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Daily Nebraskan
Monday, January 24, 1983
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Entertainment
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Jean-Pierre Rampal
Vi&iasos ElammoaS
breathes Bfe
Into golden flyfe
By Jeff Lonowski
From the moment Jean-Pierre Rampal breathed life
into his golden flute Friday night before a sold-out
Kimball Hall audience there was a reverberating sensation
of song and reverie. The premier flutust captivated his
audience with a vigorous display of total musical artistry
and unshackled self-expression.
Rampal's message was clear - to share the splendor
of his instrument and his music and to present it in a
way that would challenge even his most devout disciple.
The largest crowd ever at Kimball saw and felt this
splendor and before Rampal left the stage for the last
time, the crowd appeared to have acquired an affinity for
his unseeming grace and deft insight in a musical medium
he has almost single-handedly revolutionized.
Rampal is acknowledged internationally as one of the
great virtuosos in history and has been credited as being
Review
the tirst flutist to merit world-wide attention equal to
that usually drawn only to pianists or string virtuosos.
Rampal is the master of Baroque-era music (c.1600
c.1750), but his interests span a large musical spectrum.
He has released a jazz suite recording with pianist Claude
Boiling and, more recently, an album of classic Japanese
melodies entitled "Yamanabushi."
Rampal played Baroque sonatas during the first half of
Friday's performance. These included the passive "Sonata
in E Minor" by Jean-Marie Leclair and JJS. Bach's "Sonata
in F Major," a lively piece to which Rampal executed
notes at an incredible rate while maintaining a rich timbre
and crystal clarity.
Rampal held eloquent rapport with accompanist John
Steele Ritter, who played harpsichord for the first half of
the evening, then switched to piano.
Ritter played flawlessly, showing astonishing control
as he complimented Rampal's chimerical expressions.
Rampal even gave Ritter equal recognition, as they took
their bows together.
Rampal's precision of attack and purity of tone
became even more impressive during the second half of
the performance. He chose selections with a slightly
more contemporary flavor, such as Borne's "Fantaisie
Brilliante sur Carmen," and the dramatic "Joveurs de
Flute, Op. 27" by French composer Albert Roussel.
At one point it sounded as if Rampal was playing two
flutes, an uncluttered mix of dominant melody and
subtle accompaniment. In reality it was just Rampal,
giving another paramount performance to another spell
bound audience.
The audience's affectionate accolades drew Rampal
out for three encores. He and Ritter delighted in varia
tions on "Greensleeves," Chopin's "Minute Waltz" and
the highly animated "Ragtime Dance (1905)" by Scott
Joplin, in which Ritter added a bit of foot stomping
for amusing effect.
By Pat Clark
Last week: Robert Nielsen, patriarch of the renowned
television-watching Nielsen family, has been kidnapped
by the Video Nostra, a small but devoted band of TV
terrorists. The Video Nostra seeks to influence network
programming by making Nielsen their mouthpiece. They
are utterly devoted to what they describe as the Revolu
tion, although they are absolutely unable to define it.
Antenna directed Nielsen to one end of a dusty
maroon couch. "Just the place for you," he said. "No
more than a 30-degree angle from the screen. A video vet
like you ought to appreciate a good angle."
"Oh yes," Nielsen said modestly. "This will be fine."
"I'll go check on your TV dinner," said Antenna, his
coaxial cable headband beginning to go slack around
his forehead. "We wouldn't want the new propaganda
minister for the Revolution to go hungry, would we?"
He had the kind of voice that slithered out from between
his lips; the wide, too-red lips of a man who either played
the trumpet for a living or had a passion for cherry Pop
sicles. "Make yourself at home," Antenna said. "You
might as well, this is your home," he added, a sinister
cackle racing along after the words.
Nielsen sat down on the maroon couch. The foam
gave, and he sunk into the couch the cushions billowing
up around his aims like puffy shackles. "What's on?"
Nielsen asked no one in particular, a
hint of trepidation sneaking into what he had hoped
would be his calmest voice.
"Can't tell yet," said a woman in Technicolor-patched
denim attire who called herself Spinoff. She picked up
her opera glasses and carefully turned them to look
through the big lenses into the smaller ones. "You
have to do this to really appreciate the insignificance of
what you see on television," she said. "I've been able to
Television
stare at the set all day through these and not be able to
distinguish one show from another." Nielsen thought he
recognized the voice; it had the vapid, airy sound of one
of those pan-galactic queens who fell in love with Captain
Kirk on "Star Trek."
Nielsen heard a rustling to his left. A swarthy -looking
man was sitting in a brqwn recliner, around which had
been constructed an elaborate network of Venetian blinds.
He pulled up one blind. "This should be 'Gimme a Break,'
he said gruffly. "Let me know when it's 10 o'clock."
He pulled the blinds down around himself again.
"Is there a reason he does that?" Nielsen asked the
man sitting next to him, who had turned around on the
German film: Impossible to hulM wa
couch to watch the television through its reflection in a
faraway mirror. "He can't face the direct glare of prime
time," the man said. "None of us can."
"Then why do you watch?" Nielsen said, asking what
he thought was the obvious question.
"It fills us with revolutionary fervor," Spinoff said
with a dearth of emotion that other people might use to
talk about favorite laundry detergents. "Antenna says
that watching prime time is the sacrifice we must make to
keep the revolution from dissipating. And he's right.
Just look at 'Gimme a Break' here."
Nielsen looked at "Gimme a Bicak." An overweight
black woman with a heart of gold and a tongue of vinegar
was working as the hired help to an upper-middle class
white family. He recognized the woman as Nell Carter,
but the rest of the cast were total strangers to him.
"Do you see what we are being subjected to?" Spin
off said. "Two decades of social upheaval, and the only
black woman on the show is still the hired help, Changes
are happening everywhere except on television."
Nielsen kept watching. He knew he had never seen
"Gimme a Break" before, but he was certain he had seen
the same characters, material and plots appearing under
various aliases on other shows.
Nell Carter's character was Florida Evans from the old
"Maude" series all over again. The patriarch of the family,
played by one Dolph Sweet, consisted of pieces of every
thunder -voiced, lord -of-all -he-surveys television father
from Archie Bunker to Fred Flintstone. Due to the un
timely death of his wife, the family patriarch was left to
bring up a more worldly and precocious version of the
same "three very lovely girls" who had to share one bed
room on "The Brady Bunch."
Of the three daughters, the oldest was cute enough and
old enough to open up whole volumes of the same double
entendre humor used most recently. by Valerie Bertinelli
in "One Day at a Time." The middle daughter was the
smart one; Nielsen' could tell because she wore glasses
and didn't get many joke lines. The youngest girl was a
newer, mouthier model of the Joanie Cunningham charac
ter on the early "Happy Days" shows, years before Joanie
ever heard of Chachi. The youngest character appeared to
live in paradox; she was innocent enough not to flinch
when her father referred to himself as "daddykins"
when talking with her, but worldly enough to be able to
state confidently that a local kid named Jack Rhinehart,
the very portrait of high school macho, "has a van tliat
sleeps two."
Nielsen had to admit that "Gimme a Break" was tough
to swallow. Spinoff was right; life was changing every
where except on television. He wasn't sure yet what the
Video Nostra wanted to do, but if they wanted to get rid
of "Gimme a Break" they couldn't be all bad.
Next Week : Counter-revolutionary activity.
S
By Eric Peterson
Behind (around, through?) all the sex parts, which will
turn some people off, and turn other people on, "Taxi
Zum Klo" is an ironic picture of how one man decides
to commit himself to a different kind of private and pro
fessional life than he began with. The main character,
a schoolteacher named Herr Ripploh, has the same last
name of the director, Frank Ripploh, and it's no daring
jump to guess that the film might have some
autobiographical passages. "Taxi Zum Klo" is the UPC
Foreign Film Series at the Sheldon Film Theater, with
shows tonight at 7 and 9 pjn.
Against a background of postcards and images ranging
from the Madonna to beefcake, you hear "Peggy" tell
how his life has two rigidly separate worlds - his family
and schoolteaching, which take up his days, and his cruis
ing of Berlin's gay hot spots by night. He will come to
discover that he can't keep them separated.
There is no question about which world he enjoys and
Review
relishes; when he asks "Do you want to come with me on
my adventures?" at the start of the film, he doesn't take
you to meet his mom.
' Peggy's real life is driving along in the night in a white
car that looks like a preying sea beast, driving into the
beautiful red and green lights shining above his favorite
districts of Berlin. These car scenes recur as visions of
excitement, desire and loneliness.
Adventure for him may lie in the man at the gas sta
tion who grins, sticks the gas nozzle in the tank (symbol,
symbol), and leaves his hand in the frost on top of the car.
The fact is that no one's life is so easily separable into
night and day, private and public. Peggy's days at school
are intercut with scenes of the men's room, which the
schoolteacher sees in his mind's eye, and in a particularly
sizzling rubdown scene, we hear his voice, a little bored,
wondering what to buy for his mother's birthday.
All this is emphatically not to say that Peggy is one
of those monsters who thrive in the imagination of Paul
Cameron, one of those teachers who can't keep their
hairy palms off the schoolboys. It simply means that
people's experiences melt into one another, and that those
who build walls between different sides of their life are
probably fooling themselves.
The film tries to give sex the look of ordinariness. The
homosexual sex scenes are interrupted with odd blue
heterosexual porn shots. This gives all the scene's an ironic
. feel; it's just something that people do, the film seems to
say, in whatever way they end up doing it.
Peggy himself views sex in a strangely detached way.
This may be because he is detached from any permanent
mate until the end of the film; he doesn't enter into any
one thing too deeply. He and Bernd, the man he stays
with, skate together in an idyllic snow scene, looking very
dark in their leather coats against the white. Peggy pisses
a heart in the snow, and Bernd broaches a plan for them
to find a farm together. At this point Peggy mockingly
completes the picture; they will be an old gay couple,
with a lesbian cook . . . they will adopt a mongoloid
child and put up a Beware of Dog sign. "Oh, you always
have to spoil everything," Bernd says.
Peggy finds each passing stranger too intriguing to love
only Bernd. Peggy follows a knight in black leather into
an alley, the man's light jeans standing out from his
leggings like a codpiece. Bernd comes home to hear them
making love, and looks at the pair through a broken
pressed glass pane. Peggy insists it's not his problem
if Bernd doesn't feel comfortable enough to join in
the next time. Then he's in his cruising car, heading for
the bright lights, only his own head in the car illuminated
by the headlights of the car behind.
Peggy only tries to keep this illusion of objectivity
and independence. When other people in the skin clinic
are repelled by an enormous prostitute who wears her
heart, and perhaps her diseases, on her sleeve, Peggy pre-
Continued on Hs 9