Word: soother
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Vision to Inspire. Any director must master formidable complexity. He must be adept at sound and camera work, a soother of egos, a cajoler of artistic talent. A great director has something more: the vision and force to make all these disparate elements fuse into an inspired whole. In The Seventh Seal, Bergman had Death lead a troupe of clowns, obedient to a will larger than their own, across the dusky horizon to oblivion. The scene, still indelible in the minds of most viewers, somehow lifts cinema into the realm of philosophy, psychology and even religion...
Having chosen the role of soother and persuader, he is puzzled nonetheless when people do not identify him with the creative, combative politician of yesteryear. After four years as Lyndon Johnson's Vice President, his public persona is that of a subordinate and apologist. It has become increasingly difficult to think of him in such terms as leader, fighter, innovator?which are precisely the terms in which he thinks of himself. He argues these days, urgently and almost desperately, that he is too his own man; that he can too be a strong, forward-looking President. Perhaps. But in order...
...please the gods; the Sioux passed around the calumet to seal the peace; 16th century Frenchman Jean Nicot (whose name is immortalized in the word nicotine) promoted pipe smoking as a sure cure for ulcers; and 19th century authors rhapsodized like Bulwer-Lytton: "A pipe, it is a great soother, a pleasant comforter. Blue devils fly before its honest breath. It ripens the brain, it opens the heart, and the man who smokes thinks like a Samaritan...