The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 59

Cos Anaclcs (Times Television Listings Part I Mondav. November 4. 1985 IRIS SCHNEIDER Los Anffrtrs Tuw 's MOVIE HEAVY DOESN'T TAKE THE JOB LIGHTLY Good Guys in the make-believe world of films not only get what they want, they usually win the admiration of the audience as well. But what about their idversaries. those Bad Guys who smear the heroes and smash the Super Heroes How do they feel about being the enemy? In a Calendar series starting today, actors whose careers include distinguished performances as Bad Guys discuss their approach to making the villain really villainous.

tures of Buckaroo Banzai" and the leering robber baron B. Z. in the upcoming "Santa Claus The some not so comic, such as the dance-despising Rev. Moore in "Footloose," and at least one-Burke that was downright evil. But the actor has made each of By JOHN VOLAND In the 1981 film "Blow Out," there's a scene where a maniacally righteous political assassin pretends to be just another conventioneering "john" as he flags a hooker with a $50 bill in a them work, on their own terms.

Although he shies away from generalities you start making them, you start playing Lithgow said he taps the same basic source for all the "antagonistic" characters train station. His face is anticipatory, bubbly; his goofy smile as wide as the phone booth he stands in. But as the hooker exits the scene, the assassin's face seemingly folds in on itself; all animation drains away. John Lithgow portrays a killer in "Blow Out," above, and, at right, a role less familiar to film that of John Lithgow. like fizz from a glass of champagne, until what remains is a blank cipher.

John Lithgow, who played the assassin, Burke, in that Brian De Palma film, recalled that cinematic moment in a recent interview, and commented: "Burke was a man who chose to have no identity; the only personality he ever displayed was when he could be someone or something else in a strategic way." The actor, who turned 40 in October, shook his head slowly and continued, "I thought that was a really disturbing notion. In fact, playing that part was probably the most disturbing experience I've ever had." His laugh, though genuine, had a haunted quality it recalled the false good spirits of the killer's face. Since "Blow Out," Lithgow has essayed a number of other villainous (or, as he prefers to call them, roles: some comic, such as the time-and-spaced-out Dr. Emilio Lizardo in "The Adven- he plays. "The fact is, when you play a murderer, or someone who's being manipulative or crooked or sadistic, you have to be game to play somebody different from yourself," he said, stretching out comfortably on a floral -print couch.

"I mean, you have to presume that most actors are nothing like Burke at least I hope not," he added with a laugh. "That's certainly the kick that I get out of it taking a plunge in another direction, taking on somebody who is emphatically not me. And Burke, and Lizardo, and the rest of them are certainly not me." Neither, one assumes, was Roberta Muldoon, the transsexual ex-tight end Lithgow portrayed in "The World According to Garp." Such is the unpredictable lot of the professional character actor. But the "not-Lithgow" aspects of Burke, especially, were not easy ones to establish links with. "When you're acting, you're ex LORI SHEPLER Los Angeles Times ploring what makes a character tick, what motivates him," explained Lithgow, tapping his chest.

"It's a much more mysterious problem when you're dealing with what makes the villain tick. To get in there and savor those motivations is sometimes a real challenge. "When I first read the role and talked to Brian (De Palma) about it, I said, 'What a scum And Brian's response was, 'No, not at all; he thinks he's And at that point I sort of took off on the possibilities of the renegade CIA type those Watergate -style people who had stepped outside the letter of the law for what they thought was completely justified by political reality. And Burke, I found, was just an extreme version of that. "Oddly enough, the fascination of playing this villain was that of playing a character that had no character completely Mr.

Anonymous; very, very bland. To me, there was something really disturbing to me about that idea the fact that these sadistic murders were being perpetrated by somebody who appeared to have no affect whatsoever. He's just bland drained of all personality except when it was expedient, useful to him." Lithgow folded his hands and looked out the window, his eyes narrowing. "Creepy, huh?" Please see BAD GUYS, Page 3 MARSHA TRAEGER Los Angeles Times 'EARLY FROST A DRAMATIC LOOK AT AIDS Two members of the Repercussion Unit get a bang out of their work during New Music America '85 festival performance. Wi 7 3 'Mi 1 1 LSI km' 1, 1 kli WLl I I Ml I fl'JL'Wm IIJ1 HI I'tm' i' FELDMAN QUINTET, OTHER WORKS PREMIERE AT FEST By JAYSHARBUTT, Times Staff Writer In November, 1972, ABC aired a television movie about a boy who learns that his divorced father is a homosexual.

Although critically praised, the film, "That Certain Summer," caused a certain stir because of its subject, then rare for TV. Times and attitudes change. Homosexuality as a TV-movie theme no longer is considered daring. But more than casual attention doubtless will be paid this month to NBC's "An Early Frost," a two-hour movie airing next Monday night. "Frost" concerns the reaction of a middle-aged couple Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands) to a double disclosure that shocks them: Their grown son (Aidan Quinn) is a homosexual and is dying of AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Directed by John Erman, the film is the first network movie drama about the incurable disease, which in this country primarily afflicts homosexuals, hemophiliacs and intravenous drug abusers, and which has claimed more than 7,000 lives since 1979. But it's not the first AIDS-Please see' Page 6 In the background at the bar, from left, Earl Billings, Oz Tortora, Frank at the table, jrom left, Philip Baker Hall, Judith Hansen, Rene Auberjonois in a scene from "The Petrified Forest." STAGE REVIEW NEW VIEW OF 'PETRIFIED FOREST' Takahashi treated the work with loving tenderness, caressing its barely changing outlines, carefully defining its short dynamic parameters. After the conclusion of the performance, the composer gratefully acknowledged the performers' successful efforts. Of course, by that time, a portion of the large audience gathered in Leo S. Bing Theatre at the museum had fled quietly at first, then, later, with growing bravado.

By chance, one had the opportunity to hear the work again, three hours later, on KUSC-FM, which is broadcasting festival events. The second hearing confirmed one's impressions: Much does happen in these 68V2 minutes, though slowly: A certain inevitability seems to govern the chord-changes, a formal structure emerges, and a number of leitmotifs appear and recurthey even haunt the work. One of them is a chord, spelled, from bottom to top: A-flat. On the other hand, pleasures of more uncomplicated character dominated the Friday event, a jolly 55-minute appearance by the Repercussion Unit, a six-member, six-composer ensemble of the bang-clang-and-swoosh school. As you may have heard, this is a performing group of unfailing mu-sicality and strong entertainment values.

The six players composers John Bergamo, Jim Hildebrandt, Gregg Johnson, Ed Mann, Lucky Mosko and Larry Stein have fun, make music and hold their observers' interests. Friday, those interests were visual as well as aural and focused on some of the equipment the large. Please see FESTIVAL, Page 2 By DANIEL CARIAGA, Times Music Writer Concerts Two and Five in the current New Music America '85 Festival were short, in-termissionless events at the County Museum of Art held at 5 on Friday and Saturday afternoons. Short, yes, but fascinating one might even say, pithy. Morton Feldman's Quintet, which he calls "Piano and String Quartet," was written expressly for the Kronos Quartet and pianist Aki Takahashi for performance at this festival.

Like some other Feldman works, it seems at first overlong for its content, seems to invite clock -watching and taxes the listener'sany listener's patience. Sixty-eight and one-half minutes long, the quintet deals in quiet music. The prevailing dynamic never rises above mezzo-piano; at least it did not so rise in this world -premiere performance. At the beginning of the work, musical activity is confined mostly to arpeggiated chords in the piano and disjunct responses from the quartet; later, the dialogue between piano and strings takes different tacks. At no point in the score does anything change strikingly; once begun, the piece offers no surprises.

Its sound profile, then, is inoffensive. The slow-changing of exotic chords at low dynamic levels does not challenge or grate upon the ear. But it does make for one long period of uneventfulness. The Kronos Quartet violinists David Harrington and John Sher-ba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud and pianist doubtful. But it plays like gang-busters.

The director was Charles Ma-rowitz, who likes to mug Shakespeare but seems perfectly content to assist a lesser writer like Sherwood in telling his tale more or less as he meant it. Marowitz's staging doesn't make us miss the camera. Oh, it might be nice to have an occasional long shot of the desert, and some intercutting might jazz up the final shoot-out, but in general the play seems quite at home in the See THE Page 4 By DAN SULLIVAN, Times Theater Critic movie. Or maybe no one wants to compete with Bogie (he did the play as well as Duke Mantee. But it's evident at the Los Angeles Theatre Center that a shrewd director and a strong acting company have nothing to fear from Sherwood's script.

Whether "The Petrified Forest" has anything to "say" to a contemporary audienceother than: Here's what it was like in the mid-1930s is Most of us know "The Petrified Forest" primarily as a film, with Humphrey Bo-gart as the killer on the lam and Bette Davis as the young waitress pining to get out of this Godforsaken hole and Leslie Howard as the ineffectual Englishman doing a far, far better thing than he has ever done. But Robert E. Sherwood's story was originally (1935) a play, one that rarely turns up in the theater these days. Perhaps it's feared that it will look stage-bound next to the 'NEWSHOUR' BEGINS AIDS SERIES TODAY By CLARKE TAYLOR NEW YORK-Citing "rampant fear and panic" on the part of the American public, "The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour" (Channel 28, 6:30 p.m.) has scheduled a four-day series of special reports on AIDS, starting today. "It's in a public-service sense that we are doing this," a "News-Hour" spokesman said Friday.

He said the series aims "to correct a lot of misinformation" about the disease. Today's opening program will start with a Roger Rosenblatt essay in which "at least the mythology" surrounding AIDS is likened to the great plagues of Europe, the spokesman said. The essay will be followed by a question-and-an-swer session with medical experts Please see A IDS SEP IES. Page 3 A DE MILLE WITHOUT A FILM RECORD "That had nothing to do with dance," she said. De Mille was not thinking of herself when she lamented the loss of "a permanent record of what was good in our work." Legendary dancers were on her mind.

"Isadora Duncan? There is not one foot of film on her, even though film had already been invented," De Mille said. "Pavlova? There are just a few feet of film of her taken personally by Douglas Fairbanks with one single camera in a stationary position. That is all we have of that extraordinary artist. Please see DE MILLE, Page 5 By CHRIS PASLES Oddly enough, the De Mille Dynasty Exhibition devoted to choreographer Agnes de Mille, director Cecil B. DeMille and director William de Mille which opens Wednesday at the Americana Museum in Century City will not have films of dances performed by Agnes de Mille.

"There aren't any," the frail, feisty pioneer choreographer told an audience at the Century City Broadway on Saturday. "Between my father and uncle, there were lots of cameras, and a lot of film was exposed," the 76- INSIDE CALENDAR MUSIC: LA. Philharmonic reviewed by Sg Albert Goldberg. Page 4. II TV: Tonight on TV and cable.

Page 7. The Thompson Twins' Alannah Currie. Concert Hfe reviewedby Chris Willman. Page A. mmmm year-old De Mille said.

"But not a yard was given to little Aggie. Not once, even though I was dead serious about dance." Instead, De Mille said, Hollywood "wasted miles of film on car chases," and when it did turn to dance, it filmed "yards and yards of blondes playing pianos and disappearing into swimming pools..