DOCSLIB.ORG

Scientific Art: the Tetralogy of John Banville

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Scientific Art: the Tetralogy of John Banville SCIENTIFIC ART: THE TETRALOGY OF JOHN BANVILLE by BRIAN STEPHEN McILROY B.A. (Hons.) Sheffield University, 1981 M.A. Leeds University, 1983 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard. THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA April 1991 (cT)Brian S. Mcllroy, 1991 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of British Columbia 1956 Main Mall Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Y3 Date IS /V'l <Wl DE-6G/811 r ii Abstract The main thesis of this study is that John Banville's fictional scientific tetralogy makes an aesthetically challenging attempt to fuse renewed popular notions of science and scientific figures with renewed artistic forms. Banville is most interested in the creative mind of the scientist, astronomer, or mathematician, his life and times in Doctor Copernicus (1976) and Kepler (1981) , and his modern day influence in The Newton Letter (1982) and Mefisto (1986). The novelist's writing is a movement of the subjective into what has normally been regarded as the objective domain of science. Chapter one gives a critical overview of the present state of Banville scholarship. It reveals that despite his focus on scientists, the novelist rarely invites more than narrow literary approaches. Chapter two discusses the cultural context of relations between science and literature. The theories of Gerald Holton on scientific history, of Arthur Koestler on creativity, and of Thomas Kuhn on paradigm change are shown to be germane to Banville's tetralogy. These theories support the general methodology throughout the dissertation. Chapter three examines the creation of the scientific genius Doctor Copernicus. In particular, the following areas are examined: the scientist's boyhood; the influences of his family, friends and colleagues; the link between science and public policy; the scientist's living and working conditions; and the scientist's thematic presuppositions. Chapter four continues the exploration of the social and artistic process of science with regard to the astronomer Kepler. This chapter's discussion of the brotherhood of science, astrology, physicalization, religion and dreams inevitably raises questions about the role of the scientist in society and how his ideas are developed. Chapter five reveals the importance of the extra—scientific factors that go into the composition of any purportedly objective science. In The Newton Letter, both the great English scientist and his Irish biographer seem to suffer from similar paradigm shifts. Chapter six on Mefisto argues that recent scientific theory, including the science of chaos, informs the work, particularly with regard to the notions of symmetry and asymmetry. Chapter seven concludes by advancing the argument that Banville's work is a much needed contribution to Irish culture, which has tended to ignore the social potential of science. iv Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements vi Chapter One: Introduction 1 I. Critical Overview 4 II. Chapter Outline 35 Chapter Two: The Cultural Context: Reading Literature and Science 4 6 I. Writing on Art and Science 47 II. Methodological Approaches 66 Chapter Three: A Social Scientist: Doctor Copernicus.. 87 I. The Scientist's Boyhood 93 II. The Family Breakdown 101 III. Philosophical Assumptions 108 IV. Friends, Colleagues, Women 116 V. Rheticus 124 VI. Science and Geopolitical Realities 129 VII. Some Conclusions 137 V Chapter Four: Re—Ordering Disorder: Blurring Science and Art in Kepler 140 I. Order From Disorder 148 II. The Brotherhood of Science 158 III. Religion and Science 169 IV. Astrology 174 V. Physicalization 178 VI. Dreams, Visions, Prophecies 183 Chapter Five: Reconstructing Artistic and Scientific Paradigms: The Newton Letter 188 I. Dealing With Crises 194 II. Failing Systems 207 Chapter Six: Casting and Recasting Theories: Mefisto.. 217 I. Scientific Marionettes 221 II. Angels From Hell 229 III. Asymmetry/Symmetry 237 Chapter Seven: Banville, Science, and Ireland 252 Bibliography A. Primary 271 B. Secondary 27 3 Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have been written without the help and support of a number of people. I wish to thank foremost my supervisor Professor John Wilson Foster whose attention to detail greatly enhanced this work through all its various stages. Professors Andrew Parkin, Peter Taylor, Andrew Busza, and Patricia Merivale have also contributed generously their thoughts about this project, and to them I owe thanks. 1 Chapter One: Introduction The main thesis of this study is that the novelist John Banville bridges in his work science and art by exploring and nurturing analogies between fiction and scientific theory. His fictional scientific tetralogy makes an aesthetically challenging attempt to fuse renewed notions of science and scientific figures with renewed artistic forms. Doctor Copernicus (1976), Kepler (1981), The Newton Letter (1982), and Mefisto (1986) are doubly fictional. As a whole, the tetralogy argues that scientific theory comprises much fiction, and Banville's novels are, therefore, fictions which discuss an initial fiction. This "doubling" helps to explain the multiplicity of fictional techniques employed by the author. These include numerous competing narrative voices, which imply that there is no omniscient viewpoint, no unified theory of the universe. These narrative voices also help to imply that every new theory has to go through a societal testing procedure (a la Darwin), which perforce can never be truly objective. The magnificent narrative power of his novels is explained not merely by the choice of great intellectual scientific figures as subjects of inquiry, but also by the richness of imagery, the detailed character analyses, the presentation of exceptionally controlled (though emotive) 2 scenes, and the deliberate formal and technical challenges which the author sets the reader in each text's design. These techniques help the reader to uncover two major themes advanced by the tetralogy: (a) that major scientific advances have depended, and will depend in the future, just as much on passion, subjectivity, and irrationality as on detachment, objectivity, and rationality; and (b) that scientific paradigms, "universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners," are not stable but are constantly shifting (Kuhn 1970, viii). The examination of the process of paradigm change is particularly germane to Banville's tetralogy. Banville is most interested in the creative mind of the scientist, astronomer, or mathematician, his life and times (Doctor Copernicus and Kepler), and his modern day influence (The Newton Letter and Mefisto). The novelist's writing is a movement of the subjective (defined here as experiential observation) into what has normally been regarded as the objective (defined here as experimental observation) domain of science. Fundamentally, experiential observations, since based on experience, are chaotic and disordered, rampant with conflicting personal emotions and feelings; by contrast, experimental observations are often linear in conception, since based on controlled conditions and hypotheses, and are therefore typified by method and rational inquiry. When an experiment creates an unexpected 3 result, the tendency of normal science is to dismiss it as an error. Banville's work emphasizes that the need for theory emerges from experience, while the formulation of a theory emerges from an act of creation. The social validation of a theory emerges only partly from experimental observation. "Extra—scientific" factors are important to a theory's origin, acceptance, and dissemination, issues which Banville's novels explore. This introductory chapter reviews the previous criticism on Banville's work and establishes that the scientific element in the Irish writer's fiction has been, more often than not, glossed over by narrow literary approaches. This introduction concludes by briefly outlining the character and content of my six subsequent chapters, which attempt to travel some way to redress the critical imbalance mentioned above. The criticism so far of John Banville's fiction is marked generally by an unwillingness on the part of critics to take the writer's interest in science as an end in itself. The major critical summations of Banville's novels may be categorized as follows: metafictions (Deane 1977 and Imhof 1989), poetic metaphors (McMinn 1988 and O'Brien 1989), historical character studies (Molloy 1981), philosophical tracts (McCormack 1987), covert political broadsides (Outram 1988) and transitional modernist texts (Kearney 1988). As I proceed in this discussion, I hope it will be apparent to the reader that when I stress certain 4 critics' "blind spots," it is in an effort to push the "science debate," however loosely defined, to the forefront of attention. 1. Critical Overview It is testimony to John Banville's
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Pan Macmillan September 2021 Highlights
    Pan Macmillan September 2021 Highlights They Got You Too Futhi Ntshingila Hans van Rooyen is a former police general raised by two women who survived the 1899 South African War. He finds himself being cared for in an old age home by the daughter of liberation struggle activists. At 80, he carries with him the memories of crimes he committed as an officer under the apartheid government. Having eluded the public confessions at the TRC for his time in the Border Wars, he retained his position in the democratic South Africa, serving as an institutional memory for a new generation of police recruits. Zoe Zondi is tasked to care for the old man. Her gentle and compassionate nature prompts Hans to review his decision to go to the grave with all his secrets. Zoe has her own life story to tell and, as their unlikely bond deepens, strengthened by the isolation that COVID-19 lockdown brings, they provide a safe space for each other to say the things that are often left unsaid. Futhi Ntshingila is a writer from Pietermaritzburg. The author of Shameless and Do Not Go Gentle, her work centres on women and marginalised communities. Futhi holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution and currently lives and works in Pretoria. • ISBN: 9781770107281 • Format: Trade Paperback • Genre: Fiction • Extent: TBC • Price: R290,00 IMMEDIATE RELEASE Shuggie Bain Winner of the Booker Prize 2020 July release Douglas Stuart It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life.
    [Show full text]
  • Best Books for Kindergarten Through High School
    ! ', for kindergarten through high school Revised edition of Books In, Christian Students o Bob Jones University Press ! ®I Greenville, South Carolina 29614 NOTE: The fact that materials produced by other publishers are referred to in this volume does not constitute an endorsement by Bob Jones University Press of the content or theological position of materials produced by such publishers. The position of Bob Jones Univer- sity Press, and the University itself, is well known. Any references and ancillary materials are listed as an aid to the reader and in an attempt to maintain the accepted academic standards of the pub- lishing industry. Best Books Revised edition of Books for Christian Students Compiler: Donna Hess Contributors: June Cates Wade Gladin Connie Collins Carol Goodman Stewart Custer Ronald Horton L. Gene Elliott Janice Joss Lucille Fisher Gloria Repp Edited by Debbie L. Parker Designed by Doug Young Cover designed by Ruth Ann Pearson © 1994 Bob Jones University Press Greenville, South Carolina 29614 Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved ISBN 0-89084-729-0 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 Contents Preface iv Kindergarten-Grade 3 1 Grade 3-Grade 6 89 Grade 6-Grade 8 117 Books for Analysis and Discussion 125 Grade 8-Grade12 129 Books for Analysis and Discussion 136 Biographies and Autobiographies 145 Guidelines for Choosing Books 157 Author and Title Index 167 c Preface "Live always in the best company when you read," said Sydney Smith, a nineteenth-century clergyman. But how does one deter- mine what is "best" when choosing books for young people? Good books, like good companions, should broaden a student's world, encourage him to appreciate what is lovely, and help him discern between truth and falsehood.
    [Show full text]
  • Remember to Have a Page Before the Title Page with Title and Name
    “This place being South Africa”: Reading race, sex and power in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace by Kimberly Chou “This place being South Africa”: Reading race, sex and power in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace by Kimberly Chou A thesis presented for the B.A. degree with Honors in The Department of English University of Michigan Spring 2009 © Kimberly Chou 16 March 2009 For fellow readers who have picked up this deeply provocative novel and found themselves at its close with more questions than answers—and for those who have yet to join the conversation. Acknowledgements I am indebted to my advisor, Jennifer Wenzel, for her guidance, patience and forthright criticism. Thank you for challenging me to challenge myself, and for sharing great appreciation for the work of J.M. Coetzee and, most importantly, a love of South Africa. Thank you to Cathy Sanok and Andrea Zemgulys, for unwavering support throughout the thesis-writing process. Thank you to the 2009 English honors thesis cohort for creating a space of encouragement and commiseration. Thank you to the peers and professors at the University of Cape Town who influenced early development of this project. A special thank you to Obs Books in Observatory, Cape Town. Thank you to my family and friends, who have, at this point, likely heard more about the ethics of reading and the politics of place than they had ever wished. Sincere thanks to M.M., F.R., E.M. and J.N. for their honesty and advice. Abstract Whatever discourse J.M. Coetzee intended to arouse with Disgrace, his 1999 novel that addresses changing social dynamics in post-apartheid South Africa, the conversation it has inspired since its publication has been dominated by readers’ suspicions.
    [Show full text]
  • Listed by Author ST
    Book List Listed by Author ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH LIBRARY INVENTORY Page 1 of 69 January 2017 DEWEY AUTHOR TITLE CAT YA H Fic Aarsen, Carolyne Heartsong Presents - A Family-Style Christmas Book 220.7 Aaseng, Rolf E. Sacred Sixty-Six, The Book YA Fic Ackerman, Karen Leaves in October, The Book E Adams, George Good Shepherd Storybook, The Book 248 Adams, Lane How Come It's Taking Me So Long to Get Better ? Book 242 Adams, Nate Energizers, Light Devotions to Keep Your Faith Growing Book R 227.91 Adamson, James New International Commentary - The Epistle of James, The Book MI African Children's Choir Arms Around the World CD (Music) 921 Aikman, David Man of Faith, The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush, A Book 242 Akempis, Thomas Imitation of Christ Book G 248.3 Al-Anon As We Understand Book 921 Albom, Mitch Have a little faith Book 920 Albrecht, Donna C. Favorite Bible Stories of famous people; I love to tell the storyBook 290 Albrecht, Mark Reincarnation, A Christian Appraisal Book 266 Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Book 236.2 Alcorn, Randy In Light of Eternity Book Fic Alcorn, Randy Lord Foulgrin's Letters Book Fic Alcorn, Randy Safely Home Book Fic Alcott, Louisa May Inheritance, The Book 243 Aldrich, Joseph C. Gentle Persuasion Book YA H Fic Alexander, Hannah Heartsong Presents - The Healing Promise Book YA H Fic Alexander, Kathryn Heartsong Presents - Twin Wishes Book 222.1 Alexander, T. Desmond and Baker, DavidDictionary W. of the Old Testament: Pentateuch Book Fic Alexander, Tamera Rekindled Book Fic Alexander, Tamera Remembered Book Fic Alexander, Tamera Revealed Book 222.9 Allegro, John Dead Sea Scrolls, A Reappraisal, The Book 248.86 Allen, Charles L.
    [Show full text]
  • BOOK REVIEWS Michael R. Reder, Ed. Conversations with Salman
    258 BOOK REVIEWS Michael R. Reder, ed. Conversations with Salman Rushdie. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2000. Pp. xvi, 238. $18.00 pb. The apparently inexorable obsession of journalist and literary critic with the life of Salman Rushdie means it is easy to find studies of this prolific, larger-than-life figure. While this interview collection, part of the Literary Conversations Series, indicates that Rushdie has in fact spo• ken extensively both before, during, and after, his period in hiding, "giving over 100 interviews" (vii), it also substantiates a general aware• ness that despite Rushdie's position at the forefront of contemporary postcolonial literatures, "his writing, like the author himself, is often terribly misjudged by people who, although familiar with his name and situation, have never read a word he has written" (vii). The oppor• tunity to experience Rushdie's unedited voice, interviews re-printed in their entirety as is the series's mandate, is therefore of interest to student, academic and reader alike. Editor Michael Reder has selected twenty interviews, he claims, as the "most in-depth, literate and wide-ranging" (xii). The scope is cer• tainly broad: the interviews, arranged in strict chronological order, cover 1982-99, encompass every geography, and range from those tak• en from published studies to those conducted with the popular me• dia. There is stylistic variation: question-response format, narrative accounts, and extensive, and often poetic, prose introductions along• side traditional transcripts. However, it is a little misleading to infer that this is a collection comprised of hidden gems. There is much here that is commonly known, and interviews taken from existing books or re-published from publications such as Kunapipi and Granta are likely to be available to anybody bar the most casual of enthusiasts.
    [Show full text]
  • Historicist Inquiry in the New Historicism and British Historiographic Metafiction
    Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi Cilt: 15 / Sayı: I/ss. 39-52 Historicist Inquiry in The New Historicism and British Historiographic Metafiction Doç. Dr. Serpil OPPERMANN* ÖZET Bu makale "Yeni Tarihselcilik" kuramının tarihi metinlere, söylemine ve tarih kavramına getirdiği sorgulama ve eleştirel bakışın son dönem İngiliz romanında nasıl kurgusal düzlemde incelendiğini tartışmaktadır . "Yeni Tarihselcilik" kuramının edebiy- at eleştirisinde ve tarih araştırmalarında tartışmaya açtığı önemli fikirlerin ve eleştirel yöntemlerin, tarihi olayları ve kişileri postmodern bir yapı içinde kurgusallaştıran İngiliz romanında kullanımı, ve kurgusal gerçek! tarihi gerçeklik arasındaki ikilemin ortadan kalkması bu makalenin ana temasını oluşturmaktadır. Roman ve kuram arasındaki paralellik ve tarih metinleriyle edebiyat metinlerinin yazılımındaki ortak özellikler örneklerle incelenmekte, ve sonuç olarak tarih yazılımı ve roman sanatı arasındaki benzerliklere dikkat çekilmektedir. One of the resurgent new trends in British metafiction is the revival of interest in his- tory. Significantly history means both "historiography" - a particulardiscursive disei- pline- and "history"- the actual events this diseipline investigates. Since history signi- fies both a form of discourse about facts and fac1s themselves, it has been the major focus of attention in contemporary critical theory over the past decade in Britain and the U.S. Now at the end of the 1990s this interest in history has become the central critical concem of the contemporary novelists in Britain. British fiction today has discovered an important means of articulating not only its rich cultural heritage but also the ongoing contemporary debate on historical studies. The kind of novel this artide will focus on is well- known as historiographic metafiction. The historiographers' interrogation of the discourses of history, and their inquiry into the nature of the "truth of history," have gone into the fictional fabrics of British historiographic metafiction.
    [Show full text]
  • NONINO Prize the Jury Presided by the Nobel Laureate Naipaul Has
    NONINO Prize The jury presided by the Nobel Laureate Naipaul has chosen two intellectuals that support religious tolerance and free thinking. By FABIANA DALLA VALLE The Albanian poet Ismail Kadare, the philosopher Giorgio Agamben and the P(our) project are respectively the winners of the International Nonino Prize, the “Master of our time” and the “Nonino Risit d’Aur – Gold vine shoot” of the forty-third edition of the Nonino, born in 1975 to give value to the rural civilization. The jury presided by V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Laureate in Literature 2001, and composed by Adonis, John Banville, Ulderico Bernardi, Peter Brook, Luca Cendali, Antonio R. Damasio, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, James Lovelock, Claudio Magris, Norman Manea, Edgar Morin and Ermanno Olmi, has awarded the prestigious acknowledgements of the 2018 edition. Ismail Kadare, poet, novelist, essay writer and script writer born in Albania (he left his country as a protest against the communist regime which did not take any steps to allow the democratization of the country ndr.), for the prestigious jury of the Nonino is a «Bard fond and critical of his country, between historical realities and legends, which evoke grandeur and tragedies of the Balkan and Ottoman past and has created great narrations. An exile in Paris for more than twenty years “not to offer his services to tyranny”, he has refused the silence which is the evil’s half, often immersing his narration in imaginary worlds, becoming the witness of the horrors committed by totalitarianism and its inquisitors. He has made religious tolerance one of the foundations of his work».
    [Show full text]
  • Addition to Summer Letter
    May 2020 Dear Student, You are enrolled in Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition for the coming school year. Bowling Green High School has offered this course since 1983. I thought that I would tell you a little bit about the course and what will be expected of you. Please share this letter with your parents or guardians. A.P. Literature and Composition is a year-long class that is taught on a college freshman level. This means that we will read college level texts—often from college anthologies—and we will deal with other materials generally taught in college. You should be advised that some of these texts are sophisticated and contain mature themes and/or advanced levels of difficulty. In this class we will concentrate on refining reading, writing, and critical analysis skills, as well as personal reactions to literature. A.P. Literature is not a survey course or a history of literature course so instead of studying English and world literature chronologically, we will be studying a mix of classic and contemporary pieces of fiction from all eras and from diverse cultures. This gives us an opportunity to develop more than a superficial understanding of literary works and their ideas. Writing is at the heart of this A.P. course, so you will write often in journals, in both personal and researched essays, and in creative responses. You will need to revise your writing. I have found that even good students—like you—need to refine, mature, and improve their writing skills. You will have to work diligently at revising major essays.
    [Show full text]
  • Books I've Read Since 2002
    Tracy Chevalier – Books I’ve read since 2002 2019 January The Mars Room Rachel Kushner My Sister, the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret Craig Brown Liar Ayelet Gundar-Goshen Less Andrew Sean Greer War and Peace Leo Tolstoy (continued) February How to Own the Room Viv Groskop The Doll Factory Elizabeth Macneal The Cut Out Girl Bart van Es The Gifted, the Talented and Me Will Sutcliffe War and Peace Leo Tolstoy (continued) March Late in the Day Tessa Hadley The Cleaner of Chartres Salley Vickers War and Peace Leo Tolstoy (finished!) April Sweet Sorrow David Nicholls The Familiars Stacey Halls Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett May The Mercies Kiran Millwood Hargraves (published Jan 2020) Ghost Wall Sarah Moss Two Girls Down Louisa Luna The Carer Deborah Moggach Holy Disorders Edmund Crispin June Ordinary People Diana Evans The Dutch House Ann Patchett The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Bronte (reread) Miss Garnet's Angel Salley Vickers (reread) Glass Town Isabel Greenberg July American Dirt Jeanine Cummins How to Change Your Mind Michael Pollan A Month in the Country J.L. Carr Venice Jan Morris The White Road Edmund de Waal August Fleishman Is in Trouble Taffy Brodesser-Akner Kindred Octavia Butler Another Fine Mess Tim Moore Three Women Lisa Taddeo Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes September The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead The Testaments Margaret Atwood Mothership Francesca Segal The Secret Commonwealth Philip Pullman October Notes to Self Emilie Pine The Water Cure Sophie Mackintosh Hamnet Maggie O'Farrell The Country Girls Edna O'Brien November Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie (reread) The Wych Elm Tana French On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong December Olive, Again Elizabeth Strout* Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk And Then There Were None Agatha Christie Girl Edna O'Brien My Dark Vanessa Kate Elizabeth Russell *my book of the year.
    [Show full text]
  • Irish Identity in Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark Peter Jasinski
    Inscape Volume 21 | Number 2 Article 6 10-1-2001 Irish Identity in Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark Peter Jasinski Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/inscape Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Jasinski, Peter (2001) "Irish Identity in Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark," Inscape: Vol. 21 : No. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/inscape/vol21/iss2/6 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inscape by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. IRISH IDENTITY IN SEAMUS DEANE'S READING IN THE DARK Peter Jasinski n Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark, Deane presents us with the Ichildhood of an unnamed narrator who tells the story of his troubled family in postwar Northern Ireland. As the boy stumbles through the complexities and ironies of the adult world, he slowly increases in social and political awareness. The novel takes its title from a scene in which the boy, after the lights are turned off, tries to imagine the story he had been reading. The image of reading in the dark expresses the difficulty of reconstructing the past from fragmen­ tary accounts available in the present: the narrator's family history "came to [him] in bits, from people who rarely recognized all they had told" (236). He uncovers only a partial picture of the truth as he tries to put together the tragic, mysterious past of his family.
    [Show full text]
  • Albert Nobbs Notes FINAL 10.8.11 ITA
    3 NOMINATION GOLDEN GLOBE ® DISTRIBUZIONE VIDEA 5 CDE Via Livigno, 50-00188 Roma - Tel 06.331851 - Fax 06.33185255 - [email protected] UFFICIO STAMPA ORNATO COMUNICAZIONE Via Flaminia 954 - 00191 Roma - Tel. 06.3341017 - 06.33213374 - [email protected] www.albertnobbs.it www.facebook.com/videa www.youtube.com/videa Sinossi La pluripremiata attrice Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) indossa i panni di una donna coinvolta in un insolito triangolo amoroso. Travestita da uomo per poter lavorare e sopravvivere nell’Irlanda del XIX secolo, più di trent’anni dopo si ritrova prigioniera della sua stessa finzione. Nel prestigioso cast internazionale, Mia Wasikowska (Helen), Aaron Johnson (Joe) e Brendan Gleeson (Dr. Holloran), oltre a Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Janet McTeer, Brenda Fricker e Pauline Collins. Rodrigo Garcia dirige il film basato su un racconto dell’autore irlandese George Moore, adattato da Glenn Close insieme a John Banville, vincitore del premio Man Booker, e a Gabriella Prekop. NOTE DI PRODUZIONE IL LEGAME DI GLENN CLOSE con il personaggio di Albert Nobbs risale a Quasi 30 anni fa, ai tempi in cui recitò – nel 1982 – nella rappresentazione teatrale di Simone Benmussa, ispirata al racconto breve Albert Nobbs, scritto dall’autore irlandese del XIX secolo, George Moore. “Credo che Albert sia un grande personaggio e la storia, in tutta la sua disarmante semplicità, è molto potente dal punto di vista emotivo”, dichiara Close, la cui apparizione in Quella produzione Off-Broadway le valse critiche eccellenti e un Obie Award. Nonostante i grandi successi che Close ha collezionato nel corso della sua brillante carriera, quel personaggio le è rimasto dentro.
    [Show full text]
  • Albert Nobbs
    Albert Nobbs Albert Nobbs, ALBERT NOBBS, RODRIGO GARCIA, Golden Globe Award, role, characters, film credits, John Banville, John Boorman, Julie Lynn, starring role, television, Simone Benmussa, Brendan Gleeson, Radha Mitchell, Harry Potter, Aaron Johnson, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, George Roy Hill, Kerry Washington, Margarethe Cammermeyer, Mia Wasikowska, Joe Layton, Directors' Fortnight, Neil Jordan, BBC comedy series, Florida Film Festival, European Film Academy, award nomination, Arlene Kelly, Sweet Emma Dear Bobe, Dublin Theatre Festival, television drama, Michael Cristofer, Franco Zeffirelli, Harvey Goldsmith, Winner Locarno Film Festival, Harold Prince, Irish actor, Fountain House, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Richard Pearce, Norma Desmond, Merchant Ivory, Stephen Frears, Jack Hofsiss, Stephen Herek, Royal National Theatre, Tony Awards, Richard Marquand, Fatal Attraction, Feature Film Commission, Christopher Walken, Barbet Schroeder, Joe, MAIN characters, National Association of Theatre Owners, Andrei Konchalovsky, International Mental Health Research Organization, Monica Rawling, Glenn Jordan, Rose Troche, Panthera Conservation Advisory Committee, Julian Morris, Danny Boyle, JOE Aaron Johnson, British independent film, Kristen Scott Thomas, Golden Globe nomination, Simon Wincer, Colin Farrell, RODRIGO GARCIA GABRIELLA PREKOP JOHN BANVILLE GLENN CLOSE, GLENN CLOSE, Bonnie Curtis, John Travolta, Golden Globe, Michael Vartan, John Lennon, Rhys Meyers, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, London Film Critics,
    [Show full text]