Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 25

Friday, Ian. 21, 1983 Upstaged: Horses in a new film are better than star Kirk Douglas. Page 3C. JAZZ 5 DINING OUT 7 SEEING DOING 8, 9 Call Entertainment: 222-6828 DETROIT FREE PRESS IL ai. curtain call eryl Streep: Surviving the hype New wave of films 5611s into our shore giving moviegoers about a Month to digest the usual feast of Christ-tttas films, the moviemakers are back Sfjth some new offerings that lure the entertainment spotlight back to the mov-tcliouses this weekend.

Three newcomers are of particular note: "Gandhi" and "Sophie's Choice" (reviewed on this page) and "Fitzcarraldo," the Detroit Film Theatre offering. (See Pages 2C and 9C for times). In addition, "The Man from Snowy River" debuts (see review on Page 3C). Elsewhere, it's a time for parting. It's farewell to Herbert Blomstedt as he finishes his three-week guest stint on the podium of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Also bidding Detroit adieu this weekend will be diva Wilhelmenia Fernandez as Michigan Opera Theater's "The Marriage of Figaro" completes its run at the Music Hall. Other options? The seeing and doing listings on Pages 8C and 9C are full of them. 4 I'm self-conscious all the time, I can't do what I do. "I'VE GOT plenty of people gunning for me," she said with another sigh, "but as long as I can keep working, it really doesn't matter. When what they say affects who hires me, then I won't get mad, I'll get even.

I'll personally go to (Bell's) house and break his legs. For now, though, it's OK." Actually, it's more than OK with Meryl Streep. Once again she is earning ecstatic reviews for what amounts to another double role (following "The French Lieutenant's "Sophie's Choice," William Styron's best-selling novel, is about a young writer from the South who ventures to New York in 1947 and learns about love and death from a mysterious Polish concentration camp victim and her rapacious American lover. Streep plays Sophie Zawistowska in both the film's horrifying concentration camp scenes, for which she had to lose a lot of weight and learn to speak Polish, and in the New York scenes, for which she had to gain weight and master the tricky broken English of a refugee. "The only thing that was tough about the part was saying goodby to it," she said.

"I could have played it forever. It was wonderful, the best thing I've ever experienced. I told my husband that we are lucky human beings when we know where we are, when we are there. And I knew right in the beginning. I knew that I loved it and that it was working.

"It was sort of a precarious thing because I knew that it was going to be taken away from me, so it was always just a question of getting everything I could out of it. I loved every second. Nothing was hard. Getting the cases right in Polish was difficult. I could understand Polish, but I couldn't speak it that well.

(The concentration camp scenes, filmed in Yugoslavia, are all played in Polish with English subtitles, a device that adds credibility to the See MERYL STREEP, Page 4C By GENE SISKEL Chicago Tribune NEW YORK Here's her problem in a nutshell: After being proclaimed by Time and Newsweek as "Magic Meryl" and the "Actress for the Eighties," what does Meryl Streep do for an encore? In other words, how can she be as good as her notices? And to what degree is her ability to communicate with an audience blocked by the unspoken notion that whatever she does is automatically stamped "great The questions posed, the 33-year-old actress nods her eyes more than her head she has been through this before. "It's OK," she said with a sigh, "because basically 1 think that the work will stand, no matter what. And even if a lot of people now have certain bones to pick with me because of all my publicity, all those things will be forgotten in a long time, and 10 years from now, the work will still be there. All that matters is that I'm enjoying it. I love what I'm doing." And then she told a fresh story.

"I was at this party for 'Sophie's Choice' (her latest film, which opens nationally today), and a publicist said to me, 'Oh, there's Arthur Bell, the columnist from the Village And my husband (sculptor Don Gummer) took my arm and walked me away across the room. I got upset with him because I was talking to someone, and I said, 'What are you doing to "He said: 'That guy wrote some terrible things about you, and you don't know it, and I never told you. He's got a bone to pick with you. He doesn't like you for some reason. He talks about your skin and how you "So," Streep continued, "I still don't know what he wrote, but just knowing that he wrote something hurts my feelings.

But if I can keep far away from these things and not read every piece of junk that's written about me, then I can successfully be not self-conscious all the time. If 1. hit, 11 IV GO 1 1 on top of it MK7J Rogers, Easton sing song of togetherness Duets are the rage these days, so it makes sense that Kenny Rogers who's scored hits via collaborations with Dottie West and Kim Carnes should continue to go with the flow. This year's partner is if 4 Free Press Artwork bv MOSES HARRIS Meryl Streep plays a mysterious Polish concentration camp survivor. Sheena Easton, and the song is a Motor City special: Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonight." Rogers got the song from Jim Mazza, president of Capitol Records, which is Seger's label.

Says Bill Blackwell of Punch Enter- Sophie' a choice vehicle for actors a -i- Cm i Catharine Rambeau movies i v. 1 Sheena Easton prises, Seger's management: "Since Kenny records for our sister company (EMILiberty), his publishing company contacted ours to request the song." Of Easton, Rogers says, "I liked the idea of recording with Sheena; I thought the contrast in styles I'm so throaty and she's so trained and pure would really work well." Radio programmers seem to think it did; this week the song was added to 300 playlists, mostly at the adult contemporary radio stations. It will be on Rogers' Stlll-untitled new album, which is due for release in mid-February. Seger's reaction to the cover? "I know my mom will love it," he says. PINCH-HITTING: Jesus Lopez-Cobos, who was to conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at next week's subscription concerts, has been stricken "Sophie's Choice" is an actor's movie.

Everything else in it plays second fiddle to a collection of the most remarkable performances rounded up in one film in ages. It is also Alan Pakula's first screenplay. A director who is not particularly well-known outside the industry, Pakula has a reputation for making movies that are remembered for their stars "Klute" (Jane Fonda) and "All the President's Men" (Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman), for instance. And the movie is exceptionally faithful to William Styron's novel about Sophie Zawistowska, her lover Nathan Landau and their young friend Stingo. "Two years after the war, when I began my journey to what my father called the Sodom of the North New York it begins, and we are introduced to Stingo, a 22-year-old Virginian on his way to the Big City to be a writer.

The year Is 1947, the beer Is Rheingold, and he lives on cans of Spam. Stingo moves to Brooklyn, into a marvelous old fortress of a Brooklyn boarding house, nearly all of which is painted pink. In one of the film's few lighthearted moments, landlady Yetta Zimmerman confides that her late hus- And after the first 30 minutes or so, when It seems to court its audience with a curious preciousness (every detail is so determinedly perfect), "Sophie's Choice" begins to roll. There isn't a bad performance in the film. I couldn't imagine how anyone could do it, but Kevin Kline captures the dangerous passion and depth of Nathan's craziness.

And Peter MacNicol, in a necessarily understated performance, is fine as Stingo. Even the bit parts are plums. Greta Turken does a knockout turn as a terrified, horny Jewish American Princess who's halfway through therapy; Josh Mostel (yes, Zero's son) has almost no time on camera but manages to make Morris, another of Yetta's boarders, sympathetic and real; in about 80 seconds, John Rothman plays the rottenest librarian imaginable, and Gunther Maria Halmer is the kind of Nazi death-camp commandant who can stroke Sophie's face with authentic tenderness one moment and within a day forget yes, forget! to send her little boy to safety. And Meryl Stneep. Whew Her face is as responsive as water is to light.

And It's a good thing, because Sophie See "SOPHIE'S Page 4C Ku'v band once got a terrific buy on thousands, of gallons of Navy surplus paint. "I guess the Navy didn't need any pink paint," Yetta shrugs. Sophie and Nathan's apartment is directly above Stingo's. The night he moves in, he witnesses one of their horrid quarrels, but quickly, intensely, they all become friends. This is a tough movie to watch, but the book was no pushover either.

Just as parts of the novel dragged shamelessly, the movie's rhythm is off, too, especially in the first half. The pacing stutters and often misfires, and it is easy to become Impatient. Later, the audience is almost physically abused by the movie's unremitting sorrow, and there are moments when you don't think you can stand one more minute of it. BUT BEAR with it. In the long run, "Sophie's Choice" will make you think; better yet, it may even make you reflect.

Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline are lovers who feed off each other's sickness in "Sophie's Choice," based on William Styron's best-selling novel. Both give superb performances. rnmr with a pesky virus infection and has canceled the dates. Into the void steps Kenneth Jean, the DSO's resident conductor, who will conduct the Thursday and Jan. 29 concerts.

NOT QUITE GONE Three Gandhi' is a triumph of patience GANDHI Area theaters mn inn K) Mohandas K. Gandhi Ben Kinoslev Kasturba Gandhi Rohinl Haltanoadv Jawaharlal Nehru Roshan Selh Charlie Andrews Ian Charleson Vlnce Walker Martin Sheen Maroarel Bourke-While Candlce Beroen Produced and directed bv Richard Attenborough; edited bv John Bloom; music bv Ravi Shankar; clnematooraphv bv Billv Williams and Ronnie Tavlor; written bv John Brllev. Running time: 3:07. PARENTS' GUIDE; PG, Some violence (A I i o. i r' Kenneth Jean record companies Columbia, RCA and CapitolEMI have closed their Detroit offices during the past year, but local representatives for the labels are chagrined at reports printed elsewhere that they have "abandoned" the Detroit metro area.

"We're fust going in-residence now, working at lbme," said RCA's Mike Whitenack, whose company has six people working IH the area. "What they've done is cut bverhead; as far as manpower, there's still the same number of people minus a secretary." Representatives for the other labels echoed Whitenack's response, and emphasized the importance the companies place on Detroit. "It's one of the top five markets," said Linda Vitale of CapitolEMI, which keeps seven people in the area. "You can talk about (ceasing operations) in Cincinnati, but not Detroit." COMING ATTRACTIONS Kiss rolls into Cobo Arena Feb. 23.

Tickets on sale today at the Joe Louis Arena box office and CTC outlets. Adam Ant plays Ann Arbor's Hill Auditorium Feb. 21. and Michigan State University Auditorium March 1. Heavy metal king Ozzy Osbourne, on the wings of his new "Speak of the Devil" album, plays Port Huron March 19 and Mt.

Pleasant March 26. Ticket information will be announced next month. Compiled by Gary Graff and John Guinn A IF By CATHARINE RAMBEAU Free Press Movie Critic Producer-director Sir Richard Atten-borough doesn't fool around: When he decided to make a movie about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, he didn't quit until he'd done it 20 years, three scripts and 22 million bucks later. In the process he made some 30 trips to India and raised money by mortgaging his house, pawning his paintings, selling his cars and working on some pretty undistinguished movies. And he developed patience and a thick bide.

Attenborough was told nobody would be interested in a movie about a man who dressed up in a sheet. He had to get Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's approval. He had to deal with Indian bureaucracy, for which he doubtless deserves canonization. The movie Is finally finished, and Attenborough's obsession has paid off, at least aesthetically. "Gandhi" probably won't become a popular film, but it is an important one because it reminds us forcibly that, yes, it is possible for one person to change the world.

It's easy to see this now, 35 years after Mahatma Gandhi's death. But there was nothing about the young Gandhi that would have led people to believe he would become the man of whom Albert Einstein said: "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked upon this earth." As a young man, he was only an ordinary student, relatively unskilled at public speaking, men like Louis Fischer and William Shi-rer, is so seamless he's nearly invisible. Old hands like Edward Fox (numb and scary as Gen. Dyer, the leader of the Amritsar massacre), John Gielgud, Trevor Howard (in a wonderful turn as the admiring Judge Broomfield) and John Mills offer yet more support. And, rightly, Ravi Shankar is responsible for the music.

I wish I could understand why Can-dice Bergen got top billing. As a matter of fact, I wish I could understand why Candice Bergen is in the movie. As Life magazine photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White, Bergen's presence is intrusive. Attenborough supposedly promised her the role years ago. Maybe that's before he discovered she couldn't act; maybe the Hollywood money men insisted on a big female name; maybe Attenborough is simply loyal.

Whatever the reason, Bergen's presence flaws the picture. BUT THERE isn't much else wrong "Gandhi" is a triumph, a great achievement, and a masterful look at history that manages to avoid becoming anything as trite as an epic. It was worth the work, it was worth Attenborough's obsession (he has a 23-year-old daughter who cannot remember a time when he wasn't Involved with it), it was worth the money. Whether it'll make any of that money back is, right now, moot. For some reason, people seem to think Page 4C and an indifferent, rather prissy lawyer.

BEN KINGSLEY, in a daring performance, gives us a Gandhi who is both a sophisticated, realistic politician and a stubborn man who refuses to face so-called facts. Kingsley (an Anglo-Indian born Krishna Bhanji)is no newcomer: He has acted for 15 years with Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company, and he commands every moment of the movie. Trying to stuff 55 years of history into three-plus hours of film especially a film about subjects as complex as either Gandhi or India is clearly madness. With the exception of the Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore, Attenborough seems to have included the entire population of India at the time. Kingsley is supported by a glittering cast: Ian Charleson (Eric Liddell in "Chariots of is particularly moving as Charlie Andrews, a young Church of England missionary who worked with Gandhi in South Africa; Roshan Seth looks startlingly like Nehru, and Martin Sheen, as a composite of Western news- Ben Kingsley portrays a Gandhi who is both a sophisticated, realistic politician and a stubborn man who refuses to face facts..