Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An organ of student opinion at Victoria University, Wellington. Vol. 23. No. 7. Monday, August 8, 1960.

Local Club Makes Good

page 3

Local Club Makes Good

Wit hits programme of August 11, the Victoria University Film Society will complete its screening for the second term. During this time it has shown twelve programmes, consisting of a total of 50 shorts and two features—Julius Caesar and LOuisiana Story. It can therefore justly be said that the Society is an actively thriving body. The audience at each screening varies within a wide range, but has never dropped below 80 and is usually far more.

The films shown have varied widely in quality (Inevitably), but have never been dull—a tribute to fine programming. They have included such brilliant pieces of work as Bert Haanstra's Glass, Rembrandt, and The Rival World, Norman MeLaren's biting Love Thy Neighbour, and the superb Danish Where Mountains Float. One also remembers especially the moving U.N. Overture and the excitement of Rig 20.

At The Top

The highlights of the term's screenings have undoubtedly been the showings recently of the two features, If the Society had done no more than screen these. It would have still justified its formation.

Julius Caesar, described by Paul Dehn (a leading film writer and student of Shakespeare) as the best filmed Shakespeare yet, was enthusiastically received by the audience at the special screening, and so was repealed the next day, again showing to a large audience. With its fine performance from a star-studded cast and Joseph Manciewicz's reverent but exciting direction, the screening of this masterpiece by the society is something for which we can be very grateful,

Equally a classic is Robert Flaherty's great documentary Louisiana Story. The humanity of Flaherty's conception allied with the pointed and exuberant music by Virgil Thomson (some of the best he has ever done), impresses some not easily forgotten Images in one's mind.

The Third Term

For the V.U.F.S. then, the second term has been one of achievement. What makes it more so is the fact that the Society has never received its promised grant from the Students' Association. Entirely through the efforts of a few, the club has risen to a secure place in popularity among the student body. Without having any money for the hire of films, it is surprising that they have been able to do so much and keep up so high a standard.

For the third term, they have managed to secure the following films. Among the many shorts, Adventures of a Bluebottle (1st Prize for Best Scientific Film, Venice, 1955); The River, the great documentary by Pare Lorentz: The High Wall, a study in racial discrimination; studies of the German sculptor-poet Ernst Barlach, the American painter Franklin Watkins, and the Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen, Others include shorts about history, atomic warfare, music and opera, to mention a few.

So far only two features have been obtained, Film and Reality and Age of Dissent. These deal with film appreciation and the problems of contemporary youth, respectively. Both of them promise to be extraordinarily interesting.

Heroes Of The Empty View

In view of the activity and promise shown by the club, the attitude of the Students' Association (in, its persistent refusal to deliver the promised grant) seems to be more than just a little shortsighted. It is not widely known that all film societies are closely bound by regulations imposed by both the Government and the film distributors themselves. Prominent among these are the prohibitions upon admission of the public to, and also against charging for admission to, society screenings. Further, the V.U.F.S. itself feels that students, who pay high enough Association fees already, should not have to pay further for admission to student-run functions.

It is a sobering thought that the society should screen such diverse classics as Battleship Potemkin, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Marty, Alexander Nevsky, Richard III, and The Cranes Are Flying amongst a host of others, the moment they were granted the necessary money for the rental fees; this being equivalent to the Student Association fees paid by twenty students!

—A.E.