1985_01 The Daily Collegian January 1985

              4   The Daily Collegian
Review
'Snowman " director seeks alienation
Sitting in the living room of his New
York hotel suite, film director John Schle-
singer, well known for the Oscar winning
Midnight Cowboy and other award-
winning films, looks very much as if he
should be comfortably encased in a favor¬
ite leather chair in a London Gentleman's
Club. Yet this son of a London Pediatri¬
cian, graduate of Balliol College, Oxford,
and Commander of the British Empire,
has an affinity for those living on the
fringes of society. Many of his films reflect
this viewpoint.
"I'm drawn to all stories that are about
relationships which are in some way in
conflict," he says in his clear English dic¬
tion, "about people who arc living on the
edge, who are alienated or exiled from
society in some way, or feel they are, or
excluded, or lonely. Most of the stuff lVe
chosen has been off-beam to a certain
extent to what is considered normal or
accepted entertainment."
In his latest film, The Falcon and the
Snowman, he again focuses on those who
are alienated from society. The film is
based upon Robert Lindsey's best-seller
of the same name, a true story of how and
why two young men from a wealthy Cali¬
fornia suburb end up together in a
stranger-than-fiction spy scheme.
Christopher Boycc. played by Timothy
Hutton, is the sensitive and idealistic son
of a former FBI agent. Boyce (the "Fal¬
con" for his interest in falconry has been
floating from college to college, trying to
adjust to a disillusionment sweeping over
him in the war and scandal-wracked early
1970's. His childhood dream of becoming
a priest is shattered when he becomes disil¬
lusioned with the church and oth
e finds
s he c
nself
i fathe
longer accept. In June 1974, he decides to
quit school and take time to sort out his
life before returning to college.
His father, hoping Chris "can end his
aimless wandering" helps him land a job
at TRW Defense and Space Systems,
where the 21-year-old Chris is assigned to
the super-secret CIA "Black Vault." His
job is to handle secret communications
> around the world
There, among cynical people who talk cal¬
lously of the horrors of Vietnam and
nuclear war. the confused Chris is ex¬
posed to CIA dirty actions perpetrated
against U.S. allies as well as "enemies."
He learns that the CIA had infiltrated
Australian labor unions to prevent strikes
and to topple the Whitlam government,
which it feared would close secret CIA
bases in Australia. Repulsed by the CIA's
, Chris feels that all the values he
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believes in arc being betrayed. In a defiant
impulse, he decides to strike back at the
CIA by taking their secrets and giving
them to the Russians.
To do this, he contacts his childhood
friend, 22-year-old Daulton Lee (the
"Snowman"), played by Sean Penn. The
adopted son of a wealthy doctor, Daulton
has many self-esteem problems that have
drawn him to drags and later to drug deal¬
ing. In early 1975. Daulton decides he
must leave the country to avoid being sent
to prison on a drug charge. He sees the
prospect of selling secrets to the Russians
in Mexico as a way out of his dilemma.
The spy scheme is set in motion.
As the story unfolds there is much evi¬
dence to indicate that the CIA learned of
the scheme and used the two young men
for their own purposes and the film implies
this very strongly.
John Schlesinger was immediately
attracted to this bizarre tale, and he clung
tenaciously to it through the four years it
took to get it onto film.
"We musn"t forget that it is a very
extraordinary adventure story of a unique
and original kind," he says. "It's also a
tragedy as well as a black comedy, and
underneath it all there is somehting that 1
think is about now—that affects us all in a way."
"I like dealing with stories that perhaps
audience have to try to understand some¬
thing." Some films have been "almost a
mission" for him.
The Falcon and the Snowman isnt
simply a spy story. "Chris Bovce wasnt
"The responsibility, and the realization
of things, and the emotional depth of the
piece springs mainly from Chris's story—
which is a complex one—not all told at
once. I don't think it matters that you
don't know the full set of reasons why he
should propose the whole thing except
that you know he's disturbed, and the time
in which it's set, and the nature of the
relationship with his father—his father's
connection with the FBI—and the grad¬
ual realization that what he believes in is
somehow being betrayed. And so he, in an
act, not fully thought out as we know—of
revenge—starts on a crazed mission, which
perhaps for him wasn't crazy—in which
he finds, gradually, the net closing inexor¬
ably round him; finds himself in a position
that he cannot get out of. To me. as IVe
said, it's finally a tragedy."
The author, Robert Lindsey, said,
"Everybody I know who has been touched
by Chris has been moved by him as a
human being...he has many fine quali-
Vivid Imaaes
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Specializing in:
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• Graphic Design
THE DAILY COLLEGIAN
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Science
January 23, 1985 5
Mnemonics better than cramming
Staff Writer
Quick: how many days are there in
July?
If you answered 31, you're right. If you
retrieved a poem from the dusty recesses
of your memory to do so, you used what is
termed a mnemonic.
Mnemonics, or memory tricks, turn
information that is patternless and diffi¬
cult to remember into ordered material,
which is easierto recall. Unlike cramming,
the method used by most students to deal
with this kind of information, a good
mnemonic can help you retrieve facts
months and even years from the day it was
first implemented.
This is because human memory is
divided into different parts, and cram¬
ming does not place the material studied
into the same type of memory a mnemonic
will. Cramming involves the short term
memory, which holds the information for
a few days, sometimes only hours unless it
isctviewed. Mnemonics, because they are
niore ordered, involve the long term
''memory. The long term memory is what
enables you to recall information such as
your mother's maiden name, or the events
leading up to your first kiss.
The trick to taking information out of
the short term memory and placing it in
more permanent storage is to make it
meaningful. The more tedious method of
continued repetition is less effective and
time consuming. A little imagination and
practice is all one needs to master mne-
Some of the m
methods of remembering things involve
poems, such as, 'In 1 492, Columbus sailed
the ocean blue." Another is the use of
hours itaBtaail
said. Hypotrycatskotk* Wood sugar.
reduces ones ability to reason clearly
or even stay awake. fcjr deprivia* the
brain of tbe simple sugars h needs to
fu nction.*! think every onehas ftft thai
way oriee. Its disturbing. It hurtsT*
Nutrition plays the
during.the «*t|ty yean of Bffc TMr is
ceils of the brain are
damaged or being replaces! after they
aaasaaal
chance of UUt happening her* withour
• Students'••*«>. aooasooiy cat fast
food* or TV sSaamaeetaorc litafr to
be ambient as Vtttcosas A *mt C
fosmd sa frrwtt aaat aaaaa "asi.tli
Woe—> areate jlllllaH/to he-tow
. in rn^ she saiTMaaS type, of
' aerVsesfcy wa arT«* Mttt atanaas*.
le from tbe first letter of
each item to be remembered. Classic exam¬
ples.of this are "Every good boy does
fine.^^hich helps would-be musicians
learn to read music, and "Mary Virginia
eats many jelly sandwiches under Nelly's
porch," a strange sentence which records
the first letters of the planets of the solar
system: Mercury,' Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and
Pluto.
A better method is to use. imagery, to
create a picture of the information in
your mind. Three methods which can help
you do this are:
1) Combining the items to form one
image. Suppose your history teacher
expects you to remember the exports of
Upper Slobovia for an upcoming test
They are: cattle, corn, cotton and toma¬
toes. This mnemonic method involves tak¬
ing all four of the products and combining
them into one mental picture. ■
Remember, the more bizarre the image,
the easier it will be to recall. So visualize a
bull staring angrily at you, and add to that
image an ear of corn stuck in each of his
ears, a tomato or two spindled on his
horns, and then place him knee-deep in
cotton. Once you have a clear image,
move on. It's much easier to conjure up
that image than a dull list of "cattle, corn,
cotton and tomatoes."
2) Visualize yourself walking through
your home. To remember the same four
agricultural products of Upper Slobovia,
you could place each of them in separate
rooms of your house, and then imagine
yourself walking in the house and finding
each, one by one. The advantage to this is
that by traveling through the rooms in a
Keep Informed!!!
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set fashion, you can also it	
order of the items, in case that is important.
Place the bull in your living room, claw¬
ing at the carpet, or munching on a house-
plant. Visualize your kitchen covered with
rotten tomatoes. Imagine your bed being
replaced by a corn crib, or a field or corn.
Picture yourself walking into the bathroom
and finding it filled to the ceiling with
cotton balls. Once you have the imaaes
placed properly, imagine yourself walking
in front of the door to find a bull, toma¬
toes, corn and cotton in that order. The
images will last much longer than those
four nouns would — crammed into short
term memory.
3)Association with numbers. This also
helps to organize information in which
sequence is important. The numbers from
one to ten are turned into images: one is a
bun. two is a shoe, and so forth. Combin¬
ing the agricultural products with this
method, imagine the same bull chewing
on a bun. the bun stands for one, and that
way, the image of the product and the
specific sequence are combined.
The remaining numbers involved in this
method are paired up with the following
images: three, a tree; four, a door; five, a
beehive; six, sticks; seven, heaven; eight', a
gate; nine, a line; and ten, a hen.
Memorization can be a tedious task,
but it need not be so. The most important
thing to remember when using any mne¬
monic is that the more vivid an image that
can be associated with the information
the more easily it can be recalled. P
Once mastered, mnemonics are easier
to use and more effective than cramming
ever could be.
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