Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Moscow Literary Lion


I saw Gleb Panfilov's hilarious film Tema [The Theme] at the NYFF after it was released post-Glasnost.

It's about a Moscow literary lion not too happy with having to toe the line. In the depths of the Russian winter he seeks out a country retreat to write only to find, to his chagrin, that everyone in the little town, from the traffic cop to the museum tour guide, is also a writer.

Immediately after seeing the film, I rang Betsy at Bomb from the payphone at Lincoln Center.

The interview with him is the first film interview that I did and the first in the book. The title is from a quote of Panfilov's,"beyond the frame of the permissible". My friend the great photographer Jimmy de Sana took the portrait of Panfilov, and it's not in the book. But de Sana's portrait of Inna Churikova, who stars in the film, is . . .


Photo copyright Jimmy de Sana.








laboring on labor day


My bedside reading right now happens to be
Max Perkins: Editor of Genius.
The book fell open at the page where Hemingway takes off for the Ambos Mundos Hotel in Havana to read proofs at his
leisure. I made it to Fire Island for four days but without the mss, so I'm back at the local café with the red pen to meet my deadline.





Photos: India Amos