But in the forbidding, almost feudal backdrop of the Clinton Correctional Facility, his efforts seemed increasingly irrelevant.
Cannes's glamorous setting on the French coast has long meant it provides an almost irresistible backdrop for both the professional and amateur photographer, which stars have long been keen to court.
The renewed exchange of fire, the prisoner release, and an expected announcement this week of about 1,500 new apartments in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank have become an almost ritual backdrop to secret peace talks entering a fourth month, which those involved say have yet to yield progress.
Wheezing keyboards and nervy guitar plucks set an uneasy, almost paranoid, backdrop to Liddiard's lyrics, in which one by one he picks up the obsessions of tabloid media – Anzackery, MasterChef, mining booms, paedophiles and class warfare – and rejects them, emphatic as smashing plates.
The soft, hazy, eroded nubs of ancient volcanoes form an almost painterly backdrop – reminders of the rich, red, volcanic soil that made the island perfect for growing sugar.
The smoke billowing from Charlestown lent an almost surreal backdrop to the fighting, as the winds were such that the smoke was kept from the field of battle.
In fact, the violence outside is an almost unnecessary backdrop to the struggle between Chelle and Lank over playing it safe or gambling on a brighter future.
For a movie, you usually don't need any backdrop.
The red and white of the girl's scarf, the black and turquoise of her dress, the coins and tattoos on her mother, were, against the backdrop of the desert, significant and sustaining; quite unlike the random decoration, colors or colorlessness of almost any New York City uniform.
