Culture Watch

Light and Obliquity: Edward Hopper at the Whitney Museum

by Sam Ben-Meir

The Whitney's retrospective shows works by the painter that depart from the aesthetics of film noir and focus on the alienation and impersonalization of city life. 

Reflecting on Netflix's "Women at War"

by Walter G. Moss

The Netflix series focuses on the relationship of several French women to the mass carnage of the opening months of the First World War. 

Two Films Show the Historical Toll and Present Danger of Ethnic Violence

by Walter G. Moss

Two films show the dire consequences of ethnic antagonism during and after the second world war, and the potential for ideology to incite and justify violence.

Remember Punk Rock? Probably Not…: The Real Culture War of 1980s America

by Kevin Mattson

Digging beneath the aesthetics of punk to find its politics, Kevin Mattson's new book finds a counterculture of suburban youths who identified the unrestrained capitalism of the Reagan era as the true nihilism threatening America.

"Hamilton" as a Meditation on History and Memory

by Bennett Parten

In a moment in which Confederate monuments are finally coming down and we are re-thinking how we tell our history, Hamilton is a sign of hope. It’s a sign that while history is something we can never resign from, we can always enter the narrative and, like Eliza, construct a history of our own. 

Curtain Up: Two Theater Companies Return to Live Performance, with Concessions to COVID

by Bruce Chadwick

“We want to remind the Berkshires, and the country, that the virus will be defeated and that in the meantime we must reclaim our lives and the arts is the way to do that,” said Nick Paleologos of the Berkshires Theater.

Who’s Our Roy Cohn?

by Andrew Feffer

Two documentaries on the notorious lawyer and fixer portray Roy Cohn as a figure of evil, but don't examine the social and political context of power in New York City. 

Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods: How Bad is It?

by Jerry Lembcke

A historian of public perceptions of the Vietnam War (who served as a military chaplain there) warns that Spike Lee's latest film traffics in stereotypes of both American veterans and the Vietnamese people while reinforcing right-wing narratives about the war.

“The Last Dance” is the ‘Presidential Historian’ of Documentaries

by Jason Steinhauer

Viewers have embraced the ESPN Documentary "The Last Dance" as an escape and the best sports "fix" around. But its framing of leadership reflects a serious issue: the limits of how American media presents history.

DC Comics and the American Dilemma of Race

by Patrick L. Hamilton and Allan W. Austin

Superhero popular culture has always been embedded within American racial attitudes, reflecting and even contributing to them in ways that reveal goodwill is not sufficient, in and of itself, to fix our problems.

The Life and Times of Flamboyant Rock Music Impresario Bill Graham

by Bruce Chadwick

The New York Historical Society presents the rock & roll world of Bill Graham (1931–1991), one of the most influential concert promoters of all time, through August 23.

New, Experimental West Side Story Is an Experiment that Goes Awry

by Bruce Chadwick

The play has lost its focus and sense of history.

A Tale of the Great Migration

by Bruce Chadwick

Blues for an Alabama Sky, a new play by Pearl Cleage, tells the story of a handful of those people. It is a deep, rich play in which their stories are carried out against the cultural backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance.

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are Back, and the Sexual Revolution with Them

by Bruce Chadwick

The late 1960s was the heyday of America’s sexual revolution and nowhere was it bigger than in California.

There’s Nothing Like a Good Ghost Story from the Past

by Bruce Chadwick

The terrifying and wondrous Woman in Black is an international hit. It's a play staged in 2020 that was written in 1987 about an event that took place in 1927.

The Film “1917” and the Allegory of the Wooden-Headed

by James Ottavio Castagnera

Viewed with one eye on this current context, “1917” can surmount its surface characterization as an exciting “war movie” to become an allegory.

1917: The War Movie at Its Very Best

by Bruce Chadwick

The movie is a story within a story – the two men within the greater war

A Play About Historical Reenactors Grapples With American Identity

by Bruce Chadwick

Talene Monahon’s new play, How to Load a Musket, takes a deep, hard look at the re-enactors of two wars, the American Revolution and the Civil War.

Annual Jewish Film Festival, Following New Wave of Anti-Semitism, Offers Hope and Inspiration

by Bruce Chadwick

Given the attacks on Jews all over the country, the Jewish Film Festival, one of the oldest in the United States, could not have come at a better time

Depression Era Tenor Hits All the High Notes

by Bruce Chadwick

It is 1934, at the height of the Depression, and an opera company in Cleveland is trying to make enough money to stay in business.