Robert Gottlieb
Robert Gottlieb
Robert Adams Gottliebis an American writer and editor. From 1987 to 1992 he was the editor of The New Yorker...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth29 April 1931
CountryUnited States of America
common good simply
Editing is simply the application of the common sense of any good reader. That's why, to be an editor, you have to be a reader. It's the number one qualification.
curtain iron russia
The Iron Curtain may be a thing of the past, but Mother Russia is as mysterious as ever.
critics fluid impressed naive taking
Why movie and dance critics are taking 'The Company' seriously, I can't imagine. Are they impressed by Altman's reputation and naive sincerity? By the fluid semi-documentary approach?
crucial gets overly raises
'Eclipse' is overlong and overly self-conscious, but it isn't a fake or a zero; it just gets exhausting. It raises a crucial question: 'When does Concept morph into Gimmick?'
applies energies hollywood movies prettier spends surface techniques
'Black Swan' does what Hollywood movies have always done - it spends its energies on getting some surface things right while getting everything important wrong. Darren Aronofsky, the director, applies the same techniques and the same sensibility here as he did with 'The Wrestler,' only with a prettier protagonist.
obligatory pursuing side
Paris, as always, is swarming with Americans, and these days, it's also swarming with hamburgers. Oddly, though, it's not typically the Americans who are pursuing the perfect burger on the perfect bun with the obligatory side of perfect coleslaw; the Americans are pursuing the perfect blanquette de veau.
america ballerina ballet hottest nights seen time
The first time the Kirov ballet was seen in America was on Sept. 11, 1961. The ballet was 'Swan Lake.' The ballerina was Inna Zubkovskaya. The place was the old Met, on what must have been one of the hottest nights of the year, and there was no air-conditioning.
bond box complete deserve directed family george james miller penguin resist written
Who would have thought that a tap-dancing penguin would outpoint James Bond at the box office? And deserve to? Not that there's anything wrong with 'Casino Royale.' But 'Happy Feet' - written and directed by George Miller - is a complete charmer, even if, in the way of most family fare, it can't resist straying into the Inspirational.
ballerina ballet cliches driven earlier mad matters movies red tale
What really matters is that 'Black Swan' deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially 'The Red Shoes,' another tale of a ballerina driven mad and suicidal.
art ballet name novel peace people stands sums swan war
What 'War and Peace' is to the novel and 'Hamlet' is to the theater, Swan Lake' is to ballet - that is, the name which to many people stands for and sums up an art form.
certain turned
At a certain point, you have to face the fact that you've turned into an old fart.
disgusted funny lots nonstop pair paul seconds
Paul Taylor's 'Offenbach Overtures' has lots of zip and charm, and its pair of dueling soldiers in red, who end up starry-eyed about each other while their disgusted seconds take up the quarrel, is nonstop funny.
bad ballets crucial good opposite respect tolstoy unhappy works
Tolstoy may be right about happy and unhappy families, but in ballet, it works the opposite way: All good ballets are different from each other and all bad ones are alike, at least in one crucial respect - they're all empty.
meant people pursue
For me, the real pleasure in writing is in having an excuse to pursue my curiosity about people who have meant something to me.