Friday night S took me to the opening night party for the New York Film Festival (after the film A Darjeeling Express). A pretty glittering event, energized by celebrities and hordes of other self-important people. I enjoyed meeting quite a few people (the Director of the SF film festival, his gorgeous companion, the screenplay writer of the new Dylan film, directed by Todd Haynes, and one of the photographers for the Film Festival who used to shoot CBGB back in the day) but most of these film people will not ask you what you do but are happy to talk about themselves...
Angelica Huston looked very glamorous and Bill Murray appeared debonair. Jason Schwartzman keep wandering around looking for someone that he couldn't seem to find. Owen Wilson wasn't there and I didn't see Adrien Brody, but I would have been VERY happy to see him. Partygoers either looked chic or eccentric and once in awhile they struck a pose that was both chic and extreme. Everyone wondered who this particular woman was--into her middle years, she had Bride of Frankenstein hair, dark Lina Wertmuller glasses and sported plastic-looking earrings that were shaped into the map of Africa. She sat at Sylvia Miles's table but often went for walks in search of someone...was it Jason Schwartman?
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Excerpts from my Intro to the Exorcist
Last Wednesday, I gave opening remarks to the film The Exorcist for a student film organization at the Grad Center. Here are some excerpts:
THE EXORCIST: POSSESSED BY OPEC
The Exorcist is not only a horror film. It is also a geopolitical thriller.
Although few people remember, the film is not only set in Washington D.C., it is also takes place in Iraq.
In the version released in theaters at the end of 1973, the film begins with a blackened screen, and red letters spell “A William Friedkin Film” and then “William Peter Blatty’s.” The sound of a violin rises to a screech. When the red words “The Exorcist” are placed in the frame, the sound cuts from the atonal violin to a Muslim prayer, a remarkable transition that introduces the unfamiliarity of the location in Northern Iraq before it is seen (or read in a title). The screen changes from all black to one where a white sun is revealed over a craggy landscape.
Color is raised on the screen. The sun is bright and white and the sky takes on the red, hot color of the opening titles. An archaeological dig under a bright desert sun is revealed. The Muslim prayer mixes with the sound of axes and picks and workers’ conversations. As the prayer ends in the sound mix, the camera moves to focus on the movement of a young boy who darts about the site. When he reaches the place where an older white man (we can’t yet identify him as a Priest) is working, he tells the man in his language (and we read in subtitle) that “They found something.” Remarkably, the shot is taken from between the boy’s legs, creating an archway, and showing how deeply the old man is embedded in the earth. It also denies any possibility of humanizing the boy by showing his face.
In the version released in 2004 with original footage reinserted, the beginning is longer. The viewer sees a corner house in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. Then a statue image of the Virgin Mary is shown, an image of purety that will be sullied. At this point the violin string begins to be scratched and in a remarkable cross-fade the violin screech becomes a Muslim prayer.
The old man, though he is elderly, is shown to be quite active and eager as an archaeologist. First he is given a strange Christian medallion by the worker. Then he finds a green amulet of the demon Pazuzo. An audible wind rises out of the hollowed space, causing dust to move into the air, suggesting that the demon himself may have been roused from his slumber. In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, Pazuzo was a demon associated with the wind.
Cut to:
Like Rosemary’s Baby (1968) before it, The Exorcist showed that horror could entertain mainstream filmgoers and transcend the B-movie genre. It also showed that in the 70s the Devil was a box office draw (like God was in the 50s with films such as The Ten Commandments [1956]). Soon The Omen (1976) and other films followed--including four more films from the Exorcist franchise, turning the film into the first episode of a horror soap opera.
Not only was it shocking what took place in the film, it was also startling to the critics that a film they derided had mass appeal--people waited out in the cold for tickets. For example Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who dismissed the film as “claptrap,” tried to answer the question “Why the Devil Do They Dig ‘The Exorcist’?” (1974). Does Satan get credit for such a box office success? Or the special effects? Or did the anxiety of the time provoke people into attending the fright fest? Almost immediately The Exorcist became a subject of debate within popular culture, with psychiatrists, priests, and film critics entering the fray, trying to understand the film’s allure. Yet a good part of the explanation is obvious: If a film is only as good as its villain, pitting a foreign-born devil against an innocent American girl is a winning proposition. He turns her into a foul-mouth ventriloquist’s dummy who expresses all the cultural fears of unrestrained female sexuality. Who wouldn’t want to witness such performance art?
In hindsight, we can see that by 1973 the United States’ foremost conflict is not an ideological clash with the godless Soviet Union. Rather its standoff is with the Middle East, a region that it is increasingly reliant upon in order to fuel its economy. The film also tells this tale, one of two regions, and two nations in particular. The conflict embedded in Iraq is one that travels here—and this is a tale that is getting repeated—take the recent Paul Haggis film In the Valley of Elah—the seemingly once pure American GIs are transformed into amoral party boys by the their experience in Iraq, and once again we get the narrative of Iraq as a contaminant for innocent Americans. We are projecting our own domestic conflicts—of racism, of cultural exclusion--onto Iraq even as we are being told about the age old conflict between Shia and Sunni that no one could possibly solve, let alone the Shia or the Sunni.
In the Valley of Elah the only view of Iraq we get is through partially reconsituted video from a cellphone—the images are demaged, partial and depixaliting, once again reinforcing that for the American viewer Iraq is unknowable, cruel, mysterious. In fact what may be unknowable, cruel, and mysterious is the exportation of conflict performed by the oil oligarchy’s ability to rig U.S. foreign policy.
THE EXORCIST: POSSESSED BY OPEC
The Exorcist is not only a horror film. It is also a geopolitical thriller.
Although few people remember, the film is not only set in Washington D.C., it is also takes place in Iraq.
In the version released in theaters at the end of 1973, the film begins with a blackened screen, and red letters spell “A William Friedkin Film” and then “William Peter Blatty’s.” The sound of a violin rises to a screech. When the red words “The Exorcist” are placed in the frame, the sound cuts from the atonal violin to a Muslim prayer, a remarkable transition that introduces the unfamiliarity of the location in Northern Iraq before it is seen (or read in a title). The screen changes from all black to one where a white sun is revealed over a craggy landscape.
Color is raised on the screen. The sun is bright and white and the sky takes on the red, hot color of the opening titles. An archaeological dig under a bright desert sun is revealed. The Muslim prayer mixes with the sound of axes and picks and workers’ conversations. As the prayer ends in the sound mix, the camera moves to focus on the movement of a young boy who darts about the site. When he reaches the place where an older white man (we can’t yet identify him as a Priest) is working, he tells the man in his language (and we read in subtitle) that “They found something.” Remarkably, the shot is taken from between the boy’s legs, creating an archway, and showing how deeply the old man is embedded in the earth. It also denies any possibility of humanizing the boy by showing his face.
In the version released in 2004 with original footage reinserted, the beginning is longer. The viewer sees a corner house in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. Then a statue image of the Virgin Mary is shown, an image of purety that will be sullied. At this point the violin string begins to be scratched and in a remarkable cross-fade the violin screech becomes a Muslim prayer.
The old man, though he is elderly, is shown to be quite active and eager as an archaeologist. First he is given a strange Christian medallion by the worker. Then he finds a green amulet of the demon Pazuzo. An audible wind rises out of the hollowed space, causing dust to move into the air, suggesting that the demon himself may have been roused from his slumber. In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, Pazuzo was a demon associated with the wind.
Cut to:
Like Rosemary’s Baby (1968) before it, The Exorcist showed that horror could entertain mainstream filmgoers and transcend the B-movie genre. It also showed that in the 70s the Devil was a box office draw (like God was in the 50s with films such as The Ten Commandments [1956]). Soon The Omen (1976) and other films followed--including four more films from the Exorcist franchise, turning the film into the first episode of a horror soap opera.
Not only was it shocking what took place in the film, it was also startling to the critics that a film they derided had mass appeal--people waited out in the cold for tickets. For example Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who dismissed the film as “claptrap,” tried to answer the question “Why the Devil Do They Dig ‘The Exorcist’?” (1974). Does Satan get credit for such a box office success? Or the special effects? Or did the anxiety of the time provoke people into attending the fright fest? Almost immediately The Exorcist became a subject of debate within popular culture, with psychiatrists, priests, and film critics entering the fray, trying to understand the film’s allure. Yet a good part of the explanation is obvious: If a film is only as good as its villain, pitting a foreign-born devil against an innocent American girl is a winning proposition. He turns her into a foul-mouth ventriloquist’s dummy who expresses all the cultural fears of unrestrained female sexuality. Who wouldn’t want to witness such performance art?
In hindsight, we can see that by 1973 the United States’ foremost conflict is not an ideological clash with the godless Soviet Union. Rather its standoff is with the Middle East, a region that it is increasingly reliant upon in order to fuel its economy. The film also tells this tale, one of two regions, and two nations in particular. The conflict embedded in Iraq is one that travels here—and this is a tale that is getting repeated—take the recent Paul Haggis film In the Valley of Elah—the seemingly once pure American GIs are transformed into amoral party boys by the their experience in Iraq, and once again we get the narrative of Iraq as a contaminant for innocent Americans. We are projecting our own domestic conflicts—of racism, of cultural exclusion--onto Iraq even as we are being told about the age old conflict between Shia and Sunni that no one could possibly solve, let alone the Shia or the Sunni.
In the Valley of Elah the only view of Iraq we get is through partially reconsituted video from a cellphone—the images are demaged, partial and depixaliting, once again reinforcing that for the American viewer Iraq is unknowable, cruel, mysterious. In fact what may be unknowable, cruel, and mysterious is the exportation of conflict performed by the oil oligarchy’s ability to rig U.S. foreign policy.
iPod/Muzak script
Hi, Im Edward Miller aka the Ferry Home Companion.
This is the tale of the little iPod that could
I put on my iPod just before leaving my apartment. It is an orange shuffle--I am an autumn person. I leave early--before I feel ready to interact with anyone. I am one of the few people who commutes from Manhattan to Staten Island. I take the subway to the ferry. The music I hear motivates me to move quickly from the Whitehall Station. If the shuffle functions moves to a slow song, I skip to the next one. I need tempo. Missy Elliot or the Buzzcocks will do. Something that otherwise would make me want to dance. Music on the iPod is my caffeine.
I move into the terminal easily and wait impatiently for the Ferry. I glance around me, looking to see if there is anyone I should avoid—someone from work, someone who might be completely crazy, or a tourist who is looking to ask someone a question. I am friendly person but it is still too early for me to interact. Aboard the ferry, I go upstairs to sit outside—on the Verrazzano, Brooklyn, Governor Island side of the ferry, to the left as Beyonce might say, as I know most people want to go to the right to see the Statue of Liberty. The music on the iPod becomes the soundtrack for the movie I am watching. The old school skyline of Brooklyn, the surprising emptiness of Governor’s Island, the expanse of the ocean beyond the Bridge. My thoughts are voice-over. By now, I am happy to hear something quieter, maybe Nina Simone, something smart and contemplative. I close off the rest of the ferry and the experience becomes intimate, me, the view, my iPod. I am as they say zoning out.
I rely upon my iPod. Not only because it makes the trip go faster and it always corresponds to the moving images of the coastline and harbor. With my white earbuds visible, people know to leave me to myself. I am allowed to gloriously isolate myself with sounds from my very own music library; the shuffle function instantaneously creates miraculous playlists that remind me of the length and breadth of my collection from Handel to the Sex Pistols to Amy Winehouse. My posture says: "I am not to be roused from this state of near bliss.” I can’t be shaken into meeting the requirements of a social interaction." Sometimes my head moves to the beat or my foot taps.
When I reach campus I keep my earbuds visible as a way of warding off students who want to ask me questions about next semester's courses or their grades. Accompanied by my stern game face, my sunglasses, and my determined gait, the message is clear. I am not available. I am in a self-intoxicated state but also one in which I have a decided purpose and goal--to get to my office. It is a conscious pose at times, other moments it is as if I am remote control. But it works.
As I approach the Fine Arts building, I take my buds out, and I hear much more of the soundscape of the environment; I accept the responsibilities of being more fully in this space at this time. I am ready to put my friendly face on. It doesn't hurt. My tiny orange iPod has eased my entry into the day.
Who Here has an iPod? Who here has more than one? Who here uses it when they are traveling to and from work in order to make their commute more tuneful?
Who here can’t imagine a day without their iPod?
with our ear buds and our iPods,
MUSIC becomes a DOSAGE.
A sonic pill.
An audible antidepressant. The new prozac or zoloft.
A regression of listening. We may hear too much. We may never listen to music with the devotion and pleasure that was possible before the walkman, the radio, the phonograph.
The iPod is your transitional object, your technological security blanket. It protects you from the world. It provides a soundtrack to the subway ride, the ferry ride, a stroll down the street becomes an orchestrated affair. You are the conductor of your own experience. In this film you are casting all the extras that pass by you. Your iPod, which is an extension of you, your mini-Me, provides the soundtrack. This history of the iPod begins in the Department Store.
This is the tale of the little iPod that could
I put on my iPod just before leaving my apartment. It is an orange shuffle--I am an autumn person. I leave early--before I feel ready to interact with anyone. I am one of the few people who commutes from Manhattan to Staten Island. I take the subway to the ferry. The music I hear motivates me to move quickly from the Whitehall Station. If the shuffle functions moves to a slow song, I skip to the next one. I need tempo. Missy Elliot or the Buzzcocks will do. Something that otherwise would make me want to dance. Music on the iPod is my caffeine.
I move into the terminal easily and wait impatiently for the Ferry. I glance around me, looking to see if there is anyone I should avoid—someone from work, someone who might be completely crazy, or a tourist who is looking to ask someone a question. I am friendly person but it is still too early for me to interact. Aboard the ferry, I go upstairs to sit outside—on the Verrazzano, Brooklyn, Governor Island side of the ferry, to the left as Beyonce might say, as I know most people want to go to the right to see the Statue of Liberty. The music on the iPod becomes the soundtrack for the movie I am watching. The old school skyline of Brooklyn, the surprising emptiness of Governor’s Island, the expanse of the ocean beyond the Bridge. My thoughts are voice-over. By now, I am happy to hear something quieter, maybe Nina Simone, something smart and contemplative. I close off the rest of the ferry and the experience becomes intimate, me, the view, my iPod. I am as they say zoning out.
I rely upon my iPod. Not only because it makes the trip go faster and it always corresponds to the moving images of the coastline and harbor. With my white earbuds visible, people know to leave me to myself. I am allowed to gloriously isolate myself with sounds from my very own music library; the shuffle function instantaneously creates miraculous playlists that remind me of the length and breadth of my collection from Handel to the Sex Pistols to Amy Winehouse. My posture says: "I am not to be roused from this state of near bliss.” I can’t be shaken into meeting the requirements of a social interaction." Sometimes my head moves to the beat or my foot taps.
When I reach campus I keep my earbuds visible as a way of warding off students who want to ask me questions about next semester's courses or their grades. Accompanied by my stern game face, my sunglasses, and my determined gait, the message is clear. I am not available. I am in a self-intoxicated state but also one in which I have a decided purpose and goal--to get to my office. It is a conscious pose at times, other moments it is as if I am remote control. But it works.
As I approach the Fine Arts building, I take my buds out, and I hear much more of the soundscape of the environment; I accept the responsibilities of being more fully in this space at this time. I am ready to put my friendly face on. It doesn't hurt. My tiny orange iPod has eased my entry into the day.
Who Here has an iPod? Who here has more than one? Who here uses it when they are traveling to and from work in order to make their commute more tuneful?
Who here can’t imagine a day without their iPod?
with our ear buds and our iPods,
MUSIC becomes a DOSAGE.
A sonic pill.
An audible antidepressant. The new prozac or zoloft.
A regression of listening. We may hear too much. We may never listen to music with the devotion and pleasure that was possible before the walkman, the radio, the phonograph.
The iPod is your transitional object, your technological security blanket. It protects you from the world. It provides a soundtrack to the subway ride, the ferry ride, a stroll down the street becomes an orchestrated affair. You are the conductor of your own experience. In this film you are casting all the extras that pass by you. Your iPod, which is an extension of you, your mini-Me, provides the soundtrack. This history of the iPod begins in the Department Store.
Me on Board the Staten Island Ferry w/ The FM Ferry Experiment
On Friday the 28th, I was a lecturer aboard the Staten Island Ferry as part of Neurotransmitter's FM Ferry Experiment. It was fun to hang out in the studio alcove that V and A built on the top deck of the Marchi Ferry and to see the responses of the tourists and commuters aboard as well as the swell fellows that work aboard the boat.
Using the oeuvre of Percy Faith and his orchestra as sonic background, I presented a lecture/performance piece about the iPod and Muzak. Apparently it sounded fine, though I am very critical of my radio voice (wish it was just a bit deeper and my s's didn't last so long, but it sounded okay in the headphones).
My favorite Percy Faith song is Theme from a Summer Place (the Troy Donahue movie). It is the hardest easy listening song to hear. Very demanding and very relaxing at once--the violins are almost shrill, and the melody's catchiness is almost torturous--enough to get a Branch Davidian out of any compound.
Using the oeuvre of Percy Faith and his orchestra as sonic background, I presented a lecture/performance piece about the iPod and Muzak. Apparently it sounded fine, though I am very critical of my radio voice (wish it was just a bit deeper and my s's didn't last so long, but it sounded okay in the headphones).
My favorite Percy Faith song is Theme from a Summer Place (the Troy Donahue movie). It is the hardest easy listening song to hear. Very demanding and very relaxing at once--the violins are almost shrill, and the melody's catchiness is almost torturous--enough to get a Branch Davidian out of any compound.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Sketches from a Chronicle
I went to Martha Graham Dance Company again last night--thank god I went again. The performances were so much better last night and the program much more well chosen. Sketches is the most exciting dance to watch, so involving and evocative, always contemporary.
I know that the dance is meant to evoke war and convey its effects and then, suggest a resolution. But to me, the dance is also about diva worship. The corps of women dance around Jennifer DePalo saluting her singular presence. The woman in the center, given a Noguchi pedestal (which she will share with the amazing Miki Orihara) energizes the periphery, providing them with gestures and with uniformity and individuality at once. The tempo of the final section threatens to send the women into a frenzy, yet they remain contained, strong, articulated, inhabiting a space between between anger and jubilance. Graham provides the dancers with a gestural vocabulary that resounds with expression, as the dancers move quickly from stage left to stage right, determined, when the return the pattern has changed and the intensity has increased. The effect is almost overwhelming, reminding the audience that so much remains possible--if we salute the Diva.
I know that the dance is meant to evoke war and convey its effects and then, suggest a resolution. But to me, the dance is also about diva worship. The corps of women dance around Jennifer DePalo saluting her singular presence. The woman in the center, given a Noguchi pedestal (which she will share with the amazing Miki Orihara) energizes the periphery, providing them with gestures and with uniformity and individuality at once. The tempo of the final section threatens to send the women into a frenzy, yet they remain contained, strong, articulated, inhabiting a space between between anger and jubilance. Graham provides the dancers with a gestural vocabulary that resounds with expression, as the dancers move quickly from stage left to stage right, determined, when the return the pattern has changed and the intensity has increased. The effect is almost overwhelming, reminding the audience that so much remains possible--if we salute the Diva.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Eastern Promises
Clearly the Russian Mafia is in. We not only have Eastern Promises set in London but We Own the Night set in Brooklyn. Russians are the new media invention of a white ethnic group who are prone to violence, family allegiance, and overeating. Like the Sicilians, they are menacing and charming, unfathomable, yet somehow just like us even though they do seem to lack a WASPy censorious superego.
The Sopranos are over. The Godfather franchise is long gone.
Clearly we need to familiarize ourselves with another group of loyal family men who philosophize about life, kibbitz about the mundane, and are capable of extreme murderous cruelty and then go home for a family dinner (one that includes ethnic specialties of borscht and caviar).
Its only a matter of time til HBO grabs hold of this trend and provides the discerning television viewer with a lovable group of Brighton Beach Russians with enduring ties to the old country. The family runs a restaurant as a cover to their more illegal activities. The husband/father has some sort of disorder...perhaps tourette syndrome...or a stutter...or erectile dysfunction...something that makes him vulnerable and his primitive cave man-like behavior somehow almost endearing. His wife wears fur coats in May. The children like rap music and fast cars and have friends of other ethnic groups, which allows the parents opportunities to express ignorant racism. The dinner table is lively and some of the dialog is in Russian.
Come to think of it I might contact HBO myself...
The Sopranos are over. The Godfather franchise is long gone.
Clearly we need to familiarize ourselves with another group of loyal family men who philosophize about life, kibbitz about the mundane, and are capable of extreme murderous cruelty and then go home for a family dinner (one that includes ethnic specialties of borscht and caviar).
Its only a matter of time til HBO grabs hold of this trend and provides the discerning television viewer with a lovable group of Brighton Beach Russians with enduring ties to the old country. The family runs a restaurant as a cover to their more illegal activities. The husband/father has some sort of disorder...perhaps tourette syndrome...or a stutter...or erectile dysfunction...something that makes him vulnerable and his primitive cave man-like behavior somehow almost endearing. His wife wears fur coats in May. The children like rap music and fast cars and have friends of other ethnic groups, which allows the parents opportunities to express ignorant racism. The dinner table is lively and some of the dialog is in Russian.
Come to think of it I might contact HBO myself...
Monday, September 17, 2007
Martha Graham Dance Company Smiles at the Joyce
I've seen the company now four or five times--once when She was still alive. One time--I think it was at BAM--I had to hold back laughter at the melodrama and intense seriousness of the piece (this was during the funny Mark Morris era and when Pina Bausch was full of schtick, so one expected parody at dance and if it wasn't there, one placed it there). But I still think of Clytemnestra piece (with Christine Dakin) that I saw almost 15 years ago.
This reincarnation of the Company occurred at the Joyce, not my favorite theatre, though it is intimate, and under yet another artistic director and management team. I plan on writing AD Janet Eilber a letter.
Francis Mason, a venerable writer/reviewer of dance, was charming in introducing the evening but didn't really say anything to illuminate the dance or Martha Graham though it was interesting to hear that they drank bourbon together, no soda, in thick glasses with ice. He spoke how he was charmed by Martha when she appeared on his radio show in the early 70s, but forget to give us an example of her wit or verbal acumen. There was no insight or poignant remembrance.
The company is made up of strong dancers (I use strong deliberately as many of the male dancers are quite muscular, with admirable thighs and 6-packs). Yet not all of the dancers have entirely embraced the dances beyond getting all the steps and as a result sell the dance by tring to show exuberance in their faces, and even smiling! Imagine smiling in a mid-century modern dance piece! The point is to leave your face blank and perform the dance through your gestures and contractions and extensions, the dance is realized through the body not the face. At one point during "Diversion of Angels" I wanted to jump on stage, become Martha, and slap two of the dancers who were smiling. They looked like imbeciles. As D remarked being in such a small theatre made the smiles all the more annoying, for if we were looking down on the dancers we might not have seen their pasted on grins. At one point it became like the Cheshire cat, all smiles and no body.
Luckily when Cave of the Heart (a retelling of the Medea myth from 1946) was performed no one smiled, though I will say that Medea relied again too much on her face to show her rage rather than letting her inhabiting a Noguchi sculpture do the work. The other performers in this piece however kept their faces solemn and silent. Jason (Tadij Brdnik) was particularly intense and how about that fetishy costume! I love you Martha.
Now, the Times critic has repeated what is often said about Martha Graham's choreography--her best work was created before 1956. I don't exactly agree. The first piece last night--Acts of Light (from 1991)--contained some beautiful ritualistic moments when 5 male (and later female) moved across the stage without music in complete unison in simple lateral steps. When the women appeared to repeat the men's steps (much later in the piece), draped in mustard-colored fabric, I got goosebumps--the vision was so clear, a procession of the deepest layer of the psyche, ancient and current at once.
This reincarnation of the Company occurred at the Joyce, not my favorite theatre, though it is intimate, and under yet another artistic director and management team. I plan on writing AD Janet Eilber a letter.
Francis Mason, a venerable writer/reviewer of dance, was charming in introducing the evening but didn't really say anything to illuminate the dance or Martha Graham though it was interesting to hear that they drank bourbon together, no soda, in thick glasses with ice. He spoke how he was charmed by Martha when she appeared on his radio show in the early 70s, but forget to give us an example of her wit or verbal acumen. There was no insight or poignant remembrance.
The company is made up of strong dancers (I use strong deliberately as many of the male dancers are quite muscular, with admirable thighs and 6-packs). Yet not all of the dancers have entirely embraced the dances beyond getting all the steps and as a result sell the dance by tring to show exuberance in their faces, and even smiling! Imagine smiling in a mid-century modern dance piece! The point is to leave your face blank and perform the dance through your gestures and contractions and extensions, the dance is realized through the body not the face. At one point during "Diversion of Angels" I wanted to jump on stage, become Martha, and slap two of the dancers who were smiling. They looked like imbeciles. As D remarked being in such a small theatre made the smiles all the more annoying, for if we were looking down on the dancers we might not have seen their pasted on grins. At one point it became like the Cheshire cat, all smiles and no body.
Luckily when Cave of the Heart (a retelling of the Medea myth from 1946) was performed no one smiled, though I will say that Medea relied again too much on her face to show her rage rather than letting her inhabiting a Noguchi sculpture do the work. The other performers in this piece however kept their faces solemn and silent. Jason (Tadij Brdnik) was particularly intense and how about that fetishy costume! I love you Martha.
Now, the Times critic has repeated what is often said about Martha Graham's choreography--her best work was created before 1956. I don't exactly agree. The first piece last night--Acts of Light (from 1991)--contained some beautiful ritualistic moments when 5 male (and later female) moved across the stage without music in complete unison in simple lateral steps. When the women appeared to repeat the men's steps (much later in the piece), draped in mustard-colored fabric, I got goosebumps--the vision was so clear, a procession of the deepest layer of the psyche, ancient and current at once.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
In the Valley of Elah
Paul Haggis's new film (the guy who directed Crash) on opening day at Union Square: the multiplex was crowded but mostly with people seeing Across the Universe, the Beatles' musical by Julie Taymor. Hippy-ish looking NYU students, copping a feel of the 60s through cinema. Yikes. The coming attractions look pretty. The coming attractions of the new Elizabeth film with Kate Blanchette make the film look amazing.
In the Valley is an appropriately somber film--B and I couldn't contemplate something as indulgent as shoe shopping afterward and instead had a good discussion about how exactly this Congress could end the war in Iraq, or at least the American attempt at occupying the country. It has to end.
Tommy Lee Jones plays a retired Army man whose son is murdered after he returns from Iraq. The scales fall from the father's eyes--a patriotic man, he believes in the Army and believes in the young men (no women are seen in the Army base) who are over there fighting. He comes to learn not only what sort of man his son has become (perhaps involved in torture) but that the War and his country's leadership are wrong: he learns that when a squad is travelling in their armored vehicle, they do not leave it--if they hit a dog or a pedestrian they move on. Tommy Lee Jones--a face almost as wrinkled as a raisin, dark eyes so deep in their socket, but with a posture and a gait that resounds of the military, sticking to its everyday rituals of shining shoes and making beds according to regulations--investigates his own son's murder and confronts his own lazy-eyed racism. He can't believe that the handsome, fit young white men are covering up the truth--only a cherubic Mexican-American with a criminal past is capable of this crime. In believing this lie, he falls for the Army's suggestion that his son might have been involved--however reluctantly--in drug smuggling. And so American racism is used to hide the emotional facts of the U.S. invasion and occupation. Our young men and woman even when they are not dying are all injured by this experience.
The film is brave in suggesting that the Army men may not be heroes at all. They may have little or no chance to show any heroics because of the nature of the mission. Instead they become cruel and in the end cruel to each other. We are going to have many returning vets who are very damaged. The film also suggests that Iraq is a poisonous. tainted place (as in the Exorcist--a place where the demon Pazuzo comes from and thus chaos itself). If this is so, the U.S. government is only responsible for unleashing the dogs of war and the film buys into the Orientalist myth that Mesopotamia is not a place of learning but a place of duplicitous evil that contaminates the soul of all that encounter it. A truly radical perspective would be to depict how the U.S. has brought its own chaos--its own racial division and ethnic conflicts and religious bigotry--to Iraq. Instead the story gets retold that we have innocently brought ourselves into the midst of an infectious pre-existing condition that we can not remedy. And so we must get the hell out of there. And seal our borders. To keep ourselves safe.
The film is most successful in showing how a man is forced by events to stop reciting the myths of his nation--and how there is little reward but the truth for this. It does so with little dialog, a very restrained soundtrack, showing a sorrowfilled landscape drained of color, a military town filled with seedy bars and exploited women and drunken G.I.s with nowhere to go but toward their fate.
In the Valley is an appropriately somber film--B and I couldn't contemplate something as indulgent as shoe shopping afterward and instead had a good discussion about how exactly this Congress could end the war in Iraq, or at least the American attempt at occupying the country. It has to end.
Tommy Lee Jones plays a retired Army man whose son is murdered after he returns from Iraq. The scales fall from the father's eyes--a patriotic man, he believes in the Army and believes in the young men (no women are seen in the Army base) who are over there fighting. He comes to learn not only what sort of man his son has become (perhaps involved in torture) but that the War and his country's leadership are wrong: he learns that when a squad is travelling in their armored vehicle, they do not leave it--if they hit a dog or a pedestrian they move on. Tommy Lee Jones--a face almost as wrinkled as a raisin, dark eyes so deep in their socket, but with a posture and a gait that resounds of the military, sticking to its everyday rituals of shining shoes and making beds according to regulations--investigates his own son's murder and confronts his own lazy-eyed racism. He can't believe that the handsome, fit young white men are covering up the truth--only a cherubic Mexican-American with a criminal past is capable of this crime. In believing this lie, he falls for the Army's suggestion that his son might have been involved--however reluctantly--in drug smuggling. And so American racism is used to hide the emotional facts of the U.S. invasion and occupation. Our young men and woman even when they are not dying are all injured by this experience.
The film is brave in suggesting that the Army men may not be heroes at all. They may have little or no chance to show any heroics because of the nature of the mission. Instead they become cruel and in the end cruel to each other. We are going to have many returning vets who are very damaged. The film also suggests that Iraq is a poisonous. tainted place (as in the Exorcist--a place where the demon Pazuzo comes from and thus chaos itself). If this is so, the U.S. government is only responsible for unleashing the dogs of war and the film buys into the Orientalist myth that Mesopotamia is not a place of learning but a place of duplicitous evil that contaminates the soul of all that encounter it. A truly radical perspective would be to depict how the U.S. has brought its own chaos--its own racial division and ethnic conflicts and religious bigotry--to Iraq. Instead the story gets retold that we have innocently brought ourselves into the midst of an infectious pre-existing condition that we can not remedy. And so we must get the hell out of there. And seal our borders. To keep ourselves safe.
The film is most successful in showing how a man is forced by events to stop reciting the myths of his nation--and how there is little reward but the truth for this. It does so with little dialog, a very restrained soundtrack, showing a sorrowfilled landscape drained of color, a military town filled with seedy bars and exploited women and drunken G.I.s with nowhere to go but toward their fate.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Dutch Art at the Met
The Age of Rembrandt show at the Met is as much about the history of collecting Dutch art at the museum than about the artwork itself. I liked that emphasis of the show very much--the show was divided by the period in which the artworks were purchased and also by the patron who donated who the painting. So the Rembrandts, the Vermeers, and the Hals were spread out among the room, rather than each artist and their school having their own section. Interestingly much of the first major purchase of Dutch art in 1871 were proven worthless (most of the painitings don't remain as part of the museum's permanent collection) and a few paintings that were once considered Rembrandts were later deemed not to be by the master.
Well, everyone in New York loves Vermeer--who isn't drawn to pale scarfed women who stand or sit pensively, drawn to the limited light of a domestic space? The distribution of light in Manhattan is uneven, and we relish the slant of sunlight into our dirty windows.
But spurred on by B's enthusiasm and N's insights into the paintings, I was loving the Hals. His paintings stood out as funny and lighthearted and unlike the many somber portraits and the intricate paintings of domestic life, his painting depicted public spaces enlivened by revelry. I understand that as he grew older his work became more serious, but as represented in this show, Hals is the painter of the drunken, celebrating the excess of partying.
Well, everyone in New York loves Vermeer--who isn't drawn to pale scarfed women who stand or sit pensively, drawn to the limited light of a domestic space? The distribution of light in Manhattan is uneven, and we relish the slant of sunlight into our dirty windows.
But spurred on by B's enthusiasm and N's insights into the paintings, I was loving the Hals. His paintings stood out as funny and lighthearted and unlike the many somber portraits and the intricate paintings of domestic life, his painting depicted public spaces enlivened by revelry. I understand that as he grew older his work became more serious, but as represented in this show, Hals is the painter of the drunken, celebrating the excess of partying.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Live Tennis vs Tennis on TV
I went to the US Open again on Thursday evening. The night started late and the matches were pretty long, so S and I didn't leave the Billie Jean King tennis center til after 2pm. Quite a marathon--we had to wait for the last afternoon match to finish til about 830 so we went over to the Grey Goose hut and had a very strong drink to relax our nerves.
Now, I am happy that Arthur Ashe stadium is huge and that at least at the US Open tennis is no longer an elite, gentile pasttime. Its entertainment as well as sport. Fine.
And yet, sitting in front of us were a group of drunken straight white guys who drank incredible numbers of beers, talked incessantly during the point, and had the nerve to root for Justine Henin instead of Serena. People started moving away from them as the evening went on. S had to reprimand one especially rude guy at one point.
Also sitting next to me (but luckily one seat away --there was an empty seat between us) was a rather pleasant seeming late middle-aged woman with her younger friend. They brought strawberries and applauded each point regardless of who won it. Polite and demure...or so I thought. Later she lifted her butt off the seat and allowed herself to fart quite loudly. S and I looked at each other, first in shock and then in laughter. One runs into all sorts of behavior in Row X (we moved down for the Radal/Ferrer match) and I did yearn if for but a moment to be surrounded by uptight, sober WASPs who seemingly never burp or fart or never drink beer.
When I watch TV at home, I always root for a player and often get very emotionally involved. Serena and Rafa become sensual liberation fighters, Henin and Federer become fascists who must be defeated. I yell and scream, feel betrayed, identify with the heroics and cheer on the underdog mounting a comeback.
At the match, I become more involved with the match, not the contest. I could never applaud Henin, but I did begin to appreciate her shot-making and her focus. I wasn't happy to see Nadal loose but it was great to see Ferrer play so well and I so enjoyed the tempo and grace of the game itself and the struggle from both players. Television intensifies the conflict, with closeups of players, multiple angles, and the narrating voice of John McEnroe also supplements the importance of the struggle between the player.
On TV, the ball seems to travel much faster than live. At first I was surprised by how slow Serena was hitting, but I realized in seeing the complete arc of her shot (a pov that television doesn't provide) seems to slow the ball down. Even Rafa's forehand seemed slow. Television increases the velocity of the ball. Also TV amplifies the sounds of the court so that one hears the grunts and shrieks (and comments of the players)--as well as the sound of the racquet meeting the ball--much more. Even when S and I moved forward away from Row X, the match was a much more silent event. The audience is louder live and the umpire, who has a microphone, is also quite loud. During changeovers, when music was being played and the audience dancing with a roving camera searching for particularly expressive or attractive or cute dancers, the umpire would end the festivities by barking into the mic "Time!" Our umpire was particularly effective--he had a great Eastern European accent and a booming baritone. As the match between Nadal and Ferrer wore on way past midnight he clearly wanted to make sure that the sets did not drag on and his assertive declarations of "Time" were both humorous and effective.
Now, I am happy that Arthur Ashe stadium is huge and that at least at the US Open tennis is no longer an elite, gentile pasttime. Its entertainment as well as sport. Fine.
And yet, sitting in front of us were a group of drunken straight white guys who drank incredible numbers of beers, talked incessantly during the point, and had the nerve to root for Justine Henin instead of Serena. People started moving away from them as the evening went on. S had to reprimand one especially rude guy at one point.
Also sitting next to me (but luckily one seat away --there was an empty seat between us) was a rather pleasant seeming late middle-aged woman with her younger friend. They brought strawberries and applauded each point regardless of who won it. Polite and demure...or so I thought. Later she lifted her butt off the seat and allowed herself to fart quite loudly. S and I looked at each other, first in shock and then in laughter. One runs into all sorts of behavior in Row X (we moved down for the Radal/Ferrer match) and I did yearn if for but a moment to be surrounded by uptight, sober WASPs who seemingly never burp or fart or never drink beer.
When I watch TV at home, I always root for a player and often get very emotionally involved. Serena and Rafa become sensual liberation fighters, Henin and Federer become fascists who must be defeated. I yell and scream, feel betrayed, identify with the heroics and cheer on the underdog mounting a comeback.
At the match, I become more involved with the match, not the contest. I could never applaud Henin, but I did begin to appreciate her shot-making and her focus. I wasn't happy to see Nadal loose but it was great to see Ferrer play so well and I so enjoyed the tempo and grace of the game itself and the struggle from both players. Television intensifies the conflict, with closeups of players, multiple angles, and the narrating voice of John McEnroe also supplements the importance of the struggle between the player.
On TV, the ball seems to travel much faster than live. At first I was surprised by how slow Serena was hitting, but I realized in seeing the complete arc of her shot (a pov that television doesn't provide) seems to slow the ball down. Even Rafa's forehand seemed slow. Television increases the velocity of the ball. Also TV amplifies the sounds of the court so that one hears the grunts and shrieks (and comments of the players)--as well as the sound of the racquet meeting the ball--much more. Even when S and I moved forward away from Row X, the match was a much more silent event. The audience is louder live and the umpire, who has a microphone, is also quite loud. During changeovers, when music was being played and the audience dancing with a roving camera searching for particularly expressive or attractive or cute dancers, the umpire would end the festivities by barking into the mic "Time!" Our umpire was particularly effective--he had a great Eastern European accent and a booming baritone. As the match between Nadal and Ferrer wore on way past midnight he clearly wanted to make sure that the sets did not drag on and his assertive declarations of "Time" were both humorous and effective.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Madame X meets the Buddha of the Future
Gorgeous Labor Day weekend and B and I went to the Met to go spend time on the Roof Garden. She wanted to see the painting John Singer Sargent's Madame X and I wanted to see the sculpture Buddha of the Future. On opposite sides of the immense building of course, fitting I suppose as they are from different worlds. Asking the Met guards is so fun, because they are so concerned to give you the right directions and it is so hard for me to listen to people when they are giving directions (is it a guy thing?)--I just end up hearing the sounds of their words. Though I do remember snippets like "go as far as you can til you get to the marble fireplace" or "go through Egypt and then take a left." Such epic phrases from some lost manuscript by Herodotus. "Can you tell me how to get to Madame X" sounds a lot more intriguing say than repeating "Can you tell me how to get to .... Sesame Street." Or "Which way to the Buddha of the future..."has more import than "can you point me in the direction of the nearest subway." This is part of the magic of the Met, one hears and speaks the most magical phrases.
Against the tendencies of at least my own character (I won't speak for B), we found our destinations -- though I must say finding the elevator to the Garden is a feat worth celebrating with a Snoopy Dance atop the doghouse. And its not like B and I have never been to the Met before.
B insisted I knew the painting Madame X, which I did, but I couldn't remember the impact of the image of Madame Gautreau. Wow! I was undone. As B told me the story of the painting--and how it had to be retouched in order to return a strap of Madame's black dress to alabaster shoulder (just too salacious to show so much decollete and cleavage) another woman behind us began to tell her male friend the same story, using quite similar words. B and I looked at each other and laughed. Facts become stories, which then become myths retold. I do feel duty bound to bring another friend so as to recite the myth of Sargent and Madame X. But also the story of the image itself (a proud woman, defiant profile, a tale of pale skin and dark fabric, red hair aflame in front of a green background) becomes interrupted by the backstory of societal outrage and cultural conservatism.
The Buddha of the Future (Maitreya) that I like is from Pakistan (the Greco-Buddhist period). Surprisingly masculine (a twirling mustache) and broad shouldered, yet very adorned by fabric and garment, blissed out, balanced, and evocative. His stance is defiant too, but since he is a representation of an ideal that doesn't (yet) exist, he is not subject to any rebuke for the self-absorption in his pose.
Against the tendencies of at least my own character (I won't speak for B), we found our destinations -- though I must say finding the elevator to the Garden is a feat worth celebrating with a Snoopy Dance atop the doghouse. And its not like B and I have never been to the Met before.
B insisted I knew the painting Madame X, which I did, but I couldn't remember the impact of the image of Madame Gautreau. Wow! I was undone. As B told me the story of the painting--and how it had to be retouched in order to return a strap of Madame's black dress to alabaster shoulder (just too salacious to show so much decollete and cleavage) another woman behind us began to tell her male friend the same story, using quite similar words. B and I looked at each other and laughed. Facts become stories, which then become myths retold. I do feel duty bound to bring another friend so as to recite the myth of Sargent and Madame X. But also the story of the image itself (a proud woman, defiant profile, a tale of pale skin and dark fabric, red hair aflame in front of a green background) becomes interrupted by the backstory of societal outrage and cultural conservatism.
The Buddha of the Future (Maitreya) that I like is from Pakistan (the Greco-Buddhist period). Surprisingly masculine (a twirling mustache) and broad shouldered, yet very adorned by fabric and garment, blissed out, balanced, and evocative. His stance is defiant too, but since he is a representation of an ideal that doesn't (yet) exist, he is not subject to any rebuke for the self-absorption in his pose.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
