Word: bleakly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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LIKE A REVELATION that appears of its own will out of nothing, Abel Gance's 1927 film Napoleon flickers into the screen and at once flies directly into the face of the current taste in art. Not "bleak" or "austere" or "minimal" like so much of what is now published, produced, painted or composed, Napoleon is exuberantly romantic. Modernism dictates that the artist's "message" be wrapped in puzzles and conundrums. Napoleon is explicit: "From now on I am the French Revolution," Bonaparte declares, and there are no secondary or tertiary meanings implicit in the statement. Symbolism here...
...government action that took place four decades ago. In 1941, fearful that the Germans might launch a series of airborne biological-warfare attacks against the civilian population, British authorities asked scientists at the Porton Down bacteriological research unit to conduct a series of experiments. The site: Gruinard Island, a bleak, uninhabited, 1½ mile-long patch of land that lies just 600 yds. off the west coast of northern Scotland. The tests were conducted with Bacillus anthracis, better known as anthrax, which has lethal and well-documented effects on both animals and humans. Anthrax is believed to have caused...
Alfred Kazin, author and literary critic, said last night that the "bleak views" many turn-of-the-century American writers held of Jews influenced them and is reflected in their works...
...with persuasive details added by a sympathetic storyteller, they sometimes cling to the mind in a way that grander works do not. Reminding us that quite ordinary lives can be overwhelmed by extraordinary passions, these domestic dramas often thrill their listeners with romantic openings only to chill them with bleak conclusions...
...ontological authenticity, accounts for the strong documentary texture of the film. Avoiding the hermetic environment of the studio, Conrad and Dall shoot on location in Cambridge, Boston, Somerville and Framingham. The world seen through the camera--Park Street, Government Center. Ambassador-Brattle cabs, and tired triple-decker houses in bleak neighborhoods--is tangibly familiar and particularly relevant. Sally rides the T. and her friends write messages on her copy of The Harder They Come. Although written two years ago, the script remains timely in its content. This augments the realism; for example, the state, due to decreasing funds for social...