ARTISTS from U.S.S.R. THE REPUBLIC of UKRAINE ARTISTES DE LURSS-LA ee D UKRAINE CANADA - USSR. CULTURAL EXCHANGE CANADA - URS.S. ECHANGE CULTUREL MARIA STEFUK URA SDPRANG SOPRANG COLORATUR CANADIAN CONCERT TOUR TOURNEE — CONCERTS November / Novembre 1976 NALINA PATORZHINSKA PRINIST /PIANSTE VERNON — Recreation Complex. Tuesday, November 16 — 8 p.m. Tickets on sale: Nolan Drugs, Shoppers’ Drug Mart, Terry Dyck Music. VICTORIA — Royal Theatre. Thursday, November 18 — 8 p.m. Tickets on sale: John Minshall Ltd. VANCOUVER — Queen Elizabeth Playhouse. Sunday, November 21 — 2:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tickets on sale: All Bay box offices, People’s Co-op Bookstore, Global Imports. YURI DEMCHUK BASS/BASSE - BANDURA/BANDOURA NATIONAL CONCERT AGENCY ral Seerctiary, Communist ty of Canada Selected Writings 1966-1976 Paper $6.95 Cloth $14.95 Available from People’s Cooperative Bookstore 353 West Pender, Vancouver Ph. 685-5836 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 12, 1976—Page 10 Elaborate, empty intrigue It’s billed as a stunning thriller —and it is. In fact, paralyzing and mind-numbing would be equally apt. descriptions of the violent action that rips across the screen for close to two hours. But Marathon Man seems to be much more than just another thriller, considering the startling backgrounds of its central characters — one of them was once a Nazi death camp torturer — and the apparent significance that their pasts seem to have in the sequence of events. Unfortunately, when it’s all over, the film has little to offer in the way of un- derstanding and too much in the way of contrived plots — and human carnage. From the opening frames of Marathon Man the audience is assaulted by a barrage of in- comprehensible violence; one bizarre death is followed by a quick succession of murders. Anonymous people are expertly killed by unknown assailants in places that elude identification. It’s all part of the cinematic game that director John Schlesinger plays, deliberately creating a world of fear and incomprehension as he moves inexorably toward the meeting of his two _ protag- onists. ... Their paths are already converg- ing from far-flung parts of the world:.from a cluttered one-room flat in New York comes Babe Levy (Dustin Hoffman), an ‘in- trospective graduate student and fanatic marathon trainee who is studying for his doctorate at the university where his father once held a post before the McCarthyite witch hunts drove him to suicide. From somewhere in_ the Uruguayan rain forest comes Christian Szell (Lawrence Olivier), an escaped Nazi war criminal who has financed all his years in unrepentant exile by selling off the diamonds that he exacted from Jewish prisoners 30 years before. In the experimental MARATHON MAN. Starring Dustin Hoffman and_ Lawrence Olivier. Directed by John Schlesinger. Screenplay by William Goldman. At the Downtown Theatre, Vancouver. block at Auschwitz he was known as the White Angel by victims of his brutal dentistry, those whose teeth he drilled for gold. From a place not immediately identifiable — and linking the two protagonists — comes Babe’s brother, Doc (Roy Scheider). The link is a tenuous one but it draws Babe into a marathon of terror. Szell is forced by circumstances to leave his hiding place and fly to New York to collect his stash of diamonds which is lodged in a Madison Avenue bank. But those same circumstances. have suggested to him that he will be betrayed, that someone might rob him as he leaves the bank with the loot — that only Babe Tayy. knows if it “is safe.”’ With that the tiarinen begins: Szell, the conscienceless Nazi, reveals all his clinical barbarity as he stands towering over a captive Babe, pointing his dentist’s drill and repeating over and over the meaningless question: “Is it safe . is it safe?’’ But Babe doesn’t understand the question — and the audience, already bewildered by an astounding complexity of events, doesn’t understand why the image of Babe’s father keeps flashing across the screen during the most agonizing moments. And there lies the problem with Marathon Man. It. pretends, with its victims of Auschwitz, with its allusions to McCarthyite witch hunts, to be much more than just another blood-and-guts. thriller — but it isn’t. It’s cheaper still for its ending as a vengeful Babe tries to render his own-version of justice on behalf of all the victims of Ausch- witz. As Babe, Dustin Hoffman strives for the same excellence that has been his hallmark in other roles Marshall McLuhan — cultural colonialist Marshall McLuhan, the professor who fancies himself the trail blazing meteor of the air- waves, flashed into a recent press conference in Paris following a UNESCO-sponsored symposium on art. When reporters asked par- ticipants what the symposium was all about, McLuhan seized the spotlight with publicity-catching phrases for which he has won both fame and notoriety, such as his comment “the medium is the message.”’ : ‘ But this time there was nothing remotely forward looking about his interpolation, especially when he embarked on a discussion of Third World art and offered views that were downright colonialist. “In the Third World,’ opined McLuhan, “there is no high art. Everything they do is art.”’ He elaborated this thesis, in- terrupting Alejo Carpentier, distinguished Cuban writer and diplomat who was summarizing the symposium. ‘‘The press is a popular art form,’’ announced McLuhan. *‘The Third World does it with drums.” When Carpentier, after the in- terruption, took up the question of relations between the artist and the people, McLuhan again broke in. *“The microphone affects politics in Cuba,’’ he pontificated. ‘‘Castro, by using television instead of radio has been able to stabilize politics in Cuba, while Latin American countries using radio, not television, have no stability.” There was a pause while several of those present debated whether to inform McLuhan that television exists in South America. But McLuhan has never ad- mitted that there is any distinction between opinion and fact. Finally, Carpentier, the Cuban writer said gently, ‘‘Castro ap- pears very rarely on television. He gives torrential speeches on radio.” “TV is a cool medium, radio is a hot medium,’’ McLuhan replied, undaunted. ‘‘You put a hot medium into the Third World and you have excitement. It’s a very dangerous instrument. Radio is like rum for Indiansm It sends them crazy. “Third World people have sensitive ears. The literate man has poor hearing — he can stand the radio raving. “The Third World wants to go through crazy industrialization, to throw away its future for the past.” McLuhan then rushed out to lunch with a parting shot. ‘“‘The Third Worldis like a hemisphere in my left hand,” he said, leaving the puzzled repprters discussing McLuhan instead of art. —Ben Levine Daily World Nigel Morgan announced thié but the script of Marathon Man th: warts him; screenwriter William Goldman —. who adapted the film from his own novel — has given him lines that even the cockiest captive could scarcely utter in the face of such imminent agony. As his persecutor, Szelly Lawrence Olivier attempts bring some dramatic balance to 4 role that is perhaps too villaino to be balanced. Considering past and the twists and turns of plot, it probably couldn’t have be otherwise. Virtually all of the othél characters are merely vehicles Dustin Hoffman as Babe Levy ott oe Pa oll alee fa, on 7 tries to escape from his flat just before he is kidnapped " Marathon Man. | who serve only to keep the complex action going. Only Marthe Kelle! | as Babe’s girl friend, Elsa, does! ‘anything more diversified than the | usual movements — brandishiné | weapons and pursuing “people. | “All of which isn’t to say thal Marathon Man is dull. It isn’t — and the queues outside the theatre attest to’a continuing — if some times disturbing — fascinatio? among audiences with murder-rid died thrillers. But in the end it’s just that: a slick thriller the wt mate message of which (if there ® one) is as contrived as the openifé scenes. —Sean Griff Meetings set for Kashtan Plans have been finalized fo next . week’s speaking tour Communist Party leader Willia® Kashtan, CP provincial leadé week. Morgan said that Kashtan, wh? will be in B.C. on the first leg of a cross-country tour, will speak @ the Russian People’s Home, 60 Campbell Ave., Vancouver ava p.m. on Sunday, November 14. will be at Victoria’s Union cen at 8 p.m. on Monday, November ! to address a meeting of Victori# trade unionists and others. T | Victoria meeting will be held ? hall *‘B’’ of the centre. | The last meeting of the Val couver Island tour is scheduled f0! the following night, November } at 8 p.m. in the Port Alberni Lond shoremen’s Hall, 3028 - 2nd AV& HAVE YOU RENEWED YOUR PT SUB YET? | | Sex