FRAMED BY W. DART

Rip It Up, Issue 29, 1 December 1979, Page 18

FRAMED BY W. DART

HARDCORE Director: Paul Schrader Like the recent China Syndrome, Paul Schrader’s Hardcore is first and foremost a 'message' picture. Stanley Kramer into the eighties, so to speak. The posters describe it as a “tragic drama of a man who descends into hell to rescue a lost member of his family, whereby his faith, strength and integrity are put to the test ...” George C Scott gives a fine performance as the father whose daughter has strayed from the fold. The imagery is relevant, for the family are somewhat strict followers of the Dutch Reformed Church in Mid-Western America and teenager daughter does not return from a school trip to California. A private detective hired by Scott (a superbly seamy Peter Boyle) reveals that daughter has attained minor stardom in an anonymous porn film, and from there the film traces Scott’s attempts to track her down in the fleshpots of Los Angeles and San Francisco. There is much that is worthwhile in this film, and I was initially a little suspicious that it could represent the very worst of a fascist backlash. But then the breeding ground for the whole film the Mid-Western fundamentalist community is shown as being suitably bleak and stultifying without resorting to crude lampooning, which would have been so easy to do. Obviously these people have fine points and a sense of community spirit, but their innate capitalism and bigotry finds both parallels and contrasts with the life styles and attitudes of the West Coast sin merchants. A nice line in black humour runs through much of the film: Scott, with wig and trendy necklace interviewing prospective 'stars’ for his ‘porno movie', his meeting with the Jewish porn mogul a sort of Cecil B DeMille of the stroke epic, and even the final rampage through the S&M brothel as the two men go hurtling through the paper thin walls from 'torture chamber’ to ‘torture chamber’. At the core of the film is probably Scott's relationship with the young prostitute (Season Hubley) who helps lead him to his daughter. This is neatly written within the genre of disparate couples which Hollywood so takes to its heart, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy being a case in point. All in all an effective movie which makes some interesting comments on some of the moral predicaments that faces American culture today.

DRACULA Director: John Badham A new reworking of the old Bram Stoker classic, streets behind Herzog’s Nosferatu, but not totally negligible. As a film it is weakened by excessive striving after visual effects, reaching a nadir of silliness in Dracula and Lucy's psychedelic lovemaking. Pacing is fair, apart from a stodgy spell in the first half, but the film has a real bonus in the elegant Frank Langella and I'm sure he fills the hearts of men and women with desire and fear.

A PERFECT COUPLE Director: Robert Altman A modest little film from Altman after the fantastically rich canvas of A Wedding. Paul Dooley and Marta Heflin play two seemingly illmatched singles brought together by computer dating. Like Nashville, this film makes clever use of music in the course of the actual narrative, and rock fans may pick Craig Doerge as keyboards man in the rock group in the film. QUE VIVE MEXICO

Director: Sergei Eisenstein This ‘lost masterpiece’ by the Russian director has received some screenings throughout the country as a part of a visiting Russian film festival. As reconstituted by a colleague of the director, it is a quirky Mexican western with heavy political overtones. The finest section is probably the opening ten minutes showing Mexican village life, and later in the film silent movie characterisation weakens some of the villainy. But a fine piece of film making even in this flawed version.

FILM FUN La Divina herself Bette Midler has been drawing rave reviews and plaudits for her performance in The Rose which has just premiered in Los Angeles ... The Monty Python mob’s Life of Brian has been described as a “dynamite oasis in a growing desert of comedy waste” ... Rocky Horror star Tim Curry will act in Robert Stigwood’s Times Square. Werner Herzog’s latest film is the sobering tale of Woyzeck, an expressionist drama which also inspired a powerful opera by Alban Berg. The film stars Klaus Klinski, who played the title role in Nosferatu. And talking of our Transylvanian friend George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Robert Benjamin and Dick Shawn are in a new vampiric comedy called Love at First Bite.

The brilliant Jerry Lewis has directed his first film for over ten years which will surely create a public holiday in France. Called Hardly Working, it is awaiting preview ... Sons for the Return Home got a favorable write up in Variety, big US showbiz paper... believe it or not China now has its own Vietnam War film, called Counter Attack, perhaps an answer to Coppola’s Apocalypse Now ... on the American front Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun is drawing raves, and new before the camera is Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill, whilst Steven Spielberg’s 1941 has been withdrawn from its previews for ‘re-editing’.

Hi there! Thought I’d say a few words about my favourite new Rip It Up writer, Roy Colbert. I think you're tops, Roy. I didn’t know much about Toy Love before, and now I'm sure I love them. I’d love to see an in-depth expose on a Norman Gunston concert, or better still, some photos of naked ladies with crude captions. Or even, a great big horoscope which forecasts RIU ever week. A-Lover-Of-Fine-Prose Te Puke I just read the Nov RIU and would like to complain a bit. Firstly, the bit about the ‘Death to Disco' thingy with Enz and Midnight Oil. How stupid! Just what is wrong with disco anyway? Repetitive? Well, listen to the mindless droning churned out by duds like the Vibrators, you punks. Chic are fabulous, so is Michael Jackson doing “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”.

\ I heard a tape on Bryan Staff’s programm of La fab group called Primmers doing a fab song Mhat may be titled "Just You Watch Me”. I would like to know why this song is not available as a record, cos if it was it would be in the top 10. (I also think the Terrorway’s "She’s a Mod” should be out as a 45.) Why do all your letter writers live in places • like London, Tauranga, Remuera, Greymouth etc. I live in the untrendy area of Mt. Roskill. Can I still have my letter printed? Why don’t the Primmers do a concert on the top of one of the millions of supermarkets round here? Squeaky Mt Roskill P.S. I really love that “Summertime Blues” by the Flying Lizards.

Why hasn’t there been a scrap of info in your paper about the new Wellington band, Night Nurse and the Geriatrics. They sound smashing and are super to dance to. If they were an Auckland band you'd have mentioned them long ago. I think it’s a good example of the old attitude that nothing happens any other place than Auckland. But, believe it or not, life can be exciting in Wellington too. I left Auckland at the beginning of the year and moved here, it’s a great place because everything worth going to is close together. You can go to a couple of things in one night without changing your park. While I'm at it, let’s hear plenty about Stiff Bix Cabaret too, truly fab bunch especially amazing is the Marilyn Monroe life-story danced by one male in a towel. Shane Lower Hutt