Word: witness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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DIED. Ina Claire, 95, actress of insouciant charm and wit who graced vaudeville in the pre-World War I era, silent films and later talkies, but mostly the Broadway stage, where she specialized from 1917 to 1954 in the highly varnished comedies of bad manners and good breeding (The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, 1925; Biography, 1932; Ode to Liberty, 1934) in which the characters misbehave in venomous, perfectly timed epigrams; in San Francisco...
This movie ought to come adorned with cautionary labels. "Fragile!" "Handle with Care!" "Use No Hooks!" But how do you slap a sticker on a soap bubble? The temptation, then, is simply to let it drift, shimmering and iridescent as it dances on rare currents of wit and nostalgia, and to hope, of course, that it comes to a safe resting place in millions of memories...
...Mountain is set to a noisy concerto by the 19th century Irish piano virtuoso John Field (thus the Field in the title). In commissioning the piece, Artistic Director Mikhail Baryshnikov asked only that Gordon use a set, and Gordon came up with an inventive one. Executed with cheeky wit by Santo Loquasto, it unfolds from left to right like a Japanese screen: first a sort of rock field, then above it, an orange mountain on which are painted more folding chairs...
...Julius Levine; RCA). Schubert's ineffable "Trout" Quintet, so named for its use of the composer's song The Trout as the basis of the fourth movement, is one of the glories of the chamber-music repertory, beloved of pianists and string players (and audiences) everywhere for its grace, wit and warmth. Ax's sensitive, full- toned pianism and the Guarneri's rich ensemble are perfectly matched here, to each other and to the piece. Some readings of the "Trout" emphasize its sparkle and brio, but this one favors a relaxed elegance: it is less a day at the beach...
...time. Blood Simple (the title comes from Dashiell Hammett) works terse, elegant variations on a theme as old as the Fall; it subverts the film noir genre in order to revitalize it; it offers the satisfactions and surprises of a conniving visual style. Most important, it displays the whirligig wit of two young men--Joel Coen, 30, a graduate of New York University film school, and his brother Ethan, 27--in a debut film as scarifyingly assured as any since Orson Welles was just this wide...