It has none of the skittishness that leavened "Irma Vep" (1996), Assayas's comedy about a director trying, against farcical odds, to remake a silent classic of early French cinema.
As an example of a director casting against the norm, Blue Velvet is also noted for re-launching Hopper's career and for providing Rossellini with a dramatic outlet beyond the work as a fashion model and a cosmetics spokeswoman for which she had until then been known.
As in other fights, this one pitted her male strategists, including pollster Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson, her bulldog of a communications director, against some of the women, including campaign manager Maggie Williams, brought in late to restore order and bring some humanity.
A common knock against a director like Mr. Scott is that his movies are all style and no content, as if the two were really separable.
He spent many years working, for example, as a director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penality.
Ms. Edkins says the firm generally votes against a director or a company proposal only when a behind-the-scenes "engagement" has failed.
If the rules take effect as written, a shareholder vote of 35percentt or more against a director facing re-election will mean that large investors may move to replace that board member with their own candidates in the following year.
The latest arrest was the first time that officials at the state level had adopted similar tactics and pursued charges against a director of a publicly held Internet gambling company.
In a civil enforcement action against a director of Engineered Support Systems, a district judge dismissed the S.E.C.'s case without requiring the defense to offer any evidence, noting that the government's own experts did not agree as to what was required for the issuing of stock options.
This is possible under the current system, in which shareholders only get to withhold votes for, and not vote against, a director.
