Film's Greatest Fan: Elwy Yost (July 10, 1925-July 21, 2011)

Elwy Yost (July 10, 1925-July 21, 2011)

Without Elwy Yost, I doubt if I would ever have become a film critic. This is why the news of his passing yesterday hit me with a moment of sadness –  a sadness for the passing of my youth, perhaps, because he was such a big part of it. On February 23, 2011, I wrote a piece on Critics at Large about his son Graham’s fine TV series, Boomtown (2002-2003). But, as a way of an intro to the piece, I had composed something of a tribute to Elwy. The piece obviously wasn't intended to be an obituary, but reading it again the other night, it inadvertently reads like one now. Here is what I wrote:

Growing up in small-town Ontario north of Toronto, I didn't have much to do when it came to the arts. In the 1960s and 1970s, except for some regional theatre, the only way to gain exposure to the arts was through movies or television. In my early years, most of my 'education' came from the movies because in Parry Sound in the 1960s we received only one television station (the CBC affiliate in Barrie, now part of CTV). That education was rather slight: Disney flicks, James Bond double-bills, the latest Don Knotts comedy, plus the occasional interesting picture, such as Patton (1970) and Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run (1969). By the time my family moved to the nearby town of Bracebridge I had yet to see any of Hollywood's great films from the so-called Golden Era. When we finally got cable in Bracebridge (about six months after we moved there), I began to discover the history of Hollywood films. My education really began thanks to TV Ontario (aka, TVO, a Canadian version of the US's PBS) and the shows Magic Shadows and Saturday Night at the Movies. Hosted by Elwy Yost, Magic Shadows was a Monday through Friday show that presented classic movies, uncut, broken into thirty minute chunks. In this pre-video/PVR era you either made sure you were in front of the set by 7:30 or you would miss a segment.

On Saturday nights, Elwy returned with a two-complete-movies theme night. Again showing the films uncut, Yost would offer two movies connected by theme or director or actor. Between each film, he would offer interviews he'd conducted about these films with the stars or directors or critics. To say that Yost was an enthusiast was an understatement. His questions were often simple, never probing, but I didn't care. I was filling my head, finally, with some of the great films of Hollywood and seeing interviews with the people who had made them. I know that thanks to Elwy Yost my appreciation of films developed. At first, I reacted like he did: a fan grooving on Hollywood. It was only later that I understood movies were an art form and I began to develop a critical voice. Yost turned his son, Graham, into a film fanatic too. Elwy told the story on more than one occasion that he let his son stay up late to watch Citizen Kane (1941) for the first time. Elwy even let Graham skip school. The day after, Graham showed up at school with a note explaining that Graham had missed school because Elwy kept him up way past his bedtime watching what many still consider the greatest film ever made.

A Dull Captain America; A Thunderous Thor

Growing up, my preference in comic books was always geared towards the Marvel Comics universe and not the D.C. Comics’ one. With the exception of the Justice League of America and Batman, I felt that the adventures of Marvel’s Spider-Man, Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and The Mighty Thor, with their colourful villains, complex protagonists and the grittiness of a thinly disguised Earth, trumped the mostly bland D.C. heroes and heroines. That includes, I must confess, Superman and Wonder Woman. Batman, though, with his dark psychological back story (his parents murdered before his eyes) and its nuanced present (where Gotham City’s attitude towards its costumed protector was profoundly ambivalent) seemed more in line with Marvel's layered complexity. And the first two Batman movies, Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), both directed by Tim Burton, certainly were impressive achievements. So was the masterful Superman 2 (1980) and aspects of Superman (1978). Over the years, however, most of the many Marvel film adaptations, with one notable exception, never quite jelled into fine or memorable movies, though their cinematic ingredients ought to have ensured otherwise.

The exception was Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 (2004), which coalesced into a finely acted and directed tale. It perfectly captured Peter Parker’s conflicted nature: a normal teenager trying to balance a work and love life with the responsibility he considered that he owed his late Uncle Ben. In the story, he had to cope with the intense guilt brought on because he failed to use his superpowers to save Ben out of the sheer selfishness of not getting involved in the affairs of man. The rest of the Marvel movies, including the first and third Spider-Man flicks, fell short of that masterpiece. Filmmakers either picked some of the duller Marvel superheroes, Daredevil (2002) and Iron Man (2007), to adapt to the screen, or the directors botched the projects (Fantastic Four (2005)) or both (Iron Man). A few of the movies, the provocative first Hulk (2003), directed by Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Bryan Singer’s well-acted and well-characterized X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003) fell somewhere in the qualitative middle. The summer of 2011 marks a revamp of the X-Men franchise (X-Men: First Class, a prequel to the previous movies, which I have not seen) and the premiere of both Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, which opens today. Despite its faithfulness to its source material, Captain America: The First Avenger is one of the most innocuous and forgettable of all the Marvel movies.

The Absent Pater Familias: Starting Over in Beginners

Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor in Beginners

Christopher Plummer might be headed into Oscar territory, but the new film that gives him an award-worthy role lags miles behind the talents of its cast. The autobiographical Beginners, written and directed by Mike Mills (Thumbsucker, 2005), tries to cruise along on angst and a surfeit of whimsy that grows increasingly forced. That said, there’s something seductive in the tale of a son’s conflicted feelings about a long-neglectful father who has come way, way out of the closet after the death of his wife, especially when that son is played by the always remarkable Ewan McGregor.

In this instance, he’s a straight 38-year-old graphic artist named Oliver who has trouble making intimate relationships last. His loneliness has roots in childhood, of course, a situation recalled through voice-over narration and flashbacks aplenty. We see a montage of his mother, Georgia (Mary Page Keller), marrying a guy she knows to be gay, although that word is not yet used to describe homosexuals back in 1955. That choice, in an effort by both of them to pass as “normal,” eventually leaves her miserable and a bit nuts. This condition is never fully explored, but her behavior is a bit beyond amusingly eccentric, especially while visiting art exhibits with young Oliver (Keegan Boos). Her husband, Hal (Plummer), is a museum director who spends less and less time at home, instead seeking clandestine, anonymous encounters with other men.

Pathetic Fallacy and Amazing Truth: The Poetry of Mary Oliver

As a society, we don't read poetry like we once did. Although we still study poems in school and acknowledge our poets at prestigious award ceremonies, most of us turn to novels when reading for pleasure and are far more interested in the Giller nominees than the Griffin winner. Reading poetry is so much more labour intensive than reading fiction; it requires a different skill set than the one needed to navigate our fast-paced world. No poet seems to understand this better than Mary Oliver (Swan: Poems and Prose Poems, Beacon Press, 2010).

Back when people did read poetry for pleasure, Alexander Pope proclaimed (in verse!) “True wit is nature to advantage dressed / What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.” Had Pope lived 300 years later, I’m sure he would have appreciated the way Oliver advantageously dresses nature to express human emotion. Oliver is famous for her “affinity with the natural world” (her words) and most of her poems draw on images from nature. But Oliver is much more than a naturalistic poet. The parallels she draws between human existence and the organic world imply that we are deeply interconnected.

It Ends With A Bang: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Well, it's over. Now what do we do? For the last ten years, there was always a Harry Potter film to look forward to. And now it's all over. As I outlined last year when I reviewed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, the films have had their ups and downs. Mostly, thankfully, ups. After the strengths of Part 1, I thought we were in safe hands with director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves for Part 2. My trust in them has been fulfilled: Part 2 is both visually rich and emotionally moving.

As with Part 1, since I'm assuming most of you have read the books, I will keep the synopsis brief. The film starts (at the precise moment where Part 1 ends) when Harry and company have finished burying Dobby the Elf. Harry questions the goblin, Griphook (Warwick Davis), about the contents of a Death Eaters' vault in the Gringotts Bank on Diagon Alley. Harry cuts a deal with Griphook that he can have the Sword of Gryffindor if he helps Harry, Ron and Hermione break into the bank to retrieve a horcrux from said vault (a horcrux is an everyday object where the evil Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) has hidden part of his soul). Davis, who's appeared in multiple roles in all the films (including Professor Flitwick at Hogsworth), is particularly good here. He is the consummate banker looking for his edge. Next, Harry questions the gravely ill wand merchant, Olivander (John Hurt), who explains the history of the wands Harry has acquired. Both of these sequences are strictly expository, but are evidence yet again of the increasing skills of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint as actors. As I said in my review of Part 1, if these three had not been able to keep up their end of the bargain, these last two films, which are almost completely focused on them, would have failed.

The Return of the Master of Space and Time: Leon Russell

Leon Russell, The Master of Space and Time, is making a comeback. Last year’s album, The Union, with Elton John, produced by T Bone Burnett (with an accompanying film directed by Cameron Crowe), started the ball rolling and next a set of fifty dates with Bob Dylan should put Russell back in the front of peoples’ minds. For those of us who remember him from the old days, this is a welcome return. Leon has a way about him, a piano sound that is instantly recognizable and a voice ... well, more about that later. First, Sound Academy.

I’ve never been to the Sound Academy night club in Toronto before but driving in from Hamilton my wife and I were struck by a number of things. It’s simple to get to, off the Gardiner Expressway, onto Lakeshore, down Cherry Street, across the bridge and to the end of Polson Pier. It is a beautiful setting. On this clear evening, with the sun sparkling on the water, sailboats by the dozens on the lake, planes coming in for a landing at the Toronto Island airport, the ambiance couldn't be better. We sat on the deck with a club soda, soaking in this ambiance, when all of a sudden it hit us. “What is that smell?” There’s a transfer station right across the way, so the smell of garbage hangs over the place. Too bad, everything else about the venue is nearly perfect.

The Knife's Edge Between Love and Hate: Soulpepper Theatre Company's The Kreutzer Sonata

“Marriage. The endless rehashing of hurts and hatreds.”

—Yuri in The Kreutzer Sonata

The staging couldn't be simpler: a chair, a rug, a side table with a bible, a letter, jug and glass of water. The light from almost directly overhead illuminates this tableau. But within that simplicity exists layers of human emotion that can rip and tear a soul apart. Such is the setting of the Soulpepper Theatre Company's production of The Kreutzer Sonata (it runs there in repertory in Toronto until the end of August). For a 'summertime' show, this work is brave and deeply troubling, because the story it tells is of one man, talking to the audience, describing how murderous jealousy led him to kill his beloved wife.

Leo Tolstoy

Star and director Ted Dykstra (director of this season's Soulpepper productions The Glass Menagerie and Billy Bishop Goes To War) also adapted the work for the stage from a corrosive novella written by Leo Tolstoy in 1888. This is Dykstra's fifth time doing the show – a show that began life in 2009 with The Art of Time Ensemble (a Toronto-based company) and then last year as part of the Toronto Summerworks program (a series of short works that runs throughout August each year). We first see Dykstra standing behind the chair as the lights slowly, painfully come up. It's a startling image, as he looks like a demon emerging from the darkness, which sets the stage for what is to come. Dykstra as Yuri stands slightly hunched as he rests his hands gently on the back of the chair. He (and we) are listening to a portion of “The Kreutzer Sonata” by Beethoven. Finally, the lights come up full (top marks to Lorenzo Savoini for his set and lighting design, plus his costumes – they are all of a piece) and Yuri takes the chair, pours himself some water, crosses his legs and begins.

Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History: Nice Girls Just Don't Get It

"Laura, you’re being far too nice to those people!” My colleague scolds me after I hang up the phone. While he’s humorously alluding to my pleasant demeanour with a patron; he may not be too far off the mark. In fact, he has touched on an issue that, I just realize, has held me back for the majority of my life. Like many other women, I was raised on a strict regime that included rules and mantras such as: “stop asking questions,” “keep those things to yourself,” “if you want people to like you, then you should (…),” and of course “be nice.” As rebellious as I was, this philosophy was more or less inbedded in me. I became far too nice.

Fortunately, a recent publication touches on the solution to this very issue. Lois P. Frankel and Carol Frohlinger’s Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It (Crown Archetype, 2011) is directed at women who “feel invisible, taken advantage of, treated less than respectfully, or at a loss for how to get the things you most want in life.” No strangers to dishing out advice to nice girls – Frankel is best known for her bestselling Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, while Frohlinger, also an author, is the founder of Negotiating Women, Inc., an advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations advance women into leadership roles. Their work includes some sage advice that all “nice girls” should consider.

Real Teens, Real Issues: TV's Degrassi

It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, I suppose, but I’ve just recently re-acquainted myself with Degrassi, the long-running TV series about teens in a Toronto community high school. (I am decades out of high school myself so I feel a bit sheepish admitting I like the series, an unnecessary reaction since Degrassi, ultimately, is all about fine television.) I watched it quite regularly in the '80s but somehow forgot about it after its ten-year hiatus and didn’t check back in with when it returned as Degrassi: The Next Generation, something I now regret. I was flipping the dial on a Friday a few months back when I came across a late Season 10 episode on MuchMusic and was instantly hooked all over again, eventually catching up with the entire season due to MuchMusic’s repeats. Season 11 begins on Monday July 18 on MuchMusic – Canada ’s version of the American music channel MTV – and the U.S. channel TeenNick. Judging by the exciting goings-on last season, it promises to be another gripping and fascinating installment in the ongoing saga of the kids of Degrassi.

It’s hard to believe but the show, in one form or another, has been around since 1979, beginning with its first incarnation as The Kids of Degrassi Street (1979-86) on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the country's public TV network. (Linda Schuyler and Kit Hood were its creators, but only the former is still involved with the show.) That was followed by Degrassi Junior High (1987-89), Degrassi High (1989-91), both on CBC and, finally, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which premiered in 2001, moving to CTV, Canada's leading private television network, which also owns MuchMusic. It changed its name to just plain Degrassi last season. (This being Canada, the first few episodes of The Kids of Degrassi Street were one offs, and the early seasons were abbreviated ones, as in the British television mode, ranging anywhere from 4-11 episodes. Growing exponentially, last season Degrassi hit a high of 45 episodes, 22 two part episodes, each a half hour in length, and one half hour documentary whereby some of the cast went to India to help build, appropriately enough, a schoolhouse. Overall there are close to 20 actual season’s worth of shows revolving around Degrassi.) As in real life, every few years, the Degrassi kids graduate high school and are replaced by a new crop of high schoolers. In fact, this year’s season will be split in two, with 29 episodes, running for seven weeks wrapping up the 2010/2011 school year, and another 16 shows, starting in the fall, chronicling the next school year, which means a batch of current Degrassi Grade 12ers will graduate. As such shows about teens go, it’s always been a uniquely intelligent and honest series about young people. It is perhaps the most impressive example of this particular genre.



It Can Happen Here: The Cosmology of Falling Skies

The end of the world apparently can’t come soon enough for Hollywood. While doomsday movies have been a staple for decades, the recent plethora of apocalypse fare hints at some sort of self-loathing in an industry known for boundless self-admiration. Or is it merely tapping into the collective consciousness of a populace that’s “facing a dying nation,” to borrow a poignant lyric from Hair’s “Let the Sunshine In”? Make that “facing a dying planet” and you have the current state of despair among those alarmed about the deteriorating environment and the ever-present peril of nuclear annihilation.

Now halfway through its ten-episode summer debut on TNT and already renewed for another season, Falling Skies substitutes an alien invasion for endangered polar bears and Pakistan’s arsenal. The somewhat derivative series begins six months after 90 percent of humanity has perished in the initial conflagration. Ragtag survivors in and around Boston band together to fight the “Skitters,” enormous spider-like sentient beings, and their even more gigantic metallic robots, dubbed “Mechs.” The chief writer and creator, Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan – 1998, and The Patriot – 2000) is a Harvard grad who reportedly still lives in Cambridge. Although ostensibly set in the Bay State, the series is shot in Toronto – the hometown of Graham Yost, who shares executive producer chores with Steven Spielberg. 

Etymology and Evolution: Ingredients For Innovation

Those who know me may find it strange (not ironic - that word is the subject of a future review) that I’m discussing the concept of innovation. According to some definitions of the word, I would be one of society’s least innovative people. I don’t own a cell phone, car, or anything that starts with an i. I’m not on Facebook, don’t subscribe to Netflix and still believe the foremost meaning of the word tablet describes the medium on which Moses inscribed the Ten Commandments. But meanings change; words are fluid and dynamic. Just like tablet has come to express multiple ideas, the concept of innovation has morphed and evolved too. So being a decidedly late adopter does not preclude me from being an innovator.

Echoes: James Deaver's Carte Blanche and Arthur Phillips' The Tragedy of Arthur

When critics review summer books they inevitably focus on the latest big thriller, or some highly anticipated romantic novel (dismissively labelled as 'chick lit'). But why should that be all that one reads? Are readers that confined to genre that this is all they've come to accept during the lazy, crazy days of summer? Depends on the reader. This reader, with his all-over-the-damn-place tastes, rarely confines himself to one style of writing when it comes to summer reading. In fact, two novels I've recently embraced as 'summer books' could not, on the surface, be more different. James Deaver is a respected thriller writer (though I've never read any of his work before this) but he is the latest author approached by the Ian Fleming estate to be given the task to continue the James Bond series. The result is the thoroughly entertaining Carte Blanche (Simon & Schuster, 2011). Arthur Phillips' The Tragedy of Arthur (Random House, 2011) could be more sharply defined as literary fiction, so it was far more challenging. But I found both reads thoroughly absorbing, whether it was hot outside or not. Interestingly, both books, as you will see, are recreations/copying of the work of writers from the past.

Deaver's Carte Blanche pretends that the Bond films do not exist. Instead, he embraces the universe as created by Ian Fleming. In his novels and short stories, Fleming loved to go on about the luxuries that surrounded him in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Bollinger, Aston Martin cars, etc. Deaver pays homage to  Fleming's style at the start but then he seems to get caught up in minutia of brand names without really doing it with the same zeal that Fleming brought to his books. He seems to be aping Fleming rather than expanding upon him.

Catching the Spirit: The Film Music of Ry Cooder

"What you’re trying to do is catch the spirit of a picture. And that means sometimes you go contrary to what’s on the screen, and sometimes you go with what’s on the screen. It’s a matter of instinct; if your instincts are good, it’s going to work for you.”—David Raksin (Laura, The Bad and The Beautiful).

“I used to think about this music (blues, gospel, etc.)…as being environments…so I’d look for chances to add this music to the environment in the film…I didn’t go to school to learn this…it has more to do with your own personal awareness.”—Ry Cooder.

The first time I heard Ry Cooder’s guitar was in a film score. The blues-soaked bottleneck featured in Donald Cammell's 1970 film Performance (seen in a small New York City theatre) captured my attention even more than Mick Jagger’s acting debut. I rushed to Times Square the next morning to buy the soundtrack, which wasn't yet released. It was months before I was able to find it — and I've been hooked on slide guitar music ever since. The music in Performance was overseen by Jack Nitzsche. Cooder was merely a hired hand. Yet it’s Cooder’s work (on Jagger & Richards' "Memo From Turner" and Randy Newman's performance of "Gone Dead Train") that is memorable.

"Jack Nitzsche was doin’ Candy…in those days they didn’t have rock’n’roll movie scores…played a lot of blues, Howlin’ Wolf…just sound…Mac Rebennack on piano, Earl Palmer on drums…the producer didn’t understand at all, he wondered where the strings were, where was the orchestra…then Jack did Performance which was essentially the same score…I learned…watch the film and play somethin’…”— Ry Cooder.

“Watch the film and play somethin’!” It seems like the simplest advice. But can it really be that easy? 

Polished to a Shine: The Glass Menagerie at Soulpepper Theatre Company in Toronto

Nancy Palk & Gemma James-Smith in The Glass Menagerie.

Tennessee Williams called his semi-autobiographical 1944 play, The Glass Menagerie, a memory play, using it to travel back in time to when he was growing up in the American South, a would-be writer with a paranoid-schizophrenic older sister whom his parents had institutionally lobotomized, and for which he never forgave them.

That sounds like the stuff of tragedy. But when writing his first and most famous play, Williams made it as varied and prismatic as the fragile figurines immortalized in the title, qualities polished to a shine by a new and brilliant production of The Glass Menagerie that Soulpepper Theatre Company (the critically acclaimed company that is beginning to receive justifiable international acclaim) is presenting in rep at Toronto’s Young Centre for the Performing Arts through to September. Far from being a one-note drama full of sadness, this play about the fictional Wingfield family is lightened and brightened by laughter and the big, bold dreams of matriarch Amanda, the glue holding her fragile family together.

Director Ted Dykstra (co-writer and star of the acclaimed play, 2 Pianos, 4 Hands) must be credited for drawing out the complexities in a play that is often presented simply as a study in disappointment, with Amanda typically seen as delusional and not as the dreamer she is here portrayed by Soulpepper founding member Nancy Palk, a truly gifted Canadian actress who graces the role with nuance and huge dollops of empathy.

You need only think back to the 1950 film version to know that productions of The Glass Menagerie tend to be overbearing, forgoing the lyricism and humour that really are the playwright’s abiding strengths. In the film, Amanda was played by a hysterical Gertrude Lawrence, an actress Williams himself decried as being all wrong for the part, eventually publicly calling her casting “a dismal error,” and the film itself “a dishonest” reading of his work.

Urban Bustle: James Farm

For an album of music dressed as a rural excursion, James Farm (Nonesuch, 2011) seems awfully urban to my ears. Formed in 2009, the group James Farm is clearly a collaborative ensemble interested in exploring different rhythms and harmonies to create something new. To me, this is the core of what jazz, as a musical form, should be in spite of those people who support the so-called "Smooth Jazz" sounds. If it's smooth, it ain't jazz, as far as I'm concerned. For James Farm, led by saxophonist Joshua Redman, it's about tapping into one's experience, playing with a swinging sound and challenging the audience. Aaron Parks, Matt Penman and Eric Harland, (piano, bass and drums respectively) make up the quartet. 

Their new self-titled, debut album opens with the introspective "Coax" composed by bassist Matt Penman. It offers Josh Redman room to solo in a quizzical way opening the door to Aaron Parks on piano teasing us with delicate notes designed to draw us closer. Followed by the very funky "Polliwog," written by Redman, this pleasing tune features the tenor sax player performing as lyrically as I've ever heard him. The lazy ballad "Bijou," composed by Aaron Parks, shows a lighter touch. But the mood changes again with a piece called "Chronos," also written by Parks, but clearly led by drummer Eric Harland. His brand of percussion is similar in style to Jack DeJohnette, who loves to mix it up on the kit marking the transitions of fast and slow that is the predominant feature of this composition. Clearly, James Farm is a band that is only interested in the musical pull of the ensemble as opposed to a rhythm section backing a horn-player.

Neglected Gems #4: Baran (2001)

It’s a funny thing about movies. They may get critical acclaim, even score some box office success and years later they’re barely mentioned by anyone or even remembered. And there’s often no discernible reason for their fates. I really can’t tell why Neil Jordan’s terrific and accessible heist movie The Good Thief, which got good reviews when it came out in 2002, has pretty much vanished into the ether. Or why Steve Jordan’s powerful documentary Stevie (2002) failed to match the impact of his earlier 1994 doc Hoop Dreams. Or even why impressive debuts like Jeff Lipsky’s Childhood’s End (1997) didn’t get half the buzz that considerably lesser movies (Wendy and Lucy, Ballast) acquired upon their subsequent release. In any case, here is the latest entry in a series of disparate movies you really ought to see.

Co-winner of the grand prize at the Montreal World Film Festival, Baran marked a stylistic leap forward for Iranian director Majid Majidi. It was also a less angry film than his previous two movies, Children of Heaven and The Color of Paradise, both of which had also won the top prize in Montreal. Those films were heavier--and cruder--than Baran, which is, finally, a sweet story of unconsummated love.

Talking Out of Turn #20: Toni Morrison (1982)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show, On the Arts, at CJRT-FM in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to artists from all fields. In 1994, after I had gone to CBC, I had an idea to collate an interview anthology from some of the more interesting discussions I'd had with guests from that period. Since they all took place during the eighties, I thought I could edit the collection into an oral history of the decade from some of its most outspoken participants. The book was assembled from interview transcripts and organized thematically. I titled it Talking Out of Turn: Revisiting the '80s. With financial help from the Canada Council, I shaped the individual pieces into a number of pertinent themes relevant to the decade. By the time I began to contact publishers, though, the industry was starting to change. At one time, editorial controlled marketing. Now the reverse was taking place. Acquisition editors, who once responded to an interesting idea for a book, were soon following marketing divisions concerned with whether the person doing it was hot enough to sell it.

For a few years, I flogged the proposal to various publishers but many were worried that there were too many people from different backgrounds (i.e. Margaret Atwood sitting alongside Oliver Stone). Another publisher curiously chose to reject it because, to them, it appeared to be a book about me promoting my interviews (as if I was trying to be a low-rent Larry King) rather than seeing it as a commentary on the decade through the eyes of the guests. All told, the book soon faded away and I turned to other projects. However, when recently uncovering the original proposal and sample interviews, I felt that maybe some of them could find a new life on Critics at Large.

Tom Fulton of On the Arts.

After the murder of Martin Luther King Jr, in the late sixties, the momentum of the Civil Rights movement seemed to wane. No leader could fill that vacuum and black voices in the eighties became fragmented. Often the question of black identity came up during interviews. While many of the individuals I spoke to were male, author Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon, Beloved) brought perspective on black culture from a woman's point of view. On the day she came in, we discussed her then new book Tar Baby. The novel portrays a love affair between Jade and Son, two blacks who came from different worlds. While Jade is a Sorbonne graduate and fashion model who was sponsored into wealth and privilege, Son is a poor, strong-willed man who literally washes up on the shore of the wealthy white family home in the Caribbean where Jade's uncle and aunt work as servants. Although Jade and Son try to make a home in the United States, the compromises each makes (dictated by their class differences) doom the affair.

From Stage to Screen: Peeking at a Political Underbelly

John Gallagher Jr., Chris Noth and Kate Blumberg in Farragut North.

As a “press advance man” for former Vermont Governor Howard Dean’s presidential bid, Brooklyn playwright Beau Willimon spent the last three months of 2003 crisscrossing Iowa. So it’s hardly surprising his gripping make-believe account of a modern campaign would be set in that Midwestern state. Farragut North, which opened off-Broadway in late 2008, was about back-room machinations and dirty tricks among political operatives.

Yet Willimon, who had stumped for other Democratic candidates in the past, made it clear in an interview three years ago that his piece was not a Deaniac docudrama. “I drew on all those experiences to create a fictional but authentic world,” he said, while sipping orange juice at a cafe in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. “My intention is to present a universal story about power and ambition.”

It also seemed to be a story appropriate for cinema. The action has been relocated to Ohio in the script Willimon wrote after Farragut was optioned by Warner Bros, in conjunction with George Clooney’s production company. Clooney co-adapted and directed the film, now titled The Ides of March, and he also stars, along with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Paul Giamatti and Evan Rachel Wood. It will open the Venice Film Festival on August 31, before an October 7 release.

The dynamic original version, under the aegis of the Atlantic Theater Company, featured Chris Noth of Law & Order fame and John Gallagher, Jr., who won a 2007 Tony Award for his performance in the hit Broadway musical Spring Awakening. The cast included Olivia Thirlby, Ellen Page’s sidekick in Juno, and Isaiah Whitlock, Jr., perhaps best known for HBO’s The Wire. Doug Hughes, the director of Farragut, had earned a 2005 Tony Award for Doubt.

Irreverent Enchantment: Shakespeare by the Sea’s Robin Hood

If you live in Halifax or are travelling to the wonderfully laid-back city this summer, you must go and see Shakespeare by the Sea’s (SBTS) The Adventures of Robin Hood. The theatre company originally preformed a rendition of this classic tale in 2005, but this year’s version is a much more refreshing take. You can enjoy Alfresco Shakespeare in many Canadian cites: SBTS (Halifax and St. John’s), Dream in High Park (Toronto), Free Will Players Theatre Guild (Edmonton) and Bard on the Beach (Vancouver), to mention some of the more cleverly named. Take your snacks and sangria (er, I mean cranberry juice…most venues don’t officially allow booze) and enjoy a thespian adventure by starlight. Each year SBTS Halifax does two Shakespearean productions and one fairy tale “kids” play. Until now, I’ve been a purist and attended only plays by the Bard himself, but my tune has changed. You can take much more dramatic and theatrical liberties with a folktale like Robin Hood than with a five-act stage show with a definitive playwright. And take liberties they did. Sherwood Forest enchanted us all.

The Return of the Invisible Man: J.D. Souther’s Natural History

We are pleased to welcome a new critic, David Kidney, to our group.

“There’s talk on the street it sounds so familiar

Great expectations everybody’s watching you

People you meet they all seem to know you

Even your old friends treat you like you’re something new

Johnny come lately…the new kid in town.”

The Eagles – “New Kid in Town.”


John David Souther isn’t quite the new kid in town anymore. Back in 1970, he joined together with Glen Frey to form a duo called Longbranch Pennywhistle. They released one album and then Frey went on to help found The Eagles. While Souther was invited to join this soon to be iconic band, he figured the addition of one more guitar would not have made much of a difference to their sound. Nonetheless, he stayed close at hand and co-wrote some of The Eagles’ most memorable songs, “Best of My Love,” “Heartache Tonight” and “New Kid in Town.” Souther also had a reasonably healthy solo career releasing a handful of albums for Asylum Records while providing hit songs for Linda Ronstadt and collaborating with James Taylor. Then he just seemed to disappear.

He showed up as an actor on television in thirtysomething and in film (Postcards on the Edge) but for over twenty years he didn’t release any music. That changed in 2008 with a jazzy album called If The World Was You. He added trumpet solos and sophisticated piano and steered clear of the country-rock guitar stuff he’d been known for. The album was a surprising hit. When I saw him that year at Toronto’s Hugh’s Room he played a couple of sunburst Gibson guitars and was a surprisingly clumsy guitarist. But he more than made up for it with his warm supple voice and winning stage presence. Souther was charming, rather than the arrogant character he’d portrayed on TV. The album was only a month old, and when he moved to the piano to play one tune, he couldn’t remember the words. He asked if anyone had bought the vinyl version at the merch table, and borrowed the lyric sheet to read the song. How endearing is that? Now he’s back with a follow-up album, Natural History.