“Word-work is sublime because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference—the way in which we are like no other life. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
Remembering Toni Morrison, a towering and unsurpassable genius whose fearless independence and vital voice will remain an eternal inspiration, on what would have been her 89th birthday.
“I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning.”
Happy 87th birthday to the legendary Kim Novak, a wondrous actress who was capable of both deep emotion and hypnotic mystery and remains enshrined in film history forevermore!
“There is not a film performance this year more technically virtuosic than Alfre Woodard’s awe-inspiring central turn as Bernadine, a hardened prison warden who has long repressed the psychic toll of executing over a dozen inmates throughout her career, in Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency. Using little more than her body, the most expressive and effective weapon in her arsenal, Woodard draws a haunting portrait of a woman quietly reevaluating the sum total of her life’s work, weighing her professional standing with the deep-seated guilt that pours out like a burst dam during the film’s climax, which plays out entirely on Woodard’s tormented face. In an earlier shot, following a heated argument with the lawyer (Richard Schiff) of the latest prisoner (the remarkable Aldis Hodge) that Bernadine is scheduled to put to death, Woodard does nothing but constrict her throat and gulp with alarming severity. It’s a small, perfectly suppressed movement that exposes a fissure in this supposedly ironclad figure, a single trace of the abysmal vulnerability that Bernadine herself declines to acknowledge. If acting awards were actually handed out on merit alone, the Oscar would already be in Woodard’s hands.” — Matthew Eng
Memorable Moments from Great Performances of 2019
(Source: TribecaFilm.com)
“Although for some people cinema means something superficial and glamorous, it is something else. I think it is the mirror of the world.”
The exceptional Jeanne Moreau, a film star who enlivened each of her roles with an intense and magnetic physicality, was born on this day in 1928. 👑
“When I meet someone, I look at their eyes and their smile and seek out the good first—it’s easy to find when you’re looking for it. You let a person shine with their own light and try to connect it to yours. As soon as I say hello, I go right to that light and I don’t care who you are! I know we’re all pieces of the same thing—I go for that common light because I know it’s in all of us.”
Happy 74th birthday to the astonishing Dolly Parton!
“There is sexism—I’m not denying its existence. But I’m saying that I will deny its effort against me. I just pay it no nevermind and say, ‘Get out of my way.’”
Happy birthday to the sublime and singular comedy genius Julia Louis-Dreyfus! 💗👑
“A person’s life is a journey, a road. Sometimes you go off the road and sometimes you stay on all the way through. But you are the only one on that road. It’s your road.”
Happy 74th birthday to Bette Midler, whose talent, beauty, and originality will never fail to thrill! ❤️
“I played at being someone else in movies and live theater, and at being myself in life’s most intense, fascinating game—the game of love.”
Happy 88th birthday to the magnificent Monica Vitti, an actor whose singular mystique remains one of the cinema’s greatest special effects! 💚👑💛
“It is obvious from the beginning of Amazing Grace, when Aretha Franklin takes her seat behind the piano in Los Angeles’ New Temple Missionary Baptist Church to record her titular gospel album in January of 1972, that she was not singing for the ecstatic crowd gathered to watch a monument in the making, but singing for the music, pure and simple. What makes this long-withheld documentary so indispensable is the unobstructed view it provides us of a genius in the throes of her difficult but necessary process. As Franklin surrenders herself to song after song, we see the physical strain and uninterrupted focus that were vital in fulfilling her artistic perfectionism: clamping her eyes shut during her cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Wholy Holy” and for many numbers thereafter; gripping the pulpit for strength as she wails to the heavens on “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” her mascara running, beads of sweat studding her face and glistening in the light. She is plumbing the depths of these songs and it shows. When Franklin allows herself the occasional smile, it is only because she has come across a pocket of spiritual nourishment within a note or lyric that no other artist in this or any era will ever uncover again. Aretha Franklin was born with a voice that occurs not so much once in a lifetime as once in all of creation. Franklin was given this talent; her mastery, on the other hand, is something she refined, reworked, and bestowed upon herself.” —Matthew Eng
30 Memorable Moments from Great Performances of 2018
(Source: TribecaFilm.com)