A" -rf Hackerman shrugs off low ratings of grad programs - Rice ...

Thresher/Fine Arts
Shange finds teaching refreshing and enlightening
Ntozake Shange is best known
for her Obie-winning For colored
girls who have considered suicide
when the rainbow is enuf, but she
has also written volumes of poetry
and has just completed a novel.
However, these varied literary
accomplishments are not the only
things that she considers
important, and these other aspects
of her character are what have
brought her to Rice.
Shange is teaching two courses
at Rice this semester, an English
course on Afro-American
literature and a history
department course on the
Reconstruction and its effects
throughout the entire country, not
just the South. The English course
is nominally a survey of Afro-
American wried them with her
personal favorites. Shange hopes
that this combination of the most
famous with the well-written but
not-so-well-known will give her
students a more representative
view of black literature in this
country.
Just as her survey lit course is
more than a survey, so to her
history course is not simply a
historical recounting of what and
Cinema
who came when, but is an attempt
to discover the reasons why certain
people have became hallmarks of
black thought. "It's not a question
that I know the answer to," Shange
admits, Til be looking for the
a nswer j ust as m uch as my students
will. This course is a seminar in the
true sense of the word, an attempt
to find answers through the
academic processes of discussion
and interchange of ideas. We may
even find by the end of the course
that the answer is very simple."
This aspect of Shange's course
is, in a broader sense, the reason
that she came to Rice. Having been
trained to teach in college, she
found that she missed it when she
immersed herself in theatrical
work for seven years. "I wanted to
teach, 1 always have. Theatre after
seven years had become arid to me.
I was losing touch with my
motivations as an artist. The
subject of my writing is contact
with people. I get that from
teaching."
Although Shange's Mellon
appointment at Rice is presently
only for one semester, she would
like to continue teaching here. If
she is not offered a more
permanent position here, she will
still remain in the Houston area,
which she now considers her home.
Shange feels that her move from
New York was painless, both
because she needed a break from
its frenetic theatre world and
because Houston offered her the
chance to teach and to be near her
family. (Shange's sister, Bisa
Williams-Manigault teaches
English, Spanish, and Portuguese
at Rice).
Although Shange sees teaching
as her major activity for "as long as
possible," she doei plan to
continue to do some professional
theatrical productions, "so long as
they don't interfere with my
writing. I'm at the point where I do
whatever I can for my writing, and
if that means doing just one show
every two years in New York or
Los Angeles, then I'll do that."
After just finishing a novel,
Shange doesn't have plans for her
next work yet, but says she will
"write whatever presents itself to
me. ... I started writing because
there were things that I couldn't find
that I wanted to read and later to
hear. Later, I started to write
theatre because there were
Ntozake Shange in her new niche
characters that I wanted to know
that I couldn't find. I put my
characters into works to let the
world love and cherish them, as /
love and cherish them."
Hopefully Shange's tenure at
Rice will continue past this term.
Otherwise, too few of us will have
had the opportunity to catch the
vitality that has characterized her
work and that she now shares with
the students.
— Deborah L. Knaff
Attenborough captures grandeur of Gandhi's struggle
Gandhi is a magnificent film.
Breathtaking in its scope, it
undertakes the story of the man
responsible for winning India's
independence from Britain. It
reflects 20 years on the part of
Richard Attenborough to produce
the film. The mass of people on the
screen, the film's great length (over
3 hours with an intermission), the
beautiful cinematography, and the
intense characterization of Gandhi
by Ben Kingsley combine to
overwhelm the viewer.
Beginning with Gandhi's
expulsion from the first class
section of a train in South Africa,
the film alternates between
intimate and epic scenes. As it is
impossible to capture all of the
incidents and people who were
pivotal in the development of
Gandhi's life, the film begins with a
disclaimer explaining that the film
is only an attempt to capture the
spirit/ of Gandhi's life. This it does
to a remarkable degree.
Inevitably, the focus of Gandhi
is on one aspect f his life — that of
Gandhi the saint. In fact, only one
scene alludes to the hardships
experienced by those closest to
him. This scene, an altercation
between Gandhi and his wife about
her status in the ashram, is
effective in illustrating the strain of
living with a saint. However, this
obviously realistic theme is
expunged from the rest of the film.
In real life, Gandhi's strict
adherence to his ideals and
standards created extreme
problems for his family. These
standards deeply affected his wife,
who bitterly resented the vow of
chastity he took. Although he
remained married, it provided a
continual source of strain.
Gandhi's attempt to mold his sons
after his ideals had disastrous
effects upon his eldest son who
rebelled with drunkenness and
debauchery.
It is important to remember the
power of film. When people see
something portrayed on the
screen, it is very easy to believe that
it is the truth, without explaining it
critically. Ghandi was not only a
saint but was also a man whose
unrealistic expectations sometimes
led to unfortunate consequences.
Thus, it is a serious fault in the film
that the director's bias has created
an unrealistic biography.
A major reason to see Gandhi is
Ben Kingsley's portrayal.
Kingsley, a member of the Royal
Shakespeare Company in London,
is a dramatic stage actor, not a film
actor. This strength become^
apparent over and over again as
Kingsley takes the character from
the young Mohandas K. Gandhi to
the Mahatma (Great Soul).
Kingsley's being part Indian
himself adds a realistic touch that
affords the viewer a chance to
believe in this incarnation of
Gandhi.
Small touches distinguish
Kingsley as an actor grounded in
the theatre. The sinuous posture
Kingsley assumes when he sits on
the floor, the trembling of his
mouth at the death of Gandhi's
wife, and the protective arm
grasping his robe to his body all
contribute to a richly detailed
perception of Gandhi as both man
and saint. Kingsley's performance
certainly deserves an Academy
Award nomination.
The length of the film is
necessary to weave a story this
vast, but Attenborough also uses it
as a stylistic device to underscore
the Herculean task of Gandhi and
the immensity of India itself. The
visual grandeur of terribly
crowded cities and rural expanses
highlights the difficulty of
Gandhi's task, to lead his
countrymen against British rule
using only nonviolent means.
After Gandhi effected a
relatively peaceful transition of
power from British to Indian
hands, his troubles began again.
The conflict between the Hindus
and Muslims of India's provinces
provides some of the most exciting
and riveting moments in the film.
These scenes in the film
reverberate with the intensity that
only religious fervor can provoke.
Attenborough balances this action
against the quieter, even austere,
scenes of Gandhi's fasting and the
solemn splendor of Gandhi's
funeral where hundreds of
thousands of people lined the
streets as his cortege passed.
Gandhi professed that we are ail
children of God, but instead of
using this philosophy to relegate
responsibility into the hands of
Fate, he demanded that each man
be accountable for his own life.
Placing the burden of correct
conduct back upon the person
instead of on an outside entity
effectively negates the choice of
abdicating responsibilty. This
philosophy of Gandhi's made him
demand peace and equality for all
the peoples of the world, for all the
children of God. Perhaps Gandhi
will help to remind us that such a
goal is still viable and necessary
amid the myriad injustices
perpetrated today.
— Geoffrey Westergaard
Film describes danger of nostalgia
Robert Altman's newest film,
Come Back to the 5 & Dime,
Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, gives
the movie-goer exactly what he has
come to expect from an Altman
film: something definitely out of the
ordinary. Adapted from the stage
production, which won mixed if
generally favorable reviews,
Jimmy Dean brings a freshness
and originality to the screen that
has rarely occurred since
another Altman film.
The film's setting is that of a
small Texas town with one general
store and an annual rainfall
comparable to Rice's winning
percentage. The plot focuses upon
a twentieth reunion of the
Disciples of James Dean, who
congregate in their old hangout,
the town's one Woolworth's.
Twenty years before, Dean made
Giant in Marfa, Texas, a scant 80
miles from this town, and two of
the club members, Mona (Sandy
Dennis) and Joe (Mark Patton)
made the trip (along with half of
the town) to try to get in the film as
extras.
Moreover, the trip lead
to a chance encounter with Dean
himself one night, and out of their
passion came Jimmy Dean, the
love-child of the great one himself.
The Woolworth's store is now a
shrine to Dean, and both Mona
and Sissy (Cher), another member
of the club, still work there twenty
years later. However, the arrival of
a strange woman (Karen Black) in
a Porsche casts a shadow over the
proceedings as she reveals to those
gathered the true events of twenty
years before. The characters, you
see, live their lives based upon false
conceptions of the past to
legitimize the present.
However, things are not what
they appear to be in this film, and
neither is this mysterious stranger
recounting the past with such
stinging accuracy, as the girls
discover to their astonishment.
The "stranger" is Joe, who has
since undergone a sex-change and
is now Joanne. Joanne, as the
Vivat
James
audience learns via flashbacks,
never really fit in as a man and was *
considered by the towaspeople as
see Jimmy Dean, page II
The Rice Thresher, February 4, 1983, page V