FILM KULTURE

Rip It Up, Issue 3, 1 August 1977, Page 4

FILM KULTURE

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Well, the 9th Auckland International Film Festival is over. 37 films in two weeks. Phew! The great audience can now truckle back home and catch up on other cultural activities around the city. After a month all that will remain for some is that half-empty bottle of Optrex ih the bathroom cupboard. Looking around the festival audiences it would be interesting to take a survey of their film-going habits. What is the state of the seventh art in Auckland (and New Zealand) to cause this mighty bottleneck each July. Some pertinent questions might be posed: Are the films that good? I would question the necessity for Widerberg - schmaltz like Stubby or what sounded like a rather drawn-out essay in French sophistry in Marguerite Duras' India Song. Even Jancso s Private Vices, Public Virtues was a bit of a disappointment lacking the power and fibre of his earlier films. In the first half welcome touches of humour livened the film but the script seemed to run out half way through the film to the overall detriment of the work. Minor quibbles, admittedly, but as these films comes as part and parcel of our annual fortnight of ‘good movies', they seem to bask in a noli me tangere critical quarantine.

Are the films that recent? The average date of production tends to be 1974/5. There is nothing wrong with that but, in view of the 'high art' atmosphere of the festival, it seems that Time has offered some substantiation of their worth. What it does is to lend a scholarly caution to the festival which I am not sure is a good thing. Censorship doesn t help either, and the magical "RFF (Restricted to Film Festival audiences) after a good proportion of the films must attract some people for the wrong reasons. Then there is the programming itself. This reached a peak of ridiculousness on Sunday, 17th July when four fine films ( The Memory of Justice, Duelle, Meat and The Mother and the Whore) were screened with a few minutes in between each. A total of twelve hour's viewing for the dedicated cineaste.

Shorts are an irritant too. With the exception of a brilliant Canadian short The Street, I have found these to be eminently forgettable. The worst was a 50 minute Australian horror on Spiders screened with Welles F for Fake.

Have the distributors done their duty now that the Festival is over? How does this Festival reflect New Zealand s film release policy in general? I speak for Auckland only, but when are we to see Penn's Night Moves, Altman s Buffalo Bill or Ritchie s Smile 7

Attitudes to American films are still very undeveloped in this country, although we did manage to get five in this festival. A backlash of conservatism still equates the art film with foreign movies. Subtitles maketh the film, as they say. As if one can really appreciate a film without understand-

ing the language the characters are speaking. Seeing Myra Breckinridge with French subtitles would make you realise how limited they can be in conveying the inflections, nuances and literal meaning of the original. Obligatory reading to anyone interested in American cinema is Andrew Sarris' The American Cinema (Dutton, 1968) in which nearly every American director is rated and discussed. A quirky and, personal book in many respects, but still a very levelheaded and thought-provoking assessment of directors such as Preminger, Fuller, Sirk, Garnett etc., etc. Anti-American attitudes also per-

meate many people s feelings towards the small screen. But let's face it, for literate scripts, acting and production values, recent American comedy shows such as All in the Family, One Day at a Time, Tony Randall Show are hard to beat. And, with your Andrew Sarris in hand, you will be more prepared to deal with those lovely pieces of esoterica that crop up in the old movie slots. In the past twelve months we have had such delights as Lang s Blue Gardenia, Tashlin s Cinderfella, Karlson s The Brothers Rico, Boetticher s Comanche Station, Siodmak's Cry of the City and Lubitsch s Cluny Brown. I wrote my first column about Phil Ochs' sufferings at the hands of an unsympathetic rock world. In film a parallel could be drawn with'Frank Tashlin. The same Frank Tashlin who made The Girl Can't Help It which must be the best rock film ever. Now, such brilliant Tashlin satires as The Disorderly Oiderly, Who's Minding the Store and Hollywood or Bust are relegated to local kiddie's matinees, as Jerry Lewis pictures. And Lewis own directorial efforts, including the brilliant Big Mouth do not even merit that much attention.

There are many parallels between the rock and film world. They both use a lot of money for both production and distribution of the article. You're only as good as your last film or record seems to be the golden rule. You also have to -be very careful to retain ultimate control over your work Peckinpah s Major Dundee and the Stones' Decca recordings offer two instances of this pitfall. Both arts seem to inspire attitudes of antipathy and condescension in some people there are always those who think Chabrier's Espana is 'serious' music whilst Joni Mitchell and Chick Corea would remain fair and square on the other side of the fence. They are arts where some are forgotten because they choose to carefully cultivate their own plot of ground, whether it be Boetticher s Westerns or Van Dyke Park s Carribean musings. They are both arts in which the public taste is caught by the big, the vulgar and the obvious. They both seem to have a tough time making it down under. William Dart