April 27, 2018,Film in Stock: a Playlist of Films for Spring,Loudspeaker: The
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Dusty – April 27, 2018 — Phoebe Schreckinger ’19 Film in Stock: A playlist of films for spring There are so many summer, fall and winter-themed films out there that spring gets neglected altogether. Because the sun has once again graced Iowa with its presence, the newly- arrived season urges me to find spring’s cinematic complements, which are admittedly a bit of a stretch. But, nonetheless, these films summarize what spring represents: being in transition and living in the awkward time between winter and summer. Reflecting on this list, I strangely equate spring with animated films and coming-of-age stories. Nonetheless, below I’ve listed below some films that create a story arch for this season. The first and last films stand in for spring’s bookends, winter and summer, respectively. “Certain Women” by Kelly Reichardt “Certain Women,” which I briefly mentioned a few weeks ago, is based on episodic, unrelated short stories from Maile Meloy which follow four women in a small Montana town: a lawyer, a mother and wife, a teacher and a rancher. The cast complements the subtle script perfectly, including Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and (please, someone, give her more work) Lily Gladstone. Reichardt’s 2016 film is, admittedly, not really a film about spring at all. It is set in the time span when it’s technically spring, but feels very much like winter. Even further, the film is set in Montana, so a Montana spring is really just everybody else’s winter. “Certain Women” offers a good place to start this list, because by the end of the film you can feel the turn towards spring. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” by Wes Anderson If you’re interested in the newly- released “Isle of Dogs,” then I recommend you catch up on Anderson’s first stop-motion feature, “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” The film traces the odyssey of foxes, badgers and more as they combat farmers trying to overtake their home. Apart from the Anderson’s iconic awkward atmosphere with built-in clever dialogue, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” has the most visually stunning shots from the world of stop- motion. I justify putting “Fantastic Mr. Fox” in the category of spring films, because it watches like the animals are coming out of hibernation, marking the end of winter. “Boyhood” by Richard Linklater While “Boyhood” has some problems, it has a unique voice and presence in the world of cinema. In case you missed its peak popularity back in 2014, “Boyhood” is the coming-of-age story of a boy living in Texas. While that description ultimately sounds dull, the most interesting part of the film is its production. In the first film to do so, Linklater cast the lead actor at the age of six and followed him through age 18, amounting to a three month shoot every year for 12 years. Significantly, neither the plot nor the characters carry the film, but instead the concept of time carries the viewer’s interest throughout the nearly three hour film. I think “Boyhood,” perhaps more so than any other film on this list, encapsulates the trope of spring as a time of growth and change. “Loving Vincent” by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman “Loving Vincent” explores how Vincent van Gogh’s death impacted those around him. Like “Boyhood,” the most interesting thing about the film is the way it was produced. The 2017 film offers something visually new and stunning: all the animations for the film were made from roughly 65,000 oil paintings, reflecting the artistic medium of the film’s subject. “Loving Vincent” is on this list because of its primary concern, the creation and destruction of life and art. Looking at shots directly derived from van Gogh’s beautiful landscapes in full-bloom, the primary tenet of spring comes through. “Do The Right Thing” by Spike Lee My favorite of Lee’s creations, this 1989 film follows a set of Brooklyn characters on a 100-degree summer day as racial tensions reach their apex. If you’re looking for an introduction to Lee’s films, look no further. “Do the Right Thing” has it all: dead-panned monologues to the camera, tight and witty back-and-forth dialogue and photography direction that keeps your eyes on the screen. So, then the question becomes, how can I justify putting this obviously summer- themed film in a spring film list? Apart from being a masterpiece in its own right, “Do the Right Thing” offers the natural conclusion to spring: summer. — Martha Beliveau ’21 Loudspeaker: The great unknown Geeshie Wiley Among the greatest tracks of pre-war rural blues, there exist few songs that are so stunning yet so vexing as Geeshie Wiley’s “Last Kind Words Blues.” It was recorded in April 1930 for Paramount Records’ “race records” series, a collection of blues and jazz music by Black musicians primarily marketed to Black audiences. Much of the music recorded on these records was by so-called “country blues” musicians, entirely acoustic tracks of the genre in its rawest form. Artists like Howlin’ Wolf, Tommy Johnston and Big Bill Broonzy would achieve mainstream success from white audiences decades later, but a host of country blues performers languish in personal obscurity. Slung between folk, blues and gospel, many of these musicians burnt brightly in recorded sound while their personal histories remain dimly lit. In spite of her startling talent, which lead blues historian Don Kent to write that “her scope and creativity dwarfs most blues artists,” very little is conclusively known about Wiley’s life. Even her birthplace is not certain, let alone where she died. No photographs of her exist. Recent research estimates that less than ten of her original recordings survive, three of which contain “Last Kind Words Blues.” A massive piece in The New York Times Magazine from 2014 catalogued efforts to discover her life, but its researchers and interviews came up with scraps of information too small to sew into a conclusive story. Even without a story to explain, Wiley’s “Last Kind Words Blues” endures as a testament to its genre’s power and beauty. It opens with its complex bluesy drone and thumps on the guitar bass string, played entirely in minor key. The dark lamentation of the song is immediately evident from its instrumentation as well as its lyrics. If there is a feeling “Last Kind Words Blues” makes its own, it is ache. Wiley sings about love and loss, about waiting for someone to return who wanted “buzzards to eat [him] whole” if he gets killed. She stands across the Mississippi River and can “see [her] babe from the other side.” She loves this person so much she is willing to give him “bolted meal,” a product left over from the sifting process in mills, even if she can’t find flour. At the same time, Wiley seems to tempt us with biographical information, singing: “My mama told me, just before she died / Lord, precious daughter, don’t you be so wild.” Though Wiley’s lyrics are excellent, it is her voice that grants the song its resonance. Her singing is simple and uncomplicated, in direct contrast to its complex instrumentation. Wiley’s voice takes on an almost ghostly quality amid the scratchiness of surviving copies of the track, like a spirit voice at a séance. She opens the song with: “The last kind words I heared my daddy say / Lord, the last kind words I heared my daddy say / If I die, if I die in the German war / I want you to send my body, send it to my mother, lord.” “Last Kind Words Blues” was made famous as the music to a particularly evocative montage in Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary “Crumb.” The subject of that film, underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, is a well-known collector of country blues music, a charter member of the gangly, mostly white brotherhood of archivists that preserved this genre for posterity. Prior to the montage starting, Crumb places the record on the turntable, saying: “When I listen to old music, it’s one of the few times when I actually have a kind of a love for humanity. … It’s their way of expressing their connection to eternity of whatever you want to call it.” The raw humanity of Wiley’s song is undeniable. It evokes feeling even without a legendary backstory or vocal complexity. The song concludes as Wiley sings: “What you do to me baby it never gets outta me / I may not see you after I cross the deep blue sea…” What she does musically in “Last Kind Words Blues” never truly leaves the engaged listener, regardless of whether we see her again, or whether we cross “the deep blue sea.” — Maxwell Fenton ’19 Letter to the editor: Cultural Night in review Is it possible for a person to feel completely overjoyed, in awe and furious all the same time? Well, that is how I feel every time I attend the International Student Organization’s Cultural Night. This year’s event was well-organized and well- attended, with many student groups performing songs and dances from their homes. The performances aptly commenced with a Vietnamese lullaby about migratory birds and finding home in a new and strange land. I cannot think of a better way to begin the evening than with a performance that captured the intense, often painful desire of many international students to create a home in a faraway place, especially when that place is often hostile towards difference. There was no dull moment in the night, with many breathtaking performances.