I was too young to catch the Dead in the '60s, though I did see them around town some as a kid and thought them to be pretty cool and kindly characters.
He stoops to greet me beneath a cluster of cherry trees in the sloping gardens and I notice he has the combination of stature and softness that suggests a kindly fairytale character — a Silver Giant, rather than a Selfish one.
Von Trier does create two kindly male characters, in the son Leo Cameron Spurr) and in the house-servant, nicknamed "Little Fathe r (Jesper Christensen) who, as doom impends, skips work for the first time in his life ("..and the last shall go first?") to be with his family, while the wealthiest man, -- well let's say for now that he hits the hay early when he's needed most.
In the Matz barn, Wyeth is regarded kindly as a character.
"It's like the name of a city in a David Lynch movie," said Mr. Campion, 54, a kindly, slightly Lynchian character himself.
Whereas Barker preferred always to be seen in some sort of costume or disguise, Corbett, in the chair, presented a persona which came to be seen by the public as his character: kindly, giggly, modest.
I detect a softening in Leigh's heart of late; a willingness to look more kindly upon his characters' foibles, and a fondness for optimism which reached unbearably upbeat levels in Happy-Go-Lucky.
It's a terrain vibrant with woods and lakeside beaches, legendary local characters, kindly aunts who can be relied upon for food, nasty dogs to avoid, adult men to be looked up to ("Whitey had a jailhouse spit – so sleek, so accurate. Like he'd gone a period of his life with nothing to do but spit") and, if they're really lucky, a pretty girl or two to have a crush on.
Arthur Clennam, fictional character, a kindly middle-aged man who loves Amy Dorrit, the heroine of Charles Dickens's novel Little Dorrit (1855 57).
