By Mark Robinson
Cougar News Editor

“Exiled in Paris”
By James Campbell

A lot has been said of the Lost Generation. With the likes of Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce and other expatriates in Parisian cafes and streets, the romance of the City of Lights is hard to ignore.

However, after World War II with the Nazis knocked out and the Marshall Plan in full bloom, another renaissance took place. After the greatest war of all history, Paris was in shambles, and it welcomed a second wave of American writers into its bosom.

This is where James Campbell’s “Exile in Paris” begins and the Lost Generation ends. Gertrude Stein died weeks after African-American novelist and ex-communist Richard Wright floated over the Atlantic Ocean to Paris, a virtual refugee seeking sanctuary from a home country that through ideas and laws oppressed African-Americans.

In Paris, Wright and his merry band of scholars could eat, drink, listen to jazz and write -- all the while making Paris, once again, the cultural capitol of Europe. British writers came to France. American writers came to France. Scottish writer Alex Trocchi skipped over London to come to France.

Gertrude Stein, a direct line to the early 20th-century literati, and artists such as Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, Sartre, Jean Cocteau, Andre Breton and others, precipitated the second generation of writers by inviting Wright to Paris. Wright’s younger, yet equally talented, counterpart, James Baldwin, followed along with Trocchi, Christopher Logue, Chester Himes and William Gardner Smith.

“Exiled in Paris” chronicles the literary aspect of the late 1940s and 1950s with the political and social aspects of the writer’s exploits. Both Wright and Baldwin truly considered themselves outsiders in their own country and sought refuge in Paris, and in an attempt to further the African-American cause in the United States they wrote with venom on their tongues. However, the true battles were being fought on the streets of the south and neighborhoods of the north -- not in the cafes and cobblestone rues of Paris.

Baldwin, it seems, knew this and said they should be in their home country fighting the good fight, but it turned out to be hollow words. Ironically, Baldwin and Wright never seemed to be on the same side. Literary criticism, when the literature is political, is an attack on one’s politics as much as it is on the sentence structure or character development.
To further their frustrations, the leftist views drew the attention of the CIA and FBI, according to Campbell. Rumors flew that certain writers were government informants and some literary reviews were CIA fronts. The exiled were about as paranoid about the American government as the American government was of communist writers.

Campbell focuses less on the massive amount of literary reviews and periodicals that flooded Paris through the 1950s and his only tryst in publishing came with the introduction of Maurice Girodias and Olympia Press. In an attempt to make his own name in publishing by finding the great writers of this new generation, he printed the “unpalatable” including risqué novels eventually publishing Nabokov’s “Lolita,” Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” and “Tropic of Capricorn” and William F. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch.”

“Exile in Paris” also contributes one chapter to the “beat” writers like Gregory Corso and the seminal Allen Ginsberg. Ranging from the tawdry poems of Ginsberg and books from Olympia Press to the espionage and dead-serious politics of the African-Americans, Campbell paints a complete picture of Paris’ rejuvenation in the hands of writers who re-built the city brick by brick through the written word.

Three out of Five Paws

****

By Sydney Portilla-Diggs
Campus Correspondent

“Inside Man”

For director Spike Lee, “Inside Man” has a different feel than any of his previous offerings. Film reviewer James Berardinelli gives kudos to the talent “both in front of and behind the camera.”

Out of seasoned actors, Lee gets stellar performances from a brilliantly written first-time screenplay by Russell Gewirtz. Led by Dalton Russell (Owen), the masked men enter the bank dressed as painters and take around 50 hostages. After the hostage negotiator everyone wants is unavailable, detective Frazier (Denzel Washington) is called in to work with Captain Darius (Willem Dafoe.)

Obviously, Frazier and Darius have a past, which bubbles near the surface for the duration of the movie.

“Inside Man” appears to be a standard bank robbery—complete with hostages, good cops and a hostage negotiator with some internal affair problems hanging over his head. Naturally, the lead bank robber will go head to head with the hostage negotiator, and we know exactly how this is going to turn out. Dalton Russell is believable as the man with the plan. However, the plan doesn’t seem to include actually robbing the bank. No one seems to notice or figure that out except -- you guessed it—detective Frazier.

When Madeliene White (Jodie Foster) shows up at the site with the mayor, no one is suspicious when she shows up to represent the interests of the bank’s owner Arthur Case (played by Christopher Plummer). However, when she calls in one of many favors to gain entry into the bank and access to the bank robbers, Frazier becomes suspicious of her.

Once inside the bank, White attempts to broker a deal with Russell for the contents of a certain safe deposit box. Besides Case, she makes sure she is the only other person who knows what is inside the box. Yet,  Russell is the man with the master plan because he has known all along. White demonstrates how ruthless a certain type of women can be. White is one frosty “batch of cookies” with a steely demeanor and an impeccable reputation. Madeliene never does anything unless there is something in it for her.

She irritates Frazier because she is condescending and callous. Nevertheless, the sarcastic banter between them provides some of the film’s most comedic moments.

Although White is a small part of a very complicated subplot, she serves no other purpose in the film. The film is chockfull of witty repartee between Russell and Frazier. The cinematography presents very powerful imagery in the post robbery sequences. In the dazzling plot line, it is difficult to discern who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. Many questions can be answered by the film such as what was in the safe deposit box? But so many others are left unanswered. In this way, the film is more representative of reality. Because in most people, isn’t there a little good and a little bad? Are bad things done with good intentions? Can you ever make retribution for one horrible act of evil? 

Four out of Five Paws