Sd-Fi Flies High by Charles Nicol

THE ARTS Sd-Fi Flies High by Charles Nicol

The spaceship Cygnus entering the black hole in Disney's journey into SF—Glimpses of heaven and a quite literal hell. CIENCE FICTION has replaced the magazines and drugstore paperbacks. of Battlestar Galactica, an ill-starred ve spy film—which replaced the SF has always been concerned with hicle that fled through the ether in dis Swestern—on the motion picture science in the broadest sense. Current array all last season and this past month screen. The enormous success of Star novels explore not just robots, relativity, finally found Earth. The Black Hole cli Wars signaled a revolution in popular computers, and cloning, but the realms maxes with glimpses of heaven and a taste on which the studios have been of ecology, politics, anthropology, and quite literal hell. quick to capitalize: This past Christmas linguistics. At its best, SF faces a num Favorite campus novels of the last de they gave us, instead of yet another ber of mankind's central concerns; on the cade have included Hermann Hesse's James Bond thriller, Star Trek and The one hand, the fabric of reality and the Magister Ludi (also called The Glass Black Hole. The Christmas offering in mechanics of society; on the other, the Bead Game), in which monastics of the 1978 was Superman (the story of a flying limitations of the rational mind and the future meet to play an enormously com Alien who turns into syrup when confrontation with the Alien, the in plex computer-simulation game for heated), the year before, the well-crafted comprehensible stranger who also glory; Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Chse Encounters of the Third Kind. And dwells within us. With our increasing Strange Land, where the sole survivor of the home screen is not far behind. While estrangement from our own technology, the first Martian expedition returns to this year's late entry in the James Bond science has itself become the Alien for Earth with new-found powers, including sweepstakes, A Man Called Sloane, ran many, and the rising popularity of SF grokking, which he shares with his fol dead last in the ratings, Buck Rogers in testifies to the need it fills. lowers in a religious awakening; Kurt the 25th Century more than held its own; SF fills other needs as well: It is the Vonnegut's Catfs Cradle, where the self- The Martian Chronicles was a mini-se only popular genre to be implicitly or made holy man Bokonon explains that ries; even PBS gambled heavily, trotting explicitly religious. This interest in the only proper response to the end of out Ursula K. LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven transcendence ranges from the sublime the world is "thumbing my nose at You as its "first major" speculative-fiction to the subbasement: from the Know Who"; and J. R. R. Tolkien's The movie. Yet there are peculiar limitations Nietzschean prophecies oi 2001 (begin Lord of the Rings, which is not really SF in all these ventures, reflecting the ning with its first moments, when orbs but shares much common ground, as strange history of SF in the United roll in the heavens to the music of A Zso half-men (hobbits, in other words) battle States, lb understand what is happen Sprach Zarathustra) to the rather en the Dark Powers in a gently religious ing today in the visual media we need to dearing Force of Star Wars, tended by its fantasy. Academic courses in SF (now of look at the idea of science fiction itself Arthurian priesthood of Jedi Knights; fered at more than 200 colleges and uni and its 50-year struggle to escape from from the Aliens bathed in light of Chse versities) frequently include Walter M. the dank American subculture of pulp Encounters to the pretentious biblicality Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, in

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THE WiNEFY OF ERNEST &JuLD ^^ GALLO

French Colombard of Calif. PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG Ernest & Julio Gallo, Modesto, CA ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED which post-holocaust monasteries treat lightful season of half-hour dramas on the surviving scientific artifacts as re- TV. Instead, they have been brutally hgious icons. forced into the epic format of three con This celestial focus has prompted the secutive two-hour programs—some SF writer Joanna Russ to suggest that thing on the order of Roots. Great care science fiction is a unique phenomenon was taken with some of the stories, but to which current literary criticism is in butterflies knotted together on a string applicable, a phenomenon akin not to don't fly well. other contemporary writing but to medi In the 1940s, the newly invented eval literature. She finds it confident of comic books drove most pulp magazines its own values, didactic in nature, and out of business by taking over their concerned with Everyman rather than readership (millions of comics went to the Individual: war with the GIs). But the SF magazines had developed a more sophisticated and Science fiction, like medieval painting, ad specialized audience and consequently dresses itself to the mind, not the eye.... Thus were among the few pulps to survive. the science fiction writer can portray Jupiter They had introduced hard science in as easily as the medieval painter can portray crudely dramatized novels by honest-to- Heaven; neither of them has been there, but god scientists, and republished the sci that doesn't matter. To turn from other mod entific romances of Jules Verne and the em fiction to science fiction is oddly like turn careful speculations of Wells. Their ing from Renaissance painting with all the readership found no satisfaction in the flesh and foreshortening to the clarity and lu- simplicities of the comics. Indeed, the minousness of painters who paint ideas. For rise of more crude forms of popular en this reason, science fiction, like much medi tertainment purged the pulps of their eval art, can deal with transcendental events. own inanities: Readers who craved Hence the tendency of science fiction towards BEMs (bug-eyed monsters) abandoned wonder, awe, and a religious or quasi-re hard science for radio, the comic books, ligious attitude towards the universe. the comic strips of Buck Rogers and ("Towards an Aesthetic of Science Fiction," Flash Gordon, and the movie serials of Science-Fiction Studies, July 1975) the Saturday matinees where Buster Her argument is well observed and per Crabbe aimed his ray-gun at fat rockets suasive. It explains the unexpected af that swung lazily overhead, emitting finities between American SF readers sparks and the drone of buzz saws. and those fine Oxford medievalists and Much of our supposed SF in the visual Christian apologists, Tolkien and C. S. media today is nostalgia for this silly Lewis. It reminds us of the joyfully inno stuff. Star Wars was less science fiction cent names SF pulp magEizines used to than a loving evocation of old movies, have: Amazing Stories, Astounding Sci and while most of these were Saturday ence Fiction, Marvel Science Stories, serials, the final battle sequence seems Thrilling Wonder Stories. But this un stolen frame by frame from the terrific critical sense of awe was also a severe ending of The Bridges at Toko-Ri, a fly limitation that kept our SF juvenile. ing epic from the Korean War. Appar Tb remind ourselves how bad the old ently to obtain an equivalent for the pulps really were, we need go no further river canyon and its anti-aircraft bat than Mars. At the beginning of our cen teries, director George Lucas gouged a tury it was scientifically respectable to giant groove around the belly of the conjecture that Mars was inhabited, par Death Star Buck Rogers on television is ticularly after the careful observations more deliberate nostalgia, and even has and widely published speculations of the cameo appearances by Buster Crabbe astronomer Percival Lowell. In England himself My children and I eagerly await in 1898, H. G. Wells wrote The War of the next season's continuation, just as we Worlds, a masterpiece that showed the await with impatience this spring's The inadequacy of our proud technology to Empire Strikes Back, but there is a limit deal with the Alien. But in brash Amer to one's appetite for juvenilia, and no fu ica, John Carter easily conquered Mar ture in the past. Man does not live by tians with giant leaps and swordplay in candy alone. The future of visual SF de a series of pulp novels by Edgar Rice pends on the screenwriters adopting the Burroughs. The first and best, A Prin scientific attitude, just as American pulp cess of Mars, appeared in the pulps in magazines once did. But more than this, 1912, in book form five years later. Bur- they must be able to criticize that per roughs's naiveto peopled Mars with four- spective, measuring science against the armed men, six-legged horses, and great rule of our humanity. women who laid eggs, yet this puerile Screenwriters often miss the essence view of the red planet remained locked of SE The first great SF novel, Mary in the popular imagination until finally Shelley's Frankenstein, written 160 offset in 1950 by Ray Bradbury's lovely years ago, has been through countless Martian Chronicles—perhaps the first consciously literary work of American screen adaptations without ever being science fiction. These delicate, loosely understood. Mary Shelley knew that sci connected stories could have made a de ence is morally ambiguous, a blind, vi The names of these SF pulps reveal an inno sionary force. Then as now, it seemed cence that kept American SF juvenile for years.

SR 3/15/80 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG 27 ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED This is one of our hometowns: Lausanne, Switzerland

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED js it all together. It was here that the Celts brought together Western Europe's first great culture. The Romans came and made it an international crossroads. The Middle Ages left its faith in the soaring arches of the 700-year-old Cathedral. And all of it lives here still. The Lausannois have lost nothing that they liked in all their millenia of living here. Whatever pleased them, however contradictory, they kept and molded into something uniquely their own: Celtic hospitality, Roman internationalism, medieval pageantry and modern functionalism. The terraced cobblestone streets live comfortably with modern highways that bring travelers from all of Europe, and outdoor markets not much changed from the Middle Ages survive compatibly with modern markets of banking, finance and international trade. It is a city that unites, a crossroads that brings people and ideas together—for international businessmen and pleasure-seeking tourists alike. Hotel keepers from around the world come here to study the distinctive Lausanne art of making the traveler welcome—and find, to their dismay, that part of the magic lies in the incomparable setting of vineyard-clad hills sloping down to serene blue lake (Lac Leman to the Lausannois, never Lake Geneva) and the towering Alps beyond. It is a city that helps us to bring together our flourishing business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and where we've maintained one of our major international headquarters for the past 16 years. Like all the Lausannois, we find it a great place to do business and a great place to live. And if you can't do either, we know you'll find it a great place to visit. Philip Morris ΙηοοφΟΓβίβά Good people make good things. Makers of Marlboro, Benson & Hedges lOO's, Merit, Parliament Lights, Virginia Slims and Multifilter; «OTg^ Miller High Life Beer, Lite Beer and Lowenbrau Special and Dark Special Beer; #1^1*^ "^ "f ^"'^ '^'^t '^ ^^•

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONICPhntnamnh^ hi; Mnrri^l REPRODUCTION In PROHIBITED about to unlock the secrets of life and By this standard, we have had a few the universe. There were startling im good SF movies lately. They have trans plications in the discovery that the cur lated mental journeys into visual meta rent from a galvanic battery would phors, and offhandedly shown the dan cause a dead frog to kick its legs, and gers of science while rolling in it like that the same mysterious current could happy dogs in rotten earth. The classic fly from the skies down a kite string. 2001 ended with a message of renewal The key at the end of Benjamin Frank and, specifically, rebirth, but we should lin's string seemed the key to every remember that its dazzling visual effects thing. When Dr Frankenstein succeeds represented the trauma of that rebirth. in creating life—or, rather, re-creating We should also remember the struggle it—Mary Shelley explores the deep am between Dave Bowman (played by Keir bivalence of his accomplishment. Sub Dullea) and the giant computer HAL stitute for Frankenstein's Creature any (one letter in advance of IBM), a re more recent scientific advance—atomic minder that humanity must always re fission, rocketry, recombinant DNA re main in control of its destiny. search—and this double-edged sword Close Encounters of the Third Kind, still holds its temper and its bite. What its title taken from the writings of the remains constant is the drama of the ter astronomer Hayek, was another hard- rible relationship of Frankenstein and science epic, a convincing scenario for his personal Alien, their deep affinities contact with interstellar Aliens. Flying and their inability to escape each other Martians made, epic in the NBC mini-series. to San Francisco several months ago, I All of this is at the core of science fiction. looked down from 40,000 feet and saw But movies have simplified this im Hole, apparently for eternal damnation. Devil's Tower rising in splendid isola mortal conflict, trivializing it into non The Black Hole is the most ambitious tion. The top of the tower was a bright, existence, dividing these characters off project of the Disney Studios in a long slanted ellipse in the morning sunlight, into meaningless monsters and mad sci time, and their first film to get a PG while an immense shadow leaned be entists. The mad scientist of horror films rating rather than a G. Although not hind it across miles of brush and prairie- is, of course, a kind of shorthand for the very successful, it reflects one of their dog holes. It seemed a likely landmark inhuman potential of science, but this first noncartoon feature films, the mid- from outer space. Although the Aliens shorthand merely symbolizes a truth it Fifties Twenty Thousand Leagues Under were friendly enough to reprogram refuses to explore. In better films, the the Sea, in which another mad scientist- NASA's computer into a giant church Frankenstein syndrome appears again captain also went down with his ship. organ, there were enough veiled threats and again, with madman and monster James Mason had a better-trimmed in the proceedings to satisfy a re seeking each other under various guises. beard as Captain Nemo than does Schell calcitrant viewer: The Aliens had For instance, in a fine SF chiller of the as Dr Reinhardt, and Twenty Thousand snatched planes from the sky and babies mid-Fifties, Howard Hawks's The Thing Leagues Under the Sea was a quite faith from their mothers, while the army had From Another World (adapted from Who ful version of the original Jules Vjeme staged a plague of anthrax to keep the Goes There? by John W. Campbell, the novel, complete with the dark ambigu public at bay. The promise was tempered editor who put hard science into the ities of the hero who meant his mar with its sacrifices: Richard Dreyfuss pulps), an Alien and his flying saucer velous submarine as an instrument of spent most of the film possessed, ber were discovered frozen in the Arctic hope but used it as an engine of destruc serk, and destructive of suburban prop ice—the same ice into which Franken tion. The evils of mankind that he hated erty values, finally abandoning his stein's Creature disappeared in Mary were mirrored in his own person. The frightened family to meet the Aliens on Shelley's novel. Just before the Alien Nautilus was his Creature, his double, a windswept mountain. was melted into oblivion by high volt and they died together It was Verne's This leaves Gene Roddenberry's Star age, he crushed the misguided scientist best novel, Disney's best film with ac Trek. The film was disappointing be who tried to save him. In last year's tors, and an SF model to remember cause it was merely an expanded episode Alien, the spaceship's Science Officer (in of the old television series, but a better other words, the scientist—Spock cre series is hard to imagine. Roddenberry's ated the position on the Enterprise and faith in science is so great that his film now it seems to have spread through the ended with the happy mating of man fleet) tries to protect his murderous and machine. His great creation, Spock, Alien. Significantly, this scientist turns however, tells a different story. Spock out to be a robot. Human values and all, embodies the rational, scientific atti he is dismantled by the crew. tude, and refuses to recognize the Robot is a word invented by the Czech human half of his heritage. Repressing SF writer Karel Capek. SF created the his origins, Spock inevitably breaks out concept as well, obviously a necessary into occasional storms of rage, depres idea. But the robot and its creator often sion, and love. replay the Frankenstein-Creature Beyond these achievements of hard- drama. The current Black Hole features science SF lie the limitless possibilities Meiximilian Schell as a mad scientist of art, the human drama beneath a who builds robots incorporating his for burning star. Already our screens are mer crew members (the ghost in the ma exploring the bleak, comic metaphysics chine) and one master robot (named of Vonnegut, the sublime antitheses of Maximilian also, as though he were a LeGuin. May they succeed. double for the actor rather than the character. Dr. Reinhardt). This robot Charles Nicol is a professor of English at first crushes its master and then merges Indiana State University and a former with him as they descend into the Black One of Battlestar Galactica's evil Cylons. editor of Science Fiction Studies.

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PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Genius. Madman. Animal. God. Nijinsl^.

NijimM ATRUE STORY Paramount Pictures Presents A HARRY SALTZMAN Production A HERBERT ROSS Film Starring ALAN BATES LESLIE BROWNE and GEORGE De La ΡΕΝΑ "NIJINSKY" Also Starring ALAN BADEL COLIN BLAKELY CARLA FRACCI and THE LONDON FESTIVAL BALLET Music Performed by THE LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC Adapted and Conducted by JOHN LANCHBERY Additional Choreography by KENNETH MacMILLAN Associate Producer HOWARD JEFFREY Executive Producer HARRY SALTZMAN Screenplay by HUGH WHEELER ^" TZRESTmcTEo ^ J Produced by NORA KAYE and STANLEY OTOOLE Directed by HERBERT ROSS f UNDER 17 REQUIRES iCCOMPANYING i ' A η A Π" χ '• •I "RE»T[iR.DUiTEUARDi»« ; Copvnght c MCMLXXX by Paramount Pictures Corporation All Rights Reserved A ParamOUnt PlCtUre ^

EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENTS BEGIN MARCH 20th IN NEW YORK, March 21st in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C. PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG NationaELECTRONICl Release Begin REPRODUCTIONs April 4.1 Chec PROHIBITEDk Local Newspapers. DANCE Legacy of the Sun King

N A RECENT visit to Paris I saw the highlights in the repertory of a Ocompany that was established three centuries ago by the premier dan- seur etoile of the realm, Louis XIV (yes, the king was an accomplished dancer). Under the direction of Violette Verdy, until recently an internationally famous ballerina with our own New York City Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet finds it self in a state befitting artistic descen dants of the Sun King. (Verdy shares responsibility for the vivacity, discipline, and technical brilliance of the company with Claude Bessy, who has revamped, revitalized, and restored this ancient dance academy.) The great French classic, Sylvia, first given at the Opera in 1876, a year after the opening of the magnificent Palais Gamier, as the Parisians call their opera house, was given a sumptuous, new pro Guizerix as the tormented artist, Manfred. duction. A new ballet, Manfred (per formed at the Palais Des Sports), was lerina Claude de Vulpian, who danced demanding was the emotional pitch of created especially for the company by to the title role at the performance I at the ballet, which required of Guizerix an day's most celebrated dancer, Rudolf tended, dazzled the audience with pir unrelenting intensity. As the tragic Nureyev. ouettes executed to both right and left (a hero, a combination of the Manfred of The Paris Opera Ballet's Sylvia has a rare bravura display), and with a sus the poem written by Lord Byron and of lovely score by the French composer Leo tained balance on a single pointe that Byron himself, he frantically courted Delibes and a restaging by the former flaunted gravity. Her acting too—of the Astarte, the goddess of love and inspira ballerina Lycette Darsonval of Louis tough, free female, the coquettish cap tion; overindulged with revelers; sought Merante's original choreography. Sylvia tive, and the radiant heroine in love— solace from his sister; engaged in violent is so gorgeous scenically that one's was superb. Michael Denard was her ar battle with real and imagined enemies. breath is fairly taken away at the rise of dent, athletic suitor The choreographer's use of mass the curtain. Indeed, the sets reminded Olivier Patty, dancing the statue of groupings is remarkably fresh. The tab me of the brilliantly colored illustrations the god Eros come to life, brought deli leaux are wholly original, creating por in books, such as La Danza in Italia, on cious humor as well as Olympian prow traits of passion, prayer, and violence to the lavishly decorated settings for the ess to his assignment. His multicolored pinpoint the key moments in a self-de opera ballet spectacles of the late 18th wings seemed to lift him into space, to structing life. Nureyev's choreographic and 19th centuries. Sylvia, with its cast make him appear and disappear as if by paths for reaching these arresting pic of shepherds, a Greek god and goddess, magic, and, of course, to fan the flames tures flow with utter freedom. pirates, chaste maidens, and fauna, is so of true love. Manfred, a ballet theme that has been old-fashioned that it seems new. The bal- Manfred is quite another matter, for it brewing within Nureyev for some time, starkly explores both the ecstasies and has more complexities and more the torments of the artist, the man, the crowded movement sequences than one beleaguered mortal. Nureyev has woven might wish to deal with, but these be drama and poetry into his newest work come insignificant when one opens eyes (to music of Tchaikovsky), and jux and mind and memory. Some French taposed fantasy and reality as they are critics didn't much like either Manfred in the lives of most creative beings. or Sylvia—Paris is going through a Seeing it in Paris, I knew that I could not modem-dance stage, a period which we at once absorb every detail of this im experienced in the 1930s for the first mense and complex psychological por time and which the French rejected un trait in movement, but I let it sweep over til recently. But one young Paris dance me and into my consciousness. writer, Michel Odin of Figaro Magazine, Jean Guizerix, who danced the title whispered to me, as a performance of role, gave a stupendous performance. Manfred came to an end, "Do you think The physicality of the role calls for al Nureyev is the Shakespeare of the most unbelievable stamina in the bal dance?" Why not? Shakespeare, too, let's air-sm£ishing leaps, desperate rac could confuse as well as illuminate De Vulpian and Denard in a lavish Sylvia. ings, plummeting falls. But even more deeper tmths. —Walter Terry

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