2 LOVE STORIES: About Love, Not Politics (Paris & Moscow)

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1

Parisian Love Stories for the Age of Talk Less, Message More

Jacques Audiard made his new film “Paris, 13th District” as a counterpoint to the New Wave movies that shaped his early ideas of love and intimacy.

by Thomas Rogers April 20, 2022     nytimes.com |                        

"Midway through “Paris, 13th District,” the new film directed by Jacques Audiard, Émilie sneaks away from her job waitressing in a Chinese restaurant to hook up with a man she’s found on a dating app. When she returns from the encounter, she is so filled with happiness that she dances through the aisles as the customers applaud.

It’s a joyful moment among the tumultuous stories of love and sex Audiard weaves together to form a distinctly contemporary picture of Parisian romance. The young characters, including Émilie, fall into bed with new partners after barely speaking and live in high-rises that look like they could be in Mexico City or Seattle. Neither the Eiffel Tower nor the Notre-Dame cathedral make an appearance.

“I wanted to examine the state of the modern romantic discourse,” Audiard, 69, said in a recent video interview, adding that the subject “is often judged in a negative, maybe reactionary way by people from my generation, that for young people doesn’t make any sense.”

“The film really marked me,” Audiard said, arguing that it had served as a romantic education for him and other young people about how to use words as a mode of seduction. But he said that he believed the discourse had now shifted. “There’s now the principle that people will have sex immediately, and I wanted to see what possibilities come afterward,” he said. . .

Audiard co-wrote the screenplay for “Paris, 13th District” with the directors Céline Sciamma (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and “Petite Maman”) and Léa Mysius.

The film, which is loosely adapted from three stories by the American graphic novelist Adrian Tomine, takes its title from its setting in the Olympiads, a neighborhood of high-rises and walkways in the southeast of Paris that was built as an urban renewal project in the 1960s.

Tomine said in a recent interview he had been “flattered” that his stories, which he described as “very California,” had proved adaptable to a contemporary French context and that they “have universal qualities that I had not been aware of.”

By setting the film among the Olympiads’ modernist architecture, Audiard said, and shooting it in black and white, he aimed to reinforce the sense that he was telling a different kind of story set in the French capital. “I wanted to create a distance from the romantic Paris you know,” he said, explaining that he saw the city’s historical center as a kind of “museum.”

. . .

Tomine, whose graphic novels have drawn widespread acclaim for their subtle depictions of urban disconnection, said he admired the decision to emphasize smartphones and computer screens, which was absent from his stories. He said he had also been pleased by the film’s nonjudgmental approach to the subject, especially given that, “you know, Jacques is an older gentleman.”

Aside from the superficial modifications that had been made to adapt it to Paris, he said, the most noteworthy change in the adaptation had been a shift away from his stories’ gloomier tone. “I feel like the film portrays a lot more intimacy, connection and sex than the books,” he added.

A more “cynical” filmmaker than Audiard would have portrayed technology as “isolating,” Tomine said, noting that “it’s almost a daring artistic choice to have it move toward actual romance and connection.”

“It’s a pretty optimistic film,” he added.

Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/movies/paris-13th-district.html

2

The film Putin doesn’t want the world to see: Firebird, a gay love story about fighter pilots

 

(Risking more than scandal Tom Prior and Oleg Zagorodnii, who still works at his cafe in Kyiv.)

 

Ryan Gilbey

the Guardian |

It has been accused of ‘shaming Moscow’ and ‘punching the Russian soldier in the face’. But the makers of this powerful drama about dogfights and dangerous desires refuse to be silenced

Oleg Zagorodnii is sitting in the cafe he owns in Kyiv, beneath a brightly coloured painting of Aladdin smiling down from the wall behind. “It is just me now, no baristas,” says the Ukrainian actor via video call. “People come. I make them coffee, give them dessert. They are happy to feel some kind of normal life. They sit in the cafe, we play music, we speak. Of course, all we talk about is war.”

Zagorodnii has twice attempted to enlist in the army, only to be told that there are currently more volunteers than equipment. The best he can do is make appeals on social media for bulletproof vests, and use the cafe as a place to pass on food, supplies and military uniforms. “I try to do what I can in this terrible time,” he says.

It was only a year ago that the 34-year-old rented a small cinema in the city to screen the cold war love story Firebird for his family and friends. In this stirring British-Estonian production, Zagorodnii, who has the looks of a 1940s matinee idol, stars as Roman, a soon-to-be-married fighter pilot who falls for a young conscript, Sergey, played by Britain’s Tom Prior, after they meet at a military base in Soviet-occupied 1970s Estonia. Based on the autobiography of the late Sergey Fetisov, Firebird might resemble any tale of forbidden desire – except that Sergey and Roman face more than simply scandal should their relationship be discovered. The Soviet-era setting lends the film a distinctive thriller element: think of it as The Love Lives of Others...

He and Rebane travelled to Moscow in 2016 to meet Fetisov, finding his company every bit as joyful as his prose. “Some of the people who were closest to him didn’t know his story,” says Prior. “He certainly wasn’t ashamed of who he was. He openly flirted with a male waiter when we were in a restaurant in Moscow. Any suffering he experienced was not in relation to his identity.”

Fetisov’s death in 2017 at the age of 64 only hardened their resolve to tell his story. “We had made a promise to him,” says Rebane. Fetisov’s only stipulation, recalls Prior, was that “the film should be about love, not politics. Of course, it’s going to be received in a more political way now. But we wanted to make a universal story about what it means to go after love at any cost.”

. . .Even more surprising was the picture’s acceptance last year by the city’s film festival, though only the first of its scheduled screenings went ahead. “After that,” adds Prior, “there was a complaint about it being ‘homosexual propaganda’. We had 93 press articles written about it, all but one of which were negative. One headline translated as, ‘An Estonian, a Brit and a Ukrainian shame Moscow.’ Another called the film ‘a punch in the face of the Russian soldier’. It wasn’t technically banned but all tickets were cancelled. The film played to an empty auditorium.”

An unexpected consequence of the invasion of Ukraine is that some countries have expressed a reluctance to release Firebird now that the appetite for Russian stories is negligible. . ."

Firebird is in cinemas from 22 April

READ MORE

Reference: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/apr/21/film-putin-firebird-gay-love-story-fighter-pilots-dogfights-desire-moscow-russian

Xi: All countries are in a giant ship with a shared destiny

Blackstone buying American Campus Communities ‘fits squarely’ with its b...

THE INNOCENCE PROJECT: John Oliver addresses Police Traditions

Intro: From Tim Cushing publishing in Techdirt

Here in the US the ends justify the means. And that’s sadly the case when the ends disintegrate under further investigation. If a cop can get a confession by applying pressure, detaining a person for hours, and straight-up lying to them, it’s a win for the LEOs. And they’ll take that win every time, even if it means imprisoning the wrong person and allowing violent people to roam free. Hopefully, a discussion of this bullshit on the national stage will prompt police oversight to take a closer look at interrogation tactics and the track records of agencies that utilize the Reid technique (and other coercive methods) have racked up. What’s already on the record makes it clear, cops would rather see one innocent person convicted than prevent ten guilty people from going free.

The Reid technique may not have been used in all of these cases, but it definitely contributed. As the Innocence Project reports, nearly a third of all convictions overturned by use of DNA evidence relied on false confessions.

Filed Under: false confessions, john oliver, police interrogations, reid technique  

49 Comments

Techdirt  

John Oliver Explains How Cops Lie To People To Rob Them Of Their Freedom

from the Justice-Ave.-is-often-a-one-way-street dept 

Legal Issues

Wed, Apr 20th 2022 10:58am - Tim Cushing

"God help you if you lie to a cop. We’re not even talking about court, where everyone swears to tell the whole truth, etc. before being subjected to testilying by law enforcement officers.

We’re talking about the questioning that happens after law enforcement decides someone is a person of interest. Cops are terrible at solving violent crimes, so it behooves them to obtain a “confession” by any means necessary. “Any means” often means lying. But only cops can do it. If federal officers are lied to it’s a federal crime. Lying to people suspected of committing federal crimes is just considered good (government) business.

John Oliver — who has already tackled (and ridiculed) a number of police traditions — recently addressed the tactics (and lies) officers use to drag confessions out of arrestees, including those who are innocent.

Here’s the video:

Oliver starts by calling out the “Reid technique.” This is an interrogation technique developed by former Chicago police officer John E. Reid — an alleged “polygraph expert” (LOL) — who somehow managed to have a technique named after him despite its initial run at a murder suspect being immediately followed by a recantation. Rather than beat a suspect into a confession, the Reid technique introduced intense pressure, hours of uninterrupted questioning, and lies, lies, lies.

CELEBRATING "4/20" NATIONAL CANNABIS DAY: Arizona Transportation Innovation

Intro: The shuttle will pick up at all three Sky Harbor terminals during certain hours, and travelers can reserve a seat online at mintdeals.com/shuttle 

 

First stop: Pot shop. Arizona dispensary starts shuttle from Phoenix Sky Harbor airport

  

Ryan Randazzo, Arizona Republic 1 day ago

"The dispensary is calling the shuttle the #420 and offering it to people 21 and older.

The Mint has long understood how to capture attention with its kitchen serving marijuana-infused pizza, burgers and other snacks, or offering free marijuana products to people who visited for a COVID-19 vaccination.

The Arizona-based dispensary chain is kicking off the service Wednesday, . ."National Cannabis Day gives us the opportunity to celebrate how much our industry has evolved and grown,” CEO Eivan Shahara said in a prepared statement. “It’s also a great day to make history by delivering more innovation and excitement, while also finding ways to thank our patients, customers, visitors, and the community at large for their support.”

Other marijuana-themed airport shuttles exist for a fee in places like Denver, but The Mint claims the free service is the first of its kind.

The Mint also is planning a shuttle service with pick-ups at resorts, events, conventions and other spots around the metro area, carrying customers to its three regional dispensaries.

That shuttle has seating for 10, according to the booking site.

Both shuttles require a reservation, and travelers must include an email to reserve a seat, something the dispensary likely will use for marketing.

Dispensaries around the state will offer specials on Wednesday. The Mint's shops will feature DJs, contests and giveaways.

Among the freebies will be cannabis-infused cups of coffee.

Reach reporter Ryan Randazzo at ryan.randazzo@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4331. Follow him on Twitter @UtilityReporter.

ARIZONA DEMOCRAZY: Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly join Scuttlebutt Campaign by a Telecom Lobby

Intro: Telecom monopolies are now terrified that the Sohn appointment won’t just break 2-2 commissioner gridlock (they created) at the agency, it will mean the restoration of meaningful federal oversight over one of the least popular and least competitive industries in the Internet ecosystem.

SPOILER ALERT: If Sohn’s nomination is scuttled, it will come at the hands of Senators Joe Manchin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Kyrsten Sinema, or Mark Kelly, who will, not coincidentally, parrot the false justifications for opposing Sohn’s nomination concocted by the telecom lobby. And, in the process, scuttle a popular nominee with a very clear track record of supporting all the things they’ll profess to be concerned with.

Broadband

from the dysfunction-junction dept

Telecom Lobby Targets Senators Manchin, Kelly, And Cortez Masto In Bid To Scuttle Sohn FCC Nomination 

Tue, Apr 19th 2022 03:40pm - Karl Bode

"We just got done noting how the telecom industry has been pushing misleading editorials in Arizona to derail the nomination of popular and well-qualified telecom and telecom reformer Gigi Sohn to the FCC. The editorials are full of false claims that Sohn has a terrible track record on media diversity, shoveled by organizations with longstanding financial ties to AT&T.

The entirety of the GOP, always in perfect lockstep with AT&T and Comcast on every issue (despite feigned party interest in “antitrust reform”), blanketly refuses to vote for Sohn. She can still be appointed exclusively with Democratic votes, which is why AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Charter lobbyists are now targeting Democratic Senators who are looking vulnerable during the upcoming midterms.

:. . .They’re specifically targeting Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Catherine Cortez Mastro of Nevada, though once again Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia also appears in play:

Manchin remains undecided after meeting her, his office confirmed. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), facing a tough reelection battle this November, said he’s “continuing to evaluate her record” after a similar meeting. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who is facing attacks from a GOP opponent over the nominee, didn’t respond when asked about Sohn.

How are telecom lobbyists doing this? Well, one, as noted above, is by spreading false claims through co-opted policy groups and op-eds that she has a bad record on media and minority diversity (again, that’s patently false if you ask anybody who knows Sohn or spends 5 minutes looking at her policy history). They’ve also gotten the Fraternal Order of Police to attack Sohn with some feverish gibberish.

More recently, the telecom lobby appears to have hired former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (who’s been having an…interesting year) to run a crunch time social media campaign under the banner of something called the “One Country Project”:

Meanwhile, a political advocacy group headed by former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) just launched a $250,000 social media advertising campaign against Sohn, set to run for three weeks starting over the congressional recess. This group, the One Country Project, has accused Sohn of dismissing rural America, pointing to comments in which the nominee accused policymakers of “disproportionately” steering broadband dollars to those communities and giving urban dwellers the short shrift — an attack coming as Biden this week launches a “rural infrastructure tour,” including a focus on broadband.

Only after the Politico piece ran, did the group publicly announce it had launched a “six figure ad campaign aimed at raising awareness” by trying to claim that Sohn — who, again, has spent years trying to ensure even coverage of broadband to neglected U.S. communities (something you can confirm with five minutes of research) — is somehow the enemy of rural America:

The group, which of course doesn’t share funding sources, basically takes a bunch of Sohn comments, then distorts them to claim she hates rural America:

Sohn has made several public comments that call into question her commitment to rural communities, such as her testimony to the House Energy & Commerce Committee where she stated “policymakers have focused disproportionately on broadband deployment in rural areas of the United States” or her claims that FCC broadband policies have “made it really easy” for rural broadband companies “to basically suck at the government teat to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.”

If you actually read Sohn’s testimony, Sohn was pointing out that U.S. telecom policy (which basically involves throwing unchecked billions at AT&T and Comcast in exchange for networks that are always mysteriously half delivered) isn’t exclusively a rural U.S. problem. Urban broadband gaps remain a significant problem, and broadband affordability impacts rural and urban Americans alike. . .

Why a group purportedly self-tasked with representing the concerns of rural Americans would actively misrepresent Sohn’s positions isn’t clear, but it’s not particularly difficult to guess given the variety of other flimsy attacks on Sohn of late, and the telecom and media (Rupert Murdoch) industry’s long history of using proxy groups as public policy marionettes to impact legislation and policy decisions.

 

DRIVING LONG-TERM VALUE CREATION: Musk’s takeover attempt is, truly, unlike any other in the 40 years or so these things have been going on

A smart activist can leverage the power of social media and other forms of distribution to connect beyond traditional methods

Musk, who acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter in early 2022, proposes to pay $43 billion for the company, a 38% premium from the share-price level when he announced his intentions last Thursday. The poison pill measure is a strong indication Twitter’s board doesn’t like his offer, though it has yet to formally turn it down.

Musk has hired Morgan Stanley to advise him;

Twitter has responded by hiring both Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to counsel it 

To Capture Twitter, Elon Musk Showcases New Type Of Takeover Warfare

Abram Brown Forbes Staff

Forbes | 2022-04-19

The billionaire is waging a highly public attack against the company, weaponizing its own platform against it. His campaign defies many of the conventions around buyout battles.

To understand what makes Elon Musk’s highly visible and dramatic attempt to take over Twitter so unconventional, it helps to look at what happened the last time Twitter encountered another unexpected investor in the company.

That wasn’t very long ago, and the situation did play out conventionally. In March 2020, Elliott Management announced it had purchased about 4% of Twitter shares. Elliott is a so-called activist-investing firm. It acquires stakes in public companies, then advocates for change, hoping it will boost the investment’s value. Elliott’s investment made an initial splash in the media, prompting a series of swiftly held closed-door meetings between Elliott and Twitter management. A peace deal followed. Twitter handed Elliott a board seat and agreed to raise targets for user and revenue growth. By the following summer, things were good enough between Twitter and Elliott for the two to consider combining for a bid on TikTok. (In the end, of course, no one got to buy TikTok.) With Twitter stock up 175% from Elliott’s initial investment, it gave back its board seat in April 2021.

When Musk arrived last month, Twitter tried the same approach. CEO Parag Agrawal repeatedly spoke with Musk and offered him a board seat. But unlike Elliott, Musk turned it down—doing so visibly on Twitter after a weekend of tweets criticizing the company’s business model.

> Two tweets directly solicited his 81 million followers for their opinions.

> Days later, he announced he didn’t want to just own part of Twitter, he wanted to buy it all. > Further increasing the public spectacle, he published the text messages he had sent Chairman Bret Taylor.

> Twitter responded by adopting a poison pill, a common defense against a hostile takeover invented during the Michael Milken-Ivan Boesky 1980s (before corporate raiders became activist investors).

Musk continued on.

> In less than a week, he has

-- used a TED Talks stage to label the SEC regulators who’d need to approve his acquisition as “bastards,”

> assailed Twitter’s board on Twitter,

> recirculated a pro-Musk meme originally published by the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen

> and cryptically referenced the Elvis Presley song “Love Me Tender.” (A bid for a company is, formally, a “tender offer.”)

. . .Since Thursday, Musk has seemed to intensify his campaign, targeting much of it at Twitter’s directors. (Boards and buyout investors like Musk never get along during a hostile takeover. But they usually snip at each other via SEC document or media release. Doing so over social media gives Musk the ability to more directly build support—potentially at a rate more viral than a PR release could possibly generate.)

In a tweet exchange with crypto billionaire Cameron Winklevoss, Musk suggested the directors could face “titanic” liability if they reject his bid, seeming to advocate for shareholder lawsuits against the board.

> He highlighted another user’s post that screenshotted director Robert Zoellick’s blank Twitter feed. (Zoellick, the World Bank’s former president, joined both the board and Twitter in 2018 and has never tweeted.)

> Musk also criticized the board members’ small shareholdings in Twitter stock, implying that if they held more, they’d better understand why they should take his deal.

> Activists typically reveal from the start how they plan to finance unsolicited takeovers, something they see as necessary to win support from a company’s investors, who may be skeptical of their advances. This hasn’t been the case for Musk. . .

> Musk seems to be gaining a modicum of support from within the company. Twitter’s cofounder and twice-former CEO Jack Dorsey seemed to signal he agreed with Musk this weekend. . .

> Twitter investors increasingly seem to think something may in fact happen.

After the Dorsey tweets and Musk’s frenzied weekend, the stock rose 7.5% on Monday to $48.45. . .

Musk has offered $54.20 a share for the company, the “420” part of the figure a weed-culture reference and a popular online joke. In the new filing on the poison pill, Twitter said shareholders could acquire new shares for $210, equity worth double that amount: $420. Maybe a coincidence. Or maybe Twitter realizes Musk has unavoidably changed the game’s rules, and to win, it needs to figure out how to play."