Word: brutely
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...arts festival, combining the grace and fluidity of dance with the explosive energy and dynamism of martial arts. Aikido, often translated as “the way of the harmonious spirit,” is not simply about overpowering the opponent. “The techniques emphasize subtlety over brute force, which is great when you don’t have the physique of Xena,” Chin-Lee writes in an e-mail. The highly improvisational format of Aikido exhibitions is closer to a jazz concert than a self-defense class, requiring practitioners to constantly adapt...
...Often in Dassin films, eroticism shades into sadism. Brute Force and Night and the City have violent thrashings. In The Law, released in the States as Where the Hot Wind Blows, Gina Lollobrigida is strapped down and whipped by her mother. Jean Servais, the honcho of the Rififi heist, commands his ex-girlfriend to strip and then whips her with a belt; later in the film, Dassin, playing one of the hoods, is lashed to a pillar and shot...
...Dassin saw similarities between the wielders of the whips and his own bosses in Hollywood, or was finding objective correlatives for his own victimization by the blacklist. Informers, toxic whisperers and people who just can't keep a secret are everywhere in his films, from the gossiping cons in Brute Force to the main character in his U.S. comeback movie Up Tight!, a remake of the John Ford drama The Informer...
...nice thing about movie careers, unlike movie obits, is that they don't have to be considered chronologically. DVD connoisseurs can play a director's films in any order, skipping the rhinestones, replaying the jewels. Jules Dassin had enough of those - The Tell-Tale Heart, Brute Force, Thieves' Highway, Rififi - as well as moments in many other films that shine like sapphires. And since this is a tribute to an unfashionable director, I'll end with an awkward confession, courtesy of my 17-year-old self. Once upon a time, I loved Phaedra...
...that groups ranging from disaffected Tibetans to human rights activists would try and take advantage of the approaching Olympics to exercise some leverage for their causes when Beijing seemed most vulnerable. And yet, China's leaders appear to have been completely unprepared to respond to challenges with anything but brute force and harsh words...