\"Sam Ornitz, James Cagney, The Hollywood Reds, and Me\" \"Elder statesman of the Left\" Sam Ornitzgiving HUAC a piece ofhis mind in 1947. about world events could not sUIvive the Iy with Paramount over An American convulsed audiences-particularly in the night. Tragedy. He needed no urging to attend. Bronx, where I made a point ofseeing it- I promised to speak to Jimmy Cagney, when Yiddisher vituperation came out ofa Ornitz and I soon became warm who, as a liberal, was very sympathetic to face so unmistakably Irish.) friends, apart from the rap sessions. It may the Mooney-Billings cause, and as a man have been due, at the onset, to my genu- of literacy, should be pleased to meet Having so much fun over such good ine admiration for A Yankee Passional, his Dreiser and Lincoln Steffens, scheduled food and drinks, we were inevitably late second and favorite novel, unappreciated to chair the meeting. His reaction was an arriving at the jampacked auditorium, but by everyone but John Dos Passos and me. instantaneous affirmative: \"Cut me in! instantly forgiven when the crowd recog- An excellent book about a radical Irish When do we leave?\" nized Cagney and gave him an ovation priest, anticipating the Berrigans, curious- just this side of the Second Coming ofj. C. ly, by several decades. We had dinner at John's Rendezvous, Hollywood has never spawned a screen then the best steak house on the Coast. star of greater popularity with the working One day early in our relationship Sam Dreiser was moody and taciturn but Stef- class. unwittingly got me into the only political fens, Cagney and Ornitz were in fine trouble I didn't ask for or deserve. It had to form-in good-natured raconteurs' com- We took whatever seats were available do with a bladder crisis. petition with anecdotes ranging from on the stage and Steffens siezed the mike. ghettos to vaudeville to Moscow. In the Maybe it was the ebullience carried over Having a stubby finger in every leftist midst of everything Sam and Jimmy star- from the dinner just past, maybe he would stew, Sam was alerted to some new evi- tled the others by switching to an animat- have said it anyway, but in his deep vi- dence recently come to light in the cele- ed conversation in Yiddish. (Only I wasn't brant voice he began: \"This is the God brated case of Tom Mooney, twice saved surprised, since I had told Ornitz about damnedest coincidence! The ushers have from the electric chair by executive inter- how Cagney had swapped tap dancing les- just informed me that the number of peo- vention, now doing life in San Quentin. sons for instruction in Yiddish with his ple in this hall tonight is almost the exact An ad hoc committee had been formed to roommate in college. When I learned of numberofthe membership of the Bolshe- organize a mass meeting in San Francisco the man's command of the language I vik Party when it seized power in 1917!\" and Omitz was asked to bring up a Holly- IIsed it to open a film, Taxi, a scene which wood celebrity or two to swell the crowd. The blue-collar thousands went wild, Dreiser was in town dickering unpleasant- with cheers, stomping, whistles and pro- 49
tracted handclapping. Hammer-and-sick- in the motion picture business if I persist- win, seeking to enlist the Civil Liberties Ie flags waved in the balcony. Steffens was ed in such foolishness. When he asked me Union in the defense, and Baldwin's in- unable to continue for almost five min- why I did it, I told him blandly that my credible response: \"But this is a sex utes. mother's maiden name was Mooney, case-not civil liberties!\", followed by which seemed to unsettle him and ended Dreiser's thunderous explosion. He con- I was too immature politically to realize the interview. cluded with several practical suggestions: how provocatively romantic and unwise that all John Reed Club members familiar- the booming remark was, how neatly it Nothing else happened from the inci- ize themselves with the Scottsboro litera- fed the propaganda of reaction. Yet a num- dent, except an amiable visit from an FBI ture; bring up the subject in all unions and ber of people on the platform were plainly duo enquiring how long I had known Bill mass organizations of their affiliation, as distressed-including Omitz-and the Schneiderman. \"Not as long as it takes to well as churches; and, finally, a proposal man next to me muttered: \"Christ! How empty a bladder,\" I said. \"That I'll say un- that stencils be made-FREE THE stupid!\" der oath.\" SCOTTSBORO BOYS-so that the paint- ed message could be on curbings all over Suddenly, in the pandemonium, press My next involvement with the Left was the city. photographers arose in the orchestra pit, also an Ornitz seduction. I had read'John taking flash pictures of Steffens, all of us Reed's Ten Days That Shook The World His lean and supple speech impressed on the platform, and gaining reverse shots and believed it to be one of the greatest every one of the two hundred young peo- of the turbulent audience including, of pieces of political reporting of our time- ple present. Everyone, that is, but the course, the Soviet flags. and still do, even if the revolution he re- chairman. \"Mister Ornitz' report was in- corded so dramatically has since under- deed excellent, as were his suggestions for At this moment I was in a painful per- gone some qualifications. (He must have political action ... \" Then he added with sonal bind, quite apolitical. I had neglect- spun like a dervish in his Kremlin tomb on badly-masked hostile irony, \"Will Mister ed to relieve myself before leaving the res- many occasions.) Ornitz and his Hollywood friend be co- taurant and had hurried from the taxicab to chairmen in organizing and supervising the rear entrance of the hall. In swollen ag- So I was a push-over to be Sam's guest the stencil brigade?\" ony I nudged the stranger next to me. for the inauguration of the John Reed \"Could you tell me where the can is back- Club in Los Angeles, anticipating a lively Once again Sam was enraged, once stage, if there is one?\" evening from what I knew of the New again he handled his feelings with York parent chapter. To my disappoint- aplomb. \"I'll not respond to the patroniz- The photographs splashed over the ment the meeting in a midtown loft was ing of the chairman by patronizing the Hearst front pages did me in almost as brackish as ditch water, presided over im- John Reed Club. Yet I will not participate badly as the spread and captions soiled periously by someone named Harry Car- in the stencil campaign. It is a job for peo- Steffens. For what the camera record- lisle, who opened with an interminable ple younger than I am. What I will do, ed was my whispering something very lecture on world affairs in Marxian jargon however, if I can swing it, is something of confidential (subversive?) to my neigh- only vaguely resembling English. Ornitz great glory for the Club no one else can do bor, who appeared very thoughtful and was restless and visibly annoyed , yet ... Now, if you fine people will excuse sympathetic. I was identified as a \"screen- laughed aloud when I whispered, \"Who's me, I must leave.\" writer from Warner Brothers.\" My mason- the joker with the invisible astrakhan ic companion was William Schneiderman, hat?\"'*' It was more than a pyrrhic victory. Secretary of the California Communist What Sam had in mind was really an ar- Party . ... Following Carlisle's marathon school- tistic and political coup. At RKO, where he mastering, discussion of the Scottsboro was writing a screenplay, he had become Cagney and I had the same agents at case was in order, freshest red flame in the friendly with Dudley Murphy, a director the time. They met us at the Burbank air- sky. Ornitz was recognized, somewhat of taste (O'Neill's Emperor Jones) and a port, more than ten percent gray with loftily I thought. \"Comrade Sam Ornitz fine sensitivity to the graphic arts. He anxiety. Copies of the Los Angeles Ex- may have some information and ideas on confided to Ornitz that David Siquieros, aminer were in their nervous fingers, with the subject... . \" the Mexican muralist, in this country ille- the same featured pictures and story but gally, was hiding out in his house in accenting Cagney. \"Warner wants to Sam contained his anger well, if a bit Vaughn Riviera and insisted on paying for see you guys right away. We'll go in with testily. \"Since this is not a meeting of the the favor by doing a fresco on the wall of you .. . .\" Communist Party, I am not your comrade, Murphy's patio. Sam met the painter-as Mister Carlisle!\" Abruptly serious he out- talented but not as famous as now-and Jimmy and I had decided on the strate- lined the simple facts of the arrests in Ala- told him of the Scottsboro case. Siquieros g;y enroute: that he should go in to see bama, the indictments and preliminary was fascinated and promised to think Warner first, then cue ' me. \"Keep your hearings. As salt, he told of his and about it-visually. Dreiser's confrontation with Roger Bald- My contribution was practical. The agents out of this,\" Sam Omitz advised. John Reed Club had no permanent quar- \"They probably don't know the differ- '*' On the way home he said with a sigh, ters, having been harried into moving ence between Tom Mooney and Moon \"Steffens tells me the Carlisle type of pun- twice by the peripatetic squad of \"Red\" Mullins.\" (A comic strip character of the dit-commissar is all too familiar in the Sovi- Hines, the bullnecked local scourge of the period . ) et Union. Rigid and dehumanized. God dissident. Hence I suggested that Si- help socialism if the breed gains real au- quieros, if he was inspired, do a mobile It proved to be a July 5th firecracker. thority!\" Sam's misgivings were unfortu- triptych, three joined panels which could nately well-grounded-embodied in Jo- be moved out with the rest ofthe furniture J L. huffed and puffed petulantly with sef Stalin, no less ... As for Carlisle, years of persecution and eventual deportation if the landlord became difficult Cagney, said he was \"a communist dupe\" mellowed rather than embittered his spir- Thus it was arranged. Completing the and was jeopardizing his wonderful career. it. Even commissars can be cured. Jimmy was cool. With me, an offender more expend- able, he was severe, accusing me of \"be- ing duped by sinister people to get Cag- ney into trouble, \" and predicted my doom so
Murphy mural, Siquieros decamped for recttir agreed to pose for an hour or so ev- phoney Spanish dancing girls in the back- my house in Westwood, where in two ery mommg. ground! Shit piled upon cliche and banal- days he did the Scottsboro triptych, which ity! Sam and I lovingly transported to the new When the portrait was finished yet not headquarters of the John Reed Club on delivered, Von Stemberg ordered several From David Siquieros? Had he sold out New Hampshire Street. hundred expensively-embossed invita- to the Chamber of Commerce? I couldn't tions to the big unveiling, which had been believe it! Understatement. I have seen before or publicized in the trade press. When Si- since almost all of Siquieros' work, and al- quieros planed out for Mexico City the All his life since his days and nights in ways been awed by its power, its concep- canvas was dispatched to Von Stemberg's the streets and jails in New York as a ulal passion, its uncompromising sweep. mountain aerie. The following morning young parole officer, Sam Ornitz had been More than Rivera and Orozco he feels the his secretary phoned all the beckoned a hunch-player about people. Instinct and emotion that is above agony, and tran- guests, cancelling due simply to the fact feeling guided the needle on his compass, scends it. that it was a very honest portrait revealing proorcon. Though he too was upset about the nastiness of the man that was its sub- the mural he said, \" Remember his last Yet . . .. fire stood still for a moment ject. As usual, Siquieros had the last laugh. words at the airport. Trust me! ... That's when he faced the Scottsboro story. Then Von Sternberg, however, wasn't even one man I do trust!\" blazed again, for Siquieros' searing was fe- smiling-not at the unveiling, nor in the rociously visual: looming large were nine vindictive expression of the portrait. Sam's stubborn faith was justified. Pho- mothers with huge accusing eyes. Smaller tographs of the innocuous Siquieros mural in the foreground were nine hanging black But there was another voltaged incident appeared in the newspapers, tourist litera- boys. in the Siquieros Los Angeles visit. Before ture, even the hand-outs of the auto- the Mexican painter was deported, as a mobile club. To me it was beauty . ... and truth penance, Siquieros was ordered to contrib- .. .. Goya and Zola. ute a public memento of his genius to the Then the torrential rains came, washing city of Los Angeles. With not more than a away the thin patina ofdreck-revealing a The John Reed Club rented its New few weeks of the government's tolerance Siquieros mural of revolutionary ferocity Hampshire house to a college theatrical remaining, Omitz felt the painter's nod unmatched in his most incendiary work in group which staged a Japanese play. should go to the Workers' Alliance, a Mexico City! Savagely lampooned , in his Wooden swords were backstage as props. group dedicated to the unemployed, Goyesque style, were politicos, bankers, On this pretext the Los Angeles Red largely black and Mexican. Siquieros con- landlords-all astride the poor-done squad raided the building and in collusion curred and a project was swiftly ar- with consummate mastery. with the Examiner exposed a \"communist ranged-a huge mural on the side of a arms plot.\" Cited as further evidence was building near Olvera Street. With charac- The fat com placen t face of Los Angeles an \"incendiary obscene\" painting by Da- teristic energy he went to work immedi- never received a larger egg. Thousands of vid Siquieros, \"a fugitive from justice. \" ately, supervising a crew of adoring, young delighted Mexicans roared before the re- Chicano art students. vived mural-until the City Fathers in Sam and I were there early in the mom- their outrage demolished the building! ing. It was appalling. What the Red squad Because of the John Reed Club flak the simians had done to the masterpiece was cops and photographers were all over the In this slight esSay I may have been able this: place, nearly outnumbering the specta- to convey sorlie indiction of Sam Ornitz' tors, who had never seen anyone but a lifelong devotion to principle, sinews of They had carefully gouged out all house painter at a job before. character formed before I knew him--cli- eighteen accusing eyes of the mothers maxed by his twilight imprisonment as ... and they had castrated all nine of the Inasmuch as the deportation was of- one of the courageous Hollywood Ten. boys. ficial , the immigration authorities had to do all the dishonors. (Siquieros imperious- But admiration is not love. Dean Swift Some legal hitch in the Siquieros depor- ly refused handcuffs and, curiously, the said he loved humanity yet hated Tom, tation situation permitted him another bureaucratic stooges took down and pock- Dick and Harry. Sam Ornitz loved hu- month or so. (Curiously, he took the des- eted them.) At the airport, however, we manity and Tom, Dick and Harry-as ecration of the Scottsboro triptych quite were allowed a farewell drink with the well as their distaff complements. calmly, in contrast to our emotional fury. criminal in the lounge, although when he Perhaps it was because he knew he could gave Sam, Murphy and me elaborate Inevitably he was given love in return . paint another one. Our loss was final.) abrazos, I was sure we'd be searched on His boundless curiosity about people, all Knowing he was desperately broke with a the way out for heroin or at least microfilm sorts of people, led him to search for the of military installations. essence in them-as one peels an arti- dependent family, Omitz and Dudley choke in quest of its heart. It was a quality Murphy promoted JosefVon Stemberg for Siquieros seemed to know we hadn' t of warm value to him in the penitentiary. a portrait. The director, being an art snob, seen the Olvera Street mural. We told him Everyone felt he was interested in them winged for the idea, but the painter was we planned to inspect it tomorrow, which personally-thieves, pimps, con men, extremely reluctant, having done only two was a Sunday. \"Don't expect too much- sex offenders, everyone. easel portraits in his adult life, one of his at first. Just trust me.\" It was an enigmatic wife for love, one of himself for amuse- remark I was a month in understanding. Even the warden, who pulled impor- ment and honest exercise. He finally tant wires for Ornitz to go off the reserva- yielded-Murphy wangled a $5000 fee- The next afternoon Ornitz and I stood tion for emergency cancer surgery. Which but laid down two adamantine conditions: before the enormous mural in even more proved in vain. He died shortly after his Von Stemberg could not see the picture at enormous dismay. For what Siquieros had release-leaving a big hole in the lives of any time during its creation-to guarantee perpetrated was a ballooned-up tourist hundreds who knew him. that the sittings were at Murphy's house; postcard of a lot of Mexicans in zerapes and exposure of the canvas had to be post- sleeping under cactus bushes-with Certainly my own. Sam was a mensch. poned until after his departure. Since he Excerpted, with permission, from Jolin had just completed a Dietrich film, the di- Bright'S forthcoming authobiography, Worms In a Wine Cup. 51
By Joan Scott When my agent called that day in me try a half-hour script. He was pleased Out in the cold: Adrian and Joan Scott. 1958, she was very excited. She with my work, and I was launched on a ca- said she had the \"biggest, best reer as a TV writer-scaling such heights ney Studio in Burbank, where the streets assignment any young writer could hope as 77 Sunset Strip and Surfside Six. Adrian were named \"Dopey Avenue,\" \"Sleepy for.\" That assignment was Walt Disney's and I deliberated what my pen name Street\" and \"Mickey Mouse Boulevard.\" planned \"Spectacular\" on the life ofLud- should be-and came up with Joanne Everything was green and manicured, wig van Beethoven. It was to be a two- Court. scrubbed fresh. I was awed, as I was al- hour movie for prime-time TV, which lowed to drive onto the lot and park in the would later be shown in European the- My agent spelled out Disney's speci- Writers' spaces. I wondered whether I aters as a feature film. The pay was more fications for the assignment carefully. He would ever actually meet Walt Disney than I'd ever earned, and it would be a wanted a woman writer for the Beethoven himself Dressed in the day's fashion of once-in-a-Iifetime credit which might lead story because he felt a woman would bring full , fluffy s~irts over multi-layers of puffy to other prestigious assignments; which more heart to it. And the studio executives petticoats, I no doubt looked younger could, even, if Disney liked my work, re- assigned the task of lining up the right than my 35 years. I was ushered into the sult in a staff job at Disney Studios. woman had made the point that a younger room where I was to be interviewed by the woman was preferred because Disney group of middle-aged Disney veterans. There was only one problem. Walt Dis- didn't like being contradicted (a very real ney was known to be an anti-union, anti- understatement, I would learn); and it was One of the men, a short, stout fellow, Commie, fire-breathing reactionary- feared that a more mature, better estab- introduced himself as the producer on the somewhat to the right of Ronald Reagan. lished writer might be tempted to argue film, Jerry. The others were executives at And I was married to one of the infamous with Disney about his approach to the ma- varying levels within the studio. They Hollywood Ten, Adrian Scott. terial. So I had a really good shot at the job were all, I would later leam, tried and true because I was a young writer, a new writer \"yes men.\" Since Adrian's release from jail and our and ... a woman writer. marriage, he had worked as a writer in The committee seemed satisfied that I the underground world of the \"Blacklist,\" An interview was scheduled for the fol- knew enough about Beethoven-and had using pseudonyms and occasionally lowing moming. I would be meeting with an approach to the story which they felt \"fronts\" -non-writers willing to put their the hiring committee for the project, as Walt would like. But their main concern names to his scripts and even to attend sto- Disney himself was vacationing in Eu- was whether I'd be right for Disney. They ry conferences for scripts Adrian had writ- rope. I stayed up late, boning up on Bee- seemed afraid of making such a decision ten . thoven in the Encyclopedia Britannica. on their own. Fear, in fact, seemed to be All the material was fascinating-espe- their normal state--one that I would soon At that moment, he was working on cially the heartbreaking fact that the great learn was warranted. Lassie scripts-using a pen name. Al- composer had gone deaf about midway though half-hour Lassie's could have been through his life and career. That night, Adrian and I sent up a de- viewed as beneath Adrian's expert screen- vout atheists' prayer that I would get the writing skills, he accepted each assign- The next morning I drove to the Dis- job. It could be a great assignment for me, ment as a challenge to his abilities and a career boost. But most important, we never stinted on the scripts. In fact, he was badly needed the money-Adrian's appreciative that the shows stressed hu- mane, caring values-not the violence and shallowness characteristic of so many TV programs on the air. The employment set-up on Lassie was unique, in that the story editor-a decent, liberal-minded man who admired Adrian as a person as well as a writer-bravely funneled assignments to him. In order to avoid the problem of studio story confer- ences, the editor would come to our house in the evenings to discuss script changes with Adrian and develop new story ideas. It was through this unusual arrange- ment that I backed into my own career as a TV writer. Sitting in on one of those con- ferences, I offhandedly tossed in a story idea. The editor liked it and agreed to let 52
o rd er.\" I was so del ighted with myself, so pleased with my cleverness, that I might have happily gone on about White Front indefinitely, but at that mome nt Le n, the art director on the fi lm , arrived at Q.ur ta- ble. He picked up a me nu , scanned it briefly, the n looked at me with curiosity. \" Is your husband in the Industry, Jo- anne?\" \"No, he's nod\" Je rry snapped. \" He's not in the IndustlY! Why don't you just or- de r?\" Uncle Walt with the cast of The Magnificent Rebel in 1958. \"WHITE FRONT? A TROUBLE- SHOOTER FOR WHITE black-market work had dried up. O urs \"What does your hu sband do, was not a unique situation. Many of the Joa nn e?\" my produ ce r, J e rry, FRONT ?\" Adrian's voice was all caps and blacklist wives had become'the real bread- underlined. \" I thought I was going to be a asked, as we waited to place our orde rs for professo r -a n E ng li sh professo r! \" I winne rs in the ir families, though most of lunch. I scanned the menu diligently. couldn' t believe he was so upset. I pa- them had not worked outside the home \"Uh ... \" I stalled. tie ntly went over the ground again , re- before. Lester Cole's wife, Johnny, minding him that any real occupation trained as a manicurist. C leo T rumbo \" Is he in the Industry?\" would be toO easily exposed. But Ad rian's went to secretarial school and grad uated at \"No .. . no, he's not. \" Panic threate ned scowl just deepened. \" Damn , Joa n-a the top of he rclass-then found a job with to overwhelm me. lousy trouble-shoote r for White F ront?!\" he r husband! Frances Lardne r taught dra- Je rry was intrigued. \"What does he ma. Some of the wome n did door-to-door do?\" Of course it was fun ny. It was lud icrous. canvassing work. Most of the m had young My mind got as busy as a cornpute r, But of course we didn' t realize it then. To children to care for; and sometimes the composing possible answers. I quickly some extent I couId sympath ize with Ad ri- roles were reversed, with the husbands eliminated Adrian's suggestion, fearing an's pique. He had gone from a wunder- staying at home with the kids while the the obvious question, \"Where does he kind in his thirties with his film , Crossfire, wives went out to work. teach?\" For the sarne reason, I eliminated nominated for an Academy Award-to othe r professions, such as lawyer or doctor, writing on the blacklist. He had been to The next morning rny agent called, and for fearJe rry rnight want or need one or the prison, he had lost his career, even his very I could hear the merry ring of the ten per- othe r. I grabbed despe rately at a fleeting ide nti ty. But as the person out the re on cent commission in her voice. I had been thought-a wild card in this evolving the firing line, whose income was crucial, I hired-subject only to a final okay from game of poke r. I lowered the menu and was unde r a lot of stress, too. I lived with Disney himself-and was to re port to the stared straight at Je rry. \" Do you know the the constant fea r of being unrnasked, studio the next morning to start story con- White F ront Stores?\" I asked. (This was a identified as Adrian's wife- which could ferences with the production team. chain of discount stores in Southe rn Cali- mean end of career. Certainly end of ca- fornia, whe re everybody we knew- fe l- reer at Disney. Ofcourse, Adrian and I both knew we ll low blacklistees-bought major items that Disney must never know that I was such as stoves and refrigerators for half the Adrian phoned our blacklisted frie nd , Adrian Scott's wife. But that seemed un- departrnent store prices.) \"My husband's Ed. Most of our friends, like us, lived lives likely. We seldom went out, and never to a trouble-shooter for White Front. \" of quie t deception-with phony names, the posh places where Adrian might be Bingo. Je rry's eyes glazed over. He was phony crede ntials, phony histories- as recognized. But I was concerned that anxious to let the rnatte r d rop. But I was much to protect our childre n as our li veli- someone at the studio might ask me about on a roll. \"He's their main trouble-shoot- hoods. All of us he lped each othe r in those my husband , rnight want to know what he er,\" I added. \"He goes down to Union difficult days, with advice, suppOrt, reas- did. Adrian shrugged off my fears. \"No- Station. It's his job to go th rough each rail- surance. E d and his wife Annie came over body's going to give a darnn ,\" he said. road car and pick out the least damaged and liste ned earnestly and carefully to our \"It's you they've hired. \" stuff for the stores.\" (That last I added as problem. T hey didn' t laugh at Adrian's insurance against Jerry asking if! could get distress, just nodded thoughtfully. Final- \" But what if they ask me what you do?\" him a good buy on a refrigerator). ly, to my satisfaction, E d said he thought Adrian thought a moment, the n \"Yeah,\" Je rry mumbled. \"We better my response, my way of handling \" the .e;rinned. \"Tell them I'm a professor. An Adrian Scott ide nti ty crisis\" at the studio E nglish professor.\" was a good one. Annie agreed. I felt vindi- cated. Whe n our visitors le ft, Adrian sa id ruefully, \" I' ve been a real shit. Next time I get like that, just slug rne!\" He gave me a warm hug. \" I'rn sure you put an end to the husband problem at Disney.\" \" D oes your husband like to go sa il- ing?\" Jerry asked me the next day at 53 tr
the start of a story confe rence. \"Sailing,\" I sa id carefully. \"Yeah,\" Je rry said . \" I have a little sail- boat. The wife and I like to take it out on weekends. It's really relaxing. [ thought if your husband likes sai ling, we could make a foursome. Maybe this weekend. Even if he doesn ' t like sailing, we could sit on the deck, in the harbor, watch the sun go down and have martinis.\" His sm ile was warm . \" I'm sure you'd like my wife. And I'd like to meet your husband .\" Ed and Annie came to the house, sober Disney assures HUAC there are no commies in Disneyland, 1947. and concerned, to hear the latest prob- le m. Ed said , \" I think you get seasick, greed just once with Disney. They liked you were.\" He shook my hand warmly. Ad rian. \" \"Tied up to the dock?\" Annie their wo rk; they valued their careers; and \"Think I'll call you 'Little Bit. ' \" asked dubiously. they knew bette r than to cross their tyran- nical boss. The production crew laughed as one. Ad rian took a slug of his martini . \" I Disney indicated a chair next to his don ' t know,\" he said with a heavy sigh. Walking with the members of the pro- desk. I sat down. The other men took duction crew to Disney's office, my mind chairs in a semi-circle in front of Disney's After a mome nt of thoughtful si le nce, was on quite a differe nt track. I was re- desk. Ed turned to me. 'This guy, your produc- me mbering Disney's appearance, before Disney gave me an encouraging smile. er. He doesn't know what your husba nd television cameras, as a friendl y vvirness \" I hear you've got some interesting ideas looks like?\" before H UAC in 1947; his ste rn warning of for the script. \" the Red Menace in the film industry. He \"Yes . ... 1 think so .... 1 hope so, Mr. I shook my head. \" He doesn' t know and othe r arch-reactionaries, such as Jack Disney.\" who he is.\" Warner, Adolph Menjou, Gary Cooper, \"Walt,\" he said with a grin. \"Uncle and Robert Taylor, had followed the \" un- Walt.\" He leaned forward expectantly. There waS a long pause in which we friendly\" Hollywood Ten to the stand. 1 Trying to keep my voice from shaking, were all los t in deceptive, con niving, man- thought wryly that had there been an 1 told him my thoughts about the Beetho- ipulative thought. Then Ed turned to me. eq uivalent right-wing organization to the ven story, the way 1 would approach the Hollywood Ten , Walt Disney would sure- script. As 1 reached the part where Bee- \" I could go,\" he said. \" I could be your ly have been its leader-with , perhaps, thoven starts to lose his hearing, I present- husband. \" Ronald Reagan, rabid red-baiter and ed my idea of having Beethoven conduct- president of the Screen Actors Guild as his ing an orchestra in one of his own works As Annie and Adrian re mained sile nt, chief deputy. and s uddenl y h av ing the mu s ic sto p- look ing at Ed , he grinned. \"Of course, while we could see the musicians still Joan may not want me for he r husband- As 1 entered Disney's lavish suite of playing; a silence in which Beethoven, even for the weekend.\" offices, I found that he looked just like his shocked , disbe lieving, perceives the be- picQlres in the newspape rs, magazines ginning of his deafness. We would be T he re was a chill in Ann ie's voice. and theater billboards. He appeared to be sharing the horror with him. \"The re will be othe r weekends,\" she about 50, with a weathered , crinkly face- Looking hopefully at Disney, 1saw that pointed ou t. and a tan mustache above a wide sm ile. tears filled his eyes and were beginning to course down his cheeks. 1 was thrown by Ad rian said with some heat, \"Than ks a But though Disney's manne r was mild, this strong an emotional reaction . I lot. But 1 don ' t want you to be he r hus- friendly, even folksy, there was some- glanced around at the five men of the pro- band-even overnight. \" thing in the eyes, the set of the face, that duction crew-to find that they, too, were indicated a man in charge, a man used to crying. 1 was the only dry-eyed person in \" It was just an idea,\" said Ed. total power-total obedie nce. the room. (I would come to realize that From such stress do close friendships this conditioned response to Disney's own c rumbl e. Disney got up from behind his desk. tears was routine; but I never got used to \" Maybe, \" 1 proposed , \"you work over- H e was tall, strongly built. time at White Front on weekends.\" Ed and Anni e laughed . \"Well , look at you! \" he said, seemingly Adrian said with finality , \"I get seas ick. pleased. \"They didn' t tell me how pretty Just tell your producer buddy that I ge t very seas ick. Even in the dock.\" N obody had to tell me Disney was back. There was an almost palpable fea r and te nsion in the air. 1was puzzled at the change in attitude of my new col- leagues. These were men who had spent all or most of their professional lives- some as long as 27 years-at the Disney Studio. It would seem that by now they would feel secure in the ir jobs, but they did not. They had witnessed the fate- su mmary firin g-of others who had 'disa- 54
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it}. Disney reached out to pat my arm. \"Little Bit,\" he said, his voice choking, \"I think it's beautiful.\" He looked at the oth- ers. \"Isn't that beautiful?\" They answered as one. \"Yes, Walt! Beautifu!! \" Out~ide Disney's office, I was hugged warmly by the men. Jerry said, \"Joanne, Walt likes you! You don' t know how important that is.\" \" But he must like all of you, too,\" I said. The five men looked at each other as though that was an incredible supposition. And for a brief moment, I saw the fear and uncertainty they lived with-and had lived with for most of their working lives. I didn't know that my ordeal-by-Dis- ney was soon to come. P erhaps I should have realized that the giveable. I Iuui disagreed with Disney. choicest assignment of his 27 years with honeymoon with Disney couldn't last. Ringed by the angry, distraught men, I in- Disney. My production crew had certainly tried to sisted that I had only sought clarification warn me. But I was simply not prepared on a story point; that that really didn' t con- And so I launched into a working rela- for the tyrannous ego of this self-made stitute disagreeing with Disney, or saying tionship with Disney that would stretch man; his inability to tolerate what he per- no. But they just shook their heads, and as Ollt over many months-and prove to be ceived as any disagreement with his deci- we made our silent way to the commis- challenging, demanding-and reward- sions, his wishes. sary, the atmosphere was one which might mg. have preceded an execution. Ours. Midway in the next story conference, Every Monday morning, I would head Disney said he didn't like my concept fora After lunch , we all returned to the plush for Disney's elegant suite of offices from particular scene-and instructed me to re- office, where Disney awaited us-his ex- my own small office in the Writers' Build- write it. I didn't refuse. I just suggested a pression unteadable. I saw that the books ing on the lot. And the scenes I had writ- different way of resolving the problem. and papers, toppled in his moment of ten--or rewritten-since our last meeting But though my manner was polite, low- rage, still lay on the floor. By now, I had would be gone over, line by line. key, respectful , it apparently came across the good sense to be frightened, too; but I to him as a \"no.\" didn' t know how to extricate myself from Much of the time, I found Disney's my gaffe. criticism to be thoughtful and construc- The ai r in the room chilled. tive, but often I would find myself winc- Disney gave me a long, hard look- And I felt the heavy responsibility for ing inwardly at his blithe disregard for his- and, still holding my gaze-slammed his the future careers of the five men. tory. It simply didn't seem to concern him fist down on the desk. I jumped. Books, that critics might claim he played fast and scripts, memos, went flying to the floor. I Silently, Disney motioned for me to loose with the facts, or that Beethoven's swallowed the rest of my words. take the seat next to his desk. As I sat life had been \"Disneyized.\" (To date, the In the ominous silence, Disney's face down gingerly, trying to force myself to boxoffice receipts for every film he ever hardened. He said coldly that the confer- meet his gaze, he suddenly flashed a made prove that he knew quite well what ence was over. We were to break for broad smile and extended his hand. the public wanted.) lunch-and then return for his decision. (Decision on what? My approach to the \"Little Bit,\" he said, \" I want to apolo- Early on in our working relationship, I scene in question? Or, frightening possi- gize for losing my temper that way. I re- learned that Disney's memory was prodi- bility, whether he would even go ahead spect your ideas, and I always want you to gious. At one point, I had mentioned a with the project--or scrap it. Or scrap feel free to disagree with me when you well-known myth about Beethoven's me?) think you're right.\" composition of \"The Moonlight Sonata,\" We all filed out of the office in silence. in which a young man, blind, had sup- My writing job may have been at stake, There was a moment of disbelieving si- posedly been so moved at hearing the but for the five men, their way oflife, their lence, then a collective sigh of relief from strains of the melody that he had rushed careers, were on the line. One of the men the production crew. Disney crinkled at into Beethoven's flat, sat down at the pi- spoke softly of his home mortage; an- me and added, \" I really feel good about ano-and finished the piece. At the time, other, of putting his son through college; this project, Joanne, and I like your ap- Disney had not evinced much interest in my producer, Jerry, moaned about the proach to it. I've decided to produce the the anecdote. payments still due on his boat. (For a wild picture myself I'm going to work with you moment, I felt the impulse to say, \" Hey, every step of the way.\" But now, when we were at the point in look, fellows. I've got a blacklisted hus- the story where Beethoven first becomes band to support!\") I didn't know whether to be flattered- aware of his loss of hearing, and flees to the It was clear that I had done the unfor- comfort ofa religious friend in the country, or terrified. Disney was convinced we needed some- Across the room, Jerry's face crum- thing with heart, that would keep the pled, and he fought back tears. No longer the producer on the film, he had lost the 56
scene fro m being too depressing. Iy warned me, too depressing. again , in the movie industry. He looked at me thoughtfully. \" Re- Adrian was sile nt and thoughtful for a As time passed, and the Beethoven me mbe r that episode you told me about moment. \"What about a dog?\" the blind man?\" \"A dog?\" script neared comple tion, and as the pay- \"A poodle,\" Adrian grinned. \"A little, I nodded. checks kept coming, we must have been \"Well ,\" Disney said sole mnly, \"whe n bed raggled, white poodle. It's lost and Beethoven gets to his fri end's chapel, frightened, too ... \" lulled into a fa lse sense ofsecurity. Maybe there's a blind boy there, about 12.\" H e leaned forward excitedly. \"He's playing \"Oh, God!\" I groaned. the FB I was no longer interested in us, no the organ.\" Adrian said , \"Trust me. Disney will I tried to keep my eyes unflinchingly on love it. \" longer checking on our whereabouts, tap- Disney, as my heart sank. And he did . \"The boy is blind,\" Disney stressed, So with a blind boy and a bedraggled ping our phone. - \"but he's taught himself to play the or- poodle- and all that raptu rous music- gan. \" A broad, confide nt Disney smile. Beethoven's life story was told . You won' t We were aware that many people in the \"And he's going to help Beethoven ad- find it in any of the history books. But a lot just -to accept his handicap.\" It was not more people probably know- and be- industry would recognize Adrian, even really a question the soft voice asked. lieve-the Disney version than the ones \"Can you write that, Joanne?\" in all the encyclopedias. though he had been out of the public eye I could , and I did . Millions probably be- Looking back now, I realize how hard it lieved it. had to be for Adrian-working unde r the for te n years. We had long planned that if I didn' t often stand up to Disney. Just counter unde r a pe n name, or th rough a every once in a while. At one point, I had \"front.\" Although he was a marvelous we should ever be togethe r, say, in a res- writte n a scene which I felt was absolutely screenwriter, his real love-the goal he essential to the development of the sto- had striven for and achieved-was pro- taurant, and see someone Adrian knew, ry- a telling point, a crucial one. Disney ducing. didn' t like it. Muste ring every bit of cour- It had to be depressing, frustrating, to he would stall until I could make a get- age I possessed, I made an impassioned sit at the typewrite r daily, in the small plea for the retention of the material. office we'd built for him in the garage, away. The important thing was not to Disney rested his chin on his hand , working on mundane TV assignments. He studying me. \"Little Bit,\" he said , \"if you seldom complained, but there was a de- blow my cover. But whe n the dread event feel that strongly about it, it stays in.\" spair behind his eyes, a terrible awareness I went back to my office in triumph. that this might be all he could ever do actually came to pass, we were unpre- And Disney simply cut the scene out later. I came to understand why his long-te rm pared . employees didn' t stand up to him. The sheer power of his personali ty, the almost We had driven to the posh Trade r Vic's ominous force he projected, made disa- greeing with him a test of raw courage. I restaurant in Beverly Hills one evening. doubt that he ever realized the intimidat- ing effect he had on others. He insisted on Some blacklisted friends who had become being called \"Uncle Walt,\" never noticing that people flattened against the wall expatriates in Paris, were visiting he re when he walked past. briefly, and had invited us to join the m for T hrough all those challenging months, Adrian's caring and support never wa- a drink. But I was wearing slacks and the vered, and he kept his own frustrations to himself. He kept things going reasonably maitre d' would not allow me into the res- well on the home front--especially if I didn' t look too closely into dark comers. taurant, so I waited in the lobby fo r Adrian More, he set himself the task of being to come out with our frie nds. my resident producer. Whe n I felt uncer- tain about how to approach a scene, Adri- As I stood the re, looking at the burbling an would give me an objective reaction- a comple tely professional one. waterfalls, the fernery, and the Kon T iki One day I had struggled for hours over a figu res, I heard the voice of the maitre d'. sequence and was still not satisfied with it. T he story was at the point where N apo- \"Goodnight M r. Disney. I hope every- leon had invaded Vienna, and Beetho- ven-aging and deaf-was wande ring, The stories behind the movies dazed , in the rubble of the city. 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ADisneyized Beethoven: Carl Boehm in The Magnificent Rebel. ny-his uplifting \"Ode to Joy\"-the lights came up. And I took a deep breath, thing was satisfactory.\" ducers. knowing what I had to do. My reaction was one of total panic. I Then one day, a few months later, my I felt Disney's strong hand on my shoul- leaped into the midst of the South Seas agent called to say that Disney was back- der, commanding me to turn to face him. display and crouched down behind a Kon and had invited me to the studio the next \"Well ... ?\" he asked in his deep, intimi- morning to view the rough cut of the film. dating voice. From somewhere deep in- Tiki statue. I heard the Disney parry I was excited at the prospect of seeing my side, I brought up a smile-and looked leave, then heard Adrian's puzzled voice. movie. straight into the looming face of power. \"Joan ... ?\" Adrian sat me down . \"Look,\" he said, \"Walt,\" I said, \"you've done it again!\" \" Here!\" I hissed. \"you' re going to hate it.\" As I started to Disney leaned back with an expansive Adrian carefully parted the greenery laugh, he said sternly, \"Listen, Joan. You grin. Never to know that the line came which concealed me. I scrambled out, my are not going to like the movie. They'll straight from the mouth of one of the infa- feet soaked from the waterfall. have cut your favorite scenes and added mous Hollywood Ten. \"It's Disney! \" I said tremulously. \"He some that will make you want to throw I came to like my film-in fact, almost just left.\" I ran towards the door. \"Don't up.\" Realizing he now had my attention, to love it. Like a mother ofa less-than-per- come near me! Don't come near me! He he said, \"Disney will seat you right in front fect child, I became protective toward it, might see you! \" of him in the projection room. And the focusing only on its good features. I raced to the parking lot ahead of my minute the lights go up, he's going to ask Disney called me back to write a narra- bemused husband-putting as much dis- you what you think of it.\" He fixed me tive sound track for the film, a task which tance between us as possible. There was with a serious look. \"You'll have to be seemed easy compared to the hard no sign of Disney. ready to say something, and it better be months ofwriting the script. Too, by now, My cover was not blown. I survived to the right something.\" I felt confident that I knew what Disney finish the assignment for Disney. But I wanted-and liked. was embarrassed by the naked force of my So, with Adrian coaching me, I made But when I read my first draft of the own instinct for self-preservation-my ap- ready for the screening. I was sure Adrian voice over to Adrian, he was dismayed. parent readiness even, to disown Adrian if was wrong, sure I would love the movie. \"It's too purple, Joan. You've got to tone it it meant losing my plum assignment. down.\" We never discussed it. The next morning, with monarch but- \"Disney will love it,\" I said serenely. Then the script was finished. My days The next morning, seated with Disney at Disney seemed over. Walt loved the terflies fluttering in my stomach, I went to in a darkened projection room, I read script. He decided to film it on location in the projection room-and was greeted by aloud the words which would later be re- Vienna-in the very streets where Bee- all myoid friends from the production corded by a professional actor, as the thoven had once walked; in the very opera crew. scenes of the movie unfolded. houses where the composer had per- When the lights came up, Disney formed and conducted. Disney came in and took a seat directly hugged me wordlessly, tears streaming No longer going to the studio every day, behind me. He gave me a friendly pat on down his cheeks. I sometimes thought not having any word on the progress of the the head and said, \"I hope you like it, Lit- that The Magnificent Rebel was not so movie in Vienna, I felt an acute sense of tle Bit.\" He told the projectionist to roll it. much written as it was wept. loss. Adrian, from his vast experience in The lights were dimmed, and my film un- On the very day that I finished writing filmmaking, explained that this was a nat- folded . the narrative sound track, Adrian got a call ural reaction-a sort of post-partum de- from London. A friend, going back to his pression. Adrian was right. I didn' t like it. I college days, was now head of MGM Stu- thought it was terrible. I thought Disney dios in London. He offered Adrian a job- I went on to other writing work-ordi- had cut some of my best scenes-and a producing job-at the studio. It was nary assignments, for ordinary pro- added some that were dreadful. I was Adrian's chance, at long last, to function crushed. again as a producer; perhaps, even, to re- claim his career. As the final scenes unrolled , over the I felt a jolt of dismay-the realization crescendo of Beethoven's Ninth Sympho- that even as his career might be starting over again, mine might well be finished. Of course, there was no question tllat we would move to London. That we would give up our home and our friends and our way of life. And my career. It had to be. It was Adrian's turn. A s I went numbly through those days of decision, of plans for packing and seil- ing our house, my agent called. \"Walt wants you to start on another film. They say he's never been as high on a film as The Magnificent Rebel. You have a meeting with him tomorrow morning.\" 58
Disney greeted me affectionately- told me that he knew what I was feeling, and was about to launch into a description knew the loss I had experie nced. of my next assignment-when I screwed A year late r, my agent cabled that Dis- up my courage to tell him that I couldn' t ney was inte rested in a novel in the public do it; that I was moving to England for my domain-a book by an obscure F re nch husband's career. (Looking back now, it writer, titled \"Nobody's Boy.\" I checked seems odd that Disney never once asked the book out from the British Museum Li- me what my husband did .) brary and found it to be a lugubrious, dull Disney was clearly miffed. He wanted tale of a wande ring orphan at the turn of me, and I was tuming him down. H e start- the century-and cabled my agent turn- ed to react angrily, then caught himself ing down the project. and reached out for my hand . We did not need the money, and it \" Look,\" he said , \"that's not so far seemed foolish to struggle with a property away. I have a production set-up there.\" I felt no inte rest in. But my decision, my Disney's smile was warm , genuine . turning down Disney, left me feeling de- \"We' ll work together again, Little Bit. I'm pressed, vaguely uneasy. Pe rhaps I feared not going to let you get away.\" that someday I might need to go home again , and home-Disney- wouldn' t be I t was the week before C hri stmas in there. THE LIBRARY SERIES 1961 , and the weather in London was A few days after that, Adrian came freezing. While I spent my days apart- home from the studio at an earlier time • Dancing on the Edge of Success with dancer/choreographer Margaret Jenkins ment hunting, Adrian went off each than usual. H e went to the bar, poured a Women by Women at San Francisco 's famed Galeria de la Raza , Latino women speak moming to the studio. H e was happie r stiff drink and came to sit beside me . He about their art How to Market a Body of Art-guidelines than I had ever known him . His fi rst film , handed me the drink, said gently, \" Dis- from the studio to the market place for MGM , was to be a spy/Chase thrille r ney died this morning.\" • Interviews with Artist Program I-Survival Research Laboratories mechanical per- starring a young actor, Warren Beatty. I cannot even now really explain my formances, Lucy Lippard discussing cultural responsibility plus 5 more Life was good. We worked and social- sense of shock and loss. Was it the de mise Interviews with Artists Program /I-three minority artists reveal their genesis and ized with such fellow blacklistees, now of a genius, a unique maker of magic? Was motivations Interviews with Artists Program III-from working openly in London, as actor Sam it the pain at the closing out of what might performance art to doll making to th e Church of the Subgen ius Wanamaker, producer-writer Carl Fore- have been my chance for a successful ca- Enlightening' Entertaining' Economical man and director Joe L osey. We made reer working for Disney? VHS • Beta' Video 8 new English friend s-joumalists, judges, They say his body was preserved I.V. Studios 985 Regal Rd . Berkeley, CA 94708 membe rs of Parliament. th rough the science of cryogenics- fro- Call or wr ite for catalog (415) 841 -4466 Adrian would hop a plane to Paris to zen, in the hope that at some future time a From Painting by John King woo Ingrid Bergman for his next film - cure might be found for the cancer that and visit with the Parisian expatriates: killed him ; that he could be thawed out, writers Mike Wilson, Amaud d'Usseau, brought back to life to create again his very Ben and Norma Barzman, and actor John special magic. Be rry. I went for a walk in the rain and thought It seemed one could not ask for more. about the strange man I had known. But deep down , I felt a sadness it was hard Walt Disney was the comple te artist, to hide. My Beethoven film was set to air innovator, a giant in his fi e ld. There was later that year in the States, but I would only one Mickey Mouse, one Fantasia. not be there for my opening night, the one Disney was also the most truly happy and I had worked so hard for-and to which I fulfilled man I had ever met. H e would had so looked forward . (After its network sometimes take me with him to the studio premiere, Disney had the rave reviews back lot, where Davy Crockett was being sent to me, but it wasn' t the same). shot -and would react with the same Meanwhile, I flopped around in the un- wide-eyed excite ment as a first-time visi- accustomed role of housewife and Adrian tor to a movie set. Scott's wife. Adrian was totally absorbed in H e was also happily dreaming up Dis- the demanding and exciting work of pre- neyland and would get as excited as a paring his first film in 15 years . I felt alone. small boy with a new toy when he de- The Magnificent Rebel opened in Dis- scribed the new monorail ride to me. ney's theate r in the London West End. Walt Disney was an anti-union, red- Adrian and I took a taxi there and then wait- baiting, arch-reactionary. He was undeni- ed in the cold rain, with hundreds of others, ably a tyrant. But there was something lined up' to see a Disney movie. My mov- boyish and endearing about the man. And ie. I fe lt like te llin g everyo ne that I had I like to re me mber those moments of cre- writte n it; I had created this film . ativity I shared with him. The Magnificent When the credits flashed on the screen, Rebel was the highlight of my writing ca- with \"Written by JOANNE COU RT\" in reer--on or off the blacklist. I watch it big letters, Adrian reached over and with pride on the Disney Cable C hannel squeezed my hand . His grip somehow these days. ~ 59
Resnais' Melo: highflown artifice and tangible anguish. by Stephen Harvey ginalia from the American independents, by Elliott Stein all this was exactly what the regulars have Two cheers to the Film Society of come to expect from this particular festi- The best film I saw at the Festival Lincoln Center on the occasion of val, and there lay the problem. For predic- this year was John Franken- its 25th Film Festival-or more tabili ty is hardly a virtue in an event such heimer's The Manchurian as this. There were precious few frissons Candidate (****), made in 1962. It precisely, mazel tOY to the institution on its to be had this year, even of that savory dis- looked good then; it looks even better prosperous longevity, and a mild feh for agreeable variety we used to be treated to now. At the time, Frankenheimerwas rid- from time to time in the past. The biggest ing high as a boy wonder. He had turned the selection of the movies it bestowed on controversy fizzled over whether this was us this year. Perhaps in homage to the con- really the place for a certai n Di rty Harryish out All Fall Down and Birdman of Alca- tinuity of its traditions, this was a generic policier from Hong Kong--otherwise, te- traz that same year. NYFF line-up with a vengeance. Virtually pid harmony emanated from both sides of every ingredient we've come to expect the Alice Tully stage. Clearly where the The Manchurian Candidate was a criti- from this ragout was dutifully stirred in this festival and its public are concemed, fa- time-the token Teutonic rowdy (this miliarity breeds contentment-screen- cal and popular success here and in Eng- time, Rosa von Praunheim), something ings sold out with greater dispatch than land. In France, where its title was Un mildly admirable from a heretofore movie- ever this year. In a mere quarter century, scant Developing Nation (this time, this event has become a cultural constant Crime dans La tete (A Crime in the Head), Mali), one how-did-they-get-this-past- as respectable as the Metropolitan Opera it was not so well received. Cahiers du the-censors essay in historical revisionism across the way. Unfortunately, the reper- cinema pounced on it. The politique des out of Eastern Europe (courtesy-sur- toire is beginning to look just as stale, its auteurs was always a rigid affair and Frank- prise!-Marta Meszaros), a spate ofletters patrons just as dutiful. home from directors abroad on tourist vi- enheimer never made it even halfway into sas, the demi-dozen non-fiction features One of this year's few gestures toward the Paris Pantheon, even though there are split between those determined to slide soi-disant avant-gardism was for me the pedestals under titans of the arts and those most dispiriting entry on view. To fully New Wavish fingerprints all over the Can- benton pulling the rug out from underthe comprehend the utter sterility of Leos didate: abrupt changes in tone, Marien- perpetrators of social injustice past and Carax's Bad Blood (e), let's deconstruct badesque dream sequences, an angoisse present, plus the usual genuflections the blurb that promoted it in the festival through thick and thin to those same Gal- program. Void Ie text: that recalls the early work of Jacques lic auteurs we've learned to \"Je t'aime\" Rivette. over the last 20 years. \"The natural heir of Jean-Luc Godard This dizzying picture was the most off- But for the absence of any spirited mar- (1), Leos Carax carries the New Wave beat American movie of the early Sixties: not a thoroughgoing satire, sci-fi, or thrill- (Continued on page 64) er, but a heady and successful mix of sev- eral genres, with a script (by George Axel- rod, based on the Richard Condon novel) that provided a slyly poisoned reservoir of 60
e 1m Dark Eyes: how does the darling of the Croisette become the dog ofBroadway? wicked humor. Frankenheimer is gener- by Harlan Jacobson Festival, Part II: NO/NF, and tra-Ia-Ia. ally good with actors, and although Angela This, however, is like many a myth- Lansbury has always been a knockout, The New York Film Festival, like she has never topped her Mrs. Iselin, the two-thirds of all Gaul, was divided print the myth. For one thing, NOINF is unforgettably nasty right-wing ogress de- into two parts. Or so it always arrived at jointly by the Museum of Mod- vouring mother. Laurence Harvey was seemed to my mind. In the Fall there was em-1\\.rt and the Film Society of Lincoln convincing in only one movie-this the festival proper, and in the Spring was Center, while the festival is programmed one-as Raymond Shaw, an officer cap- New DirectorslNew Films, a festival that, by the selection committee of film critics. tured by the Commies in Korea, given a if not improper, was impudent. Anything Foranother, the largesse accorded the two Pavlovian brainwash and sent back home could veer off the screen at NOINF and events is markedly different. Any unto- to participate in nothing less than the take- whiz between your eyes, because that, ward breeches of script, direction , dia- over of America by the Evil Empire. The after all, is what new directors are good logue, character, concept, theme, tone, or film's central conceit was brilliant: that the for-playing the wild card, flinging the what-have-you in a \"new\" director's film Senator McCarthy character (Iselin, boomerang that doesn't come back, that can be chalked up to Baby at the Joystick. played by James Gregory)-\"He couldn't sort of thing. The main event in the fall, however, had do us more harm than if he were working better deliver Masterpieces without the for the Russians\"-was indeed a Moscow So if the New York festival proper start- word Theater after it. The fallback ratio- plant. ed to feel like sinking into a frayed ches- nale for failure to do so, of course, is a terfield, the better to cozy by, the assump- shrug and a \"What can ya do, we don't The Festival's resurtection of The Man- tion that, well, the heart would start make 'em.\" churian Candidate is especially notewor- beating again .in March when the films of thy since the film has been withheld from fibrillation retumed in NO/NF, was just a True, that. No matter the series, no one theatrical showing for the last 15 years. Ap- convenient way of not asking the hard commissions films, or puts ideas into pro- parently, the rights were acquired by one questions about the main event. Since duction, to play festivals . Film festivals of its stars, Frank Sinatra, in order to pre- much of New York culls from Cannes or must woo what they want and woof at vent it from being seen. He is extremely Berlin, and with many of the films making what they don't. They are part incubators moving as Bennett Marco, a dedicated stops at Venice or Toronto prior to New that hatch and nurture an aesthetic in- and bookish army officer; you can actually York, the film world is already on to other sight, part furriers who only skin the ani- believe he's read the volumes ofjoyce and matters by the time New York occurs; of mals they can trap, and part Earl Schieb Kafka he shleps about with him from the 22 films in this year's festival, 16 were auto-painters for clunkers that move too scene to scene. Sinatra has been in about no virgins. The false assumption then is slowly. 20 movies since, most of them disasters. easy to make: adventure is the province of the added 22 films of the New York Film How easy it is then to look at the festival It has been said that when Kennedy and shrug it off as a suppliers' problem. But this year, matters caught up with the (Continued on page 67) (Continued on the next page) 61
HARLAN JACOBSON danger. Fortuitiously, the festival in the A t least Rohmer's L'Arni de Mon (Continuedfrom previous page) Ami has a saving grace: it is proof that Sixties caught the French New Wave and, John Hughes is not a person, but a condi- 25th New York Film Festival, which ev- later, the German New Cinema--each tion-like acne. Rohmer is France's case, ery critic in town lamented as lethargy's cutting edge not only as cinema but in mir- what with his preoccupation with the twin: torpor. It is inescapable; La nouvelle roring the ferment in social thought and Young and the Fatuous, who distinguish vague has lost its nerve as completely as values. What a luxury-the cutting edge themselves from the rest of Westem Civ has Hollywood. Solution: Bring in the simply presented itself, or as the Chinese by their supple ability to bend over and Pedro Almodovars, the Hanif Kureishi- curse goes: May you live in interesting peer up at Heaven. Rohmer's best move Stephen Frears, the Rosa von Praunheims times. Unfortunately, the job of identify- was to set this re-pairing of two enfant cou- (as thank heaven the festival did), and ing good film is now harder-movies py ples, who take 102 minutes to justify psy- start confronting the audience instead masters have become as complacent and cho-sexual musical chairs, in Cergy-Pon- of applauding it. atavistic as the bridges all across America toise, a brave-new-world satellite city of that rust until they fall into the rivers rush- Paris with a condo that looks like Marie The problem of choosing wh\"t goes ingbelow. Antoinette's design for the Vatican. To into the festival is scratchy: the individuals make dead certain that \"Design is integral who do it are smart and principled, but the What this festival missed for whatever to perception\" will not escape your brain- process seems flawed. The \"I toldja so's\" reasons-good, bad, indifferent, justifia- pan, Rohmer dresses his dolls (do they that flit around by telepathy after a film ble, or unjustifiable (at some point the have working parts?) in color-coded tops like Nikita Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes is the bride who has lost faith always has good and bottoms: this one, see, is really sup- darling of the Croisette and the dog of reasons not to show up at the altar)-is a posed to be with that one. In other words, Broadway only obscures a process that better presentation of self: Aarrgh. tums out to be Unnatural Selection: a mathematical averaging that mutates into Patricia Rozema's I've Heard the Mer- And yet, and yet, there were some a poker game. Who deals, and who raises maids Singing, a contemporary examina- wonderful moments in this year's festival, last, calls all the bluffs and determines ~he tion ofa Canadian woman's faith in art and principally films best described as Pleas- festival. The latter might better be served herself; Wim Wender's Wings Over Ber- ure Rears Its Head Period Pieces. The by either a more conceptual top-down ap- lin, a contemporary fourth-dimensional best of these may have been Babette's proach, or by consensus building from the hymn to the pain of Berlin, and therefore Feast, vet director Gabriel Axel's use of bottom up-otherwise known as indulg- of the new Ge~an psyche; Tenghiz Isak Dinesen's story that runs 19th centu- ing in the pleasure of arguing about a film. Abouladz~'s. Repentance, a contemporary ry French appetite lipsmackingly into By hook or by crook, the festival needs Georgian work that so completely pries Danish Lutheran asceticism. Her fortunes more films that either come from no- the lid off Stalin's coffin that his corpse reversed by police action during the Com- where, or if from major ranks, that cut keeps reappearing in an apparatchik's munard uprising, Babette (Stephane Au- more deeply. As it stands, ambivalence is back yard (the film was, of course, buried dran), by dint of the waggish plot set-up, rewarded and polqrization is penalized, for five years until sprung by glasnost); Et- arrives orphaned in Jutland. Though ori- and in the instances where a film that elic- tore Scola's The Family, ostensibly the ginallya four-star chef in Paris, for 14 years its only love or hate gives way to one that chronicling of several generations of one Babette remains in service cooking up Jut- does neither, the result finally too clearly family, it traces the social fissures that have land glop-ale-bread soup and codfish- mirrors the worldwide weakness in pro- reconfigured Eighties relationships; John for two aging sisters faithful to their saint- duction. Huston's The Dead, probably a film that ly, departed father's ministry of denial. should simply have gotten a free pass; Fe- Until Babette wins the French lottery. Sellout crowds neither prove critical derico Fellini's lntervista, ditto; Louis Then she insists upon creating just one acumen nor do they obviate discussing Malle's Au Revoir les Enfants, the direc- French meal, the preparation and execu- shortcomings in the festival's aesthetic tor's answer to the French Far Righ t's con- tion of which consumes the film, and the courage department; to cite attendance is tention that the Holocaust is a footnote; Danes, who consume the meal-though to tum everything on its head. The notion and Stephen Frears' Sammy & Rosie Get convinced by the cascade ofClos Vougeot used to be smack 'em in the puss with this Laid, possibly the sharpest observed film and lopped offlittle beastie heads that it is one, Gert. Is the goal now to sell out be- of 1987, a contemporary script by Hanif Satan's handiwork. If the meal is the true fore the program ad appears? To put an- Kureishi that starts at the endpoint of a catechism of France--<:hop off the heads other Oldsmobile on the Interstate? The marriage foundering in a society splitting ofwhat or whom you may; art is in living at Metropolitan Opera sells out, too, and qlong the seams of its contradictions, and the limit of talent and taste-Babette's new opera is dead or in exile, unlike film which painfully concludes that the price of Feast says grace radiantly. (So apparently which is struggling to stay alive in the truth is impermanence. will Orion Pictures, which plans to install cracks. No one seriously would argue that The Meal at nearby restaurants when the the festival has gone soft in order to bal- Rohmer's L'Ami de Mon Ami was more film opens.) loon attendance--<:onversely, no one compelling? This really is not to second- should argue that the sellout response vali- guess; it is to provide a glance at a list of Then comes Nikita Mikhalkov's Dark dates the selections. To do so is inadver- films that mostly come from established Eyes, a Chekhovian story of a debut de tently to embrace the same Masscult cow- ranks and which might well have accrued siecie ne'er-do-well who missed the boat, ardice and artistic bankruptcy that is fast to a festival yet renowned for boldness. At even as he tells his story on one. To have hurtling a Hollywood preoccupied with 25, the festival should be a sexy suitor. To felt so transported in Cannes py the pastel demographics into irrelevance-or game get lost in the details of rejection-with- wistfulness of this film, to see Marcello shows. drawal is to miss the larger point: since in- Mastroianni perform a miracle in a charac- tegrity is the bed that everyone lies in ter that comes full circle with previous Success came to New York over time (hmm), in ardor and invention the festival roles, in fact with a life spent looking because in the early years it courted could stop combing the world for temp- tresses promising the missionary position. 62
askance in the mirror of passion, to adore Serious about writing Our most current poster catalog , the bonhommie of the film even as it ties forfilm? 44 pages (8%\" x 11 \") with over 300 itself together in too neat a knot ... and photos & accompanying text then to hear it dismissed as \"derivative,\" \"[This book[ speaks directly to the (about 85 in full color, including \"a bonbon,\" and \"lousy\" after its opening young screenwriter, addressing front & back covers!). Mailed night in New York, sends the mind reel- crucial questions of development, with outside wrapper on receipt ing into questions of how perceptions are treatment, the rewriting process , of $7.00 U.S. funds by first class influenced by time and place. And design and the subsequent agenting of mail. (thank you, Rohmer). And hype. How material with clarity, honesty, and Our new location, a gallery on both a triumph and a tmvesty? intelligence. It remains practical 1932·F Polk St. (near corner of and realistiC, and reads like a good Pacific Ave.), San Francisco, CA Ah, well. Pat O'Connor's A Month in story should.\"-JANET NEIPRIS, 94109 . Open Mondays the Country, a WW I em story taken Chairman, The Dramatic Writing through Saturdays, 11 AM to 6 Program, Institute of Film and PM Pacific time. from a J. L. Carr novel and adapted by Si- TeleViSion, New York University CINEMONDE mon Gmy, means to uncover the heart- Paper. 224 pages. beat beneath the layering of restmints ISBN 0-0913729-36-1. S8.95. 1932-F POLK STREET upon the English soul. Its characters, Now at fine bookstores, or from the SAN FRANCISCO, chiefly Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh publisher: as two vetemns hired to uncover lost 94109 artwork at the Oxgodby village church, ~ PARAGON HOUSE tentatively set about unearthing and re- Guest Speakers storing meaning to their lives-smashed 90 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011 in the war, suffocated in the peace. The I-800-PARAGON directors, actors, writers, film is very nearly a perfect jewel, marred critics, scholars only by a supematuml twist to the ending that suddenly breaks the film's rigorously Field Trips spare tone. Still it beautifully refracts the cost of litemlism, the banality of dogma, to film studios; the the frustmtion of isolation. Museum of Photography, Film, and Television; the Then comes Rosa von Pmunheim's Scottish Film Council; and gaudy Anita: Dances of Vice, a smart the Edinburgh Film and savvy takeoff on the life of Anita Ber- Festival ber, a nude dancer in Twenties Berlin. Much the best work of his career, Anita British Films stylistically pushes way beyond Von past and present, viewed Pmunheim's Red Love. There he trailed a in one of London's most modern cinemas camera verite behind a sexed-out, middle- aged hausfmu who-while mad as a hatter 6 Quarter Credits as she froths about flying uteri and the con- nection between aged cheese and old undergraduate or cunts (pungency, or undiluted feminism if graduate you prefer)-mther brilliantly delineates the German version of misogyny. In For information Anita, Von Pmunheim weaves a black and contact white plotline of a modem witch, chased down and institutionalized for her propen- Office of Overseas Study sity to bare her ass in public and mve about 108 International Center the past, with color flashbacks to the Michigan State University Twenties, when decadence was an un- East Lansing, MI 48824 stated pursuit of a principle: play and dan- Phone: (517) 353·8920 ger are human and, besides being worth investigation, are pots of fun. You can see 63 Von Pmunheim pentimento beneath the anarchic images of Lotti Huber as Anita, who, washing up on the shores of the monochrome present, demands to know if you're alive. Want to discover a new au teur and have fun, too? Catch Jackie Chan, a Taiwanese kung-fu master who in his 4000th feature film, Police Story, destroys ten million cars, half of Taipei's corrugated huts, and enough sugar glass to pay the Cubans' debt to the Russians for 70 years. Then he gets compared variously to Buster Keaton,
Charlie Chaplin, and Fred Astaire for his wife, Wanda Toscanini, no doubt gives attle backdrop of Trouble in Mind. Games grace and wit in defiance of gravity, and him off camera. more!-a true auteur to be recognized treads the boards more like a play, howev- and reckoned with in a genre that harkens Speaking of being alive, there were er, and a modemist one at that. Reminis- back to the Silents for its roots and which, I two chief contenders in the Existen- cent of Pinter, Mamet has elevated the confess, actually seems better described tialism Lives category, Barbet Schroeder's dialogue to the foreground as part of the BarBy, and David Mamet's House of investigation of illusion. That is manifest- - by the late Variety as Chop-Socky. You Games, both of which I rather liked de- Iy not naturalism, for which the modem spite the immovable objectionableness of screen has a predilection. So much for end up thinking \"Is dis da Twilight Zone, some of their elements. what's wrong with it. Coyly, it is in the or wha'?\" Well it Canby, you say, because heat of a seduction-cum-sting by con man Puked out by the pen of Charles Bu- Joe Mantegna, and afte'r good-girl psy- the Times, which referred readers to 42nd kowski, by now the patron saint of all hip- chologist Lindsay Crouse goes sproing, that Mamet gets down to the application St. for better and cheaper, was the only ster yuppie bars, Barfly is Existentialism, of illusion to specifics: sexual politics. one with its head screwed on straight about surviving this one. Strikes me that Games is smart not so John Boorman survived the bombing of much about the pent up bourgeois mon- London, and in Hope and Glory re- ster as about the resentment women feel placed the black and white stroboscope after discovering the men they love have images we all have of the Blitz from the sold them a bill of goods and mean to dis- newsreels with the realism of recall: as ran- card the looted heart. Does this mean men dom , absurd, and impersonal as hail. are layers and liars in lairs? Stay tuned for Comically, Boorman links the savage streak in men with the play of schoolboys Condo ofGames. (something a bit too pat about that) before rowing the picture to grandpa's house Now that could play the 26th New York upriver-familiar Boorman territory ex- Film Festival. The heat and passion of cept here in a child's mythic wish for pro- risk and discovery have dissipated slowly tection, the usual dynamic is reversed: ter- over the last decade, methinks. This is not to lay blame, as blame is a way of not see- ror is contained instead of released. ing. It is to sound the alarm: Somebody better call in the Arsonists of Art. For the Cinematically, the Blitz wins, for upriver house at Alice Tully Hall is full and no the film dies save for Ian Bannen's raging longer on fire. ~ old cricket-y grandfather. A little curmud- geon in a film, however, goes a long way. A fter that, the surprises were over. The House of Games: the application ofillusion. STEPHEN HARVEY festival played itself out respectably (Continuedfrom page 60) but flatly, the films arriving in predictable Eighties-style: You are your next sen- pulses to be expenenced, to be sure, but tence, or punch ifyou happen to beoutfor sensibility into the 80s (2), constructing in- more to be measured. There were the the evening. In the hands of the dread ventive and compelling formal structures Documentary Horror Show films of Car- Mickey Rourke, who struts around Skid (3) out ofapparently off-the-cuff moments ole Langer's Radium City, this year's Row like Popeye with his pants full and Venal Industrial Outrage film-here elongates the last word ofevery clause as if (4). Bad Blood, his second feature (5), is about an Illinois town where half-a-centu- each were a slide off the barstool, Bu- ry after the Radium Dial Co. contaminat- kowski articulates something smart, and set in a city of the near future, where a ed the female workforce, the geiger Schroeder makes it neon-funny: Art is at mysterious sexually transmitted disease counter still roars, as the bodies disfigure the edge, money is a hedge-so, get rid of threatens to make affection extinct (6). and drop, and the parry-hack politicans it. Floating down into the gutter like a Carax draws on a seemingly inexhaustible sprinkle radium dust in babies' mouths; feather off some Rodeo Drive brooch, supply of original visual ideas (7), and dis- and Deborah Shaffer's Fire from the Faye Dunaway is a damn sight better in plays a profound appreciation of actors Mountain, which makes the case for the this flip flophouse of a film than she has with the edgy performances he elicits Sandinistas. They were balanced by the from his cast (8).\" Documentaries of Imperious Artists, in- been since Mommy Dearest. cluding Taylor Hackford's vexacious Mamet's House ofGames, by contrast, What this really means is that (1), Carax is a self-neutered clone of Godard, aping Hail! Hail! Rock'n Roll on Chuck Berry, is a real curve ball. Nobody seems to know the master's taste for regarding archaic what this film is about, but everybody has pulp-thriller plots through the modernist who is more control and less freak than a theory about what's wrong with it. Ifit's a prism; however, true to his times, he has consonant with the spirit of \"Johnny B. film, it is the movie Alan Rudolph has (2) banished all the political iconoclasm Goode,\" and Albert Maysles' , Susan been trying to make for 10 years and that made Godard the distinctive voice of Froemke's, and Charlotte Zwerin's hasn't-right down to the neon-glow Se- Horowitz Plays Mozart. Given that he the Sixties. Bad Blood's preeningly pre- is green only about his inability to com- pose, Horowitz attacks Concerto No. 23 cious mosaic of vignettes (3) is about as on the baby grand with all the passion of a spontaneous as a Comme des Garc;:ons lay- Swiss banker foreclosing on a country, and is endearing as long as you remember he's out in Elle (4). In this sense ·he utterly the Head Pasha around here. Lots of flying finger shots, except the one his fulfills the promise of his debut movie, Boy Meets Girl (5), which was the same thing in black and white and standard ratio at one fifth the budget. His principal nov- elty here is the coy use ofAIDS as a dispos- able plot Macguffin, which just demon- strates what a callous little virtuoso he 64 s
really is (6). All those original visual ideas cid in the book, are bloodless and arbitrary AVAILABLE of his (7) should devastate everyone who here. Asa result, the struggles of the film's ON VIDEO has never seen a music video in their lives, self-flagellating priest, unsure whether his and aficionados of acting will doubtless impulses come from heaven or hell, are Selected as an outstanding film of the year. thrill to the way he tums his cast into pic- more mysterious to the viewer than they London Film Festival turesque zombies (8) whose inner motiva- are for him, and of far less interest to us tions are inferred from all that wild and agnostics in the dark. With so little tangi- 1 wacky montage courtesy of Carax's film ble to work with, the pyrotechnics of Pia- editors. With luck Carax will eventually lat's gifted stars sputter into self-parody- 93 mi~utes, color I B&W. . find his true metier as France's genius cre- Depardieu's imploding Good Man seems ator of TV commercials, continuous per- awfully deja vu after Jean de Florette, and A FILM BY RICK SCHMIDT fonnances daily on TFl, Antenne 2, FRJ, Sandrine Bonnaire's id in misery is a re- , and Canal Plus. sume of gestures remembered from her previous Pialat vehicles. In his version of Alain Resnais triumphantly excepted, Bemanos' Diary ofa Country Priest, Bres- this wasn'ta banner year for France's more established cineastes eithe~. For relentless son illuminated the idea of God's unfath- 1988 has been presented at the following adorableness, it would be hard to beat Eric omable purpose. This movie is so sche- festivals/theatres/ showcases: Rohmer's L'Ami de mon amie (*1/2, or matic that the Deity seems irrelevant 2 cute 4 words). His chosen plot this time altogether. * * * * * * * * * Film International * * * * * * * * * is the Les Films du Losange version of Barbet Schroeder schlepped all the way * * * * * * * * Pacific Film 'Archive * * * * * * * * Paramount bratpack high-concept. Wall- *******Ann Arbor Film Festival******* flower Blanche has an unrequited pash fo' to the most ungentrified alleyways of L. A. ******** Cinematheque (S.F.) ******** click yuppie A1exqndre, while her pal Lea to make Barfly (**1/2), but the compel- * * * * * * * *Pacific Cinematheque* * * * *\" * * the extrovert spars constantly with her ling if inconsistent result is rather what ******* Northwest Film Center ******* dreamy-eyed boyfriend Fabien; you'll you'd expect from the man who brought never guess what happens next, not until us Maitresse, Idi Amin Dada, and More. ********* Whitney Museum ********* the end of the first reel, anyway. The re- Schroeder's always been drawn to ruthless ******* University of Wisconsin ******* lentless symmetry of it all is painfully arch, obsessives in extremis, so it's only natural ******** Chicago Art Institute ******** down to the color-coordinated wardrobe that his idea of an American icon would be ********* Walker Art Center ********* Rohmer has chosen for this quartet. The Charles Bukowski. The Old World rever- ******** Roxie Theatre (S.F.) ******** movie's sole novelty is its setting and ence for Bukowski's self-infatuated gut- * * * * * Center Screen (Cambridge) * * * * * Rohmer's bemused take on it--one of ter-rococo scribblings is far more baffling those massively surreal planned cities than lageniedeJerry Lewis; it loses some- *********Hirshhorn Museum********* spawned like mushrooms on the plains thing in the original English. Perhaps sur- ********* U.S. Film Festival ********* * * * ** * * Florence Film Festival * * * * * * * prisingly (since Bukowski wrote it him- around Paris, whose shopping mall is seen self), Baifiy's portrait of the artist as a *******Annenburg Media Confr.******* as the ' pr~sent-day equivalent of the vil- brawling boozer is less reverent than the ******* Adelaide International ******* lage square. As Rohmer gets older, his last European exercise in Bukowski- ******** Pasadena Filmforum ******** chosen protagonists keep getting younger mania, Marco Ferreri's Tales of Ordinary * * * * * * Unicorn Cinema (La Jolla) * * * * * * and younger, and by now the result is Madness-and that is the film's salva- ***** The Museum of Modern Art ***** more infantile than tonic. The man who tion. This at least is existentiaLisme dans La ********Media Study (Buffalo)******** was once the screen's most rigorous ro- boue as screwball farce-Mickey Rourke ****** Neighbo(hood Film Proj. ****** mantic has here confected a painless bro- spitting out teeth after his umpteenth mide for the Francophone young-in- wrangle with Sly Stallone's brother before * * * * * * * * Pittsbllrg Filmmakers * * * * * * * * brain. Maybe he can persuade Molly collapsing into the sack of Faye Dun- Ringwald to cross the ocean and star in his away's skid row Blanche Du Bois, who's * * * * * * * * * ~ * Real Art Ways * * * * * * * * * * * next one. either dead or just out cold. ********Sheldon Film Theatre******** Maurice Pialat, heretofore so eloquent Schroeder makes some pretty woozy ***** New Cinema Co-op (Omaha) ***** on the inchoate pain of modem Pari- mistakes, including an excruciating sub- sian youth, has gone in the opposite direc- plot with Alice Krige as a classy literata * * * * * * * * London Film Festival * * * * * * * * tion with Under Satan's Sun (**), an who'd like to Take Him Away from All ******* Tyneside Film Festival ******* adaptation of George Bemanos' high-seri- This, and the tendency to direct the real- *** ****** Arnolfini (England) * ** * **** * ous period tome on tormented faith in the life winos on the sidelines to \"act\" their ******** Chapter Arts (Wales) ******** provinces. Characteristically, there's a for- roles with aU the amateur relish of dress ****** New Community Cinema ****** bidding beauty in his images here-he extras on a tear And I don't care what Vin- * * * * * * Robert Flaherty Seminar * * * * * * bears down close on the pasty, anguished cent Canby says, Rourke's tortuous turn is ******** Nuart Theatre (L.A.) ******** one long hangover of An Actor's Choices. ********Electric Theatre (S.F.)******** * * * * * * * * * City Movie Center * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Everyman Theatre (London) * * * * * faces of his stars, captured in the damp He claims to have been inspired by W. C. ******* Channel Four (England) ******* blue chill of a French winter that never Fields, but with his sauntering hips and LIGHT is now accepting bookings for 1988 in ends. Yet the change of subject seems to provocative adenoidal drawl on climactic 1988. For rates and information please have paralyzed Pialat's liveliest instincts as nouns (as in \"Hey, another round for my contact: a filmmaker. His approach to the text is fre-ends\"), Rourke kept reminding me of willfully opaque; huge chunks of exposi- Mae West with a four-day stubble. Still, P.O. Box 342 tion have been excised; and the connec- Dunaway's bruised glamour and quicksil- LIGHT VIDEO tions between Bemanos' character, so lu- ver melancholy give Baifiy a real celluloid (415) 235-7466 Pt. Richmond, Ca. 94801 65
kick, while the whole exuded a pulpy vi- apparatchiks with the power to help her- it has become a work that itself exempli- tality otherwise absent this year. after all, making agitprop art about the glo- fies its own subject-the subversive maj- ries of collectivization is far preferable to esty of art. Starting with the masterly way Anna (**) was another fumblesome actually picking cotton on a state farm. the director translates Dinesen's word~ in- Meszaros' skill at conveying the invisible to images of terse eloquence, everything is but intriguing example of cultural cross- divide between corruption and self-pres- in harmony here. The austere coziness of fertilization. Two Poles (director Yurek ervation is the movie's creepiest achieve- the Jutland landscapes finds its human ex- Bogayevicz and screenwriter Agniezka ment. pression in the elderly spinsters played by Holland) tell the story of two Czechs (a Bodil Kjer and Birgitte Federspiel, two su- sour ex-diva and a lissome young emigree) After the unheralded joy of Tampopo preme actresses with the Northem Lights in a deadly game of chutes and ladders last spring, Juw Itami's subsequent A in their hearts. As the Parisian interloper amidst the materialist world of New York Taxing Woman (**) was one of the who waits 14 years to give the old girls the showbiz. That Anna's premise is an obvi- most pleasantly anticipated films in this treat of their lives, Stephane Audran is at ous steal from the oeuvre of all-American year's festival. After all, it featured the her astonishing best in a performance of Joseph L. Mankiewicz is less notable than same pair of irresistible lead actors, deli- simmering contemplation. Throughout, the Slavic despond that permeates every cately witty Nobuko Miyamoto and sar- Babette's Feast brims with kindness with- moment. In the best Lodz Film School donic tough-guy Tsutomu Yamazaki, plus out an ounce of treacle, establishing its tradition, the color photography looks like another promising satirical target-the lar- heretofore obscure creator, Gabriel Axel, the flesh of a half-eaten apple, and our cenous avarice festering under all thatJap- as a world-class filmmaker at the age of70. concrete jungle resembles the classier pre- anese politesse. Regrettably, A Taxing cincts ofWarsaw; whether she's aware of it One of the oddest aspects of this year's or not, heroine Sally Kirkland does a Babette's Feast: culinary obsessions. festival was the way its most memorable fiendish impersonation of that nonpareil Woman is agreeably slick stuff and little films tipped their fealty to that rival me- Polish star Maja Kamorovska. more-a straightforward tortoise-and- dium, the theater. House of Games hare story that goes on far too long, with- (***), which marks David Mamer's de- Anna's creators are equal-opportunity out any of those delirious tangents that but as a movie director, was conceived di- cynics-as they see it, the main difference gave Tampopo its special spice. On the rectly for the screen hut sums up every- between America and the Socialist Re- way out of the press screening, a colleague thing that has fueled his entire publics is that success in each requires the quipped that we'd be seeing a Touch- playwrighting career. Like American Buf- parroting of a different litany of lies. Thus stone remake with Lily Tomlin by Christ- falo and Glengarry Glen Ross, it's about the heroine's ultimate humiliation and mas 1989; in truth, with its caustic facade the intellectual's fascination with the nervous breakdown are clearly as close to a betrayed by Itami's sappy ending, the amoral con ethic, only this time there's an musical-comedy fadeout this team could people on Mickey Mouse Way wouid authorial stand-in at the center of the sto- possibly envision. Nevertheless, given scarcely have to change a thing. Itami ry-a control-freak shrink (Lindsay the spare intensity of Holland's previous started out as die Asian Preston Sturges; Crouse) and nobody's dupe until she is Angry Harvest and A Woman Alone, one let's hope he doesn't end up as Tokyo's herself suckered by a scheme that only wishes she had directed it herself- answer to Arthur Hiller. wouldn't fool your average tenth-grade Bogayevicz's slack tempi give us more dropout. All the Mamet signature notes than enough time to notice the gaping T his year's one real sleeper (at least to are there-the lyrically obscene bar-and- holes in the plot, and the weirdness of an Cannes virgins like me) was the Dan- grill lingo punctuated by pregnant si- off-Broadway scene more like Grotowski ish Babette's Feast (***1/2), which be- lences, the cast of sleazoids (Joe Man- than Steel Magnolias. gins as an expert literary transcription and tegna, Mike Nussbaum,].T. Walsh) who concludes as a visually transcendent mov- left a slimy trail across the boards of the With Diary for My Loved Ones ie of heartbreaking emotional density. John Golden Theater when Mamet was (**1/2), Hungarian Marta Meszaros has This Isak Dinesen fable of Puritan kind- last on Broadway. His lack of directorial likewise fashioned a saga of thwarted artis- ness and sensuality deferred was originally experience is hard to ignore: while the tic ambition in a politically charged cli- published in an American ladies' maga- look of the film aspires to updated Forties mate, but on her own home turf. This is a zine, which was logical enough, consider- film noir, it makes it back about as far as sequel to her previous autobiographical ing its own culinary obsessions. Onscreen, colorized Naked City scumminess. More- film Diary for My Children, picking up over, a more seasoned filmmaker would the petulant teen-aged Juli as she con- have known to accelerate the pace toward nives her way into the film school at Mos- the final third so that the audience cow University during the last years of the couldn't figure out the scam ages before its age ofStalin. Anyone who missed the first savvy heroine. Mamet's tight, cerebral installment (that is, virtually everyone) symmetry is both House ofGames' source should find the heroine's family ties and of energy and its biggest drawback- their respective ideological affiliations a there's not a spontaneous moment any- bewildering tangle, and the film is often where in this movie. Still it would be a dramatically stiff even for initiates. Still, shame to dismiss his cool, intricate craft as Meszaros has a bracingly clear sense of his- hopelessly theatrical, just because the tory, revealing how comforting Stalin-wor- American screen has come to prefer the ship could be in a hermetically enclosed \"cinematic\" highs of pulp and uplift. world such as this. More remarkable yet, the director's autQ-critique is more icono- And with Alain Resnais' Melo clastic i:han anything Khrushchev ever did (****), the festival came up with the un- to his predecessor. This budding aesthete likeliest of masterpieces. Henry Bem- is happy to pull all her party strings to get her way, while oozing contempt for the 66
stein's Twenties drawing-room kitsch with ambiguities. Frankenheimer relates Cinema tragedy about betrayal between friends that after the first preview a man came up Studies: and lovers is not merely the point ofdepar- to him and said: \"The goddamned Com- ture for Resnais' movie: he treats it as rev- mies are never going to let you release it!\" An education erently as Olivier did Henry V. Through- Whereupon, he was accosted by a second for our time out the static f10ssiness of Act I, Scene 1, previewer who shouted: \"Those right- you're liable to think Resnais has really wing bastards are never going to let you re- Film is the art fonn that defines our gone daffy, which after the misfires of La lease it!\" Yet, in spite of the ambiguities, time. Films by Eisenstein, Godard, Vie Est un Roman and L'Amour a Mort the tone of the film is unequivocally liber- and Fassbinder, for instance, offer pen- wouldn't be too hard to believe. But first al. Sinatra, once squarely in the liberal etrating insights into human behavior, you're seduced by the movie's spectacular camp, has moved sharply to the right in re- cultural change, life as we live it and gorgeousness; lit by crepuscular gels on cent years. That in itself may have been a perceive it At New York University's the key lights atop the sound stage rafters, motivation: he acquired the rights nearly a Tisch School of the Arts , we believe italliooks like the inside ofa deco Faberge decade after the assassination, once his po- the study of film develops analytic egg. Then Resnais' camera bears down litical loyalties had shifted. Or-who skills, hones critical thinking, and hard on Bernstein's streamlined mario- knows?-he may have hid one of his best broadens perspectives. It offers under- nettes, and the tension he creates be- films under a bushel for 15 years because graduates superb preparation for many tween the highflown artifice of the situa- of a single line of dialogue, a line which of life's callings. tion and the actors' tangible anguish goes these days brings down the house. It turns from the exquisite to the unbearable. out that in addition to Ulysses and The Our program in cinema studies Trial, Bennett Marco has been reading a allows undergraduates to study film Every boulevard vehicle heeds an in- history of the Mafia! with the same distinguished scholars delible star, and Resnais found his in Sa- who teach our graduate students. The bine Azema. As the capricious adulteress T he next best film on view at Lincoln department's film archives, variety of with Louise Brooks' coiffure, she moves Center was Roberto Rossellini's The courses, and viewing facilities are like the star of a speeded-up silent movie, Human Voice (****) with Anna Mag- exceptional. And, students have access the eyes glistening with terror as the lens nani , made in 1948, shown on a double bill to all the film screenings that make traps her in a comer of Jacques Saulnier's with his Joan of Arc at the Stake (**) New York City the richest film center modeme set for yet another claustropho- with Ingrid Bergman, which dates from in the world. bic close-up. Like the Magnani/Rossellini 1954. Rossellini never intended them as a La Voce Umana, the 1987 festival's other double feature; their rarity was the justi- Because film is a truly interdisciplin- perfect film, Melo proves that the stylized fication for this joint revival. The Human ary art fonn, the program includes the striptease of one actor revealing the most Voice has not been seen here for some study of related subjects: art, history, primal emotions can still be the greatest time. Joan died nearly as quick a death in psychology, and even film production. Italian theaters in 1954 as she did at the As a result, our students get a broadly movie spectacle of all. ® stake and the film has hardly been shown based education as they undertake a in Europe since, except for a few art house serious study of cinema ELLIOTI STEIN and archive screenings. (Continued from page 61) For more information, return the Both films are vehicles for star actresses coupon below or call (212) 998-1600 . was killed, the year after the film came who were sharing the director's life at the out, the singer, an intimate of JFK, was time of production; and, in both films , NEWYORI( aghast at having appeared in a movie woman is seen as a suffering martyr to RSI1Y about a plot to assassinate a presidential man, or to men's cruelty. The director's cand:-I ' te and got the idea of buying the presence may be felt in both, and not Tisch School of the Arts rights. h.,,/ Kelley's biography of Sinatra merely in his directorial capacity. Rossel- adds an ironic footnote to this odd affair. lini is, in a sense, the offscreen presence of I New York University According to her, it was because of JFK the lover who is walking out on the star- I 721 Broadway, 7th Floor that Frankenheimerwas enabled to make protagonist of Voice (leaving her for Berg- the film in the first place. In His Way, she man?-though it was actually Bergman New York , N. Y. 10003 states that when Arthur Krim, then presi- who left her husband for Rossellini a year dent of UA, got wind ofthe project, he ob- after The Human Voice was made). He i Attn: Dr. Roberta Cooper jected to the story and said that the compa- may also be seen as God, from whose ny would never distribute it. \"He was point of view some of the scenes in Joan of I Please send information on the cinema studies national finance chairman of the Demo- Arc are shot. The films are marked by two cratic party at the time, and as such, very technical firsts : Voice is the first film in program . 0 undergraduate 0 graduate protective of the Kennedys. He felt that which Rossellini made use of direct the film would be too politically explo- sound, and Joan was his first color film. I 0 I am also interested in summer session,. sive.\" Sinatra took the matter directly to I JFK who said he had enjoyed the novel, The Human Voice lasts 35 minutes and I Name and not only had no objection to its being is based on a one-act play by Jean Coc- I Address filmed but thought it would be a great teau , a single long sobbed and spoken aria I movie. Sinatra got the President to call for a great actress, the telephone mono- I City /State/Zip Krim personally. Only then could produc- logue ofa middle class Parisian lady whose tion start. lover is clearing out. He calls to say he is New York Univcr»lty 1» li n aflir01all vl' :ll'!lIln l l' 4uall'rrtlrlLlnll ) going to Marseilles and plans to marry an- I've never been really convinced by any other woman. She wills herself into a fa- ~n~li lut i()n. _ _ _ _ _ _ Fe NovlDec 87 of the usual explanations given for the film's withdrawal. The movie itself bulges 67
<;ade of bravery, then breaks down and the restorers, are accompanied by some of overlooked because of the nobility of their cries, praying to God to make him return. the dinkiest elevator music ever com- They are cut off He calls back later, and posed. Most of the scenes of the oratorio sentiments. None of the cliches apply the play becomes a series of intricate vari- were not shot during an actual perfor- here. This is a picaresque and magical ations on her despair and self-pity. Rossel- mance; they are as removed from any- road movie, fluently made, full of broad lini shoots most of it in easeful long takes. thing that could be observed from a seat in and sweeping landscapes of swamp and Magnani is superb. This is one of the bra- an opera house as were Busby Berkeley plain-the best looking film of the festi- vura screen performances, and the direc- numbers from what their purported the- val. Some of its imagery brought to mind tor's ambitious experiment is possibly ater audiences could possibly view. Most Leni Riefenstahl's photographs of the even more interesting for its use of the ac- of the action is a long flashback in Joan's Nuba. tress's face than for her voice. The film is mind as she relives the events oflife as she obviously at least as much about Magnani is being bumt. There are some lovely ef- The narrative derives from an ancient the actress as it is about Cocteau's protago- fects shots of angels coiling around her in tale of father-son rivalry, sugge;stive, not so nist. The only other living thing on the circles, seen from above, from a God's- much of the Oedipus story as of the power screen is a dog-Magnani's own beloved eye-view. At such times, the film is like a struggle between Cronus and Zeus, a duel pooch . Christmas card animated by Meties or the to the death over the possession of know1- early George Pal. The Gevacolor is now edge. There are moments which may Although the film takes place in Paris mostly pinkish-greenish; the music evoke 200] or Star Wars, but these are and was shot there, I think it would have sounded harsh and metallic. In French, in also likely to be outsider references-at- been wise to ltalianize the locale. No one live performance, Jeanne D'arc au tempts, perhaps futile, to come to terms could ever take Magnani for une bour- Bucher has moved me to tears. It doesn't with an extraordinary enclosed world geoisefrarIfaise. And despite her artistry, work in Italian. which seems to embody universal Magnani could not, thank goodness, ever themes. pass as a lady. If some dude ran outon her, Rossellini was pleased with the result. she wouldn't cower by the phone with her He told Fran<;ois Truffaut in a Cahiers in- Police Story (***), directed by and doggie. She'd flounce out, strike up the terview: \"It is a strange film. I know they starring Jackie Chan, was a lark and a half Via Veneto, find him , grab him by the are going to say that my introversion has All of its action sequences are hog-wild cock and pull him right back into her bed reached its maximum point, that I have galvanic. Best of all is one which comes where he belonged. withdrawn from life. This isn't filmed the- early in the film, involving the near-de- ateratall, it is cinema, and I will even go so struction of a hillside village. It's awe- The badly damaged original negative of far as to say that it is neo-realism in the some. A complexly choreographed battle Joan ofArc at the Stake was restored earli- sense in which I have always aimed at it.\" in a department store later on is almost as er this yea r at Cineciwi, largely with Ital- A eurious film, but an even curiouser pro- exhilarating; it's like Tarzan in Macy's. nouncement. ian government funds. I was grateful for a Chan, the biggest boxoffice draw in chance to see it, but it doesn't do justice to F or once, a festival blurb was too mod- Asia, is inevitably compared to his prede- the Arthur Honegger-Paul Claudel orato- est. Souleymane Cisse's Yeelenl cessor, Bruce Lee, but they're worlds rio on which it is based and it did not prove Brightness (****) is not only \"the most apart. Chan is free of Lee's airs of self-im- a good vehicle for Bergman. It is, howev- beautifully photographed African film portance. He's a cutie-pie. His boyish er, a one-of-a-kind experience, a sort of pi- ever,\" it seems to me the best African film good looks, good-natured ness, self-spoof- ous Puppetoon with Ingrid Bergman as ever made. This is one for film history ery, adeptness at sight gags, and mastery principal puppet. books as yet unwritten. of cleanly stylized movement make him a real charmer. It must be said that the non- In its restored version, Rossellini's film Cisse was born in 1940 in Bamako, the action scenes ofPolice Story are negligible is framed at the ou tset by scenes of specta- capital of Mali, and spent five years at film and the dubbing is klutzy, but not silly tors arriving at the San Carlo Opera house school in Moscow. The stereotyped im- enough to be really amusing. If Chan is in Naples on December 5, 1953, for the age of African cinema is that of films about going to make it big in the Western mar- opening night of Rossellini's production of poverty-sincere, yes, and a bit boring- ket-and he's obviously going for it- the work, and at the end by scenes in whose technical clumsiness should be he'll have to come up with better scripts. Bergman's dressing room, after the show. These home-movieish shots, added by A certain amount of huffing and puffing has emerged from the pens and mouths of assorted fuddy-duddies about the quali- fications of this commercial genre flick as a festival film . I was lucky; I missed the press show and caught it with the regular paying audience. The response was tre- mendous, a shuttling of real electricity from audience to screen and back again. This doesn' t happen very often at Alice Tully Hall. It never happens at an open- ing night film at Avery Fisher. Showing Police Story was a salutary, perhaps histor- ic, act of deconstipation for the New York Film Festival. I ' m chagrined at being unable to share the general enthusiasm for John Boor- man's Hope and Glory (*) since I've 68
been an admirer of this director's work herself as a once notorious nude dancer, like tank warfare) and a few interesting camera set-ups, with characters dialoguing throughout his career. What's best about Anita Berber }played with no panicular half a mile from the lens. his new picture is its slant: the desenti- chann or grace by Ina Blum). The present With Peter Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect (e) the Festival supplied us mentalizing of war. It's an anti-Mrs. Mini- tense sequences are delicious; the stylized with yet another mid-life crisis, this one at- ver. No one in the Rohan family main- flashbacks soon become repetitious. This tached to an American architect in Rome, unduly nasty to his wife and afflicted 'with tains a stiff upper lip during the Blitz. sympathetic feature is a padded shon. At tummy aches. Sacha Viemy's cinematog- raphy is masterly; for a while, the eye is They're too busy fucking, nattering away half its length it would have been twice as happy and the other senses drop their guards. Greenaway's archway fetishism, like increasingly spacey magpies with good. initially beguiling, soon embalms the film in academic mannerism. Performances each new bomb that drops, generally hav- are strutty and overemphatic. This is a frigid, mean-spirited film. Ning a bloody good time. ikita Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes (e) is a The given of this autobiographical film clumsily concocted and overpro- In Pat O'Connor's ineffably boring A Month in the Country (e) a shell- is certainly novel and refreshing: war liber- duced work. It is slightly redeemed by an shocked World War I veteran with a stut- ter betakes himself to a Yorkshire village ates the family from the routines of their intennittently engaging perfonnance by to uncover a medieval painting on the wall of a church. He meets a variety of dim pa- dreary lives. The problem is that the Marcello Mastroianni in the central role of rishioners. We are clearly expected to lux- uriate in the appreciation of the seething elaboration of this given, nearly all two an idling Italian buffoon who marries for emotions which nestle so finely under- 'neath their placid English fa91des. hours of it, is plodding and predictable and money, then travels to Russia in pursuit of In its quaint way, A Month in the Coun- untouched by any of the inspired nutti- a woman with whom he has fallen in love. try was the most whorish film in the festi- val, produced with one eye finnly on the ness that characterizes the director's finest Francis Lai's music is bloated and mushy; calculated notion that \"the Americans will like this son of thing.\" Nostalgia, nice old work. If Jean-Marc Barr makes a strong comic scenes are grotesquely distend- settings, muted passions and pretty pic- tures, what. Even Alistair Cooke would impression as a randy Canadian soldier ed; perfonners mug unashamedly, un- doze in his chair before he got halfway through introducing it. The festival blurb who knocks up one of the daughters (he's leashed, uncontrolled. The script is cred- contends that this film \"proves that the British tradition of quality is alive and a potential star), Ian Bannen as the eccen- ited to several stories by Chekov, yet welL\" If it proves anything at all (which I doubt), A Month in the Country proves tric Grandad is a major nuisance. nothing of what made Chekov an admira- that tradition is a stuffed duck. ~ Has the Festival properly verified that ble writer is available on the screen. Dark the director of Hope and Glory is in fact Eyes owes more to Fellini than to Soviet the real John Boonnan? Has anyone cinema, and this caricaturing of caricature looked at his 1. D.? I suspect that the real produces mere vapidity. Andrei Tar- one has been occulted away someplace. kovsky, shooting Nostalghia in Italy, 1'd like to hope that the guy who gave us drained the Italian landscape of its ltalian- Zardoz, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Point ness and Russianized it, with sublime re- Blank and The Emerald Forest will retum sults. Mikhalkov ltalianizes Russia into an to filmmaking some day. unshapely mess. Lotti Huber is hugely endearing as a Gleb Panfilov's Tema (e) was made in blubbery foul-mouthed old schizophren- 1979 and not released until last year. This ic in Rosa von Praunheim's Anita- inen tale of a successful hack writer's mid- Dances of Vice. (*) She has been put in life crisis in the Soviet boondocks might a Berlin psychiatric ward for exposing her- have seemed fresher a few years ago. Its self in public. When not groping or bad- principal assets are a good perfonnance by mouthing the nurses, she spends her time the director's wife, Inna Churikova (the in fan tasies of the 1920's in which she sees men in the film huff and puffand come on DO YOU WANT TO MAKE FILMS OR SIT IN A CLASSROOM? ... ~~~ Summer 1988 From the trusted nome in facts comes a \\'I' comprehensive compendium of more than June 27 - August 19 2.400 movie personalities. If you want to make films. our intensive. interdisciplinary 8-week summer program THE WORLD ALMANAC Is for you . A special program in the WHO'S WHO OF FILM radical art of filmmaking considered and Dy Thomas G. Aylesworth and John S. Dowman practiced as an avant-gorde experi- Introduction by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. mental enterprise. The poetics of film. the IlIusrrored wirh 200 srilis and porrrairs . energy of norrative. the \"art of vision\" - these ore the aesthetic considerations of A must for film aficionados. this great modern art form. Now ()voiloblo 0 1 bool~~l or C'~ o r dirpcr fr om I tlO pubh, hc>r BE AN INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER :\\!II'-'II!!: PHAf'l.OS OOOKS ~ 200 Porll Ave . Milton Avery New Yorll. N.Y. 10166 Graduate School of the Arts at PARD Annandale-on-Hudson. NY 12504 (914) 758-6822. x-183 69 tr
World Festival Report A TENT IN VENICE sleeping bag under a starry sky. I the ring of personal truth-like stilt shared my crusts of bread and flasks battles in the playground and wild boar A h, the magic of movies! And of simple wine with other such pen- encounters in the forest-as opposed how apt for Venice '87. For it niless tourists. As with the white dove to the details of Malle's recent trans- was not just paying tribute to in that song of cyclical recurrence, one atlantic films, which are so hand me- SO years of Cinecitta Studios; it was was forced to ask, \"How many miles down and generic that even if true also piling a shimmering new tier onto must a film critic fly before he sleeps they're lifeless. its festival history by replacing pre- in the sand?\" Now I know. vious fest boss Gian Luigi Rondi with Sentimentality is at times a mere Guglielmo Biraghi (formerly of Taor- Friends were importuned for show- whisker away from Malle's child's-eye mina). You could tell the difference ers, and I kept my vital effects in the fresco of Forties France. Sentimental- immediately. Last year these pages trunk of a car. Meanwhile, waggish ity, by contrast, crawls Kudzu-like all were loud with complaints of the Mos- colleagues suggested I borrow the Ci- over Comencini's Uno Ragazzo di Cal- tra's poor facilities and near-fascistic necitta-set projector and throw glass- abria: a sort of six-handkerchief Padre bureaucratic procedures. When last we shot images of a luxury hotel onto my Padrone in which a brutalized peasant tuned in, you remember, distin- humble patch of beach. I am thinking boy forges his own freedom, this time guished French critics were being of this for next year. It all reminded by becoming a marathon runner. Not hurled bodily from theaters, and what me of the time when I was very young, a dry occhio in the house as he breasts seemed like the entire police force of when with tent and water flask I used the victory tape in Rome, watched by northern Italy was grouped around the to trek across the Sahara Desert under Gian Maria Volonte as the crippled, Palazzo trying to stop anyone from get- a blazing sun, selling film reviews to drunken school bus driver who has ting in to see a film. interested Bedouins. My autobiogra- trained him. phy detailing this will be out soon. This year one simply flashed the Far better an Italian contender was \"correctly\" colored accreditation card J ust such colorful apprenticeships Montaldo's Gli Occhiali d' Oro, in and-aprite, sesame!-even if it was a have characterized many movies at which the test of stamina and courage screening theoretically meant for the this year's festival. Tales of growing is survival-with honesty under fascism public or the producer's nephews , one up are suddenly epidemic: like Luigi in 1938 Ferrara. In the tale of an old was nodded through if there were posti Comencini's Uno Ragazzo di Calabria homosexual (Philippe Noiret) and a disponibili (\"seats available\"). And (A Boy from Calabria) , Giuliano Mon- young Jew (Rupert Everett) menaced though the festival still boasts only taldo's Gli Occhiali d' Oro (The Golden by Mussolini-era intolerance, Italy three screens, the number of movies Spectacles) , and Louis Malle's Au Re- looks at its own bygone bigotries-and has been tailored accordingly. Still in: voir Les Enfants. And there's a more has the nerve to suggest some of them Competition, Critics Week, and Ret- complex Bildungsroman or two, like aren't so bygone. A hostile band of rospectives. Out: the New Italian Cin- James Ivory's Maurice and Alain Tan- Italian film critics stood this film up ema roundup, which tended ner's La Vallee Fantome. against a wall and didn't even offer it poignantly to underline that there is a cigarette before shooting it down. no new Italian cinema, and the Ve- Malle's quasi-autobiographical film But to be fair, Gli Occhiali d'Oro was nezia TV section, which trawled the shows what a shining touchstone and not a masterpiece, though it was countries of the world for whiskery old talisman childhood still is . After the touching on, grappling with, and em- teledramas. deracinated dimness of his last two barrassed by important themes-that North American features-Crackers is, if you think the roots of fascism are The only major Venice vice still (or, Oh, What a Lovely Heist) and Al- important. left-and not even Biraghi can work amo Bay (Shrimp with Everything)-the miracles overnight-is the festival's director delightedly has rediscovered M aurice and La Vallee Fantome are grudging welcome to far-traveled his roots. The picture is dead tradi- made of more fugitive, less pro- critics, especially from points West. I tional: it simply, sequentially spins its grammatic stuff and seem imagina- can't believe, though some darkly tale of school life in Occupied France tively richer as a result. The first is murmur it, that it's a case of a socialist with Malle's alter ego (Gaspard Ma- another port of call on the Merchant- country's flagship filmfest being, as a nesse) gapingly watching the fate of Ivory coast, where the pair time-warp matter of policy, Americaphobic. But his Jewish school chum (Raphael us once more into the age of E.M. the fact is that your European editor, Fejto), as the Nazi menace impends . Forster. This particular room with-a- pure and incorruptible, found himself Will the latter' s Gentile incognito hold view has a ladder leading up to the pitching a tent on the beach. While up-he's changed his name from Kip- window, conveying rustic gamekee- most other press persons were lodged perstein to Bonnet---or will the Ge- pers with names like Scudder into the in comfortable or luxurious watering stapo get him? The story is plain, but hero's carnal heart of darkness. As a holes at the Mostra's expense, I strug- the movie fattens and enriches itself novel, Maurice scarcely works at all. gled nightly with rope and canvas and with detail as it proceeds: the kind of Maurice the movie shouldn't work but detail so bizarre and idiomatic it has Continued on page 76 70
A Zoo FOR FILMS declared) that \"it could make Joel and and shooting it the next day, releasing Ethan Coen shit in their pants.\" a complete feature film eight weeks T he very first swatch offilm foot- (Quote ads, anyone ?) And John Woo's later. age I saw at the 12th Annual A Better Tomorrow (1986) is a roman- Festival of Festivals in Toronto tic, violent, swirlingly stylish gangster Perhaps as a result, the dizzy joy in was, thankfully, emblematic of the melodrama about dueling brothers- movie making, the uninhibited emo- whole event. The opening salvo of my with a mesmerizing lead performance tionalism, and the compulsive slap- first Toronto picture, Pedro Almodo- by Hong Kong's favorite actor, Chow stick physicality of these Hong Kong var' s Labyrinth of Passions (1982), is a Yuen Fat, whose sleepy magnetism re- pictures are matchless. Even' their shot of a flaming queen enthroned at calls the glory days of Robert Mit- bloodiest fight sequences feel like ex- a sidewalk cafe in Madrid, sipping two chum, Steve McQueen, and Takakura plosions of high spirits. No matter how multi-colored beverages at once , Ken. jaded you may be feeling, these films shrieking \"Overdose, overdose!\" at are potent enough to reawaken your the top of his lungs. (The Spanish ac- The directors of the Hong Kong fondness for the medium-and if they cent clips it into three droll syllables: New Wave (this is Overbey's phrase, can't, you're probably a hopeless case. \"O-vehr-dose.\") This did a lot more not inine) are shameless magpies, dec- (The new Hong Kong films are com- for my early-morning mood than the orating their nests with every bor- paratively easy to track down , too. cup of tepid coffee I was clutching. rowed trinket of technique they can They are routinely subtitled in Eng- get their beaks on. Hark (a graduate lish and play Chinatown cinemas all It would have been easy to succumb of the Universiry of Texas) has been across North America. Rousers like to an overdose of celluloid if you studying Speilberg under a micro- Jackie Chan's Armor of God, Police pushed too hard. I always found my- scope. And Woo has ingested The God- Story, and Project A-Part two, Samo self either tuning out or nodding off father, along with a lot of Miami Vice Hung's stunning Eastern Condors and during the fourth movie of any day. and MTV. But the Western gestures the Tsui Hark-produced A Chinese And this was partly because they made come back wildly speeded-up, GhOst Story have been circulating re- it so damned easy for you. The city pumped full of fantasy, revitalized by cently. All are highly recommended.) itself seems designed for brisk effi- a reckless sense of slapstick violence ciency: everything you need , from that may be uniquely Chinese. (Hong A whimsical genius like Pedro Al- Chinatown to the gingerbread land- Kong's top action-film star, Jackie modovar also uses the scaffolding mark Casa Loma to the world head- Chan, is an acrobatic martial arts co- of farce to tie his brainstorms elegantly quarters of Garth \"Vader\" Drabinsky's median who was , in fact, trained by together; they aren' t as disheveled as Cineplex Odeon Corporation (a loom- the Peking Opera.) they initially seem. He revels in a ing fortress of pastel-shaded marble), sense that he can now do any damn is handily within walking distance . The entire Hong Kong movie in- thing he pleases , and this is an aes- And Toronto's festival is commonly dustry seeIl)S to be founded on a spirit thetic as well as a moral principle for identified as the world's best-run ma- of virtuoso improvisation. Ever since him. jor film event-as it would almost have the bad old Kung Fu period of the to be, to successfully juggle 250 films Seventies, Hong Kong films have Labyrinth ofPassions is a truly maze- at 9 scattered downtown auditoriums been made (we hear) more or less on like, camp sex farce, and its mood (at over a 10 day period in muggylrainy the old Mack Sennett model. Direc- least) is winningly casual : Almodovar mid-September. tors and producers get together, as- seems to have tossed in every naughty semble a cast, and come up with a thing that crossed his mind. The Most of Toronto's movies weren't rough story treatment-and within a flouncing sex-bomb heroine (Cecilia high-stepping entertainments, of week they're shooting, cooking up Roth) is called Sexilia--or \"Sexi ,\" for course. There was new work by Eric gags and action episodes on the spot, short. She's a glamour-queen celebrity Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard , Raoul writing connective dialogue overnight (v. slinky) and punk rock singer whose Ruiz, Alain Tanner, Maurice Pialat, father is a graying authority on artificial James Ivory, John Sayles, Juzo Itami, insemination. Barbet Schroeder, Peter Greenaway, Francis Mankiewicz, Nikita Mikhal- One of Daddy's biggest clients is kov, and scads of others. Heavy hit- the recently deposed \"Empress of ters, all. Tyran ,\" a regal matron who would plotz if she knew that her missing The \"spotlight\" series of all six of son-the future Shah of T yran-is Almodovar's feature films, along with hiding out in Madrid's gay under- several very lively Hong Kong movies ground , shacked up with a burly ter- in David Overbey'S Eastern Horizons rorist. Somebod y is plotting to program of Asian cinema, were, for smuggle the Shah's frozen semen over me, the exhilarating high points of his the Spanish border-presumably to Festival to End Festivals. (Overbey grow a new heir, although I've lost was named Winner for Life of an un- track of that bit. official Paul Bartel Lookalike Contest. I, the jury.) Meanwhile, after a session of plastic surgery, two characters (the pop star Tsui Hark's Peking Opera Blues Sexi and her worshipful number-one (1986) is a period action comedy so fan) come out looking exactly alike, hyperactive and ingenious (one writer leading to a desk-top variatiori on fa- ther-daughter incest. And so on and so 71 ,-
on, until you're feeling a bit dizzy. Kamikaze Hearts is a perfect vehicle for The evocative gangster drama And (Pedro makes an autobiographical these compulsive exhibitionists. Then You Die (1987), written by Wayne cameo appearance, as the director of Grigsby and Alun Hibbert and di- a porno-violent photo novella who The work of the Korean director rected by Francis Mankiewicz (Les hops on stage at a club to belt out a Lee Doo-yong offered absorbing nar- Bons Debarras) , was the best Canadian scabrous disco tune of his own com- rative movies in a couple of very dif- film I saw in Toronto. This scruffy position.) ferent genres. His Eunuch (1986, Montreal relative of The Long Good written by Kwak 11-10) is an expertly Friday was enriched by expert per- The other rare Almodovars on the constructed historical melodrama, a formancc:;s: Kenneth Walsh as a super- program were Dark Hideout (1982), in carnival of imperial horrors set in 1650 cool mobster, R.H. Thomson as a which a junked-out torch singer on the A.D., when Korean rulers had absolute strung-out cop, Wayne Robson as a lam from the cops (they think she life and death power over their sub- nervous stoolie-all superb. The mix- offed her boyfriend with a deliberate jects. Its tangled web of a plot is con- ture of narrative ease and alertness to o.d.) holes up in the convent of the structed around the desperate desire Humble Redeemers, whose naughty of a ruling family for a male heir, and detail would enhance a good Elmore nuns have names like Sister Sewer Rat around the existence of a resentful un- Leonard adaptation-the one they and Sister Manure. And Pedro's first derclass of court castrati. haven't made yet. 35mm feature, Pepi, Luci, Bom and a Whole Lot of Other Girls (1980), is all Eunuch' s elegant period reconstruc- Maurice Pialat's Under Satan's Sun about female masochism and sister- tions recalled some of the best Japa- (1987) was probably the majority fa- hood, golden showers, corrupt cops, nese samurai epics-and the cross- vorite among American critics at the punk rock, and twinship-more or less cultural similarity was clinched by festival-God knows why. It has been in that order. The auteur makes a Lee's rich contemporary family drama favorably compared to the work of guest appearance as the dazzled m.c. First Son (1984), in which a successful Dreyer and Bresson, and there are ob- of a big-dick competition. computer executive agonized over his vious similarities-particularly the neglect of his aging parents. The source novel by George Bernanos, au- \"Every frame breathes freedom, teeming family sequences, awash in thor of Diary of a Country Priest, who and pleasure in freedom, \" declares the squalling kids and cooking fumes, ac- was wrestling with a burning theolog- dazzled David Denby, in ads for Al- tually felt more French than Asian. ical issue. modovar's biggest U.S. hit, What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984). And, On the evidence, Korea is currently The storyline per se isn't hard to of course, it would be hard to imagine suffering exactly the sort of wrenching follow. In the normal course of things, this liberating eruption of willfulness economic upheavals that Japan strug- the burly country curate, played (with without the Franco-era repression that gled through a few decades ago; and clenched concentration) by Gerard lit the fire under the pressure-cooker. the country's impressive film industry, Depardieu, wouldn't be quite swift Plenitude is another central character- roundly ignored in the West, is clearly enough for a churchly career. But he istic of the Almodovar oeuvre-al- a fit subject for further research. feels the call urgently (he says) and he though it's less obvious in his most (L.A. 's Four Star Theater now pro- works at it desperately hard, flagellat- recent pictures, like Law of Desire grams subtitled Korean films exclu- ing, starving, and hair-shirting him- (1987). He must be one of the most sively; it's a perfect place to begin.) self. Priests who aren't as rigorous in generous entertainers ever. their spiritual quests (like the rela- Alain Tanner's A Flame in My Mind tively worldly speciman played by Pi- T hough the Toronto festival's or- (1987) wasn't a surprise at all. In fact, alat himself) may feel a bit sheepish ganizers made the very act of mov- it could be a direct extension of the when he gazes at them with those big, iegoing a delight, ten straight days of grueling personal explorations of Mes- blue holy-cow's eyes. anything can get to be a strain. Over sidor (978) and In the White City (1983). the long haul, you grow increasingly Tanner's Jonah Who WIll Be 25 in the The story is about how impossibly impatient with filmmakers who are Year 2000 (1976) embodied an ache for hard it would be to determine whether trying to do a number on you; showing a new form of social integration, an a modern man, apparently touched by off or thowing up a smoke screen alternative to the fruitful anarchy of God, was for real, or a dupe of the around a banal idea. The most exhil- the Sixties. But lately Tanner has devil, or just a hallucinating victim of arating experience of all, then, is been chewing on a vision of troubled exhaustion who got lucky and stumbling over authenticity where p~ople locked out of various social \"healed\" a few people. And in a world you're not predisposed to expect it. structures--or driven out by their own that God seems to have abandoned- restless urges. Character's like A that may now be Satan's-who's to Juliet Bashore's Kamikaze Hearts Flame's Mercedes (played by co- say? This material is suggestive, but (1987) is one of the sharpest cinema screenwriter Myriam Mezieres) carry a it's presented programmatically: many verite documentaries I've ever seen. single tendency to such extremes that key scenes (especially those between The two pivotal \"characters\"-the their humanity-their social bond with Depardieu and Sandrine Bonnaire, his grandstanding porno actress Sharon other people-gradually falls away. temptress in the wilderness) are dra- Mitchell and her lesbian lover Tigr Mercedes' sexual dauntlessness matically oblique besiaes, so that al- Mennett-are nonstop performers steams up the movie, but her desti- ready complex issues become even who dramatize their private lives, and nation is a cacophonous dead end on whose working lives are founded upon the streets of Cairo--not a benign harder to sort out. making a public spectacle of private abyss like the picturesque \"white The infuriating sooty darkness of responses and relationships. The city\" of Lisbon, but a roaring dusty hand-held, re-enacted reality format of maelstrom. Tanner has found a way to the images lets us know that under objectify the process of disintegration. that dim bulb, the devil, nothing on earth is clear and distinct any longer. There is something dismally literal- 72
minded about representing spiritual world cinema\" sampler like the New rectors have created a su bgenre of per- darkness as physical darkness-by York Film Festival. Toronto was a sonal, sometimes touching, and making a movie you have to squint to matchless opportunity to become reac- sometimes brooding films of daily life see. Is that the kind of thinking that quainted with one's own preferences. that evoke parallels with directors as gets people acclaimed by critics these This was moviegoing as self-expres- diverse as Satyajit Ray and Antonioni. days? Pialat's pathetic-falacy aesthetic sion. I had a great time. In the Philippines, veteran directors wins the Yorkville-Yuppie Instant Mi- are hoping that an influx of commercial graine Award. -DAVID CHUTE work will fund long-dreamed-of per- sonal projects. And. Korean directors, A nd speaking of awards-the fes- \"I'ORIENTAL INSURGENTS standing on a redolently sentimental tival's three-award wrap-up cere- t reminds me a lot of Holly- tradition, are producing dramas of in- mony was a let-down, but not exactly wood, before the great sp!!t b~- ternational stature. a surprise. The John Labatt Classic . tween commerce and art, saId Film Award, a popularity contest programmer David Overbey of his Over Hong Kong hovers a shadow voted by the paying public, tapped Eastern Horizons retrospective, part of called 1997-the date when the Brit- Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride-an the Toronto Festival of Festivals this ish colony is slated to become part of action comedy with approximately one September. The Asian-cinema spe- Mainland China. But for Hong Kong tenth the entertainment value of Pe- cialist had spent five months shuttling cinema it's a source of energy. \"Au- king Opera Blues. (Of the eight Labatt between Hong Kong, Taiwan, South diences are all looking for something, awards voted so far, only one, last Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam for where they're going to go. We're to put together an introductiori to the talking about concepts like 'the na- year's nod to Decline of the American latest decade of a cinema most of us tion' and 'revolution.' And suddenly a Empire, has gone to a Canadian picture. have thought of, if at all, as Kung-Fu character in a film is more politically So much for nationalism.) schlock. conscious, reflecting that reali ty,\" says Vietnamese-born, Texas-trained film- Elsewhere, a jury of six film experts If the Asian Pacific cinemas outside maker Tsui Hark. were running themselves ragged look- mainland China and Japan have gone ing at all 48 films in the Perspective largely unheralded in the West-with You can see it in his latest work, the Canada program. My heart went out occasional, and often political excep- smash-hit comedy Peking Opera Blues. to them. The jurors then thought long tions, at festivals-it's not because Set in warlord China after the collapse and hard, and handed the $25,000 they're not important at home. Hong of the \"first democratic revolution\" in prize to Atom Egoyan's academically Kong studios churn out hundreds of 1914, it's a farce with sharply critical earnest Family Viewing, a glorified films a year, dominating screens overtones. The film plunges headlong film-school project picture about \"al- throughout the region, while the Tai- from one slapstick piece of comedy ternative families and mediated ex- wanese film industry is struggling, business to the next-the pyrotech- perience.\" Basically, it's about a with government help, to regain its nics and acrobatics so typical of Hong daddy who can't connect with his new footing. The Filipinq industry makes Kong cinema get a thorough wor- young mistress or his aging mother ex- 150 films a year, with a locally pro- kout-with Peking opera players and cept when he records the transactions duced star vehiCle easily outgrossing images punctuating the tale of three on videotape, or plays them back on any foreign film; South Korea pro- young girls from three social classes his VCR. There's a lot of cutting back duces 80 films a year, mostly for the thrown into warlord politics. If they all and forth between film and video im- domestic market. (Vietnam was rep- end up (literally) in bed with each agery, with video (says Egoyah) \"as a resented in this retrospective with other at one point, it's clear that when metaphor for consciousness.\" Block only one film, Karma, with promises the dust settles, the young Commu- that metaphor. of a fuller program for the future.) nist daughter of a warlord will remain. \"In a sequel,\" says Tsui, an intense The winner of the Toronto-City In- But in an exhibitor-driven market young man with an occasional flashing ternational Critics prize could, alas, be feeding a public voracious for escap- smile, \"she'd be the major character, seen coming a mile away. The argu- ism, most filins are cranked out on because people who are single-minded ment, as formulated several days ear- deadlines that would blow a U.S. TV survive. There's a tragedy in this.\" lier, was that because the Canadian producer's mind, on models that pro- journalists present handily outnum- ducers design with a strict reverence Tragedy is still far away in Peking bered the foreign press, and because for high concept. As Filipino director Opera Blues, so loaded with fast-paced the only unified voting block was the Lino Brocka says, \"One producer I and tightly executed physical comedy French Canadian faction, and because work for approaches me with a project that you're sometimes left breathless. there was only one strong French Ca- and says, 'But please, Lino-no (The pace is partly the result of a 30- nadian film in competition, Jean- awards. I can't eat those awards.\" minute cut ordered by exhibitors.) Claude Lauzon's Night Zoo (Un Zoo La Still, you can read the allegories Nuit, 1987), that would certainly be Yet filmmakers now appear eager to through the P4nch lines. Peking opera the winner. And sure enough... (Que- reach star-struck, glamour-happy mass is used not only for its spectacle value bec isn't a nation, after all, it's a prov- audiences with films that transcend but as an allegory to snake around cen- ince. So is this phenomenon lowest-common-denominator expec- sorship. \"It's a way of looking at how nationalism or provincialism?) tations. Out of Hong Kong, a gener- we're approaching the question of de- ation mostly trained in the West is mocracy and 1997 now,\" explains Of course, at a festival this humon- producing work with a punky energy Nansun Shi, a well-known producer gous, everybody carves out a festival and social bite. Young Taiwanese di- and also Tsui's wife (although they of their own from the raw material at never work together). \"The whole hand. It isn't a pre-packaged \"best of 73
thing is like Peking opera -today cinema to develop, even though it's cers, overriding Chinese script super- you're a good guy, in white face , and predictably boxoffice poison. Provid- vision with the promise of a Chinese tomorrow the program changes... .\" ing a sample taste in the retrospective cut of the film-may have had enough. was the often-irritating Just Like \"I'd think twice before getting in- Tsui is now one node of a new pro- Weather , an intellectual approach to volved in a co-production again,\" she duction network, with his own com- the anxieties of 1997 by self-styled au- says. pany floating on another success, John teur Allen Fong. The film alternates, Woo's A Better Tomorrow. Regarded in a semi-documentary style, between The \"small film\" appears to be, in- as uncommercial when it began be- the indecisive discussions of a young creasingly, a Taiwanese specialty. Un- cause it didn't fit the then-going com- middle-class couple in their Hong til its market in Vietnam collapsed and edy formula, the cops-and-mobs Kong apartment and on a cross-coun- Hong Kong competition undercut it, melodrama became so successful it try trip across the U.S. to visit family. Taiwan action-adventure' dominated spurred a host of look-alike films. Inside or out, the weather is forebod- production. In 1982 the government, ingly unpleasant. in desperation, backed young, rela- To see the formulas to which new tively uncommercial directors whose commercial films respond, yo u could Some Hong Kong filmmakers have work exploring the personal meaning watch The Dead and the Deadly, pro- completed co-productions with Main- of Taiwanese identity won awards and duced by and starring Sarno Hung, one land China, and Mainland Chinese profits. of the most successful comedy actors money floats some Hong Kong pro- in Hong Kong history. Directed by Wu ductions. \"But people die many Most celebrated internationally is Ma, it's a cheerful ghost-story gag deaths in co-productions,\" says Nan- Ho Hsiao-Hsien, whose masterpiece A movie of a kind Cheech and Chong sun Shi, who is a veteran of such ef- Time to Live and a Time to Die was would love-although you don't need forts and is taking a rest from them at clearly one of the best films shown at drugs to enjoy it. Physical comedy and the moment. Problems begin with the the Toronto festival in any category. broad JOKes roll off the screen without fact that Hong Kong films need foreign The lengthy (two and a half hours) film a shadow of deeper meaning and with markets to make a profit, and any film is a compelling and partly autobio- a diabolical use of cheap tricks. Hung shown in Taiwan-the most important 'graphical growing-up story. Using comes out of what's known as the \" red foreign market-<:ari't be shown in framing devices and angles that recall trouser\" tradition; like a generation of China. They go on to problems with Ozu (although the director claims not Hong Kong film people before him, different languages and industry stan- to even have seen a film ofOzu's until he was trained in Peking opera schools dards. For instance, while making recently), the film involves the viewer (with red trouser uniforms for stu- Buddha's Lock, based on a true story in a sometimes touching, sometimes dents). His work is in the best populist of a U.S. airman downed in western heartbreaking story of learning and entertainment tradition. China, Hong Kong director Yim Ho's loss in one family, separated from its Mainland Chinese crew rebelled be- roots in China. Ho Hsiao-Hsien's sub- Many of the new directors , by con- cause of unequal pay rates. sequent and stylistically similar Dust trast, were trained in the West and got in the Wind takes similar characters into their start almost a decade ago when Ann Hui, whose Boat People made the turmoil of Taipei and back to their flush Hong Kong investors were look- political waves both East and West, small town. Although several Asian di- ing for projects and TV offered a place rectors at the Toronto festival hailed to start. Cross-fertilization is clear in can testify to all those problems. It it as their personal favorite , it does not the work of Cheung Yuengting, whose hold audience attention as well as the shy demeanor and fragile good looks took four years to complete a co-pro- director's first major work. belie her current industry clout. AnAu- duction based on a splashy popular tumn's Tale is the second in her pro- novel, The Romance of Book and Edward Yang, trained at the Uni- posed trilogy about Chinese Sword. A glossy, two-part action- versity of Southern California, simi- emigration. The first, Illegal Immi- drama of the kind for which the term larly focuses on the unmelodramatic grant, a New York University student \"costumer\" was invented, it's a tale of incidents of daily life, but his films- film produced with Shaw Brothers stu- half-brothers on opposite sides of a re- Taipei Story, Terrorizers , That Day on dio funding, drew from Cheung'S ex- bellion against the Ching dynasty. the Beach-are suffused with urban al- perience in New York's Chinatown. It ienation. In focus is the anxiety of was a surprise critical and boxoffice The film ma y fall between two professionals whose apartments are lit- success in Hong Kong-\" partly be- stools. Hui deliberately kept the vio- tered with commercial detritus, who cause of 1997,\" she says. \"Emigration lence level far below Hong Kong stan- work in sterile high-rise boxes (in was in people's minds.\" An Autumn's dards for an epic drama; however, it's Taipei Story, an architect can't identify Tale features a tentative friendship be- so thoroughly an Eastern genre that it the buildings he's built as he looks tween two Hong Kong immigrants-a appears more curiosity than entertain- over the jammed urban landscape), proper girl student and a down-and- ment in the West. But Hui's reputa- and whose confusion is exposed by out illegal (played by Hong Kong's tion for efficiently mounting spectacle random shocks disrupting routine. hottest star, the James Dean-like is fully borne out in huge epic scenes The films look assembled, jigsaw like, Chow Yuen Fat). It's been another hit, of armies in conflict, in locations so as if to create in the viewer the sense even though it looks more like an spectacular that you can understand of discontinuity and unease that faces American independent film and es- why people will go to any lengths to the characters. chews both violence and melodrama. film in China. Far easier on the foreign eye is the I n the recent boom, there's even Hui , who did go to any lengths- work of Wan Jen, already famous for been room for art and experimental working for a year and a half without his Super Citizen. The Eastern Hori- salary, directing Ugar-speaking vil- zons retrospective displayed the U.S.- lagers with crude translation help, training peasants to look like army offi- 74
- trained director's earlier Ah Fei. An- problem: \"We've gone from 'the Playgirl, Chionglo's tale of two pros- other growing-up story, told in under- good, true, and the beautiful' to 'the titutes, mother and daughter, evinces stated tones, its central relationship is clean, the decent, and the whole- the tension between commerce and between a girl and her increasingly some.' Cory is so religious, so moral critical acclaim. Potentially lutid ma- embittered mother. Their relationship that it's swinging to the opposite ex- is also a microcosm of the tensions treme. They don't want to show the terial becomes a generational and char- women face in a changing society. poor any more than before;-that's as- acter stud y , and an implicit sociated with the left. \" denunciation of misery. Conceived by The Outsiders, by Yu K-an-P'ing, is the producer as a straightforward a coming-of-age story with a differ- Brocka and his colleague Mel crowd-pleaser, it won critical praise- ence--one that makes this film highly Chionglo, whose melodrama-with-a- to the producer's chagrin . \"She said it controversial at home. Taiwan's first conscience Playgirl was on display, are was too serious, and told me not to do gay film, it's a kind of Pixote of the now involved in the anti-censorship it again,\" recalls Chionglo. He's work- East, with comic relief. A SO-ish night- Concerned Artists of the Philippines, ing up the clout to make a long- club queen and his landlady, a former as well as an industry committee on planned personal film (he wrote the movie star fallen on hard times , give film legislation. \"We sandwich in script for Mother , Sister, Daughter). lonely young gays a home . In the mov- meetings between shooting our However, any new personal work in ie's emotional gripper scene, the ex- films ,\" says Brocka , who still manages the Philippines has to confront not movie star says to the father of one to make five films a year (\"four of them only producer dismay but also endur- young boy, \"Yes, he's a 'homo,' and for the studio and one for myself'). ing censorship and, apparently, damp- he's your son!\" Occasionally violent, \"Yes, we picket the censor until ened appetite for serious films in the sentimentally ripe, the film is an- twelve and shoot at one,\" says Chion- heat of the political moment. chored by affectionate respect for its characters. glo. The retrospective's South Korean Ever since the assassination of Ni- films revealed energy and profession- This first phase of \"new Taiwan cin- alism under tight censorship rules and ema\" is now well-established, and noy Aquino, filmmakers-media stars a market effectively limited to do- perhaps exhausted. Where it goes in their own right-have been in the mestic screens. While some films from here is not clear, although co- thick of politics, and not just involving shown have a kind of sociological in- productions with new Hong Kong their own industry. Brocka is also vice- terest at best, the work of veteran and filmmakers may provide an avenue. chair of a national movement to dis- award-winning 1m Kwon Taek, who's band right-wing vigilantes and help been outspoken recently against gov- For sentimental exuberance, it's the victims of right-wing terror. But ernment censorship, shows impressive hard to match Filipino cinema, it's not international critical and control and versatility within genre ex- where movie stars rank with saints for award-winning successes like Jaguar, pectactions. popular obsession. Overbey bent the Bona, and Bayan Ko that make him a rules of his retrospective to include the media heavyweight. It's work like If Three of his films from the last three 1959 classic Blessings of the Land. Like You Can Only Be Mine, a roiling pot- years--Gilsodom, Ticket, and Surro- the long-lost Los Inundados rediscov- boiler based, like much of Brocka's gate Mother, were showcased , each a ered at last year's Toronto festival, it's current work, on illustrated comics. remarkable achievement. Gilsodom is a deeply satisfying classic that also re- The plot, stripped of its more baroque rooted in the reality that a third of veals the roots of socially informed cin- complexities, involves a wealthy South Korean families are divided as ema. Manuel Silos' Renoir-like tale woman magnate, thwarted in her love a result of the division of the country. contains within it the basic outlines of for an employee, who kidnaps his baby Through a TV program that reunites current class conflict-peasants vs. and holds it for ransom-his body in lost family members, a woman redis- landowners-in a tale of love, death, her bed . It broke boxoffice records this covers her childhood love, the father rape, robbery, and finally resolution. year. of her first child. The film draws en- Its elegant photography is comple- ergy from documentary-like TV seg- mented by superb performances, par- \"More people are going to the mov- ments, and psychological power from ticularly by children. ies than ever before,\" Brocka says. the restrained performance of lead ac- And, he says, they're watching movies tress Kim Ji-mi. At the other end of Under the Marcos regime, filmmak- that are as far removed from their lives the spectrum is Surrogate Mother , a ers were encouraged to produce works as possible. Turning to Chionglo, who lush historical drama driven by sexual that would reflect, in Imelda's phrase, works for a competing production passion. Set in the 14th century, it's \"the good, the true, and the beauti- company, he says, \"We compete with the story of a young peasant girl (ac- ful.\" Among the victims of its censor- each other on the lavishness of the par- tress Kang Soo-yeon won Best Actress ship was Ishmael Bernal's long- ties, clothes, and cars we put in our at the Venice Film Festival for her per- banned Manila by Night, included in movies . And we try to improve the formance) hired as a surrogate mother the retrospective. Although its cross- melodramas a little so they won't be by an aristocratic family . What's sup- section of Manila society looks tame so ... pukey.\" posed to be business turns out to be today, the Marcos regime judged it pleasure, and finally tragedy. dangerously unflattering. Brocka's now finishing a personal film, Macho Dancer, about a dancer in The Korean government last year Ironically, says Lino Brocka, whose a gay bar: \"It's not arty, but at least lifted many restrictions on film pro- family drama Mother, Sister, Daugh- it's off the beaten path.\" To have pre- duction and importation, and dozens ter-a star vehicle for three celebrated miered at the festival, the film would of new film companies were promptl y actresses-was included in the retro- have had to wait until later that month formed. Democratic reforms bring the spective, censorship remains a serious when Brocka finished I Carry the possibility of relaxed censorship. World, another comics-derived film. 75
Eastern Horizons was a view over The irresistible force of youth was of the castle before it claims him for the edge, and not only for Westerners. at work elsewhere in the Venice mov- life? The message is the same old \"I can't believe we had to come to ies. It made short work of such im- Olmi: Blessed are the poor. But the Toronto to see Asian films and finally movable objects as amatory loyalty in envelope it arrives in is a beautifully meet some of these directors,\" said Eric Rohmer's new partner-swapping original balletic comedy. Brocka. For some it meant a validation comedy, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend; of of work meant to be popular without ideological moderation in Vadim Ab- lmost every movie in Venice that wasn't about youth was about old Agroveling to an audience. \"Many fes- drasitov's Pliumbum from the USSR, tivals equate 'artistic' with 'boring',\" the chillingly conceived but dully ex- age or death. The existentially roller- said producer Nansun Shi. \"But what ecuted tale of a precocious hit-kid for coasting program valued from grow- this retrospective showed is a real part communism (Anton Adrosov); and, ing-up tales in France or Italy to med- of what's happening-artistic films from Britain, of stick-in-the-mud con- itations on mortality in Dublin (John with mass appeal.\" servatism in Stephen Poliakoffs Hid- Huston's The Dead) or to end of-the- -PAT AUFDERHEIDE den City, in which stodgy statistician world fables in Switzerland (Claude VENICE Charles Dance is rudely awoken by Goretta's Si Le Soleil Ne Revenait Pas) . Continuedfrom page 70 blonde punkette Cassie Stuart to the Goretta's film wins the 1987 prize truth of the conspiracy theory in Brit- for \"If this is an end-of-the-world does. One would think all this trem- ish political life. But the audience, movie, please let the world end sooner ulous pre-liberation homosexuality- lulled by narcotically loony dialogue rather than later.\" Begirt by fog and where virginal university types swoon and a plotful of coincidences, stayed snow in an Alpine valley, his peasants at the sight of a pair of muddy boots asleep. fear the fin du monde and do not know or the sound of a working-class ac- The best film at Venice in which how to occupy 120 minutes. Charles cent-would be hopelessly dated. But youth had the last word was Ermanno Vanel, Philippe Leotard, and Cath- perhaps the romance of the unattain- Olmi's Lunga Vita Alla Signora (Long erine (Therese) Mouchet talk and stare able has snuck back in the age of AIDS. Live the Lady). As Shakespeare once out into the gloom and see no relief Perhaps, too, the usual high-polish said: What a piece of work is Ermanno. from the adverse weather conditions Ivory cast-including Denholm El- Every five or ten years, when you or Goretta's cataleptic direction. It's liott, Ben Kingsley, and Billie Whi- think too much time has passed for us not even clear what they farm in this telaw--ensure wit, gleam, and shine. ever to hear from him again, the man valley. Snow? Either way, Ivory and Co. once more produces another masterwork. Or, in Huston's film, by contrast, is a won- turn a Forster tour into a tour de force. this case, almost masterwork. After der: a last testament handwritten and cutting down trees to make shoes in vellum bound for the old boy by Prov- \"Cinema is like a cancer,\" says The Tree ofWooden Clogs, he here cuts idence. Everyone in The Dead is dead filmmaker Jean-Louis Trin- down the wealthy classes to make sat- or dying, point out Joyce's story and tignant in Alain Tanner's new movie. ire. In a tale of disenchantment as Huston's movie, but the snow will \"No,\" he changes his mind, \"it's in- seamless and subtly convoluted as a never quite cover their memories, fectious , it's more like AIDS.\" If that Moebius strip, a group of youngsters their loves, their hates, their joys. It's were true, Tanner would be antibody- arrive at a castle in the Dolomites . measured , claustrophobic stuff that positive. La Vallee Fantaome shows Slowly it's revealed that they're hotel hardly wears its optimism on its the first, usually deadly signs of a film- trainees drafted to serve at a banquet. sleeve. The film's boxoffice legs are maker becoming obsessed with film- The guest ofhonor--or is she the host- likely to be as long as a dachshund's. making as a theme. Here the Venice ess?-is a wordless, veiled old crone Who needs a story of drinking, dying, theme of growing up is filtered who sips her wine through a golden and stick-like old ladies quavering out: through the tale of a 50-ish Swiss straw. Her fellow guests--or are they Bellini arias? movie director (Trintignant alter-ego- her hosts?-are a Fellini-ish bunch of But the film's humanity shines out ing for Tanner), his young assistant weirdos and oddballs. And the menu of its socketholes just as the light bar- (Jacob Berger), and the Italian actress is frog soup and slices off a giant, hid - rels out of Huston's dying eyes in the (Laura Morante) for whose love they eous steamed fish that makes the accompanying documentary, Huston tussle. Creature from the Black Lagoon seem and The Dead. The face of this old The movie leaps across locations- cuddly. prophet and jester looks like some- Switzerland, northern Italy, Brook- -To the gently choreographed lunacy thing taken off a Mexican carnival float lyn-and subjects: from love to cin- of this mob, Olmi counterpoints the during the Day of the Dead: a crazed, ema to Kierkegaard to cinema to the mimed reactions of the youngsters . waggish fizz topped by a smoldering generation gap to the mysteries of ar- One in particular (Marco Esposito) is puff of white hair. Huston parries the tistic creation (including cinema). a bloom-faced innocent with pink interviewer's idiot questions with Early on, the film's structure threatens ears, spectacles, and a myopic stare of courteous, rolling ironies. He winks to be something like this: talk- bewilderment. His story and character and nods into virtuosity old actors even change of scene; talk-change of are sketched with brilliant economy, older than he. And his voice is that of scene. But evidently Tanner has been in eye blink flashbacks to his own a man long marinated in the Celtic rwi- bitten by a sense of humor recently child-hood, and the film slowly grows light and ending up more Irish than (not before time), and the movie be- into a moral and physical escape story. the Irish. Huston, when at best, was comes quite funny as the jaundiced Can the young boy-still unspoiled by moviedom's mission control : an an- older man chases the truant youngsters the dehumanizing protocol and rituals cestral storyteller building space-time across the map of art, geo-politics, and of wealth and the grown-up tyrannies contacts with the medium of the 20th romantic maybes. of class, caste, and structure-get out century. 76
V enice boss Guglielmo Biraghi is spurred on by stern Cartesian tradi- of tension between Then and Now doing a hardly less pioneering job tions of self-examination and scholar- emerging in new films from the East. in his first year at Mostra mission con- ship, has always been as keen on the Russia sent to Edinburgh its by-now trol. Two days into the festi val, he was motive as on the movie. This yea r's familiar fleet of glasnost-launched films. Though Eldar Shengelaya's bu- under fire from his charmless prede- film binge, the 41st, gave us the usual reaucratic satire Blue Mountains and Vadim Abdrashitov's sci-fi parable Pa- cessor, Gian Luigi Rondi, who whined 80-odd feature films and hecatombs of rade ofthe Planets have been knocking around festivals for a year or two , each about the movie selection and program shorts and documentaries. But more time they venture into a Western film- fest, another champagne bottle gets structure and generally seeemed to be than ever, it was keen on stopping vis- smashed, as if Westerners were help- ing to launch Gorbachev's liberaliza- suffering from an attack of sour gripes. iting directors in their tracks-Peter tion. At Edinburgh, celebrations also included a symposium on modern So- Biraghi's undemonstrative political Greenaway, Jim McBride, Derek Jar- viet filmmaking. This once more made one quaff freely of That Word profile places him right in the crossfire man , Eldar Shengelaya, Nicolas Roeg, (glasnost) and as a chaser provided a new buzz-phrase: perelomni moment whenever sectarian armies clash at and Yamamoto-and asking them , (moment of rupture). Remember it, you'll have to use it a hundred times Venice-Christian Democrats, Social- \"Why?\" over the next yea r. ists, Communists-as they frequentl y The dinosaurs that inspired Yama- Mainland China's rejuvenated cin- ema is the real , fresh thing. It has do. The green light for Venice '87 was moto's film-the best from Japan this passed the difficulties of appeasing the old guard while promoting the new- not given until so late that no selection year-are (figuratively speaking) the evident in films like last year's Yellow Earth, in which the new humor and committee could be formed. So with spirit of Japan and Japanese cinema landscape lyricism were hobbled by adherence to old Maoist messages. the aid and backing of festival presi- past. And the story of a wacky beatnik Two new People's Republic films seen at Edinburgh suggest real dent Paolo Portoghese, Biraghi per- girl (Kumiko Ohta) eking life out of changes happening in the pulse of its celluloid. formed wonders. an extinct patch of ground in modern Tian Zhuang Zhuang's Horse Thief Biraghi mounted the most enter- Tokyo, where she grows a vegetable heads for the harsh , vexed realm of the Tibetan plains. This land bears much taining retrospective in years--of Jo- garden and turns a ruined building into the same topography of guilt for Maoist China as the Indian battle- seph L. Mankiewicz. And he conjured a designer squat, is the story of new grounds do for America. Its towns and villages were overrun by the Red two tip-top audience movies from young filmmakers taking the waste- Chinese, and its religious practices punished or outlawed. In landscapes America, David Mamet's House of land of derelict traditions and turning of whistling primitivism, the film's petty-thief hero (Tseshang Rinzin) is Games and Brian De Palma's The Un- it into new life. banished by his tribe and scrabbles for a living with his wife and child. The touchables. He also resisted the chi- Edinburgh has long loved the di- mute poetic harshness of a silent movie (Stroheim's Greed or Sjostrom's mera of token internationalism. He nosaurs in moviedom, as well as the The Wind) is combined with a language of gesture and ritual that, even when combed the world's farther-flung newer, lighter-footed species. Hit obscure to Western eyes , has a pun- gent kinetic force. countries not for any old films flying a movies here are nearly always those Huang Jianxin's The Black Cannon Third World flag but for what felt like that comprise an aesthetic tug-of-wa r Incident is less fluent in its movie lan- guage but, like Horse Thief, tackles a hand-picked movies. The gleaming between new and old, radical and fa- vexed realm of Chinese consciousness that is not geographical but ideologi- Korean film Sibaji was an example: miliar. Edinburgh went gaga this year, cal: the cold·, windy plains of hard-line Marxism. A young engineer (Liu Zi- Kwon-Taek 1m's Mizoguchi-like pe- for instance, at Jim McBride's The Big feng) is appointed interpreter to the visiting Gennan boss (Gerhard 01- riod piece about passion and jealousy Easy (homage to old Hollywood crime schewski) of a Sino-German engineer- ing project. And then he's sacked on triggered by surrogate motherhood. tropes with a new streetwise shine and Continued on page 30 If there is any justice in the world sense of satire) and Wayne Wang's (don't all write at once), Biraghi should Slam Dance (ditto). And when an be back in 1988 and points beyond. Edinburgh audience asks its directors He's not a man who comes on like a why they made their movies , you feel one-man Venice carnival. It's impos- it steering them toward giving the an- sible to imagine him running happily swers it wants to hear. Sample Q&A amok before the paparazzi, as Italy's sessions go like this: sex queen politican Ciccolina did bare Edinburgh film buff: Did yo u have breasted one day in St. Mark's Square. any trouble with your producer insert- But on the strength of Venice 1987, ing that tribute to Sirk's The Tarnished Biraghi doesn't need bare breasts and Angels in the rape sequence during the flash bulbs. He delivers the movies , Mardi Gras? and the right mood. Combine the two Director: (Clearly not knowing what and you've got a vintage Mostra. the film buff is talking about) Er. .. Now I shall fold my tent, roll up my well, no, the producer and I mostly sleeping bag, and look forward to next got on just fine. I hadn't consciously year. Ciao. Venezia! thought of Sirk... more, kind of, Blake -HARLAN KENNEDY Edwards. But er. .. I'm glad yo u picked it up. If it's there. , ' I SIT'S THE DINOSAUR SHOW ome filmmakers are happy to was inspired to make thisbullshit along with the audience film after viewing a dinosaur and even pretend they did have such exhibition,\" said Masashi notions. (Some even did have them.) Yamamoto of his film Robinson's Gar- But in the late Eighties , homage-mak- den (which has nothing to do with di- ing Hollywood-style seems a less in- nosaurs). At film festivals, weird teresting, more passe manifestation of explanations well up from weird film- the interaction between past and pres- makers. And the Edinburgh festival , ent. Far more compelling is the kind 77
elevision Times Don't Change By Tom Carson P BS is the wallflower at the pop-cul- Trying Times: Jessica Harper & Spalding Gray in Bedtime Story. ture prom, grimly holding out for middlebrow gentility. But every titude that the problem with commercial vous heroine first comes to her fiance's once in a while, the network gingerly dips TV is its crassness-something ameliorat- house. The everyday trauma being set in into the mysterious punchbowl known as ed by bringing in higher-grade talent, by aspic here is meeting the in-laws. But the \"popular entertainment,\" deciding it's not stooping so low to get one's effects, script, co-written by Beth Henley and time to really show those proles over in the and so on. In fact, crassness is often ener- Budge Threlkeld, initally steers you away commercial zone the medium's untapped getic; what's really wrong with commer- from everything that's stock about the sit- possibilities ... and then unveils its dis- cial TV is how seldom it breaks its own uation , partly through loopy characteriza- covery of a brand-new experimental for- mold, goes off on any sort of freewheeling tions, partly by exaggerating the obvious mat which conceptually, to the untrained riff. But I can still think of episodes of disasters into nifty sick jokes. At one eye, looks suspiciously like Love, Ameri- Cheers or Night Court that had more anar- point, the hapless bride-to-be (Rosanna can Style. chic impulsiveness than anything here. Arquette), asked to turn on a light while Even Demme's adaptation of Kurt Von- her betrothed's father (Robert Ridgely) is It's not as if there's nothing good in negut's Who Am I This Time?, done for fumbling in the sink for a lost ring, hits the KCET Los Angeles' new half-hour com- American Playhouse a few seasons back, switch for the garbage disposal instead. edy anthology Trying Times. (And it's not had an agreeably loose-limbed quality that Ridgely sports a huge bandage on one as if Love, American Style didn't have its A Family Tree only sustains until the plot hand throughout the rest of the show. points, either. After all, the series kept takes over-back then, he was only tell- both Elliott Kastner and Marlo Thomas' ing a funny and observant story, not It may be Demme's guidance, but Ar- former That Girl love interest, Ted Bis- kneading it to a recipe. quette's performance is livelier than the sell, from quitting the acting business, and Trilby-on-'ludes routine we've come to few among us can be anything but mutely Even so, A Family Tree is refreshing to expect from her. As her future mother-in- grateful. Definitely mutely.) But especial- look at on tbe tube, because Demme is law, Hope Lange runs through a catalogue ly given the offbeat names recruited for one of the few directors who seem to actu- of hausfrau tics so briskly that the actress' the project-David Byme, Spalding ally like the TV frame. He isn't afraid of precision itself becomes funny. When her Gray, and Steven Wright among the ac- clutter, because he can make clutter regis- son explains that he brought Arquette tors, Christopher Durang, Gray again, and ter-like the cardboard Halloween skele- along as a surprise, Lange answers, \"Oh, Beth Henley among the writers, and Jona- ton taped to the doorway when the ner- we're surprised. We're all surprised. It's than Demme among the directors- you'd be forgiven for hoping for some- thing considerably more adventurous. In- stead, producer Jon Denny has packaged all the elements to hew to a preconceived premise, as restrictively as the sort of com- mercial hack (say, an Aaron Spelling) to whom Denny no doubt thought he was presenting an alternative. And it's not as if his formula is intrinsically better. Of the two episodes, out of six, I've seen in full-the Demme-directed A Family Tree and Teri Garr in Driving School--one is hemmed in, and the other done in, by the producer's insistence that the series has to be about innocuous little- people types dealing pluckily with famil- iar everyday traumas-like moving to a new house or getting a job-and coming out on top. Judging from excerpts, the other four episodes are hardly going to be more unruly than the first two. Denny seems to share the usual PBS at- 78
just that we' re not happy.\" then revealing that he's a Ph .D. in eco- STAR PHOTOS· MOVIE POSTERS· MAGAZINES David Byrne has the best bi ts, as the nomics who took this gig because hi s social FREE CATALOG life had been as lame as he rs is. family's Nomlan Bates brothe r-in-law. .11-.·IlIn · ' ' ' ' '.I .W .EII ·... · Demme understands that, to someone in Garr works up a fine , subdued tizzy- Arquette's position, everyone she meets .,un·lt: :\\1,\\ T.; III ,\\I. STjIlU:. 1n .' . looks like Martians; the joke in Byrne's role is that he stays that way. Decked out you feel that he r character wouldn' t be 242 W. 14th Str eet in a mustache and an oversized cigar that able to stop sounding rum inative even New York, N.Y. 10011 look like his compensations for the face when screaming for help . T he others in he' ll never quite put together, aggrievedly the cast, given the ir limited roles, are cer- (212) 989-0869 blurting, out of nowhere, \"I wish I had a dog,\" he's a tinpot suburban Iago. OP EN nEin OAT 1:00- 8:00pm At around midpoint-in other words, BETWEEN ~ h AND 7th AVE NUl just as Arquette's endless mishaps are IND. SUBWAY W. \\.t h STRU T STOP threatening to become too predictable to keep up your interest-there's a q uiet tainlyadequate . But you' re floored by the 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - scene where Ridgely lets he r in on the se- cret that he's been fired from his job and dopily ingenuous way that the script won' t be able to give Lange the Hawaiian vacation she's been so eagerly looking for- keeps making the most predictable sit- ward to. This seems promising; you think that what's going to happen is that Ar- com-style choices, even whe n putting quette's ineptitudes will be the catalyst that lets the family admit that they' re all some kind of spin on the m would hardly foul-ups, too--expanding a one-note joke into a wry pe rception. take much invention. T he Springford Instead , this scene only sets in motion a role, for instance, suggests a parody of the sitcommish problem that freezes the more interesting characterizations and nuances noncommittal analyst, and you expect in the ir tracks, and for which Arque tte's ultimate gaffe provides an !ill-too-neat Garr's mome nt ofliberation to come whe n \"zany\" resolution. By the finale, with each characte r in tum telling the camera direct- she finally gets fed up with the old bag. ly, inte rview-style, how much his or her life has been improved by the short night's Instead , the therapy's played straight- Pin· Ups • Ponraits • Posters • Physique journey into confusion-this device is the maybe Denny didn' t want to offend the Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • sign-off for all the other episodes as well- core PBS audie nce so soon before the next SCience Fiction • Muslcats • Color Photos • we've all been sent, groaning, straight pledge drive. It seems so obvious to have 80 Years 01 Scenes From Motion Pictures baCK into conventional-TV land. Garr fall in love with the driving instructor Rush $1.00 FOR OUR ILLUSTRATED BROCHU RE Driving Sc;hool, written by Wendy that you wait in vain for their courtship to Wasserste in and directed by Sheldon at least develop a few quirks. Nor is the 134 WE ST 18th STREET, DEPT. Fe Larry, is pretty much there from the start- unconsciously playing by the TV NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011 rules that it ought to be playing wi th in- (212) 620-8160-61 stead. Teri Garr plays a literal egghead, an art-history professor whose specialty is the whimsy about a woman learning to take Faberge kind . He r cloistered life is dis- rupted whe n her E nglish-lit. boyfrie nd control of he r life by learning to drive giv- AUTOGRAPHED PHOTOS runs off with a curvaceous TV star-The en any satiric twist; it's just cheerfully silly Dukes of Hazard's Ca the~n e Bach, more and heart-warming, pre tty much as it Hollywood legends , superstars , show biz or less playing herself. Bach, however, would be on, say, The Love Boat. personalities . Quality collection . Authenticity seems more amused by the fact that pub- guaranteed. Brochure: lic television is only now getting hip to The Garr's performance is the fringe benefit Dukes ofHazzard than by any opportuni- in Driving School. T he late r episodes of L.&M. Gross ties for self-parody, which the script Try in g Tim es eac h loo k as if th ey' ll 2675-F Hewlett Ave . doesn' t particularly give he r anyway. Merrick, N.V. 11566 As Garr explains to he r shrink (Ruth pro babl y offe r simil a r sma ll pl ea- Springford), all of her mistrust of life is summed up by he r refu sal to learn to s ures. I'm kee ping an eye out for Get A STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT. drive. Afte r the breakup, she enrolls in a Job, partl y beca use Steven W ri ght is driving school, and there meets a sexy usually funn y, and partl y beca use the AND ClRCU LATJON (Act of August 12, 1970: Section driving instructor, played by Ron Silver, director is Allan Go ld ste in , who did th e who helps he r over he r timidi ty-only supe rb 1983 TV ad aptati on of Sa m 3685. Title 39. United States Code) 1. title of p\"blication Shepard 's True West. I'm also intrigued by The Visit-a C hri sto ph e r Durang Film Comment 2. date of filillg October 1, 1987 3. fre- script , and a cas t includin g Jeff D an- ie ls, Julie H age rty, and Swoozie Kurtz, qllmcy of isslle bimonthly 4. locntion of known office of w ho promi se a few be tte r-th an-ave rage mo me nts. But whil e I kn ow I'll be p\"blication 140 West 65th St., New York. NY 10023 5. mod e rate ly e nte rtain e d , I'm already p re tty sure I wo n' t be surpri sed . locatioll of the headquarters or general bllsilless offices of the You could say th at thi s amounts pllblishers 140 West 65th St. , New York, NY 10023 6. to co mpl aining about Trying Times' ge nre, in stead of eva lu ating th e s how names and addresses of publisher, editor. and busilless I1WII- on its me rits. But th e ge nre is th e prob- le m ; it's too cl ose to th e sa me ove r- agcr: publisher Joanne Koch, 140 West 65th St., New predica ted inn ocuo usness infectin g co mm e rcial TV, w hich yo u dq n' t cure York, NY 10023 editors Harlan Jacobson, Richard Cor- just by making it to ni e r. It's hard to un- d e rstand why a p roduce r who' d wa nt to liss. 140 West 65th St.. New York, NY 10023 bllsilless asse mble thi s range of talent would th e n try to shoe ho rn th e m in to a stand- ma/zager Sayre Maxfie ld. 140 West 65th St.. New York, ard TV fo rm at, in stead of givin g the ir im agin ati ons free pl ay. O r may be it's NY 10023 7. oWller The Film Society of Lincoln Center, not hard at all; just like David L etter- man says whenever he needs a cop-out, 140 West 65th St., New York. NY 10023 8. kllCnun bond- \"What did you expect, folks? This is holders. mortgages, OIId other security holders oWllillg or television.\" ® Iwldillg 1 percellt or moreof total amolillt ofbollds. mortgages, or ot/,er securities none 9. the purpose, fill/ ctioll and 11011- profit statliS of this orgOlliZlltioll and the exempt statlls for Federal iI/COllie tax purposes has no t changed d uring the preceding 12 months. 10. extel1talld natllreofcirCIIlation; actual lIumber of copies of sillgle isslle pllblished nearest to filillg date ~ mll,.'TII,'\\C IIIlIIlill\" of CUI,h's cnrll iSSIII' dll rillg I'fl'CCri;IIg 12 1/10/1/11$ A . /olnl,llll/l/l/.'( of (OI,il 'S !'TII/kef (lid IIn'SS rim) \" 45,000 8. l/{fltl cirClllnl ;1l1/ 1. StileS /lfnll/,,<\" dctlkr::: {flld 44,095 mrrit'f::. slrl'd IIt'lIt/flr':'. f/lld rollI/I..., :;nit,:, 10,852 12,2 13 1. 11/(1;1 SII/1:'Cri,'l ir\",s 23, 175 22.802 C. to/nl ,l(lid drrl/fn /ioll 34.027 35,0 15 D. 1m' dis/filll/lioll !'.'Il11nil. cnrril'f. tiT ul1lef IIII'fIIIS-SIlIII/,ks. CtJIIII,IiIl/I'1I1nry. (flld ol/n'r SOO SOO 34,527 35,5 15 frl'i'IlJIJII 'S 1,976 1,813 E. /ilia/ dis/dill/tum (SIIIII \"f C nml OJ 7,592 7,672 F. (Vllit's lUI/ t!iS/I'i/'U/c't! 1. offiCi' 11$(', kn-mlt.\" . III/I/(fll/ Illted. sllOiiL't/ n{'(', I,rilllillg 2 . n'llIfIIS frolll 111'l1 ~ ngl' /I /:: G. /o/al (::11111 of E IIl1rl F) (,~l1ulI/rl q ua/lid 1'n.\":'S fllII $lwWII iliA) 44,095 45,000 11, f rc'l'li~1 /lml 1I1l' sln/l'lIIt'lIl;; III/uk 11.'1 lilt' a/lOll{' flrt' (ilrrt'('l am/ (VIII/,k/(' , (sigl1ed)Sayre Maxfield Business Mallager 79
THE CASE FOR COMMENT Quiz #28: Puttin' on the Berlitz Stop playing hide and seek with your For QUIZ #28, you are asked to com- Contributors back issues of FILM COMMENT. Our customized cases will hold a pose a list of languages in which at least Pat Aufderheide is a Washington-based year's worth of issues . Made for us by one film has been made. It must be the senior editor and film critic for In These Jesse Jones Industries, the blue Ieather- film's primary language. How do you Times newspaper. John Bright co-wrote ette cases are gold-stamped with the The Public Enemy, She Done Him Wrong FILM COMMENT logo. You can pay know if a movie is in a foreign tongue? If, and many other Hollywood films. He lives by check, money order, or with a major e.g., in its American release it was shown in L.A. Tom Carson is TV critic for the credit card. Mail your coupon today with \"English\" subtitles; that should give L.A. Weekly. David Chute is a recover- and stop playing around. you the littlest leeway (cf. Sparrows Can' t ing film critic. Alex Gibney is a docu- mentary filmmaker and joumalist based in FILM COMMENT Sing, The Harder They Come). Longest L .A. Stephen Harvey is an assistant cu- rator of the Museum of Modem Art's De- Jesse Jones Industries list of languages-just one film per lan- partment of Film. Pat McGilligan is the Dept. Fi.im-C guage, please-wins a free year of the author of Backstory: Interviews with 499 East Erie Avenue magazine. Get your entries by December Screenwriters from Hollywood's Golden Philadelphia, PA 19134 Age. Tony Rayns is an English film crit- 22 to FILM COMMENT, Quiz #28, 140 ic who writes regularly for Sight and Sound Please send me _ _ FILM COMMENT and is a leading authori ty on Asian cinema. West 65th Street, New York, N.Y 10023. H.A. Rodchenko is an L.A. based writ- leatherette cases. er on film who also writes screenpiays. For QUIZ #27, you were asked to Joan Scott has written many daytime 1 case ........ . .... ........... . .$7.95 and nighttime TV serials. She lives in L.A. 3 cases . . ........ .. .... . ... . ... $2 1.95 compute little-known film facts. Little- and is the widow of Adrian Scott, one of 6 cases .... . ...................$39.95 the Hollywood Ten. Michael Sragow is known indeed! Nobody got close to the the film critic for the San Francisco Ex- Enclosed is $_ _. Please add $1 per unit for aminer. Elliott Stein teaches film at Fair- postage and handling. Outside USA orders right answer. Tough breaks for you, OK field University. Jan Stuart is a freelance please add $2.50 per unit. (US funds on.iy.) for us (we keep a year's free subscription). arts joumalist currently working on a biog- raphy of Thelma Ritter. Armond White Please charge (minimum charge $ 15.00): For the curious and baffled, though, here writes for New York's City Sun and Paper. o American Express are the correct responses: o MasterCard 0 Visa Photo Credits The number of people listed in the 0 Diners Club credits ofIndiana Jones and the Temple of APIWide World: P. 49, 54. Columbia Pic- tures: P. 17,3 1,32,34,36. Direct Cine- Card #_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Doom (439) - the number of times ma: P. 37. Film Society of Lincoln Cen- ter: P. 60, 61, 68. HBO: P. 12. Island Expiration Date _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ \"fuck\" is uttered in Brian De Palma's Pictures: P. 61. Lorimar Pictures: P. 24, Signarure _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ 26, 28. Alison Morley: P. 39, 42, 43, 44, Scarface (181, = 258) + the number of 45,48. Orion: P. 64, 66. PBS: P. 78. HA Toll Free #, 7 days a week/24 hours a day Rodchenko: P. 2. Joan Scott: P. 52, 56. (Charge orders ONLy): issues ofFILM COMMENT (not including Touchstone: P. 20. Twentieth Century Fox: P. 17,22. Universal: P. 11, 13, 14, 1-800-972-5858 the two issued called Vision) published to 16. Walt Disney: P. 53, 58. Wamer Bros.: P.20. Please ship (0: date (120, = 378) -:- the number of films Name: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ in the series (Faces ofDeath) directed by Address: _ _ _ _:--:::::-:---:---:-_ _ __ =Conan Le Celaire (3, 126) -:- the num- (no PO box pkas<;) ber of primary languages (German, Eng- City/State/Zip: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ lish, Ukrainian, Yiddish, Italian, French) spoken in films directed by Edgar G. PA residents please add 6% sales taX. =Ulmer (6, 21) + the number of cere- monies in which either Mickey Rooney or Ava Gardner was married (10,=31) - the number of films in which any of the Marx Brothers appears (22, = 9) X the number of summer '87 films (Eat the Peach and I've Heard the Mermaids Sing- ing) whose titles are based on well-known phrases from a single stanza in T.S. Eliot's \"The Love Song of 1. Alfred Prufrock\" =(2, 18) + the number of feature films directed by R. W. Fassbinder between February 1969 and August 1970 (10, = 28) - the number of movie songs written by Oohnny Richards) the compos- =er of Young at Heart (1, 27). 80
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