Word: priestly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...films, with little dialogue and music, are in effect silent pictures; they are certainly moving pictures, for they tell stories of people drawn toward death or transfiguration. Bresson was preoccupied with the mysterious workings of God's will, with saints ground down by sinners; Diary of a Country Priest and The Trial of Joan of Arc depict a state of grace under pressure. But all his attractive heroes, whether explicitly religious or not, are trudging up their own private Calvary. In Mouchette, the beautifully pitiless story of a teenage outcast so maladroit that she must try three times before...
...suddenly found herself part of the global marketplace. An Art Deco ashtray she bought for $20 was bid up quickly--and sold for $290. A vase she got for $5 went to a California buyer--for $585. She even sold an old tractor online--for $2,300, to a priest from New York. Checks have been pouring in from as far away as Iceland, Egypt and China. "The top month I ever had in the stall I sold 15 items," she says. "Now I can sell 15 items in an hour...
Velazquez couldn't have cared less about leaving a record of his own personality in his work. Confession (except to a priest) wasn't part of his culture. His objectivity formed itself around an almost punitively observed decorum. He must have felt he was a great painter, but his life's struggle was to establish himself as a great gentleman. No court was more hedged with exact signs and symbols of degree than that of the Spanish monarchy. Velazquez spent much of his adult life lobbying, campaigning, espaliering the family tree and sucking up to the noblesse in order...
...Machinal's flirtation with experimental theater achieves its completion in the last scene. The costuming is radical; both Parris and Agresta, executioners, are dressed in metallic-punk-dominatrix suits, and Gunn, the priest, wears a silver robe. The sense that all dialogue is a voice-over creates the impression that the actors are merely odd configurations of marionettes. In this scene, people have fully transformed into machines. Helen's appeals for mercy seem to be almost rays of light bouncing off the darkened stage, for she is the only lit figure. Suddenly, strobe lights destroy the darkness, and the execution...
...Every Easter Sunday we beat up a priest," The Artman says...