Arts
The Michigan Daily
Saturday, July 10, 1982
Page 7
Pacino stars in shallow 'Author!'
By Chris Case
O NE MIGHT dwell upon the
similarities between Author!
Author! and Shoot the Moon. I won't.
They are obvious. Both movies are
about writers. Both writers have disin-
tegrating marriages and a brood of kids
that say witty things which they are not
supposed to know how to say.
But there are also notable differen-
ces. The characters in the two movies
are clearly distinct from each other.
Moon portrays a loving mother and an
angry father, Author! a loving father
and a cold-hearted mother. Tones are
different. Moon is melodramatic,
Author! is not. Moon explores a
relationship, Author! glorifies a
character.
Yet in spite of the differences, there is
still the one overriding, all-important
similarity: like Shoot the Moon,
Author! Author! is not a good movie: It
is cute and gimmicky and will oc-
casionally make you laugh. But it does
not make it as a comedy and it certainly
does not make it as a serious movie.
What's chiefly annoying about
Author! is its milieu. The movie, con-
cerns itself with the tribulations and
joys of a successful New York
playwright, Ivan Trevalian, played by
Al Pacino. Trevalian is somewhat
wealthy and supposedly brilliant. His
wife teaches at a local university. The
kids are quirky, loveable, aware
beyond their ages.
Everything else fits right in. Pacino
dresses his part and has all the right
accoutrements of the New York Artist:
The collar of his sportscoat (acciden-
tally) turned up, the coastal intellectual
eyeglasses, the improperly tied tie.
Here is a forty-three year old man.
who is intelligent enough to be a
renowned playwright and yet by his
own admittance he still can not tie his
own tie. Do you believe this and think
that it's cute? You're supposed to. This
is precisely the kind of substitute for
real characterization that Author!
leans too heavily upon.
And in a movie with no thrills and no
violence and very little sex, a movie ob-
sessed with the antics and family life of
a New York Artist, that kind of charac-
terization is a fatal flaw.
Author! gets under no one's skin. It
exposes nothing. Dialogue leads not to
emotion, understanding, or mystery,
but only to paltry witticisms. "Are you
getting a divorce?" asks Ivan's son.
"Why?" asks Ivan. "Because the last
time you asked me if I'd seen my
mother and let me get another pretzel,
you got a divorce." "Really?"
There is virtually no substance to this
movie, nothing to hold on to or come
away with. There is no fascination,
whether visual or intellectual, not one
moment of intensity. As a serious
movie it is altruistic and bogus. As a
comedy it is good for a few short
laughs.
The movie is directed by Arthur
Hiller, written by Israel Horovitz.
Writing is the root of all trouble.
Author! simply is not much of a story,
and there is not enough in the dialogue to
make up for this lack. The various kids'
witty remarks are occasionally char-
ming but reek of the conscious effort to
-u-
THE(MOVIES AT BRIARWOOD
[ 1-94 & S. STATE (Ad jcent to JC. Penny)
be unusual and mildly shocking. could be. "Your play is "brilliant,"
Dialogue between Ivan and his wife says Alice to Ivan. Naturally, she wants
(Tuesday Weld) is fruitless and only to sleep with him.
confirms what we know about her from Entire scenes seem to occur only to
the beginning: that she is an unfeeling break the vapid lengthiness of this
bitch. Dialogue between Ivan and his movie. When the police come to take
actress girlfriend (Dyan Cannon) is away two of Ivan's step-daughters and
histrionic the way only dialogue bet- return them against their wills to their
ween two glorified artists in a movie See DIALOGUE, Page 10
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