Word: psychos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...personal rather than a primarily critical biography, Mapplethorpe succeeds, to the reader's relief, in its study of the artist's life. Though occasionally turning to psycho-babble, particularly in her discussion of Mapplethorpe's relationship with his conservative Catholic parents, the author gives a clear and well-rendered portrait of her subject. Even those turned off by the artist's work should find the odd story of his life compelling, if unsavory, reading. Her unsentimental rendering of Mapplethorpe's funeral is particularly successful in capturing the strange convergence of influences that made...
...cameras and lightning-fast jump-cuts. Nevertheless, "Seven" is an almost complete departure for him. In fact, this film is a departure for anyone. Even the opening titles are unlike anything that has come before them. They are a twisted version of an MTV program--"The Real World" gone psycho. Names and images flash onto the screen in blinding, blurry white, accompanied by booming, pulsating music. The aural assualt doesn't stop once the movie begins. The first few minutes of dialogue are almost unintelligible, covered by the sounds of sirens or cars or trains. We know at this moment...
...scene from Psycho is a grisly shudder in the collective unconscious, as bracing as Janet Leigh's famous shower and possibly even more shocking. The detective, played by Martin Balsam, is climbing the stairway of Norman Bates' creepy old house, his cautious tread accompanied by a few high-pitched notes in the violins, pregnant with mystery and menace. As he reaches the landing, a door flies open in a glint of flashing steel: suddenly the strings shriek rhythmically, as the knife blade slashes down and the stricken cop topples backward to his death in a symphony of pizzicato cellos...
...master of the memorable musical motif and the splash of orchestral color remains Williams, 63. From the ominous, if oft-parodied, "dum-dum, dum-dum" tune for the shark in Jaws (itself an homage to a theme from Hermann's Psycho) to the soaring melody of the mother ship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Williams has a knack for creating the perfect musical counterpoint to the fantastic images on screen. "We all look up to him," says Kamen. "He invigorated the idea that the orchestra is the way to go when making film scores. He emphasizes the tonal...
...Amendment applies only to attempts by government to restrain expression. It says nothing about decisions made by private media companies, and it does nothing to prevent them from choosing which songs or programs they will or will not promote. Five years ago, Simon & Schuster canceled plans to publish American Psycho, the sado-chic novel by Bret Easton Ellis, after advance complaints about passages detailing the sexual torture and mutilation of women. (It was subsequently published by Knopf, a division of Random House.) "It's our responsibility,'' says Martin Davis, then chairman of Simon & Schuster's corporate parent Paramount. "You have...