Word: vs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Kramer vs. Kramer is a rare movie that finds its tone, its focus and its poetry in its very first image. The image: a close-up of an anguished woman, her face surrounded by darkness. The shot is so intimate that the audience at first yearns for some relief. But the relief never really comes. Kramer vs. Kramer is composed almost entirely of actors' faces, of intense passions and of winter light...
...moviegoers will discover when the film opens in December, Kramer vs. Kramer is the emotional bender of the year...
Benton gives Kramer vs. Kramer its lifelike quality by clearing away the artifice that most American film makers use to shape human experience into so-called entertainment. His screenplay strips away unnecessary detail and background from Gorman's novel; his direction concentrates on the characters' feelings above all else. Music is never used to heighten a scene, and the camera moves only when the actors' wanderings force it to do so. Benton's focus is so tight that Kramer shows a far more domestic and grittier view of Manhattan than the Allen and Mazursky films...
...trip to stardom began, though he did not know it at the time, about two years ago, when Kramer vs. Kramer scouts started looking at nonprofessionals to play the role of Billy, who is really the film's central character. They went to Justin's school in Rye, a suburb of New York City, to look around, and that night his principal called to say they wanted him to audition in Manhattan. "I wasn't so excited," he says, "but I went anyway. There were 200 of us in the first tryout. Mr. Benton called each...
...crippled hustler of Midnight Cowboy. The grizzled old codger of Little Big Man. The myopic counterfeiter of Papillon. The eager virgin of The Graduate. Carl Bernstein of All the President's Men. Dustin Hoffman has played them all in a career of dazzling virtuosity. But in Kramer vs. Kramer, he has assumed perhaps the most difficult persona of all: Dustin Hoffman...