MODERNISM, MADNESS AND THE AMERICAN DREAM
“There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the […]
Four years ago, as part of my research for The Restless Hungarian, I embarked on an extended cross country road trip to visit structures that Paul Weidlinger engineered. Driving from West to East, I started experimenting with time-lapse photography from my car. In western Wyoming, with great cumulus clouds scudding overhead, I listened to medieval […]
Daniel Ellsberg was recently restored to popular consciousness by the movie The Post. The movie tells the story the Washington Post newspaper’s risky decision to publish excerpts from The Pentagon Papers, an exhaustive, top secret report on the United States involvement in Vietnam which completely contradicted the public narrative and justification for the war. Ellsberg […]
On August 15, 1967 – thousands attended the unveiling of Chicago’s most monumental work of public art. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was on hand to perform George Gershwin’s symphonic poem, “An American in Paris.” On the sidelines pickets denounced the event on the grounds of incomprehensibility. Chicago Mayor Daley pulled on a white ribbon and […]
When I went to interview Mira Nakashima, the daughter of the famous craftsman, George Nakashima, I had the sense of stepping into another world, completely removed from the bold urban sculptures and structures I had been documenting. A small woodland hamlet, informed by the Japanese aesthetic, is the site of the George Nakashima […]
Among the boxes I received from my family upon my father’s passing there is one that contains several bulging folders of correspondence, both personal and professional, with the French artist Jean Dubuffet. The fact that these folders were in my father’s personal files, rather than in the archives of Weidlinger Associates, is significant. Dubuffet was […]
When I was a boy my father shaped human figures out of sand on the beach in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. Sometimes I asked him to cover me with sand and shape it around my body, so that I could be a part of the Sand People family. There was something magical about this and […]
Today I meet actors in the new Restless Hungarian production office in Budapest. To make it official, Máté spells out the words RESTLESS HUNGARIAN with round magnetic buttons on our bulletin board. Sitting around a huge table, at least four people are on their phones talking in a language I do not understand. Among […]
Have you ever had a dream, something you ardently wished for, and experienced the realization of that dream in a way that far exceeded your expectations? That is what happened to me today, on the first day of shooting The Restless Hungarian recreations. Károlyi, the driver, picked me up at 7:30 AM Budapest time. I […]
This letter was written in three parts, separated by several days. It’s about scouting a dubious location…and then filming there. It is also about the man who is the voice of Paul Weidlinger in the film. Lupa beach is the tackiest place in Hungary. According to the PR, “Here you can get a true seaside […]