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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, April 19, 1968
The Hill With It by john hill
The two cavemen sat in front of their cave, naw-ing (pronounced gnawing) on old stegosaurus bones.
"Wanna discover something today? We haven't come up with anything since you discovered fire last week," said Ugg, dragging an eight-foot stegosaurus wish-bone in the cave.
"Well, we could invent the wheel. That would sure make my common law brother-in-law happy. The poor devil has been a nervous wreck for weeks since he invented the axle," Son-Of-He-Has-Face-Like-It-C-a u g h t-On-Fire-And-Somebody-Put-It-Out-With-A-Brontosaurs replied.
"No, let's wait on that," Ugg said, "we'll let future generations invent both the wheel and the gazorninplat." (Editor's note: The wheel has since been invented. The gazorninplat has not yet been invented.)
"Actually, there's any number of things that we're in a position to do. We can do the initial planning on designing the capacity for Watkins Hospital, or University attitudes on off-campus living for women, or we could build the lighting facilities for Hoch Auditorium, or—"
"You mean we shouldn't invent those things?" said the one with the real long name that I don't want to retype.
"Hold it," Ugg said, "you're forgetting something. Anything like that we come up with will be changed automatically by future generations as being out-of-date."
"No, we'll go ahead with them. But remember that they're certain to be modernized by future generations," said Ugg.
"I guess you're right. No one would keep such plans made in the Stone Age. That's for sure."
"Yeah. There's no question about it."
"Right. It just couldn't happen."
"True. No chance of they're remaining," said Ugg, watching a husky, saber-toothed cavewoman galloping past.
"I think I understand most of what you're saying, except what's a future generation? I don't think you've invented that yet."
"Good idea," yelled Ugg, running after the cavewoman. . . .
Right, wrong and free
To the Editor:
Letters to the Editor
It has to be done. Right? But, what about the dumb ones? I mean, on the hill, what about them?
It has been assumed that there is a common morality that life is of equal value. Right?
But, what about them, on the hill? They were dumb. I mean, anybody could have gone to Canada, right? Anybody could have gotten an academic deferment right? But they were the dumb ones, right?
They are the expendables because it is a world of intellect and technology—right? We have plenty of the "dumb" who can be sacrificed to prove we are wrong. Bish?
Right?
Edward J, Paris Oakland, Calif., graduate (Editor's note: Wrong.)
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I notice in the Kansan that the same names recur frequently in connection with founding a "free university" and unfounding certain programs of the present university which deal with national defense. These people complain loudly about the lack of freedom in the present course offerings and wish to supplement the courses now offered with other "courses" which they offer in their "free university." And yet, they wish to deny me the freedom of taking advantage of courses
To the Editor:
and services which the university already offers.
When the CIA recruiter was here, I wanted to be interviewed by him. I was interviewed, and the recruiter informed me that the CIA did not have a pressing need for American studies majors. But, in any case, the supporters of the "free university" would have denied me the freedom of that interview.
And now, I and many others may desire to talk with military recruiters. The "free university" folks would deny us that freedom. I definitely intend to take Air Force ROTC next semester. The "free university" founders would deny me, the 559 students currently enrolled in ROTC, and the unknown hundreds of others who may wish to enroll in ROTC in the future our freedom in this area.
Kansan movie review
My roommate is an aeronautical engineering major. The "free university" group "demands that the University forbid all military research projects on campus." This action obviously would go a long way toward taking from my roommate the freedom to be educated in his chosen field of study.
It seems ironic that the only freedom that the "free university" people want is freedom for themselves. Such "freedom" is directly contrary to my best interests and to the best interests of the university community. Therefore, I must urge KU's administration to ignore the demands of the KU Protest and Sit-in Society.
'Graduate' socks it home
By Scott Nunley
"For God's sake. Mrs. Robinson."
She shrugged. "I suppose you don't find me particularly desirable," she said.
"Oh no," Benjamin said, taking a step toward the bed. "Mrs. Robinson. I think-I think you're the most attractive woman of all my parents' friends."
"The Graduate"—the love song of Benjamin Braddock, age 21—is the finest movie to come to Lawrence.
Its triple-play of starring role, audacious photography, and folkrock soundtrack socks home the story of 1968's cum laude class.
Director Mike Nichols, already famed for his filming of Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," received an Oscar for his direction of "The Graduate" Those intelligent screenwriters who had the sense to leave alone Charles Webb's original novel must share their chunk of the credit. And Ann Bancroft should have collected her own Oscar for her icy supporting role.
But it is the sensitively immobile face of star Dustin Hoffman that ignites "The Graduate"s skyrocket success:
"Well why can't you just lock the doors and go to bed?"
"Because I'm very neurotic," Mrs. Robinson said.
In Webb's novel, putupon Ben could only respond with a "frown." In the film, Hoffman's expression adds an underplayed (but hilariously-obvious) revelation of Ben's shock and fright. There is, in fact no single adjective adequate to encompass Hoffman's sensitivity.
The empty walks of dawn at Berkeley dissolve into the studentcrowds of mid-morning. Ben runs frantically toward the screen, feet pumping high, but subtle lens work seems to
The still mask of Hoffman's face creates a surface against which the electric movements of his eyes flash out in eloquent nervousness. His monotone voice, too, drones out an uninflected background that trebles the surprise of his sudden exhalations of tension.
At the film's opening party-scene, Hoffman initiates the prevalent mood, vacantly smiling and rebounding his way through the re-rejuvenated lifted faces of the plutocratic world of Ben's parents. But it is the cameraman (delicately directed by Nichols) who transmits Hoffman's energy in 50-foot images.
Nichols is willing to bag an audacious mixture of cinematographic tricks:
retard his frenzy to helplessness. Misty mountain freeways hang in hazes of archetypal greenery. Faces blur into and out of focus from across a room or street. Every scene is goaded meticulously from these versatile cameras.
The contemporary folkrock lyrics of Paul Simon, themselves quite literate poems, become supercharged ballads to the breathless melodies of Simon and Art Garfunkel. Of course, it is a mistake to credit the soundtrack of "The Graduate" exclusively to this young team—nor could some of their own songs ("Sounds of Silence," "Scarborough Fair") be called original with this movie.
One of the reasons that the audience is so free to identify strongly with Ben rests with the camera work.
What Hoffman's acting generates and Nichol's photography transmits is delicately underscored by the "Graduate"'s fantastic soundtrack.
But without the beautiful comments which their music drops into the cinematic adventures of Benjamin Braddock, "The Graduate" would lose a certain delicacy of emotion. Its narrative, jumping weeks and miles in economical leaps, would certainly lack the tightly-linking transitions provided by the songs.
At their best, these cuts provide valuable insight to Ben's world: "In restless dreams I walked alone, through narrow streets of cobbled stone—" Or consider the deadly ironic tribute to Mrs. Robinson herself:
Guests mill about Ben, the waters of a pool close over his scuba mask, friends and enemies exhort to him—but the audience may be viewing it through Ben's eyes. Camera position, focus, and movement frequently imitate the field of vision of the graduate, himself, bearing the viewer immediately into Ben's point of "view."
"And here's to you. Mrs. Robinson .
Dustin Hoffman's nervous energy so well captures the upight anti-hero of our campuses that it seems that every member of the audience is struggling with him to draw that precious deep breath.
"Jesus loves you more than you will know!"
Mike Nichols' well-directed cinematography has the guts to be tricky enough with Ben's lovesong to keep even Marshall McLuhan electronically satisfied. And Simon and Garfunkel's soundtrack is as immediate to the collegiate viewer's ear as Ben's uneasiness is to his eve.
"The Graduate," in fact, may not be here all that long, if you intend to see it your three times.
Kent Dannen St. Joseph, Mo., senior
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To the Editor:
At first, I was a little bit upset with ex-serviceman DeArmond for failing to add the following to his list of lessons taught by history:
The type of "quick and decisive military victory" he advocates (1) equals more dead people or (2) equals death at a faster rate or (3) equals both of the above.
After my first unthinking perusal of DeArmond's letter, I couldn't see how results like these could placate anyone (except, of course, DeArmond). But then our correspondent continued: "If Vietnam is to end as Korea then
we must face the fact that many thousands of American GT's in that country have died in vain, as did over 30,000 of their compatriots in the Korean debacle."
We must, indeed, face that fact. Now here was something I could agree with, and I was beginning to like this DeArmond, though lurking in the background was the implication that the best way in which to face the fact was with more and bigger bombing raids. These raids, that lurking implication implied, would somehow make the deaths of GI's more meaningful.
Then, after a brief blast at the commies, DeArmond showed off his ability to use highly-connotative, emotion-laden, undefined (and therefore meaningless) terms, such as "free people," "barbarians," "our boys," "flag and country," "essential support," and others. One such phrase, "the call to colors," was especially exciting. Did our boy mean, perchance, colors like blood-red, gore-green, or napalm-orange?
But finally our man showed his true colors—and won my deepest admiration—when, in a truly intimable manner, he (I appeal to the reader for the just-right verb —dropped? channelled? stumbled? bombed?) into a light and laughable satirical vein.
Note, for instance, the sly irony of choosing Poland as the destination for our deported students. Our man in the wheat paddies of Kansas is keeping up on current events—right?
Notice also how our satirist apes the attitude of the unthinking fatalists who believe that certain numbers of people are "destined to die." With unthinkers like that around, who needs the commies to destroy the human race—right, Jim-baby?
And then—oh, clever masquerader, this is too much!—you assume the stance of the military mind which sees the armed forces as the answer to everyone's search for fulfillment.
Well, you fooled me, if only for a paragraph or two, and I man enough to admit it. Now come on and admit your ruse, you pacifist hippie pinko, you
"Ex-serviceman" my eye! Where do you live—in the loft above the Abington Book Store?
Wellington graduate
"... with the exception of Phnom Penh, Cambodia . . . Warsaw, Poland . . ."
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