Last piece of art that truly moved you

Van Morrison - T.B. Sheets (1967) (as in "Tuberculosis" Sheets )

Van Morrison would go on to make his masterpiece the next year - the entirely original, achingly beautiful and utterly terrifying Astral Weeks - one of the very few original statements in Rock history (along with say Joy Division's Closer (1980) and maybe a small handful of others).......Astral Weeks is one of the 60s greatest albums (and among the best sung obviously) - top 10, top 5, top 3.....whatever.........it's an overwhelming work of Art (capital A).

But T.B. Sheets hinted at Astral Weeks in a more traditional sense - and condensed it / previewed its complexities in one song....... a traditional Blues song - about Death - weird and unrelenting and sung by a man who is NOT dying, - but (now) knows he will..........and it terrifies him and puzzles him ........as he says memorably "it ain't funny, it ain't funny at all"  mocking himself what he said earlier in the song.
 
It is the greatest Blues song about Death (maybe) - and there are a lot of great ones - and it was sung by a white kid from Ireland, who was just 21 when he recorded this.  What could he have "known" of the Blues OR Death?  Like Astral Weeks - the feeling is that the song is being sung THROUGH him not that he's consciously performing it - which of course can't be true but touches on a kind of otherworldly, out of body type experience being transmitted to us.

The improvisational nature of his singing with it's repetition of "I need a drink of water!" ........"gotta go" and "I can almost smell your T.B sheets!" is suffocating where the music - following his lead - is wild and freewheeling - you don't know where it's going but knowing, given the topic how it's going to be "ending"............ even if he gets out of that room.

"T.B. Sheets" manages to suggest Poe crossed with Howlin' Wolf and make that seem logical and not incongruous..........I first heard the song when I was young and it always used to come into my head when I was at church - at a service, or while praying or letting my mind wander and especially.........at a funeral........the song has - not to be overdramatic - haunted me my whole life in some ways.

While I was playing it yesterday for the billionth time, I was mesmerized of course ........... my gf walked into the room (and "rooms" are what that entire song is all about) and said: "what an amazing song" and immediately walked right out and I thought to myself "Yeah"...........while admiring her ability to enter a room where that song is playing...........make that comment..........and promptly walk right out of that room in the first place.

A tremendous song - that I never list as among the "greatest" songs because .......that would be damning it with faint praise and almost an insult to it to label it that way.

A song?  Nah..........it's more a Life Truth.....

4 Works by Georges Perec - but especially - Things: A Story of the Sixties (novel, 1967) ; also The Man Who Sleeps (novel "A Man Asleep" - 1967; film 1974) and Serie Noire (film screenplay 1979)

It seems to me that the appreciation of Art (capital A, yes) is always a battle between impressive perfection vs. messy imperfection - If you know anything about me - and at this stage you probably know everything about me (um) - it's that I usually (not always) really dislike "perfect" things. I like the flaws ...........the writer Georges Perec loves the flaws.

On some level if I'm really moved by something it has to address "fncking up" and convey it in a fncked up way too - my very favorite bands, books, films, actors - are usually those that swing very high and maybe hit very deep lows too - that lean into an understanding of the work and of you ..........rather than a removed, passive, critical awe. This idea is at the very heart of Georges Perec's work which is at times very funny, and simultaneously impossibly bleak........yet somehow consistent and not tonally jarring, or random. It is exceedingly precise.........but his work is flawed too - in the best way (to me) - not because he lacks the talent to convey it better ......he just finds "better" I think closer to a lie - too easy, too agreeable, not "life-like".

I had never read his book "Things" before this week - it's  short and easy read - which is surprising for a master of language (he is certainly that, particularly The Man Who Sleeps) - and a lot of it is written in an off the cuff (seeming) manner - an observational way ................it is kind of a failure in one way but a knockout and very Perec-like in several more ways.

He is obsessed with the idea of leaving, running away, that is the only place you'll find yourself - and never knowing yourself regardless - and here only listing what you've accumulated (hint: he sorta hates you, your possessions, your wealth). In his worldview - never seeing things to fruition and plans always falling short anyway when they're pursued is the norm - whether alone or maybe worse - tied down to someone - which can also just underscore your isolation actually or drive your bad decisions.

In these 4 works, choices for characters are maddeningly (often funny, often grim) irrevocable: To stay is impossible - and his characters are in ruts that are exceedingly long .............but to move is to invite something more horrible to befall you..........greater unhappiness........or something painfully unattainable......that's how fragile life is he seems to be saying - any sudden movement could ruin ...........everything .

Serie Noire (discussed on MAR a lot) is a masterpiece - with one of film's all-time great performances by Patrick Dewaere - but it is a masterpiece of a very messy kind - unlike how anyone else would treat this material (or the original Jim Thompson source text). If you know Perec's work - you know exactly what he contributed to that brilliant script.

The Man Who Sleeps is a masterpiece too (sort of - the film more effective imo than the manifesto-like book). I've reviewed this movie on MAR too but the book / film combination is a very challenging, cerebral one-two punch - the walls closing in on you book merely sets up and the dour, immersive movie - that has the advantage of images - that I've said before could cause or contribute to suicide...............in people who are predisposed to commit suicide. That is a dangerous work of Art imo that is of much brilliance and a noticeable artistic rigor and insidious negative energy and downward spiralization.

"Things" is closer to "The Man Who Sleeps" the book conceptually - but it is about a couple rather than a man - and far more overtly, cruelly funny - referred to as Jerôme and Sylvie - no last names, no distinguishing characteristics individually, they don't speak to each other in this text - that's a huge flaw right? Is it?

I loved this conceit and his touch to include it - we say we need "strong female characters'' (fnck off) so we can "understand each of their stories'' (see previous parentheses) - the removal of the separation makes us see them as functioning unit / concept / conceit - which is also valid ........ a marriage yes, but also a union, a team (ha!), constructed and matched and in this case........increasingly failing.

The book reminds me of some of the stories in Jerzy Kosinski's "Steps" (also 1967) a personal favorite - the "credit card" opening one in "Steps" especially. Kosinski would love this form too - this book exceedingly mocks its central characters - and is essentially an itemization - a list - of that so it seems thorough and redundant. Again, that's not a flaw if you're on his wavelength - it's a purposeful directive.

"Things" is also quite on point in other ways too - the jobs of the couple are in market research which confuses mundane facts with emotions and seeks emotions behind the facts (trust me, it's in some ways MY career - is even worse - "statistics" - UGH). This allows Perec to detour in the writing in a good way.............so it doesn't seem as academic (or a philosophical exercise) as The Man Who Sleeps........... and it is harder to guess how it will play out.

What the couple does aside from work - seems like work itself - with inescapable tedium just transferred to other pursuits that are not supposed to be that way at all.......The book forecasts "list culture" (while being a list itself often) and a sort of trendiness of consumption - which isn't new - but is nowadays almost comically pathetic ......... despite being set initially in 1960s France it could be about anywhere USA - it doesn't matter to Perec - because no matter where you go or when you go.........there you are! You can never run away from you......

Really interesting guy and an artist.......... there also is maybe some of Antonioni's worldview in some of Perec maybe - but like Kosinski not exactly..... similarities extend mostly to the absurdity of the scenarios themselves...........by the way:

I would love to have read a Perec-stab at a screenplay for Antonioni's film of The Passenger (1975) - that would have been an existential laugh riot for Georges I bet........ running away from your life.............your identity.........utter comic absurdity........... absolute dead ends....... and absolute ending deaths.

  

The 1-2 Punch of Manoel de Oliveira's - Doomed Love (shot for Portuguese TV 1978) and Francesca (1981).

I had seen Doomed Love for the first time in January ........ - and I own Francesca on DVD and have seen it 4 or 5 times now - but I decided to waste an entire day watching both recently together. I set my mind to do this - made the house really cold got a blanket and made yet another pot of coffee - and let me tell you - that is a bit longer 7 hours - and it was like watching The Dekalog, Jean De Florette / Manon of The Spring or watch the the first 2 parts of The Godfather in its overwhelming all-timer wallop.

The most penetrating and complete films about love ever made - I recommended another (great) Oliveira film - Benilde (1975) - earlier in this thread about faith and God and a different kind of love (or madness) - another first time watch - but these particular two films operate at such a high level they make his other films look like mere practice runs.

Both movies are so meticulous and acted in an insanely stylized way - where dialog is pronounced theatrically almost directly into the camera - because who gives a sh it about "realism" - have you ever been in love ?!? - there's nothing as mundane as "realism" about it........every piece of these movies has aesthetic triumphs that aids in the presentation - costumes, cinematography, production design, camera placement choices (inspired btw) / mise-en-scène and lighting - both films are exquisitely lit. Compared to other "lush period pieces" in the Romance genre this makes them all look like cheap hand-held Porn basically.

I made a decision to watch these movies in reverse order - Francisca first and Doomed Love second - because I wanted to end this little experiment with the unforgettable last image from Doomed Love..........and, I have to say that was totally the right choice.

Ohh. Very much looking forward to this, Pac. Never heard of Apetri before, seems he was co-producer on The Mend which I like (a sort of mumblecore Mikey and Nicky).  Have you looked into Unidentified… he filmed that and Miracle simultaneously (literally, sometimes on the same day—more in the Variety article).

They're both being jotted around US arthouses this month -- from Film Movement who got Corpus Christi an Oscar nom! I wonder in what direction he'll take the third part of "the trilogy" and what kinda movie he'd make in the US (he's NY-based).  But hold up I still gotta see Miracle. 

If anyone is interested: a link to Unidentified w. English subs below. I think it’s a strong movie, immaculately made, and the performances stun you. Like the disturbed, Liam Neeson-looking lead, and the joke-telling police captain. (They make appearances in Miracle?) Well written interactions, filmed in tightening, intense ways...  I can see what you mean with Miracle. And tho set in the same Romanian area, I read the two movies have a different feel/structure. Unidentified has a push to the pace, more of an unraveling, wretched cop character study.  Not quite Jim Thompson…!

Two 2022s to keep eyes on for Apetri, if we're going by US releases-- take that, Ridley.

variety.com/2021/film/global/bogdan-george-apetri-miracle-1235079805/

ok.ru/video/2924498913850

Oh honeys, Francesca Woodman. I can't work out whether I love or hate her work. Most of it I like (like the images below) but then I'm just infuriated that she killed herself at 22 in 1981, a couple of years after graduating. I mean why would someone do that?







Then there's the documentary, The Woodmans (2010), where I can't shake off the impression that much more was going on with Francesca than everyone on it is letting on: The creepy family where everyone is an artist and Francesca's mother, Betty, saying that she couldn't abide living anyone who wasn't an artist. Did she kill herself because of the pressure to be one to please her mother? The additional weirdness of her father taking up photography after her death and shooting young nude girls... The horribly competative atmosphere.



It's all like some horrible enigma that's shrouded in mystery!

Pink Floyd - "Dogs" (1977) - Length: 17 minutes+

I'm going to say a lot of things that people will roll their eyes at:

I am not a big Pink Floyd fan - though I don't dislike them either - no one did what they did better - which is an achievement for any band.

I don't like much Progressive Rock.

I really don't like long songs.

Most of the songs called "Classic Rock" - especially in the 1970s - are tiresome and boring to me - there's very few "classics" from the 70s that aren't either Glam, Pre-Punk, Punk or Post-Punk - and there's even less of those in the 70s than you might think.

............ and this is an incredibly long, Pink Floyd, Progressive Rock / Classic Rock song.



I think it's the best song they ever did........and one of the best in whatever genre you want to place it in actually. It's deeply affecting if you commit to it - one of the few Rock songs that push the boundaries of the form.

Broken into multiple movements and performed in a way where you notice everything about it - the lyrics, the clarity of how they are sung - you are aware of each line - the deft switches in music, tone and mood, the clean and crisp guitar lines - almost as if that is a different, new instrument. The song itself uses its overwhelming length to lull you into a false comfort - in that way it's the opposite of the "boring" tag that negatively describes Progressive Rock - it actually seeks to pacify you - before destroying you.
Pacification is a theme to the work too - it is commenting on itself......the same way you train a Dog - the song trains you.

The song also has several "tricks" to it - echoes, repetition, dogs barking etc. - with several crescendos that never seem to top each other but peak within their own segment. There is no chorus - the song just moves or often soars - from each passage to the next and when it ends - it ends ........notably down. When it ends - it switches from backing vocals of the preceding line to repeating the final line - it's a great piece of writing in that way - and by doing that it clearly, irrevocably "ends" (twice, actually for the dual subjects of the song).

The final movement - the one with verses the begin with "Who was......" is genuinely thrilling and would not work in a context other than how the song is performed and what they are setting you up for - that ending is truly epic - and scary - and makes perfect sense in the linking of us all humans as "Dogs"........at various points this song suggests the pomp of The Who with the lyrical ambition of Dylan - yet you never feel this songs is outside itself - or straining to work in this very complex compositional style - which is amazing to pull off all by itself.

"Dogs" is impeccably produced too - where the presentation is as inherent to it as the performance: where each instrument and later repetitive of the previous line backing vocals is captured individually yet also synchronized into a lush, majestic whole.

I'd argue this song is Punk Rock actually - there's a lot of Husker Du's Zen Arcade in this song - even though it doesn't meet the aesthetics of that music form (Punk or Hardcore).......but it's as "real" and sustained as any song in that form is too.

A puzzling, unique and very sad piece of work....... Almost impossible to replicate by anyone else in this way......

There's very little music I know that comes close to capturing how I’ve been feeling over the last couple of days... but Corigliano's 1st Symphony seems like the most effective source of musical affirmation for the current moment.

While this piece is actually about a specific crisis - the destruction of the gay community by HIV-AIDS - and isn’t comparable in a simple way to the stripping of women of their freedom and bodily autonomy, I still find the way it expresses and juxtaposes explosive, uncontrollable anger and utter powerlessness and hopelessness in the face of immense loss and injustice to be emotionally apt.

Akio Jissôji 's This Transient Life (1970) - re-watch


I talked a bit about this Japanese movie last year - when I saw it for the first time (reviewed August 7, 2021 Last Movie You Saw thread) - it is the first of his Buddhist Trilogy - a very complex, challenging group of films (they get progressively more difficult though how this movie ends is pretty elusive and challenging itself) ........but you do not have to see all 3 of them to get this one - probably the best "modern" movie that we pretty much ignore entirely on MAR I think (?).

A moralist tale - designed on its surface as an act blasphemy - about the most simple of ethical questions - the movie uses its central plot premise to span across multiple characters and across specific contrasting ideas: the physical - not just flesh but physical - sculptures, architecture, etc - and the spiritual, the sacred and the profane, the moral darkness and the spiritual light..........questions Life and Death and worldviews througout it.

It is not just a film about philosophy but one where the philosophy may spur you into thinking about your own behaviors or how you find small decisions have enormous ramifications outside of your own. It helps if you know something about Buddhism (and a little Shakespeare tbh) - are not bothered by nudity - and care not so much for justice (ha!), but irony and not just irony............ but the necessity of the world - needing the concept of irony in the first place.

This movie has one of the most dazzling visual templates in look and in technical framing - harsh and severe black and white and odd POV shots - in its combination of a distinct filmic style for a bookish and dry philosophical treatise - only Bergman and The Mother and The Whore (1973) really come close to being as memorably distinct from this same era.

A serene yet simultaneously disturbing, upsetting, savage and beautiful film (opposites, again) - that in its conception and execution is as charged and revolutionary a work as anything else from the the early 70s.

August Strindberg's The Pelican (or El Pelicano) - The play, a terrific local staging I saw and to a (much) lesser extent the movie (2019) on TUBI - it's all Pelican all the time lately ......

I used to go to a lot of plays - now, not so much and I have never liked August Strindberg much anyway - but I recently saw a kind of awesome local production of this that was better than any professional productions I've seen.

Not only that - it encouraged me to read the play now - which I never do - plays mostly are meant to be seen not read (with some exceptions - Bug for one which is never staged right, not even the movie btw - it's better to read in your voice, in your head than in Friedkin's version or most other stagings)......and think of how much a particular staging goes into a play.

The Pelican is amazingly modern and also, in the staging I saw - gloriously - out of touch with our times and walking on eggshell sensitivities.......in this staging it's A LOT about evil - and not so much a modern psychological understanding of evil but more of a Biblical vision of the term. The mother is not wounded or a victim of trauma - she may be - but not in any way we see in the theatrical staging explicitly.............it's the children and the husband who have the trauma - reacting to her - and why this works as a moving piece because of them.

She is rather the one who wounds and she does so with a kind of precision that people today may call "misogynistic" a man's judgment on a female .......oh well, tough shit because she's a Bitch / Monster - and the play was staged with the full arsenal of theatrical devices......that make that POV work better than a psychological assessment would have. This was a staging done as horror - but not as much elevated horror - but the Devil is inside of Me (her)! horror.

All Hamlet's ghosts, internal demons of her children, maid, husband - and alternating stylistic devices were layered onto the play to make this old text come to life - in a very creepy way......some of the lighting contrasts literally looked like ghosts ..........in this staging you could imagine Isabelle Huppert at one time giving the greatest performance in the history of anything, ever........she would love to do this and that's even if she never thought it was a big deal before.

The movie (titled Pelicano) is a lesser Joel Coen's Tragedy of Macbeth in its black and white aesthetics - but (way) more as a slightly cheap, minimalistic telenovela starring instead of Isabelle Huppert (or Frances McDormand) a (sort of) sexier Nancy Pelosi (not a joke, look up the movie or watch the first few minutes on TUBI).

It's not anywhere as good as the Coen movie but it's about as much "full Pelicano" as that was a "full Macbeth" which it wasn't really - the middle of the both seems gutted so they seem incomplete .........The movie Pelicano is maybe worth seeing if you don't know it before - but not gonna lie:

A bunch of amateur grad students just staged this better and more dazzlingly than they even came close to doing in the movie.

Just goes to show you..........you never know.......even when you think you know......

A Fugitive from the Past (Kiga kaikyō) - 1965 - directed by Tomu Uchida

I loved this movie - it's on Youtube - I highly recommend this to everyone with an interest in 60s Japanese cinema.......I could not find any posts on MAR about it (?)

A lot of this reminded be of my two favorite movies so far in 2022 Miracle (2021 / 2022 US) and Decision To Leave - on one hand it's a film about a cop - but without the trappings of a typical cop movie. Like Miracle - there's religion sprinkled throughout ........and like Decision to Leave - its setting is a key thing in what you see
Like both movies there are increasing moral stakes, many improbabilities and things you just have to buy or the movie will fall apart......

But to me all the flaws played as simultaneous pluses - again like the 2 modern films - where nothing seems to be happening but it reveals itself at a glacial pace that pulls you in even while pacifying you - the movie is almost 3 hours......but it is not inappropriate to say it's somewhat like Heat and High and Low in its viewing effect.....this is also a pretty highly acclaimed film that doesn't seem to be widely seen - it's a 7.9 on IMDB and a 4 on Letterboxd but with less then 1,000 ratings on each

The movie is about, as far as I can tell a sort of cycle of Life / Hell ........where something happens to you that could ruin you, yet that same thing could - but not necessarily will .....(possibly) save you.....

This was the best first time watch of 2022 for me after Doomed Love (1978) - and like that I've thought a lot about it in retrospect.....it has that quality to it that I sometimes say is the difference between "depressing" and "tragedy" - depressing makes you want to cry.......tragedy actually makes your pulse quicken and say "yeah that's the way it is"

Great movie....

Shima Iwashita & Ken Ogata in The Demon (1978) - by Yoshitarō Nomura - on Criterion Channel


I was going to put these 2 performances in "Last Great Performances" but I think the movie goes along with them into this dark hole addressing adulthood and its potential terrors.

* There's actual "child abuse" - to some degree - in this movie so let's get that out of the way........the kids have food shoved in their mouths and regularly cry - and not "acting" crying and not "acting" in how they're reacting. If you can't watch that - I totally get it - it's not like watching Polanski or something where you are removed from "the event in question" when you watch Chinatown or Tess (or at least I am). Here you are not removed - it's closer to watching a Herzog where the cast was exploited or animals hurt etc. but not hidden from you.

I reviewed this movie already (Aug 20, 2021 Last Movie You Watched Thread) - last year I saw 4 movies - 3 great, 1 good - all 1st time watches -- all with the word "Demon" (1978 and 1963) or "Demons" (1971) or "Laplace's Demon" (2017) ......I had a Devil of a time with them, it was Hell keeping it straight (um).......then I watched this again and yeah, still a knockout, still absolutely nightmarish to sit through.

Iwashita is searing in his movie - and not just as a character - but in her actual performance because she continually does things that illustrate that none of this is her fault, so therefore in this framework NOTHING is her fault. This is a fearless piece of work and she does not have a false moment in a role that could have a million of them. That element in her portrayal - which she suggests through a believable egomania - this "not my fault, not my problem" element - is played repeatedly against the movie's point - it's never about fault, but responsibility.

One of the least "winking at the audience" performances I can think of - and deeply complex too where she could be cartoonish - Iwashita is not only well played, but the character is also logically drawn dramatically - there's Art here too - not just provocation. That sets up Ogata's whole conception of how to play his part too - these performances are in total sync - and he is more vague, actually more frightening and weirdly more pathetic......especially if you think through what "may" or "may not" be true.

Ogata gives a very precise and controlled turn of a guy whose moral center slips before he incrementally slips even further ........his character's arc is otherworldly and relatable at the exact same time. It is so good - and so measured - that it is somewhat incredible that he isn't blown off the screen by Iwashita - but he isn't - instead he counterbalances her.

One of the most overwhelmingly sad, most depressing movies I've ever seen but also in particular in how it's made which makes it hard to shake off.........probably will require years of therapy for anybody foolish enough to watch it twice (yeah I know).....

Everybody should watch it once.