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Show Page B6 Thursday, January 27, 1983 Park City News ?m:w frvr.uw mraMEMM;i 'Purple Haze' The Stein Eriksen Lodge presents Pianist Qalrielle Stuhls Enjoy the relaxing music of Gabrielle Stubbs in the magnificent lobby of the Stein Eriksen Lodge. Tea, scones arid brandy snaps served daily. Live piano Wednesday through Sunday, 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. Ski in, drive up (underground parking, of course) or call the Lodge for our shuttle schedule Stein eriksen lodge Located just west of Silver Lake Lodge in Deer Valley 649-3700 XL You are cordially invited to view the fashions of Geiger of Austria in a trunk showing Saturday, January 29th 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon in the lobby of the Stein Eriksen Lodge Silver Lake Village, Deer Valley 11 1 I 1 r I Restaurant Blime Slib &. Steaks, Slush Seafood Rightly Qystel &a Dinnei fiom 5 p.m. Mini bottle and select wines available. cUnde(jiound patkmg at the iPalk City !Jie$ot iPlaza 619-777$ A cynical, simplistic look at the late '60s by Jeff Howrey I was sorry to hear that "Purple Haze" did so well at the film festival. This confused drama about a college-aged male making his way through the socially and culturally chaotic summer of 1968 was a hot item among festival goers. One of the event's most talked about films, "Purple Haze" was a tough ticket. Nearly every one of its showings sold out. To top it all off, "Purple Haze" was a big prize winner win-ner in the competition, copping cop-ping a prestigious first place in the dramatic film category. Could so many people be so wrong about a movie? Yes. Besides being a disservice to the '60s in its misguided attempt as a period piece, "Purple Haze" continues the tradition of bad results when rock 'n' roll and film join forces. Rarely has rock 'n roll clicked when transferred to the big screen. Look at what the movies did to Elvis. Or vice versa, depending how you look at it If anybody ever puts together the "Book of Short Lists," one surefire entry will be a compilation of "Great Rock 'n' Roll Movies." Lemme see, a list of great rock movies, huh? Well, there's "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help." And then there's well, uh, "Help" and "Hard Day's Night" ... er, you get the picture? pic-ture? Of course, a film doesn't necessarily have to have a performance by a rock star to qualify as a great rock movie. Take last year's "Fast Times at Ridgmont High," for instance. There wasn't a rock star to be seen, but it was still a great rock 'n' roll movie. It had a soundtrack bursting with authentic hard rock tunes appropriately chosen to complement and enhance the plot development. develop-ment. Most of the tunes, like Jackson . . ...... Browne's "Somebody's Baby," were, written especially-for the : production. Each song was tailor-made to evoke the era and culture the film was concerned with. Namely, Southern California's teenage wasteland in the late 1970s. There is no such vital coherency and complementary complemen-tary effect between sound and screen in "Purple Haze." Don't misunderstand, the tunes are real good. It's a real thrill to relive such powerful rock classics of the psychedelic era as Eric Bur-don Bur-don and the Animals' "When I Was Young," the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and "So You Wanna Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star," and Cream's "I Feel Free." Yeah, the music used in "Purple Haze" is good. . Too good in fact. The cumulative effect of the soundtrack is to completely com-pletely dominate and overpower over-power the weak characters and erratic storyline of the film. The distracting dramatic proceedings only amount to annoying stretches stret-ches of wasted time until the next song gets played. The songs are the film's only saving grace. To the movie's credit, the soundtrack is at least chronologically correct. Well, almost. Most of the songs Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth,", the Youngbloods' "Get Together" and "Darkness, Darkness," and the film's title track-are in- 11 so, the music is the only character who isn't totally one-dimensional and entirely en-tirely unconvincing. First off, take the hippie's redneck father. An Ail-American Ail-American patriotic ball buster to the max. Always nagging at his son to get his hair cut. To make matters worse, the long-haired kid gets kicked out of Princeton Law School for smoking pot. The redneck father blows his top. Completely loses it. He eventually kicks the kid out of the house because of irreconcilable differences in lifestyle and general morality. In other words, the kid likes sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. The redneck father can't stand any of it. So what? "Purple Haze" is nothing more than a restatement of the obvious with loud and violent '60s music thrown in to help keep your interest up. The redneck father is not a person he's a walking, talking stereotype. This guy makes Archie Bunker look like a study in character gets stuck on a bus that's taking him to Army boot camp. He decides he doesn't want to go. At that point, when nonviolent tactics tac-tics become suddenly inconvenient, incon-venient, Matt knocks out the drill sergeant guarding the door of the bus and nearly strangles the innocent driver to get his butt off the bus so he doesn't have to go to boot camp. Yeah, Matt is committed to his ideals. To a point. Matt is committed to fighting the draft. Sortof. Yeah, he's a regular draft-dodging draft-dodging rabble rouser until he decides it's more important impor-tant to be with his friend, Jolly Jeff, once his buddy has the unfortunate luck to get drafted. At which time Matt suddenly decides he's not really against the war after af-ter all. So he joins the Army. What the hey who's gonna let a little war come between a couple of buddies, huh? Does it really matter that by joining the Army Matt com- "Purple Haze" is nothing more than a restatement of the obvious with loud and violent '60s music thrown in to help keep your interest up. disputably accurate in terms of evoking the summer of 1968. It's probably splitting hairs to point out that the film's musical finale Jimi Hendrix's tortured, wailing instrumental version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" Ban-ner" wasn't recorded until the Woodstock Festival in the summer of 1969, a year after the action in "Purple Haze" supposedly takes place. But hey, who's counting? This is toe hazy, crazy '60s we're talking about, right? No rules, no hangups. Yeah, man. Far out. Right on. ' Groovy. . Y "Purple Haze" is a cliched ' movie. Not in terms of dialogue, mind you. But in almost every other way, particularly par-ticularly characterization. At an informal question and answer session following last Friday night's screening, "Purple Haze's" director, David Burton Morris, said that the soundtrack sound-track was such an integral part of the film that it actually ac-tually amounted to "a third major character." complexity. Like most of the characters in the film, he's totally predictable. No human being is totally predictable. Great rock movies should essentially be about human beings. Therefore, "Purple Haze" is not a great rock movie. Beyond that, the film totally cops out on what the '60s were actually about for dedicated hippie types-commitment types-commitment and brotherhood. brother-hood. Take the central character, charac-ter, Matt, for instance. He's the redneck father's hippie intellectual-type son who experiences the mass cultural awakening experienced ex-perienced by members of the Woodstock Nation during the counterculture's 1 ' brief heyday in the late '60s. Such hippies were committed com-mitted to certain spiritual, social and political ideals. They were dreamers with causes motivated by the exhilarating feeling of unity with those who shared their precepts. Matt is that sort of committed com-mitted guy. Sortof. He's committed to nonviolence. non-violence. At least until he pletely abandons all the peace and love ideals he fervently fer-vently embraced during his short career as a hippie? Old hippies don't fade away, they just turn overnight over-night into Green Berets and truck off to Vietnam to kill as many gooks as possible. So it would seem if one were to approach the story line of "Purple Haze" on any sort of symbolic terms. And judging by the nearly reverential tones that screenwriter Victoria Woz-niak Woz-niak used to talk about her own efforts when she answered an-swered questions with Morris at the post screening session, it seems a safe bet that she wouldn't mind one bit if her opus were examined on ' somewhat allegorical terms. Anyway, when Matt abandons aban-dons his idealistic principles, "Purple Haze" implicitly cheapens the actions and efforts ef-forts of all those '60s hippie types who genuinely did care about commitment to principle, prin-ciple, love of fellow man and changing the world for the better. But that's not what the hippies of the '60s were really all about, right? Judging by the underlying themes of "Purple Haze," apparently not. According to it, hippies were mostly just interested in screwing, getting get-ting high and listening to loud music. But something's missing in that scenario. Where's the idealism, noble principles and pervasive per-vasive sense of social commitment com-mitment that permeated the atmosphere of the times? Matt's supposed to represent all that, right? Oh yeah, Matt. The committed com-mitted hippie. Sortof. He's - committed to his girlfriend, sort of. At least until he decides she's too much of a country-club type bitch to ever understand his hip awakening. So he dumps her. Besides, she was always nagging at him to get his hair trimmed. Matt, needless to say, is committed to keeping his hair long. Sortof. But then one day he just decides to get it all hacked off. And then he goes crawling back to Kitty like a wounded puppy, saying he was wrong about everything before (he used to be committed com-mitted to the wrong ideas, it would seem) and would she please give him just a chance chan-ce to talk to her? Not a chance. Which is just about all this wimpy, wormy character and his distorted movie deserve. They're both spineless dwarfs in ethical terms. The exact antithesis of what the best people of the '60s were all about. Unlike Matt, there were quite a few people back then who weren't so easily swayed in what they believed. The kind of kids who went out in the streets during the infamous Democratic National Convention Con-vention in Chicago and battled bat-tled billy clubs and tear gas with their limbs and tears. Such people eventually managed to sway public opinion sufficiently to get American troops out of the horrendous debacle in Vietnam. Viet-nam. People like Matt fair-weather fair-weather hippies instead watched the Chicago violence violen-ce on the tube in the safety cf their surburban homes in the tranquil environs of places like Minneapolis. In "Purple Haze," after watching kids getting massacred by the blue-shirted blue-shirted officers in the Loop, Matt turns away from the dull glow of his television set and muses to Jolly Jeff, "We should have been there." They really should have. a a -a s A China Olfye Restaurant Open 7 days i week, Mon. thru Fri. 11:30 a.m. -11 :00 p.m. Sat. k Sun. 3:00 to 11 :00 sLUNCH ZZZf SPECIAL I "' Monday - Friday l' J 11:30a.m. -3:30p.m. thicken Chow Mein, Ni-' y Pork Fried Rice C $2.95 -:" Takeout available mini bottle service. Don't be caught unprepared 5 way JUDY M. KIMBALL HAN LEY Agent No. 202 Silver King Bank Bldg. Park City, Utah 84060 Bus. 649-8656, Res. 649-7607 AUTO FIRE UFE COMMERCIAL S - i lijill V 7 .-7 Hey, sailor Tony Leger and Barbara Branble share the spotlight during "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well," presented last weekend at the Kimball Kim-ball Art Center. See comments by Rick Brough on Page A6. .HHnrt.il "i tlinhiHi It ( i.jl.Bi....ilf i. MA - a a a .fc M M m M |