Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 23, 1984, edition 1 / Page 5
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'Colorful' eharaeterization key to 'La Balance' success La Balance is a gritty, well-made lit tle thriller about the French under world. The title literally means The Balance, a slang reference to police in formers. The word is used disparag ingly here since an informer upsets the policecriminal balance to the police's advantage. The film has done surprisingly well in France, both at the box office and with the critics. It received three Cesar Awards equivalent to the Oscars for best picture, best actor and best actress. Only E.T. The Extra Terrestrial has grossed more in France than La Balance. Director Bob Swaim, an American anthropology student who went to work on his doctoral degree at the Sorbonne, became interested in films and worked on a number of projects before La Balance. This film, however, is garnering him critical and popular success. Swaim's education in anthropology shows in his depiction of double deal ings and violence. The characters are often intentionally reduced to animals who fight, scratch and bite in order to preserve themselves. Swaim spent six months with the Territorial Brigade, a special branch of the police force designed to combat crime in Paris. Interestingly enough, however, the audience's sympathies lie with Nicole, a prostitute played by Nathalie Baye, and Dede, an ex-convict played by Phillippe Leotard. The two are vic timized by the police until they become informers so that Roger Massina, a crime kingpin, can be net-, ted. Plotwise, most of the film explores the colorful characters in the Brigade. They plaster their office with Clint Steve Carr Review Eastwood movie posters. One of them listens to a Walkman. Almost all of them have a college education something much harder to get in France than in America. They elicit a curious feeling from the audience. While they are endear ing and attractive, they are also coldly humorous and excessively violent. They taunt Nicole and her boyfriend, probably violating 27 different civil rights. The most humane characters, then, are Nicole and Dede, whose mutual love is surprisingly well-handled. Dede is merely a pimp because according to French Law, any man who regularly sleeps with a prostitute without paying money is a pimp. Swaim handles his action scenes quite well, although they are not quite as electrifying as those in John MacKenzie's The Long Good Friday or William Friedkin's The French Connection. But where the editing is lacking, the characterizations and the overall intensity make up for it. There is, however, one truly remarkable scene where the police set up an accident in order to net two criminals. The plan fails when a traffic jam develops and a cat-and-mouse game begins among the cars. La Balance is primarily a character study, and a very good one at that. The tension is built because the au dience cares more about what happens to the characters than about whether the operation will be a success. Fair helps education majors By RUTHIE PIPKIN Staff Writer Some students chatted informally with education recruiters, while those between interviews met to exchange surprises and experiences such as "I had a really good talk with..." or "two different school systems have all but promised Anne a job!" Education students and alumni from schools across the state were able to meet with recruiters from 48 school systems at the Education Job Fair in Fetzer Gym Thursday. Kathryn Sack, placement counselor for UNC'sAvfducatioa .department, .said .the fair originated last .year as', a consortium i formed among several 'state universities to help education students locate jobs. "In one shot students can contact more school systems than they would ever have the energy to do," Sack said. School systems were represented from as far north as Baltimore and south as Miami, she said. In coming to the fair, Sack, said "students were expecting to make contact with many different school systems in a slightly more than superficial way and to become more than a face in the crowd." Of the estimated 400 students who par ticipated in the fair, about 80 percent were from UNC and 20 percent from other schools, Sack said. UNC senior education major Donna Jackson said she came to the fair to get more information about different schools and to help decide whether to go to graduate school next year. "You can tell a lot by the recruiter about how well you'd fit in with the philosophy of education in an school system," Jackson said. Sack said students need to realize the jobs offered may not necessarily be where the student wants to go. "Everyone wants to stay in the area where (he) went to college. We can't do that; we're getting into a glutted system," Sack said. "It's like when you're little and you move with your folks; you think no place will be as wonderful as where you've been,", she said. 'Not many people are adventurous at pulling up roots." ,:..t . Although r there have always been teaching jobs for those who were good and in the right place at the right time, Sack said the pendulum is beginning to swing the market back into a better position. the Union Film Committee presents 11 mm 1 ftm GrnisT) & Ef Kites $ 3 OS Musicals of the 30's "Gold Diggers of 1933" Saturday, March 24 ! & 9:30 "San Francisco" Saturday, March 31 - 7 & 9:30 "Shall We Dance" Wednesday, April 4 - 7 & 9 "Pennies from Heaven Sunday, April 18, 7 & 9:30 Admission Free Donnu Real Pit J ie rri r ' at Elliott Road 933-9248 i V3--Dine In Take OutR An Evening "With ' ' CHUCK MANGIONE And The Chuck Mangione Quartet ParK Creek The. Apartment People, Avoid the lottery blues. ( Apply now! All apartments on the bus line to U.N.C. Call today for full Informa tion. 967-2231 or 967-2234. Saturday, March 24 Memorial Hall 8:00 pm All seats reserved $9.00 Tickets on sale Union Box Office, Monday, February 27 Gressman art show as an environment By ARLAINE ROCKEY Staff Writer Nan Gressman captures the feel of New York City. She is interested in city life everything from graffitti and street people to window displays at Bloomingdale's. "New York Scene," a collection of colorful, abstract acrylic paintings and mixed-media pieces by the Chapel Hill artist, is on display through March 29 in the Morehead Building. The show's opening featured a performance by Dan sync of the ArtSchool. Dansync, a performing arts ensemble, evolved from the Community Dance Theatre; its focus changed in 1980 with Gressman's help. Now Dansync involves both dance and artwork. At the opening, the Dansync performers danced to street sounds which Gressman recorded in New York Ci ty. This tape included noises from a restaurant, a parade and the subway. "The dancers were responding to the art this time," Gressman said. "Sometimes it's the other way around. For example, they became the rush hour .... They were just running down the street like you see in New York. You can hardly walk on the sidewalks sometimes. Then they went up in an elevator, all jamm ed together, reaching over each other to push the but tons." Gressman began her formal education in art at the Chicago Art Institute. "At the same time I was very in terested in music," Gressman said, "and I had problems trying to decide which one I really wanted to concentrate on. So I sort of kept them both going, but it was Depres sion time, and everyone was advising me to go into something more practical, like education, which I did." After receiving a degree in education from the Univer sity of Michigan, Gressman taught in Washington, D.C. She currently teaches at the ArtSchool in Carrboro. Gressman's work has changed considerably through the years, evolving from traditional oil paintings into Friday, March 23, 1984The Daily Tar Heel5 ? 11 1 v V s J? I I i rri J : z z -1 t I wX N . . . . . DTHLarry Childress Nan Gressman, a local Chapel Hill artist, is presenting featured in the ArtSchool. ... Her work 'New York Scenes' is a collection of multi-media images showing interest in life. abstract acrylic and mixed-media pieces. "I did figurative work in oil for quite a while, and I did land scapes," Gressman said. "Then I studied with the Washington Color School Tom Downing and Leon Berkowitz. I started painting in acrylics. I haven't stop ped yet," she sid. "The whole show ('New York Scene') is supposed to be an environment," Gressman said. Many of the show's acrylics are painted on round can vases. Some contain grafitti, abstract lines, shapes, and colors working with various dimensions. Others portray street people breaking through the abstract backgrounds "breaking out of the grid," Gressman said. Gressman includes two mixed-media mannequin pieces, titled Smart Rags and Art Rags. Smart Rags, a comment on last-year's rag-fashion fad, was prominent ly displayed in Bloomingdale's department store. Art Rags is a portrait of a typical starving New York artist who wears rag clothing out of necessity, not choice. Down and Out is one example of a street urchin in a brown overcoat and hat. "I was trying to express the dif ference between his rigid, confining grid," Gressman said, "and the people who are at least trying to exist in some degree of acceptable lifestyle." JLn 1886 following a shipwreck off the west coast of Africa, an, infant child became part of a family of apes who raised and protected him. if! As he grew, he learned the laws of the jungle and eventually claimed the title. Lord of the Apes. Yet, years later, when he was returned to civilization, he would remain uncertain as to which laws he should obey. . . those of man. . . or those of the jungle. Now, the director of "Chariots of Fire" captures this epic adventure of a man caught between two different worlds. 1 N mi I : s - -v t 4 v - W4 S 1 Hi? ;v V .fc;. :-. ; -y.: '.'V ' k 4ti mm .11 i t :::: THE LEGEND OF LORD OF THE APES A HUGH HUDSON FILM Starring RALPH RICHARDSON IAN HOLM -JAMES FOX and introducing CHRISTOPHER LAMBERT -.,? m,TrtrT i H-.Kv ihhn YYIT PrivlnrrH hv HUGH HUDSON and STANLEY S. CANTER Screenplay by P. H. VAZAK and MICHAEL AUSTIN Based on the story "TARZAN OF THE APES" by EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS v . . w i . ii v . i ..i... ..l i niv (pnu umnbi MM i IPG pxmasxdS7K)CI! ajMTZff Directed by HUGH HUDSON teOTTWU. MT MOT m UMXtMJl KM CKUW I'AKAN ludrinjik IARAN tmiird l l-l)at Kmc Kuiiiii(hs. Iim . jikI ufii l KjiiH-r Bn. Iih In H-riiiissnm FROM WMMER BROS , A WARNER COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY I KHMWHIKUWIIMIimO At theaters everywhere Friday, March 30. m Ai ir" A Ai Ai A itfi i in trn "
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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March 23, 1984, edition 1
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