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University Daily Kansan, July 14, 1980
Opinion
SUA films amiss
Something's amiss in the Student Union Activities' film program.
The film program's commitment to bringing new shows on campus has faltered under the inconsistent leadership of its chairman.
Michael Gebert, film board chairman, recently denied allegations that many of the program's films are reruns. He said that fewer than 50 percent of the SUA films have played at KU before and that fewer recent have played here in the last four years.
However, according to SUA film records, of the 24 films that make up the summer schedule 18, or 75 percent of them, have been shown on campus. Eleven of the 18, or 46 percent, were shown sometime in the last four years. Of the 93 films, excluding the 15 popular new releases, to be shown this fall, 56, or 60 percent, already have been on campus, 29, or 31 percent, in the last four years.
Those who work with Gebert on the film board say he has not enforced or even radically altered his policy to keep reruns from being shown. Instead of enforcing a rule that would have restricted those films shown on campus within the past four years, Gebert cut the margin to two years. When the fall schedule was being finalized last month, the rule was completely abandoned.
Tension between Gebert and other film board members began when two films, "Citizen Kane" and "2001", were bumped from the summer program line up. Film board members charged Gebert with manipulating the program for his personal benefit. Mark Klobassa, who is in charge of the studio, rejected the films because he didn't want to miss them while he was away from Lawrence for the summer.
Gebert countered by saying the films were too expensive and should be shown in the fall or spring when 25,000 people instead of the 5,000 summer students could see the film. But that kind of logic doesn't hold up when one considers that Gebert has engineered a private showing of "2001" for film board members Thursday night.
The film was acquired as a bonus for the summer business done with Films Incorporated, the Chicago, Ill., company UA rents films from Gubei said the auction took place in a free film and the company agreed, provided the film was not shown before the
University's general public.
Gebert elected to satisfy his disgruntled film board and did not try to get a cheaper film for the entire student population. This clearly shows Gebert's inconsistent and contradictory way of dealing with the film board's problems.
One reason for showing reruns, some film board members say, is Gebert's zealous desire to make money. When board members suggested new films from the 1950s, they responded with a response was to axe them in favor of ones he thought would draw better crowds.
The proposed 1980-81 budget for the film program also reflects Gebert's desire to陪 SUA's purse. The program is budgeted to make $63,600. Minus an estimated $59,600 in expenses, the program is expected to earn a $4,000 profit.
The truth, though, is that the entire SUA program, of which the film series is only a part, is expected to come up $27,500 short. The cost of ads absorbed by the Kansas Union.
The extra $4,000 earned by the film program does not even benefit the film series. It goes back into the general SUA activity fund, which is far from being self-sufficient. And $4,000 leaves room for the film board to gamble on some new or perhaps obscure films. The money could also be used to hire film directors to speak on campus. This practice has been non-existent on campus since fall 1977.
The point is that money has never been a motivating factor for the film series. Good entertainment is, but when the same films are being shown almost yearly, the opportunities to be exposed to different shows are slim. Some films like Humphrey Bogart's or Alfred Hitchcock's are expected each semester, but when reruns climb into the 60 percent range, something isn't right.
Another inconsistent move by Gebert is to risk the very money he wants to earn by allowing films to be taken off campus for private screenings. It cost thousands of dollars to replace most films. Even though he doesn't want to disapprove, Gebert ignored his superiors and checked out one film for four days and others for shorter lengths of time.
Soon, the spring schedule of films will be chosen. The SUA officers should now take a course that will train program's state of affairs and make all necessary changes in policy or personnel.
Letters to the editor...
Film choices worthy
To the editor:
As co-chairman of the classical series of the 1980-81 SUA film board, I think I am qualified to reply to Mike Gebert's letter to the editor (June 30).
I would like to first address his statement that I say a lot of things I obviously don't mean. Don't we all? But when someone in a position as chairman of the committee believed it to believe it, Mike told all of us on the committee that we should choose films that hadn't been shown on campus for four years, or at the very least, had been seen three years ago. Later, he had been told film directors showed two years ago are fair game.
Why did he change his mind? No one but Mike can say for certain, but I think it was because he thought certain films would bring in more money.
For instance, Linda Mufchf, my partner, and I had several films on our list that Mike "suggested" we change because they were losers; Bergman's "Winter Light," Rohrer's "Trainspotting," and Becker's "About Men." Drach's "Les Violes du Bali," Becker's "Casque d'or," "Forbes" the L-Shaped Room, and a double feature of films based on stories by W. Somerset Maugham, consisting of Davis Betts in "Of Human Bondage," and either man or Charles Laughton in "The Beachcomber."
Mike called these films "obscure." I think a respected film critic or two would refute that he also said our list needed a "little financial priming" (I'm not dredging up these quotes from memory). He wrote me a note which I kept. Another film on our list that he deemed "respectable was" Gododar's Le Gai Savor; after much discussion and effort, it helped to his suicides; we dropped the Forbes film for "Women in Love" Wertmiller's film for "La Dolce Vita," the Maugham double feature for "Les Enfants du Paradis," and "Les Violens du Bail" for "Gentleman's Agreement."
"Casque d'or" was dropped because of a miscalculation in the number of slots for the series and "Winter Light" was dropped because the group for whom we slated it already had a film scheduled for another night. Mike decided that one was enough. "Le Gal Savoir" was pulled because of a glitch. "La Breathless" We refused to drop "La Collectioneuse". Finally, we were "persuaded" to show a classic film Fritz Lang. "M", instead of a more German film, "T勇 Torless."
Now, I have nothing against the substitutions as works of cinematic art. However, I do feel that our choices were just as worthy, if not more so. "Mary," the first film most of our choices had never been shown on campus, whereas "Women in Love" has been here twice, the last time in 1978; "La Dolce Vita," the third time in 1963; and "M" has been here five times before, last in Fall 1978. Of the 17 films we are presenting this
fall, 11 have been shown at least one time
therefore of five of those have been shown in
the last two years.
I feel that this narrows considerably the spectrum of our film-going experience. With the thousands of wonderful films produced in the last decade, it's no surprise that we choose a wider variety than we have in the past. Granted, "La Doca Vita" is more well-known than "Let's Talk About Men," and thus will draw more people; and granted, SUO has many different styles, so we can take our recebits can help them, so much the better.
Evalyn Barger Gelhous Davis. Calif., graduate student
But should the quality and variety of our film program suffer just so that SUA can enrich its coffers? I think not. I hope Landa and I will be able to present some films that are new to KU this spring.
From the Kansan's lead editorial on June 9th, we were informed that our right to free speech on campus is defended with "righteous inflexibility." The victims of the Board of Regent's censorship are guilty of "arrogance" and "lack of respect" for the system which enforces this censorship and is told that proper response to university criticism is restricted by University's problem is not "stubbornness" but a compromise, "gathered out of the multitude of tongues."
Insight missing
Here, at a University founded for higher education and the free pursuit of knowledge, we have an administration that tries to regulate the distribution of literature. Here, at an institution where students can read in dark horizons, we have speeches and art exhibits cancelled because they are too controversial.
Once again the issue of free speech at the University of Kansas has risen and once again our student newspaper has attempted to put the university's proversy in perspective for its campus audience.
To the editor:
But the final irony lies within the student body. The repressive policies experienced during the Dykes administration were a minor threat compared to students' willingness to censor themselves. And the Kansan is a perfect complement to this attitude.
Archie Dykes said, "the 'University exists foremost as an institution in which the free flow of ideas is not merely tolerated but actively encouraged through its within it.'" Dykes's hypocrisy will not be missed.
Joe Bartos Boulder senior
Free speech should not be compromised and any "stubbornness" peacefully exercised to defend it is justified. Let us hope that in the future our student newspaper has the moral and intellectual fiber to defend free speech rather than to advocate its compromise.
In looking back in sadness at events this year, the sequence is surely plain to see. Iran, U.S. and Russia have been wary of each other.
Moscow deserves to host Olympics
Rv.JAMESRIORDAN
The cry that Moscow must be prevented from using the 1980 Olympics as a communist showcase rises false when one recalls the silence of most Western leaders six years ago when the Soviet Union was chosen, virtually unanimously, as venue for the 1980 Games.
New York Times Special Features
BRADFORD, England—When the 22nd Olympic Games open in Moscow Wednesday, it will be the first time in the 84-year modern Olympic history that a communist country has won medals. Not only is the Soviet Union the most successful Olympic participant ever—having won most medals at every Olympics in which it has competed, summer and winter, with the sole exception of 1968—it is by far the most versatile, having won medals in 19 of the 21 sports in Montreal in 1976.
Hence, the cynical view in Moscow that the boycott attempts by the Carter-Thatcher group, a far right extremist group, graps. As long as the West was winning and could dictate sports policy, there was never a suggestion that the Olympics were too big, and the United States would have a ticular country, including Nazi Germany in 1936.
With the other communist countries, it accounted for 57 of the medals in Montreal. The Western contribution had diminished proportionately, with the United States having to take third place behind the Soviet Union and East Europe in the last Summer and Winter Olympics.
Afghanistan, boycott campaign. Indeed, President Carter's sporting lunges have more to do with presidential ratings and the backlash from Iran's challenge to American "virility" than the Soviet intrusion into one of its border states to replace one pro-Moscow regime with another.
It was not so long ago that the president had affirmed that Afghanistan was within the Soviet sphere of influence, just as Chile, Argentina or El Salvador were within America's backyard. In Britain, it is tempting to put the government's overreaction down to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's pathological anti-Sovietism and fear of a potential invasion. There are also those who see Britain, with West Germany and Japan as the tail wagged by the American bulldog.
It is a sobering thought that the world can be brought to the brink of war and the Olympic movement jeopardized on the whim of the rattles and the hysteria of a "castiron lady."
In the cold light of retrospection, the anti-Soviet hysteria whipped up in the Western news media, presenting the menacing specter of the Tibetan uprising. In the next Hindu Kush and Khyber Pass, fulminating about Moscow using the Olympics for communist propaganda, branding those athletes who wish to go to Moscow as traitors, can now be seen as civilians in aim and unscrupulous in method.
killing a million civilians in Indochina, in
Sudan? Certainly Moscow did not launch a boycott.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Did those who protested at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ever suggest boycoting the Denver Winter Olympics and scheduling for 1976, while U.S. forces were
Did Western governments even raise the question of holding sports events in the United States when Americans were invading the Dominican Republic or Cuba, or disposing of the democratically elected Salvador Allende Gossens in Chile or Mohammed Mossadeg in Iran for Augusto Pinochet in Chile of the shah? It would have been a world cup in Argentina, though they knew of the concentration camps and torture centers for political the opposition in that country?
By no means. Most of the news media and the present government ministers in all the broycotts state in the vanguard of promoting agriculture as much as none of them heaved as much as a sporting sigh.
In the 84 years of the modern Olympic movement, the world has hardly ever been at peace. In many years, the government of the host country for a major sporting event has been seen as violating another country's sovereignty or the principle of human rights. If the principle of universal human rights lasted until the 20th century, international sport and the Olympic Games could not have survived to 1980.
Surely any occasion that brings people from all over the globe together in peace and concord, to compete and cooperate in honest friendship, has been a major event. We know there are precious few such opportunities left to mankind.
James Riordan, author of "Soviet Sport: Background to the Olympics," is senior lecturer in Russian Studies at the University of Bradford in England.
Khomeini needs ears boxed
I can't understand the Avatollah Khomeini.
A few weeks ago, he declined Ramsey Clark's offer to exchange himself for one of the American hostages. Then, just as I began to respect Kohnii for his good judgment, he allowed his country to slip farther back toward the Stone Age.
Khomeini stood by as Iran's Revolutionary Council legalized stoning as an official method of execution. No wonder the diplomatic coils is growing. No man can deal rationally with that mentality?
irustrated. Venguef too. I'd like to lock the Ayatollah in a room with Howard Cosell—no interpreter. I'd show them reruns of second-rate bowling tournaments. Khomini would agree to any terms within a week. He'd give up any terms. He'd probably put the Shah back on the throne.
Cosell probably wouldn't do it, though. I don't know what to do to bring those people back.
My mother does. She called me last week. For a moment, I thought she had turned traitor.
"Son," she said, "have you got any connections down there in Kansas who could put me in touch with the Ayatollah Khomeini?"
"No, Mother. Why?"
"Your father and I were sitting up talking the other night and we decided we'd like to invite the Ayatollah over to Montana for dinner one evening next week."
"Good heavens, Mother, you're not turning against the country, are you?"
"Then why do you want to invite Khomeini to dinner?"
Of course not.
"I want to talk some sense into that man's head."
"Your father just wants to punch him in the nose."
"I know a lot of people who'd like to do the same. Mother."
"Well, just the same, it's not decent to invite a man over to eat and then punch him out. I'd never allow it under my roof. You'll pass that along to the Avatolah, won't you?"
"Mother, I don't have any connections to the Ayatollah. Maybe you could just send him your email."
"It wouldn't be the same thing as talking to
him over one of my venison pot roasts. You know, I thought I'd bake some fresh bread and a few punikin pie. I just know he'd be a lot more fun than Montana meal and some friendly conversation."
"I don't know, Mother. Plenty of others have told him to him and they didn't get any satisfaction."
'They probably didn't talk to him properly.'
'Mother, those people are professional
Columnist J.V. Smith Jr.
diplomats. They know to deal with men like Khomeini."
"Don't contradict me, boy. I said they haven't talked properly. The hostages aren't home, are they?"
"Enough said. This is not a time for wishwiy diplomacy. This is not a complicated, foggy issue. It's a simple problem. It can be solved with straight talk and good punkin pie. If I want you to eat the Aytalkah to down to dinner, I would first give him some straight talk and then the pie."
"And what if he would!" lizzard!
"Did his box ears," she said. "One of the things
"But you said .
I found out in raising five children is that the listening gets better after the ears get boxed."
"I know. I said it it's not decent to attack a guest.
I'd make an exception in the Ayatollah's case.
For his own good, of course, as well as for the good of the country and the hostages."
"Mother, I agree with you, but I'm certain that our president would say your idea oversimplified the problem. Some might even call it simplistic."
My dear mother sighed and said, "I suppose you're right. But you know, I've raised my two youngest sisters, five of my own children and one husband. And in that moment, once was able to give in, to apologize or to appease any one of those whose own misbehavior brought us into conflict. The problem always became worse until I boxed a few ears. Sometimes I felt bad for doing it, but it wasn't because I was too capable to understand. Don't you remember it being the way when you were growing up?"
She was right, of course. That's how I remembered it: simple and direct communication.
"Yes, Mother." I said. "And I also remember that the pumpkin pie always tastes better after eating it."
"You don't suppose," she said, "that we have a generation of Spokock diplomats running the State Department."
I don't know. Mother. I just don't know
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