Extracurricular Top Of Texas University Images

Extracurricular Top Of Texas University Images

Film Scholar Ponders Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra

In this week’s post, Mark Gallagher, author of Another Steven Soderbergh Experience (UT Press, March 2013), ponders the renowned filmmaker’s rumored retirement and discusses recent projects, including the new, much-talked-about film Behind the Candelabra…

'Gallagher on Soderbergh'

by Mark Gallagher

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is retiring. Or maybe he isn’t. His most recent work, Behind the Candelabra (2013), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21 and debuted on HBO television five days later. Those who follow news and discourse around American independent cinema, around festivals such as Cannes, or around Hollywood and entertainment industries generally may have heard about Soderbergh’s plans in any number of venues since actor Matt Damon mentioned that imminent retirement in a late-2010 interview. The artist-author-filmmaker--“director” is hardly a sufficient description--has not, as one might have imagined, retreated quietly into the shadows. Aside from both fending off and confirming the reports (with caveats), Soderbergh has been dizzyingly active in the ensuing period. He directed a play in Australia, and made a film with the cast (a film that has an IMDB listing and even earns ratings from its users, but which Soderbergh has claimed was never intended for release). He has taken up serious painting and photography. He opened a Twitter account and has composed (or perhaps is still composing) a serial novel called Glue there. He recently gave a widely discussed address at the San Francisco International Film Festival excoriating Hollywood’s present economic logic, which in his view has made films without blockbuster aspirations largely unviable for studios. And to fill up any remaining spare time or perhaps to clean out his attic, he has launched a website, Extension765, selling an eclectic mix of memorabilia, esoteric t-shirts and--why not?--imported Bolivian liquor.



And lest we forget, since his impending retirement was announced, he made somewhere between four and six features (the number varies depending how we define those works). The pandemic thriller Contagion (2011) did solid business for Warner Bros., though the minimalist action film and independent Haywire (2011) did not ignite on its winter 2012 release. Summer 2012 was far kinder to Soderbergh’s career, with the modestly budgeted male stripper drama Magic Mike (2012) delivering huge returns. (The $7 million film was #26 at the U.S. box office in 2012, edging out The Bourne Legacy, which cost in the neighborhood of the $125 million.) This past winter saw the release of another topical thriller from Soderbergh, the pharmaceutical whodunit Side Effects (2013). Side Effects did lukewarm business, but Soderbergh had been part of another major success the previous summer, the megahit (and de facto independent release) The Hunger Games (2012), on which he served, remarkably if to quite limited fanfare, as second-unit director, handling background scenes while director (and longtime friend) Gary Ross worked with the principals on the logistically complex production.



Side Effects may stand as Soderbergh’s last studio release, at least for the foreseeable future. But it was certainly not his last motion picture. As mentioned, his most recent outing as director, the Liberace biopic and troubled romance Behind the Candelabra, debuted at Cannes on May 21. Is this his last film? A better question might be, is it a film at all? In the U.S. it premiered (and continues to play) on cable channel HBO, with no theatrical release planned. IMDB still classifies it as “film” rather than “television,” though, and it will earn a big-screen release in various European countries, Australia, and more in the weeks to come. (In Britain, where I live, it opens on June 7, distributed by the independent Entertainment One.)



Behind the Candelabra makes a wonderful capstone to Soderbergh’s screen work to date. In its subject and aesthetics, it extends many of the interests on view in his previous film and television output. And as a hard-to-categorize work, it demonstrates further Soderbergh’s remarkable ability to bypass conventional exhibition categories altogether. (In the bygone era of 2006, some will recall, Soderbergh’s micro-budget feature Bubble riled exhibitors thanks to its simultaneous multiplatform release in theaters, on DVD, on video-on-demand, and on the HDNet Movies subscription TV channel; this once controversial experiment continued with the two-part Che (2008) and with The Girlfriend Experience [2009]).

As a text, Behind the Candelabra works in compelling ways as both film and television. Its generic status as a period biopic (spanning the late 1970s to the mid-1980s) helps it sit comfortably alongside other made-for-television productions, as does its limited scale, with Las Vegas and Los Angeles its only settings (though it was partly filmed in Louisiana). On the other hand, its glitzy production design and ensemble of actors, particularly longtime A-listers Michael Douglas (as Liberace) and Matt Damon (as the pianist’s young lover, employee, and eventual adversary Scott Thorson), position it well as cinema. Its interest in the showbiz-and-spectacle milieu of Las Vegas, and Vegas’ close kinship with Los Angeles, make it legible too as a cousin of the successful Ocean’s films (2001–2007).



Behind the Candelabra also gives Soderbergh a platform for dialogues with other forms of cinema and entertainment, including stage performance (Soderbergh’s other future plans include more stage drama, this time directing a play in the U.S.), traces of intertexts such as 1941’s Citizen Kane (with Damon’s Thorson, confined in an older lover’s palatial home, echoing the bored Susan Kane), and even classical Hollywood musicals (with the concluding scene featuring a musical number that recalls 1930s and 1940s Busby Berkeley films, or perhaps the lavish song-and-dance set pieces that Broadway and other producers have staged in the ensuing decades). Its presentation on HBO even allows Soderbergh once again to play with disused company logos. The televised Behind the Candelabra opens with a version of HBO’s 1970s channel ident, just as last year’s Magic Mike had recycled the Warner Bros. studio ident of the 1970s.



Film academics, cinephiles and fans invested in filmmakers may overstate the significance, or at least the visibility, of particular creative agents. In advance of Behind the Candelabra’s debut, HBO circulated a short making-of featurette that mentioned Soderbergh exactly once, late in the segment and not even naming his creative role. Eagle-eyed viewers can see him glide by repeatedly in the segment, operating a camera but never identified, let alone interviewed. Behind the Candelabra’s promotion and publicity has focused chiefly on its subject, the flamboyant gay (but officially closeted) entertainer Liberace, and on the performances of co-stars Douglas and Damon. Beyond its possible legibility as a Soderbergh work, we may consider Behind the Candelabra as a gay movie for heterosexuals. Even as studios avowedly dismissed the project as “too gay,” it showcases a romance between two men who have resolutely heterosexual offscreen personas (and onscreen ones too, with neither Douglas nor Damon having played explicitly gay roles before). But even this camouflage is arguably characteristic of Soderbergh. Magic Mike, a heterosexual movie for gay men (and straight women), put stars Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey into G-strings (or less). And Behind the Candelabra is remarkable too for Soderbergh’s ability to draw complementary performances from his leads. Douglas plays another in a series of high-idling professionals (as in the iconic Wall Street [1987], Falling Down [1993], and Soderbergh’s own Traffic [2000]), and Damon delivers a variation on his buff everyman physicality. With numerous (if fleeting) episodes of anal sex and plenty of hot-tub pillow-talking, the pair’s relationship goes well beyond the male bonding of the Ocean’s series or Soderbergh’s other films, but it continues in the vein of stylization and casual realism that has been a hallmark of his work for the past decade or more.





Retired or not, Soderbergh still ranks highly on industry power indexes. His career--concluded, on hiatus, or speeding along--also has much to tell us about the flexibility and boundaries of screen industries and artforms. Anyone interested in multi-hyphenate chameleon-provocateur-opinionator-artists can only hope that Soderbergh remains in circulation for many years to come. 

Author John Prados on his new book, the CIA, and NSA

John Prados, author of the new book The Family Jewels: The CIA, Secrecy, and Presidential Power (September 2013), answers a few questions on the breaking news about the NSA’s current activities—and how his book foreshadowed it.

How does your forthcoming book, The Family Jewels: The CIA, Secrecy, and Presidential Power, intersect with the current breaking news about the NSA?

The stunning revelation that people all over the globe—including both Americans and citizens of many other lands, innocently phoning or e-mailing their friends and associates—are being monitored by the National Security Agency (NSA) was explicitly predicted in my book. The book also anticipated the U.S. government response: blaming the messenger rather than repairing the massive transgression against individual rights and personal freedom entailed in these NSA surveillance programs.

What specifically are you referring to when you outline the NSA’s activities?

I refer collectively here to a group of related NSA projects by the name of one of them, “Prism.” That initiative has gathered data on individuals’ use of telephones, including the point of origin, identities of people calling, time of day, duration of conversations, and numbers and locations of recipients. The NSA collection is chilling—in the single month of March 2013 the agency vacuumed up no fewer than 97 billion bits of data—and they have been at it for the better part of a decade. A related effort collects the contents of electronic messages sent from persons in the United States to foreign addressees. This intelligence program dwarfs the NSA wiretapping and surveillance efforts of the 1960s and 1970s, aimed at American citizens, which proved so controversial they were subjected to congressional investigation. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was enacted specifically to curb this kind of abuse.

Have acts such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 or other forms of oversight been at all effective in limiting these abuses?

Such reforms as were instituted in the 1978 act have been progressively dismantled, in a process that began even before 9/11. Following that tragedy, the government pulled out all the stops with the Patriot Act, plus the 2008 amendments to it. The Family Jewels shows how NSA surveillance and other domestic abuses (by the NSA, CIA, and other elements of U.S. intelligence) sparked fierce controversy in the 1970s and led to the creation of the present American system for intelligence oversight. But the security services have now replicated the abuses on a global scale, as the book documents, and they rely on secrecy to protect themselves from accountability. The Family Jewels argues that abusive actions carried out in secret create “Family Jewels,” scandals waiting to burst out and discredit legitimate intelligence operations. Congressional oversight is not enough. Prism shows the reality that has been so shrouded in secrecy.

How does the government justify the NSA’s activities? For example, has Prism been effective in preventing attacks?

Government officials point to one case in which Prism helped derail a terrorist plot, and to one other where the NSA collection assisted in the criminal investigation of an attack already carried out. This value (two cases) needs to be weighed against the chilling effect of authorities mounting surveillance of all citizens everywhere, gathering trillions of pieces of data. Proportionality is an issue. So is the open violation of the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. The Family Jewels explores the controversial intelligence activities—then and now—in detail, shows the failures of presidential control and congressional oversight, and illuminates the debilitating effects of secrecy. The book offers a way forward. The Family Jewels furnishes a guide to thinking about the central security issue of our time.

What do you think is the next step? How do we work toward a balance between gathering necessary information and protecting private citizens?

Really we’re talking about two kinds of efforts here. One is at the level of authorization and accountability. In The Family Jewels I discuss creating a mechanism for regular, periodic housecleaning—public reviews of intelligence activities by a board akin to the 9/11 Commission. If intelligence officials knew they would be obliged to answer to the American people, regularly, inevitably, in a forum they could not avoid, that would go a long way toward getting rid of abuses. The other kind of work we need is more gumshoe intelligence efforts. Prism really represents a lazy man’s device. We had a capability, so we found a way to use it. Of the two cases being cited in justifying this overreach, I’ve seen no convincing evidence that the New York subway plot could not have been broken up by more conventional means, and as for the investigation of the Mumbai attack—well, that involved a criminal inquiry after the fact. The FBI and other authorities would have had no difficulty at all in obtaining a proper warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court enabling them to explore all of that individual’s electronic communications, and thus all the material used to obtain his plea. Plus the Mumbai case had nothing to do with breaking up a terrorist plot. If that’s everything the administration can offer in support of Prism, I’d say they’re on awfully thin ice. The bottom line is that the spooks have gone way too far, that the secrecy abets their enterprise, and that it’s time for citizens to sit up and pay attention. “Big Brother” is here, today!

The University of Texas Commencement Speaker

Zeta Tau Alpha- University of Texas member Mallory Garcia
was chosen by the Dean of Students Office to be one of the university commencement speakers.
Our grads are going places!

Commencement is the final ceremony of graduation weekend where everyone gathers in front of our beautiful tower one last time. We sing The Eyes of Texas, yell “TEXAS FIGHT” and soak up our last moments before officially becoming Texas Exes. According to some people I have spoken with, it’s one of UT’s best shows of the year… and now I completely agree with them! Looking back on the entire experience, it still seems so unreal but it will forever be one of my favorite memories of the 40 Acres.

When I first received the e-mail invitation a few weeks before graduation, I was in complete shock. Had I really just been nominated to speak at this year’s Commencement ceremony? What would I say to thousands of graduates and family members? Luckily for me, I have some amazing sisters who helped me feel more excited than afraid about this incredible opportunity. I will never forget the look on Kate Onofrey’s face when I told her about my upcoming speech. Nor will I forget the excitement of Ashley Carlisle, who’s also always been one of my biggest supporters. It was through their excitement and the excitement of others that I began to find excitement in myself to overcome the nerves.

My nomination to speak at commencement came from The Office of the Dean of Students. I have worked for their office for the past two years as a Student Assistant in the Student Organization Center and as an Orientation Advisor for New Student Services. My time with DOS has brought me closer to the university and helped make UT feel more like home. I am beyond grateful for all the amazing mentors and professionals I’ve met who work everyday to improve our experience at students while at UT. 

My experience as a commencement speaker was amazing. I spent my final week in Austin getting to know the other 6 incredible student leaders who were speaking as well. Their contributions to both the university and to their own personal education are beyond anything I could have imagined. They each had their own personal story to tell and I felt a little more connected to them after hearing their wise words in preparation for Saturday.

On Thursday, May 16 during our dress rehearsal I was able to calm my nerves by reading my speech out loud for the first time. Although it was helpful, I was reading to a bunch of empty chairs and couldn’t even fathom speaking in front of thousands of people. As Saturday approached I was excited to know that so many of my sisters would be out there listening and supporting me along with my family and friends. The fact that I was wearing this beautiful teal graduation sash, probably helped a little too J

While giving my speech I looked out to find my family and then immediately focused on the beautiful capital building ahead of me. “…..As we leave here today, I challenge all of you, class of 2013, to understand how capable you are of changing the world, one world at a time.” And just like that, it was all finished. I walked back down to meet all my sisters in line for our final procession into the Main Mall for the ceremony.

I was extremely honored to be one of the seven students chosen to represent the graduating class of 2013. UT has changed my life, which is no surprise because here at the University of Texas at Austin, 

“What Starts Here Changes The World” 

A Note to Future Me...for Father's Day

In a letter to his future self, UT Press sales representative C. J. Hoyt reveals what really makes a successful Father's Day gift—a great book! 

Hey Buddy,

Remember all those tacky gifts we bought Dad for Father's Day? The fancy dress socks. The novelty ties. That one time we gave him Stetson cologne for some reason or another. Well, that's why I'm writing you this letter. I'm guessing we have ourselves a mess of kids by now and we need to set the bar a little higher. We don't want to end up with too many socks in the drawer and smelling like a Sunday at Golden Corral on "our" Father's Day, do we? Heavens to Betsy, no! So, pay close attention.

1. First things first. Breakfast in bed. That's a given.

2. Let's face it, Future Me. We just married a vegetarian, so our barbecue intake is going to be next to nil. The best we can hope for are books with plenty of pictures.

Buy Barbecue Crossroads: Notes & Recipes from a Southern Odyssey

Buy The Salt Lick Cookbook: A Story of Land, Family, and Love

3. By the time you read this letter, I'm guessing we've sat through roughly 150 episodes of Gilmore Girls and now it's time for a detox. Maybe this Father's Day we can sit back and relax to our favorite Western miniseries Lonesome Dove. Then again, we probably don't want to be crying in front of the kids when Deets dies, so I guess we'll just have to settle for the next best thing.

Buy A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove

Buy A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove

4. Even if they do manage to get a handle on this whole global warming thing in the future, Texas will still be one hot tamale come this time of year. How about we send the kids out on the front porch to hand-crank some ice cream while we make ourselves an ice cold margarita or three and toast to a Father's Day well done?

Buy ¡Viva Tequila!: Cocktails, Cooking, and Other Agave Adventures

5. If all else fails, ask for a hoverboard. And if those haven't been invented yet, well, I see no reason in living that long anyways.

Sincerely,



Christopher J. Hoyt

Start your BBQ odyssey with Barbecue Crossroads

James Beard Award-winning author Robb Walsh and acclaimed documentary photographer O. Rufus Lovett plunged into an epic road trip from East Texas to the Carolinas to produce Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey. Armchair travelers will enjoy the enlightening journey as well as experience their discoveries through gorgeous photographs and mouth-watering recipes picked up along the way. True barbecue pilgrims, however, can also retrace their steps and find their own barbecue revelations with the Google map below.

This first leg of the journey covers barbecue locales in Texas and Arkansas, hitting legendary joints that have already received national attention and spotlighting some unsung heroes of the rapidly disappearing traditional wood-fired pit.

Disclaimer: The route linked below maps the odyssey Robb and Rufus traveled in the process of writing Barbecue Crossroads. To get the most out of this journey, we recommend buying and reading the book in full before embarking. Enjoy!

Access the Google map here: http://goo.gl/maps/5ooTi

From the book:

Our smoky pilgrimage began on a Tuesday morning in August. At our rendezvous point and first stop, my wife dropped me off and I loaded my luggage into Rufus’s Honda Element. In anticipation of the mess I would make while eating barbecue in his car, Rufus had draped a beach towel over the passenger seat. The rear of the vehicle was packed with photo equipment and lighting apparatus. After squeezing in my suitcase and laptop, I kissed my wife good-bye and the work began.


Rufus and I introduced ourselves to Jeremiah “Baby J” McKenzie, the proprietor and pitmaster of Baby J’s Bar B Que and Fish, in Palestine, Texas. But our trip got off to a strange start when he told us, “We’re out of brisket, pork, and ribs. All we got is fried catfish.”

Baby J’s had been written up in a Dallas newspaper over the weekend, and the meat had sold out. When the restaurant reopened on Tuesday morning, all they had left to serve for lunch was crispy fried catfish. I rationalized that we were going to be eating plenty of meat on our travels, so a little catfish might be a pleasant prelude.

“Believe it or not, fried catfish is pretty common in African American barbecue joints,” I told Rufus. We placed our order for fish and then went outside to visit with Baby J and look at his various cooking rigs. Baby J’s started out at a small location in Elkhart and moved to its current site on the edge of Palestine a few years ago. The restaurant building is located on a vacant lot under a water tower on the unpopulated outskirts of town. Its only neighbor, besides the giant steel ball full of water, is a fireworks stand.

A large, baby-faced black man of thirty-nine, Baby J spoke quietly, and his words conveyed a sense of wonder. I was surprised to discover that Baby J recently celebrated his tenth year as pastor at the One Way Apostolic Church of Palestine.

“I started cooking for our church suppers. Everybody at the church loved my barbecue, and they kept saying, ‘You should open a restaurant.’ So I did. I started with those catering trailers,” he said, pointing at several big barbecue trailers spread around the grass like wrecks in a junkyard. “That one caught fire, and I have to sandblast it out and start over,” he said, pointing at one giant rig with three steel doors cut into the vertical steel cylinder that constituted the pit.

He climbed the stairs to enter a larger, enclosed trailer and invited me to join him. Baby J opened the steel door of the rig and cut off a few slivers of the brisket that was cooking so I could taste his spicy seasoning. When we reemerged, a friend of his pointed out that the wooden deck on the front of the trailer was on fire. Baby J asked him to take care of it, so the man fetched a plastic bucket and nonchalantly poured water over the burning deck.

….

After our catfish lunch at Baby J’s, Rufus and I got out the map and talked about where we were heading. Rufus worried that not getting any barbecue at our first stop was a bad omen. I figured it was more a reality check. Although we had made only one stop, I could already see that it was going to be impossible to squeeze the complicated story of barbecue into the chronological account of a single road trip. There were going to be some return trips. And the narrative would require a lot of detours and flashbacks. We would follow the route traced on the map, but our explorations of barbecue culture and mythology would end up being part road trip and part mind trip. 

From Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey by Robb Walsh with photographs by O. Rufus Lovett (Copyright © 2013).

Senior Farewell

The fact that I’m a Zeta alumnus is unfathomable! PC09 was officially welcomed into the alumni world at our senior dinner on April 29th, and we graduated from UT on May 18th. These are epic moments which I never thought would actually happen to me. As a baby faced, chocolate milk loving kid at heart, I never accepted the fact that I would eventually have to leave this university utopia. After living at the Zeta house the past two years, I took a grown up step by signing an apartment lease in Dallas this week, all while dragging my feet. 

The senior dinner took place on the last Monday of the school year. Everyone was overwhelmed with projects and tests, but we made the event a priority. Our pledge class has always been particularly close, so this was a special occasion we looked forward to celebrating. We had a delicious entrée per usual, followed by a scrumptious dessert. Next, the last few senior grams were read. These letters are written by the parents of seniors as their final sendoff. I had the pleasure of reading Emma Weiss’s letter. She has been one of my best friends since the summer after freshman year, and was one of my roommates in the Zeta house this past year. Not only is she a brilliant, pre-med/business major, but she’s also one of the most caring, hilarious people you'll ever meet. I’m not much of a crier, but the thought of leaving her actually made me shed a few tears while reading her sweet letter.

Finally, the alumni led us in an oath as we committed to joining them in the alumni world. As I gazed around the room, I saw the bright beautiful faces of all the people I’m so proud to call my sisters. Women who are going to teach our future generations (Anna, Jordan, Kelli, Mallory, and Megan), our future business/technology leaders (Alex, Bailey, Bonnie, Chelsea, Gabi, Hollie, Kate, Katie, Kim, and Stacey), those who will redefine the future of medicine (Allison, Elena, Elizabeth, Emma, Heather, Jessica, Kayla, and Melissa), our future lawyers (Amanda, Ashley, Emily and Leah), our future leaders in politics (Audrey, Hilary, and Madi), and women like Anna and Erika who will eventually have their own book or TV show. I could go on forever, but blog posts are supposed to be brief from what I'm told. I am incredibly proud to enter the alumni world with these lovely ladies by my side. The memories have just begun. I have no doubt that we will all remain close friends until we’re on our rocking chairs reminiscing on how we truly did change the world….

Texas PBS Online Book Club Features Let the People In!

This month, Texas PBS, a non-profit association of the 12 Texas public television stations, will launch a new online book group devoted to Texas history. The first book chosen for discussion is UT Press’s Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards by Jan Reid.

The group will be a reader-led experience, with Texas PBS bringing in authors/experts and documentaries/artwork to create a multifaceted, educational, and interesting experience for group members. A new book will be selected each month.

Mr. Reid will join the book club for a live web chat from the Bullock Texas State History Museum on Wednesday, May 29, at 8 pm. Find out more information about this special event at www.texaspbs.org/texasourtexas/.

The book club is a part of Texas, Our Texas, a new online initiative by Texas PBS that celebrates, as their website states, “our shared history as Texans by exploring the events, cultural groups, communities and individuals that have come together over the centuries to create the state we live in today.”

 

Author David Greven's Must Watch Hitchcock

With the new series Bates Motel airing on A&E this spring, Hitchcock's seminal film Psycho is re-emerging in popular culture. The show follows a young Norman Bates and his mother in a 'contemporary prequel' to the horrific Psycho story. David Greven's Psycho-Sexual charts canonical Hitchcock films as precursors to 1970s New Hollywood films like Dressed to Kill (De Palma), Cruising (Friedkin) and Taxi Driver (Scorsese). Get your DVD players ready, because David Greven gives us some 'must see' viewing and insightful commentary to accompany his new book.



'The Essential Cold War Hitchcock'

by David Greven



Alfred Hitchcock directed, according to IMDB, 67 titles (including episodes for his anthology TV series). Narrowing down a list of the “essential” Hitchcock is an impossible task given how substantive the director’s body of work remains. So, here is a list of films that are particularly germane to the questions I raise in my book Psycho-Sexual. My thesis in this book is that Hitchcock’s films from the Cold War era onward thematize an emergent form of American masculinity that will prove to be crucial to several directors of the 1970s (in a period usually called the New Hollywood) and beyond. This Hitchcockian masculinity is defined by a tendency toward voyeurism, a push-pull attraction to the homoerotic, and an attitude toward sexuality that can be best described as pornographic. The current fascinations with surveillance in our culture—the spycam-sensibility of the present, the fears over identity theft—have their roots in the Cold War paranoia Hitchcock depicted.



Rope (1948). Two young men, lovers who share a swanky New York City apartment, kill one of their friends and stuff his body into a long, rectangular chest. They then host a dinner party, serving food on the chest with the dead body in it; the guests include the dead man’s father and the killers' former headmaster, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart). Hitchcock’s film is an acute analysis of homophobia, masculinity, women’s ambiguous relationship to gay subculture, fascist ideology, and the director’s own career-long fascination with food-sex-death imagery.



Strangers on a Train (1951) and I Confess (1953). This pair of films thematizes the “open secret” of homosexuality, simultaneously unspeakable and nearly explicit. In Strangers, Bruno Anthony’s desire to kill for Guy Haines, and to have Guy kill his father, emerges as an allegory for homosexual courtship. In I Confess, the priest (Montgomery Clift) bound by the secrecy of the Catholic confessional, is hounded by the murderer, who confesses to the priest but then proceeds to hound him for his own crime. In a culture that increasingly viewed relationships between men as suspect, these two films show a culture of repression at its breaking point.



Rear Window (1954). One of Hitchcock’s most famous films, Rear Window indexes his major concerns: voyeurism, male-female relationships, and the potential for murderous violence that lurks within the banality of everyday existence. Watch the film this time for its depiction of relationships between men—the protagonist Jeff (James Stewart) and his uneasy interactions with his war buddy Tom, now a police detective, and Jeff’s strange similarities to the villain, Thorwald, who murders his wife. Grace Kelly’s Lisa is much more than simply the girlfriend—she is a complex character in her own right who typifies the frustrated yet resilient woman of Hitchcock’s films of this period. Jeff is an early version of the pornographic male spectator that has now become so familiar; he turns the neighbors in his apartment complex into objects for his voyeuristic gaze and derives a sadistic gratification from observing them.



The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Hitchcock’s remake of his own 1934 British original about a family on a holiday whose child is kidnapped to prevent the couple from revealing what they know about a political assassination plot is one of his most important and underrated films. Doris Day’s Jo McKenna, a famous singer now married to James Stewart’s Midwestern doctor Ben McKenna, emerges as the chief protagonist of the film—her resourcefulness, ingenuity, and courage being central. The “sedative scene” is one of Hitchcock’s most emotionally wrenching. The film responds to Cold War paranoia that the straight American male could be corrupted by foreign agents by depicting its stalwart American hero’s uneasy fascination with the seductive French male spy Louis Bernard, which arouses Jo’s suspicions. The film dismantles the Cold War culture of homophobia and redomesticated femininity (making women newly wife-like and motherly after World War II) while critiquing the dominant image of the stable, happy American family.



Vertigo (1958). Voted the greatest film ever made in Sight and Sound’s latest poll, this film needs no introduction. If you watch it with an eye on the Kim Novak character’s experience of the narrative, the film becomes even richer, deeper, and more painful to watch. What is also fascinating about the film is the protagonist’s growing obsession not only with a beautiful, mysterious, seemingly doomed woman, but also with another man’s ingenious story about this woman. No other film so acutely thematizes our willingness to be seduced by narrative.



North by Northwest (1959). It’s easy to classify this wildly entertaining movie as just that, an entertainment. Yet it is one of Hitchcock’s most moving and probing films. The hero, Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant), a 50s era ad man whose personality is as blank as his middle initial, which stands for nothing. The espionage plot in which he, mistaken for “George Kaplan,” becomes embroiled allows him to find an authentic identity, ironic given that Kaplan does not exist at all. Thornhill learns to care for someone else, the double agent Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), and in the process develops a human identity. Queer theorist Lee Edelman reads the character of Leonard (Martin Landau), the henchman of the urbane villain Vandamm (peerless James Mason), as the embodiment of the queer death drive. But the real drama here is Thornhill’s identification with the endangered woman.



Psycho (1960). Hitchcock’s film is many things, but it’s perhaps especially acute as a portrait of modern despair and isolation. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) attempts to buy a marriage, stealing $40,000 to rid her lover of the debts he claims prevents her from marrying him. The sensitive, handsome young man she meets on her desperate journey turns out to be anything but her salvation. Of particular fascination in this film is Hitchcock’s doubling of masculinity—the “straight” Sam Loomis (John Gavin) and the “queer,” mother-obsessed Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). With their dark looks and builds, the men are meant to be polar opposites but are presented as eerily similar. The split masculinity of Psycho will prove to be a definitive, influential concept for the directors of the New Hollywood of the 1970s, in particular Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, and William Friedkin. Norman’s voyeuristic peeping on Marion as she undresses for the shower is the defining moment of cinematic modernity, the moment in which the male gaze as such becomes explicit film text. Less explicit, and certainly less obvious, is what motivates and results from Norman’s looking—what does he see when observes Marion undressing? What is Norman’s desire? The blankess of the male gaze in Psycho will transform into an entire body of paranoid, violent, and anguished cinema in the 1970s.



David Greven is Associate Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. His previous books include Representations of Femininity in American Genre Cinema, Manhood in Hollywood from Bush to Bush, and Men Beyond Desire. 

Sigma Chi Derby Days 2013

It’s that time of year again! As spring semester comes to a close, it doesn’t mean that the fun has to end. From April 22^nd to the 27^th, the Zetas put on their game faces and participated in some friendly competition during Sigma Chi’s 3^rd Annual Derby Days.

Derby Days is a philanthropy event put on by many Sigma Chi chapters across the country to raise money for the specific chapter’s charity of choice. The event originated at the University of California – Berkeley (Alma mater of our very own university president Bill Powers) and it soon spread to other campuses. This year, there were many events laid out for 13 Panhellenic sororities to participate in to work towards the ultimate goal of being Derby Days champions.

To kick off the competition, each sorority was given a wooden board to paint on a design that incorporated the theme of Derby Days while also promoting the Paul Wall charity concert that was being put on at the end of the week. Even though we got off to a late start, the Zetas were still able to pull off an eye-catching board that featured Paul Wall wearing a crown and representing Zeta and Sigma Chi across his knuckles. Competition was tough but we pulled through and we were awarded 3^rd place for our board. That didn’t get the girls down because by the time Saturday rolled around Paul Wall had caught a glimpse of the board and requested it to be on stage with him while he performed! Go Zetas and special shout out to Sam McClendon and Alex Flowers the awesome artists who designed and worked hard on the board!

The events continued in the week with a picture taking contest where points were awarded to those with the best overall picture, most Sigma Chi’s in a picture, most girls in a picture, craziest photo, and any picture that really stood out. Zeta pulled off that last one by scoring a picture with The University of Texas’s president, Bill Powers! Wednesday’s event got the competitive juices flowing for many girls when the task was to steal as many hats possible from the Sigma Chi’s. Our girls pulled through again receiving third place in the event. The first round of volleyball was also on Wednesday and our players shined and proved their skills, letting us move on to the Friday tournament.

Thursday night brought on the brother auction. The Derby daddies, other brothers, and some special guests including UT basketball player going to the NBA, Myck Kabongo, were auctioned off to the various sororities, which gained the girls points along with it being the night that raised the most money during the whole week. The boys put on their best moves while strutting down the catwalk while the crowd hooped and hollered for all the guys. On Friday, the Zetas wrapped up volleyball by winning their first sets but playing back-to-back games tired us out. There was no time to nap though, because it was formal night! As the next morning rolled along, even with our fun formal the night before, the Zetas still showed up to play on the decathlon day. From the obstacle course to the Tahoe pull, the girls did not back down and fought until the very end. The day wrapped up with Paul Wall performing and the crowd going crazy to “Grillz” and enjoying the end of all the fun events.

Although we came in 10^th place, we still had a great time and cannot wait to participate again next year. In the end Sigma Chi raised over $30,000 throughout the whole week, which was a huge jump from last year’s raised funds of $12,000. The money is split where $15,000 goes to Sigma Chi’s national philanthropy, The Huntsman Cancer Institute and the remaining get’s divided amongst the winning sororities. Derby Days is a fun-filled week that raises money for a good cause while getting so many people involved. Thanks Sigma Chi for including us and we can’t wait to bring our A-game next year! 

April News

The Art in Public Places Lecture Series is still being planned. Our April event with Mary Zlot is postponed until we can find a date that works!

Upcoming Percent for Art Projects are making progress and will be posted as soon as possible.

Mac Whitney, Carrizo, 1992;
Conservation in progress, March 2013.

Care of existing artworks is in full-swing at UNT, including the newly painted Carrizo by Texas sculptor Mac Whitney, on the south side of the UNT Art Building. Carrizo was donated to UNT by Mrs. Lucille Murchison to commemorate the 1992 reclassification of the Department of Art in the College of Arts and Sciences to the School of Visual Arts, which would go on to become in the early 2000s the College of Visual Arts and Design. New landscaping will be installed around this sculpture over the summer months.

Plan a visit to campus to see what we're up to and walk the UNT Art Path. Map brochures are available in the Art Building Dean's Office and the Gateway Center.

Please consider creating a free profile on the UNT Artist Registry, and stay tuned to the UNT Art in Public Places blog!

Color Run

This past weekend my big, Lauren Fugitt, and I decided to do the color run. It had always been something that we have wanted to do but now we finally got the chance. We drove to the Austin Rodeo grounds and were in awe at how many people were there. Tons of people drove in from cities all around and everyone was so energetic and lively even at 8:00 in the morning! The atmosphere was so fun and we were so excited for the run to begin! We picked up our shirts and bibs and lined up in the huge crowd at the starting line. The buzzer went off and it was time to run! The fun thing about this race is that it is not very serious and everyone does it just to have fun but also it raises money for cancer. It was a 5K but it did not feel long at all because at every kilometer or so you would run through different tunnels where people covered you in color and it was always exciting to see what color was next. The race was tons of fun but after there was a DJ playing music and a huge crowd where everyone threw their colors and danced. Lauren and I had so much fun and hope to start going every year. We want to make it a tradition where we take our littles.

ZL, Aubrey Crenshaw PC'12

                                                              

Publicity Round Up

We'd like to share a few recent mentions of UT Press books in the news:

Bruce
Jackson’s documentation of prisons and the death penalty in the US
contributed to France abolishing capital punishment 30 years ago. To
recognize his work, the French government recently awarded Jackson L’Ordre National du Mérite (National Order of Merit), the country’s
second-highest honor after the Légion d’honneur. Last month, Mother Jones featured Bruce's book Inside the Wire in a slideshow:

• Jeremy Lybarger of Mother Jones says of Inside the Wire,
  "Although many of the men pictured were convicted of brutal crimes,
  Jackson imbues them with dignity, or at least a degree of stoicism." View the slideshow on motherjones.com>> 


• Donna De Cesare's Unsettled/Desasosiego also graced a slideshow on Mother Jones. View the slideshow on motherjones.com>>


• MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell featured Michael Kamber's Photojournalists on War in an interview. Watch the interview on tv.msnbc.com>>

Eric
Draper's Front Row Seat and Robb Walsh's Barbecue Crossroads continue to receive attention:

• Politico interviewed Eric Draper. Watch the video at politico.com>> 


• Fox News Insider featured the book. Watch the video on foxnewsinsider.com>>


• Draper's photos from the book were featured on Time's Lightbox blog. Read the post on lightbox.time.com>>


• The Washington Post published a review and slideshow, saying "the book presents a body of work that can’t be found anywhere else." Read the review on washingtonpost.com>>


• Robb Walsh appeared on Ann and Peter Haigh's On the Menu. Listen to the interview on onthemenuradio.com>>