Word: tragically
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...deaths of six astronauts, and of the first civilian to leave the earth with the U.S. space program, were certainly tragic. Yet the orgy of media coverage that quickly followed the shuttle's demise seemed far out of proportion to the death of a handful of Americans knowingly engaged in an extremely hazardous activity. The networks replayed the craft's sudden explosion over and over again. Viewers witnessed countless clips of horrified family members and friends of the astronauts as they saw their loved ones disappear in a cloud of fire. No detail was too mundane or too personal...
...grates are visually obnoxious. Yes, they accentuate the tragic situation of the homeless. Yes, they do make Harvard look like cruel landlords. Yes, I know that using the grates to get rid of the street people doesn't solve the problem, doesn't make it all just "go away." However, I urge Leverett students, other Harvard students, and members of the community to look beyond the grates and focus their attention not on the ironic and repulsive symbolism of the bars, but on the underlying problem of providing adequate shelter for the homeless while ensuring the safest possible environment...
Director Altman has given the claustrophobic tension of Shepard's stageplay breadth and richness without upsetting the mood. The story unfolds in a disheveled motel room, a fenced-in playground, a formica dinerette. The action shifts comfortably from the present to the past, the comic to the tragic, the real to the imagined. And the characters, both skillfully drawn and portrayed, swing with lightning quickness from the pathetic to the courageous, from the cruel to the ridiculous...
FOOL FOR LOVE falters only in its pacing, which is perhaps too slow in starting, too quick in its resolution. The first half hour of the film has a staggered, disjointed rhythm to it, and the climax is perhaps too abrupt and suddenly tragic. Though Shepard's plays are notorious for their refusal to resolve themselves, what distinguishes him as our most audacious playwright translates less gracefully on the screen...
...source of his triumph is his viewpoint. Great tragic figures generally demand close-ups as a divine right, so that the audience can read the play of noble emotions in their features. In Ran, that shot scarcely exists. Kurosawa's cameras (he usually covers each scene with three) are always pulled back into godlike positions, and they provide a new perspective on the rages and the ultimate madness of Tatsuya Nakadai's Lear figure. From above and beyond, we perceive him not as a great man falling but as a fragile, all too human stumbler. Distance lends an analogous irony...