Notes on Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of the Will’‘ “[Hitler] wanted a film showing the Congress through a non-expert eye, selecting just what was most artistically satisfying – in terms of spectacle…. He wanted a film which would move, appeal to, impress an audience which was not necessarily interested in politics.”•… Read More »The Leni Gaze
My (highly attenuated) attention was recently directed to an LWT doc from 1981 available on YouTube . It compares the pre-war, pre-gay world of ‘sisters’ (‘musical’ friends you didn’t want to fuck) and ‘trade’ (‘normal’ working class ‘real’ men you really did), with the post-Stonewall, butched-up, Marlborough Man world of… Read More »Back to the Future: Escaping Sexology
Mark Simpson goes on a road trip connecting four countries: England, Scotland, the UK – & Yorkshire What’s so ‘Great’ about ‘The Great North Road’? Better known in our more impatient era as the A1? Well, if you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself in the south, it takes you to the… Read More »A1 Love – The Greatness of The Great North Road
We worship the body, watch ancient battles at the multiplex, and bow down before the gods of celebrity. Mark Simpson marvels at how much our culture owes to those skirt-wearing olive-munchers, the Greeks (Independent on Sunday 30 May 2004) Philhellenes are everywhere, and everywhere they look they see the glory that… Read More »Apollo’s Acolytes
Why does the love story of Hadrian and Antinous seem so contemporary? Mark Simpson argues we’re all pagans now. (Originally appeared in the Independent on Sunday, 09/06/2002) OF ALL THE MEN who wore the purple of Rome, Hadrian seems the most ‘modern’, the most sympathetic and the most tasteful. This second-century… Read More »Antinous: The Very First Pop Idol