The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 112

1 END 117 Coo Angles runes Thursday November 3 1983 Television Listings Part VI M1CHA BAR-AM GOSSETT PLAYS AS HIS 'SPIRIT TOLD ME' By LEE MARGULIES Times Staff Writer ii' i 47- 7 i 1 rmo 5k 1' A 1 -1 7-1J 1:11 1 i 1 AN Ilik 4 -0 "14-- 44tik -k0 ak I WO I l'o 11 1 i 1 ti )4 1 ci---- -1J it '1 1 -t 4 At v- --c 41 00 1 i Ilk 'f I IVI141 flit 1141 i iltt i-ort 4 -4-4- -ow' li 7 ps 1 i A' 4 11 1 PP' :1 1 1 )1' 1 1 1 00 1 LIIIH4e" -1 1 't VV Vt ttt i fl ril a I I 'tt: ov '01N 4 voi 11111'1' There is a crucial scene in the middle of "Sadat" the four-hour TV docudrama about the late Egyptian president in which he visits a morgue to identify the remains of his brother who had been killed in action during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 He is agonized by the loss and for the first time begins to question the wisdom of continuing the bloody conflict with neighboring Israel It is the turning point in the drama the pivotal incident that began his transformation from a one-time terrorist and zealous Egyptian nationalist to the man who made a historic visit to Israel in 1977 shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin the following year and in 1979 signed a peace treaty with the Jewish nation Afraid that the emotional impact of the four-minute scene might be lost by overrehearsing director Richard Michaels ran his star Louis Gossett Jr through only the minimal amount of preparation for camera blocking Then he simply turned the actor loose When Gossett finished Michaels had what he wanted in a single take "It was a magic moment in film making" Michaels said "It took me away I couldn't even function for several hours after that I felt we had witnessed a real happening there" So did Gossett the Emmy and Oscar- Officer and a winning actor who remembers the scene with awe "It was like Sadat's spirit told me 'This is what happened' and I felt I did it the way he did" the tall bald actor recalled reverently in an interview "It was like the time in 'Roots' when Fiddler picked up Kunta Kinte (after the young slave had been whipped) The director says 'action' and you don't know what you're going to do You don't know where it comes from some-Please see GOSSETT Page 9 GIRL': UPBEAT FOR PLO? Diane Keaton leans on automatic rifle surrounded by actors portraying PLO fighters iorti'le4" Tz17 41' 1 3 1 'O 1 4 1 4 44-il -ilo AT! ci'-- ---744 sk 1 1 'DRUMMER By JOAN BORSTEN EIN KELT Israeli-Occupied West revolutionary slogans in Arabic a motley group of foreign mercenaries ran in formation past army jeeps bearing Lebanese license plates Some of the mercenaries were dark and swarthy Africans Arabs and Asians Others were light-skinned Europeans like the young woman in a black sleeveless T-shirt and army fatigues ably to the Palestine Liberation Organization functionary as she caught the Soviet-made Kalashnikov rifle he tossed to her Red-faced and sweaty she ran to the shooting range where with the other foreign mercenaries she would "learn to kill the Zionist enemy" If the scene weren't part of an international movie it would have caused an international incident As it was the Israeli military was reportedly enraged earlier this Louis Gossett Jr left outfitted with hair and with skin lightened as Egypt's Anwar Sadat Right the real Egyptian president DANCE REVIEW SPANISH BALLET COVERS ALL BASES By LEWIS SEGAL How do you prefer Spanish dancing? Frilly? Fiery? Fantasticated? Ballet Nacional Espanol covered all these bases in a vibrant program Tuesday at Marsee Auditorium El Camino College The five-year-old 50- 1 4 itpf-47-'llw Imi If Irt ''t 4' 74 ti 4" i4 I 1 4L 14:04 1 -II op -'1 i '11tt 4 i 0 i It lk '4 1 r81 i fiti'IN44111141 It il iJ' '14 IF- -ri vsrp- 01 1 f-- 4P4p 'qk 4'46 11111 fiC lo'''' et- est ous ik in an am I UM I all 1111 II 01 gal OM I a allalt ims NM El II El Mr MI Imil rim" 1111 rill Imo op II IN i 11J6 Mu 1-An- mr2mOrmoiromMUMMOOmmemm III 4M I rl Oi El HMI I 11111 I OM MI I III I NE MO s0414110111MiMMOMIMMIMMOM El MI 111411111111findlinir 1111elne IN El IMP II i i MI I i MI Ill I 1110 100 IN Momm dadmalladMaaami ommdimmuAll iloadlatioNOCMhoOMMamettissat adalatialalaNUMMUMWMMOMMUMINI WMAiiiiitiONNWMEGWNEMENUMaNUINNS' MaNaMIENNaMMINUMaaMaNaMaaaa MAIMMICWIMMELZMUMSAMIZZLaaali MOOMEMMOMEMMOIMMMEMMEMMOM MilaMOMMUOMMOOMMOMMMEMOMME The only woman in the group Diane Keaton was hardly recognizable as the star of Warner Bros Limited's production of "The Little Drummer Girl" based on the John le Carre best seller In the film Keaton plays Charlie a rather flaky non-Jewish actress recruited by the Mossad (Israel's intelligence arm) and infiltrated into a Palestinian group responsible for attacks on Jews and Israelis in Europe "Hi there" Keaton shouted ami cereal on her husband's head when he describes her directing of the school play as "an act of suicide" The youngest of their three children Scottie (the remarkable 6- year-old Lukas Haas) has clearly been around this tension before His defense is to put his hands over his ears and to fill his life with television and mechanical toys that he can command shaping a dreamy pleasant world of his own and shutting out the dangers of the grown-up one Older son Brad (Ross Harris) 13 struggles to match his father's athleticism and feels himself a failure when he can't And the oldest child Mary Liz (Hanna Zal) is at the stage when she has begun to pull away from her mother and idolize her father Director Lynne Littman (co-producer of the film with Jonathan Bernstein and screenwriter John Sacret Young shape our introduction to this Northern California family and their friends so winning-Please see' TESTAMENT' Page 7 flamenco specialist in Talegon de Cordoba a distinctive intense singer in the likes of Lupe Gomez Juan Mata Aida Gomez Paco Morales and Conchita Cerezo dancers of great charm and limitless exuberance The Tuesday program began with "Sonatas" an evocation of the 18th-Century Spanish with stately processions aristocratic onlookers and elegant divertissements It was devised by Please see BALLET Page 8 ROSEMARY RAUL Los Angeles Tunes from his new film "Sunstone" week when director George Roy Hill authorized the film's art crew to paint PLO slogans on a wall at the Akabat Jaabar refugee camp near Jericho (Flying the PLO flag in Israel can get you arrested joining the PLO generally means a prison term) The controversial nature of the film apparently coupled with a very tight shooting schedule (a total of Please see' DRUMMER GIRL' Page 4 member ensemble appears Friday and Saturday at the Japan America Theatre downtown then moves to Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena for two performances Sunday It is an immensely likable when the choreographies force soloists of strikingly dissimilar styles physiques and temperaments tor Emshwiller studied art at the University of Michigan and painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris After completing his education he moved to New York where he painted and worked as an illustrator In 1959 he produced his first film "Dance Chromatic" which combined abstract animation with live action A warm gentle man with long graying hair and a full beard the 58-year-old Emshwiller talked about his films in a recent interview at Cal Arts in Valencia where he teaches and is dean of the school of film and video "The films I made during the late '50s resulted from my desire to record the evolution of my paintings" he says "but I soon reached a point where I wanted to make films not just records of my work I was a great film buff in those days and belonged to several cinema societPlease see COMPUTER Page 11 into hopeless attempts at unison effects Or when taped music by Soler Sarasate and Fa Ila gets literally trampled underfoot by noisy heelwork that does not so much ornament the note patterns as attempt to duplicate them In Paco Romero the company boasts an authoritative patrician 820 Ed Emshwiller with images BEHIND THE SEEN Computer most significant technological advance in the visual arts since film was playing an increasingly major role in film making Experimental film maker Ed Emshwiller talks about that in the last of a four-part series Actress Jane Alexander stoically ponders options in "Testament" MOVIE REVIEW 'TESTAMENT' TESTIFIES ON BEHALF OF HUMANITY HE'S MAKING TERMINAL USE OF PAINTERLY SKILLS By SHEILA BENSON Times Film Critic There is much to be said for being able to see movies before they've been described to death You are able to go where the film takes you and as in the case of "Testament" when a film changes direction abruptly you are as shocked as the characters themselves From its first 20-odd minutes it's very easy to believe smugly that "Testament" (at selected theaters Friday) is going to be centered around the breakup of a once tightly knit American family The tensions are there like worn places in a fabric: William Devane with a very slight edge of nastiness under the surface of his performance as the hearty macho paterfamilias of the Wetherly clan Jane Alexander's passive aggressiveness as she chooses the middle of the night to turn on the bedroom light and begin a debate and her outright aggressiveness as she empties a box of By CHARLES SOLOMON 6 earliest films involved animated abstract paintings: I built a system using a single-frame camera and a foot pedal so I could photograph the development of a painting while I worked on it Later when I began working with video I did cels that were manipulated by a video synthesizer" independent film maker Ed Emshwiller observes "More recently I've been working with computer graphics systems at the New York Institute of Technology and Cal Arts I still use the painterly skills I developed but I'm using new tools to make the images" Emshwiller's personal films reflect the evolution of frame-by frame film-making techniques For nearly a quarter of a century he has been an internationally respected experimental film maker and ani INSIDE CALENDAR MUSIC: The Royal Opera's Thomas Macarthur is interviewed by Marc Shulgold Page 6 RADIO: AMFM highlights Page 10 STAGE: Stage Watch by Sylvie Drake Page 2 TV: Today's programming Pages 9 and 12 Wendy Hughes is drumming up interest in Lonely Hearts" she tells Roderick Mann on Page 3 Charles Champlin is on vacation 71c7 -Ltaaa.