brian mitchell and joseph nixon are a british comedy writing team .

they were head sketch writers on bbc radio 4 ’s jo caulfield wo n’t shut up and bbc1 ′ s live and kicking , and also wrote the tv comedy shows slightly filthy ( lwt ) and the ornate johnsons ’ edwardian spectacular ( bbc4 ) .

yet their main work is in the theatre .

their plays include spy , moonlight over india , eurovision , seven studies in salesmanship , the opinion makers , those magnificent men and the multiple award-winning big daddy vs giant haystacks .

the author and illustrator philip reeve , a friend and collaborator , has written : ' two of the best writers i know are friends of mine from my brighton days ; brian mitchell and joseph nixon.their expertly wrought comedy sketches decorate many an edinburgh festival and improve a few otherwise lacklustre radio 4 comedy shows , but to see them at their finest you need to seek out their plays . ' brian mitchell also managed the brighton open air theatre during its first season in 2015 .

brian mitchell and joseph nixon

review : the opinion makers by brian mitchell and joseph nixon at colchester mercury until november 9 .
new perspectives theatre company presents ' those magnificent men ' by brian mitchell and joseph nixon . touring february - may 2010 . urltoken
this latest comedy slam down from brian mitchell and joseph nixon examines the enormous success that these two competitors had over their spectators .
a british heavyweight champion comedy drama , written by brian mitchell & joseph nixon , starring ross gurney - randall & dave mounfield .
spy , brian mitchell and joseph nixon , presented by the ornate johnsons , pulse festival , wolsey studio , ipswich , sunday june 8 .
in brian mitchell and joseph nixon’s excellent new play big daddy versus giant haystacks , the history behind these two giants of the ring is enthusiastically created .
the plays have been penned by brian mitchell and joseph nixon whose big daddy vs giant haystacks won the buxton fringe award for best theatre production in 2011 .
promotional video for the foundry group / ornate johnsons play
those magnificent men
by brian mitchell and joseph nixon . www . urltoken . @ foundrygroupuk info @ urltoken
review : the opinion makers by brian mitchell and joseph nixon at colchester mercury until november 9 . | what ' s on and things to do in suffolk - east anglian daily times
promotional video for the foundry group / ornate johnsons play
those magnificent men
by brian mitchell and joseph nixon . www . foundrygroup . co . uk . @ foundrygrou . . .
whether there will be a wittier , better crafted or more entertaining show at the fringe this year remains to be seen , but brighton boys brian mitchell and joseph nixon have set the bar high .
award - winning playwrights brian mitchell and joseph nixon’s performance seven studies in salesmanship forms the ideal introduction and user’s manual to the high - octane world of salesmanship , covering every angle from the hard sell to celebrity endorsement .
benjamin stratton brian mitchell daniel boys daniel buckroyd david mountfield joseph nixon julie atherton justin edwards made in colchester mel giedroyc mercury theatre philip gladwell richard reeday sally rapier sara perks stacey ghent the opinion makers tom kelly tom lishman .
tagged with : benjamin stratton brian mitchell daniel boys daniel buckroyd david mountfield joseph nixon julie atherton justin edwards made in colchester mel giedroyc mercury theatre philip gladwell richard reeday sally rapier sara perks stacey ghent the opinion makers tom kelly tom lishman .
brian mitchell and joseph nixon were born in mansfield about a year apart . they attended junior school together , where they began writing . they have written for jo caulfield , live and kicking , jerry sadowitz , basil brush , joanna neary and numerous others .
from the writers of the fringe hit big daddy vs . giant haystacks and those magnificent men , brian mitchell and joseph nixon , comes this evening of short comic plays to entertain , provoke - thought and send you on your way with with something to chew over .
for further information on seven studies in salesmanship , interviews and photo opportunities please contact brian mitchell at info @ urltoken or on 07435 035771 .
one thread always ran through everything in his life : his families , one named mitchell , the other named nixon newspapers .
brian mitchell ' s musical collaboration with children ' s author philip reeve returns in a new production by the foundry group . . . .
brian mitchell and joseph nixon ' s brilliant little play about alcock and brown , which used the story of those pioneer aviators to explore history , the nature of fame , and the recent trend for using real - life figures as the basis for plays which explore history and the nature of fame . their latest work ,
i went over my analysis of nixon and agnew’s threat with loeb and we agreed it was not libelous , and told willis that . it seemed to me to be a political ploy . nixon and mitchell were making unsupported allegations . these allegations were similar to the ones nixon made against voorhees and douglas and the same as nixon would later make against the times during the pentagon papers case .
as early as the 1930s , joseph mitchell was weighed down by decreasing attention spans . the theme figured into his writing over the subsequent three decades .
ross gurney - randall and david mounfield are stroud ' s manic colleagues tackley and shanks while brian mitchell , one of the writers , plays the role of scientist aston .
brian mitchell and joseph nixon ' s unashamedly populist play is a series of sketches combining close - up sweaty ring action ( and it ' s very close - up in the tiny box venue at assembly ) , cultural history ranging from tiswas to world of sport , and the story of how daddy met frank sinatra and haystacks hob - nobbed with paul mccartney .
he and writing partner joseph nixon are currently working on a screenplay for an italian film director and mitchell is also directing joanna neary ' s new edinburgh show . the heavy schedule has helped to banish the memory of his recent fringe show at the udderbelly .
critically - acclaimed writing duo brian mitchell and joseph nixon have assembled a wonderful cast of characters for this brand new musical comedy , including : the hapless fernsby and his useless sidekicks ; a beatnik advertising phoney and his jazz flute playing muse ; a scottish laird with a dark secret and a glamorous american gold - digger wife ; and an insane home secretary - in - waiting .
this was a fun examination of the dark arts of sales - personship although it touched on some painful truths , illustrated by references to exploitation of world - suffering for individual gain and the developing problem of the market worming its way into personal lives and infringing privacy conventions . seven studies has proven to be another triumph for brighton writing duo brian mitchell and joseph nixon .
the following is a tribute fellow colleague ray moscowitz wrote about john mitchell around the time of his death . it was published july 24 , 1993 in the frankfort times . mitchell was a long - time executive of nixon newspapers .
mitchell and nixon met and went to school in shirebook and have gone on to forge a life - long writing partnership that has seen them write for bbc1 and 4 and radio4 and locally for new perspectives theatre company and derby theatre .
a rollicking adaptation of outrageous , absurd and hilarious stories and ballads by the master of ‘topsy - turvydom’ sir w . s . gilbert , brought lovingly to the stage by the ornate johnsons’ david mounfield and brian mitchell .
with a script that will no doubt re - ignite the nostagia of long lost childhoods , mitchell and nixon’s latest fringe outing will be equally as entertaining for the less informed attendee .
big daddy vs giant haystacks is all about nostalgia . brian mitchell and joseph nixon’s two - man play is a dewy - eyed homage to british wrestling’s golden age , cast in the form of a slapstick - ish caper about two of its great icons : the titular big daddy ( real name shirley crabtree , played by ross gurney - randall ) and giant haystacks ( martin ruane , portrayed by david mounfield ) .
joseph nixon co - wrote the hit edinburgh show ‘the cruel hand of fate’ with comedian glen richardson , and wrote sketches for ‘joanna neary’s magic hole’ ( assembly rooms ) . he regularly contributes material to brighton’s acclaimed radio city group .
the white house had no reaction . president richard nixon had not even read the article . attorney general john mitchell hadn’t read it either . the headline , apparently , had put everyone off .
brian mitchell wrote the book for this brand new musical comedy with songs by jerry rulf . it opens in brighton fringe next week in a production by the foundry group , starring fellow old ornate johnsons david mounfield and glen richardson .
when rothman and i first met , we discovered a shared fondness for joseph mitchell , so his response to suttree didn’t surprise me . mitchell’s collection , the bottom of the harbor was published in 1959 , roughly the same year mccarthy began working on suttree , which could also have been titled “the bottom of the river . ”
he will say , “hi , i’m john mitchell , ” and the smile will not leave his face .
secretary of state william rogers was next to call nixon . their conversation was mostly about the coverage of tricia nixon’s wedding . admitting that he hadn’t read the story yet—wedding coverage was a higher priority—nixon brushed it off as a story about the former administration of president lyndon b . johnson , not his . a few minutes later , henry kissinger , nixon’s national security advisor , called the white house . perhaps nixon had read the story by this time . he agreed with kissinger that printing the pentagon papers was an unconscionable thing for a newspaper to do . “it’s treasonable , there’s no question—it’s actionable , i’m absolutely certain that this violates all sorts of security laws , ” kissinger said . he told nixon not to ignore the story : “it shows you are a weakling , mr . president . ” nixon told kissinger to call attorney general john mitchell to discuss what to do .
the phenomenon of british wrestling in the mid - part of the twentieth century , and in particular the relationship between these two wrestling men , is the focus of the fringe play ‘big daddy vs giant haystacks’ , which comes to edinburgh this august . the show stars ross gurney and dave mounfield ( pictured in character ) , though we spoke to the men behind the play , brian mitchell and joseph nixon , to find out what motivated them to revisit this very british ‘sporting’ phenomenon through a two - hander play .
“as funny as we’ve come to expect from mitchell and nixon , but it’s never just funny : they have a deep sympathy for the people they write about . * * * * * ” - philip reeve , the solitary bee
in the watergate tapes , nixon bragged to his national security advisor henry kissinger several times that he brought down alger hiss by attacking him in the press . i had followed nixon carefully ever since that case . hiss was a diplomat and , once , the secretary general of the united nations charter conference , who was accused of being a communist by whittaker chambers , a renounced communist american writer and defected soviet spy . chambers had shared this information with nixon’s house on un - american activities committee when nixon was a congressman .
brian mitchell once called a show by his comedy sketch troupe the ornate johnsons
an epoch - making load of old b * * * * cks
. he has slightly loftier ambitions for his latest work , the comedy - drama the october revolutions .
in 1964 , at age fifty - nine , joseph mitchell published “joe gould’s secret” in two installments in the new yorker ’s september 19 and september 26 issues . mitchell was in his prime , and the magazine recognized it : the long essay took up nearly 40 percent of the two issues’ combined page counts . what would mitchell do next ? he planned an expansive book - length work blending thoughts and observations from his four decades in new york city with his upbringing and life in fairmont , a farming town of three thousand people in north carolina’s coastal plains , where members of his family had lived since before the american revolution . mitchell and his wife , therese , spent summers in fairmont throughout their marriage ; they are buried there today , next to mitchell’s parents and relatives .
when the late joe nixon recruited him some 25 years ago , john had no experience in journalism or in the newspaper business .
many of joseph mitchell’s stories feature cemeteries ; one of his most famous is called “mr . hunter’s grave . ” cemeteries begat in mitchell a reflective and creative state of mind—a heady potion made up of time , space , familial generations , and silence . i often feel the same way around cemeteries , which is probably what drew me to mitchell . my proximity to this graveyard , even as i focused on big ears , sparked in me a strong and unexpected sense of the slow passage of time , which was perfectly reflected in what we were shooting .
since big ears , joseph mitchell’s 1952 new yorker magazine story “up in the old hotel” has loomed large for me . the story centers on mitchell’s friendship with louis morino , the owner of a bustling seafood restaurant in the fulton fish market in lower manhattan . the restaurant is situated on the ground floor of a building that was formerly a hotel , but the upper floors are vacant and have been sealed for decades .
seven short plays forming the ideal introduction and userís manual to the high octane world of salesmanship . the comedy is sharp and well - observed throughout and covers every angle from hard sell to celebrity endorsement , call centres to captive markets . written by acclaimed writers brian mitchell and joseph nixon the show is more than just a satire of selling techniques , it also grapples with narcissism , betrayal and obsession . from urban romantic entanglements to sci - fi vignettes and skewed roald dahl - esque morality tales , these stories frequently take unexpected twists and turns . the production was a hit at this yearís brighton festival , winning the award for best female performer . n . b . contains some strong language .
last fall , we traveled to new york to work on two different projects : one on joseph mitchell and the other on an eclectic experimental music festival in knoxville , tennessee . we spent one day in a private room on west thirty - seventh street documenting rehearsals by radiohead’s jonny greenwood and the fifty - piece wordless music orchestra , led by conductor ryan mcadams . at the end of the day , we walked over to the offices of mitchell’s longtime employer ,
they’re called the ornate johnsons because brian mitchell ( pictured second from left ) and joseph nixon ( not pictured ) included a character with the name ornate johnson in a play they once wrote about america in the 1920s . ‘when we were chewing over what to call the sketch group , we chose this pretty much at random , ’ mitchell says . ‘as you can see , we are not ornate . and in the united states “johnson” means “penis” . ’ in that context , it’s peculiarly appropriate that four members of the current team appear to have been blessed with the male appendage . the core group , consisting of mitchell , dave mounfield , laurence relton and glen richardson , came together at the university of sussex back in 1988 . many others have worked with them since , clea smith is the latest addition . ‘it’s enormously difficult getting everyone together , as we all have our own projects , ’ mitchell explains . ‘for that reason , the ojs have progressed in fits and starts . we’ve taken several sabbaticals . but we’ve done about 15 different shows over the years . ’
performed by radio 4 regular david mounfield ( soon to continue his long association with gbbo’s mel giedroyc in ‘count arthur strong’s radio show’ with new series ‘rum bunch’ ) and brian mitchell ( ‘those magnificent men’ and ‘the ornate johnsons’ ) , gilbert ( no sullivan ) is the perfect night out for ‘savoyards’ and a great introduction to one of england’s wittiest writers .
they formed production house the foundry group in 2010 , which is bringing ‘seven studies in salesmanship’ to the area for its november tour . the foundry group’s first production , mitchell and nixon ' s ‘big daddy vs giant haystacks’ , won several awards and featured in a recent bbc4 documentary and is coming back to create in february 2014 .
this rise and fall is poignantly captured in big daddy vs giant haystacks , a new play by comedy writing duo brian mitchell and joseph nixon . this is just the latest example in a resurgence of interest for a spectacle still mocked by many , even as it gave way to the far glitzier fare propagated by wwf ( now wwe ) . yet before itv’s head of sport , greg dyke , removed uk wrestling from our tv screens in 1988 , it was essential viewing for millions of fans . it was too low - rent , claimed dyke , ignoring an audience that existed beyond the chattering classes . in this respect , dyke was making as much of a political statement as daddy and haystacks themselves .
joseph mitchell is not the first author one thinks about in terms of music . his prose isn’t overly lyrical or musical ; although he adored james joyce , particularly finnegans wake , he never attempted the sonic invention in joyce’s work . mitchell was a correspondent reporting from the field , and even when he wrote fiction , it came out of his journalistic instincts . but from this platform he achieved something mysterious . at his pinnacle , in long , deep pieces such as “mr . hunter’s grave” ( 1956 ) and “the rivermen” ( 1959 ) , mitchell builds a scaffolding of details and facts only to make it dissolve , leaving us to question what just happened .
when i began this introduction last week , ivan weiss and i were assembling our team in knoxville to document this year’s big ears . the festival—like this series , like joseph mitchell’s writing—is a slow boil . none of the artists in the festival’s lineup are chosen because they can draw large crowds ; it’s about listening and paying attention . big ears asks a lot .
the caldwell case was a dramatic stage - setter for the pentagon papers case , and it was a central part of nixon’s war against the press . as soon as nixon was inaugurated , his justice department started subpoenaing the press for its sources and other unpublished information . this was unprecedented . the reverberations from this fight can be felt to this very day .
by brian mitchell and joseph nixon age 7 + chris neville theatre awards - best fringe production 2013 ' an up , up and away fringe hit ! spiffing perfection . ' - the daily telegraph the thrilling true story of the first ever non - stop transatlantic flight as told by acclaimed writing duo mitchell and nixon in this side - splitting new production . last upstairs in 2014 with big daddy vs giant haystacks , this award - winning theatre company the foundry group ( big daddy vs . giant haystacks ) and bbc4 sketch group the ornate johnsons have joined forces for this brand new staging of the hit play about british pioneering aviators capt . john alcock and lt . arthur whitten brown and their daredevil dash across the atlantic in the tiny open cockpit of a converted vickers biplane . in this glorified kite they flew from newfoundland through dense fog , sleet , snow and hail – sometimes upside down – to ireland and worldwide celebrity . how on earth can a couple of actors tell it all with just cardboard , two chairs and some left - over props ? chocks away for a night of thrills , spills and uproarious comedy . part of dave ' s leicester comedy festival
what’s left are the people and things that mitchell cares about , the deep histories he traces in his work , while searching for a past that never materializes .
the production sees mitchell continue his longstanding relationship with the nightingale theatre , where he has previously staged ornate johnsons shows and his spoof cold war thriller , spy .
in his phone call with nixon , haig called it , “a devastating . . . security breach of the greatest magnitude of anything i’ve ever seen . ” nixon was much more worried about the leak than the story . he suggested an easy solution : he would just start firing people at the department of defense—whoever could be held responsible .
while i was naive about how the social world of washington worked in terms of lunches and dinner parties , i was not a naif about washington politics and the relationship between the press and the government . the new york times had been fighting nixon since the 1968 election . nixon had gone on national television to threaten the times with a libel suit for an editorial entitled “mr . agnew’s fitness . ” this marked the beginning of nixon’s war against the press which continued until he resigned . nixon was the first president in memory to use or threaten to use the legal process to get his way with the press . it is one thing to engage in a verbal attack against the press , another to convert that animosity to legal action .
the play premiered last year as sunken , after mitchell was told the october revolutions
sounded too much like alan ayckbourn ' s the norman conquests
.
i was particularly sensitive to the attacks of right - wing republicans such as nixon and senator joseph mccarthy . a close friend of my family , george faxon , who ran a camp i attended , was driven out of his teaching job because he refused to say under oath whether he had been a member of the communist party . additionally , my friend from grade school , louisa edsall kamin , and her husband , leon , were forced to flee to canada by senator joseph mccarthy for the same reason . kamin was a harvard researcher who also refused to say whether he had been a communist . he later became chair of the department of psychology at princeton university .
for the first time and on the 180th anniversary of his birth , three of his funniest tales and two of the best - loved ‘bab ballads’ take to the stage in this inventive new adaptation by mitchell & nixon , writers of the hit shows those magnificent men and big daddy vs . giant haystacks . staged simply and flexibly , the show is ideal for rural touring and will fit comfortably in almost any small theatre , village hall or community centre .
but on sunday , laird called neither mitchell nor nixon . he did , however , prepare for a tv appearance on meet the press , assuming the program would be entirely devoted to the pentagon papers . he did not receive one question on the story . it may have been because the producers of that show hadn’t read the story , either . laird did , however , call mitchell the next day . that call set off a chain of events that led to one of the most important supreme court cases ever .
with the carnegie - medal - winning author philip reeve , brian mitchell wrote the acclaimed musical comedy ‘the ministry of biscuits’ . a classically - trained composer , his songs for the perrier - nominated show , ‘joanna neary is not feeling herself’ , have been broadcast on radios 1 , 2 and 4 and have played bloomsbury theatre . ‘the october revolutions’ , his first solo play , recently toured the south - east , winning rave reviews .
brian and joseph met at primary school in derbyshire . in 1992 they founded the award - winning sketch group the ornate johnsons . they share a string of writing credits for the stage including the edinburgh hit plays ‘big daddy vs . giant haystacks’ and ‘those magnificent men’ and the award - winning comedy musical ‘the opinion makers’ . they also co - wrote ‘the cheeky guides to student life’ and ‘to love’ , were head sketch writers on radio 4’s ‘jo caulfield won’t shut up’ and bbc1′s ‘live and kicking’ , and as well as the tv comedy shows ‘slightly filthy’ ( lwt ) and ‘the ornate johnsons’ edwardian spectacular’ ( bbc 4 ) .
his campaigns against congressman jerry voorhees and congresswoman helen gahagan douglas were liberal nightmares . nixon was accused of using every dirty trick imaginable against voorhees and slandered douglas with gutter tactics . for example , nixon pioneered an early version of “robo - calls” during his campaigns in 1946 against voorhees . in these calls , an anonymous person would call a household , say “we just wanted to inform you that the congressman who represents your district , jerry voorhees , is a communist , ” and then hang up . in his campaign against douglas , nixon insinuated she was a communist by referring to her as “the pink lady” and cited her supposedly communist - leaning voting record in congress .
general alexander haig , the president’s deputy national security adviser , had read it , however . he reached nixon in the afternoon to discuss the progress of the vietnam war . nixon asked him , “is there anything else going on in the world today ? ” to which haig replied , “yes sir—very significant—this , uh , goddamn new york times exposé of the most highly classified documents of the war . ”
at the end of the week john mitchell , head of the republican campaign , demanded another retraction from the times . james “scotty” reston , the times’ executive editor , had written a column that said “nixon’s radio and television appearances with citizen - interviewers were ‘nearly always in a controlled situation , with the questioners carefully chosen , the questions solicited from the whole states or regions , but carefully screened . ’”
the play tells the story of fogeyish scriptwriter philip , described by mitchell as
29 going on 40
, and 19 - year - old kath , an art student with wisdom beyond her years .
concert , with greenwood’s score lodged in our brains , we took the new jersey transit north jersey coast line out of penn station to visit mitchell’s eldest daughter , nora mitchell sanborn , at her house near the shore . nora and her younger sister , elizabeth , who lives in georgia , maintain their father’s odd collection . archivists are interested in mitchell’s papers and , to an extent , his wife therese’s photographs , but no one seems to know what to do with the objects . nora uses many of them to decorate her house and yard . she’s curating and preserving her father’s life in this manner , but she seems puzzled by the
to many , the word politician carries a negative connotation . but , john mitchell always saw the word as webster primarily defines it : one versed or experienced in the science of government .
and because he understood that the art of politics is just that - an art - john mitchell was an incredibly effective man who made life better for everyone fortunate enough to be involved with him whether it be at the methodist church , or the department of natural resources , or the statehouse , or nixon newspapers or wesley manor , or the ymca , or the chamber of commerce , or the hoosier state press association , or inland press association , and on and on .
future . we’re not sure mitchell would have said what he was doing was “collecting , ” in the sense one collects art or stamps or 78s of early music , with a desire to preserve and showcase them . there is a tradition of collecting as performance , as public presentation , but mitchell didn’t treat his acquisitions this way . according to nora , her father hid the objects , stuffed them under beds ,
near the back of the space , in the media lab , is a table containing a mini - installation we’re calling “mitchell’s objects , teeming , ” which has been arranged by artist and rock fish stew collaborator victoria ralston .
i was the chief counsel for the new york times . as the newspaper’s top lawyer for all its business , including journalism , i had been closely involved in our internal discussions with editors , reporters , and the publisher about whether we could or should publish the pentagon papers . i had told the times that in my view there was a high probability that secretary of defense melvin laird would call for mitchell or nixon to take action against the times .
because through it all the students days at purdue , the stint serving uncle sam , the years on the farm , the sessions of the indiana general assembly , and more than two decades of newspapering john mitchell was a politician and proud of it .
nixon himself responded to the editorial the next day on cbs’ face the nation . the editorial was “the lowest kind of gutter politics that a great newspaper could engage in , ” he said , and “a retraction will be demanded at the times legally tomorrow . ” yet nixon refused to go into detail about which , or any , of the allegations he thought were incorrect , stating “i am not going to do anything that might injure mr . agnew’s case with regard to the times . ”
mitchell himself directs and does a good job in the cramped space . such a cracking show deserves a longer run ( there are only three dates ) , a much better venue and some proper financial backing . a larger band would flesh out the music and radio mics would benefit the singing .
but agnew rejected calls to tone down his rhetoric when he was criticized for being too incendiary . nixon told the press he would not censor agnew , and agnew himself defiantly declared , “i intend to be heard above the din even if it means raising my voice .
the pentagon papers case cannot be understood without fully understanding its context . and its context was that nixon , a lawyer , looked to the courts for redress . he accompanied this approach with withering attacks on the press in an attempt to create a favorable climate for his administration .
his subjects lamented change and the speed of modern life , which they felt prevented them from experiencing it properly . mitchell’s stories—particularly the later ones , written after the advent of television—unfold at a crawl , if they unfold at all . the stories have little in the way of narrative or plot , and he lets his characters talk as long as they please . “mr . hunter’s grave” is fifteen thousand words , twelve thousand of which constitute quotes attributed to mr . hunter . digressions are everywhere . mitchell focuses on a side character , or he lays out a multicentury history of a peripheral detail . mitchell was a lifetime walker , a wanderer , and his essays evoke the feeling of a long , casual stroll , with no particular destination .
at some point that week , though , the word ear began , well , ringing in ours . the knoxville music festival is called big ears , recalling mitchell’s “bent” ones . we now wonder whether the type of careful , concentrated sonic experience on display at big ears—where the audience is invited to move outside their comfort zones and immerse themselves in new sounds—is analogous to mitchell’s old - fashioned manner of venturing out into the back alleys of new york to hear people talk .
this past summer , we sifted through hundreds of mitchell’s objects and have been placing them in a progressive installation at the contemporary art museum ( cam ) in raleigh . the installation , which accumulates work during its run ( it closes in january 2016 ) , is also called “big , bent ears , ” and though the installation was not something we envisioned when we began the online series , we think of it as extending the network of connections we’ve begun making here . in the cam show , we’ve placed videos of radiohead guitarist and composer jonny greenwood thirty feet from one of mitchell’s old brooks brothers boxes filled with fragments of a shattered porcelain doll ; a panoramic photograph of an entranced big ears audience , by kate joyce , faces an old red fire alarm , another mitchell find ; a snapshot of mitchell and his grandchild amid rubble in lower manhattan is mounted on a wall outside a screening room where our film about nazoranai , perhaps the loudest , most challenging band in a challenging festival , plays on a loop .
mitchell , too , found the balance of place and distance to be a crucial enigma : when he didn’t feel at home in new york city , he’d retreat to fairmont ; when he stopped feeling at home there , he’d go back to the city .
the idea to explore connections between joseph mitchell and the big ears music festival was hatched a year ago in new york during a conversation with the paris review ’s managing editor , nicole rudick . we explained to her that we don’t want outcomes to dictate policy . instead , for us , the form the final work is a function of the process itself . she replied that george plimpton had once described his e . m . forster interview for the first issue of the review as “an essay in dialogue on technique , ” and she thought the magazine was the perfect home for our ambitious project .
nixon seemed to be right in this particular case , but i developed an extraordinary loathing for him . he symbolized for me everything that was wrong with the republican party . he was extremely threatening to what i thought was the best part of america—the liberal eastern establishment .
along with the new title comes a new cast of lloyd thomas , mitchell ' s first choice for the role but who was unavailable last year , and laura corbett , chosen after impressing the writer with her performance in red at upstairs at three & ten .
the ambitious work never materialized—at least not in written form . according to numerous first - person accounts , mitchell showed up daily at his new yorker office for three decades without submitting another story to the magazine . some reported that he could be heard typing behind the closed door of his office . over the years , this mysterious routine became legend . after mitchell’s death in 1996 , his biographer thomas kunkel found only three pieces of the memoir—fragments , really—among his papers .
in september , dell inc . won shareholder approval to buy back its stock and take the company private , a $ 24 . 8 - billion offer ceo michael dell was able to make thanks to the backing of some of the biggest financial players in the world—the private equity behemoth silver lake partners and a handful of banks including bank of america , credit suisse and , surprisingly , royal bank of canada . rbc’s involvement in the deal is a sure sign that nixon’s investment banking–focused strategy has made the company a major presence on the international stage , and nixon’s compensation reflects that : last year he raked in $ 12 . 6 million , more than his u . s . counterparts at the bank of america , jp morgan chase and citigroup . rbc has posted record profits during nixon’s tenure ( reaching $ 7 . 5 billion last year ) and grown to 80 , 000 employees . in august , he announced that katie taylor , a 12 - year veteran of the rbc board , would take over as chair in january , making his bank the first in canada to appoint a female chair . up next : nixon is chief instigator behind aequitas , a proposed new stock exchange to rival the tmx . the effort is backed by heavy hitters like ci financial , igm financial and barclays .
on this particular evening , however , nixon was with his pal bebe rebozo in florida . vice president spiro agnew stood in for him . most of the members of nixon’s cabinet were there , as well as governors , senators , publishers , supreme court justices , and the like . i was thirty - seven , one of the younger men in attendance , and one of the few without a national reputation in government or media . i was there because i was vice president and general counsel of the new york times co . it was an impressive title , but among the glitterati at the gridiron , it counted for little .
mitchell’s renowned exercise of wandering the back alleys looking for stories was the same method mccarthy used for suttree . knoxville psychologist and historian wes morgan has produced extensive research indicating that suttree ’s characters are substantially based on people mccarthy knew . one character’s real name and phone number were published in the novel .
i am not a radical liberal and never had been , but my attitude to nixon informed every move when i advised the times in the pentagon papers case . i thought i knew what he would do , how far he would go , what his legal strategies would be . it turned out i was right .
on that same trip to new york , we visited michael lieber in jackson heights , where he lives in the same building as “big , bent ears” photographer richard rothman . lieber produced a film adaptation of “joe gould’s secret” in 2000 . in the eighties , he reached out to mitchell about adapting the work and to lieber’s surprise , mitchell , whose books were out of print at the time , welcomed the idea . the two became friends . they took long walks together around midtown , near the new yorker ’s offices .
at that point agnew became nixon’s attack dog against the press even before inauguration . in a speech before the republican governor’s conference , he accused the times of distortions and inaccuracies . smiling , he described the new york times and newsweek as “executionary journals . ” he said there were other publications that were “fit only to line the bottom of bird cages . ”
i had two theories about why i was there . first , i was being thanked for several successful years . i had been leading the press’s fight against nixon’s attempts to subpoena reporters and it had been my idea to take the new york times co . public while retaining the control of the times in the sulzberger family .
the basics : sammi is the artistic fellow at the american repertory theater where she will direct “violet” on a moving bus this spring . she recently directed a concert of songs from “ragtime” on ellis island featuring a cast of 48 , including brian stokes mitchell , brandon victor dixon , and laura michelle kelly . assisting credits include “the great comet of 1812” ( dir . rachel chavkin ) and “in the body of the world” ( dir . diane paulus ) . directing credits include “les misérables , ” “machinal , ” and “evita . ” pa credits include “finding neverland , ” “porgy & bess” ( 1 st natl . ) , “beautiful , ” and the tonys . ba , stanford university , m . ed , harvard university . proud sdc associate .
on october 26 , 1968 , a week before nixon won the presidency in a landslide , the new york times ran an editorial accusing nixon’s running mate spiro agnew of various misdeeds . the times said agnew was party to questionable land deals . it charged that his position as a director of maryland bank while governor of maryland involved “clearly repeated conflicts of interest . ” the editorial concluded : “in his obtuse behavior as a public official in maryland as well as in his egregious comments this campaign , mr . agnew has demonstrated that he is not fit to stand one step away from the presidency . ”
hiss was tried again , and in the second case he was convicted of perjury and sent to prison . as a teenager i followed the hiss case as carefully as an average kid might follow his favorite baseball team . i knew all the players and all the events . in the liberal circles of cambridge , massachusetts , where i grew up , nixon and chambers were viewed as villains . they were out to destroy the liberal establishment .
he accused the times of being prejudiced because it had endorsed nixon’s democratic rival , hubert humphrey , for president . “everyone knows that the times endorsed vice president hubert humphrey and is actively supporting him , ” his statement read . “the fact that the times waited until a week before the election to distort the facts and make its inaccurate charges against me compounds the libel . ”
work perhaps disguised by his beautiful , plain prose and comic hints of nostalgia . contemporary novelists bored by mitchell’s sympathetic treatments of fishermen and other obscure characters might be more satisfied by mccarthy’s fictional derelicts , suicidal drunks , thieves , and watermelon humpers . in any case , it’s the same cast portrayed in the same postwar era , when culture at large is eager to leap toward the future and erase the recent past .
nixon had smeared the times , accusing it of libel as he had smeared voorhees and douglas . there was no way for the public to know the times had not libeled agnew . if a presidential candidate takes time on a national tv show a few days before the election to accuse the times falsely , there was realistically no way for the times to defend itself .
is even more ambitious that its predecessor . actors ross gurney - randall and david mounfield don ' t just portray big daddy and giant haystacks , but an immense supporting cast of lesser wrestlers , managers , and tv executives ; there are even walk - on parts for paul mccartney , frank sinatra and princess margaret . this constant switching from one role to another , one accent to the next , must be hard work for the actors , and would be hard work for the audience too if the writing were not so accomplished . as it is , the characters are always careful to remind us who they are , to keep up to speed on what they ' re doing and what ' s happening in the wider world of wrestling at each particular moment . it ' s all as funny as we ' ve come to expect from mitchell and nixon , but it ' s never
what really interested mitchell , i believe , were not the artifacts of life—but life , people , flesh and blood . yeah , there’s the old hotel , yeah , there’s mcsorley’s saloon , yeah , there’s sloppy louie’s . but what he was fundamentally interested in , as far as i could tell , was the human drama .
while garfield’s book was dramatised in 1998 , wwe icon mick foley has turned into a stand - up , and writer / performer rob drummond trained himself for a show that culminated in him taking part in a fully fledged bout of drop - kicks and flying buttresses . also at this year’s fringe is the return of the wrestling , a show produced by comedy duo , max and ivan . as for the wrestling itself , it’s still there if you look hard enough in shows promoted on the summer holiday camp circuit by crabtree’s arch - rival , brian dixon . ‘it’s not a huge revival , ’ mitchell observes , ‘but people have noticed that it hasn’t gone away , which is a good thing . i approve of a country that allowed the wrestling to exist more than the one that didn’t . ’
indeed , the nation’s press on that sunday was more interested in tricia nixon’s wedding the previous evening . i had watched excerpts of it on tv . i noted with interest some of the high - placed dignitaries who were there , and wondered how they would react to the bombshell story right there on the front page the next morning , next to coverage of the wedding .
when on december 2 , 1948 , chambers produced microfilm of state department documents given to him by hiss , which chambers stored in a pumpkin , nixon crowed that the “pumpkin papers” showed the perfidy of liberal democrats . hiss , having denied knowing chambers , was indicted for perjury . hiss won the first perjury trial with a hung jury .
the six - foot - five german cut an imposing swath through the city’s cultural scene when he took over as artistic director of luminato . weisbrodt brought worldly connections and discernment to the amorphous multidisciplinary festival , anchoring the 200 - event schedule with such big - name draws as marina abramovic´ and joni mitchell . ( that the reclusive and enigmatic mitchell performed is a testament to weisbrodt’s powers of persuasion . ) the result was a festival that broke attendance records , selling upwards of $ 1 million in tickets , and made critics swoon . friends in high places : he and husband rufus wainwright are an art - world power duo . guests at their montauk wedding last year included abramovic´ , carrie fisher , julianne moore , antony hegarty , lou reed , yoko ono , laurie anderson , the fashion designers victor and rolf , and jorn and rufus’s daughter , viva cohen ( granddaughter of leonard ) .
i sent a letter addressed to mitchell saying that we wouldn’t retract what reston had said . throughout the rest of the campaign , the libel suit against the times was mentioned frequently by republican candidates . many who covered the election for the press said they felt under threat with everything they wrote .
from august to december 1895 , the magazine’s circulation rose from 120 , 000 to 250 , 000 . hoping to increase his circulation even more , mcclure turned his magazine into a home for a series of reform articles by such writers as tarbell , ray stannard baker , and joseph lincoln steffens . these pieces on the history of the standard oil company and corruption in city government contributed to the rise of muckraking journalism at the turn of the century and helped boost the magazine’s circulation to approximately a half - million readers .
with the carnegie - medal - winning author philip reeve , brian wrote the acclaimed musical comedy the ministry of biscuits . a classically - trained composer , his songs for the perrier - nominated show , joanna neary is not feeling herself , have been broadcast on radios 1 , 2 and 4 . in 2009 the october revolutions , his first solo play , co - developed with mill studio and nightingale theatre , toured the south - east to rave reviews . brian is a founder member of the theatre collective the foundry group , and brighton five pound fringe , and is represented by noel gay . awards : buxton fringe award for best theatre production - 2011 / fringeguru editor ' s choice award - 2011 ( both for big daddy vs . giant haystacks ) / best comedy , brighton festival awards - 2006 ( for the ornate johnsons ) nominations : buxton fringe award for new writing - 2011 / perrier best newcomer - 2004 ( for joanna neary is not feelng herself )
mitchell the storyteller rarely used inciting incidents , rising action , or climaxes ; his works reject resolution . often there is not even a main character . he compiled quotes , facts , images , details , words—lists of things he didn’t want to be forgotten—and arranged them in sequences that feel effortless , a poetry of plainness unique to him .
the protagonist of “mr . hunter’s grave” is an eighty - nine - year - old african american man who lives in a once - bustling neighborhood on staten island founded by freed slaves . when mitchell finds it , the neighborhood is hollowed out and decaying . all that’s left are remnants of forgotten buildings and neglected people , like mr . hunter , who is jovial and pleasant but saddened by change and loss . mitchell quotes mr . hunter describing a walk he took in staten island’s boondocks , where he inspected wildflowers before making a wrong step and ending up knee - deep in mud : “i floundered around in the mud a minute , getting my bearings , and then i happened to raise my head and look up , and suddenly i saw , away off in the distance , miles and miles away , the tops of skyscrapers in new york shining in the morning sun . i wasn’t expecting it , and it was amazing . it was like a vision in the bible . ”
david mountfield and ross gurney - randall portray these two giants with gusto and spirit and quickly get the audience chanting “easy easy” , big daddy’s theme , and soon we were all cheering and booing .


andreea bibiri ( born may 3 , 1975 ) is a romanian film and stage actress , dubber and theatre director .

she graduated from the caragiale academy of theatrical arts and cinematography in 1996 and has won two uniter prize awards as an actress .

she is best known outside romania for the role of ana , in tudor giurgiu 's " of snails and men " .

andreea bibiri

all andreea bibiri films : from early to the latest . recent andreea bibiri hd pictures and biography .
all andreea bibiri movies list with pictures . biography and interesting facts from personal life . celebrity fans will be attracted by latest photoshoot or rare andreea bibiri photos : childhood and now . high quality pictures can be used as hd wallpapers . andreea bibiri has worked as actor and has been in 5 films , animated movies and tv series in her filmography . rate the celebrity and leave a review !
5 movies , animated films and tv series , famous actor – and all this is andreea bibiri . bio and details of life are always a subject of interest by celebrity fans . even if you do not take one of them , then , at least , pay attention to the interesting facts : about children , family , relationships and childhood . in andreea bibiri filmography you will find all top and recent movies , tv series and cartoons : from the very first film to the upcoming ones . filters by name , release date , genres and imdb rating will help you to quickly find all andreea bibiri roles : from the very young movie to the last one . it easy to notice that the filmography is mainly dominated by films in the genre drama , comedy , romance . romania where is andreea bibiri from also affected her work . among best films in deriva , damen tango , iubire cu pumnul and here you can find out what is the next andreea bibiri movie . also on this page is gathered huge photo gallery with lots of the best andreea bibiri images in high quality which you can easily use as beautiful wallpapers for desktop of mobile android , iphone or pc . we add not only professional photoshoots but also private andreea bibiri family photos with her parents , kids and husband . if you want to see how andreea bibiri looked like as a kid or as a teenager or want to find andreea bibiri naked pictures , you can be sure that you will get them in our gallery . by the way the latest images may help you to know how she looks in real life , if she is dating or even where is andreea bibiri now . as soon as new andreea bibiri images appear in high quality we add them immediately into our collection .
andreea bibiri was born on may 3 , 1975 in bucharest , romania . she is an actress , known for despre oameni si melci ( 2012 ) , stare de fapt ( 1995 ) and vertiges ( 1997 ) . she was previously married to alexandru berceanu .
with : victor rebengiuc ( niki ardelean ) , razvan vasilescu ( florian tufaru , known as flo ) , coca bloos ( poucha ardelean ) , mihaela caracas ( doina tufaru ) , serban pavlu ( eugen tufaru ) , dorina chiriac ( angela tufaru ) , marius galea ( mihai ardelean ) , andreea bibiri ( irina ardelean ) and alexandru bindea ( fratele irinei ) .
“niki and flo” spends time with a variety of characters , including eugen and angela ; their mothers , poucha ( the marvelous coca bloos ) and doina ( mihaela caracas ) ; and mihai’s widow , irina ( andreea bibiri ) . its center of gravity , however , is unquestionably niki , whose suffering is all but invisible to everyone around him . his evident struggle to uphold an ideal of capable , selfless , patriotic manhood—an ideal no one else seems to care about or even recognize—is the axis of the film’s drama , and it turns into something larger , more complicated and more frightening than the quiet sorrow of an old man .
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the animated film that started it all . produced by walt disney feature animation in burbank , california , this unassuming stop - gap project grew to become a mythic phenomenon , setting record numbers for box - office sales and merchandising revenue around the world , and inspiring thousands of fans to build on its story with their own creativity .
image archive hundreds of high - quality screen images , clip art , and more ! sounds & music dialogue clips , midi songs , and cd track information . texts & fan - fiction essays , reviews , production notes , and hundreds of fan stories . video clips video files of memorable scenes , and many more interesting movie files . character profiles pictures and descriptions of all the lion king characters and their roles in the story .
the long - awaited sequel . a direct - to - video production by walt disney television animation , simba ' s pride adds new characters and another chapter to the circle of life mythos begun in the original theatrical film .
the circle of life begins anew with a fresh , satiric retelling of the original film ' s story , from the comic perspective of the meerkat timon and the warthog pumbaa . a tribute to the grandeur of the original as much as it is a satire , this direct - to - video production ( from walt disney tv animation australia ) appeals to wistful nostalgia as much as to our funny bones .
premiering in minneapolis in 1997 , the lion king : the broadway musical has found a permanent home as a fixture on 42nd street , the heart of the theatre district on times square in new york . numerous other productions have set up in other cities around the world to showcase julie taymor ' s revolutionary stage rendition of the original film ' s story .
was translated into and released in 44 languages for markets around the world . this page lists the voice actors for as many as possible of these languages .
select language : english - the lion king french ( français ) - le roi lion spanish ( español ) - el rey león german ( deutsch ) - der könig der löwen italian ( italiano ) - il re leone japanese polish ( polski ) - król lew finnish ( suomi ) - leijonakuningas swedish ( svenska ) - lejonkungen norwegian ( norsk ) - løvenes konge danish ( dansk ) - løvernes konge dutch ( nederlands ) - de leeuwenkoning portuguese ( português ) - o rei leão korean russian - korol ' lev urdu ( pakistani ) zulu - inkosi ubhubesi turkish - aslan kral slovenian croatian romanian other . . .
there is no information for the cast in languages other than those listed in the menu . if you have information to contribute , please feel free to e - mail me to help complete this site !
își conturează personajul cu trăsături clare , fără ezitări , cu energie contagioasă , fără , însă , a - i agresa în vreun fel vulnerabilitatea . ( … ) sp
ectacolul ”o femeie singură” devine , astfel , o mică și strălucitoare bijuterie pe care o iei cu tine , acasă , pentru a te mai minuna de ea o bucată de vreme . ” –
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urltoken
urltoken seek and meet people born on the same date as you . . .
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the sign of taurus gives people who were born under it calm and patient nature , and a sense of appreciation for beautiful and pleasant things in life . people born under the sign of taurus are often quite introverted and they like to keep their distance , even from their best friends . - »
the rabbit is usually cautious , sensible and reserved . people born in the year of the rabbit want to live in peace and comfort and protect their peaceful life . the rabbits are extremely gentle creatures - they symbolize charm and kindness . rabbits exhibit good manners and enjoy beauty . - »
person who was born under the rule of poplar learns fast and understands quickly . just like poplars , people born during the time of their rule are direct and straightforward . they often have artistic talents and a sense for beauty . - »
these people are mentally alert and have creative minds . they are creative and original , and they have a good imagination . they hate boredom and like to cooperate with others . they are charming and witty . they are critical of others and they should therefore learn how to be more diplomatic . they need to work freely and without restraints . - »
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romanian girls ; their dress appears more provincial and less like a
costume .
wish i knew more about this eastern european people - - very near neighbors of . apr 1 , 2016 . premiu pentru cel mai bun portret . date , 6 january 2009 . source , membru in cercu rosu . author , alexandru uiuiu . alexandru uiuiu este scriitor , fotograf si . un om , care vrea sa tina timpul pe loc in imagine si cuvint . aici gasiti citeva incercari ! : ) razboiul este din . skype ? kokia karma english romaji hd . banda zaluzejo ? justin bieber in zombie apocalypse unturned gameplay . alexandru uiuiu text edit , doom wow add - ons . this is
alexandru uiuiu , reprezentant al ministerului culturii ? n bistri ? a - n ? s ? ud -
? i ? tiin ? a face parte din cultur ? .
by .
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the aro car factory went bankrupt and is about to be privatized in a week . it will be bought by a french company that intends to turn it into a snail farm . the currently factory has 3000 workers and only 300 will keep their jobs . union leader george ( andi vasluianu ) , ( ana ' s husband , father of viorel ) lives with a modest monthly sum , like all the other workers in the city . not able to sleep , one night she sees a television commercial about a sperm bank that pays $ 50 for each donation . that ' s the mad idea to save workplace of his colleagues . if 1 , 000 workers sell their sperm for a week , they could raise enough money to save the factory from bankruptcy . written by lament
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jermaine fowler and omari hardwick of sorry to bother you take us back in time to the worst jobs of their careers .
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bucharest non - stop
is a romanian feature film that tells the story of a neighborhood of bucharest . more specifically , the film is a night of non - stop life of a store located in a . . . see full summary »
cristian , a young idealistic prosecutor whose career is on the rise , tries to crack a case against a senior colleague accused of corruption . the dilemma of choosing between his career and . . . see full summary »
love . it just happens . no rules . it may look sick , but it ' s deep and it hurts . for everyone , alex and kiki are just good friends . they happen to be two girls experiencing another kind of love . for their family , kiki and sandu are sister and brother who sometimes fight . they happen to be lovers . love sick is about their stories .
marius is a divorced man in his late thirties . his five year - old daughter sofia lives with her mother , which causes marius a deep frustration . on the day marius arrives to take his daughter . . . see full summary »
a newbie agrees to deliver the wrong merchandise for money . he will learn soon that this trip will change his views about life , forever .
velicanu considers himself a fulfilled person . he ' s got money , a new villa , married a younger woman and has a son from a previous marriage . before the holidays he has to leave everything in . . . see full summary »
two weeks before his release , a teenage prisoner learns that his mother has returned home . meanwhile , he finds himself in love with a student working in the penitentiary as an intern .
after the terrible news of a fatal car accident involving her son , a desperate mother will do anything in her powers to set her child free .
delia , a young romanian girl , drives to bucharest with her parents to collect a prize she won in a contest .
in 1911 - 12 , the romanian movie director grigore brezianu and the financial tycoon leon popescu made together the 2 hours long movie
romania ' s independence
- an as faithful as possible . . . see full summary »
in a small isolated village , in 1953 , a wedding is interrupted by the news about the death of stalin . because any public celebration is forbidden , they decide to turn the happy event into a silent wedding .
the aro car factory went bankrupt and is about to be privatized in a week . it will be bought by a french company that intends to turn it into a snail farm . the currently factory has 3000 workers and only 300 will keep their jobs . union leader george ( andi vasluianu ) , ( ana ' s husband , father of viorel ) lives with a modest monthly sum , like all the other workers in the city . not able to sleep , one night she sees a television commercial about a sperm bank that pays $ 50 for each donation . that ' s the mad idea to save workplace of his colleagues . if 1 , 000 workers sell their sperm for a week , they could raise enough money to save the factory from bankruptcy .
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bucharest , romania ( ap ) —media tycoon dan diaconescu drives a white rolls royce , looks like a used car salesman in his shiny mauve jacket , promises to create thousands of jobs and has emerged as a key player in romania ' s bitterly contested parliamentary election .
the owner of two television stations , diaconescu ' s populist party is running third in sunday ' s vote , according to polls . the gray - haired , multimillionaire talk show host from romania ' s disenfranchised south appears to be tapping into widespread discontent with traditional political parties seen as arrogant , sniping and corrupt .
people cling to me like i ' m their only hope ,
the lanky 44 - year - old said in an interview with the associated press this week , after driving six hours from the poor mining town of targu jiu , where he is running for a seat in parliament .
they say i ' m the one who ' ll save them from poverty , they ascribe to me qualities that i don t really have , or they consider me some sort of messiah , a savior of romania .
even by romanian standards , politics have been tumultuous this year . the impoverished balkan nation has seen three prime ministers and cabinets , huge anti - austerity protests , and a government criticized by the european union and the united states for failing to respect the rule of law during a failed bid to impeach president traian basescu .
many in the country of 19 million are fed up with a bitterly personal power struggle between basescu and prime minister victor ponta , especially as the country remains one of the poorest and most corrupt members of the eu , and endures deep austerity cuts in return for a €20 - million ( $ 26 - million ) bailout to help its foundering economy .
polls give ponta ' s center - left governing coalition a comfortable 57 percent of the vote . but a fresh political crisis could break out after the election if , as threatened , the center - right basescu refuses to nominate ponta—whom he recently called
a pig ,
a compulsive liar
and a
little cat .
diaconescu is frequently dismissed by mainstream politicians as an unsophisticated arriviste from the backward south , whose marathon talk shows on his otv channel — with the slogan
live sensationally
—made him a star . but he has taken votes from both basescu and ponta , and will likely be a pivotal voice in the new parliament . basescu ' s allies are expected to rely on him for support .
he has earned admiration from everyday people as a sort of romanian oprah winfrey , a man from a modest background who made good and hasn ' t forgotten his roots . though he drives a luxury car , he has never fixed his crooked teeth and is very quiet about his personal life and assets .
i like diaconescu because he is pleasant and respectful to everyone whatever their class ,
said lucia popescu , who works as a security guard in bucharest .
he thinks before he speaks , he is gentle and people have had enough of mudslinging all day long , on the tv and in the newspapers .
in a country where corruption is virtually a way of life , diaconescu has not been immune to such allegations himself . ponta accused diaconescu of being a con man over his failed attempt to buy a chemical plant for €45 million ( $ 59 million ) , saying the entrepreneur never had the money and that it was just a pre - election publicity stunt .
diaconescu himself is under investigation for two fraud - related cases , for allegedly trying to blackmail a mayor to stop him airing damaging information , and for fraud in the chemical plant deal . he claims the charges were trumped up—and calls himself an outsider who understands business better than many in government .
diaconescu , whose campaign is awash with his
lucky
color purple , promises to slash sales tax from 24 to 10 percent , create thousands of jobs and give €20 , 000 ( $ 26 , 000 ) to budding entrepreneurs . he told the ap he would find the funds from public money that is currently siphoned off by corrupt officials .
we believe that if this money is no longer stolen by our new political class , romania would have 40 percent more , and here i ' m talking about wages or pensions ,
he said .
his populist party , which was only created two years ago , is polling 15 percent , trailing just behind basescu ' s allies , the just romania alliance , a new grouping of center - right parties .
we work 15 hours a day for 1 , 000 lei ( €225 ) a month , is that normal ?
said ioana stoian , a 27 - year - old vendor , wrapping a sweet cheese pastry .
diaconescu will do something . they ( politicians ) do nothing apart from steal and fill their pockets .
diaconescu ' s party emerged
due to the disappointment of the electorate and romanian society toward unfulfilled promises made by president basescu and governments ,
said stelian tanase . but he predicted the party might not have the staying power to last .
the romanian director cristian mungiu has never won an academy award , but he is nonetheless part of oscar history . in 2008 , his “4 months , 3 weeks and 2 days , ” a drama about an illegal abortion that had won top honors at the cannes film festival the previous spring , was considered a shoo - in for an oscar nomination , but ended up being snubbed by academy voters . that led to a change in the rules , taking some of the power to choose nominees away from voters and conferring it on a special committee .
now mr . mungiu , 44 , is back and competing with a new film , “beyond the hills , ” that has again scored big at cannes , with awards for screenplay and the performances of its two lead actresses . set in an orthodox monastery , it examines the friendship of two women who grew up together in an orphanage but have taken strikingly different paths as adults . one has become a nun , finding inner peace , while the other has migrated to germany and is so deeply troubled that when she returns to visit her friend that she ends up being subjected to an exorcism . ( it’s based very loosely on a 2005 case in which a romanian novice died in an exorcism . )
“beyond the hills” was shown at the new york film festival this fall , when mr . mungiu was in town and sat down for an interview , and it will close the festival making waves : new romanian cinema at lincoln center on wednesday . here are edited excerpts from that october conversation :
q . the real - life incident on which your film is based has been amply written about in the press and in two books by tatiana niculescu bran . what compelled you to go back to this episode ?
a . i knew about this story for a very long period , because this was in the press a lot , and i was preserving all the clips and i read the books . eventually i googled to see what the reaction of people was seven years later , only to discover that people were still so concerned and preoccupied and polarized by this that , apart from the books , i couldn’t find any balanced position about what happened .
for me it was very important to see all the things this story can reveal . and this is why i decided to make a film out of it . actually , the great difference between the books and what i did is the relationship between the girls , which never existed in reality but which gave me a reason for everything that happened .
q . for those two vital roles , you chose performers who had never acted in a film before , and they ended up sharing the best actress award at cannes . how did you achieve that ?
a . well , this is the crucial decision you need to make on a film like this : who are you going to work with ? we had the kind of liberty we’ve never had before to just experiment with them , in the rehearsals and at the shooting . we rehearsed a lot during casting , read a lot , and i acted a lot for them , so i am giving them directly the tone of voice , the energy , the rhythm , the body language that i want . guidance , but not with words . i’m not telling them what to do , i show them how to do .
but it’s fair to say that by the end , i had adapted as much to them as they adapted to me . we did what was there in the script , but each time it wasn’t possible to get the dialogue exactly right , i was adapting what i wanted to do and editing the scene to what they could do . because you can’t push onto the actors something that does not belong to them .
q . for many foreigners , their main image of romania , to the extent they have one at all , is of a strange and superstitious place , with transylvania and vampires and all of that . are you worried that “beyond the hills” could reinforce those stereotypes ?
a . i hope the film will not be seen and interpreted like this . i think this is a local story speaking about things that are very general . what people are asked to do in the name of love for god , for example , this is the same in a lot of different religions . it’s the same mechanism , the way it works . sin and the way evil works into the world , the way violence evolves into people .
one of the things that really interested me to investigate was , how does violence find a place in this community ? they are very mild people who start by sitting at the same table with this girl , and somehow a few days later they feel they are not fighting her , but demons inside her , and are entitled to make decisions about her life . how does this happen , practically ? where is this moment ? i don’t think this belongs to a society that is underdeveloped , i think this can be understood to speak about things in a more general way .
q . having seen three of your films , i have a sense that certain themes fascinate you , such as women in a situation of duress . is that fair to say ?
a . yes , but in “ tales from the golden age , ” there were also episodes that involved men in difficult situations . so it’s not exclusive . actually , i am much more interested in the situation than the character . i don’t start from characters . i need a situation that is very complex and layered and gives me the possibility to speak about a lot of things at the same time . i can’t handle very simple things . i always need to have first of all a strong conflict between some people , and a world behind . at first this was the world of the end of communism , and now it’s this religious world .
q . i also want to ask you about the oscars . you know , don’t you , that you’re already famous in oscar history ?
a . ( laughs ) yes , in a very strange sense . but i don’t think it’s fair to expect too much from the oscars for the kind of films i do . i hope that people will watch the film and have the patience to understand that there is a kind of cinema that is different but that is also cinema , and there’s nothing wrong with that .
a . i’m talking about the oscar committee and also the oscar voters . what’s important in cinema is to have options and allow spectators to say , “let’s see , i’m going to see this kind , ” to have this liberty , to be able to choose . but you can’t have a film which is going to be appreciated the same everywhere — in cannes , at the oscars , in romania . you just do the kind of cinema you are interested in , and then the film will have its fate , in different contexts with different people .
q . does winning prizes mean anything to you ? because your films have done very well at cannes .
a . this has a very precise meaning . it helps the film to be seen , that is the benefit of awards . and the romanian new wave , this exists just because of cannes , honestly . we wouldn’t represent anything , even in romania for our spectators , unless there was this kind of appreciation . actually , in romania people haven’t seen my films a lot . but they appreciate the fact that i’m appreciated . this is it . i’m carrying the banner , like a football team and nadia comaneci , stuff like that .
cosmina stratan , left , and cristina flutur in “beyond the hills , ” directed by cristian mungiu .
ordinarily , a change of government in a balkan capital would be little cause for concern at the film society of lincoln center . but when you sponsor a romanian film festival , and your romanian partner comes under attack by the new authorities in bucharest , thus jeopardizing your joint undertaking , you may find yourself thrust into a political imbroglio .
the festival , making waves : new romanian cinema , will begin as scheduled on thursday night at lincoln center , running through next wednesday . but the film society has severed its connection to the romanian cultural institute , the festival’s original government - financed co - sponsor , in favor of collaboration with a new , private entity , called the romanian film initiative , run by the former director of the institute’s new york office .
in the last decade , the emergence of a romanian new wave has been one of the most startling developments in world cinema , with one film after another winning prizes at cannes and elsewhere . in new york a festival of romanian movies was first held in 2006 in tribeca under the auspices of the cultural institute , and last year was invited to move to lincoln center .
but the arrival of a new administration in bucharest “sent us back to square one , ” said corina suteu , who resigned in september , along with her deputy , oana radu , as director of the new york office of the romanian cultural institute . “the present authorities have gone back to a discourse on culture that is very archaic , and they do not consider new wave cinema as being ‘representative’ of romania . ”
at lincoln center , film programmers said there was no hesitation about continuing their partnership with ms . suteu and her associates and they opted not to explore the possibility of an officially sanctioned event .
“under this leadership , the cultural institute did incredible things to make the new romanian cinema visible in the united states , so there was never any question in our minds , ” said scott foundas , associate program director at the film society . “our feeling always was that we think very highly of these people as curators , have very similar taste in cinema and are very pleased to have them as part of the extended lincoln center family . ”
the government of prime minister victor ponta , which came to power this spring , is a seemingly unlikely coalition between former communists and a conservative party . in june it issued an emergency ordinance modifying the 2003 statute setting up the romanian cultural institute , which had previously reported directly to president traian basescu , mr . ponta’s political rival .
“it’s an ionesco - like government , ” said mihai chirilov , the artistic director of the film festival , referring to the romanian playwright who is considered a father of the theater of the absurd . “it’s a very unexpected combination that shows their only aim is power . ”
as a presence on the new york cultural scene since shortly after the fall of communism in 1989 , the romanian cultural institute has not limited itself to promoting its national cinema . the institute has also helped bring romanian writers to the annual pen world voices literary festival , supported visual artists in their efforts to get their work shown locally , and collaborated on shows featuring romanian music , both classical composers like the pianist dinu lipatti and pop groups like timpuri noi .
in place of that longstanding emphasis on making romanian culture better known in the west , under the new emergency ordinance the institute’s primary task is “to uphold the identity” of romanians living abroad . the previous , outward - looking policy was condemned in the ordinance as “highly negative” because it “impairs on a permanent basis the feeling of belonging to the romanian nation in the case of those temporarily living in other countries . ”
the romanian director andrei ujica has made several critically praised films , including “videogram of a revolution” and “ the autobiography of nicolae ceausescu , ” shown at the new york festival in 2010 , that examine the relationship between political power and media manipulation . in a telephone interview from berlin , where he teaches cinema , he described the new government policy as an “abusive change” and “anticultural . ”
“it’s a kind of attempt at a small cultural revolution , in a maoist meaning , but in a new form , coupled with the new tabloid culture that has become so strong in east european countries , ” he said . “that is a new and dangerous mixture , with a very rigid nationalist focus . ”
on the web site of mr . ponta , the government has denied any intention to seize control of the cultural apparatus or limit freedom of expression . “the decisions that have been adopted are meant only to build a more comprehensive democratic framework for the romanian cultural institute’s functioning and to redress the problems pertaining to its spending of public money , ” an official statement said .
with government financing ruled out , ms . suteu and her associates did what everyone does these days : they began a kickstarter campaign that raised $ 22 , 000 from some 300 people . in other gestures of support , leading romanian artists , writers and film figures , both in the diaspora and back home , signed protest petitions and also contributed money , and the trust for mutual understanding , which promotes cultural and other exchanges between the united states and the former soviet bloc , supplied a $ 50 , 000 grant .
the festival opens on thursday with “of snails and men , ” an absurdist comedy by tudor giurgiu , and will conclude with cristian mungiu’s religious drama “ beyond the hills , ” which won two awards at the cannes film festival this spring .
in between , the bill includes several works by promising new directors and a retrospective of the films of alexandru tatos , who died in 1990 and is considered a major influence on the new wave .
unusually , the program also includes two panel discussions , titled “creative freedom through cinema : romania and hungary , ” that will be linked with screenings on saturday and sunday . hungary , romania’s neighbor , is included in the discussion because the nationalist government there has been criticized as curbing freedom of expression .
“corina and oana have been very quick on their feet to make this happen , which i’m not sure everyone could do , ” mr . foundas said . “it was a very bold move on their part , and without skipping a beat , they have created an entity to protect the independence of this festival and to continue going forward in the way we want to see . ”
late american actor larry hagman , who died last week , came to romania in the 80 ' s , when the soap opera dallas , where hagman played the famous oil magnate j . r . ewing , was becoming popular in the then communist country as well .
the british newspaper sunday times recently published an article about hagman’s trip to romania in the 80 ' s and the money he received from the communist regime for letting them use his image on a billboard in bucharest .
larry hagman had told this secret to an american journalist , but asked him not to publish it while he was still alive . “hagman said he had no objection provided a bag filled with hard currency was left in the ladies’ lavatory of a government office for his wife to pick up the next day , ” according to the sunday times article bylined by john harlow . his wife indeed picked up the brown bag with money and the couple spent it fast .
in 2011 , hagman said the soap opera dallas had a huge influence in international politics and that he was convinced that broadcasting the series in the 80 ' s in a communist country like romania could have been one of the triggers for the 1989 revolution which led to the fall of communism . the ceausescu regime agreed to broadcast the movie to show its people the bad ways of the west , but the plan backfired , hagman believed . romanians saw how life could be elsewhere in the world and ended up wanting to live that very life .
larry hagman died last friday at a hospital in dallas . he has been diagnosed with liver cancer 20 years ago and for the past year he had been fighting neck cancer , which stemmed from his initial liver disease . hagman , 81 , was performing the role which made him famous around the world , j . r . ewing , in the soap - opera reboot for tnt .
“larry hagman was a giant , a larger - than - life personality whose iconic performance as j . r . ewing will endure as one of the most indelible in entertainment history . he truly loved portraying this globally recognized character , and he leaves a legacy of entertainment , generosity and grace , ” wrote warner bros in a statement .
having brilliantly documented the horror of stalin’s soviet terror machine in her pulitzer prize - winning “ gulag , ” anne applebaum now offers a bulky sequel , “iron curtain , ” about the brutal effort of that same machine to crush and colonize eastern europe in the first decade after world war ii . her evidence , once again drawn from archival research and some survivor interviews , is overwhelming and convincing . but the heart of her story is hardly news .
applebaum tracks the salami slicing as typically practiced in poland , hungary and germany , and serves up not only the beef but also the fat , vinegar and garlic in exhausting detail . she shows how the knives were sharpened before the war’s end in soviet training camps for east european communists , so that trusted agents could create and control secret police forces in each of the “liberated” nations . she shows how reliable operatives then took charge of all radio broadcasting , the era’s most powerful mass medium . and she demonstrates how the soviet stooges could then , with surprising speed , harass , persecute and finally ban all independent institutions , from youth groups and welfare agencies to schools , churches and rival political parties .
along the way , millions of germans , poles , ukrainians and hungarians were ruthlessly driven from their historic homes to satisfy soviet territorial ambitions . millions more were deemed opponents and beaten , imprisoned or hauled off to hard labor in siberia . in stalin’s paranoid sphere , not even total control of economic and cultural life was sufficient . to complete the terror , he purged even the communist leaders of each satellite regime , accusing them of treason and parading them as they made humiliating confessions .
it is good to be reminded of these sordid events , now that more archives are accessible and some witnesses remain alive to recall the horror . still , why should we be consuming such a mass of detail more than half a century later ?
in her introduction applebaum says it is important to remember that “historically , there were regimes that aspired to total control , ” not only of the organs of state but also of human nature itself . we should be studying how totalitarianism worked , she maintains , because “we can’t be certain that mobile phones , the internet and satellite photographs won’t eventually become tools of control” in other places . well , vladimir putin may yet make her a prophet , but so far this century , technology has become a welcome defense against tyranny .
more relevant to contemporary discussion are some themes applebaum evokes along the way but never develops . she begins her tale by insisting that the united states and britain , having promised the east europeans a democratic future , quickly abandoned them to soviet domination . true enough . yet what were the west’s alternatives ? the door to europe was left open for stalin in 1945 because the americans were rapidly redeploying to fight japan and eager to enlist stalin in the pacific war . applebaum does not speculate about how soviet colonization might have been forestalled or what methods of intervention for freedom we should be applying now in cuba or north korea , syria or china .
similarly , she barely touches on the contrary claims of some historians that it was not the west’s appeasement but rather hostility against the soviet union that provoked stalin’s aggressive responses . these scholars accuse the united states of having triggered the cold war , thus baiting stalin into taking crude defensive countermeasures . applebaum’s evidence provides a telling rebuttal to those “revisionist” theories , but she never really engages them .
most conspicuously missing is any sustained examination of soviet motives for the rape of eastern europe . what did the russians want ? revenge against germany and its allies ? compensation for their enormous loss of life and suffering in the war and the spoils due a victor ? was the domination of neighboring states a wildly arrogant policy of defense so that no conqueror could ever again follow napoleon and hitler to moscow ? or was it a revival of russia’s imperial desire to annex at least half of poland , to secure a rebellious ukraine and to incorporate the baltic states and various adjacent balkan lands ?
applebaum’s overriding interest is in stalin’s deranged tyranny , which aggravated the postwar horror inside the soviet union at the same time that it was being slavishly imitated by his east european henchmen until his death in 1953 . yet stalin’s successors were just as intent on preserving their dominion . why ? applebaum contends that stalin , having once postponed the soviet dream of igniting an international communist revolution , “was preparing to relaunch it” in 1944 as the red army rolled westward . but that passing comment — and debatable premise—is all she offers to explain soviet policy .
while her documentation of the soviet takeover is impressive , at this late date fewer facts and more analysis would have been welcome . the seeds of the communists’ ultimate failure in east europe are strewed throughout her book , but with little explanation . she shows how poorly the communist regimes provided for their consumers and how they alienated the workers in whose name they governed . why ? and does not this subject require lengthy discussion of how communism collided with the deeply rooted nationalisms of the region ? applebaum incisively demonstrates the moral confusion that haunted roman catholic leaders and other opponents of the communist regimes , some openly hostile , some reluctantly cooperative , many simply passive . but how should we evaluate their choices ?
“iron curtain” is not a full history of the iron curtain because of applebaum’s decision to end her history in 1956 , just as poles and hungarians openly rebelled against soviet control . there then followed a 30 - year effort in the kremlin to stabilize and reform all communist societies , but the east europeans remained restive , held captive only by soviet armed might . the colonization became a huge burden on the soviet economy , and the lures of western democracy and economic achievement produced corrosive holes in that curtain . finally , when mikhail gorbachev refused to shoot to preserve his costly empire , the curtain collapsed altogether and dragged down the soviet center as well .
applebaum rightly concludes , long before that climax , that the totalitarian spell could never be sustained for long . but she declines to generalize about the reasons or the defenses we all may need against other totalitarian threats . instead , what she has given us is a concrete and sad record that honors the memory of the millions who were slaughtered , tortured and suppressed in the mad pursuit of totality .
max frankel , former executive editor of the times , reported for many years from moscow and eastern europe .
saul steinberg ' s
untitled
( 1948 ) , ink on paper .
saul steinberg , the pre - eminent cartoonist of the 20th century , specialized in high - i . q . humor . in an age when cartoons were populated by henpecked husbands and conniving wives in hair curlers , he found his inspiration in the unlikely realm of philosophical inquiry . long associated with the new yorker , he once filled four pages of the magazine with a field of hand - drawn question marks .
his best - known work was perhaps too famous . he complained about being known as “the man who did that poster . ” he was referring , of course , to “view of the world from 9th avenue , ” his myopic , manhattan - centric map that was scaled and skewed to capture the interior cartography of new yorkers , where places like kansas city and china do not exist except as dots in the irrelevant beyond .
deirdre bair , in her gripping and revelatory “saul steinberg : a biography , ” redraws the world map , pushing ninth avenue into the background and foregrounding the view from bucharest . steinberg spent his first 19 years in romania , a primitive and repugnant “sewer” of a country , as he liked to say . he was among the waves of jewish refugees who fled to safety here during world war ii . it says something about his ethnic - tinged sense of humor that he once described picasso , after visiting him at his villa outside cannes , as “an old jewish man in the florida sun—all torso and shorts . ”
who was saul steinberg ? his acquaintances thought of him as an elegant dandy who seemed catlike in his refinement . in his prime , he lived on the upper east side of manhattan , dined out most every night and held forth at dinner parties with piquant erudition and wit . but behind the thick glasses and mandarin mask lay a haunted figure , a fearful man who visited indignities upon himself and those around him . as bair reveals , his love life was a string of infidelities , and crabbiness was his default mood . he eschewed interviews and spurned the company of very young children .
he was born in 1914 , at a time when romanian jews were still deemed unworthy of the rights of citizenship by their own government . his father , moritz , earned his living designing and manufacturing cardboard boxes , and the family’s circumstances became precarious with the rise of the ultraright iron guard . everywhere he turned , the young steinberg was faced with the sting of exclusion and state - sanctioned insult . he claimed , only half - jokingly , that “even dogs gazed at us reproachfully . ”
his high school diploma stigmatized him as a jew , a person professing the “mosaic” faith , which gave him a theme . it allowed him to see how a document that purports to confer identity can obliterate identity . in later life , his artistic output included a series of humorous diplomas and certificates . in fact , much of his work appropriated and satirized the visual conventions of government documents , with their seals and rubber stamps , their flowery signatures , their clumps of text that no one ever read . a government document , as much as any fine - art print , is made from ink on paper . this is the medium on which steinberg staked his career and gained his citizenship in the art world .
he was seldom without a suitcase . after studying architecture in milan , he sailed to new york in june 1941 by way of lisbon . he arrived at ellis island , only to be refused entry because the quota for romanian refugees had been surpassed . he was put on another ship , this one to the dominican republic , where he slept beneath mosquito netting and waited his turn to enter the united states . a year later , he finally got to new york and , after a euphoric interlude exploring manhattan , received an inconvenient assignment : the united states navy was sending him to china .