A year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the arts community--including Banks, whose novel Dead Air comes out on Sept. 5--is among those starting to recover from creative numbness. 

The responses to the attack seem to fall into three main categories. The first is epitaph-like memorials of the day itself, such as Anne Nelson's salute to New York City firemen, The Guys, starring Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, which has been filmed with Sigourney Weaver.  Or British actor and director Steven Berkoff's solo performance Requiem to Ground Zero.  (Both, along with dozens of other Sept. 11-themed shows, graced this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.)  "I haven't tried to make political capital," says Berkoff. "I feel deeply for the victims and wanted to portray that."

While Berkoff uses verse to emphasize the epic magnitude of the disaster, French playwright Michel Vinaver goes one step further.  His homage, The 11th September 2001, which will premiere at Barcelona's National Theater of Catalonia in October, unites expressions heard on and around the day itself with his own translation of Euripides' The Trojan Women.  "There is an illuminating relationship between the fall of Troy and Sept. 11," he says.  "These two huge events of a mythic size seem to form a span of history."

Iain Banks thinks Dead Air slots into the second category, which examines the state of the world after the attacks.  The story, about radio Disc Jockey Ken and his affair with a gangster's wife, begins with guests at a party merrily throwing random objects from the roof of a tall building.  (Images of falling pervade the book.)  Then comes the news from New York, and Ken starts filling his radio airtime with various political diatribes on topics ranging from the Bush presidency to the Middle East. 

"Ken's arguments, although caricatured, crystallize today's issues," says Banks.  "He wants a better world, and it's important to stay idealistic.  Besides, art must sometimes be an irritant to stimulate debate."

Debate is at the heart of French filmmaker Alain Brigand's latest project, 11'09'01, as well. He asked 11 directors to film self-contained segments lasting precisely 11 minutes and 9 seconds each plus one frame (a restriction that one participant, Indian director Mira Nair, called "French conceptual bullshit").  Brigand describes the project--which also includes segments by Sean Penn and Ken Loach--as " ...an open dialogue.  We have people from different cultures sharing the different implications they draw from the event."  It is to be released in Paris on Sept. 11 and may well prove controversial, since some of the films depict stridently anti-American attitudes.

Artists in the third category are those trying to influence future events.  The Oxford Research Group, a British pacifist think tank, is to mount a series of performances around Sept. 11 at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio.  Music by Chloë Goodchild, who was flying over New York near the time of the attacks, will alternate with poetry readings and speeches from those who have renounced violence.  "The arts," says the organization's founder Scilla Elworthy, "can bring the heart to the aid of the head, the personal to the political."

What power has theater to influence people's views?  "Violence is often unthinking," says Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London and one of Elworthy's performers.  "But if we can get people to experience through the arts some of the problems with that response, maybe the memory of what they felt then will give them pause when they face an important decision. The theater has the power to confront such issues because it's primarily entertainment."

Rylance also quotes Shakespeare on the role of an entertainer from As You Like It: "Invest me in my motley: give me leave/ To speak my mind, and I will ... / Cleanse the foul body of the infected world."  To mourn, to discuss, to try to make things better--the arts world has set itself a mighty task following Sept. 11.  And the words are starting to flow.

(x)X(x) Marks the Spot,
for Better or Worse

Vin Diesel just might be the hottest action star since Arnold and Stallone,
which is some solace for the backers of this tenuous hit
 

Months before its release, xXx (Sony Releasing, August) was being hailed as a sure-fire blockbuster. Gushing reviews of the script popped up on movie sites everywhere.  A sequel is already in pre-production, for which star Vin Diesel is reportedly receiving a cool $20 million.   All these things are the mark of a great movie ... or of great hype.  Unfortunately, in xXx's case, if you had to choose sides, the hype definitely overpowers the substance.

The good, the bad, and the ... uhh ... well, you get the point

Oh, the film is fun, to a degree.  But in looking back at director Rob Cohen's previous hit, The Fast and the Furious, a movie in which the action, plot, and characters fit together like a well-oiled editing machine, you begin to wax philosophical.  What would X have been like had it only been better written?  Because it wasn't, the movie finds itself relying on Diesel to pull it off.  But even his blocky shoulders can carry only so much weight. The film opens with a labored swack at the James Bond franchise, complete with dapper, tuxedo-bedecked secret agent being executed by Yorgi (Marton Csokas).  Although little more than a hoaky accent having a bad hair day, Yorgi is nonetheless xXx's main villain.  As such, he heads up Anarchy 99, a band of former Warsaw Pact commandos who've traded in their Marxist fervor for criminal enterprise. Predictably, the commandos are bent upon destroying civilization as we know it via a sketchy bio-weapon being developed by an even sketchier bunch of Russian scientists. (Isn't the Cold War dead?)  We'd love to say that's the worst of the film, but we can't.  The best you can hope for if you spring for a seat is escapism in its purest (if at times most unbelievable) reincarnation.  All of which isn't necessarily bad, unless you're tied into that whole "quality" thing bouncing around Tinseltown these days. Still, despite the fact that anti-hero Xander Cage (Diesel) is abducted by National Security Agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson, in an all-too-brief cameo) and forced to beat up people, skydive out of a plane, and jump motorcycles 150 feet into the air, there's plenty of action, if all too little reality. For example, the high-flying motorcycle work is tame compared to the gut-wrenching antics of the Crusty Demons of Dirt motocross series.  A scene in which Cage slides down a staircase railing on a dinner tray would be right at home in the infamous CKY2K skate video.  The snowboarding classic Kapow! is littered with sights similar to a jaw-dropping xXx sequence in which our hero flies down a mountainside about 20 yards ahead of an avalanche. Far from smooth, the film's pace is bumpier than an icy mogul field on a black-diamond run at Taos. The story's meandering detour to Colombia is ridiculously awkward, as are the numerous scenes between Cage and his police contact in Prague, the site of Anarchy 99's headquarters.  While there, he dawdles over nonalcoholic drinks and flirts mercilessly with actress Asia Argento, who plays Yelena, Yorgi's smoldering off-and-on girlfriend.  They add nothing to the story and actually hurt the plot by interrupting the action. Still, despite its detriments, xXx is entertaining and, at times, even amusing, thanks mostly to the dry wit and believability of Diesel in the lead role.  Just seconds before being tossed out of an airplane, our hero quips, "Where are my peanuts?"  When Jackson asks him to join the NSA, Diesel glances at the smoldering mayhem he's just left in his wake and retorts, "Do I look like a fan of law enforcement?"  Overall, Diesel seeps the kind of cockiness any man short of a highly buffed 6' 2" movie star would kill to possess.  Diesel is having fun on screen, and everyone in the audience knows it. That all bodes well for the film's viewers, but it begs the question: How long can any man hold up a sinking ship? DiCaprio Future on Solid Ground Leo in talks to play Alexander the Great for helmer Baz Luhrmann in a De Laurentiis epic production   Actor Leonardo diCaprio has begun serious negotiations to star in the life of conqueror Alexander the Great   After a successful collaboration with helmer Baz Luhrmann on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, actor Leonardo DiCaprio is in negotiations to re-team with the director for an untitled epic surrounding the life of Alexander the Great for Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox.  Dino De Laurentiis will produce the project, which is slated to start production in Morocco during the first-quarter of 2003. On September 6, De Laurentiis will travel to Morocco to meet with the country's 39-year-old King Mohammed VI, who is expected to pledge his support and about 5,000 men and 1,000 horses for the production.  In addition, De Laurentiis and Luhrmann will likely team up to build permanent soundstages to be headquartered in Morocco. The three soundstages, which will be built through a partnership between the Dino De Laurnetiis Co. and Bazmark Films, will be headquartered in Ouarzazate to be used for the Alexander film and then will remain a permanent fixture in Morocco, which has seen an influx of productions coming through as of late.   Oscar winner Ted Tally adapted the script for the project from a series of novels by Valerio Manfredi, which had been optioned by De Laurentiis over a year ago.  After meeting with Tally about some location scouting, Luhrmann came to the project late last month.  If a deal with DiCaprio can be secured, the fate of at least three other Alexander the Great projects around town remains unclear. DiCaprio had originally been attached to star for Martin Scorsese, the actor's Gangs of New York director, in an Alexander project for the Initial Entertainment Group from a script by Christopher McQuarrie.  Oliver Stone has also been busy developing a story concerning the great conqueror for Intermedia, with Colin Farrell eyeing the lead role.  In addition, Mel Gibson's Icon Productions had started to set up a 10-part Alexander mini-series with HBO, but that project is now rumored to be on hold.  With current rumors of Scorsese joining the Luhrmann project as a producer, and of the two remaining, both with budgets well north of the $100 million range, it seems the one to begin production first will likely be the only one to be made. DiCaprio and Scorsese have also been working on a biopic of aviator-turned-recluse billionaire Howard Hughes.  Should DiCaprio go for the Alexander film, the Hughes collaboration could also die as Christopher Nolan is developing a rival Hughes project at Castle Rock as a starring vehicle for Jim Carrey. DiCaprio, repped by AMG/The Firm, has two films, both generating early Oscar buzz, coming out on Christmas Day--Gangs of New York and Catch Me If You Can.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch ...

helmer Baz Luhrmann dangles leading role before
favorite chart-topping songstress
 

Moulin Rouge helmer Baz Luhrmann is apparently trying to persuade Kylie Minogue to star in his next film. According to reports, the Strictly Ballroom director wants the songstress to star as the tragic Mimi in a big-screen version of the Puccini opera,  La Boheme.  Like Luhrmann's earlier film, Romeo & Juliet, the movie will be given a contemporary setting and soundtrack. It's certainly no secret that the Aussie director is a big fan of the chart-topping songstress.  In the past, he has photographed her for the Australian edition of Vogue and given her a cameo role in Moulin Rouge.  He also appeared on a recent Channel 5 Kylie documentary raving about her career. It's unclear whether or not Kylie will agree to star in the film, although she was recently quoted as saying that she's anxious to get back into acting.  She has also reportedly landed the lead role in a new crime flick called Guns, Money and Home Cooking alongside footie hardman, Vinnie Jones.

Baz Luhrmann hopes to convince Kylie Minogue to star in his rock remake of La Boheme

Some of Minogue's music fans are less than optimistic about her planned return to the world of film, with bitter memories of her last film, Streetfighter, fresh in their minds.  The movie was less than a smashing critical success.