angled the project towards incorporating the reallife case o f Alan Berg - a shock-radio host killed by a fanatical band o f neo-Nazis for his controversial incitements. From one angle, Talk R a d io (proba bly the play as much as the film) begs to be taken ‘seriously’ as a real-life reflection on a Burning So cial Issue (the Media and its Effects on Life in the Modem Metropolis) - not as showbiz. And little wonder, coming from a director who, with P la toon, perfected a sure-fire mixture o f bleedingheart state-of-the nation-liberalism, and awesome elegiac Art-effect (see R.J.Thom pson’s commen tary on Platoon in Freeze Fram e 1 ,1 9 8 7 ); a director whose next release is ominously titled B om on the Fourth o f July. (O f course some o f us know, from his scripts for De Palma and Cimino, that Stone once upon a time had a fond understanding of shock, hype, and hustle; but this memory is be coming hard to publicly sustain.) It’s in this non showbiz context that Talk Radio's claims on ‘real ity'’ overstep the achievement o f an ‘effect’ and be come rather more strident, and over-earnest. Talk R a d io is riddled rotten with contradic tions. What can you say about a film that pretends to have its ear to ‘reality'’, and then materializes - in one shockingly embarrassing and overreaching scene - a caricature o f a young, doped, heavy metal head that makes most teen movie stereotypes look modestly true-to-life by comparison, that expresses not the state o f a nation but only a middle-class cinema’s rekindled hatred o f the ‘lower classes’ (a hatred reflected also in Fresh Horses and The A c cused!)? What can you say about a director whose principal - often only - stylistic mode is hysteria (every' flashing light on the console, every' tense silence portends death; even' key dramatic mo ment propels the camera or the actor 360 degrees around the room a d nauseam m axim um ), but whose film pretends to decry' the effects o f the mass media’s emotive hype and sensationalism? How' do you deal with a film - a big, slick, exciting film that is ashamed sick to be a spectacle? Pretending to raise and address a complex o f so cial issues, Talk Radio's political line is merely gothic, apocalyptic. Screwing up all its anger, hysteria and remorse, all the film can say at the last is that w'e are all burning in Hell together right Here and Now' on earth - an easy out for a mode o f
LUIGI'S LADIES: IN DEALING WITH MULTIPLE MID LIFE CRISES, THE FILM HAS AMPLE OPPORTUNITY TO MILK HUMOUR (AND DRAMA) FROM YUPPIEDOM, THE NEW AGE RAGE, ETC... BUT NOTHING IS DEVELOPED AROUND THESE NARRA TIVE NUCLEI TO MAKE THEM THE LEAST BIT INTER ESTING OR FUNNY. ABOVE: WENDY HUGHES CHECKS OUT THE LEADLIGHTS.
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‘energy' realism’ not wishing or able to face up to the interest o f its own contradictions. For it’s one thing for a well-intentioned neo-liberal filmmaker to suggest, via a dramatic sleight-of-hand, that there are a lot o f troubled people ‘out there’ in the real world, and that we should diligently, urgently, try to understand what’s troubling them; it’s an other thing altogether to construct those invisible, teeming masses as (in their dark, pre-socialized hearts) sick, stupid and psychotic — a bunch o f uncultured hicks. Yet what else is that heavy' metal head material ised to ‘prove’, to witness (against all good show biz sense), and w'hat are all those ‘concerned’, superior looks from Champlain, his ex-wife, his lover, his best friend, mobilized to evoke, but just this? Talk R a d io , in its passing appropriation o f Berg’s description o f the airwaves as the “last neighbourhood in town”, raises the hope o f a post modem populism in and for a fragmented, scared, scarred w'orld - but the film hates the ‘people’ it constructs more profoundly and surely than it annihilates its own hero, its handy liberal Christ o f free speech. ADRIAN MARTIN
Talk R adio: directed by Oliver Stone. Producers: Edward R. Pressman, A Kitman Ho. Executive producers: Greg Strangis, Sam Strangis. Script: Eric Bogosian, Oliver Stone, based on the play Talk R adio created by Eric Bogosian, Tad Savinar, written by Eric Bogosian, and the book Talked to D eath: The L ife and M urder o f A lan Berg by Stephen Singular. Director o f photography: Robert Richardson. Editor: David Brenner. Production designer: Bruno Rubeo. Music: Stewart Copeland. Cast: Eric Bogo sian (Barry Champlain), Alec Baldwin (Dan), Ellen Greene (Ellen), Leslie Hope (Laura), lohn C. McGinlev (Stu), John Pankow (Chuck Dietz), Michael Wincott (Kent), Zach Grenier (Sid Greenberg). Production company: Ed ward R. Pressman/Ten Four Productions. Distributor: GreaterUnion. 35mm. 110 mins. U SA .1988..
L U IG I’ S LA D IES There is a heartbeat o f humour buried deep inside Luigi's Ladies. During a send-up o f a New Age meeting, people hop and skip like animals around a hall, trying to find themselves. One man in the background is a koala. H e’s good. H e’s funny. H e’s the one laugh in the film. This alleged comedy, directed and co-w'ritten by actor Judy Morris, executive-produced by actor Wendy Hughes (who also co-wrote) is marked by scores o f w'asted comic opportunities and wasted talents strewn across a story o f three women trying to cope with some sort o f post feminist anxiety' syn drome. Sara (Wendy Hughes) is a maga zine editor; Cee (Sandy Gore) is the dumped wife o f an academic; and Jane (Anne Tenney) is the wife o f an un faithful wine mer chant. They meet regularly at Luigi’s, a restaurant run by the diminutive Luigi (David Rappaport), to discuss fife’s problems. In dealing with these multiple mid-life crises, the film has ample opportunity to milk humour (and drama) from things like the stock market crash o f October 1987, hyperactive children, soci ety restaurants, feminism, glitz journalism, yuppiedom, unwanted pregnancy, infidelity, sexual politics, sex, celibacy, temperamental French chefs, the New Age rage, cosmetic surgery and Sydney. But nothing is developed around these (or a num C I N E M A
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ber o f other) narrative nuclei to make them the least bit interesting or funny. The prime examples are the reaction scenes to the stock market crash, which is the structural nub o f the narrative. The first part o f the film blesses the main characters with the bull run o f the Bourse. Then it crashes: but do we get a well-crafted, skilfully-choreographed sequence as the characters respond and reorient their fives? No. Instead, we get minutes and minutes o f clumsy comedy handled with all the grace o f a tyre commercial. This appears to be the result o f a directorial flatness which dogs the whole film. And many scenes o f sharp emotion that would lend them selves so well to comedy or drama (or both) are diffused by poor performances, a grand lack o f good credible dialogue, and some almost crimi nally dull photography. Special mention must be made o f thé low stan dard o f performance from what is an obviously tal ented and distinguished cast. Crucial to any effective comedy film is the need o f a performance to nail an emotion or a dramatic tone soundly on the head, and this must fit consis tently (more or less) within an appropriate narra tive context. This can be done with subtlety, as with the works o f Woody Allen or the vastly underrated Albert Brooks, or with a sledgeham mer, as with the best o f Mel Brooks or the Zucker/ Abrahams/Zucker team who made Flying H igh and The N aked Gun. Ivan Reitman’s Twins, Martin Brest’s M idnight Run, Frank O z’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Charles Crichton’s A Fish C alled W anda serve as four recent examples where dramatic and comic elements are skilfully fused and where comic per formances make the film. With L u ig i’s Ladies w hat we basically have is an aimless mess: the performances are overplayed and underplayed at all the wrong moments; mono logues fall flat and attempts at a bit o f good old shtick (like being drunk, overwhelmed, saddened or angry) are torpedoed by lame and unconvincing acting. In a word, what the film basically lacks is scope. There’s not enough substance either in the mate rial or in the performances for a failed TV sitcom pi lot, let alone a full-length cinema feature. So what went wrong? Perhaps the press notes give some insight into the dubious origins o f the project: “L u igi’s Ladies grew out o f lunches that [Judy] Morris, [Wendy] Hughes, [Jennifer] Claire [a co-writer], and [Sandy] Gore had been holding for years, though usually round the kitchen table at each other’s houses, not at exclusive restaurants. ‘We’d start with French champagne, and by the time we finished we were down to white wine and beer!’ explains Hughes. ‘We talked about politics, men, sex, facelifts, basically the fabric offife.’” Maybe Ms Hughes, Ms Morris and friends should have considered how their view o f “the fabric offife” was going to strike a stone-cold sober cinema patron who is $8.50 down on thé deal. But in all fairness, Judy Morris and Wendy Hughes deserve a toast to the future. They are two extremely talented actors who have proved them selves in front o f the camera many times over. Here’s to their next film collaboration. It will be better. It has to be. JIM SCH EM BRI
Lu igi’s Ladies. Directed by Judy Morris. Producer: Patrie Juillet. Executive producer: Wendy Hughes. Associate producer: Rachel Symes. Script: Jennifer Claire, Judy Morris, Wendy Hughes, Ranald Allen. Director o f pho tography: Steve Mason. Editor: Pamela Barnetta. Produc tion designer: Melody Cooper. Composer: Sharon Calcraft. Cast: Wendy Hughes (Sara), Sandy Gore (C ee), Anne Tenney (Jane), David Rappaport (Luigi), John Walton (Steve), Ray Meagher (Lance), Serge Lazareff (Trev), Joe Spano (Nick), Max Cullen (Chef). Production company: Tra La La Films. Distributor: Hoyts. 35 mm. Australia.
1989.