Word: frenchman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...there is another, sparer sort, where penetrating gazes take the place of explosive technical virtuosity. It is caviar to the Hollywood popcorn, and for 40 years ROBERT BRESSON was its finest and most influential purveyor. In 13 features from Les Anges du Peche (1943) to L'Argent (1983), the Frenchman who called himself a "jolly pessimist" went his own thorny way and, through his severe, seductive example, established the dominant style of a minority art form. His films, with little dialogue and music, are in effect silent pictures; they are certainly moving pictures, for they tell stories of people drawn...
...most Internet-like technology in history. Eventually, it would convey detailed news of inventions, allowing people in distant lands who would never meet to collaborate, in effect, on new technologies. "James Watt's steam engine" was actually lots of people's steam engine, including the Frenchman who had first shown that steam could move a piston...
...attracted merchants and adventurers, whose goods and tales would change the world. Marco Polo's stories became the dreams of Christopher Columbus. The quest for a passage to Cathay, the medieval name for northern China, would propel countless explorers through serendipitous discoveries in America. (In 1634, for example, the Frenchman Jean Nicolet left Quebec in search of China and discovered Green Bay, Wis.) Meanwhile, Franciscan missionary diplomats sent by the Pope to seek an alliance with the Khan against Islam brought back a black powder to a fellow Franciscan, the Oxford scientist Roger Bacon, the first European to write about...
...Paul Gray's review of historian Susan Dunn's Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light [BOOKS, Dec. 6]: as a Frenchman living in the U.S., I have had the opportunity to reflect on the respective merits and shortcomings of the two countries' revolutions. Dunn does not render sufficient justice to the particular challenges of the French Revolution. While the Reign of Terror was a sad phase in French history, it would probably have been difficult to avoid. The lessons drawn about the later emergence of Napoleon can also be considered from two perspectives: while some consider it an end point...
...past decade has brought a renaissance. Partly it's been spurred by domestic growth: though historically not big wine consumers, Australians now drink an average of 26 bottles of table wine a year--more than any other English-speaking nation, although less than a third of the average Frenchman's needs. But the real growth has come overseas, where inexpensive (less than $30) Australian wines are hailed for richness, approachability and reliability--characteristics that put them on a footing with good French wine. "Australia is now seen as a credible dinner-party wine," says Simon Farr, a director of Bibendum...