FILm REYIEWf vinces and states in such a bewildering Women the director should have regard cheapened and coarsened, made into condition of ambivalence, enforcing ed as his models such European films stereotypical situations. Other chapters laws based on such arbitrary standards, as Loves of a Blonde or Closely Watch of the novel, such as one showing that a direct and honest translation of ed Trains - that is, drawing upon his Vajda's rather heartless affair with an book-in to-film was not considered prac knowledge of Hungary, and the ex impoverished mother-of-two, are left tical. The problem which Kaczender perience of dislocation in being an out altogether. The end result is a fuzzy and Gotlieb faced was one of cultural immigrant, given us a film that concen and trivial film about a man who never lag and confusion. In 1978, it is per trates on well-drawn characters, and grows up, and who is never forced to missible (even in Ontario) to write and a sense of time-and-place that one take anything seriously. publish sexually explicit material; but can almost taste and smell in its palpa With the exception of Helen Sha a photograph of the same acts runs bility. ver, normally a fine actress, but here a high risk of prosecution. What in one Kaczender's past films (Don't Let confined to an embarrassingly silly cari medium is now considered conven the Angels Fall, and V-Turn) seemed cature of a North American faculty tional, is in another (even when re emotionally flat and uninvolving - wife, most of the cast give creditable stricted to an adult audience) consi which I attributed to the slightness performances (especially Karen Black) dered outrageous. When a book be of their scenarios. This time, with a but they all deserve something better. comes famous, due in great part to its better range of material, the effect is What in Vizinczey was sensual, witty sexual candor, and fIlmmakers become roughly the same - one watches with and elegant is - via Kaczender - tempted to cash in on the success but polite, rather than rapt, attention. rendered merely smutty, cute and also feel obliged to delete the sex or And this time my conclusion is har photogenic. One may forgive In Praise reduce it to head-and-shoulder coup sher: I don't think Kaczender knows of Older Women for its sexual co lings or "artfully" choreographed scenes how to "hook" an audience. His films wardice, but there is little excuse for its in which a shadow, a bedpost or stra look good (in a tv-commercial way) mediocrity. tegically-placed vase of roses means but they are unengaging on any other John Hofsess the difference between an "R" and an level. "X," what emerges is a hypocritical The novel, slight though it is, main hodgepodge - a fIlm that talks out of tained a keen sense of irony which the both sides of its mouth - a sniggering fIlm lacks; space permits only one yes, and a cowardly no. telling example. Vizinczey depicts an The alternative to that dilemma is encounter between Vajda and a young to alter the book significantly and de actress named Mici. She leads him on, liberately in an altogether different and agrees to go back to his room, direction. When Stanley Kubrick made then has a sudden change-of-mind and Lolita he recognized two limitations begins worrying if she'll get pregnant. Robin Spry's - one in himself (he has no aptitude Of her own accord she offers to have for depicting sensuality, beyond his sex the "safe" way - orally - ("Well, highly-developed sense of visual beauty) you want me to do it or not?" she DRYING UP and the other in society (erotic inter asks; "I wouldn't dream of incon play between a 12-year-old girl and a veniencing you," Andras replies) but THE STREETS middle-aged man would not have been given Andras' attitudes to oral sex d. Robin Spry, sc. B.A. Cameron, permitted in a fIlm in 1963, or even he doesn't find deliverance. ("We made love in the French way," he ph. Ken Gregg, ed. Myrtel Virgo, in 1978 given the legal difficulties of l.p. Len Cariou, Don Francks, Kelvin Louis Malle's Pretty Baby). Normally says. "We both came but it didn't Butler, August Schellenberg, Jacques those limitations would disqualify any help me, my headache only grew Hubert, exec. p. Ralph L. Thomas, one from adapting Lolita, but Kubrick's worse . Mici was completely satisfied. p.c. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation gamble was that one could produce an It was tlle culmination of her chaste (Radio-Canada) 1977, col 16mm, run "interpretation" of the book, substi dreams, I suppose: the mysterious ning time 90 minutes. tuting a new kind or pleasure - bro immaculate conception.") In the film, liantly sly satire - for the one that Gottlieb and Kaczender show Andras had made the novel notorious. Whe picking up a young cabaret singer This is not the "great" fIlm fol ther he succeeded or not is open to (who does a lusty song-and-dance rou lowers of Spry's career have been ex debate (he occasionally has expressed tine that enflames Andras's imagina pecting. the wish to try it again, for the fIlm is tion) only to have her turn out, some Nevertheless, it is well worth seeing clearly compromised by moral atti what incongruously, to be merely a for its uncompromising depiction of the tudes of the time) but it is still an op "cock-teaser." Andras goes home, with sordid subterranean world of hard tion for fIlmmakers caught in the cre out any sex, complaining bitterly about drug pushers and junkies, of anxious vice between avant-garde literature and the fickleness and lack of sophistica to-please pimps and the girls they ex rear-guard cinema. Following this me tion of young girls. Frequently through ploit: the runaways who are lead into thod of adapting In Priase of Older out the fIlm one finds the novel being drug addiction then forced to pay for
Cinema Canada/69 FILm REYIEWf it by servicing the string of pasty, insa tiable customers coughed-up by most North American cities. It 's a "sewer" says an undercover man. And it's a vortex of violence to shock any one, including those who've tripped gaily over the tattered carpets of a Yonge Street massage parlor. Originally the film was conceived as a 60 minute CBC-TV special, but after thirteen days shooting a feature had been born. (The secret of such fertility should be shared, what with government cutbacks creating a pro phylactic atmosphere for future CBC film productions.) What will bring the film to the local cinema is not the occasional flash of bare flesh , but several fine performances and the many levels on which the film works. Don Francks unquestionably domi nates the film . The former CBC song and dance man, a one time drop-out himself (he once appeared in leathers on the Pierre Berton Show, figuratively spinning the shocked host's bow tie at 3,000 rpm), is most convincing as Peter Brennan, a West Coast pharnla cology professor who has become a heroin addict in that lifestyle experi . mentation endemic to Pacific shores. His wife has dese rted him, his daughter has run away. Francks, with his gaunt face, balding pate and waist length r pony-tail, is so well cast as the arche 1'1::' I ~ "''L typal 60's dope scene drop-out that Len Cariou (left), a narcotics officer tries to enlist heroine addict Peter Brennan, played by Don he visually steals almost every scene. Franks, to help break a narcotic ring In a quick cutting, opening sequence a hand held camera, shaking with TV worldly to play RCMP officer, Larry, viewing distance, now become a quick news authenticity, discovers Brennan exploits Brennan's helplessness, not cutting montage, bloody details blud O.D.'ing in the toilet of a greasy spoon. unlike the way the pimps exploit their geoning the viewer as they do Brennan. One of the cuts includes a grues'ome girls. Larry shows lurid slides of a girl No soft-sell consciousness raising is this. close-up of him salivating, a first indi forced into masochistic acts to support When a family snapshot snaps by, cation this film is not for the squeamish her habit , hinting she may be Brennan's Brennan's decision is a foregone con or those socially isolated souls who runaway daughter. clusion. think that our greatest problem is the After possibly the briefest cross It is then the bones of the plot future of the monarchy. Canada bus trip for a Canadian film - are revealed: the mounties, demon The strident music , accompaniment no shots of the Rockies or the prairies strating questionable ethics at once for Brennan's moments of isolation - Francks disembarks before Toronto's similar to Kojak but all too believable throughout the film, suddenly becomes eternally "new" city hall, takes one in light of the McDonald Commission muzak, and in the first of many changes last look at his daughter's photograph inquiry , will help Brennan find his in rhythm characteristic of the mm's and symbolically rips it up. daughter - if he helps them break a ·structure, the fast cutting is replaced Soon after his arrival but not before dope ring and identify the king-pin. by a moving camera which reveals an a greeting committee of police brutali antiseptic hospital room. There , Bren In an inspired bit of flimmaking zes then briefly jails him, Brennan is nan is cold-turkeying it, sandwiched Larry exits, leaVing the projector on slowly sucked into the sewer. It's ap between white sheets. Len Cariou, automatic ostensibly to give Brennan parently easy if the hang-outs are cool and sophisticated as a crusading time for a decision. The slides, previous known, if the right questions are asked, newsman in One Man, but a little ly shown mostly at comfortable home and as is so often the case, if a contact
70/Cinema Canada FILm REYIEUJf has been made while rehabilitating in is terminated Violently for squealing the sexually imaginative (or perverted, Okala. to the police after refusing to allow her if you prefer). However, the explicit Through meetings in topless bars, daughter to stand-in for a member of shot is fIlled in again by the viewer, featuring tasteless shows almost co· a pedophilic daisy chain, staged with who may discover his/her se xual imagi mic on screen, Brennan's circle of con· a drugged Anne for the benefit of nation has a wider range than earlier porn-tographers. tacts grow. They lead him into violence thought. The casting of almost gro - a jewelery store robbery, ridding the Only an inventory could do justice tesque lesbians seems questionable , per street of "Frenchie" competition - and to the many ways Anne is degraded. haps designed to confirm male chau then into employment suited to his At one point she is referred to as a vinist prejudices. professional training, cutting drugs for "facility," a term to raise the ire of even Brennan's treks through the streets street distribution. But he reveals a a closet feminist. Brennan is aware of are done in long takes, Francks forcing sort of Hawksian ethics: he only cuts this; the fatherly concern he should the action towards the camera in an the drugs with pure materials, and have shown for his daughter is inexor other mandatory TV technique which refuses to bend when grilled about ably transferred to Anne, even as her forces the camera to reverse dolly and the high costs. addiction is slashed into our conscious create an attention grabbing, always These developments are intercut with ness by the close-up of needle tracks changing backdrop. Invariably , these Brennan's long treks through nameless along her delicate white arm. shots are fIlmed in hazy overcast, a streets, effectively building suspense Most of this would be straight TV light · which mutes the colors and adds while he searches documentarily filmed formula, tame or violent enough for a bluish cast expressive of Brennan's passersby for the face of his daughter. Kojak, were it not for Spry's skill and alienated state of mind. In these se Often, he visits the methadone main wit in rendering the material. He has quences a notable time transition has tenance clinic to exchange his urine such feeling for form, he can make been used: he stops to study strip joint sample for his surrogate drug and to socio-political statements, nouvelle pictures for his daughter's likeness; report his fmdings to Larry , disguised vague references, and toss off a few there is a cut to a subjective shot, as a doctor. "Dr. Fraud" Brennan nods to the NFB - all without eroding hand held ; and when the objective puns on their first meeting, one of the entertainment values treasured by shot follows, it is night. This is smooth, many one-liners offering comic relief. the apathetic, unpoliticized "home yet, momentarily an expressive dis The effective one liner, de rigeur in the viewing audience." orientation in time. fast cutting TV milieu, seems a forte In sex and violence Spry tells all Several distancing devices are used , of scriptwriter B.A. Cameron. When but shows only just enough. A man's also with irony. Several times two large Brennan's virility is questioned, one eye is poked out. Several shootings neon yellow A's appear behind Bren character quips "He couldn't get it up take place. Using a montage in which nan; they grab attention, invite only with spray starch and splints." shots of perpetrator and victim (always impossible interpretations. A neon During an early restaurant stop he backing away from the camera until record flashes behind his head, becom ing a halo - a crassly commercial one. witnesses a theft from a car. In what stopped by a wall) are intercut with Later, Brennan is hooded and violent at first appears to be a documentary steadily increasing rapidity, Spry never ly shoved into a back seat, but the low long shot, a girl, played by newcomer includes the explicit shot of bullets angle composition of the shot empha Sarah Torgov, takes a camera but is or instrument striking. This shot is sizes the "Keep Ontario Beautiful" caught by a black man, ironically wear filled in by the viewer from that fund on the license plate . The plot progres ing a white hat. Arguing, the two con of experience informed by the glut of ses while with simple juxtaposition veniently enter Brennan's restaurant violent photographic images seen daily , Spry criticizes the head-in-the-sand where he overhears the man offer to or the apparently innate capability of attitude to socially reality manifest by take the girl home and put her up with humans to visualize gore. The moment bureaucratic sloganeers. the help of his woman. The audience of violence occurs between frames, in knows the girl, Anne, is the archetypal the mind of the viewer primed by fast The plot is resolved neatly, as ex runaway . Her fate, despite that easily cutting. Where the sharp instrument pected from a made for TV flick identified with signs of middle class is used , the thug wielding it says more but not without more gut-gripplin~ success - beauty, poise and, for a teen people will be wearing eye-patches, moments of suspense , the seemingly ager, pimple-free skin - will be that on the last word there is a witty cut to obligatory chase scene, and the some described earlier by Larry. a fig leaf on an alabaster David in the what implausible way Brennan leads Predictably, too, her fate becomes bar, an e.vepatch if ever there was one. police to the king pin's mansion. entwined with Brennan's. She shows Later the same thug says, "The citi Some questions, however, remain . up as a waitress in his haunt, then as zens have their police , we have ours." Casting a black (Calvin Butler) as a a shy , reluctant participant in a topless Criminal violence differs little from pimp, white stetson not withstanding, stage show. At first she is shielded by socially sanctioned violence. might confirm the racist prejudices Shiela, the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold now bubbling below the smug sur played by Jayne Eastwood with her In this bizarre world, where promises faces in Canada - unless this is a mar usual super competence. But Sheila's to do anything in return for a fix are keting ploy for stateside acceptance. shield is as short-lived as Sheila. She honored, Anne is put to the test with Torgov is a remarkable young actress.
Cinema Canada/7 1 fiLm REYIEWf
In one scene when she parrots para graphs from self-help books about giving and sharing, it can be seen how easily the supposed gospel truth in such books can be manipulated to serve any end. Warren Davis, once an offi cial CBC face and voice, suffers from that old Canadian actor's problem of too much TV exposure. (Can you see Peter Kent as Citizen Kane, or Barbara Walters as Lady Macbeth?) And the attention to TV lighting values of 2: 1 or 3: 1 robs Spry of the expressionistic tools of shadow manipulation. Drying up the Streets flirts with the skirts of sensationalism, even lift ing them at times. It has none of the didacticism of One Man: it sensitizes viewers to social problems with shock. Doug Isaac
R. Martin Walters' MARIE-ANNE d. R. Martin Walters, sc. Marjorie Morgan, adapt. George Salverson, ph. Reginald Morris, ed. Stanley Fra zen, sd. Chris Large, m. Maurice Mar shall, J.p. Andree Pelletier, John Juliana, Gordon Tootoosis, Bill Dowson, David Schurmann, Linda Kupecek, Bill Meilen, Tantoo Martin, p. Fil Fraser, p.c. The Motion Picture Corporation of about our lives and heritage (of course according to criteria just as rigorous Alberta 1978, running time 88 minutes. retouching them for painless consump as we would apply to any mm and tion just like the Americans do) has it has to be said that by these stan tended to overwhelm any objective dards Why Shoot The Teacher is an Marie-Anne is the second feature local assessment of the fIlm's actual artistic failure enlivened by moments to be turned out by Edmonton pro worth. The Alberta public flocked of authenticity and insight, and Marie ducer Fil Fraser, who made his debut eagerly to Why Shoot The Teacher, Anne a movie of no special interest. in the Canadian fIlm industry not too as it is now doing to Marie-Anne, Marie-Anne (scripted by Marjorie long ago with Why Shoot The Teacher. like proud parents going to watch ju Morgan and directed by R. Martin Like that fIlm, Marie-Anne is a movie nior in the school play ; and for them WaIters) is the story of the first white shot in Alberta on a subject drawn the question of how good Marie-Anne woman to come to Alberta. In the from local history, and as such it has is when compared to (say) Pretty interests of conveying some idea of a a peculiar fascination for Alberta au Baby or even to J .A. Martin Photo mm whose major problem is that it diences. Until Fil Fraser came along, graphe is likely to appear meaningless seems completely boneless and insub it seemed, people in this part of Canada in the strictest sense of the term. stantial, I'm going to give a full sum had never seen themselves or their his After all, you just don't look at your mary of the scenario - more, perhaps, tory fictionalized on the screen - un own child's performance in the same than you ever wanted to know about less it was in the course of an occasional critical light as you would Glenda During the lengthy credit sequence Eastern-financed project, or during one Jackson's Hedda Gabler. we see Baptiste Lagirnodiere, an agent of Hollywood's brief, absurd forays Nevertheless, if filmmaking in West of the Hudson's Bay Company, fro north. Thus the shock of finding that ern Canada is to escape from parochial licking merrily through the autumn it's possible for us to make real movies smallness of vision , it must be judged woods near Fort Edmonton with his
72/Cinema Canada