2008 Summer Olympics

Started by MacGuffin, April 16, 2006, 01:18:10 PM

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MacGuffin

Zhang, Spielberg are Olympians

In an announcement that only serves to remind us just how freaking weird the world is, it was revealed yesterday that Zhang Yimou will direct the opening and closing ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. And if it's not odd enough to think about the director of such masterpieces of subtlety as Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, and Not One Less masterminding the bizarre, nonsensical epics that open and close the Olympics, try this on for size: Steven Spielberg will serve as an "artistic advisor." Because, you know, Zhang's films are just missing that touch of loveliness that Spielberg brings to every project he touches.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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hedwig

confounding. the berg's full of surprises these days. reality shows and the olympics.. what's next? SEX TAPES?!

squints

"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

MacGuffin

Ang Lee joins Olympic directing team
Source: Guardian Unlimited
 
In something like a reversal of fortune, Ang Lee, the Taiwan-born director whose Oscar-winning gay romance Brokeback Mountain was banned in China, will be part of the team creating the opening and closing ceremony extravaganzas of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Lee, 51, has been named an arts and culture consultant to the creative team led by Chinese film-maker Zhang Yimou, joining a roster of advisers that also includes Hollywood's own Steven Spielberg and Chinese composer Wu Zuqiang.

Organisers are probably hoping that Lee, now a US resident, will bring to the table his expertise in directing the kind of balletic kung fu fight seen in his martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Brokeback Mountain, on the other hand, fell foul of Chinese censors who deemed the film "too controversial" for exhibition last year: homosexuality was considered a mental disorder in the People's Republic as recently as 2001 and is still a taboo subject. Brokeback Mountain is only available on the mainland in pirated DVD form.
Interestingly, Chinese media reporting this appointment refer to Lee as the "internationally renowned" director without referring to his nationality. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as part of "one China" and censors any reference that suggest its autonomy.

The Beijing Olympics will open on August 8 2008 and close on August 24.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Oliver Stone to shoot short film for Beijing 2008

Oliver Stone, director of "JFK" and other films that have courted controversy for their political content, will shoot a short film to promote Beijing ahead of the 2008 Olympics, organizers said on Thursday.

The five-minute film would form a "promotional video for cultural exchange between Beijing and the world" and be shown on television, in cinemas and on aircraft in China and abroad, the organizers said in a statement.

"Today, many peoples of the world can live in harmony, and China plays an important role," Stone told the Beijing News.

"China and the United States are two big countries that should have more interaction. My goal in shooting this Olympic short film also lies in this -- the need to build a harmonious international society."

The 60-year-old Oscar winner is the third director invited to capture impressions of Beijing as it prepares for the Olympics.

Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, whose 1989 movie "Cinema Paradiso" won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and Oscar-nominated Iranian director Majid Majidi will also release short films, organizers said.

Stone toured Beijing this week to promote "World Trade Center," a movie about the September 11 2001 attacks in the U.S.

Originally set for release last month, "World Trade Center" and blockbuster "Miami Vice" were delayed after China's culture ministry declared October a month for home-made films, most of which featured patriotic and revolutionary themes.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Pubrick

Quote from: MacGuffin on November 02, 2006, 11:19:11 AM
The five-minute film would form a "promotional video for cultural exchange between Beijing and the world"

For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of China
under the paving stones.

MacGuffin

Farrow warns Spielberg on helping Beijing's Olympics

US actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow blasted corporations and director Steven Spielberg Wednesday for helping China stage the 2008 Olympic Games despite Beijing's support for Sudan's government.

Farrow wrote in a Wall Street Journal column that Spielberg, a special consultant for the games, and corporate sponsors such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's should join calls for China to use its leverage over Khartoum to protect civilians in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region.

"That so many corporate sponsors want the world to look away from that atrocity during the games is bad enough," Farrow, who has traveled twice to Darfur, wrote in a piece co-signed by her son, Ronan.

"But equally disappointing is the decision of artists like director Steven Spielberg -- who quietly visited China this month as he prepares to help stage the Olympic ceremonies -- to sanitize Beijing's image," they wrote in the column titled "The Genocide Olympics."

"Is Mr. Spielberg, who in 1994 founded the Shoah Foundation to record the testimony of survivors of the Holocaust, aware that China is bankrolling Darfur's genocide?"

Farrow warned the American director and Oscar winner for the Holocaust film "Schindler's List" that he risked becoming a modern version of Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, known for her 1936 Berlin games film "Olympia."

"Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games?" they wrote.

"Do the various television sponsors around the world want to share in that shame? Because they will. Unless, of course, all of them add their singularly well-positioned voices to the growing calls for Chinese action to end the slaughter in Darfur."

"Imagine if such calls were to succeed in pushing the Chinese government to use its leverage over Sudan to protect civilians in Darfur," the Farrows wrote.

"The 2008 Beijing Olympics really could become an occasion for pride and celebration, a truly international honoring of the authentic spirit of 'one world' and 'one dream,'" they wrote, referring to the Games' slogan.

According to the United Nations, at least 200,00O people have died and more than two million been displaced since the conflict between rebels and government forces erupted in Darfur in February 2003.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Spielberg Torches Olympics Role

Here's one A-list directing gig Steven Spielberg has decided to pass on. 

The Oscar-winning filmmaker has opted out of serving as artistic adviser for the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2008 Summer Olympics, saying he can't devote his attention to the celebration in Beijing while there is still so much suffering in Darfur.

He made the decision Tuesday after Rosemary's Baby star Mia Farrow and other human rights activists chastised him for continuing to work with the Chinese government. 

The United Nations has criticized China, which is one of Sudan's biggest oil customers, for its continued support of the south African nation, which has allowed Muslim militias to wage a bloody civil war with the region's ethnic tribes that has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced millions.

And Spielberg suspected a while back that these issues could very well create a conflict. He penned a letter to China's president, Hu Jintao, in April, encouraging the leader to use his country's upcoming global spotlight to press for change in Sudan.

"In anticipation that this day might one day come, I left unsigned the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games contract presented to me nearly a year ago," the Schindler's List auteur said in a statement.

"Since that time, I have made repeated efforts to encourage the Chinese government to use its unique influence to bring safety and stability to the Darfur region of Sudan. Although some progress has been made along the way, most notably, the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1769, the situation in Darfur continues to worsen and the violence continues to accelerate.

"Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more," Spielberg continued.

"China has much to offer the world and I have no doubt that its international contributions will grow in the years ahead. With growing influence, however, also comes growing responsibilities. As China welcomes the world to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, I hope to be among those in attendance; and it is also my great hope that, with renewed and intensified efforts from China, there will be peace and security in Darfur at last."

Earlier Tuesday as part of a "Global Day of Action" focusing on Darfur, Farrow, a longtime human rights activist, and former Olympic swimmers Shannon Shakespeare and Nikki Dryden presented an open letter to Jintao at the Chinese Mission to the UN.

"We are all aware of the tremendous potential for China to help bring an end to the conflict in Darfur," the letter read, which was signed by a variety of celebrities, former Olympic athletes and Nobel laureates.

"How can Beijing host the Olympic Games at home and underwrite genocide?" Farrow, a UN goodwill ambassador long before Angelina Jolie made it cool, told reporters outside the Chinese Mission in New York.

"Time is running out for the people of Darfur."

According to the activist group Dream for Darfur, China has deployed noncombat troops to the region to help pave the way for a proposed 26,000-member UN-African Union peacekeeping force.

The 2008 Summer Olympic Games will take place Aug. 8-24 in Beijing.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Games organizers respond to Spielberg

China is blaming activists with "ulterior motives" for linking the Beijing Olympics to the nation's involvement in Sudan, with top officials saying they shared concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

Games organizers and the Foreign Ministry responded Thursday to Steven Spielberg rejecting a role as an artistic adviser to the Olympics.

The film director withdrew on Tuesday on the grounds that China wasn't doing enough to pressure Sudan over the conflict in its western region of Darfur.

China is believed to have influence over the Islamic regime because it buys two-thirds of the country's oil exports while selling it weapons and defending it in the United Nations.

In their first response to Spielberg's announcement, Games organizers said his decision would not affect planning for the opening and closing ceremonies, adding: "We express our regret over his recent personal statement."

"The Chinese government has made unremitting efforts to resolve the Darfur issue, an obvious fact to the international community which holds unprejudiced opinions on this issue," the organizers, known as BOCOG, said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

"Linking the Darfur issue to the Olympic Games will not help to resolve this issue and is not in line with the Olympic Spirit that separates sports from politics," BOCOG said.

China is on the defensive against critics using the Games to spotlight the communist regime's curbs on human rights, press freedoms, and religion.

"It is understandable if some people do not understand the Chinese government policy on Darfur," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. "But I am afraid that some people may have ulterior motives, and this we cannot accept."

Liu said China was working with the United Nations to resolve the Darfur crisis.

"China is also concerned about the humanitarian crisis there, but we have been playing a positive and constructive role in promoting peace in Darfur," he said.

Liu said China supported a hybrid African Union and United Nations force to patrol Darfur.

"This did not come easily and our efforts have been applauded by the international community," Liu said.

Liu said 140 Chinese engineers helped prepare the hybrid force and Chinese companies in Sudan had helped dig wells and build small-scale power plants in Darfur.

"On the issue of Darfur, empty rhetoric will not help," Liu said. "What is more important is to do more things to help with the peace process there and alleviate the humanitarian crisis."

Fighting between government-backed militia and rebels in Darfur has killed more than 200,000 people and left an estimated 2.5 million displaced since 2003.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Kal

Quote from: MacGuffin on August 08, 2008, 05:54:43 PM
Begins tonight.

Its weird cause it already started yesterday, although the ceremony wasnt until today. Argentina won first game yesterday against Ivory Coast!


cinemanarchist

My assholeness knows no bounds.

matt35mm

I'm surprised at how much of this I've been watching.  Some of these athletes and performances are so beautiful.  I've been disappointed with China, and I think that much of the world is not impressed with the Chinese government (to put it mildly), but what these athletes do is completely independent of that.  I don't really keep track of the scores or medals... I pretty much just admire the spirit and ogle at the bodies.

Sucks that much of it isn't live, though.

Fernando

I saw the redeem team yesterday in the morning and later that night the AWESOME 400-free relay, Mac please tell me you did see it, to quote a headline "Jason Lezak churned like an unstoppable nuclear submarine, redlining to complete an impossible mission." But it wasn't, I couldn't believe what I just saw.

MacGuffin

Quote from: Fernando on August 11, 2008, 09:33:20 AM
I saw the redeem team yesterday in the morning and later that night the AWESOME 400-free relay, Mac please tell me you did see it, to quote a headline "Jason Lezak churned like an unstoppable nuclear submarine, redlining to complete an impossible mission." But it wasn't, I couldn't believe what I just saw.

My God, that was an awesome performance. I got chills. The stunned looks on the French swimmers faces was priceless.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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