Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, November 23, 1971 1 - - Every By NEAL GABLERa Those filmgoers closely a t - tuned to critical opinion know that Sunday Bloody Sunday is one of the more lauded movies of the past few years. Kauff- man excepted, everybody jus t loves it. Its scenarist, New York- er film critic Penelope Gilliatt, is invariably described as young, brilliant and English, and her screenplay is invariably describ- ed as literate and civilized, all of which may lead the conspira- torially minded to believe in an Eastern clique of backslapping film-reviewers. Why not say a few kind words about a fellow member of the fraternity, espec- ially when she's hitched her ta- lents to the wagon of that esti- mable, or at least popular, direc- tor, John Schlesinger? Maybe it's just that my sus- picions are automatically roused when everybody likes something, but quite frankly I can't under- stand what all the ruckus is about. Sunday Bloody Sunday is merely another in a long line of overly tidy, overly accessible pictures that the foreigners - this time the English - bludg- eon us with, and we Americans lay down and play dead. How wonderfully deep! How wonder- fully clever! True, the screen- play (which, by the way, Schles- inger is now claiming credit for) is every bit as literate and civil- ized as the reviewers say, but only if you accept "literate" as a euphemism for Important words ala Robert Bolt wrapped in smooth English accents. In fact, there are so many stunning little ripostes that you may have to steel yourself against the ini- pulse to shout "Touche!", an im- pulse which only a very civiliz- ed work could trigger. What really staggers Miss Gil- liatt's screenplay, however, isn't its high-blown laiguage so much as its almost total divorce from action. In Sunday things never evolve as they do in any really good picture. Instead, things are always expressed in words or symbols, and so we get a sche- matic of modern detachment ra- ther than a full-bodied picture of a relationship's disintegration. Sunday's geometry, set against a London backdrop, is a bisexual love triangle, which may strain your credulity right off. At one corner is Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson), a young, divorced ca- reer woman. At the other corner is Daniel Hirsch (Peter Finch), an aging, unattached, ;ay Jewish week has a 'Sunday' doctor. And at the apex is Bob Elkin (Murray Head), a doll- faced sculptor of mechanical doo- dads. These three creak about like antique furniture,grimace oc- casionally, spout Miss Gilliatt's truths, and generally act like people are supposed to act in an extremely urbane movie. I don't mean this as a knock against the principals. It's just that Sunday Bloody Sunday is dull, bloody dull. And if you don't relieve me, you might be convinced by an outline of the ten-day period the film covers: Friday-Alex meets Bob for a weekend at the home of some mutual friends, John and Alva Hodson. Saturday-Bob leaves for a tryst with Daniel. He returns to Alex that night. , Sunday-Bob and Alex take the Hodson's children for a day. The Hodson's dog, Kenyatta, is run over. The couple returns to Lon- don. Monday - S k i p p e d (every damn movie has a Monday). Tuesday-Alex has dinner with her parents. Wednesday - Daniel and Bob have a spat. Alex goes to bed with a client. Thursday-Bob gets a vaccina- tion. Daniel plans a vacation to Italy. Friday-Bob gets sick from his vaccination. Saturday-Daniel attends his nephew's Bar Mitzvah. After- wards, he and Bob make love. Sunday-Bob leaves for Amer- ica. Though they'd be confusing content with form, I suppose Miss Gilliatt's and Mr. Schles- inger's defense would be that this is a movie about boredom, a dramatization of the litany of suburbia: Nothing happens. Our lives are unrewarding, insigni- ficant, overly materialistic, etc., etc., etc. Life is so bad and no- thing seems to work. We reach out, but no one is there. All of our days are like bloody (the ,"bloody" here is an epithet) Sundays, full of uneventfulness, each interchangeably empty. Boredom, of course, is only a symptom. The disease itself is our atomization, our inability to make commitments to one ano- ther for fear we'll get dragged ,down; and Sunday is a catalog of victims. There is Alex's mo- ther who has always passively taken second place to her hus- band's business. ("There is no whole thing. You've got to make it work.") There are the Hod- sons, friends of Alex, Bob, and Daniel, who, in the great liberal academic tradition, have raised obnoxious, pot-smoking know-it- alls; this training, no doubt, was designed to help the toddlers avoid that most cardinal sin of our times, hypocrisy. Finally, there are Bob, Daniel and Alex. In the film's typology, which I'm sure you'll all de- cipher, Bob is morally liberated (what else can a bisexual )e?), living by the slogan, "We're free to do what we want." Now, while we free spirits are inclined to see only the positive side of this pronouncement, taken mor- ally and not politically, it has grave consequences. True love and real commitment are incom- patible with this kind of freedom. So Bob's liberty is really a li- cense to bounce through life without attachments and without regard for the people he might hurtalong the way. Daniel, en the other hand, is more willing to take a risk. He stakes claim to a part of Bob and asks little more, wryly accepting his fate as a displaced person. And as he recounts to us, the audience, an apocryphal conversation with one of his patients, he delivers the film's final line, a summary of modern life: "I only came about my cough."' Placed symbolically between these two in the middle of the struggle between detachment and commitment and at the cen- ter of the film, is Alex. Having shared Bob with Daniel, she knows that liberty comes only at the cost of some sensitivity. She barks, "All this fitting in and making do and shutting up . . . I don't want to live like this." Yet, she has few alternatives. Compatibility being that rarest of commodities, we are forced to grab what we can, especially in a society where disengagement is so easy we're seldom even giv- en a chance to work things, out. (Mailer always warned us that the birth control pill would make us take sex and sex partners less seriously.) Condemned and bit- ter, Alex can only rail at her freedom, "I've had this business where something is better than nothing. There are times when nothing has to be better than something." I wouldn't say this is the most profound stuff ever on the screen, but it did deserve a bet- ter movie. And I say "movie" here, rather than screenplay, be- cause while Miss Gilliatt's sub- stitution of symbols for'drama and mouthpieces for characters starts the film toppling, it's Schlesinger's direction that fi- nally brings it to the ground. Admittedly, I've never been a big fan of Schlesinger's work. In Darling, Midnight Cowboy, and now in Sunday, he seems to be striving to become the king of mid-cult, the David Lean of so- cial realism, biting off huge chunks of modern culture and convincing people by the sheer size of -his chaw that he's say- ing something significant. The question is, can social re- alism survive a David Lean? And I think the answer is no. Watching all these patented Schlesinger closeups of a phono- graph needle, a refrigerator, an ashtray, and telephone wires makes you long for those old English working-class pictures by Richardson, Reisz, Anderson, et al., where society really did seem an inhospitable place in which to spend a lifetime. And the problem is compounded by Billy Williams' blazing photo- graph , which can't help but prettify everything. In short, Schlesinger has sprayed on too much gloss. That single title white on black, those purpose- less flashbacks, the dominant metaphor of the telephone (the mechanization of our relation- ships), the Cosi Fan Tutte waft- ing onto the soundtrack as Bob casts a longing look at Daniel before love-making - all roar with the self-conscious intelli- gence that earmarks pictures of the semi-intellectual stripe. All this buffing is especially devastating for a film about the newly oppressed - the middle class. Prole drama was externa- lized tragedy that sweated con- viction from its pores; put against it, suburban drama, with all its neuroses, usually comes off like silly farce. You think you've got problems? That's why a movie like Sunday needs, above all else, sincerity and depth. It can't work any other way. But amidst all its literacy and polish, you search in vain for something real, something that looks and sounds unorch- estrated. Conviction, I guess. You just don't find conviction in an ostentatious Bar Mitzvah symbolizing the shallowness of modern life. And even when Schlesinger goes for some sor- didness, showing addicts hanging around a drugstore likecarrion, you can see his guiding hand. Ultimately, then, the picture comes up empty-handed, soulless, flabby, slick as grease, the kind of film Alex, Daniel, Bob, orj your parents might go to see on one of their bloody Sundays. Made for us by one of us. Its one asset, and a major one at that, is Glenda Jackson. She has already proven herself one of film's most accomplished ac- tresses, and her performance here does nothing to discredit that reputation as a total actress who really knows how to use her voice and body. I would say that her performance is equal to her ,Oscar-winning job in Wom- en in Love, but "equal" doesn't quite give the sense of total equivalence I'm after, Home for Thanksgiving? Help your friends Help your neighbors Help your state Circulate petitions for ABORTION LAW REFORM Pick up at ENACT, 2051 NAT. SCI. BLDG. (9-3:30) or call 971-2413 GILBERT BURSLEY State Senator instant festival-six films by Orn OS UOn e, DEs TUES., NOV. 30--SUN., DEC. 5 1 I ARM/MICH FILM SOCIETY A 1I THE DRAUGHT HOUSE 3415 Dorr at Byrne TOLEDO, OHIO 4 I For the student body: 531 -9492 PRESENTS " Genuine $> Authentic A SUNDAY NOV. 28 * Navy PEA *COATS "SAVOY BROWN" Also Featuring $2S I "TEA" Sizes 34 to 50 CHECKMATE State Street at Liberty STUDENTS, FACULTY, STAFF U: of M. TWO SHOWS 4:00 (All Ages) 8:00 (18 & Over) $3.50 Adv. $4.00 (at door) TICKETS AVAILABLE AT ALL "PANTS GALORE" STORES MALE STUDENTS OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE $3 BY PARTICIPATING IN A ONE-HOUR EXPERIMENT ----------- COUPON .----------- SEND THIS COUPON TO MICHIGAN DAILY BOX NO. 2 FULL NAME (Print) I ADDRESS TELEPHONE NO, BEST HOURS TO CALL YOU AGE CLASS Number of previous experiments: 0 1 2 3 4 5 or more Are you part of this semester's Paid subject pool? Yes No Unpaid subject pool? Yes No _ --------------------------.---...--! I A BN-"W HURRY-MUST ri wrnrDAV! ACAPULCO 12-26-1-2 ... 1-2--1-9..... JAMAICA 12-25-1-1 ... 1-1--1-8 ..... NASSAU 12-26-1-2. 1-2----1-10 FREEPORT 12-27-1-4 ... $259 $199 $249 $209 $199 $169 $199 Corner State 6&Liberty Streets L 1 t,!Ed' V V L DIAL 662-6264 OPEN 12:45 Shows at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9:05 FRANK ZAPPA'S R STARTS THURSDAY :f~r: : ; Can stcnt ur w iu JNH I J' I r. fps h'. I I i mA.l,0fl At WEDNESDAYi Shows TODA WEDNSDAY4a~u5J&~At 1-3-5-7-9 "it is a trip much worth taking. Not since '2001' has a movie so cannily inverted consciousness and altered audience percep- tion." -Time Magazine b ROSE BOWL 1972 Sponsored by: B.S.U. & B.A.T.A. 3rd Floor--Michigan Union 764-0207 or 763-4187 Administrative Services by: Students International 621 Church Street 769-5792 115 + $14 Administrative Fee: includes during Flight: ROUND TRIP JET MEALS; OPEN BAR SERVICE ALL TRIPS INCLUDE: " Round Trip Jet Air *Transfers " Welcome Party " Accommodations Based on 4 to a Room FOR DETAILS CALL. LARRY KAUFMAN, 764-7692 OWEN PERLMAN, 663-2044 STEVEN EDER, 763-2790 NICK LUBNICK, 482-8262 For Further Details and Eu- rope Information Call Steven Zacks, 483-4850 I mw - - E>a°"°3 STUDENT PLAN: $169 + $10 Administrative Fee 'I I 6 Days 5 Nights Accommodations at the Commerce Hyatt House Hotel, featuring air-conditioned rooms and heated pool . .. five minutes from downtown LA . . . extra nights available at $6 per night. - COLUMBIA PICTURES Screenplay by MAC BENOFF C41(ren Presents STANLEY KRAMER'SProduction Based upon the novel by GLENDON SWARTHOUT Produced and directed by STANLEY KRAMFR IHELLSTRO:,M CHRONICLE:II STARTING THURSDAY, FREE THE SPIRIT! FREE THE PEOPLE! BEAUTIFUL FREAKS! STREET PEOPLE! GREAT VIBES! 154 children drop in on the folks. * Coach transport between airport and hotel * Coach transport to and from parade, game, hotel 0 ALL taxes, tips, and gratuities e $75,000 air insurance, pursuant to C.A.B. regulations * Comprehensive guide to Los Angeles published by SI 0 Central information phone locator and information booth * New Year's Eve Party * Avis Rent-A-Car Plan * Over 10 Optional Side Trips specially priced for our participants (e.g., San Francisco, Mexico, Hawaii, more) I - - SHOP TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY UNTIL 5:30 P.M. I im Open only to U-M Faculty, Staff, Students, Alumni, and immediate families staying in Ann Arbor over Thanksgiving ? there won't be a better film than V i I Miss J steps out in colorful suede Albert Finney's Ch ri in color Bubbles leg-huggers.. .light, unlined boots fit like a second skin for a great fashion look and feel. And there's more.. . high-rise knee, flared heels and inside zippers. Rust, blue,.beige or dark brown. $21. #1 ALBERT FINNEY LIZA MINNELLI BILLIE WHITELAW A FRED WEINTRAUJB FAMILY PRODUCION 13=0=3h92AM 93 EKb 1 1- II 'I l~ 1'11,11 lir 111,111HM AM-0 -13 Albert Finney directs, and plays a successful novelist w h o has drifted from his working class background and even the Bohemian scenes of his early days in London. He tries to go back, to get his head together. Liza Minnelli plays a highway pick-up, a college English major. Billie Whitelaw plays the working woman who divorced him when he "suc- -4J46a I UI I i)." s .