Friday 29 June 2018

Deutschland bleiche Mutter (Germany, Pale Mother)

Mutti....


Himmler's daughter worked for post-war German spy agency


This isn’t Fassbinder and yet it could so be…Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and as Glenda Jackson just so deservedly won a Broadway Tony after EVERYTHING….oh….Spamelot! :)

Peter Finch inspired me to be an actor. And then, when one of my colleagues told me the ‘tails’ of working with him. I was hooked. 


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Wednesday 20 June 2018

The Band's Visit

I took a deep breathe as I googled mine own film review of The Band's Visit. All I remember is that is was beautiful. The Tony Award winning musical plays on Broadway.


"Israeli born Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit (Bikur ha-tizmoret), now on general release, has the cash-stripped Egyptian Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra stranded on the outskirts of a small Israeli town in the desert. They would almost look camp wheeling their trolleys in their immaculate powder-blue uniforms if it weren’t for the dignity they possess. They are befriended by cafe owner Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) and invited to stay the night until the morning bus arrives. Tewfiq, the conductor (Sasson Gabai) loves Chet Baker, and if you find his rendition of My Funny Valentine sentimental, then I guess you’ll think the same of this film. If not, it’s a truly beautiful picture with warmth and “tons of loneliness” in Dina’s words. “It’s strange, half of Israel was fighting with Egypt, but we all sit and watch the Arab movie [on TV]”, remembers Kolirin. Tewfiq, never without his pride or his baton, opens himself to Dina that evening bitterly regretting his harshness on his son, who subsequently committed suicide. 
The Band's Visit Turned Away by AMPAS, Middle East Fests

The film’s producer Sophie Dulac has also given us LFF’s Heartbeat Detector (La question humaine) directed by Nicholas Klotz (France) and screened again on the weekend as part of UK Jewish Film Festival. For 7 years, Simon (Mathieu Amalric) has been the company shrink for German chemical firm SC Farb. Deputy director, Karl Rose (Jean-Pierre Kalfon), asks Simon to covertly monitor the mental health of the firm's director, Mathias Just (Michael Lonsdale) who head office thinks has gone a bit doolally. His cover is to establish an orchestra in order to maintain worker productivity – Mathias Just played violin in the company’s Farb Quartet- and the film follows a Holocaust mystery trail. This is another 2.5 hour film but it’s quite engrossing: the music mix is superb (though I wish it wasn’t Schubert’s so oft heard Death and the Maiden quartet again), so too the camera and performances. And the viewer feels strangely involved yet distanced by Klotz’s director technique."

Tuesday 5 June 2018

Why did I choose you, what could you offer me...

I just heard a Start the Week podcast that made me realize why I even started this crazy endeavor of a blog! Churchill: it was not in vain (re-Arnhem-Antony Beevor) -and then Churchill painted another beautiful painting.

I don't post on this site much any more. Those in the know, know. But I am damned if I will ever let it die like many wanted it to. Still do.

Translations at the RNT. One of the most poignant plays ever written about the United Kingdom.

One lone amateur who become not so lonesome, John Ashdown-Hill discovering and debunking historical myth of Richard III.

Listening to BBC podcasts can actually save a life! (yes, u can quote me).

U r not alone feeling u r in a desert (even if in fact u r in a real desert!) The editor of Lawrence of Arabia, Anne Coates died. I have oft written about Lawrence and the Foreign Office. Its Palm Court in London a somewhat sad memory of what the best of British tried to achieve overseas. Respect. Understanding. Without judgment.

Humans are always jealous. Yet why when what one does is/could not ever be what the other does that conundrum always escapes me Stephen Fry….;(

I got to work with some of the most wondrous talent of the century. Listening to a BBC pod citing Paul Scofield's Lear, I remember seeing the great great man ACTOR with Vanessa Redgrave in Ibsen at the National Theatre. I worked with Vanessa and said hello. It is a strange, strange world. And I met ever so briefly Sir John Gielgud. Not at the same time, of course. Time, though, is a strange leveler...

And I worked with, not exactly my idol (maybe Liza M. was an 'idol') sorry Joel Grey;)  in a movie.

So when you walk the depressing streets of whatever city u r reading this remember the 'dream'. It has nothing to do with money or power (of course that is part of the equation). But the algorithm would not exist without that truth at its center. YOU. Your care. Your brilliance. Your doubt.

Your bravery.



and, of course: your fear

how could a black mermaid end up on Broadway as a white frog, with an all amber cast, and then be back in the ocean the next day playing a green/blue Hamlet! Only in New York, folks. Only in the ocean of New York. I feel a Kermit 'comin' on in the middle of the stairs....

The story of Hello, Dolly is truly fascinatin'! Thornton Wilder got there first. Of course.

Is this weird? But I actually sleep on Marge Champion's bed frame. (True-provenance and all...!) not that I for a moment think anything will rub off in the night without hard grind...but, it's a true story as I fall asleep to the questions of a late-night TV show...ha ha..he he...

where were we, oh yes: Deleuze and Musicals....


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The heart has its own hieroglyphics.





 
Who can I turn to…..?


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