Take One (Jul-Aug 1971)

real problems presented. The preTralfamadorian part of the movie is structured around Billy’s life in the US, tidily cut in with scenes from his life in the Army, all culminating in the bombing of Dresden and later in his trip to Tralfamadore. This structure, by the way, is not that of the book, in which we are immediately told that the flashbacks and forwards are not that at all, but are Billy’s experiences as he becomes “unstuck in time.” In concealing this fact the movie heightens the impact of the bombing, but provides us with a soft cushion to land on at the end. In refusing to give us the standard beady-eyed Nazi, but instead concentrating on the young boys who are serving as German soldiers, the movie does make an anti-war statement. In following one of the boys as he runs through the burning ruins of Dresden, in showing the pointless destruction visited on the bad guys (Germans) by the good guys (us, always us), Hill shows neither side as noble; both are good and evil and ridiculous. Even the British stiff upper lip is ridiculed in a nice parody of The Bridge on the River Kwai. Vonnegut’s original idea of the war as a Children’s crusade, fought by 18 and 19-year-olds such as Billy, is lost in the film, and the audience is led to believe that it was the Germans alone who were left with children soldiers. Demonstrating that our books and movies are based on the perceptions of young boys, who in old age glorify those immature. perceptions, must have either been too difficult or too subversive for Hill. There are moments of comedy and semi-comedy. Some of the laughs are cheap, such as the fantastic costume Billy wears in the camp, his dog pissing on his wife’s foot and other scenes playing on his innocent acceptance of whatever befalls him. But the cheap laughs are the best ones in this movie. At other times it reaches for a kind of black comedy. Some of these attempts are successful, and we are struck both by the hilarity of an event as well as by its tragic nature. Generally however, the movie is too stingy in letting us sympathize with anyone other than Billy, so that any tragi-comic situations involving other characters come off as neither tragedy nor comedy. When Billy's wife goes through a fantastic series of car wrecks on her way to see Billy in the hospital, her tears and distress keep us from laughing, and our dislike for her keeps us from crying. For some reason, this kind of comedy seems to succeed best in literature, as in Catch-22, and sometimes on the stage, but-is very difficult for a filmmaker to handle. Bonnie and Clyde probably comes closest. Of course, the women in the film are dreadful, but | suppose we have come to expect that. From Billy’s status obsessed, gossipy mother, to his fat silly wife (who grows fatter and sillier with each moment), to Montana Wildhack, the ideal, loving sex object, the women are totally stereotyped and onedimensional. They merely constitute one set of problems that Billy must escape. The movie confronts us with a world of essentially political and social dilemmas: war and the code of war, the male mystique, the Puritan ethic, social status, small-town life, the smothering mother — all problems which Billy vaguely recognizes and wishes to escape. So that is the solution we are given. Escape. It is a rather old religious answer to political and social problems. It makes the movie comforting, satisfying. We can’t help liking Billy and wishing good things for him, just as we wish good things for ourselves. Maybe we too will someday be swept away to Tralfamadore, never more to agonize over earth and its bothersome ways. Teena Webb EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL Even Dwarfs Started Small is the kind of iconoclastic film made by a young director of vision who is more concerned with reshaping the forms of cinema than in finding an audience. Like Werner Herzog’s other perplexing feature Fata Morgana, Dwarfs is equally ambitious and idealistic. A common theme emerges: apparent negation, both formal and narrative, is a perverse mask for the joyous celebration of simultaneous destruction and rebirth. Even Dwarfs Started Small for all its anti-audience —outrageousness, belongs in a very noble tradition of affectionate cinematic anarchy. It resembles Vigo’s Zero de Conduite in its inmates-taking-over-the-asylum narrative, early Bunuel in its surrealism, early Warhol in that its formlessness promises a future redefinition of form, and early Chaplin in its nasty-mischievous sense of humour. Basically, the film is an idea fleshed out with the indulgence of spontaneity. The boredom of Herzog’s lack of control over what takes place in front of the camera (there is no script) is off-set by his affection for the anarchy of his gesture and by the integrity of the people who become the subject of the film. The ‘‘actors” are not allowed to become objects through the director’s manipulation. Their freedom in front of the camera is essential to their dignity as human beings. When your actors are the most extreme of social minorities (dwarfs), this affectionate anarchy is necessary to raise the project above any tinge of exploitation. The dwarfs become mischievous children, giggling incessantly. Their notion of rebellion involves apt attacks z . 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