BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, 75th ANNIVERSARY OF PEARL HARBOR ATTACK) — For the first century, newspapers in America were essentially political screeds. This included emptying both chambers upon adversaries who were lied about, libeled, and labeled. The notion of objective “news” taking precedence over commentary and pamphleteering came in the industry’s second century. Papers made their money by circulation.

In the Victorian Era (mid 1800s to the beginning of the 20th century), visionary publishers and editors (Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Horace Greeley) revolutionized the body and soul of newspapers, especially metro dailies. Advertising revenue replaced circulation as a newspaper’s main money source. Firsts included sports and women’s sections, full business coverage, the op-ed page, star columnists, more pictures and art, better typography, comics, illustrated supplements, and extras. The swing to advertising revenue led to coverage of real estate coverage, classified ads (especially employment), as well as sections on food and travel (including cars) — and tamer content meant to keep advertiser’s happy.

That model held until the widespread use of the Internet. Today, online media and content threatens the very existence of what we call a “newspaper.” It’s clear that young people rarely, if ever, pick up a physical paper. They instead go online to their ever smaller, ever-portable devices. The news cycle is 84,600 second each and every day.

In this frantic environment, newspapers haven’t figured the transition. The online dilemma: Offer free content and eat production costs. Charge for content, on the other hand, and ask people to pay for something they expect for free.

The Berkshire Eagle, a.k.a., The Boring Broadsheet, is not alone in being horned on the points of this dilemma. The paper has hired a new publisher, Alan English. He’s a newspaper guy. The paper also has freshened its appearance to make the paper easier on the eyes. These are positive developments. Content, though, lags far behind.

Being at heart a “newspaper guy,” THE PLANET has given much thought to solving this quandary. Perhaps at some point we shall share the specific formula for newspaper success. For now, let’s leave it at this: The key driver must be content, accent on the first syllable. Content drives circulation. Circlation drives ad revenue. When the accent is on the second syllable, as in content — the condition for way too long at The BB — a newspaper gets complacent, lazy. That won’t work in today’s hyper competitive news market — even if you’re the only local print daily in town.

PC Police Cuff Bertolucci’s Masterpiece

SCHNEIDER and BRANDO in “Last Tango” (PHOTO Universal Pictures)

Forty four years ago, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci released his masterpiece, Last Tango in Paris. The film earned Bertolucci an Academy Award nomination for Best Director and Marlon Brando a nod for Best Actor. Two score and four years is enough time to bury even a masterpiece, however. The film made news last week with the posthumous quotes of Brando’s then-20-year-old costar, Maria Schneider. The remarks were unearthed in a newly discovered interview with the late Bertolucci.

Tinsel news outlets quoted Schneider on the film’s “pass the butter” sex scene.

“‘Marlon said to me: “Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie,” but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn’t real, I was crying real tears. … I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol.  I wanted to be recognized as an actress and the whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown.'”

This is what the amped up and magnified “war between the sexes” has produced: False movie acting memories!

It’s a film, for caper’s sake!! You were acting!!! It wasn’t real!!!!

Brando was ACTING. Schneider willingly signed on at a lucrative price to appear in a psychological drama the script made clear would deal frankly with the heavy mental cost of anonymous sex. She was cast as the young female lead precisely because of her sexuality.

“The movie breakthrough has finally come,” wrote Pauline Kael of the film after its release. “Bertolucci and Brando have altered the face of an art form.”

Instead, in today’s overheated, politically correct environment, even art is not safe. The PC Police co-opted a tiny excerpt of a forgotten interview and hammered the square film frames into a round wastebasket, the one labeled, “All Men Are Bad.”

That should not be good enough for a cultured, literate, art-loving nation.

Newberry’s and the Fire That Never Started

The Central Block. (PHOTO: McLean Realtors)

Speaking of artists, the tragic warehouse blaze in Oakland reminded THE PLANET of a fire in Pittsfield that never happened, thankfully.

Like Oakland’s “Ghose Ship” warehouse, prior to its remodeling into the Central Block, Pittsfield’s old Newberry Building housed — legally and otherwise — artists, actors, musicians, muses, misfits, beats, deadbeats, and an assortment of colorful moochers, magicians, and madmen.

Like the “Ghost Ship,” Newsberry’s was overcrowded, horribly out of code, and replete with a tangle of extension cords, faulty electricity, nearly non-existent sanitation, tons of dried wood, plenty of smokers and drug users, and not enough exits.

The Oakland fire is one of the deadliest in California history. Pittsfield could have had one years ago. We dodged that flame, somehow. Thank God or Bog or whomever or whatever one thanks for alternate realities that could have happened but never did.

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“The only reason I’m in Hollywood is that I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money.” — Marlon Brando

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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