Page Two

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Sunday, January 10, 1971

PaeToTEMC__ ALYSnaJnay1,17



cinema
'70 film: Mediocre
mirrors of the past



-. images

By NEAL GABLER
On the whole, 1970 really
wasn't worth the effort. It was
such a dismal year that just a
few short days after its passing
I can remember only two events
that strike me as being worth
remembering: the Cambodian
'incursion' and its gory after-
math, and Ali's thumping of
Jerry Quarry.. Only two events,
despite the fact that the year
was very long. In fact, it was
like one of those slow Eisenhow-
er years of my youth. Around
about September I got an un-
nerving sense of deja vu, as if
Father Time had taken 1958 out
of moth balls and here we were,
reliving it with a different cast
and wardrobe, but with the
same plodding scenario.
Maybe calling the year "feck-
less" is a tribute after a decade
of bloody excitement. I guess it
is, and yet (though I am almost
ashamed to confess it) the year's
highlight was the action-packed
coda to the 'Cambodia adven-
ture. We were all settling 'down
to becoming American again,
just like we were back; in the
50's before Kennedy and John-
son and uppity blacks and Ho
Chi Minh unsettled us. The riots
were over. The Beatles were ov-
er. Ho was over. We could set-
tle back in our easy-chairs and
read Love Story or snuggle down
in our beds and read Everything
You Wanted to K n o w About
Sex. We could get b a ck to a
richer, more plastic, version of
the good, old America: dull, pas-
sive and superficial. In. short,
we were regressing to blissful
pubescence.
And then, right smack in the
middle of normalization came
Kent State and Jackson State.
It shook all of us, in different
waysperhaps, but it did shake
all of us. It was the worst of
America bared. It was Ameri-
ca's violence, h e r intolerance,
her uncontrolled emotionalism,
her knack for playing politics
with lives, her downright stu-
pidity. But it was the only thing
that reached us, that made us
feel and think about our predic-
ament in a year when even the
students were inclined to give
up; it was the only moral jolt
in this passionless, unenergized
year. As one of my friends put
it, "Johnson was like some big
Bowie knife. He tore into you,
- DIAL 8.6416'
TODAY AT 1-3-5-7-9
"'BORSALINO' SCORES!
-Playboy MA4gazine
"ONE OF THE YEAR'S
BEST FILMS! -The catholic
News Letter

and you could hate him for it.
But Nixon - Nixon is like salt
in the wound." And in 1970 for
a few short days we were being
stabbed again. My reaction may
be abnormal, but the whole
thing felt good even though I
knew it was bad. When the ag-
ony ended a few days later Win-
slow Homer took over again.
But film being a mass art, so-
cial lethargy doesn't make for
good cinema, a n d last year's"
films bear me out. Where the
movies conceived in hectic 1968
- Easy Rider, Alice's Restau-
rant, Medium Cool etc. - held
the promise for a more personal,
less commercial, cinema, the
films conceived in 1969 and re-
leased in 1970 were on the whole
rather unimaginative and im-
personal. Not that the studioes
didn't strain their muscles try-
ing to b r i n g us "this year's
Easy Rider." They h i r e d all
sorts of bright, young film-
makers who, in the end, turned
out to 'be not all that bright.
Most of these novitiates lack-
ed even modest literacy; and if
you happen to agree with Orson
Welles that "everything is based
on the word," you can see where
an inability to write sharp dia-
logue would pose a problem. Be-
yond Ring Lardner, Jr.'s screen-
play for M*A*S*H and William
Gunn's polished writing for The
Landlord, I can't think of any-
thing that a reasonably intelli-
gent 123 student might not have
improved upon. When you add
to a tin-ear a lack of wit, and
yes, even a lack of depth, you
have film-makers who can pro-
duce pretty pictures and films
that are as flabby as Zanuck's
belly.
Pretty pictures may just be
the short-term legacy of 2001.
Everyone wondered what im-

DAILY OFFICIAL
BULLETIN
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sity of Michigan. Notices should be
sent in TYPEWRITTEN f o r m to
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publication. For more information,
phone 764-9270.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 10
MONDAY, JANUARY 11
Day Calendar
High Energy Seminar: M. 'Elock,
Northwestern Univ.. "Analysis of High
Energy Reactions with Deuterium", P&A
Colloquium Rm., 4 p.m.
Engineering Placement Meeitng No. 3:
Prof. J. G. Young. "Employment In-
Continued on Page 10)

1 ,

Psych. 483, sect. 001 ( formerly 503)
on Education-a Look at Innovations
and Alternatives
announces our first class meeting
AN EDUCATION CARNIVAL

I

PROJECT COMMUNITY TUTORIAL COURSE

----- -

at Canterbury House, Tues., Jan. 12, 7:30 p.m.
for additional information cal Sue, 662-1963


1-LAB



Six Week lab

every Tues. night
starting at 0:00
First 24 Accepted
FREE
1421 Hill STREET

t GALA
Gilbert and Sullivan Society
MASS MEETING
SUNDAY, JANUARY 10
8 P.M.-Michigan Union
We need singers, dancers, actors - undergrads,
grads, non-music students, music students, etc.

CO w sA ACL~ ....~..,5P o.1-
JACK NICHOLSON
NOW at the State Theatre
Shows at 1 :15-3-5-7-9 p.m.


I

Coming Mon. & Tues.!

-Daily-Tom Stanton


pact Space Odyssey would have
on film, and I, for one, thought
its immediate effect would be
minimal. Any, imbecile could
use Citizen Kane's deep-focus,
but film as an emotive exper-
ience isn't merely a device that
can be transferred f r o m one
film-maker to another. It is a

Gestalt, and it requires intelli-
gence and skill; to my mind the
ony film since 2001 that has
used the approach effectively
was Fellini's Satyricon. But doz-
ens of yokel films have mistak-
en non-content for non-cogni-
tive cinema: zowy visuals, loud
See CINEMA, Page 6

E -l
bs~vbNI~hTEASTMANCOLOR
RERELEASED THRU UN TE

VIVIAN AiI(IIL
RLA1Nk . K kMOYAN

4:



WHAT IS THE

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-the all-campus orchestra!
--for strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion
-sponsored by MUSKET and G&S
-3 hit shows, including:
"MY FAIR LADY" and "RUDDIGORE"
FOR WINTER AUDITION, SIGN UP
MUSKET OFFICE, 2nd FLOOR-UNION
UNIVERSITY THEATRE ORCHESTRA

WHO WROTE
"FIDDLER on the ROOF"
' uv.ttJOHN KKER
l W YRCT FETEe0
t WHO WROTE THE SONGS IN
"" "CABARET"

_.

J

"Gangland French style!
They kill a little, love a
little, fight a little!"
-N.Y. TIMES

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