Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 91

GiEiMnsBac to real life -cartoon-style challenge of compressing the stony of four generations into the amount of time available for an animated film which is about an hour and a half And I wondered how much real emotion a cartoon figure can communicate The answer is: Watch an audience watching Pop People who aware of the animation technique I use pay more attention to the characters believe them believe their emotions" technique perfected with "Lord of the is to film scenes with live actors and then have his animators trace the outlines to produce realistic fluid motion "Tracing live action is only the he said The actors are reconstituted The animators make a figure larger or smaller alter the shape a guide far the animator rather than just tracing and coloring-in a real figure "As long as audiences believe what looking at I care how I get the Bakshi said Technique matter Oh yeah other animators complain and call this technique phony animation If not in their interest to do what Fm doing But you know that was the same kind of argument used by painters to put down photography 100 years ago It just matter to For Bakshi "American the film he talked of making years ago under the title "American is about the destructive aspects of pursuing the American Dream "If about how we mess up our lives hmg suc- he said "Ifs something I went through By Joseph Gelmis Contemporary most outrageous ovocateur Ralph Bakshi is back doing what likes using feature-length cartoons to comment on the quality of American life "American Pop" is a 95-minute capsule history of 20th-Century America told through the experiences of four generations of an immigrant men His two most recent films were fantasies and "The Lord of the "I only want to do films about American said the 42-year-old Bakshi during a recent visit to New York "Animation has been dominated for too long by the fantasy Bakshi claims he made his two fantasies from dire necessity not from choice Td had two of my movies stopped dead dumped" he recalled "It looked as if I was through making my kind of movies I had to make fantasies movies that somebody would buy to pull my company out of bankruptcy What I learned was that filmmakers do material they really sympathetic and version of the first part of JRR cult classic "Ihe Lord of the drew mixed reviews TVe been told that 'Lord of the was a huge moneymaker said Bakshi "But I wont be doing the second installment of the picture I never should have gotten involved with raunchy abrasive innovative animation of the hippie cult comic strip Triti the and his existential urban nightmare feature "Heavy made him the most acclaimed arid notorious X-rated cartoonist in America His career and self-confidence however were shattered temporarily it turned out by the furor over That funky position report on black Americana was denounced as racist by some vocal black activist groups And Paramount Pictures the distributor jettisoned it as more trouble than it was worth "Rome blacks not all that many blacks called it said Bakshi Tve got a letter from the NAACP in which they describe as vulgar but not finally did find a distributor a small company specializing in exploitation flicks It was shown at far fewer theaters than if Paramount had distributed it recalled Bakshi ruefully "the controversy over caused the financing to be pufied on my next film Good whim was already 85 per cent finished at the talent for provoking extreme reactions is almost as impressive as his gifts as a graphic artist His "American Pop" has not unexpectedly polarized critics some finding it brilliant others seeing it as muddled and negative The volatile elements in his the an- Bakshi and Tony his 'American Pojf star ger crude humor rebelliousness ethnic insights are projections from own persona Bom in Palestine of Ruasian-Jewiah parents raised in the Brownsville ghetto of Brooklyn Bakshi sees himself as a street philosopher so-'tial critic and commentator for the common' man He was devastated by the response of blacks and the industfy to because as he professed at the time he considered himself a soul brother to blacks and thought he more than most whites understood what it meant to be black in America "American is about the experiences of an immigrant family rat totally dissimilar from awn ft is a sort of genealogy of a rock personally I gave Ronni Kern the outline and she wrote the screenplay You know taught to want to be successfuL And this country is different from anyplace else in the world Because really free here If you try hard enough in this country you will make it Tony ends up a star with a platinum record Was it worth it? I Bakshi insists that the film meant to be a repudiation of the counterculture of the apd 70s though the final third of "American Pop" is a sordid drug freak-out and the rock star is an angry alienated kid-outlaw figure "Hey drugs dicTblow all that good stuff he said I loved everyone the film I agree that Tony was just a negative figure I think he was ambitious to be a star and he did what he had to do to make it I see Tony as an unsympathetic "American cost $4 million co-financed be British 1 by Guinness the British brewers and Columbia Russian pogrom the film follows the lives and times of the male line through 1980 "American Pop" is abridged-version of the key historical events of 80 years set to the music and prevalent style of each era The i are jumbled not really in strict chronolo-order By dramatizing 80 years of history 95 minutes the film skima is a superficial as well as simplistic survey Tin always trying to press animation to its press Pictures Productions has a three-picture deal with Richard St Johns who heads Aspen Productions next prqject is to finish "Hey Good a nostalgic animated film about another era of American life that has special significance for him the era of greasers in black leather jackets the 1950s was limits" interested in the replied EV SnORT repertory company a concept that was intended to keep costs under controL They include Frederic Forrest Teri Garr Raul Julia Nas-tum'ii Kinski nd Ijinin Kazan and he knew it and want that to' happen Who the hell would? If I didnt do the same it would be out of cowardice and ing else I mean Hemingway have done it had it been cancer But he was on his way to imbecility I like to live' But in a situation like -I hope I would pull the trigger I would be disappointed in myself if I Zoetrope sound stages instead of filming on location The decision cost an extra $6 million Coppola reportedly has a total of $4 million of his own in the picture and has yet to pay himself $2 million of his $3 million fee ft will cost about $1 million a week for the five to eight weeks remaining of filming Paramount for whom he made the two pictures got him through a recent week with $1 million a $500000 advance for its share in a sci-fi prqject "Interface fttolgosr Coppola Francis Ford Coppola who ran so far over budget making the $32 million "Apocalypse that he had to put up hu own San Francisco real estate holdings including his home and office building as cot lateral for a bank loan is doing exactly the thing again far his new movie "One from the The budget has already escalated to the $23 million range and Coppola meet the payrolL To cut costs Coppola has been laying off personnel at Zoetrope Studios which he purchased last year for $65 million and reducing salaries of those remaining by 50 per cent "Fm always in finnil Coppola told reporters The problems began when Coppola decided to recreate a surrealistic Las oritfre1 eighth John Huston 74 the most active septuagenarian filmmaker is any rently in on "Escape to the story of a grudge soccer match between Allied prisoners and their German captors during World War Speaking of bis old drinking and fishing buddy Ernest Hemingway in the Feb 19 issue of Rolling Stone Huston replied that he wasn't surprised when Hemingway shot himself "ft eras exactly what I would have expected him to Hn utmW the eirciimstaraws-And I say this with profound admiration for both him and the act uni ii l) 'J'H'rrr being developed at Zoetrope and a $500 000 personal loan Since Gate" a $36 million western was-blasted out of theaters a week after it opened and is being re-edited said Coppola "Companies are frightened by big-budget Ironically the cast of "One from the which is described as "a about romantic love Hole for Rod Steiger will play a starring role in rae Magic Mountain based on the book by Thomas -Mann The movie also stars Charles Aznavour and Marie-Francs Fisier the role of Dutchman Mynner repperkorn who is a patient in a sanitarium that offers an analogy to theMecay of European countries just prior to World WarL' cyyj W-J 0 'krfe meifiJWrkbf syanu Sex 's onoeasM so.