VOLUME 22 - NUMBER 01 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1986

perfectly. Zanussi is also a man inventing on his offer, but has a stroke just as she's plastic. worlds for himself, in his mind and in his I'm afraid of the ingenuous idealism of cinema, where ethical dilemmas are: leaving for the airport. The film eulogizes: explored. Societies under glass. Rapt, he: the young because they may fall into peers down and lusts to get in. no group or person, no matter how despair when they see the compromises and injustices of the world. Idealism can Komorowska, by comparison, is expan- quashed, can allow themselves to accept breed cynicism and despair. You have to be sive. She speaks hurriedly and heatedly, in vaccinated against them. Art may be a Polish, which Zanussi translates. But defeat and pass up a chance at freedom. vaccination. If I present you with a frustrated by the language barrier, she situation more difficult than your own, you breaks into French. Though neither of us (Vive Solidarity.) But I'm not sure we are confronted with a test. Then you have is fluent, we understand more. This sort of the memory of the confrontation -like inexplicable communication is at the needed the epilogue to get the point. antibodies in the body. This is why I make center of A lear ofthe Quiet Sun. films about difficult situations. Art is a Without the moralizing finale - Zanussi vaccine against cynicism in defense of Painting by a deserted road one after- preserving idealism. noon, Emilia meets Norman (Scott included in Ways of the Night a similarly Wilson), a 40-ish American soldier who Are you or other East European artists spent the war in a German POW camp and didactic coda - Quiet Sun is poignant and who stand outside the Ui'st able to see it in 1946 is in Poland to testify at a war more clearly and criticize it more crimes commission. They fall in love, or raw. It takes on the tones of La Boheme insightfully? rather Norman falls in love with Emilia and she struggles to remember there is such a and conveys its maxims subtly, through But it's erroneous to call Poland part of thing. In time, he awakens her emotions Eastern Europe. Poland is the center of and trust, and tries to persuade her to the mysterious shifting puzzle of human Europe and belongs to the Western cross the border illegally and marry him in tradition. We're in the Eastern bloc, but a America. \"I know farming;' Norman says hope and despair. - M.P. nation's culture and mentality don't change in a rural aw-shucks manner that is nearly in 40 years. Pragmatic materialism devel- choked by the desperation of the please- Y our films, whether set in Poland or oped in the West. The spirit of the East, of come-home-with-me moment and by the the Ui'st, focus on confinement, Greece, of Russia, is more mystical. It's sadism and suffering that those simple political or social. .. where spiritual thinking has been pre- homesteading eyes have seen. served - mystery, the importance of col- I am interested in these cases when the lectivity and congregation. Since the He says it and she gets it, though individual is trapped and is fighting against Renaissance, the West has concentrated neither speaks the other's language. In it. I have to admit I see almost no way out. on the individual. Ritual and metaphor in fact, the entire courtship develops this There's nothing specifically biographical language are more prominent in the East, way. Twice they try to use interpreters, but about A Quiet Sun except the climate of and the mystical sense of authority is still the translations are always hilariously and the postwar Stalinist period. When I was very strong. The one who speaks ex sometimes purposely wrong. And though young I learned foreign languages, but I cathedra is right not because of who he is neither Emilia nor Norman could possibly was afraid I'd never use them. I believed I'd but because of the position from which he know their messages have been botched, be locked up forever. I am afraid now that speaks. In the West, people speak for the brush their translators away both it'll happen to me, that I'll be trapped. So I themselves. times. They love and argue by them- examine the condition. selves. Poland's point of view is based on When we face failure in terms of the Western values and Roman law, not Zanussi's camera is expressive and world - trapped in spite of merit or effort, Byzantine law. We have a Renaissance romantic. Passion and intensity shimmer without money or prestige - we try to behind us, unlike Bulgaria, Rumania, or in the frame, whether he's shooting an think of spiritual or ethical values that Russia. This makes Polish optics com- alienated Polish bourgeois or the devasta- allow us to find some success and make plex: we have an Eastern political experi- tion of World War II. In A lear ofthe Quiet sense of life. We try to maintain integrity, ence but a Western heritage. Sun, he catches the absence that follows to find peace in poverty or to think of ruin - the absence of commerce, traffic, or ourselves victorious even in prison or the What's your current arrangement with street life, and the cold shadowy empti- hospital. Because freedom in my country your government about work and travel? ness of bombed out blocks. In this film, is limited by your standards, we try to the occasional bit of sun or gathering of think of it in another way. I'm interested in My salary and position are in Poland, neighbors on a bread line seems too bright freedom as a process of making conscious though most of the time I travel and work for the usually vacant cobblestone choices. abroad. I haven't been obstructed. I streets - too festive for the buildings, definitely keep a long distance from the crumbling at their foundations like lame Are these values compensatory? government and its ideology, but I'm a horses kneeling. In this setting, Emilia and No, no. These are the real values. The moderate man and I express my criticisms Norman attempt to imagine a future, but rest is appearance. of some of the government's doings in a ultimately Emilia fails. Spiritually This is not an American experience. civilized way. I preach moderation, not exhausted, she cannot bolt. You deal with situations where the hatred. We have a new phenomenon in our individual does get out. He is intelligent part of Europe: where some artists A lear of the Quiet Sun ends with an enough, or brave enough, or he shoots his continue to work without being forced to epilogue. In 1964 an aging Emilia is living way out. Maybe it's because of the youth of endorse the official line of the govern- in a convent-run home for the elderly your continent. And in America, the ment. when she receives money to go to opportunities to choose ethically are less America. This time she takes Norman up contrasted, less clear. The rich West is And, Maja, your standing with the living in a deeper moral confusion. There's government? a great leniency, and everyone feels excused because there are so many ways Let me turn this light around. I want to to go that seem right and good. But accumulating small compromises ruins one's integrity quite successfully. And there's more invitation for compromise in the West, though no one is forced to compromise. In the West there's a way for hypocrisy, to take yourself as honest and just when you're not, because life is more 50

see your eyes. [KOmorowska\\ : In a period of turmoil like we've had in Poland, it's easy to lose When martial law was imposed in one's balance. But we try to keep a balance between what we protest and what we Poland four years ago, I withdrew from construct. We must keep the distinction between hating things and being tolerant acting for two years to work with the of people, though they're wrong. They're human. The period of Solidarity and committee to help the detainees. I felt I martial law is a spiritual exercise for the nation. It confirms my conviction that was needed less as an actress and more as without balance we develop hatred, and hatred is not a weapon that destroys the a human being who could use her renown enemy. It destroys the self. to help those in detention. I traveled from It was very important for me to work in a hospital when I was young because very prison to places of detention with food and quickly it gave me the dimension , the perspective, that suffering brings. When medicine. I think I've completed that now. you see people dying, you understand you must be faithful to what you believe is Though there are more people in jail good. It is its own reward ..It is dangerous to do what people expect, to give your ear today, they're prisoners, not detainees. to the popular moment, to do what will be immediately applauded. This is difficult Their families are in a better position to for an actress to remember. Being in the theater invites you to indulge egocen- help them. I feel I now have the moral trism - such concentration on your own ego. If you remember the problems of right to represent my profession, to take others, it preserves balance. It preserves moral sanity. care of my work. Has Quiet Sun been released in It isn't easy to work and travel, but I was Poland? granted permission for this trip and I'm [Zanussi\\: It was just released, but with limited distribution and severe criticism, glad to get it. Deference and politesse. so the run was very poor. [Here a vigorous discussion broke out in How does that make you feel? Polish between Zanussi and Komorowska. I'm bitter about it, but I'Ll live with it. There are quite a few things I'm bitter It ended with Komorowska bypassing about. [KOmorowskaJ: The ftlm was with- Zanussi and having a go on her own in drawn from the Academy Awards, and I was deeply criticized. But one has to be French.\\ just: the fact that the government sent me here has to be recognized. [KOmorowska\\: I don't know American How tight is the tightrope you're on? [Zanussi\\: You know how tight it is only and I'm not political and I don't know how after you fall off. We're brought up with a great respect for to say what I want. Krzysztof keeps telling the word. I talk with great care as though in a court of law - and you know how me to stop because he thinks you won't lawyers talk. I measure my words because I know I must stand behind what 1 say- understand. especially if it's controversial. For exam- ple: people say there was a coup d'etat in [Zanussi\\: No, it's not that. There is a Poland. But I say it was an imposition of small juridical difference between detai- martial law. This I may say. But if you say Poland has a military government, I say nees and prisoners, but it's not worth the no. According to the constitution, this is a civilian government, even though there time to explain here. are many military men in it. For every trip, Maja needs permission What you see in Maja is the desire to be fair, however much we are in conflict with to leave Poland. She has permission for the government. The government allowed us to come here. We should not play this trip. That's what can be said about it. victims.~ It does not mean she won't have permis- sion for another trip. It's simple to say she needs permission for each trip. Her skittering eyes. In 1984, you were reluctant to criticize or judge Generallaruzelski, saying he successful apartheid. But put that In was a complex man and that \"we will quotes; it is tactless. probably never know what options he Whas... I will give him a chance-that is hat prospects do you see for Polish culture? my choice-that he will surprise us positively one day.\" Have you changed [Zanussi\\: We have to go through a your mind? difficult time, but it may be a period of [Zanussi\\: My opinion hasn't changed, deep fermentation of values, which is very but I'm more and more disappointed. My fruitful for culture. In Poland we know the attempts to draw a moderate line have visions of the last 20 years are over. We been rebuffed by the government. I've have no illusions about the West or about been severely attacked and criticized. So I our system. So maybe we're well-posi- see I'm not welcome with my moderation. . tioned to think about new ideas. Maybe But I won't change my opinion and won't not. condemn the government on moral During Solidarity we thought mostly grounds-just as my protagonist Emilia is about the importance of work as a creative unwilling to judge others. action of the individual. The process of But I'm deeply disappointed on political work is more important than the product, grounds. I don't see increasing conciliation and should be its ultimate value. In but increasing divisions between the America the feeling is that product is most ruling elite, which isolates itself from important, and you export the worst work. society, and many of the people, who are You have lines of Koreans working for you. isolated from the ruling elite. We have a This is a worldwide problem: who should nasty joke in Poland that it is a country of do the worst work. 51

Good Countryman by Marlaine Glicksman Jasny today. opportunity to express himself visually: a still camera. Then, at the gymnasium \"I was at the railway station. It was such describes with equal passion the Turkish where Jasny attended classes, he began a foggy morning, and dark, and father coffee he is making in his Yugoslavian making amateur films. And for Jasny, (with his workers) was transporting these coffeepot - his dzezva - and his first \"This was love. This was my love:' At 14, trees in wagons. He was a teacher, a school major American undertaking, a documen- Vojtech Jasny decided to become a director, before he retired . His great love tary on Milos Forman. Forman was later director. was nature - trees and bees - and he made one of Jasny's successors (along with this business with trees and bees. A director Ivan Passer) at FAMU (Filmova But with the start of World War II, his beekeeper. And on the day he was fakulta Akademie muzickych umenQ in filmmaking was interrupted by several transporting these trees, I was going to Prague, for whom Jasny acted as supervi- years spent in forced labor in a German school, and I thought, 'I have to say good- sor on Black Peter and Loves ofa Blonde. artillery factory. \"It was a big Czech bye to him: And I came there and I said, factory, but the Germans took it and 'Father, I will tell you only bye, bye: And Jasny's documentary on Forman will be manufactured their weapons. I was sent then I jumped on the train and he said, produced by Susan Lacy for the second from this factory to dig trenches against \"That was nice of you: And I never saw season of the upcoming PBS 'l\\merican tanks-Soviet tanks. I produced maps of him more. That day, the Gestapo came Masters\" series to air in 1987. \"I will shoot the trenches with these former Czech and took him. They threw books on the it as it happens. I will show him teaching. I officers - they knew how to do it - and floor. They wrecked everything. They will stay with him from morning till night brought these maps to the woods, to the came at the moment when he was giving with the camera and show him working, Soviet, Czech, and Moravian partisans food to his canary, and he could not more what he is doing, his personal life, fighting against the Germans in the East. I close the door of the cage. everything. I will do it with the tension of a was 19. Then the Soviet tanks came, feature. Not statements. It will be a life based on my maps and they knew exactly \"Coming home, I met farmers bringing dialogue:' how to come and overcome:' sugar root to the railway station. And one of the farmers walking with his horses said In his apartment in Morningside After the war, Jasny went to Prague to without stopping, 'Vojtech, your father is Heights , Jasny looks no different than his study philosophy, the Russian language, no more: I said, 'He died?' He said, 'No. pictures taken 20 years ago. His past is and esthetics. \"It was a happy time, in Gestapo took him : And he walked away everywhere present: the walls wrapped Prague;' Jasny reminisces . In February because he was scared of saying too much with a collection of old family photos and 1946, he took the exams for the brand- with the Germans. I stopped and watched art given him by old friends and collabora- new FAMU, one of a thousand applicants, him. Then I came home. tors, the dzezva in the kitchen, the old and was one of 40 selected. At FAMU (part books in the library and the collection of of the Academy of Music and Art), Jasny \"Normally my dog would come. This pipes. It is as difficult to separate Jasny received practical training in directing time, he came, but he was very sad. He past from Jasny present, as it is to draw a cinematography, and photography with walked me home, and I knew this dog is line between Jasny and his work. Because Bela Balazs, Cesare Zavattini, and Vittorio sad because he felt that father is away. I into his films, Jasny has not only poured De Sica. came into the yard- it had a big tree-and himself, but his past, his beliefs, and his my cat jumped on my shoulder. Then I heart. In 1950, Jasny made The Clouds Will heard Mama crying in the kitchen. Other Roll Away (Neni stale zamraceno) in women were sitting with her. I came and Jasny was born in 1925. As a young boy, collaboration with fellow student Karel only watched her. And mother said only his first artistic endeavor was playing Kachyna. Co-written with another FAMU these words, 'They took him: Then I the violin. Later, his father gave him the student, Frantisek (Frank) Daniel, now came in the living room and I saw the mess co-chairman of Columbia University film they made, this Gestapo. And at exactly division, Clouds was made without sound this moment, the canary flew from the and shot in 35mm. A semi-documentary cage and my cat jumped up and killed it. about a farm in the former German- And I knew father will never come back. occupied Sudetenland, the film limns the That was my feeling. It was October 1941. struggles of farmers with the harsh land, ' Father died in Auschwitz in March 1942:' and within themselves. Clouds , a big success, strongly diverged from the then V ojtech Jasny, ''The Father of Czech prevailing style of Soviet Realism, and New Wave Cinema;' was almost 16 crystallized a new aesthetic in Czech post- years old when the Gestapo took his father war cinema. Says Jasny proudly, \"I was 23 from his home and birthplace, Kelc, years old, and this was my first feature:' Moravia, Czechoslovakia. Now 60 years old and visiting adjunct professor in No sooner had the film been hailed Columbia University's film division, Jasny however, than it vanished. Jasny and Kachyna spent the next six years making documentaries for the army studio. (The two would make one more feature 52

Lights and working with long le nses to compress space and separate the colors. Cassandra Cqt won the Special Jury Award in Ca nnes in 1963. All My Good Countrymen. J asny speaks slowly and lyricall y, much like his films speak to us. Very much the together, It Will All Be Over Tonight home to visit Maminka, mother and son \"spiritual father;' as Forman once called [Dnes vecer vsechno skonci] in 1954.} In spend a quiet evening at home drinking him , for his fellow filmmakers , students, 1956, Jasny left Czechoslovak Army Film tea, playing the piano. Soon it comes time casts, and crews, Jasny breeds a sense of \"to work on the stories of life;' That year for the son to leave, and as the mother trust, of personal interest, and caretaking. he completed September Nights (ZiLfi- waves good-bye the camera retreats; this is The results are especially apparent in hi s jove nod), based on a comedy by Pavel the last time he will see her. She soon falls third film, All My Good Countrymen Kohout, the Czech playwright, and writ- sick and dies. Her black labarador (Vsichni dobii rodaci) . ten in collaboration with Kohout and retriever runs through the town searching Frank Daniel. The film, a satire of the for her, finally arriving at the school house The script for this film was begun after where she used to teach. But now there is the war and was based on his mother's army, marked the beginning of the first a new teacher, and the episode concludes. recollections of village life. Though the Czech New Wave (the second wave would Her son's wife gives birth to a baby boy and script was completed in 1956, he was include Forman and Passer). the cycle is complete. In the last episode, refused permission to make it until Prague Spring in 1967, when changes in the September Nights was followed by as in the first, Jasny has articulated the political atmosphere meant an easing of Desire (Touha, 1958), a lyrical film, value most accented by the generation censorship. The characters of Country- consisting of four episodes, each covering that was the offspring of one war and the men, a mixture of actors and non-actors a different span in man's life and each set in survivor of the next: there are no endings, (as in all Jasny's films) portray fellow a different season in his native village in only beginnings. Adds Jasny, \"It was my villagers in Moravia; they possess an ease Moravia. Also a cyclical film , Desire destiny too;' and familiarity which transcend the begins with '?\\bout the Boy Who Sought screen. They are truly folk, ou r folk, and the Edge of the World;' As Jasny describes Desire was the first auteur film in we, like Jasny, are at home with them. it, \"It is about a Little boy who is looking for Czechoslovakia. \"In Desire lay the roots Through these characters, and ultimately the end of the world. There are three hills for my next film and for many other Czech Jasny, we experience the life of a small behind this boy's house, and behind the films and filmmakers . I think Desire Czech villlage from the end of the War's third, he thinks , is heaven ;' The camera opened many doors for other people;' The promise of renewal through the era of Cold and the boy follow the flight of crows to the film won an award at the 1958 Cannes War consolidation and, at the e nd , to the top of the third hill, to the skyline. But Film Festival and established not only brink of Soviet invasio n. beyond the hill is only more country with Jasny's importance in Czechoslovakia but its people and factories. \"The boy sees no in the rest of Europe. ''The Soviet Union Countrymen was shot in 1968 and end of the world;' says Jasny. \"He realizes didn't take it-they thought it was too finished just when the Soviet army arrived. maybe it is infinite;' idealistic.\" \"I told the truth with Cassandra Cat, but that was a fairy tale, an allegory. Desire The fourth episode of the film, Desire was followed by Jasny's Cassan- was about Life, death, and love and that, in \"Maminka (The Mother) ;' is an homage to the end, it is possible. With Countrymen, Jasny's mother who died in 1955. Set in a dra Cat (Ai pfijde Kocour), about a cat I showed real life from 1945 to 1968. It remote area of Czechoslovakia in the showed real people in real truth. It was the wimer, \"Maminka\" is about an old teacher with glasses that sees people in auras: first film where I could say the truth;' The who lives alone, her husband dead and her lovers are red , thieves are gray, betrayors Communists banned the film forever, after adult son off on his own. When he comes yellow. The colors were achieved in- it had shown for only five months and camera - no minor feat - using only spe- Jasny had won best director at Cannes. cial costumes, make-up , and colored This film marked the end of what Jasny calls the \"Czech period: ' After both Countrymen and a Jasny short were banned, he left his country for Austria in 1969. \"I could stay, but I couldn't tell the truth my way. And the truth for me is the most important thing.\" While in European exile, Jasny made many films for television , directed several plays (his version of Dostoevsky's The Idiot was sold out for three years in Helsinki) , and co~pleted several features, including The Clown, based on the novel by Heinrich Boll who co-authored the script, and starring Hanna Schygulla. In 198A, he directed The Suicide, a German- Finnish co-production based on a play by Nikolaj Erdman. A comedy, The Suicide, 53

is set in the USSR of the 1\\.venties shortly Jasny's films are filled with color and the using these Czech words and working after the revolution. When first published, magic of human existence, much like with them . It is such a beautiful feeling, it was rehearsed in the Soviet Union by the paintings of Marc Chagall. His greatest such a beautiful language. It's partly sad, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold but was inspiration , says Jasny, is \"mostly life. I was that you cannot work in your own banned after the ftrst year. Erdman was inspired by Italian neo-realist films , by language, but you have to overcome it. But sent to Siberia for 22 years. Jasny later met classic Soviet films - Earth by [others have done it): ChagaLl, Stravinsky, him in Helsinki while he was working on Dovzhenko and The General by Eisen- Nabokov, Milos Forman. But imagine The Idiot. stein . Such films. I was inspired for Milos' best ftlm, Amadeus. It was done Countrymen by Silent Don a great novel with the help of his homeland. Had it been Having finished The Suicide , and by Mikhail Solochov. And also films by done somewhere else, without Prague and contemplating a move to Paris, Jasny Rene Clair:' Jasny also draws from other the friends who worked with him , it would received an offer from Frank Daniel to arts. \"From painting. I study painting all not be such a strong film :' teach at Columbia. He arrived in New the time. The Carravaggio exhibit at the York in January 1984. As Jasny tells it, \"I Metropoljtan Museum was great. And also Jasny had made a great many friends worked in Yugoslavia, Israel, Scandinavia, from poetry. Folkspoetry:' And now? \"I through Sundance Institute in Utah, Austria, and France. This European think I've got new eyes for New York:' where he supervises features and where he period was finished with The Suicide and, met Susan Lacy, the program's director of symbolically, I had seven nations playing In Czechoslovakia. production assistance. With Frank Daniel in this film. They spoke Finnish, Russian, Jasny is a man who is able to see he is preparing for another project, Marx Czech, Serbo-Croatian, German, French, advantage in disadvantage, for whom, like Behind the Door, for which Daniel wrote and Polish. So now, coming to the Unjted the little boy in Desire, possibilities seem the script, and which French producer States, and staying here probably for a long infmite. \"I can't change it. I sometimes Vera Belmont is producing. Marx begins time js my American and International suffer a lot. If I see these homeless people, in the U.S. when a visiting Czech from the period:' I suffer with them. I walked one night, and Institute for Telepathy and Parapsychol- it was raining, and there was a bag lady, a ogy in Prague meets an American woman Jasny has learned to adapt quickly to beautiful black girl sleeping in such a door. who is psychic. They fall in love, but the new surroundings. \"I worked for a long I took money and gave it to her and she Czech must return home. They miss each time with Heinrich Boll. I studied the watched me so. She was half sleeping. other deeply. When the woman tele- problems of Germany for The Clown, a And you know, I learned something. phones that she is flying to Prague, the very German film. I observed life in \"I believe that there is something strong man anxiously awaits her arrival, nervous Germany - in Berlin and Hamburg and in our lives giving you power. As an about how he will appear to her on Czech Munich and Cologne and so on and I tried immigrant, you suffer because you lost soil. His fears are allayed, that is, until Karl to do my best. I shot one of my best films , your country. It's only in you. Sometimes I Marx materializes from a small portrait in The Miss (based on a story by Nobel Prize am writing my memories in Czech the room where they are to spend their winner Ivo Andric) in Sarajevo. I studied language, or writing a letter to my wife and flfst romantic evening. The Institute for three years , going to Yugoslavia, to do officials try to hjde Marx, saying, ''Nobody has to know he is here:' this movie. I learned Serbo-Croatian because of Andric. [Working) on The Jasny is also working on The Unloved, Idiot, I learned that you can do anything if based on the book by Arnost Lustig you study it. This human condition is very (recently published in the U.S. by Arbor international. These human things are House). The Unloved begins in the very similar. Terezin ghetto in 1943 and is the story of Perla S., a 17-year-old concentration camp ''I am a very happy man, because in prostitute. One of her most frequent such a short time, I was living in so many customers is a German Luftwaffe officer places here: Louisiana, Dallas, and Utah. I who comes not only for her body but also visited California with my films , Washing- to absorb the hope and innocence that ton D.C. , Connecticut, and Oklahoma. I Perla radiates . \"I wrote the flfst draft of the worked only three weeks in Dallas, but screenplay and now I must write it again now I've got a feeling what is Texas, a little. with Lustig. This Unloved can be a great Now I know these people, their houses, fUm. It is a very sad story but I have to do this architecture, and this style of life, the it. studios there. If there will be possibilities to shoot in Dallas (and I will have studios \" Then these scenes that I told you and money) , then I will try to know the about my father, they will be part of a most about Texas and to find there my screenplay - the canary and the cat. I am feelings. writing into my pad and putting it in the drawer and then when I decide to write the ''You know, I became through my screenplay, I will take all my notes and immigration a cosmopolite. I haven't more start to write. I will write a screenplay with feelings of a homeland. I try to find a my life as a background. There will be the substitute for it. I tried with Austria; it was destiny of my family, of my father killed not possible. It was too small to work for a in Auschwitz.\" long time. I tried Yugoslavia, and it is my second homeland now. Where I like to be Jasny also wants to direct an American with friends. But in the end, if you ask me version of The Idiot set in modern times where I would like to stay, I will stay there and another Frank Daniel collaboration, where I have work. And now I am here:' 54

The Kids, based on Bernard Benson's The Get The Superstar Peace Book. \"I wrote a script for it, but I of Vid C talogs. don't know that I am ready for it yet. It has to do with nuclear issues and perhaps I am What a hunk! Big . . . • •• smart, Order with confidence from too naive for it still. But I will come back to Movies Unlimited. it: ' too! No wonder the Movies UlUimlted Video We're one of the *orld'i old... and malt Does Jasny feel there is more artistic Catalog always plays the leading role in access reliable home video services. freedom in the United States where filmmaking is less art and more an to great video entertainment. Order today. And Only industry? \"It is necessary to find people who can help you find freedom . This discover how exciting It is to live with a legend! business is business and they think only business. They can't see films in different 1000's & 1000's of titles on VHS, Beta schemes. But you can change it. Look, I could go back to Czechoslovakia, or I can & Laserdisc-Nobody has More! (Catalog feesl'lfu_ with 1st order) work with the French industry, but if I could continue to teach and do my films The Classics (and Not-So-Classics) • Incredible Like adult movlQ.? Enclose an additional here, it will be a very good solution for me. Rarities • Current Releases • Foreign Films. $3.50 for our spicy Adult Video Catalog! I like to teach, to give my experiences to Family Fare. How-To's • Documentaries. people to use their way. It is also a pleasure. Probably I will never come back We're The Moviest!® to Czechoslovakia. With All My Good -----------------------------Nostalgic TV Shows • Concerts • etc. Countrymen, I said everything I wanted to Enclosed Is 55.95 cash, check or money say. If you ask me to go home to order (510. outside USA). Send me your MOVIES UNLIMITED Czechoslovakia, what will I do?\" newest video catalog, plus periodic updates \"But there now before me is a big o of new releases and sales Items. 6736 Castor Avenue question. It is open, the door is Enclosed II 53.50 additional (59.45 total, 513.50 outside USA). Please include your Philadelphia , PA 19149 open, and I have to try. It is symbolic. Jasny recently recovered from a severe adult video catalog. I am over 18 years old . 2151722-8298 case of food poisoning. ''The day I was poisoned, I knew it was dangerous , I knew City State _ _ _ _ _ Zip _ _ _ _ _ __ it was necessary to go to the hospital , and I Phone ( knew that I could die. And I wasn't IFe I © 1985 Movies Unlimited Inc. thinking of what I will leave behind, of my family life with my adopted son, of my 55 friends. I did not think this way. I thought, now I am dizzy and with fever and I need help , and I thought that I will be okay again and I will try better. There is Countrymen , there are many films in Germany on tapes, and sure, what can I do now, after all these films? \"This life of a director is difficult, but we have to find a solution. My wife is in Europe; she will come soon for two months. I worked in Europe. It was close and [ could come home, but sometimes I wasn't home two months. Such a life of a director is not easy. There is not really family life. Not. You are alone most of the time. And it's taking something of your substance. 'What is important for me is that I start again to shoot. A director who is not shooting is the same as these people who are racing cars. When they stop , they miss the tension, the competition. You can write, you can teach , but it is only half of your life. And a full, happy life is only if you are shooting. Then, at the end , I am not unhappy, but I am not happy. I can't say I am happy. When [ start again to shoot- [ will be happy:' ~

by David Chute something like this in a \"young adult\" the popular arts , out there in the boon- fantasy novel whose protagonists are loons docks where the museums and the box T he best brief passage of film criticism I with names like Winston Bongo and office watchers can't get their mitts on 'em. read all year wasn't in a magazine or Flipping Hades Terwilliger. The storyline newspaper but in a novel , The Snarkout centers on a magical avocado that is For instance, I was introduced to the Boys and The Avocado of Death, by mankind's last hope against aliens who work of Daniel Pinkwater by the editors of Daniel Pinkwater: have taken over the bodies of every real Cheap Truth, a mimeographed science- estate agent on earth. Pinkwater's observa- fiction fanzine published in Austin, Texas. ''The thing about Laurel and Hardy tion is also amateurish in the best sense; The pundits of Cheap Truth are cantan- movies that you can't get from the the novel's mood of brainy playfulness kerously fed up with the ''MacCaffreyite chopped-up versions on television is makes lightheaded sport of complex unicorn-cuddlers\" of establishment sci- how beautiful they are. Things hap- ideas-a quality that is pretty much the ence-fiction. Their literary voice has a pen at exactly the moment they have essence of good science-fiction. Johnny Rottenish snarl in it: '~s American to happen. They don't happen a S-F lies in a reptilian torpor, its small, second too soon or too late. You can There isn't much playfulness of any kind squishy cousin, Fantasy, creeps gecko-like even predict what's going to hap- in professional film criticism these days. across the bookstands:' The Cheapos pen - and it does happen - and it The stuff has grown very dour. Every- fervently proselytize for the babbling, surprises you anyway. It doesn't body's busy wondering if this month/year/ street-loony school of pretzel-plotted, surprise you because it happened , but decade is the worst ever in the history of idea-oriented S-F (whose paragon is the because it happened so perfectly:' the medium. Perhaps we can draw astounding Philip K. Dick.) \"S-F used to You don't expect to stumble across comfort from the knowledge that some be solely the province of the visionary people are still having fun writing about and/or deranged:' Truth insists. \"It is no S6

accident that science-fiction first entered system has become an unholy terror. movie world, the \"deranged V1SlOnanes mass consciousness in a welter of garish George Romero's Day ofthe Dead had its get eliminated quickly. Critics have said colors and howling verbal excess. S-F is budget slashed from $8 million to $4 they like writing·about movies because the the enemy of normality, the antidote to million, just three weeks before shooting conflict between art and commerce is a bored sophistication and know-it-all over- began, because the backers refused to fascinating spectacle. These days, follow- refmement:' These weirdos made my accept the higher fmancial risk of an ing the conflict is more like watching a year.• unrated movie. chicken get torn apart by a bear. V ery little current professional film The nationwide swerve toward repres- I n a recent Los Angeles TImes report by criticism is as pugnacious or as sion is bound to get worse before it gets Jack Matthews, Orson Welles' associate enthusiastic as Cheap Truth. There's a lot better. The Catholics who tried to crush Henry Jaglom angrily insisted that the late of know-it-all over-refinement floating Hail, Mary didn't get very far, but some director had a new picture ready to shoot a around. And even if a movie critic was other quasi-religious groups had better couple of years ago, with a full budget inclined to perk up and write like Cheap luck. Efforts to get warnings printed on promised by adventurous producer Arnon Truth, what on earth could he find to write rock albums - which seemed laughable Milchan. But the participation of at least this way about-and where? Today's until the record companies caved in- one big-name star was deemed essential, magazine editors want to see pieces about were followed in some areas by ordinances so the deal fell through when all eight of big stars and big deals and executives, and barring youngsters from rock concerts by the stars on Welles' preferred list declined not much else. Maybe a personality piece groups their elders deemed offensive-as to participate for one venal reason or on Madonna. The editors really aren't if rock has ever really been about anything another. After Welles' death, Jaglom interested in movies (or any of the arts) but except offending your elders. Reports of fumed, three of these rich frauds actually in celebrity, in the fame and the money late have been turning up in Variety that popped up on TV, deploring Welles' that a big hit movie can accumulate. In video-cassette rental stores are under \"abandonment\" by the industry. Later, fact, eliminating the middle-man and just pressure to drop X- and even R-rated Welles' companion Oja Kodar spoke writing about the money itself-about the pictures. That campaign could dry up the angrily at a Director's Guild memorial business side of the movie business - may last commercial refuge of \"adult\" film service: \"Orson didn't know bitterness or be the hottest ticket of all. material- the ancillary tape market. So lamentation. [Butl I did see him cry a boost your donations to the American couple of times\"-once, it seems, while This year I saw only one great paper- Civil Liberties Union; it's going to be watching the mangled remnants of The back original-style movie, Stuart Gordon's working overtime. Magnificent Ambersons on TV. debonair splatter-comedy Re-Anlmator. Like last year's The Terminator, it makes a The sad part about slapping even an R Meanwhile, Arnon Milchan is fast shared joke of its steadily escalating, witty rating on a horror movie is that it becoming the premier bankroller of grisliness. Each shock effect is a gag that squelches the delicious \"ready for any- deranged, visionary movies. No recent takes off from the impossibility of shock- thing\" sensation. You know there are some picture fits the category more neatly than ing people anymore. (The gore jokes work things you will never be allowed to see. Of Terry Gilliam's epic nightmare film Brazil, just about the way the puke jokes worked course it's possible to confound an a Milchan extravaganza that Universal's in Monty Python's The Meaning ofLife.) audience's expectations without stepping Sid Sheinberg has decided he can \"fix\" (in Re-Animator fmds the point at which over the R barrier, as James Cameron horror and farce are indistinguishable. It's managed on sheer ingenuity in The crypto-subversive, goading us to laugh at Terminator. And this is what every work of things we know we ought to deplore -like art more or less accomplishes: \"It doesn't the straight-faced surgical aplomb of the surprise you because it happened, but mad vivisectionist Herbert West Oeffrey because it happened so perfectly.\" (Horror Combs). Watching it is a giddy experi- pictures are a special case. How do you ence. \"It goes so far;' a friend said,-\"that protect people from a genre whose after a while you're ready for anything:' function in the scheme of things is to upset people? If you shield the things in horror Outlaw movies like Re-Animator proba- movies that are unpleasant, you're shield- bly won't save us from the doldrums, ing us from horror.) though; if any film species is endangered, this one certainly is. The unrated Re- Still, the Cheap Truth prescription isn't Animator won rave reviews and still easy to apply to movies, because they've couldn't break out of the grind-house always been a comparatively repressed ghetto. Many theatres sniffily refuse to medium. I've had more fun this year play unrated fUms, and many newspapers writing about comic books and science- won't run ads for them. (The always gutsy fiction because things are jumping in Los Angeles TImes ran the Re-Animator those areas. There's bolder work being ad but not the ad-art.) done in comics like Raw and Love and Rockets than in most mainstream movies. With both the X-rating and blank (Lately I'm more interested in Frank \"unrated\" designation widely spurned as Miller's Daredevil than in George Miller's commercial poison, the whole rating Road Warrior.) Films cost so much that they must go after a mass audience every •FOOTNOTE: Cheap Truth really is cheap . 100. It's distributed time-and this in a field that never mostly by what the editors call \"samizdat \": it gelS xeroxed by tickled fostered diversity or eccentricity anyway. readers who pass it along to friends. Try sending a self-addressed In the harsh commercial Darwinism of the envelope for a sample copy to 8W-C ~st 12th Street. Austin . Texas 78701. They also run a 30011200 baud electronic mail service: Autodiall-512-UfV-SMOF

,. the veterinary sense?). Brazil may never Scissors\" Sheinberg, to help pull Brazil no one was paying attention. You can bet be a mass-market smash , but it's a out of the fire . A generous act like this this isn't true of post-Spielberg genre flabbergasting piece of work, an excep- would do more to convince me that he's a projects like Back to the Future. Every tional mixture of visionary derangement great humanitarian than ten fat movies like crack and crevice of a film like that is and tight-assed stylistic control. It isn't The Color Purple. minutely examined for traces of organic even a science-fiction picture, really, but material. The termites all get squished an imagistic fantasy. How long has it been A ll the popular arts are feeling the before they have a chance to bore a hole in since one of those made it into the pressure to homogenize these days. anything important. The new genre boxoffice top ten? As Greil Marcus observed in his pop projects have been sterilized of individual- music column \"Speaker to Speaker;' in ity practically in a blast furnace. It's a gloriously willful movie. Gilliam Artforum, this particular pop-musical has created a junk-deco world for his epoch isn't dominated by a monolithic Is ftlm criticism responsible for any of imagination to frolic in. All styles and style like punk or disco, but by the this dinginess , this monolithic risk-noth- objects created after 1952 have been phenomenon of the \"single replaceable ing-ism? Most observers argue that critics wiped out by some kind of retro-ray, figure: \" Michael Jackson is replaced by have almost no power to sway public taste. forcing the citizens of Britain to rebuild an Prince is replaced by Madonna is replaced Some of us have even drawn comfort from entire technological society from the by Bruce. These individuals are \"brought- this fact : sway not lest ye be swayed. So contents of their thrift shops. Brazifs forth-to-come-forth as a unitary, momen- how can any aspect of this godless mess be overcast tone may reflect Gilliam's fear for tarily complete symbol of individual our fault? the future (and a few other things- he's fulftllment and public conquest.... It's no fascinated by the symptoms of disease) , matter that much of this is pure hype; Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum thinks he but you couldn't call the ftlm predictive in what counts is the result, and the result is a has it figured out. In an essay published in any other sense. sort of consumer-fan panic, a Konsumter- Sight and Sound last summer, \"Learning ror (the phrase was Ulrike Meinhofs) that to Live in Air Conditioning;' Rosenbaum The plotline is lifted almost whole-hog suspends one's very identity in the fear of argues that \"most ambitious film critics I from 1984 Oonathan Pryce is the Winston missing out on what's happening, or what know in the States aspire to be not better Smith figure) , but functions merely as a is said to be happening:' This is perhaps an critics, but more powerful:' He isn't kind to string of way stations to guide us through extreme description that can be applied the predators he calls \"mainstream critics:' the jungle-thickets of Gilliam's imagery. literally only to a few impressionable 13- These weasels are portrayed as endorsing, Whatever pungence Brazil has wafts up to year-olds . Or is Marcus suggesting that the in their news-oriented coverage, the our nostrils directly from the images. In 13-year-olds of 1967 did not find their capitalist values that stifle choice and this respect, Gilliam's procedure is personalities suspended in this sense inhibit individuation. Rosenbaum exposes startlingly similar to the revisionist genre when they listened to The Beatles or The the underpinnings of his stance when he work of some of our spriteliest commercial declares that our most interesting cine- Doors? matic events are transpiring on cable-TV directors: Lawrence Kasdan, Joe Dante, Pop music may nevertheless be in better and on the academic \"fUm club\" circuit, George Miller, James Cameron. shape than the movies , because no where neglected gems like Sam Fuller's Gilliam's movie logic (carried over from woman or fey black man in film could ever White Dog and Jerry Lewis' Smorgasbord his shape-shifting Monty Python anima- become a \"single replaceable figure: ' The are finally allowed to sparkle, \"bypassing tions) is unique; it is the associative logic key ftlm figures are more like anti- the almost certain mauling and misappre- of the transformation of objects - the personalities, icons of uninflected compe- hension most of them would have encoun- visual punning of similar shapes that tence. There isn't much playfulness in tered from the press, thereby reaching become physically confused or blend into these new heroes; their very conception is audiences more directly and without businesslike, the offspring of a demo- interference....In the cinemas today, word each other. (There's a lot of blending in Re- graphics software program. The gargan- of mouth is probably more hampered than AnifrUltor, too.) In the dispute with tuan white male action stars (Stallone, helped by the press, because the language Norris , and especially Schwarzenegger) of popular criticism usually offers too Sheinberg and Universal , Gilliam has loom like stomping giants over everything, debased a model. (At the moment a critic been especially adamant about clinging to as smooth-surfaced and as textureless as becomes a star, the critical discourse his surreal, dream-sequence finale-for the plastic \"action figures\" their boy fans becomes a nightclub act.)\" the sound thematic reason that it sets up will use in the backyard to act out fantasies expectations of a happy ending and then of the invasion of EI Salvador. These Rosenbaum is dead-on about at least cruelly shatters them. An escapist finish hunkolas aren't so much replaceable as one thing: critics who place too much would violate the first principles of interchangeable. If they were more sharply emphasis on \"news value\" - on invariably Gilliam's enveloping nightmare. (During differentiated as characters, they'd violate highlighting their feature-length pieces on production Gilliam stated Brazifs theme the generic premise of the man-robot the big movies that everyone is curious bluntly: \"It's about the impossibility of hero. about - are allowing a percentage of their escaping from reality:, But there's an even critical prerogative to be usurped by the stronger aesthetic rationale for letting the Alas, it was into those nooks of studio advertising departments, which ending stand. Brazil has to slide into a differentiation that the pro's-pro, \"auteur\" have carefully fabricated most of that literal dream state to permit the imagery to genre directors of legend crammed their curiosity. ''Teaching film criticism work- blossom and fulfill itself as visual poetry. wispy little shreds of individuality. It may shops;' Rosenbaum writes , \"I've met an be useless to hope for a saving resurgence increasing number of students who It's all very well to bemoan the of Manny Farber's \"termite art:' Hawks assume that it's a form of advertising, to be indignities that were heaped upon the and Walsh and Fuller could do anything written in the kind of aggressive jargon deceased Orson Welles. Meanwhile, liv- they damn pleased in genre films , because that deals only in superlatives and ultimate ing directors like Terry Gilliam are being catagories....\" He's more right than wrong fucked over just as thoroughly. I'm still waiting for Steven Speilberg to use a little of his vaunted influence with Sid ''The 58

on this point, I'm afraid. Any critic, for Thunderdome , and Joe Dante gave us (from the Philip K. Dick novel), and you instance, who writes a year-end piece that Explorers. The Dante picture wasn't as couldn't make a film like that on either an is mostly about Rambo-even if he's much fun as the others, but it was the Island or an Ali~e budget. denouncing it-contributes to the climate most honorable of the three failures, biting that makes Rambo the only commercially into its own pop roots just deeply enough I n a way, the current dire state of affairs valid kind of movie. The essence of to draw a little blood. The sad thing about makes it easier to be a movie critic, Rambo-ism , after all is the conviction that the Kasdan and Miller fums (and the because it makes our duty easier to spot. only one thing at a time can be of any Dante, too , except for some wayward gags Of course we have to resist the tide of consequence. and a buoyant last half hour) is that almost homogenization and give aid and comfort anybody could have made them. It's as if to the termite efforts of the best popular Meanwhile, corrosive agents are eating aU three of these enormously talented men artists, the soreheads and the eccentrics. away at the creative morale of movies from had all decided, independently, that the Obviously! within. In Hollywood, people pour over only sure route to success today is to direct the \"boxoffice\" columns in the newspapers just like Richard Donner. The sadder And don't forget: we are almost always and snicker at the failures. No other thing is that they could be right. Playful- talking about pop moviemaking when we yardstick of success is acknowledged. The ness, wit, and irony haven't found a lot to talk this way - in the sense that movies are notion of the honorable failure has keep them busy lately. inherently pop products because they're dropped out of common usage. Directors so welcoming, so easy to absorb. Limited weaned on pop product may have no built- Maybe it's a hopeful sign that Robert appeal art items can often do a lot more in defense mechanisms to help them ward Altman, Jim Jarmusch, Martin Scorsese, than pop pictures to push the medium off the commercial voodoo-blight of and Alan Rudolph have had some success forward expressively. And perhaps the corruption. They've internalized the with cranky, modestly budgeted indepen- mass in mass media has become too admen's crass attitudes, which are applied dent art movies. I'm afraid, however, that crushingly huge to give minority tastes a a lot more rigorously than they used to be. the Brazil debacle is a solid example of fair chance; maybe the whole idea is just a what happens when an art film is also an touching anachronism. The plan, how- Over the summer the most distressing elaborate genre fum. If Joe Dante wanted ever, isn't to desert the middle of the road failures, for me, were the large-scale, to make Choose Me , I guess he could; for some high-altitude alternative, but to bloodless works cranked out by talented maybe he will and maybe it will be force it to expand and embrace a few directors who had mastered the current wonderful. But the great Joe Dante film, savory possibilities - in the firm belief that mega-genre mode of cinema while retain- the one I'm looking forward to, will be the American mainstream, in particular, ing some promising termite tendencies: something like the psychedelic sci-fi tale, wouldn't be quite itself without these Lawrence Kasdan gave us Silverado, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch frisky elements. And that it will thank us George Miller gave us Mad Max: Beyond someday. ® The Ten Bests of 1985 RICHARD CORLISS ELLIOIT STEIN RICHARD JAMESON Back to the Future Brazil Ran Blood Simple The Company of Wolves After Hours Book ofMary/Hail, Mary The Emerald Forest Blood Simple Brazil Himatsuri The Color Purple Dim Sum Lifeforce George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey Into the Night Mixed Blood Heartbreakers Out ofAfrica Onimasa A Nightmare on Elm Street/ The Purple Rose ofCairo Runaway Train Ran Tosca 's Kiss The Company of Wolves Wetherby What Have I Done to Deserve This? Prizzi s Honor Silverado STEPHEN HARVEY .ANNE THOMPSON A Year ofthe Quiet Sun A ~ar ofthe Quiet Sun After Hours DAvmCHUTE Blood Simple After Hours . Brazil Brazil The Home and the World The Home and the World Brazil Kiss ofthe Spider Woman Bleek House (BBC/PBS) Makioka Sisters Reanimator Desperately Seeking Susan Onimasa Makioka Sisters Prizzi s Honor Max Headroom (NBC, Cinemax) The Falcon and the Snowman Purple Rose of Cairo Pee Wees Big Adventure Ran Material Girl (Video) Prizzi s Honor HenrylV The Purple Rose ofCairo Ran Sweet Dreams What Have I Done to Deserve This?

The 1985 Movie Revue: II 1985 and * , fiEARE oil, ()I/N WAY TO !. ! UliVCISJ\\ City Calf. ************'**** * RIGHT, BUT 'BRAZI.e WAS UNRELEASABLE * Some Universal releases of 1985: Stick, James Joyce's Women, Creator, Moronsfrom Outer Space, Dream Child, Wild Geese II, The Holcroft Covenant THECLONEHEADS _ ,,'.I,. ~'\"/-,/\",-~'\",'/',:t~.\\\"'_\"1II-~',\\1-\"~''~\\~'I'/-\"'_,-,'\".. ** THl Ramboring: Invasion U.S.A. GeEnl I\"Til',.:' ,,,; - ,RRRRRRRaaaaaaammmmmmmbbbbbBbauooooMngsnzkzhoaeTaC:r:h:t:ieDSh::1aoiiFMueldyvalr:i:eektsrthC1~hcaWi8hoadmm2roiIa'!Smhoalfltnh1deoD\"/!.:rI,:-a,,_./,.g\\,,\\\"._I-~o''!_~,~,\\\\_,,n1,,I:i'_;)~\",\\--\\,,\"I'1.~.-;/.,.'..h:~\\,,\",',,-\",',.-,.:./..\".\"\",.1..'~..i/I,.'.;/.'-.,,.J-.';,>\\.,,;!\\,'_,,,\",'_-,-(\\',\\I:,I,I\",\".I);.,~'I'.o'',1'/,-,'\".I,'!f.''/'.\",.'.~_..~~.,.,'.I'-;/.~.''I1;~,~/'..,.\".'..I\\,/.-~'.'';-1!-',,\".1'.,\\..'.\\:'-/'~-~.,I\"\\~1i:'-;'\\\";'~\\:'.:',,,.,,/1.,',_'-:'_\\'\\--,'\\_''.-~,L.'\"~.'·~-\\\\,,,I'-~,.,',.',.-'\" IO fi Jane !mo cigaJ Agn, Rambohemia: To Live and Die in L.A. ' '» i:;~;~:),;,\\;i Rambogeyman: Nightmare on Elm Street II ' ,, ~~,;,~,-,\\/~,,/ Rambeau Geste: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdomi/' Rambordello: Pumping Iron II: The Women Ramborn Again: Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider Rambolshevik: Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV Rambo Derek: Brigitte Nielsen in Red Rambo Diddley: Krush Groove MOST TASTEFUL INDUSTRY AD The full-page announcement in Variety, just after the lWA hijacking, that Rambo had broken all box-office records in Lebanon THE D. OF THE R. OF THE D. OF THE R. OF THE MUSICAL White Nights A Chorus Line THE DEATH OF THE RETURN CHINA GATE OF THE DEATH OF THE Michael Cimino's ~ar ofthe Dragon RETURN OF THE WESTERN Pale Rider Silverado Rustler's Rhapsody 60

I That 000000 THEY'RE YOUNG! THEY'RE PRETTY! 000000 000000 THEIR MOVIES LOSE MONEY! 000000 000000 000000 000000 (The Short, Mostly Unprofitable Career of 000000 000000 the Brat Pack & Friends) 000000 000000 oooaoo Tom Cruise: All the Right Moves , Legend 000000 Rob Lowe: Class , Hotel N. H., Oxford Blues THE SURGEON ,..... 000000 GENERAeS 000000 Timothy Hutton: Turk 182! 000000 Matt Dillon: Rumble Fish , Target 0000 0 0 Nicolas Cage: The Cotton Club, Birdy Matthew Modine: Birdy, Vision Quest ooaooo Matthew Broderick: Ladyhawke Judd Nelson: Making the Grade, Fandango 000000 C . Thomas Howell: Secret Admirer 000000 Anthony Michael Hall: Weird Science 000000 Val Kilmer: Top Secret!, Real Genius 000000 Emilio Estevez: That ffils Then This Is Now 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 C1TXfION ....... to fitness mogul THEY THINK HE'S EUGENE O'NEILL PLUS \".Jane Fonda for GARY COOPER; HE'S REALLY ZANE GREY smoking 46 MINUS RANDOLPH scarr cigarettes in Sam Shepard Agnes ofGod ot! 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 THE DR. MATHILDE KRIM AWARD 0'00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 FOR INCREASING AMERICA'S UNDERSTANDING OF AIDS LINING UP WITNESSES FOR THE DEFENSE? (ex aequo) directors who appeared in 1985 John Landis movies: To the Screen Actors Guild for its edict on Michael Apted Richard Franklin Andrew Marton open-mouthed kissing; Jack Arnold Terry Gilliam Paul Mazursky sTo Rustler Rhapsody for the big screen's Paul Bartel Carl Gottlieb Frank Oz first AIDS joke Manin Brest Amy Heckerling Daniel Petrie Larry Cohen Jim Henson Sam Raimi Joel Coen Colin Higgins Don Siegel Costa-Gavras Lawrence Kasdan Bob Swaim David Cronenberg Jonathan Kaufer Roger Vadim Jonathan Demme Jonathan Lynn -S.H.&R.C. 61

The 1985 Movie Revue: III • scar arCOSIS by Anne Thompson Best Picture I t was a rough year at the Triplex. Film public got bored with high-minded wom- I don't remember a year at this point in after film did a box-office belly flop, as en's pictures: Meryl Streep's Plenty, Sissy time when there were so many question the kids got pickier and the yuppies waited Spacek's Marie, Glenn Close's Maxie , and marks,\" comments producer Jack a few months for their might-have-been Kate Nelligan's Eleni. Only Jane Fonda's Brodsky. By early December there were favorites to turn up at the video store. Nor, Agnes of God and Jessica Lange's Sweet only two sure shots: John Huston's comic according to the critical and industry Dreams have much hope of competing for gangster opera Prizzi 's Honor and Peter savant-garde, was 1985 much to brag Oscar nominations. Weir's culture-clash thriller Witness. Both about artistically. So December arrived were well-liked by audiences and critics. without an industry consensus on likely \"The big studio competition is weak The town is unanimous in predicting one contenders for the Academy Awards. With this year;' says press agent Bruce Feldman, sentimental Oscar-night moment: John the possible late exception of Out of \"so there's a wide berth for other fUms that Huston, Prizzi's director, and daughter Africa, there has been no breakout fIlm, ordinarily wouldn't have a chance:' In the Anjelica together, clutching their Oscars. no Terms of Endearment or Chariots of past, foreign hits have made significant Back in 1948 Huston won writing and Fire , behind which the Oscar voters can inroads down Wilshire Boulevard. The directing Oscars for The Treasure of the unite, hankies moist, cash registers ring- 1985 dark-horse candidates include Bud Sierra Madre, and his father Walter ing. Given the choice of the fIve films most Yorkin's Twice in a Lifetime, Island earned a supporting actor statuette. If likely to cop the citation for best picture Pictures' Kiss of the Spider Woman and Huston and Anjelica win this year, he1l be this year, many Academy members might The Trip to Bountiful, and Orion Classics' the only director to have directed both his well choose None of the Above. Akira Kurosawa epic Ran. father and his daughter to Oscar victories. They will also, as always, ignore the real Some Oscar mavens don't believe that world of teen, action, and comedy Witness will make it to the top five, due to pictures for the tony adaptations and its genre (action) and release position (last menopausal weepies that touch the mem- February); of the 70 films nominated for bership's upper-middle-aged heart. So Best Picture since 1970, only Cabaret, relax, Oscar voters, you are among friends Taxi Driver, and Missing were released as here. The words Rambo and Rocky will early as February. \"I don't think Witness is not be spoken. Stallone, Michael j. Fox- in the tradition of the monumental fUm nobody will mention their names. achievements of recent years;' suggests Nobody will say Robert Zemeckis or Leipzig. \"But if nothing else emerges, the George P. Cosmatos. \"Directorial vigor;' Academy may well have to take it \"technical expertise;' these phrases are seriously:' Paramount is wisely reissuing banned. The old boys of the Academy the movie with a tasteful new ad cam- club are sealing their lips with platitudes paign, a combination that should success- and looking about for familiar faces. This fully reposition Witness with the Academy time, though, they see plenty of nothing. as worthy of Oscar consideration. '1t's one of the strangest years in recent The remaining three slots depend on history;' says publicity consultant Lloyd the critical and popuLar reception of the Leipzig, who shepherded Orion's Ama- big Christmas features. Industry insiders deus to its multi-Oscar glories in 1984. gave an early thumbs-up to two Major \"No one or two or even three pictures have Literary Adaptations: Sydney Pollack's emerged as front-runners. At this time last fUm of Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa, and year we had Amadeus, Places in the Steven Spielberg's overt Oscar bid, an Heart, A Soldier's Story, The Killing adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Fields , and A Passage to India:' It hurt the Purple - just the sort of elegiac, uplifting morning-line forecast business that Fall mother-and-child reunion the Academy 1985 was the season when critics and the goes for. Prospects aren't as sanguine for 62

two pictures directed by recent Oscar- of God. Long Shots: Twice in a winners: Richard Attenborough's A Cho- rus Line: The Movie and Hugh Hudson's Lifetime, Jagged Edge , The Purple Rose period war epic Revolution. of Cairo , Kiss of the Spider Woman, Depending on the Christmas results, the remaining Oscar hopefuls include Cocoon , A Chorus Line. . Agnes of God, another prestige play Jack Nicholson adaptation by producer-director Norman Best Actor Cher f?,.obert Redford Jewison (A Soldier's Story), and Yorkin's Meryl Streep William Hurt all-star family breakup drama Twice in a T he only dead cert for a best-actor Anne Bancroft Harrison Ford Lifetime. Although Agnes ofGod was not nomination is Jack Nicholson for his Jessica Lange Gene Hackman embraced by critics, the movie performed broad performance as Charley Partanna in Geraldine Page well at the box office and should appeal to Prizzi's Honor. Whether or not Witness \"the ancient blue-rinse people\" of the receives a best-picture nomination , Harri- Academy, according to one observer. The son Ford, should garner a nomination for same constituency may reward Yorkin's his role as a tough-minded cop who gets Twice in a Lifetime with a best-picture lost in Amish country. Ford successfully nod . \"The hero [Gene Hackman] is departs from the Indiana Jones-Star proudly SO;' says Rafe Blasi, a screenwriter Wars movies in Witness ; the Academy will and publicist. \"That to them is like want to reward Ford for starring in most of watching a teen-age movie. The Academy the highest-grossing movies of recent sees it as a sleeper. Yorkin made it, even years without getting no respect. He's due. dist:ributed it, himself- it's the Rocky syndrome:' Orion distribution president Two big stars in Christmas movies are Robert Cheren avers: \"Twice in a Lifetime question marks: Robert Redford , who could be the dark horse of the year for best returns to dreamboat status as the white picture. The Academy will feel fondly for hunter in Out of Africa, and Al Pacino, Bud Yorkin's ftlm :' who goes Cockney for Revolution. Wil- liam Hurt, who received the Palme d'Or at The hit of the fall season, Jagged Edge, Cannes for his performance as a flamboy- a violent courtroom thriller, would seem antly gay prisoner in Kiss of the Spider an urtlikely Academy candidate, but Woman , is another safe wager for a Cheren thinks it stands a good chance at a nomination. nomination. \"Your choices are somewhat limited;' he points out. The weak field Twice in a Lifetime's surest nod would could help provide another genre ftlm, the be to Gene Hackman, another Academy summer hit Cocoon, with long-shot best favorite. And don't count out ballet picture status. superstrutter Mikhail Baryshnikov. He ha~ received raves for his role in White Nights Though the critics (and critics' groups) and might - if some of the competition were kind to Hector Babenco's art-house falls out-gain a nomination. We shouldn't hit Kiss ofthe Spider ffiJman and Woody discount Jeff Bridges' three previous Allen's elegiac The Purple Rose of Cairo, nominations; the acting branch might the films aren't likely to receive best- ignore Jagged Edge's violence and certify picture nods. Fox publicity director John his creepy performance. DiSimeo thinks that Spider Woman's homosexual subject matter will \"keep it Sure Shots: Nicholson, Ford, Hurt, from scaling the heights:' Woody Allen did Redford, Hackman. Long Shots: make an Academy comeback in 1984 with Baryshnikov, Pacino, Bridges. Broadway Danny Rose's best-director nomination. \"Broadway Danny Rose was Best Actress about all those old guys - just like the Academy people;' DiSimeo suggests. T he unanimous shoo-in here is Cher for \"Purple Rose is more like Stardust her stops-out turn as Rocky Dennis' Memories; it's in the self-conscious mother in Mask. Rafe Blasi sees Jessica Woody Allen category. Besides, Woody Lange's nomination for her widely praised isn't in it:' Sure, but Stardust was about the portrayal of Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams misery of moviemaking; Purple Rose is as \"automatic:' Bet on Agnes ofGod to get about the magic. Besides, the ultra-serious acting kudos. \"If the Academy likes the Interiors, Allen's first non-acting film , movie, they'll go for Bancroft and Fonda;' received several nominations back in says Brodsky. Leipzig thinks Fonda will be 1979. Purple Rose of Cairo remains a nominated , not Bancroft, citing bad long shot until the Christmas smoke response to Bancroft's last venture, Garbo clears. Talks . We give Bancroft's wily mother superior the edge over Fonda's mannered Sure Shots: Prizzi's Honor, Witness, psychiatrist; both are Oscar winners who Out of Africa, The Color Purple, Agnes have been nominated many times. Geraldine Page has received seven

nominations; \"She's like Glenda Jackson To Be or Not to Be:' Color Purple; she even gets to wear Lon and Maggie Smith;' says Blasi. Her As always , veterans have an edge. Chaney's old Quasimodo eye makeup. performance as an old woman returning to Oscar folk are more likely to reward her her Texas country home in The Trip to Prizzi's Honor should carry a supportng than Margaret Avery, who is not flashy Bountiful is a career-capper, comparable nomination for beloved New York acting enough as the should-be dynamic Shug. to Shirley MacLaine's Aurora Greenaway coach William Hickey, for his role as the Judith Ivey, if Paramount pushes her, could in Terms ofEndearment. Page completely canny Don Corrado. Robert Loggia, earn a nomination for her wisacre subur- dominates the movie; besides, it's a tear- terrific in Prizzi:S Honor, will probably be ban artist in Compromising Positions. jerker. Irresistible to Academy members. nominated for his wise-ass sleuth in And if Twice in a Lifetime gathers Jagged Edge. Fox's summer hit Cocoon momentum, Amy Madigan could get a There are other Christmas perform- could provide nominations for Don nod for her tough daughter role. ances to contend with: movie tyro Whoopi Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, Goldberg stars in The Color Purple, or Jack Gilford. Among the Christmas Sure Shots: Huston, Tilly, Wedge- though she has little to do but look around possibilities: Donald Sutherland, who co- worth, McGillis, Ivey. Long Shots: and be abused. Meryl Streep could be stars with Pacino in Revolution; Danny Madigan, Tandy. nominated for two performances: Plenty's Glover, who makes the best of the Britisher Susan Traherne or Danish writer unsympathetic \"Mr:' in The Color Purple; Best Director Isak Dinesen in Out ofAfrica. The odds and the formidable Klaus Maria Brandauer favor the latter: Streep seems to be saving (Mephisto) as Isak Dinesen's charming A lways tough to call without knowing her publicity salvos for the big studio philanderer of a husband in Out ofAfrica. what the best pictures are going to be. Christmas picture. Another foreigner, Polish director Jerzy The only certain nominee is John Huston, Skolimowski, was praised for his wicked who is widely expected to win. \"There is Long shots include Kathleen Turner, Soviet intelligence officer in White Nights. residual affection for Huston;' says Blasi, who probably won't receive a nomination John Gielgud, who won a supporting actor \"who is of the Academy's age bracket:' for her hit-woman role in Prizzi:S Honor- statuette for Arthur, will probably be Norman Jewison is another good bet for widely regarded as not \"showy\" enough- nominated for his harried diplomat in Agnes ofGod. \"The Academy overlooked unless she gets carried along by Prizzts big Plenty. him last year;' says Leipzig. \"They owe mo. Oscar perennial Glenn Close could him one. He's a busy filmmaker who keeps garner a nomination for her lovelorn Depending on the strength of Purple a lot of people employed on worthwhile attorney in Jagged Edge, if the Academy Rose and Spider ffilman , Jeff Daniels and projects:' Australian director Peter Weir chooses to perceive the movie as some- Raul Julia could score nominations. Eric brought a touch of class to Witness, thing other than a nasty thriller. Oscar- Stoltz gave a heart-tugging performance as another \"director's movie:' Woody Allen is winner Ellen Burstyn, if Twice in a the deformed Rocky Dennis in Mask. Ed a possible nominee for Purple Rose of Lifetime finds Academy favor, could also Harris, who has never been nominated , Cairo, although a nod from the writers is be pulled along to a nomination. received good notices for his role as Patsy probably his best shot. With their Christ- Cline's husband in Sweet Dreams. Long mas movies , popular and powerful direc- Two more contending titlists: Mia Farrow, shots include Ian Holm (he was nomi- tors Sydney Pollack and Steven Spielberg who was well-liked for her role as a nated for Chariots ofFire) for Dance With are likely nominees. Peter Bogdanovich star-struck movie fan in The Purple Rose a Stranger and M. Emmet Walsh-who is will not be nominated, due to his of Cairo, and young British actress taking out his own trade ads-for the controversy with Universal over Mask, not Miranda Richardson, who garnered raves independent Blood Simple. to mention all the Dorothy Stratton as murderer Ruth Ellis in Dance With a publicity. The Academy frowns on this Stranger. Another Brit fave, Vanessa Sure Shots: Hickey, Loggia, Gielgud, kind of fuss. Redgrave, looks to be shut out despite her Brimley, Stoltz. Long Shots: half of the heroic work in Wetherby. Screen Actors Guild. Akira Kurosawa could be a dark-horse candidate for his masterly Ran. Kurosawa Sure Shots: Cher, Goldberg, Lange, Best Supporting Actress is the most well-known of the Japanese Streep, Page. Long Shots: Bancroft, directors, and the directors' branch occa- Fonda, Close, Burstyn, Farrow, Turner, rl:]Cwer contenders in this category. The sionally cites foreigners. Argentine direc- Richardson. sure shot is Anjelica Huston for her tor Hector Babenco, a favorite with critics assured performance as the conniving for the 1982 Pixote, is another long shot Best Supporting Actor Maerose Prizzi. Meg Tilly is a strong for Kiss ofthe Spider Woman. candidate for the title role in Agnes of A lways the most crowded field , and God, which Columbia is pushing heavily Sure Shots: Huston, Jewison, Weir, 1985's supporting actor category is no in the supporting category. Witness should Pollack, Spielberg. Long Shots: Allen, exception. The results will greatly depend pull along young actress Kelly McGillis. Kurosawa, Babenco. on the critics' votings, trade and cam- The veteran vote could go to Jessica paigns, and publicity profiles, because, in Tandy for Cocoon . Ann Wedgeworth, if Best Adapted Screenplay the supporting actor categories \"the Tri-Star campaigns for her, would seem a campaign and word count a lot;' says Jack natural: in Sweet Dreams she abandons L ike the directors, the writers are more Brodsky. \"It doesn't matter what they've her usual floozie-with-a-heart-of-gold to open to foreign and independent seen:' The actors mark their ballots with play Jessica Lange's mother. The Academy fIlms . Often pictures that aren't strong-or the first two or three performances they rewards beautiful women willing to age. big-enough to compete in the picture remember, and then ftIl the remaining and director categories wind up with slots with actors they may have only read As Sofia, the back-sassing, brutalized writing nominations. David Hare's Plenty about. Adds Brodsky: \"That's how you'll maid and mother, Chicago talk-show host could get a nod here, for example, or get a nomination for Charles Durning in Oprah Winfrey has the flashiest role in The 64

Leonard Schrader's adaptation of Manual newcomer Anna Hamilton Phelan's Mask. this nomination for Purple Rose of Cairo. Puig's novel Kiss ofthe Spider Woman, or Sure Shots: Condon and Roach, the King Lear Meets Lady Macbeth script Earl Wallace and William Kelley will for Ran by Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, and Foote, Luedtke, Hare, Meyjes. Long probably be rewarded for their Witness Masato Ide. Horton Foote's new version of Shots: Kurosawa-Oguni-Ide, Phelan, script, joe Eszterhas for the courtroom his Fifties play and teleplay The Trip to Schrader, Pielmeier. contours of Jagged Edge , and Robert Bountiful rates a citation here for sure. Getchell for Sweet Dreams. Best Original Screenplay The major-studio entries include The independents have a shot here as Richard Condon and janet Roach's adap- T he year's top-grossing film (nearly well. Shelagh Delaney (A Taste of Honey) tation of Condon's novel Prizzi's Honor; $200 million), the Spielberg-spon- cou ld get some recognition for Dance john Pielmeier's screen treatment of his sored Back to the Future, cou ld garner the With a Stranger, and Dennis Potter play Agnes of God; Kurt Luedtke's sop of a screenplay nomination for director (Penniesfrom Heaven) might get a nod for adaptation of five books for the Out of Robert Zemeckis and writing partner Bob the Lewis Carroll story, Dreamchild. Africa screenplay; Menno Meyjes' script Gale. Woody Allen is virtually assured of of Alice Walker's A Color Purple; and Sure Shots: Zemeckis and Gale, Allen, Wallace and Kelley, Eszterhas, Getchell. Long Shots: Delaney, Potter. ~ PROFESSIONAL FILM BOOKS! by Film Professionals FILM DIRECTORS FILM SCHEDULING/FILM BUDGETING WORKBOOK A Complete Guide '85 Ralph S. Singleton Michael Singer, Ed. THIRD ANNUAL iii iii iii Companion ro \"Film Sc heduling\". ~~~ INTERNATIONAL EDl1:ION iii iii Contains the entire sc reenpla y to Francis ~ Coppola's Academy Award nominated Ii THE CONV ERSATIO N as we ll a ' alPlU SI\"'~lrfOH \" 1400 DIRECTORS-DOMESTIC DIREC\"IORS & FOREIGN amp le production a nd budget form s \". I to be comJ?leted by the reader. \" Birthdate, Pl ace, Year, Addre ses, Agents ALL SHEETS PERFORATED. \" Full lengt h features, telefilm ISB 0-9-1372 -07-X 296pp. $15.95 \" Alphabetical cross-reference of $34.95 MOVIE PRODUCTION & 14,000 films BUDGET FORMS ... INSTANTLY! \" Index of Direcrors . Ralph S. Singleton \" Interviews & Phoros of Joh n Badham, Arthur H iller, Ra nd a Haines, etc. ISBN 0-94372 -15-0 111 \"x II \" Cloth 436 pp. FILM SCHEDULING This book plus one photocopier equa ls _\"...... ......., \"' \"\"\"...\"\"\"......'wM Or, How Long Willlt Take eve ry production and budget fo rm needed to make a full length featu re \"000'1 \"'_ . . ...\\ To Shoot Your Movie? or teleplay. Completely redesigned and Ralph S. Singleton integrated forms thai are 8'/2 \"x II \" The complete step-by-step guide ro format-easy to tear out and use again profes iona l motion pictu re sc heduling, and again: detailing how to create a production board, shot-by-s ho t, d ay-by-day. ALL SHEETS PERFORATED Complete production board of THE CONVERSATION in co lo r. ISBN 0·943728-1+2 1,6 pp. $15.95 ISB 0·94372 -1I-8 224pp. $16.95 YES\" Please send me FC :85 Recommended for college courses. • the following books: CALIF. UPS TAX SHIPPING OTY. BOOK PRICE FILM DIRECTORS '85 2.27 5 .00 ~. / LONE EA<9-LE FILM SCHEDULING $34 .95 1.10 2.50 $ 16.95 1.04 $ FILM SCHEDULING/BUDGETING WKBK. 15.95 2.50 $ 1.04 • MOVIE PRODUCTION & BUDGET 15 .9 5 2.50 $ _ - -- FORMS ... INSTANTLY! 't\"D~ ~ FCIR PROFES.SDiAL fiLM BOOKS SHIP BOOKS TO: TOTAL ENCLOSED $_ _ _ __ 9903 Santa Monica Blvd. : Name State Zip LONE EAGLE PUBLISHING Beverly Hills, CA 90212 : Company 9903 Santa Monfca Blvd. 213/471-8066 : Address Beverly Hills, CA 90212 : City 213/471-8066 6S

elevision HotSpots by Jeff Greenfield faced Chinese Communist leaders shows culture or anthropology to figure out what them flanked by Coke signs. (These shots is going on here. Given the popularity of a I s television advertising educational? I'm refer to trade agreements between the two passionately anti-communist president, not talking here about those public soft-drink giants and the respective Com- the lessening of domestic dissent with the service announcements urging us to use munist nations.) The scene switches to a end of the war in Vietnam and the draft, seat belts, to drive soberly, to give up small snowbound cabin in what is sup- and such Soviet outrages as the invasion of smoking, or to look for the danger signs of posed to be Siberia. As happy peasants Afghanistan, the massacre of KAL flight disease. No, I'm talking about those high- dance, the announcer tells us that \"some 007, and the endemic, well-publicized powered commercials for soaps, fast people go out of their way for the taste of human rights violations, the Soviet Union foods, beer, soft drinks , and automobiles; RC cola- but not far enough!\" The door has again become an iconographic symbol the ads that are shaped by high-priced of the bad guys. advertising agencies on behalf of the goods and services of corporate America. What are they doing in television ads? It is not a case of CIA inftltration, or a Of course they're designed not to inform deliberate political message inserted on the audience, but to persuade the audi- behalf of corporate America. Rather, with ence; to convince us to buy something. only 30 seconds to deliver a message, you Television, however, is a medium where need such \"icons\"; they can establish a images come first; and often images have a whole frame of reference immediately. way of conveying a message that goes Thus, the increasing presence of cartoon- beyond the intentions of the creators of villain Soviets as instantly accessible those images. When the brainpower of symbols tells us just how different the some of the smartest image-shapers in political climate today is from the early America is trained on a single 30-second Seventies, when Richard Nixon and commercial, we ought to pay careful Leonid Brezhnev were SALT-ing away attention to the choices those creators treaty after treaty. make because they represent some very shrewd guesses as to what the American ~ But the Soviet bad guys are only the buying public is thinking. -K most obvious commercial images. When I worked as a political media ~ Social and political clues are often less consultant (in another life), I used to pay special attention to the commercials ~~ blatant but no less significant. Look to the .~ running on television as a guide to the world of fast food and convenience food mood of the public. Now, as a political ~u journalist, I do the same thing. The E advertising. ;X commercials may well be a more reliable guide to our national subconscious than c5 In his landmark book The Hidden ! the most carefully drawn public opinion polls. ~ Persuaders, which revealed the psycho- g The most obvious example is the strong ~ logicar tools employed by advertisers 30 ~ anti-Soviet attitude abroad in the land today. The detentist may deplore it; the uo years ago , Vance Packard told of how a u neo-conservatives may cheer it. But the food company had developed an instant ~-5 presence of that mood is unmistakable. From Pierre Cardinsky. cake mix that required only water to be rA Item: In a Miller Lite beer commercial, added. The housewives wouldn't buy it. ~ a comedian who defected from the Soviet eResearch showed that many of them felt Union is singing the praises of the beer. \"In flies open, and there is the KGB . America:' he says, \"you can always find a Item: In a smoky, crowded hall, a Soviet guilty about using so easy a product; real ~ party. In Russia, party always finds you:' ~ fashion show begins. As a uniformed family love, they believed, required more ~ Item: A commercial for RC cola shows officer of enormous bulk and uncertain kitchen work. So the manufacturers ~ us a grim-faced group of Soviet leaders on gender introduces the line, the same changed the formula; now, the cook had to ~ a reviewing stand at the Kremlin , flanked porcine woman walks up and down the add an egg. by Pepsi signs, as the announcer sarcasti- runway; no matter what the fashion - day g cally refers to the favorite drink of \"our That same kind of resistance plagued friends\" abroad. A matching shot of grim- wear, nightwear (accompanied by a flash- the manufacturers of the first generation of Ci light), beach wear (cum beach ball) she TV-dinners. Having been raised to prove ~ their worth by their commitment to e £wears the same gray, shapeless shift. \"Having no choice is no fun:' the domestic labor, women were reluctant to !!; announcer says. The point: Why settle for take advantage of convenience cooking. u no choice at all when at Wendy's ham- Look at today's advertising, and you find a ~ burger outlets, you can get any \"dressing\" completely different set of assumptions. Ci you want on your burger without waiting? A recent commercial for Stauffer's .~ It does not take a Ph.D in popular frozen foods featured a young, very (5 66

attractive, stylishly dressed woman rush- What Mercury is selling, then , is not Mac n' Rachel. ing into her apartment. When she moved simply a car but the new way of life. The out, she tells us, her parents worried that music, the dress and movement of the by Terrence Rafferty she wouldn't be eating good food. But protagonists, and the lives we see them thanks to Stauffer's, she can enjoy bal- leading all tell us that Mercury is the car A t the end of every episode of Another anced meals without spending a lot of time for the self-motivator, the go-getter, the World, time stands still. The closing in the kitchen. person who will not be stifled by tradition freeze-frame may be a passionate and rules- in shon, Woodstock nation on embrace, a menacing look, a close-up of a This theme can be found in ads for wheels. gun, or (three times in the past two years) everything from detergents to Kentucky a hean monitor that's stopped registering Fried Chicken. In selling their wares to That the generation of the Sixties any sign of life. The plot of any long- women today, advenisers are embracing responds to such messages - Mercury car running soap opera proceeds by fits and the idea they once dared not speak: Our sales jumped after the introduction of this starts, but plots are almost secondary to product will make your life easier-you ad campaign - has real political impor- the illusion of continuity, the stuff that have too many interesting things to do tance. In the wake of the revisionism makes an hour a day seem like, well, 24- .with your life to be cooped up cooking and about the Sixties, baby-boom Americans the familiar faces, the usual rooms. Each cleaning. might have been forgiven for thinking of new hour reanimates the arrested figures themselves as the Generation We Love to of the previous one, releasing the actors Yes, the old world still lives: the Wisk Hate: responsible for nothing but self- from their statue poses, showing us, to our \"Ring Around the Collar\" campaign, in indulgent politics, increased drug use, the relief, that the machine-erratically but which the woman's sense of self-worth is loss of Vietnam, genital herpes, and the unmistakably-beeps on, and no one has measured by her detergent's ability to shredding of the social contract. Whatever made dinner or made love, died, or even remove her husband's neck dirt, is still their doubts now about some of the gone to sleep in our absence. Of all our airing on television. But the wholesale personalities and politics advanced in their vigils, following a daily serial is the least shift to commercials glorifying a woman's name, the Sixties alumni still retain a demanding and the most immediately role outside the house is powerful testi- healthy skepticism about rigid bureaucra- rewarding: it's the fulfillment, on a small mony to the permanent change wrought cies, still live by a code radically different scale, of a childish fantasy of never having by the women's movement- ERA or no from that of William Whyte's Organiza- the lights turned out, never having to miss tion Man of the Fifties. things. The rules of narrative in soap opera ERA. are flexible, diverse, but the goal that The power of that self-image was governs them is unvarying: Another Sometimes an advenising campaign can demonstrated in 1984 by the candidacy of World, like every other soap, only wants us speak not to a specific idea but to a Gary Hart. Whatever his message lacked, to watch it forever. broader sense of values. No advertiser in Han clearly tapped in to a world view, a recent years has been as bold-or as tone of voice among younger Americans Not that we actually will. It's probably successful- in this regard as Ford's Mer- that almost propelled him to a presidential safe to guess that no one has seen every cury division. nomination against overwhelming odds. episode of Another World since its And the candidates of 1988 who ignore premiere 22 years ago-certainly not its Each of the Mercury ads has the same this factor, who assume that the 35- and creator, Irna Phillips, who died in 1973, structure: A popular song from the Six- 40-year-olds of 1988 are just like their nor any of the producers, directors, and ties-\"Help;' \"Born to Be Wild ;' \"Proud elders, are in for a rude awakening. These writers who have come and gone since Mary;' \"Be My Baby\"- plays throughout voters are skeptical about any kind of 1964, and not a single one of its actors. the ad, sung and arranged to sound as imposed structure, whether it be the For that matte r, there are only two much as possible like the original record- ossified liberalism of Walter Mondale or characters who have survived the entire ing. The selling line of the commercial, the Moral Majoritarian social views of length of the show's run. And Another touting aerodynamic design or fuel econ- Jerry Falwell. World hasn't been on the air as long as omy, is only a few sentences long. A note of caution here: not every com- The real kick of the ad is in the mini- plot spun out in a remarkably shon time. ~ercial has an underlying social or In the \"Proud Mary\" ad, the words \"Left a political tone to it. In the immortal words good job in the city\" are sung while we see of Sigmund Freud, \"Sometimes a cigar is an attractive Yuppie woman doing exactly just a cigar:' There are enough underem- that-slamming her press card down on ployed art critics and sociologists infusing her way out of the newspaper she has just cosmic meaning into every scrap of left, jumping into her Mercury, and driving popular culture without funher polluting to the country. In the last scene of the ad, the marketplace. our heroine is sitting in front of a type- writer in her cabin by the sea, beginning There are times when a set of values or a work on her novel. point of view has become so dominant that it finds its way into all sons of The \"Be My Baby\" ad is a study in \"apolitical\" messages. Those messages are deliberate deception. A woman calls from worth examining as a way of measuring the maternity ward of a hospital. The what Americans really think about their woman's husband and children jump into own country and their own lives. their Mercury and rush to the scene of the joyous event. What are we thinking? The Or, as Yogi Berra once put it, \"Some- woman has just given binh to another times you can learn a lot just by sitting baby. No way; these are children of the Sixties. The woman is the obstetrician. around and observing:' ® 67

General Hospital (22 years) , As the World Charles Keating as Carl Hutchins. Turns (29) , Searchfor Tomorrow (34) , or The Guiding Light, an lrna Phillips The last few months have seen the meant to knot the past and the present in a creation that began, on radio , in 1937. resolution of an unusually intricate plot perfect unity, as if Another WorLd were a There isn't another narrative form with involving two powerful businessmen, Carl novel that could reach a fulfilling signifi- this kind of temporal bulk - or one in Hutchins (a suave, driven villain) and Mac cance and thus end, as if all of Bay City which the weight of accumulated experi- Cory (Rachel's husband , a distinguished could simply be taken over and driven to ence counts ultimately for so little. good guy). That storyline dominated tht! suicide by a demon of memory. show for over a year, affecting virtually The characters on Another World wear every character in Another World's Bay When Carl's last ploy was foiled, in a their histories lightly, their elaborate pasts City and turning all but one or two or the shootout that left Rachel seriously indicated only by a riot of names. When secondary storylines into subplots of the wounded , and he was dispatched to prison we learn, for instance, that the show's Hutchins-Cory vendetta. to pay for his vastly entertaining crimes, heroine, the artist Rachel Cory, exhibits the show seemed to unravel , the remain- under her maiden name of Davis, we may For a few months , the character of Carl ing characters left hanging by little wonder why she has a mother named Ada Hutchins seemed to transform Another dangling threads of story. In the weeks Hobson, a teen-aged sister named Nancy World into something resembling a Victo- that followed , Another WorLd had to give McGowan, and a grown-up son named rian novel, in which every scheme and birth to itself as a regular soap again, and in Jamie Frame. We may even sense that if dark secret is the trace of a past catastro- the process it achieved a weird verisimili- we disentangled all these relationships phe: in this case, the suicide of Hutchins' tude: the daily grind of Bay City became as we'd discover something essential about father years before in England, an act aimless and irritating as life itself. Mac, the characters, some key to their place in precipitated by Mac Cory's takeover of the Ada , Jamie, and Nancy paced and fretted Hutchins family business. Carl's obses- in the hospital while waiting to learn the larger story. It takes a little time to sion, revealed in flashbacks and dream whether Rachel would live or die (she figure out that soap operas don't have sequences, was to right the old accounts lived but lost her memory); the teen-aged stories, just \"storylines:' threads of narra- by ruining Mac's business and destroying characters ambled in and out of Bay City's tive which aren't meant to converge at an his family. He meant to tie up the loose hip diner, Smiley's, chatting about nothing ordained point like railroad tracks , but ends of history and cancel his own guilt (it much ; Mac's son Sandy and his wife, simply to run in parallel-profuse and was , in fact, the young Carl who sold out Blaine, just packed up and left town for apparently infinite like telephone wires . his father) in a grand , ironic flourish of jobs in San Francisco; the comic charac- Those names that look like clues to a revenge. ters-playboy publisher Cass Winthrop , significant history are only vestigial, lines romance novelist Felicia Gallant, a punk which have fallen into disuse. Carl was the very spirit of resolution , of debutante named Dee, ex-hooker Lily the well-made plot, and the antithesis of Mason , the blandly sinister loan shark The loose ends would seem odd in any the genial, forgiving Mac, who is the Tony the Tuna, and a dwarf known only as other form, but in soap operas they're just embodiment of the ethic and the aesthetic Wallingford-amused themselves with a part of the landscape, along with the· flat of Another World: Mac , tolerant and variety of minor crises; and the show's hot lighting, the bright insubstantial-looking effortlessly prosperous, who takes under young couple, Sally and Catlin, relaxed sets, and the fades into the commercials. his own roof all the children of Rachel's after a tough year of imprisonments, Everything on Another World looks as if various marriages and infidelities, who escapes, murders , kidnappings, and it's about to blow away-walls , marriages, gives jobs, it seems, to every scoundrel chases through Bay City and Mallorca, wigs, whatever. In the course of a couple of and conniver in Bay City, who even tried and prepared to get married at last. All the years, we can watch actors' faces crumble, to understand when his own son went to while, new storylines were starting to flfm up (surgically) , then helplessly start to work for Carl Hutchins. Bay City, for that wriggle out of this inert matter, but fall apart again; watch storylines build to year, was threatened by a more exacting sLowly- nothing serious until, like their natural clirnaxes and then stretch out consciousness, a more rigorous sense of Rachel, we'd lost our memory of all that perilously, testing credulity and patience, story, than it could accommodate. Hut- went before. until they either collapse from their own chins, a scrupulous narrative ironist, stupidity or are grudgingly resolved ; watch performers who were once important to the show play out \"I'm so happy for you\" and \"Tell me what's wrong\" scenes on the periphery, waiting for a storyline to restore their connections to the other characters , plug them back into the action. No matter how brutal and functional the storytelling is, no matter how exaggerated the actions and reactions of the characters, every soap opera has an anxious, fragile quality built into it: each storyline is developed, then resolved , then reabsorbed into the charac- ters' lives as part of their history - and finally it recedes as if none of it had ever happened. The rhythms of Another World are at their most unsettled after a major climax. 68

T he point of soap operas, after all, is Immediacy not reflection. Selected as an outstanding film of the year. immediacy, not reflection. It's fun to London Film Festival remember the characters' hopelessly tan- \"killed off;' and even the abrupt revision of gled histories (Rachel's attempt to recover unpopular strategies - the resurrection of 93 minutes, color / B&W. her past has, in fact, proved a source of characters presumed dead. And we forgive comedy for Another World, with scene the soaps' awkward, desperate improvisa- A FILM BY RICK SCHMIDT after scene of parodic recaps of long- tions, their helpless infidelity to life, abandoned storylines), but that's an inci- because we recognize in them a touching The big hit of the Ann Arbor film fest ival in 1978, dental, occasional pleasure, like a browse determination to move ahead, even if it Rick Schmidt's 1988-THE REMAKE is currently through the junk in the basement: baseball requires eliding or negating the meaning of enjoying cult status in other cities. It's easy to see cards, old valentines, high school year- past experience. The fantas y and the truth why: the film has carved a unique niche for itself books. of soap opera is that lives can advance somewhere between FREAKS and Fellini 's 8 Vz. forgetfully, resisting overdetermined plots Purporting to be the first musical \" with the stench In this respect, soaps have more in and the perfect clarity that stops us in our of death about it\", and ending with the message common with the movies' absurd cliff- tracks. \" be the star in your own life\", 1988 mixes deadly hanger serials, from the silent Perils of seriousness and high camp, avant-garde Pauline and Louis Feuillade's horror- Another World is an endless bedtime aesthetics and transsexual athletics with an at- tinged melodramas to Flash Gordon and story and-like that humane, soothing mosphere that is alternately sordid and seductive. G-Men versus Black Dragon, than with form of storytelling- it succeeds in trans- other episodic narratives whose tone and porting us without quite hiding its artifice: David Harris content seem closer to daytime-drama we notice the storyteller's hesitation as he The Boston Phoenix concerns: network mini-series, the seg- decides what's coming next, and we don't 1988 recounts the fictitious tale of a middle-aged mented Victorian novels presented on mind, as long as he rushes on. Would librarian's attempts to finance and remake the film Masterpiece Theatre, and such oddities Rachel remember who she was before musical \" Showboat\" in contemporary terms. The as the ambitious West German saga Carl's bullet blacked her out? The show auditions are arranged on a San Francisco stage, Heimat, which has been shown through- kept us in suspense, marking time as its and range from incredible to merely bizarre. out Europe as both an eleven-episode heroine reinvented herself everyday: imag- television series and as a 16-hour theatrical ining that Mac and Ada and Nancy and Variety ftlm in two or four parts. Even the worst of Jamie were her family and the people of these describe some pattern, connect Bay City were her friends , enjoying the * * * Movies on TV events in something more telling than a freedom of a floating identity among these straight line, but soap operas are relent- figures frozen in place to wait for her Featuring SYLVESTER, JESUS CHRIST SATAN, less and have no use for the painstaking return. LINDA MONTANO, ED NYLUND, WILLY BOY designs of narratives framed by beginnings WALKER, LOWELL DARLING, NUNS AND and ends. The key to their one-thing-after- A nd then, months later, Rachel re- another structure is the amnesia story, NUDISTS, many others ... 1988 is now which has been a staple of the form since ~embered everything, so Another its radio days . (lrna Phillips is said to have World could forget her for a while. Her available for sale or rental at thje following video been the pioneer of the device.) Rachel's recovery of her past has no impact on the stores in the San Francisco/Bay Area: past is about as important to Another show's current storylines: it's just punctua- • •• * ...... .... PALMER VIDEO ••••••••••• World as the boulder bearing down on tion. Now that Rachel is only Rachel •••••••• * •• CAPTAIN VIDEO ••••• ••• * •• Indiana Jones is to Raiders of the Lost again, her history is insignificant, and she •••••• tit •• •• GRAMOPHONE * ..... . . . . . . Ark: it's there and then it's gone, a and Mac have settled into the traditional ••••••••• FRONT ROW VIDEO·\"\"\"\" beginning that's been left behind. roles of soap veterans -listening to other •••••••• CHOI 'S HOME VIDEO •••••••• characters summarize the new storylines, Or purchase your VHS/BETA (please specify) Like the adventure serials, soap operas offering wise advice, playing small comic cassette for $49.95, plus $2.00 per copy for are shameless, casually outrageous, and shipping I handling. more than a little arbitrary: the outra- Please send geousness is what entertains us, but it's the money order arbitrariness that hooks us. The radio and payable to early television soaps were broadcast live, which gave them an air of unpredictability and created the illusion of making things up as they went along (sometimes that's exactly what the actors were doing); and even today's taped shows don't bother to edit out the occasional blown line or panicked look - the cameras keep rolling as the actors fumble , recover, improvise. The writers and producers tend to get caught in the act, too: soap fans, knowing and adaptable, accept sudden cast changes (''What's happened to you, Peter?''), the cold narrative economies which demand that superfluous or over- powering characters be \"written out\" or 69

scenes here and there to further attenuate different place , transformed as thoroughly Temple of Doom paces in northern Africa the stately suspense of the main action. as the women who submit themselves to and hanging off cliffs in Monument Valley. The Corys aren't really at the center of Bay Le Soleil's self-realization techniques: Even Carl Hutchins , who returned to Bay City anymore: Mac's son Sandy is gone for there are more parties , more gowns, more City (he's on \"furlough\" from prison), good , and Rachel's son Jamie, a big wheel elaborate sets, more elegantly sinister looks a bit punier, less threatening against at Cory Publishing, is now almost invisi- Europeans with killer accents and obscure this newly glamorized background. His ble. The Cory Publishing co mplex, for pasts . Catlin and Sally (a new, blonde one) reappearance was greeted with horror and years the most important workplace finally married , and their importance loathing by all, but his villainy lacks the setting for the show, is rarel y seen now, Dickensian splendor it once had . This and most of the major characters who used diminished immediately: now they have Carl is a lighter, comic-opera baddie, a to spend their days drifting in and out of \"problems\" instead of perils, edgy quarrels roguish pirate with a brand-new little the Cory offices have found employment in place of breathless adventures. The mustache. at Bay City's hot new industry-a beauty/ yo unger characters Nancy McGowan and self-help outfit called Le Solei!. Chris Chapin have been designated as the Hutchins isn't back in Bay City to lovers in danger for the latest sweeps reopen old wounds, just to open some new In five months, Bay City has become a period and have been going through their ones: he's there to recover a priceless collection of Egyptian art hidden on the FILM & CRITICISM Chapin estate, now the site of Le Soleil- an obsession that wasn't even hinted at Centre Universitaire Americain du Cinema et de la Critique it Paris during his first tenure on the show. Hutchins' older, more interesting obses- Th e Film Studies Progra m a nd Co nt e mpo rary Criticism and Cu lture (C CC) sion, his urge to destroy Mac Cory, has figured only incidentally in the recent aProg ra m a t th e Centre Universitai re Americain du C in e ma et d e la C rit iqu e action: his history on the show-what Another Worlds viewers have actually Pa ri s both boas t a curri cu lum u f inn ova ti ve se min a rs and co ur ses w hi ch exa m ine seen him do - has been virtually dis- th e th eo ri es and crit ica l th o u g ht th a t h ave influ e n ce d the s tudy o f film and o th e r carded, as Mac's and Rachel's have been. fo rm s o f ex pressio n ove r the past 40 yea rs. Hutchins now has just what the freshly minted Le Solei I characters have-an The Film Studies Progra m attributed past, a history that has nothing to do with our accumulated memories of a .. provide st ud e nt s wi th character, a statement we can only take on courses and se minars ana- faith , apremise. ly ti ca l o f film theor y. hi s- to ry. fo rm a l s tructures. Since the lull that followed the big ideo logy , and th e relation- climaxes earlier in the year, Another ships bet wee n fi lm and World's writers and producers have been o th er art forms , and lan- busily constructing new premises for the guage and psychoanalysis. show. Bay City seems to have been Part ici pa nt s discu ss suc h relocated in the glossy, best-sellerish themes as th e si le nt fi lm world of the nighttime soaps, but the of Criff ith , Lang . Eise n- change is essentially meaningless. The s te in . and Kea to n; classic show's current look-an insane mixture of Ho ll ywood fi lm s; . evo lu- traditional daytime drama, Nancy Drew t io n of ea rl y cin e m a; and mysteries, Dynasty, and the viscous Europea n a nd A me rican romanticism of a Julio Iglesias video - is avant-garde ci nema s. just a style, not a key to a set of values. It can be abandoned as easily as an actor can bi ll·' :,>,1\\\\ hb '!\"\\\"'t'l Th e CCC focuses o n recent d eve l- be replaced, a character killed off, a story- In thl' l, lrm ,.f.I op m e nt s in French po liti ca l th o ug ht line allowed to dribble out. a nd socia l ins tituti ons. ling ui s tics , :.,'ftll\" .. u bw\" socia l sc ie nces. a nd literar y th eo ry. In a couple of months, the Corys might r.I\\I,III.1I u'Jl·fut 111\"/1 Th e Program. interdisciplina r y in be back in the thick of things again and the ,.'Iurn II \\., hm! Ul nature. a na lyzes tex t s and doc u- Le Solei! crew bundled onto the Concorde th., r\" rlll ,./ ,I )..:,\"',1 1 ments a we ll as no n-ve rb a l repre s- and banished, and the show could look e nt at ions s uch as ph o tog ra ph y, fi lm like anything: The Honeymooners, Miami b.1rIlIIUI- J\"',II!1 a nd te lev is ion . by dra wing fr o m t h e Vice , Hee Haw , who knows? It's one fi e ld s o f ling u istics . psyc h oa na lys is. world and another and another, a succes- \\\\ hll\" ' I ullt' 1I,lllIr,!!I\\' an thropo logy. phi losoph y, and pol- sion of receding memories. Another it ica l scie nc e. World, like all soaps, is omnivorous: h,u,h,'\" .111 ,h., everything in the culture, good and bad , bprJt'r~ \" I ,hi' A required sess io n that in cludes gets in there eventually. But it can't hold intensive language training an d an anything down . Nothing in Another World introd ucti on to fi lm a nal ysis, th e- means any more than last month's news to o ry a nd se mi o logy precedes the an amnesiac, yesterday's lunch to a yea r- lo n g Pr og ra m s . A d va nce d bulimic. It's as innocent as storytelling can undergl'ad ua te a nd grad uat e s tu - be. ~ de nt s w ith a min imum of two yea rs of uni ve rsi t y- leve l Fr e nc h or the eq u iva le nt m ay apply . Fo r f urth er info rm a ti on , w rite : University of Ca lifornia Ed uca ti o n Abnl<ld Pr ogra m Sa nt a Barbara, CA Q3100 Sponsored by University of California Education Abroad Program & Council on International Educational Exchange 70

MAZURSKY BLUME: I think we'll start with two presents ... carrot juices. (Continuedjrompage 19) THE DEFINITIVE ARLENE: I don't want any. POSTER CATALOG office and a waiter bringing in a luncheon BLUME: One carrot juice. with the best of wines, and he's absolutely WAITER: Small, medium , or large? The country's paramount col - uninhibited and jumping from film to film BLUME: Medium . Arlene? lection of original movie pos- as a possible idea - \"Take this, take ARLENE: I don't know. What is in the ters - rare, classic, contem - that\" - no marrer how much he's rejected, Zen stew? porary - such as \" Maltese Fal- and eats all through it with great gusto. WAITER: Zen stew is a variety of con,\" \" Snow White,\" \" Jezebel.\" Well, I could never do that. garden vegetables . There's nine in all. Comprehensive catalogue with There's green beans, peas, carrots, mush- over 250 prime lithos. Your And I'm not saying the guy's a bad guy, rooms , potatoes onions, shallots, and it's chance now to acquire previously but \"Wow!\" That gusto, that ardor, that in a heavy gravy. inaccessible graphics . $6 .00 energy is partly what made Hollywood. (credited toward first purchase). You know, they could be wrong a lor, but You know, the funny thing about that is they just kept going. Western, love story, no matter how different the Sixties were CINEMONDE this one, that one. And while I make fun of from now, people are still in the Sixties in the guy, I think I do it with a certain some way here. It hasn't changed all that For those who think affection. Of course, I play him, so who much. can be objective? And I did have Caesar \"8 -1/2\" salad, because I always assumed that It's curious you say that. As I watched everybody who's working in those situa- Alice B. TokJas again, I noticed that offers more than tions is on a diet sort of-although that's Harold s concerns seem so much more not the best food for a diet. dated than Herbies , his hippie brother s, \"10\" which now seem perfectly acceptable. No, but the name Caesar could have the Evergreen Video Society been no accident. Right. 213 West 35th Street And Herbie, ofcourse, is the Sixties. New York, NY 10001 'Blume in Love' (1973) Right. (1-212) 714-9860 And at the time he seemed. .. Blume in Love begins with Blume's Eccentric, right. But no longer. outside of New York State use thoughts about espresso. When Blume decides to be ingratiat- ing, he shows up one morning at his e.x- 1-800-225-7783 BLUME: Espresso to me is the only real wife's house, calling , \"Hello! Bagels! \" good coffee. Of course, it has to be made He brings them as a love token, a Write for free membership information and properly. You need the best coffee, the message of peace, a peace offering, to get get a copy of our newsletter as well as a best machine, and a good stomach. It's a back into the house. And it works. $5 .00 credit on your first order . perfect way to Start the day. 'Harry and Tonto' (1974) Name IMazurskyl: Yes. And , of course, I had lived in Rome for six months or so and had T he movie begins with Harry ordering ._-- -- ----- -------... .._---------------._------------------ - been exposed a lot to the great Italian groceries in an uptown Puerto Rican coffees. It changed my whole arritude market. Street Address toward coffee, and I became obsessed with cappuccino. I bought a cappuccino HARRY: Half a dozen eggs, one City/State/Zip Code machine of my own, espresso maker, and container of skim milk, n vo of the lo-cal I've had one ever since. Since 1972 or so cottage cheeses, three-quarters pound of I've always had at least one machine. So all that nice tender liver, and a pint of sw~et that is, is a comment on my love for good cream. coffee. JESUS: That cat eats better than me. Then we get one of the only actual HARRY: Jesus , eating is the most recipes in one ofyour movies: Zen stew. important thing in the life of a cat. JESUS: Eating is the most important Yes, and that was done by the owner of thing in the life of me, too. Help restaurant [where Blume takes HARRY: Can of tuna. Arlene (Marsha Mason) to dinner!. War- ren , the man who played the part, was the [Mazurskyl: The scene made in a comic co-owner. And he gave an absolutely way a wonderful point: people who love specific, real recipe. That was Zen stew. their animals take better care of them , when it comes down to it, than them- I said, \"What should we have you offer selves. They brush their teeth. They feed them?\" and he gave me a few things, and I them the best foods. They'll do without if said, \"What about Zen stew? What is they don't have money, but not the animal. that?\" and he told me, and I said, \"That's You know, that's really true. .It.\" There's a scene with a dog psychiatrist WAITER: We have two dinner specials in Down and Out, which is a first. The this evening. The first is asparagus savory, and the second is Zen stew. Soup of the day is mushroom and barley. 71

jar of pickled herring, which he smashes against the nearest wall. In Willie and Phil the ethnicity of each principal character is indicated by foods associated with their parents: Willie's mother serves his fiancee, Jeannette [Margot Kidder], chopped liver; Jean- nette's mother serves Willie [Michael Ontkean] turkey, yams, and biscuits; when Phil [Ray Sharkey] welcomes his parents to Los Angeles, they are bearing a sack of Italian bread and salami. A recurrent joke in The Tempest concerns feta cheese, a staple on the tiny island, where life, once idyllic, has become routine. PHILIP Oohn Cassavetes): What's for breakfast? ARETHA (Susan Sarandan): Coffee, feta cheese, bread, feta cheese, and for a change of pace a nice feta cheese omelet. Ess, mein kind. And no one could improve on Calabanos' [Raul Julia's], \"Hey, boss, how about a fig psychiatrist attempts to get the dog to eat. to California at the end of the movie and break?\" I won't tell you whether he succeeds or comes to say goodbye to his parents, the not. mother [Shelley Winters] gives him a bag But in aU three movies, food has of rugeLLach to take on the airplane, and become somehow something less than, or In Harry and Tonto we get a bona fide he walks down the street, and he looks other than, it was. The dining table recipe for a heaLth food drink. back at the life he'll never live again, and he becomes what it is in most directors' films: eats a piece of cookie to remember. a convenient location to get characters WADE CARLIN: C goes good with E. together to talk. Back up your E with C, and you'll be 'An Unmarried Woman' dancing till midnight. No limit to C, and I (1978), It doesn't seem central. It doesn't seem advise you to take plenty of F. Get yourself as reveaLing ofclass or character. a good blender; I can sell you one. Equal 'Willie and Phil' (1980), portions of sunflower seed, pumpkin 'Tempest' (1982) So maybe I was less obsessed with food, seed, sesame seed, flax seed. Get it down but now I'm re-obsessed. to where she looks like flour. Put it into T hese are not food movies, although your blender-I can sell you one-toss in there are specific foods featured in all 'Moscow on the a little apple juice and honey, and you'll be three: in An Unmarried Woman, surely Hudson' (1983) clean as a whistle. the Chinese restaurant scene in which Mazursky appears as the gauche, but [Mazursky]: There's a Russian meal in That's the blender the Indian [Chief affable Hal; Erica's fixing eggs, grated the first scene of the movie, and you see Dan George] later gets from Harry. cheese, and hot sauce for the painter, Saul the way they eat a little bit. It's significant [Alan Bates]; and the story Saul teUs about in that it tells you something about their 'Next Stop, Greenwich his parents and a pickled herring. way of life. Vladimir [Robin Williams] has Village' (1975) brought his grandfather a favorite, pickled SAUL: My father had a shop near mushrooms, an expression of love from H ealth food abounds, invariably to Stepney Green. One day when I was the grandson to the old man. It's very satiric effect, in Mazursky's movies: about six, my parents had a row. My important in the sense of the movie. in BLume in Love, in Harry and Tonto, in mother, she threw a pickled herring at my Down and Out in BeverLy Hills, and in dad, and it missed. It splattered against He has breakfast with the family in Next Stop, Greenwich Village, in which the wall. I took one look at that pickled Harlem, a lot of Rice Krispies and stuff. Larry (Lenny Baker) works the counter, as herring, and that was when I decided to Mazursky did, in a 1950s health food become an abstract expressionist. And there's a scene in a supermarket, restaurant. Here health drinks are more where he goes looking for coffee, and he's remedy than repast: cabbage and carrot ERICA: Your work does remind me of shocked and stunned and actually faints- juice for indigestion, cabbage and broccoli pickled herring. he's taken to a hospital- because of the juice for insomnia. array of coffees. There's a hundred Later, as a parting gift, Erica gives Saul a coffees-\"Cafe Bustelo, cafe dis, cafe dat, [Mazursky]: In Next Stop, Greenwich dis coffee, dat coffee, Maxwell House, Village, when the boy is finally ready to go Yuban, Chock Full 0' Nuts, coffee, coffeee, coffee, coffee, coffee\" - and he faints. He falls in the aisle. So the abundance is enough to make him faint. At the end of the movie the KGB agent is seen selling hot dogs. ~ 72

National Video Festival: Fast-Forward by Meredith Brody program with Godard and Mieville made directed by Brian Gibson from Dennis for Channel 4 in 1985; the two-hour Potter's script, casts adults as children T he National Video Festival began in Special cinema: 'Sauve qui peut La vie' playing childish games that turn evil, set 1981 by excluding anything done on (1980), Godard and Isabelle Huppert against the background of WWII ; Licking film, according to James Hindman, so that discussing her role and clips from the film; Hitler, also a WWII drama, was written and video, the \"least recognized, least appre- and Scenario du film 'Passion' (1982), a directed by David Hare, and features ciated visual form in American and video scenario made after the film. (guess who) Kate Nelligan as an upper- international film culture.. .could fmd its class twit exposed to a particularly own place in the scheme of things:' \"These television programs ... pose unpleasant mad genius and propagandist; Hindman, now NVF's executive director, enormous difficulties and complexities for Made in Britain, Alan Clarke's study of a admits that this was too limiting, and every the viewer;' says Colin MacCabe, head of British skillhead, is stunningly acted by year since has broadened the festival. The production at the British Film Institute Tim Roth, one of England's best and most thematic structure of the 1985 festival was versatile young actors (The Hit, Mean- the intersection of video and fLim, televi- Video Godard. time); and Walter, also directed by sion and cinema. Stephen Frears, stars Ian McKeUand as and author of Godard: Images, Sounds, the mentally retarded title character, in a For instance, the first screening was of Politics. The audience didn't seem to fmd touching but not cloying performance. the November 21, 1984 edition of this to be true, except in the most literal Britain's Channel 4 cinema program, sense with Sixfois deux, which was shown Under the rubric of \"The Critical Visions. The first ten minutes, a regular in a badly duped , unsubtitled print Series: TV on Cinema;' four episodes of feature called \"Clips\", is a montage of annoyingly accompanied by a distracting Channel 4's Visions were screened along excerpts from then current movie releases live voice-over translation. We ate with four programs from the French series put together by British director Chris Godard's video works up . They're ready Cineastes de notre temps (on Josef von Petit: Clint Eastwood's TIghtrope, David for PBS, if PBS is ready for them. Sternberg, Shirley Clarke, John Ford, and Byrne singing \"Psychokiller\" from Stop a Godard-Fritz Lang interview). Also Making Sense, Raul Ruiz' Three Crowns NVF also screened 25 British TV movies shown were four programs of Cinema- of the Sailor, Andrei Konchalovsky's programmed by critic and film producer Cinemas, French channel 2's monthly Martyn Auty. In recent years, Britain has magazine show. These programs - all sMaria Lovers, Eric Rohmer's Full,Moon turned out increasingly stylized and off- truly meta-cinema - come as revelations beat TV movies that reflect (by economic to an Entertainment Tonighted country in Paris, and the new 1984. Obviously, necessity) a willingness to risk doing small whose proudest hour in similar program- the success of each month's \"Clips\" stories. Some have been released theatri- ming was Hollywood and the Stars, depends in large part on the luck of the cally in the U.S. and Britain: Peter carefully back-lit faux-history dispensed draw, but these ten minutes were breath- Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Con- by the studio publicist. takingly shocking: the whole greater than tract, Richard Eyre's The Ploughman's the sum of its considerable parts. Taut, Lunch , (script by Ian McEwen) and Mike Ironically, Large Door Ltd., the produc- sexy, witty, and audacious: plus you've got Hodges' Squaring the Circle (script by ers of Visions, which has run since 1982, TV commenting on ftlm. The fifth NVF Tom Stoppard). Others have shown at learned in L.A. that their trenchant, witty was off and running at the American Film U.S. festivals and on TV: John Schle- show had just been cancelled (\"Yet again!\" Institute in Los Angeles. singer's An Englishman Abroad, and they sighed). Cineastes, an auteurist's Stephen Frear's Caught on a Train. delight (Rivette interviewing Renoir, for Jacqueline Kain, NVF's eclectic pro- example), produced by Janine Bazin grammer and director, quotes Jean-Luc Four movies were never less than (Andre's widow) and critic Andre Godard, whose ftlm and video work interesting: Blue Remembered Hills, Labarthe, ran from 1964 to 1972 on formed the 1985 festival centerpiece, as French TV. And the two-year-old Cinema- speaking only of \"images and sounds;' Cinemas , which uses footage of Lemmy instead of \"video and film, and cinema and Caution in Alphaville to connect its television\" as two opposing media and segments, is still currently in production, industries. There were some 25 hours of covering everything from Frans;ois Truf- programming by and about Godard: the faut's funeral to the famed Westmore two series that Godard and Anne-Marie makeup dynasty of Hollywood. Mieville shot for television in 1976-78, Six fois deux/Sur et sous La communication Another NVF program featured 32 (Six times two/On and Below Communi- Italian TV ads, some directed by novices cation) and France/tour/detour-deux (Dino Risi, Elio Petri) , some tossed off by enfants (France/Tour/Detour/Two/Chil- veteran film giants willing to pick up some dren) and Soft and Hard, and an hour-long loose change on the side. Unlike the off- 73

shore TV ads shown on Johnny Carson record of her pregnancy) , to wild-and- Desilu in 1958. It was written, produced, (usually prize-winning examples of the crazy comic bits (The Planet of Men vs. narrated, and directed by Orson Welles, \"Isn't it cute? Isn't it true?\" genre), the The Planet of Women, from the Golden who is also credited with the production Italian spots are lumbering, two-and-a-half Age of Saturday Night Live , wherein design and the musical arrangement! A minute numbers called \"caroselli ;' or Capt. Macho and Lt. Testosterone battle stunning little movie, experimental, fresh , mini-movies, wherein the product only Corp. Fallopia and Capt. Estrogena, and and exciting, Fountain is based on a John pops up in a brief billboard at the end. Susan Mogul's Take Off parody of Vito Collier short story about a scientist who Most were dull, and those credited to Lina Acconci's Undertone , in which she dis- wreaks subtle psychological revenge on Wertmuller, Vittorio Taviani, and Mauro cusses the history of her vibrator and his stage-star fiancee and her tennis player Bolognini betray nothing of their creators. occasionally uses it under the table). lover. The film was narrated by Welles , rI\\.vo non-caroselli commercials proved who occasionally takes over for the actors' exceptional: a minute-long 1982 Sergio Individual screenings caught willy-nilly own voices in perfect synch. Welles Leone spot in which a Renault-l8 bursts included Peter Greenaway's overworked, accomplished lightning-fast transitions by free from its chains in the CoLiseum, and a overwrought TV Dante, a IS-minute video changing the rear-projected backgrounds minute-long 1984 Fellini ad for Campari in version of \"Canto V\" that went right over that are behind the characters as they which a female train passenger is able to my head; Greenaway's Interiors: 26 speak. It's painful now to realize that we change the wi ndow scenery by remote Bathrooms, which plays like turning the were watching this in amazement, know- control. pages of a particularly British issue of ing that Welles was still alive - and trying House and Garden to find the occasional to work a few miles away. T hen , of course, came the music flash of bare bum ; The Kitchen Presents , a videos; 22 by (you know) - Brian De tedious and unimaginative assemblage of If aLi this sounds like an embarassment Palma, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, tapings of the Kitchen's heavy hitters in of riches , it was; and it's hard to Allan Arkush, the usual. These seemed performance (Laurie Anderson, Philip understand why the marketplace doesn't no more or less interesting than any Glass, Molissa Fenley, David Byrne, that yet contain a method for transmitting aLi random 90 minutes snatched from the gang), staged especially for this video and this to us. Why can't it all be waiting in jaws of MTV. Only one inspired a desire for mostly in front of Cindy Sherman photo- discreet cassettes at Tower Video, where re-viewing, a triumph for Oscar-winner graphs and Robert Longo paintings. I on my first visit, eager to rent something, Zbigniew Rybcsynski: over the banal think the Kitchen intended it to be a post- anything , on a Friday night, I felt like I was Chuck Mangione song, \"Diana 0 \", a modern variety show, but variety just in a nightmare's library where I'd already woman consantly rearranges an image doesn 't work on TV anymore. read every volume. And here's all the stuff composed on multiple video monitors by I want to check out. ~ restacking them in novel ways. Perhaps a Another Kitchen veteran, John San- future NVF will program theatrtcal features born , who has done exciting work, applled STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT made by directors who started in rock every single piece of what he calls ''Tv videos-the children of MTV and Diet magic\" to the Lee BreuerlBob Telson AND CIRCULATION (Act of August 12, 1970: Sec- Coke. Sister Suzie Cinema · (produced for next year's Alive From Off Center) , but all this tion 3685. Title 39. lJnited States Code) 1. title of publi- Robert Rosen, director of the National fashionable talent ended up with an over- Center for Film and Video Preservation at manipulated half-hour of do-wop that cation Film Comment 2. date of filing October 21, 1985 the AFI (and a UCLA professor) presented finally seemed shrill and tired. Raul Ruiz' \"Style War: What's News in the Eighties;' La Presence Reelle, an hour-long movie 3. frequency ofissue bimonthly 4. location ofknuum office which deconstructs network TV news made for French TV, centers on an coverage by analyzing a day chosen at unemployed actor who shows up at the of publication 140 West 65th St., New York NY 10023 5. random , June 6, 1985. The hot, if 1983 Festival d'Avignon hoping to do a indistinguishable, news: the exhumation performance piece on the surroundings location of the headquarters or general business offices of of the body of Joseph Mengele, the death Yeah , Ruiz plays around with all that of the fourth Frustraci septuplets, the reality/illusion stuff, but he makes some the publishers 140 West 65th St., New York NY 10023 6. furor over a gay high school in New York sense of it. City, and the final results of the National names and addresses of publisher, editor, and business Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. The single best thing I saw? Stuck into a program of old TV anthology shows manager: publisher Joanne Koch, 140 West 65th St., A sexier presentation, \"What Does She directed by well-known feature directors Want?: A Video Debate;' put together arid (including not particularly interesting seg- New York, NY 10023 editors Richard Corliss, Harlan narrated by Lyn Blumenthal, a video artist ments from Hitchcock, Ford, and Hal and co-founder of the Video Data Bank, Roach) , was Fountain ofYouth, a half-hour Jacobson, 140 West 65th St., New York NY 10023 busi- thrilled her audience by reciting Irving telefilm made for Colgate Theater by Berlin's Annie Oakley lyric, \"Oh you can't ness manager Sayre Maxfield, 140 West 65th St., New shoot a man in the tail like a quail...Oh you can't get a man with a gun:' York NY 10023 7. owner The Film Society of Lincoln Blumenthal smoked a mean cigarette or twelve as she introduced over five hours of Center, 140 West 65th St., New York NY 10023 8. footage ranging from self-parodic Calvin Klein ads (''When you lose your mind it's knuum bondholders, mortgages, and other security hold- nice to have a body to fall back on\"), through self-aware films (The Nun and the ers uuming or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of Deviant, a \"classic Seventies feminist text\" and Womb with a View , Sheri Milner's bonds, mortgages orother securities none 9. The purpose, function and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for Federal income tax purposes has not changed during the preceding 12 months . 10. extent and nature of circulation: actual number ofcopies of single issue published nearest to filing date average numbtr ofcopies each issue T during preading 12 months ~ A. total numbtr ofcopies printed (net press nm) 40,097 39, 676 B. paid circuuJtion 1. soles through 9,406 25, 176 dealers and carriers, street vendors 34.582 and counter soles 9.531 275 34,857 2. mail subscriptions 24,597 0 C. total paid circulation 34,128 4,819 39,676 D. free distnbution Uy mail, carrier or other means-samples, complimentary, and other free copies 500 E. total distribution (su mofC and OJ 34,628 F. copies not distributed 1. offia use left-aver. unaccounted, spoiled after printing 810 2. retu rns from news agents 4,659 C. total (sum ofE& FI (should '\"Iual net press ron shown in AI 40,097 11 . Icertify that the slatmlmts made by meabcroe are correct and complete. (signed) Sayre Maxfield Business Manager 74

Orson Welles, 1915-1985: Wander Boy by Dave Kehr W ith the first scene of his first feature Welles in The Third Man. film, Orson Welles was already imagining his end. He got most of the fused - and the rigid identities imposed by position of being able to create his own details right: Orson Welles died, on the world outside. For artists like Chaplin screen image , and to do so he drew, to an October 10, 1985, alone in his house in the and Eastwood, who came to filmmaking unprecedented degree , on the derails of Hollywood Hills , a mysterious and still after substantial experience as actors, this his own life. controversial figure. If there wasn't an has largely meant a confrontation with an unctuous, insinuating butler to discover established screen image: The Little In fashioning Kane, Welles played into the body, there was a chauffeur, come to Tramp, The Man with No Name. In the public image- UThe Wonder Boy\" - pick up his employer for, presumably, 1940, Welles found himself in the singular that the newspapers and newsreels had another round of the fruitless meetings already constructed for him . But for and alimentary TV appearances that had come to define the last decade of his professional life. There was no one there to hear his last words, if any-but then , there was no one there for Kane, either. If Orson Welles imagined his own death in Citizen Kane , he kept on imagining it, usually as a fall from a great height (The Stranger, Journey Into Fear, Mr. Arka- din, Touch ofEvil), often at the hands of a friend, a close associate, or member of the family (Th,e Stranger, Othello, Mr. Arka- din, Touch ofEvil, Chimes at Midnight). The grandeur of the characters Welles created for himself plus the profusion of betrayers in his work invite a snap diagnosis of paranoia. But that wou ld be to ignore the deep emotional investment Welles made in the traitors he continually conjured up: it is more often the traitor, not the character played by Welles, who holds the audience's immediate sympathy and sets the film's point of view. It is as if Welles recognized and endorsed the need to bring down the great, impossible men he played. To the degree that he was Kane, he was also Jedidiah Leland, peering at himself through a tangle of awe, horror, and regret. Many actor-directors, from Charles Chaplin to Clint Eastwood , have used the movies as a medium of self-investigation. There is something in the act of filming oneself that immediately produces a profound alienation. The actor-director has a unique opportunity to see himself in the world, presumably as others see him , and to contemplate the gap that exists between subjective knowledge of the self-often vague, contradictory, con- 75

Welles, The Wonder Boy was something Little citizen. pass by. The other senior male Amber- he had lived with long before The War of sons are a dissipated bachelor uncle and a the Worlds made him a national celebrity. turns out to be a detailed recreation of the senile, ancient grandfather. Though He had lived with it from the age of 18 boarding school where Welles spent his Eugene appears to have brought up his months, when '(according to Barbara adolesence; The Lady from Shanghai, daughter Lucy single-handedly, he is less a Leaming's biography) family friend Dr. according to Welles, is a metaphorical father to her than a friend and confidant. Maurice \"Dadda\" Bernstein announced account of his experiences working for The strongest parental bond in the film is, the discovery of Orson's genius to his Nelson Rockefeller (transformed into the of course, that between George (Tim astonished parents. \"The desire to take Glenn Anders character) on the Good Holt) and his mother, the ethereal Isabelle medicine is one of the greatest features Neighbor program of World War II. But if (Dolores Costello). which distinguishes men from animals;' Welles' work could be reduced cleanly and Orson supposedly quipped from his crib, simply to narcissistic navel-gazing, it When George acts to prevent Isabelle's and whether or not it actually happened wouldn't have the power that it does . It's marriage to Eugene, he is attempting to fix (there is reason to believe that Bernstein, Welles' ability to build on the particular her identity and, through her, his own. She who had a habit of falling in love with twists of his peculiar life, to use narrative will always be his mother (not that married women , invented the incident as a form to expand subjective experience into different person, Mrs. Morgan); he will way of installing himself in the Welles a universal investigation of identity, that household), Orson's normal childhood guarantees the continuing fascination of always be her son. In effect, he is trying to immediately came to an end. the feature films he signed. stop time, trying to freeze it at a mythical, Bernstein's discovery of Orson's genius Sometimes the route from autobiogra- lost moment of wholeness and stability. finds its parallel in the discovery of \"the phy to art was extremely circuitous . George's crisis - the desire to maintain a world's richest silver lode\" in the aban- Leaming reports, for example, Welles' stable, unified identity in the face of the doned mine left to Mrs. Kane by a conviction that novelist Booth Tarkington constant change that is the passing of defaulting border. Both events are equally had based the Eugene Morgan character time- is one shared by most of Welles' providential: if Kane's curse was to be his of The Magnificent Ambersons on Welles' protagonists. And each approaches it in a great unmerited wealth, Welles' was to be father. Yet the Eugene Morgan of the different way: Arkadin kills off the wit- his great (and to him) unmerited brilliance. movie Ooseph Cotton) occupies a role nesses to his past in an attempt to preserve Taken with the other autobiographical much closer to \"Dadda\" Bernstein's in the himself in a permanent, pristine present; touches Welles put into the film-the Welles household; he is another variation Quinlan, in Touch ofEvil, is compelled to withdrawn, alcoholic father ; the strong- on Welles' sympathetic betrayer, the keep reenacting and correcting the past, willed mother who sends the boy away for decent, right-minded interloper who has planting evidence to secure convictions his own good ; the appearance of a come to take the mother away. If The because, as a rookie cop, he was unable to benevolent, indulgent Bernstein as Kane's Magnificent Ambersons was ever bring the man who murdered his wife to most faithful associate- it seems quite intended as a tribute to fatherhood, it is justice. clear that Charles Foster Kane represents certainly a curious one. George's father, George Orson Welles' deepest hopes and Wilbur, is virtually invisible until the Ultimately, all of Welles' heroes lose fears for himself. moment he dies-at which point the their battles against time, though none so camera takes up his position in his own movingly as George Amberson Minafer. Making Citizen Kane was for Welles coffin, looking out at the mourners as they When he returns home from Paris with the both a way of genuinely becoming The dying Isabelle, she can only look through Wonder Boy (to say the least, no other first the carriage windows at the grimy indus- film has ever given so clear a proof of trial city their peaceful town has become genius) and a way of assassinating him (by and murmur, \"Changed ... so changed:' pointing to the emptiness, the uncertainty, That this change is largely the result of the destructiveness that lived inside the Eugene Morgan's automobile factory gives \"great man\"). As much as the film's deep- the poignancy of the moment an epic focus imagery and continuous takes, it was undertone, as the psychological blends this gesture-the sudden infusion of with the historical. The result of George's intensely personal, even private matters attempt to stop time-to arrest the into what had been until then the serenely \"progress\" that Eugene represents - has distanced, consummately classical art of been the utter obliteration of the land- Hollywood filmmaking-that established scape, the end of the Ambersons and Citizen Kane as the first truly modern everything they represent. It is in this American movie. As Fran90is Truffaut attempt to arrest the natural process of acknowledged nearly 20 years later, in change that Welles' characters become repeating the gesture of Citizen Kane in monsters of willfulness. Whether they are The 400 Blows, Orson Welles was the first attempting to escape from the past (The narrative filmmaker to shoot in the first Stranger, Arkadin) or return to it (Citizen person. Kane, Chimes at Midnight), they succeed only in derailing their own lives. \"Your One of the most intriguing aspects of future;' Quinlan is told by Tanya the Barbara Leaming's book on Welles is fortune-teller, \"is all used up:' the way it continually teases out the autobiographical basis of even the most As a filmmaker, Welles was luckier than anomalous of Welles' films. The Stranger his characters in one respect: the power to manipulate time was wholly within his grasp. Kane, with its elaborate imbrication of past and present, its breathtaking 76

ellipses, and its ever-shifting tempos that WRITE find minutes drawn out to the duration of PENNSYLVANIA years (the scenes with Susan at Xanadu) and years compressed to seconds (the You need information. If it's about Pennsylvania let us breakfast table montage) , is like a sym- help. We work closely with writers and directors - phony conposed with time instead of supplementing their research , putting them in contact with notes , a rapturous discovery of the historians and industry experts and arranging meetings with medium's potential. local people so filmmakers can learn about life in Pennsylvania . Share our wealth of information. Call us at In Ambersons, the manipulation of time (717) 787-5333 or write: become more subtle and expressive. The film begins with Welles, in his voice-over Pennsylvania Film Bureau narration , extolling the slow, ample, elastic tempo that prevailed in the Ambersons' Department of Commerce prime: \"They had time for everything, 461 Forum Building then:' Yet the images that illustrate this proposition - a montage that simultane- Harrisburg. Pennsylvania 17120 ously establishes the period setting, spins a witty disquisition on the shifting fashions FILm FORum of the 1870s, and relates (between the ATWIN CINEMA NEXT DOOR mSOHO lines) the story of Eugene's tragically failed courtship of Isabelle - are busy to the Presenting NYC premieres of Independent films bursting point, frenetically paced and & retrospectlves of foreign & American classics overstuffed with information . In effect, this elaborate sequence sets two different January 1-14: RAONI by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux time signatures ticking at once. One January 15-28: FOLLOWING THE FUHRER by Erwin Leiser signature is lyrical and nostalgic (con- January 29-Feb. 11: A.K. by Chris Marker and ULYSSE by Agnes Yarda veyed, ironically, by the measured words February 12-25: THE KINDERGARTEN by Yevgeny Yevtushenko of Welles' narration, spoken from an February 26-Mar. 4: THE WOMEN OF SUMMER by Suzanne Bauman implicitly debased present); the other is and A DAY AT THE GRAVE OF KARL MARX by Peter von Bagh buzzingly, frantically modern (and Open 7 days • _k. Call or witte for calendar\" member dlacount Information. expressed through scenes of the 19th century). What Welles achieves here, 57 watts Street, NYC 10013 Box Office: (212)431-1590 made possible by the formal elements of film, is precisely the goal that eludes his Partially supported by the NYS Council on the Arts • the National Endowmenllor the Arts protagonists: a harmonious resolution of change and permanence, motion and 77 stillness. T here is a sense in which most of the major features of Welles' style seem to spring directly from a desire to resolve in formal terms conflicts that cannot be resolved thematically or dramatically. If Welles' characters feel the need both to dominate the world as blustering demi- gods and to shrink from it like frightened children, the inversions of scale made possible by deep-focus photography can accommodate both impulses. No matter how big Kane gets, he can still be dwarfed by the half-empty glass that stands at Susan's bedside. The lateral tracking shots of Ambersons , which seem to freeze the actors in place at the center of the screen while the background evolves continu- ously behind them , make it possible for the characters to move while remaining stationary. The abstract space of Arkadin, created through editing ellipses, overdub- bing, and the most baroque camera angles of Welles' career, allows the title character to be everywhere at once (wherever Van Stratten goes, Arkadin is already there; Welles' voice comes booming out of the

HITCHCOCK most unlikely bit players} and nowhere at LOOKATT CONFERENCE all (dematerialized by the camera angles, Arkadin never seems to occupy solid NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1974 The re-released Hitchcock films space; he dies jumping from an airplane, Film Noir... Max Ophuls ... Fritz Lang will be the subject of a conference fading into the emptiness of the sky). at Pace University, NY, June 13- NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1977 15, 1986. Papers which explore In the end, it was probably Arkadin's Bernardo Bertolucci . .. Character Actors ... Beyond these films or use them as a point paradox of an eternal absence within an the New Wave of departure are invited. Send pro- eternal presence that obsessed Welles the posals by February 15, 1986 to most. No other filmmaker has ever made NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1978 Walter Raubicheck, Department his invisible presence behind the camera Sidney Lume£. .. Hollywood Makeup Artists ... of English, Pace University, New felt so strongly; no other film actor has Italian Neorealism York, New York 10038. ever taken such evident delight in hiding from his audience, first behind a succes- JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1979 Summer '86: June 30 - Augusl 22 sion of rubber noses and false beards, and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS ... Billy Wilder. .. later, as his girth expanded, somewhere in Star Making Do you want to make films the depths of his own body. (In his old age, or sit in a classroom? Welles, like Kane, came more and more to MARCH/APRIL 1979 resemble an infant-as if the body itself Visconti ... Milos Forman ... Alfred Hitchcock If you wantlO make film s. o ur inten sive. were participating in the search for interdisciplinary 8·week summer \"Rosebud ;' the return to the integrated, JULY/AUGUST 1980 program is for you . uncomplicated identity of the child.) The Stanley Kubrick ... New German Cjnema . .. Bad whole structure of Kane conspires to keep Movies ... Reagan Refi neyourcraft whil eea rningan M.F.A. the central character in the shadows. He is in Filmmaking. A workin g filmm a ker seen directly only once-a gigantic mouth SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1980 will be your advisor, while a ll the o ther that utters a single word - and then at the Peter Sellers ...Jonathan Demme ... Global moment of his death; for the rest of the Village . ..Westerns artisls-pholOgraphers. sculplOrs. film he is not an active character but a composers. writers. and painters w ill remembrance. MARCH/APRIL 1981 Jessica Lange... Barbara Stanwyck . .. Return ofthe be your responsive audie nce. In the last years of his career, Welles Hollywood Ten took this game of hide-and-seek into an ¢ extra-cinematic realm. He seemed to be JULY/AUGUST 1981 ubiquitous-a guest on every talk show, RAIDERS OFTHE LOST ARK .. . George Lucas Milton Avery a narrator of every nature documentary, interview.. .The End of the American Hero Graduate School of the Arts the pitchman of every product that would NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1981 \"'PARD have him-while at the same time, unable Classic French Films .. .Terry Gilliam ... Special to make the films he dreamed of, he Report on the Independents 1860 -1 985: 125th Anniversary Year seemed to vanish completely as an artist. For a descriptive brochure and app lication Welles' last two theatrical films , Ffor Fake JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1982 and Filming Othello, were strange exer- Beatty and Forman ... Art Director Midsection ... write: Milton Avery Graduate Schoo l of cises in modernist autobiography that The New Woman in Films the Arts. Bard College. Box FA seemed to conceal much more than they revealed; another autobiographical proj- JULY/AUGUST 1982 Annandale-on-Hudson . NY 12504 ect, The Cradle Will Rock, went unreal- THE ROAD WARRIOR . .. Richard Pryor. .. Producers Or ca ll: (9 14) 758-4105 or 758-6822. x-133 ized. The Leaming book, with its investi- Midsection gative structure borrowed from Kane and Welles' own running commentary, is JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1983 perhaps the last true Mercury Production. GANDH I. .. Video Games Midsection .. .Nicholas Once again Welles pulls his vanishing act, NickJeby on TV disappearing this time behind a screen of pseudo-intimate sexual confessions. MARCH/APRIL 1983 Jeremy Irons and BETRAYAL... Laurence Olivier. .. Welles filled his work with epitaphs for George Cukor himself, from Jed Leland's terse and disillusioned \"He never finished anything\" MAY/JUNE 1983 {thus anticipating Charles Higham by 30 Ingmar Bergman ... Getting it Made .. . Israeli years} to the mythic swell of the fortune- Cinema teller's words at the end of Touch of Evil: \"He was some kind of man . What does it JULY/AUGUST 1983 matter what you say about people?\" It Alec Guiness and the STAR WARS saga ... MTV... would be presumptuous to add another. Jean-Jacques Beineix Welles was always his own harshest critic, his own most faithful fan. The final MARCH/APRIL 1984 paradox of his life is that his greatness lay TERMS OF ENDEARMENT... Claudette Colbert ... in his ambigu ous apprehension of his Cinematographers greatness. ~ MAY/JUNE 1984 Joe Dante ... Alfred Hitchcock ...Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1984 BODY DOUBLE and De Palma... Hard Boiled Hollywood .. .AMADEUS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 Black Films .. . Pornography Debate .. .Andrzej Wajda JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1985 PASSAG ETO INDIA and David Lean ...Truffaut Midsection ... Celebrities JULY/AUGUST 1985 THE EMERALD FOREST... Youth-Cult Movies .. . Westerns ... British Films SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1985 Akira Kurosawa and RAN... Fonda and Streep ... David Hare ...TVs Golden Age 78

liE COMPANY WE'VE BEEN KEEPING filnl 111m film 1 ( . ( I \\ 1 \\ 1 I' '\\ 1 *WOODY ALLEN *BOB HOPE *ROBIN WILLIAMS *ROBERT DE NIRO *MERYL STREEP May/June 1977 May/June 1979 July/August 1979 November/December 1980 September/October 1981 film 111111 1 \\1 I ' '\\ 1 ~ *NATASSJA KINSKI *MARILYN MONROE *GOLDIE HAWN *KEVIN KLINE *SAM SHEPARD March/April 1982 September/October 1982 November/December 1982 September/October 1983 November/December 1983 *CARY GRANT *SIGOURNEY WEAVER *KATHLEEN TuRNER *JACK NICHOLSON *DAFFY DUCK January/February 1984 July/August 1984 March/April 1985 May/June 1985 November/December 1985 FILM COMMENT Classics are on sale again! Start your collection or complete it with the stars above and more. BUY A BUNCH! 5 issues for $1 2. 00! $2 .00 each addi tional issue (Buy A Bunch limited to U.S. orde rs only) Please send the following issues (identify by month and year) :_ _ _ __ If any of the issues I have ordered are no longer available, please send me one of COMMENT these (\\\\1'0 ~ I[erna[i ves: NAME ____________________________________________ or ADDRESS _________________________________________ C ITY _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ STATE _________ ZIP _ _ _ __ BUY A BUNCH offer expires December 3 1, 1986. The INDEX SETS for FILM COMMENT. Volumes 1-2 1, listing every article ever Mail wi th check or money order to : FILM COMMENT CLASSICS published in FI LM COMMENT, are available for $3.50 /sel. 140 West 65th Street QUANTITY AMOUNT New Yo rk , NY 10023 _ _ _ Back issues of FILM COMMEN1~ $3 .50/issue $_--- _ _ _ 5 issues for $12.00: $2.00/additional issue $_--- _ _ _ Index SetS , $3.50/set $_----- $ _--- TOTA L

Quiz #17: Cheap Music FILM COMMENT'S New Year's gift to its 1. ':.\\JI or Nothing at All\" a. An American Werewolf in London readers: the quiz that's too easy. 2. \"Blue Moon\" 3. \"Buffalo Gals\" b. Beyond the VaLLey ofthe Dolls As the Noel Coward character said in 4. \"Cindy Cindy\" c. Born Yesterday Private Lives, \"Extraordinary how potent 5. \"The First Noel\" d. Brazil cheap music is:' For every popular tune 6. \"42nd Street\" e. Cosmic Ray that worms its way into the collective 7. \"Grandma's Lye Soap\" f. Detour memory via a favored musical (Singin , in 8. \"Happy Birthday to You\" g. La Dolce Vita the Rain, for instance), another lodges in 9. \"I Can't Believe That You're in Love h. Eraserhead the memory from its context in a non- J. Hot Tomorrows musical (the foot-stomping \"Singin' in the With Me\" k. /kiru Rain\" scene in A Clockwork Orange). All you have to do in this quiz is match the 25 10. \"I Can't Give You Anything But Love\" sI. It a Wonderful Life songs in Column A with the 25 movies in Column B. The winner gets a free year of 11. \"I Put a Spell on You\" m. Jules and Jim the magazine; in case of a tie, a winner will 12. \"I'm Thru With Love\" n. The Last Picture Show be drawn at random. Get your answers to 13 . \"Lady in the Radiator\" o. Lawrence ofArabia us (140 West 65th Street, New York, N.¥. 14. ')\\ Little White House\" p. Little 'Tinker 10023) by February 10. And as Sigmund 15. \"The Man Who Broke the Bank at q. Love Affair Spaeth the Tune Doctor would say, Good r. Mean Streets luck to all. Monte Carlo\" s. Penny Serenade 16. \"Memories Are Made of This\" t. Rio Bravo Re: Quiz #16. Morton Tankus, where 17. \"0 How We Danced ' u. Shoah are you when we really need you? The 18. \"Patricia\" v. Some Like It Hot December 16 deadline came and went 19. \"Plaisir d'Amour\" w. Stranger Than Paradise and readers were out buoying the econ- 20. \"Rubber Biscuit\" x. Veronika Voss omy. So yo u all get till February lOon # 16, 21. \"Stranger in Paradise\" y. When Father Was Away on Business too. 22. \"The Tennessee Waltz\" z. Zabriskie Point 23. \"What'd I Say\" 24. \"The Whirlpool\" 25 . \"You Were Meant for Me\" E RRATA photo by Mary Corli ss. 16. 17. Tri·Star Pictures: p. 32. 63 ( IO). Twentieth Cemury- In our last iss ue there were no captions on the rwo Warne r Bros. And je rome Gary acted as co-produce r on Pumping fron Fox: p . 2, 18 (1),72. Universal Pictures: p. 63 (2)(6)(7). Warner cartoon scories. Uh. y'see. we JUSt figured yo u knew all those Bros.: p. 18 (2). The Yorkin Co.: p. 63 (5). c haracters and films. But fo r those of you who didn't-and fo r along with George Butler, whose credits as co-produce r and the artists. collectors. and photographers who deserve proper directo r on that film we re omitted in a discussion of CONTRIBUTORS credit-we are happy to provide explication here. Cover: Steve Gary's latest work , Stripper, in the OctObe r issue. We're the Meredith Brody is a writer cu rrently li ving in Los Angeles. dumbbells . David Chute writes o n film for The Los Angeles Herald Schneider Collec tion , photo by Kate KeJler. Page II (both Examiner. Marlaine Glicksman is a filmmaker livi ng in New photos): Warne r Bros. Page 12 (top): Po rky, Sylveste r, and Daffy PHOTO CREDITS York. Jeff Greenfield is an ABC News ana lyst and a sy nd icated in The Scarlet Pumpernickel, o riginal art by C huck j ones, Sam ABC Motio n Pictures: p . 63 (I) . By Cory Wells Braun : p.47 (I) columnist. David Ke hr is film c ritic for Chicago Magazine and Cocks Collectio n, pho to by Kate Kelle r; (bottom) Roadrunne r (2). C anno n F ilms: p. 7, 14 , 35. Ci necom Inte rnational: p. 10. The Reader. Len Klady is a freelance writer on film based in and CoYOte, Warner Bros. Page 13 (tOp): Marvin Martian and Columbia Pictures: p. 8. 19 , 33,35,38,39 , 43 ,45, 56, 63 (8). Los Ange les. P a t McGilligan is worki ng on a biography of Bugs Bunny, Warne r Bros.; (bo[[om) Bugs and Elmer in What l- C rite rion Collec tio n: p. 75. Empire Pictures: p. 56, 59. Film Robert Altman for St. Martin's Press. Marcia Pally is a New Opera , Doc ?, origi nal art by C hu ck j o nes, Sam Cocks Forum : p . 53. The Film Society of Lin coln Ce nter: p. 24, 27 (I) York writer. Stephen Schaefer lives in New York City and Coll ectio n, photO by Kate Kell e r. Page 14 (ieft): Elmer, Bugs , (2), 29, 30, 5 1 (2). The C harl es Higham Coll ection: p. 76. writes o n film . A New York-based writer. Lee Server is working and Daffy in [he de finitive moment from Rabbit Seasoning ; Island Pictures: p, I I, 63 (3, I I). Courtesy Vojtechjasny: p. 52 on hi s book Screenwriter, conversations with many of the sa me . (right) Daffy in Duck Dodgers in the 24'h th Century, bOth fro m (I), 54. MGM / UA: p . 31. 37. Movie Star News: p . 23. National Mitc h Tuchman is author of the forthco ming book, Here's Warner Bros. Page 17: Leo n Sch lesinge r and Daffy in You Ought Video Festival: p . 73, 74. N BC·TV: p. 67, 68, 69. New Cookin' at You, Kid. Armond White writes for City Sun and to Be in Pictures, Warner Bros. Page 19 : C huc k jones sketches Regency Films: p. 56, 59. Paramount Pictures: p. 63 (4). the Village li>ice. mural of Speedy and Sylvester at The Museum of Modern Art, S howtim e: p . 12. Te lcculture: p. 5 1 (I ). TouchstOne Films: p. MOVIE Pin· Ups • POrlraits • Poslers • Ph ysique FILMS IN REVIEW Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • STAR SCience Fict ion • Mus icals • Color Pholos • If you like movies, you 'll love Films in 80 Years of Scenes From Mallon Pictures Review. $16.00 a year. Sample copy PHOTOS $1.00. Dept. B, Box 589, New York Rush $1 00 FOR OUR ILLUST RATE D BROCHUR E 10021 One of rhe wo rld 's largesrcollecrions of film perso naliry phorog raphs, wirh emphas is o n 134 WEST 18th STREET, DEPT. Fe SCRIPT WANTED rare ca ndids and European marerial. Send a NEW YORK, N.Y, 100'11 Estab. Indie Film Company seeking low budget FEATURE S.A.S.E. wirh wane- lisr ro: (212) 620·8160·61 SCRIPT by new talent. Off-beat comedies preferred. Send S.A.S.E. Tower Films, 645 West End Ave., 1F New Yor\\(, Milron T . Moore, Jr. New York 10025 Depr. Fe IT'S RTS FOR SOUNDTRACKS & VIDEO MOVIES! P.O. Box 140280 Dallas, Texas 75214-0280 1,000,000 inventory. Rare/limited edition soundlracks, and largest selection in video (from \"G\" to \"X\", and al lowest prices!) . Soundtrack catalog : $1 OR Video cat· alo!r-$I . RlS , Dept. 23A, Box 1829, Novato, CA 94948. Phone: (415) 883·2179. Soundtrack Value· guide: $5.50. 80

NISSAN PRESENTS TENTH ANNUAL FILM AWARDS This could be your lickello Hollywood! ANIMATED/ FILM INSTITUTIONAL Enrer Ihe Tenrh AnnualFOCUS film EXPERIMENTAL FILM EDITING AWARDS Compelllion. finished 16mm film. S4, 500awardedin finished 16mm film. S/,OOOprize. The corresponding college or univefS/iy ThiS IS your chance ofalifelime 10 cash prizes. first place winner receives SPONSORED BYBENIHANA OF ofthe firstplace winners ofthe make your break, win your share ofover anew Nissan Senrra. SPONSORED BY TOKYO, INC BoardofJudges: narrative, documenrary andanimated/ UNIVERSAL PICTURES. Boardof Lynzee Kfingman, expeflmenralcategofles ofFOCUS Will $60,000mcash pfllesandNissan Judges: JOhnc~anemaker. Carol LlllfelOn, receive S/,OOOIn Eastman mOllon Ed Hansen, Richard Marks. picture film and video aUlomobtles andgain recognition in Falih Hubley, tape from EASTMAN Ihe film community. Chuck Jones, CINEMATOGRAPHY KODAK COMPANY Jay Sarbry. for their film Enrer your besl work now. • This may departmenr's use. be aunique opporrunlty for you. SCREENWRITING PREMIERE AND AWARD '{1/8 entry j(Ju submit musrhIM! beenproduced on anon CEREMONY USCfJmmelC~1b\"IS while )<lu .~re enrolledIfI a college. All winners willbe flown, expenses pair!, 10 LDs Angeles for the FOCUS Urmfl$l(Y, JltlflSflflJle 01 ptoleSSJOnal111m school Premiere andAwardCeremony, 10 be heldAugust 27, 1986. NARRATIVE Original feature-fength screenplays. finished 16mm film. S/,OOOprize. Accommodations willbe prOVidedby FILM S4,500 awardedin cash prizes. first SPONSOREO BYEASTMAN THE SHERATONPREMIERE HOTEL place winner receives anew Nissan in UniversalCiry. finished 16mm film. S4,500awarded Senrra. SPONSORED BYCOLUMBIA ~VDAKCOMPANY. mcash prizes. firsl pface winner PICTURES. Board ofJudges: BoardofJudges: COMPETITION receives anew Nissan Senrra. Marisa Berke, Tony Bill. Syd field, John Bailey, DEADLINE' SPONSORED BYAMBUN Bruce Gllberr, William A. Fraker. May 2, 1986 ENTERTAINMENT, _ Anne Kramer. A.S.C, Rey INC BoardofJudges: •• Vt/lalobos. Get acomplete set ofrules from SOUND WOMEN IN FILM your English, film or Communicallons JoeOanre, Nina Foch, ~ ACHIEVEMENT FOUNDATION AWARD Oeparrmenr. Or wflie 10: FOCUS, 1140Avenue ofthe Americas, Randal Kleiser, finished 16mm film. S/,OOOprize. finished 16mm film or feature-length New York, New York 10036. Steven lisberger, SPONSORED BYDOLBY screenplay. SI,OOOprize. SPONSORED (212) 575-0270 Robert Zemeckis. LABORATORIESINC BoardofJudges: BYMAXFACTOR &co. NISSAN PRESENTS DOCUMENTARY Jim Corbell, FILM BoardofJudges: ~ Donald 0. Miichell, Judy James, Ilene finished 16mm film. S4,500 awarded Kahn, Margol NISSAN MOTOR CORPORATION IN USA in cash prizes. first place winner Frank Warner. Winchester. receives anew Nissan Senrra. SPONSORED BYHOME BOXOFRCE RENEE VALENTE BoardofJudges. MichaelApter!, PRODUCERS AWARD SaulBass, E/len In honor ofRenee Valenre, Presidenr Hovde, Warren Miller, ofthe Producers GUildofAmerica. Humberro Rivera. finished 16mm film. S/,OOOpr~.'le. Board ofJudges: Renee Valenre. BOARD OF GOVERNORS: Lewis AI/en • John Avildsen • John Badham • Ingmar Bergman • Tony Bill . Mllchell Block • Barbara Boyle . James Coburn . Jules DaSSIn • John DavIs . Robert DeN/ro • Stanley Donen · Richard Edlund, A.S. C. • Fedeflco Fel/im • Milos forman · Bob Fosse • John Frankenheimer . Robert Getchell . Bruce Gilbert . Taylor Hackford . Ward Kimball . Herbert Kline . Arthur Kntght • Barbara Kopple • Jennings Lang • David Lean • Jack Lemmon • Lynne Llllman • Sidney Lumet • Frank Perry . Sydney PoLlack . Ivan Rellman • Burt Reynolds . Gene Roddenberry . Herbert Ross · DaVid E. Sallman · John SchleSinger · George C. Seorr · Surfing Silliphanr · Joan MlCklin Silver · Nell Simon . Steven Spielberg . Peter Srrauss . Saul Turel/ . Jerry Welnrraub . Gene S Weiss . Bruce Williamson · Robert Wise · Fredeflck Wiseman · DaVid Wolper · Peter Yates · Charforre lwerln. HONORARY CHAIRPERSON: Renee Va/enre. ADMINISTRATION: TRG Commufllea(Jons, Inc.