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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1982)
I by Steven x. Rea y What do yon do with a movie that takes place 80.000 years ago ts spoken tn a language that doesnt exist, that depicts man's primitive ancestors scratching at their rears and picking their noses and that co-stars a gaggle A masked Ii aka tribesman (left) hero \ofjh (Everett McGill) in tloe mud (center) and Roe Dawn Chon,% as Ika (ri^ht) of turn skinned apemen. red faced cannibals and elephants decked out in gum matted Beatle wigs1 Well if vou re the fiead of a major Hollvwuod studio — the head of urn of the Hoi Ivwood studios, in fact — you advise the earnest folks proposing such a harebrained scheme to take their pr< i) ca somewhere else Whic h is exaalv * happened tf < tfie pei >pk- respc iri sihle for Quest fur ftre j picture thjt KKik four vears to make three of th< »se years spent trying to convince v.me IvxJv — anybody — tfjal tlieir idea v.as actual I v worth the time of da\ Directed by lean la< cjues Anruud a Frenchman wh< >se first feature Hiatt and While tn C / *hir won him the 19”*k Academe Award for Best Foreign Film Quest for f ire is tfie story >f a trio of long-faced Homo sapiens who venture hevond their tribal boundaries wlien : tlieir life-sustaining possession, fire is stolen by a bristle platoon ol maraud tng Neandenhals The fire is carried in a skull like lantern-cage (son of prehistory s an swer to the Olympic torch) and the threevimes sojourn to retrieve the vital embers takes them across treacherous mountains, and bla/ing plains and swampy hoglands Along the way our hairy heroes — \aoh (pronounced rune), Arnoukar and Gaw have to 11 >niend with the likes of wolves, hears quicksand, flesh eating humans saber toothed lions giant thundering mammoths and Ika — a cackling pairu covered nvmphet fro® the advanced I * aka tribe t read love in terest i Not exasth vour average Sun dav afternoon outing Or. paper QueM for f ire looks like {xitcntial Mono iMhon materia! In deed executive producer Michael Gruskoft— a U ilharn viorris mailhin grown into Hollywood honcho who has been with Oi«tr since October O — repi >rts th3t t >ne c >( the standard lines he d be (landed bv studio chiefs wlien they were buss saving no was Hove are vou going to pull this off without loving die audience laughing at these people' II s going to look downright silk But on screen, Quest for f in■ is am thing but silk From the* opening se quence when the peaceful Clam tribe is besieged bv the fearsome Vi agalxrus, the audience is swefM up in this epic primeval adventure The makeup c ratted bv Englishman Chris Tucker C/tu- llephant Man) and Canadian Michele Burke, is a marvel to liehold Ttie I lam s features are coarse and elongated but they re instantk retog ni/able as the expressive, wondrous visages of <>ur predecessors, the 'seat) derthals, the animals, the bamboo masked and body-painted lvakas—all of them resound with the vibrant color and documentary authority' of an ani mated National Geographic layout As for the actors, they present sym pathetic, deeply drawn characters Miami-born Everett McGill, who has worked extensively on the New York stage and co-starred in such films as Yanks. Brubaker and I ruon City, takes the role of the dreadlocked Naoh, the hero of the quest Ron Perlman, a na tive New Yorker, plays Amoukar, Namcer El Kadi the son of a Turkish diplomat, is the persistent Gaw, and Rae Dawn Chong, the 20-year-old daughter of Tommy < Chcech and ..) Chong has the part of the skinny, wail ing Ika who wins the heart of Naoh Wc watch as these ignorant, innocent human beings struggle to grasp at new concepts and emotions, as they learn to smile, to laugh, as they make the transition from fornicator to love maker Quest for hire is a joumey-story with die same mythic overtones as Ibe Odyssey As the protagonists' adven tures unravel, the humor, the fear, the love, the violence and the bravado — the essence i if human nature — come to the fore Based on la Guerre du l eu a 1911 novel by Rosny Aisne, Quest for hire is a purely speculative work (the ad campaign touts it as a science fan tasy ), but Gruskoff, Annaud and screenwriter Gerard Brach have gone to great lengths to make it as realistic, as historically and anthropologically accurate as possible Vli' approached Quest with the same serious intent as the pe< iple wh< < made 2001 or Alien savs Gruskoff Vi'here they endea vored to create a tenable vision of the future, we’ve tried to create a similar v ision of the distant past Adds An naud Vi e show early man as I believe fa- truh was a peaceable creature ex cept when roused, a stranger in an en vironment he could not understand and fiad reason to fear An avid amateur anthropologist who came to filmmaking from a background in TV commercials. An naud arrived at his concept of prime live man by consuming a veritable li brary s worth of information and by pmling that knowledge with his own theories and imaginings Intelligent speculation, backed by research, may lead us to the truth, he muses The filmmakers quest for the truth as it may have been eight millennia past led them to elicit the aid of a couple of modern day experts; novelist/linguist Anthony Burgess and author/anthropilogist Desmond Mor ris Burgess, who created a futuristic lingo for his book Clockwork Orange. was recruited to shape a new — but theoretically old — verbal language for the Clams, while Morris (The Naked A/ie Manu atebing ) was hired to pro vide the actors with a complementary vocabulary of physical gestures Com bined. the prehistoric guttural yam mering and the simian gesticulations render the film's story line readily un derstandable As such. Quest for hire is probably tlie first movie in history that w ill play worldwide without the use of subtitles or dubbing Burgess, vvrKing in The Neu Yot Times Magazine, explained the strategy behind his newly formed lexi con: “People usually expect what is called a primitive language to be sim ple, but the further back you go in the study of language the more complica tions you find Simplicity is the fruit of the ability to generalize, and primitive man found it hard to generalize: One word for this man s weapon and an other word for that man's weapon, but no word for weapon It would have been stupid, preparing a script in a new tongue for actors to learn, to be too pedantic about the probable com plexity of an ancient language, so I compromised. But I could not com promise too much. . Speech still seems, all these thou sands of years ago, to be an aspect of gesture, and speech and gesture to gether will make things clear But it has to be established — in what, though promoted as entertainment, is still a serious, even scientific, film — that man is a talking animal, that articu late speech is what defines his species." Desmond Morris, discussing the na ture of our ancestral earth-dwellers, has this to say about his work on Quest for Fire “One of the notions we re seeking to dispel is the misconception that early man was a lumbering brute who was always dragging women off by the hair and living in loutish condi tions If you studs the social life of primitive man from the remains we have, you discover that he could only have succeeded if there was a con siderable amount of mutual aid, coop eration and love within his group This sense of assistance, tenderness and friendship contrasted strikingly with the killing and the hunting he had to do to survive." One would think that with the in volvement of popular scholarly types like Burgess and Morris, and with the guidance of an Academy Award winning director, filmdoms financial powers would have readily given the go-ahead to shoot Quest for Fire Not so, says an emphatic Gruskoff. “They said we were crazy They were wor ried about it not being in English; they were worried about going way over budget [die picture came in at around $12 million], they were worried about the fixations; and they were worried about a French director. Sure he won an Academy Award, but he was French — it was esoteria land. Gruskoff. whose screen credits as a producer include Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein and Werner Herzog’s Sosferatu, tells a frustrating tale of un ending rejections, commitments that were welched on, commitments that were cancelled out by the ouster of one corporate regime for another and then, finally, after the capital, the cast, the crew and the country had been finalized, he tells about the actors strike that began in July 1980, two weeks before shooting was to com mence. “We just sank. Everybody was in London waiting to go to Iceland, which was our original location, and we were stopped cold So I tried to find some independent financing — if we were independent we could con tinue to shoot through the strike—and did, in Hong Kong, but then that fell through. Then I went to Switzerland and got another group. I had them for a week and then they withdrew. Fi nally, I got together with a Canadian French outfit and we pulled it to gether." By the time the new money was found, it had become too late in the year for Iceland and filming began with four weeks in Scotland, followed by five weeks in Kenya and — after a four month layoff due to weather — five weeks in Ontario and British Col umbia. The animals — elephants, lions, wolves, bears—were transported from continent to continent. The actors, barefooted and mostly naked beneath their scraps of hide, withstood the bonechilling cold of the Scottish high lands, the dustbowl heat of Kenya and the cold, wet North American spring. (Though it's never stated in the film, the Ulams are supposed to inhabit the same general landmass that is today central France — the mountains they trek over are the Pyrenees, and the hot, dry plains on the other side is northern Spain.) Comfortably ensconced in his Culver City studio office, Gruskoff projects the heady zeal that comes after an obstacle-strewn course has finally been run. Like any self respecting hot-shot producer, he's al ready talking sequels, and if Quest for Fire lives up to the expectations its creators and its backers have for it, a sequel is certainly in the offing. "We’ll have the same principal actors, but we’ll bring it into another time pe riod,” he explains, gearing up for the hard sell. "Maybe 6,000 years ago, at the dawn of the agricultural age." Ah yes, Quest for Hoes. Sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? qn disc elbert McClinton Plain' from the Heart (Capitol) For a shad)- stretch there, it seemed like Delbert McClinton’s al bums w ere being cut by someone who only thought they were Delbert McClinton. Early in 1981, though, this long-time rocker scored his first Top Ten hit. a loping track called "Giving It up for Your Love," from a passable (by McClinton standards) LP called The Jealous Kind Whether that hit.restored some deeper confidence base, or sim ply convinced his label to spend more money on the follow-up, Plain' From the Heart is the solidest album in sev eral years. The first three cuts are just hors d'oeuvres to get the part)' started. The Muscle Shoals team, which smothered a few of The Jealous Kind's tracks, is thick with multiple horns, but punchy with sometimes staccato, sometimes trilling riffs. Side Two is recorded with smaller easembles, which has a liberating ef fect on the bluesier side of McClinton's musical scope Also, every cut on this side has a dose of McClinton’s har monica playing, a proven quantity since Nineteen & Sixty Two, when it highlighted fellow Texan Bruce Chan nel’s hit "Hey Baby." Sand) Beaches," the single release, may be the sweetest ocean-sound emulating cut since Leon Russell’s pinnacle "Back to the Island." Also, it’s a refreshing change up from the R&B mold, a warm and soulful mixxl piece. Lipstick Traces" benefits from a chugging guitar figure, and "1 Feel So Bad gets what might be the best read ing of its entire career It's still a stronger groove than it is a lyric, though In Reaganomical tragicomical times like these, it’s revitalizing to come across music with some power in it PlaitT From the Heart is one of 1981's best releases Byron Laursen TTARIAS! J- J- Harlan Ellison Reads Harlan Ellison (The Harlan Ellison Record Collet■ Hon)This spoken word package con taining two of writer Harlan Ellison’s best known short stories has all the marks of blatant self-aggran dizement — a sort of audio version of a vanity press Best of Collection. The Harlan Ellison Record Collection, we are told, is the most innovative record society for the spoken word ever devised." There is more than a note of irony in all this, consider ing Ellison’s reputation as an abra sive, outspoken and even arrogant demi-celeb. Be that as it may, Harlan! is an ex cellent showcase for its author's prop ulsive prose style Despite the disad vantage of a rather high and at times reedy voice, Ellison delivers a subtle, amusing and resonant reading of his material, with a surprisingly dramatic flair. The emphasis here is on the ca dence and rhythm of the words and El lison's rendering soars and careens with a breathless precision. ' Repent, Harlequin!' said the Tick tockman" is, we are informed by the cover blurb, “one of the most re printed stories in the English lan guage” Ellison’s treatment of the 1966 cautionary’ tale — where every’ late minute in a person's life is subtracted from the total life span —makes us al most believe the claim. Compared with the album's B side — the rather mordant ‘Shatterday”—"Repent” is a masterful translation from print to groove. Ellison evokes a marvelous array of character and nuance in the tale, the prose taking on a near-poetic ebb and flow, it is an absurdly appeal ing tale given a loving familiar touch by its creator. “Shatterday” suffers from a heavyhanded finale and does not quite survive the delicate transition to sound, but is, nevertheless a credit able effort. Ellison is marketing his own albums; those who wish to purchase same (for $8.95) should write to The Harlan Elli son Record Collection, 420 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 207, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. Davin Seay rHE BLASTERS The Blasters (Slash)'rhe Blasters are a 100%, died in-the-wool traditional rock n' roll hand who have their early blues, rhythm & blues and rockabilly licks down cold. Their second LP—the first was released on the Rollin' Rock rock abilly label — comes courtesy of the LA punk label Slash. But that only goes to show how utterly myopic — if not out right blind — major labels are to basic, energetic American rock "tV roll these days. The Blasters is fundamentally a groove record, meaning its first object ive is to get fingers snappin', toes tap pin, and heads bobbin’. The material ranges from covers of songs made famous by country singer Jimmie Rodgers ( "Never No More Blues”) and r&h great Little Willie John (‘‘I'm Shakin ”) to originals that evoke the musical spirit of Professor Longhair ( Hollywood Bed," which features one of two appearances by Lee Allen, the tenor sax man whose solos pop up on all the old Fats Domino and Little Richard hits) and Chuck Bern- (the marvelous Marie, Marie”). American Music” not only serves as a statement of the Blasters' intent but is every bit as powerful an anthem as the title dictates it should be. The finest single moment comes on This Is It” where a few Delta blues licks cartwheel into a rock steady shuffle rhythm while Alvin throws in simple fills that are so utterly right they all but strut out of the speaker, cross the room and yell ' YEAH' in your face. The album comes a cropper on the stone country blues of Highway 61"." The Blasters get off that swinging groove tht powered the first nine tunes and never really find their way back, that doesn't change the fact that The Blasters is an excellent record. Don Snowden UAR TERFLASH Quarterflash (Geffen Records)_Just out of the chute, in the outside lane is another new hand — Quarterflash. Galloping into the first turn they’re in good position, with their first single from their first LP on Geffen Records in the top ten. Harden My Heart " is the kind of ditty one can find oneself singing along to by the second chorus. Quarterflash is a glossy, middle-of-the-road pop album A couple of tracks are dogs, but three or four tunes hold up under repeated listening. Rindy Ross, lead singer and saxophonist, shares the spotlight with her husband, the guitar player, songwriter and sometimes lead singer for the group, Marv Ross. In 1980, the band independently re corded "Harden My Heart" and had a #1 regional hit with it. Somebody noticed and they were whisked away to Los Angeles to record The Album. They often it with the hook-filled single and keep it rolling from there with an eerie-melodied, driving rocker called "Find Another Fool." "Critical Times" is the next cut and a surprise because it's a ballad sung by Marv. The theme of the song is great but the lyric is contorted and Marv sings like he’s trying on a British accent. It’s Rindy’s turn again on "Valerie." This is a pop song with a twist, the story of one girl being very attracted to another. Hot stuff and done tastefully to hoot. Rindy is an engaging singer who shifts in and out of her falsetto w ith the greatest of ease. She's a good sax player, too. By the way, the name Quarterflash comes from an old Australian folk say ing: "A quarter flash and three quarters foolish." You gotta get a name from somewhere. Donna Ross
