kkraft's blog

The intersection of Alcee Fortier Boulevard and Chef Menteur Highway marks an abrupt change in the scenery of New Orleans East. An ordinary stretch of road lined with po’ boy shops and local businesses suddenly meets a busy Vietnamese marketplace in what is known as Village de L’Est.  Men and women garbed in silk and pointed straw hats frequent stores with boldly lettered Vietnamese characters: Pho Bang Restaurant, Kim Thoa Beauty Salon.    Read More »

At Pascal’s Manale, famed uptown eatery with the funny name, fresh seafood is paired with robust Italian accents for a seriously tantalizing result.  A sign on the door reads “proper attire required”—business casual—but once inside, formality is replaced by a familiar, friendly vibe.  Diners are invited to have a drink before dinner in the charming wood-paneled bar and watch fresh oysters being shucked while catching up with neighborhood friends.  Carmen Provenzano, Pascal’s sous chef for the past 12 years, meanders the dining rooms to check on customers when he’s not sautéing, roasting, or grilling.  Read More »

For an amateur art fan, the mention of a gallery opening tends to conjure images of pretentious types, clad in black, sipping champagne and vaguely referring to pieces as “expressive” or “moving.”  Most beginners wouldn’t dream of entering a gallery without the token beret and dark glasses, much less attending an opening with the intention to buy a work.  However, this fall brings several exhibitions to New Orleans’ Warehouse District that would be absolutely gauche to miss.  Arthur Roger, owner or Arthur Roger Gallery on Julia Street, provides simple steps for joining the art-savvy ranks:  Read More »

Jeanne-Pierre Jeancolas, in “Beneath the Despair, the Show Goes On,” describes Marcel Carné’s film Les Enfants du paradis as such:

The film exists.  Broad, complex, with a wealth of characters swept along by the action like the extras in the carnival scene on the Boulevard du Crime, Les Enfants du paradis marks a rare dimension in French Cinema.  Like some great novels, it is both dense and heterogeneous, fragmented into a plethora of heroes who reconcile history…with the historical imaginary…and with the contemporary imaginary of its creators. (French Film: texts and contexts page 84.)  Read More »

In “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema,” an article by André Bazin, the author declares, “it was montage that gave birth to film as an art, setting it apart from mere animated photography, in short, creating a language.”  Before individuals like Eisenstein, Bazin elaborates, the common way of editing film was “invisible” and did not register in the consciousness of the viewer.  Then came the advent of montage, an editing style that grabs the viewer’s attention.  The benefit of montage and obvious editing is that it takes advantage of the viewer’s awareness, creating an effect or making a subtle point by cutting between two or more scenes.  Several of the styles of montage Bazin identifies are utilized in Abel Gance’s 1927 film, Napoléon.  Read More »

Today we go to the cinema for any number of reasons: to chuckle at the latest Will Ferrell movie, to be thrilled by Quentin Tarantino, or to cry with our girlfriends over the new Kate Hudson chick flick.  We realize that what we are seeing on the screen is not real, but we enjoy the films regardless.  That was the dream of the first filmmakers—to recreate reality on a screen so people could enjoy it repeatedly, in theaters far and wide.  Tom Gunning’s article, “An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)credulous Spectator,” makes the point that early film viewers were not any less aware of this truth than we are today.  They did not dodge the train in Lumiere’s first film because they thought it would hit them; rather, spectators knew it was harmless but allowed themselves to feel the thrill anyway.   Read More »

Hiroshima, Mon Amour, by Resnais, is a film that chronicles the love affair between a French woman and Japanese man years after the bombing of Hiroshima, the man’s hometown.  Because he was at war, and the woman was in France, neither of them actually witnessed the tragic bombing.  However, its effects are still very present in Hiroshima when they meet there as strangers.   Read More »

Robert Stam and Louise Spence, in the article “Colonialism, Racism, and Representation: An Introduction,” make observations about European colonization of the “unsophisticated” rest of the world and attempts to convert, urbanize, and “civilize” Asian, African, and Latin American natives.  The authors make the point that stereotypes imposed on natives by the Europeans often stemmed from the behaviors of the European conquerors themselves:  Read More »