TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Cinema: Flair Ball

DIVA Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix; Screenplay by Jean-Jacques Beineix and Jean Van Hamme

Ten ways to tell the difference between style and flair in moviemaking: style reveals; flair displays. Style insinuates; flair asserts. Style is witty; flair is clever. Style seems simple; flair looks facile. Style is a bolt of lightning; flair is a ripple of Mylar. Style advances the story; flair replaces the story. Style connects images, scenes, moods, morals; flair offers a series of showy epiphanies. Style is a cloak for character; flair is a designer-jeans commercial. Style finds the right...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.