Mary Harron: 'I Shot Andy Warhol' (1996)

I Shot Andy Warhol  (1996), director Mary Harron's (b. 1953) first film, centers on Valerie Solanas and her fringe relationship with Warhol. Harron's prior experience as a punk rock journalist probably gave her an insider's perspective -- certainly she recreates the Factory milieu with precision of detail. She orginally envisioned a documentary on Solanas and her infamous works, The SCUM Manifesto, Up Your Ass , and her attempted assassination of French publisher Maurice Girodias (she tried to shoot him at the Hotel Chelsea, but he was out) and Andy Warhol, but after discovering that there wasn't enough archival Solanas footage and few who would speak for her, opted for a dramatic account.

Lili Taylor portrays Solanas as a damaged soul. She's been abused and neglected growing up, and is on her own in the world for the most part, street hustling. But she's smart, and very frustrated. A lesbian turning tricks with men, she is drawn into the Warhol crowd through meeting transvestite Candy Darling (played sympathetically by Stephen Dorff), and tries to interest Andy in her writing. His open door policy lets all sorts of weird people into an already weird Factory scene -- open until she later shoots him, which changes everything.

I Shot Andy Warhol  is an interesting exploration of how commercially successful artists and aspiring artists interrelate. Solanas' feminism plays an important role, too -- her SCUM Manifesto cries foul at men and men's power. A la James Brown's 1966 song "It's a Man's Man's Man's World," Solanas believes it, and thinks the world needs a reverse shakeup. Ideally to her, all men should die. 

Though demented in many ways, Solanas has a point. Why are there so few high profile women equivalents of Andy Warhol? Indeed, even by 2018, why have there been no women presidents in the USA? Why is such a crude and brutish man the current American president, beloved (and also hated) by millions? 

Harron herself, as a woman filmmaker and writer, is rare -- only something like seven percent of directors are women.

The actors put in good performances. Taylor (HBO stalwart on Six Feet Under  and The Notorious Betty Page ) is edgy, scary, mouthy and believable. Jared Harris (Mad Men, &c.) plays Warhol with appropriate cool and nervousness. Donovan Leitch (son of the singer) is fun as Gerard Malanga, and Michael Imperioli serves up Warhol's sidekick Ondine with bitchy camp -- and strong hints of his Sopranos' character, Christopher. Mark the scruffy Revolutionary is played by Justin Theroux in his first movie (Joe from Six Feet Under; Mulholland Drive ): it's his Beretta that Solanas uses to shoot Andy.

After I Shot Andy Warhol, Harron went on to write the screenplay for American Psycho (2000), which she also directed. She also worked on HBO's Six Feet Under  ("The Rainbow of Her Reasons," 2005) and made The Notorious Betty Page (2005). She did The Anna Nicole Story (2013), too. There is continuity in all of her work so far -- exploration of gender issues, fame and notoriety. All interesting stuff. And unsettling. Some of it's funny, some of it's gravely serious, not unlike Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, with whom she clearly feels an affinity for women and mystery.

Today's Rune: Gateway. 

Nik Sheehan: FLicKeR (2008)

FLicKeR (2008), a trippy Canadian documentary directed by Nik Sheehan, delivers a good, eclectic soundtrack via Edmund Eagan, a mix of colorful visuals (archival included) and thoughtful interviews. Plenty of intense, interesting stuff to mull over. 

Watching FLicKeR or a Dream Machine directly, it's hard to escape the occasional bombardment of light -- you may need to close your eyes at times, or feel nauseous. Those who peer directly into the Dream Machine are said in the film to have about a one in four thousand chance of being thrown into a seizure -- especially if prone to epilepsy. Best to keep one's eyes closed in front of the spinning lights and colors. And: unless you want to go blind, don't stare into the Sun. Or so it is said. 

DJ Spooky / That Subliminal Kid

Included:

Kenneth Anger

William S. Burroughs (archival)

Cybernetic Tortoise (1950)

Dream Machine

John Dunbar

Sophie Duplaix

Marianne Faithfull

John G. Geiger (book: Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine) 

John Giorno

Brion Gysin (archival)

Brian Jones’ spirit energy

Jean-Jaques Lebel

Genesis P-Orridge & Psychic TV

Iggy Pop

Lee Renaldo

Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways) 

Ian Sommerville (archival)

DJ Spooky aka That Subliminal Kid

Stooges

And others! 

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

Tim Burton: Big Eyes (2014)

Starting in the late 1950s and proceeding into the 1960s in California, Tim Burton's Big Eyes delivers on two levels: specifically as a finely crafted "milieu film," and more generally as an intelligent musing about art, artists, provenance, impact -- and gender.  Off the wall, I'm reminded of Miloš Forman's 1984 adaptation of Amadeus, the 1979 Peter Shaffer play about classical musicians Mozart and Salieri. Art and promotion, ego and taste, talent and ambition: it's all there. In Big Eyes also, the ghost of Andy Warhol hovers throughout. True story. 

Kitsch, art -- either way, waifs with big eyes caught the popular imagination fifty to sixty odd years ago. Like physical height, big eyes are hard to resist. 

Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz play the leads. As Margaret Keane (aka Peggy Hawkins), Adams has the more difficult, more nuanced role, complicit in her husband's flashy showmanship; but Waltz's character (Walter Keane) has an inferiority-superiority complex, an alcohol-fueled "Jekyll and Hyde" personality, giving him some complexity to work with, too. Both are great -- as is the rest of the cast. 

My two favorite scenes may be the following: Margaret first entering "the club" to see what Walter is up to -- bathed in what looks like infrared light -- stunning on the big screen; and her shopping in a meticulously recreated supermarket, (apparently) hallucinating, seeing "big eyes" on other shoppers and workers, eerie moments right out of a surreal Jean Cocteau film or The Twilight Zone. Right on! 

Overall, Big Eyes is not too heavy, not too light. I dig!

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Pedro Almodóvar: Los abrazos rotos / Broken Embraces (2009)

Pedro Almodóvar's Los abrazos rotos / Broken Embraces (2009): stars Penélope Cruz and is set partly in Madrid and partly on the spectacular Canary Islands / Islas Canarias, off the northwest coast of Africa. 

In this film, Almodóvar uses flashbacks and the present, bits of a documentary about another movie that is like but not exactly Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), and that film itself, as if Mujeres was re-shot in a parallel universe and now called Chicas y maletas. 

Broken Embraces: Lena (Cruz) and her obsessive, bad-tempered sugar daddy (a Howard Hughes type) about to exchange words -- among other things. 

Lena prepares soon-to-be-spiked gazpacho for Ivan during a scene made for Chicas y maletas -- a sight as colorful and sharp as the full arc of the rest of the story.  

Today's Rune: Movement.  

Mexican Revolution 100: US Forces Seize Veracruz, 1914

"U.S. Sailors entering Post Office, Vera Cruz." Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

Why were US armed forces taking over Veracruz one hundred years ago this week?

To quote Andy Warhol halfway in time between then and now, between now and then (for time is a double helix, and a vapory one at that): Why was this happening in 1914? 

"I don't know, what do you think?"

 

"Gathering [Mexican] Dead, Vera Cruz," 1914. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.  

"Every picture tells a story, don't it?" -- as that song by Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood from the early 1970s notes.

"Jackies entering barracks at Vera Cruz," July 15, 1914.  Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.  

 

Funeral parade in New York City for US armed forces killed in Veracruz, summer of 1914. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

'. . . I do hereby, under my authority as commanding officer of the military forces of the United States of America, proclaim that martial law exists in the City of Vera Cruz and the territory contiguous thereto now occupied by the forces under my command, and that such law shall be thereafter extended to such additional territory as may hereafter be occupied by my forces . . . Done at the City of Vera Cruz, this twenty-sixth [26th] of April, one thousand nine hundred and fourteen [1914] -- (Signed) F. F. Fletcher, Rear Admiral United States Navy, Commanding the forces of the United States of American now occupying Vera Cruz [aka Veracruz].' 

2014: Russia, Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Yemen -- what next?

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.  

See the Bells, Up in the Sky: Lou Reed, RIP

The death of Lou Reed (March 2, 1942-October 27, 2013) is a "Proustian moment:" the man, the music, his words and vibe, all serve as memory triggers. All day today and probably well on into the future.

From Lou Reed solo, from Velvet Underground tracks, too, I can remember people, places, trips, journeys, books, surroundings, time drifts, compadre artists and lit candles. Among other things. 

The time my buddy-pal JC and I schlepped our way to Richmond, Virginia, to see Lou and his crazy-electric band rip this joint, the Mosque, on October 9, 1984. (Life lesson: do it!) 

Birds of a feather like Andy Warhol, Nico, John Cale, Stooges, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Laurie Anderson (his widow), William S. Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Bob Dylan, Ramones, Talking Heads, Hotel Chelsea, Václav Havel -- and outward goes the spiral.

"See the bells, up in the sky
Somebody's cut the string in two" 
-- Lou Reed, "What Goes On"

Lou Reed was sharp, pithy, jangly, often a pain in the ass, an artist. With him, beauty comes through distorted guitars and talking songs and words that stick in the mind. Rarely would Lou put up with "a saccharine suburb in the mush," to use the Iggy phrase. Love him or hate him, he was great. A fond farewell. 

Today's Rune: Joy.  

Suor Sorriso / Sister Smile

Bold is a good word for Roger Deutsch's Suor Sorriso / Sister Smile (2001), an Italian language film based on the life arc of Jeanne-Paule (Jeanine) Marie Deckers, aka Sœur Luc-Gabriel, aka Sœur Sourire.

Sister Smile takes the original "Singing Nun" (played by Ginevra Colonna) out of Belgium and moves her decades forward in time, dropping her into Italy at the turn of the latest century.  Despite a framing narrator, the film never explains why. Kind of crazy cool that way.

My initial response: Sister Smile feels in tone like some kind of almost demented blend of Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973) and The Wicker Man (1973). Medievalish, something eerie suspended between an Andy Warhol and a David Lynch movie, with odd production values also looming somewhere in between, a psychological-spiritual disaster-quest played out on the astral plane. 

Trippy and memorable, just not for "family night."

Today's Rune: Strength.   

The Seventh Floor

Checked out the Seventh Floor over in Dallas. That is, the Seventh Floor of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, in the run-up to the 50th anniversay of the JFK assassination. The space reminds me of Andy Warhol and The Factory. I can imagine a lot of cultural events happening here in the near future, one floor above the Oswald perch and the main historical display area. 

  
Whereas the Sixth Floor was jammed with people from all over the place, the Seventh Floor remains underdiscovered and underexplored so far.

In the past, there have been special displays on the Seventh Floor, even when the whole thing wasn't opened up yet. I saw a Jack Ruby display, for instance, a couple years ago, that included his infamous hat from 1963.

Here's a link to the museum in case you're interested in more details.  

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.   

The Charge of the Light Brigade: Take One

Tony Richardson's version of The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) leans more on the Charles Wood-John Osborne script than on Alfred, Lord Tennyson's wildly famous 1854 glory-poem of the same name ("Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die"). And well-written this film is -- darkly satiric, entertaining, interesting. We watch the English officers and troopers and horses of the 11th Hussars ("Hoo-SARS," the men say) training, preparing and heading off to the Crimean War (1853-1856). We see women and men of different socio-economic classes, how they relate  -- a study in manners (including romance) that lets us think about what's different now, what's the same, nearly 160 years later. By the end of the film, we much better see "the reason why" the "Charge of the Light Brigade" happened at all.

Excellent ensemble actors include Trevor Howard as Lord Cardigan, commander of the 11th "Cherrybums" and the whole Light Brigade (hilarious as a character, nightmare as an aristocratic officer); John Gielgud (playing the befuddled one-armed Lord Raglan, veteran of Waterloo); Jill Bennett (as the enthusiastic Fanny Duberly, who has a crush on gruff Lord Cardigan); David Hemmings (the protagonist in Antonioni's Blowup / Blow-up, 1966) as Captain Nolan, steely veteran of conflicts in India; and Vanessa Redgrave (also from Blowup) as Clarissa, part of a ménage à trois involving Nolan and her kindly but dullard husband. Good beans, Wellington! Now: The Brigade will advance! Trumpeter, walk . . . march!

Today's Rune: Growth.         

Malik Bendjelloul: Searching for Sugar Man

Malik Bendjelloul's Searching for Sugar Man (2012) presents the compelling tale of Detroit singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez (b. 1942) and his impact in South Africa. Neglected in the USA, his albums Cold Fact (1970) and Coming from Reality (1971), recorded in Detroit and orginally distibuted by Sussex Records, eventually went big in South Africa and Australia. Meanwhile, back in Detroit, Rodriguez worked construction jobs and lived frugally for most of his years since the inititial album releases, with only sporadic live shows and the occasional overseas junket.  

As for the songs, they feel like a mix of Bob Dylan, Donovan, James Taylor and José Feliciano, as conceived by Rodriguez. Some of them have off-the-wall accompaniment, reminding me of David Essex and his strange 1973 hit, "Rock On" and, again, Donovan. They must have had an impact on the Detroit music scene upon first release. Certainly the title "Inner City Blues" (1970) reappears on Marvin Gaye's 1971 blockbuster album, What's Going On, as "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)."   

In Searching for Sugar Man, Detroit looks terribly beautiful. Rodriguez has an eccentric, enigmatic persona, at turns like Andy Warhol, Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan. Weird, man. His construction buddies are hilarious, especially Rick Emmerson's pithy observations -- he'd be a great person to interview. Rodriguez' daughters are fantastic, very heartwarming people with a touch of bittersweet -- Eva, Sandra and Regan. I love them! Overall, Searching for Sugar Man is a wild ride to and fro the pumpkin patch and back again.

Today's Rune: Signals.          

Every Day Is Not Like Sunday

"The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald's." - Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (1975).

Every town and village and crossroads and city has beautiful, or at least memorable, architecture of some kind -- most assuredly something more unique than the nearest McDonald's. Something beyond branding, transcending the Gestalt shorthand of Big Ben for London, La Tour Eiffel, Sacré-Cœur or the Moulin Rouge for the capital of France, the RenCen for Detroit. 

In Fort Worth, Texas, it's the lay of the land, and the way the rivers meander, or rather the named "forks" of the Trinity River, which sounds a whole lot cooler as el río Trinidad. There are good buildings, and public spaces, too, though here almost nothing standing dates to more than a century ago, a disorienting fact that continues to boggle my mind. It's eerie.

How about where you are, dear reader? Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

William S. Burroughs: Ghost at No. 9

A series of experimental films featuring William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), most brought to fruition by Anthony Balch, involving Brion Gysin and others. Locations include Paris, London, and New York City. Titles include: Towers Open Fire, Ghost at No. 9, The Cut-Ups, Bill and Tony and William Buys a Parrot. 

On first look, they seem a bit strange, but on second thought, they are like splashes of cold water to the face. Time to wake up from our lullaby of daily stock quotations, weather reports, unemployment figures, team rankings, local news, the latest sales, the latest political and celebrity cock-ups and other "normal indicators" of life in modern society. Everything's a cut-up.

Our natural tendency is to try to make narratives, stories, out of our surroundings. But do these "indicators" reveal anything deep about our lives? Or do they just provide a shimmering, ultimately "unreal" sense of continuity? Ask the Buddha, or The Man Who Fell to Earth.  

Or if not the Buddha or a David Bowie persona, how about Talking Heads: 

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?    

"Once in a Lifetime," Remain in Light (1980).

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Jean Cocteau: Le testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi! Take One

Jean Cocteau's Le testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi!* (1960) is the final installment of his "Orphic Trilogy." Essentially, Orpheus is a stand-in for all poets and artists, and Testament of Orpheus is a gently irreverent look back, forward and every which way. As such, it's not quite as coherent as Orpheus (1950), but is still interesting to consider. One thread of this mostly black-and-white film sees "the Scientist" appearing and disappearing almost as much as "the Poet," Cocteau himself, who seems to arrive from 1770 into 1959, at first thinking it's actually the year 2209. In another scene, a tribunal consisting of the Princess/apparent avatar of death (María Casares) and Heurtebise (François Périer), with Underworld poet-guide Cégeste (Edouard Dermithe) as a witness, questions Cocteau and also the Scientist. The first three are characters from the 1950 Orpheus, now ten years older -- a bit trippy in their own right. "Where we are now there is no 'here.'" So it is noted. Also: "We are nowhere."

Above is pictured the fame-machine, or art-culture and commerce nexus. The Scientist has already noted this of the Poet: "I'd say he was a poet and therefore indispensible -- though to what, I'm not sure." Coming across the ticket-streaming phantasm, Cocteau quips to Cégeste, "Fame for anyone in a minute or two," or perhaps it's "Fame for anyone *for* a minute or a two." The connection to Andy Warhol pretty much leaps out at you when you think about it -- the "fifteen minutes" quip, "officially" dating from 1968, in Stockholm, Sweden: "In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."  So it should not be too surprising to learn that Warhol (1928-1987) created a series of prints depicting Cocteau (1889-1963), or that he clearly liked Cocteau's work and persona. Yet few people seem to have highlighted the connection, from what I can tell so far, at least in the wider culture.

Today's Rune: Partnership.  *The Testament of Orpheus, or Don't Ask Me Why!
   

The First Supper

Let's rewind from the Last Supper to the First. Do you remember an early childhood experience dining with family or friends?  I remember many a family meal at a dining room table, and extended family get togethers that often included an outdoors component.  Lost in the mists of time are very early meals experienced as an infant or tiny kid.

In Pennsylvania, we had gatherings that included grilling, corn on the cob, and regular meals made by my Mom that included meatloaf and mashed potatoes, green beans and applesauce lightly sprinkled with cinnamon. I remember early on my Dad having snacks of sardines and mustard, something even to this day I've never tried. How about you?   

Today's Rune: Journey.

The Velvet Underground: The Book Before the Band

There's something a little off about The Velvet Underground (1963), Michael Leigh's initial book on sex practices in the USA, and in the 2011 reprint. First, who is (or was) Michael Leigh? Is this a nom de plume? In the text, it's claimed that he's a journalist. The tone is a weird mix of cornball, hambone and earnestness, like episodes from the 1950s(+) series Dragnet. Is this a big joke? The 2011 foreward is signed "Candice Black" -- the name of a fictional character in Oliver Stone's W. (2008) played by reporter Anne Pressly, now deceased.

On the one hand, The Velvet Underground goes to great gleeful lengths in describing the wild sexual practices witnessed in various historical epochs and cultures, with particular emphasis on the "velvet underground" of married Americans with families, jobs and homes (the Eisenhower nuclear ideal, but in a funhouse mirror); on the other hand, it deplores (or pretends to deplore) scofflaws and the failure of autorities to crack down on them, especially those who flout "decency" laws.

Leigh illustrates how "swingers" corresponded and joined clubs around the USA, sending photos, arranging meetings and throwing key parties, in which partners swapped among each other as randomly as if they were spin-the-bottle-for-your-next-partner games. He also brings up prostitution, homosexuality, S & M, amateur pornography, erotica and co-ed college gatherings during spring breaks. All of this predates "the Sixties" and "the Swinging Sixties" in that Leigh's examples reach back into the 1950s and end, for the most part, in 1961, at the tail end of Eisenhower's and the beginning of JFK's presidency. The rumble before the quake, perhaps. It's worth noting that Andy Warhol's Silver Factory period began in 1962; Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was published in book form in 1963.

Today's Rune: Gateway.

Farewell, Eve Arnold

Fare thee well to Philadelphia-born Eve Arnold (1913-2012). She took a lot of cool photos, of James Brown, Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Cuban woman at bar,  Malcolm X, Marsha Hunt, Gordon Parks, and many more around the world.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

La nascita di Venere

Venus, as painted by Sandro Botticelli seven to ten years before Colombo/Columbus made it to the "New World," could step into this new world of 2011 and walk down a Manhattan sidewalk with ease. Despite hundreds of changes in style and fashion through the intervening years, why is that? And how can an image created more than 500 years ago retain its potency?

Botticelli's La nascita di Venere/The Birth of Venus looks almost like Pop Art, as many others, including artists (see Andy Warhol's remake), have noticed for quite a little while.

Here's a snippet from Roger Scruton's observations in Beauty: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011, page 127): "Botticelli's Venus is, from an anatomical point of view, a mishapen caricature, held together by no skeletal structure or muscular tension, a helpless apendage to the face that looks out so wistfully, not at the viewer but past him -- and yet who cares?"

The original is in Florence -- I've seen her with my own eyes. 

Today's Rune: Partnership.  

The Velvet Underground: Under Review

This popcorn and cotton candy documentary doesn't do much, but it's still a fun little romp through the Velvet Underground's discography. Key players John Cale and Lou Reed do not appear for interviews; these are left to others like drummer Mo Tucker and later addition Doug Yule.

Like time spent with an old friend, it's worth watching The Velvet Underground: Under Review (2006) if you dig the Velvets. Hard to determine who directed this, part of a British series.

Some of the great Velvet Underground tracks:

I'm Waiting for the Man
Femme Fatale
Venus in Furs
All Tomorrow's Parties
Heroin
There She Goes Again
I'll Be Your Mirror
White Light/White Heat
Sister Ray
What Goes On
Some Kinda Love
Beginning to See the Light
That's the Story of My Life
Sweet Jane
Rock & Roll

What am I missing here? John Cale gave the band its initially dark, super-cool sound, and Lou Reed's lyrics tend to stick in the memory. I often think of Reed phrasing. Two lines in particular:

I could sleep for a thousand years (Venus in Furs)

and

Aren't you glad you're married?  (Kill Your Sons)



Today's Rune: Wholeness.  

Jean-Luc Godard: Sympathy for the Devil, Part 2

I. In Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil (1968), the Rolling Stones bring the title song to fruition in the studio, intercut with various scenarios that capture the violence and chaos of Revolutionary Year One, 1968.  In one of the more chilling connections between recording the title song and outside events, Mick Jagger changes the lyric from (in one version):

I shouted out
Who killed Kennedy? 
It was always
You and me . . .

to:

I shouted out
Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me . . .

Why the sudden change?  Because Bobby Kennedy was assassinated on June 6, 1968 -- exactly while the Stones were wrapping up "Sympathy for the Devil," which they had begun recording on

June 4. Eerie. Oh, and, by the way: Andy Warhol, who would design the cover for the Stones' Sticky Fingers (1971), was shot in New York City by Valerie Solanas -- author of The SCUM Manifesto* -- on June 3, 1968. Double eerie. 

In the recording sessions, Mick Jagger is clearly the main driver (the lyrics are his, inspired by French literature and the tumultuous history of humanity), with Keith Richards as the primary musical guru. Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and others provide backup, while, sadly, Brian Jones -- who'd earlier inspired the Stones to expand their sound by including more "exotic" global instrumentation, among other things -- seems to be lost in his own mind, strumming away at an unplugged guitar in his own music box, occasionally gesturing for another cigarette. Like Amy Winehouse in 2011, Jones would be dead at 27 years old, thirteen months after the "Sympathy for the  Devil" recording sessions filmed by Godard and his crew.

Other things to note: the church organ experimentation and slower versions of the song, Keith Richards on bass guitar as well as on, by way of overdub, electric guitar, and Mick, having soaked up Americanisms as well as French literature, singing:

Pleased to meet y'all --
Hope you guess my name!

II. Finally, Godard spotlights the divergent arcs of two movements: Black Power and feminism. Early in the film, we see Black Power militants -- all men -- in an auto junkyard, symbolically executing white women dressed all in white (it's a movie, folks). Later, we see "Eve" interviewed, after having tried to reach Black Power men by phone -- they had not picked up. Later still, we see two black women conducting an interview in the junkyard, perhaps an attempt to bridge the two movements, or to show they remain mutually separated. Hard to tell. As we now know, Black Power was violently confronted by the powers that be, and the women's movement, and feminism, would inspire some changes to the status quo in the 1970s; the whole idea of gender issues would quickly expand to include pushes to reform public policy and cultural attitudes regarding sexual orientation, gay rights and related matters, right through the time of this posting.

*Opening lines:  Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

Today's Rune: Signals.