Michael Curtiz: A Life In Film, by Alan K. Rode —
Ask an average, eighteen-year old American to name a movie director and he or she might think of Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Tarantino or Tim Burton. That person's parents could name Coppola, Eastwood, Scorsese and Woody Allen. Their grandparents would surely remember Hitchcock and Welles, perhaps Ford, and Kubrick. Film school attendees are conversant with the with the work of David Lynch, Spike Lee, Peter Jackson, Kathryn Bigelow, the Coen brothers and the two Andersons, Paul Thomas and Wes. After a couple of semesters, they'll know all about Hawks and Huston, Lean and Lang, Wilder and Wyler, Fellini and Fincher, Chaplin and Cukor, Ida Lupino and Agnes Varda.
There is one director, however, whose name is almost never known by "the man on the street" despite the fact that some of his motion pictures are among the most famous ever made. Even serious film buffs—folks who relish discussions of Busby Berkeley camera shots, Hugo Friedhofer orchestrations and 1960's Czech animation—sometimes can't recall the man who won an Oscar for directing one of the best, most beloved movies from Hollywood's Golden Years: "Casablanca".... [Read More]
Picturing the Cosmopolitical
The Photography of Jay Mark Johnson— When I first moved to New York in the early 1980s I lived in a loft on Great Jones Street with two Greek American brothers and it was an interesting scene. The … [Read more]
Sakura Season
We’re standing on a curb at Shibuya crossing watching the traffic lights change, like spectators of a carefully practiced sport. As the massive intersection slows to a stop, an orderly swarm of … [Read more]
Wharfside
Santa Barbara Summer Scenes … [Read more]
Portraits: Paper and Clay
Robert Kato, Emotional Biomes — Then I arrived at the capital, vaguely saturatedwith fog and rain. What streets were those?The garments of 1921 were breedingin an ugly smell of gas, … [Read more]
Russian Repercussions
A. Borodin, A. Glazunov, N. Rinsky-Korsakov: “Les Vendredis” String Quartets, Excerpts A. Glazunov: Elegy for Piano and Cello, OP 17 D. Shostakovitch: Piano Quintet in C Minor, OP 57 Le Salon de … [Read more]
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