She produced her first film on tick in 1973 and straightaway it won her a German Film Prize. Now, in 2008, Regina Ziegler is considered Germany?s most successful film and television producer, and this year marks her production company?s 35th anniversary....
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Le Point | Gazeta Wyborcza | DU | Der Spiegel | The Guardian | Plus -
Minus | Literaturen | London Review of Books | Elet es Irodalom | The
New York Times Book Review
Le point, 26.05.2005 (France)
Bernard-Henri
Levy sent a letter from Sarajevo, which did not stop him from
commenting on the "non" of the French Left, even before the outcome of
the referendum. For Levy, it is "not only absurd, frivolous and
suicidal," but also "shocking and outrageous. This perfume of national
egoism, this fearfulness on the part of the well-off who cling to all
they have, this church-spire politics, this renunciation of the
universalism that once made the noble greatness of the Left! Seen from
Sarajevo, the navel-gazing attitude with which the French discuss a
constitution they brand as 'social dumping', without ever having
listened to the 'other Europe', is especially shocking and outrageous.
We held the carrot out to this 'other Europe' and now we are indebted
to it."
Gazeta Wyborcza, 28.05.2005 (Poland)
"Poland
should make its decision on the European Constitution independently of
the French. We must make our minds up on our own, and then cast our
eyes about together with our European neighbours, to see the state
Europe is in", according to Bronislaw Geremek, member of the European
Parliament. Geremek, a former Polish foreign
minister, admits that there is no "Plan B" in case the European
constitution fails. He expresses the fear that, paradoxically, after
the "non", France will apply itself to strengthening the confederation
of the richer European countries, and that Poland will have no place in
such an alliance.
Adam Leszczynski has read Thomas L. Friedman's
praise of global free trade "The World is Flat. A Brief History of the
Twenty-first Century", and finds it hard to share Friedman's optimism.
"Alright, even if a few million Hindus join the middle class thanks to
the new economic sectors, what happens to the hundreds of millions that
don't? The rise of the few was possible because the world has become
flat – that is, technological progress has allowed Indian, Chinese or
even Polish specialists to compete with Americans. But will others also
have a chance for a better life? For Friedman they have no prospects.
If you look closer, this new economic revolution is a chance for the
lucky few."
DU, 01.06.2005 (Switzerland)
Hungarian
writer Imre Kertesz helped compile the articles in this month's DU,
which also publishes a number of texts about him, only two of which are
available online. György Spiro explains why Kertesz' merciless take on
the murder of the Hungarian Jews is unacceptable to Jews and Hungarians
alike. "His approach was never and is still not compatible with the
Hungarian mentality. Which, by the way, is not limited to Hungary. It
is unpleasant. Embarrassing. Not Jewish. Not Hungarian. Not anti-German
enough. Telling the truth with murderous irony? Who benefits from such
a thing? It's politically unusable. After all the temptations of the
20th century and the lack of any prospects for the future, people's
souls are thirsting for kitsch. So a radical novel like 'Fatelessness'
complies neither linguistically nor conceptionally with the usual tear-jerking Jewish salvific history, whose climax, whose 'extrahistorical
event' (Agnes Heller) was Auschwitz."
Kertesz' German translator
Ilma Rakusa investigates laughter in the character and work of the
Nobel prize winner who "occasionally displays the sort of pessimism
that makes Samuel Beckett look like an optimist." The magazine also
publishes Laszlo Földenyj's small Kertesz dictionary (sadly not
available online) of 10 terms ranging from Auschwitz to giving
testimony. Also included are three short stories by Kertesz published in German
for the first time, one of them an explanation to Claude Lanzmann, the
French documentary filmmaker famous for his nine-and-a-half-hour
documentary film "Shoa", titled "Why Berlin?" in which Kertesz
describes his relationship to Germany.
Der Spiegel, 30.05.2005 (Germany)
"I
can be wicked, but I don't know how to hate" the great German
literature critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (website) admits in an interview
on his 85th birthday. The conversation focusses primarily on his
dispute with Albert Speer's biographer Joachim Fest, and Fest's
attempts to make the Nazi architect and armament's minister socially
acceptable. "It is wrong to think Fest is naive. His presentation of
Speer has nothing to do with good faith, but with his political
convictions and tactics, and perhaps also with his patriotism. By
selling Speer to the nation and particularly the small-time Nazis and
their followers as an upstanding if not noble Nazi, he helped them
clear their consciences. If a person with talents as extraordinary as
Speer's allows himself to become ensnared, then everybody's sins are
pardoned. The huge success of the Speer books is based on this. I do
not accuse Fest of evil intent, but there never could be, and there
never can be, talk of Speer's being ensnared. He was a dangerous
national socialist criminal who differed from Göring and Himmler only
because he had good manners."
The writer Peter Schneider's
article about the end of the Red-Green coalition is only available in
the print edition. In the face of the recent defeat of the SPD/Greens
in local elections in North-Rhine Westphalia, Schneider did briefly
feel that his team had "suffered outrageous injustice". But in fact he
knows better, admitting the federal SPD/Green government has simply not
kept its promise of lowering unemployment. And he has another thing to
pin on Gerhard Schröder. "In contrast to Tony Blair in England or Göran
Persson in Sweden, Schröder has never succeeded in wresting the
monopoly on 'higher morals' from the traditionalists in his own party
and revealing their self-important claims to fairness and justice as
group egoism."
The Guardian, 28.05.2005 (UK)
Fascinating,
gripping and luckily somewhat simplified, is how Edmund Fawcett
describes "Medici Money", Tim Parks' portrait of the Medici dynasty.
Fawcett praises Parks' way of first spinning out the myth surrounding
the wealthy, artistically inclined family before rebutting it. "His
overall message is sparklingly clear: whatever else you have heard
about the Medici, politics, art and banking did not really mix."
Plus - Minus, 28.05.2005 (Poland)
"President
Bush will win back an important ally in Europe, Russia will lose its
most important lobbyist in the West, Chirac will lose his most
important partner in constructing a multi-polar world, Turkey will have
to wait longer for EU membership and the Chinese will have to wait
longer for the weapons embargo to be lifted." An upside-down world? No,
according to Jaromir Sokolowski in the magazine of the Polish newspaper
Rzeczpospolita. Sokolowski looks at how German foreign policy will
change under a (very probable) coalition of conservative CDU/CSU and
FDP. From the Polish point of view, a change of government in Berlin
would have one major disadvantage: the lobbying power of Germans
expelled from Eastern Europe after World War II will possibly have more
sway with a Christian Democrat government. And the CDU/CSU may well
commit itself in its electoral programme to establishing a "Centre
Against Expulsion" in Berlin. "We hope that in the name of a true
German-Polish reconciliation, Angela Merkel will not allow young
Germans and young Poles to be burdened with these historical disputes,"
writes Sokolowski.
Literaturen, 01.06.2005 (Germany)
The
main focus of this edition is dedicated to Brasilian writer Paolo
Coelho who is worshipped by his readers and ridiculed by the
critics as "a philosopher for horoscope readers". Hanna Leitgeb met
this "modern Hermann Hesse" and attempts to defend his honour. Because
behind the kitschy new-age facade, Coelho has turned out to be the
greatest populariser of Nietzsche, he is a writer who understands
"spiritual ego-strengthening as political groundwork" without wanting
to let the treasure of the insight dry out as mere metaphor.
"Everything that has a symbolic aspect must also have a physical
aspect, otherwise you get nowhere. Some readers are disappointed at the
end of the 'The Alchemist', that the shepherd boy actually finds a real
treasure. But when you set out to find a real treasure, then you should
return home with one."
London Review of Books, 02.06.2005 (UK)
The
topic of US estate tax might sound as dry as a bone, but Michael Graetz
and Ian Shapiro's "Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing
Inherited Wealth" is, according to David Runciman, "one of the most
interesting books about politics, and power, and the way the world is
going, that you are ever likely to read." Why? Because it is a "mystery
story (...) about how the repeal of a tax that applies only to the
richest 2 per cent of American families has become a cause so popular
and so powerful that it has steamrollered all the opposition placed in
its way". For Runciman, "in the face of an endless readiness on all
sides to heed the unmediated voice of personal experience, it has
become harder to sustain the bigger picture needed for any plausible
defence of progressive politics. This shifts politics, inexorably, to
the right."
Elet es Irodalom, 30.05.2005 (Hungary)
György
Spiro's novel "Captivity", which takes place in the Roman Empire of the
1st century, is being hailed as the literary sensation of the upcoming
Budapest Book Festival. Spiro tells in an interview how the book came
about. "I didn't want to know how Christianity originated, but what the
world looked like in which it not only came into being but also
triumphed incredibly fast. ... Politically, economically and
intellectually, the Roman Empire of the 1st century was very similar to
our world. That was a real surprise to me. The empire was in its
infancy, it was a time of growth, a well-constructed, well-organised
and tolerant world. And yet frenzy broke out, because the people sensed
something intolerable."
The New York Times Book Review, 29.05.2005 (USA)
That
The Nation has survived for 140 years is thanks to obsessive people
like Victor S. Navasky, who has now published his memoires "A Matter of
Opinion" (first chapter). Thomas Powers is enthralled: "But it is the
fate of The Nation, and of feisty magazines, that concerns Navasky
here. His account of what it takes to keep them going is wonderfully
complete, a kind of primer, detailed as a county road map, on the
practical, political, economic and diplomatic challenges of running a
money-losing magazine by persuading men with millions to maintain a
literary pulpit for a scribbling rabble mad about everything, while
somehow convincing the oft-provoked patrons to bite their tongues."
RSS
In Die Welt, Victor Erofeyev collects his thought on Solzhenitsyn's life and work. The New Republic laments the Europeanisation of American cities. In the Gazeta Wyborcza, theatre directors Monika Strzepka and Pawel Demirski are pining for the equality that neoliberalism has abolished. Prospect magazine covers the re-emergence of character in Britain. Przekroj magazine covers both Sarkozy and heavy metal, albeit in separate articles. And Roberto Saviano tells us in L'Espresso why Italy's boxers will be packing a punch with Southern gusto.
The London Review of Books finds one point on which to agree with General Franco. Rue89 asks: How anti-Semitic is the cartoonist Sine? The Wall Street Journal reports on a Dutch cartoonist who landed in jail for making anti-Muslim jokes. In the New York Times Thomas Schweich looks at myopia, corruption and poppies in Afghanistan. Al-Ahram watched the Egyptian remake of 'Cabaret'. In Espresso, Umberto Eco uses taxi drivers to justify the rise in global security. And political scientist Seyla Benhabib tells ResetDoc why we need blogs.
In the Hungarian Quarterly, Magda Szabo remembers how her first manuscript was smuggled out of Hungary and into the hands of a German publisher's reader by the name of Hermann Hesse. Portfolio portrays the new publisher of the Washington Post, Katherine Weymouth. The Financial Times portrays the editor of the New Yorker, David Remmick. In Espresso, Robert Saviano meet actors who would never join the Mafia. The Economist is amazed to see that the music industry is starting to wise up at last. And in the New Yorker, Chinese students ask why they need democracy.
"Hands off Lech Walesa!" demands Adam Michnik in the Gazeta Wyborcza. Polityka also defends the Solidarnosc leader against the hatred of the Kaczynski brothers. La vie des idees introduces a resistance programme against the dominance of English. In The Nation, Naomi Klein explains the neat rationale for pillaging Iraqi oil. Suketu Mehta encourages slum tourism in Espressso. Martina Navratilova lobs and smashes her way into the art world in the Spectator. And Elet es Irodalom can't get over the Dutch in Hungary.
In American Scholar, Yale professor William Deresiewicz sees the downside of his elite education while standing opposite his plumber. Wired welcomes in the Petabyte Age. Tygodnik Powszechny visits the "Sacroexpo" to look at camouflaged chalices. In the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith analyses the supra-Kafka. In L'Espresso, Umberto Eco explains the vocative to Italian ministerial officials. Merkur recommends that art critics take a leaf out of Theocritus' Fifteenth Idyll. And the New York Times goes out in search of children in Europe.
The New Republic portrays the last hero of Tiananmen, the surgeon Jiang Yanyong. In Tygodnik Powszechny, historian Jochen Staadt explains why Polish lustration is anything, but not a witch hunt. Polityka says Poles just wanna have fun. The Spectator fears that the Catholic Church is on the brink of civil war. Espresso portrays Italy's two most famous fugitives. The TLS reads Prokofiev's diaries. And the best English-language books of the moment, Outlook India claims, all come from Pakistan.
In Lettre International, philosopher Michail Ryklin explains how power functions. In Le Point, historian Patrice Gueniffey explains the revolutionary passion of the French. In the London Review, psychogeographer Iain Sinclair watches on as Olympic preparations destroy London's East End. In Polityka Adam Krzeminski is irritated by the Polish neo-National Democrats and the German Left. Atlantic hears the music in Rupert Murdoch's plans for the Wall Street Journal. The New Statesman remembers Austrian football hero Matthias Sindelar. Elet es Irodalom asks why we need literature?
The Economist watches the evolution of the book market. Theatre director Pawel Demirski tells Tygodnik Powszechny that Lech Walesa is a dead symbol for Polish youth. The TLS tells us why we're all geeks now. Espresso looks into the female face of India's future labour market. The New York Review of Books has the latest on the love affair between dopamine and the human brain. In Nouvel Obs anti-globalisation network Attac explains the effects of globalisation. In ResetDoc Zygmunt Bauman tells us what to do about it. And the New York Times takes us down to PigCity.
The London Review wishes Elfriede Jelinek's novel "Gier" had never been translated. Polityka provides a history of Polish anti-Semitism - in German too. In Clarin, Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava is confident that our cities will soon become pleasant places to live. In Gazeta Wyborcza, political scientist Ivan Krastev assuages ex-Yugoslavian fears that the end of the EU is nigh. In the Guardian, Ian McEwan pours cold water on apocalyptic belief. Al Ahram looks back at the history of the Jews in Egypt. And the New York Times admires Pakistan's strongest democratic weapon: men in black.
The New Humanist observes the rise of Muslim Creationism. Nepszabadsag wonders how democracy should deal with covert racism. The New Yorker introduces Dr. Fadl, a reformed terrorist and one of al-Qaeda's fiercest critics. In the New York Review of Books, the head of the Harvard library explains why the news is only a story. Caffe Europa describes the xenophobia of Italian politicians. Die Weltwoche warily watches the vicious hoodies in the new Justice video.
In the London Review of Books, Kevin Kopelson spills the beans about his plagiarism-littered path to professorship. Elet es Irodalom is green with envy over the independence of the Polish press. The Christians had it better under Nasser and Saddam Hussein, claims Coptic priest Giuseppe Scattolin in Resetdoc. In Le point, Bernard-Henri Levy spits out a colourful array of adjectives to describe the regime in Burma. And in L'Espresso, Umberto Eco analyses how the Mafia is murdering with the times.
In Eurozine the 69-year-old Catalan philosopher Xavier Rubert de Ventos admits to his growing radicality. In Nepszabadsag the 75-year-old writer György Konrad declares: remembering is rebellion. In Artforum the 84-year-old philosopher Artur C. Danto thinks about art and revolution. In The New Republic Anne Applebaum takes a hammer to Nicholson Baker's pacifist polemic "Human Smoke". In Folio Christian Demand sends out a distress signal for art criticism. And the Spectator portrays the Anglican Church's only openly gay Bishop.
In the TLS, tenor Ian Bostridge writes about music under totalitarianism. The New Yorker introduces the millionaire-nerd-led group "Intellectual Ventures". Caffe Europe describes Aldo Moro's attempt to reconcile Church and communism. Nepszabadsag and Elet es Irodalom analyse the frequently misundertood concept of "competition" in Hungary. The London Review of Books explains Thabo Mbeki's motivations for backing Mugabe. And in the Weltwoche, violinist Julia Fischer demonstrates how to put up a wall.
Literaturen searches in the giant haystack of literature on '68 for a book on equal rights. The TLS rediscovers the man who sexed the English language. In Outlook India, political scientist Kishore Mahbubani closes the lid on Western cultural dominance. The New York Review of Books looks at the dominance of the national conservatives in Putin's Russia. Le Monde des livres reports on a clash of historians over the role of Islam in the Middle Ages. The Economist fears for freedom of the press in Eastern Europe. And the New York Times portrays Egyptian author Alaa Al Aswan.