Word: subtext
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Vietnam was not just a feeling. It became an argument. It became the touchstone of every subsequent national debate: Lebanon, Panama and, most recently, the gulf. The subtext of every debate became, Is this or is this not another Vietnam? Indeed, in order to take the country with him into the gulf, President Bush had to promise explicitly that "this will not be another Vietnam." If the gulf war turns out well, such assurances will no longer be necessary. Vietnam will be retired as the defining American experience of this...
...that literature is evaluated or prized by its "artistic value" alone is smug and ignorant. Shelley called poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Literature establishes a dialogue of ideas, and is therefore an inherently political act. Writers frequently use whatever they consider as the political, social, or structural subtext of their contemporaries' works either as touchstones or models for their own representations of society...
...looming monstrosity with head-spinning -- possibly Oscar- winning -- speed. Caan partners her with edgy smarts, and their deadly game does something more than pit temporary weakness against sociopathic passion. It also places ironic literary intelligence in conflict with the whacked-out innocence of fandom, and has a smart subtext of class warfare about it too. The actors are supported by the best kind of writerly craft and directorial technique, the kind that refuses to call attention to itself, never gets caught straining for scares or laughs. Popular moviemaking -- elegantly economical, artlessly artful -- doesn't get much better than this...
Fortunately, The Freshman possesses another subtext that thrives on the power of Brando's acting. On one level, The Freshman is about the father-son relationship between Sabatini, who never had a son, and Kellogg, whose father died when he was six. This would be an utterly ordinary thesis in most films, but the force of Brando's potrayal of the paternalistic Sabatini and Broderick's capable rendering of the All-American rural innocent provide The Freshman with convincing human impact. Just as The Godfather succeeds largely because it was able to make the family life of the murdering, lawbreaking...
...images of leaves -- let alone leaves whimpering in denial -- would be hooted off the podium at the first fluttering whimp. Thomas learned a lesson on this point in his callow days during a rehearsal of Also Sprach Zarathustra with the Chicago Symphony. All his schoolboy nattering on the intellectual subtext of Strauss evoked only sly mockery from the musicians. At length, Thomas got the message...