November 11, 2014

November 11, 2014

“I came into the world very young, in an age that was very old.” Now that I’m old I remember when I was younger and I was told: “You’ll see, when you’re fifty.  I am fifty and I haven’t seen a thing.” With that in mind I was approached to appear in a film, as well as write the music to accompany the images.  I have been a piano teacher for the majority of my life - mostly instructing young children, in the hopes of bringing some culture in their lives.  Usually I find my own version of culture by drinking at the nearby bars, that time-to-time will allow me to use their piano, to work out some composition ideals.  I do have a piano in my living quarters, but numerous friends of mine successfully took the piano and put it upside down.  I don’t have the strength to lift the piano of course, and nor do I really have good friends to assist me.  In fact, I don’t have any friends.   I have nothing.  Except the skill in writing melodies and playing the piano.  Beyond that - nothing.

I met a painter by the name of Francis, who is friendly with me.  He told me “Good taste is as tiring as good company, ” which explains why he likes to hang out with me.    We seemed to be compatible in ways, that work out in my favor. For one, he’s rich, and I’m not.  Therefore he takes me out for an evening of drinking, and I like to drink.  So in that sense, we get along really well.  It was at one of these drinking sessions where he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and told me that this was a film script.  I was looking at it and it looked like poetry.  “Are you filming poetry?” He said to me “if you’re in the film, it will be poetry.” He then asked me to write the score for the film as well.  As he was paying my bar bill, it wouldn’t have been polite to turn him down, and I said “yes.”

A week later he picked me up from my little apartment (with the piano still placed upside down) and took me to a neighborhood that I wasn’t familiar with - and on to the roof top of a tenant building.  That is when I met the film director René, whom I found out that this was his first job as a director.   He and Francis introduced me to a professional chess player by the name of Marcel and his friend Man Ray, which I will always remember because of the weirdness of his name.   I sort of know him through others, because he’s a photographer, and some gossiped to me that he sells naked pictures of girls on the street - but I can’t tell if that is a male fantasy or truth.   These guys are professional bachelors - and they play with females like if Rome was on fire.

I read the poetry (the script) and was told by Francis that this is actually a part of a theater piece - which again, they want me to write the music for as well.  The film will serve as an intermission entertainment between the theater acts.  This seemed highly ambitious in my opinion, but there is payment at the end of the carrot stick - paid by my best friend Francis.  And again, with this specific friendship, the word “no” is not allowed in this context of our relationship.   The one person who I met on the set that really impressed me, and sort of reminded me of myself when I was younger is a stand-up comedian by the name of Theodore.   He had strange logic, but when you chatted with him, he made complete sense.  He told me this: “What do we know about the beyond? Do we know what’s behind the beyond?  I’m afraid some of us hardly know what’s beyond the behind. “ This, I think is quite profound.

They had me dressed as a female ballet dancer, which was awkward, but my favorite part of the filming is the scene with me and Francis lighting a canon on the rooftop.  René told us to leap towards the canon, and what they intend to do is make the actions very slow motion.   The theme or the narrative of this film appears to be about a funeral march, where the corpse becomes alive in the end.   Which seems very opportunistic to me, yet when the film was screened during the ballet “Relāche” it caused a mini-riot.  Mini because it was actually me and Francis that stood up and booed.  I don’t know why we did that.  We were both drunk at the time.  “In this best of all possible worlds, everything is in a hell of a mess. ”

The Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center's Film Festival (curated by Tosh Berman)

Being a poetry/fiction mad obsessed man, I pretty much hung out at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice California.  This was in 1991/1992.  Benjamin Weissman was the program director for literary readings, and he brought incredible talent to the center.  I asked him and the Director at the time if I could show films there.  Or maybe Benjamin asked me?  Nevertheless they said 'yes,' but I had to raise funds to purchase a pair of 16mm film projectors. With a little sweat, good luck, and kindness of a few backers, we got the equipment we needed.  All minimal, but nevertheless we could project 16mm films onto to a stand up screen.  Very old school.

With the help of Lun*na Menoh, and a couple of projectionists, but mostly with Relah Eckstein, we did a show.  One of the first ideas I had was to bring Buster Keaton in a more adventuresome  light.  Famous at the time of course, but still I felt people were looking at him as just as a slapstick clown.  In my eyes he was the ultimate 20th Century man.  I decided to put him on a program with Luis Bunuel films.  It was a perfect fit.

Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber were pioneering filmmakers from the teens and Twenties.  Alice Guy was a major producer who ran a film studio in France.  The films she made were charming and funny.  The American Lois Weber's films dealt with the politics of its day.  When you think of it now quite daring for her time. 

Another program focusing on the works of pioneering women filmmakers. Here I focused on Weber and Guy but also Leni Reienstahl, and got a  nasty letter for showing her on this program.  

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Very interesting double-bill of classic kid novels but versions made in the teens.  "The Wizard of Oz " was actually directed by the book's author L. Frank Baum. 

Early Rene Clair films that were at the time very hard to see.  Remember this was the time of VHS, and a lot of these films didn't make it to the cross over.  "Crazy Ray" was a very funny Clair film. It was about a ray that could stop time, therefore everything is frozen.  Lighthearted yet had serious overtones.  Perfect match.

This was the only time where I actually had the filmmaker showing his films.  Harun Farocki is a German filmmaker, theorist, and writer.  The work was fascinating, and I was very lucky to get him to do this.   The Goethe Institute was very helpful with respect to this program.

At the time I was crazy about Peter Greenaway.  He was the only filmmaker at that time that drove people batty.  I never have been in an audience where someone's work really pissed people off.  These short films he made before he became big, were charming, funny, and hypnotic. 

What a wonderful night.  I showed all the classic Joseph Cornell films, but also a woman came by early with a film reel under her arm.  She told me that Cornell made this film for her, and she never saw it.  So the film has never been projected or shown to anyone.  It was a 'wow.'  But a secret 'wow' because no one, including me was expecting someone to bring such a treasure to our little place.

More Cornell!  Also films by Bruce Conner.  A nice combination because both used found footage in their work.  

To me there was something subversive of showing a silent Oscar Wilde related films.  A man known for his words, yet we had silent versions of two of his major works.  "Lady Windermere's Fans" and the legendary "Salome."  Both films by the way were excellent.  A sold-out audience where no one was under 70 years old.  And all men!

Odd enough "Band of Outsiders" was not shown that much in Los Angeles at the time.  Nor was it on VHS.  This and a Godard short "All The Boys Called Patrick" was a magical night.  Dancing in the aisles!

It is amazing but right now I can look at the right side of the desk and see my French, British, and American edition of Louis Feuillade's "Fantomas" on DVD.  In 1991, the film was a total mystery and no one, and I mean no one was aware of this piece work.  The film is six 1 hour episodes in total. What I did was show Chapter 2, each episode was a separate and complete narrative - and it was an amazing film.  Without a doubt one of my all-time favorite films. 

The great and kind of tragic Edgar Ulmer.  Odd enough "Detour" was not available on VHS at the time.  So here was the perfect marriage of a film with no budget shown in an organization that barely had a budget.  Kind of sad, but beautiful at the same time.