ARTS&CULTURE
3
OF THE BEST
September
FILM RELEASES
After the annual silly season and its attendant dearth of movies, September is back with a filmic bang. First up is the much-anticipated Anna Karenina from Joe Wright (Atonement and Hanna), in which the
Culture Flash
THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHTS
ever-corseted Keira Knightly plays the title role in the Tolstoy classic tale of a married aristocratic woman who embarks upon an affair with Count Vronsky (Aaron Johnson). Also starring Jude Law, Olivia Williams and Emily Watson… Next, Walter Salles brings his take on Jack Kerouac’s classic On the Road, which documents the beat writer’s travels round the US, meeting the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Sam Riley plays Sal Paradise (Kerouac’s alter ego), while Garrett Hedlund takes on the free-spirited role of Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady’s alter ego)… and finally, Lawless, written by Nick Cave and starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce and Gary Oldman, is set in 1930s Virginia during prohibtion and tells the story of the Bondurant brothers, bootlegging boys who meet a variety of obstacles – and pretty lasses – along the way. John Hillcoat directs.
CROSSING CONTINENTS
Sebastian Faulks is perhaps best known for his First World War French trilogy. With A Possible Life, he casts his gaze globally, as he tells a myriad of interlaced stories that link both geography and time; a young man in the Second World War, a workhouse father ashamed of his son and an awkward young songstress are the disparate but interlaced characters that the story weaves its way through to get to the core of – essentially – what makes us human. £18.99, hardback; Published by Hutchinson
BLUE PLAQUE OF THE MONTH… WINSTON CHURCHILL, 28 HYDE PARK GATE, SW7
Winston Churchill barely needs any form of introduction. His leadership of Britain to victory against Hitler’s Nazi regime, his much-quoted speeches, the perma-present cigar… all are as well-known and loved as his caustic and devastating wit. But while this country’s most famous former PM is most closely associated with Downing Street and the Cabinet War Rooms, he spent the final 20 years of his life at this address, and although his health deteriorated, shy and retiring he was not, still regularly attending Parliament until 1964, the year before his death. 33
CULTURE FLASH.indd 33
30/08/2012 13:59