Word: motif
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Since Sagan clearly wrote the book for a general public, he should have trodden gingerly when he encountered political and religious issues. His consistent bumbling in these spheres is the unintentional leit-motif of Broca's Brain. When in doubt. Sagan shies away from the secular implications of his lofty ideas. In the course of declaring, for example, that we will one day have robots for garbagemen (at current prices, the human version are "expendable"). Sagan mentions hastily that "the effective re-employment of those human beings must, of course be arranged; but...that should not be too difficult." Such...
Seabrook has this moldy strip of hamburger restaurants and Hawaiian motif motels and shopping centers, and that's where you march now. Soon you're at the main gate, and despite the copters, there aren't any police there, just two security guards. After a couple of minutes the state police and the Guard come screaming over, and they don't know for sure that this demonstration is legal and peaceful and what the heck, you seem to be blocking Route 1, so the firehoses get turned on again. But people know by now not to fear the portable hoses...
This is a film about love and families and the faith that keeps the lives of a group of peasants together. Prayer punctuates their daily lives like the motif in the Bach concerto underscores their joys and sorrows. A woman angrily exhorts the Lord to save the life of her cow; her prayer reprimands a God who would let the only cow of a widow with six children become ill. The Pater Noster becomes a magic spell chanted in Latin by the local healer, and always there are the endless "Ave Marias," with the accent heavily on the Ave, which...
Here, between the ocean, the fog banks and a coast still innocent of condominiums, the child's interest in wild nature began. "I was a hyperactive brat," Adams recalls. He was educated at home by tutors, and he ascribes his lifelong habit of keeping meticulous records of every motif, exposure and chemical mix to an early taste for algebra. But the main obsession of his youth was music...
Sellars comes into his own in the second act. Futuristic fantasy is more suited to his playland theatrical style. His actors, done up in round bug suits with mops on their heads, race around the stage with shopping carts. The supermarket motif is reinforced in an incessant procession of slides of dog food, toilet paper, peas, and Burry cookies, and in the soothing strains of Muzaked "Hey Jude," "Those Were The Days," and "Lara's Theme." It's tempting to settle back and watch the ads parade by--it may be monotonous but there is a certain sense...