Word: backdrop
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Several scenes stick out: The sorry-eyed children reluctantly munch on their morning bagels and milk: the sobering footage of World War I's devistation and of its wounded living in the pogroms: the spectacular sights of the bustling backdrop of the prosperous cities, the panorama of Pilsudski's funeral, and the sweeping shots of synagogues...
Then, as the backdrop shifts to fluffy clouds against an azure sky, the voice says, "But France remains calm." A series of happy scenes shows Frenchmen picking grapes, at work in modern factories, riding horses, playing soccer. A crescendo: French-made washing machines, Renault cars, film stars and ballet scenes spell out progress and the good life. Then comes the man who claims responsibility for this idyllic island of well-being in a time of global torment: President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 55, pictured at his desk in the Elysée Palace, meeting foreign leaders, affably...
...TALLEY'S FOLLY could boast only these accomplishments, it would be a successful melodrama, no more. It gains more stature by introducing the politics and history of the time it's set in--not in an obtrusive, doctrinaire way, but as a distant backdrop which only infrequently comes into full focus. Wilson doesn't so much expound the politics of America during World War II--the confusion on the left, the economic uncertainty, the awe at America's slowly unflexing muscles--as weave it into his characters' histories. At great length, with much defensive joking and shuffling of feet. Matt...
...Separate Peace, to explore the theme of restless destructiveness as the natural state of man. But Peace Breaks Out has neither the depth nor the freshness of Knowles' earlier novel. The "rolling fields" and "limitless blue sky" of the New Hampshire countryside seems telescoped into a two-dimensional backdrop, against which Knowles manipulates his characters like a puppeteer--not to create life, but merely to drive a lifeless moral home...
...PLOT purveys the different ideals and ambitions lifestyles and ideologies that are no doubt common to law students everywhere, and perhaps magnified at Harvard. A Langdell tunnel map, which serves as the backdrop for several scenes, points the direction to Wall Street as well as to the cafeteria. One of the show's subplots involves the quarrels between the aspiring lady capitalist of the 1980s and her boyfriend, a self-styled Che Guevara--ever-ready to spout bleeding heart liberalism and Marxist structuralist dogma...