Word: mannered
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Director Paolo Spinola seems to have realized he had a non-film on his hands. It opens with four minutes of enigmatic action, no dialogue; this may be Spinola's deliberate smoke-screen intended to distract us from the great poverty of visual narrative forthcoming. In like manner, every bogged-down scene has people fiddle with things to keep the camera amused. They light infinite cigarettes, they jerk curtain cords, while they talk, talk, and talk...
...miles northwest of the coastal town of Hastings, his 6,000-man army was cut down by the Norman invaders of William the Conqueror. Harold was slaughtered, and the language, civilization and blood of Englishmen were changed forever. Englishmen have been celebrating the anniversary all year-in the traditional manner of today's Britain...
...assumedly with Kaplan's approval or instructions. Diccon is a Bedlam, a lunatic released from the asylum to beg about the country, like Poor Tom in King Lear. Deitch plays him as a controlled crafty-plotter--a fuzzy combination of Puck and an American confidence-man. His dress and manner is stylized motley rather than lunatic tatters. His elegant flourishing makes him swallow the many good jokes he has, and completely twist his character...
...jacketed couriers who hop on motorcycles and rush to the studio while the reporter chases down the next subject for camera and sound crews. By the time the reporter himself gets back to the studio he sometimes finds that the producer has put his story together in a surprising manner. After being told that he will be given 10 seconds in which to mouth an introduction to a 20-second slice of film, with perhaps 15 seconds of narrative later on, the reporter is likely to explode: "Yeah, but when do I get to tell what else happened...
...campaign where "image' counts heavily, both men have shown themselves to be soporific. Brown has never been much of a campaigner; he has an undistinguished platform manner, an unremarkable face, and a voice that shrills when he is put on the spot...