[contextly_auto_sidebar id="3RwcvvUk1AC4BkVM7TnYA96GH4qbLhTJ"] SOMEWHERE between consensus and cliche is the idea that television is better than ever and has reached a new depth and intelligence. To optimists, The Wire, Homeland, Mad Men and so on show what's possible even in these difficult times for culture. My sense, as I looked into various economic models for Salon, here, is that the … [Read more...]
Historical Documentary and “The Story of the Jews”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Jxeq7goyZFHTuT1NApP4ZsOM8ZKVKFcG"] TODAY I have a piece in the Los Angeles Times about a new documentary, commissioned by the BBC but playing in the US on PBS, The Story of the Jews with Simon Schama. (The first part broadcasts Tuesday night.) Schama, the British-born, Cambridge-educated historian who now teachers at Columbia, is likely known to many of my readers … [Read more...]
Cable TV and the Niche-ing of America
TODAY I have a story in Salon looking at the golden age of cable TV post-Sopranos, and contrasting this with the economic/technological forces in the culture right now.And I ask: If HBO, or AMC, can find a profitable quality niche -- and stay in business -- can a jazz club? A book publisher? Theater company? I also look at the world of indie rock labels.I speak to the authors of two new books, … [Read more...]
Tom Stoppard and "Parade’s End"
THIS week on HBO, Americans can catch up with a literary adaptation that hit hard in the UK last year: Parade's End. Godlike playwright Tom Stoppard adapted this series of four short novels by the underrated Ford Madox Ford -- published in the '20s and set around World War I.Yours truly had a story today on the miniseries and the process of adapting a very long and difficult text. It meant, among … [Read more...]
Ken Burns Goes to the Dust Bowl
LAST night the first half of Ken Burns' latest docs, The Dust Bowl, went up; it concludes this evening.By now, we have a pretty good sense of what a Burns doc will be like. That said, parts of this are quite ravishing. And while it is not exactly a work of polemic, this look back at this man-made disaster, coming so soon after the ravages of the storm Sandy, show us how we're really throwing the … [Read more...]
Oliver Stone’s History Lesson
ABOUT a week ago, I spent some time with Oliver Stone, and his co-writer, the historian Peter Kuznick, talking about their new "Untold History of the United States." The 10-part program, which goes up on Showtime starting tonight, is in a Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky line in looking at international and domestic issues, starting with World War II.Perhaps the key theme of the series is the idea of … [Read more...]
Ric Burns and the Civil War
IT'S not a pretty picture: The Civil War saw as many people killed as all American wars put together. In some places, the proportion of young men killed was quite high: Parts of the South essentially lost a generation. But the huge number of deaths, and the need to count the fallen, bury them, contact loved ones -- and to make moral/ spiritual sense of it all -- remade this country, says Ric … [Read more...]
BBC’s New "Copper"
COMING from BBC America this summer is a new series called Copper, created by Tom Fontana (Oz, Homicide, Borgia) and set in 1860s New York. Much of the show takes place in Five Points, the rough Irish neighborhood some of us know from Scorsese's Gangs of New York. The protagonist is a tormented, Irish born detective named Corcoran.I've not yet seen much of the show, but it hits several of my … [Read more...]
Owen and Kidman as Hemingway and Gellhorn
SOMETIMES, in this business, you have to do things you don't want to do -- deal with unpleasant people, write about a production that bores you to tears. Other times, you get to talk to Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman about Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, the strong-willed war correspondent who would hate to be remembered at Papa's third wife.Later this month, HBO will broadcast a film, … [Read more...]
The Wreck of the Titanic
THE hype around James Cameron's film, which came out while I was working as a film editor, was so deafening that a lot of us closed our ears when it came to this infamous ship and its demise. I know I did. There didn't seem to be much more to say about the whole mess.But here we are, approaching the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's demise, and there are a ton of new television projects coming, … [Read more...]