University of South Carolina Libraries
I Entertainr . I Poetry ;!38iMae Stephen Spender held an autograph s Store on Wednesday. Spender, w ojt ? ' - " ? " "i woi/, raier gave a reacting at tSolk/ 'Postma "EST" heroine of Jan classic novelli In Bob Rafelson's "The been made int Postman Always Rings times befo Twice," Jessica Lange is presents a viv what the word sultry has once suppress been waiting all its life to that can no lc describe. tained. As Cora, the murderous The charact ^ ^jJa I^Sa-^^aaBL ^ /L B MMmgajla-. mbhbmmm I 4 y'W"" V " ' " nentmHi <o % ppena 9ssion at the Russell House Book ho is currently teaching two classes \uditorium. (Photo by Joe Hunter) n' rings t ties M. Cain's this smoldering ember into a a, which has veritable inferno of passion o a film three is Frank Chambers, a seedy, re, Lange . sadistic drifter, who one day id portrait of wanders into the second-rate I ... - - K5u sexuamy nasn nouse owned by Cora >nger be con- and her husband. er who turns FRANK IS played by Jack .? _ i v Jack Nicholson 's hk IB illicit passion ror ; Jessica Lange will N'WP compel them to 'The Postman er's c A -A ByChritHondM Staff Writer Poet/essayist Stephen Spender had a very busy day Wednesday. In the afternoon, he attended a press conference and an autographing session at the Russell House Book Store. That night he had a reading at Belk Auditorium and finally a reception afterwards. At the conference, Spender talked of the difference between writing poetry and essays. "I regard all the other things as either making money or as commissions I've < had to take...Poetry is only for one's self. It gives me a great amount of satisfaction writing a poem I never publish...I find writing other things very difficult. I can't imagine who's going to read them." Spender, who in the early 1930s was considered to be part of a group of young English poets who brought new techniques and attitudes to English poetry, talked about the -people he has known over the years, such as Christopher Isherwood, William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound. SPENDER is also a fine social observer. His views take on an interesting perspective because he is an Englishman who has had ample chance to study American society. He mentioned that English leaders are more literate :wice Nicholson, who is about 15 years too old for the role and who fizzles while Lange sizzles. Nicholson's pallid characterization is a major problem in the film, in that when Frank and Cora fall in lust and plot tlie murder of Cora's husband, we're never able to figure out Cora's pritprin fnr phnncintf nno man over the other. Both have sour personalities and neither is at all handsome. Aside from Nicholson's miscasting and mis-acting, however, the film is almost flawlessly presented. David Mamet's script is true to the no-frills dialogue that makes up the bigger part of Cain's book and only a handful of minor changes have been made in the story itself. Sven Nykvist's photography is appropriately dark and moody and is, as always, beautiful to look at. The art direction and costumes add immeasurably to the film's superb re-creation of California during the Great uepression. The movie is surprisingly lacking in tension, however, once the much-ballyhooed erotic passages have passed. But it is well worth seeing, if only for Lange, who is certain to receive an Oscar nomination next year for a performance I'm sure that few people thought her capable of. WITH HER hair a tangle of curls, she most enticingly evokes memories of Faye Dunaway's Evelyn Mulwray character in Roman treat w J j Stephen Spender and are*more aware nf the arts. This semester at USC, Spender is teaching a class of graduate students and an honors class of undergraduate students. Spender enjoys teaching the underffradiifltpc hpoanco there is a sense of teaching a class and not a group of individuals in competition with each other. He also talked about writing autobiographical poetry, something American 1 poets often do and English 1 poets rarely do. "You have 1 to tppmonriniiclii ?r?. < teresting to do that. We have 1 inhibited manners. I think ] we feel in conversation that * it is bad manners to talk 1 about ourselves." ! 1 "THE ENGLISH have a 1 how boring' attitude. If I was going to commit suicide I'd be careful who I'd tell because I'd be afraid they'd Polanski's "Chinatown." d The heat she creates in the T role is doubly remarkable in d light of the fact that she fi love k in oajr, ww uvi uig. At Belk Auditorium, Spender talked about his poetry. He described his early poems as expressing the end of everything and that the disillusionment present in those poems was due to the war. Spender also has a subtle sense of humor that he sneaks into his conversation. While giving an introduction to a poem .about writing undergraduate poetry he said, "Whenever you write an exact description of someone it turns out malicious." SPENDER affected the audience most not with his humor but two short lines of a poem written in his diary, and those lines convey the infinite sadness of one who has lived a long life. "Although the parties sometimes change to funerals/ and the funerals to Christenings." Spender has. lived a long ife and he has known a great nany people and seen a zreat many things. His observations and poetry are timeless. One observation he made when he was asked to talk at some poor schools in London during the 1930s is still very applicable today. He thought that "trying to educate children into a world where they could not get a job was futile. All you do is educate them to become ppiminalc " a r i V f Sr J oesn't once doff her clothes, lie lady has class and these ays that's only a step away romsuperf* rdom. \