University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

'Red Tent' Could Have Been Better

By PAUL CHAPLIN

When I saw the previews, I
thought "The Red Tent" was
going to be a typical adventure
film about arctic exploration.
To my surprise, it didn't turn
out to be four hours long, and
attempts to have some depth in
its characters. The result is a
better than average adventure
film, and a poor attempt at
both a psychological and
philosophical examination of
courage.

General Nobile of Italy
attempts to land a blimp on
the North Pole, but his mission
fails. Some forty years later he
cannot forget the incident, and
ponders if his deserting his
men, an act which saved them,
was morally correct. Unable to
decide, he summons the ghosts
of the people involved to judge
him in a mock trial.

Far-Fetched Premise

Somehow this clever idea of
scriptwriter Ennio De Concini
does not work as well as it
might. For one thing, the
whole premise is far-fetched,
but easy to accept, until the
ghosts show they are flesh and
blood by embracing or sitting
around drinking J & B.

If the story focused more
on the events of the flight and
rescue, and omitted the
segments in the present, the
film would have been more
enjoyable. The score by Ennio
Merricone is as vast as the arctic
wastelands director Mickail
Kalatozov enjoys filming. The
directing is very good, yet I
would have preferred to see
this film done for wide screen,
simply to see how Kalatozov
would have composed the
scene.

No Depth

Peter Finch is commendable
as General Nobile, but after
some reflection I realized that
he doesn't say or do that
much. Nobody does. The
characters don't require depth
because the situation is more
dramatic and interesting than
they are. The ghost-trial
attempts to give them depth,
but it simply isn't needed when
an adequate adventure story
can hold our interest, and this
actual incident is very
captivating in its daring and
urgency.

Claudia Cardinale is very
striking as a lover of one of the
lost men, rushing around in
most of the scenes in a long
white or a long black fur coat.
So much for Miss Cardinale.
The biggest shock in the film is
Sean Connery, who gets his
name above the title and makes
a brief, wooden appearance in
a gray wig which makes him
look a hell of a lot like the
aging Charles Foster Kane in
Orson Welles' masterpiece.

Happily, the producers and
makers of "The Red Tent" did
not let the production get out
of hand. Within the first few
minutes of the film, I felt it
could last all day and the
whole project would get
carried away and overblown.
The material used for the story
is good, but an even better film
might have been made if
someone had deleted the
ghost-trial concept and made a
straightforward adventure epic.

(Now at the University)