Pie in the Sky Among the oddballs and exhibitionists who clustered around Andy Warhol in the 1960's and
70's perhaps the scariest was Brigid Berlin, a chubby, motormouthed rebel from an upper-crust New York City family who relished the way her "underground" celebrity embarrassed her proper conservative parents. Her father, Richard Berlin, a friend of Richard M. Nixon and an admirer of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, ran the Hearst Corporation, which he had helped save from bankruptcy in the 40's. Her mother, Honey, was an elegant, ladies-who-lunch-style socialite of the old school.
Ms. Berlin was one of Warhol's favorite telephone companions, and she taped hundreds of hours of their conversations, some of which were adapted into a play
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That lifestyle included an addiction to speed (in the 1966 Warhol movie, "The Chelsea Girls," she played a pill-pushing lesbian who shoots up in front of the camera) as well as an eating disorder that pushed her weight to 260 pounds. Despite her obesity, Ms. Berlin often appeared nude in Warhol's movies, displaying not a trace of self-consciousness.
Excerpts from her taped conversations with Warhol and with her mother run through "Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story," Shelly Dunn Fremont and Vincent Fremont's unsettling close-up portrait of Ms. Berlin, which opens today at the Film Forum. This fascinating but somewhat repellent documentary repeatedly contrasts interviews with Ms. Berlin filmed two years ago when she turned 60 with excerpts from the mostly black-and-white Warhol films in which she radiated the aggressive ferocity of a B-movie prison
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Berlin, who lives on the East Side of Manhattan with two dogs, looks sleek and matronly at 60. But when she reminisces, it becomes clear that she retains a lust for the spotlight along with a continuing inability to edit what comes out of her mouth. As she chattily recounts a life of squandered privilege and wasted opportunity, the movie casts a bitter chill. After all her walks on the wild side, you wonder if she has learned anything at all. Not a smidgen of wisdom or enlightenment passes from the lips of a woman whose main goals in life today seem to be keeping a neat apartment and fighting an obsession with Key lime pies (one scene shows her berating herself for having given in to that weakness and gobbling three at one sitting).
Ms. Berlin emerges as someone whose life and art were determined by her own obsessive-compulsive behavior, be it consuming sweets or collecting celebrity drawings of sexual organs in a notorious scrapbook. Besides her weight, the guiding motif of her life appears to have been her controlling mother, who comes across as cold, judgmental and
she was in this stage, she was faced with much criticism and was called many
Clara Bow became a known person as an actress and as a flapper. She was named one of the very first “It Girl” and she was also named one of the very first sex symbols of the 1920’s. She impacted the 1920’s with the films she was starred in and also her figure as a flapper. A big part in the ending of her life was the illnesses she had faced and the depression she had went through in her last year. She accomplished many films in life and also faced challenges with depression and an illness. Even successful people face problems in
Immerman, R. H. Guatemala as Cold War History. Political Science Quarterly, 629. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from https://learn.uconn.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-762624-dt-content-rid-2584240_1/courses/1143-UCONN-LAMS-1190W-SECZ81-24116/guatemala%20cold%20war%281%29.pdf
Symbolism is the element that plays the starring role in this production, coyly divulging the clues necessary to illuminate the reality of her psychosis. The physical triggers of said psychosis belong solely to the room she and her husband slept in; now a playroom, it had obviously gone through many other transformations as had this woman, who despised it (nursery, gym, playroom). More importantly, it is the wallpaper that has caught and held her mind's eye.
Ganeva, Mila. 2008. Women in weimar fashion: Discourses and displays in german culture, 1918-1933. Rochester, NY: Camden House.
The increasing shortage of organs for transplant is a major issue for transplant services worldwide. Internationally, the number of patients included on the waiting lists has been increasing while the number of donors and organs available for transplantation has either not increased or increased at a much slower rate. This gap is increasing over time and results in patients spending longer on waiting lists. These patients may deteriorate or even die while waiting for a transplant. Closing the gap requires either an increased supply of organs for transplant or a reduction in the need for transplantation, e.g. through prevention of ill health. Increasing the supply of organs requires a higher number of organ donors, as well as increased utilization of available organs.
What we see is not always what is true. While watching the film, the audience is captivated by the “archival footage” shown while Polley’s family members and friends recall what kind of person her mother, Diane, was. Initially, we as the audience do not question the footage...
The complex web of half-truths and false impressions that give the diegesis of Sunset Boulevard its convolution manifests in the visual imagery and physical attributes of a house at once lavish and decaying. The home of Norma Desmond embodies the actress’s own mental disassociation and emotional fragility, displaying an outward dilapidation held separate from the intimate glamour within. The two faces of Desmond’s estate exist in a visual disparity that mirrors the former star’s own dissociation and the private delusion of celebrity and high regard in which she wraps herself. Desmond’s belief in her own significan...
Imagine it – all the rules you were raised to follow, all the beliefs and norms, everything conventional, shattered. Now imagine It – Clara Bow, the It Girl. The epitome of the avant-garde woman, the archetype of the flapper, was America’s new, young movie actress of the 1920’s. Modern women of the day took heed to Bow’s fresh style and, in turn, yielded danger to the conventional America. Yet Bow’s contagious and popular attitude came with its weaknesses - dealing with fame and the motion picture industry in the 1920’s. Despite this ultimate downfall, Clara’s flair reformed the youth and motion pictures of her time.
Cabaret provides for its audience an animated and a uniquely exciting dramatization of Berlin, Germany just before the Second World War. The story of many Germans living in an uncertain world is shown through just a few characters. Life is a cabaret, or so the famed song goes. After watching "Cabaret," you'll agree to an extent, but also realize how unsettling the assertion is. Taking place in the early 1930s, a portrait of life in decadent Berlin, is both uplifting and grim. Not your typical musical, it is comedic and dramatic, realistic, very tasteful, and ultimately thought provoking.
ogre at night for the rest of her life, but when the spell is released
Schlesinger, Stephen C., and Stephen Kinzer. Bitter Fruit: the Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. [Boston, Mass.]: Harvard University, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 1999. Print.
“An artist is never poor.” So sayeth Babette Hersant, the title character of the 1987 Danish film Babette’s Feast. Babette is a fearless woman. She is a perfect example of selfless love and devotion, and she places others before herself. This is a film that made me reexamine my faith and my place within the world.
Organ donations plays a major role in health care today. With thousands of people all across the United States in need of an organ transplant, organ donations have become a benefit. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of organ donors because of the myths and facts associated with organ donation. With many people being placed on a waitlist, there are very few people willing to be donors. In addition, factors such as complications during surgery, incompatibility between donor and recipient, and surgical procedures can inhibit the likelihood of one undergoing organ donations. Aside from the disadvantages, organ donations also has its advantages such as giving a life to a person
Many of the challenges of this era set the stage for Hitler's rise to power, but it is only with hindsight that some say the Weimar Republic was doomed from the start.” This quote helps explain that the two women had to push through one of the most difficult times in Germany’s history. The two women continued to dream, however, and turned their misfortune of being in that era into economic success. The text, “Ringl and Pit: Witnesses to the Weimar,” states, “The women discovered they could earn a living using their artistic talents in advertising, publicity, and fashion photography. Their striking photographs were praised for their unique, playful style. While some of their shots were candid, most were staged and posed. They also turned their cameras on many celebrated writers, artists, and performers of the day.” The pair used their skills and courage to carry out their venture and turn it into a full-fledged company. The hardships were not over for Ringl and Pit yet, however, as they had to press on through the escalation of the Nazi