Word: momental
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Mann's judgement about technical effects is often questionable. For example, in a scene outside Dr. Abelman's house in the Brooklyn slums, three teen-age Negroes throw beer cans at Woody Thrasher's white sedan as Thrasher drives away. This moment could have been quite eloquent, but some loud, over-dramatic background music destroyed the entire effect...
...etch the initials P. and C. against the night sky of Cincinnatus' home town. On the ride to the scaffold, bouquets of flowers pelt P.'s and C.'s open car. The whole vulgar holiday is surrounded by rules and rituals of elaborate illogic. Finally, the moment nears "to do chop-chop," as M'sieur Pierre puts it childishly; and childishly, too, the prisoner seeks to save his last shred of self-respect as he mutters: "By myself, by myself." Author Nabokov saves a climactic surprise for the chopping block itself, where the novel ends...
...been invited there to meet. Trying to interest him in the collection of little glass animals that is her only solace, she offers him her favorite, saying, "Here's an example of one, if you care to see it." In the current H.D.C. production, she takes at this moment a quick, frightened, intensely poignant glance at him, to see if he will condescend to look at the glass unicorn she treasures so. Both to the interpreting mind and the receiving heart, the glance means more than the line...
...beauty of this moment may belong essentially to Kathryn Humphreys, who plays the young girl--her whole performance, the best in an excellent production, is compellingly pathetic yet radiant--but the whole evening is full of similar small epiphanies, finely executed by the company. The play's success depends entirely on an unbroken series of these momentary beauties; on the present occasion this success is never in doubt...
...Schroeder's lighting sometimes brings strongly to mind the image of someone in the back throwing switches at an unwontedly rapid rate; but frequently he achieves stunning effects without loss of visibility, as when Tom appears to open the play, illuminated for a moment only by his cigarette lighter...