Arts Review
Kurt WeilNew York concerts examine “lost music” of twentieth century
By Fred Mazelis, 7 January 2009
Classical works by composers who died at the hands of the Nazis or who were forced into exile have been receiving increased attention. Conductor James Conlon has taken the lead in this project to rescue unjustly neglected or unknown work.
Recent Film Reviews
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Too little made of a life led in reverse
By Kevin Martinez, 6 January 2009
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button concerns itself with the fate of an individual who ages in reverse. Born a shriveled old man, Benjamin Button experiences the natural aging process backward.
Doubt: Nothing ‘beautiful’ about this ‘question’
By David Walsh, 3 January 2009
Doubt takes place in the Bronx, New York in 1964. A conflict emerges at a Catholic school between a relatively young and ‘progressive’ parish priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and a battle-ax of a nun, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep).
Bad Faith: Bill Maher’s Religulous
By Hiram Lee, 2 January 2009
Comedian Bill Maher and director Larry Charles take on religion in their new documentary. The results are less than enlightening.
La Fille Coupée En Deux, the new film from Claude Chabrol
By Hiram Lee, 29 December 2008
Veteran French New Wave director Claude Chabrol returns to the screen with an interesting but limited work inspired by the life of Evelyn Nesbit.
The Wrestler: Vigorous, but opaque
By Jordan Mattos, 27 December 2008
In Darren Aronofsky’s fourth feature film, The Wrestler, veteran actor Mickey Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a professional wrestler in his fifties who is coping with life as a prisoner of his own mistakes.
Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon: Trivializing a war criminal
By Patrick Martin 23 December 2008
There are many problems with Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard’s film adaptation of the play by Peter Morgan, but the main one is the subject matter itself: British television talk show host David Frost’s interview with former president Richard M. Nixon.
The blues in Chicago: Cadillac Records
By Joanne Laurier, 20 December 2008
Director Darnell Martin traces the rise and fall of Chess Records, whose roster at one time or another included such musical giants as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry and Etta James.
Baz Luhrmann’s Australia: a superficial jumble
By Richard Phillips, 18 December 2008
Baz Luhrmann’s $A190 million movie—the most expensive in Australian film history—is a syrupy and patronising mish-mash.
Milk, identity politics and Gus Van Sant’s art
By Joanne Laurier, 9 December 2008
Veteran US director Gus Van Sant has made a new film about the life and times of gay politician Harvey Milk, assassinated in San Francisco in 1978, with mixed results.
Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky: A film about life and people being worth something
By David Walsh, 2 December 2008
In Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is an irrepressible personality, a teacher in London who looks for the best in people and situations.
An interview with British filmmaker Mike Leigh
By David Walsh, 5 December 2008
Mike Leigh, director of Happy-Go-Lucky, is perhaps the most interesting British filmmaker of the past two decades. WSWS arts editor David Walsh recently spoke to him at his office in London.
Clever, all too clever: Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York
By Joanne Laurier, 1 December 2008
Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York goes for the surreal while The Boy in the Striped Pajamas concerns itself with the very real.
Rachel Getting Married: Something, but not everything
By Hiram Lee, 29 November 2008
The latest film from director Jonathan Demme and first-time screenwriter Jenny Lumet is a moving story about a troubled daughter's return to her family. While intelligent and sincere, the work is not without its limitations.
The Silence of the Quandts: The history of a wealthy German family
By Emma Bode and Brigitte Fehlau, 29 November 2008
The award-winning The Silence of the Quandts deals with the unscrupulous rise of one of Germany’s richest and most influential families. The family, which owns 47 percent of auto manufacturer BMW, is implicated in the crimes of the Nazi regime.
A Woman in Berlin: Germany at the end of World War II
By Bernd Reinhardt, 25 November 2008
In his film A Woman in Berlin, Max Färberböck deals with a topic that has long been taboo in Germany: the mass rape of German women by Soviet soldiers at the end of the Second World War.
In Spitting Distance: war, exile and other daily realities for Palestinians
By Richard Phillips, 24 November 2008
In Spitting Distance is an emotional and at times darkly ironic exploration of the situation facing a Palestinian actor/playwright in Ramallah, Paris and Tel Aviv in 2002.
See also “Good theatre makes you ask questions”: An interview with Khalifa Natour and Ofira Henig.
Film Festivals
Vancouver International Film Festival 2008
World Socialist Web Site
arts critics David Walsh and Joanne Laurier wrote extensively on new films shown during the 2008 Vancouver International Film Festival, which ran from
September 25 to October 10.
Part 1, "Life in its incontrovertible reality," was published October 13; Part 2, "Art, artists, the difficulties of the 20th century," was published October 16; Part 3, "The oppressed and excluded," followed on October 20; Part 4, "Repentance, betrayal and the less dramatic," was published October 23; and Part 5, "Six films: problems of perspective, passivity," concluded the series on October 27.
See also Walsh's interviews with Li Yifan, director of The Longwang Chronicles, published October 20, Azharr Rudin, director of This Longing, published October 27, and Ying Liang, director of Good Cats, published November 15.
The Toronto International Film Festival
A series of film reviews and director interviews published September 18-29 2008, devoted to the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival (September 4-13).
See Part 1, 2, 3 , 4, and 5, as well as the WSWS interview with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, directors of Lorna’s Silence.
