Movie Night With Urbaniak: Yukoku, Z
Two political thrillers of extremely different stripes this evening. The first, Yukio Mishima’s short 1966 film Yukoku and then Costa-Gavras’s 1969 political thriller Z. The two movies could not be more unalike: Yukoku is brief, stark, weird, highly stylized and almost freakishly intense, Z is naturalistic, frenetically shot and edited, alarming and intensely furious. The fact that they were made around the same time and come from polar opposites of the political spectrum make the evening that much more fun.
Yukoku is based on a short story published in the US as “Patriotism,” which is essentially a dry, clear-eyed, blow-by-blow account of an army officer committing seppuku. The movie is much more stylized, artsy even, with its abstract sets, lack of dialog and dramatic lighting. The officer comes home, greets his wife, explains the situation with her, she agrees to also kill herself, they have serious, intense, dramatically-lit sex, he gets dressed and kills himself, she goes and puts on fresh makeup, then comes back and kills herself too. A lot of Mishima’s key themes are distilled into this 25-minute movie — the changing nature of Japanese culture (which Mishima despised, being politically conservative in the extreme), the importance of dying while still beautiful, the tying together of sex and death and the compulsion to make one’s death a work of art. (Of course, most people these days watch Yukoku, if they watch it at all, because Mishima later killed himself in a manner startlingly similar to what he does in this movie.)
Mishima, surely one of the most egotistical men of his day, strangely declines to give himself a single close-up in this most personal of stories. Instead, he hides his face behind the bill of his army hat through the whole movie, giving all the close-up time to the actress playing his wife. She becomes, essentially, the protagonist of the movie — the army officer remains opaque and unknowable, while his wife (and by extension, we) are meant to fall desperately in love with his noble honor and tragic beauty. After her husband dies, the wife goes to freshen up and there is a terrific shot of her silk robe dragging through the pool of her husband’s blood on the floor. On the one hand, one says “ick,” but on the other hand, the shot drips (sorry) with symbolism and beauty, which kind of sums up my feelings about Mishima in general. On the whole, I’d rather he go on making experimental films instead of killing himself in a meaningless political gesture, but then I probably wouldn’t be sitting here thinking about him.
Z is a whole different kettle of fish.
Here in the US, we’re completely comfortable watching movies about Russia or Italy or Spain and seeing American actors speak English with cheesy accents — we don’t think a thing about it. But when watching Z, it’s disorienting for a while because it’s a movie set in Greece about Greek people but is shot, um, somewhere that’s not Greece (I think French Morocco), starring an all-French cast speaking French. On top of that, the filmmakers have made the decision to not try too hard to make their locations look authentic, which means that it feels like all you need to know is that it’s a political thriller that takes place in some sunny country. (At the time of course, the story was not only fresh but still going on, so none of this had to be explained to anyone.)
For the first half, it’s a political thriller par excellence, shot with such verisimilitude as to be startling and confusing. Nothing is explained, nothing is slowed down for the newcomers or Americans. There’s some kind of country, and it’s run by some kind of quasi-fascist regime, and an opposition leader is coming to town for a rally. We see the rally organizers trying to nail down the specifics of their upcoming event, we hear that there is a threat of assassination in the air, we see the general political unrest in the streets. We (at least we in 2007) don’t know which side anyone is on, who to root for, or even who the protagonist is. We’re just kind of plunked down in the middle of this situation and left to fend for ourselves. The shooting is all documentary style, handheld cameras and whipcrack pans, with a few artsy little flourishes, and then just when we’re getting oriented to who’s who and what’s at stake, the opposition leader gets assassinated and the movie changes gears.
53 minutes into the narrative, the protagonist shows up, the special prosecutor hired toinvestigate the assassination, and the movie becomes a detective thriller as we watch the prosecutor gather evidence, track down leads, and piece together the chain of events that led to the assassination. It’s almost unbearably thrilling, because we are in the exact same situation as the prosecutor — we just got here, we saw everything happen but we have little idea what any of it means. So as the scope of the conspiracy becomes clear and the stakes rise, our anger towards the people responsible gets greater and greater.
I first saw this movie in 1981 or so and thought “Wow, fascinating, what interesting places these horrible little tinpot dictatorships are,” and last night, of course, James and I could not help but be reminded of what our country is going through right now. We watch as government officials edit intelligence reports to fit a pre-decided outcome, twist and distort language to serve ideological ends, smear, intimidate and destroy their political opposition and finally kill anyone who disagrees with them, banning the use of language itself when it contradicts the official viewpoint, and it’s like being granted a backstage view at the White House. Halfway through the movie, I had a vision of the 28-year-old Dick Cheney watching this movie in 1969, watching how the fascists operate and whipping out a notebook, nodding along, saying “uh huh, got it, good, oh that’s a good one, yes, ah yes, indeed.”
Late in the movie the prosecutor is delivering his findings to his government superior, who grows increasingly upset as the story is accurately assembled before his eyes. The prosecutor, who has no agenda other than finding out who done it, turns up his palms, almost apologetically, and says “these are simply facts,” which is, of course, why his boss is so upset, and which is why the scene resonates with us so strongly today. We live in a country where the simple stating of facts is considered a dangerous left-wing attack on the government.
The fascists of Z despise modernism, long hair, rock music, liberalism and lack of respect for the government. One wonders whose side Mishima would have been on while watching the movie.
Girl in the Ashes part 2
FATHER.
I have returned from the fair! For my beautiful step-daughter, the most beautiful dress in the kingdom!
STEPSISTER 1.
Oh thank you Step-Father!
FATHER.
And for my other beautiful step-daughter, a string of pearls fit for Neptune’s Wife!
STEPSISTER 2.
Oh they’re lovely! Thank you!
FATHER.
And for my beautiful – Christ, what happened to you?
CINDERELLA.
Father, I –
STEPMOTHER.
The child has turned against us, husband. No doubt from prolonged grief over the death of her beloved mother.
STEPSISTER 1.
She won’t sleep in our room any more!
STEPSISTER 2.
She thinks she’s better than us!
STEPSISTER 1.
She thinks she’s a princess!
STEPSISTER 2.
She’s a sickening little twerp!
STEPSISTER 1.
She sleeps in the fireplace, Step-Father! She sleeps in the ashes!
STEPSISTER 2.
She calls herself Cinderella!
FATHER.
Dear Lord. Wife, is this true?
STEPMOTHER.
I’m afraid it is dear Husband, my daughters do not lie.
FATHER.
Well then, Cinderella, since that is now your name, here is your present: a stick. Funny, I don’t remember you being such a strange, conceited, perverse little girl before. Good thing I have other daughters now. Come embrace me, daughters!
(The STEPSISTERS embrace him.)
STEPSISTER 1.
We love you, Step-Father!
STEPSISTER 2.
Oh so very much, Step-Father!
STEPMOTHER.
Husband, you must be so thirsty after your long ride. How about a nice draft of grog for the Great Provider?
FATHER.
Well, I’m not one to turn down a nice draft of grog. Thank you Wife. To Upward Mobility!
(He drinks, chokes, dies.)
CINDERELLA.
Father! No! Father!
STEPMOTHER.
Oh dear, he’s dead. What a terrible tragedy. Daughters, don’t touch the dead body. Cinderella, see if you can’t get him in the ground before dinner. And for God’s sake, wash up before you touch our food.
(They exit. CINDERELLA takes the stick to her mother’s grave.)
CINDERELLA.
Mother, oh Mother, help me please! You’ve got to help me! I don’t think I can go on any longer! They’ve killed your husband now; I’m condemned to a life of slavery! You said you would watch over me; where are you! All I have left in this world is a STICK. If it will make you help me, I now give it to you.
(She thrusts the stick into the ground and collapses in tears. Unseen by CINDERELLA, the stick grows into a tree.)
Please, Mother, please. HELP me. HELP me. I can’t do this by myself.
(STEPMOTHER enters.)
STEPMOTHER.
Cinderella! Cinderella! Wonderful news! — Zounds, I don’t remember that tree being there before. Oh well – Wonderful news, Cinderella!
CINDERELLA.
My father isn’t dead? My mother has heard my prayers?
STEPMOTHER.
Uh…no. No, the King is giving a Grand Ball! And we are all invited!
CINDERELLA.
A, a Grand Ball? What holiday is it?
STEPMOTHER.
That’s just it, it isn’t one! I hear that the real reason for the Grand Ball is so that the Prince can choose himself a bride!
CINDERELLA.
Oh, that is wonderful news! Then we must get all dressed up, and look our best, and –
STEPMOTHER.
Yes we must, and so we’re going to need your help. After you bury your father and serve us our dinner, you must start in on making us the most beautiful dresses you can think of. And we’ll have to sell off all your father’s possessions so that we can buy some decent jewelry. That is the way to catch a man; you must look as though you don’t need the money, then he will shower you with riches. Packaging is everything. Imagine me: the mother of a princess! And once the King is out of the way, QUEEN MOTHER. ME.
CINDERELLA.
But Step-Mother, what am I going to wear?
STEPMOTHER.
Wear? When?
CINDERELLA.
To, to the Grand Ball.
STEPMOTHER.
You? Dear, you’ll have so much to do with getting your sisters ready, I doubt you’ll have the time or energy to go to any Grand Ball. Now what is that dead man still doing in the kitchen? Are you going to mourn him all day?
INTERPRETER. (to AUDIENCE)
The Grand Ball. The Grand Ball. At the Grand Ball, the Prince will choose his bride. Well, where I grew up, we didn’t have Grand Balls. We had School Dances, but the School Dance was an event for which I was singularly ill-suited. I could not dance, I would not dance, my clothes were ugly and years behind the fashions, I was funny-looking and asexual and incompetent. I was one of the army of geeks and clowns who stood at the edge of the gymnasium and sneered at the others, the Farrah-haired cheerleaders and the blow-dried jocks, who fooled themselves into thinking they were having a good time. No, these were not the Grand Ball. The Grand Ball, for me, took place in a much larger arena. The Grand Ball was the complicated superstructure of society, the innumerable transactions and negotiations with teachers and girls and parents and friends and enemies. This is the Grand Ball to which I was not invited. The World. The World was the Grand Ball to which I was not invited.
(The Day of the Grand Ball. CINDERELLA, STEPMOTHER, STEPISTERS.)
CINDERELLA.
Step-Mother, the Grand Ball is tonight. Are you all satisfied with your dresses?
STEPMOTHER.
Girls, are you satisfied with your dresses?
STEPSISTER 1.
Oh yes! Mine is more beautiful than the sun!
STEPSISTER 2.
And mine glitters and sparkles like the stars!
STEPSISTER 1.
We’re sure to catch the Prince’s eye with these outfits!
STEPSISTER 2.
Yes, it seems that, that girl over there is quite talented, for a monkey anyway.
STEPSISTER 1.
Oh you mean that girl in the ashes? Our Princess?!
(They laugh.)
STEPMOTHER.
Oh you little golliwogs, you do make me laugh! Yes, Cinderella, it appears we are satisfied.
CINDERELLA.
Then, since I’ve made the dresses, and you have your jewelry, and my chores are all done for the day, would it be all right if I went to the Grand Ball?
STEPSISTER 1.
Go to the Grand Ball? YOU?!
STEPSISTER 2.
Yeah, you’re a disgusting little mudskipper, what would you do at the Grand Ball?
STEPMOTHER.
Now girls, remember what I told you, excessive cruelty is unladylike. Cinderella, you can’t go to the Grand Ball, you’re unclean.
CINDERELLA.
Oh, I can wash up in no time!
STEPMOTHER.
But you have nothing to wear.
CINDERELLA.
Well I thought maybe I could borrow one of my step-sisters old dresses. If-if it’s all right with them.
STEPSISTER 1.
Oh sure you could – in your dreams!
STEPSISTER 2.
Cooties! Cooties! Cooties!
(They exit laughing.)
CINDERELLA.
Or I could make a dress, you know, out of leftover scraps. And things. It won’t take me long.
STEPMOTHER.
Really. Well. Yes, well I suppose, if you can get yourself cleaned up and make yourself a presentable dress, I suppose –
(She suddenly hurls a cup of linseeds into the fireplace.)
Oh drat, look what I’ve done, clumsy me, I’ve spilled a cup of tiny linseeds into the ashes. We can’t have that, can we? All right Cinderella, look: if you can pick every one of those linseeds out of the ashes in an hour, then you may go to the Grand Ball. Okay? Wonderful.
(She exits. CINDERELLA, despondent, goes to her mother’s grave.)
CINDERELLA.
Mother, where are you?! This is my only chance for happiness and I’m all alone! You’ve forsaken me! You’ve abandoned me! You’ve –
(MOTHER enters in the guise of a bird.)
BIRD.
No I haven’t, Cinderella. I’m right here in the form of this bird. I will never forsake you. I will never abandon you. Here: follow me.
(They go into the kitchen.)
Watch: I will pick up those seeds by myself in no time at all. You just watch.
(And she does. It takes no time at all.)
There: here is your cup of seed. Call your step-mother.
(BIRD flies off away from the action.)
CINDERELLA.
Step-Mother! Step-Mother!
(STEPMOTHER enters.)
STEPMOTHER.
What is it, you urchin? I haven’t got all day.
CINDERELLA.
Here are the linseeds. I picked them all up from the ashes. It didn’t take long at all.
STEPMOTHER.
Really? Let me see.
(She takes the cup.)
My God. They’re all here. How did you do this?
CINDERELLA.
Oh. Well, a little bird helped me.
STEPMOTHER.
A little bird indeed!
(She throws them into the fireplace again.)
Pick them up again!
(She throws in another cup as well.)
And pick up those as well! I’ll teach you to smart off to me! Little bird!
(STEPMOTHER exits. BIRD flies to the fireplace and picks out the seeds again while CINDERELLA bemoans her fate.)
CINDERELLA.
Oh no! Two cups! What a disaster! I could never pick up two cups! Not in a million years! Now I’ll never go to the Grand Ball! My life is ruined! Ruined! Ruined!
BIRD.
Daughter –
CINDERELLA.
Ruined!
BIRD.
Daughter –
CINDERELLA.
Ruined! What?
BIRD.
There are your seeds, back in their cups. Call your step-mother.
(BIRD flies away.)
CINDERELLA.
Step-Mother! Step-Mother!
(STEPMOTHER enters.)
STEPMOTHER.
Oh for Heaven’s sake, what is it now? I still have to put my face on, I can’t be traipsing back and forth on every whim –
(CINDERELLA holds out the cups.)
CINDERELLA.
Here they are, Step-Mother. All done. Surely now I can go to the Grand Ball.
(Pause. STEPMOTHER strikes CINDERELLA so hard that she falls to the floor. The cups of seed go flying.)
STEPMOTHER.
You stupid crustacean! This isn’t about seeds, this is about you. You will never be suitable company for me and my daughters no matter how skilled you are, no matter how fast you work, no matter how many Little Birds you have working for you! Don’t you get it? Don’t you GET it? You’re a freak, Cinderella! You’re not fit to walk the earth! You have no soul! You would be better off if you were born dead! Forget about the Grand Ball! Forget about it! YOU ARE NOT WORTHY.
(And she exits. Pause.)
BIRD.
Daughter –
CINDERELLA.
Oh my God.
BIRD.
Daughter –
CINDERELLA.
She’s – she’s –
BIRD.
Dear –
CINDERELLA.
She’s right. She’s right. How could I be so blind. She’s absolutely right. I am worthless. I am worthless. I’m a blot on the landscape. I’m a fifth wheel.
BIRD.
No, Daughter –
CINDERELLA.
I’m a slug. I’m a frog. I’m a worm.
(BIRD exits.)
I’m dirt. I’m mud. I’m slime. I’m scum.
(BIRD enters with dress and slippers.)
I don’t deserve a life What was I thinking? Did I think I was human? Did I think I was likable? Did I think I was –
BIRD.
Daughter!
(CINDERELLA looks up.)
This is your dress. You will wear this to the Grand Ball. These slippers are made of gold. No one will be able to take their eyes off you. You will be special. You will be so special. You will be the Belle of the Ball.
CINDERELLA.
Oh. Oh. Mother, it’s, it’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful.
INTERPRETER. (to AUDIENCE)
My mother tried to buy my clothes, but I had the worst taste in fashions imaginable. I had no sense of color or pattern or style. I wore stripes with spots with plaids. The clothes I liked looked horrible together. The clothes I wore made me look retarded. The only reason I never worried about it was that I assumed that no one ever looked at me. I assumed I was invisible. I assumed I went unnoticed. So no, clothing was not my ticket to the Grand Ball. Clothing was not my disguise. I could not use clothing to hide the fact that I was unworthy, that I was undeserving, that I was an interloper, that I was a party-crasher, that I did not belong at the Grand Ball. I had to use something else. But I didn’t know what.
And one night, quite late, when I was still young and my mother was not yet sick with cancer, the two of us were up late watching television together, as we did sometimes, and I got on some self-pitying kick, griping and moaning about how no one likes me, everybody hates me, think I’ll eat some worms, yada yada yada, and my mother says look at this guy. And I look at the TV, there is Sammy Davis Junior. He’s singing. In a Nehru jacket. And beads. With rings like huge blisters on his fingers. And my mother says “Look at THIS guy. He’s black, he’s Jewish, he’s short, he’s ugly, he’s got one eye. Have any of those things stopped him?” No. They had not. He was singing on our TV, if they could see me now, that old-time gang of mine.
So that is what my mother gave me instead of a glittering dress and golden slippers. She gave me show business. She loved movies, loved movie stars, loved theater, loved musicals. She showed me that show business is the natural haven for losers like me, the natural disguise for all the humpback dwarfs, the two-headed girls, the freaks, the ninnies, the feebs, the dweebs, the screwheads. Show business could be my disguise for crashing the Grand Ball.
Girl in the Ashes, part 1
MOTHER.
Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.
CINDERELLA.
Are, are you, are you going to, to get better?
MOTHER.
You don’t need to cry.
CINDERELLA.
Are, are you still going to take care of me?
MOTHER.
Don’t be sad.
CINDERELLA.
Are, are you and Father going to still love each other?
MOTHER.
Sh, baby, shhh.
CINDERELLA.
I’m scared. I’m so scared.
MOTHER.
Listen to me. Listen: I am very, very sick. And I’m not going to get any better.
CINDERELLA.
No.
MOTHER.
Sh, now listen. The world has just taken too much out of me. I just don’t think I can go on any more. And it isn’t you, and it isn’t your father, and it isn’t any one thing. It’s just time for me to go. I love you, more than you know, more than anything in the world. But I’m too weak to go on.
CINDERELLA.
No! I’m scared.
MOTHER.
Don’t be scared. Everything will be fine, and you have to trust that. Have faith. Listen: when I go, you have to promise to be good. Be good. Do you hear me? And if you are good, every day, as good as you can be, heaven will help you out of trouble, and I will be your guardian angel. Okay?
CINDERELLA.
But –
MOTHER.
No but. Be good. Okay?
CINDERELLA.
Mother –
MOTHER.
Sh. Tell me you’ll be good. Will you be good?
CINDERELLA.
Yes. I’ll, I’ll try.
MOTHER.
That’s all I can ask. Come here baby.
(They embrace. INTERPRETER addresses the audience.)
INTERPRETER.
My mother died of intestinal cancer when I was sixteen years old. Cinderella lost her mother at a similar age.
I can’t remember the first time I was ever told “Cinderella.” It was just always around, with Hey Diddle Diddle and the Cat in the Hat. But I always liked “Cinderella,” and since everybody else liked it too, I never really thought too much about it, just a fairy tale with a happy ending. But it spoke to me in a very specific way which I didn’t understand for years and years. Somewhere back in my early childhood, I found in “Cinderella” nothing less than a blueprint for my life.
(CINDERELLA at her mother’s grave.)
CINDERELLA.
Mother, I’ve tried so hard to be good. I, I really have, but it’s so hard. Father has married again and the woman is so, is so mean to me. I, I know that it’s wrong to judge other people, and I know it’s wrong to think bad thoughts about other people, and she and her daughters are very, very beautiful, but it’s so, so hard to keep loving them and loving life when they are so mean to me. They think they’re so much better than me, and they’re not. And if you’re watching me, then you know they’re not. It, it makes me so, so confused, to be so good and to be treated so bad. If I could just, if I could just, if I could, could just –
(In the kitchen, the STEPMOTHER and STEPSISTERS.)
STEPSISTER 1.
Uh huh, she’s out back talking to the dead mother again.
STEPSISTER 2.
What a drip. She’s disgusting.
STEPSISTER 1.
Mom, do we have to live with this obnoxious little toad?
STEPMOTHER.
Now sweethearts, her father is very wealthy and soon I hope to be his grieving widow. Be patient with her: at least we don’t have to waste money on a maid.
STEPSISTER 2.
Yeah, but she’s so annoying!
STEPSISTER 1.
Yeah, she really makes me sick! Can’t we do anything about her?
STEPSISTER 2.
Yeah mom, please? It’s agony just living in the same room with her.
STEPSISTER 1.
Yeah mom, don’t you love us?
STEPSISTER 2.
Pleeeease?
STEPSISTER 1.
Pleeeeeeeease?
STEPMOTHER.
All right my darlings, all right. I’ll see what I can do.
(CINDERELLA enters.)
CINDERELLA.
Stepmother dear, I’ve finished cleaning out the septic tank.
STEPMOTHER.
That’s nice dear. Now you need to mend my dresses, cut ribbons for your sisters’ hair, feed the animals, milk the cow and I think we’d like dinner at six.
CINDERELLA.
Yes ma’am. Of course ma’am.
STEPSISTER 1. (aside to 2, mimicking)
(Yes, ma’am, of course ma’am.)
STEPSISTER 2.
(What a jerk.)
(They crack up. Father enters.)
FATHER.
Good morning wife, good morning step-daughters, good morning my darling child! I’m off to the fair! Is there anything I can get for you?
STEPSISTERS. (ad lib)
Oh yes! Yes! Oh yes please!
FATHER.
Hold on, kids! One at a time!
STEPSISTER 1.
I want a beautiful dress!
STEPSISTER 2.
I want a string of pearls!
FATHER. (to CINDERELLA)
And you, my sweet one, what would you like?
CINDERELLA.
I –
STEPSISTER 1.
Oh, she’s too shy to ask for anything.
STEPSISTER 2.
She did say earlier that she wanted a, a –
STEPSISTER 1.
A stick.
STEPSISTER 2.
Yes, a stick.
STEPSISTER 1.
A stick.
FATHER.
A stick? You mean, like, from a tree?
STEPSISTER 1.
Yes, just a stick.
STEPSISTER 2.
A plain old stick.
FATHER.
Huh. Okay. So: dress, pearls, stick. Got it. All right, I’m going, be good!
(He exits. STEPSISTERS laugh. CINDERELLA begins to exit.)
STEPMOTHER.
Oh, dear, don’t leave quite yet. There are going to be a few changes in the house you should know about. I’m, mm, getting a new wardrobe tomorrow, and I’m afraid the only place to put it is where your bed is now. And you’re such a good girl, I assume you won’t mind sleeping, mm, somewhere, mm, else.
(STEPSISTERS giggle.)
CINDERELLA.
But, but where?
STEPMOTHER.
Well child, since you’re, since you spend so much time here in the kitchen, perhaps it would be more efficient if you were to sleep down here. And look! You’ll have the whole room to yourself, won’t that be nice?
STEPSISTER 1.
Wow, the whole room to herself.
STEPSISTER 2.
Just like a princess.
CINDERELLA.
Um, um, I’m sorry Stepmother, maybe, um, maybe I’m just, um, stupid or something, but um, there’s, um, there’s no place to, to sleep. In the kitchen. There’s no place to sleep.
STEPMOTHER.
Nonsense. That’s just not true. Why, there’s a bench, and a, there are cupboards –
STEPSISTER 1.
And the fireplace –
STEPMOTHER.
Why yes of course, the fireplace, that’s a wonderful idea! You can sleep in the fireplace, it’s always so nice and warm there.
STEPSISTER 2.
Wow, she gets to sleep in the fireplace.
STEPSISTER 1.
I wish I could sleep in the fireplace.
STEPMOTHER.
Now girls, you know that I will not allow jealousy in my household. Now go and give your step-sister a hug.
STEPSISTER 1.
Yes Mother dear.
STEPSISTER 2.
Of course Mother.
(They run to CINDERELLA.)
STEPSISTER 1.
Oh Step-sister!
STEPSISTER 2.
We love you!
(But instead of hugging her, they shove her into the fireplace and laugh.)
STEPSISTER 1.
Ah hahahahahahahaha! Look at her!
STEPSISTER 2.
She’s all covered with cinders and ashes!
STEPSISTER 1.
We should call her – Cinderella!
(They laugh.)
STEPMOTHER.
Oh my clever children, come let’s go make ourselves beautiful for your step-father’s return.
STEPSISTER 1.
Oh boy!
STEPSISTER 2.
Yipee! I can’t wait!
(They exit.)
INTERPRETER. (to AUDIENCE)
Of course, everyone hates their siblings. It’s only natural. I was the youngest of four children and I always knew there was some diabolical conspiracy against me. My siblings worked tirelessly, night and day, to make me feel worthless and disgusting. In direct contradiction to all the things my mother did to make me feel special and useful. I spent far too much of my childhood feeling untouchable. It was hell. It was hell. I felt like I had been born into a world that had already ended. I was living in ashes.
iTunes catch of the day: Dean Elliott’s Zounds! What Sounds!
I have no idea how this LP ended up in my family’s record collection in the mid-60s (except that my father worked tangentially with animators in Hollywood for a while), but I discovered it when I was about 7 and it immediately became my favorite record of all time (surpassing “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” by The Royal Guardsmen. Whole afternoons would pass while I played Zounds! What Sounds! over and over in a state of bliss.
What the record is, basically, is a collection of jazz and swing standards conducted by Dean Elliott, who, as far as I can tell, was to Tom and Jerry cartoons as Carl Stalling was to Bugs Bunny cartoons. The arrangements on Zounds! are jumpy enough all by themselves, but then they are augmented by what can only be termed “wacky cartoon sound effects.” And so a song called “Trees” is driven by the sounds of rhythmic sawing, a song called “It’s a Lonesome Old Town” is festooned with spooky crickets and hooting owls, “The Lonesome Road” is punctuated by the sounds of backfiring cars and tooting horns, and a song called “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” is inundated with the sounds of a thousand clocks and watches ticking and bonging. Boy, that sounds really stupid and annoying, doesn’t it? And yet it comes off as endlessly inventive, infectiously enthusiastic and wildly ecstatic. Or at least it did to my seven-year-old brain.
Then my family went bankrupt, my mother died, I ran away from home and endured about twenty years of soul-crushing poverty, and forgot all about the innocent joys of Zounds! What Sounds! so much so that before long I thought perhaps I had dreamed it.
Many years later, I was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music watching a show by Pina Bausch, who uses whole dump-trucks of music snippets in her marathon 3-hour dance pieces, and out of nowhere, between the German cabaret numbers and the Ligeti, “The Lonesome Road” by Dean Elliott came blasting out of the sound system. Needless to say, I forgot all about the cerebral, angular, angsty choreography on display and was once again a seven-year-old in the suburbs of Chicago, innocently, joyously leaping about the house like a bug-eyed idiot to the manic strains of Dean Elliott and his Swinging, Big, Big band. The record I had come to think of as long gone had been found! By a skinny, severe, middle-aged German choreographer! By jiminy, I said, if Pina Bausch can find this record all the way over in godless Germany, I can certainly find a copy in New York City!
Which I did. Needless to say, it was long out of print and never a popular item to begin with (I’m guessing), but I was able to track down a bootleg CD copy at the now-long-gone Footlight Records, which specialized in obscure recordings of Broadway showtunes and other music outside the purview of Tower Records. Hearing it again after thirty years, I was instantly transported back to simpler days, when jazz standards hoked up on cartoon sound-effects could supply all the adrenaline I needed.
When I got my iPod, Zounds! What Sounds! was one of the first CDs I transferred, but it’s only 12 tracks in an ocean of over 18,000, so it doesn’t come up much on shuffle (which is what I almost always have iTunes on). Today “I Didn’t Know What Time it Was” came on, sandwiched in between Fiona Apple and John Zorn, both of whom I think would have been comfortable with the comparison.
For those interested, apparently Basta! has done a proper re-mastering of this left-field classic.
Movie night with Urbaniak: Performance
Neither
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nor I had ever seen Nicholas Roeg’s 1969 druggy, draggy landmark of 60s Weird British Cinema before, so we were on equal footing for this viewing.
Myself, I’ve come to believe that the cinematic form demands a certain complexity of plot. Others, obviously, disagree. In any case, I’m always keeping my eye out for novel plotlines, so I kept a pad of paper and pen handy to record the plot of Performance. Here’s what I wrote:
“Chas is a cockney gangster in the 60s” (James Fox is quite startling in this part, seamlessly playing a snide, brutal thug, not unlike Michael Caine’s gangster roles of the same period, and looking a lot like Paul Bettany in Gangster #1 (which is set in the same time period).
“He gets in trouble with his boss and has to go on the lam. He scams a room in a creepy dive, a townhouse that happens to be owned by a guy named Turner, who used to be some kind of pop star.” (Turner is played by Mick Jagger, who is always fascinating to watch, but the part is drastically underwritten, I’m guessing intentionally so, to keep him enigmatic and weird.)
That’s Act I, and it’s straightforward enough. The editing is, to my taste, a little show-offy and grating, but up to here it’s still pretty much a 60s Cockney Gangster Movie (this genre would be revived in the 80s by movies like The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa, and in the 90s by Guy Ritchie, whose movies had show-offy editing of their own).
(One of my favorite things about Cockney Gangster Movies is that everyone freaks out whenever someone pulls out a gun. You, essentially, have Gangsters Without Guns, because guns are a relative rarity in Britain. Here in the US, it’s assumed that all gangsters (at least in movies) carry guns at all times, but when a Cockney Gangster pulls out a gun, everyone hits the deck — watch out, he’s got a gun! No “Mexican Standoffs” for Cockney Gangsters, it’s all punch-ups and thrown chairs. At the climax of The Long Good Friday, Cockney Kingpin Bob Hoskins goes to war with somebody or other, calls his guys to his HQ, and passes out guns — “okay boys, here you go, come and get ’em.” Imagine Al Pacino in Scarface having to supply his thugs with guns at a special meeting.)
At the end of Act I, Chas dyes his hair red and puts on sunglasses and a trenchcoat, and begins to look disturbingly like David Bowie in 1975 (which I’m beginning to think is not a coincidence — that was the year Bowie performed in Roeg’s similarly plotted The Man Who Fell To Earth).
Act II
“Chas tries to figure out what the hell is the deal with Turner.” Turner himself is uncommunicative to the point of opacity, but he has a couple of birds who live with him who are more than happy (delighted, even) to share their secrets with him. They wander around the house, take baths, take drugs, dress up, have sex in various combinations, talk about philosophy, essentially lead a burnt-out late-60s version of the hippie dream. Turner, we eventually find out, used to be a pop star but has lost his inspiration, is looking for something new. “A time for a change,” says Turner, over and over, quoting Mick Jagger, who happens to be playing Turner. There’s a child, I don’t know whose, who also lives in the house. Turner wants Chas out, but then decides to let him stick around.
Act III
“They try to fuck him up — why? Chas freaks out.” Turner’s girlfriend feeds Chas a psychedelic mushroom. Chas has a bad trip. The themes of Act II are pushed to their abstract extremes. Incident drops severely as Chas’s concerns turn within. And I have a confession to make: I have about as much patience with movies that try to describe altered states of consciousness as I do with people who try to describe altered states of consciousness.
Anyway, Chas freaks out for a long, long time, and then, just when the movie has lost all semblance of form, it bursts through into a weird, four-minute musical number where Mick Jagger, now made up as a Cockney Gangster, sings “Memo From Turner” to Chas and his Cockney Gangster Pals, backed by the able Rolling Stones. The scene makes no sense in any way I feel like trying to discern, but it is electrifying, and I’m guessing it was inserted by studio people who said “What? You’ve got Mick Jagger in your movie and he’s not going to sing? Then what the hell is he doing there?”
“Chas’s pals come and get him.” Because the movie has to end somehow. Chas’s pals find out where he’s hiding (he doesn’t make it very hard for them) and show up. And there he is, now wearing a chestnut wig and hippie clothes, looking less like David Bowie and more like a member of Spinal Tap. It’s the Lord of the Flies moment, where “order” is suddenly restored and we see how far gone the protagonist is.
But the movie isn’t quite over yet. Something happens between Chas’s pals showing up and Chas (or someone, it’s not clear who) getting in the car with them. Someone shoots someone else in the head, someone winds up dead in a closet, someone else is shown covered in blood in an elevator. I’m not trying to keep a secret here, I honestly have no idea who’s doing what to whom.
The End.
TODD: So, I’m sorry, wait — I have a question. What just happened there?
JAMES: (Cockney accent) Well, it’s about identity, innit?
James, I will have to say, got a lot more out of this movie than I did. He recognized that it was saying something about its time (the 60s), and how the world seemed to be exploding with all these new avenues of psychological and spiritual investigation, and here’s two guys who are coming to the end of that decade from two different directions, the gangster on the lam symbolizing the “establishment” and the burnt-out pop star representing “bohemia,” and they’re both stuck in this purgatory-like house, their lives on hold as they try to figure out where to go now that all the rules have been suspended. And it’s true, the movie does do that. I just wish it would have done it with more plot.
Sam has a question
Because of images like this (courtesy of
), Sam (6) is under the impression that Buddhists once lived on Naboo. We attended a wedding over the weekend at a Zen temple and all Sam saw in the garden was “Buddha statues, you know, like on Naboo.” So for him, that’s pretty much where Buddhism started — a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
I see no reason to contradict him — as far as I know, there is no rule against bodhisattvas showing up on other planets in ancient history. Anyone know who these ancient statues are supposed to be? When were they built (in Star Wars time), who built them, why? And is it sacrilege for a Gungan to perch on one when calling his army to battle a bunch of robots?
TIE fighter!
So, a few months ago Sam (6) comes toddling into my office and says “Can we make a TIE fighter?”
And I say “You mean like get a modeling kit, where you put it together?” And he says “No, I mean make it.” And I say “You mean, like, make a TIE fighter?” And he says “Yeah, like make one.” And I’m like “Like, make it out of — what, exactly?” And he’s like “Well, what are they made out of?” And I’m like “Well, they’re made out of some kind of metal from another planet, dude.” And he’s like “Well, but what could we make it out of that we have around here?” And I’m like, “I don’t know — cardboard?” And he’s like “Sure, cardboard, we could do that, right? And tape. And glue, right?”
Anyway, many months later, here is our TIE fighter, after countless production delays. It wouldn’t fool a stormtrooper, but I think it looks pretty good for a cardboard TIE fighter made by someone who’s never made anything crafty before in his life (by which I mean me, not Sam).
For those of you troubled by the color scheme, there was a long discussion between the client (Sam) and the builder (me) about what color to make it. In the movies, the TIE fighters are shown to be a pale bluish-gray. The toy TIE fighter we own (a 1997 re-release item) is a tad more bluish, but the TIE fighters shown in Sam’s Lego Star Wars video game are shown to be a dark cobalt blue. Then we found out that George Lucas actually wanted the TIE fighters to be the cobalt blue, but it was too close to the blue of the blue screens he was using for his special effects of the time so they had to make them gray. Sam is a stickler for accuracy, so for him the gray of the movies isn’t accurate and neither is the bluer gray of the toys — the cobalt blue of the video game is the most accurate color scheme.
Sam’s initial plan was to have a working hatch on his TIE fighter, and an actual cockpit inside with controls and things for the pilot to operate. Months of delays (while the builder worked on a TV show) forced him to accept a simpler version, and when he saw this mean-looking pilot hunkered down in his forced-perspective cockpit, all was forgiven. One of these days I’ll buy a ruler and I’ll be able to accurately paint an octagon.
Watch out, Santa Monica! There’s a rogue TIE fighter loose among your suburban palms!
Mantis update update
Hoppy gets his first taste of freedom. He likes it. He likes it a lot.
Since posting the splendid news about Brownie’s new wings, one of the other mantises, Gimpy, has shuffled off his mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. Gimpy, the reader will guess, had a bum leg for the last month or so of his life and frankly I’m surprised he made it as far as he did. But his death sort of pressed the issue of a mantis’s normal life span and what we, as responsible pet owners, should do now.
Brownie and Hoppy both seemed still sturdy and curious about life, so we have decided to roll the dice and hope that one is a male and the other a female, and have let them go forth into the garden, just like Adam and Eve (except in Santa Monica) to live out the rest of their lives in natural suburban splendor.
We had a little ceremony where we took the lids off their Critter-Keepers and let them roam around on the patio table. Sam and Kit called out words of encouragement like “Make a nice big egg sac, and bring back hundreds of baby mantises in the Spring!” and “I love you Hoppy! Have a good life!” I felt like singing “Born Free” but it probably would have made everyone cry. We wanted to take pictures but the camera battery was dead after a long wedding reception the day yesterday (the wedding was for some humans we know, not mantises).
After delivering our exhortations to Brownie and Hoppy on what we hope to be their wedding day, we carried them over into the bushes and put them well into the brush to keep them from getting eaten by birds. Brownie didn’t seem too keen to go, but then a moth fluttered by and, no joke, she charged off after it like a cheetah gunning for an antelope.
Take care, Brownie! Go get ’em, Hoppy!