Word: spiritlessly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...drinking) hand shooting out sharp jabs, a shoulder thrust forward and the curly graying head pulled in protectively as a close neighbor to the shoulders. He hooked the New York Times for its general timidity or unimaginative misinter-pretations; he bloodied the nose of technology for its spiritless contributions; he pillowed ideological liberals before abandoning them in a neutral corner. These were old foes he had knocked kicking on his better outings, though on this night he could not seem to care enough to expend wind in their pursuit...
Never has Bergman created in any other film a more clinical, reductive, spiritless, or hollow prototype of himself as artist, or more aptly, as architect of the themes of human torment. Elis looks and even dresses in a way that resembles the director and shares as his defense against the world the same vast resignation and distancing. Bergman devises his own special "alienation effect," with the actors speaking to the camera about what sort of person each character "is," as if they are universal givens. Whereas Brecht and Godard use the technique of actors speaking as themselves to remind...