ibsen with helicopters
No offense to David Denby, but the second i get the New Yorker each week, I flip to the contents, hoping this week it’s an Anthony Lane movie review. #1 fan!
In dismissing "Lions for Lambs", the Robert Redford / Tom Cruise pic, as dull and didactic, Lane says it "is most charitably described as Ibsen with helicopters". In the movie world, "Ibsen" is an insult. How sad that in theatre it’s still a compliment. It reminds me of Walter Kerr’s book "How Not to Write a Play", which impacted me as theatre-geek teenager. Kerr blamed Ibsen and Chekhov, and imitation of them, for killing the theatre.