Mailer vs. the Feminists

The UCLA Film Archive’s “Pennebaker & Hegedus: A Collaborative Vision” calls attention to the makers of some of the most provocative documentaries of the past three decades. The series begins Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater with “Town Bloody Hall” (1979), a deft account of a famous confrontation between Norman Mailer and a formidable group of feminists, some of whom were also eminent literary figures.

By 1979, D.A. Pennebaker was already recognized as a major figure in documentary filmmaking when he turned to Chris Hegedus to solve the problem of editing his footage into a viable 88-minute film. She succeeded so well that their partnership, which includes marriage, continues to this day.

Mailer’s take on women’s lib in a Harper’s magazine article, “The Prisoner of Sex,” had so offended feminists that he agreed to appear at New York’s Town Hall in April 1971 with Jacqueline Ceballos, president of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women; Germaine Greer, author of “The Female Eunuch”; Village Voice columnist Jill Johnston; and the late Diana Trilling, a renowned literary critic. On hand to ask questions from the audience were such enduring literary lights as Elizabeth Hardwick, Cynthia Ozick and Susan Sontag, along with pioneer feminist Betty Friedan.

Though expressing different points of view, the women all seem to agree with Trilling, who had granted him sincere intentions in his article and called him “the most important writer of our time,” when she says that he failed to allow women their humanity. Trilling is the panel’s august presence, raising the level of debate with her wit and perspective that revealed both a sympathy with women’s liberation and a determination not to yield her right to speak for herself on feminist issues. Greer is also eloquent but prickly, quick to take offense from one and all. Ceballos is not heard from again beyond her crisp opening speech calling for equal rights for women in the workplace and marriage, while Johnston offered a chant that began “All women are lesbians....” When Mailer finally cut off Johnston after she went over the 10-minute limit for opening remarks, the columnist disrupted the hall with a perhaps not-so-impromptu lesbian love-in. Mailer himself scored best when he criticized the feminists for a lack of humor.

After more than 30 years, “Town Bloody Hall” seems fresh and pertinent--impertinent is perhaps more apt. While most people would agree women’s liberation has won many victories, that “Town Bloody Hall” still hits home as strongly as it does suggests women’s struggle for equality with men is far from over.

Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back” (1967), a portrait of Bob Dylan on tour in England, and “Monterey Pop” (1969), the first major rock concert film, highlighted by Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, have become classics, at once immediate, revealing and durably entertaining. They are not included in this mini-retrospective presented with UCLA’s Documentary Salon, but Pennebaker and Hegedus’ less frequently seen music films are.

“Town Bloody Hall” will be preceded by the 15-minute “Lambert & Company” (1964) centering on jazz singer Dave Lambert. “Shake--Otis at Monterey” (1986) and “Jimi Plays Monterey” (1986) screen Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Pennebaker and Hegedus will appear following the screening of “Town Bloody Hall,” and participate in a documentary workshop Sunday at 2 p.m. in Room 2534 in Melnitz Hall.

The series concludes Sunday evening with the Oscar-winning “The War Room” (1992), a lively chronicle of Bill Clinton’s first campaign for the presidency.

FilmForum will join UCLA’s archive in presenting an unprecedented survey, “Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde,” which commences tonight at 7:30 in the James Bridges Theater and continues intermittently through Feb. 24. By far the best-known film in the opening program is the 68-minute “Salome” (1922), which Alla Nazimova starred in and adapted from the 1894 Oscar Wilde play, but this time it will be presented with a restored print from the George Eastman House.

Directed by Charles Bryant, it features sets and costumes designed by Rudolph Valentino’s second wife, Natacha Rambova, based on Aubrey Beardsley’s famous drawings from the first edition of the Wilde play. Nazimova’s Salome is a haughty, willful princess who lusts after an exceptionally wraith-like John the Baptist.

“Salome” is bizarre and highfalutin with its aura of stylized, decadent chic, yet it strikingly anticipates the experimental exotica made decades later by such underground filmmakers as Kenneth Anger. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Michael Mortilla. (310) 206-FILM.

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The Pan African Film Festival, which runs through Monday at the Magic Johnson Theaters, presents tonight at 8:25 James Slocum’s appealing love story, “The Last Place on Earth,” in which a chance encounter transforms two people who initially clash. When banker Rob Baskin (Dana Ashworth) gives stranded motorist Ann Field (Tisha Campbell-Martin) a lift on his way to the High Sierra to spread his late mother’s ashes, the two have a tiff at a taco stand, but as time passes they discover a surprising rapport. Their effect on each other is unexpected, and it transforms every aspect of their lives, especially their priorities, values and goals. Ashworth and Campbell-Martin are entirely winning in a picture wise enough to acknowledge that true love never runs smoothly. Look for Phyllis Diller, Billy Dee Williams and Brock Peters in sharp cameos.

Stephen Johnson’s “Yolngu Boy” (Saturday at 5:30 p.m.) is an acute study of three Aboriginal youths, poised between boyhood and manhood just as they are between their native heritage and modern society. They embark on a journey through Australia’s northeastern wilderness to the city of Darwin, and their perilous quest requires that they call upon ancient tribal ways to survive. “Yolngu Boy” is full of adventure yet is unflinching in its depiction of the challenges facing young Aboriginal males in the rites of passage. (213) 896-8221.