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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Heti Vilaggazdasag | Outlook India | Merkur | Le Nouvel Observateur | Il Foglio | The Economist | Elet es Irodalom | Die Weltwoche | Blueprint Magazine
Heti Vilaggazdasag, 25.05.2006 (Hungary)
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences
is under critical fire. Old men are flaunting undeserved privileges and
are refusing to hand over the helm to the country's younger real
scientific elite. Literary academic György C. Kalman sides with the criticism. "There are subtle methods, for example labels like 'emeritus' or 'honorary member'
to ease burnt out, no-longer effective or plain lazy scientists from
important positions. But there are also members of the Academy who were
never any good because they joined for political reasons. The
Academy missed the opportunity to settle accounts with them in 1989. At
that time it was more important that nobody felt persecuted. And now
fifteen years have passed with no resignations. It is high time to start reconsidering the fate of the Academy members."
Almost all the bishops of the Reformed Church were secret police informers, writes the newspaper Mozgo Vilag. The article is unfortunately not online, but it did launch a debate. The publicist Norbert Izsak is surprised
that the Church is still "unsure about how to judge the former secret
police informers among its ranks: Should they be honoured or condemned
for the compromises they made? ... And church-goers are at a loss as to
what constitutes acceptable behaviour in the days before 1989. For some of them, the bishops of the time are heroes,
because they had brilliant ecclesiastical careers which involved
'putting up with a lot'. Others accuse them of having made unprincipled
compromises."
Outlook India, 05.06.2006 (India)
R. K. Mishra documents the case of the actor Aamir Khan, whose latest film "Fanaa"
the local official of North-West Indian Gujarat as well as film
distributors and cinema owners are refusing to screen, after the actor
expressed criticism of the Bharatiya Janata Party. In an interview Khan seemed unperturbed: "I had said that people killed in Godhra and its aftermath were not Hindus or Muslims
for me. They were Indians, and whoever was responsible for the carnage
was anti-Indian and anti-national. If that was the reason for this
(ban), so be it.... The issue here is of the concept of democracy. If
the people of Gujarat are annoyed with me, they have the choice not to
go to the theatre, not to see my film, not to support me. But it's
wrong for any organisation to use its might to force them into it."
Merkur, 01.06.2006 (Germany)
The philosopher Christoph Türcke defends blasphemy against its angry critics, even if he himself sees the Muhammad cartoons as a victorious western sneer "more imperial than subversive".
"There is no doubt blasphemy is not on a par with enlightenment. But
enlightenment sometimes looks like the spitting image of blasphemy.
Ridicule bores, when it touches the black, deeper than any other form
of criticism. Where lengthy processes of presenting proof often fail,
sometimes a single joke, a satire, a cartoon can expose the vanity, the pomposity, the arrogance
of ruling authorities. Ridicule is cynical, where it makes the sad
risible. It is elucidating wherever it instantly brings out what is
risible, distorting if necessary to the point of recognition.
Criticism without ridicule is toothless, cannot get a proper hold, is
not meant earnestly. Which is why religious criticism in the spirit of
enlightenment could do nothing else, if it was serious in its intent,
than every now and then to insult the religious authorities and the
feelings they foster. Sporadic ridicule is part of the impetus of the
attack."
Le Nouvel Observateur, 29.05.2006 (France)
To mark the publication of a new book by essayist Stephane Zagdanski ("De l'antisemitisme", Climats), the Nouvel Obs publishes a discussion between the author and lawyer Theo Klein,
a leading member of the Jewish resistance during World War II. For
Zagdanski, anti-Semitism is common to all epochs and civilisations:
"Take a very recent example, the murder of the young Jew Ilan Halimi in
Paris by a suburban gang. Their motive was that Jews
allegedly have a lot of money, and always stick together. For me
there's not the slightest difference between that and the statement in
Marx's book "On the Jewish Question," that money is the jealous god of the Jews. Even if the murderer Youssouf
Fofana never read Marx, he has the same deluded
reasoning under the surface." Klein answers by recommending calm self-assurance.
"For me, a Jew who defines himself purely in terms of the Shoah, which
he didn't experience, and Israel, where he doesn't live, fails to grasp
the essence of the Jewish identity. And it's these people who are
the most sensitive. If Jewishness is truly something spiritual for
someone, then he won't get all worked up at every anti-Semitic idiocy."
Il Foglio, 27.05.2006 (Italy)
Amy Rosenthal has met ninety-year-old Orientalist Bernhard Lewis, who sets things straight on what should have been done in Iraq: "The very first thing should have been to build up an Iraqi authority capable of assuming power. The invasion of Iraq wouldn't have been necessary at all. In the 90s there was the so-called 'Free Zone'
in the north. Around one fifth of the country, and the population,
no longer belonged to Saddam Hussein, but were controlled by Kurdish leaders
and the national congress. Something could have been done then,
but nothing happened, and a fantastic opportunity was wasted. After the
invasion, this resistance completely collapsed."
Marie Antoinette was the victim of a media campaign, writes
Siegmund Ginzberg. It all started with jealous court gossip which "spawned increasing numbers of pamphlets and caricatures". The fact
that the young king had been unable to consummate his marriage for
seven years became the source of speculation and vituperation. Wild rumours proliferated on all kinds of intimate details.
If the husband has a problem, it's only logical that the young and
brilliant wife should look around for sexual alternatives. It was
imputed she had whole cohorts of lovers, both male and female.
People said her children, the designated heirs to the throne, must have
been fathered by someone else (the chief suspect being Louis XVIth's
younger brother)." Public antipathy reached its peak right after her
beheading, writes Ginzberg, when a revolutionary pamphlet wrote: "The
tart Marie Antoinette got the death she deserved, like a sow in the slaughterhouse."
The Economist, 26.05.2006 (UK)
A year after the French and Dutch rejected the European constitution, The Economist doubts
that another year's reflection would make any sense, suggesting: "One
sensible thing that next month's summit could do is to agree to forget
the present text. That would enable the summiteers to move on to the
more fundamental questions that the constitution was supposed,
but failed, to answer: how to restore the EU's purpose (and, just as
desirable, its popularity), and what institutional changes this might
require."
Elet es Irodalom, 26.05.2006 (Hungary)
Imre Kertesz celebrates a major series of contemporary music concerts in Budapest, which has opened with works by Hungarian composer György Ligeti:
"For a long time, this name was just a word for me, shining through the
darkness of public interdictions. György Ligeti: the unattainable
source of wonderful, secretive tones. For decades his music was
banned from concert halls, music schools and radio programmes in
Hungary. Posterity will certainly ask how this country could have been
so wasteful with its talent." The concert series is the first major
project initiated by the New Hungarian Music Association (UMZE),
established in 2005 by György Kurtag, Peter Eötvös, Andras Szöllösy and others with the aim of making contemporary Hungarian music better known in Hungary.
Peter Esterhazy's overwhelming enthusiasm for football certainly helped the Hungarian literary football team
in their match against Germany last weekend in Berlin. The final result
was 0:0, but the Hungarians ran circles around the Germans, writes author Laszlo Darvasi,
who was himself on the team. "In the second half the Germans could
hardly get possession, let alone score a goal, while our team blew one heart-rending chance
after the next. We can name several witnesses, all of whom are ready to
state that our team really did play better than the German writers, who
were on average a good ten years younger." The Hungarian literary
football team, by contrast, was composed of men "with vile, obstinate
spare tires about their hips, dismal fillings in their teeth and deep
wrinkles: the authors of lamenting novels, snivelling features and other sad fiascos."
Die Weltwoche, 25.05.2006 (Switzerland)
Christof Moser travels to Entropia, a virtual universe
with 300,000 participants and annual sales figures of a very real 165
million dollars. In a gallery in New Oxford, he meeds the filmmaker Jon Jacobs,
who goes by the name Neverdie here, and has just opened a nightclub on
an asteroid for 100,000 dollars. "There are about one hundred guests
here from all over the world, the opening is well-attended. The art,
mostly abstract works of the kind Americans like best, can be bought as virtual objects for between 1,000 and 5,000 PED,
but they can also be ordered as real works. As I sit down and start up
a discussion over the internal chat system with an artist from
Budapest, for whom Entropia is now the most important sales channel,
Neverdie promptly buys 40,000 PED (4,000 real dollars) worth of virtual
pixel art, which he wants to hang in the VIP lounge of his club. Jacobs
sees it as an investment. Like the other virtual objects, pictures can
also be traded on the commodity exchange. If the demand for an artist goes up, it pays off to be among his first virtual collectors."
Blueprint Magazine, 17.05, 2006 (USA)
Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish daily which published the Muhammed cartoons last September, defends his decision as a stance against what he calls "the politics of victimology", a rhetoric concocted by the European left which he says has been cleverly exploited by Islamic radicals. "Equal treatment is the democratic way to overcome traditional barriers
of blood and soil for newcomers. To me, that means treating immigrants
just as I would any other Danes. And that's what I felt I was
doing in publishing the 12 cartoons of Muhammad last year. Those images
in no way exceeded the bounds of taste, satire, and humour to which I
would subject any other Dane, whether the queen, the head of the
Church, or the prime minister. By treating a Muslim figure the same way
I would a Christian or Jewish icon, I was sending an important message:
You are not strangers, you are here to stay, and we accept you
as an integrated part of our life. And we will satirize you, too. It
was an act of inclusion, not exclusion; an act of respect and
recognition."
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.