The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 55, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 16, 1967 Page: 9 of 16
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Protest and the press
Student journalists claim press distorts
demonstration
—Richard Sawyer
section
two
By DARRELL HANCOCK
Thresher Editorial Staff
"Time" magazine, reporting the Wash-
ing demonstration of late October
against the war in Vietnam, suggest-
ed the reaction of the nation to the
event.
"... On a crisp fall weekend when
most Americans were watching foot-
ball, raking leaves or touring the coun-
tryside, the biggest 'peace' demonstra-
tion in the history of the nation's
capital unfolded. To the vast majority,
the banners of Communism fluttering
in Washington, the fist-flailing clashes
and the violent verbiage were unsettling,
almost unreal."
Student journalists and demonstrators,
returning and writing in their campus
newspapers in the week following the
event, expressed nearly the same
bewilderment and even outrage at the
national press coverage of the march
on Washington. The newspaper and
television reports "just weren't quite
real," said one 18 year old Bronx High
School student.
Media Mishmash
Other participants and observers call-
ed the press coverage "scandalous."
One major goal of the march had
been to "gain the support of the many
citizens who have been standing on the
sidelines" and to "persuade others to
join" the peace movement. The failure
fine arts
of the march was almost unanimously
attributed by young participants and
observers to biased and incomplete
coverage.
"Their efforts have largely been in
vain," wrote two reporters from the
"Kenyon Collegian," "because the truth
of what they did was not available to
the public they wished to influence."
Atmosphere of Peace
The young critics most commonly cited
the emphasis on student-instigated viol-
ence as an attempt to discredit the
protest. "Yes, there was violence," ad-
mitted the "Collegian" reporters, "but
the overall atmosphere was one of
peace."
Further, students claim the press fail-
ed to report far more serious unwar-
ranted violence of the soldiers and fed-
eral marshals.
Most national media accounts of the
protest centered on brief clashes on the
main mall of the Pentagon soon after
the marchers began arriving from Mem-
orial Bridge gathering point. Protesters
apparenty moved onto the elevated mall
rather easily.
Then while thousands of marchers
settled around the building, a small con-
tingent of radicals carrying the cele-
brated North Vietnamese flags surged
toward the mall entrances. "A few got
through," reported the reputable Christ-
Scenery dominates 'Madding Crowd
By GORDON BRADEN
Fine Arts Staff
John Schlesinger's version of Thomas
Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd,"
now at the Windsor, contains half of a
magnificent picture. That half is the
photographed land, which is given as
imaginative and articulate a treatment
as we are likely to get from any movie-
maker now working.
I use "land" here in the full agrarian
sense of the word as meaning the whole
massive chthonic context of existence,
of which, whether we care to acknowl-
edge it or not, our farms, our cities,
and ourselves are so many excresences:
land not in the commonplace modern
terms the victim of its urban and mili-
tary exploiters, but rather literally the
indestructible ground by which they
and yye are defined and judged—-in
Hardy's own phrase, the devouring Im-
manent Will, whose motivation is in the ing, sees a schoolboy walking by, n
final analysis nonhuman.
When the film comes close to real-
izing this conception, and it frequently
does, it is good, very good indeed, and
perhaps close to great.
Immanent Will
The opening sequences, for example,
rest on the thin, deathly brown fields
of the Dorset seacost, where mankind
appeears as a shepherd with a small, bub-
bling herd of sheep in an obscure corner
of the giant frame. The sense of the
place culminates horribly and beautiful-
ly when a crazed dog drives the whole
herd over a cliff.
Later, in the more fertile areas in-
land, the heroine takes refuge in the
woods after a disastrous quarrel with
her husband, and looking out through
the trees into a painfully green clear-
Perlman displays violin skills
By GEORGE W. BRIGHT
Fine Arts Staff
What is there to say in response to
something which is as nearly perfect as
any music can be—the Tchaikovsky Vio-
lin Concerto played by Itzhak Perlman?
The solo was dark and rich and as
romantic as Tchaikovsky ought to be; it
was at the same time lucidly clear, with
each note beautifully distinct.
It was timed with a precision never
before experience^ not only in the solo
part but also with respect to the en-
trances of the orchestra and the full tut-
ti passages. Andre Previn's feel was
right, and he had complete communica-
tion with his musicians.
Musical Experience
But this is only a hint of the exper-
ience that Perlman imparted to the
crowd in Jones Hall this week. The mu-
sician is only 22 years old, and yet he
is such a master violinist that he com-
pletely commanded the attention of the
audience. He has a maturity of sound
and style of which Oistrakh or Heifetz
would be proud. Music is not a task for
Perlman; it is his soul.
The rest of the concert was certainly
nothing to overlook. It opened with the
Symphony No. 1 of Richard Rodney
Bennett, a work which was completed in
1965 and is full of the sounds expected
from such a recent opus.
Somewhat intellectual, but also of a
strangely emotional quality, it is as
great as the Tchaikovsky concerto
which it preceded. With luck this com-
position will return to Jones Hall to be
heard again.
Haydn & Stravinsky
The second half of the concert was
composed of the Haydn Symphony No.
82 "The Bear" and the Suite from "The
Firebird" by Stravinsky. The latter was
acceptable but clearly not outstanding.
The Haydn was played with more
vigor and enthusiasm than might be ex-
pected from a group as young as the
Houston Symphony. The performance
showed the return of the discipline which
was missed so much in last week's con-
cert. The ensemble was very tight, in
the sense of being well unified.
This program will be remembered,
though, because of a young man from
Israel. Yesterday I would not have be-
lieved that I would ever join a Houston
audience in applauding between move-
ments. But this week there was no way
to remain silent for Perlman.
The applause was not the embarrass-
ed patter which accompanies the open-
ing night of the season, but it was a
warm ovation which showed genuine in-
volvement in the spell of Itzhak Perlman.
It is humbling indeed to hear a man
so young and yet so much a master.
Many years may pass before such op-
portunity is granted again. But to this
one man on this one night I shall be
forever grateful.
citing role phrases out of psalter to an
unseen God.
Such visual moments are ^ simply
good. So good, in fact, that the film
lives successfully for two and a half
of its three hours almost solely on the
poetic nourishment they provide.
Agrarian Film-making
Schlesinger brings to them all the
technical skills of composition and
rhythm that we saw at work in his
"Darling," and makes his naturalistic
materials, which could easily have be-
come just so much scenery, into his great
strength. The film rests solidly on the
land.
Twenty years ago landscape was
something you stuck in to keep two
scenes from slamming together and
hesTdes it was pretty. * Filmed under
such an aesthetic, this novel could have
yielded a monstrosity.
Schlesinger, perhaps following David
Lean's lead in "Lawrence of Arabia"
and "Doctor Zhivago," has had the good
sense to perceive the landscape as a
major character in its own right-—per-
haps THE major character—and at-
tended to it accordingly. And in the
case of Hardy (like Pasternak), this is
a critical judgment of some significance.
Elaborate Dentistry
From this base the rest of the film
grows, however disrespectfully: a city
slum district where Victorian landowners
come to find cheap labor, a fashionable
beach resort complete with mountebank
telling the story of Captain Cook's
voyage among the naked savages (with
illustrations).
Schlesinger's eye for relevant and
evocative detail is excellent, if at times
a bit over-sarcastic. Best bit: a bloody
demonstration of tooth extraction at
a tawdry carnival.
Along with this goes an impressive
assemblage of minor characters, all of
them marvelously free from the usual
studio stench surrounding Earthy peas-
ants. The care employed here is made
beautifully explicit in the precisely in-
dividuated staggers with which each of
the male character^ struggle' horfie from
an all-night drinking bout.
There is even one outstanding and
possibly great performance, that of
Fiona Walker as the wide-eyed maid-
servant Liddy.
(see UNSPECTACULAR on page 10)
ian Science Monitor, "but troops repell-
ed them in a heated brawl."
Marginal Sympathizers
Student activists, like "Time's" foot-
ball-watching typical American-general-
ly disapproved of the incident and, feel-
ing that it was not representative of the
peaceful orientation of the majority of
the marchers, saw the press spotlight
as an attempt to discredit the entire
protest.
"Wesleyan Argus" reporter Guy
Baehr cited instances of students drop-
ping out of the march after the first
violence which they said had "destroy-
ed the dignity" of the march, and which,
as reported by the press, would lose the
anti-war movement many "marginal
sympathizers."
Andy Thurnauer, a Brandeis junior,
also left the scene of the protest after
witnessing the mall violence, but, as he
wrote later in a letter reprinted in the
"Carletonian" of Carleton College, Min-
nesota, the conflict had seemed so in-
significant that he was "unaware that
there was really a violent demonstra-
tion going on."
He returned, however, after having
watched an 11:45 television report that,
"as most of the press was to do after-
wards, spoke only of student provoca-
tion and the like."
I'm*arranted Attacks
He arrived back at the Pentagon in
time to witness the "unwarranted" after-
midnight attacks of**MPs and fed< tal
marshals on students.
"And yet," he concluded, "the press
and government are attempting I ■ dis-
credit the whole thing by writing (only
about) the violent demonstrators who
virtually provoked the soldiers into de-
fending themselves.
Students unanimously claim that the
military was responsible for the continu-
ing' violence after the initial flurij, des-
pite such accounts as that of the New
York Times" which place the blame for
the outbreaks squarely on the demon-
strators.
"It is difficult to report publicly,"
wrote the "Times," "the ugly and vulgar-
provocations of many ot the militants.
They spat on some of the soldiers in the
front line at the Pentagon and goaded
them with the most vicious slander."
Self-Restraint of Demonstrators
While, some student observers later
confirmed taunting of the soldiers, they
insisted that it was very sporadic and
unpopular. "Taunters were shouted down
(by the other demonstrators)," wrote two
Wesleyan juniors who sat on the mall.
"The fact that the demonstrators re-
strained themselves and cooled the situa-
tion clearly shows the prevalent frame
of mind. Most realized that violence was
not in the spirit of the demonstration
and that it hurt the cause."
The heckling was entirely disclaimed
by another prostestor writing in the
Middle bury, Vermont, "Campus." "1 was
sitting in that front line, directly in
front of these soldiers. Many ol them
were restive; they had not been relieved
in five hours.
"Did we provoke and slandei them .
No! We offered them food and cigar-
ettes, told them that we had no quarrel
with them, but rather with the brass
on the steps of the Pentagon: the brass
which refused to communicate with the
demonstrators."
Military Tactics
"Obscenities were not shouted, he
continued, "and people did not spit on
the MP's. Once I saw a student throw
bottles at the soldiers; he was promptly
set upon by the demonstrators and
forced from the scene."
Whatever the cause, students who re-
mained on the mall after the telev ision
cameras were removed near midnight
unanimously reported a second wave of
violence as the military began advancing
slowly on the sitting demonstrators,
arresting and clubbing those who did
not move.
Most national media, including the
(see STUDENTS on page 12)
the rice thresher, november 16, 1967—page 9
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Hancock, Darrell. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 55, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 16, 1967, newspaper, November 16, 1967; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245014/m1/9/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.