7 - 13 June 2001
Issue No.537
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 June 2001 Issue No.537 |
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Death of the Greek
THE MEXICAN American film icon Anthony Quinn (b 1915) died on Sunday in a hospital in Boston, not far from his living quarters in Bristol, Rhode Island. Of the 130 or so films for which he is best known, Michael Cacoyannis's Zorba the Greek (1964), in which his portrayal of novelist Nikos Kzantzakis's intuitive and ingenious peasant Zorba, earned him a worldwide following; for some critics, Quinn never went beyond this performance. Prior to Zorba, Quinn presented himself convincingly as an Arab in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), opposite Omar Sherif. Yet it was his subsequent collaboration with filmmaker Moustapha Akkad that confirmed his reputation among Arab and Muslim viewers: as Omar Mukhtar, a hero of the Libyan liberation struggle in Lion of the Desert (1979), and as Hamza, the Prophet Mohamed's benevolent uncle in The Message (1977), Quinn demonstrated sustained vigour and renewed insight. For many Arabs, Quinn's came to be the only recognisable image of Omar Mukhtar. Quinn's widely celebrated portrait of a barely disguised Aristotle Onasis in J Lee Thompson's The Greek Tycoon (1978) also dates from this period.
Anthony Quinn in Lawrence of Arabia
Born Anthony Rudolph Oaxaca in Chihuahua, Mexico to an Indian mother and an Irish father, Quinn spent his childhood in Los Angeles where his father did manual work in the movie industry. His acting career started after he apprenticed himself to the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who advised him to train as an actor the better to communicate effectively -- a skill indispensable to architecture. By the time he embarked on his brief stint in the theatre -- leading to contacts in the movie world -- Quinn had worked as an evangelist musician-street preacher and a prize boxer, among other jobs. His first film performances took place in 1936. By the late 1950s he had won two Oscars -- for Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! (1952) and Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life (1956) -- and made his directorial debut in 1958. He collaborated with the greatest names in movie making from Marlon Brando to Federico Fellini, from Rita Hayworth to Gina Lollobrigida, commanded triumphant careers on Broadway, television and as a painter and author, producing several volumes of autobiography. His last role was that of a Mafia chief in Martyn Burke's upcoming release, Avenging Angelo.
Hebrew repercussions
IN THE wake of playwright Ali Salem's expulsion from the Union of Egyptian Writers last week -- the culmination of warnings issued by various Egyptian syndicates to members engaging in normalisation with Israel -- the campaign against Arabic fiction in Hebrew translation reached another pinnacle as novelist Ibrahim Abdel-Meguid, who initially approved the publication of his works in Hebrew even as he maintained his anti-normalisation standpoint, finally announced that he had declined the offer of the Israeli publishing house Andalus to translate one of his works into Hebrew on Friday."Arabic literature in Hebrew gives Israelis an opening to understand an Arab perspective," Yael Lerar, founder of Andalus, said in Israel last Monday, pointing out that proceeds from the sales of Arabic books translated by Andalus will be donated to Palestinians fighting against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. While insisting on her view of the project as an agent of understanding across conflict, Lerar also expressed sympathy with "Arabs who oppose normalisation on the grounds that it suggests falsely that peace exists." In the meantime Edward Said described the campaign against Andalus as a "sorry spectacle," dismissing objections to publishing Arabic fiction in Hebrew translation as sheer "ignorance." Many responded, notably in Akhbar Al-Adab: "To accept such a project," wrote senior writer Mahmoud Amin El-Alim, "is to accept a contract for normalisation in culture, the last remaining fortress of resistance, now that political and economic normalisation are implemented. The ban on normalisation," he insisted, "is subject to the implementation of UN resolutions concerning the right of the Palestinian people to its land."
The next in line
LAST week a "jabha" (front) of "ulama" (religious scholars) from Al-Azhar drafted a statement condemning Khalil Abdel-Kerim's book on the formative years of the Prophet Mohamed's life, Fatrat Al-Takwin fi Hayat Al-Sadiq Al-Amin, published recently by Miret Publications, and charging both the writer and publisher Mohamed Hashem with apostasy. In the process of petitioning support for the case against Abdel-Kerim, unidentified "Islamists" announced that they will file a complaint with the general prosecutor in order that Abdel-Kerim face trial for "denigrating religion." For his part Abdel-Kerim refused to talk until properly interrogated. Abdel-Kerim's book probes the circumstances and figures surrounding the birth of Islam, surveying the society of Mecca and the monotheistic discourse that informed it. According to the publisher, Hashem, the book is well-researched, deeply thought out and "challenges Orientalist claims and rectifies misconceptions about the Prophet's calling." The book was not published, he explained, "until it was revised by scholars of religion."Hashem considered the jabha's statement an "incitement to murder," pointing out that "the last time we heard of the jabha, it was over a similar statement, the one that signalled the assassination of writer Farag Foda by extremists years ago." He added that the extracts in the statement, which published Abdel-Kerim's address, were "denuded of their context and edited to generate this din. This is no different from what happened when Haydar Haydar's A Banquet for Seaweed was published."
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