Word: showmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After a four-day parade of speakers, scholars and showmen, tens of thousands of men and women of Harvard are leaving Cambridge, dispersing to points around the globe...
...owner fished a fresh chaw of Red Man from his pocket, got in the big new Chrysler with the tobacco juice cup affixed to the dash, and drove over to Mount Olivet Cemetery. Down at the end of a drive lined with red-tipped photinias, in a section called Showmen's Rest, he pointed out his brother's grave, his father's grave and the spot where he and his wife Isla Marie would spend eternity. All around were tombstones in the shape of tents, or wagon wheels, or ticket booths, or markers with MAIN ENTRANCE etched across them...
Still, moviemakers have to consider moviemaking the big time--profit with honor. And in films, if not in TV, caution breeds entropy. Charges Terry Gilliam, whose Brazil is one of 1985's few demanding films to escape from the studios: "People in Hollywood are not showmen, they're maintenance men, pandering to what they think their audiences want. And so audience expectations become more simplistic. Movies have no surprises, no fizz." Right: new Hollywood is new Coke with the cap left...
...mission was another NASA television spectacular, and Lousma and Fullerton shone as showmen. As Fullerton pointed his TV camera at such scenes as Arizona's Painted Desert and the snowcapped Rockies during one pass over the U.S., Lousma exulted, "This good old America, from sea to shining sea in just twelve minutes. It really is America the beautiful...
...bossa nova beat. It follows a tatty caravan of entertainers through the backwaters of Bahia, making music and mischief and the occasional friend or lover. The glittery magic means more to the actors than it ever will to the villagers; the show must go on so that the showmen can continue to believe in themselves. The attractive cast does not press this point; they too are here to entertain. That they do, in a film as refreshing as a tall glass of iced coffee on a hot summer...