Word: apartness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...World Apart...
...hold people in prison for 90 days without being charged. Ruth First, a liberal journalist whose husband was a major figure in the African National Congress (ANC), was the first white woman arrested under the act, and it is her story and that of her family that A World Apart tells--although the credits contain the ironic disclaimer that the film's characters are not based on any person, living or dead...
COMPARISONS between A World Apart and Cry Freedom, Richard Attenborough's recent film about journalist Donald Woods' scrape with the South African government, are inevitable. The two films are, in fact, quite similar, although A World Apart had the misfortune to be released second. Many question the merit of making films about South Africa that focus on white liberals. Yet with A World Apart, this approach seems justified, not because First's life is more heroic than those of Black leaders, but because her family's lifestyle perfectly parallels that of middle class Americans. And since the film centers...
...where A World Apart tries to be frank, Cry Freedom preferred to glorify its characters and tint them with melodrama. The values of middle class living were not questioned, and the relationship between the family and its Black servants was on a more monetary than emotional basis (e.g., the Woods leave money for the servants when they flee). It treated the escape from South Africa as an espionage thriller would, not as a struggle to leave a repressive regime. The film failed precisely because it sympathized totally with its characters and was unable to be critical of them...
...first principle of vice-presidential selection is to find a fellow who can win his own state (the bigger, the better) and not hurt you elsewhere. Safe, practical politics. Michael Dukakis has often said his first principle in selecting a running mate was more exalted: to find the person, apart from himself of course, who would make a first-rate President. A noble, if slightly disingenuous sentiment...