Highly recommended, 'Mike Wallace' and 'Maiden' documentaries

 

 Mike Wallace is Here, a film by Avi Belkin/Photo by Magnolia Pictures

I don't know why I enjoy documentaries so much, but Mike Wallace is Here, Maiden, and Echo in the Canyon are the last three movies I've seen, and I've loved them all.

Mike Wallace is Here is the story of his news life beginning with acne (?) and his attempts to cover it up with radio broadcasting. From radio and advertising, his career soars, told in clips and interviews and separated by too many lines of color and flashbacks which are confusing at times.

I cannot imagine this film appealing to anyone under age 45 ("Who's Mike Wallace?") and certainly not to anyone who is not a news junkie since it's "hardcore," a glorification of his news life.  Omitted are his harassment of females at CBS and Mr. Wallace's racist remarks, but the content of the last half of the 20th century is valuable for American modern history and journalism classes.

It would have been better with subtitles of the names of all those he interviewed and the years of the interviews.  Most members of the audience likely can identify all, but in some cases, immediate identification would have helped and saved brain time. (Stick around at the end for the credits and IDs.)

Who knew Putin speaks English? Some of the other celebrities included in the film are Malcolm X, Richard Nixon, Johnny Carson, John Ehrlichman, Barbra Streisand, Bette Davis (looking wonderful), Arthur Miller, Frank Lloyd Wright, Donald Trump, Ayatollah Khomeini (whose interview may have led to the assassination of Anwar Sadat), Salvador Dali (!), Larry King, and Oriana Fallaci (who's she?). His son, Chris Wallace of Fox fame, occupies just a snippet in the film, and none of Mike Wallace's four wives are screened.  Two are briefly mentioned. Also welcome would have been a note about Mike Wallace's death, when, where, and why. (He died in 2012 of natural causes.) When his son, Peter, was 19 and missing in Greece, Mike Wallace took off and found Peter's body below a steep cliff, lying on rocks in the water. His death was always intolerable pain for Mr. Wallace as it is for any parent experiencing this tragedy. I found myself wishing, wishing, wishing to see the entirety of most of the interviews (where can I go to find them?) since they were far too short, most, lasting just a few seconds.

Maiden, a Sony Pictures Classics release

On a more positive note is Maiden, about the woman, Tracy Edwards, who skippered the ship and a crew of women in the 1989 Whitbread Round the World Race (now called the Ocean Race). Clips and chronology of her story to obtain a boat and secure financing (from King Hussein of Jordan, no less, thanks to a chance encounter) make this an invigorating true-sail (could not resist). (Attention: Never turn down an opportunity to meet the great and not-so-great. Who knows where it will lead?)

Current interviews with the sailors and flashbacks to their 1989 roles make this a strong show and impetus for girls (and women) everywhere!  A must for feminist history classes.  Ms. Edwards and her crew became the first all-female staff to finish the race, winning several legs of the 33,000 mile journey which takes nine months to sail around the world.   Depression suffered by Ms. Edwards and Mr. Wallace receives considerable attention in both films.   Maiden's story is much easier to follow than the Mike Wallace film since Maiden's early clips are presented mostly in chronological order, while in Wallace, we go back and forth from here to then and back again and then up and down. (His hairstyle, color, and thickness help to keep viewers afloat.) Original music by John Piscitello (Mike Wallace) and Rob Manning and Samuel Sim (Maiden) is electrifying, capturing the moods and tensions of both films. Take a happy hanky to Maiden for its enthusiastic ending with audience applause. patricialesli@gmail.com

 

Sultry and sexy define Corot's women at the National Gallery of Art

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Interrupted Reading, c. 1870, oil on canvas mounted on board, The Art Institute of Chicago, Potter Palmer Collection  The wistful subject seems to ask:  "Must you bother me?  I am so sad.  Please go away."  It is wonderful to see in the exhibition, Corot: Women, several samples of women reading. About two-thirds of women were literate in France at this time, compared to "virtually all the [American] women born around 1810," says a Colonial Williamsburg report which seems hard to believe..

Today is the last day to see these ladies (and one man) before they leave the National Gallery of Art and go their separate ways after appearing together for the first time in more than 100 years in a show, Corot: Women.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, The Lady in Blue, 1874, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des peintures.This view of the woman's back gives one pause to question the meaning. She seems another unhappy soul with muscular arms planted on the piano as if to sigh: "I am tired of this party and want to leave." It is unusual that the artist left her arms bare.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,The Repose, 1860, reworked c. 1865–1870, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection). Corot generally tried to disguise the faces of nude models, unlike other artists, but Repose came out near the peak of his career which was beginning to wane. According to the catalogue, Repose  was intended to enliven Corot's artistic image and to show he was more than a landscape artist.

You walk through the galleries and almost feel like you are peering or intruding upon the models' innermost thoughts as they brood, study, read, and welcome no one.  Happiness is absent, but what would a painting be without conflict or turmoil? They are like books with climax, the peak of interest.

The models look askance, in that direction, this way, down, seldom at the viewer.  One has been bitten by a viper.  In another, a voyeur gets his comeuppance when his hounds chase and kill him.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Agostina, 1866, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection. One of Mr. Dale's favorites which hung in the Dales' New York apartment. The Dales' gifts to the National Gallery of Art form the basis of the Gallery's impressionist and post-impressionist collections, according to the catalogue.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,Young Woman in a Pink Skirt, c. 1845–1850, oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Her blouse hangs suggestively low.  Might she be a girl of the street? 

The subjects languish over props, with their heads in their hands, positioned sideways, almost sad, some suffering "melancholia."  

Although Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) was chiefly known for his landscapes, this exhibition is a study in portraiture.

He painted these 44 works between 1830 and the 1870s and kept the works in his studio, most not exhibited publicly during his lifetime.  

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Young Woman at The Fountain, c. 1860, oil on canvas, Musée d'Art d'Historie de Genève.
 
Many of the women are dressed in colorful costumes, an appreciation of apparel Corot gained from helping his mother in her dress shop and observing his father's work as a draper.  Corot was a textile apprentice until age 26 when he persuaded his parents to let him study art full time. He never married, he said, because he only wanted to concentrate on his art.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Wounded Eurydice, c. 1868–1870, oil on canvas, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of Mrs. Egil Boeckmann. Before she dies from a viper's bit, Eurydice rubs her foot. Her husband, Orpheus, chases her to the underworld, but disobeys an order and looks back, to lose Eurydice forever.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Saint Sebastien, c. 1850-1869, oil on canvas. Musee des beaux- arts de Lyon. Perhaps for balance, the exhibition includes a single male "nude." He is nude? That is the description in the "nudity" gallery of the Corot show.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Diana and Actaeon (Diana Surprised in Her Bath), 1836, oil on canvas. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection.This is based on Ovid's Metamorphoses when Actaeon stumbles upon Diana bathing and she turns him into a stag who is killed by his own hounds.  (Take that, you voyeur!) A close-up from Diana and Actaeon (Diana Surprised in Her Bath).

 

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Bacchante with a Panther, 1860, reworked c. 1865–1870, oil on canvas. Collection of Shelburne Museum, Anonymous gift in memory of Harry Payne Bingham.. Is this weird or what? Even the National Gallery of Art cannot explain it. A nude woman shows a dead bird to a child on a leopard (?) The label says it looks like a mythological study, however, no one can identify the study, if it is.  The painting almost looks like two separate works.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Springtime of Life, 1871, oil on canvas. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of Mrs. Erasmus C. Lindley in memory of her father, James J. Hill. Springtime reminds me of the poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674):

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, 
   The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
   When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
   Times still succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
   You may forever tarry.

Like Corot, it took Mary Morton, the National Gallery's curator and head of the department of French paintings, some convincing of "higher authorities," (in this case, the National Gallery director, Earl A. Powell III) to do the show, which had been cruising in her mind for 20 years.

A color catalogue of 180 pages written by Ms. Morton and others is available.

 Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, c. 1850 by Victor Laisné or Lainé (1830-1911),
(1853) Histoire des artistes vivants, français et étrangers, peintres, sculpteurs, architectes, graveurs, photographes : études d'après nature, Paris: E. Blanchard, pp. 27 Retrieved on 5 March 2013/Wikimedia Commons

What:  Corot: Women

When: Today at the National Gallery of Art, open 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.

Where: The main floor of the West Building between Third and Ninth streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. On the Mall.

Admission charge: It's always free at the National Gallery of Art.

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215

patricialesli@gmail.com

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Washington warmly welcomed Chilean President Michelle Bachelet

 President of the Republic of Chili, Michelle Bachelet, speaking at the Wilson Center, September 22, 2016/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Last week at the Wilson Center, the president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, spoke passionately about the importance of women's participation in politics and in all aspects of life.


"Women can be true agents of social change," she said to a SRO crowd of about 500.

"Women feel they have to be perfect.  They don't have to be perfect."

President of the Republic of Chili, Michelle Bachelet, speaking at the Wilson Center, September 22, 2016/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Ms. Bachelet is the first woman elected to the presidency of Chili and the first person to be elected twice to the position since 1932 (2006-2010 and 2014-present). On July 6, 2016, Reuters reported the lowest approval ratings ever recorded for Ms. Bachelet: 22%, primarily due to reforms she is trying to implement, rising unemployment, and a financial scandal involving her son and daughter-in-law.

The ratings didn't seem to bother Ms. Bachelet in Washington, for she spoke confidently, at ease in surroundings of mostly supporters and the curious.

Wikipedia errs when it claims she speaks English with "varying levels of fluency." I was expecting a halting, stilted presentation, however, her delivery of remarks contradicted the online source. 

President of the Republic of Chili, Michelle Bachelet (center) with Cynthia Arnson (left) and Gwen Young at the Wilson Center, September 22, 2016/Photo by Patricia Leslie

She spoke the day after the 40th anniversary of the murder of former Chilean ambassador and exile Orlando Letelier (1932-1976) at Washington's Sheridan Circle, but not a word was said about him or the event.

She did mention rights.
 
After enduring decades of totalitarian rule under the leadership of Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006) whose henchmen killed Letelier, "Chile is a country where people are more aware of their rights.  For young people, it's all about rights. Children of democracies are much more demanding."

Ms. Bachelet is also the president of the Pacific Alliance, a trade pact of Chile, Columbia, Mexico, and Peru, a group she frequently cited, whose nations are committed to achieving gender economic equality. 

"Women do make a difference," the president said, and make "a more just society." For "women and men to enjoy the same rights," she said, "we have a long way to go."

She praised India where half its engineers are women. "They want their girls to study."

"Many women don't like politics because politics is hard; sometimes it's harsh and they prefer to do other kinds of stuff."

She credited the French twice for the aphorism: "When a woman goes into politics, the woman changes.  When women go into politics, politics change." The audience applauded.

"I am convinced women have a key role ," she said more than once.

"There is no progress when women are not active in decision making."

Without naming him and to light disapproval from the crowd, she mentioned the 2005 remark by then Harvard University president Larry Summers who opined that "innate differences" likely keep more women from excelling in science. 

Ms. Bachelet focused her remarks solely on the empowerment of women at the session which was co-sponsored by Smith College. 
 
Businesses which give money to politicians can create a conflict of interest, she said.

No stranger to Washington, she lived in Bethesda for two years while growing up when her father was a Chilean defense attache, and later, she attended the National Defense University.

She spoke from the podium about 15 minutes before she sat down and joined Wilson Center's Cynthia  Arnson, director, Latin American Program, and Gwen Young, director, Global Women's Leadership Initiative and the Women in Public Service Project, who asked her questions, and then later, Ms. Bachelet also answered questions from the audience, a member who asked her about the impeachment and removal from office this year of Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff.  

Ms. Bachelet called Ms. Roussef a "very good friend of mine" whom Ms. Bachelet frequently telephoned during the ordeal, she said.

"The Brazilian constitution permits that [impeachment].  I don't like what happened," and to applause:  "That's all I can say. It's easier to impeach a woman [than it is] a man."



Chili has good child care:  "The care of children is the responsibility of all society." 


"I think a country which cares about its people" cares about child care. "If Chile can do it, I think the U.S. can do it, of course," she said.
  
A woman said she was "mortified" by the treatment she believes Hillary Clinton receives from the press, and Ms. Bachelet agreed: "I am also 'mortified' by how the media has treated Hillary."

During her own run for the presidency, Ms. Bachelet said, "I was the 'fat one.'"

Women are perceived to be weak "because they don't shout or use," and she struggled for the English term, "swear words."

To applause from the mostly female audience, she said: "No one asks a man if he is capable."  

Yesterday was President Bachelet's 65th birthday.

Power to the prez!

patricialesli@gmail.com

A trifle of women at the National Portrait Gallery

The exhibit, A Will of Their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of Achievement in the Early Republic at the National Portrait Gallery/Patricia Leslie.  That's Mrs. Murray centered on the wall, and Phillis Wheatley's book in a case in front of the Murray portrait.

In an alcove at the end of a hallway at the National Portrait Gallery is a tiny exhibit, A Will of Their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of Achievement in the Early Republic which features "eight [although a guard and I could only find seven] remarkable women from the early days of this nation."

As you enter the Portrait Gallery on F Street and turn right on the first floor, you'll spy in the distance, the portrait of Judith Sargent Murray surrounded on adjacent walls by the other women in the show. 

 

John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820), Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois. Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund.  Mrs. Murray wrote “On the Equality of the Sexes” in 1790, arguing that women were just as capable of intellectual accomplishment as men and that an education would liberate women from economic dependence. In 1798, Murray became the first woman in America to self-publish a book: The Gleaner.

Where was Margaret Todd Whetten (1739-1809) whom I discovered later on the website?  We could not find her.
Does it matter?

Margaret Todd Whetten whose home in New York City housed American spies during the American Revolution.  President George Washington sent her a "thank you" letter.

On the upcoming 100th anniversary of the suffragists' march down Pennsylvania Avenue which will be commemorated by another march March 3, 2013, one would think the Portrait Gallery could have done better.

Especially since one of its Smithsonian sisters, the National Museum of American History, is one of the presenters of the Suffrage Centennial Celebration.

The Portrait Gallery says its exhibit is about "the struggle for women’s rights," and these "portraits showcase the important achievements of women during this period. Together, they also demonstrate the early efforts to gain gender equality in America."

Prithee, how did Theodosia Burr Alston (1783-1813) "demonstrate the early efforts to gain gender equality in America"? 

She was well-educated and the daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr and wife of wealthy landowner Joseph Alston, and that qualifies her to be "a woman of achievement"?  Oh, and she was a "hostess" and lost at sea.  I guess I am missing something.  A struggle by the Portrait Gallery to come up with meaningful women of the era from its collection, perhaps.

John Vanderlyn (1776-1852), Theodosia Burr Alston, 1802, Yale Library/Wikimedia Commons. This portrait is not in the show.

Of the eight portraits listed, six belong to the Portrait Gallery which helps reduce costs for an exhibition.

In checking six websites* for notable American women in history, only four of the eight women in the show are found, and they are not listed at every site:  Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818) was listed on four; Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784), three; Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1774-1821), two; and Patience Wright (1725-1786), one.

Anne Catharine Hoof Green (c.1720-1775) is also included in the exhibition.

Pages from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) by Phillis Wheatley. She came to the colonies as a slave from Africa and became the first African American to publish a book. (The white splashes in the picture are lights reflected in the glass.)
 

For women of that era, where are Molly Pitcher, Deborah Sampson, Sacajawea, and Hannah Adams?  Just asking.  Or why focus on “early women” only?

The Portrait Gallery's website says "the eight women who are highlighted here did not produce a collective movement for women’s rights, but they were important in sowing the seeds for future progress." 

 

In the meantime, I hope readers participate next month in Women's History Month and the events of March 1-3 and march in the centennial parade.  After the 1913 parade, it took eight more years before the 19th amendment was ratified, and women gained the right to vote. How long will it take to elect a woman, president?

The Terra Foundation for American Art sponsored the Portrait Gallery's exhibit and all the related publications and programs.

Whenever I visit the National Portrait Gallery, I usually stop by the second floor to see the reproduction of Augustus Saint-Gaedens's 1891 memorial to Clover Adams which her husband, Henry Adams, commissioned after her suicide in 1885. The original is at Mrs. Adams's gravesite in Washington's Rock Creek Cemetery.

What: A Will of Their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of Achievement in the Early Republic

When: 11:30 a.m.- 7 p.m. every day now through September 2, 2013

Where: The National Portrait Gallery, Eighth and F Streets NW, Washington, D.C.  20001

How much:  No charge

Metro station:  Gallery Place-Chinatown or walk 10 minutes from Metro Center

For more information: 202-633-8300

*The six websites checked were:   Women in History,   Discovering American Women's History Online,  
75 Suffragists, the Hip Forums, Important and Famous Women in America,  and American Women in History


patricialesli@gmail.com

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