I i I Women's Film Festival Cinema Guild Through Mon. The Women's Film Festival currently being staged by Cin- ema Guild is a series of movies about, and sometimes by, wo- men. Commencing Tuesday with Godard's Une Femme est une Femme, it offered an evening of women-oriented short-films on Thursday and will be screening Kate Millett's Three Lives, Berg- man's The Silence, Adam's Rib, and The Pumpkin Eater Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday respectively. The choice of films appears to be entirely arbitrary; no cen- tral theme is discernible, nor do the films illustrate any progres- sion of feminine status from non- liberation to emancipation. A brief highlight of the prospective offerings indicates their variance. Une Femme est une Femme has already been and gone, but just for the record, this dazzling Godard film focuses on a pretty crnema weekend little stripper who oddly enough longs for motherhood. When her lover refuses to oblige, she trans- fers her request to their best friend, feeling, no doubt, that the end result wil be the same. (This maternity kick pops up again in The Pumpkin Eaters.) The short films have also left us, these being a showcase of women's talent on the other end of the camera, with themes vary- ing from the aggressive to the abstruse. Tonight's film, Kate Millet's Three Lives, is a fairly recent (1971) documentary which calmly explores women's roles in a man-made society through the simple device of face-to-face discussions with three very dif- ferent women. The first is Mil- lett's sister Mallory, who describ- es her marriage as a "hugh Az- tec sacrificial altar." The se- cond, Lillian, an attractive mid- dle-aged chemist, sums up 23 years of wifehood as "fairly hap- py, all told." 21-year old Robin, the third speaker, is still trying to find her place in the world. This is the most self-consciously feminist of the films, done with an all-female crew; the style is disconcertingly bare. The spec- fic experiences of three non-ex- traordinary women are not al- ways entertaining or even rele- vant but on the whole, Millett's first venture into film-making is a worthwhile and enlightening probe of a still male-defined world. Saturday's film, The Silence, is reviewed in more detail else- where, but suffice to say that in this dark venture, Bergman ex- plicates the use of sexuality for self-gratification, and shows is coming up empty. Attempts at lesbianism and a heterosexual encounter are seen through the sad and lonely eyes of a seven- year-old, and each relationship is wrong because of the motives (possessiveness and revenge) be- hind it. * * * Following this, strangely enough, comes Adam's Rib, the vintage (1949) George Cukor film starring Spencer Tracy and Ka- therine Hepburn as husband-and- wife attorneys who (naturally) end up facing each other on op- posite sides of the courtroom. Now, there are those who might say that here is a real equality - except for the fact that none of it is taken too seriously. In the Tracy-Hepburn partnerships, from Pat and Mike to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, you al- ways knew who was figuratively wearing the pants, even if both happened to be dressed that way. Not that this isn't an enjoyable film (though it isn't their best) but the title will indicate the extent of Hepburn's real inde- pendence from the stock "no brains in her pretty little head" notion of movie women. The series concludes with The Pumpkin Eater, in which Anne Bancroft plays mother hen to her heart's content until jealousy and her husband's urgings push her to an abortion and simul- taneously sterilization. From this point on it's melancholy all the way. Bancroft's heavy sighs and lugubrious expressions try to con- vince us that a woman is incom- plete without her motherhood, and the brood of kids she has al- ready accumulated seems to be little consolation. A fidgety Peter Finch as her husband doesn't help at all. If this were a better film it might be more convincing. But then, I'm not sure that I want to be convincedsthat mater- nity is all. Actually, this means the Festival has come full circle, back to the yearnings of God- ard's little stripper. Fortunately, for those of us who remain skep- tical about the mesage erhood, there's enough in this series to makej while. of moth- variation it worth- -TERRY MARTIN * * * The Silence Cinema Guild Sat. Before The Seventh Seal, Ing- mar Bergman's films concentrat- ed primarily on interpersonal re- lationships and on the quality and durability of love in a world that holds little happiness for people. These themes filtered through the pictures concerning G o d ' s questionable existence a n d emerged in The Silence radically changed. Whereas in the earlier films people were finally recon- ciled to one another, the t w o sisters in this film are not. The characters in Bergman's subse- quent works do not come to- gether either. They are left emo- tionally and spiritually incom- plete. Their failures to communi- cate lead them to death or disin- tegration. Actually, The Silence is a bit more hopeful than this: at the end the son of one sister is given a list of "words in a fore- ign language" by the other sister. His ability to understand their meaning will determine the shape of the future. A new theme is also at work in The Silence: the sisters essen- tially represent two warring sid- es of a single "ersonality. In this respect the film is insepar- able from the one that immed- iatelv followed it, Persona, which wil be shown next week. Here two women struggle to become one as their images on the screen Scarlet Empress for the grotes- que interior decoration alone. The plot is fairly straight-for- ward - the Princess Catherine (Marlene Deitrich) is brought to Rusia to wed the Grand Duke Peter (Sam Jaffe) and provide an heir to the throne. Unfor- tunately, Peter is a little goofy in the head (who wouldn't be liv- ing in that palace) and the mar- riage doesn't work out. Cather- ine is left to the mercy of the court, and although she is re- pulsed at first by its barbarism, she eventually adapts herself to the immoral standards and takes on a few lovers, one of whom is Count Alexei, an important man in the military (the plot. thickens). Peter ascends the throne when his mother d i e s and promptly threatens to have Catherine assasinated, but she gets control of the military (via the aforementioned Count Alex- ei) and seizes the throne for her- self. The final shot shows Deit- rich in pants astride the dais proclaiming herself Empress of Russia. Apparently Women's Lib- eration is not such a new move- ment -after all. In the end, Marlene Deitrich may be stunningly beautiful and Sam Jaffe may be good as the mad Peter, but again, it is those fantastic, gargoyle interior sets that will startle and haunt your imagination. -WILLIAM MITCHELL Akiro Kurosawa's Rashomon can be roughly classified as a period film ('jidai-geki'). But actually in some ways, it varies radically from the specifications of that genre. Rashomon repre- sents the first break by a major director from the rigid Japa- nese film tradition. With its multiple levels of reality, it is almost completely foreign to the Japanese, whose films (especial- ly of the 'jidai-geki' genre) rarely examine anything but the most superficial elements of existence. Rashomon is based on two short stories by Ryunosuke Aku- tagawa, in which a samurai, his bride, and a bandit meet in the woods. The girl is violated and the husband killed while a wood- cutter looks on. The film con- sists of each person's version of the encounter. In one version,. the girl is raped and her hus- band is killed by the bandit; while in another, the girl seduces the bandit and makes him mur- der her husband. The essence of Rashomon is its moral rela- tivity, for the correct version of the story is never revealed. After Rashomon the 'atypical period film" became more popu- lar in Japan. Directors such as Montgatari and Kinura were praised for their work in the new genre. But Kurosawa remains the most well known of all Ja- pan's avante-garde directors. -CHRISTOPHER PHILLIPS o, bey( o Yo - r e a morr comin plus 2nd X rated fecmure G in u're not row unless see"the ig thing" today 482.-3300 M1 I FRE tK6M a PAR outg ARTS at best, for Micol keeps him as a delicate distance. ("L o v e r s should overwhelm each other," says she, "and we are alike as two drops of water.") Their lives and the lives of those' around them seem to mirror the existence of the leaves in the Finzi - Contini garden - they begin in a warm summer of non- chalance, tremble ever so slight- ly at the first signs of autumn, and are finally scattered by the cold, wet winds of winter. The characterizations are bril- liantly wrought by a fine cast, particularly Dominique Sanda as Micol. She is aloof, refined, and above all, superbly ethereal. Small wonder that she received the Best Foreign Actress Awards for her work here. Or that De- Sica , won the Best Director Award. Or that The Garden of the Finzi - Continis was voted the Best Foreign Film of the year. It was well deserved. -WILLIAM MITCHELL The Damned Fifth Forum How can a film about incest, sodomy, Nazism, child - molesta- tion, transvestism, Oedipal com- plexes, matricide, suicide, and plain old homicide be boring? Easy. Stretch it to two and a half hours' length, utilize the most monotonous, senselessly roving camera movements in cinema history, and give it a moral: all Nazis were sexual de- viants. Oof!!!! -STAFF Alice's Restaurant State When Arlo Guthrie introduced The Alice's Restaurant Massa- cree at the Newport Jazz Fes- tival, people latched on to it im- mediately - a compelling, easy- going tale, funny with a sa- tirical but not malicious bite and an underlying happy tune. In 1969, focusing on Arlo and using the song for a framework, Arthur Penn released an equally compelling motion picture. Fol- lowing the song closely at times, Penn offers a number of hilari- ous scenes. Who can forget dump- ing the garbage on Thanksgiv- ing Day, Arlo's subsequent ar- rest and trial for littering, with those damning 8 x 10 glossies as evidence? Or the flower child's encounter with the New York City draft board, where he con- fronts other undesirables like mother-rapers and father-rap- ers? Penn's film is more than funny, however. Termed by one critic a "folk movie" it achieves a cer- tain warmth by combining excel- lent technical control and real characterization. Some charac- ters are literally real - Arlo as Arlo, Chief Obanheim of Stock- bridge, Mass., as Officer Obie; others are believably portrayed- Alice and Ray Brock, parents of t h e hippie colony revolving around Alice's Restaurant. See CINEMA, Page 10 Yuval trio.. . uneven exuberance Rashomon By DONALD SOSIN Yuval Trio; Urn Pianka, violin; simi- ca Heled, cello; Jonathan Zak, pia- no; Wed., Nov. 8, 8:30 p.m. Rackham Auditorium Chamber Arts Series of {,. ; .r.= the University Musical Society. Mozart-Trio in B-fiat, K. 502 Ravel- Trio in A minor (1914) Mendelssohn- Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66 Why do Ann Arborites have such an aversion to piano trios? I've talked about the scarcity of trio programs in this city before, so I won't dwell on the point, # but it seems strange that, when a reputable group does turn up, and with a program of consider- lable interest, a larger crowd would not be drawn. Do people stay away simply because the name Yuval is unfamiliar? (Yuval was the first musician in the Bible, by the way.) Does one have to proclaim that the violinist and cellist are first- chair players from the Israel Philharmonic? I don't know what - r f the answer is. E The seldom - played Mendels- sohn Trio in C minor capped the E ' rr trio's spirited program Wednes- day night. It was a pleasure to hear this work, often bypassed h $ f - e A A Too than d in favor of the earlier Trio in D s -ani n ie ~cokd C o minor, and not without some jus- tification - the latter has more A....h -m.. noba.nsmemorable themes, and is more r f Iq 4C. concise. I g puy of b p dBut the C minor trio contains {fn and s prvd with an ilx -C-ld refrei hing p kFtr 4 you can 't e mr ~ok. Shop at Foleftts for Text Books UAC-DAYSTAR presents many passages with the sort of genius that one finds in larger chunks in earlier works, notably the Octet for strings, Op. 20, one of the great works of chamber music. And thereare a few spots where one can almost pick out specific works of Chopin or Schumann that might have in- spired Mendelssohn. The trio played with enormous intensity, but often seemed so eager to convey a mood that de- tails were skipped over; pianist Zak had a tendency to rush the ends of phrases, which was more noticeable in the Mozart that opened the program. One also heard more violin than cello most of the time, which is not to say that Pianke should have played softer, but that Zak might have, givinghHeled a chance to sound through. On the first half of the pro- gram, the group played Ravel's Trio in A minor. One of the most beautiful trios in the repertoire, it is also fiendishly difficult. Ra- vel really had it in for his mu- sicians, especially the pianist. (He put the violinist and the cellist through the mill in his so- nata for the two instruments, and succeeded to a degree that the work is scarcely ever played, it is so hard. Oscar Shumsky andtBernard Greenhouse record- ed it about 25 years ago, and did such an amazing job that few have ventured near it since.) The Trio is, I think, a more delicate work than the Yuval players made it out to be. There was a percussive quality in the piano playing, and an often frenzied sound in the strings; the reflective Passacaille went too quickly for my taste, but it is only a question of taste, and thereare no right or wrong ans- wers. Instead, it becomes a question of how many different, yet sensi- ble, ways there are to play a piece. The more varied interpre- tations one hears, the greater the basis one will have for evalu- ating future performances"and formulating one's own ideas about the music, rather than ac- cepting as fact the musings of a critic, who canonly speak from his own experience and back- ground. struggle to merge, and the boy Sat. & Sun. again bears the weight of under- The Japanese are adamantly standing the possible outcome. ritualistic in their production of He is now a last vestige of hope. films. Each film made in Japan From here on Bergman's outlook can be classified not only by becomes dismal indeed. genre, but also by a well defined -DAVID GRUBER type or 'mono'. For example, any film with a self-sacrificing hero- ine is a 'kachusha-mono', named The Scarlet Empress after the heroineofTolstoy'sRe- surrection. Likewise, the type of Cinem? II film in which Marilyn Monroe Fri. & Sun. appeared is a 'monro-mono'. The Scarlet Empress by Josef The Japanese film-maker is Von Sternberg (1934) purports to extremely conscious of the con- have been adapted from a diary tent, restrictions, and demands by Catherine the Great of Rus- of the particular genre and sia. If so, eighteenth century Im- 'mono' in which he works. Thus perial Moscow was a strange Yasujiro Ozu, often considered place indeed. Of course, Von one of the "most Japanese of all Sternberg exaggerates a little, directors", spent most of his thir- and rather than historical reality, ty-six years in film perfecting we have instead a film of fan- the 'shomin-giki': a genre of tastic imagination. Not to men- melodrama and light comedy. tion the terrific sets. German Ex- Moreover, the last eleven years pressionism abounds everywhere of Ozu's life were a process of in the countless leering gargoyles refining a subdivision of 'shomin- and tortured forms that support giki' (thirteen films including candelabras and surround mir- Tokyo Story) which dealt with rors. It is worth going to the The family and office life. The Garden of the Finzi Continis Fifth Forum Quite a few people have been waiting almost a decade now for Vittorio de Sica to do another film of the caliber of The Bi- cycle Thief. Well, the wait has not been in vain, for de Sica's latest film, "The Garden of the Finzi - Continis is a masterpiece of subtle articulation. If his gen- ius as a director was ever in doubt, it is definitely -reaffirmed in this movie. The place is Italy in the late 1930's - a world of increasing- ly narrowing possibilities for the two Jewish families concerned in the film. -The aristocratic Finzi- Continis live on their estate in remote, walled splendor, obliv- ious to the politics that will soon shatter their existence altogether. The film is the passing of an age as seen through the eyes of Bior- gio, the son of a middle class Jewish family who falls in love with Micol Finzi - Contini. How- ever, their relationship is furtive 0 0 tonight 6:00 2 4 7 News, Weather, sports 9 Eddie's Father 50 Flintstones 56 Bridge with Jean Cox 6:30 2 4 7 News 9 Jeannie 50 Gilligan's Island 56 Book Beat 7:00 2 Truth or Consequences 4 News, Weather, Sports 7 To T)ell The Truth 9 Beverly Hillbillies 50 I Love Lucy 56 World Press 7:30 2 What's My Line?-Game 4 Hollywood Squares 7 Wait Till Your Father Gets Home 9 Lassie 56 W~all Street Week 50 Hogan's Heroes d:00 2 Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour 4 Sanford and Son 7Brady Bunch 9 Amazing World of Kreskin 56 Washington Week in Review 50 Dragnet 8:30 4 Little People 7 Partridge Family 9 Irish Rovers 50 Merv Griffin 9:002 Movie "Hornets' Nest" (1970) 4 Ghost Story 7 Room 222 9 News 56 Realties 9:30 7 Odd Couple 9 Woods and Wheels 10:00 4 Banyon 7 Love, American Style 9 Tommy Hunter 50 Perry Mason 56 High School Football 11:00 2 4 7 9 News, Weather, sports 50 Rolin' 11:20 Nightbeat 11:30 2 Movie "Not with My Wife, You Don't" (1966) 4 Johnny Carson 7 Dick Savett 50 Movie "ThePoppy Is Also a Flower" (1966) 12:00 9 Movie "The Mystery of Thug Island" (1966) 1:00 4 News 7 Movie "Night People." (1954) 1:30 2 Movie "A Mother's Revenge." (Swede ish; 1960) 3:00 2 7 News wcbn today, fm 89.5 9:00 Morning After Show 12:00 Progressive rock, 4:00 Folk 11:00 Oldies show (runs until 3) 7:30 Rhythm & Blues rCULTfUjR E CLEA DANCE-Macedonian folk dance workshop with Pece Atana- sozski of Yugoslavia, a leading folk musician and dancer. The U of M Folkdancers will present the workshops Fri- day at 8 at the Barbour Gym and Saturday morning and afternoon from 10-12 and 2:30-4:30 at the Woman's Athletic Building. No experience necessary. MUSIC-Bandorama, tonight at 8 at Hill; University Colle- gium Musicum concerts, directed by Prof. Thomas Tay- lor at the Christian Reformed Campus Chapel (1236 Washtenaw) tonight and tomorrow at 8. Admission complimentary; Owen McBride performs tonight at the Ark at 8; Live Entertainment tonight at Rive Gauche; Radio King and his Court of Rhythm and Blue Jukes tonight at 8 at the People's Ballroom. WEEKEND BARS AND MUSIC-Bimbo's, Gaslighters (Fri., Sat., Sun.) cover; Blind Pig, John Nicholas and the Boo- gie Woogie Red (Fri., Sat.) cover, Classical Music with Denise Petrick (Sun.) no cover; Del Rio, Armando's Jazz Group (Sun.) no cover; Golden Falcon, Wooden Glass (Fri., Sat.) cover; Mackinac Jack's, New Heavenly Blue (Fri., Sat.) cover, Okra (Sun.) cover; Mr. Flood's Party, Mojo Boogie Band (Fri., Sat.) cover; Odyssey, Stone Front (Fri., Sat.) cover; Pretzel Bell, RFD Boys (Fri., Sat.) cover; Rubaiyat, Iris Bell Adventure (Fri., Sat., Sun.) no cover; Bimbo's on the Hill, Cardboard (Fri., Sat.) cover. 41J il 1v IE %o 1 -%1 .WE' 1 with SECTION DANNY KORTCHMAR-RUSS KUNKLE CRAIG DOERGE-LELARD SKLAR NOVEMBER 17 FRIDAY, 8 P.M. $3.50, $4.50, $5.50 Crisler arena Reserve your seats today at Michigan Union. (You'll receive a receipt- coupon which you ex- change for a ticket when they arrive from the print- ers Nov. 14) OR BY MAIL- Money Order to: UAC-DAYSTAR P.O. BOX 381 ANN ARBOR 48107 (sorry, no personal checks) Coming: Dec. 9 Sat. The Allman Brothers and Dr. John $4.00 Gen. Admission TONIGHT-and-SATURDAY FRIENDS OF NEWSREEL continues its pioneering experiments with duplex film showing on campus. --THIS WEEKEND- Arthur Penn's brilliant BONNIE & CYLDE SIDE-BY-SIDE Peter Fonda's beautiful and violent THE HIRED HAND TONIGHT-and-SATURDAY Tey're- young.. nthey're Peter Funda " rmnOats Vuernalli "ThA WiraIIIRandi" "sensitive, exciting, the images are ravishing!" -- "a sharp sense of realism, a surprising share of -N.Y. Times 1im~-NI