Straight after – or maybe during – the terrifying murder in the shower in Psycho, one of the twin peaks of London film criticism at the time, C A Lejeune of The Observer (the other peak being Dilys Powell of the Sunday Times), marched out of the preview. I say ‘marched’ rather than ‘walked’ because […]
In these days of increasingly formulaic factual television, it’s refreshing to know that there is one director who when he sets out on a shoot, has no idea of the film he will eventually make. For over thirty years Nick Broomfield has been documenting the social and institutional life of Britain and America in his […]
It’s a pity one can’t like Wyndham Lewis more. A brilliant, poverty-stricken rebel, darkly handsome, with a Byronic touch of the saturnine, and irresistible to women, he could so easily be a romantic and mysterious figure. Perhaps he is to his devoted followers in the Wyndham Lewis Society. But for the rest of us – […]
As Hilary Spurling writes in the second and concluding volume of her already acclaimed life of the great French painter, ‘It is not the least mysterious thing about Henri Matisse that he has had no biography until now, fifty years after his death.’ One reason is that his life was considered too dull to bother […]
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Margaret Atwood has become a cultural weathervane, blamed for predicting dystopia and celebrated for resisting it. Yet her ‘memoir of sorts’ reveals a more complicated, playful figure.
@sophieolive introduces us to a young Peggy.
Sophie Oliver - Ms Fixit’s Characteristics
Sophie Oliver: Ms Fixit’s Characteristics - Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
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For a writer so ubiquitous, George Orwell remains curiously elusive. His voice is lost, his image scarce; all that survives is the prose, and the interpretations built upon it.
@Dorianlynskey wonders what is to be done.
Dorian Lynskey - Doublethink & Doubt
Dorian Lynskey: Doublethink & Doubt - Orwell: 2+2=5 by Raoul Peck (dir); George Orwell: Life and Legacy by Robert Colls
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The court of Henry VIII is easy to envision thanks to Hans Holbein the Younger’s portraits: the bearded king, Anne of Cleves in red and gold, Thomas Cromwell demure in black.
Peter Marshall paints a picture of the artist himself.
Peter Marshall - Varnish & Virtue
Peter Marshall: Varnish & Virtue - Holbein: Renaissance Master by Elizabeth Goldring
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