Section B·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
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Friday, October 30,1998
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Commentary
William H. Macy and Joan Allen portray a 1950s sitcom couple in the satirical comedy *Pleasantville*. The movie follows the adventures of two '90s teen-agers who find themselves trapped in a black-and-white TV world. Contributed photo
Retro film tears down mental picket fences
By Ted Anthony
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Pleasantville is a 1950s television town that was never real, a fantasy universe that is black and white. There is no ambiguity; its citizens have tasted no apple. Their Main Street loops onto itself, and their place is the only place.
Pleasantville, a backlash to the nostalgia movement of the past decade, represents a rarity in U.S. movie making—an enlightening and often subversive examination of what it means, in the United States, to have and pursue knowledge.
Strange magic sends two teen-agers from 1998 into their television set to become characters in the 1950s TV series Pleasantville, their MTV-era sensibilities immediately begin to infect the town's Beaver Cleaver innocence.
Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) shows a high school jock who is sweet on her that going to Lover's Lane doesn't necessarily end with kissing. David (Tobey Maguire) demonstrates to soda-jerk Mr. Johnson (Jeff Daniels) that a workday routine can be varied. Unimaginable.
Abruptly, the black-and-white world begins to decay. Subtly at first, then in a gush, the town "grows" color. First a rose, then a car — then, one by one, people.
"Roy Campbell's got a blue front door!" someone exclaims, alarmed. This sort of thing, of course, is very jarring to Pleasantville's two-dimensional denizens.
"There's something about old television that sort of suggests that original sin and the fall never happened," says Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor who studies TV's role in culture.
People begin to awaken. A character played by Joan Allen, who is the film's June Cleaver, develops flesh tones. She wants to pretend the colors aren't there.
Invitably, the backlash arrives. A town committee forms, and if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Citizens riot, targeting the soda jerk, who has the temerity to paint a reclining mode on the side of his building. His shop is trashed.
"Once we sweep it up, it'll be all right again," he laments. It won't, of course. Knowledge can't be put back. Good or bad, forward is the only direction. *Pleasantville ends with a version of the Beatles* "Across the Universe," undoubtedly used for its refrain: "Nothing's gonna change my world." But there is more meaning within.
It is a song of the counterculture; it embodies all that the 1960s swept into society everything from the unleashing of color TV to the introduction of Eastern mysticism into U.S. culture.
The message of *Pleasantville* may not be subtle, but it is relevant: that perfect is not perfect. That imperfection — with all its knowledge of sin and the arduous struggle to control it — might just be more pure—and a lot more desirable — in the end.
See how many stars Kansas movie critic, Jeremy Doherty's gives John Carpenter's Vampires.
See page 4C
It's a killer film
Rolling Stones shake off the moss in live album
NEW YORK — After 36 death-defying years in the rock 'n' roll business, Keith Richards finally faced his own mortality this past May standing on a chair in his home library.
The Associated Press
The Rolling Stones guitarist was trying to wrap his skull-ringed fingers around a copy of Leonardo da Vinci's study of anatomy. Instead, Richards found himself dodging an avalanche of books when his bookshelf collapsed — "the Encyclopaedia Britannica, heavy volumes bombing me," he said.
"It was one of those moments where you have to make a decision: Take it on the ribs or take a shot in the temple on a desk."
The 54-year-old rocker laughs, in his familiar whiskey-nicotine rasp. "All part of life's rich pageant," he said.
The accident, and resulting broken rib, forced the cancellation of several dates on the Stones' Bridges to Babylon album tour. But three weeks later, Richards was back on stage. His performance that night is captured on the Stones' seventh live album, No Security.
The record, due out Tuesday, is the Stones' third live album in the 1990s. So why another live offering? The Stones' leaders, Richards and fellow Glimmer Twin Mick Jagger, offer two reasons.
Richards' explanation: "I suppose it had something to do with our record deal in the
"One of the big differences between now and, say, the '70s, is that the Rolling Stones are a much more consistent band now."
Mick Jagger Rolling Stones band member
first place. But what got us interested was that the band played so well, so consistently well. on this tour."
Jagger echoed the latter sentiment.
"One of the big differences between now and, say, the '70s, is that the Rolling Stones are a much more consistent band now," Jagger says. "Back then, some nights were fantastic. But some shows, we'd hang our heads in our hands." "That was awful. What went wrong?"
The album chronicles the hugely successful "Bridges to Babylon" tour, a worldwide jaunt that earned the band an estimated $57 million.
In deciding which songs from the Stones' lengthy catalog might make the album, Jagger came up with a simple solution for drastically trimming any potential set list.
"I made a list of all the songs we've released live since 1979, and said, 'We're not using any of these songs,'" Jagger said. "That made choosing much easier."
CIA spy's secrets exhibited
Agent gave data to Soviets went undetected for years
The Associated Press
Timothy Hutton plays the title role in Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within, airing on the Showtime cable channel at 7 p.m. on Nov. 29. with repeat screenings in December.
LOS ANGELES — The shocking story of CIA veteran Aldrich Ames passing U.S. secrets to the Soviets for eight years without detection seemed like the plot of a spy movie. Now, it has happened.
Ames served 20 years with the CIA before starting to sell secrets to the KGB in 1985. He had been overlooked for promotion and had fallen into heavy debt because of extravagant spending.
The film pictures Ames as a humdum CIA official who has risen through the ranks despite a record of drinking and lax
For eight years, Ames continued funneling vital data to the Soviets, some of which led to the deaths of valued CIA informants. Even though he bought a costly home and upscale cars, his superiors never suspected him. It took a veteran analyst, Jeanne Vertefeuille (Joan Plowright), to expose him.
performance. He performs his traitorous deeds mechanically, with scant concern for secrecy and with a total lack of remorse.
"I think he felt that the only way out of his personal problems was to sell documents to the KGB," Hutton said. "But money problems happen to a lot of people, and there are other ways he could have solved them."
"That clearly was the flaw in his thinking; not realizing the consequences. People were going to be killed, possibly the security of the United States in other parts of the world was going to be compromised. I think it just wasn't thought through.
"Had the film continued on to when he was in prison, we would have been able to show a side of Ames that I saw during an interview in which he does confess remorse. He understands the consequences."
Hutton gained insight for his portrayal by studying various films of Ames. His conclusions: "He had trouble dealing directly with people. Something was preventing him from being who he was. Many, many walls surrounded him."
Adrich Ames: Traitor Within resembles Washington and its environs, but it was actually filmed in Toronto, like so many cost-conscious TV movies these days.
"I think they'd even shoot a Western in Toronto — if they could," Hutton said.
Sidney Poitier still selective, although age brings fewer offers
But look for no bitterness from Poitier. It is not his nature. For the last 50 years, from the day he arrived at 20th Century Fox from the New York stage, he has told Hollywood to accept him on his own terms. He is not stopping now.
The Associated Press
"To be absolutely objective, the industry doesn't really have that kind of need for me." Pottier said.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — For Sidney Poitier, the offers don't come in as they used to.
His latest role is a psychiatrist in the TV movie David and Lisa, a remake of the 1962 film about a pair of psychologically troubled teen-agers who fall in love at a home for disturbed youths. Poiter plays Jack Miller, the therapist who slowly builds the trust of the compulsive David (Lukas Haas), a boy
"I am sure, if habit continues, there will be offers next week and maybe one next month, and maybe one six months from now, and maybe one next year, to which I will say no." he said. "And if an occasional one among them is really seductive, I'll say yes."
Shot in black and white for less than $200,000, the original David and Lisa was a critical and commercial hit that earned director Frank Perry an Academy Award nomination. The actor who originally played Miller was a Caucasian actor.
obsessed with time and death. The movie, which also stars Brittany Murphy as Lisa, was produced for television by Oprah Winfrey. It airs 8 p.m. Sunday on ABC.
Casting an African American in such a role would have been unthinkable in 1949 when Poitier arrived in Hollywood to star in the drama No Way Out. And so there were very few parts of consequence for African-American performers, and the roles Hollywood gave to them were insulting portrayals.
"Certainly, the majority of the parts, such as there were, followed a very stereotypical behavioral pattern," Poitier said.
Poitier was born in Miami to a poor tomato farmer from a small island in the Bahamas, where Poitier grew up. As a teen-ager he went to New York, enlisted in the Army at age 16 by saying he was 18, and took a number of menial
jobs.
When the American Negro Theater put an advertisement for actors in Harlem's Amsterdam News, Poitier answered the call. He didn't get the job but was determined to succeed. He paid for his acting lessons at the theater by working as its janitor and eventually got an understudy role behind an up-and-coming performer named Harry Belafonte.
By the late 1960s, Poissier was one of Hollywood's biggest stars. In 1963, he became the first African American to win as best actor, for Lilies of the Field.
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