Word: gallic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...FRENCH: Call it Gallic cynicism, perhaps, but the French, in addition to being most adulterous, insist that they are also the most dissatisfied and the least proud of their work. They are the least Godfearing, except for the Danes. Along with the Germans, they take the greatest interest in politics. And while far less eager than the British to march off to war, they are far more apt to march off to strikes, demonstrations and even revolutions...
...polished table to a pair of pale, manicured hands and finally to the angular, rigidly expressive face framed in a white collar and blue suit. French President François Mitterrand was on the air, live from his study in the Elysée Palace. In an hour-long Gallic version of a televised fireside chat, Mitterrand delivered the first comprehensive defense of his leftist domestic policies since he took office seven months ago. "Those who chose us want things to change," said he. "There must be some reforms, and these reforms must be carried out at a reasonably good...
...well as an occasional "zounds" or "sweet-patootie". A cultural sponge that oozes erudition and arcana, he recalls Yeats in the same breath that he expounds on an ancient tooth powder advertisement. No matter what guise he shows up in, Perelman's persona is a curious mixture of gallic pride, English cynicism, and mostly, Yiddish fatalism. He is a foil who ventures quixotically into the world and then returns, each time, to testify that it is far more looney than...
...great 20th century operas would have to start with Puccini's Turandot and Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, which summed up, respectively, the Italian and German romantic traditions. It would also include Debussy's Petteas et Melisande, the French composer's 1902 masterpiece of Gallic allusion and understatement; Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, the most important work to enter the international repertory since World War II; and Alban Berg's twin monuments - Wozzeck, the seminal opera of our time, and Lulu, the apotheosis of the twelve-tone system...
...wisdom and absurdity, sadness and folly-and, above all, liveliness. This cheering, but unsappy outlook is much in evidence as the younger generation of French directors, like Diane Kurys and Jean Charles Tacchella, crawls out from under Francois Truffaut's overcoat. It seems to be an almost exclusively Gallic view, making one want to send the entire American motion picture industry to sum mer school in France...