People Before Profit blog

Skeletons as political art: A look at Day of the Dead artist Posada

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 13:56:00 +0000

Compared to the medieval European plague-inspired, scary skeletons of Halloween, the skeletons of Día de los Muertos are a whimsical lot. They drive cars or play in small orchestras; the guys smoke cigars and the ladies wear enormous hats. And through the art of José Guadalupe Posada, they engage in political debate as well.

Posada was born in the central Mexican city of Aguascalientes, capital of the state of the same name, on Feb. 2, 1852. He was always a fierce supporter of the downtrodden. At the age of 14, he apprenticed as a printmaker and began producing satirical illustrations. In his 30s he moved to Mexico City where he began work for several publishers including Ireneo Paz, a liberal journalist and grandfather of Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz. He produced thousands of illustrations and editorial cartoons for Mexican popular newspapers of the day.

From the onset of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 until his death in 1913, Posada worked tirelessly at cartoons dedicated to the working-class and revolutionary struggles. His political work landed him in jail on several occasions.

Posada's ingenious cartoons focused on the injustices of the government of President Porfirio Diaz and his high society supporters. By using skeleton figures to portray political figures and contemporaries, Posada emphasized their mortality and brought them down to size. "In death we are all equal. Blond, brown, rich, poor, we come to the same fate," he said. One of his best known images is Calavera de la Catrina ("Skeleton of the Female Dandy"), which satirizes the life of the upper classes.

Posada was admired for his range and technical skill. His compositions are filled with movement and confident gestures. His lines reflect the message he was expressing: smooth and harmonious in scenes of daily life, or harsh and thick to imply denunciation or violence. His political cartoons provoke laughter and indignation.

Posada produced an enormous body of work estimated at over 20,000 items, including not only his political cartoons but also commercial and advertising work (such as cigar box covers), book illustrations, posters and images of historical and religious figures.

Since Posada never catered to wealthy sponsors, his work never made him rich. When he died he was buried in a sixth-class grave (the lowest category) where, ironically, after seven years, his own bones were removed and discarded. But in 1973, the Posada Museum opened in Aguascalientes, and today in Mexico there are collections of his works at the National Institute of Fine Arts, the Biblioteca de Mexico (the national library) and the National Institute of Anthropology and History, as well as in museums in the U.S. and other countries. The political legacy of Posada's satirical skeletons, which influenced such Mexican artists as Orozco, Siqueiros, Rivera and Kahlo, continues to inspire artists and cartoonists to this day.

Photo: "Posada2.Catrina" by José Guadalupe Posada - ArtDaily.org. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons

This article originally appeared in the print edition of People's World in 2005.

Today in history: “War of the Worlds” on radio causes riots, maybe

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 13:16:00 +0000

"The War of the Worlds" is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed at 8 p.m. Eastern time as a pre-Halloween feature on Sunday, Oct. 30, 1938, and aired nationwide over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. It became famous for causing mass panic, although the reality of this legend assumed to be fact is currently disputed by historians.

The first two thirds of the one-hour broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. The program was a sustaining show without timely commercial interruptions, adding to the program's realism.

The broadcast included a clear introduction that the show was a drama, and this announcement was repeated three more times - before and after the midway break, and at the end. Also, radio programming schedules in Sunday newspapers listed the CBS drama, "The War of the Worlds." The New York Times for that day included the show in its "Leading Events of the Week" and published a photograph of Welles with some of the Mercury players, captioned, "Tonight's show is H. G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds.'"

But some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast and, in the tension and anxiety prior to World War II, mistook it for a genuine news broadcast. Phone calls came in to CBS stations, newspaper offices and police headquarters around the nation with requests for verification of the news. Reports came in of rioting, vigilante committees that formed to go after the Martians, masses of people jamming highways in their cars to evacuate their cities, and suicides.

Another announcement was repeated three times on CBS later that evening, reminding listeners that the network had clearly described the program as a drama and that"while the names of some American cities were used, as in all novels and dramatizations, the entire story and all of its incidents were fictitious."

In the days following the adaptation, there was widespread outrage in the media over the broadcast, which editorialists bloviated about as deceptive and requiring of tighter regulation by the Federal Communications Commission. More than the New York City stage productions by the Mercury Theatre, the "War of the Worlds"on-air episode secured Welles's fame as a dramatist.

Historical research suggests the panic was far less widespread than newspapers had indicated at the time (to sell more copies, no doubt). "[T]he panic and mass hysteria so readily associated with 'The War of the Worlds' did not occur on anything approaching a nationwide dimension," American University media historian W. Joseph Campbell wrote in 2003. He quotes Robert E. Bartholomew, an authority on mass panic outbreaks, as having said that "there is a growing consensus among sociologists that the extent of the panic...was greatly exaggerated." In fact, the program had relatively few listeners.

A study by the Radio Project discovered that fewer than one-third of frightened listeners understood the invaders to be aliens; most thought they were listening to reports of a German invasion or a natural catastrophe. "People were on edge," writes Welles biographer Frank Brady. "For the entire month prior to 'The War of the Worlds,' radio had kept the American public alert to the ominous happenings throughout the world. The Munich crisis was at its height.... For the first time in history, the public could tune into their radios every night and hear, boot by boot, accusation by accusation, threat by threat, the rumblings that seemed inevitably leading to a world war."

Mainstream newspapers already knew the name of Orson Welles in connection with the previous year's runaway hit musical that he directed, Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock, a biting radical satire of the ruling class which became the Mercury Theatre's first staged production. The radio incident may have been blown out of proportion and exploited to smear Welles's reputation as a dangerous subversive out to overthrow the American system. With his films Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) Welles certainly did offer a trenchant critique of the press and capitalist values in general.

Over the years hundreds of radio producers and small theater companies have aired or staged live versions of "The War of the Worlds" for the entertainment of their audiences. The piece now has a kitschy quality that the public accepts as the hyperventilated style of newscasting in the 1930s.

In 2003, the Mercury Theatre broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" was one of the first 50 recordings made part of the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: The next day, Oct. 31, Orson Welles tells reporters that no one connected with the broadcast had any idea it would cause panic. | Wikipedia (CC)

Alda's "Passage": Music and environment, Cascadian style

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 13:58:00 +0000

Alda, a Cascadian black metal band from Tacoma, Washington, released the new album Passage on Sept. 25. The fall season has brought us many such albums from artists with an environmental/nature focus, including Panopticon's newest, Autumn Eternal, and Thrawsunblat's upcoming Metachthonia. Alda has managed to distinguish themselves by creating their own sound, while still maintaining the aesthetics associated with the Cascadian movement. Passage continues that process, and is a solid followup to the 2011 release, Tahoma.

"The earth has burned black beneath our feet," declares the vocalist on the opening track, "The Clearcut." "Yet still beneath the coil of the withered root, there is life in the silence." Not a band to mince words, Alda is the latest 'green' black metal band amongst a blossoming Pacific Northwest music scene that is lamenting the destruction done to nature. And like many of their peers, their music is an audial summons to listeners, issuing - through the sounds of a thriving counter-culture - a demand for change.

That song clocks in at about 14 minutes, with every subsequent track being at least 10 minutes in length, save for the six-minute-long instrumental piece, "The Crooked Trail." The album takes the listener on a bracing journey through a plethora of cross-genre influence and environmental lyricism. Like Kentucky's Panopticon, Alda incorporates cello into their new music. This, along with female singing and acoustic segues and fadeouts, help to add a delicate, melodic balance to the album, complimenting the sonic abrasion that one would associate with the black metal sound.

That there is such a music scene calling attention to the environment, especially amongst us millennials, is heartening. Recently, however, several Cascadian bands have sidestepped the allegory of their previous albums to pen songs that are lyrically more associated with primitivism or nature worship. Not so with Alda, who are continuing to draw attention to real world issues, while not entirely dropping the romanticism of their subgenre either. It's a balancing act that pays off, and which will draw a diverse group of listeners - both the politically or environmentally minded and the forest-loving, anti-modernist retrophiles.

The term "Cascadian black metal" has long been polarizing amongst listeners, with some feeling that the term is gimmicky, and moreover that it is often misapplied when used to refer to bands like Panopticon, who hail from the Appalachian region, or Drudkh, a Ukrainian black metal band with more of a focus on rustic paganism. When asked about how they feel about the label, Alda suggested that they were not, in fact, merely jumping on a bandwagon, but that, as actual members of a community in the Cascadian part of the U.S., they took the name quite seriously. They noted, "Some outside music enthusiasts have been connecting the dots based on aesthetics and sound rather than content. One of the weird things about this, however, is that most of these artists really began this journey independent of one another, were later associated with each other, and then later became friends and collaborators, and there is definitely a tribalistic undercurrent in the relationships between some of them."

In keeping with that notion of solidarity, the band has played benefit shows and stood up for good environmental causes, including fighting to protect their community. In June they played the Thirst for Light festival in Pee Ell, Washington, joined by bands such as Amber Asylum, Novemthree, and Ekstasis. The event was a benefit show for BARK, an environmental advocate group for Oregon's Mt. Hood National Forest and a member of the Keep Nestle Out of the Gorge Coalition. BARK's goal is to oppose the Nestle Corporation's plans to privatize Oxbow Springs, a reservoir near that forest, so they can establish a water bottling plant there, which would take those pristine waters away from the public and could have severe environmental impacts. Alda remarked that it would be an example of "a multinational corporation damming up a public spring with a commerical spigot."

It's merely one example of Alda's activism through music, and it's part of their overall ideology, which is that man cannot be divorced from, or have a lack of care for, nature. "All notions of separation or dominion over nature are illusory," said the band in an interview with CVLT Nation. "We've merely built a mental labyrinth to insulate our egos from the acknowledgement that impersonal natural forces both sustain us and destroy us." (Climate change is certainly an example of the latter.) They noted that people need to get out and do something to save the planet, concluding, "There's no true justification to lapse into lazy nihilism."

Passage's eponymous track, the second song on the album, clearly expresses such a sentiment, with lyrics like the following: "If the dam were to break, before the forest withers . . . ! If we were to find our way . . . before the rivers run dry!" There is certainly a sense of urgency to the music here, as if to insinuate that time, indeed, is running out. The song "Weathering," conjuring up images of drought-ravaged areas of the U.S., makes this point nicely: "We, the parched land aching for a drink . . . When we're cast from the shores and left to the drought . . . Finding the courage to breathe . . . To weather the storm again."

Photo: Alda Facebook page

“99 Homes” : shelter skelter

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 11:07:00 +0000

It's painful to watch. Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is evicted from his home in the opening scenes of "99 Homes." The sheriffs knock so loudly at the front door that it is clear that it is no longer his house.

When he answers, they serve the eviction notice, running over his meaningless excuses with the force of law that was written for those who don't live from paycheck to paycheck. Right behind the sheriffs are real estate operative Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) and his cold hearted close out crew, cutting utilities and wrenching out appliances. Personal belongings are pulled. The intimate artifacts of daily life are stacked and strewn across the front yard, the internal organs of a family bleeding out of the wound of poverty.

Nash has no job to pay his mortgage. He has nowhere to go but a seedy motel full of displaced evictees and the hardcore, angry poor. His mother Lynn (Laura Dern) is in shock, losing her home from which she has been able to run a small beauty shop. Nash's young son Connor (Noah Lomax) does not completely understand what has just happened. He pleads to just return to the safety of his own room.

But real estate Rick Carver has neither the time nor the inclination to consider the victims. It's hardly personal or even human at all. It's merely the system and Carver is its agent. When Carver's crew chief fails him, he is just as quick to exploit Dennis Nash's construction skills and desperate needs into the service of evicting others.

For Nash the slope is slippery. Before he completely realizes the ramifications, Nash has done Faust proud, shifting gears easily from oppressed to agent of doom, a mini Carver of others' failed dreams . . . flipped from frying pan to short order cook. Carver seduces Nash first with a life line of enough money to pay his immediate bills, then with the opportunity to reclaim his old house and ultimately with the riches of real estate foreclosure. But neither mother, nor son are sanguine about the changed Dennis Nash. They provide the moral compass as Dennis descends uneasily into the agency of eviction.

There is no ethical moment about Rick Carver. He forcefully explains how the market forces shaped him. The lives of others are of little concern to him. Nor is legality a consideration. He is only bound by what he can get away with.

Writer Director Ramin Bahrani ("Goodbye Solo," "Man Push Cart") has effectively recast hell as the foreclosure real estate market . Bahrani, a Guggenheim Fellow and Professor of Film Directing at Columbia, was called the "director of the decade" by Roger Ebert. In one ferocious, breath taking montage of evictions he adroitly sketches a landscape of an America where Norman Rockwell has segued into Brueghel's The Triumph of Death. And what better devil than the uber intense Michael Shannon ("Take Shelter," "Freeheld") and Faust than the earnest tempted innocent Andrew Garfield ("The Amazing Spiderman 1 and 2"). These principals are ably abetted by the troubled Laura Dern ("Jurrasic Park," "Blue Velvet") and Noah Lomax ("Safe Haven," "Playing for Keeps").

As good as are Bahrani's writing and the superb ensemble acting, the fearful strength of "99 Homes" is rooted in the nature of the society that gives rise to such stories. There are no happy endings in sight.

"99 Homes"

Director: Ramin Bahrani

Writers: Ramin Bahrani (story), Ramin Bahrani

Stars: Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern, Noah Lomax

Runtime: 112 mins, Rated R

Photo: Theatrical release poster. Fair use.

“Soul Food Junkies” sheds light on food-based apartheid in the U.S.

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 10:36:00 +0000

Recently Netflix, the international provider of on-demand internet streaming media, has added a variety of new programming to its options for subscribers. One of those new options is an independent documentary, produced by Byron Hurt, entitled Soul Food Junkies. The documentary deals with the question of eating habits within the African-American community and the often tumultuous relationship between healthy living and tradition. It is a documentary that deserves a look at not only for how well done it is, but also the larger question it raises of how, even food, is not only personal, but political, given who has access to healthy options.

Within this documentary Hurt, an American activist, lecturer, writer, and award-winning documentary filmmaker, explores the origins of soul food, the cuisine often associated with black people who live in the southern region of the United States of America, its impact on the health of African Americans, and whether or not black people, as a community, are "soul food junkies". Although the documentary begins as one gearing towards the exploration of soul food, it soon takes a poignant turn in serving as a jumping off point to the larger conversation of the industrialization of the food industry, and its impact on proper food access to working class communities that are predominately African-American.

Hurt's incentive behind making the documentary is the loss of his father to pancreatic cancer. Hurt wonders if his father, a man who loved to eat enormous amounts of soul food all his life, fell victim to the health problems that unhealthy eating can generate. Hurt believes his father was addicted to soul food, and just like his father fell ill, Hurt believes many within the black community continue to fall victim to same health problems that an unhealthy diet can create.

Soul Food is a modern term associated with cuisine that originated during the era of slavery in the United States. It consists of meals created by African Americans who were enslaved during this era, who were often given the scraps of food left over from their slave masters. From these scraps, and other materials harvested by the enslaved Africans, a variety of colorful, unique, and delicious meals were created. Hurt speaks to a variety of historians and activists to expound on the origins of soul food and how it's able to still resonate in the black community today. He learns that the term soul food actually originated during the mid-1960s Black Power movement as a way to identify such a staple of black culture. Through the variety of interviews Hurt gets a sense that this kind of food was seen as a source of pride within the black community, yet, as the documentary continues, it has become evident to Hurt that what constitutes as soul food, (often meat based with high fat content), could also be seen as one of the detriments to health for many within this community. These detriments include a number of ailments such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.

As StateofObesity.org found in their special report Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Obesity, "African American adults are nearly 1.5 times as likely to be obese compared with White adults. Approximately 47.8 percent of African Americans are obese (including 37.1 percent of men and 56.6 percent of women) compared with 32.6 percent of Whites (including 32.4 percent of men and 32.8 percent of women)."

When looking at facts similar to the one just mentioned, Hurt explains that it can be easy to point the finger towards soul food alone when it comes to the health issues blacks face, and concluding that it is individual choices to eat unhealthy forms of traditional food that has created the so called obesity epidemic within the black community. Yet, Hurt goes on to interview a variety of activists who point to other, more systemic, factors that come into play.

Food justice advocate and author of "Vegan Soul Kitchen," Bryant Terry, explains that people need to, "complicate their understanding of soul food," and that it would be easy to say that soul food is the bane of African American health, but that the "bigger issue is the industrialization of our food system," and how this happened four to five decades ago. Terry asserts that corporations are in the habit of making mass produced fast and cheap foods, with adverse health results for those that consume them.

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, who is a professor and author, brings up the term "food deserts". Food deserts is a term to refer to parts of the country that lack fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy whole foods. These food deserts are often in impoverished areas. Hill explains that many of these food deserts are populated by African Americans, and that this lack of access to healthy food has been normalized in the United States. Hill states that there is, "no better example of racism in the 21^st century than the relationship between black people and access to healthy foods... You want a 21^st century genocide, all you have to do is keep doing what we're doing and deprive people of access to healthy food."

As the Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Obesity report explains, "Lower-incomes and poverty correlate strongly with an increase in obesity, since less nutritious, calorie-dense foods are often less expensive than healthier foods. African-American families have earned $1 for every $2 earned by White families for the past 30 years."

Hurt's film goes on to show ways in which those in impoverished communities are attempting to lead healthier lifestyles by growing their own food, along with advocating for better access to higher quality supermarkets. The film shows that healthy living isn't just an individual choice, but is affected by the very system under which we live.

The documentary can currently be found on Netflix, and will re-air on PBS on Monday, December 7, 2015.

Soul Food Junkies

Director: Byron Hurt

Writer: Byron Hurt

Runtime: 64 min

Today in history: Vocalist/actress Melba Moore celebrates a milestone

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 09:27:00 +0000

Beatrice Melba Hill, best known by her stage name, Melba Moore, was born on this date in New York City in 1945, the daughter of saxophonist Teddy Hill and R&B singer Bonnie Davis. She was raised in Harlem until she was 9 and her divorced mother remarried jazz pianist Clement Leroy Moorman. She attended Newark Arts High School in Newark, N.J.

It was her stepfather Moorman who became a prime influence and encouragement in Moore's musical pursuits, insisting that she learn to play the piano. She graduated from Montclair State University with a Bachelor of Music Education degree, then briefly worked as a music teacher, but soon decided to pursue the spotlight. She chose her stage name by shortening her stepfather's surname and using her middle name.

Moore began her performing career in 1967 as Dionne in the original cast of the musical Hair along with Ronnie Dyson and Diane Keaton, whom she replaced in the role of Sheila. In 1970, she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Lutiebelle in Purlie. Following Purlie, Moore landed two big-screen film roles, released two successful albums, 1970's I Got Love and Look What You're Doing to the Man, and co-starred with actor Clifton Davis in a variety television series. She returned to Broadway in 1978 when she appeared with Eartha Kitt in Timbuktu!

In 1975 Moore signed with Buddah Records and released the critically successful R&B album, Peach Melba, which included the minor hit, "I Am His Lady." The following year she scored her first significant hit with "This Is It," which reached the Billboard Hot 100, the top-20 position on the R&B chart, and top-10 in the UK. In 1976 she scored her third Grammy nomination with a cover of the R&B ballad "Lean on Me." Moore scored another hit with 1979's "You Stepped Into My Life," which reached the top 20 on the R&B charts.

Throughout the 1980s Moore kept the hit songs coming, with the dance-pop/funk single "Love's Comin' At Ya," "Keepin' My Lover Satisfied,""Love Me Right,""Livin' For Your Love," "Read My Lips," "When You Love Me Like This," the duet "A Little Bit More" with Freddie Jackson,"Falling," "Love the One I'm With (A Lot of Love)" and "It's Been So Long." In 1986, Moore headlined the CBS television sitcom Melba; its debut aired the same night as the Challenger explosion and the show was abruptly cancelled.

At the end of the 1980s she recorded two further Top 10 R&B hits, "Do You Really (Want My Love)" and "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (which also featured a number of other great artists). Moore was the first female pop artist to do a non-operatic solo concert at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.

Melba Moore was instrumental in having "Lift Every Voice and Sing" inducted in the United States Library of Congress as the official Negro National Anthem. She worked closely with Dr. Dorothy I. Height and the National Council of Negro Women as their national membership chairwoman. She also worked with Dr. C. Delores Tucker and the National Congress of Black Women. Ms. Moore also devoted much effort on behalf of children, especially those who were abandoned, abused, born with AIDS, or addicted to crack.

Moore returned to Broadway in 1995 landing the role of Fantine in Les Misérables. A year later, she started her long-running one-woman show, Sweet Songs of the Soul, later renamed I'm Still Standing. In 2003, Moore was featured in the film, The Fighting Temptations, which starred Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Beyoncé. In 2007, she appeared in the Broadway revival of Ain't Misbehavin'.

Sources: Wikipedia and the Melba Moore official website.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

What really happened to the 43 students in Mexico?

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 13:23:00 +0000

The disappearance of 43 students in Iguala last year on September 26 remains an open, festering wound in Mexico. While many Mexicans suspect that security forces killed the students, President Enrique Pena Nieto blames drug gang members for killing the students. Xavier Roble's "Ayotzinapa: chronicle of a state crime" clears up any doubt about what really happened to the 43 students.

Students from the Ayotzinapa Normalista school went to Iguala to raise money to finance a trip to Mexico City. Every year, Mexicans march in the capital to honor student protestors who were massacred by the army in Mexico City in 1968, and the young students, mostly in their early 20s, wanted to be there. According to surviving students Jose and Omar, heavily armed police, waiting for the young defenseless students when they arrived in Iguala, opened fire on the buses carrying them. Video evidence taken by cell phones confirms this. Police took away surviving students who were never seen again.

The ambush took place within blocks of the base of the 27th infantry battalion which never tried to rescue the students, despite crackling gunfire ripping through the night air. Soldiers only appeared two-three hours later to search for wounded students in the local hospital, according to Omar. Soldiers verbally abused the surviving students, calling them common criminals. As they were leaving, the green clad infantrymen threatened to let the police take care of the students. "They were going to let the police do their dirty work", remarked Omar.

This begs the question of why police would want to disappear 43 young students? Robles suggests that the students were killed for political reasons. The Normalista schools, established after the Mexican revolution in 1926 for students from indigenous, campesino and poor backgrounds, had always been hotbeds of resistance against social injustice. Required readings in these schools include Pablo Neruda, Eduardo Galeano, Maxim Gorky, Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. These schools have produced a steady stream of leftwing political activists and figures, including famed 1970s guerrilla Lucio Cabanas. Guerrero, the state where the students were disappeared, has been in a continuous rebellion against central and state governments aligned with drug cartels, which have pursued neo-liberal policies.

For many years now, police, soldiers and drug cartels have carried out a campaign of terror against environmentalists, peasant and union activists and leaders in Guerrero. Many have turned up dead.

Robles places the disappearance of the students in Iguala within a broader context where Mexican governments at the state and national levels have melded with drug cartels, turning the country into a narco state.

"Ayotzinapa: chronicle of a state crime" is an eye opening, elegantly crafted documentary that sheds light on what happened that tragic night in Iguala on September 26th of last year. While not currently available on DVD or Blue Ray, it is making the rounds of the world film festival circuit - recently being screened in Vancouver, Canada. It will be shown in 150 cities in 26 countries, including the upcoming Havana festival of New Latin American film in December. While it is a long documentary to sit through at 140 minutes, it is a worthwhile view.

Trailer:

Documentary: Ayotzinapa: chronicle of a state crime
Director: Xavier Robles
Production company: El Principio Producciones, 140 minutes
Spanish with English subtitles.

Photo: Still from film

“Scott and Hem”: An imagined second act of the crack up

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 13:20:00 +0000

BURBANK, Calif. - Mark St. Germain's Scott and Hem imagines a 1937 F. Scott Fitzgerald (Thomas Owen) and Ernest Hemingway (Ty Mayberry) tête-à-tête, when the latter shows up uninvited and unannounced at the former's unit in Hollywood's Garden of Allah complex. Sparks fly as the renowned authors revisit their literary rivalry and friendship during those fabled "Lost Generation" days at Gertrude Stein's Parisian salon, the French Riviera, etc. Adding to the combustible mix is liquor - Hem swills bottle after bottle (and pops a pill or two), while Scott tries to dry out - and the sexually alluring Eve Montaigne (Jackie Seiden), is Fitzgerald's swanky minder, cracking the whip so The Great Gatsby scribe stays sober and completes rewrites for Louis B. Mayer.

Hemingway is in Hollywood attending screenings of Joris Ivens' documentary The Spanish Earth to raise funds for the beleaguered Loyalist side during the Spanish Civil War, pitting Spain's Republican forces against Generalissimo Franco's fascists, backed by Hitler and Mussolini. The Hollywood Left backed the Republic and The Spanish Earth, which Hemingway co-wrote and spoke the English language narration for. Of course, in what is arguably his finest moment, Hemingway risked his neck by going to war-torn Spain, out of which emergedwhat may be his finest novel, the anti-fascist classic For Whom the Bell Tolls.

(Fun Fact #1: Ironically, the director of the 1943 screen adaptation of For Whom the Bell Tolls, which co-starred Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, was actually an extreme rightwinger, Sam Wood, who is depicted by John Getz in the new biopic Trumbo as the president of the redbaiting Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.)

As the above reference to The Spanish Earth suggests, Scott and Hem seems to mix facts with conjecture conjured by the playwright. In a recent L.A. Times cover story Steve Zeitchik discussed "a new cinematic breed...called the impressionistic biopic." As opposed to documentaries and docudramas that seek to accurately, faithfully recreate and represent the life stories of historical personages, the "impressionistic biopic" uses much poetic license, including invented scenes and dialogues, to convey the essence of actual persons and events, instead of relying solely on mere facts. Scott and Hem suggests a theatrical version of this - call it an "impressionistic bio-play."

As Hemingway and Fitzgerald alternately reminisce about the good old days, compete and clash, readers of The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Great Gatsby may be absorbed and fascinated by these behind-the- scenes portrayals. There is much dialogue about the art and craft of writing in this verbose play; some may find it sheds light on the literary creative process.

But purists may be turned off by the not so tender night of these not so beautiful and god-damned authors. The central role alcohol plays in their lives is troubling, as is their rampant egomania. For those aspiring artistes who have never hit the big time, you'd think that connecting with a wide audience, attaining acclaim, not to mention fame and fortune, would bring some measure of happiness.

Of course, this doesn't take into account the authors' inner demons - Hemingway laments having one of those mothers from hell, who dressed him in girls' clothing, and a father who shot himself (foreshadowing Ernest's own tragic denouement). He is literally far too self-obsessed with the importance of being Ernest. But Fitzgerald recounts a happy childhood, so troubled parenting doesn't explain this Jazz Age genius' subsequent bedevilment. To be sure, the effect that so-called "bitch goddess" of fame causes must also be part of the psychic equation - but this is something those who haven't experienced will find it hard to fully comprehend.

But does it all ring true?

Some of Scott and Hem's "facts" fail to ring true: Their purported self-regard as the only great writers of their era is preposterously absurd - not only do they diss William Faulkner, but they don't even mention Steinbeck, et al. On the one hand, we're told that in 1936 only about 40 copies of Fitzgerald's novels sold in the entire USA. But later he claims to be the highest paid short story writer in America. These two points do not compute. Nor does the notion that Scott is broke, when it's subsequently stated that he earns $1,000 per week as an MGM contract screenwriter. One could still live on that salary in 2015, but almost 80 years ago, during the throes of the Great Depression, that was a king's ransom.

To be fair, the writer is paying for the mental asylum where his wife Zelda is being cared for. Zelda Fitzgerald is a pall over the play, an offstage presence felt deeply by Scott and a source of friction between him and Ernest. So is their possible latent homoeroticism that is hinted at from time to time during the course of this one-act, 75-minute play.

Fitzgerald is supposedly shilling for and selling his soul to Hollywood, as if screenwriting is a disgraceful calling, compared to being a novelist. Yet what was the subject matter of Scott's final novel? The Last Tycoon, of course, is about Hollywood and the class struggle there, with unions versus moguls, etc.

It's interesting to note that in addition to being portrayed in a number of movies - including in HBO's 2012 Hemingway & Gellhorn, with Clive Owen playing Ernest - the two authors' fiction has often been adapted for the screen, including a Fitzgerald short story in 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Baz Luhrmann's big budget 2013 Gatsby. And in Barbara Kopple's 2013 doc Running From Crazy,Mariel Hemingway candidly explores her family's troubled history of suicide and alcoholism.

As sexy as the aforementioned character called Eve Montaigne is, there's more to her than meets the eye, as would-be "he-me" Hemingway tries pursuing her. Which of the authors, if any, will succeed in romancing her? "Eve Montaigne" appears to be a pseudonym for the young woman who actually was Scott's secretary and companion of sorts toward the end of his life. Neve Campbell portrayed his real-life personal assistant Frances Kroll in the 2002 TV movie Fitzgerald, starring Jeremy Irons as Scott and Sissy Spacek as Zelda.

("Fun" Fact #2: Frances Kroll just died in June 2015 at the age of 99. Her book, Against the Current: As I Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald, was the basis for the Fitzgerald biopic.)

Although Scott and Hem is sometimes overwrought and excessively talkative, its actors are ably directed by Dmitri Toscas. Designer Francois-Pierre Couture's realistic set captures the unrealistic ambiance of the Garden of Allah, where many Tinseltown talents holed up. Jackie Seiden excels as the beauty who has a brain, as well as a body and pretty face - plus something up her sleeve. The bearded Ty Mayberry's visage actually resembles the young Hemingway. Thomas Owen is touching as the genius desperately trying not to go off the rails (although I believe he's way too tall for Fitzgerald).

This drama is probably for theatergoers who are interested in these authors, in literature and writing. It may not be everyone's cup of theatrical tea, although for the most part I enjoyed seeing these literary lions brought back, if briefly, to life.

Scott and Hem is being performed Weds., Thurs., Fri. and Sat. at 8:00 pm and Sun. at 4:00 pm through Nov. 15 at the Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Dr., Burbank 91505. For more info: (818)955-8101; www.FalconTheatre.com.

Something for everyone: The sounds of Sondheim

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 11:16:00 +0000

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Sondheim on Sondheim is a retrospective about one of the musical theater's foremost lyricists/composers. Originally conceived and directed on Broadway by James Lapine, this bio-play of sorts combines footage projected on a screen above the stage with six live singer/dancers onstage accompanied by a four-piece orchestra. The eponymous Stephen Sondheim, at various stages of his long life, dominates what unfolds onscreen as he comments on his life and work and wittily sets up songs we're about to hear. There are also clips of some of those stars, such as Ethel Merman, who have belted out Sondheim showstoppers in hits such as Gypsy, West Side Story, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sunday in the Park with George, etc.

Shaina Knox, Josh Wise, Stephanie Fredricks, Kevin McMahon, Jake Novak and Barbara Carlton Heart sing their hearts out and hoof their feet off with about 40 Sondheim songs. Many tunes will set your tootsies a-tapping with director D.J. Gray's choreography, while some, such as Heart's solo rendition of "Send in the Clowns" from A Little Night Music (which I remember seeing on Broadway with Glynis Johns and Hermione Gingold), may get your tears a-dropping.

The production also cleverly includes some of Sondheim's lesser known numbers, reviving some that were cut and which audiences at the International City Theatre may be hearing for the first time. An example of the latter is "Forget War," which director George Abbott ordered cut from Forum. In his revelation from on high onscreen, the composer/lyricist reveals how this literally set the stage for Sondheim's writing "Comedy Tonight" to replace it.

Sondheim's celluloid self offers many backstage show biz tidbits (such as about his frequent collaborator Hal Prince), and more important, insightful commentaries into his creative process, how he goes about composing and conjuring up those words to accompany the notes he has set down - usually on a pad of paper by hand. However, this artistic force - who has won 8 Tonys, 8 Grammys, a Pulitzer and Academy Award and is sometimes referred to as "God" - admits what he is unable to do: Write the entire book for a play. Sondheim also confesses that he had the mother from hell who tormented him, causing emotional pain that not only suffused his work but also harmed his ability to love until he was 60.

Sondheim discusses his mentorship by lyricist/playwright Oscar Hammerstein II, which bestowed upon him a creative life raft that enabled him to develop his talents and chart the course of a career arguably as prodigious as that of the co-creator of hits like South Pacific. In what Sondheim calls his most "autobiographical" number, the cast performs "Opening Doors" from Merrily We Roll Along, which, among other things, deals with breaking into show biz.

Of course, the heartache and lovesick quality of Sondheim's oeuvre, often full of loss and wistfulness, is every bit as autobiographical, expressing the pain caused by the divorce of 10-year-old Stephen's parents and his wretched mother's mental cruelty towards him. One could argue that Sondheim's music is a divine sublimation of the trauma his parents' parting and mother's abusiveness caused him: A fine madness that is the creator's loss but audiences' gain.

Another song I was unfamiliar with but quite enjoyed hearing was the droll "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" from Company, which was performed with panache by Heart and McMahon. "God", rendered by the company, is another amusing piece wherein Sondheim pokes fun at the notion that some deify him. This self-deprecating number is the only original song the then-80-year-old wrote for Sondheim on Sondheim in 2010. (But of course the notion that Sondheim is God is absolutely preposterous - everybody knows Eric Clapton is.)

Assassins is almost certainly Sondheim's most political play and it deals with those who conspired to assassinate U.S. presidents, from John Wilkes Booth to the anarchist Leon Czolgosz, who made McKinley pay for annexing Hawaii and turning the American Republic into an empire, to Lee Harvey to Squeaky Fromme, etc. This remarkable musical was part of a spate of works that came out during the George W. Bush presidency and were probably unconscious emanations of rage against the unelected pretender-to-the-throne who not only usurped the presidency but set this country on the disastrous course it's still on, with no end in sight for the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, et al.

(Fun fact of the review: Samuel Byck, who attempted to hijack an airliner and fly it into Nixon's White House, made tape recordings he sent to Sondheim collaborator Leonard Bernstein. And for the record, Mario Cantone's comic take on Byck in 2004's Assassins was far superior to Sean Penn's dramatic turn as the would-be Tricky Dick whacker in 2004's The Assassination of Richard Nixon.)

However, the show at the beautiful International City Theatre did hold some disappointments, although not with the quality of the performances and production, which generally shone. Rather, and this is probably in Lapine's original script and not due to I.C.T., there is only a single song from what is arguably the greatest musical Sondheim contributed to, West Side Story. The cast's rendition of "Something's Coming" was perfect, but I wanted to hear more from this legendary score. Perhaps the reason why no other immortal West Side Story songs were sung is due to the issue of rights (and payments for them). Or perhaps because while a very young Sondheim wrote the lyrics for West Side Story, another musician - Lenny something-or-other - composed the music.

Another disappointment is that the plays the various songs were performed in aren't identified. And boo-hoo, my favorite song from Sunday in the Park with George - "Art Isn't Easy" - was omitted from this bio-play. But these are mere quibbles: With about 40 numbers, you can't have them all. If you are a lover of musical thee-a-tuh, music, the inner workings of the creative process, show biz gossip, and/or Stephen Sondheim, get thee down to Long Beach for, to paraphrase the titular songwriter:

"Something aesthetic,

Something frenetic,

Something for everyone:

A musical tonight!"

Sondheim on Sondheim is being performed through Nov. 8 at the International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center. For more info: (562) 436-4610; www.InternationalCityTheatre.com.

Photo: Scene from Assassins. Suzanne Mapes

Yevgeniy Fiks: Artist honors Pittsburgh’s labor history

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 14:04:00 +0000

A new art installation by Russian artist Yevgeniy Fiks has opened at Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum honoring the history of labor and socialist political activity in Western Pennsylvania. This display presents photographs, news clippings, pamphlets, and books detailing the struggle of the working class in one of the 20th century's most industrialized regions. The New York City-based artist, born in Moscow in 1972, focuses on radical history and the intersection between communism and capitalism.

The Warhol Museum, located on the North Shore of Pittsburgh, prides itself as the global keeper of Andy Warhol's legacy. The museum opened in 1994 in a historic 1911 building which originally distributed products to mills and mines. The Fiks installation is right at home at this museum. Andy Warhol's family emigrated from Slovakia to the Pittsburgh suburbs, and his father worked in a local coal mine. Although Warhol went on to achieve artistic fame worldwide, his roots were firmly planted in working-class traditions.

The installation at first appears modest, but reveals a wealth of information. This is a hands-on exhibit. It is located within the Seventh Floor Galleries of the museum, which are dedicated to the early life of Andy Warhol. A single table is situated in the middle of the room surrounded by black and white photography of Warhol's family and friends. An example of this imagery is a youthful Warhol working at a local department store. Museum attendees and students of the early labor movements may take a seat at the table and delve into the documents. There are books on the history of steelworkers and their unions, file boxes filled with photos of organized strikes, and copies of newsletters from labor-friendly political parties at that time.

Visitors can spend hours researching early labor struggles in Pittsburgh. There are vintage booklets such as a 1934 publication by the American Workers' Party which proclaims they are moving "toward an American Revolutionary Labor Movement." Many handmade notices and posters are photocopied announcing local protest rallies against hunger and police brutality. May Day activities were very important in this era and there are announcements of upcoming May Day parades and the proclamation that "Pittsburgh is on the road to becoming a 100% union town."

The Communist Party is well represented here as it was in the forefront of workers' rights. It is interesting to note that many social struggles were being dealt with in unison with labor issues at the time. Reproductions of the Tin Mill News, published by the Communist Party unit in the McKeesport Tin Plate Company, call for steelworkers to hear the platform of presidential candidate Earl Browder and his running mate, African-American James W. Ford. The newsletter warns of Republicans aligned with reactionaries on Wall Street and declares that "liberty loving people cannot remain neutral when democracy is attacked." These statements could very well be made nowadays.

The artist, Yevgeniy Fiks, has designed an installation that helps illuminate how deeply Pittsburgh was involved in the labor movement. There are flyers here that advertise the Workers' Book Shop on Fifth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh and its reading and reference room, which was open to the public. Also represented here, through copies of 1930s handmade pamphlets, is the Pittsburgh Workers' School. An August 1, 1933, notice invites workers of all ethnicities to rally for unemployment insurance at a local park. The Arrow Bulletin of May 1936 advertises a planned demonstration for lower rents and better housing conditions and encourages "All out for May Day."

The McCarthy era is also dealt with, including books and papers focusing on the House Un-American Activities Committee and their attack on citizens' rights and freedoms. The collection includes the booklet Treason in Congress: The Record of the Un-American Activities Committee by Albert E. Kahn. The April 1948 intro by former Assistant United States Attorney General O. John Rogge on the opening page is blunt. In his words, "It would be difficult to overestimate the extent to which liberty and democracy in the United States are currently endangered by the operations of the H.C.U.A. activities. Scarcely a day passes without some new abridgment of freedom, some fresh violation of civil rights...resulting from the committee's activities."

Yevgeniy Fiks has exhibited his art worldwide from Moscow to New York City, and now Pittsburgh. His published books include Communist Guide to New York City, Lenin For Your Library? and Moscow.The artist appeared October 9th on opening night of the installation to discuss his new exhibit. The research assistant for this project is Hilary Culbertson. Yevgeniy Fiks: Andy Warhol and the Pittsburgh Labor Files runs through January 10, 2016, at the Andy Warhol Museum. For more information on the exhibit, see here.

For more on the Yevegniy Fiks, see here.

Photo: Warhol.org

"American Horror Story": Is it worth checking in to "Hotel"?

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 13:21:00 +0000

Like the first season, the fifth season of horror anthology series American Horror Story (AHS) takes us back to Los Angeles, into a dark, perverse hotel. And like each season that preceded it, it's an eclectic gourmet of gruesome eye candy, wrapped loosely around some kind of story - only this time, it's more the former than the latter, and whether viewers should invest in an extended stay here remains to be seen.

The hotel is beset with deadly traps and secret passages, à la H. H. Holmes, haunted by the undead, and ruled with a glittering, iron fist by this season's centerpiece, Lady Gaga, who replaces Jessica Lange from the first four outings. Gaga plays a vampiric, Elizabeth Bathory-esque character who is equal parts fashionista, serial killer, and master manipulator. It sounds good on paper, but Gaga - a musician, not an actress - feels like a poor replacement for Lange, and her performance leaves viewers unsure whether her deadpan stares and languid mannerisms are part of the act, or a sign of her lack of acting experience.

But there are other aspects to the show this year that make up for this. Firstly, I was incredibly disappointed with last year's season, subtitled Freak Show - to such an extent that I considered withdrawing my viewership of the series altogether. Part of what made it so bad was the plastic, forgettable plot, which was poorly written and all over the place, and the goofy, over-the-top, too-humorous tone. Hotel, at least, remedies much of this. It has a brooding, ghastly feel; something on par with the grimness of Season Two, and it plods along through what narrative there is with a determined, steady pace.

That narrative, however, remains spotty. It's a flaw that has detracted from this show since Season Three. And they try and fill in the gaps where there should be story with vapid scenes of gore and brutality. There's no sophistication or elegance in any of those moments, for several reasons. One is that we don't have someone like Lange to chew the scenery and lend to it a sense of style. Another is that there simply doesn't feel as though there are any stakes here; we're handed an assortment of awful characters (morally speaking) who do awful things to each other, and they don't draw empathy from the viewer, meaning that pain and death on this show neither matters nor creates any true sense of tension or urgency. That AHS has normalized and commodified death, to the point where it's yawn inducing to the audience, perhaps piques some interesting philosophical questions, but none with bearing on the show itself.

And yet, here's the strange thing: despite the anecdotal emptiness of those scenes, they're still one of the main reasons to keep watching, if you're a horror fan. They're more an exploration of brutality and experiment in what defines art, rather than anything that would contribute to the story at large. So for viewers this endless string of mayhem and violence is more akin to browsing the gore section of Tumblr than watching any cohesive, episodic tale. The showrunners are throwing everything at the wall, and we, like tourists with cameras in some twisted museum, are taking a step back and viewing it with the same excited uncertainty that we might assign to framed pieces of abstract art. And like such art, there's just as little to glean from what's going on throughout this show - at least on a surface level - but also plenty to take in, visually speaking.

This isn't to say that AHS is compelling and intriguing because it's somehow redefining the way a television series is made; rather, it's making itself so eccentric and perverse that people are gathering simply to see the spectacle. And yes, the spectacle this year is wilder than it's perhaps ever been, but it's also a fractured one. And without the glue of good writing to hold these pieces together, they will scatter to the wind before Hotel is over, causing a drop in quality - probably from the middle point of the season - and continuing to roll downhill from there. And that's something we've become accustomed to with AHS. It's a fault of the writers and an ever-present flaw in doing things for shock value.

Lady Gaga notwithstanding, this season has some really great returning actors (Kathy Bates, Evan Peters, Chloe Sevigny), but their stellar performances can't make up for what this series lacks. Until American Horror Story adds some brains to its blood, it will become as pallid and lifeless as its zombified characters. Hotel is crazy and bizarre enough to warrant weekly viewings for now, but this show is becoming the gold standard for 'flash in the pan.' At the end of the day, crazy, on its own, doesn't make for good TV.

Photo: American Horror Story Facebook page

The world as seen in films from Toronto

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:43:00 +0000

TORONTO - Three new films from Palestine premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this October. 3000 Nights is a brilliant metaphor for the people's resistance under the brutal ongoing Israeli Occupation. A young pregnant woman is arrested for no apparent reason, imprisoned without being charged, and locked up for 3000 days, forced to give birth behind bars. But the community of women prisoners organize and rebel against the inhuman prison system in a fiction film that is too close to the tragic realities facing Palestinians today.

Dégradé is the feature debut of twin brothers born in Gaza, Arab and Tarzan Nasser, and stars an audacious ensemble of women trapped in a beauty salon while guns are blazing right outside the door, a fiction film also not far from the reality of Gaza. (A full review will be forthcoming in coverage of the Chicago Film Festival).

And a third film that is also not far from the realities of Gaza is The Idol, the latest film from Oscar-nominated Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now, Omar). It's an uplifting and heartwarming true story about triumph over extreme adversity. All of Abu-Assad's films address the suffocating effects of the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian land, but this story approaches from another direction, bringing a sense of hope and victory and should appeal to a wider audience.

Sharing the joys of a Slumdog Millionaire and the popular appeal of TV's American Idol and its offspring around the world (the director admits to never having watched these type shows), The Idol reaches ecstatic heights.Mohammad Assaf, a 22-year-old wedding singer from Gaza, is played by two actors throughout the course of the film, and both are charming and believable. An unlikely candidate for the hugely popular Arab Idol TV show broadcast from Beirut with auditions in Egypt, Assaf realizes it's almost impossible to get out of Gaza, let alone to Egypt and Lebanon. Without a visa, with opposition from the fundamentalist government and police who consider contests like this decadent, and with barely any money, Assaf almost surrenders despite the urging of his friends and family. But through a string of circumstances, with help from his friends in getting inside help dodging the fundamentalists, luck at the border crossing and overcoming other seemingly insurmountable obstacles, he actually makes it to the auditions. Finding out that he has arrived too late for the auditions, he climbs the hotel roof in Cairo and is discovered, while singing in the bathroom, by another astounded applicant who gives him his place in line.

The real-life Assaf has a gifted voice. When he sings, all hearts are moved, sensing his voice embodying the struggle of his people. Assaf had actually been considered to play himself in the movie, but the selected actors couldn't have done better, capturing the honesty and humility of this natural singer. Assaf now has two new hit songs and tours worldwide as a UN Goodwill Ambassador while spreading the message of peace and understanding for Arabic culture.

Director Abu-Assad said his other political dramas left him frustrated and disheartened, but this one was a pleasure. Professional film crews ventured into Gaza for the first time in over 30 years. He reacted to what they saw: "You won't believe the amount of destruction there. I just can't believe that humanity's allowing these kinds of crimes."

This is a rare and joyous telling of the Palestinian reality, along with The Wanted 18, that needs to be seen by the world.

And now from Bangladesh...

The small country of Bangladesh, the poorest nation in Asia, is the location for a couple of interesting films shown at TIFF. Meghmallar is a drama that recreates the time leading up to the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation from Pakistan. It's a low-budget minimalist film, but with an assured sense of the history and people. It follows the story of a chemistry teacher who accidentally gets misidentified as a rebel fighter, while all the villagers are forced to make fateful decisions in the advancing struggle. This first feature from Zahidur Anjan promises a new voice in Asian cinema, telling a tale that is rarely heard or properly understood, addressing the meaning of nationalism and patriotism and its complex relation to love and family.

Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers is directed by two women, an American and Pakistani, and takes place mostly in Haiti, but it's all about several young inexperienced Bangladeshi policewomen who are hired by a UN agency to assist for a full year in the devastated regions of Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. The task is far beyond the capacity of these young untrained women, many of whom had never left their country, let alone their families, for a term as long as this. The film could be a lesson on how not to send aid to a needy country. Untrained in the necessary police functions, the history of the country and the language of the people, but simply driven by the desire to give assistance when needed(for a decent salary), these altruistic workers run into one obstacle after another. The UN has been suspected of bringing the cholera epidemic. They have overstayed their welcome as the people want them out. Violence and misunderstanding confront these Muslim women who seem like fish out of water. Their homesickness aside, they can't wait to return to the security of their homeland. They manage to get out alive, and their husbands and children are waiting anxiously at the airport upon their arrival, hoping they'll never choose an adventure like this again.

And from China...

The largest Asian nation, with one of the fastest growing economies in the world, China also has one of the world's largest and quickly expanding film industries. With TIFF presenting no fewer than seven new brilliant features, viewers had a chance to see many stunning aspects of this burgeoning culture. Many themes are addressed, like the trend of today's Chinese youth who are choosing the excitement and vitality of big city life over the traditional countryside (A Promised Land); the Tibetan spiritual quest (Paths of the Soul); the changing landscape of the gangster underbelly of Beijing (Mr. Six); the effects of the economic boom and materialism on family and traditional life (Mountains May Depart); a song and dance musical about corporate corruption and the burgeoning class of wealth (Office).

One of the most elaborate productions is an epic about Jackie Chan's parents than spans several epochs in Chinese history. A Tale of Three Cities is a stunning cinematic testament to the power of love overcoming social upheaval and tremendous hardships. From the war with Japan in the 1930s through WWII, the formation of Mao's Communist China, the Cultural Revolution and mainland versus Hong Kong, the film pulses with life and drama, utilizing the massive resources of film production and labor available in a country that does everything big.

But there is also one small film from China that stands out from the rest in its simplicity and effect. The concept of "patriotism" is challenged in a probing study of a young high school advocate of Mao's Communist China. One of the more progressive themed films from the giant Asian country, it covers five years in the life of a young man who is consumed and amazed by the accomplishments of his country's hero, Chairman Mao Tse Tung. A Young Patriot opens with scenes of paintings and statues of Mao that are prevalent all around China, and then follows Zhao Chantong as he eagerly waves a large red flag leading a small parade down the streets of his village.

It's hard to tell how people are reacting to this young man's zeal, if they support his idealism or consider him eccentric. But his beliefs are sincere, and his innocent charm is appealing. He has support and comfort from his family and friends, but apparently is failing in his high school studies. He is forced to work the summer as a hotel valet in order to retake some classes and finally graduate to a community college. Zhao is zealous in his drive to spread the word of Mao in a country that is quickly forgetting its history. He sees patriotism as a virtue, and it becomes his own personal pursuit. His dedication to family is shown in his futile attempts to save his grandfather's house from demolition, by standing on the roof as the machines tear into the walls.

He sings patriotic songs of the Mao era with his whole heart, containing lyrics such as: "Beijing's Golden Mountain shines with brilliance, Chairman Mao is that golden sun. Its warmth and kindness light up this heart of a slave."

Zhao's military service is complicated, as he discovers few have the same dedication as he has for Mao's teachings. And the changing economic landscape of a fast growing country is producing systemic greed and corruption that are hard for him to accept. The film ends with him walking through a tunnel coming out into the light, walking past a giant advertisement sign that reads, "Agricultural Credit Union would like to be the bridge...for thousands of families towards enrichment." And while the credits roll, there's a scene of a large white statue with its head covered in red material, most likely meeting a fate similar to Lenin's statues in the former Soviet Union.

Photo: "Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers" | Official Facebook page

"The Exit Interview (An Existential Comedy)” in L.A.

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:38:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Before the zany "The Exit Interview (An Existential Comedy)"gets underway per se its cast goes through the somewhat sidesplitting motions of delivering a series of announcements and disclaimers dressed and acting mostly like cheerleaders. Among them is the notification (or is it a warning?) that: "This play contains Brechtian alienation devices." Despite the Buzzworks Theater Company's best efforts to convince me otherwise, Bertolt Brecht is my favorite 20th-century playwright. So how could I not enjoy a show that explored - and/or mocked - the German dramatist and his Epic Theatre theories and techniques?

Brecht's "Mother Courage"may dramatize the senseless carnage and mass murder of the Thirty Years' War, but wordsmith William Missouri Downs' plot - such as it is - tackles a topic that one suspects would give even the cynical Brecht pause: School shootings - and in a comedy, no less. (Hey, America may be falling behind the rest of the world in universal healthcare and education, income inequality and other vital indicators that trip off of Bernie Sanders' socialist tongue, but when it comes to gun violence, by golly,we're still Number One! USA! USA!)

A masked gunman is shooting up the college campus where - after he has been let go from his job - Brecht scholar Dick Fig (Davey Johnson plays the academic Everyman who is being sent to Davey Jones' locker and keeps insisting he be called "Richard") is undergoing the eponymous "exit interview." (The title may also be a sly reference to Jean-Paul Sartre and his "No Exit" play expressing existentialist philosophy.) These Q&As are the final parting gifts imparted to employees in, supposedly, an attempt to assess their time on the job before they (are allowed to) move on.

The wacky Eunice (Catie LeOrisa, whose English accent, it seems, actually makes sense because she is from Britain) administers the interview in a way that is totally skewed, blued and tattooed, intended to elicit specific responses. Eunice (sounds like eunuch) is a religious fanatic and it seems this character suggests Ashley Smith, the Atlanta woman held prisoner by a gun-toting desperado who supposedly won her freedom by reading Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren's "The Purpose-Driven Life"to her captor in 2005. Eunice, too, is "illumined" by a theological self-help book and her fate is, shall we say, rather Brechtian.

So this is "Exit"'sbarebones plot, but along the way this two-acter with eight actors features numerous non-sequiturs and madcap antics, lots of philosophical ruminations, and includes one cast member costumed, for some reason, like a rodent. It doesn't all necessarily make sense, but then again, neither does life - although much of it is good fun. In particular the Buzzworkers seem to poke fun at Brecht's notion of "Verfremdungseffekt" - the aforementioned estrangement or alienation effect.

The cast explains (although I'm not really sure that is the right word) in its inimitable way that Brecht was striving to distance audiences from assessing characters and plots solely on an emotional basis and to use logic and reason when evaluating a play. In Brecht and Kurt Weill's 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny the protagonist Jimmy Mahoney goes broke and is tried - and executed! - at a U.S. boomtown for the high crime and misdemeanor of having no money in capitalist society. In the same vein, I guess Brecht "deserves" the death penalty for trying to get theatergoers to commit the heinous thought crime of thinking.... So shoot him!

In another of "Exit"'sreferences to Brecht, renditions of Brecht and Weill's most famous song, "The Threepenny Opera"'s"Mack the Knife," are sung (with rather un-Brechtian lyrics, I might add).

The performers' sheer exuberance is infectious because members of the Buzzworks Theater Company seem to be having so much fun romping about on the stage and getting their ya yas out. I picked up on this fun-filled vibe when I arrived early at the Lounge Theatre and observed the actors getting ready in their dressing room: The cast that disrobes together stays together. (No, I do not belong to the NSA - said dressing room door was open.)

As Actor #3 Rich Hutchman was number one and epitomized this sensibility: He was enjoying himself so much onstage, incarnating a variety of wacky personas (including one that had him stripped down to a thong and another as a cockamamie clergyman) that his joy at the art of acting (and perhaps, dare we say, Mr. Hutchman, in showing off) was positively catchy. Hutchman, who has appeared in some top TV shows such as "Mad Men" and "Monk," reminded me of Oliver Platt, an actor who positively revels in his profession. (Platt explicitly confesses loving acting in interviews, and this joy usually comes through in his screen performances.) To be sure, all the other Buzzworkers express this same enjoyment, but Hutchman was the first among equals, and watching them all joke about my hero Brecht, et al, made me a bit giddy. It was charming to see artistes who so delight in their art - rather than suffer for it.

I can't cite each of the eight actors individually, but I'd be remiss if I did not also single out Wayne Wilderson for his wildly droll depiction of a smarmy "reporter" for FOX "News," that network which airs the High Renaissance of aggressive imbecility. Ticket buyers are likely to recognize Wilderson from his many TV appearances on programs such as "How to Get Away with Murder"- as well as recognize the airhead "newsmen" he lampoons with a humorous harpoon.

Yuri Okahana's two-level set in a confined space is put to effective use by director Sirena Irwin, who allows her able cast to sing that Brechtian siren song: For, when all is said and done, is "The Exit Interview" really what Brecht called a "Lehrstück" - a learning play?

Who knew school shootings could be so much gosh darn fun? If you want to get your Brecht on, and have a rip-roaring time, head on down to Hollywood's Theatre Row for a good laugh - and an idea or two - as the Buzzworkers go for Brecht.

Buzzworks Theater Company presents "The Exit Interview (An Existential Comedy)" Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm through Nov. 15 at the Lounge Theatre 1, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90038. For more info and reservations: (323) 960-7712; https://www.plays411.net/newsite/show/play_info.asp?show_id=4362

Photo: Gina Torrecilla (left), Wayne Wilderson, Rich Hutchman, Jocelyn O'Keefe.

“All My Sons”: Arthur Miller’s scathing critique of capitalism

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 14:43:00 +0000

PASADENA, Calif. - A Noise Within's production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons"is simply the best drama I've seen performed live onstage for I don't know how long. It excels in every way possible, reinforced with naturalistic details epitomizing the power of realism. Right down to props master Erin Walley's leaves strewn across the Kellers' lawn, Leah Piehl's spot-on period costumes and Frederica Nascimento's superb set, director Geoff Elliott's "Sons" flawlessly conjures up the fictional world Miller imagined, brought vividly alive by a gifted cast that doesn't miss a beat.

Along with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Miller's brilliant script, all of these expressive elements combine to draw the viewer in, beyond the fourth wall, to experience the characters' collision course as they collide with the vicious vicissitudes of capitalism. It seemed that the dramatis personae were all too real, believable flesh-and-blood human beings, trapped by and grappling with the cold cruel calculus of the American Way of doing business and making war.

It is Miller's genius to get into the heads of his protagonists and antagonists as insightfully and truthfully as, say, the Greek playwrights or the Bard himself. Miller depicts humans with all their intricate contradictions and how people can have love/hate relationships with those they are close to. There is much about family, and in particular the father-son relationship here. However, Miller transcends the individual by linking personal dramas up with the big picture, revealing how the capitalist system affects his characters and their choices - or lack of. The playwright, whose centennial it is this year, unites the macro and the micro. His dramas are like Eugene O'Neill or Tennessee Williams squared, as he dramatizes and gives form to a philosophical concept of man (and woman!).

If you are a fan of drama you just owe it to yourself to see this play. The premise of Miller's post-World War II tragedy is war profiteering, and how the unquenchable bloodthirsty quest for profit ensnares, infects and ruins the guilty and innocent alike with blood money. Miller demonstrates how the military industrial complex causes people to have psychological complexes.

Director Geoff Elliott pulls double duty, also playing the lead character, stogie smoking Joe Keller, a small-time, small-town manufacturer who hits the big time when his plant joins the war effort. Elliott alternates between subtlety and sputtering bombast with a performance that will knock your socks off (even if you're barefoot). Miller cleverly introduces Joe as a man pretending to be a policeman to children - but who turns out to be anything but a man upholding justice. Right from the bat, Miller pegs this man who profits off of combat as a poseur.

As his wife Kate Keller, Deborah Strang struggles with illusions of existence and death as she strives to confront life's ultimate, unthinkable horrors. The skillful Strang's Kate is inconsolable, fragile, unreasonable and, when one of the boys who grew up with her sons returns home, is seductive with George Deever (Aaron Blakely). He, in turn, is torn in pieces by divided loyalties and beside himself with oedipal rage as his sister Ann Deever (Maegan McConnell) plans to marry Chris Keller (Rafael Goldstein).

Chris is a WWII veteran desperate to, in the immortal words of Spike Lee, do the right thing, while his intended, sweet (if scheming) Ann (who has something up her sensual sleeve), just wants to move on with her life so disrupted by war. But in the face of the implacable capitalist system, where money in America doesn't just talk, it screams (and screams bloody murder, at that), well-wishing just isn't enough to lead a happy, ethical life.

The nontraditional multi-culti casting of roles, with nonwhites wed to and romancing whites, plus multi-racial siblings, would almost certainly be unusual in postwar USA. But it goes uncommented upon in this production and after the initial surprise of recognition goes unnoticed and works well. Good on A Noise Within for expanding the roles open for nonwhites to play in the dramatic canon - which also helps expand the audience beyond Caucasian-only theatergoers, as ticket buyers often like to see cast members who look like them up on the stage.

Miller's choice of names for his characters seems portentous - Chris and Joe are suggestive of Christ and his human father Joseph. And the last name "Keller" is redolent of Helen Keller, implying that Miller's Kellers are deafand/or blind, maimed by war and profiteering. No wonder Miller was subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee about a decade after "Sons"premiered. (Fortunately, Marilyn Monroe spared her then-husband the worst slings and arrows of the blacklist.Incidentally, Joyce Carol Oates' sprawling bio-novel about Marilyn, "Blonde," has a compelling depiction of their marriage.)

One notable thing about actor/director Elliott is that when in character, he resembles Arthur Miller when I met him backstage at Carnegie Hall in the 1980s. (After bumping into the American Shakespeare I blurted out: "God bless you, Mr. Miller!" He smiled and we had a lovely conversation about nuclear-free Palau, where I was then living.)

Recently, International City Theatre presented a play titled "Abigail 1702"by another dramatist that was intended to be a sort of sequel to Miller's 1953 "The Crucible," his parable about the Hollywood Blacklist/ McCarthy era. After "Sons"' shattering denouement and the proverbial curtain came down, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the characters next? Could they pick up the pieces and lead happy, full lives? I guess that's a sign of a great playwright - he/she leaves you wanting more.

"All My Sons"opened in 1947 (a 1948 film version starred Edward G. Robinson as Joe and Burt Lancaster as Chris). What is widely regarded as Miller's masterpiece, "Death of a Salesman," premiered in 1949, and the two plays are of a pair. But for what it's worth, attention must be paid to "Sons,"which for this critic's money is actually the better drama. For while "Salesman"deals with capitalism, "Sons"is about both capitalism and war. Let's hope that all of today's war criminals who profiteer off of America's endless combat end up like Joe Keller.

If you love great acting, writing and drama, don't miss this bravura version of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons." Happy 100th birthday, Mr. Miller. Author! Author! Bravo!

A Noise Within's production of "All My Sons"plays through Nov. 21 in repertory with Jean Anouilh's "Antigone"and Georges Feydeau's "A Flea in Her Ear" at A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107. For exact times, dates and more info: (636)356-3100, ext. 1; www.anoisewithin.org.

Photo: Craig Schwartz. | A Noise Within

Latin America at the Toronto International Film Festival

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 10:29:00 +0000

TORONTO - It's been quite awhile since the Toronto International Film Festival has shown films from Cuba. But it's not lacking in films from Latin America, including some gems from Argentina, Chile, and Mexico.

Popular Mexican actor and film producer, Gael García Bernal seems to be everywhere. He appeared in two starkly different films shown at TIFF. Desierto plays like an old classic Western, but the story is contemporary and deadly. A fanatic racist vigilante with his attack dog and pickup truck gleefully tracks down and shoots immigrants illegally crossing the Mexican border in this suspenseful action thriller. Bernal plays the guide who unknowingly leads a large group of people into the crosshairs of this fanatic. The nail-biter has a deep stroke of humanism as the desperate hikers painfully meet their tragic ends. This is the second film by Jonás Cuarón (Year of the Nail), who also co-wrote last year's Oscar winner, Gravity, with his famous father director Alfonso Cuarón, and who also wrote and co-produced the short film on Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine. This short film is available on YouTube.

Bernal also appeared at TIFF in a curiously poetic experimental film about the beloved former First Lady of Argentina, Eva Perón. Eva Doesn't Sleep is the strange story of what happened to her body after her death in 1952. Because her husband, Juan Perón, was forced from office, the body never got a proper burial and was removed from the country for years, until his return in 1974. The cryptic film is structured in three parts that chart Argentina's history after her death. The monotone acting and directing styles create a hallucinatory atmosphere, where no actor stands out from another, including Bernal. It's more of a filmic experiment than a presentation of the facts of Argentine history, but still unique and memorable.

The prolific Bernal has also found time to produce a couple of other socially relevant films during this time period -El aula vacía,a doc about the dramatic rise of high school dropouts in Mexico, now rising to almost 50%, and The Chosen Ones, a drama about an organization that kidnaps girls, enslaving them to a life of prostitution. He's also acting in famed German director Werner Herzog's new film Salt and Fire, in addition to Chilean director Pablo Larraín's new film on Pablo Neruda, covering the time in the great Communist poet's life when he was exiled from his beloved country in the late 1940s.

Prolific director Larraín (No, Post Mortem, Tony Manero) was born in 1976, missing the epoch of Allende and the brutal Pinochet coup. But his growing body of films reference the tragic history of his country, including his newest provocative tale, The Club, which addresses child molestation by Catholic priests, a similar theme portrayed in another TIFF release, Spotlight.

Chile is also the focus of an astounding German production, Colonia, that at first would seem to be a concocted tale of a fanatic German Nazi-type cult leader who runs a secret private community in a remote area of the country where the government sends prisoners to be tortured and eliminated. The story tells of a young German couple who come to help Allende's campaign, but when the CIA-backed coup takes place, Daniel (Daniel Brühl) is one of those rounded up and sent to this remote torture chamber. His fiancée Lena (Emma Watson) finds out where he's been taken and attempts to join the cult to get him freed, but gets in deeper than she expected. The physical and sexual abuse of the cult members, the maniacal German cult leader and the torture that takes place in the bowels of the "Dignity Colony" seem too extreme for even a horror film. But the real shock is, that the film is based on real people, places and events. The crimes of Chile during the Pinochet regime are beyond believability.

No filmmaker is more dedicated to revealing the truths about Chile's mournful history than the tragically affected exiled director Patricio Guzmán, now living in Canada. Every film he has made, starting with the classic epic Battle of Chile, deals with the country he was forced to leave in his vibrant youth, and his latest is yet another pensive love letter to his homeland. His films have become more reflective and philosophical;The Pearl Button, like his previous Nostalgia for the Light, tells an emotional story at a thoughtful, calculated pace. It won the Best Screenplay Award at this year's Berlin Film Festival, rightfully so, considering the beautiful poetic musings that are becoming the trademark of this committed director.

He reflects on the comparison between nature and politics and history, the primal connection between mankind and water. He ruminates on the early history of the Patagonian Indigenous people, and the first English sailors who came to conquer the "primitive natives" to make them slaves. Guzmán meditates on the relation of water to the history of the region, stating, "We are all streams from one water." He remembers a childhood friend who drowned and became the first "disappeared person" in his life.

Lamenting that he's never seen his long, narrow country in one long piece, Guzmán constructs a paper replica rolled out on the floor used as a reference map for the rest of the film. Referring to the long coastline, he points out that "everything is water but Chileans don't use the sea." It was lost in the colonial extermination of Native culture. In metaphors and images he implies that Native people's thoughts that were removed from the history of the land, departed and were turned into stars, creating a heaven of lights that represent the nostalgia for family, captured in its intensity through telescopes.

He presents a long exposition of Native history offering comparison to the present-day military coup. Settlers ruthlessly wiped out the Natives, and stole their language, culture and land. The complete elimination of Southern Natives and their cultures was followed by 150 years of rule by the white man. He tells the tale of explorer Jeremy Button who was kidnapped to England, later returning as a hero, as he weaves the theme of the "button" through the story.

Years laterAllende began to give back the Natives' land. But the U.S.-inspired coup sponsored torture and killing, and sent many prisoners to the Dawson prison camp, where many met their death. From there, between 1200-1400 government opponents were dropped alive from airplanes into the ocean. These victims were tied to iron rails, wired and wrapped in burlap bags before they were dropped into the water. These bodies were never returned to the family for a proper burial and to many this was an impurity, like dying twice.

But Guzmán implies that just finding the guilty is not the end of the road. In 2004 sea divers found rusting rails and two small pearl buttons in the deep graveyard. One was traced to the early natives, and the other to a victim of the present-day massacre.

Director Guzmán said he relates to the kidnapped Jeremy Button. "They took away his land, his life. When he returned he never retrieved his identity. He became exiled in his own land. Both buttons tell the same story, the story of extermination. They say water has memory. I say it also has a voice." The poignant and deeply affecting film opens in New York on Oct. 23.

Photo: "Desierto." | TIFF website

Today in history: Chilean communist poet Pablo Neruda wins Nobel Prize

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 14:14:00 +0000

On this date in 1971, world-famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda(penname of Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto) won the Nobel Prize for Literature"for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams."

Neruda (1904-1973) was born in the Chilean town of Parral. He spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he knew the poet Gabriela Mistral, head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking to him. He started publishing at the age of thirteen. In 1920, he beganwriting under the name of Pablo Neruda, which he adopted in memory of the Czech poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). His first published book was Crepusculario (At Twilight, 1923), followed the next year by Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada(Twenty Poems of Love and a Desperate Song), one of his best-known and most translated works.

Between 1927 and 1935, the government put him in charge of a number of honorary consulships, which took him to Burma, Sri Lanka, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. His poetic production during that difficult period included, among other works, the collection of surrealistic poems Residencia en la tierra (Residence on Earth, 1933), which marked his literary breakthrough.

The Spanish Civil War and the murder of Federico García Lorca, whom Neruda knew, affected him strongly and made him join the Republican movement, first in Spain, and later in France, where he started working on his collection of poems España en el corazón (Spain in Our Hearts, 1937). This volume had a great impact by virtue of its being printed at the front during the Civil War. The same year he returned to Chile, to which he had been recalled. His poetry during the following period showed an orientation toward political and social matters.

In 1939, Neruda was appointed consul for Spanish emigration, residing in Paris, and, shortly afterwards, consul general in Mexico, where he rewrote his Canto general de Chile, transforming it into an epic poem about the whole South American continent, its nature, its people and its historical destiny. This work, entitled Canto general, was published in Mexico in 1950, and also underground in Chile. It consists of approximately 250 poems brought together into fifteen literary cycles and constitutes the central part of Neruda's production. Shortly after its publication, Canto general was translated into some ten languages.

Returning to Chile, in 1945 Neruda was elected senator of the Republic, also joining the Communist Party. Due to his protests against President González Videla's repressive policy against striking miners in 1947, he had to live underground for two years until he managed to leave in 1949. After living in different European countries he returned home in 1952.

Neruda's 1952 stay in a villa on the island of Capri was fictionalized in Antonio Skármeta's 1985 novel Ardiente paciencia (Ardent Patience, later known as El cartero de Neruda, or Neruda's Postman), which inspired the popular 1994 film Il Postino (The Postman) and an opera by Daniel Catán which starred Plácido Domingo as Neruda.

In the 1950s he published Las uvas y el viento (Grapes and the Wind, 1954), regarded as a diary of exile. In Odas elementales (Elemental Odes, 1954- 1959) the subjects of his poems - things, events and relations - are duly presented in alphabetic form.

Neruda's extensive production has been gathered into numerous volumes of collected works.Saluting the anti-fascist victory at Stalingrad he wrote "Canto a Stalingrado" and "Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado") and later poetry honoring his political heroes. Aside from the Nobel, he also received the International Peace Prize in 1950, the Lenin Peace Prize and the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953.

Neruda died of cancer only days following the coup that overthrew his compañero, socialist President Salvador Allende of Chile, although the circumstances of his death have been debated.

They Receive Instructions Against Chile

But we have to see behind all these, there is something
behind the traitors and the gnawing rats,
an empire which sets the table,
and serves up the nourishment and the bullets.
They want to repeat their great success in Greece.
Greek playboys at the banquet, and bullets
for the people in the mountains: we'll have to destroy the flight

of the new Victory of Samothrace, we'll have to hang,
kill, lose men, sink the murderous knife
held to us from New York, we'll have to use fire
to break the spirit of the man who was emerging
in all countries as if born
from the earth that had been splashed with blood.
We have to arm Chiang and the vicious Videla,
give them money for prisons, wings
so they can bomb their own populations, give them
a hand-out, a few dollars, and they do the rest,
they lie, bribe, dance on the dead bodies
and their first ladies wear the most expensive minks.
The suffering of the people does not matter: copper
executives need this sacrifice: facts are facts:
the generals retire from the army and serve
as vice-presidents of the Chuquicamata Copper Firm,
and in the nitrate works the "Chilean" general
decides with his trailing sword how much the natives
may mention when they apply for a raise in wages.
In this way they decide from above, from the roll of dollars,
in this way the dwarf traitor receives his instructions,
and the generals act as the police force,
and the trunk of the tree of the country rots.

Adapted from Nobel Lectures, Literature 1968-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993; biography.com; and Wikipedia. "They Receive Instructions Against Chile" appears in "The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse," ed. Alan Bold, 1970.

Panopticon's "Autumn Eternal" is fall-themed metal at its finest

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 12:40:00 +0000

If you were having trouble wringing every last bit of red, orange, and gold out of the crisp fall season, this album has more of it to offer. Autumn Eternal is the newest release by Panopticon - a one-man project by Austin Lunn, who threads the music with strands of black metal, folk, and bluegrass. After releasing numerous pro-union, pro-environment albums, this release takes things back to basics, reuniting the listener with the nature that served as Lunn's inspiration.

Autumn Eternal is the followup to Panopticon's 2014 release, Roads to the North, a wintry meditation on the Scandinavian landscape, and 2012's Kentucky, which dealt with coal miners' fight to unionize in the 1930s, the dangers of mountaintop removal, and the desecration of ecosystems from fossil fuels. This time around, Lunn seeks to reunite the listener with the natural world; indeed, it can be seen as a clarion call for the Facebook and smartphone generation to wake up and smell the changing of seasons, and observe the autumn in all its glory. It's an important music release at a time when many bands, even amongst the metal scene, have become too invested in technology, and too far removed from the environment that surrounds them.

I've always felt that Panopticon hit its peak with Kentucky; certainly, I didn't expect another of their releases to define their music as profoundly as that album did. Autumn Eternal changed my mind. A cut above Roads to the North (though perhaps I just prefer the autumnal imagery over the snowscapes of Roads), every track on this release was as good as, or better than, the one that preceded it. Indeed, I could not find a single song on the entire album that I felt did not measure up in quality. This was not only an excellent Panopticon album, but one of the best metal releases I've heard in years, and perhaps the single musical release that will serve as the gateway into the bluegrass and folk genres for some more musically conservative metal fans.

That being said, this is probably the most guitar-driven Panopticon album I've heard in years, to the exclusion of much of the more experimental instrumentation we might have come to expect from Lunn. Where previously, elements like the banjo and Irish tin whistle were prominently featured, here they wander about the periphery, coming into the songs where needed but used sparingly enough to make the guitar (more electric than acoustic this time around) the focal point of the affair.

Still, this time we get violin and cello added to the melting pot, and the recipe continues to be a successful one. That's easily noticeable on tracks like the nearly nine-minute-long "Sleep to the Sound of the Waves Crashing," and on "Tamarack's Gold Returns," which has now become my favorite instrumental track of all time by this artist. That violin is contributed by Johan Becker of prog metal band Austaras, one of several guest musicians on this record, whose instrument matches Lunn's use of the dobro (a particular type of guitar), creating a captivating tune.

One critique of mine: in contrast with its two predecessors, the vocals on Autumn Eternal feel like they are rather low in the mix. And I understand that, to some degree, Lunn has always tried to have the sound match the aesthetics of each album (i.e. on the winter-themed Roads, we got a sort of clear, crystalline sound). And yet, the vocal mix here doesn't necessarily embody this record's motif, even though all of the instrumental parts absolutely do. "Oaks Ablaze" and "Into the North Woods," both outstanding tracks, could have done with a less buried quality, sonically speaking. But it still works, and if anything, it does admittedly forge more of a traditional black metal sound than previous outings. Sometimes convention can be refreshing.

Moving beyond the music, the ideology behind it is readily apparent; Lunn wants to awaken people once more to the world that they ignore and dismiss. In his own words, this release was meant to "focus on the deep wealth of beauty in the natural world." He added that he intends to use Panopticon to "sing the praise of what makes this life worth living." And part of that, he seems to feel, is getting out and exploring; leaving behind the safety of tech-driven consumerism and seeing new places. Discussing his own surroundings and environment, Lunn said, "I actually go to these places, see it, feel the soil under my feet, learn about it, rather than sitting on my ass all day playing video games. I just don't have much interest in that. Let's take life for all it is worth, rather than sitting behind a glowing computer screen."

Panopticon can't help but evoke Lunn's feelings on these issues, and that really comes through on Autumn Eternal, proving that it's more than a simple celebration of the windy season. Like the changing foliage that serves as a hallmark of autumn, so too does this album ask people to change; to reconnect with the earth and, perhaps, to put some color back in their lives, as well.

Panopticon's "Autumn Eternal" is available for digital purchase via the artist's Bandcamp page; the physical CD release is available for pre-order via Bindrune Recordings.

Photo: Autumn Eternal. | Panopticon Facebook page

Illusion and immersion: Humanity's grand struggle in new documentaries

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 17:57:00 +0000

TORONTO -- The grand illusion is that documentaries are more honest and truthful than fiction or narrative films. But just take for example Michael Moore's films that some have always challenged for their accuracy and fairness. While defending a certain point of view, films can alter, transform and manipulate truth -- just in the editing process alone. Like all media -- radio, TV and print -- editors (directors) make decisions on what to add and what to leave out. What's added may be truthful, but what's left out is still part of the truth.

If you watched the impressive and well-funded Evgeny Afineevsky documentary that premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival about the recent battles in Ukraine, Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight For Freedom, you would get the impression that the heroic democratic-minded people in Kiev rose up to drive out a repressive dictatorial regime. What's totally left out, of course, is any mention of the presence of large neo-fascist gangs of thugs, anti-communist Nazi-style fighters, who, far from democratic-minded, played a large role in ousting the legitimately elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The opposition forces represented extremely different political ideologies, although they shared the one purpose of undemocratically ousting the government leader who dared to ally with Russia rather than the European Union.

The United States always says it favors legal and democratic elections to make changes, not violence and war. But time and time again, we've seen the hypocrisy of "regime change"-minded militarists who supply money and weapons, and sometimes soldiers, to create instability, suffering and chaos to expand influence, power and profits. Mortar shells and military equipment found on the battlefield commonly bear the imprint of the United States. In almost every battle on Earth, America, the world's largest seller of weapons (more than the rest of the world combined) sells weapons to one side or the other - and sometimes both!

What's going on in the Middle East and Ukraine are complex issues, with the U.S. exploiting the legitimate forces of opposition to its own advantage. Creating chaos and replacing an unfriendly ruler with one who will do our bidding is the main objective. Didactic films like Winter on Fire are not telling the whole truth - who's really fighting, and what's at stake.

Another misunderstood and tragic event, the murder of 20 people in France centering around the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, is analyzed in a penetrating and well-made documentary entitled Je Suis Charlie. Interviews with staff members who witnessed the carnage are difficult to endure, as the pain continues. The film presents the extreme views shared by many writers of the often offensive comedy journal, who feel there is no limit to what can be written and drawn. Insensitivity toward and disrespect of the Muslim world resulted in the deaths of highly talented artists who apparently never expected this response. The extreme reaction of the Muslim killers, and the conscious intent here is to avoid the word "terrorist," is inexcusable, but not totally surprising. Human beings can be provoked, insulted and pushed to their limits with words and pictures -- thinking here of young students bullied in school, wives tormented by sadistic spouses, and the mentally ill denied treatment. This film fails to tell the whole story, why Muslims find Charlie Hebdo's insults, drawings and actions unacceptable, and how a more humane understanding between us can be developed.

A Flickering Truth, a strange film from Afghanistan, was presented at TIFF, dealing with the preservation of the cinema in a land devastated by war and upheaval. In an abandoned warehouse in Kabul, stacks and stacks of decaying film cans house a cinematic history that is almost totally unknown to the rest of the world. As the Taliban considers film a decadent Western art form, it's not an easy task for the director of Afghan Film, Ibrahim Arify, to preserve and restore a treasure chest with limited resources. With the help of the elderly Uncle Isaaq Yousif, who has lived in the building for over 30 years, the task of bringing back to life images from a long and turbulent history, is rewarding and often shocking. The world has never seen footage of the gruesome killing of President Najibullah, the pro-Soviet leader who tried to pull the country out of backwardness in the 1980s. The visit of President Kennedy to Afghanistan was also documented, along with many other historic events. But also, popular films are slowly uncovered and restored, bringing back the joys of a bygone forgotten age in a land with a precarious future. New Zealand Director Pietra Brettkelly deserves praise for her fearless dedication in documenting this important story on film history.

An important doc, Nasser, comes at a critical time in Middle East history, as it offers a thorough study of the life of President Abdul Nasser [the second President of Egypt, serving from 1956 until his death in 1970.] -- part of a planned "Modern Pharoahs" trilogy, eventually covering Presidents Sadat and Mubarak. Nasser's political life ranged from a leader in the 1952 overthrow of the monarchy, the 1954 nationalizing of the Suez Canal and formation of pan-Arabism, co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the military leader of the losing side in Israel's 1967 Six-Day War. What marks this film as above the ordinary is the fast-paced editing of stunning interviews with important historical figures from all sides of the issues - U.S. and Soviet diplomats, Muslim Brotherhood opponents, and Egyptian men and women who have dramatic stories to tell about one of the most complex and charismatic leaders in Egyptian history. Nasser is skillfully directed and narrated by Jihan El-Tahri, an Egyptian now living in South Africa, but with a strong heart for her homeland.

Another penetrating study from a country known for its exceptional documentary filmmaking, The Ninth Floor tells the story of an important chapter in Canadian race relations. You might not think there'd be issues like that in such a "white" country. But of course many immigrants and students come to the land of opportunity. Not having the formidable slavery issue to deal with, Canadians can still exert certain degrees of intolerance. And that was the case in Montreal in 1969 at Sir George Williams University. Director Mina Shum admits Canadians are racist, "but they feel the need to apologize for it." It started when biology professor Perry Anderson appeared to unfairly grade the black Caribbean students lower than the rest, and soon developed into a series of events that convinced these students they were being treated as "the other," and that they couldn't't go anywhere without being watched. Bukka Renne (Trinidad), Anne Cools (Barbados), Rodney John and Allen Brown were some of those involved in "The Case of the Black Students." The film clearly outlines the differences between individual and institutional racism, and presents the positions of those who eventually took over the ninth floor computer room. The 14-day standoff resulted in a fire that caused extensive damage resulting in court trials and prison terms. Some were expelled from the country, and the entire sad chapter in Canadian race relations was erased from most people's memories, until this film was made. The power of cinema!

The power of film as a recorder of history shouldn't't be discussed without mentioning two classic documentarists, Marcel Ophüls and Frederick Wiseman. TIFF has a section called Cinematheque, where gems from film history are brought back for repeat adulation. This year they re-played The Memory of Justice by Ophüls. Made in 1976, not distant from WWII and just after the Vietnam War ended, we find a curious juxtaposition of two wars examined for their brutality and tragedy. The first half of this 4½-hour film focuses on the Nuremberg Trial. In his signature direct cinema style, Ophüls allows the camera to examine the happenings, the actions and words of those charged with some of history's most heinous crimes. No narration, voiceover or title cards - the film is all yours to interpret. And the second half does the same for America's war in Vietnam - a mesmerizing, not long enough, penetrating study of chapters in history that should never be forgotten.

Frederick Wiseman, also a major practitioner of direct cinema (known also as cinema verité) is known for his examination of American institutions. Titicut Follies created a major stir in 1967 when he exposed abuse in a mental hospital, and his reputation hasn't faltered since. In Jackson Heights focuses on the indefatigable Brooklyn community, teeming with activity, as people from all places on Earth, every gender, age, ethnicity and race, meet to figure out how best we can all live together. The over three-hour documentary pulls the viewer into the lives of people at all levels of the social strata - workers, immigrants, politicians, gay activists - all dealing with pressures brought on by a society increasingly run by greedy corporations and the rich, demanding ever more sacrifices from those who actually create the wealth in our nation. Before you realize it, you're not watching a film, but participating in the grand struggle of humanity. It takes a skilled filmmaker to pull it off. It's not at all a bad suggestion to go back and watch Wiseman's and Ophüls' contributions to the documentary art.

Photo: Still from Nasser. TIFF.

"Trumbo": We're still persecuting the innocent

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 16:50:00 +0000

TORONTO - Director Jay Roach, known for lighter fare like the Austin Powers series and Meet The Fockers, has taken on a heady subject, no less than the most famous communist in Hollywood history - Dalton Trumbo. But it's apparently now popular (and safe, since we have newer enemies) to praise one of America's most brilliant Oscar-winning screenwriters, who gave us such classics as Tender Comrade, Roman Holiday, Spartacus, Exodus and The Sandpiper, to name a few. Of course, most of them were written under assumed names, since he was a prime victim of the Hollywood Blacklist that punished artists for being members of the Communist Party.

But Trumbo and a few others were distinct from the rest: They refused to name names, and paid dearly for it. The new film, seen at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, covers the span of time leading up to anti-communist hysteria in 1947, right after WWII when our ally, the Soviet Union, suddenly became our enemy. Those who had written screenplays praising the USSR or supported union workers against the studio bosses were now suspect, and any of their friends and associates were considered enemies of the State. Trumbo refused to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, was found guilty for contempt of court and served prison time. Many who paid the price of naming names may have retained their jobs but lost the respect of the progressive community. When released from 11 months in prison, Trumbo couldn't get any work under his own name, and made much less using assumed names. The stress on Trumbo's family, and his work during the blacklisting period, are covered up until the time in 1960 that his name finally appears on screen, thanks to the determination of supporters like Kirk Douglas (Spartacus) and Otto Preminger (Exodus).

Ironies abound as the new film, Trumbo, is featured on the front page of the Hollywood Reporter, with the blaring title, Cranston (The Communist)! The Reporter was a major subscriber to the witch hunt of the '40s in Hollywood, and now we find it praising his life and work. Cranston refers to the actor Bryan, from the hit TV series Breaking Bad, who here captures the chain-smoking, committed communist in a feisty, charismatic portrayal. The film also addresses Trumbo's contradiction as the wealthiest screenwriter in Hollywood who was often called ironically 'the commie with the pool,' or 'the swimming pool socialist.' His battles with witch-hunter gossip columnist Hedda Hopper provide moments of comic relief, as Helen Mirren plays the role to the hilt. Although it was the avid anti-communist John Wayne who in reality gave Hollywood lefties the most aggravation, it was apparently decided by the producers that challenging this iconic figure might jeopardize a wider audience for the film, although his portrayal as a secondary figure in the film is a highpoint.

Cranston's portrayal is often over the top and exaggerated, and he looks little like the diminutive Trumbo, save for his black-rimmed glasses, mustache and cigarettes. But he carries the role with joy in a stylish manner. The well-written John McNamara script about one of the greatest scriptwriters does justice to Trumbo, incorporating his acerbic wit, while employing many aphorisms and quotes from contemporaries.

John Goodman provides another over the top portrayal of B-movie producer Frank King who employs Trumbo during his darker days, when he's desperately in need of funds and willing to allow others to put their names on his often brilliant scripts.

Like many great scripts, the film ends with an emotional speech by the hero, this time saying something like we shouldn't look for heroes or villains from that period, but only victims. Director Roach feels that anti-communist hysteria is still alive but the names have been changed to persecute the innocent. Now we have "terrorists" and many innocent people are victims. It's important now more than ever to tell the story of one person in Hollywood who was willing to sacrifice much for his ideals of a better world, and persevered to accomplish these goals.

Trumbo

Director: Jay Roach

Writers: John McNamara, Bruce Cook (book)

Stars: Bryan Cranston, Elle Fanning, Diane Lane, John Goodman

Rated R, 124 mins.

Movie poster: bleeckerstreetmedia.com

Is Star Wars Episode VII anti-white?

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 15:46:00 +0000

The Force Awakens, has been making headlines in mainstream and geek communities alike for months now, with buzz on the plot for the latest installment of the juggernaut franchise.

Just days ago a poster for the film was unveiled and plastered all over the Internet. While a good amount of the discussion on the upcoming blockbuster has been about it topping the previous film, (or if this latest movie will help us to further distance ourselves from the travesty that was JarJar Binks of Episode I...) a new controversy is spreading regarding the diversity in the casting, and director J.J. Abrams' interviews on the subject.

It would appear that there are some who are not very happy with Abrams wanting to increase the people of color as leads in the Science Fiction odyssey. So much so that there is now a call to boycott the upcoming film.

Yes, you read that right, there are people calling to boycott the upcoming futuristic movie, featuring space aliens and other monsters, mainly because it has too many humans of color.

The hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII has burst onto the internet, filled with online users and fans of the franchise claiming that the latest film has an "anti-white propaganda promoting #whitegenocide". This is in reference to the fact that the two main leads of Episode Seven are a woman and a man of color.

One twitter user said, "From what I'm hearing, the anti-white diversity of #StarWarsVII is quite extreme. A #BoycottStarWarsVII movement is growing". A lot of this backlash seems to be directed towards director J.J. Abrams. Abrams has been no stranger to diversity when it has come to his directing and producing career.

In an interview in 2013 Abrams explained his stance on diversity in film with, "...having been to the Emmys a couple times - you look around that room and you see the whitest f-----g room in the history of time. It's just unbelievably white. And I just thought... why not cast the show with actors of color?... It f-----g kills me when they call something 'an urban movie' like its a separate thing, like its 'that thing' over there."

The #BoycottStarWarsVII hashtag comes months after a previous Hollywood controversy, when actor Michael B. Jordan was cast as the Human Torch in Marvel's Fantastic Four film reboot. The Human Torch, a main character of the series, had, up to the time of Jordan's casting, been played by a white actor, and portrayed as a white character in the comic books that inspired the film.

Jordan's casting sparked a debate on representation and diversity in film and comic books. The latest Star Wars installment seems to be doing the same, as fans go back and forth online debating the validity of the claim of "anti-white propaganda" and so-called "too much political correctness."

Although the boycott hashtag seems to be gaining a sizable amount of followers, there are plenty of online users combating it. Twitter user, Mark Burnley, noted, "If #BoycottStarWarsVII results in cinemas being free of racists, all the better."

It would seem that some of the fanboys (and fangirls) in the Star Wars fandom (and one can argue other forms of entertainment) equate diversity with white genocide, or at the least a leaning towards being politically correct at the expense of quality story telling. We could simply dismiss the ignorance of these "purists," but on some larger scale one could argue that deeply ingrained in the system of Hollywood are similar sentiments.

Recent Emmy winner and powerhouse actress Viola Davis remarked in her now-famous acceptance speech that, "The only thing that separates a woman of color from anything else is opportunity." Davis was referring to the lack of diversity and employment opportunities for people of color when it came to the film and television industry.

Davis' speech reflects the growing acknowledgement that Hollywood, and the film industry in general, is still behind when it comes to increasing true diversity on screen. A recent study by the University of Southern California noted that over the past seven years, and 700 films later, racial diversity, when it comes to screen time, has hit a stark stand still. A statistic from the study noted that in 2014 alone, nearly 75 percent of film characters were white, and only 17 percent of the top 100 films featured leads or co-stars that were of color.

The 56 page 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report noted that in 2011 people of color were underrepresented in the film industry when it came to lead roles of more than 3 to 1. Considering that people of color make up collectively 36. 3 percent of the United States' population, the fact that they only made up 10.5 percent of the lead roles of 172 films shows that Hollywood is still not close to reflecting our current racial reality in "reel-ality". These acknowledgements have sparked a large amount of discussion, and backlash, on social media. Star Wars Episode VII seems to be in the current crossfires of this hot topic.

From the statistics alone it would appear that even with a man of color lead for this blockbuster, Hollywood still has a long way to increasing diversity in any significant way. Yet, the recent hashtag and online controversy shows that everyone clearly isn't on the same page when it comes to what kind of reality should be reflected on our screens. It also reflects the inherent racism still very much present in plenty of fandom, stretching across comic books, video games, and film alike. I doubt the boycott of the Star Wars film will do much to put a dent in the revenue for what is sure to be another box office success, but the fact that the race of a Storm Trooper, in a world of space aliens and other worldly monsters, is still up for heated discussion, shows that there's still plenty of ground to cover here on earth.

Photo: Star Wars Facebook.