7/2012
- by Walter Dellinger
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
Footnote
Written by Joseph Cedar
Directed by Joseph Cedar
Israel, 2011
Footnote is unusual in that it does a number of things well; more to the point, it does a number of things seamlessly. It tells a quintessentially Jewish story in a way that is not just accessible, but relevant, to a non-Jewish audience. It inhabits the claustrophobic world of academia and cracks it open with great wit and great insight. Most importantly, it splits one of the most archetypal character relationships, that of a father and son, into fierce rivalry and difficult love. How can all these things be dismantled and recombined, intelligently and elegantly, in one film? Footnote is the best film to come out of Israel in decades.
The Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Cannes was awarded to Footnote, and the accolade was certainly well-deserved. The story—of Elizer and Uriel Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar Aba and Lior Ashkenazi), father and son,...
Written by Joseph Cedar
Directed by Joseph Cedar
Israel, 2011
Footnote is unusual in that it does a number of things well; more to the point, it does a number of things seamlessly. It tells a quintessentially Jewish story in a way that is not just accessible, but relevant, to a non-Jewish audience. It inhabits the claustrophobic world of academia and cracks it open with great wit and great insight. Most importantly, it splits one of the most archetypal character relationships, that of a father and son, into fierce rivalry and difficult love. How can all these things be dismantled and recombined, intelligently and elegantly, in one film? Footnote is the best film to come out of Israel in decades.
The Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Cannes was awarded to Footnote, and the accolade was certainly well-deserved. The story—of Elizer and Uriel Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar Aba and Lior Ashkenazi), father and son,...
- 3/13/2012
- by Dave Robson
- SoundOnSight
Taking voices away from actors, or plunging audiences into darkness, can provide an immersive, more intimate experience
For the makers of The Artist, clutching five Oscars this week including best film, silence is quite literally golden.
Some have argued that it wooed the Academy by conjuring up the romance of Hollywood's past. Regardless of its awards success, it has won the hearts of the public with a novel approach that trusted them to take an imaginative leap. Disposing with dialogue let the viewer engage in an unfamiliar way with the characters and invest in the story.
By depriving the actors of their voices, director Michel Hazanavicius focused attention on gesture, action and movement. Of course, all those things are present in a talkie, but without words a raised eyebrow takes on greater significance, and the look of love, when it does not have to speak, is invested with unfamiliar power.
For the makers of The Artist, clutching five Oscars this week including best film, silence is quite literally golden.
Some have argued that it wooed the Academy by conjuring up the romance of Hollywood's past. Regardless of its awards success, it has won the hearts of the public with a novel approach that trusted them to take an imaginative leap. Disposing with dialogue let the viewer engage in an unfamiliar way with the characters and invest in the story.
By depriving the actors of their voices, director Michel Hazanavicius focused attention on gesture, action and movement. Of course, all those things are present in a talkie, but without words a raised eyebrow takes on greater significance, and the look of love, when it does not have to speak, is invested with unfamiliar power.
- 2/28/2012
- by Mark Espiner
- The Guardian - Film News
Episode 305: “Thick as Mud”
You want to know why Justified is so damn good? Because they can take an insignificant, idiotic–but funny–character like Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman) and elevate him so that we care about him and his livelihood on the show.
Half of last night’s episode, “Thick as Mud” was a race against time for escaped convict, Dewey, who was convinced by his kidnapper, Lance (Clayne Crawford), a prison surgeon that he had extracted his two kidneys and gave him four hours to go on a crime spree and get as much cash before dying a terrible death. Lance preyed on Dewey’s lack of intelligence but not all criminals are as stupid as our loveable dumbass.
And if he wasn’t beaten around enough, only Dewey could hit a dead end in his futile spree at a convenient store run by an overly sensitive,...
You want to know why Justified is so damn good? Because they can take an insignificant, idiotic–but funny–character like Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman) and elevate him so that we care about him and his livelihood on the show.
Half of last night’s episode, “Thick as Mud” was a race against time for escaped convict, Dewey, who was convinced by his kidnapper, Lance (Clayne Crawford), a prison surgeon that he had extracted his two kidneys and gave him four hours to go on a crime spree and get as much cash before dying a terrible death. Lance preyed on Dewey’s lack of intelligence but not all criminals are as stupid as our loveable dumbass.
And if he wasn’t beaten around enough, only Dewey could hit a dead end in his futile spree at a convenient store run by an overly sensitive,...
- 2/15/2012
- by Ernie Estrella
- BuzzFocus.com
FX Networks
It’s the twisted case of Dewey Crowe’s kidneys, which may or may not be missing, on last night’s episode of “Justified,” “Thick As Mud”.
We’ll get to Dewey in a moment, but the episode actually opens with Limehouse talking with his chief associate. It turns out that Limehouse lied to Dickie Bennett about how little of Mags’ money is left after “expenses”. Limehouse will tell no one, not even his “curious” henchman, where the money is,...
It’s the twisted case of Dewey Crowe’s kidneys, which may or may not be missing, on last night’s episode of “Justified,” “Thick As Mud”.
We’ll get to Dewey in a moment, but the episode actually opens with Limehouse talking with his chief associate. It turns out that Limehouse lied to Dickie Bennett about how little of Mags’ money is left after “expenses”. Limehouse will tell no one, not even his “curious” henchman, where the money is,...
- 2/15/2012
- by Chris Simmons
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
My Week with Marilyn envelops the star in a chaste aura. This desire to desexualise goes back to Arthur Miller
It is not entirely the fault of the recent movie My Week with Marilyn – about Monroe's disastrous attempt to make The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier – that it is devoid of sex, which is something like depicting the life of Napoleon without mentioning that he was French. Monroe might have been one of the most sexual beings who ever lived, but the portrayals of her, even by disillusioned observers, sooner or later descend into a sanitised ideal.
The sex is overtaken by sentimental treacle, or heroic fantasy, or defensive over-analysis. In his book on Monroe, Norman Mailer, for all his worldly candour, concluded that "she was our angel, the sweet angel of sex, and the sugar of sex came up from her like a resonance of sound in...
It is not entirely the fault of the recent movie My Week with Marilyn – about Monroe's disastrous attempt to make The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier – that it is devoid of sex, which is something like depicting the life of Napoleon without mentioning that he was French. Monroe might have been one of the most sexual beings who ever lived, but the portrayals of her, even by disillusioned observers, sooner or later descend into a sanitised ideal.
The sex is overtaken by sentimental treacle, or heroic fantasy, or defensive over-analysis. In his book on Monroe, Norman Mailer, for all his worldly candour, concluded that "she was our angel, the sweet angel of sex, and the sugar of sex came up from her like a resonance of sound in...
- 1/7/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Woody Allen was back on form in 2011 with Midnight in Paris, and this week sees the welcome return to the big screen (though initially only at BFI South Bank) of two of the five masterpieces he made in consecutive years during the mid-1980s. Zelig (1983) is a brilliant riff on America's permanent identity crisis, the national belief in the ability to reinvent the self, and it takes the form of a wholly fake, but completely convincing documentary of a fictive inter-war celebrity, Leonard Zelig, known as "the human chameleon". Shot in black-and-white except for the commentaries on the Zelig affair by Saul Bellow, Susan Sontag, Irving Howe and Bruno Bettelheim, it's also a brilliant satirical history of America in the 1930s and 40s.
Arguably Allen's wittiest disquisition on life, love and death in Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) is beneficially influenced by Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. One of his most subtly plotted pictures,...
Arguably Allen's wittiest disquisition on life, love and death in Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) is beneficially influenced by Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. One of his most subtly plotted pictures,...
- 1/1/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Woody Allen was back on form in 2011 with Midnight in Paris, and this week sees the welcome return to the big screen (though initially only at BFI South Bank) of two of the five masterpieces he made in consecutive years during the mid-1980s. Zelig (1983) is a brilliant riff on America's permanent identity crisis, the national belief in the ability to re-invent the self, and it takes the form of a wholly fake, but completely convincing documentary of a fictive inter-war celebrity, Leonard Zelig, known as "the human chameleon". Shot in black-and-white except for the commentaries on the Zelig affair by Saul Bellow, Susan Sontag, Irving Howe and Bruno Bettelheim, it's also a brilliant satirical history of America in the 1930s and 40s.
Arguably Allen's wittiest disquisition on life, love and death in Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) is beneficially influenced by Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. One of his most subtly plotted pictures,...
Arguably Allen's wittiest disquisition on life, love and death in Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) is beneficially influenced by Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. One of his most subtly plotted pictures,...
- 1/1/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Woody Allen's flawlessly realised fantasy about a 1920s man with "chameleon disorder" looks even more prescient and brilliant today
Released in 1983, Woody Allen's mockumentary drama Zelig was in some quarters regarded as a one-joke technical novelty. But in 2011, it looks like a masterpiece: a brilliant, even passionate historical pastiche, a superbly pregnant meditation on American society and individuality, and an eerie fantasy that will live in your dreams. Most unsettling, somehow, for me, is the still image of Allen reconstituted as a speakeasy gangster, the "tough hombre" remembered by an elderly waiter decades after the event.
Using spoof and real newsreel footage, deadpan modern-day talking-head interviews and some tremendous special effects that hold up triumphantly in this digital age, the movie tells the story of Leonard Zelig, the little 1920s Jewish guy with a "chameleon disorder" enabling him to resemble anyone in whose company he finds himself. Mia Farrow...
Released in 1983, Woody Allen's mockumentary drama Zelig was in some quarters regarded as a one-joke technical novelty. But in 2011, it looks like a masterpiece: a brilliant, even passionate historical pastiche, a superbly pregnant meditation on American society and individuality, and an eerie fantasy that will live in your dreams. Most unsettling, somehow, for me, is the still image of Allen reconstituted as a speakeasy gangster, the "tough hombre" remembered by an elderly waiter decades after the event.
Using spoof and real newsreel footage, deadpan modern-day talking-head interviews and some tremendous special effects that hold up triumphantly in this digital age, the movie tells the story of Leonard Zelig, the little 1920s Jewish guy with a "chameleon disorder" enabling him to resemble anyone in whose company he finds himself. Mia Farrow...
- 12/23/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
In our writers' favourite films series, Andrew Pulver remains eternally loyal – and bound – to Woody Allen's lovable loser
• Tell us your version of Broadway Danny Rose by posting your review – or show some commitment to the comments below
Only one film poster has stayed with me throughout my entire time as a film journalist, surviving multiple moves and flatshares; it must say something that the six-foot-one-sheet of a Broadway Danny Rose has outlasted all-comers, the likes of The Cable Guy, Violent Cop and Tenghiz Abuladze's Repentance. I bought it in the mid-80s, a callow twentysomething on a trip Paris, at one of those stalls by the Seine, and had to fold it up to get it home. I honestly don't think a day has gone by without my reading aloud one or other of the sonorous critics' quotes printed in French down one side, next to the small...
• Tell us your version of Broadway Danny Rose by posting your review – or show some commitment to the comments below
Only one film poster has stayed with me throughout my entire time as a film journalist, surviving multiple moves and flatshares; it must say something that the six-foot-one-sheet of a Broadway Danny Rose has outlasted all-comers, the likes of The Cable Guy, Violent Cop and Tenghiz Abuladze's Repentance. I bought it in the mid-80s, a callow twentysomething on a trip Paris, at one of those stalls by the Seine, and had to fold it up to get it home. I honestly don't think a day has gone by without my reading aloud one or other of the sonorous critics' quotes printed in French down one side, next to the small...
- 10/28/2011
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Footnote
Written by Joseph Cedar
Directed by Joseph Cedar
Israel, 2011
Footnote is unusual in that it does a number of things well; more to the point, it does a number of things seamlessly. It tells a quintessentially Jewish story in a way that is not just accessible, but relevant, to a non-Jewish audience. It inhabits the claustrophobic world of academia and cracks it open with great wit and great insight. Most importantly, it splits one of the most archetypal character relationships, that of a father and son, into fierce rivalry and difficult love. How can all these things be dismantled and recombined, intelligently and elegantly, in one film? Footnote is the best film to come out of Israel in decades.
The Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Cannes was awarded to Footnote, and the accolade was certainly well-deserved. The story—of Elizer and Uriel Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar Aba and Lior Ashkenazi), father and son,...
Written by Joseph Cedar
Directed by Joseph Cedar
Israel, 2011
Footnote is unusual in that it does a number of things well; more to the point, it does a number of things seamlessly. It tells a quintessentially Jewish story in a way that is not just accessible, but relevant, to a non-Jewish audience. It inhabits the claustrophobic world of academia and cracks it open with great wit and great insight. Most importantly, it splits one of the most archetypal character relationships, that of a father and son, into fierce rivalry and difficult love. How can all these things be dismantled and recombined, intelligently and elegantly, in one film? Footnote is the best film to come out of Israel in decades.
The Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Cannes was awarded to Footnote, and the accolade was certainly well-deserved. The story—of Elizer and Uriel Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar Aba and Lior Ashkenazi), father and son,...
- 10/25/2011
- by Dave Robson
- SoundOnSight
Our writers are picking their favourite albums. Here, Andrew Pulver explains how he fell for the dark charms of a figure who used to be a joke to him
I'd be lying if I said Leonard Cohen's records soundtracked my adolescence, or comforted me during student awkwardness. The sad truth is, as I suspect it was for most gormless teenagers growing up in 80s suburban Britain on a steady diet of post-punk, Berlin-era Bowie, and the Velvet Underground, Cohen was a joke.
Blame, if you will, The Young Ones. Looking back, I don't quite understand how, but the show was an early-80s religion, and their running gags at Cohen's expense (sample: "No one listens to me anyway. I may as well be a Leonard Cohen record.") Consequently, Cohen's actual music was a sealed book to me; if I ever thought about it, I suppose I assumed he was a hippy,...
I'd be lying if I said Leonard Cohen's records soundtracked my adolescence, or comforted me during student awkwardness. The sad truth is, as I suspect it was for most gormless teenagers growing up in 80s suburban Britain on a steady diet of post-punk, Berlin-era Bowie, and the Velvet Underground, Cohen was a joke.
Blame, if you will, The Young Ones. Looking back, I don't quite understand how, but the show was an early-80s religion, and their running gags at Cohen's expense (sample: "No one listens to me anyway. I may as well be a Leonard Cohen record.") Consequently, Cohen's actual music was a sealed book to me; if I ever thought about it, I suppose I assumed he was a hippy,...
- 10/7/2011
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Jd Salinger, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer were all devotees of the orgone energy accumulator, nicknamed by Woody Allen the 'Orgasmatron'. Its inventor, Wilhelm Reich, claimed that better orgasms could cure society's ills
When Wilhelm Reich, the most brilliant of the second generation of psychoanalysts who had been Freud's pupils, arrived in New York in August 1939, only a few days before the outbreak of war, he was optimistic that his ideas fusing sex and politics would be better received there than they had been in fascist Europe. Despite its veneer of puritanism, America was a country already much preoccupied with sex – as Alfred Kinsey's renowned investigations, which he had begun the year before, were to show. However, it was only after the second world war that the idea of sexual liberation would permeate the culture at large. Reich could be said to have invented this "sexual revolution"; a Marxist analyst,...
When Wilhelm Reich, the most brilliant of the second generation of psychoanalysts who had been Freud's pupils, arrived in New York in August 1939, only a few days before the outbreak of war, he was optimistic that his ideas fusing sex and politics would be better received there than they had been in fascist Europe. Despite its veneer of puritanism, America was a country already much preoccupied with sex – as Alfred Kinsey's renowned investigations, which he had begun the year before, were to show. However, it was only after the second world war that the idea of sexual liberation would permeate the culture at large. Reich could be said to have invented this "sexual revolution"; a Marxist analyst,...
- 7/8/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Jd Salinger, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer were all devotees of the orgone energy accumulator, nicknamed by Woody Allen the 'Orgasmatron'. Its inventor, Wilhelm Reich, claimed that better orgasms could cure society's ills
When Wilhelm Reich, the most brilliant of the second generation of psychoanalysts who had been Freud's pupils, arrived in New York in August 1939, only a few days before the outbreak of war, he was optimistic that his ideas fusing sex and politics would be better received there than they had been in fascist Europe. Despite its veneer of puritanism, America was a country already much preoccupied with sex – as Alfred Kinsey's renowned investigations, which he had begun the year before, were to show. However, it was only after the second world war that the idea of sexual liberation would permeate the culture at large. Reich could be said to have invented this "sexual revolution"; a Marxist analyst,...
When Wilhelm Reich, the most brilliant of the second generation of psychoanalysts who had been Freud's pupils, arrived in New York in August 1939, only a few days before the outbreak of war, he was optimistic that his ideas fusing sex and politics would be better received there than they had been in fascist Europe. Despite its veneer of puritanism, America was a country already much preoccupied with sex – as Alfred Kinsey's renowned investigations, which he had begun the year before, were to show. However, it was only after the second world war that the idea of sexual liberation would permeate the culture at large. Reich could be said to have invented this "sexual revolution"; a Marxist analyst,...
- 7/7/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor best known as Paddy, the militant shop steward in the BBC's The Rag Trade
The actor Miriam Karlin, who has died of cancer aged 85, became famous in the early 1960s as Paddy, the militant shop steward of a London clothing firm in the BBC television comedy series The Rag Trade. As Paddy, who was always willing to signal a strike with a whistle and her catchphrase "Everybody out!", Karlin was watched by millions, and quoted by millions. But neither that success, nor her more serious roles on stage, removed the gnawing dissatisfaction she felt at not achieving something more serious. She channelled some of that feeling into promoting broadly leftwing causes as a member of the council of the actors' union Equity, and as a campaigner for the Anti-Nazi League, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Soviet Jewry.
She was born Miriam Samuels and brought up in Hampstead, north London,...
The actor Miriam Karlin, who has died of cancer aged 85, became famous in the early 1960s as Paddy, the militant shop steward of a London clothing firm in the BBC television comedy series The Rag Trade. As Paddy, who was always willing to signal a strike with a whistle and her catchphrase "Everybody out!", Karlin was watched by millions, and quoted by millions. But neither that success, nor her more serious roles on stage, removed the gnawing dissatisfaction she felt at not achieving something more serious. She channelled some of that feeling into promoting broadly leftwing causes as a member of the council of the actors' union Equity, and as a campaigner for the Anti-Nazi League, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Soviet Jewry.
She was born Miriam Samuels and brought up in Hampstead, north London,...
- 6/3/2011
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
This month Jason is joined by writer and comedian David Baddiel and the literary editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Gerald Jacobs.
Baddiel discusses why he and his brother Ivor decided to make a star-studded film, The Y-Word to kick antisemitism out of football once and for all. But Jacobs, a lifelong Spurs fan, argues that the y-word is a badge of honour and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Baddiel also reads from his widely acclaimed new novel, The Death of Eli Gold, and explains why the great American Jewish writers from Philip Roth to Saul Bellow loom so large.
What about Roth's recent win of the International Man Booker? It prompted one of the three judges, Carmen Callil, to resign, accusing Roth of writing about the same subject over and over again, branding his work suffocating and likening it to "someone sitting on your face". Some wonder if what Callil...
Baddiel discusses why he and his brother Ivor decided to make a star-studded film, The Y-Word to kick antisemitism out of football once and for all. But Jacobs, a lifelong Spurs fan, argues that the y-word is a badge of honour and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Baddiel also reads from his widely acclaimed new novel, The Death of Eli Gold, and explains why the great American Jewish writers from Philip Roth to Saul Bellow loom so large.
What about Roth's recent win of the International Man Booker? It prompted one of the three judges, Carmen Callil, to resign, accusing Roth of writing about the same subject over and over again, branding his work suffocating and likening it to "someone sitting on your face". Some wonder if what Callil...
- 6/1/2011
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
Updated through 5/23.
"Bill Hunter, the archetypal working class Australian of a multitude of movies including the quirky trio Muriel's Wedding, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Strictly Ballroom has died of cancer," reports the AP. He was 71. "The prolific star of Australian movie and television screens with a distinctively broad and gravelly accent and an authoritative no-nonsense style remained an actor in demand until the end. He recently narrated a two-part television documentary about the floods and cyclone that became Australia's most expensive natural disasters early this year…. Director Baz Luhrmann described Hunter in a statement last week as 'the go-to iconic actor to synthesize quintessential Australian-ness.'"
"Of all his work, Hunter's portrayal of Major Barton in Peter Weir's classic 1981 war epic Gallipoli is widely regarded as his finest," write Jim Schembri and Karl Quinn for the Sydney Morning Herald. "Charged with playing a...
"Bill Hunter, the archetypal working class Australian of a multitude of movies including the quirky trio Muriel's Wedding, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Strictly Ballroom has died of cancer," reports the AP. He was 71. "The prolific star of Australian movie and television screens with a distinctively broad and gravelly accent and an authoritative no-nonsense style remained an actor in demand until the end. He recently narrated a two-part television documentary about the floods and cyclone that became Australia's most expensive natural disasters early this year…. Director Baz Luhrmann described Hunter in a statement last week as 'the go-to iconic actor to synthesize quintessential Australian-ness.'"
"Of all his work, Hunter's portrayal of Major Barton in Peter Weir's classic 1981 war epic Gallipoli is widely regarded as his finest," write Jim Schembri and Karl Quinn for the Sydney Morning Herald. "Charged with playing a...
- 5/23/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 5/17.
"An intriguing tale of an ethical dilemma complicated by academic rivalries and family tensions is told in erratic fashion in Footnote," begins Todd McCarthy in the Hollywood Reporter. "In his fourth feature, New York-born-and-trained Israeli writer-director Joseph Cedar arrestingly tackles what feels like deeply felt personal material, a simmering intellectual and emotional feud between a comparably brilliant father and son, but makes several crucial miscalculations, beginning with the use of one of the most intrusive and overbearing musical scores in memory."
"Eliezer Shkolnik [Shlomo Bar-Aba], a curmudgeonly professor, and his son Uziel [Lior Ashkenazi] are both well-known Talmudic scholars and researchers," explains Barbara Scharres, blogging for the Chicago Sun-Times. "Uziel, however, reaps awards and honors galore, while his jealous father has suffered a career of being overlooked. Uziel wins a major academic award in their mutual field, but through the mistake of an office assistant, Eliezer is informed that he is the winner.
"An intriguing tale of an ethical dilemma complicated by academic rivalries and family tensions is told in erratic fashion in Footnote," begins Todd McCarthy in the Hollywood Reporter. "In his fourth feature, New York-born-and-trained Israeli writer-director Joseph Cedar arrestingly tackles what feels like deeply felt personal material, a simmering intellectual and emotional feud between a comparably brilliant father and son, but makes several crucial miscalculations, beginning with the use of one of the most intrusive and overbearing musical scores in memory."
"Eliezer Shkolnik [Shlomo Bar-Aba], a curmudgeonly professor, and his son Uziel [Lior Ashkenazi] are both well-known Talmudic scholars and researchers," explains Barbara Scharres, blogging for the Chicago Sun-Times. "Uziel, however, reaps awards and honors galore, while his jealous father has suffered a career of being overlooked. Uziel wins a major academic award in their mutual field, but through the mistake of an office assistant, Eliezer is informed that he is the winner.
- 5/17/2011
- MUBI
"Death disports with writers more cruelly than with the rest of humankind," Cynthia Ozick wrote in a recent issue of The New Republic.
"The grave can hardly make more mute those who were voiceless when alive--dust to dust, muteness to muteness. But the silence that dogs the established writer's noisy obituary, with its boisterous shock and busy regret, is more profound than any other.
"Oblivion comes more cuttingly to the writer whose presence has been felt, argued over, championed, disparaged--the writer who is seen to be what Lionel Trilling calls a Figure. Lionel Trilling?
"Consider: who at this hour (apart from some professorial specialist currying his "field") is reading Mary McCarthy, James T. Farrell, John Berryman, Allan Bloom, Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, Edmund Wilson, Anne Sexton, Alice Adams, Robert Lowell, Grace Paley, Owen Barfield, Stanley Elkin, Robert Penn Warren, Norman Mailer, Leslie Fiedler, R.P. Blackmur, Paul Goodman, Susan Sontag,...
"The grave can hardly make more mute those who were voiceless when alive--dust to dust, muteness to muteness. But the silence that dogs the established writer's noisy obituary, with its boisterous shock and busy regret, is more profound than any other.
"Oblivion comes more cuttingly to the writer whose presence has been felt, argued over, championed, disparaged--the writer who is seen to be what Lionel Trilling calls a Figure. Lionel Trilling?
"Consider: who at this hour (apart from some professorial specialist currying his "field") is reading Mary McCarthy, James T. Farrell, John Berryman, Allan Bloom, Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, Edmund Wilson, Anne Sexton, Alice Adams, Robert Lowell, Grace Paley, Owen Barfield, Stanley Elkin, Robert Penn Warren, Norman Mailer, Leslie Fiedler, R.P. Blackmur, Paul Goodman, Susan Sontag,...
- 4/24/2011
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Mordecai Richler, the Canadian novelist who died 10 years ago at the age of 70, worked for many years in Britain writing screenplays and contributing to our literary life. He wrote a series of hilarious, partly autobiographical novels about Montreal's Jewish community, two of which – The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Joshua Then and Now – he adapted for the cinema. His books are quite close to those of the Canadian-born Saul Bellow, though funnier and less self-regarding; the last one, the characteristically sprawling Barney's Version, has now been filmed with a wonderful central performance from Paul Giamatti.
He plays Barney Panofsky (Richler probably borrowed the surname from Erwin Panofsky, the art historian who pioneered the study of iconography), a Montreal entrepreneur who starts out in the 1970s supporting his bohemian friends in Rome as a dealer in olive oil before returning home to work as a Jewish fundraiser and the producer of...
He plays Barney Panofsky (Richler probably borrowed the surname from Erwin Panofsky, the art historian who pioneered the study of iconography), a Montreal entrepreneur who starts out in the 1970s supporting his bohemian friends in Rome as a dealer in olive oil before returning home to work as a Jewish fundraiser and the producer of...
- 1/30/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
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