Interview

Precious, which opens at the end of this week, redefines "crowd-pleaser." The only film ever to win audience awards at both Sundance and Toronto, it's about a Harlem teenager who's so deep in the gutter–poor, illiterate, obese, sexually abused, pregnant, and then some–that it's almost impossible to imagine her crawling out. "When she's in the red carpet fantasies, that's her," director Lee Daniels said of newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the film's title character, after a screening at last month's New York Film Festival. (PHOTO: MARIAH CAREY AND GABOUREY SIDIBE IN PRECIOUS)

Though he was skeptical at first, Daniels let casting director Billy Hopkins persuade him to reach out to some big names for the supporting roles: "He said, you're doing a movie about a 300-pound black girl! Anything's game," Daniels recalled. And since Daniels "didn't even bother to start going to studios" for funding, getting Carey, Kravitz, and (in an astoundingly thankless and demanding role) Mo'Nique involved undoubtedly made it easier for him to sell the film to Lionsgate.

Daniels' past credits include Monster's Ball, which he co-produced, and, less successfully, Shadowboxer, which he co-produced and directed. His latest is a fusion of arthouse texture and mainstream uplift. "I brought that world I knew into the world of urban," he said, adding,  "I'm proud that we were able to marry those worlds, and show black art in a new way."

In the process, Daniels and screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher made a few highbrow tweaks to Push, the brutal, best-selling novel on which their film was based. One horrendous domestic scene evaporates into an imaginary feast inspired by Vittorio de Sica's classic Two Women, which Precious and her mother have been watching on TV. A fanciful connection, perhaps, but Daniels defends it. "If we staged it in the reality, as the book does, it would have been X-rated. And I found that when bad things happened to me [as a child] I would pretend to be somewhere else," he said. "The argument on set was, would these women be watching Two Women? Well, I am the women, so shut up."

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The retro-minded, multilingual, virtuosic musicians of Pink Martini gleefully trip across boundaries with each new album. Splendor in the Grass, their latest, is no different. Jam-packed with unlikely excavations, inspired collaborations, obscure covers, and lyrics in languages ranging from Japanese to Neapolitan, it's a gift to music magpies the world over. We asked Portland, Oregon-based bandleader (and walking music encyclopedia) Thomas Lauderdale for an insider's tour of the track list.

Ninna Nanna
Written by Alba Clemente and Massimo Audiello

I was amazed that in the nineties, Alba had four children and stayed out really late at Jackie 60 on Tuesday nights.  We flew her out with at least six drag queens from there, and they sort of scandalized Portland. We wrote "Una Notta in Napoli," her first foray into songwriting, and I asked her if she'd ever consider writing a lullaby, so she and Massimo came up with "Ninna Nanna." In the middle of the song, I thought it made sense to sample Hugo Alfvén's "Swedish Rhapsody #1," which comes from a music box from my childhood.  It kind of just goes along with my whole idea that it's best to collaborate with people who are not songwriters, because what comes out is unbelievably beautiful.

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Without photos, even a perfect work of architecture can feel incomplete: it's a mute poet, a star without her close-up. Visual Acoustics, a new documentary about the late Julius Shulman, shows how one photographer not only captured and popularized but also helped create American modernism over the course of his 70-year career.

See the full article on Art in America.
(LEFT: CHEMOSPHERE HOUSE, 1960. COPYRIGHT J PAUL GETTY TRUST)

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Carey Mulligan in An Education, courtesy of Sony Classics

Based on a Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About A Boy) adaptation of a memoir by Lynn Barber, An Education is a coming-of-age story about a precocious high school student (Carey Mulligan) set in early-sixties London.  We talked to director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) about the much buzzed-about Ms. Mulligan and the perils and pleasures of postwar youth.


DARRELL HARTMAN: A lot of the buzz for this movie has been focused on the lead actress, Carey Mulligan. What made her right for the role?

LONE SCHERFIG: It's heartwarming to look at her, and she also pitches things really well–there are no false notes in her performance, and that's important for a film like this. The comedy in the film is something you get if you want it, but we were not looking for a comedian. We were looking for someone with a low-key acting style who could get Jenny's innocence and carry a film, who you would be able to identify with.

HARTMAN: She's got this sparkling, girlish quality. And yet, especially when she speaks, there's something very adult about her.

SCHERFIG: It's both. It's someone who can jump forth and back in time–the way London did, actually. And it's much easier to communicate with someone who has the intellectual skills that Carey has. She's bright, and that makes her nice to be around.

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