Word: motif
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Another convincing oddity is the work of Simon Read, whose bizarre photographs-the face distorted and stretched, like a rubber mask-are done with elaborate bellows-and-pinhole cameras that he makes himself. Taken as serials of the same motif, in accordance with the rotation and expansion of the camera, the photographs assume a shifty, hallucinated look...
Losey adds one character not found in the original, a mysterious young valet in black who hovers wordlessly in virtually every scene of the Don's, often exchanging intimate glances with him. A nemesis? An illegitimate son? A homosexual lover? (A dubious motif also suggested by the epicene revelers at the Don's supper.) The figure, mimed with sullen sensuality by Eric Adjani (Isabelle's brother), remains cryptic and annoyingly gratuitous. He does, however, make a perfect emblem for Losey's whole approach. This Don Giovanni deserves the old line once used by Dorothy Parker...
Baldwin's handling of the gospel music motif, which he weaves throughout the novel to mark the changes in Arthur's life, also warrants some criticism: readers lacking any exposure to gospel music may find the references hard to follow. This is important, since Baldwin depends on the music to evoke an atmosphere rarely found outside black churches. Those who can't understand the gospel theme can ignore it; still, having worked to incorporate that bit of black culture, it is sad the author failed to make the device serve the readers who most need "clues...
Along the way, there are vintage Jimmy McHugh songs to beguile the ear, notably Don't Blame Me, I Feel a Song Comin ' On, I Can 't Give You Anything but Love, Baby. A patriotic red-white-and-blue finale with a naval motif finds the chorus sporting frigates for headgear and sends most playgoers out of the house on a wave of euphoria...
Nonetheless, Vonnegut's messages emerge from beneath the overplayed Harvard motif and a typically bizarre plot. Starbuck's biggest claim to fame, for example, amounts to a piddling job in the Nixon administration as the President's Special Advisor on Youth Affairs. His office, hidden in the dank basement of the White House, becomes the resting place for large sums of illicit Watergate pay-off money, and when the break-in and cover-up arrests are made, he is duly escorted to a minimum-security prison in Georgia--undergoing the pains of prison minus the Watergate infamy...