Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 29

So who gets the 'Raw Have some more Alsace, Lorraine3C sunburn3C Leave 'sorehead1 home until ho grows up9C Crossword9C Erma Bombeck2C HPK TTAYILilnl Music videos bring fame to Minneapolis film director mm Television Nick Coleman It's storytime: Golden Valley and TV bears nee upon a time, then was a TV station in Golden Valley 1 that nobody watched. That made the poor little bears who worked at the TV station unhappy so they tried to find a way to make the humans watch them. jus-, Mmmim Staff Photo by John Croft Chuck Statler ran one of his works on video editing equipment at his Minneapolis studio. "If those nasty old people won't watch us, we can hold our breath until we turn blue. said Gripey Bear, who did the sports news.

"No, no, Gripey, that wit never do, said Hugga-Bunch Bear, the female co-anchor. "We must never threaten our viewers. We must make them like us instead. "Yes. said Bubba Bear, the male co-anchor.

"How about we hang American flags all over the place and caH our station WUSA?" Wet, the other bears agreed to try that for a while and it worked just fine untS, at of a sudden, a big, bad TV station in Washington, D.C., decided that it should be catted WUSA, not some teensy little station in Minnesota. "Now what are we going to do?" moaned Gripey Bear. "No one wit watch us againl" "Don't worry, said Intermittent Precipitation, the Meteorology Bear. "I have a great ideal We 're the Kare Bears and we kare so dam much about everybody out then in Viewer Land because if they don't watch us then Boss Bear won't give us any more grubs and berries, wit he? So let's cat our station the Kan Bearstanonl" Wet, boys and girls, to make a long story short, at of the tttle bean out at Channel 1 1 thought that was a great idea. After modifying the name to meet the requirements of the Federal Communications Commission, the station officially changed its name to ARE-TV on Wednesday.

And that's the story of how the Kan Bean saved Channel 11. Cat me a Kan Kab and rush me to a Kare Unit. I think I'm gonna be sick. That was just a fairy tale, of course. In real We, Channel 1 1 is run by executives of the Gannett Broadcast Group, not fuzzy bears.

Still, there's something of a syrupy children's tale, in the story behind Channel 118 decision to change its name from WUSA-TV to KARE-TV brooding "Paris, Texas" and "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure," Statier's work is anything but predictable. Between 1976 and 1983, he made 49 videos for Elvis CosteHo, the Cars, the J. Cells Band, Devo and others, gleefully violating every convention of continuity and narrative logic. And you could dance to them. "His work is tremendously significant," said E.

Buffie Stone, executive director of the Minnesota Motion Picture and Television Board. "He's a real pioneer (in videos) one of the top ten, and probably higher than that. To my way of thinking, he invented the whole genre." "The Village Voice" hailed Statler as one of the video's founding fathers; "Rolling Stone" enshrined Nm in its Rock-video Hal of Fame. Last fal the Museum of Modern Art in New York City showcased his work, inducting one of his videos into the muse- urn's permanent study collection. "The pieces he did for (the new wave band) Devo are good," said Barbara London, curator of the museum's music video exhibition.

"You can see these works in terms of experimental cinema. They're doing something innovative visually, taking a step forward in terms of pacing, editing and content. They're little experimental films, doing something By Colin CovertStaff Writer If there's an unofficial arUorm of 1980s, it must be the music video. Video leap at us from monitors in dance clubs and department stores. They unreel 24 hours a day on MTV.

They're aped by network shows from "Miami Vice" to newscasts like "West 57th." They've inspired HoNywood hits Rain," and more than a few duds "954 Videos seem to have been around forever, a part of the natural order like the 12-bar, three-chord blues. But the form is new and man-made. And the man who largely made it is a low-key, low-profile Minneapolis film director wimed Chuck Statler. Of course, no individual can claim to have created the video single-handedly. The promotional music films have precursors in Busby Berkeley production numbers, Richard Lester's BeatJe movies, "A Hard Day's Night" and even Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.

But many observers credit Statler with giving videos the freewheeling structure in which action, mood and images rank above literal meaning. As you might guess of someone whose favorite films include the Despite preachiness, 'Salvador' has power Sleeping habits may have effect on depression A review By Jeff StricklerStaff Writer It's fitting that "Salvador" is about war, because it comes rolling over the audience like a tank, leaving a trail of crushed spirits and devastated emotions. Behind the virtuoso performance of James Woods, it's a gut-wrenching, conscience-torturing story about the war in El Salvador. hs impact is lessened somewhat by its blatant left-wing politicizing at one point the movie virtually stops for several minutes while Woods delivers what amounts to little more than an anti-CIA editorial and clumsy attempts to work In comic relief through Jim BelusN. But the intensity of the movie is enough to overcome both drawbacks.

hi many respects, it's similar to 1984's "The Killing Fields" and 1983's "Year of Living Dangerously." Like "Salvador," those films showed a journalist covering and becoming emotionally involved with a revolution in a foreign country. They were gripping, thought-provoking, highly potent films. But "Salvador" fares even better in that category, in large part because of its contemporary subject. Both of the earlier films dealt with what must be considered history Killing By Jamie TalanNewsday New York, N.Y. bad night's sleep is turning out to be good fi therapy for some patients with depression, according to Dr.

David Sack, a slim, quiet man whose comer office at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) bespeaks the life of a busy scientist. In recent studies, Sack and his colleagues have found that a night of little or no sleep can lift a depressed person's sad mood. Manipulating sleep, he adds, has antidepressant effects on the brain. But these effects are almost as short-lived as the hours the subjects lose at night. Sack's findings, however, provide evidence for a possible treatment for depression based solely on sleep, or more precisely, a lack of it.

These studies are leading to new information about depression and its relationship to the body's natural rhythms called circadian rhythms which are intimately involved in sleep-wake cycles. Sack and Dr. Thomas Wehr, chief of the psychobiology branch of the NIMH, have observed "striking regularity" in the cyclical nature of depression, and say that it is related to disturbances in sleep patterns. If they are right that the body's clocklike mechanisms work together in steep and depression, then altering one should, they theorize, directly affect the other. Researchers suspect that there are two separate biological clocks, or pacemakers; one controlling wakefulness and activity and the other, hormone secretions and Fields" In Cambodia and "Year of Living Dangerously" in Indonesia).

"Salvador" is about something that's happening now. Granted, it's tied to events that happened in 1980 and '81, but the issues it raises are ones that stilt are hotly debated as the United States tries to define its role in Central America. Many of the things we see in "Salvador" look like the things we see on the 10 p.m. news. The film is based on a true story or, at least, a true character.

Richard Boyle, a free-lance war correspondent, went to El Salvador in 1980 to cover the war for NBC News and the Cable News Network, an assignment he held for two years. When he returned to the United Statee, he wrote his. memoirs of the war, a book that eventually landed on the desk of Oliver Stone (who wrote "Scarface" and "Midnight Stone and Boyle agreed to co-write the script for "Salvador," with Stone directing. Boyle's self-portrait is surprisingly unflattering. Woods we assume with Boyle's approval plays him "4 i In James Woods as photojournallst Richard Boyle In "Salvador,.