The Rich Are Different…
…they can write things like Anthony Lane’s delightful piece on Grace Kelly:
A home movie exists of the children at play, on a beach—perhaps at the family vacation home in Ocean City, New Jersey. The children, in bathing costumes, are still small, and each is summoned forth to face the camera and salute, as if being a Kelly were a form of active service. When in Rome, you can see the movie for yourself; just wander down the Via del Corso and duck into the Fondazione Memmo, where an exhibition entitled “Gli Anni di Grace Kelly, Principessa di Monaco” is showing till the end of February.
“When in Rome” is classic Lane. He knows that we know the figure of speech is threadbare. But he intends it literally. The conceit that we just might happen through Rome shows up the cliché’s absurdity—as if we know how to behave when in Rome, or what the Romans do. Lane also has fun with the sober conventions of exhibitions and exhibition reviews, mashing up details with the kind of language travelogues use to let us know they’re having oh-so-much fun with no effort at all—just “wander” here and “duck in” there and it’ll be splendid, darling, splendid. He’s like a verbal bullfighter, flourishing his allusion, leading us where he wills.
