Arts & Entertainment
Film sensually portrays
gay black community
“Tongues Untied”
By Mark Nemeth
Staff Reporter
“Tongues Untied” (Ross), Mar
lon Riggs’ 1989 award-winning
documentary on the black gay male
experience, is a powerfully sen
sual, politically critical film.
“Tongues Untied” is not porno
graphic or offensive. Its contro
versy lies in its treatment of an
unpopular topic: the personal life
style of gay black men. This con
troversy has led to the film’s re
moval from NETV’s “Point of
View senes and local controversy
over its screening.
“Tongues Untied” opens with
the words “brother to brother,”
repealing rhythmically, before in
troducing a striking and erotic
barrage of tasteful black gay street
poetry.
Riggs describes himself through
a phone sex recording advertise
ment as “pro-feminist activist...
safe sex. We can make a serious
revolution together.”
Throughout the movie, the au
dience sees scenes of a black gay
lifestyle: clubs, street dancing and
the rituals of “Snap Diva,” a group
performing a sort of finger-snap
ping theatre. Society’s intolerance
has made these rites a private lan
guage, and the audience is shaken
by the oppression of homophobia
and racism and seduced by the
language of this poetry.
“What are you first, black or
gay?” Riggs is asked at one point in
the film. “This is absurd,” he says.
Early in the film, Riggs’ poetry
talks about the instinct of the black
homosexuals to be silent in the
face of oppression, to use silence
as a “cloak” and a “sword,” “smoth
ering and cutting” the oppressed
and the oppressor.
The film ends with a call for
action, an “untying of tongues.”
“Now I speak, and my burden is
lifted, lightened, free,”Riggs says.
According to Riggs, oppressed
homosexuals often respond with
anger and silence.
“I know the anger that lies in
side me like I know the taste of my
spit,” Riggs says. It is the “material
I built my house on.”
Riggs’ collaboration with poet
Essex Hemphill provides “Tongues
Untied” with a sense of personal
diversity. Poets Alan Miller and
Steve Langley and singer/composer
Blackberri also are featured in the
film.
i wu uuicr Mjciauy critical nuns,
“Stop the Church” and “What Can
I Do With a Male Nude,” are show
ing with “Tongues Untied.”
PBS removed “Step The Church”
from its P.O.V. series. The film is
a witty and critical 1989 documen
tary about a protest of a Sunday
Mass at New York’s St Patrick’s
Cathedral staged by ACT UP, a
gay rights group. The protest was
in opposition to Cardinal John
O’Connor’s refusal to accept gay
rights or support AIDS education.
Though “Stop the Church” is
critical of the Catholic Church, it is
not “blasphemous,” as one of the
Sunday worshipers at the mass
described the protest.
“Curb your dogma,” yells one
of the protesters at O’Connor. Af
ter the protesters are arrested,
O’Connor finally responds, say
ing, “I always feel anguish for people
who hate for any reason.. . . We
must always respond with love,
peace and understanding.”
“What Can I Do With a Male
Nude” is a sporadically humorous
short film about society’s morali
ties and laws regarding sexuality,
specifically the photographing of a
nude male.
A seven-member panel will
discuss censorship after tonight’s 7
p.m. showing of the films.
" Courtesy ot New Yorker Films
Michalis Zeke plays Alexander, a boy searching for his father, in “Landscape in the Mist,”
playing Sunday at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater.
Mists eventually evaporate
Surreal film advances slowly
“Landscape In The Mist”
By Mark Baldridge
Staff Reporter
If David Lynch directed an “In
credible Journey” for Disney — with
rape and subtitles — it might be
something like “Landscape in the
Midst” (Ross), this Sunday’s Univer
sity Programming Council foreign film.
“Landscape, a Greek film by
writer/director Theo Angelopoulos,
moves slowly (as only a European
. film can) through a landscape as sur
real as anything Lynch ever cooked
up in that infernal head of his. But this
movie has a soul, something Lynch
has yet to demonstrate.
Under thcguidance of Angelopou
los, the audience is ushered into an
alien world that exists simultaneous
with this one. None of the events are
unbelievable — if one understands
them as junctions in life paths, lives
that are working themselves out with
out relation to each other. A bride
runs from her wedding in tears as a
white horse dies in the street. It’s an
interesting juxtaposition of facts that
seems to mean something to the pas
sers by, but how does one interpret
the significance of these events?
The story follows the search of
two young children, brother and sis
ter, for a father they have never known.
The quest is futile. We know from the
beginning that their mother has in
vented the story of a father in Ger
many to hide the truth — the children
are illegitimate, and she doesn ’t know
who their fathers are.
The children decide to take an
express train to Germany. Having no
knowledge of tickets or passports,
they soon find their way impeded by
the police. They miraculously escape
and are variously befriended and
abused by strangers in their bizarre
“one step forward, two steps back”
odyssey.
The Greece through which they
travel is inhabited by monstrous
machines, ghost-like traveling thea
ter troupes and mad women. AH sig
nificant events occur in abandoned
buildings and deserted highways. One
of the friendly characters, after watch
ing an enormous hand rise out of the
sea, asks, “If I shouted, who would
hear?”
Finally, the audience comes to care
for these characters. The alienation
we feel from the world they inhabit
bleeds from them as well, but we are
~ See MIST on 10
American Indians
to perform today
By Andrea Christensen
Staff Reporter
The Grealland Traditional danc
ers will give a free performance today
at 2 p.m. in the Nebraska Union main
lounge. The group of American In
dian artists will dance to traditional
rhythms in the Yunik style.
The group, based in Anchorage,
Alaska, consists of 21 men and women
of all ages. Although the dancers
represent a variety of tribes, most are
members of the Invit nation. The group
says it is touring to preserve its heri
tage and to share it with others.
The dancers’ press biography
explains the group’s purpose as
“keeping the traditional dances alive
in the Anchorage area.” It also staled
that the members have seen “the young
enjoy the dancing and become proud
of who they are by building confi
dence and self-esteem while sharing
their dancing skills with others.”
The University Programs Council
Native American Committee is spon
soring the event as a prelude to Native
American Heritage Month in Novem
ber. Native American Special Events
Chairman Nancy Texidor said the
performance would give University
of Nebraska-Lincoln students a chance
to learn to appreciate the arts of an
other culture.
Vocalist Michael White will do his best Robert Plant tonight
and Saturday when his Led Zeppelin tribute band, The
White, performs at the M’rage, 27th and Holdrege streets.
Cover band to perform
Zepplin tribute shows
By John Skretta
Staff Reporter
Led Zeppelin cover band The While
will play live Zeppelin tribute shows
Friday and Saturday night at the
M’rage, 27th and Holdregc streets.
The White formed in 1980 as a
Zeppelin version of Bcatlemania af
ter a Los Angeles music reviewer said
the band’s original work indicated
“just another Led Zeppelin clone.”
Lead singer Michael While has
claimed, “I figured that if we sounded
so much like Led Zeppelin, we should
just go ahead and do it all the way.”
The White then began touring as
Led Zeppelin impersonators, with
White dressing up as Robert Plant
circa 1975, and guitarist Phil Bolene
wearing a tailor-made duplicate of
Jimmy Page’s famed white suit, flared
bell-bottom legs and all. “Zosa”
symbols from Zeppelin’s famed un
titled 1971 release are draped across
the stage.
The White has over 60 of Led
Zeppelin’s tunes in their repertoire,
so the sets can change from night to
night depending upon the whims of
the band. One of the centerpieces of
the show is a frequently performed
30-minutc version of “Dazed and
Confused,” comparable to Led Zep
pelin’s extended live version captured
in the film “The Song Remains the
Same.”
In striving to achieve a tribute “as
perfect as possible” to the ’70s sav
iors of grunge-based blues rock and
esoteric Celtic mythology, The White
has purchased a theramin, a heat
sensitive box used by Zeppelin to
create the eerie electric interlude on
“Whole Lotta Love.” In addition,
guitarist Bolenc evens goes so far as
to use a violin bow, as Page did, to
produce bizarre screeching effects for
“Dazed and Confused.” Other fre
quently performed tunes include
acoustic versions of “Going to Cali
fornia” and “Black Country Woman.”
In 1985, The White landed a re
cording contract with Atlantic rec
ords and have since released two
albums. The band’s debut album
consisted of original work in a self
conscious departure from the Zeppe
lin mystique, while the more recently
released self-titled album contains
more Zeppelin-derived material and
a cover of “Communication Break
down.”
The White will perform at 9 p.m.
both nights. Tickets are $5 in ad
vance, $7 at the door.