Flicks

by Jeremy Littlejohn

There is only one thing to be said about the films screened by Kerridge Odeon and Amalgamated this summer; and that is that in following their tradition of using the Christmas period to dump off their dreariest old fart, they surpassed themselves. Week after week of inane 'family attractions' embarrased all but the most composed of viewers, and extorted countless pennies better spent anywhere else. This death-in-life cinema (a flattering description), easy enough to justify on the grounds that it is accounting for all tastes, rarely rose to the mundane.

There were exceptions, but rather than alleviating the situation, films like 'Gumshoe' and Traffic' only emphasised the vacuous nature of efforts like 'Please Sir' and The Great Waltz".

This said, it remains to be seen if there is anything marginally relevant I can say before attacking the cinema world film by film as I intend to do from next week on; and, often due to consideration, it seems that a few snide remarks about the four big 'films of last year — 'The French Connection", "The Godfather", "What's Up Doc", and "The Last Picture Show"- would be no more amiss than chatter of any other kind.

Although not one of these is an unquestionable masterpiece, each, especially "The Godfather" and "The Last Picture Show" was impressive.

Friedkin, Coppola and Bogdanovich (the directors involved) had already est ablished themselves as among the most promising of the American 'youth movie directors, with projects like "Targets", "The Birthday Party", and "The Rain' People" to their credit. In many respects they were independent production aimed at accumulating nothing more than plaudits. In complete contrast, their latest movies originated in the big studios and conformed to big studio patterns. Traditional approaches have won new favour with both young directors and audiences generally, and "The Godfather" and it's cohorts mark a return of the genre pieces and the death of the socially conscious 'off-beat' film

We may soon be enthralled by the very formula cinema which kept our parents going to the cinema week after week.

The crime genre is at the highest premium for the moment. This particular medium offers scope for a [unclear: contr] continuation of sex and violent motifs, to say nothing of straightforward action. Romantic comedy could hardly accomodate these motifs and in spite of Bogdanovich's noble but very strained attempt in "The Last Picture Show" neither does the nostalgic epic. But whether there are enough directors capable of fusing their knowledge of the old formulas with the hallmarks of their own styles remains a matter yet to be decided. None of the possible complications is so disturbing as the possibility of this return to nostalgia re-introducing the mogul system of the period in which these films were set. Often good for gossip but rarely for the 'art of film' (if there be such a thing), the mogul system is too mechanical for a generation of film makers fully versed in such issues as contemporary individuality. The frightening prospect is that good directors with good films behind them may not produce notable results again for a long time.

This resume is heartlessly brief, but space is precious, I am told, and so con elusions would be foolhardy at this point But the coming year should determine whether these four big money makers [unclear: an] the beginning of a new era or merely an outbreak of untimely old world feeling.