Word: straightforwardness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Hills was saved by love, and by copping out. The love part is perfectly straightforward: he found either a new wife or (his references are discreet to a fault) a new dog. The copping out is a little harder to understand, because what Hills did, as far as the reader can figure it out, was to become a full-time freelance writer. This, in an era of declining markets, is very similar to becoming a professional buffalo hunter, and it is definitely not the road to mental health...
...Commentary he is more straightforward. On race: "We do not know why blacks bunch toward the lower end of the social scale, or, for that matter, why Jews bunch toward the top." But even acknowledging the complications of "nongenetic" factors, Herrnstein "calls attention" to the "genetic spine running through the social class continuum, giving it a rigidity that few social theorists, let alone ordinary laymen, recognize...
...BULK of the film is both lively and straightforward. Scenes of Benoit's often playful, often serious life at the general store (where Jutra himself plays another worker), the warm portraits of Antoine (Jean Duceppe) and Aunt Cecile (Olivette Thibault) drinking together--these could be excised and shown separately and would still be sensitive scenes. But a film made of these scenes would be one-sided, and this film is not. The gentleness of the store contrasts with Benoit's harsh winter ride with Antoine on an undertaking job far from the town. Antoine's jovial drinking in his store...
...into considering old issues in new ways. On the other hand, such an approach is highly susceptible to impatience and frustration as things and people seem to balk over and over again at the thought of change. Naivete brings with it a certain detachment that makes things seem quite straightforward by considering only the issues and not the people involved in them. Experience shown--fast--that no matter how sound the ideology, no matter how appropriate the policy, the implementation of it rests with the people who actually compose the institution. (Institutions are only faceless from a distance.) Neither directives...
...BEST STORY of the lot, and the one which encompasses most of what Cheever has to say, is a straightforward narrative, "Artemis, The Honest Well-Digger." Artemis is the inarticulate American hero. He is naive, well-meaning and strong. He likes sex, and loves his work. Wells bring him close to water, which he sees as the stuff of life. "Water was man. Water was love. Water was water." As Artemis nears 30, complications ensue. He wants to marry the girl on oleomargarine packages, but he can't find her in real life. While digging wells for wasteful rich people...