07-14-2024 Baltimore's Best - Flipbook - Page 2
2
The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, July 14, 2024
HOROSCOPES
Beck has planned an orchestral tour this summer. ALLEN J. SCHABEN/LOS ANGELES TIMES 2021
CELEBRITIES
Beck tour highlights orchestral work
By Krysta Fauria
Associated Press
It has been 30 years
since Beck released his
breakout lo-fi anthem
“Loser.” In the time since
the song and its hit album
“Mellow Gold,’’ Beck has
sought to shed the slacker
image inadvertently linked
with him. The versatile,
genre-bending musician,
53, will perhaps complete
that pendulum shift this
summer as he celebrates
his love for the refined skill
and precision that goes
into performing classical
music with an orchestral
tour.
Beck has always appreciated the unique, “spiritual” potential of the
genre, thanks in part to his
composer father, David
Campbell, who helped
Beck with the arrangements for the tour, which
makes its grand finale at
Carnegie Hall on July 30.
This interview with
Beck has been edited for
clarity and length.
Q: What has it been like
preparing for this tour?
A: We get like a two-hour
run through on the day of,
but it’s the first time we’re
playing together. It’s the
first time they’re playing
the songs. But the music
is all written out, and they
play it perfectly. It’s a bit
miraculous because you’re
used to rehearsing for
many weeks or months,
and then you go out on a
tour, and then it works. But
this is sort of an instantaneous kind of magical
human experiment, where
you just bring dozens and
dozens of people together,
and then it somehow
works. It’s still a bit of a
novelty to me.
Q: How does doing a
tour like this change
how you think about the
performance?
A: It’s completely different.
For me, it’s more focused
on the singing. And typically, when we’re doing a
tour, there’s much more
production happening.
The energy is really different. It’s more of a rock
show energy, which means
that we’re all running
around, and there’s a kind
of kinetic thing happening
with everybody reacting in a more physical,
visceral way. This is just
kind of more purely about
the songs and the music.
You’re taken in by the
sound of the orchestra.
Q: Do you and your dad
feel like you have a pretty
seamless working relationship at this point?
A: Yeah, it’s fairly auto-
matic. It kind of always
was. Like anybody you’re
related to, you sort of speak
an unspoken language,
where you already know
or understand before you
have to really explain it.
Q: Can we expect new
music soon?
A: I’m making music all the
time. You know, it’s just all
about getting the time to
finish it and get it out there.
So, yeah, I have all kinds of
projects I’m working on.
Q: Will you turn this tour
into a live album?
A: You know I haven’t even
talked to anybody about
recording it. I feel like it
should be. I hope we’re
recording it or filming it
at some point. It’s pretty
special and rarefied to get
to do something like this,
and it’s not lost on me. And
also, being able to dig into
some of the deeper cuts
on my records … this is a
chance to let some of those
songs have their moment.
July 14 birthdays: Actor
Vincent Pastore is 78. Actor
Jerry Houser is 72. Actor
Eric Laneuville is 72. Actor
Jane Lynch is 64. Actor
Matthew Fox is 58. Singer
Tiny Harris is 49. Singer
Jamey Johnson is 49.
Rapper Taboo is 49. Actor
Scott Porter is 45. Actor
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is
39. Singer Dan Smith is 38.
Singer Dan Reynolds is 37.
Tarot.com
Aries (March 21-April 19):
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22):
Keeping secrets will be
challenging. You might
feel like you’re bursting
at the seams to tell other
people how you’re feeling.
Alternatively, you might
be worried that someone
else will spill a secret of
yours. Try writing down
your feelings rather than
randomly blurting it out.
There’s no point in criticizing your soul for feeling things. You might be
telling yourself that these
emotions wouldn’t touch
you if you were a stronger
person, and that’s simply
not true. Emotions aren’t
something to be ashamed
of — they’re meant to be
respected then set free.
Taurus (April 20-May
20): Issues of control are
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec.
21): How you’re feeling
could be difficult to explain
to others. You might be
changing in ways you
weren’t expecting. If someone doesn’t like what they
see, they’re going to make
their feelings painfully
clear. Thankfully, you’re
also free to ignore such
naysayers.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan.
19): Your eyes may be on
becoming apparent. Someone in your life might be
obsessing over the things
you do. No one wants to
feel like their free will is
being taken away, but at
the same time, sometimes
we make commitments
that must be honored.
Look for a balance.
You could be obsessing
over something you can’t
control. That said, someone’s emotional wounds
may need more than a
bandage from a pal. No
matter how incredibly
good your intentions, you
might end up leaving them
a bad impression. Let them
feel what they need to feel.
Gemini (May 21-June 20):
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Your routine might be
stifling. You may wonder
if there will ever be room
for you to be spontaneous.
Still, this stability isn’t all
bad. You’re allowed to be
bored, but you should also
appreciate the reliable
progress you can make.
Look for ways to inject fun
into your day.
The past might be keeping
you clutched close. Someone who’s been a staple
in your life for a long time
could have started down a
divergent path from yours.
You may have exhausted
yourself in thinking of
ways to bring them back
into your life. It might be
time to let them go.
A sense of accomplishment could lead to giving
out unnecessary advice.
You might believe that
because you’ve reached
a peak on your journey.
What worked for you is not
necessarily going to work
for everyone else. Don’t
offer instructions without
being asked.
Cancer (June 21-July
22): You’re toeing a fine
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov.
21): Personal indepen-
Pisces (Feb. 19-March
20): You’re learning to
line at the moment. The
temptation to drop hints
about something that you
shouldn’t reveal could
feel almost impossible to
resist. Don’t give in! You’re
unlikely to be the one who
spills the beans. Even so,
it’s a good idea to make
sure you’re not running too
many risks.
dence might motivate
you to move in silence. It
may be something a lot of
people are talking about.
However, this time is more
about you and what you
feel you must do. Those
who try to control the
direction your life is taking
probably mean well, but
they don’t understand.
take what you need from
lessons. You might have
been looking at the world
through a more negative
lens in the past, taking criticism as a personal attack.
This is a one-way ticket to
never getting the outcome
you want in your life. Don’t
let the first no prevent you
from ever finding a yes.
TODAY IN
HISTORY
the Sedition Act, making it
a federal crime to publish
false, scandalous or malicious writing about the
U.S. government.
In 1960, 26-year-old Jane
Associated Press
the prize, but you need
more stability to get there.
Even if you know exactly
what you want to do with
your life, there’s still some
sense of uncertainty. Other
people might doubt you
because they don’t see
your vision, so your faith
will have to be your fuel!
Goodall first arrived at the
Gombe Stream Reserve in
present-day Tanzania to
begin her study of the wild
chimpanzees living there.
In 1912, American folk
On July 14, 1789, in an
event symbolizing the
start of the French Revolution, citizens of Paris
stormed the Bastille
prison and released prisoners inside.
In 1798, Congress passed
singer-songwriter Woody
Guthrie was born in
Okemah, Oklahoma.
In 1933, all German
political parties except
the Nazi Party were
outlawed by Nazi
Germany.
In 2022, the National
Galleries of Scotland said
a previously unknown
self-portrait of Vincent
Van Gogh was discovered behind another of his
paintings when experts
took an X-ray of the
canvas.
At 70, ‘Seven Samurai’ remains in class by itself
Kurosawa’s epic has
had long influence
in movie industry
By Jake Coyle
Associated Press
Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven
Samurai” is celebrating
its 70th anniversary this
year. But despite its age,
the vitality and fleet-footed
movement of Kurosawa’s
epic is still breathtaking.
To watch it again is to be
swept along, all over again,
by its flowing action and
breadth of vision. Just as
swiftly as Kambei Shimada
(Takashi Shimura), the
noble samurai leader of the
seven, sprints this way and
that in the climactic battle,
“Seven Samurai” moves —
man, does it move. It flies
through rice fields and
down wooded pathways.
Kurosawa’s camera doesn’t
anticipate where the action
is running so much as chase
headlong after it.
For many of its admirers,
“Seven Samurai” has likewise been a kind of pursuit.
It’s not that Kurosawa’s
movie is so elusive — it’s
a fairly straightforward
tale that states its meaning plainly. Its mystery is
more the kind reserved for
a grand monument whose
existence seems as unfathomable as it is undeniable.
“Seven Samurai,” a
207-minute epic about a
16th-century farm community that turns to a band
of samurai to defend itself
from marauding bandits,
has seemed to always be
here. It’s about as lodged
in movie canon as possible. Any beginner list for
world cinema probably
includes it. In the every-decade Sight and Sound poll
of critics and filmmakers,
it has slid but not much.
In 2022, it ranked No. 20,
fittingly right alongside
“Apocalypse Now,” whose
director, Francis Ford
Coppola, is one of Kurosawa’s most devoted acolytes.
Coppola and his contemporaries, like Martin Scors-
Takashi Shimura, left, and Yoshio Inaba are among the stars of“Seven Samurai,” Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film about a 16th-century farm community. JANUS FILMS
ese and George Lucas,
worshipped Kurosawa.
Scorsese once described
“the shock of that level of
mastery” when he encountered Kurosawa’s movies
in the 1950s. Later generations of filmmakers have
had similar reactions. Alexander Payne called “Seven
Samurai” a thunderbolt
that changed his life. After
seeing it as a young man, he
said to himself, “I will never
climb a mountain that high,
but I want to be on that
mountain.”
“No one has come near
it,” the critic Pauline Kael
wrote years ago — a judgment that still holds.
This summer, timed to
the 1954 film’s 70th anniversary, a new restoration
of “Seven Samurai” is playing in theaters, starting
in New York recently and
now expanding around the
country. It’s a chance to
revisit a stone-cold classic
in all its big-screen glory.
Affection, of course,
isn’t universal for “Seven
Samurai.” Some quarters of critics will always
prefer Yasujirō Ozu or
Kenji Mizoguchi. Kurosawa’s appeal in the West
has always been in part
because he, himself, was
steeped in Hollywood
genre films. Kurosawa,
who made “Seven Samurai” after the masterworks
of “Rashomon” (1950) and
“Ikiru” (1952), was influenced by John Ford’s films.
Westerns, in turn, took
after Kurosawa’s masterpiece, beginning with the
1960 John Sturges remake,
“The Magnificent Seven,” a
film that took the American title from the initial U.S.
release of “Seven Samurai,”
for which Toho Studios cut
50 minutes.
The influence of “Seven
Samurai” can be seen
everywhere — from the
sideways wipe transitions
of “Star Wars” to Pixar’s
“A Bug’s Life.” And, given
how many movies since
have taken more superficial approaches to its
band-of-warriors-assemble narrative, a pessimistic
view of “Seven Samurai”
could lament it as a forerunner to today’s spectaclefirst, big-budget movies.
Shot in 148 days spread out
over an entire year, “Seven
Samurai” was at its time the
most expensive Japanese
film ever made and one of
its most popular at its box
office.
But “Seven Samurai”
shouldn’t have to pay for its
paler imitations. Watching
Kurosawa’s masterpiece
again, what’s startling is
just how much it remains
in a class by itself. You
could point to particular
elements — The choreography! The rain! Toshiro
Mifune! — but it goes
deeper than the vast sum of
its many parts.
When Kurosawa decided
to make what would be his
first samurai film, Japan
was just emerging from
postwar American occupation. The samurai film had
gone somewhat dormant
during that period, and
“Seven Samurai” would
help reestablish it.
But Kurosawa’s film,
which was written by him
with Shinobu Hashimoto
and Hideo Oguni after a
lengthy period of research,
juggles themes of individualism and sacrifice for the
common good that resonated in postwar Japan.
“Seven Samurai,” though, is
closer to movie myth than
local legend. Its ultimate
battleline isn’t between the
samurai-assisted villagers
and the bandits but lies in
the tension between the
samurai and the villagers,
who anxiously hide their
women from the hired
warriors and who, in the
end, celebrate a victory
that’s different than that of
the samurai. “In the end,
we lost this battle too,” a
surviving samurai says.
“Seven Samurai,” hopeful and tragic at once, is
less about a battle of good
versus evil than it is a
timeless soldier truth. The
samurai don’t, as the villagers do, return to normal life.
And for those that perish
face down in the mud
— moments that Kurosawa pauses to linger on, a
perspective Michael Mann
would later adopt in the
deaths of “Heat” — destiny
is particularly cruel. In this
eternally kinetic film, its
moments of stillness are
often the most profound.
