Among other things, “On the Waterfront” (1954) is a glove story. Walking near the river, on a cold day, Eva Marie Saint drops a glove. Marlon Brando picks it up and puts it on. He unwraps a stick of gum. After a while, she tugs the glove from his hand. Contact is made. She goes and stands by an iron railing. He says, “You don’t remember me, do you?” Just before she replies, we hear music: woodwind solos, with the clarinet leading the way. “I remembered you the first moment I saw you,” she says. Strings join the woodwinds. Brando chews gum, walks off, turns, and beckons, calling out, “Come on.”
The music, unobtrusive yet edged with romantic encouragement, is by Leonard Bernstein. It’s the only score that he wrote directly for the movies. If only he had written more. (“On the Town” and “West Side Story” sprang from the theatre and, for many listeners, lost a jolt of energy when they arrived onscreen.) In truth, given his influence on so many realms of American culture—as a composer, a conductor, a lecturer, a TV presenter, an author, a New Yorker, and an activist—it’s astonishing how faint a mark Bernstein left on cinema. Maybe he feared, with good cause, that the compromises involved in filmmaking were even more grievous than those inflicted elsewhere. His most astute contribution may be “What a Movie!,” a mezzo-soprano number composed for his 1952 opera, “Trouble in Tahiti,” during which the heroine, Dinah, derides a film that she just saw (“What escapist Technicolor twaddle”), only to be swept up, despite herself, in the tropical fantasies that it purveyed.
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Denne historien er fra November 27, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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The Dark Time. - On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging. The point of contact between NATO and Russia's nuclear stronghold is the small town of Kirkenes. For years, Russia has treated the area as a laboratory, testing intelligence and influence operations before replicating them across Europe.
MIRROR IMAGES
‘A Different Man” and The Substance.”
THE FOOTBALL BRO
Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
EYES WIDE SHUT
How Monet shared a private world.
WITH THE MOSTEST
The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
On the Autobahn outside Frankfurt. November. The fields were covered in a thin sheet of snow.
TRY IT ON
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.