documentary

British Busker Blues

Chet Kozlowski — Fri, 24 May 2024 10:54:40 +0000

British Busker Blues Chet Kozlowski May 24, 2024 - 06:54

Topics

Tags

American Mileage

Cam Cole is a feisty young busker, a street musician from London. He's a one-man band, riffing Blues on a fuzzy guitar while stomping out the beat on a drum he's rigged with pedals. His streetcorner act attracts tourists and passersby who post videos that have gone viral. This has made Cam a social media celebrity. Now he’s taken that and run with it, all the way to America.

American Mileage is a lively road trip in a gypsy RV. Less a documentary than a celebration of self, Cam arrives on American shores and sticks to the South—and the spirit of Highway 49—hitting important Blues landmarks along the way. Remember how, in Lost in America, Albert Brooks wanted to "touch Indians"? Cam Cole wants to touch Bluesmen.

He and his cohort, director Tim Hardiman, blow into a town, looking to jam. Cam just wants to play, mate, and that playfulness and energy endear us to him. He’s fun to watch, especially when bashing away on his guitar and wailing.

Cam shows up at places like the legendary Muscle Shoals Studios (Alabama), Stovall Farm (Louisiana), and The Riverside Hotel (Mississippi). Iconic names are evoked: John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, Mavis Staples, and Alan Lomax. He sits in with some of the best and holds his own: at Wild Bill’s in Tennessee, guitarist Chloe Lavender and Cam blow the roof off. He plays in the building where once stood the site where Robert Johnson recorded.

Others have been down American Mileage's road before: U2 made some of the same stops in 1988's Rattle and Hum. In the '70s, a Brit named Mark Bristow toured in a van with Mark's America, a multimedia show shot on Super 8 as he drove.

Tim Hardiman shoots Cam in the frenetic style of an infomercial, with a roaming camera, jump cuts, and snappy graphics. Mr. Hardiman's kitchen-sink style revels in messy moments, like when Cam's Street show is stopped by a freak thunderstorm or when he, Cam, interrupts an interview to take a piss.

For all the miles and all the history, American Mileage all comes back to Cam. Cam jamming. Cam getting a tattoo. Cam sharing wisdom. Cam eating soul food. Cam is front and center the whole time. He gets goofed on. At Greg's Guess House, MS, a guy offers Cam what he tells him is a barbecued raccoon but is actually a cat he hit with his car. "Hmm," Cam says, chewing. "It's very good, mate, very tender."

Cam does some direct narration (i.e., cautioning the viewer that sometimes he'll have a beard and in others be clean-shaven because, you know, shaving), and his soliloquies are shot as if he’s talking to an off-camera interviewer, making us witnesses. It's a popular technique for building credibility. If someone else is listening to him, what he’s saying must be important.

How is Cam received by the Bluesmen? Is he seen as a peer or an upstart? Singer Bobby Rush, who appeared in Martin Scorsese's 2003 doc The Road to Memphis, invites Cam into his home. "You're looking at the Blues," Bobby tells him. "I'm a Black man in Mississippi." Bobby’s cordial and full of stories, some of them horrific, like the car accident he got into while playing with Ike Turner's band. He invites Cam to play with him. He's genuinely pleased to be remembered and respected.

Other guys, not so much. In Bentonia, MS (population 319), Cam inserts himself into a gathering of authentic Bluesmen. These guys are poor and old and still playing. R.L. Boyce slurs and swaggers, then sing like an angel. He tells Cam, "The style I got, you ain’t never gonna get it." Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, owner of the Blue Front Café and a renowned musician, is suspicious and defensive. When Cam extols his own unique style, Jimmy snaps, "Blues is Blues." He accuses Cam of trying to show him up.

These guys have paid their dues. They're still paying their dues. (Has Cam Cole? His backstory is dispensed with quickly; he claims to have not pursued a traditional recording career because the industry is full of "wankers.") Cam purposely placing himself in the midst of the Blues' origins brings up interesting questions.

He asks and answers: "Have white people stolen black people's music? Can a set of chords be owned by a race of people? I don't have an answer to that. I think claiming ownership of anything based on race is starting off on the wrong foot as nothing good can come from that." His predecessors, the Stones and Led Zeppelin, took flack for this, too. They were considered cultural appropriators during the "British Invasion" of rock music. See Keith Richards' spirited dispute with Chuck Berry in 1987's Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll.

But that's the way of the Blues, mate. It’s a continuum. American Mileage is Cam Cole making myth. If he deserves a place at the table, seats will be open soon enough. Maybe he can wedge his way in there after all.

_____________________________________________________
American Mileage. Directed by Tim Hardiman. 2024. Produced by 7^th Floor Films, Nomad Films LLC, and Black 22 Productions. On digital platforms. 81 minutes.

Add new comment

Play With Fire

Gary Lucas — Fri, 17 May 2024 17:35:53 +0000

Play With Fire Gary Lucas May 17, 2024 - 13:35

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

I went to see the new Anita Pallenberg doc Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg last week shortly after it opened at the IFC Center here on 6th Avenue, the first show of the day at the ungodly hour of 11:50 am. About five souls only collected in the lobby before the management opened the doors to the main theater—obvious hardcore fans of the Rolling Stones, more or less from my g-g-g-g-generation, knowledge brothers and sisters. Fellow old souls, we cast a commiserating glance at each other, waiting to go into the main theater when one of them whispered conspiratorially across to me: "Only people of a certain age know who Anita Pallenberg is" (was)—historical memory if not yr basic continuum of knowledge post-iPhone having been fucked into a cocked hat/relegated to the slag heap of history ("Do you remember your President Nixon?" sang David Bowie circa '75, only a year after Nixon resigned. Indeed. Do you remember what you even had for lunch yesterday?).

Then it was time to bear witness to the blazing trajectory of Anita Pallenberg, Rock Chick Uber Alles, in a league of her own you could say, a powerful female shaman in her own right, a Lilith-figure who had Brian and then Keith with a side order of Mick, who even out-did Marianne Faithfull in the Ultimate Stones Bad Girl pantheon, a (dis)Honor Roll whose ranks stretch back to the early '60s and roll on to the last syllable of recorded time and include chanteuse Nico (knocked up and abandoned by Brian), singer/actress Marsha Hunt (knocked up and abandoned by Mick), German tv presenter/left-wing poster girl Uschi Obermaier (who had the signal pleasure of tearing Keith's earring out of his ear with her teeth during wild sex, leaving him and his bloody earlobe glued to the pillow when he came to next morning)—with special mention going to Mandy Smith who began an affair with Bill "Perks" Wyman at age 13—Bill enjoyed his perks!—and finally wed him 5 years later when she came of legal age in a marriage that lasted only 23 months.

This is a very long and comprehensive documentary skillfully assembled by Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill, and it's worth a look, especially if you're a fan of the Stones. If not, you may come to gawk and stay. It has a copious amount of (to me) never-before-seen footage of the home movie variety, which looks pretty damned good considering its source, no doubt courtesy of Keith's two kids by Anita—Marlon and Angela Richards. Both come off as very well-spoken, sensitive, and sympathetic people who experienced a real amount of damage growing up in the wake of the Stones juggernaut and their absentee parents's antics and came out the other side intact (phew!).

Now, the Stones have always been my favorites ever since the immortal opening bluesy guitar riff of The Last Time (composed and played by Brian Jones) came wafting over the airwaves and cast its hypnotic spell—and having seen them live in 1965 in my little town of Syracuse I became a stone zealot. Over the years, I've read almost every book about them, beginning with the 1965 Bantam paperback Our Own Story by the Rolling Stones as We Told It to Pete Goodman (UK music journalist Peter Jones in real life). I also sat through myriad HBO live specials and theatrical concert docs, including rarities like British Pathe's 1964 short subject Rolling Stones Gather Moss (I saw it in a movie theater). So yeah, eventually, I kinda knew the whole extended Anita episode pretty well, all the highs and lows. You could do worse by starting here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Pallenberg

PHOTO BY MICHAEL COOPER

Here, her story is fleshed out to the nth degree and—clocking in as it does for nearly one hour and fifty minutes, but it feels like three—they easily could have trimmed twenty minutes from it. Still, I am happy Anita is given her due here at last because she comes off on the face of the available evidence as an even stronger, more willful, and forceful Personality than Messrs. Jones, Richards, and Jagger combined. Certainly, none of the Stones radiate anything resembling real Star Power on the big screen when caught off stage, going back to Peter Whitehead and Andrew Loog Oldham's 1966 live-in-Ireland documentary, Charlie is My Darling, where they come off as lumpen proles in the interview sections (as opposed to The Beatles' individual charismatic sparkle throughout A Hard Day's Night ). The Anti-Beatles, eh? But Anita shines in all her film forays. A real-life force of nature, for my money, she is the best thing about Nicholas Roeg and Donald Cammell's 1970 Performance—she absolutely steals the show from Mick.

The narration here is by Scarlett Johanson, who reads chunks from Anita's posthumously discovered autobiographical manuscript entitled (what else?) Black Magic. Her low-key (some would say flat) American accent doesn't work for me, sorry to say—she sounds way too nice. I would have vastly preferred the dulcet accented tones of Eva Green or the husky vocables of Emma Stone on the soundtrack—or better yet, going for true Bad Girl glory, the voice of Asia Argento or Paz de la Huerta—but you can't always get what you want.

Fun Fact/Most Impressive Takeaway: Anita was the great-granddaughter of Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin, whose canvases contain as much colorful Sturm und Drang as Anita's own storied life. Böcklin specialized in mythological portraits of centaurs, satyrs, and nubile nymphs at play; some of his tableau seem to predict (or at least are not that far afield of) central episodes in Anita's saga. (I actually discovered a knockoff of Böcklin's 1883 masterpiece Playing in the Waves in a smoky pub in Prague some years ago, which on close inspection, has a horned demonic visage Goat Head's Soup-style painted under the top layer of pigment courtesy of the anonymous forger (see below, right under the centaur's outstretched left arm, this painting now hangs in Studio Faust just across the road from the pub in Prague, an excellent recording facility operated by my old friend Richard "Faust" Mader).

PHOTO BY GARY LUCAS, A KNOCKOFF OF ARNOLD Böcklin'S "PLAYING IN THE WAVES"

True confession: I am kind of burned out on the Stones and their wicked wicked ways at this point in time. I'm told they are still capable of churning out the occasional banger. But I couldn't name one. And I have no desire to sit in a stadium to see them—or anyone, for that matter (well, Paolo Conte—maybe). Can holographic AI performances of the band a la Abba be all that far off?

Basically, "I don't find this stuff amusing anymore" (Paul Simon). I still enjoy their early recordings, particularly the Andrew Oldham-era Stones—but I've stopped actively listening to them. They have become (for me anyway) a tired fossilized cliche, aging poster boys for a decadent rock 'n' roll lifestyle that flourished in what looks now like the Jurassic era, with scant relevance in the current world-historical climate other than as mere entertainment fodder (albeit on a Brobdinagian scale). A nostalgia act, in other words. They're not dangerous anymore. Were they ever, really?? Yes. So dangerous that the UK establishment contrived to try and shut them down by busting 3 of them repeatedly when their influence on youth culture became a perceived subversive threat to authority and the way people thought about things like "petty morals" (to quote Keith in the dock of the Old Bailey in 1967). When their very presence on stages (particularly in Eastern Europe) could provoke riots.

The beginning of the end of my fascination with the Stones began with the Altamont debacle—which, along with Kent State, heralded the death knell of the '60s—and picked up speed right around the time they brought Truman Capote and Lee Radziwill into their entourage on the road with them in '73, when the whole thing became a mega-commodified spectacle—you can get a strong whiff of this sorry-ass rawk 'n' roll circus up close and personal in parts of the suppressed-for-years Robert Frank doc, Cocksucker Blues. Their music stayed strong for a few more albums post-Exile. They could still pump out the occasional world-shaking anthem—but their whole Outlaw persona began to ring hollow. Keith's Life autobiography signaled the end of my Stones infatuation: too many casualties surrounding the group, too much collateral damage, too much bad behavior and by-the-numbers debauchery over too many years. Not impressed. "What else can you show me?" (Dylan).

Still, this documentary is a good start towards shining a light on a powerful female artist in her own right in the Stones menage who was seemingly under nobody's thumb but that of King Heroin—a nasty habit she managed to kick before joining "the choir invisible" (George Eliot). It restores an overall sense of agency (to invoke a current big buzzword) to the "Voodoo Priestess" and "seductive enchantress," as she is referred to in the doc—but it is not exactly a "pretty pretty" (Barbarella) story.

Add new comment

Mourning in America

Chet Kozlowski — Sat, 11 May 2024 14:54:32 +0000

Mourning in America Chet Kozlowski May 11, 2024 - 10:54

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

Our divided nation is the topic of Mitch McCabe’s harrowing new documentary 23 Mile. Set firmly in America’s heartland, the film is a video diary of a perfect storm of events in 2020: the Presidential election in the midst of the Covid pandemic.

The scene is Michigan, from Detroit to Kalamazoo and stops in between. While the state has “long been a hotbed of militia activity,” as one observer puts it, 23 Mile spreads a wide net, documenting tourists, activists and extremists. What emerges is a disquieting portrait of a disillusioned and confused populace.

23 Mile offers no narration or commentary. Its technique is simplicity itself, purely point-and-shoot: press conferences, rallies, protests, fundraisers. It’s a verité collage of the breadth of involvement (and dissatisfaction) that emerges from behind masks and disinfectant. Bleak scenes—bare trees (it’s fall), red MAGA caps, puffer jackets—are punctuated by radio show call-ins, ghostly voices out of the ether, against shots of waves lapping at a tanker, or media microphones awaiting a speaker.

Mitch McCabe is the director/producer of other topical shorts and features, including You Have Been Lied To (2023), Civil War Surveillance Poems, Part 1 (2020), and the 2009 HBO documentary Youthh Knows No Pain.

Though the time for both sides-ism has passed, the film employs it to great effect. The people just speak. Their affiliations are not readily revealed. It’s a canny device: all the complaints sound alike: something’s got to change in our basic political and social structure. One man who hosts an unpopular Biden display on his front lawn says, “Policies are the same. I just want to vote for decency.”

The media is a pariah, called out as “the most effective devil in America.” Most of the dissent is bull-horned or glad-handed. “I cannot do anything unless it’s defensive,” says a middle-aged man in paramilitary garb, as if that justifies his assault weapon. He knows that whoever fires the first shot potentially sets off a barrage. Yet they carry, concealed or right out there.

To watch 23 Mile is to witness the groundswell and experience the monotony of lives left behind. These people take to the streets, waving the flag and mouthing the mantra “We the people/liberty for all” while marching under the shadow of disinformation. In the span of time covered by the film, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer is exposed. One interviewee is happy to see her unharmed but stung by her criticism of Trump, as if the two acts weren’t related.

It's no spoiler to say that 23 Mile ends first with the election—a lone walker holds up a hand scrawled sign that reads “You lost,” which could be intended for any of us—and then with the first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine from the plant in Kalamazoo. Then the chilling caption “24 days till Jan. 6.”

23 Mile is a searing snapshot of a prophetic time in our history.

_____________________________________________________

23 Mile. Directed by Mitch McCabe. On VOD, DVD, and Blu Ray. 78 Minutes.

Add new comment

Quest of Ire

Webmaster — Wed, 01 May 2024 21:04:16 +0000

Quest of Ire Webmaster May 1, 2024 - 17:04

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

Fun fact: there are two kinds of primed lions in South Africa. Primed for what? Primed to be hunted.

"Canned" lions are bred for it and regulated by the state. "Wild" lions are, well, wild. They live free in the plains. The hunts for them are popular because they promise adventure, illicit thrills, and validation. These are run by essentially outlaw outfits. Guides are free agents and unsanctioned. These wild hunts are highly profitable, the first link in a chain of exploiters that includes everyone from taxidermists to international financiers.

These are the guys Rogue Rubin is after.

Rogue (né Joni) Rubin is a South African photographer who specializes in big game in its natural habitat. She's attractive, spirited, and on a crusade: to end the extinction-in-progress of wild African lions. Lion Spy is her stirring documentary about that issue.

She's also the "spy" of the title. Ms. Rubin knows that powerful forces—shadowy individuals and corporations—are at work here. There’s big money to be made, and they would be unhappy with her attempts to stop it. So she's taken on a fake identity and gone undercover, posing as a "trophy intern," an assistant, and a general gofer on these safaris. She uses small, covert cameras to record what transpires.

Most trophy hunters are white, male, rich, and living the fantasy of the bold adventurer triumphing over the savage predator. Back home, the mounted head of a lion or other feral beast is a great story and a display of cojones. These are the clients wild lion guides cater to. The reality isn't quite as risky: the guides who take them out are heavily armed and poised to take over in case the client is a poor shot, or the quarry turns on them.

But that's rarely the case. For the most part, according to the film, wild lions are docile in their home environment and avoid contact with humans. These outings are a setup: the guides spot a lion, pursue it, and just when it relaxes, the client shoots it from a safe distance. The animal doesn't stand a chance. This practice enrages Ms. Rubin. "This wasn't a chase," she hisses into her hidden camera. "This was an execution."

And it's not limited to lions. Unassuming antelopes and zebras are felled by long-range rifles while strolling or foraging. When a majestic giraffe goes down, the hunters gloat over it, and a guide casually remarks that the gigantic animal's hide will make a great rug, running right up the client's stairs.

Ms. Rubin casts a wide net in Lion Spy. Besides the in-country episodes, she infiltrates a PHASA conference (the Professional Hunting Association of South Africa), where one speaker warns that "public opinion will kill this business." At a convention in Las Vegas, we get an animal-by-animal kill price list (getting a hippo will cost you the most).

One of Lion Spy's more jaw-dropping episodes concerns a father and daughter duo. Dad has returned to Africa and the site of his "triumph" over the wild lion—the carcass now mounted and displayed proudly in his home--this time with his teenage daughter in tow. "It's her turn," he explains. The girl is eager and has a good shot and gets hers right away. Wait, will they see this on Instagram?

As film art, Lion Spy is competent. It documents what many of us may never experience, a safari, using the techniques of modern documentaries: testimonials, rapid-fire editing, and a rousing soundtrack worthy of an action film.

As propaganda, Lion Spy is more effective, especially when tracing the path of money generated by the trade (its sponsors may surprise you). Ms. Rubin has a lot of footage to work with, from her hidden cameras and those used by hunters themselves to immortalize the event.

The "spy" part is gimmicky as a framing device. Ms. Rubin wants Lion Spy to be seen as a "thriller," but it's a pointed one: she prods opinions for sound bites (like the daughter-hunter who sees a lion cub and says she "wants one." Who wouldn't, until it's grown up? Yet Ms. Rubin uses the remark as evidence of the girl's insensitivity).

Lion Spy isn't made to play in theaters but on flatscreens at fundraisers. Of course, the jig is up once audiences (and her subjects) see the film and its true agenda is revealed. But in the final account, the movie works because it's persuasive, and Rogue Rubin is so passionate about preserving the lions.

After all, as Debby Thomson of Bushveld Connections, one of Ms. Rubin's supporters, says in the film, "What is Africa without wild animals?"

_____________________________________________________
Lion Spy. Directed by Joni “Rogue” Rubin. 2021. On digital platforms. 76 minutes.

Add new comment

Labor of Love

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 01:29:37 +0000

Labor of Love Chet Kozlowski April 17, 2024 - 21:29

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

The Outside Circle: a Movie of the Modern West is director Craig Rullman's dusty Valentine to the Cowboy Life. It's a documentary, his first film, and may be his only one. But he cares so deeply about his subject that it’s hard to imagine any other one quite measuring up.

Originally conceived as a profile of Len Babb, a painter who emulates the style of turn-of-the-century artist Charlie Russell, Mr. Rullman expanded it to include folks like the Murphy family, fifth generation Oregon ranchers, and Victoria Jackson, a Paiute-Shoshone rodeo champion whose family legacy reaches back 14,000 years.

The word "romantic" is bandied about quite a bit. Also said often: "pride," "ornate," and "where I’m meant to be."

In the 1940s and 50s, the Cowboy Myth thrived: American popular culture was all Stetsons, six-shooters, and spurs. When cinema was born, cowboys came off the prairie, went to Hollywood and exploited their adventures. They gave us heroic figures real and invented, from Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers to Gene Autry and Wyatt Earp. In the early days of TV, cowboys were ubiquitous. Their presence was so strong, it felt as if they would never ride off into the sunset. These days, of course, Westerns in any form are few and far between.

Mr. Rullman, with the able assistance of cinematographer Samuel Pyke, fills The Outside Circle with languorous, quasi-ghostly images: vague silhouettes glimpsed through the haze kicked up by horses, indistinct as in a dream. To be a cowboy is grimier and harder than those fancy Hollywood types would suggest—one talking head reminds us that they were "common laborers," members of the working class. Troublemakers. One wag even refers to them as "Hell's Angels on horseback."

Mr. Rullman and the subjects of his interviews mourn the passing of this "honest, humble" period, but as a film The Outside Circle is lightweight. It’s redundant and superficial. Images and voices say it, then say it again, going in circles, like a ranch hand guiding his herd. With all the public domain material out there, it relies on a few old photos and grainy home movies to take us into the past. We're left with vestiges, and a sense of the "obligation to represent an American ideal" these folks feel.

But The Outside Circle is genuine. Give him that. Mr. Rullman's sincerity is his strength. We care because he does.

The Outside Circle is big skies, sun dappled dreams, and cherished bygones. It's a noble project, heartfelt and worth seeing.

___________________________________________

The Outside Circle, a Movie of the Modern West. Written and directed by Craig Rullman. 2023. On digital platforms. 77 minutes.

Add new comment

Is the Reverend Ready For His Close-Up?

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 02:46:54 +0000

Is the Reverend Ready For His Close-Up? Chet Kozlowski February 14, 2024 - 21:46

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

Was it Andy Warhol who said that in the future, everybody will have a 90-minute documentary produced about them? Or am I mixing up my quotes?

The Reverend is a film record of Vince Anderson, a big bearded guy with a distinctly Dr. John vibe. He holds weekly rave-ups at a bar called Black Betty in Brooklyn and has done this for twenty years. He sings and beats the hell out of his keyboard, bringing crowds to their feet. His credo is “Get outta my way” because “anything that’s in the way if you hang onto it, it will be destroyed.”

Mr. Anderson claims to have experienced divine inspiration after bucking picket lines to see Martin Scorsese’s 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ. Not long after, he experienced convulsions, which he took to be the music trying to get out.

He has devoted his life to what he calls “this reverend journey,” bringing gospel music to bars, playing first on the accordion, then piano and electric keyboards. His band, The Love Choir, rocks out his original music—and covers of Tom T. Hall and Daniel Johnston—and keeps the crowd dancing. Recently, Mr. Anderson was the subject of an NPR segment. Questlove and members of TV On The Radio appear in the film.

During The Reverend, ably directed by Nick Canfield, Mr. Anderson talks about falling in love with his girlfriend Millicent, getting married, honeymooning in Coney Island, buying a used accordion at a music shop, and visiting the site of the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting as one of several invited faith leaders.

All of this feels like the start of something, but it still needs to be the stuff of a feature film. Mr. Anderson brings an undeniable energy to his performances (there is much concert footage), but singing his praises seems premature. Has he done the Lord’s work in remarkable ways? Has he gathered a flock? Not that I can tell. The audience at Black Betty ain’t exactly swooning with religiosity and looks to be on more of a lark, as hipsters will. Even at the Walmart shooting memorial, Mr. Anderson is well-meaning but peripheral.

That’s not to say the film isn’t well made. This is director Nick Canfield’s first full-length feature, and it’s solid. He places cameras well and captures the action of the moment. He, along with editor Paul Lovelace and co-cinematographer Nelson Walker, tells a visual story well. That is until you realize how little you’ve been shown.

There may be a film here, and one understands the lure of a lively music scene. Maybe put The Reverend aside and let it marinate. Let Mr. Anderson get outta the way and follow his own advice: “Live the life you’re supposed to be living. Just don’t talk about it.”

Maybe the Reverend has to sit tight a little longer to see what reward waits for him.

________________________________________________

The Reverend. Directed by Nick Canfield. 2021. An Observant Films production. 96 minutes.

Add new comment

The Soundtrack Maestro

Gary Lucas — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 01:28:14 +0000

The Soundtrack Maestro Gary Lucas February 13, 2024 - 20:28

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

The new documentary Ennio is in NYC now playing at Film Forum, and it's an exhaustively hagiographic, if not just plain exhausting (like swimming through a pool of Jello) portrait of the late Italian composer Ennio Morricone, especially beloved world over for his numerous film and tv soundtracks (at least 400 of 'em) -- and it's yet another 3-hour bladder buster (that old Talking Heads bromide "Say something once / why say it again?" has the ring of truth to it as applied to this documentary).

Now, I like many, if not all, Morricone's film soundtracks -- who would have the time or the inclination to hear all 400 of them unless you were a soundtrack obsessive nut job? -- particularly his Sergio Leone scores. And the overall range of his film music, from experimental to electronic to disco to soft-focus mood music, is staggering.

Still, there is a repetitious factor about many of them (on the order of this one sounds like that one -- particularly the ones featuring massed battalions of choral singers ). But really, what do you expect with such a prodigious output over so many years? Very hard not to repeat oneself and fall back on / recycle particular melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic tropes that, after so many years, begin to resemble cliches.

Still, if you indulge the particular conceit at play here, there never ever was a film composer, either dead or alive, who can hold a candle to the Maestro. In fact, this doc sledge-hammers home the message that Morricone literally INVENTED the genre of "Film Music" per se (somebody actually says this), there being No Other Film Music God Before Him.
Wha??
Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, Elmer Bernstein, Florian Fricke, Henry Mancini, Thomas Newman, John Barry, Micah Levi, Piero Piccioni, Max Steiner, Carter Burwell, Jerry Goldsmith, et al. come to mind, but none of them rate a mention here. Plus, the doc overlooks some Morricone gems, like this one below:

Much more effective and engaging would be a serious, multi-week program of many of the classic films featuring Morricone's most outstanding scores.

The rest is PR.

Add new comment

Two For One

Gary Lucas — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 02:20:46 +0000

Two For One Gary Lucas November 14, 2023 - 21:20

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

MAY DECEMBER (directed by Todd Haynes, 2023)

Best Picture of the Year?? It could well be -- there's still a month and a half to go. But be forewarned, this film packs a wallop of a kind that is truly a rare cinematic commodity these days. Caroline and I went to a screening last night with our friend Jon Surgal at the Director's Guild of America on West 57th Street. We were all devastated by Todd Haynes's latest opus (which is being advertised as a black comedy/drama! It is emphatically NOT a comedy -- leave it to the marketing guys). It is a rich, complex, mature, and fully nuanced journey into the essence of human relationships (Life as we live it, in other words), boasting two powerhouse performances by Nathalie Portman and Julianne Moore and a standout turn from Charles Melton. People will debate the ending for days; the film doesn't resolve in any neat schematic formulation, just like Life -- and folks who like their cinema juicy and rare will want to see it again and again, the surface detail comes so thick and fast on the eye and ear without telegraphing any of its punches that every moment is a WTF moment. And if you see it with a friend or an enemy, you are bound to debate for hours the nature of what you just saw. The heavy influence of Ingmar Bergman (Persona mainly) and Joseph Losey abound (the soundtrack music is mainly Michel Legrand's score for Losey's The Go-Between, repurposed and re-orchestrated -- Haynes fell in love with his needle drop scratch track, apparently). I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of the plot here; I haven't even looked at this trailer above (which might suck, dunno) -- but the film most definitively does not suck. It is just superb. Haynes did a Q&A at the end, and he was super-articulate about something -- let us say, for argument's sake, the overwhelming immanence of his creation -- something that was pretty much beyond words.

HOW TO COME ALIVE WITH NORMAN MAILER (directed by Jeff Zimbalist, 2023)

Caroline Sinclair and I went to a screening of HOW TO COME ALIVE WITH NORMAN MAILER (d. Jeff Zimbalist) last night at the IFC DocFest. And quite an entertaining and impressive doc it was, all about that nice Jewish (Bad) Boy -- the boozing brawling schtupping rebel-rousing public intellectual litterateur who'd been an anti-hero of mine since junior high school (though I admittedly bugged on him after l'affaire Jack Henry Abbott -- but hey no one's perfect). This was like Norman's Greatest Hits thrown into a Hamilton Beach blender -- a few signal moments were missing, such as Norman's essay on Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, which initially ran in The New York Review of Books -- but you can't have everything. Most of the high and low points from Norman's 80-odd years on earth were there for all to see, warts and all (let me recount the ways -- nah, better you see this when it runs on Showtime). The only letdown was the score, which was overall too loud in the mix and got downright quasi-religious at the end, marking the hour of his passing (funny 'cause Norman used similar pompous music cues ironically in his little-known but worth seeing directorial disaster Tough Guys Don’t Dance). Overall, though, I'd give this doc an "E" for Excellent. Executive produced by Norman's son / our friend John Buffalo Mailer -- who was once named "Sexiest Man Alive" by People Magazine. That makes three, count them three, SMA's I've known up close and personal, so dubbed by that same mag. In no particular order: John Buffalo, Jeff Buckley, and Harry Hamelin. A veritable trifecta.

Add new comment

A World Away, Closer than We Think

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 05 Nov 2023 23:39:48 +0000

A World Away, Closer than We Think Chet Kozlowski November 5, 2023 - 18:39

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

Beyond Utopia is an astonishing film that in suggests the unique power of our digital revolution. Through the use of hidden cameras, the internet, and human determination it offers us our first glimpses into the "utopia" that is today's totalitarian North Korea.

Beyond Utopia chronicles what it takes to escape in a you-are-there manner, filmed by people who have actually made the dangerous journey. To fail and be taken into custody is certain death. But even more chilling is knowing that the millions inside have no idea that a world exists outside their borders. To disobey is to be treated barbarously for the least infractions. Kim Jong Un's repressive government is relentless about monitoring its people and keeping the outside world out. The deification of the supreme leader, the regimentation and militarization of the social order, and the CCTV cameras everywhere have produced a technological cocoon that stops the free flow of information. Most under the regime have no idea of the rest of the world or the concept of "freedom."

So how does one combat this? Director/Editor Madeleine Gavin uses those very media advances against them.

The story of how Ms. Gavin -- best known for the 2016 film City of Joy -- came to this project is fascinating in itself. She happened upon the TedTalks of Hyeonseo Lee, who recently defected to the U.S., and figured her for a film subject on her own. But digging deeper, she found the courageous Pastor Seungeun Kim, a "broker" who not only aids refugees but arms those inside with cameras they can conceal, and whose wife tells about being raised in North Korea, and taught to call people from the United States "American-bastards." Pastor Kim is helping Soyeon Lee to bring over the son she left behind. Soyeon Lee's grief is palpable: she told the boy she would be gone for two days, then was imprisoned, managed to get away, and has not seen him since. The film tracks her son's journey, as well as that of the Roh family in their trek over the hostile mountains of China, by night to go undetected, with small children an ailing 80 year-old grandmother in tow.

In this way, Ms. Gavin adroitly creates intimacy by concentrating on four individual stories. She expertly combines filmed interviews, video supplied and posted clandestinely by escapees, official propaganda sanctioned by the North Korean government, animations, and covert footage of the streets of China and North Korea to create an essential mosaic of events that are happening now, in our world. There are no recreations. Beyond Utopia has been called a "geopolitical thriller," and even the rendering of the maps, showing uncrossable rivers, treacherous mountains, and government checkpoints, adds to the tension. The borders are nearly impenetrable.

Beyond Utopia is coarse, raw, emotional, suspenseful, and heartbreaking. It puts the lie to Kim Jung Un's North Korea and gives us a look at the true nature of the situation.

That such a manufactured society can exist -- and in this day and age be kept from the world and be so hard to escape -- is the stuff of dystopian science fiction. But it's here, folks, and may be the harbinger of things to come. In this crazy world, we can be sure that for all the viewers who will regard this scenario with horror, there are those with a thirst for power who will think that what Kim Jung Un's going on isn't half bad. We'd do well to learn its lessons, rather than consider it an isolated case a world away.

_____________________________________________________

Beyond Utopia. Directed and edited by Madeleine Gavin. 2023. Produced by Ideal Partners. 115 minutes.

Add new comment

Humans from Earth

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 23:08:03 +0000

Humans from Earth Chet Kozlowski July 10, 2023 - 19:08

Topics

Film Review

Tags

documentary

Two new documentaries came out this week, and I thought about reviewing them separately. Documentaries are different from fiction. We don't look to them for nuance; we expect veracity. They aren't structured as analogies, to simply enjoy or reflect upon. Documentaries aren't open to interpretation; they are the interpretation, and tend to be practical (like Frederick Wiseman), made with panache (like Errol Morris), or political (like Michael Moore or Laura Poitras).

All of which is a verbose justification for considering these two films in the same review. Put two objects together, no matter how different they appear, and the human mind will make a connection. These two films connect in terms of 1) politics, 2) missiles, and 3) man's (in)humanity to man.

Aliens Uncovered: The Golden Record is part of a series, preceded by Aliens Uncovered: ET or Man Made? (2022) and ends on a cliffhanger, to be continued in Aliens Uncovered: Origins. These are desktop productions, stitched together out of stock and found footage, and take us through recent sightings of UFOs (now called UAPs, for "unexplained aerial phenomena").

The Golden Record is neither optimistic nor ominous, but informational. Its first half deals with the politics (point 1) of the government's space program circa 1977. The Golden Record of the title is a phonograph disc launched by Voyager missile (point 2) into space by NASA in the 1970s, meant to emit sounds typical of life on Earth to any extraterrestrial intelligence that intercepts them. This follows up the famous diagram of anatomically correct humanoids, sent previously, a benign message of peace to the universe.

Historical footage (it's good to see Carl Sagan again) gives way to reenactment over actual sound recordings of witnesses to two prominent sightings, one in Michigan in 1994, and other known as The Phoenix Lights in 1997. While the source of some of its footage is dubious (authentic weather maps give way to hovering-saucer simulations), Aliens Uncovered: The Golden Record seems to be a sincere attempt to address the phenomena.

UFO mythology is the gift that keeps on giving: recent revelations in the news will surely fuel future installments of the series. Aliens Uncovered is written, directed, and narrated by a fellow named Clive Christopher. It's available on VOD, which is appropriate, but its poster promises more than it delivers. Those expecting a special effects sci-fi extravaganza will be disappointed.

As for my point 3, man's (in)humanity to man, the jury is out until we know exactly who or what we're dealing with.

20 Days in Mariupol is the video record of a team of Associated Press journalists who were the only ones on the scene as the first Russian bombs fell (combining politics and missiles). Filmed while dodging bullets, their "you are there" take provides defining images of the war: destruction, dying children, and mass graves in the besieged city.

The footage is harrowing, with some of the most effective passages coming before the explosions: ordinary citizens fret, debate evacuating, and try to contact loved ones. The film dramatically portrays the terrible toll of uncertainty, and the disbelief in man's (in)humanity to man (check). The result is footage that is stirring and portentous.

20 Days in Mariupol's greatest strength is ironically its main problem. The Russian war on Ukraine goes on, as of this writing, which freezes the moment in time. 20 Days in Mariupol is old news. How much worse can it get? Time will tell, may have already told by the time you read this.

20 Days in Mariupol is directed by Mstyslav Chenov, has appeared on PBS Frontline and in some cities has had a brief theatrical release.

Is it fair to review these two documentaries in tandem? Probably not. 20 Days in Mariupol is all too real. Aliens Uncovered: The Golden Record recalls a more optimistic time, when President Jimmy Carter expressed open enthusiasm for the Space Program. (Insert heavy sigh here.) How different the world might have been if we’d gone that direction, emphasizing an appreciation of our place in the cosmos rather than the nefarious acts of greedy men.

_____________________________________________________

Aliens Uncovered: The Golden Record. Directed by Clive Christopher. Produced by Breaking Glass Pictures. 2023. 74 minutes.

_____________________________________________________

20 Days in Mariupol. Directed by Mstyslav Chenov. Produced by Frontline/PBS and the Associated Press. 2023. 94 minutes.