Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 63

A II I 1 1 i i 1 1 63 MOVIES IhWMiJ Ililil'M'l 1 3 Strugglingto Build In a Ruthless World As Duff Ivan Dixon plays checkers with Leonard Parker in But a Man' Documenting Racism With Subtle Power ing us why they love each other to convince us they could ever break apart The brothers are introduced at the funeral of their father whom they recall as a taskmaster and master builder who instilled in his sons particularly Mac an ciation of good work a richly ethnic scene a darkly funny one that at the same time celebrates pride in heritage But throughout the film also a sense that self-respect the kind that makes you do a job properly just because doing it is the private domain of a particular group and that group is The Irish with whom the Vitellis do battle on a job site are drunks who bounce bricks ofT unsuspecting heads the corrupt builder for whom they work he frames his houses 24 inches on cen-ter rather than 16 which is anathema to any homeowner is Po-lowski (Olek Krupa) who sneers at standards and does his best to undo his plans to go out on his own As the embodiment of evil though Powloski be much more than a caricature something that plagues the film as a whole The aspect of that rings most true is in the relationship between Mac and Alice (Katherine Borowitz) who helps him begin his own construction business and eventually marries him Turturro and Borowitz real-life husband and wife make the couple a genuine partnership he breaks down her natural reticence she tempers his native explosiveness The way they face the pedestrian but daunting challenges of starting a family starting a business coping with crazy relatives and dealing with self-doubt comes across as authentic and loving In fact Mac and Alice represent what Turturro tried and almost succeeded in doing with the rest of celebrate family workmanship and self-respect and make a film that was 16 on center II Vi MAG (R) John Turturro's tribute to his fattwr and working men in general is heart but should haw been more With Turturro Michael Badalucco Cart Capotorto Katherine Borowitz Witten by Turturro and Brandon Cole Directed by John Turturro At ttw Angelika film Center Mercer and Houston Streets and the Carnegie Seventh Avenue near 58th Street By John Anderson err AFF WRITER VOU CAN FEEL the wet cement the ringing two-by-fours and the rain that falls on the working men of John directorial debut and his paean to a time when pride in work-in an sh i meant something more in this country or at least to more people than it does today And you can feel devotion to his subject: The film is dedicated to his father Nicholas who himself spent a life in the contraction trades But what you get is a real feel for what motivates the characters who populate this often funny occasionally moving but ultimately onedimensional film about a working struggle to maintain his standards and still succeed in a cutthroat business and an indifferent world Mac (Turturro) the oldest of the three Vitelli brothers is single-minded and stubborn mid exhibits a love of what he does not the stuff of a very complex character although that may have been what Turturro was alter: a man defined by his work alone His tenacious iirsuit of his dreams is palpable i values are clear The problem is that when Mac eventually alienates his brothers partners the youngest Bruno (Carl Capotorto) a good-looking good-natured ladies man and art student and the earthy round Vico whom Michael Badalucco portrays with great humor it make sense because Turturro has spent too much time tell- Ctc Turturro as a construction Duff wants to break this cycle although the baggage he carries is daunting and little support from his friends and coworkers When he becomes engaged to Josie Dawson (given a beautifully understated portrayal by jazz great Abbey Lincoln) jeered at by Frankie (Leonard Parker) and Jocko (Yaphet Kotto) whose sexual innuendos are crass preacher father (Stanley Greene) doesn't approve of Duff or the marriage and when Duff refuses to the advises him to a little psychology make them think you're going along and get what you Preacher Dawson repels Duff as does his church with its rapturous congregation mouthing will platitudes And Duff has family problems of his own: a son not sure he wants to acknowledge and his father Will a crippled broken down alcoholic played with a disturbing presence by Julius Harris Duffs stubborn refusal to play the game will not only lose him jobs and the chance for jobs but will lead to a confrontation with rednecks who threaten his life He leaves town and his wife but his subsequent reunion with Will changes things He sees himself in Will and it frightens him when he sees his son in Will and in himself it drives him to go back and repair his marriage and his life Produced for less than $300000 by independent documentarians Michael Roemer and Robert Young whose black and white cinematography is often stunning But a moves slowly and quietly toward its climax with a rare grace V4 HOTHINS BUT A MAN (U) landmark 1964 film about a Mack man's struggle for dignity remains as uplifting as it is understated With Ivan Dixon Abbey Lincoln Julius Hams Yaphet Kotto Written by Robert Young and Michael Roemer Directed by Michael Roemer At film Forum 209 Houston St Manhattan By John Anderson STAFF WRITER THE LOUD AND insistent statement that But a made when first released in 1964 was that black people could be portrayed in an American motion picture aa something other than stereotypes or billboards But it is the myriad subtleties that make it the relevant and moving experience it remains nearly 30 years later As Duff Anderson itinerant railroad man fa-ther husband and grappler with his own soul Ivan Dixon is neither hero nor villain nor victim Neither is he particularly likable he's certainly no Sidney Poitier no Hollywood icon of beautiful blackness But his flawed humanity makes him eminently believable And his straggle to maintain his dignity in the face of both the large and small humiliations of everyday life makes us believe in him because we're all a little bit like him Duff's problems of course are particular to the black man in the American South: institutionalized racism the demands that he sacrifice his self-respect for food and work the insults and the threats heaped on him as if the pack mule of white America But Like a just a litany of white-black abuse plenty of black self-loathing born of a fear Abbey Lincoln worker in 'Mac' at Josie that a legacy might turn out be But then a rare film and a vital- 3 nothing more than acqutesencp Nod ly important chapter ii the maturing 'Of American film II it trtrj rrf' '''I'tlllr i IWV 4 I III.