The Times Record from Troy, New York • Page 18

18 -The Times Record. Wednesday. April 13, 1977 Death Game' has uses, minuses EDITOR'S NOTE: "Death Game" is currently showing at the Cine 1 6. behind the Northway Mall in Colonie, and at several area drive in theaters. By DOUG de LISLE Arts Editor Not what you could call enjoyable or even entertaining, the material is much too painful for those descriptions.

Peter Traynor's "Death Game" is nonetheless an extremely well made, engrossing and often shocking film that bears watching if you have the stomach for it. Director Traynor was ill town last week in preparation for Wednesday night's "world premiere" of the film, and stopped off at The Times Record offices to discuss his new movie, the first which he has directed. "It's not actually what I'd call a world premiere," tall, California healthy handsome Traynor began, "it is more a test marketing of the film. Film goers in this a a i spectrum and we want to gauge initial reaction to the lilm." Reaction is bound to be volatile on both sides. Some will see it as a relentlessly painful and violent film with no purpose, no reason for being, while others will see it as a statement about man's currently violent place in society.

A film which delves into the inevitability of fate, the inability of man to isolate himself from a hostile environment. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two extremes. Yes, the film is painful to watch, I cringed more a Traynor's violence is not of the slick, exploitative variety. He doesn't show volumes of blood staining Uie celluloid with potential box office bucks. He zeroes in on the pain of personal violence.

Unlike a Sam Peckinpah balletic ode that somehow glamorizes mayhem, Traynor shows the gross sickness of a violent society. So, "Death Game" does indeed have a reason for being, if only as the antithesis of much of the rest of today's cinematic gore. As to the statements on inevitability and inability to isolate, the film's story has too many holes, not-damaging to the movie as such, but too contrived to make a statement. The film's protagonist has too many opportunities to use A Review his brains, courage or sheer a escape a happens to him. Based on fact, this is indeed the way a person may react to a potentially fatal stress situation, but for cinematic purposes, it is too easy to second guess the man in question.

The lilm is about a happily a i businessman just turned 40 who lets two young women into his home when they become lost during a heavy rain storm. The duo succeeds in seducing the man, and though at first just outwardly on the very friendly side, it becomes evident that they are psychotic. The film then takes us through an agonizing night of torture, "death games," humiliation and sidetrips into bizarre fantasies conjured from the depths of the girls' minds. A small cast, Sondra Locke, Seymour Cassel and Colleen Camp, all turn in splendidly vivid and realistic portrayals and neither Traynor's direction or the production values show any evidences of the film's modest budget. As a matter of fact, "Death Game" is produced and directed with more imagination and attention to production values than many "major" films that have been released lately with little attention to the quality of the final product.

Traynor said, "My film deals with the truth. It is a reflection of today's society. But it also has a sense of humor like mine, bleak. Films like this have to have a sense of humor, of camp, like the films of Roman Polanski. "I think 'Death Game' also says a lot about women.

If I were a guy in that situation, I probably would have been seduced too. Women are, both physically and mentally, superior to men. They pull the strings. The only reason women don't have more power today and there is a woman's lib is because many women don't recognize their power. "Men often do recognize just how vulnerable they are in the hands of a woman, and that's why a lot of us put them down." Feminist or not, pro or anti violence, "Death Game" packs a tough punch that reaches to' all audiences.

Haley receives Book Awards citation NEW YORK (AP) Author Alex Haley has been given a National Book Awards special citation for "Roots," which traces his ancestry from slavery in the United States back to the African village of his forefathers. The judges excluded "Roots" from the history category, but said "its distinguished literary quality justifies according it a special citation of merit." The history prize was won by Irving Howe for "World of Our Fathers," a study of the immigration and Americanization of European Jews from the 1880s to the The winner in the fiction category was Wallace Stegner's "The Spectator Bird," which deals with the final years of an aging, arthritic literary agent who retires with his wife to California. The awards, with a cash prize of Sl.OOO except for Haley's citation, were announced Monday by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. All books published in the United States in 1976 by American authors were eligible for the awards. Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim won the contemporary thought award for "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales." Bettelheim, known especially for his work with autisic children, defended traditional, often-violent fairy tales as an important tool in helping children deal with the real world.

The award for children's literature went to Katherine Paterson for "The Master Puppeteer," set in 18th century Japan. The judges rated W.A. Swanberg's "Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist" as the best entry in the biography and autobiography category. The poetry award went to Richard Eberhart, poet in residence and professor of English at Dartmouth; for "Collected Poems 1930-1976." Li-li Ch'en won the translation prize for her English version of "Master Tung's Western Chamber Romance: A Chinese Chantefable." Popular Mahler symphony in Music Hall concert "The Titan," Gustav Mahler's most popular symphony, will be the highlight of the Albany Symphony Orchestra's concert at the Troy Music Hall, Second Street, Troy at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

The program will feature. "Fifteen Pages After Durer's Apocalypse" by the contemporary Czech composer, Lubos Fiser; Haydn's "Symphony No. and Mahler's "Symphony No. 1 in more familiarly known as "The Titan." Troy student on dean's list A a has been named to the dean's Albright, daughter of Mr. and list at Hartwick College for Mrs.

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