Word: casualness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Many adult Americans were shocked by the most obvious manifestations of the new romanticism-nudity, casual sex, obscenity, absurd dress, confrontation tactics. These were, of course, intended to shock. In describing some of his wilder contemporaries, Françoise René de Châteaubriand might have been talking about Abbie Hoffman or Jerry Rubin when they confronted a House Un-American Activities subcommittee: "They rig themselves up as comic sketches, as grotesques, as caricatures. Some of them wear frightful mustaches; one would suppose that they are going forth to conquer the world." The heroes upon whom the romantics model...
...late Harvard sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin. By this he meant the glorification of pleasure over Puritan duty, of leisure over work. The '60s was a time of almost frantic experiment in sexual liberation; in the next decade, thanks in part to the Pill, sex will continue to be casual. But it may also be less frenetic. Divorce will be even more common, and the law may come to recognize term marriages, unions that will dissolve automatically after a certain length of time. Marijuana most likely will be either legalized or condoned...
Amalric outlines a chilling, decade-long scenario of dissolution. Disorder is already evident in "an unusual spread of casual robbery." Having discarded the old Christian morality, the Kremlin is desperately trying to substitute nationalism, with its "inherent cult of force and expansionist ambitions." Already, there have been clashes with China along the Ussuri River in the East...
...Stage Manager, Henry Fonda establishes the play's underlying innocence with his copyrighted brand of casual intensity. Ed Begley and Mildred Natwick as Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs and John Randolph and Irene Tedrow as Editor and Mrs. Webb never falter in their roles as small-town New England caricatures circa 1910. Likewise, Elizabeth Hartman and Harvey Evans encounter little difficulty getting their portrayals of Emily and George from the soda fountain to the play's touching cemetery scene. Unfortunately, Miss Hartman bears the burden of having to ask: "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live...
Director Claude Chabrol, a disciple of Hitchcock, shoots more for nuance than frisson. It is his wily variations on a hoary theme that give La Femme Infidèle its own small distinction. A wealthy Parisian insurance man (Michel Bouquet) takes casual note that his supple young wife (Stephane Audran) acts rather nervous when he interrupts her on the telephone. He engages a private detective to follow her on her shopping trips to Paris and has his worst suspicions quickly confirmed: she is having an affair. Her paramour is a writer (Maurice Ronet) who lives mostly off his "independent means...