Friday, September 21, 1973
5
By DAN GEORGE Kansas Reviewer
Drum Bangs Slowly for Romantics
If you've ever sneaked a look at a baseball game through a knothole in the outfield fence—a phenomenon rapidly approaching extinction in today’s athletic playpans of
Director Finds Hope In Movie's Message
A knothole, of course, is free; and the view, as any veteran peeper can tell you, is in complete accordance with the price. You can see what's going on but some ituation's
By ZAHID IQBAL
Kansan Reviewer
It was 18 years ago that someone gave an obscure novel called "Siddhartha" to an even less known young Missouri named Conrad Rocks. Rooks found in it a message of hope for the dehumanized society he found himself a part of. An aspirant film-
--glass and steel…Bang the Drum Slowly
unlikely to be a new experience for you.
Conrad Rooks
maker, he decided to adapt for film this story of a man's life-long search for inner beauty.
Rooks appears to be a man who can think, a man who can wait. And if he knows how to fast, he can hold on till the film "Sidartha" finally makes good. For the film, the image appears to have been a personal thing. The character of Sidarthus, the Lawrence Country Club reveals this:
Both Rooks and Nobel Prize winner Herman Hesse's book "Siddartha" have come a long way since them. "Siddartha" is one of the most famous million copies in the United States alone.
ROOKS: No. I feel that's a typical university reaction.
KANSAN: What I'm speaking about is about reviews in papers.
KANSAN: Some people feel that you have destroyed some of what the author had in his book. Do you feel such criticism is justified?
half of them have said very positive things and half have said very negative things.
KANSAN: What do you feel about the negative reviews?
ROOKS: A lot of them were not qualified enough to judge.
KANSAN: Then, getting back to the University, do you feel your critics haven't got out into the film world and seen the practical difficulties you faced?
ROOKS: I don't know that they really matter. They have the right to not like something, I'd have to try and break down this community and find out why. This is a great question in a certain deeply installed iron-headed and regulations about how you worship God.
University Daily Kansan
If the people want to get all involved in whether or not I did the book according to Hesse and get all involved with tearing it apart, that's their problem.
But after all, I'm dedicated to the politics of liberation, not to the politics of sub-
KANSAN: The images you had in your mind when you read the book 18 years ago—do you think you have been able to transfer these onto film?
ROOKS: I can't answer that. That has to be answered by audiences across the country, and they've goa' to me and nothing I do or you who anybody else does will make any difference.
KANSAN: Suppose they reject it?
ROOKS: So what? Life goes on. I'll make another movie. Go write some poetry, go write a novel.
KANSAN: You won't go back to making another Hesse film?
ROOKS: No. Who needs that aggravation? Obviously, if I didn't love Hesse, I wouldn't even have subjected myself to that kind of test. I felt that the work had so inspired me that it became like an act of devotion—almost like "bhaakt."
KANSAN: How did you happen to show
Warhol how to load a camera?
ROOKS: He didn't know how to load the camera. It was quite simple: I happened to know. I learned one week before so I was an expert. Naturally.
KANSAN: Are you friends now?
ROOKS: As friendly as one can be with Andy. Andy sort of typifies the non-personality. He is a sociable now. He spends most of his time with the "beautiful" man.
ROOKS: It's like asking a painter if he's satisfied with a painting; he doesn't know whether he's satisfied or not. Or asking a child if he's satisfied with a child. It hard to say.
not just the same as sitting along the third base line with a hotdog in your hand and a burger on it.
KANSAN: Are you now satisfied with "Siddhartha?"
KANSAN: What kind of review did you get from the New York Times?
ROOKS: Bad. I had many more good reviews with my first film. And I made no money with it. So reviews don't really mean that much. Fortunately.
"BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY" a film about professional baseball in general and some of the players who, somewhat the same problem. All the action is there, if only in sporadic flashes of swinging bats and running players, but something is missing. The film just isn't as good as it should be.
Baseball is a game of tradition, a game dependent as much on its rich, legend-filled past as on its present. It's a game for romantics.
more, however, we are asked to substitute sentimentality for romanticism, and it's too
Right off the bat we discover that Bruce Pearson, a fringe catcher for the New York Mammoth, is dying of Hodgkin's disease. The Mammoth moth's pitching action, finds himself drawn
closer to Pearson as a friend and secretly teaches catcher's lust season as easy as possible.
IF THE STORY line sounds familiar, it's no surprise. It was done on television a couple of years ago as "Brian's Song." The current film, though, can't really be called an animation because it's based on a 1960 movie, Mark Harris, who also did the screenplay.
But the similarity is there and it continues. Wiggen, arrogant and sarcastic despite his inner sensitivity, and, as played by Michael Moriarty, looking like a cross between a cat and a dog, is the best thing the Mammoths have and is essential to their pennant hopes.
Robert De Niro's Pearson, though, is
MASS SCHEDULE
SATURDAY, 5:00 p.m.
SATURDAY, Midnight.
SUNDAY, 9:30 a.m.
SUNDAY, 11:00 a.m.
. St. Lawrence Chapel, 1910 Strattford Rd.
. University Lutheran Church, 15th & Iowa
. St. Lawrence Chapel, 1910 Strattford Road
Woodruff Auditorium, Union Building, 2nd Floor
SUNDAY, 6:30 p.m. ... St. John's Church, 12th & Kentucky
DAILY MASS, 12:30 p.m. Danforth Chapel
DAILY MASS, 4:45 p.m. St. Lawrence Chapel
strictly a second rate athlete—both physical and mental abilities more like a cat than a dog—in a friend
Slowly the secret leaks out to the Mammoths, who have been league contenders but also are racked by dissension. Now they win against the team. They start winning games for old Bruce.
WIGGEN's devotion to Pearson is touching—and believable enough until Harris and director John Hancock begin stacking the sentimental deck. Not only is Pearson short on brains and dying ("I'm his girl," he said "deal"), but his girl friend, a business-minded call girl, is trying to get him to change his insurance benefits to her name.
Sure, it's a fairy tale. But, despite its flaws, it still almost works. One reason is the subdued and on-target performances of Dustin Hoffman, resembling a slicked-up Dustin Hoffman.
ANOTHER REASON is that the film never takes itself too seriously. The lumps in the throat are there, but so are the smiles. The characters are soaked up by suckers to play a card game without rules. The manager, dumplied played by Vincent Gardenia, describes—with translation for the Latin players—how he will challenge Baltimore team like a fly.
And the photography has a beautiful, almost lyrical quality as it fully captures the delicate precision of the sport and the romantic aura that surrounds it. Players casually but gracefully jog around the field before a game. A pitcher incoils in slow motion while winding his sweeping curve across the plate. A bat cracks and the ball rockets back through the box.
As films go, "Bang the Drum Lowly" is far from a perfect game. But it is a solid four-hit shutout and no manager—or director—can really complain about that.
KENWOOD PICKERING SHERWOOD MEMOREX TEAC PHONEW
Dan Hicks
Ranch Productions Presents
along with
Sat., Sept. 22
and his HOT LICKS
Joint Session
RED DOG
Tickets: $3 Adv./ $3.50 at Door
kets: S3 Adv./ $3.50 at Kief's in Lawrence Earthshine in Topeka
Sell it through Kansan want ads. Call the classified department at 864-4358
8-12 p.m.
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