-ml .Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, October 24, 1968 Pae.oTH.IHGA4AL ThurIsda---IOctober- 24I II1968 I,, music Blatt and symphony: Pas 'Fantastique' By JIM PETERS The atmosphere at Hill Aud. was pretty sleepy last night; even before the concert the audience was talking very little, just a soft murmur until the University Symphony Orchestra came on stage. And I don't know whether the mood of the audience affected the orchestra directly, but conductor Josef Blatt's group almost fell asleep themselves, When I looked at the program I dreaded hearing another per-, formance of Brahms' Haydn yariations, but perhaps "dread" was the wrong word. The way the orchestra played, I should have been fearing for the success of the entire concert. Blatt's tempi throughout the nine variations contributed to the dull lifeless sound of the first piece. In the opening statement of Haydn's chorale tune, his hand was too heavy, the sound too loud. The brass accented the simple melody too inuch; Brahms orchestra- tion of this Haydn tune should sound like Haydn, not like complex Brahms. Lukewarm tempi plagued each of the variations. When this was not'too apparent, as In sections two and three, the overall sound was bland and hardly interesting. Section five, the fourth variation, marked andante con motto, showed so little enthusiasm and effort that it was patently boring. Section nine,, marked presto, was hardly more than a quick andante, and even the power that was achieved in the finals was toned down by loose ensemble and a sloppy ending. I particularly noticed thle weakness of the bass string sections throughout the entire piece, quite markedly weak in the presto and grazioso movements. Strangely enough, right in the center of the Variations the- orchestra performed better. The two central vivace movements were more vibrant, and the Symphony seemed to be on top of the music finally. I thought this would continue, but the power of the finale was more big sound than good orchestral ensemble. Since I like music performed by live rather than dead orchestras, I wasn't too enthused about listening to the major work on the pro- gram, Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. This is a long intri- cate piece, built on strange, magical images. The program for the work brings surrealism to mind, but that's probably too strong a word. The five movements each bear their own titles; the fourth is the famous March to the Scaffold, a well-known symphonic excerpt. After the intermission the orchestra was in a better frame of mind. Each movement is a complex collection of short melodies and chang- ing moods. The lustre was still missing in the first two movements, but things improved. Good, biting brass in the beginnihg section helped carry the movement through' as a whole. The strings has ensemble troubles, especially in the violins, which I feared would spoil the whole sym- phony. But with the' dance tunes of the second movement, named "The Ball," Blatt got things moving. This section was certainly the key to the improvements which followed. In the third section, Bellioz takes us on a train ride through bed- lam-his version of "In the Country," but far from Beethoven's Pas- terale. A long bass clarinet solo alternates with ominous timpani rolls, interrupted by full orchestra. But we hear very little of bubbling brooks and sunshine. This countryside must be a graveyard at mid- night, and the group pictured it well. Josef Blatt's interpretation of the Berlioz showed the insight and attention to detail missing in his inflated Brahms. The blame must fall on the orchestra for the tired frenzy which limped' from Berlioz's music. I do not understand why this was so, but the normal tension and drive in any symphonic performance had turned into just barely warm interest, far from the necessary enthusiasm. The intricate mechanism known as the University Symphony Orchestra was perhaps too well oiled, too smoothly running, dffering none' of the grinding tension which is excitement. Either too much oil, or perhaps just out of gas. cinema Farewell By DEBORAH LINDERMAN sed bya At its least puzzling surface, fusing w Belle de Jour allows you to munion. think it deals with the tender, flashbac but passionless, marriage of a her curl beautiful, frigid woman. H e r pationsY husband endures her bland and mic seed somewhat petulant frigidity But D with saintly resignation; one too cleve wonders at the outset what sort stuff an of self-deceiver he must be not of his t: to spank her at least, at least to realit once. because Tender marital scense are withouts crudely interrupted by the hero- To ma ine's escapes into "sado-maso- transitio chistic" fantasy, signalled by the offering gentle tinkle of carriage bells. ate flas Severine (Catherine Deneuve) is hae a transported in elaborate car- whole id riage, driven by thugs in black adult, re tails, top hot and white gloves, woundsc down the lush wooded path of This f a country estate to a series of inatoryq highly ritualized b e a t i n g s, nicolor s shootings, rapes and humilia- ing to d( tions, overseen 'by husband ventions Pierre (Jean Sorel), their ar- transitio chitect and witness. reality. F Then Severine snaps back to most of what appears to be a consum- crossings mately boring life in an impec- and actu cable Paris apartment.. ing imag The serene immobility of her eyes fron aristocratic f a c e is disturb- Bunue ed by the appearance of Husson ately su (Michel Piccoli), the mo s t ventions sophisticated and complete per- to make son in the film. negative: Supposedly penetrating her the world virginal ruse, Husson plants in taste, an her perfumed ear the notion of put tast how to realize what he realizes done as is her real, but unacknowledged partly e lusts. Casually, he mentions the technico. address of a whore house with he works "atmosphere."' surface o She has a hard time getting Although herself there, but does: it's a strange t high class place and she is high- film, the est class in it. Her Y ye s nitude, a Saint - Laurent wardrobe is .-- envied and fingered by the two After the first time, she burnsr her underwear, and suffers tor- ments of conscience when she confronts the impeccable Pierre. But soon her days become rou- y, tine: she is beautiful, high class, just what they want, and so she takes the nom-de-plume, Belle de Jour. Her hours of prostitu- tion belong not to the night but, to the day, two to five. These are not conventional hours for illicit business, but indeed it's the anytime rough stuff she' wants.. So much for the surface. Ther transitions from brute fantasy to sedate reality are supposedly hard to tell. Of course, the jing- ling. of. the carriage bells, is an, audacious and unforgettable cue. And twice, conventional flashbacks make the transitions ' Indisputable. We get scenes of the child Severine being carres- flirt with Bunuel's a handy man and re- wickedly to take com- The stock stuff of k merely suggests that rent two - five preoccu- have their psychodyna- ds in childhood. Director Luis Bunuel is er to give us such stock id leave it at that. Some ransitions from fantasy ty are harder to detect they happen fluidly, standard cues. ake sense of these fluid ns, one might begin by the notion that what ng with the too deliber- t>backs is mocking the dea of Severine, the edressing the emotional of childhood. ilm has a funny halluc- quality, despite its tech- olidity, which has noth- Seither with social con- or formal problems of ns. from daydream to For its "hallucinations", them, deal with the s between actual unreal ual real, with the fleet- :es that pass before your m moment to moment. 1 seems to be deliber- ggesting a set of con- in order to put us on, them not useful, or ly useful. Our view of td has gone beyond good id Bunuel has, it seems, e back into the spoof, spoof, on spoofs, which explains the polished lor surface with which s as well as the polished f the lives of his people.' h there are several very things happening in the y are not of first mag- and the film's "straight- forward" deadpan tonalities ne- ver slide uncomfortably around its little quearnesses. We are made to feel that, except for the few overt oddities, the film makes perfect sense. What Bunuel has done rather is to tenderize his material, make it prestigious and dis- tinguished as a supremely comic yet deadpan technique of in- nuendo. The tonalities of the film deliberately undercut and in fact play down its underlying emotional radicalism. Pierre's resurrection (once we have for- gotten about what is actuality, what fantasy, and simply let the two merge) is no problem. The play of the mind and, of its experience is already given wider arena. Thus what matters is not whether he is dead or alive, but that when he is paralyzed Severine is demure in precocious schoolgirl dress and embroidery hoop, and that this serenity masks her "innocent" content- ment with having castrated a prig in whom it's hard to see much to applaud. When he "comes alive" she returns to her real, and better, sexual self and the carriage bells resume outside the balcony, so that the thing has gone full circle. Adventures outside mar- riagetare certainly not carrying her to marital warmth; the whole tender marriage on the other hand is only a pose for what she "really is," and this is all accomplished without man- ners collapsing under stress. She is a slut, pure and simple, and Bunuel knows this and makes it very much his own," being hallucinatorily funny. Marcel (Pierre Clementi) sup- posedly is her match, yet with hi- gold teeth, violence, cane, ascot and purple socks, he is neither subtle or dangerous, on- ly another joke. He is, as a lesser thug calls him, a goon. \ Despite his toughness, he takes what he wants when he wants it, (though a woman once tried to strangle him with her stock- ing). He is shot down prepost- erously by a cop in the street in broad daylight; he is an in- nocent. Bunuel is simply repeat- ing the process of young French directors, discovering the poetry of crime in American life and putting it on the screen in a new "existential" way. Now Bunuel imitates Truffaut, not Truffaut's original tough American sources. Anais, the mother of the mai- son and a slut and lesbian, is, in the other hand,' much less interesting than Severine, whose curious, affectless hauteur ("Don't mark my face!r', when Marcel threatens to slash her) is the very source of the film's extremely peculiar humour. It is as though, dramatized through her, there is a continual kind of "overexposure"-like the time lag between the surface meaning of a funny line and the double meaning that gives it its punch.' Belle' The film does this, sucessfully, over and over again Time lag of this sort, then, pro- vides a cinematic frame for the metaphysical barrier between hallucination and reality. Se- verine "actually" goes to the death rite orgy in a turn of the century hansom and' Pierre "really" studies the wheel chair which will later support him. Hallucination and reality con- verge in the subliminal: dreams at the middling waking stages between the two, have a funny way of attracting reality. CINEMA I1 Cincinnati Kidh STEVE McQUEEN Dir. Norman Jewison ("IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT") Fri.-Sat.-Oct. Aud. A 25-26 id req * 4 ,v Second class postagq paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan. 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48104. Daily except Monday during regular academic school year.I "An Exuberant Comic Fantasy ... 'Cock-a-doodle' has a lift!"-Detroit News "Looney and Larky"-Detroit Free Press 4 N, t MWA" OQCTO BE R 15-27 *, - " By ' r Sean YO'Casey Directed by Jack 0'Brien Music by Bob James - -1.,*. -l -0 +' iII 4 I The University of Michigan' Gilbert & Sullivan Society 1968-1969 MUSICAL SEASON ]FRANCE IN MOTION OCTOBER 27, 2:00 P.M. ,. HILL AUDITORIUM Tickets on Sale Wed., Oct. 23 -$1.00--Diag (11-2) and Union Desk (All Day). Also available at door. UNION-LEAGUE I 4 i SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ACTUAL PERFORMANCE OF THE NATIONAL THEATRE OF GREAT BRITAIN LAST DAY TODAY 2:00-5:00-8:00 Gilbert & Sullivan's THE GONDOLIERS lOLANTHE Meredith Willson's THE MUSIC MAN Bob Merrill's HENRY, SWEET HENRY LAURENCE DLI VIIIn The greatest Othello ever by the greatest actor of our time. r (Presented by Ann Arbor Jr. Light Opera) FOR SEASON SUBSCRIPTIONS Enclosed find $ for season subscriptions at $7.00 each for the G&S 1968-69 Musical Package, on the dates indicated below. Please note that orders for season tickets will receive preferential seating; individual orders will NOT be filled until Nov. 10th. THE GONDOLIERS* Wed., Nov. 13 Thur., Nov. 14 HENRY, SWEET HENRY Wed., Dec. 11 _______ Thur., Dec. 12 1OLANTHE Wed., Mar. 19 Thur., Mar. 20 THE MUSIC MAN' Wed., Aug. 6 Thur., Aug. 7 Fri., Nov. 15 Sat., Nov. 16 Sat., Nov. 16 Fri., Dec. 13 Sat:, Dec. 14 {_7 p.m.) (10 p.m.) A 8M.E. PRODUCTION ALSO STARRINGU MM(1E EW EREMNand FRANK FINY TiRBURGE' ANTHONY HAVELOCK-A.AN and JOHN BRABOURNE TECHNICOLOR' PANAVISIONO From WARNER BROS.-SEVEN ARTS FRI. & SAT. - 2:30 - 5:1 5-8:00 WINNER OF 5 ACADEMY AWARDS! A J.ARThUR RANK ENTERPRISE azavnnce ev19 pretents A CONTINENTAL DISTRIBUTING, INC. RE-RELEASE 2 EXCITING NEW PLAYS A powerful and prophetic An imaginative and play by the daring,.young provocative new play by Czech liberal leader: the author of 197PrauesuGesBlackboad 1 :ugl THE WORLD PREMIERE F -o by IVAN KLIMA b Adaptedby RUTH WILLARD EVAN HUNTER TUES., DEC. 3+--- SUN., DEC. 8 MON., FEB. 3- SAT., FEB. 8 4 Fri., Sat., Sat.. Fri., Sat., Sat., Mar. Mar. Mar. Aug. Aug. Aug. 21 22 22 8 '9 9 ( 7 p.m.) (10p.m.) ( 7 p.m.) (10 p.m.) I prefer (check one).: orchestra; balcony. *THE GONDOLIERS will be performed in Lydia Mendelssohn theatre; all others in Trueblood Theatre; Curtain time is 8 p.m., SHARP, unless otherwise noted. Seats are reserved for all shows except HENRY, SWEET HENRY. Directed by i I ,