Word: melodrama
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...PLAY THAT ends with a rape at a revival meeting can't be entirely empty of excitement. But there is very little in Dark of the Moon except sensational melodrama, and a lively production at Leverett House can't solve the basic problem--that the play should never have been revived...
Serpico is an energetic melodrama, with just enough realistic bite to shine against its current rivals. Its entertainment values hide a sour joke: one of the few heroic stories of our time has been filmed by men who lack their hero's passionate commitment to advance righteous endeavors to the necessary ends...
...recent movies (M*A*S*H, McCabe and Mrs. Miller and The Long Goodbye) are like model kits. Each one comes in little pieces, some of which are lovingly and intricately fashioned. Each is made to scale for a specific genre: the service comedy, the western, the private-eye melodrama. Altman encloses no instructions, though. That is the challenge and the catch, and accounts in part for the appeal his films exercise for many critics. It is not that Altman movies are open-ended so much as that they are any-ended. They can be assembled in many ways...
...sound track is filled with the sweet melodrama of old radio programs like Gangbusters, which Altman uses both to locate Bowie, Keechie and their pals in popular mythology and as an ironic counterpoint to lives that are too pressingly real. He gets fair, subdued performances from his cast and in addition admirably captures the poor rural South. Shot in muted autumnal tones, the film seems overcast, sad and dense with a kind of elemental menace...
...author of this moral melodrama, Ron Bitto '74, already has one Harvard production--John's Diner, featured at last year's Quincy House Arts Festival--under his belt. His dialogue still sounds annoyingly bookish, sprinkled with words like "precautious" and "warpedness." Such a style is perfectly suited to Grandfather's verbose monologues and tall tales, but it doesn't sound right coming from the other more down-to-earth characters. Bitto tosses in an occasional four-letter word, but this ploy fails to add any realism...