Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner‘s The History Boys having won six Tony Awards last Sunday night, including one for Best Play, seems to suggest that Hytner’s film version, which Fox Searchlight will bring out in the fall, has instant credibility as a year-end Oscar contender. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. And I’m saying this, frankly, because of the older- man’s-hands-on-schoolboy-genitals factor. (Sorry, but I didn’t write the play.) I was lucky enough to see The History Boys in early May before going to Cannes Film Festival, and there’s no question that it’s a brilliant and impassioned tribute to the glories of inspired teaching, of passing along those things that truly matter in life. In the film, Richard Griffiths (best known as Harry Potter‘s mean-spirited Uncle Vernon) will repeat his Tony-winning stage performance as an eccentric history instructor in an English boys’ school who’s expected to prepare them as best he can for university entrance exams, but is forced to leave his post when the school’s headmaster learns about his erotic fondling of some of the students. There’s a longstanding homoerotic tradition in dramas about English schoolboys and boarding schools (reflections of this were in Lindsay Anderson‘s If) and it’s certainly no big deal to X-factor types, but I’m asking myself a question. If a Catholic priest takes liberties with a choirboy, it’s venal and deplorable. But if a history instructor fondles the balls of a young student while they ride on a motorcycle, it’s not that big a deal. I’m not trying to be a smartass, but the idea seems to be if you’re broadening the student’s mind with profound teachings (as Griffith’s History character certainly is), copping a discreet feel is a forgivable impulse/indulgence, but it’s a different story if you’re a priest passing along repressive Catholic dogma.
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The perpetuating of the Superman-as-gay-icon thing is bizarre. After seeing Bryan Singer‘s film last week I wrote that those speculating about echoes along these lines are “dreaming…this is a film about purity of spirit.” And Singer has said his Superman “is probably the most heterosexual character in any movie I’ve ever made”…and he’s not wrong. But the Guardian won’t let it go.
“The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves but wiser people are full of doubt.” — Bertrand Russell quote embraced by Bill Maher to call attention to a new Maher-produced documentary about the state of religion in the world.
The Chinese government censors are so relentless…like termites, like beavers on amphetamine…and they just don’t quit with the lame-ass no-no’s.
Gyorgy Ligeti, a Hungarian composer who created one of the trippiest motion picture scores of all time with his work on Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey , died today in Vienna at age 83. If you don’t remember the 2001 score, listen to an excerpt here and it’ll come right back to you.
Props to N.Y. Times columnist David Carr for not just sticking it to arch-conservative “hate-monger” Ann Coulter in the usual way…hah!
“Certainly one advantage of ‘youth’ in the arts is ignorance, to know so little as to be fearless. To not grasp that certain things one may dream up are actually impossible to do. When I finished Apocalypse Now I of course thought, ‘If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have even tried [this].” Certainly old age brings ‘experience’ and that is not to be discounted, but in the arts, fearlessness is a more desirable genie than experience . Fearlessness is cousin to innovation, whereas experience can be the parent of fear. Once you’ve fallen out of the tree a few times; felt the pain of those bruised knees and suffered the embarrassment of the inevitable ridicule — it’s much more difficult to be as daring in what you do, or even what you attempt to do. So…I’ve decided the best course is to become an amateur and accept that I know next to nothing and love almost everything . Recently I realized that the favorite decade of my life was 50, a wonderful age for a man — at the peak of his health and experience, yet flexible enough to enjoy and also temper it. So reluctant was I to give up being in my fifties, that I began to call myself ‘fifty-ten’ or ‘fifty-eleven ‘. Now I’m ‘fiftysixteen’. And so today, like some inflated East European currency that gets two zeros lopped off, I’ve decided to lose the ’50’ and just be sixteen. Next year I’ll be seventeen, which is exactly the age that I was when I very seriously began to direct plays.” — Francis Coppola on certain dilemmas he’s faced in recent years, writing on his Youth Without Youth site.
“We are not here to be liked,” 20th Century Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman tells N.Y. Times reporter Laura Holson. “We don’t work for talent agencies. We work for Fox. Our job is not to worry about agents who jibber-jabber to reporters, who worry about headlines.” Co-chairman Jim Gianopulos tells Holson that that currying favor “is not tolerated around here from anyone; you are not going to get ahead scheming.”
“I would love to go off and make a picture like Capote or George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck.” — Steven Spielberg mouthing the equivalent of creative crocodile tears to Peter Bart and Peter Guber during a segment of AMC’s “Sunday Morning Shootout” that aired this morning.
“Remember — all sequels are whore movies. You do the first one because you want to do something wonderful. You do the sequel for money.” — guy with heavy credits who’s done some laps around the track.
Haven’t seen the latest Entertainment Weekly with the story about the most controversial films ever, but good for Nikki Finke having written that while she “has no real problems with EW‘s list, it’s as if only the post-Star Wars prequel generation came up with it.” If, in fact, EW is deliberately skewing its reporting toward a younger demographic (as they seem to be), they’re surrendering whatever cinematic historical authority points they may have accumulated in past years. The story reportedly leaves out Brokeback Mountain, and also blows off (according to Finke) Carnal Knowledge, Easy Rider, Straw Dogs, Apocalypse Now, I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, Dr. Strangelove, Gentlemen’s Agreement, Bad Day at Black Rock, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Midnight Cowboy . “Not to mention the original Manchurian Candidate which after the JFK assassination was withdrawn from circulation for 25 years?,” Finke adds. “Or Song of the South, which is still Disney’s biggest embarrassment for showing “happy slaves” onscreen. And since they’re counting foreign films (Triumph of the Will is included), then where’s L’Age d’Or, for that matter? I could go on and on.” What about Birth of a Nation?
Confusion hovers over the release of David Fincher‘s Zodiac, one of the most highly anticipated dramas of the fall and a personal can’t-wait for yours truly. The IMDB has an 11.22.06 U.S. release date but Coming Soon has it coming out January 19, 2007. There’s also a Robert Downey fan site that’s reporting the release date as 1.19.07. It says that Fincher is doing some reshoots (which Downey is involved in) and will resume filming reshoots sometime in late June. There’s no reason that additional shooting in the mid-summer should cause a film with a skedded late November release to delay opening until January 2007. Something’s wrong. I’ll check with Paramount publicity on Monday morning, but if anyone knows (or has heard) anything, please write in.