Screen
Alleva, Richard
kitchens, one kosher, and a common dining room. The arch- diocese hopes that the building will be inaugurated with the visit of an Israeli youth delegation. The rest of the center will have a...
...What we have here is a lively song-and-dance show, 13 September 1991:515...
...Jerzy and I agree that both Catholics and Jews require a reckoning of the soul...
...Besides, Rogers was always fair game for fantasy biographers...
...9 Co-developed by International Cult Education Program and InService Video Network of the National Association of Secondary School Principals...
...but there are no featured singers and dancers and Will Rogers is the only famous comedian on hand, although in the real Follies he regularly shared the stage with the likes of W.C...
...RICHARD ALLEVA STAGE THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT 'ROGERS FOLLIES' & 'BYE BYE BIRDIE' I I Life in Revue" is the subtitle of The Will Rogers Follies, the still thriving show that this year won more Tony awards than any other, including one for best musical...
...But because I believe, I know we have to work together, Catholics and Jews, for the future, a future to be built here in Poland and everywhere in the world...
...Well, they do blow up a fuel truck because its 13 September 1991:513 driver got lewd with them, but when that outraged macho man proclaims them "bitches from hell," the label just doesn't seem to fit...
...Just before the police close in, Thelma declares that "some- thing's crossed over in me" and that she's never felt so wide- awake...
...Hardened criminals...
...THELMA & LOUISE' carfed and sunglassed like Jackie Onassis, the two women drive their Thunderbird convertible through the Southwest toward Mexico...
...as well as to cults...
...And this background, a land claimed so emphatically by and for men, helps make the suicidal finale tolerably plausible...
...These friends may take turns driving, but, insofar as their adventure is a death-trip, Thelma is at the wheel all the way...
...I open the prayer book and pray...
...Happy...
...ednesday, April 10...
...Christians have to overcome centuries of prejudice...
...He feels that we need to go beyond talking, to an encounter of the heart to overcome the pain of the past...
...They're on the loose...
...Perhaps I'm the only Jew praying here in the city...
...Living on the crest of the moment...
...Khouri would stoop to such a ploy shows how eager she is to demonstrate Thelma's destructive contribution to the friendship...
...Anti-Catholic Polish feelings are in our hearts because of what happened in the thirties...
...I meet Jerzy Turowicz, editor-in-chief of the weekly Tygodnik Powszechny (Universal Weekly), and an old, dear friend...
...Crazed feminists, as some of the critics of Thelma and Louise seem to think...
...Rogers, as I may not have told you, have fourteen children, all named Pat...
...Poland will soon be behind me...
...I point out to Jerzy that all the political ads for Tadeusz Mazowiecki that I saw in Krakow had a Star of David graffitied on them...
...Mazowiecki was "accused" of coming from a Jewish family...
...I do not want to talk about God...
...9 Positive message of developing self-esteem and the confidence to say "no" can be applied to "saying 'no'" to drugs, alcohol, etc...
...5.00 per tape for shipping and handling for Canadian and overseas orders...
...Stanislaw Musial and I meet to consider the publication of my paper on a Jewish understanding of Christianity...
...Cardinal Macharski hopes that this special place will become a synagogue...
...Harvey Keitel, finally employing an accent that doesn't defeat him, gives his best performance in years...
...But the accusation of being Jewish is still a source of shame for Polish non-Jewish society...
...Because their characters are drawn by scriptwrit- er Callie Khouri with some tang and humor, the actors can bring their talents into play rather than merely serve as macho strawmen...
...All this for us...
...What will never leave is the memory of the past, of family, my people...
...But what "it all" turns out to be, and just how Thelma and Louise get away, do indeed make this movie a feminist film, the most hopeless feminist film ever made...
...Someone (perhaps Peter Stone, who did the book) had the interesting idea of presenting Rogers's biog- raphy as an edition of the Ziegfeld Follies...
...I think of all these days in Krakow, their meaning...
...It is the first feminist film that is also a work of absolute nihilism...
...I cannot talk about God after Auschwitz...
...Dismayingly, unde- niably, it's a lot of fun, too...
...That is to say, you're not giving up on our outlaw life...
...We are sad, but hopeful that both the new Carmelite convent and the center will help to heal wounds and pains...
...dollars...
...dollars only...
...Rogers had been a Ziegfeld star...
...No ! rentals...
...Certainly the women give each other the sort of sisterly mutual support so extolled nowadays...
...They chug little bottles of Wild Turkey whiskey, bang on wheel and dashboard to the beat of the country and western music that blares from the car radio, and sing along raucously when they're not making spontaneous whoops of joy...
...tJ SCREEN OVER THE EDGE...
...Louise doesn't believe the police will credit the fact that the man she killed was trying to rape Thelma even though the evi- dence of some form of assault is right on Thelma's battered face...
...Game for anything...
...Thelma and Louise are not avenging furies...
...Perhaps in no other war in history has man been so thoroughly trampled upon in his dignity and fun- damental rights...
...I need to act with God for a time of peace, of respect for others differently committed...
...Early in the morning...
...Residents Sales Tax 8.25% TOTAL ENCLOSED $ 514: Commonweal Yet, because only disbelief in men, not rage, powers this film, none of the male characters, except the rapist, is characterized as truly evil, only as doltish (Thelma's husband), well-meaning but ultimately helpless (Jimmy, Keitel's lawman), rigid (the FBI agents), or dishonest but sexually alluring (the con man picked up by Thelma who robs her...
...When half-a-hundred police cars zoom into view just before the final chase, Louise gasps, and it may be the most poignant moment in the movie, "All this for us...
...Louise truly loves her boyfriend, Jimmy, but not believing he would be capable of enduring outlawry with her, she doesn't even tell him she's on the run...
...When Louise shares a tender parting with her boyfriend in an eatery, Scott places some waitresses in the background of the shot so that their giggling, delighted faces seem perched on the heads of the lovers they are spying on...
...The Polish bishops' new pastoral letter on Catholic-Jewish relations is a step forward...
...For Canadians ! I and others outside of U.S., pay with apostal money order ! made out in U.S...
...Frolicsome...
...Thelma knows that her husband is in cahoots with the law the moment she hears his voice on the phone...
...Mere neophytes...
...and Mrs...
...Thelma andLouise is a cultural milestone...
...If this is not quite Rogers, it is also not a Zieg, feld Follies...
...Thelma's amends is her robbery of a store, but this crime makes the police all the more eager and able to capture the pair...
...Ziegfeld (Gregory Peck's voice issuing from somewhere at the top of the theater) calls Will (Keith Carradine) and the other principals back from the grave to perform one last Follies...
...But it hurts very deeply to realize that Jews are not here anymore: We Jews are a shadow in Poland...
...After all, before a rapist attacked Thelma and got blown away by Louise, all the two friends wanted was a fun weekend...
...It is Thelma who insists on stopping at the dance joint where they encounter the would-be rapist, and it is her naivet6 that makes her ignore Louise's warnings against him...
...Yet, as far as her relationship with Louise goes, Thelma might as well be called Thanatos...
...Even the foul trucker is portrayed as only a laughable satyr who shows the courage of his abom- inable convictions when he refuses, at gunpoint, to apologize for his obscenity...
...Hard-core retributionists in the sex wars would have shot up the driver, not the rig...
...And the per- formances of Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon beautifully com- plement each other: the former with her zigzagging vocalism and space-cadet dreaminess, the latter with her emotion-scored face and her formidable command of concentrated anger, despair, compassion, quizzicality...
...This is not going to be easy...
...We talk about Catholic-Jewish relations in Poland...
...They are not hunt- ing down guilty males or consciously redressing the injuries to their sex...
...Not the least of Scott's achievements is to give the landscape through which the women move such an aura of masculinity (oil pumps vertically thrusting, weight lifters working out at filling stations, deserts that seem haunted by the ghost of John Ford) that their very passage through land so phallocentric becomes an act of defiance itself...
...Please remit payment in U.S...
...But the heart of the movie is the relationship between the title characters, and it is the portrayal of this relationship that both propounds and confounds the notion that the attachment between Thelma and Louise can serve as a feminist model of female bonding...
...We are still in awe from the visit to Auschwitz...
...Useful school and church staff training resource...
...Its reading in every church is a way of popular imple- mentation that will be reflected in teaching and preaching...
...I can only perform my religious duties, which include accepting the other in faith: "May it be your will, God, our God and God of our ancestors, that you lead us to peace, emplace our footsteps toward peace, and make us reach our desired destination for life, gladness, and peace...
...There are no services at the synagogue...
...That Louise would trust the money with Thelma in the first place is an outrageous plot twist, and that the talented and usually inventive Ms...
...Thus Louise, who left a man dead in Arkansas...
...There are the girls, of course...
...What fuels this movie isn't feminist rage at men but feminist disbelief: disbelief in male honor, male staunchness, male justice...
...Even the rather gallant Jimmy probably gives infor- mation to the cops when they finally get to him (though this isn't shown...
...This is not easy...
...212) 439-1550] Please enclosefullpayment, i I Please send copy(ies) of "Cults: Saying No Under Pressure" to Name Position Institution Address City Phone Subtotal $ State _Zip __ Shipping and Handling $ __ N.Y...
...He's a brave man who fought the Nazis and the Communists and has been involved in Catholic-Jewish dialogue for many years...
...Excellent educational program for high schools, colleges and universities, church youth groups, religious schools, and summer camps, and adults...
...We Jews have to overcome the weight, the pain, the burden of memories...
...The peculiar feat of Thelma andLouise is to make sense of the freedom felt by its heroines apprehensible while never letting the viewer forget the ultimate destination of the derailed vacation...
...Anti-Semitism is still a reality in Poland even though there are so few Jews in Polish society...
...In outline, this movie is as doomful as a piece of German Expressionism, but in its realization it is as loose, as rowdy, as violently insouciant as Smokey and the Bandit...
...The resurrection is simply a device, one that allows the playfulness of songs and sketches to refer to Rogers's per- sonal and public life without even the pretense of accuracy that conventional show-business biographies (Funny Girl, Sophie) regularly violate in their search for the sentimental...
...But this is the competence an elephant displays when it crushes a flea...
...New Educational Videotape, "Cults: Saying No Under Pressure" Hosted and narrated by Charlton Heston Twenty-nine minutes...
...On the plane to New York, I open my prayer book but cannot concentrate...
...A casual observer might take these two for college students cutting a class on Friday for a long weekend at the beach...
...But this is the reality and I know that despite history I have to continue here or in any part of the world in my covenantal obligation to witness God...
...Even mere competence isn't granted to the male of the species: a state trooper crumples into tears when the women get the drop on him, and the FBI officers idle helplessly in Thelma's house while waiting for her to call home...
...Make checks or postal money ! orders payable to the International Cult Education Program ! and mail with order form to International Cult Education ! ! Program, PO Box 1232, Gracie Station, New York, New i York 10028...
...But it is Thelma who can act (rob a store) when the fatalistic Louise falls into despair at the theft of their funds...
...Louise can plan (an escape route) while dippy Thelma sunbathes by a motel pool...
...It might come as a surprise for them that a Jewish person studies Christianity for reasons beyond confrontation...
...It is present there in Auschwitz, as well as on the walls of Krakow...
...And the final catastrophe is brought on by Thelma's plea, "Let's just keep going," when there's nowhere to go but into the Grand Canyon...
...The evil was and is still there and needs a reckoning of the soul...
...Thursday, April 11...
...Not at all...
...Neither woman believes that the legal system will treat them fairly, and the one lawman portrayed with sympa- thy-the Arkansas officer played by Harvey Keitel--is never given a chance by Louise to help her...
...The show is neither ghostly nor metaphysical...
...Fields, Eddie Cantor, Fannie Brice, Bert Williams...
...Only at the conclusion, when the law forces combine to trap the women, do men show any competence...
...The sepulchral Mr...
...Khouri's juicy script gives director Ridley Scott the opportunity to do his best work since his first feature film, The Duelists...
...At the start of their trip, it is Thelma who brings along a revolver she doesn't know how to use but which Louise certainly will...
...It will be published in the form of a booklet and be distributed through the dioceses all over the nation...
...They are good-hearted, plucky, even rather conventional women ("Now don't you litter," Louise admonishes her pal when the latter tosses some garbage on the ground) who set out on a fishing trip and end up getting chased by state troopers and the FBI into the Grand Canyon...
...We feel that this publication and others will allow for a process of mutual understanding...
...Sometimes another question presented itself: Is it still possible to speak about God after Auschwitz...
...An echo of the humiliation and even des- peration caused by such an experience could be heard in the questions often repeated after the war: How can we go on living after Auschwitz...
...I feel so strange...
...I look forward to the comments of the readers...
...Yet, how exhilarating a hopeless film can be...
...The rest of the center will have a library, a section for administration, a church, a hotel, and a place for prayer and meditation for non-Catholic visitors...
...9 $75 per tape, plus $2.50 per tape for shipping and f mll~ n handling...
...At no time do they ever think of themselves as bandit queens or as representatives of anything sociological or political...
...It is Thelma who insists (again against Louise's advice) on picking up the con artist who will steal the money the fugitives need for their escape...
...All they wanted was to get away from it all...
...Psychopaths...
...We cannot talk...
...VHS only...
...I pray by myself, in my room...
...When Louise tentatively negotiates with Keitel, it is Thelma who hangs up the phone and asks Louise, "You're not going to give up on me, are you...
...Scott makes the shot that kills the rapist echo on the soundtrack like the roar of doom...
...9 Two-minute segment on participation of young people in satanism and other occult rituals...
...He always knows how to visually and aurally weight each moment in the story...
...Thus Thelma, who has just committed armed robbery...
...And, quite plainly, life must be a beach for these women...
...That squad car formation is pretty frightening...
...At least while you're watching the movie...
...in a profile in Collier's back in 1929, Ring Lardner wrote, "Mr...
...The joy that pervades so much of Thelma and Louise is the joy that comes from knowing that everything is going to end in a smash...
...9 Discussion guide...
...We go back to Krakow in silence...
...The plane is leaving Warsaw...
...Focuses on deceptive recruitment tactics and mind-manipulation techniques cults use and tells how to resist them...
...Catholics have to go over and reckon with the twentieth- century anti-Semitism that prepared the atmosphere for the exter- mination of the Jews...
...Carefree...
...It all" is the world of men, and Thelma and Louise demon-strates that, in a world ruled by and for men, the one route women can take to fulfill and enjoy themselves is the road toward death...
...What does it have to do with his political ideas...
...Brad Pitt makes some- thing amazing of the con artist: always pliant, never rebuffed by any rebuff, always promising to leave but never quite leaving, always seeming to give way but always taking and using, he turns this utterly worthless drifter into the psychological equiv- alent of a Judo master...
...Suddenly there comes to my mind the words of Pope John Paul II in his speech to the European bishops: The war itself with its immense cruelty, a cruelty that reached its most brutal expression in the organized exter- mination of the Jews, as well as of the Gypsies and of other categories of people, revealed to the European the other side of a civilization that was inclined to feel superior to all others...
Vol. 118 • September 1991 • No. 15
