The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigu...ed. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have for years been intrigued with the ways in which Jews and southerners are alike--stepchildren of an anguished history. From ...the period before the Civil War, southerners have used Old Testament analogies to portray themselves as "the chosen people," surrounded and outnumbered but destined to survive and triumph against overwhelming odds. This analogy has endured deep in the southern psyche, influencing subconsciously its reactions to events. For example, in 1967, during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, polls showed that the South was caught up in military fervor and admiration for the lightning victory of the Israelis. It was almost as if Moshe Dayan had become the Israeli Stonewall Jackson, outthinking and outfighting his Arab foes, just as the boys in gray had done in the Shenandoah Valley against vastly superior numbers in the 1860s.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... if there are no waving flags and marching songs at the barricades as Walter marches out with his little battalion, it is not b...ecause the battle lacks nobility. On the contrary, he has picked up in his way, still imperfect and wobbly in his small view of human destiny.... He becomes, in spite of those who are too intrigued with despair and hatred of man to see it, King Oedipus refusing to tear out his eyes, but attacking the oracle instead. He is that last Jewish patriot manning his rifle at Warsaw.... He is Anne Frank, still believing in people; he is the nine small heroes of Little Rock; he is Michelangelo creating David and Beethoven bursting forth with the Ninth Symphony. He is all these things because he has finally reached out in his tiny moment and caught that sweet essence which is human dignity, and it shines like the old star-touched dream that is in his eyes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What intrigued such gentlemen [the editorial writers] was the plain fact Wilson was their superior in their own special field--tha...t he accomplished with a great deal more skill than they did themselves the great task of reducing all the difficulties of the hour to a few sonorous and unintelligible phrases, often with theological overtones--that he knew better than they did how to arrest and enchant the boobery with words that were simply words, and nothing else.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »