I'M NOT THERE:
It is said that "I'm Not There" is the first fictional treatment of the
life of Bob Dylan that has been approved by the artist. It is not
surprising. It is a long winded exercise in mythmaking - packaging some
incredibly imaginative sequences and performances with long sequences
of great tedium. This is clearly not intended as a literal treatment of
the Dylan life story but as an exploration of the multi-levelled nature
of the man, his elusiveness, his own tendency to obscure and cloud and
offer variable versions of his own biography. (The first volume of his
so-called autobiography did something similar with its absurd razor
sharp recollections of events in Greenwich village 40 years ago -
descriptions of people's facial expressions, of the light on snow etc.
Good writing etc... but unreliable). Well this film plays in the heart
of unreliability - and aspires to reflect this genius through versions
of his life, cutting back and forward in time, but not really reaching
into the present beyond the use of a few relatively recent songs. The
latest Dylan we encounter here is the born-again man. The Neverending
Tour of the past fifteen years is not alluded to. The most powerful
central core of this film is the mid-sixties Dylan, shot in stark black
and white, with Cate Blanchett offers a dynamic performnance as the
electric muse - probably for most Dylan fans the moment of his greatest
achievement. The evocation of this era is offered in a crackling and
sharply scripted series of pssages - though even here a degree of
cliché is included (The Philip Jacobson style BBC cultural pundit is a
cartoon and the cues to "Ballad Of A Thin Man" are so predictable!)
There are plenty of cute references to other films, photography,
quotations etyc - Jonathan Miller's Alice, The Beatles, Dick Lester,
Robert Frank etc. which are fun. ) However this is a film that is
really rather unlikely to reach out beyond those already intrigued by
the whole Dylan phenomenon. As a narrative it is as meandering as his
own "Renaldo And Clara" venture and at times seems genuinely
interminable. The passages featuring the Richard gere version of Dylan
are the weakest - evoking the Big Pink/Band/Back to American roots era
of Dylan after the "motorcycle crash". Some of the lines given to the
"ghosts of Dylan in this film point to that core elusive self that Dylan
protects - particularly when the Sixties electric Dylan starts talking
about the music being "traditional" in a way wholly other than the idea
of folk as popularised in the early sixties. I believe few who pay attention would asrgue with the idea of Dylan as a creative genius. I'm not sure this film offers much illumination on the nature of thast genius.
Again one can quibble with certain details - the sequence where Pete Seeger is seen going for an axe at the Newport folk festival for instance (read White Bicycles by
Joe Boyd to see this as another cloud of myth) but that may not be the
point since the film is layer upon layer of myths and half truths and
rumours. All in all though a long and not especially profound ride.
Listen to the music instead. It could have been an hour longer with no
gain or loss. There is sadly a sort of smug hipper than thou quality
about the whole exercise.
THE VALLEY OF ELAH
"IN €œThe Valley Of Elah€" directed by Paul Haggis is the most impressive and moving film I have seen in a very long time. It is redeems one'€™s faith in the possibility of film’s offer a profound experience - moral, emotionally intense, subtle and unflinching in seeking to discover and present difficult truths. It also includes a performance that is truly magnificent - €“ Tommy Lee Jones as the father of a young solider in Iraq. This is an austere film without sensational violence or overt simplistic moralizing. Instead its story about the fate of a young man returned from Iraq unfolds in a dry but compelling fashion to show how this conflict has wounded the West in unexpected ways – and to finally lay bare the latent brutality at the heart of the male condition. It isn'€™t going to win awards or huge audiences because it is is too uncompromising and its message at once too subtle and too challenging. Haggis who made €œCrash†has moved upwards and onwards with this and though it is not without faults - the use of an Annie Lennox song at the end for instance - €“ its tone is otherwise assured. We see a decent patriotic American have his illusions stripped from him - €“ a rite of passage that can be seen to embody the growing pain of a nation whose hubris is perhaps also disintegrating. Stunning.
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD
This is a terrific film about myth and psychology. It's long (over two hours) and slow, but also posssed of an elegaic beauty for which, terrific credit to the director of photography Roger Deakins who deserves an Oscar for his work. The evocation of an America on the cusp of the modern is superb but at the heart of this is a set of wonderful acting performances by Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck and Sam Shepard. As a stidy of a socipath its superb, and as a dstidy in the disintegration and dissipation of mythic status is has an almost Shakespearian elementalism. Terrific.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
LIVERPOOL AND CULTURE
A feature on Liverpool written about 18 months ago
When the American pop singer Bruce Chanel performed in Liverpool in 1962 he says that he found it: " biblically bleak with the waves hitting up against the sea wall. It was a melancholy and lonely place."
Yet just five years later another visiting American, the beat poet Allen Ginsburg, described it as: "The centre of consciousness of the human universe."
Clearly a lot changed in the interim and one key were Chanel's supporting act … a local band called The Beatles.
John, Paul George and Ringo delivered their hometown to the world … and the world has been coming back ever since. The Beatles are written into the legend of the city and the cultural history of the 20th century. The city's airport is named after John Lennon and he is in the National Curriculum, their childhood homes are National Trust properties and McCartney is a Knight of the realm.
But Liverpool 2004 has a lorra lorra other stuff happening and is very different from the place that nurtured the group. It is profoundly changed from the town described by the earliest English antiquary John Leland who, when he toured Britain in the 1530s. wrote: "Lyrpole or Lyverpoole… a pavid towne." Even in the 19th century it was described as being : "Deficient in essentials to embellish the historic page."
Fast forward to 2004 when it has just been named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and is a month into its third Biennial arts festival - now the UK's largest event showcasing contemporary visual artists.
In 2007 it will celebrate the 800th anniversary of its founding charter and, the following year it will be European City of Culture, likely to create thousands of jobs and draw billions in investment. One leading estate recently dubbed it "the new Barcelona".
And the Year of Culture decision prompted Liverpool City Council leader Mike Storey to proclaim: "This is like Liverpool winning the Champion's league, Everton winning the double and The Beatles reforming all on the same day - and Stephen Spielberg coming to the city to make a Hollywood blockbuster about it."
Such a film would be an epic and at its heart would be the sea. It would trace Liverpool's modest origins as Hather-polr - a Norse settlement in the 8th century through the granting of its royal charter by King John in 1207 when he foresaw its potential as a port.
The short sea journey to Ireland made it a staging post for St Patrick and saw hundreds of thousands of Irish settle in the city fleeing famine. Thousands of hopeful emigrants departed here for America. And later it was the conduit that brought American R'n'B records into the country - via the crew of Cunard Line ships - to help fuel the Mersey Sound.
But crucially maritime business also made the city wealthy, most disgracefully through slavery. By 1795 Liverpool controlled more than 80 percent of Brtain's slave trade.
It is a dark history now acknowledged in the city's museums and schools, but it also helps ensure Liverpool should never become a mere colourful northern outcrop of theme-park Britain. It's got too many shadows , too much pride and and its traditionally brutal humour.
Liverpool was never a gentle city and it still makes self deprecating jokes about its once notorious reputation. "Why does the Mersey run through Liverpool?", goes one. "Because if it walked it'd get robbed."
However visitors arriving by train now see a sign proclaiming it the safest city in Britain. So how did it change?
The starting point was the 1960s. Liverpool's music put it in the vanguard of a cultural revolution that, over succeeding decades, has widely levelled categories of high and low culture in place of today's pervasive popular culture. It helped challenge the cultural dominance of London with a decentralisation and democratisation of culture that is now global.
The Liverpool poet Roger McGough said of his hometown then that it was: "like the cowboy frontier " and fellow scouse versifier Adrian Henri added that: "The Beatles were the first cultural phenomenon of any kind who made it outside London first."
But other Liverpool creative figures also played a key role in this process of cultural change. It has always bred talent but perhaps most importantly after music, are its humorists and writers - the Liverpool poets, for instance who helped empower a whole generation to venture into verse, and dramatists such as Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale.
Its no accident perhaps that the first and defining British cop series Z Cars, was set in the mean streets of Merseyside. Alan Bleasdale's offered grittiness and wit a'plenty in drama such as The Boys from The Black Stuff and GBH and three of the most successful long running soaps, Brookside, Hollyoaks and Grange Hill, were created by Phil Redmond's Mersey TV.
All counterpoint Northernness - in all its varieties - as a badge of "authenticity" in contrast to "effete" southern values. This raw working class past is still refracted through Liverpool's pride and acerbic wit.
But while booming tourism boosts its economy this a revolution has also benefited native Liverpudlians. Their comspolitan city offers more to enjoy than almost any other comparable conurbation: Britain's second oldest symphony orchestra, nightclubs, art collections like the Walker or Tate Liverpool, theatres and a seemingly endless season of festivals. 2004 has events celebrating art, comedy, Arabic culture, the sea and the long established Beatles Week.
The German born director of Tate Liverpool Christoph Grunenberg says: "Five years ago someone like me might not have come to Liverpool, but its an indication of how swift the change has been in terms of cultural provision."
Last word to city poet Sir Roger McGough. He recently produced a poem with a litany of definitions of Liverpool; "Lippy, Irreverent, Vibrant, Edgy, Racy, Pacy,Obsessive, Off-the-wall, Legendary."
A feature on Liverpool written about 18 months ago
When the American pop singer Bruce Chanel performed in Liverpool in 1962 he says that he found it: " biblically bleak with the waves hitting up against the sea wall. It was a melancholy and lonely place."
Yet just five years later another visiting American, the beat poet Allen Ginsburg, described it as: "The centre of consciousness of the human universe."
Clearly a lot changed in the interim and one key were Chanel's supporting act … a local band called The Beatles.
John, Paul George and Ringo delivered their hometown to the world … and the world has been coming back ever since. The Beatles are written into the legend of the city and the cultural history of the 20th century. The city's airport is named after John Lennon and he is in the National Curriculum, their childhood homes are National Trust properties and McCartney is a Knight of the realm.
But Liverpool 2004 has a lorra lorra other stuff happening and is very different from the place that nurtured the group. It is profoundly changed from the town described by the earliest English antiquary John Leland who, when he toured Britain in the 1530s. wrote: "Lyrpole or Lyverpoole… a pavid towne." Even in the 19th century it was described as being : "Deficient in essentials to embellish the historic page."
Fast forward to 2004 when it has just been named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and is a month into its third Biennial arts festival - now the UK's largest event showcasing contemporary visual artists.
In 2007 it will celebrate the 800th anniversary of its founding charter and, the following year it will be European City of Culture, likely to create thousands of jobs and draw billions in investment. One leading estate recently dubbed it "the new Barcelona".
And the Year of Culture decision prompted Liverpool City Council leader Mike Storey to proclaim: "This is like Liverpool winning the Champion's league, Everton winning the double and The Beatles reforming all on the same day - and Stephen Spielberg coming to the city to make a Hollywood blockbuster about it."
Such a film would be an epic and at its heart would be the sea. It would trace Liverpool's modest origins as Hather-polr - a Norse settlement in the 8th century through the granting of its royal charter by King John in 1207 when he foresaw its potential as a port.
The short sea journey to Ireland made it a staging post for St Patrick and saw hundreds of thousands of Irish settle in the city fleeing famine. Thousands of hopeful emigrants departed here for America. And later it was the conduit that brought American R'n'B records into the country - via the crew of Cunard Line ships - to help fuel the Mersey Sound.
But crucially maritime business also made the city wealthy, most disgracefully through slavery. By 1795 Liverpool controlled more than 80 percent of Brtain's slave trade.
It is a dark history now acknowledged in the city's museums and schools, but it also helps ensure Liverpool should never become a mere colourful northern outcrop of theme-park Britain. It's got too many shadows , too much pride and and its traditionally brutal humour.
Liverpool was never a gentle city and it still makes self deprecating jokes about its once notorious reputation. "Why does the Mersey run through Liverpool?", goes one. "Because if it walked it'd get robbed."
However visitors arriving by train now see a sign proclaiming it the safest city in Britain. So how did it change?
The starting point was the 1960s. Liverpool's music put it in the vanguard of a cultural revolution that, over succeeding decades, has widely levelled categories of high and low culture in place of today's pervasive popular culture. It helped challenge the cultural dominance of London with a decentralisation and democratisation of culture that is now global.
The Liverpool poet Roger McGough said of his hometown then that it was: "like the cowboy frontier " and fellow scouse versifier Adrian Henri added that: "The Beatles were the first cultural phenomenon of any kind who made it outside London first."
But other Liverpool creative figures also played a key role in this process of cultural change. It has always bred talent but perhaps most importantly after music, are its humorists and writers - the Liverpool poets, for instance who helped empower a whole generation to venture into verse, and dramatists such as Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale.
Its no accident perhaps that the first and defining British cop series Z Cars, was set in the mean streets of Merseyside. Alan Bleasdale's offered grittiness and wit a'plenty in drama such as The Boys from The Black Stuff and GBH and three of the most successful long running soaps, Brookside, Hollyoaks and Grange Hill, were created by Phil Redmond's Mersey TV.
All counterpoint Northernness - in all its varieties - as a badge of "authenticity" in contrast to "effete" southern values. This raw working class past is still refracted through Liverpool's pride and acerbic wit.
But while booming tourism boosts its economy this a revolution has also benefited native Liverpudlians. Their comspolitan city offers more to enjoy than almost any other comparable conurbation: Britain's second oldest symphony orchestra, nightclubs, art collections like the Walker or Tate Liverpool, theatres and a seemingly endless season of festivals. 2004 has events celebrating art, comedy, Arabic culture, the sea and the long established Beatles Week.
The German born director of Tate Liverpool Christoph Grunenberg says: "Five years ago someone like me might not have come to Liverpool, but its an indication of how swift the change has been in terms of cultural provision."
Last word to city poet Sir Roger McGough. He recently produced a poem with a litany of definitions of Liverpool; "Lippy, Irreverent, Vibrant, Edgy, Racy, Pacy,Obsessive, Off-the-wall, Legendary."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
