Word: gallic
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...real name was Fernand Contandin, but he preferred "just one name. Like Napoleon." He won an amateur singing contest in 1928, eleven years later was voted the most popular screen personality in France. His lantern jaw and Grand Canyon grin once prompted Actor Sacha Guitry to inquire with impeccable Gallic politeness: "Has anyone ever told you, monsieur-how odd-that you look like a horse...
What ruffled the jurists was an ill-advised comment by a previously obscure politician named René Tomasini, 51. Elected secretary-general of the Gaullist party only last month, the outspoken Tomasini made his maiden appearance before the parliamentary correspondents' association last week, and he sounded like a Gallic Spiro Agnew. He lauded the French policeman as "the representative of liberty." He declared that any breakdown in law-and-order was not the fault of the police but was due to "the cowardice of the magistrates." He lit into the state-owned television networks for showing "the negative aspects...
Kendall's account of Louis' incomparably complex dealings is a model of grace and clarity. At times the fog of Gallic intrigue grows almost too thick for any but the most attentive reader. But it is a tribute to the author's skill that despite the staggering ruck of events and the gulf of years that separates us from his protagonist. Louis comes through not as a monster but a comprehensible human being, fleetingly attractive and always impressive. If he sometimes resembles a Mafia Don organizing Newark, fair enough. Louis XI didn't want love...
Manic Pixilation. In the early stages of Bed and Board, the marriage is deftly presented as an even mixture of affection, innocence and Gallic eccentricity. Antoine and Christine play games at bedtime; Antoine manages to land then lose a succession of unlikely jobs; Christine bears their first child. But Doinel, the eternal mooncalf, is lured away by a Japanese girl. He moves in with the Oriental, who speaks no French and proceeds by slow inches to drive her new lover crazy with boredom. Antoine then woos Christine anew, discussing his general dissatisfaction and lassitude. Long-suffering but still loving...
...Haven's Long Wharf Theater. Another tentative meaning might be that life is a mystery on a scale that reduces the solution of a murder to the pettiest of puzzles. Since Marguerite Duras is a French novelist and a scenarist (Hiroshima, Mon Amour), still another specifically Gallic meaning to be drawn from her play is that the heart has its reasons that reason knows...