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Entry: Unnatural Arts and Sports Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/unnatural_arts_and_sports#7794 Post contents: John---one more agreement: Andrei Rublev is a fantastic movie. Too bad Criterion released it at such a steep price. I think it was Elia Kazan who said that the only origina; movie genre of any merit created in the US was the Western (and, with a devotion to John Ford, Howard Hawks, John Sturges, and Anthony Mann, I am inclined to agree)...give me THE SEARCHERS, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, or THE MAN FROM LARAMIE any day, not to mention the classy B movies of a William Boyd, the Paramount Zane Greys, etc. I also agree about the artistic emphasis of the old Soviet Union. One of my favorite operatic films is the 1954 Moskfilm BORIS GODUNOV, with Pirogov as Boris, and Kozlovsky as the Simpleton---superb. Maxim Mikhailov, the sonorous monk Pimen, was Stalin's favorite basso, and he's one of mine, too...which goes to prove that even dictators can have good taste. PS, Adolf begged Arturo Toscanini to return to Salzburg after the Anschluss (he didn't), and worshipped the artistic ground on which Wilhelm Furtwangler walked-- again, a sign of good musical perception and taste (too bad his political instincts weren't as good). Germany, like the USSR, favored and encouraged musical and artistic advancement (with some very noticeable limits, of course), and showered (some)artists with honors and Reichsmarks. Sent at: 2008 07 06