Sunday

Nixon may think he got the shaft, but Dan Drasin '65 got the king's elevator this week. Drasin filmed Sunday in Washington Square during the folksinging riot just before his freshman year; it went on to win international acclaim at festivals and in the film journals. At last it has come to the Square, but neither the Brattle, in its ads, nor Ivy Films, in its lavish spread in the HSA Calendar, bothered to mention Sunday. For the Brattle this amounts merely to bad business, but for Ivy Films it is an act of bad faith. Drasin was an active member of Harvard's film society (he is now on a leave of absence) and he shot his marvelous documentary with special equipment invented by Richard Leacock, a past president.

Leacock's invention permits the photographer to shoot synch-sound with an easily portable system. It allowed Drasin to move into the heart of the riot and capture devastating close-ups and unguarded remarks at the height of the furor. His talent for composition, his sense of humor and his feeling for spontaneous drama all belie his youth and comparative inexperience. Unfortunately, Sunday will play for only two more days, and I have only enough space to recommend it highly and urge you to force the Brattle into extending Sunday's run by the onslaught of your numbers. On the same bill is Luis Bunuel's Viridiana, which received a glowing review from Ivy Films.