ENTERTAINMENT
The University Daily KANSAN
November 18, 1983 Page 6
'THE DAY AFTER'
How will media hype affect the ratings?
By JOHN HOOGESTEGER Staff Reporter
The ABC-TV film "The Day After" has received more publicity than any other TV movie in history as hundreds of stories on the show have been released, magazines and on television says the network.
Sunday, ABC will find out whether that attention will attract the vast audience and promote the brand.
The movie, which depicts the catastrophe of nuclear war, premiered in Lawrence Oct. 12, and several writers from around the country attended.
Since then stories about the movie, which was filmed in and around Lawrence, have been appearing daily across the country.
Newsweek magazine has run two stories on the movie, TV Guide, Time and People have also done magazine stories. Some magazines, like The New York Times, have devoted entire issues to the film.
Almost every large newspaper in the country has done at least one story on it, including the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. New York Times has published five stories on it.
NICHOLAS MEYER, the film's director, said he was given at least 50 interviews in the last two weeks.
CBS, a rival network, covered the "The Day After" on "60 Minutes," "The Sunday Morning News" and "CBS Morning News." The nationally syndicated "Entertainment Tonight" and "ABC" will be covering its own movie on both Good Morning America" and "Nightline."
Even "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" devoted parts of five episodes to the film to deal with the effects that the fear of nuclear war has on children.
When Scott Osborne of "Entertainment Tonight" was in Lawrence for the screening, he explained why the national media was so interested in the film.
"THE SUBJECT IS LOADED," he said. "There's been controversy about the film for two years. We knew people would react, and we wanted to see how they would react.
"Brandon Stoddard (ABC president) got up and told us he had a terrific film, but he couldn't
tell us anything about it. We've been waiting ever since."
Dan Doran, an ABC publicist assigned to the "The Day After," said the amount of coverage devoted to the film was more than ABC could have hoped for.
Whether it will have the desired effect of producing high ratings when the movie is broadcast at 7 p.m. Sunday is another matter, he said.
"Our one fear is that the coverage might create the feeling that the movie will be depressing," Doran said. "If people think it will be depressing, it might it might turn on them of the movie."
THE FLIP SIDE to that, Doran said, is that people might decide that even though it's depressing, "The Day After" is something they should see.
Meyer was philosophic about all the discussion.
"As Oscar Wilde said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked
Meyer also said that everyone in the country was looking for an excuse not to watch the film at the studio.
NBC-TV is countering the film with the first part of a three-part mini-series about John F. Kennedy. CBS is sticking with its regular Sunday line-up of comedies and "Trapper John MD."
"THE VIEWER WILL have a clear choice between something historical, something dealing with the future or some more of the regular TV fare." Doran said.
Doran, who is one of several publicists assigned to the project, said that one unusual aspect of publicizing the film was the lack of interest in the stars.
"Normally press people want to talk with actors," Doran said. "On this project they want
The movie stars Jason Robards, John Lithgow, Bibi Bisc, John Cullum, Steve Guttenberg and Joabeth Williams. Doran said that Guttenberg, Besch and Cullum had helped to
"The Day After" has been the focus of many stories that have focused on the pro- and anti-nuclear groups that are using the film to promote their viewpoints.
Meyer said he was not worried about the groups' use of the film, but he was bothered that people who had not seen the film were telling them who had not seen it what they should think about it.
Although "The Day After" has attracted nation-wide attention, another nuclear film, "Testament," was released without extensive publicity in movie theaters earlier this month.
Meyer, who hasn't seen "Testament," said, "I hope it's better than my film.
"We're trying to draw the public into debate, and if Testament creates more discussion,
Film powerful, but relies on subject, not form, for success
Much of the excitement and publicity surrounding "The Day
Ahead" has been politically ramified salicifications of a film
design with the horrors of nuclear war.
Attention has been turned away from the acting, directing and technical proficiency of the film. And considering the quality of the acting and directing, that move may be a benefit for both Nicholas Mever and his cast.
Meyer, the director, ended up with a powerful film. But the movie relies almost entirely on the subject matter for its plot.
And Meyer defends the movie on that basis, saying that the
MOVIE REVIEW
movie is a "giant public service announcement." He also says the film is not art and was never intended to be.
But that doesn't mean that those aspects of the movie shouldn't be addressed.
The nuclear bombs don't fall until almost an hour into the film, and most of what happens before that time is boring. The actors — Jason Robards, Jobeth Williams, Steven Guttemberg and others — hand in solid but uninspired performances.
Scenes of Russell Oakes (Robards), a physician, dealing with his
The actors know that nuclear war, and not acting, is the center of the movie. That and a sometimes weak script result in a bunch of fights.
daughter's decision to move to the East Coast and watching his son play football add little interest.
When the bombs do fall, and we see the nuclear destruction of Kansas City, it is the most gripping moment in the movie. The four minutes of chaos and destruction will keep people glued to their television sets.
The special effects are excellent, and Meyer makes it seem shockingly real despite an order from the censor to rage seven times. The director's use of light and sound is excellent.
These four minutes may be the best four minutes of TV this year. After that, the movie heads down a road of depression. Meyer tries to depict as much of the horror of nuclear holocaust as possible.
Although the decay of humanity is grippingly real, overlooked details are sometimes amoving.
Amid all the decay, one family, the Dahlbergs, who survived the blast in the cellar of their farm house, seem to be making a recovery.
While Oakes is fighting the ultimate in losing battles as he tries to treat the wounded at a hospital on the KU campus, the team was able to stay on task.
They break out the clean clothes and clean up the house. They also, inexplicably, manage to dig up some new livestock.
Other technical aspects in the film also don't ring true. After the explosion, the Dahlbergers have running water.
exploison, the Dambere that has gone into accurate portrayal of nuclear destruction it seems odd that Meyer would let these inconsistencies creep into the film.
tences creep into the movie. The movie can be applauded for reaching no convenient conclusions. People die — many of them — including several of the characters we are introduced to before the blast.
character we are here to encounter. When Oakes goes back to Kansas City, searching through the rubble of his home, finally falling to his knees in tears, the basic message of the film comes home.
There may be life after nuclear war, but it isn't life worth living. There can be no doubt about the power of "The Day After" and its potential to kill or harm humanity.
The real question you have to ask before watching this movie is do you want to take an emotional roller coaster ride, starting with "The Incredible Hulk"?
John Hoogesteger
Director criticizes TV,but calls it best forum for his movie
By United Press International
NEW YORK — Director Nicholas Meyer has little respect for television as an artistic medium, but he decided to make ABC TV's shocking nuclear war movie "The Day After" because he considers it a public service announcement, not art.
THE YOUNG DIRECTOR said he was enormously disturbed when he first read the screenplay, which relates in gut-hitting detail the story of a nuclear war and what happens to it.
"I thought about it for about two weeks and finally decided it was the right thing to do - my mother."
A movie has been criticized by right-wing figures for its decision to air the two-hour film, which cost $7 million, more than three times the standard price for a TV movie. The network announced in September that it would show the commercials it now sells half the time is sold.
Among the critics is Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell. After screening the movie in Washington, he said it would be "very interesting to learn which American companies will be sponsoring such a one-sided presentation of a controversial subject."
MEYER DENIED THE film was political and said he would not discuss his views on nuclear weapons.
"If you can find my political bias in the movie, then you are entitled to ask me that question," he said. "But otherwise, I'm keeping my views on nuclear weapons mum until the movie has been seen."
"I don't want to tell the American people what to think. The point of the movie is to let you make sense."
Meyer outdated the wisdom of ABC's decision to air a special edition of "Viewpoint" with anchor Ted Koppel and a panel of experts immediately after the movie.
"Once again, we're not going to have to do the responding. There's going to be professional advice."
"THE DAY AFTER," was Meyer's first
century television and he said it probably
was his last.
Meyer thinks television flunks as an artistic medium but does serve a purpose by allowing people to be themselves.
"I don't like television. I don't like to watch it. I think it does, like a refrigerator in my room."
"It's good to watch sports events. It's good to watch Neal Armstrong put his foot on the Moon. It's good if you want to tell people what nuclear war is like."
But for art?
"TTS SUBJECT TO all sorts of intrusion, whether it's censorship, commercials, the baby crying, the neighbor coming over, the phone answering, the teacher having experience. They re all militating against it."
"Plus the thing gets interrupted every seven minutes — no matter what the hell is going on — for someone to tell you about his underarm deodorant.
"That is an affront."
As for "The Day After." Meyer said it does not masquerade as he did.
He said he did not want to use many big-name actors or catchy music — anything that might make people comfortable watching the film.
Meyer said the final result is a "crudie" movie. "It comes on as a public service announcement and in that context I think television is the appropriate medium for it."
Plays emphasize women's role
By PAMELA THOMPSON
Staff Reporter
The role of strong women in male-dominated societies and writing are the common themes of the three one-act plays presented by the Lawrence Community Theatre this weekend.
“It’s a unique program,” said Paul Stephen Lim, lecturer in English and author of the third play, "Hatchet Club." “We each just know how to play it and ready to be produced at the same time.”
Although all of the plays deal with writing and contain strong women characters, they were written independently by three local playwrights.
John Clifford's nostalgic play, "Here to You, Grandma," and Penelope Weiner's dream sequence-filled play, "Tributaries" will be performed preceding "Hatchet Club" at the Lawrence Arts Center, Ninth and Vermont.
After tonight's performance, which starts at 8, a group from the University of Kansas Women's Studies Program will conduct a presentation on controversial issues that are raised in the plays.
MARY DAVIDSON, assistant director of "Hatchet Club" and lecturer in English, said that she wanted the women to have a chance to be more what (feminist) implications of the plays.
wrights, the casts and the audience after the performance.
Lim said about 10 or 12 women were expected to informally talk with the play-
Lim's play is about a young assistant professor, Christina Jaher, who presents a research paper to some of her male colleagues in the department of a Midwestern university.
Davidson said that much of the sexism that came out in "Hatchet Club" is the kind that was unintentional and often involved domestic matters.
"It won't be a debate because they will not criticize the plays," he said. "They'll generate the discussion on the self-hood of those men that men will stay to join the discussion too."
In Lim's play, one of the kindier male faculty members suggests to Jaber that she open a restaurant because she is such a good cook. This incites her without permission the entire class. Davidson said.
INDIRECT SEXISM IS not a serious problem, she said, but it is still a common problem that affects many women both inside and outside the academic realm.
- "The innocently-mant remarks are the ones that you can't very well resent," she
Lim said that his play was not sexist, but concerned "what men and women do to each other."
"I HEAR THROUGH THE grapevine that there is some unessiness about my play at the University," he said. "But the history of academia is supportive. Two of their professors are in it."
Also in the academic realm is Weiner's contemporary play "Tributaries." It concerns Syd, a young female student who works with her teacher an assignment for her creative writing class.
Weiner said the play contained some feminist rhetoric, but that Syd was "too involved in the little problems to be involved in politics."
WEINER SAID THAT she was anxious to see what the Women's Studies group had to say about the three plays.
Asyd creates her stories at the typewriter one night, the character she writes about are Sylvain's friends.
"I'm a feminist in a strange sort of way," she said.
Clifford said that his play, "Here's to You,
Grandma," concerned the relations among a teenage boy, his aunt and brother. They all live together in a Chicago fat in the 1930s.
"I remember the attitudes of people in the '30s," he said. "Women were by and large expected to do the housework, while a man was expected to work."
MANY TENSIONS DEVELOP in the play, because the uncle, Owen, cannot find a job and feels that his manhood is threatened, which puts a strain on his marriage with
Clifford, a script writer for industrial films at Centron Corp., said that his play was not a flattering picture of how life used to be.
"There was more sexism then," he said.
BLOOM COUNTY
BY BERKE BREATHED