Word: shorthand
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Under battle pressure, the artist often resorted to a sort of sketchbook shorthand-a line or two to fix the horizon ridges, a picket fence of pencil strokes for the men on the line. These were later worked up into more finished sketches, much of the detail supplied from the artist's own pocket reference book. "Infantry, cavalry and artillery soldiers," wrote Harper's Theo Davis, "each had their particular uniform, and besides these, their equipments, such as belts, swords, guns, cartridge boxes, and many other things, were different. As many as ten different saddles were...
...were grumblings even then that Romeo and Juliet was a curious hybrid-neither symphony nor oratorio nor opera. What Berlioz was aiming for was a new amalgam of symphony and opera in which vocal solos, choral and instrumental passages were mixed in loosely linked episodes. In Berlioz' musical shorthand, some moments of highest passion-the passages between Romeo and Juliet-are left to the orchestra alone because it offered "a richer, more varied, less limited language" than would have been possible with words. The soloists and chorus, on the other hand, often serve merely as commentators on the action...
...Acting. The editor-once described as looking like a Scots Unitarian impersonating Mephistopheles-is perfectly matched to his task, and Madcap Mac is balanced by Dour Donald. Parody, he makes clear, though a laughing matter, is serious. Writes Macdonald: "I enjoy it as an intuitive kind of literary criticism, shorthand for what 'serious' critics must write out at length. It is Method Acting, since a successful parodist must live himself, imaginatively, into his parody...
...Defiantly, Gaitskell, a determined supporter of NATO, refused to accept the vote as official Labor policy or as binding on him, argued that only the party's elected representatives in Par- liament could finally speak for the Labor Party. He insisted that the "Parliamentary Party," which is British shorthand for all Labor Members of Parliament, still backed him and his policy of maintaining the nuclear deterrent in alliance with the U.S. and NATO...
Taken as a whole, Ray's film has the generosity and the prodigal variety of genius. Nevertheless, to moviegoers accustomed to the visual shorthand of Hollywood's clichés, it will probably seem sometimes to maunder in Oriental obscurities, to go the long way round to nowhere. Ray might well reply that life itself usually takes the same route and reaches the same destination, and this movie is obviously intended to be like life-not like other movies...