INDEXED IN «film»
TWO FEATURES ON CLASS
14/11/11

The consideration to submit a brief overview of the following two films to this journal was on the books for today. However, as time today is bit by bit eaten; I’m gonna slip this one quite quickly while it’s still fresh on the mind. By some unplanned coincidence last night’s viewing consisted of two film dealing with issues of class and privilege. These two films are separated by a span of over twenty years and each take place on two different continents.

The first film, The Servant, is a British film from 1963 starring Dirk Bogarde somewhat hot on the heels of his controversial film, Victim. It mainly takes place in the apartment of a foppish and wealthy young man played by James Fox (Performance). Coming from a privileged background and not really having worked in his lifetime, he enlists the services of Barnett, played by Dirk Bogarde to be his “man-servant”. Throughout the film Barnett masterfully turns the tables on his employer and by the end of the film the relations between these two and their lovers become entirely twisted and into threadbare emotional psychosis, playing on a larger theme of class and privilege.

THE SERVANT (1963)

The second is a light-hearted, critically panned film adaptation of The Bonfire of The Vanities by Brian de Palma starring “family-friendly” 80s favourites Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith. While the film has apparently followed Tom Wolfe’s book for the most part, it is somewhat common knowledge that the character of Sherman McCoy is painted in a more sympathetic light in this film — there’s something generally hammy about it but makes for late Sunday night “watch the wealthy white guy fall real hard” entertainment, and touches on some of the political reasonings for the basis of scapegoat type cases.

THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES (1988)

The former struck me as a more masterful film and I admit I’m starting to get a Dirk Bogarde kick a stirring. Time to watch Sebastian at some point, Bogarde meets 60s drug movie!

SEBASTIAN (1968)

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IT DIDN’T HAPPEN HERE BUT AN INTERESTING WATCH NONETHELESS
13/09/11

Continuing on daily intake of sustenance on the “film” diet (see last post), this one was consumed last night after making epic chord progressions in the studio and bowl of spicy ramen soup. It Happened Here is a very realistic looking filming proposing an alternate scenario where Hitler and the Third Reich successfully invade the United Kingdom and place a puppet government in place made of British Blackshirt Facists. As this film was made in 1966, it avoids the trappings of being hyper-dramatized and comes across as authentic and with a pace that seems in rhythm with civilian life, right down to the propaganda posters on the walls and the informational “films” interspersed throughout the film.

The clip below is a newsreel clip from the film highlighting the benefits of facism in Britain. It’s all slightly unsettling to some degree, especially as the uncut version has scenes of the blackshirts involving real fascists from the mid-60s apparently. This film was a project developed by two men in their teens that took around 7-8 years to complete on a low budget. Apparently Stanley Kubrick donated film stock to the project.

The left-leaning doctor in the film that is an old friend of the protagonist, Pauline, was an instantly recognizable face; that of Sebastian Shaw -- the actor who portrayed Darth Vader sans helmet in the film The Return Of The Jedi.

And to slip in something relevant into this email; well, relevant to the purpose of the site -- I’ve been putting massively intense blocks of time into get a bunch of new Soft Riot tracks into a completed state. A slight shift in sound informed by the advent of taking the whole thing into the live arena over the last few months. I suspect more information will be shared soon with more of a bang than piecemeal bits, with exception of these titles:

ANOTHER DRONE IN YOUR HEAD » THERE JUST ISN’T ENOUGH TIME » YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE » READ YOU LIKE AN ELECTRONIC BOOK » YOU’VE GOT TO USE IT » TERMINAL LOVE SONG

 

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A FEW BITS OF BALLARD IN FILM
05/09/11

Being a rather large consumer of watching films in industrial quantities, especially as of late, I came across some online segments of film adaptations of JG Ballard novels that step outside the more well known ones done by Cronenberg or Spielberg (the two “Bergs”). The first is an early 70s black and white adaption of Crash staring JG himself by the unfortunately monikered Harvey Cokliss, whose name myself and M Lyle had a good chuckle at recently when watching a film he produced in the 80s called Black Moon Rising with Tommy Lee Jones and Linda Hamilton. Getting off topic here…

This version relies more on the actual narrative of the book as it was written, spoken above the film which is less plot driven than the Cronenberg version aimed to be.

CRASH (1971) Part 1 of 2

The second is a version of the relatively plotless The Atrocity Exhibition directed by Jonathan Weiss in the year 2000. There is a part-by-part version on YouTube with over-dubbed JG Ballard commentary about the film. Apparently he quite liked this version. I’ve still yet to watch the whole thing in its entirety myself.

THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION (2000) Part 1

I’ve always imagined some of his later work like Cocaine Nights or Super-Cannes would make good modern day thrillers or his older pieces such as The Crystal World nice artsy, eye candy science fiction but the risk is high for disappointment on such film adaptations so it’s likely best such ambitions are kept on the “down low” for the time being.

Meanwhile, this film by Victoria, BC-based director Panos Cosmatos looks like a watcher. An acquaintance of acquaintance, namely through his older, more “DIY” work in the Victoria music scene with bands like Atlas Stragetic (now Wolf Parade) and Frog Eyes (?) with album cover art, etc. , it’s pretty impressive seeing this far more grand vision come to life. Some of the soundtrack is done my Jeremy Schmidt of Sinoia Caves and Black Mountain fame:

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (2010) Trailer

 

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MOVING IMAGES OF SEPTEMBER
15/09/10

Sitting in this office chair in a few days of calm after a torrent of activity over the last few weeks, I’m not so much finding the time to spill out some insight or stories but so much to check in my punch card and keep moving along. The downtime has left some time to take in a few films that I’ve enjoyed. Some of them I’ve never seen before but have wanted to and some of them I have seen before but have needed to revisit them again. Until I visit this again:

THIEF / DIRECTED BY MICHAEL MANN / 1981

THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE / DIRECTED BY ROBERT ALDRICH / 1968

QUERELLE / DIRECTED BY RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER / 1983

FRENZY / DIRECTED BY ALFRED HITCHCOCK / 1972
From the 2:00 minute mark in this clip onward is an amazing piece of cinematography…

LOLA / DIRECTED BY RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER / 1981

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VALID? OR VOID?
18/08/10

My friend Michelle Matzke, from whose blog I lifted this clip from, used to play the hell out of this track when we used to DJ a little new wave/new romantic/electro/weirdo night years called Movement. I equated Shrink’s tenure in the music scene to those of peers Klaus Nomi, Eddie & Sunshine or Tic and Toc — performance artists who in the late 70s/early 80s used that burgeoning scene as a medium for their art. I believe this may have been one of the few, if not only release he did. A bizarre film: a gold plated glam figure with an almost Flash Gordon flair at some posh dinner club — he looks like he might be in agony… or despair…

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