Alec Baldwin, the Godfather remastered and yes, Sarah Palin

The XX Factor column in Slate had an interesting take on the Alec Baldwin/Sarah Palin SNL sketch last month. One of the columnists remarked that what stood out was the way that Baldwin looked Palin up and down before commenting that she was "hot"—

And as for the moment when Baldwin crudely looks her up and down—it’s gross, to be sure, but I thought it was a self-conscious riff on his character on 30 Rock, who’s always manhandling Tina Fey (and every other female he comes in contact with)with his eyes. He was being gross in character, I’d say, and that’s what made it funny—the play off the way he is with Tina Fey, and all the odd levels that go into that: the fact that Tina Fey is a feminist-minded type, first, and the fact that Palin is a tough gal who can take it, second

I've seen the sketch several times and I still can't see Baldwin doing that. I don't know if it's my masculine eyes or the low resolution of online video, but I just don't see it. At any rate, what's interesting is that the sketch still works even if you can't see Baldwin's look. It got me thinking that successful pieces seem to work even when vital pieces of information are missing. You probably know that The Godfather has been remastered and released on DVD and Blu-Ray. One thing I heard is that in this version you can see the tension on Al Pacino's face before he kills the bad cop. What's interesting is that one of the things I remember from the Godfather is that Pacino seems emotionless about the whole thing and that makes the scene more chilling and effective.

I wonder if successful pieces convey so much information in a variety of ways that you can pick up what's going on even if you miss something. In other words, they're not overly dependent on any one bit of dialogue or event or device.