BY FRANK LOVECE

DURAN

DURANS

S'NG

BLUE

S'IVER

Directed

by Michael

Collins.

Concert

portions

directed

Russel

Mulcahy.

Thorn

EMI

cassette. Beta

Hi-Fi,

VHS Hi-Fi.

85

min.

$29.95

ord associations:

Dog?

Cat. Pencil?

Pen.

Duran

Duran?

MTV.

No

other

group

is

so closely

iden-

tified with rock

video

as is Duran

Duran,

and no

other is

so

well

represented

on

tape

and

disc-the

group

stars

in

at least four

titles and

shows

up in

two

or three more.

Small

wonder

critics

tend to accuse

the

synthfop

quintet

of being

a super-

ficial

"video

band." So what

does

the

group

do to help

dispel

this image? lt

releases

a video

documentary-

guasi-documentary,

actual ly.

Thanks

to the

quasi

part,

this may

not

be

a

bad idea. Presidents

and

ter-

rorists

use

television

to change

their

image,

and

Duran

Duran

here

seems

to have

taken lessons

from

Rap-

master Ronnie

himself. ln-between

verite

looks

at

the band's

eatly:84

tour, and

some

quite

cinematic

con-

cert sequences,

the

group

gets

to

plead

its

case with

world-weary

sincerity. lnsists

lead

singer Simon

LeBon, "We're

not

the

kind

of band

created

by a

management

company."

Perhaps

not,

but as

director Blood-

hound

showed

us, Duran

Duran

doesn't

seem

the kind

of

band

created

by a love

of music,

either.

Whether

getting

snapped

by

Scavullo

or taped for ltalian

TV,

whether

screening

call-in

questions

that don't

help

the

image,

or

kissing

cheek with

tour-sponsor

Coke, Duran

Duran

seems

every

bit

the

product

critics

say it is. lronically,

but not

too sur-

prisingly,

shows

the

band

members

now

getting

more

than

a

60 FACES

little annoyed at

getting

little

more

than they

bargained

for.

Part

of the reason

is that Collins, a

rock-video

newcomer,

has

eye for

detail. His

documentary

por-

tions, done with widescreen

masking,

capture

both

the silliness

of

Duran-

mania

and

the

grimness

of crowd-

crushed kids

getting

carted

away on

stretchers, with

lots

of those local

cops

someone

must

rent

to stand

around

and look

disgusted.

Mulcahy's

concert footage, filmed

in

squarish TV

compositions,

neither

adds

to

nor

subtracts from

this

busi-

nesslike image.

The

band

moves

sur-

prisingly

well

on

stage,

and its songs

are

all hooky

and

hummable. Judging

from

the soundtrack,

though, the

audio

seems

to have

been sweetened

considerably

after

the

fact.

This'd

be misleading if Sing Blue

Silver

were

a real

documentary,

of

course, but from

what

Collins

shows

us, it's

also

predictable.

Duran Duran

is

a

video

band,

he

seems to be say-

ing,

and video

allows re-takes.

EIY'S

'68

COMEBACK

SPEC'AI.

Directed

by Steve

Binder.

Media

casseffe. Beta

Hi-Fi

mono, vHS Hi-

Fi

mono. 76

min.

$29.95.

RCA

CED-

format

disc. Mono.

76

min. No sug-

gested

retail.

 

lvis Presley

was

a

corny

old

fart

l- when I was

growing

up.

The

greaser

hair,

thoie stuplO movies-

molasses

through the

sixties, which

was

hardly

the time

for

it. Come Dec.

3,

1968,

and his first

big

TV

appearance in

years,

my bud-

dies and

I

sneered

(like

Elvis,

we

found

out

later)

at

the

mere

of

watching.

We

shouldn't

have. Everything

'around

him

here may have

been only

fair-to-middlin',

but

Presley

himself

was

greaf.

Story

of

his life,

I

suppose.

Yet

even

after

finally

seeing

this

"comdback"

special

(available

only

on

videodisc

and

quasi-legal

cas-

settes until now),

I'm

still

not

ready

to

pray

at St. Elvis'

grave.

After

hav-

ing

long

ago

given

him

only the

his-

torical reverence

and

occasional

foot-tapping

that a rock'n'roll

pioneer

deserves, seeing

him here-perform-

ing

at length

and in color and not in

ancient

black-and-white snippets-

has, however,

made me realize

in my

gut

just

exactly what Elvis Presley

was responsible

for.

Obviously,

you

can read

anywhere

about

his

taking r&b and

gospel

and

other black

musical

idioms,

and

delivering

them

in

a way

true

to

its

roots and

yet

palatable

to

white

teens.

And

you

can listen

to the

countless

reissues

of his

old stuff,

the

mid-fifties

rock

that must've

seemed

at

the time like Sex Pistols

you

could

hum

to.

Yet

to

appreciate

the

phoenix

in

all his colors,

this

TV

special

may

be

requisite.

Not

the

trappings of the special

itself,

now. Despite

producer-director

Binder's

reasonably

sure handling

of

Elvis-the-approachable-legend,'purt

near everything

else in

the show is

vomitous.

The

dancing

girls,

meant

to

be

sexy, are merely

comical

"Star

Trek"

aliens.

The

wholly

inappro-

priate

orchestra

tends to sneak

behind Presley

and

then strangle him

with strings. Worst

of all

is

toward

the end, an interminable

musical-

production

number

that takes the

worst

of

"Shindig"

and

Las Vegas

and spits it

out

in

one

hairy

ball.

All

this

working

against

him makes

Presley's

triumph

so

much

the

sweeter. His

hits he

tosses

off

sincerely

but succinctly,

under-

standing

the compression

of televi-

sion and

so not launching

into long

instrumental

breaks and repetitious

choruses. And

during

the older,

lesser-known

rock and

gospel

songs,

he

truly

wakes

up

from

his

years-

long,

self-imposed

stupor.

The

show's

best

moments

are

when Presley

and some

of

his

original band

members

sit

on a

VHS Hi-Fi VCR

courtesy GE

 

small,

square

stage

surrounded

by a

manageable

audience

of,

I

presume,

network-executives'

kids.

Here,

as

no-

where

else

on the

show,

he's

self-

effacing

and funny,

telling

stories,

poking

fun

at

his image,

joshing

with

his warhorse

compatriots,

not

even

taking his

own hits

seriously.

("Love

Me

Tender"

starts

out

with

a

giggle,

followed,

perhaps

prophetically,

by

the

sweetly

sung "You

have/made

my/life

a/wreck-ah

mean

comple-

ete. .. .")

Later,

he

turns a

nervous

stutter into a risque

joke.

Elvis

Presley's

best

possible

audience,

it seems, was

one

of

a

few

intimate

millions.

DAV,D

BOWTES

JAZZIN,

FOR BLUE

JEAN

Directed

by Julien Temple.

Sony

cassefte.

Beta Hi-Fi,

VHS

Hi-Fi.

20

min.

$19.95

THE KINKS:

RETURN

fo

wATERroo

Directed

by Ray

Davies.

RCA|

Columbia

casseffe. Beta

Hi-Fi,

VHS

Hi-Fi.

60

mins. approx. Release

date

unscheduled

at

press

time.

Fl

emember movie musicals?

Fred

ltl'n'Ginger, Bing

'n'

Bob,

maybe

even Dick

'n'

Ruby?

Did

you

think

they

were

merely

quaint

relics

of a

bygone

era?

Think

again.

Just

as

rock videos

are simply 1930s

music

shorts

updated,

now

the movie

musical is back-only

thanks

to that

source-of-all-things, A Hard Day's

Night,

and such recent

post-"Thriller"

developments

as these works

by

David Bowie

and

Ray Davies,

the

movie musical has undergone

a.few changes.

While

Give

My Regards

to Broad

Sfreef is

a more obvious

descendant

of the old school(s) than, say, Pink

Floyd's

The

Wall,

the hallmarks

of

the old

are

being reshaped-though

not redefined-by

the

new. Among

the older traits

is

the

primary

dictum

that the story serves

to

prop

up

the

songs.

Another

is

that the

chalacters

be archetypes,

and

yet

another

that

an aura

of

fantasy

(though

not

necessarily whimsy, i.e., West

Side

Story)

pervade.

Blue

Jean and Waterloo

simul-

taneously adhere

to

and update

these expectations. Bowie's

effort

is

a conventional

boy-meets-girl, boy-

loses-girl

tale

with

a sweetly

cynical

twist

and some hilarious

self-tweek-

ing. Davies'

is

a

serious-minded

alle-

gory

where

songs

punctuate

rather

than

propel.

Strangely,

it

is

the un-

conventional

Bowie's quite

conven-

tional

piece

that

works

out

the

better.

ln it, Bowie

plays

the

dual

roles

of

a Ziggy Stardust/Screaming

Lord

Sutch-type

glam

rocker

called

Screamin' Lord

Byron,

and

of a

Woody Allen-ish

billboard

paster

named Vic.

ln

the

course

of

trying

to

impress

upon

a royal

blonde

bitch

that he's

close

buddies

with

Screamin' Lord

B, Vic

humiliates

and

embarrasses

himself

to half-comic/

half-pathetic

effect.

It's hard to

feel

sorry,

though,

for

a

boob

like

Vic,

who

did weave himself

into the

whole

mess. lt's

also doubt-

ful

Bowie

(along

with

co-scripters

Terry Johnson and Julien Temple)

really

wants us

to.

While

Bowie

may

be reflecting on

what

life might have

been

like had he not

become a rock

star,

he's

not

delving

any

deeper.

This

thin

slice

of baloney is

just

filling around

Bowie/Byron's

nicely

visual

performance

of

"Blue

Jean"

and

the

characters, while realistic,

are still

archetypes:

The

girl (Louise

Scott)

is

even

listed

in

the credits

simply

as

"The

Dream."

Davies'vision,

on

the other

hand,

is serious, serious

fare;

heavy,

as we

used

to

say.

The

plot,

such as

it is,

concerns

a

middle-aged

middle-

manager on

his ritual morning

train

ride.

Archetypical ly, writer-director

Davies

calls him

"The

Traveler."

Fan-

tasy

and

reality intermingle:

Punks

and accountants

get

on

and

off,

Monty

Pythonesque

old

ladies

read

tabloid

accounts

of a rapist

The

Traveler

resembles,

and

The Traveler

himself

tries

to see his

runaway

daughter

in

every

young

blonde.

Davies

presents

us

with

themes

at

once significant

and

overly familiar:

the loss

of innocence,

conforming

to

authority,

mindless

competition,

day-

to-day

drudgery.

This

is

deliciously

ambitious,

more

akin

to tragic

opera

than

to movie

musicals.

And

the

film's four

songs

are

excellent,

sum-

ming

up

points

far

more

coher-

ently

than

does

the rest

of this work.

H is

stream-of-consciousness

narr a-

tive

starts

out

with

immense

prom-

ise,

though, as Davies

draws

a

deft il-

lustration

of

rabbit-frightened

middle-

class

nightmares. Yet

he soon

loses

his

grip

on the narrative's

multiple

times, locales

and

characters,

and

his

platitudes

start wearing

thin

once

you

see

that

neither

his

plot

nor

his

people

are

going

anywhere. That

may

be

the

point,

but

a storyteller

should

be

able

to create

a boring

or inflam-

matory

character

without having

to

bore

or

inflame

his audience.

This is

strange. Davies is neither

stupid

nor naive,

and he's

long

proven

himself

both a master

story-

teller and

a

pop

craftsman able

to

give

mass

audiences what

they want

and elevate

them at

the same

time.

I

suspect,

then,

judging

from

both

the

punk-rock

chick who slides

into

a

limo,

and the

wispy

blondes

that

overrun this effort,

that all is

not as it

appears. Davies

seems to be working

out both his first

marriage and

his

relationship

with Chrissie Hynde

in

a

f ree-association

tour through

his

brain.

Pop

art-art

intended

for

the

masses-should

be,

however,

acces-

sible. Art intended

only as

personal

vision

can be, but

cannot be limited

in

order to be. When a

popular

artist

puts

a film such

as this on a mass-

market

videocassette

and

on

TV,

this

informs

us

that

it is meant for mass

consumption. So what

else can it

be

but frustrating when

Waterloo

hides

its real

purpose-a

workout

for

Davies' id1

ego and superego-

behind a

camouflage more

artsy

than artful?

Music

video

is

still

pubescent,

though,

and

these two

works-

Bowie's

trying

to make us laugh,

Davies'trying

to make us

think-are

done with

such sincerity

and

commit-

ment

that even

Davies

isn't any more

misguided

than Columbus, who

never

did

find

China.

#

FACES

61