Free Thinking - Art Spiegelman. Marina Abramovic. American Pastoral.

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2016

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer prize-winning Maus - a father-son memoir about the Holocaust drawn with cats and mice - is one of the classics of graphic novels. He's now collaborating with the Jazz composer Phillip Johnston on a show that puts music alongside the images. Naomi Alderman talks to them and to the performance artist Marina Abramovic who's written a memoir. Plus Sarah Churchwell watches a film version of Philip Roth's American Pastoral which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. Ewan McGregor directs and stars as a man whose life starts to fall apart as his daughter commits an act of political terrorism.

Wordless! Art Spiegelman + Phillip Johnston is at the Barbican in London on 11 November 2016 / 19:30 It's part of the London Jazz Festival. You can find more events on BBC Radio 3 and on the BBC Music Jazz pop-up station which will run from 10am on Thursday 10th November until 10am on Monday 14th November on digital radio, online and the iPlayer Radio app

Marina Abramovic's memoir is called Walk Through Walls. American Pastoral is out in cinemas across the UK

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps
0:21.2	it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream
0:26.1	van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.
0:32.0	Welcome to the Arts and Ideas podcast from the Free Thinking team at the BBC.
0:36.9	Hello. If free thinking were a pop-up restaurant, tonight we'd be a cross between New York's
0:42.6	Four Seasons and an all-American diner. So let me take you through the menu. For a dish as
0:49.1	crowd-pleasingly munchable as popcorn, Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of Mouse, will be talking
0:55.4	about his musical celebration of the graphic novel at the Barbican. As our quite literally
1:01.2	cutting-edge dish, we have Marina Abramovich, a Serb who's made her home in New York, discussing
1:07.5	how she became one of the world's best-known performance artists.
1:11.6	And then there's a tender morsel served up by one of America's most awkward native sons,
1:17.6	Philip Roth.
1:18.6	You want to protest the war.
1:20.6	Protest it right here in Old Room Rock.
1:23.6	Why am I going to do a march around the post office?
1:25.6	Bring the war home, Isn't that the slogan?
1:28.3	Look, they gave me this award.
1:31.3	It's just a stupid plaque, but it means one thing.
1:33.3	If you take a stand, people notice.
1:36.3	If you oppose the war, right here, with all your strength, this is part of America too, you know.
1:43.3	Read marks. With all your strength, this is part of America too, you know.
1:46.0	Read Marx.
	...

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