Perfidy

perfidy







Y

D



–noun

1. deliberate breach of faith or trust; faithlessness; treachery: perfidy that goe[s] unpunished. 

2. an act 

or 

instance of faithlessness or treachery.





　

Zaillian, on the other hand, shot in Louisiana and made extensive use of the enormous building in Baton Rouge that Huey Long constructed as the state capitol in the early thirties. Fervent about physical detail, Zaillian, who directed "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and "“A Civil Action," lays on the Southern atmosphere—the dark leather and brass fixtures of administrative offices, the mists shrouding the sins of old country mansions, the rounded [black] Dodge sedans racing down damp roads at night. But the fable is clear only in outline: a man of the people with good intentions falls in love with power, and corrupt[s] himself and everyone around him. 



In Rossen’s film, we see what Willie actually did—the public works he created and the strong-arming and bribery that became a way of life. In Zaillian’s, we hear Willie’s boasts about what he’s going to do, and we hear a lot of talk about the opposition to him in the legislature. But we don’t see much. Does Willie accomplish anything? If he does, is graft the only way to do it? Who are his opponents—men under the control of oil interests? Audiences might come away from the movie thinking that he is more sinned against than sinning, that his populism is genuine and that legislators dislike him because he taxes the rich and teases routine political hypocrisy by roguishly appealing to the worst in everyone. 



sedan

轎子

【美】轎車



What seems to attract Zaillian’s interest is not the politics but the social subtext of Penn Warren’s novel—the way a crude country pol with boundless energy mesmerizes the feeble remnants of the old Southern aristocracy. Willie is seen through the eyes of Jack Burden (Jude Law), an outcast from a wealthy family who works as a newspaperman. Jack joins up with Willie and becomes his confidant and his hatchet man. As always, Jude Law is charming but not nearly as forceful as you want him to be. 



Asexual and unambitious, Jack doesn’t have much of a self to violate—he suffers little guilt over the perfidies he [commits] on Willie’s behalf—and Law’s performance drifts [off] into inconsequence. The center of the movie becomes an insoluble mystery—the bond between two utterly different men. There are long, irresolute scenes as well with Jack’s ineffably cultivated childhood friends Anne (Kate Winslet) and Adam Stanton (Mark Ruffalo). Winslet is shot behind gauzy white curtains, as if this grown woman were still the innocent girl of years earlier—a conceit that should be treated ironically, since Anne is having an affair with Willie Stark. 



Mark Ruffalo, allegedly playing a doctor, sits noodling at a piano and mumbling; he doesn’t look as if he could fix a hangnail. Anthony Hopkins, as a [tough]-minded old judge with a slab of white hair, and James Gandolfini and Patricia Clarkson, as political operatives, perform with professional skill, but they all sink into Louisiana accents thicker than any bayou swamp. (I understood maybe two-thirds of the dialogue.) 



Zaillian indulges in passages of languorous funk and ornate literary reflection, and then suddenly [jerks] us out of the passive, self-regarding moods with a cut to a car hurtling along or a brassy swell of James Horner’s music, which is overbearing throughout. The director can’t seem to find a natural rhythm for the movie—it’s portentous and vague at the same time. Ambiguity is rare in American movies, and it seems unfair to complain of it, but most of these characters are so balled up they don’t know what they want. Willie Stark does, of course, and it’s too bad Zaillian didn’t tell us more about him. The moral collapse of a potentially honorable man is handled so negligently that it seems almost a cliché. 



hangnail

肉刺

slab

厚板,平板,厚片

bayou 

[bahy-oo, -oh]

海灣

支流

河口,湖的流出口





treacherous

quisling

Jan’s old friend, Jacobi, proves to be a [quisling].

miasma

The film's form and purpose now [emerge] from the [miasma] of the original cut

inimical

Her opinions are inimical [to] our proposal. 

that the Amazon was truly inimical [to] humankind. 

animosity

animus, adjective

and the animosity [Americans] had for the country of [Iran]. 

anomie

also animy

a breakdown or absence of social norms and values

Despite this obsession with [urban] anomie



cf. sophrosyne

hubris

which documents the making of Fitzcarraldo, suggests that there may be equal amounts of [hubris] and [genius] in Herzog himself, and that he is in [no] small part the model for Fitzcarraldo.

snooty

snotty

snobbish

Detest