The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 30

THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1992 Vintage Films Mesmerizing, rich 'Daughters of the Dust' A wonderfully wacky Buster Keaton weekend ed by Alva Rogers, may be carrying the child of the white landowner who raped her. It is up to Nana, the ancestral fathers and the spirit of the unborn child to convince Eula's husband that he is the child's true father. As Nana seeks to bless and protect those heading for the mainland, the unsettling undercurrents of separation, and the unknown, rumble beneath the beauty and sleek mysticism of Dash's story. "Daughters" has a gorgeous, overwhelming sense of place. It is almost startlingly beautiful, blessed with deep fiery hues and a poetic sensibility.

It is a film made stronger by its belief in itself, and it chat: lenges its audience to believe also. The film is never spoon-fed, and certain elements the complex, curious West African customs and the rich Creolized banter of the Gullah -makes demands on viewers accustomed to the easily digested action flick. But because "Daughters" is so gloriously textured, its rewards are many. Let's thank Julie Dash for her persistence in bringing us this jewel. This is a story we will tell our chil dren again and again and with each retelling, the colors will swell in our souls.

By Patricia Smith GLOBE STAFF Only five or six minutes into Julie Dash's visually arresting "Daughters of the Dust," it becomes clear that it is like no other 0Ye film. It is a film Review that belongs to I black women, a film rich with our faces, voices and movement It is a film full of our colors, dictated by our traditions and ruled by our moods. For these reasons and many more, it is a film that must be seen. Julie Dash's frustrating struggle to bring "Daughters" to a mass audience has, by now, been well documented. When the filmmaker approached Hollywood with her idea -a story, told in the mesmerizing style of a ffriot, of a sprawling Gullah family on the South Carolina Sea Islands at the turn of the century she was told that it was "too different" to be marketable.

In other words, no pimps, pushers, prostitutes, Uzis, rappers, long-suffering mammies, senseless bloodletting or crackheads, no deal. Looking at Dash's masterwork, the industry's reluctance to embrace it is understandable, but inexcusable. By Jay Carr GLOBE STAFF When Buster Keaton started Bhooting "The Cameraman" (1928), he complained that the script was as long as "War and Peace." Tossing it, he told MGM: "I'd like to do something with a drunk and with a fat lady and with a kid. Get 'em for me." "FANTASTIC!" NnU Fmc GANNETT NEWSPAPERS Memoirs of an Invisible Man EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT NOW PLAYING OT mm ii vw LOEWS COPLEY PLACE GENERAL In it, Keaton plays a tintyper struggling to make it as an on-the-spot newsreel photographer, with the help of a movie company receptionist who's sweet on him. When she phones to say she broke a date, he drops the receiver and runs off into the street By the time she shakes her head at the broken connection and slams the receiver down, he's standing behind her.

"Sorry if I'm a little late," he says, deadpan, as usual. Simple, but it works. "The Cameraman" is remembered as the film in which Keaton risked being upstaged by a monkey. It ruins a couple of chances, but saves the day by turning the crank on the camera, just as it was trained to do with its street organ, providing crucial footage of a speedboat accident Keaton'a comic invention like all geniuses, he made what he did look simple will brighten Harvard Square all weekend. Playing on a double bill with the The Comedian" today is "Sherlock, Jr." (1924), the classic in which he plays a projectionist who surrealistically enters the action of the film he's showing, changing forever the lives of Pirandello and Woody Allen, to name but two.

On Saturday, itH be replaced by "The General" (1926), the film that takes its title from the locomotive that Keaton, a Civil War train engineer, steals back from the Union and uses as his most spectacular prop ever. Sunday's Keaton duo: "Seven Chances" (1925), in which he takes his most spectacular fall outrunning an avalanche of boulders, and "Steamboat Bill, in which he never flinches while a storm-weakened house falls down around him. They did, and Keaton, working off the cuff, gave them a comic masterpiece, one that MGM kept in the vaults for years as a training film. Durante, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Red Skelton and Mickey Rooney studied it, and now it's back in a restored print at Cambridge's Brattle Theater today and tomorrow. rj LOEWS COPLEY PLACE Daily 10:15 12:30, 5,9:30 Fri Sat late show No 10:15 show Sun 100 HtMTWCTOH Ml.

OOSTOH 266-1300 1 if nwiwiiir ws iwwi GENERAL CINEMA ROUTE 128 EXIT 321 272-4410 iiriiKHii i''l ii 'Noises Off should have stayed onstage DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST Directed and written by: Julie Dash Starring: Com Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara-O, Adisa Anderson Playing at: Coolidge Corner Not rated, but suitable for general audiences Set on the lush paradise of Ibo Landing, a community descended from the slaves who toiled on rice, indigo and cotton plantations before emancipation, "Daughters" tells the story of the women of the extended Peazant family. The family, which still speaks the language and upholds the traditions of their West African forebears, is torn apart as one faction prepares to depart for the mainland and "civilization!" Over a long, sundrenched afternoon, with a photographer present to record the proceedings, a farewell feast brings together those who turn to the old ways for comfort and those who turn away from them for change. Nana, the 88-year-old Peazant matriarch, treasures her link to the "old her daughter, Yellow Mary, returned from Cuba with an exquisite but silent female lover, finds herself at odds with much of the family. Nana's pregnant granddaughter Eula, brilliantly interpret film are two fundamentally different constructs. "Doors and sardines, that's what it's all about Getting on, getting off," says Michael Caine, playing the director of a Broadway-hound sex farce.

It's the very specific kind of trousers-dropping farce that's a fixture on London's stages, which is to say that it's not about sex at all, but about doors slamming and narrow misses and escalating complications and intricate pinpoint choreography. In short, about timing. Or, about getting on and getting off. Apart from the question of whether Americans will get this very specific kind of farce, there's the problem of how to translate its physical kind of cumulative comic tension into film's more distanced aesthetic. Director Peter Bogdanovich doesn't solve it A stage production's tension stems from continued focus on the same microcosm.

Merely moving the camera around dilutes it The camera's rhythms clash with those of the physical comedy. Even a lot of the verbal humor is diminished, especially the actor who always interrupts to explain himself, ends by lamely saying, "You know," assuming he's made himself clear. The quick, bitchy, backstage humor and flare-ups as romantic complications snowball need language flickering mercurially through the ensemble of actors in a physical world that remains still, although fraught with peril. Here, the camera moves add nothing and take away from the movement of the language. And film's way of relegating everything to the naturalistic yanks the characters out of the stage's heightened intensity into a flatter plane.

In short, there are several kinds of CINEMA m. 9 at HAMMOND ST. 277.2500 10 WHmNIO Ml. tOSTON 266-1300 NO PASSES ACCEPTED FOR THIS ENGAGEMENT Watch the Academy Awards March 30 ilim I WW runf stfr Vhii WMUiwi mm am CAROL CHRISTOPHER HARHU BlJffl MM HffiER NARK LIMER By Jay Carr GLOBE STAFF Onstage, "Noises Off' was a riot. On film, it's in the salvage business, snatching a few vagrant laughs from Movie a that Uiuvie otherwise sinks Review like a failed souffle, reminding us yet again that farce onstage and farce on (Ml (hiUtmr DfMOLM c5 Tbuchstone Pictures Academy Awards March 30 NOISES OFF Directed by: Peter Bogdanovich Screenplay by: Marty Kaplan (play: Michael Frayn) Starring: Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Denholm Elliott, Julie Hagerty, Marilu Henner, Mark Linn-Baker, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter, Nicoletie Sheridan Playing at: Copley Place, suburbs Rated: PG-13 leakage apart from the treacherous sea crossing that has wrecked more than one play.

Given the diminishing nature of this filming, the characters who do best are the ones who hit their material the hardest, or whose characters are always in a state of crisis, such as Julie perpetually wired stage manager. The others, led by Michael Caine's director and Carol Burnett's seasoned stage veteran, are stifled by Bogdanovich's soggy pacing and the cheap production values. There's no eclat, less panache. And absolutely no sense of the pileup of treacheries by the physical world. Onstage when the actress playing the maid says, dubiously reviewing her sequence of physical business, "I hang up the phone, I take the newspaper, I leave the sardines," it's hilarious.

Here, it's flat When the stage play-j ers take turns passing around a bottle of Scotch so the boozy character actor won't get into it and ruin the performance, the bottle seems to take on a life of its own as it flies from one pair of hands to another; Here it makes the rounds dutifully, not exhilaratingly. But then that's the whole film. Onstage it was brfl-; liant On screen, it's pedestrian. BILL BRUFORD'S EARTHWORKS At: Nightstage, Wednesday. First show.

i unusual forms, the brisk, compact soloing and turn-on-a-dime rhythmic; and dynamic changes create a hur-j ried, fragmented feel. Then the mu-; sic suggests an intellectual game. Playing a drum kit comprising standard cymbals and a snare drum; as well as pads that work as triggers for a synthesizer, Bruford often pro-! vided both the rhythmic and the har-j monic foundation. His rockish beat' and trademark odd meters gave Bain amy's and Bates' traditional jazz ap-i proach an unusual edge. This! worked especially well on "Up( North," "A Stone's Throw" (which; showcased Ballamy's gorgeous tone? on tenor) and "Emotional Shirt, which played as a cross between uw dustrial rock and ersatz 1960s New.

York jazz avant-garde. Harries drove hard on electric1 bass pushed by Bruford, he did not; back down but was at his best on the acoustic bass. His big tone and sparse lines seemed to open up overall sound of the group. This was most enjoyable on the ballad "It! Needn't End In Tears" and the stark "Candles Still Flicker In Roj mania's Dark." At the end, Bruford's Earth-j works was as far from stadium rock convention as from standard jazz-rock fusion. Intelligence and muscle from Bruford's Earthworks iff! N(MS 'MUTS STMWeU CHUTWUflOB; Produced by FRANK JULIE JOHN Ml OIltTTE HAGERTY JITTER SIMDM Off By Fernando Gonzalez GLOBE STAFF Bill Bruford, best known by rock fans as the drummer for groups such as Yes, Genesis and King Crimson, PJnir heard 016 aPPlause MUK Wednesday and Review knew that he need- ed no introduc-.

tions. He also probably thought that a clarification was in order. "I see many familiar faces. We probably have met before across a crowded he said with typically dry humor. He paused, then continued.

"This is a band led by a drummer but relax, there will be no grotesquely long drum solos or anything of that sort" Far from it Bruford's four-piece band, Earthworks, offered subtle blends and improbable juxtapositions: high-tech electronics and acoustic sounds; mainstream jazz and hip hop; rock, funk and ethnic musics; sophisticated rhythmic layerings and a gritty street flavor; urgency and cool control. It is a delicate balancing act and at its best the music had intelligence and muscle, the rarest combination in fusion. But sometimes Bruford and company Tim Harries, electric and acoustic bass; Iain Ballamy, saxes; and Django Bates, tenor horn and keyboards outsmart themselves, and after awhile the odd rasters, the The comedy where everyone gets caught in the act. TOUCHSTONE PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT present PACIFIC PARTNERS I ftPETERBOGDANOVICH Picture "NOISES OFF" Bated on the play by MICHAEL FRAJfN MICHAEL CAINE CAROL BURNETT JULIE HAGERTY JOHN RITTER NICOLLET! SHERIDAN CHRISTOPHER REEVE MARILU HENNER MARK LINN-BAKER DENHOLM ELLIOTT Executive Producer KATHLEEN KENNEDYandPETERBOGDANOVICH Screenplay by MARTY KAPLAN MARSHALL Directed by PETER BOGDANOVICH PG-13 I CD A I Ml STARTS TODAY AT THESE SELECTED THEATRES! DlitrtkaM It Villi Nctnn OlatrliatlM, Int. OTOUCHSTONE PICTURES and AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT, INC.

Watch the LOEWS GENERAL CINEMA GENERAL CINEMA I LOEWS LOEWS I I SHOWCASE dNEMASl I SHOWCASE CINEMASl fSHOWCASE CINEMASl I LOEWS COPLEY PLACE CHESTNUT HiLL PEABCDY FRESH POND SOttERVItlE CEDKAM W08URN REVERE NATICK IM HKM M. ICII0I1 m. HAMMOND St. WHOM 1101 1 Ml mmt FRESH POND MALL al ASSEMILY SQ. ATE 93 T1.

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IHOmiS WOIIO 266-1300 II 277-2500 599-1310 1 1 661-2900 628-7000 326-4933 II 933-5330 I 286-1660 II iSMOMMMM Late show tonight at Copley, NarJck, Sornerville, Revere Wobum Dedham NO PASSES OR DISCOUNT COUPONS ACCEPTED FOR THIS ENGAGEMENT.