The brief but narcotic wait has ended - the cinematic Pied Piper has hit town at last. Its lure is universal, as the throngs of grinning representatives of all ethnicities and ages milling through the southwest corner of Briarwood Center will attest. The name of this month-old legend is "Star Wars," and although barely into national circulation, the film has burgeoned into the epic American phenomenon (Farrah who?).
Its formula is simple and irresistible: For two mystic hours, all us collective Walter Mittys can be lasered out of our underachieved realities into the farthest, deepest corners of the cosmos where sorcery reigns, shades of gray cease to exist and Idi Amin would surely get his. But Pied Pipers usually turn out to be quirky types at best, sometimes plunging their disciples into abysses terrifying to contemplate, despite the very best of intentions.
I'm afraid of "Star Wars."
Is domestic film an art or a business? In sixty years of cinema the question has never been effectively resolved, and if this struggle is ever to be resolved on the side of art, the qualities of innovation, maturity and above all courage are needed now more than ever before. Imitation has become virtually the name of the game of late, as economic strictures wither the gambler's instinct and seduce the Hollywood money-man into milking a proven winner again and again and again.
I fear for the future of film in this country, and it would be starkly ironic if "Star Wars," one of the most glorious achievements in American cinema, should turn out to be the necessary stake for the celluloid philistines to drive through the heart of originality for years to come.
If I knock "Star Wars," even indirectly, I feel like I'm knocking Christmas: I think that in its purest terms it is probably the most entertaining film ever made, one which will be eagerly awaited annually by future generations of kids huddled around their 4-D projection screens as the once-a-year "Wizard of Oz" is today.
"Star Wars"' advance publicity placed so much emphasis on being an un-intellectualized space opera of the Buck Rogers ilk that I fearfully anticipated the eventual emergence of a Wagnerianly pompous, cliche-ridden antique, or even worse, an exercise in high-budget intergalatic camp. (Remember "Flash Gordon?")
Such fears proved blessedly inaccurate. By director-writer George Lucas' own definition, "Star Wars" isn't sci-fi, it's pure fairy tale, a multi-media realization of childhood fantasies, maintained and cherished in a world too often consigned to the brutes, the technocrats and the gray flannel suit. To spin his magic Lucas shamelessly and lovingly dips into the cowboy and world war ace flying genres, and pays reverent tribute to his logical predecessors from Oz, in any number of ways. And it all wonderously works.
It's hardly necessary to re-summarize a plot which has become immortal in a matter of weeks: Forces of evil have gained sway over much of a "far away galaxy." Pitted against the heavies are a motley but saintly collection of space archetypes including an idealistic teenager, a cynical daredevil space jockey and his 8-foot "Wookie" (read Cowardly Lion) partner, old, almost forgotten "life force" ultimately provides the key to destruction of the bad guys. Best and brightest, of course, are the robots 3PO and R2-D2, and Mutt and Jeff combo that seems destined to squeak and waddle into the ranks of the most mythical of comic offbeats.
"Star Wars"' technical virtuosity is sizzling and breathless - at least as good as anything Stanley Kubrick managed in "2001: A Space Odyssey." But where Kubrick often seemed content to simply sit back and glory in technology for its own sake, Lucas had shaped and orchestrated his effects into a whirling dervish of a movie, driving with a white-heat intensity that never lets up, pulsating rhythmically like the fantastic ships which soar through Lucas' and our universe.
In structure and pace, "Star Wars" is the closest thing to a perfect film I've ever seen, yet it never loses its unpompous, unassuming verve and good humor. Never for a second do you feel Lucas shouting, "Look, what a great director I am" - he's simply telling a story. Perfectly.
Any yet ... and yet. Intermingled with all the unanimous praise for this film, one finds an underlying current: "At last! A good entertaining film with no sex! No bloody violence! A film for the whole family!" True enough, and qualities I'm not about to knock. But will they be at the expense of everything else?
Economically, "Star Wars" is the magnum opus; within a year it will have outgrossed "Jaws," a feat previously unthinkable. It will of course inspire a dozen or so interior sci-fi spinoffs, but what of its effect on mainstream movies? The controlling money-men may be aesthetic zombies, but they're also economic sharpies: If a "family" film like "Star Wars" makes millions, mightn't "For the Love of Benji" do just as well? And a sequel, and another one after that? In a world of Disneyana, will we ever see another "Last Tango in Paris?" Maturity be damned - it's a loser.
Go, of course, to "Star Wars"; but afterwards resolve, perhaps, to visit one of your neighborhood art theaters as well. Cinematic versatility just could be at stake.
 Harrison Ford as Han Solo |
 Alec Guniess as Obi-Wan Kenobi |