Page Two

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Thursday, March 11, 1971 10

Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, March 11, 1971 *


Film f!
By JOHN ALLEN
If opening night of the 9th
Ann Arbor Film Festival was a
fair sam'ple of the week's fare,
it's , going to be a great week.
And a great festival.
Next to Charlie Chaplin's The
Gold Rush, the funniest film ev-
er made may be Doug Wendt's
Up and. Atom - a two-and-a-
half-minute glimpse of a licking
dog. Yes, that's what I said, a
licking dog. The dog sits still,
the camera sits still, the lens
and the lightink sit s till -

estival: Innovative

repeti tion

UNPRECEDENTED
DOUBLE FEATURE!

trait of Plastic Man as Super-
star.
If the evening had a theme,
in fact, the theme was "repe-
tition" - a n d the variations
w e r e immensely inventive.
Frank Gardner's Young Girl at
a Window toyed with t i m e,
space, and scale through the use
of mirror - image symmetry.
What gave the film its pecul-
iar power was the non-synch-
ronous character of the left and
right images - they moved at
different times, overlapping one


... images

entry, Horseopera. As in Bessie
Smith, Levine's footage comes
from old films, this time from
westerns. The repetitions a n d
superimpositions begin almost
as comic farce and then build
inexorably to a climax of action
and carnage that may be the
most eloquent commentary yet
made on the annihilation of the
Indian. Horseopera most assur-
edly puts to.shame a concoction
on a similar theme like John
Ford's Cheyenne Autumn.
Because it was not well-liked
by the audience and is a com-
plex film, it is perhaps appro-
priate to speak at greater
length "about Levine's accom-
plishment - also, because its
placement on the program was
unfortunate: it demands the
kind of concentration and cere-
bration which do not come eas-
ily after six hours of festival-
watching.
In its defense I would call at-
tention to the evolution of em-
phasis that takes place within
its repetitions, and its relation-
ship to the whole genre out of'
which it grows. The western has
been a Hollywood staple since
Edwin Porter's The Great Train
Robbery in 1903. Personal as
well as racial 'violence have been
exploited endlessly in this gen-
re since the beginning, partly
because of their pictorial attrac-
tiveness as a source of action
imagery, partly because of subt-
ler things like the archetypal
selm-image of the predominant-
ly white audience in American
society.
What Levine has created in
his agitated repetitions Is a cap-
sule history of the genre, a lyric
tribute to the beauty of motion
as the camera can record it,
and finally a searing commen-
tary on the ruthless extermini-
nation of the Indian - an ex-
termination that goes on and
on - in fiction films, in real-
life racism, perhaps even in the
heart of our bloody involvement
in Indochina. A film that be-
gins looking like a J o k e and
then metamorphoses into the
poetry of motion ultimately de-
vastates - as the facts behind
tte Hollywood illusionrever-
berate through the cycles of
black-and-white positive and
negative images: genocide as a
pasttime of the White Man.
So much for Horseopera, pos-
sibly, the most memorable film
of the evening though the least
popular. There was much more
that was memorable, too much
to do Justice to in a brief re-
view. For example: John Stew-
art's penetrating portrait of a
young hunchback in Qui Qui Va;
Scott Bartlett's . beautiful if

slightly conventional tribute to
orgasm in the abstract Love-
making (a film somehow less
satisfying filmically than his en-
try of a year ago, Moon 1969.)
One should also mention, for
its economy, Donna Deitch's
otherwise commonplace Memor-
abilia: virtually a one-shot pan
with shifting focus that takes in
flag-decked grave markers, a
wind-up robot toy, and a poster
of Nixon - "wanted for mur-
der." Nothing new, conceptual-
ly - but a model of filmic pre-
cision, cla'rity, a n d sharpness:
virtues too often absent in prev-
ious cinematic diatribes against
the war in Vietnam.
Daniel Seymour's Flamenco-
logia was a poignant rendering
of an art that some fear to be
dying out. Perhaps t h e bored
looks on the faces of children as
they sat with their families in
a Spanish bar listening to' the
guitarist prove the point. In any
case, Seymour's camera w o r k
records faces and figures and
milieu which mesh beautifully
with the music recorded by his
tapes.
Danute Miskinis's Rocky pro-
vided Ann Arborites with a fic-
tional western in that most real
of 10 c a 1 settings, Mr. Flood's
Party. Saul Rouda's Waldo Point
provided a realistic glimpse of
hip life in a far more fiction-
alized setting: houseboats off
Sausalito in San Francisco Bay.
In its .muted colors and lyric
camera work, Rouda's entry was
a small masterpiece of control,
a welcome and insightful record
of a unique community.

G. Barnes and Runs Good by
Pat O'Neill. The latter is one of
the better efforts in lab-proces-
sing cinematography. It, too,
focuses on repeated images.
In a way, opening night of the
9th A n n Arbor Film Festival
was itself a repetition of prev-
ious festival themes, techniques,
and images, but it seemed a rep-
etition of highlights only. Al-
most all t h e films would be
worth' seeing again, and some
of them would be a joy to see
again and again ... and again.
Which may be as good a
measure as any, at first view-
ing, of the inherent worth of
any work of art: if it invites re-
peated'encounters, it works. If
it continues to reward those en-
counters, it is a success. The fes-
tival this year is at least work-
ing; hopefully it will also be a
great success.
v-

I

JOHN GLEN KIM
WAYNE CAMPBELL DARBY
HAL WALLIS'
WCWmCOlOR.-A PARAMOUNT PICTURE

t .

"ANOTHER ST EP TOWR TOMPLEPH
STRICK B R O K E SIMILAR GROUND
WITH 'ULYSSES.' BUT BY COMPARIS-
ON THE FRANKNESS WAS A RIPPLE!
SOME OF THE INCIDENTS ARE WILD!
BUT WOE TO THE PRUDE!"
-William Wolf, Cue Magazine
"REALLY BETTER THAN THE BOOK!"
John Wingate, WOR Radio
"THE U.S. CUSTOMS BUREAU
BARRED IT AS OBSCENE!
READERS FOUND IT SHOCKING
AND SCANDALOUS!AND NOW, '
FOR ANYONEOVER 18I A.)
IT IS A MOYIE!"-iugm.Aern
HENRY MILER'S
FITH POUM THUR.-7:15, 9:00
|i| N FR 7:AT5ERTY 9:00,1A
DOWNTOWN ANN ARBOR ' :45
fNFtORMgT1ON 78R.9700 FR. 7:5

PUL NEWMaN
as cooHNDL
LUKEsDPEARCE MRPIERSON
CORDONU001 r.hw SIRRI ROSENBERG
-4 WARNER 5SMI. SEMENAin *
TOMORROW AND
SAT. NIGHT

The Place to Meet
INTERESTING People
BACH CLUB
presents
PETER GRIFFITHS
performing on
CLASSICAL GUITAR
Thurs., March 11-8 P.M.
S. Quad, W. Lounge
REFRESHMENTS
Featuring Tacos by Susan Lavery
EVERYONE WELCOME!
Further Info: 769-1605

Nat Sci.

at
Auditorium


For sheer beauty of image two
films deserve mention: Two Po-
ems of the T'ang Dynasty by R.


The Project Con nity
presents
IKE & TINA TURNER REVUE
plus SUC
FiaMarch 1 2th. TICKETS ON SALE
Michigan Union
2 Shows 1:00 & 9:30 Students International
10:00 A.M.-8:00 P.M.
Hill Aud. $2.50, $3.00, $3.50
Block tickets still available

4

-Daily-Jim Judkis


nothing moves but a pink ton-
gue in a . shaggy brown mutt.
Someone feeds him a fingerful
of a sticky, sweet substance, and
the film is underway. N e v e r
have so many been so thorough-
ly amused for so little. Anyone
doubting the possibility of mak-
ing a great flick for the price of
one roll of unedited color film
has not seen Up and Atom.
It is testimony to the truth of
Maya Deren's comment as re-
corded in Film Culture for Win-
ter, 1965: "Improve your films
not by adding more equipment
and personnel but by using what
you have to the fulest capacity."
If what you have includes a
shaggy dog with a story to tell,
lots of personality, and a sure
sense of comic timing, of course,
it helps.
Almost as funny, in spite of
the lesser talents of its star, was
a film by Peter Lawrence called
Ad Hominem. Filmed off a TV
screen, this black-and-white bit
of nonsense featured your fav-
orite local President and mine,
Dicky Nixon, doing what he does
- best: smiling . . . and° smiling
. . . and smiling . . . his Pepso-
dent teeth in that Latex face,
silly putty with a bite. Lawrence
takes a few feet of revealing
footage and repeats them in
varying sequence and at varying
pace to create a devastating por-

another temporally and spatial-
ly, to create a complex orches-
tration of images and causality.
Furthermore, the shifts f r o m
close-ups to medium. shots pro-
vided a counterpoint of super-
impositions suggesting huge hov-
ering presences beyond the win-
dow which framed the screen.
Charles Levine, whose film on
Bessie Smith was seen at the
festival a couple of years ago,
utilizes once again a technique
of repeated images in this year's

r{ Nominated7 Academy
For Awards
Best Picture
Best Actress
Best Director
Best Actor
AND OTHERS
Paramount Pictures Presents
Ali McGraw " Ryan O'NealI:." .
John Marley C, Ray Milland
Program Information 5-6290
GP IN COLOR
DOORS OPEN 12:45
Shows at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 P.M.
603 E. LIBERTY FREE LIST SUSPENDED

I



CRAFTS FAIR
CREATIVE ARTS FESTIVAL 1971
MARCH 27 Union Ballroom
SELL WHATEVER YOU MAKE
AT NO COST TO YOU
Must Register at UAC
Office to Participate
$2.00 Fee to Cover Costs

I

DIAL 8-6416
Doors open
at 6:45

pgm--CAMPUS]

Tonight
at
7 and 9 p.m

1214 SOUTH UNIVERSITY
"'The Twelve Chairs'
is uproarious funl
Any true fan of
comedy,
has to

9th ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL, Tuesday through Sunday Night in the Architecture Auditor-
ium, Architecture and Design School, Tappan and Monroe. Screenings at 7, 9, & 11 p.m. Tuesday
through Friday, 7 & 9 p.m. on Saturday. Single tickets 75c, Series Tickets $10 (eligible for Water-
bed raffle). Tickets go on sale at 6 p.m. for that night.

4

see itV '
-ABC-TV

. : _ .

TOM AND HARRY SAY: TWO THINGS ARE

BETTER ON

I




mommmon"

A wild and hilarious chase for a fortune in jewels.

E:ri .

A1

r. M,..«.,. .
:,
iv.. '
L .. ,
t

THE CHALLENGE:
.::.....::...
Every man, woman, and child
to quit smoking for 30 days..
for your country, for your honor,
for $25,000,000! r-

I

I


U

STARTS TODAY!

ROB4ET REDFORD MICHAL J. POLLARD
LITTLE FAUSS AAD 016 HALSY 4

KING

SIZE,

539.00

NATIONALLY ADVERTISED AT $69.00

i

I

IT

University of Michigan Film Society (ARM) presents
a Josef von Sternberg double bill

* Famous Aquarian Sleeper Brand
" Full 5 Year Factory Guarantee
"The Quality Waterbed At Any Price"
LITERALLY FLOATING ON OUR WATERBED, you can get less sleep and
awake totally refreshed. Evenly and gently supported all over, you experience
completely relaxing weightlessness.
MAKING LOVE ON A WATERBED is completely new-as silky, stimulating
ripples swirl under and through your bodies. Each movement sets off echoes
of excitement as you share the vibrations. Nighttimes become events of total
joy-not to mention mornings.
YOU MUST FEEL FOR YOURSELF THE TOTAL COMFORT AND
SHEER SENSUALITY THATONLY OUR WATERBED CAN OFFER

Shanghai Express
with Marlene Dietrich,
Anna May Wong,
Warner Oland

8:00 & 11:00 p.m.
(1932)

i

"A ROARING VISUAL DELIGHT"
-L.A. TIMES

8' ROUND AND SUPERKING (7' x 9') ALSO AVAILABLE
Frames, Foam Pads, Waterchairs and Liners, too!

II~ ~ ~ ~~~aa of AInatahLa..a.L....v.n ILmuL h. rqmun jnmui,

"A REAL THRILLER"


,

-UPI

I

I

I1 W.......t &L Aft C.a..rw Ww&"AftwLoA Wn 1