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Category: Performing Arts

Black History Month: Spike Lee and “Bamboozled”

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Spike Lee's 2000 film "Bamboozled," a hard-edged satire of blackface in cinema and television, was part of the 2023 class of National Film Registry and his fifth film to join the list. In an interview with the Library, he explains how the film is an answer to D.W. Griffith's notorious "The Birth of a Nation" in 1915, which set into play more than a century of racist tropes in films.

Color portrait of Tim Gunn, from waist up. He's half turned to the camera, wearing a dark suit and purple tie; a window is in the background.

Tim Gunn on Fashion

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Tim Gunn is an academic, bestselling author and pop culture icon. He won an Emmy Award for his role as host of “Project Runway.” He wrote this short essay on the difference between fashion and clothes for the Library of Congress Magazine's fashion issue.

George Gershwin leans foward onto a table, smiling and wearing suit and tie. Black and white head and shoulders photo.

Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” at 100; Still Capturing the American Character

Posted by: Neely Tucker

George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” a rapturous burst of music that has become a motif of the nation’s creative spirit, turns 100 today. It was first performed in New York on the snowy Tuesday afternoon of Feb. 12, 1924. Commissioned and premiered by the popular conductor Paul Whiteman at a concert designed to showcase high-minded …

Photo of sheet of notebook paper in a three-ring binder with song lyrics and musical notation written in blue pen

“Feeling Good” About the Leslie Bricusse Collection

Posted by: Neely Tucker

On May 15, 1962, the British songwriting team of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley were up-by-the-bootstraps types, just hitting their 30s, and would become big stars. On that day, they scratched out what would become perhaps their most influential hit, a deceptively simple song called "Feeling Good." Nina Simone would make it her anthem in 1965, and Michael Bublé would have a worldwide hit with it nearly three decades later. The Library's Bricusse collection preserves that moment of creation in one of his meticulously kept notebooks.

Program cover shows two hands holding a small globe, which is filled by a red atomic mushroom cloud

“Dr. Atomic,” The Oppenheimer Opera

Posted by: Neely Tucker

When the San Francisco Opera debuted “Doctor Atomic,” an opera by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams based on physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the test of the first atomic bomb, its first lines contained a scientific error. Marvin L. Cohen, president of the American Physical Society, was in the audience and caught it immediately. Here's how he and Adams changed it.

Mariah Carey, Santa Claus and Librarian Carla Hayden, all in holiday attire, post at Christmas tree in the Great Hall. Carey holds a framed certificate from the National Recording Registry.

All I Want for Christmas Is … Mariah Carey at the Library?

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Mariah Carey surprised a festive crowd during the Library’s Santa Claus edition of “Live! At the Library“ last night, making an entrance as her signature hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” played in the Great Hall. Decked out in a stage-worthy sparkling dress and pink high heels, she picked up the song's framed certificate of induction from the National Recording Registry from Librarian Carla Hayden and - like most everyone else at the party - posed for a couple of pictures by the Christmas tree.

A pre-teen boy claps both hands to his face as he yells into the bathroom mirror

Home Alone? Check Out The 2023 National Film Registry!

Posted by: Neely Tucker

A sizzle reel introduces the 25 influential films from the past 102 years have been selected for the 2023 Library of Congress National Film Registry, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today, inluding blockbusters such as "Fame," "Home Alone" and "Apollo 13," the popular romance "Love & Basketball," and influential feature films and documentaries such as "12 Years a Slave," "Matewan," "Alambrista!" and "Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision."

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

“Maestro” — A Look at Leonard Bernstein’s Papers at the Library

Posted by: Neely Tucker

"Maestro," the high-profile film biography of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein, hits theaters this week, starring Bradley Cooper. The Library holds a vast trove of Bernstein's papers, some 400,000 items that document every stage of his life and career. In a brief video, Mark Horowitz, a senior music specialist at the Library and the archivist for the Bernstein Collection, gives a tour of the material and its cultural significance.