-;— " s
Prine elevates his songs
above simple country tunes
By DON CROUCH
Call It charisma, dynamics, karma, anything you wish —
John Prine enjoys performing.
And those who attended last Wednesday's concert at
the Lane County Fairgrounds couldn’t help but be affected by
the enthusiasm and vigor that Prine brought to the stage.
From the beginning, his bouncing manner and “illegal”
smile elevated his songs above that of the simple, cute coun
try tunes he has often been criticized for writing.
The show began with Prine performing solo. All his
songs were well played and sung, with “Please Don’t Bury
Me,” and “The Accident," from the “Sweet Revenge" album
particularly pleasing.
The acoustic set was far superior to the second half of
the show, which consisted of Prine backed by four-piece
band. The electric songs, mostly material from his new
album, "Common Sense,” often suffered from sloppy ar
rangements and below average guitar solos. Chuck Berry’s
“Yous Never Can TeH” did, however, provide a rousing en
. core.
the Amazing Grace promoters, who provided a comfortable
atmosphere in a potentially uncomfortable auditorium, thanks
in part to some nice plants donated by the Home Grown
Shoppe. If this show provides any indication, there will be
some truly fine offerings from them in the months to come.
-S
f BLITZ RAFT RACE
Dexter Dam to Jasper Park
SUNDAY, MAY 18th
Starts from Dexter Park at 12 noon
I: 3 classes:
1 man
if 2 man
14 or more
Food, beer, & live band to follow at
Jasper Park
For more information call Portland toll free
1-800-452-1045 x238 |
or in Eugene 342-3000 or 345-2048
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iMOVIEREVIEWSa
Alice Doesn’t Live
Here Anymore
— — (thank god)
By DAVID COURSEN
“Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore" is the first
major studio film from young director Martin
Scorcese, who previously won critical acclaim
and little else for “Mean Streets," a film that
never made it to Eugene. “Alice" boasts an
Academy Award winning performance from star
Ellen Burstyn, wide distribuition, and a measure
of box office success.
From the opening credits, neat script over a
technicolor silk sheet (which I finally, unfortu
nately, managed to identify — “I Love Lucy”) the
film is a masterful package of nostalgia,
“Women’s Pictures," and an alleged feminist
consciousness (or something). Supposedly,
women played a major role in making this film,
through director, writer, cinematographer and
most technicians were men. And the primary
women who cfid work on it are all wives or “old
ladies"(can’t someone think of a better phrase)
of successful male directors. Hardly a promising
setting for a meaningful statement on the
women's movement.
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More to the point of the fiim-as-package prob
lem are the characterizations. Alice and her son
Tommy trade wisecracks, but from the beginning
they are always movie mother and son. "Alice” is
full of references to old films, and not just good
ones. Instead of genuine human feelings, it too
often gives us Hollywood cuteness, an effect that
is regrettably deliberate. Perhaps the most reve
alingly Hollywoodish moment is at the film’s in
troduction, a bizarre parody of the opening of
"The Wizard of Oz,” when young Alice tells her
little dolly “I can sing better than Alice Faye, I
swear to Christ I can.” This ts meant to show the
difference between the sanitized "niceness” of
little movie children and the naturalness of real
ones, and we get the message. Then, in an ex
ample of overkill where the movie's response to
the old stereotype is so overstated it becomes a
new, equally dishonest one, she adds, "And
anybody who doesn't like it can blow it our their
ass.” Old Hollywood becomes new Hollywood,
with never a pause for humanity.
Some of “Alice s” humor does succeed,
though the effects are rarely as
funny as intended. It s too cute to succeed as
comedy, but the light touch does help it work as a
study of the dilemma of a suddenly unmarried
nearty-mtddle-aged woman. At the beginning
she is the dutiful wife of a loutish Coke delivery
truck driver (and quick food fills the screen al
most from the moment of his death.) That death
gives her the chance to test her claim that she
could get along very well without a man. The
answer, a decidedly unfeminist "no" may offend
some people, but it s realty inevitable, given her
character, situation and sensibility. The ending is
a trifle dishonest, but Alice joining a lesbian
feminist commune would be a blatant contri
vance indeed.
Alice is simply not equipped, by experience or
conditioning, to do much besides be a house
wife. She sets out to resume a singing career her
marriage interrupted fifteen years earlier, but,
with her thin, flat voice, can only get a job by
crying in front of a prospective employer, ihe
banality and impossibility of her dream objectify
the "will to fail” with which so many women are
conditioned from birth. AH she has is a capacity
for communicating with and responding to
others, first her son, then her cheerfully profane
fellow waitress Flo, and finally, ostensibly, the
new man in her life. Unfortunately, these are not
qualities much in demand on the job market.
The first man Alice becomes involved with is a
disaster who gives us a good sense of the
romanticism above judgment that must have
led her into her first marriage. She does some
what implausibly better her final choice, but the
most important moments in the film come with
Flo, as the two women discuss the difficulties of
living independently (o trying to.) And these are
among the only times the camera holds a close
up without fidgeting.
In a way, the compulsive camera movement is
typical of the whole film. “Alice” seems to share
Alice's confusion about who to be or what to be
come The camera movements may have been
meticulously planned, but the effect is of random
endless doodling. Unfortunately, this is some
times the case with the characterizations as well.
It all goes back to that opening. Any.film that
borrows from “I Love Lucy” and the Wizard of
Oz," and tries to add profanity and social con
sciousness to the mix is bound to be jumbled.
“Alice" shouldn't be watched too seriously if you
have to analyze something, try to figure out the
punchline of the bizarre story Tommy keeps re
peating.
Steppenwolf
leaves it being relieved that it was not worse— that it
was not a reduction of the book into trite sayings and
hippie-dippie banality.
In other words, it is a nice try at a probably impossi
ble task. The first half of the book is an analysis of
Haller — both the human and wolf-like parts of his
personality. It includes a lengthy “Treatise on the Step
pen wolf.” To put this on film is hard. The movie uses a
ten-minute-long animated and narrated sequence for
the treatise. It is a fair attempt. The narration is fair, as
is the animation, and cannot be too harshly criticized.
But it does lack any luster.
That is the problem with the whole screenplay. The
writing avoids being trite or silly, but it simply lacks
even a brief moment of brilliance or life. The feelings
imparted by Hesse with his pen fail to come through in
either the screenplay or the photography itself. A movie
obviously cannot say everything a book says, but it can
attempt to translate the meaning and feeling into the
film medium by means of good editing and an effective
screenplay. It is as if the people who made the film
were really trying, but just weren’t creative enough to
make the whole thing come off.
The movie is worth seeing for those who have read
the book — at least they will not be disappointed by a
film which has rewritten the whole story, as some film
adaptations do. But those who have not read the book
might just wonder what the whole thing is about.
In any event, one thing other than fatalistic curiosity
makes "Steppenwolf” minimally entertaining: the
“Magic Theatre’’ sequence. While the special effects
are neither particularly expensive nor sophisticated,
they are fun to watch.
So the recommendation is this: go see “Steppen
wolf’ is you have either (1) read the book and have
masochistic tendencies, (2) Ike being part of a fad, or
(3) are extremely drunk or loaded.
If you attend under any other conditions you fully
deserve to be subjected to the laughter of the Immor
tals of Hollywood as they rake in the cold, hard cash
you paid for admission.
Could you be
a nuclear expert?
(If so,you could earn more than
$500 a month your Senior year.)
By LEE SIEGEL
One of the most lucrative liter
ary fads in recent years has been
development of the Cult of
Hesse. While I personally like
most of the Hesse I've read, it is
hard not to be repelled by the
overcommercialization of his
works, and worse, the over
popularization of the trite and tri
vial Cozmic Trooths which often
drool from the greasier regions of
his literary efforts. For every over
worked platitude one can envi
sion a whole legion of burned-out
dopers, disillusioned activists and
blank-eyed Searchers for Ulti
mate Reality waiting to slurp it up.
And that's why films of Hesse's
works are beginning to catch on
— they’re a veritable gold mine.
Last year it was “Siddartha,”
which I did not even bother to see
since the book provided enough
upon which to gag — and the
movie could have only been
much, much worse. But now, we
have the film version of “Step
penwolf," the story of Harry Hal
ler, a man struggling to live both
with himself and with an insane
world.
If it is first made clear that I de
plore the Hesse fad, I will sink to
the admission that I very much
liked the book “Steppenwolf,”
and thus, like a butterfly to a
flame, was drawn to see the film.
The film was not good, but one — 5555
Even if youre a Junior engineering or
physical science major, it's not too early to
start thinking about your career And if you
think you ve got what it takes to become
an expert in nuclear power the Navy has
a special program you should look into
right away.
Why right away? Because if you're se
lected, we ll pay you more than $500 a
month during your Senior year. (If you are
presently a Senior, you can still join the
program. Well begin paying you $500 a
month as soon as you are selected.)
What then? After graduation, if you re
selected to be a nuclear officer, you II get
nuclear training from the men who run
more than 70% of the nuclear reactors in
the country—Navy men And an oppor
tunity to apply that training in the Navy s
nuclear-powered fleet
Only about 200 men will be chosen
for this program this year. So, if you're
interested, see the officer information
team on campus:
IT-20 February
Erb Memorial Union
Room To Bo Potted
Be someone special
in the Nuclear Navy.
Review: ‘Tartuffe
By DAN CRONIN
The University Theatre’s grand
opening performance of Moliere’s
"Tartuffe” lagged far behind
grand. While it had laudable mo
ments, the performance was, at
best, modest.
Much of Moliere’s farcical
humor, witty, ribald or slapstick
jabs at the hypocrisy (and gullibil
ity) of religious piety, rarely got off
the ground. Not fully worked out,
the comic situations were choked
before they could bear the fruits
of just laughter. We were left un
satisfied, desiring more than a
chuckle, but invariably let down. It
was as frustrating as coitus inter
rupts.
Take the first scene. Here,
Madame Pemelle strutted, wav
ing her cane and furiously de
nouncing her family’s skepticism
of Tartuffe’s holiness. The irony
of the situation was marked by
the supposedly pious woman’s
outrage; the humor was to
emerge by an exaggeration of the
contradiction. As she paced both
left and right, her every step was
to be mimed in choreographic
precision by the others. Alas, it
was so sloppy that the intended
punch got lost somewhere in the
syncopated rhythms. Coitus In
ter ruptus.
Of course, we did howl — and
many even cheered — during the
sexy seduction scene, where El
mire tempts Tartuffe’s lust for her.
Yea, sex always works, but it is
too often a laugh-getting crutch.
Perhaps this scene was more
than a mere crutch. But it sure
aroused those whose eyelids
drooped below their navels when
the play’s tempo tended to drag.
Granted, the oracle technique
did come off well. Each player
addressed us as if to a jury, trying
to persuade one and all of
Tartuffe’s innocence or guilt. We
were moved to nod our heads
during each plea, and, conse
quently, to break-up at our own
gullibility. This tactic was, how
ever, one of the choice rarities
which actually bore fruit.
All but two actors were shaky
■or awkward in their roles. The lyri
cal, rhyming verses were deli
vered choppily and their move
(Continued on Page 8)
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