Word: portrayal
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Because the particular problems of a labor camp inmate, like the particular problems of a heroin addict, are not like any other predicament they are especially difficult to portray. Solzhenitsyn conveys the prisoners' destitution by alternating between dead pan description of bodily pain and cowering before nameless authorities, and emphasis on the miniscule occurrences that bring relief from suffering. Ivan finds a hacksaw blade, gets a little tobacco, and uses his favorite spoon. These few moments in Ivan's day when he feels he can do something that he wants to do punctuate the bleak narrative description of camp routine...
TomCourtenay's Ivan is a large part of the problem. His face is too expressive and his presence too strong to portray a lisping, faceless prisoner. His third person narration throughout the film locates him as a sophisticated, detached observer who understands all his own pain. But this observation is completely incongruous with the ingenuous naiviete with which he asks a fellow prisoner "Where does the moon go each month if it doesn't break up into the stars...
...selfish obsessions. Moliere's genius is in depicting a character who is the apotheosis of some short-sighted way of looking at the world, and in gleefully and decisively destroying that viewpoint. Arnolphe, though made human and rather sympathetic by Bedford (who is simply too likeable an actor to portray total evil), loses, and deserves to lose; his snivelling retreat while the happy lovers embrace is the high point of the play...
...however, Zappa gives us rednecks, rock stars, and groupies who populate a movie set that at times is supposed to pass for a small American town. ("Centerville--A Real Nice Place to Raise Your Kids Up.") The rock stars are, of course, the Mothers of Invention, all of whom portray themselves, except for Zappa, who rarely appears in the film, but is sometimes represented by a Frank Zappa dummy and sometimes by Ringo Starr, who plays Larry the Dwarf disguised as Frank Zappa. In this unchallenging role. Ringo once again displays his utter (though in this case appropriate) lack...
Candice Bergen plays (she can never be said actually to portray) T.R. Baskin, a callow young thing from Ohio, so fresh faced that she looks like a Clearasil testimonial. T.R. gets a job in the typing pool of some Kafkaesque neon-lit office. A friend finds her a date with an affluent racist, whom she fearlessly denounces. After that it is home to her crummy one-room apartment and endless nights falling asleep in front of the television...