Curtain-up on Curtiz retrospective @ UCLA Film & Television Archive
Jan
5
2018
Academy Award-winning director Michael Curtiz (1886-1962) whose best-known films include Casablanca (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and Mildred Pierce (1945) directed over 180 films — 94 of them during more than a quarter-century at Warner Bros. He helmed tearjerkers, swashbuckling adventures, westerns, musicals, war epics, historical dramas, horror films, melodramas and film noir. Curtiz’s protean ...
Hollywood’s cross-genre master Michael Curtiz gets biography
Academy Award–winning director Michael Curtiz (1886–1962)—whose best-known films include Casablanca (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945) and White Christmas (1954)—was in many ways the anti-auteur. During his 27-year tenure at Warner Bros., Curtiz directed swashbuckling adventures, westerns, musicals, war epics, romances, historical dramas, horror films, tearjerkers, melodramas, comedies, and film noir masterpieces. The ...
Chatting with Michael Govan about ‘Moholy-Nagy: Future Present’
May
28
2017
It was nice watching the at-home manner in which LACMA CEO Michael Govan toured the cascading galleries of “Moholy-Nagy: Future Present” during the impressive show’s opening week in February. The highly recommended exhibition of 250 works by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a visual master much known for photography and filmmaking, will close on June 18. Sure, the ...
Eerie time-and-space travel by photographer George LeGrady 2
Nov
30
2015
This intriguing work based upon nostalgic family snapshots from the ’30s and ’40s allows photographer George LeGrady to activate his personal past by use of a lenticular imaging process. It essentially culls a kinetic experience from static photographic imagery, activated by the viewer’s vantage point. Known for ambitious interactive installations, photography and data visualization projects, ...
Why “Raymonda”? Segerstrom’s Judy Morr shares love of this ballet
Sep
13
2015
In advance of the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra’s upcoming presentation of the full-evening version of “Raymonda,” dating to the late 19th century, we spoke to Segerstrom Center for the Arts Executive Vice President Judy Morr, who is the longtime dance curator at the Orange County arts complex. Judy, why present this ballet now? “Raymonda” is ...
How did ‘Cuddles’ do it? Revealed at Skirball Center’s “Light and Noir”
Feb
6
2015
As this TCM tribute sets forth, the Budapest-born, jowly S.Z. ‘Cuddles’ Sakall was adorable, hilarious and popular on the set. But did those qualities alone get the character actor prominent play in 46 Hollywood movies? One of many film people to flee Nazi-dominated Europe, arrive on American shores, and wend their way to southern California, ...
Eötvös’s noir quartet, “Korrespondenz” (1993), by Calder Quartet @ Jacaranda
What a strange and intricate moment when composer Peter Eötvös’s Korrespondenz, Scenes for String Quartet opened Jacaranda’s “Fierce Beauty” program Saturday night in Santa Monica. The Calder Quartet played the 1993 work with Eötvös in the room, making the occasion extra special. The global music luminary is visiting Los Angeles from Hungary for a week of ...
“Scarecrow” cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond @ LACMA
Jan
23
2011
Following a double bill at LACMA so soulful and affecting that the feeling was beatific [“Electra Glide in Blue” & “Scarecrow” both from 1973], the museum hosted the great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond for a talk. Zsigmond, in tandem with his compatriot Laszlo Kovacs, introduced a palette of mittel European muted natural light to Hollywood. According to ...