A part of this viewing list: Criterion Collection Spine #382: Stuart Cooper’s Overlord.

I was contacted by a NYC marketing firm to review Overlord, which was released on the 17th. So hey, free DVD. This is the second time that someone has happened along my movie reviews and asked me to do one for them. I must be doing something right. Incidentally, this film will be shown at the Cleveland Cinematheque in October. Catch it if you can.

Overlord has an interesting cinematic niche. It is composed, in significant amounts, of World War II stock footage [mostly from the Imperial War Museum]. This footage has been seamed together with plot-oriented shots that were deliberately cinematographed to look like stock footage. John Alcott [Kubrick's regular choice for cinematographer] was in charge of this, so quality is expected and delivered. The story follows a young British man who is dutifully making his way toward the war, culminating in D-Day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that does such a good job putting its main character in context with the events in the world around him.

The film has an objectivity and a subjectivity that rub against each other like flint and tinder. The objective vector concerns the mind-bogglingly vast resources and activities associated with the war effort; from civilians fighting fires after air raids to dive bombers going after battleships and destroyers, to the mustering and transportation of troops troops troops. It is like an 80 minute version of a Frank Capra “Why We Fight” minus the forced jovial voice-over and editorial propaganda. The film is bookended with long, wordless sequences of this action; in the beginning it immerses the viewer, but by the end it has a completely different flavor.

This whole element is so dense that without the subjective angle to balance, a viewer could easily become overwhelmed. Tom Beddows adds the human element. He begins the film as a man with regard for the act of defending his country that has likely been passed down by Tom Beddows, Sr. who fought in the First World War. By the end, this regard has been steadily degraded through disgruntlement and cynicism; Beddows becomes completely nihilistic [burning his letters to home]—all before he’s left Britain. This correlates with the intercut objective stock footage elements. The dehumanized war machine dehumanizes. It is a bit reminiscent of Douglas Adams’ Total Perspective Vortex, sans humor.

I should clarify what I mean when I use the word objective. The clips themselves are documents, with only the most vestigial resonances of propaganda. The way they are used by Cooper is not objective, they are meant to wind the internal springs of Beddows to their breaking point. Cooper’s motivation is a product of the Vietnam era; looking at World War II from this perspective is quite interesting. The training sequences, and Beddows transformation into near roboticism become a bit sinister; almost as if someone of complete indifference has planned each element in the dehumanization process. In the end even Tom Beddows dreams are tinged with an indifferent regard to the death he knows is coming. It’s not surprising that the war gets to him before he gets to it.

• Criterion Essay by Kent Jones.
• Criterion Press Release with links to many reviews and other press information in a .zip file.
• Clips: 1 and 2.

Last night was the first real night of summer for me. Filled with music, familiar faces and late-burning eyeballs. Asterisk Gallery had a fairly impromptu show featuring Chiara Giovando and Daniel Higgs [lead singer of Lungfish]. Ha Ha La was the first act, a sort of Daniel Johnston with a dash of Sigur Ros and [when-used] Jesus and Mary Chain guitar. Ted Flynn played next, a bit more standardized rootsy sort of set. I took some video. My bro Wasco played next, his Scarcity improvisational experiments remain intense. Here’s his entire set, split in two for YouTube. Part 1, Part 2.

Andrew Klimek was next, and he did things with balloons and guitars that are likely illegal in several countries. Chiara Giovando and Daniel Higgs were last, and hopefully enough donations were given to help them on their way to Pittsburgh. The duo was mindblowing. I would have taken video but my camera wasn’t up to recording in the dim light. Banjo, violin, a capella, mouth harp and what I think was a spring drum gave a world-folk vibe to their set, but this retro-hippie-ness was distinctly juxtaposed with lyrics that showed a definite punk edge. It ended up being more mature than both, an affirmation of love in contest with worldly experienced cynicsim.

There were cameras [including mine] all over this show. Sometimes I wonder if people are more interested in imitating Lou Muenz [including me] than watching the show.

I hitched a ride over to Duck Island to see Seers and made it home close to 2, I think. I saw just about every person that I care to see in the Cleveland music scene last night. We’re all anxious to get out and be some rock, I think. Maybe I’m just projecting.

I got an unexpected free haircut today from the ladies who run the Gentlemen’s Barber Shop in Tremont. Apparently they’ve gotten some business from my Tremonter posting about the place. I tried to talk them out of it, but there was no dice. They wouldn’t even take a tip. I’m just glad to know that I helped out a local business. I finally got back a few pieces that I took to have framed at Kelly-Randall Gallery awhile back. I got an unexpected 20% off there since I’m a resident and have gotten several things framed there now. Living in Tremont has its unexpected perks.

One of those perks is not nearly gagging from steel mill sulphur first thing in the morning after leaving my apartment though.

A part of this viewing list: Criterion Collection Spine #371: Oscar Micheaux’s Body & Soul and Kenneth MacPherson’s Borderline.

Body & Soul

Paul Robeson and Oscar Micheaux are legendary, so I was eager to see what they could do in collaboration. Body & Soul is Robeson’s first screen appearance, and quite an opening act. The story is about a archetypal hustler who’s hustle happens to involve being an archetypal black preacher. There’s hypocrisy, drunkenness, rape, and murder; just from the preacher! The film is strong throughout, but passes the strength between Robeson’s complete transformation into a Jekyll & Hyde character and Micheaux’s facility with shot selection, cinematography and editing. Body & Soul are typically bound together in mutually positive terms [e.g. Good for body & soul.] but in this film they are opposing forces. An easy analogy can also be made: Robeson as Body; his physical presence completely magnetic. This leaves Soul for Micheaux, who is able to intimate violence with a shot of shoes walking through a door, or an inter-title that simply says “Later.”

The film only fails at the finish line. The dénouement seemed like a grand cop-out to me. For the majority of the film, the drama plays out as an explicit criticism of ministry and an implicit critique of cultural larceny in general. The fact that Micheaux felt the need to end with a “just playin’ y’all” doesn’t indicate a failure of idealism to me, but likely a practical understanding of the reception the film would have gotten with a less fairy-tale conclusion. Nevertheless, I feel like it is fairly well neutered by the last ten minutes, much like Campion’s The Piano was spayed in the same way.

The jazz score for the Criterion release is magnificent. There’s some smooth jazz, acid jazz, chain-ganging, and gospel echoes throughout, many times marvelously juxtaposed to emphasize subtext that an audience used to talkies might typically miss.

• Oscar Micheaux’s Body & Soul: Visual Representation and Social Construction of African-American Identity
• Comprehensive Oscar Micheaux
• Article about the jazz score for the new print.
• YouTube clip of Body & Soul.

Borderline

Borderline is a very different film from Body & Soul. It’s a British avant-garde film about an inter-racial love triangle. Robeson’s role in this film is much less substantive, but no less effective. This effortless efficacy is enabled by the storyline and its inevitable racially-charged confrontation. This film is fairly sophisticated, it uses montage liberally, but in a very refined manner. I’ve never seen a film where completely motionless figures can make a scene feel unutterably violent. When the storm actually comes, it is almost a relief; the subconscious clues supplied by the montage-foreshadowing turn the screen tension into real tension held by the viewer. MacPherson’s use of montage often blends with the action instead of standing separately as a sort of parable like something out of Vertov. Thus, the pop of a champagne cork and the dark stain it leaves on the wall suggests a gunshot and bloodstain, and a woman trimming a hat with shears implies the thoughts of the man playing with a knife in the shot that precedes it.

The jazz score for this film is also very good, but even without it the amount of sound present in the action of this silent film is astounding. Unfortunately the technical aspects of the film are its greatest strength. The plot is probably a bit too complicated to be effectively portrayed in a silent film, and while Robeson’s role is actualized through a single punch, the abrupt ending and nearly non-existent moral would be better suited to a documentary and not a drama. Perhaps this Modern, ambiguous ending was precisely the point, but if there is no particular point to be made, why make a movie that so desperately seems to need one?

• Screenonline synopsis and multimedia. Unfortunately the clips are only available to certain Brits.
• Luxonline History.

As I wait for Amazon to ship me the latest Tolkien release, The Children of Húrin, I find myself disagreeing with several reviews I’ve read, in terms of placing this work in context with his other stuff. The lede in the Washington Post review:

If anyone still labors under the delusion that J.R.R. Tolkien was a writer of twee fantasies for children, this novel should set them straight.

From the Salon review:

If you’re looking for the accessibility, lyrical sweep and above all the optimism of “Lord of the Rings,” well, you’d better go back and read it again.

This idea that Tolkien’s works are mainly positive, light-hearted adventures is so superficial that it drives an amateur Tolkien scholar like me up the wall. If you judge Middle-earth by the aberrant text of The Hobbit [a tale written for his children; intentionally different from the actual Middle-earth that was first put to scraps of paper during the First World War] then I can see where you’d get that idea. The film treatment of LotR was reworked so extensively because the book was too bleak for mass appeal as a film.

Galadriel speaks Tolkien’s overarching worldview when she says

Through the ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.

nearly verbatim from his own words on his faith. More on that here.

Tolkien’s works are thoroughly Modernist in their tone and focus. This is somewhat wry since much of the tone is taken from the most ancient Northern tales. I think that the reviewers are right in pointing out that The Children of Húrin is a bleak tale, but have made a misstep in equating it as exceptional rather than standard. Nits picked.

I went to the Beachland tonight to see Blk Tygr and ended up with a cartload of local music. I either know enough people, or the right people enough to end up with stuff just getting handed to me. Of course, I also stopped by Music Saves and picked up three CDs I’ve been meaning to get. All told with the night over, I ended up with a Roué disc that I’ve been meaning to get for two years, Humphry Clinker’s first LP, the Land of Buried Treasure disc, the new single from The Very Knees, and a Henry James LP. Now that all of the volunteer stuff I’ve been working on is wrapping up, I’m ready to be free to go out at night to all the great shows that go on around town.

During the summer I’m going to revamp this site in order to focus more on my cultural nutrition, If what I plan goes through and I have the gumption to keep it that way, this might look more like a zine than personal ramblings. I don’t know if that is good or bad, but since O/M is over 5 years old, I think it is time for some sort of change.

I don’t drive very much anymore, but the last two days I’ve been at the Tri-C Corporate College West taking a class. What I’ve noticed on the drive to Westlake these two days is a preponderance of W04 stickers, Kerry-Edwards stickers and now the odd Obama08 sticker. I’m pretty sure I’ve bitched about this before, but I can’t ascribe the remaining bumper stickers to removal-laziness. If party-line-toeing and bipartisan divisiveness is so strong among the generic citizen that people can’t let go 2.5 years after the fact, it isn’t surprising that the people we’ve elected can’t or won’t get anything accomplished.

I’d completely forgotten that April is National Poetry Month. Usually I throw a contest and try to write a poem a day, but I’ve been so damn busy lately that it completely slipped my mind. I would offer a poem by way of apology, but I’ve got to get going to a meeting. Woops.

A part of this viewing list: Criterion Collection Spine #358: G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box.

I said I’d finished watching all of the films that I’d seen before, but Pandora’s Box showed up at the Library recently, and I’ve currently got Bicycle Thieves in the queue. Watching Pandora’s Box this time around was much more fulfilling than the first time I saw it. I’m a big fan of Weimar-era films and German Expressionism in general, so an excuse to rewatch this was quite welcome. The Criterion folks had four separate musical accompaniment choices to join with the film, I switched through all of them during my screening, and have to say that I liked the piano improvisation one the best.

Pandora’s Box is one of those films that film buffs consistently praise and place on a pedestal. For its time it was quite frank and racy, and its non-judgmental aspect is something that would become sorely lacking in American cinema once the Hays code went into effect. This film is a German product, though the main character is played by Kansan Louise Brooks, whose acting was pitch perfect for the tone that Pabst was aiming for in his rendition of Franz Wedekind’s Lulu saga.

Lulu is the archetypal whore with a heart of gold, a woman whose free sexuality ultimately ruins her entire world. This part gets mentioned in just about every review of the film, but what interests me the most is how ahead of its time her character and its portrayal appear to be. From one angle Lulu appears to be a misogynist’s dream/nightmare, a woman that affirms the standard anti-woman talking points with no regard to the effects her aberrant behavior has on otherwise “good” people. The vampiric shot of Lulu and Dr. Schön is probably the ultimate expression of this. At the same time, she’s an excellent example of a liberated woman, defined by her sexuality instead of repressed by it. Countess Geschwitz is considered to be the first obvious lesbian character in film history.

Male characters are all negative, completely controlled by their own libidos, which are expressed through an obsession with Lulu. Because none of the characters [except Lulu] retain any shred of innocence, there is little sympathy for them as they destroy themselves. The strength of Pandora’s Box lies in this realistic, Modern treatment of love and lust. Despite the silence of the film, the acting and screenplay ensure that the film will remain trenchant as long as all is fair in love.

• Criterion Essay by J. Hoberman.
• YouTube clips [1, 2].
• Some screenshots.
• Guardian Article.
• Louise Brooks Society.
• Louise Brooks Gallery.
• Wedekind play Erdgeist [in German] at Project Gutenberg.

My current focus is bringing my web accessibility, Section 508, and other usability guidelines to a higher level. To that end, The University of Washington’s massive and extremely useful Accessibility site has been a great help. And I only found it yesterday.

I’d say I’ve smelled someone smoking up in downtown Cleveland at least six times since I started work thataway. Usually on Ontario right before Public Square, but once I smelled it oh so briefly, on the bus, on Carnegie Bridge, right above the Cuyahoga.

I think the neighborhood skunk or one of its progeny has made its way to my neck of the woods, many mornings when I leave it smells like a wood pussy has been nearby.

I’ve been using a health-food-esque deodorant for the past year, just a stick of salt, but I had to buy some chemically engineered stuff for post-gym odoriferocity. This stuff is called “Ice Dive” but smells exactly like a grapefruit.

Club Soda does miracle work on my pots and pans. When the metal is still spotty after a wash I can pour a little club soda in the pan, let it sit for a bit and then wash it again and they pretty much disappear. Sweet Jesus!

I just downloaded this awesome iTunes plugin called iConcertCal. It uses the iTunes index and then searches for artists in your playlist and makes a calendar showing when and where they’ll be in your area. It isn’t foolproof, since I imagine smaller groups aren’t going to be easily found, but it is certainly better than checking every venue’s site regularly.

My Dell laptop is right at two years old and is starting to disintegrate on me. The sound only works if I plug a jack into it, the forward slash key only works if you press the top-right corner and the whole she-bang is getting bogged down because of my inability to reformat the bastard. Thank you, Dell, for refusing to send me a backup disk and putting a hidden partition on the machine without asking me first.

I really want to get a Mac or MacBook Pro, but I would feel rather irresponsible getting a new machine after only two years.

US Guys is a book by journalist Charlie LeDuff; a series of vignettes that are marketed as an examination of manhood and masculinity in American culture. It starts off well enough, the writing is crisp and the observations are fresh and interesting, but by the end Charlie seems to have run out of observations about masculinity and simply recounts his experiences, it ceases to be journalism and becomes more of a memoir. I was expecting something a bit meatier, and less filled with self-aggrandization. Part of LeDuff’s modus operandi is this sort of self-revelatory no-holds-barred truthfulness, but at times the book becomes more about him than the folks he’s there to learn from.

In some ways this is good, as LeDuff becomes a prominent example of the very thing he sets out to chart, but the perspective is a bit lacking. It is ethnography without conclusions, and therefore, ultimately just so much popcorn. Unfortunate. It is a good read, but not much more.

I busted out the grill for the first time and cooked some cheapie Spencer steaks on it yesterday. I made a lime and olive oil marinade; I stole the idea from Fahrenheit, only I put a lot more lime in mine. Since the steaks were so skinny I made sandwiches out of them, with just a little bit of mayo they became amazingly delicious. On the side was a chunk of edam, some kalamatas and mixed veggies.

The bike ride downtown was uphill and into the wind both ways, but fun nonetheless. As long as the weather keeps, I’ll be that jackass on a bike in dress clothes. Tremonter and Drupal are giving me a big headache. It’s a piece of crap program, but as far as I can tell its the only one out there that sorta does all the things I want it to. Unfortunately, whenever they upgrade the version, it breaks all the third party stuff. Wordpress, how I love thee.