Word: frisson
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Some of these stories are mere wisps-a filament of character, a. frisson of nuance. A few are too fanciful by half. What makes the collection very much worth reading is the author's ardent belief in her characters. Paley finds all her people exceptional, and she describes them with a charge of feeling that is unfailingly seductive...
...Angeles artist Chris Burden, who had himself manacled to the floor of an open garage, between live wires and buckets of water, so that (in possibility) anyone who cared to might kick over the pails and electrocute the artist. The sight of such gratuitous risk is a vulgar frisson for the spectators, and unlikely to appeal to those who believe that art and life interact best at a distance from one another. At least the psychodramas of body art connote a desperate involvement that is missing from the other, and colder, latitudes of conceptualism. If conceptual art represents pedagogy...
...makings of a classic confrontation-the convergence of four female stars in Madrid to film The Trojan Women. A concatenation of cats? A frisson of felines? Not at all. Playing mother hen, Katharine Hepburn (Hecuba) immediately put rebellious Vanessa Redgrave (Andromache) at ease by warmly embracing her when Vanessa arrived with her daughter. Meeting Senevieve Bujold (Cassandra), Katie called her "My child," to which the young Canadian actress responded with a deferential "Madame." Even Greek-born Irene Papas (Helen) was filled with love. Asked how she felt about working with her longtime mentor and friend, Director Michael Cacoyannis, she replied...
Still, This Man Must Die is no academic fame-dropping mystery, all allusion and no frisson. From the opening footage to the ambiguous fadeout, the viewer is kept one crescendo behind, one clue away. Central to the story is the father's diary, in which he notes his lethal intentions. When the killer is ruthlessly expunged, the mystery has only begun...
Director Claude Chabrol, a disciple of Hitchcock, shoots more for nuance than frisson. It is his wily variations on a hoary theme that give La Femme Infidèle its own small distinction. A wealthy Parisian insurance man (Michel Bouquet) takes casual note that his supple young wife (Stephane Audran) acts rather nervous when he interrupts her on the telephone. He engages a private detective to follow her on her shopping trips to Paris and has his worst suspicions quickly confirmed: she is having an affair. Her paramour is a writer (Maurice Ronet) who lives mostly off his "independent means...