I suppose I should briefly outline the first act of this startling work, when we meet Vera Stark working as a maid to a feather-brained, young, blond actress, Gloria Mitchell (played by Amanda Deymer), known as "America's little sweetie pie," the Lindsay Lohan of her day.
Sometimes the political action is explicit, as in the smart, scathing fiction of Kiran Desai, but some of the most startling work sticks closer to the intimacy of experience.
The Florentine government set up a formal competition between the creators of these startling works.
Phoenix raced to the front of early Oscar discussion thanks to his startling work in "The Master," Paul Thomas Anderson's epic drama about the duality of man and the origins of a religious movement that's not unlike Scientology.
But if he makes anywhere near as strong a commitment to art as he has made to self-realization, we may look forward to more intense and startling work in the future.
Oliver Messiaen, who composed the "Quartet for the End of Time" while starving in a Nazi prison camp, closes his startling work with a solo violin—"Pared back to its essence, the melody abides, burnt pure in the crucible of the war".
In December, I'll be back to see Ballet Hispanico, another favorite of mine, and then in January I'm planning to return for the New York debut of Diavolo Dance Theater, a Los Angeles-based company known for its visually startling work performed on enormous tilting platforms.
I have often thought back to "Shards" (1987), a bleak but startling work of his that hasn't been seen in 20 years.
Despite creating some of his most startling work during this period, including L'Allegro and Wonderland (1989), he outraged conservative Belgian critics and was pelted by headlines that read: "Mark Morris, Go Home!" and "The Pathetic Frauds of Mark Morris".
Allen has maintained a startling work rate, making in essence one film a year for going on 35 years.
