2019 Unanswered Question - Visual Arts General Discussion

[halle]

This thread is for general discussion of the visual arts questions, which include film, performance art, fashion, and criticism, among more standard visual categories. These questions were written by me, Evan Suttell, William Golden, and Max Shatan, and were edited by Jordan Brownstein, who will likely post some of his thoughts in this thread later. I had a lot of fun working on this set, and I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on it!

[Cheynem]

I thought the film in this set was really good and featured a variety of interesting things. I was particularly happy to see Harlan County U.S.A., one of the screen's most important documentaries, appear.

[Mike Bentley]

This set was a lot of fun, thanks for writing it! Exciting to see people like Kerry James Marshall come up even if I spent the entire question trying and failing to remember his name (Seattle weirdly has had 3 exhibitions on him in the last few years). I'll probably have more thoughts once I either see the set or at least look back at the answer lines.

[UlyssesInvictus]

The visual arts, especially contemporary art, was some of my favorite content in the set.

I felt like the film was a tick harder than the other visual content--I'm still not a particular fan of questions that are often "Have you seen this movie?" type cluing, but despite that I'm still happy things like Harlan County came up, because of how important they are vs. how much they're in the canon otherwise.

What distribution was the Rita Hayworth question under? It seemed kind of oddly positioned, given how vitally it clued from Shawshank.

[Quinctilius Varus]

What distribution was the Rita Hayworth question under? It seemed kind of oddly positioned, given how vitally it clued from Shawshank.

The question was meant to be classic Hollywood. Other than the giveaway, the only other scene shown in Shawshank (as far as I know) and mentioned in the question is the "Are you decent?" line, which is an iconic scene in its own right. Is the clip shown in Shawshank more well-known than I think? Here's the question as it's currently written.

24. Two one-act plays by Terrance Rattigan were adapted into a film featuring this actress, in which her character falls back in love with her alcoholic ex-husband played by Burt Lancaster. This actress’s breakout role was as Geoff’s ex-fiancee Judy in Howard Hawks’ film Only Angels Have Wings. After being asked “Are you decent?”, a character played by this star of Separate Tables is introduced by flipping her hair and asking “Me?” In an iconic scene, this actress wears a black strapless dress and sings “Put the Blame on Mame” while performing a (*) striptease with one glove. This actress played Elsa Bannister, who dies in a shootout in a hall of mirrors, in The Lady of Shanghai, which co-starred her husband Orson Welles. For 10 points, name this star of Gilda, an actress and pin-up girl depicted on a poster in Andy Dufresne’s prison cell in The Shawshank Redemption.
ANSWER: Rita Hayworth [or Margarita Carmen Cansino; or Rita Cansino] <WG>

[Cheynem]

I like that question, although I might say "she plays Ann in Separate Tables"--Separate Tables also stars Deborah Kerr and Wendy Hiller won an Oscar for the film, so just saying "star of Separate Tables" might be confusing.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Hmm, may just be a bias on my part that I'm much more likely to have total recall of Shawshank scenes than know the basic plot to any of Hayworth's actual movies.

For what it's worth, I do think that scene is pretty famous, given that it's when Andy first asks for a poster for Red (and if we're mincing words, technically the giveaway is non-specific, but whatever).

I think the question is fine, I think I was just surprised to see Shawshank in the middle of the question rather than only the end.

[Simon de Montfort]

I kind of wish that there was more silent film in this set. I played 8 all packets, and having to wait until literally the last question for a silent film question seems a bit off to me. Like, you're basically ignoring 30% of the 20th century wrt the film category when this tournament was supposed to be a focus on 20th century art. I know that there were fewer films made overall during that time period relative to later years, but it's still an era that doesn't get enough recognition in quiz bowl in general, imo. There were, what, 21 or 22 film questions? I feel like two or three questions covering silent film would have been more appropriate.

Also not to pile onto the discussion about the Rita Hayworth question, but I do agree that the hair flip scene is her most iconic scene (and not just because of Shawshank, though that definitely makes the question more gettable for someone who hasn't seen Gilda). Maybe finding a different clue to replace the hair flip clue would have made that question's difficulty more appropriate. I honestly think the hair flipping should have been saved for the giveaway.

[Cheynem]

I haven't seen Gilda, but at least for me, every clue after the hair flip scene is more famous (to me) than that. I agree though that the clue becomes easier thanks to Shawshank--in terms of actual film history, I think the other scenes are more famous.