the screen

The Harder They Come. Starring Jimmy Cliff. The movie is already something of a cult phenomenon. And why shouldn't it be? It's got everything: Set in a Jamaican ghetto under sunny blue skies, the movie looks like a rough etching for a travelogue; a reggae singer on the up and up is bullied and spat down by the local fat king of the record business; he falls for a young sweet 'n innocent ward of the neighborhood preacher, and then shows up all preacher's God-stricken ranting and moaning and raving and groaning as simple lechery; his ambition as a rock star thwarted, he joins the genga trade--shots of blitz-eyed traders; wearing sunglasses and a leopard skin vest he twirls two pistols in parody--the old Hollywood style Western hero has become the outcast; on the run, a wanted man, his record becomes a super hit; a doomed man, he reaps a martyr's glory--at this point the movie gets boring--he makes fools out of the cops a bit longer and then gets shot up on the beach. Orson Welles. 4, 6, 8, 10.

Cries and Whispers. Bergman's latest, filmed with a crimson colored Gothic expressionism reminiscent of Edvard Munch. Set in a turn of the century manor house, two sisters (Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin) along with a peasant servant (Kari Sylwun) attend their dying sister (Harriet Andersson). Bergman uses the women schematically--the Woman as Other--to play out his 'nothingness' theme: the ultimate isolation of every human being, the tissue of lies that passes for communication between men, the meaningless of extra-human faith, the nothingness at the heart of it. Harvard Square 3:10, 6:30, 9:50.

Belle du Jour. directed by Luis Bunuel with Catherine Deneuve. An uptight bourgeois Parisian housewife acts out her prostitution fantasies. Bunuel jumbles the real and the fake, the conscious and unconscious, the storybook and dream in a powerful satire-study of psychological repression and the perversions it breeds. Harvard Square 1:30, 4:50, 8:10.

What's Up Tiger Lily? Woody Allen's first movie. He takes a B-rated Japanese Bond imitation and dubs it with a sorely dated funniness. Central Cinema 8.

The Damned. directed by Viscounti. a 3-hour melodramatic extravaganza of Nazi German decadence. The son, last of a decayed line of aristocrats, is a child seducer who finally rapes his mother. The movie is guilty of an all too common dishonesty in movies about Nazi Germany: it projects upon Germany a decadence that might be better deserved at home. Cinema 733 Fri.--Sat. 3:15, 9:15.

Carnal Knowledge. 1971 directed by Mike Nichols, starring Arthur Garfunkel with a paunch, Candice Bergen in the role of Smith graduated suburban housewife that she was made for, Jack Nicholson throwing maybe his best tantrum ever, Ann-Margaret living-in big-breasted. Filmed with a cold slickness that spells out the soullessness of middle-class sex. Abbey 9:30, Plaza.

The Graduate. Mike Nichols directs with Dustin Hoffman. Hopefully this movie will hit you differently your nth time around. Because there is something rotten about it. Purportedly, it describes a late 60s generation gap. But in doing so, it unwittingly calls attention to the gap between the 60s and the 50s from which the vision of the movie is more credibly derived. Benjamin Braddock's is, after all, for someone fresh from the nerve center of an Eastern college, an awfully confused alienation. His father asks, "Well, what do you want?" and a mumbling "I don't know" is the most he manages. This in '67 when anti-war protest was at its heyday! The Beats who issued position papers in the 50s had a much clearer idea of what they were rejecting. Moreover, the movie obfuscates the fundamental question it asks--what is Benjamin Braddock to do with his life?--with a fairy tale convention--love tried, tested and won, to be carried off in an orange bus. And so it obscures a radical secret of the 60s: that youth was beset by a desperate anti-mainstream anxiety. This is a movie, finally, that lowers rather than raises consciousness. The Plaza Theatre.

King of Hearts. The only reason for writing this clip is to tell you--if you are still debating whether or not you want to find out what all the fuss in Central Square has been about every Saturday night for who knows how long--not to bother. Central Cinema I. 6:30, 9:45.

Blume in Love. By Paul Mazursky, who did Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, which was a better movie. This sometimes incisive work is a tale of undying love that sends George Segal from Los Angeles to Venice in search of his divorced wife, beautiful Susan Anspach. It won't take you quite as far. Cheri 2. 1:30, 3:35, 5:45, 8, 10:05.

Forty Carats. What do you say to a boy half you age who says that he loves you? If this question interests you, see Forty Carats. With Liv Ullmann, Eddie Albert, Gene Kelly. A re-make of a Broadway play. Paris Cinema.

The Day of the Jackal. Fred Zinneman directs a thriller about the attempted assassination of de Gaulle by a hireling of the OAS (with Edward Fox looking like the Englishman's version of Robert Redford). The movie teases you, catapulting from one possible peak finish to another, and ends like a snowball that has suddenly mushroomed into an abominable snowman. Pi Alley. 2:45, 5:15, 7:45, 10:15.

Mary Poppins. Well well. It made a lot of money, and got Julie Andrews an Oscar. Animated talking pigs may be a lot of fun, especially if you're stoned. Paramount. 10, 12:30, 3, 5:30, 8.