VOLUME 20 - NUMBER 05 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1984

Filmographies CORNELL WOOLRICH (1903- EN NOIRITHE BRIDGE WORE BLACK 1968) 1929 CHILDREN OF THE RITZ (John (Franc;:ois Truffaut) from his novel. 1969 Francis Dillon) from his novel. 1934 LA SIRENE DU MISSISSIPPI/MISSISSIPPI MANHATTAN LOVE SONG (Leonard MERMAID (Franc;:ois Truffaut) from his Fields) from his novel. 1938 CON- novel Waltz into Darkness. 1982 fAI VICTED (Leon Barsha) from his story EPOUSE UNE OMBRE/I MARRIED A \"Face Work.\" 1942 STREET OF SHADOW (Robin Davis) from his novell Married a Dead Man. CHANCE (Jack Hively) from his novel JIM THOMPSON (1906-1976) novel The Blunderer. 1969 ONCE You The Black Curtain. 1943 THE LEOPARD 1956 THE KILLING (Stanley Kubrick) additional dialogue. 1958 PATHS OF KISS A STRANGER (Robert Sparr) from MAN (Jacques Tourneur) from his novel GLORY (Stanley Kubrick) co-screenplay. her novel Strangers on a Train. 1977 Black Alibi. 1944 PHANTOM LADY (Ro- 1972 THE GETAWAY (Sam Peckinpah) DER AMERlKANISCHE FRE UND/THE bert Siodmak) from his novel. MARK OF from his novel. 1975 THE KILLER IN- AMERICAN FRIEND (Wim Wenders) THE WHISTLER (William Castle) from from her novels Ripley Underground and SlOE ME (Burt Kennedy) from his his story \"Dormant Account.\" 1946 novel. FAREWELL, My LOVELY (Dick Ripley's Game. 1982 EAUX PROFONDS/ DEADLINE AT DAWN (Harold Clurman) Richards) actor. 1979 SERlE NOIRE DEEP WATER (Michel Deville) from her from his novel. THE BLACK ANGEL (Alain Comeau) from his novel A Hell of novel. 1984 EDITHS TAGEBUCH/ (Roy William Neill) from his novel. THE EDITH'S DIARY (Hans W. Geissendor- a Woman. 1981 COUP DE TORCHON/ CHASE (Arthur Ripley) from his novel fer) from her novel. CLEAN SLATE (Bertrand Tavernier) The Black Path ofFear. 1947 FALL GUY from his novel POP. 1280. MICKEY SPILLANE (b. 1918) 1953 I, THE JURY (Harry Essex) from (Reginald LeBorg) from his stories \"C- DAVID GOODIS (1907-1966) his novel. 1954 THE LONG WAIT (Vic- Jag\"/\"Cocaine,\" \"Dream of Death,\" 1947 DARK PASSAGE (Delmer Daves) tor Saville) from his novel. 1955 KISS and \"Just Enough to Cover a Thumb- from his novel. THE UNFAITHFUL (Vin- ME , DEADLY (Robert Aldrich) from his nail.\" FEAR IN THE NIGHT (Max'Well cent Sherman) co-screenplay. 1956 novel. 1957 My GUN Is QUICK (George Shane) from his story \"And So to Death\"/\"Nightmare.\" THE GUILTY SECTION DES DISPARUS (Pierre Chenal) A. White, Phil Victor) from his novel. from his novel Of Missing Persons. (John Reinhardt) from his story \"He NIGHTFALL (Jacque Tourneur) from his 1963 THE GIRL HUNTERS (Roy Looked Like Murder\"/\"Two Men in a Rowland) from his novel ; actor. 1982 novel NightalllThe Dark Chase. 1957 I, THE JURY (Richard T. Heffron) from Furnished Room.\" 1948 I WOULDN'T THE BURGLAR (Paul Wendkos) screen- his novel. BE IN YOUR SHOES (William Nigh) from play, from his novel. 1960 TIREZ SUR MARC BEHM (b. 1925) his story. THE RETURN OF THE WHIS- 1963 CHARADE (Stanley Donen) from TLER (D. Ross Lederman) from his LE PIANISTE / SHOOT THE PIANO story \"All at Once, No Alice.\" NIGHT PLAYER (Franc;:ois Truffaut) from his his and Peter Stone's story \"The Unsus- HAS A THOUSAND EYES (John Farrow) novel Down There. 1971 LE CASSE pecting Wife.\" 1965 HELP! (Richard Lester) story, co-screenplay. 1974 THE from his novel. 1949 THE WINDOW (Henri Verneuil) from his novel The Bur- THREE MUSKETEERS: THE QUEEN'S (Ted Tetzlaff) from his story \"The Boy glar. 1972 LA COURSE DU LlEVRE A 'DIAMONDS (Richard Lester) co-screen- Cried Murder\"/\"Fire Escape.\" 1950 TRAVERS LES CHAMPS/AND HOPE TO play. 1975 THE FOUR MUSKETEERS: DIE (Rene Clement) from his novels No MAN OF HER OWN (Wesley Rug- Black Friday and The Raving Beauty/ THE REVENGE OF MILADY (Richard gles) from his novell Married a Dead Somebody's Done For. 183 LA LUNE Lester) co-screenplay. 1981 LADY Man. 1951 EL PRESIDENTE (Argen- DANS LE CANIVAUxtrHE MOON IN THE CHATTERLEY'S LOVER (Just Jaeckin) tina) from his story \"The Death Stone\"/ GUTTER (Jean-Jacques Beineix) from co-screenplay. THE HOSPITAL MASSA- \"The Blood Stone\"/\"The Earring.\" his novel. CREIX-RAY (DIRECTOR TK) screen- 1952 SI MUERO ANTES DE DESPERTAT PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (b. 1921) play. 1983 MORTELLE RANDONEE/ 1951 STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (Alfred (Argentina) from his story \"If I Should Hitchcock) from her novel. 1959 PLEIN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (Claude Miller) from his novel. Die Before I Wake.\" No ABRAS NUNCA SOLEIL/PURPLE NOON (Rene Clem- ESA PUERTA (Argentina) from his stories ent) from her novel The Talented Mr. \"Somebody on the Phone\" and Ripley. 1963 LE MEURTRIERIENOUGH \"Humingbird Comes Home.\" 1954 ROPE (Claude Autant-Lara) from her REAR WINDOW (Alfred Hitchcock) from his story \"It Had to Be Murder\"/\"Rear ORIGINAL FILM FILMS IN REVIEW SCRIPTS WANTED Window.\" OBSESSION (Jean Delannoy) If you like movies, you'll love Films in from his story \"If The Dead Could We offer detailed professional evaluations. Review. $16.00 a year. Sample copy Inquire: $1 .00. Dept. B, Box 589, New York Talk.\" 1956 NIGHTMARE (Maxwell 10021 Grasshopper Productions, Shane) from his story \"And So to PO Box 67 Death\"/\"Nightmare.\" 1957 ESCAPADE Manchaca, Tx 78652 (Ralph Habib) from his story \"Cinder- ella and the Mob.\" 1966 THE BOY CRIED MURDER (George Breakston) from his story. 1968 LA MARIEE ETAIT 49

As Many Notes as Required Making the by Harlan Jacobson \"Genius\" has been debased, and \"bril- by Peter Shaffer liance\" is a cheat word used by critics So long and so used to measuring the and stolen by producers to sell the only The cinema is a worrying medium for achievements of individual genius, we mediocre people who are honest about it the stage playwright to work in. Its un- have built a culture devoted to it. Time -the suckers born every minute-in verbal essence offers difficulties to any- tells us that we have begun trying to the Sunday entertainment page aqs. one living largely by the spoken word. teach the fetus in the womb. In the most How abused are the terms of endear- Increasingly, as American films grow wanton and random of our acts, war, we ment common to our myth-making ap- ever more popular around the world, it is single out a man here or there for a paratus, the movies. apparent that the most successful are medal. And in between, we have this being spoken in Screenspeak, a kind of problem of the artist: is he an artist if he Producers do say \"Loved your story,\" cinematic esperanto equally compre- doesn't sell? When does the man in the as do magazine editors, and \"I'll get hensible in Bogota and Bulawayo. For businessman's suit become an artist- back to you on it.\" No producer wants to example, dialogue in heavy-action pic- when the artist he produces fails? make a picture and lose money-even tures, horrific or intergalactic, now con- Monroe Stahr sensed he was no longer a sists almost entirely of the alternation of So it is with all who live here, each producer, at that point. Oh, we've gotten two single words-a cry and a whisper wrestling with the dark angel of doubt. (continued on page 53) so

Screen Speak 'Amadeus,' Shamadeus -needing translation nowhere on the by Michael Walsh time as one of the foremost keyboard planet: 'Lessgidowdaheer!' and 'Omy- players (then, as now, star performers gaad!' Mastery of this new tongue is not Poor Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang were more famous than active compo- easy for older writers. Theophilus Mozart-Amadeus to you . sers) and , when younger, as a leading Ever since his glamorously miserable violinist. Mozart won success, too, as an Equally dismaying has to be the en- death at the age of 35 in 1791, pop cul- opera composer in Milan, Prague, and demic restlessness of filmgoers. In his ture has been trying to turn him into the even the allegedly hostile Vienna. Es- mind's ear as he writes for the live thea- first romantic martyr. The myth of the teemed by the royal establishment of tre, the dramatist can presume the atten- unappreciated genius who fought a los- Emperor Joseph II, he succeeded Gluck tiveness of his audience: its mutual ing and ultimately fatal battle against a (the greatest composer of his day) as agreement to listen, and to remain in fickle public and a Viennese court rife court Kammermusicus. Indeed, Mozart one place while the performance is go- with intrigue took root shortly after Mo- probably made more money than any ing on. No such agreement exists among zart died, and has proven stubbornly re- musician up to that time, and spent it movie audiences. Indeed the very word sistant to correction ever since. freely in his pursuit of a lifestyle befit- 'movie' nowadays can as accurately de- ting his accomplishments. That he died scribe the viewers of films as films them- Far from being unappreciated, though, Mozart was regarded in his life- (continued next page) (continued on page 56) 51

(continuedfrom page 5 J) Tom Hulce as Mozart. tion in Pari s. (Those Moza rts, always broke was du e more to his extravaga nt, broke.) Moza rt d id not di e be reft of fi sca ll y improvid e nt nature than to any za rt, stilt bea tll1g time with his right medical help , as Amadeus has it; rath e r want of inco me. hand , looked at hi m with a smi le.... \" he expired atte nd ed by two of Vie nna's Pe rhaps Moza rt did anticipate the mod- lead ing docto rs, hi s wife, Co nstanze, Now co mes Amadeus, M il os Fo r- e rn role of the cond ucto r at tim es. But it and he r siste r, Sophie. He was ind eed man's film of Pe te r Shaffe r's play, con- is fa r mo re like ly th at the re was a harpsi- buried in an unm arked mass grave, but tinuin g th e ho no ra bl e traditi o n o f chord or pianoforte nea rby. thi s was out of cabalistic custo m, not spreading mis- and di sinformation about neglect. A 1784 decree by Jose ph II Mozart. For all its pro tes tatio ns of \"au- But the bigges t fa lsifi ca ti on of all abolished mos t fun e ral ce re monies, or- the nticity\" (within the fund ame ntall y co mes in th e mus ic itse lf. Although de ring th e dead to be sew n into sacks inauthe ntic co ntext of Shaffe r's play), J'vloza rt is shown leadin g an orches tra and covered with lime rathe r th an bur- Amadeus is surpri singly mi sleading. made up of in strum ents of th e pe riod , ied in coffin s. The ord e r was rescinded what e me rges on the sound track is the afte r a bloody ri ot, but the spirit of th e T he very pre mi se, of Antoni o Sa lie ri joyful noise of stee l-stri nged vio lin s. dec ree pe rsisted among th e e nli ght- as th e patron sa int of medioc ri ty, fli es in T he Authe nticity Movemen t- the pe r- ened , such as Moza rt's bre thren in hi s the face of the fac ts. T he man was no fo rm ance of 18th-cent ury mus ic o n Masonic lodge. bum ; on the contrary, he was an accom- 18th-centu ry instrume nts- curre ntl y is plished practical musician who spoke one of the most in flu e ntial and sa lutary Even in its tinies t particulars, Ama- La tin , Itali an, Ge rman, and F re nch and developme nts in m usicology, boasting deus too ofte n rings false. Is it too much was G luck's protege. H e became Co urt many sple nd id e nse m bles th at put to expect th at, whatever the di ve rge nce Compose r at the age of 24 (before Mo- scholarship into vibrant practice. It is of acce nts in th e Austrian E mpire, the za rt was even on the horizon) and , late r, unfo rtun a te th a t A madeus did no t actors portray ing Sa li e ri , Moza rt, and Kape ll me is te r. Sa li e ri was a hi g hl y choose to use one of the m . Constanze pronounce \"Salzburg\" pro p- successful ope ra co mposer who, inci- e rly? W he n Salie ri tell s Constanze th at de nta ll y, introdu ce d hi s libre tti s t , O th er, small e r d e tail s are ju st as he, like Mozart, is from a small town, L ore nzo da Po nte, to Moza rt and thus wrong. To name one of the mos t obvi- w hat is his pl ane t of origin ? L egnago, changed the co urse of ope ratic history. ous, Moza rt and hi s wife , Constanze, Italy, was indeed a small town, but Salz- Sali e ri 's pe dagogy was so hi ghl y es- had two surviving childre n (o ut of six), b urg, th e res id e nce of th e Ca rdinal t ee m e d th a t hi s pu p il s in c lud ed not one. G ranted , yo ung F ranz Xave r Archbi shops, was one of Austria's princi- Bee thove n, Schube rt, Liszt and eve n was onl y abo ut fi ve month s old whe n his pal cultural ce nte rs, a rich crossroads of Mozart's own son, W.A. , Jr. (born F ranz fa the r di ed ; still , he existed , and be- the Ge rman and Italian baroq ue tradi- Xaver). So me me diocri ty ! ca me famous as a musician and com po- tions; it may not have been Paris or se r; hi s old e r broth e r, Karl T homas Vie nna, but it wasn' t the sticks, e ithe r. In its eagerness to characte rize Mo- (1 784-1 858), was a civil se rva nt who zart's life as one of une nd ing fa ilure , bought his co untry es tate at Lake Como Ultimate ly, though, th e grea test dis- Amadeus not only neglects to me ntion with the rece ipts from a Figaro produc- tortion in Amadeus is that of Mozart's the hit-show statu s accord ed Th e Magic sense of self-wo rth. For all hi s justifiable Flute in Vie nna, but th e signal successes prid e in his own tale nts- readily appar- of both The Marriage of Figaro and Don e nt fro m his lette rs, in which he rarely Giovanni in P rague as we ll as the fact has anything kind to say about his fe llow th at La Clemenza di Tito was commi s- mu sicians, Haydn always excepted- sio ne d th ro ug h th e Prag ue rati onal Moza rt still was very much an 18th-cen- Th ea te r in ce le bra ti o n of E mpero r tu ry man. H e was raised in the tradition L eopo ld II's coro nation as king of Bohe- of the musician-serva nt, and unde rstood mia. Even at the e nd of hi s life, whe n he th at eco nomic sys tem very well. H e was supposedly had one foo t in th e grave and no heaven-storm e r like Bee thoven, no the othe r in the gutte r, Mozart was writ- romantic fl outing tradition in th e name ing hits and getting royal co mmissions. of art, like Li szt or Wagne r. As the cur- Some fai lure ! re nt e diti on of Grove's Dictionary of Music d ryly notes: \"The re is no reason A disturbin g anachronism co ncern s to suppose that he speciall y va lu ed Mozart the co nductor. T he film depicts ind epe nde nce from patrons.\" Moza rt as standing in a pit, waving hi s arms as he leads th e singe rs, in imitation In our anti-colonial times, we prize of L eonard Be rn ste in. Yet thi s image is a heroes who thumb th eir noses at prig- re lative ly recent one: co nducting from gish crowned heads. Mozart's hero ism the keyboard was the practice in Ge r- was of a differe nt so rt. Within the strait- man and Austrian ope ra houses. The re e ned social context of the late 18th-ce n- are, admittedl y, so me tanta li zing refe r- tu ry, he was able to write the greatest e nces in th e lite rature of th e time to a music yet co mposed by man-th e only more conte mporary kind of co nducting. music yet writte n fit for the mouth of Mozart \" bea t time and had th e score,\" God , as Shaw said of an aria from The according to a 1789 German musical al- Magic Flute. It's too bad that Amadeus, manac; the composer Johann Sche nck, so fascinated with Shaffe r's infantile co- who pl ayed in the o rchestra at the pre- prolaliac, mi sses the real Mozart almost mie re of \" the magic F lute,\" is said to complete ly. ~ have \"cre pt to th e co nductor's stand , seized Moza rt's hand and kissed it. Mo- 52

(continued from page 50) Zaentz chose to produce it, like all good sophisticated over time and can see the pattern: at Academy Awards time the producers having seen some point larger popular but low productions are spurned and the midcult \"serious\" films are re- than profit. Forman says that \"for Saul, warded, their essen~ial qualification be- ing popular with not just everybody (see the meaning of the story is very impor- Groucho Marx on joining a club, here) but with the right bodies. tant,\" and that his appreciation springs Seen in the proper light, the cult of from \"a little deeper level than just (his) the director, the auteurist invention, is no more, no less than finding a path to brain.\" Behind the thick lenses of his repatriate movies into mainstream cul- ture: See, they are a venue for individual glasses are eyes that say Older Brother: accomplishment, just like the perfect game, despite the cant that films, like \"You want it, kid-don't worry, I'll baseball, are collaborative. make it happen.\" Or perhaps they are • the eyes of an emperor who sees his So how very ironic is this return of a partnership, Milos Forman and Saul Mozart clearly. Zaentz takes from Ama- Zaentz, to make Amadeus, each doing deus a warning not \"to do things damag- what they do best, Forman directing, Zaentz producing, or is that prodding, a ing to someone who is creative or has story about the quirky individuality of a misfit in a world of drones. The last time ability. Does he envy his director's tal- these two worked together, on One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975, they pro- ent? \"No. I'm not a director and I never duced the first film since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night in 1934 to win all will be. I think I'm a good producer.\" five major Oscars . • True enough, this Amadeus cele- brates Mozart's special ness as much as it One of the enduring mysteries of film denounces the weekly paycheck living death that most of us lead. But this man is that of the producer who, without the (Wolfie, as he is known to his wife), genius though he is, ends up in a burlap hands and eyes that yield the artifact of a sack in potters field. What a double mes- sage the culture tortures us with: Be picture, must first simply see a vision- unique! Be yourself! Innovate! You gotta do it-and have it-your way! either his or someone e1se's-and then But, we'll kill ya if you do, just starve you right past the point of fashion until worry it into being. The hacks are easy you disappear between teardrops. Why is there so much handwringing when it is to spot. They make money if they're an open secret that ossified personalities make it in a system that values ossifica- lucky, they continue to make films even tion? The rule is simple: Lay low, be- cause if you don't have the sense to die if they're not. At some deeper level, an of embarrassment (the primary social constraint) when you risk an anti-herd individual producer must not only see profile, then by God the herd will simply flatten you (the ultimate social con- that the costume drama of, say, Mozart's straint). Milos Forman. life bears on the present moment, but This is also the somber message of accept the fate ofJoseph II-to be never Zaentz and Forman's Cuckoo's Nest, in which Jack Nicholson, as novelist Ken being resentful of the impertinent re- known, certainly forgotton soon, and Kesey's Randall Patrick McMurphy, was the magnificent exponent of the minder. The agenda in Amadeus is far never to be apotheosized. Only Thal- sore thumb sticking out. But while the- matically Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus more introspective than Cuckoo's Nest, , berg and perh<\\ps Selznick have been both lament the snuffing of the life spirit in its heros, the emphasis has shifted which pointed Kafka's finger. remembered, and the mountains that from the organization running amok in Perhaps the shift in emphasis is ex- they climbed were a product of a unique Nest to its having fallen back asleep in Amadeus, to its having become gray and plainable as equal to and mirroring the business terrain ground down and no same shift in social outlook from the longer extant. Sixties' and early Seventies' suspicion of Afld while Zaentz will tell you that he authority to the self-obsession cast of doesn't try to second guess the public, or the last ten years. Both Zaentz, who the critics, and that he has simply always came up through the recording industry, produced what he liked (does Creed- producing Lenny Bruce on his Fantasy ence Clearwater Revival , the source of label as early as 1957, and Forman, who his first fortune, count here, too?) -all had a thing or two to say about his native the right things to say-can it be that he Czechoslovakia in The Fireman's Ball in doesn't harbor the one secret sentence 1967, and later this country in his Taking that passes through the brain of each of Off and in his altogether excellent and the invisible members of his ranks, \"I overlooked adaptation ofHair,were will- want to be known as the producer of ing to call the system nuts. Amadeus is an ... \"? Well, what he does say is this: altogether more self-effacing work. The \"You're never really through with a pic- times, they-have-a-changed, and we ture in your mind or your heart, because now know how little to expect from offi- there's always something you felt you cial bodies. It is ourselves lately with could've done. It's like any artist, any whom we have been engaged. writer, any painter, any mUSICIan, any One must figure Zaentz, as the pro- director who always feels the day after ducer, for more than simply Moneybags. he's finished that painting, or film , or It was to Zaentz that Forman, after see- piece of music that he could improve on ing the stage play in London in '79, it. Always. Otherwise, you're not really turned to produce Amadeus (perhaps re- an artist.\" You judge whether he cares paying the compliment when Zaentz about what his name goes on besides the and co-producer Michael Douglas checks. handed a down-on-his-Iuck Forman Or the Czech. \"I trust him,\" says For- Cuckoo's Nest on a hunch in '73). And man. \" Not only in his honesty, but his 53

Saul Zaentz sis, the conversation scene would've been cut from the film ,\" says Forman. judgments and his feelings-ri ght or quizzical. wro ng-they' re always honest , yo u \"You go crazy,\" says Forman. \"You On Cuckoo's Nest, however, the situa- know. And he makes me feel that he tion had been reversed: \"Oh, I was very trusts me. So ... a barrier which very of- get excited about some detail , some excited by a theoretical idea that the ten prevents people from saying stupidi- something which at this moment is so whole film (will remain in side the hos- ties fall s down , and nothing is more brilliant an idea, so important an idea pital), you know, and only at the begin- comforting in the creative process than that you are now willing to spend more ning and later at the end, when the to be unafraid to be stupid. Because if time, more money, more effort, more Indian breaks out, will the outside you try to be brilliant every moment, energy that ....\" Forman moves in his breathe in the screen. Yet, in the book, after a while you become pretentious. seat. \"IfI had the luxury of distance , say is this wonderful scene with the boat Because nobody is brilliant every mo- a week, I could tell myself what I am ride outside-I didn't want the scene ment.\" Not even Mozart. Well, maybe doing, that this wonderful moment has there-and Saul, when we wrote the Mozart. just led me astray. It was stupid .\" Note first version of the script (we collabora- the concretion of \"it,\" the power \" it\" ted ), said 'I just feel sorry that the fish- Inevitabl y, the producer has the has, the move to the passive voice. That ing scene isn't there . It's a wonderful gloomy mission of negotiating reality in is what Zaentz is there to counteract, to scene.' And I said, 'Saul, it doesn't make an enterprise ultimately and specifically reduce the fever on the brain, and that is sense. It doesn't play, because it's a hos- devoted to forgetting, distorting, or re- not fun. pital story and what confinement is do- ing to people .. .' And I went on and on fracting it. To that end, the director, like For example in Amadeus, recalls For- explaining why the scene shouldn't be Mistah Kurtz, goes up the river, in fact man , \"There was a scene I liked very in the film, and he was just nodding, and has been handsomely rewarded in the much ... at the end of the alto concerto, he said, 'It makes sense what you say, coin of the realm-money and the title Ludwig Mozart, the father, is there and but I still feel sorry the scene's been cut. \"artist,\" as if he were an endangered has a very touching scene before the Let's not talk about it.' And the moment species of mynah-for hi s past forays emperor where he's seizing the opportu- he said this, it started to hurt my head.\" into the netherworld of souls and is be- nity to talk to Mozart-not directly, but Weeks later, after further script revision, ing paid here to do it again. Up there, through the emperor.\" Zaentz thought Forman came to Zaentz' senses . \"Yes, where passion runs hotter as the borders the scene was redundant and argued it its logical, my thinking, but psychologi- recede, someone needs to remain sane would squander precious location time while seeming part of the expedition, won from the authorities reserved to cally who cares? If the scene would be authorative while seeming slightly shoot the concerto. \"In the final analy- great, it shouldn't diminish the end. And the scene is really good. Is right.\" There are several things to glean about the workings of these two from these instances, other than 'Lets not talk about it' being one of the great acts of passive aggression: A) In Amadeus, the excision saved money; in Cuckoo's Nest, the addition cost money, so money is not the fulcrum of Forman's and Zaentz' discussions, though it is a factor. B) Both films have in some way touched on Czechoslovakia, either metaphorically in the instance ofCuckoo' s Nest, or phys- ically in Amadeus, filmed in Forman's native Prague. An exile since the Czech summer of '68, Forman left an ex-wife, twin sons and the memories of foster parents and birth parents, the latter taken from their apartment by Nazis when he was nine. Though Forman dis- misses the Cuckoo's Nest metaphor for its obvious broader, universal applica- tions (Zaentz says Forman must watch what he says), and insofar as he avoided painful parts of Prague during shooting Amadeus as too disconcerting, it is not difficult to see the potential for a dis- placed emotional response when filming that close to the edge. Therefore, a swaggerer as a producer will not do. \"It's not the words, it's how a person talks to yo u ,\" Forman says of Zaentz. \"You don' t feel that Authority 54

is talking to you. He talks to you like a burden of a top-heavy cast. mortgage on his studio complex in San partner. It's up to you which way to sway. Very intelligent approach.\" If there's a Zaentz credo, it's \" Humor Francisco, Forman says \" It has just as • me, it's my money.\" It's one sentence he many notes as required-no more , no \"I don't know any artist, any genuine uses when he has to go into battle to less.\" It is a line neatly borrowed from artist, who's a fool, \" says Zaentz. \"Most are fairly rational. You say look, we can't achieve some logistical toehold prior to Mozart's response to Emperor Joseph II, have 600 horses because we'd have to bring 400 in from Egypt and it'd cost too or during lensing, or when he must de- who thought The Abductionfrom the Se- much.' Milos knows that if I thought it would be worth it for the picture, then fend against his (and his collaborators') raglio too long. we wouldn't be arguing. He's not going to say something totally insane. He's not baby being held hostage to some strate- \"We have reached that kind of know- wasteful, but he likes, in doing a picture like AfYUldeus, 700 extras in costumes, gic kidnapping by the marketing mafia ing each other where I don't mind be- and it drives you crazy, but you know what you're getting into upfront.\" of the studio. \"I try to be rational, maybe ing with him doing nothing,\" says For- Upfront, AfYUldeus was budgeted at a little tougher because they' re coming man. \"I was even in his house in Italy, $15 million, with three of that ear- marked for Forman, Shaffer, and Zaentz to you from a business aspect,\" Zaentz and he was there doing his things, and I deferred. The film ended up costing $18 million and went 37 days overschedule, says. \"But if I spend three and a half was doing mine , and when we felt like it the latter aggravated in part by what Zaentz cites as Czech bureaucratic sna- years on AfYUldeus (four and a half on we'd sit down and talk. It's wonderful fus. Also the day before she was to begin filming her role as Constanze, Meg Til- Cuckoo's Nest), the same for Milos, and when you can feel comfortable with ly tore her Achilles tendons , costing her the part (to Elizabeth Berridge) and the Peter has spent seven or eight, I feel somebody even being silent.\" production nearly two weeks. Unex- pected air freight bills ate up hundreds we're entitled to a little more than a As written by Peter Shaffer for the of thousands of dollars. Back home, after a four hour roughcut, Forman real- cursory 'Yeah, yeah' and then do what stage, AfYUldeus is more a play about Sa- ized he couldn't deliver the picture by its planned February 25 release date via they want to do.\" lieri than it is about Mozart, more about Orion (which in its previous executive After adding in prints and advertising the rule rather than the exception. If incarnation as United Artists had re- leased Cuckoo's Nest) and requested a and figuring in the exhibitors share, Forman has elevated Mozart as an incan- few more months of editing time. \"We could've come out in April,\" Zaentz break-even could run as high as $70 descent presence to equal and surpass says, \"but then we'd run into the big block of summer pictures in May.\" So million at the boxoffice-an achieve- for a time the force of Salieri and all he AfYUldeus was rescheduled for Septem- ber 19, a six month delay that added a . ment made more difficult by its two represents, then the film really sharpens million dollars in interest and labor. hour, 33 minute running time which re- the core question of self-confrontation, One question both Zaentz and For- man faced early was whether or not to duces the number of performances in \"Am I Mozart, or am I Salieri?\" It is assume the conventional Hollywood in- surance policy of casting major stars in the important major markets. Just as Forman's good fortune that he has a lead roles. \"If we had stars,\" Zaentz says, \"then people would say 'Isn't Zaentz says, \"But we made the film we friend who understands his answer: \"I Nicholson, or Pacino, or Scheider, or whoever wonderful as Salieri?,' and not wanted to make,\" one secured by a am both.\"® 'Look at Salieri, that son-of-a-bitch.'\" It's a neat enough rationale, particularly ELizabeth Berridge as Constanze Mozart. after Zaentz' calculation that \"A star is good for one or two weeks if the picture's no good. If it's no good, it's going to die anyway, even with Redford.\" Instead, Zaentz banked on the play to buy the audience for the first two weeks, and the film (with F. Murray Abraham as Salieri and Tom Hulce as Mozart) to carry itself thereafter-without the $10 million 55

(continued/rom page 51) Peter Shaffer. covered a new di scipline and a new fri e nd ship. se lves. I never reall y unde rstood th e a lo ne in hi s ho use -th e Fo rm a n mea ning of th e phrase 'upward mobili ty' me thod , and one not easy for an author From the start we agreed upon one until I had ex pe rie nced a M anhattan to counte nance-but I rec koned that I thing: we were not making an objective cin e ma on a recent Saturd ay night. had ultimately fa r more to lea rn th an to Life of Wo lfga ng Moza rt. T his ca nnot lose fro m such an ad ve nture, and fin ally be stressed too stro ngly. Obviously Ama- All of which is by way of saying th at I agreed . O n th e first day of Feb ruary deus on stage was never inte nd ed to be a but for the e nthusias m of Milos Forman 1982 our co ll aboration began. doc um e ntary biograph y of th e compo- I do ubt if the re would be a film of Ama- se r, and the film is eve n less of one . deus at all. H e me t me in London afte r It was a startling expe ri e nce fo r me. Ce rtainly we have incorporated many the very first prev iew of the pl ay at th e In th e e nd we spe nt we ll over four real e leme nts, new as well as tRle . The National T hea tre in Novembe r 1979, month s togeth e r in a Connecticut farm- film shows the acerbic relationship be- and d ecl ared with o ut hes itati o n th at house-fi ve days a week, twelve hou rs tween th e fre tful yo ung ge nius and hi s what I had actu all y writte n was a natural a day- see ing vi rtu all y no oth e r com- ha ughty e mpl oye r, Archbi s hop Co l- film , and that if I were ever willing to let pany. Th ese were four months of sus- loredo of Salzburg; the disastro us visit of him do so, he wo uld direct it. In thi s tained wo rk , punctu ated by innum era- Papa L eo pold to hi s marri ed so n in assertion he pe rsisted for two yea rs. ble tussles, fa lte rin gs and dep ress ions, Vie nn a; Wo lfgang's playing of his Pi ano b ut a lso by s udd e n g lee ful brea k- Co ncerti in the ope n air; his del ight in Pe rsiste nce was coupled with pe rce p- throughs to re lieve th e monoto ny of the d ancing and billi ards. But we are also ti ve ness. Wh e n fin a ll y I ca uti o usly preva lent uncertain ty. In some ways \"ve blatantl y cla iming the grand license of agreed to ex pl ore the poss ibili ty of work- made an O dd Co uple , yoked togethe r in the storyte lle r to e mbe llish his tale with ing with him , he sensed q uite plainl y my a te mporary form of marri age, cookin g fictional orname nt and , above all , to unease abo ut film s in ge ne ral, and my fo r each othe r in the eve nings, and each suppl y it with a climax whose so le justifi- dissa tisfacti on with all prev ious films of day exploring whateve r might contrib- cation need be that it e nthrall s his audi- m y ow n pl ays in particul ar. Whe n I ute a Va ri ation on th e vas t the me of e nce and e mblazons his the me. I be- as ked him what he wo uld do w ith my Moza rt and Sali e ri. We acted out co unt- lieve that we have created just such a piece, he told me what he wo uld not do: less ve rsions of each sce ne, improv ising climax for the film of Amadeus. turn it in to a stagey hybrid , ne ith e r pl ay the m aloud . I sa t at a long refectory tabl e nor picture . H e also pointed out th at the extracting, writin g dow n, and poli shing To me the re is something pure about film of a pl ay is rea lly a new wo rk , an- all dialogue. In the p rocess I fill ed at Sa li e ri 's pursuit of an e te rnal Abso lute othe r fulfillm e nt of th e sa me impul se least twenty thick notebooks. Some of throu g h mu sic, ju s t as th e re is so- whi ch had c rea ted the origin al. Th e th e talk is in ev itab ly simpler in the film me thing irre deemably impure about hi s adapte r's task was to explore many new than in th e pl ay, b ut none of it, I hope, is simultaneous pursui.r of e te rnal fame. paths in orde r to e me rge in the e nd at Screenspea k. At my urgin g, M ilos set T he yoking of these two cl ea rly opposed the same e moti onal place. During this out to in ves tigate an unfamili ar world of dri ves le d us fin ally to devise a climax p rocess a fair amo unt of demolition work mu sic; at his I se t Qut to inves tiga te an totally diffe re nt from th at of th e play: a wo uld go on, so me of it pe rhaps pai nful eq ually unfamili ar one of sc ree n tech- night-long e ncounte r between the phys- to th e author. In th e case of Amadeus , its niq ue. If nothing e lse we re to co me out ically dying Mozart and the spiritually ope ratic sty li za tion wo uld probabl y have of this fre nzied seclusion, we each dis- ravenous Salie ri , motivated e ntire ly by to go, and its language wo uld have to be the latte r's crazed lust to snatch a piece made less formal, tho ugh not, of co urse, of divini ty for himself. Such a scene more juve nil e . neve r took place in fact. H owever, our conce rn at this point was not with facts Actuall y, m y ow n pe rso nal tas te in b ut with the unde niabl e laws of drama. cin e ma incl in es very much to the ope r- It is whe re- holding fas t to the thread of a ti c and s tyli ze d-th e o pe nin g se - our protago nis(s mania- we were fi- q ue nce of The Magnificent Ambersons, nally led . for exa mple, or the iconogra phic gro up- in gs in the th e First Part of Ivan the Some people may find thi s new cli- Terrible - but I also se nse d , as we max hard to accept. Othe rs may rejoice talked , how this vigorous man's brand of in it as a horribl y logical e nd to th e leg- naturalism, in fused wi th hi s huge humor e nd . T o me it seems the most app ro pri- and his obvious passion for my mate rial, ate fini sh to our black fantasia. Even on might make an e nthralling new thing stage I had to create a fin al confrontation out of it. T he poss ibili ty of working with quite outside historica l record. I had to him was sudd e nly very te mpting. recognize and honor the change of atmo- sphe re from cl ea r E nli ghte nme nt to Ce rtainl y I was not afraid of new ap- murky Gothic which inevitably occurred p roaches. In compos in g th e pl ay I had once the fi gure of the Masked Messe n- spe nt over a year simply findin g a way of ge r was introduced . In the film this rec- beginning it. I don't kn ow how many ognition is more care full y prepared for. be-w igged ph anto ms I chased d ow n Ind eed the motif of masked people goes how many sudde nly blocked avenues all through the picture-paralle ling to be fore settling on the fin al formulation. some exte nt M ozart's own preoccupa- W hy not join a brilli antly talented film tion with the m . Afte r all , the three great director in even furth e r exploration? Of D a Ponte ope ras are all concerned with course partne rshi p wo uld mea n pe rmit- tin g him to write the script w ith me, 56

the dramatic effects of wearing disguise. mirac ul ous fee lin g of tim e being re- presenting each morning to th e wo rld of What pleased me best about this reso- claim ed from ob li vion . 1 ho pe pro- delay and co nfu sion a cou nte nance of fou ndl y that this ee ri e and exquisite sen- un alte rab le eq uan imi ty. lution is that we were able to construct a sa tion will seep through the print on to scene which is highl y effecti ve in ci ne- th e screen. I am extreme ly gratefu l to him for thi s matic term s, yet wholly concerned with example of poise, as I am to th e e ntire the least visual of all possible subj ects: W hat I hope will not seep through is team for its e ndurance, and to 1\\'1ilos music itself. I do not be li eve that a stage any sense of the difficu lties expe rienced above all , fo r showing me how you can version of this scene wo uld have bee n in makin g th e picture. These, of co urse, hold every detail of a long film in you r half as effective. were consid erab le. In ev itab ly th e very head si multaneous ly for six frenzied act of making a two-and-a half-hour cos- months-provided that you have pre- Filming Amadeus for six months in tume picture e ntire ly behind the Iron pared it properly first over anoth er six. Czechoslovakia was a testing but pe r- C urtain became something of an ord eal Fine directors do not appear by acci- haps indi spensable experience, consid- for all concerned . I keep meeting people de nt, nor do fin e pictures. ering our subject. Prague offers the most who imagin e th at the business of setting complete Baroque and rococo setting in up came ras and turning the m on sets Neve rthe less, despite thi s and all hi s Europe, largel y untouched by the sav- and actors is so me how a romantic and othe r dazzling demonstrations to me , ageries of war or city planners. It is possi- libe rating occupation. It is impossibl e to which may yet H:;sult one day in my ble to turn a camera th e re in a comple te convince th em that the dail y activity of a attem pting an origin al film script, our circl e and see in its frame nothing built camera crew is just abo ut as liberating as joint mov ie is de finite ly the first and last after Mozart's de ath . Architecturall y, that of Sisyphus. On each visi t I grew of the me tamorphoses of Amadeus. Un- Czech buildings provide a pe rfect back- more and more impressed by the sheer like £quus it will not also become a bal- gro und for the story, just as ae~ theti ca ll y stay ing-power of everyone concern ed : le t; unlike The Royal Hunt of the Sun it Czech faces provid e a pe rfec t fo re - by the mann er in which a hundred dif- will not become an ope ra. Above all , and gro und . The peopl e of Central Europe fering skills were kep t keen and shining no matter how fortunate our effo rt may are not embarrassed by wearing period in th e face of all that cou ld blunt and ru st prove in its reception, it will spaw n no cos tume: th e smallest bit-player on a th em. Throughout what see med an in- seque ls. The re will be no te levision se- day's leave from the factory looks abso- te rminable time (for th e ri ver of Time ries of half-hour dramas in w hich Sa li e ri lutely natural in perruque and pelisse. unq uestionab ly fl ows siowe r than it does plots a diffe re nt me th od of murde ring Conte mplating th e audiences of extras e lsew he re throu g h th e c hann e ls of Mozart each week , only to be fru strated assembl ed in the Tyl theatre to watch Czec hos lovak ia ) th e producer Sa ul by the wily little gen ius in th e twenty- the Mozart ope ras being pl ayed-th e Zaentz defied all known rules laid down ninth mimLte. Even M ilos Forman wi ll very th eatre where Don Giovanni was for the be hav ior of movie produce rs by agree that the re can be a limit to adapta- first produced!-one expe riences th e tion. ® OOCford----------------------~ Announcing a new edition ofa highly acclaimed collection . .. Film Theory and Criticism Introductory Reaclings Third Edition Edited by GERALD MAST, University of Chicago and MARSHALL CO:HEN, University of Southern California, Los Angeles From reviews of earlier editions: \"Some of the most highly articulate and indispensable statements of film theory and criticism. . .. takes its place among the most important books on film that are available today.\"-English Journal. Best collection available on the disparate comments in the fields of film theory and criticism.\"- The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. \"A rich and thought-provoking anthology.\"-Film News The latest edition of Film Theory and Criticism includes new material on Howard Hawks and Mae West and new pieces by Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Comolli, and David Antin. Two sections-\"The Film Artist\" and the one entitled \"Film and Psychology, Society, and Ideology\"- have been thoroughly revised to reflect current concerns and contain mostly new material. Chapter introductions throughout the book have been substantially rewritten. February 1985 898 pp.; 52 illus. paper $15.95 Price and publication date are subject to change . OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS _~~ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 200 Madison Avenue • New York, NY 10016 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, 57

by Harlan Kennedy Searching for For Mary Grace. the Star Child He hated war, aruJ cruelty, aruJ hypocrisy, Ermanno Olmi and Camminacammina aruJ above all he hated dogl1Ul-except that hate is not the right wordfor the sense Alberto Fumagalli as Melchior. The pedant in pursuit ofthe savior king. of sad revulsion that he felt; he thought hate itselfa kiruJ ofdogl1Ul . cathode-ray High Culture (Roberto Ros- commercialism. The one exception was sellini)-Olmi was like a late arrival on the film he made for Harry (James -Jacob Bronowski, speaking about the track. Garbed in expectant smile Bond) Saltzman in 1965: E Venne Un Alben Einstein, in The Ascent ofMan and running shoes, he suddenly discov- Uomo (A Man Called John). Here Rod ered he had the whole neorealist sta- Steiger brought Method acting to the BEWARE OF THE DOGMA, This warn- dium to himself. After ten features and a Vatican as he shuttled about between ing should be posted every time an anist quaner century, the 53-year-old native stock shots of Pope John XXIII (playing attempts to spring a religious myth from of Bergamo (in Lombardy) is still a himself). A Man Called John was proba- intellectual captivity. Dogma is the una'if' filmmaker. He believes in a dra- bly the cinema's most remarkable exam- snarling hound of onhodoxy that guards matic palette of primary human motives pie of papal bull prior to Krzysztof these myths; but there are other stern and emotions. Zanussi's even worse pope opera, From sentinels. One is sentiment-the Bibli- a Far Country (1981). On either side of ~al picture books we all grew up with, Olmi's first feature was Il Tempo Si E this ecumenical clinker, however, Olmi the Nativity plays and Christmas man- Ferl1Ulto (Time Stood Still) in 1959, a delicately trailblazed a whole new kind gers and gaily painted Madonnas. An- dramatized expansion of a documentary of neorealist cinema. other is the social prohibition against he had prepared for his first employers, giving offense. Why needlessly set off Edisonvolta. He had worked in the sup- In Il Posto and I Fidanzati (The Fian- ~he alarms of your neighbor's closely ply office, where he received encour- guarded sensibility and beliefs? agement to make documentaries. He ces, 1963), he danced on top ofa pin. In had totted up more than 40 by the time Ermanno Olmi's Camminacammina is he left. the first film he choreographed the rnini- to doctrinaire thought and traditional re- aturist horror and comedy of city life, ligion what Houdini was to jails. In its Since that debut Olmi has success- from the howl of traffic to the pain under ~heatrical version (the full TV series runs fully dodged the omnivorous maws of the skin of office clerks. In The Fiances four and a half hours), the film takes 160 his subject was the stoicism ofemotional minutes' wonh of humane and joyful libenies with the Journey of the Magi. It's no wonder that initially the film got an adult rating in its native Italy for fear of what it might do to the minds of good Christian children. A movie likeE.T. can disguise its Resurrection parable in sci-fi clothing and get away without ruffling anyone's psyche. But Olmi shamelessly juggles frozen-in-Scripture details of the St. Matthew account of the Three Wise Men. He also throws into the air gobbets from ancient folklore versions of the story, plus his own impromptu varia- tions. The result is pure delight-and a truly believable, \"everyday\" account of a legend long lost to piety. Now, more than a year after its world premiere at Cannes, Olmi's epiphany seems finally headed for the U.S. with a benh at the New York Film Festival. • Ever since Il Posto (The SouruJ of Trumpets) in 1961, Olmi has been the evangelist of shining redemptive Sim- plicity in Italian cinema. In the late Fif- ties, while Italy's pioneer postwar neo- realists stormed off in wildly divergent directions-into the Baroque (Luchino Visconti) or the Fantastic (Federico Fel- lini), or the Austerely Chic (Michel- angelo Antonioni), into chocolate-box Romantic Comedy (Vittorio De Sica) or 58

the earth. Olmi allegorizes the yin and time. Camminacammina saddles up a similar community and sends it forth yang of human creative and destructive into the wilderness, opening up all its uncertainties and fallibilities to the air, instincts, closely wrapped together \"un- like a wound to oxygen. Doubt and faith must travel hand in hand, Olmi is say- der the skin.\" ing. Only by doubting can man quest and question and find answers. Only by Like Il Posto, Durante L'Estate (In the having faith can he summon the courage to advance on the stepping stones of Summertime, 1971) is set in working- new hypotheses toward the firm ground of new truth. class Milan. A middle-aged map-maker • with job problems meets a young girl- \"Camminaeammina,\" explains Er- his idealized \"principessa\"-with boy- manno Olmi, \"is a little chant you might use to a child. It means: Keep walking, friend problems. The film develops into keep walking!\" a tenderly hypnotic fugue between two A couple dozen peasant villagers dress for a pageant. Then, without further different frenzies, a redemptive meet- fuss, comment, or even a last-reel return to modernity, they are whisked into the ing between heart and mind, a platonic real quasi-Biblical past, there to spend the rest of the film. Camminaeammina passion between opposites. works like one of those Hollywood mu- sical sequences that begin by hoofing it And in La Circonstanza (The Circum- on a circumscribed Broadway stage and then extend into impossible spaces and stance, 1974), four neorealist short sto- realms of fantasy. In another sense, it's like the experience of moviegoing itself. ries-the satellite tales of a mother, fa- We settle into our seats, rattle our pop- corn bags, wait in awe for the fantasy to ther, son, and daughter living out their commence, see the usherette's flash- light as the Star in the East-and then respective crises one summer-form a illusion swoops down and sweeps us up into the life on the screen. wholly surreal quadrille when the stories Camminacammina becomes the story begin to elide and collide. Job anxiety, of the villagers' trek in pursuit of a star. In this journey through desert and valley hospital visits, teenage love, birth, a and mountain, many drop out along the way, for reasons that are sometimes risi- summer thunderstorm, the everyday ble (\"I've got to get home before dark\"), sometimes practical (\"I've got to get and the Olmiesque, become apocalyptic back to till the fields\"), sometimes sad (\"As the richest man here I can't afford by the clustering together of parts and to make this trip\"). Many others who stay the route wonder quite where they ~ the revelatory rhyming of details. are going and why. And just a few have a quenchless faith in the journey's end The Olmi progress is thus from sin- that brooks no obstacle. gle-strand stories to multi-weave tapes- Though he sets it in an eclectic past, Olmi new-mints the spirit of the Magi tries, culminating in the dazzling plural- story so that it is comical-quotidian ten- der for today. Thus the star itself be- ity of plot and theme in L'Albero Degli comes a whizzing light that passes over- head with a throbbing, high-pitched Zoeeoli (The Tree of Wooden Clogs, whine, like an Old Testament version of a UFO. And thus the prophet and as- 1978). Here, even more than in the Bib- tronomer Mel (Melchior, the first of the Magi), who leads the villagers off in pur- lical documentaries Olmi made for RAI- sui t of the savior-king whose coming the star is thought to presage, is played by TV in the Sixties (St Anthony, Dopo Se- Alberto Fumagalli as a gentle, burly pedant with a singsong voice, who's coli, Storie di Giovanni), you find the caught in a constant tug of generations tap-root of the religious concerns that burgeon epically in Camminacammina. In Wooden Clogs, \"Christianity\" is hu- ~ manism lit from inside. There one finds courageous and self-sacrificing loyalty, as in a worker's cutting down of the landlord's tree to make a shoe for his son. misery, chiming through the letters be- One finds a view of love that seamlessly tween a girl in the North and her chemi- . binds up Eros, Agape, and procreation cal-worker fiance posted to the South. If in a single, simple honeymoon journey: these early Olmi films were sometimes The newlywed couple travel by barge to like Chinese water torture with en- a convent, where they spend their wed- tr'actes of rueful comedy, the four mov- ding night, and receive from the Mother ies of the director's middle period spike Superior the gift of a bounding baby. neorealism with sharp new drops of alle- The film's humanism is also illumi- gory. nated by a sense of community that is In Un Certo Giorno (One Fine Day, neither stuffy nor starchily idealized. In- 1969), a moral crime (the hero's adul- deed, it can be primitive, daffy, pur- tery) meets an apparently unconnected blind-as when an old farmer screams punishment (his trial for manslaughter with demented animism at his horse for after running down a pedestrian), and \"stealing\" a coin he had hidden in its Olmi begins to speculate on the divinity hoof and then can't find the next day. that rough-hews our ends, however we The charlatanism that can hold sway attempt to reshape them. among a simple, gullible people is sug- In the brilliantly complex and dead- gested in the awed and credulous atten- pan I Recuperanti (The Scavengers, tion vouchsafed by the peasants to their 1970), a salvage worker for a railway evening storytellers. company after World War II gouges bur- The Tree of Wooden Clogs is about a ied metals and unexploded bombs from community marooned in space and 59

Man as the maker of every morality. plain treatment of the tale: that the final destination of this ever-onward journey with his boy servant Rupo (Antonio ble encyclicals. Or any human institu- is spectacularly vague and chimerical. Cucciare). tions-ethical, political, economic- How will they know Him when and if which claim omniscience. they find Him-this holy being, a celes- Rupo is the gadfly Olmi has set to tial king, a traveler on a beam of light, buzz around the fat immobility of Mel's The most energizing and endearing whose coming will restore goodness and search for certainty in an uncertain quality ofOlmi's film is its tinpot linear- justice to the world? world. The boy won't take the \"Because ity. Onward, onward the pilgrims tread, I told you sos' of grown-up ritual for an accompanied by the changing land- The answer is that, when the crunch answer. The \"fallen woman\" who scapes and a brassily warbling march comes, they don't quite know him. comes to Mel in an early scene, wanting theme. Each challenge in their journey They have climbed up from valley into to expiate her sins with the blood of a becomes a knockabout Rubicon, rife mountains; they have joined up with sacrificial lamb, prompts Rupo to scurry with credible human doubts. A river that two other Magi kings and their follow- rebelliously away, crying: \"The lamb Mel urges his people to cross prompts ers; they have re-routed themselves hasn't done anything. Why can't she risk the elderly and cautious Centurion (Eli- from one promising castle to another ... gio Martellacci) to question, \"But why and finally they discover, cowering her own neck?\" should we cross it? We're quite happy on bunched and timid against fortified For Olmi, man is the maker of every this side!\" walls at dead of night, a father, mother, and child who seem likely candidates. morality, the shrine of every religion, Later, a rickety wooden bridge over a (Well, not likely exactly. But the only the measure of every universe. We first pocket-size gorge becomes a mock-alle- ones around.) With the pilgrims getting see Mel and Rupo sitting outside at gorical test of faith. On one side are Mel restless all about him and stamina for the night painting a map of the stars on a and the pilgrims, girding up their cour- journey clearly running out, Mel turns to huge animal hide-as if the cosmos age for the vertiginous crossing. (The his fellow Wise Men and says, \"At this could be contained within the skin of drop is all of four feet.) On the other, a point we have no choice but certainty.\" every being. And the color scheme of rich merchant garbed all in gold sum- the painted hide (dark blue and brown, moning up his nerve to traverse the • speckled with gold) spreads out to be- chasm. Seekers after spiritual and mate- come a heraldic assertion throughout the rial fulfillment eyeball each other across Ermanno Olmi-the writer, director, movie. Blue skies, brown earth. The the trembling span, wondering if their producer, cinematographer, editor, art gold-edged blue hood worn by Rupo. faith will hold. director, and costume designer of Cam- Even the local soldiery, with their brown minacammina-is one Italian filmmaker leather surcoats and tunics of deep blue. Even when the pilgrims prove the who lives out the ideals he evangelizes. readier to cross-they have only the Like De Sica or Antonioni, he con- Olmi says this: If human beings con- Spirit to lose, and that is weightless- demns the harshness and alienation of tain the universe (or the perceptions Olmi's camera catches Mel lingering city life. Like Paolo and Vittorio Ta- through which alone the universe can nervously back until other feet have viani, he's fascinated by the integrity exist for them), so they also contain the tested the boards first. Then he quickly and tough simplicity of peasant life. And power of moral judgment. And Olmi bundles himself across, trying to save like Pier Paolo Pasolini in his story-cycle sets his satiric sights at the folly of per- face and faith by not being quite the last. trilogy of Decameron, Canterbury Tales, sonifying Good and Evil as if they live and Arabian Nights, Olmi is drawn to the outside us, whether in the form ofangels There is a majestic irony slowly spirit ofcommunity found in older, more or devils, or inviolable tablets, or infalli- hatched by Olmi's linear and penny- spontaneous times. But while other filmmakers are con- tent to be soothsayers, Olmi girds up his ideals and acts them out. In production, Camminacammina virtually became the collective pilgrimage that it portrays. Cameras, lights, and equipment were lugged over arduous terrain, and every member of cast and crew was encour- aged to hurl his ideas into the common melting pot. In May 1983, as if in imitation of a medieval scuola, or craft guild, Olmi founded a cinema workshop for aspiring filmmakers in the town of Bassano del Grappa, near Venice. Work, says Olmi, will range from two-minute shorts to full-length features, and the project has both public and private funding as well as TV sponsorship. Olmi's student col- laborators, drawn from many parts of the world, will be, he says, \"film poets and citizens, not members of the film indus- try machine or exponents of a specific 60

cultural viewpoint. \" =CIN~MOND1:= ~· c · IT'S 1 That May was a busy month for Olmi: TIlE DEFINITIVE t' ~I~1 RTS he made a journey of his own, to the MOVIE POSTER CATALOG. for Film Cannes Film Festival with Cammina- Over 100 pages ofrarevintage and contemporary cammina. The filmmaker is a craggy- movieposters. Manyoneof a kind stone litho- Music and faced imp with curly brown hair, a com- graphs.Graphics bysuchartist5 as Rockwell,Vargas bative stance, and a singsong reasoning and Hirschfeld.This81f2 \" x li \"catalog has more Video vehemence of voice. Like many Ital- than600 beautifullyreproducedandeasytosee ians, Olmi speaks with those musical photographs,each wi th a description and back- Exclusive Soundtrack Selections downward swoops that keep presenting ground informationon the movie. These posters And Limited Editions! you with \"logical\" propositions you can't were previouslyaccessible onlytoserious collectors. refuse. In the hurly of Cannes he was Discover theexcitement of owninghighlycol- Over 1,000,000 LP'S available: patient and animated, agreeing with an- lectible nostalgia andstunninggraphics fromthe In-Print and Out-of-Print, an array yone who suggested it that Caminna- great movie·c1assics.Toreceive your copy,send of imports, highly-desired reissues, cammina is a new kind of Olmi film: $5.00 to: Cinemonde,1916-FHyde Street, original casts, and nostalgia. San Francisco,CA 94109. \"I felt I had gone as far as I could with Plus we offer the finest selection a certain kind of realism, of social paint- in video tapes and video discs (from ing, that produced The Fiances or Un \"G to X\" ) and the only monthly Ceno Giorno, or even The Tree ofWooden Filmusic Newsletter \"Music Clogs . Today I'm more interested in Gazette\" . finding a unified vision, something that goes back to our roots in history, in leg- For YOUR copy of our extensive end. For me, so many films and so much catalog and a sample of \"Music television today are just a way of 'mark- Gazette\" ($2 value), Please Remit ing time,' of making conversation while $1.00 TODAY TO: the world is in upheaval all around us. RTS, Dept 21E \" In Camminacammina I've tried to deal with truth through myth-not to PO Box 1829 change one of our oldest stories but to Novato, California 94948 make it live, to make it recognizable 415/883-2179, Tues 12-4 pm again. Nativity plays, the story of the Magi, they are part of a child's fantasy A feature-length program of 20 award-winning animated films in 16mm, avail- world. They certainly were of mine. able for theatrical and non-theatrical rental from: And at the same time they were very real. So much of that reality, that fresh- 4530 18th St., ness, goes when we become adults and San FranCiSCO, CA 94114 religion is intellectualized and institu- tionalized for us. (415) 863·6100 \"Of course Christianity should be 'made sense of for grownups. What I dislike is the prevarications and dogmas , the sophistry, of formalized religion. What we should keep is the simple, childlike intuition of what is true. And that goes for everything, not just reli- gion. Camminacammina is about all of life, not just for believers in New Testa- ment Christianity. \"So the Magi are a prototype of to- day's rationalizers and scholars. They' re intellectually qualified for what they do, but in practice they don't measure up to the task set out for them. Just as military history is written by the victors, religious history is written by the survivors. And you have to be crafty, sometimes even cowardly, to survive!\" Near the castle where the Magi find the mother and child, they notice sol- diers massing on the hills, and Mel later pretends to have been warned by an angel in a dream to leave. The other Magi agree to obey the warning, and even to have had the same dream. Olmi 61

A FILM CREATED BY illustrates that the search for certainty is and weathered. They seem to come DICK RICHARDSON, RICK SCHMIDT fraught with fear and doubt. Mel is from a different, ancient race. \" AND WAYNE WANG chided by a fellow pilgrim for desening Camminacammina is cast completely A MAN A WOMANr the baby savior king under the pretext of from non-professional actors. As often AND A KILLER building churches to celebrate the ar- before, Olmi has resolutely refused to 'Director's Choice' - Ann Arbor Film Festival rival of God on Eanh. The pilgrim says have either star names in his cast or, on A MAN A WOMAN AND A KILLER IS a remarkable mOVie that the Magi's temples will \"not cele- his soundtrack, the perennial Italian V.V.D. Westelaken brate his binh but his death.\" panacea of professional post-dubbing. Film International Film Festi.al Rotterdam \"My characters go on a journey,\" \"I auditioned for the cast simply by Olmi told me, \"a journey to find some- meeting and talking to people from the one who will bring justice and goodness area,\" Olmi said, \"discovering their into their lives-a new redemption. But moods, their opinions, their idiosyncra- when they find him, they cannot believe sies. And I based their roles in the film that the Redeemer they have been led on that. Once they were cast, I let them to by the Heavenly sign, the star, is a use their own voices. The people of mere child. So they turn around and Biblical times did not talk like dubbers at head home, and many are worse off than a film studio.\" before. More skeptical, more despair- When it came to devising the script, ing. But for the lucky few there has been what were the main sources for the film's enlightenment. What the story tells us is story line? that there's a need to be reborn, to be- \"We drew from St. Matthew,\" Olmi come children again and thence to grow explained, \"and the New Testament, of into new men and women. Today more course, but also from other texts and than ever, when we live in an age of false prophetic writings. From Gadla Adam, certainties and hypocrisy and instant for example, who narrates the journey as wisdom, we need to shed these things an ascent into a high mountain. From and become as children once more.\" Marco Polo's MUione. And there are also • sources like the tenth-cenrury Mas'udi, The theme of rebinh-of re-invent- who writes how the king's messengers ing life, its values and feelings-is at the -the three Wise Men of our story- core of all Olmi's work. Witness the re- were given a loaf of bread by Mary, and curring motifs: car accidents (Un Certo then when they left how they buried it Giorno, La Circonstanza), whereby under a stone. This we depicted in the death or its imminence sting a character film, where it marks the paning of the If someone asked me, in conversation, what I into a new revaluing of life; binh or ways for the different caravans of pil- thought of \"A Man, a Woman and a Killer,\" I'd say it was interesting and stop at that. I'd be afraid babyhood (La Circonstanza, Tree of grims. The buried bread becomes the of shortchanging the film by describing it too much . Wooden Clogs); the tabuln rasa of the central point of a cross, as the different For one thing, it is in part a film about the mak- ing of the film. This is an idea that has endless country, or even the suburb, versus the Wise Men and their followers move appeal for young filmmakers, who are obsess- ed with what they call \"process\" - that is, the stupefying perceptual tyranny of the city away toward different compass points.\" hardware of their craft. By calling attention to the artifice of film, they are aiming to seem artless. (ll Posto, Durante L'Estate); and the fre- With such an eclectic genealogy of But artlessness is artifice, too, so the technique defeats itself. quency of characters whose job is in re- sources, the wonder of Camminacam- For another, the film uses English subtitles at cer- tain moments to \"translate\" its English dialogue, making or reshaping or salvaging man's mina is that it never seems cumbrous, a technique I dreaded when I read the publicity material because it seems just too cute. natural landscape (The Scavengers, the but rather feather light and full of life. But because of these devices, rather than in spite of them, \"A Man, a Woman and a Killer,\" works map-makers of Durante L' Estate and This despite a theatrical running time in in a way that makes it one of the most absorb- ing films I've seen of what is generally callf3d the Camminacammina). Europe of 160 minutes and a TV version independent filmmaking movement. \"The world we have created in Cam- (already prepared by Olmi) almost two - Jerry Oster New York Daily News minacammina is imaginary,\" he said. hours longer. He declares: \"I always 75 MIN. COLOA/B&W © 1975 \"From the props and costumes onward, shoot a flexible amount of footage-in Rick Schmidt features (A Man, A Woman, And right up to the dialogue and actions. But this case we filmed 87,000 feet-be- A Killer, 1988-The Remake, and Emerald Cities) now available in VHS/BETA video cassettes. though we invented all this, the film still cause when it comes to the editing I has, I hope, a kind of fidelity-to our want complete freedom. That's why I idea of what the time may have been never give my films to a professional like. With our costumes, for instance, editor. Though I film all my shots as I we did not hire a professional designer. think they'll be edited, I also like to Instead we devised them ourselves, and cover for other possibilities, in case I came up with simple, bright, rough- have an idea for a different rhythm in a stitched, primitive costumes, which we scene-shoner, longer, quicker, slower. hand-wove and colored with vegetable \"For the television version, the early dyes. The landscape too we chose be- section of the pilgrims' trek contains cause the region of Volterra in nonhem more individual stories. For the theaters (201) 891-8240 :.... .~ l:\" Italy seemed true to the spirit of our I've kept all the principal points of the Or write: !.... . ,i : ...J story. Clay soil, very dry and harsh and early section, only relinquishing some :\"'j (J nkiin primitive, like deserts. And the faces of little stories and details. The later pan of 1\\.j . ,: . c::)~?.4'1~7 the local people-very Etruscan, strong the film is the same in both versions.\" 62

Last summer Olmi was back in the edit- French Cinema ing room, tinkering with the theatrical version of Camminacammina until he The Fi rst Wave, 1915-1929 had honed it to the 145-minute version Richard Abel expected to be shown in New York. \" An extraordinary study. Abel has written a • history that wiil most certainly not be super- seded in this century. Historians, literary · Traditionally, the natural climax and scholars, and all those interested in film fulfillment of the Journey of the Magi history will find in his work the best and by story is the discovery of the Christ child. far the most readable study on this subject In Camminacammina the story goes on in any language-and the only one in beyond that, into the slaughter of the English.\" innocents, the breaking up of the pil- grimage, the sowing of doubts , and the ~!!!!===~~~~ Rick Altman, University of Iowa burial of the bread and the swaddling clothes. Is the film 's final coda a state- ~ About 550 pages. 282 illus. ment of pessimism? $75 .00 \"We have to distinguish between - f\\LM \\N THE Film in the Aura of Art Christ and the Church,\" said Olmi, \"be- tween the reality of the one and the AURAOFAR~ Dudley Andrew hypocrisies and dogmas that have be- come so much a part of the other. When \"These essays are clear, passionate, and Mel says at the end of the film , 'We shall compelling , and exemplify, in a unique and build temples to celebrate the coming of significant way, Andrew's critical position.\" God on Earth,' he is answered, 'You, now, in your temples shall celebrate Nick Browne, University of California, above all his death.' Christ appeared to us as an infant, celebrating the magic of Los Angeles birth and hope. But the Church builds its reign of fear and moral tyranny on About 240 pages. 16 illus, 1 in color. death, on the threat or promise of the $25 .00 afterlife. Thus the Church becomes the death of any voluntary feeling of faith Film and the and the wonder and astonishment of Dream Screen true religion. A Sleep and a Forgetting \"Christ came to us in the form of an ordinary human being-not as a magi- Robert T. Eberwein cian or a superman or a dictator. And thus he made ordinary humanity itself \"This book raises the idea of cinema as divine. And in Camminacammina the dream-like experience from metaphor to a boy Rupo is an example of what we can be. Mel believes in the God who is out- \\ ~;~~~~~§§§~~ full - fledged , workable theory of film. It talks side and above us , making inviolable and unquestioned laws. But Rupo won't 1 about so many films that readers will be accept any law without questioning it first, without validating it for himself. intrigued; everybody's favorite is bound to He says to Mel, 'Why do you always ask be there.\" me things and then say I can't under- Frank McConnell, University of California, stand?' That is the man to rejoice in and Santa Barbara admire-the man who insists on under- About 228 pages. 28 illus. Available October. standing! $27.50 \"So it doesn't matter if we're talking Kino here about Christianity or any other force in our lives-political, economic, A History of the Russian moral, scientific. If you let someone tell and Soviet Film you what to do and do not question it, that is a kind of death. Unthinking ac- (Third Edition) ceptance, submission, obedience to dogma, these are all on the side ofdeath. Jay Leyda But innocence, astonishment, question- ing, doubt, these are the sacraments of \"A riveting and highly dramatic story. life. I say, 'Camminacammina!' Keep walking, keep walking! For while there ... KINO is among the half-dozen most im- is movement, there is life!\" ~ portant books ever written on the cinema.\" l ;13Kevin Brownlow, Times Literary Supplement p.. '::>{\\II I'I(,III· :::<::============:::::==::::::::=::::::::=::::::::=::::=::::=:::::::~ pages. 64 pages 0 fill us. P $12.95. C $40.00 Princeton University Press 41 William Street , Princeton, NJ 08540

by David Thomson ing, though there are stories of him put- \"It would take that long? ting on his spectacles at the end of every \"Well, he's very laid-back. If you Clint Eastwood keeps the same old day to go through the books (\"Make my don't bother him, he will never bother bungalow at Warners, with subdued day-show me an error\"). you. In that sense, he is like the charac- light and brown decor, where he can ters he plays in his films .\" stretch out on a sofa in a T-shirt, jeans, And if counting counts, then you'd Mailer needs heroes. I think disillu- and sneakers, yarning away for a couple have to add in the Universal period (with sion might come a little quicker, like 364 of hours about doing his movies. It's all Dirty Harry, High Plains Drifter, Play days quicker. You have to like Eastwood: kept at an amiable, easy-going, unpre- Misty for Me, and Thunderbolt and Light- he has Magnum charm, he is very im- tentious and unalarming level-hey, foot) plus the spaghetti Westerns (and pressive physically-as he nears 55, the corne on in, let's talk. Yet Eastwood is Clint had ten percent of The Good, the beauty hardens; it is edged with frost more likely to extend that invitation to Bad and the Ugly), not to mention the now, instead of suntan. He is very natu- Norman Mailer than to Time or News- durability of his films on TV reruns and ral, very strong; his mind is very made week. In the last two years, Clint was his newfound supremacy on video-cas- up. You don't have to be too imaginative covered by Mailer for Parade , and he sette. Nearly all of his work has been to see the rock against which some of was the subject of a lengthy article in The done for his company, Malpaso, mean- your questions break. It is startling and New York Review ofBooks . Something in ing \"bad step-like ifit looks like you' re intimidating when an actor has so little the long, lean loner hankers after re- going to trip over something. \" Eastwood need of your love, and not much soft- spectability. has always explained Malpaso as a way ened if he still wants your respect. of making his own mistakes. But it has Eastwood runs a small, tight unit at You don't have to look too far ahead to been the knife to cut out a fat share of Malpaso, and I doubt if there are too see him getting an Oscar for overall ca- the rentals. many screw-ups or too much Latin toler- reer excellence, or even the AFI's Life ance for them. Over the years, there Achievement Award. Meanwhile he has What is he like? have been reports of his regular gang, to get along with being the most famous Let Norman Mailer answer that, in headed by producers Bob Daley and and successful movie star of the last 20 the talking-to-himself format of his Pa- Fritz Manes, looking at new young di- years. There is word at Warners, coaxed rade article: rectors as if to say \"Prove yourself.\" It is out of the discreet woodwork by Joe \" Do you like him? equally legendary that Eastwood does H yams, an executive \"with special re- \"You have to. On first meeting, he's not rehearse and favors first takes-all of sponsibility for keeping Clint happy,\" one of the nicest people you ever met. which contribute toward the economy of that $800 million in rentals have come in But I can' t say I know him well. We his operation (Honkytonk Man was shot on Clint's name since The Outlaw Josey talked a couple of times and had a meal in five weeks for $2 million in below- Wales. Eastwood is too cool to be count- together. I liked him. I think you'd have the-line) costs. to be around for a year before you saw his ugly side, assuming he has one. 64

The most evident streak of Eastwood's hardness, and his greatest limitation as a screen presence, is his unwillingness to push beyond his own gut reactions. If it felt right to Clint, a director might have a tough time going for more takes. Moreover, his briskness onscreen sometimes imparts a feeling that he is not bothering to think too much about a moment or a situation, but just wants to get it done. Equally, the famous narrowing of the eyes, the hiss of the voice-call it intensity or sudden impact-is a mode that fends off sub- tlety as surely as the squelching one- ... liners. Eastwood can be ironic about his act, but he keeps going back to it. Whether from boredom, reckless- ness, creativity, or the insolence ofconfi- dence, he keeps on testing the limits of his own antiheroism. Bronco Billy and Honkytonk Man were considerable ex- tensions of the self-mockery that emerged in Josey Wales and the orang- utan pictures. They showed Clint as a self-destructive fraud, and Honkytonk Man proved his greatest failure as well as the spur to Sudden Impact, which recon- firmed him as number one to all those who want number ones. All of that aside, he is still the most interesting ty- coon in Hollywood today, still hidden after all these years. The penchant for taking risks perse- veres.While he has his eye on the box of- fice target this December with City Heat, with Burt Reynolds (originally a Blake Edwards project reassigned to Richard Benjamin after Eastwood stepped in), Eastwood did a dark varia- tion on Dirty Harry Callahan in Tight- rope, released in August. It was a hit- and-miss movie, made too fast and too sketchily for the good of its own mate- rial. Written and directed by Richard Tuggle (who wrote Escape from Alca- traz), Tightrope is often disturbing. No other big star, I think, would have risked it. For it's about a New Orleans cop on the track of a sex killer who is himself subject to many of the same contorted, violent urges that might make a man lately divorced (like Eastwood) into such a killer. Moreover, the role of the cop's eldest daughter, played by Alison Eastwood, is one of the most ambiguous things in its stripping of a star persona. . Tightrope may have shocked some Eastwood purists. It could have fright- ened anyone, and with a more searching script and a greater readiness to explore its characters' depths, it could have been far better-along the lines of In a Lonely Place. Eastwood's problem could be 65

that the comfort of keeping the Malpaso script that he never had those kinds of lot of money. But I thought it was bold. gang around doesn't stretch him friends until just after his wife left. I If it's exciting and bold, that's fine; if it's enough. He has made remarkable ex- think the marriage disappointed him a bold and dull, that's another thing. cursions into vulnerability. But the pic- lot. I think he placed a lot of himself Hopefully, those people who like sus- tures are put together in such a sure-fire emotionally in the marriage. And when pense and action films will be intrigued mood of confidence and efficiency, it went sour-for whatever reasons-he by the climax ... but along the way Eastwood is kept from the rawness of his became very disappointed and he just they're going to have to bear with this characters. It would require a very force- reached out to whatever's around. Being character. ful director, and very good material, but in the type of work he was in, he ran Eastwood could play a greater range across a lot of bizarre ladies. You've aLso Let yourself Look bLeaker in than he has ever attempted, even with- this fiLm than ever before. out the slightly brutal detachment that But he has feelings for them that are he maintains toward his films. He is a perverse or strange. And clearLy there is a Well, that didn't come out of any par- cautious conservative, but Harry Calla- moment in the fiLm where he wonders ticular makeup or anything, it just came han is a hero in-whom our fantasies about whether he couLd be a sex killer. And there out of the attitude. It shouLd look that lone sufficiency turn into psychosis- way. If I sat there and thought, \"What not really that far from Gary Gilmore in are even moments where you're not totally do I look like?\" then I'm thinking about The Executioner's Song, a role Mailer re- sure he isn't the killer. the wrong things. I've got to think of the alized Eastwood was made for. character. You've got to donate yourself We definitely wanted that. I stressed to the character. You can't say, \"Jeez, Eastwood and admirer. that even more in the film than in the will I look as sharp as I have in some screenplay. But I always liked that as- films?\" Like in Honkytonk Man, I'm Clint Eastwood interviewed pect: is this guy, or isn't he? How does playing a consumptive-like you're by David Thomson he fit in? I even looped the lines of the purposefully putting on a type of Kabuki actor who played the killer at the begin- makeup. But I don't usually wear What do you think happens to the cen- ning, though I changed the voice makeup in films, so the character in traL character, Wes Block, in Tightrope slightly. Not that I wanted to play all the Tightrope is just that way out of his feel- after the fiLm ends? roles, but I just wanted a little bit of the ings and attitudes. thing, \"Is that Eastwood? Is that him?\" Well, you can draw in lots of little You can tell it isn't me, but on the other Tightrope is the most extreme case, but subplots. But I assume he continues his hand there's just enough familiarity to there have been others in recent years in relationship with this girl [Genevieve tie in with the shoes and just kinda get- which you might have been saying to your Bujold]. She's the first woman that he ting it going that way. And then later on, fans, \"WeLL, don't fantasize about being has felt something more than just a pass- when you know it isn't him .... ing, sexual night kind of thing, like he Clint Eastwood too much. He gets old, he comes across so many times, in the .. . You aLso know it could have been. has personaL probLems, he doesn't conduct seamy atmosphere of his work as a New Yes. It could very well have been him, his Life like Harry. He's beaten some- Orleans police officer. I think he wants and even his thoughts about the cop times.\" How conscious are you of doing the stability. And hopefully he can when he talks about him one time, it's soothe the trauma in his two daughters like, \"This guy is as screwed up as I that with yourfans? and go on with someone in a normal life. am.\" Who knows what happens? He's Well, I don't know if I'm conscious of got involved with enough of these gals Was Wes invoLved with prostitutes dur- that maybe he felt like it. doing it. I think it evolves out of love for ing hisfirst marriage? CouLd that have had /'m sure the audience will say, \"Clint the story. The story's given to me, and I anything to do with the break-up? Eastwood couLdn't be the viLlain.\" But I like the character and feel it's a chal- lenge. I can't just do-regardless of It might have, but he states in the wonder to what extent CLint Eastwood is some fans-the mysterious kind ofchar- intrigued with teasing the audience? It's a acter who has everything under control. That's fun to play, but I've done it a lot. brave fiLm in a Lot of ways. Some of your I'll do it again, probably, but I have to hardcorefans may be shocked. broaden the scope. The hardcore fans, I could just bom- But it's been successful. Everybody bard them with the same kind of charac- in the world advised me against doing ter for the rest of my career. But that Every Which Way But Loose. They said, wouldn't be as interesting. I think the \"That isn't a Clint Eastwood film: the more astute fans-I hope some of them girl dumps you, you give up the fight, are astute-will find this provocative. and you've got this silly orangutan,\" that Because in contrast to the obsessed cop, sort of thing. I said, \"Yeah, but it's kinda Dirty Harry, Wes has these other emo- interesting.\" It's comedic, and yet it's tions. Not just solving the thing he's different. And if! hadn't felt in a broad- obsessed about, and the inequities of ening mood, I might have said, \"Yeah, the legal profession, the courts, and all you're right, that isn't me. I'd better do that. He just does a job and does it the another Harry, or a cowboy.\" Which is best he can, and he's got all these side- fun-I like to do that. But you have to line characters. broaden out. Did you think it wouLd be brave or risky, Sometimes it doesn't work. The Be- compared with Sudden Impact? guiled, years ago, wasn't a success. It disappointed people. It was unfortu- Yeah. I think if on the surface you nately sold to appeal to people who liked gave the studio these two, one in each another kind of Clint Eastwood. Tight- hand, they'd say Sudden Impact. That's a 66

them, almost looking to the camera, then they sit back. I've always felt that they're just at the window. Now, I don't want my aunt in Des Moines to think I'm a sadist. I give her credit for being intelligent enough to know I'm an actor playing a part. If they're not that smart, if they think it's really me, then obvi- ously there's something wrong with them. You give less sense ofwanting the public to love you than most actors. Yeah. That's what intrigued Don . Do you want them to dislike you? I don't want them to dislike me, over- all, but a certain aspect of the character. In Tightrope, maybe Clint Eastwood wouldn't do some of the things this char- acter would do. I'm just an actor portray- ing a role. You give the impression onscreen of be- ing a lot more secure than other actors. That's the way I feel. I don't approach it thinking, What are they going to think behind the camera, or in the theater? I approach it by thinking, What do I have to do here? I'm not smart enough to be aware of all these things at once. I'm not that diverse in my concentration. I have With Genevieve Bujold in Tightrope. to do what the role has to do. Iffive or six films in a row went wrong and no one wanted to make Clint rope, I hope, will sustain the fans-be- nitely indicated more. [Richard] Tuggle Eastwoodfilms , would it trouble you? cause he does win out at the end-but wrote it and then had second thoughts No, it wouldn't trouble me. it's a tougher win for him than it is for about it. I liked the parallel between he Would it trouble you if you couldn't di- Dirty Harry. This guy isn't inept, he's and the killer, and I liked the not know- rect? just more vulnerable. His personal life ing. And I felt the more we could lead It would trouble me not to work again. has affected him more. the audience to think that maybe this But I feel that. . . audiences are smarter Did you want the Dirty Harry admirers was it, the more it gives them some- than most people give them credit for. to think again about him? I wondered how where to go. They live with his insecu- Though sometimes they don't always far the obsessiveness in the Harry charac- rity and his strife, but at the end there respond in the way you'd like 'em to. ter has to do with him having virtually no it's okay, enough of all this, now do this, For instance, the two times I've died in sex life. get the guy. He becomes as determined films, Beguiled and Honkytonk Man, the Yeah, Harry's wife is dead. Several of as Dirty Harry is normally. audience has never really enjoyed it. those films touch .lightly on his disap- Years ago-this must have been just af- And though I knew in Honkytonk Man it pointments in romance, and he's defi- ter Coogan's Bluff-Don Siegel said that was going to be very, very risky, because nitely a loner and a lonely character. But he had never met anyone with such an the other time that happened it didn't Wes is lonely because of the shallowness obsession to be an antihero. Is it still true? work out that well-it didn't work out of his existence, though he loves his I think so. In Dirty Harry, after shoot- that well there either! But in certain daughters. He succumbs to a lot of ing the guy, actually torturing the con- countries, certain viewers, France, they things in the evening, and he gets in- fession out of him-that was my idea- treated it kindly. Still, nobody ran to it, volved with a lot of girls Dirty Harry and his feeling was that moSt actors like they ran to Dirty Harry or any of the wouldn't be involved with. Not that conscious of a certain image would be other films. And I don't know about Harry's asexual or anything, but they're afraid to do that. But I felt it as the Tightrope, either. not the kind of gals he'd go for. He'd immediacy of the character. Atthis point, I felt about a year and a half ago, in find some nice secretary, or whatever, I don' t care about his motivation. Bronco Billy and Honkytonk Man you'd and date her, or somebody-a working And if there is any secret to my suc- tried to do different things, and in its way or professional gal. But this guy doesn't cess-and I've never sat down and tried Firefox was different-you'd never done know what he wants. to be analytical about it-I think it's that a special effects film . Those three pictures Was there ever a moment in the plan- the audience rides along with me. They marked afaltering in your box office. Have ning of this film where someone said, either sit forward in their seat as to what you been under pressure to do another \"Suppose we did make him the killer?\" you're doing, and the intensity with Dirty Harry film . Is that what happened No, I never thought of that, but if which you're doing it-or, if the audi- with Sudden Impact? you'd read the first screenplay we defi- ence senses that you're throwing out to (Chuckles.) Well ... not really. Firefox 67

did pretty well. There was SOft of a con- on the screen. If it cost $5 million and it I've done so many of my own films I census that Bronco Billy wasn't a suc- looks $3 million on the screen, then haven't had that situation you're talking cess, but it was a very inexpensive film that's a failure to me. There's an awful about. But I'll offer suggestions, and if and I loved the story, loved making it. I lot of pictures that cost $20-30 million the person doesn't like them it doesn't think it's one of the best films I've that look to me like $6-7 million. make any difference to me-they're made. It was one of the more enjoyable just suggestions. If I'm working with a ones. It did pretty good , it just wasn't in Is it also part of your wish not to seem director and there's something that the league following Every Which Way soft? needs to be added to the script, I'll try to But Loose. clarify it before we ever shake hands to I don't know. Maybe it's a certain do the thing. So that there's no surprises. You have the reputation in the business pride in workmanship or respect for I don't want some guy to turn around of being very cost-conscious, even down- someone who's going to put his money and say, \"Now you play some transves- right stingy. Are you proud ofthat? up and who I do right by. A studio like tite!\" I'll have ideas along the way and Warner Brothers will do Honkytonk Man . hopefully that's all hashed out. On City Yeah. I don ' t consider it stingy, They know Clint Eastwood's not Heat, Richard Benjamin seemed to like though. We pay pretty decent. It's just hunching around or shooting up. the contributions. Don Siegel loves par- that we try to organize the films and They're still putting in faith that I'll ticipation. make them in the least amount of time. make the best picture I can. So I try to We're talking about an industry where show them some respect. It's easy to fall • there's so much waste , and so much faith into the pattern , I've seen it happen, put in people who have very little expe- once you're sucked into a movie it's too What determines now whether you di- rience. Even in the executive strata, not late. Jack Warner would have said, \"Get rect afilm or only act in it? too many of them have the film knowl- back on schedule.\" edge of the past generations. Once It's just a mood thing. Some films I they' ve made the deal they turn it over Have you ever been in a situation, as see them kind of vividly, either a story I to a film person, and maybe he's experi- actor or director, where you got a notion like very much and want to direct, or I enced, maybe not. for a whole new scene not in the script? see it clearly and I don't want to have to work with another guy and explain to But the budgets on your films are star- Oh, yeah. I change pictures as I go. I him. Then there's other scripts where I tlingly low. just use a script as a framework. A lot of say, \"Well, someone else can have just as times I'll send out page changes on a good a tack on this.\" Maybe there's a I think so, but that's to do with plan- script. production problem. On Every Which ning. We use the very best people, who Way But Loose and Any Which Way You are philosophically aligned at getting the Do you think you're a reasonable actor Can I needed to work out and train up a most for the money. If a picture cost $5 now for other people to direct, or do you lot, I just didn't want to take on the job. million, I hope it looks like $10 million notice you have ideas and can' t keep quiet about them? f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Presented by the Urban Council, Hong Kong The Ninth Accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations ~--------------- March 29 - April 13, 1985 Hong Kong Information: Internat.·onal Hong Kong International Film Festival Room 807, New World Office Building, ~--------------- Tsimshatsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Film Festival Cable: HKIFF, Cityhall, Hongkong Telex: 38484 USDHK HX ~--------------- Telephone: 3-678873 68

I wanted somebody there to act as cap- and he spun off me. I think we worked plain everything . Let the a udience tain of the ship, and I could work with well together. I like his compositions. imagine with us. \" I'd sort of coerce him the animals and whatever needs to be He has a very good eye. He wasn't a real into going for it on that level , like a B done. experienced director. He'd only done picture. But he did go for it. He wasn ' t What happened on Josey Wales with one movie , a thing called Colossus of really coerced , he liked the style. Phil Kaufman? Rhodes . And if you look at that , it I think the producers of the film were Well , I had . .. I liked him as a writer. I doesn't have any of his style. I liked a bit shocked . They didn't know what bought this book and owned it myself, him, I liked his sense of humor. I can' t was going on. They said , \"Jeez, this guy and I had my own money in the project, speak for him , but I feel it was mutual. doesn ' t do anything, doesn' t say any- and he liked it when I gave it to him, and He liked dealing with the kind of char- thing, just stands there with the cigar. \" I thought it would be interesting to have acter I was putting together. The charac- They were used to Italian films-Di- him direct. And he did bring some very ter was written quite a bit different. I vorce Italian Style , flamboyant, a lot of good contributions to transferring the made it much more economical. Much things happening. But Sergio, he kinda book into the screenplay. We were both less expository. He explained himself a stayed with it, and he embellished it as in sync all the way down the line on that. lot in the screenplay. My theory to Ser- he went along over the three films . But when it came to shooting, he just gio was, \"I don't think you have to ex- He's offered me other films since The had a little bit different ideas of the style of the film. And I did have my own money in it, and I bought the book from Festival Film Books scratch, and I just felt I didn' t want to see it portrayed that way. So it was strictly a pointofview. Nobody will ever from Oa Capo Press know, but for all we know his ideas might have been the best. I just had a line on it and loved the project and FILM MAKERS SPEAK edited by Jay Leyda didn't want it to be done the way he was going to interpret it. And he didn' t want \" A comprehensive anthology of direct quotes from more than 600 film to do it the way I wanted to do it. There makers-I 894 to the present-this is an impressive piece of oral history... wasn't any animosity or disrespect for Actors, composers, designers, producers, and directors speak here, candidly and often argumentatively. \" -L.A. Herald Examiner him in any way, shape or form . 80228/ 580 pp ./ 513.95 paper Can you put your style into words, your LAURENCE OLIVIER ON SCREEN by Foster Hirsch way oftelling a story and directing ? Well, there is no panicular way. Most This appreciation of Olivier's film career analyzes his celebrated technique of my films have a different look, de- and follows the mutations in his screen personae-from Heathcliff to Hamlet pending upon what the film calls for. It's to Archie Rice to General MacArthur. With an updated filmography and a a combination of pace and an eye for new foreword. composition. I can' t explain exactly 80211 / 190 pp./ 57.95 paper what it is, because there isn' t as much a SEXUALITY IN THE MOVIES edited by Thomas R. Atkins style to my films-an individualistic style-as there is to those of Don Siegel. Discussing the sexual iconography of Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando, Mine vary. Play Misty varies greatly from the movie rating system, homosexuality and film history, Elvis Presley, Breezy, from Josey Wales , from Bronco monster movie morality, and dozens of other topics, this provocative collec- Billy. tion of essays-with over 200 photos-finds the connections between film reality and sexual fantasy. With detailed analyses of landmark films such as I think what has happened these days · Deep Tnroat , Last Tango in Paris, and Cries and Whispers . is that an awful lot of people direct 80220/ 244 pp.. 200 photos/ 512 .95 paper movies in a style they'd direct commer- THE CINEMA OF ORSON WELLES by Peter Cowie cials in. Where they just kind of float around all over the place. Being an actor A basic book on the film life of this most flamboyant and influential figure, has one advantage-you don't need to this study includes dozens of photos, script extracts, a chronology, and film- make your presence known. Your pres- by-film explications. Peter Cowie has approached Welles's techniques and ence is already there. So I'm not trying themes as elements of a whole moral vision, realizable only through the to feature any tricks as a director. I'd say camera. a director who is pretty straight on is 802011262 pp. , 125 photos/ 59 .95 paper Sidney Lumet or Martin Ritt. Guys who EARLY WOMEN DIRECTORS: Their Role in the never try to intrude themselves. They try to feature the story, because direct- Development of the Silent Cinema by Anthony Slide ing is an interpretative art, as opposed to writing, the creative art. Those are guys This history of women directors in American silent film illustrates the impor- who've told the story very well. tance women once enjoyed in the industry, an influence somehow lost with the beginning of the sound era. Profiles of Alice Guy Blache, Lois Weber, When you first saw the Sergio Leone Dorothy Arzner. Frances Marion , Margery Wilson , and others make this a films, was there a big shock? Or did you valuable document of a little-understood subject. 76220/ 119 pp. , 93 photos/ 522 .50 cloth . know they'd be so stylized? Yeah, I think I played my character in Available at bookstores or directly from : sync with the style. I spun off Sergio, DA CAPO PRESS, 233 Spring St., New York, NY 10013 69

Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but at that Godfather and all these things came out. but I just want to have a clear line on point I felt like he was looking for a But he never developed it. It was always where I'm headed. But he talked to me different thing in films than I was. I was just there, hanging there. And a lot of about doing Once Upon a Time in the West looking for more character development times Sergio would just want to go with and what became Duck, You Sucker, but and maybe a smaller film, and he was an idea. But through the years of televi- they were just repeats of what I'd been looking for more panorama, a David sion I'd been reading the story too doing. I didn't want to play that charac- Leanesque kind of thing. So we just much. Though I did son of go along ter anymore. So I came back and did a drifted , though it was very amicable. with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on a very small-budget picture, called Hang treatment. ,em High, which had a little more charac- Did he ever ask ifyou were interested in ter. Maybe it was time, too, to do some But as time went on I didn't think it American films, because even though Once Upon a Time in America? was a wise thing to do, with him or these films were very successful, the Yeah. He staned thinking about that anyone else. I like to know the joke. I movie business for some reason was still don't want someone to tell me a joke thinking of me as an Italian movie actor. project back when we did The Good, the and not give me the punch line. I like to I can remember the field guys at Para- Bad and the Ugly. And he had this idea know where I'm going; and I'll impro- mount years ago said they'd talked about doing a gangster movie. He said , vise, and be as crazy as anyone wants, about using me but all they got was, \"What about Irish gangsters? You could \"He's just a TV actor.\" I wasn't marked play an Irish gangster.\" Long before The to be accepted. There were a lot ofother actors who were marked to succeed Eyris Productions Inc. more than me. Same with the press. I Presents wasn't marked in their estimation. I was never a darling of that group. ONE OR THH! OTHH:R • Written and Directed by NICHOLAS HONDROGEN These days people go from one lot to Cinematography by OLIVER WOOD another. For eight years you've been Original Music by RICH LOOK and C. P. ROTH Warners' most successful product. They're aruious to keep you, and you look comfort- Featuring ROBIN BARTLETT and NATALiJA NOGULICH able here . It's a little like the Thirties. I wouldn't have been happy with See it at MONTREAL WORLD FILM FEST! that, as far as being an actor is con- cerned. Those guys were contract This film was made possible in part by a grant from the American Film Institute \" players and they had to do many films they didn't want to do. You couldn't step EYRIS PRODUCTIONS 211 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013 \" back for two years. And you had no con- trol over it. The reason I staned Malpaso in the first place was I saw a lot of ineffi- ciencies, and I thought I can screw up as good as the next person. I'd rather be the cause of my own demise. But you also like to keep a settled team. Yeah, I do. I like working with the same people. I've done a lot of films with other people along the way, and sometimes I'll use actors I've used three or four times. Like Bronco Billy-every- body in it I'd used before. And it was great fun. Behind the camera, too, a lot of the people have been with me a long time. It's very relaxing to know that cer- tain people are very, very good at their job. A lot of that aspect of the old days I like. Everybody moved at a good clip. Studio heads were tough and obstinate, but they knew about film. But there was no competition then. ALI movies made money, more or less. A movie actor to- day is making a tremendous competi- tion. Do you think the public sees you as an actor playing parts or as a fantasy figure called Clint Eastwood? I think the public understands that you're playing different characters. But 70 ..

there is a fantasy figure in this era of by his man) and somehow one-up him a Harry and, Did he fire six shots or five bureaucracy, of complicated life, in- La Superman II, where the guy goes in . .. ? \"To tell you the truth I've forgotten come tax and politicizing everything, and punches him out at the end. That in all this excitement. But seeing this is a that there's a guy who can do certain isn' t true to the story. That diminishes .44 Magnum .. . \" And so I thought, let's things by himself. There'll always be the scene where he takes the humilia- do it at the very end, let's close with it. that fantasy. I think there's an admira- tion to get this guy off the hook. And Because it's obviously going to be some- tion for it. Maybe certain groups will try that would be impure. thing special. And I told Don [Siegel], I to suppress it or advocate against it. But These tags that become so important in said I can play it looser, with humor, to that fantasy will always exist. some of your films , like \"Make my day, \" begin with, so there's a certain irony, but You hold that fantasy yourself! do you think up some ofthose? at the end I can play it with a whole Yeah, I think so. I like individuality. I That particular one came from the different attitude. With a certain, abso- think I enjoy people who are individ- screenwriter, came from Joe Stinson. lutely peak velocity. But that was writ- uals. The only thing I did is I reprised it at the ten in there originally by Harry Julian As history goes on, do you think people end-that's my contribution. I saw the Fink, in the screenplay. When I read the like that are going to triumph or be line as a goodie, so I said let's throw it in screenplay it jumped right out and I beaten? right here. Much like we did with Dirty thought, \"Oh, yeah, this'll be quite un- Who knows? It may become more of a fantasy as it succumbs to civilization and the mass amount of people. If you were A legendary teacher'sin Orwell's 1984 and you looked at one of my pictures, you'd die of shock. hanas-on screenwritingThere is an argument that the fantasy figure you represent teaches people that known films, THE SCREEN- workshop.strength,force, and reductions like \"Make my day\" is a way ofgetting through life. WRITER'S WORKBOOK has the Well, I think the appeal may be there. \"The most sought-after screen- moment-by-moment, line-by- line guidance you need to trans- Everybody would like to do that, to writing teacher in the world\" is late your original concept into come up with that kind of saying. But how The Hollywood Reporter a completed screenplay with all it's absurd-a person comes up and tells the earmarks of success. Why you how many bullets he might have describes Syd Field. Now his not get started today? This fired and do you feel lucky? Everybody expertise and his proven work- invaluable Dell 'Irade Paperback would like to be that cool at some point. is only $7.95 at your favorite How many times has someone said shop techniques are yours to bookstore. Or use the coupon something smart to you and half an hour to order by mail. later you've thought of the perfect an- use at home. THE SCREENWRITER'S swer? \"My God, I wish I could have WORKBOOK, a companion volume From the noted t.eacher, lecturer. a nd nailed him.\" But you don't, so the fan- best -selling author of Scr~tlnplay tasy character does that. He has the right to Syd Field's acclaimed best- saying. And the right act for the right seller, Screenplay, provides •• ScTreheen- moment. Sure it's a fantasy, and I think •~ writer's people need it. At the same time, he's step-by-step instructions and advocating that there is hope for the in- Workbook dividual. carefully designed exercises to Syd Field I'm not sure that all the audience sees . *help you: the absurdity, and I think I prefer the Define and focus the basic Exercises and St.ep·by Step • greater doubt and vulnerability of, say, lnst ructlon for CreatLng Josey Wales. * idea of your screenplay. Ii Successrul Screenplay Prepare and organize the Well, that happens to be one of my background information you * need before you start to write. Use cinematiC tools to build * character. Use a time-tested paradigm * to structure your plot. Make the most of film devices like flashbacks, freeze- favorites. I have such feelings myself, * frames, and voice-overs. --, obviously, or I would never have at- Present your finished script in tacked something like TIghtrope. I could have said it could be altered, we'll make * a polished, professional style. him Dirty Harry, a little more confident, and much more. add a few \"Make my days,\" or similar type squelches, and then you're off and Seasoned with plainspoken advice running. That would be commercial. On Honkytonk Man, somebody said, . - - - - - - -and provocative analyses of well- \"Why don't you make him live?\" But self-destruct-that's the way that guy is, Dell Readers Service-Dept. C019A IN a m e _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ and you can't make a sudden change at P.O_ Box 1000 the last frame. Hopefully, it's what the kid learns from it. Bronco Billy, it was Pine Brook, N _J . 07058 I suggested that I go back and get the sheriff (who humiliates him for standing Please send me_ _copies of THE SCREEN- A d d r e s s _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ I I WRITER·SWORKBOOK @ $7.95 each, plus 75¢ ~w~----------------_________ handling and postage per copy_I enclose my check or money order for $_ __ and understand delivery will take State. Zip_ _ _ __ I 3 to 4 weeks_ - - - - - - ...J L _______ _ 71

JULIEN J. STUDLEY INC. OFFICE SPACE & OFFICE BUILDINGS • 625 MADISON AVENUE • NEW YORK NEW YORK· 10022. 212 ·308·6565 • BOSTON • CHICAGO • HOUSTON • LOS ANGELES· MIAMI· NEW YORK • • SUBURBAN WASHINGTON· WASHINGTON·

usual.\" You can feel them. \"Smith & The dynamic range of the Toshiba V-S46 is a window rattling, speaker- Wesson and me,\" I made up. \"Who's blowing 80 dB. And there's much more to it than meets the ear. ~uch as four this 'we'? It's Smith & Wesson and me.\" video heads for snow-free slow mo and freeze frame. A 20-functlon Wireless Why did you move so much as a kid? Well, those were the Thirties, and TOSHIBAremote. Plus front loading and 117 cable channels. jobs were hard to come by. My parents and my sister and myself just had to Turn it up and you'll either want to buy a new pair move around to get jobs. I remember we 'nTouchw;,hTomo,mw moved from Sacramento to Pacific Pali- sades just to be a gas station attendant. It of speakers. Or have to. TO>h'''' Am..k a . loc. Sl TotowaROo>d. w\"yn•. NJ07470 was the only job open. In fact, every- body was in a trailer, one with a single wheel on the end, and the car, and we were living in a real old place out in the sticks. People were actually living in chicken houses. And it was good: you saw a certain side of life that you don't see now unless you're .. . The opportu- nities are so much more now. My dad was a hard-working guy, and he'd been brought up under the ethic, \"Nothing comes from nothing. \" You get what you give. And you work for what you get. Old-fashioned ethics. Passed down through his family. Did yourfamily settle eventually? Well, we just moved, but we were close. Then a good portion of the time I was in high school both my parents worked. We moved back to Oakland. My mother worked out at IBM. We should have bought the stock then! Then my dad worked at Bethlehem Steel and they'd go off in two old cars, '31 Chevy and a '32 Chevy, and they made ends meet that way. We lived in a fairly decent neighborhood in Oakland. That was during the Forties, war years, and there was a lot more work. That gas station still exists, on the corner of High- way 1 and Sunset Boulevard. There's a Spanish-style roof station there. I have pictures of my dad in that station. You admired him pretty much? Yeah, yeah. You look back as an adult and you see the struggles both of them went through and you think they put out a lot for us. You had real poverty. It wasn't like a lot of people suffer. I don't mean to make it sound Dustbowl. There are people in that situation today, and let's hope they'll pull out of it. My father would have pulled his way out of it eventually because he was that sort of person. He would have been a winner eventually. And in the late Forties he got with a corporation and worked his way up and became well thought of. He played a little guitar and he sang, and he had a small group. And he liked theat· rics. When I did Rawhide, he said, \"It's very nice you've made a few dollars while you're young.\" ~ 73

• Goingfor Brokaw in Convention City by Richard Zoglin admirably restrained. As for the three-network race, CBS, as Never mind the roof-raising oratory of usual , handled itself with the most pol- Mario Cuomo and Jesse Jackson, or the ish and professionalism, while NBC seemed the most wobbly. Though ABC tears that flowed in the convention hall took most of the heat for its Hart to Hart maneuver, the worst programming blun- as Geraldine Ferraro accepted the nomi- der was committed by NBC later the same night. Precisely at 11 , just a couple nation for Vice President. For many TV of minutes after the end of Jesse Jack- son's thundering speech, the network viewers, the key event of the 1984 switched back to local news , thus miss- ing possibly the most electric few min- Democratic National Convention was utes of the entire convention, as well as a chance to gauge the immediate reaction ABC's decision on Tuesday night to to Jackson's \"apology\" to Jewish voters. It also, incidentally, caused most NBC break away from the action in San Fran- affiliates to miss Tom Brokaw's live in- terview with Jackson. cisco and show part of a rerun of Hart to With little of interest happening on Hart instead. An interesting call, to be the floor most of the time , it was the men in the anchor booth who provided sure, but the most startling, and ground- the most interesting show. NBC's Bro- kaw, anchoring his first convention, was breaking, media moment of the four-day pleasant enough, but his laid-back de- meanor only reinforced his network's convention came two nights later on lackluster performance. (Roger Mudd, one of the few TV reporters whose polit- NBC. After Tom Brokaw had signed off ical analysis is worth listening to, was seen too rarely.) ABC'S Peter Jennings, for the evening and as the closing credits another newcomer to the convention an- chor booth, received a cool reaction from began to roll, the words \"How Hart to the press but struck me as reasonably alert and comfortable with his role. He Hart ended\" appeared on the screen. Convention 1984. also handled the convention's most They were followed by a snidely dead- amusing technical flub (Ferraro, un- aware that she could be heard by viewers pan plot summary of the episode that justified. They are caught between two before an interview, commented brightly that she and Jennings had just ri val ABC had left unfinished. warring camps: the traditionalists, who had dinner together) with grace and good humor. But Jennings' co-anchor, BC's thinly ve iled on-screen swipe view political conventions as a quadren- David Brinkley, is wearing badly with age. In the days of Huntley-Brinkley, at a rival TV news organization was un- . ,nial \"civics lesson\" that should be ad- his acerbic irreverence was refreshing; now it sounds merely glum and strained. precedented. Heaven knows, competi- ministered like a dose of cod liver oil, Over at CBS, meanwhile, two genera- tion among the three broadcast networks and the reformers, who disparage them tions of anchormen could be seen in uncomfortable juxtaposition. Walter has heated to a boil in recent years, as as \"dinosaurs\" deserving of only per- Cronkite, who just a few years ago was considered the irreplaceable linchpin of news ratings have become increasingly functory attention. CBS's dominance in network news, looked sadly superfluous in his new role important to a network's profit-and-Ioss From a viewer's standpoint, the com- as Sevareid-like analyst. Cronkite was (still is) a good reporter, anchorman, statement. But until now, the battle has promise solution in San Francisco been carried on discreetly behind the worked rather well. With coverage lim- scenes. Who stayed on the air the lon- ited to the final two hours or so of each gest? Who had the first interview with night's program , there was less time- Ferraro? Whose podium reporter got to wasting gab, but still enough chance for Mondale first? Such matters are of keen floor correspondents to flex their repor- interest to network news executives, but torial muscles. The spectacle of star re- any bragging or carping has traditionall y porters elbowing through crowds on the been confined to network publicity re- convention floor, coping with technical leases and off-the-record comments to flubs, and interviewing men wearing newspaper columnists. Yet here was funny hats is a cherished American polit- NBC, struggling in third place in the ical tradition in its own right. If nothing Nielsen competition, carrying the cat- else, it usually provides a few compel- fight right onto the screen, cheek by ling moments of spontaneous TV drama. jowl with Brokaw's analysis and Chan- This year's highlight was Ed Bradley's cellor's sage commentary. We have en- attempt to provoke a confrontation be- tered a new era. tween Chicago Mayor Harold It shouldn't reall y be surprising that Washington and Cook County Demo- the networks lost their cool in San Fran- cratic Chairman Edward Vrdolyak. The cisco. At a time when national political CBS correspondent's tactics may have conventions have become largely cere- been questionable , but Washington'S monial events, the networks are grap- outburst (he called Bradley \"one of the pling with the difficult question of lowest possible individuals I've seen\") whether gavel-to-gavel coverage is still was revealing, and Bradley's response 74

even communicator. As a comme ntator, THE AMERICAN SCREENWRITER BACK ISSUES OF FILM MAGAZINES howeve r, he is banal, and some times Form e r publis he r Fil m Comm e nt sell- misleading. Wh at CBS seems to have Wanted : Scriptwriters and subscribers for ing his vas t personal collec ti on of forgotte n is th at a large part of Cronkite's \"The American Screenwriter\". Write : GPI , film mags. priced way below re ta il. authori ty and prestige de ri ved from the Box 67, Manchaca, Tx 78652 Long SASE brings lis t of 150 ti tles fact th at he e mbodied -sym bolicall y, at fr o m the 50 s t o now . Aust in Lamont least-the journ alistic id eal of objectiv- AUTHORS WANTED BY 279 Fra nklin Street Ne wton MA 02158 ity. He was, we we re led to be lieve, a NEW YORK PUBLISHER man of no opinions. Now, it turns out, 75 C ronkite has opini ons afte r all. T he Leadin g subsidy book p u bl ish er seek s m a nuscri p t s qu es tio n is w he th e r th ey are wo rth of a ll t ypes: fi ction , n on-fic t ion , poetry , sch ola rl y hea ring. and juvenil e w o rks. etc. N ew authors welcomed. Send for fr ee , illustrated 40-page broch u r e H- 83 And th e n th e re was D an Rath e r. V a n tage Press, 516 W . 34 St., New Yo r k, N .Y . 10001 C ronkite's successor, the third netwo rk anchor makin g his conve ntion de but Pin· Ups • Portraits • Posters • Physique this summe r, was the real media star of Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • the 1984 De mocratic fe te. O f his ne t- Science Fiction • Musicals • Color Photos • work counte rpartS , Rathe r was the bes t 80 Years of Scenes From Motion Pictures prepared , the most acti ve in q uestioning re porte rs, th e mos t inte nt on gene rating Rush $1 .00 FOR OU R ILLUST RAT ED BROCHUR E inte rest. W hat's more, he is developing his TV image with the skill of a maste r. 134 WEST 18th STREET, DEPT. fC Reclining in his swivel anchor chair, leg NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011 crossed at a cocky angle of asse rti ve le i- (212) 620-8160-61 sure, he was a fqr cry from the Dan Rathe r who, during his first pressure- SOUNDTRACK ALBUMS fille d wee ks as C ronkite's replace me nt AND SHOW on the CBS Evening News, looked ready to crack at the sound of a twig snapping. RARE , OUT-Of-PRINT lP's. This man is relaxed. 64 Pag e List ... $1.00 The down-home colloquialisms are coming thick and fas t. One imagines BROADWAY/HOllYWOOD RECORDINGS Rathe r sitting up nights be fore each con- Dept. FC, Georgetown, Conn . 06829 vention sess ion, jottin g dow n a half- dozen cornpone simil es to sprinkl e in to hi s anchor-booth re partee th e next day. Afte r switching to L eslie Stahl for a re- port from the Michiga n delegation, for example , Rathe r was informed by th e correspond ent that she was actually ove r with the Ohio de legates. H e apologized with a hea rty laugh , ex pl aining th at good old L eslie was \" mov ing around faste r than a moth in a mitte n.\" And whe n j esse j ackso n was about to mount the podium , Rathe r ale rted viewers that the speech was like ly to be a memorabl e one, so th ey'd be tter \"get G randma in .\" Whateve r his affectations, Rathe r has achieved so me thing remarkable . H e has lived up to the almost impossible expec- tations set for him whe n he was named C ronkite's successor. And he has estab- lished the tone for network news cover- age in th e E ighti es: hard-nosed yet sy m- pathe ti c, aggressive yet folksy. After a shaky first yea r, whe n ratings for the CBS Evening News sa nk a bit and press reaction to him was mi xed , Dan Rathe r has hit his stride. H e is co nfid e nt, com- fortabl e, and rarin' to go. Watching him lead the TV news brigade th ro ugh the rest of th e decade will be a sight to be- hold . Get G randma in . @

Bye Bye, Balaban & Katz, Bye Bye Loop's northern end to Lake Street. Above the theater marquee (60 feet by Frank Segers Abe Balaban , 26, knew that running a wide with a six-story high vertical sign, string of nickelodeons-like the cheesy C-H-I-C-A-G-O, that is now a symbol of Nearly everyone in Chicago professes one he and brother Barney ran at Kedzie the city) sat an Arc de Triomphe fazed in to love the Chicago Theatre, the majes- and Roosevelt Road on Chicago's Jewish off-white terra cotta. The marquee (cur- tic old film palace on State Street that West Side-provided a nice living. A rently in its third incarnation) was con- turns 63 in October. Nonetheless, early converted storefront seating 100, theirs ceived as a low, canopy-like flourish retirement in decidedly final fashion was no worse than any of the other 500 ablaze with flashing pinwheels, swirls, looms just months ahead. Unless a nickelodeons around town , but as a man and colored lights. It was set off by a merger of civic do-gooders and private on at least speaking terms with culture facade laced with baroque and classical commercial interests eager for tax breaks and the arts (he was a vocalist, singing touches, including the masks of comedy develops quickly, the Chicago Theatre solo at weddings), Abe fancied himself and tragedy plus floral garlands and car- is doomed. having higher tastes. He tired of repeat- touches. Lest anyone forget who was ing the alarums, \"No spitting!\" and paying for all this, the Rapps inserted in Flashback: Just before 1900, George \"Aisle Five! Your baby is crying.\" the Arc a stained glass window bearing Spoor formed the National Film Rent- the \"coat of arms\" of Balaban & Katz. ing Company in Chicago to peddle film s In a chatty reminiscence Abe's widow technically better than those on Thomas (he died in 1962 at 73), Carrie Balaban , The theater's interior was even more Edison's crude motion picture machine. explained that Abe and Barney decided detailed and grand. Inspired by nothing By attaching high-intensity light to a that aesthetics and profits were comple- less than Francois Mansart's Chapelle lens, Spoor invented the Kinodrome , mentary, not opposing, forces . The Royale in Versailles, the palatially scaled which could show pictures in motion at idea: to build theaters <!.S fantasylands, lobby alone is five stories tall. A grand vaudeville houses. In 1907, Spoor \"as things of beauty, fairylands .\" Need- staircase formed by a huge arch winds teamed with G.M. Anderson, the star of ing a financial partner, the Balabans upward to the upper balcony in full view the Edison Company's The Great Train made peace with Sam Katz, a rival the- of the lobby. Inside, the main audito- Robbery, to form the Peerless Manufac- ater booker-operator, and in 1913 Bala- rium is stunning. The proscenium is 70 turing Co., from which grew the famed ban & Katz was born. After building a feet wide. Centered on its arch is a large Essanay studios. 750-seater, the Circle Theatre, a small mural of Apollo in his chariot, drawn by step up from a nickelodeon , they were four white horses, pulling the sun across Essanay quickly emerged as the silent ready for more. the sky. Once out from under a huge movie giant, producing both industrial cantilevered balcony, one can look up films and short dramas . The list of its Enter Cornelius Rapp and younger some 110 feet to a dome ceiling. Mar- stars is impressive: Beve rl y Bayne , brother George. Hearing about the new shall Fields & Co. supplied the drapes , Francis X. Bushman , Wallace Beery, AI Ringling Theatre, a French-inspired furniture, and interior decoration. Victor Gloria Swanson, Ben Turpin , and Char- jewel box si tuated in Baraboo, Wisc., of Pearlman & Co. designed and built lie Chaplin. But by 1915 Chicago gave all places, Balaban & Katz went to take a the crystal chandeliers, wall brackets, way as a production capital to California. look. The theater had been designed and lighting fixtures. The McNulty What was left was theatrical exhibition. and built by the Rapps. In short order, Brothers produced plaster details of as- the young architects built two Chicago tonishing complexity. \" Is this not the theaters for Balaban & Katz: the Central most overwhelming public space in Park in 1917, and then the Tivoli. B&K downtown Chicago?\" the architecture now felt ready for the erection of what critic of the Chicago Tribun e, Paul Gaff, they termed \"the world's wonder the- as ked rhetoricall y. ater,\" the Chicago. The Chicago Theatre opened at eight The Rapps were enthusiastic cohorts. o'clock on Wednesday evening, Oct. 26, They were an eclectic pair, mixing ar- 1921. The opening and the main fea- chitectural styles with abandon. For the ture, The Sign on the Door with Norma Chicago Theatre, the Rapps wanted to Talmadge, were reviewed the next day take a crack at Second Empire style, in the Chicago Daily News by Carl Sand- loosely called \"French Renaissance.\" burg: \"The Chicago Theatre had a regu- lar Balaban & Katz opening .... The Work commenced in 1920. From the whole works was auspicious and sesqui- start, the Rapps adopted a \" knock-your- pedalian [a sneaky reference to B&K's socks-off\" attack. The feeling of opu- lence and size was everything. The cultural pretentionsI all around, from Rapps set about building a 3,900-seat auditorium in an L-shaped configura- the marble colyums [sic], the circular tion running from State Street at the staircases, the lighted mysterious dome, and niches on down to the ushers , usher- ettes, and the bevies of men in evening dress acting like the place was the Black- stone lobby or the Union League Club.\" Sandburg added that the theater easily outdistanced \"much-bragged struc- tures, such as the Congressional library in Washington.\" Total cost was put near 76

$4,000,000. Enter City Hall. Plans to redevelop site into a theater-film museum com- The Chicago set the standard for the plex. Financial backing will be sought the North Loop area have kicked from private investors. But the city, or at Balaban & Katz theater empire in the least its planning commissioner, Eliza- Midwest, numbering some 100 sites around since the early Seventies, since beth Hollander, isn't buying Horist's (later sold to Paramount Pictures, where plan. She thinks it isn't workable and is Barney Balaban became president). Mayor Richard Daley. Then under for- pursuing alternative uses for the Chi- The Chicago also solidified Balaban & cago. Horist, angered by the planning Katz innovations which pushed theatri- mer Mayor Jane Byrne, planning accel- commissioner's stance, hinted that Hol- cal exhibition in America to its most fes- lander wanted to drive blacks out of the tive heights. The late Abel Greene, Va- erated, and Plitt saw an opportunity to Loop by converting the Chicago into a riety's editor, stressed that B&K knew legitimate theater operation. Name-call- well \"the importance of the big cinema dump the Chicago, perhaps to build an ing on both sides has since ensued . palace for morale.\" office skyscraper on the 31 ,OOO-square- The Chicago City Council , mean- • while , tried to swap with Plitt-a com- foot site. On Nov. 12, 1982, Henry Plitt, parably valued piece of city property in Cut: to the present. Scratch a Chica- the Loop for the theater. It would then goan of certain vintage and you get a the circuit's chairman, formally applied be turned over to private investors and Chicago Theatre story. Chicago Tribune preserved. That proposal didn't get far, columnist Mike Royko worked for a to the city for a demolition permit. in part because its driving proponent is year as an usher. Vincente Minnelli once Mayor Washington's fiercest political ad- worked there as a costumer. Louella The local press howled at Plitt, who versary, Alderman Ed Burke. So, the Parsons dragged a sheepish Jane Wyman matter is back in Circuit Court. and Ronald Reagan from the wings to lives in Los Angeles, but none more so announce their engagement. Chicagoans might draw some inspira- than Mike Royko, then writing for the tion from what Cornelius Rapp said in Stuart Brent, who now owns a book 1925: \"The outstanding fact about our shop on Michigan Avenue, also put in a Chicago Sun-Times. If the Chicago The- association with Balaban & Katz has year during the Depression as an usher. been their one great desire to build for \"You walked into the lobby,\" recalls atre was an economic liability, Royko all time. In our conversations about the- Brent, \"and the world was transformed. atres, our long hours of planning, that You didn't have a penny, so you can suggested , Plitt's bookers were to . has dominated. Balaban & Katz imagine how it felt to see that plush carpet and all that gilt pretension. On blame. \"When Plitt began peddling theatres are put up to last forever.\" the mezzanine they'd have this guy Wrong. They were meant to playing the piano softly, some Chopin, trash at the Chicago Theatre, who did last even longer than that. @1 while you were standing in line. During the six-minute intermission the orches- he think would show up-the Lyric Op- tra would come on. You had a Rossini overture in the pit. Going to the Chicago era Board?\" Royko wrote. Theatre was the classiest date you could goon.\" Plitt doesn't especially care which Ifeveryone so cherishes the nostalgia- party-the city or a private develop- drenched Chicago Theatre, why does it ment group-takes over and meets its face demolition? The answer involves demographics, economics and-as asking price of $32 million. Plitt has ar- usual these days in Chicago-a conten-. tious dose of politics. gued that by delaying on its request for a The Chicago Theatre flourished like demolition permit, the city was denying the rest of the City's Loop right up to the late Fifties. Early in the Sixties the stage optimum use of his property. The city shows were dropped (Liberace was among the last performers). Though it countered, sort of, by declaring the the- always remained a first-run film theater, by the late Sixties the Loop clientele ater a municipal landmark in January, shifted from almost exclusively white and middle class to largely black and 1983-thus, at least theoretically, tying poor. The downtown focus of Chicago moved northward to Michigan Ave. Plitt's hands. A year and a half ago, Plitt The Plitt Theatre chain, the nation's took its case to the Illinois Circuit Court, fourth largest, bought the theater a dec- ade ago from the ABC-Great States or- where the matter remains. ganization, which had purchased B&K. Although its architectural splendor re- \"It's a mess,\" is the way Judge James mains only slightly diminished, Plitt says it hasn't been able to make a go of Murray describes the matter. Judge the Chicago. Murray's father was chief electrician of the house from 1926 to 1930. His uncle once sang his own composition, \"I'm Looking at the World Through Rose Colored Glasses,\" from the Chicago's stage. Judge Murray is not eager to see the Chicago torn down. \"I have no idea what's going to happen with this case,\" he said. ''I'm going to have to reach a decision soon.\" That means, probably by mid-fall. While former Mayor Byrne pledged the Chicago Theatre would be pre- served, the current mayor, Harold Washington-not known as a hasty de- cision-maker-is nowhere near as reas- suring. Washington's position seems to be-he has yet to spell it out as of this writing-that under no circumstances will the city wind up owner of the Chi- cago Theatre. Unless private groups find an economically viable use for the house, it will be torn down. i Chicago preservationists have been vocal about the theater's future. Larry Horist, an official with the city Club, has unveiled an elaborate plan to turn the

Richard Schickel Reads D. WG. by Richard T. Jameson judged proportions, of such exhaustive- and poetry, his Southern-paternalistic ness without sacrifice of readability and attitude toward darker races, and his al- Why are so few directorial biographics dramatic power, that it demands to be most pathological obsession with the im- worth reading? One answer, surely, is recognized as the long-overdue literary age of the violable golden girlchild. But commercial. The showbiz bio has been and critical model for the directorial Schickel also persuasively locates the less a literary or critical genre than a biography. genesis ofsome of Griffith's greatest cin- publishing strategem. Mass-market ematic virtues: his thrilling responsive- publishers especially know that the ca- Few biographical subjects in the cin- ness to nature, landscape, reallocations, sual reader, on whom they depend for ema would imaginably confer a more raw light; his feeling for the misery and the lion's share of sales, will be easily heroic burden of responsibility in mat- beatitudes of life on the lower rungs of satisfied. It is necessary only to assemble ters of research and historical investiga- the socioeconomic ladder; his gift for the vagrant facts and legends about the sub- tion. Among the first things to impress a legitimate poetry of simplicity, which he ject's professional and personal history, reader of D .W. Griffith: An American Life himself valued too little alongside his drop as many names as possible, exploit is how comprehensively Schickel has more quotable (and sometimes dubious) the occasional whiff of scandal. The gathered the history and lore of Griffith's \"technical\" achievements, and which writer of such a volume need display no upbringing and young manhood and too many appreciations of his career like- qualifications beyond the willingness to shaped them into an authoritative narra- wise scant. do a little research (which mayor may tive. Beginning with the probable limits not entail screening the subject's films) . of \" Roaring Jake\" Griffith's Civil War Schickel apparently resolved to treat The cutting-and-pasting of contempo- heroism, which exerted so legendarily each of Griffith's features and a consid- rary review quotes substitutes for critical formative an influence on his son's signal erable number of the one- and two-reel- perspective. It is not essential , may even film triumph The Birth of a Nation , ers (he appears on familiar terms with be bothersome, that the writing and or- Schickel scrupulously separates fact everything extant) on its intrinsic worth ganization of the book reflect a discerni- from supposition, and then ascertains as film and its place in the evolution of ble film sense, or any particular feeling which suppositions are too well-in- Griffith's style, career, and sense of him- about the biographical subject. formed to part with. It is a practice he self as man and artist. Sounds like an maintains forthrightly, and for the most ordinary enough approach, but name Such formulaic exercises in opportun- part convincingly, throughout the book. three other film bios (or \"Films of. .. \" ism have begun to be supplanted in re- books, for that matter) that manage to cent years , as more and more trained Although he never quite says so him- pull it off without locking into the and- film scholars have entered the field. But self, Schickel's essential touchstones for then-he-directed mode. the increase in scholarly diligence has the patterns of truth in Griffith's life are sometimes served , ironically, to under- the films themselves. It is through The Birth of a Nation claims pride of score how incomplete the biographical these, after all, that we know Griffith- place, of course-nearly 100 pages trac- performance can be. Reading so admira- like any other filmmaker-most di- ing from the inception of the project, bly detailed and documented a study as rectly, and no other sustained account of Karol Kulik's Alexander Korda: The Man Griffith's film legacy so carefully ap- through the making of the film, to the Who Could Work Miracles, for instance, praises that body of work, or so sensi- reception of an artistic milestone and the one iearns much about the ins and outs tively balances the director's strengths not-yet-stilled reverberations of a socio- of Korda's film empire-building, yet and weaknesses. political scandal. Schickel is scrupulous comes away hungry for some real sense to a fault in analyzing the degree of Grif- of the marvelous storybook entertain- A familiarity with Griffith's films cues fith's culpability in the film's offending ments-thefilms-whose existence jus- Schickel to recognize the probable racism (I think he insists on his own tified the biographical investigation in sources of the director's sometimes exul- liberal discomfort with its racial assump- the first place. tant, sometimes enfeebling grandiosity, tions once or twice too often, when he his lamentable confusion of poeticism might more pointedly have pleaded the Happily, no such cavils apply to Rich- melodramatic imperatives ofcertain plot ard Schickel's D .W. Griffith: An American situations), and masterfully orchestrates Life (Simon and Schuster, $24.95). the drama of collusion, protest, and eva- Schickel has not only written as fine , sion that caught up much of the political eloquent, and judicious a life of Griffith establishment in the aftermath of the as we might have wished for the first film's release. great artist in the cinema; he's also pro- duced a book of such monumental (605 His final and most illuminating in- pages of principal text) yet astutely sight into the moral and aesthetic di- lemma posed by the cinema's first dis- reputable masterpiece is rendered much later in the book, in connection with an 78

abortive 1933 project, The White Slave . With this play adaptation Griffith pro- posed to (in his own words) \"raise the gooseflesh on the backs of an audience\" with the \"tremendous situation ... of a white girl in close relations with ne- groes.\" For him, the heart of the film's volatility had never been the general- ized racism for which it has been stigma- tized. As Schickel sees it: \"With Griffith we are dealing not so much with racial prejudice, but rather with a deep and permanent sexual obsession.\" Such niceness of distinction is typical. With it, and with a little recourse to verifiable facts, Schickel is able to ad- minister the coup de grace to many of the reigning cliches about Griffith's ca- reer: that he was forever burdened by debts from the commercial failure of In- tolerance; that his films of the Twenties were pathetically out of touch with pre- vailing public taste (the majority ofcom- mercial hits of the day were every bit as \"Victorian\" in tone and source material); that his contract pictures for Adolph Zu- kor and Joseph Schenck were abject fail- ures (whereas a number were well-re- viewed and most of them outgrossed, for instance, Schenck's Buster Keaton re- leases); that he was scorned and sub- verted by Hollywood, where he might very well have continued to direct in the Thirties and Forties. Schickel regretfully disputes this last point, arguing that, while Griffith might well have been employable as a sort of elder-statesman consultant, he was artis- tically and temperamentally incapable of adapting himself to the limber rhythms and adroit verbal wit that had come to typify the Hollywood film par excellence. As for scorn and subversion, . the author is at pains to record the civil- ity of Griffith's relations with his latter- day bosses, which obtained even as they withdrew faith and support from him. How acute and unsimplistic is this read- ing of the corporate miasma within which Abraham Lincoln (1930) lost its way: \"Men like Schenck, when they lose interest in a director or a project, do not necessarily order man or work to be sub- verted. Rather they create around them an aura of anxiety which their courtiers, ever sensitive to such moods, pick up, magnify, and communicate. They can fuss the life out of a creative enterprise without ever once raising their voices, and that was what was going on now.\" That's good history, good film sense, good writing. D .W. Griffith:An American Life is rich in all of them. ®

Quiz #9: The Color Game QUIZ #9: Listmakers of the world, On QUIZ #8, you were asked to match English-language movie titles unite-you have nothing to lose but a with their French release titles. (The couple weeks' sleep. Following in the answers: 1-M , 2-C, 3-F, 4-Z, 5-0, 6-U, patent-leather footsteps of Quiz # 2 7-E, 8-K, 9-R, 10-P, II-A, 12-J, 13-N, (numbers) and #7 (women's names) 14-Y, 15-Q, 16-H, 17-L, 18-0, 19-V, comes our latest challenge. We want a 20-B, 21-W, 22-S, 23-G, 24-X, 25-T.) list of movies with colors in the title , We received many correct entries, so onl y one title to a color, and the color Senior Editor Harlan Jacobson closed cannot be the first word or preceded by his eyes and picked the winner: Betty \"a,\" \"a n ,\" or \" the\" (thus, The Woman in Hatfield of Houston, Texas. Congratu- Red but not Red Headed Woman). lations to Betty and thanks to all. Which wo rds are acceptable? Any that appear in the \"color\" categories of a QUIZ ALERT: Next issue's quiz thesa urus. Longest list wins a free yea r will deal with the popular game Trivial of FILM Co ,IM ENT, if we receive it at Pursuit. We ask any reader who has 140 West 65th Street, New York, N.Y., found mistakes on movie questions to 10023, before October 15. send them to us by October 10.-R.C. CONTRIBUTORS Kelly Le Brock in The Woman in Red . [cs\" Harlan Kc nned v: p.5H,60. Bv Jo na[han Le- Jack Barth in sists evervo ne kn ows \\·ine: p. IH. Counes, ' Da\\' id Linder: p.4. Bv who he is. Sheila Benson is a film ning.. .. Don't ask us how, but Michael Patrick dc I\\larch'llicr: p. U. I\\ kt ro-(;o ldwvn- critic for th e Los Angeles Tim es. Mere- Sragow's characterization of Jonathan I\\lcvcr: p.24(wp).26(llliddlc) .27. Courtesv dith Brody is a sc reenw rite r and criti c Demme movies came out as \"rather I\\ lo\\'ic Star News: p.33(2) ,45(2) .46. Ncw Yorker based in L.A. Marcia Froelke Co- sappy\" instead of \"choice\" offerings of Filllls: p.45(I). Parallloun[: p.,.lI(Z). Bv Bob burn is a C hicago writer and co lumnist Americana (June) .... And in August, Thall: p. 76. 77. Twcntieth Century Fox: p.3<). for the Chicago Sun-Times. David Guy H amilton was cited as director of Llni\\'Crsal Stud ios: p.24,25.26. Warne r Bros.: Chute writes o n film for th e L.A. The Jigsaw Man. The director is p.64,65 , 66,67. CO llrte sv Dan Yaki r : Herald-Examiner. Terry Curtis Fox's Terence Young. p. I <) , 20 , 2 1 ( I .Z). Sau l Zaentz Co. : las t play, The Pornographer's Daughter, p.50.5 1.52.54.55 ,56. was an attemp t at hard-boil ed ficti o n. PHOTO CREDITS: Asto r Picrun:s: Richard Gehr is artS ed itor of th e Los ADDENDUM Angeles Reader. Richard T. Jameson p.4 .)(2). C BS : p.H. Co luillbi a Pi cture s : writes on film for the reader in Sea ttl e . p.<) , 10, II. Crvstal Pi ctures : p.2. Film Societv of To THE EDITORS: Marcia Pally is a New York writer. Lincoln Ce nter: p.I.'i . 16.3J( 1)..)3(1 U5 ,')7( 1.2). Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote Film : the 43( 1,2). ·P, 7H . French hlill Office: p.·H)' Cour- I have ca lled off the lawyers in con- Front Line for Ard en Press. Frank Se- nec tion with yo ur publication of a gers reports for Variety from C hi cago . false and misl eading quotation e rro- Peter Shaffer auth o red th e stage and neo usly attributed to me in the June sc ree npl ays for Amadeus a nd Equus. iss ue of FILI\\I COI\\II\\IENT. I think it is David Thomson writes on film from adequ ate co mm e ntary on the stan- San Francisco. Michael Walsh writes dards of yo ur magazine that no one on classical music for Time. Dan Yakir eve n both e red to ca ll me to ask is a freelance writer based in New York. whether or not I had made the state- Richard Zoglin cove rs TV for Tim e . ment. ERRATA: Sharp-eyed readers Tho- I tru st vo u will print this letter and, mas Nelson, Mark Phelan, and Paul Athanas caught an error in Dave Kehr's in th e future, re ly less on the un ve ri- lead story on Hitchcock (June '84). fi ed asse rtions of anonymous so urces Hitch does make a cameo appearance when yo u attribute quotations to real in The Trouble With Harry , sharing the people', read il y available, and trying to frame with the multimillionaire (Parker do a );ood and decent job in a com- Fennelly) as he pokes around Wiggs' Emporium near the film's begin- plex industrv. DAWN STEI{L Senior Vice President, Production , Paramount Pictures Ms. Steel's note refers to a quotation, attributed to her. which appeared in an article by L.M. Kit Carson in our June 1984 issue. 80