Word: stratagem
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Amarcord also has a strong political subcurrent, and like some other recent movies from Italy (Visconti's The Damned, Bertolucci's The Spider's Stratagem and The Conformist), it considers the source and meaning of European fascism. But Amarcord never becomes preoccupied with the phenomenon. Fellini works the politics evenly and gracefully into the fabric of the whole movie and portrays fascism as a crackbrained aberration that allowed for some moments of ritual absurdity even as it brought forth a kind of cagey, half-comic defiance. One of Amarcord's most memorable episodes concerns the playing...
...countryside of northern Italy and a year of shooting on a set in Hollywood," sums up Italian Director Bernardo Bertolucci, "is the same as the difference between a Fiat 500 and a Cadillac." Bertolucci should know, having chauffeured himself from the low-budget The Spider's Stratagem through Last Tango in Paris to his current luxury-class movie, 1900, now being shot near Parma. The film, chronicling eight decades of Italian history, stars Burt Lancaster as a patriarchal land baron and Sterling Hayden as a peasant farmer. Expected to cost $6.5 million, it will be the most expensive movie...
...friends were taciturn, self-made men who shunned the spotlight. These were principally those two rich entrepreneurs, Bebe Rebozo and Robert Abplanalp. "I'm an introvert in an extravert profession," Nixon said-a formula that itself may have been a stratagem of concealment. When confronted with a crisis, he became more secretive than ever, withdrawing into seclusion and arriving at a decision with relatively little outside advice. Sternly self-controlled ("I have a fetish about disciplining myself"), he was stiff in public and rarely relaxed in private. As Author Garry Wills maintained in Nixon Agonistes, Nixon erected this "wall...
...furor mounted, opposition leaders tried to sabotage Whitlam's stratagem. The Country Party premier of Queensland, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, noticed that by some oversight Gair had not yet officially resigned from the Senate, and immediately published midnight election writs for his seat. This meant, according to the constitution, that the seat would be filled by the Queensland government-therefore by a non-Labor nominee-until the next general election in December 1975. Whitlam's efforts to pick up an extra Senate seat were thus stymied...
...Bertolucci's greatest short-coming. Aside from occasional verbal slips, he is most pretentious when his fluid camerawork begins to dominate the content of the film. Superfluous dolly shots, over-emphasis on color, and attempts at unusual angles begin at times to take over his films. Spider's Stratagem is probably the worst offender in this area, since Borges' story needed no extra emphasis at all. But there Bertolucci was merely trying too hard to make his points. In Partner he molds the film to suit his visual whim. A revolving chandelier is the most striking feature in a murder...