In 1997, as a producer for CNN, Bergen produced bin Laden's first television interview, in which he declared war against the United States for the first time to a Western audience. In 1994, he won the Overseas Press Club Edward R. Murrow award for best foreign affairs documentary for the CNN program "Kingdom of Cocaine," which was also nominated for an Emmy. Bergen co-produced the CNN documentary "Terror Nation" which traced the links between Afghanistan and the bombers who attacked the World Trade Center for the first time in 1993. The documentary, which was shot in Afghanistan during the civil war there and aired in 1994, concluded that the country would be the source of additional anti-Western terrorism. From 1998 to 1999 Bergen worked as a correspondent-producer for CNN. He was program editor for "CNN Impact," a co-production of CNN and TIME, from 1997 to 1998.


The religious history of the period is a dramatic one. Christianity, which for more than a thousand years had been represented throughout all of Western Europe by one church, the Roman Catholic Church, experienced a tremendous upheaval during the 16th century. The first overt action of revolt came in 1517 when Luther defied the authority of Rome. That marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, the consequences of which were that Europe was divided into numerous divergent sects and into warring camps. Actually, all of that turmoil occurred after More wrote his Utopia, but the causes of the Reformation were of long standing and had been a source of concern to conscientious Christians for at least two centuries. Among the principal evils alleged in the attacks against the church were arbitrary exercise of papal authority, greed of the clergy as revealed in the selling of pardons and of church offices, and the traffic in holy relics. Intelligent people were indignant over the propagation of superstitions to anesthetize the common people, and social critics were bitter over the enormous opulence of the church amid the poverty and squalor of the majority of Christians.
Still further afield from sailors' tales of island kingdoms but nevertheless enlightening in the broad study of man's aspirations toward a better world, one may consider some of the more sober expository documents such as: Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality and his Social Contract, De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Carlyle's Past and Present, Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto, and Engel's "On Authority" from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
The trailer of " Voyage en Chine " (Trip to China) is undoubtedly attractive : while it displays beautiful views of the Chinese countryside it sets against them the shapeless figure of an aging, limping, more uncomely than ever Yolande Moreau. The effect is that you can't help asking yourself what the Belgian comedian is doing in such an exotic place ? And the title is only half explicit about that, for this trip does not look like a sightseeing one. Well, for more information, there is no other solution than... to go and see the film. Which I did. I then found out what Yolande Moreau was doing in the Middle Kingdom. In the film she is in fact Liliane Rousseau, a fifty-odd-year-old nurse sharing her modest suburban house with a husband she does not seem to particularly care for. One night she learns by phone the death of her twenty-five-year-old son Philippe : the young man has just been killed in a car accident in China, his adopted homeland. Due to administrative complications, the grieving mother brings herself to go to China, in order to try and sort things out of course but also and above all to mourn her only child with dignity. Only she insists on going alone, certainly not in the company of her husband Richard, whom she blames for having misunderstood their son and caused his estrangement from them. And this is precisely what she does, landing first in Shanghai where Philippe lived and then in the province of Sichuan where he had his accident. Speaking a little English (which does not help very much in the countryside) but not a word of Chinese, this journey proves no pleasure cruise. However Liliane, like a brave little soldier, holds on and finally achieves her initiatory voyage - with a little help from local friends naturally. And just while she opens up to China and its people she gets closer to her son, even if it is too late for him. A profound theme combined with the discovery of another civilization, it looks like we are on track for a masterpiece... Unfortunately this is not really the case. The film is pleasant, yes. As expected, you discover many things about China, particularly about rural China, which is rarely shown in fiction cinema, the views are beautiful and Yolande Moreau is great. So, how come you leave the theater vaguely dissatisfied? One explanation may lie in its exceedingly slow pace. Too many scenes last too long and as they are not rich enough in meaning and/or emotions, a distancing effect (unwanted by the director, I suppose) sets in. With the result that instead of translating the meditative mood of his heroine, Zoltan Mayer inoculates a slight dose of boredom in the viewers' brains. A little more dynamic editing and scenes a little richer in content would have helped give "Voyage en Chine " more impact, which it deserved actually. Another weak point is the way the scenes connected with Philippe's death and funeral. Oddly enough, while the general tone of the film is subdued (even a little too much, as I mentioned before), this part of the film is presented in a melodramatic, if not whiny, fashion. An illustration of it is the (inappropriate) way Mayer directs the pretty Chinese actress Qu Jing Jing, who embodies the late son's former fiancée : she expresses grief too conventionally. So, when she finds herself face to Yolande Moreau, it is disturbing to see the former play while the latter lives. But don't get me wrong: even if I dwelt at some length on the film's imperfections these are only reservations. On the whole, as it is, " Voyage en Chine " remains a respectable work, at any rate worth seeing. Simply, it could have been even better. On the other hand, knowing that this is photographer Zoltan Mayer's first feature, such defects are understandable. So, if you feel like a trip to grassroots China, you can try this one. Just do not expect too many thrills and spills.

The "classical revival" was at the center of the intellectual and artistic agitation of the age. It involved a realization — or rediscovery — that a very great civilization had flourished in ancient Greece and Rome and a conviction that conscientious study and imitation of that civilization offered the key to new greatness. The Renaissance artists studied ancient works of architecture and sculpture, not only for their form and technique but also for their spirit. Renaissance scholars came to appreciate the literature of the ancients as a storehouse of wisdom and eloquence, and through their study they acquired attitudes and developed tastes of enormous value: to challenge dogma, to recognize the authority of nature, and to regard living a full life in "this world" as an opportunity and an obligation. They came to believe in their right to accept and enjoy physical beauty and the whole sensory world. Finally they acquired a sense of the worth of the individual and of the dignity of man. Growing gradually out of these concepts came the philosophy of "humanism" and the magnificent achievements in the fine arts.


The few criticisms for the game centered on its length and pacing. Clements noted that not all players would appreciate a game with a "deliberate, melancholic pace" and short duration, comments echoed by the Edge review.[3][5] Miller noted the lack of complex gameplay elements in Journey, and Shaw was disappointed that the game was only a few hours long, though Douglas said the length was perfect.[1][2][46] Miller concluded the game could be compared to "a musical concert, a well-directed film, or a long-awaited book", while Clements concluded, "completing Journey will create memories that last for years".[1][46]
Yet, the puzzle is that some of the practices and institutions of the Utopians, such as the ease of divorce, euthanasia and both married priests and female priests, seem to be polar opposites of More's beliefs and the teachings of the Catholic Church of which he was a devout member. Another often cited apparent contradiction is that of the religious tolerance of Utopia contrasted with his persecution of Protestants as Lord Chancellor. Similarly, the criticism of lawyers comes from a writer who, as Lord Chancellor, was arguably the most influential lawyer in England. It can be answered, however, that as a pagan society Utopians had the best ethics that could be reached through reason alone, or that More changed from his early life to his later when he was Lord Chancellor.[8]
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