VOLUME 25 - NUMBER 06 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1989

and even fewer have done it as consist- babysit for them, I will say no. sos' The Grey Fox, where Robson is ently and self-consciously as Spalding Opposite Sean Penn in At Close American train robber Richard Gray and Harry Dean Stanton, the lead- Farnsworth's Canuck sidekick, a lithe lit- ers of this pack. Peter Riegert makes Range one immediately sees the differ- tle man with quick moves , like a ferret more concessions to a role than they do, ence between their Method madnesses. with only half of the requisite ferocity. but his particularities (and peculiarities) The justly-praised Penn is a normal TV One scene stands out: cooped up in a have been the bedrock of his perform- director's son gifted enough to act hotel room , anxious to pl y his trade, ances from Animal House on. Although abnormally. Statistical norms have no Farnsworth hurls Robson into the wall he scored points in Joan Micklin Silver's place in Glover's cosmos. Toned down , to shake up his friend's addled priorities . underrated Chilly Scenes of Winter, (aka he seems quaintly eccentric, as in Back Robson's face registers horror. The Head Over Heels), his finest hour came to the Future; in River's Edge he shows scene inspires laughter, surprise and in Bill Forsyth's finest film. As the epo- us a truer window to his soul. \"Big\" and revulsion in one quick motion . Which nymous Local Hero, he understated \"over the top\" can't encompass his jerks is, of course, what the 177-year Ameri- every line, underplayed every gesture, and stutters, his Valley Boy on Valium can-Canadian detente is all about. and withal presented an amazing (and Lithium) performance. onscreen personality change, from stolid Robert Altman used Robson to American yuppie to unwitting Scottish He scared the bejesus out of David advantage in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, yippie. His track record since that tour Letterman. Dressed in bellbottoms , Buffalo Bill and the Indians and Popeye , de force has been mixed, from the dol- platform shoes and wig, he let fly a few where he played Chiselflint, the pawn- drums of Diane Kurys' A Man In Love to roundhouse kicks to the head and vviped broker. He has appeared in One Magic the modestly etched ethnicities of Sil- Dave's smug and self-satisfied smirk Christmas (as Harry, the killer), Bill For- ver's Crossing Delancey, where his from his Hoosier, faux-Harvard mug. syth's Housekeeping, and Gillian Arm- pickle-merchant portrayal was so easeful After a sudden and improvised commer- strong's Mrs. Soffel ; when he plays it hardly seemed to partake of acting. cial break, Glover was gone, written out closer to his own type there is some- You need chutzpah not to act. Riegert of Letterman's history like Trotsky out thing beautiful, sad about him. In Anne has it. of Stalin's. Wheeler's Bye Bye Blues-the story of women left behind when their men play -DAVID STERRITT Apparently he has a Fifties gyneco- war- Robson pops up, all goofy grin and logical chair in his living room , and true grit, as the bicycling prairie post- makes dioramas of farm animals being man who doubles as the bass player in a swallowed by lava. He's the only actor prairie swing band. Though smaller than who makes this world without Andy his stand-up bass, he handles it with Kaufman an interesting place in which vigor. Apparently he can spin it and ride to watch. it like a merry-go-round-but Wheeler was afraid to shoot the scene, \"for insur- -TREY ELLIS ance reasons ;' One silly gesture cap- tured forever and Robson's myth might have been complete. -BRUCE KIRKLAND CRISPIN GLOVER Who cares if he'll never play the hard- WAYNE ROBSON WILLIAM SANDERSON nosed cop whose ex-wife now has a bor- ing husband and whose captain Wayne Robson is the Canadian epit- William Sanderson is the hillbilly begrudgingly backs him up until the ome of the unsung but gifted character wild card in the character actor deck. suits upstairs bring down the heat? Cris- actor. He is not only a Canadian, he is He exploded onscreen in 1977 in one of pin Glover is what he is, which means the face of Canada. His myth is at work the last classic blaxploitation movies, brilliant. In a lousy 1981 Sylvia Kristel even when he plays his specialty-some variously known as Fight For Your Life, vehicle, Private Lessons, as the nerdy weasely villain or timid soul in a Holly- Stayin' Alive and Held Hostage. Sander- teen friend , Glover's now trademark wood film. Canadians feel inwardly son's Jesse Lee Cain, a racist hick con twitches and learning-disabled speech strong and express it in a bantam rooster on the lam , kidnaps a black family, stole the show. His psycho, gun-wield- strut as comical as it is threatening. But forcing them to sing, tapdance and call ing high schooler in Teachers was the the flyweight rooster is easily dispatched him massah . His monologues about his only performance that didn't feel like by the marauding giant fox from south of one, making Anthony Perkins' Norman the 49th. On the world stage, the face of 49 Bates look like wishful thinking; Glov- Canada is rarely noticed . But that er's roles suggest sorely needed outpa- doesn't mean it has no expression. tient occupational therapy. If I ever have children and Crispin Glover asks to Hold that thought during Phillip Bor-

white-trash roots and prison experiences ances-the cast includes Pacino, De tell us how to spell it. Straithairn was the are operatically wrought, and the per- Niro, Duvall, Keaton , John Cazale, Talia member of Sayles' Secaucus 7 who formance was so real it had the inner- Shire, Richard Bright, Troy Donahue, never left town or his job as a gas jockey city crowd on 42nd Street hurling Abe Vigoda , Michael V. Gazzo, Joe and keeps up a brilliantly sardonic run- bottles at the screen. Spinnell, Harry Dean Stanton, Danny ning patter so he won't have to think Aiello, Roger Corman , Lee Strasberg, about the waste of his prodigious intelli- This characterization was refracted to name a few- none etches the mem- gence. Later, he and Sayles played the into the even more antisocial antagonist ory quite like G.D. Spradlin. In a taut, skip tracers from outer space in The of Savage Weekend , another low-bud- bone-dry, wicked piece of acting, he Brother from Another Planet. Sayles: geter distinguished primarily by Sander- incarnates The Honorable Mr. Pat \"I cast David because, as a director, I son's idiosyncratic performance. His Geary of Nevada, Senator maudit. needed to have an actor beside me that backwoods killer wears stocking caps , I didn't need to watch.\" scratches his neck , has conversations There are actors, like William with himself, and hangs out in cemeter- Demarest or Warren Oates, who chew You can't help watching Straithairn all ies. He also attacks his girlfriend with a the scenery adorably. There are others the time he's onscreen. Tall, dark, lean, hot iron . Entering the mainstream, San- who have made a career of invisibility- chiseled like an icon, he's Jeff Goldblum derson was one of the small town the amazing Richard Masur comes to with the eyes turned inward. His Con- freakos harassing Sissy Spacek in Rag- mind, who can be the leading man's best stable Hathaway in Sayles' Matewan is a gedy Man before effortlessly turning his friend in one film, his betrayer in the figure of absolute probity, nonetheless persona about-face in the high-visibility next, his deadpan delivery never modu- redoubtable for having the silhouette of role of the unwashed but unthreatening lating far from A-flat. Still others choose a Keystone Kop. Put a beard on him, let Larry in Newhart. \"Hi . . .I'm Larry... this their roles brilliantly, like the always-dar- him sink shifty-eyed into a chair in an is my brother, Darryl.\" It's Jesse Lee ing Andy Robinson, as Dirty Harry's East Village newspaper office- in the Cain as a nice guy. There's also a bit of psycho and Liberace in the TV-movie, neglected Call Me-and he's the quint- Larry in those root beer ads he turns up always showing the killer beneath the essential weasel, an editor whose agen- on. Sanderson is also a great loner, smile, the little boy beneath the killer. das are heartlessly, unknowably private. blending totally into the texture of the His performance as Eddie Cicotte, the narrative. He's memorable in Blade Run- Spradlin does something a little dif- most advisedly ambivalent of Sayles' ner as Sebastian, the sad guy who ferent. Tall, lean , paydirt-patrician, he's a World Series-fixing Eight Men Out, was repairs the androids . Recently, in a new little like a dark Hank Fonda-or Robert Oscar-worthy but unnominated. Twilight Zone episode, he was com- Ryan. Neither flamboyant nor self-effac- pletely believable as a shy, withdrawn ing, he takes nominal, underwritten Better-than-good in overlooked mov- businessman , who, in love with a roles (he has twice, for instance, played ies like Iceman and At Close Range, the museum statue, becomes one at the athletic coaches) and gives them half a best place to catch Straithairn is on Life- end. twist. A petroleum millionaire who once time TV as the lavishly introverted book- ran for mayor of Oklahoma City, seller Moss Goodman who's been -BILL LANDIS AND Spradlin turned to acting at 40. He's claiming a generous share of The Days appeared in The Lords of Discipline , and Nights of Molly Dodd. Just about MICHELLE CLIFFORD The Formula, Apocalypse Now, Mac- every woman I know eagerly attests that Arthur, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Tank. But his combination of self-paralyzing diffi- I'll always remember Senator Geary- dence and smoldering inner fire is the regret turning to remorse turning to tube's headiest turn-on these days. If the shame right before our eyes-a model of movies ever rediscover that intelligence rectitude with blood all over his shoes. is supremely sexy, David Straithairn should end up on a marquee, spelled -HOWARD A. RODMAN right. -RICHARD T. JAMESON G.D. SPRADLIN You can argue from here till lunch DAVID STRAITHAIRN LITIEN-Lu over what's-the-best-film, and I won't. But I will assert that among American People don't know David Straithairn, One of the most moving (and comic) films, the real trove for character acting not even those who give him work. That film scenes ever filmed occurs at the end is Godfather II. Sturges and Peckinpah first 'i' in Straithairn comes and goes in both had knockout stock ·companies- credit listings; John Sayles could best but neither the Ail and Quail nor the Wild Bunch offers up the sly emoluments of the Corleone family and associates. And among that film's crafty perform- 50

of Hou Hsiao-hsien's Dust in the Wind. NOSTALGIC SCI-FI & The unhappy yo ung protagonist goes to HORROR ON VIDEO! his grandfather for adv ice. Standing in his field s, against a mountainous back- TOM WAITS SEE ground with storm clouds gathering, Li THE TWO-HEADED Tien-Lu as the grandfather surveys his In his few years act ing in film s, Tom crops and-hardly listening to his grand- Waits has become a writer's actor, sliding KILLER son-repeats like a litany, \"Fuc k th e perfectl y into scripts by William Ken- CREATURE! third sister. .. it's not easy to grow things nedy, Jim Jarmu sch , Rudy Wurlitzer, Jim here:' Hou's favorite actor, Li has filled H arrison and Tom McGuane. H e could §iniste.- Cinema ~8 the same role, with slight vari ations, in have ended up a caricature of Wallace his only two other films : Hou's Daugh- Beery; in stead he comes across as pow- With over 700 shock filled titles available, ter of the Nile and hi s current A City of e rful as John Carradine and as subtle as Sinister Cinema is truly the leading source for Sadness . Hou's constant the me is the Harry Dean Stanton, th ough he resem- your favorite sci fi and horror oldies on video . famil y, and he casts in thematically focal bles ne ither o ne, or anybody else yo u Just send $2.00 for our eye popping catalogue, supporting roles. Li was born in 1910. can think of, e ither. Yet he's as familiar as or receive it free when you order any of the From his thirties, he has been a grand- Tom Joad go ing down the road to find a following films at the low price of ... master of the Chinese puppet theater. better life. Naturally it does n't exist, so, Hou gives Li the idea of the scene and hip ster th at he is, he takes the low road $16.95 ~~RLE lets him improvise, partly because of his in ste ad , leading inn ocence dow n the age (he has trouble reme mbering exact 1. The Manster 1959 dialogue) and partly because he has a Continued on page 54 2. Carnival of Souls 1962 (uncut BOmin version) more accurate idea of what should be 3. Horror Hotel 1960 said in famil y situations. Li even affects 4. Black Sunday 1960 (British Edition) what scenes are filmed. In City of 5. The Hitchhiker 1952 Sadness , Li had trouble berating hi s 6. Attack of the Giant Leeches 1959 fi ctional so n in front of a tailor. When 7. Eyes Without A Face 1959 Hou asked him why, he rep lied that no father wo uld make hi s so n lose face Please ad d 52.05 per tlUe lor packa g ing . han d ling . and postage . before strangers. The scene is mu ch truncated in the final versio n, with the SpeCi fy VH S or Bel a. Cali fornia reS idents please ad d 6'1,% sales old man's voice only heard droning in ta x. So rry , nOI avail able in PA L. Ma ke checks or money o rders the background . -DAVID OVERBEY pa y ab le to: Si niste r C ine ma P.O . Box 777, dept. FC Pa cifica, CA. 94044 Questions ??? Call us at 4 15-359-3292 Visa & Mastercard Exce pted PSYCHIATRY AND THE CINEMA Krin Gabbard and Glen O. Gabbard With a Foreword by Irving Schneider, M.D. \"Sooner or later the romance between Hollywood and psychiatry was bound to flower, and the Gabbards have had the excellent idea of tracing its rise and decline , along with some demonstrations of what psychiatry in its turn has to say about the movies. . . . Not the least valuable aspect of the book is a film- ography listing some 300 movies that feature psychiatrists, along with terse plot summaries. Wonderful stuff. \"-John Gross, New York Times Paper $14.95 324 pages 40 halftones THE FREUD SCENARIO THE UNIVERSITY Jean-Paul Sartre OF CHICAGO PRESS Edited by J. -B. Pontalis 5801 South Ellis Avenue Translated by Quintin Hoare Chicago IL 60637 \"The scenario was commissioned by John Huston , who wanted a film on the heroic period of Freud 's discovery of psychoanalysis . This whole implausible episode gave us the massive manuscript of Sartre 's scenario , which is in many ways a brilliant achievement, a kind of unclassifiable document in the history of dialogues between great minds .\"-Peter Brooks, New Republic Paper $.14.95 568 pages 51

·ekey his cantankerous Mr. Drumm is the best ble skull fracture that sort of changed reason to see Da, directed by actor Matt William Hickey interviewed Clark, a former Hickey student. His sin- everything for me, which is why I don't by Gavin Smith gle scene as AI Pacino's father in Sea of Love is one of the year's best moments have full vision and hearing. But I've W illiam Hickey hovers in the -bizarrely funny and movingly melan- margins of movies, as if he's cholic all at once. managed:' -G.S. not sure why he's there. He stands out all the same: as the weird old Hickey is special as a teacher because H OW did you come to acting? man who sells Michael]. Fox a ferret in he's never harsh with his students-his Everybody's story is a fluke. Bright Lights, Big City ; as Bernadette kindly uncle manner is as nurturing as it When I was nine, I was on this NBC Peter's trailer-park super in Pink Cadil- is eccentric, his method one of positive radio. quiz show, \"Let's Pretend:' I was lac; as a hapless preacher hired by Ned reinforcement: he encourages rather stalling for the answer and started kid- Beatty and murdered by Brad Dourif in than criticizes, the hardest way to teach. ding around, trying to fake it until I got Wise Blood. So many people have passed through it-my mother was appalled. I get a tele- Hickey's class at New York's HB (Her- gram to come in for a reading- I didn't Though he's been acting in films bert Berghof) Studios that he doesn't even know what that was. I went in and since A Hatful of Rain in '57 and teach- always recognize them, eg., Tom asked the producer, Nyla Mack, why I ing acting since the mid-Fifties, Bill Berenger (\"I'd see him in movies and was there. She said, \"You have personal- Hickey was, until his Academy Award- think that kid is good, I think I know ity, little boy.\" nominated turn as the decrepit but deadly Don Corrado in Prizzi's Honor , him\"), and Barbra Streisand (\"She says I \"She means you're a wiseguy:' my an insider's best kept secret, appearing was her first teacher, but I don't remem- mother said. [Laughs.) in maverick projects like Mikey and ber her\"). Jack Nicholson wound up Nicky and Thomas McGuane's 92 in the there before going west: \"He said, 'Don't So I got a job on a Saturday show- \"The March of Games\"-as the cat pro- fessor. Children would write in with ideas for tricks for pets. I didn't work as Hickey with Henry Silva in AHatful of Rain (t.) and with Kathleen Turner in Prizzi's Honor. Shade . you remember me?' I said 'You were often as the dog professor did 'cause it's Much of Hickey's work has ended up never in my class: He said, 'I came twice hard to teach cats tricks. to audit because my roommate, Dale on the cutting-room floor: Paramount Wilburn, and his friend, Richard Brad- When did you study acting? recut Elaine May's A New Leaf (197 1) to ford , told me to. But then I went to Hol- I was in a very progressive public eliminate Walter Matthau's murders, lywelOd: So 1 asked , 'How'd you make school that was way ahead of its time including murder victim Hickey; he was out out there?'\" with enrichment courses. A woman blown up at the end of The Producers named Julia Dorn gave us acting classes. when Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder Other students included Judd I didn't know it was the real Stanislavsky bombed the theater, but Mel Brooks cut Hirsch, Amy Wright, Renee Taylor, Bar- method-she had studied in Russia with the scene (\"He said, 'It was horrible- bara Harris, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Dina his disciples. She sent me up for Best you died'); in Something Wild (1961), Merrill, George Segal, Valerie Harper, Foot Forward, a musical. I was ignorant, about a girl who tries to put her life and Christine Lahti. He will soon I wasn't prepared. I still am - I just go together after she is raped, Hickey appear with former student John Savage where I'm told to go. But I got it and played an English teacher who got as a Nazi war criminal in the African-set every so often I'd get one, mostly on the dropped from the final print: \"Unfortu- Any Man's Death. radio. I thought if I'd be anything I'd be a nately the subject of the day was the tap dancer. And I think of myself more Rape of Lucretia. I still get residuals, Born in 1929 in Brooklyn, Hickey as a performer than an actor. because my voice is in it:' was a child actor before he knew what Whats the difference? hit him. In the ferment of the New York The actor is an artist, and I kinda just Since Prizzi, Hickey has risen to cult Fifties acting scene, he stayed with get up and do what I do. status-conferred by his appearance i 1 teaching and the stage, intermittently Anyway, I was in a play and also TV's cult-actor corner, Miami Vice. acting on film. In 1962, he suffered an working days in a law office. I was so Though his may on ly be one or two accident that perhaps held him back for tired one night, I dozed off. Really fell scenes, they're the ones you wait for- a while: \"1 don't hear well. I had a terri- 52

as leep. And I tho ught, \"I need acting the m. I wa nt yo u:' head.\" And I said to him ve ry calmly, \" I lesso ns . T hat shouldn't happe n to me:' What was your impression of him as reall y like yo u\" - and I did-\"but if you so much as touch my dog, I'll ki ll you :' I was leery of all these acting classes a director ? H e sa id , \"Yo u couldn't , yo u're not stro ng - and I still am , really. I don't kn ow H e was ve ry ge nt le w ith m e, like e no ug h.\" I sa id, \" I ca n w he n yo u're what goes o n in the other ones . Mine, as leep:' So I am like Don Corrado. And we just have a great time. H erbert [Be rgdorfl and Uta-they do n't I never knew that. For me it's not Prizzi's wa nt to b reak any thing . I've b ee n Honor , it's Hickey's Dog. I went to Uta H age n and fe ll to tally in bab ied , I guess . H e wanted a particul ar love with her. I thought , ' ~ h! I'll never accent, Brooklyn-Itali an, and got Julie Y our Sea of L ove scene was beauti- leave hd ' And I never have. I still have Bovasso [noted teache r and actress l to ful. You created a whole father- the same schoolboy feeling. coach me. He said , \" I wan na know two son history in a f ew moments when you things when you speak , Bill-that yo u quoted the love poem to Pacino and he Th e othe rs were experie nced acto rs were born in Italy and you never got fa r- carried you to bed. Did you do a lot of -I could o nly be like myself. I had no ther th an Brooklyn.\" work on it? idea of characterizatio n. She critic ized everybody, and I th ought , \"W hat is she I thought, \" I cannot p lay this one - a Not th at o ne, but two othe rs t hat gonna say whe n she sees me?\" I d id a killer-from myself.\" So I asked him why were cut. In o ne, he's at my ho use trying scene fro m Our Town, and when I fin- he cast me. H e sa id , \" I don't kn ow, Bill. to sobe r up in the kitche n and we talk ished , she spoke to my partne r, who was We'll fin d out , won't we?\" T he n o ne day about his m othe r, my wife, who left m e acting her head off- and I thought was he as ke d if I still had my prayer beads and is now dead . The las t line of the good- and the n turne d to me and sa id , and could I bri ng th em with me and scene is AI say ing, \"D id yo u ever have \" Yo u are a n A me ri ca n ly ri c ta le nt.\" keep the m in my pocket. H e to ld me, \"I any kids ?\" And I said , \"Yeah , one.\" Those were he r words. don't want anyo ne to k now, espec ially th e oth er actors, and above all , not the We we nt 14 ho urs o n th at sce ne. I too k over the day-to-day run ning of p ublic.\" \" W hat w ill I d o?\" H e sa id , After e ight hours I said , \"I do n't kn ow if the schoo l-it was a very small ope ra- \"Touch the m , and pray fo r fo rgiveness I can do any mo re. Yo u know, AI, thi s is tion the n, just one loft, and o nl y seven for killing. T hat's the thing he can't bear not go nn a be in the picture.\" And I'm classes a week- and because my desk to do.\" T hen I knew I co uld m ake it my not good at read ing m ovie scripts. H e was in the classroom , I sat th ro ugh every own; fro m the n o n it was easy. said, \"W hy?\" I said , \"We're go ing dow n class. I absorbed a lot. T he n th e ir age nt me m ory lane he re. It's not in the plot.\" sent me out on things, and I go t 'e m . In Tales fro m the Darkside : Th e H e said , \" But it's in my life.\" I sa id , \"Well No b od y has had th e lu ck I've had . the audience by now is m ore inte res ted N obody. \"Huston called me in w ho did it th a n w hy yo ur fa th e r over and said, 'I want beco me a drunk.\" W hat is your sense of technique? I believe th at we all have eve- to see Bill Hickey, not What about M ikey an d Nicky? rything in us. But we do what we do not E la in e May is like a s is te r. I've because of who we are, but because of an imitation Italian. ' \" d irected so me of her plays . My scenes what we pe rceive the oth er pe rso n to be. were all with Sanford Meisne r, o ne of That I teach. Part of my techn ique is to Movie I playa rich , eccentric old man the all-time great acting teache rs. In th e make the other actor feel I'm not talking who hires a hitm an to kill a cat. I could film , we pl ayed cards while waiting fo r to his characte r; I'm talking to him . And kill a perso n before I could kill an ani- th e call fro m Ned Beatty, th e hitman I mea n me. They think we're acting but mal. To play th at I used an old Me th od hired to kill Jo hn Cassavetes. W he n they we're no t- a d a ngero us thing to pl ay exercise: me ntally, whe n I say \"kill ;' I sa id cut, the cards were all ove r the table whe n it's hos tile. It al ways wo rks out at mean \"save;' as if my cat were ill and and the re were no two shots that the end . o nly he could help it. m at c hed vis uall y. I sa id to Me is ne r, \"We're gonna be very highly pa id extras I start with myself. I ask my students I have this dog, Bucky, who is a real here.\" But Elaine said , \" D o n't wo rry, I'll to playa scene with out pl aying the part, character. I got him just befo re he was fi gure it out . We learn as we work .\" as the msel ves . The n I as k the m to do it go nn a be put to sleep in the ASPCA. How was your exp erience on your the way they wo uld like to pl ay the part . Now I know w hy! [Laughs. 1 W he n he fi rst film, A H atful of R ain ? And the n we try to get the two togethe r. realized that it was not my house, it was M ike Gazzo fo rmulated it into a play our house, he wouldn't le t anyo ne e lse o ut of Acto rs Studio improv isa ti o ns. I don't think there is such as thing as in , except o ne girl , Lily. For fi ve years I Whe n I got on the set he said , \"I'll te ll a bad actor. T he worst I could say abo ut had to turn down jobs, and they thought you, I'm very disappointed. I wanted any actor is [he isl incomple te. So me I was be ing fini cky about scripts. My Paul Richards to play Apples.\" I said , acto rs work totally fro m th e mselves and agent couldn't tell the m , \"Hickey can't \"Well , can yo u give me a hint what yo u do n't take care of the characte r's life. leave his dog: ' had in m ind ?\" H e said , \"} really can't te ll And so me go immediate ly for the char- yo u. He developed it. It's hi s part.\" I acter but d on't put the ir own hearts into Whe n I made One Crazy Summer in sa id , \" It's m ine now. D o yo u want me to it. H ya nni s, I bro ug ht Bu c k y w ith m e . do a good job in your picture?\" H e was T here was a fe ll ow from my class who nice, he said , '~ II I can say is he's Moth- sD uring Prizzi Honor, I went to dai- Bucky liked , so I paid him to sit with er's court jeste r.\" him while I was o n the set. O n the first lies and was d isappo inted. It was n't te rri- day of shooting, I said , ''I'm a little wo r- So I would say to H e nry S ilva [who ble, but gee, it wasn't th at muc h. And I rie d about leavi ng yo u two together.\" H e thought , \"Well I can go big, do a De said , \"Oh do n't worry, if th at dog even pl ayed the drug deale r, Mother!, \"If any- N iro, or a Pacino:' So I d id it big once, co mes near me, I'II\" -he said \" hit,\" I and Hu ston ca ll ed me over and said , th ought he sai d \" ki ck\" - \" hi m in th e body goes off in the scene, I'll let yo u \" Bill , pull it back to yo urself. I want to know:' T hey were acting fi ne, but Do n see Bill Hickey, not an imitatio n Itali an. If I'd wanted the m , I could have gotte n 53

Murray would do something, and I'd just Continued from page 51 brawling with John Saxon and ending up look at Henry, who was trying not to yellow brick trip to Never Never Land. dragged through a baby pool with a laugh. That's what I did all the way scoop net around his head. through-a sadistic thing. His work as a singer/songwriter embodies the loser's lot, the musical Nicholas Worth first menaced audi- Before the first scene, director Fred equivalent to Charles Bukowski, Ameri- ences in the 1980 release Don't Answer Zinnemann said 'i\\pples is a little flit, a ca's lowlife Poet Laureate. Yet Waits, like the Phone, a California body count item bit sadistic, but fun-loving. The first Bukowski,is more than meets the eye or that played grind houses and cable. time we see you, from the way you walk ear. He's different in every role, from the Resplendent in turtleneck, flared slacks with Mother, we know that Apples is a berserkly funny professional killer in and army peacoat, Worth was Kirk bit unusual.\" I said, \"Okay\" and grabbed Cold Feet, to Jack Nicholson's bum Smith, a deranged Vietnam veteran, Henry Silva's arm - he's very strong- buddy in Ironweed, to the out-of-luck DJ cruising L.A. in his Chevy Monte Carlo and my feet never touched the sidewalk. in Down By Law, to the polyester busi- looking for hitchhikers and models he Zinnemann said, \"I love it, but I don't nessman in Candy Mountain . (Origi- can take beaver shots of, then strangle. think so.\" [Laughs.] I go to the animal nally, in Candy Mountain Waits was to He warns Sue Ellen, a hitchhiker from kingdom for inspiration-find what ani- play the hustlerlloser lead, but was only the Midwest he picks up, about accept- mal I'm like-because I find more hon- available for a smaller role.) None, ing rides from strangers in a grandmoth- esty in them than people. So I played a except perhaps the OJ in Down By Law, erly tone. Sue Ellen can't believe she's fits his musical persona-the carny going to be a famous model. \"Yes, it is stray dog chasing after him, not really barker, the hustler down on his luck, like a dream. More coffee, Sue Ellen?\" with him. running down a three-card monte After she balks at being handcuffed for a scam the minute the authorities turn photo, he strangles her while saying, \"I The other actors went to Riker's their backs. like it, I like it ... I love it, I love it:' with a Island to see the drug addicts . I didn't. I mixture of tears and euphoria. thought, I'm gonna make up my own. It wasn't hard to figure out he would Whenever I play a drunk, or a drug be a movie star if you ever saw him per- Later, he murders a hooker and beats addict-I've played a lot since- I want form live. On stage, he slid his prole up her black pimp. After mimicking the people to see why one should drink or Valentino profile between music, pimp in his mirror, which is garnished take drugs, to show you that some peo- shadows and lights with the virtuosity of with religious paraphernalia, he begins ple get something out of it. Apples felt French choreographer Maguy Marin. bitching at his dead father. 'i\\re you no qualms . He had his sufficient supply Then, one by one, he transformed him- from Mother. He did everything Mother self into his influences, and then turned proud of me, Dad ... 00 I measure up:' wanted. He never came down. his influences into his characters. The process was impeccable, the transforma- he addresses his image, standing shirt- At the end of it, I didn't care for him tion from one medium to the other so less, popping cool ones, pounding his because he's still laughing at the same subtle it was impossible to believe he beefy chest. Throughout, he crank-calls things, still on the same joke. That's idi- hadn't always been up on the big screen, a radio show shrink as \"Meester otic. He didn't grow at all. And with a veteran character actor, man of a thou- Ramon,\" complaining of \"headaches\" drugs, I guess, you don't. sand faces and films-because, after all , and \"blackouts:' he's not really Tom Waits. He's never In the hallway scene, I went at Don been Tom Waits. He's been the charac- Worth is more than the actor's actor: Murray with my cigarette the first nvo ter coming out of the shadows at the he's the psychopath's psychopath. Watch takes, and he pulled away-we didn't end of a dead-end street, or slouching for him in the upcoming Sam Raimi and know each other. Zinnemann said, down in the mud of his foxhole, sucking Wes Craven features. \"You're going to be very effective in the the styrofoam off the cup without ever picture. Young people are going to like wasting that tip of the Andes rush, even -BILL LANDIS AND you. So next time don't put the cigarette if the coffee is cold, even if his buddy is MICHELLE CLIFFORD near him because I don't want young dead. It beats going back to the mine. people doing that:' I said, 'i\\re you seri- Or the mills. Or wherever we all came HOPE STANSBURY, HAL ous?\" He said, \"Oh yes, they'll imitate from once upon a time ago. BORSKE, GERRY JACUZZO you:' -MIKE GOLDEN Andy Milligan has directed some of I can't tell you how many people have the most provocative and entertaining come up to me in the street and said [in NICHOLAS WORTH exploitation films ever made. Unfortu- his Prizzi 's Honor accent]' \"You wanna nately, his meager budgets prevent any- cookie?\" \"Faggot-if you want to pop that puppy's can, you don't have to grease it FILMS: A Hatful ofRain 57. Operation Madball so hard:' challenges Nicholas Worth to 58. Something Wild 61. Invitation to a Gunfighter cellmate Clint Eastwood in the jailhouse 64. The Producers 67. The Boston Strangler 68. fisticuffs that open Heartbreak Ridge. Linle Big Man 70. Happy Birthday, Wanda June 7l. He made cop Richard Crenna his punk The Telephone Book 72. Between Time and (\"He made me say... I wanted it, I Timbukru 72. Ceremony ofInnocence (TV) 74.92 in wanted it\") in the made-for4'V movie, the Shade 75. Mikey and Nicky 76. The Sentinel 76. The Rape of Richard Beck. In The Wise Blood 79. Remo Williams: the Adventure Glove, a low-budget private eye movie, Begins 85. Priui's Honor 85. IUS and Moe (TV) he's a hulkingly effete bad-check writer 85. Flanagan 85. Stranded (TV) 86. One Crazy Summer 86. Seize the Day 86. The Name ofthe Rose 87. A Hobo's Christmas (TV) 87. Bright Lights, Big City 88. Da 88 . Pink Cadillac 89. Sea ofLove 89. The Puppetmaster 89. Any Man's Death 89. National Lampoon's Christmas I1lcation 89. It Had to Be lVu 89.® 54

one from enjoying them. While No Milligan picture is complete with- thank God for Joe Pesci. He is hope- undeniably laughable for their cheap- out Hal Borske getting whipped, beaten, lessly real. Born in Newark , New Jersey, ness-you try making a movie for set on fire, or otherwise abused. Famous Pesci worked as a restaurant manager, $7,500-Milligan's movies contain for playing village idiots or retarded half- mason's laborer, and singer before his moments of reality that other 42nd St. wits with bad table manners-in The performance in the obscure Death Col- films never achieve. His devoted troupe Ghastly Ones (1968), he gnaws a rabbit lector led to Jake La Motta's wisecrack- of actors deserves some of the credit. in half- Borske's whimsical, puppy-dog ing brother, Joey, in Raging Bull. Pesci Hope Stansbury, Gerry Jacuzzo and Hal face has been featured in eleven Milligan blasts through the movie with a reck- Borske have worked with Milligan since films. Monstrosity (1987) stars Borske as less, manic energy that is exhilarating to his first released film, Vapors (1965) . Frankie, a half-man, half-teddy bear that watch-a squat, pudgy cherry bomb Jacuzzo and Borske starred in th is falls in love with a punk rocker. Milligan perpetually ready to explode. Like the landmark b&w short about a homo- favors giddy moments of insanity in his rest of the La Motta family, Joey is sexual romance in the St. Mark's Baths. pictures, and no one executes them insane-insulting his wife, breaking Stansbury wrote the script. better than Borske. chairs and bashing in a mobster's head One of those tragic beauties straight Balding, thin, and very intense, with a taxicab door. We get swept up in his suicidal devotion to his brother, even out of Tennessee Williams , Hope Stans- Gerry Jacuzzo has given some of the when he's convincing Jake to betray him- bury is one of Milligan's favorite leading most extreme and involving perform- self and take a fall for the mob. Joey asks ladies. Back in the Sixties, she affected ances in Milligan movies. In Torture Jake to tap him on the chin, then falls to an Addams Family look that was so Dungeon (1969), the most frantic and the ground. \"What da fuck is so hard exotic Salvador Dali used her as a other-worldly of all the director's cos- about dat?\" he rasps in that cartoon- model. Three of the four pictures she tumed horror pictures, Jacuzzo plays character voice. Once Pesci exits, the made with Milligan have been lost, leav- Norman, the evil Duke of Norwich. movie turns murderously cold. Without ing only a lesser horror effort, The Rats Norman faces only one obstacle in his the unrelenting, ignorant optimism he Are Coming, The Werewolves Are Here bloody ascension to the throne-his brings to Joey La Motta, Raging Bull (1972). Stansbury plays Monica bug-eating, nose-picking basket-case of becomes a horror movie. Mooney, a 19th-century English Iycan- a brother, Alfred (Borske, of course) . Wearing one of Milligan's outlandish His performance earned him an thrope who beats her brother with a belt homemade costumes and sporting a Academy Award nomination, but subse- and hacks her sister to death in the black Prince Valiant wig, Jacuzzo plays quent roles have been unworthy. Both gazebo. Confused footage of Stansbury the role with a haughty, amoral queen- Easy Money and Half Nelson-a short- running around with rats (actually mice ishness, frequently dabbing his brow lived sitcom co-starring Dean Martin- spray-painted grey) was added by the with a long, translucent orange scarf wasted his comic talent. He was brief distributor in an attempt to cash in on when he's not convulsed in some epilep- and excellent in Once Upon A Time in the Willard craze. Stansbury went on to tic fi t. America, but his vague tough guys in achieve some stage success, but like so Eureka and Man on Fire had nothing to many Milligan alumni has yet to receive One of Torture Dungeon's highlights do. His drug pusher in Michael Jackson's the break she deserves. occurs when Norman's wife enters their Moonwalker seemed like little more bedroom and finds a hunchback under than a private joke. His funny turn in the covers. She confronts Norman with Lethal Weapon II finally hints at his his affair, but he remains indifferent. bizarre sense of comedy. Maybe Martin ''I'm not a homosexual, I'm not a hetero- Scorsese's upcoming gangster picture, sexual , I'm not asexual ;' says Norman, a Good Fellas, will be psychotic enough crooked smile on his lips. ''I'm trisexual. for Pesci's talents. Yes, that's it! I'll try anything ... for pleasure:' -JIMMY MCDONOUGH -JIMMY MCDONOUGH JERRY ORBACH JOEPESCI Notwithstanding his stellar legitimate musical-comedy career, when I think of In an era when movies are so fake, 55

Jerry Orbach , I think of the shmata busi- roles. He was one step behind on the ence [between the FBI and the Mafia] , ness. His character had a clothing line in killer's trail in Cross Country and Ameri- Miss De Marco. The mob is run by Dirty Dancing, he runs a sweat shop in can Nightmare. In Top Gun and Extreme murdering, thieving, lying, cheating psy- Dirty Women in Lingerie, and, when he Prejudice, he was a military commander chopaths. We.work for the President of went undercover in Prince ofthe City, his who harbors the best interests of his the United States of America:' bosses decided he'd fit in seamlessly in men. That underlying compassion also the garment industry. Obviously, the bias emerges in 10 10 Dancer, where, as a The quintessential Trey Wilson role hits a chord with others. Onscreen, Kansas City badge, he knows when to was the preposterous Nathan Arizona, Orbach's face has been his fortune. It is a be rough and when to layoff. But the the proud papa of quintuplets in Raising series of eloquent pleats, earned hon- definitive Ironside role remains psychic Arizona. As the owner of the \"largest estly, which bespeak of hard work. He warrior Darryl Revok in Scanners-the chain of unpainted furniture and bath- runs things because he knows how they only time he's displayed both his range room fixture outlets throughout the operate. Prince's Gus Levy is quintessen- and chameleon-like facility to reflect the southwest ,\" he's a cartoon-Yosemite tial Orbach: one of the \"dirty\" cops, he emotional spectrum without betraying Sam as a businessman . But face-to-face remains uniquely unrepentant, his steel- his character's integrity. He is more with his baby's kidnappers in a climactic backed rationale commanding respect. complex, fascinating and , \"shudder,\" scene, he humanized his comic buf- Whether you agree or disagree with his likable, than the film's hero. foonery with an indelible compassionate characters matters little- you always look in his eyes. When he died-six understand what they are about. He has - LEONARD KLADY days after completing Great Balls of no antecedent from a bygone era; Fire-he was only 40 years old, Orbach cast the mold. Accept no substi- TREY WILSON although his characters made him seem tutes. much older. Had he lived longer, he Along with John Houseman, Joe would have become a beloved Holly- -LEONARD KLADY Spinell , Kenneth McMillan, and Ray McAnally, Trey Wilson remains one of wood institution a la Wilford Brimley or MICHAEL IRONSIDE today's most ubiquitous deceased charactor actors. Three releases feature Richard Farnsworth. Menace incarnate. Michael Ironside him this year-Miss Firecracker, Great -HARRY MEDVED has the John Doucette sneer that makes Balls of Fire , and Welcome Home- strong men buckle and weak men melt though he died suddenly of a cerebral KURTWOOD SMITH (he literally did as much to Stephen hemorrhage in January 1989; all three Lack in Scanners). Yet at rest , he is the are dedicated to him. \"WELL, GIVE THE MAN A picture of ordinariness---':\"just another HAND!\" cackles Kurtwood Smith after working stiff trying to get a job done. Wilson's specialty was the fast-talking blowing away Peter Weller's fingers in Ironside usually smacks of villainy Southern entrepreneur with a nasty tem- Robocop. Such-er-detached sadism (Spacehunter) , but his career has been per-often unsympathetic , but with a would be less shocking enacted by mus- dominated by \"good\" cop and soldier winning vulnerability. Like his frame, his clebound menaces like Brion James, roles were small and meaty. He played Sonny Landham or William Smith. But the white commanding officer of a as Old Detroit's drug warlord, Clarence black army base in A Soldier 's Story, a Botticker, Smith's wisecracking nasti- beauty pageant organizer in Miss Fire- ness is all the more delicious since the cracker, the worldly-wise baseball team actor is a bespectacled, balding, middle- manager in Bull Durham, a no-nonsense aged establishment-type with a smooth- corporate executive blackmailed by talking, trained announcer's voice. Danny DeVito in Twins, and Sam Phil- lips , the flashy owner of Elvis' and Jerry Following Robocop's state-of-the-art Lee Lewis' label, Sun Records in Great scumbag, the former Shakespearean Balls of Fire. His strict, slick FBI direc- actor stuck to playing assorted intimidat- tor in Married to the Mob delivers , with ing government goons and heartless unwavering solemnity, the film's most bureaucrats-a smarmy State Depart- memorable line: \"There is a big differ- ment official in Rambo III; Dead Poets Society's martinet father whose impos- sible expectations drive his son to sui- 56

cide; the tough-as-nails, crusading DA The Losers, C C and Company, Run Gus' fierce isolation (\"It was a glitch, a hiding a guilty secret in True Believer. Angel Run , and Chrome and Hot technical malfunction! Why in hell won't You never believe in his innocence for a Leather, and he answered to \"].].\" and anybody believe me!\"). The pitched minute, because Smith's stentorian vo ice \"Link; ' \"Moon ;' and, of course, 'l\\ngel.\" dramaturgy leads to the resonant com- oozes insincerity - he's every pompous He's a born beast-he speaks five lan- plaint: 'l\\re these the goodies! Is this high school principal , crooked politican , guages, but you'd never know it-with how the military pays off! They owe or unctuous preacher you've ever met. five-star biceps and a scratchy littl e yo u, Gus. But they owe me, too. They Not to mention Joseph Goebbels in the voice worn to a sandpaper whisper. In owe, they owe me so much! \" You'd have recent T\\\"-movie, The Nightmare ~ars. his prime-'70 to '73 - Smith was every- to go back to the Freudian drama of Fif- thing from Travis McGee's bleached ties filmed theater to find so anguished Will Smith ever get a role where he blond nemesis (Darker Than Amber) to an expression of all-American hunger. can smile? (He came close as Heart of a neurotic blood drinker (Grave of the Dixie's poetry professor.) I doubt it. He's Vampire). Without him, a biker picture Since most stars now are character too good at making us squirm. is just a bunch of jerks acting out on actors, Ward and Cartwright do the dirty w heel s. work, showing the ache of little people's -HARRY MEDVED desire and dissatisfaction, but with the Smith's degenerate dignity has taken vividness of stars. Cartwright has WILLIAM SMITH him through nearly 40 years in movies; seemed effortl essly-and watchably- even such recent credits as Maniac Cop , histrionic since her teenage appearance He brawls like a man with a mission ; Eye of the Tiger and Hell Comes to in The Birds but first hinted at the full dirty, gut-crunching, bloody knuckled, Frogtown can't keep this bad man down. measure of her acting power as the knock-down drag-out assault-and-bat- nudie actress in Inserts (1976). Since teries are his business. Take Any Which - MAITLAND MCDONAGH then she's made each of her film appear- Way But Loose- he's the massive torso ances startling (Alien) or tickling (Inva- who beats the bare-fisted hell out of FRED WARD AND sion of the Body Snatchers) . Throwing Clint Eastwood. He's Conan the Bar- VERONICA CARTWRIGHT her whole body into a scene like the barian's father and the Soviet pit bull in greatest si lent actresses: when Betty human form who hunts down Red The Starlite Mote l scene in The Grissom cusses, Cartwright takes two Dawn's teen freedom fighters . He's done Right Stuff-between Fred Ward and steps in embarrassment. It is a choreo- hard time on dozens of TV shows-from Veronica Cartwright as astronaut G us graphed blush and Cartwright's liveli- Gunsmoke to The A-Team-and earned a G ri ssom and wife Betty-is the emo- ness is palpable. That's why her cherry place in miniseries history as Rich Man, tional center of Philip Kaufman's spoof- pits death scene in The Witches of Poor Man's vengeful, one-eyed ing cavalcade of the national space race. Eastwick was so ugly; the filmmakers Falconetti. That's William Smith, main- Ward and Cartwright wipe the grin off brutalized the on ly performer with a stream supporting player. rah-rah Americanism in what may be the base in reality. This year, in Iillentino decade's most significant treatment of Returns , Cartwright came back essaying As an exploitation star, Smith was social distress. After the NASA parade a bored wife's indecision with the kind of born to be wild : his skinny legs wrapped has passed them by, they are on the emotional closeness one thought special around a chopper in Angels Die Hard, downside of hysterical optimism . Betty's to Ingmar Bergman's actresses . disappointment upon being denied a Presidential celebration (\"I wanted to Cartwright's energy made her an talk to Jackie. About-things\") matches ideal match with Ward, a ranking Mr. Cool. Their Mutt-and-Jeff heights were also charming compliments. Plus , her eager gums and his tumescent nose gave a sexual spark to the Grissoms' Punch and Judy contentiousness. Ward held his own in the Starlite Motel the same way he brought recognizable gravity to his parts in Off Limits, Secret Admirer and Silkwood. His ruggedness and indeter- minate ethnicity are reminiscent of the yo ung Charles Bronson, but with a sense of humor and a more skillful act- ing range. His good 01' boy in UFOria was a rich , hilarious turn. Ward finds paydirt in the tender spots of masculine truculence. He can turn cocksure pride into high or low poi- gnance, and anchored The Right Stuff in truth by playing a not-too-bright Gris- som but a perfectly butch and growly Gus . Next up: Ward as Phil Kaufman's Henry Miller-with a 99 percent chance for excellence. -ARMOND WHITE ~ 57

e spects by Beverly Walker mous with \"supporting\" has never been of decades , they had to be exceptionally quite on target. attractive in the majority culture way. C haracter actors have always The \"character\" actor was someone of been beloved and, like the buf- There is a big differen ce betwee n irregular features , to put it kindly, of falo, regarded as an endan- character actor and bit player. In the middle age or beyond, and frequently gered species in need of saving. They're Golden Age, prominent character actors subject to ridicule. Odd or distinctive associated with both the art of acting were given \"featured\" billing and voice patterns (Thelma Ritter, Eugene and with real life, w hereas stars are enjoyed the prestige of solid studio con- Pallette) and obesity (Sydney Green- linked to good looks, personality, and tracts. A \"s upporting\" category for street, Marie Dressler) were the rule. mythology. Smart talk dubbed the char- screen credit existed but it was for actors One of my favorites, Andy Devine, com- acter acto r Holl ywoo d's \"sec ret of any shape, size or age with very small weapo n\"; stars were \"gravy without the parts. bined both. meat.\" This hi e rarchy- imposed by the The smudging of the \"support\" and It's almost impossible to chart the \"character\" labels got a boost from the moguls and maintained for reasons of evo lution of the character actor without Academy of Motion Picture Arts and \"p roduct identifi cation\" - has flown in alluding to stars, because they've been Sciences when , in 1936, it created a the face of hundreds of years of theatri- operat ing in separate but unequal, and Best Supporting Actor/Actress award. In cal tradition . As Charles Winick pointed often adversarial, spheres for more than the first five years, Oscar went three out in a 1965 Films & Filming article, 50 years . Friction showed up in print as times to Walter Brennan and once each '1\\11 great drama was built on stock char- early as 1926 when Irving Thalberg to Joseph Schildkraut (Life of Emile acters who acted out different plots- publicly defended corralling stage per- Zola) and Thomas Mitchell (Gone With from the Greek and Roman to medieval formers from New York and Europe by the Wind}- all quintessential character morality plays and com media dell'arte, citing the need for \"more finely drawn actors. (The remark that character Chinese c la ss ic drama and Japanese characterizations\" (Picture-Play , 1926). actQrs existed to make the stars look kabuki.\" During its silent, formative good has been attributed to the crusty years, the American cinema followed \"Let the supporting characters step Brennan.) s uit. right into the spotlight;' cried Gilbert Seldes in Esquire in 1935. \"Put a char- The supporting category would Other countries have allowed non- acter before us and you can cut down appear to have been an Academy after- god-like actors to become enduring the salaries of the plot experts by half, thought: the first acting Oscars were romantic leads. Think of Jean Gabin spend a tenth as much on clothes and given out almost ten years earlier (1927/ and Philippe Noiret in France, not to you won't need that big scene of the 28) -to stars only. The pecking order mention Gerard Depardieu, who is not a shipwreck.\" was crucial. Studios needed to maintain handsome man. Great Britain had the illusion that a star was the most Trevor Howard and has Bob Hoskins; Nowadays, a critic such as The New important component of a motion pic- Ital y, Giancarlo Giannini. In Sweden York Times' Vincent Canby will occa- ture. After all, they \"ow ned\" them ; their Max von Sydow and Erland Josephson sionally write about these \"unsung play- investment was e normous, and pretty are stars without any qualifying adjec- ers:' claiming that \"there's seldom space people were an easy marketing tool. tives; and Spain has the two Fernandos enough in daily newspaper reviews to do - Rey and Rabal. full justice\" to them. But this long time America has made stars the center of tendency to make \"character\" synony- its cinema to a greater degree than any The only democratic American other country and, until the last couple movie genre in terms of appearance is 58

comedy. People who look like John politicized by the Seventies when port positions , while others lend them- Candy, Danny De Vito or Whoopi Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep won selves to a group effort in which there is Goldberg are not allowed to rise to the Oscars for The Godfather, Part II and no real star-Parenthood, for example. top of the dramatic category. Yet they Kramer vs. Kramer respectively, though Moreover, classical character types are stars and characters. their roles were front and center. Clearly such as Danny Aiello, Harry Dean Stan- they were both on their way to super- ton , Tom Waits and .Brian Dennehy are W hen the studios started to disinte- stardom, and this was the industry's way playing leads , and stars such as Bruce grate in the late Fifties, the of tipping its hat and perhaps hurrying Willis and Burt Reynolds (In Country nature of the character actor began to them along. Hollywood still craves stars, and Breaking In respective ly) are change. Without a contract, they turned though few are consistently meaningful accepting interesting secondary roles as to TV. Though their personas were sim- at the boxoffice. if to proclaim , 'Look, Ma, I can act!\" plified to fit the homogenized box, per- Today, most over-35 stars-De Niro, It is a curious phenomenon , this formers who never quite became movie Hackman, Hoffman, Nick No lte, enduring dichotomy between a \"star\" stars, such as Carro ll O'Connor and Jean Arnold Schwartzenegger-are so charac- and a \"character;' and it is easy to see Stapleton, became TV stars. ter-oriented in their approach that we that women are profoundl y short- By the Sixties, the youth craze and now have the character actor as star. shrifted , but if a magazine like Lear's its concommitant beauty emphasis left Many performers go back and forth can make the middle-aged femme com- little place in movies for actors who were between central/starring roles and sup- pelling, perhaps there's hope. middle-aged or more. Their demise, Stars continue to be used as \"product lamented Winick, \"infl uences the image identification;' and the whole system is propped up by the media for its own It seems ludicrous now,of life which movie-goers of today are forming . . .and limits the audience's but when The ana logous marketing needs. In Holly- exposure to and identification with Graduate was released wood, it fee ls like the film industry is many different kinds of people.\" held hostage by a handful of stars and in 1968, there was ersatz stars to whom goes between 65 The personalized, director-oriented and 85 percent of any given film's cinema of the late Sixties and early Sev- enties was short-lived, and soon we ,,,ere much talk about budget. into hardware movies, space fantasies, If we all believe, as those writing for and teenage comedies . Together, they Dustin Hoffman's this Midsection so clearly do, that these killed off the classic character actor of offbeat looks. yore. categories are insidious and anti-human, However, the rise of the character we ought to work to abo li sh them. Like the dinosaur, their time has well passed. ® actor to star status began just about that time. It seems ludicrous now, but when The Graduate was released in 1968, there was much talk about Dustin Hoffman's offbeat looks, and when Gene Hackman won the Best Actor Oscar in 1971 for The French Connec- tion, even more. I remember hearing one prominent critic vehemen tly object to the Hackman triumph . He agreed Hackman was skilled, but he was a character actor, not a true star. The critic predicted the demise of American movies if such \"types\" were given increasing prominence. He was wrong as rain. Right behind Hackman came Jack Nicholson, who had to age a bit to get into \"1\\' pictures. Even a more seemingly traditional star like C lint Eastwood, who was extraordi- nari ly handsome as a young man, was 40 years old and a bit weathered before he ascended to the heavens. Today, these categories and labels are virtually meaningless, especially since 1983, when Nicholson strolled off with the Supporting Oscar for Terms of Endearment. Since then Michael Caine, Sean Connery and Kevin Kline have won Supporting Oscars for, essentially, starring roles. Actually, the support category was Oscar-winners Walter Brennan and Dustin Hoffman (here with Anne Bancroft). 59

e \" Gby Gregg Kilday The Industry reed is good,\" Michael Douglas preached in his 1987 performance as the slicked-back, smooth-talking, preterna- turally avaricious Gordon Gekko, the predarory antihero of Oliver Srone's Wall Street. Hollywood listened, and applauded; thrilled by the sight of the formerl y mild-mannered , second-gener- ation acror roughening up his image, it awarded him an Oscar. For the Motion Picture Academy, which generally tries to co unter the film industry's own money-grubbing reputation by focusing the limelight on such paragons of moral uplift as Ben Kingsley's Gandhi or Dus- tin Hoffman's Rain Man , it was a rare tip of the hat ro the new economic realities: rapacio us acquisitiveness dressed up in the sheep's clothing of deregulation , as brought ro you by the corporate pira- teers of the Reagan era. For all the People-ization of America, stars like Hoffman and Nicholson, Mur- phy and Stallone, Fonda and Streep are no longer the big srory. During the past decade, the biggest Hollywood dramas have played themselves out, not onscreen or behind the camera, but in the executive boardrooms. The growing ranks of Eighties robber barons-Kirk Kerkorian, Saul Steinberg, Herbert Allen, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, Akio Morito-have been the new glamor boys in town. Only Donald Trump, the tycoon most emblematic of the down- the-hatch era, was missing from the Michael Douglas in Wall Street: the Eighties personified. game, though even he caused a ruffle of conglomerate ownership actually stabi- riskier. At the same time, the potential consternation in 1988 when he lized the studios, protecting them from payoff became ever more alluring. announced that he had bought a small unpredictable swings in ticket sales. stake in MCA, Universal's parent com- True, personal loyalties deteriorated. At The 1975 release of Jaws, followed pany, and the threat of a Trump takeover the height of the Thirties Golden Era, by the 1977 blast-off of Star Wars , briefly loomed. the Hollywoo d moguls may not have launched the era of the megablockbus- always seen eye-to-eye with their New ter. Backed by nationally televised ad The stage for the dizzying round of York financiers but ties of blood and campaigns, all but the most rarified corporate shell games was actually set in common experience bound them movies were unveiled in a thousand the- the Fifties, as the founding moguls rogether. But under corporate control, aters at once. This past summer, the either died or retired and studios were modern management inevitably stood release wars escalated, with Batman acquired by conglomerates: Universal on shakier ground. playing in more than 2200 theaters at its fell ro MCA in 1962; Paramount to Gulf peak, allowing it ro vault into the circle + Western in 1966; United Artists to As film budgets rose, from an average of rop-ten grossing films of all time in a the Transamerica Corp: in 1967; and of $2 million per pi cture in 1960 ro a matter of months. With the weekly box- Warner Bros. /Seven Arts to Stephen stiff$8.5 million in 1980 (and then bal- office standings now breathlessly Ross' Kinney National Service in 1969. looned ro the current average of $18 mil- reported by the consumer press as a But for all the nervous jokes about lion) , each throw of the dice became Engulf and Devour, the first stage of Continued on p. 65. 60

d1ties Eighties w ho le ness o f th e tim e, it s stas is, its im p li c it procla m ati o n of v icto ry over tim e (tim e in th e E ig ht ies was not a straight line, but a c ircle) . And it wo uld be to dimini sh th e surprise, th e ma rgin al no of th ose film s th at tr ied to fin d differ- e nt stories to te ll , o r that ca ug ht th e spirit of the tim e so co mpl e te ly th at , alm ost in spite of th e mselves, they sug- gested th at th at spirit coul d not be kep t co here nt- governed -by th e man who seemed to ow n it. T hu s what fo ll ows is not co herent at all ; in a tim e of single visio n , inco he r- e nce is th e beginning of a new life, not to me nti o n th e first prin ciple of a good tim e. Baby, It's You (1 983). Directed and writte n by John Sayles. A yea r earli e r, in th e TV-m ov ie of Norm an Ma ile r's The Executioner's Song, R osann a Arq uette was shocking ly alive as N ico le Bake r, Gary G ilm ore's girl frie nd ; he re, c hanging cl asses, she le t yo u believe every ges- ture, eve ry fr ow n a nd s mil e, o f Jill Rubin , nice Jew ish high sc hoo le r w ith a greaser boyfri e nd. She seemed li ke an actress who co uld do anyt hing , and she's been was ted ever since. Th ese two per- form ances trac k th e loss , and the great gap be tween the cl asses Arq ue tte o nce jumped: that it's imposs ible to im agin e he r Bake r and he r Rubin hav in g any- thing to say to each othe r is p roof of how good she was . Back to th.e Future (1 985). Directe d by Robert Z e mec k is, writte n by Z e mec ki s and Bob Ga le. Fo r C ri sp in G lover and L ea Th ompso n (th e latter anoth e r cas ualty) -both we re infinite ly more co mpe lling and appea ling as disas- ters th an successes, and in a Reaga nist text where s uccess is grace and failure is Terry Jones in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. him. damnation . Reaga n was, the n, th e audi e nce, and Batman (1989). Directe d by Tim by Greil Marcus thr o ug ho ut th e E ig hti es it was as if Burto n, writte n by Sa m H amm . It d id n't T o gro up movies or anyth ing else alm os t all co mm e rcial American m ov ies fl y, it cravvle d- a M anny Farbe r te rmite by decades is us ually an arbi- were made to please him , to fl atter him , as big as an e leph ant. Th e way Bru ce trary, meaningless, journ ali sti c at th e least not to o ffe nd him- whe th e r Way ne and Vicki Vale sleep toge the r (as hoo k, but not in th e E ighties . T hi s dec- \"him\" referre d to one of the many gui ses if it's me rel y what peo ple d o - compare ad e was co he re nt , o rga nized , all but in which he chose to appear (militari st , it to the Supe rm an-Lo is L ane co upling, mo nolithic. Pe rhaps no oth er m odern v is io nary, co mm o n m a n , patri arc h , which too k o ne-and-a-h alf fi lms to get epoc h-in this country-h as bee n so ad ve nture r, phil osoph e r), o r to th e to, and was puni shed) was m ore d ispl ac- do min ate d culturally by a single pres- secre t sadist of \"We begin bo mbing in ing th an anything in th e d amne d im ages e nce, a single becko ning, co mmanding fi ve minutes; ' or th e mille nari an ca lling of Robe rt M apple th orpe, who was bo rn gaze. Th ere were times -think of sum- up bibli cal prophecies of th e Anti chri st in Vog ue, and w ill die the re. me r '84- whe n it trul y seem e d th at and th e L as t D ays. th ere was o nl y o ne pe rso n, o ne cultural BLissing O ut: Th.e Politics of c itize n, in th e nation : whe n it seemed If thi s is so, to mark film s off chro no- Reaganite Entertainment. Andrew Brit- th at all im ages fl owe d fr o m R o nald logicall y, as if th ey co uld meas ure linear to n, Movie 3 1/32, Winte r 1986. Across Reaga n, and th at all were re turn ed to developm e nt s in c in e m a, th e m arke t- 20,000 weighted wo rds, all th at need be place, or hi sto ry, wo uld be to el ude the said about the film s it add ressed (from Return of the Jedi to Ordinary People). The whole d iscourse of th e pe ri od, fro m 61

Ralph Macchio to Sigourney Weaver, not conquest and reconciliation; like will ever permit itself. Remember BLue from spectacle to spectator and back Lucas and Spielberg, Robbins may have Denim? Taking a future we won't get for again, is caught at a screening of Hell glanced at Joseph Campbell, but he'd granted, Fast Times is now an echo of a Night: \" It became obvious at a very also read King Lear. Set in Britain in golden age, when teenagers could be early stage that every spectator knew about 400 A.D., the magic of the film's neither stupid nor apologetic. exactly what the film was going to do at conception is in the idea that the new every point, even down to the order in Jesus religion is erasing the reality of not 48 Hrs. (1982) . Directed by Walter which it wo uld dispose of its various only sorcery but of the dragons them- Hill , written by Hill, Roger Spottis- characters ... The film's total predictabil- selves-and Robbins' dragons , far more woode, Larry Gross and Steven de ity did not create boredom or disap- believable than the new Jesus, are abso- Souza. Nick Nolte seems too big for the pointment. On the contrary, the lutely real. There's a metaphor in the defeat he's always feeling for, but as the predictability was clearly the main unforgettable first glimpse of the dragon best lead actor of the decade he was also sou rce of pleasure, and the only occa- babies , who have to be killed-a meta- the quietest, almost as thoughtful in the sion for disappointment would have phor for the national pathology about way he moved as John Wayne in Red been a modulation of the formula , not abortion-but I can't untangle it. And I River. Here as elsewhere he was slow the repetition of it.\" must admit it's no accident that the vile and shambling, but Eddie Murphy and leader of the Jesusites is named \"Greil\"; James Remar gave Hill the juice to go Blue Velvet (1986). Directed and Robbins is a friend. fast on the eye. With timing so explosive written by David Lynch. An hour or a and brutal within obvious conventions week later, the drama begins to frag- Back to the Future. (the hotel killings) that the conventions ment , reducing none of its convulsive, did not survive, the film was so formally gorgeous moments, but making it Rainer Werner Fassbinder, dead at thrilling it blew off the worst day you impossible to mark off what you've seen, 37, 1982. Imagine the Sixties if Jean- could bring to it, to send it to the prison of expectation Luc Godard had died in '67; Fassbin- and result , to fix it in the familiarity of der's exit, coming as he may have been The King of Comedy (1983). any certain place or time. The setting about to translate his obsessions into a Directed by Martin Scorsese, written by seems like suburbia-in fact it's \"that language anyone could understand, may Paul Zimmerman. Compared to this, same small town in each of us\" Don prove more violent, because while he Dead Ringers is everyday life: this was a Henley sings about in \"The End of the left an unmade future, he also left an horror movie. Robert De Niro's Rupert Innocence;' and also the rotting big city unwritten past. In the Thirties and For- Pupkin was the creepiest character ever of post-war film noir. The establishing ties, world history was made in Central to carry a film , and he held the screen ambience feels like the Fifties, but the Europe, and Fassbinder had begun to like Garbo. As for Jerry Lewis, TV hero's earring is just as surely the Eight- function as its artist; very likely the his- Guide once ran a program listing for a ies ; Dennis Hopper's suit (\"The Well- tory of the Nineties will be made there, show where Lewis was to discuss the Dressed Man\") the Seventies; the mys- too, but it may not have an artist. \"film curse\" he was then teaching at UCLA-but this movie, about the coloni- tery woman's torchy rendition of the title Fast Times at Ridgemont High zation of everyday life by entertainment, song is straight from the Helen Morgan (1982). Directed by Amy Heckerling, was it. Twenties; Roy Orbison's \"In Dreams ;' as written by Cameron Crowe. Mall culture horrifyingly mimed by the pervert, is the as real life, with classic performances by Melvin and Howard (1980). Sixties; the shiny, garish tones mark a Sean Penn (the surfer), Jennifer Jason Directed by Jonathan Demme, written return to the Technicolor Fifties; and Leigh (the nice girl), and Forest Whita- by Bo Goldman. The American dream the awful roar that comes out of the bed ker (the football player, and the only one -that is, the dream that Howard as the hero and the mystery woman fall who's been better since); perhaps the Hughes was a real person you could together is the voice of Grendel's best bad sex scene ever put on film; actually talk to, and that Melvin Dum- mother, thousands of years gone. Going incessant invention, delight in craft, mar, the loser who came forth with a will too far in any direction one might chart, jokes doubling back and blowing up the naming him an heir to Hughes' fortune, the movie made it plain how expensive jokers; and the frankest , most casual- was a real person, too. But finally compromise really is , and in a year when which is to say the most liberating- Hughes is real and Dummar is not. Set the word no longer carried any meaning. abortion sequence the American cinema in a wasteland of trailer parks, hopeless get-rich-quick scams, game shows, Dead Ringers (1988). Directed and divorce, and strip joints-then, the ter- written by David Cronen berg. The ulti- rain Mailer mapped so cruelly in The mate nuclear family as charnel house, Executioner's Song, now Lotteryland, then abbatoir. Money as excrement. the borderless, internalized themepark And, save for the nightmare in which ofthe Big Spin-it was, in moments, the Genevieve Bujold bites the twin Jeremy most charming film of the decade, and Ironses apart, so austere: the perfect all in all ~he most depressing. language for a story of born winners born dead. Monty Python's The Meaning ofLife (1983). Directed by Terry Jones, written Dragonslayer (1981). Directed by by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Matthew Robbins, written by Robbins Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Hal Barwood. A magical film about Terry Jones. Like any Python movie, not the death of magic. Unlike his friends to mention the TV shows, mostly terri- George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, ble. In nine scenes out of ten there's no Robbins understood that heroism is timing, the laughter you hear is that of about loss, defeat, and disappearance, the writers cracking up over their script, 62

the sile nce th at of the people in the th e- Family, though without a hint of Texas ate r watching what's been done with it. Chainsa w Massacre grand gu ignol (the But the re are two seque nces far more bar massacre is balletic); you might also transgresss ive, more a thumb to th e catch ec hoes of Melvin and Howard nose of every pie ty, funni e r than any- and , again , The Executioner's Song-the thing in D av id Lynch or D av id Cro ne n- same hideously empty land scape, bore- berg's work: the few seco nds where the dom forcing out morals, the same sense man who's signed a liver donor card gets th at so me peopl e s im ply have to be his organ pulled out , his bl ood spurting killed , the e th os of a soc iety recreating past camera range, his legs kicking to itself around the criminalization of abor- the edge of th e frame; and the lo ng, tion, which is justified by the affirm ation long scene of th e fat man (Terry Jones) in th e fancy restaurant , vomiting over of the death pe nalty. everything in sight. No, no, you ca n hea r But one ca n think too much. Whe n C haplin, Keaton , and eve n Arbu ckle say ing, that isn't what we meant at all. It th e vampires come back to you, may be long after you've re nted the video -no was, though. one saw this picture in the theate rs- th ey can seem most of all like the peo- ple you try not to look at as you walk down the street , as you leave the theater where yo u've just see n Sea of Love, THE LIBRARY SERIES once aga in c ur sing th e fac t th at AI Dancing on the Edge of Success with dancer/choreographer Margaret Jenkins Pacino didn't make it back. I tried not to • Women by Women at San Francisco 's famed Galeria de la Raza, Latino women speak loo k the oth e r day, as a yo un g man about thei r art • How to Market a Body of Art-guidelines standing at the corner of a bu sy inte rsec- from the studio to the market place • Interviews with Artist Program I-Survival tion pulled his pants down around his Research Laboratories mechanical per- formances, Lucy Lippard discussing cultural ankles. My god , I thought, this guy is responsibility plus 5 more • Interviews with Artists Program II-three go ing to piss right in the street. But he minority artists reveal their genesis and motivations didn't; he shit in it. The n he pulled up • Interviews with Artists Program III- f rom performance art to doll making to the Church hi s p ants , pi cked up hi s b ottl e, and of the Subgenius Enlightening· Entertaining· Economical walked away. That's what yo u might see; VHS • Beta· Video 8 whe n you watch Bigelow's poem , all you LV. Studios 985 Regal Rd . Berkeley, CA 94708 hear is quiet. Call or wr ite for catalog (415) 841 -4466 Pennies from H eaven (1 98 1) . From Painting by John King Directed by Herbert Ross, writte n by De nnis Potte r. T he only noir mu sical: The Terminator. d anc in g sce nes (th e ki ds o n th e ir sc hoo lroo m des ks) more vibrant th an My Dinner with A ndre (1 98 1). anything in Singin' in the Rain; negati on as delightful as the affirm ation of Fred Direc ted by L oui s M all e, \\v ritte n by As tai re and G inger Rogers mov ies; and Wall ace Shawn. Two me n talk about Vernel Bagneri s' mime of Arthur Tracy's freedom and selling o ut , at ju st th at apocalyptic 193 7 recording of the title mome nt in cultural time whe n th e two so ng, as terrify ing as anything in The ideas were beco ming irres istibly sy nony- Killers- eith er versio n . Potte r will mous: already, Andre G regory, talking as replace Fassbinde r if anyo ne can: as th e th e free arti st (he we nt on to star in maudit c ritic of Th atc he ri s m , whi c h Calvin Klein ads for Ob sess ion), sound s may provide the ideology of the history s mu g, a nd S haw n , d o ll a r-d a mn e d , Central Europe will make. Never mind sounds ready to sell out, if he co uld find the people who say you've got to see the anyone to buy what he has to sell (he BBC version; there is at least one living went on to beco me the ca nniest small- Englishman who says this was better. part actor of the decade, a man whose few minutes in The Bedroom Window Raging Bull ( 1980) . Directe d by sa id more th an Willi am Hurt's whole Martin Scorsese, writte n by Paul Schra- good career). As re nde red by Malle and de r and Mardik Martin. The re isn't a Shaw n, the philosophy of the film was sensual: 'f\\ ll I want to do;' a frie nd said false mome nt in this goo d stor y, and whe n the movie was over, \"is go so me- Robe rt De N iro turns othe r actors into where and have quail and red wine:' She foo ls. But the language of the movie was meant talk as good as the movie, but she made for video, or laser di sc: you get to also meant quail and red w ine. But it try to break the dreamlike, unutterably was after midnight. brutal fi ght sce nes d ow n to s in gle fram es , to de mys ti fy th e ir for ce, to N ear Dark (198 7) . Directed by exp os e th e ir artifi ce, and it ca n't b e Kathryn Bigelow, written by Eric Red done. You find yourself staring at Francis and Bigelow. As you watch, the south- Bacon paintings, paintings so strong you western vampires seem like the Manson can hardl y bear to start the film again . 63

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). son. Every mannerism , tic, gesture, or James Cameron, written by Cameron Directed by Steven Spielberg, written look-at-me move that through the rest of and Gale Anne Hurd . Violence more by Lawrence Kasdan. Harrison Ford as the decade would be death (until Bat- exciting, fearsome and costly than any- Uncle Scrooge, and not just because the man, when all were exploded) was work- thing in 48 Hrs. , a better sex scene than opening sequence was stolen from Carl ing here in Jack Nicholson's anything in The Unbearable Lightness Barks' \"The Seven Cities of Cibola,\" performance, giving pleasure, taking it of Being , astonishing special effects Uncle Scrooge 7, September 1954. In a back, a buzzer in every handshake with (probably pretty cheap), stunning reckless search for adventure, the film the audience. What you saw was a man humor (Arnold Schwarzenegger's summed up Scrooge & Co., ransacking -the character and the act,or-so com- robotic , perfectly convincing \"Fuck you, all of history for the things of legend (the pletely absorbed in himself he has to eat asshole\"), and a happy ending-set far in Philosopher's Stone, the Lost Crown of the world to keep going. As such the the future, long after nuclear war. Genghis Khan , King Solomon's Mines), and Scrooge's itchy fear that his fortune could vanish in an instant (looking over his shoulder, Ford always seems to need a stiff drink). Sure, the subtext of Raiders was Vic- torian / imperial ist/ co 10 n ialist/ rac ist hegemony,' bpt the movie wasn't about living out of a money vault, even if the movie would get Spielberg his own. The last scene, with the Ark of the Covenant crated up and interred in a warehouse filled with identical boxes, a building so enormous and dead it serves as a com- mon dream of bureaucracy, could even be read as a sneer at Roosevelt's Big Government, at the plague that would force individualists like Indiana Jones and Spielberg out of time, at least until Raiders of the Lost Ark. one of them could reemerge as presi- film was as cold as Kubrick must have Shapely, relentless , and implacably dys- dent . But it's also a Scrooge ending: pre- wanted it to be, as cruel, and likely far topian, it was our time's Manchurian cisely, the end of Barks' \"The Golden more nihilist-more of a prophecy. Candidate, which is to say the best Fleecing;' Uncle Scrooge 12, December movie of the decade. 1956, where, having finally gotten his Sixteen Candles (1984). Directed hands on Jason's treasure, Scrooge has it and written by John Hughes . Glowing, The Unbearable Lightness of Being made into a coat, finds it cold on the with Molly Ringwald getting felt up by (1988). Directed by Philip Kaufman , skin (or feathers, I guess), and tosses it her grandmother on her 16th birthday, written by Kaufman and Jean-Claude into a trashcan-the same \"trashcan of which everyo ne forgot. Preston Sturges Carriere. How Central Europe once history\" Reagan so loved to invoke when came back to life, and then Hughes tried to make history (in 1968 , in he was talking about communism, even went back to the dead. Czechoslovakia, modestly, simply if he stole the metaphor from Karl Marx. extending the accents and gestures of There's a profound message here: art is Suspects (1985) . David Thomson. everyday life, recognizing accents as val- plunder, and plunder is fun. Thomson had an interesting idea: start- ues and gestures as promises , then cap- ing with film noir, extending the notion turing the desire that lay behind The Right Stu.ff(1983). Directed and as far as possible in terms of both time promises and values, until it was certain written by Philip Kaufman. The Chuck and style, he'd fill in everyone's fantasies one could not live without the realiza- Yeager/Sam Shepard Last-Cowboy rou- about the life that brought, say, Rick to tion of desire); how the history Central tine was a bore, but Yeager's fl ying Casablanca, that Jimbo Stark lived out Europe tried to make was taken from it; scenes were not, and the point, finally, after Rebel Without a Cause, dozens of and a measure of the debt that, once was that Yeager was wrong (the Last new tales rooted in old stories, our Cowboy was a set-up, for Kaufman if not myths . For a time the book is a wonder- paid in kind, will return historv to those ful game. Then you begin to realize that who can make it. for Tom Wolfe): the astronauts proved it is not a game, that the new tales and Used Cars (1980). Directed by there was still history to make. In the old stories are part of each other, not Robert Zemeckis , written by Zemeckis end, John Glenn/Ed Harris was many merely linked but rushing toward a con- and Bob Gale. It goes soft in the second times the hero .Yeager/Shepard was; clusion more total than that any single half, but the first half is W.C. Fields' watching Harris as Glenn's capsule work of film noir ever inflicted. So undifferentiated loathing as good busi- burned on reentry, I was convinced that Thomson wrote the movie film noir ness practice, with salesman Kurt Rus- if what was on screen was even half true, wanted, but never dared make: an alto- sell as the American Henry James Glenn should be president, and when- gether sympathetic, moving, damned couldn't have written about and Mark ever I think of this movie, I still think mystery about America as murder. The Twain did. Too bad the next ten years that. Not that this had anything to do detective was the genre, the past was the gave him more opportunity than he with what Kaufman was after: grandeur. suspect, the innocent was the culprit, could handle: today he's president of a The Shining (1980). Directed by and the victim was the present. Savings & Loan carrying a cool billion Stanley Kubrick, written by Diane John- The Terminator (1984). Directed by in bad paper. But he'll get out of it. ® 64

Continued from p. 60. studios hot properties in the Eighties as himself some modern-day Rhett Butler, it has been the Fort Knox allure of their who would give-a-damn his way into film matter of course, the rollercoaster for- film and television vaults. The steady production? But no sooner had the deal tunes of the competing studios has growth of cable TV, and the unexpected gone through than Turner turned around become a spectator sport and has popularity of video rental s (which, in and sold th e company back to Kerkor- attracted a new generation of high rollers 198 7 , surpa ssed ticket sales as th e ian , keeping only the film library, wh ich wanting in on the action. industry's leading source of reve nu e) he promptly proceeded to colorize for turned the studios' du sty vaults into his cable network. The studios have had it good. They collect profits on their hits and rake in Current film Similarly, Rupert Murdoch snapped distribution fees on their flops. In the production is likely to up 20th Ce ntury-Fox in 1985 (from Eighties, in a move to control the com- wildcat oilman Marvin Davis, who had plete release pattern of filmed entertain- be treated as a held the studio for just four years in ment, they even began to retake the necessary evil, while order to drill into the Hollywood social theaters they'd long ago lost. Forced to the new owners are scene), with one eye toward building an sell off their theater chains by the 1948 busy strip-mining their American TV presence and another Paramount Consent Decrees-at the libraries in the various toward establishing a beachhead in time the studios had interests in about Europe via his satellite-beamed Sky TV. 17 percent of the country's 18,000 ancillary markets. And for Akio Morita's Sony Corp., movie theaters-the studios struggled which just swallowed up Columbia Pic- through the next four decades without a goldmines. The current promise of tures (to the great relief of Coca-Cola, guaranteed showcase for their wares and European TV-even if the Europeans which had bought it up at financier Her- screens dwindled to 14,000. But begin- succeed in getting anyone to abide by bert Allen's suggestion in 1982, only to ning with the Reagan Justice Depart- \"voluntary\" quotas restricting American see Coke's profit margins fizzle) , the film ment conveniently covering its eyes, the programming, they'll still be importing library will serve as fodder to be force- studios began buying up theater chains. millions of dollars worth of American fed into new Sony technologies like Since 1985, they've acquired more than reruns-has made the libraries even 8mm video. Current film production is 3500 of the nation's 22,000 screens. more valuable. likely to be treated as a necessary evil, Vertical reintegration has been quietly while the new owners are busy strip- achjeved, and once again studios can When Ted Turner first began dicker- mining their libraries in the various now more nearly control the entire proc- ing with Kirk Kerkorian (who seized ancillary markets. ess-from production through distribu- control of MGM in 1969, and then added tion to exhibition-cutting themselves United Artists from the Transamerica Forced into defensive postures, the deals and keeping their film s playing at Corp. in 1981 in the wake of the Heav- remaining studios have been circling every juncture. Certainly, having that en's Gate debacle) , his was at first actor in the White House didn't hurt. viewed as a particularly Turneresque THE BEST FILMS And with 1989 boxoffice revenues folly. Did the man from Atlanta fancy YOU NEVER SAW. headed toward a predicted, record $5 billion mark (thanks to more than 1.1 Now you can rent VHS videocassettes by mail billion ticket sales, the highest since of over 1,000 hard·to-find quality film s like these: 1984), it's been \"don't worry, be happy;' all around . Sa taam Bombay! The Last Temptation Betty Blu e of Chri st Still, it is not so much the promise of Wings of Desire a blockbuster kill that has made the Arabian Nights Pix ote Babette's Feast Down By Law Hotel Terminu s Dark Habit s Breathl ess Boyfriends and Girlfriends Choose from foreign and independent films , limited release features , Hollywood classics, CALL FOR ENTRIES cull favorites and documentaries. 3 ni ght rental s 12TH ANNUAL BIG MUDDY are just $3.50 to $5 , plus postage . Membership is FILM FESTIVAL $25 first yea r, renewals $10 . First rental FREE. FOR INFORMATION CONTACT: BIG MUDDY FILM FESTIVAL : 0(Satisfaction guaranteed or full refund i f you return Entry deadline: c/o DEPT. OF CINEMA &PHOTOGRAPHY membership kit before free rentaL) Gift member- sh ips and rental s ava ilable. For free information packet and film li st , or to join by phone , call : 1-800-258-3456 (i n PA: 1-800-633-34 56) . FiIm~.v.1.~.1.\"~A_11 Home Film Festiva l 305 Lind en St. , Sc rant o n , PA 18503 VIDEOCASSETTE AENTALS BY MAIL 17 January, 1990 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY Please send my membership kit to : rc Limited to 16mm CARBONDALE, Il. 62901 and 3/4\" video 453-1475 Name __________________________ Address _______________________ City/State/Zip __________________ Phone ________________________ o Check enclosed 0 Visa 0 MasterCard Card # __________ Exp . _ _ _ __ Signature ______________________ 65

each other like nervous barracuda. Preoccupied with stitching together of '87 cut short the party, investment When Time Inc. proposed a friendly money had flown freely, and often merger with Warner Communications Fox's bumptious fourth network, Diller rashly, into Hollywood. Rushing to take earlier this year, Paramount unsuccess- advantage of both foreign markets and fully tried to cut into the dance. Having was unable to work the same artificial the seemingly insatiable demand of the survived Saul Steinberg's takeover VCR, independents like Cannon, attempt in 1984, Disney moved to shore resuscitation at Fox. But Frank Man- DeLaurentiis, New World, Island , Alive and Vestron began grinding out what up its flanks , while hungrily eyeing the cuso, his successor at Paramount, man- were to prove to be mostly marginal competition. Armed with golden para- movies. Both the award winners (Kiss of chutes and poison pills, MCA-Universal aged to keep that studio's winning streak the Spider Woman, A Trip to Bountiful) has dug its own protective trenches. and the bona fide boxoffice hits (A Nevertheless, another merger or two going, while Dawn Steele, another Para- Room With a View, Dirty Dancing) were would seem to be inevitable. few and far between. mount fugitive, tried, with less immedi- For all the enthusiastic talk of how As the indies' ambitions and over- the new business combinations will give ate success, to work the same shtick at head grew, the theatrical market glutted, way to a mutuall y profitable wave of and the video industry calcified as mom- \"synergy\" -whereby a People story Columbia. For all their dazzling busi- and-pop operations were taken over by turns into a Warner Bros . film with a the chains, with their reliance on estab- Geffen Records soundtrack-more ness acumen, though, the Paramount- lished hits. By '88, the indies were top- energy has been dissipated than har- pling, one by one, into bankruptcy, the nessed during the past decade. With the ites, with their gut reliance on ma- boom gone bust. In theory, cable and exception of Warner Bros., the sole stu- video should be encouraging more dio to keep its management team largely chine-tool entertainments, rarely broke adventurous filmmaking, their ability to intact, the major studios proceeded in zero in on segmented audiences doom- fits and starts. In a perverse example of any cinematic ground. .. ing the lowest-common-denominator trickle-down theory, every new buyout approach; in practice, the profits to be meant months of uncertainty and insta- Quixotically, as in Quixote, Bflttsh made from exploiting a blockbuster bility, as new executives swept out the across all the media outlets is so great old and film projects went begging in the renegade David Puttnam set. out to d? meantime. that few entrepreneurs are content to just that at Columbia. But while his aspI- settle for the modest returns to be The chief beneficiary of all this earned by more specialized, narrowly churning were the talent agencies, most rations were admirable-eschew formu- distributed fare. particularly the Creative Artists Agen.cy, which stepped into the vacuum, usmg las and faces , gamble on new directors, Barring some new technological its commanding control of many of the break through, the film industry appears industry's top names to dictate mo~ie play to an international market-his jere- fated to tight control by a handful of packages. At its best , CA~S ov~rbeafl~g entertainment combines: Time-Warner, presence kept fragile projects hke Ra.ln miads won him more enemies than Sony, Murdoch's News Corp. chief Man alive; at its worst, it resulted m mIs- among them. On the next tier, Para- conceived star vehicles like Legal allies. The experiment short-circuited. mount, MCA, and Disney have them- Eagles, which had no organic reason for selves all diversified, buying up being other than the Mike Ovitz Seal of For all the talk of everything from publishing houses to Approval. \"synergy\"-whereby a record labels to real estate, though they People story turns into still remain vulnerable to future preda- N ot even CAA, however, could a Warnerfilm with a tors. As for the shell of MGM-UA- counterbalance the spreading though its problematic purchase by Aus- virus of Paramountitis unleashed when Geffen Records tralia's Qintex recently fell apart-It IS Barry Diller left for 20th Century-Fox soundtrack-more ripe for the plucking. With the indepen- and Michael Eisner decamped for DIs- energy has been dents largely eliminated, an industry- ney in 1984 after a dispute with Gulf + wide production cutback is already Western chairman Martin Davis. The dissipated than underway. And although the major stu- masters of urban High Concept-hard- harnessed during the dios occasionally still compete head-to- edged movies that could be marketed in head for a particularly hot script or actor, 25-words-or-less-committed to ttghtly- past decade. such competition is very much on the controlled in-house development rather decline in what amounts to a buyer's than agency-spawned grab-bags Eisner It remained for Tom Pollock, chairman rather than a seller's market. Hollywood, and his top gun, Jeffrey Katzenberg, born when scrappy independent pro- cracked the whip at the moribund Dis- of the MCA Motion Picture Group and a ducers refused to knuckle under to the ney. As WAspish reverence for the found- monopolistic demands of Edison's er's memory gave way to Jewish shrewd Hollywood insider, to demon- Motion Picture Patent Company back at chutzpah, Disney became an overnight the beginning of the century, has itself contender, duking it out with Paramount strate that the prevailing cultural homo- evolved into a half dozen near-monopo- and Warner Bros. for industry suprem- listic behemoths. The movies may not acy. genization notwithstanding~ it is still be bigger than life, but the movie com- pos·sible to take an occasional fisk . panies sure are. ® Between Twins and Back to the Future IsIt~wPaowlalyosckas has secreted aboard such Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ and Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, which generated heat, light and more cash than expected.-and brought the directors into the Universal fold, just at the moment the company needed them most. T he irony is that, while the takeovers and mergers , the growth of video, the agencies vs. the studio ibnodsesepse~dweenrte all sorting themselves out, production thrived , if not prospered. Until the stock-market crash 66

SUNDANCE UNITED STATES FILM FESTIVAL

avant-garde filmmaker started making films. Like many of his earlier films, s including Honor and Obey, which showed at least year's festival , Friendly Witness is an extended montage/medita- tion deriving from his extensive travels around the world . Sonbert's montages flip-flop the viewer's awareness of place New York, Toronto, and Venice as a metaphor for states of mind and states of mind as metaphors for place. In given to third-world films in 1988 has many of his films, the ceaseless, impec- cably calibrated flow of images of peo- been taken over by documentaries this ple, animals, objects, places (both exotic and familiar), interactions, and move- year. The festival did right by showing ment build up a dense and rich visual texture that seems to evoke the whole of T o anyone familiar with the Fred Wiseman's Near Death, a complex creation. eclectic range and vitality of and provocative six-hour doc about an Richard Pena's programming at intensive care room unit at Boston's In Friendly Witness, Sonbert's peri- Chicago's Film Center during his eight Beth Israel Hospital, for where else patetic camera does this more sumptu- ously than any of his others. The first year tenure there, his imprimatur on last could a work like this get screened. But half of the film, which celebrates love, is scored to songs from the early Sixties, year's New York Film Festival was why has it bothered with docs that are including Dion and the Belmonts' \"Run- away:' Sonbert's images engage in a pow- unmistakable. With half the films of last slated for or will probably get a PBS erful dialectical dance with the lyrics (in stark contrast to most rock videos year's festival coming from non-NATO broadcast-like Anne Belle's and which merely offer insipid illustrations); nations, Pena was taking the NYFF audi- Deborah Dickson's Dancing for Mr. B. embracing, puncturing, and expanding upon pop-culture's lexicon of love. Son- ence out for a spin around the third and Meredith Monk's Book of Days- bert connects this lexicon to its roots by excavating beneath the debris of com- world. Some people kicked and when surely there are others not suited mercial stereotypes and cliches-both auditory and visual-for images and screamed, they wanted the comforting to that venue worthy of exposure? expressions of love. His omniscient eye for nuance makes his films resonate with sex appeal , the bourgeois dramas and The festival's continued inclusion of the thrill of discovery. satires of their favorite European direc- an avant-garde program and short exper- The film's second half drops its speed and cuts its somber images to two ver- tors back. And because a few of the imental films shown before longer films sions of an almost cloyingly melancholic GlUck overture. Exuberance gives way films from the third world were such does go a long way toward breaking to a darker mood of reverie. clunkers, there were moments when you down genre definitions and staid viewing Still the underlying joie de vivre of Friendly Witness remains; Sonbert couldn't blame them. Still, despite some habits. These kinds of programming makes us feel how this joy is inseparable from the primacy of looking, of sight. uninspired choices, it was hard not to choices sustain the vitality of cinema: The film offers a meditation on how the act of seeing is intimately tied to narra- appreciate, even admire that the festi- the importance of which is only under- tive, and how individual images (as well val's all-too-well-established pattern had scored by the hisses and catcalls some been broken. Pena was setting a new of the more demanding and unconven- tone: less sectarian and more deeply tional films elicited. international. Under Pena's direction, the New York If last year's festival marked a radical Film Festival is establishing a new iden- departure from the Richard Roud years, tity for itself that the past two years' pro- this year's stands as a corrective to what gramming reveals is hardly fixed or many may consider to be 1988's programmatic, but exploratory and plu- excesses. The preponderance of films ralistic-not bad things for a festival this year were from developed nations. to be. Where last year there was only one FFrench film (and many reacted as if it riendly Witness, Warren Sonbert's first sound film in 20 years, is com- were cruel and unusual punishment), this year there were four. The priority posed of outtakes accumulated since the as the way they are accumulated) tell their story. Rather than deconstructing narrative into its essential images like, for instance, Raul Ruiz, Sonbert con- structs images in such a way that they reveal the irreducibility of narrative. Shohei Imamura's Black Rain . A t the outset of his A Short Film About Killing, Krzysztof Kieslowski foregrounds the numbing ali- enation of his protagonist, Jacek, in the physical hideousness of the world he inhabits: the taxi driver, whom Jacek will murder, pushes open the glass door of his apartment building and catches the reflection of a monstrous and monolithic 68

high-rise building. whom the radioactive \"black rain\" has pain\") to produce Sandusky's master- In withholding the personal source of fallen, and her uncle and aunt. Like stroke: a critiq ue of sadomasoc histic Alain Resnais' Hiroshima, Mon Amour, sexuality. It is compulsions of this sort Jacek's psychological torment until the Imamura addresses the tragic repercus- that drive humans, like lem mings, to all end of the film and thus forestalling the sions of the nuclear holocaust. But sorts of other forms of self-destructio n. viewer's desire to deduce a possible where Resnais' film explores the impos- motive for his brutal crime, Kidlowski sibility of post-nuclear trust between a L ooking for Langston, Isaac Julien's conveys Jacek's pathology as an inevita- European woman and a Japanese man, elegiac evocation of the black ble facet of the social system. It is as Imamura's new film details what the homosexual poet Langston Hughes, is much an expression of the crushing des- bomb does to the survivors' skin and rai sing hackles in some quarters for its olation wrought by communist occupa- soul. Within the society of survivors, revelation and exploration of Hughes' tion of Poland as is the killing those who have been exposed to the sexuality. Hughes' famil y threatened to architecture. black rain are stigmatized as outcasts. press for an injunction based on copy- right infringement. Indeed, at the press Jacek's murder of the taxi driver cul- What is remarkable about Black Rain and subsequent public screenings the minates a series of small malicious acts is the scope of human experience it sound was turned off during two seg- he commits during his peregrinations encompasses. As we watch Yasuko and ments in which Hughes reads aloud two about the city. Kieslowski intercuts the her famil y fleeing the city, threading poems in their entirety to preserve the doings of Jacek with those of the taxi their way thorough the nuclear carnage legal peace and forestall legal action. driver and the idealistic lawyer who will and the scorched, mutilated victims Resistance to the public exposure of defend him (and who, on the day of the wandering the streets, it is all so abso- Hughes' homosexuality only under- murder, is passing his bar exam) . lute in its horror it seems impossible to scores the significance of the impulse Kieslowski loves irony: just as Jacek imagine life continuing at all. prompting this film: the desire to fore- must be considered a failure of the sys- ground Hughes' identity as an important tem , the taxi driver derives a subversive The poignance of Imamura's beauti- black American poet within the context pleasure in driving about the city turning full y wrought black-and-white images is of homosexual culture and its suppres- down fares , and upping the ante, in the stark endurance of traditional cul- sion in America. Dedicated to another Kieslowski makes the only fare the cab- ture and customs despite the trauma. great black homosexual American bie accepts that day a fatal mistake-for The bomb's devastation is cumulative ; writer, James Baldwin, Looking for both of them. its tragedy is double-edged. Radiation Langston engages in a search for and disease, insanity, nightmares , inconsol- creation of visual iconography of black Kieslowski never alludes to Solidar- able loss, surface over time to torment male homosexual desire. The act of ity, nor for that matter to the Commu- the survivors. In Black Rain , Imamura's Looking for Langston becomes an act of nist Party. His characters strike out deft and nuanced use of black humor visually articulating desire, appreciating against the system-Jacek through mur- jolts us into recognition of the grievous the truth of revelation . der, the taxi driver through a winsome cost of survival. work ethic, and the lawyer through This lyrical erotic mediation on opposition to capital punishment. Each A nother film that uses black humor Hughes , the Harlem Renaissance, and in his own way is an underground man . to examine destructiveness is what it means to be black, gifted and Kidlowski's evocation of Dostoyevskian Sharon Sandusky's short , C'mon Babe. gay in America weaves together several futility suggests that the current Com- By recutting a Disney nature documen- distinct tableaus: a wake for Hughes/ munist regime is simply the newest tary about lemmings (perhaps the only Baldwin; a private (and as the appear- mask worn by the same old dog. Com- species that beats out humans in pro- ance of police later attests, illicit) munism , monarchism, democracy are pensity for self-destruction), Sandusky Twenties gay, male party in a bar; and equally unenlightened-capital punish- has fashioned an ingenious extended the erotic relationship between two ment is common to them all. metaphor for the dangers of modern strikingly handsome men. There is an mass psychology. abundance of archival footage of Harlem Kidlowski's murder sequence here of the period and good clips of Hughes. has already garnered a reputation for Sandusky recycles the Disney nature being long, grueling, and certainly footage of furtive-looking lemmings Unfortunately, the powerful sense of graphic. Kieslowski wants us to know, to heading for the cliff to fling themselves double disenfranchisement Julien see how physically and emotionally diffi- into the sea. She takes Disney's original evokes in Looking for Langston is cult it is to kill someone. Watching Jacek narration , with its Fifties pop-psych undercut by his combination of film and redouble his efforts is so emotionally interpretation of lemming behavior, and poetry. The images that fill the screen palpable that we feel personally impli- cuts in Wayne Newton's version of during the reading of Hughes and oth- cated for having watched it. Kidlowski \"Danke Schoen\" and snatches of the ers' poems detract from the intensity of remarkably equates the streamlined ease schmaltzy \"Caravan\" till the multiple lev- the poems' imagery. The film then with which the criminal justice system els of irony induce delirium. By\"scratch- seems like a pale illustration of the executes Jacek with his horrifying, pro- ing\" or repeating certain lines , Sandusky poems. tracted and messy killing of the cab transforms the snide and superior Dis- driver. ney narration (\"The lemming legend will Still, on the whole a strikingly origi- be told again , and will come to the same nal portrait emerges of the difficulty, Kieslowski's analysis in A Short Film amazing climax: a rendezvou s with des- pain, dignity, and contradictions of black About Killing is brilliant for its universal tiny. .. it's not given to man to under- homosexual life. As Toni Morrison says application. stand, and so nature takes a hand\") into at the outset of the movie in her elo- high self-parody. The C 'mon Babe coda quent e ulogy for James Baldwin , T he tale that Shohei Imamura tells combines with Newton's sugar-coated \"Ho mosexuality was a sin against the in Black Rain begins on the day bleating (\"Thank you for the joy and race, so it had to remain a secret.\" Hiroshima is bombed , and focuses on the survivors: a young girl, Yasuko, upon 69

M ~redith Monk's Book of Days has assignment. He reneges and decides to ~riel scores off the age-old story of Its share of verities : he r hallmark s tra n~e and lovely chorale co mpositions, kill again , but only to buy the chantoot- the Innocent from the sticks who travels beautiful shots of biblical-looking streets ~o the big city, falls in with bad compan- a nd people, e lega nt hip cos tum es sie a sight-saving operation. This proves 10~ S and gets tossed in the clink , before (downto\\~' n , ava nt-garde dance inte rpre- tatio ns of ancient garb). Sad to say, it all to be one job too m any, however, and adds up to very little of c in e m atic inte r- es t. The stylized deadpan acting, which now the mob is after hi s ass. being redeemed by the love of a good one supposes is meant to comment on naturali stic drama, is not clever or inter- The killer and the sightless singer wo man. But when drifter-hero Taisto es ting, it's a bore -the acto rs them selves nuzzl~ each other sweetl y, of course, but l oo~ed b?red . Monk mangles film sy n- packs up his cowboy boots and his tax In this fanciful treatment of ancie nt Chows most IOtense relation ship is with Jewish life in Jerusalem; the film is full of leather jacket and abandons his native bot h gratuitou s e llipses and repetiti o ns the high-strung cop who has hunted him ~ap l and, nothing works. The convert- of narrati ve im agery that serve little app arent purpose. The underl ying visual for years. The two males bond like Ible.top of his barge-size Cadillac refuses and narrative logic seem tied to per- so nal, eso teric or rituali stic ideas that Krazy Glue, and then stand shoulder to to rISe and Taisto chain-smokes his way may be ame nable to performance art t~ Helsinki with a towel wrapped around (Monk's natural metier) but whi ch this shoulder against literal armies of ri val film has troubl e effectively conveyi ng . As a res ult , Book of Days bears an aura mobsters, slaughtering thousands with hiS head , grooving on vintage r&b. of arca ne preciou sness. Performan ce art does not a film maketh . their magical pearl-handled .45s. At his best , Aki Kaurismaki resem- - LISA K ATZMAN Visually The Killer is rather flat, and bles the Jonath an Demme of Citizens TORONTO WIGS OUT Danny Lee is no sub stitute for Chow's Band and Melvin and Howard, but with soulful Better Tomorro w co-star, Ti an overlay of cooler-than-thou under- Lung. Every element is a papier-mache graduate alienation that somehow works cliche, but the movie is redeemed by its for him. [f American undergraduates excesses. Veteran Toronto programmer e~er get the chance, they should take to DaVid Overbey, wsphoottpinicgkpedopThfielmKsiltlhear~ hln1 fight away. has a genius for A City ot Sadness , the latest famil y transcend them selves by going way too far. c hroni cle from Taiwan's master The Toronto audience stood and autobiographer, Hou Hsi amaos-tHesripein~cei.s obviously some kind of cheered- and the n a clique of U.S. dis- tributors gath e re d to shake their heads But [ enjoyed it rather less than last and declare the picture \"totally uncom- yea~'s Daughter of the Nile , a pleasingly mercial. ' The ki ss of death. The Killer obltque gangster picture. Hou may will probabl y never sc reen in this coun- finally have gone too far. His narrative T oronto's Festival of Festivals try outside yo ur local Chinatown. ~rtistry is so dense here that crucial plot (which turned 14 thi s yea r) is th e mo s t pain st ak in g ly a nd F inland's maste r of deadpan mock- information gets buried in the mix. HOll alienation , Aki Kauri smaki , shared has jettisoned so many conventional r~so urcefu ll y programmed of the big fes- las t year's \"Spotlight\" with his bmrootvhieer~ expository devices in his quest for ever Mika. Aki has m ade two more ti va ls. The infamous whop pe rs of C hi- den ser levels of naturalism that the cago and Los Angeles seem to ad he re to since, although o ne is plainly a throw- shape of the story never full y emerges. th e Mr. C reo so te formula: th ey take away, the English-language rock 'n' roll eve rythin g th ey ca n ge t , \"a ll mi xed road-picture L eningrad Cowboys Go J ames Toback's talking-head docu- mentary, The Big Bang, is an ele- together in a buc ket w ith an egg o n top.\" America . With its towering pompadours gantly edited collage of interview footage in which an odd assortment of Toronto pitches a big, broad m ain stream (even the dog has one) and its Mem- motor-mouths-from a soulful gangster to Famous Monster of Filmland Don tent of star-cluttered galas, which shel- phis-to-Mexico itine rary, Leningrad is a Simpson-discuss all the cosmic ques- tions : birth, sex, death and the origins of ters a motley assortment of idiosy ncratic little too self-consciously droll for its the universe. The concept doesn't pay off as richly as Toback may have hoped; programm e rs. Very few of this year's 322 ow n good. Oim Jarmu sch has a cameo.) not everybody has philosophical gems on the tip of his tongue. The hyperarti- selectio ns felt offhand rather th an hand- Kauri smaki may have a hipster com- culate director of Fingers and Exposed was more fun to listen -to, in the q&a picked. No tokenism was detectable. plex, but in Ariel the jaded pose takes session afterwards, than anybody he had interviewed. You knew so m e body fell in love with o n a glimmer of nobi lity. For Kauris- everyo ne of these movies. This is film ma.ki , just kee ping your coo l in this stu- programming as self-exp ress io n. pid wo rld can be a form of heroi sm . T he Tsui H ark/John Woo ga ngste r Ariel is a thematic seq uel to one of film The Killer is imm ode rate in its Aki's tightest early pictures, Shadows in pursuit of slam-bang entertainment. Paradise, a mock-melodrama about a Write r-directo r Woo (A Better Tomor- pair of droopy proles (a garbage collec- r?w) pu shes the already go nzo co nven- tor and a supermarket checker) who tions of H ong Kong action-melodrama slog, stone-faced, through a plot distilled P rogram director Piers Handling assembled Toronto's third annual into th e stratosp here: th e picture has from cheap paperbacks. Kaurismaki has \"Spotlight\" series, a 14-film tribute to Poland's cerebral humanist Krzysztof m ore spl atte r th a n Th e Wild oBpuenracthi~ razor-sharp co mic timing when he's play- Ki eS lowski. more s niffl es than Love Story , ing with the minute inflections and emo- Early Kieslowkis, like Camera Buff, (1979), fit smoothly into Eastern Euro- a ng ui s h than Duel in the Sun . It's a tio nal shifts in his spooked characters , pean Sad Sack social satire. The new Decalog sequence, ten one-hour fables he llzapoppin' gunfight festival. beaten people so wary of self-exposure for Polish TV that fret over the Ten Commandments and their problematic . Superstar C how Yun Fat, sporting a that they allow them selves only mini- Jaunty ca te rpillar mou stache, plays a malist flickers of res ponse. His comic glamorously embittered mob assassin effects hinge upon incongruities of who acc identa ll y blind s a frail torch scale; the teens yness of his characters' s in ge r while ca rr y in g out a farewell gestures undercuts the grandiose expec- tations of pop storyte lling. 70

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modern implications, is more distinc- the Thief.. encourages clinical rather bride\" from an Indian Ocean island tive: serious and straightforward, openly intellectual yet blessedly unfussy. Not all than aesthetic speculations. moves in with an old lady villager after the films are perfectly solid; at its most contrived, the series suggests a high- quitting her male chauvinist spouse. brow version of the Hitchhiker cable4'V show. But the writer-director is always I n Toronto even the low-down Mid- Best of all, Russian director Otar striving honorably. night Madness series is programmed loseliani's Et La Lumiere Fut is an Afri- seriously, with boldness and discrimina- can tribal comedy in which hut villagers Kieslowski told the Toronto crowd that he makes pictures \"as a way of talk- tion. (Noah Cowan is the credited resist encroaching white tree-fellers. ing about something:' and on film he's a gifted conversationalist. The stories feel genius.) Herk Harvey's neglected Mid- Fleeing townwards to join civilization intimate and straightforward; Kieslowski pursues a train of thought and shares western ghost dance Carnival of Souls, (\"Ssss!\"), they sell their rain gods as every wrinkle with the audience, incor- porating even the false starts and red and Dario Argento's baroque blood feast sidewalk souvenirs - an over-obvious herrings. The inconclusive open end- ings are a badge of rigor; only a fool Opera, are grade-A specimens of Outlaw didactic payoff to a delightful movie. believes he can answer these questions. Cinema. And a screening of Hideki The downside to harmonize-the- M ovies that push their premises to the limits of their implications, Takayama's animated Legend of the world cinema: it fosters that monster of that don't second-guess or protect them- selves, set a serious example even if res- Over-Fiend, a Japanese demon-teen our times, the co-production. How ervations linger. At a period of movie history in which caution reigns and pre- porno fantasy, actually broke new about a movie directed by Alain dictability is king, moderation is the last resort of scoundrels. ground: it was like nothing any gaijin Resnais, scripted by Jules Pfeiffer and Peter Greenaway is no scoundrel. audience had ever seen . starring Adolph Green and Gerard Despite his postmodern-effete fondness for symmetrical structures and abstract Over-Fiend was the last picture I saw Depardieu making mincemeat of each color coordination, he pulls out all the visceral stops in The Cook, the Thief, at the Festival of Festivals. As throbbing other's languages? We have it in I Want His Wife and Her Lover, picking up a thread and following it to the bitter end. penis-serpents the size of skyscrapers To Go Home: the tale of a Cleveland car- The Cook, the Thief.. could be inter- preted as a horror film about the depths ravished Tokyo, I thanked the lucky toonist (Green) who goes to France to of malice human beings can sink to. But it may not be that deliberate an enter- stars that led me to Toronto. be feted for his funny pages. Laugh? prise, except on the exquisite surface. The movie's strength is that for all its -DAVID CHUTE You're too busy wincing at the clumsi- persnickety embellishment it's finally just an eruption of bile, a cri du spleen. ness of Pfeiffer's Franglais dialogue. The central emotion is an alI-envel- GoNDOLA WIND You may prefer-but I doubt it-a oping disgust. The thief of the title, a movie made by a Dutch-Australian Cockney mobster played (with Shake- spearean relish) by Michael Gambon, is T director on a Dodecanese island with a vulgarity incarnate, bestial aggression his year Venice went green- mixed Greek-French-Australian-Indian untempered by any civilizing empathy. the festival catalogue with cast. In Paul Cox's Island, Irene Papas is In his sphere of influence, human flesh matching poster, the bunting the lifeforce heroine who befriends drug- is equated with, and systematically outside the Palazzo del Cinema, the addicted Aussie tourist Eva Sitta. Round reduced to, shit and slime and decay. As algae-infested Adriatic . Greenpeace's these two gather a crowd of polyglot the outrages escalate, viewers flee the new Ra.inbow Warrior II boat was on weirdos (artists, heroin-pushers, village auditorium in waves. (Miramax, which hand. It's a green world and the 46th idiots) speaking in what the Venice cata- Mostra del Cinema is doing its bit for logue called \"mistilingui:'-the shape of paid through the nose for the us rights, peace, the environment and world har- things to come perhaps, especially in a mony. should build its TV spots around world full of greenness, glasnost and grossed-out man-in-the-Iobby inter- Festival director Guglielmo Biraghi geo-political detente. views: \"The most revolting movie I've insisted when he came to power three ever seen:') Gabriel Axel's Christian (Denmark) years ago: no jingoism, please, we're a even implies a religious dimension to all Perhaps the hyper-controlled style global village. Films now enter Venice this. The eponymous teenage hero flees Greenaway has been developing has under their maker's name, not their juvenile prison for roamings and self-dis- finally reached the limits of its psychic country's. This year the Brotherhood-of- covery in France, Spain and Morocco. tensile strength, and has begun to crum- Man (-and-Woman) ethos has spread Stumbling through the desert, he's taken ble. The mixture of abstract form and through the festival like greenfly. Paul in by a friendly Berber tribe. This is desublimated raw content in The Cook, Cox's Island, Alain Tanner's La Femme inspirationally implausible. The smiling de Rose Hill, Gabriel Axel's Christian: Berbers invoke Allah, the smiling boy the· competition seethes with films in undergoes a Christ-like passion/redemp- which a group of irreconcilable people tion and a smiling Berber girl promises get together and, well, reconcile them- to be his bride. Even from the director selves. of Babette's Feast, this vision of a world The upside is the encouragement saved by hospitality-the Third World this gives filmmakers to sew ambitious offering bread and moral uplift to the sutures in the body geographic: finding First World-has an optimism verging the common humanity that spans or on the loony. synergizes different cultures. Hou Hsiao-Hsien's City of Sadness (Taiwan) I t takes Peter Greenaway to remind us is a Far-Eastern history lesson human- that food is as often a casus belli as a ized as the story of a family: postwar tur- means of peace. The Cook, the Thief, moil, as China and Japan struggle over His Wife and Her Lover is the Brit film- control of the island, is mirrored and maker's best yet. In a world trying to counterpointed in the lives of three Tai- green itself back into Eden, Greenaway wanese brothers. Tanner's La Femme de throws enough serpents into the sce- Rose Hill is a female bonding pic set in a nario to remind us that even when every Swiss Village in which an \"arranged prospect pleases , man is still around, 72

Victor Sjostrom: His Life and His International Film Guide 1989 The Screenwriter'S Guide (Second Work Peter Cowie, ed. The 26th edition Edition). Joseph Gi llis . For curren t Beng t Forslund of the world 's most respected film and wou ld-be sc reenwriters . here is This thorough biog raphy chronicles annual features reports from 60 an up-tO-date guide to film and televi- the life and work of Victor Sjostrom countries. This treasure for every film sion sales with valu able ti ps on how whose influence on Ingmar Bergman buff and filmmaker includes over 300 to present . market . and protect your and the Swedish screen and stage is photographs . \"The International Film work With an annotated list of over unparalleled . It is a history of the actor. Guide is about the best annual world 2100 producers . agents . distributors. the d irector and the man revealed survey there is,\" writes Derek Malcolm in and industry contacts in NY. Hoi· through interviews, analyses and The Guardian. 496 pp. Paper. $15.95. Iywood . Canada. and Europe Fea· excerpts from Sjostrom's own letters. - tures a new sect ion listing screenwrlt- 324 pp. Cloth. $24.95 . tributes ~~~~~~/~\\':~6~~~ k~l~ ft~~~~~ ing software plus an interView with a prominent screenwriter The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows (/{Msier SOVIET CINEMA NOW 160 pp Paper $9 .95 David Schwartz . Steve Ryan . Fred Wos tbrock This entertaining and fa ct· Who's Who in Amer1can Film Now filled reference feature s ove r 550 rare [Updated Edition] photographs and cove rs more than 450 James Monaco. ed Who did what . and shows Each listing includes a brief when . In recent Amer ican Cinema This history. hosts . announcers . celebrities . updated and reVised ed ition lists the show descriptions. chronology and lots key people who make movies today It of amuSing anecdotes and trivia features thousands of cast and c rew Introduction by Mark Goodson members from the past decade In 13 600 pp Cloth $39 95 separate categories - each an al - phabetical list of names with the title The laser Video Disc Companion: A and date of their film credits A running Guide to the Best (and Worst) laser commentary on today 's movies. thi s Video Discs Douglas Pratt. gUide IS an Invaluable resource for Features a complete listing of over 2000 lib raries . profeSSionals . film his torians American discs and a selective listing of and fans alike Il lustrated c600 pp 1900 Japanese discs released in the Cloth $3995 Paper $19.95 U.S. from 1979 to the present. Over 1200 films , music videos, imports, and Movies Made For Television : The Tele- JA.\\ttS MOMCO educational discs are reviewed for the feature and the Mini-Series, 1964-1986 quality of the finished transfer. Also [Updated Edition] Al Vin H Marlll Up· ~O'S included is a guide to forthcoming dated to Include entries from the '84· '85 CD-Videos. and '85· '86 seasons th iS giant volume :·I~~ 432 pp. Paper. $16.95. lis ts over 2000 telefeatures and mini · series Titles are listed In alphabetical ..SNQ louise Brooks: Portrait of and chrono logica l order. each Including an Anti-Star Roland Jaccard , ed . cast. production credi ts. plot synopsis. ,More Ihan IlOOO p\",pl. - 0,,, WOO mOVie' Translated by Gideon Y Schein . Louise release dates . and notes by the <luthor Brooks - the legendary actress who A comprehenSive com panion to television rebelled against the idolatry of Holly- vi ewing wood to preserve her independence and Illustrated 500 pp individuality. Illustrated with over 90 Cloth .$39 95 Paper $19.95 photographs. 160 pp. Paper. $19.95. ----------------- ------------~-------- A special 20% discount for Film Comment readers! o Please send the following books . o Please send me your free catalogue . Enc losed is the proper amoun t plus NAME _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ $1 .50 for postage ($2 .00 fo r cloth & ADD RE SS __________________ orders of 3 or more books) . Or call 1-800-CHAPLI N (in NY 212·420-0590) . Visa . MC. Amex accepted . Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ZI P_ _ __ NY resident s must add 8'/4% sales ta x. New York Zoetrope 838 Broadway Dept FC New York . NY 10003

vile to the last. movie is one of the masterpieces of the subjects from film to film . The mixture's In a crimson-colored restaurant thick Eighties. always fun and here's one old chum of O. Welles who does his own talented , un- with luxury, owned by roaring London Why it was n't in competition is a Welles ian thing. (No clips from The gangster Michael Gambon, across a mystery. Apparently, Sgr. Biraghi de- Merchant of Venice.) landscape of boar's heads , steaming ven- cided to limit him se lf to one British isons and rearing cornucopiae of fruit , entry (I thought we weren't bothering T he festival jury, starring the likes of Gambon's wife Helen Mirren and lonely, about flags or nation quotas) , and pre- Polish helmer Krzysztof bookish diner Alan Howard exchange ferred Peter Hall's She's Been Away. Kieslowski , Italian eyeful Mariangela looks and rendezvous in the 100. Will Melato and American Werewolf John Gambon-stupid, foulmouthed and God knows why. This dim little Landis , wrestled with many hours of deafening-suspect? If so, will the all- caper written by Stephen Poliakoff(Hid- celluloid , some of which should never seeing French chef (Richard Bohringer) den City) depicts the budding buddiness have been exposed in the labs, let alone protect this modern-day Adam and Eve between wacky frustrated socialite to an audience: Amos Gitai's Berlin- (who spend much of the movie in the Geraldine James and her in-law relative, Jerusalem , a stilted conscience-basher nude) from his wrath? ex-mental patient Peggy Ashcroft. Far about Jewi sh persecution and early from finding her a nuisance, Geraldine Zionism (ripe subject, rotten treatment); If yo u can form cogent questions like finds her a kindred spirit. Soon they ar~ Jean-Jacques Andrien's slumbrous Aus- this while watching the film , yo u're charging across England getting drunk, tralia, in which French-accented wool cooler than I. It took me two days to vandalizing hotels and having a whale of trader Jeremy Irons is torn between a recover from its unforeseen splendors. a time. good woman in Belgium (Fanny Ardant) Greenaway, whose movies never showed and his sheep down under; George much sympathy for realism, has finally The audience has a minnow of a Panassopoulos's M~gapas (Do You Love assassinated it here. The film sets up time, never believing a frame, thanks to Me ? (Greece), a string of soft-porn four zones of action , each with their Ms. James' overacting and Hall's direc- interludes masquerading as a dy ing own dominant , all-saturating co lor: red tion-by-cliche, (e.g. , the \"rich can't com- hedonist's memories; and Kei Kumai's for restaurant, green for kitchen , white municate\" scene of husband and wife Sen No Rikyu, detailing the mystical for bathroom , night-blue for the studio- sitting at opposite ends of a long dining rites of the Japanese tea ceremony. built street outside~ table.) There's also a deja vu factor- She's Been Away is Rain Man in drag. This last stars Toshiro Mifune as the This last is a stunning Fellinian Without Dustin Hoffman. (Needless to aging tea-master Rikyu, who commits caprice: steam, neon and prowling dogs. say, Ashcroft and James shared the Best hara-kiri just before the audience s,tarts The dogs throw vast shadows and bark approvingly whenever Gambon and his Actress prize: there's no reasoning with considering the idea. The film is two minions take a client outside and beat some juries.) hours long, deeply obscure and almost him up. They also gobble up the restau- wholly static. Set to music and re-titled rant scraps thrown out by perfectionist America herself, though she may not Everybody Comes to Rikyu, it might chef Bohringer. have offered movies about the mad, did have a chance. offer mad movies. Wendell B. Harris' In Greenaway's fable of a reverse Chameleon Street, a collection of narra- The only competition pic to win hur- Eden , God's a gangster, the serpent's a tive loose ends masq uerading as a com- rahs from nearly everyone was Ettore French tastebud-tempter, and Adam and edy, shows what happens if yo u try to Scola's Che Ora E? (What Time Is It?). Eve fall from sin into a kind of inno- make a Spike Lee film without being Scola is Italian cinema's Mr. Softee. cence. Hell laps at the garden gates, and Spike Lee. (Sometimes it doesn't even Whenever you hear the ice-cream jingle Heaven is in the forbidden luxuriance of work if you are Spike Lee.) And Oja come over the hill, you know it's another the Tree of Knowledge- not just the vis- Kodar's Jaded shows what happens if rueful , rollicking comedy from the direc- ible \"fruit\" of the feast , but also the you're a beautiful Yugoslavian who spent tor of Macaroni and Splendor. This one leaves from books: Howard , to Gam- the prime of her life as helpmeet to has Marcello Mastroianni and Massimo bon's disgust , reads as he dines , and the Orson Welles. You develop delusions of Troisi (both wonderful and joint winners couple's lovenest is a gilded Xanadu of genius. For your first feature yo u create of the Best Actor prize) as a semi- a crazy-quilt of sex, vio lence and Z- estranged father and sailor son sparring books. movie dialogue set in Venice, California. through a long day of knockabout, tears The movie's miracle is that it's neve r And yo u shove in five seconds of Wel- and classic paternal faux pas . All ends les's The Merchant of Venice to sho\"\" sweetly. There's a heraldic aptness about just an egghead director's parlor game. you have access to the Master's estate, if a two-handed Italian movie shot on a It's two hours of cinematic brainstorm- not to his talent. tiny budget in overcast weather in a one- ing. Epic tracking-shots drag us from horse location . The festival itself is fac- one color-coded thematic zone to Henry Jaglom's New Year's Day, ing lean times: budget gnawed at by another, powered by the mantric America's competition entry, was much inflation , its annual consignment of Hol- rhythms of Michael Nyman's music. better. This was known in Venice as The lywood celebs thinning and the later- H yperbole is unapologetic: the lovers Kook, the Thief, His Wife, Her Lover and-later start date, dictated by Venice flee in 'a truckful of worm-seething meat and Any Other Friend of Jaglom's Who hoteliers wanting to stretch the summer carcasses. And expressionist conjuring Turned Up On Set to Grab a Part. season, means we're shivering in our tricks are taken in joyous stride: Mirren's Guccis by final week. clothes change color chameleon-like At least there's a cogent mind ticking from zone to zone; a cook-choirboy's away inside the kookiness. Jaglom lies Will we be back next year? You icy-beautiful soprano burst s forth in back and thinks of Freud as the human betcha. inexplicable waves in the kitchen. contents of his sublet New York apart- ment spill their grief, lust, wit and hyste- -HARLAN KENNEDY Witty, sensual and intelligent, this ria . Jaglom hardl y needs to change 74

The 27th New York Film Festival is pleased to announce that this year's festival poster is designed by Jennifer Bartlett who has emerged as one of the major American artists of the 1980's. 27th NewYork Film Festival Presented b\\ The Film Societl September 22-0ctober 9, 1989' Alice Tully Hall nl I I nCOL1 CUllcr Based o n her 1987 \"Old Ho use La ne\" pastel se rie s, th e si lk -sc ree ned pos ter, w hich meas ures 28\" x 40\" features th ree w hite picket fe nces against a ga rd en backgrou nd . Th e la ndsca pe 's locatio n is o n Lo ng Island 's No rth Shore, w hich Bartle tt frequented durin g th at period . Th e signed, lim ited ed iti on is $75; a n un sig ned limited ed iti on poster $35 . Price includ es postage a nd han dl ing. All ow six weeks for de li very . I enclose $ fo r sig ned un sig ned Twe nty- seve nty New York Film Fes tiva l Poster Name Add ress Ci ty/S ta te Zip Da ytim e Ph o ne Mail co upo n, check o r m.o . paya bl e to: Th e Fi lm Society of Lin co ln Center, 140 Wes t 65th St ree t, New Yo rk , NY 10023 or use pos tage pa id e n ve lope in thi s magazin e .

Prince ofthe City by Armond White the strained facetiousness of Pee-wee's repressed hero (the glum Michael Playhouse and Moonlighting, movie Keaton) and the extravagantly malevo- B atman-this year's fait accompli and TV writers (like TV Batman's lent villain (that one-man Halloween and greatest disappointment- Lorenzo Semple, Jr. , who also rang party, Jack Nicholson) is dismally defeats what passes for criticism bi zarro changes on King Kong and ambivalent. Trapped into making a these days. As Tim Burton's Big One, its Sheena) took accurate measure of the statement , Burton confuses his own small , idiosyncratic touches (like the mass audience's fun threshold . Adam anarchic cartoonist's impulses. He's 3-D effect of the boxing glove punching West's Batman and Burt Ward's Robin done an expensive but dull tracing of the out a T V set) has won it the kind of blan- were law-and-order eggheads whose comic book's look. His narrative's only ket critical acceptance that was unthink- squareness enabled us to laugh at propri- witty sequence offers a doodler's guilty able 24 years ago when The Sound of ety while respecting it. pleasure as The Joker brings his goons Music was laughed at as the favorite hit into the Flugelheim Museum of Art and of the then Moral Majority. Batman is Twenty years later, the monied right- defaces the masterpieces on display. the same kind of mechanical, unoriginal wingers are vampiring freedom of This graffiti-spree, done to the tune of blockbuster. Everybody went, and it expression, and Burton's celebration of a \"Partyman: ' Prince's soundtrack contri- didn't mean a thing. moral watchdog tells a grisly sociological bution, creates wicked chaos. It's also an joke without knowing where to place the accurate expression of what Batman But batwings inscribed on T-shirts of punch line. The showdown between the does to its own potentially serious ideas, inner city kids and haircuts of suburban and what Eighties Hollywood typically wannabes was dreadful proof of corpo- does to the idea of art. rate Hollywood's triumph . Batman sub- sumed the once-subversive elements of I n his Partyman video, Prince goes comic books , and turned them into Offi- wild on Burton's lone subversive cial Culture-a baby boomer's booby moment . It's an apocalyptic screwball prize. This $35 million Warner Bros. farce in which director Albert Magnoli's franchise is a genuine Trump-like edi- camera swoops down on Prince's impish fice. It proved that with enough promo- pranks, as the Flugelheim's master of tion, arrogance and money you can revels . The video's mix of a hot, extem- force-feed the public anything-even a porizing funk band, the sycophantic baroque fantasy about a white million- masses and random vandalism adds up aire vigilante \"taking back the streets\" in to a big, self-reflexive raspberry with an the era of welfare hotels , unprecedented edge of antisocial threat. Prince's gloss homeless people, and the Howard on Burton evokes a surreal Jonestown, Beach, Bensonhurst and Central Park alarmingly demonstrating the dangers of outrages. life-imitates-art. Such evocative force was once the appeal of pop culture B ut, wait! What's that sign of hope (present in Burton's best film, the short buzzing through the airwaves , daz- Vincent, in which a little boy fears turn- zling your TV screen? It's Prince's set of ing into movie ghoul Vincent Price) . Batman music videos, startling the eye The remake of Invasion of the Body with delirious color, and thigh-high bat Snatchers made similarly eerie sense logos . These babies singe the ears of all when the film opened a few weeks after those standards-and-practices execs the Jonestown/San Francisco horrors of with Prince's did-I-hear-that-right? rally- 1978. ing cry: GET THE FUNK UP! Batman is too remote a corporate In Batdance, Prince, working in the enterprise to have that kind of power. always disreputable, scandalous form of Burton adds a few furbelows to make it rock and funk , reminds us of the impu- an eccentric corporate monument at dent, alternative imaginative world that best, although he never works with comics originally prese.nted . His pur- Anton Furst's extravagantly ExpressIon- posely tacky chorus chants \"Bat-man\" to istic set designs as effectively as Neil recall the 1965-67 ABC:rV series that, Jordan did in The Company of Wolves. with a bracing lack of seriousness , con- One of 1985's criminally neglected verted the comic book into giddy, pop- films, Wolves was a key expression of art trash. Somehow, back then, before genre semiotics. Jordan used the Angela 76

TWENTY-SIXTH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL This New York Film Festival poster is a I enclose $ for _ _ _ _ _ _ 26th New York bold graphic statement from the well-known Film Festival posters. designer, Milton Glaser. Silkscreened in five SIGNED UNSIGNED colors, Glaser's design harks back to the Art Deco era. Name The poster measures 30\"x45\", and is silk- Add ,ess screened on high-quality stock. It is suitable for framing. The signed, limited edition is $75; Ci tyt State lZi p an unsigned limited edition poster $35. Price includes postage and handling . Daytime Phone Please allow 6 weeks for delivery. Offer good in US only. Mail check or money order payable to : Film Society 01 lincoln Center, 140 West 65th St ., New York , NY 10023 . You may use postage-paid envelope in this magazine .

Carter story as the source of his own ing. By finding a human heart within trite smart, stylish psychological revisions, Each song on Batman is attributed to theatrics , Prince's Batman almost refusing to tell the compacted fairy tales redeems the obvious commercial calcu- straight because the ideas they connoted a character, so that the lyric sheet reads lation of the mass-market onslaught and were too arguable, and demanded subverts this system of cultural produc- rethinking and restructuring. The film like a script. Now, \"in character;' Prince tion that is virtually closed to black art- was a sensual , magical confrontation makes some of the most straightforward ists . Prince does more than supply with the legacy of fairy tales and what declarations of his career and demon- dance music, he makes a contribution to Bruno Bettelheim popularized as \"the strates a traditional , Rodgers and Ham- cinematic history, forging a film sensibil- uses of enchantment:' When Jordan sent merstein-type showbiz mastery. But ity while working on the margins of the the head of Red Riding Hood's grand- what makes the songs art is their emo- movie industry-a rock bio-pic, music mother flying across the cottage to tional detail. The finest track on Batman videos and the superb concert film Sign smash against the wall as a porcelain is \"Vicki Waiting,\" in which Bruce 0' the Times. doll's, he may have surpassed mass audi- Wayne admits his \"animal-like persist- ence comprehension but he brilliantly ence\" in keeping his identity secret from Batman refines the concept album captured the adult imagination and the the woman he's attracted to. It makes a that Prince innovated in 1986 with modernist regard of pop culture. mental battle of lust, a song about self- Parade, featuring music from his film ishness that actually expresses insecu- Under the Cherry Moon, and written a By hooking into the awesomely effec- rity and self-torment: ''Talk of children full year before the film was made. tive hype mechanism of Batman, that's still frightens me/Is my character Plainly, Cherry Moon's failure was due to what Prince and his Purple Rain direc- enough to be/One that deserves a copy Prince's inexperience as a filmmaker. tor, Magnoli , have the freedom to do. made/This lone day hope to see.\" But in programming Parade, the musi- Prince has remade Burton's film into an Nothing in the movie cuts so poignantly, cian devised segues and aural effects album and videos that vivify hidden or with such sophistication. that suggested a movie without pictures. ideas about sex, psychology and social But while Parade salvaged Cherry behavior. On the album , dialogue by Moon , Batman outclasses the movie it's Nicholson, Keaton and Kim Basinger supposed to represent. gets sampled into the ultimate act of pop-art appropriation, stripping away The Warner Bros. film is the type of dramatic narrative structure and discard- overweaning product that requires a ing the convoluted visual style. (By con- more challenging version be made and trast, Burton's gothic renderings are a Prince's Batdance and Partyman videos decadent outgrowth of useless social joyfully defy the easy comprehension of cynicism, like the malaise at the heart of most commercial art. Half avant-garde, the current comic book renaissance.) half rock-extravaganza, these videos (a The result is more schematic than the third is being planned , according to film but also funnier, more probing and Propaganda Films producer Scott Flor) intense. allow Prince the personal expression Tim Burton couldn't risk. Prince plays Prince gives a clearer understanding himself and a character called Gemini, of the psychic battle between Bruce who embodies the antimonies of moral- Wayne (Batman) and The Joker and, ity (good/evil), race (black/white) and with tongue in cheek, takes comic book sex (androgyny)-the preoccupations hyperbole into the realm of moral conse- that have distinguished Prince's music. quence. This is nothing new for pop music artists whose creative terrain is These dual roles acknowledge flashy, trashy and romantic to begin Prince's awareness of participating in the with, but it allows a sincere, unfettered Batman enterprise and suggest that he expression of private, perhaps not understands the material better than socially acceptable, feeling. Like Prince's anyone else. The Batman-Joker antago- other music , Batman takes place in the nism is danced out by two costumed land of id. choruses and reflected in Gemini's own schizophrenic personality-makeup-and- On last year's Lovesexy LP, Prince costume split. turned this dilemma into a frankly absurd theology that posited a cartoon- It's all a good sign that Prince's cine- ish redemption through sex. But the matic vision emerges more fully with gothic science fiction of Batman's prem- each of his movie-concept albums and ise brings Prince somewhat down to music videos. And it's further proof of earth so that he can enunciate his famil- the edge music and video culture have iar themes more precisely: \" 1999' ''s taken over movies. When Prince sings apocalypse is recalled in \"The Future;' about the \"systematic overthrow of the and \"Electric Chair\" becomes a throne underclass/Hollywood conjures images of judgement as symbolized by the ear- of the past\" in \"The Future,\" he lier song ''The Cross.\" These differences describes first, the effect, and then, the reflect a changed tone in Prince's life method, of the oppressive Hollywood view ; here it's more existential than institution. The future he prophesies eschatalogical. The variation is refresh- envISIons his own control of that sys- tem. ~ 78 1

Dea r Edi to r, locatio n in Ke ntu cky, but I am the o nly th e RKO programme rs li ke the lovely Your inte rview with Spike Lee o n Do principal in the film who is actu all y a vet Chatterbox -but what buff wo rth his sa lt (a snap shot of me at 19 in Da N ang wouldn't prefer a 35 mm th eatr ica l show- the Right Thing (August, 1989) is one of ope ns th e vete rans' dance seq ue nce, and ing, if given th e alte rn ative? the more th oughtful comme ntaries we have read o n this complex and co ntro- the camo ufl age jac ke t r wear in the film - Eric Chadbourne versial movie. Yet reviewers ofte n claim is the o ne I wo re in Nam). r do n't mean New York C ity that the film projects an ambiguo us mes- sage o n th e iss ue of v io le nce. T hey to boast, but be ing a Vietnam vet and RT J replies: incorrectl y counterpose the q uotatio ns bei ng in thi s particul ar moti on picture \" . .. if given the alternative\": precisely. by Martin Luther King and Malco lm X are ite ms of extre me prid e w ith me. and ass ume that Moo kie mu st choose Th ank yo u fo r an in sightful article. Writing from th e Capital of Earth , C had- between the m . T hese messages are, in b o urn e fo rgets th at th e re a re o th e r fact, co mpl e me ntary not mutu ally exclu- -Jim Beaver places o n it , few of th e m b lessed with a sive. S miley's photograph shows the m Va n N uys, Californi a repe rtory and arc hi val scene like New standing together. York's . Everything he says is true. It is Edi to r: also bes ide just abo ut every po int my In p artic ul ar, Moo ki e's dec is io n to To be as kind as p oss ibl e -fo r article raised . throw the garbage ca n through Sal's win- dow in respo nse to the police murde r of Richard Jameso n to represe nt him self as As to th e rest, Jameso n was 44 whe n Radio Raheem has been described as an an archivist un covering rarities o n the he wrote the article, and coming fro m irrational and destru ctive act of viole nce. Turner Network is outrageous! H ow old Seattle. He never did \"represent him self In fact, he re's where Moo kie does \"the is Jameso n , a nd where is he co min g as an archivest\" -just an old-mov ie fan right thing:' In the heat of outrage, he fr o m ? Wh e n I m oved to New Yo rk with lots to be happy about. H e is also focuses the collecti ve anger again st th e twelve years ago, a whole gene ration of happy M r. C hadb ourn e was bei ng as pizzeri a; at prope rty not peo pl e. Th e film buffs ahead of me had already seen kind as poss ible. destru cti o n of the pizzeri a s imultane- most of the earl y Thirties Warne r Bros. ously protects Sal and his so ns as we ll as film s and co nstantly raved about the m . WE LOCATE AND OBTAIN the community from be ing diminished They have always been around somehow ANY OBSCURE OR by co mmitting an act of personal vio- - at the earlies t film soc ie ties and library lence. Moo kie's meeting with Sal over show ings, at rev iva l ho uses, at mu se- HARD-TO-FIND PRE-1970 th e as hes the next morning refl ects a um s, and especially at W illi am K. Ever- FILMS ON VIDEO TAPE. mutu al, albe it te nse and inco mpl e te, so n's New School screenings. Everso n is recognition of the ir joined li ves. still go ing strong, jumping the gun on We're expensive, but we're very good. Turn e r la st summ e r by rev ivin g th e Spike Lee refus es to \"co mple te\" the neglected Friends of Mr. Sweeney. 5 Searches $5 & SASE film for us. We are forced to co nfro nt the poss ibilities for social and political ac- I am glad Jameso n is e nj oyi ng these VIDEO FINDERS tion . W he n Lee challe nges us to do the film s, I'm glad Turner is making th e m right thing, it is not a cy nica l appeal for available across the country, but they've P.O. Box 4351, Dept. FC the imposs ible but rath er, a demand that been around for years! Safe in Hell , Star Los Angeles, CA 90078 we find ways to achieve the poss ib le. Witness , Love is a Racket, Hard to Han- dle, Employees Entrance, have all had STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, Paul Mishler and Geraldine Casey theatrica l showings - and not thei r first New York C ity -in New York within the past fi ve years. AND CIRCULATION (Act of Augu st 12, 1970: W hy is Jameso n so anxio us for a TV Editor: showing of Prizefighter and the Lady Section 3685 . Title 39. United States Code) 1.lille of In hi s article on the filmin g of Nor- whe n the Biograph un spoo led a 35 mm print in its Spring '88 Myrn a L oy series? publ ical ion Film C o mment 2. dale of fi ling October 1, man Jew iso n's In Country, Jay Sco tt (Everso n had shown it te n years before.) makes me ntion of Vietnam grunts usi ng As to Dynamite o nl y being avail able on 1989 3. frequ ency of i\" ue bimonthly 4. localion of knOW Il the term \"in country\" to describe be ing TNT, the Mu seum of the Moving Im age sent into the bu sh. In reality, \"in coun- in As tori a ju st un spoo led a bea utiful offia of publicalion 140 West 65th St. , New York, NY try\" was a way of saying \"in Vie tn am ;' 35 mm print in its co mpre he n s ive not \"in the jungle:' One heard the phrase D eM ille series. 10023 S. localion of Ih e headquarle\" orge neral bu,iness offim freque ntly, even in the rear areas, and a grunt might eas il y say, \" I've bee n in It is series like these that F ILM COM- of Ih e publi'h\", 140 West 65th St. , Ne w York, NY country e ight mo nth s, but I've o nl y MENT should be covering-not TV pro- bee n in the bush a ,\\leek:' gramming ! T he re are still mu se um s, 10023 6 . lla\", ,, and address\" of publi,her, edilor and bu, iness film soc ie ti es and rev iva l th ea te rs, As a Vie tnam vet, I have reaso n to th o ugh one in lower M anh attan is so manager: publi'her Joanne Koch , 140 West 65th St ., know. I also happe n to have a co-starring poorly run it seems a co nspiracy to keep role in In Country. As Scott points out , people home. New York, NY 10023 rdilo\" Harlan Jacobson, Richard many vete rans were hired in bit parts on Yes, th ere are film s o n TNT th at are Corliss, 140 West 65th St., New York, NY 10023 neve r rev ived th eatri call y-the gritty earl y T hirties MGM Stage Mother and bu,in,ss manager Doris Fellerman , 140 West 65th St., New York, NY 10023 7. oWller The Film Societ y of lincoln Center, 140 West 65th St., Ne w York, NY 10023 8. know ll bondh olde\" . morlagagrs . and olher securily holde\" owni ng or holding 1 ptr<rrll or more of lolaI amounl of bond,. morlgagrs. or olher securilirs no ne 9. Ihe purpose. funclion and Il on · profil , Ialu, of Ih i, organiUl lion and Ihe exempl , Ialu, fo r Federal income la x purpose, has not changed during the preceding 12 month s. 10. exlenl and nalure of circulalion: acluaillumber of copirs of , ingle issue published neam llo fi ling dale .~ avrragr number of copi,s tQ(II issul' during prmding 11. montlrs A total numb,r of copit's printl'd (n\" pr rss run ) 40 ,900 39.178 B. paid circufa/ion 1. salts through dtafrrs arid 9,5 17 9.657 carrirr5. 5I rr,' umdor5. nnd counltr 5af,s 20.449 19.307 2. rnaif 5ubsrriptiotl5 29.966 28,964 C. lolaf paid circultl lioll 500 500 D. {rrr dist ribution by mnif. 30.466 29,464 cnrrirr or olh,r mfall5-sampl,s. 977 786 corn pfimtrrltlry nnd olhtr {rtf copi,s 9,457 8 .928 E. lotaf lli5/ributiOlI (sum of C arId DJ 40.900 39,178 F, copir5 1101 dislribulrd 1. olfirr Ust , t,ft-oDfr, unnrcou rl/rd, spoill'd nflt r pri/lling 2, rt'/ urtIS {rom nt'W5 agtll /5 C, toln/ (s um of E and F)(5hou/d tqual IIfl prl'ss rUtl 5hOWII ;'1 AJ 11. J Ctr/ify thallht s/altmrnl5 madt by mt aborr art corrt(l and comp/tlt. (, ig\"edl Dori, F. I/mn an Business Mntlngrr

CONTRIBUTORS Quiz #40: Anywhere, US.A. Jack Barth is the well-known wag. Sheila Benson is film critic for the Los G otham ... Metropolis ...Wistful Vista 23 . New Prospect, Okla. Angeles Times. David Chute lives in .. .Monticello.... What seductive 24. Newport Harbor, Cal. L.A. and writes on fIlm.Trey Ellis, nov- cathode memories those town name 25. Nichols, Ariz. elist and screenwriter, is the author of evoke. Never existed? Who says? Well, 26. North Fork, N.M. Platitudes, published by Vintage Con- the Atlas, for one, but that doesn't stop 27. Nowhere, Cal. temporaries . Graham Fuller is film and us from asking you to identify the TV 28. Ocean Grove, Cal. theater editor at Elle. Mike Golden is a shows set in the pretty much mythical 29. Pearl River, N.Y. writer, filmmaker and editor/publisher of towns listed. here. The usual reference 30. Phippsboro Smokesignals. Richard Jameson is film works should be helpful. Send your list 31. Renfrew, N.H. critic for 7 Days . Lisa Katzman is a by December 18 to Film Comment 32. River Heights, N.Y. freelance journalist and teaches writing Quiz #40, 140 West 65th Street, New 33. San Pascal at NYU. Gregg Kilday is an L.A.-based York, N.Y. 10023 , and if it meets our 34. San Remo writer who covers the motion picture high standards we'll send you a free year 35. Sandy Harbor business. Bruce Kirkland writes on of the magazine. Now just before you 36. Sea Cliff, Cal. film for the Toronto Sun. Leonard start, tell us : where was Hill Street Blues 37. Springfield Klady is an L.A.-based ftlm journalist. set, anyway? 38. Sunrise, Colo. Bill Landis and Victoria Ford report 39. Virginia City, Nev. on ftlm from New York. Greil Marcus' 1. Big Town 40. Woodland Oaks, Cal. latest book is Lipstick Traces. Everett 2. Bigtown Mattlin is a contributing editor to Insti- 3. Birchfield, Cal. PHOlDCREDITS tutional Investor. Maitland McDonagh 4. Buckskin, Mont. Caldwell and Co.: p. 49(2) . Cinephile: p. 28 . writes on ftlm, \"the outlaw genres.\" 5. Calverton Courtesy Jeff Corey: p. 42. Courtesy Sonny Jimmy McDonough has been working 6. Cameron, Cal. Carl Davis: p. 36(2). Film Society of Lincoln on a biography of Andy Milligan for the 7. Central City Center: p. 8, 17, 18, 22, 25 , 32, 33, 35(1,3) , past six years. Patrick McGilligan's 8. Clinton Corners, Ga. 36(3,4), 50(3), 57(2), 58, 59. By Brian biography of Robert Altman is available 9. Eastfield, Wis. Hamill: p. 11, 12, 15 , 56(1). By Harlan Jacob- from St. Martin's Press. Harry 10. Easy Valley, Cal. son: p. 16(1,2). 1. Katz photography : p. 76 Medved, co-author of the Golden Tur- 11. Forest Heights (1,2,3), 78(1,2) Courtesy Bill Landis: p. 54. key Awards and associate editor of Screen 12. Fort Baxter, Kan. Courtesy Maitland McDonagh: p. 57(1) Actor magazine, is working on his fifth 13. Fort Courage Courtesy Jimmy McDonough: p. 55(1,2,3). book on the entertainment industry. Mar- 14. Georgetown, Col. Courtesy Harry Medved: p. 56(4). By Alison cia Pally lives in New York and writes 15. Grove Falls, U.S.A. Morley: p. 38. Movie Star News: p. 36(1), 16. Hilldale 48(3), 49(3), 50(2), 52(1), 55(4) , 62, 63, 64. on the arts. Howard A. Rodman has 17. Hillsdale By Terry O'Neill: p. 60, Orion Pictures: p. 18. Hooterville 44(3), 46, 48(2). Paramount: p. 44(1) . just adapted for the screen Jim Thomp- 19. Jubilee Samuel Goldwyn Co.: p. 2, 6. 20th-Century son's novel South of Heaven. Jonathan 20. Mayberry, N.C. Fox: p. 34. Tri Star: p. 51, 56(2) . Zeitgeist Rosenbaum is film critic for the Chi- 21. Millsburg Films: p. 27(1,2),29. cago Reader. Jay Scott is film critic for 22. Mockingbird Heights the Toronto Globe and Mail. David Sterritt is ftlm critic for the Christian Pin· Ups • Portraits • Posters • Physique Science Monitor. Amy Taubin is a regu- Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • lar contributor on film and TV to the Science fiction • Musicals • Color Photos • Village J1Jice and is producer of a fiction 80 Years of Scenes From Motion Pictures feature, Spitting Glass, for Channel 4 in Britain. David Thomson's new novel, Rush $2 .00 FOR OUR ILLUSTRATED BROCHURE Silver Light, will be published by Knopf in 1990. Beverly Walker is a screen- 134 WEST 18th STREET, DEPT. Fe writer and journalist based in L.A. NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011 Armond White writes for New York's (212) 620-8160·61 City Sun. STAR PHOTOS· MOVIE POSTERS· MAGAZINES #1 MOVIE SALE FILM BOOKS:FINE,RARE & OUT-OF-PRINT fREE CATALOG AND SHOW IN U.S.A. - COLLECTIBLES SEND 75 CENTS IN STAMPS \"\"Hft Y OHI.11...(.£R ·...., Jon. 6 & 7 Pasadena Center-March 24 & 25 Glendale FOR LISTS TO:CINEMAGE June 2 & 3 Pasadena Center-Sept. 22 & 23 Glendale BOOKS 105 N.27TH ST. ~un' ll! ~1\"Tl!llI .\"L STOR!!:, In~. N.Y. N.Y. 10001 For info send SASE ;)oug Wright Box 69308 242 W.. 14tb Street West Hollywood, CA 90069 (213) 656·1266 New York. N.Y. 10011 (2121 989-0869 aPE. (l'Eat DAY I:DO-l:aa,m In.n.... 'ID ntl IVEIUE 'ID. SUI•• , W. 14ft SUln STar 80

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