Art Forum: Queries, Tidbits, Quotes, & Links.

This is a page of Queries, Tidbits, Handy hints, Quotations, and Links related to artistic matters. At present, I have no tibits or handy hints for this category, but should you have any, please e-mail them to me and I will include them here.

Queries:

This spot is reserved to look for information I still haven't located yet. If you know the answer, e-mail me at steve_kemp@unc.edu and I will post it here under Tidbits (or Quotes, as the case might be.)

Movie Hairstyles: The InterNet Movie DataBase has done all of us a big favor by cataloguing the errors and anachronisms of the supposedly historically accurate movie, "Titanic." One thing not listed thus far bothers me, but I don't have the information to back it up. I saw a propaganda piece about all the effort that went into making the costumes and hairstyles "authentic." Is there a hairstyle specialist out there who can verify that Leonardo DiCaprio's hairstyle wasn't worn by anyone prior to 1990? (We could add it to the database.)

(It has always bothered me that Hollywood treats men's hairstyles as somehow sacrosanct. Take a look at "Compulsion." Made in 1959, set in 1926, all of the costumes and all of the women's hairstyles are carefully period. But the men's hairstyles are pure 1950s. Or the television series, The Gangster Chronicles, where each decade was lovingly detailed via the changing men's costumes, but the men's hairstyles remained constant and anachronistic. These two examples are especially telling, because, unlike di Caprio's character in "Titanic," each of the male characters in these two works were real, historical individuals for whom extensive photographic records document precisely what hairstyles they actually wore through those decades.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tidbits:

This spot is reserved for stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere. Your comments are welcome.

My favorite theatrical apocrypha: Whenever I start a directing project, I always begin by telling the cast this story. (I have no idea if it is true or not, but it makes a good story.)

Back in the 1960s, the astonishing and colorful Leonard Bernstein was conductor of the New York Philharmonic. During a rehearsal, he stopped the music to give one of his careful pep talks:

"Hold on! Hold on! We're missing the spirit of this movement. At this point in the piece, the composer is trying to convey not only the breaking of a new dawn, but the arrival of a new Age. We need to capture that spirit with the energy of our performance. Up here, at the twelfth bar, when the violins come in, you have to visualize a glorious dawn, beautiful colors, a fresh breeze, a dawn such as you have never...."

Bernstein looks over and sees that the first violinist has raised his hand. "Yes?"

"Louder or softer, Lennie?"

My Secret Informant: We've had another pickup on a query. An anonymous informant, identified only by email address, sent in an answer to my query about the fact that the InterNet Movie DataBase does not list Carol Wayne and Nina Wayne as sisters. The respondent, whom I must call "Workley," sent the following:

Yes, they were sisters. Before they were in Hollywood they had a skating act together with the Ice Capades. Nina's daughter is half-sister to Drew Barrymore, Nina Lives in Palm Springs, CA, and Carol died in Mexico in the early 80's leaving a son Alex.

So, until Workley sends this in to the InterNet Movie DataBase I guess my WebSite is the official repository of this bit of trivia.

Quotations:

A few of my favorite quotes relating to art, popular culture, and what-have-you.

on art:

Just to start things off, here's one of my all time favorites from Travesties, A play by Tom Stoppard:

"An artist is someone who is gifted in some way that enables him to do something more or less well which can only be done badly or not at all by someone who is not thus gifted. If there is any point in using language at all it is that a word is taken to stand for a particular fact or idea and not for other facts or ideas. I might claim to be able to fly... Lo, I say, I am flying. But you are not propelling yourself about while suspended in the air, someone may point out. Ah no, I reply, that is no longer considered the proper concern of people who can fly. In fact, it is frowned upon. Nowadays, a flyer never leaves the ground and wouldn't know how. I see, says my somewhat baffled interlocutor, so when you say you can fly you are using the word in a purely private sense. I see I have made myself clear, I say. Then, says, this chap in some relief, you cannot actually fly after all? On the contrary, I say, I have just told you that I can. Don't you see my dear Tristan you are simply asking me to accept that the word Art means whatever you wish it to mean; but I do not accept it."

-- Henry Carr, Act I

on theatre:

I am sure I shouldn't be quoting myself here, but what the heck:

"The Musical is to American theatre what the Borgias were to the Papacy. Lots of fun at first glance, but, in the long run, rather regressive."