Public TV: Last Chance for PBL

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Cavorting Cops. Accentuating a trend of last year and striving to provide something different from the commercial competition, Westin will film most of his documentaries in cinéma-vérité style. As Birth and Death Producer Arthur Barren puts it: "I guess it's significant that my hero is Fellini instead of Edward R. Murrow." For one upcoming show, Westin has given handheld cameras to seven artists and told them to produce their own 20-minute film on "the American scene." Black Militant LeRoi Jones plans to concentrate on Negro self-education and self-defense; Wendell Niles, a film maker in the employ of Right-Winger H. L. Hunt, will do a short featuring Hunt and John Wayne. Documentary Maker Ricky Leacock (Don't Look Back) has just filmed "3,000 police chiefs and then-wives cavorting on Waikiki Beach." PBL's major coup of the season could be its commissioning of Jean-Luc Godard to do his first U.S. film: the title is One American Movie, and the French master was looking at rushes in Paris last week.

"This year," Westin sums up, "we go for broke." But the foundation decision on whether or not to fund a third season for PBL will probably be made after about the first six weeks. Fred Friendly, who will be one of the prime decision makers, says he is "beginning the new season with an open mind and an open heart." Speculation is that come next May, PBL will be absorbed into Ford-financed National Educational Television. But Westin and Bohen have not given up. "We could have just played out the string this season," says Bohen, "but we're playing to give the judges a hard choice."