Word: darknesses
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Uncovering a dark epoch in an ancient melting pot's past...
...Soviet archaeologists conjecture that the buried nobles of Shibarghan were members of a local ruling family in the midst of this dark period. One sign of kinship: two skeletons bore rings of identical design. Sarianidi's theory is that a family patriarch stumbled upon the long buried temple and appropriated it as a royal necropolis. For 200 years successive generations were apparently buried at the unmarked site, probably by night to outwit grave robbers...
...well as the movement of characters/objects within a shot, the characteristic rhythm of New York life emerges on the screen through the order and juxtaposition of the sequences within the narrative flow. The principle of their organization is contrapuntal: a predominantly brightly lit sequence is succeeded by a dark one, while a long take is almost invariably replaced by a sequence composed of many edited shots (principally of characters conversing in close-ups). This concept of the film as a juxtaposition of visual events unforcefully related to each other is in accord with the modern tendency in art to conform...
...succeeded by an interior sequence with Keaton and Murphy in their apartment, with several medium shots executed by a panning camera. Again there is a long tracking take with Allen and Hemingway walking through the streets, and turning corners, on a sunny day. An abrupt cut of the dark apartment with spiral stairs-a static shot with only two bright spots, a typical mise-en-frame. Next comes a "bright" sequence composed of shot-reverse-shot exchange between four characters in the gallery. An abrupt cut shows the same group of people walking down the avenue...
Widener is the granddaddy of the system. Like Bloomingdale's, it sports a lot of everything, but finding it takes the perseverance of-well-a scholar. The ten floors of dark and musty stacks are reminiscent of catacombs, but at the same time the crumbling tomes inspire a rather stately awe. The basement floors are always cool, and despite rumors to the contrary, there are no ghosts of moth-eaten professors still trying to find their...