Word: duking
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...most notable examples was a prodigiously wealthy, vain and talented son of a French king, Jean, the Duke of Berry. Jean de Berry was born in 1340, and his patronage of artists changed the whole pattern of late medieval painting. "No patron of his time, and few before or after him, had a comparable effect on the arts," wrote Art Historian Millard Meiss. "Between 1380 and 1400 every great cycle of miniatures in France was commissioned by the Duke of Berry." A superb exhibition of 14th and 15th century French miniature painting, organized by Professor Meiss, is now on view...
Even by aristocratic standards, Jean de Berry's appetite for possessions was extreme. He liked animals; so his menagerie included 50 swans, a wolf, a camel, an ostrich, 1,500 mastiffs, and a number of tame bears which, lurching along in specially designed carts, followed the duke on his frequent moves between chàteaux. As with beasts, so with priests: "He maintained in his home," wrote one chronicler, "many chaplains who day and night sang the praises of God and celebrated Mass, and he took care to compliment them whenever the service lasted longer or was more elaborate...
...this production, it lies in the play itself. Kopit's script is uneven, scurrying unpredictably from brilliance to pathos. Some of his lines carry a sublime irony, as in the death speech of Spotted Tail, the young Indian played articulately by Fletcher Word. Bill Fuller's comic Russian Grand Duke Alexis is moved to kill a Cherokee by Bill's pompous and flatulent boasting of his slaughters of the tribe, and shoots the first Indian who comes in sight. Spotted Tail falls dead, and then rises to address the audience...
Toronto coach Freddy Wares, his job on the line, establishes a 9 p.m. curfew on the night before the big game, but Duke breaks it to keep a rendezvous with Sherri. He is subsequently caught by Wares, who immediately suspends him, and banishes her to the open road. Moments later, she is killed in a flaming auto wreck, and Billy is crushed. He wanders aimlessly around the Toronto streets, his mind a kaleidoscope of romantic flashbacks. Sherri is gone. But the game lives on, and the next night, with Toronto trailing by two goals late in the game. Duke strides...
...footage and the script don't join at all, and the effect is jarring. We are told that Duke is a superstar, but we are rarely given closeups of him in action. We are told the Maple Leafs fall apart as the season goes on, but we never see the disintegration. This is part of what Bassett has to do in order to create a valuable and lasting statement about the sport, and he sidesteps his responsibilities either by design or neglect. Such a statement can be made. Robert Redford came fairly close to it in Downhill Racer, and Bruce...