Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501230019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"The business people enlisted the help of all the best storytellers, and together they developed a style of storytelling on a scale previously unimaginable. Soon the system they created and the stories they produced captured the whole world."
That's how "American Cinema" begins. It's a new PBS series, also available on video cassette. The 10-part program is right up there with public television's best: informative, surprising and, like its subject, entertaining. Unlike most documentaries about movies, though, it goes beyond the conventional "feel-good" montage of clips from favorite films to explore how and why those clips make us feel good.
The episodes are arranged thematically and chronologically, and they focus on both the business and art of the movies. The relationship between those two sides is fundamental to any understanding of American movies. It's particularly striking in the seventh program, "Film in the Television Age." Executive producer and director Lawrence Pitkethly notes that in 1946 more than half the population, some 90 million people, went to the movies at least once a week. The Hollywood studios were at the peak of their power, and every film they made was, in essence, rated G. All movies were meant for all audiences.
When television emerged and took over that role in popular entertainment, film had to change. That led to the various wide screen formats from CinemaScope to Cinerama, and changes in subject matter for the movies themselves. Then as it developed, television became the training ground for people who would move on to make feature films in the '50s and '60s, further changing the medium.
The four episodes I've seen are fascinating - "Film Noir" is properly irreverent - and I recommend the series without reservation. It will be broadcast on WBRA (Channel 15) next week. (See today's Spectator for listings and an interview with Pitkethly. Video cassettes are available for purchase at 1-800-LEARNER).
Haskell Wexler is one of the filmmakers who's interviewed in "American Cinema." An Oscar-winning cinematographer, he's known best to movie fans for one film - the innovative and controversial "Medium Cool."
Though it's one of the most important films of the 1960s, distribution in theaters and on tape has been limited. Next month, 27 years after it was made, "Medium Cool" will finally be available to a wide audience on a low-priced videocassette.
The film, reviewed here a few years ago, tells a fictional story with documentary techniques and actual footage of events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It's a challenging work that's just as engrossing, watchable and, yes, relevant as it's ever been. The points that it raises about violence, television and viewers' reactions haven't changed. In a telephone interview, Haskell Wexler was still passionate and outspoken in his defense of the film.
From its initial "X" rating to the studio's decision to put the film's video release "in moratorium" for several years, "Medium Cool" has been a source of controversy. Wexler thinks that Paramount executives have always been uncomfortable with the work because it's so political and so overtly critical of established power structures, both governmental and corporate. He's probably right.
It's a confrontational look at confrontational times, and today, no one would argue with the key points that Wexler makes. The FBI and other government agencies did use news footage to identify "radicals and agitators." The National Guard and the Chicago police lost control of political demonstrations and were responsible, at least in part, for the violence that followed.
Wexler incorporated both ideas in his story. But the most surprising thing is that Wexler did not have to change his film to fit the facts; he predicted them. "I wrote practically everything in the film," he said. "The script was registered with the writer's guild two months before the convention."
Of course, he was lucky, too. He didn't know that he'd be able to film the Illinois National Guard's training exercises and balance those scenes against the real demonstrations. Though he thought there would be some dramatic moments at the convention, "I didn't understand the extent of the dissent or the reaction to it, and I thought there'd be more black involvement in protests from the left."
He used some improvisation, too. The film begins with a long cocktail party where characters talk about the duties and responsibilities of TV news. The scene combines characters from the film with real newspeople discussing their business. Wexler didn't know what he was going to do with the footage as he shot it. He simply invited the people over and let them do and say what they felt, with no coaching or direction from him. "They understood it about as much as I did."
In the context of the film, the scene is unexpected and unsettling, as it should be. The ending - in which Wexler literally turns his camera on the viewer - does the same.
For those who have only heard about "Medium Cool," this re-release is long overdue. Those like me, who have seen it more than once already, will find that it's one of those rare films that reveals more every time you watch it. In any case, "Medium Cool" belongs in every videophile's library.
New releases
Natural Born Killers HH1/2
Starring Woody Harrelson, Juliet Lewis. Directed by Oliver Stone. Warner Home Video. 120 min. Rated R for graphic violence, strong language, sexual material.
Like almost all of Oliver Stone's films, this one is compelling, stylistically rich and seriously flawed. Told with the pace and look of a rock video, it's a two-hour hallucination of violence - "A Clockwork Orange" taken to the nth degree. Stone means it to be a parody of contemporary attitudes toward celebrity criminals. But the film falls victim to its own excesses. It has nothing new to say about the subject and leaves a bitter aftertaste of hypocrisy.
Trial By Jury ** 1/2
Starring Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Armand Assante, William Hurt, Gabriel Byrne. Written and directed by Heywood Gould. Warner Home Video. 105 min. Rated R for graphic violence, strong language, subject matter, sexual content.
There's a fine thriller somewhere inside this one, struggling to get out. The story concerns a juror (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) threatened by the gangster (Assante) who's on trial. If everyone else had been as smooth and convincing as William Hurt is in a supporting role, the film might have been terrific. They're not, and it isn't.
American Cinema ***
PBS Home Video. each episode, approximately 55 min. Unrated, contains some strong language, violence.
Medium Cool ****
Paramount. 111 min. Rated R for brief nudity, sexual content, strong language, violence.
Next month: Haskell Wexler is one of the filmmakers who's interviewed in "American Cinema." An Oscar-winning cinematographer, he's known best to movie fans for one film - the innovative and controversial "Medium Cool."
Though it's one of the most important films of the 1960s, distribution in theaters and on tape has been limited. Next month, 27 years after it was made, "Medium Cool" will finally be available to a wide audience on a low-priced videocassette.
by CNB