Susan Sontag News

HBO presents a compelling array of timely and thought-provoking documentaries every Monday night in the second half of 2014.

HBO presents a compelling array of timely and thought-provoking documentaries every Monday night in the second half of 2014. Among the new films to debut in the weekly slot are Kate Davis and David Heilbroner's THE NEWBURGH STING, an inside look at the rarely told story of the FBI's involvement in a homegrown terror case, Jeremiah Zagar's CAPTIVATED: THE TRIALS OF PAMELA SMART, a look at the first trial televised gavel-to-gavel and the media circus surrounding it, Steve Buscemi's A GOOD JOB: STORIES OF THE FDNY, showing what it's like to work in one of the most demanding fire departments in the world, HUNTED: THE WAR AGAINST GAYS IN RUSSIA, the searing story of a group that terrorizes gay men and women, and a holiday family special SAVING MY TOMORROW: KIDS CARE FOR THE PLANET, spotlighting young environmental activists.

THE CONDUCT OF LIFE traverses the volatile relationships and status woes of Orlando, an ambitious climbing lieutenant commander, his vigorous and trusting wife, Leticia, and their collection of servants, friends and/or prisoners. In this dark, gritty exploration of how people live complicit with an improvident government, we witness five characters use sex, violence, power, class struggle, and their own humanity to feed The Beast.

THE CONDUCT OF LIFE traverses the volatile relationships and status woes of Orlando, an ambitious climbing lieutenant commander, his vigorous and trusting wife, Leticia, and their collection of servants, friends and/or prisoners. In this dark, gritty exploration of how people live complicit with an improvident government, we witness five characters use sex, violence, power, class struggle, and their own humanity to feed The Beast.

The Conduct Of Life traverses the volatile relationships and status woes of Orlando, an ambitious climbing lieutenant commander, his vigorous and trusting wife, Leticia, and their collection of servants, friends and/or prisoners. In this dark, gritty exploration of how people live complicit with an improvident government, we witness five characters use sex, violence, power, class struggle, and their own humanity to feed The Beast.

THE CONDUCT OF LIFE traverses the volatile relationships and status woes of Orlando, an ambitious climbing lieutenant commander, his vigorous and trusting wife, Leticia, and their collection of servants, friends and/or prisoners. In this dark, gritty exploration of how people live complicit with an improvident government, we witness five characters use sex, violence, power, class struggle, and their own humanity to feed The Beast.

The Conduct Of Life traverses the volatile relationships and status woes of Orlando, an ambitious climbing lieutenant commander, his vigorous and trusting wife, Leticia, and their collection of servants, friends and/or prisoners. In this dark, gritty exploration of how people live complicit with an improvident government, we witness five characters use sex, violence, power, class struggle, and their own humanity to feed The Beast.

The 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, and presented by AT&T, announced the winners of its competition categories tonight at a ceremony presided over by Pat Kiernan and hosted at the Conrad New York in New York City. The Festival runs through April 27, 2014.

The coming weeks offer the opportunity to hear two stunning film scores by Laura Karpman, a composer who brings to her music feverish imagination, impeccable musicianship, complexity, unbridled joy, and fearlessness.

The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), presented by AT&T, today announced the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections

Through the pairing of the exhibitions Goya: The Disasters of War, and Steve Mumford's War Journals, 2003-2013, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts offers two powerful artistic portrayals of conflict and life in a combat zone.

La MaMa will present Teatro delle Albe of Ravenna, Italy in the American premiere of 'Noise in the Waters' (Rumore di acque) today, January 30 to February 16.

Through the pairing of the exhibitions Goya: The Disasters of War, and Steve Mumford's War Journals, 2003-2013, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts offers two powerful artistic portrayals of conflict and life in a combat zone.

Through the pairing of the exhibitions Goya: The Disasters of War, and Steve Mumford's War Journals, 2003-2013, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts offers two powerful artistic portrayals of conflict and life in a combat zone. In The Disasters of War, the eminent Spanish painter and printmaker Goya graphically depicts the ravages of war as a means of expressing his horror with humanity's capacity to inflict harm, whereas the contemporary American artist Steve Mumford takes a more journalistic approach to his paintings of 21(st) Century combat. Both exhibitions will be on view in the Frist Center's Upper-Level Galleries from February 28 through June 8, 2014.

La MaMa will present Teatro delle Albe of Ravenna, Italy in the American premiere of 'Noise in the Waters' (Rumore di acque) January 30 to February 16. The play is a dark, intense melologue (short work for voice and music) written by Marco Martinelli on the tragedy of migrants in the Mediterranean, based on true stories collected and conceived by Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari. It is performed by actor Alessandro Renda and multi-instrumentalists Enzo and Lorenzo Mancuso. Supported by Amnesty International and lionized by Italian critics, the piece protests the indifference of Fortress Europe to the everyday tragedy of refugees from Africa, who have perished for years in the Strait of Sicily on fruitless sea voyages to escape massacres and starvation in their homelands.

RosettaBooks has released three Oscar Hijuelos works as eBooks, including The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, for which he was the first Latino to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1990, Our House in the Last World, and The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien. Oscar Hijuelos recently died at age 62, a huge loss to American literature.

City Lights Booksellers & Publishers announces November 2013 events.

Spartacus is like camp. Not summer camp, but Susan Sontag camp, who wrote in that brainy, immortal essay , 'Camp helps account for the fact that opera and ballet are experienced as such rich treasures of Camp, for neither of these forms can easily do justice to the complexity of human nature. ' This could easily describe Spartacus, which, for all its breathtaking dancing, is reminiscent of a silent movie that could have starred Ramon Novarro, Theda Barra, Lillian Gish and Douglas Fairbanks Senior. To my knowledge, the only Spartacus on film is the 1959 version starring Kirk Douglas who, if he had been known by his birth name, Issur Danielovitch Demsky, would have been thrown to the lions along with the other slaves accompanying Spartacus.

Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage charts a new direction for one of America's best-known living artists. Unlike her staged and carefully lit portraits made on assignment for magazines and advertising clients, these photographs were taken simply because Leibovitz was moved by the subject. The exhibition, including 78 photographs, taken between April 2009 and May 2011, will be on view at the Columbia Museum of Art October 4, 2013 through January 5, 2014. The CMA is the only exhibition presentation in the Southeast. Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage is an evocative and deeply personal statement by a photographer, whose career now spans more than 40 years, encompassing a broad range of subject matter, history and stylistic influences. The work shows Leibovitz at the height of her powers and pondering how photographs, including her own, shape a narrative of history that informs the present.

Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage charts a new direction for one of America's best-known living artists. Unlike her staged and carefully lit portraits made on assignment for magazines and advertising clients, these photographs were taken simply because Leibovitz was moved by the subject. The exhibition, including 78 photographs, taken between April 2009 and May 2011, will be on view at the Columbia Museum of Art October 4, 2013 through January 5, 2014. The CMA is the only exhibition presentation in the Southeast. Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage is an evocative and deeply personal statement by a photographer, whose career now spans more than 40 years, encompassing a broad range of subject matter, history and stylistic influences. The work shows Leibovitz at the height of her powers and pondering how photographs, including her own, shape a narrative of history that informs the present.