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TIME International
July 22, 1996 Volume 148, No. 4
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NOTEBOOK
DISPATCHES:ALL SET FOR VENICE
GREG BURKE, IN ROME
The gondolier poles his boat up the narrow canal, past a series of well-kept 16th century Venetian homes. His passenger, a young woman with a wry smile, nods calmly as the locals line up onshore, cheer and toss flower petals in her direction. As the gondola slides under a bridge, one voice rises above the rest. "Cut!" yells director Marshall Herskovitz. The gondola turns, and men in wet suits emerge to collect the petals from the canal for the next take. With the water, the gondolas and the facades of about 25 buildings, this looks a lot like Venice. Welcome to the magic of movies: this is actually an elaborate set at Rome's Cinecitta studios. Dubbed "Hollywood on the Tiber" in the glory days of the late 1950s and early '60s, when international directors shot major films here, Cinecitta is better known these days as the second-to-last stop on the A line of the subway. The 40-hectare complex of stages and sets, inaugurated by dictator Benito Mussolini in 1937, once hosted epics such as Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, William Wyler's Ben-Hur and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Cleopatra. Marcello Mastroianni, Elizabeth Taylor and Charlton Heston cavorted on a maze of sets and, when the day's shooting was done, partied on the Via Veneto. But in recent years stars have stayed away, the studios decayed, and the sound stages eked out a half-life hosting television shows and commercials. Of late the only high-profile name to work at Cinecitta has been Sylvester Stallone, who made portions of Cliffhanger there in 1993, and then returned last year to film Daylight.
Herskovitz, best known for the hit U.S. television series thirtysomething, has picked Cinecitta to film his own epic, The Honest Courtesan. The film is set in 16th century Venice, and as much as a third of the action takes place near the Grand Canal, so tying up the real, 20th century city for a long shoot was out of the question. "Venice is truly a city built on water," Herskovitz explains, "and you can't shut it down." Even for a day, and Herskovitz needed weeks. The solution was provided by production designer Norman Garwood, a veteran who lists Hook and Brazil among his credits. He built a little Venice, complete with palazzi and piazze, a dozen gondolas and professional gondoliers. Herskovitz claims that by the time the movie reaches a screen near you, with Catherine McCormack of Braveheart playing the courtesan and Jacqueline Bisset as her mother, Venice's stunt-double will be indistinguishable from the real thing. Garwood only wishes he could take it all home with him. But he'll have no such luck. When the movie wraps, the plywood and plaster Venice becomes just another cinematic artifact in Cinecitta's epic reliquary.
TALK OF THE STREETS
WOLVERHAMPTON: Attack on Innocents
In a world assailed by brutality on the streets and in the media, one kind of crime still has the power to shock: violence against little children. Last week, as authorities were concluding an inquiry into the massacre in March of 16 schoolchildren in Dunblane, Scotland, a new act of savagery set Britain reeling. A man wielding a machete leaped over two fences of a nursery school in this English town and--smiling all the while--hacked at a group of three- and four-year-olds picnicking in the garden. Within moments he slashed, stabbed and bludgeoned three children and four adults and fled. Amazingly, there were no fatalities. The suspect, Horrett Irving Campbell, 32, a loner with a troubled history, was apprehended the next day hiding in a nearby apartment building and charged with attempted murder. The in-explicable attack sparked demands for increased school security. But as Wolverhampton's director of education Roy Lockwood pointed out, "With someone prepared to climb over two walls you have to question what security should mean."
BEIRUT: Sex, Drugs and Society
Around the swimming pools where Beirutis congregate in summer, one topic dominates conversation: the Velvet Society scandal. Rumor has long posited the existence of the society, said to be a loose confederation of affluent married women who sell sex and drugs to politicians and entertainers for kicks and pin money. Late last month, however, the gossip mill overheated when vice detectives raided a tony Beirut address and discovered four naked revelers imbibing cocaine-laced champagne and engaging in group sex. Those four directed police to dozens of other alleged members and clients of the ring. A press blackout on their identities has merely spurred speculation. Among those whose names are whispered: Cabinet members, singing and television stars, children of high-ranking officials. The reports of decadence have fueled resentment over the kid-glove treatment accorded the Velvet Society. "They're not publishing the names because they're important people," said a teacher. "You can bet that if they were ordinary people, they'd be published." And the protection afforded the genuine culprits has victimized potentially innocent suspects. "People are naming anyone and everyone. It's character assassination," said journalist Roudaina Al-Arab.
BONN: A Call to Arms
A male politician has set off a battle of the sexes in Germany by recommending that military women be granted the same career options as men, including combat duty. Forbidden by the constitution to bear arms, women serve in the medical and music corps only. The female reaction to the equal-opportunity suggestion by Free Democratic Party secretary general Guido Westerwelle was immediate--and surprisingly hostile. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, deputy chair of the opposition Social Democrats (S.P.D.) called the proposal an attempt to use women as "place holders" for men, who are declining military service in increasing numbers. S.P.D. legislator Uta Zapf warned against "further militarization of our society." And Christel Hanewinckel, S.P.D. spokeswoman for family and women's affairs, complained, "The F.D.P.'S motto seems to be 'Make sure jobs in business stay reserved for men; women can do guard duty or risk their lives on military missions.'" There was, however, some dissent in the ranks. "I want to be deployed exactly as any man," Sergeant Petra Walter, 27, told Suddeutsche Zeitung.
AL-MANSURA: Chewing-Gum Hysteria
The potent three-letter word ending in x is the hot topic in this Egyptian university town. Everyone has heard the stories: after chewing certain brands of gum, it is said, female students experience uncontrollable passion for their male peers. In a society where girls are expected to remain virgins until marriage, the news has generated considerable anxiety. Suspicion of who might be spiking the gum with aphrodisiacs fell on the usual suspect, Israel, frequently accused of supplying the Egyptian black market with pornography. However, laboratory analysis this month showed that far from containing sexual stimulants, some gum samples had traces of a chemical that actually lowers libido. So how to explain the accounts of irresistible urges? Once a rumor gets going, says sociologist Madiha El Safty, "the suggestibility factor can be so strong that it can greatly affect one's mind and actions without there being a scientific explanation."
VERBATIM
"North Korea is a huge prison that treats people like dogs and pigs." --Defector Choi Sung Chan, who said he saw burials every day of people who had died of starvation
"You must think of these people as witnesses. Let them tell their story so that they might not have died in this place in vain." --American forensic anthropologist William Haglund, speaking to the Washington Post about excavating a mass grave near Srebrenica of some 60 people believed executed by Bosnian Serbs
"The explosion in [Dhahran] did not come as a direct reaction to the American occupation but as a result of American behavior against Muslims." --Osama bin Laden, wealthy dissident from Saudi Arabia, in the British daily the Independent
"They want people to go to work and feel the sword of Damocles hanging over them and think, Will there be another bombing, will I get shot?" --Russian national security supervisor Alexander Lebed, on the spate of bomb attacks on Moscow's public transportation
FROM THE WORLD'S HEADLINES
Discussions at the INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE in Canada set off a global debate about the best ways to stem the epidemic's advance
FINANCIAL TIMES, BRITAIN: "Recent research has given hope that drug combinations will be able to keep symptoms of the disease under control almost indefinitely."
NEW VISION, UGANDA: "The new drug therapies cost $15,000 per year, unaffordable for most people in developing countries...Health education can be an even more effective tool...than protease inhibitors, which...do not eventually solve the problem."
HONG KONG STANDARD, HONG KONG: "There is a real danger that publicity given to the search for a cure may persuade some men and women that there is no longer a need to take necessary precautions."
WINDSOR STAR, CANADA: "This is not the time to let up on the battle against the disease...Fourteen years ago, AIDS had no name. Today AIDS has no mercy. Tomorrow AIDS could be cured."
HEALTH REPORT
THE GOOD NEWS
--Research indicates that a new type of MRI may allow BREAST CANCER patients to find out almost immediately whether their chemotherapy treatment will likely be effective. The image reveals if the drugs are directly attacking the cancer site.
--For colds, think zinc. A study finds that sufferers who begin popping a kind of ZINC LOZENGE (gluconate glycine) within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms get over their sniffles and sore throat three days sooner than those who suck on a placebo. Possible side effects: nausea and a bad taste.
--New relief may soon be available for severe INCONTINENCE. An operation in which a muscle from the thigh is wrapped around the urethra has helped half of all patients studied.
THE BAD NEWS
--People over age 70 who take certain short-acting CALCIUM CHANNEL BLOCKERS for high blood pressure may increase their risk of developing cancer, suggests a study. The drugs may impede the body's normal safeguards against rapid cell division.
--Don't chew the fat. The mere taste of FATTY FOOD--even if it isn't swallowed--promotes a surge in the concentration of fat in the blood. One explanation: receptors in the mouth may detect the chemical properties of food and cause the body to react.
--On-the-job mayhem in the U.S.: more than 1,000 murders, the most ever reported, occurred at work in 1994, while 1 million physical assaults take place annually, the latest government statistics reveal. Riskiest occupation: taxi driver.
Sources--GOOD NEWS: American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting; Annals of Internal Medicine; American Urological Association meeting BAD NEWS: American Journal of Hypertension; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
15 YEARS AGO IN TIME
'Til Divorce Do Us Part
As it was in the beginning, the magical ceremony that was watched by the world: "In plan and in prospect, the marrying of H.R.H. to Lady Diana Spencer, 20, the well-born and distinctively dishy commoner, is...a last page from the tattered book of empire with the gold leaf still intact...This wedding on the cusp of high noon, in front of a world short on ritual and parched for romance, is in fact one grand pass of the royal wand, a masterly and pricey piece of prestidigitation in which, at once, the old values are upheld, the future is assured...Lady Diana's youthful radiance stole the show last week at the Queen's garden party. Allowing an elderly blind guest to feel her engagement ring, she joked: "I'd better not lose this before Wednesday, or they won't know who I am." --Aug. 3, 1981