FILM

Rip It Up, Issue 47, 1 June 1981, Page 10

FILM

William Dart

Coalminer's Daughter Director: Michael Apted Coalminer's Daughter could be" considered as a populist companion piece to Altman's Nashville. In this biopic of country queen Loretta Lynn, ■ there is nothing, however," of the laconic, observation , of Robert Altman. However restrained Apted's direction may be, and however finelyobserved Spacek's performance, there is still a good deal of that camp sensibility that is (unconsciously) such a part of the country-and-western music scene. Beverly D'Angelo's splendid performance as Patsy Cline"; is : the " highlight of the film. With a wardrobe ranging from gold lame and glitter to voluminous head bandages and panda-like black eyes) she shows the audience how flamboyance and emotion are not necessarily irreconcilable. Fritz the Cat Director: Ralph Bakshi Bakshi's ribald cartoon classic of ] the seventies has finally made it- through the censor's office. As a whole, it is only marginally more successful than his later work which, alas, from Wizards through to American Pop has shown an alarming decline in inspiration. The mood of Fritz is resolutely post-Woodstock: the radical chic doctrine of Liberty, Equal-

ity and Fraternity with group sex in bathtubs and some rather laboured lampooning of the police. The actual characters of the film are taken from those classic porno comix by Robert Crumb, and one wishes that someone would have the courage to make a really gutsy film with content more in keeping with the Crumb originals. Flash Gordon Director: Michael Hodges And they still keep trying to revamp old kitsch ... King Kong, Superman, The Jazz Singer and now Flash Gordonl When will they learn, Virginia? Apart from a lavish spread of rather nudging kinkinesses (my favourite was Brian Blessed's duel with Timothy Dalton) Flash is a rather flat affair. Special effects were nothing to write home about, Queen's music score was a source of constant aural agony and the pacing was tiresomely slow at times. Lester's Superman II is really much flashier. Breaker Morant Director: Bruce Beresford This craftsmanly film by Beresford is another feather in the cap of the burgeoning Australian film industry, particularly in view of its success in Britain and America (we won't ask why it got to Auckland eight months after its British premiere). And yet the whole affair falls too much into the genre of stiff-upper-lip and pawns-in-the-game-of-war for comfort. The scene of Edward Woodward and Bryan Brown walking hand-in-hand to their execution is moving, but whilst one is being moved one also feels a sense of being manipulated. What I would like to know is, are we ever going to see Beresford's previous film The Getting of Wisdom?