Take One (Mar-Apr 1973)

amateur psychologizing, and often we’re uncomfortable with the lines and sense that the actors were uncomfortable with them. But perhaps because the script is a distortion banked so precisely against the distortion of the characters-as-themselves, it works. To hear people speak words that their friends (or they themselves) might have spoken once in earnest has an eerie, beguiling authenticity to it, and makes us conscious that we’re not looking at characters, but at roles; just as the actors seem so often vividly, visibly self-conscious of playing roles. This isn’t to denigrate the acting in Montreal Main, but to suggest its unusual, fervid pitch. It's a distinctive kind of acting, tight but casual, with none of the playful smugness of the Paul Morissey films, nor the pained embarassed silences of most vérité films; indeed, Vitale and his players have worked out an acting style that becomes all the more convincing because we can see that it /s strained, and all the more compelling because the actors don’t make enormous efforts to mean what they say. But Montreal Main (will this be the line clipped for reprinting?) will probably be a box-office disaster. At least now. It’s too rough-edged, too shaggy, too reminiscent in its surfaces of that horde of experimental ventures that didn’t work. No matter that Eric Bloch’s color cinematography is controlled, intelligent, and often superbly revealing; no matter that the editing, despite its spurious feel, has a marvellous tempo that never goes glib and only rarely seeks out effects; no matter that there are moments of distinctive and incredible humour, touching pathos, absolutely stilling lyric sadness; no matter that the film was shot for less than $20,000 against insufferable odds; no matter that it's the most sensitive and honest depiction of homosexuality — or its origins — that I’ve ever seen in a film; no matter that it’s a frail masterpiece and emotionally the most powerful Englishspeaking film made to my knowledge in Canada; no matter. If there is a distinctly new sensibility that will emerge in movies over the next six or eight years — and for the movies’ sake, there had better be one — Montreal Main gives us a hint of what it might be like. Montreal Main is a primitive work, and like many primitive works will probably be best known as an archeological phenomenon: that is, it will be seen far more often in the future — after Frank Vitale has become a “name” director (which, on the evidence of this film, appears incontrovertible) — than now. Any movie that can touch our feelings, move us to an emotional point that we’ve never visited before, deserves to be commended and recommended. But a movie that ventures into that mercurial threshold of torn and half-deserted lifestyles, that explores new regions of scripting and William Kuhns' books include Exploring the Film, Movies in Ameri ca, and the forthcoming The Moving Picture Book, as well as a novel, The Reunion. acting, and for those reasons manages to move us deeply, deserves more than commendation or recommendation or this review. It deserves to be seen by every director and producer and writer and actor in the industry, to show them what they’re facing (or what they dread to face): which is the problem of finding a way to deal convincingly with the trauma of what our lives are becoming. William Kuhns THE TERMINAL MAN A Warner Bros. release. Produced, written and directed by Mike Hodges (based on the novel by Michael Crichton). Photography: Richard H. Kline. Art Director: Fred Harpman. Editor: Robert Wolfe. Sound: William Randall. Sound Editor: Nicholas Stevenson. Music: Goldberg Variation #25, played by Glenn Gould. Cast: George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard A. Dysart, Jill Clayburgh, Donald Moffat, Matt Clark, Michael C. Gwynn. Technicolor. 107 mins. Mike Hodges’ new film, The Terminal Man, is ambitious, engrossing and stylish, but it ultimately rings hollow. The script, which Hodges wrote from Michael Crichton’s novel, misses so many opportunities that Hodges the director is hard put to fill the holes left by Hodges the screenwriter and author Crichton. Yet the basic idea of the film is so intriguing that we are all the more aware of those gaps and annoyed that they exist. The Terminal Man obviousiy once had the potential to be first-class science-fiction. It isn’t, now, but it still has enough raw material to catch the interest of buffs and, although | don’t expect the film will do very well during its initial run, eventually it is going to find its audience and _ develop something of a cult reputation. The plot, briefly. Harry Benson (George Segal) suffers from _ intermittent, violent epileptic seizures during which, more than likely, he will beat to a pulp whomever is handy. He’s already committed one murder during an attack and has been convicted for the crime. So some researchers implant a micro-computer in his skull which monitors, via electrodes, the pertinent brainwaves and which, when it senses the onslaught of one of Harry’s attacks, can signal a miniature chemical apparatus to flood the trouble area in Harry’s brain with massive doses of tranquilizer, thereby preventing the seizure. Within hours after the operation is completed, however, the drama begins. GRATTAN PRODUCTIONS You guessed it like all the sci-fi doctors before them, they’ve made one fatal miscalculation. And it will spell doom for the experiment. Within hours Harry’s_ self-centered brain has taught itself to mimic the conditions that precede an attack so that it can thereby trick the computer into releasing the tranquilizer; you see, Harry’s brain knows a good thing when it feels one and that massive jolt of Thorazine is heaven! Immediately, a feedback situation is set up; the “attacks” come closer and closer together; and the men in the white coats — accurately for once — compute that shortly after 3 a.m. the next morning the “attacks” will be continuous, the tranquilizer will then be overridden, and Harry will once more become an_ unwilling homicidal maniac. No trouble, you say — just disconnect Harry. Yes, but you see in one of those fortuitous twists of plot Harry has, for reasons known only to himself, escaped from hospital and is thus a murderous monster set loose on the peace-loving city of Los Angeles. He commits a few more perfunctory killings before he is finally tracked down by police helicopter and shot dead in, of all places, Forest Lawn cemetery. You can see why The Terminal Man is eventually going to develop a cult following: all the elements are there. Much care has_ been lavished on reproducing the brain surgery; there is a Frankensteinian myth underlying the thin plot; the combination of drugs and electronics brings Dr. F.’s monster up to date; and, finally, Hodges has shot this rather flimsy morality tale with such exaggerated high style that it looks to be much more portentous than it actually is. (More about style in a moment.) You can also see why the film isn’t going to be very successful the first time out. The atmosphere is cold and distantiated; the story is thin; and The Terminal Man depends far too heavily for its effect on Hodges’ ironic visual style. With all its failings, however, the film deserves some serious attention. Englishman Mike Hodges drew considerable critical interest with his first feature film, Get Carter (1971), a fond and intelligent parody of the private-eyegangster genre that provided Michael OOTING Contact Jim Grattan for top equipped crews. Single and double system. 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