“Je ne suis pas contente de tout,” says Claude Bessy. 1
The film I loved most of the four I saw at the Dance Camera West festival in June was Fabrice Herrault’s beautifully constructed documentary about his former ballet instructor, Claude Bessy, Les lignes d’une Vie (Traces of a Life). Herrault, a dance professor at the Juilliard School and a respected private coach, has made one ...
Roland Petit est mort 2
Jul
11
2011
Choreographer Roland Petit, a giant of contemporary ballet — he more or less pioneered the genre — died this weekend. Petit’s lifelong involvement with ballet, creating 100+ works, gave him two enduring credits: Carmen (1949) and Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, a dramatic ballet set to a Bach passacaglia, with scenario by Jean Cocteau ...
René Blum and his Ballets Russes get another go-round in new book 1
Jun
21
2011
Blum’s female universe, bountiful & beautiful, en route to New York, 1938 (photo courtesy of the author, click for detail) “In October 1938, the company sailed to the United States with the new Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo under the artistic direction of [Léonide] Massine and [René] Blum, who was billed as founder … for a ...
Bertrand Blier to Gérard Depardieu: ‘Trop gros pour moi!’
Apr
15
2011
depardieu/farley, snl “I always think about Gérard Depardieu when I create a role,” said Bertrand Blier, who since 1974 has made eight films with France’s premier actor. “Even if it’s a woman. Even if it’s an animal. Sometimes there’s a big piece of furniture — it’s Depardieu.” Blier was free-associating at the daily afternoon ‘Happy ...
Boulez’s masterful “sur Incises” at Disney Hall 2
It was a privilege, last night, to watch Pierre Boulez conduct his own work from the late 1990s, “sur Incises,” written for a triplet of threesomes: three harps, three pianos, and three percussion clusters (xylophone, marimba, bells, tympani). A guided journey through a landscape of crystalline sound, the work clung miraculously to the air of ...
La belle Catherine … Deneuve
Mar
9
2011
The film goddess Catherine Deneuve, at 66 larger than life, still impossibly beautiful, and emanating the off-putting mix of power and femininity that characterizes French women (and intimidates me!), received the audience’s full adulation in a personal appearance tonight at LACMA’s Bing Theater. Fittingly, today is International Women’s Day. Et quelle femme! We’d just watched ...
Catherine la Grande: Deneuve in person at LACMA 1
Mar
6
2011
Preparing to see Catherine Deneuve appear in person in conjunction with a screening of “Potiche,” her new film directed by François Ozon, we swung by the museum late Friday night to see Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” . . . a perfect movie. Ian Birnie, film curator responsible for the museum’s Deneuve retrospective, shares his view on ...
L’Enfer: Clouzot’s movie project from hell 1
Film director Henri-Georges Clouzot nearly lost his mind, as well as his career and even his life, obsessing over the Austrian-born multilingual actress Romy Schneider. In 1963, Clouzot, then one of France’s most acclaimed filmmakers, began work on “L’Enfer,” a tale of male jealousy and madness. A blank check from Columbia Pictures burning in his ...
Kenneth Anger recalls blacklisted Jack Cole dancers 1
The first time I heard the name Jack Cole was not from a dance person but from experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Upon hearing that I am a dance critic, Anger, 83, said: “Someone needs to write about Jack Cole.” Kenneth Anger has distinct memories of hanging out with Jack Cole dancers in Paris: “Hollywood was ...
Love among the geniuses
Read this story on The Huffington Post. Two recent biopics portray the torrid love lives of great artists — one of our favorite subjects. First, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009), a chicly decorated French film about a purported love affair between the stern couturière and the equally rigorous modernist composer — all while Mme ...