According to this AP story, Ahmad Chalabi may have been the big winner in the recent Iraqi elections. Although dumped by the US government in favor of CIA-State Department-MI6 favorite Iyad Allawi, then indicted on trumped up charges of money laundering, Chalabi achieved a political comeback when his Shi'ite party, the United Iraqi Alliance, took the majority of votes, with the blessing of Ayatollah al-Sistani (by contrast, interim leader Allawi took 3rd place--bye, bye...). Given Chalabi's insulting treatment by the US, look for a more independent-minded approach to geopolitics from any new Shi'ite government, a balancing act with Iran, and possible recognition of Israel. America's abandonment of Chalabi strengthened his credentials at home with the Shi'ites, with what US politicians call "the base". Result: Chalabi doesn't owe the US for his victory, and can deal with America somewhat independently.
A whle back, I saw Chalabi speak at the American Enterprise Institute (there were tears in Danielle Pletka's eyes as she made the introduction), and Chalabi was open to peace and trade with what Saddam Hussein used to call "the Zionist entity." It would be interesting if the Shi'ites pulled this off, as Baghdad used to have a flourishing Jewish community, and an Israeli-Iraqi alliance might do wonders for Middle East peace and development. So, stay tuned.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Monday, February 14, 2005
Roger L. Simon Released from Hospital
Roger L. Simon: Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter recently had gall bladder surgery, according to his blog, and is recovering at home. We just want to take this opportunity to pass along our sincere wishes for a smooth recovery...
"We're With Putin!"
Yesterday, while trying to cross Tverskaya Street (formerly Gorky Street), to meet our friend Alice--who has braved the Russian winter to visit us from New York, and is now staying in Alla Pugachova's apartment building (Muscovites are like New Yorkers when it comes to having the best address, it seems)--we found the perehod was zakrit. A militiaman pointed out the large demonstration which had closed down Tverskaya. Indeed, there were some 30,000 people with Russian flags, and banners reading "We're with Putin!", "Stability," and the most persuasive, "Putin--Our President!" It was a march organized by the United Russia party, Putin's own answer to America's Republicans, dedicated to the preservtion of the Russian federation from disintegration.
The march took place at the exact same moment that Russian truckers were closing down the ring road with a "go slow" protest about pensions and benefits--especially fuel prices. The evening news covered the pro-Putin march, thus displacing news of protests. Thus marches on the "Babushka Revolution" sparked by benefit cuts to elderly pensioners, and used by the communists as a very effective anti=Putin organizing tool.
Putin's popularity has plunged over 20 points in the last few weeks, and more and more protesters are taking to the streets--not all of them on the Government payroll. As more and more people are less and less afraid to voice their opposition, Putin's carefully crafted siloviki revival stands a chance of stalling. The danger, unfortunately, is that the Communists--old, unreconstructed, and openly anti-semitic as well as anti-America--are the only opposition force well-organized enough to take advantage of the situation.
What Russia needs is a "loyal opposition" like those in Western democracies, as a safety valve, a feedback mechanism, and an alternative to yet another bloody revolt in Russia. Reform, not revolution, will be the key to progress here, and to a peaceful country with a growing economy.
Henry Kissinger and Citibank Chairman Sanford Weill (they have branches here) were photographed meeting with Putin in the papers today. This is all part of the runup to the US-Russian summit in ten days. It is certain that Bush and Putin will have a lot to discuss in Bratislava. If Putin wants to make a better impression on Americans, he might order the release of Khodorkovsky, Yukos's founder, from prison -- as a gesture of progress, prior to the meeting...
The march took place at the exact same moment that Russian truckers were closing down the ring road with a "go slow" protest about pensions and benefits--especially fuel prices. The evening news covered the pro-Putin march, thus displacing news of protests. Thus marches on the "Babushka Revolution" sparked by benefit cuts to elderly pensioners, and used by the communists as a very effective anti=Putin organizing tool.
Putin's popularity has plunged over 20 points in the last few weeks, and more and more protesters are taking to the streets--not all of them on the Government payroll. As more and more people are less and less afraid to voice their opposition, Putin's carefully crafted siloviki revival stands a chance of stalling. The danger, unfortunately, is that the Communists--old, unreconstructed, and openly anti-semitic as well as anti-America--are the only opposition force well-organized enough to take advantage of the situation.
What Russia needs is a "loyal opposition" like those in Western democracies, as a safety valve, a feedback mechanism, and an alternative to yet another bloody revolt in Russia. Reform, not revolution, will be the key to progress here, and to a peaceful country with a growing economy.
Henry Kissinger and Citibank Chairman Sanford Weill (they have branches here) were photographed meeting with Putin in the papers today. This is all part of the runup to the US-Russian summit in ten days. It is certain that Bush and Putin will have a lot to discuss in Bratislava. If Putin wants to make a better impression on Americans, he might order the release of Khodorkovsky, Yukos's founder, from prison -- as a gesture of progress, prior to the meeting...
Friday, February 11, 2005
WETA Cuts Classical Music
Another nice thing about Moscow, "Radio Kultura" and "TV Kultura" are all highbrow, all the time. Unlike the dastardly public broadcasting lowbrows in Washington, DC, who are dumping classical music, according to this story in the Washington Post:WETA Board Approves Switch To News-Talk Format (washingtonpost.com) (thanks to Artsjournal for the tip).
What can I say? I was active in the movement to bring the Metropolitan Opera to WETA, writing about it in The Idler. We succeeded, and so far, WETA is keeping those broadcasts--but unfortunatley, cutting everything else, in favor of programming for which there is no public need whatsoever, since DC is already overserved with news and talk radio, and has a number of other NPR stations.
My guess is that the reason is political, to put more liberal propaganda on the air to attack the Bush administration from NPR, instead of cultural programming which is an oasis from politics.
The news at least gives me a personal project. When I come back to the USA next month, I hope to start an American version of Russia's TV and Radio Kultura, so that Washington might become competetive with Moscow again in the culture department. A C-span for music and the arts...
What can I say? I was active in the movement to bring the Metropolitan Opera to WETA, writing about it in The Idler. We succeeded, and so far, WETA is keeping those broadcasts--but unfortunatley, cutting everything else, in favor of programming for which there is no public need whatsoever, since DC is already overserved with news and talk radio, and has a number of other NPR stations.
My guess is that the reason is political, to put more liberal propaganda on the air to attack the Bush administration from NPR, instead of cultural programming which is an oasis from politics.
The news at least gives me a personal project. When I come back to the USA next month, I hope to start an American version of Russia's TV and Radio Kultura, so that Washington might become competetive with Moscow again in the culture department. A C-span for music and the arts...
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
The Guardian on Middle East Peace
In a reasonable editorial, The Guardian calls the latest Arab-Israeli summit 'a moment of hope':
"If warm words could solve problems, then it would all be over bar the celebrations. Mr Abbas spoke of the beginning of a 'new era'; Mr Sharon - more remarkably - of his commitment to Palestinian 'dignity and independence'. But his comment about ending 'unrealistic dreams' must apply to both sides if a workable, two-state peace settlement is ever to be agreed. Hard choices lie ahead if a day of hope in the sun is not to end, like too many before it, in bitter tears."
"If warm words could solve problems, then it would all be over bar the celebrations. Mr Abbas spoke of the beginning of a 'new era'; Mr Sharon - more remarkably - of his commitment to Palestinian 'dignity and independence'. But his comment about ending 'unrealistic dreams' must apply to both sides if a workable, two-state peace settlement is ever to be agreed. Hard choices lie ahead if a day of hope in the sun is not to end, like too many before it, in bitter tears."
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
The Diplomad is Shutting Down!
No, it wasn't by Vladimir Putin's iron hand, under Islam Karmov's repressive regime, but America that has shut downThe Diplomad, and he's issued this farewell:
Translation: The State Department knows who he is, and told the Diplomad to shut up. The thing is, The Diplomad has offered really good stuff--helpful to America's cause. I did always wonder how he got away with it.
I hope Secretary of State Rice finds The Diplomad--and puts him in charge of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, asap. If our official line sounded more like The Diplomad, and less like "The Sound of Silence," America might be doing a lot better in the international arena.
It's been fun; the postings from the readers have been great (except for the idiot trolls -- the same ones who collapsed our hotmail account and made it useless.) But for a variety of personal and professional reasons it's time to stop (we might blog again under a different name; might not.) Lest any of you think so, we have not been threatened or shut down; the State Department goons are not knocking at the door. It's just time to do something else.
The Chief Diplomad urges all of you to read the very well written brother sites at Daily Demarche and New Sisyphus (maybe they'll let us put up an occasional posting.) We've heard that our Republican cousins over at USAID might be starting a blog, too, so keep an out eye for it.
The Diplomad says good bye and thanks.
Translation: The State Department knows who he is, and told the Diplomad to shut up. The thing is, The Diplomad has offered really good stuff--helpful to America's cause. I did always wonder how he got away with it.
I hope Secretary of State Rice finds The Diplomad--and puts him in charge of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, asap. If our official line sounded more like The Diplomad, and less like "The Sound of Silence," America might be doing a lot better in the international arena.
Condoleezza Rice, Doestoevsky Fan
This paragraph jumped out of a very interesting profile by Jay Nordlinger on Condoleezza Rice on National Review Online, first published in 1999, that discussed the new Secretary of State's training as classical pianist--she has performed Brahms with Yo Yo Ma--and Sovietologist:
Of course, Tolstoy offers redemption, and he's pretty darn Russian, too. Solzhenitsyn is seen by some as a little extreme. Yet, one doesn't have to completeley concur with Rice's taste to to agree that it will be interesting to see what changes Rice might makes to the style and substance of American diplomacy.
Clearly she takes ideas seriously, takes culture seriously, and takes Russia seriously--all good signs, especially when viewing America from Moscow...Which may mean a change in American policy vis-a-vis Chechnya, if Rice is reading her Russian history as I think she might, perhaps in exchange for the release of Khodorhovsky and better business relations with the US. Let's see what happens at the Bush-Putin summit in Slovakia. (Curiously, Rice's dissertation advisor at the University of Denver, Josef Korbel--Madeleine Albright's father--was a former diplomat from Czechoslovakia).
As to those "roots," what was it, indeed, that drew her to the Soviet Union, to Russia? "I was attracted to the Byzantine nature of Soviet politics," she says, "and by power: how it operates, how it's used." She read everything she could get her hands on about World War II "and about war generally." She particularly remembers John Erickson's "great books" — The Road to Stalingrad, The Road to Berlin. She read Dostoevsky "rather than Tolstoy." And she encountered Solzhenitsyn: "He understood the dark side of Russia better than anyone else. Like most Russian novels, it was tragedy without redemption."
Of course, Tolstoy offers redemption, and he's pretty darn Russian, too. Solzhenitsyn is seen by some as a little extreme. Yet, one doesn't have to completeley concur with Rice's taste to to agree that it will be interesting to see what changes Rice might makes to the style and substance of American diplomacy.
Clearly she takes ideas seriously, takes culture seriously, and takes Russia seriously--all good signs, especially when viewing America from Moscow...Which may mean a change in American policy vis-a-vis Chechnya, if Rice is reading her Russian history as I think she might, perhaps in exchange for the release of Khodorhovsky and better business relations with the US. Let's see what happens at the Bush-Putin summit in Slovakia. (Curiously, Rice's dissertation advisor at the University of Denver, Josef Korbel--Madeleine Albright's father--was a former diplomat from Czechoslovakia).
Monday, February 07, 2005
Russian Romance at the Obraztsov Puppet Theater
Hard not to sound like a a tour guide, as we wind up our stay... We spent Super Bowl Sunday at Moscow's Obraztsov Puppet Theater, watching a puppet version of "Aladdin and his Magic Lamp" with a new friend from New York, and her daughter. Incredibly, they lived in the building next to ours on West 110th Street near Amsterdam Avenue and we only met in Moscow!
In any case, the Obraztsov is better than Disney, for Russian style. In the lobby, in a fountain, is an animated lady with a mask, perhaps the spirit of puppetry. She wears a mask, and beneath her glass skirt swim live fish. Lots of gears whirring around. Perhaps she is a version of Hoffman's Olympia, the "living doll."
There is also an animated clock on the building facade, like the famous one in New York's old Central Park Children's Zoo, or Germany's Bremen Town Square. But we didn't wait for it to ring, so can't say what the animated figures do.
This was just a foretaste of an imaginative and stirring production of Aladdin. This genie wasn't genial--instead scary, huge, red, looking like a devil. The court of the Sultan appreared to come from Uzbekistan,the designer was named Alimov, often an Uzbek name. Voices were by famous Russian actors, named in a real theatre program. The story was full of Russian soul, about brave individuals suffering unjust persecution by powerful state figures. I couldn't stop thinking that Aladdin's fate--thrown in jail, in chains, his lamp taken from him by the government, his property stolen--had echoes of the Khodorkhovsky case, and the shows probably resonated at other time with other events in Russia. Maybe children's theatre, like Soviet "multfilms" (animated cartoons), were safer venues for artists to express themselves, even if in code, than in adult theatre.
The Obraztsov's stage is full-sized, and the theatre, built in the 1960s, is beautiful, modern, wood-paneled. It was packed with giggling, laughing children and their parents. In front of us sat a professor of Russian culture from the University of Pennsylvania, with his daughter. His field of study was Russian romanticism. He confirmed what seemed apparent from living in Moscow, if we didn't already realize it from Russian music and art: Russians are very romantic. Hard to believe as it may seem, apparently they got their romanticism from the Germans. But of course, I wouldn't believe in Romantic Englishmen from our recent trip to London, yet we know at one time such did exist--Keats, Shelly, Byron, et al.
In any case, Romance was everywhere in the Obraztsov's staging of Aladdin. What a spectacle! Elephants, lions, horses, camels! A beautiful princess, an evil Vizier, an aged and foolish Sultan, thieves, an oasis and,of course and the desert. A golden palace, a humble home. A "Babushkha" of course, as Aladdin's mother. In the foyer bar, an aquarium with colorful live fishes, in the halls, artworks by schoolchildren among magnificent theatrical puppets. And downstairs, in the puppet museum, hundreds of puppets--ranging from ancient clay marionettes thousands of years old to a couple of Jim Henson's muppets, which looked sort of like poor relations, rather scruffy and chintzy, compared to the Russian, Polish, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and Bengali exhibits--some of them life-sized.
A little learning, a little romance, and a lot of joy for children is to be found at Moscow's Obraztsov's Puppet Theater.
In any case, the Obraztsov is better than Disney, for Russian style. In the lobby, in a fountain, is an animated lady with a mask, perhaps the spirit of puppetry. She wears a mask, and beneath her glass skirt swim live fish. Lots of gears whirring around. Perhaps she is a version of Hoffman's Olympia, the "living doll."
There is also an animated clock on the building facade, like the famous one in New York's old Central Park Children's Zoo, or Germany's Bremen Town Square. But we didn't wait for it to ring, so can't say what the animated figures do.
This was just a foretaste of an imaginative and stirring production of Aladdin. This genie wasn't genial--instead scary, huge, red, looking like a devil. The court of the Sultan appreared to come from Uzbekistan,the designer was named Alimov, often an Uzbek name. Voices were by famous Russian actors, named in a real theatre program. The story was full of Russian soul, about brave individuals suffering unjust persecution by powerful state figures. I couldn't stop thinking that Aladdin's fate--thrown in jail, in chains, his lamp taken from him by the government, his property stolen--had echoes of the Khodorkhovsky case, and the shows probably resonated at other time with other events in Russia. Maybe children's theatre, like Soviet "multfilms" (animated cartoons), were safer venues for artists to express themselves, even if in code, than in adult theatre.
The Obraztsov's stage is full-sized, and the theatre, built in the 1960s, is beautiful, modern, wood-paneled. It was packed with giggling, laughing children and their parents. In front of us sat a professor of Russian culture from the University of Pennsylvania, with his daughter. His field of study was Russian romanticism. He confirmed what seemed apparent from living in Moscow, if we didn't already realize it from Russian music and art: Russians are very romantic. Hard to believe as it may seem, apparently they got their romanticism from the Germans. But of course, I wouldn't believe in Romantic Englishmen from our recent trip to London, yet we know at one time such did exist--Keats, Shelly, Byron, et al.
In any case, Romance was everywhere in the Obraztsov's staging of Aladdin. What a spectacle! Elephants, lions, horses, camels! A beautiful princess, an evil Vizier, an aged and foolish Sultan, thieves, an oasis and,of course and the desert. A golden palace, a humble home. A "Babushkha" of course, as Aladdin's mother. In the foyer bar, an aquarium with colorful live fishes, in the halls, artworks by schoolchildren among magnificent theatrical puppets. And downstairs, in the puppet museum, hundreds of puppets--ranging from ancient clay marionettes thousands of years old to a couple of Jim Henson's muppets, which looked sort of like poor relations, rather scruffy and chintzy, compared to the Russian, Polish, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and Bengali exhibits--some of them life-sized.
A little learning, a little romance, and a lot of joy for children is to be found at Moscow's Obraztsov's Puppet Theater.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Inside the Vladimir Vysotsky Museum
Some acquaintances took us to see the Vladimir Vysotsky Museum today, near the Taganka theatre. It was just fascinating, everything from Vysotsky's guitar to his childhood letters to his mother and earliest school excercise books, furniture from his dacha, a model of his apartment, postcards from France, America, and other travels, clips of his films, videos of his songs. Imagine Elvis, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Marlon Brando, and Frank Sinatra all rolled up into one, and you'll begin to get someone like Vysotsky. He's in the tradition of the Russian "Bard" and that of Pushkin, as well. He died tragically young, during the 1980 Moscow Olympics. His funeral crowds stretched for blocks. His history is the history of Russian culture, dissidence, poetry, song, theatre, and film. Technology played a role, as samizdat tape recordings spread his fame throughout the former USSR. There were even some photos of Vysotsky on tour in Tashkent, with some comrades from the Taganka theatre, including Vysotsky's director Lubimov, who returned to Russia from exile in Paris during Perestroika, and still is working at the age of 87 (this year is the 40th anniversary of the theatre). We bought tickets to see his rock musical version of Dr. Zhivago next week (we kid you not, as Jack Paar used to say...). Don't miss cases devoted to Vysotsky's Hamlet and his performance in The Cherry Orchard, incredible versatility as an actor and performer--as well as perhaps best representing the sufferings of the Russian soul. Our tour guide explained that Vysotsky's distinctive voice was the sound Gulag prisoners. When half the country returned from imprisonment, and heard Vysotsky, they heard themselves and what they had suffered, she explained. There were crowds in the museum this afternoon, so his popularity is still evident, twenty-five years after his death.
Why is Vysotsky not very well-known in the West, except among students of Russian culture, Russian emigrants, and Russophiles? Perhaps because of years of cultural indifference to those who suffered under Communism. Ironically, the most authentic and most enduring voice of protest from the 1960s may have belonged to a protester against the totalitarian system in the USSR: Vladimir Vysotsky. FIVE STARS *****.
Why is Vysotsky not very well-known in the West, except among students of Russian culture, Russian emigrants, and Russophiles? Perhaps because of years of cultural indifference to those who suffered under Communism. Ironically, the most authentic and most enduring voice of protest from the 1960s may have belonged to a protester against the totalitarian system in the USSR: Vladimir Vysotsky. FIVE STARS *****.
Bernard Weinraub's Hollywood Ending
Reading this story from last Sunday by The New York Times Hollywood correspondent reminded me that Bernie Weinraub covered the Washington, DC premiere of my film "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?" At the time, Weinraub was White House correspondent for the Times. It was during the Reagan administration. He didn't know me, and his story was perfectly fair and factual. In fact, we became sort of friendly acquaintances after the screening, and sort of stayed in touch. I found him to be an honest reporter, and a perfectly decent person. He said Reagan was more complicated than people thought, and that the Central American situation was not so simple as administration critics were claiming. I thought Weinraub seemed thoughtful and intelligent, reasonable and sensible.
I never understood the venom directed against him, in print, nor the ridiculous "conflict-of-interest" charges in the press. Anyone who knows Hollywood knows that the only reason to cover it is a "conflict of interest"--to be discovered as a writer, to make some money, to get your dream onscreen. Why else put up with show-biz nonsense, except for fun or profit?
Weinraub covered Vietnam, Central America, the White House and other big stories. I think assignment Hollywood meant a change of pace. Perhaps he went through a mid-life crisis, that led to the move from covering the serious to writing about the ridiculous.
I know he has a serious streak. At one time, Weinraub discussed writing a novel set in the period covered in my film, about Ben Hecht, Peter Bergson, Franklin Roosevelt and the work of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe during WWII. At the time, I advised him not to publish about the topic, if he wanted to keep his day job. (He had already published a roman a clef about the New York Times, and was not afraid of anything). Discretion won, and Weinraub has had a good run covering Tinsel Town.
Now that Weinraub's quit the Times, I am looking forward to see what he does next. He's a good writer, and I hope one of his projects might be the historical novel we discussed some twenty years ago...
I never understood the venom directed against him, in print, nor the ridiculous "conflict-of-interest" charges in the press. Anyone who knows Hollywood knows that the only reason to cover it is a "conflict of interest"--to be discovered as a writer, to make some money, to get your dream onscreen. Why else put up with show-biz nonsense, except for fun or profit?
Weinraub covered Vietnam, Central America, the White House and other big stories. I think assignment Hollywood meant a change of pace. Perhaps he went through a mid-life crisis, that led to the move from covering the serious to writing about the ridiculous.
I know he has a serious streak. At one time, Weinraub discussed writing a novel set in the period covered in my film, about Ben Hecht, Peter Bergson, Franklin Roosevelt and the work of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe during WWII. At the time, I advised him not to publish about the topic, if he wanted to keep his day job. (He had already published a roman a clef about the New York Times, and was not afraid of anything). Discretion won, and Weinraub has had a good run covering Tinsel Town.
Now that Weinraub's quit the Times, I am looking forward to see what he does next. He's a good writer, and I hope one of his projects might be the historical novel we discussed some twenty years ago...
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Kvartirniki
On Wednesday evening, I got a peek at my own university's contribution to the Moscow Contemporary Art Biennale:Apartment's Exhibitions
Yesterday and today. 1956-2005. The show featured recreations of Moscow apartments where dissidents held art exhibitions, called "Kvartirniki"-- in opposition to the approved art of cultural officials displayed in museums and galleries.
Сurators Julia Lebedeva and Oksana Sarkisyan have done a good job of recreating not only the hanging of pictures on the walls, but also the spririt of defiance of authority that lay behind the projects. In addition to the show at Russian State Humanitarian University, they have arranged some of the art around town in private apartments, just like the old days. So, if you happen to be in Moscow this month, you can book a private viewing through the exhibition website.
It is nice to see modern art defying cultural officialdom, and a visit to the recreated apartments does give one some inspiration that individuals can eventually prevail over bureaucracy, in keeping with the title of this year's Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, "Dialectics of Hope."
From the catalog description:
Yesterday and today. 1956-2005. The show featured recreations of Moscow apartments where dissidents held art exhibitions, called "Kvartirniki"-- in opposition to the approved art of cultural officials displayed in museums and galleries.
Сurators Julia Lebedeva and Oksana Sarkisyan have done a good job of recreating not only the hanging of pictures on the walls, but also the spririt of defiance of authority that lay behind the projects. In addition to the show at Russian State Humanitarian University, they have arranged some of the art around town in private apartments, just like the old days. So, if you happen to be in Moscow this month, you can book a private viewing through the exhibition website.
It is nice to see modern art defying cultural officialdom, and a visit to the recreated apartments does give one some inspiration that individuals can eventually prevail over bureaucracy, in keeping with the title of this year's Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, "Dialectics of Hope."
From the catalog description:
Apartment exhibitions ("kvartirniki") emerged in Soviet times as an answer to the necessity of presenting informal art. They embodied hopes of their participants for freedom of creativity and were part of dissident opposition to officiality.
Apartment exhibitions brought together artists who shared the same views. Owners of the «living premises» formed a certain movement. Svjatoslav Rikhter demonstrated the works of Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, «lianozovtsi» gathered in Oscar Rabin's barrack and young conceptualists were shown in the workshop of Mikhail Odnoralov and Leonid Sokov.
As part of private life the non-official art came hand in hand with conversations on art and the artistically active way of living through the Soviet reality. The experience of apartment exhibitions was diverse - from private club personal exhibitions to group actions and total installations. Quite often they turned into performances and visits to such exhibitions merged on a radical demarche.
Today this art has acquired a museum status and is shown in the world famous museums. Russian State University for the Humanities displays one of the best collections of non-conformist art of 1950-1980 (Leonid Talochkin's «Other art» collection).
The purpose of the exhibition is to reveal the dialectics of informal art development by using apartment exhibitions as an example. It presents the museum works in their original authentic environment drawing a parallel with similar phenomena on the contemporary art stage.
Inside the Lenin-Komsomol Theatre
Last night, finally made it inside the LENKOM(Lenin-Komsomol) theatre, to see Eduardo de Filippo's comedy "City of Millionaires" (not the Italian title), which might be called Philomena in the original . The program notes pointed out it was made into a movie twice--one version is well known in America: Marriage, Italian Style. de Filippo is apparently not the only Italian playwright popular in Moscow. Comedies by Carlo Gozzi are performed frequently as well. Gozzi, a contemporary of Goldoni, is not as well-known in the US. Certainly, there aren't any Gozzi shows running on Broadway or in the West End of London right now.
The LENKOM theatre, despite its rather Soviet name, is a lovely middle-class theatre company. The theatre is a converted merchant's club, a pre-revolutionary design from about 1905, that looks a bit like New York City's Grand Central Station. The acting style, as far my pidgin Russian could be relied upon, was naturalistic. Stanislavsky would approve of this production,certainly. The set was a beautiful reconstruction of a Neapolitan apartment, the costumes were lovely, the lighting excellent.
A beautiful show, in a gorgeous theatre. If you do happen to find yourself in Moscow a visit to the LENKOM is highly recommended.
The LENKOM theatre, despite its rather Soviet name, is a lovely middle-class theatre company. The theatre is a converted merchant's club, a pre-revolutionary design from about 1905, that looks a bit like New York City's Grand Central Station. The acting style, as far my pidgin Russian could be relied upon, was naturalistic. Stanislavsky would approve of this production,certainly. The set was a beautiful reconstruction of a Neapolitan apartment, the costumes were lovely, the lighting excellent.
A beautiful show, in a gorgeous theatre. If you do happen to find yourself in Moscow a visit to the LENKOM is highly recommended.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
American Escapes Moscow Kidnappers
Stories like this report in yesterday's Moscow Times are a reminder that Russia still isn't exactly like America, and there still is some work to do to make Moscow a real tourist-friendly place:
Yesterday, American John Lazoriny escaped from an apartment where he had been handcuffed to a radiator for five days. He was held for ransom by two men from the North Caucasus, who demanded a large sum for his release. Their American captive managed to escape when his kidnappers were out of the apartment. He somehow slipped out of his handcuffs and jumped out of a third-story window. Lazoriny broke his pelvis in the fall, and was taken to City Hospital Number 7. The hospital informed the police, which is how the story made it to the Moscow Times.
The American victim was held in a southern district of Moscow, and normally lives in a far-away southwestern neighborhood, at the end of one of the metro lines. However, he was kidnapped near the center of town--at a cafe outside the Novoslobodskaya metro station on January 15th. That is the metro station for our university! We go there all the time.
The American victim went with his kidnappers because they invited him to their home after having some drinks together. According to police report in the Moscow Times, "he might have thought it was in line with traditional Russian hospitality."
Police have started an investigation, and the American Embassy is reportedly following the case. So, when a friendly Russian man came up to chat with us last night in English at a local restaurant, we were just a little bit wary...
Yesterday, American John Lazoriny escaped from an apartment where he had been handcuffed to a radiator for five days. He was held for ransom by two men from the North Caucasus, who demanded a large sum for his release. Their American captive managed to escape when his kidnappers were out of the apartment. He somehow slipped out of his handcuffs and jumped out of a third-story window. Lazoriny broke his pelvis in the fall, and was taken to City Hospital Number 7. The hospital informed the police, which is how the story made it to the Moscow Times.
The American victim was held in a southern district of Moscow, and normally lives in a far-away southwestern neighborhood, at the end of one of the metro lines. However, he was kidnapped near the center of town--at a cafe outside the Novoslobodskaya metro station on January 15th. That is the metro station for our university! We go there all the time.
The American victim went with his kidnappers because they invited him to their home after having some drinks together. According to police report in the Moscow Times, "he might have thought it was in line with traditional Russian hospitality."
Police have started an investigation, and the American Embassy is reportedly following the case. So, when a friendly Russian man came up to chat with us last night in English at a local restaurant, we were just a little bit wary...
Monday, January 31, 2005
Andrew Sullivan on the Iraq Election
From www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish:
TO SUM UP: Two years ago, the West liberated Iraq. But yesterday, the Iraqis liberated themselves.
A HUGE SUCCESS: The latest indicators suggest a turnout of something like 60 percent. We'll have to wait for precise numbers and ethnic/regional breakdowns. But if I stick to my pre-election criteria for success, this election blows it away: '45 percent turnout for Kurds and Shia, 25 percent turnout for the Sunnis, under 200 murdered.' Even my more optimistic predictions of a while back do not look so out of bounds. But the numbers don't account for the psychological impact. There is no disguising that this is a huge victory for the Iraqi people - and, despite everything, for Bush and Blair. Yes, we shouldn't get carried away. We don't know yet who was elected, or what they'll do, or how they'll be more successful at controlling the insurgency. There are many questions ahead. And I don't mean to minimize them. But I'm struck by some of the paradoxes of all this. We're too close to events to see them clearly. But the timing of this strikes me as fortuitous. Why? Because by the time of the elections, the insurgents had been able to show themselves as a real threat to the democratic experiment and to reveal their true colors - enemies of democracy, Jihadist fanatics and Baathist thugs. The election was in part a referendum on these forces. And they lost - big time. Their entire credibility as somehow representing a genuine nationalist resistance has been scotched. If the election had happened earlier - say a year sooner - it might not have registered the same impact, because the insurgency would not have been so strong or so defined...
Novodevichy Cemetery
Yesterday we went to visit the Novodevichy Convent and Cemetery, final resting place of notable Russians from the Soviet era and before.
There's nothing quite like it in the USA, maybe it is comparable to Highgate Cemetery in London. David Oistrakh, Kruschev, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Glazunov, Prokofiev, Gogol, Stanislavsky, and Chekhov like close together in what really is a very small brick yard behind the convent where Peter the Great imprisoned his sister, Regent Sofia, for her entire life.
The cemetery is especially pretty in the snow, the sculptures and busts decorating the tombs like real works of art. My favorite grave was that of Anton Chekhov, small, beautiful, graceful, just like his writing. There are some striking tombstones, such as a Soviet military leader remembered forever with telephone in hand, a composer memorialized by music running around his grave in cast iron, and a young television journalist's memorial. His craggy tomb, made out of angled granite blocks in the constructivist style, featured photos of the deceased reporting from Nicaragua and Afghanistan among other hot spots.
In the convent grounds one can find a hero of Russia's battle war with Napoleon, dramatized in Tolstoy's War and Peace, General Davydov. His likeness stares out from a bust atop the plinth on his grave.
There were a couple of nice exhibits in the museum buildings, one of missionary work by Russian orthodox priests in the Far East, including China and Japan. Even something about the Metropolitan for America, who returned to become a major church figure in Moscow. Until seeing the exhibit, I didn't realize that the Russian Orthodox church had any missionaries...
There's nothing quite like it in the USA, maybe it is comparable to Highgate Cemetery in London. David Oistrakh, Kruschev, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Glazunov, Prokofiev, Gogol, Stanislavsky, and Chekhov like close together in what really is a very small brick yard behind the convent where Peter the Great imprisoned his sister, Regent Sofia, for her entire life.
The cemetery is especially pretty in the snow, the sculptures and busts decorating the tombs like real works of art. My favorite grave was that of Anton Chekhov, small, beautiful, graceful, just like his writing. There are some striking tombstones, such as a Soviet military leader remembered forever with telephone in hand, a composer memorialized by music running around his grave in cast iron, and a young television journalist's memorial. His craggy tomb, made out of angled granite blocks in the constructivist style, featured photos of the deceased reporting from Nicaragua and Afghanistan among other hot spots.
In the convent grounds one can find a hero of Russia's battle war with Napoleon, dramatized in Tolstoy's War and Peace, General Davydov. His likeness stares out from a bust atop the plinth on his grave.
There were a couple of nice exhibits in the museum buildings, one of missionary work by Russian orthodox priests in the Far East, including China and Japan. Even something about the Metropolitan for America, who returned to become a major church figure in Moscow. Until seeing the exhibit, I didn't realize that the Russian Orthodox church had any missionaries...
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Roger L. Simon on the Iraq Election
Roger L. Simon: Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter describes American television coverage of the Iraqi election, interesting reading, especially since we see less of this story over here in Russia...
Coppola Gets His Russian Oscar
Last night I saw Francis again. This time I watched from bed as he received his "Golden Eagle," Russia's Academy Award. It was well past midnight, and for some reason, I hadn't been invited to the ceremony held on a converted soundstage at Mosfilm Studios. Since it was minus 12 degrees and snowing heavily, I'm not insulted. Bed was warmer and more convenient.
Like the Oscars, the seemingly endless Golden Eagle show ran way past midnight and had a lot of ads. It wasn't as tacky as Hollywood, and not as exciting--considering the Oscars are boring to begin with.
There were tributes to old troupers, honorary awards, sentimentality, a rapper instead of Robin Williams and a rock band that seemed to be called "Uma Thurman" (is this legal? Uma, call your agent!) playing theme songs of nominated films. The role that used to be played by Jack Valenti was taken by Nikita Mihailov, the famous Russian film director. In addition to heading the Russian Academy, he sort of hosted the show, and appeared with a clipboard at various moments to hurry the presenters along, to sing a song with a Caucasian chorus in tribute to an old actor, and to fuss at Francis when he forgot his stage directions. Mihalov's stage act at the Golden Eagle ceremony sort of reminded me of the fussy bureaucrat's in Eldar Ryazanov's Carnival Night.
For those of our readers who follow Russian cinema news, the winner for best picture was "72 Meters," a dramatization of the Kursk submarine disaster that looked a little like "The Perfect Storm" meets "Titanic." The other big winner, sweeping the other appeared to "Svoi," a WWII melodrama. Best actor prize went to a Russian version of Leonardo de Caprio, named Bezrukov.
Surprisingly, considering Sofia Coppola had worked on the picture, Bill Murray's "Lost in Translation" lost the best foreign film prize to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ." When "The Passion" was announced, they cut to Francis for a reaction shot. He looked a little cross.
As the show dragged on, the cameras cut to Francis for other reaction shots. At one point it looked like he was leaning over talking to someone, looking at his watch, and asking, "How much longer is this going to go on?"
Francis had to wait for Italian composer Ennico Morricone, who won his own a special award--the Italian composer did the score for "72 Meters" and presented a prize for best sound recording. Morricone's speech was tearful, noting that he had been afraid that his plane wouldn't make it to landing because of the blizzard in Moscow, and he was happy to have made it alive to the ceremony. That seemed heartfelt, since the snow is very heavy here right now, it's the third day.
Francis also had to wait for some TV awards, including best TV mini-series, as well as best TV series, two different categories (in the USA, we keep TV and movies separate).
After hours had gone by, Francis at last made his way to the stage to get his own Golden Eagle. Channel One showed a montage of clips from his films, beginning with the Ride of the Valkyries montage from Apocalypse Now. Seeing it on Russian TV, the famous "Kuleshov Effect" kicked in to reveal Francis' message: that Americans are Nazis.
No wonder the Russians liked it!
Then some clips from Rumblefish, incomprehensible, and Godfathers I & II. Those evil Americans again! A country run by the Mafia.
Uh, oh, I'm beginning to see why the transition to capitalism here may have gotten mixed up.
Of course, when Francis was introduced, it was officially all about his artistry. Francis buttoned his jacket, straightened his coat, and proceeded to the stage. He was wearing a bow tie, which was a nice touch. Then he gave a short speech in which he got his good friend Nikita Mihalov's name wrong (the translator fixed it), paid tribute to the Soviet Union as well as Russia, and personally thanked Vladimir Putin (the translator skipped those items, just saying thank you to the Russian Academy).
Indeed, Francis had a personal audience with Putin, who congratulated Francis on winning the Golden Eagle--before Francis had received it. So maybe Francis knew what he was doing.
Francis told Putin he looked younger in person, and congratulated him on his speech at Auschwitz. Putin in turn complimented Francis on his show-biz family (perhaps Putin thinks Coppola heads a Russian-style "clan"?) and basically asked Francis to make movies in Russia.
Very flattering Francis, I'm sure, despite the sting of Mel Gibson beating out your daughter Sofia.
Still, one wonders, would Francis warmly thank President Nixon for his "Godfather" Oscar? After all, Patton, which Francis wrote, was Nixon's favorite movie.
Somehow, Francis, I don't think so...
Like the Oscars, the seemingly endless Golden Eagle show ran way past midnight and had a lot of ads. It wasn't as tacky as Hollywood, and not as exciting--considering the Oscars are boring to begin with.
There were tributes to old troupers, honorary awards, sentimentality, a rapper instead of Robin Williams and a rock band that seemed to be called "Uma Thurman" (is this legal? Uma, call your agent!) playing theme songs of nominated films. The role that used to be played by Jack Valenti was taken by Nikita Mihailov, the famous Russian film director. In addition to heading the Russian Academy, he sort of hosted the show, and appeared with a clipboard at various moments to hurry the presenters along, to sing a song with a Caucasian chorus in tribute to an old actor, and to fuss at Francis when he forgot his stage directions. Mihalov's stage act at the Golden Eagle ceremony sort of reminded me of the fussy bureaucrat's in Eldar Ryazanov's Carnival Night.
For those of our readers who follow Russian cinema news, the winner for best picture was "72 Meters," a dramatization of the Kursk submarine disaster that looked a little like "The Perfect Storm" meets "Titanic." The other big winner, sweeping the other appeared to "Svoi," a WWII melodrama. Best actor prize went to a Russian version of Leonardo de Caprio, named Bezrukov.
Surprisingly, considering Sofia Coppola had worked on the picture, Bill Murray's "Lost in Translation" lost the best foreign film prize to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ." When "The Passion" was announced, they cut to Francis for a reaction shot. He looked a little cross.
As the show dragged on, the cameras cut to Francis for other reaction shots. At one point it looked like he was leaning over talking to someone, looking at his watch, and asking, "How much longer is this going to go on?"
Francis had to wait for Italian composer Ennico Morricone, who won his own a special award--the Italian composer did the score for "72 Meters" and presented a prize for best sound recording. Morricone's speech was tearful, noting that he had been afraid that his plane wouldn't make it to landing because of the blizzard in Moscow, and he was happy to have made it alive to the ceremony. That seemed heartfelt, since the snow is very heavy here right now, it's the third day.
Francis also had to wait for some TV awards, including best TV mini-series, as well as best TV series, two different categories (in the USA, we keep TV and movies separate).
After hours had gone by, Francis at last made his way to the stage to get his own Golden Eagle. Channel One showed a montage of clips from his films, beginning with the Ride of the Valkyries montage from Apocalypse Now. Seeing it on Russian TV, the famous "Kuleshov Effect" kicked in to reveal Francis' message: that Americans are Nazis.
No wonder the Russians liked it!
Then some clips from Rumblefish, incomprehensible, and Godfathers I & II. Those evil Americans again! A country run by the Mafia.
Uh, oh, I'm beginning to see why the transition to capitalism here may have gotten mixed up.
Of course, when Francis was introduced, it was officially all about his artistry. Francis buttoned his jacket, straightened his coat, and proceeded to the stage. He was wearing a bow tie, which was a nice touch. Then he gave a short speech in which he got his good friend Nikita Mihalov's name wrong (the translator fixed it), paid tribute to the Soviet Union as well as Russia, and personally thanked Vladimir Putin (the translator skipped those items, just saying thank you to the Russian Academy).
Indeed, Francis had a personal audience with Putin, who congratulated Francis on winning the Golden Eagle--before Francis had received it. So maybe Francis knew what he was doing.
Francis told Putin he looked younger in person, and congratulated him on his speech at Auschwitz. Putin in turn complimented Francis on his show-biz family (perhaps Putin thinks Coppola heads a Russian-style "clan"?) and basically asked Francis to make movies in Russia.
Very flattering Francis, I'm sure, despite the sting of Mel Gibson beating out your daughter Sofia.
Still, one wonders, would Francis warmly thank President Nixon for his "Godfather" Oscar? After all, Patton, which Francis wrote, was Nixon's favorite movie.
Somehow, Francis, I don't think so...
Friday, January 28, 2005
Theo van Gogh Murder Trial Begins
Thanks to a tip from Roger L. Simon, I found DutchReport: Murder trial Theo van Gogh. It has pretty complete coverage of the case:
"Today was the first pro-forma trial day of Mohammed Bouyeri, the terrorist who slaughtered Theo van Gogh on 2 November. This high profile trial was held in Amsterdam Osdorp in the extra secure court..."
"Today was the first pro-forma trial day of Mohammed Bouyeri, the terrorist who slaughtered Theo van Gogh on 2 November. This high profile trial was held in Amsterdam Osdorp in the extra secure court..."
My Night At The Bolshoi With Francis Ford Coppola
Just got home from seeing Glazunov's ballet "Raymonda" at the Bolshoi Theatre with Francis Ford Coppola... Well, actually he was sitting in a box next to the stage with his entourage, and we were sitting in the back of the theatre. But still, as we were both in the same opera house, at the same performance, I think I can honestly say that tonight I was at the Bolshoi Ballet with Francis Ford Coppola.
He looked just like he did on television last night. And I got a good look at him, too--though unfortunately, I didn't rent the famous Bolshoi binoculars from the lady in the cloakroom. Too bad that I didn't run into him in the lobby during intermission. It is a shame, because I remembered that both Coppola and myself are UCLA Film School Alumni, and that maybe if I had a chance to mention the "old school tie", perhaps he might have agreed to come to talk to my American Studies class, after all? Then again, maybe not.
Francis--I'm told that his friends call Coppola that--seemed to enjoy the ballet. He stayed for all three acts, the last of which dispensed with plot altogether. He didn't fall asleep, even though the first act was a little slow. The plot is something about the Crusades, that "Clash of Civilizations" that people around these parts seem to remember, especially because the Catholic knights pillaged Christian Constantinople, which is one reason Moscow became what they call the Third Rome. (Rome itself, being Catholic, doesn't count).
Anyway, the ballet Raymonda was about a triangle between the French Crusader knight Jean de Brienne, the Saracen Abderame, and Raymonda. Actually, I think Abderame seemed more attractive, but he was killed in a duel.
The second act reminded me of Uabekistan. Mark Peretokin, the powerful dancer playing a very dynamic Abderame wore a costume that looked like it came from Amir Timur's official Tashkent wardrobe. The Bolshoi set was straight from a 1960's Ptushko movie, some of the choreography was a little stilted, and Raymonda as played by Bolshoi prima ballerina Nadezhda Gracheva (herself a native of Kazakhstan, she had some vocal supporters in the audience) seemed a bit butch and stilted. At least compared to some dancers we saw a couple of years back at the Mariansky Theatre in St. Petersburg, who really were breathtakingly graceful. I wish I could have seen Raymonda danced by Anastassia Volochkova, who was let go in a famous scandal over her extra weight. I've only seen the dazzling Anastassia on quiz shows and talk shows, never dancing (she does look pleasingly plump on TV, but the camera adds 10 pounds, they say).
Anyhow, there was plenty of leaping around at the Bolshoi tonight. Ruslan Skvortsov's Jean de Brienne was a good Russian male dancer, and the music was pleasant. I'm sure Francis, sitting practially in the dancer's laps, had fun.
The Bolshoi is really big, as its name indicates. It was built in 1856, during the time of serfdom. The former Tsar's box has a hammer and sickle displayed prominently (there was one over the top tier of Coppola's box, too). The proscenium curtain also features woven hammers and sickles, red stars, and the letters CCCP (USSR in Cyrillic). In fact, the atmosphere remains quite Soviet. The buffet had the crummy quality of pre-capitalist Russia--especially compared to the charming Novaya Opera buffet, it was expensive, and overall, the performance lacked some zest and charm. Maybe if they invested in some new decorations and lost the Soviet symbols, it might liven up the joint.
Still, the Bolshoi is the Bolshoi, and it was a night to remember, especially since we shared it with Francis--along with a couple of thousand other people.
BTW, Francis is still getting his wish for Russian winter. Here in Moscow it is now ten below, and snow, snow, snow...
He looked just like he did on television last night. And I got a good look at him, too--though unfortunately, I didn't rent the famous Bolshoi binoculars from the lady in the cloakroom. Too bad that I didn't run into him in the lobby during intermission. It is a shame, because I remembered that both Coppola and myself are UCLA Film School Alumni, and that maybe if I had a chance to mention the "old school tie", perhaps he might have agreed to come to talk to my American Studies class, after all? Then again, maybe not.
Francis--I'm told that his friends call Coppola that--seemed to enjoy the ballet. He stayed for all three acts, the last of which dispensed with plot altogether. He didn't fall asleep, even though the first act was a little slow. The plot is something about the Crusades, that "Clash of Civilizations" that people around these parts seem to remember, especially because the Catholic knights pillaged Christian Constantinople, which is one reason Moscow became what they call the Third Rome. (Rome itself, being Catholic, doesn't count).
Anyway, the ballet Raymonda was about a triangle between the French Crusader knight Jean de Brienne, the Saracen Abderame, and Raymonda. Actually, I think Abderame seemed more attractive, but he was killed in a duel.
The second act reminded me of Uabekistan. Mark Peretokin, the powerful dancer playing a very dynamic Abderame wore a costume that looked like it came from Amir Timur's official Tashkent wardrobe. The Bolshoi set was straight from a 1960's Ptushko movie, some of the choreography was a little stilted, and Raymonda as played by Bolshoi prima ballerina Nadezhda Gracheva (herself a native of Kazakhstan, she had some vocal supporters in the audience) seemed a bit butch and stilted. At least compared to some dancers we saw a couple of years back at the Mariansky Theatre in St. Petersburg, who really were breathtakingly graceful. I wish I could have seen Raymonda danced by Anastassia Volochkova, who was let go in a famous scandal over her extra weight. I've only seen the dazzling Anastassia on quiz shows and talk shows, never dancing (she does look pleasingly plump on TV, but the camera adds 10 pounds, they say).
Anyhow, there was plenty of leaping around at the Bolshoi tonight. Ruslan Skvortsov's Jean de Brienne was a good Russian male dancer, and the music was pleasant. I'm sure Francis, sitting practially in the dancer's laps, had fun.
The Bolshoi is really big, as its name indicates. It was built in 1856, during the time of serfdom. The former Tsar's box has a hammer and sickle displayed prominently (there was one over the top tier of Coppola's box, too). The proscenium curtain also features woven hammers and sickles, red stars, and the letters CCCP (USSR in Cyrillic). In fact, the atmosphere remains quite Soviet. The buffet had the crummy quality of pre-capitalist Russia--especially compared to the charming Novaya Opera buffet, it was expensive, and overall, the performance lacked some zest and charm. Maybe if they invested in some new decorations and lost the Soviet symbols, it might liven up the joint.
Still, the Bolshoi is the Bolshoi, and it was a night to remember, especially since we shared it with Francis--along with a couple of thousand other people.
BTW, Francis is still getting his wish for Russian winter. Here in Moscow it is now ten below, and snow, snow, snow...
Hollywood North
Yesterday, Russian television broadcast Francis Ford Coppola's arrival at Moscow's Demedovo Airport. His small orange private jet came in during our latest blizzard. The temperature was -16 degrees celsius, wind gusts of 20 mph, snow blowing everywhere. Coppola's flight looked like a tiny orange dot in a blur of white. He gave a press conference, announced that it was his lifelong dream to experience Russian Winter. Well, his dream has come true. Coppola is in town for some sort of Russian film award. I guess he'll be too busy to come speak to my American culture class. But everyone certainly knows The Godfather. In Tashkent, too. That is the image of America--Al Capone, Don Corleone, etc. Probably inspiration for the Russian mafia. Sometimes I wish Coppola would make a flm about Rudy Giuliani, to show the other side of the coin.
On Wednesday I took the Mosfilm Studio Tour. It's not quite like the Universal Tour in Hollywood. One of the mothers of the schoolchildren in the group to which I was attached had been to Universal and thought that Hollywood was better. I don't know, I enjoyed Moscow more. But they are certainly different. There are no rides at Mosfilm. Only history. And Mosfilm, like Hollywood studios after the 1948 consent decree, mostly rents out its studios and lot to independent producers. It seemed busy. They shoot 100 movies and TV shows a year.
Of course, this being Russia, the Mosfilm tour not open to tourists, unless they make special arrangements for a minimum group of 20. You can't just show up and get a ticket. Secondly, it's not in English. Thirdly, there is no trolley, you have walk around a studio back lot the size of the Vatican in sub-zero cold trudging across snow (luckily it was brilliant sunshine that day, and as Pushkin said, "Cold and sunny--wonderful!"). But the price is right: 50 roubles, about 2 dollars.
Well, if you can't get a ticket, how did I do it?
That is one of the interesting things about being in Russia, at least for an American. Since many things that we take for granted seem to be impossible, there is a special satisfaction in achieving anyting.
I took the Mosfilm tour due to the kindness of a stranger named Alina. She didn't know me, we had never met, yet she took pity on a visiting American. When I called the studio tour number, to inquire in my fractured beginner's Russian, after a few moments of mutual incomprehension, the tour office transferred my call to an English speaking person. She turned out to be a wonderful, kind woman, the chief editor of the script department. She didn't know that I had my MFA and PhD in Film/TV studies, that we read Pudovkin and Eisenstein's theories of montage at UCLA Film School, that Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera was part of our curriculum for documentaries, that the entire Soviet agitprop operation, the claim that "cinema was the most important art," as Lenin purportedly said, that the rolling movie theatres in specially converted railway cars were highlights of our movie history courses. Or that I had worked as a student intern on the lot at Columbia Pictures and Warner Brothers studios. (Warner's my favorite Hollywood Studio, because of Bogart's Casablanca, and the ghost of Ronald Reagan on their back lot) None of that, of course. Thank goodness! As Don Rumsfeld might say...
Probably because I seemed like a clueless childlike American, this kind stranger made some calls and got back to me (imagine any Hollywood executive doing that for a stranger, say from Russia, on the phone?). I could join a tour for schoolchildren on Wednesday. Meet at the cinema museum...
It was just terrific. Of course, even with permission, it wasn't that easy to get in. Like Hollywood, there is a front gate with a lot of security. Evereyone has to get a pass, even the actors. We watched as Russian film stars lined up a tiny windows to get in to work. My Russian teacher, who was acting as my translator, recognized some of them. "Oh, look at him, he always plays criminals. Doesn't he look like a criminal? Frightening!" Of course I still don't know who. But I can say that Russian film stars sort of look and dress like Hollywood actors. They even walk and carry themselves the same ay, the same blow-dried hair,too
Going with third graders was great. They oohed and ahhed at the cars, sleighs, and model boats and planes in the cinema museum. The special effects display, after a dancing skeleton, had a scene from Ptushko's version of Ruslan and Ludmilla. Two dolls suspended in mid-air--Ruslan about to cut off the evil wizard Chernomor's beard. And the third graders recited aloud the verse from Pushkin's poem, in unison. Their teacher beamed with pride! Maladets!
We saw lots of props and one real item--the tandem bicycle belonging to Lenin and Krupskaya. Why and how it got to Mosfilm, I still don't know. But it was interesting to imagine Lenin and his romantic companion riding on a bicycle built for two. Something very different. The kids loved the old Nazi motorcycles and jeeps, and the 1941 BMW, brought back from Germany as war booty. A lot of them cruised the streets of Moscow after the war, apparently, part of Russia's reverse Marshall Plan.
On the back lot, there was a complete 19th Century Moscow--like the Old New York set on 20th Century Fox's back lot, from Hello Dolly!. But this one was different, for a movie about Terrorism in the 19th century called "A Rider Named Death" based on the Russian novel of the same name.
And for its outdoor sets, Mosfilm doesn't use false fronts painted to look like stone, brick, or whatever. As Ludmilla, our excellent tour guide, pointed out, at Mosfilm Studios they make the sets completely out real materials--real stone streets, real concrete buildings--and when we went on to the set for "Wolf Killer" a blockbuster set in pre-Christian "Rites of Spring" days, there was an entire Russian village constructed of wooden logs, real giant logs. It took 2 1/2 months to put together. Of course, now they need to shoot a few sequels. Big, heavy, giant sets. Very Russian. Perhaps they do look more real on camera than our flimsy false fronts...
Highlight was the make-up department, where the kids got to meet a make-up artists and be photographed in latex masks. They oohed and aahed. And what was piled on the make-up table? A number of bloody human heads, veins and arteries dangling, eyes staring with death's horrible gaze. The tour guide picked up a latex human hand. On another table were piled bloody stumps of arms and legs. Moms took pictures of their kids holding some heads. We all laughed (the make-up artist was wearing a mask, a cross somewhere a monkey and a space-alien). Outside was a display of wigs in a glass case from the film "A History of Poisoning."
Beyond that, past the case with the 4 Mosfilm Oscars, the Silver Bears, the Golden Lions, the Palme D'Ors and other festival awards (cutest one looked like a glass Penguin, maybe a souvenir of the Antarctica Film Festival?), down a long corridor, towards the production korpus, was a case with an artificial eternal flame containing photos of the dozens of Mosfilm employees killed in World War II.
Past this display was Alina's office. She was, as in a movie script, a beautiful blonde, with kind eyes and a nice smile. I thanked her for perhaps the most interesting and thought-provoking studio tour I had ever taken. It was true.
BTW, did you know that Eisenstein reportedly wanted to defect to America, that he travelled to Hollywood in order to do so, that he only returned to Russia because Stalin was holding his mother hostage?
That pile of severed heads on the Mosfilm make-up room table sticks in one's mind...
On Wednesday I took the Mosfilm Studio Tour. It's not quite like the Universal Tour in Hollywood. One of the mothers of the schoolchildren in the group to which I was attached had been to Universal and thought that Hollywood was better. I don't know, I enjoyed Moscow more. But they are certainly different. There are no rides at Mosfilm. Only history. And Mosfilm, like Hollywood studios after the 1948 consent decree, mostly rents out its studios and lot to independent producers. It seemed busy. They shoot 100 movies and TV shows a year.
Of course, this being Russia, the Mosfilm tour not open to tourists, unless they make special arrangements for a minimum group of 20. You can't just show up and get a ticket. Secondly, it's not in English. Thirdly, there is no trolley, you have walk around a studio back lot the size of the Vatican in sub-zero cold trudging across snow (luckily it was brilliant sunshine that day, and as Pushkin said, "Cold and sunny--wonderful!"). But the price is right: 50 roubles, about 2 dollars.
Well, if you can't get a ticket, how did I do it?
That is one of the interesting things about being in Russia, at least for an American. Since many things that we take for granted seem to be impossible, there is a special satisfaction in achieving anyting.
I took the Mosfilm tour due to the kindness of a stranger named Alina. She didn't know me, we had never met, yet she took pity on a visiting American. When I called the studio tour number, to inquire in my fractured beginner's Russian, after a few moments of mutual incomprehension, the tour office transferred my call to an English speaking person. She turned out to be a wonderful, kind woman, the chief editor of the script department. She didn't know that I had my MFA and PhD in Film/TV studies, that we read Pudovkin and Eisenstein's theories of montage at UCLA Film School, that Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera was part of our curriculum for documentaries, that the entire Soviet agitprop operation, the claim that "cinema was the most important art," as Lenin purportedly said, that the rolling movie theatres in specially converted railway cars were highlights of our movie history courses. Or that I had worked as a student intern on the lot at Columbia Pictures and Warner Brothers studios. (Warner's my favorite Hollywood Studio, because of Bogart's Casablanca, and the ghost of Ronald Reagan on their back lot) None of that, of course. Thank goodness! As Don Rumsfeld might say...
Probably because I seemed like a clueless childlike American, this kind stranger made some calls and got back to me (imagine any Hollywood executive doing that for a stranger, say from Russia, on the phone?). I could join a tour for schoolchildren on Wednesday. Meet at the cinema museum...
It was just terrific. Of course, even with permission, it wasn't that easy to get in. Like Hollywood, there is a front gate with a lot of security. Evereyone has to get a pass, even the actors. We watched as Russian film stars lined up a tiny windows to get in to work. My Russian teacher, who was acting as my translator, recognized some of them. "Oh, look at him, he always plays criminals. Doesn't he look like a criminal? Frightening!" Of course I still don't know who. But I can say that Russian film stars sort of look and dress like Hollywood actors. They even walk and carry themselves the same ay, the same blow-dried hair,too
Going with third graders was great. They oohed and ahhed at the cars, sleighs, and model boats and planes in the cinema museum. The special effects display, after a dancing skeleton, had a scene from Ptushko's version of Ruslan and Ludmilla. Two dolls suspended in mid-air--Ruslan about to cut off the evil wizard Chernomor's beard. And the third graders recited aloud the verse from Pushkin's poem, in unison. Their teacher beamed with pride! Maladets!
We saw lots of props and one real item--the tandem bicycle belonging to Lenin and Krupskaya. Why and how it got to Mosfilm, I still don't know. But it was interesting to imagine Lenin and his romantic companion riding on a bicycle built for two. Something very different. The kids loved the old Nazi motorcycles and jeeps, and the 1941 BMW, brought back from Germany as war booty. A lot of them cruised the streets of Moscow after the war, apparently, part of Russia's reverse Marshall Plan.
On the back lot, there was a complete 19th Century Moscow--like the Old New York set on 20th Century Fox's back lot, from Hello Dolly!. But this one was different, for a movie about Terrorism in the 19th century called "A Rider Named Death" based on the Russian novel of the same name.
And for its outdoor sets, Mosfilm doesn't use false fronts painted to look like stone, brick, or whatever. As Ludmilla, our excellent tour guide, pointed out, at Mosfilm Studios they make the sets completely out real materials--real stone streets, real concrete buildings--and when we went on to the set for "Wolf Killer" a blockbuster set in pre-Christian "Rites of Spring" days, there was an entire Russian village constructed of wooden logs, real giant logs. It took 2 1/2 months to put together. Of course, now they need to shoot a few sequels. Big, heavy, giant sets. Very Russian. Perhaps they do look more real on camera than our flimsy false fronts...
Highlight was the make-up department, where the kids got to meet a make-up artists and be photographed in latex masks. They oohed and aahed. And what was piled on the make-up table? A number of bloody human heads, veins and arteries dangling, eyes staring with death's horrible gaze. The tour guide picked up a latex human hand. On another table were piled bloody stumps of arms and legs. Moms took pictures of their kids holding some heads. We all laughed (the make-up artist was wearing a mask, a cross somewhere a monkey and a space-alien). Outside was a display of wigs in a glass case from the film "A History of Poisoning."
Beyond that, past the case with the 4 Mosfilm Oscars, the Silver Bears, the Golden Lions, the Palme D'Ors and other festival awards (cutest one looked like a glass Penguin, maybe a souvenir of the Antarctica Film Festival?), down a long corridor, towards the production korpus, was a case with an artificial eternal flame containing photos of the dozens of Mosfilm employees killed in World War II.
Past this display was Alina's office. She was, as in a movie script, a beautiful blonde, with kind eyes and a nice smile. I thanked her for perhaps the most interesting and thought-provoking studio tour I had ever taken. It was true.
BTW, did you know that Eisenstein reportedly wanted to defect to America, that he travelled to Hollywood in order to do so, that he only returned to Russia because Stalin was holding his mother hostage?
That pile of severed heads on the Mosfilm make-up room table sticks in one's mind...
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