Moon Duo’s debut Mazes invited its listeners to get lost in a sonic labyrinth of stargazing krautrock jams. The title of successor Circles evokes
a simpler form of immersion, a single line without beginning or end,
emblematic of the way the San Franciscan couple’s songs repeat and
revolve around minimal components. These propulsive compositions often sound like they could go on
forever, but Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada are disciplined explorers,
testing their horizons but keeping their feet on terra firma and
instinctively knowing when to wind down each workout.
There’s a structural certainty to Circles: without
exception, the pace and tone established in a track’s opening seconds is
carried through to its final moments, a clarity that prevents their
psych-adventures from growing overly outré or indulgent. Locomotive
rhythms and chugging guitars form an incessant base, while other
textures eddy in and out to supply spark, from Johnson’s shamanic vocals
and distorted soloing to Yamada’s intoxicating organ playing. Sometimes, the results are light-footed, like the sprightly title
track, and sometimes unapologetically droning, like the closing Rolling
Out. As the latter fades from speakers, the urge to close the circle by
re-hitting play and taking in another spin is firmly felt.
1. unpoc - here on my own
2. the national - secret meeting
3. laka - pokusaj
4. frightened rabbit - the modern leper
5. okkervil river - unless it's kicks
6. the thermals - no culture icons
7. smith - baby it's you
8. fontella bass - rescue me
9. manfred mann - 5 4 3 2 1
10. the angels - my boyfriend's back
11. prince - sign o the times
12. errors - pleasure palaces
13. the knife - heartbeats
14. omd - electricity
15. the human league - fascination
16. devo - girl u want
17. tokyo police club - nature of the experiment
18. men without hats - the safety dance
19. carly simon - you're so vain
20. au revoir simone - sad song
21. the postmarks - 7-11
22. the magnetic fields - california girls
23. shakira - she-wolf
24. talulah gosh - talulah gosh
25. sleeper - nice guy eddie
26. xtc - life begins at the hop
27. the modern lovers - roadrunner
28. claude channes - mao mao
29. compulsive gamblers - stop and think it over
30. tv on the radio - dancing choose
31. jens lekman - opposite of hallelujah
32. chairman of the board - give me just a little more time
33. bruce springsteen - ain't good enough for you
34. the dirtbombs - chains of love
35. david bowie - china girl
36. huey lewis and the news - the power of love
37. joy rider - rush hour
38. the ramones - beat on the brat
39. the undertones - true confessions
40. the sonics - psycho
41. t-rex - 20th century boy
42. of montreal - first time high
43. beat happening - you turn me on
44. talking heads - psycho killer
45. arcade fire - keep the car running
46. eux autres - salut les copains
47. blondie - denis
48. jeff wayne - the eve of war
49. dire straits - walk of life
50. rem - it's the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine)
51. the vapors - turning japanese
52. the spencer davis group - gimme some lovin
53. little richard - a little bit of something
54. edwyn collins - girls like you
55. the jackson 5 - i want you back
56. the cure - friday i'm in love
57. the pretenders - kid
58. the b-52s - private idaho
59. fleetwood mac - go your own way
60. ash - girl from mars
61. idlewild - when i argue i see shapes
62. j geils band - centrefold
63. the smiths - you just haven't earned it yet baby
64. billy joel - we didn't start the fire
65. the penguins - earth angel
One of my EIFF 2012 highlights, The Search for Emak Bakia recently played at the Telluride film festival in Colorado. My Skinny review was re-run over at Film Watch to coincide (under the title Man Ray's Footsteps), which is as good a reason as any to reprint it here too!
Taking Man Ray’s inscrutable cine-poem Emak Bakia (1927) as inspiration,
The Search for Emak Bakia sees director Oskar Alegría walk the Basque
coast with chance as his compass, following in the American surrealist’s
footsteps and taking numerous enriching detours. It’s a suitably
abstract approach: Alegría layers Man Ray’s avant-garde experiments over
recreations and re-visitations, hunting out the house that inspired the
film’s title and visiting clown graves and dreaming swine along the
way.
The film’s visual palimpsests are interspersed with text that’s by
turns informational and contemplative, while a nice sense of absurdity
keeps pretension at bay. Those with an active interest in Man Ray’s
oeuvre will understandably gain most from The Search for Emak Bakia, but
its constant inventiveness also affords the film an unexpected
accessibility, stocking it full of engrossing moments worth lingering
over. “Now I’ve gotten all muddled” confessed one interviewee, “I hope
you can untangle it later.” It’s not a straightforward task, but it’s an
immensely satisfying and inspiring one.
Built around Elena Tonra’s candid songwriting – a litany of break-ups and breakdowns in a doleful key – Daughter’s
fragile sound could easily lose potency in a room this size. But the
trio take to the scaled-up surroundings with understated confidence,
leaving many-a lump in the throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are one
song away from Beirut!” announces Igor Haefeli towards the end of a
relatively lengthy set. “Ah like yous guys better!” comes a cry from the
floor – an enthusiastic assessment that also proves rather prescient.
For where Daughter exceed expectations tonight, Beirut only
match them, turning in a solid, crowd-pleasing set that’s a little
diminished by a lack of energy onstage. Jetlag’s to blame: “you might be
seeing a show I’ll never remember later, which is kinda cool” Zach
Condon explains towards the end, dead on his feet but too consummate a
professional to short change his fans.
The incredible musicianship from Condon and band is what keeps the
show satisfying despite its lulls: even if he had passed out fully,
chances are muscle memory would have got him through, such is his honed
expertise. High points come from across the discography: the horns of
Postcards from Italy garner a passionate, wordless sing-along; a solo
uke The Penalty ushers hush; while East Harlem is among the cuts
suggesting last year’s The Rip Tide didn’t gather a fraction of
the attention it deserved. Tonight won’t go down as the band’s finest
ninety minutes, but even on half-cylinders, they’re frequently superb.
As in 2009 and 2011, I've put together an overview of Scottish music for The Skinny's Fresher's guide book thingymajig. Yes, i missed out loads of people. Whaddaya expect, eh?
Wind turbines, cholesterol, and incredible music: three things
Scotland’s got in abundance. Here’s our guide to the latter – to the
solo acts, bands, producers and so forth most liable to metaphorically
blow your socks off this year.
Now naturally, you don’t set about squeezing an entire country’s
musical fruits into a few hundred words without a whole lot slopping
over the sides. But with some modest parameters to guide the selection
process, we’ll give it our best shot, goddammit.
So, on the basis that the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Belle and
Sebastian and Mogwai are already firmly squared away in the public
consciousness, we’ve focussed our sights solely on younger guns – those
who’ve impressed with no more than EPs, an eye-catching gig, or, at
most, a scintillating debut to their name. We’ll let Malcolm Middleton
through on a technicality, his debut as Human Don't Be Angry having taken a sonic detour from previous solo work to revitalising effect.
Similarly, Scottish Album of the Year Award winners Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells can scrape in too, if we consider them a single recording unit and
overlook the megaton of brilliance they’ve each recorded in other guises
and partnerships. And Gerard Love’s Lightships
can act as proxy for all the amazingness Teenage Fanclub have produced
in their twenty-odd-year existence, what with his new outfit’s
breezy/bittersweet melodising sounding not entirely dissimilar.
The rest of the picks fit the bill less contentiously. Recent(ish)
debutants to have tickled The Skinny’s collective fancy include Happy Particles, who swirl up dreamy lullabies real nice; De Rosa man Martin John Henry
(also moonlighting in Middleton’s aforementioned Human Don’t Be Angry
project); and future-pop electro-maven Julian Corrie, aka Miaoux Miaoux. Then there’s taps-aff riff titans Holy Mountain, subtle-schmubtle Warp wunderkind Rustie, and idiosyncratic art syndicate Muscles of Joy; Delphian shape-shifters Die Hard, buzzing slacker-rock skater-bois PAWS, and MC + drums duo Hector Bizerk; emotive indie ensemble French Wives, prodigious electronic minimalist Konx-Om-Pax, and Chris Devotion and his punky, new wave-indebted Expectations. Oh, and quirky feet-draggers Jesus H Foxx, who finally got round to releasing their overdue (but top-notch) debut in April - which is slow, but not as slow as eagleowl
(recent tweet in response to query ‘when’s the album due?’: “about
three years ago”). Good things come to those that wait, etc. Case in
point: Divorce, currently fulfilling their reputation for terrifying, noisy awesomeness with a formidable self-titled full-length.
Others are pre-debut album for good reason: Churchesonly
introduced themselves in May this year, but their bold, hook-filled
electropop is already proving seriously addictive (plus, their
membership allows a smuggled mention of The Unwinding Hours and The
Twilight Sad, on albums two and three respectively and going from
strength to strength). Sacred Paws are similarly fresh out the gates, with every gig caught thus far a party-starter and then some; Palms deliver high-calibre, lo-fi sounds with a jagged undertow; while Aggi Doom’s brooding debut single Bring Me the Head has well and truly turned ours.
Then there’s the silver-lining acts that come from a beloved band’s break-up: Danananykroyd have shattered into Alarm Bells, Ex Teens and Ghost Pants, amongst others; Findo Gask members have reappeared in Bermuda (formerly Milk), Babe and the recently-reunited Mitchell Museum; while Joe Howe may have put Gay Against You to bed, but continues to bend brains as Ben Butler and Mousepad.
Finally, there are those at the other end of this arbitrary set of
qualifying criteria – those with a second album gestating, some in the
early stages, others ready to drop. Hudson Mohawke is most likely dreaming up glitchy, dayglo shouldn’t-work-does-work sound combos this very moment; United Fruit have been debuting promising new material live of late; while recent Chemikal Underground signees Conquering Animal Soundhave already finished Kammerspeil’s successor On Floating Bodies, with a release pencilled in for early 2013. Can. Not. Wait.
So much music, so little space in which to do it justice… Just enough room left to mention Neigbourhood Gout, namecheck Kid Canaveral, acknowledge Lady North, recognise Over The Wall, touch on Holy Esque, note Dam Mantle, and reference Withered Hand. But as the thesaurus reaches its limits, so do we: you’ll have to figure the rest out for yourself.
For 4 years, 2 months, we were THE ONLY PLACE TO BE on the third
Saturday of every month. Now, for night #51+, bottle rocket will be
(drum roll) THE ONLY PLACE TO BE on the third Friday of every month.
I know, I know, it’s a lot to take in. So to make the transition as
smooth as possible, September’s party will be full of familiarity – a
‘best of’ of sorts, based on the fifty playlists already under our belt
(all of which are archived on the right hand side of the blog).
If a song has gone down well in the past, it’s a contender for the
inaugural Friday edition – so expect all the usual suspects (bowie,
bruce, b52s et al), plus a bunch of songs that have slipped our minds
for yonks but which are 24 carat ACE.
So: BOTTLE ROCKET NICE N SLEAZY 3RD ***FRIDAY*** OF EVERY MONTH FRIDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER 11:30PM – 3:00AM INDIEPOPROCKNROLLNEWWAVESOULPOSTPUNKANDOTHERTHINGS
‘Courage is overcoming one’s own flaws, suffering from them but not
being overburdened by them, and following one’s path. Courage is loving
life, looking at death with tranquillity; it is reaching for an ideal
and understanding what is real; it is acting, and giving oneself to
great causes without knowing what reward this profound universe will reserve for our efforts, not even if any reward will be given. Jean Juarès, ‘Speech to the Youth’, 1903
‘Remember: with great power comes great responsibility.'
Uncle Ben, Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002)
The Snows of Kilimanjaro introduces its principled protagonist Michel (Jean-Pierre Darroussin, most recently seen on GFT screens in Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre)
in the midst of a terse lottery draw on a Marseille dockyard. Every
time a name is announced, an ashen-faced worker steps forward to
identify himself the unlucky selectee – one of a raft of twenty
redundancies negotiated by the union in a bid to prevent wider job
losses. As the union boss behind this unfortunate compromise, Michel
expresses ‘no regrets’. He conducts the draw with stoicism and gravitas,
fuelled by a seemingly irreducible belief in the task’s necessity – a
utilitarian effort to sacrifice a few comrades for the good of the many.
As if to prove his ethical mettle, the nineteenth name announced is his
own; though permitted to exempt himself, Michel declines special
treatment. To some, including brother-in-law and colleague Raoul (Gérard
Meylan), his decision is baffling – a stubborn and unnecessary
martyrdom. But to Michel, to act otherwise would betray the socialist
beliefs by which he defines himself, solidarity taking precedence over
self-preservation. From the outset, then, Michel is presented as a man
of unimpeachable ideological conviction, though as events will later
transpire to expose, this robust moral code isn’t without limits or
contradictions.
The two sources quoted above – a turn-of-the-century leader of the
French Left and the fictional guardian of an American comic book
character – serve as unlikely twin symbols of Michel’s moral doctrine.
Jean Juarès is the more obvious idol for a fifty-something unionist: a
socialist icon assassinated for his antimilitarist beliefs, Juarès
perfectly exemplifies a certain shade of self-sacrificing politics, and
it’s from him that Michel quotes while clearing out his locker. ‘Courage
resides in watching one’s spinning machine or loom that not one thread
snaps’ Michel intones, peeling a black and white photo of Juarès from
the locker’s door. But the references to ‘spinning’ and ‘threads’ also
contain a sly pun: beneath the Juarès photograph lies a second
blu-tacked image, a poster of web-slinging superhero Spider-man,
depicted spinning some socio-judicial threads of his own. Michel’s wife
Marie-Claire (Ariane Ascaride) later name-checks both Jaurès and
Spider-man in a single breath, prodding her husband out of self-pity by
provocatively comparing him to his heroes, and concluding ‘you’re just
an old man on early retirement. You’ve lost the power the union gave you
and you’re an ordinary man again, facing his weaknesses.’ Her
calculated dismissal has the desired effect, rousing Michel from a
defeatist slump – restoring his power, in a sense.
Spider-man fulfils other roles in the narrative: a comic book gifted
to Michel on the occasion of his and Marie-Claire’s 30th wedding
anniversary acts as both an emblematic link to Michel’s youth, and later
as a concrete plot device, when it is stolen as part of a violent
robbery. Additionally, Michel’s admiration for comic book heroics hints
at underlying tensions in his political certitudes, with Spidey’s
all-American exceptionalism implicitly at odds with other aspects of the
former docker’s belief system. The gap between ideals and actions is
evident at the anniversary party, a lavishly bourgeois affair. The giant
profiterole tower – so large it takes two to carry – is particularly
symbolic, the desert’s grandiosity contrasting strongly with a later
scene in which two young boys react excitedly to a simple jar of
chocolate spread – evidently an uncommon pleasure in their household.
(For British audiences, the immense croquembouche may also carry an echo
of the Ferrero Rocher ambassador’s reception – an enduring image of
luxurious indulgence this side of the channel).
Michel and Marie-Claire’s relative comfort is further underscored by
frequent scenes involving barbecues and mealtimes; Michel’s forced
retirement may not be an ideal situation, but the couple are clearly not
about to go hungry. Unfortunately, this basic reassurance is not
universally shared – a disparity brought vividly into focus by the
aforementioned robbery. The subsequent revelation of the perpetrator’s
tangled motives carries another echo of Marvel’s arachnoid vigilante; if
power and responsibility are as indelibly intertwined as Uncle Ben
stresses (by way, it’s worth acknowledging, of Voltaire), then Michel’s
actions as union boss share a modicum of liability for the break-in, for
reasons that this note will refrain from spoiling.
Writer/director Robert Guédiguian based aspects of The Snows of Kilimanjaro
on Victor Hugo’s poem ‘How Good are the Poor’, in which a husband and
wife independently decide to act selflessly, instinctively certain the
other will share their altruism. Taking the poem’s sentimental climax as
a starting inspiration, Guédiguian worked backwards, re-versioning
Hugo’s premise for a contemporary setting.[1]
Consequently, while the film starts with a convincingly messy quandary
laced with credible self-doubt, its complexities are gradually ironed
smooth to fit a pre-decided, all-but untroubled happy ending (set,
incidentally, at another barbecue). Yet what it lacks in verisimilitude
it makes up for in thematic coherence, as Guédiguian successfully
marries the poem’s belief in human kindness with Juarès’ definition of
courage – with a little of the moral absolutism associated with the
comic book form also discernible. Michel and Marie-Claire’s good deeds
may not involve city-levelling battles with mutant lizard-men, but their
understated compassion is presented as equally heroic.
Dr Christopher Buckle
Researcher and Journalist
September 2012
Efterklang’s intrepid ambition is perhaps their defining characteristic, as evidenced by fourth album Piramida’s
titular birthplace: an abandoned mining facility in Svalbard. Decamping
to the frozen archipelago for nine days, the Danish trio collected
various field recordings, from which they built Piramida’s base – rusted iron struck like xylophone bars; birds and air taped and appropriated.
It’s a severe environment from which to draw
inspiration – a rocky landscape containing more polar bears than people –
and the result is a sombre and gelid piece at odds with the charm and
warmth of past releases. But repeated close listens restart the record’s
heart, as it shivers off detachment to reveal an exquisite elegance.
Caspar Clausen’s vocals sit clearer in the mix than ever, deepened a
tone and evocatively pensive, while tracks like Apples demonstrate a
typically opulent breadth of instrumentation. Though possibly their
least straightforwardly enjoyable album, Perimida is a distinct and expertly-accomplished advancement of the Efterklang sound.
Out 24th September
kNIFE & fORK - The Higher You Get, The Rare the Vegetation (***)
From Magic Band member to stints backing the likes of PJ
Harvey, Eric Drew Feldman’s CV exudes pedigree. For kNIFE & Fork – a
collaboration with vocalist Laurie Hall that began with 2004’s Miserycord –
Feldman steps out from esteemed shadows to prove himself as proficient
at developing his own music as he is at servicing the songwriting of
others.
Of the aforementioned acts, The Higher You Get… hews closer
to Polly Jean’s gothic dramatics than Beefheart’s surrealism, despite
its Dali-quoting title. This is partly due to Hall’s evocative vocals
and lyrics, which run a gamut of registers, from haunting desperation on
Tightrope to sleazy sexuality on grungy highlight Pocket Rocket. The
album peaks with ten-minute opus The Revelator: an odyssey of desire and
decay that carries an enriching cabaret tint without succumbing to the
outer reaches of melodrama. Little else matches its considerable
stature, but the album nonetheless brims with confidence and mystery.
Out now
The Helio Sequence - Negotiations (**)
Much of The Helio Sequence’s fifth album was reportedly born from
improvisation, with many songs beginning life as one-minute sketches,
and others formed entirely in a single take. In certain circumstances,
improv can be a liberating working method – encouraging the kind of
open-minded imagination that corporate-speak would have us all call
‘blue sky thinking.’ On Negotiations it appears to have had the
opposite effect, causing the duo (singer/guitarist Brandon Summers and
drummer/keyboardist Benjamin Weikel) to withdraw into conventionality,
with largely tepid results.
Summers’ vocals are as irreproachable as ever, floating and soaring
over reverb-heavy guitar lines, and it’s testament to the band’s
proficiency that nothing stands out as particularly poor; the problem is
that little stands out at all. But if this is the sound of a band
creatively treading water, they make the pools in which they paddle
sound pretty inviting, with glistening self-production making the most
of their obvious talents.
Guy Maddin’s latest is, loosely, a haunted Odysseyset
in a decrepit, (meta)physically imposing mansion and populated by
ghosts and gangsters. Its allure comes not from plot, however, but
execution: those already enamoured by the director’s avant-garde style
should approach this return to feature-length filmmaking hungrily, laden
as it is with his characteristic obsessions and trademark cinematic
mannerisms. Maddin weaves a hypnotic psychodrama that is by turns
unsettling, amusing, and provocatively enigmatic – though also,
admittedly, occasionally tedious, with Keyhole’s vagaries ultimately paling next to the filmmaker’s best work.
But even a relatively minor film from Maddin
still has plenty to recommend. The present-tense dream-logic ruptures
any firm sense of narrative continuity, as carefully stacked obscurities
beckon to be unpicked – not so much a puzzle to be solved, as a febrile
stew of interlaced symbolism. If you’re unfamiliar with Maddin’s askew
vision, more accessible entry points exist elsewhere in his filmography.
But for those with the commitment and patience to peer in, Keyhole is frequently mesmeric.
Where The Artist recently resurrected antiquated filmmaking grammar for laughs, Miguel Gomes’ third feature Tabu parodies
with more ambitiously philosophical aims. In an early scene, a tour
guide intones “all I’m telling you is not reality, but tales,” allowing
the script to highlight its central, redolent theme: the interlaced
nexuses between memory, cinema and fable.
An unconventional structure splits the film in two: the first part
(titled ‘A Lost Paradise’) set in present-day Lisbon; the second
(‘Paradise’) in a dreamlike vision of Africa, with dialogue muted and
replaced by an extended voiceover that tells a tale both romantic, yet
softly cynical. There are echoes of Almodovar’s Broken Embraces in Tabu’s
heady mix of melodrama and meta-artistry, while its crisp monochrome
cinematography and Spector-pop soundtrack provide more direct pleasures.
Gomes takes multiple histories – cinematic, familial, colonial – and
fashions something wholly fresh and innovative. The bifurcation proves
especially effective, weaving a hypnotic narrative that lingers in the
mind long after its subtly constructed conclusion.
San Francisco’s The Fresh & Onlys are old-fashioned songwriters –
not only in the sense that their music evokes a panoply of traditions
and styles, from fifties doo-wop to eighties indie, but in their
prolificacy, releasing albums almost-annually and slotting multiple EPs
between. Despite this formidable pace, their batting average on fourth
full-length Long Slow Dance is astounding; from the Felt-like 20 Days and 20 Nights to end-of-night lullaby Wanna Do Right By You, all hit home.
The quartet’s second remarkable quality is that they can recall so
many others (The Go-Betweens, The Beach Boys and REM all waltz into
earshot) without rendering themselves redundantly over-familiar. This
is, as promised upfront in the band name, a fresh sounding
record, despite the obvious echoes of past practitioners. Small
flourishes (like the horns of Executioner’s Song) produce significant
ripples, while even at their most straightforward (such as on No
Regards’ unadulterated pop), they prove utterly endearing.
Out now
Deerhoof - Breakup Song (****)
Eleven albums in, Deerhoof inhabit something of a paradox: they
manage to be both predictable and unpredictable simultaneously. They
remain wildly imaginative, their messy musical palette evincing a giddy
disregard for convention. But at the same time, they’ve executed sharp
left turns for so long that swerves have become their hallmark,
rendering Breakup Song idiosyncratically familiar,
despite its unfamiliar components. Thankfully, it’s not as confusing as
it sounds, thanks to the quartet’s evergreen qualities: exuberance,
innovation and a keen sense of fun.
While the syncopated polyrhythms present a
challenge, dancing is encouraged by the title track’s juddering melody
and the samba horns of The Trouble With Candyhands, while Zero Seconds
Pause sees Satomi Matsuzaki extend a more direct invitation (“Now I am
going dancing / If you would care to join me?”). To paraphrase another
track title, Deerhoof Do Parties, and they do it well. Unburdened by
rules or expectations, they remain free to be themselves unreservedly,
to everyone’s benefit.
Out 24th September
Jim Noir - Jimmy's Show (***)
As he approaches 30, Mancunian psych-popper Jim Noir shows no
sign of relinquishing his child’s eye view of the world. Lyrically,
third album Jimmy’s Show is frequently too
whimsical for its own good, with many of its tales (the life of a
chewing gum collector; the torment of wanting a cup of tea when the
caddy’s empty; writing to Her Majesty and imagining her contentedly
vacuuming palatial carpets) the musical equivalent of a novelty tie:
clearly light-hearted in intention, but frequently eye-rolling in their
effect.
Luckily, Noir balances the clangers with expert musicianship: he
plays almost every note himself, evidencing his quirk-pop expertise most
proficiently on the likes of The Tired Hairy Man with Parts (which
starts out a sugar-spun harmonic meander, before nimbly tipping into
something more Kinks-y), and shimmying highlight The Cheese of Jim’s
Command. Inspired moments outnumber slumps, meaning that even at its
silliest, Jimmy’s Show remains enjoyable.
Aleksandr Dovshenko may not carry the same name recognition as
contemporaries like Sergei Eisenstein or Dziga Vertov, but eighty years
on his best work remains as inventive and revelatory as that of Soviet
cinema's favoured sons. His three most celebrated works, Zvenigora (1928), Arsenal (1929) and Earth (1930)
- commonly termed the Ukraine Trilogy, but more enticingly (if less
accurately) re-christened the War Trilogy for this box set -
collectively map key moments in the transformation of the director's
homeland.
Naturally, some of the historical nuances resonate less clearly in a
modern context, but the films remain engrossing at a more experiential
level, with their imaginative edits and dramatic crescendos undiminished
by time. Arsenal makes an especially pronounced impact, its
visions of trench warfare retaining a terrifying intensity, though all
three films possess their own distinct character and points of
recommendation. Even those to whom the phrase 'silent revolutionary
montage' is anathema would do well to take a chance at conversion.
Last night, the GFT kicked off Out of Bounds, a series of once-banned films rescreened as part of the nationwide Scala Beyond season. I introduced the first (Tod Browning's Freaks) in person, and wrote the following notes, which give a very broad overview of all five flicks...
Scala Beyond: Out of Bounds
In 1916, MP and journalist T.P.
O’Connor was appointed President of the still-fledgling British Board of
Film Classification (then the British Board of Film Censors). Tasked
with summarising the Board’s activities, O’Connor drew up a list of 43
potential transgressions that could lead to censorship or rejection of a
submitted film. Viewed at a remove of almost 100 years, the list
appears over-sensitive and absurdly proscriptive. While some of its
taboos – cruelty to animals, graphic depictions of violence – remain
areas of contention today, others are very much a reflection of their
time: some of its more quaint prohibitions include “indecorous dancing”
and “unnecessary exhibition of under-clothing”.[1]
As this bygone
yardstick of public decency indicates, offensiveness is not only
subjective, but integrally intertwined with social and historical
context. Where it otherwise, this mini-season would be impossible; films
branded unsuitable for public consumption and consequently banned would
remain so immutably, the controversies attendant on first release
seared onto their celluloid forever. But attitudes liberalise;
priorities change; societal expectations shift. Themes and images once
deemed inappropriate, unpalatable or even insidiously damaging are
rehabilitated and reappraised. Why and how this happens would need a
dozen theses to even begin to examine, so this note will settle for
something more modest: a brief look at the differing routes taken to
official acceptability (and GFT screens) by each of the season’s five
films.
Beyond their respective notoriety, the selections share
little common ground, spanning Hollywood studio horror, documentary
filmmaking and European arthouse dramas. The earliest – and the one that
went unseen longest in the UK – is Freaks (Browning, 1932). Refused a
certificate by the BBFC on its initial release, and again upon
resubmission in 1952, it took thirty years to reach British cinemas –
and even then, only with an X certificate and an accompanying warning.
By the time it came up for reconsideration in 1994, attitudes had
softened further: examiner recommendations
went as low as PG, a clear demonstration of the fluctuating and
subjective nature of offensiveness. It was eventually classified 15. [2]
A
Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971) encountered no such external barriers,
passed without cuts on the grounds that its contentious elements were
justified by the story.[3] Its ‘ban’ came later, from Stanley Kubrick
himself. Responding to accusations that his film had inspired copycat
crimes, the shocked director withdrew it from UK distribution, a
“victory for the moralists” (in the words of producer Jan Harlan)[4] only
reversed following Kubrick’s death in 1999. A Clockwork Orange holds
special significance to Scala Beyond; it was an illegal 1992 screening
that led to the London cinema’s original demise, sued into bankruptcy by
copyright holders Warner Brothers.
Fifteen years earlier,
another London film club encountered similar challenges when hosting the
UK’s first screening of Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini,
1975). It had earlier been refused a certificate on the grounds of
‘gross indecency’ – but rather than propose cuts, the Board’s
then-director James Ferman extolled the film’s unpleasant but undeniable
virtues, arguing that editing would “destroy the film’s purpose by
making the horrors less revolting, and therefore more acceptable.”
Ferman recommended that the film be screened uncut and un-certificated
to niche film club audiences; when a Soho cinema did just that, police
raided the premises and confiscated the print. While an edited version
was intermittently shown in the following decades, the film wasn’t
granted a certificate until October 2000.[5]
Last Tango in Paris
(Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972) was never ‘banned’ at a national level in
the same way. Certainly, it caused controversy, the infamous ‘butter’
scene in particular. But through negotiation between the BBFC and the
film’s makers and distributors, a 10 second cut was agreed to, and Last
Tango in Paris was granted an X certificate. At council level, some
chose to reject the BBFC’s ruling, resulting in localised
bans in different parts of the country.[6] Nonetheless, compared with the
other films in the season, censorial intrusions were slight; the Last
Tango in Paris that played to sold-out audiences during its initial run
may have been incomplete, but at least it played.
Titicut Follies
(Frederick Wiseman, 1967), an unflinching exposé of conditions inside
Massachusetts’ Bridgewater institute for the criminally insane, suffered
a more exhaustive suppression. Due to premiere at the 1967 New York
Film Festival, the documentary was placed under an injunction, leading
to lengthy court battles. Further restrictions followed, officially
designed to preserve the dignity of the patients, though interpreted by
the director and others as a politicised attempt to deflect criticism
from a rotten system.[7] A judge labelled the film a “nightmare of
ghoulish obscenities”, and until 1991, the film could only be shown to
members and students of a narrow range of medical and legal
professions.[8]
The five films differ, then, not only in the source
and nature of their controversy, but in the extent to which they were
bowdlerised and concealed from the public. While they no longer
scandalise (we confidently predict no placard-waving protests in café
Cosmo over the coming month), they each retain the ability to unsettle
and provoke, whether through their explicitness, candidness, or some
other less specific quality – a residual aura of danger, perhaps, that
serves as a reminder that what we are seeing was once forbidden.
Chris Buckle
Researcher and journalist
September 2012
1 ‘The sbbfc Student Guide 2005/06’,
accessed 3rd September 2012 at
http://www.sbbfc.co.uk/Assets/documents/sbbfc_online_new.pdf 2 ‘Freaks Case Study’,
accessed 3rd September 2012 at http://www.sbbfc.co.uk/CaseStudies/Freaks
3 Stuart Y. McDougal (2003), ‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’:
Questioning Kubrick’s Clockwork’ in McDougal (ed.) Stanley Kubrick’s A
Clockwork Orange (Cambridge University Press; Cambridge) p. 3
4
Video interview, accessed 3rd September 2012 at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2011/may/20/cannes-2011-clockwork-orange-malcolm-mcdowell-video
5 ‘Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom Case Study’, accessed 3rd
September 2012 at
http://www.sbbfc.co.uk/CaseStudies/Salo120_Days_of_Sodom
6
Andrew Pulver (2011) ‘On the cutting room floor: a century of film
censorship’, The Guardian, accessed 3rd September 2012 at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/09/century-film-censorship
7
Robert Koehler (1991) ‘Titicut Follies Arrives, 24 Years After the
Fact’, The LA Times, accessed 3rd September 2012 at
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-10-14/entertainment/ca-574_1_titicut-follies
8 Jesse Pearson (2007), ‘The Follies of Documentary
Filmmaking’, Vice, accessed 3rd September 2012 at
http://www.vice.com/read/doc-v14n9
Six years ago, Grandaddy were collapsed and futureless. By the time final album Just Like the Fambly Cat appeared,
the members had already parted company, leaving the record un-toured.
But as My Bloody Valentine, Pavement and dozens of others have proven
in recent years, nothing’s final in rock n roll; a split is but a
stepping stone on the road to reunion. Grandaddy didn’t shut down; they
hibernated, and now they’ve been rebooted in a future that appreciates
them all the more for their absence.
From logo typeface (squiggly) to attire (Jason Lytle’s trademark
cap), the band seem unchanged by the hiatus, launching into a muscular
El Caminos in the West with nary a cobweb in sight. It introduces an
all-but-faultless set, dominated by Sumday and The Sophtware Slump but interspersed with fan-pleasing B-sides and debut album cuts (tellingly, …Fambly Cat is ignored).
Lytle’s T-shirt reads ‘over the hill’ but the sounds filling the room
say otherwise, from the fuzzy beauty of Jed’s Other Poem to a playful
Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake, with the majestic He’s Simple, He’s
Dumb, He’s the Pilot raising goosebumps at the close. To quote from the
John Sebastian ditty that ushered them onstage at the start of the
night: welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
