Subtitled A Rustbowl Fantasy, this very agreeable and funny low-budget documentary by Tony Buba, set in a steel-mill town just outside Pittsburgh, follows the decline of the area as the mills shut down, as well as Buba’s own 15-year activity as a local independent filmmaker. Concerned with union organizing, his temperamental and eccentric star “Sweet Sal” Carullo, his dwindling finances, and his own soul, Buba has a lot of interesting things to say and show, and this witty and intelligent portrait of him and his community has charm to spare. (Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Saturday, March 18, 4:00 and 7:45, 443-3737) Read more
David Lean’s 70-millimeter spectacle about T.E. Lawrence’s military career between 1916 and 1918, written by Robert Bolt and produced by Sam Spiegel and released in 1962, remains one of the most intelligent and handsome of all war epics. It is also one of the most influential–films as diverse as Patton and Apocalypse Now, and even The Green Berets, Star Wars, and Dune, have all borrowed liberally from it. And as one of the first “thoughtful” blockbusters built around ambiguity, it also helped pave the way for such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Combining the scenic splendor of a De Mille epic (enhanced by Freddie Young’s remarkable desert photography) with virtues of the English theater–including literate, epigrammatic dialogue and superb performances–Lean endeared himself to English professors and action buffs alike, and the film won seven Oscars, including best picture and direction. What seems apparent more than a quarter of a century later, however, is that the ideological crassness of De Mille and most war epics is not so much transcended here as given a high gloss: the theme is still basically the White Man’s Burden–despite all the ironic notations on the subject–with Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, and Omar Sharif called upon to represent the Arab soul, and Jose Ferrer embodying the savage Turks. Read more
