People Before Profit blog

San Francisco Opera scores a hit with "Two Women"

Mon, 29 Jun 2015 16:03:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO - The world premiere production of a new opera based on a 1958 novel by Alberto Moravia, which Vittorio De Sica adapted to film in 1960 as Two Women, starring Sophia Loren, has struck musical gold. A co-commission between San Francisco Opera and the Teatro Regio di Torino, the city of Turin's opera house, Two Women received five performances in June (seen June 23) at the War Memorial Opera House. The whole production will be packed up and sent to Turin in preparation for its 2018 European premiere.

Italian composer Marco Tutino's Two Women is a throwback in many different ways. In the first place, it marks the first Italian-language opera to be commissioned in the U.S. since Giacomo Puccini's La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910. Secondly, Tutino is stylistically lyrical and accessible, though not eschewing the full range of modernistic colors available to him. Listening to his opera (his 15^th, by the way), one can imagine that this is what a Puccini of today might be writing - musically expert and sophisticated, while also aiming (heaven forbid!) for popularity and acceptance.

And third, his subject matter looks back to a well known film, and the novel behind that by a major Italian writer, and the troubling period of 1943-45, when Italy went from fascist state and Axis ally under Benito Mussolini to wartime battleground involving Italian, German, American, and French Moroccan forces, all contending to gain the upper hand.

With its gritty, often grim and morally compromised setting, Two Women is the latest installment in musical theater neorealism, itself a descendant of the verismo movement in opera best represented by such works as I pagliacci and Cavalleria rusticana. I was reminded that at a certain time in American musical history, such conservatory-trained composers as Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Virgil Thomson, Gian Carlo Menotti, and others in the more popular tradition such as Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, and Stephen Sondheim, saw their works premiered on Broadway, works that are now more often seen in the opera house. There is no sin in telling an effective good story and inviting your audience to appreciate it.

Part of what makes the opera work so well is the masterful source material. Novelist Alberto Moravia (1907-1990) lived through the Mussolini period, got into regular trouble with the censors, and fled with other refugees to the rural area east of Rome called La Ciociaria as World War II wound down. That time led to the novel La ciociara (The Woman of La Ciociaria). Although Moravia believed that the writer must "assume a moral position, a clearly conceived political, social, and philosophical attitude," he did not subscribe to the constricting tenets of socialist realism. He was drawn to explore the murky ambiguities of the human soul under stress.

Between 1959 and 1962 Moravia was president of the worldwide association of writers, PEN International. Later, in the years 1984-89, Moravia represented the Italian Communist Party as a member of the European Parliament. Moravia is also well known for Bernardo Bertolucci's film adaptation of his novel about the fascist era, The Conformist.

Two film montages, comprised of contemporary newsreel footage and each about five minutes long, precede acts I and II of the opera, helpfully providing a clear time frame for the action, which takes place in Rome, the town of Fondi, and the smaller rural community of refugees, Sant'Eufemia. They trace the movements of troops and the swiftly changing political situation on the ground. The melodic, neo-Romantic score is punctuated frequently, and appropriately, by gunshots, bombs and explosions. Tutino incorporates regional folk and popular songs into the libretto, which he wrote with Fabio Ceresa, adapted from a script by Luca Rossi.

Characters in Two Women include the mother, Cesira (the Loren role), given a knockout performance by one of today's operatic superstars, the sensuous dramatic soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci. Also, her daughter Rosetta (Sarah Shafer), a 16-year-old who does a whole lot of growing up in two and a half hours, becoming by the end the second of the "two women." Michele, a high tenor, is a passionately committed young partisan (a communist, no doubt), portrayed superbly by the rising American Dimitri Pittas in his SFO debut. The other major character is Giovanni, sung by the world-renowned baritone Mark Delavan; in this role the creators conflate all of society's opportunism and cynicism as heightened during a war with shifting forces in control every few weeks or months. Other smaller roles are handled with perfect direction (by Francesca Zambello). And the chorus of townspeople and villagers plays a huge role, masterfully led by Ian Robertson. SFO Music Director Nicola Luisotti conducted.

The individual characters, as well as the general populace, are put to excruciating tests, and few are wholly pure or evil. But with the Allied victory there is hope for a better future, showing that little in the human character is truly independent of objective circumstance. Social conditions do impact action and behavior, even as the essential human nature is subject to a wide range of moral response.

In sum, an unqualified triumph. I wish these Two Women a long, happy life!

The final performance of Two Women is scheduled for Tuesday, June 30 at 7:30 pm at the opera house at 301 Van Ness Ave. (at Grove St.), San Francisco. For tickets and further information, go to sfopera.com, or call (415) 864.3330. Standing Room tickets for $10 cash only go on sale at 10 am on the day of the performance.

Photo: Prayer Scene with Chorus

Dimitri Pittas as Michele, Sarah Shafer as Rosetta, Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cesira. ©Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

"Stacy's Mom" inspires music video to Hillary Clinton

Mon, 29 Jun 2015 10:05:00 +0000

The band, Well Strung, has strummed a new music video dedicated to presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and with it the battle of the 2016 music video parodies has begun.

In the video entitled Chelsea's Mom one signer croons, ""Chelsea's mom has got it going on, she's all we want and we've waited for so long. From sea to shining sea, she'll fight for liberty."

Apparently Mrs. Clinton tweeted the video herself with the hashtag #ChelseasMom2016.

With Bernie Sanders hot on the campaign trail Mrs. Clinton may need all the help she can get. In any case, Well Strung, is definitely in her camp. How will Bernie respond? Maybe with Mos Def? With Senator Sanders trailing badly in name recognition among black voters, the challenger may rquire some assistance as well.

Fascinating, revealing period narratives from Tribeca Film Festival

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:08:00 +0000

NEW YORK - Film festivals offer viewers the opportunity to travel through time and space. Pick a place and a time in history and most likely a good film was made about it. And now with "state of the art" digital projection, advanced film equipment and computer graphics, it's not hard to feel that you are traveling by horse in Romania in 1862, or witnessing the Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1918. Cinema doesn't have to be escapist or solely entertaining; it can also afford the progressive viewer the opportunity to study history, experience people's struggles, and witness social change throughout history. The following period narratives all reflect the effects of war and violence in the storyline, and afford the viewer a vivid opportunity to experience another time and place.

The Romanian "road movie" Aferim! is unique in every way. The stunning black and white film about law enforcement in Romania in 1862 is quite different than anyone would expect. A police officer and his son travel for miles on horseback in the Romanian countryside looking for a runaway gypsy slave. Along the way we learn about religion and politics in Eastern Europe, stopping for weddings, campfires, and religious ceremonies - and they are all presented authentically to the smallest detail. Of course, issues of slavery and racism lie just below the surface, as the police officer gradually develops an enlightened respect for the subject he's dragging behind his horse, as they head back home to the powerful and abusive landlord who is sure to punish the escaped slave. This is an engrossing story, realistically acted and a major stylistic accomplishment. (Note: Today the name Roma is preferred over the term "gypsy," which is considered demeaning.)

Around the same time in Kentucky, USA, we find a couple of brothers dealing with the impending civil war while they attempt to maintain their family farm during the harsh winter. Men Go to Battle is a stylish personal story told with minimal dialog and often with natural candlelight. The brothers' quiet differences on how to save the family farm and the well drawn characters who interact in various ways with them, make for a simple but rewarding depiction of life in early America during the Civil War.

A few decades later across the world, the Armenians became victims of genocide as the Ottoman Empire came to a crushing defeat at the end of World War I. Director Fatih Akin, of Turkish-Armenian descent now living in Germany, has created an epic telling of the Armenian genocide, a term that Turkey to this day refuses to recognize. The Cut takes place in Turkey in 1918 and follows a young Armenian jeweler, married with twin daughters, through the ordeals of forced exile, starvation and torture. He is ultimately separated from his family and in one battle loses his ability to speak. After seemingly endless struggles to survive he miraculously escapes and makes it his mission to find his two daughters, which takes him around the world. In its attempt to solicit mass appeal, this film falls short with a sluggish screenplay and other minor irritants like the inappropriate soundtrack that sounds at times like a rock band in 1918 Armenia. And the lead character seemingly fails to age while his daughters end up looking much older than him. But it's an important project, being the first Turkish directed film to address the Armenian genocide.

We Are Young, We Are Strong is another black and white gem that tells the unknown tale of post-East Germany racism in 1992. We are transported to the city of Rostock in a true story of young unemployed skinheads who are intrigued by the neo-Nazis and disaffected by the Roma and Vietnamese immigrants they feel are taking their jobs. The passive mayor, father of one of the punks, fails to protect the tenants of a building that is a target for firebombing, and the situation gets out of control as tensions build between generations, races and ideologies.

Starting around the same time, 1992, but in post-Soviet Ukraine, we see the same social disintegration, influx of drugs, family breakdown, loss of jobs and other "joys" brought on by rampant capitalism and Western "democracy." In the documentary Crocodile Gennadiy, we learn of a young pastor who attempts to rescue children lost to the scourge of drug abuse. Many are kidnapped off the street and taken to his rescue mission in Maripol, and with a tough love approach are given hope to survive. It would be only natural that Steve Hoover, director of the wonderfully moving documentary Blood Brother, would find another hero to make a movie about. Gennadiy's compassion and concern for these lost youth cannot be challenged in his quest that some feel borders on vigilantism. He took his name from a childhood Soviet cartoon character he grew to admire - a crocodile who fought to defend the rights of children against threatening forces. Tragically, the anti-Sovietism of the main character, as expressed in the Q&A at the festival, fails to connect the dots, overlooking the increase of homelessness, drugs and crime since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Add to that the tragic battle going on in present day Ukraine, jeopardizing Gennadiy's program. It's a very moving film despite its political naiveté.

Tribeca featured several memorable films that appeared void of any obvious political content, although we know all films are political in some way. The charming documentary Autism in Love interviews several autistic subjects who prove that they are just as capable of loving and having lifelong partners as anyone else. Transfatty Lives, which went on to win the Audience Best Film Prize, follows the life of a filmmaker nicknamed Transfatty, who is struck with the debilitating Lou Gehrig Disease. But this fails to stop him from completing the fascinating doc Transfatty Lives. He appeared at the festival in a special wheelchair fitted with a voice-generated computer, to accept the top prize. Quite amazing!

Tenured is a broad comedy set in a suburban elementary school where fifth grade teacher Ethan Collins is brooding after his wife leaves him. While his world falls out from around him, he enlists his students in getting his wife back. Being tenured protects him from getting fired, and the snappy dialog and hilarious setups make this a thoughtful human comedy.

For Elvis fans - and there were tens of millions - Orion: The Man Who Would Be King will explain who that guy was that after Elvis died always recorded and performed with a mask on his face, and sounded exactly like the real thing. Another doc about fascinating people is The Wolfpack, a winner at Sundance. The five brothers Angulo and their one sister lived almost their entire lives in a Lower Manhattan apartment, without ever going out of their upper floor flat. They were given names of attributes of Krishna by their Peruvian father. Along with their parents they attempted to live a normal life under the circumstance, by developing a love of film. They would act out scenes from movies they had seen umpteen times, making costumes, learning dialog, filming and editing, all within their small apartment that they never left. Well, aren't you just curious about what eventually happens?

Photo: Narayana Angulo, Govinda Angulo, Jagadisa Angulo, Bhagavan Angulo, Mukunda Angulo and Krsna Angulo in The Wolfpack, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

A day in the life of film at Tribeca

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:08:00 +0000

NEW YORK - In this fifth and last in a series of reports from this year's Tribeca Film Festival, we look at a single day's offerings.

One day in the life of the Tribeca Film Festival can raise many questions. Depending on what titles you select - and there are artful and thought-provoking films everywhere - you will be taken for a ride. Let's begin with a train ride. Can a movie like In Transit, simply a collection of people talking on a train, be worth seeing? In this case, when it's directed by the iconic Albert Maysles (who passed away this year) the answer is a resounding "yes!" Young and old, men and women, Black and white, make new friends and share their most profound thoughts. It's a testament to humanity and a tribute to the memory of Maysles. It's made in his famous "Direct Cinema" style: No narration or voiceover, simply natural soundtrack.

Next we have the question, Can a conservative evangelist preacher support gun control? Armor of Light follows evangelical Rev. Rob Schenck, close confidant to Washington's ultra-right politicos, through his torturous discovery that pro-life and pro-guns do not go together. If ever a movie has captured political enlightenment and a major shift in political position, this film does. With his Jewish background, and friendship with the Christian mother of a victim of "Stand Your Ground" violence, Schenck lets logic take its course. The viewer is delighted to see his transformation being presented to his former religious allies. This is a very compelling film, complex and enlightening, and the answer to the question is No!

We move on to All Eyes and Ears, that begs the question, "Can the American Empire convince China that we only want to be friends?" U.S. Ambassador to China, former Republican senator from Utah, Jon Huntsman, takes his extremely bourgeois family, including his cutesy adopted Chinese daughter Gracie, for a long stay in China. There, using all his diplomatic skills, while still trying to please his conservative constituency, he manages to use his young daughter as the link between the two cultures. Various experts are utilized, none from the left, to confirm that China may be a more formidable foe than we expected, in our imperial aims in Asia. Of course it's never asked what the U.S. would do if China decided to encircle our country with military bases and start dictating how we should consider merging with their socioeconomic model. But then this is just another democratic capitalistic propaganda piece praising the lives of the rich and famous diplomatic family.

An even more troubling situation surfaces with A Nazi Legacy: What Our Fathers Did, a British production that films the grilling of two sons of Nazi leaders. One accepts his father's guilt, and the other knew his father as only a loving soul. Can you sympathize with a son of a Nazi? The way the filmmakers browbeat the old son who only knew his father as a good man is heartbreaking at times. They further grease the pan by traveling to Ukraine to visit the neo-Nazis who consider his father a hero of WWII (and of course they are defenders of the new right-wing government of the Ukraine). With all this evidence, are we supposed to hate this son, who somehow cannot come to accept his father as a bad person? The answer is troubling and I leave it to you to see the film and make your own decision.

Several good films at the festival dealt with the Middle East. Good Kill shows Afghanistan by way of a military bunker in Las Vegas where soldiers who trained on Playstation use their computer skills to remotely control drones that kill people on the opposite side of the world. Ethan Hawke portrays a young pilot who is troubled by orders given to kill unconfirmed "terrorists" on a computer screen. Although the film is perceived by some as anti-war - there is a small move toward understanding Muslims as human beings - there are no real Arab actors who gain sympathy. Ultimately it's about a pilot who prefers to fly a plane and kill "enemies" in the traditional manner. In the last, prescient scene the film warns that drones will certainly be acquired by our enemies, and they could soon be flying over Las Vegas too.

Two films deal with Pakistani Islamic extremism from totally different directions. Song of Lahore is about the great tradition of secular music that was lost in the surge of religious fundamentalism. Musicians determined to preserve their great musical history band together, preserving old melodies, rehearse and eventually get to perform at Lincoln Center of all places. Along the way we learn of all the musicians' personal lives and hardships. The film is a heartwarmingly beautiful cultural preservation of Pakistani secular musical history. On the other side of the story is Among the Believers, a sobering examination of the growing religious fundamentalist movement. Tens of thousands of young believers are trained in religious schools (madrasas) to devote their lives to jihad and pledge allegiance to ISIS. With privileged access to the inner circles of the movement, its opponents, and children on both sides of the religious battle between moderates and fundamentalists, this honest and alarming doc delves into the meanings behind this growth. The film discusses the founder of the Red Mosque, Maulana Aziz, who served long sentences in prison and developed a strong distaste for Western imperialism and its abuse and destruction of the Middle East. This is a humanistic treatment of a very complex situation, a rare glimpse into something people in the West know little about.

Far from Men, reviewed at the Toronto Film Festival, deserves repeat mention. This stylish treatment of a moral schoolteacher faced with the dilemma of transporting a convict through the foreboding mountains to stand trial during the Algerian War, is reminiscent of the best Westerns. But this has a political component, as the teacher (played by Viggo Mortensen), who is also a former French soldier, has to defend an Algerian dissident, all played within the realities of wartime.

Ironically, another "Western" plays out on the other side of the world. Cartel Land tells the tragic story of the growth of drug wars in Mexico, where almost every citizen lives in fear of being drawn into the violence. The documentary infiltrates both sides of the battle, and blurs the lines between the good and bad guys. In a land becoming more lawless daily, are vigilantes justified in taking the law in their own hands? What happens when there is corruption on all sides of the battle? With amazing infiltration into torture chambers and gang hideouts, the directors risked their lives to bring one of the most stunning examinations of the failure of the War on Drugs to the screen. The answers are not clear, but the film is brilliant.

Awards were announced at the completion of the 13^th annual Tribeca Film Festival in Lower Manhattan. The 12-day festival co-founded by actor Robert De Niro screened 89 feature films and 57 shorts to an audience of almost a half a million viewers, including panels and other special events. Just a few of those shorts that deserve mentioning:

The Trials of Constance Baker Motley features the first black woman voted New York state senator. She had a stunning career working with Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and was eventually appointed by President Johnson to the Federal bench.

Body Team 12 is the story of the Ebola workers who risked their lives to clear the zone of dead bodies, victims of the highly infectious disease.

My Enemy, My Brother is a heartwarming story of two former soldiers, an Iranian and Iraqi, who meet accidentally 25 years later in the wilds of Canada. Although bitter enemies at the time, one had saved the other's life, but they didn't know their true identity until they met years later. An extremely moving and well-crafted short.

The Arrest is a study that turns the Israeli/Palestine reality around by making the Palestinians the occupiers. An interesting political exercise.

Photo: Song of Lahore movie poster.

Roselyn Sanchez, Univision pull out of Trump's Miss USA pageant

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 08:17:00 +0000

Actor Roselyn Sanchez has refused to co-host the Miss USA pageant because of its association with Donald Trump. Trump during his presidential announcement last week made racist comments about Mexican immigrants calling them rapists and criminals.

Sanchez said in a Facebook post, "As a Latina very proud of my roots, culture and everything that we have contributed to this nation, I have decided to cancel my personal webpage as co host in the pageant miss USA. I cannot put up with the words as irrespetuosas and hurtful that came out of the mouth of the Lord Trump."

Sanchez is Puerto Rican.

In response to Trump's statement actor Cristian De La Fuente, along with the TV station Univision, also withdrew support Trump plans to sue Univision for pulling out.Univsion is the largest Spanish language station in the U.S.

Trump owns the Miss Universe Organization in association with Comcast's NBCUniversal division.

Meanwhile NBC distanced itself from the GOP hopeful's statements "Donald Trump's opinions do not represent those of NBC, and we do not agree with his positions on a number of issues, including his recent comments on immigration."

Photo: Facebook

Rose McGowan fired for protesting sexism in Adam Sandler casting call

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 07:37:00 +0000

Actor Rose McGowan announced she was fired by her agents for protesting sexism in casting call for an Adam Sandler film. The note suggested actors show clevage and wear push up bras.

McGowan said ""It was just so dumb,I was offended by the stupidity more than anything. I was offended by the fact that went through so many people's hands and nobody red flagged it. This is normal to so many people. It was probably even a girl that had to type it up. It's institutionally OK."

McGowan, commented later that Hollywood is stuck in the Mad Men era. The actor, well known for her roles in the TV show "Charmed" and the Grindhouse project, went on to say that she has been battling sexism in Hollywood for two decades.

Sandler's production company denied responsibility for the casting note "They were not aware the casting director sent this note out," the source said. "They felt it was completely inappropriate and have made sure that it has not been sent out again."

McGowan has been outspoken in her defense of marriage equality, and equal rights for all.

Photo: Creative Commons 3.0

Orange is the new red

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:46:00 +0000

The season finale of the third season of Netflix's "Orange is the New Black" (OITNB) was spectacular, to say nothing of the other wonderful episodes leading up to it.

This show grapples with the brutality of prison life through the eyes of the inmates of Litchfield prison. Motherhood, sexuality, poverty, and racism are all game as the show explores these issues with an unvarnished honesty that exposes the ugliness of the world as well as its beauty.

In addition, the series has a strong Marxist undertone that underlies much of the plotline. These themes explode in the season's final episode.

OITNB utilizes the worker vs. capitalist dynamic in a far more nuanced and complex form than is found in many Marxist texts. This dynamic is played out in the character of Caputo, the warden of Litchfield prison. Caputo dances a line between compromising with the prison's new corporate owners, for whom prison is a way to profit , and his fellow corrections officers, for whom the prison is a way for them to feed their families and pay rent.

This struggle expresses itself in his illicit relationship with the governor's wife. A politician herself, she embodies bourgeois qualities of wealth and power, which both repulse and attract him. He longs for the ease of life and the security such wealth brings, especially given the precariousness of his employment, but obtaining this wealth will require him to become that which he loathes.

Ultimately, Caputo chooses the corporate owners over his fellow officers and receives the subsequent raise and bonus. This act of betrayal becomes the catalyst which gives the prison guards the strength to finally unionize. As the guards walk out on strike they leave the prison and its prisoners unattended.

It is Caputo's own commitment to his corporate owners that causes his fellow officers' rejection of them, thus proving the old Marxist adage that "capitalism contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction."

The prisoners, now free of the administration's watchful eye, proceed joyfully to flee the prison and sit on the beach of a nearby lake. Faces stream with joy they enter the water and begin splashing playfully. The workers' decision to unionize has resulted not just in their liberation, but the whole community's. It is the prisoners who share the most with the prison guards, who are also forced to be locked inside all day long.

The vision of socialism - workers sharing a common goal without competition or coercion - is often challenged on the basis that we are naturally selfish creatures. Without the police powers of the state and the coerced competition of capitalism, it is said, we would tear each other apart. We are not moral and autonomous human beings; we are no better than the hardened criminals of Litchfield prison who would descend into violence without proper supervision.

Yet in OITNB we find the reverse is true. Freed from the drudgery of our 9-to-5 routine we run joyfully to the water and sit in the sand enjoying our permanent vacation. The dark secret of our primitive desires is not competition and bloodshed but leisure. This longing for leisure terrifies the wealthy, who depend on coerced competition to keep the engines of their industry running.

Our liberation must happen in spite of bourgeois state power, not because of it. There is nothing such a state can do to make us safe or happy. The best it can do is step aside.

For one particular character, Hayes, liberation is not only physical but spiritual. Throughout the series she slowly plods through the process of converting to Judaism. At first it is simply a ploy to get the better, kosher meals at dinnertime but, in spite of herself, she grows to love this religion and her commitment becomes sincere.

Plunging into the water is her mikveh - the Jewish ritual bath - as she enters her new life as a Jewish woman. It is the prison administration which has kept her from this moral and spiritual transformation under the guise of teaching inmates morality and discipline by restraining them.

The opposite is clearly the case. When police violence ends and people are able to govern themselves their humanity and moral center are restored.

This brief review does not do this wonderful series justice, as the issues it addresses are far more numerous than we have space for. Besides grappling with complicated social issues, OINTB introduces extremely human, likable characters. It is unflinchingly honest in its portrayal of the prison system and those caught up in it.

In the end, the show offers a vision of hope to those who have the strength to stand up and speak out against power and wealth, for it is these people who liberate not just themselves, but also the masses around them.

Girlhood's peaks and valleys: "Infinitely Polar Bear" reviewed

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:21:00 +0000

Emmy-nominated screenwriter Maya Forbes' Infinitely Polar Bear marks an auspicious directorial debut. This intensely personal film, reminiscent of François Truffaut and Richard Linklater's movies about childhood, recreates Forbes' troubled Boston girlhood during the 1970s. Indeed, Forbes' own daughter, Imogene Wolodarsky, plays Amelia Stuart, who is mostly raised by her manic depressive father Cameron Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) after her mother, Maggie Stuart (Zoe Saldana), leaves the family to pursue a master's degree in Manhattan in this heartfelt, touching and often humorous feature.

Somehow Imogene and her sister Faith (the delightful Ashley Aufderheide, the central casting version of an adorable biracial child) must cope with being raised by a mentally ill parent, while mom strives to support the family by advancing herself through higher education. Cameron is at the center of the saga, which is often ruled by his moods, his highs and lows. Although a Boston blueblood from a privileged background, these Brahmins have more or less cut the erratic Cam off from the family fortune. Actually, he is a loving, attentive (if decidedly unconventional) dad, and the added responsibility of raising his daughters as a solo parent while Maggie studies in New York seems to somewhat ground him.

As the oft exasperating Cam, Ruffalo turns in a poignant performance that should make him a strong Oscar contender, as the Academy loves its somewhat mentally or physically disabled characters. However, Infinitely Polar Bear (the term Cam's children use for his bipolar condition) never fully explains why the beautiful, ambitious Maggie would marry a n'er-do-well loser like Cam, who spent their entire first date regaling Maggie with stories about his mental illness. What did she miss in this conversation?

As a female, the sultry Saldana is far more attractive than Ruffalo is as a male, so why she wed this guy who becomes, at one point, institutionalized remains pretty much a mystery. Let alone why she had two children with this total flake (albeit a sometimes lovable one). One half suspects that Maggie attends a far away graduate school to get away from Cam as much as because she realizes that she must receive an advanced degree so she can provide for her kids (all "three" of them). I didn't buy their relationship; perhaps this lapse in credulity is because Polar is told from a daughter's point of view, and it may be too difficult and painful to fully pry into and comprehend one's own parents' tumultuous private lives.

Another shortfall is how little Polar deals with the fact that the couple is multi-racial and their children are biracial. As the recent massacre in Charleston and a string of police/vigilante killings of Blacks demonstrate, racism is very much alive and un-well, still a dominant feature of American life. Indeed, in writing about U.S. history one could be tempted to paraphrase Marx and Engels' dictum on class in The Communist Manifesto by proclaiming: "The history of all hitherto existing American society has been the history of race struggles." If that is still true in 2015 USA, imagine how much truer it must have been in 1970s Boston, when the city was gripped with convulsions over busing in order to desegregate schools. But Polar largely ignores and glosses over the issues of race and of two Black children being raised largely by a very Caucasian father.

In a canny, clever bit of casting, Keir Dullea plays Cam's father Murray Stuart in a revealing cameo. Before Dullea attained fame as the astronaut who tangles with the murderous computer HAL in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dullea depicted the eponymous David, a mentally ill young man who finds love with another troubled youth in 1962's David and Lisa.

Despite its flaws Infinitely Polar Bear is well worth seeing by moviegoers who cherish character-driven indies. This critic looks forward to Maya Forbes' future features.

Infinitely Polar Bear is now in national theatrical release.

Photo: Imogene Wolodarsky, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana and Ashley Aufderheide in Infinitely Polar Bear .

Movie Review: "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

Wed, 24 Jun 2015 13:48:00 +0000

Coming of age stories about middle-income kids are common, but few rank in the top tier with Rebel Without a Cause, Portnoy's Complaint, and the great Catcher in the Rye. This one comes close because it displays the horrors of American adolescence so well.

Greg (Thomas Mann) is a "normal" teen ager who is fairly adept at what any sane high schooler wants to do, become invisible. He brags in the early part of the film that he is more or less completely unnoticed by his peers. His invisibility cloak is unfortunately ruptured when his mother nags him into befriending a casual school acquaintance who has been diagnosed with cancer. Not only does he have to deal with Rachel (Olivia Cooke) , but he is suddenly noticed, to his shock and terror, by everyone else!

The acting, the writing, and the use of film technique set this story apart from the many similar ones. Greg deprecates everything about himself as the film shows what a fine and capable person he really is. He says he's incompetent while displaying amazing word skill in the voice-over. He compares himself to ugly animals while his looks grow more and more endearing to the viewer. He looks a lot like a young version of the very likeable master character actor of the 1950s, Chill Wills.

Olivia Cooke had a chance to play up her good looks and depth of character, as she does so well in the TV series "Bates Motel" as the girl dying of lung disease. But she doesn't. Here, she underplays her role with uncommon skill, as do R.J. Cyler as Earl and all the adolescent actors. All the adults, of course, are presented as a teen-ager would see them, otherworldly weird.

Animation magic helps the director explain the highs and lows of the age of concupiscence when ordinary acting and words couldn't reach them. I didn't cry half way through this film because I thought Rachel would die. The narrator assured us that she wouldn't. I cried because the film was so good at explaining the highs and lows, the pure misery, of adolescence.

Movie Review:

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.

Screenplay by Jesse Andrews from his original novel.

105 minutes. PG-13

Photo: Me And Earl And The Dying Girl Facebook.

More highlights of progressive cinema from Tribeca

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 15:58:00 +0000

NEW YORK - This is our third in a series of reports from the Tribeca Film Festival. Over 101 feature films were chosen from over 3000 submissions! Including shorts, 161 films were shown on 23 screens. This is a massive undertaking. And like most major film festivals there's always a generous selection of films with progressive content.

Two films, (T)ERROR and Newburgh Sting, question the morality and legality of the so-called "war on terror." They both deal with the government's questionable and often ineffective method of finding terrorists on home soil. By using former convicts as informers who plea bargain or even accept bribes to shorten their term, the government relies heavily on findings from men who are compromised. In Newburgh Sting, four African American Muslims are offered greater sums of money until eventually they are enticed into conspiring to commit a crime. In (T)ERROR a young white American Muslim is harassed over statements he made on his website supporting the Taliban. The filmmakers cross the line in a daring attempt to not only follow the FBI and their informer but also the subject of their investigation. Sympathy is built for the young man who eventually is charged, sent to trial and found guilty, while his new wife and young child are deported to the UK.

Being charged for writing about doing illegal things is similar to the theme of Thought Crimes, which is about a New York cop who is charged with thinking about doing illegal things. Gilberto Valle became a media star when he was charged with planning to kidnap, rape, kill and eat several women. Gruesome thoughts are not rare on the Internet, and the cop, for whatever reasons - some explained in the movie - found escape in the sexual and inhuman websites that promote discussion around those themes. Ultimately, the question is whether a person is guilty for what he thinks, or even for what he says. How far should the Internet go in allowing extreme websites, and how should these "thought crimes" be dealt with in court? These three films are compelling documentaries that raise serious questions about the criminal justice system and the laws of our country.

A couple of docs dealt intriguingly with electioneering. One of them was Roseanne for President. The well-known comedienne Roseanne Barr ran for president in 2012, and although she didn't even come close to winning was granted the stage to express her progressive points of view quite often, and in a humorous manner. She challenged the two-party system by running on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket after losing her bid for the Green Party candidacy. Accused by many on the left of taking votes from Obama, Roseanne reminded this reviewer of Jim Hightower's classic line: "Some people say we need a third party. I say we need a second one!" We can all debate how similar the two capitalist parties are, but currently Bernie Sanders is attempting to gain access to the debate to express his progressive views - this time within the Democrat Party. But he's not quite as funny as Roseanne.

Another "election" film is actually called Democrats. It deals with the period just after Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is re-elected to another term in 2008. To stave off charges of corruption, the government convenes a bipartisan constitutional committee to rewrite the constitution. Representatives from the two opposing parties are enlisted to educate and inform the electorate about the "democratic" process. Privileged access to the process is granted the filmmakers who create a dramatic documentary from three years of filming. But once again the term "democracy" gains sinister connotations, seen by many Mugabe supporters as another word for Western "regime change." Progressive viewers will have to read between the lines since it's obvious where the filmmakers stand by their choice of scenes, but the film is compelling and holds the viewer's attention to the end.

There were many political docs at Tribeca this year, ranging from such topics as nuclear energy, taser guns, and even car racing in Havana. With the proliferation of camcorders, and endless documentaries about every imaginable subject under the sun, it's becoming increasingly difficult to offer a fresh, artistic and effective film that can both illuminate and activate the viewer. Recently in the news, the nuclear power plant just north of Manhattan receives a thorough investigation in the didactic doc, Indian Point. Presenting a wide range of views, from CEOs to community activists, the film ultimately focuses on the regulatory agencies that have failed to establish acceptable standards in a growingly contentious form of energy, considering the Fukushima disaster.

Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle (TASER) is mostly filled with company execs wiggling like jelly to deny any wrongful deaths from their creative invention, the taser gun, used by many police departments across the country. The original intent of the taser was to replace lethal guns and prevent unnecessary deaths. But statistics show that over 500 taser-related deaths occurred between 2001 and 2012. The CEOs are shown trying to stave off a growing number of lawsuits. As in Indian Point, the director did extensive research and presents the facts in a very cinematic manner. Amazing clips of victims, of company propaganda videos and inside interviews with proponents on both sides of the battle, make this film feel like a compelling video that should be shown in the courtroom to determine if the taser gun is an effective method for law enforcement.

Although films from Cuba are becoming rare at festivals, Tribeca did offer Havana Motor Club, a relatively innocuous but highly entertaining doc about car racing. Any film from the now not quite so forbidden island off the Florida coast is worth viewing, and this one entertains without being didactic. Car racing has been forbidden in revolutionary Cuba, considered a bourgeois gambling sport and highly dangerous. This of course did not stop the diehards who chose public streets to express their drive for speed. Now with things changing in the country, aficionados see the possibility of the sport returning, and plot their race tracks around Havana. As car mechanics from different families hone their speed machines, some benefit from relatives overseas who send them needed parts. Havana Motor Club shows Cuban people in a good light. Although there are surely large corporations drooling in the wings for potential profits once the barriers are removed for official racing, the men (and some women) involved in the thrilling sport are shown in their humble surroundings, enjoying the simple things in life, all the while preparing for the first sanctioned drag race in Cuba since 1960. It's a nail-biter.

Photo: Havana Motor Club still.

LA Film Festival: "Mekko"

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 13:29:00 +0000

Sterlin Harjo's Mekko is a contemporary look at down and out Native Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Stuntman and actor Rod Rondeaux, who has played Wild West Indians in movies such as 2013's The Lone Ranger, as well as appeared in the Middle East-set FX series Tyrant, has his breakout role playing the title character in Mekko, which world premiered at the LA Film Festival on June 12. The movie opens with Mekko, a Muscogee (Creek) Indian, being released from jail where he has been doing time for 19 years for killing another tribesman. The parolee tries to make adjustment to the outside world, but after being shunned by relatives he falls in with homeless Natives in Tulsa, a tribe of outsiders, who share a simple camaraderie.

Mekko renews a friendship with an old friend, Bunnie (sensitively played by Wotko Long), who has seen better days, and is also befriended by an indigenous waitress, Tafv (veteran thesp Sarah Podemski, whose father is Israeli while her mother is Saulteaux Bear/Thunderbird Clan, from Muscowpetung First Nation in Saskatchewan), who explains that Mekko's name means "chief."

However, veteran actor Zahn McClarnon (the 2002 animated feature Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and recently seen as Officer Mathias on the Wyoming-set A&E cable series Longmire and on the excellent Fargo FX TV series) portrays Bill, a menacing character who is pretty terrifying in the tradition of Wes Studi's Magua in 1992's The Last of the Mohicans.

The leitmotif of returning or leaving home seems to be a recurring theme of Harjo's oeuvre, and so it is in Mekko: Rondeaux's character seeks redemption by departing Tulsa and going back to the place of his tribal origins and roots.

This, by the way, is likewise a recurring theme in the literature about uprooted Pacific Islanders, notably with Samoan Albert Wendt's breakthrough 1970s novel "Sons for the Return Home" and Maori Witi Ihimaera's "The Whale Rider," which were both adapted for the big screen.

Indigenous auteur Harjo is an indigenous person from Oklahoma who has chronicled - through nonfiction and feature and short films, such as 2005's Goodnight Irene, 2007's Four Sheets to the Wind and 2009's Barking Water the condition of the American Indian.

If you look up 1990's Dances With Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans on IMDB.com, you'll first see photos of Daniel-Day Lewis and Kevin Costner - the Caucasian protagonists - in these Indian-themed movies. One of the great things about Harjo's Native-made movies about Natives is that they focus on indigenous protagonists - and do so in a 21^st century context, not just in a long ago, far away sense.

According to producer Jasper Zweibel, who spoke after Mekko's LAFF screening, the feature combined professional performers with non-actors, in the Italian Neo-Realist tradition. What's great about Mekko is its realistic revelations, presenting a rarely seen slice of life about marginalized people - not too dissimilar, in a sense, from those other "Okies" displaced during the Depression and the dustbowl, as immortalized in John Steinbeck's 1939 classic "The Grapes of Wrath," which likewise involves a journey and John Ford turned into an unforgettable film.

It's interesting to note that Tulsa's band of outcasts, living on the streets, only once seem to receive any outside assistance in the form of a sort of soup kitchen. It's unspecified as to whether or not this aid is provided by the government, church or private charity. On the other hand, the film received state assistance: Ironically, this shot-in-Oklahoma movie utilized the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program administered by the Oklahoma Film & Music Office. Be that as it may, while Mekko does not currently have distribution, it richly deserves theatrical and other forms of release and there is an audience for this fine film off the beaten path that moves to the beat of a different, indigenous drummer.

The LA Film Festival ended June 18. For more info see: lafilmfest.com

Hey, Boo: To stage a Mockingbird

Mon, 22 Jun 2015 16:24:00 +0000

I went to see Christopher Sergel's theatrical adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird" with trepidations. After all, I'd read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel and seen, many times, Robert Mulligan's 1962 extremely faithful film version which won three Oscars, including for Horton Foote's "Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium." And who can ever forget Gregory Peck's sensitive, dignified Academy Award winning depiction of Atticus Finch, the small town attorney who defends an innocent Black man in the 1930s segregated South? More recently I saw and reviewed Mary Murphy's 2010 documentary Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'

So the Mockingbird novel, feature and documentary are tough acts to follow. To tell you the truth, if Mockingbird wasn't being presented by my favorite theatre in L.A., Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum, I would have skipped this production altogether.

But boy is this reviewer glad he didn't! The live performances and director Ellen Geer's skillful staging - which, as usual, uses the amphitheater's Topanga Canyon topography to great effect - brought Lee's story about childhood, racial discrimination, fatherhood and more vividly alive. And in one gripping scene [NOTE: Plot Spoiler Alert!!!] that I don't recall being in the literary or film versions, this stage iteration powerfully, organically incorporates hooded, robed night riders. This is very shocking for those of us who have, mercifully, never seen in person the KKK, and Atticus Finch's (Richard Tyson) standing up to these domestic terrorists only raises one's appreciation for this character who symbolizes conscience and consciousness. And his little daughter Scout's (Lily Andrew) unmasking of a Klansman is extremely moving, enhancing what is already a precious, poignant saga about growing up under American apartheid, and how it affected progressive whites and disenfranchised, beleaguered, besieged Blacks grappling with Jim Crow. (If any of you out there in review-land have better recollections than your critic and do remember KKKers being onscreen or on page, please email in a comment to correct the record.)

The basic plot of Mockingbird is that a (symbolically) maimed and named African American, Tom Robinson (Max Lawrence plays the character who shares the same last name as the baseball great who broke the color barrier), is wrongfully accused of brutally beating and raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell (Claire Bryett Andrew). Her father Bob Ewell (Thad Geer) is a redneck bigot straight out of central casting.

Defying the racists of fictional Maycomb, Alabama attorney Atticus Finch - who believes that the law is our great equalizer - defends Tom. Atticus is a solo father raising tomboy Scout and Jem (the boyish Clint Blakely alternates in the older brother role with Matthew O'Rourke), who is assisted by the Finches' Black housekeeper, Calpurnia (Earnestine Phillips). (FYI, Calpurnia was the name of Julius Caesar's wife, which was probably Lee's way of conferring "emperor-like" status on the majestic small town lawyer.)

At first, I'd assumed that the Theatricum chose to include Mockingbird in this summer's repertory season to capitalize on the publication of Harper Lee's long-awaited (half a century plus!) "new" novel, "Go Set a Watchman," but the theatre company's publicist explained that this choice was actually made prior to the announcements regarding Lee's "long, lost" book. This production is nevertheless not only fortuitous in terms of timing per Lee's latest fiction, but mounting this show now is indicative of the fact - considering the recent murder of nine Blacks in a Charleston church and other racist incidents, many of them involving police and vigilantes - that the Theatricum has its finger on the American pulse.

Having said that, while this critic certainly recognizes that Mockingbird is a Civil Rights classic, there are some dubious elements in the plot that can be traced to Lee and are not the Theatricum's fault. In essence, the story's Blacks are too passive and the protagonist in this saga about racism is white. Also, if you pay close attention, the children ignore the instructions Calpurnia and another Black adult character, Rev. Sykes (Gerald C. Rivers), give them, which may be an unconscious expression of white privilege - if not exactly supremacy.

Having said that, this Mockingbird is well-acted and well-directed by Geer, whose mise-en-scene, as said, makes glorious use of Topanga's great outdoors. Nathan Adorney's depiction of Charles Baker "Dill" Harris illuminated an aspect of the story I'd never gotten before: Unlike Atticus' own children, this ignored son, did not take Atticus for granted and his yearning for an attentive, moral father like him is palpable. More than Atticus' own kids, Dill "gets" him. Adorney's subtle performance helps us to understand why, in real life, Dill grew up to become one of our great writers, Truman Capote.

Don't make the mistake I almost made and pass over a must-see staging of an enduring classic told from a child's point of view. Unfortunately, much of Mockingbird's meaning and message remains painfully relevant in an America where we still have yet to overcome, some day.

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is playing in repertory through Sept. 27 at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For repertory schedule and other information call: (310)455-3723 or see: www.Theatricum.com.

Cher: "If Trump's elected I'm moving to Jupiter"

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 15:15:00 +0000

Cher, responding on Twitter to Donald Trump's bid for the Oval Office declares, "IF HE WERE TO BE ELECTED, I'M MOVING TO JUPITER."

Describing him as a bigot with an ego the size of Texas she questioned both his style and credentials. "Donald Trump can't come up with a hairstyle that looks human, how can he come up with a plan to defeat ISIS."

Trump outraged Mexican Americans and civil rights group during his announcement by describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. "[Mexico] are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they're rapists," he said.

Lisa Navarrete of La Raza said in response the Trump's remarks were "offensive."

Pointing to a general problem of racism among other GOP contenders, observers have pointed out that the response to Trump's remarks have been silence.

Cher, at least has the courage to speak up. Thank God she's not a Republican. Sorry Sonny.

Photo: Chris Pizzello/AP

Christopher Lee, 93: the Count bows out

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:18:00 +0000

English actor Christopher Lee passed away on June 7, at the age of 93. An iconic figure for fans of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, Lee was best known as the second most famous Count Dracula during the late 50s and 60s, as well as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film series and villain Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels. But these roles were far from the only noteworthy things about Lee, whose 70-year career spanned multiple mediums of art and several generations of audiences.

Lee was born in London in 1922. His father fought in World War I and his mother was a friend and portrait subject of Irish painter John Lavery; she had lineage that traced back to Charlemagne. Lee's parents divorced when he was four, and his mother went on to marry Harcourt George St. Croix Rose, an uncle of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels. Interestingly enough, Lee later went on to portray the main villain in the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.

His life was nearly as colorful and interesting as his later film roles would be. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force during World War II, but was not allowed to fly due to having a problem with his optic nerve. So he instead became an intelligence officer for the Long Range Desert Patrol, a reconnaissance unit of the British Army. He took part in the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943. After the Sicilian campaign ended, he contracted malaria for the sixth time during that year and was flown to a hospital in Carthage. When he returned, he prevented a mutiny amongst his restless squadron by talking them into resuming their duties. One year later, while spending some time on leave in Naples, he climbed Mount Vesuvius three days before it erupted.

Breakout roles and beyond

Lee's adventures then continued into the world of film. His first breakout role came in 1957, when he played Frankenstein's monster in The Curse of Frankenstein. This was his first of many Hammer Horror films, but his first portrayal of Dracula would come one year later, in Horror of Dracula. He continued to star in vampire movies for some time, but he feared being typecast and began diversifying his work. He portrayed the eponymous character in the 1966 film Rasputin, the Mad Monk and Sir Henry Baskerville in the Sherlock Holmes adaptation The Hound of the Baskervilles. His portrayal of villains in films became something of a constant in his career, with Lee getting another noteworthy role as Lord Summerisle in 1973 horror-musical The Wicker Man.

His prominence in American film would not come until much later in life, between 2001 and 2003, when he fulfilled a decades-long dream of being involved in The Lord of the Rings; he was featured prominently in the film adaptations, and later reprised the role in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, nine years later.

He often cited The Lord of the Rings as one of his all-time favorite book series - so much that he has claimed to have read both it and The Hobbit, as well as other works by J. R. R. Tolkien, once per year since the 1950s. There was even a nice little scene in the horror film The House That Dripped Blood in which Lee is filmed reading The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. But Lee's role in the film versions of Tolkien's works might never have come if not for his proactive efforts to contact director Peter Jackson, in order to convince him that he was right for the role of wizard Gandalf, the character for whom he had originally read the part. Jackson noticed, but ended up casting Lee as villain Saruman.

During filming, Lee had the benefit of being the only person there to have actually met Tolkien. He did so in an Oxford pub called The Eagle and Child, and the meeting was one of pure serendipity. Lee remarked that he was "sitting there talking and drinking beer, and someone said, 'Oh, look who walked in!' It was Professor Tolkien, and I nearly fell off my chair. He was a benign looking man, smoking a pipe. And he was a genius; a man of incredible intellectual knowledge." Lee proceeded to have a beer with Tolkien, and added that, despite having already taken acting roles himself, he was in awe and could barely speak during the encounter. Lee had also met The Once and Future King author T. H. White.

For Lee, Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy was the beginning of a major career revival. He played Sith lord Count Dooku in both Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in 2002 and 2005, respectively. In 2007, he had a role in the Tim Burton-directed, Johnny Depp-starring film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He continued to collaborate with Burton, voicing a character in the 2010 film Alice in Wonderland. One year later he finally returned to Hammer Horror, in the film To the Devil a Daughter.

A career in music

But Lee's career was not exclusively one of film. Also known for his singing ability, he recorded various opera pieces between 1986 and 1998, and from 2010 onward, became a prominent figure in the scene surrounding heavy metal - a genre of music for which he had long been fond. His first true interaction with metal musicians came from a collaboration with symphonic power metal band Rhapsody of Fire, for whom he lent his vocals on the song "The Magic of the Wizard's Dream" from the Symphony of Enchanted Lands II album.

He also lent his voice to Cascadian black metal band Agalloch on their EP The White, on which he reprised his role of Lord Summerisle from The Wicker Man and performed spoken word on songs "The Isle of Summer," "Summerisle Reprise," and "Sowilo Rune."

Lee's new association with the heavy metal community, which has also had a penchant for Tolkien fandom, was very well received, and inspired the actor to begin a late career in the genre. So it was that in 2010, he recorded his first metal album, Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross. At the age of 88 (at the time), this made Lee the oldest metal performer in history, a record that has not been outdone since. The album was critically acclaimed, and Lee earned a Spirit of Metal award, presented by Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, at Metal Hammer's 2010 Golden God awards. Upon receiving the award, Lee said that he was honored and that in terms of metal, he was merely "a young man right at the beginning of his career."

Lee also became the oldest performer ever to enter the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which he did with the song "Jingle Hell," off his 2012 EP release, A Heavy Metal Christmas.

A life of great achievements

Even putting his work in film and music aside, Lee lived a life full of great achievements. He was made a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2009, and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2011. He earned The Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1994 and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship in 2011.

He was also a world champion fencer, and spoke seven languages: English, German, Russian, Swedish, Italian, French, and Greek. He also described himself as "conversationally fluent" in Mandarin Chinese.

Lee died just 11 days after his birthday, after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure. He left behind a legacy as epic as the films and music in which he starred.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

Today in history: Stan Laurel is born 125 years ago

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:12:00 +0000

On June 16, 1890, Arthur Stanley Jefferson, world famous under his professional name Stan Laurel, was born at Ulverston, Lancashire (now Cumbria), England. The town sits slightly south of the Lakes District National Park, about 45 miles south of the Scottish border. His parents were both active in the theatre. His father managed Glasgow's Metropole Theatre, where Laurel began work in pantomime and music hall sketches.

In 1910, using the name "Stan Jefferson," he joined Fred Karno's troupe of actors, which also included a young Charlie Chaplin. For some time he acted as Chaplin's understudy.Chaplin and Laurel arrived in the United States on the same ship from Britain with the Karno troupe and toured the country. Laurel worked briefly alongside Oliver Hardy in 1921, before the two were a team, in a silent film short The Lucky Dog (1921).

By 1924, Laurel had given up the stage for full-time film work. When he signed with the Hal Roach studio, he began directing films, intending to work primarily as a writer and director. But once he reappeared with Hardy in Slipping Wives, Duck Soup and With Love and Hisses, the two became friends with inimitable comic chemistry, and huge audience pleasers at the box office. Together they produced a huge body of short films, successfully transitioning to talkies with the short Unaccustomed As We Are (to public speaking) in 1929. Saps at Sea (1940) was their last film for Roach.

During and after World War II they continued making films, but these were less successful. In 1947, Laurel returned to England when he and Hardy went on a six-week tour of the United Kingdom. The duo were mobbed wherever they went. The tour included Laurel's homecoming to Ulverston - where today there's a small museum dedicated to him - and a Royal Command Performance for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in London. Their popularity led them to spend much of the next seven years touring the UK and Europe.

Beginning in the mid-1950s both Laurel and Hardy started suffering health setbacks. Oliver Hardy died in August 1957. Laurel was too ill to attend the funeral and never again performed on stage, or acted in another film.

In 1961, Stan Laurel was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar for his work in comedy over 35 years in 182 films. He lived his final years in a small flat in Santa Monica, California, spending his time answering fan mail and calls placed to his listed phone number.

The catchphrase most used by Laurel and Hardy on film is: "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" first used by Hardy in The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case in 1930. It's a clue to the team's appeal, which peaked during the Depression years. Their 30-minute film The Music Box won the 1932 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Subject. It featured them as a pair of furniture movers in a classic Sisyphean effort of hoisting a player piano up a long, steep outdoor flight of stairs.

The short resonated with audiences who were struggling with the massive loss of jobs after the 1929 stock market crash, and feeling the sense of hopelessness and uselessness to their attempts to get back on their feet. The "Sad Sack" clown image, developed on film by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton alongside Laurel & Hardy, depicted the all too human condition and the tragic lot of the common man, gracefully celebrated by these comedians with physical pranks and pratfalls, woeful expressions, absurdist word play and the willful, mutual destruction of property. These maladroits, down on their luck, with no place to go but up, gave cheer to millions. The best of their humor long outlives them.

Laurel died on Feb. 23, 1965, in Santa Monica, Calif.

Laurel and Hardy is the official website, containing a wealth of information. The Laurel and Hardy Museum is the website for the museum in Georgia (Oliver Hardy's birthplace). Also see http://www.laurel-and-hardy.com.

Photo: Young Stan Laurel, about 1920. Unattributed, public domain.

Enigmatic Romanian film "The Japanese Dog" at SEEFest

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:34:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - In May, the annual South East European Film Festival put features, shorts, animation and documentaries that are primarily shot and/or set in Southeastern Europe in the limelight. As such, SEEFest provided a beachhead for cinema from this part of the world, giving foreign films entrée to moviedom's world capital, Hollywood. It also presented avid filmgoers undaunted by subtitles with the opportunity to view works they may not otherwise get the opportunity to see, especially on the big screen.

82-year-old Romanian actor Victor Rebengiuc was given SEEFest's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award in absentia. However, Tudor Cristian Jurgiu - director/co-writer of one of the Bucharest-born actor's latest features - flew to L.A. for SEEFest, accepting the award on behalf of Rebengiuc. Their film, the oddly named The Japanese Dog, then kicked off the Festival's screenings, followed by a Q&A with Jurgiu with questions from the audience, who then enjoyed a feast of Eastern European cuisine in the lobby festooned with posters of classic movies, many of them with texts in various languages.

The Japanese Dog could also be entitled "The Anti-Avengers Film."

Typical Tinseltown escapist mass entertainment equates drama with action - the more violent, the more "dramatic," rendered through head-spinning rapid cutting by no-talent, harebrained sociopathic dimwits like Michael Bay appears to be. Of course, this is an expression of a sick society suffused with and suffocating in violence, where youths get their necks broken for the new thought crime of "looking while Black"; the national pastime is a sport causing concussions, brain damage, etc.; and faraway countries get shocked, awed, droned and attacked at the drop of a hat. Hollywood's over-reliance on violence to peddle tickets is also a reflection of extremely bad writing by screenwriters incapable of subtlety and expressing conflict without bombardments, AK-47s, vehicular homicide, ad nauseam.

These screenwriters, directors, producers, et al, are unable to express deep human truths, whereas films such as the enigmatically named The Japanese Dog do, by representing the drama of everyday life, all without a single, solitary screeching car chase, explosion, shooting and the like. (There is, however, a sort of robot - so maybe there's hope for transforming Michael Bay after all?)

The protagonist of The Japanese Dog is the antithesis of the Hollywood hero: 80-year-old widower Costache (Rebengiuc) lives alone in a flood-ravaged, dirt-poor Romanian village. [Between May 13 and 18, 2014, a low-pressure cyclone designated Tamara and Yvette, affected a large area of Southeastern and Central Europe, including Romania, causing floods and landslides. It may take 5 years for agriculture in the affected regions to recover.] Costache's estranged son Ticu (Serban Pavlu), who has emigrated overseas, returns to Romania, along with his foreign wife, Hiroku (Kana Hashimoto) and their young son Koji (Toma Hashimoto).

Costache and Ticu are faced with the conflict of resolving their estrangement and reestablishing that Turgenevian relationship between fathers and sons. And Costache must decide whether familial or national bonds are more important to him.

By La-La-Land escapist standards, The Japanese Dog is excruciatingly slow moving (a pejorative in Hollywood) and thoughtful, with heartfelt acting by an Eastern European master and the supporting cast. Jurgiu's 85-minute directorial debut feature has more humanity than all those dreadful Transformers movies put together. And does it without firing a single shot. Imagine that!

Regarding the film's cinematography, Variety had this to say: "Ace director of photography Andrei Butica (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Child's Pose) again proves his consummate versatility with measured visuals that underline the importance of environment and the villagers' coexistence with their landscape, even after Nature flexed her muscles; the luminous effects of daylight, dappling figures with their warmth, add to the pictorial pleasures." As for why this Romanian movie is named The Japanese Dog - well, you'll just have to see it. And thanks to SEEFest, American audiences got that opportunity - and the film got a shot at breaking into the American movie market. It may not be as action-packed as Marvel's The Avengers, but The Japanese Dog, which was Romania's 2015 entry in the Foreign Language Oscar category, is marvelous in its own way.

The 2015 South East European Film Festival offered works from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Moldova, Montenegro, Turkey, Kosovo, Georgia, Germany, Macedonia, Spain, Albania, France, USA, Denmark, Italy, Bosnia Herzegovina, Belgium, Greece, and Azerbaijan. These screenings mark the North American and/or West Coast premieres for many of the works. For more info: seefilmla.org.

Photo: "The Japanese Dog," film still.

"Cartel Land" reviewed, and Mammoth Lakes Film Festival awards

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:30:00 +0000

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - Matthew Heineman's documentary Cartel Land was the most viscerally exciting picture I saw at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, which ran May 27 - 31. This doc is not so much about Mexican drug cartels per se as it is about the resistance to them on both sides of the border. In Arizona, self-appointed, self-anointed border patrol vigilantes led by a grizzled vet named Nailer try to "protect" America from the drug dealers, as well as from undocumented workers heading to El Norte for what they hope will be greater opportunity. Which Nailer sees as fewer jobs at lower wages for would-be construction workers like himself.

South of the border Dr. Mireles leads armed resistance to the Mexican cartels, arming townspeople to stand up to them. Some of the scenes have a Magnificent Seven type vibe. If the vigilantes up north have a rightwing aura about them, as the Mexican vigilantes standup to the cartels, federales and military trying to disarm and disband them, they have a revolutionary feel to them. The film ponders who the good and bad guys really are, with unexpected twists and turns along the way.

This is yeoman filmmaking, done at great risk to the filmmakers, as well as the participants. Cartel Land deservedly won the MLFF's "Bravery Award."

Here are the other Mammoth Lakes Film Festival award winners:

Audience Awards

For Narrative Feature: They Look Like People, directed by Perry Blackshear. Suspecting that people are transforming into malevolent shape-shifters, Wyatt flees to New York City to seek out his estranged childhood friend, Christian. As the mysterious horrors close in on Wyatt, he questions whether to protect his only friend from an impending war, or himself. A genre-bending story about love, loyalty and living nightmares. The award winner was granted a GoPro camera.

For Documentary Feature: Omo Child, directed by John Rowe. For many generations people in the Omo Valley in southwest Ethiopia believed some children are cursed and that these children bring disease, drought and death to the tribe. The curse is called "mingi" and mingi children are killed. Lale Labuko, a young, educated man from the Kara was 15 years old when he saw a child in his village killed, and also learned that he had two older sisters he never knew who had been killed. He decided one day he would stop this horrific practice. Filmed and beautifully shot over a five-year period, we follow Lale's journey along with the people of his tribe as they attempt to change an ancient practice. The award winner was granted a GoPro camera.

Jury Award - Narrative

This year's MLFF Narrative Jury Prizes were selected by the panel of industry members Andrew Lazar, Kristanna Loken, and Larry Meistrich.

For Narrative Feature: Diamond Tongues, directed by Pavan Moondi and Brian Robertson. "A masterful fusion of comedy and poignant drama and comedy, rooted in a disturbed but somehow very relatable character played with a remarkable intensity by Leah Goldstein." The award winner was granted a $1,000 cash prize and a $10,000 credit from Panavision toward the rental of camera equipment.

Jury Awards - Documentary

This year's MLFF Documentary Jury Prizes were selected by the panel of industry members Allison Amon, Yana Gorskaya, and Kathleen Kinmont.

For Documentary Feature: Autism in Love, directed by Matt Fuller. "The Feature Documentary award goes to a film that took our breath away with its lyricism, emotion and beautiful construction." The award winner was granted a $1,000 cash prize and a RED camera valued at $20,000.

Bravery Award for Documentary Feature: Cartel Land, directed by Matthew Heineman.
"The jury would like to recognize one film at this year's festival that simply cannot be ignored. A film that astounded us with its access and its artistry. A film made with unbounded courage and skill."

Jury Awards - Short Films

These prizes were selected by the panel of industry members Kimberley Browning and Breven Angaelica Warren.

For Narrative Short: Una Nit, directed by Marta Bayarri. "With rich and layered performances, sharp editing and a constantly evolving tone, this emotionally complex narrative repeatedly makes us laugh, turns us on and ignites genuine fear." The award winner was granted $500 cash and a GoPro camera.

For Animation or Documentary Short: Upon the Rock, directed by James Bascara. "This animation is innovative in its use of sound and technique to transport us into a surreal journey. It is cleverly full of visual surprises and complexity in storytelling." The award winner was granted $500 cash and a GoPro camera.

Honorable Mention for Narrative Short: Tourist Trap, directed by Alana Purcell. "In this very innovative short we are offered a unique POV of a most intimate story. The stunning cinematography, stylized colors and textures, paired with an emotionally driven soundtrack shares a fresh portrait of a familiar city."

Honorable Mention for Animation or Documentary Short: The Tide Keeper, directed by Alyx Duncan. "A classic story most creatively mixing mediums, blending them seamlessly with incredible precision. This timeless tale is masterfully crafted with complete originality and a beautifully executed vision."

"Mammoth Lakes Film Festival is committed to screening new movies by inspired and innovative filmmakers." For more info on Mammoth Lakes Film Festival see: http://www.mammothlakesfilmfestival.com/.

“American Relief Aid and the Spanish Civil War”: a unique perspective

Fri, 12 Jun 2015 12:20:00 +0000

Context is central to any historical narrative. This is certainly true regarding the Spanish Civil War. In fact, isolationism, anti-communism, and domestic support of European fascism, among other factors, coalesced to shape the political-historical context within which progressives, socialists and - most importantly - communists worked to erect the organizational infrastructure to provide relief aid to the democratically elected 'Popular Front' Spanish Government.

Eric R. Smith's, American Relief Aid and the Spanish Civil War, sheds much needed light on this particular historical moment from a unique perspective. Whereas most histories analyze the subject from the veterans' perspective, specifically of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade - a contingent of over 3,000 U.S. anti-fascist volunteers, mostly communists, who fought in the Spanish Civil War - Smith's book looks at the domestic aid organizing, its supporters and detractors.

According to Smith, "The international community of nations" responded to General Francisco Franco's assault against the 'Popular Front' government in Spain "with combined horror and disbelief, mingled with apathy - [and] at times hostility" towards the socialists and communists elected to run the new Republic. Domestically, "Isolationism and anticommunism emerged as strong forces obstructing the path of antifascism," which resulted in President Roosevelt's refusal to engage in any serious discussion of U.S. government aid to the beleaguered Republic. He instead claimed neutrality.

While the official U.S. position was neutrality, which complicated matters for the domestic aid movement, Hitler and Mussolini were under no such constraints and actively supported Franco. Additionally, Texaco Oil Co. "offered an indefinite line of credit" to the fascist insurgents, and Firestone, Ford and General Motors "all realized profits on insurgent purchases," despite neutrality.

Contrary to anticommunist propaganda the Soviet Union was slow to involve itself in the conflict. It wasn't until August 1937 that they would send "medical and humanitarian advisers" to Spain - of course, later they would help mobilize world-wide anti-fascist contingents to fight in Spain against Franco.

Just as the Communist Party, USA was in the vanguard of organizing the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, it was also in the vanguard of the organized relief effort. "As it had in the case of organized labor in the same period, the Communist Party's main contribution to the movement came in the form of organizers and providing the infrastructure of the American League Against War and Fascism to set up local chapters of the leading aid organizations." The Party-led American League Against War and Fascism initiated the campaign that formed what would become the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, "which eventually emerged as the central hub for relief..."

Additionally, Ed Barsky, a CPUSA member and doctor, "played an instrumental role" in organizing the much needed medical bureau, as the "biggest immediate concern" was "inadequate medical aid." Barsky also lead a delegation of "nearly 150 American medical professionals who volunteered to serve in the American Medical Bureau in Spain." The Medical Bureau, led by Barsky, acted as the "primary aid organization" supplying the international battalion with doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, and other medical technicians. Communist nurses, like Lini Fuhr and Salaria Kee - the only Black female volunteer in Spain - would later return and embark on exhaustive speaking engagements to help mobilize more relief aid. Due to 'Red Scare' anticommunism, Kee would later deny her membership in the Party.

Smith also highlights the role of youth and student organizations in the relief mobilization. In fact, of the thousands of supporters who joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Medical Bureau, "88 of them came from the American Student Union," a communist-led national youth/student organization affiliated with the American Youth Congress. Among other activities, the ASU launched an ambulance campaign in late 1937 and a six-week youth committee speaking tour. In all, by February 1938 sixty-one ambulances had been donated by Americans to the beleaguered antifascists in Spain.

Furthermore, Smith looks at 'Popular Front' antifascism organizing and relief aid in Hollywood and unions, specifically the maritime unions. John Howard Lawson, a veteran ambulance driver, the first president of the Screen Writer's Guild and a communist, helped lead the Hollywood relief effort. Communist-led maritime unions, particularly in Baltimore - where ten percent of the seamen who joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were communists - staged strikes, refused to load and unload armaments, and organized and participated in antifascist rallies. Additionally, "it is perhaps not surprising" that the Party-led National Maritime Union was the first union to sponsor membership meetings on Spain and organize "...a small wave of strikes" against munitions shipments. The Party's then trade union secretary, Roy Hudson, wrote a pamphlet Shipowners Plot Against Spanish Democracy, for the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, which implored seamen "not to sail any ships carrying cargo consigned to the fascists!"

By summer 1938 the House Un-American Activities Committee would label the North American Committee "an adjunct to the Communist Party..." and many of the relief aid leaders would soon find themselves in the 'Red Scare' cross-hairs.

My only criticism of Smith's otherwise excellent book is what seems to be at times a purposeful obfuscating of the leading role of Party members in relief organizing. For example, in Smith's account Ed Barsky is simply an "American Doctor," while John Howard Lawson is a "veteran ambulance driver," and Lini Fuhr is only a "veteran Medical Bureau nurse," etc. While not openly anticommunist, Smith's narrative seems to suffer from a mild case of what participants to the recent Organization of American Historians conference called the 'Red Taboo.' His narrative would have been strengthened by a more robust assessment of the Party's role in relief aid. While the Communist Party, due to its size, influence and international connections, undoubtedly cast a shadow over smaller, less organized groups - which is simply a fact of historical record - a more robust assessment of the Party's role would have also been more honest.

American Relief Aid and the Spanish Civil War is an excellent, but short book. It covers a broad political landscape, but is still accessible and informative. A much needed and welcomed contribution to the history of the Spanish Civil War.

American Relief Aid and the Spanish Civil War

By Eric R. Smith

University of Missouri Press, 2013, 191 pages

Third “Yes Men” film is great...and “Revolting”

Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:49:00 +0000

The third film about the prankster activists who call themselves The Yes Men, is being released this weekend across the country. The title for the film, The Yes Men Are Revolting is an obvious pun meaning not that they are disgusting, but rather fighting for social change.

Their issues are many, including climate change, homophobia, racism and injustice everywhere, and they use the powerful tool of humor, satire, pranks and hoaxes to bring new people to the struggle. Their first two films focused more on the actual ingenious pranks that embarrassed corporations and government agencies into changing some of their anti-people policies.

Releasing fake public statements in the name of the United Nations, Chamber of Commerce, or WTO, is not only daring but oftentimes brilliant political theater. Their newest release is much more personal and realistic about the actual ups and downs of the activist world, but still retains some incredibly funny segments.

They pull off miraculous results, creating a room full of defense contractors holding hands in a circle, dancing and singing to an Indian drummer; and getting the Chamber of Commerce to change their policies and drop a lawsuit against them, to name just a couple.

I had a chance to chat with the director Laura Nix, who besides directing, went to college in Oregon with Mike and was around when they first met. Mike is from Albany and Andy is from Tucson.

I asked her what role comedy plays in the struggle. "Humor is the Trojan horse. It's a way to get in to a place you might not ordinarily be allowed. This way you get people watching a film on climate change who might NEVER watch a film on climate change."

Besides drawing in new converts, "the actions themselves give people a chance to look at the issues in a different way because of the humor. People are all of a sudden pulled into a pretty complex political debate, even people who are normally allergic to politics.

"Humor is kind of an equalizer and our way to reach a mainstream audience. And also to remind people already politically engaged that we do this for love and for fun. We talk about 'the struggle' but there's an incredible amount of energy you can get from doing this kind of political work. And doing something that's fun and being around a lot of people who believe in that, can be incredibly energizing."

The director explained why they chose to make another feature documentary rather than a TV series. "The reason we chose the feature film medium, is that cinema is one of the last places that forces you to sit and think about nothing else for an hour and a half. It allows for a different kind of emergence and feeling. We wanted this film to have an emotional comment as well, not just the jokes. We want viewers to able to feel more what it's like to be an activist and go on this journey with the Yes Men and experience what its like for them to succeed as well as fail. Failure was actually a big inspiration for making this film. The truth is that being an activist you often feel like you're failing. After that big rally or whatever, you didn't really end climate change or poverty or racism and you wonder all the time if this is worth it. We all wonder about that, but over time, things do add up and these social movements are capable of making changes. We have to have patience and to think about it in the long view. We are hoping you see that side of them and it gives the audience another way to identify with them."

Mike Bonanno, who gives new meaning to the term 'straight man' in a comedy team, partnered with Andy Bichlbaum back in 1996. He claims, when he first opened the door to greet Andy, "it was like looking into a funhouse mirror." Andy felt they were each other's half when they first met and they have been inseparable since - until Mike went off and got married, moved to Europe and had three children.

It put a bit of a strain on their relationship, and their comedic activist teamwork. The film addresses many of the new stresses facing the funny guys. Andy comes out gay in the movie, and in one scene he bravely reveals his sexuality to a group of Ugandan climate activists, a country that recently tried to pass a bill in Parliament to kill homosexuals.

I asked Mike why they decided to get more personal in their movies. "We're a bit older now, at a time where we can have a better perspective and look back at what happened. And now we have more pressures, dealing with capitalism, supporting a family, it's a good moment to reflect, a way to speak to people more engagingly."

I asked if their growing public image makes it more difficult to pull pranks. Mike explained, "Even in the case of being exposed, it sort of works well for the Yes Men. The scene with the Chamber of Commerce worked well because we were exposed." They eventually forced the Chamber to drop their lawsuit, and assumed the Chamber didn't want to have to reveal their expense account. As for growing exposure, "for now it's not become a big deal. And besides, there are other people in our team who are sometimes going up and doing the work in front of the camera. We have sort of a training crew."

Andy's homosexuality is one of the themes in this film, first fearing it might possibly jeopardize the comedy teams work. Mike stated, "I assumed that 'coming out' was something you did once in your life, then you're 'out' and people know you're gay. But it's actually something you have to do over and over again in different contexts." Referring to Andy's Uganda revelation, he emphasized, "It was a political statement, a form of activism, because it's a place where homosexuality is made invisible because it's such a repressive system. . . So coming out there was a kind of solidarity with the people who are actually 'out' there risking their lives defending gay rights."

Most of their pranks expose corporate wrongdoing and the failures of capitalism. I asked Mike how he thought we would move on to a better system, he replied, "Hopefully, the easy way. Capitalism will fall apart. Because there's an end game. You have to take those principles that drive capitalism, and put a lid on them."

He's referring to the endless drive for increased profit. "It's inevitable that it's going to happen, and for now we have to put pressure on governments to steer the ship in a different direction. And study what that takes. If it's another political system, fine. Naomi Klein's new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate is correct on this and we are great fans of her writings."

Mike continues, "We're going to have to force corporations to change. Take back the government from the corporations that corrupted them, corrupted politicians, get money out of politics, and use democracy for what it's intended - looking at the way to best serve people and protect our future. That's what we should be in it for. Not to get rich quick."

And they're not just in this for the movies. To put power behind the push they have established an online gathering spot for activists to share projects and learn about each other. Go to Actionswitchboard.net

The new Incubator Program will start in July to train and help activists reach out to others and put their projects online. Director Laura Nix highlights, "We're hoping that all the energy that goes into this will be creating actions that will lead up to the next climate meeting in Paris this December."

The film opens Friday, June 12 in New York and then in LA and other selected cities. It's available now on iTunes and other digital platforms and On Demand, and on all cable companies. You can go to the Yes Men Are Revolting website to check screenings in your area. (But watch out! It looks like those pranksters are spraying your computer screen!) And while you're at it, check out their first two films that will also make you feel that being an activist is not only necessary - but great fun!

Today in history: Author William Styron is born

Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:43:00 +0000

On this date in 1925, William Styron was born in Newport News, Va. Styron was best known for his novels, including Lie Down in Darkness (1951), The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), a fictionalized memoir of the leader of an 1831 slave rebellion which drew upon the author's knowledge of Virginia, and Sophie's Choice (1979), a story about a non-Jewish Polish survivor of Auschwitz and her Jewish lover in postwar Brooklyn. Styron won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, and in 1993 was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

His memoir Darkness Visible (1990) talked about his struggle with crippling depression, and became his best known work in later life.

Styron grew up in the South and was steeped in its history. His paternal grandparents had been slave owners, but his Northern mother and liberal Southern father gave him a broad perspective on race relations. He attended Davidson College and began reading writers such as Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner who would have a lasting influence on him. He transferred to Duke University in 1943 as a part of a U.S. military program aimed at fast-tracking officer candidates in simultaneous basic training and bachelor's degree tracks. Though Styron was made a Marine lieutenant, the Japanese surrendered before his ship left San Francisco. He returned to Duke and completed his B.A. in English in 1947.

Lie Down in Darkness, the story of a dysfunctional Virginia family, received overwhelming critical acclaim. For this novel, Styron received the prestigious Rome Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Rome and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. However, his recall into the military due to the Korean War prevented him from immediately accepting it. Styron joined the Marine Corps, but was discharged in 1952 for eye problems. He transformed his experience at boot camp into a short novel, The Long March, which was adapted for TV on Playhouse 90 in 1958.

Styron spent the year 1953 in Europe. In Paris, he joined other American writers to found the literary magazine Paris Review, and he got to Italy to take advantage of his Rome Prize. In Rome he re-encountered a young poet, Rose Burgunder, whom he married. Styron's experiences during this period inspired his third published book, Set This House on Fire (1960), a novel about intellectual American expatriates in Italy.

Styron spent years researching and writing his next novel, the fictitious memoirs of the historical Nathaniel "Nat" Turner, a slave who led a rebellion in 1831. Styron's friend James Baldwin had fallen under criticism for his 1962 novel Another Country, which portrays a white woman protagonist in a story of her involvement with a black man. Baldwin read early drafts of Styron's new novel, and predicted that Styron's book would face even harsher scrutiny than Another Country.

Baldwin was correct. Styron had his defenders, including Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, but other black critics reviled Styron's portrayal of Turner as racist stereotyping. Particularly controversial was a passage in which Turner fantasizes about raping a white woman. Critics saw this as a dangerous perpetuation of a traditional Southern justification for lynching. Styron also wrote of a homosexual encounter between Turner and another slave boy in the woods. Despite the controversy, the novel was a runaway critical and financial success, and won both the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction,and the William Dean Howells Medal in 1970.

Styron's next novel, Sophie's Choice, also generated controversy, owing to his portrayal of a non-Jewish victim of the Holocaust and to its explicit sexuality and profanity. It won the 1980 National Book Awardand was a nationwide bestseller. The 1982 film version was nominated for five Academy Awards, with Meryl Streep winning for Best Actress as Sophie. In 2002 an opera with libretto and music by Nicholas Maw based on Sophie's Choice premiered at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.

Styron died at Martha's Vineyard, Mass., on Nov. 1, 2006.

"I thought there's something to be said for honor in this world where there doesn't seem to be any honor left. I thought that maybe happiness wasn't really anything more than the knowledge of a life well spent, in spite of whatever immediate discomfort you had to undergo, and that if a life well spent meant compromises and conciliations and reconciliations, and suffering at the hands of the person you love, well then better that than live without honor" (from Lie Down in Darkness).

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: Wikimedia (CC)