I learned in film class that the better the film score, the least you notice it. It is just an invisible but vital part of the story. But some scores are historic and live forever on their own. The music of Bernard Herrmann is among the most … [Read more...]
How Fiction Becomes Truth
The great painting by Johannes Vermeer, “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” is sometimes called “The Mona Lisa of the North.” I visited it once in The Mauritshuis in The Hague, the Netherlands. That girl’s gaze will rivet the most impatient viewer. I … [Read more...]
Changing Russia~ Patience Pays!
The American or Western visitor or businessman has a special challenge in fitting into the colorful and exciting environment of an evolving Russia. The world is not really so flat as to obscure the character of a people, though superficial … [Read more...]
“Dos Gringos” for the screen?
The comment I continually hear from readers of my family book “Dos Gringos” is that it ought to be a film. “In the middle of the Mexican Revolution, a penniless Norwegian and a drifting Irishman meet in an El Paso bar and are hired by a Pittsburg … [Read more...]
“BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN”
One of the most famous scenes in film history is that of the baby carriage bouncing down the steps of the great steps of Odessa. The film is Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 Battleship Potemkin. The film, newly restored in 35mm was recently shown in LA and … [Read more...]
INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE!
I was invited to a concert of Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic Sunday. Actually it was a film special wide screen concert , and it was fantastic. It was an incredible performance – Tchaikovsky’s three Overture-Fantasies inspired by … [Read more...]
“THE KING’S SPEECH” ~ an incredible film of a world changing event!
What an incredible theatrical experience! I have seen it twice, now, and am so glad I did. The main story, based on the true story of King George VI, is a miracle enough. How the Duke of York (Colin Firth), the second son of King George V, rose … [Read more...]
Ninotchka~Greta Garbo 1939~IV
Ninotchka was a long-awaited, classic romantic comedy, with a clever and witty script and the magnificent presence of actress Greta Garbo in her first official American comedy (in her next-to-last film). The charming film about clashing ideologies … [Read more...]
Ninotchka~Greta Garbo 1939~III
Greta Garbo was a beautiful and talented actress. She played the strict Bolshevik with an expressionless and cold face. Then, when she succumbed to the love of a man and the pleasures of Capitalism, she was her gorgeous and seductive self. … [Read more...]