Bookforum. Sept/Oct/Nov 07.

In the outstanding new issue of Bookforum, Caroline Weber reads Dietrich Icon so we don't have to. It's a collection of essays in which "libidinal forces are too often presented as the key that opens all locks to the Dietrich enigma." Regardless, I'd recommend Weber's review as a brief history of what academics have been thinking about this icon, "[e]specially since the 1975 publication of Laura Mulvey's seminal essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'"; to over-generalize, their thoughts fall into two categories: politics and theory.

In an issue lousy with 20th century icons, by the way, Weimar Germany pops up again here and there, most obviously in Noah Isenberg's review of two histories, one of them tracing its reach to Hollywood, and in Radhika Jones's visit with New Yorker music critic Alex Ross.

"The story of how Australian writer Michael Noonan's 1963 novel December Boys became a feature film begins over four decades ago, in rather surprising fashion." And Bilge Ebiri tells that story. Related: Helen Pidd talks with Daniel Radcliffe about the film for the Guardian.

Surprisingly, there's even a Toronto tie-in with this issue. Erik Klinenberg reviews Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and, as it happens, a short film based on the book that she's made with none other than Alfonso Cuarón is screening at the festival. It's viewable online, too.

Oh, and Kenneth Whyte has a long talk with Klein for Macleans.

Posted by dwhudson at September 7, 2007 3:49 PM