Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, Morch 14, 1971
Pcige Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY
film festival
V iewing,
reviewing,
By JOHN ALLEN in pe
Covering a film festival can be way
hard work. Friday's schedule check
went like this: get up at 10:30, or tht
have a bowl of cereal. Write re- day o
view for The Daily, pull it from waver
the typewriter, stop to see the gener
mbon rock at the Natural Sci- So
ence Museum before they take it What
away, drop off review, and pro- were
ceed to Architecture Auditorium Omeg
for 3:30 free screenings'. Leave were
auditorium at 2 a.m. Saturday. noon
Ten-and-a-half-hours i n t h e press
same seat, no matter how good if not
the films might be, is a long ga is
time. And when most of the films Stargg
are among the least satisfying 2001,
of an otherwise amazing festi- ist p
val, the long time approaches Cosm
infinity. The
One begins to doubt one's somev
judgement, of course. Maybe it wit
Friday's films were all fine and tion c
the only thing below par was at his
one's sensibility, coming apart tongu
at the seams from overmuch ex- body
posure to the silver screen. But tory,
then a couple of films in the final
set come along and hit home. occup
Maybe that molasses feeling in is the
the mind was the fault of the ation
earlier films and not a problem dancil
Menuhin:
By JOHN HARVITH of a P
Hill Auditoriun was literally CO.
humming with pre-rehearsal ac- misno
tivity last Wednesday afternoon there
as workmen and Menuhin Fes- that
tival Orchestra members pre- There
pared for that evening's Univer- UNES
sity Musical Society's presenta- assum
tion. Then, a mere 15 minutes to the
before the scheduled rehearsal, than
a car sped up to the rear of the Th
concert hall, screeched to a accor
halt, and disgorged violinist- cord
conductor Yehudi Menuhin. the u
He strode in leisurely, exud- variot
ing tranquility, apparently ob- and
livious to the maelstrom about strum
him, like the ethereal calm at tistic
the center of a hurricane. He cian.
completely disarmed this over- cultur
zealous interviewer with his af- want
fable, soft-spoken manner, and cultur
proceeded to converse freely on print
musical topics in beautifully emoti
polished prose, as if his time itual
were unlimited instead of a fest it
tightly-scheduled quarter-hour. As
Initially Menuhin discussed ality
his role in furthering interna- becan
tional music relations within Roum
the framework of 'the United comp(
Nations. He is currently t h e 1955)
president of the international , tial r
Music Council (IMC, a subdi- music
vision of UNESCO), and has me n
chaired numerous regional and theor3
world-wide Conferences in his spirat
official capacity. with
He first emphasized the lack Enesc
rception at all. There's no
of being sure except to
with friends - thumbs up
iumbs down for the fourth
f the festival? The thumbs
r a little and go limp in a
ally downward direction.
much for autobiography.
about the films? There
some exciting moments.
a and The Golden Positions
both shown Friday after-
(ah! the power of the
!) and were worth seeing
absolutely stunning. Oine-
a poor man's version of the
ate Corridor sequence in
less impressive as a color-
henomenon than Belson's
os, but generally satisfying.
Golden Positions -xas
what better, traced as it
tth the wit and sophistica-
characteristic of Broughton
best. The film combines a
e-in-cheek survey of basic
positidns, mythology, his-
daily activities, and human
ations. Holding it together
genuine scope of its deline-
of the human form-that
ble, flexible form. And the
Worlo
parochial outlook in UNES-
"International is already a
omer in that it presupposes
are rigid divisions a n d
you have to surmount them.
e are really no divisions in
SCO. Whoever is there is
ied to owe his allegiance
e needs of humanity rather
his country."
e major functions of IMC,
ding to Menuhin, are to re-
and to foster folk music of
world by encouraging the
us national peoples to make
play their indigenous in-
rents, and to arrange ar-
encounters between musi-
colleagues of different
res around the world. "We
an understanding of other
res not only through the
ed word, but through the
onal, intellectual and spir-
elements which are mani-
n music."
matters turned to person-
in music interpretation, it
ne quite apparent ,that
aanian violinist-conductor-
oser Georges Enesco (1881-
played the most influen-
ole in molding Menuhin's
,anship. "He influenced
ot with dry, hard, c o I d
Y, but by example and in-
ion. What I still c a r r y
me and remember about
o is the sense of ignition,
most amazing of sculptu-al,
most photogenic as well.
During the early part of the
evening there were a few nice
films: a dramatically satisfying
reconstruction of the Jeffries-
Johnson fight of 1910 emphasizirg
its racial overtones: a slow-
starting but ultimately moving
existentialist nightmare called
3 Days -"about a man who is
first cornered by the camera eye
and then left desolate when it
finally leaves him alone again.
There was also pleasant humnor
in Bleu Shut with its audience-
participation name - the - boat
game; and great charm in Four
Possible Variations, a film by
Dave McCullough posing as a
scientific test of the absorbency
rate of soda crackers when
placed in different kinds of soup,
all of them very colorful.
But the .real point of the eve-
ning was the screening of Morley
Markson's new film, Breathing]
Together: Revolution of the Elec-
tric Family. Screened between
midnight and 2 a.m., it came at
the end of a battered and beaten
day; yet it managed to survive
its placement on the program
andgi
and to explain the enthusiasm so
many people have for Markson's
work, this reviewer included.
One should say at the outset
that Breathing Together does not
make quite the overwhelming
first impression that Markson's
Tragic Diary of Zero the Fool
makes whenever it is 'screened.
I'm inclined to suspect that
Breathing Together, in fact,, will
simply seep into the viewer's
mind frame-by-frame over an
extended period of time, collect-
ing and re-arranging itself into
ever more impressive configura-
tions, leaving instant devasta-
tion to the bomb people.
Breathing Together is a docu-
ment still a little ahead of itsr
time; as a portrait, however, it
is timely and timeless. The por-
traiture is not quite so visually
exquisite as that in Zero, but
then the aim of the film is ob-
viously not the same, either-nor
were the conditions of its film-
ing. The present offering is real-
ly concerned with the process of
image-making, not merely with
images, and is thereby that much
more complex.
ued
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It is so complex, in fact, that
one feels a certain timidity in
talking about it at all. Does any-
one really understand the
thoughts of Buckminster Fuller?
Jerry Rubin? Abbie Hoffman?
John Sinclair? We have an image
of them all, especially the latter
three, but it is a self-conscious
and somewhat artificially manu-
factured mask made and worn by
self-proclaimed leaders of the
leaderless revolution.
Television takes us to the
moon, to Chicago, to McLuhan's
global village. Fuller insists
(quite rightly) that most of reali-
ty is invisible, that information
is the currency of tomorrow. But
what is the message inside the
medium, what is the message of
the medium itself? Why is Rubin
so dazzled by the mere fact of
cameras pointed at him? Why is
everyone so drawn to the micro-
phone? Why do we sit at our
typewriters or pick at our guitars
or go around making films?
We are the electric family, but
we don't know what that means.
Are we all as power-mad as Nix-
on and Agnew and the rest of the
men at the top? Does "free ac-
cess" to media simply mean "I
want my turn"?
At the outset and -at the end,
Markson leaves the gadgetry be-;
hind, deserts the city streets, the
loudspeakers, the crowds, the
anger, the rhetoric, the pigs, the
people. Out in the country, out
in the snow, the bearded prophet-
poet feeds and waters his ani-
mals, talks about ecology, and
sings OM - accompanying him-
self on a non-electrified pump-
organ. I didn't notice kerosene
lamps, but they wouldn't have
been out of place. Here is a man
who is really breathing - cold
air instead of hot. I don't know
how he looked to everyone else,
but he looked light-years ahead
of the street-corner revolution-
aries and press - conference
prophets to me.
While the air holds out, I sup-
pose we'll continue to breathe
together, one big happy elec-
tronic family in the global vil-
lage - or one little family in the
space capsule that holds air
enough for three. The moon?
I'll take the poet any day:
"Earth's the right place for love;
I don't know where it's like to go
better."
'j-
I
II
IF
1-wide musician
the feeling of fire a n d living
importance of every note which
was played."
W h e n I mentioned Issac
Stern's performance of the gyp-
syish Enesco Third Sonata at a
February Musical Society con-
cert, Menuhin conjured up
memories of the underlying
gypsy style which permeated all
of Enesco's violinism, even in
his performance of classical
works, despite restraints of tem-
po and dynamics. "A f t e r I'd
been studying with him some
two or three years, he suggest-
ed I go to Adolf Busch for a
time because I was getting too
gypsy in my own playink." Vio-
linist Busch, along with Tosca-
nini, Schnabel et. al., w a s a
1930's advocate of the strict in-
terpretive style and close ad-
herence to the score which have
held sway in Western perform-
ance practice for the l a s t 30
years. Menuhin commented: "I
feel that it is loosening up, and
I think fashions come and go.
There was a trend toward the
extremely strict influenced by
Toscanini even though Tosca-
nini himself could carry it off
because in his heart of hearts
he wasn't strict, so t h a t the
strictness was an apparent and
a real discipline, but it didn't
inhibit the music that c a m e
through. Others w h o imitated
his strictness and didn't have
the rest of his genial gifts left
us with a handful of dust."
He then recalled his depar-
ture from Busch: "I still pre-
ferred the exuberant Enesco,
and loosened up under him right
after being tightened by Busch.
One, like a pendulum, gradual-
ly finds his own level."
C copyright 1971
AA FCI
Lon Chaney in /75C
Phantom of the Opera
(1925 Classic Silent version)
Live Piano accompaniment for PHANTOM
AND
7th Voyage of Sin bad
Aud. A
7-10:00 Tues., Mar.16
Excellent and Important.
New paths in film free-
dom are 'being broken!
'Tropic-of Cancer' is his-
Jf toric in its glorification of
ARA MOUNTPITR sex ! As bawdy as the or-
iginal book, as vulgar, as
- , erotic, as funny. A gem!"
--Joseph Rosen,
u the Nod"rTHE ADVENTURERS" .~ Morning Telegraph
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Mon-Tropic-7:00
Advent.-8:30
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DOWNTOWN ANN ARBOR Iw*tA, M CitNIISPN54Li
INiORNIATION 761-9700
HIENRY MILLER'S
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