Calls for actors’ identities to match their roles have gone too far
How to weigh “authenticity” in casting versus the privileges of art
Posterity holds much crueller fates for politicians than to be reincarnated as Helen Mirren. Such is Golda Meir’s lot in “Golda”, which dramatises the trials of Israel’s only female prime minister during the Yom Kippur war of 1973 (ignited by a surprise attack from Egypt and Syria). Ms Mirren (pictured) movingly portrays a lone woman in a coterie of military men, a chain-smoking lymphoma sufferer whose country is threatened with extinction.
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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Acts of faith”
Culture August 26th 2023
- The Monkey King is one of China’s most successful cultural exports
- A new book explains the intellectual legacy of four women
- The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra is on tour
- How America’s right turned “Rich Men North of Richmond” into a hit
- “Anansi’s Gold” examines one of the world’s biggest con artists
- Calls for actors’ identities to match their roles have gone too far
From the August 26th 2023 edition
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