The Michigan Daily-Friday, September 16, 1977-Page 7 _r _ qqm f 4 r } 1 V vi I (> 'Boone' left Pioneer days behind I By NINA SHISKOFF "Young Dan'l Boone", a frontier adventure that premiered last Mon- day on NBC, isn't quality television, but it displays an interesting phe- nomena of television. -, The T.V. Docu-dramas, like "Raid on Entebbe" or "Truman: Incident at Potsdam", are misleading to viewers who assume that a drama with actors portraying recently liv- ing persons has to portray the truth. They underestimate the T.V. writer's instincts of tying up loose ends, and the network's tendencies to inject literal scripts with doses of sex or violence in order to liven them up and win rating points. Although Daniel Boone was a real person, most viewers will] under- stand that "Dan'l's" adventures are fictional. However, any historical drama tries to recreate the atmos- phere of the era it is portraying. In I Too much violence undermines 'Tenant' the first episode of "Young - Dan'l Boone", we meet Dan'l, a gorgeous hunk of man with spotless buckskins., He has a girlfriend, a liberated type who says "What about a woman's dreams? Don't they count for any- thing?" There's a former slave who taught himself to read from Shakes- peare, and an Indian who spouts wisdom like, "I'll never understand the white man. How can you own the land that's for walking on?" These are admirable types, but did they ever exist? Would Daniel Boone still be so handsome if Robert Redford wasn't? Before the woman's equality movement, wouldn't the girlfriend have been more likely to say, "My place is by your side, Dan'l."? Before "Roots", would the slave have been able to spell his own name? If Marlon Brando had never been, would the Indian have said any more than "Ugh"? Historical television tells us more about today's standards than they do about the standards of the times they. represent. The difference between "Gunsmoke" and "Young Dan'l, Boone" is the difference between the sixties and the seventies. The West- ern used to be a showplace of violence. Showdowns, saloon fights, savage Indians; that was the wild West. "Dan'l", although set before the days of the cowboy, is a Western in spirit, but where is the bloodshed? In-the first episode, the violence was almost comical. During the major gunfight, the principal adversaries were yards away from each other, their guns spewing out dozens of bullets. Yet every shot was a near miss, and each bullet gave off an improbable number of sparks as they hit the rocks or trees which the characters were hiding behind. When the fight was over, not one person was wounded, not even the tradi- tional extra with the traditional flesh wound. The only wound of any kind was inflicted by a.bear. What can we deduce from this? Was the early frontier a tranquil place, or has the infamous- Family Hour struck again? The Networks claim violence is no longer profitable, and that pressure groups are forcing them to cut it down. They. say minorities and women are now coming "in". Writ- ers claim they need the freedom to use violence when they deem it "artistically necessary. W o m e n and minorities are still demanding more iealistic roles in T.V. series. What a shame the battle has to take place on the Cumberland Gap. jfscIbsT s. Some disturbing trends and an invitation k I have noticed a disturbing trend recently, one which I shall name (for lack of a better) "anti-chic." It consists of voicing an opinion contrary to the popular opinion, for the sake of doing so. Not that this is a new idea - snobs have been doing it for years. Only lately does it seem to have become in- credibly prevalent. Three recent phenomena point this up: the popularity of Star Wars, A Chorus Line, and Beverly Sills. It just so happens that JI am wild about the two latter, personally, and I enjoyed the former. But that is irrelevant to the matter at hand. It is a form of one-upmanship, I suppose, to be the first one out with the opinion that leaves the pack behind, the slavering mob crawling at your feet. If everyone loved Star Wars, then clearly it would be bad manners for the r true anti-chic disciple to do so too. How can this breed be distinguished? That's easy: last week I went to Burger Chef, bought bne of their outrageous 49t Cokes and became the proud possessor of my own Luke Skywalker poster (first in a series 'of four). This thing is true kitsch. It features a Norman Rockwellian drawing of Luke, with background portraits of all the other biggies in the film, and a paragraph or so of "biographical" information on Luke in the lower right- hand corner. I put it up on the wall in my office and received, inside of the three days, probably no less than thirty different comments on it. Not about the poster, for any disparaging remarks about it would be quite understandlable; the thing is the concentrated essence of kiddieland mid-America. The remarks, however, were directed about the film. How could I debase my dignity, etc. on such a trite piece of nonsense for the. masses? I was intrigued. I happened to ask the commenters, or at least one of them, whether or not he'd seen the film. When pressed, he admitted that he had not. How then, could he comment? "Well, it's obvious," he said, trailing off into mumbles of a Oresimian sort. The theme of his argument was that, as everybody loved it, and as Everybody is well-known to have extremely Bad Taste, that the film itself had to be - well -garbage - This is an extreme case. Most people do not voice opinions of things they haven't seen. To do so is to invite comparisons of oneself with baboons. And yet, it is possible to bring oneself into a similarly idiotic frame of mind previous to viewing anything that is as popular as Star Wars came to be. The argument is simple, and has' already been outlined, the conclusion startling- ly obvious: I can't like this film, because to do so would be to declare myself in the camp of the Common. Therefore I prepare myself to hate it. The time span between a (for example) a film's popularity and its denunciation as middle-class used to be quite long; it would have to be on its third run through the theaters, and even your Aunt Gladys would have to have seen it. Now that time has reduced itself to a matter of weeks. Is it difficult to find people maligning Star Wars, or A Chorus Line, or even Beverly Sills' amazing voice nowadays? Heavens, no. The opposite question may now be asked: Must I then like everything popular? tAm I allowed no independent opinion, or does that invite ac- cusations of snobbery and toeing the "anti-chic" party line? The' answer is that, on the one hand, everyone, no matter how inherently bad their taste, is allowed an opinion; on the other, there is no way to know how much of that is colored by furor and how much by perception. The fact is, that ninety-five per cent of all people who see films have no way of evaluating quality objectively, and anything they say on such subject is, in any case, open to question. Thus the idea of anti-chic is all too appli- cable, particularly for this person.' By OWEN GLEIBERMAN This Friday and Saturday nights, the Couzens film co-op will present two showings of The Tenant, not infamous director Roman Polanski's best crea- tion, but certainly one of his most lurid- ly intriguing. The film features Polan- ski himself as the title character, a self- effacing, dwarfish outcast who eventu- ally succumbs to a frightening blend of self-induced guilt and panonoia. Isa- belle Adjani also appears, portraying Polanski's only companion. For those who cherish the bizarre, The Tenant should prove a most tem- pting item. Take the story: In Paris, a newly arrived foreigner (Polanski) rents a flat whose former tenant cut her lease short by committing suicide. The other tenants are crotchety and sus- picious, and lose no time in harrassing Polanski about the most minute of- fenses conceivable. Unable to assert himself, he becomes obsessed with the idea that they have conspired to drive him to suicide, by way of forcing him to "become" the former tenant. Reading the most complex devious meanings into their everyday actions, he weaves a grotesque nightmare of dread and panic, complying with their mythical conspiracy, until he is de- stroyed by his gross delusions. Even if viewed as a horror film, The Tenant is excessive, and'like The Ex- orcist, often too explicit to be truly frightening. In Chinatown, the script andl genre restrained Polanski; here, he allows his love for the macabre to boil over, and is unable to sustain the ten- sion and mood that are the hallmarks of his best films. Nevertheless, Polanski serves up a fair quantity of startling and vivid im-° ages, all beautifully photographed by Sven Nykvist. As a study of excessive paronoia, one wishes that The Tenant was more psychologically probing, pos- sibly by tying in the title character's manic suspicion to some earlier event. But in spite of its shortcomings. Po- lanski is enough of a cinematic stylist to make The Tenant compelling movie en- tertainment. Tonitelt Low School Films presents: THE HUSTLER starring Paul Newman Jackie Gleason 7 and 9:30 PM admission $1.00 Hutchins Hall, Room 100 A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (Fred Zimmerman, 1966) Against the backdrop of 16th century London, we witness the historic battle between King Henry Vll (ROBERT SHAW) and Sir Thomas More (PAUL SCOFIELD), with Orson Wells making his appearance as the poisonous Cardinal. Wolsey. A dramatic and beautiful film study afaacon- flict of wills. The cost includes SUSANNAH. YORK, VANE$SA RED '4VEK, AND COLLIN BLAKELY. Scofield won'an Oscar for his portrayal of Morel 7:00 & 9:15 ADMISSION $1.50 CINEMA II ANGELL HALL Friday, September 16 AUD. A t S '!f 11CwNlf ( ' !I MEDIA TRICS Presents.. CLOCKWORK ORANGE FRI. & SAT.-7 & 9:30 NATURAL SCIENCE AUD. admission: $1.50 Another rather disturbing trend spotted recently is for famous and well- loved people to die off; recently, among the departed have been two fine comedians, a poet, and a world-stature conductor; each has given the world many rare rpoments of pleasure - Mostel in his roles, Groucho with his shtick, Lowell with his verse, and Stokowski with lilting, wonderful music. Each will be sorely missed. * * *. * * * This is the first in what promises to be a long series of columns observing on trends, and as the title suggests, kitsch in the arts. Ideally, this should be more than the musings of one columnist, it should be a kind of dialogue. To that end, I invite anyone with an opinion or just a comment to write in, and I will print some of the more articulate and interesting of them here, with or without appropriate commentary. I'd like to know what everyone is think- ing. Ann Arbor Film Co-op FRIDAY, September 16 BANANAS (Woody Allen, 1971) 7 & 10:15-MLB 3 Allen's humor at its height. A thoroughly alienated tester of Rube Goldberg gadgets takes off for a South American country where he is transformed into a revolutionary with a false beard. Louise Lasser in her best non-Mary Hartman role. "An indecently funny comedy."-Vincent Canby. TOP BANANA /Alfred E. Green. 1954 8:3 R-O MLY-AML 3