CREEMEDIA

CREEMEDIA

Mitchell Cohen

Heaven’s Ball?

RAGING BULL

Directed by Martin Scorsese

HEAVEN’S GATE

Directed by Michael Cimino_

There are no stories anymore, only isolated moments. Someone tells me this narrative breakdown started with Stendhal, which may or may not be pertinent. It is true that many—most—of the very best American movies of the 1970’s, by Altman, Allen, DePalma, Malick, Scorsese, etc. are less fully realized tales than frameworks for whatever special virtuosity the director and his actors want to exhibit.

Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull is satisfyingly kinetic pulp, and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate is sluggish pictorialism, but neither can be described as the epitome of coherence. The fact that ‘'Heavensgate” will enter the lexicon as an epithet that means to the movie industry what “Watergate” does to politics seems an outrageous overreaction, while the undeniable energy that jumps off the screen from Raging Bull is more frenetic than focused.

Scene by scene, the Scorsese movie is riveting, and the performances by Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty and Joe Pesci are all one could ask for as portraits of naturalistic intensity. As biography, as boxing film, as social history, as a movie that accumulates its one-at-a-time illuminations into something sharply realized and complete, Raging Bull is, like too many contemporary movies, wobbly on its feet.

Who’s That Knocking At My Door? and especially Mean Streets were shake-ups, early indications of a startlingly volatile directorial talent in Martin Scorsese. Mean Streets—where Robert De Niro (after riffing for DePalma in outrageous comedies) burst wide open like a loony Cagney—had the romanticism of “Be My Baby,” the menace of “Play With Fire,” the absurdity of “Rubber Biscuit, ” the jerky movement of “Mickey’s Monkey”; Scorsese became our most visceral filmmaker, De Niro an actor of uninhibited gifts, and when they teamed up again in Taxi Driver and New York, New York, even the gaping flaws in conception couldn’t detract from the sparks (Liza Minnelli could, however).

Raging Bull, their latest collaboration, is based on the autobiography of Jake LaMotta, and as LaMotta, De Niro does his best work since his young Vito Corleone in Godfather II, giving a brutish, alert performance. But all you take away from the movie is the look—40’s/50’s black and . white that is more cinema-derived than documentary—the immediacy of the fights (professional and domestic), the bits of brilliance (De Niro doing LaMotta doing Brando doing Terry Malloy).

Scorsese, having gone through two dark musicals (NYNY and The Last Waltz), is back on solid ground (the relationship between De Niro and Pesci has Mean Streets’ rhythm and tension); as confident as he is with the milieu, the themes and the actors, he hasn’t managed to pull it all together. Still, when he drops in an obscure doo-wop ballad by the Hearts behind a scene, Scorsese proves that his poet’s soul is intact.

The soul of Michael Cimino is another matter, and the three-artd-four-fifths hour version of Heaven’s Gate that I saw is not the film that will be released sometime in ’81. As you may know, the sprawling oater was hooted out of New York. Well, it’s not that bad. Ruinously costly, and a mess structurally, but not terrible.

As in The Deer Hunter, Cimino is better at the build-up than at the pay-bff, better at the image than at the idea. His communal rituals—college graduation ceremonies, barroom banter, waltzers and roller-skaters gliding around the dance floor—go on self-indulgently long, but have a certain mysterious appeal; he is trying to get at something John Ford-ian under these circumstances, and helpedby Vilmos Zsigmond’s ravishing cinematography £nd the music of David Mansfield, Heaven’s Gate’s least dialogladen portions are its most affecting: it’s a relief when a totally irrelevant, sweeping sequence distracts us from the mechanics of the story.

When the people in Hedven’s Gate talk, when Cimino has to further his plot, trouble starts. It’s a fairly standard exploitative ranchers vs. exploited immigrants battle over land and law and order, but depicted without any regard for clarity or expressiveness. Kris Kristofferson is not merely vague, he’s dazed; Christopher Walken and Jeff Bridges wander in and out like guests from another movie; Sam Waterston tries for sardonic villainy and is laughably awkward; and Isabelle Huppert, in herfirstAmericanfilm...well, lean hardly be objective about a lithsome strawberry blonde who speaks English with a French accent and sheds her clothes at a moment’s notice.

Really, Heaven’s Gate is about being an epic western, and Raging Bull is about being a movie that responds to and reacts against the boxing films of decades past. Cimino is working out his private reveries in a genre replete with certified classics by Ford, Hawks, Peckinpah, Altman, and doesn’t even achieve the mythic heights of this year’s The Long Riders. Scorsese as ringmaster only has to go up against the likes of Body And Soul and a string of hulky schlock from Somebody Up There Likes Me to the Rockys. Cimino falls lamentably short of his models, and Scorsese has made one of a bleak year’s more exciting movies, but the real difference is that Heaven’s Gate dwells over its deficiencies and Raging Bull, through sheer bravura, keeps you from thinking about its flaws until you’re out of the theatre.

King Burned Out?

FIRESTARTER

Stephen King

(Viking)

It was a great time for the unbridled imagination. Even tho TV was offering too many boring, dusty westerns one could be almost certain that come Saturday at the movies there would be a fresh and bizarre and occasionally exhilarating experience. And even tho I was not yet 101 remember that golden era of the late 50’s vividly, a period which saw the release of a prodigious number of totally ridiculous low budget black and white horror and SF flicks, the debut of Roger Corman’s antic genre pieces, AIP’s delirious approximations of Japan’s post-Hiroshima Toho epics, American fantasies of nuclear and xenophobic (furrinersfrom outer space) retribution, the mind-blowing British invasion wherein adults acted serious in garish color'and people actually bled, countless esoteric oddities from the gruesomely homy Monster to the now infamous Plan 9 and, sliding into the 60’s, the morbid and stately AIP/Corman/Poe/ Price collaborations. There was never before such an explosion of trashy wonder and the dozen or so formula gore movies that now appear each summer ain’t nothing like if.

Stephen King, too, was a hot-hearted adolescent fan during this period, also digging ancillary delights like EC comics and post-pulp digest-sized SF magazines (and of course!

Famous Monsters Of Filmland from whose grayish pages I clipped a few dozen choice monstrosities and taped them to my bedroom walls—at age 11,1 was a fearless sleeper) and it shows (n his best work, the novels Salem’s Lot and The Shining. His early immersion in and long-lasting love for the grand old genres is reflected in these books in which, remarkably, he revitalized two of the moldiest—the vampire story and the old dark house story, both of which had been overworked even past the point of effective parody. Starting with these well-worn themes King interpolated his specialty, the dissection of dread, the drawing out of horrible anticipation into long agonizing moments of sustained tension. King is a master at creating an atmosphere of suffocatingly claustrophobic horror, not quite the thick mortal doom that hangs over a ,Poe story and descends at the end with the triumph of madness, but a more modern anxiety-ridden atmosphere, a post-Vietnam one where your rational, calming thoughts are forever being crushed by the persistence of evil. Good does triumph, finally, in King’s novels but the price is invariably horrible—not Poe-esque insanity but the “good guys” realization that they’ll never be innocent (totally safe) again.

(One more thing: if you’re only familiar with the film versions of these books—the meandering TV movie of Lot which, despite the expertise of director Tobe Hooper and the venerable James Mason, played very much like a TV movie usually does with a few isolated chills lost in a sea of exposition and mediocre acting, and the multi-million dollar avant-garde version of “Shining” by Kubrick, awash with the cinematic virtues but narratively crippled, limping along a vague outline of King’s original tale—then you really don’t know how good these books are).

In King’s most recent novel, Firestarter, the evil is both contemporary and banal, an unfortunate combination. Much of the appeal of “Lot” and “Shining” lay in their depiction of baroque, larger-than-life horrors functioning in a familiar setting. And the horrors themselves were appealing. That the day to day uneasiness which we bring to these stories as a matter of course could be transferred onto a creature cloaked in arcane Central European mysticism who wants to suck out blood or the malignant maze of a large old hotel whose corridors and mysteries both are full of threat was somehow gratifying—by projecting our fear toward these other-worldly and grandiose horrors it was simultaneously justified and trivialized (it’s only a story after all). Pretty neat. But when we are required by a novel to conf ront a version of the quotidean f earmakers we encounter in real life-7-greed, insensitivity, random nature and the other harsh banalities that we know so well—we may be merely depressed (like, where I live the fear of human violence ain’t all that imaginative, all that unreal).

Not that Firestarter is going to throw you into a suicidal funk (I’m not going to go into the plot—if you’ve read the book you already know it and if you haven’t yet why should I spoil itfQr you? If s about a little girl who can start Ares without using matches and the attempts to destroy her by a nefarious agency of the U.S. government...) but its scope is a mite dismal and it elaborates two of King1 s worst tendencies, namely a tin ear rendering of the dialogue of his folksy protagonist (tho he’s excellent when it comes to the villain’s psychotic repartee) and a worlds view informed by liberal paranoia (which drives the heroine at story’s end into the comforting arms of the Rolling Stone editorial offices—I mean, really). For someorve like myself whose interest in horror was revived by King’s earlier stuff, Firestarter is a big disappointment. Entertaining, sure, but King’s ability to evoke primal fear is here stunted by being applied to a tale of evil government vs. honest decent folk .And tho such a premise is no doubt rooted in truth, it’s one worn genre that even he can’t revitalize.

Richard C. Walk

Roll Over, A1 Jolson

THE JAZZ SINGER (EMI Films)

Directed by Richard Fleischer

As a remake of the original talkie, The Jazz Singer fails on about 86 levels or so. (Forget that the “singer” has nothing whatsoever to do with jazz or any other musical form that didn’t emerge full-blown from a box of Fruity Pebbles. They probably had to keep the title.. .can you imagine queuing up for The Inoffensive Pop Singer?)

‘Frinstance, concentrate on the storyline: young Jewish cantor needs to express himself through his own music, i.e., silly love songs. Young cantor’s wife and dad are dismayed by this churlish disregard for their venerable religion .No matter; young cantor goes to L. A. (aw, you guessed,1), loses wife and father, falls in love with show-biz gal who believes in him, becomes big star and brings joy to every half-wit in the country. It happens every day, right?

Next, cuddle up to the cast. Who do we need to play this sensitive, talented Jewish cqntor? Little Richard? No, no! Neil Diamond! Wow, that’s casting! No wonder you’re not a Hollywood big-shot. Now, toss in the most far-fetched “talent” imaginable to play Neil’s love interest— say, Lucie Arnaz. Say Desi Arnaz. Say Ricky Ricardo. Say help, and say it loud: Lucie gets the nod. Go stand in the comer, Desi, and 500 babaloos for penance. Finally, rope in an honest-to-God actor to carry these cretins through the flick (Laurence Olivier as Neil’s pop) and start praying.

And pray we must. The crux of The Jazz Singer should be the conflict between father and son, the dramatic tension between tradition and self-determination. What’s served up is a really expensive promo film for a new Neil Diamond album, which, as usual, has all the dramatic 1 tension of getting fitted for a pair of contact lenses.

Vowser, get some of this dialogue. Olivier is -trying to convince the “kid” to come back to New York and be a good cantor like the five generations before him. “God spared our family; he gave you your voice,” pop sez. “What about the ideas within me?” Neil-o whines. “Don’t they also come from God?” No, Neil, they come from L7-H, morning-fresh and piping hot.

Or how about this? “Jess Robin” (young cantor’s stage name) is playing his SECOND gig—with a 50-piece orchestra backing him, no le$s—and he says to the audience, “Maybe we should do something that everybody can clap to or sing along with. What do you think?” Sounds cool to me, Neil; how about “Revolution #9?”

And, hey, I don’t wanna say that Neil’s acting is uninspired , but you could whittle yourself a pretty nice potato pipe out of this role. The scene where he splits with his wife must certainly be regarded as the most tepid sexual confrontation since Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins learned where babies come from. I mean, I’ve had better arguments with my wife over how long to cook the spam than these clowns have over breaking up their marriage.

What we’re basically left with is Neil Diamond imitating Neil Diamond (and poorly, I hope) while Ms. Arnaz moons over the solitary man. . The enduring theme is jackhammered home by Neil reminding himself every 10 minutes that “this is something I have to do”—and, hey, I’m grateful', I kept forgetting why he was doing it myself. But what’s downright incredible is that THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS MOVIE IS THE MUSIC! Neil Diamond songs! And I don’t think he’s even learned any new chords yet!!

J. Kordosh

People Who Died Died

POPism: THE WARHOL ‘60s by Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)

John Lennon don’t even get no respect when he’s dead and gone. After bedeviling him with all those racist Yoko Ono jokes for an entire decade, the media moptops are seizing upon the occasion of Lennon’s passing to haul out all the hoary Woodstock Nation Moral Majority bromides, for yet more runthroughs.

Did you hear the one about American teendom embracing the early ’64 Beatles on a national guilt rebound from the JFK assassination? Isn’t that something of a subtle'' insult to the Beatles’ own urgent neo-beatnik inevitability, as though they weren’t phenomenal enough to happen without the boost of Kennedy’s shooting? Or (and the “My-generation” commentators really love this) the one about * * ‘The Sixties* * * being overfor sure with the Beatles’ 1970 breakup? Jeez, let’s run that guilt trip on the Fab Four one more time! No wonder John wanted to stay home and change diapers all those years.

Fortunately for us all, alternative versions (and visions) of the 60’s exist, and I’ve just discovered a provocative new one (1 was reading it the night Lennon was murdered, in fact) in Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett’sPOPism. This Warholism memoir arises from an experience of the 60’s radically different than my own, yet arrives at an almost identical chronology of that amazing decade’s real heart and soul. The Beatles’ breakup couldn’t kill a decade that was virtually spent by 1968, after all.

Andy Warhol entered the 60’s as a struggling pop artist who comported himself much too “swish” to please even those gallery owners who were beginning to understand the aesthetics of his new painting style. But the decade really began to explode for Warhol at the time of the John Kennedy assassination; Andy was painting in his studio when the news reached him, and (I allow for emotional revisionism here, but still the image is striding) he kept right on painting—“I don’t think I missed a stroke.” From then bn, it seemed, the 60’s accelerated faster and faster for Warhol, like a rush on heroin. Within a few months the Beatles and their fallout beat groups were everywhere, inciting millions to Warhol’s long-singular visions of POP.

Warhol moved to his famous 60’s studio, the Factory, and began adopting every drop-in “whose eyes looked weird.” Drugs and sexual imaginativeness were the emerging ethic at the Factory, as Warhol turned increasingly from painting to movie-making to rock ’n’ roll (as the original Velvet Underground invaded the Factory) to pure, happening POP existence, as the 60’s careened onward. How could Warhol do otherwise, when notorious POP artists like Pop(e) Paul were running loose in the streets of New York?

But after peaking in the amphetamine-fried days and nights of 1965-66, Warhol’s scene began to slip away, around 1967. Kids everywhere were turned on to drugs and new life styles, but The Velvet Underground & Nico (suppose they gave the actual watershed LP Sgt. Pepper was supposed to be, and nobody came?) excited precious few believers anywhere. Warhol and the Velvets had already collided with the San Francisco hippie theocracy, in the city by the bay where spontaneous, rebellious behavior was being codified into bland acid disciplines. By 1968, even the streets of his indulgent New York seemed too “mellow” to Warhol.

In June of 1968, Warhol’s own peculiar 60’s ended with a symbolic near-assassination; just as they had begun with a symbolically real assassination; Warhol was shot and seriously wounded by a deranged Factory hanger-on, a young woman whose eyes got too weird even for Andy’s taste. (Ironically enough, Warhol was shot the same week as Robert Kennedy, so his brush with death was a major POP event only within N.Y.’s cozy media.) Warhol recovered, and fine 60’s-Factory product like Paul _ Morrissey’s film Trash was yet to come, but the 'c spirit was gone out of an overnight-vital scene,

./> months before the Beatles’ White Album was in ® the stores.

§ With the Beatles thufs relieved of carrying on § the whole weighty dread of the 60’s on their slight ^ Limey shoulders, POPism is a fantastic memoir J of the decade’s rock ’n’ roll, whatever your ^ philosophical overview of the era. Warhol seems g to have an almost infallible memory for which records (the trashier the better, of course) were playing on the radio at any moment of his golden decade, and the playlist sounds heartbreakingly nostalgic. Besides, he offers enormously funny insights into the early days of our current heroes like Lou Reed (e.g., the last recorded instance of somebody trying to “ ‘fix Lou up’ with a girl,” a social nicety that led to Unca Lou getting to meet the Buffalo-fuggin’-Springfiek), whom he gratefully dubbed “California trash”), or Nico (an incurably zany Kraut from sauare one).

Candy Darling and Ultra Violet and all the other Warholian anti-superstars of the 60’s are along for the bittersweet ride of POPism, in words and photos, and I especially appreciated the part where Warhol says he appreciated the 60’s journalists’ practice of recording interviews simply by pen, because then he was almost certain to be misquoted on that “15 minutes of fame” business. Ah, the lost innocence of the pop life; two hours hardly seems enough, these days.

Richard Riegel

Kiss And Smell

KISS-THE REAL STORY by Peggy Tomarkin

(Delilah/Delta) ‘ __

Like M&M’s and murder indictments, there are two different kinds of biographies: authorized and true. While the latter concept is a little over this hack’s head, I can tell you that, in an authorized bio, the subjects) gets to go over the unpublished manuscript and erase the ickier parts of their past. If it were a game, this would be called “cheating.” But since this is Real Life, hey, anything goes!

Presented in a noxious Dear Diary format, The Real Story is so packed with “insights” that the author obviously started from the last page and worked her way to the front. This may be Big In Japan, but here it comes off about as believable as Jagger/Richards songwriting credits.

Diarist Peggy Tomarkin—previously noted for having the same first name as Peggy Cass—delivers her smoochprints of ass-kiss in a style slightly to the right of Journey album note liners. A handful of fun facts do slither out of this laundry basket, however, and as a consumer service, I’ll list them here and save you the trouble of reading between the pictures:

’Ace designed the Kiss logo.

’ Gene was once a Man Friday for Vogue.

* Peter Criss came to the band’s attention through an ad in Rolling Stonf which said he was “willing to do anything, ” Oh yeah? You think he’d artificially inseminate a panda?

} * “Hard Luck Woman” actually was written tor Rod Stewart after all. Not that he knew about it, but still. Hmm, think maybe I’ll write a song for Rupert Holmes tonight!

*The guys rejected several names for the band before settling on.. .wait a minute.. .it’s here somewhere.. .oh yeah, Kiss. Rejects included Albatross, Crimson Harpoon and “Gene’s four-letter suggestion.” Kelp? Dill? Puke? Cher The Money-Grubbing Assholes? Ooops! Too many letters!

So much for facts. You want pretty pictures?

Art directors William Reynolds and Alien “Designer” Sheets have tossed in just about all of the existing photos of the boys, many of which have already appeared in every magazine in the world, not that they’re credited or anything. Also included is every favorable review Kiss has ever received (all five of ’em), reprints of official bio sheets, publicists’ write-ups and several ingenious applications of the word Kabuki.

But where is there even a mention of Robert Duncan’s definitive sixteen-installment Kiss investigation from CREEM? Or some of the yuk-laden reviews of their comix and TV appearances? Or, more importantly,.something by me?! / can be bought too, guys! But the very idea that I actually listened to portions of all four solo albums without so muchas a howdy-do from these clowns.. .well, that does it!

The onlu redeeming feature of this book is that it costs a dollar more in Canada.

Rick Johnson