Word: criticism
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...oldtime theatrical and motion-picture critic myself, I usually fully agree with the judgment of your critics. . . . May I, however, point out a fundamental touchstone which, in my opinion, should be, but hardly ever is, applied to the art of motion pictures (regardless of the industrial implications). It is a principle which can be expressed in few words: whereas, the art of the stage consists of dialogues illustrated by visible action, the specific art of the motion picture consists of visible action illustrated (as sparingly as possible) by dialogues...
...Piston's Third Symphony, Conductor Serge Koussevitzky led Piston by the hand onstage for two curtain calls. Koussevitzky, who always has something glowing to say about anything he introduces, told a reporter that the music could have been written only by a "finished master." Next day a Boston critic referred to it as "the best since Copland's Third" Since Boston has had no premieres of U.S. symphonies since Aaron Copland's, that was faint praise indeed...
Hopper's Summer Evening, a young couple talking in the harsh light of a cottage porch, is inescapably romantic, but Hopper was hurt by one critic's suggestion that it would do for an illustration in "any woman's magazine." Hopper had the painting in the back of his head "for 20 years, and I never thought of putting the figures in until I actually started it last summer. Why, any art director would tear the picture apart. The figures were not what interested me; it was the light streaming down, and the night all around...
Emigrants & Strangers. Roaming through the streets of Edinburgh, the hills of Pentland, the romantic Highlands, Novelist Stevenson and Critic Daiches are as happy together as two old emigrants swapping reminiscences of the old country. But in most other matters they are temperamentally total strangers. Studious Critic Daiches is chiefly interested in showing that if Stevenson had not been cut off in his prime, he would have parked his little scooter and become as profound and dignified as Sophocles and Shakespeare. Romantic Novelist Stevenson (a tubercular who was to die in Samoa at 43) was chiefly interested in enjoying the lively...
Both men saw considerable war service. Harris, on his return to Oxford, helped to refund the University magazine, Isis, and served as drama critic and literary editor...