Word: ritualization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Repeating a familiar, futile ritual, the U.N. Security Council was called into session last week in response to the Israeli commando attacks on Beirut. Even Arab diplomats acknowledged that they did not expect the meeting to find a solution to the Middle East crisis. In fact, said Algerian Ambassador Abdellatif Rahal, "it is not my intention to propose one." Instead, he and other Middle Eastern emissaries planned to spend the session condemning both Israel and the U.S., which, in the view of Arab leaders, promotes Israel's military aggressiveness...
...Washington, waved flags through the streets of Boston, opened our hands for hordes of McCarthy buttons and opened our hearts to the prospects of peace if we had known the fruits of all our efforts would be Godspell. A Jesus movement composed of empty rhetoric of sharing and contrived ritual of love has spawned an equally uninspired film. Godspell is devoid of charm, wit, taste, humor and even a semblance of intelligence. If the film has any interest it's not what is on screen, but in the emotional turmoil that must have antedated its making. What disenchantment and anger...
...also plays the title role) understand that one man's classic is another's cliché−and are anxious to make sure we know they know. Therefore they stress the mythic overtones that pop cultists are always finding in the standard western forms. All the ritual scenes−Eastwood's menacing entrance ride down Main Street, the saloon confrontation and the barbershop Shootout that establish his credentials as a law-and-order man−are handled so that the emphasis is on archetypicality rather than on believable action...
Everyday occurrences here seem like atavistic ritual, mythical folklore and abject cruelty. He watches a group of Indian fishermen pull their small nets along the shore, hearing the hypnotic harmony of their voices all shouting in an unknown language. Sitting outside a Hindu Temple he finds a senile old man who says with wonderful pride that he works there as a "holy water carrier." He sees two Muslim men, their bodies blackened with soot, dancing at midday on a deserted street of a small village. Driving along a highway he stops to film vultures stripping a dead water buffalo...
With characteristic reverence for custom and ritual, the Japanese have perfected such arts as flower arranging, tea serving, paper folding-and now expense-account living. In recent years, The Land of the Rising Sun has become the land of the rising expense account, to an extent that might excite blind envy among U.S. businessmen, long noted for their expertise in that area...