The New York Times - USA (2020-10-17)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2020 C1

Y

NEWS CRITICISM

2 FILM

A coronavirus documentary.

BY SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

3 DANCE

In France, an actual live

audience. BY ROSLYN SULCAS

6 ALBUM REVIEW

A deluxe reissue

unveils Tom Petty’s

creative process.

BY LINDSAY ZOLADZ

WILL MOVIEGOING SURVIVEthe pandemic? The

question sounds both trivial — there are surely

graver matters to worry about — and unduly apoca-

lyptic. Movie theaters, after all, have reopened in

many parts of the country, and some people went to

see “Tenet” last month. But not as many as Warner

Bros. had hoped for, and few enough to start the fall

film season under a pessimistic cloud.

Lately, the news has only become grimmer. On Oct.

5, Regal Cinemas, the second-largest exhibition

chain in the United States, announced that it would

temporarily shut down its more than 500 theaters.

Studios have pushed most of their high-profile 2020

holiday releases into 2021 — for now. And last week

Disney let it be known that the new Pixar feature,

“Soul,” originally scheduled to open in theaters in

June, would debut on the Disney+ streaming plat-

form in December, bypassing multiplexes altogether.

Moviegoers at an AMC

theater in Franklin, Tenn.,

after it was reopened in

August. The specter of

empty movie houses was

haunting Hollywood well

before the pandemic.

JASON KEMPIN/GETTY IMAGES

The Flickering Future of Movie Theaters

The pandemic and

entertainment from

Netflix and other

streaming services are

keeping moviegoers at

home, prompting some

film fans to rethink the

role of cinemas.

A.O. SCOTT CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

By A.O. SCOTT

CONTINUED ON PAGE C2

That news was a teaser of sorts for the corporate

blockbuster that arrived on Monday: the announce-

ment of a restructuring at Disney that would, in the

words of the chief executive, Bob Chapek, involve

“managing content creation distinct from distribu-

tion.” “Our creative teams,” Chapek’s statement ex-

plained, laying on the poetry, “will concentrate on

what they do best — making world-class, franchise-

based entertainment — while our newly centralized

global distribution team will focus on delivering and

monetizing that content in the most optimal way

across all platforms.”

Those words don’t exactly pronounce a death sen-

tence for theaters, but they do express a bottom-line

indifference about their future. Whether cinemas

survive, Disney will find screens and viewers. Net-

flix, which is sprinkling some of its 2020 releases into

theaters, has built a subscription empire on the belief

that people would just as soon stay home and surren-

THE EPISODE“Hartsfield’s Landing,” from

the third season of “The West Wing,” first

aired in February 2002, which was approxi-

mately 200 years ago.

Donald Trump was still two years from

joining “The West Wing” on NBC with “The

Apprentice” — his main TV gig at the time

was co-starring with Grimace in a commer-

cial for the McDonald’s Big ‘N Tasty burger.

Mark Zuckerberg had yet to start classes at

Harvard. Elections played out at the rela-

tively staid tempo of network TV news. And

an idealistic network drama about politics

could still be a Top 10 show, averaging over

17 million viewers an episode.

On Thursday, HBO Max premiered a

stage performance of “Hartsfield’s Land-

ing.” Its ostensible purpose was to benefit

the nonprofit group When We All Vote. But

it couldn’t help seeming like the prying open

of a time capsule.

It’s not alone, however, in trying to fit in

one last civics lesson before the polls close.

It joins several stage works arriving on TV

— a hip-hop musical, a furious feminist read

of the constitution, a quirkily political the-

atrical concert — that are framing the anxi-

eties of 2020 within the pop culture of the

last two decades.

Nostalgia for Norms

As TV series go, “The West Wing” was a rel-

ative no-brainer to adapt for the stage. Its

creator, Aaron Sorkin (“To Kill a Mocking-

bird”), always sounds as if he were writing

for the theater even when he isn’t.

Recorded under coronavirus protocols at

the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles, the

performance instantly recalls why the se-

ries was such an intoxicating entertain-

ment and seductive ideal. The original cast

members are grayer, but their interactions

still sparkle. (Sterling K. Brown fills in for

John Spencer, who died in 2005.)

But the format also underscores the dis-

tance between then and now, as if the poli-

JAMES PONIEWOZIK CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Today’s Anxieties Viewed

Through Yesterday’s Lens

Ahead of the election, televised

theatrical productions of recent

vintage explore democracy.

‘The West Wing’ and

David Byrne play on

American stages.

CONTINUED ON PAGE C4

The judge presiding over perhaps the
longest-running art restitution dispute had
not been born when the family of Baron Mor
Lipot Herzog, one of Hungary’s most promi-
nent bankers, filed a claim in Budapest in
1945 for a collection of 2,500 artworks, tap-
estries and pieces of Renaissance furniture.
After 75 years, the case files from the still
unresolved claim hold hundreds of thou-
sands of pages in English, Hungarian, Rus-
sian, Polish, French, Italian, German, Span-
ish, Portuguese and Dutch. There have
been 11 court decisions, five appeals and 15
claims by roughly 30 lawyers in the United
States, Hungary, Russia, Poland, France,
Germany and Switzerland.
A vast majority of works from a collection
that once included 10 El Grecos and paint-
ings by Goya, Velázquez, Hals, Courbet,
Van Dyck, Corot, Renoir, Monet and
Corot’s “Portrait of a Woman” was once Baron Mor Lipot Herzog’s.

HERZOG FAMILY ARCHIVE

Art Is Long.

This Case

Is Longer.

After 75 years and 15 claims,

a bid to regain dozens of lost

treasures inches forward.

By MILTON ESTEROW

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