Small Films

Although I am a giant fan of great pop song craft, lately I have been listening to more dissonant fair like Public Image Ltd. and Rollins Band.  Lately I have been listening to some jams that Rollins Band did with free jazz saxophonist Charles Gayle.  Here is one called Miles Jam #2:

Now I completely understand that there are some people that will just not like this kind of stuff due to the dissonant nature of the music.  I’m sure that there are even some of you out there that will think I can’t possibly enjoy this stuff, that I’m just claiming I like it to be different.  But honestly, I find this kind of stuff beautiful.  (And some of the insane language that Henry Rollins uses I find quite funny in the way that certain parts of Apocalypse Now are funny.)  I feel like when musicians play, that they are creating small films.  Music is really visual to me.

When you go to a movie theater I sometimes want to see different kinds of films.  Sometimes you want to see something that tells a great story.  Sometimes you want to see something that is more surreal and visual.  Sometimes you want to see a comedy and sometimes a horror movie.  Sometimes you want to hear a great three minute pop song and sometimes you want to hear almost thirteen minutes of dissonant metal jazz!  Each kind of music creates different imagery in the imagination.

The only kind of music I don’t like is stuff that just creates vanilla imagery.  There are a lot of modern country songs that are so bland I feel like my brain is being sucked out of my ears by a vacuum.  There is a lot of pop that has been autotuned to where the singers voice has been drained of all personality.  Those kinds of things leave my mind empty.

But really if you try to think of music as being visual, so much more of it will open up to you.  Some people are painting beautiful landscapes with sound and some people are using dark surrealism.  Imagine walking through an art gallery and each kind of music is a different period.  Give it a try.

Apocalypse Now Turns 35

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/this-is-the-end-james-gray-on-apocalypse-now-20140811

Apocalypse Now has long been one of my favorite movies.  It is still completely relevant today as there is something elemental and myth like about it.  I watched it again earlier this year and this line by the character Kurtz struck me: “We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes because it’s obscene!”  We still see that kind of absurdity in our culture all of the time.  The above article is an excellent write up on the movie, and why it still matters, from Rolling Stone.  

 

The Joy of Truth

The truth, or at least what I perceive as the truth, makes me happy, even if it is something that wouldn’t typically bring one joy.  I am talking about ideas and art, and not some kind of realization of some painful physical truth.  I am not insane, or not completely!   Meanwhile, things that seem false, unless they are an exaggeration to get at the truth, or an absurdity for comic effect, fill me with displeasure.  Euphamisms, sentimentality, and platitudes are things I have no time for.  Sure, there are always exceptions to every rule, but in general this is how I feel. 

So I could watch something like Apocalypse Now, which for all of its artistic liberties, feels like it is trying to say something truthful about the Vietnam War, and feel completely alive afterwards and full of inspiration.  Meanwhile I could watch a feel good movie, albeit one that is meant to manipulate you into crying, like Mr. Holland’s Opus, and die a thousand small deaths. 

That doesn’t mean if something is happy and full of joy it can’t also be true.  David Lynch’s The Straight Story is one movie I absolutely love that is filled with love and compassion. 

Although a great deal about the modern world troubles me, and I feel that humankind has the odds stacked against us, I am full of hope that the world can be better.  I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I didn’t think so.  If I was a pessimist I would simply write nothing at all. 

Anti-War Novels and Movies

In honor of Memorial Day I thought I would give a short list of films and books that deal with the subject of war.  I am picking things that are not only showing the absurdity of war, but are also thematically and morally complex.  There will be no mindless flag waving here.  The best way to support our troops is to not send them into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary. 

1. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes – Matterhorn is one of the best books about Vietnam, and the best work of fiction that I have ever read on the subject.  In the book Matterhorn is a hill that the soldiers are defending in the beginning.  They give it up to pursue another mission only having to absurdly take it back at the end of the book. The first half of the book is more about the terrible conditions the troops had to endure in the Vietnamese jungle while the second half focuses on the truly horrific reality of battle.  This book is an absolute masterpiece.  A depressing read, but also a very engaging one. 
2. Dispatches by Michael Herr – This is another Vietnam book, however this is a work of nonfiction.  This is also another masterpiece.  This book influenced the movie Apocalypse Now and Michael Herr also worked on that screenplay.  There are things in this book that could only be described as batshit insane. 
3. The Thin Red Line – This is a movie directed by Terrence Malick.  It takes place in the Pacific theater in World War II.  It is a very contemplative film that uses the beauty of the nature as a backdrop to the corruptive influence of war and man.  Man is in the Garden of Eden and he is destroying it. 
4. Why We Fight – This is a film directed by Eugene Jareki.  This movie is about the military-industrial complex and how they play a role in sending us to war since World War II.  It begins with Eisenhower’s famous farewell address and leads up to our invasion of Iraq.  Absolutely essential in understanding why we should be vigilant as citizens in doing our homework before our leaders take us to war. 
5. The Bothers by Stephen Kinzer – This is a book that talks about John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles.  They were Secretary of State and head of the CIA under Eisenhower, respectively.  Before they held these positions they were corporate lawyers.  There have been times when this country has meddled in the affairs of other countries on behalf of corporate interests.  They also started us down the path to our modern day interventionist policy. 
6. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut – Vonnegut was actually in Dresden when we fire bombed it during World War II.  The book follows a soldier named Billy Pilgrim who also is present at this event.  This is a satirical novel that, with Vonnegut’s usual intelligence and dark humor, shows war to be the absurdity that it is.  Although this is a work of fiction that uses elements of science fiction, many of the events that take place in the book were things that Vonnegut witnessed. 
7. Starship Troopers – This is a film directed by Paul Verhoeven.  This is the one entry that is on the lighter side and some might say it is not serious enough.  It can be viewed as just a science fiction action movie.  However, there are many satirical elements to this movie, especially the commercials in the movie that that mimic real life propaganda.  Though action takes center stage this movie is a critique of fascism.  The young and beautiful are sent off into the meat grinder by the older members of society.  You don’t need to know anything about history to be entertained, but you do need to know a little to get the subversive elements that Verhoeven puts in.  By the end of the movie one of the main protagonists is wearing something that pretty closely resembles a Nazi uniform.
8. Apocalypse Now – I thought about not including this on the list because it is so obvious, however it may be my favorite war movie. It parallels Joseph Conrad’s novel down river into the Heart of Darkness.  I prefer the four hour long director’s cut.  This movie is extremely dark but there are also moments of dark humor as well.  This movie shows war’s corrupting influence on man and paints war as nothing short of pure insanity.  One example is to watch how the character of Lance, a young all-American surfer boy, becomes a spaced out drug casualty by the end. 
9. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson – This is another novel about Vietnam.  Denis Johnson is a very gifted poetic writer.  Tree of Smoke is an expansive novel packed with many ideas.  One that I keep returning to is that in the wake of World War II, a “good war”, America believed itself on the right side of history and therefore allowed us to wage more wars still believing we were doing the right thing. 
10. Hellhound on His Trail by Hampton Sides – This entry is the only entry that is not a war book or movie.  It is an account of Martin Luther King and James Earl Ray.  The book is also largely about the manhunt for James Earl Ray after he killed MLK.  The reason why I chose this is it shows the power of King’s nonviolence and contrasts it to James Earl Ray’s pathetic character who uses violence to achieve his aims. 

These are just a few of the many entries I could have picked.  I believe all of these are worthwhile for one reason or another. 

Also take a listen to Billy Paul’s stunningly beautiful song Peace Holy Peace:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=4flGGVrWfts

Dreams Once Had…

Does the artist have any obligation to their fans regarding their own work?  The short answer would be no.  However, it’s much more complicated than that.  Someone wrote to me today asking what I thought of Morrissey’s album reissues.  In recent years he has rereleased albums that are not only remastered, but also feature different song orders and some are even missing tracks that were on the original albums.  Apocalypse Now has been reissued as Apocalypse Now Redux and there have been different versions of the Star Wars films.  These are just a few of the many revisions that artists of different kinds have done to their work.

The best artists almost always follow their own muse.  If we like someone that is a visionary artist it is usually someone that has broken the mold and done something in a new way.  Bob Dylan famously went electric and angered folk fans in the process.  However, now that we can view what he did in hindsight, it does not seem radical.  In fact he was doing some of his best work at the time.  He was simply moving the form forward.  Many albums, films, and novels are ahead of their time.  If these artists listened to public opinion many great works that are now part of our cultural cannon would not exist.

That being said, once something enters the public domain people start to form emotional relationships with an artists work.  These works often become part of a person’s consciousness and how they interpret the world.  Their dreams, their language, and their style, might all be influenced by these works.  Is art what an artist intends it to be what someone takes from it?  This is an old question and one that really cannot be answered.

Also a piece of art is created and influenced during it’s time and place.  Someone that is in their 20’s living in the 1960’s will have a very different outlook of the world than someone who is in their 70’s today.  We might want to know how someone later in life interprets their own work and what they would do differently.  However, we would also want to know what a person living and feeling something in the now back then had to say.

So the way I come down on this question is that an artist should have the right to do anything they want with their own work, but they should leave an original version of their work intact.  This should be done for posterity.  And although the artist has no obligation to their fans artistically, they should at least respect their audience when it comes to revisiting their older work.  Dreams once had, are a hard thing to shake.