The Michigan Daily-Saturday, November 17, 1979-Page 5 .., 'Yanks' love among the ruins of WWII 'THE ALCHEMIST': Jacobean slapstick, anybody? By ALISON DONAHUE During the Second World War, couples were "terribly in love" and Americans never doubted their government's moral in- tegrity. The Vietnam experience showed ugly images of war and brought on a "new morality" which dissolved our clear-cut notions of love. Most movies of the seventies reflect this more realistic, though somewhat jaded pessimism influenced by Viet- nam. With shameless roman- ticism, John Schlesinger's Yanks takes us back to World War II. For those who revel in the ways of the forties, Yanks is a blessing - a kind of nostalgic security blankket to pull over one's head when faced' with the painful questions brought to light in The Deerhunter, Coming Home, Apocalypse Now and even An Unmarried Woman. For those who confront today's problems and look to history for help, Yanks offers little. Its creators are interested in revitalizing the way Hollywood portrayed people 40 years ago. But they haven't ,given us much insight into their real lives. Yank's story deals with the in- flux of American troops into Britain during the war and its ef- fects on all concerned. Unlike the recent Vietnam epics which shock and disturb us into thinking, Yanks presents its war in a comfortably predictable way. There are no people running around in weird clothes jabbering sounds we can't decipher. The British don't have radically dif- ferent customs or gods. Of cour- se, they «r different, and just enough so to be interesting but not difhrui. THE FILM'S major conflict is between British civilians and American soldiers. While there is visible hostility among them, it's released in civilized ways to provide just enough conflict with the love scenes. Excepting a few short newsreel clips, violence is never shown. Men who die in combat simply don't return. Yanks does show that the allies didn't love each other just because they shared a common enemy. British citizens view the American GIs as clods who barge into Mother England as if they owned the place. The Americans are clods,'except Our heroes, Matt, John and Danny, who are perfect gentlemen. Yank's scenario teaches us something about the times, but its makers are more interested in getting us involved in the charac- ters' love relationships than in educating us. Hence they create a setting which provides a perfect climate for unrequited love. A ROMEO and Juliet romance develops between American G.I. Matt (Richard Gere), and Jean, (Lisa Eichhorn), an English shopgirl. Since she is already betrothed to an English boy (who is away fighting at the front), Jean's parents are against her relationship with Matt, and they shoot disapproving looks at her when he's around. When this technique fails, they resort to wringing their hands in the background, hoping she'll grow out of this phase. Meanwhile, American officer John (William Devane), puts the moves on a rich English matron named Helen (Vanessa Redgrave). These two have trouble connecting because Helen's married and adheres to prudish English conventions. John is a free spirit who tries to loosen her up, but she's too restricted by guilt to completely give in to her feelings. Yank's characters are sen- sitive and human enough to ap- proach realism when they're not forced to act out archaic Hollywood romance formulas, like the one which dictates Matt's and Jean's relationship: Boy meets girl and immediately tells her he's never met anyone like her. She plays hard to get so he pursues her, which she likes. She gives in to him because he's nice enough to protect her from the advances of boorish Americans. Soon the business of war inter- venes however, and boy must move on. He has temporary doubts about his commitment to her, but of course comes to his senses and vows to return. We know he will. PERHAPS THE actors could have transcended their unimaginative roles if they'd been more charismatic both as individuals and couples. Richard Gere conveyed an ex- citing gut level intensity as Diane Keaton's tough macho lover in Waiting for Mr. Goodbar. But in Yanks, as a conscientious boy- next-door, his energy is tamed to blandness. He certainly can't hope to catch sparks from cool Lisa Eichhorn's Jean. She's a prim goody-two shoes who breaks away from convention under the influence of her American boyfriend. Eichhorn's restraint never really lets up though, and it's hard to feel comfortable around her. Jean's girlfriend Molly, played by Wendy Morris, a Betty Grable look-alike, is a much warmer character, but un- fortunately we don't see-much of her. THE LOVE relationship bet- ween Redgrave and Devane takes some getting used to because the two are so unap- pealing together. Redgrave's aristocratic elegance is meant to contrast with Devane's ear- thiness, but their physical dif- ferences create a contrast that is more disconcerting than com- plimentary. While she looks like some kind of queen, he resembles a caricature of 20-year-old Jerry Lewis. He's such a nice guy that he wins our sympathy, though, and eventually we accept this odd couple. Cinematographer Dick Bush captures the gritty drabness of wartime London successfully, but like every other element in the film, the camera cannot escape Schlesinger's eagerness to resurrect the conventions of a bygone era. His technique of shooting the women in the film slightly out of focus brings back the soft glamour of the forties. The glowy haze it creates around Vanessa Redgrave is so overdone that it looks like Schlesinger is trying harder to blur out her wrinkles than to affect a subtle mood. This soft focus technique is also disconcerting because it con- trasts so markedly with the rest of the film's sharpness. WHEN RECENT films are so heavily pessimistic that they deny fulfillment of any ideals, we often search for relief. Yanks of- fers security through nostalgia. There's something tremendously reassuring about feeling that a war is justified, or in seeing lovers make a lifetime commit- ment to each other. But we can't live in Hollywood's past. Yanks offers only a hollow escape because it ignores everything we've learned from the distur- bing films that deal with love and war. The Deerhunter and Coming Home present a view of life that is harder to accept than that of Yanks. But in doing so they challenge us, while Yanks works only to lull us into passivity. By ANNE SHARP There is a friendly, intimate air about Residential College theater productions that I enjoy each time I see one. Perhaps it's the setting, that cunning, natty little auditorium tucked away in the underbelly of East Quad, or the The Alchemist By Ben Jonson Residential College Auditorium November 15, 16,17 Subtle, the Alchemist......... GabrielOtterman Face, a Captain................. Blake Ratcliffe Dol Common, their Companion. MargaretGonzales Sir Epicure Mammon, a Knight......Dan Gordon Presented by the R.C. Players. Directed by Martin Walsh, assisted by Linda Spalding; costumes by Melissa Armstrong, set by Lauren Press, lights by Bob Cantor. Intermission music written by various Renaissance composers, performed by Gregory Ross. .small, inbred group of R.C. theater profs and students that keep popping up in each new show. Despite the R.C.'s dwindling popularity (only a scant few of students who enroll in this decade-old experiment in liberal arts education stay in the program all four years), its remaining core of adherents are en- thusiastic and bright as buttons, chock full of offbeat, if not avant-garde, ideas. This production of The Alchemist, like many other R.C. shows, is the result of a play production seminar, of- fered for credit by the College. Students study the play in depth, then pull together an actual production of it, some students becoming actors, others doing costumes, makeup, tech work, etc. This time, the play is a decadent, rowdy Jacobean romp about an un- scrupulous huckster and his two con- federates, a confidence trickster posing as an alchemist and a wily harlot. Together, with lots of pseudo-scientific and occult hoo-hah and promises of chemically-induced wealth, fame, and sexual indomitability, they cheat quite a few not-so-honest people out of money and self-respect. Professor/director Walsh and his cast have worked out a lively, satisfying version of the play, carefully and accurately fitted out in the style of the period. Faithful to the %Loy is preserved on vmmH UROOFlITl The Michigan Daily 420 Maynard Street AND Graduate Library last detail, they performed Jonson's lit- tle diversion in its entirety, not a line cut. Though it may have been a treat for purists, the three-hour playing time (including two brief intermissions) proved a bit wearing on the audience. THERE WAS A lot of nice, expansive, bawdy commedia del' arte business going on throughout the play, which was almost too well-planned and executed. It seemed to take the actors a while to warm up to all the slapstick and grandiose speeches that had been blocked out for them, and even then, one had the feeling that all the physical humor, the swordplay and bouncing in and out of various exits and entrances, wasn't really theirs; perhaps it was the mark of an ambitious director on a group of underripe actors. However, it is a pretty funny play, if you're into a little raunchy Renaissance-type humor, and it's quite pleasing to look at. Gabriel Otterman, as the Alchemist, seems a bit youthful for the part and doesn't seem quite "into it," but visually at least, with his long black hair, he is striking almost in a Rasputinish way. Pat Ray was much more convincing as the skeptical, heroic gambler Surly, and had a cute bit in which he masqueraded as a witless Spanish nobleman, which looked and sounded like John Belushi doing a simultaneous impression of a Samurai cocaine fiend and Dom-, DeLouise. Very, very intriguing. Guess Who's, .-.--'-Back- : L 5th Avenue at Liberty St. 761-9700 Formerly Fifth orum Theater I k 'In The Dark' .By JOSHUA PECK Musket's original musical, In The Dark, opened last nigh at the Power Center to an undeservedly smallish audience. Possessed of remarkably competent performers, an amusingly contrived if complicated plot, ample 'humor, and outstanding music and lyrics, the production is overall the best Musket offering within memory. Peter Slutsker, an unlikely romantic hero if ever there were one, lends balding, bumbling charm to his part, and his fellow actors share in the general thesian strength, but the real star of In The Dark is the sterling score-dissonant, intriguing melodies, sumptuously rich harmonies, and all. A complete review will appear tomorrow. NATINALStarring JOHN BELUSHI The '9.5O - ARCA IA/ 3:50,6:008:00 SAT-SUN Adults $1.50 til 2:15 (or capacity) TO/ITE ONLY 12:00 MIDN/TE SHOW!UNAdult w Mike Nichols' 1972 CARNAL KNOWLEDGE The sex life (naturally of two male college buddies (JACK NICHOLSON and ART GARFUNKEL) from those early days into middle-age Surprisingly good promance by CANDICE BERGE N and ANN-MARGARE;T (n her first good role). Short: THE CLUB (George Griffin, 1975) Animation of gentlemenly old pricks enjoying their clubby activities: reading, newspapers, slurping on pipes, matching pitch for an impromptu barbershop quartet. Sun: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST CINEMA GUILD TONIGHT AT, 7:00 & 9:05 OLD ARCH. AUD. $1.50 The Ann Arbor Film Cooperative Presents: $1.50 Saturday, November 17 (Michael Powell, 1960) PEEPING TOM 7& 10:20MLB4 Michael Powell's master work of nastiness concerns a mad filmmaker ob- sessed with filming women at the moment of death, an event he hastens along by way of impaling them with the phallic tripod leg of his camera. A bizarre, complex and fascinating film with director Powell doing a cameo as the hero'scold-blooded father. With ANNA MASSEY, NIGEL DAVENPORT, MOIRA SHEARER. (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) . PSYCHO 8:40 only MLB4 Often cited as the most frightening film ever made, Psycho tells of a secretary (JANET LEIGH) who absconds with $40,000-and comes upon a lonely motel near a Gothic house inhabited by a strange young man (ANTHONY PERKINS) and his possessive mother. Need we continue? Will you ever shower a ain? Chilling music by Bernard Herrman. With VERA MILES, MARTIN BAL- SAM. THE CHESS PLAYERS (Satyajit Ray, India 1978) 7 & 9 AUD A In his latest film, a thoughtful and talented Satyajit Ray has put together a dazzling cinematic experience in which every element has been carefully ar- ranged to please the eye. Alongside this film's immense visual beauty and physical splendor rests a subtle political satire of the British East India Company's further annexation of India's land in 1856. Within the limits of the film's melancholic splendor, we see India's king and a few of his impotent aristocrats benignly accepting the fact that even when playing the Indian invented game of chess, they must learn to play by British rules. Crowded out of most American theaters by Hollywood glut, The Chess Players is a film that deserves to be seen. AMZAD KHAN RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH. Next Tuesday: Robert Altman's A PERFECT COUPLE AT Aud. A. 41r *1 -'%....T 01 4 PRES EVE OF DESTR TEXAS CHAIN! (Tobe H This low-budget horror flick vaulte of the biggest box-office grossers mansion are assaulted and, one byc istic family next door. A brilliant cor nightmare, and the destruction of th the squeamish, but lots of fun. Sel their permanent film collection, ar Festival (90 min) 7:00 & 10:20. DESTROY A (Inoshiro. MAII- ENTS /'TAIN DOUBLE U 1 / G ' J / Invites You io Join Him For: Monday: PIZZA NIGHT 6pm-12a.m. vvr Ivr vvV//i.i. SAW MASSACRE ooper, 1974) d into prominence when it became one of 1974. Friends visiting an old family one, picked off for lunch by the cannibal- mrnentary of the American dream turned ie nuclear family. Relentless, and not for ected by the Museum of Modern Art for nd an invited entry in the Cannes Film i Tuesday: SOUP & SALAD 6p.m. -1 2a.m. Wednesday: PASTA NIGHT 6 pm-11 pm. Thursday: LL MONSTERS Honda, 1969) MlA InMn MfPIP.77117EIPAPPNIlAI