Tuesday, February 14, 1034
Pago 6
Daily Nebraskan
1 1
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By CtephrJa Zlnlc
French Leave, noun, iln informal,
unannounced, or abrupt departure.
American Heritage Dictionary
Not only does French Leave's name
define the group's history, but it also
describes its music, which is a depar
ture from the current music scene.
This Lincoln troupe's music is a uni
que blend, reflecting their musical
tastes, individual attitudes, and musi
cal influences, ranging from The Police
to Gang of Four.
"We get new ideas listening to any
thing. Newer ideas are coming out of
new wave," said Pat Yarusso, the
group's bass player.
"All three of us can't settle on one
style. We try to work them together
towards our own tastes and styles,
said drummer Jeff Dell.
"We have to work to get a good song "
Yarusso said. In addition, Mark Hen
dricks, the group's guitarist added,
"Every song has to be danceable."
"It's great to have people come out
and dance. It's 10 times better than if
people just stand around," Dell said.
Although they do play a few cover
songs to get the audience started, most
of their energies go into writing their
own material.
"It takes three to four days per week
to get these songs down," Yarusso said.
Hendricks added, "We can learn the
songs pretty quick with only three
people."
Each interpretation different
Yarusso said their songs are written
about their personal experiences. "Our
songs have a good outlook on life,"
Hendricks said, "although our expe-
Jchn KudJacekFrench Leave
French Leave members (clockwise from left) Mark Hendricks, Pat
Yarusso and Jeff Dell rehearse high above a local Dairy Queen.
riences have been bad. They are like
genre paintings one song has 50 dif
ferent meanings. We leave it to people
to interpret our songs."
stench Leave is truly a band that
lives its music. Apart from coming to
practice several days a week from 9
p.m. to 2 a.m., Yarusso said he is almost
always working on a song even dur
ing his classes at UNL.
"Songs usually develop outside of
practice. We don't have hours to spend
writing songs," he said.
When the band releases, Hendricks
said, they channel all of their energies
into their music.
nVs uplifting to. come in here,"
Yarusso said, refering to their unique
practice area in the attic of a local
Dairy Queen. "When we're up here it's
for business and pleasure."
The band agreed their rehearsal loft
was something of a sanctuary. "I'd
rather practice than go on a date," Dell
said.
French Leave started playing to-
Italian film shows brothers7 quest
Eeview by Eric Peterson
The bringing of severed parts together is consi
dered and lovingly portrayed in Three Brothers, a
fine Italian film by Francesco RosL Three Broth
ers showed Sunday and Monday in the Sheldon
Film Theatre as part of UPC's Foreign Film Series.
The three brothers of the title Raffaele,
Rocco, and Nicola return to the country where
they grew up to bury their mother and console
their father, and to get back in touch with each
other. This has been made difficult by politics and
the very different quality of their respective lives.
Raffaele is a judge, trying to maintain a calm
and conservative view in spite of the constant
danger of terrorist attack. Rocco works in a boys'
correction center, and is pictured as someone
with a priestly vocation. He has never married,
but devotes himself to helping his charges he is
shown playing the organ under a cross, or coming
down a hallway with the arched window behind
him offering the only light. These images are
designed to underline Rocco's ascetic and devo
tional nature. Nicola, the youngest brother, is also
the least formed. He is too macho to admit his
love for his estranged wife after she sleeps with
somebody else.
The narrative flow of Three Brothers is particu
larly nice, often set in motion through dreams or
reveries. At the start of the film, Rocco dreams of
rats and smoking trash and near the end his
dream is a very funny and cheerful fantasy in
which wholesome kids sweep all the guns and
hypodermic needles which litter the streets into a
big pile which he sets on fire. His compassion and
his obsession with purity move him deeply.
One of the father's reveries is shown in a beauti
ful sequence in which he starts down the dirt
road to town from his white house and courtyard
on the hill. In the dusty heat, he suddenly hears
his name called and sees his deceased wife, who
smiles and tells him to catch a rabbit she waves
as if she is all of the lost hope there is, and van
ishes; waves from another place, and vanishes. He
finally reaches town and mails the telegrams
informing his sons of their mother's death.
Rocco's reverie takes him to his childhood. He
stands in front of his mother's body with candles
lighted and mourners present. He hears guns
booming while he is still pictured in the death
room, then we see him with his family on the day
his town was freed by Americans in World War II,
a day of joy strongly connected in his mind with
his young and lovely mother.
. Raffaele's vision is his own graphic and realistic
assassination. The soundrack is silent as he looks
at photographs of other street murders, such as a
dead judge falling out of a car with a bullet hole in
his head. We then see a bus attack, which at first
seems unconnected and awkward, but comes
sharply into sync when we realize the victim is
Raffaele a realization which sends him shout
ing out of his nightmare.
There is considerable discussion of terrorism
and the disinegration of Italian society which it
threatens within the film. The TV announcers
dwell on it, as do the villagers.
The three brothers give views which go along
with what we know of them: Nicola, the radical in
limited sympathy, Raffaele, in dispassionate but
uncomprehending frustration, and Rocco, calling
for compassion on everybody's part.
This disintegration they feel is imminent in Ital
ian society is connected with the disintegration
they feel threatening their own lives. Raffaele
both hates the danger and depends on it, which
inevitably cuts himself off from his family. Rocco
is helpless in circumstances, but adamant in his
plodding love. Nicola longs for his wife but is too
proud to bring his family together again we
cannot tell whether his reconciliation with her is
a flash forward or only a daydream, but the latter
seems more likely.
A return to childhood innocence and the purity
of country life is shut off to the wandering broth
ers. Raffaele goes to see his old wet nurse and
finds the fig tree in her garden much smaller than
he thought it was when he was a kid, and Nicola
and an old love of his discover the time for them is
past. In the flash forward or daydream about his
wife, Nicola talks about how sad it is to realize his
separation from his town, which threatens him
with a loss of identity in the city he will alwavs
feel homesick, but he can no longer connect with
the country an emigre's dilemma.
A beautiful shot reveals the brothers in relation
to each other. The morning of the funeral, Rocco
looks out the upper window, his back to is, and
sees his brothers down in the courtyard. Nicola is
weeping against the wall and Raffaele is crying on
a bench.
Rocco -weeps at the sight. All are framed
together, by the camera's eye and by their shared
compassion and grief.
gcther about two years ego, and have
been down to serious business for the
last six months, Yarusso said. Hen
dricks added that when they first start
ed out, they were a hard-core band
and later evolved into their current,
more progressive format. '
Name charge helps
Their first band name was Red Club
13. ("Then everything sprung up club
Culture Club, Model Citizens Club . .
Hendricks said.) Hendricks said they
have more positive responses with
French Leave.
The band currently has a track, "The
Things You Have To Do," cn the new
Capital Punishment tape. They even
tually hope to release their own tape,
and towards that end, are working
with Tim Keckley, a fellow Lincoln
musician. Dell said Keckley helps
French Leave with the business end
and gives them good ideas.
In the meantime, French Leave will
continue releasing.
"If we keep working hard enough
and change a little every time we play,
we might get picked out (by a national
recording company)," Dell said.
"WeVe got to learn to glide over our
mistakes (during performance)," he
said. However, Yarusso said there have
been several occasions when mistakes
have actually made a song better.
The band hopes its unique sound
will lead to more dates around town.
"Our biggest worry is to try not to
make anyone bored," Dell said. "We
cant please everybody, but we try."
"We're so different that it's going to
help us," Yarusso added.
French Leave will open for the Model
Citizens Club tonight at the Drumstick
547 N. 48th St.
ReflecUonsfrorti atop
life 's composih3(M)
Excerpts from the cable television program At
The Concession Stand.
Announcer: And now once again, America, like
Phoenixes rising from the ashes, here are America's
answer to Cahier du Cinema, Tom Mockler and
Glenn Stuva.
Glenn: I know you folks out there in cableland
were expecting both Tom and myself to be here this
Tom Mockler &
Glenn SSuva
week, discussing film in our unusually insightful
manner, but Tom couldn't make it. Tom, the always
caring and sensitive person that he is, took this week
off so he could travel to the Soviet Union to pay his
final respects to a good friend of ours, Yuri Andro
pov, who, as you know, died this week. Yuri was a
good man; a communist, but still a good man. I don't
know about you, but I'm sure gonna miss the old guy.
(The audience politely applauds.)
Well, since Tom couldn't be with us, I decided to
change the format a little. Quite frankly, I'm tired of
talking about film
When I first started this show, I was young and
idealistic. I thought that I had finally found my true
calling as a film critic. A critic is like a gardener. It's
his job to weed out the bad and make room for the
flowers to grow unhindered. But let's face it, most of
what's coming out ofHoUywood today is pure muck.
There are so few good movies being produced that
the garden is nearly empty, and soon there will be
nothing but brown dirt for us critics to tend to.
And so today I am here to talk to you, not specifi
cally about the film industry, but about a greater
malady that is threatening to unweave the very
fabric of our society. I'm not exactly sure what it is,
but that doesn't mean I can't talk about it anyway.
This is America, is it not? (The pudien.ee cheers.)
We now live in very different time than that of our
mothers and fathers. Back then it was simple to be
an American.
Everyone shuffled off every morning to their safe
middle-class jobs, and ate their lunches out of little
Continued cn Fa;;e 7