Word: rossing
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Pleasantville, the first feature from writer/director Gary Ross, is more rooted in television as Americana than in the scary implications of too much technology. It deals with our nostalgia for '50s-sit-com bliss--which, we all realize, never really existed. It is also a graceful, somewhat fragile story, and, with its playful metaphorical mixing of color and black-and-white, it is a visual treat as well...
...troops from the West Bank, was growing increasingly frustrated with Israeli stalling. Friday night, as the Israelis celebrated the Sabbath, Albright was host to a small, Arabs-only dinner. "I really understand the pain and aspirations of your people," she said in a toast. Chief Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross was warning his colleagues not to alienate Netanyahu. With the right tactics, Ross said, there was hope for a deal...
...wrestling fans, perhaps. But could the Body be a credible Governor? Steve Schier, chair of the political-science department at Carleton College, puts Ventura in the emerging populist tradition of Minnesota, a state that in 1992 gave 24% of its vote to Reform Party founder Ross Perot and in this decade has elected populists of both the left and the right--Democrat Paul Wellstone and Republican Rod Grams--to the U.S. Senate. Ventura's campaign slogan--"Retaliate in '98"--fits the tradition...
...Ross and his team make brilliant use of color technology; the blossoming of each character really does touch the emotions of an openhearted viewer. But the scheme has heavier undertones. For creamy black-and-white read white: white bread, pasty white skin, whites-only neighborhoods, the last decade of white-male culture and, yes, the white sheets of the Ku Klux Klan. For color read colored, as in "colored people" and other oppressed minorities--artists seeking free expression, women in search of the apocalyptic orgasm...
...debate the film doesn't acknowledge. The ultimate irony of Pleasantville is that it is less a '60s movie than a '50s one; it has the didacticism and sentimentality of the serious Hollywood product of that earlier time. That one and this. Stretching credulity but never hedging a bet, Ross wants universal acceptance for his film, so he finally makes the town so endearing that one of the '90s kids decides to stay there. (Gee, wait till Mom finds out!) He hopes you will too. That's the difference between today's best Hollywood filmmakers and the top independent auteurs...