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Time - Man of the Year
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1993-04-08
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REVIEWS, Page 81SHORT TAKES
TELEVISION: The Making Of a Monster
Robert Duvall, bulked up inside his military overcoat and
nearly expressionless beneath a bushy mustache, looks as much
like Frankenstein's monster as Joseph Stalin in HBO's new film
about the Soviet dictator. Certainly his deeds are just as
monstrous, and even more unfathomable. Directed by Ivan Passer,
STALIN vividly chronicles the revolutionary footsoldier's rise
to power and his ruthless, increasingly paranoid reign of
terror. The scenes of Stalin's 1930s' purges are especially
chilling, and the film gratifyingly avoids hokey re-creations
of "big" historical events like the Yalta Conference. Still,
despite Duvall's intense performance, the century's least
charismatic evildoer remains a stubbornly opaque figure.
SHOW BUSINESS: Christmas Kickoff
Schrafft's, Gimbel's, The Biltmore Hotel: all are gone.
But one beloved New York City institution blessedly prospers:
the RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR. One million people are
expected to see the 60th edition of the Music Hall show (through
Jan. 6), double the number of a decade ago. No wonder. Here's
a spectacular that really is -- a lavish celebration of the
spirit of Christmas simultaneously traditional and inventive.
Teddy bears dance The Nutcracker, Scrooge learns compassion, ice
skaters whirl around a mini Rockefeller Plaza rink, the
Rockettes march The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, and shepherds
and sheep, Wise Men and camels celebrate the Nativity. Joy to
the world!
THEATER: A Star Stalemated
Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice used to say that her
father longed to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse
at every funeral. In SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, a thriller that
opened on Broadway last week, actor Stacy Keach achieves
something akin to T.R.'s dream. Without spoiling the "surprises"
in a lumpishly predictable plot, one can reveal that Keach does
not disappear when the reclusive billionaire he plays is shot
and dumped into one of Harry Houdini's escape boxes before the
first-act curtain. Keach acts with brio and glee, but as ever
with author Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), the
characters lack inner life. As the set suggests, they are pawns
on a chessboard -- with no grand master in sight.
BOOKS: Presidential Private Eye
Times, leaders and heroes change. John F. Kennedy was a
fan of superspy James Bond's savoir faire and flashy victories
over cold war bad guys. It seems somehow fitting that Bill
Clinton's favorite literary do-gooder is Easy Rawlins, a savvy,
down-to-earth African-American private eye based in Los Angeles.
In WHITE BUTTERFLY (Norton; $19.95), the third book in the
Rawlins series, good-time girls, corrupt politicians,
trigger-happy psychopaths and other crime-novel fixtures are all
in place. But Walter Mosley's writing hums with the particular
rhythms and blues of the black American experience. What makes
these books special is their vivid portrayal of life in the side
streets where Philip Marlowe seldom ventured.
CINEMA: Under a Stormy Sky
What lust? What life? Not for Maurice Pialat the
gorgeously gaudy tones in which Hollywood paints the fine
artist. The French writer-director's VAN GOGH is a portrait --
almost a still life -- of a somber fellow who is too busy
creating masterpieces in the final months of his life to have
time for melodramatic effects like lopping off his ear. In such
films as Loulou and A Nos Amours, Pialat has sullenly railed
against the strictures of French bourgeois life. In Van Gogh,
he has found a kindred spirit; for both, artistic compromise is
a crime against humanity. Jacques Dutronc plays the painter as
a troubled man (but not a madman) with a mission, a sort of nerd
for art. Full of graceful compositions and expansive
conversation, Van Gogh is an eyeful. And an earful too.