The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 44

24 SEPTEMBER 199S THE SUNDAY AGE AGENDA 7 Review Heroes: the men for all seasons The taste to be a success a FILM TOMRYAN i mm dam mmm -J iltiftHiriMWi 1 I i Jk. 'Clueless' (M, on general release) Written and directed by Amy Heckerling. Starring Alicia Silverstone, StaceyDash, Brittany Murphy, PaulRudd, Wallace Shawn. MOST previous incarnations of the type have been content to treat the character as a cliche, to watch from the outside as the guys fall to pieces every time she walks into the room and the other girls look on enviously. mm Heckerling gives us all this, but a lot more too.

Cher's voice-over running commentary on the action establishes her mind-set. She tells us she has "a way normal life for a teenage She describes her relationship with her black counterpart, Dionne (Stacey Dash, above with Silverstone): "She's my friend because we both know what it's like to have people jealous of us." She explains how, when life gets a little confusing, the mall and all its designer boutiques provide her with a She reveals her understanding of how it's important to display herself but not her interest when a "Baldwin" (teenspeak for "cute pays attention to her. And nothing she does contradicts the self-image thus created. When a roller-skating "Barney" (the opposite of a bumps into her on the footpath, she exclaims (memorably), "Ugh! As if!" When her report card accurately reflects her lack of academic achievements, she decides it's because her teachers aren't happy enough and sets about remedying their condition. When her father, feigning interest, asks her what she did in school today, she replies straight-faced, "Well, I broke in my new purple clogs." The sappy ending aside, this affectionate, very funny and unexpectedly touching teen comedy is extremely astute.

IN 1982, with the help of writer Cameron Crowe, Amy Heckerling made 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High', a tough-minded, low-budget high-school comedy that not only launched the careers of (among others) Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates and Judge Reinhold but also turned out to be the best teen movie of the '80s. Since then, despite movies that might be regarded as commercially canny and apart from 'Johnny Dangerously' (1984), an engaging gangster spoof with Michael Keaton, her work as a director has been notably underwhelming: 'National Lampoon's European Vacation' (1985), 'Look Who's Talking' (1989) and 'Look Who's Talking Too' (1990). However, with 'Clueless', a smartly written and immensely enjoyable comedy of teen manners set in and around Beverly Hills High School, she's back on track. Much gentler in tone than the R-rated 'Fast Times', Heckerling's new film poses a simple question: is anything interesting going on behind the pretty face and manipulative ways of 16-year-old Cher (Alicia Silverstone, above), a classic teen-queen type Whose sole concerns are to look good and be desired? Hollywood invariably produces a hero usually male for the times. OLD convictions die hardest, particularly when, from a plethora of evidence, one can pluck a few examples to reinforce them.

So the arrival of Ron Howard's 'Apollo 13' tends to confirm my long-held belief that the movies, by which one really means the Hollywood mainstream, will alwavs come up with heroes to meet the needs of their time. Now I'm not implying that a think-tank in Hollywood, Washington or Wall Street demanded, in the national interest, films with certain themes. (There were suggestions that something like that did indeed happen during World War II and the Cold War, but I doubt it. Hollywood doesn't need to be pushed.) But after the doubt and disillusion that we are told has gripped the US in recent times, and, quite possibly, after the demoralising effect of the eight-month baseball strike (imagine how Melburnians would take it if we lost footy for a whole finals scries it was bad enough when the Eagles took their first flag), there's little doubt that the US needed a consciousness-raiser or two. And they got it.

Hirst there was Robert Zemickis's 1994 Oscar winner 'Forrest Gump', which uses an unlikely but likeable holy fool to assure down-home USA that, in spite of everything, the nation is still sound of heart. (Much as Frank Cnpra had done between the wars with drawling, bumbling figures played by Gary Cooper and James Stewart.) Now the same actor, Tom Hanks, splendidly reminds and instructs Americans that, back in 1970, when the US was beginning to realise that the extremely costly (and unnecessary) Vietnam War was unwinnablef, a brave man led his crew back from a space voyage that had seemed irretrievably lost. Good, tense entertainment with a happy ending. And, moreover, it fairly bristles with moral fibre. One could well argue that this is the latest affirmation of the populist dream that has run through US cinema (and, even before that, much of its literature) for a good deal of this century, promising the return or revival of all that the founding fathers promised, a vision re-invented in many guises from the agrarian idealism of Thomas Jefferson to the social inspirations ot Lyndon B.

Johnson. Hanks, therefore, is the latest manifestation of the male hero figure in whom these aspirations are inherent. Such a protagonist, the regular guy the average American moviegoer particularly, but not exclusively, the male of the species can identify with, has always been central to the story-telling techniques of Hollywood. Just now he is presented varies each decade, to meet and mirror changing tastes and needs, but he remains basically the same person. THERE have been the Men of Vision, such as Spencer Tracy as Thomas Edison and Don Ameche as Alexander Graham Bell (Clarence Brown's 1940 the Man', Irving Cummings' 'The Story of Alexander Gnham Bell', 1939); the Little Men Who Put Things Right (a field dominated by the aforementioned Copra in the 1930s with, most notably, 'Mr Deeds Goes to Town' and 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington', followed by the 1941 'Meet John Doe'); and the Great Leaders (Lincoln in umpteen films, the best of which are John Ford's 1939 'Young Mr Lincoln', with Henry Fonda in the title role, and John Cromwell's 1940 'Abe Lincoln in Illinois', starring Raymond Massey).

One musn't forget Paragons of American Virtues, exemplified in the westward-hoing pioneers of many a Western, and the decent honest family man like Gregory Peck in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'; the Warriors, honored a thousand times, archetypally in John Wayne's injun-fighting cavalryman in such KEITH CONNOLLY TAUDDES John Ford epics as 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and the multitudinous war heroes, from little guys grown tall (Gary Cooper as 'Sergeant York') to the big men of their times, such as George C. Scott in 'Patton' and Gregory Peck in 'MacArthur'. The Western is revised every decade or so, but of course its inner myth of white male European superiority over native peoples, environment and morality remains largely the same, embodied in more recent times by ageing icons of the genre like John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood, et al. As crises invariably do, the Cold War galvanised Hollywood's hand-on-heart Americanism to crescendo level. It is summed up, for the ages, in Io McCarey's 1952 'My Son John', in which communist son Robert Walker is clobbered by his father, Dean Jagger, with the family Bible, as powerful a metaphor as populist cinema has ever conceived.

In the campus-revolting, alterna-tive-lifestyling '60s and 70s, something cooler was called for to express commitment to, and regret for the slackening of, the essential verities laid-back types as diverse as Clint Eastwood in 'Dirty Harry', Robert Redford in 'Jeremiah Johnson', Jon Voight in 'Conrack', Art Carney in 'Harry and Tonto', even Jack Lemmon in 'Save the Tiger'. There has been less in the wide-blue-yonder department than might have been expected. James Stewart admirably played Atlantic-crossing pioneer Charles Lindbergh in Billy Wilder's 1957 'The Spirit of St Louis', while sound-barrier breaker Chuck Yeager (portrayed by Sam Shepard) received rather belated recognition in Philip Kaufman's 1983 tribute to the first astronauts, 'The Right Stuff. A LL men, of course. The occa-I sional female equivalents, XjLfrom Greer Garson's compassionate social reformer in Mer-vyn LeRoy's 'Blossoms in the Dust' to Jessica I.ange's fighting farmer in Richard Pearce's 'Country', tend to be aberrations, down to the present day.

In an age when American women have made great strides towards genuine equality, there have been precious few mainstream Hollywood movies in which US women play inspirational or leadership roles. (Jodie Foster's brave FBI agent in 'Silence of the Lambs' is a sorely tested loner in an "unsuitable job for a and Sigour-ney Weaver's monster-killing heroine of 'Alien' is a figment of the sci-fi future.) The cold fact is that, because American cinema is the creature of American culture as a whole, it too is male dominated. Female roles, even those created by women writers and the very occasional woman director, have catered predominantly to masculine fantasy (not necessarily sexual) and conditioning. And though the moral, virginal heroines of the silents gradually gave way to the more assertive figures of the studio era (particularly in roles played by Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, et al) followed by the notionally liberated characters of modern times from Jill Clay-burgh in 'An Unmarried Woman' don't get it," wails Goldie Hawn in 'Private Benjamin') to Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in 'Thelma and Louise', Melanie Griffith in 'Working Girl'. 'Close to Eden' and the remake of 'Bom Yesterday', Geena Davis in 'Angie' there is invariably a male adjunct, or nemesis, somewhere at hand.

Mass box-office couldn't have it otherwise. And, one suspects, neither would the guys crewing the latter-day successors to 'Apollo 13'. 'The Net' (M, on general release) Directed by Irwin Winkler. Written by John Brancato Michael Ferris. Starring Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Northam, Dennis Miller, Diane Baker.

WHEN shabbily dressed new-girl-in-class Tai (Brittany Murphy) makes her entrance, Cher tells Dionne, "She's totally clueless. We've GOT to adopt her." And the pair proceed Frankenstein-like to shape a "Betty" (a female r-- STEVCAm THEATRE refer to Hamlet as a method actor finding his way, and Roxburgh's approach seems to reflect this. The angst and the anger in the performance gradually build as Hamlet rumbles in and about the chaos of his upturned world. It's an uncluttered performance: clean lines; simple delivery; Beckettesque and, in this sense, impersonal. No Coleridgean melancholy here, and perhaps there should have been because I didn't sense the lunging and sadness of Hamlet's predicament.

This was especially true of "To be or not to be which was too low key and prosaic. But it's a strong performance and the Belvoir Street troupe some unevenness aside is tightly knit. Geoffrey Rush's moving und well judged Horatio is as much an observer as a participant In the action; Peter Carroll's old school Po-lonius almost threatens to steal the show; and Jacek Koman's Claudius has the menace of a despot about him. Gate Blanchett's Ophelia is emotionally charged but superbly controlled acting. jiff DANCE 'Beyond Bach', 'Three of Us' and 'The Sentimental Bloke', staged by the Australian Ballet.

At the State Theatre until Tuesday. WITH the world premiere of 'Beyond Bach', the Australian Ballet has scored an artistic triumph as well as a popular hit. The opening-night applause, among the most enthusiastic awarded to a new work from the Australian Ballet, was perhaps surprising, since 'Beyond Bach' lacks the elements that usually set off the whoopers and screechers. It is, for instance, at odds with the fashion for creating ballets that ape rock videos; and, unlike, the bare-bum silliness of Graeme Murphy's worst choreography or the bizarre wildness of Meryl Tankard's best, it won't be labelled adventurous, tet alone daring. Indeed, 'Beyond Bach' may face complaints that it is regressive, in danger of disappearing under the weight of its quiet good taste, too indebted to the elegant precision of the Russian-American George Bal-anchine, this century's greatest choreographer.

But the truth is that choreographer Stephen Baynes has learnt from a master rather than borrrow-ed from him. Combined with his own talents, the lessons have produced a subtle perfection that at least rivals the spectacular romanticism of Murphy's 'Nutcracker (1992), which until now was un? challenged as the finest work commissioned by the Australian Ballet from a local choreographer. Baynes writes that he is using Bach music to explore the possibilities of expressing himself through a very formal discipline. Helped by other composers, he had a similar aim in his previous ballets, 'Ballade' (1988) and 'Catalyst' (1990). But this time his cast is bigger, the boundaries of his ambition have expanded, and his confidence never falters throughout the 40-minute work.

Among its many pleasures are the set (Andrew Carter), costumes (Anna French) and lighting (Kenneth Rayner). THE curtain rises on a scene that suggests reason in harmony with surrealism as they share both infinity and a defined space. A staircase curves towards limbo, and a window gives a glimpse of a Magritte-like sky-scrape. A few figures, props rather than performers and dressed as 18th century aristocrats, stand among huge gyrosocopes, as if announcing that this ballet will illustrate the dynamics of rotating bodies. The 28 bodies that rotate when the aristocrats and gyroscopes leave the stage are in white and blue-grey costumes, short tunics for the women, tights and Byronic shirts for the men.

These are the standard gear of neo-classicism, and their familiarity reflects the choreography. Buti while Baynes does not devise one new step or gesture, he has an original and faultless eye for positioning bodies and guiding them into fascinating, meticulously linked ensembles and solos. He refines and burnishes stock material so that it gains a fresh and joyful serenity, most lovingly displayed in the 'Air on a String' section, when the main couples (Vicki Attard and Li Cunxin and Justine Summers and Steven Heath-cote) are joined by Andrew Murphy and Matthew Trent in a perambula-tory series of lifts, turns and interweaving patterns. All the dancers give selflessly dedicated performances throughout this hymn to order, restraint and gentleness. There is no showing oil, nothing to blur the choreography's clean-limbed beauty.

Li, the new principal who was not at home in 'Anna Karenina' a few weeks ago, helps to set the standard with a suavely mature performance. Robert Ray's 'The Sentimental Bloke', which has been given too few outings since its premiere in 1985, does not, as I suspected it might, look cute or dated. Set in Melbourne in 1913, it is "a quick-change succession of vignettes ranging from sleazy alleys to St Kilda Beach and Flemington at Cup time. The choreography has a vaudeville cheekiness that only now and then topples into forced comedy. Kenneth Rowell's delightful sets and costumes are important parts of the fun.

Lisa Bolte and Josef Christiansrm (Doreen and her bloke Bill) dance well, but need to define their characters better, in the face of jaunty competition from the other lead couple, Rebecca Yates and Shane Placentino (Rose and Ginger Mick). Stanton Welch's 'Three of Us' is awkwardly slotted between the main Items. This 10-minute. Gersh- win-hispired piece, which provides Mtranaa i-oney, and lieon Van Der Wyst with entertaininulv ninht- clubbish solos, really belongs in a program oi divertissements. Good viewing.

Don't miss It. simple play and the research involved was clearly monumental. Furthermore, in the context of the Bosnian conflict, 'Pacific Union' can be seen as a poignant observation of muddied, all-too-human idealism. But it's far too wordy, the dialogue is wooden, there are too many obvious feed lines, and for most of the time it all just goes clunk. There's no doubt that as theatre-in-education it's a valuable resource, but there's virtually no dramatic tension.

It may have worked as a mini-series or documentary, but it's flat theatre. It's also the kind of epic theatre that, for financial reasons, most companies avoid. With only seven actors and 29 characters the conse- 3uent doubling, tripling and qua-rupling up becomes confusing. Two be: Richard Roxburgh and Geoffrey Rush (top) in 'Hamlet'. A routine conspiracy thriller that gallops along despite a few "programming FREELANCE computer analyst Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock, above), has what she thinks is a simple job: "You go into people's systems.

You find their fault and then you fix it." But when she's sent a disk with a mysterious icon that unlocks access to confidential government databases, her belief that she's the one in charge of her life is revealed as an illusion. Wrenched out of her secluded haven, she finds herself trapped in a nightmarish world of conspiracy and murder, robbed of her identity by a cyber-terrorist organisation that can alter official files at whim, and targeted by a hit man. Nobody believes her and there's no one she can trust to help her. The plot is hinged on her quest to recover her identity, which she can do only by exposing those who have robbed her of it. But while there's suspense aplenty as she pits her computer skills and some old-fashioned ingenuity against the villains, Irwin Winkler's thriller is at best perfunctory in its treatment of character.

version of a out of their misguided beliefs about what Tai needs in order to be a "bitchin' Heckerling allows us to see her protagonist from the inside, but she also encourages us to view her as a living, breathing collection of insecurities based on all-too-familiar assumptions about what it takes to get on in the world. And she's not their only victim. The same assumptions rule the behavior of new-guy-in-class Christian (Justin Walker, above), a Luke Perry lookalike who catches her eye, who (as she puts it) "has a thing for Tony who understands that image is what matters and who uses her for decorative purposes only. In fact, of all the characters in the film, only her Nietzsche-reading ex-stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd), whose fashion sense is defined by his Amnesty International T-shirt, provides Cher with an alternative route to the future. Significantly, she is at her most vulnerable when she feels she's lost control of the fragile facade that is her life.

She describes it as an "overwhelming sense of but Heckerling is far more precise, even if she finally settles for a soft ending. It's not just that Cher lacks parental guidance her father is as besotted with her as she is and her mother died as a result of "a freak accident during a liposuction Here is 'Hamlef Don't bother. Maybe. plain and 'Hamlet' is no easy ask, but this production is definitely worth seeing. If the opening is flat, some scenes such as Hamlet's confrontation with Gertrude (poignantly played by Gillian Jones) really take off.

IN 1945 delegates from all over the world met at the San Francisco Opera House to establish the United Nations and write its charter; a peace mission at the end of yet another "lovely" war. Alex Buzo's latest play, 'Pacific Union', looks at those hectic nine weeks from the perspective of the Australian delegation which was effectively headed by Herbert "Doc" Evatt (Denis Moore). Evatt, the type of crash-through or crash politician that only the left can produce, is portrayed as possessing a volatile mixture of ego-centricity and idealism, selfishness and altruism. And he is engagingly played by Moore. But Evatt is the only character that has any solidity in an extremely disappointing play.

It begins in 1955 with an imagined meeting between a post-Pe-trov Evatt and the former United Nations Secretary General Alger Hiss, then serving time in a Pennsylvania jail for spying. From there the action goes back to the conference, when they were both What follows is the story of the conference Itself; the struggles to frame the UN Charter. Thematically, there's an enormous amount of material in this 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare, directed by Nell Armfleld. An MTC presentation of the Company Balvolr production. At the Playhouse until 14 October.

'Pacific Union' by Alex Buzo, directed by Bruce Myles. A Playbox production at the Malthouse until 7 October, AMLET' has different meanings for different ages. For Coleridge and the Romantics the prince was the elevated dreamy poet, for many 30s and 4()s critics his procrastination was synonymous with appeasement. To a Marxist the play reflects the turn of the dialectical screw someone caught in the fragmentary world of humanist individualism longing for the security of the old world of mediaeval patriarchy. In Neil Armfield's version, the imagery Is suggestive of a crumbling eastern European republic; the costumes a mixture of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The set appears to be a crypt grey walls, wilting flowers of remembrance; very minimalist. All of which matches the mainly restrained approach. This Is a nlaln speaking 'Hamlet', one which for the most part makes for intimate, immediate Shakespeare. But one that with the more lyrical lines can appear like flat acting. Of course, It's the title role that determines the play's success and Richard Roxburgh's prince holds things together.

Armfield's notes .0" Ground control to Major Tom: Actor Hanks portrays the latest manifestation of the American hero..