Culture

Even after Donald Trump left the White House, his name appeared in the press with enviable frequency. So the Iranian director Ali Abbasi, who made “The Sacred Spider Killer” and the TV series “One of Us”, decided to try to unravel the mystery of the former US president. He made a movie “The Apprentice”, which tells about Trump’s youth and his communication with Roy Cohn. Recall that it was this American politician was a mentor to Donald at the beginning of his political career. The role of Donald Trump was played by Sebastian Stan, who suddenly decided to switch from blockbusters to a more thoughtful movie.

As a result, after the long-awaited premiere, the hall in Cannes applauded the director for 8 minutes – a very worthy result. However, the critics and the audience were divided into two camps. And the premiere was also overshadowed by a rather loud scandal. The fact is that in one of the scenes Donald throws his then-wife Ivana on the floor and has sex with her without her consent. Naturally, many women reacted quite strongly to this scene, calling it crude. After the credits, some in the audience debated whether it was even acceptable to put such a scene in their movie.

That said, the movie itself left a double aftertaste even without that. The fact is that some people were waiting for a completely different answer to the question “who is Donald Trump”. For example, journalist Gabriel Sherman and director Ali Abbasi are sure that he was far from always like this. That is why the action of the movie starts in 1973, when Donald is 27 years old. He is a playboy and vice president in his father’s company. In the very first scene he sits and chats with a model, but his gaze is completely focused on the men in the 55th Street Club room, because they have what he craves – power.

In the end, the whole movie is built on the fact that Trump is a teenager with very natural desires, but it was Roy Cohn who made a real “monster” out of him. That’s why Jeremy Strong (he plays a politician in the movie) with the help of all his talent embodies the role of a kind of demon tempter.

It makes sense that everything in this world has a price. And what Trump dreams of is quite expensive – he may have to give up his own humanity. And if he had a slightly different father figure around him – we would know a very different Donald. But he’s surrounded by people who see the young guy only as a way to fulfill their own ambitions and improve their lives.

At the same time, Trump is not shown as exceptionally stupid – he has a lot of his own, really good ideas. And Sebastian Stan’s stunning acting and intentionally clumsy camerawork only convince the viewer of the reality of what he sees with his own eyes. So, apparently, the movie turned out to be interesting and good. Now I wonder how Donald himself will feel about it?

Arthur Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859. His inclination for literature appeared in him from an early age – he listened with interest to the stories told to him by his mother Mary Josephine Elizabeth Foley. During his college years he first began to write – at that time he was inspired by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Bret Garth. Also, Arthur had clearly read Charles Dickens and was highly impressed by his works. What other books made an imprint on the author’s later work?

“The Gold Bug,” Edgar Allan Poe.

This story is considered an early form of the detective genre for a reason. One of the heroes had to use a witty system of counting signs to learn about the location of the treasure. As a result, this particular work became the most popular during the author’s lifetime. It also influenced Arthur Conan Doyle. Do you remember the story “The Dancing Men”? Yes, it was in it that Sherlock Holmes used a very similar method of solving the cipher. And the great Soviet actor Yuri Yakovlev later played the main role in the radio play “The Golden Beetle”.

“The Light,” Bernard Hamilton.

This work, unfortunately, has not been translated into Russian. What is there, even modern Britons are quite difficult to find it – except for quite tortured and old editions. However, some works say that this is a melodrama with religious discussion and a hint of reincarnation. It is also mentioned that the novel is set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian War. Arthur Conan Doyle himself declared his love for this book back in 1899 when he participated in a series of Christmas reports on “favorite works.”

“McTeague,” Frank Norris.

This novel is based on a real murder case. So, the narrative is about the main character named McTeague. He falls in love with his patient and begins to court her. After a while they get married, but in the marriage there are a huge number of problems related to jealousy, jealousy and not the best financial situation. When it becomes more difficult for the spouses to survive, they fight a lot. We do not want to reveal all the details of this domestic drama – it is worth reading it at least for the sake of a very symbolic ending.

“The Convent and Love”, Charles Reed

Another work that was extremely popular at a certain point in history. It received excellent reviews from both foreign and domestic critics. “With his new novel, The Cloister and Love, Charles Reed has touched a special string and shown that his talent is much more serious than many had realized. He took up the historical novel and success exceeded all expectations. He immediately took a place between Walter Scott and Bulwer” – said in an anonymous review. Arthur Conan Doyle was of a similar opinion – he mentioned it in one of his articles.

Shahnur Aznavuryan (the maestro’s real name) was born in Paris – his parents were Armenian immigrants. The future musician’s father lived in Georgia, but was forced to leave there, fleeing the genocide. In Istanbul, he met Aznavour’s future mother – she was an actress. With such parents, it is not surprising that the connection with Russia remained incredibly strong. In addition, the choice of creative profession becomes logical – everyone in Aznavuryan’s house owned the Stanislavsky method.

When Aznavour was 24 years old, Edith Piaf offered him to accompany her on a tour of the United States. This offer was an important milestone in his career, opening new horizons for him and giving him the opportunity to familiarize himself with the American music scene. During the US tour, Aznavour had the chance to see and hear such legendary musicians as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. These encounters and impressions enriched his musical experience and inspired his further creative endeavors.

Edith Piaf appreciated Aznavour’s talent and believed in his potential. She remembered him as a man who fit seamlessly into the world of music and felt at home in it. Exposure to composers such as Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern, as well as American jazzmen, helped Aznavour broaden his musical horizons and develop a unique style that later made him one of the brightest stars of French pop music.

Aznavour always had beautiful songs, but the problem was the performance – the audience, to think of it, did not like his voice at all. Pierre Roche, with whom Charles worked, sang much more often. But that during the tour Edith Piaf decided to emigrate to Canada. As a result, Aznavour realized that he had to learn to sing on his own – he intensively studied vocals and, most importantly, decided to change the repertoire so that his voice organically fit into it.

Interestingly, immediately after that Charles went on tour in North America. At that time, critics met him coolly, but there was literally no shortage of spectators. With such popular love, it is not surprising that Aznavour’s career went uphill. Songs that he wrote, sang Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Liza Minnelli, Julio Iglesias and others. And the chansonnier himself managed to perform with such legends as Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Patricia Kaas.

Charles remained popular at any age because he never tried to “jump into the last carriage”. In interviews, he said: “In other words, I never try to prove to the young that I am younger than they are. On the contrary, I want young people to realize that I am from a different time. But my time was also interesting. There are things in it that are dear to me and that I think are of interest to those who are young today and don’t know them yet. I seem to have sometimes succeeded in explaining it to other generations….. But the principle is this: I invited young people to follow me instead of trying to follow them”.

Colleagues also noted Charles’ amazing work ethic. Even at the age of 90, he collected full halls. Even the centenary Aznavour wanted to celebrate on stage. He performed to the last. In 2018, his concert in St. Petersburg was postponed for a year because of health problems. True, it never took place – on October 1, 2018, Charles died.

On the same day, all the big French newspapers, without collusion, put his face on the front page, as if Aznavour was trying to say goodbye to everyone. And no one had any questions as to why Charles Aznavour became a great Frenchman – although even his parents ended up in this country almost by accident. The maestro was able to become a favorite in France because he himself deeply loved the country. “You have to dissolve into the culture of the country where you live, assimilate with it completely. I don’t mean to say that you have to renounce your roots. But in that country, in that environment in which you live, you can’t close yourself in a ghetto, even if that ghetto is only intellectual, only mental. I am a typical Frenchman, an absolute Frenchman. Which doesn’t prevent me from being a typical Armenian as well. When you have made coffee with milk, you can no longer separate the milk from the coffee,” Aznavour declared.

Poet, composer, musician, artist, writer and even movie actor – all this is about Bob Dylan, whose real name is Robert Allen Zimmerman. He became a key cultural figure of the 20th century and it is quite difficult to rank anyone with him. Of course, we could remember The Beatles, talk about The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley and Freddie Mercury. However, none of them managed to go beyond one single role, but Bob Dylan changed with the era – sometimes it is not even completely clear whether he defines the time he lives in or whether it defines him?

Robert was different – he has 39 numbered records. In his songs he appeared as a teenager with a harmonica and rather simple verses, a lonely and romantic shepherd, and then turned into a good-natured family man. Bob Dylan was constantly moving – and never stopped in his development. That’s why he’s called “the poet of the road”. And it’s the same reason why different people like very different Bob Dylan songs.

t was only in the 1990s that he finally had a more or less established image. By that time he had matured enough – he began to sing in a huskier voice, and his vocal style hinted that he already knew everything, had seen everything and had experienced everything. In his compositions, Dylan does not refer to his own past – he travels on the waves of common history and shares those stories that today’s youth can only read about in textbooks. For him, these are memories.

Critics compare Bob Dylan to America – this “patchwork” country, in which each region is unique and not like the other. The singer absorbed so much that one wonders how he was not torn by so many characters. This, by the way, was perfectly embodied in the 2007 movie I’m Not There. It brings together six stories and six very different actors, each of whom personifies a certain period of Dylan’s work.

In 2016, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature. “For creating new poetic expressions in the great American song tradition,” was the wording proposed by the Nobel Committee. Sooner or later it was certainly to be given. As much as Bob Dylan himself did not deny his poetic talent, his poems can be safely parsed in foreign philology seminars – only John Lennon’s lyrics can be called as difficult (just for the sake of interest read the original Norwegian Wood).

Of course, the singer was against it. He never considered his songs as poetry. Songs are songs. They should be listened to, not read. This is what he stated in his Nobel lecture: “Such are the songs. Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are not like literature. They are supposed to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare’s plays were supposed to be acted out on stage. The words of songs are supposed to be sung, not read on the page. And I hope that some of you will have the chance to hear these words the way they were originally meant to be heard – in a concert or on a recording, or however people listen to songs nowadays.

Dylan’s songs were not just listened to – they were listened to in a way that other artists never dreamed of. Just imagine, his songs were covered by the greatest artists of their time – Elvis Presley, for example, sang Tomorrow Is A Long Time, and Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door by Guns N’ Roses seems to have become more famous than Bob Dylan’s original version. Even legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix was impressed and released his own version of All Along The Watchtower. This shows that Bob Dylan’s songs are so talented that they are extremely successful even in other music – they do not lose their cultural value. And not every composer can boast of that.

Saturday night, stars gathered on the Côte d’Azur to celebrate the closing of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Elle Fanning was one of the first to appear on the carpet. The actress almost always shows interesting and elegant bows, and this time was no exception. She wore a stunning Gucci floral maxi, complemented it with minimalistic makeup and left almost no jewelry, so that all the attention remained on the dress.

Eva Green almost dazzled the photographers – she managed to show a lot of stunning dresses, but the most spectacular one, apparently, saved for the closing. The outfit embroidered with metallized sequins looked simply incredible. We should also mention the beauty look – we have already missed such hairstyles.

Demi Moore, of course, caused a storm of emotions, appearing in a black maxi with a mind-blowing cut and a bow. Let us remind you that this decoration is one of the most trendy in the current season. The coquette style, apparently, is not going to easily give up its place on the fashion Olympus.