TrevorJohnston with his usual update on the new movie releases. Well, it keeps him oil the streets. Just.
I BABAR: THE MOVIE (U) in his first big screen animated adventure the longorunnlng children's favourite is called into action to save Elephantland irom the clutches at Lord Rataxes and his Rhino Horde. Odeons Glasgow and Edinburgh. UCIs from Fri 5 July.
I BLACli SUNOAY 2: TNE REVENGE (1B) The second Scottish Honor Film Festival presents an all-night session at ten new gore-tilled releases. Titles so tar conllrmed include Basket Case 2 and The Stepfather 2. Edinburgh Filmhouse Set 7 July from 11pm. Please note tickets are not available on the night. See Listings tor lurther inionnatlon.
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I FRESH HORSES (15) Well-to-do society kid Andrew McCarthy is set for graduate school and engaged to be married until a chance meeting with Molly Ringwald's enigmatic bohemian sees him tailing breathlesst in love and pondering a now uncertain tuture. UCI East Kilbride lrom Fri 29 June. I i BOUGHT AVAMPIRE MOTORCYCLE (18) Shambolic and splattery eliort lrom the lolks that brought you Boon on telly has Nell Morrissey as the unwitting purchaser oi a bike that runs on blood and Michael Elphick as the cop on the trail at mayhem it leaves behind. Cannon Parkhead lrom Fri 6 July. I INNOCENT MAN (18) Would-be hard-hitting prison drama has Tom Selleck on the wrong end oi rough )ustice (courtesy ota crooked pair oi narcotics cops) and leamlng to survive the rigours oi llie in the Pen. See review. Wide release irom Fri 29 June. I LISTEN TO ME (PG) Atrlo ot ambitious students at a prestigious American college put their personal problems aside to do battle in the brutal intellectual arena oi the (ahem) debating society as plot complications and portentous speechitying run riot. Cannon Parkhead lrom Fri 5 July.
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28The List 29June— lZJuly 1990
Golding Oldie
With a new version of William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies about to hit our screens, Trevor Johnston talks to the film’s director Harry Hook about the journey from page to screen.
‘Well there are something like fifty-odd versions of Hamlet aren‘t there?’ reflects film-maker Harry Hook, striking a defensive pose in response to my question whether we really needed another screen incarnation of Lord of The Flies. In William Golding‘s modern classic a group of British schoolboys stranded on a desert island play out the age-old drama of mankind‘s essential savagery when events escalate towards violent internecine conflict, but for this handsome contemporary rendering Hook has transposed the action to the slangy American idiom of a band of equally fractious US military cadets.
The 31 year-old Englishman follows in the cinematic footsteps of none other than Peter Brook. whose modestly-budgeted 1962 adaptation has over the years won a wide audience amongst schoolchildren all over the world studying the novel in any number oftranslations, but he clearly feels that after almost three decades the time was ripe for another crack at Golding‘s richly allegorical tale. ‘It was actually Sam Spiegel who bought the rights first,‘ Hook recalls, ‘possibly intending it for David Lean to direct. For a while in the very early 60$ Luis Bunuel tried hard to set up a project. but it was a producer called Lewis Allen who wrestled the rights away from Spiegel to do the Peter Brook version and who‘s been holding on to them ever since.‘
It was Hook‘s debut offering The Kitchen Toto, the sensitively handled story of a young Kenyan servant caught between loyalty to his good-natured colonial master and allegiance to the Mau Mau revolutionaries leading the violent struggle for national independence, that persuaded producer Allen to bring the National Film School
graduate on board the new movie. Hook has repaid his confidence by bringing to his second feature the same understated handling of complex moral issues and confidence with child actors he gave to his first. Although he has made minor changes ofcontext and plotting, Hook believes that he has remained true to the spirit of his source. ‘I see it as a parable. and on that basis it frees itself from any nationalistic cement,‘ he continues. ‘What interests me is in what sort of society and situation can a dictatorship or abuse of power manifest itself. It‘s perfectly obvious that that community of boys need Jack as a figurehead, because if they didn‘t he wouldn‘t gain that ascendancy. Even so, people resist reading a film as a fable, they’re always looking for some kind of literal hook to hang on to. There are those who claim that the book is really a study of the English class system, and I feel that particular aspects like that can be desperately over-emphasised.‘
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So far critics have been most impressed by the performances Hook has conjured from his young protagonists (Balthazar Getty as the thoughtful Ralph is particularly notable). As he explains. however. filming on location in Jamaica with a predominantly non-professional and inexperienced cast was not without its moments oftension: ‘Behind the scenes was a bloody circus because we had to set up a school and this whole infrastructure to look after the little buggers. Ever since that accident on The Twilight Zone, once you have kids in movies these days it‘s an absolute terror. And rightly so, I suppose, but it does lead to a situation where ifone of them so much as trips over a twig, the rest are soon gathered round chanting ‘Sue’em! Sue‘em!’.
Lord of The Flies (15) opens at the Cannons in Glasgow and Edinburgh on Fridayéluly.
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I LORO OF THE FLIES (15) Brit director iiarry Nook's new screen version oi William Golding’s modem classic ioilows the plightoi a group oi young American naval cadets lorced to lend tor themselves on an uninhabited desert island. See preview. Cannons Glasgow and Edinburgh. UCls from Fri BJuly.
I JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO (PG) Oscar-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley directs this big-budget table that traces ordinary bloke Tom ilanks' strange voyage ol sell-discovery when he trots oil to the South Seas to tell in love with Meg Ryan and chuck himseli into a volcano. See review. Wide release from Fri 5 July.
I MAX MON AMOUR(1B) Naglsa Oshima directs from a screenplay by regular Bunuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere's script as Charlotte Rampling causes her husband much consternation by taking a new lover. Max the chimpanzee. Ooerr Missus. See review. Glasgow Film Theatre Mon 2 to Sat 7 July.
I MOON 44 (15) The year 2038 finds lntemal atialrs investigator Michael Pare, experimental helicopter designer Lisa Eichom and station commander Malcolm McDowell brought together on laraway mining planet Moon 44 that’s attire centre oi friction between rival megacorporations. Cannon Sauchiehall Street and UCl East Kllbride lrom Fri 6 July.
I MUSIC BOX (15) Golden Bear winner at Beriin1990. Costa Gavras' latest has Jessica Lange as a Chicago lawyer who decides to detend her Hungarian immigrant father on war crimes charges.See preview. Odeons Glasgow and Edinburgh from Fri 6
July.
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revamp oi 50s monster movies has hired hands Fred Ward and lievln Bacon under attack irom a packet huge carnivorous earthworms. Cannons Glasgow and Edinburgh.
is from Fri 29June.