Columbia Film REVIEW NOVEMBER 1982 VOL.1 NUMBER 1 The Road WarriorCOLUMBIA FILM REVIEW ein Eaitors Robert Lang, Maitland McDonagh Ant Director: Lynda Moss Typeseter: ‘Kathy Frank Contributors: Sandy Beck Dennis Myers Erie Lawrence M.D. Minichiello Michael Hendricks eter Webster Henry Dreher Atustrator Onristopher Fay COLUMBIA FILM REVIEW welcomes submissions. Please send material to. 513 Dodge Hall: Columbia University: New York, NY 10027, COLUMBIA FILM RE- ‘eannot be Fesponsible for original ‘material; please send SASE with all submis- COLUMBIA FILM REVIEW is published ‘monthly by the Film Division ofthe School fof the AM. Opinions expressed in reviews and articles are those of the authors, not nec sarily those ofthe editors or faculty Fonum Columbia University has never had a maga- zine like Columbia Film Review before—a monthly film magazine written, illustrated and edited by students. Although this, our inaugural issue, was put together entirely by students in the film division, we intend that subsequent issues will feature writing by individuals with an interest in film from all academic backgrounds. CFR will provide a forum for a variety of approaches to the cinema. ‘The magazine is intended to appeal to many different readers, from the casual movie-goer to the cineaste. We have decided to include two basic types of film coverage in each issue: a number of short reviews of films currently showing in New York, and ‘one longer, in-depth article on some aspect of filmmaking or viewing. Our editorial pol- icy is flexible, grounded in our belief that critical methodology should not be imposed on the subject (in this case film) but should spring from the subject itself, and that an articulate response to film is generated by such interdisciplinary discourse as CFR hopes to encourage. ‘You may find the films we have chosen to review in this issue a motley group. They range from Werner Herzog's much ac- claimed Fitzearraldo to Frank Henenlot- ter’s Basket Case, a midnight cult film. Fitz- carraldo’s larger-than-life aspirations and production excesses stand in distinct con- trast to Basket Case’s low-budget look and tawdry subject matter, but we have ap| proached them with the attitude that ead deserves to be treated with critical seriou ness, since we are interested as much in th way films work as the stories they tell. This month's feature article, “Towards an Eva! luation of the Films of Ozu" is as much about the problem of writing about and reading films generally as it is about the spe cific problem of how the Western film-goer reads films that emerge from a completely unfamiliar cultural context, Finally, on our back page, we carry the ‘most extensive listing available of films that will be shown on the Columbia campus dur ing the course of the month, We look forward to an exciting first yea. —The EditorsGermany jerner Fassbinder iner Werner Fassbinder’s Lola is the film in his trilogy that begins with iMariage of Maria Braun and concludes the just-released Veronika Voss. fairly “‘small”” stories as far as the are concerned, the films function as phors for the larger dilemmas, social moral, that beset post-war West Ger- Lola takes place in 1957 and con- the efforts of the title character, a and prostitute in a fancy bordello, to jue a man of impeccable character von Bohm into marrying her. Lola toprove to herself and others that she be loved as a ‘‘good”” woman; i.e. a in worthy of such a man as von ‘She succeeds and yet one wonders long this fragile happiness can last, as acters have given up too much, «dtoo much indifference to what they dear, to achieve their goals. isasplendid film. A great deal of its js that Fassbinder has made an un- replica of a ’50s film, not only be- of his beautifully lurid use of color, better realized than in a scene involv- wo protagonists outside a church, so due to the almost simplistic story- he tory is so facile, in fact, that the ls approach the status of card- cutouts, Fassbinder seems so cold- and technical that it is difficult to thing but disinterest towards the ata that people his films. But Lola is that stays in the mind, a film that by ely visual power constantly forces viewers, to think of the circum- until we do begin to feel for them. ime we ascribe their actions not to stupidity, but rather to a lack of in an uncertain future, With this ssbinder has managed both to de- intellectually and involve us emo- ya feat that many aspire to but only re accomplish: —M.D.M basing his new film Tempest on the peare play, Paul Mazursky was for Ariel's “‘sea-change,”” he cer- st get it. The movie's “strange” But it’s not “rich”; it’s thin and incing. Shakespeare takes great tus know how and why his char- ind up where they do. Mazursky bother with any of that stuff. He's wth the cover-all phrase ‘mid-life joexplain why'the Prospero figure, New York architect Phillip Demetrios (ohn Cassavetes), leaves his wife (Gena Rowlands), and together with his daugh- ter, Miranda (Molly Ringwald) and a tag- along named Aretha (Susan Sarandon), {g0es to live on a Greek island, home to no one but a goatherd, Kalibanos (Raul Julia). What happens there more or less corresponds to events in the play. Gut without an explonatory framework equi- valent to that of the play, everything seems random and ludicrous. The only integrat- ing factor in this movie is the sumptuous cinematography of the Australian, Don McAlpine. The Tempest was Shakespeare's last play and it represents the summation of his poetic and dramatic skills. It’s an extraor- dinary blend of theatrical trickery, magic, poetry, music, and a kind of transcendent philosophy of reconciliation. It took ‘Shakespeare a lifetime to get the mixture right; there's no magic formula, just years of hard work and full living. Mazursky wants to reproduce the tone of the play. But he doesn’t understand or, maybe, care about its peculiar aesthetic exigencies. He's stuck with his feeble ‘‘mid-life crisis”” and glossy photography when what's needed is the conviction that comedy and tragedy form an identity, that we become recon- ciled to life when we perceive this and that it’s up to the artist to demonstrate the truth of these propositions in and through his work, No one is suggesting that this is an easy job. In fact, it’s only ever achieved in ‘great works of art and, with the notable ex- ception of Mozart, almost always in “ate” works: Beethoven's late quartets and son- atas, Verdi's Falstaff, the ‘Last Poems" of Yeats, the paper cut-outs of Matisse and so on. This list isn’t designed to make Ma- zursky look small; just to point out that the tone he's trying for is characteristic of the work of mature genius: it’s inimitable and unfakeable. Ship of Fools (Tempest) Derek Jarman has shown that it’s per- fectly possible to make a wonderful film of The Tempest. The play gives him the context in which to create his own moment of truly inspired madness when Elizabeth Welch comes shimmying on screen to sing “Stormy Weather’” to a group of adoring sailors. There’s an equivalent moment in Mazursky’s film when Miranda and ‘Aretha splash around inthe ocean and sing “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.”* But it's without resonance, a witty aberration in a sea of stupidity. And that’s not enough to make magic. —P.W. Tex United States 4. Tim Hunter Tex, the directorial debut for Tim Hunter, is perhaps the first neo-conserva- tive youth rebellion film ever made. The film proposes that those in authority only act in their charges’ best interests and that the young should trust in those who love them, values hard to find in The Wild One and Easy Rider. In part, this adds a moral complexity to the film. There are no vil- lains; even the high school principal is por- trayed sympathetically. Nevertheless, Tex seems to equate growing up with the ac- ceptance of assigned roles rather than de- fining one’s own. It will be interesting to see if Tex finds a market. The film, based on the novel by S.E. Hinton (whose ‘The Outsiders” will be made into a film by Francis Ford Coppola later this fall) tells the story of how Tex McCormackand his brother Mason growup poor in a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma. When their father leaves them to go with the rodeo, Mason has to find a way to sup- port them while he finishes high school. The struggle to survive financially and at the same time keep their relationship alive makes up the conflict of the film. All theproblems of the modern adolescent, alco- hol, sex, drugs, a little rock and roll, vio- lence, family, friendship and school, play a part in Tex’s attempt to find a place for himself in the world. These issues are raised in a surprisingly non-judgmental way con- sidering that Tex is a Walt Disney produc- tion. If Tex has any problem itis that itis too healthy. The characters all have weak- nesses, but there are no trangressions so ‘great that they will not be forgiven. What saves the film from falling into bittersweet reveries are the performances of the two leads. Matt Dillon goes beyond the mum requirements of a teen idol to give a remarkably sensitive portrayal of Tex. He is able to balance humor, pathos, foolish- ness and nobility and makes the character three-dimensional. Tim Metzler brings an innocence and dignity to the role of Mason who must grow up too fast when he has to take care of his younger brother. Hunter has created an ensemble of actors who are able to convincingly establish their rela- tionships. Tex isan entertaining and heart- waming film. Only its message is hard to swallow. —M.H, Basket Case United States a. Frank Henenlotter ‘A young man moves into a sleazy Times ‘Square hotel with a large wicker basket in tow. What’s inside? His siamese twin bro- ther, Belial, a hideously deformed dwarf from whom he was physically separated at the age of 12. The pair plan to murder the remaining two of the three doctors who performed the operation, having already dispatched the first in their hometown. Much mayhem and viscera later, Belial and his brother Dwayne have a violent quarrel over agirl, and both are killed in a fall from the window of their room at the hotel. Basket Case is reminiscent of Brian de Palma’s Sisters in its subject matter, but Henenlotter takes a distinctly more aggres- sive probing approach towards the twins. There is very little that the morbidly cur- ious might like to know that Henenlotter fails to provide, and although the general level of the production values is low, the film has many points of interest, The flash- back sequences involving the early life of the twins, hated by their father for their de- formity and because his wife died in child- birth, loved only by their aunt, have a flat, horrifyingly amusing quality. None of it seems quite real, until the almost surreal operation to separate Dwayne and Belial, a childhood nightmare brought to life. The overall tone of Basket Case is re- markably preverse, full of images like The Return of the Repressed (Basket Case) Belial in his basket, playing with a stolen pair of women’s panties; Dwayne drunk- enly confessing to a neighbor (“My bro- ther. . .helooks likea squashed octopus.”") who doesn’t believe him but can't be quite as sure as she'd like; Belial left behind in the hotel room with a blurry television set and a newspaper while Dwayne goes to meet a girl; and a sequence which at first appears to be a dream in which Belial sexu ally assaults Dwayne’s girlfriend. Belial functions throughout the film as a literal embodiment of Dwayne’s repressed libido. He destroys their hotel room when Dwayne tentatively kisses a girl for the first time; emerges from his basket when Dwayne and the girl are about to make love, and in the dreamlike rape sequence it appears to be Dwayne's point of view being presented, until the cut back to Dwayne lying in bed at the hotel, next to the open window through which Belial has left. Basket Case is very violent and fairly sexually explicit. Although the special ef- fects are limited by the film’s budget, Bel- ial's power as an icon usually overcomes the way he actually appears onscreen; and Basket Case contains a large number of unforgettable images. —MM. Eating Raoul United States d. Paul Bartel So you want camp? A good film? I got camp. I got a good film and blatant exploi- tation, I got previously given up for dead cliches. How about, just to tickle your fancy a little more, a Latin lover who calls his object of seduction Chiquita (no one had done a Latin lover in a long time, said Richard Blackburn, the co-screenwriter). Seen an iris in and out lately? Think this re- view is odd? The film did it. Consider, if you will, a couple named Bland, and their dream: to open a restau- rant—no swinging singles allowed. Now what would you do if you had that dream, but lacked the cash to getiit going, and lived in a building filled with rich swingers that ‘you, nurturing the sexual attitudes from a Franie Avalon movie, despise? Lure them to your apartment and take their money? ‘Am I right? Well kiddies, that’s just what those plucky Blands do. But, before you rush off to get on line, let me admit that old Raou! does drag in places, and some things don’t come off. ‘Then again, faced with the alternative of some other film's sequel’s sequel’s sequel, that is just an acknowledgment of reality rather than a complaint. Furthermore, what missteps there are from any mythical ideal of perfection give the film its bright edge. It is much more exciting to watch Paul Bartel (Mr. Bland, the director, and co-screenwriter) walk a tightrope than it would be to see him walk a six-foot wide plank, Besides, any film, I might add (and do), made for Something around $500,000 and in 22 shooting days damn well should have rough edges. Because I did, someplace back there, in- voke the word camp, I suppose I must men- n The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sure, it and Raoul! are going to make an awesome double bill. However (say it again, emphatically, however), Raou! has more to it than Rocky H. It’s not doing camp for camp’s sake. And there are ser- iously good performances by the actors Among them, and this is good news for you visual pleasure fanatics out there, Mary Woronov (Mrs. Bland). Look. Eating Raoul is a weird film. That's what you should expect froma vehi- cle for two stars of Rock ’n’ Roll High School. A lot of people are going to be dis gusted. They are going to dislike every- thing from the film’s sense of humor to its view of society. If you think you might be one of them, so beit. If not, siouch on over to stand on line at the 68th St. Playhouse. Eat first. EL.|. Tommy Lee Wallace Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a jor disappointment, There are innumer- le things wrong with it, and judging fiom the audience’s outraged reaction at ite Rivoli, I'm not the only one who thought so. Written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, and produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, the team responsible for the previous two films in the series, Halloween IIT does nothing to enhance either of their careers, something I jay with genuine regret. The story takes place in northern Cali fornia and concerns the scheme of novelty wnanufacturer Conal Cochrane (Daniel (O'Herlihy) to implant microchips in Hallo- ‘ween masks which are sold nationwide. ‘These chips, when triggered by an image to te televised on Halloween night, will re- uce children wearing the masks to corpses that spew forth bugs and lizards and ser- penis. These, in turn, will make mincemeat tut of Mom, Dad, Fido and whoever else happens to be unfortunate enough to be in theroom with the kids. When her father is killed after a visit to Cochran's factory, a young woman named Fle (Stacy Nelkins) and his doctor (Tom. Atkin) decide to visit the factory them- selves and investigate. Pretty soon charac- ‘ers and situations are dropping clues like lead balloons and one thing leads to an- other, most times not so convicingly, until the finalshowdown at the factory on Hall- oweennight. Here, the doctor singlehand- dy fights off Cochran's lethal gang of robot business/henchmen, rescues Elli and destroys the whole factory with the evil Cochran applauding him as one of the pil- lars from Stonehenge (yes) zaps him into rothingness. Alas, the doctor still has to tonvince the television stations not to air the murderous program. By the film's end beisstill screaming into the telephone, and the audience was screaming for a refund. The film isa washout becauseit lacks the one thing that could have made us believe itr motivation. We are naturally curious as ‘o why Cochran would want to pursue a plan like this, but are never granted any kind of explanation. Nota single clue to his background (was hea battered child?) or to his future plans (does he desire enormous power which he thinks will accrue to him after he has achieved his destructive goal?) nothing. Only some, vague ruminations on ancient Celtic rites when “the hills ran red with the blood of animals and child- ren,” We are saddled with a wretched sense of stasis because the story has neither 4 past nor a future to illuminate the present, Left without a reason for what is hap- pening, we become steadily more aware of the idiocies of the script. Halloween IIT is the sort of film where you find yourself asking, before it has even finished, why characters didn’t do something less stupid than they did (as someone in the voluble audience said of the doctor, “He's got shit for brains”). Nothing makes sense; we are asked to accept utterly contrary behavior and it simply doesn’t work. Even the title is amiss; why “‘Season of the Witch’? when there isn’t one for miles and the bad guy is, just that: a guy. The final letdown is that not even the viewer’s eyes are kept happily occupied as. the brain dozes. We never do get to see “the big give-away” on Halloween night, never have the chance to see granny get hers in Baton Rouge or Dad attacked by a lizard in Seattle. Pethaps had the film made more sense and the awesomeness of CCochran’s vision made more apparent we ‘would have been content to imagineit. But the film delivers so little tension on any level that some form or mayhem seemed the least we could expect after sitting through it. The most poignant moment in Hallo- ween III comes near the end when the doc- tor is tied up in Cochran's factory and forced to watch a television set showing the original Halloween. All I could think about was how lucky he was to get to watch Carpenter's classic while we in the audi- fence were left to contend with this turkey. —M.D.M. The Road Warrior Australia 4d. George Miller The sequel to Miller's 1978 Mad Max, The Road Warrior is a study in the icono- graphy of automobiles and leather men scattered over a barren outback landscape. Set in an apocalyptic near future in which civilization exists only in isolated pockets and motorcycle gangs rule the roads and engage in an endless search for fuel to keep their vehicles going, The Road Warrior's minimalist plot revolves around a group of people who have refined enough fuel to take them “*beyond the reach of men on ma- chines,” and the loner who helps them escape through the gang that wants their fuel at any cost. The stripped-down automobiles, all metal strips and eclectic ornamentation careen amidst clouds of dust while their drivers posture and preen in conceal/reveal costumes made up of odds and ends as various as those which compose the cars. The Road Warrior is endlessly kinetic, moving from chase to confrontation to chase with hardly a breathing space be- tween. The dialogue, of a generally pared down variety, tends to the allusive: the masked Lord Humongous, ‘Warrior of the Wasteland,” expresses his disappoint- ment that the fuel refiners are reluctant t0 sive it all up to him by hissing “you have made me unleash my dogs of war’” and the film’s dominant image is that of men and machines being fused into some biomech- anical whole, sometimes willingly, some- times not. Max, the burnt-out survivor of years on the road, is a hero in the classic American film noir tradition: alienated, stylized and destined to lose battles and win wars only by default. Asin Ridley Scott’s Blade Run- ner, The Road Warrior's noir elements are fused into a flashy but bleak science fiction landscape, and it is part of the film’s appeal that, although an Australian production, The Road Warrior is centrally concerned with some very American preoccupations. Particularly apparent is the fetishization of the automobile, which shows up in forms as various as the gritty 1960’s motorcycle films put out by American International Pictures, like Hell's Angels on Wheels and The Unholy Rollers, innocuous kiddie The Warrior of the Wasteland and the Leader of the Pack (The Road Warrior)chase films like Ron Howard's Eat My Dust and the Burt Reynolds Smokey and ‘the Bandit series, and the occasional oddity ‘on the order of Paul (Eating Raoul) Bartel’s Deathrace 2000, in which professional drivers in monster cars run down pedestri- ans for points. The Road Warrioris grimly amusing and astonishing to look at. —MM United States d. Larry Cohen A quetzalcoat!is returned to existence by the prayers and human sacrifices of an aco- lyte. It buildsa nest in the Chrysler building and terrorizes New York, plucking the un- wary from atop buildings and other high places, splattering the sidewalks below with blood and pieces of bodies. A small- time criminal accidentally discovers the lo- cation of the nest and makes a bargain with the City, demanding unconditional par- don for past and future crimes (Nixon- like), media rights to the quetzalcoatl story, coverage in the New York Post and one million dollars (tax-free) in return for the information. The creature is destroyed, the acolyte killed and New York is again safe, except: the film’s last shot shows a hatching egg in a tenement. Like other Cohen films (it’s Alive, God Told Me To) Q's monster movie narrative is shot through with allusions to the nature of deity and informed by a revisionist mys- ticism that shows in the oddest asides—the chief of police tells Caradine to suppress the link between the ritual killings and the quetzalcoatl because he can deal with send- ing our snipers to kill a giant bird, but nota g0d; as though the causal relationshp be- tween the invocation and the manifesta- tions were a given, and as though suppress- ing a link invalidtates it. Like Gold Told Me To, Q’s preoccupation is nothing less than the Second Coming and its disastrous Blissful Ignorance (Q) consequences for all concerned: The high Priest who invokes Q is shot to death by the detective whose concern is to save the mis- erable Quinn; a willing martyr to the quet- zalcoatl is shot by police who interrupt his ritual death; Quetzalcoatl itself is shot down by half the police force and dies clinging to a building with a pyramidal dome. Twilight of the gods indeed. Q is exuberant beyond wildest expecta- tions: sunbathers, construction workers, and health club habitues are devoured in- discriminately, passersby make faces at the gore that rains from the sky as though it were just another urban annoyance. As Jimmy Quinn, the snivelling criminal whose fate is intertwined with Q’s, Michael Moriarty twitches, raves, sweats and whines through a performance that achieves stylization through hysteria. David Carradine, asa detective assigned to the cases of the ritual slayings/dismember- ments on high, does a real man turn that could define the pose—he looks as though he was born with a submachine gun tucked under his arm and fires shots into the hardy quetzalcoat! worshipper with offhanded determination more appropriate to less violent action, Q's self-conscious humor alone could save it from sinking into the obscurity so often the fate of monster movies, and when the bravura performances, amusing use of New York Ications and remarkable charm of the monster itself are added to the equa- tion, Q comes out looking very strong. —M.M Veronika Voss Germany d. Rainer Werner Fassbinder Veronika Voss is above all a visually ap- pealing film, shot ina highly stylized black- and-white, with zippy little shot transitions (fades, dissolves, wipes that go up, down, sideways, diagonally—indeed almost every means I’ve ever seen used) and a clean, sometimes dense but never cluttered mise: en-scene. Several times the whole bottom third of the frame is masked by a shadowy bar that may or may not be in the fictional world of the film. Such bold figures of style —and the film is exuberant with stylistic variety—wildly and weirdly contradict the grim story that is being told. Itis a story that is undeniably a paral lel/allegory of the hounding to the death of the Jews in Germany during World War Il Veronika Voss is an ex-movie star (UFA was her era). Now, in the 1950's, they don’t want her. A Dr. Katz (female) has her hooked on morphine, which becomes the final solution. Dr. Katz's death camp (her beautiful white-on-white offices and home) is where Jews in the neighborhood ‘come for their shots of morphine, believing her to be their dearest friend, helper and, indeed, savior. She manages somehow to have them all leave their possessions to her when they die. Her sinister activites are be- ing uncovered by one Robert Krohn, who ‘met Veronika Voss one night in the rain when she was crazed and in need of her shot.He thinks he has fallen in love with this beautiful and desperate woman and attempts to save her, even getting his girl- friend to help by posing as a rich, bored young woman who is suffering from inde- inable pains. The pose works, and the cool Dr. Katz prescribes morphine. Katz and her assistant get wind of the plot to blow their operation sky-high, and they act quickly and decisively. The film moves relentlessly. The carly French New Wave look (Melville’s Bob Le Flambeur comes particularly to mind) works well with this subject matter, for this is no slice of life but the retelling of a horrible and horrific time that can never really accommodate itself to conventional narration, V*OR*TEX United States 4d. Beth and Scott B, I—“I do have a certain understand- ing...”” says the crooked congressman ‘on our hidden camera. 2—Within the slow arch of his wheel chair, our Howard Hughes hero draws in Tine with religious revelation. Although apocalypse is certain, it serves best as the veil, the mask of power. This is part of the rid 5—Neon ngir (2) 8—"Sounds like real life to me, What part do I play?” 11—on the scatological side of mystery Clue relates to thread, an exit from the labyrinth, but we all know that a detec- tive’s life is shit—long hours, low pay, chasing meaningless adulterers. Her office Ril 5Sang Froid Grand Guignol (Veronika Voss) ‘now transformed intoa bathtub; well, even P. Pilate washed his hands after the most scathing investigations: “What is truth?”” 17—Once in a lifetime/you find someone. Ironically, the elements of satire and the signs of cool both rely on essential good timing. 23—"'So you wanna fuck or what?” 39—““Influencing willful behavior" says the German (of course) Scientist, as a pa~ tient with a (of course) bandaged head wrinkles the corner of a paper. Other ‘vic tims” hide behind thick glass windows/re- ‘member our secret camera watching the latest housewife puzzling over the latest laste test. (Also, a strange family gallery, with windows to the closet.) 5S—“DON’'T TELL ME I’M PARA- NOID.” Paranoia arises not from the pre- sumed center of power, but from the access to that power. The doormen to technology {atomic and defense) maintain their con- trol through their exclusive access to this invisible center. 10S—A dead man’s secret (‘‘stays dead") ‘cause it is already well known. 173—You wanna play games? ‘We'll play games, my games.”” 269—This is a story not meeding to be told. It lies in excess, perfectly timed, where the cliche is embedded in the chic—Neon high tech environments. The chic transformation of the front guard into culture, as it lingers somewhere in the hands of the elite—the east side, upper and lower—may somehow support this entire move. Everything of the SURface is, tunder-stood in the con/text of our culture; paranoia may lie in the exchange of ch /lic(he. ; 333—Trust me to rip away sex woman cars slim lights grid black 386—From super eight to stardom. With the stylistics of the family album. A random glancing through a stack of polar- oids. 516—Electricity and sex—the final jolts of culture. The wire which energizes a neon sign works as the ultimate weapon. (669—vortex: a rapid rotary movement of cosmic matter about a center regarded ‘as accoutning for the origin or phenomena od systems of b Sweet Hours Spain d. Carlos Saura ‘Obsessed by his childhood, Juan, a writer, recreates it by participating in a re- staging of events from the past, apparently part of a play he has written. It is Juan's tense, erotic relationship with his mother that draws him back most strongly, and he recreates the relationship with the actress he has cast as his mother in the play, appa- rently making final peace with his memor- ies through her love. ‘Sweer Hours is about memories and fan- tasies, woven together seamlessly into the narrative Juan fashions from the ‘sweet hours” of his childhood. The past is ever- present: the film opens with Juan leafing through an album of photographs and mo- ‘mentos; when visiting his sister, Juan re- ceives a bundle of letters written by his parents at the time their marriage broke up-—letters the sister has preserved even though she had promised her father she would destroy them. Julio Cortazar is mentioned in an early scene, and Sweet Hoursis structured like some of his fiction, as layer upon layer of images of uncertain origin, in which the ‘‘real’” and the “un- real,” the memory and the fantasy are all juxtaposed until there is no telling one from the other. The production of Juan’s “splay” is a very strange one; it is being re- hearsed in what appears to be a home from Juan’s past, and the adult Juan stands in for himself as a child without disturbing the other “factors,” even though not all of them know that he is the playwright. The actor who plays Juan's soldier uncle loses control of his character and has to be sub- dued by the others; when they take off his cap he has a steel plate in his skull that the skin hasn't grown over, revealed just after the others have told the story of how the tuncle was struck on the head by the falling hand of the village clock. Another uncle’s speech about whores dissolves into a scene in which the young Juan, this time played by a real child, is taken by that uncle toa whorehouse, apparently a memory, except that the uncle is the same man who is play- ing him in the play, ands also the director. Berta, who plays Juan’s mother, finds out from the director that Juan isthe play- ‘wright and makes a date with him to dis- cuss the way she will play her role, and they meet ata film studio, where she is dubbing ‘an American film into Spanish. She claims that she is having trouble understanding her character, and later, back at Juan’s apartment, remarks upon the fact that she doesn’t resemble the picture he has of his mother, though in fact the same actress plays Berta and Juan's mother in all the flashbacks. They become lovers and get married, and the final image is of the preg- hant Berta bathing Juan, whom she treats as a naughty child. ‘Swe Hours is a puzzle film in which there are enough missing pieces to keep it from becoming facile; indeed, it is even possible that all the pieces come out of SJuan’s head, a reading strongly suggested iy the scene in which Juan describes his mother’s suicide as it has been seen in the flashbacks to Berta, but ascribe the actions to her (making the suicide an unsuccessful attmpt). She nods yes and asks him how he knew. Saura’s images are lovely, and Sweet Hours is a surprisingly seductive film. —M.M. Chilly Scenes of Winter United States 4d, Joan Micklin Silver Chilly Scenes of Winter is funny/sad and neither chilly nor ‘‘scenes"” as such. The title is almost pretentious, for itiseven ‘more understated than the understatement that is the film’s chief characteristic. The film’s power resides in the small gesture, in ‘quiet unrushed time given the viewer to ob- serve. It is all very ordinary, playing on ‘one’s recognition of the ordinary. Charles ele Ene 6SL PN PE (John Heard) and Laura (Mary-Beth Hurt) are attractive—one can’t help but like them, especially since we're given examples of less-attractive: Charles’ dumpy “‘nice”” secretary at work; his sister's over-polite and self-assured boyfriend who is in Med. ‘School and who drives a Cadillac; Laura’s husband who is a nice, dull 6'3"; Charles’ parents—an Archie Bunker stepfather and suicidal bleached-blonde mother. Chilly ‘Scenes is on the whole not melodramatic, which is why it seems different than most American fare. There is, for example, no clearly identifiable villain. Laura’s frame house salesman husband is merely nice and calls everybody “pal” ina hearty, loping way. So why should Laura leave him for Charles? If he weren't such a good father to their Rebecca, and a nice, warm understanding husband “‘who never did anything ter- rible" to Laura, she would Ieave him in the film’s opening’ shot. Instead, she leaves him, goes back to him, leaves him (how many times?). And through all this, we're given to understand, he is understanding! What makes this movie “scenes” is the backdrop of humdrum life, Charles’ bor- ing job in the Civil Service being the scene we return to most often. Charles is one of those people who must go out to work, but he is surrounded by people who, for vari- ‘ous reasons, themselves don’t work His mother has cracked up because, in Charles’ words, “‘she figured it was easier”; his sister is in college; and of course there's the unemployed jacket sales- man who lives with him and who sleeps late, drinks more and more and behind his chipper and cheery exterior is becoming steadily more miserable. Most of the film is shot in medium close-up. It is intimate and reassuring, and yet faintly desperate, walk- ing that line between happiness (inasmuch as we know what happiness is; “Whats happy?” asks Charles) and total collapse, as represented by Charles’ mother. Charles" sister always looks happy and smiling. “She must know something!” he says to himself. But does she? She’s cer- tainly making a few mistakes: look at the fellow she has picked for a boyfriend—he of the Afghan sweater and advice on how to pack a suitcase. ‘The last shot makes the title seem, final- ly, appropriate. These have been “‘scenes"” after all. But they are more than that, and deserve to be seen long before the winter grows chilly. Catch it while you can. RL. Fitzcarraldo/Burden of Dreams W. Germany/United States d, Werner Herzog At one point during Les Blank’s film Burden of Dreams, Werner Herzog de- clares that he wouldn’t want to live in a world without lions. The Indians he has hired to move the “Molly Aida” over a ‘mountain are lions, he adds. Their culture will soon no longer exist because their land is being taken over by foreign investment firms. Toward the end of the film (to com- plete a kind of circular referential scheme about the extinction of rare species) Les Blank films a photograph of Herzog— taken by the Indians—framed within a highly stylized drawing of a lion's head. ‘So we have a generally sympathetic view of Herzog, the man, who does not see the Amazon jungle as an example of har- ‘mony in nature. In fact, it is a cruel, mur- derous, even evil place which God has left brutally incomplete. In Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's camerashows us lots of tough skinned feet sinking into mud, balancing on top of rough, knotty logs, becoming grimier and more calloused simply becaus this is just what happens during the cours Of their survival. We get close 10 the It dians in this film—close-ups reveal flashes of individual personalities (just as they do of the main characters in Fitzcarraldo). In Fitzcarraldo, these feet belong to pi mitive, uncultured “bare-asses"” whose ferocious hearts can be inspired by a white man’s (magical) music into seeing the beauty and importance of his dream. Fitz carraldo's obsessive dream is to build ar opera house in the jungle most especially that Enrico Caruso can perform there. But first, Fitzcarraldo must become a rubber baron and earn lots of money to finance this drea. Also, the only land available 0 buy (with rubber trees aboard, of course)is that which is thought to be inaccessible ex cept by way of some killer rapids known as “Pongo Las Muertes.”” However, Fitzcat. raldo decides that he can reach it by another route. He leaves port armed witha few rifles (he is not 100% poet), his victrola and a couple of Caruso records. The usually hostile Indians whom he en: counters on the way upriver to his site of ‘access become drawn to him after both ‘sides’? have exchanged a few rounds of ‘musical declaration;-the Indians: “drum warnings,” Fitzcarraldo: “tenor persue sion.”” The “bare-asses’ go to work for Fitzcarraldo, the sublime—the irrespon- sible poetic hybrid among other mote candidly exploitative, capitalist Whites of the period (early 20th cent.) ‘Apparently their reward and/or con. pensation will be to have opera in the jungle. In the Les Blank film it is men tioned twice that the $3.50 a day wage that these Indians are getting is to represent their immediate ancestors as they were ex: ploited at the turn of the century is double the going rate in the Iquitos area. (Herzog also promised he'd help them settle thei land claims.) During the filming of Fitzearraldo, Her zog had many set-backs—actors who lef because of illness or because of other com: mitments, the river’s water level being too ow to move the ships (he used three) out onto it, ete. Production financiers refused to disburse more funds after several of these set-backs had occured, a situtation which would have crushed the determine tion and spirit of another director. But Herzog, had he given up, as he puts it, would have been “‘a man without dreams” So, through Fitzcarraldo, Herzog’s rare- spirited cinematic double, we are told that it is always right to be without substance but one must have dreams. —S.B.ie With the massive Yasujiro Ozu retro- spective still under way at Japan House (Wednesdays and Fridays through Decem- ber 19) we have one of those rare op- portunities to study a cinema markedly dif- ferent from our own. Much has been written about the work of Ozu Yasujiro. His films, pethaps more than those of any other Japanese director, have excited in the West the notion that the study of Japanese cinema might furnish a stitique of Western (Hollywood) cinema. Not only is Ozu in Japan considered the most ‘‘Japanese”” of directors, but_his career spans a period in the history of the cinema which indeed some critics believe encompasses the rise and fall! of the Holly- wood film. In other words, Ozu was work- ing long enough ago to have been making films that in Japan were considered main- stream and which, in spite of their differ- ence from contemporary Western films, cannot be considered avant-garde or to be conscious deconstructions of the Holly- wood codes. In the context of Japanese cinema, Ozu is not a modernist filmmaker. Like the Japan in which he lived, Ozu’s films reflect a complex contradiction in which East meets West. The process of imtegration/rejection/modification in the Japanese encounter with Western modes of representation is frequently baffling in Ozu’s case, for we cannot be sure of how self-conscious he was as an artist in relation to the Western films which it is certain he saw all his film-watching life. To what extent he consciously rejected certain Western film practices, to what extent his films are evidence of a uniquely Japanese aesthetic (as opposed to a uniquely Ozu aes- thetic) is still extremely difficult to estab- lish. So insidious is the hegemony of what Noel Burch calls Western bourgeois modes ‘of representation, that we cannot know very precisely where Ozu, Japanese aesthe- ties, and Western influence meet. What, for example, does one make of Ozu’s re- mark, ‘It doesn’t make any difference, does it?""? when he was urged to see how important eyeline matching is (at least in the Western tradition) for the preservation of the spectating subject’s position, or sense of stability, and thus for the preserv- ation of the diegetic effect? We can only infer from his films what, in fact, Ozu’s conception of the notion of diegesis is, of what he felt the spectating subject's rela- tion to the spectacle is or should be. And only from those inferences, can one begin fo assess the work of Ozu, as Noel Burch does when he claims that there is a signifi- cant difference between, Ozu’s pre-World War Il films and his post-war films. Burch dismisses Ozu’s post-war films as ‘frozen academicism,”’ although I feel that they re- present, rather, a masterly refinement of ‘¢ Towards an Evaluation of the Films of Ozu thirty years of filmmaking. Particularly pertinent, I think, to a dis- cussion of Ozu’s films, is Burch’s observa- tion that, Originality was never a primary valuein Japan, particularly in art. The individual artis’s contribution was not evaluated, by himself or by his society, in terms of his aptitude for inventing new forms, or the ‘revolutionary’ quality of his work. ‘On the contrary, the subtlety with which hhe recombined elements that had served for generations, the way in which he in- troduced cunning changes, fresh but slight, into the work of predecessors, was valued above all else. 3 Donald Ritchie puts it somewhat differently: Though it washe who (with an original- ity remarked upon by Japanese critics) brought the methods of the architect 10 the Japanese film, he was also, like any Japanese carpenter, working with modules. As the Japanese carpenter builds a house using tatami and fusuma doors of invariable size and indentical lintels and frames in every building he constructs, so Ozu, constructing films of emotional modules, as it were, knew the size and shape of many of the scenes he would use, o they recur with little or no variation in picture after picture. # Except for his use of the word “‘emo- tional” and his implication that of all the arts itis only in architecture that the Japa- nese have a formalist tradition of standardi- zation and interchangeability of parts, Rit- chie to0 would appear to be supporting the notion of Ozu as a master among practi- tioners of a cultural activity, rather than of Ozu as an author of genius. The distinction might be important, because the criteria then by which his films are judged become necessarily different from those by which a Western “author” is judged. It becomes more difficult, for example, to dismiss cer- tain signifying practices as examples of Ozu’s inability to inject his films with inven- tion and variety, to keep abreast of techno- logical advances, or to astonish with ori- ginality. While itis true that Ozu maintains in his entire ouevre a remarkable sameness of theme and style, most noticeable in his films is an increased reliance on dialogue to carry the “action,” and less and less frequent use of camera movement, With Tokyo Story (1953) one presumes to feel that one has fallen at last under the spell of Ozu's obses- sion, that one has come to appreciate the power of the obsession that compelled Ozu to repeat, and refine with subtle variation, the elements of what has come to be called the Ozu “style.”” And in An Autumn After- noon (1962) the last film Ozu made, color (or rather, Ozu’s use of color) adds a quite wonderful visual plenitude which, it can be argued, makes “reading” the film easier and which, therefore, in some way under- mines O2u’s project. ‘Of course, we cannot know really what Ozu’s project was. But Noel Burch de- seribes the representational process in Japan as being divided ‘into distinctly separate texts, relatable only through an act of read- ing," and for the Western spectator, color contributes to the “‘realism”” of the image, thereby making “reading” (drawing the connection between signifier and signified) scarcely necessary. Presentation becomes representation. Such a Western signifying practice as the ‘‘realistic”” use of color, how- ever, (and others, such as depth indicators for the creation of Renaissance perspective) might, as Burch points out, “destroy” for the Japanese audience “'what was for them an important factor of unity,”* and for Burch himself, in the late films, give him less “reading” to do. Before discussing some of the differences between the pre-war films and the post-war films—the use/ function of what Burch calls “pillow shots,” the position of the camera (and mise-en-scene which is to a large extent determined by the position of the camera in Ozu), the visual motifs, the story and dia- logue—some comments on color as the most immediately perceptible difference be- tween, say, Ozu’s first sound film, Only Son (1936) and his last film, Am Autumn After- noon, is appropriate here. The effect of Ozu’s use of color, like so many examples of his directorial control, isto make the specta- tor aware of form, to restrain the spectator’s emotion through consciousness of form, which results finally in a more intense emo- tion. The very conscious use of color in this film has the same effect (and is not unlike it in look) as Antonioni’s 1! Deserto Rosso. In any image in which ninety percent of the objects are in shades of white, grey, beige, salmin pink or brown, are included a couple of small objects or planar surfaces suffused deeply with either red, turquoise or grass green, The relative coolness of the greater part of the image lends the hotter-colored ‘objects an intensity that is greater than it ‘could be if all the objects in the frame were colorful, or even merely “‘normal’”/“‘realis- tic.” The materiality of these objects is stressed, and the pictorialization of the image is increased. And yet color seems to subvert the obvious attempt in Ozu’s films to flatten the image. It gives An Autumn Afternoon a three-dimensionality which the black and white films lack, Thus we have a paradox: ‘Ozu attempts to destroy the transparency of the signifier; color usually contributes tothe “realism’” of att image, and yet Ozu uses it in such a way that the profilmic event i seen to be quite obviously arranged, designed. So for Ozu’s project, the loss of two-dimen- eee 8sionality is pictoriaization’s gain—the pre- sentational nature of the Ozu image does not ose to representational illusionism. This principle of restraint which invests moments of release (e.g. a red teapot in a beige room—points of energy, spaces of condensation, call them what we will) with ‘unusual power, is at work at every level of the Ozu film.The largest exampleof the pris ciple can be found in the relationship be- tween dialogue and movement (sound and image). Any violence in the films is con- veyed almost exclusively by dialogue; there is little movement of the characters, and almost no movement of the camera. In this cinema where dialogue tells the story, not the pictures, the Japanese tradition in soll painting (“Their rhythmic articulation of the painted surface is supremely sophisti cated, offering an autonomous plastic state- ment, The scrolls in no way seek to ‘clarify’ the text, or give greater ‘presence’ to the action or ‘depth’ to the characters, in the manner of the great Western llustrators,"") and the Japanese silent cinema (with its benshito tell he story) isrecalled. To his last film, the image track of the Ozu film seems curiously detached from the soundtrack. In Only Son the scene in which the mother first reproaches her son for lying to the teacher (telling him that he would go on to the Upper School) and then relents, prom ing to work hard to pay for the boy's studies, the camera cuts back and forth, from mother to son. Graphically each shot is almost identical—the mother or the son, perfectly stil, center frame. There is no sound other than their dialogue, no gestures to accompany the level of emotion that in a Western film would seek release or expres- sion in movement either of the camera or within the frame. Another example (the stills from the shots of which are reproduced in Donald Ritchie's Ozu) is the dialogue in Tokyo Story between the widowed father, Shukichi, and his widowed daughter-in- law, Noriko, in which Noriko weeps with a complex emotion of guilt, grief and fear. Again, in a shot-countershot pattern of graphic matching but no eyeline matching, Shots of the unfailingly smiling face of Shukichi are followed by shots of Noriko's face. At the height of her emotion, Noriko turns her face away from the camera. The movement is slight, but is charged with a ower made possibie by the visual restraint of the entire scene ‘Although Burch would claim that there is no eyeline matching in such a scene, and David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson would claim that thereis, and Ritchie would claim that the eyeline matching is “incor- rect,” the point is that the camera is usually either at an angle of 90° or 180° to the sub- ject, What this usually does is put the char- ACUI TTTA a A System of Surfaces (The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice) acter center frame, looking into (or almost into) the camera lens, and the 90° angle of the camera to the planar surface has the ef fect of flattening an architectural space or making two-dimensional a three-dimen- sional object. Burch insists that Japanese thought and life pervaded by a “system of surfaces,” and it can certainly be said that “the singular systemics of Ozu" are com- prehended by a system of surfaces. The apanese cinema is not voyeuristic. Itis pre- sentational. The frontality of the image implies that the profilmic space is ready to face the spectator, to be seen. The spectator is not encouraged to believe that he/she is gazing, unseen, atthe profilmic event. Coc- teau's “Cinema is an event seen through a keyhole,”” does not apply to this kind of cinema, The spectator enters the Ozu diegesis through an act of reading. The processes of identification (so vital to the functioning of the Western cinema) and the processes of identification/opposition in Western theater (as discussed by Bazin in “Theater and Cinema, Part I and Part II”) are com- plicated for the Western viewer of an Ozu film. Burch feels that ‘Itis the tension between the suspension of human presence (of the diegesis) and its potential return which ani- mates some of Ozu’s most thoughtful work," ‘and one could infer that for Burch asa Westerner, “Its the ever-present possi- bility of emergence/sul Western system,””" that makes the earl} films of Ozu more interesting than the la ones. Some of the quirkiness of the pre-wa} films has been eliminated by the time On} makes Tokyo Story. And by Burch’s impli cation, refinement of a system becomes str ility when it achieves “perfection.” ‘Some examples of quirkiness in the ea films include occasionally baffling, camer} movement. In J Was Born, But... we a given (twice) what appears to be a characte point of view shot, but before we even st the character. Before we are introduced i the grocer boy we get a wobbly tracking sha] of what (presumably) someone is lookin at; the shot is followed by the grocer boy of a bicycle. Later in the film, when the two boys return home from school, a shot of interior of the house, taken with a moving camera, precedes their appearance in th frame. Is this shot the mother’s point 0 view? Perhaps yes, perhaps no, because th following shot reveals the mother to being Part of the room that does not quite corres pond with the spot she would have had tote in for the moving-camera shot to be he! point of view. In the earlier films the presence of hyper situated objects (a term Kristin Thompsoy coined) is more pronounced. And Ozu's habit of reversing the Western practice of following an establishing shot with shot | 9‘hat fragment the establishing shot, tends to isorient the Western spectator (require ‘more ofthe reader). In the later films Ozu’s “pillow shots” as Burch calls them, cease to bean enigma, and in different instances can be read as establishing the general locale of the action (e.g. the opening shots of An Autumn Afternoon) or as shots during which the spectator indulges his emotion (eg. in An Autumn Afternoon the shot of the chandelier immediately following the shot of the bereft father after his daughter's wedding). Burch presumably places a value on the greater difficulty of reading the tarler films. He calls There Was a Father (1942) Ozu’s “last masterpiece,”” and de- scribes it as an “‘almost excruciatingly sub- limated study’*!? of a widowed school- teacher. It is perhaps true that Ozu’s later films are less ‘sublimated”” but this does not make them lesser works. As the “singular systemics’” of Ozu become clearer, Burch likes Ozu less. When the mother in Only Son visits the son's old teacher in Tokyo, she is disap- pointed (perhaps) to find that the teacher has become absent-minded, and for all his education, is “unsuccessful.” The pillow shots of the pennant that advertises the teacher's cheap restaurant, and of the power station, are more ambiguous in their significance than the pillow shots of the final sequence of Tokyo Story, in which shots of the lonely father are interspersed with shots of the waterway and of rooftops. But itis unfair to call “the gradual absorp- tion of the diegesis into the static world of the pillow shots" evidence of Ozu’s decline into academicism.! It is the film scholar who has decided what the filmmaker’s pro- ject was, and it is the film scholar who reproaches the filmmaker when it ap- pears that the project has been betrayed. Burch’s preference for the more dialectical structure of the early Ozu films accounts for his disappointment in the later films; Ozu’s systematic exclusion of camera movement, for example, Burch sees as an impover- ishment. If, as Burch claims, Ozu’s post-war films deteriorate into academicism, the devasta- tion and defeat of Japan in that war might very well account for it. All of Ozu’s films are pervaded by a sense of loss—loss of an old social and economic order, of a stable system of values and beliefs. The order and degree of control manifest in Ozu’s slow, dignified style, can be seen as an effort to invoke traditional values in the face of Japan’s socio-economic upheaval brought ‘about by contact with the West, rapid indus- trialization and war. Ozu makes a fetish of what in contemporary Japanese life has been lost—the aura of dignity which, at its most refined, accompanies the tea cere- mony. And yet the content of the Ozu film is contemporary. Certainly his last film cludes several references to Japan’s defeat, and the Americanization of Japan isevident in the decor, gadgetry, clothing and archi- tecture in the film. In Tokyo Story the old couple (essentially figures from the past—a ppast which no doubt can be found in Japan even today, in the provinces) discover that the organization and tempo of citylife is at odds with their expectations of their children who live in the city. In An Autumn Afternoon Ozu gives us an example of the contemporary problem of leisure time, and the expense of it, in the big city—the husband plays golf (on top of a skyscraper!) only after it has been settled that his wage-earning wife also deserves spending money for leisure activites, They share some domestic chores, such as cook- ing, and quibble and bicker over others. Even on the level of the cinematic signifier, the Ozu film moves with the times (the times being the domination of the cinema by Hol- lywood codes). In both Tokyo Story and An Autumn Afternoon Western music is often used, and used as frequently as it is in the ‘West—as continuity between shots, and to underscore dramatic moments (even harp flourishes are used for moments of pathos!) And yet the films are more sche- ‘matic and geometrical. Socially, economically and politically, Japan changed extraordinarily after World War I, and Ozu’s art registers this change. The more rigid geometry of the later films was necessary. It can be read as Ozu’s way of keeping a sense of balance during a period of vertiginous change. Besides, Ozu ‘must have sensed that the Japanese audi- tence no longer wanted to see “‘excruciating- ly ssublimated” studies and, increasingly under the Western influence, were less eager to expend in the film reading act what was becoming also for them ‘‘a considerable effort of memory and imagination.”""* RL, 1. Its not uncommon to hear the lament thatthe collapse of the studio system in Hollywood in effect spelled the end of the cinema at its most productive, effi ent and successful, 2. Donald Richie, Ozu, (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of Cal- ifornia Press, 1974), p. 152. 3. Noel Burch, To The Distant Observer— Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cin- ema (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni versity of California Press, 1979), p. 147. 4, Donald Richie, Ozu, p. 19 5. Noel Burch, To The Distant Observer, p. 74. 6. Ibid., p. 18. 7 Ibid, p. 99 8. Ibid., p. 119. . 108. 10. Ibid, p. 161. 11 Ibid. p. 114, 12: Ibid, p. 180. 13, Ibid., pp. 1723, 18, Ibid. p. 174 by Wentaorth and FayOu Because these listings are compiled a month ahead of time, there may be last minute changes of time or program that are not reflected here. To avoid disappointment, please check with the appropriate department. NOVEMBER 1-7: Nov. 4COMING HOME (1979, Hal Ashby), Board of Man- agers, Wollman Auditorium, 8pm, 10pm, 12pm Nov. 5-WILD RIVER (1961, Elia Kazan), Cinematheque, $11 Dodge Hall, 7pm Nov. 7-FORBIDDEN GAMES (1962, Rene Clement), Zoo- prax, SIA Auditorium, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm Noy. 7-CHINATOWN (1974, Roman Polanski), Board of ‘Managers, Wollman Auditorium, 8pm, 10pm, 12pm. NOVEMBER 8-14: Nov. 8-THE ROAD TO LIFE (1931, N. Ekk), Russian Insti- tute, SIA Auditorium, 4pm Nov. 9-SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE (1972, George Roy Hill), Zooprax, SIA Auditorium, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm Nov. 11-AIRPLANE (1980, Jim Abrahams), Zooprax, SIA Auditorium, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm Noy. 12-SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1964, Elia Kazan), Cinematique, 511 Dodge Hall Noy. 14-THE PRODUCERS (1967, Mel Brooks), Zooprax, SIA Auditorium, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm NOVEMBER 15-21: _ Nov. 16-THE TENANT (1976, Roman Polanski), Zooprax, SIA Auditorium, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm Nov. 18-THE TIN DRUM (1979, Volker Schlondorff), Deut- sches Haus, SIA Auditorium, 8pm Nov. 18-Selected Shorts, including THE WRECK OF THE NEW YORK SUBWAY and THE CASE AGAINST LINCOLN CENTER, Reelpolitik, Earl Hall Nov. 18-NO NUKES (1980, Julian Schlassberg, Danny Gold- berg, Anthony Potenza), Board of Managers, Willman Auditorium, 8pm, 10pm, 12pm Nov. 19-AMERICA, AMERICA (1969, Elia Kazan), Cinema- theque, $11 Dodge Hall 7pm Nov. 21-ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975, Milos Forman), Board of Managers, Spm, 10pm, 12pm Nov. 21-THE FALLEN IDOL (1949, Sir Carol Reed), Zoo- prax, SIA Auditorium, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm NOVEMBER 22-30: Nov. 23-THE PASSENGER (1975, Michaelangelo Antonioni), Zooprax, SIA Auditorium, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm Noy. 29-SPRING (1947, G. Alexander), Russian Institute, SIA Auditorium, 4pm. Nov. 30-THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928, Carl Dreyer), Zooprax, SIA Auditorium, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm As co-ordinator for Cinematheque, I’ve been asked the question “Why Elia Kazan?”” many times, This is never asked. in an unbiased tone: there's always a sneaky undertow of cynicism or disgruntlement, That's not to say that most cinema students don’t like Kazan—the response to these screenings has been very positive. Nevertheless, there seems to be a revisionist distaste of Kazan‘in some circles, mainly focus- ing on his supposed lack of visual style. Although not as visu- ally innovative as, say, Nick Ray, Kazan evolved a mise-en- NOV. 12 NOV.19 ‘Splendor in the Grass America, America ‘Warren Beatty, Natalie Wood Stathis Giallelis, Lou Antonio, William Inge wrote this screenplay John Morley, Paul Mann about frustrated adolescentsina Kazan wrote this film about the small town in Kansasin the late harsh strugele of a Greek boy in the 1920's. This isa problematical great late 1890's and his eventual pil- movie—in parts it tackles the prob-_ gramiage to America, This story is lems of adolescent sexuality better drawn from his own family back- than many movies before or since; ground, and itis therefore one of inother parts, the elements of melo- his mosi personal works, as well as drama are extreme. But Kazan is on¢ of his favorites. Kazan used a ‘wonderfully unafraid to let many mixture of professional and non. scenes reach the authentic heights of professional actors and achieved an theirmeaning—which often means extraordinary “poetic” realisn— ‘out and out hysteria. Beatty is ‘many of the images explore the ‘superb in his screen debut. Cinema- anguish of immigrants pursuing the tography by Boris Kaufman, ‘American Dream. Cinematography by Haskell Wevler AZAN RETROSPECTIVE: scene perfectly suited to his material—primarily the highly crafted psychological (melo)dramas of writers like Schulberg, Williams, etc. And besides, the sheer emotional impact of movies like East of Eden, Waterfront, Streetcar and Wild River is proof that Kazan’s form never lagged far behind his content. No matter how great Kazan was with actors (and he was the greatest), if he hadn't captured their performances with such subtlety and grace his films would probably have faded imperceptibly from our cinematic memory bank.—H.D. DEC. 3 DEC.10 The Visitors On the Waterfront Patrick McVey, James Woods, Marlon Brando, Karl Maldes, ‘Steve Railsback Lee J. Cobb, Eva-Marie Saint Made on a budget of $200,000, this Our reprise of Kazan’s most pops film, with screenplay by Chris lar and arguably his best film Kazan, was: “A powerful, boat- Easily one of the most powerful rocking challenge tothe monolithic _'S0s films, and Brando's perform tradition of unionized studio pro-- ance retains al its bristing imme: ductions, the Industry howled diacy through time and countless land picketed and virtually banned a viewings. Kazan will be present at {rama that stands on its own merits this last screening of our retrospect ‘asa powerful anti—Vietnam War series honoring his career tact. The young cast contributes to Cinematography by Boris Kaufman, ‘a social pessimism and psychic vio- lence that are Kazan trademarks.” (Andrew Sarris) Nick Proferes shot ‘and edited ths film. Special guests will be present at this screening.