Page Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday; October 15, 1970 d Page Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, October 15, 1970 M S I _ " cinema: A documentary in A disappointing' Virgin 5 By NEAL GABLER Yvette (Joanna Shimkus) and Lucille return to Colgrace from their schooling in France. Lu- cille is the more pragmatic and insensitive of the two; Yvette' is the more pensive and roman- tic. She ponders her inert ex- istence and exclaims, "Nothing ever happen except silly things." She is trapped by the narrow minds of her vicar father, her bitchy aunt and her deaf grandmother who clings to life with sadistic tenacity. Vic- torians all, in Yvette's post-Vic- torian England. Pharisees all, when Yvette seeks sincerity. Then comes the gypsy (Fran- co Nero) blue eyes flashing, body glistening sweat. He de- sires her but =she demurs. Then ,come a fast-living, unmarried couple who reveal themselves to her, notas immoral ogres, but as exciting and, what's more, as honest. A short time later the flood-gates literally open. And while the water fills Yvette's house the gypsy arrives, carries{ her to safety, commands her to disrobe and slips into bed beside her. Morning comes. Granny is dead. The house is destroyed. The gypsy is gone. Yvette'climbs out of her window into the fast- living, unmarried couple's car and drives off into the horizon with her chastity gone and wis- dom gained. What The Virgin and the Gypsy is telling us, I guess, is that a little sex may very well be the antidote to an overactive sense of Victorianism. While this may be earth-shaking to the Victorians, it leaves me un- moved. So 'what? So what if you have a nasty, evil-minded, os- tensibly moral father, and you go screw just to break loose? I say more power to you, but a vicar, virgin and gypsy don't make a film good. You can make it look like it's good, you can dress it up in cool English style-rich photography, ac- cents, a soundtrack with skirts rustling, birds twittering, leath- er creaking, horses clopping- put in the end style doesn't make content and no film critic can make it so though they of- ten try their damnedest. The absence of eternal veri- ties wouldn't be missed if the film were at least witty, which it isn't. It is British though, and you feel almost obligated to give a perfunctory snigger; but most of its humor is derisive, directed at the film's bevy of hypocrites. You know, the vicar who has to be reminded of the Bible by his impertinent, but r i g h t e o u s daughter, or the, aunt who re- fuses a potato at dinner because 'people eat too much" and who afterwards wolfs down a box of chocolates. The film's somewhat dubious equation is that Victor- ianism equals hypocrisy while defiance of the conventional morality equals honesty. Then, of course, there is the phallic symbolism without which no adaptation of D. H. Lawr- ence would be complete. The Virgin and' the Gypsy has as many phalluses as Winter Light has crosses. Not that director Christopher Miles is content to let the phalluses sit there. No, he has to give us 'distracting' close-ups that'not only flow con- trary to eye scan but that have as their soul purpose to show us how much a knife or log or whittling stick or fishing lure resembles the good, old, male re- productive organ. Enough for debits. On the right side of the ledger, the aesthete can get an eyeful of the stun- ning Northern English country- side and of Miss Joanna Shim- kus. Miss Shimkus is in the Deneuve mold - dignified and distant. She really doesn't have to act at all; all she has to do is look beautiful, and she does. That may be a bit of my male chauvinism rearing its ugly head; but let's face it, girls.t Deneuve and Shimkus are ob- jects, as real as a fashion maga- zine cover. Fortunately, beauty is often its own reward. Too bad it doesn't work that way for movies. ORGANIZATION NOTICES Child Care Action Group and Sup- porters will meet at '3:30 p.m. in front of the Administration Bldg. before at- tending the Regents meeting. * * * * Free University steering committee meeting, Sunday at 7 p.m. for a pot luck dinner at 1309 Washtenaw, Apt. No. 3, * * * * Christian science organization, Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m., 3545 SAB. Regular meet- ing: all are welcome. Important A.F.S. Club meetinig, Oct. 18 (Sunday) 7:00 p.m., Room 3C, Un- Ion. Gay Liberation Front, general meet- ing postponed to Thurs., Oct. 22, 8:30 p.m.. 3B, Union. (Continued from Page 2) . made on the stage. Drama comes from watching a charac- ter react in a given situation; if he is important enough, the fact that he reacted that way becomes news. Unfortunately, Kipphardt's script reads like old news, the subject of which is even older news. It is for this reason that Josef Sommer, as Oppenheimer, must spend the second half of the play facing upstage. With Oppenheimer and with the others we never see, the cause becomes the effect. All of a sudden they jump from a controlled tension to a con- trived intensity, contrived be- cause the playwright has not given them the necessary tran- sitional steps which would also. make them human. Eleanor Lester's article in last Sunday's New York Times (Oc- tober 11) approaches the same problem in another way. She cites Abbie Hoffman of Chica- go Seven fame as the most suc- cessful practitioner of Theatre of the Apocalypse, for he has been able, on numerous occas- ions, "to let the living embodi- ments of the forces in today's society create the drama." And the creation takes place in peo- ple's living rooms on the evening news. He gambles that good re- porting and film techniques will capture the climaxes of the day. Their effect on the popu- lation lies in their immediacy in time and space. We can only wonder how Oppenheimer would have performed in a world as media-conscious as ours today. Would he have let us see his crises, his points of decision? Or would he have quietly turn- ed away, back to Princeton and pure research? Oppenheimer was written as documentary drama, with t h e limitation of taking only t h e drama. actual court records, a job of editing rather than creating. It is my opinion that the term is self-contradictory. It is an ex- cellent documentary, but does it not rather belong on TV where we expect this convention? In the final analysis the greatest. tribute to director, Allen Fletch- er is that having chosen this play he chose not to force it in- to being a play, which it is not, but to make it an exciting doc- umentary on the stage. --Jacques TONIGHT... Why not curl up with a warm, friendly paperback or hardcover from' our vast collection of books for pleasure read- ing 'I LITTLE PROFESSOR BOOK CENTER Maple Village Shopping Center Open every night till 9:00 662-4.11 . AGAINST THE WAR! Reservists, Guardsmen, ROTC Local Affiliate of Reservists Committee to End the War Organizational Meeting 15 Oct.-7:30 P.M. Lobby SAB IHA ELECTIONS TODAY IHA Elections will be held today at dinner hours to " vote on new I HA constitution * elect a president and vice-president, as a slate 0 elect 3 members of the residence halls board of governors " elect 19 council representatives from the various district constituencies VOTE IN YOUR DINNER LINE. IN OXFORD, vote in Seely Apt. Lounge. IN FLETCHER, vote near mailboxes or at loca- tion of your meal contract. 4 663-7357 663-7042 U ______ I It 1, 4 4 E ........... :..Y...