VOLUME 25 - NUMBER 04 JULY-AUGUST 1989

Rabe and DePalma sWargasm Confronting atrocity in Casualties of War: Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn face off over Thuy Thu Le. by Gavin Smith entering the forbidden territory of Vietnamese girl-they activate and then American wa'r atrocity, only until now must deeply repress unpalatable propo- B rian De Palma and David glimpsed in Platoon and Apocalypse sitions about the behaviorism of warfare Rabe's Casualties of War offers Now. and historical responsibility. This is the familiar guilty pleasures of exacerbated by the very strengths and the Vietnam picture: the vicarious sen- U.S. atrocity has been integral to peo- style of De Palma's signature, which sations of combat exhilaration and the ple's perception of Vietnam and yet sup- shapes this superficially powerful, pro- relinquishment of moral, social and his- pressed, unuttered . All agree Vietnam vocative work. In fact, the film misses torical coordinates - as all hell breaks was a mistake; only some consider it out on the opportunity to provoke ideo- loose around you. But it also advances criminal. Casualties of War inadver- logically. Unlike other De Palma films, it the evolution of the Vietnam genre, tently stumbles into that gap. never scandalizes, embarrasses or short- which has always sought to transcend circuits cinema's narrative, philosophical the political disillusionment and absurd- De Palma and Rabe attempt an exor- assumptions-and so never articulates ist nihilism upon which it was based , by cism of My Lai but in developing a met- its latent implications. aphor about Imperialism as Will to Power-here, U.S. troops gang-rape a 49

Based on an incident recounted in a By contrast, Ericksson (Michael J. alties\" of military conditioning, their 1969 New Yorker article by Daniel Fox) is impotent. He can't save the girl, responsibility is diminished and war's Lang, Casualties of Uilr concerns a five- he can't bring her killers to justice, and ideological matrix becomes a caricature man combat unit that kidnapped a he's paralyzed by the conflict of loyalties of misogynistic, racist peacetime soci- young Vietnamese woman, took her on -to his values or group loyalty and the ety. a short-range reconnaissance mission, chain of command. raped and finally murdered her. One of But here the film's contradictions the five, Sven Ericksson, who had only As none of Our Boys are older than become visible. Rabe champions the been in Vietnam three weeks, refused to 22, the film disquietingly displays the real Ericksson's point of view, which participate, but was unable to save the sexual pathology of war, going beyond insists upon moral responsibility but girl. He also realized they'd rather kill Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, to which contradicts the film's social deter- him than risk his prosecution. Surviving push kill-conditioning to its logical con- minism. A troubled discrepancy lies at both them and an injury, he pressed clusion: wargasm. It replaces Kubrick's this intersection of psychosocial behav- charges-only to find the command climactic metaphoric rape of a girl sniper iorism and humanist moralism that pre- structure reluctant to investigate for fear with the literal rape of a Vietnamese vents the film from fully articulating a of scandal. civilian. coherent point of view. De Palma milks this paranoid con- Penn exudes the physical and sexual The Accused's view of misogyny is spiracy of silence scenario with custom- confidence the part demands. In con- that there's no excuse for it; it wants to ary aplomb. He adheres to Lang's trast , Fox is cast for his appealing boy- obtain justice, but shares the same basic interview-based account of Ericksson's ishness as well as his air of principled assumptions with Casualties. Both moral dilemma and the army's negligent decency. Unfortunately, that's all he's appeal to male culture's hatred of women administration of military justice- but got. Never as believable a grunt as Penn, even as they denounce it as beyond omits mention of the subsequent reduc- he doesn't have the spaced-out disorien- decency. The male viewer is simultane- tion on appeal of the court martial's leni- tation of somebody who's only been In ously implicated in rape and murder and ent sentences. Country three weeks. (Like Kevin Cost- yet invited to identify with the morally pure bystander powerless to intervene. Rabe and De Palma are most effec- Ten years later, He is positioned on both powerful and tive when they focus on Ericksson's pre- Vietnam films-and powerless, active and passive coordi- dicament as the atrocity looms, then Brian De Palma-are nates. The demands create an overload passes by. They opt for a lurid and doing what was once that mere moralizing cannot resolve. highly effective all-shook-up approach, and the film works best at this kind of religion swork: The title The Accused means to refer panic-stricken , nonreflective level. As to men but also means to make its such , Casualties is about the indiscrimi- absolution and point: that women rape victims often nate release of sexuality and aggression amneSla. end up as the defendants. The film is engendered by the removal of all civi- told from the POV of the victim's female lized controls in war. What separates the ner and Craig Wasson, Fox is another of lawyer-until the deferred flashback at boys from the men is the boys' penchant De Palma's WASP ciphers and limited the end showing \"what really happened:' for going with the prevailing impulse of acto·rs. Ironicall y replaced by Fox in During Jodie Foster's rape, the POV the moment-which, in the war zone Back To The Future, Eric Stoltz would turns queasily lurid; the camera's piti- cannot be ignored. have been a smarter choice- he has sim- less, unflinching eye hovers in an inde- ilar qualities to Fox and real talent.) terminate psychological space, at times It is the supremacy of these impulses with Foster, at times with the college that, in a memorable performance, Sean W hat Casualties of War offers is boy witness, who eventually testifies. Penn as Meserve (Me Serve), the the awful thrill of transgression- Where The Accused's rape scene was squad's sergeant, understands and works the spectacle of U.S. troops committing \"the brutal truth;' poised at the brink of from. As the instigator of the atrocity, premeditated atrocity. The girl doesn't exploitation, Casualties' rape scene is Meserve is set to be the rotten apple \"lead them on ;' as some claimed in The surprisingly unheightened. It doesn't who gives everybody a bad name- Accused, and Meserve is disingenuous confront the audience with the same except that the film resists just such a in implying she's a VC. For a moment, volume of uncomfortable imagery. It's whitewashing. Penn's Meserve does you're seeing Sixties Godardian meta- not about \"what happened:' but about what comes naturally under the circum- phor-Vietnamese women held captive what you do if you're Ericksson. For stances. His capacity for impulsive by GIs were a recurrent image in his men, both films point an accusing finger action makes him a good soldier, des- movies-assimilated into Hollywood -then let them off the hook. tined to survive; his lack of inhibitions is bourgeois narrative: it's sobering. The psychologically engineered by the mili- obvious temptation to read the film as T he boy who testifies in The tary regime. Clearly the temptation is to an allegory of U.S. Imperialism is best Accused serves as the male safety dismiss Meserve as a psychopath among resisted however. Casualties' rape rather, valve. It's hard to identify with the rap- basically sound , but easily-led, men. I raises questions that transcend war. If ists because we never get close enough suspect that's not what's intended at all. Meserve and the other killers are \"casu· to see ourselves in them. This shield is not so apparent in Casualties of War. On the contrary, Meserve is a supe- Diaz, played by John Lequizamo, twice rior, exemplary soldier. His credo of tells Ericksson he wants no part in the power, from his crotch to his M-16 rifle, rape yet takes his turn under peer pres- is Government issue: \"This is my sure. He seems like a decent type. He weapon/This is my gun/This is for fight- could be any of us. Also, Rabe and De ing/And this is for fun.\" 50

Shades ofJean-Lue Godard as Meserve (Penn) manhandles Thuy Thu Le. Palma construct a dramatic emotional thing and it don't matter what we do. and absolves both him and America. logic for Meserve's rape plan: the VC But I'm thinking maybe it's all the other Though coming ·to terms with guilt control everything-the \"friendly\" but way around. The main thing is just the could imply recognition of wrongdoing, lethal village and the local bordello, too. opposite, and because we might be dead the war is denied its historic significance Meserve simply decides to get a little in the next split second, we have to be and reinterpreted as a mythic schema \"control\" for himself. extra careful about what we do- where basic moral and philosophical because maybe what we do matters problems are wisked away. Ten years But, as with the rapists in The more.\" later, Vietnam films-and Brian De Accused, Casualties is squeamish about Palma-are doing what was once reli- engineering truly authentic, unsettling Rabe's speech , a vernacular variant gion's work: absolution and amnesia. recognition. Imagine a film told from on Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart 30 or Meserve's jungle-law point of view, 40 years ago, is indicative of what kind V ietnam vets might say that these instead of Ericksson's Judeo-Christian of Vietnam film Casualties is: one that's war atrocities were committed by armchair deluxe. That is to truly chal- concerned with capturing the moral high a minute percentage of soldiers-but lenge the audience. ground in order to attain absolution. We that's irrelevant. The baby-killing GI can apologize for wrongdo ing and move psycho is a stereotype produced and In the film as is, Ericksson acknowl- on . Thus the Vietnamese girl who sits perpetuated because it permits denial of near Fox on a San Francisco tram car, historical responsibility. It was the cra- edges the shrinking moral perspective circa 1973, in the film's opening and zies not us. In the First Blood series, that war's absurdity induces in men in closing scenes, finally tells him, \"You combat: \"Just because each one of us had a bad dream .... It's over, I think ;' might at any second be blown away, everybody's acting like we can do any- 51

De Palma goes over the top again and another woman bites the dust. Sylvester Stallone simply rehabilitated Respectable, moving, motion and sadistic, operatic inflation of and ideologically revised that image for \"coherent\"-not the horror of the moment , De Palma's Reaganite America by rewriting history words one used to scene is ludicrous-as unbelievable as it and producing triumph. With Meserve, associate with is unbearable. De Palma's scene makes a Rabe and De Palma reach back past this great visual - you can die from the ham- stereotype to the real prototype-we De Palma. He's bought mer blow that announces the film's met- acknowledge our rape and our rapists- into Hollywood's New to make a concession to liberals. It is not Sobriety-the enfant aphor in her outstretched arms-but in clear if anyone else is persuaded of the Rabe's script, true to the facts, she underlying metaphor: the U.S. rape of .terrible grows up. heads away from the squad, through Vietnam. undergrowth , and dies out of sight. De he trades his hyperbolic excess and Palma wants us to see the rounds thud- No one can accuse Brian De Palma melodramatic mannerism for a more of not taking risks in the past. The intelligible Message Picture aesthetic. ding into her body a la Scarface and so Untouchables , I think, proved that he'd Respectable, moving, \"coherent\" - not lost his nerve. Without Penn's perfor- words one used to associate with De dissipates the horror in a cheap shot mance, Casualties would merely be Palma. He's bought into Hollywood's reminiscent of a similar sequence in enthralling widescreen rhetoric. Though New Sobriety-the enfant terrible grows The Fury. De Palma avoids the lifeless movie refer- up. ences of The Untouchables (AI Capone Maybe what they say is true: De descends the Odessa steps), he has Only once does De Palma's instinct Palma just likes to choreograph women's made something proudly middlebrow. for outrage get the better of him. Raped, deaths onscreen-that's all. He can't Casualties is marked by a humanism stabbed and left for dead , the Vietnam- resist doing it, once again borrowing that is antiquated when compared to the ese girl attempts an agonized, doomed from his ovvn increasingly withering creepy, ironic amoral ism of his Sisters escape - and runs smack into the middle oeuvre. It is the smuggest form of self- or Dressed to Kill, and stylistically of a three-way firefight between the satisfaction. restrained (bar a few moments) when squad, the VC and the U.S. air cavalry. compared to the delirious formal excess It's blatant metaphor: the real victims of A pity, because De Palma is more than of his Scaiface or Carrie. the Vietnam war were the Vietnamese adequate as a director of Rabe's script - civilians. With his pathos-milking slow his bold, graphic technique serves the In everything up to Body Double, De story. But the problem remains that De Palma understands the exquisite provo- Palma has no feeling for Vietnam-no cation that perverse character identifica- personal vision that vets such as Rabe, tion and playful visual construction can Oliver Stone and Jim Carabatsos have. induce in an audience- he knows how He lacks the right-wing fervor of John to defamiliarize our moral matrix alright. That's just what this material calls for. Milius , Michael Cimino and Sylvester Yet here he opts for something straight: Stallone. He can't construct the imagina- tive concepts that Coppo la and Kubrick have. He embraces Rabe's moralizing in the absence of his own interpretation of Vietnam: have gun, wi ll travel. ® 52

by D avid Thomson a screen, elegant and sere ne in the ir mas- and curiosity into doing sets fo r opeJa. His que rade of perspective and place, hopeful work the re is so inte nt on d ramatic mean- 1. that the wing can fly into the distance, al- ing that it exposes most movie design as lowing the artist his miraculous escape. advertiseme nts fo r desirable but inane For something to be seen, it has to be prope rties. looked at by somebody, and any true and 3. real depiction should be an account ofthe § T he re is anothe r, mightie r photocol- experience ofthat looking. In that sense it T he film co m me nter at the 1988 lage, Nude 17th June 1984, in which the re must deeply involve an observer whose David H ockney retrospective that are nearly as many prints as planes to the body somehow has to be brought back in. went from L. A. to New York to Lo nd on tumbled satin sheet and the naked up- heaval of T he resa Russell lying on it, gaz- - David H ockney, as quoted David Hockney in ABigger Splash (1974). ing up at the camera; th is is the calendar by L aure nce Weschle r in pin up scowled at too quickly by Gary Bu- \"A Visit with D avid and Stanley sey's sheepish Joe D iMaggio in the ico- Hollywood Hills 1987,\" las Roeg film Insignificance. David Hockney A Retrospective (1 988), p. 85 § In the early Seventies, H ockney lent Art is ... a rumor. himself to Jack H azan's docudrama mov- -heard in The Moderns, ie, A Bigger Splash, not quite consenting writte n by Jon Bradshaw and to be in it, certainly not as available as Ms. Alan Rudolph Russell was for hi s collage, but not refu s- ing or de nying, and smiling th rough the expose as ifit wasn' t q uite him . All of this sustains the droll , bright-eyed surprise Looking at pictures--llockn~ paints the movies. \"HOCKNEY has several induceme nts to e nquire within: with which he has witnessed his own star- Own Your § Showbiz people own some of these dom . For H ockney is his own work, a can- Own O riginals\" vas and the observe r, a painte r who began pictures: Steve Martin , David Geffe n, with his hair, a mode rn who saw that the - from the cover of Vanity Fair, Mary T yle r Moore, re presentatives of the best, most gu ilish action was in L. A. June 1988 Hollywood tradition of putting the loot into good oils, which begins with Edward § As the H ockney show came to New 2. G. Robinson, C harles Laughton, and the York, there was Vanity Fair trying to pe r- Goetzes and comes on down to D aniel suade us (or itself) that every one of the T his essay comes in num bered Mel nick and M ichael Ovitz. 600,000 copies of its June issue had the ite ms. T he pieces vary in tone and real thing, four vivid H ockney prints, focus, but they all. seek one e nd, § T he exh ibition includes an early pho- done in his deft Picassoid style and \"Pro- like a wing's layering of feathers. T he cli- tocollage of Billy Wilder Lighting His duced by a special process, our p rints are max of the essay will be a picture in which Cigar, a sketch or a gift, only six pho- origina ls, not rep roductions. T hey' re there are as many separate, similar parts as tographs, not me rely affectionate or ready to be framed.\" Are n' t we all ? there are feathers on a wing. T he ending is ad miring but sparks from Wilde r's fire. It a view of the desert composed of shingles is a joke about ignitio n in which the great And facing this text, the re was a profile of light, slivers of appearance, adhe ring to but forsaken director seems to wo nder photograph of H ockney (by Helmut whether he can get started again . Newton) in. which the right eye has slid back, trying to join or liste n to the hearing § H ockney has e ntered with pleasure 53

aid in his ear. Is he hoping to have \"Rose- tion that has intrigued the blond boy from movie man , albeit one as unimpressed as bud\" dropped in his ear? Or is he just de- Bradford: \"Can I do good work there? Can Cecilia Brady (Theresa Russell!) tries to termined to stay deaf to the magazine's anyone?\" It is a mark of Hockney's hu- be \"obstinately unhorrified\" by Holly- danger? Hockney's complicity in Vanity mor, and his ironic interest in dealing with wood in The Last Tycoon--one who takes Fair's scam is one sign of his transcending bogusness-not by attack, but in cultiva- the scam and the tender light for granted. shame. He has that blase, bantering integ- tion, until it comes new and good again. Which can only make it harder for Ameri- rity of one who knows anything may be Perhaps not since Orson Welles has a kid can film to notice what he has to say, and perpetrated in the name of art. After all, with such talent, cunning, and skepticism show. art is only something the right people talk gone there. about. Neddy Merrill (Burt Lancaster) in Frank Perry's § Many of his paintings are of that L.A. § Hockney is a self-made Yorkshireman life-glassed-in patios, formalin luxury, 4. who found his way to Los Angeles. L.A. pools with privileged views of the folded may not know it, but that is a peculiar test hills, and the light slipping through the He seemed to see, with a cartogra- of the artist keeping his feet on the tropic growth to caress the dead splendor pher's eye, that string ofswimming pools, ground, not going the exploded way of, of \"home\"-to which movie people are that quasi-subterranean stream that say, Charles Laughton. Do not underesti- curved across the county. He had made a mate the challenge of depleting corrup- expected to aspire. discovery, a contribution to modern geog- He does seem, this Hockney, to be a 54

raphy; he would name the stream Lucindn and pipe dream. From 10,000 feet de- ing on). after his wife. He was not a practical joker scending, one can pick out the intricate Isn' t there a pool in Poltergeist? nor was he afool but he was determinedly catalogue of pool forms . These are not just Don't forget, there's always one there original and had a vague and modest idea uniform stamps of good housekeeping in of himselfas a legendary figure . The day the backyards, not just identifYing tags to when you' re dancing, beneath your wid- was beautiful and it seemed to him that a the L.A. lots and plots. There are the ening steps-It's a Wonderful Life, but long swim might enlarge and celebrate its frilled bays where tots paddle; kidneys, booby-trapped . beauty. hearts, 8's and 69's, the ovoid, Arpian pools landscaped in to make tame Africas; To say nothing of those \"real\" pools of The Swimmer (1968). the blocks with side bars-to say nothing the city, like the late George Cukor's, of the turquoise, copper sulphate, Navajo where Vivien Leigh is said to have fallen T his is John Cheever's Neddy Merrill in blue, all alight, as if some infant soul beat asleep, wom out as Scarlett, and where Bullet Park, N.Y., but the urge can in their depths, aglow from two miles Marilyn did her nude wallow for Some- take you in L.A. , too. Coming into land, high. You know these are not just pools; thing's Got to Give. you see pools glow in the gelid , gray day, they are of the spirit in a spiritless age; they not dimmed by the plagued ai[ They are alwint properties and offer more than a re- And, while it may be shallow for swim- beacons, like the light in von Stem berg freshing dip or exercise. There is a grace ming, with something in it \" bad for the films , pushing through filo layers of haze about them, the physical but mystic chal- glass,\" Burt shouldn't miss that scrap of lenge that needed Burt Lancaster to play pond in Chinatown that holds spectacles Neddy Merrill in The Swimmer. as well as some answers. If ever a pool nursed the guilty essence of L.A. , that's 5. the one. \"You see, Mr. Gittes. Either you bring the water to L.A.-or you bring I n L.A., Burt could make a more event- L.A. to the water.\" ful dogleg trip than Neddy saw on his way home that midsummer Sunday: There you are, that undertone of the sa- cred, the pool a chapel for sinners, memo- He could start at that freshly filled sump rial to all that ravaged water from the off the 10000 stretch ofSunset, taking care Owens River and beyond . And, of course, not to bump William Holden's Joe Gillis, many more movie pools, as many as you who is concentrating on telling his mortifY- can count from the air, like teardrops on ing story. (There will be other corpses to the rubber ground in which some giant tread has pressed the grid of a city's cross- avoia~The pool is so often holding ground hatching. The pools are souls in the ash, they are so alive; even before your plane for the dead after their big splash.) lands there is that whisper of the impossi- There is the pool in Night Moves (pre- ble. It makes the chlorinated sanctity easi- er to face or swim in. monition of the larger waters off Florida), the one at Arlene Iverson's place. Gene 6. Hackman's Harry Moseby looks across it as he comes to rebuke Arlene. She stands H ockney paintings are flies on L.A.'s up, woozy, tottering on high heels, in dan- best walls. They must record the re- ger of falling in. Such pools are like the marks of their owners and their owners' mirrors in Douglas Sirk films , the measur- guests. For some of these deadpan altar- ing glasses of self-scrutiny and contempt. pieces of L.A.'s false ease are owned by the town's despots and panaceas. It is the Which reminds me of the Mediterra- primed silence of the pictures to which nean in Contempt, and a staggered house history entrusts the sated insights: that is really a diving board. Or the Pacific in The Long Goodbye-an ocean that is Look, not less than itself, but when caught in the It's us. Right? glass, that becomes the appointed pool for That's exactly how I Sterling Hayden's suicide, a sailor drown- Want to be seen. ing in a bottle. How did he laww? I had to buy Similarly, he should go by the pools of3 The picture, Right?- Women , which are not just facilities but So no one else could versions of the wateriness from which we Know. Then, a month later, came. 3 Women is altogether affected by I knew I had, somehow, to the languor with which we move in water; Show the picture: it has another timing. Some people found I was ready for people to the movie odd without noticing it was Know. Right? rather fishy. I IW longer think it actually Or only And the pools in The Graduate, Rebel Is us-I mean, as we see how Without a Cause, Black Widow (with Ms. Close it is to Russell in it, enigmatically garbed at Us , don't we, Right? night; a pool in the dark is an emblem of Rise above it? passion, as witness Cat People), The Bad Isn't that the advantage and the Beautiful (Lana is dropped in it), O f ownership? Point Blank (they forgot to tum the heat- 55

Not that the Yorkshire boy is anything \"point.\" Television's intrinsic problems but fond of L.A. Don't blow his cover or with atmosphere have been acceded to. spoil his charm. He has needed to' be The medium is plot- and talk-heavy, and thought of as an insider, a safe observer. the visual pattern is forecast in the script. And he has never been so chilled by nulli- The so-called picture may be mere fill; it is ty or depravity that he can't see their spa- rarely more than illustration. SO TV stinks tial grace. He is an odd kind of brave, lone- of standing sets, locked-in camera setups, ly fellow, this Hockney, and his dry and rigid thought process: It's all like the Bradford sense must have held tight in handling of the news, a ceremony in L.A. to wit, detachment, and the purely which Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, or painterly virrues (masks for loneliness) Dan Rather sits in balance with the small that know he shouldn't let his jaw drop at screen over his shoulder. Imagine the all the fatuous beauty and murmur, \" Bli- news in CinemaScope, and the world mey! \" A painter has to be careful. edges a little closer to its actual instability. 7. I do not suggest that inert composition is inevitable in formats like that of TV. T his painting is owned by David Gef- Choice, talent, and difficulty are always fen; he wouldn't want anything but the determinants. In frames needing less the best. It is called Portrait of an Artist adiustment to TV than those of, say, East (Pool with Two Figures), and it was done oft-den or Bigger Than Life, Fritz Lang, in 1971. That year helps place the Scopy Hitchcock, Ford, Welles, Anthony swagger ofwhat is a seven-by-ten-foot pic- Mann, Renoir made compositions that are ture. We are talking of a time of McCabe still moving, challenging, beautiful. In- andMrs. Miller, Dirty Harry, luniorBon- stead, I am employing Hockney to help ner, Deliverance, The Godfather-not demonstrate that in all the deaths that now when everything was in some form ofCin- afflict film there is one not much men- emaScope or Panavision but when spatial tioned: visual death . There is so little to ambition naturally extended the screen. look at, and such scant use of viewers. There was a need for human figures to as- sert themselves against surrounds, in hope Now, look at Portrait ofan Artist again. and fear but invariably out of a charged loneliness. Portrait of an Artist reminds 8. me of looking at and feeling those films. At first, the eye's pleasure is so sumptu- There is no call for camera operators to ous, it is inclined to look for satire in write, \"Well, then, idiot, what do you the acrylic ecstasy: the flooding blue of the think we're doing?\" I know how carefully pool's ruffled top, leading to the crazy today's films are framed ; but the modem white paving where the light cracks its screen is occupied by obedience and deco- gloss; the illumined greens of the Rous- rum , whereas once it was open to danger seau forest, which keeps this enclave of or doubt. The true frame-down is one of Mulholland safe against the other city; the several handicaps the filmmaker is expect- unsalted butter of the tiled surround, still ed to overlook in his relations with televi- icebox hard in the sun; the dazzling straw- sion. No wonder colorization is uniformly attacked; that intrusion helps filmmakers .ber.ry jacket an.d t,he slit of violet shirt as forget their silence in the face of all the other infractions TV has practiced-in mtense as a prIest s. running length, pacing, and in screen for- But there is no direct mockery, only the mat. Gradually, what happens on the movie screen has had to conform with how hush that such things should be so, here in little transpires on TV. California. There is no protest, just a spir- itual finger-crossing for the paradise to per- And television complies with a few in- sist and the inkling of how provocative the ternal vectors, of which the most domi- view might be to a Manson. (Is there a nant involve eye-locking conversation. figure watching from the forest?) This per- People speak; others react. As on a Telex, fect scene could vanish with a blink, or a information is transacted. Such TV dares cut. There is a flimsy feel, like a fantasy not take on misunderstanding: It is, alleg- hanging in the light, a pretty mist that edly, the weakness of audiences that could burn off before you counted to elev- points must be rammed home so that at- en. tention or staying \"on\" never falters. Framing is the proper term, for the things This is beauty in an age and \",lace that onscreen are geared to that plodding no longer trusts such things because it does not feel the links between appear- ance and grace. That principle for centu- ries of painting has gone; and photography disproved it, nowhere more than in L.A., where movie beauty became a new model for betrayal and the lie. And this is a photographically influ- 56

Pearblossom Hwy., 11·18th April 1986: Hockney's photocol/age, filled with the exhilaration of perspective that does not Oehave. 57

enced pamtlng-not photo-realism, ex- the red jacket were still hanging in a closet There are other books identifiable on the actly, but photo-fantasy. It is a painting that he would sooner not leave. Only de- wheeled shelf that separates and unites that knows how powerfully the camera sire's attention guides him to the swim- the two elderly people: Remembrance of makes us feel absent from places and feel- mer, not the target lines of optics. It is a Things Past and a study of Chardin. It ings. And as soon as we relate it to photog- painting in which sight is registered as a ought to warn us of the picnIremaker's raphy, we recognize how seldom picnIres feat of imaginative understanding. concern with the validity of naturalism, provide such sun-soaked lucidity of color life and posing, life and its invented without glare or pain in the brightness. It may be said that this is a homosexual double. Time of day has been credibly evoked painting, that the prettiness and the faint, here, yet removed from time's penalty of disdainful panache are limited to a gay Hockney the painter had been collect- tiredness. This is a dream, smoothed and sensibility. But the picnIres of the Clarks ing and using photographs for the \"infor- cooled by our most regular fantastical tex- and of Hockney's parents fit so clearly into mation\" they provided. He never, I think, nIre, photography. a life of unrestricted emotional coloring fell for phf\\tography: He insisted on its that we should be able to see all the pic·· snappiness, its distance from art, and he At ten feet by seven it is not Panavision, nIres filled with desire, sexual wistfulness, liked pop, commercial color from Fotomat though width is enhanced by the strong and the dilemma in looking at loved ones. instead of Lartiguey black-and-white. At inner screen of the pool and by the swim- What makes the spatial arrangements so the same time, he was obsessed. Photo- mer's thrusting line. The two triangles of delicate and troubled is that seeing and graphs aided his memory: they were the darker green hillside give a nearly exact being seen have been treated as central vouchsafe for details he could enlist. They balance to the frame; they make the sky conditions of a nervous system as shy and uncovered the split-second gradations in an envelope flap, sealing in the hideaway. proud as ours. human posnIre that the naked eye could But the axis is the figure in the red jacket, not hold on to. Red Jacket, in Portrait of as emotionally to one side as Nick Ray's How seldom that vital 'necessity is an Artist, is not in the kind of motion that hero in Rebel Without a Cause. What sought in films. Too many of our movies only 1I300th of a second can isolate. But makes this figure the more poignantly are about people held together just by talk he has an arrested stillness. of infinitesimal ready for movie is his downcast gaze going or plot. Such characters are unaware that swaying and shuffling, that feels odd and unnoticed by its object, the pale figure be- nothing is as expressive in film as the otherworldly when fixed. Ahd Hockney neath the surface of the pool. That is how watchful face. Just as books must be about was assembling photographs: The two it is such a snIdy of yearning; that is why people or worlds reliant on words, so films figures .in Portrait are from photographs there is a feeling of fragility or danger in must involve characters in looking to see, taken several years apart, on different con- this secluded Eden up above L.A. or waiting on insight. The mystery of tinents, but liberated and fulfilled by jux- Hockney's two-shot picnIres is the pa- taposition. In other words, the subject of Hockney has a recurring theme of two tience that coexists with precariousness. this picnIre was identified when-Kule- people in a frame: The modds for such shov-like-Hockney's searching, editing paintings are friends or lovers, and some- 9. eye picked on two stills, putthem side by times lovers of the painter. But they dare side, and saw the transforming meaning. not touch. It was only in his earliest years F or nearly 20 years, Hockney retained a as a painter, when he felt belligerently dedicated draftsman's suspicion of But not only the method of conception gay, that the figures in Hockney, met or photography. Even after he had acquired was being shared with photography. The overlapped. These were usually figures as respectable cameras and had accumulated tone of the look of his paintings is nowhere if drawn by a child. Once the draftsman- thousands of his own picnIres, he pre- near as trompe l'oeil as some photo-real- ship became more sophisticated, so the ferred to call them \"snaps.\" \"You'd never ism; still, the flat, lush , drugged momen- people achieved a hallowed isolation. look at a photo for more than 20 seconds, tariness of the picnIres, their atmosphere, There is a further motif whereby one unless there were a thousand faces and alludes to the senselessly \"faithful\" repro- figure has nIrned to look at the other, you were looking for your mother,\" he ductive imagery we expect in photogra- while the other resolutely fails to notice said as late as 1984, by which time he was phy. the attention. This can be seen in Ameri- devoting most of his work to the taking can Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weis- and assembling of photographs. The struggle that is the story of Aaron man), 1968; Christopher Isherwood and Scharf's book-what can painters do in Don Bachardy, 1968; Henry Geldzahler There's a Bradford bite in the remark: the age of photography?-was preoccupy- and Christopher Scott, 1969; to an extent It nips at his listeners first; but, ifyou think ing Hockney, too. His resort was to go as about it, isn't the speaker worrying at his close as he dared to photography, while al- in Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, 1970- own heels? I can hear the same tone: dry; ways sidestepping its allure, using it so wry, and determined to stay safely aloof. much as a tool that he learned to see how it 71; in the unfinished George Lawson and \"Yes, well, L.A.'s all very fine and love- gave access to that essential genre of mod- WLryne Sleep, 1972-75; and in that touch- ly-if you like that sort of thing.\" It's the ernism, new and dangerous. The lifelike. ing snIdy of union and apartness, My Par- way, in The Moderns, Keith Carradine ents, 1977. says of Linda Fiorentino, \"I suppose she's His \"photographic\" paintings make us not a bad example of her type.\" Strength think, quickly, that we are seeing the But the linkage is most subtle in Por- of feeling is veiled by the playful intima- \"real\" thing. Bm then they tease our early trait ofan Artist, where two crosscut shots tion that all of life comes framed and dubio assumptions about reality. They show us (the watcher/the sight) have been aligned that the lifelike is detached, a projection ot in one picnIre. The swimmer cannot ouslyauthenticated. loneliness; it is absurd , untenable, a little know the youth in red is there; yet as he The reference to mother may be a clue. camp in its seductive aura, and an instruc- reaches the edge of the pool, surfaces and tion in the metaphysics of watching. looks up, he is on the point of finding out. For in the 1977 My Parents, his father Hockney has done something t11at Alex- peers shortsightedly at Aaron Scharf's Art andre Astruc hoped would be possible for Imagine that upward glance, and you and Photography while his mother gazes moviemakers 40 years ago: He has ques- may realize that Red Jacket's eyes are not straight into what it is hard not to call tioned the tyranny of the visual. It may be open. He is asleep, or dreaming. This ac- the camera, leaving it to us to decide counts for the passivity of his stance, as if whether she is made of paint or silver salts. 58

Hockney's Nude 17th June 1984, aportrait of Marilyn Monroe (Theresa Russell) in Nicolas Roeg's Insignificance. the only way of restoring excitement to is the witless betrayer of reality, the look- localized by photography. Watching may alike or lifelike. At last, after 150 years or become more erotic than congress. looking. 10. so, we have to face it: We compromised our own security when we came up with O nce Hockney grasps this, his work I n taking on photography as the mate rial so begu iling a means of duplication and re- picks up energy. T he resignation in his of his \"pictures,\" Hockney arrived at semblance. Moreover, the new form pres- paintings, which sometimes felt supe rcil- sured our imaginative ene rgy into the ious and sometimes helpless, is gone. For the attempt to see. It is akin to Godard rec- camera's sole inte rest, its fetish, surface, or the first time he is e ngaged with the world , appearance. Desi re-the force that flies his loneliness has been left behind. For ognizing that one cannot make fi lms any on the arrow of seeing- is sharpe ned but now the role and passion of the spectator have been admitted and embodied. It is longer, only atte mpts at film. T he puri ty and confidence of the medium have gone. No longer a thing in itself, the photograph 59

like those occasions in film history when ate from chaos, the relativity of untidiness. He nce the top-shot vantage, like Mon- the form has been galvanized , and the au- But in coming eagerly to the tests oflook- roe's notorious 1949 shot, by Tom Kelley. die nce knows it must watch hard to keep ing, the work takes on a force that makes But in that, she was as glamorized as Es- up. us think Qf a new maturity. ther Williams under water. The aslant, discreet half-tum of her body was paral- Just compare the auste re fi gure of Red The circumstances of its making may leled by all the carefully arranged dunes in Jacke t at the pool (based on photographs help account for the liberty in Nude. Ms. her red satin sheet. of one of Hockney's lovers) with the ram- Russell's husband , N icolas Roeg, did pant stare of T he resa Russell in Nude 17th commission it: The artist was the refore Theresa Russell in 1984 collapses that June 1984. No one is supposing that some under novel orders, or hardly to blame for arch genre, just because her pose is so elixir or eclipse has sudde nly made Hock- looking. F urther, the picture was not frontal , her body so unsecretive and baby- ney straight. T he Russell odalisque no made for the Roeg-Russell boudoir; it was like, her disposition so amused at the more offsets gayness than earlie r pictures required for 1nsignificance, and thus it thought of \"cheesecake. \" Whereas Mari- left hete rosexual intelligence in the cold. hired Ms. Russell not nakedly as herself lyn was a vague, elusive promise of sex, What has happened has more to do with but nude, acting as the sort of cale ndar cu- Russell looks as if she has just fed, or the power and stamina to observe and cre- tie Marilyn Monroe once made of herself. fucked-if you can believe in a photo- Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1971): painting in a Panavision frame. 60

graph having sex. I think you can. spiral twist. It may be a matter of a few sec- It is the inability to stop that ' makes There is no diagonal thrill of unheard onds, but passing time has been brought these images of Russell more than the be- into the picture, and that is how it seems seeching availability Marilyn gave he rself Mantovani running through her sheet, triumphant and etemal. to. It is how this picture is so unprurient, and it is candy pink, not Passion Red. Her yet as sensual as a butterfly on a drum sheet is a mess; it has seen turmoil. But To remake that Hockney remark about shimmering between pe rcussions. The the upheaval in that material is proper to his mother: \"You might never take your trembling is animation and eloquence; it the photographic riot of her body. Hock- eyes off the right configuration of300 pho- makes a language of being alive. ney has made a cubist jungle of it. This tographs, if you thought you spied your woman is mythic: She has several heads, lover there.\" This is a picture-one of a Or: There is a first impression from hands, and feet; and she is simultaneously group of works-that reinvents the spec- Nude of jaggedness, as if a window the supine woman and the woman who tator. It may be the wittiest of them in that through which we are seeing Russell had was on her side a moment ago. For there is the old genre it plays upon helps teach us been shattered and the.pieces put back in one profile of the face , and one shot of her that he who was once a voyeur has become approximate order by studious gingerly bottom tipped over, enough to give the a kind of searching scientist, trying to deal fingers. And these pictures do have a sur- whole work leverage and the prospect of with this arousing new chaos. face texture on which we might cut our timid fingertips: The many prints are 11. stuck on a base and overlapping one an- other. You could draw the back of your T he figure that was Theresa Russell hand against the grain of the layering and beats like a drum; but that is more feel something of the frisson a cat must get than a metaphor for sex. It is a rhythm , if you stroke its fur the wrong way. something that exists only in time. Such a heartbeat supplies the erogenous zones, So broken or fragmented , the picture and all the other less evidently sexy parts. seems vulnerable: Wouldn't a wind blow The heart cannot pick favori tes. It has oth- the leaves away? But, if you look again , er duties to attend to: bike boys delivering you see that the th~obb.ing of the relativis- the mail , the fish, and the flowers despite tic arrangement is a vibrance that could that immense traffic incident Gam or acci- withstand more than wind. It is already dent? it's not clear) on the doorstep, slip- having its own earthquake and getting on ping their bicycles past the gathering, very nicely, thank you. \"Hey,\" you could snatching a glance at the big thing but nev- hear Theresa pant, \"I've heard of aero- er losing their balance. bics, but this is crazy!\" A girl could grow older having such fun . . It ought to be possible to make a film about sex, say, in which other things keep The jaggedness is only jazz; the frag- going on regardless, instead of having the ments have been remade as a mosaic, movie turn into a greased chute where ev- more ordered than any whole, unbroken erything, and all attention, cannot help picture could be. For a rhythm of life is but rush into the cunted depth. (I am what holds the parts together. The light thinking ofa film that might contain all the from the picture stammers, but no one surrounding life in Dziga Vertov's Man ever yearned for fluency more than the with a Movie Camera, or the events at an stammerer. And Theresa Russell will nev- intersection that close Antonioni's The er be as eloquent or beautiful as lying Eclipse.) Why let entire movies be con- there, beating, living, dying. Her real sumed by the black hole of sex, chase, smile is in imagining how she must look. teen entropy, or whatever? We ought to For she welcomes our presence, and be ready now for films in which the small knows about us. Instead of those glamour dramas can be lively enough while stand- queens who claim ignorance of us, their ing up to the entirely unmalicious, un- courtiers, she calls out, come on in, the competitive flux of other things going on water's warm-like Tristram Shandy ask- at the same time-a cinema like Nash- ing our help in his Life and Opinions. ville, where the array of \"plots\" could be infinite, and the 'Scope and the depth of 12. focus are always attempting to inhale more. Though Hockney uses cinematic devices in his photocollages-montage, jump cuts, There is an equivalent desire for more sequences created like pans and dolly than one answer-like pose in Nude 17th shots-he seeks to transcend the restric- June 1984. The picture elects to be so tions of cinema, which has a relentless crammed with shaking, rhythmic ques- movement forward and an almost univer- tions: sal linearity ofplot. 1n these two and.all his photocollages, to the contrary, the eye can how many hands, fingers , tongues, movefrom left to right andfront to back or cheeks? vice versa (though one direction is fa- vored) as in oriental landscape paintings how long has this been going on? or medieval panels. One follows the story can't you lie still? is it time yet? why can't 1 stop beating? 61

that attempt would have been to suffer the frustration that greets one of Godard's stol- id carabinieri when he sees a movie lady taking a bath. Not that Godard discour- ages the attempt. Pearblossom Hwy. is a picture on a screen, a canvas, a wall. As I calculate, there are close to 900 photographic prints composing this picture. And every one is a photograph, a record, each one in its place, so that the plausible invitation is as strong as scent must be to a dog. But the picture is an apparition; we are only look- ing at a wall. The photograph is an expres- sive thing, not the thing in itself. That principle of lifelike pictur~s on a screen- without which there is no satisfactory film appreciation-is the subject of the pic- ture. And, thus, desire has been trapped more cleverly than in any previous Hock- ney picture. You cannot enter this arid, golden prospect, but you must observe the failure. Nothing remains except de- sire: \"I long to be in the desert\" is the song, and we should know now that the David Hockney in Jack Hazan's ABigger Splash. longing is finer than a day there could be, andprogressive exposure ofcharacter and just as watching Theresa Russell's drum- space but at one's own pace. which he has equivocal feelings, as if he beat is more than.... Desire is the pained -Anne Hoy, \" Hockney's suspected himself of starting to forge his - happiness of those who sit at the foot of Photocollages,\" David Hockney screens, whose only power is to summon A Retrospective (1988), p. 62 own works. Photocollage preoccupied him from anything. T his refers to two pictures from 1983: Hockney has done one other thing that The Wedding ofDavid and Ann in Ha- early 1982 to spring 1986, and 1see no rea- wah 20 May 1983 and Photographing An- makes the confusion exhilarating. Per- nie Leibovitz While She Photographs Me, son to dispute his estimate that the last spective does not behave in Pearblossom Mohave Desert, Calif., Feb. 1983. photocollage was his best, the climax and Hwy. As any desert-lover with a camera the terminus of the series. He has done no Yet those two works seem less success- more since Pearblossom Hwy., 11-lBth knows, there is no more elusive view than ful than other photocollages. Ms. Hoy's April 1986. It is 6 feet 6 inches by 9 feet 3. the far desert at ground level. The parallel comments on their \"cinematic\" properties lines of road do converge; distance blurs and their roaming pleasures are valid, up Here it is: to a point, of two whimsical monsters, with the problems of imprecise vision; col- about three times longer than they are high, which do need to be traveled 13. or fades; and the delicate shifts of sand, through or along. But I cannot escape the shale, dust, and haze turn into a forlorn feeling of Hockney filling time in them- being at the wedding and so doing some- T he rewards of vanity! Pearblossom sediment. There is a \"real\" photograph of thing, not maybe to escape boredom but Hwy. was part of a project commis- the place in Palmdale where Hockney to forestall it; and masking impatience and sioned by Vanity Fair. Always looking for worked (it is in the exhibit catalogue). It his concession to fame in being photo- graphed by Annie Leibovitz by making a the inside angle, they had asked Hockney proves how fully such distance escapes the comic loop that snakes around her ponder- ous-looking act. (Hockney still believes in to illustrate Humbert Humbert's illicit normal lens_ Indeed, it is a humdrum pic- fuss-free snapping, while Leibovitz has equipment, lights, an assistant, and evi- journey across America with Lolita- ture, the road ahead such as Humbert dent anxiety.) filling stations, wayside marts, motels , and might have urged himself into as he tried then , at last, the desert. So Hockney start- to ally himself with Lo in driving's desire. But Hockney has always had the knack ed driving to the north and east. About of moving from quick jeux d'esprit to time: Why trust any L.A. artist not drawn Hockney has cheated; it is the only way something much more demanding. He to the desert, especially the bitter edge to revelation now. The several signs be- may be an artist who learns and develops where sun-beaten road signs (we can hear tween us and the junction with Route 138 best by deliberately varying his own inten- them squeaking in the wind) and discard have not all been photographed from the sity. And even if this policy is not always cans mark the end of civilization and the same point, the picture's point ofview. In- deliberate, intensity is still something over start of a cryptic justice? For desert life de- stead , they have all been \"seen\" as iffrom vours its corpses. Vanity Fair did not want the most emotional proximity, the instant the material. before a moving car passes them. And so the foreground of the picture gives the There is a conjuring invitation in the sense of being driven through. The effect picture. 1felt the sun and the space beck- of time and traveling is heart-stopping. oningwhen I stood in front of it at the L.A. The power of photography has been de- County Museum. The picture was shown livered in what is really a neurotic col- there hanging barely above the floor; one lage-in that it seellls to work so that the had every encouragement to walk into this joins won't show, orjar. This is the master- hot, dry piece of the Mojave. But to make work of a culture that has trounced reality 62

and made it play games on the screen. It Dilillill ~ ~ reminds me that Same once called movies \" the frenzy on a wall.\" Pin· Ups • Portraits • Posters • Physique Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • 14. Science Fiction • Musicals • Color Photos • 80 Years of Scenes From Malian Pictures Rush $2 .00 FOR OU R ILLUSTRATED BROCHURE Does this imply that David Hockney 134 WEST 18th STREET, DEPT. Fe has eyes on Hollywood? Or that he NEW YORK , NY 10011 might resuscitate it? I have no knowledge (212) 620-8160-61 ofwhat he intends, or dreams. And I know STAR PHOTOS· MOVIE POSTERS· MAGAZINES that Hollywood is piously thorough in de- stroying its saviors. Not that a flirtation -~,- ~ FREE CATALOG ur newest catalog is 48 with damage would necessarily harm pages (8 V2 \"x 11\") , ill ustrated Hockney. Sometimes that detached, not W~ ,,~ \"ERR)· fIHI, I ,\\ ' ,\"£R '!~'\" with over 300 photos & ac- quite inhabited poise in his work cries out .\\lO\\· IH -'I ,\\THIII ,\\I. STOIU:. In.·_ companing text. 100 photos for wounds, scars on the canvas, the drip of ~t: mwlt\\t in full color, including front & blood. It may be a pea only the flaxen ~.,.a -' ..~ 242 W. 14th Street back covers! Mailed with out- prince feels , but isn' t there a deep-seated New York. N.Y. tOOll side protective wrapper on itch for violence, a stain waiting to spread receipt of $7.00 U.S. funds across the airy intervals between his (212)989-0869 for each copy. Our location, figures? It may come in his taste for a gallery at 1932-FC Polk St. Picasso. O'EN nuy DAY 1:OO-&:OOpm (near corner of Pacific Ave.), San Francisco, CA is open And, anyway, haven' t the moderns al- InWUN Ith AfilD 7th AVENUE Mondays through Saturdays ways been headed for Hollywood? IND. SUIWAT W. 14th STlnET STOP 11 AM to 6 PM Pacific time Not just out of the urge to make cubist ~ collages from dollar bills, or because some 1932-FC POLK STREET said that the HOLLYWOODLAND sign was in the foothills over which Les Demoi- SAN FRANCISCO, selles d'AviglWn presided ; not just be- CA 94109 cause a hot, new social climate is there, with easy money and gullible collectors; not even because L.A. is a recklessly open ciry~thpoolsindin<h~pmore~, wkre L~==============~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a bum can crash a Bel Air parry, leaving the Hollywood hostess uncertain whether he's a bum, an eccentric, a writer, an actor working on a killer, or just a killer. + ONE-WEEK+ It's also because, in its 1926, Alan Ru- dolph's The Moderns knows that the tocus had gone west, switched from an exhaust- WORKSHOPS ed Paris growing quotation marks for ears to a place of fabrication ready for So This Is Paris, They Had to See Paris, NilWtchka, September+October+November Arch of Triumph , An American in Paris, and all the way to The Moderns , which had the economizing mercy of having to be If you are a film, television or video professional shot in Montreal so that it was compelled looking for a way to advance your career, train on to find stand-in Eiffel towers everywhere the latest equipment, learn the latest techniques, (from Lavender Hill Mob paperweights to Delaunay eyefuls as backdrops), like beg- while working with some of the world's best ging clues in a foolish mystery, authentic artists, then you should be thinking of The in detail and feel but deliciously bogus. Wo,rkshop - the industry's leading training center The Moderns concerns three double- with more than 100 workshops in all areas paintings, life and the look-alike: a Modi- of film, video and television production_ gliani nude too voluptuous for one frame, Fall courses begin September 3. a Cezanne group and a.Matisse odalisque, of which the \"original\" burns- you can Write or call for our latest catalogue. smell the fresh paint's gasps-and the im- proved copy, with Linda Fiorentino's ro- The International mantic thug face on it, comes to restful eminence in the Museum of Modern An. Film & Television The Moderns is that neglected essay film , F for Fake , given a story line. And in its ~WORK5HOPS _ own spirit of anful borrowing, it has little Rockport Maine 0485b touches of Welles, including Natalie De- Phone 207-236-8581 FAX 207-236·2558 63

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Ville's Armand (played by an actress) who tors. For, as befits a film set in 1926, the THE LIBRARY SERIES is a ringer for the young, sleek, epicene acting in The Moderns is best when the and vaguely Eurasian about-to-be Orson. people are silent. It's a while since we've • Dancing on the Edge of Success with seen as much in searching faces. dancer/choreographer Margaret Jenkins The Moderns is a film about a group, an age, and an idea; its scope ripples outward 15. • Women by Women at San Francisco 's famed on the increasing likelihood of the false, Galeria de la Raza, Latino women speak and the impossibility of relying on quality. I t's neither here nor the~e wheth~r about thei r art That is why it has a Hemingway as stuff~d David Hockney becomes Involved In as some of the Eiffel towers, never qUIte moviemaking. He may prefer a ce~in • How to Market a Body of Art-guidelines making it as a genuine Hem , an actor read- isolation' much easier that way to stay hId- from the studio to the market place ing the part, persevering with misquota- den. And Hockney's versatility-the skill tions that might please those young wom- that takes up such diverse styles-is not • Interviews with Artist Program I-Survival en tourists who think he's Scott simply the flourish of his character; it is the Research Laboratories mechanical per- Fitzgerald. And all the time, Scott is play- core. He may keep ahead of himself, an formances, Lucy Lippard discussing cultural ing Natalie's husband , the portrait on her escapee, free from boredom or s~lf-con­ responsibility plus 5 more wall, gazing down balefully on her plan to frontation by virtue of that chromc, rest- deceive him, not knowing that he has the less versatility. He is encyclopedic in his • Interviews with Artists Program II-three final winner-death-in his cold blue facility: He could do any artist of our time, minority artists reveal their genesis and stare. confident that his own talent was beIng motivations developed . He is that much more con- The crux of falsity is a Maupassant-like fident than Nick Hart in The Moderns or • Interviews with Artists Program III-from irony in which the true paintings are Elmyr de Hory in F for Fake. performance art to doll making to the Church slashed and burned, while the fakes set up of the Subgenius home in the church of modernity. But the He is shrewd enough to foresee the lu- games abound-the critic. who e~thuses gubrious session he would have to endure Enlightening· Entertaining· Economical over the pictures at MOMA ISthe artist who in Hollywood with people who likely own painted the fakes for Rudolph-no matter some of his paintings and who, therefore, VHS • Beta· Video 8 that one enthralling sequence shows already reckon he is theirs. He is 51 and I.V. Studios 985 Regal Rd. Berkeley, CA 94708 Keith Carradine's Nick Hart doing the has seldom wasted time . \"You think work. Of course, the work has become a they'd let me make a film?\" (You can hear Call or write for catalog (415) 841-4466 show; that is the uncensorious point of the ills derision.) And there would be a lot for movie. The Moderns is no diatribe against him to lose--..:.notjust the time, but his un- From Painting by John King dishonest dealers and public hypocrisy; it breached aloofness. For I do not just see is, rather, a quiet celebration of the dif- him \"doing th~ decor\" as he has done for ficulty in ever knowing. Paris is not Paris. Stravinsky, Mozart, Wagner, Glynde- The beautiful Fiorentino's own voice bourne, and the Met. No, I would give does not \"go\" with her face. Oiseau is him a whole film, and wait for his ingenu- not Oiseau; in Hollywood he will likely ity and benign, fertile duplicity to arrive at a subject and script. tum into Ben Hecht or Herman ' J. It won't happen: There's too much cau- Mankiewicz. tion, good sense, stupidity, and cowardice As befits a film about painting, The in the way. But maybe itis possible to ask the Hockneyites to look at what they own Moderns relishes looking, and it makes a and wonder what it means. Or should we redeemable figure of its \"villain\" Stone, all settle for the habit of going to the mov- just by having him look magical. That is ies with our eyes closed? prelude to the glorying in all forms of pho- tography: The collage includes old news- 16. reel stretched to fill a wide screen and then accelerated to be Chaplinesque; \" live\" Cinema is more violent than arsenic. footage that slips from color to black and -from The Moderns white, or to a color scheme sometimes nearly monochromatic; to say nothing of In the theory ofperspective the vanishing stills, dissolves; and that small electric point is infinity . .. and the spectator is an twirl that energizes a moment in the box'- ing match. immobile point outside the painting. If in- • Rudolph is the inheritor of AI.tman's finity is God, we will never meet, but if quest for imagery in which we are not quite sure where or how to look-films perspective is inverted, then irifinity is that educate looking. This is nowhere everywhere . .. and the spectator is now clearer than in the coffee-colored cafe in movement. where Carradine reencounte rs Fioren- tino. That meeting is set amid mirrors' so -David Hockney, Vogue , that we are not sure which angle or facet to trust in the cubist interplay of angels' Christmas 1985 ® faces. Our quandary only underlines the special, thwarted longing of the two ac- 65

Festivals Cannes Riviera Refuge by Mary Corliss That, at least, was the message of this A Ppropriately, this year's two fin- year's pictures-the family of man , the est films -were small jewels of I f only it hadn't been 1989, Cannes fraternity of film-and who wouldn't observation. Steven Soderbergh's sex, would have been beautiful this want to believe it? Taken as a group, lies, and videotape (wh'ich won the year. Radiant sun bathed the the 22 films competing for the festival's Palme d'Or) and Patrice Leconte's beaches each day, but it was , no doubt, Palme d'Or were of high quality. And Monsieur Hire (for which Michel carcinogenic. A Riviera doctor warned for the second consecutive year, the Blanc should have been named best two visitors against eating the local fish grand prize winner really was the best actor) were both sympathetic stories (\"the Mediterranean is polluted\") and of the bunch . Only later, in the harsh about observant voyeurs drawn into drinking regional wines (\"too much glare of homecoming, did Cannes' film the webs of the women they had come bacteria\" ). Sex and smoking-two art look out of step with the world it to love. James Spader, Soderbergh's favorite, indeed consecutive, recrea- means to define. handsome star (who did receive the tions of the French-were declared Emir Kusturica's Time of the Gypsies. Continued on page 70 I hazardous some years back. So what was left to do in a gorgeous resort town where God had posted health notices on every enticement? Stay inside and see lots of movies , as if it were Berlin in February. Not that each of the 42nd Interna- tional Film Festival's 30,000 guests heeded the warnings. Some sipped Cokes at the new beachside American Pavilion , waiting for that important FAX from the States. Menahem Golan perched at the Carlton Hotel and announced a new company, 21 st Cen- tury Pictures , while his estranged cousin Yoram Globus joined Alan Ladd, Jr. in the rubble of Cannon and called it Pathe. Others schmoozed at the film market, where business was reported the slimmest in years. And a few lucky souls trawled out to the Sea Goddess II, a Cunard cruise ship anchored twO miles at sea, where 50 or so millionaire business executives and their spouses monitored the film fort- night. Critics talked about movies, answered a few questions, then stayed for a dinner graced by Elaine May and Sean Young and prepared by superchef Roger Verge. At 2 a.m. , caviar was served in the Jacuzzi. Sit in that Jacuzzi, or in the giant Lumiere auditorium of the Festival Pal- ace, and Cannes becomes the movie world's own dream of itself. Everyone is rich and pretty, every image as bright and wide as a CinemaScope reverie. The film industry is one big family. 66

Mystery Train M uc h effo rt , yo u see, in F ra nce . goes into re des igni ng a s im p le syste m into an Americans Abroad imposs ib le o ne. by H arlan Jacobson b e co nfro nted by so m e thin g ca ll e d a Ca nn es is o nl y a pimple o n th e face Pe rm urating To ile t (toilette pennutee) , It of th e pro bl e m . T hi s yea r, it ad de d a new m adness to th e ob stacl e co urse of Sining in a po rtside p izzer ia at a had a red butto n to pu s h , a deca l full of an e nd ing screeni ngs : the offi c ial festi val first nig ht ga th er ing of film CrIt- in stru c ti o ns, a nd a wa rning : Press Hu s h , tried to k ill the Directo rs Fortnig ht , the ics, I h ea rd th e to ll o \\\\'ln g lin e STAN D BAC K! spec ial s ide bar eve nt that grew o ut of th e stude nt-wo rke r strike of May '68, ??? and th e Directo rs Fo rtnig ht met the c hallenge by trying to co mmit suicide. co me burp ing o ut of th e mo uth of o ne So I pu s he d th e re d butto n , Hung Th e re had bee n a lo ng hi story of mutu al of th e Us ual S uspects: \" I d o n't ca re what myse lf a ro und th e d oo r a nd pee p e d suspi cio n running be twee n th e two o rga- people say, Cyborg was no t as good as aro und th e co rne r: s lo\\\\' ly th e back of ni zat io ns, whi c h up o n the re tire m e nt of Bloodsporr.\" I kn e\\\\' I had ar ri ved in th e co mm o de li fted up like a ga rage Ca nnes festi val director Fav re-Le Bre t a Ca nnes, It \\\\'as fo ll owed by suc h bea u- doo r, an ar m s \\\\'ung o ut , p ic ke d up th e few yea rs bac k broke o ut into w hat th e ties late r d uring th e fes ti va l as \"Every- to il e t sea t , d isappea red bac k in s id e a nd Fre nc h do best : mutu al who lesale co n- te mpt. bo dy at th e party was na me d Jer ry-an d made lo ud sc rubbing noises, like Popeye Thi s all ca m e to a head w he n th e old th ey all \\\\'o re hats,\" a nd \"Every m ajor swabb ing the dec k , Th e n jwommp! , it palais, th e fo rme r s ite of the offi cial fes- ti va l a nd m os t rece ntl y ho m e to th e bu ye r fr o m every mini-m ajo r \\\\'as at th at re de posi te d th e seat o n th e bmv l, blew Directors Fortnight , was kn ocked d ow n a few m o nth s ago to m ake way fo r a sc ree nmg ,\" ho t air o n it w ith a growl th at so un ded hote l c urre ntl y und e r cons trl! c ti o n . Ge ne rous ly, the offi c ial festi val, ho used It \\\\'as a d ay o r t\\\\'O afte r th e burnin g like a dog o n S tu c k , a nd reco mposed s in ce '83 in a new p alais dubbe d \"the Cyborg vs , Bloodsp0 rl iss ue th a t I it se lf befo re a n un s u spec tin g publi c, bun ker,\" pro posed a va rie ty of opti o ns to th e Directo rs Fortnight , one of w hic h e nte red a res taurant bathroo m o nl y tv Th e n I kn ew I had arri ve d in Fra nce. incl ude d showing film s in theate rs s ix miles o ut of tow n- w hic h wo uld have necess itated a nam e c hange o n th e o rder of Directo rs Fo rty Years in the D esert . And so th e parti es, recogn iz ing the e rro rs of th e ir \\\\'ays- th at mon dieu , had th ey not all bee n b ro the rs toge th e r in th e Res ista nce? (as Ma rce l O phul s obse rved so ac utel y in Hotel Terminus: Th e Life and Tim es of Klaus Barbie) - settle d th e ir diffe rences w ith th e fo ll ow- ing modus vivendi: th e festi va l granted th e Fo rt night bac k-of-th e-bu s space in th e b unke r to show its se lecti o n. Se ns i- bly, th e Fo rtnight , e nsco nced in offi ces o n a nose bl ee d leve l of th e bunke r, refused to le t anyo ne -l eas t of all the p ress -kn ow what film s th ey had se lected o r whe n th ey sc hedule d scree n- In gs. Th is proved not to be e ntire ly a w ise m ove, s in ce' the co mp e titi o n u~ exp ec t­ edl y sto le the s how. To put th e kindes t co nstru c ti o n o n eve nts, yo u co uld say th at in its 42 nd yea r th e co mp e titio n we nt into seve re mid-life c ri s is. It fe ll hard fo r th e fres h bud of yo uth , spurning th e d e p e nd abl e frump s of es tabli s he d filmm akin g who had give n it a ce rtain sro d g in ess a nd appro pri a te d th e Bad Attitud e fil ms of the W ild Bun c h-th e ve ry raison d 'erre of the Fo rtnig ht-for it se lf. It eve n put a film s tud e nt (no D a ni e l Co hn-Be ndit he re, but rath e r a 25 yea r-o ld Q ue beco is careeri st) o n th e co mpe tit io n jury - a p arti c ul arl y c raft y 67

The American attack o n t he Fo rtnig ht's left fl a nk to Train , the Ame rica ns shoot eac h othe r Federation of Arts s tea l it s sy mb o lic thund er. T hi s is in the foot and d is pe rse, while th e Jap a- Film/Video France, after all , a na tion of sem ioticians nese and Italian all co m e to ge nuflect Program and style freaks , w ho rightly read th at an d go hom e. If yo u co uld x-ray Jar- th e compe titio n's middle-age panic had mu sch's c harac te rs, in pl ace of hearts MAYHEM by Abigoil Child, from the 1989 Whitney mo re th an a w hiff abo ut it of go ing fo r you'd pr o b abl y find fl yw h ee ls - so m e Bienn iol Film Exhibition th e Fo rtnig ht's jug ul ar. mec hanism m ea nt to balance a nd prope l th e m thro ugh th e fo rces swirling aro und BElCHITE-SOUTH BRON X by Franceso Torres, from T he res ult was fo r th e fi rst tim e in th e m , inexo rably downward . the 1989 W hitney Bienn ial Video Exhibition years, the co mpetiti o n was good , and th e Directo rs Fort night a b o re - w he n Mystery Train itself dies for about 20 new traveling yo u co ul d fin d it. minutes in a hote l room in th e third e pi- exhibitions sode, in vo lving a cross-sectio n of three C annes serve d the America ns we ll Me mph is d ea db ea t s o n th e la m , in American Documentary Video: thi s yea r, a n d se rved it se lf. It exactl y the sam e way and co nfiguratio n Subject to Change opened a nd c lose d w it h th e g la m o ur th at Down by Law dies in a cabin on the in fusio ns resp ecti ve ly of New York Sto- b ayo u- w hi c h un inte nti o nall y ac ts as Se leC led by De irdre Boy le, ries, w hi c h m ea nt a re turn v is it by visual co rro bo rati o n of o ur tendency to aU lhor of VIDEO CLA SS ICS Rosa nn a Arq ue tte, w ho in F re nc h te rm s re peat unexamine d be hav ior. T hi s time is to gla m o ur w hat Je rry Lewis is to howeve r, post-Ca nnes, Jarm usch is trim- 1989 Whitney Biennial Film Exhibition co m ed y, a n d w ith Jane Fo nd a's Old mi ng th e seque nce. Gringo (ano th e r \"B loom ingda le's Goes Se lec led by John C. Han hardl, to th e Mex ican Revo luti o n\" prod uct io n) No ma tte r, as Jarm usc h's co nscio us, Whi lney Museum of Ame ri ca n Arl to say adios. And it p laced th e Ame rica n D ow ntow n dead p an style bel ies a wo n- new wave coter ie -inc lu d ing Sp ike Lee's derful roma ntic spirit. H e has a sense of 1989 Whitney Biennial Video Exhibition Do the Right Th ing, J im Jar- ti me - of th e mo m en t , and of tim e pass- mu sc h's Mystery Tra in , a nd S teve n ing -th at is hea rtbreak ing eve n as he Se lecled by Joh n C. Han hardl , Soderbergh's sex, lies, ~nd videotape - m oc ks pl ace, of w hic h he also has a Wh ilney Mu seum of Ameri ca n Arl in competiti o n . sense. D og-eared o ld Me mphis s ho uld o nl y look as tragically neo n-lit and bea u- Animation from Shanghai T he jury, c haired by W im We nders, tiful as R ob by Mu lle r's cam e ra re nde rs SeleC led by L. Somi Ro y, bo ug ht hoo k , li ne, an d s in ke r Soder- it. T hi s is th e c inema Wa rh o'l painted or be rgh's Euro-styled inves tigati on of th e printed but never q uite captured o n film : As ia Soc iely hea rt a nd hard-on, givi ng it three awa rds Ame rica's low culture is its tru e o ne, and - in clu d ing the Palm e d'Or. T h is 'was Elvis is its white king. Moving Pictures: Films by appare ntl y at th e instigation of Wende rs, Photographers who may we ll have see n echoes of his In th at sense, Mystery Train , which takes pl ace over o ne night (occas io ning (lour begins November, 1989) 0 \\ \\'11 se~s ibil it i es, swee te ne d by th e mu c h Jarmu sc h a mbi va le nce a nd two o nset of hi s fo rties, in Wings of Desire . prev io us titles , One Night in Memphis Films for Young Audiences sex , lies, and videotape is a stun n ing and Tuesday Night in Memphis) is an ope n le ns o n th e liv ing m ome nt . It is (lOur begins December, 1989) fi rst film , a nd add te n yea rs to Soder- th e sto ry of o ur m o urning glo ry as we For informa lion aboul lhese a nd be rg h's 26 a nd he m ay we ll de li ve r a head fo r th e m a uso le u m . A nd p oo r olh er AFA louri ng film and video ma ture, truth ful m as te rpiece. yo ung Jarmu sch , try ing li ke Pro ust to ex hi bi ti ons, please contact: get it all to stand still fo r o ne b lessed Jarmu sc h's Mystery Train ro lled o n by m o me nt , is the pe rfect express io n of a the American Federation of Arts as ,a ll s m o ke and no mo ti o n on fir st fi n-de-siecle art ist in searc h of harm o nic FilmlYHIeo Program viewi ng, but now linge rs on in the me m- co nve rge nce. A nd to th ink th at afte r o ry. T he d irecto r dec lares it th e end of v ievv in g S pike Lee's Do th e Right 41 E. 65th Stree t, New York , NY 10021 an un p lan ned t ril ogy th at bega n in 1984 Thing, he co mpared hi s film and fo und (2 12) 988-7700, FAX (212) 861 -2487 with Stranger Than Paradise and deep- it wa nting . e ned in 1986 w ith Down by Law, a nd 68 th at ma kes se nse. T he sa m e th emes are N Ot without reaso n. Lee's Do the at wo rk , wh ic h he unfo ld s mi ds t the rot Right 771ing has furi ous dri ve and of the Ame rican e m p ire. Jarm usc h's fo r- mu scle, th o ugh it p ull s po litically fr o m e ign c haracte rs - a Japanese pair of lov- all over th e spectru m - whic h the sa lo n ers, a nd a n , It a li a n wo m a n-m ay b e co nve rsati o ns are te rming \"co nfu sed .\" to ur ists b ut see the roma nti c vis io n of Po int-b la nk , I don't thin k L ee is co n- Ame rican tras h c ulture, and the limitl ess fused in his em brace of vio le nt resist- poss ibilit y it o nce impli ed, t h a t hi s a nce to white A m e ri ca o n U ni ve rsa l's Ame rican c haracte rs no lo nger ca n . Ever m o ney. T hi s is ca lle d ca ree r-buil d ing, try tick ling yo ursel f? T hat's at the heart and millio ns do it. Ending up o n the of the impossi bil it y of o ur si tu ati o n in po liti ca l pages in th e w h ite press - th e Jarmu sch tril ogy . clearl y its destinat io n fr o m the m ome nt it was first press-screened bac k in April In Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law th e Hungarian and the Italia n , res p ec ti ve ly, co m e to s tay, a nd th e America ns wa nde r in c ircles; in Mystery

-h as whipped the turnstiles into a blur. sits atop a capi tal and pO\\ver stru ct ure devils!) , who picks up Belushi's rea ni- It is odd th at afte r bankrolling Martin th at is killing blacks-slowly or sw iftly, it mated stiff at the morgue for a crui se makes no diffe re nce. through cucarachaville and the answe r to Sco rsese's Th e Last Temptation of the mystery of \"Who was Jo hn Belushi Christ, U!1 ive rsa l Pictures th e n pro- C asting him self as a pizza delivery and why did he die?\" llirns o ut Belushi duced Lee's film. It's almost as if Un iver- man and mediator between whites was an infant with the emo tiona l devel- sa l production chief Tom Pollock had n't and bl ac ks, Lee aban do ns th e curb side opme nt of a bumblebee, and th e e nter- just fallen inro th ese filmm ake rs' pe t impotence of art and writes a po litical tainment industry funnelled him paper projects in orde r ro e nli st the ir future prescription to strike back. Ad mirab ly, bags full of cas h for g rade A pollen. loyalties but instead consciously decided he also ass umes the respo nsibility of S urpri se ! to exact reve nge for hav ing to make the striking first-at leas t on cellulo id-but likes of K-9, Fletch Lives, and Th e at his employer's shop in response to Too hot to handle, cried Peerce and 'burbs and so decided to sen d MCA chief po lice killing a bl ac k, in what Do the the producers in Ca nn es for it s pre- Lew Wasserman a message. What's next Right Thing argues is co mmunal self- miere, recou nting th e ways H o ll ywood - The Satani c Verses, o r as th e joke defense. There's the rub. A riot e nsues. didn't love the picture and tried to bury goes, Salm an Ru shdie's seq uel , Buddha , And Lee ends by first quoting Martin it. Alas and alack, why bother? You Fat Fuck? (Go for it , Tom.) H owever Luther King urging no n-v io len ce and bold or acc ide ntal the produ ction , Lee th en quoting Malcolm X justifyi ng it. lrapped o n thi s in sipid to ur through has bee n all over the airwaves se lling it Whether yo u think America today is the BelushiLand-filled with impress ion ists as cod li ve r o il , and Uni ve rsal has mar- Warsaw ghe tto depends upon yo ur c ir- popping up like mechanical hipp os on keted Do the Right Thing as nothing cum stances . What wo uld you have d one the Wi ld Afri ca Safa ri rid e to play more co ntrove rsial th an a conversat io n th e re? What wou ld yo u do today in Belushi, Dan Ayk royd , Belushi's high over a canno li at a brotherhood barbe- Capetown? [n Bed-Stuy? Do the Right sc hoo l days wife, and Cath y Sm ith , the cue between the Itali an-Am e rica n Anti- Thing ends in ruin s and bicke ring. hard-ballin' bad city babe who shot him defa mati o n League and th e Un ited in to th e ozone - we c ras h la nd in Negro Co llege Fund. L ee's prescription to turn Bed-Stuy Belushi's death bed. See, no one ever into Beirut doesn't thrill me as much as cared eno ugh to just say no to Belushi , And for most of Do the Right Thing , it did the French in Cannes; in fact , I'm played by M ichae l Chi kli s as a c ross set in a Bedford-Stuyvesant that loo ks surprised to see Lee backpedal himself between C url y and Baba r, and now he re like Sesame Street, L ee appears to to the states ide press as simply a dinner- he is a ll wheezy an d c rumpl e d up. advance the black Republi can line: if tab le provocate ur. Lee's quantum-leap \"Woodwa rd ,\" Belushi rasps to Bob, yo u wa nt yo ur picture to hang on the growth as a filmmaker-which is asto n- \"b reath e fo r me.\" Good thing, as Ga le wall-whether it's o n th e wall of Sal's ishing - is o nl y slightly less co mpe lling Ga rn e tt as tute ly pointed out a t th e Famous Pizzeria, the locu s of the action th an his rewiring of art and ac tion. Not Can nes press confere nce, Belushi was n't here, or on the silver scree n at your local since Sixties rock mu sic , and before that dying of co nstip ation. C ineplex Odeon (of w hi c h Universal Odets and O'Casey's theater, has so me- ow ns 49%)-you must either own the o ne place d the kind of faith that Lee put F inall y, it sho uld not go unrepo rted wall or sell the guy who does. into this film-that art can channel that Big Brother Kodak a nd th e energy and spark res istance. Only it ho lding co mp ani es, sp urred on by L.A. The black-white s tra in co ur ses should start with Lew Wasserman's fundraise r Juli e Sis k , e rected an Amer i- c harmin g ly through Lee's Brook ly n , ne ighborh ood first. ca n tent down by the sea. Badly needed vvith Lee mostly doing for blacks what and we ll run , it was a clean, we ll-lighted Philip Roth did for Jews 20 yea rs ago - And the only jury member in Can nes taking apa rt th e tribe's petty pretensions who went to the mat for Do the Right place. ® and articulating 'its tragicom ic in ab ility to Thing for the Palme d'Or was . .. Sally ei the r join up o r ignore the goyim. Only Field. Go figure (you go tta love he r). ) an in side r ca n do thi s co mbin atio n of lanc in g a nd lam p oo ning, a nd Do the I had hoped th at Wired, L arry Peerce's Right Thing simply seems to be grace- wo rkup of Bob Woodward's acco unt fully mov ing alo ng the arc of self-reflec- of the fin al days of Jo hn Be lu shi , wo uld ti on begun in Lee's Sh e's Gotta Have It ?e a wild roller-coaster ride through he ll and School Daze w he n w ham !, L ee lowe rs th e boom-and does so bril- 111 the cinema 'of overdose ge nre a la Sid li antl y. [n fac t , th e drop from social co m- me nt and satire to deep tro uble is so & Nancy, e nding in an ove r-the-top steep, Lee's film language alm ost bor- seq uence at the C hateau Marmont the ~~rs o n the dizzying ab ruptness used by way Paul Cox ended Man of Flowers Video ga mes to sink th e sc reen from fl oating around in a heave n decorated by co ntrolled chaos into bedlam. Magritte. But no-o-o-o-o, Peerce and Woodward turned it into a Ju st Say No While hi s main characters are fl es hed ep isode of Dragnet , featuring a Wood- out we ll , Do the Right Thing primarily wa rd charac te r ac ting like Sgt. Joe F ri- builds a politica l ratio nale rathe r th an day with a co ndesce nding attitude as he constru cts a tragedy. Lee painstakingly hears just the fac ts, ma'am. c horeograp hs a collision between th e most sy mpath etic white charac te r an d So e nte rs yet anothe r latin o tax i cab the least sym pathe tic bl ac k charac ters to driver from God named Ange l (cleve r make his point that eve n a good white Michael Chiklis as John Belushi, bumblebee.

CORLISS grotesque, pernicious Tras eL CristaL, ornament the first film, which climaxes COllIinued frolll page 66 can weave beautiful , portentious with a replay of the final scene from images into his tales . The sequence It's a WonderfuL Life. In the Tornatore Best Actor prize} , is an impotent here in which two teenagers are taken film, Jacques Perrin and two younger drifter who can arouse himself only by to a huge laboratory and forced to mate men playa film director who spent his pl ay in g tapes he made of women's under moonlight is a spooky, sexually youth as an assistant to the theater's erotic confessions. Blanc is a solitary charged gloss on the monster-making gruffly lovable projectionist (Philippe nebbish attrac ted to Sandrine Bon- scene in James Whale's Frankenstein. Noiret). Both pictures are fully stocked naire, the seeming innocent who lives with clips from vintage movies, which across the courtyard from him. With A child's belief in magic also highlight Italy's lustrous film heritage the clever conversation of its four touched two beguiling British films. In and embroider the valentine these two attractive principals , sex, Lies, and vid- Ian Cellier's Venus Peter (lusciously films send to their old, vanished mas- eotape established an instant rapport photographed by Gabriel Beristain) , a ters. with the viewer, no matter what his Scottish boy, baptized in sea water, nationality; it was the one Cannes film wrestles both with the ghost of his N o matter how self-celebratory its that everyone liked . Monsieur Hire absent father and with an imagination agenda, Cannes can never com- beautifully inhabits a cloistered world that keeps luring him out to sea . pletely hide from the real world. whe re love must turn to obsession, and Queen of Hearts , written by Tony Gri- Indeed, had it not been for that world, every friendship may cloak betrayal. soni and directed by Jon (The Singing and Ado lf Hitler's role in it, this would Detective) Amiel, tells the sprawling have been the festival's 50th anniver- In most films at Cannes, though, story of a famil y of Sicilian immigrants sary. It was scheduled to open on Sep- memory was a stronger impulse than in London fighting a hostile takeover tember 1, 1939, the day Germany des ire. David Copperfield cou ld have attempt by a lovelorn gambling boss. invaded Poland and triggered World been the festival's patron saint, for this The film was s uffused w ith the War II , but did not commence until a was the year of noveli stic memory redemptive power of famil y love, year after the war-to-end-all-wars films about youngsters growing up in whose negative side was portrayed by ended. One birthday this festival did circum stances that were difficult, if not Jane Campion in her spare Australian commemorate was the bicentenary of Dickensian. The Romany lad in Emir psychodrama , Sweetie . A disturbed the French Revolution . Nearly 100 Kusturica's Time of the Gypsies must young woman raises suicidal hell with filmmakers convened for a day of Cin- bend his telekinetic gifts toward the her famil y, who for all their sympathy ema and Freedom, whose stated inten- grim realities of family abandonment, cannot find a way to mix love with tion was \"to bear witness to the theft .and s urvi va l, triumph and discipline. Nor can they shake the liberating force of the cinema.\" The reve nge, on hi s brambled career path memory, preserve d in an old home as a budding gyps y gang lord. Kus- movie, of the infant sweetie she once goal was laudable, even if the debates turi ca , who won the Palme d'O r in was and, in their hope against hope, often became rambling or rancorous. 1985 for When Father Was Away on still might be. The day concluded with a screening of Business, populates his huge canvas L aurent Jacob's Liberte, a stirring, with a mystic grandma, hallucinatory The Italian cinema provided home hour-long clip show of 36 films about feast days, a levitating house, and a movies of a sweeter sort- nostalgic the revolution. confident style that energizes his postcards from the movie past. Both mov ie for all 130 minutes. Ettore Scola's SpLendor and Guiseppe When films inside the competition Tornatore's Nuovo Cinema Paradiso tried to speak about issues outside the In Agustin Villaronga's Moon ChiLd, are set in crumbling towns where the cinema, they tended to stammer or anoth er child with psychic powers-a local movie house is in danger of being rant. Denys Arcand's Jesus of Mon- Spanish orphan who believes he is the torn down. Marcello Mastroianni and treaL , in which a flock of actors stages as tral chi ld-god of a primitive tribe- is the wo nderful clown Massimo Troisi the Passion Play, sacrificed meaning to taken to a mys terious institute that its own messianic delusions; it wanted means to study and exploit his gift. Vil- to cauterize modern media, update the laronga, whose previous film was the Gospels, and get easy laughs on the side. Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing Ian Ce/lier's Venus Peter. was a Mo lotov cocktail of racial cli- ches. The film imagined a Bedford- Stuyvesant street where everybody is quirkily amusing and no one takes drugs , then flame-broiled the residents' bantering animosities into a race riot and a police murder. In Cannes, Lee's film was widely acclaimed, and consid- ered a strong contender for the Palme d'Or - surely not because it boasted any dramatic sophistication, but because it dared to be socially irre- sponsible. Otherwise, the race for the grand prize was relatively tame. All the films spoke the same visual and narrative 70

language; all were from familiar film- balism. Brocka, who smuggled this that mixes the bleak heroism of World making countries. And with the excep- French-financed film out of the Philip- War II POW movies and the Oriental tion of Sweetie and Shohei Imamura's pines, faced arrest and perhaps worse mysticism of The Karate Kid. A 13- Black Rain (a slow-moving meditation upon his return. Whatever the flaws year-old boy is arrested for playing on the effects of the atom bomb \"dec ade nt\" music and is sent to a dropped on Japan) , none was from a and excesses of Fight for Us , it was a re-education camp during the Cultural nation east or south of the Mediterra- Revolution . Some of his fellow con- nean. It was as if the festival competi- display of cinematic bravado and per- victs are weary fatalists ; others are tion, which in recent years had sonal bravery. ready to sabotage their comrades for recognized emerging voices and favors from the jailers or just for the visions in the two great Communist In Niu Peng (China My Sorrow) , sick sport of it. Needless to say, this monoliths (Repentance from the Soviet director Die Sijie tells a personal story stoical indictment of Maoist fanaticism Union in 1986, King of the Children was not shot in the People's Republic. from China last year), was determined The mountains of remote China were to be nonaligned in '89. stunt-doubled by the Pyrenees. V isitors to Cannes would learn China My Sorrow took some heat more about those countries by at Cannes for its incendiary depiction staying in their hotel rooms and watch- of a society that appeared, at least in ing CNN International, which broad- mid-May, to be on a Sunday stroll cast extensive coverage of Mikhail toward democracy. A month later, after Gorbachev's trip to Beijing and the Mao's successors have again demon- Chinese students' gentle surge for strated that politics comes out of a democracy, a movement poignantly tank turret, the film looks like an reminiscent of the People Power revo- understatement and sounds like a sub- lution in the Philippines. Similarly, one tle scream from an emigre whose old had to go outside the competitive slate nightmares may be China's dark future. to find two films that dramatized with It retroactively clouds the brilliant days an almost prophetic passion, the brutal Cannes offered its visitors, and taints reprisals awaiting the students in the palate of any moviegoer for whom Tiananmen Square. the cinema must be a reflection of the world and not refuge from it. ~ • Lino Brocka's Fightfor Us-a prime ORGANIZE AND PROTECT YOUR CASE example of the Filipino director's har- rowing, hys terical style-charges that COPIES OF FILM COMMENT human rights violations are more severe under the weak liberal govern- Now there's an easy way to keep copies of your favorite ment of Coraz6n Aquino than under magazine readily available for future reference. the efficient fascism of Ferdinand Mar- cos. Rapacious bands of vigilantes ter- Designed exclusively for Film Comment by Jesse Jones rorize innocent civilians, murder whole Industries , these custom-made titled cases and basketball teams , and engage in canni- binders are sized to hold a year's issues (may vary with issue sizes) • Reinforced board covered with durable leather-like material in blue· Title is hot-stamped in Gold· Free personalization foil included for indexing year· Cases are V-notched for easy access· Binders have special spring mechanism to hold individual rods which easily snap in. BINDER Film Comment Quantity Cases Binders Jesse Jones Industries, Dept. FC 499 East Erie Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19134 One $ 7.95 $ 9.95 Three $21.95 $27.95 Please send _ _ cases; _ _ binders Six $39.95 $52.95 for Film Comment Magazine. Add $1 per caselbinder postage o Enclosed is $,_ _ _ __ and handling. Outside USA o Charge my: (Minimum $15) $2.50 per caselbinder. (U.S. funds only.) o American Express 0 Visa o MasterCard 0 Diners Club Card #_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Exp. Date _ _ _ _ __ Signature'_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Charge Orders: Call TOLL FREE 7 days, 24 hours #1-800-972-5858 Print Name,_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Address,_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _~~~~~~~------------- No P.O . Box Numbers Please City/StatelZip,_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ PA residents add 6% sales tax L _ _____ SATISFACTION GUARANTEED ______ .J

Will Success Spoil the Weinstein Brothers? by Anne Thompson low-budget Working Girls, while fic- M iramax is starting to look like one tional, grabbed editorial space about smart company, but the same pat- T his year, the Cannes film festi- real-life prostitution. Errol Morris' 1988 tern has repeated too many times over val was Miramax's oyster. Co- The Thin Blue Line garnered huge the past decades, from American Inter- chairmen Harvey and Bob media attention and helped free an inno- national Pictures , Jenson Farley and Weinstein's ten-year-old New York-based cent man from prison-even if the tim- Avco Embassy to New World, Cannon company had already acquired the sur- ing of the news blitz was of more benefit and DeLaurentiis; from Cinema 5, prise winner of the coveted Palme d'Or, to the movie's cassette sales and televi- Libra and World Northal to Island/Alive the psycho-comedy sex, lies and video- sion premiere than its theatrical boxof- and Atlantic. The companies start tape, directed by 26-year-old first-timer fice. Although Harvey Weinstein denies small, raise money, have a success or Steven Soderbergh. What industry rivals that Miramax milked Scandal's initial X- two and start to think too highly of had deemed an expensive gamble- rating for publicity purposes, hiring hot- themselves. They lose caution, over- advancing $1.1 million for the $l. 2 mil- shot first amendment lawyer Martin reach and overspend, betray the canny lion film's North American rights , Garbus to appeal the ratings board was strategy or blind luck that got them without homevideo-now seemed posi- hardly a low-key decision. (After losing where they were, and go under. tively prescient: the movie emerged this appeal, the filmmakers quietly from Cannes with the patina of a criti- reshuffled the offending orgy sequence.) The companies that survive stick to cally hailed potential hit. their original game plan (like Dan Harvey Weinstein likes to describe Talbot's New Yorker Films), have And the Weinsteins weren't at all himself and his brother as executives in libraries or subsidiaries (The Goldwyn unhappy with the U.S. boxoffice for Company) or a lucrative franchise (New Bob (/.) and Harvey Weinstein, co·chairmen of Miramax Films. their British co-production, Scandal. the old mogul seat-of-the-pants mold. Line Cinema's Elm Street Freddie Again, many back-seat drivers had ques- They disdain market research and cor- sequels) to buttress their risks. Industry tioned the wisdom of broadening the porate doublethink. Harvey says he veterans recognize that the business is arty film about the 1963, British, John agreed to co-produce the $7-million cyclical and dangerous : boom periods Profumo affair as quickly as Miramax Scandal with Palace Pictures at the always yield to recessions. They don't did; when the numbers rolled in, the script stage because he had long nur- risk capital they can't afford to lose. But move looked brilliant . The $7-million- tured a lustful attraction to Christine many novices , after a hit or two, think plus grosses made Scandal the first indie Keeler-he never forgot her nude pose they can compete with the majors. hit of 1989. with black chair in Life magazine. Sure enough, the final Scandal ads featured Media darling Island/Alive's winning Miramax has long demonstrated a actress Joanne Whalley-Kilmer in that streak of well-marketed acquisitions was taste for projects with easy-to-market same pose-and successfully lured diminished by a company split and a publicity hooks , often true-life stories. droves of curious moviegoers. rash of ill-advised in-house productions Lizzie Borden's well-respected 1987 such as Nobody's Fool. Cinecom fol- 72

FILM COMMENT classics Start your collection now• • • Serl-OCI '73 Jut-Aug '82 Iitiii Nov-Dec '84 Vo . 9, NO.5 Vol. 18, NO.4 Vol. 20 , NO . 6 The Mother and the Road Warrior/Miller inU Porn mid.llnterviews Whore/Leo McCarey Producers mid .!R. Scott with : Wajda , G. Kellyl Black Films Jan-Feb '74 Nov-Dec '82 Vol. 10, No.1 Vol. 18, NO . 6 Jan-Feb '85 Schrader on Yakuza G. Hawn inUCasablanca Vol. 21 , No.1 films / Resnais / Noir CaperINovels & Film David Lean int ./Truffaut molifs mid . I Jarmusch l Terminatorl Lynch Nov-Dec '77 Jan-Feb '83 Vol. 13, NO.6 Vol. 19, No.1 Mar-Apr '85 1900/Bertolucci inU GandhiIVideo Games Vol. 21 , No.2 Ritch ie/Jeanne Dielman mid.lW.R . Burnett int o Crimes of Passionl20 Actresses mid .ICotton Nov-Dec '78 Mar-Apr '83 ClublCoen Bros. Vol. 14, NO.6 Vol. 19, No . 2 The Wiz/Lumet inU Betrayal/Spiegel inU May-Jun '85 Makeup mid .INeo- Roeg/ltalian Film mid .! Vol. 21 , NO . 3 realism Ghost Writers in Film Interviews with: Nicholson , Fellinil Jan-Feb '79 May-Jun '83 Seidelman/Latin America Vol. 15, No.1 Vol. 19, NO.3 mid.!42nd St. Invasion of the Fanny & Alexander/Hard Bodysnatchers/Wilder Part mid .ISuperman Jul-Aug '85 inUStar Making Series Vol. 21 , No . 4 Emerald Forest!Silveradol Mar-Apr '79 Jut-Aug 83 Interviews with : K. Kline , Vol. 15, No . 2 Vol. 19, NO.3 W.Hurt/Maverick mid. The InnocentlVisconti/ Return of Jedi/MTV mid .! Movie Palace mid.lM. John Waters Guilty Sep-Ocl '85 Forman int. Pleasures Vol. 21 , NO . 5 RanlBlack Film Jut-Aug '79 Sep-Ocl '83 mid.!Mishima/D. Hare Vol. 15, No.4 Vol . 19, NO . 5 int. Special TV issue/ Big Chill/Coppola inU Far MTM /Lou Grant! East mid./Trumbull Nov-Dec '85 Commerc ials Vol. 21 , NO.6 Nov-Dec '83 Warner Bros. Cartoonsl Jut-Aug '80 Vol. 19, NO . 6 Women Filmmakersl Vol. 16, No.4 The Right Stuff/Michael Hillbil ly Film The Shining/Russ Meyer Mann/Sight & Sound mid .lM. Caine int. mid . Jan-Feb '86 Vol. 22 , No . 1 Nov-Dec '80 Jan-Feb '84 Cold War mid.! Vol. 16, NO.6 Vol. 20 , No . 1 Interviews with : Raging Bull/Making It Cary Grantl1 00th Mazursky, Ritt/Theater mid .IThe Stunt Man Issue/Yentl/M . Apted int. into Film Mar-Apr '81 Nar-Apr '84 May-Jun '86 Vol. 17, No.2 Vol. 20 , No.2 Vol. 22 , NO . 3 Postman Rings Twice / Terms of Endearmen t! Hannah and Her Sistersl Rafe lson inUStanwyck Cameramen mid .lC. Bogart mid .lLatin Films mid . Colbert Jut-Aug '86 Ser-oct '81 May-June '84 Vol. 22, NO.4 Vo .17, NO.5 Vol. 20 , NO.3 ExplOitation Special French Lieutenant's Gremlins / Dante Is suelRuthless Peoplel Woman/MGM mid .lBody inU Paris, Texas Diaryl Cagney Heat Comers mid . Sep-Ocl '86 Jan-Feb '82 Jut-Aug '84 Vol. 22 , NO . 5 Vol. 18, No.1 Vol. 20 , No. 4 Sid & Nancy/Interviews Reds/Art Direction mid .l Ghostbusters SPFXI with : A. Cox , S. Lee , D. Jost/Greenaway Interviews with : Leone , Lynch , H.Kureishil The Huston/Lost Hollywood Mission Mar-Apr '82 Vol. 18, No.2 Sep -Oct '84 Nov-Dec '86 Cat People/Corman/ Vol. 20 , No . 5 Vol. 22 , NO . 6 Genre mid.lCosta- Body Double/lnterv iews Mosquito Coastl Gavras int. with: DePalma , Interviews with : S. EastwoodlAmadeusl Weaver, D. Hopper, P. Hardboiled Hollywood We ir mid. ~r~

* * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Jan-Feb'87 Vol. 23, No . 1 Nov-Dec &86 Sep-Oct '88 Platoon/Interviews with : Vol. 23, NO.6 Vol. 24, No.5 O. Stone , J.J. Beineix/ Dead Ringers/Interviews Last Emperor/Blackl ist Development mid . mid .!Cry Freedom/Siesta with : Cronenberg , Irons, Scorsese , Lardner/ Jan-Feb '88 Distant Voices , Still Lives May-Jun '87 Vol. 24, No.1 Vol. 23 , NO.3 25 Years of FILM Nov-Dec '88 Reagan/ Vol. 24, NO.6 COMMENT/Interviews Hackman int.! DePalma/Working Girls/ with : Cher, Redford , Glasnost mid . Day-Lewis Almodovar/A. Parker & Jul-Aug '87 Mississippi Burning/ Mar-Apr '88 Music & Film mid . Vol. 23, No . 4 Vol. 24, No.2 Barfly/Interviews with : The Moderns/Broadcast Jan-Feb '89 R. Frank, C. Bukowski/ News/ChaplinlVadim in t.! Vol. 25, No . 1 Mailer/Almendros on Doc-Drama mid . Torch Song Trilogy/ Faces Nineties mid .!Talk Jul-Aug '88 Radio/Little Vera/ Sep-Oct '87 Vol. 24, No . 4 Vol. 23 , NO. 5 Roger Rabbit/Patty Mar-Apr '89 Hearst/' 6S- 'SS mid.! Huston/ Kubr ick/ Vol. 25, No.2 Interviews with : Y. Interviews with : Lumet, Montand , R. Reiner, A. D. Stockwell Bette Davis/Film & Art mid ./Scandall lnterviews Huston ,M. Baryshnikov with: T. Hanks, J. Hurt * ** *\"~ * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** FILM COMMENT CLASSICS are back! QUANTITY AMOUNT Order you r back issues now.. .at only $3 .50 each (that includes postage and handling). _ _ Back issues of FILM COMMENT $3 .50/issue $--- It's a \"reel\" steal. _ _ Index Sets at $3 .50/set $,--- Please send the following issues (identify month and year): TOTAL $,_ _ __ If any of the issues I have ordered are no longer available. please send me NAME _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ one of these two alternates : ADDRESS _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ or CITY _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ STATE _ _ ZIP_ _ _ __ The Index Sets for FILM COMMENT, Volumes 1-24, listing every article ever published in FILM COMMENT, are available for $3 .S0/set. Mail with check or money order to : Film Comment Classics 140 West 65th Stl eet New York , NY 10023

lowed its break-out smash A Room With alumni into The Secret Policeman 's WOMEN a View with such bellyftops as The Other Ball, which grossed more than Deceivers and Miles from Home. $6 million, their biggest hit before Scan- on the verge of Skouras had its brief day in the sun with dal. Through careful marketing and fru- My Life as a Dog . While supplying its gal spending, Miramax has coaxed small a NERVOUS homevideo side with a plethora of thea- profits out of 100 or so films since then , trical duds , Vestron has yet to release a including I've Heard the Mermaids BREAKDOWN follow-up hit to Dirty Dancing. Will Singing (1987), Working Girls, and the Miramax turn into an indie ftavor-of-the- recent Oscar nominee Pelle the Con- Even if you didn't make it to month or a long term player? \" Like queror. In 1986, Miramax paid $50,000 New York for the Film every indie;' says one marketing consul- for North American rights to Bille Festival this fall, you can be tant , \"they'll have their three-month win- August's Twist and Shout, which grossed part of it with a T-shirt from dow:' $1.5 million at the boxoffice and sold the opening night film, 20,000 videocassettes. Many of Mira- \"We've had the experience of being in max's smaller films have made their Women On The Verge OfA the business seven or eight more years money back in homevideo; some, like Nervous Breakdown. than some of the other independents;' Return of the Swamp Thing, are released says Harvey Weinstein. \"We've also had Silkscreened in 6 colors, the shirts are 100% pre-shrunk cotton. Available in size X-L, the shirts cost $15 including postage and handling. WO .2'.... ~. · :~.;7: · ~ - ,- Miramax Films' Scandal with Joanne Whalley·Kilmer and Ian McKellen. on tllever experience actually making films (they through its Millimeter subsidiary, which dNERVOU co-directed the 1986 teen comedy Play- the Weinsteins admit is strictly \"video- ing for Keeps at Universal). The market- driven:' BREAKD ing toss is the most crucial element in a film by ALMODOVAR distribution. It's all a matter of personal But it's one thing to spend frugall y for taste : what we think is provocative, modest returns, quite another to invest I enclose $ _ for _ T-shirts at $15 each. entertaining and profitable. We've always millions in movies that could turn out to been fiscall y conservative. We were just be duds. After Aria, Miramax made a Na me _________________________ as successful several years ago as we are deal with Lightyear Entertainment to now: the zeros are different, that's all.\" co-produce The Lemon Sisters , \"a com- Address ______________________ edy with music\" starring Diane Keaton, T he Weinsteins started out in the Carol Kane' and Kathryn Grody. City/StatelZip _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ early Seventies in Buffalo, New Although Weinstein classes the film with York, in the concert business; in order to his more commercial releases Scandal Daytime Phone ___________________ maximize their theater space they added and sex, lies and videotape, word on the weekend movie programs to their slate festival circuit points to a lemon, indeed. Please mail co upon with check or money of rock concerts. They formed Miramax And then there's the upcoming Molly order paya ble to The Film Society or (after their parents Miriam and Max) in Ringwald-starred Loser Takes All, co- Lincoln Center, 140 West 65th Str eet. NY 1979 and road-showed a Genesis con- produced with the U2-backed Ideal NY 10023 . You may use the po stage-pa id cert movie; they employed a similar Communications, about a honeymoon- envelope in magazine. Allow 6 weeks for release pattern nine years later with the gone-wrong in Monte Carlo. Jenny deliver y. opera film Aria. In 1982 , the brothers Bowen's romantic comedy Animal edited two British comedy benefit con- Behavior, starring Karen Allen, Holly cert films featuring Monty Python Hunter and Armand Assante, will be 75

credited to Alan Smithee, the invisible Ruth McCabe in My Left Foot. director-n ot a good sign. the right choice every time:' M iramax is following up such non sure-shots as PeLLe the Conqueror with Miramax's future depends on the fore ign acqui sitions The Little Thief, whether or not the Weinsteins are mak- directed by C laude Mille r from a story ing the kinds of pre-production deals by F ra nc;:o is Truffaut , a nd G ui se ppe that cover them sufficiently via video Tornatorre's Cannes Special Jury-prize- and foreign pre-sales . Harvey says he w innin g Th e New Cinema Paradise, prefers to go into equal partnership with which \"cele brates film ;' says H arvey. \"It the video companies , sharing risk and re minded me of walking into the The gain. Will the Miramax winners pay for 400 Blows at the M ayfair in Queens. It's the losers? a triple-X theate r now:' (Which is hardly to paint the Weinsteins as altruistic film Harvey Weinstein isn't worried. \"We buffs. T hey managed to wriggle out of a will expand our horizons and combine; deal to release D av id H are's Strapless, production and acquisition . We bought starring Bl air Brow n and Bruno G anz, th e world instead of just the U.S. on whe n the project failed to ignite th ei r My Left Foot , the true story of cerebral~ fancy.) palsied artist Christy Brown , starring Daniel Day Lewis. This way we can Since Ca nn es, in 1988, whe re Mira- implement our marketing concepts in max, a private co mpany, found deeper every territory in the world . We're start- fin ancial pockets th an its riva ls, it has ing to think about developing more simply outbid its co mpe titors, many of material. Were grown-up little boys at whose fo rtun es have e rod e d in th e Miramax bringing what we like to the rece nt p rodu ct-c logge d m arke t. \" We American public:' ~ earn the deeper pockets;' in sists H arvey. 'i\\tlantic, DEG and Cann on were capital- ized three times as mu ch as Miramax .\" \"They've stepped up to a lot of big numbe rs to buy so me top product;' says Universal acqui siti ons director Sam Kitt. \"They've made so me shrewd choices, and so me less shrewd . Th ey're aggres- sive marke teers, whe n they get so me- thing they can market. They don't make Andie MacDowell (/.) and James Spader in sex, lies, and videotape. 76

Once Upon A Time In Italy by Bernardo Bertolucci I t was 1967. I was very frustrated. Director Sergio Leone, once upon a time. After my first two movies, The Grim Reaper and Before the Revolution, I'd been inactive for three or four years. I felt Italian cinema was entering a kind of degrading phase: the values of neo-real- ism had been transformed into Comme- dia d'[taliana , Italian-style comedy. It was as if neo-realism had lost its great urge and direct line to life. It was just a description of Italy during what was called, in the early Sixties, the eco- nomic boom. It felt like cinema of the petite bourgeoisie with values I couldn't share. I felt estranged, like a foreigner in my own country. So I waited anxiously for every new Sergio Leone movie. He was the only one, apart from the four big maestri- Rossellini, Antonioni, Visconti, De Sica -doing something different. I went to the afternoon opening of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly . The day after, he called me: ''This is Sergio. I would like to meet you:' And so I went to see him . \"You were at the first show of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly;' he said. \"Why do you like my movies?\" And I said, \" I like the way you shoot the horses' asses. Directors always shoot the horses in profile, where you have this wonderful line. Very few directors shoot <the back, which is less rhetorical and romantic. One is John Ford. The other is you.\" He was very happy, and said, \"Okay, you should write my next movie:' And so [Italian horror film director] Dario Argento, who was then a movie crItIc, and I we nt to Leone's house where he told us the beginning of a story, a very crude idea that later became Once Upon a Time in the l*st. 77 >

L eone told stories, pieces of stories, cinema. He was a mixture of incredible rything to Sergio. with the passion of a storyteller sophistication and ... vulgarity is the who is also a child. He looked at the wrong word. He grabbed directly from Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma all American western with the purity of a life. Sometimes his movies looked like rediscovered American cinema through child, that same quality of dreaming. Visconti-he had a very pop elegance. European cinema. There was such a Dario and I started to write, and Leone Sometimes he looked for the prosaic but love and reverence in European cinema would intervene. We worked for three or vulgar moments of the characters. Like four months and wrote a treatment of only the primitives of cinema, Sergio for American cinema in the Sixties. And three or four hundred pages-very, very believed completely in the story he was the echo went back to the States. long. But then I left to film an episode telling. Like the audience believed. with The Living Theater, and I let If you ask why, it's because just in the someone else take over the screenplay. And yet the western was in agony in look between two of Sergio's characters you feel the tension and weight of an Many things remained from my treat- And] said, \"] like the epic. His movies are good directly at the ment in Once Upon a Time in the West: way you shoot the surface level. There are other layers but the beginning and the family massacre. horses' asses.\" He I think Sergio was stronger as a pure There was no dialogue. I wrote it think- said, \"Okay, you talent of mise-en-scene-the relation- ing about The Searchers. I thought it should write my ship between the camera, the bodies of would be great if Sergio shot this quota- next movie.\" the people in front of it , and the land- tion without knowing it was a quotation. scape-than as a philosopher. When I saw the movie, these quntations America , more or less dead. And if it had been done without being perverted revived, in some way it's thanks to Ser- After he finished Once Upon a Time by a cinephile's knowledge-reinventing gio Leone. Sergio took the American in America he said, ''They cut the mem- the same thing-an innocent quotation. western and he gave something back to ory of my film.\" He was talking a bit like Then I teased him and he became furi- Hollywood . The new westerns owe eve- a supercritic, almost a philosopher of ous , saying, \"I knew it was!\" \"No,\" I the cinema. That was the weaker part said , \"You didn't :' Very nice, very funny. of him . For many years Sergio was unique in He was generous with ideas about Italian cinema. Maybe I should say the the camera and emotions and his European cinema. Maybe I should say extraordinary tricks. That's why I went to see The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the first day at 3 p.m. And that's why I had to work with him. ® Leone directs Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon alime in the West. 78

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AVAILABLE ON VIDEO 87 min. Everyone knows who Ingmar Bergman is, words that rhyme with it: Just pick the one B&W but how many know that his name is pro- (a., b., or c.) that most closely approximates nounced Bairrymanh (sort of)? This quiz the proper pronunciation. The entrant with COLOR isn't quite so hard as all that; we've confined the highest number of correct responses ourselves to 50 actors, w rite rs, directors, wins a year of the magazine. Extra points for Rick Schmidt is the Marley's Ghost of modern producers, animators, critics, and Film Soci- documenting that the correct answer to any ety of Lincoln Center executive directors of these pronunciations is \" none of the movie makers. -Lowell Darling who have worked in English-speaking coun- above.\" Get your ballots to FILM COMMENT tries . Each boldfaced name below is identi- Quiz #38, 140 West 65th Street, New York, fied either by three phonetic spellings, with N.Y. 10023, by August 14. the accented syllable capitalized, or by three As with Rick Schmidt's earlier low-budget features (A 1. Dana Andrews a. DANna, b. DAYna, c. DONna MAN, A WOMAN, AND A K/LLER, 1988-THE RE- 2. Susan Anspach a. ANspack, b. ANspatch , c. ANspock MAKE, EMERALD CITIES) , his fourth film, MORGAN'S 3. Kim Basinger a. BASSingher, b. BASSinjer, c. BAYsingher CAKE, also engages the viewer by capturing real 4. Elmer Bernstein a. BERNsteen , b. BERNstine moments of human emotion , reality as it intersects with 5. Leonard Bernstein a. BERNsteen, b. BERNstine the illusion of moviemaking. The film begins with 6. Budd Boetticher a. BETTicker, b. BOATitcher, c. BOTTicker Morgan (played by Morgan Schmidt-Feng) explaining 7. Frank Borzage a. BorZOZH , b. BorZOZHee, c. BorZAIGHee that his mom named him after the famous British black 8. Kenneth Branagh a. BRANag, b. BRANah, c. BRANack comedy MORGAN, and muses that he wishes life was 9. Yakima Canutt a. YAKEEma CaNOOT, b. YAKima CaNOOT. c. Yakima CaNUTT more like that movie, just \"unserious and funny.\" What 10. Francis Coppola a. COPPela, b. COpela, c. CahPOLL2 follows is such an unending series of problems confron- 1I. George Cukor a. COOker, b. KEWker, c. KEWkor ting Morgan that the full impact rings of comic absurdity. 12. Bette Davis a. bet, b. Betty, c. betAY His problems include a love affair, his divorced parents, 13. Stanley Donen a. DOANin , b. DoNEN, c. DONN in draft registration, car payments, economics which force 14. Ann Dvorak a. DVORak, b. DVORzhak him to share a small office where his father must sleep 15. Harvey Fierstein a. FEARstine, b. FIREsteen , c. FIREstine on top of a desk . While not a remake of MORGAN, 16. Neil Gabler a. GABBier, b. GAYb ler, c. GOBBler MORGAN'SCAKE pays a certain homage to the earlier 17. Arsenio Hall a. ArSEENio, b. ArSENNio, c. ArS INNio film with its ribald humor, most notably in a tour-de-force 18. Penelope Houston a. HEWston, b. HOOston, c. HOWston performance by Willie Boy Walker as Morgan's dad, who 19. Tom Hulce a. HOOLsee, b. HULchee, c. HULSE describes in outrageous detail how he got out of the draft 20. Ub Iwerks a. Ub EYEworks , b. Ubie EEverks, c. Ub YOUwerks by acting like a crazy man. Like many kids in America, Morgan is basically cut adrift from any real and lasting 2I. Elia Kazan • a. Delia, b. pariah , c. Sophia support system, and must quickly learn to fend for him- 22 . William Keighley • a. Begley, b. highly, c. wheelie self. MORGAN'S CAKE, while a film about teenagers, 23. Dave Kehr is not at all like its \"Breakfast Club\" Hollywood counter- 24. Deborah Kerr a. CAR , b. CARE, c. CUR parts. This film deals with the mysteries of growing up 25. John Kerr a. CAR, b. CARE, c. CUR as told by the real teenagers themselves. 26. Howard Koch a. CAR , b. CARE, c. CUR 27. Joanne Koch • a. WATCH, b. WOCK, c. WOKE MORGAN'S CAKE is now available for 16mm screen- 28. Stanley Kubrick • a. WATCH, b. WOCK , c. WOKE ings with director Rick Schmidt in person .Video copies 29. Adrian Lyne a. CUBrick, b. KEWbrick. c. KOObrick may be rented/purchased at the following stores: 30. Daniel Mainwaring • a. WEAN , b. WIN, c. WINE 3 I. Victor McLaglen a. MAINwaring, b. MANnering, c. MANwaring ••• •••• FRONT ROW VIDEO (Berkeley) ••••••• 32. Demi Moore a. McGLAGlen, b. McLOCKlin, c. McGLOGlin ••• • •••• PALMER'S VIDEO (Berkeley) •••••••• 33. ,Valerie Perrine a. DEEmee, b. DEMMee, c. DuhMEE • .. .. • .. ... VIDEOPHILE (Seattle) ......... .. 34. Karel Reisz a. PERinAY, b. PerREEN, c. PerRINE' • .... ..... VIDIOTS (Santa Monica) ........ .. 35. Susan Sarandon a. REESE, b. RICE, c. RISE ........... CAPTAIN VIDEO (S.F.) .......... . 36. Andrew Sarris a. SArandon, b. SAHRandon , c. SarANdon 37 : Greta Scacchi a. SAris, b. SAHRis, c. TSOURis Or purchase your VHS/BETA cassettes (please specify) 38. Dore Schary a. SATCHee, b. SHACKee, c. SKACKee for $49.95 plus $3 per copy for shipping/ handling. a. DOR SCAiRee, b. DOR SHA IRee, c. DOREY SHAIRee 39. Joseph Schenck Please send LIGHT VIDEO 40 . Fred Schepisi a. SENK, b. SHENK, c. SKENK money order 41. Richard Schickel a. ShepEEzee, b. SKEPsee, c. SkepEEzee payable to F() Box 342 42 . Martin Scorsese a. SHICKel, b. ShicKELL. c, SISkel PT Richmond, 43. lone Skye a. ScorSAYzee, b. ScorSEEzee, c. ScorSESSee 44. Sissy Spacek a. EeOHnee, b. EyeOHnee, c. LONE [415)235 -7466 CA 94801 45. Mary Steenburgen a. SPAHseck, b. SPAYcheck, c. SPAYseck 46. Anthony Yeiller a. STEENburghen , b. STEENburjen 47. King Yidor a. VAY, b. VAYler, c. VYler 48. Mary Woronov a. VEEder, b. VEEdor, c. VYder 49. Robert Wuhl a. WORono, b. WORonov, c. WORonow 50. Dana Wynter • a. FALL, b. FOOL, c. FULL a. DAYna, b. DONna CONTRIBUTORS covers the motion picture business. Marcia Pally Bernardo Bertolucci is in pre-production on a lives in New York and writes on the arts. RJ Smith film adaption of Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky. is an associate editor at The Village Voice. David Mary Corliss is an assistant curator for the Thomson's new novel, Silver Light, will be pub- Department of Film at the Museum of Modern lished by Knopf in 1990. Armond White writes Art. Richard Jameson will be 7 Days new film cr iti c. Gregg Kilday is an L.A.-based writer who for New York's City Sun.