Pop: “Dance The Night” by Dua Lipa
A song that transforms even the most broken Nissan, which otherwise only the raised eyebrows of the TÜV inspectors follow, into a supple convertible. A song that turns the Bochum-West motorway junction into a beach boulevard, while your hand caresses the gentle sea breeze or petrol-sweet Ruhrpott air out of the open window. A song that, for once, is jubilantly classified in the radio moderator category “summer hit”, which is otherwise to be enjoyed with caution: “Dance The Night” by Dua Lipa is the first released single from the new Barbie film, which will be released in cinemas in July . Finely glittering 70s retro disco funk, hip swinging bass, clear lyrics that convey the message of the instruments “Tanz!” underline with a glitter pen, all produced by the experienced funk reanimator Mark Ronson. And as promising as the film sounds under the direction of the grandiose Greta Gerwig – the soundtrack (follow HaimCharlie XCX, Tame Impala…) has the potential to outshine even Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Marlene Knobloch
Book: “I met Hitler!” by Dorthy Thompson
“He is the embodiment of the little man,” wrote Dorthy Thompson after interviewing Hitler.
(Photo: dvb Verlag)
Dorothy Thompson was the most famous American journalist of the 1920s. She interviewed the great personalities of her time. In this context, she also tried to get an interview with Adolf Hitler, the head of a rapidly growing nationalist-anti-Semitic movement in Germany. Hitler, however, refused interviews with foreign reporters until 1931, when power was within reach and he no longer wanted to speak only to his own people, but also wanted to introduce himself abroad as the future leader. He granted Thompson an interview, and it is only now that the report she wrote about this encounter is also appearing in German (“I met Hitler”, DVB, 26 euros).
It offers an insight into what Ernst Bloch called the “darkness of the lived moment”. When Thompson is admitted to Hitler, she has no illusions about his anti-Semitism and revanchism. But of course she has no idea. Hitler makes her wait, an Italian journalist is in front of her, she talks to the press officer, Ernst Hanfstaengl, “Harvard graduate, famous among his fellow students for his piano playing and his quirks, (…) the strangest choice for the press officer of a dictator you could imagine”.
When she enters the room, she thinks she is meeting Germany’s future dictator, “less than fifty seconds later I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case”. Thompson describes the man’s insignificance as “staggering”: shapeless, caricatured face, talkative, badly-mannered, insecure. “He is the embodiment of the little man.” He bluntly dictates to her that as soon as he is in power, he will dissolve parliament and the constitution.
But his rhetorical talent does not escape her. She challenges her American audience to think of Hitler as Aimee McPherson, an evangelical preacher who knew how to use mass media early on. “And then imagine this gift being used to stir people up in a country where everyone feels today’s pressures and tomorrow’s uncertainties.” Felix Stephen
Series: Roy Kent in “Ted Lasso”
Brett Goldstein plays misanthropic, very hairy footballer Roy Kent on the series.
(Photo: Ian West/picture alliance/dpa/PA Wire)
The series “Ted Lasso” ended on Wednesday. In addition to recognizing that a show can win a lot of awards with niceness rather than big drama, it has added to television history a character who has a very good chance of becoming legendary – the misanthropic, very hairy soccer player and coach Roy Kent. English comedian, actor and author Brett Goldstein created him and plays him himself as the embodiment of pent-up anger. Kent speaks tightly in a deep, hoarse voice, wears all black, and swears at least once in every sentence, even when he’s picking up his little blonde niece from elementary school. But then, without a word, he stretches out his hand, the girl takes it and so they walk across the schoolyard. For three seasons, Roy Kent tried to shed his armor, become more approachable, nicer. In the end he almost succeeded. But he has retained his rough charm. In his words: “Fuck”, what a guy! Kathleen Hildebrand
Classic: Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, “Mozart’s Mannheim”
Strokes of genius do not fall out of the blue, as can be observed with Mozart.
(Photo: Deutsche Grammophon)
It will probably never completely disappear, the cliché of the musical genius who falls from the sky. Sometimes, for example in the case of Mozart, it is difficult not to think of strokes of genius. That even these don’t come out of the blue can be observed quite well with Mozart. A central source of his sound ideas was the Mannheim Court Orchestra, among whose orchestra musicians a number of distinguished composers stood out. The sound of the modern symphony orchestra was created in this orchestra, and when Mozart heard this troupe, he was simply entranced. The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra has now brought together some of these composers on the CD “Mozarts Mannheim” – some works in world premiere recordings and almost all of the expected high musical quality. Helmut Mauro
Movie: “Touki Bouki” by Djibril Diop Mambéty
Every shot a little gag à la Chaplin: Scene from “Touki Bouki”.
(Photo: Trigon Film)
In 1973, the “Easy Rider” of Senegalese cinema was born. Now the masterpiece, which is far too unknown in this country and restored by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation, can be seen again on German cinema screens. The protagonists: a young man, slaughterhouse worker and petty crook, and a young woman, student. The location: the post-colonial Dakar in Senegal. Together they mount a motorcycle decorated with a bull’s horn skull and roar away. To where? Perhaps to distant Paris, which a jingle announces as a small piece of paradise on earth. In any case: in the direction of utopias.
Every shot is a little gag à la Chaplin, the young soldiers of fortune are two comedians from the disavowed lower class of the former colony. They don’t want to stick to the rules, knowing that they have to cheat and cut open in order to succeed. Here and there they swipe money, fancy clothes, a gay playboy’s car. On their journey, the colors (fantastic restored) catch the eye: the blue of the sea, the brown of the earth, the red of blood and car bodies. The colors intensify reality, transforming it into that phantasmagoria in which the young couple lets people on the side of the road cheer them on like rulers. But in truth, the film’s dizzying montage reigns supreme. She drives the characters together and apart again, to the rhythm of her dreams.
“Touki Bouki” is one of those 1970s films that head for utopias and leave everything behind – at some point even the utopias themselves. . There are open spaces, radical transformations, paths without a goal. The film constantly veers, moves freely in space and time. At the end it just jumps back to the beginning. As if he could move anywhere at any time to find new moments of departure. Philip Stadelmaier