Word: dicta
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Wait a minute. Why should the most successful filmmaker in history subject himself to these dicta, jotted down in half an hour by a couple of daffy Danes? Why would any director toss away the tools of power and sorcery that the movies have spent a century developing? No 150-person crew, no wide screen, no post-synchronizing of dialogue, no flashbacks, no E.T. or dinosaurs. No tripod for the camera. And no director's credit...
...course, that is putting a high-minded gloss on the behavior, as if the auditorium of one's mind were always resounding to symposiums on Wittgenstein or on human rights in Myanmar. Caught me talking to myself? Just another oral presentation of apodictic obiter dicta on the solo stage! Thomas Jefferson dines alone! Shakespeare's soliloquies elevated talking to oneself to the highest art; on the other hand, Hamlet may not have been traveling with a full seabag either...
...perceived as the single most powerful national institution, stronger than the government, the presidency, the military, the old communist nomenklatura and even Solidarity. The church's ascendancy has left many Poles uneasily wondering whether their country might someday be transformed into a clerical state, ruling in accordance with the dicta of Pope John Paul II (who makes his fourth papal visit to his native country next month...