PRICE $8.99 DEC.

5, 2016
 DECEMBER 5, 2016

9 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

21 THE TALK OF THE TOWN

Amy Davidson on Trump’s rocky transition;
Axis & Allies; Jason Sudeikis; a better hair dryer;
James Surowiecki on the private-prison boom.
PERSONAL HISTORY
James Wood 28 The Teacher
A mother’s lessons.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
River Clegg 32 Honest Museum Audio Tour
DEPT. OF PERFORMANCE
Calvin Tomkins 34 Art Without Walls
Alex Poots and New York’s mixed-media art scene.
PROFILES
D. T. Max 42 Sombre Colors
The director Pedro Almodóvar enters a new phase.
ANNALS OF LAW
Margaret Talbot 56 Taking Trolls to Court
A Brooklyn attorney protects sexual privacy.
FICTION
Sam Shepard 66 “Tiny Man”
THE CRITICS
ON TELEVISION
Emily Nussbaum 74 “Rectify.”
BOOKS
Dan Chiasson 77 Emily Dickinson’s scrap poetry.
78 Briefly Noted
DANCING
Joan Acocella 82 The tap dancing of Michelle Dorrance.
THE THEATRE
Hilton Als 84 “Sweet Charity.”
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Anthony Lane 86 “Jackie,” “Allied.”
POEMS
Joy Harjo 52 “By the Way”
Michael Earl Craig 72 “Rose Tantrum”
COVER
Peter de Sève “Rat Race”

DRAWINGS David Sipress, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Drew Dernavich, Harry Bliss, Jack Ziegler, P. C. Vey,
Liam Francis Walsh, Mick Stevens, Tom Toro, Joe Dator, Sam Gross, Roz Chast, Ken Krimstein, Liana Finck, Amy Hwang
SPOTS Guido Scarabottolo
 CONTRIBUTORS
D. T. Max (“Sombre Colors,” p. 42) is a Michael Earl Craig (Poem, p. 72) is the
staff writer and the author of “The current Poet Laureate of Montana.
Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Med- His most recent poetry collection is
ical Mystery.” “Talkativeness.”

Joan Acocella (Dancing, p. 82) be- Margaret Talbot (“Taking Trolls to Court,”
came the magazine’s dance critic in p. 56), a staff writer, is the author of
1998. She is writing a biography of “The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and
Mikhail Baryshnikov. My Father’s Twentieth Century.”

James Wood (“ The Teacher,” p. 28) River Clegg (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 32)
teaches at Harvard. “The Nearest Thing is an associate editor at Comedy Cen-
to Life” is his latest book. tral and a contributing writer at The
Onion.
James Surowiecki (The Financial Page,
p. 26), a staff writer since 2000, writes Sam Shepard (Fiction, p. 66), a Pulitzer
about finance for the magazine. Prize-winning playwright, has a book
of fiction, “The One Inside,” coming
Anthony Lane (The Current Cinema, out in February.
p. 86) has been a film critic for The New
Yorker since 1993. Calvin Tomkins (“Art Without Walls,”
p. 34) covers art and culture for The
Daniel Smith (The Talk of the Town, New Yorker. “The Bride and the Bach-
p. 22) is the author, most recently, of elors” is one of his many books.
“Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety.”
Peter de Sève (Cover) is an illustrator
Emily Nussbaum (On Television, p.74), and a character designer for animated
the magazine’s television critic, won movies. His work can be seen in the
the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. feature film “The Little Prince.”

[Link]
Everything in the magazine, and more.

THE NEW YORKER RADIO HOUR GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

This week, Bruce Springsteen Model trains race through a miniature
RIGHT: EMILY RHYNE

discusses his singular musical New York City, at the Botanical

career and his personal struggles. Garden’s annual holiday exhibit.

SUBSCRIBERS: Get access to our magazine app for tablets and smartphones at the
App Store, [Link], or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.)
4 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
 THE MAIL
THE ELECTION’S AFTERMATH the underbelly of America—they are powerment. Liberalism was supposed to
simply America. The same America be the solution, to give us a framework
I have read much of The New Yorker’s elec- whose structural racism allowed the for adjudicating between the competing
tion coverage, both in print and online, Supreme Court to strike down a key visions of the good society. It didn’t pro-
and I agree with all that was said about part of the Voting Rights Act and dis- pose any answers; it just told us how to
the dangers of Trump and what his Ad- proportionately disenfranchise minori- conduct political discourse—with respect,
ministration might mean for the coun- ties. The same America that allows the intellectual compassion, and recognition
try. However, I grew increasingly dis- executive branch to perform extraju- of common dignity. This time, liberalism
satisfied with the content, because it dicial killings of Muslims overseas. The lost to nationalism. American voters chose
simply reinforced my fears and did not same America that protests acts of hate racial and ethnic identity as the center of
suggest a path forward. The best way to on social media but stands by silently gravity for political discourse and politi-
recover from this horrific election is to when a girl or woman in hijab is ha- cal violence. Many others, repelled by the
take action—now. The lesson I learned rassed on the streets. This is not all that movement, will slide into a radicalized
from Russia, where I come from, is that, America is, but it is America. left. I hope that the liberal ideal is not
when something goes wrong, people It seems that the people who brought down for the count. But, as in the past,
merely “hope” that it will change. They us Trump have also felt voiceless, with it will not be hope but action—individ-
wait, they “heal,” and they get back to little control over their lives. We can’t ual and collective—that determines our
“business as usual.” This is the last thing ignore the role that white supremacy future.
you want to do! Dictatorships are built played in this election, but many also John Proios
on the control of information and the viewed a vote for Trump as the only Tucson, Ariz.
passivity of its citizens. Dictators refuse way to regain the agency that they be-
to allow a voice to those who oppose lieve has been stolen from them. They If you look at the footage of Trump re-
them. We witnessed it throughout Trump’s are wrong, and it’s mostly people like alizing that he might actually be the next
campaign. We should not “wait and see” me who will pay for their mistake. I President, you will see a man who sud-
or “heal and hope” but instead look for have not found it in my heart to for- denly grasps the enormity of his own mis-
effective and straightforward ways to en- give them, but if their choice stems calculation. I don’t think that Trump had
gage with the political process, en masse. from the same feeling that minorities any intention of actually winning; he
A politically active society is the biggest and liberals are experiencing now, then wanted to rabble-rouse and then move
threat to an authoritarian government. perhaps there is an opening for dia- on to his next moneymaking venture,
The role of the press is to report on how, logue, and a chance for our two Amer- which would have capitalized on the law-
exactly, people can get involved. icas to better understand each other. lessness and anger that he helped create.
Julia Volfson Yasmine Askari Now he must answer to his own rabble.
Boston, Mass. Clarksville, Md. The American population that elected
Trump has very real problems and needs
For many liberals, the outcome of the Hillary Rodham Clinton won the pop- a leader to represent it, not a reality-TV
election has filled them with a crip- ular vote by more than 1.7 million votes star with no capacity for serving others.
pling sense of helplessness and horror; (and that number continues to grow as When a political candidate is allowed and
despite taking action, they feel essen- the remaining ballots are tallied). That encouraged by his peers to push the hate
tially voiceless in their own country. fact didn’t count, in the end, but it is good and racism buttons for far too long, this
This is the same feeling that Muslim to know that the majority of Americans is the result: a man who didn’t really want
Americans experience all the time. In were not suckered by a con man: the elec- the job, representing people he couldn’t
the moments after a terrorist attack, torate actually opted to live in Clinton’s care less about. Now he’ll have to slum it
instead of grieving we must wait, in world. It is the Electoral College that has in Washington, answering to his own
dread of hearing the perpetrator’s name. failed us. Every incompetent act that angry constituents until it becomes ap-
We know that we will be made to an- Trump perpetrates will not reflect the parent to them that they’ve been duped.
swer for something that we vehemently will of the American people. It will reflect Laura Stephan-Corio
oppose. To my white liberal friends: on him and on the minority of the elec- Blairstown, N.J.
welcome to the club. The feeling that torate who supported him.
you’re experiencing is not going to go Sarah Maxwell •
away. Your frustration and fear will con- Archbold, Ohio Letters should be sent with the writer’s name,
tinue to grow with each new govern- address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
mental action that violates you or some- Throughout the twentieth century, na- themail@[Link]. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
one you care about. tionalism violently competed with Com- any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
Trump and his supporters are not munism for the mantle of populist em- of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.

6 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016

 NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 6, 2016

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

PHOTOGRAPH BY JACK MITCHELL/ALVIN AILEY DANCE FOUNDATION/SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

In times of trouble, dependable sources of inspiration increase in value. By the late nineteen-seventies, when
this photograph was taken, Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations” had been raising spirits—and the spirit—for nearly
two decades. As Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre settles into City Center for its annual holiday run
(Nov. 30-Dec. 31), the work retains an apparently inexhaustible power. It’s joined by new pieces, one that
springs from speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., and one registering the pain of mass incarceration.
 during this last leg of their tour. (Irving Plaza, 17
Irving Pl. 212-777-6800. Nov. 30-Dec. 1.)

NIGHT LIFE
1
Stevie Nicks
Over the past six years or so, Fleetwood Mac
has become a touchstone for a new generation
between the President-elect and the companies of younger listeners, with the enigmatic singer
ROCK AND POP building it. The cause has roused the best in the Stevie Nicks eclipsing the group as an ambassa-
punk-rock community, which traditionally allies dor of seventies cool. Her captivating, occultish
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead itself with the oppressed and often uses shows as stage presence has resonated with overworked
complicated lives; it’s advisable to check grassroots fund-raising events. This week, a coa- millennials hunting for secular, low-dose spiri-
in advance to confirm engagements. lition of snarling hardcore groups, including St. tuality—it was hard to find a summer time-share
Paul’s Condominium, Boston’s Aggression Pact, not blasting her trademark songs, like “Gold Dust
Art Department and the excellent local act Warthog, will meet in Woman,” “Landslide,” or “Rhiannon.” This week,
Kenny Glasgow and Jonny White [Link] and pro- East Williamsburg Industrial Park to protest and she brings her “24 Karat Gold” tour to the Gar-
duced as a duo until just last year. Glasgow recently to raise money for the cost of the Standing Rock den. The set includes all the hits, but also some
stepped out on his own to record and release an Sioux’s legal defense. Bear in mind, these groups, rarely performed non-Fleetwood Mac gems, like
album, and now White takes command of this and their fans, are the real deal; earplugs, baci- her solo anthem “Wild Heart” and material from
dance-music institution that has, at times, rivalled tracin, and gauze are strongly recommended for “Buckingham Nicks,” a 1973 project that predated
Daft Punk. The pair specialized in deep, downtrod- the full pit experience. (Sunnyvale, 1031 Grand St., her involvement with the band that made her fa-

1
den techno, as on their 2010 single “Without You,” Brooklyn. 347-987-3971. Dec. 3.) mous. (Madison Square Garden, Seventh Ave. at
on which a wilted Glasgow laments, “I can’t, I just 33rd St. 800-745-3000. Dec. 1.)
can’t.” While he and Glasgow remain on good terms Dinosaur Jr.
and still share a collaborative spirit, White will be J. Mascis’s latest incarnation of his pivotal alt
on the decks alone at Output this weekend, bear- band has been around longer than the first. A JAZZ AND STANDARDS
ing the team’s flag. He says the only change fans product of Massachusetts, the group helped spark,
can expect is “a little bit less showmanship during and was subsequently swept up in, the Seattle Tomas Fujiwara Double Trio
shows . . . O.K., a lot.” (74 Wythe Ave., Brooklyn. grunge scene and press storm—by the late eight- Deliberately seeing double in the cause of explor-
[Link]. Dec. 3.) ies, they’d broken up after releasing just three al- atory new jazz, Fujiwara (paired with his fellow-
bums. In 2005, they had a reunion, and their new drummer Gerald Cleaver) brings together instru-
Benefit for the Standing Rock Sioux music has warmed up indie nostalgists with clear mentalists primed to rub each other in all the right
On November 14th, the U.S. Departments of the sound mixes that allow Mascis’s guitar theatrics to and creatively wrong ways, including the trumpeter
Army and the Interior issued a joint statement shine as they should. At their last New York gig, Ralph Alessi, the cornettist Taylor Ho Bynum, and the
extending the halt on construction of the Dakota celebrating their August album, “Give a Glimpse guitarists Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook.
Access Pipeline, but it’s conventional wisdom that of What Yer Not,” Lou Barlow promised, “I swear, (Jazz Gallery, 1160 Broadway, at 27th St., fifth fl. 646-
when Donald J. Trump takes office the pipeline next time we’re in town, this will sound better.” 494-3625. Nov. 30-Dec. 1.)
construction will resume, based on financial ties They’ll make good on their word for two nights,
The Power Quintet
Uniting five imposing stylists—the trumpeter Jer-
emy Pelt, the vibraphonist Steve Nelson, the pianist
Danny Grissett, the bassist Peter Washington, and
the drummer Bill Stewart—this polished coöperative
has already displayed the goods on its début album,
“High Art,” released earlier this year. A club appear-
ance can only confirm the felicity of their merger.
(Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St. 212-576-2232. Dec. 1-4.)

Olli Soikkeli
Django Reinhardt’s Gypsy jazz became an inter-
national musical dialect long ago, so it isn’t all that
strange that Soikkeli, one of the most adept and re-
sourceful contemporary guitarists in that still po-
tent idiom, hails from Finland. Recently heard with
the charging Rhythm Future Quartet, here Soikkeli
fronts a trio with Julien Labro on accordion. (Corne-
lia Street Café, 29 Cornelia St. 212-989-9319. Dec. 4.)

Randy Weston’s African Rhythms Quintet

Imposing in stature and influence, this Brooklyn-
born pianist and composer has been mining the
common ground between homegrown jazz and
African musical idioms since the early sixties.
The ninety-year-old master revels in churn-
ing rhythm and plush textures alongside some
ILLUSTRATION BY KRISTIAN HAMMERSTAD

trusted associates, including the saxophonists

T. K. Blue and Billy Harper and the bassist Alex
Blake. (Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Broadway at 60th
St. 212-258-9595. Dec. 2-4.)

Steve Wilson and Wilsonian’s Grain

Wilson is a trusted A-list sideman who knows
just what to do when he takes command of the
stage. The expressive alto saxophonist and flut-
ist’s quartet is bolstered by such familiars as
the pianist Orrin Evans and the bassist Ugonna
Hardcore helps this week at Sunnyvale, where Sick Head, Concealed Blade, JJ Doll, Aggression Pact, Okegwo. (Smoke, 2751 Broadway, between 105th
Warthog, and Condominium will raise funds to support legal fees for water protectors at Standing Rock. and 106th Sts. 212-864-6662. Dec. 2-4.)

10 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016

 CLASSICAL MUSIC
2000, which she wrote in collaboration
with the librettist Amin Maalouf, she
proved that her stylistic approach could
work in splendid ways. The piece
comes to the Metropolitan Opera on
Dec. 1, the first opera written by a
woman to be performed there in more
than a century.
The story is inspired by a historical
character, the nobleman Jaufré Rudel,
a celebrated twelfth-century French
troubadour. But Saariaho and Maa-
louf ’s treatment has deep roots in a
much more modern musical world, that
of Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mélisande” and
Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” operas
in which ardent aristocrats make ocean
journeys and seek ideal love. Rudel,
tiring of mere pleasure, is told by a trav-
elling Pilgrim—who, like Wagner’s
Brangäne, is less of an innocent by-
stander than she appears—of the
Countess of Tripoli, a woman who is
everything he desires. He is enticed;
the Pilgrim crosses the Mediterranean
to relate this to the pure-hearted
Countess, who in turn expresses her
own interest. Emotions rise, more
crossings are made, until Rudel, à la
Tristan, overcome by a passion that has
morphed into an illness, dies in the
grieving Countess’s arms. Saariaho’s
singular language, deftly interwoven
with passages suggesting medieval Eu-
ropean song and Middle Eastern
Susanna Phillips and Eric Owens take the leading roles in the Met première of “L’Amour de Loin.” drumming, brings this rarefied world
to life.
The Sound of Love full of small voices that subtly frag- Like another millennial work, Os-
ment, bloom, or disappear. Listening valdo Golijov’s “Passion According to
Kaija Saariaho’s compelling first opera is
to it can be a dazzling experience, St. Mark,” “L’Amour” comes from an
staged at the Met.
though it is essentially a static one; the optimistic time when self-imposed
The distinguished composer Kaija music lacks the narrative thrust that barriers to musical expression were
Saariaho, who is sixty-four, would not musical drama usually requires. breaking down and an aesthetic
have seemed to be the type of musician What sets her apart, however, is her utopia seemed near. More than a de-
who would excel in the world of opera. gift for weaving elements of mysticism cade later, the dystopian worlds of
ILLUSTRATION BY REBEKKA DUNLAP

Finnish-born, but long a paragon of and sensuality into that essentially in- David T. Little’s “Dog Days” and
the Parisian institutional avant-garde, tellectual quest, in a manner that has George Benjamin’s “Written on Skin”—
Saariaho writes music that, like that been more expressively refined and the first set in a nervous American fu-
of many of her colleagues, is a rigor- emotionally restrained than that of ture, the second in a squalid European
ously scientific exploration of the inner Messiaen, a composer who nonetheless past—define our own operatic era. Ideal
life of sound. In many a Saariaho piece, deeply influenced her. And in love seems a dangerously nostalgic
an arresting sonic statement is pre- “L’Amour de Loin” (“Love from Afar”), notion.
sented at the start, big in impact but Saariaho’s acclaimed first opera, from —Russell Platt

THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 11

1 OPERA
CLASSICAL MUSIC

phony, which has a long performance tradition in

Amsterdam. Nov. 30 at 8. (212-247-7800.)

ART
1
Metropolitan Opera
Compared to the fully realized tragic majesty TENET: “Green Mountain Project”
of Tosca or Madama Butterfly, the heroine The vocalists and instrumentalists who make
in “Manon Lescaut,” Puccini’s first great op- up this early-music collective once again lavish
eratic success, is more of a rough sketch. Yet their attention on the intricacies of Montever-
the ravishing voice and undeniable charisma of di’s sprawling choral masterpiece, “Vespers of MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
the alluring Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, 1610.” The performances, which have become a
the star of the Met’s current production, cer- holiday tradition for the group, are conducted by MOMA PS1
tainly provide adequate compensation. Richard Scott Metcalfe and feature the brass ensemble “Mark Leckey”
Eyre’s staging, which moves the setting from Dark Horse Consort. (A portion of the tickets In his first major museum retrospective in the
the rarefied world of eighteenth-century Paris will be distributed for free to students, seniors, U.S., deftly curated by Peter Eleey, the British
to the German occupation during the Second and charitable organizations.) Dec. 2-3 at 7:30. artist weaves autobiography, underground music,
World War, leaves Marcelo Álvarez (a powerful (St. Jean Baptiste Church, 184 E. 76th St. [Link].) and technology into profound—and profoundly
Des Grieux) and Christopher Maltman (a vig- entertaining—investigations of culture and col-
orous Lescaut) dramatically aimless; but the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra lective consciousness. “Fiorucci Made Me Hard-
conductor, Marco Armiliato, builds the show The conductorless chamber orchestra’s next Car- core,” the trancelike pre-YouTube montage of VHS
to a riveting conclusion. Nov. 30 at 8 and Dec. 3 negie Hall appearance presents the visceral Turk- fan footage, which announced Leckey as a major
at 12:30. • The Met première of Kaija Saariaho’s ish pianist-composer Fazil Say, who performs his talent in 1999, holds up as a beautiful paean to the
acclaimed opera “L’Amour de Loin” is the first Concerto No. 2, Op. 4, “Silk Road,” a work driven rave and techno scenes that were so formative to
opera by a woman presented by the house in more by the multicultural folk music heard along the his artistic sensibility. The 2015 film “Dream En-
than a century. The Met has entrusted the stag- ancient trade route. Say also plays Mozart’s Piano glish Kid, 1964-1999” functions as a kind of prequel:
ing to Robert Lepage, whose “Ring” flopped but Concerto No. 21 in C Major, while the orchestra the impressionistic narrative of “found memories”
who has certainly done excellent work on other goes it alone in Rossini’s Overture to “La Scala artfully sutures together clips that were captured

1
occasions. Susanna Phillips, Eric Owens, and di Seta” and Haydn’s Symphony No. 83 (“The and uploaded by other people. Leckey’s poetic,
Tamara Mumford take the leading roles; Su- Hen”). Dec. 3 at 7. (212-247-7800.) pleasantly nostalgic processes of excavation and
sanna Mälkki, a widely admired young Finnish aggregation are not confined to any one medium,
conductor, makes her début. Dec. 1 and Dec. 6 though. For his ongoing “UniAddDumThs” proj-
at 7:30. • Sonja Frisell’s time-honored produc- RECITALS ect, begun in 2013, the artist makes physical repli-
tion of “Aida”—beloved for its soaring sets and cas of images he finds on Google. In the resulting
picture-perfect evocations of ancient Egypt— So Percussion: “A Gun Show” displays, alternately slick and makeshift knockoffs
returns with a promising cast that features La- The group’s searching and superb musicians mingle on pedestals, copies of everything from a bi-
tonia Moore, Marco Berti, Ekaterina Gubanova, offer a very serious entertainment that exam- onic hand to a fourteenth-century manuscript to a
and Mark Delavan in the leading roles; Marco ines America’s intense, and deadly, relationship Robert Gober sculpture. We all keep secret shrines
Armiliato. Dec. 2 at 8. • Puccini’s evergreen ro- with firearms. This theatrical presentation, fea- to our personal tastes; it’s to Leckey’s credit, and
mance, “La Bohème,” continues its long run at turing recitation and choreography, is directed by our benefit, that he makes his public, never taking
the house. The heavy hitters Piotr Beczala and Ain Gordon. Nov. 30 and Dec. 1-3 at 7:30. (BAM himself too seriously. Through March 5.
Kristine Opolais lead a new cast that includes Harvey Theatre, 651 Fulton St., Brooklyn. [Link].)
Brigitta Kele, Massimo Cavalletti, and Ryan Museum of the City of New York
Speedo Green; Armiliato. Dec. 3 at 8. • Patricia Variation Trio “Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture
Racette is one of the most versatile and accom- A new chamber ensemble featuring three out- in New York.”
plished sopranos on the Met’s roster, but she has standing players—the violinist Jennifer Koh, This large show, examining queer subcultures
nonetheless managed to surprise operagoers by the violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and the cellist Wil- and the art that arose from them, is at its best in
adding the title role of Richard Strauss’s “Sa- helmina Smith—makes its début at the 92nd the first half, which presents such prewar gender
lome”—a notoriously difficult part, demanding Street Y in a bracing program of music by mod- benders as the “pansy performers” of nineteen-
an ample voice, fine musicianship, and over-the- ern masters: Kaija Saariaho (“Cloud Trio”), twenties Greenwich Village, beloved of Mae West.
top theatrics—to her repertoire. She leads a cast György Kurtág, and Andrew Norman (“The On the street, conformity was prudent, but, in pri-
that includes Željko Lučić, Gerhard Siegel, and Companion Guide to Rome”). Nov. 30 at 8:30. vate, things often got edgier. George Platt Lynes

1
Nancy Fabiola Herrera; Johannes Debus. Dec. 5 (Lexington Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415-5500.) photographed himself in a racy two-tone leotard;
at 8. (Metropolitan Opera House. 212-362-6000.) James Van Der Zee took a portrait of an imperious
Miller Theatre “Composer Portrait”: gent in a fox stole and a flapper bob. The show’s
Zosha Di Castri postwar half suffers from a greatest-hits vibe:
ORCHESTRAS AND CHORUSES Miller’s “Portrait” series has become a consis- Andy Warhol’s screen tests, Peter Hujar’s por-
tent advocate for modernism, a movement that trait of a recumbent Susan Sontag, Robert Map-
New York Philharmonic includes several members of Columbia’s music plethorpe’s sadomasochistic formalism, Keith
Bernard Labadie, the greatly respected (and lyr- department. Di Castri, recently appointed to the Haring and Bill T. Jones’s body art responding
ically gifted) Canadian conductor and period- faculty, writes pieces in which two basic forces to AIDS. There are small delights, though, such
performance expert, is returning to the Philhar- of music—instrumental color and rhythmic pro- as the photographs of black drag balls in the late
monic’s podium in music by Mozart, one of his pulsion—are smoothly balanced. Two superb en- eighties by Chantal Regnault and a 1978 lithograph
specialties. The program includes the Flute Con- sembles—the percussion-and-piano quartet Yarn/ announcing “A Lesbian Show,” whose Klee-like

1
certo No. 2 in D Major (with the orchestra’s ex- Wire and the vocal group Ekmeles—perform illustration of a spindly interior was made by a
traordinary principal, Robert Langevin), the can- several of her works, including two premières. young Amy Sillman. Through Feb. 26.
tata “Exsultate, Jubilate” (with the soprano Ying Dec. 1 at 8. (Broadway at 116th St. 212-854-7799.)
Fang), and two of the composer’s most charm-
ing symphonies, No. 31 in D Major (“Paris”) and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: GALLERIES—CHELSEA
No. 39 in E-Flat Major. Dec. 1 at 7:30 and Dec. 2-3 “Solo Bach”
at 8. (David Geffen Hall. 212-875-5656.) J. S. Bach’s works for unaccompanied instru- William Eggleston
ments are each a master class in how to make a One of America’s greatest living photographers
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra traditionally melodic instrument sound like a shows pictures from his sprawling series “The Dem-
The magnificent Dutch ensemble comes to Car- contrapuntal chorale. In this concert, the Soci- ocratic Forest,” shot between 1983 and 1986. (Most
negie Hall under the baton of Semyon Bychkov. ety offers a number of its artists as one-person of the images are being exhibited for the first time.)
He’ll return to Gotham in the winter to conduct Bach bands, including the cellist Colin Carr (in The title derives from Eggleston’s interest in “pho-
music by Tchaikovsky with the New York Phil- the majestic Suite No. 3 in C Major) and the vi- tographing democratically,” giving every subject
harmonic; this concert, however, offers a New olinist Ani Kavafian (in the Sonata in G Minor equal consideration, no matter how apparently
York première by the noted German composer for violin, revered for its daunting fugue). Dec. 4 base. True, a forlorn row of empty parking spaces,
Detlev Glanert as well as Mahler’s Fifth Sym- at 5. (Alice Tully Hall. 212-875-5788.) marked with oil-stain stigmata, merits the same at-

12 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016

 ART

tention from his camera as an angelic boy regard-

ing a magazine ad for firearms. But, in some sense,
the title is a rhetorical ruse. Eggleston’s sensitiv-
ity to light and color, and to a peculiarly Ameri-
can melancholy, links his pictures to the paintings
THE THEATRE
of Edward Hopper; far from creating a flat hier-
archy of images, he revels in the glorious specific-
ity of each one. As he has said, “I am at war with
the obvious.” Through Dec. 17. (Zwirner, 537 W. 20th
St. 212-517-8677.)

Jonathan Meese
When he was younger, the German provocateur was
often labelled an enfant terrible. But Meese, now for-
ty-six, is still churning the history of his homeland
into anarchic, sexually charged, and reliably sloppy
paintings, plays, and operas, none of which are for the
easily offended. (The artist has been tried and acquit-
ted in German courts more than once for the crime
of using the Nazi salute in his performances.) His
first New York outing in five years features compar-
atively decorous works on paper: ballpoint sketches
of sprites wearing the Iron Cross, illustrated books
slathered with fluorescent paint, and a powerfully
indecorous portrait of Richard Wagner, whose re-
demptive “Parsifal” is one of the artist’s touchstones.
A large-scale installation—a walk-in fun house of
collaged body parts and anxious scrawling—gives a
sense of Meese at full blast. Through Dec. 17. (Nolan,
527 W. 29th St. 212-925-6190.)
Stoking the Fire Ndegeocello’s “Can I Get a Witness?
The Gospel of James Baldwin” comes
Meshell Ndegeocello creates a show based
Paulina Olowska to Harlem Stage, Dec. 7-11. Inspired
on a classic text by James Baldwin.
In the Polish artist’s new show, “Wisteria, Mys- by Baldwin’s classic 1963 text, “The Fire
teria, Hysteria,” haunted-house candelabras ac- Throughout his career, James Bald- Next Time”—part of which appeared
company big, drizzly paintings—windows onto a
stylized countryside, in which imposing female win had a hankering to work in show in this magazine as “Letter from a Re-
figures suggest tarot-deck archetypes. “The My- business. Like Henry James, one of his gion in My Mind”—Ndegeocello’s
cologist” depicts its titular mushroom collec- early heroes, Baldwin loved the foot- piece, staged as a church service, em-
tor as a high-fashion occultist in a damp forest,
a raven about to perch on her shoulder. In “The lights; early on, with his friend and ploys music, sermon, text, images, and
Gardener,” a chic, sombre woman, her hat askew, editor Sol Stein, he collaborated on a movement, all of which enter into con-
wields pruning shears beside a scribbly flower still unproduced television script based versation with Baldwin’s monumental
bed. Olowska lives and works in the small village
of Rabka-Zdrój, a nineteenth-century spa town, on his 1955 essay “Equal in Paris.” For and delicate essay about how black
and she draws on its folkloric history, as well as a while, the Harlem-raised writer bodies were perceived not only by white
on the palette of post-Impressionist painting, in worked with the director Elia Kazan, Americans but by blacks themselves.
these grand, theatrical canvases. They bode well
for the artist’s upcoming performance work, cre- as the latter prepared Tennessee Wil- In the first part of the work, Baldwin
ated in collaboration with the choreographer Katy liams’s “Sweet Bird of Youth” for wrestles with—without naming it—his
Pyle and the composer Sergei Tcherepnin, which

1
Broadway, and in the nineteen-sixties homosexuality, and with the strain of
débuts at the Kitchen in January. Through Dec. 22.
(Metro Pictures, 519 W. 24th St. 212-206-7100.) he was hired to adapt his friend Mal- being “saved,” when he knew, by virtue
colm X’s “Autobiography” for the of his preference, that he was among
screen. The project did not go well, and the so-called dispossessed.
GALLERIES—DOWNTOWN
Baldwin fled Hollywood, and its con- In a way, the project can be consid-
Diane Simpson ventionality, with his script in hand. (It ered a sister work to Ndegeocello’s 2012
The auspicious first show in the gallery’s new, was published as a book in 1972.) studio album, “Pour une Âme Souve-
larger space offers a rare encounter with the ex-
acting early work of the tremendous Chicago Over the years, a number of Baldwin raine,” which features her interpretation
artist. The free-standing sculptures in Simpson’s devotees have produced theatre and of signature Nina Simone tunes. Si-
“Samurai” series, made in the nineteen-eighties, film projects based on his legacy, in- mone and Baldwin knew each other in
feel at once ancient and futuristic, evoking sleek
architectural elements, humble woodworking cluding the actor Colman Domingo, France, where they both went to get
projects, robots, vessels, dresses, and, of course, who starred in the show “Nothing Per- some distance from the racism that
the Japanese armor that inspired them. They im- sonal,” two years ago, about the writer’s threatened to suffocate them. It was
press from afar but reward close inspection, with
precisely textured surfaces that have been subtly relationship with his high-school that distance that afforded Baldwin the
ILLUSTRATION BY RICHIE POPE

stained pinkish, flaxen, mossy, white, or gray. A friend, the photographer Richard Ave- chance to write about the U.S., that
print, from 1981, diagrams the shapely components don. Coming up in February is the conundrum otherwise known as home.
of one of the sculptures, revealing that Simpson’s
mysterious geometric forms are ingeniously con- director Raoul Peck’s documentary “I It was a world that despised his black
structed from slotted pieces of M.D.F. Assembly Am Not Your Negro,” which incorpo- queer body but which gave him his
instructions are provided in a tidy script, a gener- rates previously unpublished texts by voice—and the romance of combining
ous gesture that implies you might want to make
one of your own—and who wouldn’t? Through the writer. The Washington, D.C.- entertainment with thought.
Jan. 15. (JTT, 191 Chrystie St. 212-574-8152.) raised singer and bass player Meshell —Hilton Als
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 13
1 OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS
THE THEATRE

sions for a girls’ soccer team in the suburbs. (The Doran) is his corny yet cocky protégé, to whom

1
Duke on 42nd Street, 229 W. 42nd St. 646-223-3010. Iago (GQ) plays bitter third fiddle. (GQ’s sibling
The Babylon Line In previews. Opens Dec. 5.) JQ rounds out the cast in several silly roles, in-
Richard Greenberg’s new play, set in 1967, follows a cluding a tennis-obsessed music executive named
Greenwich Village writer (Josh Radnor) who connects Loco Vito.) The murder of Desdemona (who is
with a student (Elizabeth Reaser) while teaching an NOW PLAYING heard but not seen) is one of the few moments not
adult-ed class in Levittown. (Mitzi E. Newhouse, 150 played for comedy, a jarring departure that, along
W. 65th St. 212-239-6200. In previews. Opens Dec. 5.) The Death of the Last Black Man in the with Pringle’s perfect crescendo of rage, lends the
Whole Entire World scene even more horror than usual. (Westside, 407
The Band’s Visit This exceptional production of Suzan-Lori Parks’s W. 43rd St. 212-239-6200.)
David Cromer directs a new musical by David Yaz- 1990 work is directed by a great new talent, Lile-
bek and Itamar Moses, based on a 2007 Israeli film ana Blain-Cruz. The play, which borrows elements Sweat
about an Egyptian orchestra that gets stranded in from Adrienne Kennedy and Ntozake Shange, tells Lynn Nottage’s play is set, primarily, in 2000, in
the Negev Desert. (Atlantic Theatre Company, 336 the story of Black Man with Watermelon (Daniel J. a bar in Reading, Pennsylvania. Tracey (Johanna
W. 20th St. 866-811-4111. In previews.) Watts), who is married to Black Woman with Fried Day) enters, ready to shake off the tedium of the
Drumstick (Roslyn Ruff). Various characters— day with her pals from the steel-tubing factory
A Bronx Tale Prunes and Prisms (the wonderful Mirirai Sithole) where she works—the hard-drinking Jessie (Mir-
Robert De Niro and Jerry Zaks co-direct a musi- and Lots of Grease and Lots of Pork (Jamar Wil- iam Shor) and the high-voiced, trying-to-keep-
cal adaptation of Chazz Palminteri’s semiautobi- liams), for instance—take the stage individually but pain-at-bay Cynthia (Michelle Wilson), who is
ographical one-man show, set in his native bor- also move en masse: they are ideas about blackness black. The bonds of friendship are tested when
ough in the sixties and featuring a doo-wop score clustering together, then separating, like beautiful Cynthia becomes a foreman at the plant and huge
by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater. (Longacre, 220 molecules, as we learn that Black Man with Water- changes occur: the new owners want the work-
W. 48th St. 212-239-6200. In previews. Opens Dec. 1.) melon is, in fact, dead. What Parks is saying—and ers to take a buyout. The workers go on strike.
not saying—is that the marginalization of black men Unemployment breeds distrust and hatred. The
Dear Evan Hansen means that their lives can be trivialized and forgot- director, Kate Whoriskey, stages this and the
Ben Platt plays an antisocial teen-ager who finds ten if there is no one around to remember them. (Re- ensuing disasters with clarity and verve. Not-
himself in a moral quandary after a classmate’s viewed in our issue of 11/28/16.) (Pershing Square Sig- tage and Whoriskey spent a great deal of time
death, in a new musical by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, nature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212-244-7529.) in Reading, interviewing factory workers and
and Steven Levenson, directed by Michael Greif. survivors—if that’s the word—of the economic
(Music Box, 239 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200. In pre- A Life downturn, and you can hear the region in Not-
views. Opens Dec. 4.) In Adam Bock’s new play, the fortyish Nate Mar- tage’s lines; the people there got into her bones.
tin (David Hyde Pierce, giving one of those perfor- (11/28/16) (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.)
Elements of Oz mances that take you over, moment by sensitively
The Builders Association’s multimedia piece, created explicated moment) lives in a small New York City This Day Forward
by James Gibbs and Moe Angelos, uses augmented- apartment. Using astrology as a tool, he tries to fig- The first act of Nicky Silver’s latest play focusses
reality technology to tell the stories behind the ure out why none of his love affairs worked out, why on a catastrophic wedding night in 1958, when
film “The Wizard of Oz.” (3LD Art & Technology he was dumped or did the dumping. He’s the kind secrets and lies explode. The archly comic tone
Center, 80 Greenwich St. 800-838-3006. Previews of guy people strain to remember over late-night and trying-too-hard slapstick appear to aim for
begin Dec. 1.) drinks, long after he’s gone; he’s a faded sketch even screwball-neurotic boulevard, but they fall disas-
before he dies. That he does die comes as a surprise, trously flat. Fast-forward to 2004, when Act II
His Royal Hipness Lord Buckley but not as big a surprise as the loss we feel when this informs us of that fateful night’s legacy; few will
Jake Broder wrote and stars in this tribute to genial fellow is silenced. The director, Anne Kauff- be surprised to learn that “happily ever after”
the mid-century comedian, who drew on bebop man, doesn’t try to make the script more than it is; is not exactly in the cards when deceit is baked
rhythms to create an outré countercultural per- she helps to reveal the subtleties and the weird- into a relationship. The show’s ending is an im-
sona. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th St. 212-279-4200. Pre- ness at its heart. (11/7/16) (Playwrights Horizons, 416 provement, though, because Silver is on surer
views begin Dec. 6.) W. 42nd St. 212-279-4200. Through Dec. 4.) ground writing zingers for the tough-minded,
acid-tongued matriarch (June Gable), reminis-
Longing Lasts Longer My Name Is Gideon: I’m Probably Going to cent of the one played by Linda Lavin in his 2011
The downtown fixture Penny Arcade performs Die, Eventually hit, “The Lyons.” Still, it says quite a bit about
a piece about the gentrification of New York Gideon Irving starts off his solo evening of staged the rest of the characters that once again you end

1
City and the effects of capitalism on creativity. songs by wielding whimsy like a weapon, which may up rooting for the woman wrecking their lives.
(St. Ann’s Warehouse, 45 Water St., Brooklyn. 718-254- turn off theatregoers with little patience for self- (Vineyard, 108 E. 15th St. 212-353-0303.)
8779. Previews begin Dec. 1. Opens Dec. 4.) consciously quirky singer-songwriters. It takes a
while to get used to the relentless charm offensive,
Rancho Viejo but Irving does build an inventive little universe ALSO NOTABLE
In Dan LeFranc’s comedy, directed by Daniel that is very much his own. As this rough-and-tumble
Aukin, the residents of a Southwestern suburb faux-naïf works his way through his pared-down, The Cherry Orchard American Airlines Theatre.
gossip and fret over the separation of an unseen Americana-flavored songbook, each number reveals Through Dec. 4. • The Encounter Golden. • Fal­
married couple. (Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd new marvels, from the clever way Irving loops his settos Walter Kerr. • Finian’s Rainbow Irish Rep-
St. 212-279-4200. In previews. Opens Dec. 6.) voice and instruments to the many surprises lurking ertory. • The Front Page Broadhurst. • Heisen­
in the set’s nooks and crannies. Irving has often per- berg Samuel J. Friedman. • Holiday Inn Studio
Ride the Cyclone formed in people’s houses in the past, staying with his 54. • The Illusionists: Turn of the Century Pal-
MCC Theatre presents a musical by Jacob Rich- hosts afterward, but this time he’s built a stage home ace. • In Transit Circle in the Square. • Les Li­
mond and Brooke Maxwell, in which a chamber for us to visit. He’s a bit like Pee-wee Herman’s hoo- aisons Dangereuses Booth. • “Master Harold”
choir involved in a tragic roller-coaster accident tenanny cousin, springing delightful surprises on his . . . and the Boys Pershing Square Signature
meets a magical fortune-teller. (Lucille Lortel, 121 guests—affected in his nonchalance, but ultimately Center. • Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet
Christopher St. 212-352-3101. In previews. Opens Dec. 1.) winning. (Rattlestick, 224 Waverly Pl. 866-811-4111.) of 1812 Imperial. • Notes from the Field Second
Stage. • Oh, Hello on Broadway Lyceum. • Othel­
Tiny Beautiful Things Othello: The Remix lo New York Theatre Workshop. • Party People
Nia Vardalos stars in a stage adaptation of Cheryl The latest rapid-fire rap adaptation of a classic text Public. • Plenty Public. Through Dec. 1. • Sell /
Strayed’s book, a collection from her stint writing the by the Q Brothers—whose first such show, “The Buy / Date City Center Stage II. Through Dec.
advice column “Dear Sugar.” Thomas Kail directs. Bomb-itty of Errors,” was a hit in 1999—borrows 3. • The Servant of Two Masters Polonsky Shake-
(Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. In previews.) the plot but none of the language of Shakespeare’s speare Center. Through Dec. 4. • Sweet Char­
tragedy, updating the milieu and the idiom to ity Pershing Square Signature Center. (Re-
The Wolves the world of hip-hop, in eighty minutes of im- viewed in this issue.) • Tick, Tick . . . Boom!
An encore run of Sarah DeLappe’s play, directed pressive precision. Othello (Postell Pringle) is Acorn. • Vietgone City Center Stage I. Through
by Lila Neugebauer and set at the practice ses- an affable superstar rapper, and Cassio (Jackson Dec. 4. • Women of a Certain Age Public.

14 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016

 “DoublePlus”:
Dylan Crossman/Caleb Teicher

DANCE In the “DoublePlus” series, veteran artists pick

pairings of less recognized ones. Here, David
Parker, whose career has bridged the worlds of
contemporary dance and tap, draws from both
New York City Ballet / ing from her first solo (“Pastime,” from 1963) to sides. Crossman, a former member of the Merce
“George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” “Into View,” a short première set to indie-rock Cunningham Dance Company and still an un-
Balanchine’s classic 1954 ballet has a bit of every- minimalism. The second week’s program (starting affected standout with Pam Tanowitz, is joined
thing: cozy family dances, conflict, drama—enter Dec. 6) brings back Childs’s 1979 work “Dance,” by three other dancers and a table for his “[In-
Dewdrop with her urgent leaps—and sugarplums, a large-scale breakthrough with a score by Philip sert Title].” Teicher, best known as a tap dancer,
too. (David H. Koch, Lincoln Center. 212-496-0600. Glass. The current dancers perform it juxtaposed collaborates with Nathan Bugh in “Meet Ella,”
Nov. 30-Dec. 4 and Dec. 6. Through Dec. 31.) with Sol LeWitt’s film of the original cast, an ar- which channels swing dancing into the atypical
rangement that turns a work meditating on per- form of a male duet. (Gibney Dance, 280 Broad-
ZviDance / “On the Road” ception into one reflecting on time. (175 Eighth way. 646-837-6809. Dec. 1-3.)
Zvi Gotheiner, best known as a highly regarded New Ave., at 19th St. 212-242-0800. Nov. 30-Dec. 4 and
York dance teacher, is also a choreographer. His new- Dec. 6. Through Dec. 11.) “Peter & the Wolf”
est evening-length work, “On the Road,” is inspired Prokofiev created this thirty-minute piece in
by the 1957 Kerouac novel, as well as by Gotheiner’s Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre 1936 for the Moscow Children’s Theatre. It tells
own cross-country travels. Set against projections The opening-night program is a collection of pieces the uplifting tale of a brave but disobedient
of shifting landscapes captured along back roads, it set to jazz, mostly old and a bit hoary, apart from a young boy, while introducing the instruments
touches on ideas about freedom, rebellion, and the tribute to Ella Fitzgerald by the company’s artistic of the orchestra. Peter is represented by a string
mystery and breadth of America. (BAM Fisher, 321 director, Robert Battle. The rest of the season shows motif; his grandfather, by the bassoon; the un-
Ashland Pl., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. Nov. 30-Dec. 3.) how thoroughly Battle has updated the repertory of fortunate and dim-witted duck, by a plaintive
late. Premières include an expressionist take on “Bo- oboe. In this annual “Works & Process” show,
Lucinda Childs Dance Company lero” by the Swedish choreographer Johan Inger and Isaac Mizrahi is the avuncular narrator; the story
Childs has been constructing dances for more than the completion of “Untitled America,” Kyle Abra- is illustrated through John Heginbotham’s witty
fifty years, walking the line between tedium and ham’s murky, pain-wracked, three-part response to choreography. It’s a delight. (Guggenheim Mu-
transcendence. A two-week season at the Joyce mass incarceration. (City Center, 131 W. 55th St. 212- seum, Fifth Ave. at 89th St. 212-423-3575. Dec. 3-4.
continues with a career-spanning program, rang- 581-1212. Nov. 30-Dec. 4 and Dec. 6. Through Dec. 31.) Through Dec. 11.)

pointless, and his despair is deepened by documen-

tary footage of dire pollution which he watches at

MOVIES
1
the home of an environmentalist (Henri de Mau-
blanc), whose girlfriend he steals. Bresson’s chilling
visions of daily life—including a brilliant sequence
aboard a bus which depicts the mechanical world as
Forest Whitaker, as her military handler.—Anthony a horror—suggest its hostility toward the passions of
OPENING Lane (Reviewed in our issue of 11/14/16.) (In wide youth. The film offers a near-parody of the spiritual
release.) universe of Bresson’s earlier films: these children of
Always Shine Sophia Takal directed this drama, about the revolution tremble with uncertainty, and their
two young actresses (Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin Canyon Passage loose gestures and shambling ways conflict with his
FitzGerald) whose friendship is strained by their The smell of death hangs heavy over the Edenic precise images. Both the world and Bresson’s cin-
struggle for success. Opening Dec. 2. (In limited re- splendor of the Oregon landscape of Jacques Tour- ema are in disarray, and the signs of his inner con-
lease.) • The Eyes of My Mother Reviewed in Now neur’s 1946 Western. Dana Andrews stars as Logan flict are deeply troubling and tremendously mov-
Playing. Opening Dec. 2. (In limited release.) • Jackie Stuart, an ambitious and wide-travelling trader who ing. In French.—R.B. (Metrograph; Dec. 2.)
Reviewed this week in The Current Cinema. Opening brings his best friend’s fiancée (Susan Hayward) to

1
Dec. 2. (In limited release.) • Things to Come Reviewed the remote town where her betrothed, George Cam- Elle
in Now Playing. Opening Dec. 2. (In limited release.) rose (Brian Donlevy), a local banker, and his own fi- A clever, nasty, and seductive piece of work from
ancée, Caroline (Patricia Roc), live. There, Logan Paul Verhoeven, who, as the director of “RoboCop,”
finds a thug (Ward Bond) who tried to rob him and “Basic Instinct,” and “Showgirls,” has never been
NOW PLAYING a rancher (Andy Devine) whose outpost is the heart allergic to controversy. Isabelle Huppert plays
of a growing settlement. Tourneur sets in motion a Michèle Leblanc, who runs a company specializ-
Arrival complex array of subplots and side characters—in- ing in gruesome video games. Divorced and living
The new Denis Villeneuve movie stars Amy Adams cluding an inquisitive entertainer (Hoagy Carmi- alone in a suburb of Paris, she is raped by a masked
as Dr. Louise Banks, a noted linguist who is asked chael), an icy saloon matron (Rose Hobart), and intruder. Instead of reporting the crime to the po-
by the authorities to translate a previously un- her cardsharp husband (Onslow Stevens)—that of- lice, she sets about the process of revenge, in a man-
known language—if, indeed, a language is what fers a quasi-sociological view of frontier life. The ner so tranquil and determined that she herself be-
it is. Sounds of some kind, followed by graceful relentless drinking, gambling, gunplay, and bat- comes almost frightening. Along the way, we learn of
inky symbols written in midair, are being emitted tles with Native Americans blend with struggles a terrible secret in her past, although, truth be told,
by tentacled aliens, which have appeared in twelve for love and money to evoke a raw and violent cul- Huppert is so coolly formidable in the role that no
locations around the planet, and Louise, based at ture that plays, in the year after the Second World backstory is required. One of the film’s most disturb-
a site in Montana, must determine whether these War ended, as utterly contemporary; avoiding his- ing traits is how often, and how cruelly, it touches
communications are cordial or malign. World tory and politics, Tourneur serves up, in a dream- on comedy. As for the whodunit, Verhoeven and his
peace and all that jazz is now at stake—should we like Technicolor glow, a pastoral film noir.—Richard screenwriter, David Birke, seem unconcerned; the
befriend these giant squids or go to war and turn Brody (Metrograph; Dec. 3.) puzzle is solved long before the end, freeing them
them into fritto misto? The story is Villeneuve’s to concentrate on the mystery of Michèle herself.
most balanced work to date, tempering the pes- The Devil Probably With Huppert in this kind of form, you can hardly
simistic gloom that benumbed his film “Prison- Constructed as a flashback from news reports of a blame them. With Christian Berkel, as the hero-
ers” (2013) with a pulse of excitement; the blush young man’s suicide, Robert Bresson’s splenetic 1977 ine’s lover, and Charles Berling, as her weary ex. In
of awe and fear on Adams’s face is contagious, and drama puts the post-1968 world on trial and judges French.—A.L. (11/21/16) (In limited release.)
the framing of the egg-like spaceships, within and it unlivable. Charles (Antoine Monnier), a quietly
without, sucks you into the thrill of the ordeal. The imperious sensualist of blazing intelligence, lives in The Eyes of My Mother
movie is capacious in scale but strangely inward in a bare garret and does little but chase women. Essay- At a secluded farmhouse, a mother and her young
mood, aided by the unshowy performances of Jer- ing the gamut of modern pursuits—politics, religion, daughter are approached by a smiling stranger. He
emy Renner, as Louise’s scientific colleague, and education, drugs, psychoanalysis—he finds them all is invited in, and from that small act of kindness a

16 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016

 MOVIES

history of nastiness unfurls. It’s neither softened nor Lion intellectual provocations, and astounding hu-
stunted by the years; on the contrary, the child grows A small boy called Saroo (Sunny Pawar), born into a mor.—R.B. (In limited release.)
into a self-possessed young woman (Kika Magalhaes) poor Indian family, falls asleep on a train and wakes
who continues to perpetrate savage acts as if they up more than a thousand miles from his home. Even- Loving
were social niceties. Unfamiliar cuts of meat are kept tually, after escaping various perils, he winds up in It has only been a few months since Jeff Nichols’s
in the fridge. Nicolas Pesce’s début feature, strik- an orphanage; from there, he is adopted by an Aus- science-fiction drama, “Midnight Special,” was re-
ingly shot by Zach Kuperstein in black-and-white, tralian couple (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) leased, and this new film, based on a genuine legal
is curt and crisp, running less than eighty minutes; and goes to live with them in Tasmania. We jump saga, marks a surprising shift in both subject matter
yet it seems to crawl along, so punishingly grim are twenty years, to Saroo as a young man (now played by and pace. The story is simple enough: Richard Lov-
the details of bodily harm, and so intent is Pesce on Dev Patel), who has an American girlfriend (Rooney ing (Joel Edgerton) marries Mildred (Ruth Negga),
the trancelike behavior of his heroine. Although we Mara) and an unappeasable wish to discover where and they raise a family together. No problem there,
are in America, both the place and the period feel he came from. Whether that desire has grown with except that he is white and she is black, and this is
vague and insecure, and the movie, for all its physi- time is unclear, but now, at last, it can be fulfilled, Virginia, in the late nineteen-fifties and early six-
cality, shrivels up at the slightest touch of logic. All thanks to the miracle of Google Earth (for which the ties. The couple has to go to Washington, D.C., for
of which, to be fair, is likely to lure rather than to movie is an unabashed commercial). As is proved by the wedding, and they are arrested shortly after their
repel any Poe-steeped addicts of horror; budding documentary footage at the end, Garth Davis’s film return. They sue, and their case drags on until 1967,
necrophiliacs, too, will find themselves instructed is based on a true story; though wrenching, there is when the Supreme Court rules in their favor and
and entertained.—A.L. (In limited release.) barely enough of it to fill the dramatic space, and thus effectively outlaws all race-based restrictions
the second half is a slow and muted affair after the on marriage. The Lovings crave no fame; Richard,
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Dickensian punch of the first. The undoubted star especially, wants only a quiet life, and Nichols, who
What began as a short book by J. K. Rowling, is Pawar, whose début commands attention much both writes and directs, honors their forbearance
published in 2001 in aid of charity, has led to as Sabu’s did, in “Elephant Boy,” some eighty years by telling the tale with a minimum of showiness
this: the first of five planned movies spun off ago.—A.L. (In limited release.) and outrage. Some people will find that method
from the world of Harry Potter. The year is too patient by half, yet it is dotted with Nichols’s
1926, and Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), The Love Witch trademark hints of suspense, and reinforced by the
a Hogwarts alumnus so dithering that he makes Anna Biller ingeniously tweaks some Hollywood gathering strength and depth of the performances.
Hugh Grant look like General Patton, disem- conventions and clichés of the nineteen-sixties Negga is not an actress from whom you can look
barks in New York, where a newspaper head- in this wild and bloody comedy about a young away.—A.L. (11/7/16) (In limited release.)
line reads “Is Anyone Safe?” Newt has a suitcase Wiccan named Elaine (Samantha Robinson),
full of magic—step into it and you find your- who uses her supernatural powers to attract the Manchester by the Sea
self in a menagerie of unearthly creatures. By men of her choice, and, when they disappoint her, Kenneth Lonergan’s new film, his first since the ill-
accident, these are let loose in the city, and to kill them. The action parodies classic movie used “Margaret” (2011), is carefully constructed,
Newt must run around corralling them, with the tropes—the drifter who returns to a small town, compellingly acted, and often hard to watch. The
help of a portly human, Jacob Kowalski (Dan the flowing-haired professorial Adonis, the police hero—if you can apply the word to someone so de-
Fogler). Also in the offing is a pair of wizarding officer whose investigation is compromised by di- fiantly unheroic—is a janitor, Lee Chandler (Casey
sisters (Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol), vided loyalties, the burlesque bar where everyone Affleck), who is summoned from Boston to the coast
a witch hunter (Samantha Morton), and a men- meets and destinies play out. But the movie is less of Massachusetts after the death of his brother Joe
ace named Percival Graves (Colin Farrell). David a matter of story than of style—it’s filled with or- (Kyle Chandler). This is the definition of a win-
Yates’s movie, with a script by Rowling herself, nate period costumes and furnishings (which were ter’s tale, and the ground is frozen too hard for the
marks a welcome change from the cloistered handmade by Biller) as well as sumptuous swaths body to be buried. Piece by piece, in a succession of
settings and adolescent agonies of the Potter of color and old-school optical effects. Biller’s flashbacks, the shape of Chandler’s past becomes
franchise, and offers more of an opportunity feminist philosophy meshes with the freewheel- apparent; he was married to Randi (Michelle Wil-
for the supernatural to knock against the ing delight of her aestheticism. The film pulsates liams), who still lives locally, and something terri-
humdrum. The subway can be scarier than a with furious creative energy, sparking excitement ble tore them apart. Joe, too, had an ex-wife, now an
castle.—A.L. (11/28/16) (In wide release.) and amazement by way of its decorative twists, ex-drinker (Gretchen Mol), and their teen-age son,
Patrick—the most resilient character in the movie,
smartly played by Lucas Hedges—is alarmed to learn
that Lee is to be his legal guardian. What comes
as a surprise, amid a welter of sorrow, is the harsh
comedy that colors much of the dialogue, and the
near-farcical frequency with which things go wrong.
Far-reaching tragedy adjoins simple human error:
such is the territory that Lonergan so skillfully maps
out.—A.L. (11/28/16) (In wide release.)

Moonlight
Miami heat and light weigh heavily on the furious
lives and moods realized by the director Barry Jen-
kins. The grand yet finespun drama depicts three
eras in the life of a young black man: as a bullied
schoolboy called Little (Alex Hibbert), who is ne-
glected by his crack-addicted mother (Naomie Har-
ris) and sheltered and mentored by a drug dealer
(Mahershala Ali) and his girlfriend (Janelle Monáe);
as a teen-ager with his given name of Chiron (Ash-
ton Sanders), whose friendship with a classmate
named Kevin (Jharrel Jerome) veers toward roman-
tic intimacy and leads to violence; and as a grown
man nicknamed Black (Trevante Rhodes), who
faces adult responsibilities with terse determina-
tion and reconnects with Kevin (André Holland).
Adapting a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jen-
kins burrows deep into his characters’ pain-seared
memories, creating ferociously restrained perfor-
EVERETT

mances and confrontational yet tender images that

Lucia Bosè, the star of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1953 drama “The Lady Without Camelias,” is one seem wrenched from his very core. Even the title is
of the Italian actresses spotlighted in MOMA’s series “Le Grandi Donne,” running through Jan. 27. no mere nature reference but an evocation of skin

THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 17

 MOVIES

color; subtly alluding to wider societal conflicts, allusions to Donald Trump. He delights in Hughes’s tions around Nathalie and then, with a bittersweet
Jenkins looks closely at the hard intimacies of peo- high-handed wisdom, his high-stakes gamesmanship, romanticism, treats them ironically, like a cocoon
ple whose very identities are forged under relent- and his petty idiosyncrasies, while looking ruefully from which the middle-aged woman must learn to
less pressure.—R.B. (In limited release.) at his paranoid reclusiveness. Beatty’s portrayal of fly free. Her flurry of outer activity is stronger than
a dominant personality who shuns the spotlight is any sense of inner life, although Huppert feasts on
Nocturnal Animals a self-portrait in reverse.—R.B. (In wide release.) the turmoil beneath Nathalie’s composed surfaces,

1
For fans of Tom Ford, this surely counts as a bonus: the emotional force of the philosopher’s dialectical
two films for the price of one. In the outer shell Things to Come intelligence. In French.—R.B. (In limited release.)
of the movie, Amy Adams plays Susan, a gallery Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) is a Parisian philoso-
owner in Los Angeles who’s struggling with a life phy professor in the thick of things. She teaches
so empty that it contains nothing more than con- ambitious students; she’s in an intellectually solid REVIVALS AND FESTIVALS
temporary art, wealth, friends, support staff, well- relationship with her husband of a quarter century,
cut clothes, a beautiful house, and a handsome hus- Heinz (André Marcon), also a philosophy profes- Titles with a dagger are reviewed.
band (Armie Hammer). She has our sympathy. One sor; and their children, young adults, are thriving.
day, Susan receives the manuscript of a new novel Nathalie is the author of a perennial textbook, the Museum of Modern Art “Le Grandi Donne.” Dec.
from her ex-husband; she opens it, reads, and is at editor of an esteemed scholarly series, and the men- 1 at [Link] “Rome, Open City” (1945, Roberto Ros-
once plunged into the story that it tells—the tale tor to Fabien (Roman Kolinka), a philosopher who’s sellini). • Dec. 2 at [Link] “The Lady Without Came-
of a family that is terrorized and torn apart during also a co-founder of a rural commune. Then things lias” (1953, Michelangelo Antonioni). • The films
a road trip across Texas. (The novelist and his be- fall apart: Nathalie’s husband leaves her, her el- of Pedro Almodóvar. Dec. 1 at [Link] “Kika” (1993),
leaguered hero are both played by a long-suffering derly mother’s health fails, she suffers major pro- followed by a Q. & A. with the actress Rossy
Jake Gyllenhaal.) The film looks sumptuous and fessional setbacks, and she must cope with a nar- de Palma. • Dec. 3 at 5: “High Heels” (1991). • Dec. 4
dense, but neither section, on its own, is especially rowed circle of activity. This drama, directed by at [Link] “All About My Mother” (1999). • Dec. 5
compelling—the social lampoon, in L.A., feels thin Mia Hansen-Løve, weaves a dense web of connec- at [Link] “Pepi, Luci, Bom” (1980).
and obvious, while the Texan scenes are more like a
stylized dream of violence than the real thing. Aaron
Taylor-Johnson, straining every sinew, plays the
leading brute; as the pursuing detective, by contrast,
Michael Shannon is a model of grim control.—A.L.
(11/21/16) (In limited release.) ABOVE & BEYOND
The Police Tapes
In 1976, the filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond,
using newly developed portable videotape equip-
ment, embedded themselves among the officers
of the Forty-fourth Precinct, in the South Bronx.
Lodged in the back seat of police cruisers—some-
times beside suspects under arrest—the Raymonds
became the officers’ confidants and companions,
and the intimate revelations that they elicit offer a
wide-ranging view of government at work. The film-
makers also follow officers into the heat of conflict
as they try to defuse a gang war, remove a body after The Poetry Brothel cluding Louise Saunders’s children’s book “The
a deadly dispute, and resolve an apparent hostage Guests at this temple of literary deviance are treated Knave of Hearts,” illustrated by Maxfield Par-
situation in a housing project. In the station house, to readings enlivened by the aura of burlesque. A ro- rish, and an eighteenth-century guide to the
the filmmakers show detainees being arraigned and tating cast of male and female poets perform as bor- Roman ruins of Palmyra, in Syria (which were
jailed; there, so little heed is paid to the filmmak- dello troubadours, erupting into verse in public and recently damaged by ISIS). (104 E. 25th St. 212-
ers by those facing incarceration that they may as luring guests into back rooms for private readings 254-4710.) • In the first of two auctions of books
well be invisible. The borough commander, An- that may be overheard by voyeurs lurking just around and manuscripts at Sotheby’s (Dec. 5-6), the late
thony Bouza, acknowledges the lurid fascination of the corner. The event transforms House of Yes into Charles Caldwell Ryrie’s collection of English
police work, calling it “a ringside seat to the great- an immersive cabaret with live jazz, vaudeville, paint- Bibles goes under the gavel. The library, amassed
est show on earth,” but adds an impassioned mono- ers, and fortune-tellers—this week’s holiday-party- over five decades, includes early editions of Wy-
logue—regarding the resentment aroused by the themed installment includes readings from the poet, cliffe’s Bible, translated into Middle English in
police among those enduring the traumas of pov- author, and lawyer Monica Youn, a performance the fourteenth century, and Myles Coverdale’s,

1
erty—that should be engraved on the halls of jus- by the Hot Club of Flatbush, and the burlesque the first complete English translation, from the
tice.—R.B. (Metrograph; Dec. 1.) performers Puss N Boots and Foxx Von Tempt. sixteenth. (York Ave. at 72nd St. 212-606-7000.)
(2 Wyckoff Ave., Brooklyn. [Link]. Dec. 4.)
Rules Don’t Apply
Warren Beatty’s new film, set mainly in 1959, about Magic at Coney Island READINGS AND TALKS
Howard Hughes’s forceful eccentricity and his en- Illusionists, escape artists, mentalists, and
during impact on those in his sphere of influence, is closeup magicians descend on Coney Island each 92nd Street Y
a wildly scattershot comedy filled with bright mo- Sunday afternoon at this matinée magic show. A significant number of Americans are sturdily
ments that never cohere. Frank Forbes (Alden Eh- The family-friendly performance is hosted by confident in the future of the nation after our
renreich), an ambitious driver-cum-factotum for Gary Dreifus, who has staged magic and hyp- Presidential election. Tom Friedman, the foreign-
Hughes, is on around-the-clock call as the chauf- nosis shows for more than thirty-five years. He affairs columnist and three-time Pulitzer Prize
feur to Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), the newest believes that you’re never too old to be a magi- winner, is not among them, but he’d like to be.
starlet in the magnate’s stable. The earnest young- cian—his Magical Promotions platform is ded- His new book, “Thank You for Being Late: An
ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO AMARGO

sters quickly bond, but Frank is forbidden to so- icated to educating all who are interested in the Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of
cialize with Marla on pain of dismissal. Meanwhile, art, from children to senior citizens. Kids under Accelerations,” bills itself as a field guide for
Hughes (Beatty), who’s trying to develop the jet en- twelve enjoy half-price admission. (Coney Is- the twenty-first century, shepherding readers

1
gine, fulfill defense contracts, run a movie studio, land Museum, 1208 Surf Ave., Brooklyn. coney- through the rapid changes in technology, glo-
and maintain his power while refusing to appear in [Link]. Dec. 4 at noon.) balization, and the climate, which affect every-
public, takes more than a professional interest in thing from personal relationships to the high-
Marla, a devout Baptist whose virginity is no secret. est government office. He discusses his theories
The through-line concerns Hughes’s effort to avoid AUCTIONS AND ANTIQUES for enduring the future, in conversation with the
being declared insane and stripped of his empire, an founder and president of the Reut Institute, Gidi
effort in which Marla is involved. Beatty packs the Swann, a house that specializes in rare books, Grinstein. (Kaufmann Concert Hall, Lexington
movie with labored period references and unsubtle brings out an assortment of tomes on Dec. 1, in- Ave. at 92nd St. [Link]. Nov. 30 at 7:30.)

18 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016

 F§D & DRINK

TABLES FOR TWO with French techniques, earning him a

1 BAR TAB
Günter Seeger Michelin star. (Two weeks ago, he got
one at this restaurant.) Or it may be a
641 Hudson St. (646-657-0045)
reaction against articles such as “The
How should a fancy restaurant be? Arrogance and the Ecstasy,” a profile of
Should it be radical, like Momofuku Ko; Seeger published in Atlanta magazine
grand, like Eleven Madison Park; wacky, in 1999, after he’d found his way to
like Gabriel Kreuther; haughty, like Georgia via the Ritz-Carlton. He ran
Beverly’s
Jean-Georges? Günter Seeger, a new their dining room for a while, and then 21 Essex St.
European-accented place in the West opened Seeger’s, a shrine to barely
At the back of this skinny Chinatown bar sits a large
Village, suggests something different: a cooked seafood, beloved by many critics wooden sculpture in the shape of a 2. Its significance
fancy restaurant should be discreet. but not enough locals. Now he’s hoping is mysterious—questions such as “Is there a secret
For your ten-course meal—fresh, that New Yorkers will take to his High brethren of even-number fanatics who meet here
on a regular basis?” are not, perhaps, unwarranted.
even when it’s not local, and changing German sangfroid. It is, however, a good suggestion of when to arrive
PHOTOGRAPH BY ZACHARY ZAVISLAK FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE

nightly—you’ve relayed your credit- On a recent Friday evening, an egg at Beverly’s. As the hour slunk closer on a recent
card digits in advance, which isn’t was steamed in soy and truffle juice, Tuesday morning, the dance floor squirmed with
life. The occasion was a party whose poster asked,
threatening, but cosseting, like a mem- then put back into the bottom of its “What if you could only love places . . . and fash-
bership fee at a social club. That’s how shell and graced by bottarga shavings: ion?” Pressed up against a wall, an artist in a white
it feels, too, when you enter a foyer like the most custardlike fish chowder in vinyl dog collar was discussing advances in virtual
reality while a British d.j. punctuated a slick electro
a town house might have, with a velvet history. A Treviso salad was dominated set with Hi-NRG classics from the eighties. “Last
chaise and herringbone flooring and a by Bosc pear, made strangely meaty call!” a barkeep yelled, but his voice was drowned
pendant lamp. The hostess has an index with anchovy emulsion. West Bath, out by a more primal bellow: “Picklebacks!” So it
goes at Beverly’s, a pink-neon-washed paradise for
card with your name on it; she spirits Maine, produces very good oysters; people who value conversation, music, and getting
you across the thickly curtained thresh- each guest got exactly one of them. At crunk (that would be: crazy drunk). On an even
old. In the back, the room opens di- least it was decorated, with subtle more recent Tuesday, and at a more sensible time,
it was evident that a couple wearing beanies,
rectly onto a glistening white kitchen. sea-lettuce gelée and tiny orbs of finger slouched in a front window seat, were intent on
It’s an exquisitely simple scheme. lime, the “citrus caviar” of the Austra- discussion. What they were discussing, however,
Günter Seeger is a restaurant for the lian rain forest. Later, a Scottish lan- was lost in the beats of a playlist heavy on Young
Thug. “It’s quiet around this time,” the barkeep
low-key rich, the ABC Carpet & Home goustine gently poached in a bowl of explained, clarifying that d.j. sets usually begin at
set. This may be the German-born rose tea as it made its way to the table. ten. All the better to enjoy a Laphroaig-and-soda
chef ’s compromise between his It tasted like rose tea. The lamb chop, and inspect a selection of well-curated art—mono-
lithic sculpture panels, paintings on loose canvas,
Swiss-hotel training and his humble finally, was a basic affair—bloody, a video of a young woman in a field sporting
origins: his father was a fruit wholesaler, Hibachi-scarred. Club food will be club American-flag-emblazoned leggings. The exhibit
and his first restaurant, in the Black food, in the end. (Ten-course tasting would change soon, the barkeep noted, when one
of the bar’s owners, who selects the art, returned
Forest town of Pforzheim, featured menu $148.) to New York. As he explained, “She’s doing a resi-
spaetzle and smoked fish reinvented —Daniel Wenger dency in Berlin.”—Nicolas Niarchos

THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 19

 THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT
TRANSITIONS

Presidential transition can be a disconcerting would push away a nominee like Haley; rather, it should be
A stretch of time, even in quieter days than these. The to communicate, if only for the record, that lines must be
drawn, and that Sessions, who was unconfirmable as a fed-
transition to the Presidency of Donald J. Trump has at its
center a man who has never served in public office, has spo- eral judge in 1986, crosses them. That message can be con-
ken disdainfully of constitutional norms, and was either too veyed even by a minority; and the Democrats are, after all, a
faithful a reader of the polls or too superstitious to do much party that is said to be trying to find its voice.
about getting ready to govern. His first decisive move was In terms of Trump’s own transition to office, there are in-
to discard Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, who had dications that the arc of his character is more like a loop. His
been assigned to direct his transition. Even to speak of the attacks on everyone from the NBC News reporter assigned
transition in the singular is, in a way, misleading, given that to cover him to the cast of “Hamilton” are a repeat of his
there are many changes occurring at once: the handover of campaign behavior. He seems unwilling to view the Presi-
institutions from one set of hands to another; a businessman dency as an office, which has defined limits, instead of as a
becoming President; an electorate witnessing a season of bit- new way to express his personal desires, which have none.
ter campaigning give way to a period of governance. This is reflected, too, in his supposed gestures of moderation.
The main concern at this point is not that the govern- His waning interest in locking up Hillary Clinton, which he
ment will plunge into chaos the day after Trump takes the expressed in an interview with the Times last week (“I don’t
oath of office but how Trump and his team will use the in- want to hurt the Clintons. I really don’t”), reveals a view of
stitutions they inherit. His early nominations, such as that prosecution as something that a President can decide to un-
of Senator Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, for Attorney General, leash or withhold arbitrarily. In the same interview, Trump
did nothing to allay that fear. Putting Sessions in the De- spoke in vague terms about keeping an “open mind” on in-
partment of Justice would give the job ternational climate-change accords,
of protecting voting rights to a man but he also expressed a distrust of cli-
who has, throughout his career, been mate scientists, echoing the conspiracy-
more inclined to undermine them. minded attitude of his campaign.
Other nominations, like that of Gov- Trump also seems unwilling to en-
ernor Nikki Haley, of South Carolina, gage seriously in the project of moving
to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United from the private sector to the public.
Nations, might signal a transition to a The possible conflicts of interest posed
Presidency that includes more tradi- by his many businesses, which operate
tional Republican aspects—or not. The in countries from Turkey to Argentina,
Senate Democrats have to quickly re- can play out in farcical ways, such as
ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL

cover from the shock of the election when he complained to Nigel Farage,
and move on to taking an active role in the acting leader of the United King-
the confirmation process. (Trump will dom Independence Party, about the
also be the first President in recent mem- wind farms that mar the view from his
ory to be choosing a Supreme Court golf course in Scotland. But the conflicts
Justice at the same time that he names potentially involve politicians with more
his cabinet.) The goal should not be real power than Farage and interests
blind obstructionism of the kind that that are more damaging to the United
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 21
States. It would be difficult to manage them even if Trump a video presenting reasons to fear Islam, and a C.I.A. direc­
were willing to give it a good­faith try, which, so far, has not tor who has called for the execution of Edward Snowden. And
been the case. “Prior to the election it was well known that this is in a time of relative peace. Where Trump’s instinct for
I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the blame and diversion would take him and the country during
crooked media makes this a big deal!” he tweeted last week. an emergency—a terrorist attack, for example—is an unpleas­
He had said that he would hand the management of his ant question to contemplate. This is why many people voted
business interests over to his adult children, but they are now for Clinton rather than for Trump. But he won, so what do
advisers to the transition. He claims that, if critics had their they do now?
way, “I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again.” But Trump has a shot at being the century’s worst President,
there has to be distance: if it is not between him and his chil­ but Americans are not in the worst position they have ever
dren, then between his children and the business. The Wall been in from which to confront him. We’ve been more eco­
Street Journal editorial page has argued that the best option nomically desperate; we’ve been, in terms of the breadth of
is for Trump to liquidate his holdings and put the cash in a the franchise, less free. In the Trump Presidency, as in all
blind trust. That may not be legally required, since federal Administrations, there will be political fights that define the
conflict­of­interest laws don’t fully apply to the President, course of events. There are constitutional tools available, but
though the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause should. It is only if people in both parties, inside and outside of govern­
up to members of both parties and the public to instead make ment, are willing to use them—to sustain a sense of non­
a comprehensive reorganization of his financial holdings a Trump possibility. This includes not accepting bigotry as a
political necessity. normal part of the national conversation. There is also some­
More important than all these concerns is the way that a thing to be said for not moving away entirely from the mind­
Trump Presidency might change our common conception of set of the campaign, with its imperatives to both reach out
what it means to be American. In addition to naming Ses­ and to challenge, with its skepticism and its sense that there
sions, Trump has chosen a chief strategist who has retailed are always options. Some transitions should never be made.
alt­right rhetoric, a national­security adviser who tweeted out —Amy Davidson

WIND ON CAPITOL HILL DEPT. condo, in Arlington, Virginia. The pur­ down with bourbon, to clear his sinuses.
WAR GAMES pose of the gathering, scheduled weeks For the first few hours, an eerie still­
earlier, was a daylong match of the classic ness presided. No one mentioned con­
Second World War­strategy board game temporary politics. On the board, Ger­
Axis & Allies, in which the world’s major man and Soviet infantries squared off
powers battle for global military domina­ in Eastern Europe. The British Navy
tion. After the election, there had been settled in for a siege. The Japanese Army
talk of postponement. Somehow, role­play­ menaced the Indian subcontinent. (The
he morning after the Presiden­ ing nations at war seemed less amusing player in charge of Japan had spent a
T tial election, the Washington Post re­ than it had on November 7th. But, ulti­ restless night on the foldout couch, scan­
ported that a “palpable sense of dread” had mately, the officials decided that they ning Twitter.)
settled on the U.S. intelligence commu­ needed a diversion. By 10:30 A.M., they According to the rulebook, the offi­
nity. That community is large—tens of had convened and selected their dough­ cial playing the U.S. was barred from
thousands of people, working for seven­ nuts (with the exception of the man play­ attacking until Round 3. He amassed
teen agencies—so the reasons for such ing Italy; he was at a baby shower). By warships and bombers until mid­after­
feelings varied. Among the many contend­ 11 A.M., they had divvied up the map and noon, when his time came, and he turned
ers: Trump’s statements during the cam­ assembled their miniature plastic forces. his forces west.
paign about America’s intelligence work­ By 11:30 A.M., the apartment was at war. The official playing Italy arrived and
ers (“I won’t use them, because they’ve Hitler directed his forces from the surveyed the board. “This is how it goes,
made such bad decisions”); his dismissal Wolfsschanze, a heavily fortified complex isn’t it?” he said. “First, American isola­
of the conclusion, by the office of the deep in the forests of northern Poland. tionism, then antagonistic powers run­
director of National Intelligence and by The intelligence officers—five conserva­ ning rampant, then, finally, war.”
the Department of Homeland Security, tively dressed men, just on the near side It took a moment for the group to
that the Kremlin was committing cyber of middle age—directed theirs from a realize that he was talking about the new
espionage; and his cavalier attitude toward living room filled with vintage movie political reality.
nuclear proliferation. “Everyone I’ve spo­ posters, overlooking a burrito shop. The “Except today Russia and China are
ken to is freaking out,” one intelligence folding table on which they worked had adversaries,” the official playing the
official said. (Depressed, he had called in been liberated from a major American U.K. said.
sick.) “No one knows what to expect. We’re intelligence agency. “Don’t worry,” the “And their armies are no longer made
in uncharted waters.” official playing the United Kingdom, who up of malnourished peasants,”the U.S. said.
The following Saturday, the official was nursing a cold, said. “We’re profes­ “And everyone has nuclear weapons,”
bought a box of coffee and eighteen dough­ sionals. We’ll return it before anyone Italy said.
nuts and welcomed four colleagues to his notices.” He washed his Boston Kreme Back to the game. The Americans
22 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
took the Caroline Islands. France fell. like a Trump Presidency plus a year.” like Joe Biden and Mitt Romney, has
The officials passed around the bourbon, The official playing Italy said, “I’m been scootering to the East Village a lot
and the mood lightened. The Soviet worried we’re going to be set back. China lately, to star in a stage version of the
Union emerged from the bathroom, dry- and Russia are going to have a field day.” 1989 film “Dead Poets Society,” at Clas-
ing his hands on his jeans. “It’s amazing,” The official playing China: “Yep.” sic Stage Company. He plays Mr. Keat-
he said. “ ‘Back to the Future: Part II’ On the board, the Soviet Army sur- ing, a nonconformist teacher at an all-
has basically come true. The Cubs have rounded Berlin. The officials ordered boys school, the part made famous by

1
won the World Series, Biff Tannen is pizza. Robin Williams. He likes to run lines
President, and soon it’ll be 1985 again.” —Daniel Smith while zooming over the bridge, includ-
At 4:06 P.M., Japan’s phone dinged ing Mr. Keating’s favorite snippets of po-
with a push notification. Hillary Clin- DEPT. OF BELLES-LETTRES etry: “Oh me! Oh life! of the questions
ton had blamed James Comey, the F.B.I. QUOTE MACHINE of these recurring.” (Walt Whitman.)
director, for her election loss. A tense Like Mr. Keating, Sudeikis has a mania
silence descended: the community pro- for quotable wisdom. “Great Lincoln
tects its own. one: ‘You learn something from every-
“It’s not like someone asked her to set one, sometimes what not to do.’ I’m
up a private e-mail server,” the official butchering it a little bit.” (Yes.) “Mark
playing Germany said. Twain: ‘Every man’s life is a comedy, a
“Christ, he was just doing his job,” ason Sudeikis sat at the back of tragedy, and a drama.’ ” (Closer.) Speak-
Italy said. J the Bowery Poetry Club, waiting for ing of his improv-comedy training, he
added, “Failing and succeeding is more
The U.S. said, “This is the only elec- open-mike night to begin. He had parked
tion where the Russians can be accused his black Vespa outside, having motored fun when it’s with other people.” Who
of interfering on one side, the other side in from Clinton Hill, where he lives with said that one? “I just said that now! That’s
can be accused of mishandling classified his fiancée, Olivia Wilde, and their chil- off the dome. That’s fresh.”
information, and somehow the people dren, Otis and Daisy. At his side was a Another one, from “Dead Poets Soci-
tasked with righting both wrongs come Contax G2 camera, which he keeps on ety”: “Most men lead lives of quiet desper-
out as the bad guys!” hand for moments when the light is just ation.” (Thoreau, mangled.) “That’s one
By dusk, war-weariness had set in. right. “I was on the Manhattan Bridge that resonates with me when I think about
The official playing the U.K. relinquished on my way over here, and there was an back home,” he said. Sudeikis grew up
command and went home to sleep off awesome view of the sun right behind in Overland Park, Kansas. His Mr. Keat-
his cold. the Statue of Liberty,” he said. “I read ing was Sally Shipley, who taught a ra-
“The Second World War took five this quote recently: ‘The camera is an dio-and-TV class at his high school. “If
whole years to prosecute,” the U.S. said. instrument to teach people how to see ‘Sesame Street’ made a puppet of Miss
He looked glumly out the window. “This without a camera.’ ” (Dorothea Lange.) Shipley, it would look very similar to
game is never going to end.” Sudeikis, who on “Saturday Night Miss Shipley,” he said. “Me being a smart-
“Five years!” Germany said. “That’s Live” brought a devilish glint to figures ass didn’t upset her. If I yawned, she’d go,
‘Don’t yawn. It makes me feel like I’m
on a date.’” One day, for inspiration, Miss
Shipley showed him a student broadcast
by a recent alumnus. It was Paul Rudd.
Poets streamed into the club as wait-
ers lit votive candles. Sudeikis doesn’t
write verse, but he does like to jot down
ideas on his phone. “ ‘A pun: the Zirco-
nium Rhythm,’” he read, scrolling. Next:
“ ‘A bunch of Fosse dancers passing a
joint.’” (He mimed taking a hit from a
jazz hand.) “None of these are good,” he
clarified. There was a list of repairs for
pinball machines; Sudeikis keeps about
ten in his basement. “I love the philos-
ophy of it,” he said. “You’re just trying to
help this ball exist in this world. It’s you
against gravity. And occasionally the ma-
chine fucks up. But, as the saying goes,
that’s pinball.” (Source unknown.)
The lights dimmed, and Sudeikis
snapped a picture of the bartender’s
silhouette. “We got a lot of poets in the
house!” Nikhil Melnechuk, the m.c., Each motor was the size of a beefy dime. miming with his own head. He turned
began. “We got any love poems?” A Dyson delivered his version of a Steve a Supersonic on; it was somewhat loud.
woman in black raised her hand and Jobs-ian ta-da. Phrases like “The Hair “I’m holding it quite close to my body,
said, “It’s more of a loss poem.” She Dryer, Re-Thought” and “Intelligent so it’s not tiring,” he shouted. “The weight
read, over the stylings of a jazz duo, as Heat Control” were projected behind is nicely in my hand.” He talked about
Sudeikis sipped a Jack on the rocks. A him. He described the features of the heat control, laminar airflow, tempera-
few poets later, he whispered, “To see hair dryer. Its motor, he said, had been ture. “We’ve used a thousand fifty-seven
people own that it’s a work in prog- milled using military-grade tools by ro- miles of virgin human hair on our tests,”
ress—it’s invigorating!” He texted Wilde bots in Singapore. “No humans, com- he said. “If you overheat the hair when
to make sure it was O.K. if he stayed pletely automated,” Dyson said. “Can’t it’s wet, the water inside the follicle ex-
for the whole show. have any humans.” plodes, and it makes a crater. All those
A slam poet from Hawaii, Julia Ogil- That afternoon, in the loft, Dyson
vie, read a piece called “Frozen Wagner,” had shown the Supersonic to a guest. He
about her first trip to Manhattan, at age sat in a Barcelona chair, before a glass
nine. Sudeikis was taken with a line about table strewn with motors, circuit panels,
“strutting my Roy G. Biv style through prototypes, a conventional hair dryer,
Times Square like it’s no big deal.” “I tresses of blond, brown, and black hair,
was thinking about all the people she and a hot-pink cordless vacuum. Beside
felt she was representing at that point,” him, a Dyson air purifier, a motorized
he said, “sticking out as a rainbow does, metal oval, was, as Dyson put it, “sam-
in a lovely way, but also in a way that pling the nasties in the air.” Dyson is
maybe people who are not conditioned sixty-nine. He wore blue-framed eye-
to seeing the rainbows in life can judge.” glasses, a navy cardigan, and a solar-pow-
After the show, he slid the license ered Seiko watch. His shortish white
plate back onto his scooter, having re- hair was fluffier than usual. “Since this
moved it to avoid getting a ticket. “Lit- project, I’ve been growing my hair back
tle trick of the trade,” he said, donning to how it was in the sixties, the sort of
a metallic-blue helmet. Then he rode Rolling Stones-and-Beatles sixties,” he
back over the Manhattan Bridge, the said. “Flower power and all that.” James Dyson

1
night’s verses bouncing around his brain. Dyson began his career by improv-
—Michael Schulman ing a wheelbarrow, and then a vacuum, craters take the shine off your hair—oh,
and pricing his creations like works of it’s disgusting.” Engineers had created
HOT AIR DEPT. art; he is now a cheerful Brexiteer who a rig to rough-dry hair, and a cabinet
FLOWER POWER lives at Dodington Park, a vast country that “measures the light refraction, how
estate in Gloucestershire. (That morn- glossy or shiny it is—the flyaways, the
ing, he’d been quoted about Brexit in the smoothness, and the orderliness.”Those
Telegraph: “Absolutely I’m delighted to scores were compared, by computer, with
be out and don’t think we have to nego- scores “from real humans.”
tiate anything.”) Such rigs and cabinets were on dis-
He has long been aware of the flaws play in the loft; Mark Leaver, Dyson’s
ne Wednesday night earlier of the common hair dryer, which the engineering manager, stood beside them.
O this fall, James Dyson, the British Supersonic aims to solve via the impel- Leaver does not need a Supersonic to
design engineer, billionaire, knight, ler V-9. “It goes a hundred and twenty dry his hair. “I tend to use it in a more
and vacuum-cleaner magnate, threw a thousand r.p.m.s,” he said. (Very fast.) blokey kind of way,” he said. “Drying
party at a loft in Chelsea. The occa- “Because it’s so fast, it can be very shoes, defrosting a freezer. Drying socks.”
sion was the U.S. launch of the Dyson efficient, with a small fan. With the old That night, the party was boisterous:
Supersonic hair dryer: a four-hun- hair dryer, the motor goes in there”— chitchat, liquor, blow-drying. Guests
dred-dollar magenta O on a stick, of a he picked up a dryer and pointed at its nudged past one another, admiring mo-
shape more microphone than popgun. barrel—“and it makes rather a long hair torized mannequin heads. Supersonics,
Guests took a sort of disco freight el- dryer. I’ll talk about long in a second. on pedestals, were available to blow at
evator to the fourth floor; there, a video So it makes it very top-heavy.” The oneself; at a bar staffed by GlamSquad
closeup of the impeller V-9, the tiny Dyson motor fits in the handle, which stylists, women photographed their hair
motor that powers the Supersonic, also functions as a “silencer tube.” “The being misted and dried. Revellers in a
swirled on a wall-size screen, to gen- speed is ultrasonic,” Dyson said. “A horse photo booth waved Supersonics around,
tly carnivalesque music. When a Su- might be able to hear it, but a human blowing hot air at pink wigs, pink bal-
personic appeared on the screen, sev- can’t.” He looked pleased. loons, pink confetti, and each other. One
eral guests held their phones aloft, He talked about long. “That length woman, leaving the booth, turned to her
recording. Dyson employees wore im- is a nuisance, because it means you have friend. “Is my hair O.K.?” she asked.
peller V-9s on their shirts, like brooches. to hold it quite a long way out,” he said, —Sarah Larson
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 25
THE FINANCIAL PAGE you consider that the government still spends money mon-
TRUMP SETS PRIVATE PRISONS FREE itoring private prisons, and that it’s stuck running the parts
of the system that private companies thought were money
losers, the case that private prisons save money looks shaky.
Even if they did, the ethical cost would be too high. Im-
prisoning people is one of the weightiest things that gov-
ernment does, yet outsourcing imprisonment means that
oing into Election Day, few industries seemed in treatment of inmates is shaped by bottom-line consider-
G worse shape than America’s private prisons. Prison pop- ations. This has led to understaffing, inadequate mental-
ulations, which had been rising for decades, were falling. In health care, and, in some cases, inadequate meals. Worse,
2014, Corrections Corporation of America, the biggest pri- private prisons have an obvious incentive to keep people
vate-prison company in the U.S., lost its contract to run Ida- inside as long as possible. Last year, Anita Mukherjee, an
ho’s largest prison, after lawsuits relating to understaffing and assistant professor of actuarial science at the University of
violence that had earned the place the nickname Gladiator Wisconsin, studied Mississippi’s prison system, and found
School. There were press exposés of shocking conditions in that people in private prisons received many more “prison
the industry and signs of a policy shift toward it. In April, conduct violations” than those in government-run ones.
Hillary Clinton said, “We should end private prisons.” In This made it harder for them to get parole, and, on aver-
August, the Justice Department said that private federal pris- age, they served two to three more months of prison time.
ons were less safe and less secure than The perversities of profit-driven
government-run ones. The same month, prison policy don’t end there. The need
the department announced that it would for inmates leads companies, in effect,
phase out the use of private prisons at to lobby state and federal governments
the federal level. Although most of the to maintain the current system of mass
private-prison industry operates on the incarceration. Government-run pris-
state level (immigrant-detention cen- ons aren’t blameless here—prison-guard
ters are its other big business), the news unions lobby for longer sentences and
sent C.C.A.’s stock down by thirty-five tougher laws—but the private compa-
per cent. nies know how to throw their weight
Donald Trump’s victory changed all around, and they benefit from strong
that: within days, C.C.A.’s stock had local support, as they are often in rural
jumped forty-seven per cent. His faith towns without many other sources of
in privatization is no secret, and prison jobs or tax revenue. Since the mid-
companies aren’t the only ones rubbing aughts, the industry has spent tens of
their hands. The stock price of for-profit millions of dollars lobbying on the state
schools has also rocketed. Still, the out- and federal levels. Its successes include
look for private prisons is particularly an Arizona law that required cops to
rosy, because many Trump policies work stop suspected undocumented immi-
to their benefit. The Justice Department’s plan to phase out grants, major increases in spending on immigration en-
private prisons will likely be scrapped, and a growing bipar- forcement, and the blocking of congressional efforts to ban
tisan movement for prison and sentencing reform is about private prisons.
to run up against a President who campaigned as a defender It’s become common to speak of “the prison-industrial
of “law and order.” Above all, Trump’s hard-line position on complex,” and the analogy to the military-industrial com-
immigration seems certain to fill detention centers, one of plex is a good one: in both cases, government spending helps
the biggest money spinners for private-prison operators. fund very profitable businesses, which, in turn, lobby legis-
The boom in private prisons in the past two decades was lators and regulators to keep the funds flowing. Just as we
part of a broader privatization trend, fuelled by a belief in spend billions on weapons systems that we may not need,
the superior efficiency of the private sector. But privatizing so, too, we jail more people than we need for longer than
prisons makes little economic or political sense. Some stud- necessary, because it keeps someone’s balance sheet healthy.
ies find private prisons to be less cost-effective than govern- In recent years, an unlikely coalition of conservatives and lib-
ment ones, some more, and further studies suggest that any erals had made some progress in weakening this system,
savings are likely the result of cutting corners. In a study of going after policies like mandatory sentences. Trump’s elec-
prisons in nine states, Chris Petrella, a lecturer at Bates Col- tion will make it much harder to sustain that progress. Pri-
lege, found that private ones avoid taking sick and elderly vate prisons, he said earlier this year, “work a lot better,” and
CHRISTOPH NIEMANN

inmates, since health care is a huge expense for prisons. They he’ll doubtless look to expand their reach. And he has a sim-
employ a younger, less well trained, and less well paid work- ple and grim answer to how many people we should put in
force and have higher inmate-to-guard ratios, all of which prisons and detention centers: More.
saves money but also makes prisons more dangerous. When —James Surowiecki

26 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016

 the optimism that filled the church.
PERSONAL HISTORY We ended the service with an old Meth-
odist rabble-rouser, “Thine Be the

THE TEACHER
Glory, Risen Conquering Son,” sung
to a tune from Handel’s “Judas Mac-
cabaeus.” It was hard not to be moved
A mother’s lesson plan. when the minister said that my mother
was finally at one with the Lord she
BY JAMES WOOD had spent a lifetime serving: she was
now in the glory of his presence. Could
these words, beautifully improbable,
possess the power entrusted to them?
For a moment, it seemed as if the ugly
oak coffin, sitting on trestles near the
altar, were less a final box than the husk
of another husk, the body now joyously
unimportant, finally discarded. The an-
cient promise: the soul has thrown off
its impediments and is flying away.
There was a moment when I came
close to tears, and it involved another
set of words. I feared discomposure,
didn’t want to be an embarrassment (that
shaming English shame). But it was
not so easy when the minister read this
prayer: “O Lord, support us all the day
long, until the shadows lengthen and
the evening comes, and the busy world
is hushed, and the fever of life is over,
and our work is done. Then in thy mercy
grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest,
and peace at the last.” It’s a beautiful
plea—“a safe lodging, and a holy rest,
and peace at the last.” But the phrase
I found most moving was “and our
work is done.” Like most mothers, mine
worked very hard: the never finished
labor of maternity. In many ways, she
t my mother’s funeral, I was Ivan Ilyich” kept coming to my mind. was an almost stereotypically Scottish
A calmer than I had ever imagined Peter Ivanovich is looking at Ivan Ily- mother (the goyish version of the Jew-
being. She was eighty-seven and had ich’s corpse: “The expression on the ish caricature)—passionate, narrow,
lived a long and fruitful life, and for face said that what was necessary had judgmental, always aspiring. Her chil-
some time her body had been signal- been accomplished, and accomplished dren were her artifacts, through which
ling its eagerness to depart: almost blind rightly.” Those words sustained me. A she created the drama of her own rest-
from macular degeneration, emaciated, long life, a fulfilling career as a school- less ambitions. These ambitions were
she had been bedridden for months, teacher, a merciful end (relatively speak- moral and social. She wanted us to be
after a bad fall. She died alone, but my ing), three children and a devoted morally successful, to get the best pos-
father and I were at her side a few hours husband: what was necessary had been sible grades from the Great Examiner.
before her death. In the hospital room, accomplished, and accomplished rightly. It was my mother who told me that
grief conspired with natural curiosity: And there was another “right” thing, my untidy bedroom was unworthy of
so this is how a body near death func- which would have satisfied Tolstoy in good Christian living (it showed “poor
tions; this is how most of us will go. . . . his late religious phase. My mother stewardship”), that I should speak not
Six or seven seconds passed between died a Christian, sure that she was going of “luck” but of “blessing,” and who was
deep breaths; each was likely to be the to meet her Redeemer. I don’t share made distinctly nervous by my talk of
last, and the renewal of breath, when that belief, but in those last months I having a beer in a pub (“only ever half
it came, seemed almost like a strange, was sometimes consoled by the thought a pint, I hope”; her own Scottish mother
teasing physiological game—no, not of my parents’ consolation. My mother had signed the “temperance pledge,”
yet, not quite. In the days before she had chosen all the readings and the and never drank). The emphasis, in
died, a sentence from “The Death of hymns for her funeral, and I admired Protestant fashion, was rigorous and
28 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY GÉRARD DUBOIS
corrective. There was plenty of happi- mother the idea that if she had sons that fabled and fortunate place, whose
ness in our household, but it was rarely she would “send them to Eton.” mothers, daunted by debt, worked a
religious happiness. The self was viewed An absurd story, in part because Saturday job, standing behind a cash
with suspicion, as if it were a mob of women of my mother’s class were not register. When I was young, I wasn’t
appetites and hedonism. As an adoles- exactly invited to think of Eton as proud enough of her; indeed, I was
cent, I was often told that “self, self, self within their reach. They had not enough probably a bit ashamed.
is all you think about,” and that “selfish- money, and certainly not enough so- Yet that tremendous force of char-
ness is your whole philosophy.” Life cial standing. But I believe what she acter was riddled with anxiety and
was understood to be constant moral told me, because it sounds so magnifi- doubt. Her anxiety was structurally re-
work, a job that could never really be cently like her, and because she achieved lated to her ambition; her vigilance re-
“done,” because the ideal was Jesus’ un- her ambition. It was financial insanity, sembled the omniscient uncertainty of
surpassable perfection. My mother and even with the help of scholarships and immigrant parents. (The story of so-
I quarrelled over the corpse of my re- bursaries, to try to send two sons to cial class in Britain is, figuratively, one
ligious faith. She told me that at night Eton and a daughter to a boarding of emigration and immigration: a voy-
she prayed I would “come back into school in Scotland, and it brought my aging out of one station or place and
the fold.” As a young man, I lined up parents to the verge of ruin. (I will never into another. At Eton, I was a spy from
my pagan, life-loving heroes—Nietz- forget the moment when my father the obscure North of England and the
sche, Camus, D. H. Lawrence, Keith phoned me to ask if he could borrow equally obscure middle classes, quickly
Moon, Ian Dury—in glorious defen- five hundred pounds. He was sixty-two, learning the language and the signifi-
sive formation: reasons to be cheerful. and perilously close to being broke; I cation of the surprisingly hospitable
Her social aspirations weren’t always was twenty-five, had just started work- enemy.) My mother fiercely desired her
compatible with her religious aspira- ing for a London newspaper, and had children’s success, but never quite be-
tions, though they proceeded from the my first regular salary.) lieved in it. We were like the parish-
same extraordinary will. The woman Eton was also unnecessary: there ioners who Jonathan Edwards warned
who wanted to assign luck to godly was a good grammar school not far were suspended over Hell by “a slen-
providence also believed deeply in the from our town, a place that sent kids der thread,” which an angry God might
earned fortune of hard work. She un- every year to Oxford and Cambridge. sever at any minute. Was this a theo-
derstood, again in familiar Scottish But who is defining necessity? I guess logical fear that became a social one,
fashion, that social advancement was that my mother considered the unnec- or the other way around? Certainly, the
best achieved through education. Her essary surplus of private education— two anxieties were inextricable: look
own origins were lower middle class, the invisible social lift that a place like away from the struggle, for one sec-
petit bourgeois: she had an uncle who Eton offered—absolutely necessary. If ond, and you may fall. In our house-
was a doctor—the star of the family— not, why else put her family through hold, there could be no complacency.
but neither of her parents had gone to the hardship and labor? And mostly Mother didn’t assume I would go to
university. Her mother had a Scottish that’s what it was. Not for me, the lucky Cambridge or Oxford; she didn’t as-
accent; hers came and went. She told beneficiary of my mother’s quixotic and sume I would get to university at all,
me that she had been bullied at her self-abnegating striving, but for my despite indications to the contrary. If
fairly ordinary state school for affect- perpetually impoverished parents. My you get to university—that was the
ing, like Margaret Thatcher, a “posh” father, a zoologist, had no more money menacing conditional. Exams were sites
accent a few stations above her class; than his modest salary from an En- of strenuous terror, doors that opened
it was always difficult for me to assess glish university; Mother taught at the onto everything desirable but that could
Mrs. Thatcher with any neutrality, be- local girls’ school. They needed every as easily be closed in one’s face.
cause in demeanor and sheer force of penny. Had they sat down, at the start For the same reason, she only warily
will she so reminded me of my mother. of it all, and run the numbers on the encouraged my desire to be a writer. I
back of an envelope, they would never might just be able to pull it off, but
eaching ran in my family. My have contemplated private education only if I worked at it, with devotion
T father was also a teacher, and my for their three children. But they be- and Protestant modesty. The profes-
mother’s grandfather was in charge of lieved in sacrifice, and they probably sion of letters was generally admirable,
a small junior school, long gone, in a imagined that they could muddle but the idea of my being a writer made
house situated in gentle fields outside through somehow, borne aloft by my her anxious: How would I earn a liv-
Edinburgh. Mother remembered vis- mother’s surging triumphalism. And ing? What sort of social status could I
iting him during the summer holidays, by extra work: in addition to his teach- ever achieve? Was writing, at bottom,
when, so she told me, he would coach ing, my father marked Open Univer- even a moral activity? I tried to make
private pupils, boys headed for expen- sity and high-school exam papers in my case, aware of how flimsy and amoral
sive boarding schools in Scotland and the summer vacation. And my mother, my ambitions sounded. Her idol was
England. Over the years, a few of these in addition to her weekday school teach- the writer and politician John Buchan,
boys, suitably crammed with exam- ing, took on a Saturday job, at a book- the son of a Free Church of Scotland
busting power, went to Eton, and it shop in town. There cannot be many minister who rose from that relatively
was this knowledge that gave my old Etonians, in the entire history of humble background to the heights of
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 29
Oxford, later becoming a Member of reported that I could read “fluently of five, and what John Stuart Mill could
Parliament and the governor-general enough, but without much compre- do as an infant at dawn, I too can do
of Canada: a man of substance. I didn’t hension,” she took it up with the school. on a Saturday afternoon in my prime.”
take him very seriously as a writer; as Years later, when I got a B in an En- In Spark’s novel, we never see Miss
I saw it, Buchan’s worldly success richly glish exam (it was my best subject, so Brodie not performing, we never see
compensated for—and effectively oblit- I was “supposed” to get an A), she made her just at home, offstage, not being a
erated—the eccentricity of his want- me sit for the exam again, the unspo- teacher. If she was anything like my
ing to be a writer in the first place. But ken but hovering implication being mother, that may be an authorial mercy.
I understood why his example meant that I would keep retaking it until the Though authoritative with her young
so much to my mother, and why she expected grade was achieved. My fa- pupils and with her own children, my
used it to push me on. John Buchan, ther, in his usual mild manner, went mother was not a confident or worldly
she would intone, rose at five in the along with all these incursions and woman. The anticipation of teaching
morning to write his books (not least improvements. made her extremely nervous, physically
“The Thirty-nine Steps”), before going It was a joke in our family that my sick at times. The days just before the
out into the world and earning a liv- mother and Muriel Spark’s great fic- beginning of term, after the blessing
ing: “You will have to work like that if tional creation, Miss Jean Brodie, shared of the holidays, were always tense and
you want to achieve anything compa- a certain temperament, as well as a pro- furious, full of melancholy and com-
rable.” She preferred the security of the fession that was really a vocation. Like plaint. If she was a natural teacher, she
law, or medicine (the path my brother Miss Brodie (or like Maggie Smith’s was never an easy one. One of my fond-
took), or the academy (a shabby but impersonation, in the 1969 movie), my est childhood memories is of standing
dependable cousin to these grander mother had a genteel Anglo-Scots ac- outside the bathroom door and listen-
professions). Her expressed hope was cent, taught at a private girls’ school, ing to her on the other side, as she me-
that when she answered the phone and was forceful and opinionated, had firm thodically whispered words and dates:
a stranger asked to speak to Dr. Wood ideas about education, and was clearly she had a history textbook with her in
she could reply, “Which one? My hus- a wonderful presence in the classroom, the bathroom, and was cramming for
band, or one of my three children? We filling the girls’ heads with strange sto- class. If I had been asked, when I was
have four Dr. Woods in this house.” ries, historical gossip, unusual dates, a child, how my mother liked teach-
(She ended up with only two, her hus- nice prejudices, delicious facts. I know ing, I would have replied that she hated
band and my brother.) that she loved talking to her classes it. And because of this knowledge my
In many ways, she was a natural about her own children; over the years, siblings and I were sometimes conde-
teacher. She marched her children I would encounter some of her former scending toward my mother’s work.
around English stately homes and told pupils, and was amused by how much Today, I would probably say that she
us the history of these places, in loud, these young women knew about our disliked it but was powerfully, help-
confident tones; we sometimes feared family life. (They invariably knew that lessly drawn to it. Now that I am my-
that she might be mistaken for a do- I played the trumpet, and had been to self a parent, I realize how perpetually
cent. She took us to many museums, Eton.) When my mother used John exhausted and overloaded she must
and to the great sites of Scottish his- Buchan’s work ethic as a moral goad, have been, how every muscle and nerve
tory—Culloden, Glenfinnan, Glencoe. it was hard not to hear Miss Brodie must have been pulled taut: three chil-
She certainly encouraged us; more often telling her girls that she was going to dren, a week’s work at school, an extra
she goaded, enforced. But she also de- learn Greek: “John Stuart Mill used to job on Saturdays, the constant drag of
fended us. When my first-grade teacher rise at dawn to learn Greek at the age debt. And Sunday, alas, was not a day
of rest, but more work—what seemed
like endless churchgoing.

few months after the funeral,

A I gotstudents,
an e-mail from one of her
Katrina Porteous. I
former
knew her name, because she is a poet,
who has written eloquently about the
North of England, in particular about
the Northumberland coast, where she
lives. She was one of my mother’s great
success stories—Durham High School
for Girls, a brilliant history degree at
Cambridge University, a Harkness Fel-
lowship to Berkeley and Harvard, and
several acclaimed books of verse since
the publication of her first collection,
“I’m starting to think humans don’t even like winning free cruises.” “The Lost Music,” in 1996. Mother had
spoken of Katrina, and, a year before Consett, the only child of a scientist
she died, had given me one of her books. and a lovely but utterly unbookish
But she was five years older than me, mother, I encountered in yours the first
and we hadn’t known each other. We ‘woman of letters’ I had met. She was
had learned of each other’s movements, also kind, sensitive, principled and spir-
literary and otherwise, intermittently ited. I adored her. I am so sorry not to
and remotely, through my mother. have taken the opportunity when I had
Katrina had not been in touch with it to tell her how much her example
my parents for a long time, and was has meant to me.”
writing to ask if my mother was in Had Katrina spoken this at my
good health, “and whether mother’s funeral, I would not
it might be possible to con- have stayed so calm. She,
tact her.” She went on, “I’d as a pupil, said what I, as a
like to thank her for the en- son, could not. Her words
couragement and inspira- were simple and forthright
tion she gave me. She re- and grateful, while mine
ally was the most wonder- would have been compli-
ful teacher. I’ve recently cated and wary and not
published a new poetry grateful enough. Did I want
collection with Bloodaxe, to take Katrina’s words as
and would love to send my own? Was I jealous of
it to her. Would that be possible?” the easy literary encouragement she re-
It was strange to receive this mes- ceived? Perhaps, though surely what
sage, so soon after my mother’s funeral, made her tribute so moving was pre-
as if Katrina had some eerie premoni- cisely that it came from someone else.
tion that all was not well, as if the long All sons adore their complicated moth-
silence were speaking to her, laden with ers, in one way or another. But how
significance. It was strange, too, to be powerful to encounter, from someone
communicating as two middle-aged else, the beautifully uncomplicated state-
people. In my mind, my mother’s “old ment “I adored her.” And Katrina’s mes-
girls” were still girls, as I was still my sage was a revelation, as if one of Miss
mother’s boy. What linked us was lost Brodie’s girls had materialized, in order
in our far-off childhoods; and here we to write a letter to me. I had a sense
were, two graying adults talking across that my mother was a good teacher, but
a waste of gain and loss. I wrote to her I had no idea that she had been such
on Christmas Day, and told her that an influential one, and in the very area
my mother had died in July. I added I had chosen, and struggled to succeed
that I had been moved by the tributes in, often in the face of parental doubts.
my father had received from former She had been not just a good teacher
Durham High School girls. Her e-mail, but a crucial literary encourager, and
I told her, was one of the most mov- I had not been able to see this well
ing: because she was a writer, and be- enough—because as a mother her ped-
cause of the accident of its timing. agogy was so fraught, so anxious and
Katrina replied four days later. She vicarious, and was such a difficult com-
said she was especially touched to hear panion of her role as a parent.
from me at Christmas, when she was Sometimes, in anger or rebellion, I
at home with her own parents, now in had felt that it was at best a frustration
their eighties, “in the house from which and at worst a misfortune to be the son
I travelled to Durham High School of such a possessive and sharply gifted
every day as a child. One is powerfully teacher. But my father knew better. To
transported back to earlier times in my surprise, he had these words put on
those moments.” She continued, “Your her gravestone: “A devoted mother and
mother was and will always remain a grandmother and dear friend of many,
profound influence in my life. She gave including her former pupils.” He had
me the confidence to believe in myself properly assessed the components of her
as a ‘writer’ at a precocious age, when identity, the parts of her great labor, the
I had no right to think of myself as variety of her lifework. What was nec-
such, but every opportunity to become essary had been accomplished, and ac-
one. (I am still trying.) Growing up in complished rightly. Her work was done. 
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 31
 This frenetic painting by Jackson
SHOUTS & MURMURS Pollock is typical of his drip style, which
features gestural splatters of paint across

HONEST MUSEUM
the canvas, and I know what you’re
thinking. You’re thinking that this type

AUDIO TOUR
of painting is easy, and that you could
do it. It’s not, and you couldn’t.
Paul Cézanne completed this land-
BY RIVER CLEGG scape in 1879, and you can touch it right
now if you want to. Quick! No one’s
ere it is, the “Mona Lisa.” You chair, which was made in 1573. The first looking.
H woke up early for this. You waited person to have sat in it is long dead. This oil painting, like the eight pre-
in line for almost an hour. You’re now Now no one is allowed to sit in it. ceding it, is of a table with fruit on it.
surrounded by seventy people, all try- As you gaze at this haunting Rodin There wasn’t a lot to paint back then.
ing to catch a glimpse of it. One of them sculpture, note the contrast between the Titled “The Persistence of Memory,”
just elbowed you while taking a pho- figure’s blank stare and the tormented this 1931 Surrealist work, renowned for
tograph of it. It’s behind a lot of glass. curl of his lips. Wait, don’t note that. its iconic melting clocks, was painted,
It’s not very big. What I’m trying to Forget I said anything. Moving on. by Salvador Dali, in response to a world-
say is: it’s O.K. to feel disappointed. This sculpture, you’ll notice, is a tube wide shortage of dorm-room poster art.
By this point, you might have no-
ticed that the history of Western paint-
ing went something like this: First, it
didn’t matter whether the people looked
realistic. Then it mattered. Then it
stopped mattering again. This one is
from 1910, when it was no longer mat-
tering so much.
“The Starry Night,” Vincent van
Gogh’s 1889 masterpiece, captures a
small village beneath a luminous sky.
But the painting’s enduring mystery
lies in the dark, flame-shaped form
in the left foreground. What was van
Gogh attempting to convey with these
elusive brushstrokes? What might
this menacing presence in an other-
wise tranquil landscape suggest? For
years, there seemed to be no answer.
Then we checked Wikipedia. It’s a
cypress tree.
As you can see, this room is a bunch
of rugs hanging on a wall, so we can
skip it.
Your feet must be sore; you’ve been
This powerful self-portrait is from sticking out of an orange cardboard here for two hours. Your young child
Picasso’s Blue Period—so named be- box. You’re wondering, Is there some- is screaming. Why did you think a six-
cause the paint he used was mostly thing I’m missing? No, there is not. year-old would enjoy an art museum?
blue. You spent eight dollars on this This is a bad sculpture. Did you really believe that you were
audio guide. Look at this guy. Strolling through doing him a favor by bringing him
As the nineteenth century progressed, the museum without an audio guide— here? You’re actively ruining everyone
Impressionists such as Monet and Pis- not even a map. Probably thinks he al- else’s time. And then there’s your other
sarro continued to divide public opin- ready knows everything. Well, his loss. kid, who is bored and resents your very
ion—some people thought that the Remember those neat tidbits about existence. She didn’t even want to come
painters should be applying their paint Gauguin’s personal life I told you in on this vacation, you know. One day
to the canvas differently, while others the last room? No way this guy knows soon, she will declare that she hates
CHI BIRMINGHAM

maintained that the painters were doing them. Oh, God, now he’s stroking his you, and mean it. This painting is by
the right thing with the paint. chin and nodding thoughtfully at a Courbet.
Now we come to the antique-fur- Rembrandt. Christ. Let’s keep mov- The gift shop dates back to 1983,
niture room. Note this intricately carved ing. We don’t need him. but it was made bigger in 1997. 
32 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
 performances has expanded greatly,
DEPT. OF PERFORMANCE here and abroad, and their work has
found a home in the festivals, art fairs,

ART WITHOUT WALLS

and biennials whose global prolifer-
ation now verges on the epidemic.
(The first Antarctic Biennial—no kid-
Alex Poots and the boom in mixed-media art. ding—takes place next spring, on a
cruise ship and an ice field.) These
BY CALVIN TOMKINS artists—Philippe Parreno, Olafur Eli-
asson, Pierre Huyghe, Liam Gillick,
Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Doug
Aitken, and many others—are not
widely known outside the art world,
but they reach large, enthusiastic au-
diences on the festival circuit. Perfor-
mance art has its own New York bi-
ennial (called “Performa”), organized
and nourished since 2005 by the in-
defatigable RoseLee Goldberg. No-
body gets rich from these activities,
and for many artists that is a power-
ful incentive. They see their work, in
part, as a reaction to the overcommer-
cialized world of the galleries and the
auction houses, with its ever-rising
prices and billionaire buyer-traders.
“As the value of paintings and sculp-
tures increases, some artists make
things that can’t be sold,” Alex Poots,
a leading impresario of the cross-dis-
cipline art movement, said to me last
February. “The art walks off when the
show ends.”
Poots and I were standing at the
eastern edge of the Hudson Yards, a
twenty-eight-acre tract of real estate
that runs from Thirtieth to Thirty-
fourth Streets and from Tenth Ave-
The Shed may be New York’s first example of performative architecture. nue to the river. This is where the Long
Island Rail Road parks trains that are
very so often, it seems, visual art- obsessed with dancing in the fifties and not in use, and it is now a vast con-
E ists are stricken by the urge to per- sixties, when he was creating sets and struction site. At least twenty cranes
form. The “happenings” movement in costumes for Merce Cunningham’s were doing the heavy lifting for seven
the nineteen-sixties—young painters company, that he choreographed and of sixteen planned commercial and res-
and sculptors doing nonverbal the- performed in several extraordinary idential towers, several of which had
atre—was explained as a response to dance works of his own. His friend already topped out. “It’s all being built
Pollock, de Kooning, and other ges- John Cage, the composer, philosopher, on a platform over the railroad yards,
tural Abstract Expressionists: it was and Pied Piper to several generations and the trains are still running nor-
the gesture without the painting. In of would-be radicals in all fields, had mally underneath,” Poots said, in a tone
the seventies, when skill, craft, and mas- prophesied the new direction much of boyish wonder.
tery went out of fashion, a lot of visual earlier, in a 1957 lecture “Experimen- A new community—a new city, ac-
artists moved into performance works tal Music.” “Where do we go from tually—is taking shape here, with thou-
that were considerably less entertain- here?” Cage said. “Towards theatre. sands of offices and apartments, restau-
ing than “happenings”—live or filmed That art more than music resembles rants, a school, parks, and a new subway
or videotaped presentations of oneself nature. We have eyes as well as ears, station for the No. 7 train, and at the
doing something not particularly diffi- and it is our business while we are alive heart of it, not yet visible but with the
cult, like walking a straight line in the to use them.” foundations in place, is the Shed, an
studio. Robert Rauschenberg, the most Since 2000, the number of visual experimental center for music, theatre,
protean artist since Picasso, became so artists doing time-based, mixed-media film and video, dance, and visual art,
34 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY JOSH COCHRAN
whose program Poots has been hired
to create and direct. A six-story build-
ing with movable walls and ceilings
and computerized lighting and sound
systems, the Shed may be the city’s first
example of performative architecture.
It will have an exterior steel-and-glass
shell that rests on gigantic rail tracks
so that it can roll out over the public
plaza in front, providing an enclosed
performance area for audiences of up
to three thousand people. “This will be
the most flexible space ever made,”
Poots said, proudly.
A forty-nine-year-old former trum-
pet player from Edinburgh, Poots lacks
the flamboyance generally expected in
a world-class impresario. He is com-
pact, soft-spoken, and unobtrusive. He
sleeps no more than five hours a night,
has permanent circles under his large,
expressive eyes, and keeps track of his
life with tiny handwritten notations
in a black notebook. Under the calm
exterior, though, is a tough-minded,
hard-driving visionary who founded
England’s Manchester International
Festival and ran it for ten years, and
turned the Park Avenue Armory into
one of Manhattan’s most exciting ven-
ues for new performance works. Ev-
erything that he has done so far, he
feels, can be seen as preparation for
the Shed.
“This is the largest effort to start
a new cultural institution in New York
in a very long time,” Daniel Doctor-
off, the chairman of the Shed’s board
of directors, told me. “What I love
about Alex is that he’s an impresario
in the truest sense of the word, but
he is also a very practical Scottish guy
who is very concerned that we live
within our means. He’s got his hands
on everything.”

he idea of building above the

T Hudson Yards came about in the
mid-nineteen-nineties, with New York
City’s bid for the 2012 Summer Olym-
pics. The original plan included re-
zoning the whole area, investing in
parks and other amenities, and build-
ing a stadium, which would become
home field for the New York Jets, on
a huge tract between Eleventh and
Twelfth Avenues. The city approved
the plan in 2005, but the stadium re-
quired approval by the state, and, when
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 35
Albany refused to give it, the city’s talk to Doctoroff. Poots agreed, on the Victor Poots, was a dentist and an
Olympic bid collapsed. At that point, condition that Doctoroff would first amateur trumpet player. When Alex
Doctoroff, who had been a key player go to the show that he was putting on was four, he learned how to blow his
in the Olympics negotiations and was at the Park Avenue Armory. Doctor- father’s cornet, which is smaller than
now a deputy mayor in the Bloomberg off and his wife saw the show—it was a trumpet. He soon graduated to the
administration, forged ahead with the Kenneth Branagh’s radical staging of trumpet, took lessons, and practiced
mixed-use redevelopment plan for the “Macbeth,” which opened with a sword for an hour every day. “I was extremely
Hudson Yards. A separately funded fight in a field of mud—and he and good at playing the trumpet but ex-
nonprofit cultural center had been Poots had lunch the next day. “I asked tremely average at everything else,”
part of the plan from the outset, but, him what he thought of it,” Poots re- he told me. “I remember, when I was
according to Doctoroff, “we had no called, “and he said he loved it, and ten, standing up before the whole
idea what it was going to be. We asked that his wife had talked about it all school and playing ‘The Mexican Hat
ourselves, ‘Why does a city that has night. I told him that in his world the Dance.’ I took it at double speed, be-
twelve hundred cultural institutions show might seem like a loss-making cause I was a little nervous, and it
need one more, and what can we do event, but that in my world it was an worked—until then, I’d been pretty
here that will be different from all the investment—and that he, Doctoroff, anonymous at school.” His French
others?’ ” would have to invest in things like this grandmother lived with them when
When Doctoroff left the Mayor’s heart and soul. He said, ‘Would you he was small, and for several years
office, in 2008, to become the C.E.O. come and tell my board what you’ve Alex spent summers at her ancestral
of Bloomberg L.P., the privately owned told me?’ ” home, in a pine forest near Bordeaux.
software, data, and media firm, he con- “Alex made everyone on the board “His mind thought in French as much
tinued to meet informally with mem- taste and smell and feel the building,” as in English,” his younger brother,
bers of the administration to discuss Liz Diller, who attended the meeting, Ben, who was born when Alex was
plans for the arts center. Later that year, told me. “He provided the magic link, eleven, told me. “He was always full
the city-run Hudson Yards Develop- the sense of what artists could do here.” of energy, and he slept only a few hours
ment Corporation commissioned the His appointment as the Shed’s direc- a night.”
designers Elizabeth Diller and David tor was announced in November, 2014. After high school, Poots enrolled
Rockwell to start developing ideas of Working closely with Diller and at Napier College, in Edinburgh, where
what the center would look like. Diller, Rockwell for the next few months, he finished his classical-trumpet train-
of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, was one of while he was still involved with both ing and earned a diploma granted by
the lead designers of the High Line, Manchester and the Armory, Poots London’s Guildhall School of Music
the hugely popular landscaped walk- proposed a number of changes in the and Drama. “And then, much to my
way whose northern end curls around building’s design, to provide more flex- parents’ dismay, I postponed univer-
the Hudson Yards. Rockwell’s firm had ibility and larger performance areas. sity for a year and became a profes-
done the sets for numerous Broadway The trustees had to raise an additional sional trumpet player in Edinburgh,”
productions. The timing could not have twenty-six million dollars to pay for he said. “I played for jazz bands in
been worse. The collapse of the finan- these changes, and their willingness to bars, and I even recorded with a pop
cial markets in the 2008 economic re- do so boosted Poots’s optimism. He group called the Blue Nile.” A year
cession caused Tishman Speyer, the also cut back drastically on the amount later, he found an academic program
real-estate firm initially charged with of time that would be allotted for rent- at the City University of London that
developing the Hudson Yards, to pull als, persuaded the board to drop the matched his highly specific interests—
out of the project. Another firm, Re- word “culture”—with its echoes of élit- it covered music from antiquity to
lated Companies, took over, but for the ism—from the building’s title, and Bach and then skipped to the twen-
next few years planning for what was gained a clear understanding that his tieth century. “It was extremely com-
then called the Culture Shed proceeded programming would focus primarily petitive,” he said. “They wanted straight
much more slowly. Not until 2014 did on new and commissioned works. “I A’s, and my grades weren’t good
Doctoroff and the board of directors hire a lot of people, and I have great enough. But I showed them my A-level
he had put together feel confident confidence in my powers of cynicism,” paper on Wynton Marsalis, a young
enough to start looking for an artistic Doctoroff told me. “Alex evaporated trumpet player who was at that point
director. my cynicism.” the new hope of contemporary jazz,
When Poots received a telephone and I played the trumpet for them,
call from a corporate headhunter, fol- lexander Moinet Poots grew and they made an exception and let
lowed by a copy of the business plan Aup in a household in which music me in.”
for the Culture Shed, he wasn’t inter- and language were the dominant in- After graduating, in 1992, he stayed
ested. “It just looked like an exhibition terests. His French mother, Mireille in London and for the next few years
hall,” he recalled. “Rooms for hire by Moinet, taught French literature and earned his living, in part, as a trumpet
the highest bidder. So I didn’t apply translation at Heriot-Watt University, player, but he had begun to question
for the job.” In late May, the head- in Edinburgh. (She was also a first- whether his future lay in performing.
hunter asked him if he would at least rate pianist.) His Irish father, Robert “I knew I was never going to play the
36 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
trumpet as well as Wynton Marsalis,” ended up working with the Barbican crossed again the following year. Steve
he said. “His sound—the roundness for five years. McQueen, the artist and filmmaker,
of it, the beauty, the agility in moving “His program there was quite spec- needed some professional advice on
from a low register to a high register tacular,” Peter Sellars, the American Iraq for a project that he was working
without losing quality—was on a differ- theatre and opera director, said recently. on, and Alex called her in to help. Kath-
ent level. There was an absolutely clear “Alex is brilliantly intuitive and genu- ryn was married at the time, and Alex
moment when I knew the trumpet inely curious, and his intuitions are sur- was engaged, but a few months later
wasn’t my future,” he recalled. “I was prisingly right on—or dead wrong. her marriage broke up and his engage-
in Edinburgh on holiday, and playing He is so receptive to what the artist is ment ended. McQueen told Kathryn
offstage trumpet for Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ thinking.” that she and Poots belonged together.
at King’s Theatre. The trumpet part is He told Poots the same thing. When
only about two minutes, and then you ne evening in June, I had din- Alex learned she was single, he said,
can leave. I walked back to my parents’ O ner with Poots and his wife, Kath- “There was no stopping me. We were
house, went to bed, and had a night- ryn, at their rented town house on the together within weeks, and we married
mare about playing that same piece of West Side. They are both good cooks, in 2007.”
music thirty years later. I woke up and and Kathryn made dinner that night—a They moved to New York last fall.
said to myself, ‘That is not what I want halibut-and-shrimp dish, with Persian Kathryn, who had been teaching so-
to be doing in thirty years, playing Ver- rice. Their two young children, Lucy, ciology at Aga Khan University, in Pa-
di’s “Requiem” not quite as well as I who is eight, and Thomas, five, had kistan, is now a visiting scholar at Co-
did before.’” dined earlier, but Lucy wanted (and lumbia. Poots’s work for the Shed
Poots had met a number of impor- was given) a plate of our meal. Kath- requires a lot of travel, mostly to meet
tant figures in the music world while ryn Spellman Poots grew up in Iowa, with artists and talk about what they
he was a student, working as a concert in a large Catholic family. Five of her want to do. His focus is so intense that
manager for the Edinburgh Interna- six siblings are lawyers, and they all you wonder how he can juggle ten to
tional Festival during his summer va- work for the family law firm, in Des fifteen complex productions at the same
cations. In 1996, Graham Sheffield, the Moines. When Kathryn was at Mar- time, as he has been doing for the past
music director of London’s Royal Fes- quette University, in Milwaukee, she decade in Manchester and at the Ar-
tival Hall and also of the Barbican Cen- went to London for her semester abroad mory, navigating the minefields of ar-
tre, the large performing-arts complex, and stayed for twenty-five years. She tistic ego that go with the territory.
offered him a temporary position there. became a sociologist, whose special “He’s good at being in many places at
“Your job will be to put on shows that fields of interest are Shia Islam, gen- the same time,” Kathryn said, laugh-
are so attractive they’ll drag audiences der, and migration. ing. Peter Saville, a British designer
kicking and screaming to the venue Kathryn and Alex met in 2004, when and one of Poots’s closest friends, told
they hate most,” Poots was told. (The she provided research assistance for a me, “Sometimes Alex doesn’t trust his
Barbican’s brutalist architecture had new opera, with a Middle East focus, own opinion enough, and can’t make
few admirers then—it had been voted that he was developing. Their paths up his mind. But he’s very tough. Things
London’s ugliest building.)
One of the shows Sheffield wanted
was a yearlong season of American cul-
ture. Poots put on a series called “Amer-
ican Pioneers,” which featured John
Cage, Morton Feldman, La Monte
Young, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry
Riley, John Adams, and others who, in
his view, had redefined music in the
second half of the twentieth century.
Another series, called “Sing It Loud,”
traced the rise of African-American
music and culture. Many of his shows
had a strong appeal to younger audi-
ences: a week of American Indian sto-
rytelling by Gayle Ross; appearances
by Ken Kesey and some of the surviv-
ing Merry Pranksters, along with the
Magic Bus; James Brown, performing
in the U.K. for the first time in twelve
years. “We had an absolute ball, and all
the money we needed, and there were
huge audiences,” Poots recalled. He “Now more than ever I need the right kind of avocado toast.”
upset him and hurt him, but they do minute art work in which a cousin of usual festival format of classics with a
not deflate him.” his describes on film how he acciden- smattering of newer works. Present ex-
During dinner, Kathryn told a story tally shot and killed his younger brother. clusively new or commissioned events,
about the first day of their honeymoon, McQueen wanted a musical counter- he said, and make it biennial, so that
which they spent in an old mill, two part to the story, like a requiem, and you can spend twice as much money
hours from Edinburgh, that belonged Poots arranged for the singer Jessye on each festival. That evening, he was
to his parents. Alex went for a walk in Norman, whom he had worked with offered the job.
the late afternoon, and was gone for at the Edinburgh International Festi- Poots resigned from the National
an alarmingly long time. He had seen val, to see it. Deeply moved, Norman Opera (one work he was developing
a lamb stuck in deep mud, and had composed a piece of music, which she there, with the Asian Dub Founda-
spent more than an hour sang as she walked slowly tion, eventually opened under the name
pulling it out. (In an earlier through the audience. Poots “Gadaffi”). He rented a small apart-
conversation, Kathryn had regards Serota as an impor- ment in Manchester, and threw him-
told me that it would be tant mentor. “Nick gave me self into organizing the first Manches-
hard for a woman who a chance to be in the same ter International Festival, which was
didn’t have a life of her own room with the visual arts,” scheduled to run for eighteen days in
to be with him.) We talked he said. “Before that, I was the summer of 2007. That gave him
about the Broadway the- not very literate in that two years to identify and develop a se-
atre. Poots thought the li- world.” ries of original productions. Working
bretto for “Hamilton” was Late in 2004, Poots got with a small staff and a generous bud-
magnificent, but I could tell another call from a head- get—fifteen million dollars, consider-
that he was less enthusiastic about the hunter. The city council in Manches- ably more than most established fes-
music. “I don’t think a great musical ter, Britain’s second-largest city, planned tivals had to spend at the time—Poots
has been written since ‘West Side to launch an international arts festival, put together a program of about twenty
Story,’ ” he said. “It’s a benchmark, an and his name was on the list of poten- events, to be staged throughout the
amazing opera. It expands your mind, tial directors. Poots, who had been hired city. They ranged from a contempo-
as great art does.” a year earlier to commission new works rary adaptation of an ancient Chinese
We went to the living room, where for the English National Opera, said story (“Monkey: Journey to the West”),
he screened a video of a Kanye West that he was not available. But his friend with a score by Damon Albarn, of Blur
performance in which the hip-hop art- Peter Saville called him and said, “Alex, and Gorillaz, to “Il Tempo del Pos-
ist makes references to the terrorist at- why don’t you just go and give them tino,” an exhibition of performance
tacks in Paris last year. “I think Plato some advice? It would be a good con- works by fourteen international art-
said that music is the most dangerous tact.” Saville had grown up in Man- ists, including Matthew Barney, Ola-
art form,” Poots said. “I have that writ- chester, and he was advising its cur- fur Eliasson, Tacita Dean, and Tino
ten down somewhere.” He looked in rent leaders on ways to reboot the city’s Sehgal.
his black notebook and found it: “Plato reputation as a grimy anachronism— “Il Tempo del Postino” had been de-
believed that ‘when the modes of music the world’s first industrialized city— veloped by the artist Philippe Parreno,
change, the fundamental laws of the and bring it to life in the twenty-first in collaboration with Hans Ulrich
state change with them.’ ” century. Obrist, the director of the Serpentine
The festival was part of that revi- Gallery, in London. Poots, who still
n 2001, Poots signed a three-year talization effort. Saville had come up felt “underinformed” about visual art,
I contract with the Tate Gallery to with a formative concept: instead of had hired Obrist as an artistic adviser,
produce a series of works that com- being the first industrial city, he had and the two have worked together ever
bined the visual and the performing told his clients, Manchester should since. “Postino” was insanely ambitious,
arts. Nicholas Serota, the Tate’s direc- think of itself as “the original modern Poots recalled. Matthew Barney’s piece
tor, had recently opened Tate Modern, city.” When Poots heard this, he was featured a live bull, which was sup-
in a converted power plant on the south captivated. “I asked myself what an posed to copulate with a car onstage.
bank of the Thames. He was aware of original modern festival might look When the owner of the Manchester
the increasing number of visual artists, like,” he said to me. “And the answer, Opera House, where the production
worldwide, who were working with of course, was that it would be all about was being staged, learned about the
time-based art forms, and he had de- new work.” bull, he shut down rehearsals. Poots
cided that Poots, in his Barbican pro- Poots went to Manchester. He urged went to see Howard Bernstein, the
ductions, “seemed to have his finger on the committee to build on the city’s city’s chief executive. “You believe this
a new pulse.” “Alex had conceived this history of radicalism—it was the birth- is important to the art work?” Bern-
notion of putting people together who place of trade unionism and women’s stein asked him. “One hundred per
had never met, and who might strike suffrage, and Friedrich Engels had lived cent,” Poots replied. Bernstein got on
sparks from each other,” he said. there when he was writing “The Con- the phone and talked the owner into
Serota introduced Poots to Steve dition of the Working Class in En- reopening the opera house.
McQueen, who had just made a thirty- gland”—and to break away from the Poots’s programming has never been
38 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
exclusively mixed-media. He presented granted stewardship of the building
many single-artist exhibitions and and embarked on its transformation
music recitals in Manchester, as well into a cultural center. Rebecca Robert-
as poetry readings, films, traditional son and Elihu Rose, the conservancy’s
theatre, debates and discussions, and executive producer and chairman, re-
children’s events. “It would be a very spectively, were looking for a new ar-
impoverished world if we had to choose tistic director to expand and coördi-
between art in its purist form and things nate their program, and in 2011 they
like ‘Monkey: Journey to the West,’ ” went to Manchester to meet Poots.
he told me. One of the most impor- Soon afterward, he agreed to work part
tant works in the first festival was time at the Armory, directing the an-
“Queen and Country,” Steve Mc- nual season there.
Queen’s project to memorialize Brit- Poots was struck by “the amazing
ish soldiers killed in the Iraq War by curiosity and receptiveness of New York
putting their portraits on postage audiences toward new work.” Some of
stamps. (This was the project that Kath- his productions had been done first in
ryn had helped him research.) The Manchester, but in the vast space of
Ministry of Defense and the British the Armory’s drill hall they looked very
Post Office both refused to coöperate, different. Branagh’s “Macbeth” had been
but ninety-eight of the families who staged in a deconsecrated Manchester
had lost sons or daughters in Iraq pro- church; in the drill hall, Poots said, “it
vided photographs, and Poots and Mc- was more like a pagan setting, with
Queen exhibited them in the Man- standing stones at one end and a heath
chester public library. that the audience walked through.”
Not all of the new productions came Robert Wilson’s staging of “The Life
off as well as Poots had hoped, but the and Death of Marina Abramović,” in
brilliance and experimental daring of which Abramović and Willem Dafoe
the festival brought spectators and crit- enacted scenes from the performance
ics from London and beyond, and artist’s melodramatic career, was com-
“Monkey: Journey to the West” was pletely reconceived for the Armory.
booked, after its Manchester début, to (“When I met Alex, in thirty seconds
appear in Paris, London, New York, I knew I could work with this person,”
and Charleston, South Carolina. The Abramović told me.)
London Times critic Richard Morri- About half of the events originated
son, writing about the opera, said, at the Armory, and some of them could
“What’s most encouraging . . . is the have been done nowhere else. “White
sense of something new and exciting Snow,” a panoramic installation by the
being created from the melding of many artist Paul McCarthy that turned the
disparate styles—pop and classical, Snow White story into an X-rated
Western and Eastern, visual and aural. shocker, was “a very challenging show
The audience, about fifty years younger for a lot of people, although the pub-
on average than the usual opera crowd, lic came in droves,” Poots said. In one
loved it.” of its sculptural tableaux vivants, a gro-
tesque male figure, down on all fours,
he Seventh Regiment Armory, is penetrated by a long pole. “Some
T a Gothic Revival colossus that oc- members of the public and some of my
cupies the entire block from Sixty-sixth board members asked why this was not
to Sixty-seventh Streets between Park called pornography,” Poots told me. He
and Lexington Avenues, has under- stood by McCarthy, and reminded
gone a renovation-through-art. For de- doubters of the Abner Louima case, in
cades, its fifty-five-thousand-square- 1997, in which a New York policeman
foot drill hall—where the Knickerbocker had sodomized a man in custody with
Greys come after school for instruc- a broom handle.
tion in upper-class military maneu- “I’m not one of those people who
vers—and its Tiffany-glass-infested think all their shows are brilliant,”
rooms were rented out for antique Poots once told me. “A good half of
shows and other commercial exhibi- them are not great.” That may be
tions. In 2006, a group called the Park overly optimistic, considering that he
Avenue Armory Conservancy was so often works with the new and the
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 39
 moving of his Armory productions,
to many viewers, was the 2014 “Tears
Become . . . Streams Become,” by
Hélène Grimaud, a French concert
pianist, and Douglas Gordon (whose
“Neck of the Woods” appeared in
Manchester a year later). Seven hun-
dred people sat on bleachers sur-
rounding a sunken rectangle in the
drill hall’s floor, at each end of which
was a grand piano. The lights went
down, and for twenty minutes the
only sound was the soft trickle of
water seeping into the rectangle.
When the water was about an inch
deep, the lights gradually came up,
and Grimaud, dressed all in white,
walked slowly to one of the pianos.
(From the bleachers, it looked as if
she were walking on water.) Grimaud
played for an hour, a selection of wa-
ter-themed works by Ravel, Fauré,
“Why do they all gain those extra pounds at Liszt, Debussy, and others. There were
the exact same time of the year?” moments during the recital when it
felt as though you were hearing music
for the first time.
• •
oots and his small but rapidly
experimental. One misfire was the don’t. John Cage, who anticipated the P expanding staff have less than three
Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas movement “towards theatre,” later years to develop a program for the
Gordon’s “Neck of the Woods,” at the identified a problem at the heart of Shed’s opening season, which will run
2015 Manchester International Fes- this trend: visual artists, trained to deal from April through December, 2019.
tival. A theatrical retelling of the Lit- with space, often have great trouble Throughout the year, the premises will
tle Red Riding Hood story, with Char- understanding time. be available for fashion shows, prod-
lotte Rampling as the heroine, it was “Tree of Codes,” a 2015 production uct launches, and other commercial
panned by the Guardian as “humour- for Manchester and the Armory that enterprises, at rentals that are expected
less and sedate,” and described by the combined ballet (choreographed by to help subsidize the artistic program.
Daily Telegraph as having “the unmis- Wayne McGregor), music (by Jamie “I think this is a new model of how
takable whiff of a vanity project.” The xx), and a visual setting (by Olafur Eli- an art center can function,” Poots told
next day, when Gordon went berserk asson), was one that was widely—and me. “You have to be more resourceful
backstage and attacked a wall with an diversely—reviewed. “The Independent in America about these things, and I’m
axe, several news accounts assumed said, ‘Five stars is not enough,’ and up for that.”
that he was reacting to the negative there were other glorious reviews, but Poots has commissioned the New
reviews. the ballet critics didn’t like it,” Poots York artist Lawrence Weiner to de-
Poots made a statement reprimand- said. “They thought the ballet was sign an art work—to be embedded,
ing Gordon for acting “in a wholly eclipsed by the music and the visuals.” mosaic-like, in the paving of the pub-
inappropriate way,” but privately he What “Tree of Codes” achieved, Poots lic plaza in front—and he is working
blames himself for the incident, say- feels, was a true synthesis of three art on two new productions that will ap-
ing that he did not provide sufficient forms. “I thought something new had pear in temporary venues before the
rehearsal time before opening night. been explored and presented,” Poots Shed opens. One is “The Age of Star-
So far, few of Poots’s shows have been said. “All they were looking at was the light,” a computer-generated, 3-D vi-
subjected to the sort of rigorous crit- footwork.” sual history of the universe, with nar-
icism that traditional theatre receives Poots does not overestimate his ca- ration by the BBC’s science adviser
in London and New York, and maybe pabilities. He knows when he needs Brian Cox. The other is being curated
they shouldn’t be. Performance works help on a project, and he seeks out the by the performance artist Tino Seh-
by visual artists are often ephemeral people who can give it to him. What gal, known for his audience-partici-
spectacles made for specific occa- he likes best is helping artists realize pation pieces. A third commission,
sions—and they are sometimes just projects that might not otherwise have “FlexNYC,” is already up and running.
too long. Some of them work; many been possible. The strangest and most The dance form called flex, or flexn,
40 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
derives from Jamaican dancehall styles, shadow its significance as an art form.
and was developed in the nineteen- Meanwhile, Poots is commissioning
nineties by young African-Americans Reggie Gray and the dancers to de-
in the East New York section of Brook- velop an ensemble piece that will pre-
lyn. (The name came from a local cable mière in 2019.
show called “Flex N Brooklyn.”) It
differs from reggae and break dancing he Shed will not lack compet-
in its ambition to express raw emotion. T itors. The Museum of Modern
Instead of trying to dazzle or defeat Art, the Whitney Museum in its new
competing dancers with spectacular downtown location, and other estab-
moves, flex dancers use their bodies to lished institutions have added perfor-
tell personal stories, often involving vi- mance spaces and developed time-
olence, drug use, prison, and also sud- based art programs in recent years. In
den eruptions of joy. Reggie (Regg Roc) addition, a surprising number of New
Gray, whose charisma and virtuosity York business leaders, politicians, and
made him the leader of a group that real-estate satraps have convinced
would eventually include Sam (Sam I themselves that new cultural institu-
Am) Estavien, Calvin Hunt, and about tions are the handmaidens of com-
fifteen others, perfected a movement merce—especially when building per-
that he called “pauzin,” a variation on mits call for them. Barry Diller, the
Jamaican Bruk Up that requires con- media billionaire, has pledged more
tinuous start-and-stop movements— than two hundred million dollars to
movements so quick that they look convert a crumbling Hudson River
strobe-lit. pier into a landscaped island for the
The group attracted a lot of at- arts. (Diller’s wife, Diane von Fürsten-
tention in local dance halls. Several berg, is on the Shed’s board.) Ronald O.
would-be promoters talked about Perelman, on the heels of an acri-
offering professional contracts, but monious departure as the chairman
nothing happened until 2013, when of Carnegie Hall, has announced a
Poots heard about the dancers, and seventy-five-million-dollar gift to the
went to East New York to see them long-delayed performing-arts center
perform. Afterward, he called Peter at the World Trade Center, whose
Sellars and told him that he had to program and design, published in Sep-
see them. Sellars began working with tember, show certain affinities to the
them—not choreographing but help- Shed’s. Poots welcomes all these ini-
ing to coördinate the lighting and the tiatives. There can never be too many
way the dancers interacted onstage. In cultural venues in the city, he main-
2015, Poots and Sellars brought “Flexn” tains, any more than there can be too
to the Park Avenue Armory, and then many good restaurants.
to the Manchester International Fes- Poots sees the Shed as a permanent
tival, and audiences in both places re- festival of the ways in which art is evolv-
sponded with foot-stomping excite- ing. “I get very agitated when people
ment. “For me, there’s not a more talk about genre-bending and cross-
important new art form in America,” over,” he told me recently. “That doesn’t
Sellars said. mean anything, or add anything. The
The Shed has funded a program to core of what matters is that we’re ex-
send flex dancers into public schools ploring a shared essence among differ-
in the five boroughs of New York City. ent art forms, to create a whole that’s
Sixteen dancers, ages eighteen and up, greater than any of its parts. It’s a kind
took an intensive, three-week program of alchemy. We’re ready to do some-
at Lincoln Center last summer, to hone thing significant, I hope.” He went on,
their teaching skills, and this Septem- “The idea of arts collaborating isn’t
ber they began working with junior- new, by the way. It’s been around since
high and high-school students in eight Monteverdi. Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes
schools. “It’s not just a style, it’s a life used visual artists and composers and
style,” Calvin Hunt told me. Young dancers to create new art—‘The Rite
women are joining what started out as of Spring’ is the bar we all set for our-
a male fraternity, and flex’s potential selves. What we have to do is find ways
for changing lives may eventually over- to do that in our own time.” 
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 41
 PROFILES

SOMBRE COLORS
Pedro Almodóvar enters a new phase, tenderly adapting Alice Munro’s tale of a devastated mother.
BY D. T. MAX

any famous directors re­ don’t want adulation, why go where His aesthetic has become harder and

M treat to the privacy of their

own screening rooms, but
Pedro Almodóvar still likes to see mov­
you’ll certainly be recognized? He told
me, in Spanish, that the advent of the
selfie was a relief: “While you gave
harder to pin down. Critics regularly
announce that he has finally left behind
his taste for gender games and melo­
ies in theatres. He lives off a park on them an autograph, the other person dramatic plots with murdered spouses,
the western side of Madrid, and the art tended to tell their whole life story.” only to have his next movie prove them
houses are clumped together near Plaza Some of the fans at the Cine Renoir wrong. In 2011, he released “The Skin
de España, not far away. He tries to go lingered anyway. Almodóvar’s mov­ I Live In,” a lurid thriller in which a
at least once a week. If a studio sends ies—abiding closeups, conversations plastic surgeon operates on the man
him a screener on DVD and he likes full of confidences—make people think who raped his daughter, transforming
the movie, he will watch it a second he must be a good listener. Another him into his own female lover. (At the
time in a cinema. older woman spotted him from inside film’s conclusion, the lover shoots him.)
One day in September, his driver the theatre and came out. “Wow,” she Three years later, Almodóvar released
dropped him off near the Cine Renoir, said. “Congratulations on ‘Julieta.’ I’ve “I’m So Excited,” a fizzy comedy about
which was showing “Neruda,” a film seen all your movies!” Almodóvar an airline flight during which the male
about the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda seemed relieved to get into the dark. He attendants get drunk and perform oral
directed by Pablo Larraín. As Almodó­ sat down, folded a light jacket across sex on the pilots. He merrily recalls the
var walked toward the theatre, carry­ his lap, and settled in. critical response: “How on earth! At
ing a Prada bag that held a bottle of Almodóvar began directing feature your age, how could you?” “Julieta,” based
water, locals recognized him. Spain is films in the late seventies. Among his on three linked short stories by Alice
passionate about its movies, and Almo­ early movies were “Dark Habits” and Munro, is Almodóvar at his most
dóvar, who just turned sixty­seven, is “Matador.” They featured transvestites, reflective and nuanced.
the country’s most famous director transgender people, bondage, rape, and He can be a fierce critic of other
since Luis Buñuel. Stout and pale, he lots of drug use and sex. His stories Spanish­language filmmakers, but
stands out among the Madrileños, with blurred the lines between gay and among those he admires is the forty­
wide dark glasses—he suffers from light straight, coerced and consensual, com­ year­old Larraín. Almodóvar so dis­
sensitivity—and a tuft of white hair edy and melodrama, the funny and the likes what he calls los biopics that he
that a bird appears to have woven on repulsive, high and low art. It was all joked to me that he’d inserted a clause
the top of his head. delivered with a puzzling cheerfulness into his will prohibiting anyone from
The Cine Renoir, despite its elegant that made the movies far more trans­ making a movie about his life. But
name, is a small space on the ground gressive than if their tone had been se­ Larraín’s film impressed him. “Neruda”
floor of an unappealing building— rious. Spain had just emerged from de­ focusses on a moment in the poet’s life,
a bomb shelter that shows films. A cades of dictatorship and repression, a few years after the Second World
woman in her twenties asked if she and Almodóvar’s films suggested that War, when a hostile Chilean govern­
could take a photograph with Almo­ the country had leaped from Opus Dei ment forced him to flee over the Andes
dóvar. Many of his fans are no longer to the Mudd Club in a single bound. and into Argentina. In Larraín’s fan­
so young. A woman in her sixties Critics could not decide whether Almo­ tastical rendering, Neruda is pursued
praised “Julieta,” his melancholy new dóvar was the most trivial filmmaker by a police official who is also a great
film, which is about a mother whose in history or the inventor of an im­ reader; the pursuit becomes more
teen­age daughter abandons her. “It portant new strain of postmodernism. metaphysical than real, a study of the
made me cry,” she said. “I shuddered.” In more recent years, Almodóvar has seductions of narrative. Almodóvar
“Bueno,” Almodóvar answered, smil­ broadened his subject matter and his watched mostly in silence, but when
ing. “Muchas gracias. Bueno.” tone. He runs his own production com­ an actor playing Augusto Pinochet ap­
Almodóvar, who was a bold show­ pany, El Deseo (Desire), with his brother, peared, he made a very Spanish cluck­
man when he was younger, now car­ Agustín. Under the umbrella of El ing noise with his tongue.
ries himself in public at once tenta­ Deseo, Pedro makes whatever movie Afterward, he said that the film was
tively and grandly. He clearly enjoys he wants. A new one comes out every lyrical and pretty, “emotional and, at
walking unimpeded through the city, couple of years, as with Woody Allen, the same time, abstract.” It was easy
but the cinema visits are telling—if you but no two Almodóvar movies are alike. to detect Almodóvar’s influence on
42 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
Almodóvar produces all his own films, giving him total control. “Not even Scorsese has been able to do that,” he says.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK PECKMEZIAN THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 43
the movie: Neruda was portrayed as a He asked a man to wait to take a pic- Spain survived the postwar period,” he
Dionysian figure declaiming verse to ture until he put his jacket on, but the says. In a 1988 interview, he described
half-naked prostitutes, and there was man snapped it anyway, then raced off. “the Spanish father” as “oppressive, re-
even a transvestite singer whose hu- “He didn’t even care if I got the other pressive, castrating.” While the men
manity slowly emerged from beneath arm in!” Almodóvar said, bemused. were off working, the women nurtured
his smeared makeup. Shoppers were hurrying past. Motor- the children and dealt with births, re-
In front of the theatre, a row of five- cycles roared, and there was a lot of lationships, and deaths—what Almo-
pointed stars was visible in the dirty honking. Fans kept gathering around dóvar calls los problemas reales.
pavement. “Our Walk of Fame,” Almo- him. “I’d better go,” he said. “This cor- One of his fondest memories is of
dóvar explained. “Have you ever seen ner’s a little dangerous.” He got into the women of Calzada chatting at the
a more humble thing?” The presence his car, and his driver whisked him off. town cemetery as they tended the graves
of the steel-and-white-marble stars in of their families’ dead. “It’s basically
the dun concrete seemed ugly to Almo- lmodóvar was born in 1949, in what you see in ‘Volver,’ ” he explained,
dóvar. He has long had a difficult re- A the small town of Calzada de Ca- referring to his 2006 movie, part of
lationship with the Spanish cinema es- latrava, in the central Spanish region which is set near where he was born.
tablishment, who helped install the of Castilla-La Mancha. His father was “Death disappeared, because the im-
walk in 2011. They have often under- a mule driver who led a team of twenty portant thing was the flowers, the con-
estimated his work, and he has lustily animals across the Sierra Morena to versations.” Clothes were washed in
attacked them in return, critiquing the deliver wine to Jaén, in Andalucía. “It the river. “Every La Mancha house
obscure nomination process for the was something out of Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ had huge interior patios,” he said. The
Goya Awards, Spain’s equivalent of the or those novels of Théophile Gautier’s women worked lace there and gossiped.
Oscars. He joked, “I think they put the that take place in Spain,” Almodóvar “Tops on the list were babies born
stars on the street so you could step on recalls. “But in a time when there were out of marriage and suicides,” Almodó-
them.” They were in alphabetical order, cars and trucks.” He grew up mostly var said. “People who threw themselves
but we were following them in reverse. in the company of women. He fell in down the well or hanged themselves
We passed Buñuel and finally came to love with them singly and as a com- from the rafters.” He felt immediately
Almodóvar’s name: he was first. munal force. They were Spain’s secret the power of story. “It was a mixture of
He was beset by selfie-seekers again. power. “It was because of women that terror and vitality,” he said. “It was the
origin of life and, at the same time, of
fiction and fabulation.” As a boy who
always felt different from his peers, he
took away a second, less encouraging
message: “I had no experience of any-
thing, but I knew that this atmosphere
was unnatural—or, at least, against my
nature.” He added, “This was the last
place I wanted to grow into adulthood.”
In 1958, when he was nine, Almodó-
var moved, with his parents, brother,
and two sisters, to Madrigalejo, a town
in Extremadura, in Spain’s far west. His
intelligence and sophistication already
were clear. His mother started a small
concern writing and reading letters for
illiterate neighbors. Pedro soon real-
ized that she was embroidering the texts
she read to them. In a 1999 essay in El
País, he wrote, “The local women didn’t
realize it, because the made-up stuff
was always an extension of their lives.
They were delighted after she read it.”
His parents sent him to Catholic
boarding school, planning to train him
for the Church. He had a beautiful
singing voice, and the priests admired
him, but he hated the authoritarian
education. Some of the priests sexu-
ally abused the students. The act of
“ Yes, I came back. I always come back.” kissing the priest’s ring filled him with
repulsion; in 2007, he told GQ that he soon had an impressive Mexican­style filmed on rooftops, in parks, and by win­
“could almost literally see their hands mustache and long hair. He took on dows. “Fortunately, Spain is a place with
dirtied with sperm.” Nevertheless, he various odd jobs, including working as a lot of natural light,” Almodóvar says.
was moved by the mystery and pag­ a disk jockey in a barra americana—a From the beginning, he was inter­
eantry of Catholicism. “I am a posi- dance hall of questionable character— ested in the pathology of family rela­
bilista,” Almodóvar told me repeatedly, and playing an extra in movies that tionships and the fluidity of sexual­
a word that can mean both a practical needed hippies. In 1969, he became an ity—ideally, the intersection of the two.
person and an optimist. Rather than office assistant at Telefónica, the na­ For “The Fall of Sodom,” filmed in
reject Catholicism, he made a bet with tional telephone company, and his em­ 1975, he dressed the Sodomites in wom­
the Supreme Being. As he put it to me, ployers came to depend on him. “He en’s clothing. Two years later, he made
“I would go to Mass for a year, and is a perfectionist, and every company “Sexo Va, Sexo Viene”—“Sex Goes,
then He would show Himself.” But needs a perfectionist,” Agustín Almo­ Sex Comes”—a farce about a lesbian
God remained invisible, and Almodó­ who abuses her boyfriend until he starts
var soon stopped confessing. dressing like a woman.
He had already found something The Super 8 movies are too dam­
else to worship. It came in the form of aged to be shown today, according to
glamorous illustrations of actors, called Almodóvar. They exist only in his re­
cromos, which were included in pack­ telling. He projected them for friends
ages of Matías López chocolates. “The in bars, discos, and art galleries. He im­
world of those cromos—that’s where I provised dialogue, sometimes com­
knew I wanted to belong,” he said. “Not menting on the acting, while Agustín,
to a world where young women are who had followed him to Madrid, pro­
locked away in their houses because dóvar said. Pedro kept track of broken vided a soundtrack with recorded music.
they are pregnant.” telephones that were returned. He “It became a sort of performance,”
He and Agustín, who is seven years found the work easy; it was as good a Almodóvar recalls.
younger, became regular moviegoers. score as Hawthorne’s job at the Salem Almodóvar’s movies, proudly soph­
In Calzada, spectators were expected customs house. While working there, omoric and raunchy, were part of a
to bring their own chairs to screenings. he began the screenplay for his first boisterous artistic and musical move­
“It was like Victor Erice’s ‘Spirit of the feature film. ment called La Movida, which was
Beehive,’ where everyone brings a can taking hold in Madrid, much of it in
with coal,” Almodóvar says. In the sum­ eneral Franco was still in power, Malasaña, a barrio of run­down ware­
mer in Madrigalejo, movies were pro­ G and the repression was both polit­ houses and dingy clubs. For inspira­
jected on a wall of a building that, at ical and cultural. His vicious regime had tion, La Movida looked often to the
other times, was used by boys to piss been hostile to avant­garde movie aes­ punk and New Wave movements in
on. “Basically, they put on spaghetti thetics. But by the time Almodóvar England and America. “We imitated
Westerns,” Almodóvar recalls. “But we showed up in Madrid, Franco was in their life style,” Almodóvar says. “The
also saw ‘Los Olvidados,’ by Buñuel, his mid­seventies, and the choke hold way they sang, the way they lived. But
and ‘The Virgin Spring,’ by Bergman.” on artistic expression was loosening, at it was also mixed up with something
Those movies explored extremes of be­ least in the major cities and at univer­ that was our own, and very idiosyn­
havior, and knowing about such things sities. Almodóvar intended to enroll in cratic.” Visual artists, musicians, drug
made Almodóvar feel powerful. When film school, but the city had only one, and dealers, homosexuals, transvestites, and
he recounted the plot of the Buñuel to Franco, viewing it as a center of Com­ students gathered through the night
his sisters, he remembers, they looked munism, had all but closed it. Being a in scrappy venues, translating Anglo­
at him almost with terror. He also saw posibilista, Almodóvar bought a Super 8 Saxon anomie and Teutonic angst into
Welles’s “Chimes at Midnight” and camera and began to shoot short films Hispanic vivacity, passion, and humor.
Antonioni’s “Night,” and fell in love on his own. “I had no budget, no money,” A friend remembers Almodóvar show­
with Jeanne Moreau, twice. he says. “The important thing was to ing up at events in a white seat sedan
By then, Almodóvar had realized make movies.” He wrote out complete with four or five other young male art­
that he wanted not just to see movies scripts, even though his camera couldn’t ists, a group assumed to be gay. In fact,
but to make them, too. At the age of record sound, and changed the charac­ he told me, his sexuality was as fungi­
seventeen, he came home from Cath­ ters depending on which of his friends ble as one of his characters’. “I slept
olic school and told his parents that he showed up for a shoot. He avoided film­ often with women, too,” he said. “I was
was moving to Madrid. His father, he ing where he might bump into the au­ bisexual until the age of thirty­four.”
recalls, “threatened to turn me in to the thorities, and so he made several Bibli­ La Movida was fuelled, in part, by
National Guard.” Pedro replied, “Turn cal epics in the countryside, giving them, drugs. Madrid had elected a new social­
me in. I’m leaving.” he says, “a bucolic and abstract air, the ist mayor, and at a rock concert in the
Almodóvar arrived in the capital in opposite of Cecil B. De Mille’s.” Since city’s sports stadium he astonished the
1967, with daunting energy and a huge he had no money to buy lights, many citizenry by proclaiming, “If you aren’t
appetite for art and conversation. He of the scenes in his Super 8 movies were already stoned, get stoned!” Almodóvar
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 45
generally does not discuss his own ex­ political freedom, but they never dis­ cultural authenticity. Who cared if the
perience with drugs, but in 1988 he told paraged their sexual freedom. director hadn’t miked the actors prop­
an interviewer that what he and Rainer Almodóvar did not publish the nar­ erly? El Periódico perceptively praised
Werner Fassbinder had in common was rative, deciding that instead it should Almodóvar as “a stubbornly passion­
“we both like cocaine and we’re both be the centerpiece of a film. He built ate defender of substandard movies.”
fat.” As enthusiastically as Almodóvar around it a plot that seemed like a head­ The film became a staple of late­night
participated in the night life of Mala­ long remake of one of his favorite films, Madrid—a “Rocky Horror Picture
saña, he always had one eye on the exit. George Cukor’s “The Women.” The Show” for the Spanish—and highly
“The fact that I had this clear and re­ casting was casual. Alaska, a fourteen­ profitable.
sounding goal meant that I could be in year­old La Movida singer, became one Spanish producers began courting
the middle of the current and not get of the film’s stars. “It mattered more Almodóvar, but he fought them over
swept away,” he says. He didn’t want to what clothes you had than how you creative control. He made his 1983 fea­
be a pasota—the word of the time for a could act,” she says. The movie, “Pepi, ture, “Dark Habits,” with money from
slacker—or an experimental filmmaker Luci, Bom,” was shot on weekends over the industrialist Jacques Hachuel, who
in the Andy Warhol mode. What in­ thirteen months; filming halted when insisted on casting his wife, Cristina
terested him about movies was their there was no money. Almodóvar recalls Sánchez Pascual, in the starring role
ability to tell heightened stories. spending the largest part of the bud­ of a wayward dancer who enters a con­
He initially tried to capture La Mo­ get on food and alcohol. “This was log­ vent. Almodóvar didn’t think that Sán­
vida in prose, but decided that he didn’t ical,” he said, on a Spanish talk show. chez Pascual could sing or dance well
have the talent for fiction. (He still de­ “The people had to be content.” enough to carry the movie, and so he
scribes himself as a “frustrated novel­ “Pepi, Luci, Bom” is amateurish but expanded the roles of other, more tal­
ist.”) So he worked hard on his screen­ winning, focussing, as nearly every ented actresses. “The final result is that
plays, giving them plenty of twists. Most Almodóvar film does, on relationships they grew and Cristina shrank,” he re­
Movida members focussed on art, among women. Men are confined to members. The producer of his next
music, or poetry, all of it cheap and supporting roles in which they are rarely project, “What Have I Done to De­
quick. Almodóvar was capable of imag­ supportive. Luci, a masochist, leaves serve This?,” tried, without success, to
ining larger enterprises that needed her husband, a police officer, for Bom, force Almodóvar to eliminate a char­
funding and the coöperation of other a dominatrix. This leads to an Almo­ acter who had magical powers. “What
talented people. In the mid­seventies, dovarian irony: the police officer reacts they didn’t understand was that Pedro
he recalls, he appeared in a local pro­ to Luci’s embrace of sadomasochism is a genius,” Agustín says. “And that
duction of Sartre’s “Dirty Hands,” tak­ by raping her, which leaves her in a his value is precisely his energy and
ing “the smallest role in the play”— hospital bed, expressing gratitude to his brilliance. You have to channel him,
three lines. At the theatre, he became him. The institution of marriage has but you can’t put him in a straitjacket.”
friends with an established actress by prevailed! In 1985, the brothers founded El
the name of Carmen Maura. He liked The camera work is rough—Almo­ Deseo, in part to protect Pedro from
to watch her put on her makeup (a dóvar himself starred as the master of such battles. Agustín ran the busi­
memory that finds an echo in the dress­ ceremonies for the General Erections ness side. By profession, he was a
ing­room intimacies of his 1999 film, contest, and the framing of the shot chemistry teacher, but his relation­
“All About My Mother”). She went on accidentally cuts off his head. (“It didn’t ship with Pedro was the crucial thing
to star in seven movies for him, be­ seem important enough to repeat the in his life. Agustín explained to me
coming his most famous muse. shot,” he recalls.) But some of the act­ that his sole purpose at El Deseo is
In the late seventies, Maura and an­ ing is impressive, especially that of Car­ to help “Pedro make the movie he
other actor, Félix Rotaeta, helped Almo­ men Maura, who, as Pepi, makes a wants.” He has played bit parts in
dóvar graduate from the Super 8 short lovely, good­humored impression. most of the movies.
to the 16­mm. feature. They began a Almodóvar is already showing his skill The brothers agreed to strict rules.
fund­raising campaign among their at directing women, and in casting The movies would have modest bud­
friends and raised eight thousand dol­ Maura as Pepi, the unshockable on­ gets—around ten million dollars—
lars. Meanwhile, an avant­garde mag­ looker and gentle encourager of her which meant that Almodóvar forever
azine asked Almodóvar to write some­ friends, he was really casting himself. after made movies in which people go
thing “muy punk.” In response, he Javier Pérez­Grueso, an artist in the in and out of rooms talking, rather
started a narrative fashioned from cap­ La Movida scene, who is known as than ones in which they blow each
tioned images: “General Erections” was Furia, recalls, “She was his alter ego— other up in cars. Creating his own pro­
about a night­club competition over optimistic, gracious, and a bit zany.” duction company allowed Pedro an
penis size. The winner got to ask any­ unusual luxury: he could often shoot
one in the audience for any sex act he
wanted. Franco had just died, and this “P epi, Luci, Bom” was shown at the
San Sebastián Film Festival in
a movie from first page to last, rather
than in the least expensive order. Almo­
sort of dirty humor resonated with 1980. Some critics savaged the low pro­ dóvar felt that a chronological approach
Spaniards at the time. Many young duction values, but others argued that yielded more persuasive performances.
people doubted the value of their new this attested to the film’s urgency and “I owe Agustín the independence and
46 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
liberty that I enjoy as a director,” Pedro
says. “It’s completely without prece-
dent. Not even Scorsese himself has
been able to do that.”

“W omen on the Verge of a Ner-

vous Breakdown,” Almodóvar’s
eighth feature and his second under El
Deseo, was released in 1988. The movie
began with a script based on Jean Coc-
teau’s play “The Human Voice,” in
which a woman is heard on the phone
speaking to an unseen lover who is
breaking up with her. Almodóvar had
made six movies in eight years, enjoy-
ing successively larger budgets and au-
diences. He wanted to return to his
past, he told me, to make a “muy, muy
underground film, with just one set.”
But the script felt too slight, and so
he started the story forty-eight hours
earlier, transforming Cocteau’s intense
portrait of a woman in crisis into a far-
cical roundelay of various women be-
trayed by men and their own credu-
lous, loving natures. The story was
frantic to the point of giddiness, with
a plot that pivoted around a blender of
gazpacho, laced with sleeping pills, that
the main character plans to offer to her
unfaithful boyfriend. Some of the film’s
hectic appeal came from the screwball
script and some from its look—extraor- ¥ ¥
dinarily bright Pop-art sets that were
filmed in a superwide format that looking.”) The script called for De “Ocean’s Eleven.” He recruited Rossy
echoed CinemaScope. The art direc- Palma to spend much of the film inert, de Palma at a bar. He approached An-
tion seemed determined to erase the after drinking Pepa’s gazpacho. At one tonio Banderas at the iconic Café Gijón,
distinction between life and the life- point, she complained to Almodóvar where the nineteen-year-old was re-
like. Everything in the movie—from that lying in a deck chair, pretending laxing with friends after a performance
the stagy view of the Madrid skyline to be out cold, was boring. In response, at the Teatro María Guerrero. Ban-
to the gazpacho, which puts one per- Almodóvar wrote her a scene in which deras remembers a fast-talking man
son after another to sleep, as if they she dreams that she is having sex. with a red plastic briefcase sitting down
were characters in an operetta—seemed “Good thing I was a pain and pushed with them: “He said to me, ‘You have
to belong more to the world of cromos him,” she recalls. “It got me that lovely a romantic face. You should be in mov-
than to reality. orgasm.” ies.’ And then he left.” Shortly after-
“Women on the Verge” gave Maura “Women on the Verge” was at once ward, Banderas was offered a role in
her best role, as Pepa, the lovelorn but a spoof of, and an anthem to, a liber- “Labyrinth of Passion.” Penélope Cruz
unsinkable reimagining of Cocteau’s ated Spain. Like the Movida scene that received a phone call after appearing
despairing protagonist. “Our relation- Almodóvar had emerged from, it was in a Spanish comedy. “My friend said,
ship was at its maximum intensity,” optimistic and eager to please. The film ‘Almodóvar is on the phone.’ I thought
Almodóvar says. “I felt it was a mira- received an Oscar nomination and was it was a joke.” She felt honored to speak
cle to have that instrument.” He cast an international box-office hit. His to him. “He was almost a political figure,
the young Antonio Banderas as the mother, however, was unimpressed with a representation of change, of democ-
male lead. For the role of Banderas’s her son’s new fame: she told him that racy,” she recalls. He promised her, “I’m
virginal fiancée, Almodóvar selected he should go back to his Telefónica job. going to write you a small character.”
Rossy de Palma, a musician with the The troupe of actors who populated It was a part in the 1997 melodrama
high forehead, bulging eyes, and re- Almodóvar’s films became famous as “Live Flesh.” She has since appeared
fracted nose of a Picasso. (The Times well. Over the years, he assembled his in four more of his feature films. Almo-
once called her “unforgettably strange- team by hand, like George Clooney in dóvar and his actors became fixtures
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 47
on the Madrid restaurant circuit. “We tographer who has had small roles in repeating a moment from the film. I
were almost like the Rolling Stones,” his movies, but Almodóvar is steadfast also saw a picture frame, encrusted with
Banderas says. “We were a group. We in saying that he has no partner. blue marbles, that is identical to the
would go out to clubs and dinners and Almodóvar’s infatuation with his one smashed onto the floor in “The
travel together. People would say, ‘Here adopted city has cooled. “I don’t want Flower of My Secret.” A photograph
comes the Almodóvar gang.’ ” to sound disappointed,” he declares, of Almodóvar’s beloved mother, who
sounding that way. “But Madrid and I died in 1999, now occupies the frame.
lmodóvar’s apartment is a few are like a fifty-year-long marriage. We’re Almodóvar’s shelves are as full of play-
A blocks from the Malasaña district, based more in routine than excitement.” ful figurines and gaudy magnets as a
which is now thoroughly sanitized. He Madrid, he grouses, is turning into a Tribeca toy store. Over all, the apart-
lives alone, except for a cat named Lucio, Spanish Oslo; then again he has grown ment has the continually dusted look
who, in proper Almodóvar fashion, has more staid himself. He has long since of a prominent artist’s studio. Almodó-
switched genders. In 2010, during the stopped going to night clubs: “I don’t var has a cook, and while we were
filming of “The Skin I Live In,” in To- drink. I don’t smoke. And I don’t do talking his personal assistant, a young
ledo, local children left a cat with one drugs.” Cigarette smoke bothers him, man in shorts, hovered nearby. This
of the set porters, asking that it be called and he is deaf in one ear and losing his was Osama. If Almodóvar wanted tea,
Lucía by its next owner. The cat was hearing in the other—worrisome for Osama made it for him. (Osama, too,
passed on to Almodóvar, and it turned a director who is so attuned to script gets a cameo in “Julieta.”)
out that the children had not looked and voice that he tries never to watch Almodóvar showed me a nook that
carefully enough between its legs. “We dubbed movies. he calls his “DVD-oteca.” A green
had an instant sex change!” Almodó- The walls of Almodóvar’s living couch with summery throw pillows sat
var jokes, adding, “A cat is the right pet room are orange, and on them he has opposite a TV installed in a shelving
for a selfish writer.” He explained, “If hung four surrealist Man Ray photo- unit. Osama had tried to organize
you dedicate your life to the movies, to graphs, including one of an iron with the holdings—some three thousand
writing or painting, the life you can tacks stuck to the soleplate. Nearby is DVDs—but had given up. “They’re by
offer another person is very precarious. a Warhol silk screen of a bright-yel- genre,” Almodóvar explained. “And
I couldn’t have the strength or the right low cow. There are also objects of more sometimes by director, if there are
to ask another person to accept this personal significance, including a sculp- enough disks. There are Orson Welles,
sort of life.” Similar words are spoken ture, by Miquel Navarro, of a seated Rossellini, Visconti, Kazan. For some-
by the world-weary director Pablo in man with a penis like a piece of pipe. one from the provinces who lived
his 1987 movie, “Law of Desire.” The It plays a prominent role in “Julieta.” dreaming of going to a different place,
Spanish papers report that he remains “Pick it up—it’s surprisingly heavy,” all the problems that Kazan talked
in a long-term relationship with a pho- Almodóvar said, noting that he was about in ‘Splendor in the Grass’ seemed
to me straight out of the town I grew
up in.”There was a shelf marked “Joyas”
(“Jewels”), with “The Palm Beach
Story,” “Blue Velvet,” “Gun Crazy,” “Ed
Wood,” and the 1936 kitsch horror clas-
sic “Devil Doll,” whose shrinking ac-
tors helped inspire the surreal movie-
within-a-movie in “Talk to Her,” in
which a man gives himself an elixir and
disappears into his girlfriend’s vagina.
Alfred Hitchcock had his own sec-
tion. Homages to Hitchcock appear
often in the movies of Almodóvar,
who shares a fondness for the bravura
shot. In “Kika,” for example, one senses
the kinship in the way the moon dis-
solves into a washing-machine win-
dow, or a moving train’s side panels
begin to look like unspooling film. For
Almodóvar, Hitchcock is the indis-
pensable director. “Whenever I bump
into one of his films on TV, it’s in-
credible how I can’t stop watching,”
he said. “The color in my movies is
“I can’t even begin to work out until I find very Caribbean, and it has a Baroque
the right news to infuriate me.” quality—the same as Hitchcock’s.”
 Some of Almodóvar’s twenty feature “You have to be careful not to imitate in Spain. In 1990, Almodóvar appeared
films occupied a modest bottom shelf. him,” Rossy de Palma, who has a mem- at the Goya Awards with a piece of the
If he watches any of them again, he orable supporting role in “Julieta,” says. Berlin Wall and announced from the
can’t help but notice flaws—a poor shot, “You want to do it exactly the same way, stage that if that wall could fall down
a line spoken by an actor that misses but you have to make it yours.” Almo- surely the one between Maura and him
the effect Almodóvar was after—but dóvar goes to remarkable lengths to offer could as well. In 2006, she appeared in
he tries to let them go. “I don’t see them guidance. In 1985, he was filming the her first Almodóvar movie in eighteen
as faults but as part of the adventure,” final scene in “Matador,” with Assumpta years, “Volver,” playing a mother who
he said. I asked him which of his films Serna. He was not sure whether Nacho makes a ghostly return to her daughters’
he liked best. “ ‘Talk to Her’ is the one Martínez, playing the wounded mata- lives. But in 2012 Maura told El Pa’s
that has the fewest moments I don’t dor who was about to make love to her, that she was happier working with less
like,” he said. should graze her crotch di- rigid directors. “His shoots
Later, we discussed the 2004 film rectly with his mouth or do are tense,” she said. “And that
“Bad Education,” which centers on two so with a rosebud between doesn’t appeal to me.” Agustín
friends in a Catholic school, one of his teeth. Almodóvar tried Almodóvar tweeted a re-
whom has been sexually abused by a it out himself. “I realized sponse: “Don’t worry. We
priest. Almodóvar had been criticized, it was better to put some won’t call you.”
sometimes rightly, for treating rape as distance between the ac-
yet another plot device, but this film tor’s tongue and the girl’s lmodóvar analyzes
made clear that he understood the hor- sex,” he said, during an ap- A his own films with an
ror of it. The actor Gael García Ber- pearance on a Spanish talk amiable facility and a dis-
nal is said to have had a strained rela- show. “I do it all,” he added. concerting distance, as if
tionship with Almodóvar on the set. Actors are often both thrilled and someone else had made them. He told
Almodóvar spoke of the shoot halt- terrified by his technique. When I told me that he sees his movies as falling
ingly, mentioning that one of the ac- Banderas that Almodóvar said he di- into three groups. First came the de-
tors had been driven to physical and rected him as if Banderas were a child, cade of playful, often kitschy films, “full
mental exhaustion by the character he’d he did not disagree. He also told me, of humor and nonsense.” This was fol-
written; there were plenty of times when “I try to become almost a white can- lowed by a decade of moody melo-
Almodóvar was afraid he wasn’t going vas, so he can paint on it.” Almodóvar drama that blended the psychological
to be able to finish the movie. He stated often shoots multiple takes of each thrills of Hitchcock with the perfumed
this with tact, but without excess sym- scene, sometimes without giving feed- swoon of Douglas Sirk. Almodóvar
pathy: he clearly finds the inability to back; unlike most directors, he edits as begins this period with “Kika,” the
get actors to satisfy his demands one he goes. Actors, for their part, often glossily filmed story of a makeup art-
of the hardest parts of being a direc- can’t tell when a shot has succeeded. ist whose rape becomes the subject of
tor. Referring to Antonio Banderas’s Banderas called the experience “a very a tabloid show.
role as a mad plastic surgeon in “The creative Hell.” He added, “When you According to Almodóvar, it was only
Skin I Live In,” he said that the movie finish the process, you are exhausted in this second phase that he began to
was a metaphor. “I spoke in a very di- and very insecure. But when you see appreciate his rural background. He
rect way through the character,” he ex- the result it is spectacular.” points especially to the 1995 movie
plained. “He’s a psychopath, close to Almodóvar dislikes self-conscious “Flower of My Secret,” in which a ro-
what it is to be a director.” He noted actorly technique—anything that in- mance writer who is disappointed in
that Truffaut once defined a direc- terferes with his direction. “Sometimes love abandons her luxurious life in Bar-
tor as someone who is driving a train it’s so out of the box and so unusual, celona. She returns with her mother to
without brakes and trying to keep it the things that he may ask you to do,” their native town, where they join the
on the tracks. Banderas says. “Some American actors village’s older women outside to sew
To keep his train on the tracks, couldn’t cope. They come with a lot of and gossip. (The women share a story
Almodóvar plans out the entire shoot B.S., and they work their characters that Pedro heard often as a child, about
and then instructs his actors with great from the inside out—Stanislavski and a neighbor who killed herself by jump-
precision. “I don’t want to suggest that other techniques. Pedro doesn’t give a ing into a well.) In his career’s third
it’s the only way to do it,” he says. “But shit about that. If you’re open and you phase, he said, “pain is more present”
I’m a partisan of writing ironclad follow instructions, it goes well, but if and emotions are less cut with irony.
screenplays, going over them many you oppose that, or if you try to im- “Talk to Her,” “Bad Education,” and
times, solving all the problems on paper. pose your own ideas over his, you’re “The Skin I Live In” all reflect this
If there’s something that doesn’t work going to have a very hard confronta- darker mode.
in the screenplay, it’s going to be im- tion.” Almodóvar confirms this, add- After leaving the DVD-oteca, we
possible to solve it in the filming.” ing, “I can be very authoritarian.” headed into his home office. He keeps
He rehearses his actors extensively, His methods ultimately alienated his writing projects in a neat stack
playing their roles in front of them to Carmen Maura. In the late eighties, they on his desk, along with clippings that
show them how lines should be read. feuded—it became a front-page story he finds interesting. In the pile was a
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 49
 On a typical morning, Almodóvar
gets up around ten. He reads the news
on his computer, searching for mate-
rial that might spark his imagination,
and then he writes for a few hours.
After lunch, he sometimes writes a bit
more. Then he may go for a walk, which
helps him digest what he’s written.
Unlike most writers, he doesn’t isolate
himself from other media while he’s
working. He prefers movies to televi-
sion, but he has two favorite series,
“Homeland” and “Breaking Bad.”
Almodóvar always has several scripts
going at once, and often writes just to
see what comes out. He told me about
a few of his embryonic projects. One
script was partly inspired by the recent
Netflix serial “Making a Murderer.” It
focusses not on a falsely accused sus-
pect but on the police, witnesses, and
judges who warp justice. He is also
writing what he called an “eco-fiction.”
He didn’t tell me much about the script,
beyond noting that the male protag-
onist is a human and the female pro-
tagonist is an animal. “I’ve got a lot of
pages written,” he said. “I lack only an
ending.” I could sense how pleased he
was with the possibilities of a story
that added interspecies complications
“No way am I going down there—what if there’s a comments section?” to the stock difficulties of a relation-
ship. He went on, “Normally, during
my writing period—which is always—
• • there’s a moment that I decide, This
is the movie I’m going to make. This
printout of an e-mail from Jeanne to do with a liberation that is connected happens when one of the screenplays
Moreau, which he had yet to answer. to sexuality,” he said. But, he noted, gay is either nearly done or seems suffici-
He showed me the elegant notebooks people don’t always make gay art. He ently mature.” He sees this process as
that he buys at Fabriano, in Rome. In- offered Truman Capote by way of ex- essentially outside his control. He says
side one of them were decade-old draw- ample: “In ‘In Cold Blood’ there’s no that he is “a medium,” awaiting which
ings from the making of “Volver,” one trace of the person who is Truman project will declare itself ready to be
of which depicted the moment when Capote. But Holly Golightly in ‘Break- filmed.
Penélope Cruz, the film’s star, leans fast at Tiffany’s’ is a predecessor of all He voraciously reads fiction, often
over the body of her dead husband in the drag queens of the nineties. She’s seeking out books with an eye toward
the kitchen. He had recently printed a transvestite. You probably have to be filming them. He has just begun an
out an article from El País about the gay to see it.” He went on, “And the adaptation of a Henry James story; he
psychological damage done to inter- role of George Peppard? He’s a hus- didn’t want to say which one. “The
sexuals who are surgically assigned tler, and his clients aren’t women— movie might be done in two years,” he
a gender at birth. It was a fecund no- they’re guys! You get this. You smell it.” said. “It might be done in six.” None of
tion for Almodóvar, whose early insis- Of his own films, he puts “I’m So Ex- these unrealized films, he promised,
tence on the complexity of sexual ori- cited” and “Women on the Verge,” would be “super-big productions.”
entation now seems prescient. He told which has no gay characters, into the Later, he noted that about ten years
me, “Binary gender is condemned to “gay director” category. He excludes ago he’d been tempted to become a
disappear.” “Law of Desire,” which features a gay different kind of director. A French
This did not stop him from playing love triangle, because jealousy is uni- producer had offered him money to
with the question of whether there was versal. “Julieta” is a straight movie, he adapt “Suite Française,” by Irène
such a thing as a gay sensibility in film. said, and so is “Volver.” “That’s my het- Némirovsky. “It was marvellous,” he
“The furious aesthetic of my films has erosexual side,” he explained. said of the novel. “But it just seemed
50 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
to me that Paris occupied by the Ger- New York. Whenever a new movie was Barker arranged a meeting between
mans, with so many characters, was a released, his friend Kim Hastreiter, the Almodóvar and his idol Billy Wilder.
big production. I’m always a little re- editor of Paper, threw a party for him They had lunch, and at the end of it
luctant to get involved in a big pro- and introduced him to interesting New Wilder told him that he had one piece
duction. The more money there is Yorkers. (Almodóvar’s English is sur- of advice: “Don’t come to Hollywood,
in the budget, the more compromises prisingly deft, but it tends to fly apart no matter what.” At that moment,
you have to make with that money.” in moments of excitement.) Through Almodóvar says, he saw in Wilder’s
Small-budget films, he added, come Hastreiter, he met John Waters, whose eyes “memories of compromises, fail-
with plenty of problems of their own. films he had long admired. Hastreiter ures, and misunderstandings.”
“But you are owner of that difficulty,” recalls Almodóvar asking her, “Who
he said. “And that is of the greatest are the next photographers, who are
importance.” the new fashion designers, who are the “J ulieta” came about through yet
another flirtation with Hollywood.
Almodóvar has a fitful friendship new young people making movies?” Almodóvar had long been an enthu-
with America, the world’s dominant He didn’t care if they were successful siastic reader of Alice Munro, despite
cinematic culture. After “Women on or rich. “He liked to meet the freaks,” obvious differences of background
the Verge,” he got many offers from she told me. “If you were a freak, he and temperament. He particularly ad-
Hollywood. He turned down “Sister liked you.” The fashion photographer mired three linked stories in Munro’s
Act,” the 1992 comedy about singing Henny Garfunkel took him to such 2004 collection, “Runaway.” The pro-
nuns, and in the early aughts he nearly night clubs as Jackie 60 and the Roxy, tagonist, named Juliet, has a twenty-
agreed to direct “Brokeback Moun- and Madonna took him out dancing. year-old daughter who disappears into
tain.” He said of these demurrals, He admired RuPaul, Lady Bunny, and a cult. Almodóvar was attracted by
“Maybe it’s because I didn’t trust my Lahoma, “the great stars of the New the female characters and by a crucial
English. Or maybe it’s because, even York night.” He also became friendly sequence involving strangers on a
though they always tell me I’ll have ar- with American intellectuals, among train—he says he had always wanted
tistic liberty—final cut—there is always them Susan Sontag. She disapproved to shoot on a train, as Hitchcock had
a moment when I don’t believe it.” of the title “Flower of My Secret,” famously done.
He appreciates the fact that Amer- which Almodóvar had taken from a In 2009, Almodóvar optioned the
ican film critics championed his work Valencian poet. He recalls, “She said stories. He knew little of Canada, where
from the start, but one aspect of their to me, ‘Pedro, the next time you trans- Munro’s fiction is set. He had just been
support confused him: many defined late a title, ask me, because in English awarded an honorary degree from Har-
him as a gay director. It was a useful you can’t say, “The something of some- vard, and he thought of moving the
label for him—the gay press helped thing,” because it means absolutely action to Boston. Juliet, who in Mun-
to make him well known in the nothing.’ I answered that it was a met- ro’s story is a middle-class teacher, could
States—but an ironic one for an art- aphor everyone had to interpret, be- work at a school there. Her lover and
ist whose films had done so much to cause it didn’t belong to nature. But eventual partner—during the course
suggest that sexuality was not so eas- she said, ‘Yes, but in English it doesn’t of the story, Juliet moves in with a
ily defined. The label also personally work that way.’ I’m sure she was right fisherman named Eric—could live on
irritated Almodóvar, who was not in- in English, but its meaning was atmo- the coast of Maine.
terested in the identity politics that spheric and dramatic.” Within two years, he had produced
were then energizing the gay move- In 1989, the film executive Michael a well-wrought script. He asked Meryl
ment in America. “I was in New York
when the outing thing was going on—
‘So and so is gay,’ with enormous
posters of famous people,” he says. “I
was totally against it.” He recalls, with
frustration, a journalist asking him,
“ What ’s your boyfriend’s name?”
“That’s the first thing they ask you in
the United States!” he says. “That and
your box-office numbers.” He even-
tually got used to Americans describ-
ing him as “openly gay,” and came to
realize why many Americans found it
necessary to counter homophobia by
coming out. “In Spain, in that era, you
didn’t need to say anything,” he noted.
“People just knew it. I’d never had to
make any confession.”
Over the years, he became fond of
Streep to consider playing Juliet. But
he began to feel deep unease about his
ability to capture the New England BY THE WAY
context. The nuances of Spanish cul­
ture are essential to his movies. He did For Adrienne Rich
not want to portray the United States
coarsely. I’ve given it time, as if time were mine to give.
At one point, Juliet travelled to There was a dam, larger than Hoover or the President or the
Maine and met her lover’s housekeeper. patent
Almodóvar had his dialogue trans­ For the metal creature that sucks up all the dust.
lated into English, and the results were Words had to stop and ask permission before crossing over.
tentative: “I had everything ship shape Oh, sometimes they were wild with the urgency of sweet
(or some local expression).” When Ju­ And leaped—
liet went out on the street in Boston Mostly the rest were kept in the net
and smiled at everyone, he added a Of swallowed or forbidden language.
marginal note: “Consider if Boston
society would naturally accept such I want to go back and rewrite all the letters.
Mediterranean behavior as that of I lied frequently.
being openly looked at in the street.” No. I was not O.K.
Almodóvar next moved the action to And neither was James Baldwin, though his essays
New York City—the place in Amer­ Were perfect spinning platters of comprehension of the fight
ica he knew best—but he still couldn’t To assert humanness in a black­and­white world.
overcome his misgivings. “I didn’t feel
certain, either of the English in the That’s how blues emerged, by the way—
script or of my English,” he said. “I Our spirits needed a way to dance through the heavy mess.
speak well enough to direct actors, but The music, a sack that carries the bones of those left alongside
I’m talking about the idea.” After a The trail of tears when we were forced
year, he put aside the film, which he To leave everything we knew by the way—
had titled “Silence,” after one of the
Munro stories. (A phantom trace of I constructed an individual life in the so­called civilized world.
Almodóvar’s effort could be seen in We all did—far from the trees and plants
“The Skin I Live In”: the Spanish edi­ Who had born us and fed us.
tion of Munro’s collection appears in All I wanted was the music, I would tell you now—
one scene.) Within it, what we cannot carry.
In 2014, a year after the release I talk about then from a hotel room just miles
of “I’m So Excited,” Almodóvar trav­
elled to the Algarve coast of Portugal
with two longtime female assistants. go further; she is having her period and Madrid, but the first thing I did when
They talked about what he should feels unclean. In Almodóvar’s version I got there was call my mother, and
do next. Noting how much they had they make rapturous love and conceive she asked me if it was cold and if I had
loved the “Silence” script, the women their daughter. “Hers is the feminine put on a sweater or not.” The ending
suggested that he move its story to version, mine the masculine,” Almodó­ he engineered for “Julieta” is not Mun­
Spain. var jokes. ro’s, but it is more open­ended than
He loved the idea, and quickly wrote The biggest change that Almodó­ usual for Almodóvar, who tends to tie
a new draft. “In that moment, I fol­ var made was to the ending. In the up his complicated plots with a heavy
lowed my own path and forgot about third Munro story, Juliet gives up; her bow (if not a gunshot).
Munro,” he said. “It’s like that moment daughter is gone. She moves on with By the time he finished filming, in
when adolescents forget about their her life. In Munro’s version, the quest August, 2015, Almodóvar felt that he
parents and begin to lead their own ends with a sigh: “She keeps on hop­ had made so many changes that he
lives.” ing for word from Penelope but not in owed Munro an explanation. He had
By the time the script was ready to any strenuous way. She hopes, as peo­ replaced Juliet’s covert inquietude with
shoot, he had made many narrative ple who know better hope for unde­ Julieta’s all­consuming suffering. He
changes. He gave Juliet’s daughter a served blessings, spontaneous remis­ began a letter, but on the day I vis­
lesbian relationship from which she sions, things of that sort.” ited him it was still in draft form. He
fled to a spiritual retreat. (Munro pre­ Almodóvar saw this ending as im­ said, “It’s not a justification but a dec­
sents it as a passing teen friendship.) possible for him to film. By way of ex­ laration of love toward the work, and
In Munro’s version of the train scene, planation, he told me the story of his an explanation of where I have taken
where Juliet meets the man she will childhood departure from Madrigalejo: it as a filmmaker, because clearly I’ve
marry, she kisses him but doesn’t let it “I was able to get away to freedom in taken it on a long journey.” He had
52 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
 Suárez the older. Both had been eager
to work with Almodóvar, though they
From your home in the East knew of his controlling predisposi-
Before you fled on your personal path of tears tion. They were friendly, and thought
To the West, that worn-out American Dream about discussing the role together,
Dogging your steps. but decided against it. As Suárez
put it, “We realized that he would
You lived on a pedestal for me then, the driven diver who climbed lay down the guidelines. It would
Back up from the abyss, Venus on a seashell with a dagger have been quite dangerous for us to
In her hands. do so independently.” The only time
I had to look, and followed your tracks in the poems they worked together, at Almodó-
Cut by suffering. var’s request, was to rehearse walk-
Aren’t they all? ing, so that they could match each
We’re in the apocalyptic age of addiction and forgetting. other’s gait.
It’s worse now. Ugarte, the less experienced of the
two, praised Almodóvar’s oversight.
But that dam, I had to tell you. I broke it open stone by stone. She asked him how she should act in
It took a saxophone, flowers, and your words her final scene, midway through the
Had something to do with it story, in which she is in a deep depres-
I can’t say exactly how. sion after Xoan’s death. According to
The trajectory wasn’t clean, even though it was sure. Ugarte, he told her, “You’re not alive,
Does that make sense? but you aren’t dead either. You’re empty.
Maybe it does only in the precincts of dreams and poetry, You’re empty of muscles, of bones, of
Not in a country lit twenty-four hours a day to keep dreams feelings.” She remembered another key
stuck moment, in which Xoan tells her that
Turning in a wheel he has had an affair. Almodóvar made
In the houses of money. her play the scene two dozen times.
She recalls him calling out highly var-
I read about transcendence, how the light ied instructions: “More restrained,”
Came in through the window of a nearby traveller “Very Italian,” “Shout more,” “Cry,”
And every cell of creation opened its mouth “Don’t cry.” Almodóvar told me, “I
To drink grace. think her personality pushed her to a
more aggressive and visceral reaction,
That’s what I never told you. less adult. In my opinion, it was an age
—Joy Harjo problem. Adriana followed my instruc-
tions as well as she could, but I think
she never got to feel what I was ask-
been working on the letter for two great strain on performers. Almodó- ing of her.”
months, but, like a character in one var chose two actresses to play Julieta, Suárez arrived six weeks into the
of his melodramas, he was vacillat- one in her early thirties and one shoot, as Ugarte was finishing up, and
ing. He told me recently, “The truth middle-aged. The older replaces the picked up the baton. Almodóvar asked
is I don’t know if I’ll ever send it.” younger halfway through the story, Suárez if she was prepared. “Not pre-
Almodóvar is proud of the film, when Julieta takes a bath after the pared, but looking forward to it,” she
which he sees as inaugurating a fourth death of her husband, Xoan. She cov- replied delicately. Suárez, too, had to
phase in his career. There were no ers her head with a reddish-brown do a scene over and over—a hospi-
short-cuts in “Julieta,” he told me— towel (from Almodóvar’s apartment), tal scene between her and Ava, Xoan’s
no mixing of genres, no pratfalls. “It and when she lifts it off she has aged mistress. She could tell that Almodó-
is a very different movie from my oth- twenty years. I met the two actresses, var felt something was not working.
ers,” he said. “I imposed sobriety and Adriana Ugarte and Emma Suárez, “It took a whole day to do the scene,”
compression every day of the shoot. one day in New York. The women had Suárez says. “And when it was over,
It was deliberate.” He went on, “I had the slightly shell-shocked quality that after twenty tries, Pedro still was not
thought to have more movement of I had come to recognize in Almodó- convinced. And I went home with
the camera, but when I was filming var’s heroines. The situation reminded the sensation of having failed. To feel
them in closeup I saw no reason to me of a comment made by Max Es- like you’ve failed with Pedro is very
move it. When I speak of ‘simplify,’ I pejo, the director of B movies in “Tie frustrating. I had to maintain my dig-
also mean technical simplicity.” He Me Up! Tie Me Down!”: sometimes nity, because the next day I had to
was echoing Munro, “a mistress of it’s hard to tell the difference between go back and face the same scene
simplicity.” a love story and a horror story. again.” This time, Almodóvar was
Filming sustained closeups puts a Ugarte played the younger Julieta, satisfied after one take. (He says that
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 53
the problem had nothing to do with company that they had founded. This use only the best skin creams, and suffer
her performance but with a continu- was particularly scandalous for a pub- a lot while they walk along fancy
ity issue involving a scarf that Suárez lic figure who had retained a coun- streets.” Almodóvar has certainly be-
was wearing.) Suárez notes, “Almodó- tercultural air. The day after the come more bourgeois over the years. I
var is not an excessively affectionate leak, a television reporter pursued used to admire the way his movies con-
person. He is a professional in that Almodóvar from a building to his veyed his love for Madrid’s humble bus
sense and maintains his distance. So car. “Why don’t you calm down?” system: in “Dark Habits,” Cristina Pas-
that’s a challenge.” the reporter said as the visibly agi- cual takes multiple buses to flee some
Almodóvar had his own challenge tated director hurried across a plaza. thugs; in “Live Flesh,” Penélope Cruz
on the set: he had to shoot the movie Almodóvar, wearing a foulard furled gives birth on the No. 26 line. In re-
digitally, since he was no longer able around his neck, retorted, “If you leave cent movies, there are a lot of cabs and
to find a place to develop celluloid me alone, I’ll calm down.” private cars. Where, Rey asked in his
film in Spain. The change did not Almodóvar petulantly cancelled all blog post, had the old Almodóvar gone,
make him happy. Digital focus, he his domestic press for “Julieta,” and he the one “capable of understanding, sum-
said, is so sharp that “it makes every- and Agustín hinted that they might marizing, wringing out, and explain-
thing seem flat.” Moreover, he found take action against anyone who pub- ing Spain?” Playing off the Spanish
that the technology interfered with licly speculated about the purpose of word volver, he ended with “Pedro,
his famous eye for color. “I like dense, the Panama funds. (Agustín wrote an vuelve”—“Come back.”
contrasting colors,” he said. “There open letter to the press, saying that
were colors on the set—for instance, they had funded the company with an ne warm night in September,
the gray-green of the walls in Juli- eye toward possible expansion of El O twenty or so of Almodóvar’s
eta’s apartment—that I was never able Deseo. He apologized for embarrass- friends met up at La Trainera, a well-
to convey with digital.” ing his brother.) Twenty thousand peo- known seafood restaurant in the ele-
ple signed a petition, under the rubric gant Salamanca section of Madrid, to
n ‘Julieta’ you see more the in- “All About My Money,” asking Pedro celebrate his birthday. Among them
“I fluence of Ingmar Bergman than for a fuller explanation. were various chicos and chicas Almodó-
of Preston Sturges,” Almodóvar told Perhaps because of this tumult, var, including Elena Anaya, who bril-
me when I sat with him in his apart- Spanish reviewers seemed more criti- liantly played the character who is
ment in Madrid. His throat was both- cal than usual. Some writers objected forced to undergo surgery in “The
ering him, and he had a cup of tea at precisely to what Almodóvar consid- Skin I Live In,” and the three festive
hand. “Both as a person and a film- ered his accomplishment: that he had flight attendants from “I’m So Ex-
maker, despite the big difference in left his past behind. His movies are cited.” The guests gathered in a pri-
culture and talent—I mean, we’ll never now far less Spanish, just as Spain is vate room at a long table; at the
be comparable—I find the trail of far less Spanish. This is a change that head of it was Almodóvar, dressed in
Bergman is clearer than before.” He he, too, has noticed. After Julieta runs dark-blue pants and an untucked mus-
added, “It’s evident that my ability to into a childhood friend of her daugh- tard-colored Hermès polo shirt. The
make ‘Julieta’ in the way I have, and ter’s, she wanders, distraught, through man described by the Spanish press
being able to draw inspiration from as Almodóvar’s companion sat at the
Munro, is the result of having made other end and discreetly avoided pho-
nineteen movies.” He cautioned me tographs. (Penélope Cruz was absent
not to read too much biography into with a cold.)
his new seriousness. No personal event One chair by Almodóvar’s side re-
had made him turn to a story about mained open. “Bibi’s always late,” Almo-
loss. “But, yes, what’s more meaning- dóvar said affectionately.
ful than a loss is the fact of living Soon Bibiana Fernández came in,
day to day, and of being older than to applause.
sixty.” He added, “Age makes you feel Six feet tall and striking, Fernández
losses in general, many different kinds, an élite area of Madrid that looks as is one of Almodóvar’s oldest friends.
every day.” generic as uptown Manhattan. “If it She first appeared in “Matador,” in
To Almodóvar’s dismay, the début were set in the eighties, this woman 1986, and has been in three other of
of “Julieta” in Spain, earlier this year, never would have wound up going home his movies. I asked Almodóvar what
went badly. At home, Almodóvar alone,” Almodóvar told me. “She would appealed to him about her. “She can
is still beloved as a comic direc- have shared her problems with every be savage,” he said. “She has an unlim-
tor—“I’m So Excited” did well at the person she met.” ited capacity to struggle and survive.
box office—and the release coincided Alberto Rey, writing a blog post for And she has a good heart.” He and
awkwardly with press reports, based El Mundo, objected to the new “Almo- Fernández hugged; Fernández is more
on the Panama Papers leak, that Pedro dovarlandia,” with its “cultivated and than a head taller. She had blond hair
and his brother had placed fifty thou- well-read people, who live in apart- styled to fall over her eyes, and wore a
sand dollars in an offshore holding ments with stupendous parquet floors, sleeveless shift that would have been
54 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
appropriate at a poolside lunch at the
Fontainebleau. She took a selfie with
Almodóvar and began editing it on her
phone with her long fingers.
“She’s retouching her teeth, her
lips, her eyelashes, the line of the eye,
everything—she does it all with her
phone!” Almodóvar, who has little
knowledge of technology, said with ex-
citement. “She’s a great Instagrammer.
It’s her religion, her creed!”
“It’s the boss’s birthday—congrat-
ulations, love,” Fernández wrote below
the picture, then posted it to her two
hundred thousand followers.
Large plates of tapas came. “Que
maravilla es el jamón, no?” Almodóvar
declared to the room.
Fernández complained about the
lacklustre audiences in a theatre in Val-
ladolid, where she had just been play-
ing a comedy. Almodóvar reassured his “Which is better—to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and get kicked
old friend gracefully: “In Valladolid out or to stick around here with nothing to talk about?”
they watch all comedy as if they were
watching Bergman.”
It was the night of the San Sebastián • •
Film Festival, and the guests knew many
of the nominees. The actors were eager Fernández was back on her Insta- It was close to midnight, and
to learn the names of the winners, and gram account. “You look thin in this everyone stood up and sang “Feliz
Almodóvar moved around the room, one,” she reassured Almodóvar, show- Cumpleaños” and “Las Mañanitas,” a
chatting and tracking the festival on ing him a picture. She posted it with Mexican birthday song. They clinked
various phones. the words “Here we are side by side, glasses. They finished with the torch
“Eduard Fernández won for best like the first time.” song “Luz de Luna.” Almodóvar joined
actor,” Almodóvar announced. “He was The singing grew more spirited. in, arms up, showing off the fine voice
in ‘The Skin I Live In.’ ” The group sang a rousing song called that the priests had admired some sixty
“He’s the one who cut off my balls,” “Pena, Penita, Pena.” “What it’s say- years ago. “That’s the song that Bibi
Anaya chimed in. ing is ‘Pain, pain, little pain.’ It’s mar- sings, naked, in ‘Kika,’ ” he said, re-
“That’s not the way I would have vellous. It’s like Lorca, impossible to membering one of his most daring
put it,” Almodóvar joked. “How harsh translate. It’s pure metaphor.” The next scenes.
that sounds!” day, a gossip blogger on El Mundo’s It was clearly time to go. Word spread
The scene was playful, though they Web site noted that it was a strange that there was a paparazzo on the street,
all, except for Bibiana Fernández, song for a birthday party. But Almo- so everyone said goodbye inside, kiss-
seemed mindful of being in the pres- dóvar looked contented; a small smile ing cheeks in the now empty restau-
ence of an eminence. Almodóvar him- appeared on his face. rant. Only Bibiana Fernández lingered.
self looked slightly adrift, remind- He mentioned that he had been toy- “If everyone is going to leave, then I’ll
ing me of something that Banderas ing with one more movie treatment. It leave, too,” she complained. “This isn’t
had told me: “He’s happiest on the was the story of a brother and sister a fiesta fiesta.” She gathered up her
set. When he’s on the set he’s full, from a town like Calatrava who moved handbag, theatrically disappointed.
complete.” to Madrid, had some disappointments, Outside, a lone man waited with a
Entrées of cod, snapper, and striped grew old, then died. In his mind, the camera. Almodóvar asked him not to
bass were served. The guests began story had to do with his mother’s death. photograph the actors. But he him-
singing for Almodóvar. The selec- “It’s very sad,” he said. “I think in this self stood gamely, his polo shirt un-
tions might have been chosen from moment after ‘Julieta’ I shouldn’t try tucked, looking flushed beneath his
the boleros, coplas, and Latin stan- something quite so sad.” He thought anemone of white hair. The paparazzo
dards that he includes on his sound- that the story about the man who is framed the director and shot—Almo-
tracks. The comic actor Carlos Are- involved with a female animal seemed dóvar was the cromo now—and climbed
ces, one of the flight attendants in more pressing. “I have to feel passion,” back into his car. Almodóvar got into
“I’m So Excited,” sang “The Hills Are he said. “That’s really in the front of his and headed home, eager to get
Alive” with a light Spanish accent. my brain right now.” back to work. 
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 55
 ANNALS OF LAW

TAKING TROLLS TO COURT

Carrie Goldberg, a Brooklyn attorney, is helping women who are victims of “revenge porn” and other online assaults.

BY MARGARET TALBOT

ne morning in March, in a found me. It had my street name. My victed of computer hacking and wire-

O courtroom in Newark, New Jer-

sey, a young woman named
Norma attended the sentencing of a for-
town was there. It said, ‘Find me on Face-
book.’ My bra size was there. And then
the photos.”
tapping, for which he is serving a six-year
sentence.
Sometimes people surreptitiously film
mer boyfriend, who had gone to gro- Norma initiated a criminal case against consensual sex acts, or even rapes, and
tesque lengths to humiliate her online. Morcos, and he was charged with inva- make the footage public for reasons other
Four years earlier, when she was seven- sion of privacy in the third degree, in ac- than revenge. In April, Marina Lonina,
teen, she had met Christopher Morcos, cordance with a statute that is popularly an eighteen-year-old Ohio woman, was
who was then nineteen, at a Starbucks known as a “revenge porn” law. In 2004, charged with live-streaming, on the Peri-
near her home, in Nutley. He was a busi- New Jersey passed the nation’s first such scope app, the rape of a seventeen-year-old
ness student at a local college, and Norma, legislation. The statute makes it a crime friend by a man they’d met at a nearby
who is soft-spoken, liked that he was for a person who knows “that he is not mall. Lonina and her lawyer said that
outgoing. He was her first boyfriend, and licensed or privileged to do so” to none- she was trying to gather evidence by film-
they dated for two years. Like a lot of theless disclose “any photograph, film, ing it. But, according to the prosecutor,
young men these days, he asked Norma videotape, recording or any other repro- she soon got caught up in the stream of
to send him explicit selfies, and, like a duction of the image of another person “like”s from viewers. Lonina has been
lot of young women, she did. She made whose intimate parts are exposed or who charged with rape, kidnapping, sexual
him promise that he would keep the pic- is engaged in an act of sexual penetra- battery, and pandering sexual matter in-
tures to himself. He assured her that he tion or sexual contact, unless that per- volving a minor.
had hidden them on an app with a se- son has consented to such disclosure.” In the past decade, thirty-three more
cure password, and that in any case he The preferred term for such statutes states and the District of Columbia
would never circulate them. Once in a is “nonconsensual-porn laws,” because have adopted nonconsensual-porn laws
while, however, he made a joke about the online harassment does not always like New Jersey’s. Despite such efforts,
doing just that. Norma, a student at the involve a spurned ex like Morcos. Some- one can easily find sites on the Internet
Fashion Institute of Technology who times people hack into a celebrity’s iCloud that are dedicated to revenge porn. On
lives with her parents, never laughed in or Gmail account to steal intimate pic- [Link], people post naked pictures of
response; she warned him that if he did tures that can be sold and posted online. former spouses or lovers—mostly women,
she’d take him to court. In 2014, Jennifer Lawrence and other some men—along with their names,
In November, 2014, Norma broke up prominent actresses were victims of such ages, and home towns. They add cruel
with Morcos. He barraged her with texts, thefts; Lawrence told Vanity Fair that captions: “My slut wife”; “Chubby frigid
sometimes telling her that she needed the incident was a “sex crime.” Last slut.” Posts about men frequently sug-
to talk to him because his mother was month, a Pennsylvania judge sentenced gest that their penis is too small.
deathly ill. (This was a lie.) Other texts one of the men who hacked the images, Prosecutions of individuals receive
threatened to post online her intimate Ryan Collins, to eighteen months in jail. considerable media attention, in part be-
photographs. A few months later, Norma Celebrities are not the only people tar- cause they are unusual. Pennsylvania has
received a text message from a stranger, geted. A recent Brookings Institution undertaken a dozen or so prosecutions—
who said that he’d seen her page on Porn- report examined nearly eighty cases of the most of any state. Other states with
Hub, one of the most popular X-rated “sextortion,” involving three thousand nonconsensual-porn laws have had just
sites. She called her boss at the clothing victims. In one such case, a Californian one or two cases make it to court. Vic-
store where she worked and said that she named Luis Mijangos tricked women tims are often reluctant, or ashamed, to
was going to be late that afternoon. Then into installing malware that searched come forward; police officers are some-
she frantically began searching the In- their computers for sexually explicit pho- times unfamiliar with the new laws, or
ternet. Eventually, she found eight pho- tographs and switched on Webcams and are unsure how to conduct the computer
tographs that she’d given to her boy- computer microphones, allowing him to forensics needed to build a case.
friend, on a page that identified her by record the women undressing or having Norma’s complaint would almost
her first and last names. Norma told me, sex. He then threatened to release the certainly not have proceeded to court
“It was basically soliciting people to con- resulting photographs or videos if the had she not been represented by Carrie
tact me for oral sex. It had my phone women didn’t make pornographic vid- Goldberg, who was sitting in the court-
number—that’s how that stranger had eos for him. In 2011, Mijangos was con- room next to her that day. Goldberg is
56 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
Goldberg was once harassed online by a vengeful ex. She started her practice to “be the lawyer I’d needed.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 57
a thirty-nine-year-old Brooklyn attor- me laugh, and I loved getting it. I love was filmed, without her knowledge, by
ney with a practice specializing in sex- her whole persona. She’s so completely a man staying in an adjoining hotel room.
ual privacy, a new field of law that has and utterly herself.” “Are you just supposed to never take
emerged, in large part, to confront some Several years ago, Goldberg was ha- your clothes off ?” she said. “You can’t
of the grosser indulgences of the Inter- rassed by a vengeful ex. At the time, she get naked, you can’t take a shower?” She
net. She has clients like Norma, who are was working as the director of legal ser- spoke of upskirting—the voyeuristic
trying to get intimate images of them- vices at the Vera Institute, a criminal- practice of taking unauthorized pictures
selves, or graphic ads offering their sex- justice nonprofit in Manhattan. The ex beneath a woman’s dress. “Are you never
ual services, off the Internet before they threatened to send intimate pictures she’d supposed to go out in public in a skirt?”
go viral and strangers start showing up given him to her professional colleagues. Goldberg said. “Or what about images
at their houses. She also has “I stand before you as a law- where somebody’s face has been Pho-
clients who are being extorted yer but also as somebody’s toshopped onto somebody else’s naked
into providing sex or money target,” Goldberg said re- body? What’s getting distributed isn’t
because someone has graphic cently, in a speech that she necessarily images that were consented
pictures of them and is threat- gave at a conference on do- to in the first place. That’s why it’s the
ening to send the images to mestic abuse, in Albany. distribution you have to focus on.”
employers or parents or sib- “When I went to the police, Goldberg went on, “But, even if you
lings. She has even begun ad- they told me it was not a did take a naked picture and send it to
vising teen-age students who criminal issue.” She’d been somebody, that’s not necessarily reckless
have been sexually assaulted frightened and embarrassed, behavior. That’s time-honored behav-
and had the incidents recorded and after the ex was served ior! G.I.s going off to war used to have
on cell phones, and who have then had with a restraining order—he did not dis- pics of their wife or girlfriend in a pinup
to go to school with peers who may have seminate the pictures—she decided to pose. It’s often part of intimate commu-
been watching the videos in the cafete- start her own firm. As she put it to me, nication. It can be used as a weapon, but,
ria or the hallways. “That way, I could be the lawyer I’d the fact is, almost anything can be used
Goldberg, a graduate of Brooklyn needed.” To her clients, many of whom as a weapon.”
Law School, is a surprisingly glamorous are in their teens and twenties, Goldberg
presence, especially for the places her comes off like a cool older sister who al- hen Norma’s boyfriend first
work tends to take her: drab courtrooms, ways has your back. She greets them with W threatened to release her photo-
grubby police precincts. Her hair is long girlish flamboyance—“Hi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i!”— graphs, she went to the police. They told
and wavy; her nails are always painted; then gets down to business. her that there was nothing they could
she wears oversized designer glasses, five- A week before the sentencing of do. But after the pictures turned up on-
inch heels, color-block minidresses, and Christopher Morcos, I interviewed line Norma’s mother, Arlene, looked up
sharply cut trenchcoats. Rebecca Symes, Norma in a conference room at Gold- the New Jersey legal code and surmised
a lawyer who once worked with Gold- berg’s office, in Brooklyn Heights. At that Morcos had broken a law. She found
berg at Housing Conservation Coordi- one point, Norma said, “Personally, I Goldberg’s practice through an Internet
nators, which represents Manhattan ten- don’t see myself ever sending a photo search, and when she called her office,
ants facing eviction, told me, “Housing like that again.” Goldberg was sitting in February, 2015, Goldberg picked up
court is predominantly male—the attor- with us, and she interjected, “Even though the line. “Oh, my God,” Goldberg told
neys, the landlords. And, how shall I put you know you did nothing wrong.” Arlene, upon hearing the story. “Of course
this? They tend to be schlumpy. Carrie Norma nodded, and said to her, “I felt I can help you.” Arlene’s family was strug-
stood out. She was a total badass. She shame talking about it before, never gling financially, and to their enormous
was aggressive—you had to be—and you knowing if the person you’re confiding relief Goldberg said that, in that case,
had to believe in your clients when ev- in is judging you. I felt so worn out when she would provide the help pro bono.
eryone else was calling them deadbeats. I met you.” Goldberg said, “You’ve be- First, Norma needed to get her pho-
A lot of the people called to legal-ser- come much tougher. Whatever happens tos off the Internet. Until recently, get-
vices work are do-gooders, and they are at the sentencing, you’re, like, a national ting images removed from the Web was
a little passive and meek. They don’t have leader on this, because so few people most often accomplished by filing a no-
that fierceness that Carrie has.” have got this far. You’re a warrior god- tice of copyright infringement. The per-
In 2014, Mary Anne Franks, a Uni- dess, holding him accountable.” son who takes a photograph automati-
versity of Miami law professor who has Goldberg tries to impress on her cli- cally owns the copyright to it, so a selfie
advocated for revenge-porn laws, was ents that they should not feel ashamed. is your property. If a selfie has turned up
attracting online critics who repeatedly I once asked her how she responds to on a porn site, then the person who took
attacked her with obscenities. Goldberg, the argument that people who value it can file a takedown notice, citing the
in a show of support, sent her a lipstick their privacy should not send naked pic- Digital Millennium Copyright Act of
with the name Lady Danger. Franks tures in the first place. Goldberg replied 1998, and requesting that the relevant
told me, “She included a card where that this was judgmental and reductive. Web hosts and search engines remove
she’d written, ‘This is what I wear when She mentioned the case of Erin An- the image. The copyright on a picture
I want to feel like a warrior.’ It made drews, the former ESPN reporter, who that somebody else snaps of you—even
58 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
with your cell phone, at your request— (Goldberg tweeted that PornHub was ments on social media. (“No one would
theoretically belongs to him or her, but her “@twitter crush” of the day.) Mean- want to rape that fat disgusting mess”; “I
you can apply to register the copyright while, several notorious revenge-porn want to put an apple into that mouth of
under your name. Using copyright law Web sites have been shut down and their yours and take a huge stick and slide it
to combat revenge porn is a bit like using operators sent to prison—not because through your body and roast you.”) One
tax law to go after Al Capone, but copy- they were distributing the photos and troll created a fake Twitter account in
right is one of the only restrictions that videos but because they were committing the name of West’s father, who had re-
the Internet respects. crimes such as identity theft, extortion, cently died, as though his ghost were is-
Since images proliferate swiftly on- and hacking along the way. The Federal suing vulgar insults to his daughter. In-
line, and takedown notices have to be Trade Commission has taken up some of stead of brushing off the troll’s attack,
filed with each site separately, stopping these cases in its role as a monitor of fraud- she wrote an essay about how it had made
a viral image can be tedious and expen- ulent or deceptive commercial practices. her feel; this prompted him to apologize
sive. Erica Johnstone, a San Francisco Last year, the agency prohibited Craig to her. In 2015, the man appeared with
lawyer who is one of the few in the Brittain, the operator of a Web site called West on an episode of “This American
country besides Goldberg with a prac- isanybodydown, from sharing nude pho- Life,” and she asked him why he’d done
tice devoted largely to sexual privacy, tographs of women that he’d acquired by it. He said that he’d been overweight at
recently told me about a case that she deceptive means—such as posing as a the time, and that West’s confidence in
worked on in 2013. A mother was help- woman on Craigslist—while redirecting her own large body had set him off. In
ing her daughter take down noncon- the women to another Web site that he the segment, he was not named. Like
sensual porn. Johnstone said, “They ran, and which promised to remove the most trolls, he never experienced any re-
spent at least five hundred hours be- pictures in exchange for money. (Brittain percussions for what he’d done.
tween May and October sending re- has denied using such methods to acquire In the movement to combat online
quests. It was like a full-time job.”Worse, the photographs.) harassment, Goldberg is more of a prag-
not all the sites complied. Misogyny on the Internet has proved matist than a theorist. But Mary Anne
Last year, partly in response to argu- notoriously intransigent. Trolls who Franks, of the University of Miami, and
ments by Goldberg and other activists, threaten sexual violence against female Danielle Citron, of the University of
some major social-media platforms and writers in online comment threads have Maryland, have been publishing articles
search engines began banning revenge driven some women off-line, while ano- in law reviews arguing that extreme forms
porn. The Attorney General of Califor- nymity protects the perpetrators. Some of cyber harassment undermine equal
nia, Kamala Harris, who was just elected women confront trolls directly, but most opportunity. Citron’s 2014 book, “Hate
to the U.S. Senate, convened a task force try to ignore them. A few years ago, Lindy Crimes in Cyberspace,” contends that,
including tech companies, law enforce- West, a witty columnist for the Guard- because such behavior disproportionately
ment officials, and advocates, which ian, who takes on such subjects as rape affects women and minorities—damag-
helped shape new policies. Companies jokes and body shaming, was subjected ing their ability to express themselves in
have started providing online forms that to a particularly nasty barrage of com- public, their employment prospects, and
allow victims to request that content be
deleted without having to assert copy-
right first. Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook
adopted policies against involuntary por-
nography in early 2015. Instagram, Goo-
gle, Bing, and Yahoo soon followed. The
search engines also agreed to “de-index”
revenge porn, so that it no longer comes
up under searches of the depicted per-
son’s name, though it can still be accessed
through the URL. Google explained the
new policy in a statement: “Our philos-
ophy has always been that Search should
reflect the whole web. But revenge porn
images are intensely personal and emo-
tionally damaging, and serve only to de-
grade the victims. . . . This is a narrow
and limited policy, similar to how we treat
removal requests for other highly sensi-
tive personal information, such as bank
account numbers and signatures.”
In October, 2015, PornHub joined the
effort, announcing that it would honor “I’m sorry, Jeannie, your answer was correct, but Kevin shouted
requests to take down revenge porn. his incorrect answer over yours, so he gets the points.”
their sense of personal safety—the legal tures that merit public interest—images they carve out exceptions reflecting the
system must treat it as a violation of their of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, for exam- public interest. Moreover, as Franks has
civil rights. She recommends criminal- ple. At a time when many liberals are pointed out, laws with an “intent to ha-
izing revenge porn, including online trying to fight excessive incarceration, rass” requirement let off the hook peo-
threats, in existing statutes against it can be troubling to think about cre- ple who run revenge-porn sites, and
stalking and harassment, and making it ating new classes of crime. Silicon Val- who are just out to make money.
easier for victims to sue under pseud- ley libertarians worry that the image- The Minnesota bill passed in May,
onyms. Citron, who has been making takedown policies instituted by social- and Franks considers it to be well-
such arguments for years, told me that media platforms could promote a shift drafted legislation. It explicitly protects
tech companies and state legislators are toward the “right to be forgotten” re- pictures and videos that were made for
increasingly embracing her perspective: gime that has taken hold in Europe, in artistic sale or display, that were obtained
“What seemed crazy to them back in which individuals can force a search en- legally in a commercial setting, that are
2007, when I was arguing that this should gine to remove links to online content of legitimate public interest, and that
be criminalized and was a civil-rights vi- that they consider embarrassing—in- have a scientific or educational purpose.
olation, all of a sudden became non-crazy. cluding content that they themselves Under such a statute, a media organi-
It went from ‘Oh, no, she’s breaking the posted. Might valuable content be effec- zation could make a strong case that it
Internet’ to ‘Danielle, she’s fine, she’s tively expunged from the Internet sim- was justified in publishing Anthony
middle of the road.’ ” Citron thinks the ply to shield people from shame? Weiner’s photographs of his penis, be-
companies have realized that consumers In 2014, the A.C.L.U. opposed an cause it shows such foolish behavior in
“have a taste for sexual privacy.” Arizona law designed to combat non- a politician running for office. It’s even
consensual porn, on the ground that the possible, if a stretch, to make the argu-
rguments on behalf of online wording was “overbroad.”This past April, ment that Hulk Hogan’s sex tape had
A privacy still meet strong resistance. the Motion Picture Association of to be posted online, as well as reported
Citron, Franks, and Goldberg are among America voiced a similar critique of a on, because he is a celebrity who bragged
the leaders of the Cyber Civil Rights law under consideration in Minnesota. about his sexual prowess. (Gawker, which
Initiative, a group that advocates for the And in June the governor of Rhode Is- published the video, made this case to
passage of nonconsensual-porn laws. Its land, Gina Raimondo, vetoed a revenge- a Florida jury, but the jury was not con-
members have been criticized for being porn bill, citing the First Amendment, vinced, awarding Hogan a hundred and
insufficiently attentive to the First because the bill did not specify that, in forty million dollars in damages. Gawker
Amendment, and for not respecting the order to be criminal, an unauthorized said that it would appeal the verdict, but
untrammelled spirit of the Internet. If release of intimate pictures had to be ended up settling the case, for thirty-one
revenge-porn laws are too broad, they made with an intent to harass. Citron million dollars.) But, at least in states
can incriminate consensually sexting and others have countered that re- with nonconsensual-porn laws, it would
teen-agers or people posting naked pic- venge-porn laws can be drafted so that now be very hard to make the case that
a private individual posting a naked
selfie of his ex, against that person’s will,
is doing anything other than breaking
the law.
A federal nonconsensual-porn bill
was introduced over the summer by Rep-
resentative Jackie Speier, a California
Democrat, and it includes a set of ex-
ceptions that echo the Minnesota law.
It also offers Internet-service providers
a degree of immunity; without this, op-
position from Silicon Valley would be
fierce. Speier’s staff consulted with Erwin
Chemerinsky, a constitutional scholar at
the University of California, Irvine, and
he declared the bill to be sound, saying,
“There is no First Amendment problem
with this bill. The First Amendment
does not protect a right to invade a per-
son’s privacy by publicizing, without
consent, nude photographs or videos of
sexual activity.”
In criminal courts, revenge-porn laws
do not yet seem to be producing ques-
“ Your fly is open.” tionable guilty verdicts or egregious
sentences. Some critics argue that ex-
isting laws can handle the problem, but
many examples suggest otherwise. In
2013, a twenty-nine-year-old man from
Brooklyn who posted naked photo-
graphs of his ex-girlfriend on his Twit-
ter account, and sent them to her em-
ployer and her sister, was charged with
three misdemeanors: aggravated harass-
ment, dissemination of unlawful sur-
veillance, and public display of offen-
sive sexual material. (New York does not
have a nonconsensual-porn statute.) The
judge, Steven Statsinger, called the man’s
behavior reprehensible but found that
he had not broken the law. Harassment
law in New York stipulates that there
has to have been direct communication
with the victim; the man had not ob-
tained the pictures unlawfully; nudity
alone doesn’t constitute “offensive sex-
ual material”; and posting on Twitter
did not amount to “public display,” since
Twitter is a “subscriber-based social
networking service.” (This reflected
Statsinger’s misunderstanding of social
media: Twitter content easily migrates
across the Internet.)
After Norma went to the police, she
asked PornHub to remove her pictures.
The company complied. At the meet- ¥ ¥
ing in Brooklyn, Goldberg praised Nor-
ma’s quick thinking: the longer the im- say, “the proof of the crime”—images saying, ‘No, Norma’s already reported
ages stayed on PornHub, which has in a Web browser—“is the crime.” this, and she doesn’t have enough proof,
billions of visits a month, the more likely The day after Goldberg accepted and the prosecutors told us not to be
they were to go viral. Some of the im- Norma’s case, she accompanied her to using this new law.’ Which was strange.”
ages, Goldberg explained, could still turn the police precinct. “Sometimes it’s a
up on porn sites that would refuse to framing problem,” Goldberg told me. oon after taking Norma’s case,
take them down; the images could also “Sometimes victims don’t know how to Sa prosecutor
Goldberg e-mailed Jason Boudwin,
she knew of in Middlesex
have been saved to people’s laptops and explain the issue in a way that’s going
phones. But such problems were less to have the greatest impact on the po- County, New Jersey, who had brought
likely because Norma had acted swiftly. lice.” She brought in a printout of the one of the first revenge-porn cases in the
It was too bad, Goldberg added gently, relevant state law, and told Norma to state. Goldberg persuaded him to call a
that Norma had not taken screen shots tally all the communications that she’d counterpart in Essex County, where
of the pictures online. That would have received from Morcos. “I always tell cli- Norma lived. The prosecutor who ended
been useful in a criminal case or a civil ents that it’s super important to get the up taking the case, Seth Yockel, had
suit. Goldberg counsels clients that, even metrics,” Goldberg said. “Like, ‘He con- worked on domestic-violence cases and
though their first impulse might be to tacted me seventy-five times during this had a background in computers.
destroy all traces of revenge porn, they two-hour period. And fourteen times Yockel issued subpoenas to Internet-
should collect evidence of its damaging within those contacts were threats that service providers to find the I.P. ad-
effect, including online comments, he was going to drown my dog. And he dresses that had been involved in up-
which, as Goldberg’s associate Adam posted my picture on three different loading Norma’s pictures. He told me,
Massey told me, often contain “death Web sites within x period of time, and “We traced them back to the house of
and sexual-assault threats.” Goldberg’s now I’m on a thousand different Web Mr. Morcos’s mom. We figured they
firm uses a company called Page Vault, sites.’ ” probably weren’t coming from his
which preserves screen shots that cap- Goldberg’s intervention here, though, mom.” He soon negotiated a plea deal
ture the date, the time, and the URL, was not a success. “We got the door shut with Morcos’s lawyer, in which Morcos
and are admissible in court. In noncon- in our face,” she told me. “I was, like, pleaded guilty to the invasion-of-
sensual-porn cases, Goldberg likes to ‘I’m here to save the day.’ And they were privacy charge in exchange for the
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 61
state’s dropping a second charge, of have no social life,” Connie told me. “I ‘Oh, that’s such a pretty landscape, I have
cyber harassment. don’t go out. I basically have two friends. to post it on Facebook’—or a bad thing:
Norma’s parents were both in court I’ve started to get used to it, but it’s also ‘What do I do with this angry emotion?’ ”
with her on the day of the sentencing, kind of lonely. I used to work in a very
as were two of her friends. Goldberg had prestigious industry around a lot of peo- ear the end of the New Jersey
invited another client, a New Yorker ple. But I’m really scared to have a Face- N proceeding, Morcos offered an apol-
named Connie, to watch the proceed- book account, or a Twitter, because I ogy to the court and to Norma, whom
ing, thinking that she might find it en- don’t know what backlash would come he referred to only as “her.” He told the
couraging to witness a perpetrator fac- from it.” judge, “I went too far. I guess I didn’t
ing justice. Connie was thinking about suing her handle it correctly.” Norma then got up
Connie and her boyfriend broke up ex-boyfriend. Goldberg had told her that to read a nine-hundred-word statement,
after he became physically there were relevant torts which she had prepared and practiced in
abusive. He then placed ads under which she could seek Goldberg’s office the previous week. The
for her on escort sites and damages, including inten- paper trembled in her hands, but her
on Craigslist, including her tional infliction of emo- voice was steady. The courtroom got very
full name and personal de- tional distress, and that she quiet. Morcos looked down at the table.
tails; he also created fake could petition the judge to “I worried about future job opportu-
Google+, Facebook, and let her sue as a Jane Doe. nities being affected if these pictures were
porn-site pages about her. A few victims of cyber ha- circulated throughout the Internet,” Norma
She was described as an rassment have successfully read. “I was afraid for my safety—afraid
“Asian black widow” who pursued civil actions. In that a sex offender would be able to lo-
“enjoyed gang bangs” and 2014, a Texas jury awarded cate me after seeing my photos and my
had various sexually transmitted diseases. half a million dollars to a woman whose information.” Such fears are not unrea-
Connie, who is thirty-five, had never boyfriend had recorded their sexually ex- sonable. In 2009, a Wyoming woman
given naked pictures to her ex, but he plicit Skype sessions without her knowl- whose ex-boyfriend had advertised her on
posted photographs of her face along- edge, then uploaded the videos to porn Craigslist as someone looking for “a real
side random images of vaginas. Connie sites after they broke up. But victims aggressive man with no concern for
told me, “I grew up in a very conserva- don’t often pursue civil actions, in part women” was raped, at knifepoint, by a man
tive Asian household—very quiet peo- because most potential defendants are who responded to the ad. In 2013, a Mary-
ple, God-fearing and all that good stuff— what lawyers call “judgment-proof ”: they land man was found guilty of posting fake
in Jackson Heights, Queens. To see your lack the money to pay a big settlement. ads about his ex-wife, including one that
picture on an escort site and all these Connie’s former boyfriend was a suc- said “Rape Me and My Children.” Fifty
venomous things about you, it kind of cessful real-estate developer, but she was men showed up at the condominium where
makes you question who you are. Be- reluctant to be back in his orbit during the woman lived with her children; some
cause how did you allow this person to a protracted legal case. tried to break in. Goldberg has a client
come into your life? And—how do I ex- At one point, I told Connie and Gold- whose stalker has repeatedly created fake
plain this without crying?—you feel berg that the psychology of revenge porn ads in which the client advertises free sex;
ashamed.” Connie got some of the con- confounded me. In trashing your ex, you the client works at a pharmacy, and a steady
tent taken down on her own; Goldberg were, in a sense, trashing yourself and a stream of men have shown up there. The
helped her with the rest, and was push- whole portion of your life. “Right,” Gold- ads urge men not to be discouraged if she
ing the New York prosecutor to count berg said. “It’s like you’re announcing to ignores them.
the online attacks as violations of a re- the world, ‘I was with a prostitute.’ But As Norma spoke, Goldberg sat up
straining order that had been placed on I think during breakups there is that de- very straight. Connie shook her head in
Connie’s ex. valuing. That’s how you justify it: ‘I sympathy. “I cannot get back my privacy
Still, Connie’s life remained in many dodged a bullet there.’ ” that had been invaded when those pic-
ways on hold: she had left Manhattan, The Internet, she said, had given rise tures were online,” Norma concluded. “I
abandoning a career in luxury-ad sales, to something new in the history of re- do not know how many people saw them,
and she had eliminated her online pres- venge: “Historically, we had checks and I do not know how many people saved
ence, which made it hard to maintain balances. If you are someone who is al- them, and every single day I think about
friendships or to find a new job. Gold- ways seeking revenge, that’s going to the fact that other people have seen me
berg told me that people in Connie’s affect your reputation. But on the Inter- in my most private state.”
position often had such difficulties. If net a guy can be really bad and his friends The judge, Michael Ravin, addressed
you didn’t mention the harassment in a aren’t necessarily going to know that he’s the court. “As a parent with a daughter,
job interview, you risked having the po- doing all these shitty things.” I could say plenty,” he said. “This kind
tential employer find graphic pictures Goldberg also thought that the In- of conduct is just so over the line. . . . Es-
of you online; if, like Connie, you erased ternet had made people “more compul- pecially for somebody intelligent. It shows
your Internet presence, the employer sive and impulsive.” She explained, “So a lack of insight, a lack of impulse con-
might see nothing about you online, many people don’t know how to sit with trol.” He sentenced Morcos to four years
which was suspicious in its own way. “I a thought, whether it’s a good thing— of probation, then said, “No—make it
62 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
five.” This was the maximum allowed started a little business, called Masked fierce woman—“battle-axe”—and how
under the law. The judge also ordered Mams, selling bras that she made out she was redefining the role.
Morcos to perform a hundred hours of of baby-doll heads. “Well, selling might One morning in her office, she told
community service, to undergo a men- be overstating it,” she told me. “I’d go me that she had recently gone to a man-
tal-health evaluation, and to refrain from to the Evergreen College campus and agement seminar where the instructor
contacting Norma and her family. If barter them.” She and her friend Lind- advised the lawyers in attendance to es-
Morcos violated any of these terms, Ravin say Lunnum, now an Episcopal priest, tablish a stringent policy forbidding porn
said, he could be sent to prison. worked on the high-school yearbook in the workplace. Adam Massey, Gold-
Afterward, Norma and her family together, and they amused themselves berg’s associate, laughed. His work often
said that they wouldn’t have minded if by writing erotica about some of the entails scanning porn sites and looking
the judge had imposed some jail time. more boring boys’ teams. As Lunnum for evidence.
But they were grateful to Goldberg and recalled, “We were very interested in Goldberg hopped on a pile of cush-
to the prosecutor. Connie said she felt sex, but we had no experience.” A teacher ions next to Massey’s desk. She was wear-
heartened that “this one guy, anyway, found their raunchy writings and con- ing a black turtleneck dress and a ring
probably isn’t going to do this to another fronted the young women’s parents about that spelled out the word “B-A-L-L-S.”
girl.” Goldberg was pleased, too. “Nor- them. Goldberg was irate, pointing out “I told them we had a different, rather
ma’s not going to go home and cry,” she that the teacher must have found the more nuanced policy,” she said. “I didn’t
said to me. “She was treated respectfully erotica by searching their lockers. He’d tell them about the times I’ve gotten an-
by everybody today.” I mentioned Judge violated their privacy. noyed, like today, when you’ve got pages
Ravin’s remark about how the facts of During high school, Goldberg once and pages to go through, and I’m, like,
this case had hit him as a father. “That dropped a friend off at a motel where a ‘Adam, get back to the porn!’”
actually bothered me,” Goldberg said. “I man the friend liked was hosting a party. Massey, whose desk is in the middle
wish it wasn’t always ‘As the father of a The friend passed out from drinking and of the office, keeps the sound on his com-
daughter’ or ‘As the husband of a wife.’ was sexually assaulted by the man and puter turned down. That day, he was
I wish it were ‘This kind of assault on his friends. “Back then, it didn’t occur to checking to see whether some porn links
someone’s dignity bothers me as a human her or me to tell the police or even to that had received takedown orders from
being with a soul and a conscience.’ ” call it rape,” Goldberg said. “But, as I Goldberg were still active. “My least fa-
think about it now, that was a pivotal vorite part of the job is looking at porn,”
ince so many of Goldberg’s clients moment for me.” Massey told me later. “I try to think of
S have unhinged exes, she works in an Goldberg’s office has a boutique- it as document review.”
office with an elaborate security system. hotel vibe: navy-and-gold wallpaper, a Massey kept clicking through links
She also carries pepper spray, making a blue velvet mid-century-modern couch. while we talked about the market for
point of using a product called Bling- On a side table, there is a glittery plas- “amateur” commercial porn—which is
Sting, which comes in sparkly cannis- tic axe that a friend retrieved from an often billed as featuring young women
ters. Although Goldberg acknowledges abandoned art exhibit. Whenever I saw who have only once been filmed hav-
that she is a workaholic who spends much the “disco axe,” as Goldberg calls it, I ing sex. There are Internet subcultures
of her time thinking about men who thought of that pejorative term for a dedicated to unmasking the women’s
cause women “irreparable misery,” she
maintains the bright, squiggly demeanor
of a screwball heroine. She has a Chi-
huahua named Meshugenneh, and drives
a 1966 GTO. She starts most days box-
ing at the gym and keeps a silk appara-
tus for acrobatics hanging from her apart-
ment ceiling, but she often eats candy
for breakfast. She is divorced, amicably,
from a Vassar English professor. They
share custody of Meshugenneh.
Goldberg grew up in Aberdeen,
Washington, the rainy, economically de-
pressed logging town that Kurt Cobain
was from. Her father ran a furniture
store; her mother, an obituary writer for
the local paper, quit to bring up four
children. Goldberg, the second child,
was an instinctive feminist and a bit of
a misfit. “Artsy without the artistic tal-
ent,” as she puts it. It was the riot-grrrl
era, and Goldberg was riotous. She
 Louisiana law sanctioned threats to “ex-
pose or impute any deformity or disgrace
to the individual threatened or to any
member of his family or to any other
person held dear to him.”The crime, she
added, carried up to fifteen years of prison,
including hard labor. Goldberg takes
pride in her cease-and-desist letters. Her
client never heard from the man again.
Not all of Goldberg’s clients are
women, but the men, she says, generally
have different concerns. Often, they are
being extorted for money. One reason
that revenge porn targets men less often
is that, as Goldberg says, “there is less of
a secondary downstream market for it.”
She mentioned one male client, a grad-
uate student from a prominent family.
He responded to a Craigslist ad about a
sexual fetish, and began chatting online
with a woman who was into it. They
were supposed to have a date, but he
backed out, and the woman started
threatening to expose their conversations.
In this case, it was a matter of figuring
out who she was and monitoring her on-
¥ ¥ line activity from afar, then deciding not
to contact her.
identities. The client whose links Massey behind on her hours, and the operator “She had started getting quieter on
was monitoring had made one porn video, stopped paying her. Then he started de- the Internet toward him,” Goldberg ex-
in her late teens, under coercion. She had manding that she come to his house plained. “So we didn’t want to do any-
been promised, falsely, that the footage and have sex with him; otherwise, he thing to rev her up. We found her blog,
would not be distributed widely online. warned her, he would distribute her vid- under a pseudonym. And within a cou-
Amateur porn obsessives had recently eos. He texted her, “I know u would ple of days she was seriously trash-talking
found innocuous YouTube videos of her much rather have sex with me once than someone else—someone who actually
from when she was a young girl, and your entire family knowing what u do had gone out on a date with her but
they were linking them to the porn, ex- and everyone at your school too. Cause didn’t want a second date.” Goldberg
posing her identity. it will be broadcast all over.” He told continued, “I knew that, because she had
Goldberg came over and said that her that he had to get an underage friend clearly moved on, she was probably no
you couldn’t discount the thrill of the of hers to come work for him, too. She longer a threat to my client. And if some-
search as a motivation, too. “There’s texted back, “Thanks for messing with body was out of control and spinning,
that sleuthing aspect,” she said. “I get my life and being so cruel. I’m not get- and then they’re not continuing to throw
that, because we do our own version.” ting my friend involved with this shit.” out communications, it means they’ve
Earlier in the day, Goldberg and I The man had used an alias, but his calmed themselves down. It’s kind of
had talked about the sleuthing she had company had a Web site, and he had a like a baby throwing a tantrum—once
done on behalf of a college student who’d Twitter account. Goldberg tried doing a they’ve calmed down, something would
worked as a so-called cam girl. The reverse image search on his Twitter photo, have to trigger them to start up again.
young woman was a student at a uni- but it didn’t yield anything. Eventually, And that trigger could be a letter from
versity in the South, and she had re- she identified a phone number associ- a lawyer.”
sponded to a Craigslist ad that asked, ated with the company’s Web-site reg-
“Are you an aspiring model?” She’d istration, and that led her to the Face- ne day when I stopped by Gold-
needed the money and agreed to the book pages of the man and his wife. A O berg’s office, she was preparing for
work, performing solo sex acts or get- photograph showed them in front of a a visit from one of her youngest clients,
ting naked, for individual clients, on house in Louisiana. Goldberg, using whom I’ll call Jessica. In April, 2015,
Skype. She had even signed a contract, Google Street View, was able to track when Jessica was thirteen, a male class-
which contained murky language about down the man’s address. She sent him a mate at Spring Creek Community
the company owning her performances, cease-and-desist letter, telling him that School, in Brooklyn, dragged her into
in all technologies “now known or here- he could be charged with extortion under an alley and orally and anally sodom-
after developed.”The young woman fell federal and state law, and noting that ized her. She had never had sex, and she
64 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
said that it was rape, but the boy said investigated, and appropriately addressed. what she worries is a “new license to be
that it was consensual. He had filmed We are reviewing these deeply troubling cruel.” Some of the cases have an explic-
the incident, and the video was circu- complaints and addressing any pending itly political cast. One family’s baby pic-
lating at school. matters with the Office for Civil Rights.”) tures, for example, became memes in an
Other students had bullied Jessica on- When Goldberg meets with her anti-Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory
line and at school, where they waved cell younger clients, she acts as both lawyer alleging the sexual torture of children.
phones that were playing the video. The and social worker. She’d brought snacks Goldberg is emerging as a new kind
principal had sent her home. A “safety for Jessica, and there was a translator on of privacy champion—less concerned
transfer” to another school took a month hand for her mother, whose primary lan- with government surveillance than with
to arrange, so that Jessica was in effect guage is Haitian Creole. Jessica is now the sharing and leaking and hacking of
punished for what had happened to her. fifteen, but she looks younger—she has our personal lives. She works on the as-
Goldberg considered the school’s handling a sweet, shy smile and a fresh-scrubbed sumption that, even in a world where
of the incident a violation of Title IX, face. She sat in the conference room hud- graphic porn and Kardashian-style ex-
the statute under which any school re- dled in a parka and a knit cap, her hands hibitionism are ubiquitous, some people
ceiving federal funds is required to quickly folded in her lap. But she seemed com- will want to keep certain intimate mat-
investigate claims of sexual harassment fortable with Goldberg, whom she’s taken ters private, and society will be better off
or assault, and to take steps to prevent to texting when she gets a good grade. if they’re allowed to do so. It’s a compli-
abuse from happening again. Goldberg At one point, her mother said she was cated mission, because people do record
filed a complaint on behalf of Jessica upset that her daughter hadn’t immedi- and share so many images of themselves
with the U.S. Department of Education’s ately told her about the assault: “She’s today. But she believes in protecting pri-
Office for Civil Rights, which has agreed my life, so don’t keep secrets.” Goldberg vacy as a form of dignity and as a bul-
to investigate it. College campuses have told her, “So many kids her age would wark against disgrace—an old-fashioned
been the locus for Title IX complaints have done the same thing, especially be- word that she is fond of. She’s a femi-
about sexual assault, but middle schools cause she knew it would hurt you.” nist lawyer who has turned her own ex-
and high schools may well be the next Goldberg asked them if they were still perience of coming under attack into a
battleground. sure they wanted to pursue a case. Jes- fighting stance: Gloria Allred crossed
Jessica is African-American, and sica nodded and said yes. Her mother with Jessica Jones.
Goldberg has taken on two other cases mentioned a friend whose daughter was Goldberg and I discussed an argu-
involving peer assaults on young black raped, and said that the family had de- ment that I occasionally heard from
girls in Brooklyn public schools. On cided not to take legal action. “Not my younger feminists and Internet utopi-
Twitter, she has cited a troubling statis- daughter,” Jessica’s mother said. Gold- ans: that someday disgrace would be ir-
tic: Yale has nineteen Title IX coördi- berg replied, “There are a lot of reason- relevant. If everybody’s naked pictures
nators for its twelve thousand students; able ways to react. This is one of them. were available on the Internet, nobody
the New York City school system has And I think it could make a difference would need to feel ashamed. “Well, I
one Title IX coördinator for 1.1 million in New York City schools.” She added totally disagree with that,” Goldberg
children. (Toya Holness, a spokesper- that, were they to win, “as part of a set- said. “I think that privacy is something
son for the New York City Department tlement, maybe there could be required that has to be respected, because oth-
of Education, said that school staff are classes about sexual consent, and what to erwise where’s the boundary between
trained in “reporting, investigating, and do if you receive a picture or video like you and me? And I’m not saying that
responding to such incidents.”) this. ‘Report it, don’t send it on.’ ” A short everybody has to have the same level of
In June, Goldberg filed another com- hearing on the case was held in late Oc- modesty, but, if you are not wanting to
plaint with the U.S. Department of Ed- tober, but Goldberg told me that she ex- show your naked pictures to everybody,
ucation’s Office for Civil Rights, on be- pects the case to move slowly. Jessica may that seems like a choice you ought to
half of a developmentally disabled be an adult by the time it is resolved. be able to have.” She smiled mischie-
fifteen-year-old girl. According to the vously. “I think it would have worked,
complaint, the girl had been taken into y this summer, Goldberg had more like, when we were cavemen.”
a stairwell at Teachers Preparatory School, B than thirty-five active clients, and “Before the Fall?” Massey, who was
in Brooklyn, by a group of seven boys, she decided to expand her firm. She hired listening from his desk, said.
who forced her to perform oral sex on a senior associate, Lindsay Lieberman, “Yeah,” Goldberg said. She got up
two of them while five watched. It was who had worked in the special-victims and walked across the room in her tow-
the second of three New York cases, bureau of the Kings County prosecutor’s ering heels. “I mean, would people who
Goldberg pointed out in her cover let- office. Goldberg’s public profile was make that argument say the same thing
ter, “in which our client is a poor black steadily rising. In May, she was invited about your credit-card information? You
girl age 13-15,” whose sexual assault had to the White House for the meeting of know, it’s O.K. if everybody knows ev-
been mishandled, or neglected, by the a task force about sexual assault in ele- erybody else’s Social Security number?
school system.” (Holness said, “Nothing mentary, middle, and high schools. And, Or private medical information?” She
is more important than the safety of all since the election of Donald Trump, she paused, then said, “Can you imagine if
students and staff, and we have policies says, she’s seen a “drastic uptick” in peo- everything was public? If we shared
in place that insure incidents are reported, ple seeking her firm’s help—evidence of everything? That would be hellish.” 
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 65
 FICTION

66 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY RYAN HESHKA

 arly morning: They deliver pression that some even click their heels, screaming and pumping away. Some-

E my father’s corpse in the trunk

of a ’49 Mercury coupe, dew still
heavy on the taillights. His body is
Fascist style, but I may be making this
up. I don’t know if this rain just started
or if it’s been going on for some time. I
times she would lean slightly forward,
look down and examine the penetra-
tion closely, without passion. Her mouth
wrapped up tight in see-through plas- watch them drive off in a light drizzle. was open wide and her hair stuck to the
tic, head to toe. Flesh-colored rubber That’s about all I can remember. sweat on her forehead. The knocking
bands bind it at the neck, waist, and an- Along with these smattered details is a and banging went on. I went to the door
kles—mummy style. He’s become very strange morning grief, but over what I and cracked it. I had my jockey shorts
small in the course of things—maybe can’t say. and a T-shirt on. It was Mabel Hynes,
eight inches tall. In fact, I’m holding the landlady, from down the hall. She
him now, in the palm of my hand. I ask FELICITY stood there with a Mexican hairless in
them for permission to unwrap his tiny the folds of her flabby arms. The dog
head, just to make sure he’s truly dead. n another language, in another was silent but kept its ears pricked for
They allow me to do this. They all stand I time, her name meant “happiness,” I each scream. When the scream came,
aside, hands clasped behind their tai- guess. Felicity, I think it was—Felic- the dog yapped.
lored backs, heads bowed in a kind of ity—yes, that was it. I’d never heard the “What’s going on in there? Sounds
ashamed mourning, but not something name before, like something from an like someone’s getting murdered.”
you would question them on. It’s smart English novel. Very young. Freckle- “No, it’s just my dad.”
to keep on their good side. Besides, they faced. Red hair. Slightly plump. Ado- “Your dad? What’s he doing?”
seem quite polite and stoic now. lescent. Always wearing simple cotton “Just having fun. He’s got a friend
The Mercury idles with a deep, pen- dresses that looked homemade. She’d with him.”
etrating rumble that I can feel through scream like a trapped rabbit when she “Fun? Doesn’t sound like fun to me.”
the soles of both shoes. I remove the sat backward on my father’s cock. I’d “I’ve never seen her before, actually.
rubber bands carefully and uncover his never heard such ecstasy and horror, all This girl.”
face, peeling the Saran Wrap away from at once. I’d listen from the next room, “Yeah, well, tell him if he doesn’t find
his nose very slowly. It makes a sticky staring at the ceiling. Something smelled a way to keep the noise down I’m call-
sound, like linoleum coming free from like eucalyptus and Vaseline. They never ing the cops.”
its glue. His mouth opens involun- talked. I’d listen. But they never talked. “O.K.”
tarily—some delayed response of the I’d dare myself to go in there, just go in “You tell him that.”
nervous system, no doubt, but I take it and appear and don’t say a thing. Just “O.K.”
as a last gasp. I put my thumb inside stare like some zombie child—a child “I’ve got enough to worry about with-
and feel his rough gums. Little ripples who shows up from out of nowhere. out his shenanigans.”
where his teeth used to be. He had no What could they do? Stare back. Kick “Yes, Ma’am.”
teeth in life, either—the life I remem- me out? Put on clothes and kick me I closed the door and bolted it. Fe-
ber him in. I rewrap his head in the out? I knew what they were doing. I licity kept on, but now her screams be-
plastic sheathing, replace the rubber knew it felt good. I knew it must feel came short little cries for mercy. My fa-
bands, and hand him over, thanking good to be inside another person. Deep ther stayed silent. Maybe his lips kept
them all with a slight nod, trying to stay inside like that. moving. He was always moving his lips
in keeping with the solemnity of things. I went in and there she was. My fa- as though he were talking to someone
They take him carefully from me and ther’s girlfriend sitting ramrod straight— invisible. They still didn’t seem to know
place him back in the dark trunk with naked, almost—as though she were rid- I was there. I pulled on my jeans and
the other [Link] are shrunken ing a pony backward. Neither of them sneaked out the back door, barefoot.
women wedged on either side of him, noticed me. They never turned to see It was cold when I hit the ground.
retaining all their alluring features in me. She just kept on riding him and Just getting to be dawn. Behind our
perfect detail: high cheekbones, eye- screaming recklessly, working her way rooming house was a long black rail
brows plucked, lashes caked with blue up and down in a frenzy. He was on his yard, going off to Stanley and Bing-
mascara, hair washed and coiffed, smell- back on a table, staring at the ceiling, ham. It diminished into blinking neon
ing like ripe sugarcane. His is the only his arms folded behind his head, as if and brakeman’s signals. Men were load-
tiny body that faces completely out to- he might be taking a siesta or listening ing secret metals that someone told me
ward a band of sunlight. When they to the radio. His lips were moving, but were being sent out to Los Alamos and
close the trunk, this band goes to black, nothing came out. I walked right up Alamogordo. The cargo trains were
as though a cloud had abruptly covered next to them, but they never turned to hissing and groaning as they waited.
the sun. see me. Her pink underwear were on The smells of doughnuts, steam, waffles,
They stand in a semicircle facing me the floor. They looked as though they and coffee spilled out across the busted-
now, hands clasped over their groins, belonged to an older woman, maybe up yard and into the vast dark desert.
casually yet formally. I can’t tell if they’re her mother. Speechless men hauled huge, heavy
ex-marines or mobsters. They seem a There was a frantic knocking and boxes on iron wheels across the gravel.
mixture of both. I salute each one, ro- banging at the door, but neither of them Now and then, one of the forms would
tating counterclockwise. I have the im- paid any attention. Felicity just kept emit a nod or a groan, but the world
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 67
 my father as though he’d just shot the
President. Mrs. Hynes went back inside
with her dog and shut off the porch
light. The woman in the long pink coat
kept crying and going in little circles,
searching through her deep pockets for
more crumpled Kleenex. Her lips were
moving. She was talking to someone far
away. She bent down and took off both
of her high heels. She dangled them
from one finger as she weaved away from
me, down Trace Street.

OPPOSITE FELICITY

he thing about Felicity was how

T opposite she appeared to be in her
pure-white cotton dress and tanned
legs, black patent-leather pumps and
purse to match, how opposite to her
naked screaming self I remembered
from that other morning, tossing her
red hair. Abandonment. Now here she
“I eat here all the time so I can be a regular.” was in a ponytail, just standing, very
straightforward, on our front porch
• • with her arms crossed quaintly, purse
dangling, asking if my father was home.
I told her that he was still at work at
remained enigmatic, shrouded, and house. Swirling blue lights. Mrs. Hynes the feedlot but she could come in any-
unspeakable. was standing on the front porch survey- way and wait, if she liked. So she did,
I followed the same rules of geo- ing the goings-on, with her little dog and I got more and more nervous and
graphic orientation as if I were walking yapping in her arms and a sweater thrown shaky as she sat on the edge of a
alongside a quiet river. On the way out, over her shoulders against the early- straight-backed wicker chair while I
I would keep the tracks on my left shoul- morning chill. She had the grim look got iced tea from the cooler and poured
der, and on the way back keep them on of someone watching the aftermath of it into a Mason jar and brought it to
my right. As long as I used the tracks a road accident. Felicity was standing her, with the broken ice rattling around
to guide me, I’d never get lost. Simple. on the sidewalk wearing a sheet, teeth and the tea sloshing over the edge. (This
I followed the long iron snake until the chattering, sobbing, as a female officer was in a different house from the board-
commercial lights of downtown receded tried to keep the top of the sheet closed ing house. Way out in the country, but
to dots. My steps became louder. Liz- tightly around her huge breasts. Purple Felicity had found it somehow, tracked
ards and little animals darted away. I mascara ran down her cheeks. The lady us down.) When I gave her the tea, she
tried to keep to the smooth cool sand, cop escorted her into one of the squad put her little black purse on the floor
but bullthorns and shattered bottles tor- cars, which immediately sped off with and perched the Mason jar on her knees,
tured my bare feet. Little soft patches its siren wailing. A woman in a long then smiled at me with sudden elation.
of cooch grass gave me momentary re- pink coat was yelling at my father, who I got so nervous I had to go outside
spite, until some thorn or nail punched was in his boxer shorts, smoking a cig- and walk around for a while. The whole
through and finally I had to retreat. The arette. A cop stood on either side of him, time I was out there I kept imagining
iron rail still held heat from the day be- squeezing on his bare elbows, then hand- her sitting in the wicker chair, all alone
fore, and I found myself hopping back cuffed his wrists behind his back. The with the iced tea balanced on her knees
to town on the creosoted ties. woman in the pink coat kept yelling and looking around at our strange new
Once I’d reëntered the nest of pink- things like “Cocksucker!” and “Bastard!” house. New, I mean, to us—different—
neon-and-green beer ads, I looked for while the cops placed him in the back different things on the wall that didn’t
a light in the window of our boarding- seat of another squad car and protected belong to us, cheap prints of muskel-
house room. I imagined I saw it from the top of his head from hitting the lunge and logging camps and places that
that distance. I imagined I saw my dad doorframe. Which I thought was a re- had nothing to do with the place in
frying bacon, but maybe not. Maybe I ally strange gesture, since they were al- which we now found ourselves. I missed
was making something up. A solid life ready doing severe damage to his char- the black rotating fan in our kitchen as
of uncertainty. acter. Now all the police cars sped off I wound my way through patches of
Squad cars surrounded the rooming with their sirens screaming, following bullthorns, sidestepping old bean cans.
68 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
The friendliness of its counterclockwise skirt (I guess to look more innocent).
rotation. The sun was really beating I asked her if she ever actually talked
down by then, and I kept seeing it all to him, and she told me that he was
in my head: the little fan blowing wind mostly the silent type. That was one of
on the back of Felicity’s neck, wisps of the things she liked about him, his si-
red hair standing straight out. I imag- lence. “Did he ever talk? Or just move
ined her just sitting there, with her back his lips?” I asked her.
to me and the Mason jar shedding water “Once,” she said. “He talked about
down her legs, condensation running in disappearing—how everything was dis-
cold streams down her calves. I thought appearing. How there used to be bonfires
that maybe what I should do was get everywhere, people running with torches.
up closer to the house and take a peek Laughing. The night was full of sparks.
through the back window and see if she Songs. Little children running and
was still sitting there or if she’d maybe screaming with glee. People in love
stood up and strolled around through would jump across the snapping flames,
the rooms (there were only three), try- hand in hand. Fires would shoot straight
ing to see if she recognized any of our up to the stars.”
stuff from the boarding house, like Dad’s “When was this?” I asked her.
shaving bowl or my chipped accordion. “The old days, he told me. Back in
When I got up close like that to the the old days, before electricity was pulled
window, I felt like a spy or someone out of the earth, I suppose. Lanterns lit
sneaking around someone else’s house the unpaved roads.”
and peeking in to see if there was any- Something about her voice hypno-
thing worth stealing. A Peeping Tom. tized me, even at that age. Something
I couldn’t see Felicity at all. The wicker like a hand softly stroking the top of
chair was empty. The little black fan was my head. I’d seen horses put to sleep
rotating and blowing air through the that way by someone barely rubbing
empty room. I could almost feel the their eyes, their lashes. That’s how it’s
rushes of wind. I sneaked around to the done. I thought, What if my father
bedroom window and saw her bounc- knew what I was thinking? What was
ing up and down on my dad’s mattress, going on? What if he knew I had these
plunked flat on the floor. There were no feelings about her? I didn’t even know
sheets or covers on it, and its dark coffee what they were yet. These feelings. They
stains were in sharp contrast to Felici- were like warm water running down
ty’s dress. She seemed happy—silently my back.
laughing, holding one arm straight up
above her head, tipping the Mason jar, SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE
tea spilling out over her shoulders and
onto the bare mattress. She turned the ne other morning, when Felic-
jar over completely and poured the tea O ity came by with her same little
all over her head. She kicked off her black purse and sat on the same wicker
black pumps and jumped up and down, chair, waiting for my dad, who was al-
then threw the Mason jar at the wall. It ways at work, I got up the courage to
didn’t break, just bounced off the Sheet- ask her why her face always looked so
rock and rattled around in the corner. blank. She told me that she didn’t know
Spinning. She stopped laughing. She what expression to use, because she
stopped jumping and just stood there, didn’t understand other people. I asked
staring at the wall. The Mason jar twirled her why not, and she said that she al-
to a standstill. She didn’t move. I didn’t, ways had this feeling of living some-
either. She had no idea I was staring at one else’s life, and that people seemed
the back of her wet head. way outside her somehow. Apart. I
asked her who the other person might
LANTERNS be, the one living her life for her, and
she explained that she didn’t know
asked Felicity once about my dad. how she knew, but it was someone her
I She was there again, waiting for same age and female, but she didn’t
him. Sitting in the wicker chair with know her name. I asked her if she knew
her little black purse and her dust- what lay up ahead, if she had some
coated pumps. This time in a frilly pink idea what her future might hold. She
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 69
told me no, it wasn’t like that. “Like shrunken women are hung on the tar- Tommy Dorsey. I don’t know. What if
what?” I asked. It wasn’t as though she get by the necks with pink rubber bands. Felicity decided to track me down?
could see the future. It wasn’t as though They bob up and down ever so slightly What if my father found out? What if
things were laid out and all she had as the darts zoom past their heads. One he decided to do me in or have me ar-
to do was go through with them. It dart with red feathers and a golden rested or something? What if he went
was as though her experiences didn’t streamlined point hits my father square completely crazy? Insanity ran in the
belong to her. They belonged to some- in the forehead and sticks. The tiny family, don’t forget. There was some
one else. body spins. He’s already dead, so he great-great-something—an uncle or a
I sat there a long time in silence, doesn’t make a peep. The gangsters are cousin or something—who ran off to
staring at the floor. Felicity was good hysterical with laughter as they take live with the Indians back then, had
at silence. Better than me. She seemed sips of their drinks and adjust the bold many wives, many children, stopped
to have no anxiety about what lay up knots of their ties. speaking English altogether, took up
ahead. She could take it or leave it. My Two more darts are thrown at my astrology, had Cherokee slaves. I don’t
fear of her mounted until I leaped up father, who is still spinning. They both know. I didn’t want to wind up like
from the couch and tried to make up miss. One grazes his shoulder and clat- that, that’s for sure. I had to find a way
some excuse to go outside. She didn’t ters to the floor. One guy makes a yel- out of there. Completely.
seem the least bit nervous. Nothing low mark on a chalkboard. The third
had changed in her. She just kept sit- guy drops a dime in a Wurlitzer. This ’d never been with a woman in that
ting on the wicker chair in the same is about all I can remember. I way before, especially an older woman,
way she had before, with the patent- although Felicity was only about four-
leather purse in her lap. I ran outside BOOTS WITH RED FLOWERS teen or fifteen at the time. She felt huge.
to the back porch and started tossing I was lost in her body. Her breasts were
all the pails of warm slimy dog water told Felicity she had to stop com- immense and heaved like distant ocean
out and refilling them. Just for some- I ing around like this—why was she waves inside her woman’s bra, which
thing to do. always coming around when she knew she must have “borrowed” from her
my dad was at work? I mean, why was mother. The floorboards were rock-hard
TINY MAN IN AN IRISH PUB she always coming around? She’d just on my knees. The rag rug had slipped
stare at me and smile. She moved the away and I swam on top of her, flailing
ight: They’re playing darts in little black purse on her knees. This as though I’d never make it to the other
N an Irish pub. You can see them time she was wearing cutoff bluejeans side. She began screaming and making
through the glazed window, leaning to- and boots with red flowers and pistols those same noises she’d made with my
ward the target. Three of them this time, carved into them. Very Western. She father the first time. I was sure her voice
still dressed up in their pin-striped suits, asked me if there was some law against would carry for at least twenty acres.
fedora hats, and those shoes you always her coming by my place and paying me Over the heads of grazing cattle, fran-
see them wearing in black-and-white a visit. She just wanted to see the dogs, tic lizards. Her eyes were squeezed shut,
movies—pointed—brogans, I guess. anyway, she said. Maybe pick some or- and she took big fistfuls of my hair. I
With little indented holes or perfora- anges. Run through the sprinklers. I kept praying that my dad wouldn’t show
tions in the pattern. They’re told her there was no law, it up in the middle of all this. After days
all smoking Luckies and just seemed weird, that’s all. of her waiting for him, he finally shows
drinking Martinis with “Weird?” she said. “There’s up in the middle of all this! It was un-
green olives and a twist of nothing weird about us bearable to imagine! I rode her like a
lemon rind. The ’49 Merc is being friends.” She consid- pony, trying to stay on. She slipped away,
parked outside, with a fourth ered us friends. I thought grabbing me between the legs and shov-
guy propped against the that was great, but at the ing me into her. It was an incredible
trunk, his foot on the same time I wondered if that mess. Cum all over the place. She
bumper, dressed exactly like was the way my dad would jumped up suddenly, gathered all her
the others. He’s smoking and see it. “Friends”? I mean, clothes, and ran out the front door, half
shuffling a deck of cards, what did that mean to her? naked, then turned on the porch and
separating the one-eyed jacks. None of Did that mean that, when I looked at ran back in, and got on top of me. I was
these characters look like actors, but her purse moving around on her knees, still stretched out, bewildered. I thought
they all seem to be playing a role. that was all I was looking at? she was going to crush me. The sheer
Inside, the other three are laughing There were times back then when weight of her. Her pelvic bone. I’d
and chewing on toothpicks as one of I thought I’d never get out of there thought it was all over, and here she was
them throws his set of darts at the wall. alive. I’d have to become a famous golfer on me again, except worse—more sav-
Each time he throws he leans in, squints or a veterinarian or something like that. age, more huge. Her mouth opened and
his eyes, and makes three little prac- I’d have to escape completely. I’d have I saw tiny animals escaping, tiny ani-
tice strokes with his right arm before to take a different name, get a differ- mals that were trapped inside her all
releasing. My tiny dead father, still ent haircut, wear clothes from a differ- this time. They flew out as though some-
wrapped in plastic, and two of the ent era. Start listening to music by thing might catch them and drag them
70 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
back into imprisonment. I could feel face? Sweating. Caused her to drop her
them land on my face and crawl through mother’s underwear on the tiled floor?
my hair, searching for a hiding place. Did he think I might be the one she
Each time she screamed, the animals really loved?
flew out in small clouds like tiny gnats:
little dragons, flying fish, headless horses. TINY MAN AT THE BEACH
They came tumbling out, scratching at
one another. The amazing thing was hey are at the beach now. Carpin-
that I stayed hard all this time. Even T teria or Ventura—very bright and
after ejaculating all over. I was as hard hot. The ’49 Mercury is parked up by
as a stone salute. That must’ve been why the highway, facing the pounding
she returned. Pacific. All the windows are rolled down
and the trunk is wide open. Salty air
avoided my father after that. I sweeps through it, blowing sand against
I could see him at dusk in his rocker, the whitewalls, half burying them. None
with a glass of whiskey and a glass of of the miniature corpses are in evi-
milk beside it, picking at the shrapnel dence. Just the car—as though it had
scars on the back of his neck and star- been abandoned in haste. No one’s
ing at nothing from the front porch. I around. Just wind. Wind again.
kept thinking that he somehow knew Down on the beach, far below the
about me and Felicity. That she’d told cliffs, the miniatures are all lined up on
him in a moment of panic. That she’d their backs in the sand, as though tak-
suddenly had a spell of “honesty” and ing sunbaths, even though they’re dead.
spilled the beans. That that was why he Seagulls circle above them, waiting for
was always staring off into the distance. the chance to carry one of them off and
It made no sense, though, that he hadn’t tear it apart. The gangsters lie in a line
attacked me right away—as soon as he right beside the corpses. They, too, look
found out. Why would he wait? He as though they were taking sunbaths,
wasn’t a man who carefully calculated but they’re all still very much alive. Two
his actions. If he kicked me out, where of them have their shirts off and are
would I end up? Bakersfield? applying baby oil to their dark-olive
These were the kinds of things I skin. All the gangsters keep their felt
thought of as I wandered farther and fedoras on, and all of them are wear-
farther from the house. As it turned to ing very expensive dark glasses, fash-
night, I kept a bead on the kitchen light. ioned in Rome, with a brand name that
I stumbled through plow ruts and tried I can’t pronounce. None of them wear
to keep to the very edge of the fields, so sunblock. They’re too proud of their
as not to disturb seedbeds or crops al- Sicilian heritage to display white noses
ready heading out. Our sheep heard me like a bunch of clowns in the circus.
coming and bolted off in a burst of gray, They’ve all taken off their brogans and
away from the wire fence. I saw his bed- their black silk dress socks. They wig-
room light switch on and knew that he gle their manicured toes in the sand
was brushing his teeth, with the glass and whistle at young girls strolling by.
of whiskey resting on the porcelain sink They call a group of girls over and show
beside him. It was the same room in them the line of miniature corpses all
which I’d watched Felicity bouncing on on their backs. Taking the sun. The
the mattress. The same room in which girls run away in horror, screaming, cov-
I’d seen her throw the Mason jar. A pure- ering their noses, although the smell of
white owl dived at a field mouse, snagged death is very faint through the Saran
it, then flapped away into the dark. What Wrap. One of them runs toward the
would I have asked my father if I’d had sea as though she were about to vomit.
the guts? Would I have asked him who All the gangsters laugh hysterically and
he was? Who he pretended to be? Would slap one another’s high fives so violently
I have asked him what was on his mind? that one of them actually thinks he’s
Had he “seen” something? Had he “seen” broken his wrist. A black waiter shows
her and me? Did he think I might have up in a tuxedo and white gloves, driv-
fooled around with her behind his back? ing an electric golf cart. They all order
Got her hot and bothered? Caused those mojitos, except one, who orders a vodka
red blotches to emerge on her neck and tonic. The black waiter jumps back on
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 71
his electric golf cart, after writing down
their orders, and heads off toward the
clubhouse. You can just make out the ROSE TANTRUM
roof over a distant ridge, where a group
of slender palms are swaying. A rose was throwing a tantrum
deep in the botanical gardens.
MOUNDS OF THEIR OWN DUNG An angel fell in the bathroom,
knocked her front teeth out
he thing you remember most on the edge of the toilet.
T about feedlots is the smell—the A long-haired dachshund was
smell, way before seeing the actual cat- crossing the Bosporus I’m
tle, usually Holstein crosses huddled in jumping around here. A rose.
tight, listless bands on top of mounds of A tantrum. An angel saying
their own dung. You imagine them sens- it was the sink. A sign
ing death—their future as frozen ham- on a dumpster saying
burger patties—but I could be giving Unwanted Diamonds.
them a prescience they don’t possess. But it was the toilet.
Mornings in the San Joaquin always Was definitely the toilet.
carry a mist. Its origins are mysterious,
because there is hardly any moisture to The rose shook slightly
speak of. No water, except for the placid but violently. Like a bruise
irrigation ditches: the giant rainbirds happening. Sound of cable
dripping; white transportable plastic straining. The angel danced
pipes at the edge of rows of lettuce. We all night in a club. Music
used to call it Tule Fog when we worked deafening. Rum & cokes.
alfalfa, loading trucks with square bales Carpenter blokes. Dried
in the summer. That was farther south, blood on her chin. I fell
though, down around Chino, where and smashed these in
there was more green and it actually she tried saying, pointing
rained a little. to her mouth. On the sink!
I put it in my head that I could walk Today! At noon! The sink!
the seventeen miles to the feedlot on
the fifth straight day that Felicity showed —Michael Earl Craig
up and was, again, asking to see my old
man, who was never there. I invited her
in, as usual, out of the blasting sun, sat berry patches in straw hats shaped like make her feel better about you. You
her down, as always, on the wicker chair, chocolate drops. A long line of giant know? The whole situation. I think she
and poured the usual jar of iced tea for blue-gum eucalyptus marked the high- really likes you. She does. The way she
her. She sat exactly the same way she way’s shoulder and cast shade out into talks about you. I mean, I can’t stand it
always did—with her back straight and acres and acres of summer squash. when she shows up looking for you and
her spine not being supported by the I started making up in my head what you’re not ever there. I don’t know what
chair at all. She set the little black purse I’d say to my dad when I got there. A to do. I don’t. I mean, I don’t know what
on the floor and balanced the iced tea in sort of little raggedy monologue, as I to do. Sometimes I try to talk to her,
the same way—on her knees, which were marched my way toward the blur of oc- but you know I’m not very good at that.
always pressed together and very tanned. casional cars, on their journey up to San I don’t know what to do. I make things
I made up some excuse to go back into Francisco or down to L.A. in a straight up. I do.”
the kitchen and sneaked out the back, line. “She’s really desperate to see you, The hike to Coalinga was hot and
making sure the screen door didn’t slam Pop. She wouldn’t come every day if she dusty. I didn’t even attempt hitchhik-
behind me. I ran for about a hundred wasn’t. I mean, maybe you could just go ing. People never stop when they’re going
yards, until my lungs ached, then walked down to the liquor store and give her a that fast, anyway. Occasionally, some old
in long strides down to Highway 5. call. Or you could give me a message, faggot insurance salesman. You can spot
Meadowlarks trilled, then exploded maybe, and I’d tell her. Or a note. A them right away. Driving alone. A bunch
out of a field of barley, landing on mes- note would be even better, wouldn’t it? of suits and shirts on wire hangers be-
quite posts. Like Indians at the bus stop, She’d see you’d signed it and everything. hind him. His red balls hanging out of
they’d never look you directly in the face. It would almost be like talking to her. his fly. I plodded on in the gravel ditch,
Grasshoppers were everywhere, and bot- Maybe she’d imagine your voice, even. through disposable diapers, bottle caps,
tle flies would go smack into your eyes, Your face. As though you were actually and used condoms. Crows and mock-
as though blind and suicidal. Crews of talking to her. It might—I don’t know, ingbirds dotted the fence lines. Some
Japanese field hands were working straw- it might ease her mind or it might even guy in an old Massey Ferguson, trying
72 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
to be a “lone little farmer” holding out the troughs, then run a pitchfork over a wince can mean anything, up to a
against the “big boys.” Signs about water the top of it as the heads of cattle poked point, but do you necessarily have the
rights and how the politicians were to through the pipes and lolled their long wherewithal to really feel what the gri-
blame for the lack of it. White almond slimy white tongues over the green macer or wincer feels? Be that as it may.
trees in full bloom. Boxes of bees pol- pellets. The man dumped the empty To be afraid of the sufferer’s suffering
linating apricots. Now and then a road- bag and the pitchfork in the back of is what I’m trying to consider. Is it even
side fruit stand selling figs and water- the pickup, then jumped behind the possible? Afraid of what? That the
melon. I could hardly wait to get out of wheel. He’d go down the alley a few suffering might come over to you? As
this place. yards, then repeat the same process. I though it were there already, and watch-
I started thinking about how Felic- stood there for the longest time, just ing the sufferer suffer only broke open
ity might have found us. How come she watching. I had an impulse to wave, what was already lying dormant but
could have just showed up here in this but I didn’t. I saw the truck getting rarely released. Or is it the impossibil-
godforsaken valley. It became clear to closer and closer, but I somehow knew ity of ever knowing? One thing’s for
me that Felicity was what you call “un- the driver didn’t see me. I was sure it certain: a grimace is not a scream and
derage,” “jailbait,” or whatever. Older was my father. Who else would it be? a wince is not a cry of anguish. But a
men used to use that term, “jailbait.” I turned and walked away, all seven- miniaturization only causes you to look
Something illegal like that, or else they’d teen miles back to the house. When I closer.
never have taken him away. The cops. got there, Felicity was gone.
My dad. We’d never have had to move elicity vanished. My dad walked
out of that boarding house in the mid- A GRIMACE IS NOT A SCREAM F the highway at [Link] he couldn’t
dle of the night the way we did. He’d sleep, but I know it was more about
never have had to take a job at the feed- hy or how he was shrunken in looking for her, hoping she’d show up.
lot. He doesn’t even know how to ride W those various dreams and appa- He hardly ever talked about it. In fact,
a horse. He just drives a pickup. Up and ritions is beyond me. Whether he he hardly ever talked period, just picked
down the rows of cows, bawling and shrank before or after his death on this at the scars on the back of his neck and
waiting for alfalfa pellets. Maybe that earth was another question I had. Be- stared at the fire. Every once in a while,
woman in the long pink coat was Fe- fore his death—this is going back to he’d hear a change in the dogs and leap
licity’s mother and she had secretly fol- ’68 or ’69—I’d say he’d already shrunk up from his chair and go rushing out-
lowed us. I don’t know why. Maybe the some around the shoulders and neck, side. The screen door slammed behind
two of them have a place here. Some- but that was in accordance with the him as he stared out into the night and
where in town. And the mother sends natural aging process. I mean, that’s the dogs gathered around his knees,
Felicity out here every day. Day after what they always say about the aged, knocking their tails against the side of
day. Like some kind of bait. “Jailbait”— don’t they? “He was once much taller, the porch. Hens clucked and fluffed
maybe that’s it. Why isn’t she in school? until that horse fell on him,” or “He their feathers from the shed, where the
I wonder. It is summer. Not that her was once much fatter, until that woman tractors were parked, and a cat scam-
mother gives a hoot in hell about edu- who couldn’t cook showed up,” or “He pered across the beam of orange night
cation. I can’t see her grooming Felic- was once much wider, until the river light cast from the creosote pole. He
ity for some fancy girls’ school back East breached its banks.” No matter. People asked me again about the last time I’d
or some Ivy League deal, where they go will talk. It could also be that I’m dream- seen her, and I told him it was the time
on to “higher learning.” Not that Felic- ing him like that—tiny—because it’s a I went out to find him at the feedlot.
ity would want that kind of thing, any- way of distancing myself, but that’s a He couldn’t remember that time, and I
way. I don’t know. bit Freudian, don’t you think? As though told him that that was because I never
When I finally reached the feedlot, there were some kind of intelligence actually talked to him, he looked so busy.
there was nothing but cattle and dust driving all this—the subconscious or “I’m never busy,” he said, then he turned
and a stench that made your eyes water. some bullshit like that. Something I to the fire again and gave the log a lit-
I couldn’t see another human being. find hard to believe in. Why would I tle kick. Sparks flew into the room and
Miles of cattle. Black. Black-and-white. want to be distanced, anyway? There’s lit up the wicker chair where Felicity
Red. Gray. Spotted. All kinds. All sizes. nothing I’m still afraid of. At least, not always sat, waiting. For a second, I
Flies. Shit. The air seemed as if there from him, my father. Maybe it’s his thought I saw her, but I was only dream-
might be a war nearby. That was what pain—his suffering. But why be afraid ing. Sometimes it was like that out there
it felt like. of his suffering? That’s what I’d like to at night, completely alone. Not even a
War and death. Mass graves. Des- know. What’s in it? For me, I mean. neighbor’s barn light. Just the two of us
olation. Pogroms. No human beings. Hard to say what it was for him. Suffer- and the dogs.
Nothing but the constant sound of ing, I mean. When you watch some- I thought about Felicity—where she
cattle bawling, as though their moth- one grimace or wince, what do you might have gone. Maybe she hadn’t gone
ers were eternally lost. I saw a pickup think he’s feeling? It’s certainly not a at all but just got bored with waiting
truck, miles up one of the alleys. It thing of pleasure that pops into your around. Boredom was a real event in those
would stop periodically. A man would mind, or happiness, either. Neither of days. What’s going to happen? That was
get out and dump a bag of feed into those. I mean, I suppose a grimace or the question. What’s going to happen. ♦
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 73
 THE CRITICS

ON TELEVISION

DOING TIME
The unhurried pleasures of “Rectify.”

BY EMILY NUSSBAUM

n the first episode of “Rectify,” his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Hanna. gerous chemistry. Their flirtation takes
I Daniel Holden (Aden Young) is re- He served nineteen years, most of them place, however, largely through elevated
conversation about Thomas Aquinas and
leased from death row, and he gives a in solitary confinement. The crime itself
speech to journalists and protesters gath- was a foggy, ambiguous incident that in- Buddha, forgiveness and humility. And,
ered outside the prison. Rather than as- volved psychedelic drugs; two boys testified in fact, a lot of the pleasure of the show
sert his innocence or talk about justice, against him, and, under pressure, Daniel is in the dialogue, which favors the stuff
he offers a zigzagging meditation on the confessed. DNA cleared him of the rape that Daniel jokes is not “gallows humor”
nature of fatalism. “I had convinced my- but not of the murder, so plenty of lo- but “lethal-injection humor—it’s more
self that kind of optimism served no use- cals—and, at times, Daniel himself—sus- humane but less funny.” “It felt good to
ful purpose in the world where I existed,” pect that he did it, because he was found use the telephone that wasn’t smarter than
he explains, in an underwater monotone, cradling Hanna’s naked corpse, which me,” Daniel tells his sister, about a pay
as the protesters look on, baffled. “Ob- he’d decorated with flowers. But Daniel’s phone. His companion on a road trip tells
viously, this radical belief system was younger sister, Amantha (Abigail Spen- him, “Everything that happens between
flawed and was, ironically, a kind of fan- cer), never lost faith in his innocence, and men and women is written in mud. And
tasy itself.” Humbly, as if ending a phi- she’s been sleeping with the liberal Jew- butter. And barbecue sauce. Paula Deen
losophy seminar, he concludes, “I will se- ish lawyer she lobbied to work on his be- said that to me in a dream I had one time.”
riously need to reconsider my world view.” half—the big-city Reuben to her Norma Ted, Jr.,’s boozy koan: “First you hate it.
For three years, “Rectify” has been a Rae. Everyone involved wants clarity, now Then you like it. It’s called beer.”
small marvel, an eccentric independent that Amantha’s faith has paid off. While the talk takes its time, the plot
drama, filmed in Griffin, Georgia, and air- No one gets it. The murder case is re- moves fast. The first season covers six days
ing off the beaten track as well, on Sun- opened and leads down alarming paths. in six episodes, and climaxes in two crimes,
dance. With its skewed insights into Few people want to face the uglier facts, one committed by Daniel, one against him;
carceral cruelty, “Rectify” took the slot that including the knowledge that Daniel was by the fourth and final season, currently
“The Wire” used to occupy: it’s the smart raped in prison, multiple times. While airing, only a few months have passed.
crime drama whose fans have trouble per- he was on death row, his father died and Several of the best episodes are one-offs,
suading others to watch, because it sounds his mother remarried, so he has two new featuring characters we never meet again.
too grim—or maybe too good for you. It’s stepbrothers, Ted, Jr., and Jared, who is In one, Daniel drifts into the orbit of an
a frustrating dynamic that has haunted still in his teens. In some ways, Daniel antique dealer named Lezlie, a Pan-like an-
other dramas without cowboys or zom- is himself an adolescent, prone to self-in- archist, who invites anyone who is not a
bies—“The Leftovers” and “The Ameri- dulgent, self-destructive whims. In iso- gentrifying yuppie—the class he regards
cans” come to mind—but “Rectify” ’s rep- lated Paulie, Georgia, he’s a distinctly as ruining Paulie—to party at his ram-
utation for difficulty is misleading. The odd figure, a socially awkward autodi- shackle house. In another, Daniel gets a ride
show’s dreamy pace makes it a satisfying dact who meditated and read obsessively from a stranger and steals some [Link]’s
high, like a bourbon-soaked bob down a in his cell. He speaks in an off-kilter, a strong sense in “Rectify” that, when your
river on a humid day. It’s a show about the whispery style, making even sympathetic memory has been rendered spongy and
way that time gets distorted; it’s one that neighbors uncomfortable. His mannered your safety shattered, each event might last
distorts time, too. As with many structur- intellectualism marks him as an outsider, forever or be gone in a flash.
ABOVE: LUCI GUTIÉRREZ

ally daring series, it’s joyful, because its in- queer in several senses, as much as any
sides match its outsides. suspicions of criminal guilt do. erhaps the standout episode is
It’s also, more straightforwardly, a The one person who truly gets him is P “Donald the Normal,” from Sea-
gothic mystery about small-town secrets. Ted, Jr.,’s wife, Tawney, a sweet born-again son 2. In it, Daniel finally leaves town.
When Daniel was in his late teens, he Christian who is desperate to save Dan- He takes a bus to Atlanta, then puts
was convicted of the rape and murder of iel, and with whom he develops a dan- on nice clothes and goes to a museum
74 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
Daniel was convicted of a brutal but ambiguous crime. Now that he’s out of prison, everyone wants clarity.
ILLUSTRATION BY TOMER HANUKA THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 75
 to see a beautiful painting that he knows merely as a distraction but as a bridge
only from a book. Throughout “Rec- between strangers, a way of reframing
tify,” the claustrophobically close-knit the world. Still, it would be an exercise
Paulie—where the local waitress sleeps in solipsism without the larger, more
with both Daniel and the politician grounded ensemble, particularly Dan-
who framed him, and where Hanna’s iel’s opposite number, Ted, Jr., who be-
brother glares at Daniel’s family in the comes both his bully and his victim. As
supermarket—is portrayed as near- played by Clayne Crawford, Ted is a
enchanted in its isolation. Any men- strutting, insecure shit-kicker, a high-
tion of a larger Southern city (even school tough kid gone to seed. A sales-
from the former Atlantan Amantha, man at the family car dealership, he’s the
who has a liberal hipster’s condescen- yuppie type Lezlie disdains, or, at least,
sion for her home town) makes it sound he aspires to be: he and Tawney share a
as distant as Mars. McMansion decorated in pastels. When
At the museum, Daniel is approached the bank won’t give him a loan for a
by an attractive older woman, played by sketchy scheme involving leasing auto
Frances Fisher. “What do you think?” rims to black customers, he mortgages
she asks. “I think I’ve looked at this the house, despite Tawney’s resistance.
painting in a book for so long that some- When things fall apart, he gets scary.
how my brain has trivialized it,” he says. In another story, Ted might be a car-
“And as I stand here in front of the real toon villain: the abusive husband who,
thing I feel, if anything . . . disappointed.” at one point, confesses to something so
She’s charmed by the alien quality that close to date rape that it’s a distinction
others find so creepy—his formal speech, without a difference. (Crimes on “Rec-
his lack of boundaries. She invites him tify” are like that: violence so ordinary
to lunch with her book-club friends. that no one reports it—and, when some-
These are sleek, rich city women. He one does, the justice system makes it
tells them that his name is Donald and worse.) But the show sees Ted’s side,
that he owns a bookstore in Alabama. too. Like Daniel, he is a man humili-
This experiment in reinvention falls ated by loss of control, with few coping
apart fast. Daniel has cuts on his fore- skills when he’s been abandoned. In
head and cheeks, the remnants of a “Rectify,” anyone who feels something
beating that put him in a coma. And, for others, however painful, must be
bright as he is, he can’t improvise a life redeemable.
he never had. He finds himself faking In the final season, Tawney and
a conversation about a book he hasn’t Ted, Jr., go to therapy, heading toward
read, something with a “pitiful” pro- divorce. Daniel, who has been legally
tagonist. “This bread, um, is excellent,” “banished” to Nashville, lives at a half-
he says, trying to change the subject. way house and gets an artist girlfriend.
“The panini bread?” one of the women The crime is on the verge of being
asks. “Yes, um, the pallini bread,” he re- solved. If “Rectify” has a flaw, it’s one
sponds. “It’s . . . unusually fresh.” It’s a that so many humane shows develop
heartbreaking slip, a class error that in their final stretch—a Tawney-like
locks him out of a whole world. desire to save everyone, simply because
The book-club women get into a these are characters we’ve loved for
conversation about a story that Dan- years. In one scene, Amantha, recog-
iel has read, Tobias Wolff ’s “Bullet in nizing that an old enemy is helping
the Brain,” and which he’s memorized. solve the mystery of Hanna’s murder,
His lunch companion can’t believe it: asks, “Is there anyone left to hate?”
“It would be torture to memorize.” No, Daniel wryly refers to himself as
he explains: it was a calming task, back Humpty-Dumpty, but he’s often more
during “a period in my life when I was like Kimmy Schmidt: he’s strange not
having some difficulty dealing with the because his capacity for wonder has been
passing of time in a traditional sense.” shut down but because it’s almost too
Because Wolff ’s story deals “with the open. As the finale approaches, it’s not
bending of time,” memorizing it helped the show’s problem that I’ve found my-
him bend time as well. self wanting some ugly to stay ugly. Per-
References like this get at the show’s haps I will seriously need to reconsider
fearlessness in taking art seriously, not my world view. 
76 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
 reshaping American literature, is a story
BOOKS that is still unfolding. Only ten of her
poems were published in her lifetime,

OUT OF PRINT
all anonymously; publication was, as
she put it, as “foreign to my thought,
as Firmament to Fin.” Not that she in-
The scrap poetry of Emily Dickinson. tended her poems to go unread—she
often sent them in letters to friends,
BY DAN CHIASSON sometimes with other enclosures: dried
flowers, a three-cent stamp, a dead
cricket. She also tried a form of self-
publishing: from around 1858 until
roughly 1864, she gathered her poems
into forty homemade books, known as
“fascicles,” by folding single sheets of
blank paper in half to form four con-
secutive pages, which she then wrote
on and, later, bound, one folded sheet
on another, with red-and-white thread
strung through crudely punched holes.
These books were found in Dickin-
son’s room after her death, in 1886, by
her sister, Lavinia, along with hundreds
more poems in various states of com-
position, plus, intriguingly, the “scraps,”
a cache of lines that Dickinson wrote
on scavenged paper: the flap of a ma-
nila envelope, the backs of letters, choc-
olate wrappers, bits of newspaper.
There were now two separate troves
of Dickinson’s poems. The ones from
her bedroom belonged to Lavinia. A
second group, of more than three hun-
dred poems sent in letters, belonged to
Susan Gilbert Dickinson, the wife of
Emily’s brother, Austin. Lavinia, soon
after entrusting her collection to Susan
for editing, abruptly reclaimed it, and
delivered the work instead to Austin’s
mistress (and Susan’s nemesis), Mabel
he poems of Emily Dickinson fitted to a bricked-up fireplace to keep Loomis Todd, who, with Thomas Hig-
T began as marks made in ink or her warm, which meant that she could ginson, a mentor of sorts to Dickin-
pencil on paper, usually the standard write by candlelight, with the door son, put out the first editions of Dick-
stationery that came into her family’s closed, for as long as she wanted. In inson’s poems, in the eighteen-nineties.
household. Most were composed in much of the rest of the house, the win- Soon, a wide readership formed and
Dickinson’s large, airy bedroom, with ter temperature would have been around her posthumous fame grew, nourished
two big windows facing south and two fifty degrees. Though she usually com- by the stories people passed around.
facing west, at a small table that her posed at night, Dickinson sometimes After a gregarious girlhood, it was said,
niece described as “18-inches square, jotted down lines during the day, while Dickinson had gradually become a
with a drawer deep enough to take in gardening or doing chores, wearing a near-total recluse, known around Am-
her ink bottle, paper and pen.” It looked simple white dress with pockets for her herst as “the myth.” Children boasted
out over the family’s property on Main pencils and scraps of paper. A younger of catching a glimpse of her at an up-
Street, in Amherst, Massachusetts, to- cousin recalled her reciting the “most stairs window. Some thought she was
ward the Evergreens, her brother’s emphatic things in the pantry” while a mystic. Later readers assumed that
grand Italianate mansion, nestled skimming the milk. she was in love with Susan. Lyndall
among the pines a few hundred yards The way that Dickinson’s poems Gordon, a recent biographer, argued
away. Dickinson had a Franklin stove made it out of that house, eventually that Dickinson was epileptic and feared
suffering one of her seizures in public.
On stray bits of salvaged paper, Dickinson conjured a new form of verbal notation. You can find support for any of these
ILLUSTRATION BY TINA BERNING THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 77
 theories, and many others, in the poems;
BRIEFLY NOTED their quirks, though evened out by her
early editors, nevertheless lend credence
to the idea that she was a familiar New
Thunder at the Gates, by Douglas R. Egerton (Basic). In 1861, the England stereotype, the flighty, eccen-
refugee slave Henry Jarvis arrived at Fort Monroe, in Virginia, tric, proto-spinster daughter.
and asked to enlist as a Union soldier. He was turned away and Much of Lavinia’s pile ended up at
told that the war with the Confederates was not a “black man’s Amherst College, the cornerstone of
war” but one about keeping the nation together. The subsequent its special collections; Susan Dickin-
formation of three black regiments changed public opinion. son’s batch went to Harvard, along with
Egerton’s history shows how the sacrifice of these recruits on several household treasures that had
the battlefields at Fort Wagner and Olustee not only proved that been preserved at the Evergreens. Most
African-Americans could be dedicated fighters but also opened of the scraps remained in Amherst’s
the way to securing rights, including equal pay for military ser- archive, curiosities sought out by tena-
vice and the opportunity to be promoted into the ranks of com- cious Dickinson scholars but unknown
missioned [Link] Northerners may have enlisted to hold to the public at large. Then, in 2013, a
the nation together; it was their black counterparts, both former handsome facsimile edition, “The Gor-
slaves and freemen, who fought for liberty. geous Nothings,” was published by
New Directions, followed, this fall, by
Twenty-six Seconds, by Alexandra Zapruder (Twelve). This fam- a compact selected edition, “Envelope
ily memoir explores fraught questions surrounding the “Zapruder Poems,” the fruits of a collaboration
film,” the home movie of the Kennedy assassination made by between the Dickinson scholar Marta
the author’s grandfather. Abraham Zapruder, an immigrant Werner and the poet and visual artist
Russian dress manufacturer, caught the fatal shot with a Bell & Jen Bervin. These volumes comple-
Howell Zoomatic camera while standing on a four-foot con- ment an astounding new digital re-
crete abutment. Americans were not yet accustomed to vio- source. In 2013, Harvard launched the
lence on television, and there was no road map for what to do Emily Dickinson Archive, with the
with the footage and how to balance the public’s “right to coöperation, if not exactly the bless-
know” with maintaining the dignity of the President’s family. ing, of Amherst, which insisted on open
The Zapruders made more than sixteen million dollars off the access to all manuscripts. (Harvard,
film and were much criticized. Zapruder is defensive about which hoards its Dickinson materials
this, but she presents her case with rigor and nuance. in Houghton Library, reportedly wanted
users to buy subscriptions.) Readers
Black Wave, by Michelle Tea (Feminist Press). This surreal can now find Dickinson’s scraps in print
tale—part memoir, part metafiction—is narrated by a queer and in digital facsimile. Like many pre-
writer in San Francisco’s rapidly gentrifying Mission district. vious Dickinson drops, going back to
An alcoholic with a growing heroin habit, she decides that the eighteen-nineties, they radically
she must move to save her life, and chooses Los Angeles, alter our vision of perhaps the great-
where her brother lives. There she discovers that the end of est poet to write on American soil—
the world is at hand—portents include suicides, poisoned and, somehow, they’ve emerged on the
oceans, plane crashes, and erotic dreams for everyone still other side of print culture. It is a pleas-
alive. By some phantasmagoric logic, the end of the world ant fancy to imagine that Dickinson,
and the writing of the book turn out to be one and the same. ever the tortoise in relation to rushing
Events, though outlandish, are narrated with total convic- time, knew that, in the end, we would
tion, and powerfully express the intensity both of attaining catch up to her.
sobriety and of the writing process.
here are countless expressive
After Disasters, by Viet Dinh (Little A). Set in India just after T features of a Dickinson manuscript,
a devastating earthquake, this novel examines the relation- all but a few of them effaced when her
ships, some romantic, among four men—two aid workers, a poems enter a standard print edition.
doctor, and a firefighter. Their narratives overlap and jump First, there is Dickinson’s handwriting,
around chronologically, in a way that can be disorienting, but long a source of fascination. Higgin-
Dinh is skilled at rendering the messiness of human moti- son famously compared Dickinson’s
vation, and he adeptly harmonizes various preoccupations— hand to “fossil bird-tracks,” an insight
masculinity, ecological abrasion, and the complexities of in- about the shape and the saturation of
ternational aid work. In the catastrophe’s aftermath, desire, her letters, and also about their flick-
love, and duty often clash. One man wants “nothing more ering gait as they cross the white of the
than to avert someone else’s sadness, to limit, reduce it. But page. The Dickinson scholar Domhnall
that he cannot—this, too, is a sadness.” Mitchell and others have suggested
78 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
that “the layout of a Dickinson auto- the poem, but when it appeared in the
graph is deliberate or motivated” in po- second edition of her work, edited by
tentially every regard, from the capital Todd and Higginson, a comma mate-
letters of various sizes, to the spaces rialized in the spot where the question
between letters and words and lines, to mark had gone. “I had told you I did
the marginalia, which are often crammed not print,” Dickinson once wrote to
with variant choices of word or phrase. Higginson, suggesting that it wasn’t
Dickinson’s dashes are ubiquitous in shyness or modesty that kept her from
all but the earliest editions of her poems, publishing; it was a fierce constancy to
but fewer editions reproduce her plus her vision of the page.
signs, which mark an unfinished or
provisory line, later to be filled in. There he Envelope Poems suggest the
are watermarks and embossments T current exhilarating paradox of
around which Dickinson steers her Dickinson’s work: her unique actions
words. The paper is ruled, except when of mind are bound in unusually dra-
it is not. Now that the Internet has de- matic ways to slips of paper a hundred
stabilized the conventions of the printed and fifty years old or more, rarities
page—in which a poem is a block of whose near-perfect reproductions are
language so many inches wide and so nevertheless now widely and freely
many inches long, with pure white space available online. It sometimes feels as
surrounding letters and phrases set at though Dickinson’s sojourn in print,
fixed intervals—it is harder than ever so fraught from its inception, was a
to defend the translation of Dickin- temporary measure, now nearing its
son’s wild, dynamic graphic surfaces end as it’s replaced by a better tech-
into such confines. nology. To write this paragraph, I
It has been argued that Dickinson looked hard at an envelope: what a
refused publication exactly because it mercurial object it is, more like ori-
was synonymous with print, whose gami than like a sheet of paper. If you
standardizing tendencies she knew use the back of a closed envelope, as
would miscarry her precision effects. Dickinson did in “A 496/497,” you get
When, in 1866, Dickinson’s “A narrow three squat triangles, like faces of a
Fellow in the Grass” appeared in the flattened jewel. She wrote within, and
Springfield Daily Republican (under a occasionally across, the folds and creases
title likely chosen by its editors, “The of this complex surface. To read the
Snake”), Dickinson complained to Hig- lines, you have to turn the image coun-
ginson that, among other problems, terclockwise. The vertical column of
she was “defeated . . . of the third line the first panel then becomes a broad
by punctuation.” Her manuscript had horizon, which, when the poet runs
read, “You may have met Him—did out of space, picks up on the third blank
you not / His notice sudden is—.” But, panel. The pleasures and the challenges
when the poem appeared, the editors of this kind of reading are impossible
had supplied a question mark: “You to ignore; next to a clear facsimile of
may have met him—did you not? / His these manuscripts, a print version
notice instant is.” seems, at best, a kind of crude trot.
The question mark makes the sec- “Letters are sounds we see,” the poet
ond half of line three auxiliary to the Susan Howe, a major force in Dickin-
first: “You may have met him—did you son studies, wrote. Handwritten let-
not [meet him] ? / His notice instant is.” ters express a far greater variety of
But Dickinson’s preferred punctuation, sounds than printed ones. And, if the
while it leaves the possibility of the letters are sounds, so, too, are the spaces
auxiliary clause intact, allows for other between the letters, the margins and
syntactical relations: “You may have gaps, the shape and other material as-
met him—[if you haven’t, you should pects of the paper she chose.
know that] / His notice instant is.” The There are no masterpieces hidden
words “notice” and “not” reflect each among the envelope poems, but Dick-
other more vividly without the hard inson’s incandescent thinking is every-
stop of the intervening question mark. where on display, and the makeshift
Dickinson seems to have preferred “in- nature of the scraps gives us a vivid
stant” over “sudden” in later drafts of idea of what composition must have
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 79
 felt like for a woman whose thoughts weathered but essentially unchanged
raced far ahead of her ability to cap- since the nineteenth century. The dis-
ture them. Who knows how many of covery of a new Dickinson treasure in
Dickinson’s lines were forgotten before the course of an attic cleanout or a base-
the poet had a chance to write them ment purge is a perennial, if distant,
down? Her idiosyncratic punctuation possibility. Bits of poems turn up oc-
sometimes feels like triage for the emer- casionally at auction, and an image of
gency conditions of her muse. Her Dickinson, or someone looking very
dashes stand for all the nonessential much like her, was sold on eBay in
and time-taking aspects of syntax: she 2000. Thomas Johnson, the editor of
is a process poet even in her finished an important edition of her work, was
drafts, preserving the urgency of com- so convinced that there were lost Dick-
position. The poems often detail their inson letters in New England closets
own state of evanescence: in “A 316,” that, with the help of the poet James
Dickinson addresses the “sumptuous Merrill, a friend, he once contacted
moment” and entreats it to “Slower Dickinson through a Ouija board and
go / That I may gloat on thee.” Except asked her for a couple of hints. She
that the actual manuscript has multi- provided, according to Merrill’s biog-
ple anomalies, cross-outs, and alternate rapher, Langdon Hammer, “plausible-
words surrounding the lines I have just sounding names and addresses,” and
quoted. The brief “moment” that the letters were mailed, only to be returned
poem describes is enacted by the to sender.
cramped space on which it’s written. But Dickinson’s genius always kept
Time, on these little scraps, is a func- a fixed address. She was a scholar of
tion of space: both run out at the same passing time, and the big house on
instant. Main Street was the best place to study
it. Because her subject was longitudi-
fragment such as “A 316” isn’t nal change across the span of hours,
A like anything except itself. It de- days, and years, she needed to set her
feats categorization. It’s worth calling spatial position in order to see time
it a poem only if we reinstate the pres- move across the proscenium of her sub-
tige of “poetry” that the scraps, in jective imagination. In the 1850 na-
effect, deconstruct. But neither is it a tional census, Dickinson listed her oc-
mere draft: the scraps represent the cupation as “keeping house”; the scraps
audacious pinnacle of Dickinson’s might have kept her as she did so. Her
mingled verbal and graphic gifts. The own transformative power, often fright-
envelope poems are not purely works ful even for her to contemplate, is their
of visual art, like calligraphic screens presiding subject: the “still—Volcano—
or proto-modernist collages. Dickin- Life” she describes as ever churning
son’s handwriting, though occasion- under her daily rounds.
ally illegible, isn’t like the script in a This is an extraordinary time to read
Cy Twombly blackboard painting; it Dickinson, one of the richest moments
is meant to be read. What the scraps since her death. The publication of “En-
suggest to me is more radical: they velope Poems” and the growing collec-
are a unique category of verbal nota- tion of Dickinson’s manuscripts, avail-
tion, significant both for their liter- able online and in inexpensive print
ary power and for their physical ap- editions, coincides with an ambitious
pearance on the page. restoration of the Dickinson proper-
They are also one more physical tie ties in Amherst, including a reconstruc-
to a figure who, oddly, seems to grow tion of the poet’s conservatory—a space
nearer as time passes. Firsthand stories that was second only to her bedroom
about the Dickinsons were still told in in its importance to her art. Those look-
the early nineteen-nineties, when I was ing for an even closer connection to
a student at Amherst. The Evergreens Dickinson can rent her bedroom for
was a private residence until 1988; that an hour at a time and see precisely what
year, the last inheritor of the property, she saw. The other elements of the pic-
Mary Hampson, passed away. The place ture, sun and moon and wind and bird-
sat largely empty until 2001, when its call, are just as she left them. She is the
rooms were entered again, and found only thing missing. 
80 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016
 the place. Her elbows fly out; so do her
DANCING knees, in great, lay-an-egg squats. She
looks like a happy little tomboy vaulting

HAPPY FEET
around in a tree. Now and then, she’ll put
on the mood-indigo, darkness-in-my-
soul expression sometimes seen in tap-
Michelle Dorrance is a new kind of tap dancer. pers, or, alternatively, the Vegas-y let-me-
entertain-you expression, but both of them
BY JOAN ACOCELLA fall off her face pretty fast, because she is
fundamentally unaffected. Last October,
she appeared on Stephen Colbert’s show—
you can see it on YouTube—to teach him
some steps. With no smirking, she got
this big, besuited man to do the shim
sham. He even seemed pleased with his
performance. In any case, she was pleased,
and completely relaxed.
In “The Blues Project,” the show at
the Joyce, Dorrance wears a blue-and-
white checked cotton dress with two big
pockets in the front, the sort of thing you
might wear to sit on the porch and shell
peas. When performing, she often gath-
ers her long hair in a topknot that slowly
migrates to one side or the other as the
evening progresses. She is the one thing
no other professional tap dancer has ever
been: dorky.
Her good spirits appear to have had a
huge effect on her company, and this, even
more than her tapping, may be her great
glory. Tap dancers are always telling you
how grateful they are to their predeces-
sors and to those currently working in the
field. There is a reason for this—histori-
cally, no important area of dance has been
less carefully documented—but after a
he new big deal in tap is Michelle Youth Tap Ensemble, and from there while it all starts to sound a little goody-
T Dorrance, whose troupe, Dorrance went on to other companies. She also goody. Dorrance is no exception. In the
Dance, has just completed a run at the took time out to get a B.A. at N.Y.U. and program for “The Blues Project,” her whole
Joyce. Dorrance, who is thirty-seven, is spent four years as one of the drum- “artist’s statement” is a hymn of praise to
a girl from North Carolina whose back- mer-dancers in “STOMP.” In 2010, she Toshi Reagon, her composer-accompanist,
story might have been written by a press founded her own company and began and to her two choreographic collabora-
agent. Her mother, M’Liss Gary Dor- making work for it. The awards soon tors, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and
rance, a ballet dancer (she performed in started rolling in, capped, last year, by a Derick K. Grant. She goes further, though:
Eliot Feld’s first company), founded and MacArthur Fellowship. It isn’t every day Sumbry-Edwards and Grant are listed
directed the Ballet School of Chapel that a tap dancer gets a MacArthur. with her, in the same line of type, as the
Hill. Her father, Anson Dorrance, cur- Dorrance is a new kind of tapper. Clas- show’s choreographers.
rently the women’s soccer coach at the sically, tap is a matter of a cool, contained In this, Dorrance may be observing
University of North Carolina, led the upper body suspended over a huge clat- something more than professional cour-
U.S. women’s soccer team to the World ter down below—a contrast that is sup- tesy. She’s clearly sensitive to the fact that
Cup in 1991. Put those two together, posed to be witty and, in a great or even she is a white artist receiving great ac-
and you sort of get a tap dancer. good tapper, is. (“My feet are producing claim in a traditionally African-Ameri-
Dorrance discovered early on that she twenty taps a second, in alternating can department of dance. (Sumbry-
was a natural. When she was nine, she rhythms? Gee, I didn’t notice.”) Dorrance Edwards and Grant, like most of the cast,
was in an advanced tap class with eighteen- supplies plenty of action in the feet, but are black.) And in practical terms she has
year-olds. She joined the North Carolina meanwhile the rest of the body is all over no doubt noticed what she gets by spread-
ing the wealth around. Her nine dancers
Dorrance’s tomboy energy departs from the controlled cool of classical tap. (that’s including her) are like the seven
82 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY KEITH NEGLEY
dwarfs. They all have different personal- that nailed from the start. She can place
ities, different styles—not so much that three groups of three dancers against one
they can’t dance together nicely but another—each trio doing its own rhythm,
enough so that within two minutes you while the band is doing a fourth—and
have favorites. Mine were Sumbry- the effect is not confusing but rich and
Edwards, who is truly a master and, tap exciting. She plays with volume, tempo,
for tap, a better technician than Dorrance even timbre. The sound that comes off
(she was Michael Jackson’s longtime tap Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards’s shoes is
coach), and Nicholas Van Young, a thir- substantially different from Dorrance’s.
teen-year veteran of “STOMP.” Van Young It’s like Callas and Tebaldi. If you put a
may be too big to be a top-grade tapper, screen in front of them and had them tap
but his timing is flawless, and he is heaven the same phrase, you could still tell which
to watch, because he has so much fun. was which.
Other spectators will have different fa- Something I’d like to see more of in
vorites. The point is that Dorrance gave Dorrance’s work is emotion. It’s good that
all of them the freedom, and the status, the dancers are relaxed, but they shouldn’t
to become their best selves. get too relaxed and leave all the work of
Dorrance’s gift for collaboration is the heart to Toshi Reagon. In an earlier
nowhere more evident than in her use show, “ETM: Double Down,” Dorrance
of Reagon and her band, BIGLovely, to presented a very moving and muted male-
accompany the dancing. Reagon, like male duet. These days, choreographers
Dorrance, has an impressive pedigree— are constantly being urged to create same-
her mother, the black-music scholar Ber- sex duets, but a lot of dance-makers don’t
nice Johnson Reagon, founded the fa- really know what to do with the form,
mous a-cappella group Sweet Honey in and the results can easily come off as ei-
the Rock—and, at fifty-two, she is at ther self-conscious or the opposite: cold,
the top of her game as a composer and so as not to look self-conscious. (“Hey,
singer. Her métier is folk and blues, which we do this every day.”) Dorrance had her
she accompanies with acoustic guitar two men assay each other, question each
(the band adds drums, violin, electric other, fall into each other’s arms, push
bass, and electric guitar)—a standard each other away, circle each other, start
proceeding but, in her hands, a strange over. In the end they parted, but not, I
and wonderful business. Reagon is an- think, without having changed the tem-
drogynous-looking, a great monument perature in the theatre. This deeper note
of a woman with a shaved head and a is absent from “The Blues Project.”
fedora, and her voice, too, is somewhat The other thing we need from Dor-
androgynous, a reedy sound (medium- rance is simply more choreography. In
register, casual but insistent) that seems 2013 and 2014, she created four evening-
to come from a special, hidden place in length works. Since then, no more. “The
her chest and hooks up with some rarely Blues Project,” a sensation of this fall sea-
used conduit in your brain. son, isn’t even new to the Joyce; it sold
out there last year. This is what always
orrance told Brian Seibert, in the happens when a choreographer gets hot.
Dmagazine Dance, that her years with The offers pour in, and the choreogra-
“STOMP,” though they delayed her mak- pher says yes, yes—how can she not? she
ing her own material, gave her “a perspec- could get a new car, she could give her
tive on how I want my work to be re- dancers health insurance—and she ends
ceived, a broader view of the theatre.” I up touring constantly, with no time to
take this to mean that they taught her create new work. The problem is com-
how to create a show, rather than just stand pounded by the fact that schedules are
there and tap. This has been a problem usually made up at least a year in advance.
for tappers, whose art in the past was usu- When the invitation arrives, the chore-
ally presented in venues (vaudeville, night ographer says, “I can do that. It’s not till
clubs) favoring short-breathed dances. next November.” Then next November
Even today, they often run to one extreme comes, and she has no new material, not
or the other: hard-sell (Riverdance) or no- even any new ideas. She’s been too busy
sell (Savion Glover.) Somewhere Dor- performing. Dorrance doesn’t look tired,
rance has learned texture and pacing. As but chances are she will, and so will her
for rhythmic complexity, she probably had work, if she doesn’t sit down for a while. 
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 83
 man, I began to think of her as down-
THE THEATRE town’s “woman’s director,” in the old
M-G-M George Cukor sense of the

DEAR HEART
phrase. Like Cukor, I imagine, Silver-
man is useful to stars who want a clear
eye and a firm hand when it comes to
A stern take on “Sweet Charity.” editing out their excesses. But what glut
could the performer Sutton Foster have
BY HILTON ALS that we wouldn’t want more of?
If the forty-one-year-old Foster suffers
from anything, it’s her fantastic likabil-
ity, and her desire to like us. This is differ-
ent from wanting to please the audi-
ence—the old emotional buck-and-wing
that so many actors put on to win max-
imum praise. Foster doesn’t condescend
to us with Tin Pan Alley cheapness or
sentimentality; she plays to what’s best
in her characters and, therefore, what’s
best in the world. Foster’s charm is not
cloying; it’s as clear and unaffected as her
complexion. She isn’t an exceptional
dancer, like the young Chita Rivera, but
what she lacks in style she makes up for
in attack. She doesn’t point her toe; she
points her toe. Her hands don’t flutter
around to call attention to what she’s
doing in a number; they move accord-
ing to her character’s inner direction. And
that’s another thing that makes Foster
such an endlessly exciting musical-
comedy star (she’s much less cool than her
near-contemporary and only rival, Kelli
O’Hara): by performing her interiority,
rather than the old showbiz razzle-
dazzle, she makes musicals credible.

o you’d think that Charity Hope Val-

S entine, the urban heroine of “Sweet
Charity,” would be a perfect part for Fos-
weet Charity” (a New Group in 2011, and on David Greenspan’s “Go ter, right, particularly since so much of
“S production, at the Pershing Square Back to Where You Are,” in the same her story involves her efforts to align her
Signature Center) is both enervating year.) Still, I enjoy Silverman’s strictness secret dreams and anxieties with other
and full of hope—yours. As you watch when a writer or a performer plays people’s? It is a great part for Foster, but
this revival of Bob Fosse’s 1966 hit, you against it. That was what the Five Les- that affinity gets lost in Silverman’s con-
keep hoping that, despite early signs of bian Brothers managed to do in their ception of the show, which has very lit-
limpness, it won’t be drained of all its 2005 play “Oedipus at Palm Springs.” tle shine or imagination. But I can see
energy and sentiment by the end. But I loved it, and never forgot it, because why Silverman got the job. The show’s
the director, Leigh Silverman, is adept within Silverman’s joyless directorial creator, Bob Fosse, was a kind of mor-
at throwing ash on soap bubbles. The form the troupe—which included the alist, too. He grew up in show business.
problem is that she’s too serious about writer and performer Lisa Kron (whom As a kid, he danced in crummy clubs,
theatre; she wants her shows to count— Silverman also directed in “Well,” Kron’s and he never forgot the stink of stale cig-
to have a moral purpose. Sometimes a celebrated 2004 autobiographical play)— arette smoke, the illicit or open dressing-
play is just a play, and not all of her pro- was able, in a loose, improvisatory way, room sex, or the powder coating the faces
ductions can bear the weight of her im- to mess with our preconceptions of queer of those tired but game strippers. His
perative. (I’m thinking of her work on bourgeois life. Watching that and other strongest work is vibrant with a sense of
Molly Smith Metzler’s “Close Up Space,” female-centered plays staged by Silver- right and wrong—or, more specifically,
of why doing wrong can feel, to the cor-
By avoiding showbiz razzle-dazzle, Sutton Foster makes musicals credible. rupted soul, so damningly right.
84 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC
 While searching for a project for his pretation of sophistication and boredom
wife and muse, that juggernaut of charm in the original production—and in the
Gwen Verdon (Foster is Verdon’s only 1969 Fosse-directed film version—was
artistic heir), Fosse hit on “Nights of like coming across a familiar theme in a
Cabiria,” Federico Fellini’s 1957 movie new language: no one had created dances
about a streetwalker named Cabiria— like that before, or cast dancers who were
played by his wife, the Italian actress not all conventionally svelte or pretty.
Giulietta Masina. Cabiria is optimistic (Silverman’s nod to Fosse is to include
and true, despite the fact that her first unusual-looking female dancers, too.)
lover steals her money and pushes her Fosse’s dancers slunk across the stage,
into a river and her second lover, who nearly frozen by their self-control and
actually falls for her, also steals from her their disaffection. His dance-hall girls
and runs off. Although Verdon was skep- struck attitudes and stayed in them, knees
tical—Broadway wouldn’t go for a story and elbows tensed, while they smoked.
in which nobody wins, she told Fosse— Charity, moving with the open-chested
he forged ahead, assembling one of the freedom of a clown, was all high kicks,
best creative teams that commercial the- turned-in feet, and bounce.
atre had to offer at the time: Neil Simon Joshua Bergasse, who choreographed
wrote the book, and Cy Coleman and the current revival, had a mighty ghost
Dorothy Fields wrote the music and the to deal with, and I was interested to see
lyrics, respectively. Transplanting the whether, like Rob Marshall in his 2002
tale to nineteen-sixties New York, Fosse version of Fosse’s “Chicago,” he would
turned Cabiria into Charity, a young- let the influence show, or whether he
ish girl who works at the Fan-Dango would try to “radicalize” the dances by
Ballroom, a dance hall near Times making them his own. Bergasse opted
Square. When “Sweet Charity” opened for the latter, and, regrettably, his work
on Broadway, in 1966, it was a sensa- is neither good nor bad; it’s just there.
tion, both because of Verdon—she was Fosse solved the issue of how to show
subtle even in her slapstick, like the great the dance-hall girls drearily at work by
early screen comediennes, such as ZaSu having them stand at a railing and stare
Pitts—and because of Fosse’s choreog- out at the audience. Bergasse has them
raphy and staging. stare at the audience, too, but while seated
The show is a kind of trashy “Pil- in chairs. Whereas Fosse seemed to be
grim’s Progress,” with Charity meeting reporting what he’d actually witnessed,
her version of Beelzebub, Evangelist, and Bergasse’s choice feels arbitrary. (Or per-
so on, as she tries not to give up on haps he’s alluding to another showgirl—
the possibility of a relationship. At the Marlene Dietrich, as the captivating,
Fan-Dango, she’s besties with Nickie chair-straddling cabaret singer Lola in
(Asmeret Ghebremichael) and Helene “The Blue Angel.”) Either way, he con-
(Emily Padgett), who are as certain of tributes to the flatness of the show, which
their weariness with the entire scene as is strangely muted from the time Char-
Charity is of her conviction that there ity meets Vittorio on.
is, as the trio eventually sings, “some- Silverman’s moral stance is different
thing better than this.” We follow Char- from Fosse’s. She’s not excited by dis-
ity (in an anachronistic Farrah Fawcett- play; she keeps things small, somehow.
ish wig) as she takes a turn around the The only actor besides Foster to break
stage, which is surrounded on three sides out of her stern grip is Hensley, as Oscar,
by the audience—the all-female band is the man Charity loves, because he loves
on a balcony above the stage—looking her. Fleshy and agile, Hensley’s Oscar is
for evidence to back up her optimism. aquiver with his own neurosis: he’s a
And, occasionally, the unexpected hap- faith-seeker, but, in the end, he can’t be-
pens. One night, she runs into a movie lieve in himself, so how can he believe
star, Vittorio Vidal ( Joel Perez), who’s in love with Charity? He just can’t face
quarrelling with his girlfriend and ends a future with so much trust and open-
up spending the evening with Charity. ness beside him. Silverman may have
Another day, she gets stuck in an eleva- been driven by the same impulses: in-
tor with Oscar (Shuler Hensley), a shy stead of trusting in and directing the flow
and claustrophobic tax accountant. of Foster’s natural wellspring of talent,
Seeing Fosse’s choreographic inter- she set out to dam it. ♦
THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 85
 hospital. “I want him to look like him-
THE CURRENT CINEMA self,” she cries, in the most pitiful of
pleas. Then comes the agony of arrang-

WIVES AND HUSBANDS

ing the funeral procession, with Rob-
ert Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard) and Jack
Valenti (Max Casella) poised to be con-
“Jackie” and “Allied.” sulted or overruled. (Also of service is
the painter, fixer, and all-round Ken-
BY ANTHONY LANE nedy confidant William Walton, styl-
ishly played by Richard E. Grant and
deserving a film of his own.) Other
glimpses abound, some unnervingly
intimate—a solitary Jackie, swooping
through grand and empty rooms, in a
waltz of despair, or reaching for the
bottle and taking a consolatory swig.
What is the source for this sad spec-
tacle? The script is credited solely to
Noah Oppenheim, but behind it you
feel the weight of earlier investigations.
The reporter is based on Theodore H.
White, who wrote of his meeting with
Jackie for Life. More recently, we
have her conversations with Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., recorded in 1964 and
released in 2011, and Barbara Leam-
ing’s 2014 biography, which proposed
that Mrs. Kennedy fell prey to post-
traumatic stress disorder after her hus-
Natalie Portman portrays Jacqueline Kennedy in Pablo Larraín’s new movie. band’s demise. Leaming describes her
as “self-medicating with vodka, tyran-
n the simplicity of its title, “Jackie” copy approval, and one of the more nized by flashbacks and nightmares,”
I lays claim to a truth, uncluttered and abrasive touches of the film is the man- and that is precisely the regimen that
clear. Here, we are encouraged to be- ner in which she halts her narration of Larraín’s film reveals.
lieve, is the Jacqueline Kennedy—or, at events to apply a touch of whitewash. I happen to find the result intrusive,
any rate, a Jacqueline Kennedy more After an impolitic disclosure, she adds, presumptuous, and often absurd, but,
plausible and more knowable than any “Don’t think for one second I’m going for anyone who thinks that all formal-
version we have seen hitherto. Every to let you print that.” Like many mourn- ity is a front, and that the only point of
actress who has assayed the role, in- ers, she stokes herself on cigarettes, but, a façade is that it should crack, “Jackie”
cluding Jacqueline Bisset and Jaclyn when the reporter boldly suggests that delivers a gratifying thrill. It is timely,
Smith (even the names chime), must he refer to her habit in print, she an- too, tapping into our fathomless obses-
now make way for Natalie Portman. swers, “I don’t smoke.” sion with First Ladies. No wonder Port-
As the film begins, she fills the screen, Pablo Larraín’s movie, with its keen- man is in such inexorable form. Watch-
head on, in the first of innumerable ing score by Mica Levi, is a dance to ful and tremulous, she captures to
closeups, obliging us to ask: Is this the music of grief. Swiftly and ner- perfection the breathiness of Jackie’s
woman submitting to our scrutiny or vously, as if obeying the beat of Jack- voice, as it floats above the guttural twang
daring us to break down her defenses? ie’s memory, we step back and forth in of less exalted lives—“Amairca,” she says,
One thing we can already be sure of: time. Back to Jackie, resplendent in eau smoothing her native land into trisyl-
Jackie is a widow. Following John F. de nil, with the proud President (Cas- labic gentility. But Portman’s beauty is
Kennedy’s death, in 1963, she retreats par Phillipson, who has the Kennedy sharper and foxier than that of the
to Hyannis Port not merely to recu- eyes) at her side, listening to Pablo woman she portrays, whose broad fea-
perate but to set in motion the process Casals; back to a flawless reconstruc- tures were designed, whether by God
whereby the image of her husband will tion of the televised White House tour or by good breeding, to give almost
become a fixed star in the public gaze. that she offered to eighty million view- nothing away. Mystery and myth be-
To this end, an unnamed journalist ers, in 1962; forth to the fateful day in came her, and the film is right to show
(Billy Crudup) is summoned to the Dallas, to the swearing-in of Lyndon B. Jackie feeding thoughts of Camelot to
house and granted the privilege of an Johnson ( John Carroll Lynch) on Air her tame journalist. (In truth, when
interview. Mrs. Kennedy, conscious of Force One, and to Jackie’s flailing at- White passed on this hint his editors
compiling the first draft of history, has tempt to interrupt the autopsy at the at Life rebuffed it as schmalz; only when
86 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY OLIMPIA ZAGNOLI
Mrs. Kennedy insisted did it stay in the vexation. But here’s the thing: that air tillard, who remains as hard to decode
published interview.) It is telling that hangs around, from beginning to end, as the plot demands; a great film about
“Jackie” should conclude, over the end and it almost snuffs out the movie. treachery might yet be made with her
credits, with Richard Burton’s croaking Over the years, we have seen Pitt in feline skills at its heart. There is strength,
of the title song from Lerner and Loewe’s many soul-testing experiences: he had too, in the supporting cast, especially
Arthurian musical, of which President to act crazy, in “12 Monkeys” (1995), in Jared Harris, who is both peppery
Kennedy—so his widow claimed—was and take up arms against a sea of zom- and sympathetic—and armed with the
fond. After stripping off the veils of a bies, in “World War Z” (2013). All he requisite mustache—as Max’s British
legend, “Jackie” succumbs, at the last, is required to do for “Allied” is choose superior. He seems harrowed at the cli-
and devotedly puts them back on. between a tuxedo for homicide, pale max, as if lamenting a twist that never
summer suits for a hot climate, and a happened, and puzzled by the glum-
arely have I seen a movie star look dashing Air Force uniform for rainy ness of the whole affair. Join the club,
R tenser or more unhappy than Brad England, yet even his handsomeness old chap.
Pitt does in “Allied.” You could say that fails to carry the day. If anything, he What we are left with, in “Allied,”
he’s meant to be tense; after all, his role looks a little puffy and scared, as if An- is an overwhelming sense of the sec-
is that of Max Vatan, a Canadian air- gelina Jolie were hiding around the ondhand. You cannot show your hero
man working for British intelligence corner of the set, with full Maleficent and heroine strolling to a café table in
who is parachuted into Morocco, in makeup and sharpened claws, preparing wartime Casablanca and not expect
1942. His duties are manifold. Not only to pounce. That would explain a lot. your viewers to murmur, “Been there.
must he kill the German Ambassador, “Allied” is written by Steven Knight Seen that.”(The very shape of Cotil-
team up with a fellow-assassin, Mari- and directed by Robert Zemeckis, who lard’s hat is tipped toward Ingrid Berg-
anne Beauséjour (Marion Cotillard), seems uncertain whether to treat the tale man’s.) At one point, Max even tells
and pretend to be her husband in the as a wrenching saga of split loyalties or Marianne, seated at a piano, to play the
leadup to the hit. Far, far worse than as a glamorous jaunt. Having gathered “Marseillaise.” Hey, that’s Victor Lasz-
that, he has to speak French. Fluently. all the ingredients for derring-do, he for- lo’s line! As for the scene in which Co-
What triggers the panic in his eyes, le gets to turn up the heat, and the derring tillard and Pitt, garbed in white linen,
pauvre gar•on, is not a night club teem- never does. True, there is plenty of rep- get to expand their relationship in the
ing with Nazis but the soft and deadly artee between Marianne and Max, some front seat of a car, while a desert storm
approach of an irregular verb. of it flirtatious, some of it concerned caterwauls around them, I kept wait-
Back in London, once the opera- with the tools of their merciless trade. ing for the camera to pan across to the
tion is over, Max and Marianne fall in Machine guns, for instance: “You’ll be next vehicle, where Ralph Fiennes and
love, as if the make-believe had con- O.K. with the Sten on the night, right?” Kristin Scott Thomas were last seen
sumed them. (Speaking of her spying, “I’ll be O.K. if I have to use cutlery.” doing the same in “The English Pa-
Marianne says, “I keep the emotions Half the time, however, thanks to a tient.” There must be a designated
real. That’s why it works.”) They marry strange slackness in the editing, the cou- parking lot for sandy lovers. My fear,
properly and have a child, born during ple pause so long before replying to each in short, is that Zemeckis may have
an air raid. All is fair in love and war, other that any charge between them, stumbled into a patch of cinema so
until Max learns that his wife is sus- suspenseful or erotic, is squandered. well trodden that it has simply gone
pected of being a double agent, work- Though face to face, they sound like two to seed. As time goes by, will all the
ing for the Germans. (This, and more, people talking down a long-distance love stories in all the world run dry? 
is in the trailer.) He denies the charge, phone line. Max might as well have
and sets out to disprove it—again, stayed in London and sent telegrams. [Link]
ample reason for his air of desperate None of this reflects badly on Co- Richard Brody blogs about movies.

THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2016 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

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THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 5, 2016 87

 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose
three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this week’s cartoon, by Tom Cheney, must
be received by Sunday, December 4th. The finalists in the November 28th contest appear below. We will announce the
winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the December 19th & 26th issue. Anyone age thirteen or
older can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit [Link].

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

“ ”
..........................................................................................................................

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

“I knew they were smart. I didn’t know they were sarcastic.”

Kathryn Sky-Peck, Sharon, Mass.

“I’m thinking now I probably should have

just trained them to get help.” “I’ll have my guy call your guy.”
Nicholas Orser, Washington, D.C. Joanne Recktenwald, Springfield, Pa.

“Very nice. Now do a boat.”

Steve Whitelaw, San Rafael, Calif.