Halle Butler, 'Jillian' (2015), Part II

Halle Butler, Jillian. Chicago: Curbside Splendor, 2015.

Most often, we see things from the perspective of Jillian and Megan, but we also catch fleeting glimpses of consciousness from other characters, mostly people but also a dog (Crispy), raccoons, trees and a bird. I love this!  Also, it reminds me of Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), in which we briefly see things from the perspective of an alligator and an iguana and hear separate musings about the dreams of a pet fish.

Jillian: Characters central and peripheral. Jillian Bradley, her son Adam and dog Crispy. Elena, Susie, Carol -- church ladies. Julie, Tessa, Emma -- Adam's childhood frenemies at day care. Barb - day care teacher. 

Emily (dog seller). 

Dr. Billings, Dr. Schraeder -- at the gastroenterologist office where Jillian works with Megan. 

Randy - Megan's live-in paramour, often thinking privately about breaking up with her. 

Unnamed cop -- pulls Jillian over and orders her car impounded, inspiring Jillian to concoct a story about hitting a deer, requiring imaginary auto repairs and real pain killers. 

Mike Johnson -- County Clerk's office.

Drug representative with dolly cart -- Jillian and Megan's office.

Carrie, Janet, Jessica, Steve, Bill, Annie, Amanda, David, Will, James, Sarah, Albert, Kelly, Anthea -- various and sundry acquaintances and frenemies, objects of jealousy and competition. 

Loud Jim and unnamed guy on bus -- provide outside perspectives. 

Raccoons, trees, unnamed bird -- provide outside perspectives, sort of Zen, sort of Shinto. 

Not to worry: no deer is injured in the novel. Jillian does acquire TYLENOL® T3 with Codeine for her "accident," though. 

Megan immediately responds to Jillian's not showing up at work: "Her absence was intriguing." (page 102). This is exactly the same way I respond when someone doesn't show up at work, so I can't help but laugh every time I read this -- as with so much else in the novel.

Off the charts: a section on "Memory Palaces" and, earlier, Megan going to a fancy grocery: "That day she thought, 'F**k it,' and went to the smaller grocery store. The store was for rich people, but f**k it, right? There were delights there." 

(page [109]. "F**k" is spelled out in the original, but as I'm not sure what the censorship policies are for blog posts, here I've added asterisks to protect the eyes of delicate readers and keep Puritans at bay).

Jillian's snack choices (and her life choices in general) also inspire knowing laughs -- read and weep!

I'm truly looking forward to Halle Butler's The New Me: A Novel (Penguin Books, 2019) and wish I could read it immediately: "because life just keeps grinding on, right?" (Jillian, page [109]).

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Werner Herzog: 'Into the Inferno' (Netflix, 2016)

Werner Herzog's Into the Inferno (2016), a Netflix documentary, takes us to various places around the globe with its primary focus ever in mind: volcanoes and people. Among Herzog's cerebral meditations and the reliable help of Cambridge volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer, there are startling shots of breathtaking ecology, lava flows, explosions, and people's responses over time to the mysteries of volcanic activity.

As one might expect from Herzog (for those who are familiar with his earlier work), there are some weird, offbeat meanderings into associated mysteries. It's all a bit ramshackle at times, but well-worth the effort. 

Where does the film go? Points of focus include Endu (Endu Pahakol) on the island of Ambrym in the Vanuatu Archipelago, featuring the bemused Chief Mael Moses; Mount Erebus, Antarctica, where Herzog met Oppenheimer; La Soufrire
de Guadeloupe (footage from the 1970s); Katia and Maurice Krafft, who filmed volcanic activity and were "instantly killed by a pyroclastic flow in Japan, together with 41 other people" in 1991; Mount Sinabung, Sumatra, Indonesia; Mount Merapi (Fire Mountain), Java, Indonesia; Mount Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland; Mount St. Helens (Lawetlat'la), Washington; the Danakil Depression, Afar Region, Ethiopia, "300 feet below sea level;" the Erta Ale, "one of the three [volcanoes] in the world where magma is directly exposed;" back to Iceland; on to North Korea and Mount Paektu and mass social formations featuring thin, underfed people; and back to Vanuatu, to the John Frum cargo cult village, and Mount Yasur on Tanna Island.

To the Ends of the Earth and Back Again with Werner Herzog (born 1942)!  A salute also to Peter Zeitlinger (born 1960), Czech cinematographer and filmmaker who shot most of the newer footage for and with Herzog.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Pier Paolo Pasolini: 'Medea' (1969)

Pier Paolo Pasolini's Medea (1969), filmed in stunning locations and starring the great opera singer Maria Callas (1923-1977) in the title role. 

Jason and the Argonauts will be on a collision course with fate: the Golden Fleece and Medea. Chiron, Jason's adoptive father, a centaur, tries to prepare him for life when growing up. "Wherever your eyes roam, a god is hidden. And if by chance he be not there, the signs of his sacred presence are."

Medea with her family in Colchis (modern day Georgia), before the disruptive arrival of Jason and the Argonauts.

Medea and culture shock: beware the coming of the Greeks and their rival gods!

Pasolini's approach is distinctive and unforgettable! Maria Callas shines as Medea! 

At points, I was reminded of The Wicker Man (1973) and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017).  On the one hand, human sacrifice as part of ancient tradition, and on the other, double-exposure technique, superimposing a face (Medea, Agent Cooper) over a key scene, and presenting two versions of an event (the final fate of Creusa / Glauca). I was also reminded of Werner Herzog in the way Pasolini intertwines other-worldly music and free-floating camera work. 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

Werner Herzog: 'Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World' (2016)

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, Werner Herzog's free-wheeling documentary about the rise and impact of the internet inspires thought. Though low-key, the film is consciousness-raising, like Marshall McLuhan's concept of "the electronic envelope" into which we are folded, or McLuhan's "Global Village" (1962) and "Global Theatre" (1970).  

Here, Herzog asks several globally-connected people: "Does the internet dream of itself?" Not coincidentally, Philip K. Dick's dystopian vision is brought into the mix at one point (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- the 1968 novel that morphed into the 1982 movie Blade Runner). 

A scene from LO AND BEHOLD, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. The memorably strange choice of interview setting and style in this scene speaks volumes about Herzog and his creative crew.

In Lo and Behold, Herzog interviews all sorts of people, including the visionary Elon Musk. 

As one fellow movie-watcher noted, Herzog really knows how to shake people out of the trees. 

Several facets of the internet are covered, including cyber attacks, other disruptions in the net, collaborative research, social media personae, self-driving vehicles, people afraid of "the rays," the rise of the robots and upcoming plans for colonizing Mars. 

It's not all good to think about, but behold, even the most oblivious users of the internet are daily immersed in its ways. Much to be aware of and ruminate upon.

Today's Rune: Fertility.  

Werner Herzog: 'Encounters at the End of the World' (2007)

Another stellar documentary by Werner Herzog: Encounters at the End of the World (2007). In it, we are led to meet various workers and other denizens of Antarctica. 

After seeing this, when I think of Antarctica, I dream these and similar images, many of them haunting -- a very strange and compelling impact: why I dig Herzog.

Memorable footage includes people, equipment, research stations, stunning under-the-ice sweeps, seals, bizarre below surface seal communications, penguins, a volcano, and ice-caves created by volcanic fumaroles. 

Herzog always seems to find the strange wherever he goes. Here, Antarctic neophytes awkwardly train for whiteout conditions by wearing plastic boxes over their heads. 

And here, a lone penguin heads into exile. By free choice or through some kind of madness? Herzog wonders.  

Encounters at the End of the World delivers on the promise of its title. It's dedicated to film critic Roger Ebert (1942-2013). 

Today's Rune: The Self. 

Werner Herzog: 'Grizzly Man' (2005)

It took me ten years to see Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005) for the first time; by now I've seen it twice. Didn't like the idea of the main guy and his last girlfriend being eaten by a bear. But it's an excellent documentary, with Herzog shaping Timothy (Dexter) Treadwell's field footage, expanding on it with new material, and providing narration. 

Treadwell, after surviving near death by alcohol ingestion and heroin intake, found a new path in life by camping part of each of his last thirteen years among grizzly bears and foxes in Katmai National Park and Preserve, a massive expanse located at the base of the Alaska Peninsula, which points at the Aleutians. This is a volcanic region, worth noting since Into the Inferno (2016), one of Herzog's upcoming films, focuses on volcanoes. 

Treadwell's thirteenth year, culminating in a last-minute late season stint inside the Grizzly Maze, was not a charm.

A nod to Grizzly Man appears on the promotional postcard for "An Evening with Werner Herzog, August 31, Winspear Opera House / AT&T Performing Arts Center," Dallas, Texas, USA, where I was so happy to hear Herzog speak. On the card, it appears as if a grizzly is sneaking up on him, as in a dream.  

Today's Rune: Defense. 

From Moscow to Detroit and Back Again: Gabe Polsky's 'Red Army' (2014)

Red Army, Gabe Poslky's 2104 documentary, hands us a heady cocktail of strong hockey suffused with bittersweet history. Man, it's chock full of pizzaz and a lot of RED. 

(Note: the great German director Werner Herzog is listed as one of the producers.) 

From this action-packed yet thoughtful film, viewers will catch a pretty good glimpse at the arc of international sports (specifically ice hockey) and dueling propaganda machines within the context of the Cold War, ranging from the 1950s to the end of the Soviet Union -- and then spilling into the 21st century. There are dramatic twists and turns, especially toward the end. Believe me, это дикая поездка.  

Red Army features two of the elite Red Army hockey team's biggest coaches, Anatoli Tarasov (1918-1995) and Viktor Tikhonov (1930-2014).  The latter comes off as a ruthless bastard, with Tarasov as the more favorably critiqued. The cagey Tarasov is shown combining disciplines, studying hockey tactics, chess strategy, the Bolshoi Ballet's precision and the energy of boogie woogie. Brilliant.   

The Red Army dudes end up playing in the NHL for a while, and five of the top guys help the Detroit Red Wings seize the Stanley cup in the late 1990s, which is when I move to Detroit and get to see them play. 

What goes around comes around -- but I won't give away the ending here or now. Who knows? Just maybe you might check it out.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

Jem Cohen: Museum Hours

Jem Cohen's Museum Hours (2012/2013), set in Vienna and starring the city and its environs, the Kunsthistorisches [i.e. Art] Museum, Bobby Sommer, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Ela Piplits, delivers a beautiful and gentle meditation on art, cities, people and birds -- among other things.

I want to publicly thank Gina Mandas for the recommendation. Museum Hours is a very impressive work, with elements that remind me of Werner Herzog and Jean-Luc Godard combined with Tom Ford's A Single Man (2009) in its dazzling yet down-to-earth observational qualities. You gotta live, you gotta see things before departure time -- yes!

By some act of synchronicity, a few days before Museum Hours arrived in the mail, I watched a short documentary about Pieter Bruegel the Elder (circa 1525-1569) and his art, so was extra taken by the attention devoted in Jem Cohen's film to the Kunsthistorisches Museum's "Bruegel Room" and the precision of the Ela Piplits' character's musings about Bruegel's art and life. In the parlance of our day: Wow. Will watch again.

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Karim Dridi: Cuba Feliz

Karim Dridi's Cuba Feliz (2000) gives us a zen musical tale set in Cuba with no overarching narration. We follow El Gallo (The Rooster), Miguel Del Morales, as he visits friends, acquaintances and peers. There is a lot of music and ambience, shot with a single camera and therefore often times carefully constructed. I felt transported after a while into a sort of astral plane of Salsa Blues.

Stuff happens besides singing and playing musical instruments. El Gallo walks, takes trains, gets lifts, sleeps, is awakened by musicians, observes people -- including an older gent doing yoga-like stretches -- and so on. A guitar is handcrafted for him, and he later plays it. Folks of all ages participate in the action -- like a one room schoolhouse for music and culture, with El Gallo moving along to different towns and cities. At one point, a beginning rapper is advised wisely: "First, you have to learn how to listen." 

There's also the beauty and decay of Cuban architecture, the classic cars and the nearby ocean, and even a brief early display of twerking (this in the late 1990s) with a more luxurious consideration of proto-salsa Changüí. 

And that's not all. Pictured here is a scene you might expect from a Werner Herzog film (documentary or otherwise). El Gallo appears to be receiving some sort of blessing in a little chapel-like space in what seems to be Santería, a syncretic mix of Catholicism and Yorùbá religion. Yes, the woman giving the blessings is balancing holy water on her head.

Post script. Because of his moniker, El Gallo / The Rooster reminds me of another troubadour, Curtis "Rooster" Wheeler, last seen playing "Katrina Blues" in New Orleans. More on the latter here.

Today's Rune: Signals.   

Beasts of the Southern Wild: Take One

In the case of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), believe the hype. Take Werner Herzog's visionary imagery and a dose of David Lynch, torque the mix with Amos Tutuola's fantastical energy and add equal parts originality. Presto and eureka, you've got Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar's big bang for the modest buck. Loved it. Fragments of shimmering dreams resulting from seeing this are still swirling in my head. Wow.

Today's Rune: Signals.    

Flight

After the big election, now's the perfect time to see a slew of new movies on the big screen! 

First up: Flight (2012), directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Denzel Washington and filmed in Georgia, USA.  Washington is superb, the movie is sharp and the soundtrack includes songs by John Lee Hooker ("Never Get Out of These Blues Alive") and the Rolling Stones ("Gimme Shelter," "Sympathy for the Devil"). 

Unexpectedly, there are parts of Flight that immediately reminded me of Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) -- and that's a compliment.  

Overall, I liked Flight a lot more than Forrest Gump (1994).

Thanks to his strong but also nuanced performance, Denzel Washington deserves all the nominations for various awards that he'll undoubtedly garner. Let's not forget John Goodman, Don Cheadle and the rest of the film's crew -- all solid.

Official website: http://www.paramount.com/flight/

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

  

Bob Dylan: Tempest

I rarely buy CDs anymore, because albums hardly seem to exist as such these days with iTunes and other downloadable formats making individual favorite tracks available.  However, I wanted to hear Bob Dylan's new Tempest album the tradional way, from start to finish. And here's my response after a couple of spins -- subject to change after further listening.

First of all, a salute to Dylan for fifty years of album-making, without resting on the laurels of a sack full of early hits. Second, special recognition for his combination of lyrical and musical exploration -- carrying the torch for a variety of traditional musical styles while keeping a sharp edge as he looks to the past yet forges ahead. Finally, his singing voice is as gravelly as ever as befits a prophet of primal myth and fragile human fate.

With Tempest, we have  a variety of musical styles blended seamlessly around intense lyrics. As always happens to me when beginning to consider for the first time some film by an avant garde director like Jean-Luc Godard, the visceral question is: can I get all the way through this in one setting? This is awful! When first considering Dylan's Tempest, as with a Godard work, it was only after about ten or fifteen minutes of paying attention that I was hooked. By the time I made it to "Narrow Way," the third track on Tempest, something clicked. I was in for a penny, in for a pound. This was something weird and cool, crazy and tight. By the end of the album, sheer amazement had kicked in -- by God, he did it again!

Some decades ago now, Ian Curtis, the gloomy lead singer of Joy Division, was watching Werner Herzog's gloomy film Stroszek (1977) while listening to Iggy Pop's gloomy album The Idiot (1977) -- whereupon he hanged himself. I thought of this today while Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) played in the background just as Dylan rounded out Tempest with a thoroughly heartrending fourteen minute chronicle of the sinking of the RMS Titanic one hundred years ago -- followed by a sendoff for John Lennon in which early in the song Dylan notes:

He turned around and he slowly walked away
They shot him in the back and down he went. ("Roll on John")

Tempest is a strong pot of coffee, an epic chronicle, so fair warning to those with fragile psyches like Ian Curtis -- you might better stick with humming "Don't Worry, Be Happy" or something along those lines. Seriously. 

For most Dylan fans, though, Tempest will be yet another masterful album to absorb and enjoy, for sure.

The watchman he lay dreaming
Of all the things that can be
He dreamed the Titanic was sinking
Into the deep blue sea.   ("Tempest")

Today's Rune: Fertility.

The Eyes Have Wings

I'm not big on making lists of top this or that, Jimi Hendrix vs. Guitar Player X, yadda yadda yadda, but if I did have to list three of the "most interesting" directors "in the world" since the beginning of film, motion picture shows, cinema and the movies, I'd place Luis Buñuel (1900-1983) in there, Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930) and Werner Herzog (b. 1942). As of right here, right now. And I do have reasons. There may be others as worthy, but if so I haven't seen enough (or any) of their films yet. Am I missing anybody?  

Today's Rune: Fertility.    

Sergei Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky

Sergei Prokofiev scored Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky (1938) in a way that strengthens and enhances the film. He synchronized each passage to fit a particular scene's mood and context. The Teutonic Knights and their "religious" collaborators are given a sinister theme, while the people of Rus rally to a more folksy and mystical aural backdrop. This not particularly subtle pattern has been repeated in numerous other movies ever since, to varying degrees of effectiveness. Here it works.

Off the top of my head, I can think of several scores that inextricably tie film with soundtrack as with Prokofiev's for Alexander Nevsky: in that when one thinks of a certain film, the associated music is also recalled, and when the music soundtrack is heard out of context, one immediately summons memories of its cinematic source.

For instance: David Lynch's Blue Velvet (Angelo Badalamenti, 1986); Mike Nichols' The Graduate (Dave Grusin, Simon & Garfunkel, 1967); the Sergio Leone epics (Ennio Morricone); the James Bond theme (Monty Norman) and also the title songs for most of the 007 series; Woody Allen's Manhattan (George Gershwin selections, 1979). Let me not forget several works by the Coen Brothers, plus Werner Herzog.  

Cable TV series have been underscoring the importance of music selections and soundtracks for quite a while, HBO and its rivals included. Their music archivists and editors have done impressive and sometimes quite subtle synchronization to enhance mood and meaning.

Now, dear reader, aside from musicals and music documentaries, what are some of your favorite movie soundtracks?

Today's Rune: Defense.      

Werner Herzog: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Had the great joy of seeing Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010). In a word: intense. Fire and shadow. Innerworldly. Images that "transmit information across time."  I got the chills, like a person seeing the monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) for the first time, except this isn't fiction. This is the real thing. Human art from 25,000-32,000 years ago. Also in the cave (the Chauvet Cave) are traces of cave bears (including paw prints, scratch marks, skeletal remains and sleeping depressions), ibex, rhinos, horses, and even a child's footprints remain. An artist estimated to have been six feet tall dating perhaps to 30,000 B.C. left many painted handprints -- they
figure it's the same artist because of a crooked little finger.

Leave it to Herzog to be allowed inside the Chauvet Cave to film -- he's clearly an intrepid man who seems to often be making his own luck. Here he finds additional fascination with the various scientific and technical specialists investigating the cave, including people who've studied and recreated prehistoric vulture flutes, pointed weapons and furry clothing. Herzog fans will love it -- everything from dancing shadows to albino crocodiles -- or are they alligators? Beyond that, even a moderately curious person would probably find Cave of Forgotten Dreams pretty compelling.

Today's Rune: Signals.

Jean-Luc Godard: Film Socialisme (Take II)

Godard's Film Socialisme (2010): funhouse, kaleidoscope, house of horrors. Beauty, ugliness. The better angels of our nature, the lesser demons of our nature. Literature and petroleum products. Art and war. A voyage on the Costa Concordia before it sinks.

"Money is a public good."
"Like water?"
"Exactly."

Egyptian hieroglyphs, jarring noises. Patti Smith with guitar. William S. Burroughs. “Casablanca, Algeria, Cairo.” Digital shambolic. David Lynch: INLAND EMPIRE (2006). Patterns. Questions. Suggestions. Palestine.

“I turned away so as not to see.”

Culture bank, watches, gold. Today, past, future. Crisp. Documentary quality. A slice of Robert Altman. “You will have friends.”

"Quo Vadis, Europa – Where are you going, Europe?"
“We look at ourselves in wars like in a mirror.”
“It takes guts to think . . . You have to love yourself enough not to harm your neighbor. . .”

"When you hear your own voice, where does it come from?"

Werner Herzog, Luis Buñuel. A llama, a burro, a petrol pump, a woman reading Balzac: Illusions perdues /Lost Illusions (1837-1843).
“I’m going back down south.”
“If you make fun of Balzac, I’ll kill you.”
To be or to have?  Erich Fromm (1976).

A long line, a suggestion box.

"Today’s August 4, right?"
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of Night / Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932). 
1789, August 4.
Saint Just ‘89.

Tactile, sinks, kitchens, washing up.
Florine and Lucien.
TEXT.

"Liberate and federate our humanity."

"On neither the sun, nor death, can we look fixedly." François de La Rochefoucauld.

Steps of Odessa – Battleship Potempkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Eye of the camera, ears.
Man with a Movie Camera / Человек с киноаппаратом (Dziga Vertov aka David Kaufman, Elizaveta Svilova, Mikhail Abramovich Kaufman, 1929).

Hellas, Greece: Cassandra.

Brion Gysin, cut-up.
Space-time-puzzle.

"When the law isn’t just, justice precedes law."

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Jean-Luc Godard: Film Socialisme (Take One)

Film Socialisme / Socialisme (2010), Jean-Luc Godard's latest movie, is out on DVD. Like most Godard films, love it or hate it. I'm in the former camp and quite happy to see Godard in strong form. I think he played a little prank on some early English language reviewers with "Navajo English" subtitles (which you can choose to see on the DVD version, too, if you wish). The Navajo version cuts out nuance, leaving lines that read as if transcribed from Kraftwerk's "Computer World" (1981): "Business, Numbers, Money, People / Computer World . . ."

The film is jarring but thoughtful, expansive and -- believe it or not -- sweet. 

P.S. No worries for Godard fans. Intercuts, intertitles and Interzone -- they're all there.

Today's Rune: Joy.

Fellini: Giulietta degli Spiriti

Giulietta Masina married Frederico Fellini near the end of the Second World War and remained in that interesting social compact (unconventionally) for fifty years, at which point Fellini died; Masina died five months later. Giulietta degli Spiriti/Juliet of the Spirits (1965) takes an indirect look at their relationship near its halfway point, or so it would seem. As one character states in the movie: "The interpretation is up to you. What can we say?"

Masina plays Giulietta/Juliet, a mostly self-contained middle-aged woman with a strong Catholic background; when confronted with her husband's infidelity, she falls through a metaphorical rabbit hole. This is Fellini's first color movie, and all its heightened effects work together to radiate a world of the spirits. Colors are wild and vivid; sounds echo; the camera moves and all is in motion. The sharp images, incandescent hues and frequent use of shadow create a dreamy, sometimes hallucinatory feel for Giulietta's derangement of the senses. The characters are, well,

Felliniesque . . . Diane Arbus in color. It's a luxurious and unrushed ride.

What I see immediately after viewing Juliet of the Spirits are a series of artistic "hyperlinks" to other movies: back through time to The Wizard of Oz and Fritz Lang; over the rainbow to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal; and coming our way through such visually stunning films made between 1965 and 1986 as Rosemary's Baby, Barbarella, The Exorcist, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Carrie, The Shining, Stardust Memories, and Blue Velvet; and even closer, to the great HBO series of recent years. Interesting company, indeed; with, however, almost no violence at all in Juliet of the Spirits. The music at times reminds me of Woody Allen, for sure; the Italian dialogue is beautiful to listen to, even while keeping up with the subtitles.

To me, the coolest thing in the movie is the furiously fluttering artificial fire that surrounds Juliet as she is being (pretend) burned to death in her childhood school play rendition of a Catholic martyr, a striking image that visits her from time to time.

Today's Rune: Harvest.