Word: despairs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Kael reviewed John Cassavetes's A Woman Under the Influence in a yawning rerun where R.D. Laing--that tired old intellectual straw man--is propped up only to be laid flat. Going on nothing more concrete than the fact that "The theories of R.D. Laing, the poet of schizophrenic despair, have such theatrical flash that they must hit John Cassavetes smack in the eye," she proclaims his movie "the work of a disciple." She then criticizes the film for straying from a strict Laingian analysis and plunges in the final stake by rejecting the movie because she rejects Laing...
...nights. He stayed right there working round the clock on a program to help save the food processors, some of whom sat in the office with him. They were frightened, humbled men. In the streets wherever Fortas walked were hungry, helpless people. No bureaucrat escaped the spectacle of despair...
...review with a few comments on the theories of schizophrenia expressed by R.D. Laing. Dispersed throughout the article are several particularly unusual phrases used by Kael in her review. One of Stephen's lines reads as follows: "[Gena Rowlands] moves from spasms of manic nervousness to chastened, hurt-animal despair..." Kael's review reads, "Mabel returns, chastened, a fearful hurt-animal look on her face." This is a common enough phrase, were it not followed later in Stephen's review by the Jine, "Mabel waits for the schoolbus to return with her kids, pacing like an anxious speed freak..." Kael...
Gena Rowlands, who is Cassavetes's wife, dominates this uneven film. Her insanity really is a manifold personality: she moves from spasms of manic nervousness to chastened, hurt-animal despair, her foolish smiles rapidly become agonized searchings for approval. The director's over-long focuses on individual actors and his willingness to let them improvise, which made Husbands so tedious, here allows Rowlands at least to show everything she can do. Despite the prodigious exposure, she can't be gotten used to the way, say Susannah York could, in her portrait of madness in Images...
...workers to a man threw down their tools and standing at attention sang the Marseillaise. Then they streamed into the street, cursing the government. I stayed up all night, listening to the furious talk of the workers in the bistros. It was my first political experience-an experience in despair. And the war lengthened the experience. While gathering evidence for the Nuremberg war trials, I came upon the horrifying proof of the extermination of 6 million Jews. To prevent war, to preserve freedom are continuing causes with me. They have shaped my life...