The last tycoon

Players only love you when they’re playing, or when they’re spirit-possessing you. —Julavits

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Mark Asch (L Magazine) on Kim Jong-il, cinephile:

Kim wrote a couple of books about the cinema. 1973's On the Art of Cinema, about merging socialist messages with populist aesthetics, through a filmmaking process in line with socialist principles. ("In the capitalist system of filmmaking, the 'director' carries that title, but in fact the right of supervision and control over film production is entirely in the hands of the tycoons of the industry who have the money, whereas the directors are nothing but their agents. [The director] is a mere worker who obeys the will of the industrialists whether he likes it or not.")