‘Miseducation’: She’ll Swear to Tell the Truth

Two years have passed since the release of the critically acclaimed hit album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” but a legal battle still simmers over who deserves artistic credit for the project. This week that battle will land Hill in a three-day deposition in New York. For the first time, she will answer under oath the claims that she helped launch her celebrated solo career on the uncredited work of other people--a New Jersey musician collective called New Ark Productions, which is suing Hill and her label, Ruffhouse/Columbia, in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J. They claim they deserve a share of songwriting or production credit on 13 of the album’s 14 songs--and they also want a chunk of the profits from the album, which has sold 5.8 million copies in the United States and earned Hill five Grammys. The “Miseducation” credits do list the names of the New Ark members, but only for limited contributions, not the sort of intensive work the lawsuit claims, such as the primary songwriting on the songs “Everything Is Everything” and “Nothing Really Matters.” Hill said in a statement shortly after the suit was filed in December 1998 that the New Ark claim is “without any merit whatsoever,” and a spokesman added at the time that she felt “deeply betrayed” by her former studio mates. Hill’s attorney, Donald S. Passman, declined to comment Friday on his client’s scheduled deposition or the ongoing case, but one source close to the singer characterized the New Ark claim as an overreaching bid by “minor players” who crave money and attention. “That album is Lauryn’s album, and her album alone,” the source said. Legal tangles over song and studio credits are common in the music business, and notoriously murky--documenting who contributed what during a long-ago late-night studio session is difficult, as is the task of placing a value percentage on each person’s work. (How much is a good bass line worth to a hit song? Or two words in a chorus? Does either qualify as songwriting?) There may be some hope for clarity in this case, however: “We have seven hours of videotape from the studio sessions,” says Peter C. Harvey, attorney for the New Ark musicians. “And that tape will be helpful to our case. Very helpful.”

In TV’s Reality Fever, ‘Road Rules’ Returns

While the number of survivors on “Survivor,” CBS’ hit reality series about castaways/contestants, continues to shrink, there is no shortage of voyeuristic games in town for curious viewers. Last week MTV’s “Real World” opened shop in New Orleans. This week the cable channel’s “Road Rules” returns with a new season at 10 tonight. It features a new group of six nubile adventurers ready to confront the open road and each other on the “Maximum Velocity Tour.” As usual, hidden cameras will be on hand to catch every argument and romantic twist. The new season will find the participants traveling across the country in a new RV. And although it’s summer, the Road Rulers will be facing winter-sports competition, a monster-truck challenge and, most exciting of all, synchronized swimming with the Playboy Extreme Team. But even though “Road Rules” has become known for its screaming matches among the travelers, there are no plans as yet for tribal councils or for participants to be voted off the RV.

Theater to Showcase Iranian Filmmaker

Since the fall of the shah, Iran has seen the emergence of world-class filmmakers whose works have won critical acclaim abroad even though they labor under the constant threat of government censorship at home. One of these noted filmmakers, Abbas Kiarostami, may not be a household name in the United States, but his movie, “Taste of Cherry,” about a suicidal man, made international headlines when it won the Palme d’Or for best picture at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Another director who has contributed to the dramatic revival of Iran’s government-controlled movie industry is Darius Mehrjui, whose film “Layla” tells the story of a young wife who is unable to bear children. Jafar Panahi’s 1995 film, “The White Ballon,” an odyssey of a young girl facing everyday life in Iran, also picked up awards at several international film festivals. On Friday, the Monica 4-Plex in Santa Monica will present a one-week run of two films by one of Iran’s best filmmakers, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. One film, “Moment of Innocence,” is a reconstruction of a real-life incident involving Makhmalbaf, who, as a teenager, stabbed a young policeman during a botched attempt to steal the officer’s gun. Makhmalbaf spent five years behind bars until he was freed after the Islamic revolution. Ironically, the policeman whom he had stabbed 20 years earlier showed up in 1994 when Makhmalbaf was looking for nonactors for his next film; he cast him in “Moment of Silence.” The second film, “The Silence,” looks at the life of Khorshid, a 10-year-old blind boy who experiences and learns to love the world through sound. Critics have noted that Iran’s filmmakers are in the throes of a great irony: Facing strict censorship whenever they stray into areas deemed off-limits by the government, their ingenuity and artistry have flowered in their depictions of the lives of ordinary Iranians. Many of the films are about children, including “The Silence,” “White Ballon” and “Children of Heaven.”