Word: milieu
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...extremists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, tend to believe that any act, including murder, is justified if it thwarts the peace process. Says University of Pennsylvania political scientist Ian Lustick, an expert on Jewish fundamentalism: "It's the equivalent of the right-wing milieu that led to the Oklahoma City bombing." That event shook Americans out of the complacent notion that it couldn't happen here; now Israelis too have an even deeper understanding of their vulnerability...
Figgis is a refusenik in every way. Even the neon glitz of his milieu, visual catnip to most directors, is muted. His Las Vegas is mostly low-wattage motel rooms and morning-after grayness. Cage, that most daring of actors, practically cha-chas through the gloom, high on the freedom that the loss of all amour propre bestows. Shue's character hasn't yet reached that heady state. She's engaged in a complex struggle between self-awareness and self-destruction. One has only the smallest hope for her. And none at all for the commercial fate of a movie...
...feelings it evokes, and infinitely more compelling than you can imagine a film derived from such a familiar source might be (there have been at least seven movie adaptations of it, not to mention an unstoppable stage musical). Lelouch understands that Jean Valjean and his friends, foes and milieu have long since permeated our consciousness, that you can't just uproot them, plunk them down unchanged in modern times and expect anyone to see the result as more than a gimmick...
They are wonderfully well-matched antagonists, Strike and Rocco. The former is wary, sullen and perhaps more ambivalent about his work than he dares to admit. The latter is bustling, voluble and perhaps more sympathetic toward Strike--with everyone trying to survive in this milieu--than he cares to admit. Clockers is careful not to overexplain these figures. Director Spike Lee, who shares screenplay credit with novelist Richard Price, lets Phifer (in his first film role) and Keitel (in his umpty-umpth) find the characters, which they do with unimprovable unpredictability...
Beller's great accomplishment, however, is that he has managed to weave a series of touching and exceptionally memorable tales from this familiar milieu. All in all, Beller's characters are an indecisive lot who pursue desire with the sort of tremulousness that almost always ensures their solitude. In The Hot Dog War a young man who fixates on a beautiful woman he meets on the street cannot help bringing his best friend along on their first and only date. In Nondestructive Testing a former divinity-school student turned office temp is entranced by a comely receptionist until she makes...