The Diaries of Judith Malina 1947–1957 (review)

The Diaries of Judith Malina 1947-1957 Grove Press, 464 pp., $27.50 (cloth); $11.95 (paper) In a 1948 diary entry Judith Malina writes that Toller's Masse Mensch is "The best political play I know." Directed by Malina, the expressionist classic was one of four productions presented during the Living Theatre's recent season in New York. More importantly, it is a reference point which to a great extent enforces the continuity of its German-born author's convictions . Begun when Malina was a young woman of twenty-one, a student of Piscator's Dramatic Workshop, the diaries are not so much sparkling commentary on art, as a chronicle of taste, activities, emotional and political detail, and intellectual longing. There is a great sweep of desire that cuts through Malina's life, and knowing in hindsight the decades of her life in the years up to 1984, it seems likely that she was the fire that turned on the Living Theatre. Julian Beck, whom she married in 1948, was then rather a gentle, accepting soul, often more compromising than she. It is ludicrous to imagine now that his socially "proper" parents gave the young couple an 8mm movie camera to film their first child. What is noteworthy about the diaries is the picture they create of the Becks in the period of the late 40s when they were struggling to found their theatre. This couple who would read The Lady from the Sea under a lamp beside the Hudson were voracious devourers of poetry, plays, philosophical texts, the new painting, new music, and modern literary works-from Varese to Pound to Cocteau. The entries of the early 50s are set against the background of lectures, political meetings late night discussions in now famous bars. It is remarkable how catholic was the Becks' taste as they absorbed all the modernist arts from here and abroad, while helping with their friends, such as John Cage and Paul Goodman and Robert Rauschenberg, to create, each in his own way, the new American art. If there is one difference betwen the avant-garde world the Becks partook of, and today's avant-garde, it is the great range of intellectual pursuit their curiosity embraced. 100 Of her own making, Malina creates a portrait of herself as a woman in constant crisis of one sort or another, with more than a dose of Sturm und Drang in her. Yet she has remained remarkably steadfast since she wrote, in 1956, "I set my course by the landmarks of my history, for I love monument, memorial, anniversary, and poem, cherish inscription, symbol, and ritual drama." Perhaps the next installment-for surely she will continue beyond 1957-will help people of the theatre to understand why those good qualities of a life are simply not enough to keep a theatre living in succesive generations. Bonnie Marranca Film: The Front Line-1983 Jonathan Rosenbaum Arden Press, 238 pp., $10.95 (paper) According to the blurb on the backcover, "Film: The Front Line is an annual publication. Each volume will treat approximately 20 filmmakers who are changing the shape of the movies shown in our neighborhood theatres, though their work will likely never be seen there. The line of experimental and personal filmmakers is long, and to ensure that this series travels the length of that line, Arden Press will open each volume to a critic whose aesthetic inclinations are in opposition to those of the previous author." The aims of Arden Press are, of course, laudable, especially at this time, when the independent and avant-garde film movements (not necessarily congruent) have been endangered by decreasing foundation and governmental support and increasing incursions by commercialism. As a contributor to Film Comment, Sight & Sound, and Cahiers Du Cinema, Jonathan Rosenbaum has provided intriguing and lively observations on the international film scene for more than a decade, so there was an eager anticipation for this volume in the independent film community. Unfortunately, the book is digressive when mere descriptiveness might have proven more useful, and personal in all the wrong ways. There are eighteen major entries in the book (bracketed by two interviews, one with Jonas Mekas, the other with...