The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 67

i inrr-r tt I i im WednwJav, Decembw 20, 1989 D-3 SAN FRANCISCO EX AM INC Another hope dashed Wr'h? -f 'Manifesto' is Yugoslav director's V- Apf '4' ft: 3 1 'I latest letdown By Barbara Shulgauer EXAMMER STAFF CRfTIC YUGOSLAV DIRECTOR Dusan Makavejev is a mystery. Something about his political yet whimsical cinematic style always gooses his audience into exhilarating momenta of hope for his films. But the moment inevitably turns out to be misleading. Like the man who clears his throat as if to make an astonishing pronouncement and then says nothing, Makavejev disappoints. "Manifesto" is the latest disappointment (the one before was "The Coca Cola Not since he made "Montenegro," a mildly amusing, dark sex comedy, or even "W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism," has Makavejev said something to fulfill all that throat-clearing.

Based on "For a Night of Love," an Emile Zola short story, "Manifesto" is a sexual-political farce that pretends to be about a plot to assas- MOVIE REVIEW 'Manifesto' Cast Camilla Soeberg, Alfred Molina Director-writer. Dusan Makavejev Unrated Theater Roxie, through Dec 26 Evaluation: Camilla Saeberg play an heiress plotting to kill the king. sinate a European monarch. Alfred Molina plays the head of the police unit assigned to guard the king and sweep a small town free of suspicious characters before the king makes an official visit. A dandy and a ladies' man, Molina approaches flirtation with more gusto than he does detective work.

So he remains unaware of the plot against the king. In his white suit and trimmed beard, he is Inspector Clouseau with a suave manner. Camilla Soeberg plays the beautiful young heiress who says no but acts yes with every man she meets. She also smuggles a gun to her jailed lover, instructing him to kill the king when he visits the prison. The lover gets to like jail and the steady hot meals, and thinks better of his involvement.

Makavejev seems to be trying for a Stanley Kubrick vision Dr. Strangelove visits rural Eastern Europe with politics besmirching the innocent goings on of small-town life. The result is much less weighty. At least four sexual encounters take place out of doors: in a stable, in a garden during a party, in a cave during a picnic and in a tree with schoolchildren watching. You wonder what the people of this town do during the harsh winters.

Crard Dpardku, fe. portrays the famed sculptor Auguste Rodin, and IsabeUe Adjani plays his talented fellow artist and lover, Camille Ckudet. An artist at odds with herself 'Gamille Claudel' the story of Rodin's ill-fated lover By Barbara Shulgauer EXAMINER STAFF CRITIC THERE IS a scene in "Camille Claudel" the story of toms of mental health. Yet the film implies she was wronged Camille's mother, the film seems to say, put her daughter away simply to end a lifelong grudge. (It is not mentioned in the film; one of Camille's doctors recommended her release after she'd been institutionalized for several years and the mother refused.) None of this rules out the possibility that Camille was dangerously ill at the time of her commitment.

Adjani, reprising her mad wom Buchwald says he felt 'raped' by Paramount JL sculptor Auguste Rodinjs lover, muse and fellow artist in which, the two of them confront their unbridgeable differences. Rodin is successful, a wheeler-dealer who supports political causes insofar as they win him influential friends and grand commissions. He is a cultural hero who runs his studios like factories and hires talent- ed apprentices to whose work (as was the custom) he signs his name. Claudel is 20 years younger, a i headstrong iconoclast. Yet for all her independence she is at odds with herself.

She wants to work without the sanction of politicians and without the approval and projection of a powerf ul man, a fantastic notion for a woman artist of the 19th century. Moreover, she finds that she -wants Rodin to give up his com-! I moh'-law wife. Artistically a free-thinker. Claudel is woefully ional when it comes to ro-; manre. In her love life, she wants stability and exclusivity.

These xoncerns are finally given voice in a 1 powerful confrontation between lovers that is long overdue, more than halfway through the lilm. Isabelle Adjani as Claudel i blows a hurricane of animosity and signature condemned Camille to the institution. Her brother, the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, praised his sister publicly but evidently was no happier about her "wild' life than their mother had been, and did what he could to keep her incarcerated. Only Camille's father supported the girl's artistic aspirations. According to the film, Camille was put away almost immediately after the father's death.

Nuyttens tries to build the film on tactile images, using shadow and light to suggest and parallel the obsession with form that the principle characters shared. But cinematic stylishness isnt enough. Apart from its interminable length and an irritating score by Gabriel Yared, the film simply fails to take a stand on what it paradoxically poses as its central issue: Claudel's state of mental health. Adjani seems to want to prove that social pressure was the disease that snatched this woman's freedom away. Yet the film gives us a Camille who comes unglued before our eyes.

She whirls in a paranoid fog, raving that Rodin is jealous of her talent and intent on blocking her from fame and acceptance. When dealers who are friendly with Rodin offer to exhibit her work, she refuses, accusing them of conspiring with Rodin against her. IS SHE paranoid or a persecuted victim? The filmmakers won't say. The film never gives evidence that would support or deny her rantings about conspiracy. We have only Adjani's wild-eyed performance the first time in memory that Adjani has actually acted in a film released for the American market to lead us to believe that the woman is delusional.

After all, she is found unconscious (drunk?) in her studio by a dealer. She finally agrees to an exhibition and shows up for the event intoxicated and dressed like a witch. When she isn't yelling about Rodin's treachery, she isolates herself, destroys her work and rejects her friends and family. These are certainly not symp stole the idea to produce "Coming to America," which became the third-biggest box office hit of 1988. grossing $300 million.

In a related development Tuesday, Draper told reporters Murphy would not be testifying at the trial. Instead, one or both sides in the case will introduce a lengthy deposition Murphy gave to O'DonnelL Draper said he would not call Murphy to the stand because he felt media coverage of the case was turning the trial into a "circus" and that Murphy's appearance would only intensify that atmosphere. Because Murphy is a resident of New Jersey and is not a defendant in Buchwald's lawsuit, neither side in the case can force him to appear. O'Donnell scoffed at Draper's reasoning and said the real reason Murphy would not be testifying was because Paramount was scared to let him cross-examine the star. Before completing his cross-examination of Buchwald, Draper implied that the humorist had plagiarized the idea for his story concept from the 1957 Charlie Chaplin film.

"A King in New York." While conceding he had seen the Chaplin film, Buchwald denied being influenced by it. "1 don't recall one thing about that movie, not one thing," he testified. "I think it's (the plagiarism accusation) so ridiculous. I don't even want to answer it and dignify it with a response." Outside court, O'Donnell denounced Draper's implication, and said he might seek additional punitive damages against Paramount because of the implication. Humorist testifies that studio stole his story idea UNITED PRESS NTERNATIONAL LOS ANGELES Humorist Art Buchwald testified Tuesday he felt "raped" and "invaded" when he realized Paramount Pictures allegedly stole his story concept and made it into the box-office smash "Coming to America." Testifying at the Superior Court trial of his $5 million breach-of-contract lawsuit against the studio, Buchwald said he came to that realization after seeing the Eddie Murphy comedy in August 1988.

"I looked at it (and thought) does this have anything to do with my story?" Buchwald testified under questioning from his attorney, Pierce O'Donnell. "And I came to the conclusion that it did." "It's very hard-for a humorist to be taken seriously," said Buchwald, 64, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. "I consider this a very serious matter. I feel my property was stolen, invaded, raped, whatever you want to call it. I was very upset" "I felt I had been shafted" by Paramount, Buchwald said under cross-examination from Paramount lawyer Robert Draper.

hi his lawsuit. Buchwald claims "Coming to America" was based on a story concept he sold to the studio in 1983 entitled "King for a Day." Buchwald claims Paramount resentment at Gerard Depardieu, who plays Rodin. The scene is fresh, alive, passionate, true and the only thing in this two-hour and 10-minute film that works. CLAUDEL'S ADAMANCY eventually turned into something less admirable either eccentricity or possibly madness. Whatever the nature of her psychic condition, she was committed by her family in 1913 and died in an institution for the mentally ill 30 years later at the age of 78.

One can see how the tragic dimensions of the story would inspire filmmakers. In this case, they just don't do the story justice. The film, directed by Bruno Nu-yttens (director of photography on movies by Claude Bern, Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais), was hailed in France by critics and the public, and received Cesar awards 'French Oscars) for best picture and best actress. Adjani's interest in the long-forgotten, ill-fated artist was spurred by the appearance of a 1984 biography by Claudel's grand-niece, Reine-Marie Paris. (Adjani convinced Paris to write the script with director Nuyttens.) Much of Claudel's history is undocumented so the film must speculate and take artistic liberties.

Claudel's pregnancies by Rodin are among the film's unsubstantiated dramatic touches. On her state of mind, however, here seems to have been some consensus. Claudel reportedly was considered just as brilliant and crazy by her next famous lover, Claude Debussy, as she was by Rodin. Her association with the sculptor was not widely known, partly, historical argument contends, out of Rodin's desire to take credit for some of her work, and partly out of the respectable Claudel family's need to keep the unseemly Canaille's behavior secret. AS DEPICTED in the film, Camille's mother (Madeleine Robinson) was scandalized by the affair with Rodin.

But the mother found the daughter's obsession with her art even more deeply distressing. In the end, the mother's Today Thursday Matinee and Evening Performances December 12-31, War Memorial Opera House 1989 Nutcracker Ticket Prkes teguWerlomwctt 5-S SocwftiT Pom Fymopca, Groupi it 20 of not ton km 20 for GSOUP INfOSMAION ONIY: an (she played Victor Hugo's un stable daughter in "The Story of Adele is lovely and creamy-faced as ever here but the combined disadvantages of the film's length and psychological muddiness water down the quality of her performance. Adjani and Depardieu may be France's most celebrated actors but their sexual chemistry is far from compelling on screen. The boxy Depardieu plays Rodin as an oafish, bloated, self-satisfied hack, more interested in power and fame than in making art. He utters artistic observations "Never think in surfaces, but in depths" as if they were profundities.

Yet he is far more likable than Camille. He poses his models energetically with lusty admiration for the human body. HE MAY have been a seducer but he was still a great sculptor. That he took advantage of a young apprentice and refused to leave his wife for her does not lead inevitably to an automatic negative reevaluation of his work. We can acknowledge Claudel's talent without denigrating Rodin's.

The film seems part of a wrong-headed trend in biography today by Paul Johnson and the latest Picasso biography are examples). How, the argument goes, could men and women who produced such Platonically ideal works, such embodiments of truth, beauty and morality, be so dishonest, ugly and amoral themselves? The real question ought to be: Why should a talented artist be any nicer than anyone else? jflYiiE "EflDOVJS- LOVE Directed by JOHN TILUNGER plays of fhe 1960s. -Time THE WHREHiXiSt 1 T0Wt BECOflCS 415762-BASS 4M9M-BASS REVIEW 'Camille Claudel' Cast: lsabelie, Adjani, Gerard Dell pardieu Director: Bruno Nuytten 1 Writer Nujlten, Marilyn Goldin, froni the biography by Reine-Marie 'J Paris''' Bated: Theater: Evaluation: -I I' 1 t1 I ii Q) A1 STEVE turn Through December 24 I Dec. 26 Jan. 7: Pttor Donate Barbara Ruth Jan.

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