A ''t E t rt i mt Pag Six Tuesday, August 17, 1976 Arts EntrtaimentTHE MICHIGAN DAILY En ter the Dragon: S ick implications By KIM POTTER "YOU let him best you, didn't you?" snarls Thunderball arch - villian Emilio Largo to a disheveled flunkie. Having ut- tered this damning disapproba- tion, the reigning scoudrel of the decade-old James Bond epic orders his cowering goon picked and and swiftly trans- ported to his new assignment- lunch in Largo's private - shark infested swimming pool. So far as we know, the poor unfortu- nate's only offense was to get caught spying in Bond's hotel room; Sir James subsequently douses him in a hot shower, whacks him around a little, then turns him loose, leaving the hood battered but basically successful in his mission - he has found the information he was seeking. But this technicality carries no weight in Largo's system of ethics: In a one-on-one man-vs- man conflictdhisdemployee was beaten, and decisively so. Therefore he must die, and die painfully. The simple savag- ery of this reasoning, with all the machismo sadism inherent therein, struck me then and long afterwards as the most of- fensive single act of brutality I had ever seen in a motion pic- ture, an atrocity undiluted by the traditionally unteal high of the Bond genre. Yet this was merely one overt segment set amidst a more subtle whole; it tokk an ostensibly cinematic howler called Enter the Dra- gon to convert the violence ethos into a veritable religion. Dragon's plot would hardly seem geared to stir any deep emotions: A group of Kung Fu champions from around the world are invited to participate in a tournament held on an island - fortress off the coast of Hong Kong. Housed on the island is a large-scale martial arts school presided over by the evel Han, a Fu Manchu throwback who uses the school as a front for a drug smuggling manufacturing operation. Enter special agent Bruce Lee, pos- ing as a tourney participant in order to get the goods on Han. Lee pirouettes his way through a series of blood and gore interludes, liberates Han's island prisoners, gains re- venge for the murder of his sister then finally dispatches Han himself in an extended, cliche - ridden hall of mirrors sequence. It's all quite frenzied and furiously paced, but etched in such a lame - brained two- dimensional artlessness that only a comic book fanatic could identify with its charac- ters' motivations. But it is the underlying drives in this film that matter, and it is here that Enter the Dragon begins to emerge ominously, in the words of Yeats, as some rough beast. In a negative way, the film is a hybrid perhaps unique in cinema: Some works such as Clockwork Orange make a great show of pretending to ab- hor the brutalities they depict on-screen; Dragon makes no such pretensions - it revels in its violence, feasts on it. It is the sole catharsis the only means to proveone's hanhood, the lone method to show that you're alive. It's pow, zap - and if you can't make it, buddy, then you deserve to be ploughed under. It's the Thunderball syndrome carried gruesomely further: midway through the film, Han confronts three guards over their failure to apprehend the prowling Lee. Chagrined and shamed, he demands they "prove" themselves by sending them up one by one against a hulking goliath of a marshall arts champion. The camera stays stonily face forward as bones snap, the victims shriek and the giant laughs gleefully, his eyes gleeming in orgasmic possession. It is a horrifying, debasing sequence which no amount of camp or inanity can conceal. Beneath its mayhem, Dragon seems to be to be chronicling- indeed, rejoicing in - the col- lective withering of the human spirit. It's fascistic message is twofold: 1) Kill or be killed. 2) Don't worry about it - deep down it's fun. Perhaps the film could be written off as mere patterns of Oriental revenge and face - saving; but Dragon was made for Western audi- ences and was obviously meant - however innovently - to touch some dark chord in our native psyche. I sat watching the jamjacked audience whoop it up over the large-screen obscenities, and wondered how many of them were two or three - time re- turnees, wondered how many of the cheers and exhortations were just the letting off of steam or the verbal surfacing of monsters that would make William Golding seem prophet. Just to be on the safe side, I said a small prayer for love, gentleness and the other rari- fied qualities that lift man ever so slightly above the brutes. Jeffrey Selbst te. the ci Feh! WELL, TIlS IS IT. Your commentator is making plans to leave town; he has, one might say, his bags packed. Therefore, as this is the last you will hear from him in a long time, he plans to use his remaining time and space wise- ly by trying to sum up what may be one of the more artisti- cally tumultuous summers in recent Ann Arbor history. That by itself is a rare thing, for arts events usually only occur when students are around in full force to enjoy and/or pay for them. However. To begin with, probably the most significant - Aaron Cop- land graced the stage of our own Hill Auditorium this past May, and who knows but that it could be the last time we have a chance to see him. The man is seventy-six, and pos- sibly the greatest living American artist. He and the Phila- delphia Orchestra also put on an unbelievable show for us, replete with pieces by the great Americans - Ives, Schuman, Barber at al. I remember too the conversation I had with him at the WUOM studios. I mean, there he was - AARON COPLAND-and I just sat there goggling, asking stupid ques- tions, to which he gave kindly and immensely tolerant replies. That was right around the time that Vincent Price, Roddy McDowall, and Coral Browne hopped into town with their rather bland Charley's Aunt. Somehow the Ann Arbor audiences con- trived to give that thing a standing ovation, at least the night I was there. Which is a- pity. The criteria for that greatest of all accolades is getting less and less stringent. MARDY MEDDERS and her bunch did a Peter Pan at the Union which, as I recall, the critics rather liked. Disliking the play, I didn't even go to see it. I rather regret that now, but that's the way it goes. There was a Superstar production, by the PTP's Michigan Repertory company, which was perfectly dreadful, a combina- tion of the worst taste and poorest production I have seen in this town for quite a while. I remember too, that I stood out- side the auditorium during the intermission and spoke with an old acquaintance. I hold him it was the worst thing I'd seen since a particularly obnoxious show called Loot. He told me that they were directed by the same person, one Cathy Conlin Thanks to the good humor of the PTP and their charm- ing policies, I didn't see the other three shows in the Michi- gan Rep season. I did receive a note that someone named William Redfield had called me, apparently to complain that I was "sabotaging" the PTP by my complaints lodged in their direction in this column. In view of what has transpired, I find that rather droll. Bue we pass on. Early in the summer there was a dinner theater presenta- tion of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ann Arbor Inn. That little show is really better left unremembered. But somewhere around the same time was the Ann Arbor premiere of the film Underground, about the rene- gade radicals of the sixties now living out their lives in pas- sive resistance. That was a treat. ON A MORE RECENT NOTE, I saw a production of Die Fledermaus this past weekend, by the School of Music Opera group, that just left my mouth hanging open. At last count I've seen seven productions of this particular opera, and I can safely say that from an acting standpoint, this was the best of any. Moreover, the singing and staging were a delight, not to men- tion the costuming. I found the sets on the whole drab, but the entire production was really stunning. I understand they're doing Ward's The Crucible next year; that will likely prove a mistake. But thank God they can make mistakes, they don't have to concentrate as assiduously as the Met on purely the fiscal motive. I think it must be the monetary factor that pre- vents the Met from putting on Der Rosenkavalier more often - I could see that twice a year. I hope the Music School tries that one sometime in the near future, taxing though it may be to young voices. AND OF -COURSE, I have to mention the stellar event of any Ann Arbor summer, the various Arts Fairs. A gentleman of my acquaintance suggested I devote no more than two lines of print to that generally sorry affair. I'll do more than that - out of respect for the charming South University fair, I'll men- tion it. There. As to the East U, Main and Maynard Street fairs and sidewalks sales, the real dirt is better left unsaid. But I'm glad it only comes once a year. I must say, I've been pleasantly surprised by the events of the summer; to the extent that there have been any, they have been slightly offbeat - such as t' ippearance, at Sec- ond Chance, of Herman's Hrmits sans hlaan. For the artistic betterment of the city I would take certain steps, like killing off most of the street artists and scrubbing cement to remove illiterate scrawlings, and that sort of thing. Well, look. This is my last chance to crab it public, and I have to get it out once and for all, right? So leave me alone. Goodbye. Rosa Parks ROSA PARKS, the woman who spawned the Civil Rights movement by refusing to give up her bus seat, now lives in Detroit and attended the festivities August 10 as the new musi- cal "Selma" opened at the Music Hall Center.