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Dewey Decimal Number: 070 EAN: 9780306812040 ISBN: 0306812045 Label: Da Capo Press Manufacturer: Da Capo Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 256 Publication Date: December 17, 2002 Publisher: Da Capo Press Studio: Da Capo Press Editorial Review: Product Description: For Naked City, his first collection, Weegee cruised the streets of 1940s New York in the wee hours in search of the sensational. Lewd, louche, licentious but always brimming with life (except when brimming with death), Weegee's photographs have endured decades of modern art criticism and are again enjoying a much-deserved cult revival. Amazon.com Review: 'If it bleeds, it leads' -- the cynical battle cry of today's tabloids -- might easily have been the motto of Arthur Fellig, the freelance photojournalist better known as Weegee, who cruised the streets of 1940s New York in the wee hours of the morning in search of the sensational. His pictures of children sleeping on fire escapes, blood-splattered corpses on sidewalks and amorous couples on the beach -- as seen in this reprint of his first book -- reveal that Weegee, unlike his latter day counterparts, had heart and soul. He also had a cockeyed sense of humor, as evidenced by his captions and camera tips. Related Items:      see moreAverage Rating:
 Rating:  - Poor picture qualityPoor paper quality makes the photographic reproductions look like bad photocopies. I was very disappointed. Rating: - Big Apple's snapperWeegee knew what kind of photos the editors of the New York daily tabloids wanted, in-your-face gutsy black and whites to capture the reader's imagination over the breakfast table. He always delivered too. This reprint of his 1945 book captures the energy of the Big Apple and yet there are no shots of skyscrapers. Instead the (mostly) ordinary folk of the city are shown getting on with their lives and deaths. Many of the photos are taken at night, a Weegee trademark. Inside buildings he used infrared film so he could shoot in near blackness and capture his subjects displaying emotions they would hide, had they known a camera was about. Out on the street he captured the latest human tragedy in stark close-up with a blinding flash of his Speed Graphic camera. The contents of this book are an amazing selection of photos but I was very disappointed by the reproduction, so only three stars. As far as I can tell, the photos have been scanned from the 1945 book rather than from original prints. The paper is coarse which doesn't help the reproduction either. This looks not much better than a book of photocopies. Far better I think to go for Miles Barth's Weegee's World. Although it does not have every photo from 'Naked City', the 250 included are printed as duotones on glossy paper, I particularly like this book because it shows many photos as original un-cropped prints. For instance, in his famous photo, 'The Critic' the three bystanders to the left of the two socialites are usually cropped out but here you can see how great the original was. This book also has three excellent essays about Weegee and his influence on other photographers in the Forties. Another choice might be Weegee's New York Photographs, 1935-1960 with 335 photos from 1935 to 1960 and like the Barth book it is large size and beautifully printed (the photos are duotones) on glossy paper and could possibly have all the photos in Naked City. Rating:  - How they lived...and diedA fine selection of Weegee's unposed, spontaneous vignettes of life in the city, at least, as it was in the 30's and 40's, equivalent of today's TV "fuzz and the wuzz". His accompanying commentary, unghosted and punchy, mirrors the b/w images; snappy, to the point. The paper stock used here is cheap, but then, these photos usually appeared in the morning paper...in a time when there were newspapers. |
Continuing a fortuitous tradition of capturing the Sondheim legacy on video recordings, this performance was filmed before a live audience in Los Angeles during the 1982 national tour. Almost 20 years later, Hearn returned to the role opposite Patti LuPone in an acclaimed concert production. But Sweeney Todd is an especially compelling experience in this 1982 version, complete with the clever staging tricks (e.g., the barber's chair) and as close to the original cast as we're likely to see. --David Horiuchi
