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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters A time for homage
A LATE night programme on Channel Two tomorrow (to be aired at 2.00 am, Saturday), the popular Cinema x Cinema, will pay special tribute to Lawrence Olivier, whose tenth death anniversary is due this month. Documentary material on the life and works of Olivier, as well as footage from the films Hamlet and Spartacus, in which he played the lead. The programme will also pay homage to the American anguish-ridden Nobel laureate, novelist Ernest Hemingway, whose birth centenary is this year. Footage from Farewell to Arms, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Miracle on 34th Street -- all films based on Hemingway stories -- as well as documentary material discussing various aspects of the great writer's life and his contribution to world literature.
Spoilt for choice
THIS Wednesday witnesses the opening of one of the Arab world's most stimulating cultural events, the Jarash Festival, held annually in Jordan. In Jarash intellectuals and artists from all over the Arab world can be seen interacting with each other and enthralling audiences from across the social spectrum. For 18 years Jarash has been the site of a two-week series of activities in which poetry readings, literary and cultural seminars and musical performances are only a few of the highlights.
Abdel-Rahman El-AbnoudiEgypt will occupy centre stage in this year's 18th round of the festival: poet Abdel-Rahman El-Abnoudi, one of Egypt's most celebrated legends, will open the festival's poetry readings. Followed by poet Mohamed Abu Doma and the magic harp of Manal Mohieddin, El-Abnoudi will read selections from his poetry on the evening of 21 July. But if El-Abnoudi's playful rhythms and the captivating expressiveness of his Upper Egyptian voice are not enough, there will be a wide enough choice. Highlights include poetry readings by Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef and singing performances by Lebanese singer Majda Al-Roumi and Egyptian singer Hani Shakir, as well as a performance of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake by the Kremlin Ballet.
Payback (Brian Helgeland, 1999)
PAYBACK is Brian Helgeland's directorial debut. Hitherto a scriptwriter, Helgeland has co-scripted Conspiracy Theory (Richard Donner 1997), a Mel Gibson vehicle, as well as Kevin Costner's The Postman (1998) and Curtis Hanson's ace LA Confidential (1998). In Payback, Porter (Mel Gibson) is a petty hijacker whose wife, Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger), and partner, Val Resnick (Gregg Henry) team up to eliminate him: Lynn has just learned of her husband's unfaithfulness, and Val has his eye on Porter's $70,000 share in their last job, which would help pay his debt to "The Syndicate" (a colossal firm camouflaging organised crime). The film is a remake of Point Blank (1967), John Boorman's landmark in the film noir genre, which, like Payback, was also based on The Hunter, a novel by Donald Westlake. In Payback, Helgeland resorts to the bleached by-pass method -- a technique imposing diachromatic negatives above the colored film stock layers to maximally reduce colouring. By only shooting in Chicago's pre-1940s Greek Revival and Art Deco buildings, some of which were re-painted by darker colours which would fade away by the end of the filming, Helgeland succeeds in recreating a film noir atmosphere reminiscent of a cinematic era gone by. But Payback does not fully pay back its dues to the genre -- Gibson is certainly no match for the brilliant Bogart.
Payback is showing at Tiba, Geneina and Ramsis Hilton cinemas.
