Vol. 23, No. 2, Winter, 1969-1970.Pdf
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?IIL ::--:-:-::A Y::1::1~R T E R L 01- I:~i- lciiil~ii~iii~riil N .5iiilliiiiiijillli: ::l-.;:::::iilii~l .iii:-:l i~i'i :l::?i?::;~l?NNWi --iil-lii;;iii-iiii:~?'?iiiiiiii% :.'k"~'~~I~i?-B".1"i4 ;;E . iq.i mi:??i~?ii id"iiii:i:iii~~i~iiii ii~-ii;i'~i 31?s tkiiii~iil ~w . - -7? A- i:?i l~~::j::~~~w~iii IS???lE'-i -wlii-li~ ~ ~ i~iis ACE"',;W`: ;1 0 410~iiiiiiiiiiiii a I WA."'::?iiii'~i:ii Amiiiiiiiii~iiiiii -;ii.iiii~iiii~ii3 'i ? 4,::i:_:::`---iiiii . ... ...... i????iii~i"il i'iiii ??. so n d :' " ': '' -_iiii'i:~i:~ -iii~~l:?i ~'':''''i-4.7 X i iii ijixa . ......... ..ii~iiii~iii PARADIGM FILM EDDIE-New York Festival '69 NO VIETNAMESE EVER CALLED ME NIGGER-Mannheim, New York, San Francisco, Chicago Festivals '68; Melbourne & Sydney Festivals '69. A Paradigm Production MEAN TO ME-New York Festival '69 MY GIRL FRIEND'S WEDDING-New York Festival '69; Cannes '69. A Paradigm Production _.l HOW DO YOU SEDUCE A MAN-New York Festival '69 ONCE UPON A LINE-Chicago & 3rd International Festivals, '68 SECRET CINEMA-London Festival '66; New York Festival '67 THE AROUSING-British Board of Film Censors Reject r NEW INDEPENDENT EXPERIMENTAL FILMS o 0- THEATRICAL---COLLEGE-SPECIALIZED DISTRIBUTION 0 FOR RENTAL RATES AND PRINT PURCHASE INFORMATION: c1 (% ED B PARADIGM-LOS ANGELES PARADIGM-NEW YORK 1356 N. GENESEE AVENUE 90046 2248 BROADWAY 10024 (213) 874-4486 (212) 787-4200 1 VOL. XXIII, No. 2 Winter 1969-1970 Editor's Notebook ARTICLES AMERICANNEW WAVE? So is the of End of the Road? STEPHEN FARBER 3 compelling appeal Midnight Cow- boy, Easy Rider, Medium Cool, and Alice's Prospects of the Ethnographic Film Restaurant that many theaters accustomed to DAVID IMAcDOUGALL 16 showing a wide range of art-house films seem to Lost Films from National Film Collection have been deserted by their customary young audiences. The belated in RICHARD KOSZARSKI 31 appearance Holly- wood films of concerns and style preferences Redivivus Wajda that used to be confined to "underground" or KRZYSZTOF-TEODORTOEPLITZ 37 imported films is hurting many theaters already Comparative Anatomy of Folk-Myth Films: in trouble from the competition of exploitation Robin Hood and Antonio das Mortes houses. On the box-office front at least, then, ERNEST CALLENBACH 42 these new films constitute some kind of break- through; and their success has caused, at least temporarily, an almost ludicrously warm wel- REVIEWS come for new young film-makers in the industry. MediumCool: Stay with Us, NBC The assessment of any body of new work takes JUDITH SHATNOFF 47 time; this was true of the French New Wave in 1959-1960 and it will Medium Cool: Haskell Wexler's Radical be true of these films and Education RICHARDCORLISS 51 their successors now in production. As in the French case, it is easy to exaggerate the amount Ma Nuit Chez Maud GRAHAMPETRIE 57 of similarity among the new directors; films that Black God and White Devil have a certain degree of shared subject-matter ALLAN FRANCOVICH59 may nonetheless vary widely. In France it took several years for it to be clear to all that the dif- ferences among, say, Godard, Resnais, and Truf- SHORTNOTICES 62 faut were profound. We can as yet only guess what directions may be taken in future by Wex- ler, Hopper, Penn, or other directors such as Francis Coppola. In France the eruption of under-30 culture onto the screens in serious films was dramatic, but it did not solve the crisis of the French industry. And, perhaps most difficult to discuss, the French breakthrough like the American involved subtle problems of style, nar- rative point of view, and filmic conventions gen- COVER:Haskell Wexler shooting in the streets of erally. Where the New Wave mostly escaped the Chicago on Medium Cool. academic methods of the established industry FILM is QUARTERLY published by the University of California Press, Berkeley, California 94720. per copy, $5.00 per year in the U.S., Canada, and Pan-America. Special two-year subscription rate: $8.00. Elsewhere: $2.50 per copy,$1.25 $9.00 per year. Editor: ERNEST Assistant to the GRANA. New CALLENBACH. Editor: MARIGAY York Editors: ROBERT HUGHES and JUDITH Los Angeles Editor: STEPHENFARBER. Paris Editor: GINETTE Editor: SHATNOFF. BILLARD. Rome GIDEON BACHMANN. London Editor: PETER CowIE. Advisory Edi- torial Board: ANDRIES AUGUST FRUGE, HUGH GRAY, ALBERT NEAL DEINUM, JOHNSON, OXENHANDLER, COLIN YOUNC. Copyright 1969 by The Regents of the University of California. Views expressed in signed articles are those of the authors. Indexed in Reader's Guide to Peri. odical Literature, Art Index and Social Sciences and Humanities Index. Published quarterly. Second-class postage paid at California. Printed in U.S.A. Berkeley, 1 VOL. XXIII, No. 2 Winter 1969-1970 Editor's Notebook ARTICLES AMERICANNEW WAVE? So is the of End of the Road? STEPHEN FARBER 3 compelling appeal Midnight Cow- boy, Easy Rider, Medium Cool, and Alice's Prospects of the Ethnographic Film Restaurant that many theaters accustomed to DAVID IMAcDOUGALL 16 showing a wide range of art-house films seem to Lost Films from National Film Collection have been deserted by their customary young audiences. The belated in RICHARD KOSZARSKI 31 appearance Holly- wood films of concerns and style preferences Redivivus Wajda that used to be confined to "underground" or KRZYSZTOF-TEODORTOEPLITZ 37 imported films is hurting many theaters already Comparative Anatomy of Folk-Myth Films: in trouble from the competition of exploitation Robin Hood and Antonio das Mortes houses. On the box-office front at least, then, ERNEST CALLENBACH 42 these new films constitute some kind of break- through; and their success has caused, at least temporarily, an almost ludicrously warm wel- REVIEWS come for new young film-makers in the industry. MediumCool: Stay with Us, NBC The assessment of any body of new work takes JUDITH SHATNOFF 47 time; this was true of the French New Wave in 1959-1960 and it will Medium Cool: Haskell Wexler's Radical be true of these films and Education RICHARDCORLISS 51 their successors now in production. As in the French case, it is easy to exaggerate the amount Ma Nuit Chez Maud GRAHAMPETRIE 57 of similarity among the new directors; films that Black God and White Devil have a certain degree of shared subject-matter ALLAN FRANCOVICH59 may nonetheless vary widely. In France it took several years for it to be clear to all that the dif- ferences among, say, Godard, Resnais, and Truf- SHORTNOTICES 62 faut were profound. We can as yet only guess what directions may be taken in future by Wex- ler, Hopper, Penn, or other directors such as Francis Coppola. In France the eruption of under-30 culture onto the screens in serious films was dramatic, but it did not solve the crisis of the French industry. And, perhaps most difficult to discuss, the French breakthrough like the American involved subtle problems of style, nar- rative point of view, and filmic conventions gen- COVER:Haskell Wexler shooting in the streets of erally. Where the New Wave mostly escaped the Chicago on Medium Cool. academic methods of the established industry FILM is QUARTERLY published by the University of California Press, Berkeley, California 94720. per copy, $5.00 per year in the U.S., Canada, and Pan-America. Special two-year subscription rate: $8.00. Elsewhere: $2.50 per copy,$1.25 $9.00 per year. Editor: ERNEST Assistant to the GRANA. New CALLENBACH. Editor: MARIGAY York Editors: ROBERT HUGHES and JUDITH Los Angeles Editor: STEPHENFARBER. Paris Editor: GINETTE Editor: SHATNOFF. BILLARD. Rome GIDEON BACHMANN. London Editor: PETER CowIE. Advisory Edi- torial Board: ANDRIES AUGUST FRUGE, HUGH GRAY, ALBERT NEAL DEINUM, JOHNSON, OXENHANDLER, COLIN YOUNC. Copyright 1969 by The Regents of the University of California. Views expressed in signed articles are those of the authors. Indexed in Reader's Guide to Peri. odical Literature, Art Index and Social Sciences and Humanities Index. Published quarterly. Second-class postage paid at California. Printed in U.S.A. Berkeley, 2 EDITOR'SNOTEBOOK through a turn toward very personal, often "sub- For any reader contemplating an intimate rela- jective" cinema, very free and self-conscious in itionship with a computer, several words of its camerawork and editing, American new warning. Aside from their inherent and expected directors are facing another set of problems: the "stupidity," computers also suffer both mechan- relating of "real" footage (and more or less real ical and electronic breakdowns-some of which, people) with dramatic contexts, the difficult despite their advertised image of infallibility, problems of attitude and thought that must be are difficult for their makers to fix. They require solved in confronting the realities of American highly trained programmers to supervise their life. operations, and carefully programmed people to These realities have been touched upon in predigest information for them. The change- some 16mm films for years-as in the under- over period to a computer system takes some ground press, various media freak-outs, rock months; and it is folly to dismantle your old music, and so on. Their confrontation by the system until you have the new one operating 35mm film, however welcome, is the overdue smoothly, even though that means double costs closing of a cultural lag. What the consequences for a sizable period. Caveat emptor! will be, in even the short run, is hard to see. But in this issue, at the risk of a certain amount of CONTRIBUTORS overlap, we return to several films discussed in our last issue; and the articles and reviews in DAN BATESnow lives in Los Angeles.