Friday, November 17, 1972
THE MICHIGAN GAILY
Page Three
Friday, November 17, 1972 THE MICHIGAN DAILY
WOW, ARE YOU LUCKY...
You never got around to getting your seats for
tonight's concert.
But-believe it or not, there are still decent
seats available. Union 11-4 p.m. and at the door
Crisler Arena starting at 6:00 p.m. until they're
gone.
James Taylor
shows at 8 p.m.
C* cmart i cinema *
Anna Christie
Cinema Guild
Fri.
"Garbo talks!" was the way
they advertised this film back
in 1930, as Greta opened h e r
mouth for the first time in mov-
ing pictures to express the fol-
lowing tender sentiment: "Gif me
a viskey, ginger ale on the side
-and don't be stingy, baby."
Audiences that had waited breath-
lessly to see if Garbo would fall
flat on her face in the talkies
sighed with relief. Despite a
noticeable Swedish accent and an
almost masculine delivery, the
actress' speech complemented
the carefully cultivated enigmatic
personality already established
in her numerous silent films.
Anna Christie was directed by
Clarence Brown, a favorite Gar-
bo director, from the play by Eu-
gene O'Neill. The plot concerns
a woman with a scarlet past
who is reunited with a father she
has not seen in fifteen years and
who believes her to be a model
of purity. Eventually, the fiction
falters; Anna attracts a man that
her father feels is unworthy of
his supposedly proper daughter.
A tell-all scene ensues in which
Anna lets loose a stream of in-
vective and reveals the details
of her florid past. According to
Mordaunt Hall, the New York
Times Critic at that time, t h i s
scene is delivered in "a highly
dramatic fashion."
The supporting actors are cred-
ible. Marie Dressler plays a dis-
solute woman of indeterminate
age with sympathy and an oc-
casional comic touch, while
George Marion re-enacts his
stage role of Anna's father. Char-
les Bickford, whom some may re-
call as the aged patriarch on
The Virginian TV series, is a
''powerful specimen of humanity"
whose attentions to the formerly
wayward Anna are resented by
her father.
-TERRY MARTIN
Ninotchka
Cinema Guild
Sat. '
Early German cinema was
chiefly preoccupied with news-
reels, army propaganda films,
and fictional films dealing with
patriotism and the making of
peace. In addition there were
myriad sex comedies involving
stale variations on relationships
between army officers and young
girls. One of the actors in these
comedies was Ernst Lubitsch, a
short man with a passion f o r
long cigars, who had grown tired
of playing minor stage roles. He
GOT THE NOVEMBER-WHAT-TO-DO-ON-
A-SUNDAY-NIGHT-BLUES?
Why not come to the ARK
COMMUNITY DISCUSSION E
This week we'll be talking about
"Law & Order & Free Conscience"
If law and morality aren't the same thing in your
mind, join us at. the Ark this SUNDAY around
8 p.m.
Mother Courage:
Rich, successful
THE ARK
FREE COFFEE
AND POPCORN
1421 Hill
DANCING
8 P.M.-2 A.M. EVERY NIGHT
DRAFT BEER and PIZZA
FROM 5:00 P.M.
341 South Main * Ann Arbor 769-5960
By TANIA EVANS
The University Players produc-
tion of B e r t o 1 t Brecht's
Mother Courage which opened
Wednesday night in the Power
Center shouldn't be missed. Its
acting is successful, its set is per-
fect both"functionally and aesthe-
tically, and the script itself is
brilliant. There are problems
with pacing, but these, I hope,
will be corrected.
Like most American directors
of the play since it came to New
York's leftist Theatre Union in
1935, Robert Porter emphasizes
the work as entertainment and
social commentary, ignoring, in-
sofar as treatment, its dynamic
function as dialectic. If Brecht
were here, he would probably
rant and rave.
P o r t e r, however, explores
many of the play's multitudinous
possibilities and sets before us,
if not all of the turkey, then a
great deal of it.
Under the musical direction of
Stanley Hoffman, the orchestra,
which sits on the stage in orien-
tal fashion, and the actors-sing-
ers excellently depict the dis-
cordant Brechtian universe and
the equally dissonant humanity
that inhabits rather than lives
in it.
The music, much more than
any other aspect of the produc-
TOMORROW NIGHT!
tion, explores the theatrical and
didactic technique of derange-
m e n t (Verfremdungseffekt)
which Brecht employed to en-
large audience consciousness.
Brecht intentionally refused to
create on stage a deterministic
illusion that calls forth from the
viewers momentary and safe
emotional reactions. His ultimate
purpose was to change the world,
preferably to a classless, Marxist
society. He would force the con-
sideration of unrealized possibili-
ties by displaying the tragedy, in
Mother Courage, of a lack of
awareness of the possible.
Mother Courage is a "canti-
niere" who sells a potpouri of
wares from a dilapitated wagon,
traveling with her three children
along the battle lines of Europe's
Thirty Years War.
She is a contradictory being,
capable of braving the hazards
of war, while encouraging cow-
ardice in her children. She gives
a free glass of brandy to a tired
soldier, yet refusesto bandage
the wounded peasants with the
linen shirts she can sell. Her
creed has become one of capitu-
lation. She is a trader, seeking
the most for the lowest price un..
til she bargains away even the
lives of her children.
Irene Connors as Mother Cour-
age is forceful and alive, dis-
playing the full contradictions
of her character, yet without
quite realizing the role's possibili-
ties. She mixes the styles of rea-
lism and musical comedy, the re-
sult of half-becoming the charac-
ter and half-acting the role in
the Brechtian sense of actor
awareness.
The Chaplain played by Ste-
phen Wyman, who discards his
robe for survival on the Catholic
front, becomes an over-planned
but very skillful and effective
comic.
Kattrin is the only real Brech-
tian model. Abbe Hurwitz plays
this ugly, mute daughter of
Mother Courage.tThrough mental
and physical gestures rather than
personality projection she is
poignant as victim and shocking-
ly repellent as a misshapen crea-
ture. Thoughthe audiencenneeds
fuller preparation for her deci-
sion not to capitulate, she is
highly effective.
The production as a whole is a
rich one, but there is the major
flaw of slow pacing through the
first half. While viewing this
play, we should be crying, laugh-
ing and protesting all at once.
Instead, we are led through soft-
ened intellectual pastures. All
the good acting in the world can-
not overcome the effects of this
sedentary pace. The fault lies
with the direction and with Con-
nors' excessive control over the
production. The second half picks
up considerably and it is unfor-
tunate that those who left at in-
termission did not remain to ap-
preciate it.
eventually began to direct his
own comedies, giving them a
sophistication, wit and c h a r m
which, when more developed, be-
came known as "the Lubitsch
touch." He also acquired a repu-
tation for his expertise handling
of "superior women" that is, the
best or most popular actresses
of the day.
By the end of the '20s, Lubitsc
had gained prominence in Amer-
ica. Hollywood, recognizing Ger-
man film talents and wanting
to close up a competitor, brough
Lubitsch, along with E. A. Du-
pont, F. W. Murnau, Conrad
Viedt, Emil Jannings and others,
to work in the big studios. Among
all of these, Lubitsch was t h e
shining star.
Perhaps his best Hollywood film
was Ninotchka (1939), a li g h t
romantic satire with Greta Garbo,
one of those superior women,
and Melvyn Douglas. In this her
first comedy, Garbo plays an
ascetic Russian comrade sent to
Paris in the springtime to help
three bumbling but well-inten-
tioned Russian emissaries with
the sale of some court jewels.
She is all for self-control, t h e
Party, and the people until de-
bonair capitalist Melvyn Doug-
las steps into her life and re-
fuses to leave. He shows her 7i
good time, she falls in love with
him, and the Paris springtime
gradually enters her soul. But
then she must return to her home-
land. Does this stop the capital-
ist? Only temporarily.
Softly photographed, with deli-
cate lights and shades and the
famed Lubitsch touch, Ninotch-
ka is a marvelous picture. Years
after it was made, Garbo claim-
ed that Lubitsch was the best
director Hollywood ever gave
her.
-DAVID GRUBER
La Dolce Vita
Cinema II
Fri., Sun.
The Church has denounced it
as immoral while the Left insists
it is a powerful social document.
It would appear that Fellini's
La Dolce Vita deserves neither
description.
Concentrating on (more like ob-
sessed with) the lunatic fringe
of the hip world which frequents
the Via Veneto in Rome, Fellini
attempts to capture the flavor
of the modern world by a simple
cataloguing of sins. Fellini said
he wanted to "put a thermomet-
er to a sick world." But he seems
to have shot the entire film in
the fever zone. He tries to give
the impression that he is being
courageous in not diverting his
camera from the decadence,
when in actuality he is over-
lingering at times and flirting
with boredom.
Still, many of the disturbing
sequences are brilliantly conceiv-
ed pastiches of the grotesque.
One is able to become more or
less involved in the performance
of Marcello Mastroianna as the
hero, a confused journalist. But
the majesty of the film's lofty
opening, of a helicopter trans-
porting a statue of Christ away
from Rome, is simply not sus-
tained in the portraits of such
tonight
6:00 2 4 7 News
9 Edde'stFather
50 Flintstones
56 Bridge with Jean Cox
6:30 2 4 7News
9 Jeannie
50 Gilligan's Island
56 World Press
7:00 2 Truth or Consequences
4 News
7 To Tell the Truth
9 Beverly Hillbillies
50 I Love Lucy
7:30 2 What's My Line?
4 Hollywood Squares
7 Wait Till Your Father Gets
Home
9 Lassie
56 Wall Street Week
50 Hogan's Heroes
8:00 2 Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour
4 Sanford and Son
7 Brady Bunch
9 Amazing World of Kreskin
56 Washington Week in Review
50 Dragnet
8:30 4 Hall of Fame
7 Partridge Family
9 Irish Rovers
50 Merv Griffin
56 Off the Record
9:00 2 Movie
John Wayne and Maureen
O'Hara in "McLintock!" (1963)
transparent personages as, for
example, Anita Ekberg, whose
strictly mammary presence, al-
though satirically formidable, is
tiring.
-B. SHLAIN
** *
(olddiggers of '35
Cinema II
Sat., Sun.
A herd of white pianos troops
across the screen in a mammoth
ballet followed by hundreds of
dancin' feet, all perfectly har-
monizing to "The Lullaby of
Broadway" and your senses are
agog. "Goodness," you think,
"where did they ever find all
those white pianos?!" But, Ah
Ha!! it is only Busby Berkeley
up to his old mirror tricks in
another "Golddiggers" extrava-
ganza - this time it's Golddig-
gers of 1935.
Berkeley takes the standard
30's musical plot of backstage in-
trigue, shines it up a bit with
his unique and fascinating cam-
era work, and voila! you have
escapism of the highest order.
In this particular variation of the
theme, a Mrs. Prentiss (rich
and frustrated) is giving her an-
nual charity show in a lavish
summer resort hotel with the
help of director Adolphe Menjou
and his talented troupe of Broad-
way hopefuls. Meanwhile, h e r
daughter Ann (Gloria Stuart)
falls in love with star crooner
Dick Powell (who else?) and the
two of them go around smiling
a lot and singing love songs on
cue.
When you hear people talking
about the good old days in Holly-
wood, these are some of the days
they are talking about, for al-
though some of the rest of the
world was suffering under Hitler
and Mussolini, Americans were
being dazzled by Busby Berke-
ley's ability to multiply anything
at will - maybe even better than
Jesus ever dreamt of doing with
five loaves of bread and two fish.
-WILLIAM MITCHELL
* * *
Modern Languages Bldg.
Sat.
Medea, the daughter of the
Sun and one time lover to Jason,
leader of the Argonauts, has of-
ten been treated as a tempest-
uous woman, and her drama has
been seen as a personal one.
Maria Callas, a tempestuous wo-
man in her own right, agreed to
play the role only if the personal
woman's drama was avoided. So
director Pier Paolo Pasolini
created a goddess who, displac-
ed in Greek civilization and out
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 Anne Murray
50 Perry Mason
56 To Be Announced
11:00 4 7 9 News
50 Rollin'
11:20 9 Nightbeat
11:30 2 News
4 Johnny Carson
7 Dick Cavett
50 To Be Announced
12:00 2 Move
"Up the Down Staircase."
(1967)
9 Movie
"Psycho." (1960)
50 Movie
"Man on a String" (1972)
1:00 4 News
7 Movie
"Pickup on South Street."
(1953)
2:00 2 Movie
"Young and Willing." (1943)
3:00 7 News
3:30 2 News
wcbn today
fm 89.5
9:00 Morning After Show
12:00 Progressive Rock
4:00 Folk
7:00 Live Folk
7:30 The Drug Culture
8:00 Rhythm & Blues
11:00 Oldies Show (runs 'til 3)
some scenes are too stagy, and
the editing often calls attention
to itself. Between the g o o d
scenes, most notably the last in
which Medea kills her children
with a mixture of maternal com-
passion and alover's revenge,
the film is often boring.
-DAVID GRUBER
* * *
The Girls
Modern Language Bldg.
Sat.
Mai Zetterling, once an actress
in I n g m a r Bergman's films,
shares Bergman's views that men
are responsible for much of what
is wrong in the world. In her
satiric film The Girls, she cre-
ates a war between the sexes in
which men are. put on the de-
fensive. One woman (Harriet
Andersson) takes her husband
on a mattress to mattress romp
of a bedding store, another wo-
man (Bibi Andersson) strips be-
fore her husband in a night club
and throws her brassiere into
his shocked face. At the end, the
two sides confront each other at
a dinner party, and the men are
sent running. The film is helped
a good deal by the acting of Bibi
and Harriet Andersson and Gun-
nel Lindblom,sthree incompar-
able performers.
-DAVID GRUBER
Super Fly
Fox Village
On one level, enjoy Super Fly
for the well-madehno-holds-bar-
red action film that it is. It
offers line after line of good,
sharp cussing; ample sex, with
a pleasantly erotic bubble-bath
merger of suds, sighs and skin
shot from all angles; an appro-
priate quota of violence-and all
of this moving at a nice, quick
clip.
On other levels, however, the
cinm
weeken d
.Mmnsamatgsm1m~m~55m ms&2as#Esemag5
of touch with her mythic, pagan
powers, alternates between love
(for Jason) and subdued male-
volence. It is a rage that re-
gisters not in her face, but in
her deeds.
To capture the primiteveness of
the period, despite the pervad-
ing sense of order, Pasolini set
his story in arid, dusty land, cut
the film very roughly, and did
include some choice bits of gore,
most notably those parts of Me-
dea's brother which are strewn
about by the lady herself to
ward off an enemy army. Me-
dea is given her mythic stature
through closeups of Callas' re-
gal, bewitching face. These are
the finest points of the film, ex-
ploited only insofar as to create
the director's desired . atmos-
phere. They also though, tend to
defeat themselves at times. Cal-
las is a bit too .dispassionate,
film adds new fuel to debates
that have been burning for quite
some time. If we want to dip into
the realm of morality' coke-deal-
ing, coke-snorting Priest, an anti-
hero at best by most moral stand-
ards, comes off as a hero of the
highest order. Priest wants to
make one last, million-dollar
deal that will allow him to stop
pushing for the rest of his life-
he wants to be free. This is made
clear by a number of melodra-
matic, less-than-convincing ver-
bal exchanges with his partner
and with his women (and they
are his women).
Visually, meanwhile, the view-
er is bombarded with that fine
Continental, that lush pad, thoe
sharp clothes-and on the scren,
the vision impression is bound
to dig deeper than the verbal.
The Shaft-style rock music in
the background presents the
same paradox; you pick up the
rhythms much more readily than
yoiP ingest the moralizing lyrics.
What we see and what we feel
glamorize the dealing of cocaine
far more than the plot condemns
it.
-LARRY LEMPERT
Song of Norway
Michigan
The Michigan Theater's bring-
ing Song of Norway here raises
two questions: 1) Did the Way-
side burn down? 2) Has every-
one stopped making movies?
Norway isn't exactly a breath
of fresh air in this town's stifling-
ly stagnant film situation. Worth-
while films are sent out to the
Wayside (usually the Disney
centersofythe Midwest) for one
week stays (witness Fat City),
and garbage like Where Does It
Hurt and this seem to be here
forever. Not to mention the
amazing number of return-run
biggies. For those who are in-
terested (and someone must be
interested-why else would Ann
Arbor theaters be getting such
junk? Supply and Demand still
holds today as ever), Norway, is
several years old, stars Flo Hen-
derson, and depicts the life of
Edvard Grieg. By the way, the
Fifth Forum should be exempted
from any complaints: they've had
s o m e worthwhile films, and
should be getting more.
-RICHARD GLATZER
* * *
Yet Another
Week Of...
Fiddler on the Roof - State -
Tears and joy, songs and dances,
sunrise and sunset. L'Chaim.
Alice's Restaurant - Campus
Arthur Penn's poignant depic-
tion of several Americans search-
ing for a sense of Community.
Everything You've A w a y s
Wanted to Know About Sex-But
Were Afraid to Ask-Campus-
Seven Woody Allen sex episodes,
varying from the hilarious to the
embarrassing.
The Damned - Fifth Forum -
Luchino Visconti shows us that
all Nazis were just ordinary per-
verts at heart. Yawn,
The Garden of the Finzi Con-
tinis-Fifth Forum - Bittersweet
account of aristocratic" Italian
Jewish family trying to cope
with World War II and Aanti-
Semitism. Not De Sica's best.
MICHIGAN MEN'S G L911 CLUB
in two JOINT CONCERTS with PURDUE VARSITY GLEE CLUB
7 and 9:30 Tickets at Hill Box Office or at the door
C..ULT7URE CALEJWA
CONCERT-UAC-Daystar presents James Taylor in concert
at Crisler Arena tonight at 8. Tickets are still available,
and will be sold lla.m.-4p.m. today in the Union Lobby,
after which they will be available at the box office be-
fore the concert.
MUSIC-Ed Trickett and Guy Carawan are featured at the
Ark, both tonight and tomorrow night.
DANCE-International folk dance tonight at the Barbour
Gym, 8-11 (teaching 8-9).
SCHOOL OF MUSIC-Opera: Puccinni's Sister Angelica and
Ibert's Angelique will be performed tonight at Lydia
Mendelssohn, at 8.
DRAMA-The U Players' production of Brecht's Mother
Courage continues its run tonight at the Power Center,
at 8.
ART - The Lantern Gallery opens a one-man show of works
by Otmar Alt, young German painter and printmaker,
tonight. Reception from 7-9.
WEEKEND BARS AND MUSIC-Bimbo's, Gaslighters (Fri.,
Sat., Sun.) cover; Del Rio, Armando's Jazz Group (Sun.)
no cover; Rubaiyat, Iris Bell Adventure (Fri., Sat. Sun.)
no cover; Pretzel Bell, RFD Boys (Fri., Sat.) cover; Blind
Pig, Carey Bell (Fri., Sat.) cover, Classical music (Sun.)
no cover; Golden Falcon, Wooden Glass (Fri., Sat.) cover;
Mackinac Jack's, Ramblecrowe (Fri., Sat.) cover, Okra
(Sun.) cover; Mr. Flood's Party, Terry Tate (Fri., Sat.)
One Day Only-SATURDAY-Double Feature-SATURDAY-One Day Oonly
cover; Odyssey, Mack Truck (Fri., Sat.) cover;
the Hill, Cardboard, (Fri., Sat.) cover.
Bimbo's on
THE FILM SELECTED TO OPEN THE
NEW YORK WOMEN'S FILM FESTIVAL
the incredible
Maria Callas
as
MEDEA
directed by
Pier Paolo Pasolini
"Full of eccentric imagination
and real passion . . . superb."
-N.Y. Times
>owsYMnY1
Fri. & Sat.
Max
U I
M
d
h
We Don't Have
A Phony
Atmosphere
Some coffee houses put dinner
mints by the cash register. They
think that is atmosphere. Tough
luck.
We provide live music on
weekends. Students display their
artwork on our walls. Theater
-groups work on our stage.
Truck
)OW
h
Sunday
Open
i
1
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