She may be the first pop superstar to make the embodiment of raw, high-powered celebrity, without any clear personal agenda, the be-all and end-all of pop stardom.
The filmmakers recruited a squad of fleshy, foul-mouthed Manchester comedians to play Eric's mates, whose easy camaraderie and shared passion for the United team make them embodiments of the class solidarity that is Mr. Loach's main (or possibly only) source of hope.
"I mean, make a small embodiment of ordinary life, from a daughter's, wife's, mother's point of view.
But he chose to make himself the embodiment of the trend, loudly scoffing at the idea that reporters and editors needed to be insulated from commercial plans and pressures.
He exceeded himself, and long after his official policies and decisions fade into irrelevance, he will be seen as the man who was voted out of office only to make himself the embodiment of public virtue and human decency.
"The idea was to make the hotel an embodiment of the world of Monsieur Gustave," explains Adam Stockhausen, the film's production designer and currently an Oscar nominee for his work on 12 Years a Slave.
And yet, as Rob Nixon points out in "Dreambirds," both the illusions and the realities surrounding this "gawky, boneheaded creature" make it the perfect embodiment of "the follies -- and temptations -- of denial".
But that deliberate attempt to make instrumental music an embodiment of instantaneous feeling and passion instead of the intellectual rigour and contrapuntal complexity of an earlier era – above all, that of Bach's father, Johann Sebastian, and in London the imposing legacy of Handel – was much more sophisticated than posterity would give him credit for.
She made herself the embodiment of Brazilian Girls' songs: a not-so-simple object of desire.
It makes him the embodiment of a modern athlete who doesn't know — or particularly care — about the past or the future.
