Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6-March 29,1973
LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
SING
Sing, sing a song;
sing out loud, sing out strong,
sing of good things not bad,
sing of happy, not sad.
Chorus:
Sing, sing a song;
make it simple to last your whole life long.
Don’t worry that it’s not good enough
for anyone else to hear,
just sing; sing a song.
Sing, sing a song,
let the world sing along.
Sing of love there could be,
sing for you and for me.
By the Carpenters
Written by: Joe Raposo
( c Jonico Music Inc., ASCAP)
Spring and children are fresh enough to keep in touch with life. The
Carpenters’ fresh, new single this Spring is a children’s song, from Sesame Street,
and is full of life. Its life comes from many of the same qualities that make
children so life-giving. It is simple and it is more open to experience than to
analysis.
You can hardly get simpler than the words “sing a song.” The fact that the
statement is so simple leaves it open to a limitless possibility of interpretations.
It doesn’t say that style of music, nor how your voice should sound or what
should accompany it. What it means is that everyone can fit into the program if
you just “sing a song.”
Because the simple things are so open to a variety of possibilities, they seem
to be more universal and more lasting. They are able to be in touch with reality.
Perhaps that’s why your own song should be “simple to last your whole life
long.”
Children have that kind of simplicity that makes them flexible to life and
open to most of life’s adventures. Grown-ups seem to find it more comfortable
to develop a programmed response to life so that they can deal with each
situation with the least amount of effort. It’s easier in the day-to-day situations
but you miss so much in the long haul.
Kids constantly remind you of the freshness and adventure of life. And Jesus
has to remind you to be open to his kingdom with the same simplicity as a child.
That way it’s sure to “last your whole life long.”
Besides being open to the way life strikes you from without, too many are
blind to the beauty of life within themselves. They not only miss the songs
around them but the music within them as well. They think they have little to
offer the world and so they spend a greal deal of time trying to learn someone
else’s song rather than really hearing and learning their own. The Carpenters and
children remind you “don’t worry that it’s not good enough for anyone else to
hear; just sing, sing a song.”
When you finally analyze this song it becomes evident that there is a lot there
and yet very little. The message is simple and can almost be destroyed by taking
it apart, just like over-concentration on yourself and too much introspection can
prevent you from being open to experience. This song does more in the listening
and experience of it than studying it. Life is the same. It is to be lived. Songs are
to be sung, so “sing a song.”
(All correspondents should he directed to: The Dameans, St. Joseph’s Church, 216
Patton Ave., P.O. Box 5188, Shreveport, La. 71105.)
POW BRACELETS FOR SPOKANE - Father Patrick O’Donnell of
Spokane, Wash., brings in two more sacks of POW bracelets for Dan
McClatchey and Diane Snarski to sort. Bracelets have been pouring into
the Youth Ministry office where they are being collected for melting and
molding into a peace monument. Americans have been wearing the
bracelets as a sign of concern for servicemen held captive or missing in
action in the Vietnam war. A sculptor has offered to do the monument
free. (NC Photo)
Former POW Finds Faith Because of Captivity
BY CARLTON SHERWOOD
CINNAMINSON, N. J. (NC) - On
Oct. 15, 1965, U.S. Air Force Capt.
Thomas W. Sima guided his jet over
North Vietnam on a routine bombing
mission.
Film Classifications
A — Section I — Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage
A — Section II — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Adolescents
A — Section HI — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults
A — Section IV — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Reservations
B — Morally Objectionable in Part for All
C — Condemned
AN INFINITE TENDERNESS (United
Artists) . .. One of the most beautiful and
moving films you’ll probably NEVER see. -- A
brain-damaged, physically-handicapped child
is the subject of this French documentary
feature. It covers a year in this young boy’s
life, his being confined to a wheelchair,
unable to speak but trying desperately to
communicate with his nurse and the other
children in the hospital. It chronicles the
growth of his friendship with another
youngster even more crippled than himself,
their joy in being together, their little spats so
enormously serious to all children, and finally
the termination of the friendship by death.
The final scenes of the movie show the boy
ripping down the paintings the two had done
together, a laborious effort on the part of the
child and yet his only way of showing his
feelings at the loss of his friend.
AN INFINITE TENDERNESS is a,
masterful example of documentary film
making at its best, treating its subject
creatively yet with complete integrity. Its
great achievement is the natural way it builds
a personal relationship between the spectator
and the child, overcoming any fear or
repugnance one might have of the crippled.
This brain-damaged child becomes special to
us because we come to know him as a person,
an individual with other kinds of limitations
than our own. If the film accomplishes
nothing else, it does effectively break down
the barrier that we all erect towards those
who are “different.”
In so doing, the film challenges us to open
our hearts more fully to our own humanity as
we see it mirrored in the often tormented face
of the young boy on the screen. The director,
Pierre Jallaud, is not interested simply in
evoking our pit for this child. That would
have been too easy for him and for us.
Instead, Jallaud wants us to know that we can
love this boy because he is a part of our
family. Consequently, nothing is
sentmentalized about the boy’s condition,
and the film’s title is intended as anything but
condescending.
Technically, the film derives its powerful
impact by simply allowing its visuals to speak
directly to the viewer. Nothing is allowed to
dilute the immediate, emotional experience of
its scenes. The high-contrast, black-and-white
camerawork has a pristine purity that reminds
one of Bresson and Dreyer. There is no
commentary, no dialogue, only the natural
sounds of the children and their environment.
The film begins with close-ups of the boy
looking unflinchingly at the camera. It is
difficult for us to return his gaze because the
face we see is slightly cross-eyed and the
mouth seems twisted and grimacing. Then the
camera begins its exploration of the
surroundings: his room, the window sill
enlivened by a small bird, the grounds
outside, the other children, the nurses. Like
him, the camera has made us silent observers
of life. Gradually we become part of his
world, timeless except for the passing seasons,
and suddenly we are looking at him much as
we would any other child, seeing the beauty
in his face as well as the hurt.
By the time he becomes pals with another
boy, we are capable of responding to the joy
of their simple games and being concerned
about their problems. This second half of the
film makes explicit what had till then been
only implicit, namely, that the nature of these
children’s needs and feelings is basically the
same as our own. One has the suspicion, to
make this quite clear, that his friendship has
been more or less engineered and for the first
time the question of manipulation of these
children crosses one’s mind. It is apparent,
however, that whatever staging may have been
necessary, the film never compromises its
integrity by falsifying its reality. Perhaps the
best proof of the director’s sincerity is that
the film never gives the impression that it has
invaded anyone’s privacy or in the least
exploited its subject.
On the contrary, AN INFINITE
TENDERNESS, is a positive statement about
the quality of life as it really is. For some,
seeing this film cannot help but be painful,
especially for those who have never had any
contact with the handicapped. But viewers
will be rewarded by learning about them and
this experience should be helpful in coming to
terms with the suffering that is part of the
human condition in one form or another. This
film shows us that the nature of man
transcends ail physical limitations, and should
reawaken in us a healthy reverence for all
human life and a passion for improving its
quality.
One other aspect of this documentary that
is so fine is its indirect statement about the
institutions that take care of those who
cannot take care of themselves. Most films
about such places here in the United States
have shown them as a national disgrace:
filthy, overcrowded, understaffed. Even the
best private institutions with up-to-date
facilities exdue an impersonal efficiency
seemingly inured to the pain around them.
AN INFINITE TENDERNESS demonstrates
that it is possible to care for the helpless with
the sensitivity and dignity that our common
humanity requires. The most striking thing
about this French hospital (it is nothing but a
large, scrupulously clean house) is not the
facilities themselves but the one-to-one
relationship of nurses to patients. These are
obviously people with a vocation dedicated to
working with the weak and infirm.
None of us likes to go out of his way to
confront unpleasant realities. That is why
escapist films will always attract more viewers
than serious, soul-searching ones. It is,
therefore, understandable that the American
distributor of AN INFINITY TENDERNESS
has no plans at present for the theatrical
exhibition of this documentary. Eventually,
of course, the film will be shown on 16mm
for discussion groups and educational
purposes. DFB’s reason for reviewing the film
subject and artistry make it deserving of a
theatrical release for the interested public.
Other specialized films have done fairly well
in limited theatrical distribution, a classic
example being the four-and-a-half hour THE
SORROW AND THE PITY. Although the
visual quality of an INFINITE TENDERNESS
would suffer, television showings would help
it reach the widest possible audience. There is
no need to claim that it is a “breakthrough”
in the growing maturity of the screen; it is
enough to claim it as a major document for
our time,, one that uses the power of images
to contribute to our understanding of human
values, some of which seem open to question
in contemporary society. (A-11)
THE CREEPING FLESH (Columbia) Peter
Cushing and Christopher Lee team up for the
umpteenth time-here as ambitious Victorian
half-brothers—in a fanciful programmer that
wisely plays down gory action in favor of
verbal battles between the veteran horror
makers. Paleontologist Cushing comes home
from New Guinea with a giant human
skeleton stamped with the curse of thd rain
god: the bones grow flesh when they get wet.
Cushing’s attempt to develop a serum that
will render humankind immune to all evil goes
awry when he injects his daughter (Lorna
Heitbron) with the monster’s blood and she
wanders madly into the clutches of
debauchers at the village pub. Psychiatrist
Lee, who heads an asylum where the inmates
are treated as guinea pigs to nurture his thesis
on mental disorders, determines to cast in on
Cushing’s experiments. Their final
confrontation, as blood cells give way to
prison cells, suggests that director Freddie
Francis (TALES FROM THE CRYPT) has
been putting us on. Nevertheless, horror buffs
with a few guineas to squander will find this
an adequate remedy for a rainy day. (A-lll)
HUNGER FOR LOVE (Pathe
Contemporary) This 1969 Brazilian film by
Nelson Pereira dos Santos is a
socio-psychological survey of contemporary
values. Its story concerns a young man who
decides to kill his wealthy wife and run away
with the wife of his best friend. But this is
only the framework for an almost mythic
depiction of the decline of Western
civilization and the need for revolutionary
action to build a new society. As in BARREN
LIVES (1963), that incredible testament to
the destitute of the world, the environment is
as important as the characters. Each character
is so isolated as the island they all inhabit and
emptiness fills their days. A beautifully-made
film, HUNGER FOR LOVE will appeal most
to those interested in themes of social justice.
(A-lll)
SLAUGHTER HOTEL (Hallmark) is a
country rest home where medieval weapons
decorate the parlors and become the means
by which a prowling psychopath graphically
disposes of sexually frustrated women and
their nurses. The intractable direction of
Fernando Di Leo makes this English-dubbed
atrocity one of the worst of the exploitationai
murder mysteries that Italy has sent our way
in the last few years. (C)
VIVA LA MUERTE (Max L. Raab)
Avant-garde playwright Fernando Arrabal has
written and directed his first film, an
impassioned, surrealistic expression of
growing up during the Spanish Civil War. The
film's central experience (which is
autobiographical) concerns a youngster’s
growing realization that,' his mother has
betrayed his father into the hands of the local
fascists. Radiating from this incomprehensible
horror is a disturbing assortment of childhood
fantasies involving sex, religion, school, family
and village life. As with his plays, Arrabal
counterpoints images of purity and innocence
with those of cruelty, violence, and lust,
creating out of his own inner turmoil a
personal myth of good and evil. Some viewers
will be repelled by the emotional ferocity
underlying his scenes of seduction,
mutilation, and degradation while others will
defend the film as a purgative experience akin
to viewing Gova’s series on war or akin to
some of the films of Bunuel.
Suddenly, Communist ground fire
battered his aircraft. He was forced to
abandon the jet and parachute over
enemy territory, about 60 miles
northwest of Hanoi.
“Tracers were zipping past me and
here I was dangling from a parachute
saying an Act of Contrition,” Sima said.
“Me, a non-practicing Catholic, asking
God’s forgiveness because I was scared.
“Tom Sima, you’re a hypocritical
— . — . — . — . i remember saying
that out loud several times before I hit
the ground and became a permanent
guest of the North Vietnamese.”
Sima described the circumstances of
his capture and his subsequent
experiences as a prisoner of war-which
helped him discover the strength to be
derived from religious faith-in an
interview with the Catholic Star-Herald
Camden diocesan paper, at his parents’
home here.
Now a lieutenant colonel, the
32-year-old bachelor was released
recently from the North Vietnamese
prison camp called the “Hanoi Hilton”
after spending almost eight years as a
“guest.”
Sima said treatment of captured U.S.
servicemen varied with different
“stages” of the war. From 1964 to
1968, he said, American pilots who
were captured “suffered some pretty
nasty ordeals” as each one was kept in
isolation.
However, he said, the Communists
improved treatment of POWs in 1969 as
the Nixon administration publicly
declared against the abuse of the
prisoners. And in mid-1971, he said,
prison conditions improved still more as
almost all the POWs--including
himself-were transferred to the prison
compound called the “Hanoi Hilton”
and were able to establish regular
contact with each other that had been
prohibited or severely limited earlier in
the war.
Sima’s discovery of the value of faith
occurred during the first two years of
his captivity, when bitter treatment was
daily endured by the captives.
“I suppose it sounds pretty corny or
far-fetched now, but I used to say from
25 to 30 rosaries each day,” he said.
“Since I didn’t have any beads, I would
keep count on my fingers and toes or,
when I got tired of that, mentally
through images.”
He said one of the first things the
POWs did when they were allowed to
share quarters in 1971 was organize
church and prayer services, which, he
said, played a fundamental role in the
“routine” of his cell.
Part of the service, he related was
singing by the “Hanoi Hilton Choir.”
“The choir ranged from four to a
legal 16 and, since the North
Vietnamese were never too happy with
our church services, a dozen booming,
off-key voices didn’t please them much
at all,” Sima said.
“They’d do their best to discourage
the singing by yelling at us during
services or screaming at us to shut up.
Usually the louder they shouted the
louder we sang, and so on until the walls
would shake. Needless to say, we didn’t
get favorable treatment after a few of
those incidents.”
During his captivity he learned about
“God, faith and religion and how vital
and real they are,” Sima said.
“But when I was freed, would I fall
back into the same rut of cynicism?
That was the question that I kept asking
myself, and there was no way I could
answer it until the day that I was
released.”
Within 48 hours of his release, Sima
went to the Clark Air Force Base (the
Philippines) chapel to “give himself the
acid test.” Four other recently freed
POWs stood around the altar listening to
Mass said by Father Edward Roberts, a
Navy lieutenant assigned to aid
returning POWs adjust to civilian life
that had changed demonstrably since
most had been captured in the previous
decade.
“I don’t know who was more
shocked, us or Father Roberts,” Sima
said, describing the prisoners’ reaction
to the first non-Latin Mass they had
heard.
“We’d ask a question and the
chaplain would answer it, but he would
be just as amazed at our reaction as we
were with what he was saying. One by
one each of us sat down with our
mouths hanging open and Father
Roberts stood there in disbelief. I can
tell you it was a weird experience,
because we had no idea about changes
in the Church, at least nothing like
this.”
Sima said he especially missed the
high Mass in Latin, but added he felt the
new format for the Mass is an
improvement. “I especially like the new
hymns which aren’t Catholic and in
many cases were among the hymns the
Hanoi Hilton Choir used each week,” he
said.
Of the North Vietnamese, he said he
didn’t like or trust them, if only because
they never let him receive letters from
home. He conceded, however, that in
many respects they may have helped
him find his faith.
“I’ve been through the rationalizing
stage,” Sima said. “Just like my life
began the moment the plane touched
down at Clark Air Base, my religious life
and faith began the day I was hanging
from the parachute saying the Act of
Contrition.”
TV Movies
SUNDAY, APRIL 1 - 9:00 p.m. (ABC) -
GRAND SLAM - Another Topkapi-like
robbery, but done so well it’s as good as new.
Edward G. Robinson, retired teacher, plans
the complex robbery of a Brazilian diamond
firm he has studied for 30 years. Then a
powerful middle-man and four international
thieving specialists take on the job, and
suspenseful it is when put into detailed
operation during Carnival time in Rio. Janet
Leigh does some very good acting as a prim
employee of the diamond company, and all
thieves, new to American audiences, are fine.
Crime does not pay, but a seduction restricts
the film to adults. An Italian-Spanish-German
co-production tautly directed by Giuliano
Montaldo. (1968) (A-lll)
MONDAY, APRIL 2 - 9:00 p.m. (ABC) -
A LOVELY WAY TO DIE (1969) - Kirk
Douglas, Sylvia Koscina, Eli Wallach star in a
lowgrade, feverish thriller about an ex-cop
hired as bodyguard for a New York socialite
accused of murdering her husband. Contains
some suggestive situations and crude violence.
(B)
9:00 p.m. (NBC) - THE SUBJECT WAS
ROSES (1968) — This fine film about a Bronx
Irish family’s domestic crisis succeeds far
beyond the going-no-place limitations of its
basically one-set story. Starring Patricia Neal
and Jack Albertson as the parents, and Martin
Sheen as their serviceman son, the film
anatomizes the love and hate that alternately
bind the three together and tear them apart.
Adapted from Frank Gilroy’s Broadway
drama, the film contains intimate touches of
family life, its joys and frustrations, and is
masterful in its revelation of human nature,
jealousy and love. (A-lll)
TUESDAY, APRIL 3 - 8:00 p.m. (NBC) -
LORD LOVE A DUCK (1966) - Sophomoric
comedy about high school kids of the Dobie
Gillis ilk, with Roddy McDowall and Tuesday
Weld starring, and Ruth Gordon and Lola
Albright supplying daffy and sensuous
support, respectively. Under the guise of its
black-ish comedy, this film tries to offer a
biting commentary on the meaningless lives of
a certain segment of contemporary society.
This in itself isn’t so bad, but a plot
complication involving hypnosis in order to
regulate students’ love lives only complicates
and confuses things. Adult and frank in terms
of some subject treatment and dialogue.
Morally vague. (A-IV)
8:30 p.m. (ABC) - FAMILY FLIGHT -
Troubled parents Rod Taylor and Dina Merrill
convinced estranged son Kristoffer Tabori to
come on a flying vacation with them to
Mexico. Tabori has second thoughts whne he
discovers that Janet Margolin, an ex girl friend
and sister of a buddy, whose death Tabori
blames himself for, is the fourth member of
the group. When the plane crashes in the
Mexican desert the four must pull together
for their survival. A made-for-TV movie
directed by Marvin Chomsky.
9:30 p.m. (CBS) - A WAR OF
CHILDREN - Made-for-television film is set
in strife-torn contemporary Belfast, Northern
Ireland. Focus of the drama by James
Costigan is on a ten-year-old boy undergoing a
change of heart in the terrible conflict that,
for all practical purposes, is eight or nine
centuries old. The film, because of its themes
about the war and the quality of its
achievement, is of above-average interest.
THURSDAY, APRIL 5 - 9:00 p.m. (CBS)
- DON’T MAKE WAVES (1967) - ...
doesn’t make any waves in terms of its
comedy, although its level of humor and taste
are another matter. Tony Curtis stars in this
“beach-blanket” flick geared for the
easy-living teen-age set, revolving about the
undernourished Curtis’ attempts to woo
shapely Sharon Tate away from her
muscle-bound surfer boyfriends. The film’s
light-headed attitudes towards teen-age sex
brand is somewhat tainted, especially for
impressionable viewers. (B)
FRIDAY, APRIL 6 - 9:00 p.m. (CBS) -
THE SOUTHERN STAR (1969) -
Fortune-hunter George Segal and girl friend
Ursula Andress trek across Africa’s wild
animal-infested jungles in purusit of Segal’s
side-kick (Johnny Sekka) who has stolen
Ursula's father’s prize diamond. Daddy’s
securtiy guard captain pursues the pursuers
because he wants both the girl and the stone,
and the whole passel runs into effeminate
outlaw Orson Welles at the trading station. A
lot of cliched action done in tongue-in-cheek
fashion and some competent color
photography by Raoul Coutard can’t justify
the graphic violence, not to mention the
uncertain performances of the principles.
Sidney Hayers directs from an adaptation of a
Jules Verne novel. (B)
SATURDAY, APRIL 7 -- 9:00 p.m. (NBC)
-- MAYERLING (1968) - Mushy, overlong,
lavishly costumed “women’s film” starring
Catherine Deneuve and Omar Sharif in the
“tragic.” legendary tale of royal romance
between Austrian Crown Prince Rudolph and
his mistress Maria Vetsera. Has all the
trappings of a real tearjerker, but comes big
and empty, unintentionally underscoring how
antihuman and futile a gesture is suicide. Yoi
won’t shed a tear, so why waste your time?
(A-lll)