Aurelia Butler

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    The Ukrainian Duo Tvorchi Will Sing of Wartime Bravery at Eurovision

    With a song inspired by the bravery of Ukrainian soldiers, the pop group Tvorchi sees the beloved, often campy global song competition as a serious opportunity to represent their country.Whenever their rehearsals for the Eurovision Song Contest were interrupted by air raid sirens, the Ukrainian pop duo Tvorchi would race to the safety of underground bunkers, sometimes wearing their matching stage outfits.While recording a video in Kyiv of their contest entry, “Heart of Steel,” they lost electricity, sending them on a hunt for generators.But they are quick to stress that those inconveniences have been minor compared with what others are going through.“Everyone can meet hard and difficult times,” said Andrii Hutsuliak, 27, who formed the group with the singer Jimoh Augustus Kehinde, 26, describing what has become the theme of their song. “We just wanted to say, be a stronger and better version of yourself.”They are about to get a chance to project that message at the world’s largest, glitziest and, often, campiest song contest: Eurovision, in which entrants from countries across Europe and beyond are facing off Saturday on a broadcast that is expected to draw some 160 million global viewers, making it the world’s most-watched cultural event.This year’s contest should have been held in Ukraine because the country’s entrant last year, Kalush Orchestra, won with an upbeat track that mixed rap and traditional folk music. But with Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine continuing, the host city was switched to Liverpool, in England.Tvorchi, which means “creative,” won the right to represent Ukraine after performing “Heart of Steel” at a Eurovision selection contest staged in a metro station deep below Kyiv, out of reach of Russian bombs. They were flanked by backup dancers wearing gas masks, and images of nuclear warning signs flashed on screens behind them.“It still feels kind of unreal,” Hutsuliak said as he prepared to leave for Liverpool.Known now as a sprawling television extravaganza with wild costumes, eclectic mixes of acts and over-the-top performances, Eurovision began in 1956 as a way of uniting Europe after World War II. As it has grown — and expanded beyond Europe, with entries from Israel and Australia — it has often reflected wider political and social issues.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has taken the contest’s entanglement with politics to new heights. The European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the contest, banned Russia from competing immediately after its invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian victory at last year’s Eurovision, awarded by a mix of jury and public votes, was widely seen as a show of solidarity with the besieged nation.In Ukraine, which has won top honors three times since making its Eurovision debut in 2003, the contest has long been hugely popular and valued as a way for the nation to align itself culturally with Europe. Now it is also seen as a way to keep Europe’s attention focused on the war.As Hutsuliak and Kehinde sat down for an interview at a hip restaurant in central Kyiv called Honey, they apologized for having had to delay the meeting by a day, explaining that they had some urgent business: securing the paperwork that men of fighting age need to exit the country so they could travel to Liverpool.Their song “Heart of Steel” was inspired, Hutsuliak said, by the soldiers who worked to defend the now-ruined city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine, holding out months longer than anyone imagined possible. The soldiers made their final stand at the sprawling Azovstal steel plant.Hutsuliak said he clearly remembered the online clips that soldiers filmed of their defense.“When I saw these videos, I saw people with strength, staying solid even in the most terrible conditions,” he added. Soon afterward, the pair wrote the track with lyrics seemingly aimed at invading Russians.“Get out of my way,” Kehinde sings. “’Cause I got a heart of steel.”When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February last year, martial law meant that Hutsuliak couldn’t leave, while Kehinde, a Nigerian citizen originally from Lagos, could. His mother, panicked, called him on the morning Russia started bombing Ukrainian cities and urged him to get out.“That day I think I had 25 to 30 relatives call me,” Kehinde recalled. “They wanted me to leave.”Tvorchi performed in a train station in Kyiv last month. Their Eurovision track, “Heart of Steel,” is inspired by Ukrainian soldiers. Zoya Shu/Associated PressKehinde, whose stage name is Jeffery Kenny, visited his mother in Nigeria for a week — “because she wouldn’t stop panicking,” he said — but then quickly returned, as he’d built a life in Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine. At first he thought the war would last only a few months, but then the reality of the conflict set in.The band would never have formed if Kehinde had not made the unusual decision to move, in December 2013, to Ukraine for college to study for a pharmacy degree. As one of the few Black people in Ternopil, Kehinde stood out, he recalled, but that proved instrumental to the band’s formation. One day, Hutsuliak introduced himself and asked if he could practice his English, promising that Kehinde could try out his Ukrainian in return.The pair soon became friends, and a year later, at Hutsuliak’s birthday party, they decided to try making music together, with Kehinde singing mostly in English but also in Ukrainian. At first it was just a hobby, but they’ve gone on to release four albums and pick up awards.Tvorchi in Amsterdam. The duo had to secure special paperwork to leave Ukraine at a time when men of fighting age are forbidden to leave.Melissa Schriek for The New York TimesMany of their early tracks were love songs, but the invasion led them to write a series of more intense tracks including “Heart of Steel” and “Freedom,” which has defiant lyrics including “These walls / You can’t break them down.” Those songs were not written with Eurovision in mind, but in December the pair competed in a live contest in Kyiv to become Ukraine’s entry.Tvorchi has also supported Ukraine by playing concerts on the back of trucks for troops and partnering with United24, a Ukrainian charity, to raise money to buy incubators for premature newborns in the country’s strained hospitals.The concert that got them to Eurovision, performed in a metro station where Russian bombs couldn’t interrupt the acts, was surreal, Kehinde recalled. Trains sped past throughout rehearsals and the final event.“I thought more than once, ‘What in the world is going on right now?’” Kehinde said. But when he watched the broadcast later, he was amazed to discover it looked like a professional studio, with lighting and graphics.The pair didn’t expect to win, but they became Ukraine’s choice. Ever since, they have been trying to live up to that decision, which they called an honor.This year, they reworked their track a little to make it even more representative of the country. While Eurovision songs are frequently sung in English, the version of “Heart of Steel” that will be performed on Saturday now contains a section in Ukrainian.“Despite the pain, I continue my fight,” Kehinde sings during it. “The world is on fire, but you should act.” More

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    Chris Strachwitz, Who Dug Up the Roots of American Music, Dies at 91

    Traveling the nation to discover little-known performers for the Arhoolie label, which he founded in 1960, he earned a nickname: El Fanático.Chris Strachwitz, who traveled in search of the roots of American music with the eagerness of a pilgrim, discovered traditional musicians with the skill of a detective, promoted their careers with the zeal of an ideologue and guarded their work with the care of a historian, died on Friday at an assisted living facility in San Rafael, Calif. He was 91.The cause was congestive heart failure, his brother, Hubert, said.Mr. Strachwitz (pronounced STRACK-wits) specialized in music passed down over generations — cotton-field music, orange-orchard music, mountain music, bayou music, barroom music, porch music. The songs came not only from before the era of the music industry but even from before the existence of mass culture itself.Like other leading musical folklorists of the modern recording era — among them Moses Asch, Alan Lomax and Harry Smith — Mr. Strachwitz rescued parts of that history before they vanished.But the extent of his devotion and the idiosyncrasy of his passions defy comparison.Mr. Strachwitz was the founder of Arhoolie Records (the name comes from a term for field hollers). In addition to recruiting his own artists, he did his own field recordings, music editing, production, liner notes, advertising and sales. In the company’s early years, he affixed the labels to the records and mailed them himself.He was a lifelong bachelor who said that having a family would have thwarted his career. On his journeys around the country to record new music, he had for company a manually operated orange juicer and 20-pound bags of oranges. The targets of his search included a highway grass cutter, a gravedigger and a janitor, all of whose musical talents were at the time basically unknown.He emigrated from Germany after growing up as a teenage count under Nazi rule and went on to explore the fullest reaches of American pluralism. He took an interest not just in the standard roots repertory of folk and blues, but also in norteño, Cajun, zydeco, klezmer, Hawaiian steel guitar, Ukrainian fiddle, Czech polka and Irish dance music, among countless other genres.To account for what united his passions, Mr. Strachwitz said he liked music that was “pure,” “hard-core” and “old-timey,” particularly if one of the musicians had a “spark.” His language grew more colorful when he defined his type of music negatively.“It ain’t wimpy, that’s for sure,” he said in a 2014 documentary about him. The movie took its title from Mr. Strachwitz’s ultimate insult, which he used to refer to anything that he considered commercial, artificial and soulless: “This Ain’t No Mouse Music!”The first Arhoolie album, released in 1960, was “Texas Sharecropper and Songster,” by the blues singer Mance Lipscomb. It vaulted Mr. Lipscomb into prominence during the 1960s folk revival.The first Arhoolie record, released in 1960, was “Texas Sharecropper and Songster,” by the blues singer Mance Lipscomb. Mr. Lipscomb’s music had never been recorded, and the new release vaulted him into prominence during the 1960s folk revival. Mr. Strachwitz went on to help revive the careers of other blues singers, including Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Big Mama Thornton.As both a record executive and a record collector, he made a particularly profound historical contribution to norteño, music from the Texas-Mexico border. The Smithsonian Institution last year called his archive of Mexican and Mexican American music “the largest collection of commercially produced vernacular recordings of its kind in existence,” noting that it contained many records that are “irreplaceable.”It was the result of about 60 years of collecting — yet Mr. Strachwitz never learned to speak Spanish. Norteño musicians nicknamed him El Fanático.Mr. Strachwitz might have been considered a preservationist, but he also shaped the worlds that he documented. That was particularly true of his recordings of Cajun musicians In 2000, the rock historian Ed Ward wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Strachwitz “helped prod the culture into what is now a full-blown renaissance.”Perhaps his most notable discovery in Louisiana was Clifton Chenier, who became known as the leading exponent of the mix of rhythm and blues, soul and Cajun music known as zydeco. During a visit to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as an older man, Mr. Chenier discussed his frustrations with the record industry.“They wanted you to do what they wanted you to do, and I didn’t like that,” Mr. Chenier said. “Then I met Chris.”Mr. Strachwitz with Clifton Chenier, who was known as the king of zydeco. Other record companies “wanted you to do what they wanted you to do, and I didn’t like that,” Mr. Chenier said. “Then I met Chris.”via Arhoolie FoundationMainstream musicians also saw something exceptional in Mr. Strachwitz. In a 2010 profile of Mr. Strachwitz in The Times, the guitarist Ry Cooder said that Arhoolie’s second release, “Tough Times,” an LP by the blues musician Big Joe Williams, “started me on a path of living, the path I am still on.”Christian Alexander Maria Strachwitz was born on July 1, 1931, in Berlin. He grew up on a country estate called Gross Reichenau, located in what was then the Lower Silesia region of Germany (it is now a village called Bogaczow in southwest Poland). His father, Alexander Graf Strachwitz, and his mother, Friederike (von Bredow) Strachwitz, ran a vegetable and grain farm of about a couple hundred acres. The men of the family had the royal title of count.The family lived in a manor originally built during the time of Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia. The Nazis appointed Chris’s father a local game warden, and during World War II he joined the military and attained the rank of captain, though Hubert Strachwitz said his service was limited to escorting troop transports bound for Italy. On the family’s bucolic ancestral property, the war seemed far away to young Chris.That changed in February 1945. The family fled as the Russians invaded the estate. Chris and two of his sisters had left shortly beforehand on a train; his father escaped in a horse and buggy; Hubert, Chris’s other two sisters and his mother left on a tractor-trailer. Thanks to a wealthy relative in the United States, the family was able to reunite in Reno, Nev., by 1947.Chris served in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1956. Soon after being honorably discharged, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He taught high school German in the suburbs of San Jose for several years.In his free time, Mr. Strachwitz collected records, and he developed a particular interest in Lightnin’ Hopkins, whom he struggled to learn more about. There was no public information about whether Mr. Hopkins was even still alive.Mr. Strachwitz going through the Arhoolie archives in El Cerrito, Calif., in 2010.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesIn 1959, a fellow music enthusiast told Mr. Strachwitz that he had found the bluesman in Houston. When the school year ended, Mr. Strachwitz went on a road trip.He later recalled that he found Mr. Hopkins playing in “a little beer joint” — improvising songs in a conversational style, telling a woman in the crowd to quiet down, wondering in song about the man from California who had traveled all the way to Texas “to hear poor Lightnin’ sing.”Mr. Strachwitz believed that nobody had ever recorded a scene like that live. Following a tip from one of Mr. Hopkins’s songs, he returned to Texas the next year and found Mr. Lipscomb. This time, he brought a recorder.Meeting musicians where they lived and recording them where they liked to play, rather than in a studio, became Mr. Strachwitz’s signature style.He found unexpected commercial success when Country Joe and the Fish performed their “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” at Woodstock in 1969. Joe McDonald, the band’s lead singer and principal songwriter, had used Mr. Strachwitz’s equipment to record the song back in 1965 and given him publishing rights in exchange. With his share of the royalties, Mr. Strachwitz put a down payment on a building in El Cerrito, Calif., near Berkeley, that became the home of Arhoolie and a record outlet he called the Down Home Music Store.Aside from recording music, he drew attention to the artists he loved by collaborating with the filmmaker Les Blank on several music documentaries.As the record industry declined, Mr. Strachwitz focused on a nonprofit arm of Arhoolie that digitizes and exhibits his singular record collection. In 2016, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the nonprofit label of the Smithsonian Institution, acquired the Arhoolie catalog.In addition to his brother, Mr. Strachwitz is survived by three sisters, Rosy Schlueter, Barbara Steward and Frances Strachwitz.There was one word Mr. Strachwitz often used to describe success in his field. When he found an aged master of traditional music playing a song at a resonant time and place, he called it, as if he were hunting butterflies, a “catch.” More

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    Disney’s Losses From Streaming Narrowed in the Last Quarter

    The company’s earnings were buoyed by its theme parks and cruise ships. It also announced it would soon put Hulu content on Disney+.To understand the forces that have been roiling the biggest media companies, look no further than Disney’s earnings. Streaming economics are improving — considerably so. But not fast enough to offset declines in traditional television, which is in free fall.Disney said on Wednesday that losses in its streaming business for the most recent quarter totaled $659 million, an improvement from a year earlier (and a vast improvement from the October-to-December period, when losses totaled $1.1 billion). Streaming revenue climbed 12 percent, reflecting a sharp increase in revenue per paid Disney+ subscriber, a metric investors watch closely.The problem: Disney still relies on old-line TV channels for a colossal portion of its profit — and those outlets are being maimed by cord cutting, sports programming costs and advertiser pullback. Disney’s linear networks (ESPN, Disney Channel, ABC, National Geographic, FX) reported $1.8 billion in operating income, down 35 percent from a year earlier. Revenue fell 7 percent.Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, called the decline of traditional television “a worrisome circumstance” in an earnings-related conference call with analysts. Disney shares fell by more than 4 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday.As part of its push toward streaming profitability, Disney announced that content from Hulu would be made available on Disney+ to subscribers of both services in the United States. Mr. Iger said this “one app experience” would roll out by the end of the year. Hulu, which does not operate overseas, will also continue as a stand-alone product.Disney+ content is primarily aimed at children and families. The addition of more generalized Hulu content would “increase engagement and increase our opportunity in terms of serving digital ads — growing our advertising business,” Mr. Iger said.Disney said it would raise the price for ad-free subscriptions to Disney+ later this year, in part to push more viewers toward cheaper subscriptions that allow for advertising (which, in turn, would allow Disney to increase advertising rates). Disney most recently raised the ad-free price in December: Those subscriptions now cost $11, up 38 percent from what Disney previously charged. The option with advertising costs $8.Disney owns 67 percent of Hulu, with Comcast holding the balance. Under a 2019 agreement, Disney has an upcoming opportunity to buy out Comcast. (Estimates start in the $9 billion range.) Mr. Iger indicated on Wednesday that Disney would like to make that deal.“We’ve had some conversations with them already,” he said. “I can’t really say where they end up.” Mr. Iger notably started the conference call by congratulating Comcast, an archrival, on the success of its animated “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which has collected $1.2 billion worldwide.Disney+ subscriber counts have abated over the past six months, in part because Disney has pulled back on expensive “subscriber acquisition” efforts — marketing campaigns that try to persuade people to subscribe. Disney+ now has about 158 million subscribers worldwide, a 2 percent decline from December, with most of the loss coming from ultra-low-priced subscriptions in India. Disney+ peaked with 164 million subscribers in October.Disney had 231.3 million subscriptions across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ in the quarter, down from 234.7 million in December.“The Mandalorian” is one of several lavish original Disney+ productions.Lucasfilm Ltd.Unlike most of its competitors, Disney has a safety net in the form of theme parks. Operating profit in the company’s Parks, Experiences and Products division climbed 22 percent, to $2.2 billion, as Disney resorts in Shanghai and Hong Kong finally began to recover from the pandemic. Disneyland Paris continued its attendance surge, which started last summer with the opening of a Marvel-themed expansion.Attendance also increased at Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California, although higher costs — the introduction of a new “Tron”-themed roller coaster, for instance — dented profitability in Florida. Disney Cruise Line bookings were strong, partly because of a recent expansion of its fleet, the company said.It was Disney’s first full quarter under the second reign of Mr. Iger, who returned as the chief executive in November. He replaced Bob Chapek, who was ousted by the board following a series of blunders, including the company’s response to contentious education legislation in Florida. The fallout from that matter has led to a legal battle with Gov. Ron DeSantis over Disney World’s future expansion and oversight.On Wednesday, Mr. Iger said the company was “evaluating where it makes the most sense to direct future investments” for theme park construction, a clear reference to the standoff in Florida. Disney said last month — before the deteriorating situation with Mr. DeSantis — that it had earmarked $17 billion for Disney World expansion projects over the coming decade.When asked by analysts about the tense situation in Florida, Mr. Iger reiterated that Disney viewed it as unconstitutional retaliation for its opinion on the education legislation.As a whole, Disney generated $21.8 billion in sales, a 13 percent increase compared with last year, slightly surpassing analyst projections. Disney reported earnings per share of 93 cents, excluding certain items affecting comparisons, on par with analyst expectations.Disney is in the midst of eliminating roughly 7,000 jobs, or roughly 4 percent of its global total, as part of a campaign to cut costs by $5.5 billion. There have been two rounds of layoffs so far; the final round is expected by the end of the month.The company continues to pour money into original Disney+ programming. The third season of “The Mandalorian” arrived on the service in March. Another lavish series set in the “Star Wars” universe, “Ahsoka,” is scheduled to roll out on Disney+ this summer.At the same time, however, Disney said it would begin removing some content from its streaming services, particularly in overseas markets where growth potential is limited. It did not give any examples of the content. Because content costs are amortized over time, early removal would cost Disney up to $1.8 billion. But the move will save Disney money over the long term because the company will not need to pay residual fees (a type of royalty) to show creators. More

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    Rita Lee, Brazil’s Queen of Rock, Is Dead at 75

    As a member the 1960s band Os Mutantes and later as a solo artist, she drew a following that included Kurt Cobain, Beck and the Prince of Wales.Rita Lee, a convention-flouting titan of Brazilian music who emerged with the seminal experimental band Os Mutantes and went on to become a solo star known widely as her country’s Queen of Rock, died on Monday at her home in São Paulo. She was 75.Her death was announced in a statement posted on her Instagram account. She had been receiving treatments for lung cancer, which she learned she had in 2021.With Os Mutantes, Ms. Lee was a product of the tropicália movement (also known as tropicalismo), an anti-authoritarian Brazilian cultural flowering that started in the late 1960s. She ultimately became a commercial powerhouse, selling a reported 55 million records over a career that stretched over half a century.As a solo artist, she churned out a string of hits in the 1970s, among then “Ovelha Negra” (“Black Sheep”) and “Mania de Você” (“Mania For You”), that became enduring classics. She was accompanied by the band Tutti Frutti in her early years, and later, by her husband, Roberto de Carvalho.In 2001, Ms. Lee took home a Latin Grammy Award for best Portuguese-language rock or alternative album for “3001.”Her reach was global. Kurt Cobain, David Byrne and Beck are among the many musical innovators who hailed the subversive oeuvre of Os Mutantes. In 1988, King Charles III, then the Prince of Wales, requested one of her records for a dance at a banquet at the British Embassy in Paris. He was said to know the words “by heart,” according to The Daily Mirror.But she was no pop confection. After a troubled and rebellious youth, she was arrested in 1976 for marijuana possession and held up as a cautionary tale by Brazil’s military dictatorship. She also made multiple trips to treatment facilities for drug and alcohol use.In 2001, Ms. Lee’s “3001” won a Latin Grammy Award for best Portuguese-language rock or alternative album.Amanda Perobelli/ReutersIrreverent and candid, Ms. Lee carried herself with rock-star swagger. (After her cancer diagnosis, the mordant Ms. Lee nicknamed her tumor Jair, a jab at Brazil’s incendiary president at the time, Jair Bolsonaro.)As one of the few female rockers to play guitar onstage in the 1960s, and as a solo artist who explored sexuality from a woman’s point of view, Ms. Lee was hailed as a feminist hero. When informed of Ms. Lee’s death during a Senate commission hearing, Brazil’s cultural minister, the singer Margareth Menezes, was visibly overcome with emotion, describing Ms. Lee as a “revolutionary woman.”Ms. Lee herself was a little more blunt about her triumphs.“When we talk about feminism and all these things, I don’t really have the theory of it, I’m more of the action,” Ms. Lee said in a 2017 television interview. “They used to say that women couldn’t wear long pants. Huh? Yes, we can, I wore mine. They used to say that women couldn’t play rock. I would get my ovaries, my uterus, I’d play my rock ’n’ roll.”Rita Lee Jones was born on Dec. 31, 1947, in São Paulo, the youngest of three daughters of Charles Jones, an American-born dentist descended from Confederates who fled to Brazil after the Civil War (Rita’s middle name was inspired by Gen. Robert E. Lee), and Romilda Padula, a pianist.When she was a child, Ms. Lee recounted in “Rita Lee: Uma Autobiografia” (2016), a sewing machine repairman sexually abused her in her home, a traumatic experience that fueled her rebellious spirt. .Musically inclined, she played in several groups as a teenager and, despite her early stage fright, formed Os Mutantes (the Mutants) with the brothers Arnaldo and Sérgio Dias Baptista in 1966. In an early interview, she claimed that the band, whose name was inspired by a science fiction book called “O Planeta dos Mutantes” (“The Planet of the Mutants”), had “come from another planet to take over the world.”The band was to São Paulo “what the Grateful Dead were to San Francisco, the Velvet Underground to New York or Nirvana to Seattle,” Larry Rohter of The New York Times wrote during a comeback tour in 2007.Ms. Lee performing in São Paulo in 2012. Her songs often served as a pointed rebuke to Brazil’s authoritarian climate.Marcos Mazini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn terms of psychedelic trappings and extravagant plumage, the band was far more Dead than Velvets, although it took the free-for-all spirit of the ’60s to absurdist levels, mixing American and British psychedelia with Brazilian genres like bossa nova, and adding electronic experimentalism and a prankster sensibility that served as a pointed rebuke to Brazil’s authoritarian climate.Os Mutantes made their mark backing Gilberto Gil at the Festival of Brazilian Popular Music in 1967. The next year the band appeared on the groundbreaking compilation album “Tropicália: Ou Panis et Circenses,” featuring songs by Mr. Gil, Caetano Veloso and other leading lights of the movement.The band’s debut album, released that same year, was sprinkled with environmental sounds, jagged guitar riffs. and other sonic detritus. It was, Rolling Stone wrote when including it in a 2013 roundup of the greatest stoner albums of all time, one of the late 1960s’ “most mischievous head trips, which is saying something.”Ms. Lee left the band to pursue a solo career after it released its fifth album, “E Seus Cometas No Pais Do Baurets” (“Mutants and their Comets in the Country of Weed”), in 1972. She retreated from the limelight after her final studio effort, “Reza” (“Prayer”), in 2012, although she did release a new song, “Change,” with her husband and the producer Gui Boratto in 2021.She is survived by her husband; her sons, Beto, João and Antônio; and two grandchildren. Her first marriage, to Arnaldo Baptista of Os Mutantes, ended in divorce in 1972.A vegan and animal rights activist, the onetime countercultural firebrand spent much of her final years “confined to my den, in a little house in the middle of the woods surrounded by animals and plants,” only going out shopping or to the dentist, she wrote in a 2020 essay for the Brazilian magazine Veja.“Today,” she added, “I do everything over the internet and pray I don’t break a tooth.” More

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    Review: After 55 Years, the Helsinki Philharmonic Returns to Carnegie Hall

    The conductor Susanna Mälkki brought her orchestra to New York in something of a farewell to her tenure in Finland.Until Tuesday, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra hadn’t been to Carnegie Hall since 1968.Its chief conductor at the time was Jorma Panula, who was at the podium for that visit. Now, 55 years later, the group is led by one of his former students: Susanna Mälkki.Her tenure in Helsinki, where she has been the chief conductor since 2016, ends this season. And the classical music world is watching to see what comes next. A maestro at the height of her powers, she was until recently the principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, so an obvious possible successor to Gustavo Dudamel when he leaves to lead the New York Philharmonic in three years.In Los Angeles, Mälkki’s repertoire has been varied: a lot of well-shepherded contemporary music, but also insightfully transparent interpretations of the classics. Her work in Helsinki has been similar, though you wouldn’t know it from her Carnegie program, a thoroughly Finnish evening of works by Sibelius, that country’s most treasured composer, and Kaija Saariaho, its finest living one.Sibelius — at whose namesake school Mälkki studied with Panula — was represented not just by two planned works, but also by two encores: “Valse Triste” and, after Mälkki asked the audience to indulge a bit of patriotism, “Finlandia.”That piece is too famous for its own good and is often played with ineffective sentimentality. But under Mälkki’s baton, and with this orchestra — Sibelius’s sound world etched in its bones — “Finlandia” was newly disarming, modestly dignified in its touching harmonies and iron-willed fanfares.It was a delivery reminiscent of the program’s opener, “Lemminkäinen’s Return,” the fourth legend from Sibelius’s “Lemminkäinen Suite,” based on the “Kalevala,” Finland’s national epic. A brief finale to a long work, the “Return” is all climax, but Mälkki maintained a level head, unleashing a bit of fiery folk aggression here and there, but for the most part emphasizing color and letting it bloom with grandeur that was assured rather than insistent.Saariaho’s flute concerto “L’Aile du Songe,” from 2001, was a quietly personal touch of programming: Mälkki, who like Saariaho lives in Paris, is a friend and eminent interpreter of her music. And for the Carnegie performance, Mälkki was joined by another previous collaborator, the flutist Claire Chase, in the solo part. (Those two recently brought Felipe Lara’s excellent Double Concerto, which had premiered in Helsinki, to the New York Philharmonic.)The flute — human, elemental — has been one of Saariaho’s favored instruments, for which she has written some of her most dreamily poetic music. Here, it sings in brief phrases above suspended textures that aren’t melodies per se, but that build to broadly expressed gestures.In the second movement, the soloist vocalizes alongside notated playing, which Chase dispatched with her trademark theatricality. She and the Finns were satisfyingly united in their treatment of some of the work’s most exquisite details: downward glissandos that evoke a quickly passing, or perhaps dying, flare of sound; a celestial slow fade that ascends yet ebbs, in the end, to inaudibility.Part of that character, of course, comes from Mälkki’s conducting, which was at its wisest in Sibelius’s Second Symphony. The first movement’s pulsating motif rose and fell like breath, richly built from the lower voices upward and giving way to warm calls from the horns. An organic spirit permeated the reading, with momentum that was neither propulsive nor slack but simply natural, patient. When Dalia Stasevska led this piece with the New York Philharmonic earlier this year, it took on a hard-edged, assertive nationalism; here, its Finnish pride was more reverential, and awe inspired.Mälkki picked up the pace for the finale, resisting extravagant Romanticism and allowing the scale of the music to speak for itself. This was typical of a conductor who has risen to the top of her field on artistry alone, without the shameless bids for celebrity of her peers.We will see whether Mälkki’s stature, after Helsinki, translates to a new music directorship or a more self-driven freelance career. Regardless, any orchestra would be lucky to have her at its podium.Helsinki Philharmonic OrchestraPerformed on Tuesday at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan. More

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    Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer, Behind the Mask

    The musician, whose new album was released in March, discusses disguises, recording and why they find karaoke so off-putting.Karin Dreijer’s is a face of many masks. Around 20 years ago, when the Swedish musician first began releasing songs with the eerie, beloved electronic duo the Knife, Dreijer and their brother, Olof, were often photographed wearing black, face-obscuring beaks — a little bit bubonic plague doctor, a little bit “Eyes Wide Shut.” The solo project Fever Ray, begun in 2009, offered Dreijer more opportunities for striking visual imagery and character work. They once accepted an award from Sweden’s Sveriges Radio wearing an eerily realistic mask that made it look like their flesh was melting.As Fever Ray, Dreijer invents another uncanny guise on the cover of their latest album, “Radical Romantics,” which finds them embodying a kind of zombified office drone character with thin, stringy hair and eyes and mouth rimmed with a sickly yellow. That image, Dreijer said in a recent Pitchfork interview, was influenced by a seminude self-portrait of the 79-year-old Norwegian figurative painter Odd Nerdrum. “I thought of it as a Grindr pic,” they said of the Nerdrum piece. “It contains so much longing: throwing yourself out there, head over heels. I tried to do a face like his.”Dreijer and their longtime friend and collaborator Martin Falck, taking their daily lunchtime walk in the wilderness.Rebecka UhlinDreijer is, by contrast, barefaced and bundled in a nondescript, oversize black hoodie when I reach them by video call in their studio in Stockholm. Their white-blond hair is cropped artfully, and they sit in front of a white wall as blank as a primed canvas. They would be leaving for the States in two days to embark on the five-city North American leg of the “Radical Romantics” tour, but they were looking further ahead, too. “I am thinking about what I will do next,” Dreijer says. “Which is a good thing, so you don’t just drop after the tour. Touring is intense and a lot of fun — there are so many people around. I am planning what I’m going to do afterward.”Fever Ray’s music is somehow both brooding and ecstatic — a sonic kaleidoscope that explodes with infinite variations of gray. Throbbing synthesizers and driving electronic beats provide a steady backbone for Dreijer’s bracing, shape-shifting vocals and restless experiments in genres as varied as punk, ambient and industrial-tinged psych-rock.Some sketches and visual ideas illustrating the mood of the latest Fever Ray album, “Radical Romantics.”Rebecka Uhlin“Radical Romantics” finds Dreijer working with some familiar collaborators (like Olof, for the first time since the Knife released its final studio album, “Shaking the Habitual,” in 2013) and some new ones, like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who add an edge of industrial menace to two of the album’s boldest tracks. The visual language of “Radical Romantics” was, like much of Dreijer’s work, developed with longtime friend Martin Falck. “We’re always sending each other pictures and film clips and stuff on Instagram,” Dreijer said. “‘Look, we should do this next time! This looks amazing, we should try this!’ We collect everything in a folder and then try to organize it, which is almost impossible.”For all its imaginative character play, “Radical Romantics” is Dreijer’s most vulnerable album — an open hearted exploration of love and its possible failures. “I think we started to really work on a gut feeling for what we find fun,” they said. “And then we talk about what we find fun in relation to what we are really, really afraid of, what we find scary.”“Me and Martin, we are afraid of everything,” they add. “I think we are both the world’s most scared people. But then I think we have become quite brave, as well.”A banally patterned tie, one of the key accessories of the zombified office drone character that Dreijer embodies in some of the album’s visuals.Rebecka UhlinMakeup — and lots of it — is another important visual tool in Dreijer’s many transformations.Rebecka UhlinWhat time of day do you work?I have two kids, so I’ve had to work proper office hours, because that’s when you have child care. And I think also, to have a good routine, to go [to the studio] in the morning and you work during the day and then you go home and you have a social life, you can meet friends and hang out with your kids. I think that has been quite important for me. Then I also do really like to go there on holidays. Like for Christmas, or in the middle of the summer. Because that’s when you feel like you get so much time and nobody interrupts. And everybody thinks you’re away doing Christmassy stuff, but you’re actually there working.My oldest kid is turning 20 this year, so I have had that routine for a long time. But now I feel like when they are about to move out, and they also don’t need me the same way in the evenings and weekends and stuff, then yeah, I think I started to enjoy going there in evenings and nights, as well.A shocking pink jacket makes the familiar a little uncanny.Rebecka UhlinAre there set hours that you sleep?I have understood that I need to sleep, eat and work out to be able to function properly. Which is a bit annoying, because it doesn’t feel like fun stuff when the only thing you want to do is just continue working. But it’s not so helpful to skip those three things.What type of exercise do you do?It’s a good biking distance to my studio, so I try to bike there. I really do like hot yoga. Going to the gym is really boring, but I do that, especially now, when I’m on tour, I have to do that. In the winters, I ski a lot.What embarrasses you?It’s interesting what embarrasses people. I don’t like to sing to a small group of people. [Laughs.] I really find it difficult to do karaoke. It’s this idea of authenticity that I find very difficult. Maybe it’s not embarrassing, it’s more like, it’s really frightening.Planning the many component parts of the “Radical Romantics” experience.Rebecka UhlinHow is that different from performing your own material onstage?Because then it becomes a performance, and I can play around much more with the ideas of authenticity and what’s a natural voice. It’s easier, I think, to play with those ideas than it is if you can’t use props or lights or effects. If I say, “This is the authentic me, this is authenticity,” then people will believe you.There’s something uncomfortably sincere about a lot of karaoke.And you’re also supposed to sound a specific way. You’re supposed to sound like the original. That is at least what people are striving to do. And I have never been able to sing in that classically “good” way of singing. I don’t know how to do it.I was reading another interview with you that said on one of the effects machines you use to process your vocals, there’s actually a knob that says “gender” on it, that you can twist.Yes, there is a machine that has that. It’s fun. [Laughs.]Driving beats provide a sturdy backbone for Dreijer’s shape-shifting vocals and restless experiments in genres as varied as punk, ambient and industrial-tinged psych-rock.Rebecka UhlinHow do you think of music as a place to play with gender?I think I have found out that making music, for me, is to create spaces where I feel free. And playing around with gender is one aspect of it. Early on, when working with the Knife, we tried to find this space where you couldn’t exactly tell what kind of voice this is, if it’s male or female or something in between. To find that space, for me, is a very freeing thing. And it can be done in so many different ways. It also has to do with how you perform the vocals, if the vocalist sounds very close or far away or [like] whispering or screaming. All these things work together to find this space.What are you reading right now?I have it here because I got it for my birthday a couple of weeks ago from my brother, actually. [Holds the book up to the screen.] “Dear Senthuran” by Akwaeke Emezi. I think it’s amazing. It’s a way of seeing a nonbinary identity from a place that I didn’t know about. It’s more of a spiritual way of seeing gender. I’m also into reading a lot of poetry about love. I have a new favorite writer called Chen Chen, who also writes really amazing poetry.The striking album cover was inspired by the work of the Norwegian figurative painter Odd Nerdrum. “I thought of it as a Grindr pic,” Dreijer said of the Nerdrum self-portrait they tried to emulate here.Rebecka UhlinYou’ve also mentioned that bell hooks was a big inspiration on this album. When did you first encounter her work?I was so enthusiastic on the last Knife tour, 10 years ago, that I gave [hooks’s 1999 book] “All About Love” to all the band and the crew to read. It’s been with me for a long time. And I still think it’s great. It’s so strange when everybody has some kind of relationship with love, but there are so few people who have a definition of what it is they mean when they say they are in love. What does it mean to say, “I love you”? I think it’s really important to share a definition with the people you want to have close relationships with. What do I need to feel loved? And what do you need to feel loved? And I think she writes about that really well.I’ve found your music to be so referential to other texts in a way that is rare. It seems like books are an important part of your musical world. Is it difficult to incorporate that in a way that doesn’t feel too academic?When we did the last Knife album [“Shaking the Habitual”], it was pretty academic, I would say. Even though I have never studied at the university, we read a lot and we had a lot of literature lists and stuff like that. And I think after that, both me and Olof talked about how we’re not so into that kind of process anymore, that starts through the head and then into the body. I am more interested in things that go into the body directly. But I think I’ve been as inspired by film and images because I normally have a clear feeling of a song when I start. It’s more of a feeling or an emotion. And then I know the colors of it and what kind of setting it should take place in.Martin Falck’s notebook — one of six he kept during this Fever Ray project.Rebecka UhlinDo you consider yourself a visual artist? You’re a musician, but there’s such a visual component to Fever Ray.I think I’m still trying to find out what I am, or what I do. I know I do music, and I’m very involved in making the visuals. The music is sort of the hard, difficult work that I have to do. I work mostly by myself for a really long time, and then when I have the sketches and I know what the tracks are about, then I invite people to collaborate. Then when the music is finished, we get to do the fun stuff, which is the visuals. I work with Martin on those.Is it easy for you to invite new collaborators in and figure out how to work with them?I ask people who I think do interesting and fun things. You never really know how it will turn out. So I did start a couple of collaborations with people that didn’t really work out. During Covid and the pandemic, I didn’t meet anybody in person except my brother. We have built studios just next to each other.Dreijer’s shoes also blend the flashy with the banal.Rebecka UhlinIs it important for your creative process to have your brother close by?I don’t know if it’s important. It was just a practical thing that he moved back from Berlin like five years ago and we both needed studios, so we decided to build together. Because I was just renting different rooms here and there. So it’s my first studio that’s my own. With a window, so I can see the sky. I’ve only been in basements before.Tell me more about your studio space.First it was a huge sort of industrial space, and then we built this cube in the middle with two studios in it. It’s a wooden cube inside this huge space. And in the big space, I think the most important thing, because it’s so dark here most times of the year, is that we have daylight light tubes. I don’t know what they’re called in English. It’s like full daylight — to go there is a bit like having light therapy. Or just having proper daylight, which I think helps a lot. To be able to be here in the winter. So I think that is the best thing about the studio. In my little work studio room, it’s not full daylight. Then it’s more cozy.Early in the process of dreaming up the “Radical Romantics” aesthetic, the Knave was an important character for Dreijer and Falck. Rebecka UhlinWhat’s the worst space you’ve ever worked in?I’ve rehearsed and recorded in really, really [expletive] places. I think one of my first rehearsal spaces, with one of my first bands — this is like early ’90s — we were sharing a space with another band with only guys. They peed in glasses and left them in the rehearsal space, because there was no real bathroom around. That was very disgusting, but it also tells a lot about the time, how it was when I started to make music. It was super male-dominated and it was really difficult to find a space where you felt safe and free.How do you know when a song is done?That is a very difficult thing to know — but when you listen to it in many different places and leave it for some time and can come back to it and still feel like it makes sense. But then if you listen to it one year later, you probably would feel differently and want to redo a lot and change things because you are in a different place yourself. This time I worked with 10 tracks: To have them all done at the same time, that is a bit of a challenge.What is your relationship to deadlines?I set my deadlines myself. And then when I’m completely done with everything, I start to work with my management and the different labels. I’m very happy not to have anybody involved in the musical process that tells me, “Oh, you have to be ready now.” That would never work for me.This interview has been edited and condensed. More

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    15 Fashion Triumphs From Cannes Over the Decades

    Movies aren’t the only thing to watch. The film festival has made red carpet waves since “being seen” became mainstream.If the Met Gala is the all-star showcase of red carpet entrances, the Oscars the skills championship, and the MTV Video Music Awards the X Games, then the Cannes Film Festival is effectively the playoffs: an extended period in which celebrities show up multiple times in clothes high and low, demonstrating all their moves.And though outfits seem to be getting increasingly extreme with the proliferation of social media, a look back through the history of the festival’s runway (oops, red carpet) — which this year runs May 16-27 — reveals that it was, in fact, ever thus.The Croisette boulevard has always been a catwalk and we, the rapt audience looking on.The actress Elizabeth Taylor grasps the arm of her husband at the time, the film producer Mike Todd, at the Cannes Film Festival, wearing a Balmain gown and Cartier tiara.Malcolm McNeill/Mirrorpix, via Getty Images1957Elizabeth TaylorWhen she attended Cannes on the arm of her third husband, the producer Mike Todd (who was there to promote “Around the World in 80 Days”), Ms. Taylor was Hollywood royalty, and she dressed the part — from the tip of her diamond Cartier tiara to the hem of her white Balmain gown and the fingertips of her opera gloves. The princess dress would forever after be a festival staple (not least on Princesses Grace and Diana when they would take their own Cannes bows).Catherine Deneuve attended a screening of “Les Cendres” by Andrzej Wajda at Cannes in an Yves Saint Laurent T-shirt dress.Gamma-Keystone, via Getty Images1966Catherine DeneuveMs. Deneuve attended Cannes with her then-husband, the photographer David Bailey, in a long seaside-striped sequin Yves Saint Laurent T-shirt dress. She was a de facto YSL ambassador before that term had even entered the fashion playbook (back then, the usual appellation was “muse”). She would remain one for decades, loyally wearing YSL onscreen and off. When it comes to casual glamour, however, this dress set the tone, proving the concept was not an oxymoron, but a whole potential genre unto itself.Jane Birkin toted her signature picnic basket as a handbag to Cannes.Gilbert Giribaldi/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images1974Jane BirkinMs. Birkin popped up at Cannes with her beau, Serge Gainsbourg, and a picnic basket as a handbag, toting it not just during the day, but on the red carpet with a glimmering frock. Reportedly discovered in a fishing village in Portugal, it was the Birkin bag before the Birkin bag. It became a symbol of the British star and of a certain je ne sais quoi in boho style and the freewheeling nature of Cannes.Madonna arrived for the premiere of her film “Madonna: Truth or Dare” (known internationally as “In Bed with Madonna”) in a pink Jean Paul Gaultier coat that she shed to reveal a satin undergarment set.Dave Hogan/Getty Images1991MadonnaShe came to Cannes to unveil “Madonna: Truth or Dare” — and herself. Decades before Lady Gaga stripped down to her undergarments on the Met Gala steps, Madonna walked the carpet for her premiere in a voluminous pink taffeta coat by Jean Paul Gaultier — only to drop it at the last moment to reveal a white satin cone bra, knickers and a garter belt set. She jolted the public out of their torpor and started a new era of peekaboo dressing.Sharon Stone came to the premiere of “Unzipped” unbuttoned — a satin skirt parted to uncover a bedazzled romper.Stephane Cardinale/Sygma, via Getty Images1995Sharon StoneIn 2002 Ms. Stone came to Cannes as a member of the film festival jury and revived her flagging profile by walking the red carpet in a different fashion statement every night. But years before that, she made dressing noise when she arrived at the premiere of “Unzipped” in a champagne-colored satin skirt that was, well, unbuttoned to reveal a bedazzled romper beneath. Ever since, shorts have been a festival staple.For the screening of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” Johnny Depp was accompanied by his girlfriend at the time, Kate Moss.Patrick Hertzog/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images1998Kate MossMinimalism came to the Croisette courtesy of Ms. Moss, attending the premiere of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” with her then-boyfriend, Johnny Depp. Ms. Moss wore a black cocktail dress with ostrich feathers at the top and almost no makeup with merely a touch of diamonds and barely-there sandals. She made everyone else look overdone and overdressed, washing the Augean stables of Cannes clean.Tilda Swinton walked the Croisette in a metallic pantsuit.Daniele Venturelli/WireImage2007Tilda SwintonMs. Swinton strode the carpet in a metallic pantsuit, proving that a woman does not need a big dress to make a big statement.Linda Evangelista in a gold Lanvin dress.Kurt Krieger/Corbis, via Getty Images2008Linda EvangelistaMs. Evangelista posed like a gold Greek statuette in Lanvin at the premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Models had become key parts of the festival’s opening evening mix, upping the fashion ante even further.Lupita Nyong’o in a chiffon Gucci dress.Venturelli/WireImage2015Lupita Nyong’oMs. Nyong’o seemed to embody springtime itself in a green pleated Gucci chiffon dress accented with crystal flowers. It was only a few months after Alessandro Michele had taken over as creative director of the Italian house, and the dress heralded the arrival of a new aesthetic and Hollywood love affair with Gucci.Amal Clooney in an Atelier Versace dress.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2016Amal ClooneyMs. Clooney made her Cannes debut in a classic butter yellow Atelier Versace dress with a high slit on one leg, entirely overshadowing her husband, George, at the premiere of his film, “Money Monster,” and, once again, proving style and substance are not antithetical concepts.Rihanna in a Dior couture gown.Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images2017RihannaShe made her first Cannes appearance at the “Okja” premiere in an ivory Dior couture gown with a long matching coat and New Wave-style sunglasses. Two years later, Dior owner LVMH would announce a deal with the artist for her own fashion line, and though it was shut down during the pandemic, her ability to channel cool has never wavered.Kristen Stewart, in a Chanel dress, removed her Louboutins to ascend the stairs barefoot.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2018Kristen StewartMs. Stewart’s short chain mail Chanel dress was a fighting mix of armor and crystals, but what really made news was her decision to doff her Christian Louboutin stilettos and walk up the stairs barefoot. Coming a year after the actor complained about the festival’s unspoken high heels dress code, it was an unmistakable fashion throw down and, well, a step forward for wardrobe equity.Isabelle Huppert in a Balenciaga gown.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2021Isabelle HuppertThe French actress made the ultimate elegant refusal of Cannes convention in a high-necked, long-sleeved all-black Balenciaga gown, matching boot leggings and matching shades. It cut through the carpet froth and excess like a knife.Spike Lee in a colorful suit made by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton.Eric Gaillard/Reuters2021Spike LeeThe sole man in this trendsetting list, Mr. Lee put ye olde penguin suits to shame as jury president, eschewing the usual tuxedo or white dinner jacket for a bouquet of sunset-toned suiting, by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton. He did the right thing.Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in a Gaurav Gupta gown.Stephane Mahe/Reuters2022Aishwarya Rai BachchanSometimes, it seems like the wide open skies of the Côte d’Azur encourage even wider skirts on the Cannes carpet, but Ms. Bachchan topped them all in a fantastical creation from Gaurav Gupta that made her look like some sort of alien smoke goddess materializing on Earth. Sometimes, it really does seem like the looks at Cannes are out of this world. More

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    Ruben Ostlund Doesn’t Want You to Get Too Comfortable

    The Swedish director, this year’s jury president for the Cannes Film Festival, talks about his approach to making films.For a filmmaker whose most recent movie was nominated for three Academy Awards and who has twice won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, it might sound strange to hear Ruben Ostlund say he doesn’t focus on success.“I’m much more interested in when we fail as human beings than when we succeed,” said the Swedish director, who will lead the jury at this year’s festival, which runs from Tuesday to May 27.Mr. Ostlund, 49, won the Palme d’Or, last year for “Triangle of Sadness,” a class satire set aboard a doomed luxury yacht, and for his previous feature, “The Square,” an unsparing sendup of the art world, in 2017. Mr. Ostlund is one of only nine filmmakers who have multiple Palmes d’Or to his credit — and one of three to win the award for consecutive films.After its success at Cannes, “Triangle of Sadness,” which was Mr. Ostlund’s first film entirely in English, went on to become an art-house hit in both Europe and America, and was nominated for three Oscars — for best picture, best director and best original screenplay — but didn’t win any.In his three most recent features, starting with 2014’s “Force Majeure,” Mr. Ostlund has consciously tried to get away from a certain type of European art-house film that is often cerebral, challenging and severe.“I wanted to create a wild, entertaining ride at the same time that I was trying to talk about the content that I thought was important or that I was curious about, and not making a contradiction between those things,” he said in late April during a video interview, speaking from his house in Campos, Majorca.He pointed to the political comedies of Lina Wertmüller, the Italian director whose 1974 film “Swept Away” was a clear touchstone for “Triangle of Sadness,” and the surreal provocations of the Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel as examples of serious-minded films that are also great fun to watch.Arvin Kananian, left, and Woody Harrelson in a scene from “Triangle of Sadness,” which Mr. Ostlund won the Palme d’Or for last year.Neon, via Associated PressIn a statement announcing Mr. Ostlund as jury president in February, festival organizers called the decision a “tribute to films that are uncompromising and forthright and which constantly demand that viewers challenge themselves and that art continue to invent itself.”“Contrary to popular belief, thought-provoking cinema can also be popular,” Philippe Bober, one of the producers on “Triangle of Sadness,” wrote in an email.“We want to make uncompromising auteur films but also to embrace the audience,” Mr. Bober continued. He has worked with Mr. Ostlund since 2005.“The bad news for producers,” Mr. Bober added, referring to himself and the film’s other Oscar-nominated producer, Erik Hemmendorff, “is that if you want to make good films, you have to support your directors’ radicalism when they are experimenting with form and content for a long period of time before you make money.”The critical and popular acclaim for “Triangle of Sadness” seems a vindication of Mr. Bober’s faith in Mr. Ostlund.The humor, often acid-laced, that makes the Swedish director’s films so entertaining is often deeply discomfiting — and sometimes downright squirmworthy. This has proved divisive, with some viewers regarding his work as manipulative or downright cruel (“Triangle of Sadness” includes an audaciously long vomiting scene), and others hailing him as an uncommonly perceptive social commentator.“I think all my approaches in my films are looking at human behavior, creating dilemmas,” Mr. Ostlund said, “in order to try to tell something about us human beings.” He added that he tried to create “scenes where I believe that, yeah, this is an accurate and a true picture of our behavior” without pointing fingers.“I’m happy,” he added, “if I can reach the level of a really good sociological experiment.”According to Owen Gleiberman, chief film critic for Variety magazine, “Triangle of Sadness” is “very much a movie of its moment.”“It’s about the 1 percent, and it’s about the 1 percent getting their comeuppance. And that’s a good theme and it’s a gratifying theme,” said Mr. Gleiberman, who attended his first Cannes Film Festival in 1996. At the same time, he said he felt that the film was “too in love with its own satirical excess.” While he was delighted by the unexpected Palme d’Or win for “The Square,” he felt “Triangle of Sadness” was less deserving of the prize.“There’s no rule that says that a director shouldn’t take the Palme d’Or twice in five years,” Mr. Gleiberman said. “But when that happens, it’s usually an indication not that he has made two masterpieces, but that he’s become a Cannes darling.” As such, the fact that Mr. Ostlund was tapped to head the Cannes jury, Mr. Gleiberman added, “makes perfect sense.”“I think all my approaches in my films are looking at human behavior, creating dilemmas,” Mr. Ostlund said, “in order to try to tell something about us human beings.”Ana Cuba for The New York Times“I hesitated a little bit because of the burden of the position actually,” Mr. Ostlund said about being asked to chair the jury. His eight co-jurors include the American actors Paul Dano and Brie Larson, the Argentine director Damián Szifron, and the French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, who won the Palme d’Or in 2021 for “Titane,” a controversial body-horror film.Even though no one person gets to decide the winners, the awards at Cannes often become identified with that year’s jury president. Historically speaking, the films that have taken the Palme d’Or, Mr. Gleiberman suggested, are “not some list of masterpieces.”“It’s more like the good, the bad and the ugly,” he said.Mr. Ostlund seemed all too aware of this when he suggested that the Palme d’Or awarded by a jury president is “something that can follow you then through your career,” for good or for ill.But Mr. Ostlund said it was important, above all, for him to endorse what Cannes stands for. “For me, it is the festival in the world that is on the barricades fighting for cinema” and a “provocative approach to cinema as an art form,” he said.“The last year when I had been traveling around with ‘Triangle of Sadness,’ I have tried to really promote cinema, talked about the advantage of cinema, talked about what are the qualities of watching things together instead of sitting in front of an individual screen,” he added.The Hungarian filmmaker Kornel Mundruczo, another Cannes favorite, said that the festival connected him to an “ethical, fundamental state of what does that mean to be a filmmaker and a true believer in film as the seventh art.”Films by Mr. Mundruczo, 48, and Mr. Ostlund have shared lineups at Cannes several times. In 2014, they both headlined the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar: Mr. Mundruczo’s “White God” won top prize and Mr. Ostlund’s “Force Majeure” took the jury prize. Three of Mr. Mundruczo’s other films have screened in the main competition at Cannes; he was invited to be a juror at Cannes twice but declined because of prior commitments.While expressing reservations about running films like horses in a race, Mr. Mundruczo, who has chaired juries at other festivals, said he enjoyed the experience — and not only because it forced him to take in multiple films a day.“As a jury member, you feel like you can give your taste, your honesty and your vision of the future of cinema and all your love of cinema,” Mr. Mundruczo said in an interview in Berlin, where he lives.Mr. Ostlund, who has also served on film festival juries before, said it was important to take care of the group dynamics and make sure everyone “feels that they are seen.”“I think I will have a very Swedish approach when it comes to running the jury,” he said.“It will be a democracy.” More