2,374 stories by "TERRY TEACHOUT"
Jean Renoir talks about La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) in an introduction to the film's 1959 re-release. He speaks in French with English subtitles. The film, originally released i…
"A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth." Thomas Mann, Essay on Freud
From 2006: It's been a long time since I paid an overnight visit to suburbia, and I happily admit to having found it pleasant. I sat on a patio yesterday morning, sipping a drink, basking in…
"The important thing for me, then, is not the 'work,' but my life. Life is not the means for the achievement of an esthetic ideal of perfection; on the contrary, the work is an ethical symbo…
Van Cliburn plays and conducts a performance of Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto, Op. 26, with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Moscow. This concert was originally telecast on Soviet…
"We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side." Tho…
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review two important out-of-town revivals, Writers Theatre's Arcadia and Repstage's Hunting and Gathering. Here's an excerpt. * * * The best reg…
Dave Dudley sings "Six Days on the Road" on TV in 1970: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)
"He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool." William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I look at a major American art museum that appears to be headed down the road to populist pandering. Here's an excerpt. * * * Where are the …
Merle Haggard and the Strangers perform "That's The Way Love Goes," by Lefty Frizzell and Sanger D. Shafer, on The Ralph Emery Show in 1995. The pianist is Iris Dement:
"Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
Neil Young sings "I Am a Child" in concert in 1978: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)
IMOGEN Oh, do not make me laugh. Laughter dissolves too many just resentments Pardons too many sins. IACHIMO And saves the world A many thousand murders. George Bernard Shaw, Cymbeline Refin…
Mrs. T has a longstanding weakness for James Bond films, so we watched Thunderball, which I hadn't seen, the other night. Midway through the film I said to her, "If this damn score doesn't g…
From 2006: But the new kind of spin that enrages me is a different proposition altogether. It's not unconscious: it's wholly knowing, a deliberate attempt to use speech not for the purposes …
"They want to be excited, and upset, and made miserable, to have their flesh set creeping, to gloat and quake over scenes of misfortune, injustice, violence, and cruelty, with the discomfitu…
Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, is going to be performed by several regional theater companies during the 2016-17 season. The first of them, the Mosaic Theater Company of Washington, …
George Bernard Shaw talks about the filming of Pygmalion in a 1939 British Movietone newsreel: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, W…
"You and I are worse than characters: we are character-actors." George Bernard Shaw, letter to T.E. Lawrence, March 7, 1927
In today's Wall Street Journal I review an off-Broadway premiere, Aaron Posner's Stupid Fu**kng Bird, and the new Broadway revival of The Crucible. Here's an excerpt. * * * It's become fashi…
Booker T. and the MGs perform "Time Is Tight" in concert in 1970. The members of Creedence Clearwater Revival are seen watching the performance from backstage: (This is the latest in a serie…
"Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
"Here's the thing about black and white. It's why I was so sad to say goodbye to it. It's not literal"it is a metaphor, automatically. And my orientation is that that's the point: a movie is…
George Balanchine's "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux," danced by Patricia McBride and Mikhail Baryshnikov. The score was originally composed by Tchaikovsky for Swan Lake but was not published until …
