VOLUME 23 - NUMBER 04 JULY-AUGUST 1987

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CONTRA-COURANT \"There are definitely some serious sim- of slayings, explosions, and slow-motion ilarities between the brutal policies of Wi1- carnage, much of it filmed against a blaz- Six weeks into his film Walker, direc- liam Walker and those of Ronald Rea- ing Granada or on corpse-strewn streets tor Alex Cox is given to looking out gan,\" says Cox. \"That is obvious in the thick with dust and shit. \"That was the of the window at the Hotel Estrella thinking that you can control the lives of hardest part,\" an Immortal comments. at San Juan del Sur, two hours southeast of foreign populations. Although this is a film \"We were filming above open sewers, and Managua and yards from the Pacific: at about one man and his adventures, it's also two of the actors got kidney failure.\" kids with machetes shinning up coconut about the politics of a big country with a lot trees; at a slumbering Soviet tanker carry- of money and technology that goes and Pushed for a description of the film's ing the grain and toilet paper otherwise stamps on its neighboring countries, but style, cinematographer Dave Bridges isn't denied the Nicaraguans by the U.S. eco- always tends to lose in the end.' sure whether it's\" 'expressionistically nat- nomic embargo (which Cox threatens to uralistic' or 'naturalistically expressionis- drop into frame the following day); at In Walker, the technology of contem- tic.' It's supposed to be believable, but at moths on kamikaze missions into the porary superpower imperialism is being the same time there's something slightly rafters, or the odd bat. We're talking about anachronistically inserted here and there, offbeat about it-a lot ofthe angles we've the CIA's proxy war in the north and Nica- along with the odd rusty trawler and chosen are quite strange. ragua's struggle to control its own destiny. crashed airplane, as a kind of jokey sub- \"This is an inspirational place,\" says Cox. Cox had a run-in with the completion \"It's like seeing a moth buzzing round Ed Harris in Walker. your head and then flying up into the text. At a way station, actually a small fam- bond company, worried that the $5 mil- rafters to dislodge a vampire bat.\" ily holding, on the three-mile dirt switch- lion budget might explode, and, though back road cut for the filmmakers by 50 he has final cut, he is wary of Universal's It is a time and a place for analogies. Nicaraguans at a cost of II million cordo- involvement in Walker, after the short Cox is making a film about the 19th-cen- bas ($2500), from La Marsella to an idyllic shrift they gave his Repo Man. But Cox, a tury U.S. invader, William Walker and his beach location at La Modera, screenwriter loose-limbed ostrich with a wheat-sheaf Immortals-the ragged army of 55 merce- Rudy Wurlitzer was competing with a ca- mustache and a permanent orange ban- naries, cutthroats, no-hopers and runaway cophony of cockerels, cows, and children. danna, remains a beacon of energy, con- grocers-as a direct statement against the \"When Alex and I wrote the outline, we centration, and graciousness. Reagan administration's support of the took the big decision to play with time, to Contras, and against U.S. policy in Cen- see history as cyclical, so that the reality of One morning, alone by the shore as Cox tral America in general. The contempo- the film keeps shifting. The anachronisms arranged a set-up with the Immortals rary echoes haven't been lost on the (grumbling at the lack of money and wom- crowds drawn to the international film opened the door for humor and irony. It en), Ed Harris stood conducting and sing- crew since it arrived here. Fully endorsed was always important for this film to be ing to the waves-a solitary figure in by the Nicaraguan government-lending funny-as well as seriolls and moving, black. Was his mercenary in Under Fire, what executive producer Ed Pressman with a progression into madness and hor- fetched up in Nicaragua during the San- considers $5 million worth of logistical ror.\" Cox and Wurlitzer have cunningly dinista revolution, any kind of touchstone help and supplies through its national film cross-fertilized this story of the Tennessee for the mad, singular character he's play- institute Incine-the filming has generat- filibuster who seized power in Nicaragua ing now? \"Walker's very different from ed some obvious political propaganda: an in 1856 with elements from the spaghetti the character I played in Under Fire, who article from Nuevo Amenecer Cultural, western, European surrealist, comic op- was a professional soldier, totally amoral, pinned on the production office notice- era, action, and romance genres. \"The lin- who didn't really care who he was fighting board, depicts the heads of Walker and eage of Walker,\" says Wurlitzer, \"is for. Walker sees himself as a man of desti- Reagan superimposed on each other's Leone, Peckinpah, Kurosawa, and Bufi- ny spreading democracy throughout the shoulders. uel.\" continent. Those are very different rea- sons for being in Nicaragua. I gotta believe Brenda, a former journalist with the Cox is a spaghetti western addict and that Walker believed in what he was do- FSLN paper Barricada, is one of a dozen brought a copy of The Wild Bunch with ing. American policy here is sick and trag- women extras brought in from Managua him to Nicaragua. \"I thought he'd got the ic. You only have to look around to see that to play the \"bare-breasted\" native girls bug out of his system after Straight to the Nicaraguan people are better off with- glimpsed frolicking in a stream by Walk- Hell,\" remarked one actor, referring to out Somoza. Reagan can't put an end to er's army as it advances along a Nicaraguan Cox's daft Spanish film romp, \"but appar- jungle trail. \"I knew about Walker,\" she ently not.\" Walker, accordingly, is a fiesta says over a beer in the Estrella, a couple of hours after Ed Harris, in a non-scripted scene, has enacted Walker's execution by firing squad at sundown-a tense re-cre- ation witnessed by hundreds of locals. \"And I know what he means, because it's still part of the fabric ofour daily lives. The film might teach people in the U.S. and Britain something about us and what their governments are doing to us, although sometimes it's difficult for us to believe that they care. \" 50

what's been achieved here, and hopefully and the eyes narrowed, the voice more Our most current poster catalog , the U.S. will get out soon.\" neutral than rasping. He could be a 44 pages (8 '12\" x 11 \") with over 300 seedier private dick than Mickey photos & accompanying text Much anticipated by the crew, the day Rourke in Angel Heart, but not as cold a (about 85 in full color, including of the \"bare-breasted women\" -hand led killer as, say, Gary Busey in LethfJl front & back covers!). Mailed discreetly by Cox with some beautifully Weapon: as if we didn't already know with outside wrapper on receipt framed long shots and pans, and only a it, there would always be the heart of $7.00 U.S. funds by first class couple of Immortals falling on top of the there, the romanticism , in Joltin' Joe. mail. girls in the water-also produces a parrot, Our new location , a gallery on some monkeys, and Marlee Matlin. Mat- Strummer followed Straight to Hell 1932·F Polk St. (near corner of lin plays Walker's deaf fiancee, Ellen Mar- with the tiny role of a security guard on Pacific Ave.), San Francisco, CA tin , whose death in the cholera epidemic angel dust in Candy Mountain, co-di- 94109 . Open Mondays in New Orleans in 1849 seems to have rected by Robert Frank and Walker's through Saturdays, 11 AM to 6 thrown Walker's respectable career as a writer Rudy Wurlitzer. The latter is PM Pacific time. newspaper editor and idealistic lawyer off convinced of Strummer's star poten- course and ignited his obsession with the tial : \"It was very frustrating that Joe CINEMONDE U.S.' \"manifest destiny\" to rule the West- had only a small part, because he was em Hemisphere-and his brutal plans for very exciting-one wanted more of 1932·F POLK STREET Central America. him. He could be a great star, a major SAN FRANCISCO, leading man . Somebody will have to \"Ellen Martin is a very manipulative give him a big romantic role soon, and 94109 woman,\" she explains in sign language. I'm sure somebody wilL\" \"She's extremely assertive and impatient. a film by STAN BRAKHAGE Walker is absolutely in love with her, to Back at Granada, Faucet and Wash- the extent that he' s afraid of her and she burn (Rude), his capitalistic partner in In this major work of the experimental has a great deal of control over him. She the Immortals, are dragged before cinema, Stan Brakhage weaves a complex wasn't actually very beautiful, but she had Walker (Ed Harris) begging for mercy. story of the mythical Dog Star Man. a unique look about her-dark hair, a bit They are first pardoned and then con- Brakhage sees with a universal eye the thin , very poised. If she'd lived , I think demned. Faucet pleads and then cycles of time and space, the theme of the she and Walker would have married and breaks free as Darlene (Sharon Barr), a struggle of man to ascend. had children, and that would have petticoat mercenary in a Sandinista \"Stan Brakhage stands o ut as one of the stopped him going to Nicaragua. But she cap, cuts loose at him with her M-16. strongest and most influencial makers of the wouldn't have changed her personality for Strummer's role in the film is all too subjectively personal film.\" him. \" brief. But maybe he wants it that way at the moment. Generous on and off the - Stephen Dwoskin, Film Is T he remoteness of Nicaragua and its set, responsible more than any other \"The film breathes and is an o rganic and lack of amenities, the economic em- cast and crew member for keeping mo- surging thing . . . a collossallyrical adventure- bargo, and problems of communication, rale high, he responds to the interview dance of image in every variation of color. \" transportation , and cultural ditTerences situation warily and sometimes mono- have drained the resources of Walker's syllabically. The following IS a sam- - Michael McClure, Art Forum production staff. After six weeks, many ple. -G.F. 1964, 75 min. , color, silent. $75.00 are homesick, some are just sick, and few Master I Visa accepted or orders may be prepaid (NYS are untouched by the rigors of working in H OW did you become part of Alex's residents add 8'/,'10 sales tax .) Add $2 per tape for Nicaragua's demonic heat. \"Augusto, one traveling band ofactors? shipping and handling and specify VHS or Beta. of our drivers, was sleeping in the same Dunno, man. Nothing better to do, I room as his cousin up at Granada,\" Cox re- suppose. mystic ~IR€ Vlb€o lates with some relish in his Mid-atlantic- Scouse drawl, \"and in the middle of the What do you think are his special attri- 24 HORATIO S1 #3F. NY NY 10014 night he woke up and saw, next to his butes as a director? (212) 645-2733 cousin's foot, which had two puncwres in it, a big bat that was so bloated with blood What's special about him is that he's that it couldn't fly anymore. It was lying still young and hasn't become a big bu- there all fat and happy.\" reaucrat in getting the money together and mounting big productions. You're Lorenzo O'Brien, co-producer on lucky if you can get to your fifth film Walker, was standing in the palace square without being ground down to hambur- at Granada while Cox set fire to it. \"We've ger meat. Alex is still the same guy I caused noise, dust, dirt. We've lit the can imagine loping along the Venice place up at night when people are trying to beach in L.A. after graduating from sleep, we've had the telephones cut off film school. He'll listen to any crazy and clogged the drains , and we've worked idea from anybody. And he keeps the here for long, long hours. But we've had Hollywood dross away from him-he help from all the different factions in Nica- knows it'll contaminate him. ragua. They may not all agree on Sandin- ismo, but they all agree that they don't So how do you see your involvement in want another Walker.\" films-if any-shfJping up? -GRAHAM FULLER I don't know. I have directed a film myself. It was called Hell West End, a black and white 16mm silent movie, . b

\"Echoes from the days of 79?\" , ~\\ Nicaragua? For me, it was a long winter in Brit- and it was a disaster. Luckily, the labo- musch's. Those are real movies, but I ratory that held the negative went didn't go and see The Mission and all ain and pretty depressing, right? So I bankrupt and destroyed all the stock, those other adverts for Hollywood. But was feeling generally fed up, and I so the world can breathe again. what's happening in the Village will came down here and it was just what I start to happen in music soon, I think. needed-to see people who've really That was like a dry run for me-I got nothing, but are coping and laugh- managed to shoot it without a script. What do you plan to do with your music ing and still enjoying life. On the back- God knows what it was about. I was the career? lot here in Granada, I was walking only other one who knew, and I'm not along with another actor, Jack Slater, telling. But when I get the bug back, I I'm helping Mick Jones out now and and we saw these kids playing baseball might try another one. I think film di- again with Big Audio Dynamite's stuff, with homemade balls and hand-carved recting is something you have to build but I don't know what to do for myself. bats, and basketball with a cardboard up to-make a few bum films like they I don't know whether to go back to box attached to a telegraph pole, and do in college. No one has to see it, and rocking or not. there was a little girl with a plastic bag then you get your hands on a bit of filled with air, which she was throwing dough and a good idea, and with a bit of Are you going to be doing musicfor the up and catching. And even though they luck you can swing it along from there, film with some ofthe other musicians who had nothing, they were all having a learning as you go. Only an idiot would are down here? really good time. just attempt to walk in and try and di- rect a picture. No. I don't really talk to them I've been here about two months, [laughs]. We all live together in a house and in that time you realize that this is What is your view on current movies? on the outskirts of town. I'm gonna try just a normal country that happens to I think there's real life in that Green- and do the music for the film after the have a leftist government that is trying wich Village scene. When I was in shoot. I hope I can do it here-the en- to sort its problems out. Things aren't Cannes last year, I only saw two vironment dictates the way you are. so black and white here as I've found films-Spike Lee's and Jim Jar- from looking from far away with a pro- Is The Clash overfor good? or anti-Sandinista, or pro- or anti-Rea- Yeah, I think so. gan or -Thatcher stance. When you get What are yourfeelings aboutfilming in here, all that hardly seems to make any sense. It just seems like that the coun- try's a helluva lot better off than it was under Somoza, when there wasn't any education or medical care and half the population was kept illiterate. Com- pared to those days, they've made vast progress-any human being would surely be in favor of that. What about the progress in Nicaragua since the revolution? There are many factions inside the Sandinistas, and they'll probably have little power struggles and adjust. It'll probably bubble down to some kind of even keel, and it'll always be more cen- tral than extreme Maoist. It's a pity the U.S.A. doesn't trade with countries like Nicaragua. I don't think the U.S.A. will invade-I think this is Reagan's personal obsession, and as he passes away so the obsession will, too. Did you ever want to take your role as a punkfigurehead anyfurther, in a political sense maybe? No. I just know I could never be any good. I think you have to know your- selffully, make your decisions on what you find out. I just know I'd never be a good committee man or submit to any kind of discipline. You've been in three films in quick suc- cession now. Do you plan to develop your career as an actor? Not really. This is the beginning of the end. It's too difficult. ~ S2

Charles Bukowski with Faye Dunaway and Mickey Rourke. Charles Bukowski GeneraL Tales of Ordinary Madness ing, Bukowski's books were completely interviewed (1972), Factotum (1975), and Women sold out, and the man himselfwas greeted (1978), but nothing like the cult prestige and cheered on every street comer. by Chris Hodenfield he received in Europe, and he continued to live in relative obscurity and sorry cir- Schroeder (More, The VaLLey, Mai- A mericans are the beloved noise- cumstances into his late fifties. His Ameri- tresse) first read Bukowski while filming makers, the unschooled and the can publisher, John Martin of Black Spar- the documentary Koko the Talking Goril- uncut, appreciated most when at row, sees an earlier parallel in the career of la. Another earthy man of international their simplest. Poet Charles Bukowski is Henry Miller, another prophet without background (born in Teheran of German the classic case of the American original honor in his own land. parents), he saw in Bukowski a soul broth- who found his first audience abroad. In er, a modem-day Diogenes, cynical and the U.S.A., particularly in his hometown Bukowski is, in all ways, a man of the naked and puking on the carpets of the of Los Angeles, he is the dirty old man, street, a Meat Poet, an anti-academic, one Athenian rich. In 1979, he paid the poet boss vizier of the sleaze-o-rama precincts who never earned his rent check as a guest $20,000 to write a screenplay. of East Hollywood. Where transients slide professor. He could pick up a few hun- into cheap rooms and get awakened in the dred bucks for a college reading, but felt As a writer who grew up in Los Angeles, middle of the night by yelling neighbors, brutalized by the experience. Bukowski naturally detested and distrust- Charles Bukowski is the presiding booze- ed the movie industry. Living in squalor, hound laureate. The very image of Bu- His cult reputation in Europe contin- though, he had to pay attention to the kowski's celebrated kisser-the brooding ued to grow into the late Seventies, culmi- money. But what really persuaded him skull, the lived-in face, the delicacy be- nating in a notorious French TV talk show was another of Schroeder's documenta- hind the scar tissue-has been enough to appearance. \"It was the number one pro- ries, General Idi Amin Dada. Schroeder consign him to the bohemian backwaters gram in the ratings,\" recalls Barbet clearly was a man who instinctively sought of American letters. Schroeder, who directed Barfly from Bu- out the unexpected. kowski's script. \"Even the best writers But the powerful simplicity of his train like racehorses for this show. More It took Schroeder seven years to get prose-he writes like a man in a slow-mo- than 50 percent of France saw Bukowski Barfly going. During that time, another tion haze-translates easily into other lan- getting drunk on television and saw this Bukowski story was made into a movie, guages. His first novel, Post Office (1971), Johnny Carson-like superhero, Pivot, be- TaLes of Ordinary Madness, directed by eventually sold 75,000 copies at home- ing totally thrown off balance for the first Marco Ferrari (La Grande Bmiffe) and but 500,000 worldwide. Bukowski gained time in history. Bukowski was so drunk, starring Ben Gazzara and Susan Tyrell. American recognition with his books he put his hand on the knee of a woman The movie was made without Bukowski's Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and writer there. [Pivot] told the guards, 'Take participation. He hated it. Barfly, which him out, take him out.' \"The next mom- stars Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway playing lovers who prefer life at the bot- 53

I feel mobbed, I feel diluted, I feel mugged by watching a movie. I feel they take something away from me. They've chewed up my auras and mutilated me. tom, premiered at Cannes in May and was popcorn and a Dr. Pepper. You'd never an unexpected hit of the festival. Schroeder vowed that he would not eat popcorn sitting at home. change a word of Bukowski's script with- out getting permission; he seems to have Did you aLwaysfeel that way? stuck by that promise. When I was a kid in the Depression, Schroeder's own frustrations during that seven-year wait were so vast that he when you're 11 years old, Buck Rogers took to hauling a video camera down to Bukowski's house and taping the man's looks pretty good to you. Even Tarzan. bumptious, surreal monologues. The re- sultant Charles Bukowski Tapes (available The Cary Grants and all that, we used from Lagoon Video, P.O . BOX 5730, Santa Monica, CA 90405) is a straight look at the to yawn through that. Still do. Mov- artist talking. Every great artist should have such a record. Schroeder thinks, ies-nothing much has occurred however, that not every great artist has the enormous physical presence of Bukowski. through all the decades. \"The only other person I filmed in a docu- mentary that has as much presence, where Want me to name them? One FLew 90 percent of what you film is good, was Idi Amin Dada.\" Over the Cukoo's Nest, ELephant Man, There is a quality shared by Idi Amin Eraserhead, Who's Afraid of Virginia and Bukowski-and Schroeder confirms this. Both men will say anything; the self- WooLf? -that's a classic. Kurosawa and censoring mechanism has been disman- tled. Like the deposed Ugandan dictator, those great battle scenes. And all those Charles Bukowski does not give a damn what he says or who he says it to. Visitors to great samurai films where guys are his house are advised to take heed of this. You never know when the liquored-up chopping heads off. Bukowski will be spoiling for a fight. The first movie that had an impact The first note about Bukowski, however, is that he has departed his on me, that made me cry, was ALL Quiet old deadbeat East Hollywood streets for the safe little dockside community on the Western Front. The scene with of San Pedro. Behind a mighty garden is his large white house. It has a spare, the butterfly got me. The truce had faintly Japanese feel , and it's kept neat. Parked in front is his pride-and- bottle. He was enough of a showman to been signed, the Armistice. Trying to joy symbol, a blue BMW. know when the good stuff would start catch that butterfly, God, it really af- When I arrived one night, Bukowski (friends call him Hank) and his wife coming. Linda kept pace with him. fected me. The way the build-up was, Linda, an aspiring actress in her early thirties and former owner of a health She had her opinions and she gave as you knew it was going to happen and food restaurant, were watching a tape of the Hagler-Leonard fight. He point- good as she got. Bukowski tended to yet you said, \"Maybe it won't hap- ed to his Barfly T-shirt and said, \"How do you like that? Self-promotion.\" stare into the haze, his eyes narrowed pen.\" Then I saw it three years ago, In his comfy old moccasins, he shuf- to wry, gazing slits. He has a pleasing and oh no, before it even started, I fled to the sofa and opened a bottle of respectable California red. Then he sat voice, younger and jollier than it knew what would happen, and I start- there on the sofa's edge, as still and sig- nificant as a massive white Buddha. He should be, and his scarred face is, up ed crying. I was a young kid when I saw insisted that the interview would not start until we had killed at least one close, rather pink and soft. When a it. Lew Ayres, with those bright eyes. hard-boiled surge ignites him, he takes \"We must defend the Fatherland!\" on a comical gruffness. And they all turn to Lew. \"Should we He is, in his 66th year, a man of com- go?\" \"Yes.\" pulsions. He can't stay away from the Linda: You liked Chinatown. racetrack. He smokes ratty little Indian CB: Okaaay, so you didn't waste the cigarettes, Mangalore Ganeesh Bee- evening, but you don't go around dies, that won't stay lit for three puffs, thinking, like you do with Eraserhead, so he spends the entire night lighting \"Oh, what's happening here?\" We got and relighting these roach like stubs. cable TV here, and the first thing we The only thing that has brought him switched on happened to be Eraser- this far is that he also has a compulsion head. I said, \"What's this?\" I didn't to work: every few days he goes up to know what it was. It was so great. I the attic, turns on the classical music said, \"Oh, this cable TV has opened up station, opens the bottle, and writes. a whole new world. We're gonna be sit- He's written over 40 books this way. ting in front of this thing for centuries. On other nights, he just drinks. They What next?\" So starting with Eraser- were working on the third bottle by the head we sit here, click, click, click- time I went out the door at 3 A.M. nothing. -C.H. Movies are an aLternate dream statefor peopLe. Maybe you Like the one you're aL- Y OU don't like movies, do you? ready in? No. Linda will say, \"Let's go to I feel mobbed, I feel diluted, I feel a movie.\" And I'll say, \"Oh, Christ.\" It's embarrassing to see a movie. I feel mugged by watching a movie. I feel gypped, sitting there with all these they take something away from me. people. It is a good excuse to buy some They've chewed up my auras and mu- tilated me. I want to mutilate my own 54

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auras at my own behest, Jdon't want to nis Hopper.\" talking. sit in front of a screen and do it. And I don't think Dennis was all that I think we just liked each other. One Have you known people who've worked bad. He's probably a damn good direc- time Linda and I were sitting in the bar in movies? tor. But I guess Dennis once told Bar- when they were shooting. We were bet that he couldn't direct traffic. getting plastered, which was a mistake. Fortunately, J have not. Oh, people The bar was still open while they were have come by, even before this shit LB: In the middle of Ma Maison, in shooting around the corner. I saw started. Godard. Werner Herzog. front of everybody, they were having Mickey and I said, \"Hey, c'mon, have James Woods-before he became big this debate and it turned into an argu- a drink.\" He said, \"No, I can't. We time. We met a lot of these people ment and Dennis screamed at him, neeeeed you!\" Just like a little boy. He through Barbet. Harry Dean Stanton. \"You can't direct traffic!\" That was needed me to watch him act. Sean Penn and Madonna. Elliot years ago. He was kind of wild then. Gould. They all come by. The guy was great. He really be- CB: People remember that stuff. came this barfly. He added his own di- Harry Dean's a strange fellow. He But he's had a nice comeback. J guess mension, which at first I thought, this doesn't put on much of a hot-shot he's been in bigger pits of hell than I is awful, he's overdoing it. But as the front. He just sits around depressed. have. And I make him more depressed. I say, shooting went on, I saw he'd done the \"Harry, for Chrissakes, it's not so Sean Penn. right thing. He'd created a very bad.\" When you're feeling bad and He seems very withdrawn, delicate. strange, fantastic, lovable character. someone says that, you only feel worse. He waits before he speaks. He tells in- When it comes out, I can see all sorts of teresting stories. He used to bring his kids acting like him. All the kids are Barbet just showed up one day. Said bodyguard. His bodyguard was better gonna start drinking! he wanted to make a film about my life. than Sean. The bodyguard was a funny He kinda talked me into it. I was very guy, telling stories how he beat guys H OW was Faye Dunaway? reluctant, because I don't like film. I up. He'd roll on the rug describing I saw her in Bonnie & Clyde. She don't like actors, I don't like directors, fights. filled the role. Period. She wasn't ex- I don't like Hollywood. I just don't like LB: Sean came here not as a celebri- ceptional. She wasn't bad. She just it. He laid a little cash on the table- ty, but to visit Hank. It was the other filled the role. [To the microphone.1 not a great deal, but some. So I typed it way around. He wasn't the celebrity, Sorry to say this, Faye, you want me to out. That was seven years ago. he came here in awe. He had a differ- lie? I just made an enemy. That's one ent temperament completely. He of problems-I can't lie. I started writing dirty stories and I wasn't a celebrity, he was a person. He ended up writing a fucking screenplay. was very vulnerable, he was real. Is it pretty much as you wrote it? And now I have Godard, Werner Her- CB: He was also looking for a part in Yeah. Barbet wrote in the contract zog, and Sean Penn coming by. The Barfly. The only bad-[ things about that nothing could be changed without little girl next door says, \"Oh Hank, is Penn1 I've seen is what I've read. J my permission. It's pretty good for a it true that Madonna came to see you?\" haven't seen it personally. Except one screenwriter. Never heard of that be- I said yeah. \"But why would Madonna time I made a small remark about Ma- fore. come see you?\" donna which was not flattering. He was Barbet has a lot of respect for what I sitting right next to me. He started write. He even phones from the set Sean [Penn1 wanted Dennis Hopper standing up. I said [low and tough]: when I'm not there and says the actors to direct, and I wanted Barbet. Be- \"Hey, Sean, sit down, you know I can can't say the line. You know, some- cause Barbet put seven years into this. take you, don't be silly.\" He sat back times you write a line and it looks good They gave Barbet a pretty lush offer, to down. on paper, but with the human voice it be be producer, a whole deal. But he J think Sean was much better when doesn't work. So I give him another said, \"No! I must direct this myself.\" he was younger. An innocent madness line. So we've been working together just flaring out. I liked him better earli- that way. It's right down to what I LB: It was so funny. I came in the er. The longer hair, he was thinner, wrote. If the writing's good, you've got door and it was Hank and Barbet and and his eyes were wild. a good chance for a good movie. Sean and Dennis sitting here. They'd What was your first reaction to Mickey He's been improving the pace. The all been drinking, except Dennis, who Rourke? first cut I saw was very slow in the be- was all cleaned up. He had a gold me- I hadn't met Mickey, but I heard ginning. It's marvelous what they can dallion and a polyester jersey, and it many stories about him. I thought, do to pep it up just by cutting here and really offended them. It was really fun- \"This guy will be a complete prick. I there-you get a sense of rhythm. A ny, because he was really nervous to be better not get drunk and take a swing at certain zip develops, you can feel it, around Hank, as it turned out. him. I better watch my drinking. I like a horse galloping. When you get could ruin the whole movie by getting these deadly pauses, you can just sense CB: One time something was said, into it with this kid and being com- them. We saw that in the beginning; it and it wasn't quite funny, and he just pletely honest. just bothered me. \"This is so labored.\" threw his head back and laughed. The But he was so nice. He eyes were They'd just put everything together, laughter was pretty false, J thought. good. Even one time Linda and I were with no music. The chains kept bouncing up and walking on to the set, they weren't He's really pushing it. He sent the down, and he kept laughing. After he shooting. Mickey was being inter- Cannes people a rough cut, and they was gone, Barbet said, \"You hear that viewed, they had the cameras on him. liked that. The last I heard, they had fucking laugh, did you see all those He saw me and said, \"Hey Hank, seven rooms with people working on it chains?\" I said, \"Yeeesss.\" c'mere! Help me!\" They got me on, in each one, and he's running from one He got all excited and phoned where his will is. \"In case I die, Dennis Hop- per is never to be allowed to direct Bar- fly. Anyone else in the world but Den- 56

IfI don't write for a week, I get sick. I can't walk, I get dizzy, I lay in bed, I puke. Get up in the morning and gag. [' ve got to type. Ifyou chopped my hands off, ['d type with my feet. to the other. was a great transformation. It's some- It's going to be a fine movie. It might even The whole movie was shot in six thing you have to overcome. win a fucking Academy Award for Mick- ey. For screenwriter? Well, maybe. I'll get weeks. And what's the cutting time, I f the promise of screenplay fortunes a tuxedo.\" four weeks? We're working under the hnd come at a more pressing time, mad whip here, but instead of detract- mightithave been a more distracting lure? What was the periodyou drew onfor the ing, it seems to be giving it more jazz. screenplay? It did come at a pressing time, and Did you get some screenplays and study that's just why I did it. Because I was Actually, it was two periods and I meld- theform? living in a dive and just barely getting ed them together. When I lived in Phila- by. I really hadn't been lucky until delphia, I was a barfly. I was about 25, 24, Hell , no. [Disgusted.] Well, you three or four yea rs ago. And I'm not 26, it gets kinda mixed up. know, it's just dialogue, people walk- rich. And I'm not poor. Neither are ing around. You don't have to study you, right? So the money looked good. I liked to fight-thought I was a tough that. I can't see taking instruction on And I think they got a bargain-for guy. I drank and I fought. My means of anything. . .. what they paid for. existence ... I don't know how I ever made it. The drinks were free, people I guess it was because I had a tough And ifthe movie's a success, you'll par- bought me drinks. I was more or less the childhood, with my father telling me ticipate? bar entertainer, the clown. It was just a what to do all the time. So if anybody place to go every day. I'd go in at five every tells me, \"This is how you do this.... \" It will be a success , because Mickey day; it opened officially at seven, but the I don't ever like to be told how you do did a great job of acting. He really did bartender let me in, and I'd two hours free this. I just want to do it, whatever has to it. drinks. Whisky. So I was ready when the be done. If somebody says, \"You do it door opened. Then he'd say, \"Sorry like this,\" I immediately cut off and go Had you ever given a thought as to who Hank. Seven o'clock. Can't give you any cold. And it extends to trivial areas of might play you in your life story? more drinks.\" I'd say that I'd do what I life.... Things must come through joy can. I was off to a good start, with two and wanting to do them. I don't like in- No, because I never thought anyone hours of whiskey. Then I'd get mostly struction: I can't handle it. would do my life story. I did think, beers. I'd run errands for sandwiches, get well, maybe I'll die sometime and some- mostly beat up. I'd sit there till 2 A.M., go. I guess a twisted childhood has body will take a shot at it. Usually they back to my room, then be back at five fucked me up. But that's the way I am, fuck it up. There was a thing about Ker- A.M. Two and a half hours ofsleep. I guess so I'll go with it. I'm afraid if I correct ouac on TV the other night-it was awful. when you're drunk you're kind of asleep myself, I'll fuck myself up. I don't You can't watch it too long. This guy smil- anyway. You're resting up. want to be cured of what I am. ing. We were switching back and forth be- tween F. Scott and Kerouac. We finally I'd go home and there'd be a bottle of My father was born in Pasadena. He had to stop watching both of them. wine there. I'd drink half of that and go to went to Germany and met my moth- sleep. And I wasn't eating. er-he was in the army of occupation, Most writers' lives are more interesting you see. They got married and brought than what they write. Mine is both. They You must have had a hell ofa constitu- me back. I was here at the age of three. meet on an equal plane. tion. My father was very strict-he wouldn't let me play with the other kids , beat I just wrote it and said it was in the I did have, yeah. I finally ended up in a me , all that. hands of God, they'll fuck it up. I didn't hospital ten years later. expect a great deal. So I was ready for When I went to grammar school I when they fucked it up. Fortunately, be- Did you have a lot ofenergy? was a sissy because I couldn't catch a cause of Barbet Schroeder's directing and No. Just the energy to lift a glass. I was ball, I didn't know how to react to the Mickey Rourke's acting and all the bar- hiding out. I didn't know what else to do. other kids. But I wasn't a true sissy. flies-they took them right out of the This bar back east was a lively bar. It You know, all the stuff was there, but I bar-they got a great cast and it worked. wasn't a common bar. There were charac- hadn't learned how to do things. So the ters in there. There was a feeling. There other sissies gathered with me. It was was ugliness, there was dullness and stu- awful, I detested them. I wasn't a true pidity. But there was also a certain gleeful sIssy. high pitch you could feel there. Else I wouldn't have stayed. Finally, as the years went on, I I did about three years there, left, came evolved, all the way from being a sissy back, did another three years. Then I to the toughest guy in school. That's came back to L.A. and worked Alvarado really going up the ladder. I remember Street, the bars up and down there. Met in college, sitting there, this kid comes the ladies-if you want to call them that. up to me. He remembered me from This is kind of a mixture of two areas, grammar school. \"Jesus, man, you L.A. and Philadelphia, melded together. used to be a sissy. What happened?\" Which may be cheating, but it's supposed \"Go away, leave me alone.\" So that 57

It's only the next line, this line that's coming as the typewriter spins, that's the magic, that's the roaring, that's the beauty. It's the only thing that beats death. to be fictional anyway, right? Must have use the word anymore, because people been around 1946. have belabored it so much. It's like the It seems that all the good old scum bars word \"love\"; they just pounded it into the are disappearing. In those days, Alvarado ground. \"Poetic,\" \"love,\" you just can't Street was still white. And you could just use them and feel safe. Too many fakes duck inside and get 86'd in one bar and have trod up and down the path using then move right down ten paces and those words. You try to find another word. there's another bar to walk into. Cocteau once said thilt an artist's work I've gone into bars with deadwood peo- is his alibi. ple and an absolute deadwood feeling. Sounds good. He made some movies, You have one drink and you want to get didn't he? Heads popping out of couches the hell out of there so fast. But this bar and all that. I saw them at the art theater in was a lively hole in the sky. Greenwich Village when I was starving. The first day I walked in, I got hooked. Totally artsy and artificial. I just got into town. I walked out of my T oday the popular perception ofdrunk- room-it was about two in the afternoon. I enness has changed considerablyfrom walked in and said, \"Give me a bottle of beer.\" Picked it up and a bottle came when you were young. flying through the air, right past my head. You mean, they kind of fear it? Make it People just kept on talking! Guy next to ,-. something evil? me turned around and said, \"Hey you It is viewed, widely, as an illness. sonofabitch, you do that again I'm gonna Bukowski with Rourke. They're probably right. But think of all knock your goddamn head off.\" Then came another bottle flew past. \"I told you, There's a possibility there. [Lights up.] the ill people who don't drink at all, who you sonofabitch.\" Then there's a big I've never covered the horseplayer, how are just dull within themselves. All they fiiiiight. Everybody went out in the back. the disease started. need is a glass of water. There are people and there are people. A lot of damn fools I said, \"God, what a jolly, lovely place. Disease, did you say? drink. In fact, most of them do. There are I'm going to stay here.\" So I kept waiting Everything's a disease, because it's go- always exceptions within the rule, as they for a repeat of that first lovely afternoon. I ing to kill you, one way or another. say. This bar was an exception. And I waited three years and it didn't happen. I Whether you do it or you don't, it's going think I was an exception. I don't think I had to make it happen. I took over. to kill you. What am I saying? Does that was a standard dull drunk. make sense? Let it ride .... I finally left. I said, \"That first after- LB: They optioned his novel Women. We had a roaring time. And we'd be sit- noon is never going to recur.\" I was CB: [Menahem] Golan's after it now. ting there, eight guys. And suddenly sucked in. It was right after the war was He's all excited. Ran up to me and kissed somebody would make a statement, a over. sentence. And it would glue everything we were doing together. It would fit the Barbet Schroeder got a worldly crew. me. I pointed to Barbet and said, \"Here's outside world in-just a flick of a thing, The German cameraman, Robby your man, kiss him.\" He smelled money then we'd smile and go back to our drink- Miiller, anyway, looks like a gnome from ing. Say nothing. It was an honorable the underworld. there. place, with a high sense of honor, and it Whilt do you think of The Bukowski was intelligent. Strangely intelligent. Robby did Paris, Texas, and he's got a Those minds were quick. But given up on camera. I saw the first dailies, and I had to Tapes? life. They weren't in it, but they knew tell him, \"I'm not even a film man, but as I I liked them the first time I saw them. watched it the first thing that came to my something. mind was that you meant it.\" You can Second time, it was just an old drunk talk- I got a screenplay out of it and never ing away. It's very hard to see them all at sense that he's grasping the totality of the once. It's like reading a book of poetry thought I would, sitting there. straight through. It's jarring. Then there was The Iceman Cometh. event. Yeah, I read that. Now there's a philo- This didn't inspire you to write another I had a guilt complex because I never thought Barbet would get Barfly off the sophical bar. But it's grim and dank and screenplay? ground. So he thought he'd just get me near the edges of hell. These old farts, No. Because I know that this was a spe- drunk and talk for video cameras. We got man, they're awful people. It's grimy, lucky. I made the tapes out of guilt. I dull. I liked some of O'Neill's stuff-it cial group. You write another one and wrote a screenplay I didn't want to write. wasn't so much the story of a bar as some you've got a lot of bitching people .... philosophical bullshit thing. People don't Have you ever seen where the medium act like that in bars. Yeah, O'Neill, I liked I wouldn't know what to write about. 1 offilm has been given over to the poetic a lot of his stuffwhen I was young. He was couldn't just sit down and make some- impulse very successfully? a drunk. I like the bit where people be- thing up. Because it wouldn't work. You \"The poetic impulse.\" That's a dirty can't do that. word to me. It's a misused word. You can't Whilt about, ' 'The Horseplayer\"? 58

came the masks they put on. \"Lockheed that I liked , but I would find an excuse to we're not our own best critics, are we? I imagine a lot of guys keep typing while Becomes Elektra,\" something like that. throw in a sex scene right in the middle of saying, \"This stuff is great. \" You know, I've read everything, but I the story. It seemed to work. It was okay. It may be madness, but I feel I'm still growing. It's like somebody trying to push forget it. I used to read 12 books a week. out of the top of my head. Working, work- ing ... A good feeling, man. The gods are I've read the whole fucking library. Some guys manage to get hold oftheir good to me. They haven't always been What are you reading this week? creative energy when they' re good to me, but lately they've been kind to me. I haven't read anything for ten years. I young, some guys wait a while. [Raises toast.] Here's to my father, who can't read. You put it in my hand, it drops I waited a long, long while. At the age of made me the way I am. He beat the shit out of me. After my father, everything was out. Doesn't do me any good. I like the 50, I was still in the post office, stacking easy. ® National Enquirer and the Herald Ex- letters. I was still working, I was not a writ- SCJtipfw1tiWl6 - F~ aminer, that's about it. I'm serious. er. I decided to quit and become a writer. BOOK CLUB You once wrote a regular column in When I went to resign , the lady in the post How to Write/Type/Sell/Protect Your Film/TV Script! the L.A. Free Press, and in a column on office said [clucks tongue reprovingly]. I Scriptwriting & Filmmaking books and reference how to pick the ponies you said, \" Hav- always remember that. It was my last day works for the Entertainment Industry Professional ing talent but no follow-through is on the job. One of the clerks said, \"I don't FREE INFORMATION worse than having no talent at all.\" know if he's going to make it, but the old Write: SFBC, 8033 Sunset Blvd ., #306C West Hollywood , CA 90046 I was thinking of horses when I said man sure has a lot of guts.\" MOVIE that, but I guess it applies everywhere. Old? I didn't feel old. You're just walk- STAR PHOTOS Have you beenfollowing through? ing around in your body, you don't feel One of the world's largest collections of film So far. With minor fame. That's what any age. When you get old, people say personality photographs, with emphasis on rare candids and European materiaL Send a I've got now. Minor fame is bad. things, but there's no difference. S.A.S.E. with want-list to: What is the effect offame on a writ- So that was a big blow. I said, \"Oh shit, Milton T . Moore, Jr. Dept. Fe er? what have I done?\" The landlady said I P.O. Box 140280 Depends on your age, brainpower, and was crazy. But she was nice, and some- Dallas, Texas 75214-0280 your guts. I think if you're old enough, times she'd leave a big dinner out for me. FILM & VIDEO FINDERS you have a better chance to overcome And every other night I'd go down and We locate and obtain any obscure or what they put on you. If you're a genius at drink with them all night long and sing all hard-to-find films on video tape. 22 and the babes come around, the night. In between I wrote my own stuf( We're expensive, but we're very good. drinks. .. How old was Dylan Thomas Dirty stories. That was on DeLongpre. For further Information, Send SASE when he died, 34? It can come too soon. It I.'m 66 now. That was 1970. I guess I FILM FINDERS can never come too late, I guess. I think got lucky late. P.O. Box 4351, Dept. FC I'm safe. LB: Do you think that's the best way? Hollywood, CA 90078 I get letters from women who want to CB: Hell yes, because then you've got show their naked bodies. \"I'm 19 years old all the background to reach into and then and I want to be your secretary. I'll keep write things about. The trouble is, with your house and I won't bother you at all. I most people and the eight-hour job, when just want to be around.\" I get some you want to reach , there's nothing left to strange letters. I trash them. Even before reach. I was lucky because I didn't believe Linda and I got together. in the job. Nothing's free. There's always prob- In Europe now you are recognized lems, there's always tragedy, madness, on the streets. Does this get in the way? bullshit. There's a big trap waiting with all All a drunk wants to do is have an ex- these dollies who send letters about what cuse to get drunk. So ifyour celebrity is an they're going to do for me. They just want excuse to get drunk, you get drunk. you to walk into it and put the clamp on I write when I'm drunk. Take away the you. No way. So I'll answer, \"Good God, typewriter and I'm a drunk without a type- girl, give it to a young man who deserves it writer. Could be some goodness left over, and leave me alone. And drive safely.\" or some charm or some bullshit. It's all Never hear from them again .... mixed together. As Ezra said, \"Do your W-O-R-K.\" One ofthe hurtful things about fame That's where the vigor comes from, the is that you play more to a past image creative fucking process. Puts dance in the than to afuture image. bones. Like I said, if I don't write for a Exactly. Especially a writer. The only week, I get sick. I can't walk, I get dizzy, I thing that amounts to a writer is the next lay in bed, I puke. Get up in the morning line you're going to write down. All past and gag. I've got to type. If you chopped things don't mean shit. If you can't write my hands off, I'd type with my feet. So that next line, you as a person are dead. I've never written for money; I've written It's only the next line, this line that's com- just because of an imbecilic urge. ing as the typewriter spins, that's the mag- Even when you were writing for ic, that's the roaring, that's the beauty. It's porno magazines? the only thing that beats death. The next That was for the rent. [Grins.] That was line. If it's a good one, of course. [Grins.] sicker. I didn't have the urge, but I did it. I That bothers me a lot. No it doesn't. Con- enjoyed that. I would write a good story sider that the next line could be dead. But 59

Brian Dennehy in The Belly of an Architect. phants to ornament the Babylonian set of tors' affections that Cannes is expected to offer meteorological luxury along with its by Mary Corliss o.w. Griffith's Intolerance. The hope in more rarefied cinematic pleasures. No one was ever heard complaining about the Movies come in pieces-frames, reels, the brothers' hearts mirrors the naive and weather at the New York Film Festival. sights, and sounds. Once in a while, the buoyant spirits of the brother directors pieces fall together into a great film. But at Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, and for a while The films were off a bit too. None of Cannes, one grazes among dozens of films the new work boasted the polish and wit of that are on view simultaneously, and mov- the viewer also hopes that GoodMorning, ies can easily blend into a composite pic- Babylon will prove the definitive rendition the 1939 Midnight, presented as a tribute ture of mediocrity. So the visitor learns to savor moments rather than hunt for mas- on film of the communal dream process of to director Mitchell Leisen and co-author terpieces. There was no single outstand- moviemaking. But soon enough, in Bab- Billy Wilder. None had the home-movie ing film among the hundred or so sampled ylon and atCannes, such dreams wiUcrash panache, daring, and connubial love re- at the 40th International Festival du Film, like a plaster pachyderm. vealed in Roberto Rossellini's 1954 film but there were plenty of moments. To- L ike 10,000 extras pressing onto a mov- Joan ofArc at the Stake, starring his then- ie set, the rabble was back at Cannes gether, they created an anthology of Cine- this year. In 1986, American fears of Kad- wife, Ingrid Bergman, and prefaced by rna '87. Some of them follow: dafi's Kommandoes landing on the Cote some tender footage of the notorious cou- d'Azur had helped tum the festival into a ple backstage before the performance: In- FIRST 15 MINUTES OF Good benign, off-season Club Med. In 1987, grid combing her short hair, Roberto look- Morning, Babylon. Pisa, 1908. The spec- though, with Arab nationalists ceding ing on adoringly. But many of the new headline space to news of philandering films, taking their cue from the wary, ret- tacular Romanesque cathedral, complet- politicians and evangelists back home, rospective tone of a 40th birthday, reflect- ed almost 800 years before, is being re- Cannes was again a mobocracy. Crowds ed nostalgically on the life of the cinema stored. A cloth falls from the fac;ade, were back to their usual rush-hour-subway and its artists. Mostly, the view showed revealing the church's pristine splendor- levels of density and congeniality. The what has been lost. and two young brothers still chiseling at welcome sun was vitiated by a harsh Mis- the majestic profile of a stone elephant. tral wind until, in the closing days of the AN HOUR OR SO OF Intervista. They will later bring their anonymous arti- fortnight, the rains came. It is, of course, a sanry to Hollywood and fashion eight e1e- tribute to this resort town's hold on its visi- From another great Italian filmmaker, an- other enthralling home movie. Federico continued on page 64

Marcello Mastroianni in Black Eyes. by Harlan Jacobson the equivalent of Boardwalk, and no the Art. Free at last!, a leper in a leper colo- Frenchman would be caught dead in ny. I magine years of having heard about Cannes any other time ofyear. Even some the place, then going on a pilgrimage war-weary American film buyers are given CATCH THIS, IF YOU CANNES: and discovering that you'd found your to sighing about how they didn't really soul (and lost your wallet) in a ... theme want to come . . . but, oh, just couldn't af- Every night thousands of swells in formals park. It seemed only to happen to PTL ford not to. (Expense accounts help soften shimmy behind filmmaker limos down types on visits to Heritage U.S.A. And the blow.) For those carrion others- the Croisette to the Grand Palais. Streets then I went to Cannes, and that is Cannes would-be producers, directors, actors, cordoned off, cops everywhere, thousands exactly-a theme park. even critics-looking for money or truth, of cheering peons, flashbulbs in a fire- prices are what you'd expect to pay for the fight. The annointed climb stairs higher Beneath the Pentecote d'Azureland last drop of water in the Sahara: cham- than Cheops, passing between Napo- that Cannes has become over the last 40 pagne, anyone?-$16 the glass; salad ni- leon's fusiliers lining a red carpet to the years, the original impulse is still thrill- coise-$25, etc. sky. Just when you are saying to yourself, ing-you don't have to apologize for lik- \"People who'd commit this much real es- ing movies. It is accepted: films carry the Like sophisticated hookers, the Majes- tate to a movie house and this much jake freight of experience in our time. So, you tic and Carlton hotels wear garterbelts be- for costumes, down to the fusiliers, like to sit in the pink 'n purple chapel of the neath their bridal whites of billboard ads party,\" God's speakers would let loose Grand Palais, and read in tongues, and bought and paid for by parvenu Holly- with a blast from \"Also Sprach Zarathrus- count the strangers around you as breth- wood sugar daddies, or worse, the parve- tra\" (or variously Wagner, Beethoven, or ren. There is a French assumption, cer- nouveau riche Cannon boys (they may go Tina Tumer). Then you'd glance with a tainly, and possibly a continental one, that down, but not out). And every monster in tremble to see if the goddamn building film is, if not holy, then definitely art, the the business is there, just waiting to jump was going to lift off its stanchions Close art of the 20th century, as we are so laugh- out from behind the next buffet and either Encounters-style and leave the planet. ably informed by the infidels on Oscar offer you cookies or make you toss yours. night. Seeing all this reminded me of a maga- Yet, the effect of Cannes on a bastard zine cartoon: five panels of heads craning The Croisette, the seaside sluice lined fan of films is to finally confer legitima- to see a parade. The sixth panel has the by hotels straight out of a Carvel factory, is cy-not just on one's disease but on its crowd parting to reveal a greaseball in a narcotic and its suppliers. It is the State of pimpsuit with a bimbo on each arm strut- ting behind a midget strewing rose petals 61

in their paths and heralding, \"Make Way! 3000 French standing at the foot of the who plays the smoldering wife he leaves, Make Way! A Cartoonist is Coming ....\" Alors, sorry to sound so naive, but in Majestic driveway to glimpse .. . why, just Peter Riegert, who plays his aide de camp, Cannes they make way for filmmakers. anyone at all-held back by nothing. By and Vincent Lindon, who plays Scacchi's H Ow odd then to see Cannes' house in such disarray: groping for a way to re- tacit agreement with their place. By a tiger cub husband, are more compelling in vive the corpse of French cinema; reeling from denunciations ofjury politics (culmi- thousand years of class structure that says, their roles and so undercut the film's hook nating in the by-now infamous closing night rebellion in the Palais and in bars up \"Peons wait here. \" The byproduct of this, of seduction. and down the Croisette by legions leaping up to jeer when the 40th Palme d'Or went of course, as the Barbie trial in L yons so It's not as if Kurys' vision of men and to Maurice Pialat for his Under Satan's Sun, an auteurist sleeping pill that was the inconveniently reminded , is \"Jews to the women isn' t acute, it's more that her first French film in over 20 years to be so awarded); and riven by· rivalries between left.\" French Lieutenant's Woman movie-with- the competition, sidebar, and market pro- gram directors-resulting not only in the in-a-movie script played like a diagram. inclusion of a testimonial feature to fest di- rector Gilles Jacob by Gilles Jacob but in a F or days after throwing myself at the Going nowhere slowly, it sank with a special prize. Cannes is the postwar love feet of the press office for a ticket- coda, lifted from Entre Nous, that re- child of the Riviera's futile wish to keep the festival regularly held on to tickets for framed this as her story, and that finding the film industry from fleeing to Paris. It didn' t work. But the sheersimple machin- even ordinary screenings which then ran her mother inside herself after her first di- ery that is set in motion on behalfof the hotels and restaurants by the nonsense before hundreds of empty seats-I sastrous outing outweighed her own feck- pageantry cannot obscure this: here is a culture that, even as its auteurs tum to thought that one could simply have seen lessness. The first time, she got by with it; stone or dust, has embraced film , em- braced its power and its art, its ability to the nine minute sequence from Bertoluc- this time, it struck me as a device for the investigate and follow an idea, a leg, a pas- sion, a dream , a howl , an irony or an ambi- ci's The Last Emperor, shown only on cheap seats. Kurys and Kuryser. guity, and to love those who do so radiant- ly--even if only for the first 30 minutes. opening night before Diane Kurys' A Man THERE WOULD BE MORE disap- How civilized. in Love, and gone home. It begins outside pointments, of varying degrees. The sad- Then how tempting it is to see Holly- wood as mad Baby Huey, demanding the an ancient temple in Peking-the camera dest: the Taviani's English language world's attentions and obeissance, control- ling the world's markets and the talents of moving through a plaza of endless kneel- Good Morning, Babylon, which tried un- an art it fundamentally misunderstands as an entertainment and disrespects as a clari- ing acolytes posed like so many poppies to successfully to fuse a lament over Italian fier. the sun-and then moves inside to pres- emigration to America with the lure that EVERYWHERE IN CANNES you'd trace the American vs. French char- ent the three year-old boy destined to be induced it-the Hollywood ofD.W. Grif- acter. The headlines in the Herald Trib would scream about big men back home the last emperor to the dying empress fith. The dumbest (well, not as dumb as undone by wild women. In Cannes, the bistro broke out laughing at Gary Hart's dowager. Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't televised explanation about the back door. \"You know who Mitterand's lover is?,\" The eye is hungry to read the whole Dance): Surf Nazis Must Die, a very out- one Parisian asks, with a shrug rhat says whoever it is it's of less consequence than screen: everything is to be leamed in a of-competition film in which Troma film- what's for dinner. \" Dominique Sanda. Among others.\" Sex is more than main- mise-en-scene that has the feel of other- makers go out of their way to permit white stream here. It's a subset of pleasure. And pleasure is the logical response to what worldliness, of science fiction. The im- audiences to condemn but enjoy seeing a can't be fIXed, no? Everything can be fixed in America-from govemment to ages: of power held by a woman supine on black guy get offed-and then kill him Fixodent-and pleasure is neither a right nor a reason; it's a privilege or a theft, but a throne at the center ofa civilization about offscreen. (God, next Troma will be sign- either way, it's a debit. But you can fix that. Ah , but the French accept the hand to enter a long sleep, of a bedazzling court ing Godard ona Kleenex to direct The as dealt: les jeux sont fait. So, you'd see of fearful ministers, and of the tot percolat- War of the Roses.) The longest: Vibeke ing through the proceedings. The se- Lokkeberg's ambitious The Wild One, quence fini shes with a ladle dipping into a shown in Un certain regard sidebar, is an vat-a giant tortoise is being steamed to attempt through a story about incest, set in death-for a drink of hot waters for the 1890's Norway, to create new myth and fading empress. To be continued in full new tools for women to cope with male this fall. abuse. The risks Lokkeberg takes-sev- The Rules of the Game would've had a eral sequences involve a young girl-are hard time following Bertolucci's act. immense, but lost in the film 's leaden Kurys' A Man in Love, however, suffered pace. of its own weight. Made in English to try There were the pleasures ofEttore Sco- to crack the U.S. market-part of a cycle la's The Family, which moves up and of temptation that this year also caught the down the corridor of an apartment, tracing Taviani's Good Morning Babylon-the the life of a family over 80 years; Nikita film demonstrated Kurys' affinity for the Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes, with Marcello hotspots of contemporary relationships. Mastroianni as the ne'er-do-well you love As smartly as her Entre Nous laid out the to love; and Wim Wenders' superb postwar marital deal between men and postwar Berlin meditation, Wings of De- women that strangled one generation and sire. Accepting the directors prize, Wend- left the subsequent one with a false mod- ers gave weight to the award, rather than el , Kurys' new film schematically renders vice-versa. her contemporaries along the passion vs. And, of course, there were the sur- domesticity axis. Playing an American ac- prises: Paul Newman's The Glass Mena- tor cast as Italian poet Cesare Pavese (who gerie, which I dreaded so much I arrived killed himself in 1950 and not soon only moments before the Gentleman enough in the film), Peter Coyote is not Caller-and then found a sensitive read- much of a Bad Boy mega-moviestar and ing and a smart camera; Canadian director so, doesn't seem worth the Roman candle Patricia Rozema's lovely homily on being the film 's simpy starlet, Greta Scacchi, true to passion, I've Heard the Mermaids thinks he's packing. Jamie Lee Curtis, Singing; two similar British films, David 62

Leland's Wish You Were Here (based on a philosophe-was that he should fail to the directors [on the jury] ... they say 'Eff, madame Cynthia Payne story Leland didn't use in Personal Services) and Alan produce. Vive la France and all that. it ,seem okay in a way, but you want to Clarke's Rita, Sue and Bob Too, both of which chart the rude awakenings awaiting \"FOR FRANCE? PFFFF,\" Mon- make a really big effort, it must be for Pia- sexually appetitive young women; and fi- nally, Barbet Schroeder's intoxicating tand later tells me. \"Believe me, I don' t · lat. What do you think?' \" The jury, Mon- BarflY. care.\" He explains the jury's thinking tand says, came to see the choice as one Charles Bukowski's Barfly script is smarter than a slice-of-alcoholic life at the about the films in competition: \"The ma- between artistic standards and popularity. bottom; it's a wild man update on Gulley Jimson and the need to get rid of money to jority, we liked the Mikhalkov, Dark And because \"Fix\" was in the air and on remain an artist. Mickey Rourke walks through the role sona like Popeye with his Eyes. Charming, happy, a little bit of a everybody's lips up and down the Croi- pants full , but it's the only time this B-film thug B-good. whore, you know-borrows from Chekov sette, the festival paid for the choice. But T he 40th festival began months before a little, Gogol a little, Fellini a little, but it's not as if anyone cancelled their table opening night by selecting Yves Mon- tand as jury president. This was in part be- we know ' that and we don't care. And for dinner at Colombe d'Or-next year. cause he is Montand, and in part because Montand could assure the integrity of the Mastroianni?,\" Montand says, closing his \"The film that was the best was the awards, tainted after the 39th Palme went eyes and kissing his fingers : \"Ju~t Fellini,\" says Montand of the director's to The Mission , reportedly because jury president Sydney Pollack preferred it and fantastic. \" Intervista, an adoration on filmmaking. its producer, David Puttnam, to Andrei Tarkovsky's superior The Sacrifice. Mastroianni is simply elegant in Mik- But neither Fellini, nor Woody Allen, halkov's wistful debut de si~cle story of an whose Radio Days Montand liked (''I'm So, enter Montand, who addressed the issue at a press conference the first day: Italian sloth, patrician interloper, seducer, not very objective--everything he make, \"The jury process is a game, but an honest game. Otherwise, I wouldn't take part in poseur, and finally, wonderful fool for I like\") were in competition. \"If we had to it.\" Then he hoped that the jury's rapport \"could be found on the night of the prize love, who schemes his way out of his mar- give one prize, it was the Fellini movie. giving.\" And later, he exhorted Europe to ) seek not only a European Cesar but a Eu- riage and into the heart of the Russian im- Np doubt. Everybody, everybody, every- ropean cinema that would deal \" puissance perial court. Only, of course, to end up body. For this reason we gave him the 40 apuissance\" with the U.S. with nothing but a droll tale to tell, and a . anniversaire prize ... He made a real mas- tresAll bon, but the pressures on the best actor award. Absolutely deserved, terpiece movie, a real masterpiece .. .· 40th jury president were immense. The Russians and their glasnost were at and a proxy for the jury's and the audi- Ahfff, my God,\" Montand sighs and slaps Cannes, most notably with Tengiz Abu- ladze's Repentance, the anti-Stalinist ence's sentiments toward the film as well. his thigh. \"What a work he done, what a screamplay shelved since 1984. With new Soviet Filmmakers Union chiefElem Kli- \"But then we talked honestly,\" Mon- work ... Wait till you see.\" mov on the Cannes jury, they badlywant- ed the Pal me to bear home. Solution to a tand continues, \"and, this is very impor- p~litical question: create a special jury pnze. Mtant, between this kind of movie and say, y, but Montand looked uncomfort- able on closing night saying \"Pialat\" Not to mention Cannon (pronounced The Mission . .. or The Untouchables, if Cannes-in), fighting off bankruptcy and you want, suddenly appears the Pialat. It's after \"Palme d'Or.\" My, but the crowd the death of brunch. Solution: the best ac- tress award to Barbara Hershey, who- a little bit difficult ... and makes the the- was Cannestankerous. The city sounded riveting everywhere else-has to say stu- pid lines like \"I wan' a hot man or a col' ater owners [mad], and like Alan Resnais' like a stockyard. It booed , and booed, and man, don'gimme no warm man ,\" in An- drei Konchalovsky's silly, house-bayou Last Year at Marienbad, we cannot classi- booed. Then it booed some more. Mon- film, Shy People. (When co-star Jill Clay- burgh races an alligator back to a boat, the fy this movie like another movie. And un- tand and the jury. The film and Pialat. audience took sides.) anime, we say 'Yes. They're going to The latter was, at least, unequivocal in de- Then, there was France, with its indus- try dying at the hands of the French predi- awhistle, but yes to him [pialatl' And to fense of his film , which la Equus and psy- lection for American movies. For France, the last thing that was wanted-given the Russian for Repentir [Repentance]. chiatry, plods through loss of faith issues Montand's stature as a centrist political \"They do this kind of movie,\" Mon- but in a priest-bites-dogma plot. \"You tand says, waxingpolitique, \" but I am not don't like me?,\" Pialat mewled at the mad sure atall they release it so well in the Sovi- mass, \"Well, I don't like you.\" Then gave et Union. Oh, in a smaller house ... a the hand signal for the number one unsafe cinema in Leningrad, maybe in Moscow, sex act. More boos. and [c1ap-clap] that's it. But it was coura- Even then the Cannes initiate is im- geous to do it, and the movie is very well pressed: here, they boo. We nominate done. And, believe me .. . [jury member Jane Fonda for an Oscar for half a hiccup as Jerzy] Skolomowski, he's Polish, he's not a drunk in a thriller that looks like it was pro-Sovietique, understand. But he ad- put together on the barroom floor, The mitted that it's okay. So we say yes.\" Morning After, and instead of eggplants \"I repeat, not only my taste, but the raining down on L.A. and the industry be- majority of the jury wanted to give [the ing sentenced to Alcoholics Anonymous, Palme] to Mikhalkov. But we listening, forever, ... people clap. In Cannes, we talking to other people, and especially they'd boo. (And boo, and boo, and boo.) 63

---- - Newman has said he approached the play \"as an archivist,\" to preserve rather than Tom Luddy (I.), Nonnan Mailer, and Debra Sundland (r.). subvert it. He has done his job with tact and love. CORLISS continuedfrom page 60 as some locals thought, her title is Princess Everyone knows that the work of an ar- Fellini's home is Cinecitta, the studio of Whales, but because the official British chivist-curator is filled with romance and intrigue, but for some reason nobody built 50 years ago by Mussolini. Today the entry, Prick Up Your Ears, was deemed made a movie about one until Peter Greenaway and The Belly ofan Architect. movie maestro is being interviewed by a an affront to gentility. In one of the film's A renowned American architect, Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy), is on his way Japanese 1V crew as he maneuvers scenes, set in 1953, Joe Orton and his new to Rome for nine months to devise an ex- hibition on the visionary drawings and through the huge complex and his own beau make love while the 1V broadcasts buildings of the 18th-century French neo- classicist Etienne-Louis Boullee. As fertile past. The familiar Fellini motifs are the coronation of Diana's mother-in-law. Stourley and his young wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) enter Italy in a train's sleeping car, on display here, like beloved old members The Whales of August had gentility to she is impregnated. The film is a consider- ation of artistic creation as man's puny, of a provincial rep company. Send in the spare. Its story, of two elderly sisters com- desperate, and heroic attempt to mimic the awesome creativity of child-bearing. clowns! Call in the Amazons! Pipe in the ing to terms with friendship and decay, is As drama, The Belly ofan Architect is too Nino Rota music! And, look, here's Mar- as demure as a Griffith one-reeler. And ap- empty and tasteless to lodge long in the cello! The director's alter ego and greatest propriately for the Royals, the film's stars viewer's gut. But as a ftipbook of images, as a demonstration of the use of color to star strolls by, accompanied by an Anita were two screen aristocrats, Lillian Gish comment on the monochrome variety of antique architecture, as an exhibition of Ekberg larger even than her billboard in and Bette Davis. But this is a film inert moving pictures within meticulous frames, the film is ravishing. The compo- Boccaccio '70, to conspire in a little from the neck down. Nothing really hap- sition of every shot is carefully, fanatically balanced, each element on the right side epiphany. With the wave of a wand they pens in the script (a devaluation of On complimented by an element on the left. Anyone who does not find the film gor- are again young and beautiful in the foun- Golden Pond) or in director Lindsay An- geous rates an eye test. tain scene from La Dolce Vita. Here is derson's approach; he is content to appre- Greenaway was not the only filmmaker at Cannes obsessed with affairs of the Fellini's credo: See what the movies can ciate, or exploit, the cinema history em- stomach. Gabriel Axel, a Dane who has directed many French 1V series, pro- do? If only life were so sweet! bodied by Gish and Davis. vided a delightful adaptation of the Isak Dinesen story Babette's Feast, about a I nstead of great movies, Cannes offered Better-much better-the poignant French chef (the ageless, peerless Ste- the lure of big movie stars working hard, emotions of Tennessee Williams' The phane Audran) sent to a remote village in and for the most part successfully, to look Glass Menagerie , which Paul Newman Norway to care for two elderly spinsters. To know the plot in advance would be to as fabulous as they did in the first bloom of has filmed starring Joanne Woodward (as forfeit pleasures that Dinesen devised and Axel realized. This is a movie to be sa- celluloid. Robert De Niro, back to fight- Amanda), Karen Allen (Laura), John Mal- vored with a hungry mind and a clear pal- ate. ing weight and comely hairlength, graced kevich (Tom) and James Naughton (the 35 MINUTES INTO Mascara. In the opening ceremony. Elizabeth Taylor Gentleman Caller). All four actors fall un- this dreadful, can't walk-out-of-it thriller, dropped by (late) to show off her newest der, and help extend, the spell ofthis great Michael Sarrazin is the police chief of Brussels; Charlotte Rampling is his soig- bauble, the Legion d'honneur. Another play; they find its strengths, nuances, and nee sister; Derek de Lint is the costume designer of Oifeo ed Euridice at the local goddess of the perfume business, Cather- wonderful sadness. This is nostalgia of a opera house. Sarrazin is fascinated by Eur- idice's costume-a big red heart beats ine Deneuve, presented the Palm d'Oron stronger kind than The Whales ofAugust through the fabric-and asks de Lint if a bel1\\.Jtiful friend of his, Eva Robins, can closing night. And that most perfect celeb- offers, for it is not simple sentimentalizing wear it for one night. Far underground they go, to a secret club where transves- rity, Lady Diana, draped her shy radiance of old times and old movies. It is an evoca- tites perform for the pleasure of the town's male elite. When Robins finishes lip- around the screening ofan American mov- tion of a time that now seems worth cher- synching her Euridice aria, she accompa- ie, The Whales of August-not because, ishing for its pain as well as its pastness. 64

nies Sarrazin back to her dressing room bania, into a lovely fantasia based on Ver- quet to Lady Diana. But the biggest new star at Cannes was and disrobes, revealing a woman's torso di's Un Ballo in Maschera. With one in evidence only on the screen of the and male genitalia. (Robins is a genuine labyrinthine tracking shot, and to the ac- Olympia 5 in the festival's marketplace. He was, of course, Jackie Chan. This vet- ehermaphrodite.) S/he touches Sarrazin companiment ofLa Donna Mobile from eran of hundreds of martial arts melodra- mas, a movie idol in Asia, has yet to con- gently, and, outraged by her solicitude, he Rigoletto, video whiz Julien Temple quer America . America is missing something big. Chan's latest kung-fu mas- strangles him/her. The rest is silliness. stages a hilarious double infidelity (involv- terpiece, The Armor of God, has a few slow spots as Jackie and his egregious side- ing Buck Henry, Anita Morris, and Bever- kick loiter in a mansion with a family of insufficiently evil adversaries. But the ac- Curios, of the sexu~1 and cinematic ly d'Angelo) in a San Luis Obispo, Cal., tion set pieces-a one-man battle with a sorts, abounded. Rlta, Sue and Bob motel. Franc Roddam sets the Liebestod tribe of pissed-off primitives, a vigorous Too, written by Andrea Dunbar and di- from Tristan undIsolde in a Las Vegas ho- car chase, an attack by four high-heeled priestesses, a final death-defying leap into rected by Alan Clarke, begins with a novel tel; it is powerful and poignant. Ken Rus- a hot-air balloon-are magnificent. And Jackie is an adorable charmer, handling proposition: Plain, overweight, not-over- sell, rebounding from the inane excesses comedy, romance, and his own stunts with inexhaustible charisma. Indiana Iy-bright young women deserve to have of Gothic, casts Linzi Drew in a wonder- Jones, look to your laurels. James Bond, watch out. randy sex lives, and to be the subjects of a fully audacious and assured fable of death EVERY AWFUL MOMENT British comedy. In theory, that is fine; in and transfiguration; the solo is Jussi Bjor- OF the closing-night ceremony. SCTV practice, the film lumbers among slap- ling'sNessundorina from Turandot. Some could not put on a more comically inept awards show than this, which is beamed stick, pathos, and jokes about rubber of the skits (Derek Jarman's) work less across Europe and to Asia and Central America. As the ceremony began, a fog johnnies. Norman Mailer's Tough Guys well, some (Robert Altman's) not at all. bank ofdry ice enveloped and, for perhaps a minute, blinded the hosts. Later they Don't Dance languished in strained dia- But minute for minute, note for note, im- squabbled over whether an actress had been introduced. Guests were an .,; logue and bizarre acting until one realized age for image, Aria was one of the better nounced, only to emerge from the wrong side of the stage. Tributes to Jean Sim- that the whole film was quite mad; so why films at Cannes. mons and Jane Russell were unaccompa- nied by clips, photos, or career bios. It was not relax and enjoy the shambles? In Mon ONE PERFORMANCE IN Bar- as if the French film and televisions indus- Bel Amour, Ma Dechirure (My Handsome tries were determined to libel themselves. Love, My Gaping Wound), a Parisian ac- fly. A good film? Not exactly. An enjoy- At the climax, jury president Yves Montand announced that the festival's top tress falls into a desperate affair with a able one? Very. Barbet Schroeder directed prize winner was Maurice Pialat's dreary drama Under the Sun of Satan, starring punk who collects debts for the mob. Jose this shaggy-dog autobiography of Charles Gerard Depardieu as a self-flagellating priest and Sandrine Bonnaire as a young Pinheiro's film is trash, but Catherine Wil- Bukowsky, the down-and-out poet of woman poised between homicide and sui- cide. And now the audience at the Grand kening and Stephan Ferraro are two at- West Coast freakishness. Bukowsky is Palais, which three years ago had shame- lessly booed Robert Bresson as he stepped tractive, intense young performers. And played by Mickey Rourke, who intones feebly onstage to receive an award, played its part in the catastrophe. It rained whis- how they perform, in every permutation every line with a downward momentum, tles and catcalls down on Montand, De- neuve, and Pialat. The director, an impos- of rough love this side of hard core. as ifhis dialogue was ever in danger of fail- ing and gifted ogre who revels in controversy, saluted the crowd with an in- Only hard-core admirers of Jean-Luc ing into the gutter. So is Barfly, until Faye sult-\"Ifyou don't like me, I can tell you, I don't like you either\"-and took his Godard are likely to appreciate his latest Dunaway drops by with her beauty, hu- place with the other winners, who looked the tiniest bit dazed. And why not? They act of self-immolation, King Lear. This mor, and screen smarts. She takes on the had just survived another year at Cannes. If the festival is a thing of bits and pieces, time, Mailer is in front of the camera as unlikely role of an alcoholic pubcrawler on this ludicrous display of showbiz was the piece de resistance. ~ Uar, with his daughter Kate as Cordelia. the far side of hope; she convinces and Then theater director Peter Sellars, look- captivates. The smile is undiminished, ing a lot like John McEnroe, appears as the energy unflagging, the attention to de- \"William Shakespeare Jr. the fourth.\" tail unfailing. Twenty years after Bonnie Then Burgess Meredith plays Mailer and Clyde, Faye is still a class act. playing Lear (funny), and Molly Ring- Dwald plays Cordelia. Then Godard him- on't look for too much, and you will find enough. Come to Slam Dance self arrives, his hair a Rastafarian tangle of computer wires and phone cords. There expecting just another modem detective are arrant moments ofwit, and homages to story, and find director Wayne Wang the last 30 movies Godard has seen, but bringing a high comic-strip style to Don not much evidence of the man who revo- Opper's flaky screenplay. Visit Wim lutionized film a generation ago. Now he Wenders' Heaven Over Berlin for the resembles nothing so much as a mad old minimalist melody of author Peter monarch, howling to himself and the Handke's musings about the fabled city in echoing winds. its 750th year, and discover a fairy tale Which is not to say he is incapable of about an angel (Bruno Ganz) who falls in making a good film, so long as it lasts no love and wants to become human-It's a more than ten minutes. His contribution Wonderful Life as retold by fellow angel to Aria, a ten-part \"opera video,\" is a fun- Peter Falk and visualized through some ny jape in which two smashing young inspiring cinematography. See Wish You women, Marion Peterson (a star is bom!) Were Here for further signs of life in the and Valerie Allain, fondle, mock, admire, British cinema, and stay with a smile on and dust off-but never break the con- your face. Emily Lloyd, as a motherless centration of-some self-absorbed mus- teenager who gets noticed by shocking the clemen, all to an air from Lully's Armide. staid folks in her dreary seaside town, car- Many of the other directors had adept fun ries David Leland's film with impudent as well. Nicolas Roeg puts his wife There- cheer. Lloyd got a prize of her own at sa Russell, as the smitten King Zog of A1- Cannes: she was chosen to present a bou- 65

Sounds of Silents John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in Flesh and the Devil (1927). by Michael Walsh Here's what I know, after contemplat- palaces of Firenze. Back then, they called ing four s<H:alled silent films with Carl Da- them operas. \"You could say what I do is Which came first, the movies or vis' orchestral accompaniments at the opera without voices,\" Carl Davis wrote in movie music? The answer is not Thames Live Cinema Festival at Radio a program note to the Thames perfor- as self-evident as it may first City Music Hall in March-Raoul mances. You could say that, and you seem. Is there something inherently pic- Walsh's The Thief of Bagdad, Clarence would be right, but you would hardly be torial in certain musical materials-a tim- Brown's Flesh and the Devil, King Vidor's making an original observation. For the re- pani roll, a cymbal clash, a melodic fresh- The Big Parade, and Victor Seastrom's lationship between music and movies has net, a diminished seventh chord-that The Wind-as well as seeing Mumau's long been conceived in operatic terms; conjures up a specific image and provokes Nosferatu with Hans Erdmann's score music, not words, was once the real dra- a shared response? Or, to put it another performed live in Munich last February. matic voice of films. way, must a series of three minor seconds, It's this: If God hadn't invented Wagner played tremolando simultaneously, al- and Puccini, then Erich Wolfgang Kom- \" w e do not want now and we never ways make us think ofSnidely Whiplash? gold and John Williams would have had shall want the human voice with to. For movie music is program music par Or are these devices simply cliches, to excellence, a legitimate offshoot of one of our films,\" wrote D. W. Griffith in 1924, which we have become inured by dint of music's two main branches. (The other is forecasting the future of photoplays a cen- constant repetition? In a famous declara- \"absolute,\" or abstract, music. The differ- tury hence. \"Music, as I see it within that tion, famously derided, Igor Stravinsky ence is that between Strauss' Till Eulen- hundred years, will be applied to the visu- said that music can have no extemal spiegel, in which the condemnatory brass alization of the human being's imagina- meaning, that a collection of notes is emo- voice of the authority can be heard drown- tion. And, as in your imagination, those tionally neutral. He thereby questioned ing out Till's impertinent E-ftat clarinet, unseen voices are always perfect and the legitimacy of program music (music and Bach's The Art ofFugue, which is so sweet, or else magnificent and thrilling, that tells a story), whose history extends unpictorial that it hardly matters what in- you will find them registering upon the from illustrative Renaissance madrigals struments it is performed on.) Obviously, mind of the picture patron, in terms of through Beethoven's \"Pastoral\" Sym- movie music came first. lovely music, precisely what the author phony to the romantic tone poems of Liszt has intended to be registered there. There and Richard Strauss-not to mention The concept of music that underpins a is no voice in the world like the voice of Stravinsky's own early ballet scores. But, drama, that gives it breadth, depth, scope, music. Why should there be when no as any Disney fan knows, The Rite of and, finally, life, has a history that dates voice can speak so beautifully as music?\" Spring is what the dinosaurs danced to. So back to the time when Claudio Montever- what did Igor know? di and the Florentine Camerata first And Griffith, it should be noted, was staged their plays-with-music in the royal hardly a musical pioneer. He junked Carl Elinor's original score for The Birth of a 66

Nation in favor of a wacky pastiche that wedded motifs from Wagner's Flying Dutchman and The Ride ofthe Valkyries to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, other American popular songs, and even Joseph Carl Breil's The Perfect Song, which later became the theme of the Amos ' n' Andy radio show. (Maybe that's where Charles Ives got some of his polytonal , kitchen- sink ideas-from the movies!) Nor was Griffith much of a fan of atmo- spheric music on the set. Many silent films were shot to the accompaniment of live or recorded music. There is a lovely photo- graph ofClarence Brown and Garbo raptly listening to the phonograph on the set ofA Woman of Affairs. Other shoots boasted their own fiddlers and oom-pah bands, to drown out the relentless grinding of the cameras, to dispel tension and get the cast in the right mood. John Gilbert liked to hear \"Moonlight and Roses\" while mak- ing The Big Parade, and Vidor used Tchaikovsky's \"Pathetique\" Symphony as the unheard theme for The Crowd. As Kevin Brownlow and others have pointed out, ''The Silents were never silent\"-an injunction ignored today as much as Jo- plin's admonition that \"it is never right to play ragtime fast. \" The hidden musical subtext of films continues to this day. I once asked Ken Russell ifhe had cut a sequence ofAltered States to Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin ballet, for it seemed to have exactly the same distinctive hard-edged rhythm; as- tonished, he admitted that he had. The score was by John Corigliano. Movie mu- sic really did come first. Anote to Nosferatu, shown at Munich's Ullian Gish in The Wind (1928). new Gasteig Cultural Center, ob- serves that \"the silent films of the early Twenties were not only not silent, they were also not black and white ... ,\" some sequences being tinted. In fact, it can be plausibly argued that the addition of speech and color coarsened rather than improved motion pictures, making them at once more realistic-more like the life that people saw every day and thus more accessible-and less artistic. The distanc- ing elements that art needs to distinguish it from mere aping were now seen as an- noyances, absences, rather than crucial ar- tifice. It is hard for us to appreciate today the wide-ranging function that music had in the early days of the cinema, or what a re- spected, integral part it was of the filmgo- ingexperience. Major cities boasted major film orchestras: Eugene Ormandy, later the music director of the Philadelphia Or- chestra for 40 years, began his career as the 67

The Thief of Baghdad (1924). too perfumed and sultry for this mooning, milquetoast princess. Here, the preexist- concertmaster of the Roxy pit band in resistible; had he lived another ten years, ing music is too strong and too personal- New York City. In Rochester, N.Y, the he might have been the Komgold of his ized for it to mesh happily with the film's Eastman Theatre was built expressly for day. Komgold, remember, started his ca- images. Only Davis' Eulenspiegel-like silent pictures, the music school next door reer as the Viennese Wunderkind compos- theme for Ahmed really fits. ensuring the pit orchestra with a ready er of the opera Die Tote Stadt. supply of top players. Rouben Mamoulian For the other three films, Davis bor- directed the live stage extravaganzas that Carl Davis, an American who was once rows less and imitates more. Wagner and supplemented the films. a rehearsal pianist with the Santa Fe Richard Strauss are favorite role models; Opera, is no Puccini or even Komgold; there is a Straussian leap to the friendship The tradition of live music staggered on there really is much more com than gold in motif that dogs Gilbert and Lars Hanson long after AI Jolson-naturally, the first his music. But he is an accomplished in Flesh and the Devil, a big waltz theme talking picture was a musical-dealt it a craftsman with a good deal of experience for Gilbert and Garbo, and Wagnerian death blow with The Jazz Singer. Kom- in television and film scoring. With the turns of phrase throughout. The Big Pa- gold's overture to The Private Lives of Thames Live Cinema project, he is at rade blends \"You're in the Army Now\" Elizabeth and Essex, performed by full or- something of an awkward disadvantage, and \"Over There\" with \"Au clair de la chestra before the film's opening at the since his work entails throwing out the ex- lune,\" and Davis indulges his penchant Wamer Beverly Hills Theater in Los An- isting scores for some of the films (The for musical onomatopoeia: crashing tim- geles in 1939, is a brilliant Straussian pot- Thief of Bagdad was first composed by pani evoke the Big Bertha trench bom- pourri of themes from the film and de- Mortimer Wilson, The Big Parade by Da- bardments of the First World War. Simi- serves a hearing in the concert hall. It's at vid Mendoza and William Axt) and rewrit- larly, in The Wind-where you can least as good as Coates' \"London\" Suite, ing them in the same style. For Thief he practically hear Seastrom shouting, just off which it somewhat resembles and which simply helped himself to huge chunks of camera, \"More sand! More wind!\"- does tum up from time to time in the au- Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, an ef- string effects are used to suggest the re- gust temples of musical Art. fective if obvious choice for this tale of the lentless biting quality of the Plains States Arabian Nights. gale. But what about this notion of the silent- film-as-opera? Are we making too much of Movie music came first. The four- Which raises another question: to em- this? Thomas Edison, who early on ex- movement Rimsky suite, program music ploy good music or bad? Perhaps it is perimented with synchronization ofsound at its best, seems in retrospect conceived no accident that cue sheets called for ex- and picture, predicted that \"in coming almost cinematically. The big romantic cerpts of music by such non-eminentoes years ... grand opera can be given at the tone poems effectively reverse Griffith's as Squire, Fletcher, Englemann, and Czi- Metropolitan Opera House ... without theorem: the sights imagined by the lis- bulka. Just as composers generally have any material change from the original, and tener are so perfect that any depiction, no had better luck setting second-rate poet- with artists and musicians long since matter how state-of-the-art (which Thief ry-Schubert, with his fondness for Goe- dead.\" How could he have foreseen next certainly was in 1924), must needs be the, is something of an exception-to season's Il Trovatore with Luciano Pavar- crude and limiting. The love theme from which they can add something, so is film otti and Joan Sutherland? \"The Young Prince and the Young Prin- music often improved by the ersatz in- cess,\" the third movement, is long-limbed stead of the genuine. Fritz Lang was not By the Twenties, opera was already and graceful; underlying the scenes be- pleased when his two Nibelungenlied well on its way to becoming a dead art; in- tween the leering Fairbanks and the blank films, with original scores by Gottfried deed , two of the last works to enter the Julanne Johnston (why couldn' t Walsh Huppertz, were retrofitted with Wagner's repertory-Puccini's Turandot and Berg's have been enlightened enough to cast \" Ring\" tunes. Wozzeck-date from about the same time Anna May Wong as the heroine instead of as the films shown at Radio City. Yet these as the treacherous slave girl? Now there On the other hand, the important, if two works inhabit different worlds: Tur- was a hot number) Rimsky's theme seems second-rate, French composer Camille andot, the last romantic; Wozzeck, the too refined. Further, the Song ofIndia lick Saint-Saens wrote the score for L'Assas- archtypal20th-century essay in alienation. that introduces Johnston's character is far sinat du Due de Buise, and Griffith's Yet it was Puccini's aesthetic and musical Broken Blossoms was outfitted with music language that film composers found so ir- by Louis Moreau Gottschalk. (In The Pa- rade's Gone By, Brownlow somewhat misleadingly writes that \"Broken Blos- soms was released with a largely original score by Louis F. Gottschalk.\" I don't know where the middle initial comes from, and the Louisiana-bom Gottschalk, a great piano virtuoso of his day, died in 1869.) The early Edison kinescope of Frankenstein, as Charles Hofmann notes in his book Sounds for Silents, was re- leased with a cue sheet that called for mu- sic from Weber's opera Der FreischUtz to herald the monster and Annie Laurie for the domestic scenes. In any case, though, the technique of 68

silent film scoring from the beginning was with the sun. American Symphony was amplified, there generally based on the Wagnerian princi- There is still one more thing to be said was always a sense that a performance was ple of leitmotifs, recurring musical sub- taking place, which quality rubbed off on jects that signify persons, places, things, to silent films with orchestral accompani- what we were seeing on the screen. The and emotions. Wagner presupposed that ment. Talkative boors and cretins have actors and images seemed fresher; one many of his motifs would already be famil- driven many from movie houses to video- could imagine going back to see the pic- iar to his listeners, in gesture if not actual cassette recorders, but the presence of an ture again and having a different experi- notes. In the Ring, for example, the tem- orchestra and conductor in the theater ence. No opportunity to zap or reverse, no pest that opens Die Walkiire is a first cous- tends to teach manners. It is ruderto chat- bathroom breaks, no talking. For me, ac- in to the storm of the \"Pastoral\" Sym- ter in front of people than in front of a customed to the relative serenity that pre- phony. The Forest Bird sounds exactly screen, and the live element of the perfor- vails in the opera house and concert hall, it like one would expect an operatic bird to mance commands a certain respect and at- was a welcome change from Times sound, and so does the growling Fafner, tention; and the absence of spoken words Square. Attention must be paid, the old the dragon, represented by a chorus of tu- makes remarks in the audience that much directors are saying. Their descendants bas. In a 1921 review of Robert Wiene's more intrusive. must be horribly jealous. ~ The Cabinet ofDr. Caligari, the composer Bemard Rogers, writing in Musical Amer- Even though at the Music Hall the ica, quotes S. L. (Roxy) Rothapfel of the Capitol Theater. \"The score is built up on Samuel French's the leitmotif system; quite in the Wag- nerian manner.\" T HEATRE & FILM BOOKSHOPS Explicitly in the Wagnerian manner is PLAYS and BOOKS on the Hans Erdmann's music for Nosferatu. MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY Bom in 1887 in Breslau, Erdmann studied violin, theory and composition, and, later, sendfor a copy ofour the history of Catholic Church music. He FILM BOOK CATALOGUE containing was, naturally, an opera coach and con- Business ofFilm • Directories • Screenwriting ductor, and resurrected Monteverdi's Or- Screenplays • Directing • Cinematography feo in 1913. Mter bopping Riga (then a Biographies & Studies ofDirectors • Editing German city) and Jena (now in East Ger- Lighting • Animation • SpecialEffects many), Erdmann became the artistic di- rector of the Prana Filmgesellschaft in Makeup • Acting • more 1921, which is how he came to score Nos- feratu. Even after talkies came in, Erd- Order by m~nn stayed in films: among other things, PHONE: he scored Lang's Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse and wrote a handbook on film (800) 8-ACT NOW (US) scoring, which was published in 1927. He (800) 7-ACT NOW (Calif) died in 1948. MAIL: What an opportunity Nosferatu pre- sentsforacomposer! Mumau's film is sub- 7623 Sunset Blvd. titled Eine Symphonie des Grauens (\"A Hollywood, California Symphony of Horror\") and was meant to be seen in conjunction with an appropri- 90046 ately spooky score. Bemdt Heller, the VISA • Me • AMEX conductor in Munich, observes that \"the director paid much more attention to the When in Los Angeles visit our relationship of music and film than many 2 locations today are willing to believe.\" Erdmann and Mumau worked closely together, tim- 7623 Sunset Blvd. ing sound to image. Erdmann's Fantas- Hollywood,California 90046 tich-romantische Suite is all ominous ket- tle drums for Count Orlok, all sweetness (213) 876-0570 and light for the heroine, Ellen, who weeps when a flower is picked. The only Mon.-Fri.10:00-6:00 Sat.11:00-5:00 outright borrowing in it, at least that I no- ticed on first hearing, comes near the end. 11963 Ventura Blvd Max Schreck (great pseudonym! great Studio City, California 91604 teeth!) tarries a little too long at the delec- table Ellen's neckside; the sliding key (818) 762-0535 changes of the middle section of Chopin's Op. 15, No. 3 G Minor Nocturne signal Mon. -Fri. 11:00-10:00 the end of his reign ofterror that comes up Sat. 11 :00-5:00 Sun.12:00-5:00 69

Pretty Vacant in Pink River's Edge. movie standards, for this to start really probably say something like, \"That's manifesting itself in teen pix. In fact, it even more chilling than the movie it- by Gavin Smith mostly only did so when AJex Cox, Pene- self ...\") lope Spheeris, and Neil Jiminez, who \" W h e n I was fourteen I prayed The peer group kids in River's Edge to thermonuclear war- wrote River's Edge, emerged from the heads,\" intoned an inter- greet the motiveless murder ofone oftheir post-punk fallout. While Coppola was friends by another with a certain, well, viewee in an old Rolling Stone piece about swimming against the Eighties tide, with blankness. Some of them try to shield the his endearingly perverse teen romanti- killer in the name of an imagined collec- the L.A. hardcore punk scene a few years cism, and mainstream Hollywood was tive loyalty; others are just confused; and back. The kid had a nice way of putting thrashing around (often quite enjoyably the protagonist Matt (Keanu Reeves) things to be sure: he'd found , with shrewd but with obvious desperation neverthe- dimly struggles toward some sort of moral self-dramatizing instincts, an acute, absur- less) searching for an MTV-imagined awareness which enables him to put dist image for the post-punk, pre-apoca- Teen Model for the Eighties, something things in perspective for his peers at the lypse teen condition. So did the pundit less wholesome kept trying to surface and end. The whole thing is a Black Sabbath- who coined the term Blank Generation. bare its teeth. soundtracked takeoff of the Star Trek epi- Since the postwar invention of the Right now everyone is being under- term, teenagers have simultaneously been whelmed by Tim Hunter and Jiminez' sode in which the little kids feel no re- the most over-indulged and under-nour- morse at the deaths of their colonist ished consumer group in modem soci- River's Edge-rather hopefully tagged parents until shown video tapes of their ety-and movies have been right there, families playing together happily, prior to second only to the music biz in feeding off \" the most controversial film you will see and perpetuating the appetites of genera- this year,\" but surprisingly impressing no- the massacre. River's Edge doesn't have tion upon generation-until Generation body except would-be hip, middle-aged, X showed up. Around the late Seventies liberal film critics who act like they've anything like the same emotional payoff. the whole teen joyride came to a sudden end, smack against the wall of constricting been telling us/or years what this film ar- I t makes no sense to say this, but River's horiwns and diminishing returns. For Edge and its antecedents are really quite those who didn't notice, the late Seventies ticulates-that, wait for it, the teen years was a teen watershed up there alongside aren't glamorous, they're bleak and dehu- important and authentic movies. They '56 and '68. Put simply, economic and so- expose a more truthful, if still distorted, cial disillusion produced Punk. The mamzmg. image of teendom, liberated from Holly- whole teen construct seemed to shed its Funny thing is, all those dehumanized wood's glamour and middle-class opti- skin, revealing some ugly stuff inside- moralists called it Teen Nihilism. teens out there seem to be sending a pret- mism. River's Edge achieves this quite lit- ty clear message back to the studios It took an unusually long time, even by erally through its drab, de-saturated colors here-movies like Over the Edge and The and joyless compositions, its determined Boys Next Door and River's Edge are stiff- non-use of a teenbeat soundtrack pack- age, and (with the exception of the much- ing because ... nobody buys their implicit noted, way-out mannerist performance by Crispin Glover as the would-be peer group nihilism. They actually prifer mainstream leader) its use of flat naturalistic acting, at times resembling the type of expressive product. (The middle-aged critics would stoicism favored by Robert Bresson's The Devil, Probably. The movie's whole point (and it makes it over and over again for the slow-witted) is that teendom is, for the vast majority, a wasteland of boredom, desperation, and lack of purpose. While the kids in The Outsiders had a gang ethic to give life meaning, the kids in this back- water are incapable of rising to even this level of coherence and loyalty. The Glov- er character spends the whole movie striv- ing to instill this teen fantasy of collective unity in his unresponsive peers. What these kids don't share with Spheeris' pro- tagonists in Suburbia and The Boys Next Door is a sense of themselves as out- casts-it's hard to see what keeps this 70

group together. That lack of and inabi!ity rupt\" values of the Sixties, personified in \"A CHILLING AND to manufacture ties is part of the movIe's the confused, well-meaning high school HILARIOUS ACCOUNT social worker message-ifonly they could teacher who reminisces about peace have, you know, meaningful relation- marches, and in Matt's mother, who has to OF A GREAT FILM ships. hide her dope from the kids. It's sad to see THAT ALMOST GOT such an easy-kill gesture in a film that does The two restless high school grads in so well for most of the time and mostly AWAv ,,-Michael Clark The Boys Next Door react against their ex- sticks to the lived facts. Nobody has really \" • USA TODAY clusion from the preppy affluence around explained what caused the Blank Genera- them by taking off for L.A. on a mindless tion. Like many others, of all people G. \"Jack Mathews writes with clarity anti-social rampage. Makes sense to me. Gordon Liddy lamented the effect of TV and passion about the classic strug- But Spheeris signals pretty clearly that this on the collective psyche of the young. He gle between a visionary filmmaker and sort of thing has less to do with social re- should know better, cameos in Miami a powerful , opinionated studiO chief. sentment than with some more intangible Vice and all. The Sex Pistols sang \"No Fu- His factual account of the multi- sociopathic breakdown. While the Charlie ture\" and \"Pretty Vacant,\" but somehow I million-dollar misunderstanding is Sheen character, like Matt in River's think they were only talking about them- hilarious, painful, and illuminating: ..1 Edge, nurses a troubled conscience, his selves. Bad parenting, drugs, the collapse expect it will take its place alongSide out-and-out sociopath buddy, played by of the moral infrastructure-all safe bets Indecent Exposure and Final Cut as Maxwell Caulfield, leaves a trail of injured for those with their heads in the sand. But a definitive look at the business of and dead, mumbling blankly about hav- I keep going back to the quote about p.ray- American filmmaking.\" ing \"this stuff inside me ...\" Judging by ing to thermonuclear warheads. Rig~t his behavior, a disfunctional cocktail of there you have it: a practiced, proudly dIS- -William Friedkin, director of The misogyny, homophobia, and not forget- played image of instant alienation-it'~ a French Connnection and The Exorcist ting good old surburban alienation. dead giveaway, done for effect. Absurdlst nihilism is the Eighties' prevailing style- \"The value of this book is that it Penelope Spheeris pretty much staked an inverted glamor, adopted by kids as documents in rare detail the back- out the terrain with this movie and the ear- they indulge in the peculiarly narcissistic room haggling and the attempted lier Suburbia; which took the Rebel With- masochism of adolescent self-martyrdom. ego-bashing that is part of the movie out a Cause idea ofthe teen surrogate fam- Teen suicide, one is tempted to say, is business.\" ily and applied it to a slam-dancing, only the tragic reductio ad absurdom of parentless commune of punk scavengers this impulse. Ask any teenager. -Gene Siskel, Siske/ on Movies squatting in a deserted L.A. suburb es~te and passing their time dodging the WIld Maybe kids don' t like River's Edge and SUPPLEMENTED WITH THE COMPLETE dog packs and local rednecks. Spheeris its ilk out of uncomfortable recognition- ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYAND 75 ILLUSTRATIONS. worked with real kids on this one, and the there's no thrill in having your game ex- movie has a ring of undeniable authentic- posed for all the nation's social worker film $19.95, now at your bookstore, or send check ity, albeit wrapped up in impeccable ex- critics to see. It may just be that Glover's or money order to Crown Publishers, Inc., 225 ploitation movie sensationalism. nervy, self-conscious behaviour in Edge is, Park Ave . South, N.Y., NY. 10003. Please after all, a more acute extemalization of add $1.50 postage and handling. MC, Visa , T he thing is, all these films take as a ~o­ teen narcissism than.is initially apparent. AmEx holders, call toll-free: cial given a pre-apocalypse, post-hlp- 1-800-526-4264, Dept. 780 pie-idealism where there's nothing much Feeling oppressed and purposeless has to do except get messed up. It's a million always been latent in the teen identity- Ll{2WN PUBLISHERSliil miles from the Self Help and Self-Agran- even the Brat Pack pictures vaguely ac- dizment ethics of The Breakfast Club knowledge this truism, though providing crowd-a distillation of middle-class fan- an entirely anodine ahd neatly optimistic tasy values formulated by Hollywood into version: designer angst for future yuppies. a universal teendom where there is room On the other hand, there is a terrible kin- for all and a future without Armageddon, ship between River's Edge and the cur- rently-filming Less Than Zero-the only AIDS, or the PMRC. The kids from Fame real difference is socio-economic, but hey, we don't talk about things like that. down to Pretty in Pink don't listen to Heavy Metal, or even A-Ha, like the ma- Ultimately, the former is shunned by its jority of American kids-their music and natural teen constituency, which it speaks fashion tastes are more elitist, less con- for fairly lucidly, because of an unmistak- nected to the emotional and consumer able whiff ofsocial worker hand-wringing. realitiesofteendom. And sure enough, it's However, the latter's title (starring An- a self-fulfilling prophecy-the movies drew McCarthy, one of the more sympa- constitute their teen viewers as ideal thetic of his generation's actors) is no selves. But you knew that already. prophecy about boxoffice retums: the book oozes conspicuous consumption and River's Edge sticks to what most ordi- teen nihilist sensationalism, but it's suffi- nary kids are stuck with. Naturally it's in- cently removed from the experiences of capable of suggesting how things got this the average teenager to create a wanna-be way (the socio-economic system, of appetite eminently susceptible to state of course), instead perversely and masochis- tically pointing the finger at the \"bank- the art marketing. ® 71

Running on Recall Ahybrid between the documentary and the commercial. YOU SAY YOU WANT A ... montage theories of Dziga Vertov's Man catching the way pop music works as a With a Movie Camera to the rhythms of commemorative and active soundtrack to Revolution, a Nike commercial by the Beatles' \"Revolution.\" Flashing be- our daily lives. No one who lived through the directing team Paula Greif and fore us is a landmark demonstration of pop Beatlemania can brook complaints that Peter Kagan, sells running shoes, evolution where film, rock, and TV con- the ad violates the song's serious meaning. but it's also what Greif has called \"an emo- verge. The occasion is advertising, but the The narrative of the commercial is conso- tional documentary.\" It distills exertion resulting hybrid raises a question that has nant with the way we first heard the Bea- and exhilaration from the lives of pro ath- gone begging in film history since the Bea- ties: as pied pipers, not politicians. letes Michael Jordan and John McEnroe ties appeared in A Hard Day's Night in and applies them to a toddler sprinting 1964: can filmmaking done for commer- Beatles music revealed fresh modes of through gravity. cial purposes be considered art? expression; they were the common factor in the cultural revolution of the era. Nos- Made up of Super 8mm black and The commercial-as-artform idea talgia for the Bearles recalls a sense of pos- white footage, Revolution enunciates the seemed a joke during the Sixties. Greif sibility in the way people could live and and Kagan's Revolution makes it a fact by make art (even for \"Money,\" as the group 72

FILM COMMENT CLASSICS are back! Vol. 19, No. 4-July/Aug 1983 Order your back issues now... at only $3.50 each (that includes postage and handling). It's a \"reel\" steal. Guiness and Star Wars ... MTV Vol. 1, No. 3-1962 1987 Vol. 19, No.5-Sept/Oct 1983 George Stevens . ..Orson Welles BACK Kevin Kline . .. Coppola Vol. 2, No. 2-1964 ISSUE Vol. 19, No. 6-NovlDec 1983 SPECIAL!!! Exploitation Films Women Direct Film ... The Right Stuff Vol. 18, No. 4-July/Aug 1982 Vol. 4, No.4-Summer 1968 Vol. 20, No. I-Jan/Feb 1984 Film & Catholicism Road Warriors ... Producers Midsection Cary Grant ... lOOth Issue Vol. 6, No. 1-1970 Vol. 18, No.5-Sept/Oct 1982 Vol. 20, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1984 Young German Film Marilyn ...Comic Art. ..Fassbinder Claudette Colbert...Cinematographers Vol. 6, No. 2-1970 Vol. 18, No. 6-NovlDec 1982 Vol. 20, No. 3-May/June 1984 Film in Sweden Goldie Hawn ... Casablanca Joe Dante... Hitchcock...Talking Heads Vol. 9, No. 2-1973 Vol. 19, No. I-Jan/Feb 1983 Vol. 20, No. 4-July/Aug 1984 Newman & Benton ... Sergio Leone Gandhi ... Video Games Midsection Mankiewicz Empire... Sergio Leone ... Vol. 9, No. 4-1973 Vol. 19, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1983 John Huston King Vidor. .. Stanley Donen Olivier... Cukor Vol. 20, No.5-Sept/Oct 1984 Vol. 9, No. 5-1973 Vol. 19, No. 3-May/June 1983 De Palma ... Hard Boiled Hollywoood King Vidor Part II ... Leo McCarey lngmar Bergman ... Israeli Cinema Vol. 20, No. 6-NovlDec 1984 Vol. 10, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1974 Pornography Debate Film Noir. .. Max Ophuls ... Fritz Lang Vol. 21, No. I-Jan/Feb 1985 Vol. 13, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1977 David Lean .. .Truffaut Midsection Bertolucci. ..Beyond the New Wave Vol. 21, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1985 Vol. IS, No. I-Jan/Feb 1979 Kathleen Turner. .. Hollywood Novel Billy Wilder. .. Star Making Vol. 21, No. 3-May/June 1986 Vol. IS, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1979 Jack Nicholson ... Fellini Visconti ... Forman ... Hitchcock Vol. 21 , No. 4-July/Aug 1985 Vol. IS, No. 3-May/June 1979 Youth Cult Films ... Wiilliam Hurt Bob Hope ... Movies in the News Vol. 21, No.5-Sept/Oct 1985 Vol. IS, No. 4-July/Aug 1979 Kurosawa .. .TVs Golden Age Robin Williams ... Televis ion Vol. 21, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1985 Vol. 16, No. 4-July/Aug 1980 Daffy Duck .. .Women in Films Kubrick.. .New Cinema Vol. 22, No. I-Jan/Feb 1986 Vol. 17, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1981 Cold War... 1985 Revue Jessica Lange .. .Barbara Stanwyck Vol. 22, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1986 Vol. 17, No. 4-July/Aug 1981 Out of Africa ... Argentina Raiders of the Lost Ark .. .Lucas Vol. 22, No. 3-May/June 1986 Vol. 17, No.5-Sept/Oct 1981 Liz ... Bogie ... Ratings Meryl Streep ... Movie Music Vol. 22, No. 4-July/Aug 1986 Vol. 18, No. I-Jan/Feb 1982 Summer Fun Issue Forman ... Art Directors Midsection Vol. 22, No. 5-Sept/Oct 1986 Vol. 18, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1982 David Byrne ... Spike Lee Natassja Kinski ... Divorce, Movie Style Vol. 22, No. 6-NovlDec 1986 Smalltown Psychosis ... Festivals Please send the following issues (identify month and year): _ _ _ _ __ If any of the issues I have ordered are no longer available, please send me one of COMMENT these two alternatives: NAME ___________________________ or ADDR~S _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ The Index Sets for FILM COMMENT, Volumes 1-22, listing every article ever CITY ______________ STATE _ _ ZIP _ _ _ __ published in FILM COMMENT, are available for S3.S0/seL Mail with check or money order to: FILM COMMENT CLAssICS QUANTITY AMOUNT 140 West 65th Street New York, NY 10023 _ _ _ Back issues of FILM CoMMENT. S3.S0/issue S _ _ __ _ _ _ Index Sets at S3.S0/set S _ _ __ 73 $ _ _ __ TOTAL

genuity and freedom of an school. \"They just walk around with an 8mm camera,\" he said. \"They got rid of the super 3Smm Panavision and the rest of it, and set up and shoot a parry situation. It's very loose. The concept is found in the editing room, where they see their film as a canvas. They say, 'Here's a shot with a piece of light here, another shot with another piece of light here,' and they son of marry it all up. And in the end, it produces this paint- ing on celluloid.\" Catching life on the wing. Mary Lamben (Material Girl, Nasty, Greif and Kagan, both in their thinies, Tum to You, The Glamorous Life); the came to music video after careers in screamed in their 1%3 appropriation of a erotic fantasies of Jean-Baptiste Mondino fashion photography and magazine graph- Motown song). Greifand Kagan recapture (Boys of Summer, Slave to Love, Open ics. Their first video together, Perfect that anticipatory fervor in the way people Your Heart, You Owe Me Some Kind of Way, for the semiotic band Scritti Politti, move today, and their blurred, comer-of- Love); the genius-innovator Rybcynski; debuted a style offlickering, wetropic im- the-eye, verite images catch life on the the cinemascope extravaganzas of Russell ages that reflected their creation by a show wing as Pop was meant to do. Mulcahy (The Reflex, I'm Still Standing, of scratches on stock, blank leader, and WildBoys, Call Me), and, ofcourse, Greif sprocket holes, mixed with romantic ap- The shon form of the commercial and and Kagan. paritions and shots of the band at work. It music video today continues what Andre was an ideal correlative to Scritti Politti's Bazin called the ontological nature of the Encouraged to be striking and impres- songs about songs. (\"I've got a perfect cinema. Anists can repon and reshape re- sive, the makers of music promos (as the way to make the girls go crazy.\") The ality faster this way than through the fea- form was originally called) care about the Greif-Kagan method--extended to vid- ture film system. It's just snobbish to pre- fi1mness of film more than about conven- eos for Steve Winwood's Higher Love, tend that these forms exclude an while tional narrative. W.T. Morgan, writer-di- Duran Duran's Notorious, and last two-hour projects sponsored by Gulf & rector of The Unheard Music, a remark- year's TV campaign for Barney's depan- Westem or Coca-Cola do not. Godard's able documentary on the L.A. punk band ment store-had a large influence. Its cut- quip in Wenders' Room 666 that if com- X, done in the manner of Chris Marker ting-room chic is widely-and poorly- mercial directors worked beyond a one- or but with a distinctly American hip-skepti- imitated. two-minute limit they would be forced to cism, proclaims this preoccupation with lie about their subject also indicates how form. He says: \"My favorite filrpmakers \"The risk we take,\" Greif says, \"is that much contrivance and falsehood occur in are the early filmmakers who didn't have a if someone didn't understand what we full-length films. bunch of rules to follow but used whatever were driving at, we'd look like silly, disor- worked. People have preconceptions on ganized people.\" She distinguishes the at- The music video age offers a creative what rock music is, what a rocl< documen- titude of their commercials and videos altemative to both features and under- tary is. I want to shake them up, make ac- from other HollywoodlMadison Avenue ground experimental shorts. In fact, the tive viewers out of them.\" productions. \"We're reacting to a cenain most imaginative American film of the film quality that we just don't like, and past year was not Blue Velvet but the anist Feature directors have also noticed the I've found other people react to that, Roben Longo's Bizarre Love Triangle for advantages of the shon form. Tony Scott, too-that shiny reality that's too well lit, the group New Order. So far this year the who borrows that sensibility for the Simp- too calculated. I'm sure there are other achievement to top is Zbigniew Rybcyn- son-Bruckheimer factory, says: \"It's a people who just want to manipulate reali- ski's videos for Cameo's Candy and Herb great medium for the kids just beginning. ty. I think it's something in the air.\" AJpen's Keep Your Eye On Me, where For very little money they can experi- high-resolution compositions dissolve the ment, do what they like, and try things Kagan likens their influence to other an visual differences between film and video. out. It has already taken its effect on other movements: \"Look at Russian icons on Despite the sexist and consumerist ide- fOlJl1s of the film industry, and it's just hit wood. The way this woman and child ology that gluts MTV, it is music video, not American advenising.\" Scott cites Greif were depicted identically all over the the cinema, that has produced this dec- and Kagan's Revolution as restoring the in- country. People who had no idea it was ade's most original stylists. The honor roll happening somewhere else were doing it boasts the dazzling showwomanship of exactly the same way. Images arose out of that culture that were all homogeneous. Only in retrospect does it look like a change in culture and attitude.\" Revolution is a new peak of exposure for Greif and Kagan's work. It immediate- ly refers to the Sixties' culture and attitude changes in an, music (the Beatles), and film . Godard's Les Carabiniers, made the same year as A Hard Day's Night, used a sequence of postcard-memoirs to address a universal dependency on Pop photo- 74

graphic fonns and their place in the hierar- ship. I remember girls taking Brownie \\NOEPENOEN1' 1'R\\LOGY chy oflife experience. A Hard Day's Night cameras into neighborhood showings ON V\\OEO translated those ideas to the mainstream. ofDarby O'Gill and the Little People just It's impossible to watch Richard Lester's to snap personal shots of Fabian on- During the heyday of Black Humor literature in film today and feel the same gleeful dis- screen. When A Hard Day's Night offered the early 60s, the core of darkness (inspired by coveryas upon its premiere. However, the its fade-out canonization of the Beatles, the Cold War, the Death of God , and many other twin experience of reading the film and rock-star worship completely over- then-burning social issues) was generally tem- feeling nostalgic about it clarifies Lester's whelmed what the world knew before. pered by the humor wrapped 'round it by the peculiarly innovative processes. The film More popular than Jesus, John Lennon relentlessly grinning author. There's a long is both a fantasy of the Beatles phenom- said. More popular than even silent movie tradition of gallows humor, stretching back enon and an automatic document of that beyond Shakespeare to Chaucer, and forward phenomenon being created and manipu- stars for sure. At this point the Pop media to . . . well ... 1988. With this film the tradition of lated. The onstage moment when George (film, rock, and TV) aligned to become as the independent cinema's mock-Hollywood does a quick shuffle that makes the girls regular a means for fans' proprietary access humor is turned inside out. go crazy shows the crucial link between to stars as the Top 40 radio broadcasts object and desire. It's the instant life be- teens lived by, B. Ruby Rich came Pop. Greif and Kagan's Revolution fulfills A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER is a tragic Lester and screenwriter Alun Owen the omen ofA Hard Day's Night: that Pop epic, a love story, a documentary about drug parodied the fanaticism they were also euphoria and commerce would mix. It's a addicts, a comedy, a portrait, a commentary and commissioned to serve. In their anarchic shorter Beatles promo, but it carries the a tapestry. Mostly, however, it's a film about spree, the filmmakers merely glossed the conclusion and triumph of the Beatles in- violence. Not Peckinpah spleen-punching Pop putsch taking place. Not even the fluence on modem culture, looking back violence or Coppola bleeding-horses-heads VCR pause button can catch it. But then to its beginnings in Lester's first \"emo- violence-by comparison these are cartoons, magic happens at the end-a resonant tional documentary.\" The real-life mo- embarassingly vapid, self indulgent and boring. montage of the Fab Four's moptops. ments that Greif and Kagan flash by, These signifiers simultaneously sell the timed to rhythms hidden within the re- -Linda Taylor Beatles and fetishize them. This seems, cording, make a metaphor of the song's now, the most evocative sequence in the impact. Greif and Kagan don't illustrate it ••••• film: a reduction to symbol of a whole cul- with lovers strolling or students protest- A MAN tural experience. Throughout the movie, ing-that's the banality we get in music· A WOMAN the Beatles have proven their specialness, video movies like Flashdance and Top AND A •K'LL• ER• if not their talent, in their debut as actors. Gun, which only exploit rock. Through But the film is also, as Al Jolson, Bing the integrity of Greif and Kagan's music- •• Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley video work, one understands how a song knew, their ascension to the top of the enters the subconscious of artists and their While Americans were paying $4 or $5 to have showbiz mountain-the silver screen, public. The filmmakers have absorbed their jangled state mellowed by Steven Spiel- where in this century one most affects the the lessons of the Bearles, Godard, Ver- berg's fantastically successful fantasy ET, San fantasies of the world. tov, and Lester. Francisco filmmaker Rick Schmidt was creating EMERALD CITIES, his provocative, compassion- In A Hard Day's Night, the Bearles are \"In my opinion,\" Kagan says, \"some of ate \"howl\" at the gathering tide of nuclear lifted out of the cinematic realm and repo- the strongest films in the world are home \" Iuna-cy,\" the psychic and physical violence, and sitioned sociologically. They are bigger movies that nobody sees but the family in- the deepening affliction of numbing cultural than the movies or music. They are, or volved. That kind of camera approach malaise. were, perhaps the greatest purveyors of generates a level of, well, sincerity. That Westem culture since Shakespeare. isn't really the word, but there's a bare re- Vic Skolnick ality about the people being photo- NEW COMMUNITY CINEMA We screamed at the magnitude of this graphed and the people photographing. in 1964 and calmly live with its conse- In the end, home movies tell more about • Et•CAE,.,,•.,,e~.S•LO • quences today in fonns as incidental as those people and is more gratifying to the hairstyles or a sneakers commercial. And audience intended than any other film ••••• the recent music video movement seems could be.\" proof of Lester's (or Brian Epstein's?) as- Purchase your 3 cassette trilogy (specify tuteness. Musical sequences like \"Can't Surprise! The music· video/commercial VHS or BETA) for the special price of Buy Me Love\" (presented outside a stage is the home movie of the Pop era. This re- $100 (plus $5 shipping/handling. Please or studio) anticipated MTV as did Forties' flection oflife qualifies Revolution as art. It send money order payable to: musical short subjects with Louis Jordan makes us aware ofour role in the Pop proc- and Fifties Alan Freed films like Rock, ess where even our dearest, oldest, most Rock, Rock. The difference is that the spontaneous affections have felt some full-length package Lester devised (acci- commercial influence. Greif and Kagan's dentally or through commercial calcula- music video technique honors the Bea- tion) certified the growing primacy of Pop ties' music by similarly opening our eyes music and the need to give it a unique vi- to paradox and wonder. The action and sual fonn. momentum in the ad imply a circle of ex- change between the Beatles and poster- In the early Sixties, rock idolatry over- ity, message and emotion, capitalism and lapped and then overtook movie star wor- fun. That's a revolution, too. -ARMOND WHITE 75

KOOdy Allen with Billy Graham in the Woody Allen Special (1969). M.o.B. RULE ily, but Rooney didn't like the idea and Days, a pilot for All in the Family (Carroll countered with a program concept about a O'Connor and Jean Stapleton already had F orty years ago, when TV began to short, blind, Vietnam Vet private eye with their shtick down, but the pilot felt differ- undo America's moviegoing habit, a large dog; Carl Reiner said that Johnny ent with other actors playing Gloria and the prospects were that people Carson had once been considered for the Michael); a rare Bullwinlde Show hosted would never go out to a theater to watch lead in Head of the Family, · a pilot that by a puppet (part of a tribute to Jay Ward); television. Yet every Spring thousands eventually became The Dick Van Dyke the pilot for Callahan, an inventive now trek to the Los Angeles County Mu- Show. Delbert Mann disclosed that in the though uneven Raiders of the Lost Ark seum of Art's theater to see the roadshow 1955 TV version of The Petrified Forest, parody that never reached series develop- New York Museum of Broadcasting's Humphrey Bogart suppressed a racking ment; and the black and white kinescope Television Festival. The readyavailabil- cough symptomatic of the cancer that of NBC's 1955 color version of The Petri- ity of now West Coast-based TV veterans would kill him 20 months later; Albert fied Forest, considered lost until Lauren encouraged the museum to set up the Einstein once left a meeting at Cal Tech Bacall recently rediscovered it in her ga- because he wanted to see The Beany and rage. L.A. Festival (in the face of the U.C.L.A. Cecil Show; and a 73-year-old Mary Mar- tin, dressed in an evocative green pants But this year it seemed that the festival Archives reticence to showcase its own suit, said she wished she could re-create consisted of Woody Allen and Everything considerable treasures); i.e., Lucille Ball her Peter Pan flying scene in Madison Else. Of course, Woody didn't show up. opened the festival with clips from all five Square Garden, to soar across that arena's In fact, he has remarked that he can't un- of her series. great expanse, straight out a window, and derstand why anyone wants to see his ear~ \"never come back. \" Iy TV work. He has regularly denied per- And, of course, the guests added the mission to show any of these clips on com- color to the set-pieces: Norman Lear re- The festival's organizers sprinkled the pilation documentaries or anniversary vealed that he first approached Mickey 17-day event with rarities: Those Were the specials. It's as if they never existed: the Rooney to play the lead in All in the Fam- 76

cover pieces on Allen in March issues of humor and his ability to appropriate his- THE CASE FOR Esquire and Rolling Stone gloss over his torical cinematic forms for his own pur- TV work almost completely, though he poses. But the intellectual, populist twists COMMENT did say in Esquire that \"maybe some day I to his humor remain in the foreground: \"If would like to do a television special or Dostoevski had been a singer,\" said Stop playing hide and seek with your something\"-as ifhe had never done one. Woody, \"he would have sounded like Ray back issues of FILM COMMENT. Charles.\" Our customized cases will hold a Allen created a remarkable special in year's worth of issues . Made for us by 1%9 that capped nearly a decade ofTV ap- The -highlight of Woody's program, Jesse Jones Industries, the blue leather- pearances and prior years of gagwriting. In though, comes with a Q & A segment. The ette cases are gold-stamped with the the earliest clip, from a 1962 Tonight unlikely guest: Billy Graham. Allen's first FILM COMMENT logo . You can pay Show, Allen's aptitude for self-conscious question: \"So, Billy, what's your favorite by check, money order, or with a major psycho-humor is apparent; it's a challeng- commandment?\" (For the record , Gra- credit card. Mail your coupon today ing comedy that, when delivered by a wit ham says it's the founh.) Woody then and stop playing around. so self-deprecating, says less about his al- moves along to the issue of premarital sex. leged self-image than about his respect for How about a leamer's permit for marriage: the audience's intelligence. Here, too, are \"I mean, what if I marry someone and she the word-image gymnastics that still tums out to be a yo-yo?\" An audience mark Allen's film narrators: who else would member asks Woody what his worst sin describe an ex-girlfriend as having a face was: \"Carnal thoughts about Art Linklet- that resembled Louis Armstrong's voice? ter.\" T he festival's second clip, the opening Remarkably, with Graham, Woody was from the 1%6 Gene Kelly in New at once impious and respectful, flip York, New York, is utterly surrealistic. and thoughtful. Graham was surprisingly Kelly, accompanied by a chorus of mini- skirred mods, dances his way into the Bit- good-natured about the situation, and one ter End cafe, where Allen performs a rou- tine enmeshed in the odd bends of his senses he knew exactly what he was in family and the community of illogicals. (Here are the antecedents of Manhattan for-and reveled in it. These dozen min- and Radio Days.) It's understandable, though, why Woody might object to the utes lift the talk show format to those rari- clip: it dwells on Woody as a smirking bo- hemian, the one \"people always associa- fied heights that later escape Cavett or ted .... with Greenwich Village and sweaters with holes\" and which Allen has Donahue-a heady, bizarre brew of You FILM COMMENT disavowed. Bet Your Life, the later PTL. Club, and Jesse Jones Industries Even stranger is the evening's third Dept. Film-C clip: Allen guest-hosting a bizarre, obscure Firing Line. 499 East Erie Avenue 1%7 variety special, Coliseum, in which Philadelphia, PA 19134 the audience sits in alcoves that tower In fact, Woody did once guest on Firing above a circus ring. The set resembles an oversized, ancient Roman version of Hol- Line. Other than Gore Vidal's famed en- lywood Squares in which audience and ce- lebrities have been transposed. Woody counter, this may have been one of the Please send me _ _ FILM COMMENT appears in a gladiator outfit, a sly victim to the delirious program concept that sur- few times that William F . Buckley met his leathereue cases. rounds him. verbal match. Where is this show? Where 1 case . . .. ..... . . ... . ... ... . ....$7.95 The evening's climax comes, however, 3 cases .. . .. .... . . . .. . . .. .... . .$2 1. 95 with Woody's 1969 special, shown in its are Woody's neurotic little Hootenanny 6cases .. . ....... .. .. . . .. ......$39.95 entirety. It is a work that ranks with his most interesting (even the commercials stand-up routines that twisted logic and are clever). Here Woody is confident; he establishes a direct relationship with the ego into pretzels? Or his political satires for audience, a link via the video camera that is very different from the oblique though PBS's Great American Dream Machine? Enclosed is $_ _ . Please add $ 1 per unit for deep contact he makes through his films. postage and handling. Outside USA orders Granted, a skit with Candice Bergen is Hidden from view probably by their au- please add $2.50 per unit. (US funds only.) awkward, at times misfiring badly, but at other moments it flares brilliantly, presag- thor, who has said that he \" never made a ing Saturday Night Live seven years later. film that could remotely be considered a Another segment, a mini-silent movie, strongly suggests early Harold Lloyd and masterpiece\" and must therefore consider Please charge (minimum charge $ 15.00): underscores Allen's talent for non-verbal o American Express his early TV work homework. o MasterCard 0 Visa But this year's L.A. Television Festival 0 Diners C lub may help melt Woody's steely reluctance. Ca rd #__________________________ Perhaps Letty Aronson, a Museum of Broadcasting executive who introduced Expiration Date __________________ Signature _______________________ the evening's clips with no mention that she is Allen's sister, got us this far. In the recent past, the early television Toll Free #, 7 days a week/24 hours a day (Charge orders ONLy): work of geniuses who now hardly ever 1-800-972-5858 work has risen, pentimento. To see their Please ship to: clowning now is an exercise in sad, exhila- Name: _________________________ rating nostalgia. But to see the Woody of his televison days is very different. The thoughflowould probably make him shud- der, but maybe it's time to assemble a Address: ________-;-;~---:---:------- Woody Allen television video. It could tap (no PO box please) that rare conclusion one reaches about the C ity/State/Zip: __________________ past: it was good, but what followed was better. -MARC MANCINI PA residents please add 6 % sales taX . 77

When You Wish upon a Stock Walt Disney. WALL STREET, THE RAIDERS AND THE BATTLE FOR DISNEY STORMING THE by Richard Natale decent Exposure grew out of the David (Alfred Knopf, $18.95) isn't based on a Begelman affair. Final Cut had at its cen- scandal but it is no less fascinating in its Books about the business of show ter, Michael Cimino's $44 million examination of the power struggle which business have over the past decade runaway production, Heaven's Gate. In shook Hollywood's \"sleeping giant\" rude- become the stuff of best sellers. Of both cases however, the central drama course, it helps to have a good, juicy scan- served to illustrate the inner workings of lyawake. dal upon which to focus; a studio head corporate Hollywood and its ties to the The empire that Walt Disney and his forging checks, a filmmaker run amok. In- Wall Street investment community. John Taylor's Storming the Magic Kingdom brother Roy built, was for many years Hol- lywood's most undervalued asset. Follow- ing Walt's death in 1966, the studio's pres- 78

ence as a creator of family-oriented films plex financial machinations-although a What's Inside These Shorts? began to erode. Having sacrificed its audi- House of LancasterlHouse of York-type What Indeed! ence to George Lucas, Disney became genealogic chart at the front of the book low-man on the industry totem pole of might have helped keep the players JUGGlING- how to sUlVive the pressures of combining major film and TV production outlets. motherhood and work. straight. But Disney was more than a studio. BEAT IT- an exercise in frustration with rubber moles. The company headquarters in Burbank However, as is true with most detailed WASH IT-low riders get squeaky clean althe car wash. was the hub of a multi-level entertain- accounts of recent Hollywood financial THE TRAIN ING-a serious look at polly training (???) ment conglomerate that included valuable history, the telling is often distorted by the real estate holdings in southem Califomia \"fly on the wall\" approach. ~ great d~al ~f and more! and central Florida; a lucrative merchan- the second and third hand mformatlon IS 1 hour video cassette VHS, BETA, Video 8 dising division; a valuable and seriously recorded in you-are-there narrative. What underutilized film and TV library (with al- is gained in dramatic clarity is lost in obj~c­ Send $45 plus $5 shplhndlg to most 30 years of television episodes from Disney's weekly series, which had never tivity. A strong voice permeates Stormmg I.V. STUDIOS 985 Regal Rd Berkeley, CA 94708 been syndicated, as well as several of the the Magic Kingdom as it did in Indecent Call or wrtte for catalog (415) 841-4466 best short and feature length animated Exposure and Final Cut. films ever made, some of which had not been seen since their original release); and Taylor's main source of information ap- of course, the wildly profitable theme parks-Disneyland, Disney World, and pears to be Roy E. Disney's attorney, Epcot Center-which had grown out of Disney's success as a filmmaker and had Stanley Gold, who is the most well-round- since become a model for amusement ed character in the book and who gives the centers around the world. By 1984, the impression that he either carried around a theme parks contributed 70 percent of tape recorder at all times or has the gift of Disney's revenues, the film division only total recall. The close-up look is often as 13 percent. distorted and as lacking in perspective as a fisheye lens, but there were only a finite But there was also an intangible. The number of insiders to draw from, and all of Disney empire became synonymous with them seem to posture themselves as more Americana and an attack on it was tanta- central to the action than may actually be mount to buming the flag or flicking the case. Mom's apple pie off the windowsill into the trash can. At least that's the way one One of the more chilling accounts in factlun at Disney looked at it. Despite an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion, the Storming the Magic Kingdom concems company was still being run like a cottage industry. Chief exec Ron Miller-Walt's the cold-blooded dealings of the invest- son-in-law and hand picked heir-was not ment house of Drexel, Bumham, Lam- blind to progress; the Touchstone (adult- bert-particularly its wonder boy Mike themed) film division was his idea. But Milken, currently under investigation for the Disney board of directors prided itself insider trading improprieties. For a time on perpetually pondering \"what would Stanley Gold and Roy Disney entertained Walt have done?\" before making business the notion of buying Disney and enlisted decision. Drexel in helping formulate the deal. When Roy realized that in trying to fi- To use a Disney cartoon metaphor, by nance his acquisition he would have had to 1984 the house that Walt and Roy built, sell most of Disney off, he backed down. appeared to be made of straw. Revenues Drexel then turned around and, using the and profits were in sharp decline, as was information they had gathered through the selling price of the stock-from a high Disney and Gold's inside knowledge of of $85 to the mid $40 range, a bargain, es- the company's vulnerability, mounted a pecially since analysts estimated that Dis- takeover strategy for Saul Steinberg. The ney shares were actually worth $120. The topper is that Drexel even asked Gold's big bad wolves--corporate raiders like permission. Saul Steinberg and Irwin Jacobs-began to huff and puff. Disney was a house di- Steinberg'S takeover attempt cost Dis- vided by indeciseveness as well as by in- ney dearly. The company finally had to re- fighting between Walt's side of the family sort to an expensive \"greenmail\" buyback and Roy E. Disney, his nephew. ofSteinberg's stock which served to make Disney all the more vulnerable, encourag- D isney's ultimate deliverance is laid out ing Irwin Jacobs to take up the gauntlet in great detail in Storming the Magic and attempt a second takeover ofthe com- Kingdom. Taylor deftly handles the com- pany. One wonders if the \"Walt\" whose spirit everyone fought over, while the company went into a coma, would've paid the raid- ers. Of course, he might have chosen to take the risk of making pictures for con- temporary audiences-and not let George doit.* 79

Quiz #26: French Warfare you do is rearrange the letters of, say, When Dada's Home Hiding to make (we'lI We threw a similar quiz at you three' tougher. Again, you have 25 French titles, give you one) High, Wide, and Hand- years ago and you threw it back in disdain. with their literal English translations, in some. Then figure out which French title Too easy, you said, to match English-lan- Column A; again you have the 25 original fits it. The titles in Column A are listed guage films with their titles as released in titles in Column B. The difference is that alphabeticalIy; the titles in Column Bare France. So this time we make it a little the Column B titles are anagrammed. All annotated with the year of each film's re- COLUMNA lease. AlI but two can be found in the May 1. A la pursuite du diamant vert (In Search ofthe Green Diamond) 20 issue of the French weekly Pariscope. 2. Boulevard des passions (Street ofPassions) 3. Les bras de fer (Arms ofIron) A correct solution, drawn at random, wins 4. La brune brulante (The Burning Brown) 5. Compte sur moi (Count on Me) a free year of this magazine. Send your 6. Le crime hait presque parfait (The Crime Was Almost Perfect) 7. Deuxfilles aux tapis (Two Girls on the Carpet) matchups by August 10 to FILM COM- 8. Le Don Juan de New York (The Don Juan ofNew York) 9. Faut remoin (False Witness) MENT Quiz #26, 140 West 65th Street, 10. Leflic etait presque parfait (The Cop Was Almost Perfect) New York, N. Y. 10023. 11. Lafurie de ['or nair (Black Gold Fury) 12. Happy Birthday COLUMNB 13. Histoire d'un trahison (Story ofa Betrayal) 14./l y a un homme dans Ie lit de maman (There's a Man in Mama's Bed) a. When Dada's Home Hiding, 1937 15. Les jours et les nuits de China Blue (Days and Nights ofChina Blue) h. Forming a Load, 1949 16. Mademoiselle gagne tout (Lady Take All) c. A Taped Mink, 1952 17. Les moissons du printemps (Spring Harvests) d. R. Roud Film Dream, 1953 18. Le moment de verite (The Moment ofTruth) e. Long Days for a Hurt Belly, 1958 19. Nola Darling n'en fait qu'a sa tere (Nola Darling Does What She Wants) f. You Twilight Sex Logger, 1968 20. La revanche (Revenge) g. Amy Is a Giant Pal, 1972 21. Rusty James h. Harlots Vote for the Sled, 1972 22. Le sixieme sens (The Sixth Sense) j. I Cry K.O.! (/), 1979 23. Tombe les filles et tais-toi (Screw the Girls and Shut Up) k. Ma Bell's Halter, 1981 24. La valse des pantins (Waltz ofthe Puppets) I. Mr. Bluefish, 1983 25.200 m. On My Deck ofEight, 1983 n. I Take the Dark, 1984 o. A Mic's Profession, 1984 p. North to Eunacry, 1984 q. Sex Dance Tinsel, 1984 r. Tonto Seen Marching, 1984 s. Two on the Grim Chain, 1984 t. Watt Had a Dozen Guns, 1985 u. Eat BojJ, 1986 v. The Ghost Ate Avis, 1986 w. My Bad Nest, 1986 x. The Nun Ram, 1986 y. Bore With Odd Women, 1987 z. The Poor Vet, 1987 CONTRIBUTORS Boston-based This Week. Marc Mancini 20 (1), 26, 78 (1 , 2). By Brian Hamil: p. 24. By Peter Iovino: p. 4. Island Pictures: p. 70. By Nestor Almendros' latest film is Nadine , di- teaches at Loyola Marymount University. Harlan Jacobson: p. 62, 64. By Jay Manis: p. 34 rected by Robert Benton. Andrew Coe is a (1), 38, 40, 48. Courtesy of Museum of Broad- Richard Natale writes for the L.A . Herald casting: p. 76. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Hoboken-based freelance writer fixated on Examiner and Movieline. Gavin Smith is an Houston: p. 32,33 (1), 34 (2),36. Paramount: p. 21, 22, 23. By Steve Pyke: p. 45. Courtesy professional wrestling. Mary Corliss is an as- English Fulbright Fellow studying screenwrit- SpringerfBettman Archives: p. 66, 67, 68. Tri- ing and directing at Columbia School of the Star Pictures: p. 19. Troma Inc: p. 63. Univer- sistant curator for the Department of Film for sal: p. 18 (1). 44. Arts. Elliott Stein teaches film at Fairfield the Museum ofModem Art. George DeStef· University. Beverly Walker writes about AUTOGRAPHED PHaroS ano has written on film for The Nation, film from Los Angeles. Michael Walsh is Hollywood legends, superstars, show biz Ciniaste, and The New York Native. Graham music critic for Time. Armond White writes personalities . Quality collection . Authenticity Fuller is a freelance film joumalist based in for New York's City Sun and Paper. guaranteed. Brochure: New York. Mike Golden is a joumalist and screenwriter whose screenplay Selling Out was Courtesy Adweek: p. 72, 74. Courtesy Nestor L.&M . Gross A1mendros: p. 20(1, 2), 21. TheCalendarCo.: 2675-F Hewlett Ave. the recipient of the 1987 Geri Ashur Award. p.60.Cannon:p. 11 , 13, 15, 17,53,54,57,58. Merrick, N.Y. 11566 Chris Hodenfeld has been writing about Courtesy Andrew Coe: p. 27, 28, 30. By Tom movies for 16 years. Karen Jaehne is a New Collins: p. 46, SO, 52. Excelsior/RA1: p. 61. York-based freelance writer. Dan Kimmel re- The Film Society of Lincoln Center: p. 18 (2), views fi Ims for the Worcester Telegram and the Pin·Ups • Poruaits • POSlers • Physiq ue * *RARE VIDEOS Poses • Pressbooks • WeSlern • Horror • Science Fiction • MUSicals • Color Photos • NOW AVAILABLE! 80 Years 01 Scenes From MOilOn Pictures RARE CLASSIC TV, MOVIES \" SHORTS. Send 22C Rush $1.00 FOR OUR ILL USTRATED BROCHURE stamp to: Paragon Video, P.O . Box 3478, San Mateo, CA.94403 (DEPT \"B\") 134 WEST 18th STREET, DEPT. Fe NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011 (212) 620·8160-61 80

Key Video is proud to present two outstanding films on videocassette. Rent them for a truly enjoyable evening. ANTHONY HOPKINS in THE GOOD FATHER AMERICAN PlAYHOUSE THFATRICAL FIlMS JIM BROADBENT HARRIET WALTER JOANNE WHALLEY In AssoWtioo l>ith SKOURAS PICTURES Pramu Also Starring SIMON CALLOW UNDA HUNT UNDA BASSm BRUCE McGIll BERNAIIm WONT Screenplay CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON JACQUES BOUDET\"d ANDREW McCARrHY from the Novel by PETER PRINCE Music by RICHARD HARTLEY mWAITING FORTHE MOON Producer ANN SCOTT Director MIKE NEWELL FILM FOUR INTERNATIONAL presents Writttn ~MARK MAGIll Direcud~)Ill GOOMILOW A GREENPOINT FILM hronivr ProducerUNDSAY lAW P,ooU(oI ~ SANOO SCHULBERG A SKOURAS PICTURES PRESENTATION ANEW FRONT!AB FIlMS!ill PRODUcnON SKDURAS Taking New C~PrtduudIrtthtSOCIETE FRANCAISE DE PRODUcnON Directions in PI C T U A E S In AIloo.lnonI>i!h ARDIDEGETO IIIIi CHANNEL 4 r . -Home Video. C 1987 CBS/FOX Company. SKDURAS Key Video is a registered trademark ~ of the CBS/FOX Company. All rights reserved . P I C T U III E S © 1987 Skouras Pictures , Inc. KEY VIDEO., All Rights Reserved . PG PARENTAl GUIDANCE SUGGESTED ol[& SOME MA TE RIAL MA Y NOT 8E SUlfAIKE 1'01'1 CHl I.DIItf © 1987 Sko uras Pictures, Inc. All Rights Reserved .

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