“Ostensibly about a Gullah fam­ily whose younger generation are making plans to leave their ances­tral islands for mainland U.S.A. at the crest of the 20th century, 'Daughters of the Dust' is also an interrogation of Black America's cleft soul, split between the quest for modernity and a hunger for the replenish­ment of roots.”

“People who don't know any better think Gullah people talk funny. Those in the know realize that Gullah is a bona fide dialect and are confident in the scholarly thesis that 'Gullah' is a contrac­tion of 'Angola.'”

“He may, like Zapata, be that ultimate contradiction — a man 'of the peo­ple' who towers above them, a man in constant tension with his own myth.”

“Bertolucci and Brando conspire magnificently, some­times awkwardly, to create not just a film about an affair, but the affair itself — an affair which we have the option of resisting or ac­cepting on a gut level, and which like most affairs (and unlike most current films) is better experi­enced than written about.”

“Since 'The Godfather' is about as unkind to the Mafia as 'Mein Kampf' is to Adolf Hitler, it is hard to understand why the local little Caesars didn’t pay a commission for all the free publicity.”

“So long as Nixon is allowed to campaign against Abbie Hoffman, so long will the Great Silent Majority continue to swell into terrifyingly Hitlerian hordes”

“World-weary, battered, unpretentious, Mitchum epitomized postwar masculinity: Here was the conquering hero conquered by self-doubt, who never feared reprisal for confessing this weakness because he could defend himself with a truly terrifying physical strength”

“No doubt I’ll always be interested in underworld sto­ries. But no cutesy films about mama’s pas­ta and people getting married. I can’t stand that.”

“By 1970, the war between blacks and whites had reached flashpoint. On Janu­ary 7, a micro race riot erupted in the Saigon headquarters of the U.S. Military Command”