humane feeling. The comedy dazzlesnall the more brightly for its woeful cast,nas it did with Keaton and Chaplin, as itndid with Jacques Tati. The undergraduatensend-up of this monstrous culturalnicon, which is what Stoppard begannwith in his original one-act burlesque,nhas deepened and darkened, has become,nitself, a more than respectablensuccess (with a Tony and a New YorknDrama Critics Circle Award), and yetnStoppard has not been at all intimidatednby his own play’s reputation. He isnfree and breezy, easy and sure, both asna screenwriter and director. RichardnDreyfuss is splendid as the ominousnclown, carrying himself with a dignitynthat could serve in one of IngmarnBergman’s mannered extravaganzas.nAnd Oldman and Roth are fine as Rosnand Guil. There is also a remarkablenYugoslav puppeteer, Zlkatko Bourek,nwho does the play-within-the-playwithin-the-playnand is properly eerienand yet, also, funny — as the largernaction is and has to be. It is a remarkablenachievement, one I applaud withoutnreservation.nMy expectations were less guardednabout Scenes From a Mall. I had likednMazursky’s previous picture. Enemies,nA Love Story, and I am a Woody Allennfan and a Bette Midler admirer. Mallsnare funny. How could they go wrong?nWell, they don’t really. Indeed, thenproblem may be that the film gets sonmany things nearly right as to suggestnearlier and better movies. The antecedentsnit summons to mind onlyndwarf the picture that is before us. Thenconcept is an odd one — take IngmarnBergmari’s Scenes From a Marriagenand shoot most of it in a huge shoppingnmall, to approximate Jacques Tati’snGary Oldman as Rosencrantz.n50/CHRONICLESnPlaytime. And with Woody Allen andnBette Midler, there will hardly benmuch need for characterization. Thosenactors bring character with them, afternall.nWhat this works out to is a divertingnenough representation of dire luxurynand its stresses. There are a number ofnquite funny moments — from a seriesnof foreign cars, all of them caught in antraffic jam at the entrance to the mall’snparking area, and in which all of thendrivers are talking on their car phones,nto a woeful moment in which Deborahnand Nick (Midler and Allen) are draftingna separation agreement and a mariachinband descends upon them tonserenade aggressively. There is a mimenworking the mall (Bill Irwin), and henkeeps following the distressed couplenaround from one setting to another,nmaking light of their misery or gettingntheir moments of happiness wrong.nThis is all pleasant, clever enough fun,nso that one feels slightly churlish demandingnmore.nBut the Bergman references, both innthe title and in the structure of the film,nremind us how much better this kind ofnmaterial can be. The pain of a BettenMidler is never far’enough from comedy;nAllen’s distress is exactly what henhas made a living by flaunting for yearsnand years; and the script doesn’t giveneither one of them a whole lot of help.nTheir extramarital affairs are just notnbelievable and therefore not consequential.nBut it is the other reference,nto Playtime, and the recollection wenhave of Jacques Tati’s brilliant expositionnof the oppressive inhumanity ofnMies van der Robe architecture that’nleaves us feeling all but swindled here.nThis is a great mall Mazursky hasnnnfound — or confected out of the StamfordnTown Center in Connecticut andnthe Beverly Center in California, antruly surrealistic temple to consumption,nacquisition, and instant gratification.nWhat Tati did demolishing thatnpretentious restaurant, should havenbeen done here. There ought to benmore small incidents, more tellingnfaces, more surprising grotesques andncaricatures — more of anything thannthe slightly pained smile Mazurskynmanaged to generate and wants tonshare with us.nWhat I am demanding, of course, isnvision, poetry, anger, idiosyncratic andnextravagant personality, hysteria, hilarity,ndisgust . . . anything real. Real humannqualities and emotions can’t existnin the little modules the malls provide.nThe air is processed, the decor is allncontrived, and their purpose is to dazzlenand benumb the customers, thenbetter to part them from their moneynor, more likely, make imprints fromntheir plastic. Malls are monstrous sellingnmachines, and their resemblance tonany actual life forms is temporary,narbitrary, and capricious. Tati’s mournfulnassertion of awkward dignity in thenface of these impersonal monumentsnto commerce is just what Mazurskynand his friends cannot afford to suggest.nIt might have been within Allen’snrange — one remembers that hugenphoto-mural in the dining room of thenapartment in Stardust Memoriesn(1980) of the Vietnamese at the pointnof being executed — but Mazurskynwasn’t crazed enough or desperatenenough to take the necessary risks.nAbout the worst disaster that happensnhere is that Nick forgets where he leftnthe personalized surfboard he has beennschlepping around from scene tonscene. But it is hard for us to carenmuch, because it was impossible tonimagine either Nick or Woody Allennon that surfboard, hanging ten or evennjust hanging on for dear life.nEither Mazursky was too smart andntoo shrewd or else not smart enough,nbut, sure, see Scenes From a Mall. Itnhas its pleasant moments. Afterwards,nthough, you should rent the videocassettenof Playtime and look at that, twonor three times, in order to refresh yournnotions of how good a movie can be.nDavid R. Slavitt is a poet and novelistnliving in Philadelphia.n