Word: classical
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...ruling cliché in writing about crime bosses - "the gangster as tragic hero" - was coined in 1948 by Robert Warshow, an extremely intelligent cultural critic, whose premature passing in 1955 robbed us of an invaluable voice. Warshow held that the classic movie mobsters (Little Caesar, The Public Enemy) were, in their essence, classic Americans forced by their status as the sons of immigrants to seek success and status outside the law, even though their style and motives were not so very different from the robber barons who found their riches in more respectable industries. The difference between the gangsters...
Warshow observed that the classic gangster dramas punished their protagonists not so much for their unlawful activities, but because they dared to succeed. He implied that we may seemingly worship success in this country, but that we also deplore and envy it - since most of us never attain it. But that was then, and this is now. Our love affair with wealth and fame is now untrammeled by doubts. It is our big good thing, and eventually Crowe's character, like the rest of us, must surrender to its cheerful demands. That makes American Gangster, which is rather leisurely paced...
...Scott on “Gladiator” and “Black Hawk Down,” provides a powerful yet non-distracting score, but music supervisor Kathy Nelson does an impressive job of incorporating old school-soul ballads from the likes of platinum artist Anthony Hamilton with classic jams that reflect the decade. The music helps lift the movie from a simple “based-on-a-true-story” flick to a film wrought with a sense of empowerment and empathy despite the harsh implications of the plot. “American Gangster?...
What looked like an utter mismatch after September (something along the lines of last year’s 34-13 drubbing by Yale) is shaping up to be a classic like 2005’s triple-overtime thriller. Harvard has won four straight in convincing fashion, the defense is dominating, and veteran Chris Pizzotti has looked sharp in replacing the injured Liam O’Hagan at quarterback. The Bulldogs’ record remains unblemished, but they have shown clear signs of weakness in their last two outings and stud tailback Mike McLeod has returned to planet Earth, i.e. closer...
...extent that I would have liked,” says Welton E. Blount ’09, an African-American Linguistics concentrator with a focus on African-American studies. Coles notes that, while he was taught Charles Dickens and Emily Bronte in his high school English class, classic works by African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and James Weldon Johnson were missing from the curriculum...