Friday's Playlist: 12-30-11

Bryan John Appleby – “The Road”
R.E.M. – “Burning Hell (Demo)”
Camp Lo – “I Love it Then”
Billy Squier – “In the Dark”
The Cult – “Little Face”
Soul II Soul – “Dance”
David Bowie – “The Jean Genie”
Foo Fighters – “Rope”
Glasvegas – “Lost Sometimes”
Baroness – “Ogeechee Hymnal”
The Tallest Man on Earth – “Love is All”
Delays – “Nearer than Heaven”
Neil Young – “Grey Riders (Live)”
Ra Ra Riot – “Foolish”
LCD Soundsystem – “All I Want”
The Lonely Island – “The Creep”
BLK JKS – “Molalatladi”
Low – “Something’s Turning Over”
ODB – “Baby I Got Your Money”
Foo Fighters – “Everlong”
Bon Iver – “Minnesota, WI”
Dexys Midnight Runners – “Tell Me When My Light Turns Green”
Future Sound of London – “Among Myselves”
Gorillaz – “Glitter Freeze”
Bowerbirds – “Ghost Life”
Thomas Dolby – “Hyperactive!”
A Flock of Seagulls – “D.N.A.”
Tony Toni Toné – “Feels Good”
Nirvana – “In Bloom”
M83 – “Klaus I Love You”
Smashing Pumpkins – “Bury Me”
The Smithereens – “Only a Memory”
Deerhunter – “Nothing Ever Happened”
Mogwai – “Drunk and Crazy”
John Maus – “Cop Killer”
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – “Reminiscenes”
The New Pornographers – “The Bleeding Heart Show”
Future Sound of London – “Interstat”
Les Savy Fav – “Rodeo”
Gang of Four – “To Hell with Poverty!”
OMD – “Souvenir”
Orbital – “The Girl with the Sun in Her Head”
The Swell Season – “Say it to Me Now”
Suede – “Feel”’
Billy Idol – “Motorbikin’”
The War on Drugs – “The Animator”
Tom Waits – “Satisfied”
Nick Drake – “Fly”
Florence + the Machine – “Dogs Days are Over (Yeasayer Remix)”
The National – “I Don’t Mind”
Iron Maiden – “Invaders”
The Cramps – “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”
The Beach Boys – “Girls on the Beach”

Wednesday's Playlist: 12-21-11

Eksi Ekso – “Bellows to Brass Lens”
Blondie – “Out in the Streets (Demo)”
Sigur Rós – “Untitled #8 aka Popplagið”
Moby – “Fireworks”
Pretenders – “Don’t Get Me Wrong”
Kansas – “Miracles Out of Nowhere”
Robyn – “Jag Vet en Dejilg Rosa”
A Tribe Called Quest – “Footprints”
Eminem – “Lose Yourself”
Moby – “Great Escape”
Jonathan Rice – “My Mother’s Son”
Smashing Pumpkins – “Rock On”
The Books – “Group Autogenics I”
Concrete Blonde – “Everybody Knows”
Free Energy – “Hope Child”
Perfume Genius – “Look Out, Look Out”
Dexys Midnight Runners – “Come on Eileen”
Eagles – “Good Day in Hell”
Adam Ant – “Apollo 9”
Prince – “Pope”
Crystal Castles – “Suffocation”
Marvin Gaye – “What’s Happening Brother (Detroit Mix)”
Gorillaz – “White Flag”
Childish Gambino – “F it All”
OK Go – “Oh Lately It’s So Quiet”
a-ha – “Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale”
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown – “Fire”
Menomena – “Tithe”
The Thermals – “You Changed My Life”
Girls – “Just a Song”
Black Tusk – “Redline”
Plexi – “Star Star”
Tennis – “Pigeon”
Fountains of Wayne – “Stacy’s Mom”
Patrick Park – “Blackbird through the Dark”
Panda Bear – “Drone”
Ramin Djawadi – “A Raven from King’s Landing”
Explosions in the Sky – “The Birth and Death of the Day (Jesu Mix)”
The Cure – “The Caterpillar”
Candy Flip – “Strawberry Fields Forever”
Eels – “Dirty Girl (Live)”
Florence + the Machine – “Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)”
Florence + the Machine – “Seven Devils”
Moby – “Sleep Alone”
U2 – “Stay (Faraway, So Close)”
Gorillaz – “Tomorrow Comes Today”
Big Pink – “Love in Vain”
Fleet Foxes – “Your Protector”
James Brown – “Living in America”
Bangles – “Hero Takes a Fall”
Portugal. The Man – “Once Was One”
Shudder to Think – “9 Fingers on You”
New Order – “True Faith”
The Kinks – “Set Me Free”
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists – “One Polaroid a Day”
Flesh for Lulu – “I Go Crazy”
Rammstein – “Stripped”
Health – “Triceratops (cf cf Remix)”
OMD – “RFWK”
Modest Mouse – “The Good Times are Killing Me”
John Cale – “Helen of Troy”
Hum – “Stars”
Fugazi – “Bulldog Front”
Cults – “You Know What I Mean”
Mobb Deep – “Shook Ones Pt.II”
M83 – “OK Pal”

Sunday's Playlist: 12-18-11

Ra Ra Riot – “Suspended in Gaffa”
Broken Social Scene – “Pacific Scene”
Golden Earring – “Twilight Zone”
Craig Armstrong & Paul Buchanan – “Let’s Go Out Tonight”
How to Destroy Angels – “Fur-Lined”
The Thermals – “I Don’t Believe You”
Little Dragon – “Nightlight”
Wilco – “Jesus, Etc. (Live)”
Eric B & Rakim – “I Ain’t No Joke”
Squeeze – “There’s No Tomorrow”
Frightened Rabbit – “Things”
Broken Bells – “Citizen”
Talking Heads – “And She Was”
Sufjan Stevens – “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever”
Ryan Adams – “Bartering Lines”
Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush – “Don’t Give Up”
Big Daddy Kane – “Word to the Mother(land)”
Kylesa – “Forsaken”
Beulah – “Comrade’s Twenty-Sixth”
De La Soul – “Held Down”
The Cure – “A Letter to Elise”
Luscious Jackson – “Energy Sucker”
Galaxie 500 – “Strange”
Plexi – “56”
The Rolling Stones – “Sympathy for the Devil”
Ryan Adams – “Wish You Were Here”
Kate Bush – “Misty”
Russian Circles – “Atackla”
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – “Another Morning Stoner”
The White Stripes – “Hello Operator”
A Tribe Called Quest – “Push it Along”
John Cale – “China Sea”
Johnny Gill – “Rub You the Right Way”
The Cult – “Love”
Morrissey – “The Bed Took Fire”
Moby – “The Sun Never Stops Setting”
Dolorean – “My Grey Life (Second Chances)”
ELO – “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle”
Ivy – “Edge of the Ocean”
Smashing Pumpkins – “I Am One”
Missing Persons – “Mental Hopscotch”
Little Dragon – “A New”
The Beach Boys – “Do You Like Worms (Roll Plymouth Rock)”
Foreign Born – “It Grew on You”
U2 – “’Baby’ Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”
Cake – “She’ll Come Back to Me”
The Roots – “Radio Daze”
Echo & the Bunnymen – “Hurricane”
Massive Attack & Tunde Adebimpe – “Pray for Rain”
Fatboy Slim – “Praise You”
Dirty Projectors – “Fluorescent Half Dome”
Gorillaz – “Kids with Guns (Jamie T Remix)”
Roxy Music – “More than This”
James Blake – “Limit to Your Love”
The Twilight Singers – “She Was Stolen”
REO Speedwagon – “Shakin’ it Loose”
The Smiths – “How Soon is Now”
A Flock of Seagulls – “You Can Run”
The Psychedelic Furs – “India”
OK Go – “What to Do”
The Smiths – “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish”
Minus the Bear – “Summer Angel”
John Cooper Clarke – “Beasley Street”
Christopher O’Riley – “True Love Waits”
Owen Pallett – “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt”
Broken Social Scene – “Almost Crimes”
Kylesa – “Tired Climb”
Still Corners – “I Wrote in Blood”
Here We Go Magic – “I Just Wanna See You Underwater”
Gang Gang Dance – “Mindkilla”
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – “Red Right Hand”
Fleetwood Mac – “Trinity”
Jimi Hendrix – “Can You See Me”
The Boxer Rebellion – “Organ Song”
Blitzen Trapper – “Taking it Easy Too Long”
WU LYF – “Cave Song”
Big Boi – “Hustle Blood”
Ramin Djawadi – “When the Sun Rises in the West”
The Mountain Goats – “High Hawk Season”
Blondie – “Poets Problem”
Jay-Zeezer – “Only in a Moment of Clarity”
Beach House – “Zebra”
Peter Gabriel – “Red Rain”
Shearwater – “Century Eyes”
The Killers – “All These Things That I’ve Done”
Richard Hawley – “Don’t Get Hung Up in Your Soul”
The Cult – “Electric Ocean”
The Walkmen – “Torch Song”
Liturgy – “Returner”
Camper Van Beethoven – “Sons of the New Golden West”
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “Storm: Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven / Gathering Storm / Il Pleut a Morir / Welcome to Arco AM/PM / Cancer Towers on Holy Road Hi-Way”
Those Darlins – “Fatty Needs a Fix”
The Old 97’s – “Timebomb”
Gomez – “That Wolf”
Eric B & Rakim – “Run for Cover”
Band of Skulls – “Death by Diamonds and Pearls”
Bee Gees – “Nights on Broadway”
Beyoncé – “Irreplaceable”
John Cale – “Mary Lou”
Jimmy Barnes – “Message to My Girl”
Dan Wilson – “One True Love (Live)”
The Jayhawks – “Ten Little Kids”
Camilla & the Chickens – “Forget You”
Rod Stewart – “Mama You Been On My Mind”
Genesis – “The Brazilian”
The Waterboys – “Fisherman’s Blues”
The Smiths - "Stretch Out and Wait"

Films of the 60s, Part 27: All the Lonely People

“All the lonely people,
Where do they call come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?”
- The Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby”



In Haruki Murakami’s critically acclaimed, latest novel, 1Q84, his character Aomame makes a distinction between being lonely and being alone. That passage, among many others, resonated with me on a deeply personal level. There have been times in my life in which I have felt incredibly alone and incredibly lonely, yet the two do not necessarily go hand in hand. One can feel lonely while being surrounded by friends and acquaintances, and in the reverse, one can be alone yet not feel the sting and pain of loneliness. When I was a teenager, prone to bouts of loneliness and depression, a wise man told me that I had to make a friend of loneliness. While at the time it seemed esoteric and nonsensical advice, that phrase stuck with me. As I grew older, that piece of advice became a mantra for me. The three films in this post all, in some way or another, made me recall the feelings of loneliness, as each director amazingly and heartbreakingly captures it in words, sounds, and images.



Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) (1962, Jean-Luc Godard)

Vivre Sa Vie, Jean-Luc Godard’s fourth film, starts with an epigraph from Montaigne that was eerily similar to the advice I mention above. “Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.” What follows is a tragic tale of a woman struggling in the modern era, a victim of a changing world that values money and fame but objectifies people, especially women, in the process. Anna Karina is Nana, a young girl with aspirations of becoming an actress. Told in twelve separate vignettes, we follow episodes of Nana’s life, seeing her with different jobs, different men, and in some hopeless situations. Godard specifically shoots from behind Karina’s head, sometimes not allowing us to see whom she is talking to. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. We are Nana. We connect with her in her attempt to navigate a pop culture world that could easily, and does, chew her up and spit her out.

Like many of Godard’s films, Vivre Sa Vie is incredibly meta and has only become more so in recent years thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s homage. While Godard was paying homage with Karina's bob haircut to Louise Brooks, Tarantino was paying homage to Godard with Uma Thurman's character in Pulp Fiction. In his own inimitable style, however, Godard tends to blur the lines between reality, play acting, real acting, and everything in between. Failing to make her dream come true as an actress, a direct contrast with the real Anna Karina, we see Nana’s dreams dashed in increments amidst a world of consumerism. It is a brave new world that idolizes Americana, pop music, films, and gangsters. Particularly relevant to the story are references to Truffaut’s Jules and Jim and Poe’s short story, "The Oval Portrait," which somehow seems to reveal the nature of Godard and Karina’s on and off screen relationship. Nana works at a record store, essentially selling art as product. Eventually, Nana resorts to prostitution, feeling it is the only path to take in order to make ends meet. It is a searing indictment of the treatment of women in a capitalist world. If that weren’t convincing in and of itself, Nana is sold from one pimp to another, as a piece of property, as an object, as product.

Through it all, Nana stoically traverses her life, but her loneliness, desperation, and crippling sadness are there, just under the surface. At one point, Nana has a dance number, hoofing it to up-tempo jazz music in a pool hall. The men simply ignore her joyous dance, and she ends by embracing a pillar in the room. One can’t help but sense that “look at me” desperation and subsequently feel your heart slowly cracking. Godard’s choice of filming from behind Karina’s head, so that she eclipses whomever she may be conversing with, forces us to see her and only her. We don’t see her face, because that would allow us to personalize her loneliness and not actually experience it for ourselves. It is as if, even though she has people with whom she interacts, they don’t exist. She is utterly alone. There are two moments that are crushingly heartbreaking, bringing me to tears. One is the inevitable end of the film, awful, stark, and yet incredibly true to the character Godard and Karina have created together. The other moment comes when Nana goes to see Carl Dreyer’s Joan of Arc in the movie theater. As she sits watching this tale of a martyr, essentially alone against the English, Nana weeps openly, tears streaming down her face. What is amazing about this scene, at least in my mind, is that Godard truly captures the connections we make with art, how we see ourselves: our fears, grief, joy, and pain in artistic representation. This is what great art should do, and I certainly saw many aspects of myself in Nana.




The Fire Within (1963, Louis Malle)

Maurice Ronet is Alain Leroy. Alain has a crippling depression due to his alcoholism. He has been staying at a rehab clinic, often calling himself “cured,” but his cure seems to only have power while his is sheltered in the clinic. He hasn’t talked to his wife of two years. She fled to America and this event only further fueled his sense of shame and regret. In a great scene, we see Alain getting ready to visit the city for the first time in a long while. He picks out his shirt, a tie, cufflinks, and rehearses a telegram to his wife. He does not know how to interact with the outside world anymore. This is merely a precursor for a Homeric journey that will lead to a somewhat inevitable end. We soon realize that this is not an attempt to insert himself once again into the real world, to dip his toes in the water of reality, but is a “farewell tour” before leaving the world entirely.

Once back in the city, he decides to visit his old stomping grounds, including his old hotel apartment. He has been “replaced” by a young soldier back from the Algerian war. He has stepped in to his old apartment, and representatively, his old life. He goes to see old friends, one of which, played by the luminous Jeanne Moreau, could have been more than a friend in the past. She is the only one who seems generally comforting to him, the rest having either moved on without him and preoccupied with their own lives to give him any notice. Eventually, after feeling the emptiness of his life, he resorts once again to drinking. Ironically, at one point, he is even saved from being hit by a car. One could read into these events that he is being given reasons to live over and over again, but he cannot see them. This is what depression is. Despite the good that may be present, you simply can’t see past the darkness enveloping you.

Even though his friends know that he is an alcoholic, they allow him to drink, even commenting at one point that his first drink after detox will make him sick. Some friends. The men in his life are selfish enablers with no compassion. The women in his life have compassion, but are ultimately ineffectual. He finally breaks down and admits that he is scared of the women around him and he cannot feel desire. He says, “I can’t reach out with my hands. I can’t touch things,” and “I wanted so much to be loved.” Toward the end, he is seen reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which is resoundingly relevant for a number of reasons. For one, it is set during the prohibition and Alain is in detox. Gatsby is an enigmatic man who people can’t seem to figure out. Alain’s friends can’t seem to figure him out, nor do they seem to want to, and he can’t figure himself out. While Gatsby longs for Daisy Buchanan, Alain longs for his departed wife, who has gone off to America. The parallels could continue. And while the novel ends tragically for Gatsby, it likewise does for Alain. Upon returning to his room at the clinic, he shoots himself, unable to live with the loneliness that surrounded him.



Juliet of the Spirits (1965, Federico Fellini)

By 1965, Federico Fellini already had a number of films under his belt, including the now celebrated 8 ½ and La Dolce Vita, both masterpieces. Juliet of the Spirits is yet another visual stunner, and yet another film that continues Fellini’s streak of surrealism and strangeness. His wife, Giulietta Masina, plays the title role, and due to the fact that the actor and character have the same name, we can possibly read into the subtext of reality within the film. Fans of Fellini and Masina will also start to make connections between the sadness of this title character and that of the title character in the exquisite, Nights of Cabiria. We start the film at the anniversary party of Giulietta and Giorgio, which is “crashed” by neighbors and friends at the invitation of Giorgio, who we soon discover is a philanderer. We can see from Giulietta’s preparations that she desperately wants to be alone with Giorgio. We often see her face obscured by darkness, indicating the loneliness she feels in her marriage. Of course, his later actions show that he wants the opposite, desperate to be around people and take up the mantle of the object of desire. The party soon becomes the requisite dreamlike landscape that Fellini is known for, but this time in vivid color.

Giulietta is soon captivated by their glamorous neighbor, Gabriela. Gabriela is the epitome of independence, and thus the antithesis of Giulietta. Gabriela is somewhat flighty, new-agey, and at times, just plain ridiculously inane. Giulietta is taken to a Buddhist seminar that, like the party, takes a turn for the surreal. Fellini once again shows himself a master of the frame as he puts Masina against a bright red wall with a fan blowing in the corner, the two objects miniscule against the overwhelming presence of the wall. It is one of many ways that Fellini uses the camera to display her feelings of loneliness and being subservient to emotion. Eventually, she begins to see images and prophecies of what will or could come to pass, namely, being visited or haunted by spirits who will guide her in her near future.

One of these possible spirits is José, who gives her bullfighting lessons, telling her that the monster (read: husband) will be defeated. But, despite the repeated visits, the religious, philosophical, and mere friendly advice that she gets throughout the film, she still cannot resort to playing her husband’s game and cheat on him in return. Rather, still feeling hurt, she hires detectives to look into his cheating. At the close of the film, Giorgio tells her that he has not had sex with another woman, but instead has a deep and meaningful friendship with another woman. I honestly don’t know which is worse. I have been in this position, and it is not a comfort. The truly odd thing about this film is that Fellini intended it to be a “gift” to his wife, Masina. This gift seems to find excuses for his own possible philandering and encouraging Giulietta to become more independent. One also has to question the urgings from the last spirit that she must take her own life. This is just one interpretation, and anyone who has seen Fellini’s films will know that meanings are hard to come by. What is clear throughout is Giulietta’s pain and loneliness, which Fellini has captured exquisitely.

Saturday's Playlist: 12-17-11

Suede – “Young Men”
Neil Young – “Mansion on the Hill”
Suede – “Dead Leg (Beautiful Ones Demo)”
Franz Ferdinand & Jane Birkin – “A Song for Sorry Angel”
Crash Test Dummies – “When I Go Out with Artists”
Glasvegas – “Go Square Go”
The Hold Steady – “A Slight Discomfort”
Glossary – “When Easy Street Gets Hard to Find”
De La Soul – “The Magic Number”
Black Mountain – “Old Fangs”
Valient Thorr – “Goveruptcy”
Little Joy – “Unattainable”
The Men – “Bataille”
The Walkmen – “Woe is Me”
Starsailor – “Four to the Floor”
The Hooters – “All You Zombies”
Castanets – “Dance, Dance”
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “Tiny Silver Hammers (Part 1)”
The Sea and Cake – “Mr. F”
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi – “The World”
Yes – “Starship Trooper”
The Antlers – “Atrophy”
A Flock of Seagulls – “Modern Love is Automatic”
Florence + the Machine – “Leave My Body”
Wilco – “I Might”
Crash Test Dummies – “In the Days of the Caveman”
Garfunkel & Oates – “Silver Lining”
José González – “Cycling Trivialities”
Blitzen Trapper – “Might Find it Cheap”
Phoenix – “Fences (25 Hrs a Day Remix)”
R.E.M. – “Wait”
Esben and the Witch – “Light Streams”
Baroness – “War, Wisdom, and Rhyme”
The Black Keys – “Never Give You Up”
The Cool Kids – “Freak City”
Engineers – “Las Vega”
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – “Done All Wrong”
Fennesz & Sakamoto – “0402”
Clint Mansell – “The New Season”
Blondie – “Detroit 442 (Live)”
The Wombats – “Walking Disasters”
WU LYF – “Dirt”
Okkervil River – “Wake and Be Fine”
Erika Eigen – “I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper”
Kate Bush – “And So Is Love”
General Public – “Tenderness”
Laura Veirs – “Summer is the Champion”
Camp Lo – “Luchini aka This is It”
The Smiths – “Meat is Murder”
Scritti Politti – “Flesh & Blood”
Stereolab – “Supah Jaianto”
New Order – “The Perfect Kiss”
Wye Oak – “The Altar”
Kylesa – “Back and Forth”
The War on Drugs – “Black Water Falls”
Mew – “Cartoons and Macramé Wounds”
The Thermals – “A Pillar of Salt”
George Thorogood – “Can’t Stop Lovin’”
Phoenix – “Rome”
Northside – “Take 5”
Gruff Rhys – “Sensations in the Dark”
Suede – “Sadie”
Chameleons – “In Shreds”
Camper Van Beethoven – “New Roman Times”
Ben Folds – “Still”
The Police – “Every Breath You Take”
Gang Gang Dance – “Sacer”
A Sunny Day in Glasgow – “Shy”
Hothouse Flowers – “I’m Sorry”
Fonda – “A Love that Won’t Let You Go”
Les Savy Fav – “Bringing Us Down”
Those Darlins – “Waste Away”
Surf City – “In Times of Approach…”
Ray Davies & Bruce Springsteen – “Better Things”
Oneohtrix Point Never – “Up”
Frankie Goes to Hollywood – “Rage Hard (Freddie Bastone Remix)”
Russian Circles – “When the Mountain Comes to Muhammad”
Dinosaur L – “Go Bang”
Suede – “Metal Mickey (Island Demo)”
Tombs – “Vermillion”
Thomas Dolby – “One of Our Submarines”
R.E.M. – “Country Feedback”
Frightened Rabbit – “Who’d You Kill Now? (Live)”
Yeasayer – “I Remember”
Lush – “Undertow”
Fleet Foxes – “The Cascades”
Nancy Sinatra – “You Only Live Twice”
Mew – “Special”
Pearl Jam – “The Fixer”
Ice Cube – “Wicked”
De La Soul – “So Good”
Kate Bush – “Why Should I Love You”

Wednesday's Playlist: 12-14-11

Okkervil River – “For Real”
Shearwater – “The Snow Leopard”
Eksi Ekso – “Brown Shark, Red Lion”
Eels – “Railroad Man”
The Tough Alliance – “Miami”
Mogwai – “Get to France”
Gillian Welch – “Tennessee”
Daft Punk – “The Son of Flynn”
Soul II Soul – “Keep on Movin’”
Postal Service – “Such Great Heights”
Ladytron – “Light & Magic”
Brian Eno – “St. Elmo’s Fire”
The Magic Numbers – “Forever Lost”
Feist – “Get it Wrong, Get it Right”
The Wannadies – “You and Me Song”
José González – “Teardrop”
Serge Gainsbourg – “L’Hotel Particulier”
Echo & the Bunnymen – “The Subject”
R.E.M. – “New Test Leper”
Laura Veirs – “Prairie Lullaby”
The Decemberists – “Down by the Water”
Moby – “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?”
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – “The Best”
Nirvana – “Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam (Live)”
Toots & the Maytals – “Funky Kingston”
Erykah Badu – “Window Seat”
Neil Young – “Are You Ready for the Country? (Live)”
Mumford & Sons – “Roll Away Your Stone”
Fugazi – “Promises”
A Tribe Called Quest – “The Hop”
Phoenix – “Fences (Boombass Mix)”
Supertramp – “Breakfast in America (Live)”
Gang Gang Dance – “Glass Jar”
Childish Gambino – “You See Me”
Tombs – “Constellations”
Band of Skulls – “Light of the Morning”
Art Brut – “Formed a Band”
LCD Soundsystem – “Yr City’s a Sucker”
J.D. McPherson – “Country Boy”
Geto Boys – “Mind Playin’ Tricks on Me”
Smashing Pumpkins – “Ache (Rehearsal Demo)”
The Weeknd – “Rolling Stone”
Les Savy Fav – “Meet Me in the Dollar Bin”
The War on Drugs – “Your Love is Calling My Name”
Sigur Rós – “Untitled #1 (aka Vaka)”
Altered Images – “Intro: Happy Birthday”
Prince – “Sister”
José González – “Down the Line”
OK Go – “Last Leaf”
Jay-Z – “99 Problems”
The Innocence Mission - “The Melendys Go Abroad”
The White Stripes – “Fell in Love with a Girl”
The Cardigans – “Lovefool”
Darker My Love – “Backseat”
U2 – “Numb”
The Pixies – “I’ve Been Waiting for You”
Sigur Rós – “Starálfur”
The Motels – “Take the L”
Marcy Playground – “Poppies”
Florence + the Machine – “What the Water Gave Me (Demo)”
Scritti Politti – “Confidence”
Nancy Wilson – “Lucky Trumble”
The War on Drugs – “Brothers”
Torche – “Arrowhead”
Bomba Estéreo – “Juana”
Spoon – “Someone Something”
Yuck – “Rubber”
Moby – “In My Heart”
Heaven 17 – “Let Me Go (Extended Mix)”
Ladytron – “Tomorrow”
Suede – “Banana Youth (The Power) (Demo)”
Chris Bell – “I am the Cosmos”
Paul Kelly & Angus Stone – “Four Seasons in One Day”
Rogue Wave – “Endless Shovel”
MC DJ – “UFO”
Matt Pond PA – “Summer is Coming”
Superchunk – “Driveway to Driveway”
Blue Scholars – “Rani Mukerji”
The Smithereens – “Only a Memory”

Sunday's Playlist: 12-11-11

Little Scream – “Cannons”
The Mission – “Heaven on Earth”
Sun Kil Moon – “The Leaning Tree”
Spoon – “Out Go the Lights”
Echo & the Bunnymen – “Start Again (Live)”
X- “The Stage”
The Pixies - "Caribou"
Nada Surf – “Bye Bye Beaute”
Bonnie “Prince” Billy – “Wolf Among Wolves”
Real Estate – “Kinder Blumen”
Lavender Diamond – “New Ways of Living”
Toad the Wet Sprocket – “Pray Your Gods”
Echo & the Bunnymen – “The Game”
The Innocence Mission – “Bright as Yellow”
The Elected – “Did Me Good”
Cymbals Eat Guitars – “Gary Condit”
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – “Beverly Kills”
Smog – “Dress Sexy at My Funeral”
That Dog – “Minneapolis”
Red Sparowes – “A Mutiny”
Fleetwood Mac – “Only Over You”
A Tribe Called Quest – “Push it Along”
The Corin Tucker Band – “Dragon”
Midlake – “Acts of Man”
Akron/Family – “Cast a Net”
Blondie – “Heart of Glass (Live)”
Blondie – “The Tide is High (Live)”
U2 – “Mysterious Ways”
The Black Keys - "Hell of a Season"
Plexi – “Mountains”
Suede – “So Young”
Simian Mobile Disco – “I Believe”
Engineers – “Press Rewind”
Luscious Jackson – “Stardust”
Fonda – “A Love That Won’t Let You Go”
Tricky – “Christiansands”
Queens of the Stone Age – “Born to Hula”
Janelle Monae – “Sincerely, Jane.”
The Cave Singers – “Falls”
Dexys Midnight Runners – “Dubious”
Wesafari – “Winter Song”
U2 – “Mysterious Ways (Ultimatum Mix)”
The Heavy – “And When I Die”
Bon Iver – “Babys”
Blondie – “Orchid Club”
Fugazi – “Burning”
Elbow – “Mirrorball”
Loch Lomond – “Northern, Knees, Trees, and Lights”
Frankie Goes to Hollywood – “Relax”
Bruce Springsteen – “Atlantic City”
Mew – “Beach”
Gorillaz – “Sweepstakes”
Evan Dando – “The Ballad of El Goodo”
Laura Marling – “Sophia”
OK Go – “Needing / Getting”
Fleetwood Mac – “Oh Diane”
Eels – “Flyswatter”
The Who – “I am the Sea”
Jay-Zeezer – “Bonnie, Clyde, & El Scorcho”
Howard Jones – “Look Mama”
Those Darlins – “Bumd”
Deerhoof – “Panda Panda Panda (Live)”
The Tallest Man on Earth – “Kids on the Run”

Films of the 60s, Part 26: Only the Good Die Young

“Come out, Virginia. Don’t let me wait
You Catholic girls start much too late.
Sooner or later it comes down to fate,
I might as well be the one,
You know that only the good die young.”
---Billy Joel, “Only the Good Die Young”



One glance at the title of this particular survey of 60s films should give you one big spoiler alert. Sorry about that, but I think in this case it is warranted. Though Billy Joel's lyrics are more of a plea of seduction, in this case, I am using them as words of sacrifice. As you will see, these are movies all about sacrifice. In regard to the "spoilers," these are not movies with surprise endings. Plot is not an isolated element here. Rather, these three films encapsulate everything films should aspire to be. They do tell a story, but they take advantage of visual imagery, symbolism, narrative tricks, and reflections on humanity. It’s true, very young characters die in each of these films, and each of them could be defined as “good,” but the films and characters represent the 60s in France and Russia as a time of post-war bleakness, a time, though not isolated, of man’s inhumanity to man, and the dichotomy of this darkness and a religious background.



Ivan’s Childhood (1962, Andrei Tarkovsky)

Ivan is a twelve-year-old Russian boy caught in the conflagration of World War II, specifically his countrymen’s fight with the German Wehrmacht along the Eastern front. As the film moves along, we are exposed to more of his story, both in the present day, and in a series of four “dreams” that serve as psychological flashbacks. We find out that Ivan is tragically orphaned by the war. We also learn that, in an effort to avenge his family’s deaths, he wants to fight on the front lines. The Russian army uses him as a reconnaissance spy, due to his innocuous nature as a child. Through these back-and-forth splits in the linear narrative, we see the comparisons of a life of innocence with those of the harsh realities of war.

Ivan isn’t the only character we follow through the film. We also follow a few of the Russian soldiers, some of whom very much want to protect Ivan. In effect, they make a compromise by allowing him to spy, but not to fight on the front lines. Another solider, Kholin, spends most of his time trying to aggressively woo a young nurse, Masha. Through all these characters, we are exposed to nearly every primitive instinct of man, from revenge to caring, and from violence to lust. War, by its very nature, tends to reduce man to his basest instincts, but yet even this message is not the central one in Ivan’s Childhood. Being a great film with many narrative and visual layers, there are perhaps many messages that can be taken from it. As we can say of all great art, there are many interpretations, depending on the viewer.

It is amazing to think that this is Andrei Tarkovsky’s first feature film. The imagery within seems to come from the eye of a seasoned director. Nearly every shot means something within the narrative. Take, for instance, an early shot of Ivan in a burned out house. As he enters it, several of the fallen, hanging beams frame Ivan, pointing to him as some kind of aura of a religious figure. Another lasting and powerful image involves the Russian soldier, Kholin. In a forest of starkly white bark trees in the winter, he straddles a foxhole trench and hugs Masha, her feet dangling over emptiness. It perfectly captures how we have to hold each other up through difficult times, and that often our lives are completely in the hands of others. These are just two of the stunning images among many in the film. They all serve to underscore the sacrifice eventually made by Ivan, a heartbreaking reminder of the fragility of life and the utter ridiculousness of war as the eventual result of the petty differences between men and nations.



Au Hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson)

Au Hasard Balthazar has been called one of the most powerful allegories of the life of Jesus Christ ever put on film. Even though it can certainly be interpreted in this way, there are various other interpretations that are just as certain. Balthazar is a donkey. We are introduced to him and his human counterpart, Marie, and then subsequently follow them through their horrifically tragic lives. Marie is among a group of children who are the first “owners” of Balthazar, there at the presence of his birth. As if that wasn’t symbolic enough, the kids then playfully “baptize” the newborn donkey. As the two grow older, they are eventually separated, though their lives mirror each other’s.

Balthazar goes through seven owners, again a hugely symbolic element, reflecting the seven sacraments, the seven words from the cross, or the seven deadly sins. His life, moving owner-to-owner, and suffering abuses and indignities, are representative of the Stations of the Cross, eventually ending in Balthazar’s death on a hillside, much like Golgotha. Balthazar is given a wreath of flowers to wear upon his head, like the crown of thorns. It is absolutely intended symbolism, one can easily see. But, the question becomes whether this is supposed to simply be an allegory, or could there perhaps be other interpretations?

Jean-Luc Godard, who eventually married the young girl who played Marie, Anne Wiazemsky, famously said that Au Hasard Balthazar was “the world in an hour and a half.” While those with faith may take this to mean that life is suffering, but through saintliness, like that which can be attributed to either Marie or Balthazar, there is redemption, I think Bresson could have presented an alternative alongside this. Bresson’s films are typically bleak. They show the world for what it is, a harsh, violent, depressing, and inhumane landscape filled with selfish people. Marie and Balthazar are not selfish. Rather, they are subservient and meek. While Christian religion tells us that the meek shall inherit the earth, Bresson presents a tableau that shows the meek are simply tragic figures, swallowed up by the harsh world, eventually sacrificed, though we may not know the value of that sacrifice. After all, Marie’s father lies dying at the end of the film, her mother desperately praying for God’s compassion, her prayers unanswered. Remember, this is a specific choice Bresson makes as a storyteller. My point is that this is ok. Two viewpoints can coexist, even in discussing the same piece of art, and I think Bresson would adamantly agree. Is there another life for those who have faith, or is this is all that we get, a cold, harsh reality where we make choices for the benefit of our fellow man? It’s impossible to know, but both of us can disagree and coexist.



Mouchette (1967, Robert Bresson)

Mouchette, like Ivan, Balthazar, and Marie, is a young, tragic figure. In French, the name means “little fly,” and this is perhaps the most fitting description of this female adolescent. Her mother is bedridden, her father is an abusive alcoholic, and she is a social outcast at school. In other words, Mouchette doesn’t have much going for her. Her life is as bleak as it can possibly be. Painfully, Bresson gives Mouchette a few moments when her life may begin to improve, small glimpses of hope that are then just as quickly dashed. For instance, she meets a young boy at a fair and after the two playfully flirt with each other on the bumper cars, her father viciously slaps her in front of her crush, interrupting and in effect, destroying their courtship.

But, this is just the beginning of Mouchette’s tragic tale. During a rainstorm, she becomes lost and disoriented in the woods, usually the only place she feels comfortable. The woods are generally Mouchette’s only refuge. Lost, she eventually comes upon a poacher who has just killed the village’s game warden. Because she is a witness, the poacher deviously connives her to become his alibi. In her state of shock, fatigue, fear, and sadness, she agrees, and further becomes his rape victim. Humiliated, she leaves for home the next morning and must not only relate the poacher’s concocted story, but also claim that the two are lovers due to her being out all night. Upon her arrival home, she finds her mother eventually succumbing to her illness and dying. At this point, Mouchette has been deprived of the last tenuous sanctuaries she has in life. An elderly villager offers her a dress and shroud, intended for her mother. In an eerie calm, she takes the garments, walks to a nearby lake, wraps herself in the shroud and rolls herself into the lake, committing suicide.

While there is an easy allegory to see in Balthazar, and an underlying hope, all hope seems absent from Mouchette, or at least one has to really want to see any positive message within its narrative. It is less about saintliness or transcendence and more about the utter ugliness and tragedy of human existence. It is, at most times, difficult to watch because of this, but Bresson’s images are still riveting and captivating in their simplicity. The film is, if nothing else, a stark reminder that all existences are not equal and that, while there is indeed beauty in life, there is also injustice, inequality, and evil. While some are given little boosts here and there due to social stature, wealth, privilege, and even luck, others are not so fortunate. It is also a reminder of the fragile nature of youth and the crippling nature of depression and hopelessness. Though we can argue over other possible outcomes for Mouchette, the narrative effectively seals her fate and serves as a stark depiction of inhumanity. I am also reminded of the saying, which is not in the Bible, that God doesn’t give us more problems than we can handle. Mouchette is a symbol of the flaws inherent in this belief.

Saturday's Playlist: 12-10-11

Justin Timberlake – “Cry Me a River”
U2 – “Can’t Help Falling in Love (Triple Peaks Remix)”
Radiohead – “Lucky”
Sons & Daughters – “Don’t Look Now”
Bright Eyes – “Shell Games”
ABC – “15 Storey Halo”
LCD Soundsystem – “Movement”
Cut Copy – “Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat”
Modest Mouse – “Trailer Trash”
David Bowie – “TVC 15”
LCD Soundsystem – “Drunk Girls (London Session)”
Sufjan Stevens - “Detroit, Lift up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)”
Mew – “Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy”
Gorillaz – “19-2000”
Arcade Fire – “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)”
Camper Van Beethoven – “We Love You”
The Black Keys – “Unknown Brother”
The Bird & the Bee – “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)”
New Order – “Vanishing Point”
R.E.M. – “Be Mine”
Viva Voce – “Black Mood Ring”
Suede – “Daddy’s Speeding”
Dum Dum Girls – “Bedroom Eyes”
Galaxie 500 – “Isn’t it a Pity”
Aloe Blacc – “Life so Hard”
John Cale – “Pablo Picasso”
Stephin Merritt & Susan Anway – “Plant White Roses (Buffalo Rome)”
U2 & Johnny Cash – “The Wanderer”
Red Sparowes – “In Illusions of Order”
Glen Hansard – “Say it to Me Now”
Sufjan Stevens – “Too Much”
Eels – “Looking Up”
Luscious Jackson – “Rollin’”
The Old 97’s – “You Drink Too Much”
Okkervil River – “The Valley”
Q-Tip & Raphael Saadiq – “We Fight / Love”
Better than Ezra – “(Untitled)”
Tom Waits – “Earth Died Screaming”
Childish Gambino – “That Power”
Postal Service – “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight”
The Pixies – “Manta Ray”
The Smithereens – “Something New”
Iggy Pop & James Williamson – “Master Charge”
The Smithereens – “Time Won’t Let Me”
U2 – “Dirty Day”
Mew – “Comforting Sounds”
Bon Iver – “Michicant”
The Motels – “Take the L”
TV on the Radio – “All Falls Down”
U2- “’Baby’ Love is Blindness”
SWV – “Anything (Old School Version)”
School of Seven Bells – “The Wait”
Here We Go Magic – “Babyohbaby-Ijustcantstanditanymore!”
Woodhands – “Papa Don’t Preach”
Echo & the Bunnymen – “The Cutter”
The Smiths – “Barbarism Begins at Home”
The Thermals – “I Don’t Believe You”
Mumford & Sons – “Dust Bowl Dance”
The 88 – “Coming Home”
The Stepkids – “Outro”
Dolorean – “My Grey Life (Second Chances)”
Luscious Jackson – “Ladyfingers”

Thursday's Playlist: 12-8-11

Placebo – “Nancy Boy”
Death Cab for Cutie – “Monday Morning”
Kaiser Chiefs – “Heard it Break”
Thomas Dolby – “Radio Silence”
Andrew Bird – “The Whistling Caruso”
Zola Jesus – “Shivers”
Tom Waits – “I Wish I Was in New Orleans (Live)”
Baroness – “War, Wisdom and Rhyme”
Broadcast – “The Little Bell”
Best Coast – “Each and Everyday”
Sufjan Stevens – “In the Devil’s Territory”
The Cure – “Just Like Heaven”
Supertramp – “Breakfast in America”
Echo & the Bunnymen – “Fuel”
The Beach Boys – “Heroes and Villains (Stereo Mix)”
Smashing Pumpkins – “I Am One”
Nirvana – “Lounge Act (Boombox Rehearsal)”
Information Society – “Tomorrow”
The Cure – “Charlotte Sometimes”
Tom Waits – “Good Old World (Waltz)”
Danger Mouse – “My 1st Song”
The Killers – “All These Things That I’ve Done”
Ryan Adams & the Cardinals – “Kisses Start Wars”
The Zombies – “This Will Be Our Year”
Wye Oak – “Plains”
King Curtis – “Mr. Bojangles”
The Jayhawks – “Red Light”
Male Bonding – “What’s That Scene?”
M83 – “Soon, My Friend”
Echo & the Bunnymen – “Heaven Up Here”
Band of Skulls – “Patterns”
Janet Jackson – “The Knowledge”
Gruff Rhys – “At the Heart of Love”
Kansas – “The Spider”
Orbital – “Satan (Live)”
Red Fang – “Hank is Dead”
Clem Snide – “Stoney”
Peter, Bjorn & John – “Black Book”
Sebastian Tellier – “Fantino”
Toro y Moi – “Divina”
RES – “Golden Boys”
Liam Gallagher & Steve Craddock – “Carnation”
The Smithereens – “Top of the Pops”
Swervedriver – “Last Train to Satansville”
The Dears – “Thrones”
Jesu – “Small Wonder”
M83 – “Echoes of Mine”
The Go-Go’s – “We Got the Beat”
The New Pornographers – “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”
Ministry – “Cannibal Song”
Echo & the Bunnymen – “No Hands (Peel Session)”
The Jayhawks – “Turn Your Pretty Name Around”
Suede – “Heroine”
Lucy Pearl – “Lucy Pearl Tells”
Bright Eyes – “First Day of My Life”
Missy Elliott – “Work It”
Stina Nordenstam – “Like a Swallow”
Fleetwood Mac – “Never Forget”
Prince – “Pop Life”
Big Daddy Kane – “I Get the Job Done”
Cymbals Eat Guitars – “Plainclothes”
World Party – “All the Young Dudes”
Serge Gainsbourg – “Ah! Melody”
Ty Segall – “Where Your Mind Goes”
John Cale – “Helen of Troy”
The War on Drugs – “Original Slave”
Gorillaz – “Every Planet We Reach is Dead”
The Rapture – “Blue Bird”
Oneohtrix Point Never – “Physical Memory”
Old 97’s – “Four Leaf Clover”
Nirvana – “In Bloom”
Drive Like Jehu – “Caress”
Stevie Wonder – “Overjoyed”
tUnE-yArDs – “Gangsta (Ad-Rock Remix)”
Jay-Zeezer – “99 Problems with Buddy Holly”
Phosphorescent – “Pride”
Kansas – “Sparks of the Tempest (Live)”
Skee-Lo – “I Wish (Street Mix)”
Washed Out – “Soft”
Jungle Brothers – “Strictly Dedicated”
The Jayhawks – “Sweet Hobo Self”
The Men – “With the Shah”
Tennis – “Bimini Bay”
The Beach Boys – “Surf’s Up (Piano Demo)”
Camper Van Beethoven – “(Don’t You Go To) Goleta”
Van Morrison – “Sweet Thing”
Love is All – “Make Out Fall Out Make Up”
Alice in Chains – “Them Bones”
A Tribe Called Quest – “Lyrics to Go”
U2 – “Heaven and Hell”
Can – “One More Night”
The Buggles – “Video Killed the Radio Star”
Fountains of Wayne – “She’s Got a Problem”
Hüsker Dü – “Pink Turns to Blue”
Mew – “Wheels Over Me”
X – “Johnny Hit and Run Paulene”
Danger Mouse & Danielle Luppi – “Black”
Pearl Jam – “Crown of Thorns (Live)”

Wednesday's Playlist: 12-7-11

Dexys Midnight Runners – “Reminisce Pt. 1”
Rialto – “Monday Morning 5.19”
Aimee Mann – “Save Me (Live on Conan)”
Goldfrapp – “Believer”
Laura Marling – “My Friends”
Darker My Love – “18th Street Shuffle”
Sigur Rós – “Svefn-g-englar (Live)”
Gruff Rhys – “Shark Ridden Waters”
The Polyphonic Spree – “Light & Day / Reach for the Sun”
The Who – “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
Asia – “One Step Closer”
Iron Maiden – “Back in the Village”
The Future Sound of London – “Papua New Guinea”
Neil Finn – “King Tide”
Interpol – “NYC”
Warpaint – “Bees”
Snow Patrol – “Somewhere a Clock is Ticking”
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – “Even in Dreams”
Aimee Mann – “Calling it Quits”
Simian Mobile Disco – “Skin Cracker”
John Cougar Mellencamp – “Small Town”
Danger Mouse – “Change Clothes”
Destroyer – “Song for America”
Red Fang – “Human Herd”
Paul Westerberg – “Born for Me”
A Tribe Called Quest – “Check the Rhime”
OK Go – “Muppet Show Theme Song”
A Place to Bury Strangers – “It is Nothing”
OK Go – “What to Do”
Q-Tip – “N.T.”
R.E.M. – “Life and How to Live It”
Stereo MC’s – “Deep Down & Dirty”
R.E.M. – “Hyena”
The Corin Tucker Band – “Doubt”
Paul McCartney & Wings – “Live and Let Die”
Portugal. The Man – “All Your Light (Times Like These)”
Yeasayer – “Rome”
Blondie – “Shayla (Live)”
David Bowie – “Fashion”
Christopher O’Riley – “Fake Plastic Trees”
Health – “Perfect Skin (Curses! Remix)”
Cat Power – “I Found a Reason”
David Bowie – “Shadow Man”
Jónsi – “Go Do”
The National – “Pay for Me”
Sigur Rós – “Með Blóðnasir (Live)”
Braids – “Lammicken”
Carissa’s Wierd – “The Color that your Eyes Changed with the Color of your Hair”
Megafaun – “Comprovisation for Connor Pass”
The English Beat – “Spar Wid me”
Cold Cave – “Confetti”
World Party – “Take it Up”
R.E.M. – “Be Mine”
Blitzen Trapper – “American Goldwing”
Neil Young – “Cinnamon Girl”
Can – “Soup”
Basement Jaxx – “Red Alert”
Mike Ness – “Big Iron”
Fennesz & Sakamoto – “0405”
The Boxer Rebellion – “Both Sides are Evil”
Blondie – “X-Offender”

Sunday's Playlist: 12-4-11

Blondie – “The Dream’s Lost on Me (Acoustic)”
Black Kids – “Hurricane Jane”
Heart – “Dreamboat Annie (Reprise)”
Camper Van Beethoven – “Five Sticks”
Wolf Parade – “Pobody’s Nerfect”
Franz Ferdinand – “The Dark of the Matinee (Headman Remix)”
OMD – “Bondage of Fate”
Wilco – “A Shot in the Arm (Alternate Take)”
The Jayhawks – “Sister Cry”
Flying Lotus & Thom Yorke – “…And the World Laughs With You”
Stevie Wonder – “Where Were You When I Needed You”
Björk – “Thunderbolt”
Stars – “He Lied about Death”
Mastodon – “Crack the Skye”
The Pixies – “Build High”
Blitzen Trapper – “Fletcher”
Sun Kil Moon – “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes”
R.E.M. – “I Believe (Demo)”
The Duke Spirit – “Homecoming”
Tombs – “Constellations”
Little Scream – “The Lamb”
Thomas Dolby – “Flying North”
Christopher O’Riley – “Let Down”
Gorillaz – “19-2000 (The Wiseguys House of Wisdom Remix)”
Wolf Parade – “I’ll Believe in Anything”
Phoenix – “Love Like a Sunset Part II”
Cake – “The Distance”
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – “Love Burns”
Blondie – “Detroit 442”
Florence + the Machine – “You’ve Got the Dirtee Love”
Remy Zero – “Save Me”
Kansas – “Carry on My Wayward Son”
Eels – “For You”
Hans Zimmer – “Dream is Collapsing”
Ryan Adams – “Rocks”
Jónsi – “Sinking Friendships”
Wilco – “Handshake Drugs”
The Smiths – “London”
Run-D.M.C. – “Together Forever”
Childish Gambino – “Not Going Back”
Blondie – “Call Me”
Fountains of Wayne – “Valley Winter Song”
Juana Molina – “Isabel”
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”
Camper Van Beethoven – “Sometimes”
She & Him – “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want”
Panda Bear – “Scheherazade”
Spoon – “Small Stakes”
The Psychedelic Furs – “President Gas”
A Tribe Called Quest – “Baby Phife’s Return”

Films of the 60s, Part 25: What If I Were Romeo in Black Jeans?

“What if I were Romeo in black jeans,
What if I was Heathcliff, it’s no myth,
Maybe she's just looking for someone to dance with.”
--Michael Penn, “No Myth”



Shakespeare. No one is more ubiquitous in world of English letters than the Bard of Avon. I’ll admit, though the current trend in education is to scale back on Shakespeare and supplement the curriculum with more current material, I am quite pro Shakespeare. It’s not that I don’t agree with keeping it fresh, it’s just that Shakespeare has been relatable to the human condition for over four hundred years. I have read every play and every poem. I have seen many of the plays performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Bill is my boy. Modern filmmakers and critics can hurl all the slings and arrows they like at him, questioning his identity or his legitimacy, and I will still be a fan. In other words, the play’s the thing. His work is so universal that it can be adapted into nearly any situation and still have relevance and connection. Cases in point, the following three films from the 60s, which took the classic works to entirely new levels.



The Bad Sleep Well (1960, Akira Kurosawa)

There have been many great portrayals and adaptations of Hamlet over the years: Olivier, Branagh, Tennant, Sons of Anarchy, Strange Brew… Yeah, you read that right. But, one of my favorites of all time is Akira Kurosawa’s take on the classic tale of revenge, The Bad Sleep Well. Toshiro Mifune certainly deserves to be considered alongside the best that have portrayed the tragic Prince of Denmark, though he was playing a businessman of Japan. Mifune plays Nishi, a young man who, at the start of the film, is getting married to Yoshiko, the daughter of a wealthy executive. In this way, we can already see how the story differs slightly from the classic tragedy. Hamlet never got married, though Ophelia’s grief-inspired dementia is symbolized in the fact that Yoshiko is hobbled. Reporters and police, the latter of which arrest one of the company men, Wada, for bribery, interrupt the wedding. As it turns out, this scandal was previously hushed up conveniently through another businessman’s suicide, and this is just one aspect of an untouchable corporate culture in which lower level employees sacrifice themselves for the higher-ups. Sound familiar?

Nishi seems at first to be complicit in the goings on, guiding Wada to the top of a volcano. Incidentally, this scene is how I always imagined the setting of the transformation of Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader as opposed to the ridiculous and overblown result. Anyway, Nishi ends up saving Wada and secreting him away as ammunition against the company that ‘killed’ his father. While he tries to find a use for Wada, he leaves a photo of the office building in the company safe, with a red ‘X’ over the window from which his own father jumped. That same building figures prominently throughout the film, taking the place of Elsinore Castle. Eventually, Nishi cleverly enacts scenarios in which Wada appears as a ‘ghost’ to scare the top executives, one by one. Nishi becomes an obsessed character, as any Hamlet model should, even becoming somewhat creepy as he whistles down the street, much like Omar in The Wire. There are great subplots with Yoshiko’s brother and Nishi’s best friend, all of which wrap up nicely in the end, but like Hamlet, there is indeed a tragic ending.

The Bad Sleep Well is one of those adaptations that is usually said to be “loosely” based on the original. In this case, there are several subtle changes. For one, the despicable union of uncle and mother is replaced by a corrupt corporation, but one is still a father-in-law. The brilliance of this change is to turn a revenge tragedy into one that also has social commentary on the state of corporate culture, an institution that did not exist in Shakespeare’s time. Kurosawa showcases something that we are seeing even today, a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, in which those being held down by their superiors still curry their favor. As Nishi says, “They starved you and my father with scraps from their table, killed you as scapegoats, and still you can’t hate them.” As we have learned from history, the only way change occurs is either through revolution or protest that alters minds, and eventually laws. As is said in the film, “It’s pointless trying to use the law against evil people.”



West Side Story (1961, Robert Wise)

There was a long period in which any high school class reading Romeo & Juliet was made to watch West Side Story as a way to bring the classic romantic tragedy more up to date. While the language of Ernest Lehman and Stephen Sondheim might have been more accessible to teens than Shakespeare’s, the language of musicals, at least before Glee, was seemingly foreign to those same youngsters. Now, Glee has performed a majority of the songs from the production and has made it somewhat more hip than it was in my time. In my previous survey of 60s musicals, I made a point about the logic of musicals, the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic sound, and how these affect my enjoyment of the films. West Side Story is one of those films in which people, and in this case incredibly unlikely people, spontaneously break out into song and dance.

We are introduced first to the Jets in the basketball courts of the projects of New York City. (Interestingly, this is now the location of Lincoln Center, which I recently saw as a location in The Changeling). Anyhoo, it’s fairly difficult for toughs to look…well…tough when snapping fingers in unison and then performing highly choreographed dance moves. This is exacerbated by the declaration of “Cokes all around” during the gang tête-à-tête. Nothing says a gang means business like an order of a round of sodas. While at first skeptical and put off, I was soon trying to suspend my disbelief and enjoying the mixture of dancing and fighting, seeing the dance as an artistic expression of anxiety, anger, fear, racial tension, and even love. In case you were wondering, no, I had not seen this film until recently, despite the fact that my parents had the original cast album on vinyl. While I don’t remember them every playing it in my presence, I found that I actually knew most of the songs, most likely due to their huge presence in the canon as musical classics. “America,” “Maria,” “Jet Song,” “Tonight,” and “I Feel Pretty” were all completely familiar to me.

West Side Story holds the distinction of being probably the most faithful adaptation of Shakespeare, up to a point. The Montague and Capulet families are smartly transformed into rival New York gangs, one white and one Puerto Rican. Like The Bad Sleep Well, it successfully adds a new social element, in this case being race relations and the inanity of gang/race/class warfare. “America” also nicely sums up the reason for immigration and the arguments between preserving culture and the concept of the melting pot. The lyrics and themes throughout the film are nothing short of brilliant. Add in the gorgeous cinematography, color, and wardrobe, and you have the reasons this film won 10 Academy Awards, is now a classic, and why I had to wait for about six months for a copy from Netflix. Luckily, in the midst of that wait, the Blu-Ray version was released and I was able to see the film in the way it was meant to be seen, sharp, vivid, and with glorious sound. The ending may be drastically different from its source material, but it is still more than a worthy adaptation, and indeed, all are punished.



All Night Long (1962, Basil Dearden)

To round out the trio of Shakespeare adaptations, we have another one of Bill’s most well-known works, Othello. I suppose the only other tragedy that would have been more infamous is the Scottish play. Basil Dearden’s All Night Long, like the previous two films surveyed above, places the familiar characters in a modern setting, in this case the London of the swinging 60s jazz set. Dearden even goes as far as to include actual jazz musicians in the film, including Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus. Paul Harris plays Aurelius Rex, our Othello, married to Delia, our Desdemona. The great Patrick McGoohan plays Johnnie Cousin, our conniving Iago. We also have a Roderigo and a Cassio, Rod and Cass respectively, but most of their character traits are bundled up into Cass exclusively.

Like West Side Story, All Night Long is fairly faithful in its translation, up to a point. It, too, changes the ending. Whether this is done to make it “less” tragic, or to put a director or writer’s stamp on the story, I do not know. Regardless, the performances in this film are magnetic. It is perhaps not a classic film in the way that the previous two are, but it is entertaining, especially for those who are fans of jazz. The jazz slang seems a little cartoony now, but the drug and alcohol use is at least accurately portrayed. There are no “Cokes all around” in this film. And, while the choreography dulls the sting of the violence in West Side Story, the violence in All Night Long is fairly brutal. When Aurelius shows his anger, it is palpable.

Aside from McGoohan and Harris’ great performances, there is also a young Richard Attenborough playing Rod, a music promoter. He toes the line nicely, bridging the gap between the English and the Americans, and also between warring “friends.” This film also adds a new element, that being one of not just stealing a lover away and ruining a great man with violent tendencies for power and wealth, but also of stealing away a musician from one band to another, or out of retirement. Jealousy is still one of the central theme here, as well as Johnny’s (Iago’s) desire for the limelight. The added element may not be as heavy as corporate malfeasance or race relations, but the original story of Othello is powerful enough to survive in any setting without another substantially important point. However, this might be what leaves it out of “classic” status.

Saturday's Playlist: 12-3-11

Bangles – “Hit Medley Mix”
Spacemen 3 – “Walkin’ with Jesus”
Japandroids – “To Hell with Good Intentions”
Megafaun – “Carolina Days”
Q-Tip – “Feelin”
Kasabaian – “Velociraptor!”
A Tribe Called Quest – “Oh My God”
Big Pink – “Crystal Visions”
Liturgy – “Generation”
Van Morrison – “Caravan”
Megafaun – “Eagle”
Tommy James & the Shondells – “Crimson and Clover”
Prince – “Beautiful Ones”
Here We Go Magic – “Hands in the Sky”
Dum Dum Girls – “Hold Your Hand”
Digable Planets – “9th Wonder (Blackitolism)”
Little Dragon – “Please Turn”
King Khan & BBQ Show – “Do the Chop”
Twin Shadow – “When We’re Dancing”
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – “Brenda”
Austra – “The Noise”
Faunts – “Alarmed/Lights”
Wilco – “Black Moon”
Big Boi – “Night Night”
Castanets – “Thaw and the Beasts”
Luscious Jackson – “Beloved”
Peter, Bjorn and John – “Young Folks”
Smashing Pumpkins – “The End is the Beginning”
The Weird Sisters – “Magic Works”
Blondie – “Dreaming”
Fleetwood Mac – “Hold Me”
The Sundays – “You’re Not the Only One I Know”
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – “Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks”
Otis Redding – “My Girl”