FILM
mins. See review. Glasgow: GFT. I Bugsy Malone (U) (Alan Parker. UK, 1976) Scott Baio, Jodie Foster, Martin Lev. 93 mins. Musical spoof of Prohibition-era gangster films, with an all-child cast. Family entertainment pure and simple. and a true original with it. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I Bye Bye Blues ( 15) (Anne Wheeler, Canada, 1989) Rebecca Jenkins. Luke Reilly, Stuart Margolin. 116mins. Warming tale of a housewife keeping up her spirits during the depressed World War Two years by joining a touring dance band as singer and piano player. The film was a deserving audience winner at the 1989 London Film Festival and is further evidence of the breadth of talent currently workingin Canada. Glasgow: GFT. I La Cage Aux Folles ( 15 ) ( Edouard Molinaro, France. 1978) Ugo Tognazzi. Michel Serrault. Remy Laurent. 109 mins. Renato (Tognazzi) and Albin (Serrault) own the outrageous Cage Aux Folles nightclub. where the latter is the star drag act. Lovers for twenty years, they have brought up Renato‘s son together, but headaches arise when the lad wants to marry into a straight-laced family. and the couple try frantically to disguise his background. Actually rather old-fashioned, but intermittently hilarious homosexual farce, successful enough to spawn two highly avoidable sequels. Edinburgh: Cameo. I La Cage Aux Folles 2 ( 15) (Edouard Molinaro, France. 1980) Michel Serrault. Ugo Tognazzi. Marcel Bozzuffi. 99 mins. Albin and Renato. still with a highercamp factor than a Scout Jamboree. get swept up in the world of international espionage in this French farce. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Child’s Play 2 (15) (John Lafia. US. 1990) Alex Vincent. Jenny Agutter. Gerrit Graham. the voice of Brad Dourif. 85 mins. The unsurprising (in any sense) return of Chucky. a charmless doll possessed by the spirit of Dourif‘s Lake Shore Strangler, is met with predictable disbeliefby the grown-ups in this dull sequel to a moderately good killer-doll original. All the expected techniques are employed. and there is a certain ingenuity in devising new modes of murder. but the whole thing is a transparent exercise in the ancient art of box-office-milking. Glasgow: Cannon Sauchiehall Street. I Cinema Paradiso (PG) (Giuseppe Tornatore. Italy/France .1988) Phillipe Noiret. Jacques Perrin. Salvatore Cascio. 123 mins. Tornatore‘s vision of his movie-mad childhood is a wonderful love letter to the cinema itself. Told largely in flashback. it traces the young Salvatore's infatuation with his village cinema. and his growing friendship with its projectionist (played to perfection by Noiret ). Essentially. it's Tornatore's lament for the joyous movie-going experience ofhis youth and a recognition of the price we pay for our maturity. 1990 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film. Strathclyde: L'CI East Kilbride Film Society. I The Comfort 0f Strangers ( 18) (Paul Schrader, US. 1990) Rupert Everett. Natasha Richardson. Christopher Walken, Helen Mirren. 105 mins. lan McEwan‘s short novel of sexual power games and the perception-warping possibilitiesofculture shock is inherently hard to film. Schrader and his excellent cast give it their best shot. the Venetian locations and sets are luscious and Harold Pinter‘s screenplay is surprisingly faithful. But the narrative tension and pace on which the novel relies are conspicuously absent. Glasgow: Grosvenor. I The Company at Strangers (Cynthia Scott. Canada, 1990) 100mins. Scott's experimental film is set on a broken-down bus where seven old ladies and a young gospel singer. Michelle. respond to their collective isolation by opening up toeach other. The dialogue is based on hoursol conversation, and the director has allowed her actors to steer the movie. ('entral: MacRoberl Arts Centre.
BREAKING IN
; r ‘ Breaking In (15) (Bill Forsyth, US, 1989) Burt Reynolds, Casey Siemaszko. 94 mins. The commercial logic behind the non-release of Breaking In in Scotland, where it would seem most likely to attract an audience, escapes me, but that decision has allowed the Glasgow Film Theatre to secure the first public screening since the Edinburgh Festival in 1989. Bill Forsyth will talk about his work at the screening on 7 February, although he could be excused for wanting to forget all about it.
The film, written by John Sayles and starring Reynolds and Siemaszko as a pair of ill-matched sale-crackers thrown together by chance, turned into something of a nightmare for the director. Forsyth and the producers failed to see eye to eye, and the Scot found himself in a daily struggle to preserve his concept from turning into a standard buddy movie.
‘To my mind,’ Forsyth argues, ‘tbis is a very European film. even though it is
set in America and has Burt Reynolds in
it. You should watch it as if it is in black and white and was made in France in 1935, and that way you will get close to what was in my mind when l was making it, whether I succeeded or not. ‘I wanted the meeting to be totally happenstance, two incompatible people who would mean nothing to each other at the end, but the whole
trying to divert the stream. The
producers‘ whole approach was to soften and sentimentalise the film, and we spent endless weeks over stupid
arguments.’
Forsyth is currently writing a new script with the working title of Being Human. If the continual bickering over
Breaking In has done little to
encourage him to direct other people‘s scripts, he has learnt some valuable lessons, and does not rule out doing so
again. ‘I took it on because the script
interested me, and I thought it could be done quickly, then I could get on with my writing. A certain pragmatism has to creep into your work—you have to lace the fact that sometimes it is better to make a film than make “the” film.
The level of involvement, though,
remains total. lwas there and totally in it, and I had to be, because I had to
defend so much against the
encroachments which went on.“ (Kenny
Mathieson)
Glasgow Film Theatre Thurs 7-Sat 9 Feb. Bill Forsyth will discuss the film
and forthcoming projects after the showing on Thurs 7.
structure of studio, actor and audience expectations works against that notion. It’s like water running down a hill — as soon as you have these two characters and that set-up, you are frantically
I The Company Of Wolves ( 18) (Neil Jordan. UK. 1984) Angela Lansbury. David Warner. Graham Crowden. Brian Glover. 95 mins. Sensual and gory cinematic realisation of Angela Carter's sexually charged parables ofpuberty and werewolf-phobia. Explicrt special effects are not. however. the best vehicle for the implicit undercurrents in Carter‘s fiction. Glasgow: GET.
I Creative Process: Norman McLaren (Donald McWilliams. Canada. 1989)The Scottish premiere of a documentary tribute to Norman McLaren. a Scot best known for his work in Canadian animation. Here are recorded McLarcn‘s ideas about creativity. narcissism.
surrealism and cinematic art. which MeWilliams experienced at first hand
when he collaborated on McLaren's last film .N'aret‘s‘sru‘. Central: MacRobert Arts
Centre.
I Criminal Law ( 18) (Martin Campbell. US. 1989) Kevin Bacon. Gary ()Idman.
Karen Young. Joe Don Baker. Tess
Harper. 118 mins. ()Idman plays a lawyer facing a dilemma when he discoevers that the sickenineg wealthy-client (Baker) he‘s just got acquitted of rape and murder isin fact guilty. Campbell. who directed Iidge
()fl)(lrkness for the BBC. sustains the tension throughout. but despite some
first-rate acting. the intended analysisof greed and justice is somewhat simplistic.
Edinburgh: Filmhouse. T I Crossing Balancey (PG) (Joan Micklin Silver, US. 1988) Amy Irving, Peter Riegert. Jeroen Krabbe. 96 mins. Career woman Izzy (lrving) is happily single in New York when her grandmomma decides to take the matter of marriage in hand, and hires Hannah the matchmaker to get her hitched. The proposed match of pickle vendor Sam (Riegert) does not at first appeal. but gradually hearts melt. and the film moves to a romantic conclusion which sidesteps schmaltz at every turn. Strong scripting and sympathetic performances make this a must for incurable romantics. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Cry Baby ( 12) (John Waters, US. 1990) Johnny Depp. Amy Locanc. Susan Tyrell. Polly Bergen. 85 mins. Baltimore. 1954. and droolsome drape Johny Depp‘s across-the-tracks romance with once prim Square gal Locanc is the catalyst foropen warfare between the town’s teen factions. but love is to prove itselfstronger than prison bars. Boasting the usual theoretical trash casting (Traci Lords, Patty Hearst, Iggy Pop). lapsed sleaze merchant Waters‘ most mainstream effort to date is an exuberant and knowing satire on Fifties juvenile delinquency movies. Edinburgh University Film Society. I Cyrano 0e Bergerac (U) (Jean-Paul Rappencau, France. 1990) Gerard Depardieu. Jacques Weber. Anne Brochet. Vincent Perez. 135 mins. The most-tipped movie for the European Film Awards. Rappencau's stirring. poetic adaptation of Rostand‘s romantic tragi-comedy came out with a disappointing single Felix for Ezio Frigerio and Franca Squarciapino‘s production design. Nonetheless, Depardieu is superb as the large-nosed hero, and the film's dramatic and cinematic qualities are outstanding. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I Dance Films A short season of films and videos on a century ofterpsichorean endeavour. Programme 3. Choreography for the C amera. covers a wide range of collaborations between dancers and film-makers from the Frenchman Georges Mclies‘ turn-of—thc-century shorts up to state-of-the-art physical theatre from the very wonderful DV8. The fourth and final programme. Video Dance, features further contemporary collaborations. including the Cholmondleys‘ Flesh and Blood and work by John Maybury. Robert Cahen and the German video artist ilanno Baethe. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I Dark Angel (18) (Craig Baxley. US. 1990) Dolph Lundgrcn. Brian Benben. Betsy Brantley. 92 mins. Dolph stars as all-action Houston cop Jack Caine on the trail of drug pushers from space who remove their enemies by use of killer compact discs. doutless featuring k-tel‘s tribute to Sydney Devine. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Dark Passage (PG) (Delmer Daves. US. 1947) Humphrey Bogart. Lauren Bacall. Agnes Moorehead. 106 mins. Escaped convict Bogart is suspected ofmurder but artist Lauren Bacall believes in his innocence and lets him hide out at her apartment until the work of the plastic surgeon improves his getaway prospects. Unlikely tale from a David Goodis novel. though the subjective camerawork ofthe first half hour still looks pretty nifty. Edinburgh University Film Society. I December Bride ( 15) (Thaddeus O‘Sullivan. lreland. 1990) Saskia Reeves, Donal McCann. Ciaran Hinds. 90 mins. ln strictly Protestant north Ireland at the turn of the century. a woman's resolve is tested to the limits in O'Sullivan's unusual love story. Central: MacRobert Arts Centre. I La Dentelllere ( 15) (Claude Goretta. France. 1977) lsabelle Huppcrt. Yves Beneyton. Florence Giorgetti. 107mins. Huppcrt is a reticent young Parisian hairdresser who has an affair with a univeristy student whilst on holiday in Normandy. Love among the sand-dunes turns to tension in the city and Huppert
20 The List 25 January - 7 February 1991