Yet some Americans have practised subversion as well, including Uri Caine, a pianist known for reshaping classical masterworks in his own ebullient way.

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In 1962, between Psycho and Marnie, his masterworks of raging id, Alfred Hitchcock, a city kid, filled the great outdoors with the embodiment of that impersonal fury.

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Most important of all, the pope ordered one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's masterworks, La Fontana del Quattro Fiume, or the Fountain of Four Rivers, for the centerpiece of the space.

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There are signs of that actually happening in the next few months -- not an avalanche of masterworks, not the sudden transformation of an obviously troubled part of the entertainment industry, but the emergence of a number of unusual movies with a better-than-even chance of artistic as well as commercial success.

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