Apparently the successes of "Real Women Have Curves," "American Splendor" and "Elephant" have led to a policy of selective reconsideration.
Long Island was the setting for the novel, but discovering what's left of its 1920s Gold Coast splendor — either the real thing or Fitzgerald's vivid gilt invention — is as much a job for a receptive imagination as it is for a Google map with a homing device directed to locate a certain green beacon.
Now a catering hall on a mere 22 acres, the French chateau built by the financier Otto Herman Kahn has been restored to its original -- and costly -- splendor by Gary Melius, a real estate developer who bought it in 1984.
By ditching aspiration (to supermodel splendor) for authenticity (the ubiquitous ads featured real women with real curves stripped down to their white skivvies), the campaign generated tremendous attention and serious sales.
It was a night of true musical splendor with performances by the real Mambo Kings: Mario Bauzá led his Afro-Cuban orchestra; the great Puerto Rican percussionist Tito Puente mounted the stage and, of course, brought down the house.
Like the images the photographer plunges into a golden bath, our sentiments take on color; and only then, after that recoil and that transfiguration, do we understand their real meaning and enjoy them in all their tranquil splendor".
"Splendor in the Grass" (1961), Kazan's last real hit, which he called "a soap opera turned tragic," dealt again with the abiding issues of his own life: sexual hypocrisy and a destructive father-son struggle.
It is easy to see, however, how Absolute idealism threatens those very ideals it is supposed to defend, since it denies that finite existence is truly real and downgrades it to 'a show of some fuller splendor.' If reality is a single unified totality, what is the individual self?
In "American Splendor" Ms. Davis had the experience of playing not only a real person but also a real person who herself appears in the film (billed as "Real Joyce") to comment on the action.
But to see the natural splendor you have to look past the bumper stickers: "Real Men Marry Women," "It's Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve," "Marriage = 1 Man + 1 Woman".
