The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 23

The Sydney Morning Herald ARTS Tuesday, February 8, 1994 2 3 A hero of the Holocaust returns to haunt us Stcir who the -x top JL Iliiilil: psychotic SS officer charged with clearing the ghetto before running the nearby Plaszow labour camp. Off-duty, Goeth is a man who enjoys life; his pleasures just happen to include killing people. I iennes, a British actor, has the coldly intense look sometimes seen in the eyes of English skinheads. What makes this such an astonishing performance, though, is its casualness. It has been argued that the Holocaust was an event of such magnitude that no film could ever do it justice.

This might, in a way, be correct no film-maker (one trusts) will ever starve their extras for greater authenticity. But Schindler's List works by rooting the Holocaust in the quoudian, the everyday routine of human events, so that viewers fed they understand what the event looked like in its minor essentials. Here extreme violence is drained of the usual movie melodrama and presented as a routine affair. After one of his random execurions from his villa's balcony, Goeth is ticked off by his girlfriend, walks into the toilet and unleashes his stream with powerful, almost mythical story about a man who becomes a hero almost in spite of himself. This is a riveting, morally complex narrative in which searching existential questions are posed with clarity.

Oskar Schindler (played with oodles of smooth charm by Ireland's Liam Neeson) is confidently set up from the beginning as a charismatic scoundrel: a womanising, money-worshipping bon viveur and opportunist arriving in Krakow following the Nazi conquest to shamelessly make his fortune from unpaid Jewish labour. During these early stages, the Jews of Krakow and the surrounding district were being dispossessed and herded into a cramped ghetto while their affairs were run by a Nazi-approved Jewish committee, the Judenrat Taking over a confiscated Jewish apartment and buttonholing a shrewd Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern (a superb Ben Kingsley), as his business manager, Schindler set up a plant manufacturing enamel pots and pans for the German war W-w jt'' I 1 If i 1 I i -A JOSEPH Cotten, the enduring, elegant actor whose four decades in mnvice hpoan at the pinnacle of film lore with the classic Citizen Kane and ended less memorably with the stunning flop Heaven's Gate, died on Sunday. Cotten, 88, died of pneumonia at his Los Angeles home. The actor had suffered a debilitating stroke and heart attack in 1981, and fought for years to regain use of his well-known gravelly baritone voice. Cotten's best-known role was as Jedediah Leland in Citizen Kane, Orson Welles's thinly-veiled biography of William Randolph Hearst in 1941.

To follow in the 1940s were memorable roles in The Magnificent Ambersons, Shadow of a Doubt and Fortrait of Jenny, for which he won the 1950 Venice Film Festival prize for best actor. In 1950, he rejoined elles the actor in the highly successful international thriller The Tfrird Man. "Mine was a heady beginning in the movies," Cotten wrote-with understatement in his poorly received 1987 autobiography, Joseph Cotten: Vanity Will Get You Somewhere. "We made a classic without knowing it." The dapper, debonair Cotten remained durable throughout his career, always finding work to support his robust appetite for clothes, travel, women, parties and elaborate homes. "The persisting core of Cotten's work has been an elegant and unobtrusive craftsmanship which emphasised the role that Cotten was playing rather than the fact that Cotten was playing it," wrote a Los Angeles Times critic, Charles Champlin, at the time "VV I- Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley vivid degree of realism.

Joseph Cotten (pictured here in Orson Welles's thriller The Third Man) had a reputation as a working actor with a flair for elegant craftsmanship. Seven regains news lead SUMMER TV RATINGS Final week 6Pmtomidnignt K3 (g) jSB SYDNEY SHARE 13.2 28.8 30.8 23.9 3.3 EVENING NEWS 273,400 489,700 464,700 166,300 49,100 Average weekday viewers NUMBER ONE MOVIE TOP TEN PROGRAMS: Average number of viewers Sydney has 3,765,000 viewers in 1,263,000 TV homes similar to the Sydney figures Hinch achieved last year, Jones's position is much less secure in other capitals, where he appears to be starting out on Struggle Street, a location he frequently mentions in his programs. In particular, Melbourne proved a nightmare for Jones. He finished the week in Australia's second biggest market in 97th spot with an average of only 185,000 viewers. In network terms, these figures will not be good enough to sustain the program in its present form, though these are early days.

A big success of the week was the new Seven entrant, Man Man the sixth most watched show with 471,500 Saturday-night viewers. This week it takes on the returning Hey Hey It 's Saturday. ROBIN OLIVER Real Life, which slipped to 32nd spot with 383,600. Real Life held the advantage with young people, last week claiming 77,000 viewers up to the age of 17, while A Current Affair pulled in 60,000. But it is women over the age of 18 who are providing the bulk of the audience for both programs, with a total of 228,000 watching A Current Affair, compared with 192,000 for Real Life.

Alan Jones Live made a puzzling debut at 7 pm for Ten, opening in fourth position behind ABC News with 334,000 viewers, improving to third position with 354,400 the following night, dropping to 277,000 and see-sawing back up to close the week on 339,000. While these are reasonably FILM LYNDEN BARBER SCHINDLER'S LIST Directed by Steven Spielberg Written by Steven Zaillian, based on Thomas Keneally's book, Sdiindler'sArk Pitt Centre. Rated HE first thing to be said about Schindler's List apart from that every reader should see it, including those who never go to the cinema is that it's unrecognisable as a Steven Spielberg movie. As a black-and-white Holocaust drama based on multiple eyewitness accounts, this was always going to be miles away from the populist romps for which the world's most successful direc tor is famous. Nor is there any trace of the soap-opera aesthetics that made The Color Purple his first grab at serious, adult credibility such a chore.

And it contains a power that was hardly even hinted at in Empire of The Sun. With Schindler's List, Spielberg reaches full-blown artistic maturity. The expected film-making brilliance is now joined by courageous-ness, an unsentimental degree of realism and an admirable refusal to compromise. Without any sacrifice of narrative conviction, the century's darkest moment is presented with a verisimilitude that leaves the viewer reeling. Not only does this not look like a Spielberg film, it often doesn't look like a movie, particularly in many of the larger-scale scenes, such as the clearing of Poland's Krakow ghetto.

Frequently employing hand-held cameras, the director and his brilliant Polish cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, achieve a vivid degree of documentary realism. This could have been a difficult haul, but the film's three hours pass surprisingly quickly. The script is as has already been widely reported an adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Booker Prize-winning book about Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who ultimately used his influence and wealth to save the lives of more than 1,000 of his Jewish workers by setting up a factory in a Chechoslovakian backwater. It can't be overemphasised how successfully the film avoids the obvious trap, given the size and almost sacred nature of its material, which is that it's never cowed into earnestness or exaggerated solemnity. Steven Zaillian's ingeniously structured script presents the unpalatable in a way it can be digested by hooking it into a Russia with Snow ABC National News, 7 pm 2: High time Deborah Snow received a guernsey for her reports from Moscow and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

Not just for their fluency and conciseness but for her ability to maintain a stylish appearance in conditions which frequently militate against looking anything other than world-weary. A big tick and a large salary increase. The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), noon, 7: An all-star cast tools around in a rich, creamy lather of elegance and discretion as three stories about a vintage Roller and its owners trundle effortlessly and pointlessly along the shiny black highways of humanity. An aristocrat, a gangster and a wandering millionairess take possession of the vehicle in turn but, alas for them, despite its superior comfort and roadholding, the vehicle never gets into top gear. Fool For Love (1986), 10.50 pm, 7: Sam Shepard appears with Kim Basinger and Harry Dean Stanton in this screen adaptation of his stage play.

It's a sultry, rolling thunder of a story moody and sullen about a couple's endless fights and reconciliations, the latest of which takes place in a grungy and claustrophobic New Mexico motel where time seems to Eass as slowly as in a Samuel eckett play. The fact that Eddie OBITUARY JOSEPH COTTEN 1906-1994 Cotten's book appeared. "Not often has an important Hollywood personality of Cotten's generation been so deferential to the material itself "In a tradition more British than American," Champlin wrote, "he has been the working actor: have tux, will travel. He has done everything, from Petulia to The Abominable Dr Phibes, occasionally lending his particular dignity to some very thin texts indeed." Cotten acted well both with and for his young friend Welles and even scripted their Journey Into Fear in 1942. His 1936 stage success in Horse Eats Hat with Welles for the Federal Theatre Project and his subsequent stage triumphs in Welles's Mercury Theatre propelled Cotten's career.

Cotten was nonplussed when Welles offered this early appraisal: "You're very lucky to be tall and thin and have curly hair. You can also move about the stage without running into the furniture. But these are fringe assets, and I'm afraid youH never make it as an actor. But as a star," Welles added, "I think you well might hit the jackpot" Cotten completed nearly 60 films during his long career. "I was in a lot of junk," he candidly told an interviewer in 1987.

"I didn't care about the movies, really," he said in his 80s. "I was tall. I had curly hair. I could talk. It was easy to do." DIRTY DANCING, 463,600 viewers EZ 3 6.00 Sons And Daughters (S).

6.30 Agro's Cartoon Connection. 9.00 The Book Place For kids. 9.30 At Home (PG). Topical. 9.30 (W.

N) Skirts (PG, Rpt). 10.30 News, Sport And Weather. 10.30 (W. N) Real Life Topical. 1 1 .00 Eleven AM Topical affairs.

1 2.00 Movie The Yellow Rolls Royce (PG, 65, Rpt). The adventures of a classic car. Featuring Rex Harrison and Ingrid Bergman. 2.30 Home James -(Rpt). Comedy.

2.30-3.30 (W. N) Country Practice. 3.00 Perfect Strangers -Comedy. 3.30 Family Ties (Rpt). Comedy.

4.00 Morphin Power Rangers. 4.30 Clowning Around II. 5.00 Family Feud Game show. 5.30 Wheel Of Fortune Game. 6.00 News, Sport And Weather.

6.00-7.00 (W, N) News, Weather. 6.30 Real Life -Topical affairs. 7.00 Home Away (S). Tug's world falls apart again. 7.30 Blue Heelers (S.

PG). A retired cop annoys Tom. 8.30 Mini-Series Prime Suspect III (M. Part I). A body is discovered in a burnt out Soho flat.

Featuring Helen Mirren. 10.50 Movie Fool For Love (M. 86). Drama about a mysterious relationship between a drifter and his long-time lover, who may be his half-sister. With Sam Shepard, Kim Basinger.

10.50 (W. N) Real Life Topical. 1 1 .20 (W, N) Detectives (PG. Rpt). 11.50 (W.

N) Secret Service-(M). 12.50 (W, N) Ivan Face To Face. 1.00 NBC Today Show-Topical. 1 .00 (W, N) Home Shopping. 1.30 (W.

N) NBC Today Show. 3.00 Movie Night Visions (MA, 90). A homicide detective enlists the help of a psychic to track down a serial killer. Drama featuring James Remar. 4.40 Second Thoughts (PG).

5.10 Beyond 2000 -(Rpt). 590.400 HAN MAN RUGBYLEAGUE Sl5500 nationalnine SEVENS NEWS weekdays 46400 MACGYVER S07.600 DANCJNG 463,600 4S9'70Q MS-ROSE PLACE 459,100 HEY DAD! 474,700 'JFJRENT 456,400 Source: A.C Nesen an arrogant swagger. Another director would have cut long before, but Spielberg reinforces the sense that this was just another start to an average day. He makes only one mistake, and it comes near the end when Schindler nearly breaks down, declaring he wished he could have saved more lives. Neeson is restrained but the scene is out of keeping with the prevailing tone (John Williams's sensitive score becomes obtrusive here for the first and only time).

But in the grand scheme, it's a minor misjudgmenL This is a film littered with scenes that keep coming back to haunt you. Viewers are best left to experience them without preparation (if you've not read the book, see the film first). But ponder for a moment the peculiar sight of gramophone needle descending onto a scratchy record shortly before white-coated doctors divide prisoners into the able-bodied (ie, to live a little longer) and the sick. The spectacle is so bizarre, the idea that humans in this condition might be calmed and kept orderly by a banal '40s pop song so ridiculous, that no scriptwriter could have dreamt it up. You know it must have happened like this.

This scene, like many others, captures the essential sense of absurdity one needs to grasp the scale and stupidity of these events almost playing like a black comedy without laughter. It's symptomatic of Spielberg's eye for the telling detail. In the end, though, trying to do justice to the film feels like losing a wrestling match with a massive opponent. Perhaps the most important thing that can be said about it is that watching it is a humbling experience that will leave most viewers not wanting to say very much at all. try to extricate the facts from this tenacious scribe without jeopardising her inquiries.

The Cutting Edge, 8.30 pm, SBS: In an edition entitled Super Imposed, this eversharp program nips into the Australian dream of secure retirement and exposes some of the myths behind the Federal Government's compulsory superannuation system. The program features commentary by the bombastic P. P. McGuinness but it's still worth watching. A Royal Hunt, which follows at 9.30 pm, is mandatory viewing.

DOUG ANDERSON TELEVISION illk machine. He oiled the heels of the Nazi bureaucracy with bribes, alcohol and bonhomie. His willingness to drink with the devil makes Schindler a deeply fascinating character and is what eventually enabled him to further corrupt a rotten machine from within. Yes, he bought favours. But he also knew how to get on with sadists and psychopaths.

They liked him. He was good company. The almost imperceptibly gradual process by which a shameless profiteer turns into an unconventional saviour is the movie's central drama, one which it never pretends is easily explicable. Implicitly it suggests that someone this larger-than-life is as capable of extreme good as of wrong-doing; it all depends on his responses at key moments. The film's early stages are admirably restrained in their portrayal of ugly events.

The first death is delayed and comes as a genuine shock. It is the first of many and, incredibly, each time the shock is just as severe. Many of the arbitrary executions are ordered or carried out by Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), the and May's relationship is incestuous adds the edge Shepard usually handles with finesse and director Robert Altman makes it count for something not difficult with Basinger in the cast. songs like First and Last Real Cowboy, by Shepard's sister, Sandy Rogers, add great texture. Prime Suspect III (Pt I), 8.30 pm, 7: If DCI Jane Tennison goes halfway to matching her expertise in previous cases, this story of rentboys and runaways should be a cracker.

A hard-nosed reporter who wants a scoop appears to hold the vital clue to a puzzling murder. Tennison must JJ HILE television net works came out with all guns blazing on Sunday after the low- season break, the final week of summer ratings saw changes in the batting order. Weeknight editions of Seven Nightly News, a late season winner in 1993, regained the lead over National Nine News for the first time since the bushfires coverage and the shoo-in factor of one-day cricket and Test matches gave Nine a valuable advantage. Nine's Sunday bulletin was the week's top program with nearly 600,000 Sydney viewers, but Nine's biggest success was in the return of A Current Affair, newly hosted by Ray Martin, which reached the top 10 with 456,400 viewers, compared with Seven's 6.00 Cosby's You Bet Your Life. 6.00 (N) Kenneth Copeland.

6.30 ITN World News -Topical. 6.55 Business Today -Finance. 7.00 Today -Topical program. 9.00 Here's Humphrey For kids. 9.30 Best Of Ernie And Denise.

9.30 (N) Romper Room For kids. 1 0.00 (N) I Dream Of Jeannie. 10.30 News, Sport And Weather. 10.30 (N) You Bet Your Life. 1 1.00 What's Cooking- Geoff Jansz.

1 1.30 Entertainment Tonight. 12.00 Midday With Derryn Hinch. 1.30 Days Of Our Lives-(PG). 2.30 Young And The Restless. 3.30 Evening Shade -(PG).

3.30 (W, N) The New Sale. 4.00 Davis Rules Comedy. 4.00 (W) Kidzone For kids. 4.30 Wonder Topical. 5.00 Paradise Beach -Drama.

5.30 The Price Is Right Game. 6.00 News, Sport And Weather. 6.00-7.00 (W, N) News. 6.30 A Current Affair Topical. 7.00 The New Sale Of The Century: Celebrity Challenge.

7.00 (W. N) A Current Affair. 7.30 Australia's Funniest Home Video Show (PG, Return). 8.00 A Word From Our Sponsor (PG). TV commercials.

8.30 Movie Tootsie (PG, 82. Rpt). Comedy with Dustin Hoffman. 8.30 (N) Movie Frantic (M, 89). Drama with Harrison Ford.

8.30 (W) Movie Curly Sue (PG, 92). Featuring James Belushi. 10.30 (W) Night Court (PG. Rpt). 1 0.55 Nightline News program.

1 1.25 The Late Show With David Letterman (PG). Talk show. 12.25 Entertainment Tonight. 1 2.55 Movie The Bees (PG, 78. Rpt).

John Saxon, John Carradine. 2.45 Body, Mind And Spirit 3.15 Movie This Thing Called Love (PG, 4 1 Rpt). Rosalind Russell. S.OOSibs-(PG). Comedy.

5.30 The Sullivans- (Rpt). Drama. 7 Em 6.00 Open Learning-Time Grow. 6.30 AusTVNews-(Rpt). Topical.

7.00 I st Edition -News program. 7.30 Open Learning (S). Aust Studies. (8.00) Earth Revealed. 8.30 Sesame Street (Rpt).

9.25 The Adventures Of Spot. 9.30 Play School (Rpt). For kids. 10.00 Puddle Lane (Rpt). For kids.

1 0. 1 5 Two By Two (Rpt). For kids. 1 0.30 Gruey- (Rpt). For kids.

10.55 The Ratties- (Rpt). For kids. 1 1.00 Vidiot- (Rpt). For kids. 1 1.30 The Campbells For kids.

1 2.00 The World At Noon News. 1 2.30 Lateline (Rpt). Topical. 1.00 Savagery And The American Indian -(Rpt). Documentary.

2.00 Parliament Question Time. 3.00 Sesame Street For children. 3.55 Bananas In Pyjamas (Rpt). 4.00 Play School (Rpt). For kids.

4.30 Gumby-(Rpt). For kids. 4.55 Funny Bones-For kids. 5.00 Where's Wally For kids. 5.23 SuperTed (Rpt).

For kids. 5.30 Rugrats-For children. 6.00 Maid Marian And Merry Men. 6.25 Roger Ramjet (Rpt). 6.30 Yes, Prime Minister (S).

7.00 News, Sport And Weather. 7.30 The 7.30 Report -Topical. 8.00 EveryBody-(Rpt). Health. 8.30 Unnatural Pursuits: I Don't Do Cuddles (S.

Final). Drama about a chain-smoking, hard-drinking playwright and the up-and-down fortunes of his play. With Alan Bates. 9.30 Blackout-(S. Final).

10.00 Red Dwarf- (S). Sci-fi. 1 0.30 Lateline (S). Topical. 11.05 American NFL Football.

1 2.30 AusTV News Topical. I.0C Parliament Question Time. 2.00 Movie Hindi Wakes (31. bw). Featuring Belle Chrystal.

3.30 The One Dollar Bargain. 4.00 Dr Who: The Twin Dilemma. 5.00 Open Learning (S). nal Studies. (5.30) Accounting.

ELUZ 7.00 WorldWatch (7.0 1 Le Journal (In French). (7.30) The Journal (In English). (8.00) Chinese News. (8.30) Novosti (Russian). (9.00) Das Journal.

9.30 WeatherWatch And Music. 12.30 WorldWatch -(Cont). (12.30) Business Report (US). (1.00) MacNeilLehrer Newshour. 2.00 WeatherWatch And Music.

4.00 Greek Language And People. 4.30 TV Ed Aboriginal issues. 5.00 English At Work (Rpt). 5.30 Den OfWolves-(Rpt). 5.50 FYI Education.

(In Turkish). 6.00 Teachers Of The World. 6.30 World News And Weather. 7.00 Chair, Table, Bed, Lamp -(Rpt). The role the table has played throughout history.

7.30 Goal! A round-up. 8.00 Pirates (PG. Final). This episode looks at modern piracy, which has become prevalent in many parts of the world, particularly in Asia, off West Africa and Brazil. 8.30 The Cutting Edge: Super Imposed (Rpt).

9.30 Movie The Royal Hunt (90). Romantic epic about Elizabeth, the best-known pretender to the throne of Catherine the Great, who came to power amid much intrigue. With Svetlana Kryuchkova. (Russia). 1 1.40 Miguel Servet (Rpt).

Servet's book reaches Calvin, who considers it a personal attack. Drama with Juanjo Puigcorbe. 1 2.45 Movie The New Monsters (M, Rpt). Innocent situations develop into scenarios of black comedy. Vittorio Gassman and Ornella Muti.

From Italy. 2.15 Close. Newcastle Wollongong Programs supplied by TV channels SUBJECT TO LATE ALTERATIONS Subtitles for the hearing impaired 2 6.00 Sports Tonight-(Rpt). 6.00 (N) News And Weather. 6.30 Neighbours (S, Rpt).

7.00 The Big Breakfast Sonic The Hedgehog, X-Men; Totally Wild. 8.30 Mulligrubs -(Rpt). For kids. 9.00 Good' Morning Australia. 11.00 General Hospital (PG).

1 2.00 Sally Jessy Raphael: I Faked My Own Death (PG). Discussion. 1 .00 Bold And Beautiful (PG). 1.30 Donahue: Madam 90210 -The Secrets Hollywood Won't Tell You (PG). Discussion.

2.30 The Oprah Winfrey Show: True Love Reunited (PG). 3.30 Live It Up (PG). Lifestyle. 4.00 Hogan's Heroes (Rpt). 4.30 Totally Wild-Wildlife.

5.00 News, Sport And Weather. 5.00 (W) Level 23 Lifestyle. 5.30 (W) Neighbours (S). 6.00 Level 23 Youth lifestyle. 6.00-7.00 (W) News And Weather.

6.30 Neighbours -(S). Drama. 7.00 Alan Jones Live Topical. 7.30 Roseanne (PG). Roseanne discovers some marijuana while cleaning David's room.

8.00 Seinfeld (PG). Jerry can't forget a date with a virgin. 8.30 Melrose Place (PG). jo convinces Jane that it's time to start dating again; Amanda has an interestiong offers for Jake. 9.30 Law Order (M).

Two murders lead Cerrata and Logan to check an ex-wife's alibi. Drama with Paul Sorvino. 10.35 News And Weather. 1 1.05 Sports Tonight -Sports news. II .35 Alan Jones Live (Rpt).

12.05 (N) Close. 12.05 The Streets Of San Francisco. 1.05 (W) Close. 1.05 The Professionals -(M. Rpt).

2.05 Movie The Lady In The Lake (PG, 40. Rpt. bw). Leon Ames. 4.00 Prisoner (S, M.

Rpt). 5.00 Maniac Mansion -(Rpt). 5.30 Beadle's About-(Rpt). li! IPIMIFM ,11) RfeafiS ftfe WQETgOmi ToniShibS.aapm te ka.