KWSAN REVIEWS
FILMS; Among Godard's best
By RICHARD GEARY
Kansan Reviewer
Jean-Luc Godard's "Weekend" is a brilliant and shocking film experience. It should hit both those who are familiar with his work and those who are not with equal impact, because the director's vision is forceful, clear and, most important, unified.
Of course, the little idiosyncrasies which madden audiences are there; the helter-skelter continuity, the pieces of reading matter flashed on the screen, the literary allusions, the long speeches to the camera. But this time everything comes together; the snatches of poetry and music, usually floating about Godard's movies to no purpose, are linked meaningfully to what we see. This is more of a polemic than anything he has ever made before.
The story follows a shallow, stupid bourgeois couple, who leave on a weekend trip to get money from the man's parents. The journey becomes a bloody, surrealistic nightmare, for the audience as well as the couple, as a selfish corrupt society nonchallantly destroys itself and finally is devoured by cannibalistic young guerrillas.
Godard uses cars as symbols of bourgeois arrogance and decadence. People fight and kill and die over them, and in almost every scene, twisted, wrecked vehicles burn or simply lie on their backs like slaughtered animals. A girl screams over the loss of her sports car while her lover lies dead inside it; a woman climbs out of a flaming pile-up and cries because her "Hermes pocketbook" is still inside; the couple take clothes from the corpses without a second thought; All very transparent, of course, but all the more horrifying because it is.
Occasionally, the films political preaching becomes irritating, especially when a pair of truck drivers talk revolutionary doctrine right to our faces. Much subtler is the lyrical scene of a pianist playing and lecturing on Mozart, as the workers go about their chores—the fusion of classical culture and common labor.
About the middle of the picture, a young man in French Revolutionary garb (played by Jean-Pierre Leaud) reads from a text that man fled the order of nature to build civilization because he wanted to be miserable. Godard destroys "civilization" in an act of purification; what emerges from the ashes is a band of savage butchers, living off of what came before them—a violent end and barbarous beginning.
In the end, the society woman, her husband dead, has joined the guerrillas. She is given a plate of meat and asks what it is. "A little leftover pork and some British tourists," is the reply.
Godard is one of the world's most prolific film-makers; he has had his failures—miserable failures—but his successes enlarge the art. "Weekend" is surely one of his greatest works. In it, the director's vision becomes everyone's vision of hell.
Lots of people are doing blues these days. But much of it is weak imitation of the old Black Masters.
By JOE BILL NAAS Kansan Reviewer
RECORDS; Nick's uncommon understatement
Nick Gravenites writes all its own material and fortunately it doesn't sound like everybody elses. "My Labors" is his first solo album; he used to sing lead and write all the material for the Electric Flag.
His lyrics contain the uncommon virtue of understatement. In "Moon Tune," Gravenites sings, "I just felt like the customer getting stuck with the bill again." And he says, "Man was born to
Best sellers
(Compiled by Publishers' Weekly)
Fiction
THE GODFATHER—Mario Puzo
THE LOVE MACHINE-Jacqueline Susann
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN
Michael Chrlehten
PRETENDERS--Gwen Davis
PORTNOY X'S COMPLAINT--Philip Roth
NAKED CAME THE STRANGER— Penelope Ashe
THE HOUSE ON THE STRAND—
Daphne du Maurier
THE SEVEN MINUTES—Irving Wallace
A PLACE IN THE COUNTRY
Sarah Gaham
THE PROMISE—Chaim Potok
THE PETER PRINCIPLE—Laurence I. Peter and Raymond Hull
THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER
—Gay Talese
THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1968—Theodore H. White
M. LIFE WITH JACQUELINE
JKENNEER
BETWEEN, PARENT AND TEEN-
BETWEEN, PARENT AND TEEN-
DENT— Joe McGinniss
  AN UNFINISHED WOMAN—Lillian
"..."
FINISHED WOMAN-Lillian
Hollman
PRIME TIME, Alexander
Gonzalez
THE SELLING OF THE PRESI-
Joe McGmatt
PRIME TIME -Alexander Kendrick JENNIE -Rahul G. Martin
K. Martin Kendrick
JENNIE - Ralph G. Martin
PRESENT AT THE CREATION. My
years at the State Department—Dean
Acheson
THE MOST PROBABLE WORLD, by Stuart Chase (Pelican, $1.45)—More than most contemporary commentators Stuart Chase has been an enjoyable and provocative figure, writing in a style that makes him accessible not only to the scholars but to the masses. In "The Most Probable World" Chase looks at the trends and forces of our time and gives us a picture of what we are heading into the 21st Century. His fears are not as grim as those of some; we have war and weapons and overpopulation but we also have the capacities to master these problems. Here is the kind of book that ought to find its way to the Western Civilization reading list.
BUT DADDY!, by Tom Buck (Dell, 75 cents); JOHNNY TREMAIN, by Esther Forbes (Dell, 75 cents); HOMER'S ILIAD AND VERGIL'S AENEID, translated by David Silhanek (Dell, 75 cents)—Three of special interest for younger readers. The first is about life in a family of 11 kids and what the father, especially, goes through during the day. "Johnny Tremain" is an already famous novel about a boy in the American Revolution. The third is new translations of the Greek and Roman epic stories, these in prose form.
BOOKS
COLLISION COURSE, edited by Edward Parone (Vintage Dramas, $1.65)—An anthology of short plays, several of which were presented in a single program off-Broadway a year ago. "Short" is the word too--plays of just a few pages. The authors are mainly young people who have been associated with the experimental theater in America.
The first ascent with a balloon inflated with coal gas was in 1821.
Nov. 18 1969 KANSAN 5
have fun, babe, but man also
pays."
Similarly, Gravenites' music is beautiful because of its simplicity. The songs aren't overpoweringly exciting or emotional, but it's likely that the listener will find himself humming the tunes later.
Gravenites has a smooth robust voice which brings out the mood of his lyrics. Mike Bloomfield is featured on guitar and breaks out several beautiful solos.
*****
On side one of "Blues Full Circle," Tim Williams applies the modern amplified blues approach to some of the really bad songs of the 1950's. He doesn't add anything new to the old songs. Maybe Little Richard's "Rip It Up" and Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" should be left to the past.
But Tim Williams is a good musician. And he proves this by working with much better material on side two. He uses an acoustic guitar to accompany his singing of old blues numbers like "Mojo Hand," "Alabama Woman Blues" and "Corrina."
At times Williams sounds very much like the late John Hurt, and at other times like Lightnin' Hopkins. He has obviously studied their styles very closely. But that is one reason the album is disappointing. Who wants to hear Tim Williams doing Lightnin' Hopkins when he could be listening to
Lightnin' Hopkins doing Lightnin' Hopkins
*****
At least that's the impression they give on this album, which is their first and possibly their last.
"The Raven" doesn't fly very high. Maybe it's because of the dead weight of five musicians who can't play or sell worth a damn.
Call VI 3-7658