Word: portrayal
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...recently caught a Tufts production of Man of La Mancha which also induced spasmodic bursts of embarrassment. Both plays resonate with thumping Vague Generalities; both persuade the audience that things'll turn out all right with a little assertion of personal rights and a lot of hope. (Both also portray beggars and criminals and lumpenproletariat as lovable urchins, but the political implications of this are so ludicrous that to point them out seems priggish). There is a blight on musical comedy, there has been one for Rodgers knows how long. so why not just admit it and return...
...remarkable about Sunday, Bloody Sunday from a film perspective is Schlesinger's sudden acquisition of taste and tact. The man who made New York City into a playground of straw men so that a pimp and a hustler could look like folk heroes here presents the first sequences which portray homosexuality and Jewish ethnicity without smirking at their subjects. Some affectation is still present: a wayward bedside TV set, which brings back bad memories of Sylvia Miles'; a sinuous pan up Elkin's body as seen by Alex through a shower curtain; postured bit-playing by effete types at Hirsh...
...says in his introduction that "I liked being with Lieutenant Calley. To me he seemed sensible, intelligent if intelligence lies in the life examined, sensitive, sincere...." Sack's editing of the transcript, however, does not make Calley come across as the bright, likeable fellow whom he, perhaps, intended to portray. Calley is confused, tentative, and reluctant to draw any conclusions, to accept or give blame for what happened at My Lai. But he is normal, as intelligent and humorous as the next fellow, and aware. At times, he is even appealing, as when he satirizes the reporters who pursue...
Selections by columnist Pete Hamill and Yale political science student Michael Lerner show that little attention is paid to the white majority. Although television is finally beginning to portray blacks, the white working class is still on the outside looking in. Daddy always goes to the office, never the factory. Books and magazines similarly lack working class references. What few references exist are usually derogatory. ("Greasers" are Neanderthals and "dumb Polacks" have replaced "coons" as the butt of jokes). An uninitiated observer would think that the American people are either suburban white professionals or inner-city blacks...
They are all wrong. The novel has never been popular because it is long, repetitious and confusing. But it is a marvelous book, fully worthy of the master who had just finished The Possessed and was soon to write The Brothers Karamazov. It is true that it attempts to portray "an age of the golden mean and insensitivity, of a cult of ignorance and idleness ... and of a longing for the readymade." But its greatness lies not in its timeliness but in its transcendence over time...