Word: sneer
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Playwright Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote the script for Emily, obviously intended a black comedy in the style of Dr. Strangelove, a savage sneer at war and all it bloody works. But if Strangelove with cheery ferocity reminded its audiences that every cloud has a strontium lining. Emily in confused conclusion managers to suggest that every human value has a wormy caramel center...
...first winner to turn down the world's loftiest literary honor.* Since, as the Swedish Academy pointed out, the award stands whether the recipient formally accepts it or not, Sartre is in the most enviable position for a rebellious intellectual: he can have his prize and sneer...
...sometimes radically different from his high school "personality," he tries to gain Harvard status by imitating the mannerisms of those he feels already possess it. So one middle-class boy, who learned of "good society" at Exeter affects an exaggerated prep school accent and dress, and cultivates an effete sneer and slightly effeminate mannerisms. By his senior year he has risen as high in the clubbie world as one may without actually coming from a "good family...
...students participate in the same sort of adolescent fantasy-power life. They are Harvard's Walter Mittys; many are also wonks of varying descriptions. Meek Milquetoasts in reality, they attend Albert Finney or Belmondo or James Bond movies on nights off from Lamont. Identifying powerfully with their heroes, they sneer at themselves in the men's room mirror of the Harvard Square Theatre during intermission...
...fast, subtle. When an impotent man looks at an obelisk, he winces. When a sour old spinster finally drops dead, her happy-go-lucky brother sidles up to the death bed, leans forward with a glitter of maniacal triumph in his eyes and deftly distorts her customary sneer into a pretty little smile. At his best, Alventosa is a master mechanic of comedy, an intellectual Keaton...