Daily
Nebraskan
Thursday. February 17.1994
ArtscoEntertainment
Movie captures smallest details of child’s life
Director creates
dreamy reality
By Malcom Miles
Staff Reporter
“I love the poetry of the ordinary,”
writer/director Terence Davies (“Dis
tant Voices, Still Lives”) says. His
new film, “The Long Day Closes,”
visually portrays this love.
The autobiographical filmdiligent
ly details Davies’ childhood. Davies’
life is played out through the story of
Bud (Leigh McCormack in his amaz
ing debut as an actor), an 11-year-old
poor Catholic boy growing up in 1950s
Liverpool.
The director passionately tries to
capture the smallest details of this
time in his life as he saw them as a
child.
Most of the memories are from his
home life, but school, church and the
cinema also play heavily in the film.
The story is a dreamy recollection of a
life through Bud’s eyes.
Davies worked closely with his di
rectorofphotography, Michael Coulter
(“Where Angels Fear to Tread,” “Mon
ster in a Box”), to achieve a sense of
unsure emotion.
The audience is tom between a
sense of happiness in the film and a
sense of impending doom.
The love in Bud’s life is apparent.
His mother, played wonderfully by
Marjorie Yates, and sisters take him
to church and to the cinema. He has
friends at school, and music is a con
stant in his life.
Contrasted with this are some less
pleasant memories of strict school
masters and a fear-invoking religion.
These are highlighted by the film’s
stark imagery. The film was shot to
enhance shadows, and many of the
scenes are extremely dark.
This is not an action movie, and
there is no MT V-style editing involved.
It is obvious the scenes were meticu
lously planned to allow for the long,
beautiful stills.
Vivid colors, brilliant lighting and
the slow camera movement give the
audience the feeling it is looking at a
series of paintings rather than a mo
tion picture.
The almost surreal narrative in
volves as much singing as it does
speaking. The music is not merely
background or musical dialogue. The
songs give a sense of the characters’
psyche.
Davies also uses sound clips from
various movies. Like the songs, these
give a better sense of how Bud per
ceives the world than what actually
occurs.
Davies has created a place where
u
Courtesy Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.
Helen.
dreams and memories are as impor
tant as reality — a place where a
child’s confused interpretation of the
world is given validity.
Bud’s confusion is ultimately un
derstandable, considering the mixed 1
messages he receives from church, F
school, films, music and adults. 1
The Long Day Closes will show
hursday through Sunday at the Mary
iepma Ross Film Theater from Feb.
7 to Feb. 26.
‘Heidi’ addresses issues
faced by modem feminists
theater
preview
By Paula Lavigne
Senor Report*_
“The Heidi Chronicles” deals with issues
in feminism existing for more than 20 years,
from protest rallies in the ’60s to workplace
issues in the ’80s. The changing role of one
feminist, who must juggle relationships,
careers, family and children, is exemplified
by art historian Heidi Holland.
Holland, the main character in the Uni
versity of Nebraska-Lincoln Theatre pro
duction oPThe Heidi Chronicles,” progresses
from her high school years in the mid-1960s
to her maturity in the late 1980s.
The play, written by Wendy Wasserstein,
was partly based on “The Feminine Mys
tique*’ by feminist Betty Fricdan.
Tice Miller, director of “The Heidi Chron
icles" and professor of theater and dance at
UNL, said the play closely examined wom
en’s issues while raising some important
questions.
“Heidi is raising a question of personal,
professional life, the women’s movement
and networking," he said. “It raises the
question ‘Can you have it all?’—the family,
the child and the career."
He said although the issues pertained to
feminism, the play reached beyond the fe
male interest.
“It’s certainly an issue of most men i
know, too,” Miller said. He said he hoped the
content nature would get people to discuss
the role of feminism in society.
Miller said the play, which is episodic in
nature, started with Heidi’s high school years
in 1965 and progressed to her present-day
position as an art historian at Columbia in
1989.
“It takes you through different parts of her
life with Heidi and her closest friends,” he
said. “It’s very personal.”
Heidi goes through a transformation from
an idealistic young girl to a mature profes
sional woman, he said.
“She finds herself,” Miller said. “It gives
It raises the question 'Can
you have it all?' - the
family, the child and the
career.
— Miller
director
-ft •
a very positive statement about women and
the relationships men and women need.”
Heidi is played by graduate theater major
Sharon Bigelow. Bigelow said Heidi was
more of a humanist than a feminist.
“She doesn’t subscribe to staunch femi
nism,” Bigelow said. “She believes in equal
ity for all people.”
The Heidis of the ’60s allowed women of
the ’90s to go out and become lawyers and
doctors, she said.
“I appreciate what the women Heidi’s age
did for our generation,” she said. “These
women helped to pave the way for us.”
Bigelow said hcioi was a true oenever in
’60s idealism. She said Heidi didn’t sell out
to the greed of the ’ 80s, when women gave up
on making the world a women’s place and
became models of men.
“She felt stranded. Women were going to
make the world a better place with art, music
and no war. What happened?” she said.
Bigelow said Heidi was ahead of her time,
because many of her ideals fit into ’90s
feminism. She said Heidi was someone she
would strive to become.
“I admire her tenacity,” Bigelow said. “It
has been an honor for me to try to figure out
how this woman thinks and what she goes
through.”
Bigelow said much of Heidi’s personality
was a reflection ofher friends. Heidi’s friends
include Julie Fitzgerald as Susan Johnston,
Patrick Tuttle as Peter Patrone and Jonas
Cohen as Scoop Rosenbaum.
“The Heidi Chronicles” will begin to
night at 8 p.m. in Howell Theatre. It will
continue on Friday and Saturday and then
will run from Feb. 24 to Feb. 26 at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $6 for students.
Once-silenced blues performer
uses talent to sing, write books
Concert
By Jill O’Brien
Staff Raportar_
After being warned never to sing again, K.eri
Leigh appears at the Zoo Bar Friday and Satur
day nights in possession of two voices — one
compelling her to sing the blues, the other
driving her to write about them.
Her singing and writing is something she has
to do, she said during an interview.
“If I didn’t, I’d probably go crazy," she said.
Her four-octave range has bound her to blues
ever since the age of 13, she said, when she
began singing in bars.
“I would cake on a bunch of makeup and try
to sneak in the back door,” she said. “Then, I
normally was not asking if I could sit in with
musicians,but it wasn’t long, maybe six months
later, that I was up on that stage, and I was
singing.”
She sang for three years until a doctor in
formed her that nodes had developed on her
vocal chords, she said. After the surgery came
the warning never to sing again.
“It was really, really scary,” she said, “and
that shut me up for four years. That’s how long
it took for my voice to recuperate.”
During the recovery years, Leigh kept busy
working as a reporter and disc jockey simulta
neously. She also formed the Oklahoma Blues
Society, an organization boasting 500 mem
bers.
Her resolve weakened by her work with the
society, Leigh hit the stage again, singing her
vocal chords out. This time she was backed by
the Brownston Blues, a 12-piece band, she said.
“I started wanning up my chops again with
those guys, and then I met my husband, Mark
Lyon, around that time. And he, of course, was
known as the hottest guitar player in town.'’
The two pooled talents and started a band
called the Headhunters, which later led to the
formation of the Blue Devils, Leigh said.,
The band relocated after a friend, Stevie Ray
Vaughn, encouraged them to move to Austin,
Texas.
“Stevie Ray said that if you want to make
music and you want to play the blues, then
Austin is where you should be. So we took his
advice, shoved everything into a blue 1978Ford
van and started driving.
The same six-passenger van, with 175,000
miles, still accommodates Lyon and Leigh, plus
rhythm guitarist Dave Horton, bass player Rob
ert Ramos and drummer Dick Gagle.
Last summer, Keri Leigh & The Blue Devils
toured extensively, promoting the debut album
“Blue Devil Blues” on Amazing Records. Now
the album is completely sold out, Leigh said.
With the release of the second album, “No
Beginner,” the band is booked solid for the next
few months, she said.
With so many singing engagements ahead of
and behind her, she has to take extra good care
of her vocal chords, she said.
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed and putting
it in my hands to act responsible and in God’s
hands to see how long 1 can use this gift,” she
said..
A talent for writing is another gift Leigh
knows how to use.
When she’s not staring out the window of the
van, penning a song in her head, she might be
writing an article for a magazine. During those
rare days at home, Leigh said, she is likely to be
working on a book.
“Highway 49: A Story of the Blues” was
Leigh’s first published book, and a book about
Elvis is in the making, she said.
Her latest contribution to the blues is a
biography about Stevie Ray Vaughn. “Stevie
Ray — Soul to Soul” was released by Taylor
Publishing last November.
“Stevie and I met in 1986 when 1 interviewed
him for the Daily Oklahoman. We had every
thing in common,” she said.
Four years later, she asked him if she could
write his biography. His response was, “Well, I
ain’t dead yet,” she said.
That was three months before he died, she
said. .
"we had no idea u was com mg, oi course. Me
was healthy. He was clean and sober, and we
didn’t expect him to OD or anything. We
thought he had all the time in the world.
They began work on the book, but Vaughn
approached it as a joke, Leigh said. He ques
tioned why anybody would read his biography.
“I said, ‘Trust me, Stevie, they will. There’s
a lot of fans out there — people like myself,
recovering from drug and alcohol addiction.
Your story is extremely inspiring.’ Then one
day I got this telephone call that he died in a
helicopter crash.” »
The news of his death temporarily silenced
her writing voice, she said.
“But then I figured out I had his blessing on
this project. I was stuck to finish the book
without him... that was the hardest thing to do.”
