Two New Films Use Nostalgic Themes--One Poorly, One Well By DAVID ELLIOTT CHICAGO DAILY NEWS SERVICE Nostalgia is a best seller now «Hid It may have Riven the movies a new chance to tell the truth of our history. Two new films, strikingly different, show there is both a ri^ht way and a wrong way to bring back the past. The ri^ht way Is "The New Land," which Is not so much edalist I ¡he .sef|iial as the Inheritor of that Rrave, luminous film that pleased so many inopie earlier this year, "The KmiRrants.” turn of th»* reasons, the roughihablt of common survival. ja dynamo that she breathes fire a and conviction into her part, and heavy hand of weather. Sex is t*ith h j<.v ;m<l Director aJn TrMlt «tow» Uw dmgti not juit a natural'even a bit of fun (and humor st«»ry down to biological time,! high" but a natural duty, curse was never a strong punt of tbe They were made at the same not the time we live today, and and blessing timi keeps his inopie close to the imm- and form one film, unique experience lh.it will sin vivm I can det»eiiil (continue to draw and hold upon n cow, prosperity upon an IK»npie as long as there are ox. This is the old kind of movitl ecology, the ecology of simple In "The Emigrants" we endurance. 'followed Karl Oskar (Max Voni Unlike (Svdowi and his wife, Kristina;some of the We see them grow old, their world passes and the movie Young Communist league). House Un- woman. fixations of "service.’ A T T re People tiat Have El W rained ard.Jhej enjoy Their opinions mean a lot to her but American Activities Committee. The irony of “The Way We they don’t innan anything to us,,the film simply ducks. ¡Were” is that It’s the way not in the context of this story The writers have set us up movies once were, the sort of with its wx-by-iir«light, its for a scene in which Miss lM|)f gyp" movie that Louis pretty theme song creeping in'Strolsand s radical connections Mayer might have made about She’s like a cross between|«t every opnortunity (the will be usrd as a screw on[ radicalism, dressing up the a u/ow Him,,!« mmmini !l n n y an<l ftosa I ’ jjwotocrlty) wid Its Radford's career as a screen-issues in so much cotton candy thL Ir.VchTw™^no '■««•'"tM.uDi. a delightful andC* It:'vnt,'r but ilmmM- |ih»t they mfrwale and you are that Ini granacniKlren do notj may be the first all-Americani Instead the film falls int/i the> left with another nrettv nni. ™ iSL/rTrr. m ,,f ^“ ***. ^ (i_, ..¡maw? annlhJr it is both the of giving her convictions is t inoslri|Kir |dragging in a silly subplot about married to a weak man prop- 1 he . Emigrants, ^ J , , change her set of nhotoar-inhic n lhc c,ima* comc** thejRedford'i affair with another ping up her love for him with ..................................................le scenes are a bit triumph and the den al of wh.it n. ng< m si t ,f photographu showdown wi(h 1hc M <liiv Ullmann i, along with a few; rushed, Others drag and the I ^e original emigrant* hoped to. loon* In 1937,I^enm; in 1944, brave friends and relatives whole film is too long. achieve. j»taUn and rim and Paul from their exhausted life In! The children arc not really; TroelPs victory (and that of «'ooeson; in I94B, after she s Sweden to a rich new wilder* ¡used in the story and I Cohort I his wonderful actors) is to show™ ;| r r 1 c d and moved to ness in America. is used a bit too heavily. Rut!us a world we would not really l'nllywood, nobody, not even Along the way there was ajsuch faults hardly matter in a want to live in but that we can Uncle Joe. great deal of worry and prayer,! film of such sweep and density. |cherish because of Ihe people We sense her political the death of a daughter and The greatness of the Troell who live in it so humanly. ............ an ocean voyage that left you rtlm.s is that they use our They live again in these in- feeling waterlogged. nostalgia for simple things, t^ate epics, these two movies! Hut the film ended happily.:times, feelings, but so earnestly that are in fact a national« with Karl Oskar claiming his*that we cannot trivialize them, treasure new farm in Minnesota and ijflhor is shown to have! The other side of the coin is breaking into a smile that dignity hut it Is also constant ¡"The Way We Were.” the new seemed to light up the world. and punishing. Religion is a;“big one” starring Barbra ‘The New Land" doesn’t end! solace but with its bleak lalk1 Streisand and Robert Red ford. with a smile and it’s a g«>od1()f "wicked powers" also an; It’s a romantc melodrama deal more somber with morejafflication. The land has been1about the affair and then pain and loss and a final sense developed by good men but as marriage of a young radical) of dreams coming to dust even the movie shows it has also woman (Streisand) and a young as they are satisfied. "The been stolen from others. writer (Redford) of great Emigrants" was all space, BECOMES HISTORY charm but limited convictions. which can be mastered; ‘‘The, perhaps it took a European Directed by Sydney Pollack New Land" is mostly time, artist to take our nostalgia for it is perhaps the first* j which masters men. the past and turn it into history/Hollywoood studio movie to FAST MOVING to give us more than we ex- sympathetically (and in- We pick up the story with pected but no more than wejdiscriminately) depict the j barely a pause for breath. Treesj deserve. Leftist Movement of the 1930s are cleared and the land is Everything comes back to the!and 1940s culminating in that innings Consumer Discount Co. 365 High St., PoHitowr Call 323-3200 Open Daily 9-5; Fri. 9*é broken. A cabin is built, food man and woman who give the cooked, crops tended. Kristina story a close, intimate scale gives birth to yet another child, that goes far beyond what ‘big” Indians are seen and feared but; historical films achieved before, barely known. Troell refuses to be simple: The younger brother, Robert.!we see that their life Is rooted strikes off for California and not only in tenderness but in finds a kind of hell. Again you feel the constant necessity, held together not only by sentiment but by the hard formerly taboo tragedy, the Hollywood Red scare and blacklist. It’s a movie with big sharp teeth but no bite. The mouth opens, the dentures fall out and the story just sits there gaping at its own emptiness. Of course Stcisand s such THIS IS ALLEN W. GETTY THE TECHNICIAN SPECIALIST FIREMAN ORGANIZER THE CANDIDATE FOR SUPERVISOR IN LIMERICK TOWNSHIP NOV. 6, 1973 brings you the finest in
