Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, November 8, 1970 Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, November 8, 1970 music cinema I Mehta: By A. R. KEILER Zubin Mehta conducted t h e Los Angeles Philharmonic Or- chestra last night in Hill Aud. For a conductor who is still re- latively young, even for young conductors these days, he took a great many risks program- wise, playing as he did Haydn's 96th Symphony, S i x Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6 of Webern and the Fourth Symphony of Bruckner. It is a tribute to his skill and maturity as a con- ductor and to the great orches- tra he has helped to develop that his success was equal to his venture. His talent and musicianship are apparent from the start,' combining in about equal mea- sure, technical control a n d facility, and interpretive under- standing. He does not allow the technical distinction of his work to' gain the upper hand, but neither are his readings aca- demic or bloodless. He has put his temperameit and ability where they belong, in the care- ful and thoughtful musical de- lineation of his repertoire. And no less can be said of his associates. Theirs is the way a really first class orches- tra should sound. There is pre- cision, a quality of ensemble that never gets lost in the size of the orchestra or of the piece, and eloquence of sound that is far from usual. What is m o s t striking is the cultivation of Tempered skill Hard-hat offensive: texture of each section of the orchestra at every dynamic lev- el. The soft playing has weight and character and the loudest fortissimos have both refine- ment and brilliance. We heard first the Haydn Miracle symphony, in a per- formancq of stylistic awareness and conviction. The careful phrasing and articulation contri- buted most to this, but so # did the straightforwardness of Meh- ta's reading. The workmanship did not stick out, never called attention to itself. For this re- viewer there were a few miscal- culations. The woodwind dou- blings of the strings in the Minuet were too hidden-they are partners rather than dis- tant cousins; and the oboe solo in the Trio, although beauti- fuly played, was a little to free - too much rubato, as they say - for my taste. The slight pause in the upbeat of the oboe solo is more effective if it is not overdone, or done less, e.g. on its last occurrence. The last' movement went too fast, I think - the two-note phrases of the main theme tend- ed to sound too much alike at this speed. The Webern Opus 6 ended the first part of the program and Mehta's performance was over- whelming in its clarity and ex- pressiveness. Expressive of what would be difficult to say, but that is true of any work, so I suppose it doesn't matter. Again there were details of interpre- tation that could be raised, mostly regarding tempo. The first piece of this set was too fast. As a result, the carefully placed pauses which heighten the effect of tone clusters or interval fragments lost some of their essential weight. The Bruckner Fourth Sym- phony, one of the composer's shorter "symphonic boa con- strictors," as Brahms once re- ferred to them, closed the pro- gram, and for this performance I have only unqualified admira- tion. As we all know, it is no easy matter to bring off a Bruckner Symphony. It is honest and sin- cere music, very organ-like in its conception of texture and sonority, and more often than not quite loose in its formal structure. Mehta judged the suc- cessive climaxes of each move- rhent with great care. and in fact made it seem that there was more inexorable logic in this music than one generally admits. The long square-like themes sang out majestically. There were no gimmicks, no special tricks, in Mehta's inter- pretation, only a sure shaping and careful balance of the mu- sical ingredients that make up the rather personal Bruckner idiom. The whole concert was, in fact, a delight from every point of view. Just another 'Joe'? BOWLING FOOSBALL BILLIARDS TABLE TENNIS UNION University Activities Center & Students International FREEPORT, BAHAMAS 186.00 ROUND TRIP JET- (4 HW.OPEN12:45 Program Information 662-6264 SHOWS AT 1, 3,5,;7, 9 P.M. By NEAL GABLER It wasn't too many years ago that Marlon Brando's Terry was caught in the crunch between morality and money, or t h a t Jimmy Porter struggled to as- sert himself in an impersonal society. The worker was hero then - the confused battler, the big man forced into a little role, the man trying to domi- nate the indominitable. This was probably a vestige of the naturalist notion of earlier days: The poor are strong, and so- ciety's discards, for all their carousing, are deep down the most mortal individuals, or, at any rate, more moral than the well-tailored big-wigs sitting on the corporate throne. As hard as some members of SDS might try to revive this image with talk of a student-labor alliance, it's pretty clear to all but the most myopic among us, t h a t workers aren't quite as idealis- tic as t h e y once might have been. That's why the fifties gave us On the Waterfront and the sev- enties have given us Joe. Joe is the modern laborer. No longer buffeted by economic pressures, he's more comfortable from an economic point of view t h a n ever before. Despite inflation he doesn't worry so much about feeding his kids as whether he can afford the motorcycle his son wants. But though today's Joes are materially comfortable, they cling desperately to the old values that everywhere seem in dissolution. W h a t this society needs is a little more discipline, some more law and order, they say. They feel threatened and frightened by large, uncontrol- lable a n d nonunderstandable forces. With a little help from the White House these forces have become human. Spiro tells us it's hippies, niggers, com- munists, radical liberals who are at the root of the problem, and some people want to believe it is that simple. Joe Curran (Peter Boyle) sits in the tavern and rails at so- ciety: "The niggers. They have kids and get money for it." "Social workers are nigger lovers." d "The white kids. They're ev- en worse than the niggers." "Chicago: a few kids got their heads bashed." "Twenty-nine per cent of all liberals are queer. That's a fact." "Communists. Kids used to be idealistic, but now they got peace marches." "Hippies. Sugar tit all t h e way." at State & Liberty Sts. * MIDWEST * PREMIERE! 1 They're all going the same Screw America' way. I'd like to kill me one of them - pissing on America, fucking up the nu- sic." "I did. I killed one," sighs Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick). And Joe is nearly knocked off his barstool. "You're joking. Right? You're putting me on." But Compton isn't joking. He has just accidentally killed his tripping daughter's freaked-out, pill-pushing roommate. Joe un- derstands. "I just talk about it. But you did it. I wanna shake your hand." And Joe Curran, $160-per-week factory worker, joins forces with Bill Compton, $60,000-per-year ad executive. At first Compton tolerates Joe; as long as he keeps on Joe's good side he needn't worry about the police. But the bond soon becomes something more than convenience. When he's with Joe, his guilt dissipates. He begins to think he might have been right in killing his daugh- ter's boyfriend after all. Maybe he really did do society a favor, as Joe claims. When the ele- gant Mrs. Compton groans after a social visit to the Currans, her husband shakes off her com- plaints, "The crazy thing about Joe is it's as if he shared in it, as if he killed that kid." W h e n Compton's daughter runs away, the partners' search leads to Greenwich Village and an orgy, as Joe calls it. In the final, apocalyptic scene, Cur- ran and Compton invade a country commune where their Greenwich hosts have fled af- ter absconding with t h e af- sters' wallets; and there Nixon's America has its revenge. John Avildsen's steady direc- tion tempers much of the exag- geration here, but it is Peter Boyle who is responsible for an- imating the film. Boyle's Joe is astonishingly effective, swag- gering with a childish authority that belies the hard hat's vio- lence. Boyle, a familiar face on TV commercials, manages an inflated comic boorishness with- out permitting broadness of chacterization to intrude on the broadness of the character. Scenarist Norman Wexler has also written s o m e effective scenes, taking advantage of Boyle's comic sense: one in which the counter-cultures (for the Right is really a counter- culture too) literally become bed fellows, and another, con- trasting scene, in which the Currans' counter-culture meets Compton's main-stream Ameri- canism over a Chinese dinner. And then, of course, there is the See JUST, Page 6 Dec. 27-Jan. 1.... Jan. 1-Jan. 7 ....... Feb. 26-Mar. 5..... 186.00 196.00 189.00 Christmas through EASTER The FREEPORT INN becomes a STUDENT RESORT All Student Guests 2 hour long "Happy Hour" every evening with Live Music & Dancing Unlimited free drinks " SCUBA LESSONS " HORSEBACK RIDING " HONDA RENTAL Open only to U of M students, faculty, staff, alumni, and im- mediate families. 2nd floor, MICH. UNION UAC Travel 763-2147 or 769-5790 The Sidelong Glances ofaPigeonIker Meet Jonathan The very day he graduated Princeton he became a New York taxi driverl (Then he met Jennifer) AMERICAN COMEDIES FESTIA Sun .Nov.8 - SABRINA Dir. BILLY WILDER, 1952 Humphrey Bogart and William Holden as millionaire brothers Competing for the chauffeur's daughter, Audrey Hepburn, in Wider's slyly cynical treatment of the Cin- derella story. American style. WEDNESDAY: Intruder in the Dust 7 & 9:05 ARCHITECTURE 662-8871 75c AUDItORIUM * U T ! U ARM/American Revolutionary Media presents Two by Robert Rossen A fragment of human energy in, a barren Syrian desert By GARY HUMMEL For the past five years, Oleg Grabar, professor of Islamic art and archaeology at Harvard, has been directing a series of ex- cavations at Qasr al Hayr, meaning "hunting palace," lo- cated between Palmyra and the Euphrates River on the flat, barren expanse of Northern Sy- rian desert. With only forlorn scrub bush- es and an occasional dust storm to keep them company, Grabar and his associates have discover- ed that the smaller and larger enclosures of Qasr al Hayr, con- structed in the early e i g h t h century, were not really a palace at all, -hut made up a monu- mental commercial center. Within its impressive stone and brick walls were all the neces- sary components of a city - a mosque, a series of pipes and channels to carry water to cis- terns and baths, olive presses, an administrative center, and store- rooms for food and military equipment. Ordinary people liv- ed outside the enclosures, trav- eling to and from them to wor- ship Allah or to trade goods with visiting caravans. According to Grabar, w h o spoke here on last year's dig- gings, "The scarcity of decora- tion, the uniformity of the size of the halls, the lack of grand stairways, and the size of the The Michigan Daily, edited and man- aged by students at the University of Michigan. News phone: 764-0552. Second Class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Mich- igan, 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor Michigan 48104. Published daily Tues- day through Sunday morning Univer- sity year. Subscription rates: $10 by carrier, $10 by mat Summer Session published Tuesday through Saturday morning. Subscrip- tion rates: $5. by carrier, $5 by mail. gateway which opens up the in- ner area - all indicate t h e structure, built at one time for one purpose, was meant for pub- lic life, not private. In provided accommodation for camels and traders and space for goods - an ancient motel." Near this mercantile struc- ture, Grabar found a series of carefully-built walls and sluice gates to deflect and control the waters of flash floods from nearby mountains. A thirty mile canal carried a regular supply of water to the enclosures. The excavation team also uncover- ed stone gates, "with no sense or purpose, as the 'area around them was uninhabited. We found no pottery sherds or trac- es of repair." "Most remarkable," said Gra- bar, "was the discovery of a bath due north of the enclos- ures." Well preserved p o o 1s faced with marble were found as well as three hypocausts or "hot rooms," and fragments of wall paintings. The paintings, whose. pieces showed traces of bright floral designs and col- umn shafts, were for Grabar See A COMMERCIAL, Page 6 All the King's Men. with Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge "The rise and fall of a political demagogue, obviously patternec after Huey Long's tempestuous ca- reer. has been fashioned by Robert Rossen into a film of considerable distinction and singular dramatic force." -Newsweek btwn Liberty & William Fri. Nov. 6 King's Men Lilith 8:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m., Sat. Nov. 7 King's Men 7:30 p.m. Lilith 9:30 p.m. Liith with Jean Seberg, Warren Beatty, Peter Fonda Lilith, in ancient Babylonian my tholocv, was the female embodi- ment of 'total "evil"-and free- dom. In Robert Rossen's film based on J. R. Salamanca's gothic novel, she, "wants to leave the mark of her desire on every living creature in the world." contribution $1.00 Sun. Nov.8 Lilith King's Men 7:30 p.m. 10:00 p.m. 331 Thompson What is Circle K? A glass bottle, (ca. A.D. 800) Iv I i I TONITE-ONE NIGHT ONLY! 4 .,. I, CREDIT BY EXAMINATION FOR ENGLISH COURSES Examinations to be given Nov. 20th and 21st SEE Professor Mullin TO REGISTER 444 Mason Hall Deadline Nov. 12th Alice's Restaurant - Alice Lloyd Hall 6:45, 8:50, 15:55 p.m. BURSLEY HALL Shown at 7:00 and 9:15 p.m. - I CIRCLE-K is a campus and f e . . EMU University Activities Board I community SERVICE organization If YOU would like to get involved in: --Working with disadvantaged children --Dealing with ecological problems in the Ann Arbor area --Restoring a run-down playground in the community --Entertaining hospitalized children --Raising funds to support campus and community service projects If YOU would like to: --Meet people --Have fun -Spend an hour or two a week helping someone else COME TO OUR A AA C'CA A r FIri^ NOVEMBER 8--8:30 P.M. at Bowen Fieldhouse r, U 'U U I I ii I