Hampton Fancher at the reflecting pool with Henry Moore's Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) 1963–5 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Hampton Fancher, the beguiling subject of Michael Almereyda's Escapes and co-screenwriter of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Denis Villeneuve's upcoming Blade Runner 2049, shared some memories of Jerry Lewis, who died at the age of 91 this past Sunday, August 20, at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada.
We started out with Michael Pfleghar's film Romeo Und Julia 70 where Hampton interviewed Jerry Lewis, went onto the connection to Joan Blackman and Hal B Wallis for Norman Taurog's Visit To A Small Planet, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's In A Year With 13 Moons (In Einem Jahr Mit 13 Monden) and You're Never Too Young with Dean Martin and Lewis, a gurney in Frank Tashlin's The Disorderly Orderly and a rabbit in Geisha Boy, meeting Jack Benny and Buddy Hackett,...
Hampton Fancher, the beguiling subject of Michael Almereyda's Escapes and co-screenwriter of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Denis Villeneuve's upcoming Blade Runner 2049, shared some memories of Jerry Lewis, who died at the age of 91 this past Sunday, August 20, at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada.
We started out with Michael Pfleghar's film Romeo Und Julia 70 where Hampton interviewed Jerry Lewis, went onto the connection to Joan Blackman and Hal B Wallis for Norman Taurog's Visit To A Small Planet, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's In A Year With 13 Moons (In Einem Jahr Mit 13 Monden) and You're Never Too Young with Dean Martin and Lewis, a gurney in Frank Tashlin's The Disorderly Orderly and a rabbit in Geisha Boy, meeting Jack Benny and Buddy Hackett,...
- 8/26/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
David Bowie‘s extensive private art collection will be sold at auction. Bowie has accumulated over 400 pieces in his art collection over his lifetime. The collection includes more than 200 paintings from some of Britain’s most important 20th century artist like Frank Auerbach, Damien Hirst, Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland. “Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to […]
The post David Bowie’s Private Art Collection To Be Put On Exhibit And Sold At Auction appeared first on uInterview.
The post David Bowie’s Private Art Collection To Be Put On Exhibit And Sold At Auction appeared first on uInterview.
- 7/15/2016
- by Khoreen Eccleston
- Uinterview
[Guest authors Christopher Lombardo and Jeff Kirschner of Really Awful Movies share their diagnosis of healthcare horror movies with Daily Dead readers.] When the Us was overhauling its healthcare system, much to-do was made about so-called “death panels,” government committees who would decide who lives and dies based on asset allocation. As far as healthcare horrors are concerned, it turns out that playing God is very real, but luckily only in film and Sarah Palin’s fright-filled imagination. Nefarious nurses, murderous docs, and psychopathic hallway stalkers in horror movies have effectively put end-of-life issues at the forefront, but not in a way that can be reasonably debated: your life, their ending of it.
We’ve decided to weigh in on the healthcare hullabaloo by looking at fictional settings that make One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest look like the height of patient-centered thinking. So sit back and self-medicate with whatever’s in the fridge (or better still, the medicine cabinet) and take these seven healthcare horrors—but don’t call us in the morning.
We’ve decided to weigh in on the healthcare hullabaloo by looking at fictional settings that make One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest look like the height of patient-centered thinking. So sit back and self-medicate with whatever’s in the fridge (or better still, the medicine cabinet) and take these seven healthcare horrors—but don’t call us in the morning.
- 5/27/2016
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
Totally and tragically unconventional, Peggy Guggenheim moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century collecting not only not only art, but artists. Her sexual life was -- and still today is -- more discussed than the art itself which she collected, not for her own consumption but for the world to enjoy.
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
- 11/18/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
[This is Reinaldo Marcus Green’s second guest post from Ifp Independent Film Week; his first one can be found here.] It’s a wrap on Ifp Film Week! Having the Pope in New York City this week certainly added some delays to my daily commute, but I think somehow it also added hope to my meetings. If you saw a Black and Puerto Rican man in a suit and tie running in front of the Vivian Beaumont theater (across from the Henry Moore sculpture pond in Lincoln Center) every single day last week, it was probably me. I want to take […]...
- 9/25/2015
- by Reinaldo Marcus Green
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
[This is Reinaldo Marcus Green’s second guest post from Ifp Independent Film Week; his first one can be found here.] It’s a wrap on Ifp Film Week! Having the Pope in New York City this week certainly added some delays to my daily commute, but I think somehow it also added hope to my meetings. If you saw a Black and Puerto Rican man in a suit and tie running in front of the Vivian Beaumont theater (across from the Henry Moore sculpture pond in Lincoln Center) every single day last week, it was probably me. I want to take […]...
- 9/25/2015
- by Reinaldo Marcus Green
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
For Lauren Bacall fans, it was the chance of a lifetime. A two-day auction of the late screen legend's artwork and belongings - from treasured pieces of jewelry to her Louis Vuitton luggage - sold at auction Tuesday and Wednesday for $3.64 million. The entire Lauren Bacall Collection brought in a total of $5 million after Bonhams New York auctioned off two of the actress's prized Henry Moore bronze sculptures for more than $1.3 million in November. "We have been humbled by the worldwide outpouring of enthusiasm for this sale," said Bonhams vice president Jon King, who orchestrated the sale and was a friend of Bacall's.
- 4/2/2015
- by K.C. Baker, @kcbaker77777
- PEOPLE.com
On a high floor in the famous Dakota building in New York City's Upper West Side lived screen legend Lauren Bacall. Surrounded by personal treasures, the late actress spent more than 30 years in the space, decorating it with memories that spanned decades. Following Bacall's death in August, an estimated $3 million worth of her jewelry and art will be auctioned off March 31 and April 1 at Bonhams New York. Her Manhattan home is also now up for sale. Valued at $26 million (she bought the property in 1961 for $48,000), the luxe apartment overlooks Central Park at 1 W. 72nd St. in a landmark building...
- 1/23/2015
- by Jacqueline Andriakos, @jandriakos
- PEOPLE.com
On a high floor in the famous Dakota building in New York City's Upper West Side lived screen legend Lauren Bacall. Surrounded by personal treasures, the late actress spent more than 30 years in the space, decorating it with memories that spanned decades. Following Bacall's death in August, an estimated $3 million worth of her jewelry and art will be auctioned off March 31 and April 1 at Bonhams New York. Her Manhattan home is also now up for sale. Valued at $26 million (she bought the property in 1961 for $48,000), the luxe apartment overlooks Central Park at 1 W. 72nd St. in a landmark building...
- 1/23/2015
- by Jacqueline Andriakos, @jandriakos
- PEOPLE.com
Cancer, arrests and exile from Tehran haven't stopped Mania Akbari from making her politicised, potent films. Tom Seymour meets Iran's iron lady
Among the laptops and the lattes in the foyer of London's BFI Southbank sits a dissident and exile. Film-maker Mania Akbari fled her native Tehran last summer. She is determined to examine marriage, abortion, infidelity and lesbianism at home in Iran. She has explored what it's like to lose your breasts to cancer. She has made films that have upset and shocked the religious establishment. Now, after 15 years of censorship, "of living in fear and frustration", Akbari is finally seeing her films screened commercially for the first time.
The 39-year-old actor, writer and director is not in the UK by choice. During production of her latest film, From Tehran to London (originally titled Women Do Not Have Breasts), members of her crew were arrested by Iranian authorities for supposedly filming without official permission.
Among the laptops and the lattes in the foyer of London's BFI Southbank sits a dissident and exile. Film-maker Mania Akbari fled her native Tehran last summer. She is determined to examine marriage, abortion, infidelity and lesbianism at home in Iran. She has explored what it's like to lose your breasts to cancer. She has made films that have upset and shocked the religious establishment. Now, after 15 years of censorship, "of living in fear and frustration", Akbari is finally seeing her films screened commercially for the first time.
The 39-year-old actor, writer and director is not in the UK by choice. During production of her latest film, From Tehran to London (originally titled Women Do Not Have Breasts), members of her crew were arrested by Iranian authorities for supposedly filming without official permission.
- 7/15/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
When I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I must have driven past the little park a few times. Hyde Park, where the University is located, is a neighborhood including fraternity houses, foundation headquarters, school department offices, even President Obama's family home. Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House can be found there, and Henry Moore's chilling death's-sculpture marking the place where scientists first split the atom.
¶
The park is named Harsh Park. It is a mile or so away from the Obama home. On Jan. 29, a young woman and her friends took cover from the rain under one of the park's canopies like you can see above. A gang member jumped from a car and started firing on her group.
A bullet in her back ended the life of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old senior honor student a King College Prep High. She had just finished taking her final exams.
¶
The park is named Harsh Park. It is a mile or so away from the Obama home. On Jan. 29, a young woman and her friends took cover from the rain under one of the park's canopies like you can see above. A gang member jumped from a car and started firing on her group.
A bullet in her back ended the life of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old senior honor student a King College Prep High. She had just finished taking her final exams.
- 5/14/2013
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
When I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I must have driven past the little park a few times. Hyde Park, where the University is located, is a neighborhood including fraternity houses, foundation headquarters, school department offices, even President Obama's family home. Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House can be found there, and Henry Moore's chilling death's-sculpture marking the place where scientists first split the atom. The park is named Harsh Park. It is a mile or so away from the Obama home. On Jan. 29, a young woman and her friends took cover from the rain under one of the park's canopies like you can see above. A gang member jumped from a car and started firing on her group.
A bullet in her back ended the life of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old senior honor student a King College Prep High. She had just finished taking her final exams.
A bullet in her back ended the life of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old senior honor student a King College Prep High. She had just finished taking her final exams.
- 3/8/2013
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Tower Hamlets mayor's resolve to sell Draped Seated Woman draws censure from Danny Boyle and warnings from art experts
Experts are warning of a wave of public art sales by local authorities after Tower Hamlets agreed to sell a Henry Moore statue, donated by the artist on the understanding it would be left permanently on open-air display for the enjoyment of people in a socially deprived area of London.
Lutfur Rahman, the independent mayor of the borough, overruled the recommendation of his councillors that Draped Seated Woman– which could fetch up to £20m – should not be sold. Rushanara Ali, the Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said Rahman was "going against the desires of the over 1,500 people who have signed the petition [against the sale] in just a few days".
The decision was also condemned by Danny Boyle, a Tower Hamlets resident and director of the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics. "The...
Experts are warning of a wave of public art sales by local authorities after Tower Hamlets agreed to sell a Henry Moore statue, donated by the artist on the understanding it would be left permanently on open-air display for the enjoyment of people in a socially deprived area of London.
Lutfur Rahman, the independent mayor of the borough, overruled the recommendation of his councillors that Draped Seated Woman– which could fetch up to £20m – should not be sold. Rushanara Ali, the Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said Rahman was "going against the desires of the over 1,500 people who have signed the petition [against the sale] in just a few days".
The decision was also condemned by Danny Boyle, a Tower Hamlets resident and director of the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics. "The...
- 11/8/2012
- by Amelia Hill
- The Guardian - Film News
Danny Boyle and co's open letter might have saved a £20m Moore sculpture, but other works are being lost to public view thanks to money-minded local officialdom
I was at the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition in Tate Britain last night. Its star is undoubtedly John Everett Millais. His eerie, sexy surrealist masterpiece Ophelia is the best painting in the show.
Bolton council couldn't give a monkey's. Millais is, in this council's eyes, not a national treasure to be safeguarded for future generations but an asset to be sold off.
Don't bother writing a letter to the Observer. This week, art lovers including Danny Boyle and the director of the Tate signed a letter to the Sunday paper protesting against plans by Tower Hamlets council to sell a sculpture by Henry Moore that might fetch £20m in today's booming art market. Now the Museum of London is offering to give it a home.
I was at the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition in Tate Britain last night. Its star is undoubtedly John Everett Millais. His eerie, sexy surrealist masterpiece Ophelia is the best painting in the show.
Bolton council couldn't give a monkey's. Millais is, in this council's eyes, not a national treasure to be safeguarded for future generations but an asset to be sold off.
Don't bother writing a letter to the Observer. This week, art lovers including Danny Boyle and the director of the Tate signed a letter to the Sunday paper protesting against plans by Tower Hamlets council to sell a sculpture by Henry Moore that might fetch £20m in today's booming art market. Now the Museum of London is offering to give it a home.
- 11/6/2012
- by Jonathan Jones
- The Guardian - Film News
get yer official 50 Shades of Grey branded bondage merch (and other adventures in social networking)
What my followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ saw today: • Everyone knows poor people don't deserve art. Danny Boyle joins plea to halt Henry Moore sale • If only Nathan Fillion weren't Canadian... (One of today’s ShirtPunch! tees.) 2012 Wheaton/Fillion: A Chance for Change • Don't worry, this headline is fear-mongering linkbait, pure and simple, but this is notable for the absolute worst Photoshop job I've ever seen from a supposedly professional publishing outfit. Zac Efron favourite to play Luke Skywalker in new Disney Star Wars films • Science as entertainment. But of course! Geeks, comedians and academics are putting the fun back into science • Branded bondage merch. Because I know you've been waiting for this... The Official Fifty Shades of Grey Pleasure Products Collection (hat-tips for today’s links: Katy, Neima)...
- 11/6/2012
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
London -- Director Danny Boyle has joined leading British arts figures urging a cash-strapped local authority not to sell off a valuable Henry Moore sculpture – arguing it should be erected in London's Olympic Park instead.
"Draped Seated Woman" is owned by London's Tower Hamlets Council and stood for years on a public housing complex in the city's East End.
Last month the council announced plans to sell the bronze artwork to offset funding cuts. Estimates of its value range from 5 million pounds to 20 million pounds ($8 million to $32 million).
Tower Hamlets Mayor Luthur Rahman said the local authority faced a "stark choice" at a time of economic weakness and government austerity.
Moore, who died in 1986, is one of Britain's best-known 20th-century artists, and his curved, semi-abstract forms stand in public spaces around the world.
He sold "Draped Seated Woman" to the now-defunct London County Council in 1960 for a token price so...
"Draped Seated Woman" is owned by London's Tower Hamlets Council and stood for years on a public housing complex in the city's East End.
Last month the council announced plans to sell the bronze artwork to offset funding cuts. Estimates of its value range from 5 million pounds to 20 million pounds ($8 million to $32 million).
Tower Hamlets Mayor Luthur Rahman said the local authority faced a "stark choice" at a time of economic weakness and government austerity.
Moore, who died in 1986, is one of Britain's best-known 20th-century artists, and his curved, semi-abstract forms stand in public spaces around the world.
He sold "Draped Seated Woman" to the now-defunct London County Council in 1960 for a token price so...
- 11/5/2012
- by AP
- Huffington Post
David Beckham was sporting a star scarf as he left his hotel in London today. He's been on the go in the UK all week as he promotes his new bodywear collection for H&M. David launched the underwear line at the brand's flagship store yesterday and celebrated the exciting project with a bash last night. He started at the Henry Moore Courtyard, where he was joined by Victoria's parents, Jackie and Anthony Adams, and his own mom and dad, Sandra and Ted. Victoria's sister, Louise, Emma Bunton, and Tana Ramsay also came out to show their support and pick up goodie bags full of samples. David continued the party at The Arts Club with best friend James Corden, who apparently stayed out until three in the morning with David. View Slideshow ›...
- 2/2/2012
- by Lauren Turner
- Popsugar.com
David Beckham was sporting a star scarf as he left his hotel in London today. He's been on the go in the UK all week as he promotes his new body wear collection for H&M. David launched the underwear line at the brand's flagship store yesterday and celebrated the exciting project with a bash last night. He started at the Henry Moore Courtyard, where he was joined by Victoria's parents, Jackie and Anthony Adams, and his own mom and dad, Sandra and Ted. Victoria's sister, Louise, Emma Bunton, and Tana Ramsay also came out to show their support and pick up goodie bags full of samples. David continued the party at the Arts Club with best friend James Cordon, who apparently stayed out until three in the morning with David. View Slideshow ›...
- 2/2/2012
- by Lauren Turner
- Popsugar.com
David Beckham stepped out at the Henry Moore Courtyard in London last night for his H&M launch party. He unveiled the new bodywear line at the brand's Regent Street store earlier in the day. David posed for the cameras in a sweater and jeans, but there was a sexy statue on site that featured the star dressed in only underwear. There have been plenty of shirtless David Beckham moments due to his involvement with H&M including the Super Bowl ad that has him in next to nothing. While David is busy with his H&M range, Victoria has been focused on her own designing duties for the Victoria Beckham Collection. View Slideshow ›...
- 2/2/2012
- by Lauren Turner
- Popsugar.com
Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, author Roald Dahl and artist Lucian Freud are among the famous faces who have previously rejected honours from British monarch Queen Elizabeth II.
The Queen presents her list of honourees twice every year, acknowledging the public service of the most prominent British and Commonwealth citizens in a variety of fields, including entertainment, industry and government.
But not everyone holds the accolade in high regard, and more than 250 people - including sculptor Henry Moore, painter Francis Bacon and Brideshead Revisted author Evelyn Waugh - have snubbed the opportunity to be recognised by the monarch, according to newly-released government documents.
Psycho filmmaker Hitchcock turned down an award in 1962, although he later relented and accepted a knighthood prior to his death in 1980.
Members of the British government were forced to publish the documents on Thursday under the Freedom Of Information Act.
The Queen presents her list of honourees twice every year, acknowledging the public service of the most prominent British and Commonwealth citizens in a variety of fields, including entertainment, industry and government.
But not everyone holds the accolade in high regard, and more than 250 people - including sculptor Henry Moore, painter Francis Bacon and Brideshead Revisted author Evelyn Waugh - have snubbed the opportunity to be recognised by the monarch, according to newly-released government documents.
Psycho filmmaker Hitchcock turned down an award in 1962, although he later relented and accepted a knighthood prior to his death in 1980.
Members of the British government were forced to publish the documents on Thursday under the Freedom Of Information Act.
- 1/26/2012
- WENN
Some of the north's best-known cultural organisations opened up information about their collections and internal processes for computer developers to work with
From pictures of rarely seen objects from ancient Egypt to the locations of the UK's locomotives - a vast repository of information about some of the region's cultural assets was opened up for exploration at the weekend.
The Culture Hack North event held in Leeds saw major institutions including the National Media Museum, Henry Moore Institute, the Whitworth Art gallery and others provide sets of data for volunteers to see what they could produce, or 'hack', from it.
In many cases, it was the first time data has been released to the public in this way and opens the door for similar initiatives to give the public greater access to the knowledge retained within arts institutions.
Event organiser Ashley Mann of Opera North said the work carried out...
From pictures of rarely seen objects from ancient Egypt to the locations of the UK's locomotives - a vast repository of information about some of the region's cultural assets was opened up for exploration at the weekend.
The Culture Hack North event held in Leeds saw major institutions including the National Media Museum, Henry Moore Institute, the Whitworth Art gallery and others provide sets of data for volunteers to see what they could produce, or 'hack', from it.
In many cases, it was the first time data has been released to the public in this way and opens the door for similar initiatives to give the public greater access to the knowledge retained within arts institutions.
Event organiser Ashley Mann of Opera North said the work carried out...
- 11/14/2011
- by Sarah Hartley
- The Guardian - Film News
John Maybury's 2008 romance has Dylan Thomas's wife-swapping and drunkenly brawling private life only half right
The Edge of Love (2008)
Director: John Maybury
Entertainment grade: C
History grade: C+
Dylan Thomas's poetry was first published in the 1930s, when he was still a teenager. His deep, sonorous voice and beautiful language made him a celebrity on the wireless; his most famous work – Under Milk Wood – was written for radio.
Romance
The Edge of Love focuses on the relationships between Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys), his wife Caitlin MacNamara (Sienna Miller), Thomas's childhood friend Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley) and her soldier husband William Killick (Cillian Murphy). The film claims these two couples were entwined in a messy love quadrilateral.
In real life, Thomas served as best man to the Killicks, and Vera was close to Caitlin, but there is scant evidence for any affairs. There are hardly any mentions of...
The Edge of Love (2008)
Director: John Maybury
Entertainment grade: C
History grade: C+
Dylan Thomas's poetry was first published in the 1930s, when he was still a teenager. His deep, sonorous voice and beautiful language made him a celebrity on the wireless; his most famous work – Under Milk Wood – was written for radio.
Romance
The Edge of Love focuses on the relationships between Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys), his wife Caitlin MacNamara (Sienna Miller), Thomas's childhood friend Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley) and her soldier husband William Killick (Cillian Murphy). The film claims these two couples were entwined in a messy love quadrilateral.
In real life, Thomas served as best man to the Killicks, and Vera was close to Caitlin, but there is scant evidence for any affairs. There are hardly any mentions of...
- 8/4/2011
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
Fifty years ago, a husband and wife founded the much loved Little Angel puppet theatre. But would their talented kids take over? By John-Paul Flintoff
A long time ago, in a land far away, there was a little girl who made puppets. "I made them myself," recalls Lyndie Wright. "I filled my mother's oven with papier-mache." One day, a touring puppet company came through Pretoria, in South Africa, where the little girl lived. She went to a show and was spellbound. "There is a picture in the archives somewhere, showing me in the audience," she says.
Years later, the puppet company came back. By now, Lyndie was a student at art school, but she joined up to be general dogsbody and went touring through South Africa and neighbouring countries. The man who ran the theatre, John Wright, was older than her, but they fell in love. When Lyndie moved to...
A long time ago, in a land far away, there was a little girl who made puppets. "I made them myself," recalls Lyndie Wright. "I filled my mother's oven with papier-mache." One day, a touring puppet company came through Pretoria, in South Africa, where the little girl lived. She went to a show and was spellbound. "There is a picture in the archives somewhere, showing me in the audience," she says.
Years later, the puppet company came back. By now, Lyndie was a student at art school, but she joined up to be general dogsbody and went touring through South Africa and neighbouring countries. The man who ran the theatre, John Wright, was older than her, but they fell in love. When Lyndie moved to...
- 3/12/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Los Angeles — Blake Edwards, the director and writer known for clever dialogue, poignance and occasional belly-laugh sight gags in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "10" and the "Pink Panther" farces, is dead at age 88.
Edwards died from complications of pneumonia late Wednesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, said publicist Gene Schwam. Blake's wife, Julie Andrews, and other family members were at his side. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks.
Edwards had knee problems, had undergone unsuccessful procedures and was "pretty much confined to a wheelchair for the last year-and-a-half or two," Schwam said. That may have contributed to his condition, he added.
At the time of his death, Edwards was working on two Broadway musicals, one based on the "Pink Panther" movies. The other, "Big Rosemary," was to be an original comedy set during Prohibition, Schwam said.
"His heart was as big as his talent. He was an...
Edwards died from complications of pneumonia late Wednesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, said publicist Gene Schwam. Blake's wife, Julie Andrews, and other family members were at his side. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks.
Edwards had knee problems, had undergone unsuccessful procedures and was "pretty much confined to a wheelchair for the last year-and-a-half or two," Schwam said. That may have contributed to his condition, he added.
At the time of his death, Edwards was working on two Broadway musicals, one based on the "Pink Panther" movies. The other, "Big Rosemary," was to be an original comedy set during Prohibition, Schwam said.
"His heart was as big as his talent. He was an...
- 12/16/2010
- by AP
- Huffington Post
The MGM Mirage CEO is attempting to pull off a grand illusion not even David Copperfield would try: Luring Las Vegas tourists into CityCenter with the promise of spectacle and sending them out civilized.
It's one thing to get a vacationing couple from Oklahoma to check out your exploding-on-the-hour volcano. It's something else entirely to get them to examine the abstracted forms of a seminal work by Modernist sculptor Henry Moore, Reclining Connected Forms.
MGM Mirage chairman and CEO Jim Murren doesn't think that's too lofty a goal for the new $8.5 billion dollar development CityCenter that officially opened this week. Murren's vision for CityCenter is an urban development, a place of grand boulevards, pocket parks, and world-class art. But Murren's concept also includes one radical idea: This development would be so transformative for Vegas, so dramatically different that any other experience, that its exceptional design and fine artworks would actually...
It's one thing to get a vacationing couple from Oklahoma to check out your exploding-on-the-hour volcano. It's something else entirely to get them to examine the abstracted forms of a seminal work by Modernist sculptor Henry Moore, Reclining Connected Forms.
MGM Mirage chairman and CEO Jim Murren doesn't think that's too lofty a goal for the new $8.5 billion dollar development CityCenter that officially opened this week. Murren's vision for CityCenter is an urban development, a place of grand boulevards, pocket parks, and world-class art. But Murren's concept also includes one radical idea: This development would be so transformative for Vegas, so dramatically different that any other experience, that its exceptional design and fine artworks would actually...
- 12/18/2009
- by Alissa Walker
- Fast Company
Spent all your money on Christmas presents? Feeling a bit of a Scrooge? From carols in Cambridge to live acts in Liverpool, here's our pick of the UK's cultural freebies
Bp Portrait award 2009, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
A chance to see 56 contemporary portraits from one of the most prestigious painting competitions in the world, a selection of intimate images of friends, family and celebrities selected from over 1,900 artists this year. Also exhibited is the work of Emmanouil Bitsakis, the 2008 Bp Travel award winner.
Open from 12 December to 21 February 2010
Earth from the Air, Southgate shopping centre and city centre, Bath
Throughout December and January, an exhibition of over 120 pictures will be displayed on the streets of Bath. The largescale images, created by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, document the effects of climate change and population growth. Running concurrently is another free street gallery by award-winning wildlife photographer and conservationist Andy Rouse,...
Bp Portrait award 2009, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
A chance to see 56 contemporary portraits from one of the most prestigious painting competitions in the world, a selection of intimate images of friends, family and celebrities selected from over 1,900 artists this year. Also exhibited is the work of Emmanouil Bitsakis, the 2008 Bp Travel award winner.
Open from 12 December to 21 February 2010
Earth from the Air, Southgate shopping centre and city centre, Bath
Throughout December and January, an exhibition of over 120 pictures will be displayed on the streets of Bath. The largescale images, created by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, document the effects of climate change and population growth. Running concurrently is another free street gallery by award-winning wildlife photographer and conservationist Andy Rouse,...
- 12/18/2009
- by Daniel Tapper
- The Guardian - Film News
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