has a contract with the young superstar—
hut his character didn’t work out. Instead,
IV" ended up a time-travel movie with
whales. "It didn’t seem too exciting to go
hack in time to pick up a plant, or an insect
or some serum against smallpox," Nimoy
recalls. "So, I was having a conversation
wit h a friend and up popped whales, singing
humpback whales, and that’s how 'Star
Trek IV’ got started.’’
Bunting all the way to ttia bank: No one doubts
that this sequel will do as well at the box
office as everything else in the series. In
fact, "Star Trek” programs of one sort or
another seem to be a limitless source of
revenue. The prime-time series rerunsstill
grab big ratings on 145 stations. And next
fall there will be a new syndicated TV se
ries—"Star Trek: The Next Generation’’—
stocked with fresh young faces to carry on
the tradition and perhaps prepareTrekkies
for the day that the original cast can no
longer be beamed aboard.
What explains the ageless, unsinkable
appeal of this show? Who better to ask than
Nimoy, who hears the question in every
interview, every speaking engagement, ev
ery cocktail party. "You can be glib and say
the idea still works, the characters are still
there, it still offers a hopeful future, which
is what we all want. Those are the obvious
answers, but it really doesn’t answer the
question, does it?” Nimoy says. "I think
there’s something to seeing these very pro
fessional people hel ping each other to sol ve
a problem and in the idea that munkind is
humane and will do the right thing eventu
ally to each other and toothers And we all
like the idea that there are great mysteries
stilltobeexplored."
For Nimoy, personally, "there’s some
thing somewhat noble about what 'Star
Trek’ says and does." "IV," he hastens to
add, "says something about the assumption
that only human life is important and only
human needs are important, and all else*
andothersare heretoservethat It’san idea
that just isn’t very fairor true.”
With "IV" behind him, except for the
profit taking, Nimoy has begun to contem
plate what comes next. He still hopes to
direct and act in other movies: "I'm looking
for something I can care about. I've had a lot
of scripts offered to me, but I haven’t found
one I can say I want to spend a year doing.
It's a lot of work, and I don’t want to wake up
one day in the midst of the pain of it saying.
Why am I here?’ I want to know every day
why I chose the job." Of course that has
never been a problem with "Star Trek."
Even if he isn’t boldly going w here no man
hasgone before. Leonard N imoy can always
take comfort from the fact that, aboard the
Enterprise, he always knows just why he's
there:tobeSpock.
I, i ■ G <> L n M r. R <; in Lie A nut In
Talking and Talking
and raking About Sex
People may compare
"The Decline of the
American Empire” to
"The Big Chill” and to
'Hannah and Her Sis
ters”; like them, it’s a
comic talkfest that takes
place in an atmosphere
of hypocrisy and comfort.
But this French-Canadi
an film has an unembar
rassed, out-of-the-main
stream feel of its own,
and no fake momentous
ness. The story concerns
a group of academics
gathering for dinner and
talking about sex. These
conversations—sophisti
cated locker-room talk—
are often raucously fun
ny. We recognize that the
t heories that get spun are
expressions in abstract
terms of the characters’
personal concerns; we
may come to suspect that
the "decline” of the film’s
title refers to the older
characters’ experience of
middle age.
Denys Arcand, who
wrote and directed, has
conceived his film in
thoroughly sexual terms;
the camera takes us
through the web of words
and into the characters.
When he flashes back, he
shows more than his
characters divulge—he
takes us into their priva
cy—and all along, he cuts
away to images of natu
ral beauty. The relaxed
performances and the
cinematography, with its
attentiveness to changes
of light, give us a feel for
the characters’ relation
ship to their flesh, and a
sense of how sex to them
isn’t merely an athletic
pursuit, it's an imagina
tive one.
cand’s approach has the
result of giving sex—the
unforeseen effects it can
have and the variety of
things it can mean to peo
ple—a many-hued splen
dor. In a sequence that
begins on a pier at dusk
and moves into the eve
ning, we watch the clouds
and the water, we hear
one of the men wonder
whether, if the Soviets
bomb the States, he’ll be
able to see the explosions,
and we see the couples
move (in various states of
arousal and misery) into
bed. This sequence has
the emotionality of a
rhapsody; Arcand gives
us the illusion that sex is
spiraling around us.
Ray Sawmill
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