Word: autodidactic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ANCIENT TEXTS were, literally, Greek to Stone. He taught himself the language and read them in the original, bringing to them the enthusisam of the muckraker and the autodidact. He loves the material, and his sense of excitement is contagious. Publication of the book is justfied if only to have a man with Stone's impeccable "progressive" credentials on record as a lover of the much-maligned great books. It can only help to have a writer with Stone's verve bring the ancient texts and characters to life and demonstrate how the classic writers of Athens speak...
...film, only a lot of self-conscious artiness which he takes to its furthest extremes, directorial touches which never coalesce. It all starts with the opening credits, white letters on black background, no sound: "Oh, Christ," you think--"not another American Bergman." Throughout, Redford blunders like the typical autodidact, smothering whatever intuitions he might have about film with a congeries of tony cliches: an aerial shot of a breakfast table, for example, or a shot of a license plate as the family car pulls into the garage...