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Boston Globe
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
‘American Masters' explores the origins of Hannah Arendt
Or this: 'If everybody always lies to you the consequence is not that you believe the lies but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. And the people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.' Advertisement Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem, attending the trial of Adolf Eichmann, 1961. Wikimedia Commons In one sense, Arendt makes for a poor documentary subject. The title of her final, posthumously published book is 'The Life of the Mind' (1977). The library and seminar room were where she was most at home. Advertisement At the same time, she's a terrific subject. While Arendt's words and moral example are what matter about her and why she's remembered, her appearance was striking. Early photographs show a radiant earnestness that's breathtaking. In later photographs (Arendt died in 1975), her face has a grave, seamed majesty: a mirror to the life of the mind. In addition, Arendt led a life of almost operatic tumult and upheaval. Born in 1903, she grew up in a secular Jewish family in East Prussia and Berlin. While in graduate school, she had an extended affair with Martin Heidegger. Three things about that relationship matter: neither party ever quite got over it; Heidegger was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century; and he was a Nazi. After Hitler came to power, Arendt was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo. She fled to Czechoslovakia, then Paris. When the war broke out, the French put her in an internment camp. Escaping, she reached the United States in 1941. Another bit of implicit commentary? The word 'refugee' recurs throughout the documentary. Advertisement However indirectly, Arendt is back in the news. She's among the 250 selections for President Trump's proposed Mark Feeney is a Globe arts writer . Mark Feeney can be reached at
Boston Globe
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Get an early peek at the new Ken Burns documentary about the American Revolution
Advertisement Two snippets from the documentary are now available for viewing online. The Mark Feeney is a Globe arts writer . L-R: Filmmakers David Schmidt, Sarah Botstein, and Ken Burns. Stephanie Berger The clip offers two elements familiar to Burns devotees. The camera pans over a painting of the battle, and viewers hear from two talking-head experts. One, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson, calls the battle, won by the British at great cost, 'a Pyrrhic victory of the first order, four of the most awful hours of combat in American history.' Advertisement The English historian Stephen Conway elaborates on that, noting the British casualty rate that day was 40 percent. Conway adds that that would remain the highest percentage of casualties for the British Army for more than 140 years, until the first day of the Battle of the Somme, in World War I. That bloody day in Charlestown would loom large in British decision-making over the course of the next eight years. Mark Feeney can be reached at
Boston Globe
16-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Land ho! Edwin Land, that is
Land (1909-1991) spent just one semester at Harvard before dropping out. That didn't keep him from earning more than 500 patents. His prowess as an inventor brought comparisons to Thomas A. Edison and made him a hero of Steve Jobs. The Polaroid of its '60s and '70s heyday has been likened to Apple: its technological innovativeness also put it on the cutting edge of design and style. Polaroid back then was as cool as a corporation could get and still be in the Fortune 500. Part of that coolness was Land's being nearly as talented as an entrepreneur and impresario as he was as an inventor. He understood, for example, that associating instant cameras, the company's best-known product, with art photography would give it cachet — and thus bring in more cash. (At its height, the company had revenues of $2 billion, and that was back when a billion was still a billion .) The first Polaroid Land camera, the Model 95, was introduced in February 1947. Soon after, Land hired no less a figure than Ansel Adams as a Polaroid consultant. Advertisement Betty Ford taking a Polaroid photograph at the White House. National Archives Advertisement Neither Polaroid's association with art photography nor the number of Land's patents is noted in 'Mr. Polaroid.' There's very little about him as a person. No mention is made, for example, of the story that it was his young daughter wondering why she couldn't see a photograph as soon as it was taken that inspired Land to invent instant photography. These are instances of a basic patchiness to 'Mr. Polaroid.' Segments are devoted to Land's openness to hiring women and giving them major responsibilities, almost unheard of in corporate American at that time and his commitment to hiring Black workers. Conversely, Polaroid sold its ID-2 camera system to the South African government for use in apartheid passbooks. Edwin Land demonstrating the Land Camera for the Optical Society of America, April 1947. Harvard University, Baker Library The politics of Polaroid matters, but the attention does seem disproportionate. Much of the wonder of the company was how it mattered in so many sectors: cultural, social, and artistical, as well as technological and financial. The hour-long 'Mr. Polaroid' is that rare documentary which might have gained from having more running time. It does have its virtues. The technical explanations are very good. The wealth of period photographs and news footage are great to look at. But the voiceover, read by the actress The SX-70 was the most famous Polaroid camera. The second most famous was the Swinger. Introduced in 1965, it was the company's first real pop sensation. The documentary includes a clip from one of the TV Advertisement Mark Feeney is a Globe arts writer . Mark Feeney can be reached at
