VOLUME 17 - NUMBER 06 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1981

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•Sl•ssue published bimonthly by the Film Society of Lincoln Center Volume 17, Number 6 November-December 1981 Special Report: Independents ....... 15 Terry Gilliam: Bandit. ............. 49 In the past few years the He trashed the middle ages in independent film sce ne Monty Python and the Holy Grail has come alive , found its and Jabberwocky. He messed up vo ice, flexed its muscles. the Messiah in Life of Brian. Now, Austin Lamont provides in Time Bandits, Terry Gilliam and the compleat handbook his corps of sawed-off misan- for the would-be indepen- thropes have all of time to scamper dent-how to finance through . It is another unique your film , select a distrib- adventure from this American ex- utor, win a festival slot, patriate and, with Anne Thomp- grab the main chance- son, he talks about his art, his life, with sound advice from and his serene silliness. independents (I ike San- I--..:..:=======.:====-.....:..:.:..;.......:.~.....:......:......:.-.....;..;----:-::'....., dra Schulberg and John Classic French Film. . .......... 33 Hanson , left) who learned Il etait une fois French it the hard way. movies were suffused 1-'-------- ----- ------- --- --1 .\\lith a sp irit of glamorous ~uropean Skin Games ......... .... 28 fatalism. The Museum of S~ething odd happened to Euro- Modern Art's new exhibi- pean movies in the Sixties. While tion hi ghlights French film s from 1930 to 1960. the New Wave was rein ve nting We do , too , with Marc film language, other directors be- Mancini's essay on poet- gan exploring the indI.s.tInct boun d- aries between politics and sexual- sc reenwriter Jacques Pre- ity, passion and pain , normal and ve rt (page 34) ; Dan abo. Raymond Durgnat cata- Yakir's tribute to Henri- logues and criticizes skin-game Georges Clouzot (page movies from such directors as Lo- 38); and Stephen Har- sey, Resnais, Bertolucci and Ta- vey's gallery offemmesfa- viani, beneath and beyond. tales (page 40). Also in this issue: Gdansk Macabre ........... 55 Letters.................... 68 Diane Kaiser Koszarski sees fireworks Albert Maltz and Lester Cole, two of Journals ................... 2 on the screen and in the streets of the Hollywood Ten, strike back at Mitch Tuchman visits the grund-glik Poland's headline-grabbing city. She Richard Schickel's recent article. (set) of Questfor Fire . David Overbey found much excitement, new films, finds a French film he likes . Tom and a grand old lion, AndrzejWajda. Books .................... 77 Allen finds Chinatown in New York. New York Film Festival...... 58 Jonathan Rosenbaum finds much to Broadway to Hollywood...... 22 Autumn in New York means the big praise in his review of David Bord- Some talented young playwrights are bash at Lincoln Center (nineteenth well's important new study of the now doing movies. Why? Good year). Elliott Stein (seventh year) films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer. money, no regrets. Lawrence O'Toole tackles the new films and praises the talks with Michael Weller, David retrospectives. James McCourt (sixth Bulletin Board.............. 80 Mamet, David Rabe, Wallace Shawn, year) casts an acute eye on the Notices, contributors, photo credits. and Ed Clinton. From London, Harlan Festival's Movies for Cynics, a Kennedy reports on Steve Tesich. potpourri of old films and new. Cover photo: David Warner in Time Bandits. Courtesy Avco Embassy. Editor: Richard Corliss. Senior Editor: Brooks Riley (on leave). Associate Editor: Anne Thompson. Business Manager: Sayre Maxfield. Advenising and Circulation Manager: Tony lmpavido. An Director: Elliot Schulman. Cover design: Michael Uris. Research Consultant: Mary Corliss. Executive Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center: Joanne Koch. Second class postage paid at New York and additional mailing offices. Copyright © 1981 by the Film Society, of Lincoln Center. All rights reserved . The opinions expressed in FILM COMMENT do not represe nt Film Society of Lincoln Center policy. This publication is fully protected by domestic and international copyright. The publication of FILM COMMENT (lSSN 00I5-120X) is made possible in part by suppon from the New York State Council on the Am and the National Endowment for the Ans. Subscription rates in the United States: $12 for six numbers $22 for twelve numbers. Elsewhere: $18 for six numbers, $34 for twelve numbers, payable in U.S. funds only. New subscribers should include theiroccupa- tionsandzipcodes. Editorial, subscription, and back-issue correspondence: FILM COMMENT, 140WestSixty-fifthStreet, New York, N. Y. 10023 U.S.A.

Trouble in the Arctic, a Diva in Paris, Antique China in New York Mitch Tuchman from tion. (Fox is planning to release the film BLack and White in CoLor won the 1978 Bruce Peninsula, Ontario in major cities in February.) A change of Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Annaud studio management followed by last claims the actors were adequately fore- Driving there, the agent si mply prom- year's actors' strike placed the film on warned. \"I told them it would be horren- ised, \"A good cave,\" then added, typi- the endangered list. Then producer dous. I told them there was a week waist cally, \"with a dramatic view of the bay.\" Michael Gruskoff sought the generous deep in freezing water. They said, 'I can Upon arriving, he extolled, \"A lot of provisions of the Canadian motion pic- do it,' 'I'm a hiker,' 'Give me a chance.' character for a shallow lair,\" and pointed ture tax shelter law, which permits Ca- I told them, 'If it gets painful, don't to several recesses off the principal cav- nadians five years to repay highly come to me. I will only say I thought it ern, most notably a subterranean pocket would be more painful.' And so they in the rear wall, \"nice for quiet dining,\" Quest for Fire. never came to me.\" perfect for preserving atra (fire) from in- clement weather. leveraged production loans but requires They went instead, after two days in producers to expend much of their bor- the marsh, to the producers, exclaiming, Such are the amenities of the newer rowed cash in Canada. Bruce Peninsula, \"We are dirty. We are filthy. We are do- Northern cave sites, not yet buffed by with its caves, forests, and marshes, ing strenuous work fourteen to seven- wind or tide, etched by groundwater while not so exotic as Iceland, was teen hours a day, up to our necks in ice seeping still through limestone ceilings. chosen. water with nothing on but our furs\"- Even today chunks are falling. The floor bear, wolf, wallaby, cat, coyote, fox, and is littered with flinty chips. Gruskoff and his Canadian coprodu- wild dog, forty to sixty pounds per per- cers, John Kemeny and Denis Heroux son, heavier when wet. They were Scattered about are the signs of occu- (Atlantic City), have Star Wars dreams of given wet suits. pancy: matted fur rugs, unkempt pallets box office and toy store success. They of leaves and grass, greasy, charred logs, foresee a line of prosthetic brows, pro- After three days in the marsh, they and the skeletal remains of herbivores- truding wax dentures, and matted wigs. went to their union, crying, \"We have tir meg (mammoth), tir dondr (reindeer), They propose an Ulam dictionary of chills and abrasions. Our skins are rav- and tir kor ro (horse). Indo-European-like words devised by aged by old-age stipple, prosthetic consultant Anthony Burgess (bratt: glues, body paint, and the alcohol used This cave is nya ULam (property of the brother; aga: water; smerdoLor:pain) and to remove it all.\" They got no response. Ulam). Just now they are out. Vir (men) gestures by consultant Desmond Morris and virku (women) are in the forest flee- (hunt: tap head with weapon; assent: On the fourth day in the marsh, the ing the warlike Wagabu, in the bog cow- thrust head forward, dipping slightly). script called for Rouka, the tribal idiot ering before wolves, waist deep in the (Gary Schwartz), to commit suicide. He freezing marsh awaiting word from their Perhaps a board game. Play Quest for dashed across the bog, seeking a hole leader: \"Djan vitrash\" (\"Go quickly,\" or Fire with your tribe. Spin the pointer. deep enough for drowning. A dozen \"Action!\"). Atra hidoop (fire lives): return to home- Ulam, shivering, shouted, \"Die, die!\" land. Otim tir preng (a good hunt today): Rouka dove for the bottom. Clutching • enjoy a feast of roast elk with the Ulam reeds, he remained submerged. Annaud of your choice. Ooowa (alarm): lose stu- was displeased: \"You look like you're Bruce Peninsula, thirty miles long, dio backing. Ehyu (grief): waste millions swimming.\" After three takes, he or- four to eight miles wide, defines On- when elephants trample Scottish sets. dered a hole drilled in the marsh floor. tario's Georgian Bay at the eastern end of Taka, taka, taka (aggression): actors de- Two takes later-Rouka deceased, Lake Huron. Here Jean-Jacques An- mand $250-a-day stunt bonuses. Schwartz very nearly so--he was rushed to naud is shooting Quest for Fire, a film a hospital in nearby Wiarton. Legs adapted from J.H. Rosny Aisne's novel For that they blame Annaud, whose numb, the soles of his feet turning blue, La Guerre de feu about a tribe of Stone he was diagnosed as hypothermic. As Age Homo sapiens who know how to one, the Ulam demanded, and received, preserve flame but not to ignite it. Hav- hardship (stunt) pay. ing lost their fire to fierce Neanderthals, the Ulam send three lads on a nine- Mos.t Ulam are American, French, or month quest to replace it. Led by Noah Anglo-Canadian actor and mimes, many (Everett McGill), these Paleolithic in their first film roles. McGill played Marco Polos traverse much of France Nugget, the principal horse, in the New and Spain (Scotland and Kenya). York production of Equus. The Wagabu are bodybuilders from Montreal. Off- Iceland was cast originally in the role camera the tribes did not mix. One of the Ulam homeland, now played by Ulam called it, \"intertribal racism.\" Be- Ontario. That was when Quest for Fire cause the Wagabu were French-Cana- was a Twentieth Century-Fox produc- 2

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dian ? \"No, because they were jocks.\" fashion, have not managed to keep ent of Patrice Leconte-all of Copine's -. these promises, with Beraud's Plein Sud sympathies are on the side of the bour- • floundering in script problep;s turning geois order: one is allowed to chuckle at its tired tale of runaway adultery and minor discomfitures of the cozy couple The second unit prepares a wo lf at- \"erotic obsessions\" into something like brought about by their bummy pal, but tack on an Ulam woman and her child. \" Last Polka in Madrid.\" their basic values are never even smiled The woman is Gruskoff's daughter; the at. A major part of the \"crisis\" is the child, a rubber doll; the wolf, a German While many have blamed the \"crisis\" stranglehold on production, distribu- shepherd lupinized with ash. The sec- on the stultifying atmosphere created by tion, and exhibition of the \"big three,\" ond-unit director calls for a little more tit Giscard and his cohorts on every level of particularly, of course, Gaumont, which and a take. The butt of a hastily inhaled over the last few years has extended its du Maurier drifts in the primord ial ooze. Wilhelmina Wiggins -Fernandez and tentacles into almost every area of A grip wi th a smoke machine manufac- Frederic Andrei in Diva. communications, including video and tures the mists of time. publishing. Mitterand himself, in his French life, one probably shouldn't ex- campaign statements about television Nearby, tacked to a peeling, white- pect a brave new wave of French cinema and the cinema, pointed to the three- barked birch is a crude, but decipher- to come rolling immediately out of Mit- way monopoly as one of the major causes able ideogram. It reads , \"Century 21,\" terand's France. Old habits and ways of of the lack of creativity in French cin- and across it another says, \"So ld .\" thinking die slowly. It should also be ema, as the decisions made by the Gis- Eighty thou sand years from now Bruce remembered that most French film di- card ian directors of those companies Peninsula will be a vacation resort, a rectors are thoroughly bourgeois in back- supported the deadening status quo, good place for a cabin with a dramatic ground and formation , are out of touch tended to remakes of last season's com- view of the bay. with any class except their own, and mercial hits, and aided \"fils d'auteur\" if therefore actually believe that adultery the \"auteur\" were Fellini and \"art\" films David Overbey and the \" problem of the couple\" are if the art was an opera directed fussily by from Paris excitingly original subjects for film. Losey. Aside from their very real talent, one of A few years ago, when he was still the things that makes Vecchiali and However, as in the case ofVecchiali- living in Paris (and writing this selfsa'me Pialat so alive is their putting on screen who refuses to play in the courts of the journal incidentally), Jonathan Rosen- other classes and \"another France\" so \" big three,\" often tucking the films baum and I set off together reluctantly to that even when they touch on those made by his small Diagnole Films under a press screening ofa then-new but since well-ploughed subjects like the \"prob- his arm and trooping through France long-forgotten French film. Reluctantly, lem of the couple\" (as in Pialat's Loulou) with them himself-there are producers because as Jonathan then put it, \"every the films have a different feel and tex- and directors around who are willing to new French film is guilty until it's ture. Even directors who are not middle take risks, sometimes with mixed com- proved innocent.\" He was right then class in background are often seduced mercial results. Although two new ex- and alas, he is still right. The famous into a bourgeois mentality. Claude traordinary films do not signal the \"crisis\" in the economics and imagina- Faraldo, for example, whose BoJ! and redemption of an entire national indus- tion of French cinema which has been Themroc made exciting use of his own the focus of conversation here for years experiences as a laborer and wine deliv- try, nonetheless, in the words of the im- continues-as do the same old conver- eryman, has turned to the comfortable mortal Addison Dewitt, I am once more sations about it. romantic games of a well-off film direc- available for dancing in the streets. tor (Two Lions in the Sun). Oddly (?) enough, both films, Coun Cir- There are, of course, the annual films cuits and Diva, were commercial failures of Paul Vecchiali, the occasional films of If French \"serious\" films are generally in France, which was not actually much Maurice Pialat, and the odd \"freak\" like bad news, comedy, an area where one of a surprise to many of us who watched Juliet Berto and Jean-Henri Roger's might expect to find a bit of corrosive wit their releases carefully. Although the Neige. Such, however, are hardly and subversive bite, is even worse. The two films are worlds apart in terms of enough to keep the industry healthy. comic hit of the season Viens Chez Moi, style and sensibility, there are similari- Vecchiali manages to produce one (as l'Habite Chez Vne Copine (Come to My ties between them. Both are first fea- with Simone Barbes) and direct one a Place, I Live With a Girl Friend) is a tures by unknown directors, neither has year; Pialat is thought to be \"difficult\" direct steal from Boudu Saved From stars, and both approach their subjects in (and to tell the truth, he is but he makes Drowning, except-even accepting the ways that could only cause critical con- great movies); Neige remains a \"freak\" enormous gulf between the genius of sternation here. since its energy comes from a clever ex- Renoir and the limited cafe theiher tal- ploitation of the quartier Berto and Court Circuits , directed (and pro- Roger know well rather than from any duced, on a miniscule budget) by Pat- obviously evident innate cinematic flair rick Grandperret, who served twice as on the part of the directors. The usual assistant director to Maurice Pialat, is a run of French films is so much boring \"fictionalized documentary\" based on sludge, very \"guilty\" indeed, with even the experiences of Gerald Garnier who \"big\" names like Eric Rohmer manag- collaborated on the script and who plays ing to be no more than \"charming\" with himself in the film. It's a rather down- his overwritten teenage romance The beat tale of a one-armed (the other was Aviator's Wife. \"Promising\" directors like paralyzed in a crash) ex-motorcycle racer Luc Beraud, whose Tunle On Its Back who dreams of having his own racing had at least the virtue of treating a fairly team. Even with sponsors there isn't original subject (writer's block) in a fresh 6

. Announcing the 1982 Edition The API Desk Diary Here is the desktop datebook that is per- A Special Almanac Section Daily Calendar Includes: fect for anyone involved in film and tele- identifies 1982 dates for international and Motion Picture Firsts vision-from top executive to avid domestic film festivals , awards events, in- Broadcasting History dustry meetings, important conventions. Notable Birthdays It's a superb combination of hand- Anniversaries of Major Events design and usefulness. Organized Throughout the 1982 AFI Desk Diary, Awards Events you'll find a level of quality and practical- Film Festivals spreads. there is ample space ity that will make it a delight to own, to use Meetings and Co,nv,em:lOllS and notes. Significant and to give as gifts . historical still Elegantly hardbound, 8%\" x 10-%\". 144 pages. Quantity Discounts available on request (10 or \"'~\"'rJ\" _I..Z'-· ~. \\1\"\"\" ,<10. '11I'~ \\ ..... ,\" .,. f S I .,. ~ H 'J (, 7 _ J{, .. ,:1 ,3 \" ,!Y 21:l' l :P ,II l(j ~, 2M :l\"J :«1 ;1:; zh \"17 ~----­ JANUARY Ii\"\"\" ....\" ...t::-u , \\ , r, I - -\\};I'';' - -~__ , fF. - \"....... \\ ~..-..,.,..;.;;- ......... \\\\ 1'..-·..... ....--'.... .l~'7..·-,I\\--_ 1 '_ .1..;;:------ --- - -~- --- -- ~ -- - -~:::; -= -,..r\\r.-.-:_-___ - -1 ~ _l. _ __=--:-::. : Please send me the following copies of the Mail To: t:, 1982 AFI Desk Diary: I I AFI Desk Diary The American Film Institute Total Amount John F. Kennedy Center Washington, D .C. 20566 _ copies (a . the AFt Member Price of $15.50 $ - - - ea. ($14.00 plus $1.50 postage & handling) _ copies (u the I/O/l-member price of $17.45 $,_ _ __ Name _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ ea. ($\\5.95 plus $1.50 postage & handling) _ copies sent outside U.S.A. and Can- $_ _ __ Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ City _ _ _ _ _~_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ ada , add international postage & handling (a ' $5.00 each _ Total Copies Amount Due $ _ _ __ State _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Zip _ _ _ __ o Check enclosed for Amount Due payable to Telephone _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ The American Film Institute o Charge my 0 VISA 0 MASTERCHARGE o Please send me information about multiple order discounts Carono. ____________________________________ (10 or more copies) . The 1982 AFI Desk Diary makes a E)(pires _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ handsome gift for friends, clients and associates. -. -----------------------------------------------------------------~~~~-~

enough money, so he plans a robbery- sumes-with no production stories up. There was some pressure brought to finally unsuccessful-with underworld appearing anywhere, not even in the bear on the powers that be on the and \"marginal\" buddies. The film is a trade press. I personally keep fairly up Cannes Selection Committee to put voyage through the underside of Paris on what is being made here , but one Diva in competition, but Cannes is shy where there isn't much obvious joy ex- night after dinner with Hilton McCon- of commercial failure (except when lots cept in the ambiguous relationships be- nico when he said he wanted to stop by of American dollars point the way tween the characters. the Place de la Madeleine to watch a bit through the gates of heaven) so the silly of Diva being shot, it was the first I had Possession and dull Beau Pere went to That the film pulses with energy and heard of the film-several weeks into Cannes instead. Diva, nonetheless, is is full of a strange but nonetheless mov- production . representing France at Moscow, and will ing tenderness didn't seem to matter be at the Chicago Festival. It was a re- when it came time for audiences to put It may have been the fault of the press sounding success at the Festival of Fes- up their box-office francs. Its winning agent for the film, a charming lady tivals in Toronto, there was enough the first Prix Jean-Louis Bory didn't whose talents are more suited to publi- demand for four extra screenings, and seem to matter either. There are always cizing charity benefits and the Cesar af- the movie picked up a U.S. distributor: lots of explanations for a film's not work- fair than dealing with film. Press the ever-perspicacious UA Classics. ing, especially in the case of Court Cir- screenings of the film were held, for ex- cuits where no more than a few thousand ample , three nights before the film • people in Paris bothered to see it. No opened-too late for the monthlies, one ever thought it would be a big weeklies, and even a few dailies to even I personally love Diva, and each time smash, of course, for it isn't \"amusing\" review the film on time, let alone beat a I see it I like it more, but I realize the and those sentimental fans of Rocky, for drum for it. Posters-the major way of dangers of overpraise: the reaction later example, would hardly run to see a publicizing an event in Paris-went up is always \"well, it isn't that good.\" handicapped ex-sports figure lose. The the night before the opening. This for a Maybe it isn't, but it is, simply, the best majority of critics here didn't help with film with a new director and a cast of French film of the year-and given the their condescending reviews which of- unknowns at the height of the spring fact that that isn't saying much, maybe ten damned the film for the very reasons season when a dozen new highly publi- the best film of the year. It has two it was worth seeing: a rather jagged, al- cized films open every Wednesday. stories which dovetale into one another. most unfinished quality to the images An opera singer who refuses to record is and editing which match the narrative The press reaction to the film was secretly recorded during a concert by a thrust exactly; the \"marginal\" sexuality, stracge. With very few exceptions, even young mailman who adores her. A call emotions, and lifestyles which make the those reviews that praised the film girl makes a cassette naming names film seem fresh after miles of French seemed to indicate their author's dis- about a prostitution and drug ring and film devoted to talky adultery. Nor did comfort with it. Those reviews evoked manages to slip the recording into the the distributor-one of the more re- mailman's sack before she is killed. The spectable in Paris with a nice portfolio of athose for Paul Vecchiali's Corps Coeur, rest of the film is a chase, with everyone the better films of Saura and Wajda- from gangsters to cops to Taiwan pirate who took the film as something of a and made one remember Voltaire's dis- recording goons after the young postman charity case-seem to care much. After missal of Shakespeare as a barbarian be- and his recordings. When not on the cause he mixed genres. There is still run, the boy has a semi-romantic affair dumping it into a couple of out of the something of that critical mentality alive with the singer (against a background of way cinemas without prior publicity, here, with audiences and critics prefer- romantic Paris as one likes to think the nothing was done to nurture it along, ring to know beforehand what their reac- city really is) and an odd relationship and Court Circuits was abandoned to die. tion should be, preferring things to be with a Vietnamese girl and her sort-of The case of Diva is far more spectacu- clearly marked \"comedy,\" \"drama,\" private eye pal who teaches the boy the lar and colorful-like the film itself. and so on. Diva not only mixes genres Zen Art of Buttering Bread, among First of all, the film cost about but gleefully tosses them about and other things . While some critics $1,500,000 (not including release costs), shifts reactional gears in the middle of searched for a means to describe the film which in France is a fortune for a first scenes. visually and came up with \"hyperreal- feature. It was produced by Irene Silber- ism\" (which is off by a hundred degrees man, the wife of Serge Silberman, the The film opened in a couple of dozen or so), it is probably easier and more long-time producer and friend of Luis cinemas to commercial disaster. Indeed, accurate to recall Beineix's own obses- Bunuel, as her second film (her first was the distributor wanted to pull the film sion with comic book art and to talk the light comedy A Nous les Petites and replace it with a reissue of one of the about the virtues of excess of every sort. Anglais, which was a gigantic hit locally). vulgar Bronze comedy series. Beineix The film is full of parody (from B~­ Diva is the first feature by director Jean- himself had a shouting fight with the Imondo's love of macho Metro chases to Jacques Beineix (whose short Le Chien distributors and the film was held over in Bogart) but they fit tightly into the over- de Monsieur Michel was nominated for a a reduced number of cinemas. Then all structure and never descend to easy Cesar in 1978) and, although he sur- word of mouth began to spread that here camp; it is full of hilarious nonsense, but rounded himself by experienced profes- was a film which was funny, exciting, it is all firmly rooted in Beineix's real sionals like cinematographer Phillippe moving, mysterious, and beautiful to grasp of emotion and romanticism. Rousselot and set designer Hilton Mc- look at-that it might be \"odd,\" butone There is no more romantic image in Connico, no one was expecting what had a good time with it. The film contin- modern cinema than that in the Louvre Diva turned out to be. Part of that may ued, and often enough the smaller cin- gardens at dawn when the boy softly have been because the shooting was al- emas in which it was showing were sold touches the shoulder of the singer as she most a secret-unintentional one pre- out, but it was too late to recoup its big sits quietly under a huge umbrella. budget, although foreign sales are yet to come and any North American distribu- tor with any brains and taste will snap it 8

782. Pub . price $30.00 ::;::..r..:.:;:.::..::==----, 1027. Pub. price $17.50 1041. PUb. price $25.00 e: I_~~===::::::::===- 1039. Pub. price $19.95 959. Pub. price $18 .95 1105. Pub . price $22.95 1128. Pub . price $19.95 938. Pub . price $24.95 Here's your ticket to the whole, wide world of movie magic. If you're a dedicated connoisseur of film , from the early silent movies movies, Broadway, radio, jazz and popular music of all kinds, sports, car- through the golden age of Hollywood and up to the present. then join the toons, comedians, cowboys and Americana. club - the Nostalgia Book Club. Join the Nostalgia Book Club and get 3 of these outstanding volumes for By simply joining the Nostalgia Book Club, you'll get three of the hand- only $4.99 plus a FREE bonus book. some volumes listed here for only $4.99, plus a bonus book FREE - a value up to $90.40! This exceptional introductory offer is our way of saying wel- More books to choose from : come to the club that brings you a wide selection of hard-to-get books on every aspect of the movies. 993 . Hollywood: Land & Legend by Zelda Cini and Bob Crane In addition to comprehensive studio histories, intimate portraits of the Pub. price $19.95 stars and dazzling pictorial recreations of all the classic movies, the Nostal- 1115. All the Stars In Heaven: A Biography of gia Book Club takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood with a fascinating PUb . price $18.50 variety of books on the people who have created and produced you r favorite Louis B. Mayer and MGM by Gary Carey Pub. price $14.95 films. You'll also find a generous sampling of expert film commentary from well-known critics like Charles Champlin and Roger Dooley. 1045. Who Played Who In the Movies by Roy Pickard As a member you'll have access to all these outstanding film books and 1037. The Real Oscar: The Story by Peter Brown Pub. price $15.95 much more - most at 20% to 50% off publishers' prices: fact and photo- Behind The Academy Awards filled reference works for the most devoted trivia buffs,. rare LP records from the big band era .and a wide range of entertaining books on TV, 1040. The War, The West and The Wilderness by Kevin 8rownlow Pub. price $27.50 11ZZ. The Movies Grow Up: by Charles Champlin Pub. price $25.95 1940 through 1980 FREE Bonus Book- The Award Movies: A Complete Guide from A to Z (softcover) by Roy PUb. price $ P.O. Box 10654, Des Moines. Iowa 50336 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Plusj books t Nostalgia Book Club P.O. Box 10654. Des Moines, Iowa 50336 FREE for *• 0 Please enroll me in the Nostalgia Book Club and send the three items I've indicated belOW plus my free bonus book. Bill bonus $4.99 *• meJust $4.99 plus postage and handling. I understand that as a member I'll receive 15 Club BUlletins a year. filled with news • of interest and current Club offerings. MY ONLY OBLIGATION is t o buy three books or record albums over the next year at \"'- book! ~ regular club prices. If I want the Main Selection. I will do nothing. it will be sent automatical ly. If I want one or more Alter- ..- *~ nates - or no book at all- I will indicate that on the reply form and return it by the date specified . If I receive a Selection *• without having 10 days to decide that I want It. I may return it at Club expense. A postage and handling charge is added to *• each Shipment. t I II II I :Indicate by number the 3 books you want: t Name 015 : * .~~ t~ ~te ~ *: • Prices somewhat higher in Canada and abroad. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

was a bad imitation of the Soviet Mother. up to a 1979 release, deals with the per- Tom Allen Jay Leyda in Dianying: Electric Shadows secution of a blind folk composer under from New York thought it was a bad Hollywood imita- Kuomintang officials before his official Mainland China is a hot property in cultural and tourist circles, and the tim- tion. It's the only film in the series with a adoption by the People's Republic. The ing is chic for a package of five feature films from the People's Republic of canned, Westernized symphonic score framing is reminiscent of contemporary, China that is currently swinging through the country. Yet, I wouldn't recommend and in which jargon like \"collective hard-edged Japanese photography, and \"China Film Week\" to either trend seekers or curio fanatics. Strangely struggle\" and \"Iinkjng with the masses\" there is a much deeper psychological cut enough, if form could only be divorced from content, the most compatible audi- is hammered across. to the very competent acting. Techni- ences for the film package would be those patrons in any big city who fre- Aesthetically, Two Stage Sisters, a film cally, the film can compete in any world quent the more traditional revival houses for the simple joys of well immediately suppressed by the Cultural market, and, as musical biographies go, crafted, impersonal, truly populist stu- dio entertainments. Re.volution, is also a bit of a stylistic the main character Abing provides a con- The films represent a twenty-one- exception. The gross, greedy entrepre- vincing portrait of a life shaped around year spread in the cinema history of the People's Republic, with three films cho- neurial villains of the Shanghai stage the creative impulse. Abing is also the sen from before and two from after the aesthetic void of the Cultural Revolu- scene in Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang only dominant male figure in five films tion (1966-76). They include Song of Youth (1959), a social-realist epic adapted times are nicely shaded, and one can that otherwise stress strong female im- from a widely disseminated memoir; Third Sister Liu (1961), a rural folk opera; perceive distinctly noirish elements un- ages. Two Stage Sisters (1964), an expressionis- tic character study; Second Spring Mir- der the urban neon. If the plot had more The young people in Bus Number 3 roring the Moon (1979), a musical biography; and Bus Number 3 (1980), a successfully integrated the stage life of tend to ride around contemporary communal, contemporary, slaphappy fa- ble. All have been equipped with highly the two main actresses into the plot- Shanghai singing \"Life is wonderful, colloquial subtitles to complement their original, crisp Technicolor hue. choosing between enlightening the life is fine.\" Without condescension, it is Certainly there are distinctly Chinese masses and chasing stardom-I would possible to say that a sweeter or more disciplines and traditions behind each of the films, but I leave this background to have been more sympathetic to the joyous explosion of Andy Hardyism in scholars working in a more expansive format, such as those quoted in the overreaction of the London critics in the Eighties is not likely to be found in twelve-page booklet joint1y prepared by the American Film Institute and the awarding it the best new release of 1980 any other national cinema. The boys Museum of Modern Art that is circulat- ing with the films. (As part of the neatly Shanghai Opera intrigue in Two Stage Sisters. balanced cultural agreement of 1979, we have already sent Snow White and the (sixteen years after its making). and girls, reclaimed from the farm com- Seven Dwarfs, Shane, Singin' in the Rain, Third Sister Liu, the tale of a mountain munes and gung-ho for the \"Four Mod- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, and The ernizations,\" are role models of Black Stallion to China.) heroine who afflicts rich feudal landlords politeness and civic enterprise. The with her music, is much more of a re- darkest asides are aimed at bureaucratic Nonetheless, certain common traits warding revelation, precisely because its clerks, proletariat malingerers, and in all five Chinese films came across many, many songs are so integrally movie-ticket scalpers (corrupted, ac- strongly. The movies are squeaky clean worked into the folk-opera plot. Shot cording to the movie, by the Gang of on sex, with no kisses and all hints of fluidly on location in the river valleys of Four).L.B.Mayerwould have loved the serious courtship reserved to the young the northern Guangxi Province, this film film's vast tolerance for meddling in their mid-twenties. Violence is shown (and Second Spring Mi\"oring the Moon) mommas and cherubic children. On dis- only in its aftereffects and very spar- reflects an appreciation for rural tradi- play is the type of long-lost innocence ingly, giving most of the villains the pa- tions long absent from the American and buoyancy possible only under a uni- per-tiger quality of fairy-tale ogres. film. The apple-cheeked heroine Liu versally accepted puritanical code and a (Huang Wangiu) has a voice that could shared optimism that society can be per- The only bummer experience in the shatter crystal across the Grand Canyon fected. Bus Number 3 may not be art, but group is Song of Youth, a three-hour saga and a limitless supply of animal and it's a good exemplary smile on the face of with the unfortunate, thin-stretched, se- plant imagery in her lyrics with which to modern China and the one film in the rial structure of a soap opera. I thought it put her pampered and scholarly oppo- series that conveys a sense of a great, nents to amusing rout. bustling populace. ® Second Spring, jumping the festival 10

Your subscription to the ANNUAL INDEX TO MOTION PICTURE CREDITS will allow you to: * identify most domestic and many foreign films that open each year with all available screen credit infor- mation; * find individuals by craft (separate categories include actors, producers, art directors, cinematog- raphers, costume designers, directors, film editors, composers, sound editors, and writers); or to identify their film credits by using the general index; * pinpoint releasing companies and their list of films; and now in the 1980 Annual for the first time * find the elusive credit you seek by looking up a character name! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has organized motion picture credit information since 1934. Through its unique position in the motion picture industry, it has access to far more information than any other source . .. information it makes available in the Annual Index. If your library includes reference works on popular culture, media, or entertainment, you should be sure the Annual Index to Motion Picture Credits heads your acquisition list for commercial film information. Choice and Booklist reviewed the 1978 edition. Choice called it \" well done.\" Booklist said it \" should prov·e useful in large public libraries as well as in any special library center devoted to films and film history.\" If your library is not already on standing order for this annual , initiate one today. The single copy price is $150 .00. Standing orders are filled at $115 .00 per copy, a substantial discount. The 1978 and 1979 Annuals are still available . The 1980 Annual will be published in mid-November. Back volumes are available at the discounted price when you enter your standing order for the 1980 edition. Greenwood Press • 88 Post Road West, Box 5007, Westport Cl 06881 ·. (203) 226-3571





Independent American Films From Direct Cinema Limited \"A B:RILI.IAIr.r EYOCAftOR 01' A .OS~ ARXIOUS AGE. l'ascinating, rueM, epic, ambitious and complex.\" Vincent Canby, New York Times Jim McBride's This legendary independent classic captures the state of The mind and the state of the art in late 1960s America. It is one 1rials·of of the neglected milestones in contemporary film history. \"Rambunctiou sly funny and wise . ..\" Vincent Canby, New York Times ALGER HISS A film by Jim McBride A film by John Lowenthal Starring L. M. Kit Carson Cinematography by Michael Wadleigh 71 minutes Blac k and white 16mm Th is is an account of the espionage-and-perjury case that catapulted Richard Nixon to national prominence in 1948 Bruce Ricker's and sent former State Department officer Alger Hiss to prison . A cause celebre of the Cold War, the Hiss case led The Lastof the Blue Devils directly to the McCarthy era and aroused such intense political passions that it has remained controversial to this day. The Movie About Kansas City Jazz Featuring Count Basie , Jay McShann and Big Joe Turner, Newsreels and recent interviews with Hiss and other partici- this documentary contains performances by the great jazz pants set forth the case in historical context and as a testing musicians who emerged in Kansas City. of our criminal justice system under pressure. New evidence \"One of the finest films ever made on jazz:' obtained under the Freedom of Information Act is shown to Robert Palmer, Rolling Stone jurors from the two trials of Hiss, with startling results . \"A triumph .. .\" Nat Hentoff, Village Voice \"Great drama. Spellbinding . It will surprise me if the year A film by Bruce Ricker produces a more illuminating film .\" 92 minutes Color 16mm or 35mm -Robert Hatch, The Nation Karen Arthur's \"Explosive. An unusually compelling movie experience.\" -Will iam Wolf, Cue ~ \"Dazzling . Anyone with the slightest interest in modern An erotic portrait of the breakdown of an affluent American American history-or in mystery stories for that matter- woman , this film explicitly depicts her sexual musings, won 't want to miss it.\" obsessions and fears. -Richard Freedman, Newhouse Newspapers \"It steers a nicely balanced course from comedy through desperation to hysteria.\" Sight and Sound \"Milestone in American documentary ... a major work .\" Produced and directed by Karen Arthur -Gordon Hitchens, Variety Written by and starring Joan Hotchkis 94 minutes Color 16mm or 35mm Rated \"R\" A History on Film Company Production Produced and Directed by John Lowenthal Melvin Van Peebles's Ed ited by Marion Kraft 165 minutes Color 16mm Released 1980 Once upon a time a guy, black guy, decided, well not really decided, he was more or less standing in the wrong place at th e right time, to stand up for his right s, or, as they say on the block, to get-the-man-off-his-back , which of course is no mean FEEl \"Tnese moments represent personal cinema at its best- one man , tell ing it like he sees it, his dream of liberation un- adulterated by studio pressures or commercial considerations :'-Paul D. Zimmerman , Newsweek . Written , produced , directed . and starring Melvi n Van Peeb les Music pe rformed by Earth , Wind and Fire 97 minutes Color 16mm Rated X Rent these outstanding features for your For sale or rental information contact: ~,cmema ..J theatre, film society or class. Direct Cinema Limited Library limited oU Box 315 , Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417 (201) 891-8240

by Austin Lamont happened in the movies' infancy, from want the chance to show them to as wide 1909 to 1913. The majors were the Mo- an audience as possible. They have Once upon a time, the motion picture tion Picture Patents Companies. The found distributors and theaters to show industry was dominated by the major mo- independents were led by Carl Laem- their films. They are learning how to tion picture companies, all of whom made mle. The new kinds of films they made earn enough money on these films to the same type ofpicture. Distribution was were \"featu res\" -fi~ms longer than finance future productions. They have tightLy controlled by the majors, who aLso fifteen minutes. The independents cre- started organizations to represent them controlled the theaters in which the pic- ated the star system by publicizing and to coordinate their efforts. These tures were exhibited. A few independent names of the unknown actors and ac- individuals and groups form the nucleus producers. distributors. and exhibitors de- tresses they lured away from the Patents of a nascent independent American fea- termined to break this stranglehold. Al- Companies. Finally the courts declared ture-film industry. though the independents didn't always act the Patents Companies' monopolies il- in unison, their ranks grew and they even- legal. Hollywood today does not have a mo- tually broke the monopoly by lawsuits, by nopoly on production , distribution, or enticing talent away from the majors, and History may be about to repeat itself. exhibition. It is not being challenged by by sheer defiance . Today, independent filmmakers are independents-they are merely filling emerging from around the country to an obvious void created by the industry This is not a dream . This is history. It offer an alternative to Hollywood. They itself. Independents can profitably pro- make new kinds of feature films and duce and exhibit their film s in their own 15

way, o ne that pl ainly is ve ry diffe re nt sho t in o r aro und H ollvwood . Ind e pe n- th an Sa rn o's The Kirlian Witness a nd from H ollywood . Most of th e m a re art- d e nt filmm ake rs wa nt to make th e ir Ann a Thomas's The Haunting of M are ists who are just le arning abo ut th e busi- film s w he re thev. li ve. T hev. kn ow the a uste re, te nse mvs te ries- o ne mode rn , ness sid e of the ir p rofess ion , and th ey co untrys id e, th e peo pl e, th e ir co m- the othe r nine teenth ccnturv. a re, as bu siness people , quic k studi es. muniti es, and they wa nt th e ir film s to The audie nces fo r the ir film s are people re fl ect thi s. Jo hn H anson , co-di rec to r of Victo r N un ez' Gal Young Un and I\\, lark w ho are inte rested in tho ughtful e nte r- Re iche rt's Union City, are bascd on sho rt tainment, w hat critic S te ph e n F arbe r Independent filmmakers are reluc- sto ries. The fo rm e r is se t in rural no rth- has ca ll e d the \"co nce ptu all y piti ful \" tant to reveal how cheaply they make e rn Florid a; the re laxed pace see ms to p rod uct of H ollywood . T hese audi e nces their films because they think that dis- match its locale . T he latter co mes o ut of are no t ve t co mple te lv awa re that the re tributors do not respect low budget urban New Je rsey and has the vi sual a re film s for th e m to wa tc h, but they are style and mo ral tone of a FiftiesJilm noir. becoming mo re awa re all th e tim e . They and therefore offer smaller con- Heartland, directed by Richard Pea rce, may see th ese film s in th eate rs o r on tracts. Here, however, are the an- is based on the experie nces of a pivnee r cable or P ay TV, but th ey will be see ing nounced production budgets for six Wyo min g famil y. Th e Dozens, co-di- the m , and they will be see in g mo re and recent independent films: rected by Rand all Co nrad and C hri stin e mo re of the m as time goes o n. D all , follows a woman who is a co m- Return ofthe Secaucus 7. $60,000 pos ite of new ly-re leased pri so ne rs thev Altho ugh inde pe nd e nts make fi lm s of Tuck Everlasting, $70.000 interviewed. Fred Ke ll e r's Tuck Everlast- all kinds and le ngth s. we will conce n- The Haunting ofM, $100,000 ing, based o n Na talie Babbitt's nove l. is trate he re o n those ind e pe nd e nts who The Kirlian Witness, $180,000 set in th e first half of the twe nti e th cen- m ake fea ture -l e ng th dra m a ti c film s. Northern Lights, $330,000 tu ry. Bo b Na ka mura's Hito Hata is F ea ture-le ngth d ra matic film s are also . Heaniand, $700,000 abo ut th e discriminatio n expe rie nced by what H ollvwood m akes , and w he n H ol- The KirUan WitneSS and Heartland a newly-arri ved Japanese immig rant in lywood re fe rs to ind e pe nd e nts, it is usu- the Twenties. a ll y re fe rrin g t o th ose w h o m a k e shot in 35mm, which adds con- feature-length dramatic film s. lsjdlerably to the cost bUt enhances Jan Egleson's Dark End of the Street takes place in an urban housing proj ect. Ind e pe nd e nts sha re two m ain q uali- possibilities. None C harl es Burne tt's Killer of Sh eep de tails ties: they are the ir own bosses, answe r- films were shot in studios. All the life of a slaughte rho use wo rke r in ing to no highe r a utho ri ty th an the ir own these films have made or likely will L os Ange les. Alambrista!, d irected by conscie nces; and by no t taking mo ney their money back. Robe rt f\\1. Yo un g, te lls the story of a fro m a H oll ywood studio, a comme rcial yo ung illegal ali e n. f\\ lark Rappapo rt's T V ne twork , o r a big corpo ratio n , they The Kirlian Witness. Imposters is th e mos t expe rime ntal of all re tain mo re fin ancial co ntrol. f\\ lany of N orthern Lights, be lieves that film s are rece nt ind e pe nde nt fea tures; most of it the m , pe rhaps all of the m , also have a convicti o n that m akes the m te nac io us in mo re authe ntic whe n the ir stories and was shot o n stylized se ts th e director reac hing the ir goa ls. Filmm akin g is no t c haracte rs spring fro m th e actu al loca- built in his f\\ lanhattan loft. Get Rollin ', th e ir jo b , it is the ir need . They do it tio n of the story. H e has moved to M in- direc ted bv T e rre nce f\\ litche ll , c hroni- beca use they have to. nesota to work on hi s new film , Red cles th e drea ms of a roll e r-di sco star. Ghosts of the Mesabi. Its story and c har- O nl y the last film has a subj ect matte r F inancial inde pe nd e nce res ts large ly acte rs will be \" rooted in th e land scape .\" th at mig ht have inte rested Holl ywood. on the compa rati ve ly small budgets of the ir film s. T he ave rage H oll ywood film • Wh o a re th ese re negade sto ry te lle rs? cos ts $ 10 millio n. Th e ave rage ind e pe n- Whe re do they come from ? Says Marc de nt feature costs unde r $200.000 , o r Th e pl ots of ind e pe nde nt fi lms are as We iss, a co nsultant to th e New Yo rk abo ut fo rty times less th an the ave rage di verse' as the ir loca tions. Red Ghosts of Film Festiva l: \"Thev a re a ll , in some H oll ywood film . (Anothe r wav of look- the Mesabi is a story of wo me n who wo rk ways, c hildre n of th e Sixti es. They' re a ing at it is to sav th at fo r th e sam e in the ope n-pit iro n mines of no rthe rn ge ne ratio n w ho had a bi g expos ure to amo unt of money, o ne could make fo rty M innesota. Northern Lights is abo ut the film s. On ca mpu s, th e re was a film eve ry indepe nde nt film s, o r o ne H oll ywood formatio n of a farme r's politica l party in wee k, with bi g audi e nces. Film is the film. ) pre-Wo rld War] No rth Dakota. Both are medium of thi s ge ne ratio n.\" They all based on actu al people and eve nts. Jona- ,ve re influe nced by the soc ial and politi- The re is no productio n ce nte r for in- cal unrest of th e pe riod. Some of th e m d e pend e nt film s, no ind e pe nd e nt we re politica ll y acti ve as stud e nts. And equivale nt of H ollywood . T hese film s th ev have put th e ir commitm e nt o n a re shot eve ryw he re : The Haunting of M film . in Scotland , The Kirlian Wirness in New Wo me n wo rke rs, fa rm e rs' politi ca l York C ity, Tuck Everlasting in Uppe r p a rti es, pi o n ee r fa mili es, new ly-re - N e w Yo rk S tate, Return of the Secaucus 7 leased pri sone rs, newlv-arri ved immi- in N e w H ampshire, Northern Lights in g rants, housing projects, slaug hte rhouse N orth D ako ta, Heartland in Mo ntana, wo rke rs, illega l alie ns-these may see m The Dozens in Bos ton , Hito Hata in L os like s ubj ec ts fo r d oc um e nta ri es, no t Angeles, Union City in New Je rsey, Gal fictio n film s. It is not co incide nce th at Young Un in N o rthe rn Flo rida, Alam- m os t of th e new ind e pe nd e nt film- brista! in Southe rn Ca liforni a, Arizona, make rs started the ir ca ree rs in the docu- and Mexico. me ntary fi e ld . It is d e liberate that th ese film s are no t Randall Conrad hdd filmed two docu- 16

'These all have in common the people and their real concerns, ' says Sandra Schulberg, 'rather than the glamorized people of I Hollywoodfilms. ' mentaries on prisons and ex-prisoners comes from experience. Filmmakers founded on \"the notion that there is before making his dramatic-feature de- but as co-director of The Dozens, about schooled in the documentary have exciting talent, people who know the an ex-prisoner tl)'ing to adjust to the straight world. John Hanson was part of adapted their techniques to the fiction language of film, professionals in their a filmmaking group called Cine Mani- fest, which specialized in documentaries film : small crews, lightweight equip- own right, who are coming out of film on social issues; Northern Lights began as a documental)' about the North Dakota ment, direct sound, and shooting on schools with strong technological orien- Nonpartisan League, but evolved into a drama about a North Dakota farming location , often with nonprofessional tation, who know how to shoot, who family which includes documental)' se- quences of the man on whom the main actors . know how to edit, but have limitations. character was based. Robert M. Young made his name with documentaries (An- And so one makes do. Occasionally, The experience they don't get in film gola: Journey to a War) and fiction fea- tures (Nothing But a Man , Short Eyes, one does surprisingly well. Jonathan school is in some real directing, or how to even Rich Kids for Robert Altman's Lion's Gate Films). Scenes from his Sarno recalls shooting a scene from The . tell stories . They don't know anything Alambrista!-in which a young Mexican illegally in the U.S. works at farm labor Kirlian Witness on a SoHo street in the about actors. Why can't we take their in the American West, tries to adopt a new culture in ord,er to avoid arrest, even spring of 1977-just Sarno, a two-per- vision , their passion for filmmaking and struggles to form a relationship with a young unwed mother-remind the son crew, and a few actors. The next have them working side by side with viewer of the poignant moments well- made documentaries often capture. day, he was on the same street and saw someone from the mainstream [Holly- • Paul Mazursky's crew shooting a scene wood] , sharing experiences and solving Sandra Schulberg, an associate pro- for An Unmarried Woman. The street was problems of mutual concern? What we ducer on Alambrista!, stol)' editor of the PBS Visions series (which commissioned lined with trucks and motor homes want to do is to tl)' and create an environ- many early independent dramatic fea- tures), and founder ofThe Independent (used for dressing rooms). Cables ment where people can share insights Feature Project (lFP), observes that many documental)' filmmakers have snaked over the street and sidewalk. and resources in the hopes that indepen- turned to the dramatic form because \"through fiction you can do things that There was one light so big that it had a dent film will get better, get more so- have a bigger theatrical impact and con- vey just as many facts as a documental)'. tmck of its own to carl)' it. Sarno asserts phisticated, not in the sense that it will The form also permits more artistic free- dom.\" Fran Spielman of First Run Fea- that, in the finished films, \"their scene begin to compete with Hollywood, but tures , a distribution company for both feature-length documentaries and dra- and my scene, shot on that same street, in the sense that filmmakers like Anna matic features, puts it more bluntly: \"It's easier to sell a fiction feature.\" looked exactly the same.\" Thomas or anybody else that's been rep- Though the independent filmmaker These filmmakers are well aware of resented here [at the 1981 U.S. Film works without a studio boss breathing down his neck, he must be more aware the power their films' intimacy has on Festival] can get the most out of their of production costs than the most fmgal Hollywood hack. Indeed, the economic audiences. Citing the examples ofAlam- own vision.\" realities of low-budget moviemaking of- ten dictate the style of the independent bristal, Heartland, and Northern Lights, The Institute operated its first pro- film: form follows financing. And style Marc Weiss points out that \"These all gram during June 1981. Ten indepen- have in common 'the people' and their dent filmmakers were selected, asked daily concerns rather than the glamor- what specific help they needed , and ized people of Hollywood films. There's matched with more experienced prac- a real excitement when people see titioners of that craft. (For a report people like themselves on the screen.\" on Sundance, see Ann Beattie's Jour- Sandra Schulberg adds: \"Independent nal in the September-October FILM features have .a personal, hand-crafted COMMENT.) Thoughtful independent quality that can be destroyed when you filmmakers acknowledge their limita- throw a lot of money at it.\" Even Robert tions, but The Sundance Institute is the Redford , director of Ordinary People, is only place, outside of the American sympathetic to this type of filmmaking. Film Institute's Center for Advanced Speakingatthe 1981 U.S. Film Festival Film Studies, that is ttying to teach the in Utah, he commented , \"in my films, creative aspects of good dramatic films. I've wanted to get an underpinning of reality, not so much a glossy look.\" • There are many attempts to help mas- Redford backed his words with ter the legal, financial, and marketing action. Earlier this year he established problems of independent filmmakers. The Sundance Institute, a nonprofit The most important organization in the \"summer school\" that brings together field-the Independent Feature Project independent and Holl ywood film- - was founded and is run by filmma- makers to break the barrier beh'leen ar- kers. History shows that such tistic purity and commercial clout. organizations are needed. Traditionally, According to the Institute's director, the film schools that many independents Sterling Van Wagenen, Sundance was attended emphasized film technique 17

and ignored the realities of financing, with the American Film Marketing As- and continue their discussions. Conver- marketing, di stribution , and exhibition. sociation, whose market, a new one, is sations and meetings spilled out into the Savs Van vVagenen: \"Most film students held immediately before Filmex [the building lobby and the street. The 435- have no idea how the industry really Los Angeles Film Exposition]. There seat conference room was sold out, and works. When they graduate, they have a has been a market associated with the more than 600 additional people asked rude awakening.\" Berlin Festival for two yea rs now, and for tickets. One seasoned observer thev came to us and asked us to arrange called it the best conference on any sub- It took a while for independent film- for more American film s to be repre- ject he had ever attended. makers to \\\\lake up. Before 1968, there sented there . International film festi va ls weren't any filmmakers' organizations have increasingl y expressed an interest Successful as these conferences are, except for two distribution cooperatives in independentl y produced American and valuable as the published docu- for experimental film s. That year the feature s. ments may be, thev are only the most Young Filmmakers group was formed in obvious part of the Independent Fea- \"We' re also going to prese nt the infor- ture Project's work. The IFP has'started ew York City, followed quicklv in the mation that we have on the critically a members' newsletter, which lists film- next three yea rs by seve ral regional film successful films that already exist and try makers' activities and heralds comple- and video organizations. In 1974, the to assemb le information on their fin an- tion of new films. The IFP conducts Association for Independent Video and cial performance. The material will form financial and distribution resea rch and Filmmakers (A IVF) was founded in the basis of a plan that will assist in answers telephone inquiries. The IFP is New York City by filmm aker and cine- finding production financing. We're not also working on a traveling showcase, in matographer Ed Lynch-artists con- going to become a production house , cooperation with the American Film In- solidating to promote their own films. but we are going to focus on the need for stitute (AFI) and local organizations. But the AIVF members were clus- independent filmmakers to attract in- tered around New York City. Sandra Schulberg had bigger ideas. As story edi- _ r~/ - -Henry Tomaszewski and Laura tor of Visions, she was in contact with many feature filmmakers around the Megan Folsom and Conchata Ferrell Harrington in The Dark End of the country. In the fall of 1977, she and in Heartland. ' Street. Steve Wax (Over-Under, Sideways- Down) drafted the first proposa l for an vestors-and to have it pay for investors Financing independent feature conference and ex- to invest in smaller or pe rsonal films-so position. Encouraged and assisted by we'll be functioning as an advocate for Is everyone in the country writing a f\\/liles Mogulescu of The Film Fund, the independent filmmakers. No one is movie script, as Esquire claimed in its Schul berg recei ved funding from the just going to drop monev on them. We recent cover story? Maybe not, but writ- National Endowment for the Arts by the tell them they had better plan to work at ing a script is the first step in a very summer of 1978, and the Independent it for five years. But we do make it a little difficult process-for commercial and Feature Project was born . easier.\" independent filmmakers alike. Michael Goldberg isn't kidding when he says With additional funding from the Based in ivlanhattan , the IFP's Board that there may be five years of work New York State Council for the Arts and of Directors has regional representatives between writing a script and releasing a the Exxon Corporation, the IFP held who organize activities all over the coun- film. Most independent feature filmma- the first independent feature exhibit, trv. Since January 1980, there have been kers have high creative skills, but few conference, and market in September c~nferences in Houston, Utah, Boston , have raised significant amounts of 1979 in Manhattan. Co-sponsored by Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Fran- money before. And raising money is the the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the cisco, and New York. The L.A. seminar, first step in putting a film production festi val showcased six new features: The planned by a team which included Anna together, even one which costs relatively Scenic Route {Mark Rappaport), Bush Thomas, her husband Greg Nava (The little to make. Mama (Haile Gerima), Gal Young Un, Confessions of AmalU) , and IFP Board Northern Lights. Alambrista!. and Heart- members Steve Wax and Chris Leitch, Few independent filmmakers are in a land. In addition, the festival had a retro- was a particular success. Every panel position to finance their own films. spective of nine older independent was moderated by an independent film- Many filmmakers can and do put their features; twenty other rece nt indepen- maker. Afterward, a cocktail party was own money-and that of generous dent feature s were screened for foreign held in a neighboring room where panel- buye rs and U.S . exhibitors as part of the ists and audience could meet each other market. Michael Goldberg, who now directs the Project, sees progress in the organi- zation's first three years: \"\\Ve've been working with the industry-that is with distributors and exhibitors-to help im- prove the climate for independent film- makers. Now we are going to start working to develop more funding sources for independent production . We are going to continue to do the fall an- nual market in New York. To get more buyers there, we've begun discussions 18

friends and relatives-into their films, lion for the support of drama productions taled just under $4.5 million . NEH but it is rarely a large amount. Most over the next two seasons. \" The Pro- funding frequently begins with money filmmakers raise money by a combina- gram Fund solicited scripts ready for for research. Heartland was initiated tion of methods. Usually filmmakers production as well as script deve lopment with an $82,000 grant to Beth Ferris and think first of getting a grant from public outlines. According to Program Coordi- Annick Smith for resea rch on a \"Wilder- funds or from a source known to be nator Jennifer Lawson, 167 production ness Women\" series. The NEH later interested in films. A grant of public proposals were received; nineteen sur- granted $600,000 for the feature-length funds puts a stamp of approval on a proj- vived the first elimination process , and pilot film . Ferris became the screen- ect and often induces other funders to three were finally recommended by the writer and co-producer, Smith the exec- participate. panel and then funded. They all deal utive producer. with minorities: Medal of Honor Rag Public grants organizations include (adapted from a play by Tom Cole; pro- • the National Endowment for the Arts ducer, Philip Handelman) is an encoun- (NEA), the National Endowment for ter between a black Vietnam veteran Another source of funds , for those the Humanities (NEH), various other and his psychiatrist; My Palikari (David skilled enough to thread their way federal agencies, state arts councils, and Horwatt, producer) is an original story through the bewildering guidelines, has state humanities councils. When Presi- about a Greek-American businessman been the Department of Health, Educa- dent Reagan announced plans to cut the who returns with his son to his home tion and Welfare. Most of the films they Endowments' budgets in half, the Cor- village in Greece; and The True Story of have funded have been educational, poration for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Gregorio Cortez (Moctezuma Esparza, limited to lengths of a half-hour or less. budget by twenty-fi ve percent, and producer) is based on a real event in But, according to Steve Tatsukawa , ex- other agencies friendly to filmmakers , which a Mexican shot an Anglo sheriff in ecutive director of the Asian-American such groups as the AIVF, the AFI and self-defense and then faced the towns- company that produced Hito Hata , one others lobbied vigorously and some of can make a series of half-hour films for 1. Smith and David Peck in the HEW contract, then cut them to- these funds were restored. But the most Gal Young Un. gether into a feature-length film for for- recent budget cuts will eat into those people's anger. A total of $2 million was eign markets. Such was the case with endowments severely. allotted to these three productions. The Hito Hata , more than half of whose latter two arc also being funded by the $500,000 budget came from HEW. The Both the NEA and CPB have recently NEH. film, about the hard life of an immigrant made greater efforts to attract applica- In response to the Program Fund's from Japan to the U.S. in the Twenties, tions from independent filmmakers . Ap- invitation for script ideas, 560 story out- is expected to have a broad appeal in parently they agree with the argument lines were submitted, of which twenty- Asian countries . The contract wi th that the public is more willing to watch five were selected for a $10,000 script HEW requires the filmmaker to pay dramatic films than documentaries. The development award. CPB will again back their HEW funding out of foreign NEA already supports the IFP, Sun- fund only three productions next year, profits before the production company dance, and independent filmmakers so the twenty-five resulting scripts will can take profits from domestic distribu- through their regional media arts cen- not be guaranteed production money; tion. ters , and indi vi dual productions. It but another PBS project, the PBS Play- makes direct grants up to $15,000 to house series (David Davis, Executive State Arts and Humanities councils filmmakers , and will ante up to $50,000 Coordinator), may produce some, and can also be a source of funding for inde- if a filmmaker applies through a non- perhaps the CPB script award will en- pendent filmmakers , but the amounts profit organization. able others to find funding. are small, except in a few instances. One The NEH has long been interested in of those exceptions is Northern Lights. The Corporation for Public Broad- feature films, provided they have a sub- Support from the North Dakota Com- casting has announced support for inde- ject matter that fits the agency's guide- mittee for the Humanities and Public pendent dramatic features through the lines. In fiscal 1979, the NEH put Issues , according to co-director John Program Fund, headed by Lewis Freed- money into more than a score of projects Hanson , started with funding for a docu- man . In a category called the National planned either as dramatic television mentary on coal development and strip Television Theater, the Program Fund programs or dramatic films ; funding to- mining. Its success prompted another announced the allocation of \"$7.5 mil- grant from the Committee of$45,000 for a documentary on the Non-Partisan League. By the time this film had grown into a dramatic feature , the Committee had granted a total of$126,000 to North- ern Lights, and $80,000 more for two other documentaries. John Hanson explains: \"Obviously, back in 1975 we could not have gone to the North Dakota Committee with a proposal for $126,000 for a feature film. Our success with Northern Lights was dependent on the enthusiastic support of Executive Director Everett Albers , on a long relationship with the staff and Committee members , and on a track record of making successful , useful 19

'Anybody can make a feature film ,'says Randall Conrad, 'if they're willing to spend three years oftheir life starving and scraping. ' films. It may not yet be possible to ob- matter relates to their major program production, they may try to raise funds tain large scale funding for a feature from focus. John Hanson's comments about for the film from their underwriters. many, if any state Humanities commit- obtaining public funds for Northern Other independent filmmakers reject tees, but over the past five years we have Lights-by developing a \"long relation- this corporate constraint, cit'ing the broken some ground that might facili- ship with the director, staff, and com- inflated budgets, production delays, and tate partial funding offeatures.\" mittee members\" of the Committee in distracting station politics which can ac- North Dakota-also pertain to private company the partnership. Fred Keller, Taking advantage of Hanson's experi- foundations. whose Tuck Everlasting was funded ence, Randall Conrad and Christine partly through a TV station, completed Dall were able to raise more funds than The most promising foundation now his production with no interference. they had expected for their feature, The funding films and film organizations is Dozens. They had an excellent track re- The Film Fund , founded in 1977 by A unique and promising component cord with several church groups and David Crocker, Barbara Kopple, Miles of the financing patchwork is that used small foundations in the Boston area , Mogulescu , and George Pillsbury. The by Mark Rappaport for Imposters. Tour- plus an introduction to the Massachu- Film Fund supports individual film pro- ing the European festival circuit, he met settS Foundation for Humanities and jects, has published a book (Reel a buyer for German television, who Public Policy (MFHPP), a counterpart Change: a Guide to Social Issue Films), eventually bought Rappaport's next two to the North Dakota Humanities Com- and held a conference designed to help films. Rappaport was then able to per- mittee. The MFHPP granted them over grassroots organizations use films . In suade the station to advance him money $29,000, which they matched with 1980, The Film Fund gave grants of for Imposters in return for the German funds from churches, foundations, and from $1 ,221 to $7,280 to twenty-three TV rights . That still left a good portion their own energies. The rest of the productions (of 440 submitted). The of the budget to raise. Tevertheless, de- budget came from NEH funds. Fund also supported the IFP and made spite weird payment plans, fluctuating a loan to First Run Features. The major- exchange rates (which worked in the During the tightly-budgeted produc- ity of the favored projects are documen- filmmaker's favor-he made $6,000 on tion , things went well, but funds got low taries and slide shows on current social the falling dollar), and interminable de- while The Dozens was being edited, problems in the U.S. and the Third lays in payments, this roundabout even though Dall and Conrad were us- World: alcoholism and women , the im- method finally worked. ing the low-cost facilities at the Boston pact of offshore oil drilling, the social FilmNideo Foundation , the regional struggle in Peru , nuclear radiation, etc. Says Rappaport: \"Aside from grant- media arts center. They literally had to giving institutions, no one in America sell their records and furniture to pay the The Film Fund has performed spec- has ever come up with a dime of support rent. Eventually, Dall and Conrad were tacularly in raising funds. In 1979, it for the kinds of films I'm interested in able to finish the film-a moving, often received funding from the NEA and making. And despite the disadvantages beautiful portrait of a young woman just both the New York and California State out of jail-and it is now in release. Arts Councils. In October, Norman of long-distance-in-a-foreign-Ianguage Conrad sums it up ruefully: \"Anybody Lear hosted a Hollywood fund-raising financing, I defy anyone in America to can make a feature film if they're willing event for the Fund , which took in point to any institution or group that to spend three years of their life starving $71,000 from six major studios, ten other gives as much freedom or leewav to the and scraping. \" show business firms, and nearly a hun- filmmaker as German television does to dred individuals. In December of 1980, the filmmakers it supports.\" A warning: state Humanities commit- folk-singer Peter Yarrow hosted a similar tees receive their funds from the EH. party in New York City, which yielded • With these funds surely being cut, it is $70,000 from five major studios, corpo- doubtful the Committees will be able to rations, a labor union, and individuals. Lastly, some independent features support future projects as strongly as In addition, in 1979, the Film Fund re- are financed through private invest- they have supported The Dozens and ceived money from seventeen founda- ment. Investors buy shares in a limited Northern Lights. tions, church groups, and corporations. partnership or in the corporation produc- Some of those funds were earmarked for ing the film. Because tax-shelter oppor- Another source of public funds are the specific films and raised bv the filmma- tunities have been limited by the Tax independent filmmaker grants originat- kers themselves. Reform Acts of 1976 and 1979, film in- ing from the NEA and administered by vestments must be structured as eco- Jan Haag and her staff at the AFI. Al- • nomically sound commercial though the maximum grant is for transactions. Even so, as many investors $10,000, and can be awarded only once Some filmmakers, especially those know or suspect, film productions carry to each filmmaker, they have been used who have previously worked for public a very high risk. Beginners beware. to help finance dramatic feature films. television stations, have financed fea- tures through a station or group of sta- The newcomer in the field of film • tions. If the station's programmers, investment needs a mentor or partner producers, and fund raisers approve the who is an expert in legal and financial Few private foundations are willing to issues. There is a new vocabulary to fund films-and then only if the subject (Continued on page 69) 20

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~ o g Q g (J (J Q g g g (J g Q Q g (J g ')(0 ~OD by Lawrence O'Toole Tesich plum, The World According to play, Bosoms and Neglect, neglected by a Carp , was being filmed with Robin Wil- Broadway audience who preferred the The relationship between Broadway liams in front of the camera and George bosoms of Sugar Babies. Now Guare has and Hollywood has always been pleas- Roy Hill behind it. A year ago , Tesich's another project cooking with Malle antly perfunctory, a trading of money for Division Street quickly folded its tents on again ; and Big Kiss, a comedy for his proven material. Big musicals got carted The Great White Way; for a playwright friend Bette Midler, may soon be a real- to the big screen ; \"serious\" plays such as that's certainly no fun , but you can bet ity. Wallace Shawn (Marie and Bruce, The Little Foxes and Who's Afraid of Vir- that being the new golden boy on the The Hotel Play ) has also done well by ginia Woolf? became star vehicles for the moviemaking block cushioned the Malle , who took a risk of sorts and likes of Bette and Liz and Dick. But bump a bit. filmed his and Andre Gregory's My Din- seldom was there any organic interaction ner With Andre, which may well be the between playwrights and the men who This year also saw David (American longest dinner conversation ever cap- produced movies. When an exception to Buffalo, Sexual Perversity In Chicago) tured by a camera. (The dinner scene in the rule came along, as it did when Ar- Mamet's terse update of James M. Cain The Damned only seems longer.) Shawn , thur Miller wrote The Misfits for Monroe , for Bob Rafelson's The Postman Always with Debbie Eisenberg, will follow up it was just that: an exception. The play- Rings Twice; recently he has finished The Andre with an adaptation of a Wyndam wright generally stayed on his turf; if he Verdict for Zanuck and Brown. Michael Lewis book, Mrs. Duke's Millions , now was lucky enough, The Land of Milk Weller (Moonchildren, Loose Ends) , hav- being readied by Triple Play Produc- and Honey bought the rights to one of ing wrestled some cinematic form into tions. Christopher Durang-whose fas- his works, and the playwright called it a Hair! , is currently represented by his cination with pop culture bore fruit day's pay. adaptation of E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime, (mostly bananas) in A History of the a book that not only was bereft of dia- American Film, The Vietnamization of Something queer, however, has been logue but any conventional narrative New Jersey, and When Dinah Shore Ruled happening just recently and, from all structure as well. Now Weller is to direct the Earth-has teamed with Wendy accounts , will continue to happen : play- his own original screenplay, tentatively Wasserstein (Uncommon Women and wrights are turning their imaginative titled Private School. David Rabe (The Others), on a movie script, Hotel for gazes toward the screen. Call it a new Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel , California gold rush . Steve Tesich , Streamers) will soon see his adaptation of Husbands . And this year a regional play- hardly a household name before Break- I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can, starring his wright, Edward Clinton (Dance For You , ing Away, has parlayed his Oscar and the wife, Jill Clayburgh . Benefit of a Doubt) , got his story about surprise success of his slice of Americana nuns, among other types, onto the into a kind of ubiquity. In 1981 his Eye- Perhaps the most unexpected and screen in Honky Tonk Freeway. witness opened to good reviews, Four gratifying success of the year was John Friends was awaiting release, and a third Guare's fairy tale for Louis Malle called • Atlantic City. Guare (Marco Polo Sings A Solo , House of Blue Leaves) saw his last The question rears its ugly little pate: Have these American playwrights for- 22

saken the theater for film, the grease- \"The audience for a little pl ay,\" says says, \" is up to the level of the top play- wrights in New York. To say it makes paint for the glitter? Steve Tesich , \" is determined by, I you angry is wrong; it's just a ludicrous situation that the writers are controlled Hardl y. would say, two critics. And if those two by the quality of these critical minds. You do a play for the Party bosses and Of the seven pla yw rights inter- critics don ' t like it, that's it. And it's they say, 'No good , it's no t for the masses.' In effect you have that kind of viewed, all vouch for their love of writ- mostly The New York Times that has this censorship in New York: the censors and ing words for the stage. But the theater incredible power. And it becomes very the critics are the same thing. And there's so mething profoundly wrong can be a cruel taskmaster. As a play- frustTating to know yo u' re writing thi s about that.\" wright, Wallace Shawn earned an aver- play for two or three people.\" It's no The Kerr article is but an irritating pimple on the face of the whole matter. age of $1,000 a year during the last wonder that playwrights have turned to- Money and not getting good reviews are not the prime move rs. Nor is there an decade-about enough money to feed a ward the screen: \" In film s there is no intense desire to reside in California; all the playwrights interviewed here do in- star's pet iguana during a shoot. An ex- deed make their homes in New York. There's a much deeper reason behind treme example Shawn may be, but the the relatively sudden shift of writers to the screen that has more to do with the point is nonetheless well taken: writing state of American theater, the mecca be- ing Manhattan, than anything else. for the movies pays better. No play- \"The lure of the theater is a little pale wright would be fool enough to suggest at the moment,\" says Weller, \"There's simply not much of a serious theater in that he wasn't doing it for the money, America, just a flop-hit mentality. Nor is there any feeling of community within whatever other motivations may come the theater itself, or being taken seri- ously.\" into play. Theater in America, which Tesich According to a certain article in The find s more cerebral than films , is \" be- coming like bad screenplays or bad tele- New York Times of September 6 by a vision. To be successful in theater today, the closer one comes to writing TV soap certain Walter Kerr, the playwrights who opera, or TV sitcom, the better one's chances are. I feel that I'm allowed to be have shifted their dramatic digs from the much more adventurous and daring, and experimental even, in films that I am in stage to the screen (he named Weller, theater. \" According to Rabe , the theater is not \"the great, creative, supportive Guare, Rabe , Mamet, and Tesich) have pond\" that listeners of George Sanders's Sarah Siddons speech in All About Eve deserted their real home. What's more, may think it is. \" In many ways the the- ater is more severe thanthe film industry. they left without sufficently proving And, unbelievably, there's this illusion that the theater is not commercial!\" themselves. (Perhaps Kerr meant that \"$ 100 for British imports sickens none have them had produced a mon- me! \" cries Guare. (He's been N icked.) \"Theater has less and less to do with ster hit.) These new children of a much life.\" Mamet contends, and everyone else seems to agree, that it's ve ry lesser god-the filth y dirty flicks indus- difficult to get a play on Off Broadway, much less on that patch of real estate tty for Chrissake where people lose their northwest of Times Square. \"And Ac- tors Equity has virtually killed Off Off integrity, concentration and often their Broadway,\" he says. Says Shawn: \"The- ater audiences aren't very appreciative noses-were about as amused as Mr. of writers. Who knows? We all may be writing for the wrong people. \" Michael Kerr professed to be. Weller readily admits that he doesn' t write plays for the $30-a-8eat crowd. In- \"Utterly ridiculous, \" is how David terestingly enough, the only regional Rabe describes the Times piece. \" He's never supported Mamet or Guare and he's attacked me . He's done his very best to keep us from having food on our tables. Though my heart will truly be- long in the theater, it's not this terrific place we've left that it's made out to be.\" \" He has , of course, gone too far this time, \" says David Mamet. \" It was enough that he writes his nonsense from week to week. He's helped drive out the very people whose departure he pre- tends to mourn .\" Michael Weller claims to be a little stunned that Herr Kerr treats the offending upstarts as \" though we had no solid plays behind us. \" John Wallace Shawn . Guare, as is his style, displayed a more equaninimous reaction: he shrugged hi s one, no two, no three critics who can shoulders and delivered a what-can-I- determine what happens to a movie, be- say? glance. Wallace Shawn wasn't even cause it's opening around the country in mentioned , though he did express the cities where people listen to their own opinion that Kerr try being a Xerox oper- critics. \" ator for a while, as Shawn did to make If what Tesich says is true, and there ends meet, and see if he finds writing a is consensus that it is, the turncoat play- script a more appealing sideline. \"He w rights might merel y be nudging lives very comfortably,\" says the $1,000- around for some kind of crack at a more a-year playwright. \"It ill-behooves him democratically influenced livelihood . \"I to write what he did.\" don't feel the level of criticism,\" Tesich 23

Michael Weller: 'You write plays because you want to. You never write a screenplay withoutfirst being paid.' playwright among ' the bunch, Edward wanted to finish and, finall y, Forman to make a movie that Guare got his Clinton, is without rancor: \"There are a said he would wait. \"You write plays break. Malle didn 't have a script, .or lot more playwrights aro und now, or at because yo u want to,\" Weller says. \"You even an idea for one; Malle's brother least they' re more visible. \" Such a con- never write a screenplay without first Vincent had seen Bosoms and Neglect tention adds weigh t to the widespread being paid.\" and raved; Malle phoned Guare; they belief that the saving grace of American settled on Atlantic City as a theme , and theater may well be work done region- Tesich's phone call came from Ra\"5' within a few weeks there was a ally. Or, as Guare sugges ted , \"The Stark, who had seen one of his plays. Put screenplay. \"What am I going to do?\" theater is always reinventing itself.\" on the spot for a screenplay idea , Tesich Guare had anxiously asked himself after quickly thought of something that the box-office failure of Bosoms and Ne- The pity of it all is that playwrights would eventually grow into Breaking glect. Now he says, \"Atlantic City has prefer to write plays, despite the finan- Away. As most screenplays do, Breaking become the key factor in my life.\" (He cial and imaginative lure of screenwrit- Away made all the rounds and hung fire has since bought back the movie rights ing. And, as Clinton points out, for a long time; meanwhile,as a result of to his House of Blue Leaves with the Hollywood is always looking for good that unproduced script, Tesich was ap- money he made from Atlantic City.) writers and not necessarily the other way proached to do other screenplays. Dur- around. Weller, for instance, fell into ing that time he was writing plays, Off Guare, Mamet, Rabe, and Weller all screenwriting by the accident ofa phone Broadway. \"And so I was really support- have new plays ready to go into produc- call, and was fortunate enough to work ing m yself in that time writing screen- tion. As much as each is a born play- with Milos Forman rather than Richard plays that didn' t get made.\" wright, in the figurative sense, none of Fleischer. Never a movie buff, he had them seem to be able to convey a sense no burning desire to become a screen- Guare too fell into the business: Like of excitement about them, though un- writer, but under Forman's tutelage he virtually every other New Yorker in pos- doubtedly there is an inner excitement. learned a lot about the craft. In fact, session of a typewriter in the early Sev- It's as if they anticipate the old reaction: Forman approached him several times enties, he had worked on the screenplay ungrateful reviews, unappreciative audi- to write the adaption ofRagtime and was for Forman's Taking Off. Guare tried a ences, and an empty box-office till. turned down as many times. Weller was few adaptations of his own works but it at work on a play which he desperately wasn't until Louis Malle found himself Which is not to suggest that the busi- with Canadian money and a quick order ness of writing movies doesn't have its Favorite Scripts For some reason the question sel- dom gets asked: What screenplays do screenwriters particularlytadmire? Our seven playwrights were asked what they thought were examples of goQd screenplays-not screenplays that re- ceived wonderful treatment at the hands of a director, but worJ.c$ that could stand' on theit own merits. Rete are die ofwhiChCotl cans \"models etonomy, but I don't mean tbe same stage sparseness. They're models-ofan , anist's sensitivity; they have a remark~ able zest of brevity to them.\" He calls the scripts of Cesare Zavattini (The Bi- cycle Thief, Miracle In Mi14n) \"planned miracles.\" He admires Louis Malle's scripts for Lacombe, Lucien (written with Patrick Modiano) and Murmur of the Heart. Also Marco Bellocchio's Fist In His Pockets. For Guare.. Thirties comedies can do no wrong: he names Ben Hecht's Nothing Sacred, Morrie ....J\"'..~\"'.... and Eric Match's My Man .ntlrrrpv. and Stewart' 24

horror. Guare remembers working in- ~hing more liberating abo ut .writing a tensely for fourteen month s under Sam Spiegel on an adaptation of hi s own film. You can write 'Close- up on the fly R1S Landscape of the Body, only to be told on the wall ' and you can ge t it. To be Soundtracks that it would not be made into a movie able to do that is quite thrilling. But as because the subject matter was too de- thrilling as it is, writing a play is usuall y Our Forte pressing. Rabe spe nt an entire yea r writ- much more satisfying because the writer ing the scree nplay for Prince of the City; creates from a greater percent of hi s own Exclusive Soundtrack Selections when Brian De Palma was canned as the experience. \" directo r, so was Rabe. And Edward And Umited Editions! Clinton te ll s an anecdote that might When Weller was confronted with the have been an outtake from The Stunt unwieldy task of turning Ragtime into a Mall: \"On Honky Tonk Freeway we were in the Midwest shooting a scene with a movie he was faced with the si mple Over a QUARTER-MILLION LP'S rhino in the freezing snow. I was hanging problem of how people talked way back stocked: In-Print and Out-of-Print, an around to do a rewrite in case the rhino then. \"The dialogue I write in theater is array of Imports, highly-desired reis- decided not to go into the back of the mimetic; I couldn't put words in some- sues, and original casts (on and off truck as he was supposed to. A produc- tion official kept ordering me to get cof- one's mouth unless I had actuall y met Broadway) . fee for thi s one and tha~. He finall y them-not literally, of course. So I had We offer the finest service asked someone, 'Who's that guy standing to meet someone from that time. Milos around over there ?' and was told that I and I went to a silent-film archive in available- monthly auctions by mail was the writer of the film.\" (rare, unique titles), the only monthly Filmusic Newsletter \"Music Gazette\" Whatever the problems that may be- set beginning movie wordsmiths, there New Jersey, and it was there I saw a very - exclusive interviews, investment is also the immigran t's pleasure in dis- short film of a woman doing her hair in pointers, new release information and covering a new language. The verbal front of a mirror, and as I watched I could much more. rhythm and focu s of writing for the imagine how she spoke. \" For Weller, movies often take second place to the movies \"record the microtones of life; \" For YOUR copy of our extensive visual rhythms and range of screenwrit- he gets a kick out of the process whereby catalog, a sample of \"Music Gazette\" ing. There's the wonder of a new world, ($2 value), and monthly auction, yet a world that has always been accessi- Please Remit $ 1.00 TODAY TO: ble if one has grown up in North Amer- Ica . \"human beings are caught unawares by RTS , Dept. 18F the camera.\" For someone who claims P.O. Box 687 As well as being chauvinistic, the not to be especially interested in the former statement happens to be not world of making movies, and is about to Costa Mesa, Califomia 92627 quite true. Tesich, who could speak but three words of English (Thank you\" and direct his own project, the enthusiasm is \"flesh ,\" which he mistook for \"meat\") as a 14-year-old immigrant in thi s coun- well-nigh unbridled. try, was as much a child of movies as any kid from Brooklyn. \"All of us grow up on What may actually occur, protesta- films rather than theater. In Yugoslavia there wasn't any television either, so it tions to the contrary, is that theate r may was all film s, and mostly American films. I believed 100 percent that it was all real not feed those who make it happen, not li:iiiiiiiiii.liiiii••••• life. It neve r occurred to me that some- one wrote it. You just wanted to jump only financially but emotionally as well. through the screen and live for a month with Tarzan or John Wayne. And so So far there have been moments in the when I began writing, it took longer for me to come to writing for films , because movies suggesting that some \"born\" I wasn't sure how a writer fitted into such a real world.\" playwrights may actually be \"born\" David Rabe grew up in Iowa, and screenwriters. One thinks of Susan found it strange that he was compelled to-and could-write for the stage. For Sarandon at the beginning of Atlantic Rabe , writing movies \" leaves space for other lite to show up . 1 guess I've always City and her ablutions with lemons as known more about movies. \" Mamet's view of writing screenplays- she listens to a tape of the Casta diva aria \"Describing pictures, that's all it is\" - is one he surely gets a kick out of. from Bellini's Norma; one thinks of Burt Wallace Shawn says: \"There's some- Lanscaster watching. One also thinks of Wallace Shawn riding home late at night •••••••••••••••• ORIGINAL MOVIE POSTERS •••••••••••••••• through Manhattan after his dinner wi th Andre, while Satie's faraway Gymnope- CINEMA CITY is a complete service for die distances him from the past few cinema collectors. dealing with original hours and the city he's passing through. movie posters, photos and related collect· One thinks of the geyser of flour as Jack abies. Original motion picture graphi cs are Nicholson takes , and is taken by, Jessica sought by collector 's throughout the world. Lange in The Postman Always Rings Original fil m posters are a unique remem- Twice. brance of a memorable film . and beGause of their limited number. may become fine One thinks, finall y, that the lack of investment pieces . Many items, wi th their any real sympathy from the critical com- distinctive artwork, make anractive wall munity toward those trying to stretch decorations that are sure to be the topic of themselves and the medium they work discussion among movie lovers . in may result in a kind of estrangement that may be that medium's loss. We All material is original - we deal with no could have more and better plays; we copies . reprints, or anything of a bogus may have to settle for more and better nature. Our latest catalogue lists thou sands movies. Gladly. ~ of items that include posters. photos (over 30,000 in stock). lobby cards. pressbooks. -Reported by lawrence and other authentic film memorabilia. If O'Toole/New York and Harlan you're looking for a particular item that is not in our catalogue. we will try to locate it Kennedy/london for you. To receive our latest catalogue, send $1 .00 (refund able with first order) to : 'CII~ IE~'A\\ f :ll lr \", P.O.Box 1012, Dept. FC Muskegon, Michigan 49441 25



~~One great moment is worth waitingforallday. \" Spanish-born cinematographer Nestor done in the studio. I applied natural-light pushing and increasing the speed of Kodak Ajmendros has earned Aazdemy Award technique: imagining the sun, for instance, color film. I simply could not have shot outside the Kramers' apartment. It was Days ofHeaven the way I did on early nominationsfor the cinematography ofthree a realistic approach to an artificial situation. color stock. The great thing about film is, I would not have a back light if it were everything looks better than it is. 'Jape, on ofhisfirst four major Ameriazn films - Days not justified by a window or light behind. the other hand, is too real. There is no of Heaven, Kramer vs Kramer, and The And I refused catwaiks and sets without ceil- magic, no transposition. Blue Uigoon-and in 1978 he won the Aazd- ings. In reality, lights don't come from the angles of a room, they come from the \"Gnematography is not an art in and of emy Awardfor Days of Heaven. He has been center top, table or floor lamps, or the itself, it is part of an art. For an art to be celebratedfor his work with premiere French windows. An audience can intuit if lighting an art, it has to be independent of anything. is artificial. They sense something is glossy director;s, including Fran(XJis Troffaut, Eric or unbelievable. You can cheat more in \"Since my childhood, I have always Rohmer; and Barbet Schroeder. black-and-white, but color film especially been a film buff. So I consider it a great privi- calls for reality. lege to have shot Charlie Chaplin's last \"My background is different from most film-a beautiful documentary, scenes with \"In most movies, including my current his wife and children. And I was lucky cinematographers. I never apprenticed film. Stab, I have restricted myself to a enough to do the last feature by Roberto with a master, so I never directly copied a color or two only. Black-and-white is like a Rossellini, in Paris, just two months before master's style or techniques. I just grabbed tuxedo, always elegant. Color, if you're he died. And my parents didn't want me to the camera and started shooting. I merely not careful with it, can be vulgar. The Blue be a filmmaker!\" was infatuated with the avant-garde cinema Lagoon is different from any other film I had seen -especially in the first films I have done. The subject matter called for Ifyou would like to receive our monthly of the French New Wave: those by Jean the use of all colors. It was a challenge Rouch and others. That kind of cinema ver- to use all the colors to try to produce a publiaztion aboutfilmmakers, Kodak ite, the handheld camera look, was what I beautiful and elegant film. The Blue Lagoon, Professional Forum, write Eastman Kodak was after: show things as they are, with no incidentally, was shot entirely on Kodak film distortions. and developed in Sydney. The scene where Company, Dept.640, 343 State Street, the girl is swimming at night and the boy \"That is still my approach. I use a mini- sees her for the first time as a woman was ROchester, NY 1465G. mum of artificial lights. I light sets by my the result of superimpositions. The Eastman eye, and use the light meter only to set ex- color negative II film 5247 could really ©Eastman Kodak Company. 1981 posures later. Lighting should be logical, not take it. Days ofHeaven was also on the arty. Days ofHeaven was shot with very 5247 stock and developed in Vancouver. FASTMAN KODAK COMPANY little light. Oh, we had lights, even big arcs. The prints were done in Hollywood. But most of the time we weren't using M0110N PICIlJREAND AUDIOVISUAL MARKETS DIVISION them. I felt I didn't need all those lights. \"There has been relatively little change What I wanted was bouncing light, natural in cameras, but film technology has ad- A11.ANTA: 404/351-6510 light. Rather than create an artificial vanced rapidly, especially the possibilities of CHICAGO: 312/654-5300 moment, I'd wait for the real one to DALLAS: 214/351-3221 happen. One great moment is worth HOLLYWOOD: 213/464-6131 waiting for all day. NEW YORK: 2U/930-7500 ROCHESTER: 716/254-1300 \"Kramer vs Kramer, on the other hand, SAN FRANCISCO: 415/928-1300 is an imitation of natural light. It's mostly WASH., D.C~ 703/558-9220 . ~ America'S ~ Storyteller

Pier Paolo p(lsofini's last Skill Game, Saio. by Raymond Durgnat bers that people play, on others and on and documentary. The documentary themselves. scenes feature the heroine of the original article, along with selected individuals For European moviemakers' accept- o Mistress Mine ... from her clientele. One of these scenes, ance of the New Morality, the Sixties with hammer and nail , only too vividly began in 1956. Roger Vadim introduced The saturation of Eros with power dispels the Freudian dogmas that maso- Brigitte Bardot in a cautiously provoca- plays is drastically crystallized in Barbet chists avoid both serious pain in general tive film whose quotation from Genesis Schroeder's Maftresse (France, 1976). and genital injury in particular. suggested both a new start and an old Bulle Ogier plays a lady whose profes- slant: And God Created Woman. Subse- sion, or rather vocation, is to gratify men The film flirts with the orthodox quent movies usually had anxieties whose sexuality depends on their be- Freudian formula-that the dominant about permissiveness, but they sprang coming the helpless victims of the an- lady is a closet masochist herself-only from traditional concerns, like Fellini's ger, contempt, or willfulness of a to reject it. \" Downstairs,\" she has devel- Catholic nostalgia for cherubic girls and beautiful female. Her torture chamber, oped an empathy with her clients' Bergman's Protestant inner-direction. under her living quarters, is as glossy as a wishes; upstairs, she practices a mode of Still, they broadly accommodated the science-fiction laboratory, and she dominance so refined that it conjugates optimistic view that sexual feelings are moves through it like a robot. In her two familiar feminine strategies: tradi- basic, authentic, or vital. Eros unre- everyday life, upstairs, the \"maitresse\" tional (a quiet, demure deceptiveness) pressed also became the apotheosis (trade jargon for a dominant woman) is and modern (a career women's indepen- of communication. On both counts it gentle, fey, dreamy, and evokes Lillian dence). Her life-plans are perfectly ra- offered an alternative to aggression, Gish. She's Alice in a Looking-Glass tional , though peculiarly complicated in manipulation, and the insatiable lust for Land, and its fantasies are society Ieft- the way she expects to compartmental- power. to-right-reversed. But mirrored. ize her life: best boyfriend , sugardaddy, child, clients. That seems to be her sa- As the Swinging Sixties shaded into The film was inspired by an article distic (controlling) fantasy, and she the Seventies, permissiveness modu- which appeared in Sartre's literary sports this modern, rational, alienated lated into decadence. The perverse was monthly, Les Temps Modernes, in No- expectation of human relationships as now less alien, more interesting. Far vember 1972. Entitled Saint Jackie: Ac- neatly as she does her chillingly inhu- from being a fountain of vitalism, Eros tress Or Martyr, it described the man plastic \"workclothes. \" On both seemed polluted at the source. It repre- practices of a Parisian dominatrix rather levels , she tends to that robopathic sented a nostalgia that could never be in the spirit of Sartre's own writings on sch izo- culture which has become a fash- fulfilled, that couldn't pre-empt aggres- \"Saint Genet.\" ionable Parisian topic ever since 1967, sion. It became just another of the num- when the post-structuralist philosopher The film alternates between fiction 28

Gilles Deleuze wrote his Introduction to \"motive\" are teased by the drama's For Clausewitz, diplomacy was the Sacher-Masoch and elevated the much- abundance of trivial issues. The psy- continuation of war by other means. The laughed-at author of Venus In Furs to that chology is no more conscious than it is Servant suggests that what's true of inter- pedestal which French intellectuals unconscious; it's a preconscious system national diplomacy is just as true of in- have traditionally reserved for de Sade. of assumptions, habits, reflexes, trop- terpersonal negotiations over love, lust, isms. Spectators find it curiously comfort, and everything which we con- Maftresse was directed by Barbet difficult to articulate the implications of ventionally oppose to jostlings for Schroeder, a Swiss producer working in the dialogue exchanges, although the power. Thus the The Servant recalls France. His other films make a varied film's intense moral suspense depends Same's pessimistic ego-psychology, in collection. Bysides producing many on their significance being very clear to which even innocuous activities like Jacques Rivette films, Schroeder braved the intuition. Pinter helps us with the looking and naming (and even leaving Idi Amin's Uganda to make a feature- restaurant scene, where we eavesdrop people free) are forms of pressure. The length interview with the dictator, and on various conversations (between two main object of libido is neither pleasure his most recent film is another documen- churchmen, two lesbians, two smarties). nor \"un-tension\" (the death instinct), tary, on Koko the gorilla, whose use of The only common factor is subtle status but survival and safety, which regularly signs suggested thought-patterns re- and interpersonal ascendancy. involve power. Oedipus has acceded to sembling human language-patterns. Schroeder is fascinated by those zones where the monstrous, the human, and the imaginary interact. The same het- erogeneity determines the form of Maftresse. The documentary scenes, some of which are unflinchingly gross, are juxtaposed with a fictional story whose subtleties rather lost its audience -except, perhaps, in London, where the film was finally exhibited in 1980 and enjoyed its best success. The Butler Did It The whole cycle was sparked off in 1963 by an English film, The Servant, directed by Joseph Losey and written by Harold Pinter. As Tony (James Fox) lives his affluent, aimless life in Swing- ing London, he drifts under the thumb of his Sergeant-class butler, Barrett (Dirk Bogarde). The tempting Freudian syndrome of unconscious homosexual- ity is ignored, as being stereotyped and inadequate. It also refuses the neatly rationalist explanations offered in Robin Maugham's source novel, which specifies Tony's tragic flaw: that infancy had revolved around an all-providing Nanny, and his adult life around the Officer's Mess; when he's free of disci- pline at last, his butler takes their place. Losey and Pinter are agnostic as to Tony's childhood, and his \"Anglo-Saxon attitudes\" are a more complex weave. Tony's rather subtle, ordinary mix of aimlessness, pretension, innocence, and ineffectiveness becomes a metaphor for upper-middle-class life: not Swinging, but dangling. Barrett, however, has a purpose-to make himself indispen- sable-and succeeds beyond his ex- pectations. It's The Admirable Crichton inverted. Reversing the Freudian thrust, Tony's aimlessness results in his regres- sion, rather than vice versa. Similarly, rationalist ideas of what constitutes a

Machiavelli as the absolute despot of whatever society has insinuated into the postulates. A French actress (Emma- man's compulsions. family. It seems to consolidate the fam- nuele Riva) visits Japan to make a film ily against society, but it overloads the against nuclear weapons. Her adulterous The Rise of Eurodecadence system, and the system explodes. affair with a Japanese architect proves so fulfilling that she's able to face, and ca- Similar propositions haunted the films Up to a point, these emphases are thart, her long-suppressed anguish over of decadence which The Servant in- compatible with Freudian theory: they the German soldier whom she loved spired. It propelled Dirk Bogarde to a merely escape the more popular em- during the war. It's an apologia for liber- new stardom, with roles in Visconti's The phasis on infantile neuroses to redis- tarianism, for a Jewish Frenchwoman, Damned (1968) and Death In Venice cover the complexity of grown-up hang for miscegenation, for nuclear disarma- (1971) and Liliana Cavani's The Night ups. But they controvert orthodox ment, and for a sentimental collabora- Porter (1974). In all these films, a mor- Freudian theory in that these actual neu- tionism, and it pursues its title's bid languor swirls around him. Their roses aren't primarily sexual; no analysis equation of a passing romance with an diffuse, oppressive sense of power plays of infantile sexuality would dispel them. \"unthinkable\" atrocity. Worse still: its is ideologically ambiguous. On one Moreover, Gay Lib has left its mark; emancipated, elusive heroine craves for hand, it has affinities with that rightwing sexual perversity is not a disease but a her Japanese lover to destroy, disfigure, realpolitik of pecking orders, territorial strategy. Even when it's a confused in- obliterate her. It begins by opposing imperatives, selfish genes, and sur- tegrity, it's morally finer than a hetero- \"flesh as pleasure, flesh as pain\"; but the vivorism. And yet all these films wear sexuality that adapts itself all too well to heroine's cry tries to transcend. that di- their soul on the left. However bizarre or social corruption. chotomy, to endow Eros with conse- culpable the characters may be, the at- quences as irreparable as those of mosphere is social, rather than personal- Power has its reasons which the heart destruction. Becoming one flesh is no poetic. It blends the characters with knows not of. Freud's emphasis on Eros joke. Fusion entails fission. their society. would be a defense mechanism against a true consciousness of power play and Though Resnais likes to think that The subject is inevitably disturbing social status. Indeed, Freudian theory the lovers stay together, Duras vehe- forms of sexuality: orgies, pederasty, rather occludes power-psychology by mently insisted that they had to split. In transvestism, incest, voluptuous cruelty. contrasting Eros to Thanatos, and sug- this she anticipated the feminism of In The Damned, the German industrial- gesting the view of Wilhelm Reich: that which she was to become a culture-hero- ist's son, wishing to protest against the all will to power stems from frustrated ine. Ifher heroine experiences a residual patriarch's complicity with Nazism, togetherness. From that point of view, masochism towards lovers, fathers, and dresses up like Marlene Dietrich in The Dusan Makavejev's elegy for Reich, motherlands, it's only as prelude to a Blue Angel; but the masquerade is ster- WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971), is truer independence. The film's imper- ile, febrile. Incest is equally two-faced. the swan song of the love decade. sonal visuals, its method of forcing the It withdraws from an empty society to spectator to piece the story together only cosier bonds, and it repudiates a taboo. These films are aimed at educated slowly, its strange time-splits, even its But it also treats the family partner as a filmgoers, and assume not that they're stress on glossily hard-edge architecture, \"divorcable\" outsider, and it accepts renouncing democracy, but that they're anticipate the cool tone and the skepti- seeking to explain its very limited suc- cism about ego integrity which goes with cess and reconsidering some of the ideal- Deleuze's schizo-analysis. istic assumptions that usually underlie it. Even sweetly reasonably social demo- Resnais's film follows traditional gen- crats can feel a new sympathy for de der-lines in the sense that it's the female Sade and Masoch, both of whom reason who is dilated, disrupted , transformed. their way from absolute labidinalliberty But after feminism, another Franco-Jap- to absolute despotism. As they go from anese co-production reverses the roles. one extreme to the other, they generate The lovers of Nagisa Oshima's In the insights along the way. Perhaps, too, Realm of the Senses (1976) discover that mobile, cosmopolitan societies unleash strangulation maintains erection. When nostalgias for belonging, even at the the woman inadvertently kills her sub- price of being ruled. Perhaps to belong missive lover, she cuts off his sex and is to be ruled. And male masochism is a walks around with it inside her. The film wish of the traditionally powerful sex to takes its inspiration form the French turn over the reins-and whips and philosopher Georges Bataille. His Eroti- hammers-of power to the traditionally cism (1962, published in the U.S. as servile woman. Death and Sensuality) develops his Erotic Bombs definition of eroticism as \"the accept- ance of life even to the point of losing If The Servant is the father of skin- it.\" His fascination with taboo-breaking game films, their mother is Alain Res- and ego-shattering situations made him nais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959), an influential link connecting the Surre- written by the New Novelist Marguerite alists of the Thirties, the existentialist Duras. Way back in the gray-flannel Fif- anguish of the Forties, the structuralists ties, this suave, elegant, apparently pi- of the Sixties, and schizo-culturalists of ously liberal movie seduced audiences the Seventies. into accepting its battery'of subversive The Night Porter \\1974) postulates an- 30

other equation of erotic fascination and Pasolini's tyrants is a woman, and it's a in question is incest between a preoccu- \"unthinkable\" history-in this case, a sign of the times that thi s can now seem pied diva (Jill Clayburgh) and her ne- concentration camp. Visiting Vienna af- either sexist or a function of his homo- glected son . (Career women, beware.) ter the war, an ex-inmate (Charlotte sexuality. Not only is incest renounced; the film Rampling) recognizes the hotel night ends in family reconciliations, drenched porter (Dirk Bogarde). He was the pho- The Dialectics of in Technicolor as joyo usly ga udy as the tographer who, dressed as a Gestapo \"Happily Ever Mter\" illusion of the opera in which the mother officer, made art of her wretchedness. stars. A rich motorist vainly tries to shock Her comfortable life as an orchestra con- The list of skin-game films is long. We the spunky American woman with his ductor's wife seems suddenly meaning- might equally have di scussed Perform- ferocious Communism, and looks like less, a Marienbad imprisonment. The ance from Britain, and a stream of films the director's affable sel f-caricature. But woman's desire for reve nge evokes from Germany, from Syberberg's Ludwig the film was too permiss ive and optimis- other, suppressed, feelings and shades to Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria tic for American taste. In the edgy into still others. She renegotiates their Braun. Bertolucci 's La Luna (1979), Eighties, reconciliation isn't the general relationship, and finall y decides to die however, suggests that the cycle finally mood. with him. peaked. Sour Movie It's Romeo and Juliet but. The hostil- Back in 1972, Bertolucci had made ity of the Montagues and Capulets is Last Tango in Paris. Marlon Brando, as One can hardly claim Resnais-per- replaced by far more daunting divides: an exhausted idealist of the left, asks the haps the last of the gracious French hu - Nazism and democracy, torture and vic- little rich girl (Maria Schneider) to file manists-for Eurodecadence. But Mon tim, art and masquerade and reality. Ca- her little-finger nail before inserting it Oncled'Amerique dabbles in a similar via ni blandl y courts accusations of intimately into him. It's his sign of ac- malaise, enabling us to relate it to other porno-nostalgic Gestapo chic and an ceptance, dependence, trust. But as the traditions. anti-feminist insisteflce on female maso- film ends, she shoots him dead to avoid chism. But she also counts on the spec- an inconvenient scandal. Student-age Certainly, sexuality in this film is im- tators' intuitive ability to distinguish al- radicalism is just wild oats. It's a rough plicit. The nearest to sexual orientation legory from dramatic logic. Critics prefer metaphor for the left's repeated disap- occurs as men infantilize (or auto-sod- allegory because forces and attitudes can pointments in the First World: McCar- omize) themselves with psychosomatic clearly be seen in the plot mechanics. thyism in Brando's homeland, Paris, pain; or via that air of strangely soft But, in drama, contrasted extremes can 1963 , Eurocommunism's prolonged acceptance which enswathes Gerard imply unstated compromises, middle impotence. Depardieu , normally a stud. But Re- ways and norms . Though absent from snais' theme is similar: the destruction the text, they render extreme options But by the time ofLa Luna, Bertolucci of personality by strange, animal-social fascinating. seems lighter-hearted. The decadence In the Realm of the Senses. The title of Pier Paolo Pasolini's last film , Salo , or the 120 Days of Sodom (1976), testifies to a parallelism like that ofHiroshima , MonAmour. It conftates de Sade's totalitarian d ys topia with the town chosen as capital by the Italian Fascist Republic established in 1943. The mixture of de Sade and Fascism infuriated Roland Barthes, one of de Sade's Parisian admirers; but Pasolini, not content with that, goes on to imply a third time stratum. Thus a scene in which the (high bourgeois) despots shine torches on their kneeling victims' \"circle of asses\" so as to judge, without prejudice of personality or even sex, which is objectively the most beautiful, anachronistically evokes the depersonal- izing gatefolds of the Playboy era. While such associations can't be proven from the text, they're strengthened by Paso- lini's constant invective against consu- merist-permissive manipulation, which he considered an unprecedentedly sub- tle and efficient mutation of totalitarian- ism into democratic forms. In his film , the victims' docile incomprehension adds to the general sense of \"volunteer slavery,\" with the consumerist carrot re- placing the Fascist stick. Oddly, none of

splendid tree. The camera looks closer.. In Resnais' film, Prof. Laborit's ratsfrighten us It's peeling paint on the crumbling bricks of the blind wall of a dreary tene- less than his laboratory. It's their Marienbad, ment. their incomprehensible torment. They can't The Obscure Strategies fight it orflee it, only dance to its currents. of the Bourgeoisie patterns of power. the system, quietly working, like death, Could Laborit's theories be squared, There's no mystery in its motivation. decay, illness , narcissism, within each of or answered, to fit what a realistic hu- us. Against it, however madl y, the mind manism could hope for man? Maybe. Anguish comes from its expulsion of manages some balance of memory and The characters are edgy, nervy, discon- mystery. It cuts between a fictional story nowness, of poetic fantasy and lucidity. tented. And they occasionally follow and a non-fictional discourse , which The anti-providence is the meaning strategies which theories based on pun- stays outside the story, rather like the which, howeve r much each of us bor- ishing rats can't quite handle: mutual criminologist's lecture in Makavejev's rows from others, we must carefully sub- aid, contentment, resistance. Nor is La- The Switchboard Operator. Helped by a ordinate to the system which is us. borit's theory as new and adequate as the range of devices, including intercutting film suggests; it rephrases a \"nothing and action replays, Professor Henri La- Man Onele d'Amerique takes the op- buttery\" that's been familiar since Be- borit relates-perhaps reduces-the posite option. Laborit's rigorous exter- haviorism in the Twenties and which characters' reactions to those of his labo- nality evokes that Behaviorist reduc- other human sciences quickly fan tangle ratory rats: consumption (eating, sex), tionism which, by understanding man, into something more like common positive responses (reward), and nega- or claiming to, condemns him to a self- sense. Where socialization is concerned, tive responses (either fight , flight , or, image beneath freedom and dignity. the individual isn't just a black box; he's where they' re impossible, fright ending also something of a black hole. in breakdown) . These \"guinea-pigs\" are professional people undergoing various crises in a This subversiveness doesn 't in itself One can imagine how these flights society which is comfortable, upwardly make people nicer than rats , but it ex- and breakdowns might twist sexuality: mobile, reasonably affable, often loving plains why people become paranoid into Maitresse games, or incestuous re- and tactful. The game is all the more when confronted with all these techno- treats , or Death-in-Venice weariness. refined since Resnais , as a good human- cratic proposals for \"abolishing the sub- Losey's Eva is particularly close to this ist, doesn't find the man-animal compar- ject.\" We don't want other people pattern of ambition and pressure. But ison demeaning. Nor, for Resnais as a pulling our strings or pretending that Resnais approaches soul-disintegration good Marxist, is the issue \" the individ- we're not our own causes. Nor that La- more obliquely: through concerns sup- ual versus the system.\" True, the TV borit is a Mad Scientist; on the contrary, posedly more lucid than erotic ones. executive (Roger-Pierre) is romantically he seems a very sane one. But there's Making it takes precedence over mak- fetishized on his family's island , but he always something slightly mad about the ing out. needs the actress (Nicole Garcia) to help French enthusiasm for over-extending him off it. And her fetish-image is quite theory. Scientific \"objectivity\" can be Below Resnais' civilized surfaces, vio- gregarious: a gaily decorated theater- loaded with hidden bias. Laborit's the- lence spreads a net that's everywhere, bus, i.e. a mobile collective, a spiritual ory may suggest, as Skinner's does, that nowhere. You have seen nothing at Hiro- striking force. we renounce freedom and dignity; but shima; but a single death will freeze your freedom's just another word for exercis- The rats in Laborit's laboratory ing personal power, and dignity means mind. In Muriel Algerian army torture frighten us less than the laboratory. It's fighting back when you're electrocuted. their Marienbad, their incomprehensi- somehow links with the new town's lack ble torment. They can't fight it or flee it, All the same, it's a very useful theory of center, with the lonely old man's only dance to its currents. It's any social to apply to one's own and one's friend's mateless goat. Marienbad and Je t'Aime, system which isn't made for man ; does behavior-to every zig and zag of Je t'Aime anticipate Deleuze's schizo- any other kind exist? If, even in pros- thought, conversation and body-lan- analysis: the system of the hotel , or the pe~ous France, these characters suffer guage! Resnais' bogey men aren't straw time-laboratory, stops or loops, memory, breakdowns , it's because the human men , and to softpedal the pessimism of change, and time. The self shrinks into mind is co-responsible-all the more if, his films is always to betray them . a speck of selfconsciousness, helpless in as Laborit insists, our mind is only what an eternal cell. It's the structuralist vi- punishments and rewards from others Man Onele d'Amerique was Resnais' sion as nightmare, though for Resnais have made it. first big box-office hit in France. Cer- the antagonist is a much older, more tainly his characters and their anxieties Protean, and more formidable, cold- Right on the edge of the film, there's are more everyday than anything he's ness. It's a fact of nature, which one another system: an array of heteroge- yet done. They split the difference be- cannot denounce, only respect. neous objects, from flowers to sewing- tween Godard's grotesques (in Weekend, machines. They're mysterious, Surreal- in Slow Motion), and the silent yearnings Providence relates to another psycho- ist, almost alive. They need the brain to in Bertrand Tavernier and Alain Tanner. logical tradition. From the inside, it en- make sense of them. And that's where Difficult to remember how the French joys the richness of consciousness, even we live. The links which make life cinema was once warm, earthy, poetic. in self-dramatization and \"bad faith.\" Its meaningful are in the cracks between With the emphasis on skin games and scriptwriter, David Mercer, had drawn the facts. mind-puzzles, everyone in movies is Family Life (excellent title for Provi- more than a little derisory, rootless, lost. ~ dence!) from the casebooks of R. D. But that silent hope has its obverse. In Laing, who was inspired , in turn , by the psychology of Sartre. \"Providence\" is an American city there grows a tall, lush, 32



by Marc Mancini terwhich would mark his future work. A Pierre Brasseur, ArLetty and Jean-Louis poor student, he was nevertheless a Think of five novelists or poets who voracious, eclectic reader, interesting and even more were circulated among became screenwriters. If you have more himself in the rebellious poetry of friends, but clearly Preven was redirect- than a passing knowledge offilm history, Baudelaire, the realistic social world of ing his energies in two new directions: your examples will come easily-from Balzac, and the mystery-adventures of theater and cinema. The Popular Front the movie's earliest days (Maurice Mae- Eugene Sue. Interestingly enough, Pre- was at this time exerting an influence on terlinck), from today and tomorrow vert's formative years sound more than Prevert, and he soon began to create for (John Sayles, Ann Beattie). In the Thir- vaguely reminiscent of those of a much the October Group, a Marxist-oriented ties, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Huxley, and later generation of filmmakers: those of troupe that achieved international im- Isherwood all did time at MGM . In Brit- the French New Wave. Like Truffaut, portance with an award-winning per- ain, W. H. Auden wrote the lyrical script Godard, Chabrol, and Rohmer, Prevert formance of Prevert's Battle ofFontenoy for Night Mail (1936). French litterateurs wrote articles, assisted on short films, at a 1933 Moscow festival. are especially well represented: From lost himself in the darkness of countless Jean Cocteau, that jack-of-all-trades and movie theaters. It was not uncommon As much as the philosophy of Karl master of most, to Marguerite Duras, for him and his friends to take taxis from Marx influenced Prevert, the works of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Eugene Ionesco, theater to theater in order to cram in as another Marx-Groucho-probably Fran~ois Mauriac-these and countless many viewings in a single day as possi- had an even greater impact. As for most more answered the challenge of a me- ble. If this seems a little extreme, re- of the Surrealists, the verbal illogic and dium that promised novelty and se- member that Prevert's friends- visual puns of American slapstick com- duced with glamour and good money. Raymond Queneau, Robert Desnos, edy entranced Prevert.. Having appren- Louis Aragon, Andre Breton, and his ticed on various short films,canoons, and But the example of Jacques Prevert is Montparnasse roommates, Yves Tanguy commercials, Prevert decided to tackle a unique. Prevert's romantic, fated, ver- and Marcel Duhamel-were all avant- full-length comedy script. One of his bally bejeweled scripts dominated gardists tied to the Surrealist movement. first, for comedian Pierre Batcheff, was French cinema during the Thirties and discarded when the Keaton-like actor Forties, and his later collections of By its nature, Surrealism was an un- took his own life. But the idea of a slap- poems made him France's most popular stable force where serious frivolity could stick effort continued to haunt Prevert. poet of the post-war era. No other artist degenerate into pure silliness, and Finally, with his brother Pierre as direc- has ever achieved such double preemi- where Prevert's total lack of solemnity tor, he wrote L' Affaire est Dans Ie Sac nence , and no other has ever done it in began to be interpreted as non-ccmmitt- quite the same way as he. ment. The rift became a chasm, and in 1930 Prevert was officially expelled. • Prevert immediately counter-attacked with an anti-Breton poem, \"Mort d'un Born in 1900 in the Paris suburb of Monsieur.\" A few other poems soon ap- Neuilly-Sur-Seine, Prevert gave evi- peared in various limited publications, dence early on of the iconoclastic charac- 34

Along with Charles Spaak, Prevert be- Barrault) and Garance (Arletty), in came by 1935 the most sought-after which the latter explains her concept of screenwriter in France. love to be utterly, simply devoid of There followed another collaboration artifice or vac illation. In the poem, with Renoir, the unfinished Un Partie de \"C'etait aSaint-Paul de Vence.\" Prevert campagne (1936), and with such major describes an individual who \"salutes the French filmmakers as .lean Gremillon daybreak/a free man who flees/w ho (Lumiere d'ete), Andre Cayatte (Les hides himself, who defends himself\"- Amants de Wrone), Christian-Jaque and the image arises of the fugitive Ga- (Ernest Ie rebel/e), and brother Pierre bin in Le Jour se leve, hiding in his hotel (Adieu Uonard). With Jenny (1935), Pre- room, the victim of a simple, sad love vert began his spectacularly fruitful col- affair which led to his committing a laboration with director Marcel Carne. murder. The line between their world views After the late Forties, Prevert began nearly seamless, Prevert and Carne cre- to fully erase the lines between his var- ated a series of definitive successes: ious artistic efforts and the question of Quai des brumes (1938) and Le Jour se cross-pollination becom~ altogether leve (1939), two films which would es- meaningless. Spectacle (1949), Prevert's tablish .lean Gabin as the rough, doomed third collection of poetry, is also filled hero and form the bedrock of American with short plays and scenarios. The 1966 film noir; Les Visiteurs du soir (1942), an work, Fatras, contains photographs, cal- allegorical attack on Nazism with a ligrams, collages, and the poem, \"Los Hitler-like Devil (Prevert himself had Olvidados,\" inspired by Luis Bunuel's acted in Hitlerian garb in various Octo- film. The reference joins others which ber Group plays); and Les EnJG/1ls du are sprinkled across his poetry: Mack Paradis, their masterpiece and arguably Sennett in \"Anabiose,\" Chaplin in that of French cinema. \"Entr'acte,\" possibly Rene Clair in • \"Dr6le d'immeuble.\" Even his verbal The growing public acclaim for Pre- style owes much to a cinematic perspec- vert's filmed stories and luminous dia- tive. Poetic sequences are described as if logue convinced him to publish two' photographed by a lens , and often collections of poems: Paroles in 1945 edited in Eisensteinian montages or and Histoires in 1946. Many of these first Pudovkin-like accumulations. There poems, written concurrently to his film- are verbal dissolves , point-of-view making activity, reflect specific themes zooms, freeze frames , and sound- Barrault in Les Enfants du Paradis. and characters from his scripts. One effects. poem, \"Je Suis Comme Je Suis\" (I Am Prevert's poetic successes, however, (1932), a gag-filled homage to American As I Am), is a rhymed equivalent of a marked an end to major scriptwriting. silent comedv which was well-received key piece of Les Enfants du Paradis dia- After the 1948 Les Amants de verone (an by some critics, but did poorly with au- logue between Baptiste (Jean-Louis diences-so badly that Pathe Studios within months destroyed most of its prints of the movie. Prevert's skills, however, remained in demand. He wrote the dialogue for seven features in the next two years, and even worked as an extra in several films , including Jean Vigo's L'Atalante . A cluster of actors be- gan to be associated with his work, espe- cially Pierre Brasseur, Jean-Louis Barrault, Jules Berry, and Arletty. Prevert's reputation leaped to greater heights in 1935 when he collaborated with Jean Renoir on Le Crime de Mon- sieur Lange. Renoir's long-take-deep- focus style was justly praised in a famous article by Andre Bazin, but equally in- teresting are the early indications of Pre- vert's own artistry. His belief in the good will of the common people and in the power offriendship, his use of irony and his depiction of the interrelationship of Prevert (second from left) with (from left) qrt director Alexandre Trauner, Marcel art and life are all here, expressing them- Carne, Jean Gabin, composer Joseph Kosma, C. 1948. selves in clever, unexpected turns. 35

ArLetty and Alain Cuny in Les Visiteurs du soir. Saint-Barthelemy massacre\"-is held tight by an initial image: comparison of updating of Romeo and Juliet) Prevert markable for its cinematic nature, but two soon-to-die demagogues sur- saw only two major scripts produced: La his scripts are equally noteworthy for rounded by water, then to a man impris- Bergere et Ie Ramoneur, a 1953 animation their melding ofornate structure and the oned inside an ocean-dwelling whale, feature created with his friend Paul Gri- language of the streets-a poetic realism his environment as dark as the cata- mault, and Notre Dame de Paris (1956), Prevert helped forge, and which seems combs. And, of course, the catacombs directed by Jean Delannoy. His effort, the most obvious characteristic of the were the home of Christians, and Fran- in fact, from 1948 until his death in 1977, great scripts in pre-war France. Prevert's ~ois, Duke of Guise, was a Catholic fanned off in virtually every artistic di- dialogue sounds tight and convincing; leader who retook Calais from the En- rection. Apart from several sequences yet when examined closely, it is far too glish, and Fran~ois's son, Charles, was written for omnibus films, he wrote radio clever, far too incredible for any charac- responsible for the St. Barthelemv mas- plays, a ballet, several short films and ter to speak. Parallelisms, contrasts, sacre.... Prevertdelighted in this·sortof television productions, more poetry, and contradictions, alliterations, rhythmic convoluted progression. the lyrics to many popular songs com- repetitions-all the arsenal of visual and posed with long-time associate Joseph musical tropes later available to Prevert A second device for which Prevert is Kosma (who also scored many ofCarne's the poet would be born here in his well-known is the pun-verbal sur- films and with whom Prevert created the screenplays. (Read the script to Les Visi- prises, the weapons of a mind (or a international hit, \"The Falling Leaves,\" leurs du soir; its dialogue borders on screen character) charmed by surreal the basis of a 1950 short Les Feuilles blank verse. ) affinities between sound and thoughts. mortes and Robert Aldrich's 1956 film As Frederick, the bravado actor in Les Autumn Leaves). Above all, Prevert favored two de- En/ants du Paradis, says to a hack author vices which rriost certainly came from who has asked him not to play on his Although he hated the thought, Pre- Surrealist poetry. The first-lists of words: \"What do you wam me to play vert had become in his later years an words in seemingly random order-es- on? Your ideas, perhaps? You don't have \"established\" writer. His works were tablishes a rhythmic effect and com- any.\" Prevert's obsession with word-play now a canonized part of French artistic is broad, extending to almost all of his tradition, with obligatory extracts in an- presses a multitude of images into a few dialogue. Even his characters' names are thologies and ample footnotes to remind lines, like some kinestasis of words. The playful: the gentle Monsieur Lange can young French Iyceens that Prevert had mi)l:ed bag of images in the barker's spiel be pronounced to mean \"The Angel\"; first worked in cinema. Even Godard at the beginning of Les En/ants du Para- the frank, direct protagonist ofLe Jour se has quoted his verses in several films. dis- \"Come and see Marat in his tub, ieve is Fran~ois; Dominique of Les Visi- Napoleon at Sainte-Helene, Jonah in teurs du soir is ironically named, since • the whale, the catacombs, the Duke of she is not Lord-sent, but Satan-sent. By Guise, the Bourgeois of Calais, the doubling, and even tripling meaning, by It is true that Prevert's poetry is re- coining fresh metaphors, by punning language apart, Prevert revolts against conventional language, animating empty expressions with lost vigor. But Prevert is hardly all form and no substance. His verbal pyrotechnics are always linked to soaring themes. One attitude is especially clear: Prevert's op- position to anyone or anything based on stable, logical premises. Soldiers, aristo- crats, priests, police, educators are the recurring enemies of the Prevertian uni- verse, the villains who see cause and effect in everything, who require, as the hero of Le Jour se leve explains: \"Expla- nations! Explanations! I'm sick of their explanations! As if YOtl could explain anything.\" Certainly Prevert sees almost all villainy as the product of society's oppression. Lacenaire, the sympathetic roue of Les En/ants du Paradis, is no doubt speaking for the author when he says, \"When I was a child, I was already more lucid, more intelligent than others. They never forgave me. They wanted me to be like them.... They furnished my spirit with books, old books, so much dust in a child's head.\" At the same time, Prevert has posi- tive, humanistic lessons to teach as well. 36

As romantic as any writer of the period, date easv categories. He seems often to his portrayal of Othello. Lacenaire, at he over and again- praises the power of be saying: \"I have noticed strange, won- the film's end, stage-manages a confron- love-unrestrained, passionate, free derful things , and 1 wish you to notice tation with de l\\.lontrov in a thea ter -between man and woman or among them also. l\\lake of them what you lobby. But Prevert's view is not e ntirel y friends. For Valentin in Le Jour se leve, wish.\" Primary among these is fate. In fatalistic , and in thi s Frederick provides for the Devil in Les Visiteurs du soir or Prevert's pre-war works, destiny is read- a major clue . He is the one character Lacenair in Les Elljallfs du Paradis, to be ily identifiable: milieu and social torque who takes Fate into hi s own hands, who unloved is to be deprived ultimately. predetermine characters. In later works, vaults the barrier bet\\-veen Fate and life , Lacenaire is so uncaring and uncared for fate is more mvstical and powerful. It between art and reality, between stage that the only humane, noble act he car- becomes a strange, incomprehensible and audience (he delivers many of his ries out is to murder the even more de- personification of the blind forces of sur- lines from a box seat). As his last name spicable Comte Edouard de l\\.lontroy. It realist chance, often taking the shape of (Le Maitre) indicates, he is a master of is a pattern evident in Lange'S killing of a specific character, such as the rag- his destiny. Batala to preserve his fellow workers, in picker, Jericho , in Les Enjallfs du Para- Lumiere d'ere's dam workers dumping dis. What takes this beyond the ordinary Atthe beginningofLes EnjantsduPa- their enemy into an abyss, in Fran~ois's plot device is the author's powerful be- radis, a photographed curtain rises onto suicide in Le Jour se leve to preserve his lief: that life is a play, Fate is the author, the action and at the end, that sa me integrity and in Gilles' and Anne's sui- and we are all actors determined by a curtain falls. It is Prevert's ultimate re- cidal challenge to the Devil in Les Visi- pre-conceived plot. minder to us that just as mime and play leurs du soir to externalize their love. reflect the action of the characters wi th in Murder or suicide, in Prevert's ironic , This theme is certainly nothing new, Les Enjants du Paradis , so the film itself dialectic world, can be the ultimate though it is of such great intricacy in Les reflects our own condition. Our Fates, affirmation of humanity. Enjants du Paradis that the film still chal- our authors, whether environment or the lenges and awes audiences. Pantomimes gods, must be defied if we wish to be • presage or reinterpret characters' lives. free. And that, to Prevert, is all one Frederick seeks inspiration in and from should hope to be. ,~ 1. Anouk Aimee and Serge Reggiani in Les Amants de Verone. 2. Jean Gabin and Arletty in Le Jour se leve. 3. Rene Lejevre in Le Crime de Monsieur Lange. 4. Lumiere d'ete. 37

ouzot: by Dan Yakir Unlike Carne's \"poetic realism,\" Henri-Georges Clouzot with Brigitte which thrived on the charms of artifice, Bardot on the set of La Verite. \"Hell is being a prisoner of an idea that turns into madness, which lives in Clouzot opted for Neo-Realism a la my heroes,\" it's easy to understand why you without your being able to control it. humor was not his forte. If jealousy is one prison, perversion is franraise. Le Corbeau, about a plague of another.\" poison-pen letters blighting a provincial Often considered a kindred spirit to town, bears not a trace of De Sicaesque Hitchcock, Clouzot neither shares the Henri-Georges Clouzot's words refer, optimism. With its unanimously unsym- English director's humor nor does he respectively, to his last two efforts: the pathetic characters and brutal depiction look at the world through a Hitchcock- unfinished L'£nfer (1964)-which was of pettiness and villainy, the movie was ian \"peephole.\" One need only com- to be a three-minute (two-hour-screen- hardly looked upon with kindness in pare Vertigo to Les Diaboliques (1954)- time) examination of a man obsessed by France-all the more so because, dur- both based on a similar idea (and jealousy who imagines himself to be the ing the Occupation, the Germans used it different novels) by Boileau-Narcejac- murderer of his wife-and La Prison- as propaganda to show other nations to see the difference. Hitchcock's movie niere (1968), which deals with voyeur- what the French were \"really like.\" In has a higher emotional charge; Clouzot's ism and sado-masochism. But they fact, after the War, Clouzot had to face is the more brilliantly suspenseful of the extend to most of an oeuvre which con- an investigation committee to clear his two. tains one of the bleakest, meanest, and name of the (false) rumor of collabora- most desperate visions in the cinema. tion. It took four years before he could Similarly, although he shares the make another movie. sense of doom that permeates the work No wonder, then, that the death of of another film noir master, Jean-Pierre the 69-year-old director in 1977 brought But Clouzot was less involved with Melville, he lacks the latter's interest in about few eulogies. The emotional out- social criticism than with giving expres- the virtues of male camaraderie; nor do pours were to be saved for his contempo- sion to his own personal vision. The few his characters accept their fate with the rary, the great humanist Jean Renoir, times when a certain warmth infiltrated stoicism so dear to Melville's heart. Un- who died two years later. There is, how- his work-L'Assassin habite au 21 (1942) like Melville, who was greatly admired ever, much to lament in the passing and Quai des Orflvres (Jenny Lamour, by the New Wave, Clouzot was consid- away of H.G. Clouzot, the man who 1947), both quasi-bemused films noirs ered a part of the ancienne vague. The introduced Ie realisme noir to a cinema based on S.A. Steeman, or the 1949 Mi- kindest word for him was \"efficient. \" heretofore dominated by shades of gray. quette et sa mere, a comedy-he fared The French have often regarded despair less well. For all the originality and at- • as the state of being most suitable for tention to detail evident in Quai des Or- their cinematic mood, but in 1943, when jevres, it simply isn't a reflection of its Only \"efficient\"? Compare the open- Clouzot triumphed with his second fea- ing shots of Le Salaire de La peur (Wages ture, Le Corbeau (The Raven), his col- auteur. of Fear, 1952) and Les Diaboliques. In leagues were toying with a vague One may well be suspicious of autobi- Wages, which takes place in a dumpy malaise. They each had their little con- Central American town, a bare-assed solations: Marcel Carne had poetry to ographical \"insights\" into a director's boy plays with cockroaches; a passing car turn to; Jacques Becker had humor; Ro- work, but there is a strong case to be splashes mud on bystanders; and a bert Bresson had grace. Clouzot was the made for it in Clouzot's case. With a tramp (Yves Montand) threatens a shop- only filmmaker whose movies were history of four years in a sanatorium, a keeper (Dario Moreno) to keep away black even when they weren't noir. nervous breakdown, a suicide attempt, from his girl (Vera Clouzot). In Les two heart attacks, and the tragic death of Diaboliques, it's pretty much the same his wife, Vera, he was clearly a man pur- story: Paul Meurisse drives his Peugeot sued by death. Since he himself stated through a puddle, crushing a paper boat that, \"I've been, successively, each of that has been floating in it; a group of schoolchildren trip one another in a cor- ridor; and two teachers hurl insults at 38

each other. Bleak, indeed-but not sor) to \"woman\" (aggressed upon) comes the inevitable incompatibility- simple. doesn't last long: once their nitroglycer- and doom. Clouzot is not the moralist ine-laden truck is out in the jungle, the that some accused him of being; his Clouzot's characters are fundamen- coquettish Mario proves to be fearless characters are \"punished\" when they or tally ambiguous, a quality which often while the experienced Jo becomes a their partners can't accept their role re- spineless coward, whom his pal beats up versal. Role is more important than char- finds its visual equivalents in their sur- and calls \"a woman.\" acter-the self-loathing Bardot, roundings. Clouzot once said that Quai Wiener, and Terzieff stand the same des Orflvres was worth making for the All this has a logical explanation: the chance as the self-assured Montand. scene where a cop and his prisoner walk struggle of man against the elements, They're all doomed. handcuffed down a corridor \"without with the particular dangers involved being able to tell for certain who is the here, is bound to bring about a change of • criminal and who the policeman.\" In Le behavior. But there's more to it in a Corbeau, Dr. Vorzet (pierre Larquey) Clouzot film . When Jo is dying after an Clouzot the metteur en scene was no says to Dr. Germain (Pierre Fresnay), accident, Mario becomes gentle: the less a tyrant on the set than he allowed \"You think that good is bright and evil is slave-turned-master rewards his docile, fate to be on the screen. He was known dark. But where is the shadow and punished slave by calling him \"a friend\" to withhold the concluding pages of a where is the light?\" Larquey then and even shedding a tear. In the end, mystery script from the cast and crew to touches a lamp dangling from the ceil- Mario, the sole survivor, gets killed in a keep them on their toes. When an actor ing. It swings back and forth, blurring senseless accident-he can't escape his didn't deliver, H.G. had his methods. the distinction between the shady and fate. The most notorious case is the famous lighted areas. La Prisonniere is Clouzot's most in- scene in La verite, where Bardot shoots Clouzot, however, is less interested in tensely personal film. Not only is sado- the gray areas of the good-evil equation masochism out in the open here but the Sami Frey, after initially threatening to than in the principle of reversal to which director probes the mysteries of love as kill herself. Since Frey was her lover at he subjects his characters. Like Joseph he had never done before. His conclu- the time, B.B. couldn't bring herself to Losey, he sees life as a power struggle- sion: love is totally impossible. point a gun at him, even in -jest. The a sado-masochistic battlefield where one peeved Clouzot forced her to get drunk, is alternately hunter and prey, master The two masculine characters in the slapped her several times, and called her movie-Gilbert (Bernard Fresson), a a whore- \"and this is the man who left and slave. In his 1960 film La verite, painter, and Stan (Laurent Terzieff), you!\" he declared , pointing at Frey. The who gets his kicks by photographing tearful, hysterical Brigitte could no Gilbert (Sami Frey) is madly in love with women in submissive positions-are longer separate her character from her- Dominique (Brigitte Bardot), but she impotent. Since Gilbert can't provide self and went on to shoot Frey repeat- tortures him by her promiscuous behav- the S to his wife's M, the wife (Elisabeth edly. The scene was a gem. ior. When he gives up on her, his love Wiener) turns to Stan, whose sadism now sheer contempt, she pursues him. doesn't extend to actual performance in This may not be the best way to make The sadist and the masochist have bed. Here the \"victim,\" who admits friends, but it was perfectly consistent switched roles. that she \"had it in\" her, is more inter- with the man's world view. When some- ested in humiliation than her \"jailer,\" one protested, Clouzot replied, \"The In Les Diaboliques, Nicole (Simone but when she finally makes love to him, next time, it might be worse ... I'm not Signoret), a schoolteacher, tries to con- she becomes the \"aggressor.\" \"When here to amuse myself.\" His films thrilled vince a colleague, Christina (Vera you're in love, nothing is dirty,\" she audiences, but it could also be said that Clouzot), to kill the vicious headmaster, says, echoing Cecile Aubry in Clouzot's Clouzot's S was compatible with their who is also her husband (Paul Manon (1948). But with role reversal own M. In the theater, as on the set, Meurisse). Christina, the quintessential roles are fixed: reversal is simply not masochist, refuses and has to be forced Le Salaire de la peur. possible. ~ by her torturer-her husband-to offer him a \"poisoned\" drink. It's all a plot he Le Corbeau: has devised with his mistress, Nicole. On the surface, at least, the sadist will- ingly relinquishes his authority and pushes the victim to take control. But Christine, the guilt-laden masochist who prefers her own death to the murder of another, simply can't. She expires. Since the Meurisse and Signoret charac- ters are equally sadistic, their only kiss bears no fireworks. It's when the cats are chasing the mouse that they all have real fun. In the exclusively masculine world of Wages of Fear, tough-guy Mario (Yves Montand) is the object of desire for Jo (Charles Vanel) and Luigi (Fo\\co Lulli), his ex-roommate, who chooses the older man after af! aggressive \"courtship\" whereby Luigi is eliminated. Mario's transformation from \"man\" (or aggres- 39

onnes Thirties, audiences on this side of the Atlantic preferred their foreign actresses Stephen Harvey to be solemn, Nordic totems whose faces and voices were certifiably \"conti- It took seven years to create an interna- what Anglo-Saxon transformation L. B. nental\" but ambiguous as to their exact Mayer's minions would have wrought on provenance-Women without Pass- tional star-or to utterly destroy a Euro- that name of hers-itself a nom de the- ports to incarnate Blonde Venuses and atre she had long since concocted to Ladies of the Camelias. The unmis- pean actress. -Edwige Feuillere, replace the excessive jauntiness of her takeably Gallic inflections coming from natal Caroline Cunati. Edwina Fuller, the throats of everyone from Annabella on why she turned down perhaps? to Ketti Gallian (remember her?) were neither fetching nor exotic as far as the an MGM contract in 1935 Moreover, this actress might have American movie fan was concerned- been sage enough to perceive in ad- just dismayingly alien. Better for a That sweeping aphorism-so wry, so vance that, for an American studio al- Feuillere to renounce it all in advance, ready possessing Garbo for romantic time saved and risks eliminated. knowing, just a wee bit disingenuous- tragedy, Norma Shearer for gallant great- ladyship, Joan Crawford for bespangled Yet the notion that Feuillere had cho- is almost worthy of the onscreen Feuil- glamour, and Myrna Loy for wry world- sen to spurn worldwide celebrity to pre- liness, a Feuillere homogenized or intact serve the modest integrity of a serious lere of the Thirties, dialogue, say, by would probably have turned out to be a artiste is, to put it mildly, a distortion of redundant asset. Not to mention the the facts. Edwige Feuillere may not in- Henri Jeanson, mise en scene courtesy odd sociological fact that during the deed have been an international star, but she was considerably more than just Raymond Bernard. Of course, she had another \"European actress.\" On her home territory in 1935, she was on the every logical reason to mistrust the blan- verge of becoming a full-fledged screen dishments of Culver City. Bound to a diva, a prospect she had no intention of relinquishing. It was merely that to say long-term contract, Feuillere doubtless so, out loud, was considered somewhat indelicate. would have been forced to squander a French film people were always of year or two offscreen for the purposes of two minds about the cult of stardom as perfected in America. Certainly the ac- perfecting her English inflections and cepted wisdom among many filmmakers and critics in the Thirties was that the standardizing her allure. Heaven knows divisnw American-style was more than a little vulgar, juvenile in its priorities, and something which the French cinema would do well not to emulate. Never- theless, in France as elsewhere, person- alities sold the product and the performers knew it; the difference was that the most prominent Gallic screen actors prided themselves on the idea that they controlled their own movie destinies and images. No standardized objects molded out of the raw materials harvested from Hollywood High they. To a large extent they were right, be- cause omnipotent starmakers like Mayer, Warner and Zanuck were then as rare along the Champs-Elysees as fran- chises of Le Drugstore Schwab. The concept of movie factories grooming as- pirants under exclusive contracts, fabri- cating a steady continuity of films on their own sound stages, then distribut- ing the results themselves to theaters they likewise owned, was completely alien to the haphazard cottage artisanry which then prevailed in the French film industry. Most movies were produced by an ever-shifting band of usually underfinanced impresarios and small 40

consortiums, each new effort backed by had to be pretry tempestuous indeed. Gance's film , was the image of feline loans against future product, or the The first who managed, for a while any- hunger and dissatisfaction in movies hoped-for profits from the last movie way, was the exotically named Musi- ranging from Jean Epstein's Coeur fide Ie such independents had managed to as- dora, a black-garbed , calcimine- to Jacques Feyder's now lost Therese Ra- semble. Studio space was rented, and masked melange of Pearl White and quin. Nevertheless, all during the Twen- the finished work shipped off to a dis- Theda Bara in Louis Feuillade's popular ties, the common practice was to purloin tributor, often little more secure finan- serial melodramas. In the following dec- such established German stars as Lil Da- cially than the production company ade, Catherine Hessling, the then- gover or Brigitte Helm whenever true itself. Long-range development of un- Mme. Jean Renior, stood out for sheer screen-diva magnetism was required. known talent for future returns was fu- profligate eccentricity. The white-zom- The coming of sound in France had, tile, since the firms in question might bie Dadaist darling of such films as Re- as elsewhere, a tumultuous impact on well have ceased to exist when the time noir's Nana and Cavalcanti's En Rade, the established order of screen acting. came to reap the results. her perpetual mechanical-doll anima- One logical and immediate effect was an Nor would any self-respecting star tion and baroquely lacquered face made influx of stars from the stage, most of have deigned to sign long-term commit- our own Mae Murray seem austere by whom had stayed rather aloof from the ments with anyone producer, with so comparison. On a somewhat more sub- silent screen during the Twenties. Now many other mavericks clamoring for his dued scale, Gina Manes, the Josephine that so many \"]00% Tout-Parlant\" ef- or her services. Those who did harbor to Albert Dieudonne's Napoleon in forts were based on boulevard successes, garish Lana Turner fantasies for them- selves knew full well that they'd have to trek from Joinville to Marathon Street to try to achieve them. One such was an ambitious teenager named Simone Roussel, who even before she nabbed her first movie part redubbed herself Michele Morgan, in quest of some mon- icker those dolts in Hollywood would be able to pronounce. Like so many of her compatriots, she soon learned what Edwige Feuillere had already divined- the only French name (feminine divi- sion) that anybody understood out there was Claudette Colbert. However ramshackle the process, the French movies of the Thirties managed to enshrine a brace of vivid and often enduring star personalities, the likes of which have scarcely been surpassed in the decades since. It hadn't always been so; during the late Teens and Twenties, precious few local screen performers en- joyed the mass reclame which buoyed the top stars of Hollywood or Ufa even beyond their native borders. At its most notable, the French silent film really wasn't an actors cinema; the great achievements of the era rest upon the epic pyrotechnics of directors such as Marcel L'Herbier and Abel Gance, and , the playful experimentation of the surre- alists. Only a handful of silent stars left more than a fleeting imprint on the movies of their time-the bedevilled but ever-dapper comedian Max Linder, certainly, and the Russian expatriate Ivan Mosjoukine, who alternated blaz- ing-eyed sheik stuff with high-toned turns in the prestigious likes of L'Herbier's adaptation of Pirandello's II Fu Mattia PascaL. • Any French actress of the era who wanted to upstage her American com- petitors for the attention of the local fans

many performers rushed to recreate olescence in all its variations was un- their original roles on screen, while pop- matched anywhere during the Thirties. ular music-hall vedettes now had the In marked contrast to Annabella's trem- chance to display their specialities to a ulous vulnerability was the precocious wider public. These personalities en- sexuality of Simone Simon; her later joyed a luxury denied all those new ex- B-film eminence as RKO's resident Cat iles from Broadway to Hollywood. The Person was only the logical outcome of a relative proximity of most of France's star career launched by the vision of her film studios to the theatrical hub of Paris teenage carnality a decade earlier in Lac- allowed stage actors the option of pursu- awe-dames. From the beginning there - ing simultaneous careers in both media. was something unsettling in the combi- nation of Simon's petite pug features Even more significant was the fact and adenoidal purr with the preternatu- that sound gave the French film the rally sensual awareness betrayed in her chance to reclaim its indigenous arche- gaze. Yet the careers of Annabella and types from the worldwide grasp of the Simon ran strangely parallel. Each was American silent film. The international briefly imported by a beguiled but success of Frank Borzage's Seventh baffled Twentieth Century-Fox in the Heaven at the end of the silent era en- mid-Thirties. Both returned home to sured that the movies' reigning symbol give one last pre-war sampling of their of the careworn Parisian waif was none respective fortes, Annabella as a fate- other than Janet Gaynor, while the more buffeted inhabitant of Marcel Carne's credulous could be pardoned for accept- Hotel duNord, Simon playing the treach- ing Joan Crawford in Paris as the quin- erous vixen of Renoir's La Bete humaine. tessence of louche Apache vivacity. The two 'actresses chose to return to America for the duration of the war. In the new talkie-age, it was probably Once more repatriated after the libera- no accident that the first actress to reach tion, each of them made a few sporadic indisputable stardom turned out to be ~=;~;'J appearances-but the magic was gone. frail, wistful Annabella. There was no mistaking her for another of those inter- I You could scarcely have faulted Simon in national screen sirens who plied their wiles in some moderne never-never- particular for lacking persistence; in all land. Annabella incarnated that most pa- the world, only Roddy McDowall rochial of French icons, the poor but feigned pubescence on screen longer unsullied fiUe du quartier. In her most than she did. The trouble was that the representative films, such as Rene actresses' screen images were so specific Clair's Le Million and Quatorze JuiUet, to the decade that spawned them, and Annabella's world is bounded by Lazare their talents so circumscribed, that evi- Meerson's painstaking reconstructions dent maturity only served to diminish of the typical Parisian working-class them in the eyes of their former neighborhood; it would have been as admirers. inconceivable to find her striding smartly along the Rue St. Honore in one • of her movies as to spot her braving the breezes of Michigan Avenue. The ambi- Not so for France's two stars emeritae. tions of the Annabella heroine were like- First to emerge (at 14 in Le Bal, 1931) wise circumscribed. All she really was Danielle Darrieux. More cosmo- wanted was the steadfast love of a jaunty politan in type than Annabella, far less proletarian like Albert Prejean, and an languid than Simone Simon, Darrieux existence sufficiently trouble-free for was the model of an unmistakably Thir- her to partake in the pleasures of the ties' brand of innocent sophistication. local bal populaire with an easy heart. Whether she played a financially desper- She was, against all odds, guardedly op- ate law student (Abus de confiance) , a timistic by nature; \"Gardez Ie sourire\" fledgling pickpocket turned Cinderella was her motto (as well as the title of one (Battement de coeur), or the restless in- of her films). At the inevitable mid-film mate of a Residence for Young Ladies blow to her illusions, Annabella tended (Club de femmes), Darrieux radiated to retire to the shadows behind the win- well-bred effervescence. She was most dowsill of her tidy if threadbare fur- adroit at arching a pair of slender eye- nished room, weeping quietly where brows and pursing her rouged mouth in a none but her fans could see. weary pout to imply a knowingness be- yond her years, but Darrieux's public • wasn't really fooled. Her on-screen brushes with amorality were pure kid For all Hollywood's much derided stuff, all the better to teach her in the accent on youth, the French screen's final reels that adulthood was no laugh- relentless preoccupation with female ad- ing matter. 42

All those fetching little mannerisms of Danielle Darrieux French screen was Gaby Morlay. Ma- hers dissolved into a wide-eyed gaze of and Charles Boyer ture yet vivacious, glamorous but astonished rapture when the serious refined, Moday was a Gallic approxima- business of genuine romance crept up in Mayeding. tion of Hollywood's Irene Dunne. Like on Danielle. Her ill-fated Marie Vetsera her American counterpan, Morlay's firm in Mayerling (1936) astonished contem- geoise didn't belong in that pinched mi- jaw and liquid gaze bespoke the fore- porary moveigoers, never expecting lieu in the first place; the tragedy of bearance of a veteran survivor of the such poignance from their insouciant Morgan was that she was born for it and perils of romantic melodrama. For every star. Mayerling's immense popularity never could escape those ominous one of Dunne's Love Affairs or thereafter compelled Darrieux to pursue shadows that shrouded her. Magnificent Obsessions, Moday, endured a bittersweet destiny in a host of sound- Nuits de feu or the Vertige d' un soir, usu- stage replicas of non-Gallic locales- • ally incarnating a neglected or repent- Czarist Russia, a favorite escapist refuge antly adulterous spouse. Both actresses of the French films of the Thinies (Ka- Fate may have played an inordinate reveled in displaying their versatility; role in the onscreen life of Michele Mor- like Dunne, Moday would telegraph a atia), Hungary (Retour I'Aube), and gan, but for most of her female comrades trilling giggle and a conspicuous flash of in French films of the Thirties, caste was those dazzling lower teeth, and tout Ie even the Orient (Port-Arthur). Yet, what- the key consideration. Reflecting the ever Darrieux's presumed nationality in still marked class-consciousness of the her vehicle of the moment, throughout day, each prominent actress tended to the Thinies she remained unmistakably embody a specific social type, and rarely the essence of the Parisan girl about deviated from it thereafter. town. For multitudes of film-loving ma- Michele Morgan was all of sixteen trons, the indisputable great lady of the when Marc Allegret chose her to play Raimu's melancholy ward with a du- bious past in Gribouille in 1937. (Among French directors, Allegret seems to have been the most perspicacious in the quest for untried talent; following Morgan, Simone Simon, and numerous others, Gerard Philipe made his debut in 1943 in Allegret's Les Petites du Quai-aux- Fleurs, while a starlet named Brigitte Bardot received a considerable boost from being cast in Allegret's appropri- ately named Futures vedettes a decade later.) Morgan was made for the roman- tic pessimism which permeated so much of the French cinema of the late Thir- ties, and with this first principal role her fate was cast. Long before anyone had ever heard of film noir, she lived by night, secure in the knowledge that come the dawn things would only get worse. From the first reel of nearly all her pre-war movies, the pale, glazed cast of Morgan's translu- cent eyes told you that while she might long for some briefsolace, her future was bound to be just as cheerless as her limbo-shrouded past and present. Beauty was her curse, attracting sadists and weaklings whom she was too pas- sive or stoic to shake off until it was too late to elude the consequences. Should she finally manage to encounter that soulmate who might tranform her sorry life, chances were that he'd either turn out to be married (Charles Boyer in Orage, Jean Gabin in Remorques), or else even more hounded by bad karma than she was (Gabin, in Quai des brumes). The bittersweet quality of a Darrieux in Abus de confiance lay in the public's awareness that a nice bour- 43

Yvonne Printemps and Pierre Fresnay in Trois valses. monde understood that she was ready for lin's problem-there was no mistaking smile, trail a train of satin behind her, • a siege of wickedly comic sophistication, the glint of predatory narcissism in her and turn meditatively when someone as in the French film version of Private glance. Balin's most characteristic ex- called her \"Madame la Duchesse.\" Dur- Lives. retitled Les Amants terribles. pression was a tight, sardonic wince, be- ing the war, her most acclaimed role was Room could usually be found for the traying her amusement at the effect her as Balzac's La Duchesse de Langeais, ever-so casual insertion of a song or two brunette, streamlined magnetism had adapted to the screen for her by no less to prove that all those pre-screen days on the opposite sex. She was never more than Jean Giraudoux. Her true corona- spent in revue had left their legacy; it alluring than when engaged in the game tion came later yet-in 1946 on stage, in was even more amusing for someone so of making life miserable for Jean Gabin 1948 in the film adaptation-acting out dignified to don the madcap from time in two successive pictures, Julien Duvi- a Ruritanian liebestod as she mounted to time , exemplified by Morlay's turn as vier's Pepe Ie Moko and Jean Gremillon's the grand staircase of her mittel-Euro- Raimu's jolly arriviste wife in Le Roi. Gueule d' amour. Though she was drawn pean royal seat in Jean Cocteau'sL'AigLe Each actress may well have appeared at by Gabin's gruffadoration, nothing short her best advantage opposite Charles of a well-deserved lethal squeeze to that a deux tetes, in order to embrace both Boyer, but Morlay snared him first- ivory throat was going to deter Balin most notably in L'Herbier's Le Bonheur, from a career of snaring still more of death and desire at the hands of that in which he played a headline-seeking those multi-karated accessories to her ardent revolutionary, Jean Marais. anarchist and she the biggest movie star natural attributes. on two continents. Morlay even stole Edwige Feuillere may have visited Dunne's thunder in the Waxworks- • the nineteenth century from time to Monarch department: twelve years be- time, but Yvonne Printemps was in fore The Mudlark, Entente cordiale Edwige F euillere was one of the few permanent residence there, except offered the French public the spectacle actresses whose histrionic reputation when she could be persuaded to take a of a latexed, overstuffed Morlay as an and on-screen social rank actually rose as brief sortie backward into the eight- impeccably francophobe Queen Victoria the years passed, into the years of the eenth. The nonpareil interpreter of Occupation and the post-war era be- French operetta in the theater since her at twilight. yond. Feuillere first gained attention youth in the 191Os, Printemps was al- playing women as morally equivocal as ready something of a treasured anachro- • they were unshakeably pragmatic-lar- nism when she made her talkie debut in cenous women loose in a moderne world 1934. Vaporous rapture and genteel The barrier dividing soignee socialites in Robert Siodmak's Mister Flow and in naughtiness had always been her metier, from chic demimondaines in the French the first screen version of Marcel not to mention the love of a man far cinema of the Thirties was all but imper- Pagnol's Topaze as well as a scandalously above her courtesan/thespian's station. ceptible to the naked eye, and Marie bare-breasted Lucrece Borgia for Abel So it was only logical that two years be- Bell's vehicles blurred these distinctions Gance. As the Thirties wore on she fore Garbo, Printemps should have re- even further. Perhaps it was the residue played a succession of blithe yet cha- suscitated La Dame aux cameLias for the of all her tragic classical roles at the Com- grined spies and adventuresses; but sound era. After that she was equally at edie Fran~aise, but Bell never seemed something in the imperious tilt of her ease in the platin um perukes ofAdrienne to smile in any of her movies. Her dark, chin and the low, tremulous timbre of Lecouvreur, as a pre-Revolutionary star embittered eyes and sullen mouth gen- her voice implied that a more exalted of the Comedie Fran~aise who muffs erally framed by a corona of white fur, calling was in store. the chance to star in Voltaire's latest play Bell was always discontented-a for a rendezvous with her blueblooded wealthy widow rummaging for the At decade's end, Max Ophuls gave lover. She rounded out the Thirties with happy mementos of her girlhood (Un her the chance to savor nobility's bitter- Trois valses, a spirited and opulent paean Camet de bal), the restless spouse of a sweet destiny by casting her as the Arch- to three generations of thwarted ro- provincial industrialist, longing for her duke Franz Ferdinand's steadfast mance, Parisian show-biz, and three- carefree days as a kept Parisienne morganatic bride Sophie in De Mayerl- quarter time. (Predictably, the modern (Poliche). Bell's quest was inevitably story seemed the most stilted and incon- thwarted by the fact that she never quite aing Sarajevo. Although she occasion- gruous.) This turned out to be the most figured out exactly what it was she resounding success of her sporadic wanted, her eyes clouded by the fear ally lapsed back into her former droll movie career; by 1939, Printemps' en- that she'd succumb to middle age with- sophisticates or doomed Traviatas in the trancing artifice was the vibrant relic of out once penetrating this secret. future (most notably for L'ldiot opposite an age and temperament that were re- Gerard Philipe), thenceforth Feuillere ceding with bewildering speed. Indecision was hardly Mireille Ba- was never so much in her element as when she could display a sadly gracious 44

, 1. Jacques Costeilan and Gaby Morlay in Entente cordiale. 2. MadeLaine Renaud in La Maternelle. 3. Marie BeLL and Fernandel. 4. Jean- Louis BarrauLt and Viviane Romance in Le Puritain. 45

While Yvonne Printemps' blonde ca- reel, anyway. as J' accuse or Un grand amour de By the time Romance became a star Beethoven. On screen, Romance ema- priciousness appealed to the rather bour- nated such undisguised delight in being geois public which had admired her in in her own right (as opposed to sullying a star and showing off her attractions the theater, dusky, brazen Viviane Ro- other people's vehicles) at the end of the that, really, it was churlish to resist. mance played directly to the pit. From decade, most film reviewers with any her first prominent role in Duvivier's La evident standards were openly con- A far more esteemed representative of Belle equipe, Romance's screen destiny temptuous of her films; few French per- the gutter in the films of the Thirties was was secure. Her lot was to loll about on formers of the era endured such a Arletty, who in this period tended to unmade beds under the eaves of non- consistently rotten press. Although the appear in prominent supporting roles in starred hotels, complacently making range of her palette was indeed rudi- a somewhat higher class of film than did trouble for a succession of men snared mentary and the scenarios enshrining la Romance. Her nasal vowels and bit- according to plan by one glance at her her undeniably turgid, what her detrac- ten consonants made hers the unmistak- breasts and armpits. If it wasn't an tors really objected to was the low aes- able voice of the born parigote. the Irish(!) jean-Louis Barrault in Le Puri- thetic and social tone of her movies- habitue of any cheap bistro and innu- tain tumbling into the trap, it was Nea- these pictures were broad and uncouth merable Hotels du Nord. Arletty had an politan crooner Tino Rossi in NapLes au and proud of it. Yet it's the utter lack of unmatched gift for combining a matter- baiser de feu. In the latter film (playing a pretense that finally makes her films so of-fact sensuality with a penetrating can- role gamely reinterpreted by Lana enjoyable. Certainly the delirious rococo dor as to her own motives, and instant Turner in the Fifties via FLame and the of Abel Gance'sLa WnusaveugLe. featur- insight into everyone else's. Whether FLesh), Romance is so luridly lascivious ing Romance as the sightless Magdalene she was playing a quick-witted cham- that even Mireille Balin, cast riotously of the waterfront, is infinitely more bear- bermaid in Sacha Guitry's Desire or against type as Rossi's virginal fiancee, is able than the flossy fustian of the direc- Louis jouvet's blackened-eyed trollop powerless to compete-until the last tor's more reputable sound efforts, such in Carne's HoteL du Nord. nothing ever passed by her pragmatic gaze unat- tended; nor would the viewer fail to reg- ister that, whatever was in store for all the characters surrounding her, the resil- ient Arletty would endure and prevail somehow. (See interview. page 45.) • Two star actresses managed to escape the erotic hierarchies of the French screen of the Thirties. Madeleine Re- naud was the doyenne of ascetic sensi- tivity. By the beginning of the decade, the slender, fragile-voiced Renaud was already one of theater's most prestigious young actresses. Possessing not a trace of the kind of photogenic glamour deemed essential by the tastes of the time (nor seeking to feign it, save in a few early boulevard films, like Jean de La Lune), Renaud compensated with some- thing infinitely more worthwhile. Like Lillian Gish on the silent screen, Re- naud in closeup radiated a luminous conviction, and she was unmatched in roles calling for unswerving sincerity and loyalty to a cause: science (Benoit-Levy and Marie Epstein's HeLene). child care (the same team's La Maternelle) , avia- tion (Jean Gremillon's wartime Le CieL aest vous) or simply matrimonial har- mony (Gremillon's Remorques). Where Renaud represented ethereal idealism, F ran~oise Rosay was the im- age of earthbound practicality. Physi- cally imposing and unashamedly middle-aged, as a Flemish burgher's wife gracefully accomodating the in- vader (La Kermesse herdique. directed by her husband jacques Feyder) or a North African innkeeper reading a Le- gionnaire'S ill-starred lot in her tarot 46

cards, Rosay perceived all there was to ~.~~.II!.~~~~~~....-\"-..--..---..-.-..-.-..-.----.-.--- know about the vagaries of the human condition. The humor in her films de- both exalted and transcended her ob- the icons have changed, but the arche- rived from her efforts to adapt to this scure origins. types remain remarkably the same. knowledge, the pathos from her occa- Viviane Romance faded into Martine sional powerlessness against the odds. Inevitably, some new personalities Carol, Brigitte Bardot dusted offSimone Her sorrows tended to be maternal did emerge during the war to supplant Simon's nymphet routine and did it bet- rather than romantic: sons deceased (Un the exiles. Madeleine Sologne, who had ter, Jeanne Moreau might be said to Camet de bal) or dissolute (Pension Mi- been toiling obscurely for years, gained have adapted Edwige Feuillere's welt- mosas), a daughter mortified by Rosay's fame as a Veronica Lake Isolde in Jean schmerz for a more egalitarian age. Si- notoriety as the Texas Guinan of Paris Delannoy's L' Eternel Retour; and mone Signoret started offwith sluts, half (Jenny) . Yet even in extremis, Rosay the Odette Joyeux, a Martha Scott looka- Arletty, half Romance, plus a bit of actress was never excessive. With a su- like, played a series of willfully pixieish Lauren Bacall; with the accretion of preme economy of gesture-a matter- offspring of decadent aristocratic fami- years and kilos, now she's Franc;oise Ro- of-fact wave of the hand, the weary lies in the likes of Claude Autant-Lara's say. Catherine Deneuve's immobile ele- lowering of her heavy eyelids-she con- Douce and Serge de Poligny's Le Baron gance inevitably recalls the mature veyed the stoic acceptance of a mortal fantome . The most feted newcomer was Morgan; even Isabelle Huppert's series woman all too alert to life's limitations. Micheline Presle, challenging Darrieux of mute, buffeted waifs are arguably an for the title of France's preferred bubbly unlikely blend of Annabella's frail soul • ingenue; the most notable was arguably and Bardot's exposed derriere. Maria Casares, whose slumbrous inten- French audiences were to be de- sity was revealed to the filmgoing public Probably none of this has been con- prived of Rosay's rueful wisdom for the when Robert Bresson's Les Dames du scious on the part of these performers. Bois de Boulogne was released soon after But, whether they'd choose to acknowl- six years of the war, the actress having the Occupation ended. edge it or not, they're part of that old opted for temporary exile in Switzerland tradition of rare \"European actresses,\" with her husband. Such defections were • who on screen embodied something of relatively few, limited to those, like An- what the French wanted to imagine nabella, Simone Simon and Michele One might have thought that all the themselves to be-and what that smoky Morgan, who already had Hollywood decades since might have wrought some archetype \"The Frenchwoman\" be- contracts-or contacts. Otherwise very resounding alterations in the kinds of came for moviegoers around the world.~ little had changed. In contrast to the faces beamed on to the French screen, political convulsions of the real world, and what they represented . Actually, the cinema under the German Occupa- tion was dedicated to the illusion that nothing really had gone amiss. When production got back into gear in 1941, Danielle Darrieux's fans were solaced by the evidence that, despite all, she was still bubbly and spirited and in the throes of her Premier rendez-vous. Soon thereafter, Gaby Morlay stooped to con- quer in Le Voile bleu, as a devoted nurse- maid raising three generations of charges; it was the biggest popular hit of the Occupation. There were a few changes of course. Vichy censorship was rather harsher than its equivalent before the war (bringing it more in line with Hollywood's Produc- tion Code), and certain stars with a pro- pensity for playing the more unsavory types had to sanitize their images a bit. Hence Viviane Romance's former baiser de feu was now Le Feu sacre, and she even played an updated Mimi in La Boite aux reves. This change in the moral climate was the best thing that ever hap- pened to Arletty's career. Under Carne's aegis, Arletty's real consecration as a star came during the war, first as a Medieval Devil's disciple in Les Visiteurs du soir, then the indelible Garance of Les En- fants du paradis. This was the role for which she was uniqUely equipped-an ageless proletarian beauty whose dig- nity, wisdom, and total lack of hypocrisy 47

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