VOLUME 10 - NUMBER 05 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1974

to balcony. Every form of animated title a very close relationship during the mak- shots Mohr flie s with his camera on an is used: words grow larger, quiver, float ing of the picture. aerialis t's trapeze, a shot inspired by, but through the air; newspapers melt; and surpassing, Karl Freund's earlier work the theater facade turns into a grinning RICHARD KOSZARSKI: Would he on the German film. Such pyrotechnics, mask. At one point Mohr even uses rack tell you in the morning, before shooting, combined with a series of elegant track- focusing, a device which didn't generally just exactly what he was going to shoot? ing movements and a considerable use of come into vogue until EASY RIDER, four the Side-angle lens, do liven the film, decades later. Paralleling these expres- H .M.: He'd tell me what the scenes up . But neither Mohr's efforts, n or sionistic visuals is the film's decor, typi- were; he' d have it all written down on Veidt's commanding pr ese nc e, can cal ofLeni in its obsession with menacing little pieces of paper, and we would dis- completely sa lvage what is basica lly a corridors and shadowed staircases. At cuss the scenes and he would tell me one-situa tion potboiler. one point a prop staircase drops from the what he would want and how he would flies on one of the actors-this from the like to see it,so I would have so me know- The following excerpt is ba sically con- director of HINTERTREPPE! ledge of what we were going to do, and cerned with on e ex tra vaga nt moving when we'd get on the se t I would know shot, and gives a good indication of the But for all this the plot line is just too how to lay the thing out for him . But he lengths to which these craftsmen would painfully dumb, and the acting had control, of course. He kept control of go to secure a desired effect. As it hap- mediocre; one tends to doze off between all the factors of the film as a ny good pens, Mohr misremembers the details of camera movements, and there is no director would. the plot, but this is not surprising after question of what really interested the forty-five years. What is s urprising is creators of this uneven, but quite extra- R.K .: He used to be an art director that the AFI Catalogue also ge ts the plot ordinary film . when he was in Germany. Do yo u think fouled up by saying that Erik (Veidt) is he expressed a greater than usual con- put on trial at the end. It is Mark (Leslie HAL MOHR: That was a very fun pic- cern in compositions? Fenton) who is accused . The catalogue ture to make. Leni was a wonderful little also gives an impossible 1927 premiere guy; he was a German director that could H.M .: Well, yes. Some directors did, date for the film; trul y an unknown work speak very little English, and he had other didn ' t. Some directors would deserving of a little more attention! manners of directing that were truly of the never even want to look through the silent era. On his director's chair he had camera, but Leni was-well, like Mike H .M.: Paul Fejos was a new director. quite a complex of apparatus set up. He Curtiz was in tha t respect, too. Mike was Paul had-he was a doctor, he had a had a siren, a hand-crank siren screwed not an art director, but he had a good eye doctor's degree, he was a bacteriologist, on one side of it; in the pocket of it he had for composition and that sort of thing, microscope man, and he was married to a couple of pistols loaded with blank car- and he'd like to help yo u set the thing up a woman doctor at the time, although tridges; he had a police whistle, a thing and select the composition of the shots they had separated, I think. Paul also around his neck, and a, oh, a big bronze and so on. had a home up in Hollywoodland, and Chinese gong-type of thing alongSide of he and I got to be very close together. In the chair, with the thing that you hit it THE LAST PERFORMANCE fact, I have a few things in my house with. And he would rehearse a scene This film was developed from an today that I got from Paul, that Pa ul left with these people and, as I say, he spoke when he gave it all up. very little English, but some of the per- in-house scenario by James Ashmore formers spoke German, and he' d lay the Creelman, and even more than THE LAST He had made this picture called THE scenes out in German with them and WARNING suffered in release from being a LAST MOMENT, which I had nothing to do then he would tell them, \" On certain silent film with talkie \"goa t glands\" with. And it was a clever idea . He had signals, when I blow ze vistle, you do so grafted onto it. The studio developed the the idea of showing a person drowning and so. When I do the siren, you do so script in June and July 1928, with added and at the moment of death their whole and so; when I beat the gong, you do so dialogue scenes submitted in January life goes before them, so it was done in and so,\" and then the pistol shots were 1929. At least four other writers worked the retrospective style, so this person's to get them excited, and the chases on the film, including Edward T. Lowe , entire life passed before their eyes . And I through the theater. It was supposed to who was writing the BROADWAY script at don't know how I got assigned to Paul, be a haunted theater, and he had these the time he assisted with the dialogue other than the fact that I was the number wild chases through the thing. It was like sequences here. The working titles were one cameraman at Universal at the time . a three-ring circus. When he was direct- THE PLAY GOES ON and ERIK THE GREAT (by I think young Laemmle was his sponsor ing a scene you would hear the siren which it is still sometimes known) . As in a sense, out there. going, the whistle blowing, beating hell was the custom at the time, foreign lan- out of the gong, pistol shots all over the guage versions were produced simul- I did several pictures with Paul, and he place. That was Leni's way of directing. taneously: a German version, titled was a strange person; he's dead now too. But it was a-I guess it was a pretty fair ILLUSION, and a Hungarian version. The last I heard of him he was teaching picture. (Fejos was Hungarian .) But again, none up at Palo Alto at Stanford. But he was of these part-talkie versions seems to never a good director. He had strange We had a great empathy. He lived up have survived; only the silent version is ideas-that was the era of the goofy in Hollywoodland, he had a house up in known to exist. Although apparently ideas in film , yo u know , like CABINET OF Hollywoodland and I used to go over to produced before BROADWAY, this film did DR. CALIGARI and that sort of thing . Inci- his house and we would sit down and not appear until several months later, dentally, one of the pictures that I made have breakfast together and we'd talk sneaking into release, and oblivion, on with Paul was with Conrad Veidt, THE about the day's work. He used to eat October 13, 1929. LAST PERFORMANCE . Veidt was a fine great platters of uncooked ham for actor, and it was a good cast, but it breakfast, just slabs of it. He'd eat more Since it is a vehicle for Conrad Veidt, wasn't much of a story. food; I never have seen a man eat as THE LAST PERFORMANCE is more depen- much as he ate. I think that is what killed dent on plot and acting than THE LAST I'll never forget one shot we made in him. He was a very heavy-set man, very WARNING, but it is still too slight and that thing. Conrad Veidt was a magician, fat. But he was a charmer; he was a won- inconsequential in construction. \"A tale and Leslie Fenton is his assistant. Mary derfullittle old guy and a lot of fun. He of three passions-love, desire and Philbin was also one of his assistants. He had a grand sense of humor and we had hate,\" we are told in an early title, setting was in love with Mary Philbin; posses- us up for the UFA style melodrama that sively, you know. The mature man that follows . VARIETY is the obvious influence wants to keep it for himself. Leslie Fen- here, and not just in the vaudeville set- ting of the revenge plot. In one of the first FILM COMMENT 49

HAL MOHR CONTINUED pended and it pantographed itself as it a swing, walking around on tracks over- went on these four cables, so it was al- head, pointing it at things and so on. We ton , who was the juvenile, and the girl ways level when it came on down . We were, frankly, I think we were pretty are in love with each other, and Veidt rehearsed it in slow motion first. It was much imitating some of the German realizes that he is going to lose his love, going to be beautiful, and when we went techniques of that period. that she is going to be taken away from to shoot the thing, when they pulled the him. snatch line, the rope was tied to the front BROADWAY of the plank instead of to the back of it, so BROADWAY was advertised as the first He has this trick that he does-one of the pull of the snatch line flipped it over. million-dollar talkie (for reasons that will the tricks that he does is a sword trick in And I was hanging upside down on this soon become clear) and was a pet project the trunk. Fenton gets inside of this seat. of the young Carl Laemmle Jr. , who per- trunk and they close the lid and lock it, sonally produced it for his friend Paul and Veidt plunges about forty-seven So m y first thought of course Fejos. The studio had paid $225,000 for swords through it, in all different direc- was-I'm only this far from the foot- the rights to the smash hit play by Philip tions . Then, after the swords are all stuck lights and I'm going to leave my head in and Frances Dunning and George Ab- into the thing, the big dramatic moment the footlight trough-and also, the audi- bott on September 30, 1927. But they sat comes whe n they fling the trunk open ence was under me, and if I dropped the on the property for almost a year, while and the guy steps out of it. camera I might kill somebody if I drop- numerous other films-Warner's LIGHTS ped it on their head or something; so it OF NEW YORK comes to mind-capitalized So Veidt decides that he is going to do was like Fejos' LAST MOMENT. I knew on the gangster-night club motif which away with Fenton. We don' t know this, what I had to do, and I did it. I held onto the play's notoriety was based on. of course, until we see the trunk open, the camera and I pulled myself up like a Charles T. Lowe wrote three treatments but we suspect it. So they wanted to get trapeze under this thing so I went down between October 1928 and January 1929, the shock effect when the trunk was cross- sideways. but Charles Furthman was co-credited flung open, and the camera zooms into with the adaptation (for work on the the trunk, and here is this guy actually Well, I heard this terrible scream as I film). It opened on May 27, 1929 and still pierced by all these swords. flipped down-all this happened in exists in both all-talking and si- about two seconds-I heard a scream lent versions, although the last reel, a He's dead, you know, so how the hell from down below and a wild rush of the Technicolor production finale, is appar- are we going to do it? There was no such audience trying to get the hell out of the ently gone. thing as a zoom lens; we couldn't get the way, and I got myself around into a posi- Ordinarily, one can dismiss silent ver- crane in there, we couldn't get it in there tion where I was hanging Sideways on sions of existing talkies as of academic to do this kind of a move with it, you this trapeze-like thing on tne seat and I interest only, but some historians today know. The cameramen would have to could actually feel my shoulder brush argue that the silent BROADWAY is in start way back at the back of the stage, up the footlights as I went across. I had to many ways the better film. This version over what would be the top balcony, and swing back and forth eight or ten times allows the conversational passages to rush down like a pistol shot to the open before I finally slowed down enough play innocuously, while in the talkie ver- trunk on the stage. where they could actually grab me and sion the dialogue delivery is ill-tutored and unconvincing, jarring and uncom- I figured out that the only way I could stop the thing. fortable to most audiences. The great do the thing was to rig a swing. So we So then we corrected that. And we put problem with the silent version, how- rigged a swing on steel cables just ahead ever, is that all of the musical numbers of the proscenium over the orchestra pit, the snatch block on the back of the seat have been neatly pruned, and it is here and hung on down so that it swung instead of the front of it, so it wouldn't that the great crane is fully unleashed, a about this high over the footlight trough flip it again. And we tested it out with a dizzying sight well worth a few awk- at its lowest point. It had four cables on it sandbag on it, and it worked beautifully. ward moments with Glenn Tryon. and a seat that the camera operator could So when I got on the thing we did it over, The film opens with the establishing sit on, with a hand-held camera, and we and we made the shot and I'm pretty superimposition montage that marks so hauled this thing way on back up to the sure the shot was in the picture. But much of Mohr's work in the period, very roof of the stage, back in this far that's how we used to improvise things though it is not as elaborate as in THE corner, and we had it on a block-and-fall in those days. LAST WARNING. The vertiginous crane arrangement so we could start the thing movements immediately command all of coming down, and when it reached the It would be interesting to see some of our attention, and we wait for them point where it wouldn't whip-snap, these old films. Of course, I suppose while the sappy love story and undistin- they had a snatch line that they would you'd shudder to think about them guished gangster action grinds along. release and let the thing swing free, so it today, but when you think of what we Charles D. Hall's fabulous \"cubist\" set would swing right down over the foot- had to do and how we had to improvise for the Paradise Nightclub is always light trough; a hand-held camera would things in order to create new effects and worth watching, but again it seems a be centered right on this trunk, and as get new ideas and new shots, it was a titanic technical effort in the service of a you went over the trunk you saw this pretty wonderful era in itself, you know. decidedly mediocre narrative. It might thing, and as it filled the screen they be noted that Carl Laemmle Jr. today made an instantaneous cut. So you R.K.: Well, today, you wouldn't have feels the film suffered not because pro- didn't complete the swing back over, you the time to do that kind of a shot you just duction got out of hand-as Mohr just stayed at the same cut. That was the speculates-but because Fejos as a premise of the shot. described. European director was unattuned to the H .M.: Well, no. You'd do it with a American idiom of this fast-moving play And then when we got ready to shoot of New York nightlife. it, I was afraid for my operator, I zoom actually. wouldn't let him shoot the thing, I shot R.K .: You'd do it with a zoom, but it H .M. : BROADWAY was a story about a the thing myself. I didn' t want to take a song and dance man, a hoofer, that chance on missing the shot and I didn't would have a completely different worked in a little basement mghtclub m want to take a chance on possibly some- New York, back over the East Side or body would be afraid and get hurt or psychological effect. H.M. : That's right, that's right. You something. wouldn't have that terrific rushing thing Well, I sat on this thing, and I had a then, I mean a zoom lens would just go safety belt around me and the seat was pfft-you know, what the hell? But 'you just a board, and, as I said, it was sus- wouldn't try to do it the way we did It then . As a matter of fact, I think tha t UFA, in Germany, had done some work with a camera suspended on cables, like 50 SEPTEMBER 1974

Top Left: Hal Mohr (a rrow) on set of his early film , PA N'S MOUNTAIN. Top right: Mohr (a rgy le socks), Paul Leni (i n director' s chair) on setofTHE LAST WARN ING. Middle : Conrad Veidt , Paul Fejos, Mohr on set of THE LAST PERFORMANCE . Bottom: the BROADWAY crane. FILM COMMENT 51

HAL MOHR CONTINUED On that platform-it was about six feet the premise of the story. Here's this guy someplace, just a dump, yo u know, and across-were the controls for the crane, working on this most lavish thing that Glenn Tryon, I think it was, played the like streetcar controls. Now the crane could have ever been constructed as an hoofer. At any rate it had been a success- operator would ride there with the entertainment center and he could think ful play, and yo ung Laemmle wanted to cameraman, because you could carry of nothing but getting out of this awful make a grea t film o ut of it. Well, the play your camera, or two cameras, with an dump and getting into the Palace had run all over the country and run and operator and an assistant and the direc- Theatre or something of that sort, so the run and run, so Fejos got the idea, I tor and the director of photog- whole premise of the story was ridicul- guess it was Fejos or young Laemmle's raphy and the crane operator, you could ous . idea, tha t it had to be made as a spectacu- ge t five or six people on this thing be- lar film ; otherwise, it would never be sides the camera. R.K .: You had this giant crane on this accepted by the public. big set, now how would you plan the It would do a complete arc from the shots? I mean, the shots must have been They didn't change the premise of the floor on one side, completely on over to planned out in advance like a missile story at all. It was still the story of a the floor on the other side, and the plat- launching almost. hoofer and a little stinking nightclub; form was so suspended that-like a possibly h e go t about forty doll ars a pantograph-it always remained level as H.M.: We'd plan them on paper. The week and hi s whole ambition of hi s life it went on over, and came down on the crane was completely mobile and you was to ge t the hell out of there and ge t in other side. It could do 360-degree circles could do anything with it. You could the big time, play the Palace, or so me- right down at the floor level or at any stop it on a pin head. And you could thing of that sort, or get in a first-class position you wanted it to. It could do do-it was a miraculous piece of equip- anything at all that you wanted it to do . It ment. I don't think there has been any- Mohr, Errol Fl ynn on set of CAPTAIN BLOOD. was a mgnificent piece of equipment. In thing built since that could do the things those days it cost about fifty thousand that this thing could do. Of course, it was cafe. So they retained that premise, but dollars to build, which would be the a difficult thing to do it with, because it they changed the concept of it. Paul, equivalent of a half a million dollars was such a massive thing. But we'd who had a creative mind, thought that today , I would say, if you built the same plan-we knew the length of the arm things had to be different in order to be thing. So this was the showpiece at Uni- and we'dlayitouton paper. And we had good, and to some ex tent he was versal for a long time. a little model of the boom, we built a correct. miniature of the set, we had a scale Well, they built this thing to use to model of the boom to show the positions We talked about this thing and bet- photograph BROADWAY. Now, when we we could get it in, in relation to the set ween us we designed-Paul was the built this thing you couldn't very well where the scenes would be played. main designer-we designed the use it in a little stinking night club, you Broadway crane, the Broadway boom. know; as a matter of fact there wasn't a My God, we had scenes in that thing Paul wanted a piece of equipment that stage on the Universal lot that could_ac- that were-well, we would try to emu- we could just make the camera do any- commodate it. You couldn't use it inside late Murnau's SUNRISE, and things like thing in the world with. So we had the because there were no stages built to ac- that; trying to do things that no one had Llewellyn Iron Works, down on North commodate it. You'd have to use it out- ever done before; beyond what anybody Main Street, build the thin g. And we side, if anything. So, in the meantime, had ever-we were trying to outdo Dup- went down there-h e ll , we spent they're working on the story; Paul's ont on his VARIETY. And that was the weeks-everyday we would go down to working on the story. A man by the purpose, the idea of the thing. see how the thing was pro- name of Lowe was the writer that gressing, Paul and I. He was the fair- worked with Paul. Who was given credit R.K .: You consciously, talked about haired boy with young Carl; he could do for the screenplay? how you could outdo this particular no wrong, so it was kind of a nice wagon film? to hook yourself onto. R.K. : Edward Lowe and Charles Furthman. H.M.: Notin that language. Butthatis This thing was self-propelled what was here all the time, how to outdo --carried its own generators in the form H .M.: Edward Lowe was the principal Dupont. Subconsciously you think, of a trailer that had the generators that writer of the screenplay. So Lowe and \"Now what the hell can we do that has would operate it, and would operate Fejos were preparing the screenplay and never been done before?\" That was an what lights you would carryon it. It was they got the. idea, because we had this era that we went through; we are going completely motor controlled; it had a tremendous piece of equipment that we through the same era now. I mean, a lot fifty-foot arm on it, which was an wanted to use and exploit to the utmost, of the new directors are thinking, unheard-of thing in those days, because of making this a tremendou s night club. \"Where the hell can I put a camera where any crane that would go eight or ten feet The night club was like Grand Central it's never been put before?\" above the ground was a big crane in Station . It was designed, on paper, to those days. accommodate this boom, so that there R.J,{quid you use the Broadway Crane would be balconies up fifty feet from the on all tnese subsequent films? ground, you know. H .M. : Yes, I used it on every picture I There wasn't a stage in the studio that made out there from then on. I'm possi- could accommodate it. In the first place, bly the last guy that ever used it as a if the stages could have accommodated camera platform. The last time I saw it, it it, the crane could never have operated was rusting away on a junk pile out there on the stages without going through the on the back lot. It was standing out there floor. They had wooden floor stages. So rotting away; it broke my heart to see this we designed a stage known as the beautiful piece of equipment. They used Broadway Stage, that's still, I think, cal- it subsequently, too, when they'd rig the led the Broadway Stage out there, Stage sets; they'd haul the lamps up on the 12; and a concrete floor was laid in that. It thing, up on the higher parallels. They was sixty feet to the rafters and it was a used it as a rigging device for the electri- tremendous stage. And this set was built cal equipment-and then they let it go all that filled the entire stage. to hell. I mean it was just shot all to hell. Well, you can imagine what this did to But I don't think I made a picture out there, subsequently, that I didn't use that on. I used it as late as THE PHANTOM 52 SEPTEMBER 1974

OF THE OPERA; I used it on that exten- moved to MGM where he filmed the big for him-beyond his scope actually . sively. I always found a reason to use it German version of THE BIG HOUSE, then It was becoming terribly expensive and on something. I suppose it was a kind of returned to Europe to continue his terribly extravagant. nostalgia more than anything else. strange career as scientist and film- maker. Dr. Hortense Powdermaker's an- R.K.: You shot a scene with about THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD thropological study Hollywood the Dream three thousand extras storming the Bas- Factory is dedicated to him. tile, did yo u not? One of the most mysterious of early talkies is this ambitious and expensive In December 1929 and January 1930, H.M .: That's right. Oh , we had epic of the French revolution which was \"retake\" scripts were delivered for the -oh, it was just out of all realm of any begun by Mohr and Fejos under the title film well after Mohr felt tha t they had sense, you know. I had about fourteen LA MARSEILLAISE. Developed by Hous- \"finished\" the picture . These new scenes cameras working on the damn thing. ton Branch from his original story \"Love apparently changed the film greatly and This whole set was of streets-village Marches On,\" various treatments were many old scenes were dropped, judging streets in front of Notre Dame and on top handed in during July and August 1929. from existing stills . As THE CAPTAIN OF of Notre Dame, all done as one-almost But disaster struck soon after shooting THE GUARD , the film was generally re- like a live television thing, with these began , and the film was taken over by leased on April 20, 1930. Today it seems cameras all over, picking up different director John S. Robertson and Gilbert that only a silent version remains, hardly portion s of the action, and I think that is Warrenton, the brilliant cinematog- more than a mute talkie with scores of when Paul got scared. rapher of THE CAT AND THE CANARY, THE dialogue titles which make it nearly im- MAN WHO LAUGHS, and LONESOME. Mohr possible to sit through. The personal We were up on top of the Notre Dame and Fejos received no credit, although story is idiotic, a romance be- set. We broke for lunch, and Paul stayed much of their footage remains in the pic- tween revolutionist Laura La Plante and behind a little bit. I got out to the front of ture, notably the very impressive storm- royalist John Boles; and the setting, the studio to get lunch and I heard this ing of the old HUNCHBACK set which against the historical reality of the re- ambulance come flying in and it went Mohr discusses here. volution, lacks the touch of a master like Griffith. But the exterior photography is flying back to the set. Paul had seem- His brief comments shed some light on quite striking, especially some night ingly fallen down these steep steps on the rather mysterious circum- crowd scenes and the march of the re- the back of the se t. He was lying at the stances under which Fejos, Universal's volutionaries . And its great central battle bottom of the steps without any visible star director at the time, abruptly left the scene can well stand comparison with scars or blood, no broken limbs. But ap- studio. Some historians feel he was an- parently his back was thrown completely noyed at not being assigned ALL QUIET ALL QUIET. out of joint. You could never know if this ON THE WESTERN FRONT, and was looking was true or not, but that's when they put for an excuse to get out of his contract. H.M.: I remember, we did that on the him in the hospital and that's when Certainly Mohr's speculations on the na- Cathedral set, not the PHANTOM set, but whoever took the picture over. . ture of the director's \"accident\" seem to on the HUNCHBACK set, that's right. And bear out something of this sort. Fejos that's where the accident happened to R.K.: Robertson. Paul. I think the picture began to get too H.M.: John Robertson, yeah. R.K .: Then you worked with Robert- ---- ---- son to finish the picture? H.M.: Yeah, I finished the picture, I'm Mohr (beret), Paul Fejos (argyle socks), and the BROADWAY crane. sure of that, I'm sure of that. R.K. : Did they kind of scale it down after that to make it a little more... ? H.M. : Well, they cut down the schedule a hell of a lot; they cut down a lot of the costs, but it was not a good picture. It was a pretty bad picture. John Boles was never a great actor. Laura La Plante was a nice little actress, a nice gal. But it was just one of those things that never should have happened. R.K.: Was this another one of those things when you went sweeping around with the Broadway Crane? H .M.: No, we didn't do that much of it. We didn't do that much of that sort of thing. After that first exhibitionism for BROADWAY, we had to settle down and use it more as a tool, you know, not as a display. I'll never forget one thing we did on BROADWAY. We had this crane swinging around during one of the musical num- bers, just rotating, swinging around the camera, photographing everything on those sets all at one time like a big merry-go-round type of thing. If you make them dizzy enough they'll think it's a great scene, you know? But that was the end of the Fejos thing, I think, at Universal. CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD, I think, was the last thing he did out there. Hal Mnhr died this last spring .~?- FILM COMMENT 53

by Raymond Durgnat Bunuel wrote TRISTAN A' S first draft in The locale is shifted from Madrid to the nothing of two important \" minor\" 1963, with a Spanish production in less modernized society of Toledo. characters: Don Lope's maidservant, mind. In its final form it belongs with the Saturn a, and her deaf-mute son , series of Bunuel films which deal with On a declining income, Don Lope Saturno . (But casualness is of the es- attempts at solidarity, social reform, or (Fernando Re y) obstinately maintains sence here.) On her arrival, Tristana was self-liberation, and which coneluded his scrupulous sense of gentlemanly quite content to help Saturna with with THE YOUNG ONE . The Spanish cen- honor and his stance as a progressive, household chores; but Don Lope, in sors changed their mind just before permissive, freethinking Don Juan . On front of Saturna, orders her not to be- shooting was to begin in 1964, eve ntually her mother's death, Tristana (Catherine have like a mere servant. Nonetheless, relenting in 1969 . Deneuve) enters his home as his ward, he lets her fetch his slippers. And he uses becoming first his dependent and then the impalpable moral authority given \"Tristana is Galdos ' worst book, but it his mistress . Eventually, she leaves him him by her dependent status to make her allows me to observe some aspects of to elope with a young artist, Horacio his mistress rather than the mistress of Spanish life a nd customs.\" Bunuel's (Franco Nero). Her guardian'S sister the house. H er initially equally friendly story takes Galdos' theme (the hand- dies, leaving Don Lope a rich man once relationship with Saturno also takes a icaps which women suffer) in its stride, more. Tristana , now gravely ill with a leg forced turn . After her loss of her leg she relating it to the theme of a girl's spiritual tumor, returns to die in the home of the banishes him from her bedroom to the stifling by an unenlightened middle- man whom she thinks of as her father. garden before appearing on the balcony Horacio accompanies her, agreeing visit- to awe him with the sight of her breasts. elass, a la Flaubert or Mauriac. But ing hours with his rival, who, however, In the French version, the \"rerun\" con-. baits a trap subtler than romantic love: a eludes with a moment from their first Bunuel's sidelong references to grand piano and marrons glaces. After meeting, in which she gives him an Women's Lib are part of his less obvious Tristana has had a leg amputated, she apple. purpose. He shifts the period from the decides to remain with the older man. 1890's to 1929-1935, roughly correspond- She leads him to a church marriage, and This shot is missing from the English ing to Spain ' s first military dictatorship. some time later opens his bedroom win- version , which is some seven minutes dows wide to ensure that a heart attack shorter than the French. Its presence Raymond Durgnat teaches film at Columbia proves fatal. As she watches him die , the might have clarified a theme of which, University's School of the Arts. His book on Luis film briefly recapitulates, in reverse however, more than enough remains to Bufiuel was published in America by the University chronology, earlier moments in their establish it as one of the film's structural of California Press, and in Britain by Studio Vista. relationship. configurations. Tristana, a girl of modest This is the second of four articles examining the bourgeois origin, has theoretically at Bufiuel films made after BELLE DE JOUR . Studies of This recapitulation makes little or THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE and THE SPECTRE OF LmERTY will follow in future issues . 54 SEPTEMBER 1974

least, a choice of three lovers: Don Lope, the rule in Bufiu el. (Several notable ex - a socio- m ora l maze like everyone else's. Hora cio, Saturno. Don Lop e ty pifie s ceptions d epend on the bizarre forms It isn' t fitting that h e sh o uld end up (briefly) a mixture of aristocratic stand- achieved by th e life-force in decay .) Ban- banished from Tristana's bed and con- ards and liberal ideas, which is prepos- terin g with a pretty girl carrying wash- demned to en terta in hi s n ew priest- sessing but riddled with internal con- ing, Don Lop e co m es on like a Don Juan cronies to ch ocola te, reflecting, lik e a tradictions and unstable or misleading. a nd a devil. He misdirects a plain-clo th es broken ma n , \"Yo u know th e world isn ' t policeman pursuing a thief, and so such a bad place. Although it's cold and Horaci o is free , progressive, and cos- seems philanthropist, egalitaria n, and snowing outside, in h ere we're comfort- mopolitan , but our suspicions are anarchist. (We do not yet reflect that the able a nd warm.\" Certainly this aroused by the picturesque pose which underdogs w hom h e makes it his rule to philosophy ove rl ooks Tristana 's he imposes on his working-man model; champion are, by definition , no threats coldness-and h er los t leg. But he is he underestimates the power of roots to him self.) neither butt n or buffoon. And th e and environment. Don Lope's de fl ora- spiritual contra dictions w hich concl ud e tion of Tristana is followed by a sequence Don Lo p e's d e p reca tion of hi s in his seni le fanta sy of reconc ilia ti o n in which ge ndarmes with sabers scatter a with the world are more th an matter for workers' demo nstration of w hich money-grubbing epoque may seem a moral comedy; they retain something of Saturno is part. Saturno's childlike ac- kind of e mbryonic Socialism, rather tha n a tragic flaw. Typically, Buftuel's portrait ceptance of the household's paternalism disgruntlement a t his ow n lack of means. of Don Lope has a realism which exists at matches his inability to declare an erotic But scornfully he refuses to officia te at a point ambiguous between tragedy and passion of which the others become another of these deca den t modern duels comedy, two over-familiar, over-Simpl e aware only in its more ignominious w here h on or is sa tisfied by firs t blood . emotiona l modes. forms: principally, his habit of locking Certainly he has a moral code (even in himself in la va tories for h ours on end, love, and even though he breaks it). This Tristana's deteriora tion is co m plemen- during w hich he either falls into a sort of requires him to spare the wife of a friend tary, a nd equally implicit in her begin- trance or galvanizes his erotic fantasies (both male chauvinism and the w isdom nings. In her docility and dignity is with mischievous fingers. of the old boy net) , a nd virginity (which breeding, although in the sense of \"well is sacred) . But the film 's rea l devil is a bred\" rather than of pedigree. At the be- Whiie the film is hardly a simple alle- m ore de vious form of se ductive pres- gi nning, particularly, she loves Don gory, it would be difficult to rule out the sure, and the tips of its horns appear in Lope as sincerely as h e loves h er. And following sense. Tristana, preoccupied the se lf- sacr ificial fa th erliness w ith while he sees himself as Don Juan a nd with her social equals -of w hom one is a which he in sists that Tristana eat his the de vil, sh e implici tl y com pares him false liberal, and the other a real household's only egg. (in h er dream w h ere the church be ll has one-hardly conceives the possibility of his face) to God (both the Father and the a full relatio n s hip with h er fell ow- The cafe w here he m eets his friends Son, if we are to match his remark tha t he dependent-symbol of the proletariat, functions as a liberal church . In dire is h er father and her lover, as it suits him scattered into mute and innocent frag- straits for cas h , h e refuses to h aggle over to be) . But her love, like his, is corrupted ments. As in Buftuel's DI ARY OF A money with tradesmen who are not sor- by the three icons of her bourgeois code . CHAMBERMAID, the politics of TRISTANA'S didly penny- pinchin g. Thus his She wa nts a piano (practicing a t a table characters are an overt part of the drama . machismo becomes masochism, and his edge in its absence) , a bo urgeois w ifely Don Lope, rea ding his newspaper aloud, angry disavowal of money becomes role (for Tristana , helping Don Lop e to snorts indignan tl y at the propositio n meaner than their straightforwardness. his slippers is n ot a serva nt' s ta sk but a that \"The Original Sin of the First Repub- But just as he deflo wers Tristana in de- trust), and an essentially conventional lic was to try and cure the ga ngrene of its fiance of his own creed, so, when he has sexua l code (which her dreams, as one institutions by speeches, and speeches money, his behavior changes. Toasting might ex pect, undermine). alone.\" Most of the film 's spectators, Tristana in her absence, he drains the even at first viewing, w ill have heard champagne she \" refuses, \" co nsoling Tristana 's interest in the church grows something of Tristana's subsequent fate , himself-in his agony-that this vulgar earl y, a nd it is impossible to say w h e ther and by associating gangrene with ampu- luxury is her loss and his gain. it represents her defensive maneuver tations w ill sense that Tristana is, in against Don Lope's attacks on her m oral some sense, Spain, or a key section of It is only too easy to mock Don Lope's notions, or her resentment at ha ving de- her middle-middle classes. weaknesses, both ph ysica l and moral; votedly brought his slippers without his though suffering agonies because Tris- noticing, or whether it has a broader cul- The contrary of \"speeches and tana sees him snuffling with a cold, he tural origin . In the church sh e leans over speeches alone\" is, of course, Saturno as refuses to accept her subtly destructive the marble saint-almos t Venus toute a deaf-mute, while \"Origin al Sin\" su g- comment to the effect that at his age such en tiere a sa proie attachee-before making gests \" clerically- induced guilt\" or indignities are the norm. (A London Film h er first slyly derisory comment on Don \" Oedipal guilt\" or \"clerical reinforce- Festival audience reacted with uncom- Lope's slippers. Perhaps religious im- ment of Oedipal guilt.\" At any rate, plicated derision to that scene.) After mutability is the criterion with which she class-groups recur: the sea of dark blue Tristana's return , he has to play co unters his worldly supremacy. Al- berets at the liberals' cafe, the light blue Horacio's game of rea sonableness. Tact- ready the battle for ascendancies is oc- overalls of deaf-mutes and strikers alike, fully absenting himself from his own cupying as many communication sys- the priests in black clusters, the house during their meetings, he returns tems as in Bufiuel's THE YOUNG ONE. master-mistress-servant theme in Don with candies which suggest his degrada- Lope's household, his anti-bourgeois, tion to sugar dadd y. Nonetheless, his Yet her attachment to a church mar- anti-money diatribes, and the mutual sa- acceptance of humiliations doubly gal- riage is, after all, no more anti-love than lutes of respectable citizens, priests, a nd ling to a dueling Don Juan isn' t quite the his dogmatic rule: \"Passion should be gendarmerie. complacency of affluence. And, unlike free . It's a matter of natural law . No Horacio, h e never confuses his tactics chairs, no signatures, no benedictions.\" Don Lope's contradiction is a quadru- with scruples . He reacts to Tristana's loss Tristana, sensing that a mistress' place is ple one, involving his aristocratic honor, of a leg without a moment's hesitation as with the servants, establishes an infor- his bourgeois dependence on an un- to her desirability. He has a lot to teach mal camaraderie with Saturna. In the earned income, the realities of human the younger, more progressive man kitchen they regale themselves with love, and the realities of human weak- about love. scrapings, saving the best for their mas- ness and egoism. Their interactions pro- ter. Her love for Horacio inspires her to duce an anticlimactic structure which is Don Lope's own love for Tristana is neither unselfish nor unreal, only lost in FILM COMMENT 55

TRISTANA CONTINUED rivals virtually connive at each other's diabolic persona . Tristana sees him as a independence, which may be why the visits to Tristana. bell and contrasts with him the marble film bears her name rather than Don ecclesiastic. She has two doubles: the Lope's. After Tristana has tossed the sa- Tristana punishes Don Lope for his Madonna, Saturna (her fellow-maid) cred slippers in the trash, one almost lukewarmness too. First he must take and Saturno (her fellow-dependent). expects the women to plot a \"kitchen her to another man's house- The names, Tristana-Saturna-Saturno revolution,\" or at least to unconsciously God's-for the marriage. Then she re- are from Galdos, but the assonance re- bring one about; but Horacio's appear- fuses him her bed, presumably invalidat- mains indicative, revolving around ance ensures they go their separate ing the marriage as blandly as he broke \"trist\" and \"saturnine. \" ways, affably enough. Solidarity is a his own code of respect for innocence. fragile thing. And finally she bends over his dying Saturno's familiar is the tame, pink- body much as she bent over the immuta- bellied dog which snuffles at his locked As loving as she is, Tristana is also an ble marble. The man who began as her lavatory door and which Don Lope re- idealist, and gives Horacio little or no God has now become so frail a nuisance moves from the bedroom in which he is time to react to her confession that Don of flesh that, in a hideous ecstasy, she about to possess Tristana. Saturno, so Lope is her lover as well as her guardian. can bring herself to outrage the conven- easily discouraged , is the tamed dog No doubt she assumes that Horacio has tional sanctity of human life. whose salutary opposite would be the had his experiences, and that the confi- wild dog of LOS OLVIDADOS, Jaibo. (Or dence of his love will match hers. His Saturno, too, who has been allowed to two other damaged pariahs: BELLE DE hesitation sends her back to Don enter her bedroom (and, some spectators JOUR'S Marcel, and the beggar who has Lope-for the night only, but the seed is will assume, sleeping with her), must his little dog's day raping Viridiana.) sown, and her illness leads her to make now be banished and permitted to ad- Saturno, awestruck by his beatific vi- of him a cruel and ironic demand. Her mire her only from afar. A direct cut sion, must masturbate in his little cave of desire to return to her guardian-lover compares the church Madonna with her foliage, and perhaps that's a little im- seems to derive from Horacio's inability balcony exhibition of two perfect breasts; provement on a locked toilet. Tristana's to satisfy her craving for a total, unflinch- no doubt their immaculacy is a final vision of her happy moment with ing love, for the father-lover whose \" transcendent\" compensation for the Saturno has an arrested innocence to it, head, in her dream, becomes the great mutilation of her lower half. In her and the two women conclude by walking bell which once ruled the city's life. Re- wheelchair, pushed by Saturno, she be- away from him. The circle of canine ref- turning in search of a fantasy, she now comes at once a sterile matriarch and erences is completed by the scene among makes it her reality, for Don Lope . And willful child, delighting in the ice- the reconstructed ruins where Tristana she never flinches at the prospect of the creamless wafer cones she.wins from a first sees Horacio. The cry goes up that a mutilation which gives Horacio an un- street peddler, as much as a sign that rabid dog is loose. Maybe a rabid dog is easy moment or two. she's privileged by fate as for any nostal- what Horacio needed to be. But a gen- gia for her childhood, or as any devious darme shoots the outlaw with infinitely Before letting Horacio leave her for gratification of a desire for babies (at evi- less fuss than the police needed to scatter good, Tristana observes \" Don Lope dence of which she winces nonetheless). the strikers who were Saturno's true would never have let me go to another home. man's house.\" In a sense he would: he Saturna seems irrevocably fixed in her leaves his own house for her. But in station in life. And neither she nor any- Repasts and refreshments play a another sense, Horacio's failure is his one else dreams of making anything but conspicuous role in the film . Tristana be- \"liberal\" hesita tion between jealousy a good workman out of her son, even gins by offering Saturno an apple. Don and forgiveness . Tristana can under- though his alert and sensitive manner, Lope insists on giving Tristana his egg stand the emotions of jealousy and for- like his propensity for daydreaming and (thus quashing her generosity, forcing giveness, and she can accept them as wasting time, suggests an intelligent lad. her to feel grateful or guilty or both, and absolutes, but she sees his hesitation as Not that his fantasies are much more in general depriving her of power) . Tris- weakness . In his jealousy of Don Lope , constructive than the older man's codes, tana happily settles down to swiftly de- Horacio could have forgiven her, or furi- although there's no telling how different vour the plain food for which the bell- ously attacked her. Either response a course his life might have taken had ringer unnecessarily apologizes. But would have been positive. But she can- Don Lope's house not been there for him when she's uncertain of Horatio, she re- not appreciate his code (in which an in- to hide from the pursuing gendarmerie. fuses the food he offers her. Conversely, termediate and indeterminate reaction is Either going to prison or remaining with she \" refuses\" the champagne with not necessarily negative), and he cannot his fellow strikers might have been more which Don Lope strives to console him- understand hers (in which one can for- positive than his trances or masturba- self, in her absence. Horacio poses his give a wrong but not a nothing) . In any tions or heel-kickings behind locked model with a wine-jug. event, her instinct proves shrewd. Polite doors. Don Lope affords him the protec- as Horacio is, he seems agreeable to leav- tive affection he, not ungenerously, af- Food is an expression of power. To ing this damaged perfectionist, Tristana, fords the weak; there is a brief but beauti- accept it is to accept the situation within in his rival's hands. For Don Lope, how- ful moment in which the old man , hor- which it is offered. One exception: when ever, his friendship with Horacio is rified at Tristana's forthcoming opera- the priests relish Don Lope's excellent merely a continuation of dueling by tion, treats him with a touching, unself- chocolate, they are, if anything, quietly other me:;ms. And that Tristana can un- conscious equality. destroying him, perhaps because their remorseless gratitude, their lamenta- derstand. Horacio, the artist, has a counterpart tions of poverty, and their hypocrisy All the same, it's something of a Pyr- in Don Dimas, the metal-worker who render them as impervious to normal briefly employs Saturno. But just as an psychological relationships as rhic victory. Don Lope's dueling code is artist may content himself with travel- Viridiana's banqueting beggars. From bloodthirsty enough; and if it's rude of poster folklore, so Don Dimas (appar- commensalism to an unpleasantly sub- Horacio to knock the old man down, it's ently a workman) is a petty bourgeois tle , lay communion! At any rate, rather less deadly than a rapier between first and last. By contrast with the other TRISTANA is as much a battle for ascen- the ribs. Bya characteristic paradox, Don characters, these two men resemble one dancies as was THE YOUNG ONE . The gift Lope, having abandoned honor for a another by age, by physical type, by viril- and the sale may both be treacherous. more bourgeois mode of hostile co- ity, and as master-craftsmen . Other existence, transforms the conflict into characters have doubtless alter egos, and \"You are what you eat\" becomes \"You even more amiable terms, so that the two opposites . Don Lope's fancies his are whose food you eat.\" All food is sac- 56 SEPTEMBER 1974

ramental. To absorption and acceptance formation of the body-the solid breasts Don Lope, Horacio, Saturno, are very there is, of course, resistance. Thus Tris- becoming liquid nourishment. A wet different from one another, and present tana pushes her finger of bread into the nurse, by definition, exchanges her in- puzzling internal contradictions, quite yolk of the imposed egg, in the impotent timate bodily richness for money. But differen t from the sim plicity of resem- negation of toying so typical of a child, to the transformation , the sublimation is blance . In a sen se, her choice is a fantasy whose status her father-lover has re- more obvious and so less pernicious. balance of power and guilt. She becomes duced her. The soft white bread is a a mother finding a reason to prefer one \"weaker\" form of the crisp golden bread Milk appears-nakedly, so to child (or father) to another, but without offered by the bell-ringer. (Later, she speak-on the table alongside Don injustice being done, since one object is turns ecclesiastical weapons against Don Lope's clerical chocolate, a beverage so objectively more perfect. Her game also thick as to be almost a sweet, delicious comprises a wish-fulfillment reversal of Lope.) mud . This story of reclericalization her uneasiness, for her perfect beauty marks the return of L' AGE O' OR, and has earned her privileges which Saturna The consistency of food is carefully might be subtitled \"Digesting Sacramen- and the maimed Saturno cannot claim . tal Chocolate.\" The milky way is con- noted. Tristana begins eating the taminated by the golden age . The From another angle, she is maintain- bell-ringer's simple meal from bowled brown-black associations of chocolate, ing a sector of choice, of liberty, of plate with a spoon; we assume it consists and the white of cream, match the black power, despite her social dependence of soup, and its dryness is a slight shock. and white of the snow and the night and the emotional constriction resulting Drier, and less substantial still, is which Tristana lets into Don Lope's from it. Don Lope is an expert in am- another food which, for her, represents lungs and heart, like the clear wind in St. biguity: father/lover , aristocrat/rentier , poverty and freedom; the ice-creamless Simon's sky. Motherly nourishment man of honor/anarchist, righteous wafers which she wins in the street lot- indeed. citizen/devil. He is also , as he observes, tery, and grips like a trophy. Food in the an expert in detecting ambiguities (\"It is Don Lope household tends to be mess- These perennial motifs of Bunuel's at- impossible to deceive me \" ). But ier: the egg; the saucepan scrapings that tach themselves to a sense of nutritive Tristana's game symbolically re-enacts mistress and maid relish together; the substance as social sacrament which her refusal of ambiguity. She is always sweet cakes and chocolate which Don matches Levi-Strauss's. Lope provides for his clerical cronies, able to choose. Here is a little patch of and which they devour with the gour- Don Lope (Fernando Rey), Saturna , Tristana . freedom-insanity , like Robinson mandise of self-centered impotence. Crusoe's as he feeds his pets. In Sartrian Both Don Lope and Tristana decline to When Tristana hesitates between terms, she clings to her status as pour-soi infantilism. But Tristana clings to the two chick peas, she is clearly playing the vis-a-vis l'el1-soi. And she does so in a wafer of her solitary perversity-and same game, finding a reason for choos- way which, like every activity in the film, integrity-while the men share a liquid ing between two apparently identical ob- is at once ignominious and not so rich as to be almost a solid. jects, which she explained to Don Lope ignoble-a misdirected positive. in terms of twin pillars in the cloisters The apple which Tristana brings outside the church. Like many a harm- Nonetheless, from Don Lope she Saturno has obvious associations. The less mental obsession, this accommo- learns inequality and asymmetry, and al- bell-ringer's \"soup\" is dr y cubes; we are dates an important fantasy to whose lows herself to be possessed by Don already in the realm of transformations structure the rest of the film offers some Lope, or to flee with Horacio, rather than and tricks. Don Lope brings Tristana clues. In the first case, she arbitrarily be drawn to the objectively possible (if marrons glaces: fruit (like the apple) into identifies difference with preference; the subjectively unglimpsed) alliance with which candy is grafted. And the priests need to impose a preference renders her Saturna and Saturno. One hardly dares dip their candy into chocolate (usually hypersensitive to imperfection, and ac- dream of the revolutionary possibilities solid, here liquid) . The theme of fruit and cords well with her idealism. On another implicit in an alliance of the three vegetables underlies the leaves beneath level , she is enacting, in symbolic form, a \"saturnine\" dependents, the deferential which Saturno backs away from the woman's choice between one man and (Don Dimas), the potentially indepen- sight of Tristana's lofty, too-sa cred another, a kind of monogamous prin- dent (Horacio), and the dissidence breasts. (We may remember both the ciple (although her interest in near- within Don Lope himself, against the so- fruit which the peasant woman offers identities and insignificant objects sug- cially and domestically regnant alliance Nazarin and the umbilical cord-like veg- gests that some inhibition of aim has etation of the erotic dream in MEXICAN taken place). BUSRIDE.) From the beginning, Tristana's inter- nal contradictions are marked by the apple (solid yet moist) and the diced bread (the bell-ringer's nostalgia of order). The dichotomy reappears, in another permutation, as she refused the egg. With the wafers, the principle of desiccation triumphs, and only the ab- sence of the opposite principle is re- tained. The missing ice-creams would be two white globes. This mammary association-or contrast-precedes her glance at a baby carriage in the same scene, and, directly after she does not quite see a nurse holding a baby in a position which may make us think of her as a wet-nurse. Earlier, Tristana spilled cleaning fluid, whose whiteness was the color of spilled milk-household chores being a bourgeois degradation of motherliness, which is an erotic trans- FILM COMMENT 57

TRISTANA CONTINUED one of a pair or one of a crowd. And in though her patient seems in too much of aristocratic, ecclesiastical, penal and just the same way Tristana selects two anguish to hear or understand. Ritual for commercial values. columns from a cloisterful. Columns and ritual's sake-like religious observance. arches proliferate aga in in another Presumably Tristana's tumor springs cloisters-turned-public-place, where the Science, which might seem definite from something other than mere fate, or gendarme shoots the dog and Tristana and beneficial, proves itself equally chance. At any rate, its very unexpec- meets Horacio. shifty and equivocal. The doctor lies op- tedness suggests a connection with the timistically to Tristana, even though she Freudian emphasis on the emotional The either/or game encounters the senses the truth, nor can he be sure that origins of physical symptoms, and, of \"arbitrary doubles\" theme in one of Don the amputation will succeed. And his course, the Old Testament notion of dis- Lope's most absurd and beautiful mo- idea of ps ychological factors is to rec- ease as punishment or curse. Tristana, ments. Hearing that Tristana must lose a ommend Don Lope to caIl a priest. Don who counters Don Lope's game of dou- leg, he cries in anguish, \"Here, yo u can Lope's cry-\"What a terrible thing your bleness with her own game of single- cut both my legs off now if only it will science is, Doctor, when it cannot cure ness, loses one leg (it really doesn't mat- help!\" His proposal's absurdity may hint people without cutting them ter which); and suddenly her thighs are at its being a rhetorical game; and he may up!\" -surely paraphrases the protest, grotesquely unequal and asymmetrical, wander off into a self-righteously anti- implicit in SIMON OF THE DESERT, against one being either a stump and emptiness clerical diatribe . Nevertheless , he. positivist callowness as an enemy of or a contraption of leather and steel. Her shows, in his distress, an unusual con- spirituality in the Surrealist sense. Com- choice between columns prefigures, vis- sideration for Saturna, and accepts promises are a mixed blessing. It is, of uall y, the mutilation of her legs-with Saturno's arm in a comradeship which is course, arguable (eccentricaIly maybe) the arch above as her crutch. Her very (alas) precarious, brief, and restricted to that Tristana is acting perfectly ration- description of her game recalls another an extreme emotion which does not ally: she's finishing Don Lope off before of the film's transformations. \"I always threaten to alter their relationship. the priests can siphon off his fortune as choose between two grapes, or two rolls effectively as his earlier scruples about of bread, or two snowflakes.\" Or two The theme of gratuitous decisions has honor had precipitated his economic missing ice-creams, or breasts. its antithesis in hesitations and revoca- decline. tions. Thus, when Don Lope asks Tris- Saturno is a particular victim of the tana to clean his hat, she obeys. But she It is interes'ting, also, to ask ourselves a terms underlying Tristana's game: dou- simultaneously consigns his slippers to question which, in Bunuel's film s, is bleness and depersonalization, or the the dustbin. Saturna lifts them out of it regularly more interesting than it usually arbitrariness of human relationships. again, as if to repair this s.acrilege. But is-namely: What happens after the What personal, rational, objective she merely replaces Don Lope's relics on film's last scene? An optimistic answer reason can Tristana ha ve to prefer him, top of some new wet slops (thus preserv- might have it that Tristana, in proud from a group of similarly dressed, ing, at least briefly, the uppers from de- possession of a substantial fortune, now somewhat anonymous, deaf-and-dumb secration). The pattern of ironic con- invites Saturno to her bedroom, where lads? Maybe she likes his evident admi- tradictions is repeated on a moral plane they live happily ever after, with or ration of her beauty. Maybe she is prej- when the priest induces Tristana to ac- without benefit of clergy, and maybe re- udiced for Saturna's sake. But it's in- cept the ambiguity of what is , for her, a versing (but within a dramatic rather teresting that he seems to have two dou- loveless marriage, so as to mend her sin- than a tragic register) the sexual bles. One is Antolin, w ith whom he ful state of concubinage. The act must be polarities of \"master\" and \"mistress.\" In fights during the football game, and a morally empty one, a matter of civil a more ambiguous outcome, Tristana who, like him, tentatively touches Tris- form rather than spiritual transforma- might invite Saturno-and two or three tana near the bell. The other is a gar- tion. Thus the Church confirms the prin- of his \"doubles\" too, thus becoming a dener, whom he so resembles that critics ciple of compromise and equivocation in feminist counterpoise to VIRIDIANA'S are disagreed as to which of them pushes which Don Lope gave her her first engineer. Tristana's wheelchair in the last of her lessons . street scenes. But such outcomes seem ruled out by Before this, Tristana seemed to think her banishment of Saturno; and by the Saturno has an engaging but ambiva- she had found in the Church a valid, film's \"un winding\" as it returns to inno- lent relationship with Antolin, his equal absolutist idealism (symbolized by the cence. This last factor might, by itself, or and near-identical: squabbling at one marble tomb, after which she ventures if the other auguries were more hopeful , moment, friendly at another, in an un- her first criticism of her guardian). Don signify a starting afresh, a second stable but reciprocal and natural way. In Lope's slippers are an unchanged garb chance. (And insofar as there is a possi- contrast, the Don Lope household, which is decay and which can only be bility that the English version is a later which is superficially a source of charity, countered by that renewal of life-force Bunuel edition, this would suggest a and a haven (from pursuing police) , is which Don Lope briefly attained, and reason why this one scene is omitted: also a trap. Within its confines Saturno which is a matter of the spirit, not of age. Saturno must be forgotten, disposed of, innocently accepts his status, as beneath But Tristana is betrayed by religion as Tristana left alone.) Tristana's consideration; one may wish well as by Don Lope and, (as she be- that he defended his feelings for her as lieves, and perhaps she is half-right) , by Tristana bends over her dying hus- vigorously as he defends himself in the band as raptly as she bent over the mar- football squabble (which is very much a Horacio. ble effigy, proving that her soul, like de pot-and-kettle affair, and in which he Now she plays the game of respectable Sade's and St. Simon 's, is built for con- seems to strike a mean, between Jaibo frontations with eternity, whether moral and Pedro, anti-hero of LOS OLVIDADOS). equivocation only too well-indeed, immutability or a convulsive change in with a Sade-like heroism. She rights the flesh . She cannot make allowances for But he is twice associated with scarcely moral anomalies of her marriage by re- the mediocrities of ['amour mou. In THE individualized masses. The first is di- fusing Don Lope to consummate it, thus MILKY WAY, we expected the wolf to be vided against itself, in a football game as presumably rendering it legally and sac- the devil, and got the debilitating ha- arbitrary as Tristana's (\"Divide and ramentally invalid. So her present chas- rangues of the priest; here, Don Lope, referee\") . The second is on the run and tity negates her marriage's retrospective who a devil would be, succumbed to the scattering before sabers, which are negation of her state of sin! Eventually embrace of-what? Opus Dei? Maybe drawn; because this is not a game-it she makes herself a widow, not without not, for in the Thirties the Church was isn't even a duel. Thus Saturno is usually going through the little ritual of pretend- not moving in precisely the direction of ing that the doctor is coming, even 58 SEPTEMBER 1974

that intriguing movement. But, Bunuel that Incest Always Ends Badly, but jealousy is flaccid. No iss ues are forced. might argue, plus r;a change . . . rather that the closest famil y relation- Only Tristana has it in her to choose one ships may be shattered by cla ss barriers path rather than another. Because of her Tristana recalls Tristan , and, by of the most informal kind. lovers, and the animal which is analogy, the Electra complex, especially TRISTANA'S e mbl em, one might call the since Don Lope refers to himself as both However far one takes this, a Sadean film FOUR LOST TAME DOGS, OR: THE BRIDE Tristana's father and her lover. Certainly NOT STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS the ailing old man's winning Tristana perspecti ve prom pts one to consider the -BUT INADVERTENTLY DISMA NTLED from his younger rival recalls the orches- film at least partly as an autocriticism by (COMPLETE WITH CHOCOLATE GRINDER). tral cond uctor of L' AGE D' OR, re-echoed Buiiuel. Tristana is his anima , so injured It's not only the dog but the audience in THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL. But we that, for all its integrity, it prefers to d e- that Don Lope shuts out of Tristana 's might also take Don Lope and Saturna as stroy Don Lope over and over again bedroom. Tristana herse lf is a tame dog the parental couple, and Tristana and rather than marry (or speak directly for) when sh e goes on all fours to clean the Saturno as brother and sister. Freudian the Saturnos of this world. Horacio is the spilled milk , a nd then fetches h er theory can, of course, allow both these artist in Paris -where, at about ·the time master's slippers. A political configurations to co-exist, even though the film takes place, Buiiuel went. There , anti-TRISTA NA, with its Popul ar Front of Aristotelian logic would deem them obviously, all resemblances end; be- dependence and dissent, would be mutually exclusive. A Surrealist would sides, TRISTANA is far from being merely something else again. And its co- hardly claim that to be irrational is to be negative. It carries within it an equally existence with a philosophically Sadean neurotic. Buiiuelian \"a nti-TRISTANA\" in which all TRISTA NA is fraught with unimaginable the protagonists are modulated toward possibilities-or imaginable ones' Bunuel has made no bones about his their Sadean equivalents in earlier admiration for the Marquis de Sade as a Buiiuel films. Saturno becomes LOS So much so, indeed, as to cue our free and nonconformist spirit, and once OLVIDADOS ' Jaibo; Horacio becomes fivefold justification ofBuiiuel's negative described himself as a \"philosophical Chark from LA MORT EN CE JARDIN; Don options: (1) fidelity to the Thirties; (2) Sadist.\" Many different interpretations Lope becomes the busdriver of MEXICAN fidelity to the Sixties; (3) a closer intimacy of de Sade's life and thought are possi- BUSRIDE; and Tristana becomes Valerio's wi th the audience's experience; (4) a ble, of course, and Buiiuel's de Sade may Clara from CELA s' APPELLE L' AURORE (or realization that it's often easier to learn not be everyone's . Generalized though it another deaf-mute, Chark's Maria; or from mistakes than from ideal types, and may be , a Sadean perspective on Laetitia , the money-loving tease in THE that it engenders much more confidence TRISTANA is in order. And given de CRIMINAL L~E OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA since it bases itself on shared ra ther than Sade's interest in father-daughter incest, CRUZ; or St. Simon's devil in SIMON OF hypothetical experience; and (5) an ad- it is worth considering the Oedipal fan- THE DESERT). mission of defea t tha t acknow ledges tasies as not only unconscious realities , everything implied by the phrase, but real ones, so that Don Lope, with his The cardinal sin of these characters is \"pessimism of the intelligence, optimism half-century of prowess as Don Juan , is , an apa thy of love, masquerading as the of the will.\" and knows he is , the father not only of socially reasonable concessions one Tristana but of Saturno. The rigorously makes (and asks one's beloved to make) The late Fifties quintet of Buiiuel films libertine moral of the film would not be to the statu s quo-or the concessions with guardedly optimistic outcomes one doesn't think of not making . Even Tristana at the Saint's tomb. FILM COMMENT 59

TRISTANA CONTINUED Similarly, bare feet are more interest- instinct whose blood has been drained ing in countries where people go ragged into these sumps of sublimation and (CELA S' APPELLE L' AURORE , LA MORT EN or open-toed or readily trudge longer sterility. (The affinity is closer in French, distances. Buii.uel's \" fetish\" of feet car- where \"grand piano\" is piano Ii queue, i.e. CE JARDIN, NAZARIN, FEVER RISES AT EL \" tailed piano.\") ries quite familiar poetico-philosophical PAO, and THE YOUNG ONE) ha ve not found meanings. Half-bare feet-being at once The metamorphosis of three into four the same critical favor as the works that distant and down-to-earth, half-familiar is repeated as Don Lope and three priests followed. But NAZARIN and THE YOUNG and half-impersonal, part of oneself and sit around their table, fingers and ONE must place their director, as a yet down there-can, as objects of con- mouths busy with chocolate and cream. moralist of social action, in the class of templation , query not only ma n's The theme of hands is established, another heroic pessimist, the author of \"spirituality\" but his familiar ego. It's no poignantly, by the vivacity of Saturno's Le Diable et Ie Bon Dietl. Obvious as the accident that the idea of a corpse, outside gestures; that he also has to masturbate a differences between Buii.uel and Sartre Buii.uel's work, as well as within it, read- great deal is tragic rather than derisive. It are, the (limited) affinities emerge even ily associates with that of its fe et. (One is with his graceful hand that he tenta- more clearly once the symbolic struc- may think of Hitchcock's angles in THE tively strokes his beloved's back-as del- tures of VIRIDIANA and TRISTAN A are TROUBLE WITH HARRY, or a phrase like icately as (in UN CHIEN ANDALOU) the seen as an organic part of their \"They'll ha ve to carry me out feet first .\") dying ego-ideal brushes the flesh of the dramatic-and therefore their Visually, head and feet are the two cen- statuesque nude so passive in the park. moral-pattern. ters of focus under a shroud; and then Antolin, less idealistic, slips his hand up the feet, always close to clay, are other the slit in Tristana's dream skirt. There can be no doubt that the than , ye t less ghostly than , the face. \"fetishes\" mark an intersection of moral (Peter de Francia pointed out to me that I should hazard that reality becomes patterns and irrational forces; but the when the Moors took Toledo they used dream at some point between Saturno's same is true of every dramatic situation . the decapitated heads of Christians as attempt and Antolin's: that Tristana, not To deny the moral import of Bunuel's tongues of bells .) quite able to accept the reality of imagery would be to deny the moral con- Saturno's desire, compensates by a fan- ten t of the imagery of, say , Blake, Obviously, there are important differ- tasy about a youth for whom she cares Baudelaire, or D.H . Lawrence. Too e nces among (1) Saturno' s football less. But she began by handing Saturno much has been made of Buii.uel's game, (2) Don Lope's slippers, so infa- an apple, like Eve; and later he backs \"fetishes ,\" and too little of their poetry, mously at odds with his trim appearance away under the luxuriant vegetation of a precisely because they lack the halo of and dyed hair (as if, for him, only_the Garden, in which he shamefully hides, false dignity which onl y cliche , or an ob- public citizen and the seducer mattered), and in vyhich the serpent will appear vio usl y lyrica l style, can bestow. There and (3) Tristana's prosthesis for which (uselessly, as usual), while above him is , of course, a profound disaffinity bet- we are inconspicuously prepared by (4) looms the Madonna, theology's \"Second ween Sartre's stress on conscious free- the fencer's gauntlet lyi ng like a false , Eve.\" Better perhaps had she suc- dom and everything implied by Buii.uel's mechanical wrist on Don Lope's mantel- cumbed to the advances of Saturno and imagery. But TRISTANA'S sense of the piece, after the crossed swords have had Antolin together, the friends who quar- substance of foods is not unlike to be sold (already: from two to one). rel but remain friends. There is equality Roquentin's vision of the chestnut trees Tristana , on her knees to clean the floor without exclusiveness-fraternity and in the Sartre play. Buii.uel, wi th his Sur- and to give Don Lope his slippers, briefly freedom . realist heritage, accepts absurdity more becomes a quadruped; with sticks or profoundly, with an insolence insepa- crutches she is a three-legged animal. Asked to clean Don Lope's hat, Tris- rable from pessimistic strength. tana throws away his slippers; the irony These animals, human and otherwise, establishes a connection parallel to As Pierre Guenon observes, Buii.uel's eventually acquire their inorganic Tristana's loss of her leg, and Don Lope's interest in insects is less anomalous than bourgeois ~ompanion: a grand piano. It loss (in her dream) of his head . The grue- might be realized by those who have not has three legs except insofar as one some dream image recurs three times walked through the Spanish coun- counts as its fourth the pedal column with diminishing shock, as if Buii.uel trYSide, or read much Spanish literature. which, disconcertingly close to the wished us, gradually, to understand this In Spain's hotter, barer ecology, insects player'S one remaining lower limb, re- astonishingly intricate symbol as part of bask more openly and more conspicu- sembles a misplaced, black substitute for a whole pattern. After the tentatives of ously. Buii.uel's anal imagery is equally its lost, white companion . Equally, as a Saturno and Antolin, Tristana returns to conspicuous of Spanish folk culture, and third column centrally placed between Don Lope's home and experiences a Guenon rams the point home with an its two front legs, the piano becomes a sudden crescendo of erotic ambivalence anthology of phrase s from graffiti seen kind of sublimated genitalia, masculine that merges fulfillment and punishment. on the walls of Spanish, Argentinian and in form, but female or castrated insofar Now Don Lope's head is the clapper in Guatemalan universities (although this as its pedals lie under Tristana's foot. the bell (the phallus in the vagina); he is writer could easily compile similar lists raping the church (her purity); and he from Anglo-Saxon folk culture). Exactly A close-up during the \"piano\" se- must be punished (by decapitation). the same is true of Buii.uel's \" blas- From her mixture of excitement and phemies.\" If Buii.uel seems isolated in quence stresses her hands on its hatred Tristana wakes in terror. such matters, it is often because most keyboards: agile enough, yet tensed like directors have become relatively up- curling toes, the knuckles sloping down It was this bell which, in Toledo's more rooted and have accepted the screen like bound Chinese feet, or, perhaps, devout and glorious days, controlled its conventions of the trade as their limits of cloven hooves (for she is a devil) gambol- religious, human, and military activities reference. Much in Buii.uel seems exotic, ing on their ambivalent strip of black and alike. Saturno and Antolin can still par- on the screen, because its charge lies in white, and playing Chopin's Revolutio- take of the bell's sound, joyously feeling its off-screen familiarity. The difficulty is nary March (!) . It's easy to remember UN the vibrations under their palms. Its to- this double gap between (a) Iberian ling- CHIEN ANDALOU'S grand pianos bearing talitarianism banishes alienation. uistic, and other, cultures and (b) infor- decaying animal cadavers like lumps of mal folk culture and screen conventions. 60 SEPTEMBER 1974

Spanish cabeza means both \" head\" and \"chief\"; Tristana's unconscious has al- ready visualized her father-figure's des- tiny as puppet of church, state, and the past. To visually become the bell's tongue, Don Lope' s face is lengthened by the addition of his pointed beard and neck. The conjunction of round and long forms recurs when Tristana, silently resisting the autocrat of the supper table, conjoins her finger of bread and her egg. She lifts the sop to her mouth, to suck it with a silent, odd obscenity. Thereafter, bell and tongue appear apart. A roughly bell-shaped lampshade hangs luminous and low over Tristana's head at Don Lope's home. Tristana grasps her empty wafers. The bell's clapper re-echoes in the expert rhythm of alternating ham- mers that are wielded, as swiftly as cros- sed rapiers, on an anvil in the master craftsman's forge; in the hammers which the peddler takes with him; and in Tristana's bent prosthesis. Top: the three-legged animal. Middle: Tristana and Saturna in Toledo. Bottom: Tristana and the bell-clapper. FILM COMMENT 61

TRISTANA CONTINUED and color su ggest a freedom w hich the Bunuei,\" and find his world neither pes- Pe rh a p s the vibra ti on s w hich th e characters cannot quite sense or seize. simistic nor moral nor relevant, reducing Occasionally, ho wever, the atmosph ere him to a genial and intelligent sen- d eaf- mutes feel in stone recur as Tris- convulses, thickens; passions or atmo- sationalist with the knack of catching us tana , with palpitating heart, bends over spheres take possession of the entire out even when we're on guard against the h orizonta l m arble of the recumbent image. The e ffect is of a storm of revul- being caught out, and who gratifies us p a triarc h . These intima tio n s o f he r sion, or a constriction o f fa te , however with such easy butts as old men with strange un wo rldliness are pre fig ured , by dispa ssiona te the charac ters ma y see m , headcolds and decapitated heads with contrast, wh en , at the top o f the vertica l or think themselves to be. little more meaning than run-of-the-mill tower, n either Tristana nor her two Guignol, given the pseudo-dignity of companions a re interes te d by the view There are two startlin g visual \"ef- vulgar Freudianism . over rooftop s or by their immersion in fects,\" both suggesti ve of internal lying: free bl ue sky. Alread y she is a prisoner o f Tristana leaves with H oracio to the ac- Bunuel's approach reflects that mix- d o m esticity, her horizon s bo unde d b y co mpaniment of a zip-pan; and the fin a l ture of nonchalance, ma stery, and fla t- four wa ll s, a bell a nd food; while in the \" re w indin g\" is like her panic flight from ness so common in the films of directors background, Saturno and Antolin slyly reality to a nostalgic flurr y of moments old eno ugh to view life with a and mischievo usly free a bird fr om its w hich her murder is rendering meaning- philosophical detachment rather than cage in this midair room . less . Otherwise the film m ove s, not at an with youthful lyricism (Dreyer, Hitch- eve n pace, certainly, but in such a way as cock ... ). Certainly his style is the an- The wo m an in L'AG E O' O R w h o ca me to allow the vis ual openn ess to reinforce tithesis of expressionism , at times be- n ea r libe r a ti o n saw p ass in g cl o ud s , the dram a tic fla tness . Rarely do these coming so dry as to seem almost semi- wind , a nd cowbell s in her mirror, a nd people's moments of truth coincide with abstract. And in a sense it is, for the sen sed p ossibilities of a vertigo; but this their a wa re ness of it. Their conscio us- psychological drama and the characters' midair roo m re m ains as s tiff and stilted ness is no m ore profo und a part of the m con sciousness are distinct from each as Tristana on her balcon y. One co uld than their food or their s urroundin gs or other. Bunuel's compassionate detach- imagine this tower, secul arized , op ened th eir subco nscious life-force. Con sid- m ent is the price of those inSightful con- out, and topped n o t w ith a be ll but w ith a ered as an abstract visual, the open plan nections between subjective and objec- swing on w hich Saturno and Antolin maze is a potential free d om , but it is a lso ti ve complexities which, theoretically, rock Tristana higher and higher, giddily Spain 1930, a network lea ving only an are familiar enough, but, wh en applied in mid a ir, be twee n roo ftop s and illusion o f freed om . to human lives, are regularl y sentimen- cloud s-a joyo us St. Simon , ta sting the talized away . fr esh w ind in her m outh a nd lips. As it is, If we are to oppose BuflUel's tone to she sits to ea t the bellringer's diced Sartre' s, the n Bunuel' s cha racters a re With TRISTANA, Bunuel continued to bread , scooping it with an eager but fre e he re -but not free to be fre e. At plough his furrow of a pessimism very m echa nica l motion , like an other puppet. best, their con scious freed om s are an sharply distinguished from nihilism by elegant, empty margin around their rea l its ironic lucidity. H e refuses to indulge If Bunuel evokes a Godardian ap- alterna ti ves , which are rigid and -few. in himself even the Puritanical Man- proach in T H E MIL KY WAY , h e re h is se n se Wh a t little internal freedom they (or we) icheanism apparent in Sartre's suspect of s pace, d o minance a nd d efl a tion might might have now d ep ends on bein g a ble combin atio n of severity to w ard recall a Wellesia n visio n . It is n ot too to understa nd the rigidity o f the syste m , Baudelaire and canonizing of Genet. The difficult to conceive w ha t Welles ' low the immen sity of mutila tion , and the comparison with Sartre certainl y illumi- an gles, w ide-a ngle len ses, a nd heavy normality of it. The s pectator is offered nates the earlier group o f political films; shadow might make of the tower, its the libera tion w hich the characters can- CEL A s' A PP ELL E L' A URORE a nd FEVER dizzy spira l ascent, the megalo maniaca l not possess. If Bunuel tricks him, it is to RISES AT EL PAO raise the sa me questions, overview of a city's littl e people, th e w arn him - against easy ass umption s. of idealism a nd efficacy in p olitics, as maze of stree ts, their forks and intersec- Sartre' s Le Diable Et Ie Bon Dieu and tions, the con stella tions o f columns in Give n that m ost filmgoers will know, L' Engrenage. Although the moral ele- cloiste rs and squares, the Spanish ba- be forehand , of Tristana's amputa ted leg, ments are differently presented, the re- roque churches, Don Lope's dark, com- they awa it the symbolic accident w hich s ult, equa!ly, is an impasse. The rigorous plex , la mplit interio r, th e continu ally w ill provoke it. Will she slip as sh e skirts existentialist justifies Macchiavelli and m ovin g ca m e ra fo ll owin g p eripa te tic the bell? or as she reaches to touch its perhap s even loyalty to Stalin against the con versa ti on s, the p ro ud man gra tui- ton g u e? o r be so m eh ow trapped be - impotence of scruples. tously humiliating the purchasers of his tween clapper and bell? Will the bullet famil y silver. One can almost imagine fired by the gendarme at the rabid dog The romantic streak in Bunuel's Sur- the face o f Arkadin as the ton gue of the ricoche t aro und the cl oisters and strike realism rea ppears in the d octor-whose bell , and Tristana m oving on her sticks Tristana hip a nd thigh ? (Both p os- revolutionary rectitude anticipates the like Bannister on his. s ibiliti es o ff e r co mfo rt a bl y a nti - hero of Resnais' LA GUERRE EST FI N IE; establishment morals .) Or w ill sh e trip w hile the positive influence is exchanged Bunu e l, unint ox ic a te d b y a ll thi s on the cobbles as she goes to m eet for the Moebius loop narra ti ves of LAST space, plays if off aga inst the vis ually Horacio? (How con ventionally these YEAR AT M ARIENB AD (and later JE T' AIME) , implosive reality of kitchen processes, da ys we obser ve the ero tic g uilt o f correspondin g to the fal se starts and ap- with its tra nsforma tion o f substance. Yet others. ) Will sh e be ra ped b y Saturno parent alternatives of THE the city too is in con stant muta tion. Tris- and Antolin , be ne ficiaries o f h er uncle' s tana m ee ts H oracio w h ere a ruined clois- charity a s ungrate ful as Viridian a' s EXTERMI NATI N G ANGEL , BELLE DE JOUR, ter is bein g rebuilt (maybe to a ttract secu- ho use-gues ts? (This moral abs urdism is lar tourists like H oracio him self). The equally conducive to an easy nihilism.) a nd TH E MIL KY WAY . Res nais is the dis- domina nt colors, far more cheerful than appointed romantic; his films describe th ose o f TH E MIL KY W AY, are a ye ll ow- But a tum or isn' t so co mfortable: either the anguished distension or disintegra- brow n a nd a lig ht blue: a utumn a nd it can h appen to an yon e or it h appen s to tion of continuous hopes and dreams . ni ght . The crossroa d s w here Don Lope two people w ho have been the opposite But Bunuel' s semi-de mi-deception s saves the thief form a cool grotto of blue of cowa rdl y and conformist, except in arouse all th e ironies of a double denun- w all s. Oddly, the effect is not to intensify so me subtle way which it isn' t easy to ciation. Dreams and reality are both the normal atmospheres of drama and work out and of w hich we ourselves may strewn with pitfalls, each fru strating the place, but ra ther to dilute them , for space well be guilty. Eagerl y, there fore, critics other, not through an y duality, but be- take re fu ge in \" th e bl ack hum or of cause a house divided against itself must fall .~;~ 62 SEPTE~BER 19 74

vVOMENand their SEXUALITY in tIle NE\\;V FI M \" Easily the best of several recent books about the treatment of \" On criteria of cogency and complexity, as well as political women in films . . . .Mellen documents her restatements with and filmic awareness, this is the best of the recent film books an analysis of the contemporary cinema that is as brilliant as written from radical or feminist viewpoints. Mellen's analyses the initial statement was succinct. All resistance to her thesis is are bold enough that everybody (including feminists) will dis- quickly swept away .. .. The subtlety and persuasiveness of agree with some of them. But all are intensely interesting, and Joan Mellen's analysis are all the weapons she needs. several are downright definitive, notably her treatment of Last Her informed and passionate resentment of the ways women Tango-the best analysis yet written of that film.\" are demeaned by the contemporary cinema ... .gives sinew to ERNEST CAllEN BACH, Editor, Film Quarterly. her criticism. She can be effective in appreciation-as in her fine essay on Mae West-and devastating when on the attack. \" . . .An interesting explanation of the raw deal women have Carnal Knowledge is treated with the contumely it deserves been getting in the movies. She attempts an answer, unlike and Ingmar Bergman's pedestal is whittled down to the height of [those] who content themselves with getting together the in- a footstool-something in my view which was long overdue.\" dictment. \" LARRY McMURTY, The Washington Post JANE WILSON, The Sunday New York Times. \" I am absolutely mad about the book and have brought it for \" The analysis of film as an ideological construct which reflects, everyone I know here. I also telephoned some friends in LA manipulates or manufactures values and attitudes is more to run out and get it-so I hope to hell the publisher has sent necessary than ever before and Joan Mellen's cool , radical in- it out there in piles!\" telligence marks her as one of our foremost critics in this area. ElEANOR PERRY In this provocative work, she properly views the woman ques- tion as ultimately political and sexual in nature and brillantly \" Intelligent . .. a thinker and her writing shows it. analyzes the latter by means of the former. Incisive, controver- She doesn't cozen the reader along like a com- sial, profoundly illuminating even where one disagrees, she has fortable Pauline Kael , only to trip him up with a surprise at the end that he had not expected. become indispensable : an inevitable instrument . .. The essays treat their material with mature of truth, that is, liberation.\" seriousness and their readers with mature AMOS VOGEl respect ... .Highly recommended for its sense, arguments, balance, and the finesse of its WOMEN and their SEXUALITY criticism.\" in the NEW FILM. CHOICE, publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries. by Joan Mellen HORIZON PRESS/256 PAGES/ILLUSTRATED $10.00 HARD COVER $4.95 SOFT COVER FILM COMMENT 63

BOOKS are Eisenstein's revealing memoir \"Wie AND HAMMER (1921) and HUNGER (1921) sag' ich's meinem Kind?\" and the recol- forecast in many ways the future CINEMA IN REVOLUTION lections of the FEKS (Factory of the Ec- achievements of Kuleshov and Pudov- EDITED BY LUDA and JEAN SCH- centric Actor) collaborators Yutkevitch, kin. Most importantly, Gardin (and to a NITZER and MARCEL MARTIN Gerassimov, and Kosintsev, for all tes- lesser extent Perestiani) initiated Pudov- TRANSLATED BY DAVID ROBINSON tify to the crucial intervention early in kin among others in practical cinema Hill and Wang, New York, 1973; hard- their careers of the great stage director work, and gave Tisse his major training cover $8.95 , paperback $3.95; 208 pages, and teacher Meyerhold. More than any in fictional films. illustrations, index. other figure, Meyerhold encouraged REVIEWED BY STUART LIEBMAN them to adapt devices from such popular The notable lapse of memory concern- entertainments as the cinema for theatri- ing Gardin's (and others') important The scenario for Soviet film history cal use . The FEKS theory of \"cine- mediation of Griffith's example which was established fifteen years ago with gesture\" based on the aggresive physical recurs in these memoirs illustrates the the publication ofJay Leyda's pioneering movements of the Keystone Cops cer- care which must be taken with the prim- study Kino. His energetic chronicle of the tainly resulted from Meyerhold's sug- ary source materials Cinema in Revolution changing institutional structures and the gestions, and it is in his theoretical writ- presents. The questionable interpreta- myriad personal destinies can now be ings that film historians will find the ul- tions which can arise from important complemented, however, by an analysis timate source of many radical ideas omissions highlights the need for a sup- of the private thoughts and mutual per- proposed by early Soviet filmmakers . plementary, rigorous formal study of the spectives of those Soviet film artists who films themselves to put assertions of his- in the 1920' s initiated an extraordinary Meyerhold's example also initiated an torical priority, influence and quality era of theoretical speculation and formal immanent logic which subtended the into proper perspective. ~:: experiment. Until recently, many of the radical theatrical experiments: the crucial texts for such a study, the already shared aspirations for elaborate plastic pPaicpkefrosr.d published notebooks and memoirs of the effects, the opportunities for rhythmic directors, cameramen, and actors, have articulation, and the possibility of widely Sweetheart only been available in foreign languages. disseminating their radical sensibilities In this past year, the fiftieth anniversary through a medium less hampered by The Story of Mary Pickford of STRIKE and KINO EYE, some important tradition created an irresistible attraction Robert Windeler materials have been translated into toward the cinema. The departure of the English. best elements of the pre~revolutionary Quiet on the set for The Pickford cinema symbolized by director Pro- Story. The first full-length biogra- In addition to brief but characteristic tazanov and the actor Mozhukin, phy of America's first movie star. autobiographical notes by Dovzhenko, moreover, generated the illusion of a With numerous photos and inter- Eisenstein , Pudovkin and Vertov, cinematic tabula rasa waiting to b~ in- Cin ema in Revolutiol1 offers reminiscences scribed with revolutionary content and views that play back not only the by less well known participants in the formal innovation. \"Naturally\", Kosint- life of America's sweetheart but the Soviet film's first wave which were re- sev remarks, \" there were people of tal- whole silent film era. A fascinating corded by French film historians in the ent in the studios before the Revolution, book by an author who first cov- mid-1960's. These informal conversa- and the cinema historians remind us of ered the stars as a correspondent tions convey the explosive atmosphere their films. Even so there was not the for Time and The New York Times. of the 1920's with a particular freshness very slimmest line of living continuity and immediacy, and help elucidate a between the two cinemas.\" The state- 50 illustrations milieu whose multifarious activities ment is certainly debatable, but more were determined by a sense that the past importantly it reveals a shared historio- $7.95 was closed and that the future was un- graphical bias. Of the correspondents bounded by any horizon. represented here, only Kuleshov PRAEGER worked in films before the Revolution The members of the first wave came and he readily acknowledges the con- 111 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 from such diverse backgrounds that tinuity of his pre- and post- their eventual convergence in the cinema revolutionary activities . All the others almost appears the result of chance. In did not enter the film industry until the order to appreciate the incredible mid-twenties and prefer to sustain a heterogeneity of its ranks, we must re- myth of the Soviet cinema's spontane- member that Pudovkin was a chemist, ous generation from Griffith' s Golovnya a magistrate, Eisenstein an INTOLERANCE. It is certainly true that the engineer, Dovzhenko a teacher and car- Revolution removed obstacles to the full toonist, and Vertov a poet. Others such acceptance of Griffith, but that this pro- as Kosintsev, Yutkevitch, and Geras- cess was initiated by major pre- simov began as painters, actors, or set Bolshevik directors such as Vladimir designers. Of special interest therefore, Gardin and Ivan Perestiani is signific- antly overlooked by all except Eisen- stein. It was Gardin, for example, who formed the \"left wing\" of Soviet cinematography in the difficult years be- tween 1918 and the advent of Kuleshov. In 1919, Gardin organized the important agitki cycle and produced The Iron Heel, one of the first multi-media works whose progeny include Eisenstein's Enough Simplicity in Every Wise Man and FEKS' MARRIAGE. His later films such as SICKLE 64 SEPTEMBER 1974

Forthcoming- Kuleshovon Film Ozu His Life Writings by Lev Kuleshov and Films Donald -Richie Translated and edited, with an Introduction, by Ronald Levaco This brilliant piece of cross-cultural interpre- Kuleshov, one of the original greats tations ana lyzes Ozu ' s of Russian film-making , was a key style, subject-matter, working figure in the development of methods , and philosophical the \" montage\" school. This assumptions . By tracing the devel- lively collection of essays opment of Ozu 's films , from their offers a sampling of his beginnings through script-writing , thoughts on both the shooting , and editing , Richie explicates practical and theo- the artistic strategies and implications of retical sides of Ozu 's work. film-making . \" A study of the Japanese master by an American most qualified for the job.\"-New York Times 256 pages \" Ozu , the late great Japanese d irector, is a sort of illustrations Oriental Checkhov. . .. Richie's book is attentive and $10 .00 illuminating, a model study.\"-Kirkus 289 pages 198 illustrations $14.50 Presenting a definitive, film-by-film interpretation of- Jean Renoir Raymond Durgnat Witty, articulate, encyclopedic in his knowledge of the French cultural and political scene, Durgnat gives Renoir's films the aesthetic , philosophical and social analysis their com- plexity demands. At the same time, he offers a portrait of the director-how he worked and how he talked . He treats the entire sweep of Reno ir's work , incl uding his well-known masterpieces, Grand Illusion, Rules of the Game, Boudu Saved from Drowning, and Partie de Campagne. 500 pages 180 illustrations cloth , $16.50 ; paper, $4.95 Murnau Lotte H. Eisner \" This varied , fascinating , and informative picture of \" Murnau joins the handful of Murnau, the man and the artist, has set up the reader authoritatively researched and for a comprehensive excursion into the world of his well-written studies of creative films . . .. With energy toward completeness and an exu- film directors that do not ex- berance that can only stem from an intense love of the task ploit but enhance our interest (and subject) before her [Eisner] provides an extensive back- in cinema.\" - Los Angeles ground on the man 's character and analyzes each of Murnau 's Times films with insight, objectivity, and thorough research .\"-Filmmakers \" Includes .interviews with sur- Newsletter viving relatives, a chapter by \" Dozens of rare stills, well reproduced and a valuable complete film index one of Murnau 's German set complete this book. . . . Every cinemaddict will want to own this definitive designers, the complete script biography.\"-Films in Review of Nosferatu together with Murnau 's notes , and a com- 288 pages copious illustrations cloth , $10.95 ; paper, $4.50 plete filmography, along with many photographs.\" - New Republic FILM COMMENT 65

CANNES JOURNAL THE INDUSTRY continu ed from page 2 contin ued from page33 The g immick of DICTIO NARY OF s urely tra n sfor med w h at had bee n writer and would certainly be read by EROTICISM is simple. An ero ti c word a p- moribund into so methin g far more lively every studio if only as a courtesy. pears o n th e scr ee n (A m our, Baiser, a nd profitable. Caresses, e tc.) , followed by an illu stra- But then , Karl Fleming is the type who ti ve seq ue nce from a Pecas film (most In like manner, As hley ge ts all the cre- wouldn't have heard of B1atty before THE ofte n CLAUDE ET GRETA or JE SUIS UNE dit for \" p erso n a ll y s p o ttin g\" THE EXORClST. His ignorance of th e film busi- NYM PHOM AN IAQUE). The film is so re- EXORClST, despite the fac t tha t producer freshing , s ty li s tically as we ll as Paul Monash ( BUTCH CASS IDY AN D THE ness emerges from every paragraph. Yet viscerally, that I for on e wo uld like to see SUN DANCE KID) was th e fir s t to h old the yo u probably couldn't sell a rea so ned ex - m ore of the ea rly Pecas films (originally m ovie rights , sellin g them only after- egesis on Ashley's success to New York or released in th e U.S. by Rad ley wa rd s to Warners. Besides, it' s foolish to any other slick. They seem interested Metzger's Audubon Films), a nd less of think tha t THE EXORCIST had to be disco- only in perpe tuating the lege nd tha t Hol- works suc h as Me tzger's lates t movie , vered as if it we re a n obscurity by an lywood is run by feisty little uneducated SCORE, an off-targe t a tte mpt a t sophi sti- unkno w n; even before it beca me a gamblers w ith gut instincts . You don't ca ted humo r and kinky sexplay. best-seller, it was a no vel by an ex- ha ve to be a fron tier editor in a John Ford tremely s uccessful H oll ywood screen- film to believe in telling the lege nd wh e n Or, for that matter, Gerard Damiano's it becomes truth . ;;'~ n ew anti-erotic sex fanta sy, MEMORIES WITHIN MISS AGGIE, also scree ned a t Cannes . Aggie is a s pinsterish crazy la d y w h o reme mbers (or ima gines) sex ua l en- counters in va rious roles: Aggie th e Vir- gin , Aggie th e Bad Da ughter, Aggie the Whore. Damiano's pre ten ses of creating \" art,\" co upled wi th his use of a swi tche d PSYCHO plot (Father Ba tes is the victim here) , squelch any sexual inte nsity the film might ha ve had , give n the promise of the director's earlier work . For pretentiousness with a purpose, J os~ Be nazerafs ADOLESCENT P ERVER- SION is to be recommended over MISS AGG IE (or even over another Benazeraf film s h ow n in th e March~ , BLACK LOVE , a muddle of international te rro rism and interracial sex). The film's hard- core sex scenes appear to have been inserted as an a fte rtho ught to a complicated plot abo ut a sc hoolteacher (Fe mi Be nu ss i) w hose p olitical activism is a t odds with her sexual frustration over one of her students: a bl ond , Italian stud who even- tually seduces the teac her's best friend (Marisa Longa, who ha s one of those perfect bodies that women e nv y) . Be- nazeraf is a director with obviou s yea rn- ings to vault into the respectability of a s p o nsored festival. But the March~ is where he belongs. The difference between the March~ and the official Festival is as striking as the difference between the sumptuous Carlton Hotel on the beach , with its five -hundred-franc suites occupied by bankrupt moguls, and the Petit Carlton Bar, with its cameraderie and cheap beer. If the atmosphere is more refined in the Palais dps Festivals-critics diligently searching for fu gitive but certified masterpieces-it's more bracingly real on the Rue d ' Antibes, like a slice of pizza and a good double-feature on 42nd Street. The official Festival may be what people think of as -\" Cannes,\" but the March~ is movies . ;.1~· 66 SEPTEMBER 1974

THE Maybe you're shooting documentaries. WHOLE Or features. TV news. Or commercials The works: You can extend your (live or animated); travelogues; sports; wildlife; educational films; macrocine- basic equipment almost indefinitely with photography or cinephotomicrography, SHOOTING a wide range of accessories. you name it. Bolex can provide you with For instance : if you choose a spring- exactly the right camera body, lenses MATCH. wound camera, you can automate easily and accessories to assure you 'll have with anyone of three auxiliary motor just what you need when you need it. drives, for time-lapse or animation , for (And at prices that may surprise you with their economy.) variable speed shooting or for filming The cameras: You get to choose with sync pulse generator or crystal. from five rugged camera bodies designed for hand held or tripod use. The system offers you tripod; monopod; With either three-lens turret or bayonet mount, with spring motor or electric camera grips; blimps; an automatic drive, with 100' to 400' film capacity , for silent filming or sync sound with sync The lenses: With the Bolex system, fading device ; cable releases ; matte pulse generator or crystal. And that's just the beginning. you can choose from 7 fixed focal length boxes (complete with masks) ; an Consider features like : automatic lenses, ranging all the way from 10mm underwater housing; attachable exposure threading, flickerless reflex viewing and focusing with complete depth of super wide angle to long 150mm meter; 400' magazine ; closeup lenses ; field control, a filter slot behind the lens, single-frame counter, unlimited film telephoto . And they all have built in extension tubes; optical magnetic rewind, variable speeds for atcelerated and slowmotion filming , single frame macro focusing , automatic depth of field sound projector. filming, variable shutter with automatic control possibility, registration claw scales and diaphragm presetting so It's quite a list. But that isn 't all. The for total accuracy in picture steadiness even when films are blown up to 35mm . you can step down the aperture without full story of Bolex's whole shooting taking your eye off the reflex finder. match fi lls a 32 page book. Which we 'll You can choose a lens as fast as f /1.1 , or be happy to send you . Just write to one that can focus down to one inch Paillard Incorporated , 1900 Lower without accessories. Road , Linden, N.J. 07036. You 'll get a The system offers you seven zoom very professional response. Other lenses with zoom ranges from 5:1 to 10:1. products : Hasselblad cameras and Oneof those is the Vario Switar 100 POE-4 accessories . with built-in power zoom , automatic light measuring through the lens, focusing as close as four feet and picture sharpness equal to any good fixed focal length lens. BOLEX Ie; F'AILLAR=

ZAGREB JOURNAL detailing the work of a grade-school its outlandishly funny idea about a car- continued from page 8 class experimenting with various forms toon performer who obliges his audience of animated filmmaking, and showing by taking himself apart; HOW WOMEN Other prizes went to THE LEGEND OF some of their quite delightful results; THE SOLD THEIR HUSBANDS (I. Gurvic, USSR), JOHN HENRY (Sam Weiss, USA), to my FOX AND THE HARE (J . Norstejn, USSR), a given a music award for its pleasing pre- mind a rather lifeless version of the folk charming children's tale with beautiful sentation of a folk tale; TYRANNY tale as sung by Roberta Flack; A BIRD'S color styling and cut-out animation (Philippe Fausten, France), a moody film LIFE (Macourek, Daubrava, and Born, against a tapestry-like background; of political oppression done in etching Czechoslovakia), a very funny story ZAG OR AND THE MUSICAL GLASS (P.L. De style, to great effect; TAKING OFF (Reina which was applauded not only for its Mas, Italy), a handsome TV cartoon with Raamat, Estonia, USSR), an attractively humor but for a feminist moral; THE strongly-designed characters; CAT' S designed allegory about man in flight; FLIGHT OF ICARUS (Georges Schwizgebel, CRADLE (Paul Driessen, Canada), a very and ANIMATED FILMS FROM CAPE DORSET, Switzerland), an attractive simulation of dry comic idea which was awarded for its a special film organized by the National computer-image patterns; COLOUR IN striking visual design; THE LAST CARTOON Film Board of Canada presenting the first CHAINS (Pierre Davidovici, France), sim- MAN (Jeffrey Hale and Derek Lamb, animated works of Eskimos who partici- ple but pleasant animation using chains USA), one of the best cartoon shorts I've pated in a special workshop. and threads; ANIMATION PIE (Robert ever seen, given \" Screenplay\" award for Bloomberg, USA) , a hip educational film continued on page 70 THE SILENT PICI'URE The Clllyseriou.sfJIWrIy de¥at2d entirely to the art &history Ii the siJent motion_ $4.00 per year (USA) $5.00 per year (Overseas) FIRST MEDIA PRESS WORDS ON FILM In this pioneering work, available for the first time in English, Christian Metz seeks to apply -the insights of structural linguistics to the aesthetics of film, open- ing new paths of criticism with his fresh and powerfully conceived theories. I SI N EMA is the first comprehensive A Semiotics of the Cinema CHRISTIAN METZ look at the pornographic film indus- Translated by Michael Taylor try, its producers, actors, and direc- $10.95 tors. Tracing the history of the porno film in America from its Nudie beginnings, the authors examine in detail the progressively more explicit The first coherent analysis of avant-garde filmmaking in America, this book is \"in- movies that have 'mirrored changing dispensable reading....\"-Richard Roud. \"One of the most extraordinary move- attitudes towards sex both on and ments in the history of the American arts has found its exegete at last.\" off the screen. Insights into the -Stephen Koch life-styles and feelings of actors like fllllM Marilyn Chambers and Cal Culver The American Avant-Garde and directors like Russ Meyer, P. ADAMS SITNEY With 69 photographs, $13.95 Radley Metzger, and Gerard Dami- OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS ano emerge from the revealing 200 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016 intervi~ws. Kenneth Turan is co-author of The Future Is Now and I'd Rather Be Wright, and a staff writer for the Washington Post's Potomac maga- zine. Stephen F. Zito is a film historian, and Program Planner at the American Film Institute. 50 illustrations. $8.95 PRAEGER 111 Fourth Avenue, New York , N.Y. 10003 68 SEPTEMBER 1974

A FILM BY CINDA FIRESTONE 19 74 JOHN GRIERSON AWARD A superior example of committed fIlmmaking . Attica is an exceptionally moving outraged recollection of that terrtblE' event. ., -Vincent Canby, N.Y. Times \"An aching, precise study . If ' Attica' disturbed our slumber for a month or two, one of the qualities of this trumpet-call of a film is that it makes the disturba,nce enduring. \" -Penelope GIlliatt, The New Yorker \"The explosive events are reviewed, sifted and replayed with powerful results in a documentary that...has sledgehammer impact. \" -William Wolf, Cue \" Above all, the film is an appeal that we 'wake up'. It is a compelling message and the fact that it needs to be delivered is sobering.\" -Jerry Oster. Dany News 789 WEST END AVENUE FILMS INC. NEW YORK CITY 10025 (212) 850-1624 FILM COMMENT 69

ZAGREB JOURNAL program of films by Bob Godfrey pro- the Festival screenings of these Disney continued from page68 voked some conversation since so many classics. of them were written by Stan Hayward, The retrospective showings were en- one of the selection committee for the One always runs the risk of experienc- joyable and in some cases, eyeopening. Festival, and one of the more articulate ing overkill at a festival such as this, de- A highlight of the festival was the tribute participants in the week-long event. spite the delightful day-long picnic to Russian animator Fodor Hitruk, Might not the retrospective been more mid-week which was partially designed whose latest short, THE ISLAND, was accurately billed as a Godfrey-Hayward to break the monotony. Yet a worldwide shown out of competition (and was hon- collaboration? animation festival is a necessity if this ored earlier at Cannes) . To think that the very special film genre is to survive as work of this master is little- known in Hayward told me that it didn't bother something other than a stepchild of America is nothing short of criminal; him at all. \"Actually, the greatest com- live-action cinema. Animators and pro- each of the six films we viewed, from the pliment for me is for someone to say that ducers from every country present ex- Sixties, was memorable, and each one they didn' t know that Bob didn 't write pressed the same feeling, that it is im- different. Hitruk adapts his visual style it-because when I write for Bob, it's possible to make money with theatrical to the subject at hand, proving equally Bob's film . He has style, and a point of shorts, but one has to engage in such adept at a charming children's story like view, and I wouldn't write the same endeavors as a break from the television BONIFACE'S VACATION (1965) and the thing for George Dunning.\" and commercial animation that supports sharp-modern day satire of OTHELLO 67 most studios. If a cartoon short hasn' t a (1967) and FILM FILM FILM (1968) , a won- In any case, the Festival referred to all chance in theaters or on TV, its only hope derful cartoon which would make a per- filmmakers present as \" authors.\" is to become a hit on the Festival Circuit, fect companion piece to Truffaut's DAY a sure key to success in the ever-growing FOR NIGHT. Based on this showing, the Finally, there was a Disney retrospec- library and audio-visual market in Museum of Modern Art plans a Hitruk tive spanning the entire week, and one America. That still doesn't amount to big program. Together and separately his of the studio's veteran animators, Frank money, but it can mean survival for works break every stereotype one might Thomas, was in attendance. The festival filmmakers who want to retain their in- believe about Russian cinema. was a stimulating experience for dependence without drowning in a sea Thomas, who like many of his col- of TV spots and Hanna - Barbera animals Showings of the work of Bretislav leagues, simply doesn't see very much what's more, Zagreb '74 was a popu- Pojar, the Czech puppet-filmmaker, and animation except what's being done at American John Hubley, whose latest his studio. The style and techniques dis- lar success. The two thousand-seat con- short THE VOYAGE OF THE NE XT , was new played during this week-long viewing cert hall was filled for nearly every show- to most viewers, were well received. A binge vvere as amazing to Thomas as the ing, and not every Festival can make that visual complexities of FANTASIA and PINOCCHIO were to those who attended boast . ~. \"An excellent anthology. It serves a much-needed function, for there are precious few books on these issues of such high quality.\" -David Michael Levin, Northwestern University FILM THEORY AND CRITICISM Introductory Readings Edited by GERALD MAST and MARSHALL COHEN, both of Richmond College, City University of New York.o This rich selection of 51 writings offers a com- prehensive introduction to the essentials of film aesthetics and criticism. Contributors include Eisenstein, Arnheim, Bazin, Balazs, and Kracauer, along with such popular critics as Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Parker Tyler, James Agee, and Robert Warshow. \"A useful, well-organized collection which fills a void fo~ teachers of courses on film theory. Until this book's advent, there had been no Single volume of com- parable scope and density.\"-Michael Silverman, Brown University \" ...excellent anthology. It is generously full and helpfully structured, by far the best of its kind.\"-Lowry Nelson, Jr., Yale University \"The best compilation of articles on the subject. It is thorough, complete, orderly.\"-Eric Bickley, Illinois State University 1974 656 pp. 52 photographs from over thirty films paper $4.95 Oxford University Press/200 Madison Avenue/New York, New York 10016 70 SEPTEMBER 1974

>- SOVIET .,., ~ <I:: oZ By Mildred Constantine and Alan Fern There is no other book in the field like thi s o ne. It illustrates the unique relationship between filmmaking and the graphic arts which developed in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. These posters, many of which appear in full page size and in full color, capture the new film techniques of that time : montage, daring viewing angles and dramatic perspective, and combining these with innovative typography and Futurist and Rayonnist themes . Though the films they illustrate are in black and white, the unposterlike colors we see reflect the ideas of Kandinsky, Eisenstein, and others about the relation of color and sound, color and motion. The authors describe the relation- ship of these posters to the remarkable films they illustrate - Potemkin, October, Kino-Eye - and to the ideas of Eisenstein, Vertov, and other Soviet film pioneers. 9 X 12, $12 .95 At yo ur booksto re or o rd er di rect. Pl ease w rite us fo r sa mple pos ter and f urth er info rm ati o n . • JOHNS HOPKINS Th e Jo hn s H o p k in s U nive rsity Press, Baltim o re, Md. 21218 FILM COMMENT 71

BACK University College London is inviting This Back Page is open to all who wish to PAGE film studies applications for a two-year communicate news or information to our course from October 1975 leading to a readers . Listing is free; copy is subject to The Whitney Museum's New American College Diploma and for courses leading editing. Deadline for January/February Filmmakers Series begins a twelve- to the University of London M.Phil. For issue is November 15, 1974. Send to: week Fall Program on September 18 with information write: Secretary of the Slade Back Page, Film Comment, Film Society the world premiere of ANTONIA: A POR- School, University College London, of Lincoln Center, 1865 Broadway, N.Y. TRAIT OF THE WOMAN by Jill Godmilow Gower Street, London WC1E6BT, Eng- 10023 . and Judy Collins. Other highlights in- land . Application deadline: 30 Nov- clude Part II of Andrew Noren' s KODAK ember 1974. COMING ATTRACTIONS GHOST POEMS, Robert Gardner's RIVERS November-December OF SAND, and a two-week program of Film Forum, a screening house for inde- Film Noir Package: Stephen Farber on Animation over the Thanksgiving pendently made 16mm films, begins its the violent hero; Paul Jensen on holiday. For further information write 5th season on September 19. Scheduled Raymond Chandler; Alfred Appel, Jr. , Whitney Museum Film Department, 945 for the fall are WILLOW SPRINGS, an ex- on THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW; George Madison Ave ., N .Y. 10021 or phone perimental feature from Germany by Morris on ON DANGEROUS GROUND; Alain (212) 861-5322. Werner Schroeter and MINAMATA, a new Silver on KISS ME DEADLY. Also: Andrew Japanese documentary. For information Sarris and Roger Greenspun on two Max The 13th Golden Knight International write: Film Forum, 256 West 88th St. , Ophuls romances; Bruce Petri on three Amateur Film Festival will take place in N .Y. 10024. George Stevens comedies; Jan Dawson Malta from November 7th through 9th, interviews Alexander Kluge. 1974. Deadline for receiving films is Sep- The fourth annual Washington National tember 30. For additional information Student Film Festival will accept entries January-February: write to the Festival at P.O . Box 450, until October 23, 1974. Contact the Festi- Special issue on Animation. Greg Ford, Valletta, Malta . val Director, Gene S. Weiss, at the special contributing editor. Jonathan Radio-tV-Film Division of the Univer- Rosenbaum on Disney and Tex Avery. sity of Maryland, College Park, Md. Interviews with Chuck Jones, Michael 20742. Prize winners will be shown at the Maltese, Heck Allen, and other Looney Kennedy Center for the Performing,Arts Tunesmiths. Also: Max and Dave on November 23. Fleischer, European animation, Ameri- can avant-garde. Viking tl1pleJea *WESTERNS · by Philip French A provocative survey of the post-war Western, when Gene Autry and Tom Mix hung up their spurs and the psychological, political, allegorical, and even comedy Western rode onto the scene. Black-and-white photographs CINEMA ONE .,Westems $6.95 cloth; $3.25 paper (F25) Phnip French * TRUFFAUT • by Don Allen Truffaut's recurring preoccupations, from the importance of friendship to the role of women as dream goddesses and dream destroyers, highlight this brilliant portrait. Black-and-white photographs CINEMA ONE $6.95 cloth; $3.25 paper (F24) * THEORIES OF FILM • by Andrew Tudor A concise and critical guide to the principal approaches of film study. Black-and-white photographs CINEMA ONE $6.95 cloth; $3.25 paper (F23) Write for a free brochure of Viking film books : ----~ THE VIKING PRESS 625 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022 72 SEPTEMBER 1974

OCCULT FILMS Films of the occult are frightening Other great Occult ftlms FILMS INCORPORATED because they play on the universal Contact your local exchange. fear of the unknown spirits within Rosemary's Baby The Possession ofJoel d. Roman Polanski. Mia Delaney d. Waris Hussein. Atlanta, Georgia 30341 each of us. Shirley MacLaine, Perry 5589 New Peachtree Road Farrow, John Cassevetes, King 404/451-7445 Nicolas Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW Ruth Gordon, Maurice evokes a dreamlike sense of dislo- Evans, Ralph Bellamy The Mephisto Waltz Boston, Massachusetts 02115 cation that calls aU reality into d. Paul Wendkos. Jacque- 161 Massachusetts Avenue line Bisset, Alan AIda, 212/937-1110 question. The Other d. Robert Barbara Perkins Los Angeles, California 90028 'The most subtle and sophisticated Mulligan. Uta Hagen, Chris 5625 Hollywood Boulevard and Martin Udvarnoky 213/466-5481 horror film ever made. \" Skokie (Chicago area), Stephan Farber, New York Times The Cat People p. Val lllinois 60076 4420 Oakton Street Lewton. d. Jacques Tour- 312/676-1088 neur. Simone Simon, Tom New York, New York 10016 440 Park Avenue South Conway 212/937-1110 Distributing in the United States exclusively.