The Banality of Feeling: A Review of "The Al-Hadji and His Wives"

Ever since the first missionaries set sail from home, Westerners have been obsessed with observing, civilizing, and writing about the “natives” they encounter. We all know the story in its modern form. White boy goes to Africa, films the lives of locals, and returns home to tell his story. His documentary goes viral online, telling the story of desperate need and issuing a cry to viewers for salvation. But in the process, films like his blur the relationship between observation and activism. From positions of power and privilege, how do we engage with the people of developing nations without falling into the cliché of the Western savior? In her documentary “The Al-Hadji and His Wives,” Harvard professor Jie Li attempts to do just this. I picked up the DVD on a whim last weekend, popped it in the computer, and munched on dhall pretzels as Li’s camera turned me unwittingly from a spectator into an armchair anthropologist, from an observer into an activist, and back again.

Kluge, Not Clooney: Two Movies to Watch Instead of "The Monuments Men"

When Matt Damon spoke at Harvard via Skype this February, he didn’t come as a repressed math genius or the talented Mr. Ripley, but rather as an American in WWII set on saving pieces of art from Nazi destruction. But the movie he was promoting, “The Monuments Men”,has been struggling to gain critical acclaim. Reviewers have complained that it tries to be Goldilocks, striking a balance between funny and serious, but ultimately comes across as inauthentic.“It’s been a bit of a dance,” director George Clooney told the online media news site TheWrap. “You don’t want to do a replica [of other films], you have to do a new version.”Part of his challenge, of course, is that “The Monuments Men” is joining a conversation that has already been going on for decades. From “Schindler’s List”to “Inglourious Basterds”, it’s easy to get the feeling that all we can say about the Nazis has already been said.

Clooney isn’t the only filmmaker who has had to contend with a constellation of blockbusters. In a very different context, German cinema after WWII had to face up to the mammoth propaganda productions of the Nazi regime itself. How was it possible to make honest movies about WWII when so much of postwar life was about forgetting and moving on?

Beyoncé is Perfect and Consumer Capitalism Knows It

When Beyoncé’s newest album came out and took everyone by surprise, I remember scrolling through the BuzzFeed rehash and marveling at how relentlessly perfect each GIF looked. If the article was a bit hyperbolic—“41 Most Unbelievably Flawless and Life-Changing Moments from Beyoncé’s New Album”—it also was not alone in its conviction that the American pop icon is a true goddess. She somehow transcends the edgy sexuality of Rihanna, the scary theatricality of Lady Gaga, and the shameless appropriations of Miley Cyrus. Perfection, above all, is a branding strategy, and it seems that Beyoncé has perfected her own cult of personality.

As an entertainer, Beyoncé is on par with Michael Jackson and Madonna, but as a pop phenomenon, we may just as easily compare her to icons like Andy Warhol and Banksy. Both of these artists are celebrated as social movements unto themselves, important more for their innovations in style than artistic technique. Silk-screening was invented around a thousand years ago, after all, and street art is at least as old as the modern city. Warhol, for example, started a movement that embraced pop culture with uncritical arms. From its humble beginnings in  the iconic Campbell’s soup can, pop art celebrated the crassest corners of American life, and along with it, all the workings of consumer capitalism.

News Has a Kind of Mystery

When "Nixon in China" premiered in 1987, it got mixed reviews. Some critics thought it was too bland; others thought it was too fluffy. And above all, the subject matter was strange. Whereas many operas are inspired by Greek mythology or exotic romances, this opera takes its cues from the newsreel, focusing on Nixon’s ground-breaking 1972 visit to Beijing and the beginning of America’s rapprochement with China. Having a man as controversial as Nixon for a hero only made the opera more complicated. Was it a satire? Were we supposed to take it seriously? Or worse yet, did the opera take itself so seriously that it became a caricature by accident?