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6 sÜddeutsche zeitung MONDAY, JULY 16, 2012
CHESTER HIGGINS JR./THE NEW YORK TIMES
A Writer
Perseveres
In Iran
By LARRY ROHTER
After being arrested in 1974 by the
Savak, the shah’s secret police, the
Iranian writer Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
asked his interrogators just what crime
he had committed. “None,” he recalled
them responding, “but everyone we arrest
seems to have copies of your novels,
so that makes you provocative to revolutionaries.”
Since then Iran has, of course, experienced
an Islamic revolution and
three decades of theocratic rule, and
Mr. Dowlatabadi, now 71, has gone on
to write numerous other books, including
“The Colonel,” which has just been
published in the United States. But one
thing remains unchanged: Those in
power in Iran continue to regard him
and his work as subversive.
“As a writer I embarked on a path of
creating epic narratives of my country,
which necessarily contain a lot of history
which has not been written,” Mr.
Dowlatabadi said. “But in doing that I
have been required to have lots of patience,
perseverance and very few expectations
from life.”
“The Colonel,” a novel about the 1979
revolution and its violent aftermath, is
a case in point. The five children of the
title character, an officer in the shah’s
army, have all taken different political
paths and paid a heavy price. The story
unfolds on one rainy night as the colonel
is trying to retrieve and bury the body
of his youngest daughter, who has been
tortured to death for handing out leaflets
criticizing the new regime.
“It’s about time everyone even remotely
interested in Iran read this novel,”
The Independent of London said in
a review when “The Colonel” was published
in Britain last fall, describing it
as a powerful portrayal of “a society
ravaged by a warped morality.”
The novel was written in the early
1980s, around the time of the events it
describes, when prominent intellectu-
“Either they would take me
to prison or prevent me
from working. They would have
their ways.”
Mahmoud dowlatabadi
Iranian writer
als were being executed, and Mr. Dowlatabadi
was called in for questioning. “I
hid it in a drawer when I finished,” said
Mr. Dowlatabadi, fearing it would lead
to his being blacklisted, which would
have interfered with other projects he
had in mind, including what became
“Bygone Days of the Elderly.”
“I did not want even to have this on
their radar,” he said, referring to “The
Colonel.” “Either they would take me
to prison or prevent me from working.
They would have their ways. After I
wrote this, but when they still didn’t
know I had written it, they gave me a
warning that I shouldn’t teach at the
university anymore, that I should just
sit at home and keep quiet. ”
“The Colonel,” though available in
English and German, does not yet exist
in an authorized Persian-language
version. Mr. Dowlatabadi said he finally
submitted the manuscript three years
ago to censors at the Ministry of Culture
and Islamic Guidance, which must
approve all books before publication in
Iran, but received no response until Iranian
readers heard about the book and
began clamoring for access to it.
“Finally the vice chairman of books
in the ministry read it,” Mr. Dowlatabadi
said, “and under pressure responded:
‘Yes, it’s a good book. But it’s
a different account of the revolution.’
He said, ‘This is not our understanding
of how the revolution occurred.’ So
I said, ‘But it is my understanding of
what occurred.’ In the meantime they
didn’t say yes, and they didn’t say no.
So it’s still stuck.”
To have “The Colonel” published in
Persian, Mr. Dowlatabadi could theoretically
turn to one of the émigré presses,
or even authorize a kind of samizdat
edition for circulation in Iran. But he
said he did not want to do that.
“My philosophy, my way of working,
is not by confrontation,” he said. “I want
to keep writing and keep being an Iranian
novelist in Iran.”
Yes, he continued, “I have written
things that if you read them they create
questions in your head,” but he added:
“I did not do it confrontationally, against
the state. In fact it’s a good thing for the
regime — past, present and future —
to have the experience of writers who
work within the system.”
By JON CARAMANICA
LOS ANGELES — Pop music’s celebrity
universe has widened in recent years to include
producers and songwriters; they’re
as crucial to what you hear on the radio as
the stars, and increasingly known to the
public. But there are deeper levels of highly
specialized talent that often go unrecognized.
Kuk Harrell is among them.
The job of Mr. Harrell, 47, whose clients
include Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Jennifer
Lopez, is to make sure a star’s vocal is as
powerful and flawless as it can be.
In the studio, rarely, if ever, does a star
sing a song the whole way through. A singer
working with Mr. Harrell covers a few bars
over and over, with different emphases and
inflections, until Mr.
Harrell hears what he
wants. The process re-
peats for each section.
Only after the singer is
gone are the best pieces
stitched together into
the song you hear.
Mr. Harrell’s work
begins long before his
clients show up in the
studio, as he picks what kinds of sound
equipment will be best.
As the artist sings, Mr. Harrell’s eyes remain
fixed on the computer screen, where
each new take is represented in Pro Tools,
the production software, by a jagged line.
The data pile up. “I’ll take it in chunks,” he
explained. “If they sang it amazing, I’ll get
the first chunk and go, ‘Oh that was beautiful.’
Boom. I’ll drag that up.”
The process then repeats. “All the way
down, until I get to the end of the record.”
After an hour or two of takes the singer’s
work is done. Mr. Harrell then “tunes” the
compiled vocal, making sure of the pitch,
By GINANNE BROWNELL
WARSAW — Zuzanna Ziolkowska learned
of her Jewish roots about a decade ago.
Her mother told her casually over lunch
one afternoon that Ms. Ziolkowska’s father,
with whom she has no contact, was Jewish.
Though she was a bit shocked, she said that
even as a young girl she had been keenly
interested in and felt a connection to Jewish
history and literature.
Since that conversation, the 30-year-old
artist has been exploring her identity and
what it means to be Jewish in several of
her works. This spring she participated in
a group show at the city gallery in Bielsko-
Biala; she painted a column in the gallery
in red and yellow to represent the red and
yellow synagogue that was destroyed during
World War II and was located where the
gallery now stands.
“Painting is the way to express perceptions
of reality, and for me, it is a way to
work the past out,” she said.
Ms. Ziolkowska is one of a growing number
of artists exploring the dichotomy of
being both Polish and Jewish in modern
Poland. Writers, playwrights, filmmakers
and visual artists are tackling everything
from anti-Semitism and the Holocaust to
their families’ Communist pasts and identity
issues.
“You cannot imagine Polish culture with-
and “grooves” it, matching it to the rhythm
of the backing track.
He says most of his work is getting stars
to trust him. “It’s never, ‘Man, you screwed
up,’ ” he said. “I can tell Jennifer she’s not
singing it the right way without telling
her that she’s not singing it the right way:
‘Give it a sexy vibe like you’re singing in the
shower.’ ”
Ms. Lopez said Mr. Harrell “can find your
strengths.”
“One of his favorite lines,” she says, is:
“ ‘That’s a superstar performance right
there! That’s it!’ And it just makes you feel
so great about what you’re doing.”
For each of his regular artists Mr. Harrell
has a bank of such phrases. With Rihanna
he’ll push her with
“There she is! She just
showed up!”
The final product
then, blends the songwriter’s
original lyric
and melody, the singer’s
particular tone
and approach, and Mr.
Harrell’s instincts.
“He knows where
my voice can sit and what notes I can hit,”
said Mr. Bieber, for whom Mr. Harrell has
“become kind of an uncle.”
But Mr. Harrell noted, “If I’m not careful,
I can let that turn into, ‘We’re buddies, we
hang out,’ and I can’t press him.”
When superstars work with Mr. Harrell,
they aren’t running to the machines and
away from their own voices. Rather, they’re
trying to ensure that they sound as engaged
and alive as possible.
“We want to enhance the artist’s authenticity,”
said Chris Hicks, who was executive
vice president at Island Def Jam, home to
Mr. Bieber, Ms. Lopez and Rihanna. “You
out Jewish culture,” said Pawel Passini, a
Lublin-based director and playwright. “I
think most people are conscious of that; the
problem is how to say it and let people deal
with it.”
One way has been a trend in Jewish festivals
that, instead of focusing on traditional
Polish-Jewish culture from the past, are
highlighting contemporary artistic life.
The 7@Nite festival in Krakow recently
opened the city’s seven synagogues at night
to host everything from a fashion show to an
exhibition on synagogue architecture. And
Warsaw is host to festivals throughout the
year — including the recent Jewish Book
Days and Jewish Motifs International Film
Festival — that are highlighting contributions
to Jewish and Polish culture.
“In many ways, the idea of Judaism in
Poland is frozen in 1939 because that was
the last time there was a large visible presence,”
said Jonathan Ornstein, the director
of Krakow’s Jewish Community Center.
arts & styles
The Silent Partner Behind the Voices of the Stars
An expert at coaxing
stars to sound more
like themselves.
buy a Bieber or Rihanna because you believe
in them, and this is part of that.”
It falls to Mr. Harrell not just to elicit
sterling vocals, but also to highlight what’s
distinctive about each voice: Ms. Lopez’s
blend of husk and flirt, Rihanna’s petulant
purr, Mr. Bieber’s sweet coo.
“Rihanna, you hear two bars — Oh, my
God, that’s Rihanna,” Mr. Harrell said.
Having the certainty of Mr. Harrell’s ear
comes with a price: several thousand dollars
per song and a cut of the royalties.
“Believe,” Mr. Bieber’s second full-length
album, which was released last month, had
MONIKA BLEDOWSKA AND MARCIN FRANCZAK
Poles are reasserting their Jewish roots. A graphic on display at Krakow’s 7@Nite event.
Polish Jews Re-emerge on the Arts Scene
Across Warsaw and
Krakow, a rekindling of a
culture lost to war.
“There is this idea that Jews only listen to
klezmer music, they have long beards and
speak Yiddish.”
Due to World War II, by 1950, Poland’s
Jewish population had dropped from more
than three million to about 45,000. The population
shrank further with the emigration
of more than 10,000 Jews between 1968 and
1969 when authorities adopted anti-Jewish
policies in response to Israel’s Six Day War.
Those who chose to stay in Poland —
estimates for the community now vary
from 10,000 to 20,000 — tended to be either
staunch Communists or those who had concealed
their Jewish roots. That meant that
Jewish Poles involved in the arts tended to
shy away from dealing with the Holocaust
and their Jewish past in general.
But starting in the late 1970s, Poles began
to explore the country’s Jewish past and
culture, and from the late 1980s, Jewish culture
has become more popular in Poland.
Mikolaj Lozinski, a graduate of the Sorbonne,
said it was the process of writing his
semi-autobiographical novel “Ksiazka”
(The Book) that helped give him an understanding
of how being Jewish influenced
his parents, grandparents and himself.
“I started to feel how important for me it
is that I have those Jewish roots,” he said.
“I think for my generation it is much easier
than for my parents’ generation.”
STEPHANIE DIANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
the biggest first week of any album this
year, selling 374,000 copies, according to
Nielsen SoundScan. Its first single, “Boyfriend,”
has already sold more than 2.5 million
copies.
“Doing what I do you can make over a million
a year,” Mr. Harrell said in an e-mail.
He has also expanded beyond vocal production.
Interscope has given him his own
imprint, Suga Wuga Entertainment, to
which he’s signed a sister pop trio, Calvillo,
and a rock band, Savannah Van Band. He
often works with his primary clients on live
shows, TV appearances and more.
By KRISTIN HOHENADEL
“The things that I prefer in this world,
my reasons for living, are books and
women,” the French director Benoît Jacquot
said. “For me the cinema is the best
way to unite them.”
His new film, “Farewell, My Queen,” is
adapted from a prize-winning 2002 book
by the French writer Chantal Thomas.
(Mr. Jacquot wrote the screenplay with
Gilles Taurand.) The movie, which
opened this year’s Berlin Film Festival,
was released across Europe during
spring and summer. Set in the final days
before the French Revolution, it revolves
around a romantic triangle of Marie Antoinette
(Diane Kruger), her confidante
Madame de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen)
and Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux),
a servant whose task it is to read to the
queen.
Mr. Jacquot’s love for literature has inspired
projects including a screen adaptation
of an unfinished book by Marivaux
(“Marianne,” from 1997, starring Ms.
Ledoyen) and a movie about the Marquis
de Sade (“Sade,” with Daniel Auteuil in
the lead role, in 2000).
He said he knew from the first page
that he wanted to adapt Ms. Thomas’s
book into a film, intrigued by how it focuses
on a single point of view, a strategy
he has employed in other films that follow
young women grappling with dramatic
events in brief spans. The book’s
narrator was a middle-aged Sidonie
looking back on the events of her youth;
Mr. Jacquot has her dealing with them in
the present.
“I think one of the things that attracted
Benoît is that the story is told from
an entirely feminine point of view,” Ms.
Thomas said by telephone from Paris. “I
think that desire is what makes us create.
It’s part of our creative genius. In
Benoît’s case his way of seeing and his
intelligence are inseparable from a certain
eroticism.”
Mr. Jacquot, 65, decided to become a
filmmaker at 13, influenced by American
movies and the French New Wave.
He began his film career in his early 20s
as an assistant to Marguerite Duras and
wrote and directed his first film in 1975.
But his career, which includes documentaries,
television, theater and opera
productions in addition to feature films,
began to take its defining turn in the late
1980s.
In 1990 he made “The Disenchanted”
with a 17-year-old Judith Godrèche, a
real-life love interest whom he had first
Kuk Harrell, center, splices bits of
a song into a whole for singers like
Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez and Justin
Bieber, near left.
During one stretch last year he was working
with Rihanna in London, while wrapping
up Mr. Bieber’s Christmas album,
twice flying back to the United States to
work with Ms. Lopez. In between sessions
for “Believe” in February, he squeezed in a
night working on a song for Ciara, and got a
call to work on the debut album by Melanie
Amaro, a television song contest winner.
Last month he traveled to Panama, Venezuela,
Chile, Argentina and Brazil with Ms.
Lopez on her world tour. This year he’s also
worked with Cher, Celine Dion and Keyshia
Cole.
One February night in the studio, Mr.
Bieber, a day away from his 18th birthday,
was working on “Believe,” the new album’s
title track. He took the song’s soaring
hook: “I don’t know how I got here/I knew
it wouldn’t be easy/But your faith in me was
so clear/It didn’t matter how many times I
got knocked on the floor.”
Mr. Harrell shouted, “I love it. I love that
soft tone too.”
Mr. Bieber called back, “Do it again?”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Harrell said. “You killin’
it. I just need to understand you just a
little bit more.”
Mr. Bieber tried again.
“Wooooooo!” Mr. Harrell exulted.
“That’s incredible.”
Mr. Bieber came out of the booth. “I’m so
excited for my birthday, I can hardly even
concentrate,” he said.
“But you’re killin’ it, though,” Mr. Harrell
replied. And with that, Mr. Bieber went
back to work.
French Director’s Obsession
With ‘Mystery of Women’
chosen for a role in his 1988 film “The Beggars.”
The movie was a popular success,
and Mr. Jacquot became known for films
that often focused on young female leads.
In 1995 “A Single Girl,” starring a 17-yearold
Ms. Ledoyen, was
another hit that put Ms.
Ledoyen on people’s
radar.
“Benoît is someone
who in a certain way
doesn’t change,” Ms.
Ledoyen, now 35, said
by telephone from
Paris. “He stays very
loyal to his desires, to
his vision of cinema, and that’s his great
strength. It had been more than 15 years
since we had worked together, but it felt
like yesterday.”
He happily admits a fixation with girls
on the brink of womanhood.
“It’s a very filmable age where one
passes from one state to another and the
cinema represents that better than anything,”
he said. And he claims it’s something
of a job requirement to fall in love
A filmmaker who admits
he aims to fall in love
with his actresses.
with his every ingénue. “I can’t imagine
filming an actress without having some
kind of amorous link with her, it’s impossible,”
he said. “Even if it’s just one scene,
there’s something amorous about the act
of filming a woman.”
Ms. Seydoux, 26, said by telephone from
Paris: “Benoît is a bit like a woman in his
desire to be swept off his feet. He’s pretty
feminine himself, and he’s attracted to
women and obsessed with femininity,
and I think the mystery of women is allencompassing
for him. The way he films
an actress is his way of making love to her,
it’s very personal.”
Mr. Jacquot said he hopes to keep chasing
pretty girls down the street with his
camera as long as he can get away with it.
Despite his decades-long quest, he said he
isn’t sure he understands the opposite sex
any better than he ever did.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said.
“It’s like the horizon: the closer you get,
the farther away it seems.”
CAROLE BETHUEL/COHEN MEDIA GROUP; TOP, VALERIE MACON/GETTY IMAGES
Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette in Benoît Jacquot’s new film, “Farewell,
My Queen,” set in the final days before the outbreak of the French Revolution.