Word: minimalist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This conceptual schizophrenia emerges in Alex Brooks' set design: neither minimalist, nor realist, but rather an uneasy mixture of the two. Brooks seems to have mistaken epic literalness, which arises from social connotation, with the notion of approximating reality. While the set should be merely suggested, minimal and stripped of reality, the props must be realistic and literal. This idea, inherent to the epic, becomes curiously reversed in Brooks' design. The sets strive for realistic representation, as in Newgate prison. Props, on the other hand, crowd the production, devoid of social significance. What, for example, is the purpose...
Louis Malle, who has a deserved reputation for taking on dangerous projects (Pretty Baby, Murmur of the Heart), was obviously attracted to the challenge of doing what amounts to an antimovie, static and minimalist. He has functioned, it seems, pretty much in the manner of a good TV technician handling a Sunday-morning inter view show. His work is smooth, objective, unobtrusive. His manner certainly suits a script that was distilled from hundreds of hours of taped conversations between its author-protagonists...
Such self-control dominates The Country. Plante is a minimalist with language; his prose reduces events to small, discrete moments. He uses words less to evoke a scene than to catalogue it: "The sun was beaming through the pantry window into the kitchen; there was a block of yellow light on the wall above the table, set for supper with mismatched plates, glasses, a loaf of bread and a carton of milk. It was five-thirty...
...little too near the freeway, in a raw mat of sodded lawn-a poignant dry-green whiffle of grass with a single sapling in it that gives no more shade than a swizzle stick. The house has the frank, bleak starkness of the cut-rate. Its interiors are minimalist, and grimly candid about it. No woodwork, no extras, no little frills of gentility any more. No front hall. One bathroom, with the cheapest fixtures, no bathtub...
...Jagger also has scorn for the power he wields. He slurs his meanest lines with utter disregard, perhaps to illustrate how idiotic it is to hang on every syllable he and Richards decide to cram into a verse. By the same token, take a look at any picture of minimalist drummer Charlie Watts in action, and you will probably find that famous wry smile and sweatless brow. He knows what he's doing by keeping you waiting for his occasional flourishes. Though he may look a little bored, Watts understands the unique funkiness his bosses need, and he is wise...