Previews

The Fate of Arts Council

O Lucky Man Thursday 29th

Director : Lindsay Anderson.

Malcolm McDowell is Mick Travis, a coffee salesman who is sent on an assignment which leads to one adventure, then an other, and another and so on.

It is very like Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, not in theme or story but in just about every other way. This film is better than Kubrick s film and is better than Anderson's previous film. If, which also starred McDowell.

The film is absolutely packed with incredibly lively incidents, interspersed with Alan Price and his band playing the theme tune. The audience is continuously shocked by the amazing encounters that Travis experiences. It is three hours long but it seems to be over far too soon.

O Lucky Man is a brilliant satire on British capitalism and Imperialism, and is as entertaining as any film I have ever seen.

The Bad News : the Arts Festival deficit stands, by the latest count, at $18,000. There are many reasons why this figure is so large, paramount among them being the absence of over 1,000 students and the lack of advertising revenue. The New Zealand Students Arts Council (Inc) cannot be held solely responsible.

The Good News : Arts Festival was the first attempt in five years (outside Sports Tourneys) to bring students in large numbers from throughout the country together. It was also one of the most concerted attempts to relate the universities and the community. On the levels of cultural and social interchange it undoubtedly succeeded.

VUWSA has a motion on its books to withdraw from Arts Council in March 1978. Most other tertiary institutions have similar motions. Lincoln has already withdrawn. Cultural activity gives people an identity. The question is, can we afford to insulate ourselves even further, to ignore our potential as a national student body?

If NZSAC disbands there will never be another Arts Festival. A motion to rescind the withdrawal motion comes before the SGM this Wednesday, 12 noon in the Union Hall.