Skip to main content

Honest, brave, modest: why the world can't get enough of Tom Hanks

Directors, critics – even a president – have hailed the actor’s qualities, and his latest movie sees them all present and correct

A crowd stands, spellbound, in a muddy square in northern Texas, firelight flickering on the faces in the evening darkness. A newspaper story is being read aloud by a lone speaker, and each man and woman strains to hear the words, mouths twitching with effort and emotion. It is a news report that tells of a group of miners in peril, trapped underground elsewhere, in some other benighted place.

It is an unusual scene of the sort that would perhaps be summoned up by a film director who earned his spurs in the world of news and current affairs. And it’s true, News of the World, a poignant western, was directed by Paul Greengrass, alumni of British television’s old World in Action team and a big believer in the power of good reporting. But there is another reason for the rapt attention of this grimy audience: they are all listening to the voice of Tom Hanks, the nearest the liberal west has to a secular evangelist.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2YuG9xD
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV
Post a Comment
Read more

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs
Post a Comment
Read more