Books, Arts & Manners: Undivine Diva, Non-Delving Devil

In “An Essay on Fashionable Literature” (1818), Thomas Love Peacock observed: “The moral and political character of the age or nation may be read by an attentive observer even in its lightest literature, how remote soever prima facie from morals and politics.” And how much more about the moral and political tenor of our time is revealed when an absurd, campy, laughable film such as Diva, by Jean-Jacques Beineix, wins numerous awards in France and is hailed in the U.S.A. by the enthusiastic nod of Pauline Kael, which activates the domino theory: from coast to coast, her critical acolytes fall over backward in admiration.

Diva concerns a messenger boy and opera buff, Jules, who covertly tapes a recital by his adored Cynthia Hawkins, a black American soprano, by means of a Nagra he has sneaked into the dilapidated theater in which she is appearing. Behind him sit two sharkish Taiwanese entrepreneurs who want that tape: by threatening her to distribute it illegally, they could coerce Miss Hawkins into signing a recording contract with them.

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John Simon

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In “An Essay on Fashionable Literature” (1818), Thomas Love Peacock observed: “The moral and political character of the age or nation may be read by an attentive observer even in its lightest literature, how remote soever prima facie from morals and politics.” And how much more about the moral and political tenor of our time is revealed when an absurd, campy, laughable film such as Diva, by Jean-Jacques Beineix, wins numerous awards in France and is hailed in the U.S.A. by the enthusiastic nod of Pauline Kael, which activates the domino theory: from coast to coast, her critical acolytes fall over backward in admiration.

Diva concerns a messenger boy and opera buff, Jules, who covertly tapes a recital by his adored Cynthia Hawkins, a black American soprano, by means of a Nagra he has sneaked into the dilapidated theater in which she is appearing. Behind him sit two sharkish Taiwanese entrepreneurs who want that tape: by threatening her to distribute it illegally, they could coerce Miss Hawkins into signing a recording contract with them.