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    ‘It’s Time!’ Mariah Carey Reflects on 30 Years as Queen of Christmas

    Getting her usual early start on the holiday, the powerhouse vocalist and songwriter looks back on the phenomenon she created.When the record company came knocking, Mariah Carey wasn’t sure about making a Christmas album.“I felt it was too early in my career,” she said in a recent interview, recalling the early ’90s. But she had always loved Christmas, and so she got to work on arrangements for some of her favorite seasonal classics, like “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night,” and filled her recording studio with vibrant decorations like trees and lights. All she and her writing partner Walter Afanasieff needed were some original songs.Then one late night, she recalled, the distinctive opening melody line of one song came to her as she tapped it out on a small Casio keyboard — “ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding,” she sang over Zoom. For the lyrics, she said, she racked her brain for something that felt meaningful. Then, “I started thinking about: ‘I don’t want a lot for Christmas.’”Carey performing Christmas songs at St. John the Divine in Manhattan in December 1994.Kevin.Mazur/Archive, via WireimageAnd at Madison Square Garden in December 2019.Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for McThirty years after its release in 1994, that song, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” has become one of the longest-charting singles in any genre, spending 65 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100, and perhaps the best-known original holiday song of the last half-century. The album, “Merry Christmas,” has sold 18 million copies and would become synonymous with the season, blasting from cars, mall speakers and party playlists, and cementing Carey’s role as the Queen of Christmas. And the season? Well, that begins on Nov. 1 — when Carey has declared, “It’s time.”Carey spoke with The New York Times ahead of a 21-date holiday tour that starts this month. It comes as she is teasing new, non-Christmas music, in what would be her first studio album in six years.

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    What to Know About ‘The Apprentice,’ the Controversial Trump Biopic

    The film, now available on demand, followed a thorny path to distribution — including the threat of a lawsuit by its subject.If you know one thing about the new Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” it’s likely this: The former president doesn’t want you to see it.The drama, which debuted to mostly positive reviews at the Cannes Film Festival in May, follows a young Trump (Sebastian Stan) as he meets — and falls under the spell of — the lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong); brashly courts, then quickly tires of his first wife, Ivana Trump (Maria Bakalova), and becomes single-mindedly obsessed with winning, at everything, at all costs.Despite praise for Stan and Strong, the film, directed by the Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi and written by the author Gabriel Sherman, struggled to secure distribution, and Trump threatened to file a lawsuit to block its release.But in August, Briarcliff Entertainment, a distributor founded by Tom Ortenberg, a producer on “Spotlight” and “W,” acquired the theatrical rights and announced plans to release the film ahead of the presidential election. After debuting in cinemas on Oct. 10 (again drawing largely positive reviews but just $3.5 million at the box office), it is debuting on demand this weekend.Here’s what to know about the offscreen saga and the onscreen story.What period in Trump’s life does the film cover?It chronicles Trump’s younger years as a New York real estate developer, though the title comes from the TV series Trump later hosted for 14 seasons.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    聆听近200年后首度现世的肖邦圆舞曲

    晚春的一天，在曼哈顿摩根图书馆和博物馆的地下室深处，馆长罗宾逊·麦克莱伦正在整理一批文化纪念品。其中有毕加索签名的明信片，一位法国女演员的老照片，还有勃拉姆斯和柴可夫斯基的信件。当麦克莱伦看到第147号物品时，他惊呆了：The Morgan Library & Museum那是一张有破洞、索引卡大小的乐谱残篇…………上面有小小的谱号和一个显眼的名字。这首曲子被标为“圆舞曲”。有一个草写的名字：肖邦。“我心想，‘这是怎么回事？这是什么呢？’”麦克莱伦说。“我认不出这是哪段音乐。”本身也是作曲家的麦克莱伦拍下了手稿的照片，并在家里用一台数码钢琴弹奏了它。真的是肖邦吗？他有些疑虑：这部作品异常激烈，以安静、不和谐的音符开场，然后爆发出轰轰烈烈的和弦。他把照片发给了宾夕法尼亚大学肖邦研究权威杰弗里·卡尔伯格。“我惊呆了，”卡尔伯格说。“我知道我以前从未见过这个。”在检测了手稿的纸张和墨水，分析了笔迹和音乐风格，并咨询了外部专家后，摩根博物馆得出了一个重要结论：该作品很可能是浪漫主义时代伟大的幻想家弗雷德里克·肖邦创作的一首不为人知的圆舞曲，这是半个多世纪以来首次有这样的发现。郎朗在曼哈顿施坦威音乐厅演奏肖邦圆舞曲全曲。Video by Mohamed Sadek for The New York Times这一发现可能会在古典音乐界引发争论，因为这个领域有时会对新发现杰作的报道持怀疑态度，而且历史上一直存在赝品和伪造手稿的情况。但近年来也有重大发现：德国莱比锡的一家图书馆于9月宣布，该馆发现了一份时长12分钟的莫扎特弦乐三重奏的副本。肖邦于1849年去世，时年39岁，死因可能是肺结核，新近发现的肖邦作品十分稀有。虽然他是音乐界最受喜爱的人物之一——他的心脏被浸泡在一罐酒精中，保存在华沙的一座教堂里——但他不如其他作曲家高产，他创作了大约250首作品，几乎全部是钢琴独奏曲。摩根博物馆的手稿据说是在1830年至1835年之间完成的，当时肖邦20岁出头。这份手稿有着几个奇特之处。尽管人们认为作品已是完稿，但它比肖邦的其他圆舞曲短——只有48小节以及一个反复段落，大约80秒。这首曲子为A小调，有着不同寻常的力度标记，包括开始不久的一处表示最大音量的极强音。但摩根博物馆表示确信这首圆舞曲手稿是真迹，并指出了肖邦的几个特点。The Morgan Library & Museum博物馆表示，该手稿纸张和墨水与肖邦当时使用的一致。手稿笔迹与肖邦的笔迹相符…………甚至包括不寻常的低音谱号画法。摩根博物馆收藏的另一份肖邦手稿也有类似的低音谱号。那份手稿上还点缀着肖邦的涂鸦，肖邦喜欢画画。“我们对我们的结论充满信心，”麦克莱伦说。“现在是时候将它公之于众，让全世界看看，并形成他们自己的看法了。”明星钢琴家郎朗最近在曼哈顿的施坦威音乐厅为《纽约时报》录制了这首圆舞曲。他说，这首作品让他感觉像是肖邦的作品。他说，刺耳的开头让人想起了波兰乡村严酷的冬天。“这不是肖邦最复杂的音乐，”他补充道，“但它是你能想象到的最地道的肖邦风格之一。”在肖邦去世后绘制的一幅肖像。 General Photographic Agency/Getty Images肖邦1810年出生于华沙郊外的一个村庄，父亲是法国人，母亲是波兰人。1830年，20岁的肖邦离开了波兰。他定居在巴黎，很快成为一名琴键上的诗人，他的音乐将人们带到全新的情感世界。与家人的分离以及对波兰未来的担忧可能是肖邦在这个时期的音乐作品带有苦痛色彩的原因之一。19世纪30年代初，波兰爆发了叛乱，武装反抗占领波兰部分领土的俄罗斯帝国。肖邦再也没有回到过祖国。“父亲绝望了——他不知道该如何是好，也没有人帮助让母亲振奋起来，”他在1831年游历德国时在日记中写道。“而我却无所事事地站在这里——我两手空空地站在这里。我只能无病呻吟，不时地对着钢琴发泄我的痛苦。”有一次，巴黎的一位贵族请肖邦解释他音乐中的忧郁，肖邦引用了波兰语单词“zal”，意为怀旧或遗憾。著名的肖邦传记作者艾伦·沃克表示，在圆舞曲等短曲中，可以明显感受到“zal”的韵味，肖邦在其中注入了一种此前只用于更宏伟的作品的情感深度。圆舞曲曾是欢快的舞厅主打曲风。但肖邦的圆舞曲从来都不是用来跳舞的。肖邦没有创作过交响曲、歌剧或清唱剧，人们并不总是将他视为一位严肃的作曲家。“我们的先祖从未想到，肖邦的一首短小的圆舞曲或玛祖卡舞曲，内涵会比博凯里尼的整部交响曲还要丰富，”沃克说。虽然专家认为肖邦创作了多达28首圆舞曲，但只有八首在他生前出版，九首在他死后出版。其余的都已轶失或损毁。他的一些圆舞曲振奋而精致，比如这首《华丽大圆舞曲》。还有一些则是嬉戏玩闹的曲目，比如《“小狗”圆舞曲》。此曲在流行文化中经久不衰，兔八哥和芭芭拉·史翠珊都曾演绎过。还有一些是忧郁的冥想，如《B小调圆舞曲》。那个时代的许多钢琴家喜欢在众多观众面前展示令人眼花缭乱的技艺。但肖邦讨厌他所谓的“空中飞人学校”式的钢琴演奏。他更喜欢沙龙的亲密氛围，在皇室、银行家、艺术家和音乐家面前表演他的作品——作曲家弗朗茨·李斯特称这些聚会为“肖邦教堂”。在这些场合，他的乐迷有时会索要圆舞曲等小作品作为礼物。肖邦同意了，偶尔会将同一首圆舞曲送给几个人。他至少有五次将《F小调圆舞曲》的手稿送给别人，全部是女士。“请您自己留着，”他在给一位受赠者的信中写道。“我不希望它被公开。”这首摩根博物馆的圆舞曲可能就是在这种情况下写成的。它被写在一张约4×5英寸的小纸片上，是一种常用于礼品的纸张。乐谱上有指法和力度记号，这表明肖邦认为这首曲子将来可能会用于演奏。但这位严谨的作曲家——在一页乐谱上花数周时间对肖邦是常有的事——似乎对这首圆舞曲有所犹豫。他没有像通常那样在乐谱上签名。根据笔迹分析，手稿顶端的“肖邦”是别人加上去的。此外，乐谱中还有几处未更正的节奏和记谱错误。艾莉莎·拉吉威尔画的肖邦，他讨厌所谓的“空中飞人学校”式钢琴演奏，更喜欢沙龙的亲密氛围。Universal History Archive, via Getty Images不管肖邦有何意图，这首圆舞曲从未公开过，也一直不为世人所知，可能一直在收藏家手中。纽约室内设计学院院长小A·谢里尔·惠顿一度获得了这份手稿。1972年去世的惠顿是一位狂热的签名收集者。他的子女说，他的大部分收藏都是从麦迪逊大道著名的沃尔特·R·本杰明签名店获得的。惠顿是一位业余钢琴家和作曲家，曾师从名师罗杰·塞申斯和纳迪娅·布朗热，对古典音乐情有独钟。二战期间，他作为海军中尉在南太平洋服役，只带了一本书：贝多芬晚期弦乐四重奏的微型乐谱。他写了三部歌剧，在去世当天完成了最后一部。小A·谢里尔·惠顿，摄于1958年。惠顿是一位业余钢琴家和作曲家，热衷于收集签名，肖邦手稿一度为他所有，后来连同他的其它一些资料被送到了摩根博物馆。via Paul Whiton“他总是弹奏肖邦，”他的儿子保罗·惠顿说。“这是他逃避现实的方式。”惠顿回忆说，他见过在康涅狄格州威尔顿祖宅陈列的这首圆舞曲，但家人并没有意识到它的重要性。惠顿的藏品于2019年作为阿瑟·萨茨的遗赠来到摩根博物馆，萨茨是惠顿的好友，从后者的妻子珍手中买下了这些收藏。五年来，这些藏品一直没有编目，部分原因是新冠大流行。藏品附带的说明没有提供太多关于这首圆舞曲的线索，只写着：肖邦，弗雷德里克音乐手稿。四行两谱表不明钢琴曲，看起来出自肖邦之手，但未署名。摩根博物馆的专家团队在红外线和紫外线下检查了手稿，以明确是否有损坏和涂改。他们确定这首曲子是用铁胆墨水在19世纪的机织纸上写成的。音乐风格与肖邦在19世纪30年代早期的作品一致。乐谱上的记号符合肖邦著名的细小笔迹特征，乐谱上方的“Valse”字样也是这样。研究人员考虑了其他可能性。肖邦是否抄写了别人的圆舞曲？会不会是学生的作品？这两种可能性似乎都不大。圆舞曲多变的开场仍然是一个谜。帮助鉴定乐谱的卡尔伯格说，这首圆舞曲的调——A小调——或许能提供线索。肖邦一些最汹涌澎湃的音乐都是用这个调式创作的，包括所谓的《冬风练习曲》、《第二前奏曲》，以及《第二叙事曲》的一些片段。“这个调，”卡尔伯格说，“让他写出了不同寻常的作品”。肖邦在1831年写了另一首狂暴且有不协和音的圆舞曲：《E小调圆舞曲》，同样是以爆发开场。摩根博物馆的这首圆舞曲的特殊性很可能会引发对其起源的争论。剑桥大学音乐教授约翰·林克说：“其中有很多极其不寻常的元素，你不得不问，这真的是肖邦的音乐吗？”他审阅了手稿的照片，但没有参与摩根博物馆的研究。尽管如此，林克还是认为很难质疑对笔迹、纸张和墨水的分析，称其为“关键的、决定性的因素”。他说，这份手稿可能反映了“肖邦充分发挥的想象力，一种在任何想法都还没有被琢磨透之前的创造性爆发”。肖邦会如何看待这首圆舞曲的公开？他经常用愤怒的涂写和墨水斑点来遮住自己的失误，他还告诉朋友们，他希望未发表的作品都在自己死后被销毁。不过，著名钢琴家和作曲家斯蒂芬·霍夫说，肖邦可能会为自己的音乐仍然受到人们的喜爱而感到高兴。他说，这首圆舞曲“可能没那么重要，但它有一种魅力和珍贵”。“只要肖邦知道他的影响是巨大的，他的作品被很好地收集、研究和记录了下来，”霍夫还说：“我无法想象他会不高兴。”音频：《降E大调华丽大圆舞曲》，作品第18号；《降D大调“小狗”圆舞曲》，作品第64号之1；《降B小调圆舞曲》，作品第69号之2，由阿图尔·鲁宾斯坦演奏（索尼古典）。《E小调圆舞曲》，作品号KK IVa之15，由爱丽丝·纱良·奥特演奏（德意志留声机）。由穆罕默德·萨迪克为《纽约时报》拍摄视频，在纽约施坦威音乐厅录制。由约瑟芬·塞奇威克、乔莉·鲁本和瑞秋·萨尔茨制作。翻译：Ziyu Qing、Annie Xu、晋其角赫海威(Javier C. Hernández)是《纽约时报》文化记者，报道纽约及其他地方的古典音乐和舞蹈。他于2008年加入时报，此前曾任驻北京和纽约记者。点击查看更多关于他的信息。

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    Young Thug Released After Guilty Plea in Lengthy YSL Case

    The star Atlanta rapper admitted to six counts, including participating in criminal street gang activity, ending his role in the longest trial in Georgia history.The star Atlanta rapper Young Thug pleaded guilty to participating in criminal street gang activity in a dramatic courtroom scene on Thursday, bringing his starring role in the longest trial in Georgia history to an unexpected conclusion after bumpy witness testimony complicated the state’s prosecution.After hearing sentencing recommendations from both sides, the judge in the case, Paige Reese Whitaker, sentenced Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, to time served, plus 15 years of probation. He was released Thursday night, according to Fulton County jail records.Mr. Williams, 33, was matter-of-fact as he admitted to six counts, including possession of drugs and firearms, before turning contrite as he addressed the courtroom. Prosecutors had described him in opening statements 11 months ago as “King Slime,” the fearsome leader of a pack that terrorized the streets of Atlanta via gang warfare, robbery and drug dealing for nearly a decade as his music career took off.His guilty plea on Thursday followed a tense courtroom moment in which the judge asked Mr. Williams if he was ready to accept a non-negotiated plea, instead of a negotiated deal with prosecutors, because of an impasse over sentencing. Mr. Williams, looking stricken, conferred with his lawyers briefly before the judge called a recess to allow him to decide.In a non-negotiated plea, the judge is responsible for deciding the sentence based on recommendations from both sides.Upon returning, Mr. Williams said he would accept the blind plea; he also pleaded no contest to two additional counts, leading a criminal street gang and conspiracy to violate the RICO act, the state’s racketeering law.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Metrograph Theater Starts a Film Magazine

    A throwback publication courts cinephiles with stories featuring Ari Aster, Maggie Cheung, Daniel Clowes, Clint Eastwood and Ann Hui.At a time when print media is on the way out and streaming technology has slashed into box office returns, a band of downtown cinephiles in New York has started a film magazine.The Metrograph, a biannual publication from the art-house theater of the same name, will make its debut in December. The first issue, priced at $25, includes an in-depth interview with Clint Eastwood, a critical appraisal of the Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui, an essay on Filipino action movies and an analysis of a single shot of Maggie Cheung from the 1996 film “Irma Vep.”“This magazine is meant to be an extension of what happens at Metrograph, and everything about Metrograph is intended to enhance moviegoing and the seductiveness of cinema,” Annabel Brady-Brown, the magazine’s editor, said. “We want this magazine to evoke that feeling you get when you go to Metrograph on a Saturday afternoon with a friend or on a date.”The photo on the cover — showing the cinematographer Ed Lachman standing next to the director Jean-Luc Godard in the early 1980s — conveys the idea that this is a publication for devout film fans.The issue features a wide-ranging conversation between Ari Aster, the director of “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” and the graphic novelist Daniel Clowes. Steve Martin also interviews the two men behind Deceptive Practices, a consultancy founded by magicians that has advised a number of film productions, including “Ocean’s Thirteen” and “The Prestige.”The editorial team takes a look at the coming issue soon after it went to print.Graham Dickie/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Juror #2’ Review: Clint Eastwood Hands Down a Tough Verdict

    In his latest (and perhaps last) movie as a director, Eastwood casts a skeptical eye at the criminal justice system in a mystery starring Nicholas Hoult.Clint Eastwood has been such a familiar force in American cinema for so long that it’s easy to think you’ve got him figured out. Yet here he is again, at 94, with a low-key, genuine shocker, “Juror #2,” the 42nd movie that he’s directed and a lean-to-the-bone, tough-minded ethical showdown that says something about the law, personal morality, the state of the country and, I’m guessing, how he feels about the whole shebang. He seems riled up, to judge from the anger that simmers through the movie, which centers on a struggle to find justice within — though perhaps despite — an imperfect system and in the face of towering self-interest.Justin (a very fine Nicholas Hoult) has just finished fixing up a baby nursery at home when he walks into a Savannah, Ga., courtroom to report for jury duty. He and his wife, Allison (Zoey Deutch), are expecting, and tying themselves into knots of worry because several years earlier, their last pregnancy ended tragically. For them, his civic duties couldn’t have come at a worse time. Even so, Justin shows up, eager and attentive, and before long is seated on a jury in a criminal case that takes an abrupt, unexpected turn: The defendant has been charged with murder, and Justin quickly realizes that he himself might be the real killer.Did he or didn’t he is one question, and the start of a mystery, both procedural and existential, that soon finds Justin playing at once a freaked-out juror, potential culprit and dogged detective. The defendant on trial, James (Gabriel Basso), has been accused of murdering his girlfriend, Kendell (Francesa Eastwood, the director’s daughter). They’d been drinking at a local dive when they began arguing. They went outside, where it was dark and pouring rain, and continued to fight in front of a smattering of customers who had followed them. She walked off alone, he trailed after her in his truck, and before long she was dead.It’s a deliciously twisted setup, like something out of an old film noir in which the hero becomes the main suspect and, by desperate default, also slips into the role of a detective working the case. In this movie, voir dire has scarcely ended — Eastwood, who famously likes to work fast, races through the typical preliminaries — when Justin is sweating in the jury box and listening to the prosecutor, Faith (Toni Collette), and the defense lawyer, Eric (Chris Messina), make their cases. Before long, the lawyers have made their closing arguments, and Justin is sequestered in a room with 11 people who are also on the case.Eastwood takes a bit of time to find his groove. The opener is, by turns, pokey and rushed, and you can almost feel his impatience as he lines up the story’s pieces. He doesn’t seem to have spent much time thinking about the movie’s visuals; they look fine, I wish they looked better. He seems especially uninterested in Justin’s home life, and given how dreary and claustrophobic it looks, you can hardly blame him. Once the trial begins and the lawyers start prodding and probing, Eastwood settles in nicely. Justin realizes that he was at the bar the same night as the defendant and victim, triggering a series of jagged flashbacks that, as the trial continues, grow longer, more detailed and, in time, help fill in the larger picture.Written by Jonathan A. Abrams, “Juror #2” is a whodunit in which justice turns out to be as much on trial as the defendant. Both sides seem to have a weak case. The defendant is shady, the autopsy inconclusive, the only witness questionable, and there’s an enigma among the jurors, most of whom just want to go home. And while Eric nevertheless delivers a righteously indignant defense, Faith seems overly eager to wrap things up, partly because she’s running for district attorney and already fake-smiling like a glad-handing politician. Their arguments are shrewdly handled, pared down and delivered in a dynamic volley of edits that turn their speeches into a he-said, she-said duel, with a stricken Justin caught in the middle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘The Graduates’ Review: How to Move On

    In this delicate drama set in Utah, three individuals deal with survivor’s guilt a year after a school shooting takes the life of a loved one.In “The Graduates,” a delicate high-school drama by the writer-director Hannah Peterson, students, teachers and parents grapple with survivor’s guilt a year after a shooting transforms their lives.We never see the violence. Instead, Peterson’s camera lingers on locker-lined hallways and newly-installed metal detectors, places and objects that bear traces of a tragic past.This haunted restraint is also what makes the performances so affecting. The film centers on three characters united by their connection to Tyler, one of the shooting’s victims: Genevieve (a stirring Mina Sundwall) was Tyler’s girlfriend; Ben (Alex Hibbert from “Moonlight”), his best friend; and John (John Cho), his father as well as the school’s basketball coach.Genevieve, a senior, is preparing to graduate, but she feels little excitement for the future. At the same time, Ben has recently moved back to the area after transferring schools, and John is waiting to move to Houston (where his wife and daughter have relocated) until Tyler’s class, specifically his basketball teammates, walk the stage.“No one knows how to talk about it,” Genevieve says of the shooting and Tyler’s death to her concerned mother (Maria Dizzia). This mental blockage is underscored by a mood of quiet agitation. Naturalistic scenes of typically cheerful teen activities — diner hangouts, lake swims and bike rides through peaceful suburban streets — carry a melancholic undercurrent. And Sundwall, Hibbert and Cho inhabit their parts with a coiled grief while slowly, reassuringly, opening themselves to find hope in camaraderie.Set in Utah and subtly attentive to its community’s religious values and economic conditions, the film is ultimately narrow in purview, limited to the trauma of losing a loved one without exploring other reasonable shades of emotion: What about the rage victims feel about the seemingly unstoppable recurrence of gun violence in this country? The fear and anxiety of re-entering public life?Peterson’s script is frustratingly single-note and occasionally bends toward unearned sentimentality. Still, “The Graduates” feels true to its milieu; its emotional clarity impressive given the loaded subject matter and the film’s subdued style.The GraduatesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Blitz’ Review: Love in the Ruins

    Steve McQueen’s World War II drama may appear conventional on the surface, but don’t miss what it’s really doing.World War II is almost certainly the big screen’s most immortalized conflict, and for good reason. It broke just as cinema was beginning to mature as a form of entertainment, and footage from the front narrated by peppy tales of victory was part of many people’s moviegoing experience. What’s more, though, the outlines of World War II could be boiled down to clean tales of good versus evil, bravery versus cruelty — the sort of stories that make good two-hour feature films.As the historian Elizabeth Samet argues in her excellent 2021 book “Looking for the Good War,” the heroism performed in Hollywood’s World War II movies soon became the filter through which all American involvement in foreign wars was seen and encouraged. In the aftermath of war, she writes, “causes are retrofitted,” and “participants fondly recall heroic gestures.” The tendency extends far beyond America, because the tale of valor richly rewarded and goodness winning the day is the kind of World War II movie we want to see — and the kind we mostly have.Yet most stories during the war didn’t end in glory and goodness. They ended in death and dismemberment, heartache and trauma, lives destroyed, families ripped apart. Yes, the good guys won. But winning a war still means losing.The British film industry is hardly immune to the triumphalist tales, and watching “Blitz,” I began to have a strong suspicion that those are precisely the movie’s target. The filmmaker Steve McQueen, whose film “12 Years a Slave” won the Oscar for best picture in 2014, works with the eye of a protesting artist, as aware of form as he is of content.In his 2018 film “Widows,” about women pulling off a heist, the form is that of a crime thriller. But the real subject is the class and economic contradictions of Chicago, which McQueen paints into the background except in one subtle, unforgettable scene: As characters have a conversation of some note in a car, the camera stays resolutely pointed out through the windshield, and we watch the setting starkly change from run-down projects to exquisite mansions in a matter of minutes. It’s a gutting accompaniment to the machinations of power being discussed in the car. You can’t really take one without the other.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More