Mystery Soirée Morphs into Surrealism Some strange events occurred during “La Soirée Exceptionnelle.” Photo: Pierre Grosbois 2013A mysterious invitation to “La Soirée Exceptionnelle, 1972” recently turned up in my inbox. It came from a new group called Cinémorphe and promised … Read More
City of light and licentiousness While visiting “Paris Vu par Hollywood,” the new exhibition at Paris’s Hôtel de Ville, I realized that the dreamily romantic vision Americans have of Paris probably owes as much, if not more, to the eight … Read More
“I’m in there,” said the lady in black with the bright red lipstick sitting next to me on the bench in the Square du Temple in Paris’s third arrondissement. She was pointing at the computer on my lap. The lady was Micheline Capuano Blasco, better known by her stage name, Micheline Day. Over the course of many afternoons on the bench near the pond in the little park, she revealed random morsels of her life story to me.
Exactly 30 years after the U.S. government recommended the use of “Ms.” in official documents so that women would no longer be identified by their marital status, the powers that be in France have finally decided to relegate “Mademoiselle” to … Read More
From the country that brought you Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Jean Dujardin, introducing Les Infidèles (The Players), a film about men cheating on their wives that rolls the two men into one fictional character. The movie is string a of short … Read More
Cesars VS. Oscars: Which Wins For Worst Awards Ceremony? It might seem difficult to beat the Oscars for toe-curlingly awful acceptance speeches, but the Césars (held two nights before the Oscars, thereby allowing all the stars of The Artist just enough … Read More
The cinema rules in France. In 2011, French movie theaters had their best year since 1966, with ticket sales of 215.6 million, an increase of 4.2 percent over 2010, according to the Centre National du Cinéma. Sales to French films … Read More
DIAPASONS D’OR One of the highlights of last week’s concert for the Diapasons d’Or, the French equivalent of the Oscars for classical music, was the Young Talent of the Year, soprano Julia Lezhneva, whose sensational performance of one of … Read More
GOOD IMPRESSION The new Impressionist gallery at the Musée d’Orsay. © Musée d’Orsay/Sophie-Boegly The spacious, newly renovated Impressionist gallery at the Musée d’Orsay is a huge improvement over the old one. The paintings pop out dramatically and glow with color … Read More
EVERYDAY DEMONS “L’Homme et la Mère” by Ralph Petty, from “Démons Quotidiens.” Nancy Huston, a Canadian writer with a big fan base in France, and Ralph Petty, a Paris-based American artist, have published an unusual collaborative book together, with … Read More
