University of Virginia Library

'Writers Of Spring' At Richmond Festival

By Jeffrey Ruggles
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Last week, as spring edged a
little closer, the city of Richmond
was the site of two festivals of the
arts, university-sponsored but open
to the community.

At Virginia Commonwealth
University it was called the "VCU
Literary and Film Festival"; at the
University of Richmond, "The
Boatwright Literary Festival."
While they were separate events,
organized by the English
Departments of each school, many
of the guests appeared at both, and
the effect was of one festival.

Among those who spoke earlier
in the week were Anthony Burgess,
critic, Renaissance scholar, and
novelist; R.V. Cassill, author of the
current best-seller "Dr. Cobb's
Game"; John Ciardi, Saturday
Review poetry editor; novelist
Sylvia Wilkinson; Peter Taylor, who
has published work in The New
Yorker, Kenyon Review, and the
Sewannee Review; poet and
novelist Michael Mott; and John
Lahr, film and drama critic for the
Village Voice.

Fourteen Films

One of the more interesting
programs was a set of fourteen
films by local Richmond
filmmakers, shown Thursday
morning at VCU. After each
screening, James Herbert, a
filmmaker, gave a brief critique.
The films included animation — S.
Segal's "Walk in the Black Forest";
a documentary on migrant workers'
children — Fred Frechette's "To
Climb A Mountain"; visual patterns
counterpointed with music — Neal
Baitzell's "A Water Film"; and
films by high school English classes.
The best received film was "United
With Birds," by a sculptor named
Shelley. The film, views of a man on
a leash, was rear projected and
accompanied by a sound track of a
dog panting. In front of the screen
was a cage of doves.

Friday afternoon James Herbert
presented three of his films with
comments. The 33-year-old
Herbert, currently an assistant
professor at the University of
Georgia, said he was a painter who
became interested in serial images
and turned to film. He studied
under Stan Brakhage in Colorado,
and said he looks on Brakhage "as a
kind of god."

Touring Campuses

Herbert has been touring
campuses — 47 of them — giving
talks and showing three of his
films: "Pluto," "Porch Glider," and
"Maypops." He prefaced the
showing of Pluto by saying it was
film about a film. It was the only
one with sound, a jazz-rock score,
and consisted primarily of scenes of
a man getting out of a bed, shots of
a projector showing the same scene,
the man putting on a coat, more
projector shots, multiple images of
the man getting up, the projector,
etc., with the final shots of the man
getting back into bed. There were
many abrupt cuts, some speeded up
action — Herbert said he couldn't
stand slow motion. He said Pluto
was his least favorite of the three
films, it didn't quite 'make it'; he
also said it was "just right for urban
areas."

The second film, "Porch
Glider," he shot over a summer
with a grant from the National Film
Institute. It was shot on the porch
of his house with some of the
people he lives with as actors; in
one sense, it is a sort of home
movie. It is a story of "first love,"
with "the sexual act as a metaphor
for life." The film first establishes
the porch, with shots of passersby,
the grillwork of the porch, varying
views of a glider sofa, and one
particularly effective shot of a
woman sitting on a porch across the
street; then we meet the couple,
who are both young — "a film
about adolescents," Herbert said. In
a sort of two steps forward, one
step back pattern, punctuated by
views of water dripping off the
porch grillwork, rain, and the
woman across the street, the couple
makes love, finally culminating in
intercourse. Interestingly, at this
point the camera moves away and
into the house, and voyeuristically
views them from a window, where
they may or may not have been
aware of the camera's presence.

Answering questions, Herbert
said that "Porch Glider" was "a
film of textures." A nun once told
him it treated the subject of sex
with more feeling than other films
she had seen; it was once shown at
the New York Museum of Modern
Art next to Andy Warhol's "Flesh" to
show how different two films on
similar subjects could be. One
person in the audience objected to
the way the film 'speeded up the
sexual act'; he thought if anything,
it should have slowed it down.
Herbert shrugged at that.

Latest Film

Herbert's last film, "Maypops,"
was shot in two days, and presented
a contrast to the multi-imaged,
fast-jumping style of the previous
two. It pictured a boy and his horse
in a green field on a beautiful day.
A number of shots of the boy on he
horse, next to the horse, both
chasing flies away, serve to establish
the boy and horse as one, as
Herbert said afterwards. Riding
around, the boy sees a young
couple with a baby, and then meets
a girl on a horse. They ride around
together, and then the girl leaves
and the boy is alone with his horse
again.

"Maypops" is very relaxed; its
slight narrative is almost incidental.
The main strength of the film is its
main weakness: it is mostly just a
series of pretty shots, people riding
horses.

Friday evening was the final
event of the festival, a showing of
the movie "The Luck of Ginger
Coffey" with an appearance by
Brian Moore. Moore, author of
"The Lonely Passion of Judith
Hearne," "The Feast of Lupercal,"
and others, wrote the book "The
Luck of Ginger Coffey," and then
wrote the screenplay. He worked as
a partner on the film, which was
shot in Canada on "a minuscule
$450,000" budget. In his remarks,
he said that actor Richard Harris
had been originally offered the
lead, but turned it down at his
astrologer's advice. Instead, Robert
Shaw took the role, and it made
him a star.

Irish Immigrant

The film is the story of an Irish
immigrant and his wife and
daughter. He can find no work
which suits him and keeps losing
the few jobs he does get. In the
end, broke and discouraged, he
almost loses his wife and daughter.
Somehow, though, despite the very
depressing mood of the film, there
is just enough hope to keep one
from leaving the theater in an
absolutely miserable mood. Perhaps
it served as a good metaphor of the
state of the arts in Richmond.