The Last Gasp On Gatsby

MOVIES

Henry Edwards

by

GATSBY

Directed by Jack Clayton (Paramount)

This long, long, two-and-one-half hour film is the slowest motion visual aid imaginable, a reverent Classic Comic in which the actors have been substituted for line drawings with only the sense of animation suffering.

Even Rona Barrett knows why they made this one. First of all, everybody's read this revered, respected best-of-allpossible books. (And if everyone who read the book bought a ticket to the movie...)

Two, lots of people are enamored with the man who made The Great Gatsby. There is indeed much Romance to be gleaned from the story of Mr. and Ms. Fitzgerald: Scott, ,a genius with a true bent for self-destruction, an alcoholic married to Zelda, a lunatic.

And then there's nostalgia. Gatsby provides the opportunity to recreate the Twenties. (Ha Cha.) And it also provides the opportunity to have Nelson Riddle dish up some soupy, mushy charts of "What'll I Do," "The Shiek of Araby," "Five Feet Two," and a gaggle more of those great old tunes.

You don't have to be James Agee to know that these reasons are standard movie thinking. But satisfactory results occur only when somebody knows how to turn the famous novel (or "Property" if you must) into a movie.

Who shall we blame first for not knowing how to turn this book into anything resembling a movie?

Let's start with Francis Ford Coppola who is this week's winner of the Most Bucks For Least Work Award. Coppola has not turned the novel into an original screenplay but has fashioned a simplistic shooting script, part of which is comprised of large chunks of Fitzgerald used as voiceover to accompany the gaggle of pretty-but-dull pictures on the screen. The remainder of Coppola's shooting script is the book merely cut up into thoroughly conventional shots occurring, of course, in exactly the same chronological order that they occur in the novel.

In addition, Coppola has lifted whole the novel's dialogue and wedged it into his characters" mouths. Therefore, the people in this flick do not speak English but speak Fitzgerald and while it's stylish and well-honed, it's so foreign to the ear, the movie might as well have subtitles. A picture book instead of a script and an unlistenable soundtrack; those are Coppola's contributions.

As for director Jack Clayton — he has been merely thoroughly faithful to Coppola's written instructions.

In situations like this, the actors might as well be exempted. A 31 year old millionaire spends eight years trying to rekindle the lost love of his preyouth. No handsome young leading man as well as no beautiful young leading woman can turn down mushy parts like these. Handsome young leading man Robert Redford puts up a valiant struggle as Gatsby but he can't speak dem Complicated lines. Beautiful young leading woman Mia Farrow is done up like a demented drag queen, amusing though it's certainly not Fitzgerald's Daisy. The other principals — Karen Black, Sam Waterston, and Bruce Dern — all deliver quirky, nervous, energized performances — but they seem mainly to be moths trapped in a thermos bottle.

Fitzgerald's drama or to be precise, melodrama, is an expose of the rich, "careless" people who will do anything that pleasures them. This movie, by spending plenty of money, amplifies Fitzgerald's notion. But it fails to amplify the awe-hate of its audience for the rich, and, therefore, it not only seems to be a film about a different time but a foreign film to boot. Gatsby chases Daisy for eight years because he is a romantic and an idealist. Time-present Daisy fails Gatsby the way time-past Daisy did, because Daisy stands for the American Dream growing progressively more corrupt.

When Laurence Olivier was asked why he much preferred playing the smaller part of Mercutio to the lead role of Romeo, he responded, "Romeo is a jerk!"

Gatsby and Daisy are not only symbols: they're jerks, too. No one associated with this production has found a way to translate their jerkiness into something cpmpelling, exciting, or even interesting.

BADLANDS

Directed by Terence Malick (Warner Brothers)

Though Badlands has obvious predecessors in the boy-meets-girl-startskilling-rampage syndrome, (Bonnie and Clyde comes immediately to mind), this kill for kicks campaign that anchors Terrence Malick's first movie may be the best of its kind.

Badlands, based loosely on the exploits of legendary rock culture heroes Charley Starkweather and his girl Caril Fugate, is focused in South Dakota. Kit, played by James Dean-ish Martin Sheen, is a strong, sullen twenty-five year old rebel who can't hold a job as a garbage man. He takes off with Holly, a bright, romantic 15-year-old baton twirler. after he guns down Holly's father (usual trim performance by Warren Oates).

The story evolves partly as an action ballet with precise, neatly choreographed ' murder scenes, and partly through the narrative of Holly, whose perspective and maturity is impressively balanced by her imagination and naivete, -

Kit and Holly (Cissy Spacek) live off the land in a makeshift house in the woods, out in the country at an old friend's house (the friend is dispassionately executed, of course) and finally, they drive off across the endless badlands in a "borrowed" Ca:dillac. Kit is quite insane, but it never shows. The crazier he gets, the more normal he behaves. There are exceptions: at one point, he shoots a football as "excess baggage," then talks of becoming a Mountie when they make it to Canada.

When he finally allows himself to be captured, he behaves like a celebrity. The police, in turn, treat him like some kind of bizarre war hero. "You're quite an individual, kid," one of them says, and Kif gives a battalion of troopers souveneirs. "I'll kiss vour ass if he doesn't look like James Dean," one of the cops repeats.

Badlands is a considerable accomplishment for producer, writer and director Terrence Malick. The twenty-nine |V| year old Malick rivets our attention III through the development of Kit and W Holly's relationship, rather than the y violence itself. Martin Sheen's characterI ization of Kit is so precise that when Kit A kills, we feel the emotional release involved in his pressure-cooker personal9 ity. The violence is so inevitable that we're shocked when Kit chooses not to kill those he interacts with.

But Badlands works because in a strange way it's a story about winners. Holly is smart, and her youthful inner strength ultimately pays off for her, and Ms. Spacek's delicate, complicated portrayal is brilliant from beginning to end. As for the victims: well, in Malick's late fifties upper midwest, you can hardly tell the dead from the living.

And Kit — he's a winner too. He got what he always wanted — the electric chair. Almost like Jimmy Dean... Jimmy Dean... uh, James Dean, on the road to Salinas.

Wayne Robins