Word: plot
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...story is a poke-in-the-ribs at the absurd histrionics of the Bliss family (a quasi-retired actress, her hack-writing husband, and their two long-suffering children) who invite four similarly foolish characters for a weekend in the English countryside. The plot unravels with the reception and treatment of the guests, and winds up with the visitors making a furtive escape after one memorable night...
Nashville, a study of the country music business, will follow a film Altman has already finished shooting, California Split, starring George Segal and Elliot Gould. California Split, in Altman's words, "is an atmospheric film about gambling. It has no story, no plot, but it does have a progression. It may put a lot of people off, but I'm just trying to deal with film where I reach somebody emotionally...
...days, when films were called movies, newspapers and magazines generally assigned reporters to do the reviewing. A movie was an event, like any other, and the same principles of journalism applied here. Therefore, first and foremost, the reviewer gave a plot summary, often in great detail; he listed the players, and, as it were, "reported" the general mood or impact that the experience of seeing the film was likely to convey...
...this trend developed, it became fashionable to scorn the critic who still believed in "give 'em the plot" as a reasonable basis for the review. Certainly, if the review is nothing but a plot summary, there is little to recommend it; but I think it's a mistake to categorically avoid detailing aspects of the plot as a general principle. For one thing, the reader, regardless of whether or not he has seen the film, has much more difficulty in knowing what the critic is talking about if the critic refuses to be specific. But perhaps more serious, the deliberate...
...inequities of book censorship, race and the presidency, a modern religious crisis, and the politics of the Nobel Prize. The fatty results of these labors are always an elaborate story line, with the action dictated by a clash of differing characters. The Fan Club has that kind of plot too, and the idea of a love goddess turned doughty liberationist is a nice embellishment. It is of course ridiculous, but that does not much matter in a book whose characters say things like "We don't have a chance to fulfill such a dream," and young Adam compares Sharon...