Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 33, No. 6 6 May 1970

The 625 Line

page 22

The 625 Line

Image of David Smith

The one about the castrated monk and the nymphomaniac nun.

Medieval love letters read aloud by their authors. Not much of a prospect for television material one might think. Yet the screening of Abelard and Heloise by the local stations recently had such hypnotic qualities that it is worth commenting on in the New Zealand context. For basically this piece was true television without gimmicks relying solely on imaginative continuity, judicious use of close-up and the intelligent acting of two people. Such ingredients should be readily available to the television drama purveyors who have promised so much and given so little. The cramped studios of this country cry out for this kind of approach (learning to walk prior to running was the secret of Downstage's survival on the local theatrical scene). A willingness to bank on unlikely material of this kind would also help immeasurably. Oh, and stuff Mother of Ten.

Credit where it's due department

Rite of Spring impressed even the super critical Rolf Harris and you can't say fairer than that. Only the all-too-obviously canned orchestra dulled the impact of this vigorous rendition by the New Zealand Ballet and at the present stage of development this must be taken as inevitable. Total use of available resources made it thoroughly memorable and an early contender for a 1971 Feltex Award.

Following the well-merited boot in the dag administered to Country Calendar is it too much to hope that the Sports view jockstrap might be similarly violated? The tired "Well Saturday sees the start of the second annual toad-shoot at Waikanae and here's fifty feet of irrelevant film to prove it . . ." gambit must go. Similarly, the unsports like, albeit appropriate, opening riff of "It's Not Unusual" must no longer be allowed to set the tone of unmitigated dullness. The only explanation for the present exercise in tedium can be that the interests of sport are considered to be best served by inducing viewers to forsake their armchairs in favour of a quick puke round the block.

The United States is not generally seen to be a country over burdened with personalities in the sphere of documentary presentations. The in-depth analyses of news which represent the best aspects of US television are for obvious reasons only rarely screened here and the many CBS features bought by the NZBC are rotten with Cronkitism (an educated form of Holyoakism). Surprise surprise therefore when Afro-American Bob Cosby, frontman for Of Black America, breezed his way through what could have been the most pedantic essay on race relations ever to hit the tube. Rather than proving that in every middle-class Negro there is a Black Panther fighting to get out Cosby chose to soft-sell the notion that Negroes have been stunted by social conditioning. This conditioning was clearly and coolly analysed by the highly articulate Mr Cosby who managed to stay with the light touch whilst remaining in deadly earnest. A subjective treatment not lacking in empathy. Rare and no mean achievement.

Beachcomber is essentially a literary phenomenon to be taken in small doses every morning (like Peanuts) over a period of 35 years or so. Milligan and the gang can certainly raise a smile with J.B. Morton's non-sequiturs but they will always run into the kind of problems apparent to anyone who saw the attempted filming of Ulysses.

One of the unique aspects of TV is that it enables one to be entertained in one's own home by people one would not entertain in one's own home. Hamilton Mitchell comes into this category with a vengeance. In Profiles in Influence he was given carte blanche by Bernard Smythe—who's no Brian Edwards at the best of times—to wet on for the duration. Never one to miss a plug for Hamilton Mitchell, the great warrior lurched ever-onward. World affairs, defence strategy, the tragedy of youth ("work within the law and youth will change the face of the world like lowering the voting age to 20") were pontificated upon while the somnolent Smythe slumped in nodding approval. (The PYM would be well advised to lay wreaths on both of them). Personally I could stand it no longer so I turned the "off" switch and watched an old soldier fade away.

Photo of a dancing woman