91. Like A Hurricane &...

Lyrics

Once I thought I saw you
in a crowded hazy bar,
Dancing on the light
from star to star.
Far across the moonbeam
I know that's who you are,
I saw your brown eyes
turning once to fire.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

I am just a dreamer,
but you are just a dream,
You could have been
anyone to me.
Before that moment
you touched my lips
That perfect feeling
when time just slips
Away between us
on our foggy trip.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

You are just a dreamer,
and I am just a dream.
You could have been
anyone to me.
Before that moment
you touched my lips
That perfect feeling
when time just slips
Away between us
on our foggy trip.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

I really hate the term 'dad rock', which is nowadays too often used to describe classic rock, which is some of the most progressive, exciting and experimental music ever made. That does not mean that because a song belongs to the genre of classic rock is automatically great. Like A Hurricane is a good example of this. It's just a very dull song. And I actually like Neil Young quite a lot. Old Man is a truly great song I think. For the purpose of this blog though, I am at least quite happy by the lyrics of this song about a brown-eyed dreaming dancer with whom the narrator of the song is quite obsessed. It resulted in one of the few links between song and movie which are completely logical.

The Movie: The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954)

"Once upon a time there was a beautiful dancer named Maria Vargas..." The Barefoot Contessa could have easily started with this line, because this is the kind of story it wants to be: a dark-ish fairy-tale about Hollywood and romance. And for much of its running time it is a pretty entertaining one, with some great scenes, lines and performances. It's just too bad that in the last 30-40 minutes it nearly completely flies of the rails. 

The movie starts at the funeral of Maria Vargas (Ava Gardner) with the voice-over of writer-director Harry Dawes (Humphrey Bogart, who is great, but what else is new) telling us about how he met Maria when she was dancing in Spain and persuaded her, at the request of arrogant businessman Kirk Edwards (Warren Stevens) to come to Hollywood to act in movies. During the course in the movie we will constantly return to that funeral where there are more people who have known Maria including PR-manager Oscar Muldoon (Edmond O'Brien, who justly won an Oscar for this performance) and Maria's husband Count Vincenzo Torlatto-Favrini (Rossano Brazzi). The narration will shift between all these characters allowing them all to share their viewpoint of the mysterious Maria. 

The opening of the film is pretty great. After about 30 minutes there have been only two extended scenes full of fantastic dialogue, wherein we get to know most of the main characters. It also helps that these characters are very well written. Harry, as played by Bogart, is especially great. He is a kind, goodhearted cynic who is willing to be very curt to the arrogant self-indulgent Kirk and Oscar, who follows him around like a do. But Harry's good heart shows during his interactions with Maria. They strike up a slightly odd, but very warm and kind friendship that feels to be very realistic. It is very rare in Hollywood movies to present a relationship between two Hollywood characters in such a way, let alone if these two characters are of a different gender. Still, the best scene in the movie occurs during the narration of Oscar, when he finds out that some people such as Maria can become so popular, beloved and famous that they turn his talents obsolete. Maria transcends PR management. It is during these scenes that we actually get some sympathy for Oscar,. We learn to know him as a rather tragic figure who certainly has human emotions, but if he is to do his job well he has to turn of these emotions. And without the script making it explicit O'Brien through his acting shows that he tries, as much as possible, to not be a dirty, vile cynic when doing his job. And so the movie goes on quite entertainingly, while we get to know most of the characters pretty well. Maria remains a mystery, but considering the movie starts with her funeral you expect that near the end some tragic secret about her will be revealed that will very melodramatically leads to her death. This is not really my favorite kind of plot mechanism, but it's a popular one for reasons I can very well understand, so I don't have much of a problem with it if it follows logically out of the rest of the movie, especially if the rest of the movie is so entertaining as The Barefoot Contessa. 

It's unfortunate than that the movie is not resolved in quite this way, but in a much worse one. I think that Mankiewicz completely blows the final act of the movie, which is narrated by the count, which is all the more unfortunate considering he also wrote the film. First of all, for some reason Mankiewicz seemingly felt that his movie wasn't enough of a fairy-tale so he decided to add another dash of magical realism. That doesn't fit the mood of the rest of the movie. Even more curious though is the dialogue between the count and his sister, who are two noblemen existentially discussing their empty legacy. Their behavior comes straight out of an Antonioni movie which fits the movie even less, and especially the section in which it occurs. Now, I usually quite love movies with constant changes of tone, but usually the filmmakers seem aware that they are changing the tone, and they seem to have control over it. Mankiewicz does not here. The biggest problem though is that it is not one of Maria's secrets that leads to her death, but one of the count's. It's probably a spoiler to say that his impotence leads to Maria's death, but it is such a lame reveal that is treated with such ridiculous reverence that the movie becomes a farce instead of tragedy as intended. That is also because the reason given for the count's impotence is completely ridiculous. And because the actions (which directly lead to Maria's death) of both Maria and the count after this reveal are nonsensical based on what we know of these characters until then. 

The rest of the movie is very much worth seeing though, but I really hated the ending. Lastly it is worth mentioning that the movie can be criticized on feminist grounds. After all, Maria's sole function in this movie is to be mysterious and be admired and loved by men. You could argue that she is not a human being, but a narrative trope that is only used to explore the characters of the men. In this case I do not think that's much of a problem, partly because it is quite unfair to judge older movies according to modern norms and values. But also because the movie is completely honest about its intentions from the first scene on, which is filmed in the bar where Maria is dancing. Only we do not see Maria dancing, we just see how the audience reacts to her. The movie is not really interested in the life of an actress, but on the impact she has on the people around her. There is nothing wrong with that, and if you want to achieve that it does make sense to use Maria, and Ava Gardner, in this way.  

              

90. Ne Me Quitte Pas &...

Lyrics

Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s'oublier
Qui s'enfuit deja
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus
Et le temps perdu
A savoir comment
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le coeur du bonheur
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Moi je t'offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où il ne pleut pas
Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu'apres ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D'or et de lumière
Je ferai un domaine
Où l'amour sera roi
Où l'amour sera loi
Où tu seras reine
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Ne me quitte pas
Je t'inventerai
Des mots insensés
Que tu comprendras
Je te parlerai
De ces amants là
Qui ont vu deux fois
Leurs coeurs s'embraser
Je te racont'rai
L'histoire de ce roi
Mort de n'avoir pas
Pu te rencontrer
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

On a vu souvent
Rejaillir le feu
De l'ancien volcan
Qu'on croyait trop vieux
Il est paraît-il
Des terres brûlées
Donnant plus de blé
Qu'un meilleur avril
Et quand vient le soir
Pour qu'un ciel flamboie
Le rouge et le noir
Ne s'épousent-ils pas
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Ne me quitte pas
Je ne vais plus pleurer
Je ne vais plus parler
Je me cacherai là
À te regarder
Danser et sourire
Et à t'écouter
Chanter et puis rire
Laisse-moi devenir
L'ombre de ton ombre
L'ombre de ta main
L'ombre de ton chien
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

The English translation of this lyrics can be found in the video above. As one can see a lot of time has passed between this post and my previous one. That's partly because I am busy looking for a job, partly because I couldn't find the movie I was planning to link this song too. I decided I had to find a French romantic movie about involving regret and desire that was full of grand operatic gestures. After some searching I chose Leos Carax' Lovers on the Bridge (1991). I was quite excited to see the movie. The only previous Carax film I had seen was Holy Motors, which I utterly loved. Lovers on the Bridge though apparently cannot be found anywhere in the Netherlands, and I also couldn't find it anywhere online (without downloading torrents and such stuff). So eventually I chose the movie that seemed to be the closest in spirit to Lovers on the Bridge. 

The Movie: Mauvais Sang (Leos Carax, 1986)

Mauvais Sang, literally translated as Bad Blood is the movie Leos Carax made before Lovers on the Bridge. It also stars in Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant the same two main actors as Lovers on the Bridge. It's strange that I could find Mauvais Sang so easily on DVD in the Netherlands, while Lovers on the Bridge is somehow extinct here. As far as I know Lovers on the Bridge is by far the more famous film. I also assume that Lovers on the Bridge is a for more accessible film than Mauvais Sang to general audiences. This is a downright strange movie. 

Anyone who believes that art is above all about personal expression must see Mauvais Sang. This is a movie that Leos Carax clearly made purely for himself. To me Mauvais Sang feels like a movie that answers the following question: What if a young French Romantic existentialist chose to make a heavily stylized movie that combined the aesthetics of the silent melodramas of the early days of cinema with the aesthetics of the crime movies of the French New Wave, while at the same time dealing with some of the main anxieties of the 1980's? It's also one of the best examples I've seen of Roger Ebert's famous saying 'It's not what a movie's about, it's how it's about it'. What the film's about is quite easy to explain and will sound familiar to everyone who has seen more than 10 films in his life. Two seasoned crooks, and a young girl in love with one of them try to execute a heist. They used to be three crooks, but their safe opener has now died, so they enlist the help of his son who has ceased to speak to his father a long time ago, but has the same quick hands. While preparing the heist the young boy and girl gradually grow closer to each other. So far so good, you may think. This is one of the most archetypal setups ever. 

What this crew wants to steal though is a newly isolated drug culture that can treat the new sexaully transmitted disease called STBO, contracted when one has sex without feeling love. This is the kind of slightly dopey idea only a young hopeless romantic would think of, but the connection to the 1980's panic about AIDS is quite obvious. An American gang is also after this drug culture that belongs to a giant international conglomerate housed in a giant skyscraper such as the ones we often see in New York. Considering the movie takes place in Paris, the movie also touches on concerns/ideas that globalization is essentially Americanization and that American capitalism is going to become the dominant system in the world. These were of course popular ideas in 1986, when Reagan was in the middle of his presidency and it was becoming clearer and clearer that the Soviet Union was declining. 

It's not that the rest of Paris here looks like the Paris we know. The city is filmed in an expressionistic way that often reminded me of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Most of the movie takes place on the street where our crew is planning from and Carax at no point even tries to make it seem as a real street. It's filmed and lit in such a way that it is always clear that we are watching a film set. This is a very theatrical movie, which is also visible in the acting of Juliette Binoche and especially Denis Lavant. Interestingly the older actors, act in a way that's more familiar to modern audiences. I have seen Lavant only in two movies now, this and Holy Motors, but I already think he is one of the greatest living actors. You could call him a French Robert De Niro, only if De Niro acted in the pre- 1930's. But calling him that would not be fair to Lavant. I prefer De Niro, but Lavant is a totally unique actor. In any case Carax even further emphasizes the connection of Mauvais Sang to silent cinema during a couple of short, silent, black-and-white sequences, which seem to come straight of a one-reeler from the earliest days of film.

The isolated drug culture, by the way, could be called a McGuffin. A McGuffin is, as I have written earlier on this blog, the thing that sets the plot in motion. Therein lies the problem of calling the drug a McGuffin. There is hardly a plot to speak of in the movie. It's above all interested in creating a mood and an atmosphere, and in letting Lavant and Binoche discuss the complexities of love and life. Being 25 I fully understand how that was very appealing to a 26-year old Leos Carax. So I quite liked the movie a lot; I love/like stylized movies in general. I will never completely connect to/love this movie though. It's sensibilities are entirely different from mine. And I can see quite easily why others may hate it. It's definitely not for everyone, nor is it meant to be. If one doesn't like it though, one shouldn't complain that it doesn't work. Carax doesn't give a shit whether this movie works or not. Besides how can you possibly judge whether it works or not? There is nothing else to judge it against. Mauvais Sang is completely singular. And having just seen two movies of his, I am very eager to see other things Carax has made.

89. Suspicious Minds &...

Lyrics

We're caught in a trap
I can't walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Why can't you see
What you're doing to me
When you don't believe a word I say?

We can't go on together
With suspicious minds (suspicious minds)
And we can't build our dreams
On suspicious minds

So if an old friend I know
Drops by to say hello,
Would I still see suspicion in your eyes?

Here we go again
Asking where I've been
You can't see the tears are real
I'm crying (yes i'm crying)

We can't go on together
With suspicious minds (suspicious minds)
And we can't build our dreams
On suspicious minds

Oh let our love survive
I'll dry the tears from your eyes
Let's don't let a good thing die
When honey, you know
I've never lied to you
Mmm yeah, yeah

Repeat Verse 1 & 2

We're caught in a trap,
I can't walk out x6

Jailhouse Rock is of course a great song, and so is Hound Dog. But for the most part I am a bit indifferent towards Elvis Presley. I like most of his faster paced rock songs, but do not really put them on voluntarily. And his ballads, such as this one speak even less to me. Having said that, Elvis Presley is one of those artists about whom it doesn't matter squat how you feel about him. He is one of the greatest, and most important musicians of all time. His cultural influence is undeniable, and maybe bigger than of any other artist on this list. I won't write much else about him, because I don't really have anything to add to what's already been written about him. But if you want to read a film critic write extensively about Elvis, you should read the blog of the great Sheila O'Malley. I'll just move on to the film I am going to discuss, which is a rather obvious choice. A song about suspicious minds must result in a movie by a certain director. Coincidentally that director can also be seen as a cinematic counterpart to Elvis. There may have been no more an influential director than Alfred Hitchcock.

The Movie: Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock, 1941)

Some of my favorite recent movies are Bernie, The Informant (which is by far the greatest film Steven Soderbergh ever made) and David Cronenberg's new Maps to the Stars (I am surprised to see that this one got such negative reviews. I loved it). What all these movies have in common is a protagonist (or in the case of Maps to the Stars, a couple of protagonists) who is placed in a (romantic) comedy setting. At, least, that's how it appears to be. Gradually, the plot unfolds, and we get to meet the other characters better, and the movie becomes darker. We realize that the main protagonist is actually placed in a rather realistic, dramatic setting, but that the movie plays as a (black) comedy is because we are watching the movie from the point of view of the main protagonist. And you can even perhaps say that we are watching the movie as if it were made by the main protagonist. That's certainly true about The Informant and Bernie. I find this a very interesting way to make a character drama, as it allows the directors to really dig deep into the dark mind of their main character. It also makes the characters more disturbing and fascinating than if they were simply presented as sociopaths/psychopaths in a more straightforward drama, which is of course not to say that these movies are by definition less valuable. 

Hithcock does a similar thing with Cary Grant's Johnny in Suspicion, and for most of the time this is a very interesting mix between a thriller and a romantic comedy. It is, certainly for a Hitchcock movie, a bit light on tension and suspense, but its characterizations are very strong. Joan Fontaine got an Oscar for her role as Lina, Johnny's wife, and although I haven't seen the other nominated performances, I think Fontaine's Oscar (interestingly she beat her sister Olivia de Havilland, who was nominated for Hold Back the Dawn) is very deserved. She gives a great performance as a really rather normal, but slightly shy woman. That the movie can be called one of Hitchcock's lesser efforts is because of the ending, which utterly disrespects the character of Lina. 

During the movie Johnny has been quite greatly portrayed as a sociopathic gambler and liar, who doesn't even seem to realize that his behavior is/may be considered problematic. While he is wooing Lina he acts as a familiar character of a romantic comedy, and so does Lina. Eventually Lina falls for him, and they marry and go on a honeymoon. Considering that happiness never really lasts long in a Hitchcock film their marriage and honeymoon are handled in two very short scenes, after which Lina and Johnny start their life as a married couple in their new home. Lina begins to act as a serious ordinary responsible woman, while Johnny is stuck in a romantic comedy mode. Moreover he is broke and doesn't seem to care about it. Johnny's behavior slowly grows more shocking, and Lina is rightfully becoming more and more afraid and suspicious of him. Some of these scenes are quite powerful, exactly because Johnny is presented in a quite benevolent way. Without really being evil he is slowly and silently abusing Lina and making her submissive to him. The scene in which Johnny and his best friend try to make Lina laugh, and eventually succeed may be the best example of this. For a while this movie is such a stark portrayal of latent sexism that one can't help but think that those critics accusing Hitchcock of being a misogynist should really watch this movie. Unfortunately these critics would consider themselves right by the movie's ending. But the fact that the ending is sexist is not its biggest problem. I would not really object to it, had it been consistent with the characters' behavior. It also cannot be called ambiguous, because of the stylistic choices made by Hitchcock. I understand that Hitchcock himself was not happy about the ending, and that it was imposed on him by the studio because it didn't want Cary Grant to be a villain, but that doesn't make the ending less sucky. It brings the movie down as a whole. 

Anyway this was a rather short piece, and not the most interesting one on a Hitchcock movie you'll ever read. That would be the case even if the movie had a better ending. It would have been a fun character drama, making some interesting points, but this is not one of Hitchcock's richer movies. This was most certainly not the last Hitchcock movie I'll discuss here though. And those other movies, and posts will certainly be more interesting, though my feelings about Hitchcock are a bit similar to those about Elvis, though I get much more out of Hitchcock's movies than out of Elvis's songs. It's undeniable that Hitchcock's movies are great. Modern critics may sometimes be a bit to defensive about them, but if you wanna write that his movies are overrated, you really don't have any bossiness writing (about film). I just enjoy Hitchcock's movies mostly on a textual/narrative level. There are other directors whose themes and ideas they explore I find much more interesting than Hitchcock's, even if Hitchcock most often explores his themes and ideas more expertly than these other directors.                  

    

88. The Load Out/Stay &...

Lyrics

Now the seats are all empty 
Let the roadies take the stage 
Pack it up and tear it down 
They're the first to come and last to leave 
Working for that minimum wage 
They'll set it up in another town 
Tonight the people were so fine 
They waited there in line 
And when they got up on their feet they made the show 
And that was sweet-- 
But I can hear the sound 
Of slamming doors and folding chairs 
And that's a sound they'll never know 

Now roll them cases out and lift them amps 
Haul them trusses down and get'em up them ramps 
'Cause when it comes to moving me 
You guys are the champs 
But when that last guitar's been packed away 
You know that I still want to play 
So just make sure you got it all set to go 
Before you come for my piano 

But the band's on the bus 
And they're waiting to go 
We've got to drive all night and do a show in Chicago 
or Detroit, I don't know 
We do so many shows in a row 
And these towns all look the same 
We just pass the time in our hotel rooms 
And wander 'round backstage 
Till those lights come up and we hear that crowd 
And we remember why we came 

Now we got country and western on the bus 
R and B, we got disco in eight tracks and cassettes in stereo 
We've got rural scenes & magazines 
We've got truckers on the CB 
We've got Richard Pryor on the video 
We got time to think of the ones we love 
While the miles roll away 
But the only time that seems too short 
Is the time that we get to play 

People you've got the power over what we do 
You can sit there and wait 
Or you can pull us through 
Come along, sing the song 
You know you can't go wrong 
'Cause when that morning sun comes beating down 
You're going to wake up in your town 
But we'll be scheduled to appear 
A thousand miles away from here 
People stay just a little bit longer 
We want to play -- just a little bit longer 
Now the promoter don't mind 
And the union don't mind 
If we take a little time 
And we leave it all behind and sing 
One more song--

These are two songs which Jackson Browne recorded for a live-album, and although they are always listed as two separate songs he always sings both both of them in one go. It's therefore quite irrelevant to treat them as two separate songs, but I must say that I think Stay is far better than The Load Out. These are obviously not some great insights; in fact what I wrote in the first sentence here, I basically copied straight out of Wikipedia. That's because I don't really know anything about Jackson Browne, and what I do know of him, is because of his collaborations with Warren Zevon. 

As you may have guessed by now my taste in, and knowledge of, music doesn't go much farther than the mainstream, so I am quite surprised that very few people I know, with far greater knowledge of music, have never heard of Warren Zevon, who is a slightly overlooked singer-songwriter, who performed from the 70's until his death in 2003. He is one of the sharpest lyricist I know. His lyrics have very dark humor, they be satiric, biting and cynical, while at the same time being incredibly humane. My favorite song of his may be Genius, which among other gems contains these lyrics: Albert Einstein was a ladies' man/while he was working on his universal plan/he was making out like Charlie Sheen/He was a genius. Zevon's best lines though may be in his song Desperadoes under the Eaves: And if California slides into the ocean/like all the mystics and statistics say it will/I predict this hotel will be standing/until I pay my bill. I hope to write more about Zevon some other day, but for now I'll mention the following great songs: Lawyers, Guns and Money, Mohammed's Radio, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunnner, Hit Somebody, My Shit's Fucked Up and Let Nothing Come Between You.

Now, it's time to return to The Load Out/Stay which I linked to a movie I saw a long time ago and remembered liking because it was a movie about rock artists that paid a lot of attention to the hard, unglamorous labor that has to be done to be a successful rock star.  

The Movie: Rock Star (Stephen Herek, 2001)

Rock Star is not a great, or even really good, movie and it does not pay as much attention to the unglamorous labor as I remembered. Still, this is an underrated, odd movie that is much more interesting than it seems to be at first sight. And I also don't know whether the filmmakers are always conscious of how interesting, and sometimes downright subversive their movie is. It's actually quite a shame that David Cronenberg did not direct this movie, as it would fit right into his wheelhouse. This at times plays like the most Marxist movie a Hollywood studio can make about the political economy of a rock band. It also deals with questions of (sexual) identity and authenticity, and it has a main protagonist whose obsessions impact his mental and physical stability.

The main protagonist Izzy Cole, by the way, is played by Mark Wahlberg. Izzy is a super fan of the band Steel Dragon, who is also the lead singer in a cover band (or as Izzy calls it a tribute band) of Steel Dragon. Izzy is not the brightest light in the universe, but he is presented as basically a nice guy who loves his friends, family and girlfriend (played by Jennifer Anniston, whose presence in this movie is a total mystery. Izzy has one main problem though. He wants his band to be an exact copy of Steel Dragon, meaning that when the lead singer of Steel Dragon pierces his nipple Izzy does the same. Even more problematically Izzy throws a tantrum any time one of his band members changes a cover even slightly. His band members eventually tire of him, and throw him out of the band. Than, in a scene that nicely mirrors the previous one, Steel Dragon throws their lead singer out of the band, so now they have to search for a new lead singer. Of course it's Izzy who becomes it. And now the movie really starts getting interesting. 

The movie posits that the Steel Dragon tribute band may offer a more 'authentic' experience than the 'real' Steel Dragon. Izzy may imitate Steel Dragon lead singer Bobby Beers, but that's actually a true representation of Izzy's personality and his emotions. He most importantly defines himself as a super fan of Bobby Beers, and his shows are a direct expression of that. His songs may not be 'personal' or 'authentic', but the love he has for Steel Dragon and Bobby is deeply personal and authentic. And that's basically what his shows are about. On the other hand Bobby is a closeted homosexual, who performs songs in which he sings about all the girls he has loved and conquered. That's basically why he leaves Steel Dragon. That Steel Dragon is entirely uninterested in authenticity becomes even clearer later on in the movie, when the now successful Izzy is reprimanded by his fellow band members for having the tenacity to write his own songs that have a new, slightly different sound. They basically claim Steel Dragon to be a brand with its own distinct sound from one which cannot deviate. There is no space for personal expression in their music. The only purpose of the music they record is to sell it and to make money. 

The movie also entirely deglamorizes the debauchery of the rock stars. They sure have wild parties, full of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, but these parties are all fabricated. Steel Dragon actually has a specially employed person whose sole function basically is to direct the debauchery. This is made explicit in a speech by Steel Dragon's manager (Timothy Spall) to Izzy in which he basically says that Izzy's main function is to sell a fantasy to his male fans. His female fans/groupies are basically commodities, which leads to the conclusion that even Izzy's sex life was basically more authentic (and interesting) when he was in the cover band than when he was in the 'real' band. There are throughout the movie many other similar insights. Therefore this is quite a strange Hollywood movie that should not be easily dismissed. The movie basically presents the whole experience of rock as a commodity. It then goes to analyze how that commodity is created and sold, who its producers and consumers are, and how these consumers are created. It furthermore exposes the power relations that make this process possible and shows that (and how) those in power exploit the powerless. This may be the only mainstream movie I know that makes the audience aware of audience labor

87. Smoke on the Water &...

Lyrics

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

They burned down the gambling house
It died with an awful sound
Funky Claude was running in and out
Pulling kids out the ground
When it all was over
We had to find another place 

But Swiss time was running out

It seemed that we would lose the race
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky, smoke on the water

We ended up at the Grand Hotel
It was empty cold and bare
But with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside
Making our music there
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We make a place to sweat
No matter what we get out of this
I know, I know we'll never forget
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky ,smoke on the water

The first chords of this song are of course legendary, if only because seemingly everyone trying to learn to play guitar starts by playing these chords. The rest of the song is also pretty awesome, and Deep Purple are absolutely aware of the song's awesomeness. It's quite strange that no (at least major) movie has been made about the shenanigans at Montreaux, or the shenanigans at the classic rock scene of the 70's in general. Almost Famous doesn't count here, because that was about a fictional band. Besides the main subject of the movie was Patrick Fugit's character. So I chose a movie about the shenanigans of another music scene to link this song to.

The Movie: 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)

Having now seen three movies by Michael Winterbottom, I don't think I am a big fan of him, despite the fact that two of his movies were quite good. First of all he comes off as someone who seems to despise the idea of telling a completely fictional story. He goes out of his way to assure us that what we are watching has at least some basis in reality, even when this assurance is unnecessary, and sometimes even detrimental to the movie. Secondly, and even more importantly, he does not seem to love or even like film very much. He seems above all interested in giving the viewer information about a subject, and film just happens to be the medium through which he does that. This is less of a problem when the subject is interesting/important, such as it is here or in In This World, but much more so in a movie such as The Trip. I am not familiar with the show on which that film was based, but the movie did not make me very interested in it either. It was pleasurable, because any movie with Steve Coogan in it is (That Winterbottom often collaborates with Coogan obviously speaks for him), but also it was one of the most banal films I had ever seen.  Now I must stress that all I wrote in this paragraph about Winterbottom probably is entirely not true. It's just the impression I personally got from merely having seen three movies of his. He's made much more.

Having said that I couldn't help but (unfavorably) compare 24 Hour Party People too Boogie Nights. To me 24 Hour Party People sometimes plays as if Winterbottom was watching Boogie Nights, and enjoying it, but at the same time thinking 'Man I wish Anderson had spent less time thinking how to make this an awesome movie, and more time trying the teach his audience something about the LA porn industry in the 1970's'. Thereby not realizing that Boogie Nights actually might give us more interesting insights about the the the 1970's LA porn scene than 24 Hour Party People does about the 1980's Manchester punk scene. I was quite excited to see this movie as it is often discussed as one of the best recent unconventional biopics, full of fascinating characters, fun scenes, and great dialogue. I enjoyed it quite a lot, as it does have fascinating characters, some fun scenes, and some good dialogue. But it's not all that unconventional, and the elements that are considered such are not even all that interesting here. To clarify, there are not that many fictional biopics made like this. But there are quite a lot of documentaries made like it. The movie often times basically plays like a Steve Coogan-narrated BBC documentary about the rise and fall of Manchester's punk scene, only instead of using archival footage or other similar techniques to show us what happened, important events have been re-staged with actors, including Steve Coogan himself, which makes it a bit self-referential. Now these re-staged scenes are for the most part very compelling, but, come on, this is not groundbreaking work. Apart from the self-referentiality there have been countless documentaries/movies made like this, which blur the line between fiction and reality. This is in itself obviously no problem at all. But Winterbottom seems to do this, because he believes that it is rebellious, and that thus his movie has something of a punk sensibility, reflecting its subject. That may to some extent be the case, but this is still a pretty restrained movie, especially compared to the punk singers we see on screen. I think that the movie could have been much more punk if Winterbottom had made a fictional movie in which he had gone all out, similar to what Anderson did in the more 'conventional' Boogie Nights.

Having said all this, I must emphasize again that I liked the movie quite a lot. I mean, how could I not? This is exactly in my wheelhouse. It is about how media and culture affect society and vice versa. It has some wonderful insights like this one: "And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester". It is also a movie that's surprisingly critical of the movement it celebrates. It subtly connects the rise of Joy Division to the rise of neo-fascism in the United Kingdom of the mid-1970's. Though it makes clear that Joy Division did absolutely not intend neo-fascism to be associated with it, it doesn't present them as entirely blameless. Of course, it probably rightfully posits that above all the decline of British society at all levels was the main cause for that rise of neo-fascism. Less subtly is the connection made between the rise of the punk scene and the rise of drug-related crimes and deaths in Manchester. It makes quite explicitly clear that the punk scene is to blame for that. 

I alos enjoyed the movie a lot because I didn't really know anything about punk or Tony Wilson, 'played' here entertainingly and with a lot of wit and sarcasm by Steve Coogan. The movie makes the case that Ian Curtis was the one true genius of that scene and that his death was an enormous tragedy. It makes this case rather convincingly in fact. The scenes involving Curtis are the most interesting and powerful in the movie. Love will Tear us Apart is also quite easily the greatest song to come out of the punk scene depicted here. Lastly the funniest part of the movie comes at the end, or even in hindsight, when we realize that Tony Wilson had both enormous bad luck/judgement. He loved the alternative music scene around Manchester and believed that bands from that scene could have had great success. He was right, but while the bands he signed did go on to become quite succesfull, the bands he just missed out on, or rejected were the bigger successes, such as the Sex Pistols, The Smiths, and Simply Red (which he rejected, because lead singer Mick Hucknall was a ginger).  

86. No Woman No Cry &...

Lyrics

No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry

Said said
Said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
Oba, ob-serving the hypocrites
As they would mingle with the good people we meet
Good friends we have had, oh good friends we've lost along the way
In this bright future you can't forget your past
So dry your tears I say

No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
Here little darlin', don't shed no tears
No woman, no cry

Said, said, said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire light
Log wood burnin' through the night
Then we would cook corn meal porridge
Of which I'll share with you

My weed is my only courage
So I've got to push on through
But while I'm gone...

Everything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright

No woman, no cry
No, no woman, no woman, no cry
Oh, little sister, don't she'd no tears
No woman, no cry

No woman, no woman, no woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
Oh, my little darlyn no she'd no tears
little sister don't shed no tears, no women no cry

No woman no cry, no woman no cry
No woman no cry, no woman no cry

Say, say, said I remember when we used to sit
In a government yard in Trenchtown
Obba, obba, serving the hypocrites
As the would mingle with the good people we meet
Good friends we have, oh, good friends we've lost
Along the way
In this great future,
You can't forget your past
So dry your tears, I say

No woman no cry, no woman no cry
Little darling, don't she'd no tears, no woman no cry
Say, say, said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire light
As it was, love would burn on through the night
Then we would cook cornmeal porridge
Of which I'll share with you
My fear is my only courage
So I've got to push on throught
Oh, while I'm gone

Everything 's gonna be alright, everything 's gonna be alright
Everything 's gonna be alright, everything 's gonna be alright
Everything 's gonna be alright, everything 's gonna be alright
Everything 's gonna be alright, everything 's gonna be alright
So woman no cry, no, no woman no cry

Oh, my little sister
Don't she'd no tears
No woman no cry
I remember when we use to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire lights
As it was, log would burnin' through the nights
Then we would cook cornmeal porridge
Of which I'll share with you
My fear is my only courage
So I've got to push on thru
Oh, while I'm gone
No woman no cry, no, no woman no cry
Oh, my little darlin'
Don't she'd no tears
No woman no cry, No woman no cry

Oh my Little darlin', don't she'd no tears
No woman no cry
Little sister, don't she'd no tears
No woman no cry

When I was choosing what bachelor to go to I went to an introductory class in Language sciences. I was blown away by the professor who claimed that you could read the expression here No Woman No Cry in two ways. As Please woman, don't cry it's gonna be alright. Or as If there are no women, there is no crying. I am now quite stunned both that I was so impressed by this and by the fact that the professor was seriously arguing this. It's not that he argued that theoretically, and divorced from any context you could interpret an expression such as 'No Woman No Cry' in both ways. No, the professor asked us to think whether Bob Marley  maybe intended us to interpret the meaning of No Woman No Cry in this second way. There is absolutely nothing in this song supporting that statement. 

The Top 2000 has rightfully been criticized lately that it underestimates and ignores black artists. It took us 86 songs to find the first, and is the only one in the top 100. It will take a while before we get to people like Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles and Tina Turner. Furthermore Radio 2 completely ignores hip-hop and R&B. That would be not so bad, if they outright said they only have room for rock and pop on the list, but they allow many other genres. There are comedy/novelty songs on the list, German schlagers, a song sung by a French children choir and even the theme from The Good the Bad and the Ugly. Besides they don't completely ignore rap. A Dutch semi-rap song can be found on the list. The whiteness of the list was also visible in my last two movie choices. A back-to-back of L'Avventura and Husbands and Wives is just about the whites back-to-back possible. So No Woman No Cry came at the right time in other respects too. It's time for some ass-kicking blacksploitation, my first entry in that genre.

The Movie: Foxy Brown (Jack Hill, 1974)

There are too few movies made like this today. I do not necessarily mean movies with a strong black heroine, though there certainly should be made more of them too. But movies with strong black heroines have never been in abundance unfortunately. What I mean is that today there is a lack of mid-budgeted good movies that are simply content to be good movies. Basically, what I miss is serious entertainment for casual moviegoers. There are too few simple popcorn movies made today. Now, these movies want to provide awe at all costs and be the most spectacular movie possible. Their characters seemingly must save the world otherwise the stakes will be too low. On the other hand too many serious movies made today strive to be great art, and believe they have to say profound things about the world, humanity, or art. Some indie movies do not have this ambition, but they lack any ambition and are banal in every possible way. 

There is obviously not much wrong with these movies; I still love many movies, and there have been many great, and entertaining movies made this century. But still, there should be more movies like Foxy Brown. Foxy Brown is a movie that has some serious drama, some wonderful humor, some nice action scenes, and very good acting. It is mostly interested in telling a compelling story, but it does so stylishly, but the style never overshadows the movie's content. It's an entertaining movie that does not need you to shut off your brain completely to enjoy it. But it also doesn't need you to have a deep understanding of cinema to get it. It is an entertaining movie perfect for smart people who enjoy movies and take them seriously, but are not very interested in deeply analyzing them. I grew up on this kind of movies, like Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop. The last two are with Eddie Murphy, and that's not a coincidence in this context. The blacksplotation movies with Pam Grier probably paved the way for him to become a star. I have only seen this blackspolitation movie, so I may be talking crap, but it seems to me quite clear that the Beverly Hills Cop movies and the character of Axel Foley have very much been influenced by Foxy Brown, and other such movies. Foley and Brown have the same wisecracking irreverent attitudes towards (often white) criminals. And they have similar motives in fighting them. It must be said though that the Beverly Hills Cop movies are much more lighthearted than Foxy Brown. Foxy is not only raped here, she is also betrayed in the worst possible way by her brother, and furthermore her husband is killed. The death of her husband is what Foxy Brown wants to avenge here, and that's why she goes after the drug dealers. It is to this movie's great credit that it seamlessly blends these serious scenes with humor, sometimes even very goofy humor. The scene in which Foxy and another woman seduce a stupid, immoral judge is a great example of that. And of course there are some nice action scenes, including a fight in a lesbian bar and an attack with an airplane. 

During all this entertainment, the move never forgets that it is blacksploitation. It calls attention to the underprivileged, and turns them into strong characters. It is greatly helped by Pam Grier, who gives a very strong performance. Perhaps even more importantly Grier makes visible how confident she is in giving this performance and how proud she is to give it. She would have probably been a star, if she were white. The movie also is unsubtle in connecting the privileged whites to the drug trade and showing that the drug trade mostly leads to the deaths of poor black people. In other words it very directly makes the claim that drugs allows the rich whites to keep exerting their power over the poor black people. But the movie is not only interested in the skewed relationship between the rich and the poor, and the black and the white, but also in the relationship between men and women. It gives women power over men. The bad guys here are quite hilariously presented as bunch of stupid macho's who may give the impression of authority, but are under the thumb of their boss Katherine Wall. She is played with manic glee by Kathryn Loder, an actress who I have never heard of before. She gives a great over-the-top performance here that equals Grier's performance. Unfortunately I found out that Loder only made 5 movies and died at a young age, due to diabetes. 

Lastly, of course Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown is a homage to Foxy Brown, and blacksploitation in general. Jackie Brown is a great movie, that is far better than Foxy Brown. But Quentin Tarantino's influences are often called to be disreputable. Many of those movies were indeed baldy made  It is important to note that some of those movies were considered disreputable, not because they were badly made, but because they dealt with stuff that was considered disreputable by the society they were made in. Foxy Brown is I think one such movie. This is quite simply a well-made movie. You absolutely do not need to watch it ironically to enjoy it.