- Joined
- Jan 12, 2014
I still don't feel that she ever put actual thought into it. Maybe she just decided she liked the music the most out of several options and then the choreographer and/or coach developed the concept.
I still don't feel that she ever put actual thought into it. Maybe she just decided she liked the music the most out of several options and then the choreographer and/or coach developed the concept.
I agree. Alas, the one thing I've learned through life is that you can't please everyone. Christopher Hitchens publicly criticized Mother Teresa, whom most people praise as selfless, as a cold authoritarian. On the subject of the Spielberg film, I remember a complaint from a U.S. legislator (can't recall if he was a senator or a congressman) that Spielberg's movie was "immoral" because it showed a nude scene. (That shower scene, in fact.) I think after a quiet talking-to by someone, the representative backpedaled and said that he now understood the context.
Moviemakers make movies; that's how they interpret the world. Spielberg is on record as having made movies since childhood, when he probably used his family's old movie camera and neighborhood kids as his actors. In Schindler's List, he was showing the humiliation of something that really took place, in a bold way that wasn't acceptable in the days when fine movies such as The Diary of Anne Frank or Judgment at Nuremberg were made. Were those movies exploitive, or were they powerful stories that few people could resist trying to film? Closer to our time, did Louis Malle practice cheap voyeurism for profit when he showed a Jewish child passing as a gentile being turned in to authorities by another child in Europa Europa? Malle shot his film on a smaller budget, but he did get paid to make the movie and profited from its release. Doctors and nurses get paid for their work, as do firefighters. It's still work done with integrity. I doubt Spielberg sat there and said, "Gee, I bet I'll bring in a crowd if I show half-starved Jewish guys in the altogether." He'd have had more of an audience by showing hot young guys with oiled muscles, in fact.
Lipnitskaia may have been manipulative in using Schindler's List, but she's also a sentimental teenager, and this subject matter would have been very compelling to her. Maybe as an obscure high school student she'd just have written poetry about the girl, but since she had the opportunity to perform on the world stage, she seized it. And performed very well, might I add. I doubt she was any more manipulative than Paul Wylie, who also used the piece (and who frequently chose emotional or sentimental topics to explore in his programs). And then there's Katarina Witt, who risked a lot of criticism choosing this music because she is a German gentile. I'm sure some people took offense. Some people always will.
Surprise. I man who exploited the victims of genocide for cheap voyeurism and profit (the shower scene from Schindler's List is unforgivable) admires an ice skating routine that trivializes the murder of children.
I still don't feel that she ever put actual thought into it. Maybe she just decided she liked the music the most out of several options and then the choreographer and/or coach developed the concept.
All this doesn't change the fact that there was absolutely no musical interpretation, no emotion, no actual feeling of the music or the story.
There were two Senior Schindler's Lists this season, and hers was the inferior one.
I agree. Alas, the one thing I've learned through life is that you can't please everyone. Christopher Hitchens publicly criticized Mother Teresa, whom most people praise as selfless, as a cold authoritarian. On the subject of the Spielberg film, I remember a complaint from a U.S. legislator (can't recall if he was a senator or a congressman) that Spielberg's movie was "immoral" because it showed a nude scene. (That shower scene, in fact.) I think after a quiet talking-to by someone, the representative backpedaled and said that he now understood the context.
Moviemakers make movies; that's how they interpret the world. Spielberg is on record as having made movies since childhood, when he probably used his family's old movie camera and neighborhood kids as his actors. In Schindler's List, he was showing the humiliation of something that really took place, in a bold way that wasn't acceptable in the days when fine movies such as The Diary of Anne Frank or Judgment at Nuremberg were made. Were those movies exploitive, or were they powerful stories that few people could resist trying to film? Closer to our time, did Louis Malle practice cheap voyeurism for profit when he showed a Jewish child passing as a gentile being turned in to authorities by another child in Europa Europa? Malle shot his film on a smaller budget, but he did get paid to make the movie and profited from its release. Doctors and nurses get paid for their work, as do firefighters. It's still work done with integrity. I doubt Spielberg sat there and said, "Gee, I bet I'll bring in a crowd if I show half-starved Jewish guys in the altogether." He'd have had more of an audience by showing hot young guys with oiled muscles, in fact.
Lipnitskaia may have been manipulative in using Schindler's List, but she's also a sentimental teenager, and this subject matter would have been very compelling to her. Maybe as an obscure high school student she'd just have written poetry about the girl, but since she had the opportunity to perform on the world stage, she seized it. And performed very well, might I add. I doubt she was any more manipulative than Paul Wylie, who also used the piece (and who frequently chose emotional or sentimental topics to explore in his programs). And then there's Katarina Witt, who risked a lot of criticism choosing this music because she is a German gentile. I'm sure some people took offense. Some people always will.
Europa Europa was actually directed by Agnieszka Holland. I mention this because women directors never get enough credit for their work (and it's a very good movie). It probably would have won that year's Oscar for Foreign Language Film, but Germany refused to enter it for Oscar consideration.
You might be thinking of Louis Malle's Au Revoir, Les Enfants from 1987. Also a very good movie.
Do you have already some ideas for the next season?
E.T.- Yes, to tell the truth I have already been thinking about it for about a year. I have some ideas, not sure, we'll see. So far Julia hasn't agreed to them, but we'll try...and if Julia doesn't agree with something, then...
- ...it's useless to persuade her. But to tell the truth I don't persuade my students in general. I can try to show them some examples. Suppose the skater doesn't want to wear the dress in some specific style or to skate to some type of music, I can draw her attention: "Look how well it looks [on someone], look how this music emphasizes some strong qualities". And if the skater later comes to this decision, it's already his decision, he wasn't talked into it. I never persuade, but I can lead to something little by little. And after all, it's them who will go on the ice and skate. People around can complain about the colour of the dress but what if she loves it? It's her who skates in it.
Was it your initiative to work with him?
E.T.- Yes, mine, I took Julia to him. Actually this season she wondered if we might manage by ourselves, but I think, this collaboration could only do better.
Does he have some kind of vision for Julia? Some individual approach? For example, maybe he looked at her and said: the "Sabre dance"!
E.T.- No, actually the idea of the "Sabre dance" (SP of this season - ed.) came from Julia herself. It's been a few years that she has asked to skate to this music. At the beginning I was appalled by the idea. But somewhere in April they persuaded me to listen to this version - though which "this", they all are the same, sabres here and sabres there - but in the end I actually liked that arrangement. I liked that during the first half of the program you can't even guess it's the "Sabre dance", the most well-known pieces start only during the step sequence. And also maybe it's somewhere close to Julia's character. Though this music is still too intricate. I have a feeling that either people don't mind it or they really don't like it. For example, Sergei Petukhov said flatly: "I won't work on this program, because I simply don't like this music. I don't see it on the ice, I can't do it". Though other experts, like, for example, Sergei Chemodanov, said that this music choice is excellent, this music is Julia, we should take it.
I don't think her routine trivializes those terrible events-- it reminds us of them by referencing the film. It's evocative, not literal. After the routine, I was led back to the movie to re-watch the the red coat sequence. Still very powerful (for all Spielberg's faults as a director and his schmaltzy tendencies) and sad-- the juxtaposition of Jews being rounded up as children sing "Ofyn Pripetschik." I was moved to look up the words of that lovely song which is about a Rabbi instructing Jewish children in their Hebrew letters. I guess that's an example of how the piece, by affecting a person emotionally, can make them want to learn more about the historical context.
That's not a fact, that's an opinion.All this doesn't change the fact that there was absolutely no musical interpretation, no emotion, no actual feeling of the music or the story.
There were two Senior Schindler's Lists this season, and hers was the inferior one.
And Tarasova has the perfect look to play a femme fatale and a damsel in distress in one flesh.
Good for Julia. Her program in the team and euros was great and now new people know all about SL and maybe even the holocaust
Oh, and people would not know about holocaust otherwise???? Maybe our schools are just better, LOL.
Oh, and people would not know about holocaust otherwise???? Maybe our schools are just better, LOL.