Word: mannerist
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...hated abstract art. But when Pollock came under Benton's tutelage, he wasn't aiming at abstraction. Benton's way of composing, with its heftily twisting figures and buckling, scoop-and-bump space, was based on 16th century Mannerism--Midwestern El Greco and Tintoretto; he even adapted the Mannerist device of reducing the figures to geometrical dolls, sometimes modeling them in clay. This vehemence, locked up as a system, appealed to Pollock as a container for his own emotional flailing. Though some painters show early signs of genius, or at least of facility, Pollock showed none. After you've seen...
...swath. Known for his fierce preparation for a role, he lived in a car while playing the punk in Valley Girl, wore bandages off the set as a blind Vietnam vet in Birdy, videotaped himself drunk for Leaving Las Vegas. Some of his very early performances were mannerist bordering on the grotesque, and he was almost fired from Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona and Moonstruck. "I was learning to act publicly," he admits, "and sometimes I'd fall on my face. I was an acquired taste, and it took people time to acquire me. Now I feel validated...
...screen lately, in Heat and City Hall, Pacino has grown more manic and mannerist. The finger snapping, the zany intensity of his stare and the sudden, ferocious barks are weirdly suggestive of the older, crabby, haunted Jerry Lewis. As Pacino soars into camp, one wonders: Is he a failed great actor or a great bad one? But onstage, he relaxes a bit. He knows the spectators are creating their own close-ups, so he plays piano: softer and with nuance. He gets to the tiredness of Erie and to the semisweet-chocolate heart of this frail playlet, and transforms...
Macy is an ace at doing hysteria in a narrow range, and Buscemi scores as a sick goofus whom one witness IDs as "funny-lookin'--more than most people even." There's enough gore to make this a Mystery Violence Theater. After some superb mannerist films, the Coens are back in the deadpan realist territory of Blood Simple, but without the cinematic elan. Fargo is all attitude and low aptitude. Its function is to italicize the Coens' giddy contempt toward people who talk and think Minnesotan. Which is, y'know, kind of a bad deal...
MOVIES . . . FARGO: After some superb mannerist films, filmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have returned to deadpan realist territory in their new film their native Minnesota. But the derisive new true-crime comedy should really be subtitled 'How to Laugh at People Who Talk Minnesotan,' says TIME's Richard Corliss. The film -- which has not much at all to do with Fargo, North Dakota -- is about the difficulty real folks have pulling off crimes that always go smoothly in fiction. Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) needs a lot of cash, so he hires two thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare...