Author Archives: paulydeathwish

Jamaica Inn [1939)

This film is even more disgusting than Psycho.  Disgust.  Fear.  Anxiety.  Moral ambiguity.

This is what made Hitchcock great.  Like Dostoyevsky, Hitchcock brought to life those personages who were between good and evil.

In the words of Henry Miller, “They were alive and they spoke to me.”

Authors.  Real authors.  Blood and guts authors.  Authors who left everything on the page.  Every shred of emotion.

Samuel Fuller would have been proud of such authors.

We must remember Fuller’s cameo from Pierrot le Fou.  His words are instructive:

“Film is like a battleground. Love. Hate. Action. Violence. Death. In one word . . . emotion.”

And though Hitchcock was perhaps the greatest film auteur to ever live, we must not neglect the source material.

Though auteur theory would argue otherwise, it was indeed Daphne du Maurier who concocted this perfect story.

And, as another affront to the politique des auteurs, we must acknowledge that this film would be far less powerful were it not for the all-world talents of actors Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara.

For those wishing a parallel to Ian Fleming’s Dr. No (set in Jamaica), this film has absolutely nothing to do with Jamaica.

Jamaica Inn is merely the name of the roadside lodging in this period piece set in 1819 Cornwall.

But like a good James Bond film, a believable villain makes all the difference in sustaining the dramatic tension.

Laughton is just that villain.

Though Jamaica Inn is not as powerful and iconic as Hitchcock’s The Birds, it is (in my opinion) a strong competitor against his film Rebecca.  And why focus on these three films exclusively?  Because they were all from du Maurier stories.

What is more, I would argue that Jamaica Inn is every bit as good as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).  Why that comparison?  Because it featured the same duo (in the same year):  Laughton and O’Hara.

As for O’Hara, this was for all practical purposes her true film debut (in a starring role while assuming the screen name with which she would become famous).  For all of my effusive praising of Saoirse Ronan, it should be noted that Maureen O’Hara was a sort of Irish prototype for the panache Ronan would bring to the screen these many years later.

But nothing tops Laughton here.  Hitchcock was still honing his skills towards a mature style.  Laughton creates a character both laughable and hideous.  It is not the visceral aversion of the Hunchback, but rather an elite, condescending, corrupt local squire (and justice of the peace).  Laughton is the law.  He relishes his position as he savors his victuals.

Life and simulation.  In real life, Laughton fought for O’Hara…insisting she be given the lead role (and her first, as noted earlier).

It should be noted that past critics have eviscerated this film.  Let it be noted that their pretensions are largely unfounded.

-PD

2 Comments

Per qualche dollaro in piu [1965)

My oh my.  How time does fly.

If you don’t write, you lose your touch.

And anyway, we lose our nerve.

Nerve.  This film is all about nerve.

This was the second collaboration between Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood.

This time, another strong element was added:  Lee Van Cleef.

The name may not sound familiar, but if you see this film you will never forget this iconic actor.

In truth, this picture is very similar to the first Leone/Eastwood collaboration.

Most of the novelty here can be found in the director having a third variable (Van Cleef) with which to work.

Gian Maria Volonté is back, but he’s not the same villain he was last time.  He is and he isn’t.

Same for Eastwood.  The same, but different.

Leone, though, had grown as a filmmaker.  Maybe not by leaps and bounds, but there are flashes of brilliance which catch the desert sun differently here than in A Fistful of Dollars.

And why do I insist on the Italian title?  Because this really is a sophisticated Western.

In other words, it is foreign to the mainstream of English language movies.

Though the genre is American, the craft is distinctly European.

Klaus Kinski has a relatively minor role in this film as a hunchback.

Really, I would advise starting with A Fistful of Dollars and then moving on to this film.

This one is really for those who couldn’t get enough the first time around.

I count myself among those.

In other words, this film does not necessarily “stand alone” very well unless you have the experience of A Fistful of Dollars under your belt.

I should really mention Ennio Morricone.  He is, without doubt, one of the greatest film composers to ever live.  Witness, for instance, his deft compositional touch as he weaves the film score around the sound of a musical pocket watch which is chiming during a tense standoff.  There is a real magic–a synergy between Morricone and Leone.

Though I could dissect this movie as a precursor to the Reaper vs. Predator drones, I’ll leave that for another time.  Though I could let the title, For a Few Dollars More, lead me into a diatribe about the Greek debt crisis and the venal German/IMF response, I shall leave that for other political film critics reviewing Spaghetti Westerns this week.

What we have here is a movie.  I’m tired.  I don’t want a war.

-PD

4 Comments

Comment ca va? [1976)

Ça va.  From the year I was born.

If you search Google for “comment ca va godard,” you might get 83,000 results in 0.42 seconds.  Google tacks on the time to remind us of its power.

Well, I must admit I was a bit powerless in slogging through this film.  Keep in mind, the first time I saw Pierrot le fou I thought it was overrated.  Also keep in mind, by that point Godard was already my favorite director (by a long shot).

I came to regard Pierrot le fou as one of Godard’s best films, but it had to grow on me.

Perhaps Comment ça va will also grow on me.

What must be remembered is that Godard loves games.  For me, the end of this film is easily the most brilliant part.

Godard (or his collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville) plays with the editing program like it is Pac-Man.  There is something very ATARI about the whole affair–that green console font and the playful symbolism of a wandering cursor.

But admissions on my part should be more specific here:  I was really tired.

So perhaps I did not give this film a fair shake.

It should be no surprise to viewers of Godard’s mid-seventies oeuvre that this film makes little to no effort to entertain.  It is, as are many of his films of this era, an investigation.  In this case, the investigation is filmmaking itself.  It is, in that sense, a bit like his earlier masterpiece Le Gai savoir.  The role of Anne-Marie Miéville should not be underestimated here.  It is as if Godard and Miéville were recalibrating their artistic sensitivities with this film.  While many (most?) filmmakers would leave such a “product” on the shelf and chalk it up to practice or research, Godard had been in the habit of releasing these “attempts at film” for some time.  As I have mentioned in previous articles, there is a particular connection between the French word essai (a test, an attempt) and the English usage of essay (particularly, for our purposes, the genre known as film essay).

And so this is very much a film essay which we are dealing with.  As such, I feel like a teacher compelled to “grade” said essay.  This is the traditional job of critics:  to assess value.  It is, perhaps, a far more subjective form of the S & P, Moody’s, Fitch gambit.

So yes, I dozed off briefly at a few points.  I feel bad about this.  One school of thought says that it was Godard’s job to entertain me, but I do not entirely subscribe to that way of thinking.

But let us consult Italian Wikipedia (the English site is slacking) to jog our memory…

It does indeed feel to be shot in Grenoble (certainly not Paris)…  I could verify this, but I am very lazy on such points.

The contributors to Italian Wikipedia make a very good point in comparing the film under consideration to Godard’s earlier Letter to Jane.  Indeed, the director once again fixates on a particular photo and what it means.  We, as the audience, spend a great deal of time staring along with the creators at a picture from a protest in Portugal.  1976.

What is new here is that Godard employs his editing equipment in a novel way.  A photo from a French protest three years previous (1973) is superimposed upon the Portuguese picture.  It is a similar methodology as found in Letter to Jane when Jane Fonda’s facial expression was compared to other Hollywood actors (including her father Henry).

The story (if it can be called that) involves esoteric distinctions between “the left” and communism.  Exactly.

What is not at all clear is that Odette (played by the very, very beautiful Anne-Marie Miéville) is the lady helping with the editing of a film.  We see Odette’s face in her interaction with her young worker boyfriend, but we only see her hands (unless I dozed off one too many times) on the typewriter in her directorial capacity.  What is significant is that her collaborator is her boyfriend’s father.  We see his face.  Boy do we see it.  Over and over and over again.  It should be noted that the typewriter is a motif in Godard’s work stretching all the way back to the machine-gun edit in Vivre sa vie and culminating is Godard’s magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinema.

In our film, the typewriter and the eyes of the dictator (as in dictation…taking dictation) frame a philosophical investigation of language.  We might call it “lost in transmission.”

What is at stake are the alienated products of journalists.  The father (head of a newspaper) deprives his staff of true journalistic activity when they become merely glorified secretaries.  There is no time to think.  Deadlines deadlines.  And, as such, dead text.  An anonymous caption for a photo (no byline) is the sole work of the editor.  A journalist merely types.  No time for discussion.

And thus the extension:  why should a picture need a caption at all?  Shouldn’t a picture tell a story and thereby eliminate the need for text?  Is a complex picture which requires explanation inferior?  And why not let the picture speak for itself in such a case?  Why always explain what the reader is to feel???

A dictatorship falls.  Strikes ensue.  We hear a radio tell us Franco is dead.  A subtle touch.  From Portugal to Spain.

Carnation Revolution.  Yes, I thought of Angola, but not Mozambique.  And it makes sense.  Mozambique.  The only Marxist Western (as in horses and cowboys)…Vent d’est (1969).

Saint-Brieuc.  It was a factory strike in ’72.  We are one year off.  1975.  Deadline deadline.  Go to press.

Now television has completely won.  Your show.  Shows.  On demand.  One senses that the battle of art films vs. mass communication was [for Godard] not about format (film vs. video), but rather a question of diffusion and delivery.

The speed of news.  The news cycle.  “Information cascade” and Operation Mockingbird.

-PD

5 Comments

Sweet Toronto [1971)

Symptomatic of the times.  Now.  Then.

Read the news and it’s just about enough to depress you.  If you’re not already cynical.

But here comes a boy and a little girl…trying to change the whole wide world.

Isolation.

If you find this film, it likely won’t be under its original title Sweet Toronto.

My copy says John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band: Live in Toronto.

Which shows you how much Shout! Factory thought of the director D.A. Pennebaker.

The changed the title of his fuckin’ film!

Sure, they tacked on a poignant interview with Yoko to the front end, but other than that it seems unchanged.

Reminds us of another director who got shafted making a music documentary:  Jean-Luc Godard.

What is most widely available today as Sympathy for the Devil was originally to be called One Plus One.

The producers tacked on the title song to the end of the film (playing over largely inconsequential footage…at least initially) and retitled the sucker.

Godard allegedly punched the producer in the face after the premier…but I digress.

Why should you watch this film under consideration?

There’s a couple good reasons.

The first is Bo Diddley.  Sure, it’s only one song, but it sets the stage (literally) for what follows.

Pennebaker uses Diddley’s music to usher in the motorcade of John Lennon and entourage.

And when we really get to watch Bo, he’s dancin’ and jivin’ and (by the way) doing a nice job of not stepping on his guitar cable.

It’s a long, jammy, droned-out piece:  “Bo Diddley.”  That’s right, the song is titled “Bo Diddley” by (who else?) Bo Diddley.

If you close your eyes you just might think you’re listening to The Velvet Underground.  That won’t be the last time in the night for which those words are applicable.

Pennebaker keeps the train a’ rollin’ with a complete change of pace:  Jerry Lee Lewis.

Again, it’s only one song, but the director builds the excitement of anticipation for the headliner.

Lewis…smoking his cigar…gold rings and jewelry on that pumpin’ right hand…up high on the piano…and occasionally a brown patent-leather ankle book (Beatle boot?) makes it’s way up to the top register to heel a little tone cluster of exclamation.

At this point, Shout! Factory (perhaps at the behest of Chuck Berry?) makes a decision to cut Chuck’s song.

And so we roll into Little Richard.  Again, we can imagine…Prince, Michael Jackson…we are seeing the entire history of rock and roll compressed into 70 (?) minutes…from Jerry Lee singing a song made most famous by Elvis all the way to the headliner who will take us to far out, groovy places which may or may not still exist.

Little Richard has the most cracker-jack band.  A couple of sax players…really tight.

And so after three fantastic performers in a row–three originators of rock and roll, we get the rag-tag Plastic Ono Band.

John starts ’em off nice and slow…reverent…”Blue Suede Shoes,” “Money (That’s What I Want),” and “Dizzy, Miss Lizzy” before the curve ball of “Yer Blues”…

So lonely…wanna die…ain’t dead already…know reason why.

Klaus Voormann hits a steaming helping of wrong notes throughout the early part of the set as bass player, but that’s why we love him, right?  Reminds me of those bum notes which they left in (didn’t edit out) on John’s first solo album titled (what else?) Plastic Ono Band.  But we also love Klaus because he drew the cover to The Beatles Revolver album.

But what Klaus lacks in precision is made up for by Eric Clapton on lead guitar.  Clapton with his beard…denim jacket…a generally pensive look on his face the whole time which seems to read, “What the fuck am I doing here?  Can’t believe I’m doing this.”  Clapton never glares at Ono (at least not in the shots we receive through the miracle of montage), but one can’t help thinking that a musician of Eric’s caliber might have been perplexed (to say the least) regarding Yoko’s musical contributions to the night’s proceedings.

[Alan White is, of course, great on drums.]

And so we slink into “Cold Turkey”…premiered this very night in 1969.  The rendition is like Booker T. & the MGs…very cool and groovy…laid back.

But most of all…about this film…John Lennon in a white suit…huge beard…long hair…little circular glasses.  His presence…

Remember, this concert was about four months after the Montreal bed-in.

And so the band launch into “Give Peace a Chance.”

And it’s still the most revolutionary statement possible.

Musicians are the only ones who have ever done anything worthwhile…

Truth be told, the rendition of “Give Peace a Chance” is a little lackluster.

“And now Yoko’s going to do her thing all over you”

With those words (or something close to that effect), John takes us into the final act of this opera.

And it is powerful.

Yes, these grungy musicians actually succeed in making time stop.

Yoko wails like a woman on the sea lamenting her lost child.

For all the naysayers, Ono actually did have a good sense of pitch.  It’s just that pitch (as the Western ear defines it…narrowly) is not her predominant concern (apparently).

It’s like the Damo Suzuki years of the German band Can…including their two Krautrock masterpieces Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi.  The same criticism that Ono gets for her far-out howling is rarely leveled at Suzuki.  Listeners of Can know that they are getting into an experimental vehicle when they plop a Can album on the turntable.

This, arguably, makes Ono even more revolutionary.  To go from “Blue Suede Shoes” to “John, John (Let’s Hope for Peace)” is truly high art.  The conceptual mind-fuck is equal to anything John or Alice Coltrane ever pulled-off.

And so it is that the night ends on a most bizarre note…a drone…three instruments perched against amplifiers feeding back…as if one is watching…and you will know us by the Trail of Dead.

You’ve gotta see it.  Either it speaks to you or it doesn’t.  For me, there are few more poignant ways to remember the radical genius that was John Lennon than watching a document like this.

-PD

2 Comments

Numero deux [1975)

Back.  Return return.  Long absence.

Unrestful battle to the death with corporate finance.

And Jeannot mentions Georges.  Beauregard?

Yes, almost certainly.

And so politics becomes sex.  But sex remains politics.  The two phenomena simultaneously.

Like dependent events and statistical fluctuations.

Ah, statistics…

Not the fun stuff of batting averages.  No, we mean correlations and covariance and stultifying minutiae.

And that’s where the money comes from.

Godard after 45 years had finally finished with Paris.  Done.  Fin.

Il y a equals = Grenoble?

A new era with Anne-Marie Miéville.  Sonimage.  Mon ton son image son.

Wordplay cures illnesses.

The glissando of sliding meaning.

Slippage.

I want to write film criticism as if I am writing a viola sonata.  Everything is possible.

Amazingly…amazingly…Wikipedia gives a synopsis.

Thank you kind soul…kind, fastidious soul.

Is it the same in France?  Numero deux est la merde?

Yes, Godard finds a way to shock…again.  Like Salò, but in a mundane grocery store of quotidian pain.

Wordplay and illnesses.

Is it Sandrine Battistella?

Is it Pierre Oudrey?

Are the child actors the best players in this film (in the tradition of Bresson)?

And Alexandre Rignault.  The old man?  I am too lazy.  It is already a service.  Mon beau souci.

The anarchy of breasts.

Both enjoy in different ways.

Pain is not simple.

It was this point at which Godard became a true revolutionary.  With his army surplus jacket.  Inconsequential.

Having survived the revolution.  The upheaval.  To live on into the era of Bruce Lee kicking Chuck Norris’ ass.

We see briefly.

But mainly we see fatigue.  The fatigue of Beethoven.  Facile technician.  Adjusting color timing instinctively.  Habit.

Sometime you must take a break from James Bond to question the fundamental things.

White people problems, they say.

No, I see the same in true cultures…in China…in Africa.

Unique modes of expression.  Unlearning.

The greatest service is to convey the feelings of the film.  If these feelings harmonize with the dissonance of your pathetique lives, then you are like me.  Searching for small miracles.

Actors cannot touch non-actors.  Praise be to actors who appear to have no technique–who appear to be non-actors.

Either way.  Doesn’t matter.  Matters.

-PD

14 Comments

Dragon’s Loyalty Award

Thank you to the diversfilm (Films Buffs) website for nominating me for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award.  You can see the website at:

https://diversfilms.wordpress.com/

So I am supposed to nominate 15 blogs (I feel like this is a chain letter).  Here are some of my favorites.

https://beehappeenow.wordpress.com/

Always some lovely pictures and poetry and always with optimism.

http://thedailyephemera.com/

Great news site concerning global issues which you probably won’t find many other places.

https://unnecessarynewsfromearth.wordpress.com/

Funny and serious thoughts of my extraterrestrial friend MIgo and his dog W.D. from the great land of Turkey.

https://humphries346.wordpress.com/

Wonderful art criticism from the U.K. by the excellent Laurence Humphries.

https://concentrationmoon.wordpress.com/

Musings on classic film (Pola Negri) and many other things like Finland from a wonderful Peruvian-born writer.

https://shesgotdimples.wordpress.com/

Molly Thompson’s honest and emotional depth through deft writing.

That’s my top six in no particular order.  I want to emphasize that each of these bloggers has been a very solid person (no matter how long I’ve known them).  Their support has meant a great deal to me.  Please check out their sites and make a new friend.

Now, I am also supposed to tell seven things about myself:

1.  I live with my parents.  I’m sure that won’t be a big shock to anyone with a psychological grasp of stylometry (or something).

2.  I am a full-time graduate student in business.  I have no idea why.  What the hell am I doing? 🙂

3.  I made my living recently (for four years) as the drummer in a Cajun punk rock band touring the world (a legit, Grammy-nominated group).

4.  I have toured the following countries as a musician in various bands (as bassist and drummer):  the U.K., Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Canada, and my home the USA.

5.  I was trained as a composer and have written orchestral arrangements for several notable bands and artists.

6.  As a studio musician, I have played on a Top 40 album in the U.K.  My specialty are the keys (piano and organ).

7.  I have three cats

For those who I have “nominated,” please do not feel any pressure to do as I have done in accepting this award.  If you do decide to accept the award in a fashion similar to mine, you will be in complete compliance by reposting the picture below.

Once again, thank you to my friend from France at https://diversfilms.wordpress.com/

I am honored to be recognized.

–Pauly Deathwish

image

16 Comments

Per un pugno di dollari [1964)

They say the pen is mightier than the sword.

And so we place into a single room

the greatest writer of all time

and a schmuck with a sword.

The writer has his pen…for self-defense.

But we feel the Yojimbo trappings are too antiquated (1961)

so we give the bard a typewriter…no, a laptop

and the schmuck…a gun.

Who will draw first?

For speed, it is the gun which wins (assuming the schmuck knows how to fire it).

It is a big assumption.

So, let us add some lag time…

as the schmuck experiments with the mechanics of his weapon.

And then we stop the test and replace the schmuck with a professional assassin.

By now the poet is sweating blood.

Will he hit “send” in time?

Ah, but now we have overshot the mark with our rhetoric.

So let us back up to the computing of the 1960s.

Computation #1:  Westerns are no longer in vogue.  American Westerns are the subject of ridicule in Italy.  Laughable.

Enter Sergio Leone into the equation.

A smart guy.  Sees a gap in the market.  How would Rossellini direct a Western?  Or Fellini?

Do they make revolvers that hold 8 1/2 bullets?

And who gets the half-a-bullet?

I had intended to talk about Guantanamo Bay.  Moral disgust.

But the sands of time in the Tabernas Desert are pouring away…a steady stream of grains.

And so the faceoff makes imperative that I get the most bang for my click.

Eastwood.  Leone.  Savio.  Savio?  Morricone.  Ah, that’s better.

Gian Maria Volonté (the bad guy) would go on to play in the first (and one would assume only) Marxist Western.  A subgenre which never really caught on.  The film Vent d’est (1970)–director Godard–filming location Mozambique.

Sounds too weird to be true, right?  Just don’t be fooled by Robert Enrico’s Vent d’est from 1993.

Just because a film is Franco-Swiss (like Godard, Franco-Swiss)…uh-uh, not the same thing.

But the assassin schmuck is getting the lay of the land.  I digress, I die.

I am not the worst writer to ever live.  Give me time.  I may yet claim that title.

We cannot, however, forget Marianne Koch.  So long…

Never forget a woman from Munich.  The beautiful Renate Knaup, for instance.

A double umlaut for your trouble.  Amon Düül II.  Zwei.

But time is unkind to me…merciless.

Will we reach José Calvo in time?  With our heart of iron?

Well hello Joe, what do you know?  The “Man with No Name” and Une Femme est une femme.

I’ve hardly talked about the film.  That’s what some call “no spoilers”…

But I can make no such guarantee.

Only brilliance.  Leone.  Eastwood.  As good a Western as could possibly be made.

A triumph.

If you feel your heart in your throat…your tears well up

then maybe you think of Guantanamo Bay.

Inmates list.

One by one.

No charges.

No charges.

Suicide.

No charges.

Certainly it would help to know that Abdul so-and-so knocked off an Army Ranger medic.

The medic part is no superfluous detail.

But the rest?

No charges.

No charges.

Held for three years.

No charges.

It seems, from the outside, that the war has been run by the CIA.

There are no armies to battle.

No high-value targets.  I’m not the first to comment on the ludicrous situation of a $200,000 bomb being dropped on a mud hut.

Bad guys torture.

Idiots torture.

And so Clint Eastwood does not torture.  Here.  In 1964.

If you jump down the rabbit hole you will be disgusted.

How does this in any way have to do with a Spaghetti Western?

It is the message.

We might not have a hell of a lot of time.

Find the quote by the general…about the detainees at Guantanamo who arrived with mental problems and left with “none.”

That’s rich.

I also have a bridge to sell you in Arizona.  And I’ll throw in the Seven Dwarfs as maintenance crew.

You see, it’s a hell of a lot easier to just write a film review and not worry about all this stuff.

That’s what happens in totalitarian countries.

Hang on, someone’s knocking at my door…

-PD

5 Comments

Ici et ailleurs [1976)

God, the horror of struggle

in Palestine Godard filmed

the sadness of conditions

with such beauty of technique

ingenuity of filmic form

And then came the editing.  Back to France.

It was his film and her film.  Anne-Marie Miéville.

Someone with whom he could discuss film.

No more actresses.  A life partner.

And an agitator.  Critique yourself.

Of course Marx offered useful tools.  But there is more than Marx.

And the universe expanded.  You must turn to the images.

Why is the actress not acting?  And why is that beautiful?

Above and beyond (aside from) the fact that she is beautiful.

Just one.  Anne-Marie points it out.  The way things are done.

Early computer console script glowing green and blinking.  Always blinking.

Someone has captured the wrong image.  In the diffusion the stronger image has been diffused.

It was Hitler.  Israel.  Golda Meir in some sort of act of allegiance.

And Godard’s obsession with finding the double s in nature.  kiSSinger, for instance.

The anger of the filmmaker.  Who bombed the editing studio?  Certainly not Arabs.

Certainly not.  Find the true history.  Only one filmmaker was truly brave and crazy.  Godard.

Must be both to be this brave.

The wrong frame again.  “It’s silly to die for an image.”  But not silly to accept death for the survival of your community.

Of course.  Of course.  Bravery.  Simple.

A sad, pathetic Palestinian village.  And how did they come to be pinned in thusly?

Like livestock.

But the true beauty is cautious.  Scared.  Yes.  Tentatively walking the perimeter.

An image which will live a thousand years in the hearts of every serious soul who sees it.

Nameless.

Nothing shocks as much as the bloody face in Amman.  More than the Holocaust.  That the root cause could continue.

A transference of power abuse.  The short step to fascism.  Leaving out a few crucial details.  Voila.

The man in Amman.  Dead.  Text flashing backwards.  Mirrored.  On top of front-facing font.  Palimpsest.

Expired.

Perhaps there was a bad translation somewhere.  Muselmann in the camps.  Not guardspeak.

We don’t know.  I don’t.

Perhaps.

You say for money, to take an unpopular stand.  A pittance.  Film stock.  Plane tickets.

But they did finally recognize that they were borrowing a revolution.  Because making one was too costly.

At home.  France.  Texas.  Ici.  And the endless possibilities of ailleurs.  Elsewhere.  And here.  Here.

They only meant to send a statement.  Probably.  And the film sat for five years.  1970-1975.

But some images are too beautiful.  Too powerful.  Too important.  Indelible.

Godard never forgot.  Anything.  The camps.  Palestine.  Ghettos.  Prisons.  1789.

Only art speaks.

Study and respect.  Change your world.

I have ordered the images from room service.  And Google has only given me a popularity contest.

Click and vote.  Perhaps.

For film to destroy your soul so beautifully and so hard.

Ah, now I can’t even talk like everyone else.

A hard-earned style which jettisoned pretense long ago.

Almost fashionably dead.  To the doubters.

Mais, sanguine!

-PD

10 Comments

Berlin: Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse [2008)

Ah…to be with all the pretty people.

Julian Schnabel.

I once had someone correct me on the pronunciation of his name.

Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

This was Lou’s moment.

Lou Reed.  Inventor of modern rock and roll.

The granddaddy.  The godfather.

This was Lou in Brooklyn with a crackerjack band.  Strings, horns, woodwinds, a choir…

This was really the way to do it right.

First time I saw this concert film, I didn’t think much of it.

Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

They nailed it.  Lou.  Julian.  Bob Ezrin.

But what really makes this the best concert film I’ve ever seen?

Lola Schnabel.

Lola Montes Schnabel.

Julian’s daughter shot some priceless footage of Emmanuelle Seigner.  Seigner, for her part, is marvelous as Caroline.

To take Lou Reed’s greatest album and give it this treatment is really an honor to Lou (who’s no longer with us).

We hear those Sturm-und-Drang harmonies on the New Year’s Eve piano played by Rupert Christie.  Motherfucker needs a Wikipedia page.  And what exactly is he playing?  The licks of another bloke who needs a Wikipedia page (apparently):  Allan Macmillan.  But you know who needs a page most of all?  The sensuous ear who transcribed Macmillan’s harmonies.  Was it Christie?  I don’t know, but that’s no easy job.

And such is the quality of this representation all throughout.  Like Brian Wilson’s Smile album brought to the stage through the journeyman efforts of Darian Sahanaja.

Yes, we musicians take note.  [buh-doomp, ching!]

So what happens here?

Lou really starts nailing it around “Oh, Jim”…

Only Lou Reed could write that song.  Only Lou Reed could sing that song.

By the time “Caroline Says II” rolls around, we are immersed in this Greek tragedy.

There was a reason Lou never did this album live for 30 years.

This is some heavy shit.  Heavy syrup.  Heavy cream.

And then Steve Hunter launches into that movable D major chord of “The Kids” and we are in the eye of the storm.

Try bringing THAT Bob Ezrin masterpiece to the stage!  And they did!!

Tony “Thunder” Smith needs a Wikipedia page, but his drumming is spot-on throughout this emotional ride.

For much of the night, Smith was faithfully playing the licks of Aynsley Dunbar.

We’re talking about bringing an album (Berlin, 1973) to the stage that featured Jack Bruce on bass.  Cream’s bass player?  Yeah, no big deal.  Piece of cake…  No pressure.

And from the perfectly-directed, Titanic wreck of “The Kids” we go right into “The Bed”…  Bleak, bleak, black songwriting…

And this is where the choir really shines.  This is where Julian shines as a director.  Not only does it work, it’s goddamned genius.

And “The Bed” ends with a watery ghost choir…and maybe someone patched in an Eventide H3000…and maybe Lou called György Ligeti or Giacinto Scelsi or Mauricio Kagel.  This is the kid (Lou) who made that stuff accessible (even more than Kubrick)…from “Sister Ray” to Metal Machine Music and beyond.

If you don’t shed a tear here, you won’t at all.

And then [voila!] the gloom lifts…with the woodwinds of “Sad Song”…

It ain’t over till you hear Antony Hegarty do Doug Yule.  Perfect match of singer and song (says Candy).

-PD

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Letter to Jane [1972)

Fucking goddamned brilliant.

It is not surprise.  An exclamation without an exclamation point.

It is a reaffirmation.

That Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, in 1972, could dismantle the entire system imposing ill upon the world.

If their critique was not inclusive enough to include the shortcomings of communism, we must forgive them somewhat.

It really doesn’t matter that this film operates in a Chris Marker manner.

It was the right form to address a picture.  In fact, the spirit is much more akin to Antonioni’s Blow-Up.

The ontology of the image.

André Bazin.

This is the world from which Godard and Gorin emerge.

But the key touchstone may indeed be, as the filmmakers say, Uncle Bertolt.

Brecht.

Truth simple.  Telling the truth difficult.

Dziga Vertov.

Lenin.

It is a revelation to hear Godard speaking English.

Yes, there are no subtitles here (unless, perhaps, you are French and don’t understand English).

That makes this an especially important film for the English-speaking world.  Like British Sounds.

But most importantly this film encourages intellectual scrutiny of mass media.

Scrutiny of photographs.  Scrutiny of captions.  Scrutiny of context.

I think, therefore I am.

This is the acting default which we are told emerged (with sound) in the 1930s of Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Beware of pity (advises Stefan Zweig).

A town without pity.  Gene Pitney.  Pithy.

No filmmaker has been more bold, in every way, than Jean-Luc Godard.

But his collaborators deserve their due for standing by him.

Gorin.  Anne-Marie Miéville.

So many ways to be bold…

To show the futility of 3-D.  Actually, to show how mundane superheroes are.

Just one aspect in the latest installment of brilliance (Adieu au langage).

His latest, Letter to Jane, Histoire(s) du cinema…

They all smash to bits flailing failures like San Andreas.

It’s as if the master is saying, “Just think for a minute.”

But the master, JLG, dove into thought and grabbed handfuls of paradoxes.

That is the true artist.

That is the eternal man.

It makes me a bit emotional.

What dedication!

From Roxy the dog all the way back to Michel Poiccard.

It is hard to focus on just one episode in this immense body of work.

That said, the true message of Godard is elusive because his fame (and infamy) overshadow the meaning conveyed.

But his work says…carry on.

-PD

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