Word: balladeering
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Tender Mercies. A country singer touches bottom and finds that it consists of good Texas earth in which he can reroot his humanity. Actor Robert Duvall warms and graces Screenwriter Horton Foote's tale with his lived-in face and a performance as raw as a Hank Williams ballad...
...integrate a wide variety of rock styles into their deadpan, minimalist sound; and here their thinness really shows through. In fact, the farther Trio delves into the past, the more disastrous the results. On "Tooralooralooraloo--Is it Old &Is it New," they aim for a tavern European folk ballad, and end up sounding like Perry Como. In fact, this song is so pathetically and limply delivered that it can't even be savored as good camp. "Drei Mann in doppelbett," on the other hand, links a pub chant with a synthopop rhythm with slightly more successful results. Nevertheless, neither...
...creative, collaboration of the Ballad began in the summer of 1981 at the Sundance Institute, Robert Redford's resource center for independent filmmakers and actors. It was there that director Young, producers Esparza and Michael Hausman and actors Olmos and Tom Bower coincidentally met and began discussing the movie's potential...
Young's personal interest in the Ballad project was mirrored by most of crew and cast. Bower participated in the casting, writing, location scouting, and promotion of the film. (Bower and Olmos have been travelling the country for the past year and a half, "preparing" audiences for the film.) Bower sees the movie's main drawing card as its universality: "All of our ancestors were immigrants whose languages weren't understood when they got here." Such cross-over appeal is evident in San Francisco, where the film is in its tenth week, and has grossed over...
...picture does not accuse or judge either side. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez allows its audience to walk away knowing a wrong was committed but understanding emotionally how it took place. We see how the Texas Rangers used their chase of "the Cortez gang" to sustain an institution whose purpose was outlived. We see how the Mexican community of Gonzalez, Texas used the Cortez predicament as a unifying cause. Young condemns neither side; he simply presents them as they...