Word: brutality
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Like every shah before him, the current Shah claims to experience visions granting him absolute authority over his people, and he has not permitted any challenge to that divine right. Guerilla activity has intensified in the last seven years, and the Shah's regime has become more and more brutal in its efforts to quiet the opposition...
That somewhat self-indulgent note is the spirit of the season. The public themes that intrude themselves have none of the hard, brutal edge so evident when draft resisters were burning flags and Middle Americans slapped LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT stickers on their bumpers. Some observers have disconsolately described the decade as the "fragmented '70s." That may mean only that the period, unlike the '60s, lacks a single theme or story?no continuing drama for Americans like Viet Nam. Journalists addicted to a diet of disaster find the present moment disconcerting. One Washington journalist was even moved to complain...
...much difference it can make. As long ago as the mid-'40s, there were predictions of an imminent eruption in South Africa. There were many individual outbursts, but Armageddon never came. Black South Africans (and indeed whites as well) are subject to a formidable, determined, often brutal, well-armed police state. Apart from being put in jail for a variety of reasons, people may be "banned"-restricted to a certain location, prohibited from attending meetings (including church) or going to school. Such intimidation works. So far, there have been few signs of urban guerrilla action or terrorism. There have...
...with impunity." When an enemy on the force confesses aloud an urge to "rearrange" Laidlaw's face, Laidlaw replies: "You should fight that. It's called a death-wish." As Mcllvanney pieces him together, Laidlaw emerges as a jumble of contradictions, a sensitive, intelligent soul performing brutal, repetitive work. Indeed, some of Laidlaw's ruminations sound like heavier luggage than a functioning police man ought to carry: "What's murder but a willed absolute, an invented certainty...
...even whipcrack detectives. But they all seem very real, as opposed to the ridiculously larger-than-life heroes of most films. Realism suffuses the film and makes it credible. The cops are just men doing their jobs. In fact, the murdered inspector turns out to have been a brutal and incompetent policeman, a man who made countless enemies during his career. The iconoclastic Kolberg notes that he best remembered Inspector Nyman for teaching him how he cut off a pig's penis without making the animal squeal...