Word: sparer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Hollywood style--brash, chatty, muscular--is the only one most moviegoers know. But there is another, sparer sort, where penetrating gazes take the place of explosive technical virtuosity. It is caviar to the Hollywood popcorn, and for 40 years ROBERT BRESSON was its finest and most influential purveyor. In 13 features from Les Anges du Peche (1943) to L'Argent (1983), the Frenchman who called himself a "jolly pessimist" went his own thorny way and, through his severe, seductive example, established the dominant style of a minority art form. His films, with little dialogue and music, are in effect silent...
...unguarded performance, brimming with innocence and promise. Later, on Tracks, he delivers a fierce, Delta blues-infused performance of Born in the U.S.A. The arena-rock album version was sometimes misinterpreted as a jingoistic anthem, but there's no mistaking the bitterness and disillusionment in this sparer take. The set is also adorned with such previously unheard gems as the rousing Santa Ana and the sublime ballad Sad Eyes...
While Springsteen was trying to decide whether his Human Touch album was actually finished, he returned to the studio and emerged, only about eight weeks later, with the 10 songs on Lucky Town. The sound is somewhat sparer here, the lyrics rougher around the edges and maybe even better for that. Better Days, which kicks the record off, has already attracted some comment for the lines, "Now a life of leisure and a pirate's treasure don't make much for tragedy." It's as if Springsteen were taking a long, hard look at himself, but the key lines...