European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 27, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse Friends trip by Judy Klemesrud new York times ale Friendship Long of robust Macho Stap he a r Manti cism has been celebrated to novel Beer commercials and the soc aued buddy buddy films. Female Friendship however was a Argey ignored to years perhaps because no one believed it really existed the stereotype was of women at each other s throats a they competed for men. Wow that stereotype has been dealt a blow As a number of dims exalting female Friendship have been released in recent months including one Sinai the other Doem Julio an unmarried woman and to a certain extent the latest film and perhaps the one most explicitly aimed at this once unexplored area is Claudia Wei s girlfriends it is about what happens to two female Man Hattan roommates when one of them decides to move out and get married. What i tried to do was show that female Friendship Isas fragile delicate supportive Complex nourishing painful and difficult As a love affair Weill said the other Day Over lunch. It is not unlike a marriage she went on. At the end of the Day you share meals you talk about what Yon did you go to movies together and Yon see friends Weill who is 31 years old and one of the few Active women directors in the United states said she thought that because intimacy with a Man is such a powerful experience we tend to disregard or value less than we should our Friendship with that attitude is changing she said mainly because or the women s movement and the fact that More anymore women Are forming close friendships with other women. Today it s considered bad form to break a Date nth a woman if a Man Calls she said. Not Long ago the Man always came Girlfriend to Meuti first feature film the two mater characters Susan Melanie Mayron and Anne Anit Skinner Are just out of College and live together in a filth floor walk up on Manhattan s West Side. Anne a would be poet from the Middle West de eyes to get married causing Sosan a straggling photographer to fed betrayed. For the tint time ton forced to begin a life alone. Anne who eventually becomes a Mother sees Susan As nog Tad Independent. Susan tired of struggling alone Eady Anne s Security. Eventually they Are brought together on a new and deeper level of Friendship on a Day Tanne has an abortion and Susan has her first exhibition in a Soho gallery. I Weill saying that a Friendship Between two women is better than a relationship Between a Man and a woman no to not proposing that one is better than the other a it s different. With two women you know How a is going to respond it s like a kinship like family Claudia Weill of girlfriends. .k1 find Intel est tap�pe1wn from each said and. $10 of to film financed by z "f1 whte. Weill said but gradually grew to feature length As she put together a series. C5 " us Weill a it had drawn Many positive comments from men of bad seen Advance screenings. So Many men hav Ehm up to me and said when my Best Friend ffkjj8/ 4 it lost " she Laid. I just think men Are not As it revealing that feeling As women sat jew asked if she were at All influenced by i5 1 by feminists on the ground that they add women. Weill said w who a p"1 Blue eve an wears her Brown hair in a shaggy brushed Back Hau style said she got the idea to the film after Tjnsffel4 rtt called blot by at Herne it s about a Young married woman who had a baby and thinks everything is so Happy and she said. Yet she s drawn to a successful single woman an wants that woman s life. She sees her husband helping the woman on with her coat and he May or May not behaving an affair with her. So the married woman s idea of Bliss is Weill Ever been involved in a Roommate situation similar to that of Susan and Anne i have been Susan and i have been Anne she re plied. But it s not based on any one situation or on my life. The closest parallel to me was when i shared a House with a Girlfriend my last year at Radcliffe. But i was theone who left for a Weill who is single and lives in Greenwich Village hashed what she Calls an extremely privileged a Dis Tant Cousin of the late composer Kurt Weill she grew Upin Scarsdale. N.y., and worked Summers at her father s British american House clothing store in Manhattan. He Mother is a lecturer at the China Institute. She said she first became interested in filmmaking at Radcliffe and was convinced she wanted to make it her career during the summer of her Sophomore year 1m7when she worked As a go Fer on a dear Alatary called revolution that was being filmed la the Haught Ashbury Section of san Francisco. Before girl Rienzi was the Academy award nominated documentary the other Hall of the sky a China Memoir the 1975 chronicle of the first women s delegation to China led by Shirley Maclaine. She has also produced and directed a number of other documentaries including he acclaimed Joyce at 4, and 20 films for does it bother her that she is often described As feminist filmmaker i am a feminist and i am a film maker she replied evenly. But i Don t believe in making didactic or Rhetor ical films. I believe you move people by making the laugh or cry. To me that is the Roost political thing you can Weill. a Deal with Warner Maers. Datri Katar rfcs Rifle i Sau Sac sonetto k7 tiap to Tae Latare be sues woman . From Campus to Hollywood by Bob Thomasa isolated Pren n nowadays its 83 hard to get into Urcla Anduss films schools As it is to enter Harvard medical school and no wonder. Film schools Are the largest source of new movie Higgins is the latest to join Francis Coppola. George Lucas John mules. Hal Barwood. Mat thew Rabbins and others who have graduated from film ing 8mm shorts on Campus to spending millions on wide screen features. For his master s thesis at Urcla Higgins wrote the script of Harold and Maude and that would have been enough to ensure his year s Surprise smash Stiver Streak was written Bayhi glib. He is responsible for both the script and do rec ton of this summer s release fad play. Tarring . All of hug Star films have been Straw a admits i like then of Start Dott. Lum lot myself la Mother Clyl Dhauw telling tale on the campfire and having others say what happened next i like the big entertainment where the audience canst Back and have a rollicking Good time. I also like to play cat and mouse with audiences to let them get ahead of what the actors know and then whammy show them their clues were does just that in Fout plot. Goldie hawn has a Roh of film that seems to be the reason the Crooks Are trying to kill her. The Roll seems to be the Alfred Hitchcock form for the crucial evidence but it comes to a Surpris ending. The Stout figure of Hitchcock is Ever present in foul play which owes its Climax to the concert Hall assassination in the Man who knew too much likewise. Sillier i re of had obvious overtones of North by Northwest. Higgins readily confesses he debt to Hitchcock to 12?" the Hook one inv just a . White wrote the grammar for writing. The Only difference is that Hitchcock uses movie that 1st-Stead of Higgins 37, has Bushy Brown hair and the handsome face of an actor which he was in his College years. He was born on the French Island of new Caledonia where his american father worked for pan am the boy spent the War years with his australian Mother i Sydney and grew up in both California and Australia. He gained his education from Stanford University the army the sorbonne hiking through Europe and shipping to the Orient As a Seaman. Finally he landed at Urcla working us Way through film school As poo and Tennis court cleaner and Par time chauffeur for producer Edward Lewis. For his master s thesis Higgins turned out an auda Cious comedy about the love match Between a free Spiri Ted woman of 80 and a suicidal Young and Maude not Only won his degree but also a $100,000 Sale to Paramount it sold on a weekend Jobob Evans Higgins happily recalled. Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon starred in the film Halaby s second As director. On its first release Harold and Maude received almost International disdain. Time and Newsweek refused to review reviewers wrote along Ibe lines of a Mack comedy from a warped mind the Only favourable reception was in parts Francois Truffaut recently told me it is Stul running Harold and Maude would not die. It became More thana cult film it proved a phenomenon. Now Paramount is a we w Mik a i r the initial failure submerged Higgins new career. �2? ,3 " Juliu " a Tom Miller and Eddie Milkis Higgins left for Paris where Jean Louis a Mutt commissioned him to convert Harold an Maude into a play for his wife Madeline Renaud. The play is also still running. When i came Back to Hollywood in w75." Higgins said. I figured the Way to gel Back into the movie Busi Ness was to write a comedy entertainment. i Felt called to direct but i realized it was Bey Admy inny we Wisul a in Maui a with Beautiful faces and the adventures they have you can use on any subject entertainment sunday August 27, 1978 Unow j Geould direct. Several years ago. I Bueno cared Knib Tofino. I rewrote about so percent of it an that became Fout ploy. Fox turned it Down. Paramount Ruef Barry duller had a moment s hesitation about my direction until i said. I wrote it and i can see it that sold the stars and stripes p�9t 9
