Quotes by Robert Gottlieb - Page 3

'Seven Sonatas,' with its flowing series of meetings between men and women in an identifiable emotional world, is in the mould of Jerome Robbins' glorious 'Dances at a Gathering.'
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Gathering
Glorious
Meetings
Men And Women
Mould
Series
Seven
Men Women World
Dances
Women Men World
Flowing
Copy Quote
Why movie and dance critics are taking 'The Company' seriously, I can't imagine. Are they impressed by Altman's reputation and naive sincerity? By the fluid semi-documentary approach?
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Critics
Fluid
Impressed
Reputation
Sincerity
Copy Quote
Yes, bad or mediocre ballets can be useful to the dancers and temporarily fun for the audience, but in the long run, the lowering of standards can only erode the art form we all love.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Mediocre
Standards
Art Form
Ballets
Dancers
Long Run
Lowering
Temporarily
Copy Quote
You have to surrender to a book. If you do, when something in it seems to be going askew, you are wounded. The more you have surrendered to a book, the more jarring its errors appear.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Errors
Surrender
Wounded
Appear
Jarring
Copy Quote
As for the once-revolutionary 'Agon,' after more than half a century, its lessons and revelations have been so absorbed into the language of ballet that it now seems almost conventional.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Conventional
Lessons
Revelations
Absorb
Copy Quote
What really matters is that 'Black Swan' deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially 'The Red Shoes,' another tale of a ballerina driven mad and suicidal.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballerina
Driven
Red
Suicidal
Cliches
Earlier
Exaggerate
Matters
Swan
Tale
Copy Quote
Editing requires you to be always open, always responding. It is very important, for example, not to allow yourself to want the writer to write a certain kind of book. Sometimes that's hard.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Book
Certain
Editing
Example
Hard
Responding
Writer
Allow
Open
For Example
Requires
Copy Quote
Jodi Melnick is hotly self-absorbed. Her onstage musicians are much too loud, and like so many narcissistic performers, she goes on much too long: She's interested in herself; why wouldn't we be?
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Loud
Narcissistic
Performers
Self Absorbed
Herself
Musicians
Onstage
Copy Quote
With literary fiction, generally a film maker falls in love with a book. In commercial fiction, it's a producer or studio falling in love with a book they can make into a movie with worldwide appeal.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Falling In Love
Appeal
Commercial
Maker
Falling
Literary
Generally
Literary Fiction
Producer
Studio
Worldwide
Copy Quote
A lot of people have a lot of faith in Karole Armitage. They see her as bold, inventive, indefatigable. 'America isn't working out? There's always Europe. Ballet? No? Go modern. Keep going! Show 'em!'
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Bold
Inventive
Copy Quote
'Eclipse' is a concept piece, and its concept centers on 36 large light bulbs strung from above in a geometrical pattern and at different heights, some of them at times down below the dancers' chest level.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Eclipse
Above
Below
Centers
Chest
Concept
Dancers
Geometrical
Heights
Large
Pattern
Piece
Strung
Copy Quote
Paul Taylor's 'Offenbach Overtures' has lots of zip and charm, and its pair of dueling soldiers in red, who end up starry-eyed about each other while their disgusted seconds take up the quarrel, is nonstop funny.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Charm
Disgusted
Red
Seconds
Lots
Nonstop
Pair
Paul
Quarrel
Soldiers
Taylor
Zip
Copy Quote
Ballet Hispanico is a mixture of ethnic, ballet, social, jazz - you name it, it's doing it. The company has been going strong for more than 20 years, and you can see why: It may not be refined, but it's full of beans.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Beans
Jazz
Refined
Ethnic
Mixture
Copy Quote
'Porgy and Bess' has never been thought of as a dance show, and yet it's filled with dance. It uses dance to punctuate the action, or as background, or as atmosphere; even when it's front and center, it isn't crucial.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Atmosphere
Crucial
Filled
Center
Uses
Copy Quote
Tolstoy may be right about happy and unhappy families, but in ballet, it works the opposite way: All good ballets are different from each other and all bad ones are alike, at least in one crucial respect - they're all empty.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Crucial
Empty
Unhappy
Opposite
Alike
Bad Ones
Tolstoy
Copy Quote
City Ballet has to develop choreographers of stature and a new approach to coaching before everything we value about it fades away and, in the great tradition of the Cheshire Cat, there's nothing left but Peter Martins' smile.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Cat
Fades
New Approach
Peter
Stature
Tradition
Copy Quote
The mystery of Christopher Wheeldon deepens. Yes, he's the most talented of the younger ballet choreographers - indeed, where's the competition? Yes, he's particularly good at nurturing dancers and identifying their essential qualities.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Competition
Identifying
Nurturing
Younger
Christopher
Dancers
Talented
Essential
Particularly
Indeed
Qualities
Yes
Copy Quote
'Empty Moves' is elegantly and coolly inventive. Two pairs of dancers shadow each other in slow, deliberate rearrangements and manipulations of legs and torsos, only occasionally switching partners or breaking free of the formal patterning.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Deliberate
Empty
Formal
Legs
Pairs
Partners
Shadow
Switching
Breaking
Dancers
Inventive
Occasionally
Slow
Copy Quote
When I was at Cambridge in the early fifties, there was a school nearby for training Army officers in Russian, and some imaginative genius came up with the idea of putting on Russian plays with the students to improve their language skills.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Army
Cambridge
Imaginative
Officers
Skills
Training
Early
Fifties
Nearby
Plays
Putting
Copy Quote
I was the only child, and I know my father had certain thoughts about me. He was a lawyer and extremely literary, but he would have been much happier if I had wanted to be a lawyer, a scientist, an engineer. But what I wanted to do was read.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Only Child
Scientist
Extremely
Literary
Happier
Copy Quote
With its vastly complicated plot and its immense cast of characters swirling around the case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce that has been grinding away in the Court of Chancery for decades, 'Bleak House' is, for many readers, Dickens's greatest novel.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Bleak
Court
Decades
Dickens
Immense
Plot
Grinding
Readers
Vastly
Copy Quote
There are a few writers whose lives and personalities are so large, so fascinating, that there's no such thing as a boring biography of them - you can read every new one that comes along, good or bad, and be caught up in the story all over again.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Caught
Fascinating
Biography
New One
Personalities
Copy Quote
I can't remember how many years it's been since I last saw a David Parsons program or what I saw whenever it was, but that isn't surprising, since I can't really remember the first half of a David Parsons program while I'm watching the second half.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Half
Program
Surprising
David
Saw
Second
Whenever
Copy Quote
Just as I was turning fifteen, in the spring of 1946, my parents took me to see 'The Glass Menagerie,' well into its year-long run. I had seen a number of shows on Broadway by then, but nothing like this - because there was nothing like this on Broadway.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Broadway
Fifteen
Spring
Turning
Glass
Copy Quote
How can educated and sophisticated viewers react so differently to a work of art? Is it just Kulture Klash? No, since most of the time there's no Klash at all. On the occasions when we disagree, it may be because we're looking for different things in dance.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Different Things
Disagree
Educated
Occasions
Sophisticated
Viewers
Art Time Work
Work Time Art
React
Copy Quote
We all need each other in publishing to make publishing work for authors in a variety of formats now and in the future. Anyone who thinks publishers don't bring anything to the table has a very narrow view and lack of knowledge about the industry as a whole.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Publishers
Variety
Authors
Formats
Narrow
Table
Copy Quote
It's often the case that the most strained moments in books are the very beginning and the very end - the getting in and the getting out. The ending, especially: it's awkward, as if the writer doesn't know when the book is over and nervously says it all again.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Awkward
Ending
Strained
Copy Quote
The first time the Kirov ballet was seen in America was on Sept. 11, 1961. The ballet was 'Swan Lake.' The ballerina was Inna Zubkovskaya. The place was the old Met, on what must have been one of the hottest nights of the year, and there was no air-conditioning.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballerina
Hottest
Time America First Time
Nights
Lake
Sept
Swan
Copy Quote
Almost the first thing you see after entering the Houdini exhibition at the Jewish Museum is a large-screen film of Harry Houdini hanging by his ankles upside-down from a tall building, high over a sea of men in fedoras, and thrashing his way out of a straitjacket.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ankles
Entering
Houdini
Sea
Jewish
Exhibition
First Thing
Harry
His Way
Museum
The First Thing
Copy Quote
The cows in Stella Gibbons's immortal 'Cold Comfort Farm' are named Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless, and that more or less is the verdict on 'Ocean's Kingdom,' the wildly hyped and wildly uninteresting collaboration between Peter Martins and Paul McCartney.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ocean
Cold
Collaboration
Comfort
Cows
Immortal
Peter
Pointless
Stella
Verdict
Aimless
Named
Less
Farm
Hyped
Mccartney
More Or Less
Paul
Paul Mccartney
Uninteresting
Wildly
Copy Quote
One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind?
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Blind
Charm
Determination
Eternal
Irresistible
Pure
Work Good People
Perform
Dancers
Mysteries
Plain
Supposedly
Copy Quote
The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of 'The Nutcracker' is domestic and small scale, so it's great to sit up close. But the second act features elaborate scenery and choreography, which are better to observe from a distance.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Choreography
Depends
Distance
Features
Instance
Scenery
Scale
Best Great Better
Seat
Domestic
Elaborate
Observe
Small Scale
Copy Quote
The man Dickens, whom the world at large thought it knew, stood for all the Victorian virtues - probity, kindness, hard work, sympathy for the down-trodden, the sanctity of domestic life - even as his novels exposed the violence, hypocrisy, greed, and cruelty of the Victorian age.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Kindness
Men
Sympathy
Cruelty
Dickens
Domestic Life
Exposed
Greed
Hard Work
Hypocrisy
Probity
Sanctity
Victorian
Life Work Age
Domestic
Large
Virtues
Stood
Whom
Copy Quote
For Russians, to whom Pushkin's poem 'Eugene Onegin' is sacred text, the ballet's story and personae are as familiar and filled with meaning as, for instance, 'Romeo' and 'Hamlet' are for us. Russians know whole stretches of it by heart, the way we know Shakespeare and Italians know Dante.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Ballet
Familiar
Filled
Instance
Russians
Dante
Hamlet
Italians
Meaning
Poem
Romeo
Shakespeare
Text
Whom
Copy Quote
After all these years of saying the same thing about the Alvin Ailey company - terrific dancers, awful repertory - I'm finally accepting the inevitable: I'm not going to change my mind, and they're not going to change their ways. And why should they, given their juggernaut success all over the world?
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Inevitable
Terrific
Dancers
Repertory
Same Thing
Copy Quote
Paris, as always, is swarming with Americans, and these days, it's also swarming with hamburgers. Oddly, though, it's not typically the Americans who are pursuing the perfect burger on the perfect bun with the obligatory side of perfect coleslaw; the Americans are pursuing the perfect blanquette de veau.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Hamburgers
Burger
Obligatory
Oddly
Pursuing
Copy Quote
There are certain historical figures of such importance that we need to know everything about them, which is why books about Napoleon, Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, and the great religious founders continue to proliferate; these lives require constant reevaluation and interpretation.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Constant
Figures
Founders
Importance
Interpretation
Julius
Arc
Caesar
Elizabeth
Queen
Joan
Lincoln
Napoleon
Proliferate
Require
Copy Quote
In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on the 50th anniversary of the New York City Ballet. My life, to a great extent, had been spent at and with the New York City Ballet, and I decided to try it. It was very scary, writing about something I loved so much and had such strong opinions about.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Anniversary
New York
Ballet
Decided
New York City
Scary
Strong
Vanity Fair
Life Great Me
Asked
Loved
City
Extent
Fair
Great Extent
New York City Ballet
Opinions
Piece
Spent
York
Copy Quote
'Black Swan' does what Hollywood movies have always done - it spends its energies on getting some surface things right while getting everything important wrong. Darren Aronofsky, the director, applies the same techniques and the same sensibility here as he did with 'The Wrestler,' only with a prettier protagonist.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Hollywood Movies
Sensibility
Movies Always Done
Energies
Prettier
Protagonist
Swan
Techniques
Copy Quote
Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of repertory in the early fall, having cut down on the relentlessly long spring season when dancers, critics and audiences droop on the vine, we wake up after the dog days of August with something to look at.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
August
Ballet
Critics
Ingenious
September
Spring
Wake Up
Relentlessly
Dancers
Vine
Copy Quote
You can approach 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death' in a variety or combination of ways: as a startlingly eccentric hobby; as a series of unresolved murder mysteries; as the manifestation of one woman's peculiar psychic life; as a lesson in forensics; as a metaphor for the fate of women; as a photographic study.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Approach
Combination
Eccentric
Fate
Forensics
Manifestation
Metaphor
Murder Mysteries
Peculiar
Psychics
Series
Unexplained
Variety
Lesson
Photographic
Mysteries
Nutshell
Psychic
Studies
Unresolved
Copy Quote
Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870, having produced fifteen novels, many of which can confidently be called great, as well as having accomplished outstanding work in activities into which his insatiable need to expend his vast energies - to achieve, to prevail - carried him: journalism, editing, acting, social reform.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Accomplished
Dickens
Editing
Fifteen
Insatiable
Journalism
Outstanding
Reform
Activities
Carried
Confidently
Vast
Energies
Expend
Prevail
Produced
Copy Quote
Who would have thought that a tap-dancing penguin would outpoint James Bond at the box office? And deserve to? Not that there's anything wrong with 'Casino Royale.' But 'Happy Feet' - written and directed by George Miller - is a complete charmer, even if, in the way of most family fare, it can't resist straying into the Inspirational.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Inspirational
Box Office
Deserve
Feet
Office
Box
Bond
Casino
Complete
Directed
Wrong
Fare
George
James
James Bond
Miller
Penguin
Copy Quote
Melissa Barak, an ex-City Ballet dancer and sometime choreographer, has put together an unspeakably dopey and incompetent mess called 'Call Me Ben,' combining ultra-generic dance, terrible dialogue and disastrous storytelling, about the founding of Las Vegas by the gangster Bugsy Siegel, who insists, violently, on being addressed as 'Ben.'
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Dance
Ballet
Ballet Dancer
Combining
Dialogue
Founding
Incompetent
Las Vegas
Melissa
Mess
Terrible
Vegas
Ben
Gangster
Choreographer
Disastrous
Insists
Sometime
Violently
Copy Quote
Martha Graham, along with George Balanchine, is one of the two commanding figures in 20th-century American dance. For those much younger than I am, her genius as a performer will have to be taken on faith - and on the always-suspect evidence of film. What will last, if things go well, is her genius as a choreographer, as a woman of the theater.
Robert Gottlieb / Writer
Evidence
Figures
Choreographer
Commanding
George
Graham
Martha
Performer
Copy Quote

Related Writer Authors

Voltaire
Writer
Sunday, Nov 21, 1694
Saturday, May 30, 1778
Zoltan Istvan
Writer
Zoe Valdes
Writer
Saturday, May 02, 1959
Zlata Filipović
Writer
Wednesday, Dec 03, 1980
Zitkala-Sa
Writer
Tuesday, Feb 22, 1876
Wednesday, Jan 26, 1938
Ziauddin Sardar
Writer
Wednesday, Oct 31, 1951
Zelig Pliskin
Writer
Zan Perrion
Writer
Saturday, Jul 02, 1966
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Writer
Yusuf Idris
Writer
Thursday, May 19, 1927
Thursday, Aug 01, 1991
Young-Ha Kim
Writer
Monday, Nov 11, 1968
Yoshiki Nakamura
Writer
Tuesday, Jun 17, 1969
Yoko Ogawa
Writer
Friday, Mar 30, 1962
Yiyun Li
Writer
Saturday, Nov 04, 1972
Yi Mun-Yol
Writer
Tuesday, May 18, 1948

View All Writer Quotes

Top Authors

Dolly Parton
Singer-Songwriter
Saturday, Jan 19, 1946
Will Rogers
Actor
Tuesday, Nov 04, 1879
Thursday, Aug 15, 1935
Henry Ford
Industrialist
Thursday, Jul 30, 1863
Monday, Apr 07, 1947
Charles Spurgeon
Preacher
Thursday, Jun 19, 1834
Sunday, Jan 31, 1892
Sun Tzu
Strategist
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Donald Trump
45Th President Of The United States
Friday, Jun 14, 1946
Henry David Thoreau
Author
Saturday, Jul 12, 1817
Tuesday, May 06, 1862
Winston Churchill
Former Prime Minister Of The United Kingdom
Monday, Nov 30, 1874
Sunday, Jan 24, 1965
Steve Jobs
Entrepreneur
Thursday, Feb 24, 1955
Wednesday, Oct 05, 2011
Jean De La Bruyere
Wednesday, Aug 16, 1645
Thursday, May 10, 1696
Helen Keller
Author
Sunday, Jun 27, 1880
Saturday, Jun 01, 1968
H. L. Mencken
Journalist
Sunday, Sep 12, 1880
Sunday, Jan 29, 1956
John C. Maxwell
Author
Thursday, Feb 20, 1947
Mae West
Actress
Thursday, Aug 17, 1893
Saturday, Nov 22, 1980
Stephen Hawking
Physicist
Thursday, Jan 08, 1942

View All Authors

Robert Gottlieb Quotes - Page 3

App & Tools

Related Writer Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

App & Tools

Related Writer Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page