`GENERAL'S DAUGHTER' UNFLINCHINGLY CONFRONTS MILITARY NOVEL'S EROTIC THEMES.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Nelson DeMille's best-selling mystery-thrillers may be great fun to read. But making the first DeMille novel to reach the screen, ``The General's Daughter,'' palatable in the more immediate, graphic medium of motion pictures was a tricky challenge.

Even with the likable John Travolta starring and a top-notch cast of supporting actors that includes Madeleine Stowe, James Cromwell, James Woods and Timothy Hutton, the film has enough alarming elements to make it a potentially tough sell. The story's central question - ``What's worse than rape?'' - is answered at quease-inducing length. Besides violation, the film deals extensively with sadomasochism, extreme sexual harassment and raging misogyny.

Its central image is a young woman's naked body tied to stakes in the ground, brutalized and left to die. Not exactly the kind of light entertainment Hollywood usually releases in the early part of summer.

``I had to shoot and edit it in a way that you couldn't get off on all of this weird stuff,'' explains the film's director, Simon West, an award-winning British commercials director whose first Hollywood feature, ``Con Air,'' was a substantial summertime hit. ``It had to be just enough to show what was going on, the pain and bizarreness of it, but without enough for it to be salacious or actually fun to watch in any way.''

At the same time, the movie strives to be a ``Chinatown''-like mystery that uncovers unimaginable personal corruption on a Southern military base. Travolta plays Paul Brenner, a warrant officer in the Army's Criminal Investigation Division who originally came to town to bust an arms smuggling operation. The fort is run by Brenner's admired Vietnam commander, Gen. Joe Campbell (Cromwell), who is retiring to pursue a career in national politics.

The C.O.'s beautiful daughter, Capt. Elizabeth Campbell (Leslie Stefanson), works at the facility's psychological warfare office and, on the surface anyway, seems to be the spit-and-polished image of her accomplished dad. But after her nude, bound corpse is discovered in a training area, Brenner and a former flame of his, fellow CID investigator Sarah Sunhill (Stowe), discover that Elizabeth led a remarkably perverse - and hardly secret - private life.

In the aftermath of all that, what's said is almost as appalling as what's shown.

``Most of the stuff in the movie very much comes right out of the book,'' Travolta says when asked about the film's extreme sexual politics. ``Maybe some of the statements that are said are how soldiers and cops truly talk, maybe some of it's their stream of consciousness verbalized.''

Stefanson, a young actress who has never so much as been kissed on screen, had to do a lot more than verbalize. Not only was she required to act out some of the most horrible trauma a woman can experience, she had to make Psy Ops expert Campbell's erotically charged vengeance seem emotionally credible.

``I was scared,'' admits Stefanson, who has played small roles in the films ``As Good as It Gets'' and ``Flubber.'' ``I hadn't done anything like this at all, and it was difficult. But everyone was so supportive, Simon and everyone embraced me right away, and the fear became strength, in a way.''

Still, ``rape disturbs me, for sure,'' Stefanson says. ``I went to a rape counselor in Santa Monica, gave her the material and said, `How realistic is this? Is this just completely out of line?' She said that the way that Elizabeth reacts is the way some rape victims act out. Some don't have any relationships with anyone at all because they're terrified. And some can become very promiscuous because they want to take control of their body by becoming the aggressor rather than the victim.

``So I felt all right about doing it, because it does happen. I don't want to do it all the time, but I don't feel bad about playing women that are victims when it's a reality that women can be victims.''

While the stakeout sequences were certainly most trying for Stefanson, they were also harrowing for everybody else who worked on them.

``It was really horrible, very traumatic for us to shoot and really unpleasant to act in, too,'' West says. ``I could have done it in a much less graphic and violent way, and shown a lot less. But I didn't want to end up with a bland discussion about rape, where the word is just thrown around and sort of loses its impact.

``So although it's kind of shocking and horrible, that stuff, I think it has to be to make people remember how horrific that moment was for her, so that you can feel sympathy for her.''

Even irreverent cutup James Woods was uncharacteristically respectful.

``We were so aware that this whole story was about the violation of this woman, not just physically but emotionally and in terms of moral trust,'' Woods notes. ``That was in the back of everybody's mind, every day. I kept my usual jokes to a minimum.''

Another potential issue for Woods, who comes from a military family, was the fact that ``The General's Daughter'' doesn't exactly portray soldiers in a complimentary light.

``I hope the movie's not saying that this is how the whole military is,'' Woods admits. ``I think it's ascribing the problem here to the overweening ambitions and machinations of particularly unethical and immoral men. I'm very proud of my military heritage and the American military.''

That said, the Pentagon was understandably unwilling to cooperate with the making of ``The General's Daughter,'' even considering its longstanding relationship with producer Mace Neufeld, who has made such pro-military films as ``The Hunt for Red October'' and ``Flight of the Intruder.''

``We didn't even attempt to get the Pentagon's blessing,'' West reveals. ``It's quite obvious when you read the story: Why would they? But they understand that Hollywood's got to make stories of all sorts. It's not like they were against us; they just couldn't openly support it because it's not a propaganda piece for recruiting.''

Decorated Vietnam veteran DeMille says he wrote the source novel with the intention of taking a look at the role of women in today's military. West feels that that's an important sidebar to the film's more lurid content.

``It's almost coincidentally about how women are treated in the military,'' the director says. ``The other side of the question is: If women were more integrated into the service at higher levels, the issues of betrayal here probably wouldn't have even come up.''

Will audiences be able to glean serious messages from ``The General's Daughter'' or will its shocking aspects just make it seem like another one of the violent, prurient films Hollywood has been criticized for making lately? Travolta, for one, is sensitive about the latter possibility, and understandably so. His comeback picture, ``Pulp Fiction,'' is frequently attacked by those who think fictional violence inspires real criminal acts.

``I think, often, films are the wrong target (of blame) for what's going on,'' Travolta says. ``I grew up with violent movies, my father grew up with `Public Enemy' and `White Heat'; it is not that different now. Maybe the amount of it or the constancy of it has changed, but your average fellow can differentiate. I'm not saying that it couldn't contribute to the more vulnerable, psychotic mind. But mostly, it's a taste thing, it's an editing thing.''

Indeed it is. And whether or not mass audience sensibilities are offended by ``The General's Daughter,'' West felt he had to make the film the way he did.

``I just think it's wimpy to shoot it like a TV show and kind of imply what's going on,'' the director says. ``Unless you actually, physically feel the horror of it, it's not an emotional discussion, it's an intellectual discussion.

``You've got to feel gut-wrenched by it.''

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) `GENERAL' IMPRESSIONS

Travolta thriller hardly a salute to the military

(2) Paul Brenner (John Travolta) investigates the bizarre killing of the commanding officer's daughter at an Army fort in ``The General's Daughter.''

(3) Director Simon West, with Travolta on the set, admits the film's graphic nature made it difficult to shoot.

(4) Leslie Stefanson had to act out the horrible trauma of rape in the film's title role.