The history of theater from the medieval period until the nineteenth century has been in large part a history of further and furth...er separations of the scene of dramatic action from the physical situation of the audience. Even as the subject matter--in the plays of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg--became more and more continuous with the life of the audience, the stage itself pulled in its apron, emphasized its proscenium, and became a room with an invisible fourth wall, allowing the audience to look in, while keeping it more definitely outside. The progress of film was the reverse. From the stylized and theatrical settings of the early dramas, silent films moved into greater and greater involvement with the actors. Previously the audience saw actors from a distance, with a sense of tableau and formal separation. Although they seemed to be like us, they were not: silent, hieratic, caught in frightened frenzies of comedy, tragedy, and melodrama.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Writers aren't people exactly. Or, if they're any good, they're a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person. It's like a...ctors, who try so pathetically not to look in mirrors. Who lean backward trying--only to see their faces in the reflecting chandeliers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The water for which we may have to look In summertime with a witching wand,... In every wheelrut's now a brook, In every print of a hoof a pond.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you've ever been without money, or food, something very strange happens when you get a bit of money, a kind of madness. You don...'t care. You can't remember that you had no money before, that the money will be gone. You can remember nothing but that there is the money for which you have been suffering. Now here it is. A lust takes hold of you. You see food in the windows. In imagination you eat hugely; you taste a thousand meals. You look in windows. Colors are brighter; you buy something to dress up in. An excitement takes hold of you. You know it is suicide but you can't help it. You must have food, dainty, splendid food and a bright hat so once again you feel blithe, rid of that ratty gnawing shame.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I'm an expert in hookers. I'm an expert in doormats. I'm an expert in victims. They were the best parts. And when I woke up--socio...logically, politically, and creatively--I could no longer take those parts and look in the mirror.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We, the soldiers who have returned from battles stained with blood; we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our e...yes; we who have attended their funerals and cannot look in the eyes of their parents; we who have come from a land where parents bury their children; we who have fought against you, the Palestinians--we say to you today, in a loud and a clear voice: enough of blood and tears. Enough.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home--so close and so small that they cannot be seen ...on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »