Word: detailism
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...special effects -- they mostly involve flying -- have a nice, tossed-off air about them. The sets are spectacular, but their scale and luxe become oppressive. And they impose a peculiar burden on the director. He has a terrific way with action sequences, a genius for inventive detail that reads clearly even at his preferred pace, which is warp speed. But even he has to strain to fill these spaces; and his resort to a food fight, symbolizing Peter's rebonding with his old pals, the Lost Boys, is dismal and realized without conviction...
...focus. The story concerns a Liverpool boy named Shanty (no doubt a nod to the high percentage of Irish Liverpudlians as well as to McCartney's own ethnic background), born during the air raids of 1942 (Part 1, War). The second, third and fourth sections (School, Crypt and Father) detail typical adolescent angst, including the death of Shanty's dad. In the oratorio's second half, the hero meets Mary Dee, marries her (Wedding), impregnates her (Work), fights with her (Crises) and finally, after a traffic accident that almost claims her life and that of their unborn child, reconciles with...
...reader can miss the extraordinary historical detail you bring to 1492. What problems did you encounter in writing a historical novel...
...goal was to use historical detail as much as possible. If a character is entering a city, he must use the right bridges of the period, he must enter the proper gates. On the streets he must meet the people of the time.... Sometimes this [research] was not a problem. For example, the Inquisition, which was repressive in the manner of Stalin's police or the Gestapo, was also very methodic. In their documents they recorded everything they did. They list every name and every accusation. I made use of such documents...
...rape, on her 11th birthday by a white town elder, and her mother's murder. She has an infallible ear for the emotional pace of a scene, letting the horror be just blunt enough for just long enough, then segueing into the release of laughter. She finds the right detail: the raped child from the shacks eyeing an exquisite carved bouquet on the banister as she struggles back downstairs; dogs sniffing at a patch of the mother's burnt skin scraped onto the sidewalk. Her dialogue can jolt the audience with the unexpected, sometimes twice within a few words: just...