42 March 1986 Marxism Today

executive of Goldcrest that Revolution was GOLDCREST'S REVOLUTION commissioned and made. His successor, Jake Eberts, has the unenviable task of Graham McCann selling it. There are considerable questions to be answered: Revolution's budget could have paid for Angel, Wetherby, and Letter to In 1981, Colin Welland and Hugh Hudson ment realised in May 1985 that the com­ Brezhnev. held aloft the Oscar for . pany was going broke. Its lack of funds was Revolution stars as New York The future of British film looked good. In caused by an over-ambitious production river trader Tom Dobb, a man drawn early 1985, Goldcrest were involved in programme which severely strained the reluctantly into the war through his son, significant film-making programmes. company's resources. who has been forced into the army as a Small production companies were de­ Hugh Hudson's Revolution absorbed so drummer boy and captured by the En­ veloping local talent; Channel 4's low- much of Goldcrest's resources that its glish. He is helped by the fiercely patriotic budget film programme was finally result­ reception was awaited with an anxiety aristocrat Daisy McConnahay (Nastassia ing in some serious pieces of cinema; and a bordering on desperation. The critics were Kinski), and hounded by a thoroughly fair mix of Oscar nominations and festival quick to call the film a catastrophe, a unpleasant Sergeant Major Peasy (Donald accolades was collected. commercial calamity that left the British Sutherland) from the British Army. The Then suddenly last summer, the sirens film industry close to collapse. It was supporting cast includes Joan Plowright started sounding. Goldcrest's manage­ during James Lee's brief tenure as chief and Steven Berkoff, with Eurythmics sin-

Revolutionaries: Al Pacino (below) and Nastassia Kinski look on while the American army lays seige to the British garrison at Yorktown March 1986 Marxism Today 43

ger Annie Lennox making a creditable film debut as a firebrand. The story represents an uneasy union of two recent themes in American cinema: the father-son rela­ tionship of Kramer versus Kramer, and the radicalism/romance of Reds. Hugh Hudson's film taps one of the richest veins in American folklore: the individual against the majority, against conformity, against containment. Tom Dobb is an appreciation of the 'common man', eventually inspired by independ­ ence as the rich merchant daughter pushes him towards the realisation that he is acting out a moment of history: down these muddy streets a man must go. Hudson Following the Soweto uprisings in 1976, many South African schoolchildren fled from police chose Pacino for his ability to portray the violence into neighbouring countries. The ANC responded by creating a complex of schools in plain but passionate Dobb: 'we didn't Tanzania - the Solomon Mhlangu Freedom College - so that these children could continue their education. The college is part of a small town with over 2,000 people: it has to provide everything want an actor who would stand out in the from food to medicines. Mazimbu - Behind the Lines of a Liberation Movement, showing on crowd', explains Hudson, 'but rather Channel 4 on March 3 looks at the experiences of pupils and teachers at the college and someone who blended into the back­ examines the philosophy that inspires this project. ground, just another poor recruit caught It is an interesting film not least because it shows another side of the ANC's work - one not up in the war. Al is the only superstar who normally seen on tv. Its weakness, however, is that it does not take on board any criticism of their kind of teaching, for there will inevitably be some shock reactions from those who think that could be accepted as one of the people.' the school is just another form of communist indoctrination. As a narrative the film struggles to do Despite its unquestioning view of the school, the film implicitly raises a lot of questions about credit to its original sources. The Amer­ the nature of socialist education. But, more importantly, it provides a fascinating and unique insight into the school, making public its work and the need for international support for the ican War of Independence lasted for eight venture to continue. years. Thus, the action in Revolution spans Sally Hibbin. a considerable period - from the opening credits in which a mob topples a New York viduals or command our interest as and lighting cameramiai Bernard Lutic statue of George III in 1776, to the end of emblematic figures. Pacino is muffled by adopt a documentary device, taking the the war in 1783 when Britain finally recog­ mediocre lines; Kinski is obliged to be camera, hand-held, into the thick of the nised America's independence. In be­ stereotypically 'female', flitting in and out battle. The effect is to eavesdrop on his­ tween came all the key battles: Brooklyn of frame to no great effect; Donald Suther­ tory, but the effect does not match that in Heights, Valley Forge, and Yorktown. As land's performance is almost beneath cri­ Wajda's Danton or Beatty's Reds. the action builds, we see the first tentative ticism, shamelessly sporting a Yorkshire 18th century America is admirably re­ steps of the Rocky-Rambo-Reagan man, a dialect previously heard on Hovis adver­ created in . Indeed, any film­ deceptively 'earnest' individual. tisements. The British are presented as a maker who manages to make King's Lynn Revolution's budget escalated from decadent, classbound coterie of powdered appear as a hotbed of revolutionary fervour $15m to $22m. Hudson attributes the rise ponces, fops, pederasts and sadists. is not without prodigious talents. Yet the in cost to poor weather and subsequent The film works on the war without technical proficiency is squandered: Re­ shooting delays, and the fact that filming supplying any sense of the politics, the volution rolls along, struggling to find a was halted when Pacino fell ill: 'This is a strategy, the geography, or the timescale of plot. major international film, to be shown all the conflict. The big, bloody, booming In order to salvage its standing, Gold- around the world. Compared with almost battle scenes punctuate the more intimate crest has been courting the heads of the any Spielberg picture the price is modest, scenes like commercial breaks - intrusive major US studios. Heads have already yet he isn't attacked for over-spending'. without being illuminating. 'Get outta rolled at Goldcrest, and Jake Eberts is back After making an expensive epic which has here, ya negro', shouts a white after the with his 'small is beautiful' philosophy. little to phone home about, Hudson's victory of Yorktown. 'We want our free­ Three films are in the can, of which defiance is quite astonishingly arrogant. dom too', the black shouts back, thus Revolution is the first. Goldcrest shared Whatever the reasons, the cost of Revolu­ raising the racial issue for the first and final production costs with Warner Brothers tion has put in jeopardy the careers of many time. It is such uneveness that suggests and the Norwegian company, Viking. Half talented young British film-makers. poor planning or ill-conceived editing. of their money has already been recouped The script is flawed at every level, The film does look quite beautiful, with in pre-sales: theatrical rights, television including that of coherent narrative. The its muted and grainy advertising hues. and video sales. What will determine Gold- three key characters whose paths cross and Hudson can certainly compose a shot, but crest's immediate future is the commercial re-cross over the years - Dobb, Daisy and the camp quality of Cambridge in Chariots fate of the other two films in which it has a Peasy - remain mere cyphers. They signal­ is alien to early America, where the dia­ stake: Roland Joffe's The Mission and ly fail to engage our sympathy as indi­ logue is dwarfed by the images. Hudson Julien Temple's Absolute Beginners.