Columbia Film REVIEW OCTOBER 1983 VOL. 2, NO.COLUMBIA LOU: sess FILM REVIEW in big tre he Batons: ‘Maitland McDonagh, Robert Lang Designer: Lynda Mowe Layouts Lisie Zucker ‘Typeeettor: Kathy Frank TABLE OF CONTENTS Mimarator: Christopher Fay P.O.V.: Lulu in Hollywood—Louise Brooks and the Star System 8 oof REVIEWS: at ar Don’t Look Back... . i. wf Eddie and the Cruisers .. ? 3 COLUMBIA FILM REVIEW welcomes ab Fanny and Alexander 7 ee ea See Ne cee | HeatandDust 6 in aaa Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence 8 Piera’s Story am Cenk ecg pati prams —<|- Puberty Bins... 5 career ris Denese : Arts, in September, October, November, ‘Strange Invaders . .. settee eee ee eee . pai topped eset ci os Under Pe yes esc t16F, ES. 3 ‘Goss ofthe authors, not ecessarly show of he ‘str or fcuk Copyright © 1983 Printed in United States of America A Rights Reserved 2 covusmua |Eddie and the Cruisers United States 4. Martin Davidson A television newsmagazine reporter re- surrects Eddie and the Cruisers, a Rock and Roll band whose brief heyday in the early sixties was abruptly terminated when lead singer Eddie Wilson drove off a bridge and ‘was apparently killed (though his body was never recovered). Her hook: might Edc hhave survived the crash, and if so, where is he and where are the master tapes of “A ‘Season in Hell,” the band’s second, unre- leased album, which disappeared the day after the car crash? Their music is undergo- ing arevival and the time seems ripe for such a story; she sets out to interview the surviv- ing members of the band. Frankie, lyricist to Eddie’s tunesmith, is teaching high school English; Sally, the bass player, has assembled a lookalike band and plays nostalgia shows. Joann, Eddie’s backup singer and girl- friend, choreographs hotel floorshows and the drummer is a card dealer in a casino. ‘Through her interviews with them and their conversations with each other, a picture of the band’s career begins to emerge, different parts of which are revealed to the reporter, the viewer and each former member of the ba ie and the Crusers's a puzle ala Citizen Kane, but one in which the pieces do ultimately come together to create a total picture for the viewer; its Rosebud, the miss- ing tapes, are located and given to the band’s manager, Doc; the mystery of Joann’s haunting phonecalls uncovered and the real story of the death of Wendell, the sax player, told. Even the ultimate question, ‘What happened to Eddie?, is answered for the viewer, though not for any of the char- acters. Although not as satisfying as it could bbe because it ties up all the loose ends so neatly, Eddie and The Cruisers is more interesting than the average Rock and Roll ‘movie. Sometimes a little too self conscious, the flashbacks to the band’s halcyon days nevertheless contain a number of attrac- tively ironic images, the stuff of which old ‘men’s memories of adolescent dreams are made—Eddie and the band lit up against dark, smokey interiors or jamming on a sunlit rooftop against an amazingly blue sky; Joann in a black bathing suit and high heels, slouching inside a too-big white men’s shirt; clean leather jackets and cars with fins. Though there is never any question as to when a given event is taking place, Eddie and the Cruisers does not mark the transi- tions from past to present; they flow into and from one another effortlessly, often linked on sounds, and particularly on music. The result is genuinely dreamlike and eerily nostalgic; a fantasy propelled along by an insistent soundtrack. This soundtrack does raise the specter of some potential problems. The early Cruisers ‘music is sixties pop, but the later material sounds unmistakably like Bruce Springsteen ‘or John Cougar and the snatches of “‘Sea- son in Hell” heard at the end of the fateful recording session that preceded Eddie's accident are arty heavy-metal that is an un- likely product of an early Jersey garage band. The sacrifice of a certain de- agree of historical precision in the music is not so disturbing as to make the film un- watchable, however, and the sound is com- pelling enough to make up for its anachron- istic nature, Eddie and the Cruisers is a clever diver- sion, an entertainment whose pretensions ccan be ignored in light of its attractive vi- sualsand dreamy structure. —M.M. The Absent Subject (Eddie and the Cruisers) Under Fire United States 4, Roger Spottiswoode ‘A photojournalist covering the warin Ni- ‘caragua becomes enmeshed in local politics. He also enters into an affair with his best friend’s wife, a foreign correspondent, when her husband returns to the United States to becomes a network anchorman. Russell, the photographer, and Claire, the writer, seek out the charismatic, near mys- tical revolutionary leader Rafael after he is reported killed in an ambush; when they find he is dead they are persuaded to help disseminate the fiction that heis stil alive, in hiding in the jungle. Their actions help to bring about the successful conclusion of the poets’ revolution,” and ultimately lead to the death of Claire's husband, who returns ia eviews dacenanixeaes Nee Rama se Gmc en why A ie mn the situation they have helped bring about. Srl incr settee tem i ryt mr ae a phenomenon often described by photo- iipomeoeemen td eee si ees tee rege tn opportunity), but his nearly parodic accent ta ee aoe au oy edn en new. ocrower wer 3,not good enough—it fails to startle. Under Fire's interesting if only because it does address an important issue head-on and manages to function perfectly well on a narrative level at the same time. Fear of pol- ities is a dominant characteristic of the ‘American Cinema—even the ambitious Reds often slips into a turbulent love story against a backdrop of revolution, reassert- ing the Hollywood notion that the messages should be left to Western Union. Though never ventures into really dangerous teri tory (afterall, the “‘media war’? issue has been endiessiy discussed apropos Viet Nam), Under Fire acquit itself honorably onitsown terms, —MM. Strange Invaders United States d. Michael Laughlin Thirty years ago a Midwestern town was depopulated by extraterrestrials, who have themselves subsequently replaced the citi- zenry, disguised as heartland types in poly- ester and beehives: Annettes and Frankies Jong in the tooth and to a T. A government UFO agency learns of the existence of the aliens but keeps their cover in return for: formation, while reciprocally a female alien sent to New York to gather data on Earth- ling urbanites (and produce achild by a Col- umbia University professor). In 1983, a young female reporter for a national tabloid biithely publishes an old file photograph of one of the monsters. Terrified of disclosure, a delegation of the American Gothic in- vades Manhattan to quash the reporter and reclaim the child of the marriage between the NY alien and the Columbia entomolo- gist. The invaders plan to leave the Earth and take the child with them. The kidnap- ping proceeds, and professor and reporter, now romantically involved, head for the Midwest in pursuit of child and township, themselves being chased by an agent from the UFO bureau, Fans of the first film of Michael Laugh- lin’s “Strange Trilogy”” now in progress— ‘Strange Behavior (1981)—will recognize the parody of genre movies (Laughlin’s use of "50s scope is, once again, masterly), and note the greater reliance in the new film on streamlined plotting. Laughlin is ever will. ing to sacrifice narrative credibility to his sense of contemporary character and to the ‘audience's need for a fresh surprise in the fantasy. Invaders has the same rich variety in characters and performers as Behavior. (The cast includes Nancy Allen, Diana Scar- wid, Louise Fletcher, June Lockheart, Wal- lace Shawn, Kenneth Tobey, Charles Lane and Dan Shor.) The ensemble acting style always seems about to collapse or to give birth to something really new. The tonal in- stability (parody, horror, pathos, poetry) is ‘a projection of Laughlin’s concern with the social bonds of his characters, their need to 4 covumnis rium review, ocTOBER 113 ‘maintain their poised privacy or justify anew its sometimes necessary abrogation. There is nothing in the new film that approaches the sustained horror of the two setpieces of slow-motion Gran Guignol in Behavior. Invaders is more even-tempered. Laughlin succeeds largely in his tightrope act because, like David Cronenberg, he has a lethal satiric eye for the “*hidden” social discriminations that make the U.S. a class- structured society; and because, like Ter- ence Malick, he has the courage of his very developed primitivism. The movie is in con- trol of its genre conventions, its comment ‘on those conventions, and of the new senti- ments that necessitate a comment. Unlike most movies today, Invader's conceits and processes seem to grow out of themselves as we watch, Three scenes deserve special mention: (1) a layered dissolve from phallic train to comfy automobile interior which returns to narrative filmmaking a sense of visual scale and proportion that one had thought had disappeared with Hitchcock; (2) ashock cut between a diffused bedroom interior and a hard-edged exterior wall that schematizes the idealized potencies and voyeuristic fears that haunt the movie; and (3) an interview with an asylum inmate (Michael Lerner) and a resulting flashback that—in their sense of ‘endemic isolation and ghostly logic—make Laughlin look like a young American Mizo- ‘uchi. Closer to home, Laughlin is compar- able in his themes to such young New York choreographers as Peter Anastos and Gail Conrad. ‘Two complaints. John Addison’s music conventionalizes everything it touches. And Laughlin likes old-shoe types for his leading men. When this taste combines with Paul Le Mat (effective as the actor is in other roles), something opaque results despite Le Mat’s moving suggestions of mute acceptance and despite the excitement actor and director enerate in their attempt to get at a new ‘quality. Laughlin asks a great deal of Le Mat, and Le Mat must wear his soles very thin. Fans of the brilliant Fiona Lewis can expect from her Waitress/Avon Lady very high heels, indeed. —D.D. Don’t Look Back United States d. D.A, Pennebaker Don’t Look Back is a true document— not of a rock star, not of atour, not of aby- gone era. True, itis D.A. Pennebaker’s doc- ‘mentary melange of Dylan’s 1965 British tour, but it transcends its category. It's a document of a sparkling moment in our cul- tural history, one that revolves around an clusive, almost alien personality who spun his ideas and images into an alluring web around himself. Dylan’s impact is felt now in many obvious ways and just as many sub- terranean ways, and Don't Look Back is a shot back in time that gives a glimpse of the figure making marks on the future. ‘There is something paradoxical about the mise-en-scene of Don’t Look Back—the camera moves with lightning speed and quicksilver reflexes to capture the Dylan whose essence was far too mercurial to en- trap within a frame. But it keeps moving with him, caught in the tension between try- ing to get a fix on him by holding still while he moves or by matching his kinetic restless- ness. This dialectic weaves throughout the film, and itis as if Pennebaker has taken Dylan’s lead and entered into some cinema tic/thythmic relationship with him, as no ‘other more direct relationship is possible or desirable. And now, looking back at Don’t Look Back, what’s so great about it isthat it ddd catch the evasive butterfly in the time- ‘There is Dylan, his “personality” all surface but which can be “read” and ultimately even felt”), caught and crystallized at a specific, watershed ‘moment musically, politically, and stylis- tical It is the moment when Dylan has taken “folk” as far as he could take it, and js on the brink of entering the realm of rock ‘n" roll—in the broadest sense. This move- ‘ment was for him a total organismic and aes- thetic one—not just musical. For “Dylan’’—the person and the construction, was being formed atthe time of Don's Look Back, and this formation is evident. The ming of this transmutation has much to do with the blinding media light being cast upon him, and itis Dylan’s relation to the ‘media, so crucial tothe creation of “Dylan” as we came to know him, that is highlighted in Don’t Look Back. Dylan has begun to emanate a force-field of alternately protective and communicative irony and wit about himself. All questions entering the force-field were digested and spit back with vehement, often sarcastic negation. Dylan protected himself from ‘media abnegation by remaining purpose- fully, stubbornly evasive—his acerbic beha- in the famous scene with a Time maga- zine reporter is emblematic. People point to it as the young, snot-nosed, uncool Dylan tunable to deal rationally with his meteoric rise to fame. It's clear in the scene how he completely depersonalized the guy—he was just an abstraction to Dylan—Time maga- zine, the Media. But Dylan looks now, in the light of an ever more enveloping media culture, to have been remarkably cagey and self-protective: better to make the media his abstraction than to have him become their abstraction. It all falls into place when we witness Dylan in quiet moments, some of them with Joan Baez, or in concert the contradiction tells us that his insides were not to become anyone’s captions, his ideas anyone's facile slogans—at least not ifhe could help it. The intermittent concert footage is cut short—‘no song is heard to completion—and so re- verberates through the film in strange ways. ‘The black backgrounds envelop Dylan in shot, his black shit, jacket and hair blending in and leaving his gamine-like ex- pressive features and guitar, his words and ‘gestures pre-eminent. It’s striking to see and hear how his words were becoming too strong and expressive to be contained withit the form any longer. It’s not that “It’s Al- right Ma,” "Gates of Eden,” “Hattie Car- roll,” etc., as he sings them then, are not profoundly stirring—they are. It’s just that the imminent leap into rock ‘n’ roll can now be seen as inevitable, the power behind his emotions and ideas straining to take new shape. The Look You Want to Know Better @on't Look Back) Pennebaker's choppy editing in of the concert footage, leaving us wanting more, works because it sets up a subtle yearning for Dylan’s vocal expression that underlines our awareness of a ‘‘real”” Dylan, in con- trast with the persona we experience throughout. Something wrenchingly heart- felt and genuine emerges in his final Albert Hall concert—it sno wonder and yet utterly ‘wonderful when, in the car afterwards, Dy- lan looks out the window at the stampede of fans and, a moment later in the clear, mut- ters musingly, ‘I feel like I been through something.” His manager Grossman tosses back the inevitable reply, ‘*You have.”” Dylan’s total style, his look and his act, struck a chord then, but as he moved into other realms the reverb died out. Strangel that chord was struck again—piercingly—i the late "70s with the advent of “New Wave” and all that. Suddenly, everywhere you turned everyone was dressing and act- ing like Dylan circa 1966. (Highway 61 was the pinnacle.) The wayfarers, thin-lapelled black jackets, snap-up dress shirts black and. white, the hair-cut, the attitude. Why? Don’t Look Back tells us. Dylan caught, in his style, a graceful way of living his art in the face of all the powers of distortion. He certainly was able to cast light upon himself so as to bring on massive cultural cathexis, but without massive co-optation. He con- tinued in the tradition of James Dean, but Fils ineview with a more sophisticated artistic and po! tical armamentarium to protect. The dissolution and subsequent rebirth and subsequent dissolution and subsequent (boreme) rebirth of Dylan has yet to be fully understood. But the grainy black and white images of this film tell us a lot about why Dylan circa 1966 meant so much to the new groundswell of oppositional art/music of the late '705/early "80s. It’s easy to see how ‘uch style we've appropriated from hit the question now is: how much substance? HD. Liquid Sky United States 4, Slava Tsukerman Margaret, a Soho fashion model, travails with dealers and junkies who offer @ hard time rather than a fix; a rival male model named Jimmy who reviles her for ultimate cowardice; a live-in lover, Adrian, who tums their affair into performance art; a drama coach who disapproves; a German scientist who spies on Margaret's sex life; and a fashion-photography crowd that ex- pectedly brutalizes its camera-subjects. At- tracted by the pleasure principle inherent in rampant drugs, sex and personality-cult, a UFO the size of a dinner plate lands on the roof of Margaret's loft and proceeds to ex- terminate each of her many lovers at the point of orgasm. Margaret reacts with phi ‘osophical acuity. Sky is a comedy about the Soho-perfor- mance-art and fashion scene (targets ripe for satire if just alittle specialized), and the ‘movie is very entertaining despite its bushy- tailed concepts and heavy-handed script. Some of the unassimilated elements in the ‘work can be explained by the seven-year U.S. residency of Russian emigre documen- tarian Tyukerman: how did he manage to learn so little and so much about us? The rest to the $400,000 budget and first tries. ‘Tyukerman has accepted the Camp concep- tion of the celebrity as divine scapegoat, ni- tially attracting depredation, then dealing it ‘out. The script breaks down the fear/desire ‘mechanism into aneat schema, and nothing is funnier than the spectacle of the galvan- ized punkette—so self-accepting she’s flush with new-found lethal powers—dashing to the local club to wreak immediate revenge con a recent rapist. Indeed, the triumph of Liquid Sky is to be found in the characteri- zation of Margaret, as performed by Anne Carlisle (who collaborated with Tsukerman and Nina V. Kerova on the script). A new- wave superstar of tatty disdain and poised diffidence, Carlisle's Margaret is used for the social comedy of her improvised hauteur and for the foil she provides for some very hhard-up and horny types. In that sense, no film released this year in the U.S. has been so consistently on-target in dealing with contemporary disaffection. (The movie is reminiscent of the “funk"” choreographies ‘of Soho dancer Daniel Peters.) Tsukerman hhas memorialized the young artists in any decadent scene who, frightened of the lubri- cious flirtation of society, manage to turn ‘themselves into frightsin order to simulate a ‘modicum of dignity. But that character of Margaret (whose god is David Bowie) trans- cends even that usage in a Kabuki-like, sol- arized soliloquy and political savvy. (One of the discoveries the moviegoer must be per- mitted is that virtuoso Carlisle plays more than one role in the film.) Tsukerman sur- rounds his Diva with looming wide-angle shots, an eclectic synthesizer score, photo- graphy in night-glo color by Yuri Neyman, and a full complement of the mystic, the sleazy and the coked-out. For the big fash- ion shoot at the end, Tsukerman has made sure that the photographer's slaves look exactly like the people who bag your gro- ‘Tsukerman (a student of Lev Kuleshov) sprays directorial and performance ideas across his canvas; the absence of a graceful script and any charm of physical movement from the actors contributes to the feel of a contrasting retention and lack of dynamism in the visual development. But in the most farcical sketch, you notice the modulations that the actors are permitted, especially when the fun threatens to become truly Ger- manic. (The delivery of the lines is often so needle-sharp, the rush of characterization is painlessly instananeous.) Paradoxically, the ‘most original element of the film—Margar- et as Sacred Queen of the Punks—may be the most retardative for young filmmakers and filmgoers, transfixed as so many are by the possibility of an immediate, radical relo- cation of our idea of film-acting style and portraiture. There is a traditional side to Margaret that includes Maria Montez, Maria Cesares, and Viva. The Russian ‘American artist that Tsukerman most re- sembles is the painter Pavel Tehelitchew, es- pecially the satirist of urban fashion in Phenomena, Like Tehilitchew’s work, Tsu- kerman’s draws on a supply of "30s pseudo- scientific and Jungian themes, and one of the oddities of Liquid Sky is that these un- derpinnings seem both old fashioned and absolutely substantive for the movie's ‘nouvelle finish. Perhaps they help stablize the high-wired tone of the comedy. The ana- logies and allusions include Cocteauesque ‘costuming and a widdershins dance in a cli- mactic Kenneth Anger tribute. All this in a movie which deals with a milieu and refers to a style that Hilton Kramer don’t allow ‘and which satirizes the Pauline Kaels in the audience who itch for raunch. Perhaps the final paradox is that an entertainment in- ‘coLuMmA ru neview,ocroner wes 5fused with such an ancient “exquisite” tra- dition should surface in 1983 and take. —D.D. Puberty Blues Australia 4. Bruce Beresford Debbie (Nell Schofield) and Sue (Jad ‘Capelja) are two pretty Australian teenagers who live in a big seaside town. At their high school, the elite social clique is made up of the top surfers and their girlfriends, a group Debbie and Sue have decided they want to become part of regardless of the price. That doesn’t sound like a promising plot. It’s no different, really, than those of the mindless teenploitation movies Hollywood is so ‘eagerly churning out these days. But Puberty Bluesisa very different sort of film from those trashy—and very profitable— ‘ones. It is harsh, mercilessly exposing a so- cial structure that places the girls in roles utterly subservient to the surfing boys. The film is not blindly dogmatic, however. Even in the teens’ flawed mini-society there are ‘moments of tenderness, triumph and hap- piness. ‘Once. girl becomes part ofthe group, she is given a boyfriend. Girls cannot be unat- tached. Sexist as that seems to the audience, Debbie and Sue are thrilled by it all, to have boyfriends, to be envied by those not in the group, and their enthusiasm is infectious. ‘What they end up doing most of the time, hhave to do actually, is sit around and get tan while watching their boyfriends surf. When hhe comes in, they must have his towel, light his cigarette, get him food. The boys don’t appear to actually like the girls much, only to tolerate them because they are useful. ‘And yet, the boys give the girls friendship rings, a small gesture that, along with others like it, prevents the boys from becoming cardboard cutout goons. Director Bruce Beresford makes sure there’s no confusion about what the girls are, though. In one se- quence, he cuts back and forth between shots of the boys in their glory, on thei boards, and extreme close-ups of the girl- friends’ bodies, fragmenting them into flat stomachs, long legs, and bikini clad breasts; sex objects glistening with sweat and suntan oll Sex is one of the girls’ duties, and neither Debbie nor Sue accept it as easily as they have everything else. Both are concerned about being considered no more than “rooting machines,” which is not surpirsing based on what we see. One boyfriend can- not even be bothered to remove his girl- friend’s bra when he screws her. He’s impa- tient, she’s taking too long to undress, and ‘once the panties are off, he doesn’t want to wait anymore. The great balancing act of this film is that when such scenes get you dis- usted at the boys’ sordid indifference, Ber- esford reveals a gentler side of them (like the rings), and it’s suddenly clear there are other things to the relationships. In fact, some- times the male dominance is all a sham. Some of the longtime girlfriends have learned to play the game so well that they're the ones who actually have control. In Endless Summer, the 60's hymn-like celebration of surfing that was about the search for the perfect wave, Australia was a paradise of long beaches and sparkling water. Where the boys surf, the water looks dirty, and most of the beach is wall to wall people. It’sasmart move. Making the world around the teenagers glossy and beautiful would have looked clumsily ironic. When Debbie and Sue rebel, get a board and walk down the beach to try and surf themselves, everyone on the beach is a little surprised (“'Gooday Gidget,” someone yells, and the girls smile). They battle it out with the waves and start to win. The boys are impressed, Perhaps the clique isin for a radical reshuf- fling. Then again, it may try and retreat to lofty disdain. Puberty Biuesis somewhat reminiscent of Gregory’s Girl. Each film gives the feeling that it is meant as observation rather than interpretation. The action doesn’t need any- thing else, it speaks for itself. Gregory's Girl was a much happier film, Puberty Blues isn’t glum. Annoying at times, exhilarating at others, it’s a good and interesting film. EL. Heat and Dust United Kingdom 4. James Ivory ‘Anne, a journalist, becomes intrigued with the scandalous life of her great aunt Olivia, who in the 1920s went to Indiato j her civil servant husband. Once there, her stubborn nature asserted itself; she refused to abide by the often petty mores of the British colony and associated with “unsuitable” people, in particular the local Indian prince, ‘with whom she eventually had an affair. She abandoned her husband and retured into ex- ile until her death. Anne reconstructs thisstory ‘through letters and other documents left by Olivia, and through interviews with her friend’ Nicholas; after she has exhausted these sources she herself goes to India and retraces Olivia's actions. In the process she too finds her head tuned by the country's ‘exoticism, and forms her own unsuitable a- liance; when she becomes pregnant. she ‘makes her way to the village where Ol lived out the last years of her life and decides to have the child there. single women living in the British colony to have beautiful clothes and hats and jewelry, but quite another for the rebelling Indian peasants to have flawlessly shiny turbans and picturesque rags—this is exoticism of a particularly unrealistic type. Modern-day India doesn’t look that much different—the styles tend toward polyester off-the-rack, but there is still a noticeable dearth of wretched beggars in the streets. Even the notoriously cesspool-like Ganges looks Quite inviting. ‘Anne's piecing together of Olivia’s story is a rather weak narrative device; since nobody and nothing ever really standsin her of doing some research. Her seduction by exotic India isa trifle disingenuous; Oliviais the product of a less worldly time than ‘Anne, atime when ‘'women lived forlove,"” so her behavior seems in character, but Anne, one can’t help feeling, is being alittle bubble-headed, and she should know bet- ter. The slight irritation one feels at her is ‘magnified as the film goes on and ultimately throws it seriously out of kilter, but there are some lovely moments along the way. The women of the Prince’s palace are an en- chantingly alien group in their bright silk saris, with their beringed fingers and toes; they play cards and gossip, but there is al- ways the hint of something a little dan- ‘gerous, stories of curses and enchantments they have wrought. Ivory effectively evokes the pompous splendor of both the British Raj and the Indian Royalty, and tis evident that in fleeing her oppressive life at the Brit- ish settlement Olivia has in fact only exchanged one set of strictures for another. Perhaps the greatest strength of Heat and ‘Dust is a meticulous attention to detail; in Olivia’s segment the frames are usually packed with so many period objects that it’s not hard to see why she would be dying to {get out. The locations are beautiful and thereis more than adequate time to examine them; the acting is restrained and carefully staged. It seems mean-spirited not to admire Heat and Dust, coming as it does in the midst of dozens of Risky Businesses and Getting It Ons, but itis just too stuffy to be really likeable. —MM. Heat and Dust United Kingdom 4. James Ivory Films set in strange lands have the advan- tage of being able to exploit that strangeness The fourteenth feature film produced by as mere backdrop, interacting as litle as Ismail Merchant and directed by James possible with the strangeness itself. Popular IWory, Heat and Dust shares both the flaws films pull this off with extensive location land the qualities of their previous works. It shooting and one or two native characters has a stuffy, almost embalmed feeling; the who figure peripherally inthe action. The 1920s scenes look too much like museum strangeness ofa foreign land serves the pur- dioramas to be compelling and everythingis pose of pure entertainment, much as it too pretty. Its, afterall, one thing for every would in a rock video. In such films, thereis 6 couunma rium Review, OCTOBER 1985no attempt to analyze why things are the way they are in Timbuktu. When such an at- tempt is made, itis in verbal terms, through the lines spoken by a native character. American director James Ivory goes a step further than popular cinema by integrating ‘native’ characters into the backbone of his narrative, yet his mode for revealing the strangeness of his strange settings remains verbal, sketchy and superficial. Such a mode, though excusable when set off against the entertaining dramatic elements of the popular film, serves only to short- change the viewer when the dramatic struc- ture of the film, such as Ivory’s, is based on a series of supposedly slice-of-life scenes. ‘What director Ivory ends up serving is mere ‘unsatisfactory crust. Director Ivory’s latest foray into India is inappropriately titled Heat and Dust, since ‘the former element is only spoken of as re- sponsible for the goings-on in the film and the latter is barely mentioned, much less shown, The goings-on consist mostly of the | J exogamous urges of two generations- of British womanhood, a grandmother and her | sgrandneice, their respective experiences sep- arated by decades, who are both in love with India, Olivia (Greta Scacchi) is the wife of the Assistant District Collector of Satipur in the British India of the 1920's while Anne (Gulie Christie) is an ex-BBC employee visit ing India in 1982in order to research the let- ters written by her grandaunt. livia is singled out for attention by the nearby petty-vilainous Nawab (portrayed with atrocious theatricality by Indian matinee idol Shashi Kapoor) while Anne gravitates into the arms of her young but married landlord (played by tabla-player Zakir Hussain with blank-faced aplomb). (Why Ivory chose a tabla-player for the part of Anne’s lover when the role requires no tabla playing is an enigma that is best buried ‘with the film.) It would not be giving the plot away to state that it is lvory’s conten- tion that despite the global village and all that, such relationships, though striving for aan ideal harmony between two worlds, never have and never will bear fruit. Ivory and his screenwriter Ruth Jhabvala are entitled to their view but when we have paid the price of admission, we are entitled toa substantiation. Instead, we are offered. voice-over insights on the level of **Every- thing gets mixed up in India’ (with refer~ ‘ence to a ridiculous image of Muslims and Hindus worshipping at one shrine) and “The conventions of the Indians are, ifany- thing, stronger”” (with reference to Olivia ‘outraging the conventions of both worlds). Moreover, Ivory does not subtitle key lines Of dialogue spoken in Hindi: Madhur Jaf- frey in a singularly effective cameo as the Nawab's mother spurts a characteristic in- vective when she learns that Olivia has come to call at the palace. She calls Olivia a fair- skinned ghost of a woman who has died Hibnsin Review during a menstrual period. Though the force of invectives is arguably non-literal, a literal translation would have contributed a badly needed lively moment. Asitstands, the few lively moments in the film are contributed by the obligatory truth- hippie (Charles MeCaughan) who, despite his pretense of bliss is racked within by the sexual energy generated by his yogic practice. “It gets to this enormous size owing to the meditation,” he pleads, want- ing Anne to help him toward the ‘ultimate orgasm.”” Again, Ivory does not show this hippie in relation to other hippies but as a theatrical figure. Itisthis aspect of theatricality that, I feel, is the most serious charge that can be levelled against the film. It becomes clear from the complex fabric of Indian reality with its interweaving of the material and the spiritual, the social and the psychological, that characters cannot be portrayed as cut Allin the Family (Piern's Story) off from the reality around them as Ivory and Thabvala insist on doing. A popular film like Ocropussy, even with its tourist- brochure embellishments, offers a truer pic- ture of India because it uses India as a mere backdrop and does not attempt to explain its strangeness. For all their artistic aspira- tions, Ivory and his long-time scenarist seem ‘merely attempting to capitalize on the West- em ignorance of an ancient and mysterious sub-continent, =V.A. Piera’s Story Italy d. Marco Ferreri Plera’s Story (Storia di Piera), the latest film of Marco Ferrer sa tale of incest set in Italy in the °30s and "40s, but it actually reads more like opening a book of Roman mythology. This, we could imagine, is a slice-of-life of some family of demi-gods. The characters all exist in a symbolic, mythic dimension, visible just below the film's surface. It may look like earth, but time does not exist ‘When Piera is a child (played by Bettina Gruhn), she and her mother (Hanna Schy- gulla) go on a picnic. Piera has just had her first menstruation, and this is a celebration ‘of her newly-arrived womanhood. Wander- ing off, Piera comes upon a huge bearded man bathing in a stream, a Neptune or a Vulcan. Gently, he plays with her and she with him. She runs to her mother, who has been watching, to share her sexual excite- ment. The man joins them and eventually the three make love. It's a beautiful, inno- cent scene. fa grows up to become an actress ‘Throughout the film, she has recited lines from Shakespeare and Euripides. A climac- tic moment comes when she performs ‘Medea, and we witness the final action of that tragedy. Her personal power and char- isma merge completely with her Medea stage persona, and the true (mythic) nature Of the film reveals itself. Director Ferreri’s approach is to create the illusion of casual, almost slapdash shooting without cuts, yetaclose viewing re- veals the exceptional care taken to construct the film to appear guileless, unself-con- scious, plain in gesture and style. Thisallows ‘complete concentration on character devel- ‘opment, In this film its all in the eyes. The processes of communication are captured, below the surface of words and story. Fer- reri appears to have relied on his cast’s natural self-expression—they seem as though they're just being themselves—but in fact the acting occurs entirely within tightly limited character delineations,estab- lished early in the film. Isabelle Huppert is superb as the adult Piera. Much camera time is spent in close- ups, and the subtlety of her facial expres- sions conveys the intricate interplay of con- tradictory emotions involved in her rivalry for the love of both parents. Hanna Schy- gulla, whose performance won her the ‘Cannes award for best actress, has never ‘been more fully captured in her pure visual splendor. And no one else but Marcello Mastroianni could have played the father of this family. He's been this character so often. that we needed him again here in order for the film to be credible. Since Mastroianni has incarnated himself as an archetypal figure, the mythic subtext is reinforced. He is at home in his sagely, fatherly (but still sexual) performance. It’s as though Ferreri said to the cast, fill the screen with all the love in your heart! ‘The visual richness of the film is based entirely on the acting and screen presence of ‘Huppert, Schygulla, and Mastroianni. Such a wealth of character is in marvelous cor trast with the scenic sparseness of Piera’s ‘Story. It’s as though the cast were acting on an otherwise empty screen. Only the charac- ters exist, not the world. —LM Fanny and Alexander Sweden d. Ingmar Bergman For hard-core Bergmanites, Fanny and Alexander is undoubtedly another of the ‘master’s triumphs, a wonderful mixture of his light and dark visions. But for someone “skinned ghost of a woman who_has died_TS DUNO eee ‘COLUMBIA FIEM REVIEW, ocToRER 07eo ‘who does not belong to that group (ike me), the film isa different thing entirely. Heavy with symbolism, oozing angst from almost every pore, the film is static. Though a lovely to look at and obviously lovingly made work, itis like some precious art ob- ject in a muscum that is kept behind glass. Fanny and Alexander cannot be touched Deep involvement withthe film and charac- ters is difficult. With all the emotional ex- tremes that are on display, any such aloof- ness is dangerous. ‘The film begins on something like an up- ‘beat mood, atthe Christmas celebration of the wealthy and seemingly joyful Ekdahl family. Every once ina while, however, there fare hints that things aren’t quite as simple as they look A meaningful slance here.a few tears there—no explanations. It appears that atthe Ekdah’s the price of being happy ‘most ofthe tmeisthat onemust occasionally be sad, jus for sadnes's sake—some kind of pen- ang, items. Soon afterthe party, Oscar Ekhl dies. His widow, Enilie, paces at the foot of, her husband’s coffin as it is in a room of the Ekdahl house, screaming in sorrow. She hhas not closed the doors to the room, and her screams, echoing through the house, wake the children (Fanny and Alexander), who sneak up and watch their mother. Its crucial there be a strong emotional bond with her at this moment, and the obvious depth of her grief should ensure it. The scene fails because her failure to close the door reeks of self-indulgence. Like a person ‘who hangs onto an illness because they en- joy the atention it brings them, Emilie acts to ensure that others will realize just how distraught she is. She didn't want tragedy, she is only exploiting fully what has hap- pened. ‘The death of Oscar ends the first third of the film. The second concentrates on Emi lie’s disastrous marriage to a Bishop. The Bishop, his family, and hisservants, are gro- tesque characters, so extreme they are remi- niscent of Dickens. Here, the film is on firmer ground. Emotion is blended into the flow of the narrative rather than left stand- ing out nakedly. The austere sterility of the Bishop’s life is utterly dominant; no other feeling can break through it. The third part restores lushness with a vengeance: magic, God, the Ekdahl fami brilliant with intense ‘colors and spirit Sadly, the problematic busts of nonsensical anguish begin to seep back in, and the film ends asit began, with the Ekdaht’s celebrat- ing (this time ata christening), and showing flashes of remorse. ‘Bergman has said this is his lat theatrical feature. In that statement may be the Key to the problems of Fanny and Alexander. Per- hhaps Bergman was trying too hard to pro- vide a coda to all his films, to include litle pieces of everything. Conceived as a com- prehensive collage of sorts, the film remains collage, never unified. The film is filled with passion and feeling that €vokes pre- ouslittle of either in the spectator. —E,L. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Japan/Great Britain i Dingien OR nite cet ‘Once again Oshima has done something interesting, and again one is not sure whether he has quite pulled it off. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is well worth the effort, however, to see past (into) the film's relentiess brutality and the singularity of its central obsessions. ‘Compressed in the opening seene, as a kind of parable, are all the elements of the narrative’s underlying dynamics and thesis ‘A Korean guard in a P.O.W. camp was seen sodomizing a young Dutch prisoner (who did not even resist?) and isnow preparing to die by haratkiri The suicide will clear his honor, but it will be reported as an accident (Go that his wife can receivea pension) on the condition that he sodomize the Dutchman A Casualty of the Cultural Wars again, right there, for all to see. Lawrence, ‘one of the British P.O.W.'s (an officer, and akind of friend to the Japanese officers who run the camp) is dragged in to witness the fiasco. And itis a fiasco. Lawrence says he does not want to see, and he declares that British codes of honor do not dictate the equivalent of hara-kiri or any such thing. At the moment the poor guard stabs himself, during the commotion when Lawrence is knocked to the ground for trying to prevent the forced public act of sodomy, Yanoi the handsome, young commander of the camp, arrives on the scene. The guard does not immediately die, and is in horrible pain. ‘Yanoi wants to know what is going on, but hhehasno time to settle the problem, because hhe must attend a trial in Batavia. One Jack Calliers (David Bowie) is the man on tral in Batavia, the transition to which locale and event launches the narranve proper. In brief, the tensions are these: Yanoi “takes a shine" to Celliers. Celliersisa born leader, wildly handsome, and an honorable ‘man. But ancient national-cultural and per- sonal codes of behavior on both sides inter- Tere with, cause and repress, the violence and attraction that ensues. Flashbacks to CClliers' New Zealand childhood, particularly to events at boarding school involving his younger brother, reveal the origins of Cel- liers’ own conflict between public and pri- vate codes of honor. But Celliers and Law- rence, friends who served in Libya together, understand before Yanoi does, what forces are really at work here. Cellers forces Yanoi to see, in a shattering moment of recogni- tion, what itis that he desires. Celliers does it to savea fellow officer from execution, and hepays for it with his life. Hes buried alive, ‘and more or less coinciding with this unhap- Dy event, comes the end of the war. It is ambitious of Oshima, a Japanese, to ‘make a film in English, et in Java, based on a novel by an Afrikaner/Dutch South ‘African Englishman (Sir Laurens van der Post). For an American audience, then, this film about subtle cultural differences must survive atleast five translation-fiters if to have any intellectual (as opposed, say, to visceral) force. The film's very subject-mat- ter i that mine-laden territory between per- sonal passions and those highly-wrought codes of behavior born of centuries of cul- tural accretion. The film too eagerly offers the English public school codes of honor and friendship as an “explanation” of the English, and hara-kiti as peculiarly Japa- nese, without attempting with more pene- tration to understand or explore the nature of Yanoi’s obsession with Cellier Isitreally that ordinary? The film becomes too much of the same thing (the unnecessary and not very success- fulflashbacksto New Zealand notwithstanding) but films about obsession tend to be this ‘way, and there’s no really satisfying way to end them. The interest of the film lies pre- cisely in those peculiar moments that do fail to fit neatly into its weave. After Cellers kisses Yanoi in front of all the staff and occupants of the camp, the Captain col- lapses (in siow motion) into a quivering heap, his white gloved hands oscillating wildly. The only scene inthe film to employ slow motion, it remains indelibly in the viewer's mind while others slip away. The moment of recognition is shattering both for Yanoi and for the viewer, though in all likelihood neither could satisfactorily arti- culate precisely what has been revealed, ‘conspicuous and stylized make-up, the white moth that lights on Cellier face as he is dying, the condemned Hara’s final words—"'Merry Christmas, Mr. Law- rence,” are all oddities that could easily fit {nto another film. but which st strangely in this one. They are also the things that reson ate, and they contribute to making Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrencea quirky but com- pelling experience. eur: OSS 8 cours Fin REVIEW, OCTOBER 1985LULU_IN HOLLYWOOD: LOUISE BROOKS AND THE S After years spent in obscurity Louise sight—from a Hollywood legend: Loui Brooks, described by Lotte Eisner as “An Brooks.’” Already the myth-making actress who. .. could move across the screen machine is in motion, in spite of itself. A causing the work of art to be born by her ‘‘Hollywood legend’? Whether or not ‘mere presence,” has returned to the public Brooks is a legend is hard to say. The Ox- eye. Film Forum recently presented the ford Companion to Film describes her as, American theatrical premiere of her Prix de “‘a moderately successful star during the Beaute (1930), a French-speaking “talkie,”” twenties,” although it concedes that on the and Richard Leacock’s A Conversation strength of her performance in one film, with Louise Brooks (1974). The Regency has Pandora’s Box (1928), ‘‘She has become a Just finished a two week run of Pandora’s. legend and her calm, pale face framed by Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Gil (1929), smooth, bobbed hair has become part of the both of which feature Miss Brooks directed iconography of the cinema.”"' But she can- by G.W. Pabst,and were screened with live not really be called a Hollywood legend. ‘musical accompaniment. Her conversation Pandora’s Box was made in Germany, and with Kenneth Tynan and her book, Lulu in_ it is not hairsplitting to point out that a face Hollywood, have helped to give substance that is*part of the iconography of the cine- to her striking image, and her biting com- ma’? is not the same thing as a legend. The ‘ments about Hollywood in its heyday have point, however, is that calling Louise ‘helped assure her a permanent place in the Brooks a Hollywood legend on the front history of early moviemaking. flap of this handsomely bound book of hers Some of the amazing things Louise Brooks says in her collection of seven auto- biographical essays, Lulu in Hollywood, and the snippets of blurb on the book's front and back flap, raise some interesting ‘and important questions about ‘‘Holly- wood”—how it operated (as an institution) in the 1920's and 1930's, particularly with regard to its star system. The book itself— the fact, indeed, that it exists—is a pheno- ‘menon worthy of semiotic attention, for it reveals both intentionally and unintention- ally many of the assumptions that are so necessary to the business of myth-making. Those assumptions, which providea spring- board for cliches and platitudes about the American film industry, are precisely what Hollywood has always thrived on and seeks to keep intact, but Brooks, now asakind of ” Louise Brooks film historian—with a combination of cri- tical intelligence and excellent memory— seeks to deconstruct some of those myths ‘g0¢s @ long way towards gi her legend- ary status. More from the Lulu inside flap: Her look—the eyes, the sleek bangs, the candidly unreal innovence—establshed the Took ofthe twenties, Her talent, beauty, and sharp intelligence made her a tsing star in the Hollywood of that era. But her fierce independence and individuality, and her never-veled contempt for the Hollywood and assumptions. That Brooks to some ex- tent uses her own star power to do this is Jronical and yet. in a curious way neces- sary. Lu in tHotlywood and Kenneth Ty- nan’s 1979 article in The New Yorker about Louise Brooks provide an opportunity to take a look atthe Hollywood ofthe 1920's ln actres,"puther aes in jeopardy and 1930's and at the phenomenon of time she was twenty-two, movie sas through en Seathatar eng aea That Brooks established the 1ook of the 0 much Louise Brooks who is interesting. 'Wenties provides the first important clue to {although she is) but the institution called What itwas that gained her the fame she had Hollywood (which she dropped out of) that PY 1928 and enjoys now. It points also toan herexampleilluminates. The LouiseBrosks important function of the movie star: to phenomenon, as it might be called, comes sure or be an index of fashion trends, “to together in this book, which is the most im- 1% type of beauty, to help a physical type portant text (among texts which include identify itself,” as 1,C. Jarvie puts it. films, magazine articies, conversations wea ‘“Fierce independence and individuality so on, spanning some fifty years), It isa af Valued in our culture (although not, gen- phenomenon as much about a person as_¢tally, in women) asis ‘sharp intelligence, aoa Halrnoet ademas ‘and yet a paragraph further down, we learn From the inside flap of Lulu in Holly. that when Brooks at the age of 15 moved to wood: “Seven autobiographical essays New York she ‘instantly gravitated toward written with the clearest honesty and in- the center of ‘glamorous’ New York Society, her intelligence and seriousness already proving to be handicaps (‘Culture, I was to learn, was not a prerequisite for becoming a sophisticated New Yorker.’)”” How intelligent, one wonders, was it to battle constantly with Hollywood producers who (we read in the next paragraph) "resent- ‘ed her independence and failed to under- stand the high standards she set for herself."” How did Brooks wear her inteli- gence and exercise her independence, and just what were the high standards that she ‘Set for herself? Sara Lascheverin her review of Lulu (New York Review of Books, Octover 21; 1982) feels that Brooks was self-indulg- cent and professionally lazy—too-high stan- dards had nothing to do with it—and “she intends a comprehensive indictment of Hollywood and everyone who survived there, and her book is harsh and recrimina- tory—an angry apologia for the failure that clearly ruined her life." (On page six of her book Brooks writes, ‘And so [have remained, in cruel pursuit of truth and excellence, an inhumane execu tioner of the bogus, an abomination to all but those few who have overcome their aversion to truth in order to free whatever s ‘Rood in them * ‘A first reaction might be to remark that it is ‘unintelligent or simply unfortunate, to remain in cruel pursuit of truth in the movie business. The American movie star is him- self or herself a kind of fiction—not a real ‘person—and the movie business, which isa ‘business that deals in lis, fictions, images— in the ongoing manufacture of components for a mythic edifice that dwells in the Imag- inary, is no business, it would seem, for someone with the kind of integrity (to be fair tothe othersin the industry, one should say tem erament) Louise Brooks has. But Brooks is not bitter about her experiences in Europe, as sheis about Hollywood, and in her essays ‘a picture emerges which attests that Holly- wood was indeed different from Europe. If Hollywood was not suited to Brooks’ tem- erament we can discover through an understanding of her temperament and her experiences “there” what Hollywood was. In Lulu in Hollywood Brooks writes, put no value on my beauty and sexual attractiveness." Such a remark implies that Brooks is ingenuous or self-deluding; itis a remark that is scarcely to be believed of a beautiful movie star, and yet it can make sense and be true. Brooks did not under- stand Hollywood or the movie star system {asit was just beginning to form) atthe time she was init. Early in her book (with all ts signifies of seriousness and truth) she writes that, ‘Never having experienced the necessity for Iying a home, I went into the world with an cstablished habit of truthfulness, which has ‘automatically eliminated from my life the boring sameness that must be experienced Dy liars. Alllies are alike, My parents’ reso- ‘COLUMMA FILM REVIEW, ocTOBER 903 QIute pursuit of their own interests also ac- ‘counted for my early autonomy and my later inability, when I went to work in the Hollywood film factories, to submit to ° Hollywood is an industry dedicated to the heightening, manipulation, manufacture and marketing of beauty and sexual attrac- tiveness, and in some acceptable sense it does this through lies. Brooks recognizes this, but feels that now there is such a thing as film history (“Since about 1950 film has been established asan art, and its history re- ‘cognized as a serious matter,’”) there is no forgiving the continued fabrication and falsification of film history by the very people who make film history. Brooks’ elo- quent explanations of why she failed in Hol- lywood might seem at first to be oddly insis- tent on atruth that flies inthe face of Holly woods myth-making functions, but she is committed and in a unique position to clar- ify those early years of the cinema for pos- terity. “It is understandable,” she writes, “that in the early years of film production, ‘when nobody believed there was going to be any film history, most film magazines and books printed trash, aimed only at fulfilling the public's wish to share a fairy-tale exis tence with its movie idols.""* Through her ‘own example and experience Brooks draws picture that corresponds with the findings of historians. On the subject of the movie star system Gorham Kindem has writtt During the studio era stars became com- ‘modities to be shaped, manipulated, ex- hhausted, and discarded, rather than unique personalities to be catered to as tempera- ‘mental, talented artists....The careers of stars were carefully planned and orches- ‘ated to mesh with popular demand or 10 promote a new image and create a new de- ‘mand. A huge publicity apparatus was de veloped by the studios to create movie stars and to protect their investments in per formers.? Brooks puts it this way: *.. there was no other occupation in the world that so closely resembled enslavement as the career of a film star?” And yet it sas star that Alfred ‘A. Knopf, Inc. has helped to re-create Louise Brooks in Lulu in Hollywood; she is packaged in such a way that will maximize a return for Knopf. Brooks’ status asa star is re-instated even as the cant and deception that is perhaps an integral part of the star system is exposed. Lulu is published at a time when, with the studio system and the movie star system both defunct, the indus- try (more accurately, the cinematic institu- tion) and Brooks herself can profit a little from the nostalgia produced by this loss, while setting a few records straight. And Brooks can do something that is done so often in ourtime with (in) the cinema: merge the public and the private persona in the creation of an autobiographical myth. In a strange incest between art and life the auto- 10 conusma ris review, ocrOBER 1985 biographical myth extends across a number of texts, is enlarged and enriched by aprol eration of versions of the myth. The Brooks/Lulu myth begins with Pandora's Box, the film Brooks made with G.W. Pabst in 1928. David Bordwell in The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer has noted: the biographical legendisa way in which Authorship significantly shapes our percep- tion ofthe work. Created by the filmmaker and other forces (the press, cinepiles), the biographical legend can determine how we ‘should’ read the films and the career. We vin ASS AGP between the biographical legend and the autobiographical myth isthe self-reflexivity Of the autobiographical myth. The line be- ‘tween “fact” and “fiction” becomes very blurred and in a sense ceases to be the issue, ‘when a new notion of authorship emerges— that of the (in this case) actress being the work rather than playing a part. The Lulu persona in Pandora’s Box fuses with Brooks’ persona in life (her life in Holly- ‘wood in the 1920s, in Germany, and now, in Rochester) as we read about it in film jour- nals, in Kenneth Tynan’s profile, in Luu in Louise Brooks Hollywood. Significantly, this collection of essays is not entitled Louise Brooks in Hol- lywood, and the jacket illustration of Brooks’ face is based on an original 1929 German poster for Pandora’s Box. ‘Brooks’ stardom is not the result of Hol- lywood’s movie star system, although indi- rectly—because she bucked the star system, has written about it, and was very beautiful and talented—she is. It is the power of the cinema, with ts lifelike-ness, and the pheno- mena of the movie star that has made a casualty of Louise Brooks. She has come to believe that it was her mother who “had formed (me) for a freedom that was unat- tainable, a delusion,”"” which may be true, bbut when one considers the power of the cinema to make a breach between a per- son and an image of that person in the crea- tion of a star (who is both a person and, in Kindem’s words, ‘‘a social phenomenon, which reflects a particular ideology... .(and) ‘a business strategy designed to generate large audiences and differentiate entertainment programs and products,’"") it would seem ‘more likely to be Hollywood that is respon sible for Louise Brooks’ professional and personal suffering. Its surprising, too, that more “stars” have not been broken down by the system which created them. Brooks writes about and has commented on some who failed and some who prevailed. Offer- ing implicitly a thesis of what it takes to suc- ceed as a beautiful female star in Holly- ‘wood, she said to Kenneth Tynan, Most beautful-but-dumb girls think they are smart, and get away with it, because ‘ther people, on the whole, aren't much smarter. You can see modern equivalents of those girls on any TV talk show. But there's also avery small group of beautiful women who know they're dumb, and this makes them defenseless and vulnerable. They be- ‘come the Big Joke. I didn't know Marilyn Monroe, but I'm sure that her agonizing awareness of her own stupidity was one of the things that killed her." ‘A few months after meeting Tynan in Roch- ester Brooks sent him a letter which in- cluded a note about Ava Gardner, whom she had heard on Toronto Radio giving a press conference: In her conversation, there was nothing about great acting or beauty or sex, and no trace of philosophical or intelleetal con- cern, Yet forthe first time in my life Twas proud of being @ movie actres, unmixed ‘with theater art. Ava isin essence what I think a movie siar should be—a beautiful person with a unique, mysterious personal- ity unpoltuted by Hollywood. And she sso sirong. She did not have to run away like Garbo) to keep from being turned into a oduct of the machine, . What I should ke to know is whether, as | sometimes fancy, Lever had a glimmer of that quality of integrity which makes Ava shine with her own light. And the pollution by Hollywood comes in ‘many forms—most of them related to sexual blackmail and the drastically uneven power relations that often existed between actresses (and actors) and their producers and directors, to the paradox that stars were nearly the raison d'etre of the business but were at the same time essentially factory workers. In her conversations with Tynan Brooks mentioned something that should be more than a mere curiosity for the simi- larity (and yet difference) it points to be- tween Hollywood and Europe: “Did you ‘know that in the twenties it was the custom for European actresses to send naked pic- tures of themselves to movie directors?” ‘The remark followed the revelation that Pabst owned “the most extraordinary col- lection of obscene stills in the world.” But European nations did not havea studio sys- tem as it existed in Hollywood. Of that system, which was consolidated with the coming of sound to the cinema, Brooks had this to say: Peopletellyou that the reason alot of actorsie e 2 left Hollywood when sound came in was that their voices were wrong for talkies. ‘That's the official story. The truth is that the coming of sound meant the end of the all-night parties. With talkies, you couldn't stay out til sunrise anymore. You had to rush back from the studios and start lear- ‘ng your lines, ready for the next day's shooting at 8a.m. That was when the studio machine really took over. Itcontroled you, ‘mind and body, from the moment you were yanked out of bed at dawn until the pub- licty department put you back to bed at night.” Kindem’s assessment of that crucial period (ate 1920s, early 1930s) in film history matches Brooks’ exactly: ‘Significant historical changes in the status ‘of movie tars have paralleled decisive tech nological, economic, and social changes ‘that have affected the American film indus- tryasawhole, such a the coming of sound, the Great Depression, and the rise and fall of movie attendance. ...Those working during the early 1930s, when movie atten- «dance declined and industry power was con- centrated in the hands of a few studios, were placed in a poor bargaining position, and Studios began exercising near autocratic control over the sta system. Hollywood “before sound” sounds like a relatively fun place to have been working. successfully (*.. if you were to ask me what it was like to live in Hollywood in the twen- T'd have to say that we were all—oh!— maryelously degenerate and happy. We were a world of our own, and outsiders didn’t intrude.""®) It was, perhaps in the final analysis, factory discipline that made it so difficult and ultimately impossible for Brooks to work in Hollywood. For a Joan Crawford (asthe film Mommie Dearest sug- gests) it took sheer hard work to rise to the top. But for some stars, like the exception- ally attractive Brooks, it would have taken even more: ‘After I made that picture with John Wayne in 1938, I stayed out on the Coast for to years, But the only people who wanted to see ‘me were men who wanted to sleep with me. ‘Then Walter Wanger warned me that if I hung around any longer I'd become a call Brooff‘also unflinchingly explains why a promised contract with Columbia Pictures never came through. In Tynan’s words In 1930, she went back to Hollywood, on the strength of a promised contract with Columbia. Harry Cohn, the head of thestw dio, summoned her to his office fora series of meetings, at each of which he appeared naked from the waist up. Always a plain speaker, he left her ia no doubt that good parts would come her way if she responded {ohis advances. She rebuffed them, and the proffered contract was withdrawn 2 Aslate as 1937, Siil wounded by her refusal to sleep with him in 1930, Cohn promised her a screen teat if she would submit tothe humiliation fof appearing in the corps de ballet of a Grace Moore musical entitled When You're ‘in Love. To his suprise, Brooks accepted the offer—she was too broke to spurn it— and Cohn made sure thatthe demotion of anerstwhle star was publicized as widely a possible 2 This sort of power producers had over stars, and its often unfortunate consequences forthe Star, is something Brooks stresses in her ac- counts of Hollywood. Producers’ behavior ‘most often, she indicates, is determined by their greed (“The producers’ hearts lay in the treasure at the box office,"™) and she cites 1925 as the decisive year when “two things happened that finally bound the pro- ducers in a concerted war on the star system.” First, the bankers on Wall Street discovered how to get a piece of the pie. ‘They discovered that what the picture cor- poration books called “overhead” was really money that the producers took for themselves, and that it was not the prestige of a studio's name that brought in millions atthe box offices, but the name of a star When the bankers who sat in on board meetings objected to producers’ abuse of stars, the producers found more subtle ways of getting rid of stars (more subtle than cutting their salaries or firing them). The case of Lillian Gish, Brooks feels, is exem- plary. M.G.M, “put her under contract ata spectacular salary in order methodically to destroy her," with failure atthe box office to confirm the logic of her eclipse. The reason Brooks offers the example of Gish in her explanation of the eventual break- down (perhaps one should say, transforma- tion) ofthe star system is tied to her second reason: producers believed that “practically all women are whores,’”™ and they sought to replace the Gish sort of heroine with ac- tresses who, in Photoplay critic James Quirk’s phrase, “would give a year’s salary if they could once be permitted to play a hell-raising, double-crossing censor-teaser for six reels." In 1925 they (Louis B. Mayer) felt they had found such an actress in Greta Garbo. This coincided with the es- tablishment of the National Board of Re- view in New York City which, in its opposi tion “tolegal censorship in favor of the con- structive method of selecting the better pic- tures” made possible the rise of Garbo (as a star). But as Brooks succinctly puts it, there was still “that insoluble problem of how tomakea box office star without atthe same time making her unaffordable.""” Even Garbo's time came, and like Jeanette MacDonald, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer, she was “eased out with full approval, inthe perfection of (her) beauty, art and popularity.” Brooks’ thesis is at once curious (oddly narrow) and perfectly logical. In the final analysis, she is saying greed destroyed Hollywood (and the star system which she sees asa large and inextricable part oft). As an eminently capitalistic institution, Holly- ‘wood’s lowest common denominator was ‘and is money, and it was owing to their de- sire for more money (more money for them- stives) that producers found themselves “left with their babes and a backwash of old ‘men stars, watching the lights go out in one picture house after another across the country.” Brooks’ viewpoint, while valid, occasionally sounds like a conspiracy theory. She feels, for example, that the auteur theory “‘is crap," that some writers and some directors are jealous of the stars” slory and the auteur theory is just another attempt to wipe the stars off the screen with words.” But she does seem to see the star as ‘a mutual director-actor creation. It was in Pabs''s films, afterall, that Louise Brooks became a star. ‘The first thing I want to know about a film,” she told Kevin Brown- "Brooks may, however, be imprecise in her use of the term. “star.” A star is not necessarily an actress, and vice versa. And oneis not always sure of how broadly different Brooks sees Europe and Hollywood to be from each other. Brooks unwittingly endorses an auteur pre- ise or two when she writes (in “Pabst and. Lulu”): ‘In Hollywood, Iwasa pretty fibbertsi ‘bet whose charm for the executive depart ‘ment decreased with every increase in her fan mail. In Berin, I stepped onto the ta tion platform to meet Pabst and became an actress. I would be treated by him with a kind of decency and respect unknown tome in olywoos. In Hollywood the actress is at the merey of. executives (a department!) while in Europe the actress isa director’s property. While in Hollywood the director is extremely impor- tant, hes not the only person the actor must answer to, and that, Brooks seems to feel, is ‘theevil in the studio system. To cast one’s lot with a director is one thing, but to sign a contract with a Hollywood studio in the era of the movie star system is another. Brooks ‘admits that, ‘The moment I heard Thad to work witha cxttain director, no matter what I thought fof him, I was sold, And as long as that pic- ture was being made, he was wonderful. 1 think actors who fight with directors during a picture have everyting to lose. It's their faces they're going to see onthe sereen, not in'her Gay about Humphrey Bogart, Brooks states forthrightly, “If he (Bogart) signed the contract, he became subject to those who paid his salary and released his films. [fhe did not sign the contract, he was no film star." Brooks lost her contract ‘with Paramount in 1928 because she refused totakea salary cut. And when she returned to Hollywood from New York to make the talkie version of The Canary Murder Case, she was “blacklisted.” In short, she was no film star. As Brooks understands well, “publicity is the lifeblood of stardom, with. out which a star will die,””” and in a'sense, Brooks asa star, diedin 1928. What no one couumaia rua neve, ocronen ies 11.Ou could predict, though, is that Brooks could make a comeback without leaving her room jn Rochester. But what has happened can perhaps be better understood as the pheno- ‘menon of the cult figure, which is not the same thing as the Hollywood Star. In the case of Louise Brooks the two phenomena are happily and willingly confused. —Robert Lang, NoTES 1. The Oxford Companion to Film, Ed. Liz- ‘Anne Rawden (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 94 2.1. Jarvie, Towards @ Sociology of the Cinema (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 149. 3, Sara Laschever, Rev. of Lulu in Hollywood, by Louise Brooks, New York Review of Books, 21 Oct. 1982, p. 27 4. Louise Brooks, Lulu in Hollywood (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), p. 6 5. Brooks, p. 20, 6. Brooks, p. 7. 7. Brooks, p. 74. 8. Brooks, p. 74 9. Gorham Kindem, The American Movie I dusiry (Carbondale: Southern Ilinois University Press, 1982), p. 85. 10. Brooks, p. 58. 1, David Bordwell, The Films of Carl-Theo- dor Dreyer (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1981), p. 9. 12. Kenneth Tynan, Show People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), p. 316. 13. Kindem, p. 79, 14, Tynan, p- 306, 15. Tynan, p. 312. 16. Tynan, p. 314, 17, Tynan, p. 308, 18, Kindem, p.79. 23. Brooks, p. 87. 2A, Brooks, p86 25. Brooks, p88. 26, Brooks, p87. 27, Brooks, p. 91 28. Brooks, p. 87. 29. Brooks, p. 92: 30. Brooks, p. 92. 31. Brooks, p. 92. 432. Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By (New York: Alfred A. Knopf In., 1968), p. 363, 33. Brownlow, p. 364, 34. Brooks, p. 104, 35. Brownlow, p. 363. 36. Brooks, p38. 37. Brooks, p. 59. ocT.9 ‘JULES AND JIM (1961, Francois Truffaut) Zooprax; OCT. 20 TOOTSIE (1983, Sydney Pollack) Ferris Reel; Wool- ocr. 11 oct. 3 OCT. 16 OCT. 18 Altschul Hall, Barnard; 7pm, 9pm, lpm; $1 admission TEOREMA (1968, Pier Paolo Pasolini) Casal Piccolo Teatro; 3pm; $2 w/CUID, $3 others. STARSTRUCK (1982, Gillian Armstrong) Ferris Reel; Wolman Auditorium, Ferris Booth Hall; 6pm, 10pm. —AND— DIVA (1982, Jean-Jacques Beiniex) 8pm, 12pm. ‘THE ROAD WARRIOR (1982, George Miller) Zoo- prax; Altschul Hall, Barnard; 7pm, 8:45pm, 10:30pm, 2pm; $1 admission, ONE FROM THE HEART (1982, Francis Ford Coppola) Ferris Reel; Woolman Auditorium, Ferris Booth Hall; 7pm, Spm," IIpm. DOCUMENTARIES ON LATIN AMERICA (mixed program) Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador; Earl Hall; 8pm; $2 donation. MARTY (1955, Delbert Mann) Cinematheque; 511 Dodge Hall; 8pm. THE MEADOW (1979, Paulo & Vittorio Taviani) Casa Italiana; Piccolo Teatro; 7pm; $2 w/CUID, $3 others, ‘THIEF (1981, Michael Mann) Ferris Reel; Woolman ‘Auditorium, Ferris Booth Hall; 7pm,9:15pm, 11:30pm. ‘A NEW LEAF (1971, Elaine May) Zooprax; Altschul Hall, Barnard; 7pm, 9pm, lipm; $1 admission. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957, David Lean) Zooprax; Altschul Hall, Barnard; 7pm, 10pm; $1 admission, 1a; OCT. 21 oct. 23 Oct. 27 OCT. 28 ‘man Auditorium, Ferris Booth Hall; 7pm, 9pm, lpm. CITY OF WOMEN (1979, Federico Felini)Casa Italiana; Piccolo Teatro; 7pm; $2 w/CUID, $3 others. CLAIRE’S KNEE (1971, Eric Rohmer) Cinema- theque; 511 Dodge Hall; 8pm. KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962, Roman Polanski) Ferris Reel Classics Series; Schiff Room, Ferris Booth Hall; 3pm. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959, Alfred Hitch- cock) Ferris Reel; Woolman Auditorium, Ferris Booth Hall; 6pm, 8:30pm, lpm. THE BED SITTING ROOM (1969, Richard Lester) Zooprax; Altschul Auditorium, Barnard; 7pm, 9pm, pm; $1 admission. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977, John Badham) Ferris Reel; Woolman Auditorium, Ferris Booth Hall; pm, 9:15pm, 11:30pm. THE SPIDER’S STRATEGEM (1969, Bernardo Bertolucci) Casa Italiana; Piccolo Teatro; 7pm; $2 w/CIUD, $3 others. LATLANTE (1934, Jean Vigo) Cinematheque; $11 Dodge Hall; Time T.B.A. DON GIOVANNI (1979,Joseph Losey) Casa Ita- liana; Piccolo Teatro; 3pm; $2 w/CUID, $3 others. THE HUNGER (1983, Tony Scott) Ferris Reel; Woolman Auditorium, Ferris Booth Hall; 7pm, 9pm, pm. HOMER. dresses like the Stars Teaver 12 covvmmn'