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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 6, 1978)
Rock ‘n’ roll film avoids hard issues Alan Freed was a Cleveland disc jockey who in the mid-Fifties moved to radio station WINS in New York and for the next few years functioned as the czar of a new popular music form that was sweeping the nation. Freed is justly famous for three accomp lishments. He coined the term j “rock ‘n’ roll.” He introduced urban white audiences to the sounds of rhythm and blues and country and western music. And he was the j central figure in the payola scan j dais that virtually killed rock n’ roll S at the end of the decade. His injection of black music into the mainstream of popular culture vas a more significant accomp lishment than we remember today. Whatever the failures of ra cial integration in other areas, jpular music represents possi )ly the most successful fusion of dack and white cultures. Such was not the case in Alan |Freed’s time. Countless black ar tists struggled to stay alive from jig to gig while clean-cut non talents like Pat Boone made mill ions from lily-white “cover” re leases of such R & B songs as "Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally.’1 Nervous producers refused to allow photographs of black groups it repeatedly backs off from ad dressing the hard issues the sub ject matter raises. Even this black-and-white strategy could have resulted in an 'I By BILL LINGLE American Hot Wax to appear on their albums, as though we couldn’t tell the Coas ters were black by listening to them. It seems a ridiculous pre tense in retrospect, but rock ‘n’ roll was born in a time when blacks were seldom allowed to share public schools with whites. In that atmosphere, Alan Freed’s relent less promoting of black music seemed a courageous thing in deed. It’s all a great subject for a won derful movie, but, unfortunately, American Hot Wax is not that movie. Hot Wax is not a bad film; in many ways it is expertly made. But excellent film; after all, it is a basic technique of movies to simplify and exaggerate. But American Hot Wax has a split personality. In its heart it is a B picture in which the kids are just out to have a good time and the adult world’s only function is to try to repress them. On its surface it is a big budget Paramount release that is as tech nically slick as a heavy expense account can make it. This tension between a trashy core and a classy surface is occasionally used in the service of the film, but director Floyd Mutrux simply does not have the skills to bring it off consistently. It suggests them, but it settles for stereotyping the bad guys and canonizing the good guys. The good guys are the disc jockeys, songwriters, performers, promot ers and producers who are the keepers of the rock n’ roll flame. The bad guys are the cops, the D.A.s and the parents who want to snuff out that flame. Hot Wax abounds with nice touches: Tim Mclntire’s restrained performance as Freed, a tired man in a plaid jacket and bow tie, strangely free of the racial paranoia of the Fifties, dedicated to rock ‘n’ roll, intent on martyrdom because he will not sacrifice his principles for expediency; Moosie Drier as the 12-year-old president of the Buddy Holly fan club, who, in a genuinely affecting scene, goes on Freed’s show to memorialize his dead hero; the camaraderie of the disc jockeys, virtual social outcasts bound to gether by the rightness of their en terprise; the streetcomer singing groups who harmonize in alleys hoping Freed will walk by and dis cover them. Bunuel driven from avant-garde | Superficially, time and history ■seem to have driven 77 year old Luis Bunuel from the avant-garde in his most recent film, That Obs Cure Object of Desire. This may be due partly to the fact that Bunuel’s savagely ironic vision has, at last, begun to mellow. More probably, however, it is the result of the fact that even Bunuel's wildest hallucinations Seem almost pedestrian in the ‘Teal ' world of the late 70s. For example, Bunuel has long Specialized in perverse eroticism, but, in the contemporary cinema, not even Bunuelian eroticism r the RAIF (Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus — an interesting juxtaposition and a reminder of Bunuel’s anti-clericalism) is, at least, unusual. Even when ter rorists can be kept at bay on the street outside or in the next car, the fabric of bourgeois elegance can be decisively marred by the well-timed intrusion of a mouse or a fly. Into this context, Object places a story based on the novel that was the source of, among other films, von Sternberg's magnificent The Devil is a Woman, with Mar By DAVID COURSEN That Obscure Object of Desire seems particularly perverse. Simi larly, his films have often invented surreal devices to torment his complacently bourgeois charac ters; in Object, he implicitly con cedes that not even his fertile im [agination can conceive of retribu tion more bizarre or appropriate [than international terrorism. To compensate for diminishing I shock value, Bunuei has refined his satirical eye and increasingly come to rely on subtlety and un derstatement. If terrorists them selves are no longer bizarre, the hi-jacking of a taxi by members of lene Dietrich in the title role. Object was to have starred Maria Schneider, but, as has become her custom, she balked at some thing or other about the film and had to be replaced. The role of Conchita Perez is now played by two actresses: Carole Bouquet is, to simplify grossly, the Madonna, moving through elegant social set tings as she lures the man with her serene, ethereal beauty and her cool, sardonic smile; her counter part, Angela Molina, the Whore, with flashing eyes and sensuous features promising infinite pas sion, is more likely to be found CHINA BLUE RESTAURANT featuring for dinner: Crisp Chicken Young chicken seasoned with lemon juice, soy sauce and red wine, then tossed to a golden perfection. Half $4.00 Whole $7.00 dancing in a seedy bar. The key to the film, though, is the male character, Mateo, played by the definitively Bunuelian Fer nando Rey. If Dirt< Bogarde is the kinky sado-masochist of the European cinema, alike inviting and administering pain in all its forms, Rey is both more kinky and less obvious. While Bogarde’s e ternally bored look epitomizes modem decadence, Rey’s blank expression seems to go beyond even dissipation, achieving a kind of cosmic perversity. There is something so infinitely wicked in his urbane sophistication that he seems to invite retribution (thus he was perfect as the dope dealer in the two French Connections.). Almost from the beginning of Object, long before he has done anything to deserve it, we take positive delight in Rey/Mateo’s in abi lity to get the right trai n reserva tion; the service he wants does not exist. He is forever the man who, having all he might reasonably want, must ask too much of life, and it delights us when he doesn't get it. The plumpness in his face and the coolness in his manner seem to come from decades of too-easy living. It seems as natural that, in his mid-fifties, he should become obsessed with an eighteen-year-old girl as that she should eternally frustrate his de sires. Since Rey tells much of the story in flashback, it is Conchita’s perversity that dominates the film's surface as her teasing be comes ever more malicious. Only gradually do we become aware of the even-greater perversity of Mateo, of his lechery and the crassness with which he uses money. The woman may seem cold, remote, and malicious but the man asks for everything he gets. In fact, there is something in Rey’s performance that suggests that, even if his Mateo were to succeed in making love to Con chita, his obsession would merely change its focus as he came to desire ever-kinkier pleasures. Bunuel is a master of sugges ting more than he states. In the opening sequences, Mateo emerges from and blends into crowds of people, an oblique re minder of the universality of frus trated desire. Similarly, the cam era twice momentarily lingers on other young women before Con chita materializes, as if to remind us that Mateo would inevitably find some woman to fill Conchita’s role. For Bunuel, the bandits and ter rorists that punctuate the action are part of the uncontrollably ran dom universe that even Mateo and the rest of his class cannot escape. Conchita, appearing first by chance and then as the discreetly-charming confederate of some hold-up men, is the ex terminating angel who unleashes chaos on Mateo's rational, sec ure, ordered world. EUGENE OPERA! presents Mozart's classic opera 7:30p m , Friday, March 31 Friday, April 7 Saturday, April 8 3:00 p m , Sunday, April 2 April 14 performance added Churchill High School Bailey Hill Road In English Reserved seats SM General Admission \h % i tor students and seniors through a pure base by the ( itv ot t uyem* Parks and Kei reation l)ef»artment Transient Room Tax fund Group rates available lion ottu e open Mam to h p m High or tail 4MS 2n«S The recording studio scenes are especially gratifying, because of both the loving nod at the con ventions of the movie musical and the hint of the real excitement of creating music. Nice touches aside, the climac tic riot at Freed’s rock n’ roll stage show, incited by policement intent on nailing Freed, exposes the shallowness of the film’s concept. The audience greets Freed’s cur tain speech — “You can dose the show; you can stop me. But you’ll never stop rock ‘n’ roll. Don’t you know that?” — with the derision it so richly deserves. But any film that offers a look at a remarkably well-preserved Frankie Ford sing ing his rock ‘n’ roll dassic “Sea Cruise" deserves to be seen. _/Tat Y\_ COMING ATTRACTIONS Thur . Apr 6th BILLY HAYS BAND 8 00 & 11 00 $3.00 Fri.. Apr 7th „ AMAZING RHYTHM ACES 8:30 & 11:30 $6 00 i Sat. Apr 8th BONNII wiu<« 8:30 0tfMLETT neground $4 50 Mon. & Tue. Apr ,10th & 11th DIZZY GILLESPIE 8:00 & 11:00 S4 Wed. - Fri. Apr 12th - 14th Slidin’ Jake 9:30 NO COVER Sat.. Apr 15th DERK HAMILTON 9:30 NO COVER Wed. & Thur Apr 19th & 20th FLYING BURRITO BROS. 8:00 & 11:00 $3.75 Fn. & Sat.. Apr 21st & 22nd ESTHER PHILLIPS 8:30 & 11:30 $4 : Thurs . Apr 27th SEA LEVEL 8:00 & 11:00 $6.00 Fri . Apr 28th DAVE VAN RONK 9:00 $3 50 t TICKET SALES $1 00 Extra - Day of Show. \\ SUN SHOP kU EVERYBODY'S V THE place EUGENE'S NEW MUSIC CENTER & FINE DINING 160 S ; Park 21 & over - ID required
