On Jan 9, 2007, at 3:54 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Not to mention cool, imperious authority and disdain.
>
> [WS:] Cool or dull? The impressions I get from films like Renoir's
> "Rules
> of the Game"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_r%C3%A8gle_du_jeu
> or Altman's "Gosford Park" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosford_Park
> is that of monumental dullness, pretentiousness and idiocy. The
> servants
> make much more colorful and interesting characters.
>
Don't be so literal-minded, Woj. It's fantasy.
For a sample of the idiocy of the rich, check out Charlotte Curtis' The Rich and Other Atrocities, from the late 1970s. She used to be the society editor of the NYT, and the book seems to be a collection of her dispatches over the years. She has a light touch and lets people hang themselves - e.g the wives of men who've made it big in industrial detergents dilating about their yacht.
Doug