Wednesday, february 18, 1976
daily nebraskan
page 9
Total environment' concerned 'WMFK
French filmmaker Jean Renoir
By Ryan Scott
In the film world, only a handful of directors stand out
as great. David O. Selznick, John Ford and Stanley
Kubrick come to mind as great American directors.
Premier foreign directors are Ingmar Bergman, Francois
Truffaut and Fredrico Felini.
dui uv uvv uwiuwui woi3iiu,auuu da merely
great. Film professionals and ardent admirers the world
over, for the past half-century have but one word for the
man-legendary.
That man is French film director Jean Renoir.
Several Renoir films are being featured this semester
at the Sheldon Film Theatre, including Toni this weekend.
Renoir could not avoid achieving fame, considering his
background. He is the son of wbrld-renowned French
artist Auguste Renoir, and brother of famous foreign film
actor Pierre Renoir.
Renoir summarizes his purpose in film in the opening
pages of his autobiography, My Life and My Films. ,
God-instilled desire
"Throughout my life I have tried to make filmmaker's
films, not from vanity, but because God instilled in me
the desire to establish my identity and proclaim it to an
audience.
"What I like about the filmmaker's form of exhibition
ism is that he does not manifest himself physically but
modestly conceals himself behind the characters who
bring his works to life. ...
"The fact that 1 have no contact with the public during
the execution of the work fills me with daring, he wrote.
Wanting to cultivate the realism and authenticity he
witnessed in popular early American productions, Renoir
skillfully guided his actors and actresses in his early silent
films, capturing the "plastic value" of gesture.
Catherine Hessling, who later became Renoir's wife,
dominated his silent films. ,
s Renoir's first sound film, On Purge Bebe, shot in six
days, was famous for the recording of a flushing toilet.
Protest
The toilet recording protested the "unbelievable
naivete" and incompetence of those setting the film's
props, Renoir explained later. His annoyance with the in
competence is indicative of his concern for his films' total
environment.
"We do not exist through ourselves alone, but through
the environment that shaped us," said Renoir.
Many may recall Renoir's American films, among them
A Day In The Country, Swamp Water, The River and The
Woman On The Beach.
Swamp Water is credited for revolutionizing Holly
wood. It was the first time a major company took exterior
shots outside the studio.
Renoir is regarded in higii esteem by peers for his
never-ending search to renew himself. In a biography of
Renoir, the late film critic Andre Bazin says Renoir's de
sire for self-renewal is "an integral part of his genius."
The essense of Renoir's work is said to be his film's
social realism. In progressing, he has tended to become
preoccupied with the moral perspective.
Bazin calls Renoir's works the "ethic of sensuality."
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'Photo courtesy of The Museum
of Modern ArtFilm Stills
Archive
French filmmaker Jean Renoir says in his auto
biography that "The fact that I have no contact .
with the public during the execution of the work
fills me with daring." His film Toni is featured this
weekend at Sheldon Film Theatre.
Crusade 'demon boogie' victim
By Michael Zangari
Local bands come and go. Most pass quietly into obliv
ion without causing so much as a ripple in the stream of
events. It's not surprising; for every collapsed honky-tonk
dream, at least three more bands would sell their mothers
for a shot at the bright lights and big cities.
It's impossible to shrug off the passing of the Blucgrass
Crusade as another casualty among bands who just did
not make it. Anyone who attended their farewell perfor
mance at the second annual Walpurgisnacht in the
Nebraska Union caught a brief glimpse of the reason why.
V4
The Crusade was a taken-for-gran ted Lincoln institu
tion, playing locally for the last four years.
What distinguished them from most bands was their
overwhelming uniqueness, not only in their choice of
music -bluegrass, of all things, in the age of disco-drainage
-but in their ability to move the coldest audience and to
have a good time doing it.
The band members, Stephen O. Hanson, banjo; Gary
Howe, mandolin; John Ingwerson, guitar; Dave Fowler,
fiddle, and Dave Morris, bass, combined fine musicianship
with laser intensity harmonies to produce not only the
area's finest bluegrass sound, but one of the best bands in
TRAINING
(m 472-2200
Have you ever wondered what it'n like
, to be on the other end of the line?
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7A
K
A Major Regional
Ballet Company
Saturday,
February 21
8 p.n
Tlcktt: UNL Students $2.50
General Admission $3.50
Available at: Westbrook Music Cldg. 113,
Union South Desk, 14th and R
All Scats Reserved
Sponsored by 0 Contemporary Arts
the Midwest.
According to Hanson, a main factor in the band's
separation was the desires of Howe and Morris to go fheir
separate ways. They returned to do the last concei t at the
Union.
He doesn't discount the possibility of Blucgrass
Crusade members resurfacing in another band in a few
months.
What Hanson said he really wants to do is play tra
ditional bluegrass, the type that he said has little exposure
in the Midwest.
"I have to consider making a living though," he said.
Despite the Crusade's popularity, financial rewards
were not overwhelming, Hanson said, and evidently band
members were not making enough money to be
"comfortable."
When the Crusade hit the stage for its final appearance,
its members rambled into an easy pace, joking freely and
roaring into favorites such as "Fox on the Run" and "The
Orange Blossom Special."
The audience did not need cueing. There was scattered
dancing, whole-scale .hand clapping and foot stomping.
Interpla'y between Hanson's banjo and Fowler's high
intensity fiddling seemed particularly sharp.
Called back for an encore, the band reminded the
audience that they had to finish because the room was re
served for a "paper aviation contest."
Afterwards, the Crusade left the sttge, possibly a
victim of commercial shallowness, or another sacrifice to
the demon god boogie. Live music in Lincoln will seem a
little paler.
HI 11
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I 1 ... ROBERT REDFORO I
: Finis Thurs. J
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LXXlBLt: FEATURE Ends Thurs.
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Sheldon Art 1
Gallery,
12th & R Sts.
Documentary Films
7
LOS
inuos
(THE ABANDONED
CHILDREN)
U.S.A. 1975
63 minutes color
A film by Danny Lyon
The documentation of the errant lifestyles of
poor, homeless children who live In the streets
of Columbia. South America.
- plus a &ocond feature -'.
TUPAMAROS!'"
Uruguay 1972 50 minutes color
Directed by Jan Lindqvist
TUPAMAROS! is a uniqua film document, an exclusive
view from th inside of Latin America's renowned urban
OuewMa organization, Uruguaa National Liberation Move
ment (Mt N).
Tussdav, Wesfntitdi & Thursday
February 17, 1S619
One screening each evening
beginning at 7 p.m. Admission $1.50
Open Monday thru Saturday
