Word: mythical
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Number 45 Bahnhofstrasse is an imposing building in central Zurich. Its monumental columns are topped by the sculpted heads of a peasant patriot, a mother, the god Mercury and William Tell, the mythic Swiss hero. This secular temple is the main branch of the Union Bank of Switzerland. Inside, there are acres of reddish brown Tessin marble. The ornate overhead moldings frame a 20-ft. by 30-ft. skylight. A uniformed guard approaches: "Who are you? What are you doing? Identification papers, please." Is this brusque aggressiveness necessary? "I am only following orders," he says in German...
...Star Wars" remains special because of its scope, its ambition and its epic and mythic qualities. "Star Wars" was not made to gross nearly $400 million in box office sales, as today's blockbusters are. The movie has inspired the love of millions as no callously concocted, market-tested summer blockbuster ever will because the movie itself is inspired, from its making to its plot to the engrossing universe it creates...
There wasn't a mode he couldn't handle, from the sacred to the sentimental, from the epic to the pastoral, from the mythic to the slyly humorous. As with Bernini or Titian, one stands in awe of his sheer fecundity. And he could be very witty--in a discreet way. His early Apelles Painting Campaspe, c. 1726-27, shows a familiar story from Pliny: the Greek artist Apelles made a portrait of Campaspe, the mistress of Alexander the Great, which so pleased Alexander that when it was finished, he kept the painting and gave Campaspe herself to the artist...
Locating the reality behind the myth is what TV documentarian Ken Burns does for a living, most famously in The Civil War, his hugely popular 1990 PBS mini-series. Yet even as he cuts through the myth, Burns doesn't shy away from the mythic. History, in his view, is full of seminal characters and emblematic stories, of great deeds that launched new eras and small discoveries that "changed everything." The Burns style has by now become as familiar, not to say formulaic, as an episode of Friends: the long, slow pans over archival photographs, the dramatically lighted talking heads...
...Republicans assembled in Dallas to renominate Ronald Reagan 12 years ago, the incumbent President had already achieved mythic status. He led his Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, by an impressive 14 points in the opinion polls. The re-election campaign was considered to be a virtual formality. Even Reagan's opponents conceded his "magic" and had all but given up seething about it. "Not since Dwight Eisenhower," wrote TIME in its convention issue, "has the U.S. public felt such fondness for its leader." TIME's Hugh Sidey declared of Reagan, "He is a refrain from Stars and Stripes Forever...