VOLUME 23 - NUMBER 03 MAY-JUNE 1987

In September all students, old and new, should be sent outfor internships. After toot, all VGIK instructors should be thrown out, and the premises ought to be thoroughly disinfected. Then new teachers who can teach must be selected. Not so long ago Fonnan and other Czech of action.. . . and greater responsibility for the board of the Soviet Filmmakers New Wave filmmakers were condemned the final result.\" Klimov also said that Union. Dyomin, came to the United for their participation in the Prague Spring Goskino will not censor films any longer, States at the end of March, together with of 1%8. and will instead coordinate joint projects Elem Klimov, Rolan Bykov, Eldar Shen- The most dramatic releases will be the and negotiate on behalf of the whole in- gelaya, Rustam Ibragimbekov, and other last two films ofthe emigre director Andrei dustry. Distribution will also be decentral- noted Soviet filmmakers to participate in Tarkovsky, who died in Paris last Decem- ized, and the emphasis will be placed on an \"E ntertainment Summit\" with their ber. Tarkovsky's name was deleted from self-financing. American colleagues. The Summit was the film history textbooks and his films Rolan Bykov, one of the most popular organized by The Fund for Peace, .and were banned after he decided to stay in Soviet actors and directors, whose Scare- Mark Gerzon and Lindsay Smith ofMedi- the West in the early Eighties, when he crow-perhaps the first Russian film that ators Productions. was shooting Nostalghia in Italy. Accord- insists that the individual could be morally -A.B. ing to Klimov, authorities are negotiating superior to the Soviet collective-was for the rights to Nostalghia and to Tar- seen by 55 million people, .said: \"He who Since you are the new president ofthe kovsky's last Swedish-made picture, The calls the tune pays. This shift in responsi- association of Soviet film critics, I Sacrifice. Meanwhile, the ban has been bilities should provide real carte blanche suppose then you are the right per- lifted from his Soviet films, and his name for the artists.\" However, Bykov pointed son to ask what is going on infilm criticism is mentioned in the Soviet press with great out, \"Now studios can also run the risk of in the Soviet Union. There are two main respect. going under, of getting ruined-a thing film magazines: the monthly The Art of Yet another film made by emigre direc- that had never before happened in a so- Film and the bimonthly The Soviet tor Siava Tsukennan, Liquid Sky, which cialist society.\" Screen. Goskino, the statefilm committee, has become a cult classic in the West, has To avoid that risk Soviet filmmakers used to control both ofthem. Who is run- almost no chance of being shown in the will have to be more attentive to public ning those magazines now? tastes. Klimov said that ticket prices will Soviet Union in the near future. Liquid have to rise if we want films to bring prof- Officially, Goskino should not have Sky might look too shocking for puritanical its. But that would not help so much as ruled them. The magazines should have Soviet tastes. It will inevitably reach the been under the authority of both Goskino Moscow and Leningrad underground vi- films playing to more people. Soviet and the Soviet Filmmakers Union. In re- deocassette markets, if it is not already filmmakers must learn the basics of a free ality, though , the SFU indeed had no con- there. enterprise system, with all its advantages trol over them, never. Hence any Goskino and disadvantages, and at the same time official, not just its chainnan, but let us say All those recent developments no figure out how to combine the new princi- a man responsible for distribution , had a doubt scare many a Soviet filmmaker or right to delete the figures , thoughts, or ples of glasnost with a centralized, ideo- conversational points that could have hurt studio executive. As the director of Ivan his interests. All this caused a sharp criti- Lapshin, Alexei Gennan said during his logical control that will not simply disap- cism in the winter and spring of 1986, prior pear. to our fifth congress. recent visit to the New DirectorslNew Films series in New York, for some of Klimov has stated: \"Studios will be led At the congress, a sentiment was widely them it is difficult to get accustomed to the by exemplary citizens of our country, expressed that Goskino's activity was idea that so many things are allowed. This many of them Communists, who follow causing everybody anxiety and criticism. fact makes them quite perplexed. Their the current line of our party. The state Everybody else's but not our two film films will have to compete with the pic- leadership will remain. \" If this is so, what magazines which were under its control. tures oftheir more talented and controver- happens if the current party line changes, Thus film magazines (in contrast to non- sial colleagues that previously had been say, in a year or two, and the whole decen- film publications) kept silent about Gos- banned, plus with the increased imported tralization process collapses? It has hap- fare and the ever-growing video market. pened in Soviet history before. And by At the news conference after the Janu- loosening the control over the Filmmakers kino's shortcomings and, as usual , praised ary plenum of the SFU, Elem Klimov Union, Soviet authorities obviously want the last awful pictures by Sergei Bondar- said, ''The situation will hardly change something in exchange: full movie houses chuk and Evgeni Matveev, without men- radically as long as we do not radically at home and hard currency and prestigious tioning that those films turned out to be change the methods of making movies.\" awards abroad. Will they have enough pa- boxoffice flops. Goskino officials even One of the main changes confinned at that tience to wait until Soviet filmmakers can wrote letters addressed to themselves plenary session was the shift of financial repay their debt? The movies made under which immensely praised the films in resources and control over creative aspects the new conditions won't be released until question, and then published these so- of filmmaking from Goskino to local stu- 1989. called readers' letters in their magazines. dios. According to Klimov, that will lead to And so on. \"greater democratization, greater freedom These questions are among those I put to Victor Dyomin, renowned Soviet film Both the editors-in-chief of The Art of critic and scholar, one of the secretaries of Film and The Soviet Screen have since had 49

to resign. The new editor of The Soviet mission from above, some very interesting decisions. In fact, we had such an oppor- Screen is Yuri Rybakov, who is a very seri- film workshops are formed every year. ous and responsible person. Hopefully, he There are no entrance exams. Talented tunity. The SFU members are also the will succeed in reorganizing its work. So young filmmakers are invited to partici- members ofcinematographers' bureaus at far the situation with this magazine has pate in them. They are taught by the top the studios, directors' bureaus, and been very difficult. professionals in the field . screenwriters' bureaus, and we could have formed additional bureaus-such as a sto- The Art of Film had started changing For example, Eldar Shengelaya (the ry editors' bureau. On the basis of these even before the new editor's arrival. Now head of the: Georgian filmmakers) ar- bureaus, we could have created an amal- he has assumed his responsibilities. His ranged an internship for his four students gamated bureau and appointed certain name is Konstantin Shcherbakov, also a on the shooting of his picture The Blue people from this bureau to be our repre- very serious and knowledgeable man who Mountains. That was a real on-the-job sentatives, the SFU commissars, so to supports our positions, the positions training for them without any dogmatic speak, at the studios. Now those commis- worked out at the fifth congress of the rules which would forbid them from work- sars could have had greater power than SFU. Jfyou have seen the last issues ofThe ing on a film . [simply] administration. And when the Art ofFilm, in my opinion, those are the management of some studio wants to issues of a new magazine which reflects I prefer such experiments, which take make a worthless film , commissars could our reorientation (''perestroika''). There place in Tbilisi, to the solid, smothering say \"no\" and threaten to appeal to the are very serious questions asked of the au- approach at the VGIK, which boasts that power of the SFU. thorities and of the bureaucrats, and criti- some of their programs have not changed cism of the past's poor attitude toward since 1962. We had serious arguments on that sub- cmema... . ject. I supported those who expressed One suggestion to reform the VGIK is moderate views, not the radicals. Today I What happened at the State Film Insti- think that maybe we made a mistake by tute (VGIK, The All-Union State Institute strongly supported by Elem Klimov: In not pursuing that idea. Because, despite of the Cinema)? I have read that its stu- our criticism, studio production plans have dents organized a coriference where they September all students, old and new, not changed. Only four or five mediocre demanded changes in the structure offilm should be sent out for internships. Mter projects have been cancelled. New pro- education. that, all VGIK instructors should be thrown duction plans have been discussed, and out, and the premises ought to be thor- we can see that neither Goskino nor the The situation in the VGIK is very com- oughly disinfected. Then new teachers film studios want to make a single step to- plicated: The first student revolt hap- who can teach must be selected. Because ward reality. Our newspapers are now pened even before our congress. They today, the VGIK is a morass inhabited by much more interesting than our movies. gathered in April, and the SFU congress untalented people who have entrenched opened in May. VGIK students protested themselves and, by pretending to be su- Theaters raise serious problems in their against the professors who cannot teach per-vigilant citizens, have managed not to productions more often than films. The and offered a new mechanism of inviting convey to students any professional skills. same goes forourliterature. But not forthe film studios. This is our real situation to- new teachers approved by student votes. Let us assume that you will succeed in day. The students weren't taken seriously. But restructuring the system of education in after the congress, when the SFU began to Under Klimov's direction, we have cre- work in the right direction, and the VGIK filmmaking, cinema journalism, and the- ated a new model of film production and Goskino were subjected to strong ory. How many years before these where a bureaucrat has no power. This criticism, it turned out that the VGIK stu- changes will affect Soviet cinema? model is unique: artists will be giving or- dents were right. ders to other artists. But so far nothing of This is a very serious question. We, the the kind has happened-for the second The truth of die matter is that the VGIK new people, with new ideas, upon be- year m a row. has an assembly line system of preparing coming the leaders of the SFU, have new cadres. Under this system, creative shared the sweet dream that everything T he reconstruction in the film industry talents are suppressed. The final product could be improved within one and a half to has more to do with releasing the oid is a narrow-minded half-professional but two years. Today we issue an appeal, and films which were banned than with making surprisingly gifted person when it comes tomorrow everybody would respond to it new, controversial pictures? to vigilance, mistrustfulness, and an un- by starting change from within... . That willingness to notice anything wrong with Yes, of course. This is what we can was a period which Klimov calls an epoch boast now. Films made two, four, six years him- or herself. In this respect, the VGIK is of endless discussions (\"mitingovsh- ago are being shown now. They were china\"). We agitated [amongst] each other made in a very strange time when our quite successful: it manufactures like pan- for cl!.anges but thought that we were per- cinema was infected by the bureaucratic cakes the so-called operated artists, which suading everybody else. Now it turned virus. Cinema only pretended that it was could be guided by remote control. This is out that there is another more important saying something. You know about this the main danger of our times. period, the period of [implementation], phenomenon in our society. Suddenly the epoch of work. books come out that have no right to exist. But what do you expect, if somebody They are the books for bureaucrats. There like Bondarchuk admits into his class, say, I will give you an example of how com- are also the whole symphonies written for 20 people, and is seen five or six times over plicated our current situation is. First in the bureaucrats which can even be award- a three year period? By the time his stu- September and then in November of the ed prizes. They are performed only once dents are about to graduate, he cannot tell last year we discussed the films which all because it's impossible to find a public to one from another. the Soviet studios were planning to pro- duce-130 altogether. We looked at their Yet at the same time, in the capital of plots, checked the directors' credentials, Soviet Georgia, Tbilisi, at the university, and concluded that 30 of the projects there is a department for theater directing ought to be cancelled unconditionally. At but no film school, and without any per- that time we should have created an organizational mechanism to enforce such 50

listen to them a second time. sire to do everything their way. 10th ANNIVERSARY ISSUE There is a special term, \"secretary lit- What happened , for example, with FILM CRITICISM erature.\" I am talking about novels written Tengiz Abuladze? Everybody knows now by the officials of the Soviet Writers that he has made an interesting picture, THE BEST OF OUR FIRST DECADE Union. I mean the former secretaries that Repentance, but not too many are aware of had held their positions before the recent what happened prior to that. He went to *Bazin on Stalinist Cinema writers' congress, although as you know Armenia with his preceding picture and *Pasolini on Fellini the situation at that union has not changed was showing it in various clubs under very *Articles on Hitchcock, much. They turned out to be less radical bad conditions-the projection and sound than the filmmakers union. As a result, quality were terrible. Abuladze, as he re- Welles, genre, theory, half of the old leadership or even more called later, got very angry at the people national cinemas, Herzog, were reelected. who had organized the trip, and instead of Oshima, Bergman going with them to the picnic he left Ere- But what do you do with all those van earlier that day with his chauffeur. 220 Pages, 17 Articles wonhless books? In this respect socialism They were driving very fast to Tbilisi and SEND 56/1SSUE TO: has a great advantage over capitalism: By were hit by a truck. Two other people in order from above, all city libraries will sub- the car were killed but he survived, al- FILM CRITICISM scribe to a certain novel in six or eight though he was badly wounded. He stayed ALLEGHENY COLLEGE parts. The novel will be published in 20 to in bed for four months and when he recov- MEADVILLE, PA. 16335 40 to 60 thousand copies and will reach li- ered he got this strange feeling that some- brary shelves, where it will stand quietly thing extraordinary happened to him. As if mE BEST accumulating dust without being noticed somebody interfered on his behalf by say- FllMSYOU by anyone. You can do this with books ing, ''Two people are enough: let this one NEVER SAW. with the help of a socialist system. But it stay alive.\" does not work when it comes to cinema. Now you can rent videocassettes by mail Abuladze decided that if there is some of over 500 hard-to-find quality films, You cannot bring people to the theaters purpose in his surviving the accident, he including Aguirre - The Wrath ofGod, by force. Ifhe or she paid for the ticket and must make a masterpiece with no equals. The Seven Samurai, 8V~, The S eventh Seal, in 15 minutes left the screening room , we Let them try to obstruct his work, but Shoah, Stranger Than Paradise, B erlin still count him as somebody who has seen from now on he would not compromise. A lexanderplalz, The Shooting Parly, the film. But more often than not he starts Lianna, Two English Girls. Napo leon, telling everybody not to go to this mov- From that accident springs this film Th e 400 Blows , A Love in Germany, ie-very soon the public knows that this about Stalinist terror, with a broader Pixote. LUjuid Sky. Bizet's Cannen, and film is bad. meaning. He even went to see Eduard The Official Story. Shevardnadze, then head of the Georgian People are sman, and they know how Communist Parry. Finally, he made this Our ever-expanding library includes to read our reviews. Here we come back to strange but great picture leading one to foreign and independent films, limited the problem of film criticism. When peo- deep reflections. It is screened now in release features, Hollywood classics, ple read that a film is \"a noble work of an Moscow with tremendous success. Re- cult favorites and documentaries. calling for this or that, leading forward ,\" pentance is a very complex film. It repre- they not only forget about the film but also sents a very sophisticated anistic play with Members simply order toll-free, and stop reading the review. On the other facts, with reality.... receive cassettes promptly by mail or UPS. hand, if they read , \"Although this picture 10% discount on members' videotape is talented, its creators have paid tribute to So having seen death, Abuladzefelt like purchases. It's simple and inexpe nsive. bourgeois taste with its cult of a fist and afree man.... Phone or write for free information and a sex... ,\" they will also throwaway the re- list of films. view. But because they will be rushing to Yes [as if he thought]: \"130 out of 145 see the movie. directors make films for the authorities. 1-800-258-FILM You want to be praised by them. I am not There exists quite a magic situation- going to think about it. I shall think about (in PA, 1-800-633-FILM) films made for the bureaucrats with re- what is eternal, about my conscience, views also written for the bureaucrats. We about my soul. It will be my repentance, \"U'H ome N/5 make movies the way we want, praise the repentance of a generation. ... \" them the way we want-all in the family. Film Fesliwl But how about the audience? There is no Elem Klimov, when he was trying to Videocassette rentals by mail audience for those films. Now the most make Agony (Rasputin) , or Alexei Ger- important task is to win back the audi- man making his films , especially Ivan 305 Linden Street, Scranton, PA 18503 ence. Lapshin, had similar feelings. They strived to counterbalance the situation Pretty grim. How in such a Kafknesque which existed at the time: when hacks and atmosphere did outstanding films like Ro- vulgarians who could not do anything de- lan Bykov's Scarecrow, Alexei German's cent were in favor, they wanted to prove My Friend Ivan Lapshin, or Tengiz Abu- that it was still possible to make great /adze's Repentance get made? films. This phenomenon of polarization in filmmaking then saves us now. But strictly I would call it the law of polarization. speaking, we have not yet seen the new Anists despised so much what was going pictures created [that we hope will] result on that they not only refused to speak the from our reconstruction, as a consequence accepted language and maintain discourse at the accepted level bu t felt a contrary de- of the ideas developed at our congresses. ® '51

Brian De Palma's by Brian De Palma I saw Homicidal on 42nd Street in the housewife and a black guy, Fast Talkin' fourth row of the theater. The audience Freddy, in an Aunt Jemima box comes My guilty pleasures hark back to went crazy. after her-it's obsessed with boxes. 42nd St, when I was in college during the Sixties. What interests I liked The Tenant (1976, Roman Po- Speaking of paranoia, Secret Cinema . me in offbeat movies is their incredible di- lanski) because, I mean, Polanski throws (Paul Bartel) played on a double bill rectorial style. They deal with very in- himselfout the window, commits suicide, with my second feature, MurderalaMod. tense psychological traumas, and the mov- and then crawls up and does it again. I liked it so much, I was on a plane with ie becomes a projection of the character's Fabulous. Steven Speilberg and I told him the story. psyche, as twisted and as dark as it can be, He used it as an Amazing Stories IS years whether it's Point Blank, or The Naked Now, the whole concept of David later. It's about a woman whose life is be- Kiss, or EI Topo. My favorites: Holzman's Diary (1%8, Jim McBride) ing photographed and shown in episodes was ofa guy making a film diary and trying late nights at a theater like the Thalia (in I loved Brazil, and EI Topo (1971, by to examine his life by photographing it. New York). Her life is tumed into a total Alejandro Jodorowsky) is like Brazil. I par- When I first got my 8mm sound camera, soap opera. These secret cameras are I'd carry it around like David Holzman around, and her psychiatrist is in with the ticularly remember all the rabbits dying in and try to film everything I did and look at people making the movie. Everybody in the desert. Its visions are so bizarre and so it. My friends and I had cameras all the the city is laughing at her because they're twisted. EI Topo was great. Whatever hap- time and we were all film directors. I all watching her late at night at the theater. pened to Alejandro Jodorowsky? filmed a whole section of my life-people And then she goes to see Secret Cinema I was going out with, my friends. I just and realizes that it's about her, that every- I love Sam Fuller movies. The revela- shot everything. I directed the scenes, one has been setting her up. tion of his The Naked Kiss (1964) is too. And it all came from DavidHolzman' s when her pimp is beating Constance Tow- Diary. So you can tell it to your shrink, right? ers up in the beginning of the film, and she People know Freaks, but not Nightmare gets her hair tom off, and she's bald. Then There was a very strange Night Alley (1947, Edmund Goulding). The there's the scene where she's on the Dreams (1981, by F. X. Pope) that was Geek-the whole idea of it. Tyrone Pow- couch, and Michael Dante kisses her, and made by the people who made Cafe er was very good. I liked the intricasies of she's thinking \"My God. ... What is this? Flesh. I can't remember the title, but it's the story. The psychiatrist taking records ... . What's wron/? with this guy?\" the one before Cafe Flesh, and is very of the clients and using the records to avant garde. What makes Sex Movie so blackmail them. It's like your worst para- White Dog (1982) has some incredible incredible is its surrealism. It was shot very noia-thinking you're saying your private tracking shots, especially when they're in surrealistically and very expensively. The obsessions to your psychiatrist and wind- the cage and the camera goes all the way premise is that there's a woman, Dorothy ing up being blackmailed. That's very around them. I saw that dog-and dogs in LeMay, in a kind of psychological obser- good. movies don't normally scare me-but this vation chamber which is being watched by dog is terrifying. I was so impressed with this psychiatrist. She's constantly mastur- I also love Anthony Mann westems. that dog that I used it in Body Double. bating the whole time she's being Jimmy Stewart plays these verY obsessive, watched. While she's masturbating, she's, not very pleasant roles. In The Naked Homicidal (1%1, William Castle) was of course, having all these fantasies. One Spur he's a bounty hunter bringing Rob- also great. I was totally fooled by the trans- was when she was a little girl and the jack ert Ryan back. vestite the first time I saw it. I was very in the box possessed her. Then she's a shocked by the stabbing at the end. He gets married, and he/she stabs the minis- Point Blank. ter. Jean Arless, the \"girl\", looked fine, but as the \"guy\" looked a little strange, as I remember. In one scene, she's coming down the staircase, taking her wig off and pulling her teeth out. There's no question that it's an imitation Hitchcock, but it had a very good trick to it and was very creepy. S2

Guilty Pleasures In Two Rode Together (1961, John wife-off the top ofa building. In the be- proceeds to get stranger and stranger. Ford) Jimmy Stewart is a cynical sherrif ginning, they have these shots of him In one particular scene, Tony-the tor- and Richard Widmark is a cavalry officer walking down a hallway and you see his who go out and find these kids grabbed by shoes, the intensity driven by these shoes tured soul who killed his mother-meets the Indians. Their families want them pounding out boom-boom-boom. It's in- some guy at a party and asks him to lunch. back, but they're like savages. So Jimmy tercut with him waiting outside his ex- While they're having lunch, Tony says \"I says, \"They're not your children\" (but if wife's place to see when the money ar- have to tell you something. I have to tell you pay me to do it ... ). One guy's kid rives. When she comes to the door to get somebody. It's just driving me crazy. My tries to kill him because he's a total savage. the money, he knocks the door open, mother's fucking me.\" Tony has no Two Rode Together is the film noir of The grabs her by the hair, and puts a gun to her friends and he's telling this to this guy like Searchers. head. The boom-boom-boom of his shoes the guy's his best friend. The guy says, walking down this hallway is intercut with \"Oh, ya know, we all have a bad time with Sure, we have The Godfather and The this stakeout in such a way to become a mothers.\" Tony says \"No! No! She's ac- UntouchabLes for gangsters, but don't for- surrealistic projection of his obsession. tually fucking me!\" It's such a revelation get Get Carter (1971, Mike Hodges), because his mother, in fact, was sleeping which I saw sl!~h a long time ago. I re- Salesman (1%9, David and Albert with him. It's just so bizarre. member being completely captivated by Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin) is a great non- its intense vision-Michael Caine trying fiction movie-the best weaving together While we're on the subject of sleeping to find out about his dead brother, another of documentary footage with a dramatic with Mom, Visconti's The Damned gangster. It's sort of the English gangster fictional story line, yet it was all real. Sales- (1969, Luchino Visconti) is unbelievable. vision that permeated The Long GoodFri- That scene where Helmut Berger sleeps day. There is something about English man really sticks in my mind. The bible with his mother-she completely de- gangsters, their eccentricity-it's a whole stroys him, and he completely destroys different world-that isn't about business, salesman was very much like Willy Lo- her. Totally perverse people. A totally cor- or even aristocracy. They're about school- man. Like In Cold Blood, it was a great rosive family. Ozzie never thought about yards. fictional reconstruction of totally non- what Harriet was up to: George knew bei:- fictional events. It was stunning. ter-he had a closed circuit TV on Gracie. Now Point Blank (1%7, John Boor- man) is a surrealistic gangster picture. You T he more I read murder books, the Ludwig (1973, Luchino Visconti) was get into the mind of an obsessive guy more I find that th~se people are not fabulous. This guy builds incredible cas- who's gonna get these guys who took his like you or me. Which is why I want to in- tles and is totally insane. When you have a money. The whole movie is \"Gimme my clude Savage Grace (1985, Steven tremendous amount of money, you can let money back!\" Lee Marvin goes through M.L. Aronson and Natalie Robins) as my your eccentricities be constructed into incredible things to get his money back. favorite guilty pleasure. The narrators are anything you like and get the most bizarre Nothing will stop him. He's like the very literate. You're dealing with such an extensions of your madness. I've always Terminator. If anyone gets in his way, he eccentric family, three generations- been interested in the characters who cre- knocks 'em down. They say, \"Hey, you brothers, grandfathers, and fathers-nar- ate their own reality, and when you have a can't do thad\" He says \"I can't?\" and rating. Their voices are so distinct that you lot of money you have Ludwig. Look at picks 'em up and clobbers 'em. know they're transcriptions from a tape re- Howard Hughes-I've read all the corder. This stuff is very well written, with Hughes books. His totally insular environ- Marvin throws John Vemon-the guy their thoughts of what was going on at the ment made the strangest things common- who set him up, shot him, and screwed his time. It's such a bizarre situation, and it place. Kleenex boxes on your feet.... The Damned. White Dog. 53

Never Medavoy I Didn't Like I• ne e Isean trolling interest to TransAmerica ten years Orion, and two, pay us a lot of money.\" Mike Medavoy interviewed later. All went well until UA-along with -A.T. by Anne Thompson the rest of the movie industry-hit the de- pression of 1970 and 1971. TransAmerica I n J975 Walter Wanger described you in Although his profile is low, Mike clamped down on spending, UA's man- his book, You Must Remember This, Medavoy, 46, is well-known in agement team bridled, and in 1978 left to as a representative of the New Holly- Hollywood. He was born in form their own company, Orion, com- wood. Shanghai, lived all over the world before prised of five UA management \"stars.\" entering UCLA at age 17, has bright red I was 34. hair, wears nondescript suits, and loves to Medavoy became a partner in this five- Now you're a dean. puff a Cuban cigar. His spacious office at for-one enterprise. Orion initially Things have changed. Orion Pictures (where he is executive vice hooked up with Warner Bros. for bank What made you want to go into the movie president of production) sports an African financing and distribution, but the first business? You studied history and political drum coffee table, a Don Sorensen paint- few years were littered with failures: A science at UCLA. ing, a huge window overlooking Century Little Romance, The Great Santini, Rol- I always had this fantasy about the film City (Orion has no studio lot), and a wall of lover, and Under the Rainbow. There were business. Since I was raised abroad, I grew framed publicity stills behind his antique hits, too: 10, Arthur, and Caddyshack. In up with the movies, not television like a oak desk: \"To the Czar,\" reads an inscrip- 1980, Orion purchased Filmways and lot of people did. I used to go and see three tion from a youthful Steven Spielberg. struggled to compete with the majors for or four movies a week, maybe five-Er- Jane, Donald, Barbra, Rudy, Liza, Sean, quality product. Along with many margin- rol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart. Sly, and many others smile down from a al releases, mini-major Orion produced How did you wind up in the Universal photo wall at Medavoy every day. He has the under appreciated Under Fire, helped mailroom? also been active in Democratic party poli- finance Francis Coppola's The Cotton To tell you the truth, I was looking for a tics, serving as Gary Hart's 1984 National Club, released the sleeper action hit, The job in international business, and I finance co-chairman. Terminator, and continued its longstand- thought I could get a job at some studio in ing relationship with Woody Allen. their international division. But they of- Medavoy started in the Universal mail- fered me a job in the mailroom, which led room after college, went into casting, and In 1984, Orion won another best pic- to a job as a casting director, and on to be- rose through the agent ranks at General ture Oscar with Stiul Zaentz' production of ing an agent. Artists Corporation (GAC), which eventu- Milos Forman's Amadeus, but 1985 was a I came at a time when the business was ally became Creative Management Asso- low ebb for the company. Remo Williams undergoing enormous change. And I ciates (CMA), and joined International Fa- was a costly failure, and only Susan Seidel- seized upon that idea, and was lucky mous Agency in 1971 as vice president in man's Desperately Seeking Susan and enough to find a number of directors and charge of the motion picture department. Chuck Noms' Code of Silence, modestly writers at that particular time who would He handled Jean-Louis Trintignant, brightened the horizon. eventually cause an enormous change in George Cukor, Gene Wilder, Jeanne Mo- reau, and Francis Coppola and is credited Orion rebounded in 1986 with the Rod- asthe business. with packaging The Sting, YOWlg Franken- ney Dangerfield comedy, Back to School, The List ofpeople you handled an agent stein, and Jaws. and forged a close relationship with Hem- include John Milius, who must have been dale Releasing that first yielded the disap- wild and crazy back then . .. . Medavoy holds a unique position in the pointing At Close Range, but the!) Oliver constantly shifting sands of Hollywood: Stone's Oscar-winning Platoon, which has Yeah, he was. I happened to pick up a He has headed production for the same grossed over $100 million. Platoon plus story in Time magazine about these kids Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters who were graduating from USC. John Mi- management team for over i 4 years. He brought Orion seven Oscars for 1986 and, lius was in it (I think George Lucas was in for the first time, a leading position among it too), and I called my secretary and said, was hired in 1974 at United Artists by the studios in market share. \"Hey, listen, look up John Milius in the president Eric Pleskow to be senior vice directory and ifhe's there, let's call him ,\" president of production, and Medavoy Medavoy has been an active player and sure enough, he was. participated in UA's headiest period- through thick and thin. Now that it's three best picture Oscars in a row for One thick, Orion looks good enough for a take- And Terry Malick? Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , Rocky, and over by Boston exhibitor Sumner Red- Terry Malick came from leaming how Annie Hall, plus the industry's top market stone, who owns six percent of Orion, and to read upside down. I was in Monte Hell- share in 1977. That was before the Shoot- who is buying the sprawling Tv/video con- man's office one day, and he was looking out. glomerate, Viacom, which has a 14 per- for a writer to do a rewrite on Two Lane cent stake in Orion. Though Medavoy Blacktop. On his desk was Terry Malick's Venerated UA chairman Arthur Krim think that a Redstone takeover of Orion is ideas on how to restructure it. I turned it and vice chairman Robert Benjamin took \"very unlikely,\" if he does take over, Me- over and looked at it and I said, \"Boy, this over the troubled distributor over from davoyadds, \"He's going to have to do two guy's really smart.\" So I called him up arid founders Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pick- things: One, decide who is going to run the next thing I knew I was representing ford in 1951, saved it from bankruptcy, him. I was involved in all of his begin- went public in 1957, and sold their con-

nings, as I was with Spielberg. I haven't talked to Terry in a long time. I got a call from his brother not long ago who said that Terry would get hold of me as soon as he got into town. I understand he's in town and I haven't tried to call him because I think he's basically fed up with the business in general. Didyour politics help in being able to rep- resent Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland? You were relatively long-haired . .. . No, not at all. As a matter of fact I was very apolitical at the time-not apolitical, but certainly not involved in any political causes. I was not involved in any Viet Nam political action in any way. You handled Antonioni, Dennis Hopper, Raquel Welch . ... And Hal Ashby , Haskell Wexler, Mi- chael Ritchie, Phil Kaufman, Robert Al- drich, Karel Reisz.... How did you come to handle Spielberg? Spielberg came to me with a short film called Amblin. I saw it and said ''Terrific.'' That's how it all started. He and I had a disagreement over whether he should stay under contract at Universal or not. He'd done Night Gallery. I wanted him to get ou t of the contract. He wanted to stay. He was right, actually, to stay. My feeling was that at Universal at that particular time- this was right before Airport-he'd get boxed into doing garbage. And I had just gotten Phil Kaufman out of his contract. So I said, \"Listen you should get another agent, I don't think your career is going to go anywhere if you stay there.\" So I got him another agent within the same agen- cy. I thought he was stuck there. Of course he wound up doing Jaws. I had another director [Dick Richards] on Jaws, because I sold it. And the deal was you buy my book with my director. [Richards] went to see the writer, Peter Benchley, and kept referring to \"the whale.\" Benchley, of course, went nuts. So, Spielberg wound up directing it. What was the business like then? You said it was going through a lot ofchanges. I started prior to the Dennis Hopper movie, Easy Rider [1969]. The manage- ment of the studios was too old, they needed new blood. Some studios had tre- mendous losses, audiences were not going to movies. They were watching televi- sion. I was at the strongest agency at the time and started comering the market on directors and writers. I was lucky enough to pick the right people and they started becoming the next generation of stars. Were agents just starting to move to the studios then, like Warner Bros.' Ted Ashley and Columbia's David Begelrnan?

I'm out ofthe same mold as Steven Spielberg. The difference is that my innards are really those ofan adult, while Steven can tap into that childhood fantasy that he knows so well. Well, I didn't have any relationship There were no givens. decision was whether to go with the peo- ple I'd been working with for four years or with Ted Ashley. I had never been a su- There were a lot of pronouncements take Transamerica's offer to stay. At UA, we'd had a great relationship. At that point per-political kind of guy anyway. I've al- made, like, right after Easy Rider, one stu- we were riding high. Everything we did was a hit. So I decided to go along with the ways said what I had to say, probably been dio announced it was only going to make people I'd grown up with. It was in the spirit of one for all, all for one. somewhat aloof from the Hollywood million dollar pictures because only mil- It must have been very painfuL to witness machinations. Probably a little more seri- lion dollar pictures would work. That was the dismantLing ofVA. ous, you know. And I don't think that real- ridiculous. I mean anybody who has this It was. It's painful now when I see one of the films I was involved with being sold ly helped me. I was always a maverick, job who decides there are hard and fast to some company, or a black and white movie we used to own being colorized, or even among agents. I'll never forget Sue rules is crazy. some other stripping or dismantling. It hurts. There's a ting. Eric had built the Mengers getting angry at me because I What was the VA approach? VA foreign company, which was very strong, the best by far of any company in was representing a .bunch of kids. She Our approach has always been to rely on the business. It was unfortunately broken up by the MGM takeover. At UA we had said, \"You're much better than that, you your instincts on people. If you pick the our own distribution. Here we basically use a lot of subs. But you go on. should be representing stars, bigger direc- right people, you'll do it. This job is essen- Did the formation of Orion teach you tors. \" tially a job of selection and it combines an anything about studio power? What was the agency hierarchy then? intuition for what you think people want Four years into the formation ofWamer Bros. they almost went out of business. There was CMA, and the William Mor- to see, and a business acumen to protect VA was bankrupt in 1950-Krim and Ben- jamin came in and saved it. It takes a lot ris office, and a lot of little agencies. They yourself from a total disaster. The busi- more to start a company now than it did ten years ago. It also takes a certain had a lot of power, but certainly not as ness has gotten much more complicated amount of time to get rolling. much as they do now. You have more buy- now, because it is difficult to put together Even with the best rel£ltionships in the world. ers today. You have a number of new dis- a program of movies in today's world that Yes, because they may be working tribution entities, whether it's DEG [the will cost less than $150 million a year. somewhere else, or you're really not catch- ing up to the marketplace yet, oryou don't DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group] or That's without overhead, interest, and have a sense or feel, or you're not getting the right kinds of projects. Success helps Cannon, New World, Atlantic, Island, or print and ad costs, which are enormous. you get more success, and failure helps you get more failure, and until something Alive. There's more product being made, Through the years, I've learned how to clicks, you could be sitting there trying to figure out how to operate. We made some so agents have a better shot at getting their work with filmmakers so that they feel errors and I think we're correcting them. It takes five, six years to really get going and clients jobs. they are getting the freedom to do things build a substantial livelihood. We don't have the luxury of having a big library, we Were you into packaging back then? the way they want to do them. Mter 15 have the Filmways-AIP library. We're now building a library, essentially. One of the first things I leamed in the years, I can more or less tell whether Warner Bros. first distributed Orion's agency business was that the agents who something can or can't work within a films and helped raise $90 million in bank really were successful-I leamed a lot scene, and help somebody with an idea. financing. What we found was that unless we had from [former CMA partners] Freddie In the last few years I've learned a lot our own distribution apparatus, the Wam- Fields and David Begelman-were those more. I don't think that ten years ago I ers' deal was not going to give us enough time to get a running jump. It just didn't who could package. So the first thing I would have had the guts to say to some- make sense for them or for us. leamed how to do was look at the long run body: \"That scene doesn't work, you've In any business-especially this one- and figure out how to put things together. got to change it.\" Figuring out which ones would make it The VA policy was always very hands off, and which ones wouldn't, and using my especially with Woody Allen. salesmanship and enthusiasm made a dif- It's still the policy here [at Orion], ference. which doesn't mean we won't give some- How did being an agent differfrom being body an opinion. I'll say to somebody, \"If vice president ofproduction at VA in I974? you really don't want to change that, don't The first few months were really scary. change it; but I'm telling you it doesn't I said, \"My God, am I going to be able to work, and the audience is telling you the do this thing or not?\" The first year I was same thing, so make up your mind if you there we did around ten to twelve pic- want people to see this movie, or you want tures. My last year, four years later, we did it to be your epitaph.\" about 24. Every year we escalated a little Wbit more. I was lucky that the first picture Ihy did VA clash with TransAmerica in '78, and leave to form Orion? got involved with was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which tumed out to be the Essentially because people who don't Academy Award picture that year. The love this business, or don't understand it, quality of pictures was always fairly high. shouldn't be in it. Conglomerates think And we had enough pictures in the mix- this business is like finding shelf space. the Bond pictures, the Pink Panthers- Well, it isn't. We're dealing with all kinds that we could afford to take certain of personalities and talents. After we an- chances. nounced that we were leaving, we were It was a stran!?e period in Hollywood. approached by a number of people. My

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its main assets are the people, people who He's reshooting a portion of the film- Among our line-up of pictures we have Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito in Throw know what they' re doing, with style, phi- which he does on almost every picture. Momma from the Train, a black comedy about a writer teaching at a small two-year losophy, intelligence, sensitivity, all of What makes you say yes to a project? college when a student asks him to mur- der his mother, a real loonie. One of our these playa part in what this company It's a combination of a lot of things: young executives found that script, liked it, and we decided to go ahead with it. looks like and the kind of product with script, a good story, good characters, good Danny DeVito [as director and star] was actually my idea, together with the pro- which it is associated. director, right actor for the right part. ducer. I'd seen some stuff he directed before and thought he'd make a good di- Orion is often termed a mini-major. You seem to be focusing on comedies rector. Billy Crystal was always interest- ed in it. What is a major, mini-major, or a minor? and thrillers. Do you think the audience We have a picture [a mistaken identity The original description of a major was has a thirst for a given genre? comedy, The Couch Trip] with Dan Ack- royd, Walter Matthau, and Chuck Gro- a company that had theaters, and had their No, although I think comedies are din, which [producer] Larry Gordon own distribution set-up, and their own probably safer to do. If you do them well brought to us in tumaround from 20th Century-Fox. financing. In 1949 and 1950 they had to with the right people you' ll get a sizable Was it a whole package? divorce themselves from theaters. A major audience-never the biggest, but $40, Nope, it was just a director [Michael Ritchie]. We have a picture with Charles company basically establishes itself in the $50, $60, $70 million. Sheen [a thriller, No Man's Land], execu- tive produced by Ron Howard. marketplace as a major supplier of films. Are you very reliant on the literary/tal- You cast Charlie Sheen before you knew he was a star. Period. The bottom 25 percent of the ent agencies for product? He had that small part in that John Hughes movie [Ferris Bueller's Day market share are those people who are not We're all reliant on them for material. OfJl. You knew right then. We're very ex- cited about Paul Verhoeven's Robocop. majors. If you're in the top 75 percent of That's their job, and it's our job to get it Verhoeven's last picture for you, Flesh and Blood, was a boxoffice disappoint- market share, you're a major. and decide whether we' re going to make it ment. I was disappointed by Flesh and Blood. Are the independents chipping away at or not. I disagree with the premise in In Paul's work, he tries to touch the nerve. Sometimes when you touch the nerve you the studios' market share? [Mark Litwak's book] Reel Power that the laugh, sometimes you cringe. But his Sol~ dier of Orange is just brilliant. I thought Pictures make theaters, theaters don't agencies are establishing the market and that with a good producer, which Jon Davison [Ai1plane!] is, he'd make a good make pictures. You can play certain mov- what movies are being done. movie. We have a three-picture deal with Davison, who used to run production for ies in toilets and make out. Take Night- C'AA's pretty poweiful. Roger Corman. He submitted a treat- ment, and afterthe script came in we start- mare on Elm Street, which has made $19 They are, but they don't control their ed looking for a director. Paul was a calcu- lated risk. He brought a European look to million. Does that cut into anybody's busi- clients, they represent them. I don't be- the film. He's read comic books, too. We knew Davison would make sure Paul ness? I don't know. lieve that the agents are any more power- made an American movie. It's Dirty Harry and Superman. Peter Weller plays a cop Doesn't the domestic boxoffice pie stay ful today-there couldn't have been any- who's been shot, taken to the hospital, re- constituted as a cyborg, and built into a the same size every year? one more powerful than [MeA chairman] machine. He has only one arm left. One doctor leaves the arm on; another says, No. Ifyou compare this year to last, you Lew Wasserman in the Fifties. Today \"Cut off both arms, put new ones on.\" will notice that from the first of the year to you've only got four or five agents who We're very excited. Sean Penn brought me Colors, about now business is up at least 25%. have real clout. two policemen in the bowels of an anti- Why do you think this is happening? gang crash unit. He was always a big fan of HBecause there are pictures people want oW did you get The Believers? Dennis Hopper. I was Hopper's agent, John Schlesinger had brought the and we've been friends forever. All of us to see. decided it would be good for Dennis to di- And video? book here, and we weren't sure if we rect it. Video will cut into a segment of the au- wanted it ornot. So he developed it at 20th dience, but not enough to prevent people Century-Fox, and then they decided they from going to see good movies, week in, didn't want to do it, and he brought us the week out. I would say this summer will be script and we decided we did. We put up the biggest boxoffice summer in the histo- all the money for it, but John put up his ry of the business, because of the kind of own money for completion. The budget product coming out. was supposed to be $12.5 million and You and Tri-Star were running neck- wound up $13. He put up the rest. and-neck last year. Why did you say yes to the script? We were. We aren't this year. We're We thought The Believers was an out- first, ahead of Paramount. To tell the of-the-ordinary story set against the back- truth, it's somewhat meaningless. What's ground of voodoo in New York City with a really meaningful is: Are we represented really good director. A good scary movie- every month with a picture? We have five a lot like Rosemary's Baby. A filmmaker is pictures in the marketplace. Those five what largely attracts us, even if his last pictures have accounted for $197 million film, The Falcon and the Snowman, was in boxoffice. That's a sizeable share of the not a hit. We all thought The Believers market. Orion is unquestionably a compa- [starring Martin Sheen and Helen Shaver] ny that has had a turnaround. We have 16 was an interesting and commercial film. In films in release this year. We're not doing less than a week, we decided to make it. anything different from the way we did it Schlesinger made this film because he at UA, and the kind of product has been thought this was the same kind of film as pretty much the same. We don't have the Marathon Man, one that could entertain surefire Bond or Rocky pictures-all of and make a lot of money. Except for which we started. Honky Tonk Freeway, most of his films You've got Woody Allen though. Is he have been terrific. Pound for pound reshooting his new movie from scratch, they're better movies than bad ones. and replacing some ofthe actors? Tell us about your upcoming product. 58

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Dominic and Eugene is a wonderful, tion of a Citizen Above Suspicion. It's lumbia chief] Puttnam has been saying warm story of two brothers starring Ray Liotta and Tom Hulce, directed by Rob- based on The Big Clock: It's essentially about industry reform? ert Young. And The In-Crowd, a Sixties kind of dance musical, is a poor-man's ver- the Ollie North Story.\" I think a lot of what David Puttnam has sion of American bandstand. Does Orion put up all the money for to say is probably correct, but I don't think Why are so many movies going back to the early Sixties? each movie? it's his place to say it. And I've told him Just look out there. Everything is Six- Not for every movie. There's [Fantasy this: There's no need for him to go out ties. I think it's for political reasons. There's a need in this country to go back Films] Saul Zaentz and Hemdale. There make pronouncements-go and do it. to having some ideals, some real feelings. are many ways to finance a movie, and we Those pronouncements are going to corne It's directed by first-timer Mark Ro- sentlwL That must be scary. don't have any hard rules. We wholly back and haunt him. Very. I go back to instinct. Sometimes financed almost everything corning up ex- You've kept a fairly low profile, they work and sometimes they don't. We gave Oliver Stone his first picture [The cept for [Hemdale's] Bestseller. yourself. Hand]. You' re banking on a Burt Reynolds The higher the profile, the more vul- Did Stone come to you with Platoon, movie, Malone. What do you think has nerable you become, not just because and did you say no? gone wrong with his career? people are gunning for you. At Orion it's not personal business, but a group effort. Platoon had been presented to us a Probably a number of choices he's couple of times. It was a question of tim- made. I think the critics have been inordi- In the 14 years that I've been doing ing on that movie. Sooner or later you ex- . piate, you get to that point. nately hard on him-it's a cause-and-ef- this-and I've had lots of ups and downs, At what stage did you approve Platoon fect reverberation-and he even starts just like everybody else-I've had four as an Orion picture? acting out, a kind of circular motion. [Best Picture] Academy Awards. Platoon Before it got made, at the script stage. I get upset when people say all our hits have I think critics, at times, become vicious is the fifth Academy Award I've been asso- been pick-ups. The only picture we really picked up after we saw it was First Blood. for no reason. A lot of them are basically ciated with. The decisions that get made We read the script, approved the cast, and put money into The Terminator. frustrated by the kind of work that they here are really very collegial, we do it all to- And Platoon? do. It's as though they're almost in show gether, it's not the Mike Medavoy Show, Hemdale deserves the credit. I don't begrudge their credit. We have a very business trying to become stars. I've had or the Eric Pleskow Show, the Bill Bern- good relationship with Hemdale. We've had our differences and have ironed them critics say to me, \"Hey, I'll give you a good stein Show, or the Arthur Krim Show. out as we go along. We put up X number of dollars for all foreign rights, video, ca- review if you'll use my name in your ad.\" Is Krim (wlw is 77) still very involved? ble, and TV syndication at our standard distribution fee, and we' re 50-50 partners And a lot of business journalists don't get Does he approve each deal? in the foreign area. In return for that we get the domestic theatrical distribution at a the facts right, don't do their homework. It doesn't work that way. If two or three fixed fee. Hemdale has had other pictures we have not distributed-like Salvador They're basically pack followers. of the group really want to do it, it usually and A Breed Apart-by choice. We read the scripts, didn't feel we wanted to do gets done. We talk out the various prob- them, and passed on them. The ones we have picked up-Hoosiers, Bestseller, What do you think of industry writers lems on a picture, whether it's safe, and and Platoon-we'd read the script, knew using their job to get into the busi- does it present a large risk of loss. Basical- the elements going in, and made a con- ness? scious decision to invest in them. Now this ly, one person can actually carry the day if particular thing gets constantly badly re- ported in the press. They forget that we Something's happening in this country, he feels passionate about it. own foreign rights which, by the way, are sizable portions of revenue. which I think stems from the top-a fish You're alone on the West Coast while You're timing No Way Out's release for cifter The Untouchables. stinks from the head. It's a combination of they are in New York. Are you isolated? Yes. I hear Kevin Costner is good in it, and it looks like he'll be on the cover of Wall Street and what's going on in politics. We listen to each other, we're all on the every magazine in the next month. We were fascinated by No Way Out because There was a false sense of priorities, a phone with the other three to four times a --outside ofhaving someone who is really going to make it, like Costner-it's a topi- whole thing about jingoistic patriotism day, less with Arthur. Late in the even- cal political thriller, kind oflike Investiga- which has a false premise: No matter how ings, I talk to Eric. 60 you do it, it's okay as long as you' re going There's a frustration sometimes when I to get money and achieve status. All those can't get somebody on the phone for a people on Wall Street got caught essential- day. It's harder to explain passion on the ly cheating and trying to get away with it. phone. The benefits are that it gives you If they see their political leaders trying to . time to think it out and get a different per- do it, why shouldn't they? spective. Also, the majority of relation- In Hollywood, everyone's trying to get ships in this community are mine. more money-writers, directors, actors, Do you get involved in the marketing producers, and agents for their clients. and distribution end much? Are there movies you want to make that I haven't. You hire people to do a mar- you can't, because the risks are too great? keting job, and they should do the job. I never blame the agents, I blame the You don't take it away from them. They clients. They're the principals, the agent present you with a series of choices as to only gets ten percent. And the truth is that how they think the thing should be done. those people who are truly passionate They are now spending a lot more time about something, nine times out of ten, and effort, which is obviously noticeable. that passion is rewarded, and they get to They're doing more research than ever do things that they want to do. The real art before. I thought the launch and release of comes from somebody being passionate, Platoon was brilliant-and we were criti- like Oliver Stone. Sylvester Stallone was cized for it, which is ridiculous. By the passionate about doing Rocky. Milos For- time we rolled into the Academy Awards man was passionate about doing Ama- we had $100 million in boxoffice-which deus. There's passion in some of David very few pictures achieve-with high Puttnam's films. rental percentages. And the day of the How do you feel about the things [Co- Academy Award, it was on more screens

[1500 plus1than any other Oscar winner in movies require a confluence of things to you dollars to doughnuts that the prepon- happen: You have to hit the right button derance of big movies have been non-star the history of the motion picture business. on the ad campaign-every company has movies. Take the top three movies of the You aimed Platoon at the Academyfrom made mistakes about how they sell. Some year: Crocodile Dundee-20th Century do it better than others. Some have found Fox had that movie and they passed on it. the very beginning. I underestimated the a niche of a certain kind of movie that they Paul Hogan wasn't a star. Was Tom impact it would have, not on critics, but on do well. Cruise [Top Gun] the star that he is now? I audiences and the Academy. don't think so. He was a star but his last Orion seems to release a lot of movies picture [Legend] didn't do that much busi- The truth of the matter is I don't think that are hard to sell, like the Jonathan ness. If you say Eddie Murphy [Golden anybody knew. I said \"Yes, I think it's go- Demme movie Something Wild, or FIX. Child], I agree with you, he's a star, he can sell tickets to any movie. How many stars ing to happen, \" but you never know. My FIX is not a hard movie to sell. And I are there, anyway? instinct said yes, but I've been wrong be- don't think the Jonathan Demme movie was a hard movie to sell. You tell me_ fore . l don't think there's ten stars in the Is Orion more oriented toward adult, They lacked stars. business. The word star is the person that Look up the past two years' hit movies, when you say his or her name it is a guaran- prestige, Academy-oriented product than and take the top ten movies in each year, teed box office generator. the other Hollywood studios, perhaps to its and tell me which ones had stars. I'll bet [Medavoy agreed that Clint Eastwood own ftnancial detriment? I don't think that's correct. The best thinga person in this town can do is to pro- duce quality as well as commercial prod- uct. We cannot exist-and we know this probably better than anyone else-by just doing art form pictures. However, I think one of the mistakes that we made two years ago is chasing the young audience. We did a picture called Up the Creek, a movie about schools that go rafting in a race, which was a strike, and a movie called Secret Admirer-a lovely movie for a younger audience. But we just didn't do any business with it. I don't think anyone knows emotional- ly what those kids will be thinking about next. They change so quickly. Take John Hughes, who has really tapped into that audience. Interestingly enough, this last John Hughes movie which he produced, Some Kind of Wonderful, didn't work. I'm not saying that John Hughes is out of business, because he's now making She's Having a Baby for a more adult audience. By the way, Some Kind of Wonderful is reminiscent of Secret Admirer, it's the same storyline. ORlO CIN Obviously, it's very difficult for me to be something that I'm not or to do some- thing that I have no feel for. Most of my SINCE 1945 experience has been with movies, I'm out of the same mold as Steven Spielberg. The difference is that my innards are real- This long-awaited major reference work fea- ly those of an adult, while Steven can tap tures in-depth surveys of developments in into that childhood fantasy that he knows the world of film by outstanding film critics so well. But I would say Steven has a hard- from many countries. Comprehensive cover- er time-I'm not saying he can't get age includes there-tapping into adult emotions. Now we all have childhood emotions, adults • Thirty national and/or regional cinemas, from have them too, but tapping into that psy- Africa to Yugoslavia, and including China as well as che is really difficult. the US ; I don't know whether there is a certain • The work of more than 1,400 directors , and more than 3,300 films ; kind of movie that works for most audi- ences or for a segment of an audience. I do • With more than 200 fascinating stills, selected bibliographies for each know that I've become much more con- chapter, and a complete index of directors and titles. • An indispensable film book, World Cinema Since 1945 shows how the movies have grown and evolved in all key areas East and West. scious of the audience. At one point, I Edited by William Luhr , 704 pages, illus., large format, hardcover $59.50 figured \"Hey listen, you make a good At your bookstore, or call 1-800-638-303 0 movie, people are going to see it.\" You make a good movie, it's got to be market- The Ungar Publishing Company ed right, it's got to be sold right. And some L-_ _ _ 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017 _ _ _- J 61

You know what would be more exciting to me than winning the Academy Award? A true and verifiable missile freeze. I think it would also be more exciting for my partners. Robocop. reforms in the world. You know what No W~ Out: Sean Young and Kevin Costner. would be more exciting to me than win- was a star but refused to name his list.] ning the Academy Award? A true and ver- speed limit in rural areas to 65 mph. I react Don't stars and marketing hooks help to ifiable missile freeze. I think it would also just like any other citizen, probably with a sell movies? be more exciting for my partners. We little more clout. I do have friends in the don' t do everything right. We don't even Senate. They have their agenda and I've FIX had a perfect hook, and so did claim to do that. We have given a lot to this got mine. Something Wild. Did we hit the hook? business, Arthur especially. Probably not. When I left UA to join Orion, it was Are some ofthese stronglyfelt passions probably the best decision I ever made in Are there days when you are frustrated contained in any ofyour movies? my life, because they've put up with a lot because a movie you loved could have of changes that have occurred in my life. been marketed better? Of course. Coming Home , Cuckoo's My loyalty essentially paid off. I got tired Nest, Amadeus, Platoon. We made a very of doing this for a while. I got involved in I don't want to criticize the marketing good film called UnderFire.ltdidn'tdoas politics. And despite the fact that I took because I think that any company can much business as we hoped it would, but my eye off the ball for a while they were make a mistake in marketing. Everybody we' re proud of the film. there. I have a relatively new sense of ex- loved Something Wild in this company, citement about doing this that I didn' t everybody: sales, advertising, publicity. Did you tum down Salvador for eco- have a few years ago. It's not like I wasn't Basically there were all kinds of problems: nomic considerations? working, but without knowing it I did not We had a wet print, essentially, that went have full steam. It was a combination of out too fast, probably. Everybody makes Yes. the Hart campaign and my own personal their share of mistakes. But we also had Do you regret it? life was kind of going south. I got di- a Rodney Dangerfield movie [Back to Yes. vorced. I lost touch with my own needs, School] that made $91 million domestical- The independents are able to make and my own self, and trying to figure out ly, and that was certainly marketed well. movies cheaply. You can pick up a non- what I was doing. union moviefrom Herruinle that didn't cost Which was very typical of the kind of very much. I've been told by a number of my peers movie that most ofthe studios make. Look what's happening. There was an that I must be crazy to be doing this job ad today in the trades from the musician's this long. But I think that one does have Yes, but nobody wanted to make a union protesting Academy Award win- ins and outs, periods ofexhaustion. I came movie with Rodney Dangerfield. We did. ning composer Jerry Goldsmith's scoring a out of it 15 months ago and I'm back on And the last Rodney Dangerfield movie film in Hungary, a communist country. If the job. ~ did $14.1 million. he had been able to score it here as cheaply as he did in Hungary, I'm sure he would How can the industry reform itself? have done it here. Are we going to be com- For there to be meaningful reforms in petitive or not? It's not so much dealing the business there have to be meaningful with the unions, it's dealing with the world. It's like the guy who takes money from PACS. HoW have politics been important to you? Right now I've left politics to my wife, Patricia, to deal with. She knows a lot more about intemal American politics than I do. I know more about foreign af- fairs. I've Ieamed a lot from her. She comes out of Washington. She was on the House Commtttee investigating the assas- sinations of John F . Kennedy and Martin Luther King. She worked in political ad- vertising. I'm still very close friends with Gary Hart. I won't get involved in his campaign because I promised my partners I would not, and because I have an obligation to Orion and to the stockholders. That doesn' t mean I don't have feelings. I pick 'up the newspaper and read about the Iran Contra affair, or how we've increased the 62

If you picked C, we want you to spend five Economics, University of Wisconsin; Barbara days with your fellow designers in the Colorado sunshine. Rose, art critic, Vogue Magazine; Robert Rose, - If you picked A or B, the same goes for you . Professor of Materials Science and Engineer- Because this year, the 37th annual Inter- national Design Conference in Aspen will be ing, M.LT.; Michael Sorkin, architect and wrestling with such provocative issues as \"The uses of failure:' \"Well-designed failures\" and critic, The Village Voice. \"The penalties of achievement:' IDCA Chairman and award-winning author So if you're a designer who has ever grappled and filmmaker Michael Crichton (\"The An- dromeda Strain:' \"Runaway\") has assembled a with the notions of success and failure, we in- surprising group of creatives who will speak between June 14th thru June 19th. Even more vite you to participate in this unique event. surprising, each will discuss their failures with the type of enthusiasm they usually reserve for And if you think you already have a firm grasp their successes. Those addressing the conference include: on the difference between the two, we invite Jay Chiat, Creative Director and Chairman, Chiat/Day Advertising; Gordon Davidson, you to exercise your judgement. Artistic Director, Mark Taper Forum; Irven DeVore, Professor of Anthropology, Harvard By starting with the coupon below. University; Frank Gehry, architect; George Lois, Creative Director and Chairman, Lois Confere~r-fu;;:\"ational Design in Aspe;;-' Pitts Gershon Pon; Dr. Paul MacCready, aero- IJune 14-June 19, 1987 nautics engineer and President, AeroViron- I $425 for regular registration. ment; Rachel McCulloch, Professor of I$200 for one additional household member. I $125 for full time students {photocopy of current ID I Irequired with registration} . Name_________________________________ I IAddress ICity I Phone Number State Zip Business_ _ _ _ __ IMake check payable to IDCA and mail to: I IDCA-Attention Registrar PO Box 664, Aspen , CO 81612 --.JL:r.::h~n::a:: , =e~a~0::2:::.5~ IDCA International Design Conference in Aspen Michael Crichton , Chairman Steering Committee : Saul Bass, Richard Farson, Jack Roberts , Jivan Tabibian

The 16th New Directors Pedro Almodovar's The Law of Desire. transformed by a non-camp forthrightness Carmen Maura keeps that balance as and sense. This serio-farce, about a film- Poncda's comic voluptuary sisterlbrother. by Annond White maker (Eusebio Poncela) who can't organ- Banderas, who is Almodovar's boyish ize his love life as efficiently as his movies, ideal as Robert Harron was for Griffith, I t's time for a new good-time European flouts propriety as a lie of the bourgeoisie deepens the thesis by combing guile with artist to match the confection ofcharm and an impracticality. comeliness, true love gone bad and mad. and ingenuity in Sacha Guitry's The Every lovestruck machination, from se- Almodovar's gay and transsexual char- duction to letter writing to sibling confes- Pearls of the Crown or Jacques Demy's acters live daringly on the cliffs of emo- sion, has a piercing cupidity, recognizably Lola. And Pedro Almodovar seems to be tion. They heighten universal dilemmas, human enough to survive the film's shaky throwing that party in Law of Desire. playing the mundane to a comic pitch. second half It's like a friend once said of When an affluent fan (Antonio Banderas) the Rolling Stones' \"Rocks Off\": \"You It's a spin-the-bottle affair celebrating the pursues Poncela and overwhelms his de- keep expecting it to fall apart, but it's too craziness of love without moralizing. Al- sires, the melodramatic chaos is more reso- modovar observes the modem Madri- nant than, say, the Billy Wilder paradoxes funny and sexy and dead-on.\" Law ofDe- lenos' sweet dreams and piquant losses as sire really ought to be tragic, but Almod6- part of their unpredictable destiny. ofBlier's Menage. That was cynical sexual Chance and impudence energize his casu- var's characters are so lively, they refuse al parody of a romantic roundelay. It out- sci-fi; Almodovar keeps a real-world con- deceit. Fate may be cruel, he suggests, shone all but one other picture in this 16th text that liberates and clarifies. He has the but if his alter ego gets a dreamboat like New DirectorslNew Films series. advantage of a perspective that keeps ro- Banderas, fate must be winking after all. mantic folly fresh and surprising: a gay in- Almodovar loves melodrama in the sight unfettered by a patriarchal ideology Next best was Tampopo, Juzo Itami's Carol Bumett/Charles Ludlam way-as a (or self-hatred). Almodovar even trans- comic essay on the sensuality ofcook- zesty distillation of romantic delusions. It ing and eating. It is a more surreal, subver- preserves life's ironies by stylizing them. forms Cocteau's The Human Voice, know- Soap opera gests fit the logic of Almodo- sive film than DiscreetCharm ofthe Bour- var's world oflovers, thieves, lunatics, and ing that the values placed on love through innocents, but soap opera idioms get interdependence and risk deserve a bal- (Continued on page 69) ance of humor and pity. 64

New Films Series Rajko Grlic's In the Jaws ot Ute. about the apartment they share but she This last bit about living with mother is owns. Smilingly, she takes it for awhile the one item in The Jaws of Life that by Marcia Pally and then decides to kick him out. Obliv- seems exaggerated to an American view- ious to her complaints, he screams, \"All er. The rest of the film feels more like San A s titles go, The Jaws of Life is right, I'm getting out. Get me my bag.\" Francisco than like the Eastern bloc. The out of step with its story. A throt- sky is blue and sunny, and terraces dot the tling name for a movie, it led me to Director Rajko GrliC's touch here is fast pastel-colored buildings. There's plenty expect two hours of existential torment and light, and dabs in the right cutting de- of pastries and cognac, breezy chic about the Individual and the Yugoslavian tails. It's the book critic who wants to get clothes, and health clubs. When asked, State. But The Jaws of Life is a satire so married and, while he's busy telling after a screening, if Zagrebites really live sweet and ingenuous that it almost lacks Dunja what to do, doesn't understand like this, Grlic said, \"Ofcourse. It's a nor- the cynicism of the genre. And the State is why she's not interested. Shouldn't his mal country.\" It brought cheers from the mentioned once, with the same exasper- matrimonial desires sweep her off her Yugoslavians living in New York. ated tone most Americans now use to de- feet? Aren't they compliment enough, re- scribe the mental acuity of our man in the spect enough, reason enough to do it? While Dunja is sorting out men, chil- White House. Plainly put, The Jaws of dren, and career, she and her colleagues- Life has no teeth. Instead, it has a warm, Along about this time, Dunja's old bud- who are also professional women doing funny take on yuppies in modem Zagreb. dy from college shows up. An aging hip- the same sifting-are making a series Imagine Woody Allen without the Jewish pie, he sets up his sleeping bag on her ter- about a single woman looking for the right neurosIs. race and keeps asking her for loans of guy. Stefie is a simple clerk living with her \"fivers.\" He stays up all night playing his aunt; she is trying to lose weight and to get Dunja, an editor of television serials, is guitar to celebrate the death of Lennon- laid. Much less sophisticated than the not satisfied with the men in her life. John, not Nikolai. Unlike the book re- women who script her, Stefie acts out the There's no shortage of them, but they're viewer, he's playful and affectionate, but adventures and emotions that her savvier all obviously lacking. She's lovers with one childish-as is the third guy in Dunja's creators would not. At least half of The of the book reviewers for the TV station life, who 'is completely absorbed with his Jaws ofLife is spent on the sitcom, which who's a bit ofa pompous ass and orders her sense of malaise and lives with his mother. 65

theater audiences watch along with Dunja a little ordinary homosexuality seem al- the film. \"No one knows why they some- in the TV editing room. mosttraditional. But you can see how easi- times give money to a film that's against ly these extremes could backfire. Take them,\" Holland says. But once Solidarity This film within a film gives Grlic two the characters too far and they cease to be was quelled, the film office tightened up. ways to look at women. He can be as obvi- endearing, and there goes all hope of hav- Since it was made, six years ago, A Woman ous and romantic as he likes about Stefie's ing an appealing sinner sell the sin. Alone has not been shown in Poland. soul stirrings without compromising the Though the transsexualism cum incest intelligence and urbanity of the woman seemed rather much (the scene where it's In the intervening years, Holland has who puts her on the screen. In fact, I felt revealed almost parodies itself), Almod6- co-scripted Andrej Wajda's Man of Mar- Grlic was not always sure what words and var doesn't let his characters self-destruct. ble, directed documentaries for French tone to give his professional women, and They are charming to the end. television, worked with Wajda on several the double plot bails him out. Stefie can screenplays, and made the film she is best glow, weep, and hope to her heart's con- The delicately handsome Eusebio known for in the U.S., Angry Harvest. tent so that her editor need only muse and Poncela plays a gay, 40ish film director Shown at the 1985 New York Film Festi- evaluate. If Grlic didn't know what a named Pablo who is in love with dark, val, Angry Harvest tells the story of a Jew- woman like Dunja would say, he found a moody, 20-year-old Juan. Juan doesn't ish woman hiding in the farmhouse of a way for her not to say it. Dunja's story stays love Pablo, Antonio does. Antonio is also Polish peasant during the Nazi occupa- credible to the final frame. dark and 20. Tina, Pablo's sister (nee tion. He lives alone, and the two become brother), is kind hearted, lonely, tempera- lovers. Though they fear exposure and are At the end of the TV series, a beautiful, mental, a camp comic, sometimes suc- ruled by the savior-victim roles that the gentle man in Stefie's foreign language cessful actress, and a very good mother to war dictates, they also act out the expecta- course steps forward and asks her in halt- the daughter of a friend who's gone off to tions and impulses of ordinary sexual rela- ing English if she would like some tea. Japan. Carmen Maura's performance as tionships. He cares about her and wants to They walk through the public gardens Tina is bumptious and wickedly self-sati- marry her when the war is over but, in a arm in arm. Stefie's editor-her book re- rizing. The cinematography is colorful, bad, drunken moment, feels it's his right viewer, hippie, and mamma's boy all the film playful, and in spite of the unusu- to command a fuck on the kitchen table. gone-goes on spinning reels. al personalities, the ups and downs oflove She is completely dependent on him and seem very much like our own. is occasionally contemptuous. But she also A ccording to Pedro Almodovar's irrev- cares about him, and about arousing him. erent, burlesque film , the law that The trouble begins with Antonio's jeal- governs desire is irrationality. Lust goes ousy: He wants to get rid ofJuan and have Angry Harvest is a film that knocks the where it pleases, he says in The Law of Pablo all to himself But it tums out that wind out of you not because of the ex- Desire, and there's no sense trying to redi- Antonio hates himself more than he hates treme wartime predicament but because rect its itinerary by calling it sinful, crimi- Juan. The son of a powerful politician, he of the small domestic subtleties that HoI- nal, or depraved. Frankly, it doesn't give a is spoiled, manipulative, and deeply clos- land catches in spite of the grotesque damn. Besides, Almodovar goes on, it's eted. He adores Pablo one minute and is conditions. As one insignificant gesture not sex but repression that brings pain and willing to send the cops after him the next. follows the one before it, audiences un- ruin. In the decade since Franco's death, He takes advantage of knee-jerk queer derstand how these two people get to the Spanish filmmakers seem to be saying this bashing even as he pursues Pablo's love. extraordinary place where they are. One a lot. After throwing Juan off a cliff, Antonio ar- moment is credible, the next unpredict- ranges to make love to Pablo one last time able. A Woman Alone, which takes place In order to argue for laissez-faire lust, and then kill himself Perhaps death is the in 1980, has the benefit of being set in a Almodovar took the Cage-aux-Folles ap- only outcome of homosexuality he could much less heated time. Yet, where Angry proach: Get together a compendium of Imagme. Harvest is elegant, A Woman Alone is pon- sexual \"perversitles\" and crowd them into derously bleak. It starts with its heroine at a few endearing characters. Ifyou love the Pablo, who likes himself and his incli- the bottom of a slag heap and burrows sinner, the strategy goes, perhaps you'll nations, is appalled by Antonio but, in a down from there. accept the sin. Unfortunately, the tactic vertiginous leap, recognizes the boy's doesn't always work as well as Almodovar love. In the final scene, both men are in Irena, a single mother, supports her would like. Relying on reason, it neglects white briefs that, in a long shot, look like young son with her ill-paying job as a post- that the law goveming hate is equally irra- loincloths. They sit beneath an altar of vo- al carrier. She lives in a hovel near some tional. It does, however, allow for outra- tive candles, Pablo cradling Antonio's railroad tracks outside of town. It has one geous filmmaking. body. The religious symbolism seems room, some electricity, no running water, overblown, even inconsistent, after Almo- and a kitchen with stoneS for a floor. Her Almodovar doesn't describe just one or dovar has poked fun at the Church for two neighbor harasses her in hopes of forcing two controversial \"lifestyles,\" like homo- hours. But the point about desire's impul- her to move so that he can take the room; sexuality or wife-swapping; he has assem- siveness is on the mark. her aunt is dying and the old woman's bled a yelping menagerie ofsexual hetero- doxies. Homosexuality, transsexualism, Agnieszka Holland never thought her landlady swindles small sums from Irena incest, intergenerational sex, and promis- film A Woman Alone would see every time she visits; the father of her cuity are all included, as well as a few the light of day. Shot during the Solidarity child shows up just to frighten and insult mundane examples of desire's wayward- Uprising, when, as Holland put it, \"the her. Lonely and terribly poor, Irena is at ness, like persistent, inexplicable, unre- censors went on strike,\" it was banned her wits' end-when we meet her. quited love. Perhaps Almodovar was hop- when martial law was established, and ing that the overkill would help argue for Holland could not get a copy out of Po- Holland says that 40 percent ofPoland's tolerance. After all, a post-op transsexual land. Before the uprising, the government population lives below the poverty level who had a long-term sexual relationship had given Holland the funding to make and 30 percent live as badly as Irena. But with her father when she was a boy makes that doesn't quite explain why Irena mis- uses resources available to her. She may 66

be so broken by her siruation that she Ripstein's theme. In order to insulate his doesn' t reveal his fatalism till the end, makes it worse, but Holland doesn't in- story from technology and time, and give clude audiences in Irena's disintegration. it the aura of myth, he sets his characters in which saves the film from drowning in its the no man's land of traveling country cir- Unlike Angry Harvest, A Woman Alone cuses and squalid Mexican towns. It's message. Up to the final scenes, ReaLm of hard to tell what year it is when Dionisio, Fortune focuses on the picaresque mean- doesn't bring us along from one difficult the peasant with the withered hand (and a moment to the next, more troubled one. lot of symbolism), switches his affections derings of Dionisio's family and for- Viewers are more likely to throw up their from his mother, who's been keeping runes-some of which take too long to get hands than sympathize. house for him, to a rooster he hopes will where they're going. The film also has an- other, decidedly contemporary layer. In Irena is convinced that her life is hard win him money in the local cockfights. So the middle of this archaic, cycles-of-life fa- because she is \"a woman alone\" with no ble lies a critique of the sexes. Early in the husband to protect her. Yet when she obsessed is he with his bird that he fails to story, Dionisio's mentor loses his fortune meets a man who loves her, things don't notice his mother die. The morning after to his pupil because his manly pride keeps get any better. Jacek is a former mine her death he wails, ''You've gone and died him at the gaming table even when he is worker with a bad leg, a small pension, ex- on me. What should I do?\" But he has his losing his estate. Twenty years later, tra rations, and time on his hands. His af- cock, which earns him money, good for- Dionisio repeats the mistake. Ripstein fection should help Irena pull herself to- rune, and evenrually his wife. then rums to La Caponera's marital pre- gether, but instead, Jacek starts to unwind dicament. He manages to show what she and Irena continues to fall apart. Just as the rooster dies, Dionisio notices gets out of it as a girl and what she tries to that La Caponera, the saucy singer from squeeze out of it as an older woman. He By mid-film, Poland looks like an in- the fair, gives him luck at cards. He carries never blames her or justifies the bargain sane asylum. Not only the two protago- her around much as he did his bird, and she's forced to make. nists but all the supporting characters over the years she brings him considerable seem demented. What kind of adults sums, and a daughter. As life steadily im- In the 1980 New Directors New Films laugh at a cripple's limp, as Irena's neigh- proves for Dionisio, it worsens for his wife, bors do to Jacek? Holland places her mi- who misses her freedom and hates being series, Ripstein presented EL Lugar sin Li- crophone so close to her actors that every- treated like a good luck charm around her mites, which also slips some modem sex- one sounds like they're foaming at the husband's neck. When Dionisio finally ual politics into a milieu as crude as For- mouth. Her camera is so close to their uses her up, she dies, but as fate would tune's. In that film, the local landowner faces that these ordinary people rum into have it, he is so obsessed with his card gargoyles. And the one wailing rune re- game that he doesn't notice till dawn. For promises to protect the town transvestite peated over and over certainly threatened a moment, I thought Dionisio was simply to drive me mad. going to corral his grown daughter into ser- from a thug who has it in for him. The vice, but Ripstein has her join a traveling thug rums out to have a few unorthodox Holland feels strongly about Poland's camival and sing the runes her mother inclinations of his own, and when push peasants. She did not want to make a film taught her. In the final frame, she is stand- comes to shove, the landowner prefers to about intellecruals who, before Solidarity, ing on the stage as she hears the cockfights stay uninvolved. Ifthe sexual politics ofei- \"looked at the workers as though they begin. were worms\" and after Solidarity romanti- ther ReaLm of Fortune or EL Lugar were cized them \"as some kind of mythical Like any good story teller, Ripstein hope.\" But her passion for her subject seen in the context of Mexico City yup- didn't serve it well. Perhaps the more re- pies, they would read as familiar urban sat- ire with the usual complaints. In primitive mote WWIl setting of Angry Harvest gave setting, they're the surprise. It's a sly way for Ripstein to slide these points by. Holland the distance she needs, or per- haps she simply had five more years of filmmaking under her belt. Her next film is about a priest who was killed during the imposition of martial law. Then Holland wants to do a comedy-a change of pace she deserves. T he Realm ofFortune reminds me of Arturo Ripstein '5 The Real m of Fortu ne . a poem in the Passover Haggadah in which each small animal that eats an even smaller one is in rum eaten by a larger one, till fire and flood destroy the most power- ful beasts, leaving only the Creator. In ReaLm of Fortune, it's not clear that the final force is divine; it may be merely rep- etition--or fate, or man's inability to learn from his mistakes. In any case, Realm of Fortune ends a generation later than it be- gins, with a daughter in the same place as her mother had been, waiting for a man like her father. Progress is definitely not director Arturo 67

I n film circle chat, Horace Ove's new dignity. In one of the film's least expected himself, or why a white New Yorker like Playing Away is compared to last scenes, the colonel takes a black man he's Nicole knows ancient Chinese. But these year's My Beautiful Laundrette. It may be befriended to his secret hiding place. He are somewhat resolved by the end, and a testament to the power of the F rears! can afford to show Willie-Boy the boy in besides, we don't watch thrillers for their Kureishi film that now all movies about himself. logic. We watch them to be jerked around race relations in England are sized up (in the safety ofour seats) by thrill and sur- against it. But I'd hate to be the director Frustratingly, passages such as this prise, which Sleepwalk doesn't quite do. set up to match the earlier success with don't go far enough. Viewers get a glimpse The many cryptic voiceovers and shots My . .. Drugstore, Hardware Store, and of individual characters-and some en- down long, scary staircases-even the on down the block. Besides, Playing gaging actors-and then Ove takes his brilliantly shot scene in an industrial-cage Away uses the Grand Hotel or cross-sec- camera over to the next clump of people. e1evator--didn't pull me far enough into tion approach to West Indian emigres in He has two cricket teams to introduce to the story to be taken by its twists and England-just the opposite of Laun- his audience, along with several wives and turns. drette's intense, narrow focus. children, and he's quite fair about giving everyone their moment. Unfortunately, More fascinating was Nicole's lassi- Center stage in Playing Away is a crick- no moment is very long, and the film be- tude. Unresponsive to the events around et game, and onto the mowed set amble gins to feel programmatic. her, she goes to work and returns home, the blacks and whites who are to play each watching people on the street, Isabelle, other in honor of Third World Week. The closest viewers get to seeing how her son, and her typesetting screen with They come from various Walks of Life, someone acts not in a strained, artificial the same inexpressive eyes. Viewers can representing, though not too schematical- setting but as he would every day, is when impute any thoughts or feelings to her; she ly, who's who in the English c1ass-and- Jeff, of Interracial Relations, has an in- is the ultimate blank page. It's as though race scene. White liberals, their sincere creasingly chummy chat with a pretty Driver created a woman to embody but straining wives, and their less liberal Sneddington wife. He already has an ille- Freud's \"What do women want?\" just to working-class neighbors, confront nine gitimate child, a white wife, and legiti- show up the silliness of his question. If disillusioned, working class Trinidadians mate son. His problem is not simply race. women were that impenetrable, Driver and one who's moved up into Interracial But just as one begins to discern such per- may be saying, this is what they would Relations. The men are accompanied by sonal idiosyncrasies-who drinks, has a look like. But we don't, and we aren't. So, their teen-age sons and daughters who, temper, or is screwing around-the scene boys, cut out that crap about not being like most teen-agers, are more concerned is over and its details never develop be- able to understand us. about sex than about disillusionment. yond the vignette. Yet these details are When asked if such cricket matches exist, what hook an audience. Playing Away is a Perhaps this was Driver's point all Ove swore they take place every Sunday. hard film to feel passionate about. along, not the Chinese mystery. But I'm not sure. I'm not actually sure that this Added to the usual adversity of oppos- Sara Driver's Sleepwalk is built on two idea is in her film; maybe I'm grasping at ing teams is racial tension that's easier for competing sensibilities. One is the straws. Maybe I'm imposing this on Ni- the blacks to admit than the whites. The tension that develops from a murder mys- cole, and thus taking advantage of her Trinidadians can say, \"I don't like the idea tery involving old Chinese tales, poison, blankness. Maybe this ambiguity is Driv- oflosing to those people\"; the whites, in all and a cult that dismembers its enemies. er's point. But I'm not sure. good conscience, cannot. The Anglo-Sax- The other is boredom. Nicole, the hero- on residents ofSneddington try to be good ine of Driver's thriller, is a strangely im- The one certain thing in Sleepwalk is hosts to the team from Brixton, and they passive young woman whose typesetting the cinematography by Franz Prinzi and feel that it's their obligation to want to give job in lower Manhattan tires her out. Ironi- Jim Jarrnusch, which is a knockout. Imag- black people a chance. Saying they want cally, Susan Fletcher, as the protagonist ine Stranger Tlwn Paradise done in col- ored neon. As precise as Jarrnusch's earlier to beat their brains out-even if only on who says little and needs a heavy dose of the field-seems rather too crass. Visine, became more interesting to me lWO films, the camerawork dotes on flat than the whodunnit. surfaces-walls, file cabinets, computer A few of the whites do lose their good- screens, building facades-and takes will in the heat of the game, but the rest of After some enigmatic preliminaries in them in with slow, circular pans. Even the town-and I suspect the whites in the au- which a young Japanese woman steals the New York skyline seems collapsed to two dience-are embarrassed by the outburst, first page of a Chinese book and a young dimensions. The neon feel comes from even as it makes them feel smug about black man makes off with the rest of it, the glow of computer screens, street their own better behavior. The scene is viewers meet tuckered-out Nicole and her lamps, and thin streams of light stretching further complicated by this: the whites daffy roommate Isabelle (Ann Magnu- across the frames. The haze of neon, espe- who stalk off the field in a huff are in the son), who's a dead ringer for Betty Boop. cially in dim rooms, always makes me feel right. They accuse the umpire, a retired The black man, accompanied by his el- hollow and forlorn-the perfect leitmotif colonel, of favoring the guest team, and he derly, sinister Chinese boss, shows up at for lonely, vacuous Nicole. is. An old colonial from Africa and the Car- Nicole's office and offers her a hefty sum ibbean, he has his reasons. to translate and transcribe the dusty, sto- I n Black and White, a timid, fussy ac- len tome. Naturally, things start to get countant becomes obsessed with an in- More subtly than the younger liberals, weird. Computers talk, Chinese charac- terracial homosexual S&M relationship the colonel shows up the guilt and earnest- ters appear on Nicole's door, people get that eventually takes his life. This invert- ness, hypocrisy, familiarity, and anger of murdered, Isabelle loses her hair, and the ed Pilgrim's Progress takes only 80 min- British race relations. He is most gracious black man loses his fingers. utes, and is as subtle as a sea change. to the West Indians precisely because he's Though Antoine's lust for death is extraor- used to being intimate with blacks where By this time, Driver's yam has lost a few dinary-it's hard enough to talk about, let the intimacy doesn't impinge on him in stitches-like why the boss, who speaks alone imagine yourself in his shoes-you the slightest. He treats his wife with equal Chinese, doesn't read the manuscript 68

never doubt its pull. Director Claire \\*\\o*gu*e,,~,n\"*ce-,c0'Ro'.\"\\N,,,I0\\~0::6n;*'~~J*?'~1*H~;~, Devers has not made the bizarre familiar, but she does make you accept it. uve, P It's an inspired outrageous. . We meet Antoine, the young, hesitant pidnoetrmetlr1l.aegl·cottdouafoltf,hHieror.rleelYscl.iWUSUS·obiOVlkede,, bookkeeper, as he gets a job straightening and a fascinaung w?r out bills and receipts for the owner of a not . twO masterp1eces very fancy health club. At first, he's skep- that 1S . . b· tical of the equipment but is persuaded to . ne· an inCiS1ve 109- try out a few machines and to take a mas- 1rutn~hop0anhtyaren.tfhdleaact tsrsteUtahdnesnei\\inl\"\"ug,~ein.fVoiecv-el sage after a long day poring over ledgers. He keeps on taking massages, and only world Beatty inhab1ts. gradually does he-and we-realize what the appeal is. Dominique, the large, black There's never been a masseur, is a little rough on the skinny ac- countant. First there are a few bruises, book \\ike this-but then a few more, and a broken ann. By the time Dominique helps Antoine escape then there'S n.ever been from the hospital and sets up housekeep- ing in an SRO, we are prepared for the a man quite \\ike rest-in Dominique's halting tendemess and Antoine's final request. So open to it, Warren Beatty. in fact, that when Devers says her film has a happy ending because Antoine dies, one \"1 read [it) with follows her reasoning and feels she's right. great pleasure . This is a sizable accomplishment for a whiCh ripened.gmbtto filmmaker, but it's not Devers' only one, unalloyed deli and possibly not her most important. She, by the end.\" like Sara Driver, is also interested in light. Black and White refers not only to the skin _ John Boorman color of the protagonists but to the film stock, which Devers puts to double use. OOU8lEOl\\r First, for the sake of her plot, she keeps Dominique in shadow. As she put it, ''The film is from the white man's point of view. The black man is seen only in chia- roscuro because he is the 'unknown.' This is white man's doom, to be so unaware of black people. In this sense, I have made a racist movie.\" Devers also uses the black and white film to create an eerie, lunar world. She bounces beams off of leaded glass, steel, tile, and stone, in one snm- ning composition after the next. In a particularly majestic shot, an arch- way is seen between moonlight and street- light from a bridge far below it. Consider- ably grander than most of Devers' camerawork, this passage is one of her few romantic moments. Most of Black and White, which takes place in the slightly seedy rooms of the gym, is shot with cool distance. Had Devers filmed the movie to stir up audience emotion, she would've evoked more audience identification with Antoine-and more resistance to his ex- treme masochistic inclinations. It is her dispassionate approach that prevents her viewers from rebelling, her discretion that lets us watch and accept him. ~ (Continuedfrom paRe 64) geoisie, because through its characters' savoring and finishing their meals, they make you wish to join them. This Pavlov- 69

ian comedy expands the form ofa TV com- casso. But Free and Balnicke seek to principals, two sexual metaphors stand mercial that uses a spoof of westerns as a bridge the intellectual gap by emphasizing out: When the free-spirit girl is embraced way of selling Japanese delicacies. But George Lucas' hash of those ideas in Star by a political opponunist, she is seduced more: There's Madison Avenue savvy in Wars. The films of John Boorman and between his left-arm tattoo of Lenin and a appealing to genre familiarity, universal Neil Jordan are better examples, con- right arm tattoo of Stalin. The boys are need (hunger), plus a literally tongue-in- scious of folk/pop traditions and their each initiated atop a new pair ofAmerican cheek sophistication about national function in life. Likening Campbell to Levi's, a capitalist fetish of Blue Denim routines and rituals. The intrepid hero's Luke Skywalker makes pop esoterica of stewardship of a pretty but third-rate his insights and enshrines secret, codified worthy of David Lynch. Rajko GrliC's In noodleshop proprietress tours several stra- knowledge in place of intellectual rigor. ta of westernized Japan. Like a de Toc- the Jaws of Life manipulates metaphors queville in search of recipes, ltami swats Preconceived metaphors became the even better: the TV-series-within-the-film Clint Eastwood, Yojimbo, Julia Child, the keynote for the remaining films in the se- about a plump Sally Field-type's romantic egg scene from In the Realm ofthe Senses, ries, especially the feature accompanying melancholy takes over the framing story of and Le Grand BOliffe, to see what makes A Hero's Journey, Midori Kurisaki's how a woman director prioritizes an and his people click their chopsticks in this era Dark Hair. One-third as long as Paul love over politics, of duty-free internationalism. Schrader's Mishima, Dark Hair's elabo- rate metaphors and multilevel narrative If the discourse is patty code, that's less \"Noodles are synergetic things,\" a char- are three times as inventive yet equally an achievement than GrliC's balance of acter says, and ltami makes a catalogue of stultifying. A preciously designed essay on fantasy/real emotions or his Brechtian behavior from the amplified sounds of Japanese coiffure, its Chris Marker poten- manifesto in the concluding scene, where slurping, restaurant manners to the irresis- tial dwindles into a shaggy Geisha story by the fantasy image is primary but the ex- tible taste of ice cream to a child. This bur- abstracting female idolization and circum- pression of discontent in voiceover is lesque of the senses (plus instinct, fear, scription. Kurisaki eschews a real-world \"real.\" With the double narrative, Grlic pride, sex, corruption) has the canniest so- connection by neglecting how people sus- makes delightful play of allegories. For his ciological underpinnings-a pressurized ; tain such metaphors in their lives. He fol-' heroines, eating and an occur as sexual ,response to Western acculturalization with lows a global idea ofclassicism and perfect sublimations, evoking both Tampopo and a native emphasis. An house tradition haf' form as a creative standard. Law ofDesire. Still, the many comic inci- not prepared Americans for such a wacky dents might be more effective, less coy if expression of Japanese life. This recent A grueling film like Agnieska Holland's done straight. burst of modem screwball comedy (like A Woman Alone rises to that dull stand- The Crazy Family and The Family Game) ard rather than embarks from it. This early T he whimsical mysticism of Sara Driv- is not only unexpected but a happy chal- effon (1981) shows some visual dynamism er's Sleepwalk suggests a different lenge to those still hung-up on dioramas in the odd panning shot and geometric aesthetic from Jim Jarmusch's, which like Ran orA Promise as examples ofjapa- tableau, but Holland's main interest and must mean she wants to make real mov- nese an. her eventual filmmaking course runs to ies. But what a lackluster, Seidelman-ized political and aesthetic masochism. This Repo Woman this is, showing the inter- ltami makes an exuberant display of ambiguous look at Solidarity inspires tor- play between Downtown bohemians and the an of movies, recalling the gastronom- ture-junkie Holland's cliche feminism. Asians from a stoned, dislocated perspec- ic specialization of M.F.K. Fisher's The The heroine has no man for protection, tive. It's a contact low without the ingenu- Art ofEating, but also using a sponive aes- yet her cavewoman longing gets a political ity of an organizing principle. Pairing thetic like Almod6var's that reflects an ac- rationale (paranoia). \"There's no justice Sleepwalk with Drum/Sing was perfect. tive, gormandizing sense of experience on this eanh,\" a dying woman tells her, Gregor Nicholas' shon film takes the New and an ecstatic idea of cinema. He makes and Holland appeals to the fashion for Zealand trio From Scratch, a neo-primi- an ofentertainment, viewing life with wit, East European gloom by providing a crip- tive rhythm band like the New York turning narrative into pure pleasure for our pled lover. He puts Little Nellska out of downtown band, Liquid Liquid, and ne- delectation. The other NDINF directors her misery by sitting on her face. Ass- gates its unusual facility through enigmat- craft self-serious concepts more than ar- phyxiation, Holland's is the worst kind of ic cutting and a concentration on anomic ticulate an emotion or animate a story. It an film \"profundity,\" twisted into political processes. rained allegories and metaphors. expediency and instruction. Hector Oli- vera's The Night of the Pencils of- In Black and White, Claire Devers T hat should have pleased cu~tural hist?- fended similarly, conjuring monstrous probes the anomic processes and obscure rian Joseph Campbell, subject ofWII- prison guards out of Midnight Express to compulsion between two Frenchmen, a liam Free's and Janelle Balnicke's A dramatize fascism rather than pursuing meek, indecisive white, and a stoic black. Hero's JOUlTley. Instead of biography, why citizens tum evil on each other. Oli- Her lean, brisk narrative recalls the Ten- this is mythology-made-simple, a brief re- vera's chic masochism backfires into deri- nessee Williams shon story \"Desire and view of how the peripetetic Campbell sive sparks: What happens to the teen-age the Black Masseur,\" enhanced by the sen- found the keys to the world by under- protesters in this Costa Gavras-Meets- sual, tonal aspects of film. Devers aligns standing folklore's function \"to put man in The-Breakfast-Club comes close to what her metaphors economically, exactingly, accord with nature.\" His syllogism: We a lot of people would like to do to the brat to study the ineffability of race, coexis- live by mythlMyths are metaphorsrrhe- pack (or at least to John Hughes). tence, and solitude. A shot ofa man sitting ists think metaphors are facts/God is a in the gloomy shadow of an undecorated metaphor for the unknown. Campbell ar- Yugoslavia provided better agitprop, Christmas tree proves her gift for poignant rived at this radical philosophical shift after crossing dogma with sex and humor. Be- evocation. She also has a powerful dead- searching among Native American Indi- fore Jovan Min's Hey, Babu Riba de- pan style, to judge by the walk-outs during ans, various religions, Joyce, Jung, and Pi- nies its one bad guy the extra quirk ofhu- the implied S&M scenes. But to walk out manity given to its Four Friends-type on Black and White and not Sleepwalk orA Woman Alone discourages an and encour- 70

ages mere attitude. Devers successfull y \"I've got me.\") into an unresolved depic- Withnail & I performs a lobotomy on employs metaphor as a poetic interpreta- tion of her growth and change. The Hitch- history, revising the usual hedonist's view tion of character, exploring how people cock echoes (personality crisis, a Maguffin of the Sixties for writer-director Bruce want to be seen, how they are perceived, antique vase) are metaphors Anderson Robinson's self-congratulatory hindsight and what they are. She puts image, sym- toys with. A better, De Palma influence that the era deserves nothing more than bol and fact in a consistent narrative line. accepts the dynamism of characters' sup- his disdain. This bleak, sour picaresque pressed instincts. The big shock comes about two would-be English actors-the Lasse Hallstrom's My Life as a Dog when the metaphors seem to burst into flamboyant titular drunk and his dull but loses its charm with every recurring in- life (or at least into a devious sexual logic). practical partner-is a solipsistic reminis- dication of young Ingemar's psychological Notions of serous film art only work when cence. It's visually ~ramped and intolerant formation , tuming his rascally, Huck Finn scenes, dialogue, and characterization of the era's liberality. \"Luckily the phe- boyhood into a Modem Male allegory. move away from stylistic trends or genre nomenon of Swinging London is pre- (It's not hard to imagine Ingemar, who conceits. Positive l.D. is low grade but served in astute observations like Having gets his penis stuck in a bottle during nearly ideal, its art sense almost as devel- a Wild Weekend; we don't have to trust Show-and-Tell, growing up to be Swe- oped as its world view. this one-act morality harangue. ~ den's foremost film director of female rr================iiT--:--~---=============:::::::;­ neurosis.) This is a children's tale that con- descends to adult ideas of behaviorism SC'lip~-F~ MOVIE and nostalgia. But as Ingemar, Anton BOOK CLUB STAR Glanzelius is probably the most likable, PHOTOS impish kid in the history of movies. That How to WritelType/Seli/Protect unself-conscious grin doesn't need to be Your Film/TV Script! explained as a life force. His friskiness out- strips the movie's platitudes. Scriptwriting & Filmmaking books and reference One of the world's larges t collections of film Dark Side of the Moon is an ecstacy works for the Entertainment Industry Professional personality photographs, with emphas is on of art movie symbolism. Loony humor rare candids and European m ateri al. Send a peeks through (a Kathleen Tumer trans- FREE INFORMATION S.A.S.E. witp wane-list to: vestite sings, \"I don't like things when they're real. I like the artificial kind of sex Write: SFBC, 8033 Sunset Blvd., #306C Milton T. Moore, Jr. West Hollywood, CA 90046 Dept. Fe P.O . Box 140280 appeal\"), but director Erik Clausen and Dallas, Texas 75214-0280 ci~matograp~rsMo~nBru~md~rul~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Schlosser go for all-out, haunting meta- phors. A lovesick man who murdered his CELEBRATE wife fears his release from prison and dreads facing his now grown daughter. In THE NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAl!S theme this is a modem, spiritual sequel to Wozzeck, and few movie Expressionists have gotten this close to the movement's essence. Peter Thiel's creepy, skeletal 25th flNNll'ERSflRY presence as a revenant completely es- tranged from sex and society justifies the color psychedelia of emotional distortion. Join the party with one of our new, special edition T-shirts. 1001/0 grey He's love's ghost. Thiel's only experience is spectral (\"be- cotton with our anniversary image in white and metallic silver Sizes S, M, fore everything became memories\"), and L, X-L. $12.00 each, includes postage and handling. Clausen creates a remarkable visualization Mail with check or money order to: The Film Society of Uncoln Center, ofhjs loneliness: As he roams the city call- ing out his wife's name, the camera pans 140 West 65th Street, New York, New York 10023. up to the empty sky, her face fills the screen, then tums away. This is highly ac- complished lost-soul moviemaking, but Name the material needs a dramatic payoff, not formulaic consistency. Dazzling symbol- ism is Clausen's forte, but the rules of An Address will be his ruin. P ositive 1.0. dodges the rules. The City State Zip Texas setting has a banal criminal sur- face (Thriller Type A), so director Andy Daytime phone number o 0 Anderson gets complexity and surprise out of the sexual subtext. He tums a rape o0 L X-L revenge drama from a case history of schizophrenia (\"I'm not gonna be alone,\" SM the victimized wife tells her husband. 7I

Raging Balls Money~ Newman and Cruise. facsimile if you have none. \"Vincent must Everything in this movie is fake. It is smoky, opaque, and unbearably ugly- by Jimmy McDonough learn to be himself-on purpose,\" calcu- we've seen the American tableaux before, lates The Hustler's billiards hero, Fast Ed- but never so coldly familiar. The bland ca- A telling moment occurs halfway sinos, the faceless bars, the run-down through The Color of Money, die Felsen, turned bootleg-whiskey sales- businesses on Chicago'S slushy streets, ev- Martin Scorsese's darkest movie. man, to Carmen, who's wearing a locket erything sculpted into an all-purpose hal- Vincent, Carmen, and Eddie have just stolen from Vincent's mother around her lucination. To say that this territory is run a scam called, appropriately enough, neck. \"Vincent says his mother's looks alienated is an understatement; it is frost- \"Two Brothers and a Stranger.\" Vincent is just like it,\" she smirks. Selling out is a bitten. This is Scorsese's most despairing furious because Eddie has felt up his girl- prerequisite for this movie; it is its code. vision of America and, ironically, his big- friend, Carmen, method acting coming to gest hit-for Disney, no less-with a love the score. \"I put my hands on her-I'm Scorsese gives the game away in his that if he dared speak its name any louder playing apart, I'm acting, we're just trying opening monologue concerning the iron- would've earned Money an X rating. to be professionals!\" scolds Eddie. Once ies of nine ball, the emblem of the whole- Scorsese would've made the innocent sale reduction in value and quality over Tom Cruise's Vincent is a ftesh-and- Vincent his concern; now the spotlight is the last 20 years. All that matters is who blood realization of all the current night- on the poisoned Eddie. controls that nine ball, Scorsese explains. mares in Scorsese's insular world. Vincent Skill mayor may not be a consideration. isn't just an innocent; he's a brain-dead ci- Money is about soul, or, precisely, the \"For some players luck itself is an art,\" he pher, a blank slate who works at Child act of selling it-even faking a reasonable says, and he's talking about his career. World, waltzing through rock videos and The very next image is of a big shot glass of Eddie's fake whiskey. 72

FILM COMMENT CLASSICS are back! Vol. 19, No. 4-July/Aug 1983 Order your back issues now... at only $3.50 each (that includes postage and handling). It's a \"reel\" steaL Guiness and Star Wars ... MTV Vol. 1, No. 3-1962 1987 Vol. 19, No.5-Sept/Oct 1983 George Stevens ... Or on Welles C 0 IVI 1\\1 E N rr Kevin Kline ... Coppola Vol. 2, No. 2-1964 BACK Vol. 19, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1983 ISSUE Exploitation Films SPECIAL!!! Women Direct Film ... The Right Stuff Vol. 4, No.4-Summer 1968 Vol. 18, No. 4-July/Aug 1982 Vol. 20, No. I-Jan/Feb 1984 Film & Catholicism Road Warriors ... Producers Midsection Cary Gram ... lOOth Issue Vol. 6, No.1-1970 Vol. 18, No.5-Sept/Oct 1982 Vol. 20, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1984 Young German Film Marilyn ... Comic Art. .. Fassbinder Claudette Colbert. .. Cinematographers Vol. 6, No.2-1970 Vol. 18, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1982 Vol. 20, No. 3-May/June 1984 Film in Sweden Goldie Hawn .. .Casablanca Joe Dame ... Hitchcock . ..Talking Heads Vol. 9, No. 2-1973 Vol. 19, No. I-Jan/Feb 1983 Vol. 20, No. 4-July/Aug 1984 Newman & Bemon ... Sergio Leone Gandhi ...Video Games Midsection Mankiewicz Empire.. .Sergio Leone... Vol. 9, No. 4-1973 John Huston Vol. 19, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1983 King Vidor. .. Stanley Donen Vol. 20, No.5-Sept/Oct 1984 Olivier. .. Cukor Vol. 9, No. 5-1973 De Palma .. .Hard Boiled Hollywoood Vol. 19, No. 3-May/June 1983 King Vidor Pan II ... Leo McCarey Vol. 20, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1984 Ingmar Bergman ... Israeli Cinema Vol. 10, No. 6-NovlDec 1974 Pornography Debate Film Noir. .. Max Ophuls ... Fritz Lang Vol. 21, No. I-Jan/Feb 1985 Vol. 13, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1977 David Lean .. .Truffaut Midsection Benolucci ... Beyond the New Wave Vol. 21, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1985 Vol. 15, No. I-Jan/Feb 1979 Kathleen Turner. .. Hollywood Novel Billy Wilder. .. Star Making Vol. 21, No. 3-May/June 1986 Vol. 15, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1979 Jack Nicholson . .. Fellini Viscomi ... Forman .. .Hitchcock Vol. 21, No. 4-July/Aug 1985 Vol. 15, No. 3-May/June 1979 Youth Cult Films ... Wiilliam Hurt Bob Hope ... Movies in the News Vol. 21, No.5-Sept/Oct 1985 Vol. 15, No. 4-July/Aug 1979 Kurosawa ...TVs Golden Age Robin Williams .. .Television Vol. 21, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1985 Vol. 16, No. 4-July/Aug 1980 Daffy Duck ... Women in Films Kubrick ... New Cinema Vol. 22, No. I-Jan/Feb 1986 Vol. 17, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1981 Cold War... 198.5 Revue Jessica Lange ... Barbara Stanwyck Vol. 22, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1986 Vol. 17, No. 4-July/Aug 1981 Out of Africa ... Argemina Raiders of the Lost Ark .. .Lucas Vol. 22, No. 3-May/June 1986 Vol. 17, No.5-Sept/Oct 1981 Liz ... Bogie ... Ratings Meryl Streep ... Movie Music Vol. 22, No. 4-July/Aug 1986 Vol. 18, No. I-Jan/Feb 1982 Summer Fun Issue Forman ... Art Directors Midsection Vol. 22, No.5-Sept/Oct 1986 Vol. 18, No. 2-Mar/Apr 1982 David Byrne ... Spike Lee Natassja Kinski ... Divorce, Movie Style Vol. 22, No. 6-Nov/Dec 1986 Smalltown Psychosis ... Festivals Please send the following issues (identify month and year): _ _ _ _ __ [f any of the issues I have ordered are no longer available, please send me one of COMMENT these two alternatives: NAME _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ or ADDR~S _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ CITY _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ STATE ___ ZIP _ _ _ __ The Index Sets for FILM COMMENT, Volumes 1-22, listing every article ever Mail with check or money order to: FILM COMMENT CLAssICS published in FIIl\\' CoMMIlNT, are available for 53.S0/set. 140 West 65th Street QUANfITY AMOUNT New York, NY 10023 _ _ _ Back issues of FILM CoMME>IT. 53.S0/issue $ _ _ __ 73 _ _ _ Index SetS at 53.S0/set $ _ _ __ $ _ _ __ TOTAL

video games, throwing kung-fu moves him to Gypsy Rose Lee, adding insult to Scorsese has made no secret of his iden- and carrying a big stick. Yet as repulsed as injury. Yet Vincent can still be had, and tification with Fast Eddie, in the pages Scorsese is by the image, he is entranced they make up in the car. Five minutes lat- of magazines as appropriately velour as In- by the power: \"Everybody's doin' it,\" er, Vincent's handing over the freshly won terview. Once there was a bloody Jake La- Vincent smiles, referring not only to the booty. \"Roll over, sweetheart, and Motta snarling, \"You never got me down, cheap thrill of nine ball but to the empty gimme!\" slimes Eddie, barely able to Ray\"-a psychotic, exhilarating moment. way we live now, make our movies. He keep his tongue in his mouth. Next day Now there is only the sunglassed shroud repeats it like a mantra, the shots slammed it's all hearts and flowers as Vincent em- of Fast Eddie spouting his dime-store phi- together MTV style. \"Lotta guys doin' it.\" braces Eddie in the diner, solemnly de- losophy: \"Sometimes you have to lose to claring, \"Last night you really talked to win.\" The thrill is definitely gone. The center of the black hole is New- me.\" Girlfriend Carmen receives only the man, whose retum as slick Eddie Felsen necessary peck on the cheek. It is the last third of the movie-Fast got him his Oscar at last, where the Fast Eddie in a baroque, embalmed Atlantic Eddie ofThe Hustler got him the nomina- The sexual undercurrent of Money is City-that is the most problematic yet tion but never tumed the trick. Now Ed- truly uncomfortable. It is a world where compelling. Eddie beats Vincent at the die has become a \"student of human the men would definitely rather be with game, allowing him to overcome his impo- moves\" and the sleaziest, most unattrac- the boys-this is male bonding gone ber- tence with Janelle. Yet the triumph is tive character Scorsese has ever concoct- serk. There's Grady Seasons, the champ soured in a wild coitus interruptus, when ed-worse than Travis Bickle, even Ru- Vincent ultimately has to beat: careful Vincent announces he dumped the pert Pupkin. Waxen, brooding, the tight dutchboy haircut, acne-scarred leer, the game-as Eddie taught him to-for a few lips drawn in a permanent frown, Eddie's narcissistic preening-he can barely keep dollars more. In lesser hands than Scor- veneer of cool crumbles as he ages a thou- the Ninth Avenue hustler routine in his sese's, this would've been the resolution, sand years with each shot. \"Newman's my polyester pants. There's that perfect cam- the trick ending, but Scorsese rolls right by first movie star,\" said Scorsese in a Life eo by Iggy Pop, the John Holmes of rock. it, chuming the movie along in the atmo- magazine article lined with idyllic photos He sticks that famous tongue out at Vin- sphere of uncertainty and dread, cast as fa- of Newman and Cruise enjoying the sim- cent before their match, offering him a ther dueling son but played as lovers ple mysteries of fast cars and rubber rafts. drink. We see a shot of Iggy's crotch, the squaring off. In private quarters Eddie and \"It took me weeks to get used to looking at inevitable green handful of $20s crossing Vincent play their match, the real one, him.\" Scorsese has done more than look at it. Now that Vincent's won, he can coyly each a loser forever. Their women stand his childhood icon, he has exposed the steal the drink from under Iggy's lips. And off to the side like props. man as a sunglassed mummy, like the the Richard Price dialogue: Everything is Coasters song, a Great Big Idol with a \"Up your ass\" or \"Shove a pool cue down The credits end with a reprise of \"My Golden Head. his throat.\" Carmen threatens Vincent, Baby's in Love with Another Guy.\" Scor- \"You're gonna be humping your fist for a sese has passed on the impassioned Fifties Fast Eddie is also the most spectacular long time.\" No kidding. version by Willie John, preferring instead closet case Scorsese has created to date. the coked-out sludge of Robert Palmer. Check out his scenes with Vincent, then The balls get bigger, the money gets \"My baby's in love with another guy.\" look at the ones with Janelle; Eddie gets greener, but the romance between Eddie Who should be singing this song? Janelle? his pool cue up for the kid, but he doesn' t and Vincent grinds to a tragic halt when Carmen? have the balls for his old lady. The heart of Eddie gets taken off by a fat, black kid as Money is a tortured, tentative love story: Muddy Waters howls \"Still a Fool\" in the Near the end, in a spectacular shot, the iceman Eddie and young stud Vincent. background. \"Hey man, I just want to ask camera swooped around Eddie's confused you one thing,\" drawls the hustler on a face, a shark ready to pull more flesh from There are no swelling strings to signify question that underscores what kind of the petrified head. \"I'm back!\" he cries the beginning of the affair; Scorsese does hustling this movie is about. \"You think I out in the final shot, the tight-lipped better than that. Be pins it to one of the need to lose weight?\" Eddie's emasculat- death's head frame-frozen forever, the ul- few moments of true soul on the over- ed in front of Vincent; the game is over for timate fake man. Back to what? Back to a wrought soundtrack of blue men singing him. He runs down a stairway, throwing game with no winners, back to a lie with a the whites: Percy Sledge wailing the ex- his money at Carmen. \"I've shown you my woman that he can't really live, back to the quisite \"Out of Left Field.\" As man and ass. What else do you want?\" While he inevitability of impotence? \"I'm back\" is boy circle each other with big sticks, ready hurries out the door, we see a big wet spot Scorsese talking. But who to? to smack balls, Percy cries, \"I needed on the back of his coat, as if the rape has someone to call my own.... \" Tell me been literal. Out in the darkness of night, Scorsese has done whatever it takes to about it. he stops to stare at his aging reflection keep making movies, and he is disgust- in a storefront window, a fried-chicken ed-with himself, with movies. Like the Carmen, the requisite girlfriend in this joint blinking in the background. Fast old song goes, \"I washed my hands in triangle by default, puts the make on a Eddie Felsen, chicken hawk turned muddy water, I washed my hands but very disquieted Eddie. \"We gotta a race- chicken. Balls roll funny for everybody in they didn't come clean.\" With the empty, horse here,\" he explodes, reminding her this movie. stylized After Hours, the failed projects who's pimping who. \"We're business and the rock videos, even the alignment people!' Vincent almost blows the score Licking his wounds, Eddie retums to with a movie-star Disney project that by laying the kung-fu moves on a little too the frayed pool halls of his youth, finally seemed suspect from the start, no one is thick in a black pool hall. Eddie drives off able to reunite with Vincent in Atlantic braver in The Color of Money than the in a jealous rage, Vincent hanging on the City at the big toumament. A tawdry filmmaker. Scorsese has shown us his window. \"You're like some girl who got lounge singer warbles a sex-changed \"Boy ass-he's gone down. Now he's back, but felt up at the drive-in! You dropped your from Ipanema\" to underscore the re- wondering if he's got balls for the break. ~ pants in there!\" moans Eddie, comparing umon. 74

elevision 'Farbrengen' My Baby Back Home cancer or provid ing money fo r the mort- gage, the Lubavitchers worry abou t im- proving their own performance. Rel igion is man's job, not H is. by Marcia Pally specific heaven or hell. And the Mes- T he Lubav itc he r move me nt was siah-whom they all hope comes in their founded in 1798 when the alterrebbe The kingdom of God is hard to find . lifetimes- is a rhe torical flourish on the Some think it's in Brooklyn, world order of Peace on E arth. Schneer Zalmon, afte r a stint in prison, . headquarters of the Lubavitcher was give n permission by Polish authorities moveme nt, a fundame ntalist sect of While the springboard of fund amental- Orthodox Jewry. But it isn' t. H eaven is ist C hristianity is an unexpected , personal to promote his philosophy of chabai. His not in Brookl yn. Brooklyn is in Brooklyn, visit from Him , the key to Lubavitcher Ju- along with a lot of people who are busy daism is observing Jewish law better and teachings offe red an altemative to the d ry, with the details of the ir daily lives-in this more deeply each day. The essence of exegeticalstyle of mainline Orthodoxy. As world , not the next. fundamentalist C hristiani ty is the divine \"a way of serving God with mind and surprise ; the essence ofLubavitche rJuda- heart,\" it includes not only rigorous study On Saturday afternoons and special oc- ism, human industry. of the T orah and its commentaries but casions, and sometimes when the rabbi sensual pleasure in the practice of Jewish just wants to surprise his congregation , the To the Lubavitchers, divine compen- laws and ritual. Devotion to God is ex- sation in this world or the next is not what pressed not only by reading and Ieaming Lubavitchers holdfarbrengen, large gath- you observe the 613 rules of halakah for. but by singing and dancing, and by in- One pe rforms the m, in the words of Rabbi tense passion for Him. By mode m stan- e rings whe re the rabbi speaks about social Me nache m M. Schneerson, curre nt head dards, the Lubavitche r way oflife requires and doctrinal issues. Three or four times a of the Lubavitche r community, \" to make continual rigorous scholarship, but to year, these meetings are cablecast across the world inhabitable .\" Perhaps because 18th-centu ry Jews it appeared as a popu- North America. In contrast to the more fa- of the Jews' long history of poverty and list moveme nt that proffe red every Jew a miliar Christian broadcasts which focu s on pe rsecution, rabbis never promise payoffs path to piety. Jesus and His appearance in your life, the for piety. It would not make a persuasive case. There is some discussion of reward , So devoted are Schnee r Zalmon's fql- farbrengen focuses on man. Though both but the sages agree that it may not be obvi- lowers to his program that they insist on ous or measurable, ne ither should it be re- preserving it from adulterating influe nces. Christian and Jewish fund ame ntalists be- lied on for evide nce of God's existence. As much as is practical, they inte nd to re- gin with a leap of faith , the Lubavitchers While C hristian bom-agains testify at main apart from modem living. Like don' t talk much about miracles, appari- prayer meetings about God curing the m of nuns, monks, and the Amish, who wear tions, or othe r sorts of divine inte rvention clothing in the style of the era in which in this life . They don' t talk at all about a their orders were formed , the Luba- vitchers dress in modest versions of 18th- centu ry Polish attire. It is one of the more obvious signals to the world that they are diffe re nt-in this world but not of it. After a popular swell in the earl y 19th- centu ry, the Lubavitche r community dwindled , with the gradual e mancipation of the Jews from the ghe ttos of Europe and their entry into public secular life. Though it constinltes only a small portion of modem Jewry and an infinitesmal per- centage of all fund ame ntalists, it has ex- perienced a renascence in the last decade much like the growth of C hristian and Mosle m fund ame ntalist groups. The boon is especially kee n in the United States, whe re many Lubavitchers who es- caped from or survived the Nazis, relo- ca te d . Lubavitche r couples are e ncouraged to 75

While CBN assures viewers that they can live as conifortably as they do now and still be Christians, the Lubavitchers ask: So what's so good about living as you do now? have very large families, and each congre- black coats cover white shirtS and dark the other neighborhood kids knew, and of gation has its proselytizing programs. In pants. A few men spon more secular observing rituals they didn't understand. contrast to Christian missionaries, the Lu- garb-say, a dark suit and fedora-and It made me miss knowing all the words. bavitchers reach out only to \"their own,\" the children in bright blue sweaters pro- in other words, to other Jews. Assuming vide the only color. Down the center of T here is an argument among historians that other nations will serve God in differ- the room runs a long table, the kind found about the purpose of grassroots, evan- ent ways, they believe people are united in grade school cafeterias, draped with a gelical movements. The functionalists only in the requirement to follow the sev- white cloth. Some of the elderly sit there, claim they provide safety and structure en Noachite laws, or basic principles of but most panicipants crowd the bleachers. during times of social upheaval. Others justice. They do, however, want to bring A similar table stands at the head of the suggest that they offer conduits of rebel- secular Jews back into the fold. room and it is here that the rabbi-with a lion and change. Yet they might do both. long white beard and unruly hair-sits. Since it is psychologically and practically The promise of a close-knit, loving community and a thorough guide to living is the Lubavitcher's own best advenise- ment. Most assimilated Jews remember the splendid rituals of their childhoods, or they recall the stories some older relative told about them. Counesy of the Holo- caust, archives and Hollywood preserve- even romanticize--old-world religious life. Jews are left with the vision of a rich tradition and an indulgent family. And ev- eryone wants to belong. Of late, the Lubavitchers have been Holding a farbrengen. harder to go against the current when one experimenting with new techniques When he speaks, no one else makes a is alone, most people prefer to do so in to broaden their outreach program. Most groups, the more cohesive the better. surprising, considering their disinclination sound, though even at 85, he goes for 40 Evangelical religions-like early labor un- to mix with modemism, are the cablecasts minutes at a stretch. The children, some ions, campus divestment movements, and videos of farbrengen. All, except mere toddlers, remain well-behaved. Si- and punk-allow you to distinguish your- those on the Sabbath, are sent over tele- multaneous translation of the rabbi's Yid- selffrom the mainstream with the benefits phone hookup to Lubavitcher centers, dish into English is provided for the cable- and boosts of the team. You get to be a from South Mrica to Australia to Los An- cast and video cassettes. When he finishes courageous loner and one of the gang- geles. Those that.are cablecast are preced- a segment of his speech, the crowd chants \"chosen\" and a people too. The Luba- ed by a full page ad in the New York Times \"Amen\" and begins to sing. The tunes are vitchers separate themselves: from other alening readers to the event. The meeting lively, in Hebrew or Yiddish. Everyone Jews and from the rest of the world. is recorded on videotapes available in knows the words. Some clap along, others handsomely packaged VHS cassettes that hold out their one-ounce plastic cups of A farbrengen can perhaps be best ex- carry the waming label: Do not play on the kosher wine in a toast to their rabbi who, plained as a Lubavitcher rock concen. Sabbath or holidays. every now and then, makes a small, em- The rabbi is the draw, but the feel of the phatic gesture to spur their singing on. A crowd is just as imponant to the event- The farbrengen on December 21, few men put their arms on each others and to the crowd. Those present are al- 1986, at four hours, was not atypical. shoulders and bounce to the beat. Mter ready \"in\". The rest ofus are watching the Three hours and 15 minutes of it were de- ten minutes or so, all stop on a note, and MTV, the point of which is to prick our in- voted to Schneerson's talk; the remainder, the rabbi begins again. terest and make us want to find out more. to audience singing. Though the themes of the evening may have been paramount \"The desire to be in that room is over- T he Christian Broadcasting Network to those present, the at-home viewer is whelming,\" one Jewish man who has operates on the same principle but struck more by the barrenness of the hall watched a few farbrengen told me. Since culls much more heavily from advenising and the crowding of the people-the women are excluded, I felt the pull to- and network television. Jimmy and masses of men who look so alike and so wards this panicular event less strongly. Tammy Bakker's daily PTL show, for in- different from us. But it called up other occasions, like Sab- stance, used to boast five well-appointed bath dinner or the Passover Seder, where I sets, a chorus of back-up singers, soloists In a large bam of a room with no more have sung along. It made me miss crowd- with panache, a band, a large well-trained adomment than the structural pillars, ing around the table, the cousins falling all crew, state-of-the-an equipment, and thousands of men cram. (The farbrengen over each other. It made me remember is forbidden to women.) Most are bearded the pride of knowing a language none of and wear characteristic black hats. Long 76

some very fancy editing. Pat Robertson's sign up to spend a Sabbath with a Luba- THE CASE FOR 700 Club is known nationally for its flare. vitcher family. Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart do as I f the Lubavitchers converted farbren- well. By comparison, Schneerson's outfit gen into entertainment, the cablecasts might well have been responsible for rec- reation hour on the ark. Though the crew would lose their appeal. Programs that comes in from ABC-TV for token pay- looked more like lavishly produced televi- ment, someone from the community di- sion wouldn't arouse the curiosity of non- rects. Without sets or entertainment to Jews or pique the memories ofJews. Aired play with, the camera stays mainly on the as they are, thefarbrengen convey the lure rabbi's face, cutting occasionally to the au- of Lubavitcher life: These people are dience. It's in focus most of the time. more than strange or unique; they are COMMENT Once, the editor ringed the rabbi's face more than a community. They are under- with blue and opened the circle to encom- dogs together. While CBN assures viewers pass the screen. In the midst of the other- that they can live as comfortably as they do wise elementary techniques, the flourish now and still be Christians, the Luba- Stop playing hide and seek with your back issues of FILM COMMENT. seemed excessive. The Lubavitchers vitchers ask: So what's so good about liv- Our customized cases \"\"ill hold a year's worth of issues. Made for us by plan to build their own video studio near ing as you do now? Implicitly the fabrin- Jesse Jones Industries, the blue leather- ette cases are gold-stamped with the their synagogue in Brooklyn. gen asks its television guests to compar- . FILM COMMENT logo. You can pay by check, money order, or with a major On balance, the simplicity of the show ison shop. credit card. Mail your coupon today and stop playing around. works in the Lubavitchers' favor. The Schneerson's address is equally practi- main office estimates that six million peo- cal. He begins, as rabbis have done for ple in North and Central America catch all centuries, with a question. Why, he asks, or part of each program. Judging from the if human beings are most interested by letters received and the over 1000 phone novelty, do we celebrate the same holi- calls that come in during each cablecast, days in the same way year after year? The most are fascinated by the strangeness of answer, in this Socratic dialogue for yeshi- the program. Many are notJewish, accord- va bochers, is that by rehearsing our rituals ing to Rabbi Yehudah Krinsky, director of we may experience them more fully each FILM COMMENT Jesse Jones Indus[ries public relations for the Lubavitcher com- time. The more thoroughly they are per- DepL Film-C 499 Eas[ Erie Avenue munity. \"They don't know what they're formed and felt, the greater their effect on Philadelphia, PA 19134 looking at.\" Almost all want supplemental ~he world. And the purpose of religious information. Mter every farbrengen, over observance, Schneerson says, is to make 100 cassettes are sent out on request. \"But the world a more livable place. we figure,\" says Krinsky, \"that people Since Schneerson speaks extempora- Please send me _ _ FILM COMMENT lemhere[[e cases. make their own. Institutions-and not neously, his actual delivery is discursive, 1 case ...... . .. . . . . . ... ... ...... $7.95 just Hebrew schools or Jewish seminaries threaded with curious references and tan- 3 cases ..................... . .. $21.95 6cases ... . ..... . ..... . ..... . ..$39.95 but Christian divinity schools-record gential remarks. But in the main, his line them and study them in class. \" of thinking relies on common sense. Mter The purpose behind the cablecast all, we rehearse plays and ballets to get Krinsky says, is \"to bring Rabbi Schneer- more out of them. Why not holidays? Enclosed is $_ _. Please add $1 per uni[ for pos[age and handling. Omside USA orders son's message to the whole human race Still, Schneerson's platform is not all please add $2.50 per uniL (US funds only.) .... Jews don't proselytize, you know. reason and light. Its fundamentalist prem- But the rabbi has something to say to ev- ises are never clearer than in its discussion Please charge (minimum charge $15.00): eryone. When he knows he's on televison, of politics. In the middle of his talk, the D American Express D Visa he gears the message that way, to every- rabbi called for President Reagan to en- D Mas[erCard D Diners Club body. He talks about social and communi- courage the lighting of Hannukah meno- ty issues, education, the court and prison rahs in public places. It's one thing for rab- Card #_ _ _ _ _ _-=-______ systems, the moment of silence in bis to promote piety in public, another for Expira[ion Da[e _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Signamre _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ schools-which he's all for-and human the man elected to ensure that govern- rights.\" When I asked Krinsky if the ment \"shall not respect the establishment cablecast was also meant to encourage reli- of religion.\" gious observance among Jewish viewers, State endorsement of religious rites is Toll Free #,7 days a weekJ24 hours a day (Charge orders ONLy): he said \"they definitely have that effect, the beginning of rule by holy book- 1-800-972-5858 and quite successfully. Jews call us from which doesn't bother Christians · who Please ship [0: the Midwest, from towns I never heard of. stand to gain a lot from a theocracy. After Name: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ They thirst for anything we can send all, it would be their book. But why it them. The program also entices Jews in shouldn't bother Jews perplexes me. Tra- the area to make personal contact, to ditionally, state religions send them to come visit us. Though this is not the mo- slaughter, and in the scheme of today's Address: _ _ _ _-,--,::-::--'_ _ _ _ __ tive.\" In addition to the 800 number for bom-agains, Jews are cannon fodder for ar- (no PO box plcase) general information, the crawl across the mageddon. Asking this administration to Ci~/S[a[e/Zip: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ screen advertises special celebration advertise Hannukah is like sending the weekends. Anyone over the age of 18 can hangman out for twine. ~ PA residents please add 6% sales tax. 77

A Car Chase Through the Subconscious boyish smile kneels against the partition and croons a song of a different sort to the by Lawrence O'Toole tearful farewell turned into 25 pages of nun sitting on the toilet in the next stall.\" graphic sex investigating \"love in all its Do not ask for whom the bells of St. \"F ictions\" is how Robert Coover clammy mystery .. . the squishy rub of Mary's toll, they toll for thee, bub, and describes the viciously glitter- truth.\" Sorry, folks, you don't have that what you're really thinking lies behind the ing pieces that make up A kind of truly great love without having \"wet twinkle\" behind the tooth. Night at the Movies Or, You Must Remem- fucked yourself silly for it. \"You Must Re- ber This (Simon & Schuster, $16.95), member This\" takes us behind the fanta- Coover's world is one gone wildly out of which on one level performs some of the sy of the \"wet twinkle\" on Bergman's control, perverting the moviegoer's fond- same service for the movies the Marx tooth \"in the slatted shadows\" to the reali- est memories into a surreal and disturbing Brothers did for the opera. What else was ty underpinning it: \"It was the best fokk I kaleidoscope. The modem Pauline of Coover, profanely witty author of The effer haff,\" lIse replies. \"Intermission\" sees from the speeding car Public Burning and Gerald's Party, going \"someone who looked a little bit like her to call them? As reworkings of such war- Even Chaplin's antics in Coover's mother [go] leaping backwards through a horses as High Noon , TopHat, and Casab- \"Charlie in the House ofRue\" and As- plate glass window back there-this is no lanca, the pieces are not, strictly speaking, taire's tap routine in \"Top Hat\" (\" he doffs joke!\" Charlie's charm cannot deflect fiction. Nor are they mere pastiches of, or his hat and takes his spidery bow\") gradu- from the misery of his straight men. There satires on, cherished and sacred myths. ally evolve into nightmarish set pieces. are few happy endings as the phantom The pieces in Coover's book stretch far Reality constantly impinges on \"the magic projectionist turns out the stars on the ceil- beyond parody, as silliness demurs to sad- of artifice\"; for every sunny sequence- ing of his movie palace and' \"is dragging ness. wouldn't you know it?-there's an over- the darkness behind him like a fluttering cast cloud. In \"Cartoon,\" 'The cartoon cape.\" Coover sniggers at but is ultimately se- man drives his cartoon car into a cartoon duced by \"the miracle of artifice\" in the car and runs over a real man\"; in \"Lap Dis- The \"fictions\" in A Night at the Movies movies. The result is a creepy nostalgia for solves,\" the heroine of the moment (or are floats in a ghostly and often ghastly pa- that which we've never lived, yet we are rather moments) watches the whole thing rade, on top of which are ermined kings left longing for the real thing-just as The tum into \"a song-and-dance act in which and queens perched precariously, smiling Phantom, the lonely and reclusive projec- the leading monster did a kind of ballet and waving their hands. They mysterious- tionist living in the deserted movie palace with the Virgin Mary, who just a minute ly appear and then, without either warn- of his own mind, discovers in A Night at before had been a lawn chair.\" The ex- ing or apology, vanish into the ether, drag- the Movies. Unable to discern whether the tended intermission features a young girl ging their ermines along with them. Gone dark blots on a miniature heroine's under- who goes to the lobby for popcorn, follows today but always here tomorrow. More pants are indeed holes or water spots on a tall dark stranger into the street, and is than any other writer I know of, Coover the film, he ponders: \"There's always this whisked away by gangsters, then fights off has captured the poignancy of the movies' unbridgeable distance between the eye sharks in the ocean and washes ashore to profound paradox-their fleeting mo- and its object. Even on the big screen.\" waiting cannibals (\"She is not sure what ments that seem to last forever. Especially on the big screen, Coover you say to natives on occasions like this, strongly suggests. but finally she decides the best thing is As the heroine of \"Milford Junction, just to wave and say hi.\") Pauline never 1939: A Brief Encounter\" explains: \"It's And so the book, organized ala an old- had as many perils. The book is like a car all perfectly ordinary perhaps to those who chase through the subconscious. live here, but quite thrilling, you know, if time movie program--<:oming attractions, you're from some place like Churley or a serial, short subjects, a cartoon, three fea- Never mind that Coover has engaged in Ketchwonh. Milford: it's like a magical tures with an intermission, to boot-im- the most swashbuckling wordplay since storybook place, just waiting to be filled parts the awesomely empty experience of Nabokov's cunning literary stunts (\"he's up, to be, for one wildly happy moment \"hugging a black hole.\" The myths disas- thinking foggily of his mother, or else of (though it can't last, of courSe, nothing sembled in A Night at the Movies are not his mother in the fog\") or that his book is lasts, really) inhabited-just the name tom down simply for Coover's anarchic often laugh-out-Ioud funny, the man is alone makes you feel like laughing! It's pleasure or our gratuitous delectation. more concerned with the poignancy of our like watching the pictures and being in connection with the movies. Coover \"is them at the same time, as though one The piece de resistance (and certainly a like one of those visitors to an alien planet, might be able somehow to eat the world piece of resistance, since slamming Ca- stumbling through endless wastelands in with one's eyes, if that's not too idiotic. sablanca is not far off from spitting in the search oflife's telltale scum.\" Ingrid again: Milford! Well, it's easy to be a little foolish face of the Baby Jesus) is \"You Must Re- \"The handsome young priest with the in a place like this. \" member This\" -Bogart's and Bergman's Has there ever been a book so dizzy- ingly funny and at the same time so wist- fully sad? Or, as the High Priestess, light- ing up two cigarettes at once and handing one to the jungle boy before she runs her hand under his breechcloth, murmurs: 'Tell me, lard-ass, did you ever have the feeling you wanted to go, and still have the feeling you wanted to stay?\" To which his unsaid reply should surely be, \"Why yes, ma'am, not long after the lights go down.\" @ 78

R B•I S ky u s I• n ess by anne thompson Reprinted from LA WEEKLY, May 16-22, 1986 Given all the fancy technology on- Over at the Walt Disney st udio , Home Video, Tri-Star Pictures, Enler- screen in Hollywood pictures, you'd everyone knows that production Vice tainl17ent Tonight, Home Box Office, think the big movie companies would.. be President Marty Katz has a Baseline ter- Vest ron Video and Lucasfilm. But what's decked out like the Starship Enterprise. minal in his office. His assistant , Laurel start ling is that not everybody does. Not so. Contrary to their glitzy image, Selko, handles calls from allover the lot Why? the studios are fairly antediluvian, still for information. \"I just call and print out First of all, secrecy . 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(One of the Top Three agents, publicists, unions, craft guilds and trying them 'til you find the one that Hollywood literary/talent agencies - lunchtime schmoozing. you can get One of the Top Three Hollywood literary/talent agencies In Hollywood, the quicker information, the happier your boss will be even threatened to cancel their Baseline account if it was - whether he's a rattlesnake wrangler, casting agent or Barry Diller. Who is the revealed that they were users. In Hollywood, if you find to get better, compIete information faster newest, the cheapest, the best? Can she a way more play comedy? Can he write science fic- stihoenc?arIsryshaeseprlieesa?saWnthtaot awroertkhewiritchr?edCitasn? _th_an_a_n_yo_n_e _el_se_, _wh_y_t_el_l y_ou_r_c_om_p_e_tit_io_n?_______ A relatively small number of industry works. It 's the fastest way to get a cur- CAA, William Morris or ICM - even people have found out about a nifty way sory credit list, but I usually have to do threatened to cancel their Baseline ac- to get information faster. follow-UD research .\" count if it was revealed that they were Baseline is a rapidly growing 3-year- \"We're not perfect, .but we're the best users .) Which makes perfect sense if you old New York-based computer-data re- there is,\" replies Baseline founder James think about it. In Hollywood, if you find a source accessible by any local phone or Monaco, a 43-year-old writer-publisher way to get better, more complete informa- by computer modem (call 1-800-CHAP- of film texts and who's who books. tion faster than anyone else, why tell your LIN) . With one simple Baseline pass- Baseline's strength lies in being up-to competition? Why tell your boss , for that word, presto! Instant access to 250,000 date. Its weakness is that its credits tend matter? names of talent and technical personnel to go back only to 1970, because Monaco But there's something deeper : the fear in film , TV and theater; 50,000 film, TV, started filling the database with \"the of computers. Baseline insists that its Broadway and off-Broadway titles, with most useful information \" in 1983, kept computer database is much simpler than complete cast and crew listings; a daily its data current from that point and then the systems used routinely by banks or show-biz column by Hollywood column- began to work backward . Now 20 travel agents. Apparently not everyone in ist Martin Grove that includes corporate keyboard \"editors\" feed the databank Hollywood believes this . So in response changes, upcoming film-release schedules around the clock. Eventually, Monaco to an entertainment industry that is com- and current picture grosses; the results of hopes Baseline's information will go all ing slowly to the computer revolution, Cinemascore's opening-weekend audi- the way back to the silent era. Baseline has developed a new service: If ence polls on more than 1,000 films and These days certain big companies do you have a question, just call them up TV shows; who currently owns the rights use Baseline, including J. Walter Thomp- and they' ll provide the answer . • to hundreds of hot literary properties; son advertising agency, RKO Pictures, and much more. Lorimar, 20th Century Fox, MGM-UA === INE--=-----=----- =----.-=-=-~.--:-~----.-~----~L , CALL NOW 10 SUBSCRIBE I-BOO-CHAPLIN IN NY 212-254-B235 79

Jimmie Blacksmith? Or the DeLuise brothers (Don's sons) in Hot Stuff? Didn't think of those? Michael Sutton of Glen- dale, California, did. In fact, he listed 154 siblings-just about every family tie but Violet and Daisy Hilton, the Siamese Quiz #25: Blmne It on Rijo twins in Freaks and Chainedfor Life. For distinguished grinding, Michael gets a Every night at 11:30, baseball fans tum per last name, please; if you use, say, year of FILM COMMENT. The losers get religiously to the ESPN Sports Center for Cleon (The Devil in Miss) Jones, don't wrapups of the evening's action-and for give us Ruppert (Along Came) Jones. our thanks and sympathy. -R.C. announcer Chris Berman's tortuous puns Each name must have a nickname; Roltie on ballplayers' names: Rick (See Ya Later) Fingers won't do, even though there's a OSCAR UPDATE Aguilera, Craig (Def) Lefferts, Brian (10) film called Fingers, but Rollie (Five) Fin- Downing (Street). Sometimes he gives gers is fine. Wince-worthy puns are en- , The insiders had it. Five of our twelve the stars movie nicknames. Montreal has a couraged. The winner of a free year of this prognOscarcators from last issue tied for pitcher dubbed \"Jay (They Call Me Mr.) magazine is the applicant with the longest first place, and all live within a stone's Tibbs\" ; the Atlanta Braves' relief ace is and bestest list. Send your entry to FILM throw of Tinseltown: A1jean Harmetz, \"Jeff Dedmon (Don't Wear Plaid)\" ; and COMMENT, Quiz #25, 140 West 65th Gregg Kilday, Jack Matthews, Richard when a certain Oakland Athletics pitcher Street, New York, N.Y 10023, and get it Schickel, and Anne Thompson. They blows another five-run lead in the late in- to us by June 8. guessed eight of ten Academy Award win- nings, Berman refers to him as \"Jose ners correctly. But all our seers did pretty (Blame It On) Rijo.\" On QUIZ #24, you were asked to well. Every one of them picked Platoon as best film, Oliver Stone to take the direc- But there's still the entire 87-year histo- compile the world's most comprehensive tor's prize, and Paul Newman for best ry of modem baseball to pilfer from. Your sib list: brothers and sisters or brothers and AWOL actor; ten forecast Marlee Matlin mission is to ransack Bill James and The brothers or sisters and sisters who ap- and Dianne Wiest for the actress awards; Baseball Encyclopedia for a list of major peared together in movies. Just about ev- nine somehow knew that the waterfall at league players, from 1901 to the present, ery contestant had the Carradines, the the beginning of The Mission would win a with nicknames that can be twisted into Gishes, the Bottomses, the Quaids, the cinematography kudos for Chris Menges. movie titles or movie actors-anything Cagneys, the Howard-Stooges. But how from Babe (The Story of) Ruth to Darryl about the Previns (Daisy and Fletcher) in Here's hoping that next year's Oscar (Woman of) Strawberry. Only one player Hannah and Her Sisters? Or the Crosbys nominations offer bigger challenges for (Marshall and Matthew) in The Chant of our oracles. And that the representatives of this Coast do just a little better. CONTRIBUTORS: Schickel is a film critic at Time. His latest book PHOTO CREDITS: is called Striking Poses. Bob Strauss is a free- Alexander Batchan is a New York-based By Michael Baim: p. 37,40,48. Counesy Chi- lance joumalist covering the entertainment in- dananda Das Gupta: p. 20, 21, 24. Film Soci- film critic with a special interest in Soviet and ety of Lincoln Center: p. 26, 44, 45, 46, 52 (2, dustry in Los Angeles. Amos Vogel, author 3), 53 (2), 64, 65, 67. IFEX: p. 34, 36. Island East European cinema. Brenda Bollag is a of Film as A Subversive Art, was the founder of Pictures: p. 30. Counesy JytteJensen, MoMA: p. 35. Counesy Harlan Kennedy: p. 2. Mira- freelance film critic teaching film semiotics at Cinema 16 and co-founder and first director of max: p. 25. Movie Star News: p. 11, 13, 14, 16, 18. Orion: p. 52 (1). Paramount: p. 38, 72. the University of Geneva. Chidananda Das the New York Film Festival. Armond White Counesy Amos Vogel: p. 6, 8. Gupta is an Indian film critic based in New is film critic for The City Sun and Paper in New ERRATA Delhi, a documentary filmmaker, and a biogra- York. FILM COMMENT is red-faced. The pher of Satyajit Ray, with whom he helped AGENTS! article entitled \"The Gospel According to Joe Bob\" appearing in the April issue, found the Calcutta Film Society in 1947. J. Writers, actors, directors-we would like was written by John Bloom, not Joe Bob Hobennan is film..critic for the Village Voice. to hear your agent stories. Please include Briggs. Karen J aehne is a New York-based freelance your name (withheld upon request), ad- writer. Writers Bill Landis and Michelle dress, and phone number. Send to: stOOent Films ootstard.iIq in lightin;J Clifford prompted Brian DePalma's memory. Agents!, do Fihn Comment, 140 West and/or effects sought for television Jimmy McDonough lives in Hoboken and 65th Street, New York, New York 10023. showcase. For infonnation, requirements, carries a big stick. Lawrence O'Toole is film ani a~lication serd $5.00 check or IfOney critic for Macleans. Marcia Pally lives in New ATIENTION SCREENWRITERS! Professional screenplay order no later than AuguSt 31, 1987 to: York and writes on the arts. Richard evaluations. Detailed written reports. We guide you up the OIOOfWARD, INC. P.O. Bale 3577 Rockefeller ladder to success. ALSO available, our model feature Center statim New York, New York 10185 AUlOGRAPHED PHOTOS SCREENPLAY, $18.00; GUIDE, $5.00. Plus, AMERICAN SCREENWRITER newsletter. AGENTS, MARKETS, Hollywood legends, superstars, show biz SCREENWRITER'S TIPS. Sample, $2.00. G.P.I., Box 67, personalities. Quality collection . Authenticity Manchaca, TX 78652. guaranteed. Brochure: L.&M. Gross 2675-F Hewlett Ave. Merrick, NY 11566 * *RARE VIDEOS Pin-Ups • Ponralts • Posters • Physique NOW AVAILABLE! Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • Science Fiction • Musicals • Color Photos • RARE CLASSIC TV, MOVIES &; SHORTS. Send 22¢ BO Years of Scenes From Motion Pictures stamp to: Paragon Video, P .O . Box 3478. San Mateo. CA . 94403 (DEPT \" B\") Rush St .00 FOR OUR ILLUSTRATED BROCH URE 134 WEST 18th STREET, DEPT. Fe NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011 (212) 620-8160-61 80