VOLUME 17 - NUMBER 06 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1981

Terry Gilliam. The gang of dwmfsfrom Time Bandits , with map. Terry Gilliam effects. They introduced him to a producer Time Bandits is a grim-and funny- who got him work drawing caricatures interviewed by for a TV show called Do Not Adjust Your fairy tale, full of amazing adventures , Set. He then moved on to Weird Ways of Anne Thompson laughs and scares, good and evil, he- Making You Laugh as part of the resident roics and befuddlement. The world is a company which included Michael Pa- He certainly looks English: Cockney place where anything is likely to pop in lin, Terry Jones , and Eric Idle. One face, spiky-cut long hair, bright cordu- or out of the frame. Or into one's bed- week he came up with the idea of ani- roys. Sounds English, too, with his room. A scurvy band of dwarfs scoop mating something. It was, as his subse- speech as smooth and clipped as an our young hero up and bear him off to quent career proved, an excellent idea. earl's lawn. But Terry Gilliam is an brave the unknown-the only known American, born in 1940 in Minneapolis quantities being the coordinates of the When Cleese, Chapman, Palin, and raised from age 11 in Los Angeles. time holes on the map they've stolen Jones, and Idle formed Monty Python's Most people assume he's English be- from the Supreme Being-their boss. Flying Circus for the BBC series (1969- cause of his work with the Monty Py- They want to steal and plunder, and 72), Gilliam provided skit links with his thon troupe. Gilliam is one of several Kevin lends his considerable talents to inventive cut-out animations. The se- Americans-Stanley Kubrick, Richard the task. They skip from one century to ries was excerpted for a movie, And Lester, Joseph Losey, Frederic another and traverse regions too fantas- Now for Something Completely Different Raphael-who left for Britain and tic to describe. (1971), and expanded for a 45-minute never came back, in the process creat- TV film , Pythons in Deutschland. Their ing films whose tone was more royalist Gilliam possesses the imagination feature films, Monty Python and the than Kingsley Amis. Gilliam himself and daring of an animator. He isn't Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python's couldn't believe that his own favorite bound by reality, and with his motion Life of Brian (1979), were worldwide \"British\" director, Alexander MacKen- picture seasoning (he co-directed hits; another film is set for next sum- drick (The Man in the White Suit, The Monty Python and the Holy Grail, de- mer, for which Gilliam will again pro- LadykiLlers), was born in Boston. The signed The Life ofBrian, and wrote and vide animation. He co-directed Holy fact is, Gilliam doesn't like America directed Jabberwocky), he now knows Grail with Jones and didn't like the much and has no intention of coming how to make his visual conceits work experience , so he stuck to designing for back. with live actors operating in earth's Brian. After a mixed reception for his gravity. Although Gilliam insists he fol- medieval tale Jabberwocky, Time Ban- But he is here now for a visit, promot- lowed certain rules in Time Bandits, dits shows his growth as a filmmaker ing his $5-million Time Bandits, whose Newton's Laws seem truly suspended. and could repeat its British success rich cast includes Sean Connery, Ralph Anything can happen. here. Richardson, Ian Holm, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Shelley Duvall, Ka- Like other filmmakers of his genera- Although Gilliam says that he always tharine Helmond, and David Warner, tion, young Terry was an avid comic- wanted to make films, that animation plus dwarfs, ghouls, and a small boy. book reader, especially inspired by the was a detour, his animation work, com- When Gilliam came up with the basic work of Harvey Kurtzman (Mad , bined with the Python experience, story in a fit of inspiration , he ran to Trump, Humbug, and Help!) . But Gil- makes him a rich creative resource. fellow Python Michael Palin, who liam went John Landis, George Ro- Time Bandits is visually and aurally stun- agreed to write the script with him, mero, and John Waters one better: ning, so chock-full of clever detail as to then ran to producer Denis O'Brien and After college, he joined Kurtzman as make Raiders of the Lost Ark look flat acted it out for him so convincingly that assistant editor at Help! which special- and toneless by comparison. This film he got his backing on the spot. ized in \"fumettis\"-comic strips using is not mechanically propelled-it's a O'Brien's enthusiastic response is easy photographed actors instead of cartoon crazy whirligig of a movie , and the- to understand: Gilliam is most ani- characters. And after Help! folded, Gil- closest thing to a delicious fairy tale mated when acting out a scene from liam settled in England with two actors since The Wizard ofOz . one of his movies, complete with sound he'd hired for Help! photo sessions: John Cleese and Graham Chapman. -A.T. 49

How did you come up with the Time Sean Connery or another actor of he- Katharine Helmond and Peter Vaughn Bandits story? You did it in seven pages? roic stature.\" That's what it said, and in Time Bandits . we never really thought about getting The lege ndary seve n pages. I wa nted Sean Connery at all. Denis O'Brien wa nt to do at the moment to get tied to do a kid 's film , and all these things said, \"Terrific idea ; let's get Connery.\" came out. They've obviously been And he went and got him , like that. down into sequels. storing them se lves up in my head for a Connery read the script and said he' d Are you committed to any given pro- long time , just looking for the ri ght do it. I couldn't believe it. I can't be- outlet. I wanted to work at a kid 's le ve l lieve he reall y came to do it. I don ' t ject right now? through the whole thin g, and the kid think he gets offered father-type roles There's a Python film coming up would be the main character. But a kid verv often, and it was a good father role isn ' t going to sustain a film , so he 's because it's a nice relationship , and the next summer. In fact , it's really in the surrounded with a gang of interesting boy was terrific. way. I' ve got two other projects I'm characters, but they've got to be the keen on. One's about America; it's a same hei ght as the kid , so we're talkin g Is it a classic fairy tale ? cross between Franz Kafka and Walter about dwarfs , folks . Step by step , it I think it's more of a fairy tale than Mitty. It's got a happy ending, but it goes. The first thing was the knight on most. Most modern fairy tales are so involves our hero becoming insane. It's a horse coming out of the wardrobe. It vulgarized . I think the purpose of the a very black piece that is ·still quite just hit me one day. Wow, what the hell fairy tale is to give a rather frightening funny in a very, ve ry, bl ac k , dark is that ? And the film was very odd in experience. Kid s come out of it at the sense. It's all about paranoia , and it's the way it deve loped because certain other end all right, but it says there are about America. things didn' t work themsel ves out un- less than wonderful things in the til very late in the day-almost to the world, that there's evil out there , Would you make it here ? point of shooting. there's dangerous things , and I think it I like the idea of somehow being builds the kid 's strength up in an in- able to continue making films outside But we still didn ' t have an ending to terestin g way, rather than Sesame the States, thumbing my nose at Hol- it at all. And then I remembered that Street, which says that everybody's lywood. People say yo u can't do that. Sean Connery had suggested that he lo ve ly and the world's a wonderful come back as a fireman. I'd alread y place. I don 't believe that. What if a major studio makes you an shot the scene with the firemen com- You killed off the parents in the end. ing into the room and dragging Kevin Well, they deserved it, didn't they? I offer? out. I had to beg and scream to get don' t necessarily take the parents' Connery for one hour. So we got a fire death as a literal thing. I think it's a truck, put it in the parking lot of the good surprise and a good joke. That studio, and got him in the fireman's was the initial thing; but, basically, it's outfit. We got the kid down there- the kid's imagination just going to its \"Say, yo u' re a lucky fellow \" -he logical conclusion, to his surprise as wa lked and got in the truck and then well. They may not have blown up. He winked. That was all. He went away, may just have imagined that. Con- and then about two months after that, nery's wink is saying, It's okay; it's say- we fin ally got around to writing the end ing, It may not have happened , folks . scene and then fitting that in . That's The \\Vizard of Oz, too. And all that stuff. At the end, the The whole film was very much like pull-back gives the whole thing a sort that. You can really fuck it up. You of cosmic perspective. Whatever has really don't know what yo u' re doing gone on has only been a tin y little tale half the time , but it's quite exciting in the middle of a million-billion-tril- because you've got to think on yo ur lion tales . A tiny little grain of sand in a feet. And yo u can't assume that it's cosmic beach. You really don't do that going to sort itself out. There's nobod y sort of thing in kids' films. What's hap- else to sort it out. pened in this film is that it's down to parents to reassure the kids . We've put Do you like working with Michael Pa- the onus on the parents now. lin ? Did he write the script out? Would you make a sequel? There's one scene that was cut out The way it works, I actually work that is ve ry good, a spider women the story out, all the scenes, and Mike scene. We've got it on film . There's then writes, because I'm terrible at di- some other scenes that were written, alogue, and Mike is not only good at which we never did. We've got pirates dialogue , but at characterizations. in the bedroom , for instance . We've Then we'd talk a lot about it. Then got all these things that we could put he'd go down and write it. Then I into a sequel, but it all depends. At the would take it and then rewrite it. moment , I wouldn't consider it, but if this film turned out to be a huge suc- Did you think of Sean Connery from cess .. . I've got too man y things that I the very beginning? No, we put him in the script as a joke, because the script read originally, \"G reek warrior takes his helmet off, revealing himself to be none other than 50

Michael Palin questions a fabulous Tell us about Jabberwocky. You wrote we made it up. I did a lot of seriou s object in Jabberwocky. research on it, and sa id, \" Well , I' ve it . done my re search and I'm going to ig- They have, actually. Disney. They Yes , with Chuck Alverson, an old nore it all and just fake it. \" I'd ju st almost took this film. They should steeped myself into the feeling of the have. They offered me something a bit friend of mine. Jabberwocky was a re- period and wasn ' t interested in accu- like this one from a kid's imagination . I action to the Holy Grail in a sense . racy but the feeling of the thing. don' t think they' d let me be as un- There were a lot of things I wanted to pleasant as I'd like to be. do with the Middle Ages, areas that I • thought the Holy Grail never got into. You seem to like nastiness . The approach of Python was slightl y Where do you think all your ideas and I don't actually think it's nastiness. I different from the way I would ap- inventions come from ? Does it filter in don't think sadism enters into it, which proach it, so I wanted to get into those somehow and just f erment in your brain ? I reall y don ' t like , like the current untouched areas with Jabberwocky. vogue for horror films that are basicall y Unfortunately, I had some problems Yes , it just seems to work th at way about sadism. It's always been , I've with it because the distributors said , because I'm rather indiscriminating in found, very unpleasant,· except when \"It's not as funn y.\" And I said , \"Well , my taste . I' ve always rejected thin gs I'm doing it to somebody. it's not meant to be as funn y.\" And so I like good taste , bad taste , concepts In the Robin Hood scenes, when the actuall y ga ve in to some pressure , like that. I' ve always just preferred to poor are being hit, I don't think that's which I'll never do again , and recut the find other ways of looking at every- sadistic. Somebody thought it was re- film slightly differentl y and made it thing. It's more entertaining. You keep ally about an American unemployment appear to be more of a comedy than it from getting bored that way. I reall y line. You go there , they gi ve you the was meant to be. like books a lot because it's a nice way thing, and then they just bash you . I of getting information , at your own wasn't thinking of that consciousl y, What was the story ? pace , 10 your own way. but there it is. Basically, it's a story about a monster ravishing the countryside. The mon- What were you reading when you were ster is wonderful because you never young ? see him until the end of the film . This monster eats people and all the peas- Grimm 's Fairy Tales and Hans Chris- antry have rushed into the walled city tian Andersen and that nonsense. I for protection. So, it's fairl y grisly, but used to read the Hard y Boys, Albert funn y. But it's grisly in the same way as Payson Terhune . I'm sure I read Rob- Bosch and Brueghel were grisly. It's ert Louis Stevenson as well. probably as close to their paintings as any film I've seen , actually. Were you reading comic books ? What did you think of Excalibur ? Ya, I was an avid comic-book reader. Excalibur is a mess . I think Monty A lot of people take comic books very Python 's Holy Grail was a more serious seriously. film than Excalibur, frankl y. I think we Well, why not? I don ' t take them as were more accurate with our sense of seriously as the comic fans take them. I history of the period than he was, and think they' re terrific. I think it's a great we didn ' t spend any time being pre- art form. But I don' t think they go far. tentious about it. Only a few people have taken them far. You must do a lot of research on these Who ? movies . Actually, Harvey Kurtzman did. I Yes , I think it's the thing that's diffi- think Mad when it began was wonder- cult for a lot of people to understand. ful. I think it was just amazing mind- We' re doing a comedy, but people blowing stuff before minds were don ' t expect comedies to be serious in blown , becau se it was so fine , so satiri- an y way. We actually set the scene cal, and intelligent. Kurtzman actually rather seriously. We want it to look made comics respectable , in a sense , to right because , in fact , I think the best people like me. But I' ve always loved comedy comes out of the sense of real- comics. I like Superman , Captain Mar- ity. It's a combination of reality and vel ... good things , Dick Tracy. It can either surrealism or absurdity mixing. be very good art work and reasonably You have art directors , you have pro- intelligent stories. I think it's really duction designers, costume people . How quite amazing what you can do in the does it all get put together? Who super- comic format. At Help.' I used to do vises all this ? comic strips later on, and it's a very Well , it's usually me . I'm the one satisfying format because you can do who sits on all that. I make sure they things you can' t do any other way. We look like they look. I tend to read lots use a frame , we tell a story, it can be of books, to del ve into everything, find very interesting. great-looking pictures , and say, How did you come up with the cut-out \"You've got to do that like that and that style of animation you used on Monty like that.\" In a case like Jabberwocky, Python ? There had been cut-out animation going on before. People had always been doing it in one form or another, 51

generally crudely. It was just a You've been compared to Dati . thology that's been lost to children? pragmatic decision to do something I'd rather be compared to Magritte. I Yes, I think there 's something awful the only way I could do it. Cut-outs are think Magritte 's funnier than Dali. a very cheap and fast way of working. I Magritte's got a se nse of humor. There with being an American. You're stuck did it, and it worked and people were was a big Magritte exhibition at the with it. I live out of the country, and I amazed because they actually hadn't Tate ten yea rs ago. Everybody was go- make films out of the country; but I seen that style. Especiall y in England, ing around very solemnly, looking at actually do think I'd like to have so me they hadn't. I did it probabl y neater the paintings. No bod y was laughing. It effect on the country. I'm well aware of than people have in the past. I was was hys terical stuff-he's a great joke what I'm doing and having Evil being trying to find a style that fitted what I teller, amongst other things . I've also obsessed with technology is very im- was willing to do. been compared to Max Ernst. I only portant to me. It's a very dangerous knew Ernst by name, not by collage. thing, and it isn' t the answer to every- Did you go into these big books full of The best thing about reading reviews thing, and that's why we ' ve got the things , and cut them up and recreate of yo urself is that yo u discove r all the Supreme Being obsessed with wooly- them , or what? things yo u missed and so you go out minded thinking and rainbows-really and find kindred spirits. I've got piles nice things. God is British, and Evil is I collect books. I've got tons of of Max Ernst stuff now. His collage American. There's no question about books. You blow them up , cut them work is wonderful. it. up , push them around, and photo- graph them. The sound effects are the A Gilliam-designed boat becomes a Are British children better off? other key to it. Always vital , it's always hat in Time Bandits. I think so. They have less, so it gives under-estimated , the effect of the them a chance to contribute more. sound , but it's as much as the picture. Where did the costumes for the ghouls Do they read more ? in Time Bandits come from ? Yes , I think they' re more literate . • England is a richer base of fantasy, in- Hieronymous Bosch was a constant tellectual curiosity, individualism. I'm How did the Python people influence source of inspiration. I don ' t con- always amazed at America, a country you? sciously use others like the designer that always prided itself on its individ- Diaghilev, but all that stuff is sitting ual s. It's the least individual-based Actually, they loosened me up in a around in the back of my head . country I' ve ever been in , almost. strange way. They let me get away They talk about it all the time, but with things easily. It would be hard for You were borrowing a lot from Holly- people basically do things in mobs. You me to reall y know . It's obviously been wood movies. have to hunt for individuals in Amer- considerable. What was nice with the ica. In England, what's always wonder- shows is that we were all influencing Yes , I find this an extremely eclectic ful is that people, like accountants and each other incredibly. So that sud- movie. There's Snow White , Alice in little bureaucrats-people yo u'd think denl y, John and Graham would write a Wonderland , The Wizard of Oz. Every wouldn't have a weird thought in their sketch that was just like Mike and film I've seen and everything I've read mind at all-they live much richer Terry 's sketch , or Eric would so rt of is there in one form or another. That's lives. They protect their own personal blend what Mike or Terry were doing where I find the difference between space and flourish in that. with what John and Graham were do- this and, say, Raiders of the Lost Ark, So the British parents that you paint in g. He would find a middle ground which is a pastiche of very identifiable such a vivid picture ofare American par- and work in there . They came up with things. Bandits isn ' t a pastiche . It takes ents? ideas th at were cartoon ideas. It was all that information , stirs it around, and No, they're definitel y British. really weird. comes up with something different, They're the New Britain, which really which to me is more important than horrifies me, parents like that who pre You made the bridges between skits . making pastiches. obsessed with Americans. When That was the main function of my America does something, it does it stuff, to ge t from Point A to Point B Do you think you're doing something rather spectacularly. England does it and in a different way. along the lines of what Lucas is doing, on a rather nasty, tacky little level. You work a lot in scale. which is bringing back some of the my- What do you think of Ralph Bakshi? Yes, I've always been impresse d His rotoscope? with scale. It's a continually fascinating It's a mess. I think he's sloppy. I thing. Again, it's another way of look- can't stand him. I saw Lord ofthe Rings, ing at things: that something which and I was really angry. I thought that appears small is, in fact, reall y large . It was appalling. It's very funny 'cause I keeps things in better perspective. It was just talking to Harvey Kurtzman keeps them in a cosmic perspective as on the phone from L.A. He's talking to well. I think that almost all these sort Bakshi about a film. I think he can be of techniques are to avoid growing old, quite talented. Fritz is good. Coonskin or, at least, growing into middle age or is outrageous, amazing, terrific. And, adulthood, because it seems to me , then, Lord of the Rings . He's putting growing up is about limiting. Someone people in horrible baggy costumes and said that growing up is learning which puts Halloween masks on them. He questions not to ask. You go through runs them around and photographs life and miss out on a lot in the process. them, and then paints on top of that. I Do you regard what you're doing as being in any way surreal? No, but viewers and interviewers have decided that it's surrealist. S2

hadn ' t read Rings until I saw Bakshi 's Viveka ...Viveca film . I got so angry. I said, \"Tolkien has got to be better than that. \" Sci-fi and animation are fields where you can do incredible things with the The autobiography of Viveca Lindfors right amount of intelligence and im- agination, and yet neither field has seemed to reach its promise . First published,in her native Sweden, the press uninhibitedly That's what bothers me about Lu- essayed: \" An extraordinary, turbulent, temperamental, naked cas. I think he's probably being very shrewd , because he's got those mam- and honest book\" \"Shattering\" \"Stimulating\" moth successes, but he's not pu shin g it \"Exciting\" \"When Viveca Lindfors writes her memoirs, anywhere. He's almost taking it down something extraordinary is being born.\" to television leve l, except it's done so technicall y well. But it's like lowest In a style as dramatic as any of her common denominator. We don't ask finest portrayals, this consummate questions . Raiders was almost the ulti- artist relates the highs and lows, the mate in that. I think there were only ecstacy and misery of her film and two or three major things in the film stage career and of her intense that really did bother me. You can't have great stone Egyptian statues that personal relationships. suddenly wobble around and topple Yes, today Viveca Lindfors steps like that . You see, that's breaking the rules. That angers me. The nex t thing forward stage center with a trium- is that you don ' t go halfway around the phant, passionate life story, the glittering story of a fascinating world on a submarine on top of the actress and of a bold woman. water. Then, the ending. You open the Photographs $13.95 Ark. Silly time , folks . EVEREST HOUSE Publishers • 33 W 60TH ST., N.Y., N.Y. 10023 What was your contribution to the col- laborative Pythonfilms ? As fur the Ho~ GmU, ~rry Jones ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ and I co-directed it, whatever that means. I found co-directing a difficult thing because Terry and I are both 1'1&. 11th 'nt...natl..., adren a lin freaks. We went around shouting our heads off. The crew gets a 1'...., •••s bit confused when there's two people shouting orders, especially when the orders don' t necessarily agree with one another. The way we ended up work- .IInlmatl•• ing on Gmil after the first couple of weeks is that I ended up working with the camera and making sure it was looking right and the camera was in the right position. I also spent most of my time in the beginning on the look of the thing, as usual. And than when it came to Brian , Terry wanted to do a co-direct thing again. I didn ' t want to , so I agreed to design it. But it doesn't reall y work because you've got to make a film look The latest and best of international animation from all over the world . A .s;xteen·film package including as good as it can no matter what the sets Cannes Film Festival Winner. HARPYA from Belgium; Academy Award Nominees DREAM DOLL Ifrom are , or the costumes. It depends where Britain) and IT'S SO NICE TO HAVE A WOLF AROUND .THE HOUSE Ifrom the US); Annecy Film Festival you put that camera and what you do Grand-Prix Winner, A PRES LA VIE Ifrom the National Film Board of Canada) . with it; and, unfortunately, I wasn't A fe.1ture·/ength program available for rental from : around the camera that much for a va- riety of reasons . So Brian doesn' t look as good as it could have. It could have 4530 18th Street looked a lot better. There's a lot more San Francisco, Calif. 941 14 to it than what's on the screen. I don ' t 1415) 863-6100 like that. I find it a waste-in Time Bandits, there's nothing that isn't on. I 53

Some divorces make mean, if you look a foot in either direc- tion , the set doesn ' t exist. greatentertamII ment. You drew it all, shotfor shot? Pursuits ofHappiness It's the only way I can work. It isn ' t the best way, because you draw a story- The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage board , and real people don ' t fit into the frame like a drawing fits into the Stanley Cavell frame , which can be really painful for real actors when I try to force them into During the '30s and '40s, Hollywood produced a genre of the frame . But th~t's the thing I' ve learned a bit about as we've gone on , madcap comedies that ~mphasized reuniting the central couple because Jabberwocky was very much like that-the realities of shooting after dlvorce or separatlOn. And the female protagonists made it very difficult because some- body didn't do what I drew, and it took were strong,.independent and sophisticated. Here, Stanley me a while to get used to that As an animator, you had total control . Cavell exammes 7 of those classic movies for their cinematic You could do whatever you wanted . Yes. It's taken a couple of films to techniques, and for such varied themes as feminism and mascu- make the transition from animation to working with real people and admit- slinity, liberty and interdependence. Included are Adam Rib ting that they were real people and not Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story. just drawings on pieces on paper. I' ve J actually come to enjoy working with live action , particularly because work- \"Perhaps the most exciting book on American films.\" ing with good live actors can be really exciting. I have X amount of ideas - Garrett Stewart about what I want the effect to be like , and then you get with Ralph Richard- \"Marvelously eclectic ... provocative, distinctly warm-blooded son , Ian Holm , or Sean Connery. Working with those people is great b~ .. work from a genuine, reaching thinker.\" - Kirkus Reviews cause you really expand. The problem with animation is that you' ve got total Harvard Film Studies $17.50 illustrated control and you learn less in a strange: way because you're not confronted At local bookstores or directly from with pieces of recalcitrant paper that make you think. Harvard University Press How would you describe what you're doing as being different from your work 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 with Monty Python ? I don' t think I'm interested in being Just Out! The BestYearbook of Photos just funny. Time Bandits isn' t primaril y comedy. It's primarily an ad venture and Facts CoveringAmerican and spectacular-the comedy is secondary to it. I don ' t want the comed y to stop, Foreign Ftlms This latest volume, with 1,000 but I could see getting to a point where photographs, includes such there is really very little comedy in it. I 1980 hits as .\"The Empire carry it blacker. It's not great belly Strikes Back,\" \"Ordinary Peo- laughs, but it's chuckling a lot of the ple\" with Mary 1Yler Moore, time . .. Raging Bull\" with Robert With comedy, the surprise makes DeNiro, \"Urban Cowboy\" with you laugh. I'm not always interested in John Travolta, and the foreign making you laugh. I'd rather just scare sensation \"Tess.\" Complete the shit out of you. During the cage cast lists, biographies, obitu- sequence, I loved watching the audi- aries, Academy Award Win- ence saying, \" Wow! That's great.\" ners, a 10,000-entry index, and And the horse coming out of the ward- much more! 256 pages, 63/8\" robe does have just about the best reac- tion I've seen for a long time . People x 9 118\". just leave their seats . They go wild . I'm really happy about that. SCREEN I like the idea of amazing and as- tounding people. That's great, and WORLD: 1981 that's what I do for a living. ~ Volume 32 by JOHN WILLIS S 19 .95. now at vOLir book stor e. or se nd check or WITH 1000 PHOTOGRAPHS money order to Crow n PublIshers . On e Park VOLUME 32 A ve .. N.Y.. N .Y. 10016. Please add SI.40 postage and handlin g char ge. N. Y. and N .J . resIden ts. add sales tax. CRO~N 54

aea by Diane Kaiser Koszarski wall displays , while the \"X\" group of- the last decade were released and fered an enthusiastic public a cornucopia screened, new works focusing on the The gates of the Lenin Shipyard in of Man of Iron souvenirs: buttons, age of Stalin emerged on schedule, and Gdansk are onlv a few blocks from the posters, Tshirts, satchels, stills. Andrzej special midnight screenings of Solidar- Film Festival headquarters. Guests of Wajda's Man ofIron is the big best-se ller ity-authored documentaries underlined the Festival can stroll to the nearby cob- abroad this year and can afford such lav- the demand for access to mass distribu- blestone plaza, bordered on one side bv ish gimmicks . Although the Festi va l tion sounded by reform groups in the a trolley interchange and on the other by theoretically is closed to the public, each Polish Filmmaker's Association. a housing project and the shipyard, and evening's screenings are jammed with view the awesome monument erected students, visitors, and local fans with the Wajda's Man ofIron , resplendent with by Poland's Solidarity Free Trade Union right connections. The Festi va l board honors from Cannes, was screened out in memory of the dozens of striking evidently goes to some trouble , through of competition-\\vho could vote against workers killed by police in 1970. Three parallel screenings and personal appear- it? The director had planned a sequel to crosses soar ten stories over the formless ances at local cinemas, film clubs, and his Man ofMarble since completing that square, the base of the monument with a factory cultural programs, to open its film with a truncated ending in 1976. He mass of dried memorial wreaths, fresh program to the host city. The tone of the \"vanted to spell out the death of his bouquets and votive candles, cheerful competition is sober, almost scholarlv- fallen worker-hero, I\\lateusz Birkut, in tourists lining up for snapshots and the no starlets, raucou~ hospitality suites, or the protest strikes of 1970, a fate modest souvenirs sold at a Solidarity media-filled press conferences in evi- sketched with the barest of allusions in booth nearby. The \"Martyr's Monu- dence here ; this vear's austeritv budget, Man af Marble. The extraordinarv ment\" was created in a mere 100 davs- with thirtv-percent cutbacks, elimi- events in the summer of 1980 gave Waj- a miracle of accomplishment in the nated the traditional cruise-down-the- da a new imperati ve. Drawn to the ship- broken economy of present day Poland Motlawa cocktail partv that used to vard confrontation, he studied the -and serves as a visible sign of the radi- climax the Festival's low-kev social abundant manifestos, documentation, cal change of spirit that has swept the gatherings . Press conferences are film and video footage , met the princi- nation since August 31, 1980, when a crowded but decorous tributes. The lit- pals, and returned to hi s film unit in new social contract was negotiated be- tle groups of casually dressed viewers \\Varsaw to craft an emotional record of tween the people and the Party. chatting and smoking outside the Festi- those historic moments, recapitulating a val hall provide more pungent criticism, genealogy of protest from 1968 to 1980 This September, while Solidaritv as does the daily gazette, published in in the fictional historv of personae car- held a tumultuous constitutional con- Polish and English. Foreign guests are ried on from Man afMarble. vention in suburban Gdansk, managers in a minority, though conscientiouslv of the Eighth Festival of Polish Feature served bv simultaneous translation in Like the earlier film , Man of Iron Film responded enthusiastically to the four languages and the aforementioned takes the form of a reporter's quest: now new spirit. The Festival is a combina- gazette. TV journalist Winkiel is ordered bv net- tion Academy Awards and trade show work bosses to defame the Gdansk held in the heart of this historic Baltic The Festival has always generated a strike leaders. As he follows the storv of port. Stars, directors, critics , govern- more liberal atmosphere than that possi- one organizer, l\\-laciek Tomczvk (son of ment officials, and other important ble beyond Gdansk, while coping with Birkut) , his interviews segue into figures of the Polish film scene gather to the evervday realities of Polish filmmak- flashbacks of the abortive student dem- review the past year's releases and see ing. The forum this vear capitalized onstrations of March 1968, 'vvhich radi- them judged by a jury of their peers, fully on the new mood of freedom : An- calize Tomczvk, then the Baltic port while Film Polski offers discreet litera- drzej Wajda's docu-drama on the birth of disturbances of 1970, where the voung ture and publicity material to critics and Solidarity opened the schedule, setting worker sees his father die and the bodv prospective distributors. The more en- the kevnote: few big names this vear, stolen from its grave to obliterate evi- terprising film producing units set up but plenty of politicallv pertinent films . dence of the protest. Agnieszka H ule- Films sequestered bv the censor over wicz, the ambitious doc umenta rv filmmaker searching for Birkut's stor\\, i~ 55

Man of Marble. reappears, joining with headed l\\lartian turn s to reveal the bitions of the cinematographer, who, l'vlaciek to pursue her blockaded film suicidal hero gass ing himself in a plastic unlike hi s Western counterpart, has time project. Rapid ellipses indicate that they bag, clutchin g at his girlfriend for so me and helpers to spa re-but not a centi- grow closer, marry, have a child, and meaningful human contact. . . For the meter of extra film stock. continue to practice their dissident poli- excised footage Skolimowski has substi- tics. At their wedding ceremony, one of tuted a poignant but distracting pro- In a curious wav, shorter works from the witnesses offers both bride and logue to mediate on the reca ll of hi s the Andrzej Munk Studio, which was groom a flower apiece, wishing them \"a noto rious film , now fourteen yea rs old, created in 1978 to offer intermediate op- democratic marriage .\" It's Lech Wa- to the Poland of 19tH. Hi s dialogue is portunities to graduates of the state film lensa, labor organizer, but not ye t head elliptical, eve n egoistic, but horrific im- and television schools , offer a more ac- of Solidaritv. Winkiel, ever the nervous ages of urban Lebanon blasted by war curate account of the national talent for timeserver (though characterized with and the peering, slee k, careless world of coping th an do feature scripts from \" the wonderful humor given the uni ve rsal London ga lleries se nd a differe nt mes- cinema of moral anxiety.\" The 1\\'1 unk contempt expressed for TV propaganda product-Agorophobia by Krzysztof by Polish audiences), is nonetheless so Top . Andrzej Wajda addresses the Nowa k , In A Bath Tub by Bogdan taken by the integrity and courage of his Festival audience after opening night Gorski, and Young Ladies bv Jaroslaw subject that he cops out on his assign- screening of Man of Iron , bottom. Kusza-was also noticeably more sy m- ment, while worming his \"vay inside the sage about the pain of hi s exile. The gates at last to witness the historic ac- Festival audience honored the filmma- pathetic to its women protagonists in cords. A government official murmurs, ker, who introduced Hands Up! in per- comparison with the heartless she - \" It's only paper,\" as he dri ves off in a son, though onlv the younger members wolves seen so often in the feature s. black limo; Maciek Tomczyk lights a seemed enthusiastic abou t the demand- These apprentice works could afford a candle for his dead father and pledges , ing and theatrical strategies they were quiet optimism; a more tragic view of \"We can never go back. \" subjected to. Journalists cove ring the the national life seems de rigueur for the Festival awa rded their special prize to feature units. After sustained and heartfelt ap- Hands Up!: presti ge but no cash. plause, a press conference followed . Of the many films confronting prob- The strongest contemporary state- The preeminent director of the Polish lems of contemporary life , the most re- ments this year came, in fact, during the cinema toyed with his prize bouquet markable were two from the group midnight screenings out of competition while a young man posed a long ram- suppressed until this yea r, The Pad, a of documentaries from the Solidaritv bling question. Audience murmurs grew 1974 con-man comedy mad e for televi- camp: Peasants' 81 by Andrzej Pieku- until Wajda rebuked them : \"Nowevery- sion by Krzysztof Zanussi protegee An- towski, detailing the foundation of Rural one has the right to be heard here . .. \" toni Krauze that delighted audience and Solidarity, and T. Pobog-M alinowski 's critics equally, and Calmness , by Krzysz- One Hundred Days, a record of the crea- • tof Kieslowski , a 1976 TV drama of tion of the Martyr's Monument and the worker defiance th at preceeded his political atmosphere from which it was Seven films received delayed release Camera Buff (shown at the 1980 New generated. Both were handsomely and recognition at this yea r's Festival. York Film Festival). Although Polish filmed , recorded, and edited pieces, Of these , none was as startling and vig- filmmakers have elevated the necess ity transparent displavs of the fervor and orous as Jerzy Skolimowski's Hands Up!. of temporizing with the censor into an natural eloquence of working people The original version, banned in 1968, interesting art form , most of the contem- aroused to demand their dignity and a captured in absurdist theatre mise en porary films suffer from overwritten more equal partnership in governing the scene the meanderings of classmate co- scripts, acting technique keved more to land they love, true testaments to the horts reunited at a party, reminiscing as the theater than the screen, and the am- power of good documentaries to move they hurtle through the night city on a an audience. The filmm akers' goal is commandeered trolley (represented by distribution beyo nd the uncensored cin- the interior of a concrete bunker lit with ema enclaves in Gdansk, Warsaw, and hundreds of wax tapers). Their talk re- Cracow to theater audiences throughout veals the sterility of their compromise Poland , and home audiences via the with The System. Skolimowski, now state television monopoly. Theirs is an living in London, responded to the call uphill battle, backed by Solidarity itself from Film Polski by editing his original and also by the Polish Filmmakers' As- work, evidently removing a good deal of sociation, of which Wajda is president. the material that sketched the particular The PFA, in timely fashion , has se t up history of his protagonist Zastava, an ex- its own reform group, The Committee pelled student and anxious outsider. to Save National Cinematography and The green-tinted sequences linked to now negotiates with the Ministry of Cul- Zastava offered a valuable counterpoint ture for greater control of its own to the claustrophobic, tractarian quality finances , foreign and domestic distribu- of the sepia-toned \" trolley\" dialogues. tion decisions , and the right to creative What remains of these sequences pro- self-management. vide some of the most riveting images in Hands Up!: students hoist their own Post-August freedoms in Polish film- poster of Stalin, mi sprinted with four making also brought to the Festival sev- eyes-the perfect metaphor for the eral interesting efforts to dissect paranoia, repressive culture, and sub- Poland's poisonously repressive Stalinist conscious contempt of the age; a pointy- era. Filip Bajon's Shilly Shally (taken from a slang term for epileptics) presents 56

a mad malingerer closeted with mom tion of 1573, which established religious novel The Story of a Shell by socialist Andrzej Strug, Holland traces the and sis, unwilling or unable to partici- tolerance by the state for the first time in deadly arc of a handcrafted bomb : through the hands of a cold and brilliant pate in the special insanity of everyday Europe, the director has woven a super- activist, his neurotic female accomplice, the comrade-rival who betrays out of life in socialist Poland. Periodic visions lative cinematic passion plav, baroque love and revenge, the too-naive peasant conspirator, and finall y a devil-may-care from his childhood distract the hero , and dazzling in its visual style, but with a nihilist. The nihilist alone is able to fling the shell against the Tsarist establish- wherein a Stalin-Santa distributes somber moral: let Polish factions make ment-where it fails to explode. HoI- land's strong visual style-synecdotal presents to his schoolmates and little peace lest foreign infidels invade the detail and an Art Nouveau palette- subordinates the period reconstruction Korean visitors. Feliks Falk's There was land. The Festival jury passed over this to a compelling drama of idealism de- graded and made null , a drama applica- Jazz gently mixes the conventions of a extraordinarv film in silence; perhaps ble to the dynamics of political resistance in other times and places. teen music film with sobering evidence the message is too conservative (or too The director points out that, \"I did not make Fever looking through the prism of that Western jazz (even the mellow Dix- painful to contemplate) in these heady our revolution; the film was completed before August. What I wanted to show ieland style so popular then) was consid- davs of freedom. were people determined to fight and also to signal the dangers linked to the ered decadent, anti-socialist, and worth Director Edward Zebrowski and cine- decision to fight. .. undoubtedly there is a tremendous demand for optimistic suppressing by the monitors of official matographer Witold Stok were prize- films and hagiography of the [present] struggle. This is met by Andrzej Wajda's culture. The most penetrating indict- winners this year for In Broad Daylight, film ... I simply think that all historical characters are more complex than their ment of the Fifties, however, came in tracing the moral evolution of a young hagiographic images. Our contempo- raries face tragic dilemmas, a choice be- Wojciech Marczewski's film Creeps. socialist, vintage 1909. The socialist tween two ways, neither of which is unequivocally right . .. I think that art With wonderfully live lv and unforced unflinchingl v assassinates an undercover should document these dramatic com- plexities.\" Dramatic complexities-the performances from his young actors, re- strength of these unusual period films in inforced bv his own acute sense of obser- a nutshell. vation, the director details the Poland is making a revolution from within and from the bottom upwards. Its conditioning for conformity which film artists bear witness on the side of the angels, with joy and wit and some claims his protagonist at a Polish Youth trepidation , for no one can be sure of the final outcome. Andrzej Wajda welcomed Union summer camp. The standoffish his colleagues to the 8th Festival of Pol- ish Feature Film with this address: Tomek is lured to the Party line through \"What is to come next? I have a feeling that we are at a crossroads-not only his infatuation with an attractive scout because we are on the eve of a reform in filmmaking, but because now we have a mistress and initiated in the private/pub- different audience, living under differ- ent circumstances ... What are the mov- lic dichotomv practised by each adaptive iegoers-people who are tired , disheartened , but still full of hope- citizen through the example of his older expecting of us ? Today we must be aware of this if we want our films to save friend and rival. Creeps brought forth and keep their most essential va lue: a strong bond with our audiences, with passionate, personal responses from the the reality we live in together.\" The best films of Gdansk '8 1 have made their Festival audience, bearing witness to contribution to this ongoing definition of the Polish cinema. One hopes that many their own experiences in similar camps. more besides Man of Iron will someday enhance the international repertory. ,~~,~ The film remained a popular choice for Jerzy Skolimowski at left in Hands Up! Grand Prize honors even after the official awards were given. agent during an outdoor Corpus Christi • procession in broad daylight. In a series Politics, even in the first year \"after of dark evenings and interior encounters August,\" was not all, however. Four of with Party colleagues, he is commis- the most striking films at Gdansk this sioned to execute an author accused of fall might have been made anytime in collaboration. In the glaring sunlight of a the last half-dozen years, four period Mediterranean terrace , the young man films in a style which has become some- confronts his victim and makes a per- thing of a hallmark in Polish cinema, sonal judgment-innocent until proven graced with modern ambiguities and ex- guilty. He defies Party discipline and istential underpinnings-and popular at pays willingly with his own life to be- the domestic box office. come his brother's keeper. In the most Lyn.x, set in the war years, is a ghost fleeting hom mage to the source of this story in the manner of Robert Bresson . idealism, the film closes with a reprise of Stanisiaw Rozewicz's country priest nickelodeon newsreel: Count Tolstoy wrestles with the lonely problem of evil strolling about his estate. as the Nazi occupation obliquely leaves The Grand Prize of the Gdansk Festi- its mark on his village. The lynx of the val, Golden Lions and 65,000 zloty, was title is a handsome partisan youth who given to Agnieszka Holland , one ofWaj- tempts Father Konrad toward murder in da's colleagues in the \"X\" film unit, for a silent autumn landscape. The priest her ambivalent study of terrorism set in exorcises his devil , but without the aid 1905 Warsaw. The jury, freer this year he calls for, and leaves his parish to join than ever before from official pres~ure the resistance. regarding the most suitable winners, Noted television and theater director nonetheless made a prudent rather than Gregorz Krolikiewicz creates a Renais- provocative choice in preferring the un- sance period fantasia for The Supreme doubted merits of Holland's Fever to Value of a Free Conscience. From the those of the popular favorite, Creeps. history of the Warsaw Act of Confedera- In Fever, loosely based on a 1910 57

by Elliott Stein I nodded off for a few minutes during an early morning press show late in the TheNewYorkFestival, and when I snapped awake I realized with a start what I had just seen: a nice Jewish couple who had survived New Films and Retrospectives the Holocaust had joined the Ku Klux Klan and were burning crosses in Greensboro, North Carolina; Dennis junk, becalmed underneath the Brook- teenth-century Scapigliatura (Bohe- Kucinich, the lively ex-mayor of Cleve- lyn Bridge; tied to the mast was Andre mian) group of Milanese writers who re- land, was spraying graffiti on BMT sub- Gregory, and he was gagged so as not to jected the received ideas of both the way cars; Edward Hopper and his wife interrupt the Vernonites, who were all Risorgimento and Romanticism about Jo, both in baggy uniforms, were under- talking at once about turkeys and tur- patriotism, the good and the beautiful. going basic training in a women's pla- tles. No one had noticed that the boat It is 1862. Giorgio, a handsome cav- toon at Fort Gordon, Georgia; Nicholas was sinking. alry officer (Bernard Giraudeau) who is Ray was on a mountain road in Bavaria It is easier to taste fiction thanto digest enjoying a love affair with a beautiful -he had tied Wim Wenders to a tree, facts . Never, even nodding, would I married woman, is sent to a lonely fron- but had neglected to gag him, and Wen- confuse the plots of Mephisto and Beau tier post where the commanding ders was screaming,\"Cut, Nick, cud\"- Pere. In the course of the generally fee- officer's cousin, Fosca (Valeria d'Obici), but Ray kept showing me, again and ble run of new films at the Nineteenth an ugly recluse, subject to fits, falls in again and again, the exact spot where he New York Film Festival, however, there love with him. She literally pines away had escaped from the Gestapo into was such a pack of documentaries, for him, throws dignity and caution to Switzerland; middle-class WASP ladies hemi-semi-docs, and double bills of Ed- the winds, is dying for love-and yet, on downers and bourbon were climbing ucational TV brand featuretteniks- the garrison doctor informs Giorgio, will ladders to paint murals about their Aztec each of them pushing a different probably die if he does sleep with her. heritage; New York's Mayor Ed Koch didactic bill of goods-that sensory Repelled at first, he befriends her, was biting off the head of a live chicken overload was inevitable. A few of them then begins to love through contagion. to demonstrate what to do when lost and were not bad, but on the whole the ex- He starts to lose his looks, while she hungry during World War III; black perience was more like night school than vampirizes some of his radiance. After women strikers at the Sanderson a good night out at the movies. being challenged to a duel by Fosca's chicken processing plant in Laurel, Mis- cousin, Giorgio spends the night with sissippi, held signs reading \"KOCH IS A • her, and the story, which ends as a bitter RACIST GEEK!\"; the entire population compound of comedy and tragedy, turns Ettore Scola's Passion d'Amore (****) is based on a story by Iginio Tar- of Vernon, Florida, was on a Chinese chetti, a member of the mid-nine- out to have been a tale told to a hunch- back, who remarks at its close: \"Absurd. It would have made some sense if she had been beautiful and I were the hero.\" D'Obici is superb in a role that one false step would have rendered ridicu- lous. She has been made up to look like Margaret Hamilton impersonating Max Schreck as Nosferatu. Scola seems to be using her comportment as a demonstra- tion of the etymological definition of hysteria, which had medical acceptance for hundreds of years: an affection occur- ring only in women which results when the uterus (hystera) has been torn loose and wanders to the brain, causing con- vulsions and disturbances of the senses. This beautiful (by any definition) and deeply provocative film (did Henry James know Tarchetti's story?There ap- pear to be traces of it in The Sacred Fount) is one of the rare impeccably mounted period movies made anywhere in recent years. My sole cavil is that although Giraudeau fits the part well, the camera should love him at least a fraction of the amount that Fosca does. Laura Antonelli and Bernard Giraudeau in Passion d' Amore. Scola's camera doesn't; Visconti's would (Continued on page 61) 58

Miklos Rozsa . Rosza and Broderick Crawford make this picture the success Film Festival it is, although special note should be taken of the fact that Dan Dailey gives the performance of his career. \"This particular canary happens to be an artificially colored sparrow!\" June Cynicon: Movies for Cynics Havoc as Mother Hoover remonstrates. \"Look what women have done to us,\" mutters the aged and coroded FBI boss, light cross to bear when one can be as- an outsize runt all his life, in the picture's by James McCourt tounded all over again at the architech- principal scene, in the Stork Club. (The tonic perfection of the World recreation of this particular spiritual gas The cynicism you refer to, 1 acquired Domination Ballet. If the rest of the chamber is masterly.) Discussing fags, the day 1 discovered 1 was different illustration work on Adenoid Hinkel is somebody reproves somebody else's from little boys.' degrees paler, that is the result of the faceless face: \"You wouldn't put that -Karen Richards (Celeste Holm) in energy fall-out of a shot wad. The kind of crap on Cardinal Spellman.\" Joseph L. Mankiewicz' All About Eve . whole-cloth panoply of Syberberg's Our \"What the hell, he's a priest. \" \"So's Ed- Hitler is to be found in this mime se- gar.\" Etc. The joke here is that the butt The Great McGinty (1940) is Pres- quence, and the secret spoken here is of clerical faggot jokes in the New York ton Sturges' least sophisticated picture. one of the great ones of art: to portray archdiocese in the Fifties was His Scar- It offers slender evidence of the affec- complete evil adequately at an effective let Eminence Francis Cardinal Spell- tive two-timing and attitude balance of a distance, the artist must pretend that man. It seems that Pope Pius XII .... Sullivan's Travels, or much of the ques- evil is exquisite. Only when the artist's But I digress. Listen, it's that kind of tioning about the nature of reality in per- display is contained will it sink in that, picture. One watches it and one thinks formance that was this master's gestural for those destined to do it, evil is its own of dozens of things , and when one gets signature (in The Miracle at Morgan's reward as well, and that political evil, back to the picture it's still there. Ho- Creek). It is more like a good-hard boiled like high art, is always singleminded. A ward da Silva, for example, is good for a Michael Curtized political melo with a pilloried Jungian might tell you that riff, playing the worst F. D. R. in the his- sentimental eschatological yearning for Hitler had to come along so that Chaplin tory of the motion picture. He reminds Nirvana realized in terms of back-lot ex- could become immortal playing him- viewers that he is currently playing otica. The Banana Republic was Holly- which is another story, a cynical aside. F.D.R.'s opposite number, L.B. Mayer, •wood's dream of itself as a paradox: how equally wretchedly in Mommie Dearest, the most sweated and arduous industry The Private Files of J. Edgar a picture about which it is possible to be in the history of the Distraction Dy- Hoover (1977). Produced, written and cynical on many levels, but only in the namic (art) became situated in a somno- directed by Larry Cohen. Music by breath-catching spaces in between the lent backwater as the ass end of the continental American open-air dream garage. The print was of poor quality, bleached and pocked, and the sound level all wrong. • In Short Cuts, there were two to write home about: J. Hoberman's Mission to Mongo and the more seriously brilliant Rapid Eye Movements, by Jeff Car- penter-the most sophisticated thing of its kind (the right kind) to have come out in a long time. By and large, the assem- blage was uneven (read TILT). Nothing nearly approached the wit mark reached downtown these days by several New York Independents, like George Robert Haas, whose American Shooting I, 2&3 (1980) is technically in advance of any of the live-action shorts on this program. • The Great Dictator (1940). Or: \"Gee, ain't I cute!\" What Chaplin tried to dictate in terms of simplistic gospel of undifferentiated good will and marsh- mallow philanthropic kisses makes the programmatic (plot) as opposed to the Charles Chaplin and Jack Oakie in The Great Dictator. lyrical (schtick) strains of this picture a 59

onslaughts of Faye Dunaway as Joan Mentor',' for example) and hieratic set- good sequence-the scene where the ups like the seve n little goo ns frieze- parents of all the vagabond tots turn on Crawford, a performance instance framed on different levels; the bizarre in a room the walls of which are covered casting of the mute Elizabeth Taylor as with portraits of American puritans. The unique in our age and without a doubt Fata Morgana (producing the same ef- rest was a lon g audition, intercut wi th a fect as the one she rendered playing He- mea nder, and dated Significantly Now. the most galvanic, titanic, protean, and len of Troy in the Burton Dr. Faustus); There's nothing quite so over as yester- and the return of the great Dorothy Ma- day. exhilarating turn done on the American lone to respectable cinematic work all make this picture a cause to celebrate Robert Downey's Putney Swope screen by a performing woman si nce and promote. Not to mention Anthony (1969) posed as biting satire. This is a Perkins as Evil, living in a rabbit hole in matter of perception, but what I believe Faye Dunaway herself in Chinatown. Brooklyn. Winter Kills is unquestionably thi s picture says is: \" L et me take my a neglected masterwork. It is, on an ob- teeth out and show you a really good Here are the Kenned y boys sitting viously smaller scale , as finel y done as time.\" Yesterday's ersatz anarchy is even The Godfather. more bewildering and depressing than around the fire looking like Princeton yesterday's actual politics. There was lohnHuston andfriend in Winter Kills . howeve r one uncanny facet in this film, lovers. Here's the actor impersonating one that should preserve it for ever. The The Americanization of Emily dwarf who played The Prez looked so Walter Winchell saying, \"I don ' t know (1965) was unnecessary effort. Paddy much like the present incumbent of that Chayevsky was the heaviest waving office-right down to the haircut-as to what's keeping the boys from the Mir- hand in talking-endlessly talking- make the parapsychological and clair- pictures, and the irony atte mpted in this voyant go \"Woo!\" ror,\" and one decides with grim cer- picture never works. (julie Andrews can't iron.) If this one has really been • tainty that it's just as well the powe r of neglected , then we must all keep up the good work. Ralph Arlyck's An Acquired Taste, a print journalism has gone the way of all film about himself, portrayed a decent The Hungry i Reunion (1981) fla s h . brought geniuses Lenny Bruce, Irwin human being, which seemed to prove its Corey, and Jonathan Winters back to the point. There's no point in getting cyni- The last twenty minutes of the film screen. Nuffsed. cal about it, whereas, as a festival watcher and gay mind at work and play, I cease being episodic, become dramatic Michael Ritchie's Smile (1975) do not for a minute share anyone's en- looked like a lot of dress extras who thusiasm for Frank Ripploh's Taxi zum in the good old fashioned (Preston would not sit still for fidgeting to make a Klo , shown at the nineteenth Big Show. portrait. The girl Robin , the one I I found it priggish, self-regarding, and Sturges) way, and deli ve r a sort-of wanted to win, didn't even come close. amateur. The idea that it somehow rep- She looked Eastern seaboard. What was resents an inkling of the spirit of Max punch . But not in time. Torquemada she doing on the planet California any- Ophuls is berserk. Also, the fatuous re- way? plies addressed by the director to the has never been adequately dramatized press corps at Alice Tully Hall were in- Milos Forman's Taking Off (1971) dicati ve of a temperament in way above either. • apart from a flash from Tina Turner, a its head. To excoriate American Gig%, creature of temperament, had only one a workof art, on political grounds, when Buck Henry's First Family (1980) is your home movie is a gestalt sketch- book done at the C-minus level, is, very funny and very serious and very basically, going down on iss ues bigger than yo u can service. like the Sixties British Carry On Up The • lungle. It works up into a kind of rain- The last evening of the \"Movies for bow-mass floor show which attempts a Cynics\" festival was given over to EI Salvador: Another Vietnam, a film catharsis of death anxiety. God bless not so much in line with the spirit of the enterprise as with the idea of preventing Madeline Kahn. She is so like the real the buildup of cynical political impo- tence on the part of citizens in a partici- thing (any First Lady); she is always patory democracy. Whatever it was doing there , it should be widely distrib- only half a bubble off center, and uted and seen by every American who wants to think about the world this thereby just amazing, especially playi ng country thinks it wants to rule and over- rule. It is technically achieved at the a paranoid schizophrenic in regression , highest documentary level by Glenn Silber and Tete Vasconcellos, who are society's most commonplace ambulatory probably as lucky to be alive as their audience is fortunate to view their work. ~l:' functionary. A witty profusion of slightly recherche in-jokes abounds (immense salvific vegetables discovered at the na- tional memorial to Jefferson, the mil- lenarian agronomist oligarch; that kind of thing). Had a good time. • Winter KiUs (1979), a film by William Richert, was the best made and most telling film of this largely spitback festi- val of American satirical work. Richert's easy command of a cinematic grammar full of illuminating and gracile depen- dent clauses places him in the front rank of American technicians. This kind of depth makes a thing like Raiders of the Lost Ark look like punk kakadoodie . The hyper-realism, like that employed by Antonioni in Zabriskie Point, is wildly seductive picto-grammatically. Great zooms, wonderful dwelling on land- scape, pulsating interiors (especially an interior in Tucson, and a vortical cylin- der that recalled the vast chamber of the Id in Forbidden Planet). The portrayal of raging psychotics (led by John Huston) in power positions and the use of flaring symbolic onomastic devices (\"Irving 60 t

STEIN (Continuedfrom page 58) have. e Ken Loach's Looks and Smiles (**) is a bleak chronicle of the lives of three teenagers, set in Sheffield, England, shot somewhat in the realist tradition of the Free Cinema movement. Two bud- dies, Mick and Alan, can't find work and want to join the army. Mick's papa don't allow: soldiers are used as strike- breakers. His mate does join up and returns from Northern Ireland trans- formed into a murderous brute. Mick falls in love with Karen (a lovely per- Jacques Rivette. formance by Carolyn Nicholson, who looks like a young Anna Massey); they run away to join her father in Bristol, who proves of no help-none of the parents are. The film winds up with Mick lining up for a job again. Nothing groundbreaking here, but nonetheless a work of imperturbable in- tegrity, touchingly understated, with starkly detailed black-and-white cine- matography by Chris Menges. No one manages to arrive at any intimacy, even during the love scenes. It is not easy to decide whether this is a social comment or a reflection of Loach's traditional penchant for characters who are rather Eric Rohmer. catatonic. Frank Ripploh. length in these pages in a report from the e Berlin Festival (May-June 1981) and will not analyze it again in detail. What makes Abie run? The Harold On seeing it again here, however, I Abrahams (Ben Cross) of Hugh Hud- was struck by how familiar the spaces were: Frank's apartment, his neighbor's , son's Chariots of Fire (e) has been im- the school , the streets he cruises by car, on foot and in cab. It was not simply pelled to fleetness by the barbs of an because I was seeing the film again. Frank Ripploh has the knack-and it's a anti-Semitism which seems to have prime requisite for a director who has a story to tell-of establishing the topog- been the only blot on Albion's escut- raphy in which his characters move , deftly, quickly, but indelibly. It's some- cheon during the early 1920s. Mission- thing money can't buy for a production : I saw Chariots ofFire twice and the sec- ary Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) runs for Jesus. We are spared the sight of Bud- dhists in briefs because the film-in spite of its makers' anti-establishment statements at the press show-is a paean to the glories of ordered society, fine porcelain, oak paneling, and the Wim Wenders. heel-and-toe uplift of Western religions. Abrahams is rich and handsome; his with the ooze of a trashy synthesized financier pater has Cambridge by the musical score. During the final shot- balls. But the joys of higher learning and scores of bloomered blokes running an affair with a pretty singer turn to ashes along a beach under the end credit titles in his mouth when a couple of anti-Se- -this jumbled movie began to make mitic college masters (the falsity of the sense. The real Chariots ofFire seemed film's conceit about all this is evident in to be rearing its head: a third-rate Hitler Hudson's affectionate handling ofthem) Youth movie. blowout a bit of upper-class snot. e The two stories, that of the galloping If Chariots of Fire is an illustration of Jew and the jogger-for-Jesus, never con- how little can be done with $8 million, nect in any meaningful way. The aca- Taxi zum KIo (****) is a reminder of demic poverty of Hudson's inspiration is how much still can be done with only $4S,OOO-given a fair shake of humo~, most apparent during the crucial racing scenes: jerky discontinuous garbles of brains, guts, talent, and honesty behind slow motion and normal speed , overlaid the camera. I reviewed this film at some 61

COLLECTOR'S CATALOG ond time around was still struck by its La Fin arrives with a murder-suicide NO.2 NOW AVAILABLE lack of topographical fluidity-just one executed with such modest conviction of the reasons for the English film's lack that my principal concern at the end of ONLY $3.00 of narrative drive. the film was to wonder what movie De- pardieu would start working on the next Original I strongly feel that Ripploh and his day. The producers would be well ad- Posters American distributor have done Taxi a vised to cheat a bit on the title when it is disseIVice by adding a few \"explana- released in Japan . It would make a mint rare tory\" titles. We are now informed that there if called A Tale from Truffaut : Dou- lobby cards Frank and Bernd got together again. ble Suicide ofOur Nice Neighborsfrom the This unlikely bit of information was Tennis Court by Lake Grenoble. @ patched on to American prints for the sale purpose of being \"politically cor- The Aviatior's Wife is a talky rehash of CI~~ ,\"@~I)~ rect,\" so that viewers here would not New Wave techniques in the seIVice of a receive too pessimistic and downbeat a trivial anecdote inhabited by poky char- CoUections Bought. Sold, Traded view of homosexual life. No such end acters. There is one exception: Anne- 12·6 p.m. Tuesdays' Saturdays titles appear on any of the copies in dis- Laure Meury (Lucie), an endearing tribution in Europe. Ripploh has been young actress who turns up too late to (415) 776-9988 badly advised. The addition is cynical, save the film, but all too briefly infuses 1488 Vallejo St., San Francisco, CA.,94109 crass, unworthy of the spirit that created the tight-ass proceedings with some the film. The last reels of Taxi are mov- ebullience and charm. A comprehensive ing because we have learned to care a introduction good deal about Bernd and Frank, who In Beau Pere , Patrick Dewaere is a are patently going their separate ways. self-pitying jerk who earns his living as a The Thames and Hudson The earned emotion felt at the break up cocktail pianist. When his mistress is of two sympathetic but incompatible killed in an accident, her 14-yea r-old Manual of lovers is suddenly compromised by the daughter wants to stay on with him cheapshot final note , which can and rather than removing to her real father, Film Editing should be removed. another jerk. She falls in love with De- waere and seduces him. That is the cen- By ROGER CRITTENDEN. This e tral situation ofBlier's new film, which is thoroughly illustrated practical considerably less cheeky than Going manual covers the techniques The French were present in force, as Places and Get Out Your Handkerchiefs . and skills of film editing from the usual, but with an unusually low per- Those were idiosyncratic pictures which types and functions of editing centage of good movies: Fran~ois Truf- took risks and jumped over hurdles with faut's The Woman Next Door (e), surprising grace. Beau Pere is relatively equipment in the cutting room to Eric Rohmer's The Aviator's Wife (e), tame and fairly shallow. Its principal as- the role of the laboratory once Bertrand Blier's Beau Pere (*), Jacques set is a sensual and impudent perform- the film is \"in the can.\" With 76 il- Rivette's Le Pont du Nord (*), ance by Ariel Besse as the aggressive Maurice Pialat's Graduate First (**), teenybopper. lustrations. Agnes Varda's Mural Murals (**) and Documenteur (e), and Louis Malle's In Rainer F assbinder's The Third Gen- - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,$9.95 paper; $17.95 cloth My Dinner with Andre (e). The last eration (1979), Bulle Ogier played a his- three are of American nationality. tory teacher who gets involved with a THAMES AND HUDSON INC. Dept A band of terrorists. In Jacques Rivette's 500 Fifth Ave., NY, NY 10110 In the Truffaut, two dullards (Gerard Le Pont du Nord, which had its world Depardieu and Fanny Ardant), who had premiere at Lincoln Center, she is more Please send me _ _ copy(ies) of MAN- been lovers, are now married to two or less the same character, returned to other dullards. This fabulous foursome life after seIVing a year in prison. She UAL OF FILM EDITING in paperback find themselves neighbors. The exes are picks up with a large punkoid/street sa- caught in the swirl of recurring passion mourai girl (played by the actress's @ $9.95 and / or _ _ copy(ies) in hard- and take to re-balling each other in a daughter, Pascale Ogier) who follows seedy hotel. One of the partners in these her around town, taking karate stances, cover @ $17.95. I enclose check or money proceedings, Truffaut's new leading making grunting kung-fu noises, and lady, Mlle. Ardant, was introduced by lacerating the eyes of faces on posters order for $ . (Please add appli- the director to Festivaliers as: \"the with a switch-blade knife. The story, ifit eighth wonder of the world.\" (I always can be termed that, has something to do cable sales tax.) thought that was King Kong.) Miss Ar- with the recovery of a briefcase full of dant is no wonder at all. No wonder: she documents concerning political scandals Name_______________________ has two expressions. When she smiles, which occurred during the reign of Gis- she is the spitting image of The Joker card d'Estaing. Address___________ __ from Batman; when she pouts, she looks like Frank Ripploh 's transvestite friend Rivette's new film is his most para- IL C_ity_ _ _ _ _S_tate______Z_ip_____ ...1I in Taxi zum Klo. She is much less of an noid exercise since his first feature, the actress than the splendid Veronique Sil- excellent Paris Nous Appartient (1960). ver (Madame Jouve), who recounts this It is rambling, repetitive, and grating; sullen soap opera but, alas, has little else the younger Ogier's antics and unpleas- to do in it. ant voice wear out their welcome on 62

arrival. The film is absurdly long at two COLLECTOR and a quarter hours; there is barel y SWEATSHIRTS enough substance for an hour-long movie in it. And yet, and ye t. .. the man AND TEES is a born filmmaker, and much of Le Pont du Norcfs fluidl y balletic editing style SUITABLE FOR and image ry of Paris street sce nes sticks FRAMING in the mind well after viewing (or endur- ing) it. However undul y protracted its 1f11II\"q~\"~~liIE~~~.~,d!eItafi~l ~f~ro.mrepTreondnuiceel'ds leaps and bounds , it so mehow always manages to land on its feet. ' - - - - - - - - - ' a legendary 1st edition woodcuts for Lewis R'=------~-\"'R. Varda's Mural Murals is a tour of the Carroll. Med Tee Perty (pictured), White wall paintings largel y created by Chi- cano and black artists in Los Angeles RIIbblt, Med Hetter, Allee & Ceterplller, and Venice, California. The Chicano work is in the tradition of huge decora- Jebberwock Mon.ter, Allee & Beby Pip. tions ofJose Orozco and Diego Rivera; there are skull s, skeletons , and lynch- Coct. .u (navy or black); Hitchcock (tan or ings which reflect the imagery of popular Posada prints. At one point, a tattooed black); Gerbo (navy); Stuntmen (full-<:olor on man points to his tattoos, calling them \" my murals.\" There are angels and as- white); Bye Bye Brazil (full-<:olor on white); tronauts , scenes of gang killings and pretty pigs on the walls of a slaughter- RKO (navy). Not Illustrated: Rathbone's house. Also: the Lone Ranger as God, Watergate, anti-cop scenes, Lincoln, Shertock Holme. (5-<:010r on tan); Sketl!lP Kenned y, and Adam and E ve. In short, a lot to look at. Cheplln (full-<:alor on yellow or white); 7th One of the best film s shown during SUI (It. blue or black); Chaney's Phentom : the Festival's early years was Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason (1967), a fea- ot the Opera (white or tan). 10096 coHon regular ture-length virtual monologue. I have nothing against talky movies per se, but cut or, 50/50 unisex french-cut (runs ' I found Malle's two-hour table klatsch between theater director Andre Gregory S, M, L, XL, (Alice Tees available In kids and actor-writer Wallace Shawn an unre- mitting exercise in pufferY. Gregory's ac- too). T-Shirts: $9.95 or 4/$36. Sweatshirts counts of his days and nights mooning'in Polish forests and his adventures as a (white or black): $15,95. Shipping: $1 each crypto-guru-shaman are irksome and unentrancing. For a ll the mumbo- item. Cal. res. add 6% tax. Wholesale inquiries jumbo about the psyche, no masks are lifted from these faces , no blood is felt in'(lted. beneath the skin, no tension sparks this long dinner. These faces do not reward _ Je.n Coe.e.u LITERA·TEE SHIRT CO. Dept. FC11, Box two hours of close scrutiny. Does Malle think he has found a new Falconetti in AMERICAN From Grauman 's Chinese in Hollywood and Andre Gregory? PICTURE the fabulous Fox in Atlanta to the AI Ringling e PALACES Memorial Theater of Baraboo , Wisconsin and New York's Radio City Music Hall - they're all Klaus Mann committed suicide in The Architecture of Fantasy Cannes in 1949, the town where 32 years here! All those enchanting picture palaces of old later Istvan Szabo's dreadful film DAVID NAYLOR Mephisto (e) (based on Mann's novel, that were every bit as glamorous and exciting as which was based on the life of his ex- the movies they housed, David Naylor's sumptu- lover and ex-brother-in-law, the actor Gustav Grlindgens) would win two ously illustrated volume-nearly 300 photos, 70 pnzes. of them in color, and many never before pub- lished - takes you behind the dazzling facades In Mann's book, Grundgens (who into the luxurious interiors of these uniquely committed suicide in Manila in 1963) is called Hendrik HOfgen , and is an arri- American structures, Naylor chronicles their de- viste provincial ham, who through Gor- velopment - from humble origins to the golden ing's protection becomes Director of the age of the 1920s and '30s-while celebrating the Prussian State Theater. This hysterical daring architects and colorful showmen who and revo lting male Eve Harrington transformed them from dreams into realities, 224 pp\" 8 '/2 X 11, iI/us\" $24,95 introductory price until 1213 11 81 , $29.95 thereafter VAN NOSTRAND REINHOLD , Mail Order Service 7625 Empire Drive, Florence , KY 41042 Send me American Picture Palaces for a 15-DAY FREE EXAMiNATION. After 15 days, I will se nd $24.95 ($29.95 if ordered after 12 / 31 / 81) plus local sales tax and a Small delivery and handling charge - or return the book and OWE NOTHING. Name________________________________ Address,_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ City State_ _ _ Zip,_ _ _ __ Offer good In U.S.A. only and subJect to credit department approval. Payment must accompany orders to P.O. box addresses . Price sub- ject 10 change. 23861 ·4 F 7070 63

eventually does achieve greatness in the Beata Tysikiewicz and Leslie Caron in Contract. role of his life-as lephistopheles In Goethe's Faust. Rosary stands Mr. Habryka, a retired The Beads of One Rosary. Stakhanovite mine worker who refuses The novel has its flaw s, but it is to vacate his house and move into a His Americanophilia was a constant: he deeply felt (and deeply ambiguous be- block of modern flats despite pressure neve r left home in Paris without a Stet- cause of the author's love-hatred for its from famil y and party bureaucrats. From son and had changed his name at an protagonist) , and the historical back- this simple situation Kutz constructs a early age from Jean-Pierre Grumbach gro und is informed .\\lith some realitY. rich tale of an individual's successful bat- \"through admiration for an author who tle against the managerial class. Augus- meant more to me than any other.\" His Szabo's West German-H un ga rian 'pro- tyn Halotta, a sort of Wallace Beery pantheon of favorite directors excluded duction takes place in neve r-neve r land , without the tics , is a memorably salty old Raoul Walsh , a traditional object of and is ultimately little more th an yet party. The final scene is an outrageous cinephile cult in France, and included another parable about how naughty it is heart-tugger, a point-of-view shot in the likes of Harold S. Bucquet, Robert to ga in the whole world at the price of which the camera is old Habryka's dog, Z. Leonard , H .C. Potter, Gregory Ra- your ow n so ul. One of the peculiar looking for his master's grave. toff, and Alfred Santel!. things to be learned from it is that in 1934 the Cafe des Deux lVlagots in Paris For what it's worth: in two of the three Melville was past 30 when he made accepted Visa and American Express Polish film s there are unsympathetic his first feature. Refused a union card, cards. characters who drink Coca-Cola. he founded his own production com- pany in order to film Le Silence de la Mer At the press conference, John Simon • (1949). This reserved , ascetic, almost asked the director why Hbfgen was por- trayed as heterosexual. Szabo replied The retrospecti ve section was the that it was important for the audience to highlight of the Festival and was ex- identify with him in order for the film 's tremely well-received. I could not have message to come across. If he we re gay, been more pleased had I selected these no one would. IdentifY-'vvith that films myself, for all three, Jean-Pierre creep? Inscrutable , these Hungarians! Melville's Bob Ie Flambeur (****), Alf Sjoberg's Bara en Mor (Only a Mother) • (****), and Karin Mansdotter (****) have been favorites for years. Poland made a strong showing this yea r with Andrzej Wajda'S Man of Iron Melville's career was exemplary, but (**), KrzysztofZanussi's Contract (**) curious. His early film s were made on and Kazimierz Kutz's The Beads of minuscule budgets; he shot on actual One Rosary (***). The Wajda is an locations, without stars. His production energetic, white-hot film which merits a methods exerted a deci sive influence on long analysis, unfortunately impossible the New Wave, yet once that movement here . It may prove a great weapon , but is was established, he dissociated himself not a great movie . In thi s complicated, from it and went his own way. often confusing wo rk of fiction , docu- mentary footage and an invented story He had been a movie fan since child- do not always successfully coalesce . hood, not of French films but of the Hollywood studio movie of the Thirties. The story is built around the tribula- tions of a reporter sent by officialdom to Gdansk to do a hatchet job on one of the leaders of the radical wing of Solidarity. He comes to sympathize with the man he has been sent to smear, and resigns. It reminded me , of all things , of John Wayne's The Green Berets in which David Janssen plays an anti-war reporter who goes to Vietnam to do a hatchet job on Colonel Wayne and his valiant hawks -and gets converted to the righteous- ness of their cause. Contract is a wry and entertaining fa- ble , set in the milieu of the corrupt War- saw elite. It doesn ' t work in the way Zanussi intended because it's too enter- taining: the Polish party bourgeoi sie has its discreet charm , and it's not too easy to whip up much antipathy towards these sc rewballs. The ponderous ending-a symbolic epiphany in the forest-is the only ph ys icall y beautiful sce ne in the film and its least effective one. At the center of The Beads of One 64

actio nless film-there are three c harac- ~ ORDER DIRECT from We've Got the}HOT'1Jnes te rs, only o ne of whom spea ks - resem- PHOENIX HOUSE on VIDEO CASSEnE bled no other French movie of th e Box 345 period. Years late r, its direc to r declared: Tampe, Arizona 86281 FROM (]) ~~I~!~~FY1~~~ \" I so me times read 'Me lvi lle is being Bresso nian' . . . I'm so rry, but it's Bresson SCI'fHIIJ Plays ALIEN who has always been Melvillian.\" SLEUTH \"THE DUKE\", screenplay by J.D. Marshall, is M*A*S*H In 1953, Melville attempted a co n- based on the official biography of John THE OMEN ventio nal com me rcia l film made within Wayne - during the early years - including NORMA RAE the syste m : Quand tu liras cette lettre. It how he got that famous nickname, \"The MUPPET MOVIE starred Juliette Greco as a nun and was a Duke .\" 94pp ., 7\" x 8 %\", Illustrated. $5.00.. . THE GRADUATE critica l and comme rcial failure. Its own CAPRICORN ONE director hab ituall y spoke of it with di s- \"THE MAN WHO NEVER DIED: EDWARD SILVER STREAK tas te, but this racy melodrama is full of VI\", screenplay by James Danelz, is the sen- BREAKING AWAY richl y outrageous situatio ns and co ntains sational true story of the man behind the THE ONION FIELD the last screen appea rance of th e sub- mask, who was the real Shakespeare - ·pro· BOYS FROM BRAZIL lime vete ran stage actress , Yvon ne de jected as the epic 10 hour BBC film produc· SOUND OF MUSIC Bray. It deserves reexami nati on. tion starring Albert Finney. 258 pp. , 7\" x JESUS OF NAZARETH 8%\", Illustrated. $15.00 . ... ... . .. .. . . . . PLANET OF THE APES Bob Ie Flambeur (1955)- aftambeur is POSEIDEN ADVENTURE someone who pl ays onl y for high stakes SCI'fHln Study -was based on an o riginal script by and hundreds more for sale Melvill e , w ho was ...vell acq uai nted with \" BLUEPRINT ON BABYLON,\" a major first at affordable prices the Mo ntm artre und erwo rld milieu, fo r work of its kind on the screenwriters who as a yo uth he had been a me mbe r of the gave the real backbone to Hollywood films - Send $3.00 for our complete catalog Sa int L aza re gang, and something of a interviews with 18 writers, including Richard hoodlum himself. Brooks, Dalton Trumbo, George Seaton, (215) 722-8298 Philip Dunne and James Webb. 336 pp., 7\" x Like Dracula and the Wini Shaw (in 10%\". $8.50 ........................ . th e Lullaby of Broadway numbe r) of \"SCREEN WRITER SERIES TAPES\" (as Gold Diggers of /935 , Bob Montagne advertised in the December 'SO issue of sleeps by day an d li ves at nig ht, in all- American Film) The Mammoth 30 hour stereo nigh t cafes o r playing ca rd s until dawn. tape legacy, live and in·depth career inter- H e is a pure , good-hea rted so ul who had views with 12 writers (90 min . each) and 12 writers (60 min. each) - such important been a me mbe r of th e bande a Bonnot names as Charles Bennett, Noel Langley, John Michael Hayes, Howard Estabrook - during the Thirties, and waxes nostalgic 24 tapes in all. $15.00 each tape or $300.00 for abo ut the good old days of the pre-war all 24 tapes . . . .. . .. .. .. .... ... ..... . . Paris und eIVvo rld . (Implicit in the film is the co rruptin g influence of the Gestapo \"The blockbuster movie book of the year:' onF re nch gangste rs, many of w hom had -Publishers Weekly collabo rated with the azis.) FROm S[ARFA[ TO S[ARLE'T The story hinges on Bob's atte mpt to _ . \"\",r crack the safe of the Deauville cas ino; its d e noueme nt is a nea tl y deto nated se ri es American Films in the 1930s of ironies. The film is less a thrill e r than ROGER DOOLEY a comedy of characte r and manne rs. Roge r Duchesne is pe rfect in the role of In one mammoth volume--a close up of nearly every movie the agt,g ga mbler, planning o ne last big released in the .1930's-the memorable film s and the forgettable ones, shot; he makes of Bob a tri stful , the stars , the directors, the studios, the truth , and the trivia about the dignified ge ntle man croo k, full of love richest, most productive ten years in American film history. and warmth , yet the c haracte r is neve r se ntim e ntali zed . Duchesne had been \"Bravo...an essential reference work on Hollywood's Golden Decade some thing of a minor star before th e wa r, and a popcorn feast of nostalgia:'-judith Crist but had drifted into th e unde IVvo rld and had been forced to leave Paris because Nearly 700 pages, 180 rare photographs, $25.00 of unpaid debts. l\\lelville was obliged to as k pe rmiss io n from Duchesne's gang- OHARCOURT BRACE JOVANOVICH ste r credito rs for him to be allowed to re turn to Paris and ap pea r in the film. H e 757 Third Avenue , New York 10017 late r became a car salesman. In Breathless. Godard tips hi s hat to Melville 's film. Je an-P aul Be lm ondo tries to cas h a check and is refused.H e says: \" Your friend Bob Montagne wo uld cash it for me .\" \" H e's in jail ,\" is the re pl v. 65

The score by Eddie Barclay and Jean cinema of the Thirties was quickly cir- rich social background. Boyer contains a wonderful menacing Only a Mother is warm, Karin Miins- thumpy orchestral passage during the cumscribed by unadventuresomeness safe-cracking rehearsal scene, and a lam- dotter (1954) is cool, a superb intellec- bent free-flowing set of jazzy variations and conformity as production concen- tual construction whose shape was not for piano which accompanies the charac- really visible here: the prologue was ters on their nocturnal rounds. trated on frivolous comedy and adapta- missing from the print shown at Lincoln Center. As were Le Silence de La Mer and Les tions of boulevard plays. Sjoberg En/ants Terribles. the film was shot by Sjoberg conceived the prologue as a Henri Decae. Although the production preferred to return to the real theater na'ive legend or fairy tale pantomime, cost of this impeccable movie was less and shot it in a Gevacolor which had than one-tenth that of the average where he could express himself fully. been worked to give the effect of a hand- French film ofthe period, it is one ofthe tinted MeIies film. In it, Karin, in Cin- best-looking black-and-white pictures He was named Director at the Royal made in Europe in the Fifties-a tri- derella garb, is seen sweeping the floor umph for Decae and for Tri-X film Dramatic Theater and confined his of her father's house. In a forest scene stock. The exterior just-before-dawn Pi- she is chased by bears. She takes refuge galle scenes are matchless. Decae and work to the stage for the next decade. in a sort of Chinese shadow chapel, Raoul Coutard became the two camera- where she is discovered by Prince Erik, men-in-chief for the New Wave, and He returned to films in 1940 and in heir to the throne, who, struck with her although Coutard is the better known of beauty, takes her to court. The central the two, Decae's work for Chabrol, 1942 directed HimlaspeLet (The Road to section comprises scenes from Strind- Malle, and Truffaut, and the color films berg's play Erik XlV. Erik has become he later lit for Melville more than Heaven). This rich and grim fantasy, king and is bent on marrying Elizabeth fulfilled his early promise. of England. When his suit is refused, his with roots in Swedish silent film and epilepsy and dementia flower into Did Melville fulfill his? He built his spasms of paranoia. He marries Karin, own studios (they burned down in German expressionism, was an the commoner, is deposed by the Sture 1967), made nine movies after Bob Le dynasty who place his brother on the influence on Carl Dreyer's Day o/Wrath. throne. In the epilogue, Karin is exiled FLambeur. and died in 1973. One of to England. them, Leon Morin. Pretre (1961), with made the following year. Belmondo as a priest who enjoys excit- Karin was shot by Sven Nykvist and ing girls, but doesn't sleep with them, is Ingmar Bergman's script for Hers (Tor- designed by Bibi Lindstrom (Persona. certainly memorable. With his later The Naked Night), who managed to turn films-Le Doulos (1963), Le Deuxieme ment. 1944), about a teenager rebelling vast handsome expanses of castle and Souffle (1966), his first real box-office corridor into claustrophobic spaces success after twenty years as a filmma- against a sadistic Fascist schoolmaster, where ballets of intrigue are choreo- ker, and Le Samourai (1967)-British graphed. critics picked him up as a major director, was that of an angry young man. Al- while in France, on the whole, they This oddball and furiously provoca- were viewed as a decline. Whatever the though Sjoberg was already in his forties tive film is several things: a demoli- case, he never made a tighter, more tionary critique of the moral basis for sympathetic, invigorating, and friendly when he directed it, his deep sympathy royalty; an answer to the question of film than Bob Ie Flambeur. Fortunately, what happened to Cinderella after she the excellent print seen at the Festival for Bergman's screenplay is evident. married the Prince; Sjoberg's Ivan the will again be on view at The Museum of Te\"ibLe; and a chilling portrait of Strind- Modern Art as part of the Museum's Hets's stature has, if anything, grown berg, who wrote a good deal of himself \"Rediscovering French Film\" show. into the role of the mad king. As Erik, over the years. Jarl Kulle pulls out all the stops. It is not • a role that could be played with the stops Iris and the Lieutenant (1946) reunited There were two \"premier\" graduates left in. in the class of 1922 at Stockholm's Royal the young lovers of Hers. Mai Zetterling The director's best-known film Dramatic Academy. One was Greta Gustafsson, later known as Garbo, the and AlfKjellin. This lovely and Schnitz- abroad is his great adaptation of Strind- other Alf Sjoberg. Sjoberg started a ca- berg's Miss JuLie (1951). None of the five reer as a stage actor, but after seeing two leresque melancholic romance would be films Sjoberg made after Karin has been films of Sergei Eisenstein he underwent released in the U.S. The best of these is a worthy contender for future retrospec- Wild Birds (1955); the screenplay for The a conversion. Last Couple Out (1956) was written by He entered the world of cinema with tive honors. Bergman . Sjoberg was killed in a traffic accident in Stockholm on April 17, 1980. passionate convictions in 1929; his first Only a Mother (1949) depicts the cot- William K. Everson has called him \"pos- film was the last great Swedish silent sibly Sweden's finest director.\" I can't movie, The Strongest. a hypnotizingly tar's way of the stataren-gypsy-Iike disagree. In any case, on the golden edited survival saga of seal hunters in the chain which stretches from Mauritz Greenland Sea. It makes Flaherty's Na- communities of farm workers who were Stiller and Victor Sjostrom to Bergman, nook look like a Blackglama ad. Sjoberg is the central and not the weak- employed on agricultural estates and With the advent of sound, Swedish est link. ® were lent hovels in exchange for work. They were protected by no law or union; when too old to work, they were thrown out oftheir homes. \\ The film begins at the turn of the century. A free-spirited girl, Rya-Rya (Eva Dahlbeck), bathes in the alto- gether in a stream and scandalizes the community. Her fiance rejects her. She marries a man she does not love. Even- tually disillusioned with all men , she devotes herself to her children with an obsessiveness that molds this free soul into an elemental life force. Dahlbeck is the most regal peasant ever to be seen on the screen, with ad- mirable hair, proud eyes, splendid bear- ing, and a chin that could crack an iceberg. The actress's progression from shimmering virgin to grave earth mother is breathtaking: a great performance. The swirling vigorous lyricism of the first reel-the cottar's dance-gradually makes way for the bovine motions of clods besotted by dispiriting toil. The film breathes with dark energy, and with astonishing compression encompasses decades of personal drama set against a 66

NEW RELEASES FROM NEW YORKER FILMS \" A CHARMING FILM ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND SENSUAL PLEASURE . .:' - David Denby New York Magazine COCKTAIL ~. MOLOTOV l ~.\", ..•. /..... . .. '\"...:. ' ..;\".\".'\" -_...... . A 111tmhebdvlrDeicatnoef K01U'Y.'_. l\" \", \" Peppennlnt Soda \"\\ .'. ,~. ~.\"i 1\\ / \"~~ ~t . • . . . . . 'I. A P utflrtfYl SOU.1re F ilr\"ll5 rplt--'.-1~t, © 1081 \"TltE ONE GREAT AUSTRAUAN ALM TliATI HAVE SEEN.\" - Pauline Kael The New Vortle, fAf 0SCHfPISIS THE CHANT OFJIMMIE 8LACKSMITH ANewlorker frim) Reledje © 1980 Plus: Istvan Szab6's Confidence, Wolfgang Petersen 's Black and White Like Day and Night, Jacques Doillon's La Drolesse, Peter Handke's The Left-Handed Women, Yves Versin's Les Petites Fugues, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's In a Year of Thirteen Moons. Coming Soon: Louis Malle's My Dinner with Andre, Eric Rohmer's The Aviator's Wife, Krzysztof Zanussi's Contract, Fernando Trueba's Opera Prima, Pascal Thomas' Heart to Heart. CALL OR WRITE FOR OUR 1981 SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS CATALOGUE. ~1fl!fb1~a 16 West 61st Street, New York, NY 10023 (212) 247-6110

usc CNEMArrv STUDIES - AMERICA'S OLDEST UNIVERSITY FILM SCHOOL Arthur Knight & Alfred Hitchcock at USC To the Editor: UnAmerican Activities pursued one The manner in which Richard unstated but readily perceived goal: the B.A., M.A. & Ph.D. establishment of thought control in the Degree Programs in Schickel, under the guise of reviewing U.S. It is my contention that those who HISTORY, CRITICISM & Victor Navasky's book Naming Names were friendly witnesses before this (FILM COMMENT, March-April 1981), Committee were helping it achieve its THEORY turned his article into a vicious slander goal, and that those who opposed it of some members of the Hollywood were helping to preserve the right to Located near Hollywood, the film Ten will not rest quietly with some of think and speak freely, and the right to making capital of the world, with those who are still around and able to associate with other citizens for legal access to all of L.A.'s remarkable reply. I leave it to others to refute the political ends, whatever they might be. film archives and resources. inaccuracies and character assassina- Schickel's ignorance of this fundamen- tions slung at them; my own personal tal fact taints everything he says be- -Internsh ips at Studios, Film Lib- pain comes only partly from him, cause he is examining historical events raries, Film Journals and News- through his ignorance. with one eye shut. papers. Scholarships and Teaching Assistantships available after the Although Navasky mentions my Secondly, Schickel applauds Dalton first year. name in relation to the event quoted, Trumbo's \"noble\" thesis that \"in the Schickel does not, yet the readers of final tally we were all victims.\" This - Doheny Library's Cinema Special Navasky's book cannot help making thesis appears on its surface to be com- Collections, one of the world's the attribution, since Navasky specifi- passionate and wise. In fact, it erases largest motion picture archive. cally does. I have brought the matter to the reality of what people stood for and Navasky's attention; he plans to make what they publicly did. If we accept - Norris Theatre, equipped for 16, 35 the correction in the next edition of his that everyone on every side of a serious and 70 mm with a Dolby Sound book, if there is time. social struggle is a victim of history, we System . are reduced to a formula that is mean- So for your readers. A reference is ingless and permits neither moral nor \"Excellent.faculty, including Arthur made by one of the Ten, quoting from political judgments. It is irrelevent that Knight (Hollywood Reporter) and Navasky's book, who admittedly pla- Schickel, following Trumbo, provides a Marsha Kinder (Film Quarterly). garized a quotation from the famous La list of \"extenuating\" personal reasons Pasionara in Spain during the Fascist why various witnesses cooperated with -Guest Lectures regularly given by overthrow of the legitimate govern- this malign Committee. Were those such film luminaries as Orson ment. She said to members of the Lin- who opposed the Committee free of Welles, Robert Altman, Martin coln (International) Brigade, before personal problems? Of course not! Scorcese, Bernardo Bertolucci, they went into battle at a crucial point: Haskell Wexler and many others. \"It is better to die on your feet than live What is most interesting about this on your knees!\" I did plagiarize that thesis is that Trumbo himself once ab- For more information, send the line, for the use of a Rabbi who with his jured it. In his volume of letters, Addi- Warsaw ghetto Jews was being taken to tional Dialogue, there is one written to ...c.o.u..p.o.n..b.e.l.o.w..:......................... Nazi ovens on a cattle train in the film, Guy Endore, on Dec. 30, 1956 (pages None Shall Escape. I stole it honorably; 363-376): \"It appears to me that the Director of it was more eloquent than anything I curse upon the informer which charac- Cinema-TV Studies could write, fit the moment perfectly, terizes all religions and all philosophies and aroused the passive, broken Jews lies at the very heart of the social com- University of to a heroic moment of resistance. pact: that without it there can be no Southern California decent relationship anywhere for any- Los Angeles, CA 90007 How Navasky could conceivably body: that informing as a crime is worse have transferred that to a \"high-school than murder or rape, since the mur- Name: ________________________ football coach urging his team to vic- derer and the rapist harm only specific tory\" can only be explained by him. victims while the informer poisons and Address: _______________________ And now here, by you. destroys the spiritual life of whole peo- City/State/Zip: ~_ _ _ _ _ __ -LESTER COLE ples. \" Trumbo was a man I cherished and I want moer information aboutyour: To the Editor: I will limit my remarks to two funda- admired, but fourteen years after he BAD MAD 0Ph .D. wrote that letter he jumped into a philo- mental matters regarding the article by sophic swamp in delivering his \"only 0Please send me an application form Richard Schickel, \"Return of the Hol- victims\" speech. Schickel has now lywood Ten. \" jumped in after him. The first is that Schickel has no -ALBERT MALTZ awareness of the central issue involved in the events he discussed. During all of its years, the House Committee on 68

LAMONT (Continuedfrompage 20) WHEN YOU DON'T learn, a new set of rules, and a different HAVE TO ASK WHAT IT COSTS. way of looking at money. The rules can be different in each state, but the game .,......_A~C~ is the same: Monopoly for real. IMPO~ hand made since 1868 The techniques of approaching pro- spective investors were discussed at an ft.4HAIC~ IFP-Filmex seminar. Susan O'Connell, co-producer of Tell Me A Riddle, shared THE ULTIMATE CIGAR her fundraising experience: \"We had thirtv-five investors or investor groups. The 'project was registered in California, with a completion bond deal. My advice is, go to your friends and family first. If you can't convince them, either forget it or learn how to convince people. Even- tually, you'll have to go out to convince strangers. To convince someone, you yourself have to believe in the project. And for the investor, there has to be a payoff other than money. They have to want to make the investment for a rea- son other than an investment. Lastly, ask people why they've turned you down, and use their reply to help you ask the next person.\" Attorney Ed Mosk, a lawyer and an expert in independent feature financ- ing, has this advice: \"You have to do your homework, to be financially pre- pared, to think through your project. If you have an actual registered produc- tion, you must have a prospectus, and that's expensive. But much of the basic information that goes into a prospectus need not be prepared by a lawyer, so you can save money there. The prospectus is more professional. It protects you from lawsuits and from violating the Corpo- rate Securities Act. It must have some- thing in it that outlines the risks. Basically, it has to say, 'You're crazy if you invest in this project.' \" Rob Nilsson, co-director of Northern Lights, is now working on a new feature, On The Edge. Says Nilsson: \"My next feature involves long-distance running. That's an upper-middle-class phenome- non, so I'm trying to get money from them. It's also a film about growing up male, and male sexual baggage. You have to get investors who are interested in the subject matter you're dealing with. I use a pre-production press kit: it's a slick folder, and inside are single loose sheets. There's a synopsis of the film, and press clippings from my previous films. The whole thing has a glossy look which gives the project an aura of Suc- cess-that I am a successful producer.\" Many of these suggestions can be ap- plied to fund raising for a non-profit pro- ject. Some independents have financed their films with a mix of gifts and invest- 69

ments , but this has generally been done launching an independent feature. A on an ad-hoc basis. Gifts and grants can festival screening is often the first time a be accepted through a non-profit organi- filmmaker can see his film with an open- zation, which a filmmaker can set up on minded audience. his own. A number of filmmakers are Film buyers representing theaters trying to devise ways to formalize these and TV networks attend certain festi- mixed funding methods. vals , as do scouts from other festivals. There are myriad potential sources of Some festivals award pri~es which can financing, One filmmaker who has a film enhance distribution potential. Northern Frederick King Keller's in the planning stage is reputed to be Lights, for instance, won the Camera TUCK EVERLASTING getting more than halffrom an investing d'O r (Best First Feature) at the 1979 Arab sheik. Fred Keller, of Tuck Ever- Cannes Festival and Grand Prize at the Tuck Everlasting is based on the Christopher lasting , got half his funding from a major 1979 Figueira da Voz Festival in Portu- Award winning novel by Natalie Babbitt. It is the story of Winnie Foster. living at the turn of toy company. \"They just liked the pro- gal; it shared First Prize at the 1980 US the century, who discovers in her fathe(s wood a handsome, daring and mysterious ject,\" Keller explained. \"All they got for Film Festival. boy of seventeen, Jesse Tuck. Jesse and the rest of his family hide an awesome and dan- it was one showing on the TV station, Certain festivals also operate full- gerous secret connected with a spring which wells up in the forest. introduced by their president.\" John scale markets. The Cannes Film Festi- Sayles financed Return of the Secaucus 7 val has earned its huge reputation partly with the proceeds of the screenplays he because of its market, where industry \"Well shot on lovely locations in New York's sold to Roger Corman and other Holly- representatives from all over the world Adirondack Mountains, this fantasy tale Is a wood \"independents.\" Even the cast buy and sell. The Berlin Festival has a diverting picture that succeeds as tradi- lIonal storytelling,\" -Variety and crew can help finance a film by de- two-year old market; Los Angeles has a 16mm, color, 100 minutes ferring all or a portion of their salary until one-year old market, which is held right the film is completed and generating before Filmex. income. Advances from distributors can Festivals do not have equal status, help to finance a film , a common prac- and aren't equally well-attended by tice in Hollywood. This method will be press, audience, or buye rs. The infor- rare until independent features gain a mation gathered by the Independent more predictable box-office record. Feature Project can be useful. Film- makers with festival experience share it Distribution through the IFP with those new to the game. Raising the money is one thing; mak- In the U.S., film festivals are not as ing the film is another. But neither well-established as they are in Europe. means anything if the film can't be seen. Although new festivals are springing up So distribution is the key to financial all over the country, it will be many years success-and the -freedom to make an- before an equivalent film appreciation other movie. develops here. Neither of the two main Distribution means getting the film festivals in the United States, New York exhibited, at profitable terms , in every in September and L.A. Filmex in April, possible venue-on movie and televi- have shown many independent dra- sion screens in the U.S, and abroad. matic feature films. Richard Roud , di- Publicity, marketing, and exhibition rector of the New '\\-ark festival, says, \"I are the intertwined branches of distribu- think the main reason why fewer good Jon Else's tion. Publicity can mean getting yo ur American independent fiction films get THE DAY film on the cover of Newsweek, having made is that they cost a lot more money. AftER TRINlTV the film 's box office receipts reported in A documentary can be made with a J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb Variety, or the ultimate rave review, word handful of people-director, camera- Nominated for this yea(s Academy Award, of mouth. Marketing is the sales strategy man/woman , and an editor-whereas a The Day Alter Trinity is a powerful new docu- mentary feature about the physiCist J.Robert adopted for the film. Exhibition is fiction film needs actors.\" The New York Oppenheimer (1904-1967) and his role as the \"fathe(' of the first atomic bomb. everything that happens after the film Film Festival shows only twenty to \"History in the making.\" arrives at the theater. thirty films each year. In the past five -Vincent Canby, New York Times Publicity starts even before the film years, the main festival has shown 16mm, color, 88 minutes itself, as production money is being twelve documentaries and four inde- @ CINEMA VENTURES Ken Stutz raised , and continues with on-location pendent American features . (The 1979 1569 Spruce Street Berkeley, California 94709 stories. But the big push comes with a \"American Independen ts,\" separate (415) 843-8392 screenable print. For many indepen- from the main festival, was organized dent filmmakers their publicity starts by and co-sponsored by the IFP.) In 1981 , taking their fresh film cans to film festi - however, the number of American inde- vals and markets. pendent documentary features jumped to eight, including such widely diver- Film Festivals gent films as Soldier Girls, Hopper's Si- lence, and Vernon , Florida . Roud adds, Film festivals are often the key to \"There are more good documentaries 70

than there are dramas. Documentaries Roud to like your film. You have to cre- festival prizes and acclaim at festivals in are easier to make and to finance. Their ate a mythology about you r film, get it Europe, it still takes some skill to nego- quality has really gone up in recent talked about within the film community. tiate sales to European TV. Some coun- years. as well as their quantity.The prob- Even a small screening, such as at the tries pick up and broadcast the TV lem is that their directors haven't Whitney Museum, can be important be- signals of other countries without paying worked that much with actors, and it cause they send their schedule around royalties. Films have to be sold to these shows.\" the world.\" countries' own stations first, because if they've already shown them from an- In 1981 , the massive Filmex showed One problem with festival exhibition, other country's signals, they won't want ninety-two new dramatic features from though, is the difficulty of sustaining thirtv-seven different countries, but momentulJ1 . Festivals won't put on to buy them. The possible worldwide only· two independent American fea- more than one or two extra perform- TV take is over $150,000 and rising, tures: Union City, The Dark End of the ances, if any; unless the film opens im- with German TV paying up to a third of Street. Like New York, Filmex showed that. But not everyone gets the full sum . more American documentaries than mediately after the festival closes, the dramas. enthusiasm of audiences and critics may Opportunities for European theatrical wane. Nevertheless, a film can leave a exhibition of independent features are There is one American festival that festival with good press, invitations to growing. There is a European art house specializes in American independent other festivals, and occasionally an federation, CICAE, now trying to coor- features: the US Film and Video Festi- award. It's a start. dinate distribution in several countries. val in Park City, Utah. This is a small, There are service companies and agents interesting festival held each January TV, and What TV in the business, but many are looking for and benefitting from Park City's moun- standard Hollywood fare . Still, search- tain location, friendl y atmosphere, and Most independent dramatic filmma- ing carefully for an agent who is really compact geography. Just three years old, kers have found European festivals, Eu- enthusiastic about a film can payoff. the festival has cash prizes and showed ropean TV, and, to a lesser extent, eight independent American dramatic European theaters, to be receptive to It is still hard to sell in foreign territo- films the first year, six the second year, and appreciative of independent Ameri- ries. Each country has a different lan- and eleven this year. For the past two can features. Films that do poorly in the guage, customs, holidays, censorship years, panel discussions have paired United States may do well abroad. Ger- laws. The work is complex, expensive, Hollywood experts with independent man TV, as Mark Rappaport found, has and the geographical distance is too filmmakers . proved to be the most responsive of all. great for a filmmaker to exercise the kind of personal control possible in the At the IFP-Filmex panel on publicity, But even though a filmmaker may United States. But sometimes it works. filmmaker Steve Wax made these sug- have built up a good reputation through Approximate total foreign sales to date gestions on festival strategy: \"Get ad- for Northern Lights are $200,000, and for vice from people who've been to other Alambrista! $250,000. festivals. Each festival has a different personality. Don' t go to the wrong one. Increasingly, filmmakers are aware Take a lot of materials, press kits, that there is money for them in domestic posters, video cassettes, prints. Find TV. At present there are many compet- someone there who knows all the people ing distribution methods, and the ulti- you need to meet, and get them to intro- mate impact of video disc, pay and cable TV is limited only by imagination and duce you to them. Otherwise you'll access. It is far from certain that the new never be able to match faces up with technologies will help independents. names. Go to the theater where your Some observers believe that indepen- film will be playing and check the qual- dents will have to work hard for recogni- ity of the sound there. Put up your tion in any system that becomes widely posters even when they won't let you. used. For the moment, however, cable Make sure the buyers see your film . Set is the best domestic TV market for inde- up special screenings for them if you pendents, and others are coming up fast. have to. It is difficult to make contacts with feature buyers at festivals, except For several years, the Independent at Cannes.\" Cinema Artists and Producers (leAP), founded by Charles Levine, Marc Lynda Myles, former director of the Weiss, and Kitty Morgan, has been suc- Edinburgh festival, counseled: \"The cessfully marketing short films to cable. Cannes Festival is a jungle. You have to (ICAP acquired 100 new titles in 1980 have a French-speaking person to help and added a number of national and lo- you with the French bureaucracy. Un- cal cable service companies, and their less your film is officially in the festival , first subscription TV company, to their it's hard to get attention. Learn on small list of clients.) Theircontracts with cable festivals first. Go to Rotterdam , Edin- companies call for payments based on burgh, or Hof [West Germany]. Some the number of subscribers. As the cable festivals have staff press people to help companies grow, therefore, so does you, but don't expect things to be done ICAP's income and its payments to film- for you. Not all festivals are equally well- makers. Research Director Morgan is organized. Get someone like Richard now assembling a package of feature 71

films to offer to clients. ble to another. Sometimes reviews are of The Whitney Museum's screening A simil ar organization, the Ind e pen- great help , sometimes they don't do a program is very prestigious, but the the- thing. Obviously, it helps when a film ater seats only 175. The Museum of dent Film and Video Center in gets a good review, but I know of too Modern Art's theater seats 420, but the Bloomfield , Colorado, is a yea r old. It many examples of things that we like films are shown only once or twice-and assembles packages of films which are that have gone on to do badly. I prefer except for the New Directors series distributed only to PBS station s. It, too, not to think about it-it could become (where Secaucus 7 had its premiere), its is assembling a program of independe nt a bit inhibiting when I' m writing a programs are rarely reviewed in The features, but PBS pays less than other re vi.ew.\" Times . Karen Cooper's Film Forum video distribution systems, and is itse lf opened as a new twin theater at 57 Watts wid e ly thought to be on the way out. Its There is no doubt that a Times review Street in September 1981. One theater film buye rs openly lament their inability affects the audience in New York , but is programmed by Cooper, the other by to compete for good product because there is some debate over its va lue in Dan Talbot's New Yorker Films. they can't pav competitive prices. oth er parts of the cou ntrv. Na ncv Sher, head of the AFI's new E~hibitio~ Serv- The Film Forum shows all types of Most independent filmmakers have ices, points out that \" in Phoenix, no one independent films: experimental, docu- found distributors for their dramatic fea- reads The New York Times. The local mentary and fiction, both feature-length tures who also handle cable rights. One c ritics are more important. \" Karen and shorter. Over the past two years , such distributor is N u-Image Company, Cooper, director of The Film Forum, Cooper has shown The Kirlian Witness, run by John Quinn and Lynn Dah lgren . speculates that \"a Times review may Marc Obenhaus's Nomadic Lives. Quinn started out distributing UC LA have little impact on audiences in other George Kuchar's The Devil's Cleavage. student films. Nm.v N u-Im age has nine parts of the country, but I think it has a and Scott and Beth B's super-8 feature , feature s, mostly foreign, but including big impact on the critics outside of New The Offenders. Cooper's new theater will The Decline of Western Civilization and York. A filmmaker's chance of getting be showing many independent films, in- The Haunting of M. Quinn feels that \"A the loca l critics to review hi s film after cluding, this December, Robert good to excellent film can make money The Times has sa id something good about Gardner's Clarence and Angel, a lovely on cable in this countrv if its budget is it are that much better. And I think it's film about one young ghetto resident under $200,000. It's pretty easv to con- the local criticism, the local publicity, teaching another to read. tact the TV buyers. There are only that probably goes a longer way for a about eighty of them.\" film.\" \"The kind of deal I'll have with inde- pendent filmmakers, \" says Cooper, Auhe IFP panel in ew York, the In order to get a New York Times re- \"will allow them to share in the box cable and pay TV buyers from Show- view, a film mu st play at the lew York office receipts in a way they couldn't time and Warner-Amex agreed with Su- Film Festival, The Whitney Museum, formerl y. We'll be offering a $1000 guar- san Eenigenburg, director of ICA P, the New Directors/New Films series at antee for a feature over a two week per- when she pointed out that \"Features The 1\\luseum of 1\\lodern Art, or at one iod against thirty percent of the box have mainly been defined by their box of several spec ialized theaters including office, whichever is higher. If the film office visibility.\" Alternate TV wants The Thalia, The Public Cinema, and makes more than $3,400 in two weeks, what Hollywood has, but doesn't want the Film Forum ; ora regular commercial it's going to earn more than the guaran- to pay for it. David Wyler, a programmer theater. Opening in a regular theater can tee, and that's not difficult. It's a no-risk for On TV explained to an IFP-Filmex do more for a filmmaker's ego th an for situation for the filmmakers. Film Fo- audience: \"Films are more va lu ab le to his pocketbook. Fran Spielman of First rum takes all the risks and pays for pub- the cable companies after wide theatri- Run Features shuddered: \"A New York licity. If additional screenings are cal release because of all the advertising opening ca n be an absolute horror. \" Ka- warranted, we'll add them in the weeks the release generated.\" Most indepen- ren Cooper gives details: \"When you that follow the initial run. It is my inten- dent films don ' t yet get wide theatrical open a film in New York, the costs for tion , of course, to push for as large a release, but sales to cable companies can publicity alone run from $25,000 to response as possible. still be very fruitful. $40,000 and up. There is a tremendous range of how much yo u have to earn to \"What we're saying to the filmmaker The New York Experience break even in a commercial theater, and is this : 'If yo u do very well, you'll get it starts fairly high. Probably the least several thousand dollars, and you won't There used to be a standard theatrical expensive, in New York, is the Quad. have to take any risk. Whether you do distribution pattern for a \"cl ass\" Holly- The 'nut' -the amount needed to oper- very well or not, vou'll get a lot of public- wood film: open first in New York, the ate the theater-is $3,300 a week in ity .and yo u'll ~each people for two base for the national magazines and for each of their four theaters. You get about weeks.' The other options invoke such the culturally powerful New York Times. thirty showings a week. The most great financial risks that their advantages Hollywood no longer follows thi s pat- expensive is the Ziegfeld Theater: are miniscule. \" tern automatically; and independents $ 19,800 a week, just to break even. Up- are finding that opening a film in New per East Side movie houses have a nut of But New York need be neither the York is expensive, difficult, and unnec- between $5,000 and $ 12,000 a week. beginning nor the end of an indepen- essary. Some independents still do it if Most independent films which get the dent film's life, as witness the success of they feel the reviews will be helpful to opportunity to be shown 'commercially Northern Lights. which has grossed their distribution. come out even or lose a little money. Of $600,000 without ever playing theatri- course, there are exceptions: Return of cally in New York. (For the Northern Times critic Vincent Canby says, \"I the Secaucus 7 did sell-out business at Lights story, see \"Decoration of Inde- don ' t really know whether reviews have the Quad for more than four months. pendence, \" FILM COl\\Il\\IENT, May- any effect. 0 one film is reall y compa- June 1980.) Other filmmakers are rable to another, or one review com para- turning the distriburion process upside 72

down, making their European TV deals suade theaters to book one of my films, Spielman is proud of the First Run first, and their theatrical distribution in they like it, they'll take another. There Features s howcase that ran at the Art the U.S. last. are four hundred bookers around th e Theatre in Greenwich Village: \"We ran This is the experience of Fred Keller country who will play my pictures in seventeen films-seven dramas and ten with Tuck Everlasting. To expose the film their theaters . They're in urban areas, in documentaries-from March through to buyers, he took it to festivals and suburban shopping centers and around June. The shortest showing was one other markets, including the 1980 IFP colleges and universities. A film's suc- day, the longest was two week s, for market in New York. Several months cess is hard to predict. It depends on so Northern Lights. It was a collecti ve cam- later, Keller \"had deals pending in ex- many things: the weather, the competi- paign to overcome the cost of opening cess of $250,000\" to domestic and for- tion on campus or on TV. Some of my films in New York individually. We also eign TV-nothing theatrical. By this pictures are in 35mm. I can get more hoped that, as in our bookings , the films May those commitments had increased bookings for them-Northern Lights, would help each other.\" to just under $500,000, and Keller had War at Home (an awa rd-winnin g docu- The overall group show was far more two representatives, one in New York mentary), and ALambristaf This com- successful than they had dared hope. and one in Europe, completing the ne- pany is run by the filmmakers. I'm just a The Dozens, Alambrista!, Northern gotiations. Di scuss ions about theatrical consultant. I also advise th e producers of Lights, Imposters , The Dark End of the distribution were just starting. Although all dates , and they can get as involved in Street all made strong showings-strong Keller has received offers from theatrical the exhibition as they like. Some run enough for the series to be booked into distributors since he first released his benefits with local groups , some go get theaters in Cambridge, San Francisco, film, he considered those offers too low. interviewed by the papers or TV. It all and Berkeley this fall. Many observers, So he waited, did some hard negotiating depends.\" including IFP's Michael Goldberg, see furp~<ableand Europ~nTVrigh~, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ came back to theatrical distributors with The Fourth Annual more clout than he had originally, and made a fair deal with Cinema Ventures UNITED STATES early this fall. By building on success rather than rushing at the first offer, Kel- ler and several other directors have done FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL better with their films than they them- selves had expected. Says Keller: January 22-31, 1982 / Park City, Utah \"There is a market for our films properly handled in the right environment.\" • The Vanguard Event for Independent Filmmakers. Independent Distribution • Join Sidney Pollack, Roger Ebert David Ross and a cost of hundreds for this ten-day major festival. Just exactly what constitutes proper • Be a part of the Premieres, the Parties and Workshops handling is different for each film. Not in this born again boomtown, Park City, Utah . every filmmaker has the kind of energy For further information on this years festival contact: Hanson, Nilsson, and Schulberg mobi- Teri Gomes 1177 East 2100 South Salt Lake City. Utah 84106 lized in the distribution of Northern (801) 487-8571 Lights. Some filmmakers want to hand over all the work to a distributor and make just a few personal appearances. Others are willing to do much of the pro- motional work themselves. There aren't many regular distributors who know how to promote independent features. So last year a small group of filmma- kers got together and founded First Run Features. The company is managed by Fran Spielman,a woman with thirty-five years' experience in the film business as a booking agent. Her job is to persuade buyers who work for theaters or theater chains to play the films she distributes , and she is nothing if not enthusiastic: \"This is going to be a very viable company. We're an alternate motion pic- ture company. We offer choices. The people I sell to have heard my voice on the phone for years. They trust me. The individual filmmakers haven't been able to get bookings at all, or as good a deal as I can get if they did get bookings . I per- 73

the formation of First Run Features as a A significant step on the part of indepen- dents, and expect the company to make DAVID a big mark on the distribution world. HOC ~ One distribution effort, The New POSTER American Cinema Showcase, is co-spon- sored by the Independent Feature Pro- This poster designed specially ject and the AFI's Exhibition Services for the New York Film Festival Office. A different selection of indepen- is reproduced in a 27 x 39 inch dent features will be shown in five U.S. cities. The films will play in regular the- format on high quality paper. aters for a week in each city and will be Individually signed posters are $100, promoted through the joint effort of lo- unsigned $30, including postage and cal groups, the AFI, and the IFP. The Showcase played in Washington D.C. handling. and Houston in June and October, and will run in Atlanta at the Rhodes The- I enclose $ for __ signed __ unsigned ater, December 4 to 11 , and in New Orleans at the Pyrtania Theater, January 19th New York Film Festival posters 1982. Please make check or money order payable to: Mail this coupon to: During the week the films are being shown in each city, a series of receptions The Film Society of Lincoln Center - The Film Society and seminars will be held for local film- Name _____________________________ Of Lincoln Center makers, media representatives, and others to focus on the problems faced by Address ____________________________ 140 West 65th Street independents. The IFP's Marian Luntz explained the seminars: \"This aspect of City/State ________________ Zip _________ New York City 10023 the showcase project is most significant. By bringing together film professionals Day Time Phone ________________________ on this regional basis and presenting films that come from all over the United Please allow six weeks for delivery. States, we hope to inspire support and activity on local and national levels. \" The showcase represents a renewed interest in independents on the part of the American Film Institute. Director Jean Firstenberg, who succeeded George Stevens, Jr. in early 1980, has made several key changes in the AFI, of which the office of Exhibition Services is just one. In the coming months, the AFI magazine, American Film, will fea- ture more articles on independents; the video community will be helped with conferences and exhibitions; and the Center for Advanced Film Study will relocate and change its curriculum in ways designed to give further assistance to independent filmmakers. The Future Is Now The films exist. They can be seen. Now they need a constituency of movie- goers to support and be enriched by them. On the premise that there is an untapped audience for quality indepen- dent features, the IFP and others are planning market research studies. They figure that the competition-the Holly- wood product-isn't what it used to be. At the IFP-Filmex seminar, Sundance's Sterling Van Wagenen said, \"The indus- try is a dinosaur. This whole seminar is a I74

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Academy Award testament to the fact that things are be- • Nominee ginning to break down.\" Talent agent Harry Ufland added: \"The studios are There always has been a shuttle of \"Best Feature Documentary\" digging their own graves. Instead of people and ideas between Hollywood dealing with management to teach them and the independents, and there always \"A fine tribute to a hectic, pained, to control budgets, they are relying on will be. Independents will go through buoyant, decent, exceptionally pre-sales to TV, which means that the Hollywood , labor there for awhile, get networks are dictating to the studios.\" radiant life.\" discouraged, and return to being inde- Robert Coles Larry Jackson, director of Acquisi- pendents. There was a time when a tions and Marketing at Samuel Goldwyn young filmmaker would scrape the The New Republic Studios, feels that \" Hollywood got reac- money for a feature together, get some tionary because the people in control sort ofsmall distribution, make his or her \"The compleat guide to a perceptive were not entertainers, they had no feel way to Hollywood and stay there, miser- for the creative side. But there are peo- able, because there really was no alter- critic, a sensitive author, and a ple in each of the studios who realize native way of working. Now there is an that the old ways are no longer viable. \" alternative. Filmmakers are organized, complex man.\" Claire Townsend, Twentieth Century- information is exchanged, skills are Fox's Vice President in charge of Pro- sharpened. The simple existence of a Village Voice duction , told the seminar that \"a certain reasonable alternative is encouraging to laziness has set into the studio system. a great many filmmakers. \"A brilliant new film-a perfect Warner Bros. lost money distributing monument to the subject.\" Girlfriends because of their distribution Some independents will go to Holly- and marketing techniques. The time is wood , stay there, and flourish. Those Media Digest right, things do have to change. We that remain independent will take from need [the independents' ] help in de- Hollywood what they need: financing, \"A strong, insightful look at an excel- signing these changes.\" creative skills like directing, a little ex- pertise in publicity, marketing and dis- lent writer.\" We know changes are coming when tribution techniques, and perhaps stars. the production chief of a major studio If Robert Redford thinks enough of in- Writer's Digest asks independent filmmakers for help at dependents to create the Sundance In- a public seminar covered by the trade stitute, he may also be willing to act in \"A pearl! \" press. Some of those changes were out- their films. Perhaps other thoughtful lined by Goldwyn's Jackson, whose Hollywood actors may be interested. Media and Methods former job was managing the innovative Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge: \"I When the dust clears there may be \"Superbly crafted.\" cherish the fact that I spent nine years in two film industries: one for the mass exhibition. I learned so much about how audiences, churning out pop pap that Film News people decide to buy tickets. The audi- cost tens of millions of dollars, and seIl- ence is going to move in the direction of ing it like deodorant to people who really Undeniable dramatic power.\" opening themselves up to these new don't care about it; the other for L.A. Times kind of films. Independent filmmakers thoughtful audiences who appreciate a are going to make an impact. What I'm well-told tale with an interesting cast of \"A sparkling documentary!\" hoping is that independent filmmakers characters, perhaps an examination of Boston Globe will bring their unique vision to projects current or past social conditions, made more people will be interested in .\" efficiently on a small budget, and exhib- \"Startling, revealing, absorbing.\" ited in theaters and video outfits known Although the future for independents to present quality fare. Washington Post may seem rosy, Jonathan Sarno says it isn't so: \"When independent filmma- In time, if these films make the cover * \"A significant subject-an im- kers go to Hollywood, they lose.\" He of Newsweek, or sweep the Academy cites the track records of Martin Brest Awards, they may change the very char- pressive fllm.\" (from Hot Tomorrows to Warners' Going acter of filmmaking in the United States in Style), Claudia Weill (from Girlfriends permanently. But whether they do or Booklist to Columbia's It's My Turn), and David not, the films will endure and will be Lynch (From Eraserhead to Paramount's appreciated. As John Hanson says: ...vallable from: The Elephant Man). In each case , Sarno \"We're not trying to totally restructure or argues, the Hollywood Film was inferior replace the existing system. We want to JAMES AGEE FILM PROJECT to the same director's independent fea- give people a choice about what kind of BJX 315, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417 ture. \" Unless Hollywood changes its films they see-films that are entertain- values and really gives independents ing, that are thought-provoking, that (201) 891-8240 freedom ,\" Sarno says, \"independents speak to some of the confusions that will make films of lesser quality under people feel in trying to survive on the Hollywood's system than they are capa- planet right now. And if we all work ble of. Independents will never become together, we can have a significant im- a 'farm team' for Hollywood, but will pact on the direction of American film- always remain truly independent.\" making. We can help create an American New Wave-a change in American cinema.\" ~ 76

The Passion ofDavid Bordwell by Jonathan Rosenbaum might place Bazin and Burch at logger- closeup: \"In order not to relinquish the heads with one another. tableau , Dreyer turns the face into a The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer by theatre. \" David Bordwell, 251 pp., illustration, Disciplined and expedient about index, University of California Press, what he takes and uses from others, The latter emphasis naturally be- $29.50. Bordwell is nothing if not pragmatic comes a central aspect of Bordwell's about his approach to formal film study. analysis of La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, In relation to Roland Barthes's dis- He includes criticism of his own pre- which is effectively and copiously illus- tinction between readerly and writerly vious work-an early appreciation of trated with frame enlargements taken texts, David Bordwell-an academic Citizen Kane in this magazine (Summer from the Danish Film Archive's print of marvel who organizes huge masses of 1971) extensively auto-critiqued in the the movie-making this chapter, like material with an uncanny sense of what anthology Movies and Methods and a cri- most of the others, in part an impressive can or can't be assimilated-should be tique of his Filmguide to La Passion de slide lecture. Yet it seems characteristic considered a master of the teacherly Jeanne d'Arc (Indiana University Press, of Bordwell's approach that sixteen of text. His ambitious textbook written in 1973)-if this brings him any closer to the twenty-six pages in this chapter pass collaboration with Kristin Thompson, the clarity he seeks. before something as basic to the film as Film Art: An Introduction (Addison-Wes- blood is mentioned, and in a seemingly ley, 1979), has rightly been regarded as a Many will not be able to afford the unconscious way that could hardly be landmark by many film teachers-a sort hefty cover price. A beautiful object more oblique: \"The [spatial] uncer- of Whole Systems Catalog of formal reg- with large-format pages, beautifully il- tainty at work within each composition isters in film that, like Dudley Andrew's lustrated throughout by many well-re- bleeds across most of the cuts as well.\" The Major Film Theories, makes a good produced frame enlargements, this may bit of relatively difficult material accessi- be the most attractive of all the Univer- One senses that, for Bordwell's joan ble to students. Almost alone among sity of California Press's book-length di- of Arc, the \"bleeding\" of a formal attrib- prominent American film academics, rector studies to date, and belongs on ute counts for more than the actual Bordwell has drawn a lot of sustenance the shelf of every devoted Dreyer lover. blood shed by Falconetti; and a few from the Russian formalists and more In contrast to Tom Milne's useful and pages later, he's discussing joan herself contemporary critics such as Noel Burch introductory The Cinema of Carl Dreyer as a formal device. In the chapter on Day to articulate a modernist position that, (A.S. Barnes, 1970) and Mark Nash's of Wrath , \"Christianity becomes for better and for worse, has avoided interesting if semi-unreadable Dreyer Dreyer's most powerful formal device,\" most of the ideological debates that his (BFI, 1977)- the latter is tactfully and while in Ordet, \"If a character typically predecessors have engaged in. justly reviewed by Bordwell in a lengthy possesses traits, desires, wishes, jo- . footnote-The Films of Carl-Theodor hannes is not a character. He is, rather, a In part because he has always defined Dreyer represents the first coherent ex- formal need of the text, a manifestation his terrain as exclusively academic-a position in English of Dreyer as a mod- ofOrdet's demand for Christian legibility teacherly approach, in more ways than ernist filmmaker, and for this reason and narrative closure. \" one-Bordwell has not had to worry alone stands as a seminal study that about those questions of national, exis- other critics and teachers will build The setting up and subsequent solv- tential, and vocational identity that have upon. plagued most other for!.Dal~sts during ~.,; this century, including Carl Dreyer him- The early chapters show Bordwell at self. (His applications of Burch, for his best in setting down many of the FREE Catalog instance, have always tended to domes- formal parameters and conflicts in ticate and deradicalize aspects of his Dreyer's work. There's the use of a book _ _ _I'I!I Illustrated. The Greatest work, making them part of an accept- or privileged text (beginning with the Selection of Things to Show on able syllabus.) Defining his turf as the first shot of The President, Dreyer's first super 8, 16mm, slides, range of his library, readers, and stu- film) to guarantee \"a teleology of clo- videocassette and VideaDisc. dents, he doesn't mind working out a sure\" that frames each film as \"a model Movies from Laurel & Hardy method for studying japanese cinema of the adequacy of token to truth.\" Chaplin to Goldie Hawn and that accommodates some of the critical Then there's a fascinating account of the All guaranteed to be categories of Andre Bazin as well as construction of space in the early films, satisfadory. Our 54th year of Burch-as he demonstrated at a confer- and the way that Dreyer's use of the providing great movies to own. ence in Milwaukee a couple of years ago painterly and theatrical tableau conflicts -even if this entails gliding past with narrative logic and the latter's con- SEND FREE CATALOG TO: philosophical or politcal issues that trol of cinematic space. This takes on an Name _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ additional interest and coherence when Bordwell gets to Dreyer's use of the Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Citv ______ State _ Zip _ _ Bl.c..h ...... Fll••• Inc. Dept. 606 1235 W. 5th St.. D.venport.IA 52808 77

ing of problems becomes the focus of director who only managed to make Significantly, it's only when Bordwell each chapter, with the Dreyer film often arrives at the incomparable Gertrud that serving more as the medium than the about one feature per decade during the the limitations of his approach come to message of this process. Consequently, the fore. The passionately personal, in- the strength of Bordwell's analytical entire sound period, one wonders transigent, and relentless aspects of the grids and systems steadily grows as the film seem to confound him because he book progresses, while the films them- whether Dreyer might have appreciated can't rationalize them sufficiently into selves appear at times to shrink. In the formal properties, so he tends largely to chapter on Vampyr, there's virtually no the joke himself.) On the other hand, limit his view of the film to reductive discussion of the film's soundtrack or the criticisms. \"Thus the film's tempo cre- incestual lesbian lust that's mixed with Bordwell's flair for visual analysis re- ates a constant supply of dead spots,\" he the thirst for blood-two facets of Vam- writes at one point, \"from which no nar- pyr I find fundamental-but the anal- mains striking and provocative: rative information is forthcoming.\" It yses of many of the more ·complex and appears that he's defining a dead spot as ambiguously motivated camera move- \"One should not infer... that a chia- a moment \"from which no narrative in- ments and the diverse problems they formation is forthcoming.\" This is a nar- roscuro is statically laid across the decor, row piece of circular reasoning that fails raise are particularly illuminating. '*' to acknowledge the meditative dimen- like the traceries in Morocco or the web- sion of the film, a clear indication of Occasionally, Bordwell's absorption in Dreyer's oft-expressed desire that the his systems can make for a little uncon- motif in Suspicion. In Day of Wrath, the spectator reflect on what he or she sees scious humor. One chapter begins, \"Day and hears-think about the lines, for of Wrath is probably Dreyer's most pop- blocks of light and darkness become vis- instance, and what they mean-and not ular film , which already indicates some- merely be concerned with formal thing of the problems it poses.\" (As a ible only when a character passes classifications. ·On the sequence in which Leone, after being through them. The steepness of many The problem with Bordwell's ap- attacked, is carri ed into the chateau , I had occa- proach to Gertrud is that it simply draws sion to make so me related observations of my light sources is often not apparent in the a blank. Bordwell argues that the film own , in my review of the film in the August 1976 possesses an \"emptiness ... [that] per- Monthly Film Bulletin-which I mention here static shot; figure movement is required sistently seeks to negate meaning\"-a only because Bordwell and Nash both fail to do so curious hypothesis, insofar as emptiness in t'heir bibliographies. Considering the fact that to reveal the unexpected patches and is not ordinarily assigned a particular they both also omit any refererence to James Agee or Robert Warshow on Day of Wrath, though , I angles of illumination. Even as simple a consider myself in good company. task as crossing a room or going to a door ... becomes a stream of optical transfor- mations, inducing the characters to penetrate a three-dimensional network of darkness and light. This effect is most pronounced at night, when the rectory's volume is shot through with a light evok- ing the supernatural. As Anne circles Martin, she passes through thicknesses of light and shadow which are never pro- jected onto the floor but which endow her with an aura at once mysterious and sexual. \" • America's greatest actor now plays his most memorable role: himself. FONI)A MY LIFE As Told to Howard Teichmann The \"American Olivier\" holds nothing back in this first authorized biography, written with best-selling author and playwright Howard Teichmann and based on more than 200 hours of candid taped interviews. Here is Fonda reliving his legendary career-from \"The Grapes of Wrath,\" to international acclaim as \"Mr. Roberts,\" up to the about-to-be-released \"On Golden Pond,\" in which he stars for the first time with Katharine Hepburn and his daughter, Jane. Here, too, is Fonda talking openly for the first time about his private life: his five wives, his famous children, his friends and fellow actors. Filled with colorful anecdotes and fascinating insights into the world of the professional actor, FONDA is a four-star entertainment for every film connoisseur. With 32 pages of photographs, many never before published. @NALBOOKS H402 $15.95 At all bookstores or send $15.95 plus $1 .50 postage & handling to NAL. PO Box 999, Bergenfield, NJ 07621. mm.NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY 1633 Broadway, New York, NY 1 0 0 1 9 _ 78

goal, much less a persistent one. But at refuses to be a great film. We cannot call Gertrud are mlssmg four or five inter- this point in the argument, Bordwell is it a masterpiece (or a failed masterpiece, titles of rhymed verse that were re- also willing to assign knowledge to a film or a failure). Gertrud's empty intervals moved by the distributor; indeed, to all rather than to a filmmaker or a spectator: declare it to be categorically against appearances, Bordwell seems unaware \"Knowing our desire to make the very that these intenitles ever existed-and absence of meaning significant, Gertrud masterpieces. \" continue to exist outside the U.S. does not actually destroy meaning; in- But the denial and refusal in this case stead, the film proffers meaning only to It's on this basis; in any case, that withdraw it.\" are Bordwell's, not Dreyer's. A little Bordwell can deny Gertrud the frame- later, he's revening to his (formerly per- work outlined above. I would argue, Yet in fact, this is precisely what suasive) argument about privileged texts first, that the intenitled rhymed verses Bordwell does in his book-a sly bub- in Dreyer's films; only this time he's which mark the play's five-act divisions ble-dance that Gertrud cannot be ac- using his incomplete knowledge of -which are \"spoken as if by an interior cused of performing. And the critic's Gertrud as a means of cinching his case, voice to the heroine,\" as Elliott Stein has withdrawal of meaning becomes, in ef- and I'm no longer convinced: \"Earlier noted in his invaluable piece about the fect, a denial of Gertrud's towering and Dreyer films had halted us at the thresh- film in the Spring 1965 Sight and Sound unbearable achievement. Thus a num- old of a secure authorial voice, a non- -constitute precisely this framework; ber of isolated elements in the film are diegetic master meaning: the authorial second, that beautiful as these intenitles reduced to cliches through Bordwell's word of the intenitles (Vampyr) , Dies are, at least in my memory, they alone limited descriptions of them; these re- Irae scroll (Day ofWrarh) , trial transcript scarcely suffice to conven Gertrud from ductions are then labeled cliches so that and final title (La Passion de Jeanne an \"empty\" film into a fully rounded we can be asked to consider Gertrud's (as d' Arc), or Christian scripture (Order). \" masterpiece. opposed to Bordwell's) \"use of the cli- che.\" Within the space of a couple of According to Bordwell, Gertrud So there's more at stake here than a more paragraphs, this has developed \"refuse[s] to situate its narrative within minor textual dispute. The problem, I into the position that we can't accept the such a framework.\" But while he has think, is that, like Stein and Milne, I'm film as either a tragedy or a work of even taken the trouble to compute the more concerned with Gertrud, while the religious an; ergo, as the old civil rights average shot length of Day of Wrath- final concern of Bordwell, like Nash, anthem puts it, We Shall Not Be 14.8 seconds, to be exact-he is more appears to be with his own methodology lackadaisical about discussing Gertrud in and categories. This is a brilliant book, Moved: \"In large pan, the film's persist- its integral form. Despite his assurance but Dreyer is a filmmaker who (fonu- ent emptiness denies the richness and at the book's beginning that \"As much complexity, the meaning and pleasure, as possible, this book returns to the orig- nately) goes well beyond brilliance- of ambitiously humanistic an. Gertrud inal texts,\" he has not taken the trouble and Gertrud a film that goes well beyond to discover that all American prints of Bordwell. ® TECHNICOLOR: a landmark second only to sound. Now. finally. abook unfolds the amazing story - and SHOWS us the key films. In glorious Technicolor. of course. Moviegoers now take vivid, faithful color for • HUEe Tethnicolor Fil?,o&raphy: year by year,1917-1979...every full-Ienllh granted. But in the mid-30s, the fitst Techni- feature plus representat,ve short. and tartoons PLUS feature film. with tolor color full-length feature left film patrons breath- .equentes...produttion tompany and/or dl.tributor...•ome 3,000 film.! • less. (Can you name the picture?) Tethnicolor Atademy Award•• Tethnitolor Milestones. The Tethnltolor Tethnique: a fasdnatinE look at how it really works. Biblio&raphy • Index of over 1,300 entries Many a leading lady, a beauty in black-and- white, worried about how she'd film in color. EVERYTHING YOU EXPECT IN A VOLUME THAT SELLS IN STORES FOR $30 But a new breed of stars was waiting just off camera, eager to make the technique their ticket • 72 magnificent photographs in full, glorious color SAVE to glory. They were born for Technicolor: • 232 striking stills, candids and posters in black-and-white * • 213 giant 8=!'4 x 12 pages ~. 2 8 . 2 1 BETTY GRABLE. 27 films, in which hardly IL..!5' anyone noticed those gorgeous gams. But ~ r c f \" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,the 28th was in Technicolor. * I ..,./ftlftTAI. . . . . . . . . CU. IRITA HAYWORTH. Good-looking in black- Fe-14 I Iand-white, a beauty in Technicolor. 15 OAKLAND AVENUE. HARRISON, N.Y. 10528 * ICARMEN MIRANDA. The Brazilian IBombsheII was a Technicolor Extrava- Iganza, all by herself. I enclose S1.79. Please send me the $30 Glorious o\"ered a new Club Selection plus Aliernates every 4 Technicolor postpaid and at no additional charge. At weeks (13 times a year/ in the Club bulletin, PREVIEWS. If I want the Selectoon, will do nothing and it will come the same time, please accept my membership 10 the automatically. If I want an Alternate or no book at all MovielEntertainment Book Club. agree to buy4 books I'll notify you on the handy card by the deadline date over .the next 2 years at regular Club prices , plus speCified . If I should ever receive a Selection without shipping and handling. I may resign alter bu·r ing and having had 10 days to decide ill want it, I may return it paying for 4 books at regular Club prices. Will be at Club expense and receive full credit. PREVIEWS also includes news about my fellow members and their omffeenrte, dtheatmleaajosrtit2y00atb2o0o-k3s3%ondimscoovuienstsapnldusesnhteiprtpaining- hobbies. I am welcome to send in similar items about and handling . For every book I buy at the regular price, myself and my interests. PREVIEWS will publish every I receive one or more FREE Bonus Book Certificates such item it deems suitable, FREE. which entitle me to buy many books at far below regular Club price. usually at m-8O% discount. I'll be * ILUCILLE BALL. \"Technicolor Tessie's\" Iflaming red hair, now her trademark, was If Irst dyed for Du &1rry Was a Lady - . Icolor. In * IMARIA MONTEZ Sultry s'lren of Exotl'c ITechnicolor Fantasie• s. I . IGlorious Technicolor is, without question, the Idifferent film book of the year. In fact, it's the NAME (please pnntJ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ I only book to give us, in words and stunning -----------------l..::------ __=____.:._=.Jpictures, the whole story of movies in color. ADDRESS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 79

o The Film Society of Lincoln Center sical film historian. Credit is being of- Producers (ICAP), a non-profit me- dia organization, is seeking indepen- and the Department of Film of the Mu- fered by several colleges and dently-produced films and tapes for a videodisc project. The project, funded seum of Modern Art announce the 11 th universities. Total course cost is $180. by the National Endowment for the Arts with additional funding from the annual presentation of New Directors/ Deadline for applications is November New York State Council on the Arts, will produce a one-hour optical vi- New Films, a series of feature films by 30. For more information contact: Bob deodisc which will contain a variety of short segments related to the arts. The promising directors from the Klineman, 533 West Hallam Street, As- disc is intended to be of interest to a general audience, but the targeted United States and other parts of the pen CO 81611. 303/925-6360. group will be young people between the ages of 9 and 14. Films or tapes world whose work is not yet well-known The YWCA of the City of New York submitted should be of broadcast qual- ity and should have all rights cleared for here. The series will be held in April, is sponsoring a day long program enti- home video use. Further information may be obtained from: Kitty Morgan, 1982, in New York City. Persons inter- tled Networking for Women in the ICAP Videodisc Project, 625 Broad- way, New York NY 10012. 212/533- ested in submitting films should con- Performing Arts to be held on Satur- 9180. Entries must be postmarked by January 6, 1982. tact Adrienne Mancia, The Museum of day, December 12 from 9:30 am to 4:00 CONTRIBUTORS Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New pm. Women in all areas of the perform- Raymond Durgnat lives in London York NY 10019 (212/956-4206) or Jo- ing arts (including acting, dance, di- and wrote Studio-Vista 's Sexual Alienation in the Cinema . Stephen anne Koch, The Film Society of Lin- recting, and filmmaking) will have an Harvey is Inquiry magazine's film critic; he co-directed the exhibition coln Center, 140 West 65th Street, New opportunity to meet one another, dis- \"Rediscovering French Film\" at The Museum of Modern Art. Diane Kaiser York NY 10023 (212/877-1800). cuss new ideas for creating jobs in the Koszarski is the Film Series Coordi- nator at the American Federation of A History of the Film Musical arts, initiate a mutual support system, Arts and the author of The Complete Films of William S. Hart. Austin course is being offered in Aspen , Colo- and attend instructional workshops. Lamont, the former Managing Editor. of FILl\\I( COMMENT, is the President of rado at the Aspen Institute, January 4- Fee for the conference is $15 and regis- the Boston FilmlVideo Foundation. Mark Mancini is a cinema professor at 22, 1982. There will be fifteen tration must be confirmed at the YWCA the University of Southern California. James McCourt has two upcoming weeknight evening sessions with ex- before December 4. For more informa- books from Knopf: Time Out of Mind, the sequel to Mawrdew Czewchwz, and cerpts from significant films followed tion contact: Elsa Rael (212/421-9375) Kaye Wayfaring Stories. Lawrence O'Toole is a New York-based freelance by a full-length feature each night. or Elinor Coleman (212/877-3084). writer. Jonathan Rosenbaum is a film critic for the Soho News and is preparing Guest speakers will be on hand as well YWCA of New York City, 610 Lexing- a book with J. Hoberman called Midnight Movies. Elliott Stein is a as the instructor, Bob Klineman , a mu- ton Avenue, New York NY 10022. freelance writer specializing in film. ---------------; Independent Cinema Artists and WRITERS! SELL YOUR SCRIPT! STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT FREE DETAllSI AND CIRCULATION (Act of August 12,1970: Sec- PHOTO CREDITS How to type and how to sell your film or TV scnpt' Author tion 3685. Title 39. United States Code) 1. title of works as P.A. for major Hollywoort film slurtio anrt revertls Avco Embassy Pictures: page 1 (2), lalest info on selling and typing scripts. publication Film Comment 2. date of filing October 1, Write: JOSHUA PUBLISHING COMPANY 1981 3. freq uency of issue bimonthly 4. loca tion of 49 (1),50 (1) , 52 (1),60 (1). Photo by known office of publication 140 West 65th St., New Deborah Beer: p. 28 (1). Photo by Cori .on s......1...., s••. l.,.l, ..ellyweM, (e. \"046 York NY 10023 S. loca tion of the headquarters or general Wells Braun: p. 23 (1), 49 (1), 61 (6). busi'less offices of the publishers 140 West 65th St., New York NY 10023 6. names mId addresses of pub- Cinema 5: p. 52 (1). Les Films du lisher, editor, mId business manager: publisher The Film Losange : p. 29 (1). The Fund for Society of Lincoln Center, 140 West 65th St., New Theatre and Film: p. 18 (1). Photo by York NY 10023 editor Richard Corliss, 140 West 65th Bob King, The Duluth-News Tribune St., New York NY 10023 business manager Sayre p. 1 (1). Photo by Diane Kaiser Maxfield, 140 West 65th St., New York NY 10023 7. owner The Film Society of Lincoln Center, 140 West 65th St., New York NY 10023 8. known bond- Koszarski: p. 55 (1) , 56 (1). Photo holders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning courtesy Diane Kaiser Koszarski: p. 56 or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, (1) , 57 (1). Photo courtesy Austin mortgages or other securities none 10. extent and nature of circulation : Lamont: p. 17 (1), 18 (1), 19 (2). Photo by Muki , Twentieth-Century Fox: p. .nctunl number of copies of single 23 (1). Museum of Modern Art/Film issue published nearest to filing datf average number of copies each issue Stills Archive: p. 1 (1), 10 (1),33 (1), 34 (1),35 (1),36 (1),37 (4),38 (1) , 39 (2), during preceding 12 months 40 (1) , 41 (3), 42 (2), 43 (2), 44 (1), 45 (3), 46 (1) , 47 (1), 59 (1). National Film • Archive , London: p. 45 (1). New York a. total number copies printed (net press run ) 29,898 31,503 Film Festival: p. 31 (1) , 58 (1),64 (2). Courtesy David Overbey: p. 6 (1). b. paid circulatioll 1. sales through 8 , 421 Paramount Pictures: p. 23 (1), 24 (1), 16,883 Photo by Marcia Resnick: p. 15 (1), 20 dealers and carriers, street vendors 25,304 (1). Photo courtesy Jonathan Sarno: p. 16 (1). Twentieth-Century Fox: p. 2 and counter sales 8,237 500 (1). Warner Bros.: p. 30 (1), 51 (1). 25,804 Zenith International: p. 31 (1). 2. mail subscriptions 16,118 2,545 c. total paid circulation 24,355 3,154 31 ,503 d. free dist ribution by maiL carrier or other means-samples, complimentary, and other tree copies 500 e. total distribution (sum of c and d) 24, 855 f. copies not distributed 1. office use, left-over, unaccounted , spoiled after printing 1,763 2. returns for news agents 3,280 g. totnl(st,m ofe&f- should equal net press rutl shown in a) 29,898 80

W.A.B.NING! \"For Hom.e Use Only\" Means Just That! By law, as well as by intent, the pre-recorded video cassettes and videodiscs available in stores throughout the United States are for home use only. Sales of pre-recorded video cassettes and videodiscs do not confer any public performance rights upon the purchaser. The U.S. Copyright Act grants to the copyright owner the exclusive right, among others, \"to perform the copyrighted work publicly.\" (United States Code, Title 17, Sections 101 and 106.) Even \"performances in 'semipublic' places such as clubs, lodges, factories, summer camps, and schools are 'public performances' subject to copyright control.\" (Senate Report No. 94-473, page 60; House Report No. 94-1476, page 64.) Accordingly, without a separate license from the copyright owner, it is a violation of Federal law to exhibit pre-recorded video cassettes and videodiscs beyond the scope ofthe family and its social acquaintances-regardless of whether or not admission is charged. Ownership of a pre-recorded video cassette or videodisc does not constitute ownership of a copyright. (United States Code, Title 17, Section 202.) Companies, organizations and individuals who wish to publicly exhibit copyrighted motion pictures and audiovisual works must secure licenses to do so. This requirement applies equally to profit-making organizations and nonpr.ofit institutions such as hospitals, prisons and the like. Purchases ofpre-recorded video cassettes and videodiscs do not change their legal obligations. The copyright owner's right to publicly perform his work, or to license others to do so, is exclusive. Any willful infringement of this right \"for purposes of commercial advantage or private lmancial gain\" is a Federal crime. The first offense is punishable byup to one year injail or a $25,000 lme, or both; the second and each subsequent offense are punishable byup to two years injail or a $50,000 lme, or both. In addition, even innocent or inadvertent infringers are subject to substantial civil penalties. The companies listed below support the: Film Security Office Motion Picture Association ofAmerica, ·Inc. 6464 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 520 Hollywood, California 90028 (213) 464-3117 Ifyour legal rights were violated you would insistupon seeking appropriate redress. So will the undersigned companies. • Avco Embassy Pictures Corp. • Twentieth Century-Fo][ Film Corporation • Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. • lIagnetic Video Corporation • Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment • United ArtiBtB Corporation • Walt Duney Productions • Universal Pictures, a divilJion of • Walt Duney Home Video • I'ilmwaya Pictures, Inc. Universal City Studios, Inc. • lIetro-Goldwyn-lIayer I'ilm Co. • IICAVideocassette Inc. • Orion Pictures Company • IlCA Video4ilJc, Inc. • Paramount Pictures Corporation • Warner Bros. Inc. • Paramount Home Video • Warner Home Video Inc.