Rendering №9 CINEMA

The article  Warner Brothers: ninety years of grit and greatness was published on April, 4 in 2013 by David Gritten.

Warner Bros today celebrates nine decades of individuality, big characters, and challenging realism on the big screen .
The author remembered that with the premiere of The Jazz Singer in New York City in 1927, the world of film changed. Starring Al Jolson, it launched the era of the “talkies”, and was the prototype of movies as we know them today: a synthesis of sound and vision.
The Jazz Singer was a film from Warner Bros, which had then been in existence for just four years – and that premiere was screened at the flagship Warner Bros cinema in Manhattan. For that event alone Warners, which today celebrates its 90th anniversary, would deserve a place in the pantheon of great Hollywood studios.

Yet over the years there have been so many more reasons to celebrate Warners. It’s hard to believe now, when every Hollywood studio offers diversified “product” in an attempt to be all things to all people, but there was a time when they actively differentiated themselves from their rivals, specialising in genres or styles. Disney meant animation, of course, while MGM was synonymous with musicals.

Warner Bros made its mark with big-screen realism. From the early Thirties, under the auspices of its brilliant young production chief, Darryl F Zanuck, and his successor, Hal Wallis, it generated a cycle of gangster films and crime dramas: in 1931 alone there was Little Caesar, starring Edward G Robinson; The Public Enemy, starring James Cagney; and Smart Money, which starred them both.
These films chimed resoundingly with the spirit of the times. They held up a mirror to Depression-era America, and appealed directly to ordinry people suffering financial troubles. These Warner Bros films developed a house style: urban settings, snappy dialogue and a brisk pace, with scripts and performances that never strayed into sentimentality.
As for the present situation, the author stated that even today, a distinctive film-maker like Christopher Nolan calls Warners home, and it’s hard to imagine him equally comfortable elsewhere. Of course, Warners’ output is as varied in quality as any other studio – but over 90 years it has created a legacy unlike any other in Hollywood.

I'd like to thank this wonderful website because it's full of such interesting and useful articles as this one. It was very interesting for me read and penetrated into it because i'm fond of cinema and news in this sphere are important for me.

Rendering №8 THEATRE

The article "Once the musical: A story of love, friendship, music – and success" was published on March 28, 2013 by Sarah Crompton.

The article

The author underlined that it would be hard to imagine someone less likely to be the director of a Broadway musical than John Tiffany. He’s a scruffy, straightforward Yorkshireman, who talks nineteen to the dozen, was once literary manager for the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, and built his subsequent career on championing new writing.

It's the fact that Yet Once, a delicate, charming story of love, friendship and music, based on the popular Irish film of the same name, turned him into one of the hottest directors in America, winning eight Tony awards, including best director. It is now beginning previews in London, where it is likely to garner just as much praise.

There is a small part of the interview of Sarah Crompton and John Tiffany. 

-"Well that’s all very well, but there’s no choreography and where is your set?’ ”

He laughs, his entire face creasing. -“You can only make the work that you have to make. And I am old enough now to know that I can’t start making shows that are going to win awards. That way madness lies.”

The work that transformed Tiffany’s reputation was, in fact, not Once, but Black Watch, Gregory Burke’s gritty drama about soldiers from the Scottish regiment who served in Iraq. In the hands of Tiffany and his key collaborator Steven Hoggett (a friend from childhood) it became something else: a visceral, haunting evocation of the lives of military men, their hopes and dreams.

 

I'm interested in this article because it includes 2 thems which can draw my attention. The first one is a new Broadway musical "Yet Once", and the second - the way the director John Tiffany works.

Rendering №7 THEATRE

The article "Richard Griffiths, star of The History Boys and Harry Potter, has died aged 65" was published March 29, 2013 by Alice Vincent, Entertainment writer. 

The article

     British actor Richard Griffiths OBE has died from complications following heart surgery, aged 65.

     An actor of stage, film and television, Griffiths was best known for his roles in Withnail & I and the Harry Potter films. He also played Henry Crabbe, a disillusioned police officer in the crime procedural TV series Pie in the Sky.
     Griffiths received a Tony Award, a Laurence Olivier Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance as Hector, the tragic teacher in The History Boys, a role he also played on screen. National Theatre director Sir Nicholas Hytner told Sky News Griffiths' performance in the play was "quite overwhelming: a masterpiece of wit".
     The actor appeared as poet WH Auden in another Alan Bennett's play, The Habit of Art, in 2009.
     The writer reminded us that more recently Griffiths found a new fan base by appearing in the Harry Potter films as Vernon Dursley, Harry's short-tempered and cruel uncle. In 2008 the actor was appointed an OBE in the New Year Honours list. He also appeared opposite Potter star Daniel Radcliffe on stage in Peter Shaffer's Equus.

     I'm very, very upset to get to know about this terrible, grievous event. It's a sorrowful fact that every year, and even every month we lose such talented and indispensable people as Richard Griffiths. May his memory live for ever!

Individual Reading 6

From Strickland's doctor in charge of the case the narrator got to know that he had suffered from a grave disease: it was leprosy. All his neighbors and acquaintances had avoided his house being afraid to become infected. And only Ata with his children had been devoted to Charles to the utmost, although on of his children died from the infection. The artist's disease was taking very slowly and painfully. But in spite of it he had painted on the walls of his house before losing his sight. After his death, at Charles's request, the house was burnt by Ata, and she with her child had gone away.
Charles Strickland was a bright example of the artists who had become recognized only after their death.

Rendering №6 THEATRE

The “Burn The Floor, at Shaftesbury Theatre” article was written on the 13^th of March in 2013 by Louise Levene.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/9928329/Burn-The-Floor-Barely-a-spark.html

The author express her own opinion about this performance.

“This ballroom extravaganza – returning to the West End after a huge world tour – is lacking in passion, mystery and humour!”  Louise Levene

Burn the Floor? I wanted to torch the entire theatre after two hours of this unrelenting ballroom extravaganza. The show, which has been touring the globe since its premiere in Bournemouth back in 1999, is back for an optimistic six-month run.

It remains well-drilled and generates enough energy to power a small abattoir, but it’s strangely charmless, lacking in the sexual chemistry that gives social dance its pulse.

Louise underlines that the great ballroom renaissance that began with Dirty Dancing and Baz Luhrmann’s game-changing 1992 film Strictly Ballroom has transformed this pursuit from a brilliantined bore into an international commodity.

And then she concludes that more interesting singers or more nuanced musical direction might have helped. Costumes are tacky (if plentiful), lighting is crude and hyperactive, and the staging unspectacular to the point of thrift.

In order to express my opinion I’d like to give you a proverb: “A picture is worth a thousand words”. That’s why I can’t judge this performance!!!

 

Rendering №5 THEATRE

The article "How The Audience echoes Shakespeare in showing the human cost of being Queen" was published on the 6th of March in 2013 on the website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9912659/How-The-Audience-echoes-Shakespeare-in-showing-the-human-cost-of-being-Queen.html

The author wrote that after watching Helen Mirren star as the Queen in the opening night of Peter Morgan’s play The Audience, Dominic Cavendish spots a parallel with Shakespeare's history plays.

One of the most haunting images in The Audience shows its prim and proper heroine trying to sneak a peak out of one of the windows of Buckingham Palace without being observed. Redoubling the poignancy, Peter Morgan revisits the vignette towards the end. The girlish princess (evoked wonderfully well on opening night by Nell Williams, clipped of accent, brimming with vigour) and her elder self (played with a sublime mixture of regal composure and subtle psychological self-exposure by Helen Mirren) hold themselves as still as statues to spy on the world beyond - which at once lies under their nominal dominion and yet also remains the undiscovered country.

That Morgan has learnt from Shakespeare about framing the historical moment is evident from the very first lines of the play, in which Geoffrey Beevers’ Equerry steps forward to help set the scene, in a latter-day echo of the Chorus.

I like such articles because they tell us about the novelties in the sphere of theatre. And friendly speaking, i'd like to watch this performance, it deeply interests me.

Individual Reading 5

In spite of such an attitude to Charles Strickland the narrator went to the artist's workshop to look at his paintings. It was their last meeting. Subsequently, traveling round the world, the writer got to know about Charles's life from the fellow-travellers who had ever known a famous artist Mr. Strickland. As people said, Charles went to Marcele where he earned his life working in different spheres. When there was a chance to go to Taiti he went away and married there a young girl Ata.