Richard Armitage tangentially related

Links to articles that had some connection to Richard Armitage or his career, at least in my mind. There were a lot again, all of a sudden.

Collateral attractions / degrees of separation:

• Interview with Zoe Kazan about her new play.
• Jon Bernthal’s opinion of Kevin Spacey.
• Also on Spacey: Best commentary I’ve read on his “outing” statement.
• Five years after the incident that inspired Yaël Farber’s Nirbhaya, little has changed in the Indian prosecution of rapes.
• Recent profile of Mike Bartlett.

Berlin Station:

• re: Brad Winters’ apparent view that it’s okay to free Germany from the legacy of the past, a short article about how exactly the AfD (model for the PfD) seeks to do that. Note that this speech was held at the Kyffhäuser — the mythological resting place of Frederick Barbarossa, a medieval Holy Roman Emperor (a German), known as one of the most important of the medieval kaisers, said to be not dead but only sleeping, waiting to help his nation out in its hour of greatest need. (Note that so far no one has noticed this happening.) This location is not coincidental. A monument was built there by the nineteenth century German imperialists, then co-opted by the Nazis. And I have to tell you — in 1997 I went there on an excursion with the German research group I worked with — we were actually to see the Tübke Peasants War mural in Bad Frankenhausen, but the profs really wanted to make this slight detour. The profs who led the group were talking enthusiastically about their boyhood trips to the monument in the 30s and 40s — precisely when it was a Nazi stronghold. Yes — this is what “taking back history” means to the AfD — a revival of Blut and Boden, Nazi race thinking, and all the horrors associated with those things. If you want to know why I’m repelled by Winters’ thinking about shades of grey in Berlin Station 2, this article gives a good sense of the reasons that his interview should have shocked us all. The right wing of the AfD holds its annual meeting there because they want to send a message.
• What’s actually happening in the US Department of State. (Hint: it’s the appointment of zany conspiracy theory ambassadors) Remember the prospective US ambassador to Germany hasn’t even been nominated by the administration yet. The US embassy is being run by the chargé d’affaires.

Fan life:

• The way that tumblr and Twitter reduce complex ideas to rebloggable aphorisms. This happens in our fandom, too. Although I appreciate the work done in bringing his thoughts to wider audiences, it can turn into a problem when fans don’t read the quotes in their original contexts.

Professional stuff:

• The Triump of the Quiet Style. On the eclipse of the theatrical writing style used by Mike Bartlett, with the rapid-fire dialogue. I actually think Armitage might be better off, in terms of his core acting skills, with the quiet style (although he did well with the tempo of the Bartlett piece as well).
• On the relationship of acting to sexual harassment, one of the better commentaries I’ve read on this topic: “In the arts, professionalism can be interpreted as a sort of inauthenticity, and those who can’t control themselves are seen as more ‘instinctive’. To be dangerous is to be artistically daring, particularly for men. Sometimes I wonder if being in the ‘feelings business’ pushes weak men to over-compensate with swearing, stunts and sexual conquest. [¶] … ‘Showbusiness’, ‘the casting couch’ – the phrases have a grubby glamour. And what gets hidden is that there are personal vulnerabilities and emotional truths disclosed in artistic work, and those can’t help but be bonding. There’s a sort of mental mating that can spill over. But that’s not what we’re discussing. We’re talking about power, the abuse of power, the power of abuse. But if we’re not honest about what this gets mixed in with, we can’t expose the problem.”

~ by Servetus on November 9, 2017.