Edward Il Bie end fairly healthy Son of a shoemaker, compa- nion of Sixteenth Century intel- lectuals and playboys, scholar and secret agent for Queen Eli- zabeth’s spy network, bohemian, boozer and carouser, poet and playwright of the Renaissance, pioneer in English historical tra- gedy, romantic literary giant and contemporary of Shakespeare, humanist and “heretic,” and dead at twenty-nine in a drunk- en brawl (or was it a planned murder to shut him up?) — Kit Marlowe, after nearly four cen- turies, is alive and fairly healthy at the Royal Alexandra Theatre where his play, Edward II, has opened the second season of Theatre Toronto. In this stage work Marlowe was not so much interested in the poetry of the theatre as in its guts. He was “playing to the gallery” and he lavished on his audiences a homosexual king pursuing a succession of male lovers, plus a collection of vicious sadists, plus a series of outrag- eous murders, plus an assort- ment of treacheries and grue- some sensationalisms. In this drama’s Fourteenth Century struggles for power among king, queen and rival groups of lords, one can sym- pathize only momentarily with any one person or group, for all Bullitt: “BULLITT.” A Warner Bros- Seven Arts release starring Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn and Jacqueline Bisset. Screenplay by Alan R. Trust- man and Harry Kleiner, based on the novel ‘Mute Witness,” by Robert L. Pike. Produced by Philip D’Antoni, Directed by Peter Yates. During the 60’s a new cine- matic genre has emerged from Hollywood: neo-unrealism, cur- rently best exemplified by Steve McQueen’s latest opus, “Bul- litt.” In the post-war years we had neo-realism, a product of the newly liberated artists and wri- ters of Europe who, unchained from the falsehoods of fascism, revelled in showing life in all its Taw, unclean and _ wretched truths. In the 50’s, Fellini gave us neo-surrealism: the raw and the true, but with a carnival exag- geration, a baroque sense of rea- lity seen through a magnifying lens, with consequent distor- tions. Neo-unrealism is the by-prod- uct of Hollywood’s digestion of the new film techniques that have emerged from Europe, Ja- pan and experimental films over the past two decades. As a by- product of digestion, it is a sort of cinematic excrement. The characteristics of neo- unrealism are a documentarist’s sense of locale and the use of actual street backgrounds, news- reel-type (hand-held) camera- work, an attention to details that have the credibility of ac- tuality, and an overall aura of phoniness that makes the real world seem like a studio back lot. The excellence of American professional filmmakers, which PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 17, 1969—Page 10 > are bloodthirsty when their pow- er is threatened and ail behave vilely at one time or another. Witness the drunken king and his boy Spenser chortling and giggling as they recite the cata- logue of victims they have vari- ously put to death. Or the queen’s vindictive glee as she gives herself to Mortimer, her husband’s killer. Or the young hired murderer delighted with the perverted ingenuities he em- ploys to butcher the king, Or the jailers abusing and _ harassing that king. Or the king’s son or- dering his mother to be thrown into the tower, then gloating over the bleeding, severed head of Mortimer. The nicest thing you can say about the English Establishment of the time, on Marlowe’s evi- dence, is that they were literally a bloody awful lot. The production, directed by Clifford Williams, builds steadily towards the final tragic outcome, but seems to. take rather too long to do so. It has not yet found electric quality to grip one, especially in the first half. But there are some impressive scenes, such as the confronta- tions between king and nobles, or the battles and the capture of Edward’s enemies, or the _king’s torment in prison. The staging is well served by the costumes and props of Reg Samuel and Tina Lipp, by their brooding castle interior and by the medieval background sounds. The acting company, in which a number of players double up ‘in roles, on the whole gives the impression of being under-re- hearsed. Peter Marinker, as Gaveston, the king’s lover, is not terribly enchanting; and Moya Fenwick plays the rejected queen with a coolness unsuited to the role. I liked Richard Monette’s cal- lew heir to the throne, and Rob- ert Christie’s Tricky Lancaster and Gurney, and especially Leon Pownell’s very vital Spenser. Joseph Shaw, as the king’s chief enemy, Mortimer, develops a role of great vigor, cruel anger and unscrupulous ambitions. With William Hutt, he is a high- light of the production. Mr. Hutt, as Edward, creates one more magnificent stage por- trayal to add to his earlier Rich- ard II, The Inspector General Tartuffe and many others. As the king he is superb, ranging from petulance to arrogance, to pettiness to conceit to power hunger and, finally, to the pathe- tic weariness of a crushed mnn. One could feel sorry for him. —Martin Stone. Neo-unrealism has long been admired the world over in much the same way other countries admire our abi- lity to mass produce hot dogs and automobiles, has become technical vituosity. In an increasing number of American films camerawork and_ editing have become in themselves. the dominant entertainment factor. More and more watching a ma- jor American film is like hearing an overly showy piano player perform a banal tune. “Bullitt” is a bunch of bloody very bloody—baloney. It is also, on a cursory level, good enter- tainment. It engenders a sort of sensory absorption that is total, especially if you sit, as I did, a little too close to the screen. It has some of the most exciting photography of any recent vir- tuoso film, From the first moments of credits, which are shot with a series of dizzifying pans, zooms and dollies — foreshadowing the filmic pyrotechnics to come — “Bullitt” grabs you in a visceral hammer lock that scarcely leaves you time to wonder why so little of what is happening means a damn. “Bullitt” typifies the credo of neo-unrealism: if your charac- ters are shallow and your plot is thin, be sure you have a tele- photo lens. However, though the story line in “Bullitt” seemed simplis- tic, days later I was still puzzl- ing over a half dozen twists and turns of the script, befuddle- ments that seem to reinforce the implication that you’re not sup- posed to care exactly what’s hap- pening on the screen, it’s how it’s happening that counts. Though there is sometimes validity to the old adage, “it ain’t what you do, it’s the way how you do it,” unfortunately that maxim does not generally hold true. It’s the old form vs. content argument, and certainly when it comes to an exercise like “Bullitt,” the imitative expert- ise of its creators doesn’t make up for its pointless text, Though “Bullitt” has mo- ments of edge-of-the-seat sus- pense comparable to those of Hitchcock, persons who would compare it to a Hitchcock ve- hicle are insensitive to that old master’s sophistication of plot and character. “Bullitt” is tastelessly violent in the manner of most contem- porary American films, tasteless in its bloodiness because you never know or care about the people who bleed, and conse- quently it is painless violence, the most obscene kind. The violence in most films is abhorrent because it inures us to pain, just as the daily TV battle footage from Vietnam ac- customs Americans to accept the notion of legalized butchery. “Bullitt”? makes a feeble at- tempt to suggest his problem of becoming habituated to violence. In a scene that should have been subtitled with the blinking mes- sage, “Inserted to provide re- deeming social value,’ Jacque- line Bisset entreatingly ques- tions Detective Bullitt (Mc- Queen) as to how he can con- stantly be witness to so much violence without becoming hard- ened. : The scene is so phony and Miss Bisset’s acting so abomin- able that even a pacifist in the audience will be impatiently wishing the conversation over so the movie may proceed with the next shoot-out. There are moments when Bullitt suggests possibilities for the American cinema. The news- reel-like night photography of [oe ee | ee It was Oliver Goldsmith (1729-74) who proclaimed in his poem “The Deserted Vil- lage” an irrefutable truth of his day, as in ours: “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumu- lates, and men decay.” Then the Irish poet was writing of his land-poor and poverty - stricken peasants, “once their country’s pride,” reduced by a ruthless exploi- tation to the status of “their country’s pariahs’” and out- casts. A terse news item in the December 6, 1968 edition of the Alberta Wheat Pool bul- letin entitled “Damp and Tough” lends confirmation to the thoughts which inspired Goldsmith and makes his words, prophetically applic- able 240-years later to Can- ada’s prairie wheat growers. With some one thousand mil- lion bushels of unsold wheat on their hands, millions of bushels of it designated as “damp and tough,” our farm people are being reminded once again what it means when “wealth accumulates and men decay,” and on a much greater scale’ than in Goldsmith’s day. In our more youthful years among the wheat growers of the “Last Great West” we re- call that under an archaic “Canada Grain Act,” the ele- vator, milling and baking mo- nopoly octopus used to rob the farmers blind, to say nothing of the rest of us, all of which was very right “‘le- gal” and proper in the eyes of the Establishment of that era. The “legal” techniques for robbing the farmer were sim- ple—and crude. The grain oc- topus extracted millions of dollars out of his pocket by simply grading his wheat crop as being “damp,” “tough,” “bleached,” ‘‘feed,” etc. ad infinitum. The milling com- bines cashed in handsomely in this robbery since all these “srades” at greatly reduced prices to the farmer went into the baking of the “best” loaf. Thus when you plunk that chunk of damp dough called a loaf down on the family ta- ble, keep in mind that the grain, milling and baking combine have all taken a good fat slice out of it, as well as out of the wheat grower before it came to rest on your family table; from the farmer anywhere from ten to fifty-cents a bushel or more —from you the equivalant of ~thousand wagon three or more vetly ? slices. 4 The advance of mel science and hospitaliZ® for humanity’s ills is the marvels of our 486, as yet nothing compar what a grain monopoly f derbund can do in its 4 pitalization” of alleged — grade” wheat it has lit stolen from the wheat ‘ er. It is a story on ™M books have been writlé and more could be will Thus on the threshold 1969 it is not drouth, hoppers, frost, rust, sawhl what have you which © fair to drive thousand’ farmers from their land homes, but millions of © els of “damp and toll wheat on his farm, for ¥ the grower has neithet facilities nor the finance quired to save and pres Aside from a lot of tious advice on the “date. of drying, etc. Agric Minister Olson of the. 4 deaumania “Just soe pontificates on the pi “damp and tough” cris his predecessors have é in the past. Then acc, to the Alberta Wheat | bulletin, comes up with pical Trudeau solution— grain and the problem & { the farmers hands .. - # likely to remain with farmer”. fb To the majority of Cat ff wheat growers the Minis fi forecast isn’t “news”, D? will be should he find same wheat growers 08 steps of Canada’s Parlial paying their multiple fe taxes and other “obligati in kind—that is with se loads “damp and tough” wheel method of “payment” W had a salutary effect rural prairie bank “fore ures” during the Hungry fi and ’30s and equally effe in the “Just Society” 6” “Till fares the land a when its primary prod’ with a mountain of red@ able food on their dot! ‘must suffer the hunger y indignity of monopoly-g ment imposed “decay”. Truly as another farm ye Alf Budden once said: C “And the field that gl” like a golden stre@ And the slaves that amain; ‘a And thine, are thin® master mine, To the uttermost measure of gain”. aa the ambulances arriving at the waterfront hotel; the dramatic use of San Francisco’s topogra- phy ( who cares if the cars chase each other up a hill in Bernal Heights and come down in North Beach; only Golden Gate purists will be offended), the familiar- ity of the crowd scene at the airport, disrupted when the mysterious villain is finally shot at the baggage check-out. But “Bullitt” at its best is a giant gimmick it is full of sound ‘and fury, told by technically ac- complished people who have nothing to say, —Celia Rosebury | tt On Che In reviewing the uns? tory Fratti play about Guevara (Tribune, 2 Jal Martin Stone let him® overwhelmed by what he siders to be the futility , struggle in Bolivia — + waste”, “folly”, “futility ‘y born self-destruction”, | break the sole legacy”. F%, who prefer something ot i paperback “Viva Che” 15; recommended. Martin might like it. Toro’