Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 51

23 SUNDAY DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE. ROCHESTER. DECEMBER 22. 1985 The Dinesen saga FROM PAGE 10 last minute Christmas gifts! cm r-ss-. $60.

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to $190. film has received, and the fact that many critics are crediting his screenplay. "What people really should be talking about, though, is. first. Meryl Streep's remarkable performance.

She's fabulous. And. second, the design, the 'look' of the film. It's beautiful. A native of Grand Rapids, Luedtke, 46, has worked at the Grand Rapids Press, the Sfiami Herald and the Detroit Free Press.

After attaining a position as executive editor of the De trait Free Press by age 38, Luedtke decided on a career change and headed for Hollywood. He hit paydirt with his first idea, a script about media ethics that became Absence of Malice and resulted in an Oscar nomination as best original screenplay. Out of Africa followed, along with The Chinese: A Portrait of a People, a special for CRS-TV. Next up is Schindler's List, adapted from the Thomas Keneal-ly book that details the true story of a gentile German industrialist who helped hundreds of Jews escape the Holocaust. The project is being developed for Steven Spielberg as a possible second serious film to follow The Color Ihtrple.

"There's been no decision vet," though, whether Spielberg will direct or only produce the film, Luedtke said. "It depends on the finished script." lAiedtke said Schmdler's List is proving difficult. "I want to try to get the audience truly involved in a way that's original, but the period's been done so many times before, he said. "I keep getting myself involved in period pieces. "I've spend the last four years writing about people and times I didn't know.

I've been drowning in research. I swear, the next thing I do will be set in America in the 190k." shot last winter in Kenya. To direct it. Universal signed Sydney Pollack, who previously had worked with Luedtke on Absence of Malice. Pollack also was re-spoasihle for The Way We Were, The Electric Horseman and Tout-sie, and had worked with his male lead, Hedfurd, on five previous projects.

Luedtke was at the African locales for a few weeks and said the shooting was relatively hassle-free, given the checkered history of film projects in the hot, dusty locations of Africa. "Of course, you have to always remember you're over there with the animals," Luedtke said. "And if you leave your tent at night you may bump into something bigger than you." The production company also had trouble keeping track of ear-lobes, of all things. The local Ki-kuyu natives had longer, more substantial earlobes during Dinesen's period in Africa and adorned them with many large earrings. The tradition has been lost but had to be revived for authenticity in the film.

This meant that Universal had to supply hundreds of fake ears at $15 a pair for the native extras. Well, the natives loved the new look and often ran off with them. "At one point, Sydney had to wire London and ak for 5K more ears," Luedtke remembered, with a laugh. "London wired back: 'Do you want left ears or right and Sydney said, 'What do they think we're making a movie about one-eared natives?" Asked if Pollack's film was as he envisioned it during the writing, Luedtke said: "It's pretty close. I was surprised and pleased with the extent that the film is true to Dinesen's spirit." He added that he's pleased with the mostly positive reviews the Karen Hlixen (Dinesen was her pen name) and her lover.

Deny Finch-Hjt tun," Luedtke says, adding that Dinesen barely men inns him in her books. One day, however, Luedtke was going through new African titles at the library when he came across Silence Will Speak, a little-known biography of Finch-Hatton by Errol Trzehinki. While pursuing the film right to the book, Luedtke came across a then newly published biography of Dinesen by Judith Thurman. The two volumes provided the information Luedtke needed to make Out of Africa wxwk as a screenplay. Actually, Dinesen's work had fascinated Luedtke years before he became either a journalist or a screenwriter.

"I fell in love with her when I was 14 or 15, he recalled during a phone conversation. "Then came a time when I discovered the right la Out of Afnca were owned by Columbia Pictures, but they couldn't make it work. "After Absence of Malice was released I talked with (Frank) Price (then president of Columbia Pictures) and asked if he wanted to take another crack at it." Upper-echelon shifts at the studios, however, eventually brought the project and Luedtke to Universal Once he discovered the source material, Luedtke said, the project posed few difficulties. "After all, I was writing about someone I was in love with, and the fact of history determined the story," he said. "There were certain creative decisions, however.

We compressed time in a few instances, for example." The script went through five drafts, which is not an unusual number of rewrites, before it was pure silk 68, silk jacquard dresses $39.99 $59.99 $42. to $56. famous maker's fahion vvaters $11.99 $145. winter warm $39. to $56.

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moaonly I By Jack Garner ON FILF.1 Closing Christmas Eve at 6p.m. 'fashion at a fraction' 2210 Monroe Brighton 461-3220 Ridgcmont Plaza, Greece 227-3294 Sun. Visa MasterCard Layaways Gift Certificates bacSs5om better displayed, and Watkin is equally adept at capturing the lovers' intimacies. The acting is remarkable, starting with the terrifically talented Meryl Streep. The complex changes of her character, in reacting to a strange land as well as to her passion for Finch-Hatton, are all remarkably etched by Streep.

She does everything right. Redford also is surprisingly good, especially since his casting may have been more commercially minded than aesthetically correct. (Finch-Hatton was a proper Englishman, a role more ideally suited to someone like Jeremy Irons.) However, Redford brings a stunning charisma to the part that makes Finch-Hatton what he should be here: a man of legend and an object of passionate love. The supporting performances also are vivid, especially by the formidable Brandauer, Malick Bowens as Blixen's house servant Farah, and Michael Kitchen as fellow adventurer Berkeley Cole. In sum.

Out of Africa is gTeat film making in the best tradition of Hollywood romance. It's a stunning and immensely satisfying 150 minutes in a theater. Democrat ana Ch'oottte to crTu. The memoirs of Nobel-nominated writer Isak Dinesen and her passionate affair with an African adventurer have been stunningly re-created in Out of Africa. Sydney Pollack's film features photography that captures the great beauty and mercurial moods of the land; Meryl Streep and Robert Redford are electrifying as the writer and her lover, Denys Finch-Hatton.

Together with the just-released The Color Purple, Out of Africa once again proves the old Holly-wotid maxim: Save the best of the' year for last. Both films heat up a heretofore-dismal Oscar race. Quality is the byword in nearly every aspect of Out of Africa: The script by Kurt Luedtke is a model of expert literary adaptation. Working from no less than five books, Luedtke has solved a storytelling puzzle that has eluded film makers for several decades. Aided by recent biographies, Luedtke focuses on the great love of Dinesen's life, setting it against her lyrical memories of her years in the Africa of the '20s.

The direction by Sydney Pol- Out of Africa A true story ot discovery and romance in Africa, it opened Friday at trie Pittsford. Webster and Stonendge theaters Directed by Sydney Pollack, it stars Meryl Streep and Robert Redford Running time. 2 30. Rating PG. with tastefully implied sexual situations.

Excellent Good Average Fair Poor lack shows a range of feeling and intelligence surpassing anything he has created before. Pollack makes creative decisions that are direct, appropriate, alternately subtle and emotional, and smart. This is Pollack's sixth outing with Redford, and such films as Jeremiah Johnson and The Electric Horseman show that their partnership is beneficial. But he also demonstrates remarkable control with Streep and Klaus Maria Brandauer (as her husband). In Out of Africa, cinematogra-pher David Wat kin matches his lest work in such films as Chariots of Fire and Catch-22.

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