BOOKS/FRANCE

JACQUES BE NIMBLE; JACQUES BE QUICK

Verbatim II by Jacques Attali; Fayard; 517 pages

Cohabitation was the delicate word for the forced political marriage of Socialist President Francois Mitterrand and neo-Gaullist Prime Minister Jacques Chirac in 1986. The two shared power but little else, as an insider's view makes plain. Economist Jacques Attali, Mitterrand's close adviser, kept a daily record, scribbling vivid anecdotes, vitriolic quips and accounts of back-room intrigue. Rejoice, readers: they are all in Verbatim II, the second installment of Attali's eyewitness view of the Mitterrand era.

The first volume, published in 1993, was notable for the controversy over the author's use of private conversations between Mitterrand and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. The notoriety of the current best-selling book is largely due to the portrayal of Mitterrand as openly contemptuous of Chirac and resolved to thwart his ambitions. Considering a re-election bid in 1988, Mitterrand said to members of his inner circle, "I will run if Chirac is leading in the polls...He is not capable of being President." Younger by 15 years, Chirac remained fascinated by the President's political skills, even while maneuvering to supplant him. Still, Attali declares that the two in the end created "a relationship based on mutual curiosity and real sympathy.'' Certainly, the graciousness with which the torch was passed from Mitterrand to his rival last May bespoke less acrimonious co-habitation than genuine cordiality.

MOVIES/BRAZIL

MADE OF BITTER FRUIT

Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business Directed by Helena Solberg

For many Brazilians, the exploitation of the best from their culture is symbolized by a tiny dynamo of a woman with fruit piled tipsily atop her head. It was Hollywood that made Carmen Miranda into an international celebrity in the 1940s, but in Brazil she was regarded as both a reason for pride and an embarrassing cliche.

Born poor in a small town in Portugal, Miranda grew up in Rio de Janeiro and was a Brazilian samba star before she electrified Broadway in the 1939 play The Streets of Paris. On the Technicolor screen she was an exotic ambassador for the U.S. government's good-neighbor policy, which Hollywood used as an opportunity to build new cinema markets south of the border. Four decades after her death, a new film, Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business, gives a human dimension to the stereotyped screen personality of the "lady in the tutti-frutti hat," with her flashing eyes and cheerfully mangled English.

Part documentary and part dramatization, the 91-min. film has interviews with relatives, musicians and Miranda's first boyfriend. Actress Rita Moreno is angrily eloquent in commenting on the movies' cynical characterization of Latin women. Anniversary exhibits and tributes are providing a reappraisal of the magnetic performer, and this film, says the daily newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo, "shows the sentimental ambiguity that the Carmen Miranda character had for Brazilians."

MOVIES/SINGAPORE

OUTCASTS ON THE ISLAND'S EDGE

The Noodle Seller Written by Damien Sin; Directed by Eric Khoo

To the rest of the world, Singapore appears to be sparkling clean and thriving. At film festivals from Montreal to Fukuoka, The Noodle Seller (Mee Pok Man)-a highly praised first feature by a 30-year-old-presents a startlingly different perspective, portraying Singapore's seamy underside, with its alienated and outcast. Shot in less than three weeks on a $71,000 budget, it is told in the local Hokkien dialect with segments in Mandarin, Cantonese and English. Most of the performers are amateurs, and in an added touch of realism, a taxi driver and a fortune teller play themselves. An offbeat love story of a slow-witted noodle seller and a world-weary prostitute he rescues after she is struck by a car, the film ends on a macabre and despondent note with an unexpected death.

At last month's Moscow International Film Festival, one critic hailed the movie as "European in style and Chinese in essence.'' Singapore-born director Eric Khoo, who learned his craft at Sydney's City Art Institute, had made eight earlier short films, the last of which, Pain, won awards at Singapore's 1994 film festival but was then banned by censors for excessive violence. With the 105-min. Noodle Seller, Khoo evaded an all-out government ban, but the film has an RA (Restricted Artistic) rating, meaning no one in Singapore under 21 may see it. Nonetheless, adult Singaporeans, eager to see their city in a starring role, are packing theaters where it is playing.

ET CETERA/UNITED STATES

A CHOICE VOICE

F.D.R. on Radio: The Voice of an Era Museum of Television and Radio; New York City

Hitler and Churchill shared this with Franklin Roosevelt: they recognized radio's effectiveness as a means of mass communication. Syllable for syllable, neither was a match for F.D.R. He capitalized on broadcasting's usefulness not only as a platform for oratory but also as a way to reach people directly and informally and create an image of a wise, concerned counselor. Gathered in their homes, Americans listened intently to his speeches, and most particularly to the folksier "fireside chats." Calmly, the President spoke of the challenges before the nation: the social direction America was taking through his New Deal policies and, later, the personal sacrifices that would be required to wage war on two fronts.

At the Museum of Television and Radio, excerpts from his speeches and talks are organized by theme into half-hour packages that illustrate Roosevelt's mastery. He gave the carefully scripted fireside chats a disarming impromptu quality. In one, for example, he paused for a sip of water, explaining that it was a hot July night in Washington. His first talk, in March 1933, came during the depths of the Depression, a week after he ordered the banks closed. Explaining what lay ahead for the U.S. financial system, he said with absolute conviction that Americans would be reassured "when you understand what we in Washington have been about." In the U.S. capital today, few politicians-and certainly not the President-could say that and believe it. -By Emily Mitchell. With reporting by Helen Chang/Singapore, Ian McCluskey/Bras¡lia and Thomas Sancton/Paris