Word: rhythm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...much in this film but he has a good time--and so do we--and that, for him, seems to be exactly the point. The method makes this fairly clear: He has liberated himself from some of the most basic and demanding elements of film-making--story, dramatic rhythm, setting, scene structure--by co-opting the great plot of the Mary Shelley novel and faithfully copying the set design and scene sequence of the original film. He gives himself the freedom to make puns, play with sight gags, and concoct outrageously incongruent scenes--which is after all what he does...
Jars of Jam. Neal was so effective that some spectators laughed in appreciation of his sallies, and defense attorneys objected during a jury recess to what they called the "aspect of French Revolution" in the courtroom. Neal's rhythm remained unbroken. He summed up: "But, of course, everybody is blaming John Dean. But Mitchell also blamed Colson. Ehrlichman blames the President. Mardian blames the White House. And Mr. Haldeman really can't recall enough to blame anybody...
...means both sentence and symphonic movement." This seems a bit simplistic, though, so he tries again with parts of speech, equating nouns with motifs and adjectives with their harmonic underpinnings--Wagner's Fate motif played over a diminished chord could mean something like "cruel fate." Verbs naturally correspond to rhythm, so Bernstein adds some triple meter at the piano and comes up with a complete sentence, "cruel fate waltzes...
This sort of thing is pointless, but it's innocent enough, and Bernstein admits that these analogies are only "quasi-scientific." In later lectures, though, he seems to take them quite seriously--at one point he even calls a bar of Mozart that involves both rhythm and harmony a "participle," as if you could mix parts of speech the way you mix blue and yellow to get green...
...cast step out from the tapestry to address his audience, like Anna Magnani as she reaches the door to her apartment and bids us all good night. In Amarcord Fellini plays around further with this device; along with the exquisite diction of the Italian actors and the rhythm and beauty and strangeness (to the English ear) of what they are saying, this lends a theatrical, almost ritualistic quality to the film. These characters, though, are faintly ridiculous. By stepping out of the community to address us, they forfeit the strength in numbers that protects everyone else and show themselves...