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Friday, March 22, 1974
University Daily Kansan
'Sting' Aims Low,
By KENN LOUDEN Kansas Reviewer
"The Sting" is a formula movie—a movie produced to be entertaining and profitable. The Sting, now showing in *The Big Bang*, leads, helps, the audience glimpse of *de
sonality rather than acting, and one capable
who never aims too high.
A formula movie is entertaining; "The Sting" is entertaining. A successful formula movie is profitable; judging by the long run, a box office, "The Sting" has been profitable.
Author Defends Church In Conflict with Galileo
By STEVEN LEWIS
Kansas Reviewer
"GALILEO, SCIENCE AND THE
THEORIES OF GENERAL PHYSICY"
Ann Arbor Paper back cover $2.45
Galilee's run-in with the Roman Catholic Church has been called the greatest scandal in Christendom. Historians and playwrights generally have portrayed Galilee as Dudley Doright and the church as Boris Badenov when writing about the Christian religion and science—together the earth or the sun is the center of the solar system.
Father Jerome Langford's book, "Galileo, Science and the Church," is a convincingly realistic account of Galilee's fateful fight for intellectual freedom. Langford writes that it's not true the Catholic Church was a vicious enemy of science and progress.
The seeds of the conflict were sown by the Polish astronomer Copernicus, who wrote a revolutionary book that theorized that the sun was the center of the solar system. The theory, published in 1543 as Copernicus lay dying, caused little unrest. It wasn't until 50 years later, following Galileo's decision for Copernicanism, that controversy swelled.
Galileo was a renowned mathematical and mechanical genius; a politician, however, he wasn't. Galileo's life after his conversion to Copernicanism became an almost absolute truth in the late-Polemonian geocentric cosmology was a fiction and Copernicanism was a fact.
In 1969, Galliele constructed one of the first telescopes and began searching the heavens for evidence of Copernicanism. What he found, Langford carefully points out, didn't prove Copernicanism, although it was from the popular Greek cosmology.
Galileo, nevertheless, embarked on a crusade to literally humiliate the church into abandoning the world view of Aristotelian science for that of Copernicus; more than any other thing, Langford asked, aroused the anger of church officials.
First, Galilee publicly reinterpreted Scriptures to conform to a heliocentric solar system. Private interpretation of Scripture, however, had been expressly forbidden by the church since the Council of Trent, which issued a public response to the Protestant Reformation.
Galileo's second great mistake was his needless concession in his famous "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina" that he wrote about a girl named there were no conflicting concrete proofs.
Such early church notables as Augustine and Aguinas had denied that the Bible was a source for astronomical truth. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, however, their thoughts were overlooked by both Galileo and the church.
Nevertheless, the church allowed Galilee to write in support of Copernicanism. Langford points out that Galilee had much intellectual support from Catholic scholars, especially from the Jesuit astronomers. Langford remarked, however, that most of his students included Galileo. Thus he was premature in thinking that Copernicanism was factual.
Impatient, Galileo went to Rome in 1615 to
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torce the church to either accept or reject Copernicanism. At Galileo's insistence, the Pope called for a verdict early in 1616. Eleven Consultors judged Copernicanism "foolish and absurd" and "erroneous in the faith."
Because he had forced the church to act before he had conclusive evidence to prove Copernicanism, and because he and the church incorrectly agreed that Scripture could determine astronomy, Galleo lost. Had Galileo offered conclusive proof, Langford says, the decision would have been different.
Richard Cardinal Bellarmine informed Galliele he was not to teach Copernicanism as fact again, although he could teach it as theory. Galliele consented.
Gallieo kept quiet until a friend assumed the Papacy. Pope Urban VIII, however, didn't reverse the decision against Copernicanism because no new evidence exists. He encouraged Galileo to write again on Copernicanism as long as he wrote hypothetically.
The Pope felt betrayed by Gallioeus, suspended publication of the book and ordination to a private confession. Langford says Gallioeus had abused the Pope's friendship, disobeyed the 1616 prohibition against teaching Copernicanism an fact and had again failed to prove the existence of a God.
The result was the "Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems," a satire published in 1632 that mocked traditional cosmology and the mysteries of ancient alism, although it offered up new propds.
At his 1633 trial, Galileo conceded he had gone too far. After he was forced to renounce Copernicanism, his sentence was commuted. Largand pointed out that Galileo was never incarcerated by the church. Galileo returned home where he wrote his greatest work, "Discourses on Two New Sciences," before his death in 1642.
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Langford admits that the church made mistakes in handling Galileo, but that it is totally untrue to characterize the church as a vicious enemy of science and progress. He said that he was wrong to prove Copernicanism were years in the future, awaiting Newton's discoveries.
Galileo's impatience and his unwillingness to compromise, Langford concludes, forced the church, with reluctance, to castigate him.
Director George Roy Hill and actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford previously worked together on "Butch Cassidy and the Chocolate Kid," which also was a financial success.
Makes Dough
"The Sting" is a better movie than "Butch Cassidy," but that is not really a compliment because the former movie was only a cut above the average motion pic.
MOST OF "THE STING" consists of Robert Redford's white teeth and Paul Newman's blue eyes. Redford also does a lot of running as he tries to get away from gangsters and cops who can't shoot straight.
One part of the formula is missing. The lovely Katherine Ross who appeared in "Butch Cassidy" has been replaced by theattractive Elen Brennan. This could be the result of criticism that Hill's last movie, "Saughterhouse-Five" was sexist.
However, Brennan is the greatest asset "The Sting" has). She walks and talks like a baby cement mixer and she delivers her babi ome like a singer chanting the lines of a
THE PLOT OF "The Sting" is simple. Redford is a small-time comman in Chicago during the 1930s. His partner is murdered by a big-time gangster played by Robert Shaw. Redford joins forces with Newman to get revenge.
Newman as Henry Gondorf is confident and competent. Redford as Johnny Hooker is cute, not too bright and more than capable of winning the audience's affection.
One of the best scenes is silent. Gondorf takes Hooker to get a haircut, his first manicure and new clothes. Newman's and Redford's facial expressions are great. The second scene, with the same look, shows how these two personalities might have fared in the silent film era.
THE MINOR CHARACTERS are ably portrayed, and Newman and Redford have the perfect personalities to make the movie work.
But the movie is lacking in discipline and direction. Watching "The Sting" is like having the key but not being able to find the treasure.
the photography by Robert Surtes is too beautiful. One no notices that it takes place in the middle of the depression. The costumes by Edith Head are expensive and intricate, but its iridescent for flashiness. There is no sense of a criminal element in Chicago.
No explanation is given as to why Redford and Newman are crooks. No attempt is made to go beyond the surface personalities of the criminals and into their subliminal motives. Once again dishonesty is pervasive. The picture fails to tell the audience why.
"The Sting" was not made to be taken seriously. If the producers cannot be commended for aiming high, they at least have been successful in attaining their objectives—to provide entertainment for the audience and to make money for themselves. That seems to be all most people want out of life anyway.
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