Word: gruffness
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...faced, as if nursing some hatred or hurt inside. He didn't swagger when he walked like the others, or hang about in packs looking for Action. At tournament dances he would stand quietly with his hands in his pockets and watch the band. He'd answer congratulations with gruff monosyllabics and then avert his eyes. But his growl wasn't hostile, neither was it shy. His slowness to make friends came out of something deeper. He acted like someone angry inside, all the time. You respected Stockton, you laughed with Connors...
Saul Bellow's introductory sketch of Berryman adds a great deal to the novel. It's a rare piece, full of quaint anecdotes of their shared careers at Princeton and the University of Minnesota. Bellow knew the writer as a man first--as the man whose gruff arrogance was only a cover up for the frail alcoholic who was unable to manage his life and finally had to take refuge in hospitals. Bellow's sensitivity reaches even deeper. For he knew John Berryman the poet as well: the "Huffy Henry...wicked and away" of the Dream Songs, the narcissistic writer...
McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Robert Altman (M.A.S.H., Brewster McCloud, Images, The Long Goodbye) directs this gruff hearted Western story and turns the tables on who's who as hero--this time it is a tough talking opium smoking prostitute (Julie Christie) who has a business sense shrewd enough to muddle the head of the small time gambler (Warren Beatty) by teasing the needs of his gullible ego. Altman has done something radical with the use of sound--the voices mingle indiscernibly to effect a new sort of realism. Brattle Theatre...
...young bride Margery. Wycherley, who was educated in France, modeled the pair on characters in Moliere's School for Husbands and School for Wives; the jealous and overprotective Pinchwife corresponds to Sganarelle and Arnolphe, the outwitting Margery to Isabella and Agnes. Jack Gwillim's gray-bearded Pinchwife is all gruff and grum, but the part is a stock two-dimensional character that admits of little variety...
McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Robert Altman (M.A.S.H., Brewster McCloud, Images, The Long Goodbye) directs this gruff hearted Western story and turns the tables on who's who as hero--this time it is a tough talking opium smoking prostitute (Julie Andrews) who has a business sense shrewd enough to muddle the head of the small time gambler (Warren Beatty) by teasing the needs of his gullible ego. Altman has done something radical with the use of sound--the voices mingle indiscernibly to effect a new sort of realism. Brattle Theatre...