Word: hymns
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Gandhi sought God, not orthodoxy. His daily prayers mixed traditional Hindu venerations with Buddhist chants, readings from the Koran, a Zoroastrian verse or two and the Christian hymn Lead, Kindly Light. That eclecticism reflected his great tolerance for all religions, one of his holiest--and least respected--precepts. "Truth," he preached, "is God," but he could never persuade India's warring religious sects to agree. His spiritual mentors were just as broad--Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, his mother. Gandhi later said his formative childhood impression was of her "saintliness" and her devout asceticism infused his soul. The family's brand...
...director, Alan Parker, worked with Laura Jones to write the screenplay, and the film is very faithful to the book--too faithful, perhaps. Like a complex organ hymn being plinked out on an electric keyboard, the film plays the same basic melody as the memoir but fails to bring out the nuances of McCourt's writing, while these nuances are precisely what made Angela's Ashes a great work rather than a mere string of anecdotes...
...because the intensity and energy required for a particular number is excruciating. So the rest of the time is filler--often thuddingly, anachronistic, cliched, diluted filler. At one point, a blues singer launches into almost a mini-opera about liberation from bondage (I confused it for a Civil War hymn at first)--it entirely changes the show's tone. Seconds later, of course, the bouncing Irish return to claim their stage. But the most egregious offense comes a few acts later. A group of African-American dancers saunter onto stage wearing black (get it! get it!) and start to boogie...
During the Harvard and Princeton Glee Club concert this weekend, the guys with the orange bow ties sang a lovely Franz Schubert hymn in German, which stirred fond memories of my family's trip to Germany this summer...
...notes. This varied format lends a vibrant immediacy to Reagan's life, one which would be hard to recreate within the confines of traditional biography. Morris, who thinks in terms of music, has infused the text with references to music--from "The Old Rugged Cross," Reagan's favorite hymn, to Liszt's Faust Symphony. And, as a testament to Morris' intellectual horsepower--and showmanship--it is interesting to note that he modeled an entire chapter on Webern's Piano Variations. When three notes were played with the right hand, Morris wrote three paragraphs about Reagan. When the next three notes...