home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=92TT1476>
- <title>
- June 29, 1992: Short Takes
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- June 29, 1992 The Other Side of Ross Perot
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- REVIEWS, Page 85
- Short Takes
- </hdr><body>
- <p> CLASSICAL
- Brooding Triumph
- </p>
- <p> Imagine a symphony at once brooding and luminous, tragic
- and triumphant, spun from a single unending melody in three
- long, seamless slow movements. Here it is, the "Symphony of
- Sorrowful Songs" by HENRYK GORECKI, newly released on Elektra
- Nonesuch, with David Zinman conducting soprano Dawn Upshaw and
- the London Sinfo nietta. The tenebrous string texture is
- punctuated by Upshaw's ethereally intoning a 15th century Polish
- lament and, later, a mother's dirge for her murdered son, whose
- words were inscribed in 1944 on the wall of a Gestapo prison.
- The result is chilling, moving, unique. With the collapse of
- communism, Poland's reclusive Gorecki, 59, is just now finding
- his way into the international spotlight. May it shine upon him.
- </p>
- <p> CINEMA
- Shear Bliss
- </p>
- <p> Inspired by the seductive majesty of a coiffeuse's
- half-exposed breast, 12-year-old Antoine discovers his vocation:
- he will become THE HAIRDRESSER'S HUSBAND. Decades later, in
- another barber chair, Antoine (Jean Rochefort) meets Mathilde
- (Anna Galiena), "the woman with whom I knew I'd spend my life."
- Mathilde knows it too; in his Basset eyes she sees erotic
- ingenuity and unconditional love. Both are avid for the moment
- the shop door closes "so we can drown in the ocean of peace we
- love so much." French director Patrice Leconte, whose fine
- Monsieur Hire also dealt with romantic obsession, has devised
- a chamber fable about a man's infantile charm and a woman's
- nurturing sexuality. The movie is like the couple's love: pure,
- brief, passionate, heartbreaking.
- </p>
- <p> BOOKS
- Sorting Through The Maze
- </p>
- <p> Oddly, he wasn't a great standup comedian. He was funny in
- several Broadway roles, but doing the same thing every night
- bored him. He was unbeatable at drinking and telling stories all
- night in bars, but they don't pay you for that. Where Jackie
- Gleason really was the Great One, as he called himself with no
- undue bashfulness, was as the bus driver Ralph Kramden in his
- long-rerunning TV show, The Honeymooners. In THE GREAT ONE: THE
- LIFE AND LEGEND OF JACKIE GLEASON (Doubleday; $22.50), Time's
- theater critic, William A. Henry III, sorts amiably through the
- maze of lies the funnyman wove around his tangled life,
- including one woozy story about two newlyweds and Gleason, all
- drunk, and a goat that may have been sober.
- </p>
- <p> POP MUSIC
- Message Meets Beat
- </p>
- <p> Originally the darlings of Manhattan's neo-disco scene,
- the members of DEEE-LITE burst into the musical mainstream two
- years ago with a debut album of thumping, synthesized rhythms
- that sold more than 1 million copies worldwide. Infinity
- Within, the group's new release, maintains the momentum. Super
- D.J. Dmitry Brill and Towa "Towa" Tei produce exuberant mixes
- that slam along at up to 130 beats a minute, and singer Lady
- Kier Kirby handles the vocals with a newly polished
- self-assurance. This time out, the trio has added some substance
- to its style with politically correct lyrics on safe sex, voter
- registration and the environment. The deee-lightful result: good
- message, great dance beat.
- </p>
- <p> TELEVISION
- A Family Reveals Its Secrets
- </p>
- <p> "I'm gay," Philip Benjamin blurts out to his parents. "I
- just didn't think it was fair for you not to know such an
- important part of my life." His mother responds, "Keeping
- certain secrets secret is important to the general balance of
- life." His father Owen cries quietly. He too has a secret; he
- too is gay. Before THE LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES plays out, Owen
- will reveal that secret, permanently altering the family's
- fragile balance. This BBC adaptation of David Leavitt's novel,
- airing June 24 on pbs, transposes the setting from New York City
- to London. Graced with intense, subtle performances, the tale
- remains compelling, but the change of locale distances already
- remote characters and undercuts the work's emotional force.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-