Rage Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, October 26, 1971 Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, October 26, 1971 cinema Hellstrom Chronicle': They said no one could top Disney Contemporary Discussions Presents: Prof. John Stevens Comics: The Massest Media Multipurpose Room UGLI TONIGHT 8:00 FREE ADMSSION By NEAL GABLER I would doubt very much that The Holstrom Chronicle, one of those true-life nature pictures, will spark an epiphany in any- body, even if that's what it in- tends to do. It is, however, ab- solutely fascinating, and if you don't know a thing about in- sects, it is likely to prove edu- cational as well. I mean, have you ever seen a termite queen and her huge translucent sack filled- with little goodies like tubes, ganglia, organs and eggs? Or have you ever seen a war of black and red ants? Or the mating of two black widow spiders? Or a bug being gob- bled up by a Venus Fly-trap? And there are dozens more things to delight urban yokels like myself whose only contact with the insect world is via the flyswatter. . Some of this may recall the days when your parents packed you off to a Saturday matinee of Disney's Secrets of Life. All those tiny creatures crawling around with an authoritative narrator explaining it to you. Now, I hate to attack American institutions, and I may be ra- tionalizing my love of true-life adventures at my old age, but The Hellstrom Chronicle seems far superior to the Disney films of my youth. For one thing, it is technically unequalled; then camera crews stationed all around the world and equipped with very special Arriflexes spent two years capturing the life and times of our tiny ne- meses. Just how the camera- men got some of their shots to- tally baffles me. M o r e o v e r, The Hellstrom Chronicle improves on Disney by wisely avoiding his synthetic personification of the animal world. You know, There goes Mr. Bee out to meet Mr. Flower and make honey. And we all love honey, don't we? Incredi- bly, without this junk, the bugs are moving in their own gro- tesque way, especially when we see a battlefield strewn with limbs, corpses. and dying in- sect soldiers. War is hell on any scale. But for all its educational value, the film, unlike Disney's pictures, is not a simple docu- mentary. Instead, the nature photography serves to illustrate the dire predictions of the fic- tional Dr. Nils Hellstrom, a young tweedy assistant profes- sor, who confesses that he's been labeled a lunatic. You see, Hellstrom has a fixation with bugs. He thinks they're going to take over the world if we don't reform ourselves and fast. Insects were here long before Man. They have a social order that Man has been unable to match. They operate on an in- herent logic that tells them the best option in a certain situa- tion, so that even when they kill they are acting in accord with Nature (which, I guess, is supposed to be some kind of consolation for the victims). Finally, insects have a "tech- nology" that rivals our own-an elaborate system of communi- catibns, a built-in. computer, a little ABM Inescapably, on the peri- phery of Hellstrom's exhorta- tion is a bit of philosophy. Man will succumb to bugs, says the Doctor, because bugs are linked inextricably to Nature. They cannot think for tliamselves: they merely act out their fates. And in the bane-up finale, he shows us a terrifying horde of blind driver ants literally de- stroying everything in their path, no matter how large. Even lizards are devoured by the mob. It's unbelievable and a wee bit frightening. But even more frightening, philosophically at least, is the plight of the mayfly. This bug has a life span of only one day and spends its lifetime procre- ating another generation of mayflies, who, in turn, will spend their lifetimes . . . and so it goes. This, of course, may be the ultimate in being at one with your environment, and Hellstrom uses this example to berate Man and his H-Bombs. "Life's only purpose is life it- self." Which is well and good if you consider a life like the may- fly's worth living. I don't (after all, I'm not ,a mayfly), but the maniacal Hellstrom, like so many others, believes a buglike order may be the answer to our problems. ,Whether it be the conservative's order of the club or the liberal's order of futur- ism, we must, in a kind of total ecological commitment, plug ourselves into Nature to curb our destructiveness. To me, the real question this. raises is, How much is our safety worth? Hellstrom says of the bugs, "Where there is no intelligence, there is also no stu-. pidity." But it works both ways: Where there is no stupid- ity, there is also no intelligence. Granted, Man alone is able to undo God's work; Man alone is also able to consciously create. I'm not sure if glorification-of intelligence is the message of The Hellstrom Chronicle or if there is any message at all be- yond the amazing nature pho- tography. (T h e r e probably isn't.) When bugs start making movies about human beings I'll start worrying. Until then . * * * In looking over my review of McCabe and Mrs. Miller I've noticed a major failing, and I'd like to at least clarify my am- biguity. The problem is that although a reader should have realized I liked the film, I never stated unequivocably where I stood. My apologies. Most critics either loved the pic- ture or hated it. Kael came on TV to hail it as a major tri- umph; Kauffman lambasted it as "trash." When I first saw McCabe last summer I was im- pressed without being over- whelmed. It had a clear and solid theme, which I limned in my review, and within the bounds of its style it had very few faults, unless, of course, you happened to consider the style itself one big fault. I've never been a big fan of style for its own sake, but Mc- Cabe's was well enough inte- grated with theme to prevent the film's quick dismissal as avant-garde gibberish. The mo- vie's director, Robert Altman, is rapidly becoming one of Ameri- ca's most personal filmmakers. He is audacious, and even when he fails, as in Brewster Mc- Cloud, he fails with a certain aplomb. McCabe is another of his experiments, and since most of us aren't prepared to accept an expeiment on its own terms, I found myself (on first viewing) attracted by its beau- ty and singularity while re- pelled by its choppiness. On the positive side, it was a lovely, even classic, portrait of chang- ing West bereft of spiritualism, a portrait concerned more with situation than with story. On the negative side, in dispensing with taut narrative and tra- ditional character development., it also dispensed with fleshed- out characters. I'm old-fashion- ed. I like three - dimensional people. But alas. matters were fur- ther complicated when I went back to review the film. Maybe it was just knowing what to ex- pect, but I came away from these viewings satisfied and en- thusiastic. The picture had somehow grown. True, I didn't find it any more moving than before; Altman's treatment mil- itates against that. And yet I had to give the man credit for having his vision so fully rea- lized. If I were to take the mean of my two reactions, McCabe would wind up solidly on the plus side. I won't do that. I'll merely say that while the film is too disjointed (or I'm too tra- ditional) for me to call it great, is is possibly the best American film this year. Warts and all. d _f MEET LSA STUDENT GOVERNMENT at the [SA . ji 1 Student-Faculty Coffee Hour WEDNESDAY, OCT. 27 3:0-0-4:00 p.m.2549 LSA Bldg. CIDER and DOUGHNUTS! ____________________I! _ _ 1 coming .. . for HALLOWEEN SENSATIONAL mm 3 m SPECTACULAR COLOR eyes of hell "In the gruesome division, this one is really very good."-I-L.A. TIMES SHOP WEDNESDAY 9:30 A.M. UNTIL 5:30 P.M. the long, lean lanky by Robert Bruce.". . a close-fitting-cotton knit skinny ribbed pullover with high turtleneck...,14 definitely the shirt to wear now. Hazel, dust, blue, rose, burgundy or smog. Sizes S/M and L/XL. 6.50 .:..... Jacobsons .... - . ...- 1 1 i fri.-sat., oct. 29-30 Natural Science Aud. 7:30-9-10:30 ARM 761-7849 Here are Ladies' set at Mendelssohn This Friday and Saturday eve- ning The University Professional Theatre Program will present Siobhan McKenna in "Here are Ladies". McKenna will perform in Mendelssohn Theatre. Her dramatic gallery of famous characters from the works of such leading Irish authors as Shaw, O'Casey, Synge, Yeats and James Joyce, is climaxed by her ren- dering of the Molly Bloom solilo- quy from 'Ulysses'. The Irish theatre's most dis- tinguished actor, Jack MacGow- ran, follows for two performances on Jan. 21 and 22 in the "Works of Samuel Beckett." This per- formance won both the Obie Award and the Theatre World Award for MacGowran last sea- son Off-Broadway, where the cri- tics hailed MacGowran as "the de- finitive exponent of Beckett, the towering avant - garde dramatist of our age." Try Our New HAIRSTYLISTS! " Gerry Erickson * Dennis Shaner DASCOLA BARBERS near Michigan Theater DIA l 662-6264C LG4 COLOR P FOPEN 2:41 At State and Liberty SHOWS AT 1, 3, 5, 7, 9:05 HELD OVER-3rd Hit Week! EVERY WEDNESDAY, 1-6 p.m., Ladies Pay only 75c -0- CNGTONMN. -M G A 'i ' " ' Shop V .- . A For the student body: ' Genuine '* Authentic Navy PEA COATS $25 Sizes 34 to 50 CHECKMATE State Street at Liberty -I DIAL 5-6290 3rd WEEK "I wouldn't say McCABE is more enjoyable than M*A*S*H; it is simply richer and better, a cas- s'c of its kind . . . be forewarn- ed: the trick of appreciating McCABE & MRS. MILLER is to settle back and let it gurgle over you." Neal Gabler-Michigan Daily WARREN BEATTY HILLEL FOUNDATION PRESENTS Norman Podhoretz Editor of Commentary Magazine Author of Making It and Doings and Undoings speaking on "Is It Good for the Jews?"-The Question of Jewish Interest in the 'Seventies WEDNESDAY, OCT. 27 8:30 P.M. at HILLEL-1429 HILL 'a 0 the ann arbor film cooperative presents DAVID WARNER and VAN ESSA REDGRAVE in A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT Directed by KAREL REISZ ("The Loves of Isadora"), author of the classic modern text on film editing I 4 -An alienated young man copes with a mad world in a mad-cap way-identifying with animals in the process- andi [ de,are, mad. But is he? Fine comedv. I.