"Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes."
Robert Altman
The man behind such diverse and acclaimed films as Shortcuts, M*A*S*H, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Nashville and Gosford Park - Robert Altman - has died in a Los Angeles hospital aged 81.
“Maybe there's a chance to get back to ... grown-up
films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human
emotions and gets down to what people are to people.”
Robert Altman
Written by James MacGregor on . Posted in Obituary
Award-winning actor and comedian Red Buttons has died at the age of 87 He was one of the first funny men to show that comedians could also be Oscar-winning actors. He won the Supporting Actor award for Sayonara (1957), in which he co-starred with Marlon Brando as a U.S. airman who embarks on a tragic romance with a Japanese woman. He was also a quick-witted master of his craft as a comedian. A longtime fixture at Friar's Club, few there could touch him.
Buttons started out in showbiz 70 years ago as a teenage singing bellhop named Aaron Chwatt, a name that he soon swapped for one suggested by his bellhop uniform and red hair. He played a memorable role in the original Poseidon Adventure and just last year, he earned an Emmy nomination for a guest role as a patient on ER.
Written by James MacGregor on . Posted in Obituary
Actor and documentary-maker Kenneth Griffith has died at the age of 84.
He was born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire and had been a familiar face on TV and cinema screens since the 1940s, including the 1960's cult TV hit, The Prisoner.
Griffith, who died at his London home, also made often controversial films on such subjects as the Boer War - on which he was an expert - and Ireland.
Allan
Kaprow (August 23, 1927 - April 5, 2006) helped to develop the
"Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as
their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the
years, and attempted to integrate art and life by blurring the
separation between life and art, and artist and audience. He has
published extensively and was Professor Emeritus in the Visual Arts
Department of the University of California, San Diego. Kaprow is also
known for the idea of "un-art", found in his essay "Art Which Can't Be
Art".
"Happenings are notoriously difficult to describe, in part
because each was a unique event shaped by the actions of the audience
that participated on any given performance. Simply put, Happenings,
such as Household from 1964, were held in physical environments
– loft spaces, abandoned factories, buses, parks, etc. – and brought
people, objects, and events in surprising juxtaposition to one another.
Kaprow views art as a vehicle for expanding our awareness of life by
prompting unexpected, provocative interactions. For Kaprow, art is a
continual work-in-progress, with an unfolding narrative that is
realized through the active participation of the audience." (from
ArtMuseum.net)
Written by James MacGregor on . Posted in Obituary
Hollywood
cult film director and producer, Frank Q Dobbs, has died at 66. Dobbs,
a Texan who loved writing Westerns, became a legend in the Texas film
industry. He died from cancer.