Susan Stamberg

Friedkin, Who Pushed Film Forward, Looks Back

Susan Stamberg — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 07:03:00 +0000

As a kid in Chicago, director William Friedkin liked to frighten little girls with scary stories. When he grew up, he scared the rest of us with a little girl — Regan MacNeil, who is possessed by the devil in his horror classic The Exorcist.

And in The French Connection, he put knots in our stomachs with one of the great movie chases in American cinema.

When Friedkin directed these films in the 1970s, he was breaking all the rules.

In NPR's New Building, Everything Will Be Better ... Again

Susan Stamberg — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 09:11:00 +0000

Starting Saturday, Weekend Edition is broadcasting under the fourth roof that's sheltered National Public Radio. NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg has worked in all of the locations since NPR went on the air in 1971, and once again she shepherds us to our new home.

Our very first, temporary offices were at 1625 I Street, in Northwest Washington, D.C., just down the block from the Christian Science Church. No furniture at first, so we sat on the floor.

Painting 'Renoir' In Finely Detailed Strokes

Susan Stamberg — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:21:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA4pRAZQY3g

For John Baldessari, Conceptual Art Means Serious Mischief

Susan Stamberg — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 08:41:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU7V4GyEuXA

For Publicist Marvin Levy, It's All About Eyeballs

Susan Stamberg — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 05:03:00 +0000

Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln has earned 12 Academy Award nominations, including best picture and best director. Another Spielberg film — the multi-Oscar winning Schindler's List — will be celebrating 20 years since its release. These films have at least two important things in common: Spielberg and publicist Marvin Levy.

Levy started his career in New York writing questions for quiz shows. He wound up in publicity for MGM radio and TV personalities, but was lured to Hollywood in the mid-1970s.

For Film Set Decorators, Tiny Details Count

Susan Stamberg — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:05:00 +0000

Picture Rick's smoky cafe in Casablanca, Lincoln's office at the White House of the 1860s, or the Mos Eisley cantina on the desert planet of Tatooine: A production designer came up with the overall look of those movie sets. But the booze on Rick's bar or the pens on Lincoln's desk — it took a set decorator and a crew to make them look authentic and believable.

On a recent chilly winter day in the backyard of a pretty picket-fenced house in Los Angeles, one set decorator is making rosebushes bloom again.

Hollywood's 'Hooray': Hardly A Happy Hymn

Susan Stamberg — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 08:35:00 +0000

When the Oscars are handed out later this month, the ceremony will most likely be punctuated by music that has pretty much come to stand for movies and Movieland. Ironically, the composer grew up in Detroit, and the lyricist came from Savannah, Ga. — yet together they wrote the quintessential Tinseltown anthem.

"Hooray for Hollywood" was written for the Warner Brothers film Hollywood Hotel. It was a corny little "let's-go-to-Hollywood-and become-stars" movie from 1937, with some cute dialogue.

The movie didn't do much, box office-wise, but that song made it big.

Ravi Shankar, Who Brought Eastern Music To Western Legends, Dies

Susan Stamberg — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 06:00:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsuFlxxrX8k

Hopper's Lonely Figures Find Some Friends In Paris

Susan Stamberg — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:23:00 +0000

Earlier this summer, I looked for Edward Hopper's Morning Sun at its home in the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. In the painting, a woman sits on a bed with her knees up, gazing out a window. She's bare, but for a short pink slip. The iconic Hopper is a must-see, but on the day I visited, it was on loan to an exhibition in Madrid.

I finally caught up with Morning Sun in Paris, where it is on display as part of a Hopper show at the Grand Palais.

Leslie Caron: Dancing From WWII Paris To Hollywood

Susan Stamberg — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:00:00 +0000

In the 1950s, the moviegoing world fell in love with a young French ballerina and actress named Leslie Caron. She brightened the silver screen in musical films like 1958's Gigi, where she played a young courtesan-in-training who befriends a rich, handsome suitor in 1900s Paris.

When Caron played Gigi, she was a big star.

Print-Inspired Art: All The News That's Fit To Paint

Susan Stamberg — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:28:00 +0000

The print newspaper industry may be struggling, but newsprint is alive and well on the walls of a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The show is called "Shock of the News" — and it examines a century's worth of interaction between artists and the journals of their day.

A 3-foot high, three-dimensional work in one gallery looks like geometric sculpture. The big white rectangle sits on the floor, squared off at the edges.

Hopper's Pensive Lady In Pink Travels The World

Susan Stamberg — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:25:00 +0000

It's one of the ultimate images of summer: a woman in a short, pink slip sits on a bed, her knees pulled up to her chest, gazing out a window. Her hair is tucked back into a bun. Her bare arms rest lightly on her bare legs.

Edward Hopper painted her in 1952 for a work called Morning Sun. The picture has been widely reproduced for decades. But on a recent visit to its home at the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio, it was nowhere to be found.

"It's on loan right now to an exhibition," explains Melissa Wolfe, the museum's curator of American art. "It travels a lot.

India's Blackout A Reminder Of How Far We've Come

Susan Stamberg — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 09:53:00 +0000

This week, the world's largest democracy experienced the world's largest power outage. Nearly 700 million — that's more than half a billion — Indians were said to have been without power Tuesday. No air conditioning. No traffic lights. No metro system.

Most of the power is back now, but the outage had resonance for me from the long-ago years when I lived in New Delhi and experienced power failures almost as regularly as I did steaming cups of dark, sweet Indian tea.

Fifty years ago, most Indians had no electricity. Power belonged — politically and financially — to the rich.

15 Summer Reads Handpicked By Indie Booksellers

Susan Stamberg — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:34:00 +0000

Booksellers know how important a good story is — one that reaches out, pulls you in and keeps you reading late into the warm summer night.

Power Couple, Covering War (And Waging Their Own)

Susan Stamberg — Tue, 22 May 2012 07:19:00 +0000

Before Christiane Amanpour, before Ann Garrels, before Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, there was Martha Gellhorn, one of the first great female war correspondents.

From the Spanish Civil War through Vietnam, she covered every major conflict of the day. But Gellhorn's reputation as a journalist was sometimes overshadowed by her marriage to one of the great American writers, Ernest Hemingway.

HBO has made a film about Hemingway and Gellhorn, starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman.

A Museum Visit For Art Lovers With Alzheimer's

Susan Stamberg — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Many art lovers feel completely in the moment when they stroll through the galleries of a museum. That feeling was particularly true on a recent morning at the Kreeger Museum in Washington, D.C. The Kreeger runs a special program for people with Alzheimer's — seniors, their caregivers and middle school students are paired together to enjoy the art and one another's company.

The mansion turned gallery was designed in 1967 by renowned architect Philip Johnson for art collector and philanthropist David Kreeger and his wife, Carmen.

Colorful Visions At African-American Art Exhibit

Susan Stamberg — Thu, 03 May 2012 06:18:00 +0000

The African-American experience is reflected, right now, on the walls of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Exuberant dancing in Chicago. Laundry on a line in the nation's capital. A girl smiling out from her father's warm jacket — all captured in photographs, paintings and sculptures from the 1920s through the 1990s.

The show is called "African-American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond." And there is a question: Does it segregate — or at the very least compartmentalize — African-American artists?

In 'Ocean Park,' Gentle Portraits Of California Light

Susan Stamberg — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:37:00 +0000

In the late 1960s, while America was in turmoil over the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, a painter in Santa Monica, Calif., was creating a series of tranquil, glowing canvases that made his reputation and transfixed art lovers.

The Extraordinary, Ordinary Life Of Alexander Payne

Susan Stamberg — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 05:01:00 +0000

Alexander Payne watches a movie every day — or tries to, anyway. Lately, the writer and director of The Descendants has been busy going to nomination and awards dinners, in advance of Sunday's Oscar night — when the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay prizes could be his.

On a recent morning, we joined Payne at his house, up a wriggling canyon road in the Santa Monica Mountains, to see how he was spending this "in between time" — the release of a well-regarded film, the waiting until Oscar night.

The Charmed and Charming Life of Rosamond Bernier

Susan Stamberg — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:01:00 +0000

In 1947, Vogue magazine sent Rosamond Bernier to Paris, to cover European cultural life as it recovered after World War II. She met everyone who was anybody — Pablo Picasso befriended her, Henri Matisse wooed her, Alice B. Toklas baked for her.

What Makes Newton-John Get 'Physical' At The Gym

Susan Stamberg — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:52:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz9VN40nCA

Dancing Through History With First Ladies' Gowns

Susan Stamberg — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:01:00 +0000

Every four years in January, Washington, D.C., plays host to the country's biggest "prom." Inaugural balls bring out happy winners, administration bigwigs and a gown — on the first lady — that will become a part of history.

An exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History displays some of those gowns. NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg took her dance card to the show.

Powerful Portraits Capture China's Empress Dowager

Susan Stamberg — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:26:00 +0000

Intrigue! Riches! Sex! Some violence! Not the latest movie plot, but a story that lurks in the background of some 100-year-old photographs of The Empress Dowager — once the most powerful woman in Asia. The mostly black-and-white photos languished for decades in the archives of the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Now, they are on display and give a glimpse of Old China at a time when today's China is the picture of modern power.

Cixi — pronounced tsuh shee — ruled China for 43 years.

Booksellers' Picks: Catch The Year's Freshest Reads

and — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:09:00 +0000

This winter, our independent booksellers have selected books that range in subject from toasters to typeface, odd bookmarks to old Volkswagons, department stores to pasta design.

For Muppeteers, It Isn't Easy Being Invisible

Susan Stamberg — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:01:00 +0000

Sound Stage 28 at Universal Studios in Burbank, Calif., looks like any other Hollywood set — littered with wires, crew members everywhere. We pick our way through cables and cameras and stuff that would make Oscar the Grouch's trash can look tidy.

But then we head up — up a flight of wooden stairs that leads to the old set of the 1925 Lon Chaney silent film The Phantom of the Opera.