HANK:
Anthony Lane, who's probably my favorite critic out there, recently contributed a "Letter from Beijing" to the New Yorker recapping, in a way that only Lane can, the political and social significance of the first week of the Olympic Games. If you've been glued to the games like I have and have that uneasy feeling that things aren't always what they seem, then this is a must read. Here's a tasty tidbit:
"China supports a population of 1.3 billion, and the knowledge of that resource was never far away; indeed, the whole evening became an exercise in number-crunching, as mass art was constructed from a mass of humanity. One townful of men and women would race on, swarm into a shape, and race off, to be replaced by the next; if, deep below the spectacle, there was an unspoken suggestion that it would be an extremely bad idea to go to war against this nation, it never rose to the surface, although one aerial travelling shot of fireworks exploding in sequence along the street leading up to the stadium, displayed for us on screens inside, was a ringer for bombing-run footage from the Vietnam War.
The obvious precedent for Beijing was the Berlin Olympics, in 1936. Both were showcases for a muscle-flexing nation, although Hitler made an elementary error when he chose not to dress his young National Socialists in lime-green catsuits laced with twinkling fairy lights. By a careful choice of color scheme, China was able to draw the sting from any accusations of militarism, while rarely permitting the result to slide into camp."
For the whole thing, go here.
What's your take on the games so far? What do you think about Lane's assessment? I find it startlingly right on.
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