Boombox Serenade

Film-Music Moment of the Day: Wintour's Touch

"What you touch you don't feel
Do not know what you steal
Destroy everything you touch today
Please destroy me this way."  —Ladytron, Witching Hour (2005)

Well, R.J. Cutler came out with guns blazing for this, his first theater release in some time. Within minutes The September Issue launches into New York Fashion Week footage while Ladytron's darkly glamorous "Destroy Everything You Touch" plays through a flashbulb-spangled montage in which Candy Patts Price describes Anna Wintour as the Pope of fashion and Andre Leon Talley bemoans a "famine of beauty" for the season. In stark contrast to these loud, glorious eccentrics is the preternaturally composed Anna Wintour observing and absorbing the runway shows, wearing her trademark fur and sunglasses. The Ladytron track was made for it.

Enter Grace Coddington, American Vogue's creative director, who serves as creative counterpoint to Wintour's withering eye. The Galliano-loving Grace is everything that Wintour is not: animated, romantic, accepting of physical imperfections, celebrity averse. Cutler captures several of her shoots, each more fantastic than the last and culminating in a Paris couture assignment that elicited gasps from the people sitting next to me. It was beyond gorgeous—impossibly exquisite concoctions, fantasies of color. This is the sequence in which it becomes clear that Grace is an outright magician, and also where my respect for Wintour grew because of the sheer nerve it would take to pare back such peerless work. Wintour is an editor, after all, and her job is defined largely by a manifest not to create, but to discard and delete. Many are saying that Grace emerges as the unexpected star of The September Issue, but my impression is that Anna knew exactly what she was doing throughout, keeping quarter where she always has: above the fray.

This is not to say that there aren't moments of insight into Wintour's personality. She radiates adoration for her children and lights up when describing London in the early 60's, citing the birth control pill and the end of the class system as the reasons behind the social energy of the time. With a twinkle in her eye she observes,"You'd have had to be wearing an Irving Penn sack on your head not to know there was something going on." She also overtly acknowledges that Coddington is a genius, and understands that her own is of a very different nature. When asked what her strength is, she replies, "My decisiveness," a word that has its roots in the old French verb "cædere" meaning, "to cut."

In the end, what is so striking about this documentary is how perfectly it captures the creative process, largely as a manifestation of the healthy friction between two opposites, Grace and Anna. It also benefits hugely from Cutler's unwillingness to waste time manufacturing a kinder, gentler Anna Wintour; instead he celebrates her cool detachment and opacity as key strengths of this formidable editor.

He did a good job with the music in the film too, although he should have been more willing to turn up the volume at times and allow it to take over the scene for awhile. With such rich visual material, I would have liked for there to be at least a few passages allowed to be pure sound and image events. As it was, Cutler seemed afraid to stray from the talking heads for too long, and is a bit reticent with the music as a result. He had some great tracks though, no doubt thanks to some help from Music Supervisor Margaret Yen (Juno, The Hangover, Passion of the Christ). We'll definitely be checking out his future work.

Film-Music Moment of the Day: Dance Dance Evolution (or) Take That, Achy Breaky Heart

 
Teenagers can always be counted upon to fill their world with music, so there are a bunch of great little film-music moments in Paul Saltzman's Prom Night in Mississippi, a documentary about the first racially integrated high school prom in Charleston, Mississippi—filmed in June 2008, just a handful of months before Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. One that really caught my attention took place at the prom itself, where early in the night students are shown enthusiastically line dancing to "Cupid Shuffle" by Bryson Bernard (better known simply as Cupid). The track's hookiness is, of course, the main thing getting people out on the floor, but there's a cross-cultural draw too, and it's worth examining.

Line dancing has been hugely popular in country-western circles for going on 30 years now and its roots hearken back to some rather lily-white European folk traditions, so you have to consider what a bold move it was for a young R&B singer from Lafayette, Louisiana to use it as a concept for a crunky little bounce track. "My philosophy is, there's so much standard R&B going on, it's always a good idea to have a different vibe," said Bernard of his 2007 album Time for a Change, which he describes as a blend of several Deep South influences. "Cupid Shuffle" became a big hit and Internet sensation, with hundreds of people posting YouTube videos of themselves dancing to it. In fact, "Cupid Shuffle" helped to set the Guinness Record for the world's largest line dance in 2007 when 17,000 Atlantans danced to it at the Ebony Black Family Reunion Tour. A year later at the first ever integrated prom in a small Mississippi town, it effortlessly brought a group of black and white classmates out onto the dance floor together for the first time.

And it really was the first time. One of the recurring comments the students make is how odd it is for them to have spent so many years together in classrooms, but barely to have hung out socially—a fact they attribute almost entirely to their parents' attitudes versus their own. Such attitudes start to become more apparent when you realize there's only one interracial couple featured in this documentary, and they report they're the only one in town. When a small faction of parents decide to protest the integrated prom by throwing an alternative "whites only" prom for a few dozen of their begrudging sons and daughters, it really sinks in just how much racism has been allowed to shape this community—one where 70 percent of the high school students are black. (The "whites only" prom organizers take pains to hide their identities and prevent the event from being recorded, but second hand accounts make it clear the event was small and lackluster). 

A few weeks later at the big, lavish integrated prom (spearheaded and paid for by Morgan Freeman), the seniors seem extremely happy and excited to be there. As the hour grows late, no one drifts away to hotel rooms or parties. The vibe stays up, the dance floor stays packed, and at one point is filled to its edges with grinning students dancing to the bittersweet groove of "Graduation Song  (Friends Forever)" by Vitamin C, who sounds more like a fourth member TLC in this track than a blond pop chanteuse. A looping sample of the Pachelbel Canon glides wistfully behind her hip hop and neo-soul inflected singing..a nice little array of nuances sandwiched into one song. Somewhere else in the United States that night, Barack Obama may have been finishing up a stump speech in his preferred manner: by blasting the twangy country song by Brooks and Dunn, "Only in America."

Truly.

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For another outstanding documentary on modern segregation, check out Margaret Brown's The Order of Myths, about the two entirely separate Mardi Gras celebrations—one white, one black—that happen in Mobile, Alabama. 

Soundtrack of the Day: Gary Hustwit's "Helvetica"

For his beautifully shot 2007 documentary about the world's most ubiquitous typeface, Gary Hustwit cleverly assembled a soundtrack that just like the controversial font, rides the line between modern minimalist genius and wallpaperish anonymity. Ther soundtrack includes microhouse from Motohiro Nakashima, subtly mathy jazz from Sam Prekop, pretty little loops from Four Tet, and the world's calmest indie rock by The Album Leaf, among others.

It all adds up to a spare, cerebral mood that fits perfectly with the subject matter, and it's evidence that even on a film budget in the "low six figures," as Hustwit put it, you absolutely can craft a first rate soundtrack. In fact, taken in combination with the composition of his shots, I'd argue that his music is what propels this documentary well beyond talking-heads-territory and makes it an cinematic experience in its own right. Hustwit's best known film is the Wilco documentary I'm Trying to Break Your Heart, so it's clear that the guy has great taste in music.

Ghosts of Cité Soleil

Haiti is on my mind today because of the havoc Hurricane Hannah wreaked there recently, so today's film music moment of the day comes from a great little documentary that you might have missed in 2006: Ghosts of Cité Soleil, about the densely populated shanty-town in Port au Prince, one of the most violent and dangerous places on earth.

As film-music moments go, it's rare that a montage can capture the coveted (*cough*) film-music moment of the day on this blog because it's just too easy and hackneyed a trope, but the opening sequence of Ghosts is powerful as all get-out. The muffled groove and downcast sax loops set the scene perfectly—smiling kids in nothing but underwear running through unpaved roads, a woman in a sarong shaking her ass to the rhythm...the music lulls you into a false sense of simple sub-tropical pleasures until pop! The beat breaks free and Wyclef's thick voice engraves the haze with hardcore realities of life in Cité Soleil. At this point director Asgar Leth shows you an aerial shot of this place, and suddenly you're seeing the sheer mass of this slum, a gaping hellmouth of corrugated tin.

It's all done perfectly in this one montage, a brilliantly rhythmic introduction to a harrowing story about two brothers in charge of two different gangs in this vibrant, lethal place (which is, I might add, a mere two hour flight from Miami). The montage is set to a Wyclef Jean tune called "Good Girls," though this is difficult to verify as the soundtrack has never been released.

Adding to the gritty realism is the music of one of the documentary's main subjects, Winson Jean Bart (aka "Haitian 2Pac"), a gangster and aspiring rapper whose thugster services were solicited directly by the now ousted Haitian president, Jean Baptiste Aristide. He's a warm, deeply charismatic and yet also somewhat terrifying figure, and he provides another of Ghost's most powerful film-music moments when he delivers his politically-charged lyrics over the phone to the Haitian-born Wyclef Jean.

"Rap music influenced them people deep over there, says Wyclef Jean after listening to the performance on speaker phone. "They will live by it and they will die by it and that ain't no Hollywood movie. That's just the truth and that's the way they get down over there."

Ghosts got some criticism for presenting little in the way of possible solutions to the problems of poverty and violence in Haiti, but I this film is more about the story of Winson Jean Bart and his brother as it moves inexorably toward a tragic end. With subject matter this rich, it''s a valid approach simply to tell the story in all its unvarnished truth and without an agenda beyond the telling. After all, you can say that Haiti is still paying the political price for being the first post-colonial, independent, black-led nation in the world, but without the personal stories like that of Bart, these pronouncements don't carry much weight for those who don't live there.

Now, I will forevermore be haunted by the question posed by Bart in the beginning of the film as he sits, solemnly smoking a cigarette sits in a corrugated tin shack, his exquisite cheekbones bathed in the light of one lightbulb: "How my life gonna be? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe good, maybe bad. I don't know. Lord knows."

Soundtrack of the Day: Lucy Walker's "Blindsight"

I love it when Mother Nature gives Charles Darwin the big ol' middle finger by not only permitting an unlikely thing to succeed, but by championing it. If that sounds good to you too, or if you're feeling unmotivated or lackluster about life lately, I strongly recommend that you see Blindsight, a documentary about six blind Tibetan teenagers who climb the 23,000 foot Lhakpa Ri mountain on the north side of Mount Everest. It was directed by Lucy Walker [Devil's Playground], and it's the most freakin' heartwarming film I've seen since Little Miss Freakin' Sunshine. The verve and determination of these six teenagers will make you feel not only like you have the power to climb mountains, but move them.

The soundtrack is full of pretty if full of somewhat predictable Tibetan selections and New Age variations thereof. One notable exception, however, is when one kid starts singing "Happy Together" by The Turtles while climbing up the mountain. Whatever combination of grace and cash came together to allow this moment to stay in the documentary, I want to applaud the music supervisors, label reps, and lawyers involved, not only because it perfectly captures the real purpose of the trek these kids have undertaken, but because it culminates in an unexpected reprise of the song during the credits that is as powerfully heartwarming as the entire film. That, in and of itself, is an accomplishment to rival that of Erik Weihenmayer—the man who spearheaded this expidition and the only blind person ever to have climbed the tallest peak on every continent, including Everest.

I won't reveal the details of how the song is reprised; just see this documentary, and keep watching through the credits. Lucy Walker is to be commended for directing Blindsight, and for capturing so much nuance in what must have been an incredibly challenging journey. I also want to say briefly how much I admire the kids' teacher and most passionate advocate—Sabriye Tenberken—for embodying the true spirit of the expedition and for prizing joy and solidarity over an impressive but ultimately abstract goal. 

Soundtrack of the Day: Dan Klores' "Black Magic"

I missed ESPN's airing of Dan Klores' documentary about basketball at black colleges in Civil Rights-era America, but man the soundtrack sure makes me want to see it. I'm listening to it now, and it reminds me of late nights on the dance cakes at FunkCamp in Black Rock City. There are only a few overused tracks ("Soul Finger" for instance), everything else is fresher than a Bellair prince. I love Arthur Conley's voice, and the Cornell Dupree and Professor Longhair tracks sound great too. A great mix. Listen on Amazon.

1. "C'mon Children" - Earth, Wind & Fire
2. "Sweet Soul Music" - Arthur Conley editor's pick
3. "Boot-Leg" - Booker T. & The MG's
4. "Land of 1000 Dances" - Wilson Pickett
5. "Teasin'" - Cornell Dupree editor's pick
6. "Hey Little Girl" - Professor Longhair editor's pick
7. "Mess Around" - Ray Charles
8. "Morning After" - The Mar-Keys editor's pick
9. "Ghetto" - Graham Central Station
10. "Love the Life You Live" - Black Heat
11. "What is Hip?" - Tower Of Power
12. "Soul Finger" - The Bar-Kays
13. "Pick Up the Pieces" - Average White Band / AWB

Soundtrack of the Day: Margaret Brown's "Order of Myths" (2008)

I just have a quick moment to mention this documentary about the United States' oldest Mardi Gras celebration in Mobile, Alabama, so I'll just say this: see it. The soundtrack is just as great as every other aspect of the film, including a highly visual approach that nevertheless remains very attuned to its subjects--both their personalities and complex cultural affiliations. It also falls into that rare class of documentary in which unexpected and historic things happen as it's being filmed. Brown's gifted. See it.

Two More Sterling Soundtracks at SXSW

Two big standouts today: Josh Safdie's The Pleasure of Being Robbed, and Caroline Suh's Frontrunners. I walked two miles in the pouring down rain to see the former and can honestly say it was worth it. That's how good it was. Later Frontrunners screened at the Austin Convention Center, and by the end I had a giant grin on my face. It's a real charmer, this documentary about the campaign for student body present at Stuyvesant High School, (perhaps the most prestigious public high school in the country) and not only will it just make you feel good about a great many things, the soundtrack is top shelf thanks to Suh and her music supervisor Mike Tully, as well as coordination from the film's producer, Erika Frankel. Tully apparently got on board via editor extraordinare Jane Rizzo who worked on his 2007 doc Silver Jew, and he did a great job picking out an upbeat indie rock mix of Of Montreal, The Album Leaf, Mogwai, Elf Power, and The M's, among others. 

The next time someone complains it costs too much to license that Stones track they're dying to use, I'll point out Frontrunners so they can hear how a relevant soundtrack plays these days, and plays on a reasonable budget too. More on this later, because at the panel earlier this week Caroline and Erika provided some invaluable insight into the music licensing process they went through on the film . A special shout out to my friend Karen Shatzkin, Esq. for ensuring that these fine documentarians were able to fair use the music one of their subjects happened to be playing during a key scene. Karen is cool as all get out, so I wasn't surprised to hear that she'd worked on this film.
 

More Great Film Music at SXSW

Earlier tonight I saw the excellent Throw Down Your Heart, a documentary about legendary banjo player Béla Fleck's musical odyssey through four African countries. His mission was to remove the banjo from its context as a quintessentially American instrument and bring it back to its African roots, and he comes across some amazing performers and musical traditions along the way. Stunning performances are absolutely littered throughout this documentary (the audience clapped spontaneously five or six separate times) and Fleck's unassuming manner and ability to connect instantly with other performers is something to see. Admirable too how meticulously director Sascha Fleck dealt with securing publishing rights for the non-professional musicians in this film. He assigned writing credits on even the most traditional/tribal music and got signatures on all the paperwork, sometimes in the form of just a line, a mark, or in one case, a fingerprint.

They say they're currently shopping around for a record label, and we hope they find one soon. Audience members were chomping at the bit for the soundtrack. The brothers say they plan to distribute any profits back to the musicians equally.

We've heard really good things about Danny Jacobs' Humboldt County, Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy, and Up With Me, a feature about a kid from Harlem who gets a scholarship to an elite boarding school and is subsequently alienated by both his Harlem friends and the rich kids. The film is the fruit of the Harlem Movie Project, which paired inner city New York teenagers with filmmakers to make something about their day-to-day experiences. What with Wellness being pretty buzzy too here, it seems audiences have a taste for authenticity even in their features lately.

Tomorrow has some great things in store including Frontrunners by Caroline Suh, Yeast by Mary Bronstein, and one of my favorite things in the world, a midnight screening of an indie horror flick at the Alamo Drafthouse, Mark Young's Southern Gothic.

 

Lee Scratch Perry: "I am a punk."

Part of our ongoing coverage of the 2008 South by Southwest film festival. 

Last night at Austin's Alamo Drafthouse I caught The Upsetter: The Life & Music of Lee 'Scratch' Perry, and while this documentary could have used some more artful editing, it's easy to see what a tough job that would have been, for Lee Scratch Perry is a freestyling madman, a font of both anecdote and art.

For awhile it was great was to have a chance to listen to Perry's old Black Ark Studio tracks while watching him putter around his yard doing weird little routines: setting small fires, painting his beard bright red, balancing various objects on his head. Apparently the septugenarian just took a shine to these two filmmakers, and so we get to hear his observations on anything and everything, from the young Bob Marley to the nature of music and God, and whatever is lost through a lack of editorial restraint is made up for by Perry's strange eloquence; he somehow imbues even petty complaints with a mythological weight, and while his ramblings sometimes seem indistinguishable from those of a schizophrenic, you eventually realize that Perry is both sane and spiritually authentic. Anyone who thinks Perry is merely crazy doesn't understand what a miracle this level of spoken word performance is, and how most of us could not—if our lives depended on it—produce the volume or quality of of original content that flows from him at all times. Every little phrase that tumbles out of his mouth seems to have a natural rhythm to it.

John the Baptist: the voice in the wilderness

The man spews poetry and prayer like a young volcano spews lava, and it's specifically these ramblings that could have used some trimming and balancing with his more coherent observations about the early days of reggae and dub, or his much admired studio methodology. That stuff was great. He talked about how he used to get so many sounds into the old four track recording and gives a poetic account of the bad blood with The Congos. He also talks about his eventual work with the Clash and how thrilled he was that punks liked reggae. It's in this sequence that Perry declares himself to actually be a punk because punks do what they want and don't worry about it. For me, that was the definitive moment in The Upsetter because when an artist as seminal as Perry is able to step outside the genre-box that he himself helped to create, it signifies uncommonly broad perspective..one that even geniuses sometimes have a hard time achieving.

As the documentary goes on, you get the sense that Perry's insights and brilliance are fairly inextricable from his more performative leanings, and by leaving in the performances directors Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough let you see how strong is Perry's artistic drive and how many facets there are to the crazy diamond of him, although there isn't much of anyone's perspective other than Perry's in the film. It's almost as if Lough and Higbee couldn't look away from their subject; they were too mesmerized by Perry to bother talking with anyone else in his life. This doesn't give the viewer the most three dimensional portrait of Perry that it could have; it's more the Errol Morris treatment where you go down the rabbit hole and hang with the Mad Hatter for a spell.

When the lights came up and the Q&A started, I learned that the guy sitting next to me was Bell Orchestre musician and filmmaker Kaveh Nabatian, who had just left in the middle of a screening of his own short film in order to see this documentary. Such is the power of Lee Scratch Perry, whom Nabatian mentioned is his single greatest musical influence. Nabatian then pointed out a note sitting on the surface in front of us, which turned out to be a handwritten fax from Perry himself—a little note to the audience that the filmmakers had kindly distributed throughout the theater:

Hallo to you my peeples [sic] out there. This is my moovie [sic] of the past and the present. In God in I must. In God in I trust. In God in I cuss. Fart hole.

Thanks Lee Scratch Perry! We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

 

Interview with "Sliding Liberia" director Britton Caillouette

One part surf film, one part social documentary, Sliding Liberia follows four intrepid surfers as they travel through the war-torn West African nation of Liberia. In addition to featuring some of the most poetic surfing footage this side of Big Wednesday, this film has a great soundtrack and I had a chance to ask the film's co-director, Britton Caillouette, how he went about crafting it.

Boombox Serenade: First off, can you just run down some of the music/artists you used in Sliding Liberia?

Britton Caillouette: In no particular order: Brian Jonestown Massacre, Six Organs of Admittance, Piers Faccini, Antibalas, Califone, The Congos, Todd Hannigan & The Heavy 29's, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, Babba Ken & The Afro-Groove Connexion.

Boombox Serenade: You mention that with Sliding Liberia it was your partly aim to "restore humanity to a genre that seemed to have lost it." Do you feel like music aided in that goal? If so, how?

Britton Caillouette: Yes. Surfing and music are intimately connected. In many ways both are abstract expressions of human experience. The best surfers will describe wave riding with almost the same language as any great jazz player––style, speed, power, finesse. As a drummer and a surfer, I've experienced the energy of both. I believe great music and great surfing both have the power to mesmerize and transcend. Like music sometimes, representations of surfing can become disconnected from their human element and evaporate in their self-reflexivity––chops for the sake of good chops. Surf filmmakers like Chris Malloy and Thomas Campbell have worked in recent years to interpret and reveal the human joy of surfing, and their effort is reflected in their soundtracks. With Sliding Liberia we chose to turn the camera toward shore in order to complicate the notion of "surfer's paradise." We wanted local individuals represented on camera, speaking for themselves. Surfing would act as a catalyst for greater social awareness. The soundtrack had to represent this hybrid of genres on another level––and we didn't need to look much farther than West Africa itself. With such a rich history of cultural exchange, you hear everything over there––highlife, funk, afrobeat, reggae, hip hop, acoustic, surf guitar, it's all there.

Boombox Serenade: What kind of budget were you working with on Sliding Liberia overall and what percentage of that budget went to music?

Britton Caillouette: Our budget was relatively low for this type of film and about 20 percent went toward the music.

Boombox Serenade: Your film used both score and licensed tracks. Why did you decide to use both types of music?

Britton Caillouette: I knew from the beginning that our film needed both. Again, it goes back to the fact that we were striving to accomplish something fresh and different. At the beginning of our editing process, Nicholai and I put a note up on the whiteboard that said "Complicate Everything." Images of tropical paradise are juxtaposed with shots of urban squalor. Moments of pure joy are interlaced with harsh memories of terror. If the licensed tracks contributed to the positive flow of the journey, the score was the reality check. With much of Liberia's past intimately tied to the slave experience of the antebellum south, I wanted the score to be infused with the blues. We thought about hiring an old blues musician, but that didn't work out. Dobro, lap steel, hammond organ––these things fade in with the interviews, constantly stirring up the past.

Boombox Serenade: You mentioned that Nick Ferrall did your music supervision. How did you go about finding and working with him?

Britton Caillouette: I've known Nick Ferrall for years. I used to play in a band with his fiancé in high school and have always respected his musical taste. He runs a music blog called rewritablecontent.com that reviews indie bands and always seems to be on the cutting edge of what's happening. Our work together was a true collaboration, more of a learning experience than anything. We'd get together and just have fun. He'd show me some stuff, I'd show him some stuff, and then we'd figure out who we needed to get in contact with. We really seemed to be on the same plane. Funny story, we were searching for months for our "ending song" that would really wrap up the film. On day I called him and said, "Dude! I got it! Have you heard "Sunday Noises" by Califone?" Nick laughed and responded, "Don't you remember? That song was on the first mix I gave you."

Boombox Serenade: On a scale of one to ten (ten being the most difficult), how difficult was it to find and license the non-score tracks that you wanted for the film? Do you feel like you were generally quoted fair prices for the tracks? Was there a lot of back and forth? Describe the process.

Britton Caillouette: I love finding new, obscure music. Trying to license it is a different matter. I'll be liberal and give the experience a 7. Many of the artists we used are either unsigned or on small indie labels. To me, the process of tracking down all of these individuals and getting them to read, sign, and return contracts was semi-nightmarish. Nick and I worked together to stay on top of people, but even then it was a struggle. Each band was a different experience and a different set of parameters. I'm not a great negotiator by nature either. I do think we got fair prices for most of the tracks, though some of the bigger companies were able to leverage us more than I would have liked. My advice to other filmmakers would be to contact the labels and get the contracts signed as early as possible––preferably before you've even decided on specific songs. You can always decide to not use a track before you've cut a sequence to it. It's good to have that option if negotiations go south.

Boombox Serenade: Eveyone's talking about how radically distribution is changing these days. How does this affect a filmmaker's approach to music licensing? Did you negotiate for festival-level licenses or ones that would cover broader distribution (i.e. Internet) in anticipation of the new distribution landscape?

Britton Caillouette: We negotiated all rights in perpetuity for everything that we licensed. You never know these days where your stuff is going to end up. I had someone contact us that controls some internet niche, where he buys content to bundle with advertising while sending users from one place to another. Best to be prepared. Also, for us negotiating festival-only rights would have taken away all of our bargaining power. Many companies will give you festival rights for free or very minor compensation. If you accept you're basically telling them, "we're locking picture with your song, so if we do get distribution, name your price and we're going to have to pay it." A small-time filmmaker can usually find much better deals by negotiating for everything up front and using things like step deals or benchmarks in case certain types of distribution do happen.

Boombox Serenade: During Q&A at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, you said that your film has some "harsh juxtapositions" in it, with "a surfers' paradise in one shot and urban squalor in the next." Can you describe how you approached that disparity in terms of the music choices in your film?

Britton Caillouette: I spoke to this a little above with my discussion of the score. The soundtrack flows back and forth between score and non-score elements, and whereas the non-score tracks tend to drive the journey forward the score is a constant subtext. The clash really comes to a head during the Piers Faccini song "Uncover My Eyes"––where everything I wanted to do with the film is condensed into a 3 minute montage. For me the poetry of this song worked on many levels, and in may ways Piers accomplishes with his music what I wanted to accomplish with our film. Described as "a geography of a thousand melodies", Piers' Tearing Sky album weaves together European folk ballads, Mississippi blues, West African strings, Middle Eastern rhythms, and mystical chanting. It becomes almost too perfect when you learn that the record was produced by surf-world familiar, JP Plunier (Jack Johnson, Ben Harper), and that members of Ben and Jack's bands appear on the record with other world music greats.

Boombox Serenade: Todd Hannigan composed and performed the original music for Sliding Liberia. How did you go about finding and working with him?

Britton Caillouette: I've also known Todd for a long time. When I was 15 I lost my left leg to bone cancer. I make a brief appearance in the surf film Shelter by Chris Malloy, surfing for the first time since my amputation surgery. Todd scored the music for my part in the film––a song that has literally become part of the soundtrack of my life. That trip was also my first glimpse into filmmaking. I've always loved Todd's music and thought working with him would really bring things full circle for me. Never mind that his post facility, called Brotheryn Studios, is located on the sprawling and historic Rancho Casitas in the rolling hills of Ojai, CA.

Boombox Serenade: It was really nice to watch the surfing footage in your film with something other than California-style surf music behind it. Did you anticipate how well afrobeat and reggae would go with that footage?

Britton Caillouette: People have used reggae in surf films before, but to my knowledge no one has used afrobeat. I've been a big Fela Kuti fan for a while and knew it would fit incredibly well with surfing. Afrobeat is hands down the grooviest music in the world, but it's also political music. If you listen, Fela was singing about things many Africans still deal with on a daily basis––war, poverty, corruption. Besides transcending suffering, the music was also intended to unite people in overcoming strife. It doesn't get more appropriate that that for what we were trying to do. Also, my co-director, Nicholai, and I happened to go to school with two members of Babba Ken & The Afro-Groove Connexion––a band that's at the center of a thriving San Francisco Afrofunk movement. I thought it would be cool to use modern bands who are bringing the style back.

Boombox Serenade: What's your favorite film-music moment in the film and why?

Britton Caillouette: The majority of people who have seen our film will tell you that their favorite part is the Piers Faccini sequence. Personally, my favorite musical moment happens right after that, when the old storyteller begins playing his traditional three-stringed instrument again and says, "Now the sound you are listening to, it's used to tell the children how the water moves. It calls to the imagination the waves from the sea. You know...music has a message, a universal message." He strums his instrument at the edge of a darkness, surrounded by relics of the past. His voice and strumming are asynchronous with the image. While working on this film I read a lot about ancient storytelling and mythology. When we met this man, I had kicked around the idea of presenting Sliding Liberia as a parable. In his interview he launched into the story about the sea virtually unprompted. He grabbed the three stringed instrument and began playing. It was the same instrument his grandfather used in the village. I immediately knew we were in the presence of something timeless, and held onto the microphone with my dear life. For me this moment in the film proves the transcendent power of music. With only three notes the old man calls us into the story, poetically expresses the divine mystery, and lifts us above the suffering of war. What more could a filmmaker ask for?

Britton Caillouette co-directed and produced Sliding Liberia with Nicholai Lidow. The documentary is currently screening at both U.S. and international film festivals. Check the schedule here: http://slidingliberia.com/screenings_window.html

Throwback Thursday: Terry Zwigoff's "Crumb" (1994)

It's funny. Glancing over Terry Zwigoff's characteristically extensive soundtrack to Crumb, you'd think that music would have a strong presence in the documentary, but somehow it doesn't. The music comes across as surprisingly thin, a curious outcome for the director who shares a longstanding and well documented love of old jazz and blues music with Robert Crumb. They even used to play in together in a band, the Cheap Suit Serenaders. Yet there are long stretches in Crumb that are totally devoid of any music at all. The most prominently featured tracks are some relatively pared down performances by two of the filmmakers' buddies.

This could have been, of course, a deliberate choice. The subject matter of this documentary is frequently morose and the interviews with R. Crumb's brothers reveal his family to be brilliantly but fully demented, so the interviews may have just seemed more powerful to Zwigoff in their raw state. Zwigoff was also apparently experiencing crippling back pain and attendant suicidal feelings during the making of Crumb, so the wan soundtrack could also be a reflection of his own depressed state. There were some cash flow problems too; Zwigoff reportedly wanted to use some tracks that the budget wouldn't accommodate.

But even with this somewhat compromised soundtrack, Zwigoff succeeds in revealing at least a small part of R. Crumb's unique relationship to music...a sweet, straightforward presence in a life that could otherwise be described as intensely Freudian. He plays a crackly old rendition of an amazing minor-key modal song called "Last Kind Word Blues" by Geeshie Wiley (she's the sole vocalist featured in the soundtrack) after which Crumb says:

"When I listen to old music that's one of the few times I actually have a kind of a love for humanity. You hear the best part of the soul of a common people...their way of expressing their connection to eternity or whatever you want to call it."

Later Crumb heads to the sketchiest stretch of San Francisco's Market Street in order to draw some of the passers-by. He doesn't last long though...not because of the shady characters milling about, but because of the loud rock and hip-hop they're blaring. He storms off in a huff, and is practically yelling:

"Raging music coming out of every car, store, every person's head. If they don't have noisy radios they have earphones on, like 'motherfucking cock sucking son of a bitch.' A lot of aggression. A lot of anger. A lot of rage."

It's Crumb's most seething and least coherent moment in the film. This music practically sends him over the edge. To him, it's a direct affront. A travesty.

Shortly thereafter Crumb takes the documentarian frame-by-frame through one of his comics, "A Bitchin' Bod" in which the a character named Mr. Natural gives one called Flakey Foont the gift of a newly headless woman as a kind of idealized sex toy. Foont steers her up against a wall and has his way with her. Later, they restore her head through a cavity in her neck, pulling it out by the tongue. This sequence makes it all the more interesting that Crumb can't remotely stomach the exaggerated sexuality or inborn hostility of rock and hip hop. It's almost as if his genteel taste in music is somehow partitioned off from the rest of his psyche, and won't tolerate even a hint of id there—his own or otherwise. A strange bit of trivia is that Crumb and his band once appeared on A Prairie Home Companion as the musical guest.

And why not? The music is sweet and old timey, and this style was an obvious choice for Zwigoff to pair with extended shots of Crumb's artwork, which also heavily references early 20th-century styles. For someone who loves this music so much, however, Zwigoff doesn't always seem completely comfortable with it as a director. The music comes in fits and starts throughout Crumb. There's little flow or presence to it and at times it even seems conspicuously absent. During a panel discussion at the University of Florida, Zwigoff revealed one possible reason why this might be:

If it [the film] is too dense, they do it [play music] for the reason that most audiences in   this country are just not up to that, taking in that kind of information without  a break. 'Yeah, I can follow that for a minute but my brain's going dead.   I’ve got to go drink some beer and go get a snack. Oh okay, there’s  a musical interlude.' But I find that stuff really, dreadfully stupid, so I didn’t shoot much footage [for Ghost World] that allowed that.

Who'd have thought Terry Zwigoff of all people would equate musical interludes in film with viewer stupidity? It certainly explains the halting use of music in Crumb. His taste in music may be impeccable, but his relationship to it as a director is conflicted. Plus, there are moments when his exclusively vintage, sometimes unintentionally PBS-esque approach to soundtrack seems merely dusty instead of soulful. Zwigoff has compared his soundtracks to those of Kubrick who gravitated toward classical music in his films ("timeless," is how he described both Kubrick's musical choices and his own), but what Zwigoff doesn't note is that Kubrick juxtaposed these classical soundtracks with almost punishingly modern imagery—a sophisticated approach that seems beyond Zwigoff's directorial range. Zwigoff is so worshipful of old music as a hobbyist that he sometimes has trouble wielding it as an artist.

But it doesn't matter. More than ten years on, it's a well known fact that this documentary is very much worth seeing. Zwigoff is a sensitive observer, with a trained gaze and a willingness to sit with uncomfortable subject matter far more unflinchingly than most. Plus, Zwigoff shares Crumb's rigidly dualistic world view that old=good and new=bad, so there's a deep affinity between these two friends and it allows you to see things about Crumb that would not have otherwise been revealed. The film ends up being a lavishly unwholesome portrait of a man and an artist so absurdly talented and fascinatingly dark as to make John Waters look like Captain freakin' Kangaroo, and that's a real accomplishment.

The soundtrack album for Crumb, however, is just alright, with the strongest tracks by far being those by Geeshie Wiley and for that, it's better to pick up an album like Mississippi Masters: Early American Blues Classics 1927-1935. Also check out Crumb's fantastic compilations from his large collection of old jazz and blues albums, especially Hot Women: Women Singers From The Torrid Regions Of The World. The Cheap Suit Serenaders' albums are available on Amazon as are those of Crumb's French band, Les Primitifs du Futur. They are both essentially 1920's-style tribute bands mind you, more concerned with reproducing a certain historic sound than creating any original ones. Never mind that though. This music is where R. Crumb's charred old soul gets to be innocent and light, and that exuberance comes through, as does some very fine playing, so check 'em out. Or, for music that is both influenced by the old world and unafraid of the new, find some CocoRosie or Jolie Holland instead.

 

Missing Persons: Jeroen Berkven's Nick Drake Documentary

Know that I love you Know I don't care Know that I see you Know I'm not there. —Nick Drake, "Know"

Last night, the SF Indie Doc Fest screened Jeroen Berkven's A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, and I happily headed out into the first real crisp weather of the season to see it with a friend. Afterward, she said she felt the documentary had fallen short—that it hadn't given her much sense of who this guy was in life, either as an artist or as a man, whereas I thought A Skin Too Few was great exactly because it conveyed what an enigma Drake was, even to those who knew him best...probably even to himself. There is no archival footage of Nick Drake at all, only a few family home movies, taken when he was a kid. He was a deeply contemplative, private person who gave only a handful of live performances in his brief career. Left without the option of putting Drake himself on display, most directors would have opted to populate their films with many-a-talking-head, as Tim Clements did in A Stranger Among Us: Searching for Nick Drake. Berkven was otherwise inclined. There were none of Clement's jawing neighbors or misguided pilgrims hovering about the ancestral home, asking, "I wonder how much it costs?" His strategy was to try to lend us Nick Drake's eyes for a time: to immerse us in the the English countryside in which he grew up, and to which he returned in his last years. Tanworth-in-Arden represented both refuge and exile to Drake, who once said to his mother, "I don't like it at home, but I can't bear it anywhere else." Between interview clips with just a few people who truly knew him (insofar as that was possible) Berkven shows long, exceptionally well composed shots of a place so bucolic as to be surreal. While my friend interpreted these shots as "filler," I was only too happy to take in Berkven's painterly landscapes while listening to Drake's music. Aside from this just being a really pleasant aesthetic experience, Berkven shows how these surroundings must have both inspired and isolated Drake, and how they contributed to an autumnal tone in his work: "Falling fast and falling free you look to find a friend Falling fast and falling free this could just be the end Falling fast you stoop to touch and kiss the flowers that bend, And you're ready now For the harvest breed." In other words, Berkven has an eye similar to Drake's ear, and whatever this film lacks in blah-blah-blah, it more than makes up for in the richness of his attention to light, color, and form. Berkven shows photos of Drake standing in front of these massive palisades of foliage while his early music rolls; each note sounds as articulated and humbly perfect as the leaves on the trees. In one time-lapsed shot, intricate chrysanthemums of ice bloom one-by-one in the panes of a window, as Drake plays in that style so often described as exceptionally "clean" and "crystal clear."    And really, all things considered, this approach seems the best one possible. Nick Drake's life was not one that lends itself to a sensational, confessional, or even literal style of documentary. He was a poet and an introvert, given to long silences and staring out windows for hours on end. He had a minimum of physical contact with others, and his idea of a good time was reading tomes of Blake, Butler, and Yeats. "He was barely there," remarked Linda Thompson in a 2004 interview with The Guardian. "I'm not even sure if I'd call it shyness. I never felt like he really belonged here at all. He was spectral." Nick Drake may have been spectral, but he inspired those around him to startling levels of eloquence...almost as if they were trying to fill in the gaps. One of the best moments in A Skin Too Few is when Drake's sister recites a poem called "The Shell" that her mother wrote about Nick. It reveals Molly Drake's profound empathy for her son's depression, and in this recitation from memory, Gabrielle Drake—an accomplished actress—shows a sense of timing as masterful as her brother's. It's a gorgeous, touching scene, but one that also demonstrates how even those closest to Nick found it difficult to describe him without resorting to artfulness of their own. This extends to Berkven too, who throughout A Skin Too Few remains devoted to a kind of cinematic portraiture of Nick Drake, without ever lapsing into trivia or hearsay. It's the right kind of documentary to make about a man who, by the end of his life, seemed capable of communicating only through song. As the film draws to a close, Berkven succeeds in giving us a sense of Drake in the only way such a thing is possible: by drawing in all the negative space around him. By the end, you can just make out the barest silhouette of a person who was a ghost long before his physical death. It makes you wonder if Drake could have handled the recognition he craved, but to this question and others Berkven wisely gives only the music itself as a reply. Speaking of which, if you have a moment, listen to some of Molly Drake's music too. It's been made available both on this archival MySpace page, and on the Family Tree album. She was a talented songwriter in her own right, and the church bells and birdsong in these home recordings give another great sonic snapshot of what Nick Drake's childhood must have been like. A transcription of her poem, "The Shell," is on the MySpace page as well.