Word: poeticizing
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...Dole's acceptance speech was big--stern, daring, even at moments Churchillian--but it was marked most by a kind of interrupted eloquence. The speech betrayed the weight of a few too many hands. Even in its strongest, most poetic passages there seemed to be something missing. When Dole stirringly pointed to the exits in the convention hall and declared the Republicans the party of Lincoln, he invited any bigoted delegates to leave, "as I stand here and hold this ground." But the way the section was constructed, it seemed as if he were telling the party it was bigoted...
Then the movie hits what's probably its high point, with a fine poetic juxtaposition. One day Manny refuses to play turbulent airplane to Lo's stewardess (Lo stands and balances on her, fidgeting) because she secretly fears for Lo's increasingly visible pregnancy. So in one swoop, Krueger has portrayed well the jarring, forced switch from pretend to inevitable real life...
This sort of narrative turnaround usually provides the pleasure of surprise, the sense that poetic justice has foiled a malevolent act. Moore quickly cuts off such easy certainties. He shows the old man examining the possessions of his would-be murderer. They include a printed statement identifying the intended victim as "Pierre Brossard, former Chief of the Second Section of the Marseilles region of the Milice, condemned to death in absentia by French courts, in 1944 and again in 1946." The statement goes on to say that Brossard was charged with the massacre of 14 Jews on June...
...middle-class desperation is that writer-director Todd Solondz doesn't think it's funny. Neither does he think it's tragic. His Dawn holds no promise. She's not particularly bright nor more than usually sensitive. You don't think her misery is grist for some novelistic or poetic gift that will one day provide her with sweet revenge on her tormentors. It is, at best, material for some future psychiatric monologue wherein she can blame her unhappiness on Brandon. Or on Steve (Eric Mabius), the high school hunk she hopelessly moons after. Or even, conceivably, on her little...
Furthermore, everything is couched in vivid, passionate language, by turns profound and stirring, agonizing and impenetrable. At times, it acquires a poetic, almost musical tone; indeed, by the end, the play largely abandons meaning in favor of the pure beauty of words. But even through the middle of the play, the dense language poses no small challenge. The play consists of lengthy monologues--often delivered just a little too quickly--which leave one struggling to keep up. Revelations about the banality and fakeness of existence are liberally spiced with whimsical references and odd metaphors...