FILM LIST
masterpiece of television crime.‘ Edinburgh; Filmhouse.
0 Leicester International Super 8 Film Festival on Tour ( 15) This year marks the 21st anniversary ofSuper8 film. generally regarded as the tnost accessible film format in the world and a boon to amateur and professional filmmakers worldwide. A programme of highlights from the 3rd Leicester Festival will be presented at the Filmhouse. Edinburgh on June 12th and the
7 Glasgow Film 'I‘heatre onJune 14th. E 0 Midnight ExpresS( 18) (Alan f Parker. 1978) Brad Davis. John
7 Hurt. Paul Smith. 121 mins Brilliantly
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acted this brutal drama represents Parker‘s visceral filmmaking at its most effective and affecting. Glasgow; Grosvenor
0 Mishima ( 15) (Paul Schrader. US-Japan. 1985) Ken Ogota. 120 mins. A stylised and passionless biographical portrait of novelist Yukio Mishitna interweaving narrative. dratnatisations ofhis work and documentary reconstruction. Glasgow; GEL
0 Monkey Business (U) (Howard Hawks. US. 1952) Ginger Rogers. Cary Grant. Marilyn Monroe. 97 mins. Laboured screwball nonsense as Professor Grant discovers an elixir of youth Edinburgh; Filmhouse.
0 My Beautiful Laundrette (15)
(Stephen Frears. UK. 1985) Cordon Warnecke. Daniel Day Lewis. 97mins.
Richly textured. original and provocative British triumph. Strathclyde; Kelburne o 9V2 Weeks ( 18) 1": (Adrian Lyne. US. 1985) Kim Basinger. Mickey Rourke. Margaret Whitton. 113 mins. See Caption Review. Edinburgh; ABC. Glasgow; ABC 0 1900 ( 18) (Bernardo Bertolucci. Italy. France. W. Germany. 1976) Robert DeNiro. Gerard Depardieu. Burt Lancaster. Donald Sutherland. 243 mins. The rise of fascism in Italy from 190010 19-15 is seen through the lives of a peasant's son and the offspring of a local landowner. both born of the same day at the turn of the century.
Massive. sprawling left-wing epic filled with a mass of fascinating detail. Glasgow: GFI'
o No Surrender( 15) (Peter Smith. UK. 1985) Michael Angelis. Bernard Hill. James Ellis. 104 mins. Bleasdale's biting black comedy of a chaotic New Year‘s Eve at the seedy Charleston Club and an unforgettable encounter between disputatious pensioners from the local Catholic club and a nearby Orange Lodge. To be reviewed in full next issue. (See feature). Glasgow“. G171
0 OK for Sound (L7 ) (Marcel Varnel. UK. 1937) Bud Flanagan. Chesney Allen. Jimmy Nervo et al. Debut film of the Crazy Gang. six wacky British music hall comedians who intermittently strayed onto the big screen. Edinburgh; Filmhouse.
0 Out of Africa (PG) (Sydney Pollack. US. 19S5) Meryl Streep. Robert Redford. Klaus Maria Brandauer. 161 mins. A carefully measured tragic romance suffused with images of awe-inspiring beauty and topped
by another flawless performance from Streep.
Edinburgh; Dominion. Glasgow: Grosvenor. Lothian; ABC. Strathclyde: ABC (Greenock). ABC (Kilmarnock). ()deon (Hamilton)
0 Out 0fThe Blue (18) (Dennis Hopper. US. 1980) Linda Manz. Dennis Hopper. 93 mins. An alienated teenager turns to Punk culture and eventually violently strikes back at her father's incestuous advances.
Edinburgh; EU Filmsoc.
o The Outcasts ( 15) (Robert Wyne-Simmons. Eire. 1982) Mary Ryan. Mick Lally. 104 mins. In rural 19th Century Ireland a dreamy young girl's dalliance with a mysterious itinerant musician leads to accusations ofwitchcraft. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
o The Parallax View ( 15) (Alan J. Pakula. US. 1974) Warren Beatty. Paula Prentiss. Hume Cronyn. 1(12 Well-detailed and uncommonly gripping political fable which pokes its nose into the murky corners of the American security network with some conviction. Glasgow; GFI’.
o Pile ou Face (Robert Enrico. France. 198(1) Philippe Noiret. Michel Serrattlt. Dorothee. 105 mins. 'l'wo inspectors are assigned to
investigate the death of a woman who had fallen eight storeys from a building in Bordeaux. The younger of the two men is content to seek a suicide verdict whilst the other man suspects her husband offoul play. . . Glasgow; French Cine-Club.
0 Pink Floyd —The Wall ( 15) (Alan Parker. U K. 1982) Bob Geldof. Bob Hoskins. 92mins. Hysterically overwrought. plodding story of a burnt-out rock star and his paranoid self-obsession as he sits in a Los Angeles hotel rootn watching The Datn Busters. A treat for the hard of hearing. Glasgow: Grosvenor ,
o Prizzi’s Honour ( 15) (John Huston. US. 1985) Jack Nicholson. Kathleen Turner. 129 mins. Skilful black comedy directed with assurance by veteran Huston and graced by a
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rogue‘s gallery of fine performances.
Strathclyde; Rialto
0 Ban ( 15) (Akira Kurosawa. Japan-France. 1985) 'I‘atsuya Nakadai. Mieko Harada. Peter. 162 mins. Kurosawa's King Lear is a bleak and despairing vision of mankind rent asunder by division. disunity. personal vengeances and fatnin feuds that produce no honour. no victors. just victims. Glasgow; GFl
o Rebel Without a Cause ( 15) (Nicholas Ray. US. 1955) James
Dean. Natalie Wood. Jim Backus. 111 mins. Moody. middle-class delinquent Dean is misunderstood by parents and peers alike but finds a sympathetic shoulder in pretty Wood. Seminal portrait of alienated adolescence bolstered by a strong supporting line-up and Dean’s intense charisma. Edinburgh; EU Filmsoc. 0 Beds ( 15) (Warren Beatty. US. 1982) Warren Beatty. Diane Keaton. Jack Nicholson. Maureen Stapleton. 200 mins. The story of John Reed. committed socialist and chroniclerofthe Russian Revolution. (‘rlasgoszFlI o Homo-Unarmed and Dangerous ( 15) . (GuyHamilton. US. 1985) Fred Ward. Joel Gray. Wilford Brimley. 115 mins. A tough cop is recruited as the third member of a top-secret Government agency and is soon involved in the complex case ofa larcenous industrialist. ()ddball James Bond-style adventure combining martial arts mysticism in the character of a wizened Korean Sinanju expert whose swiftness allows him to dodge bullets (told you it was oddball). Gray‘s make-up is amazing but his is a very weird kettle of fish and the first adaptation of a series ofover sixty books. Hele Edinburgh: ()deon.
Wolfgang Petersen first gained international recognition for his directorial prowess with the worldwide success of Das Boot, a claustrophobic and terse account of a German U-boat mission during World War 2. The film garnered six Oscar nominations and, with a budget of 12 million dollars, was probably the most costly production in German history. Since then he has helmed the children’sfantasy The Never Ending Story (1984) and the vastly expensive science-fiction drama Enemy Mine which will be released in Scotland in July.
Throughout the month of June Edinburgh's Filmhouse follows the lead of Glasgow's German Cine-Club and presents a backward glance at the roots of Petersen's career through a season of his work for television and the cinema. His recent move to big-budget spectaculars has inevitably resulted in a less personal form of filmmaking and the season should help underline his talents as a chronicler of relationships with a strong feeling for political and social issues.
Petersen was a film buff from his teenage years and always voiced the ambition to become a director. He served a lengthy apprenticeship in the theatre and trained as an actor before enrolling at the Berlin Film and Television Academy. Whilst still a student he made two short films that were bought by the second German television station. He claims to have been influenced by Hitchcock, Truffaut and especially Roman Polanski and could justifiably claim to be West Germany's equivalent of Steven Spielberg with his prolific output and youthful energy. His graduation film I am Going To Kill You, Wolf (1970)
‘A WIDE RANGE OF TALENTS
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(shown May 29) was boughtby Germany's first television channel and brought him a calling card to the world
ofsmall screen drama.
What is remarkable about Petersen’s television years is the variety and social commitment of his work. Smog (1972) (May 29) addressed itselfto the environment with a ‘factional' recreation of a smog catastrophe. Leaving Certificate (1976) (June 8) featured Nastassja Kinski embroiled in a romance with her schoolteacher and facing the suffocating provincialism of a small-town existence. His first cinema film Either You or Me (1973) (June 3) was a crime feature that found the time to delineate character and explore the social milieu of a blackmailing student and his dishonest professor. Black and White Like Nights and Days (1978) (June 11)was hailed for its abilityto examine ‘the impossibility ofsustaining adult relations' whilst The Consequence
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(1977) (June 8) viewed the destructive social pressures exercised on a loving homosexual relationship and provoked some 4,000 letters on its German television transmission.
As Petersen consolidates his stature as an internationally bankable film director one would hope to see the probing and acutely observant qualities from his television years grow in influence on his cinema work. He has said, ‘As a filmmaker I am primarily concerned to tell a good story in a way that will move the audience emotionally. I want to involve my audience and touch theirfeelings. Ifl can combine this with a political or philosophical statement, as I do in many of my television films, so much the better.’ This season convincingly confirms his ability to move and Involve an audience on a human level and is well worth dipping into. (Allan Hunter)
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P or; Listao May — 12 June 27