Wednesday, January 30, 1974

I HE MICHIGAN DAILY

Fags Five

Wednesday, January 30, 1974 tHE MICHIGAN VAILY Page Five


I


IEmages


Joni
By KURT HARJU
Joni Mitchell has given us the
slip again. She's gone out and
outdone For the Roses, the best
LP of 1972 as well as of her ca-
reer, with her latest- master-
piece, Court and Spark (Asylum
7E-1001).
This time we discover that
she is still lonely and looking for
a lover to, as the aging phrase
goes, "court and spark." Her
music is maturing as this quest
grows more intense and mean-
ingful. She constantly requires
new and better ways in which to
express herself as earlier efforts
to communicate appear to be in-
effective. Or as Joni puts it in
"The Same Situation":
I called out to be released
Caught in my struggle
For higher achievement
And my search for love
That's don't seem to cease
She takes us through the va-
rious feelings and phases of an
affair in this cycle of love songs.
Never have her compositions
been more complex or complete
- incorporating some jazz and
rock back-ups, extraordinary
sound effects and an innovative
use of woodwinds, reeds and
strings to further compliment the

quest

grows

in ense

deeply - melodic structures she
was developing in For the Roses.
The opening title song draws
us in with the lines "Love came
to my door/ With a sleeping roll/
And a madman's soul" and -the
soft accents of the lone piano
that swell into other instruments
as she realizes he has come
"Looking for a woman/ To court
and spark."
In the wistful "Help Me," she
asks to be saved from falling in
love, for she knows that "We
love our lovin'/ But not like we
love our freedom."
The next song, "Free Man in
Paris," opens with a resounding
flute passage and an up-beat
tune that captures the irresist-
able desire to be "unfettered and
alive" and to return to a state
where the situation is looser and
there is, less to lose:
I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star making ma-
chinery
Behind the popular song
But you can be lost in your-
self, too, as Joni is at "People's
Parties," where she feels inse-
cure, observing that "laughter
and crying" is "the same re-
lease." She wishes that she could

also keep "the sadness at bay"
by "laughing it all away" (which
is sung in a brilliant montage
of voices going at varying
speeds).
This contemplative tune that
features Joni's guitar directly
flows into "The Same Situation,"
a major song in which she ques-
tions the staying power of love
when she finds "A pretty girl in
your bathroom/ Checking out
her sex appeal."
The irony of her position is
emphasized by thefact that she
has to pray to "Withheaven
full of astronuts / And the Lord
on death row" and the strings
that stress throughout the extent
of her longing.
By side two, this relationship
is falling apart - Joni's at home
waiting for a lover to show up,
but she can't see his "Car on the
Hill". The unusual sounds at the
ending spotlight her confusion
and anxiety.
This leads to the moody "Down
to You" where she finally re-
cognizes that "Love is gone."
"Just Like This Train" is a
sad but wise reminder that she
is free again (with the use of
flutes echoing "Free Man in

Paris"). "Oh sour grapes," she
sings, "I've lost my heart."
"Raised on Robbery" is Joni's
"Like a Rolling Stone" - an
outburst as she takes the offen-
sive in fast and driving rock n'
roll. A mysterious introduction
that smacks of some indefinable
nostalgia suddenly turns into a
musical attack (with Robbie Ro-
bertson on guitar) as she proposi-
tions a man drinking in a lounge
with the claim
I'm a pretty good cook
I'm sitting on my groceries
Come up to my kitchen
I'll showyou my best recipe
But the satisfaction is tempor-
ary at best, and she's back at
the beginning again in "Trouble
Child," the best song of the al-
bum, with "another dream over
the dam":
You really have no one
Only a river of changing faces
Looking for an ocean
She knows she has got to
change once more - and "that's
not easy." She's left in an empty
embrace like the waves break-
ing at Malibu.
"Twisted," the first song she
has ever recorded that she hasn't
written herself, is a take-off on
this child theme, but it's done

just for fun- with a jazzy back-up,
the help of Cheech and Chong,
and some of Joni's most expres-
sive singing ever.
People! Music! Food!
BACH CLUB
presents
Barbara FA', R R AN, viola
and-
Debowah1 B 'AN, piano
performing
BACri: ;onata 2
in D Maj.
ALSO
Doris BRIJ&,; NER, flute
1 st chair, University Symphony!
with
Sally HE '.Y, piano
playing
MOZART: rHute Concerto,
G Maj.
Thurs., Jan. 31-8 p.m.
E. Quad, Greene Lounge
EVERYONE WELCOME
No musical knowledge needed
ADMISSION 50c
Pineapple Upside-down Coke
served afterward.
There will be a short election of
officers before the program.
FURTHER INFO: 761-9578


Daily Photo by DAVID MARGOLICK

Filmmakers probe solutions
to sex films' legal problems.

,i

VtP.S.

NEW CONCEPTS IN THEATRE
'ROUND AS A HOLE'
by SKIP STORM
'A TOUCH OF MIME'
by DONNA KOST
and CONNIE RATHBURN

FRI. & SAT., FEB.
$1 DONATION Ba

1 &2
rbour Gym

SAN DIEGO, Calif. W) - Mak-
ers and exhibitors of adult mo-
vies from around the nation
have convened here to discuss
their problems. They've got plen-
ty.
About 100 producers, distribu-
tors and exhibitors of adult films
met for their sixth annual con-
vention in this conservative city.
Most discussion centered on legal
problems.
One film distributor told the
Adult Film Association of Ameri-
ca colvention on Monday he had
been indicted on 79 obscenity
charges and took the Fifth
Amendment in grand jury pro-
ceedings 242 times. The news
wasn't all bad.

Many theater owners said they
were making more money than
ever. However, legal fees have
cut into profits since the U. S.
Supreme Court ruled last June
that communities could set up
their own obscenity standards.
"There has been more explicit
sex in theaters after the Su-
preme Court decision than there
was before," said David Fried-
man, president of the Adult
Film Association. "The Supreme
Court decision merely drew more
attention to adult films."
The news media has also play-
ed a role, he said "Deep Throat
would have been just another

explicit sex film which would
have lived and died in a short
time, except that the media
picked it up and coined a new
word, 'porno-chic,' which made
it seem acceptable."
Friedman owns adults theaters
in Las Vegas, Nev. and Minnea-
polis, Minn., among others and
has produced several erotic
films.
He estimated the group repre-
sented 750 theaters which play
200 different adult films a year.
It also handles 1,000 theaters and
drive-ins which show X-rated
films occasionally and 250 "store-
front" theaters specializing in
hard-core pornography.
Their attorney, Stanley Fleish-
man of Los Angeles, said the as-.
sociation has taken legal steps
to combat the high court's ruling,
such as a brief intervening in the
case of the film Carnal Know-
ledge, which was banned in
Georgia.
"We ought to get rid of ob-
scenity laws," said Fleishman.
"They are un-American in the
truest sense, since they are
thought control laws."
ABORTION ALTERNATIVE
OFFERED BY
Problem Pregnancy Help

1! Y YYY Yf[YYY YY ~lt 1[ ilYrvt fv Y~v Y' --- ---- --- ---

New WrdCieaShowcase
4.4.TRUFFAUT'S
SHOOT THE
P PIANOPAE

. c

i

'K*
4(
'K
,!c
-k
+K
+k
-K
'K
'K
K

7&9P.M.

WED. & THURS., Jan. 30 & 31
Natural Science Auditorium

SCUL'WURFA--NDAR
FILM-New World Film Co-op shows Truffaut's Shoot the
Piano Player tonight in Nat. Sci. Aud. at 7, 9; Ann Arbor
Film Co-op presents Huston's The Life and Times of
Judge Roy Bean in Aud. A at 7, 9:30; S. Quad Social Li-
brary features Chicano and Tribute to Malcolm X in the
W. Lounge at 10; Cinema Guild presents part one of
Ivan the Terrible in Arch. Aud. at 7, 9:30.
CONCERT TIP-UAC Daystar presents Duke Ellington in
concert at the Power Center tonight'at 8.

-NEXT WEEK-
MON., Feb. 4: Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD
TUES., Wed. & Thurs.: Igmar Bergman's Masterwork
Feb. 5, 6, 7 CRIES & WHISPERS
(Tuesday in MLB 3, Weds. & Thurs. in Nat. Sci.)
Then, lookout for Warhol's L'Amour & Behind the Green Door?

Xirk*l*ir*# yrr# *# c* tkit**ti#**kkrkr #

I

fl

FEO

'fill: I)IDi)IY 'I'ACI1IS

, . avvrrr ar rc
S"'TATE.

OPEN 12:45
SHOWS AT
1, 3, 5, 7, 9 p.m.

L



L

WOODY ALLEN
TAKES A
NOSTALGIC LOOK
AT THE
FUTURE.

e' l ;s


I

MICHIGAN. THEATRE
605 E. Liberty
Dial 665-6290



2


Wvody ' Dial e
cAlleit " KRaton
lin e

W.

h United Artisti


I

r

DIAL 668-6416
1214 South THE
University BEST
I U nvS

y jnx
.. .. w !, Alm , .,.,'. ,I , 2 _; LTrfi.3.f 4 .

E ;

cLJ(-AAScAT