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    ‘Borderlands’ Review: Shoot First, Ask Questions Never

    In Eli Roth’s caper movie, based on the best-selling video game franchise, Cate Blanchett plays a bounty hunter who is tasked with finding a tycoon’s daughter.In Eli Roth’s “Borderlands,” a cluttered caper flick based on the best-selling video game series of the same name, Cate Blanchett plays a trigger-happy bounty hunter who keeps killing the other characters midsentence before they can fill in the plot. Shoot first, ask questions never — even though the audience has questions of its own: What caused the delay that’s taken this big-budget movie three years to get released? And is it possible that Roth’s credited co-writer, Joe Crombie, who otherwise has no other screenplays or online presence, might be a pseudonym for someone who doesn’t want their real name on this haphazard script?Like the original first-person shooter game, “Borderlands” is set on a junkyard planet named Pandora that was once a home base for an advanced alien species, but has since been overrun by violent marauders and women with formidable push-up bras. Blanchett’s Lilith was born here and begrudgingly returns under the employ of a tycoon (Edgar Ramírez) who’s hired her to track down his daughter, an unhinged teenager named Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). To Lilith’s annoyance, her one-woman squad swells with new members: a sassy robot (voiced by Jack Black), an autistic xeno-archaeologist (Jamie Lee Curtis), a mostly mute meathead (Florian Munteanu) and a noble soldier (Kevin Hart). When Hart is playing the straight man, you know you’re watching a film that’s throwing everything at the screen.The style is Chernobyl chic. Anything that can have spikes does have spikes — even the terrain. The scrapheap aesthetic is so maximalist that, at one point, our leads take a joyride in a dumpster. The film itself feels salvaged from the properties it aspires to bowdlerize, chief among them “Star Wars.” Key messages are transmitted as Princess Leia-esque holograms; Black’s robot spouts pessimistic survival statistics; Hart barges onscreen in a gothy Stormtrooper get-up that he immediately discards, sneering, “What a stupid helmet.”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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    Did Cate Blanchett Make a Pro-Palestinian Fashion Statement at Cannes?

    The actress hasn’t said so, but some internet users think she did. Plus, a bleak week for small fashion brands and wedding dresses for fashion-forward brides.Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, followers of events known for being fashion spectacles — the Oscars, the Met Gala, Eurovision — have watched them become venues for making sartorial as well as political statements about the conflict.The Cannes Festival in France has not been immune to this trend. Several attendees have used the red carpet on the Croisette to show their support for Israelis or Palestinians during the film festival, with some wearing sashes saying “bring them home,” referring to Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, and others wearing red pins calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.Off the carpet, the model Bella Hadid ate ice cream near the beach in Cannes wearing a dress made of the material used for kaffiyehs, the scarves long seen as a symbol of Palestinians solidarity and identity.But those obvious displays have not generated as much buzz as the dress that the actress Cate Blanchett wore on Monday to the premiere of “The Apprentice,” a docudrama about the early life of former President Donald J. Trump.At first glance the gown — a piece from the designer Haider Ackermann’s one-off spring 2023 couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier — looked like a simple black dress worn with a pearl necklace across the length of Ms. Blanchett’s bare shoulders.But as she began to walk the carpet, flashes of other colors emerged: The back of the dress was a pink so pale that it appeared white, and the gown had an emerald green interior lining that Ms. Blanchett repeatedly revealed by lifting its train. The dress had been significantly altered since it appeared on the runway, where it had a knee-length hemline, a lime-green back and a lavender lining.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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    Book Review: ‘Blanche: The Life and Times of Tennessee Williams’s Greatest Creation,’ by Nancy Schoenberger

    Playing Blanche DuBois is shattering, say the actresses featured in Nancy Schoenberger’s “Blanche.” But Tennessee Williams’s most indelible character is now a figure of sympathy.BLANCHE: The Life and Times of Tennessee Williams’s Greatest Creation, by Nancy SchoenbergerLast we saw of Blanche DuBois, the brittle antiheroine of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” she was being carted off to a state loony bin, uttering her famous line about relying on “the kindness of strangers” that can hardly be improved upon.So when Nancy Schoenberger, a biographer and poet, announced early in her new book, “Blanche,” that she planned to include a few sonnets written from the perspective of DuBois’s ill-fated, unseen young husband, as well as a hypothetical obituary in The Times-Picayune describing how her subject turned her life around after psychiatric treatment, I … yes, blanched.With rare exceptions, such as Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea” (a prequel to “Jane Eyre” that imagines the first Mrs. Rochester), messing with another writer’s characters tends to be tricky business. You have to love, for example, the sardonic headline The New York Times ran when it reviewed Susan Hill’s 1993 novel “Mrs. DeWinter,” a follow-up to Daphne du Maurier’s unimprovable “Rebecca”: “Still Dead After All These Years.”Was “Blanche” going to be a “Still Crazy After All These Years” situation? Or like the goofy-sounding off-off-Broadway attempt at a “Streetcar” sequel in 2006, wherein Blanche and Stella, her sister, were at least in passing represented by throw pillows?Fortunately not. Schoenberger, the author of books on the novelist-socialite Lady Caroline Blackwood and the Johns Wayne and Ford, has now written a lean but graceful character study of DuBois, giving Williams’s most indelible but also frequently misunderstood character her due.It seems incredible now that when “Streetcar” was first staged in 1947, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Jessica Tandy, audiences sympathized with her antagonist and brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski: the brutish factory-parts salesman most remembered for the muscles rippling over his “wife beater” T-shirt and his primordial bellow of “Hey, Stellllla!” (The sympathy was probably in part because young Marlon Brando’s performance was so dazzling.)Even before the #MeToo era, however, Kowalski was being re-evaluated as a domestic abuser, slut shamer and rapist. And as important a proponent of the play as Kazan, who also directed Vivien Leigh in the 1951 film, grew convinced, after his prolonged time with the material, of Blanche’s basic sanity.Schoenberger briefly explains her own fascination with “Streetcar”: Her parents were born in New Orleans, where the play is set, on either side of the Audubon Park Zoo, hearing the roar of the lions there. Her father was an itinerant naval officer — “so handsome in his white uniform!” writes the author, whose enthusiasm sometimes spills over endearingly into exclamation points — but she visited Louisiana often as a child, marveling at the Spanish moss and “dark scurrying cockroaches that seemed to lurk everywhere.” Her mother, a campus beauty queen in Baton Rouge, was an early fan of Williams’s work.If New Orleans and its “miasmal vapors” are pure nostalgia for Schoenberger, for Williams, a gay man who had been mocked as “Miss Nancy” by his cruel father, Cornelius, the sensual city was “liberation,” she notes. He was inspired more tragically by his sister Rose, whose erratic behavior, possibly exacerbated by Cornelius’s violations, led to her institutionalization and then lobotomization at age 26.The dysfunctional Williams family, chronicled extensively in more substantive books like John Lahr’s “Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh,” moves to the background quite quickly in “Blanche,” though, as readers get acquainted with a series of prominent actresses who have played her, a couple of whom Schoenberger has interviewed, all of whom were haunted by their experience. She also relies heavily, though with a light touch, on previously published material, of which there is no shortage. Talking to a journalist about playing DuBois can resemble a particularly wrenching therapy session.For women and not a few drag queens, Blanche is considered one of the plummest roles in all of show business, though its psychological complexities can prove debilitating. “Like climbing Mount Everest,” NPR called it. (Cate Blanchett, naturally, has scaled Everest twice, playing Blanche both onstage and, in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” onscreen, in a modernized version for which she won an Oscar.) Jessica Lange and her partner, Sam Shepard — romantic couples often get oddly enmeshed in the production of “Streetcar” — believed it the equivalent of “Hamlet.” Rosemary Harris: “The loneliest part to live through that I’ve ever played on the stage.” Patricia Clarkson: “It destroys your life when you play that part, you never really recover from it, and everybody who’s ever done it knows.” Jemier Jenkins, one of a few Black women to play her, on the aftermath: “I was very actively trying to release, release, release.”Even the sturdy Ann-Margret found herself “twisted and shaking, confused, agitated, and staring ahead in a daze. I’d lost my grip on reality.” Most starkly Leigh, who turned out to have bipolar disorder, claimed that playing DuBois “tipped me into madness.” “Why has she entered our bloodstream?” wonders Schoenberger, a persuasive proponent of the play’s enduring importance despite its dated elements, most risibly that women hovering around 30 are past their prime. We have lived to see the antiquation of the word “nymphomaniac,” with which the critic Kenneth Tynan dismissed the character, and the reframing of prostitution as “sex work.” (DuBois’s seduction of a 17-year-old male student, regardless, keeps the mantle of moral ambiguity as settled around her shoulders as the “burden” of Belle Reve, the lost family estate, or one of her gossamer scarves.)Talking to Claire Bloom, who played the part on a London stage in 1974, Tennessee Williams once said he imagined Blanche persevering through her time in the asylum and ending up with a flower shop back in New Orleans; in her feminist faux-obit, Schoenberger gives her a co-ownership with Stella, who’s divorced Stanley. It’s a fanciful but satisfying little coda to this project, thankfully confined. (The sonnets, supposedly by Blanche’s doomed young groom, Allan Gray, are gilding the lily.)I’m not sure “Blanche,” which can waft and flit like the butterfly-like creature it chronicles, will satisfy true Williams junkies. But if you’re unfamiliar with this great American classic, or have perhaps let high-school memories of it lapse, this book is a hell of a gateway drug.BLANCHE: The Life and Times of Tennessee Williams’s Greatest Creation | By Nancy Schoenberger | Illustrated | 240 pp. | Harper/HarperCollins Publishers | $30 More

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    Best Oscars Red Carpet Looks: Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett and More

    Color was already a buzzword by the time the first stars showed up at the 95th Academy Awards, thanks to the new champagne rug that replaced the traditional red carpet.And as nominees and guests started to appear, so, too, did most every color of the rainbow: Angela Bassett arrived in purple and Dwayne Johnson in pink. Cate Blanchett went with blue; Sandra Oh with orange; and Fan Bing Bing with green. Rounding out the spectrum were gowns in yellow, worn by the costume designer Ruth E. Carter, and red, worn by the model Cara Delevingne.But it was white that might have emerged as the most popular shade of the night: Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Williams, Andrea Riseborough, Harry Shum Jr., Paul Mescal, Emily Blunt and Mindy Kaling all wore it. Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana DeBose, Zoe Saldana and Eva Longoria also wore white-leaning outfits, some of which sparkled because of liberal bedazzling.At an event that is basically the Olympics of dressing up, to ask who looked the best is something of a trick question because everyone looked glamorous. (One scroll through our full list of outfits from the carpet makes that clear.) The 21 looks that follow, though, had a little something extra — more polish or personality or panache (or all three) — that made them stand out more than most.Finishing this awards season strong and elegant.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesCate Blanchett: The Most Restrained!The actress, who took on the role of an imperious orchestra conductor in the film “Tár,” reminded audiences that she is also a maestro of the (red) carpet when she arrived in a strong-shouldered velvet top from Louis Vuitton’s archives tucked gracefully into a trim silk skirt.Distinctive and daring.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDanai Gurira: The Most Updo!The square neckline on the actress’s gown projected strength. So did her gravity-defying hair — styled by Larry Sims — which Ms. Gurira said made her feel her most “African self.”Why wear an ordinary tuxedo?Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHarry Shum Jr.: The Most Asymmetrical!“East meets West” is how the actor described his custom tuxedo by Adeam, a label that traditionally makes women’s wear. The looser fit, asymmetrical lapel, navy piping and sash belt were all elements that made it more fun than your average penguin suit.Taking the shirtless trend to a new place.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesRiz Ahmed: The Most Subtle Pink!The actor’s Prada look, a black suit with a pink wool cardigan peeking out (and a bare chest peeking out beneath that), was perhaps best described as Batman meets Harry Styles.The only way to capture this dress properly was from the side.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHong Chau: The Most Party in the Back!A mandarin collar was a detail specifically requested by the Vietnamese actress for her satin Prada gown, which was adorned with a shimmering black train. The look, according to Ms. Chau, paid homage to her roots and to the brand’s 1997 show.More on the 95th Academy AwardsA24’s Triumphant Night: The art-house studio behind “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Whale” became the first studio in the history of the Oscars to capture the top six awards in the same year.Normalcy Reigns: After breathing a sigh of relief that the night went smoothly, our co-chief film critics discussed the academy’s carefully staged return to (fingers crossed?) a new normal.Oscar Fashion: Rihanna’s belly, Florence Pugh’s shorts and Cate Blanchett’s archival velvet brought new relevance to awards show dressing, our fashion critic says.After-Parties: Take a look inside the Governor’s Ball and Vanity Fair’s Oscar party, where the stars and filmmakers celebrated with moguls, musicians and models.Making it look easy.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesNicole Kidman: The Most Flowers!She might not have not been up for any Oscars this year, but that did not stop the actress from dressing (and posing) like a winner in a shiny black Armani Privé gown with giant flowers at the shoulder and the hip and a leg-revealing front slit.Sharper than a stealth bomber.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesJennifer Connelly: The Most Mach 10!The actress’s black Louis Vuitton gown had a gem-studded trapezoidal neckline that soared upward toward her jaw, like a runway lit up at night.A dress that is also a balancing act.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesJanelle Monáe: The Most Statuesque!Orange is reportedly among the least worn colors on awards-show carpets. Fitting, then, that the singer and actress known for taking style risks chose a tangerine-colored skirt to complete her custom Vera Wang ensemble.She always goes for it.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesFlorence Pugh: The Most Doing It!Shorts? At the Oscars? If anyone could make them work it would be the English actress, who sported a black pair beneath a voluminous gray-white Valentino couture gown made more edgy by her mini bangs and septum ring.Can we have this dance?Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesPaul Mescal: The Most Flared (Pants)!The internet’s boyfriend looked refreshingly retro and ready for prom in his white Gucci dinner jacket, complete with a rose on the lapel, and flared black trousers.A shape shifter, Lady Gaga always surprises.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesLady Gaga: The Most Poker Faced!The singer and actress kept it relatively simple in a sheer black Versace gown straight off the runway. (Days before the Oscars, Gigi Hadid modeled the dress at the brand’s show in Los Angeles.) And instead of incorporating red meat into the look, she went with a red lip.Getting better and better every year.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAngela Bassett: The Most Purple!The actress’s snake-shaped necklace and soft wavy hair were two elements of a regal look that was anchored by a flowing Moschino gown in a purple shade that Ms. Bassett described as “the color of royalty.”Don’t let the sweetness fool you.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAllison Williams: The Most Killer!Like the A.I. humanoid robot she shares the screen with in “M3GAN,” the actress slayed the Oscars carpet in her sheer crystal-encrusted dress by Giambattista Valli, which she topped with a billowing pink satin coat.A winning shade.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDwayne Johnson: The Most Ballet!“Ballet pink” was how the actor described the color of his double-breasted Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo jacket, which he said had a wool base that brought out the piece’s “masculinity.”She went all out with one leg and one arm out.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesCara Delevingne: The Most Rosey!No red carpet, no problem. Thanks to the model and actress, who wore a scarlet one-shoulder Elie Saab dress with a high slit, the color was not totally absent from this year’s awards ceremony.Calm after the storm of “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesStephanie Hsu: The Most Spacious!“I am wearing Valentino Haute Couture and it is giving ‘taking up space,’” the actress said of her strapless ball gown, which she paired with simple — if not sparkly — jewelry and side-swept hair in loose waves.A look that says: Go your own way.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesSarah Polley: The Most Comfortable!Though the screenwriter and director of “Women Talking” may prioritize dressing practically — “I don’t ever like to be cold, and I don’t like my feet to hurt,” she said of her outfit on the carpet — her ruffle-trimmed shirt suggested that she appreciates playfulness as well.No risk of this dress blowing up over a subway grate.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAna de Armas: The Most Marilyn!It reportedly took 1,000 hours to make the petals that formed the skirt of Ms. de Armas’s silvery Louis Vuitton gown. In it, the actress looked as much like Marilyn Monroe, whom she portrayed in the film “Blonde,” as any others who have recently tried to channel the Old Hollywood icon.Oceanic.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHalle Bailey: The Most Disney Princess!Of the many princess dresses on the carpet, the singer’s poufy aquamarine Dolce & Gabbana gown arguably stood out the most. Why? Because of the buzz surrounding her role playing a Disney princess, Ariel, in the forthcoming live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”Schwing!Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHarvey Guillen: The Most Twirl!The shape of the actor’s brocade Christian Siriano suit jacket was matched only by his beautifully swirled hair shellacked into shiny waves.No matter where he goes, there he is.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesLenny Kravitz: The Most Lenny!The rock star showed up to perform at the Oscars looking as fine as ever in a low-cut satin Saint Laurent top with lots of necklaces layered over his exposed chest. When you have a working formula, as he does, stick with it.Stella Bugbee, Sadiba Hasan, Callie Holtermann, Madison Malone Kircher, Anthony Rotunno and Wilson Wong contributed reporting. More

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    Why Oscar Attendees Were Wearing Blue Ribbons

    The Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro and the nominated actress Cate Blanchett were among several participants at the Academy Awards on Sunday who donned blue ribbons in support of refugees who fled their homes to escape war, conflict and persecution.As part of the #WithRefugees initiative, the United Nations Refugee Agency invited del Toro, Blanchett, best actor nominee Bill Nighy, “All Quiet on the Western Front” director Edward Berger and “Triangle of Sadness” star Dolly de Leon to wear the ribbons.Blanchett, one of the agency’s Goodwill ambassador, said that when she met with refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Bangladesh and Britain, she was struck by the similarities she shared with them rather than their differences.“What I love about film is the way it draws us into compelling human themes to uncover the connective tissue that binds us all,” Blanchett said in a statement.The pins were also present at the BAFTAs, where Colin Farrell, Daryl McCormack and Paul Mescal, among others, sported the ribbons. More

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    A Conductor’s Battle With a Classical Music Gender Barrier

    Claire Gibault has spent a lifetime fighting sexism and forging a path in a male-dominated profession. Her next targets: pay gaps and age discrimination.This article is part of our Women and Leadership special report that profiles women leading the way on climate, politics, business and more.The baton-waving bully conductor played by Cate Blanchett in “Tár” has earned a series of Oscar nominations and captivated audiences worldwide. That may be, in part, because of her novelty: Until recently, conducting was almost exclusively a male profession.The French conductor Claire Gibault has spent a lifetime battling that gender barrier. In 2019, she co-founded La Maestra, a biennial international competition for female conductors in Paris that draws more than 200 contestants from some 50 countries.“Giving confidence and visibility to the talented women who are emerging as orchestral conductors is a cause La Maestra will continue to champion with commitment and passion,” said a news release inviting contestants for the next competition, in March 2024. The competition, founded with the Philharmonie de Paris, awards prizes of 5,000 to 20,000 euros ($5,300 to $21,400) to finalists who are provided numerous musical opportunities, too. Ms. Gibault also founded the Paris Mozart Orchestra in 2011, one of France’s few female-led orchestras.Born in 1945 and raised in Le Mans in northwestern France, where her father taught music theory at the conservatory, Ms. Gibault was studying violin when she discovered conducting and persuaded the conservatory to teach it.She went on to make classical music history by becoming the first woman to conduct a performance at La Scala in Milan (where she was an assistant to her mentor, the late conductor Claudio Abbado, who was then La Scala’s music director). She also was the first woman to conduct the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Asian Actors: A record number of actors of Asian ancestry were recognized with Oscar nominations this year. But historically, Asian stars have rarely been part of the awards.Hong Chau Interview: In a conversation with The Times, the actress, who is nominated for her supporting role in “The Whale,” says she still feels like an underdog.Andrea Riseborough Controversy: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why the “To Leslie” star’s nod was controversial.The Making of ‘Naatu Naatu’: The composers and choreographer from the Indian blockbuster “RRR” explain how they created the propulsive sequence that is nominated for best song.Ms. Gibault, 77, has been busy and much in the news lately, especially with the Academy Awards on March 12. She discussed her career, her views on “Tár” and sexism in classical music in a phone interview from Paris. The conversation was translated from French, edited and condensed.Why did you decide to set up the La Maestra competition?In 2018, I was the only female jury member of a conducting competition in Mexico. There were such sexist attitudes on the part of certain jurors that I was shocked. One man on the jury even said that women were biologically incapable of being conductors, because their arms were naturally turned outward to hold babies. Whenever a female contestant came up in the competition, this man would cover his face with his jacket, close his eyes and plug his ears. One female finalist who was very musical and very talented received as many votes as a young man to whom the jury gave the first prize. I found that very unfair.The competition in Mexico was a trigger for me. I was furious. When I got back to Paris, I met with a patron, Dominique Senequier, [founder and] president of the private investment company Ardian. I told her that a lot of female talents were invisible, and that it would be interesting to do something for them. She encouraged me to set up a prestigious competition for female conductors and said she would finance it.The International Conductors Competition La Maestra, at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2022. The three finalists, with bouquets from left, are Beatriz Fernández Aucejo (3rd Prize, ARTE Prize), Joanna Natalia Ślusarczyk (2nd Prize, French Concert Halls and Orchestras Prize, ECHO Prize) and Anna Sułkowska-Migoń (1st Prize, Generation Opera Prize).Maria Mosconi/Hans LucasWhat impact has the competition had?The impact has been extraordinary. Female conductors are now viewed as a very modern phenomenon. Yet we have to be careful and very vigilant: make sure that it’s not just the young and attractive conductors who are being recruited. There is a flagrant degree of age discrimination in the world of classical music. For that to change, we need more women in management positions.What was your own experience as a young female conductor in a profession with almost no women?Audiences took it very well. The problem was the condescension of colleagues — of certain male conductors and of the male managers and directors of orchestras and cultural institutions. For them it was fine to hire women as long as they were assistant conductors, especially if they were very good assistants. I worked on pieces that the men didn’t want to work on, such as new compositions. I knew that this was a battle I had to wage with a smile, never complaining, never whining. That’s the way it worked.Why did you set up the Paris Mozart Orchestra?In my career, I experienced aggressive behavior on the part of musicians who made my job very hard, orchestras that didn’t want to play at my tempo. It was sometimes very difficult. I wanted to be able to choose the program. And I didn’t want to wait to be chosen.What did you think of the movie “Tár”?I found it disturbing, yet fascinating. What I like about the movie is that it’s a fable about power: how power can transform human beings, be they men or women. It’s like a Greek tragedy.Ms. Gibault co-founded La Maestra, a biennial international competition for female conductors in Paris that draws more than 200 contestants from some 50 countries.Maria Mosconi/Hans LucasDid you feel that it was about you?I don’t think we should be egocentric about it. It’s not because I’m a woman conductor that I felt directly concerned. It’s true that when you’re fighting for the cause of female conductors, it’s disturbing to see a woman who accumulates so many reasons to be hated: who takes advantage of her power, who takes drugs, who flirts with the young women in the orchestra. Of course, if a man behaved in that way, it would be a lot less shocking because we’re used to it.That kind of male behavior in classical music is now being called out. I think it’s high time for that behavior to stop. Not only is there abuse of power and sexual misconduct, but male conductors are also overpaid. That’s unacceptable given the economic crisis that the world of culture is going through.You mean the pay gap between male and female orchestra conductors?Yes, but also the pay gap with the musicians in the orchestra. And this incredible disdain that some male conductors have for the musicians that they’re conducting. We need to revolutionize this world from the inside. We need a different set of values.What do you need to revolutionize?The economics of culture. And the fact that careers are being built on notoriety, so the focus is on boosting people’s fame. There are people who are very famous and who are extraordinary artists, and others who are a little less so. I know extraordinary artists who are not famous at all.So there’s a cult of personality?Yes — for purely economic reasons. More

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    ‘Tár’ | Anatomy of a Scene

    Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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    SAG Awards 2023: Complete List of Winners, Led by ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’

    The film took the top prize, as well as lead actress and two supporting trophies. “Abbott Elementary” and “The White Lotus” were named the top TV shows.The Screen Actors Guild handed its top award for outstanding cast on Sunday night to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the hit sci-fi comedy that recently dominated the Directors and Producers Guild Awards and now appears to be a strong best picture front-runner at the Oscars. Three of the four individual acting trophies went to “Everything Everywhere” cast members, too.But will they also prevail with Oscar?The safest bet to repeat is “Everything Everywhere” comeback kid Ke Huy Quan, who won the supporting-actor trophy from SAG and has been collecting statuettes in that category all season. During Sunday’s show, which aired live on YouTube and will stream exclusively on Netflix next year, the 51-year-old Quan delivered his most touching speech yet.After rising to fame as a child actor in popular films like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Quan found few roles available for Asian actors and moved behind the camera, working in stunt choreography. Still, he paid his SAG dues every year, hoping and biding his time for the resurgence he’s finally experiencing.“To all those at home who are watching, who are struggling and waiting to be seen,” Quan said, “please keep on going because the spotlight will one day find you.”In an upset victory, Quan’s co-star Jamie Lee Curtis won the supporting-actress statuette over Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and BAFTA winner Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), suggesting that this may be the season’s most fluid acting race.“I know you look at me and think nepo baby, and I totally get it,” said a thrilled Curtis. “But the truth of the matter is I’m 64 years old and this is just amazing!”Later in the night, “Everything Everywhere” leading lady Michelle Yeoh won a crucial best-actress prize over “Tár” star Cate Blanchett, whom she acknowledged as a titan from the stage.“Thank you for giving me a seat at the table because so many of us need this,” Yeoh told the crowd. “We want to be seen and we want to be heard, and tonight you have shown us that it is possible.”Though the SAGs have honored Asian performers from TV shows, Yeoh was the first Asian woman to win best actress in a movie category, and Quan was the first Asian male actor to win for movies as well.The only film actor to win who didn’t hail from “Everything Everywhere” was Brendan Fraser, who mounted a best-actor comeback with his transformational performance in “The Whale.” Though “Elvis” star Austin Butler earned best-actor prizes at BAFTA and the Golden Globes, Fraser wasn’t expected to win at the latter show, since he had publicly accused the former Globes head Philip Berk of groping him in 2003 and had said he wouldn’t attend the ceremony. (Berk denied the accusation.)Like many of the night’s winners, Fraser spoke about the ups and downs of a Hollywood career: “I’ve rode that wave lately, and it’s been powerful and good,” he said, “and I’ve also had that wave smash me right down to the ocean floor.”SAG’s track record with the Oscars is suggestive but spotty. Last year, all four SAG winners triumphed at the Oscars and Jessica Chastain’s SAG win for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” helped her vault to the front of a wide-open best-actress category. But the year before that, only two of the four SAG winners repeated at the Oscars.But the strongest takeaway from this year’s SAG ceremony is that “Everything Everywhere,” which cost only $14.3 million and took in more than $100 million worldwide, is almost certainly headed for a best-picture victory: Of the films that earned top honors at the DGAs, the PGAs and the SAGs — that is, all three major guilds — only Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13” (1995) failed to go the distance with Oscar.When the season began, the “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan were surprised that their quirky film was generating awards chatter. But with two weeks left until Hollywood’s biggest night, the real surprise would be if anything but “Everything Everywhere” becomes the Oscars’ ultimate victor.Here’s the complete list of SAG winners:FilmOutstanding Cast“Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Leading RoleBrendan Fraser, “The Whale”Actress in a Leading RoleMichelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Supporting RoleKe Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actress in a Supporting RoleJamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Stunt Ensemble in a Movie“Top Gun: Maverick”TelevisionEnsemble in a Comedy Series“Abbott Elementary”Ensemble in a Drama Series“The White Lotus”Actor in a Comedy SeriesJeremy Allen White, “The Bear”Actress in a Comedy SeriesJean Smart, “Hacks”Actor in a Drama SeriesJason Bateman, “Ozark”Actress in a Drama SeriesJennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”Actor in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesSam Elliott, “1883”Actress in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesJessica Chastain, “George & Tammy”Stunt Ensemble in a TV Series“Stranger Things”SAG Life Achievement AwardSally Field More