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May 08, 2005
Above ground: visiting with Emir Kusturica
In the Sunday Times Magazine, freelancer Dan Helpern has a bite and several soundbites with the unstoppable Emir Kusturica in a lengthy profile: 'What you have now is a Hollywood that is pure poison,'' Kusturica says. ''Hollywood was a central place in the history of art in the 20th century: it was human idealism preserved. And then, like any great place, it collapsed, and it collapsed into the most awful machinery in the world. Why don't I see a Frank Capra today? Because people aren't like this anymore? People haven't changed that much in 60 years.'' Like any good Timesman on the road, Halpern talks up the restos: "As we drove to dinner in Belgrade this past December, the noise Kusturica was making mostly took the form of a great and serious indignation with the corporatization of the world. From the passenger seat, he [grew] enraged by the billboards in the city. The Serbian capital is only slowly recovering from the effects of war, international sanctions and [1999's] NATO bombing... but superficially it's well into a headlong rush toward consumer commercialism. ''Here, like in Moscow, even in Petersburg, everywhere,'' he said, gesturing angrily at the advertisements lining the street. ''Everywhere starts to look the same, everything must look the same, everything that was different, it must be covered up by this sameness.'' ... Halpern also demonstrates aptitude for the de rigeur bow to the loveliness of a cultural figure's mate, and also at breaking out into patches of screenplay-style dialogue when profiling a filmmaker: "His wife, Maja, a dark-haired beauty with a particularly graceful knack for letting the air out of the international superstar sitting next to her, gently stopped him short.
EMIR: Everything must be sold! Everything must be for sale! Everyone must buy! Everyone must have a Jeep!
MAJA: Even you.
EMIR: Yes, even me.
MAJA: You have three."
Posted by at May 8, 2005 02:19 PM
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