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PAGE 14—The Georgia Bulletin, April 28,1983
"The Flight Of The Eagle"
Recommended Film On Ill-Fated 1 800's Adventure
BY MICHAEL GALLAGHER
NEW YORK (NC) - Jan Troell, the great Swedish
director who nearly a decade ago brought us “The
Emigrants” and its sequel “The New Land,” has in “The
Flight of the Eagle” (Summit) turned once more to the
themes of daring the unknown and of heroic endurance in
the face of crushing hardship. The period, too, is the
same, the 19th century - though some 40 years later,
close to the turn of the century.
“The Flight of the Eagle,” however, is a quite different
film otherwise. It’s based upon an actual event, a quixotic
and ill-fated attempt to reach the North Pole by taking
off, in a hydorgen baloon, from Spitsbergen, an island
group north of Norway.
The hero and heroine of “The Emigrants” and “The
New Land,” the peasant couple played so memorably by
Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, had no choice but to
embark upon their adventure. The endemic rural poverty
of their native land shut off all hope for a better life for
themselves and their children.
7?* *
ON THE AIR
BY MARY DILL
Media Coordinator
The following programming, on radio and television, will
be aired in the archdiocese during the coming week
beginning Sunday, May 1. Some of the programs have been
produced locally; others have been obtained from national
Catholic production apostolates.
THE MASS will be celebrated by Monsignor Noel
Burtenshaw on Sun., May 1 at:
7 a.m. on WSB-TV (Channel 2)
10 a.m. on WVEU-TV (Channel 69) on UHF
10:30 a.m. on AIB CABLE *.
The choir this week is from St. John Vianney
under the direction of Dick Dufano. The lector is
Phil Jardina, M.D.
CHRISTOPHER CLOSEUP: “Options For
Living” -- Suzi and Barry Kaufman, parents of an
autistic child, tell hosts Jeanne Glynn and Father
John Catoir how love cured what medicine could
not. Mon., May 2 at 8 p.m. on AIB CABLE *.
INSIGHT: “Needle’s Eye” - Two medical
students struggle with their dream of the good life
and the reality of the suffering they see. Mon., May
1 2 at 8:30 p.m. on AIB CABLE *.
“This Side of Eden” - A humorous, yet
profound, examination of guilt, forgiveness and
reconciliation. Sun., May 1 at 9:30 a.m. on
WVEU-TV (Channel 69) on UHF.
AMERICAN CATHOLIC: “Love and Suffering”
- When we are in pain, physical or psychological,
says Father John Powell, S.J., the pain attracts all
our attention to ourselves and we become less
responsive to the needs of a loved one. We need to
listen to the lesson of pain, examine its roots, and
try to free ourselves from unnecessary suffering in
order to honor the commitments of love. Wed., May
4 at 9 p.m. on AIB CABLE *.
MOTHER ANGELICA TALKS IT OVER - Wed.,
I- May 4 at 9:30 p.m. on AIB CABLE *.
* (AIB CABLE is your interfaith channel on Cable
Channel 8 in Alpharetta, Atlanta, College Park, DeKalb,
East Point and N. DeKalb.)
RADIO
“LIFT YOUR HEART,” weekly radio
production of Sacred Heart Program, Inc. on Sun. at
6 a.m. on WPLO (590 AM).
RELIGION-WISE: A weekly look at the news
through the eyes of religion with Monsignor Noel
Burtenshaw, Rabbi Don Peterman of Congregation
Beth Shalom and Dr. Ted Baehr, President of Good
News Publication. They will discuss the week’s
i! happenings on Sun. at 6 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. on
WGST (92 AM).
CHRIST IN YOUR LIFE - weekly Spanish
program on Sun. at noon on WAEC (860 AM).
The balloonists, on the other hand, were comfortably
fixed members of the middle class. What they did was
breathtakingly foolish - as only strong, self-sufficient men
eager for glory can be foolish - but such is the power of
Troell’s craft that they, too, like the peasant couple, lay
claim in the end to our sympathy, and the tragedy that
overcomes them stirs pity and fear.
Their leader was S.A. Andree (Max Von Sydow), an
eccentric, middle-aged bachelor who lived with his
mother. He was a scientist, a mystic and an “aeronaut,”
though in fact his practical experience with balloon flight
was woefully limited. What he did have was a vision and
the charisma of leadership, gifts that turned out to be
fatal not only for himself but for his two companions,
Nils Strindberg (Goran Stangertz) and Knut Fraenkel
(Sverre Anker Ousdal).
Strindberg, a sensitive and poetic young man, was a
scientist and a photographer, a first cousin of the
playwright.
Fraenkel was a bluff, good-natured man, eager for
adventure and not much given to conceptualized thinking.
He went along as a replacement for a scientist-friend of
Andree who was unromantic enough to allow himself to
be influenced by things like data and precise calculations.
Strindberg, who was only 25, was leaving behind a
fiancee whom he loved dearly (Lotta Larsson). Andree,
who may have been a repressed homosexual, fell in love
late in life with a Stockholm matron (Eva von Hanno), an
affair that seems never to have been consummated but
which affected him deeply. The hearty Fraenkel left
behind not a particular woman but womankind.
All this and much else Troell conveys through frequent
flashbacks.
Working from a screenplay by himself, George Oddner,
Ian Rakoff, and Klaus Rifbierg (and based on a novel by
Per Olof Sundman), Torell builds slowly as is his way, a
meditative style of filmmaking that is quite far removed
from American razzle-dazzle.
The film opens with an attempt the previous year that
had to be called off because of adverse winds. Next we see
Fraenkel, eager to replace the man who dropped out,
working to impress Andree with his strength during a
gymnasium scene Dlaved without dialogue.
Then Troell follows the trio to Paris where they watch
the construction of a new and bigger balloon (made
possible by a donation from Alfred Nobel), model for
their images at Madame Tussaud’s wax works and take in
the can-can, which particularly delights Fraenkel. All the
while the three are made much of by royalty and high
society at home and abroad.
But the prelude comes to an end one squally, rainy
morning in June in bleak Spitsbergen when the advent of
a favorable wind makes possible their takeoff, and so the
die is cast.
Beset by one mishap after another, they’re forced to
come down after three days on the frozen Arctic Ocean.
Though they know they’re doomed, such is their
morale and their regard for Andree that they begin a
hopeless trek, dragging their supply-laden sleds across the
frozen wastes even while the drifting ice beneath them
betrays their every effort.
They do reach land at last - an island that the mystic
Andree had glimpsed in a trance before the flight - but
when they get in their boat to cross the stretch of open
water, the only hope that spurs them to do it is that their
remains will one day be found. (This indeed happened, in
1930, along with Andree’s diaries and undeveloped film of
Strindberg, later processed to make the pictures that
Troell has incorporated.)
The incomparable Max Von Sydow gives a superb and
nuanced performance as the complex Andree, and
Stangertz and Qusdal are flawless in support.
The somber nature of the story and the deliberate pace
will rule out younger viewers and might put off some
older ones too, but otherwise this compelling and visually
enthralling Swedish picture deserves a wide and
appreciative audience. The U.S. Catholic Conference has
classified it A-II - adults and adolescents, and has
recommended it.
Watching The Radio: NPR Dramas
BY HENRY HERX
Those who grew up
before the Age of
Television, which replaced
the radio as the focal point
of home entertainment,
remember - usually with
some fondness - the old
radio dramas that
somehow still seem more
satisfying than a TV show
which has to come up with
literal images to replace
the scenes radio thought
could be much more richly
depicted in the listener’s
imagination.
During the last decade,
there has been something
of a radio drama
renaissance, led by
federally funded National
Public Radio. It receives a
tiny fraction of the monies
given to public television,
but then microphones cost
only a small fraction of
what cameras cost. The
point is that NPR has
made excellent use of its
funding, not least of which
has been its fostering of a
revival of the tradition of
radio drama.
At first NPR relied
heavily upon programs
from the BBC, which in
spite of television has
maintained an audience
for quality radio drama.
However, NPR’s primary
aim was to' develop
American writers for radio
and its weeknight
half-hour series has
succeeded far more times
than it has produced the
inevitable clunker.
Several years ago, NPR
aired a 24-part
serialization of Tolkien’s
“The Lord of the Rings,”
one of the best radio series
ever produced by the BBC.
That was soon matched by
the Lucasfilm production
of “Star Wars,” the
American high-water mark
of radio dramatic
achievement.
NPR listeners this year
heard Lucasfilm’s “The
Empire Strikes Back,” and
a nine-part dramatization
of the Catholic
science-fiction classic, “A
Canticle for Liebowitz,”
among others. Coming in
May is “Edith Wharton: A
Look of Remembrance,” a
three-part dramatization
of the author’s life starring
Colleen Dewhurst.
NPR has achieved
remarkable results in a few
years on a small budget
not only in drama but in
news with the splendid
“All Things Considered,”
homespun humor with the
genial “Prairie Home
Companion,” and its wide
variety of musical
offerings from opera to
folk music festivals.
If you are among those
searching for alternatives
to network television, give
your local NPR station a
trial. As with PBS, its
television counterpart, it
too is experiencing
financial difficulties and
needs all the help from the
public it can get.
(Herx is on the staff of the
U.S. Catholic Conference
Department of Communicat
ion.)
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Even those who know no
Latin can now learn to speak and write it with ease.
At least that’s the claim of promoters of a new
language course which uses a thoroughly modern
means to convey knowledge of the ancient language.
A course in four cassette tapes, produced jointly
by Vatican Radio and the Vatican Bookstore and
sponsored by the Latinitas Foundation, recently went
on sale at the Vatican.
Vatican Radio said April 18 that the course “can
be followed by those who know no Latin or by those
who studied it a long time ago and have forgotten it.”
“At the end of the course the student will be able
not only to understand Latin, but also to speak it and
write it,” Vatican Radio added.
The cassette tapes are accompanied by a
grammatical guide written by Abbot Carlo Egger,
president of the Latinitas Foundation, which was
founded seven years ago by Pope Paul VI to promote
the study of the Latin language.
(The tape course can be ordered by mail from the Liberia
Editrice Vaticana, 00120 Vatican City. Cost is 48,000 lire
(about $34.30) plus air mail postage of 10,000 lire (about
$7.15) or surface mail postage of 4,000 lire ($2.85).