Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Coming Very Soon: Directory of World Cinema: American Independent 2
Monday, June 17, 2013
Dustbin Romancers and Clockwork Creeps: HOW DARE YOU! and The Unmaking of 10cc
"I
don't think we perceived ourselves as anything. You know, people said,
"Well, what sort of music do you do? Where do you see yourselves?" We
were like, "Well... we're us! We just do what we do. You pigeonhole us if
you want to – if you can – but really, it's 10cc music."
-Graham Gouldman in The Quietus-
As consistently brilliant as Pink Floyd, as bold as Queen and as conceptually innovative as Roxy Music, 10cc remain one of the unsung essential English rock groups of the seventies. The original lineup of Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme remains one of the most dazzling and talented ensembles ever assembled and their greatest work becomes more and more invigorating, and necessary, with each passing year. Despite the genius that oozed out of the original 10cc lineup they remain Rock's forgotten boys, but two essential box-sets from the past year are helping introduce their chaotic and joyous prankster pre-punk to many eager young ears so desperate for music that holds the corporate leash rather than travels by it.
While 1975's astonishing The Original Soundtrack (powered by the most perfect pop song ever created "I'm Not in Love") is typically held up as the great 10cc album I would like to make an argument for the audacious and jaw-dropping follow-up collection How Dare You!, the final 10cc album from the seventies featuring the merry pranksters of the band Godley and Creme.
1976 was a pivotal year for British music. It was the year before punk exploded. It was the year of Bowie's Station to Station, Led Zeppelin's Presence and Queen's A Day at the Races. The great bands of the early seventies were beginning to fall apart in a dizzying downward spiral of addiction, excess, internal squabbling and even death while Lydon and Strummer were waiting in the wings gearing up to burn the whole bloody beast to the ground.
In hindsight 10cc were a more authentic punk band than most punk acts. This was after all a group that labeled themselves "The Worst Band in the World" years before punks bragged about not being bothered to learn play their instruments. If you only know 10cc through tracks like 'I'm Not in Love" and "Things We Do for Love" track down "Clockwork Creep" and "Speed Kills", songs that are both hilarious and sinister and out sneer Lydon at his nastiest. Alongside each album's perfect pop creations, there are downright dangerous and eerie elements to 10cc...they were like court jesters with Molotov Coctails hidden behind their backs.
10cc were riding high in 1975 after their landmark release The Original Soundtrack solidified them as both commercial and critical heavyweights, so the band should have felt on top of the world when they entered Manchester's Strawberry Studios in the late part of the year to record How Dare You! but the band was already beginning to splinter. Kevin Godley would recall decades later to Get Ready to Rock that by the time of How Dare You! the band had "lost their innocence" and that unlike in the beginning when the band did everything on their "own terms" they were now feeling the pressure of recording a "hit single" and that the album was "the beginning of the end of the band."
Perhaps it was the fragile state of the band as they entered Strawberry Studios to record their final album together that helped add so much to the collection's central concern of dislocation. Recalling The Pretty Things SF Sorrow and foreshadowing Pink Floyd's haunting The Wall, How Dare You! is very much a concept album only, unlike those other two classic recordings, it isn't a set cast of characters that are followed but instead it is a spirit that is channeled. This album is a portrait of lost souls all with "daydreams resting on the back of (their) eyes" all trapped in a self-imposed isolation that becomes especially suffocating when they attempt to break out of their comfort zones. From a wanna-be dictator, to a prank phone-caller, to a rock star who has been corrupted by cash, to a drowning man rescued by a mystical stewardess from the sky, How Dare You! is a bit like the Magnolia of seventies rock albums. It's a haunting, intoxicating and ultimately heartbreaking collection guided by the wicked sense of humor that was a running motif through all of 10cc's original catalogue.
It is that sinister sense of humor that can be felt in the incredible album design that Storm Thorgerson and the legendary team of Hipgnosis came up with. Has their ever been an album design that is so simultaneously baffling and fascinating? Thorgerson discussed the album's design in great detail in the book Walk Away Rene:
"It took a whole month before I was able to reduce 10cc´s "How dare you" to some workable bottom line. In this case it was that there were a lot of connections in the lyrics involving puns and unlikely word associations. As soon as I said that to Peter he suggested telephones (because they connect, of course) and we both immediately thought of that old film thing of split-screen phone conversations. The band rejected the filmic side of the idea, but liked the telephones because, unbeknown to us, they already had a phone song on the record (Don´t hang up). What a connection indeed! They wanted something modern and sophisticated so we did a style piece, a parody of Sanderson ads, full of tastefully furnished rooms occupied by very tasteful people, "Very Sanderson, very 10cc. We chose characters and situations from the songs and then added a sub-plot involving the couple that appear in every shot, in the desk photo or behind the blonde lady where we see them getting out of the car. This sad lady in the foreground is a gin soaked housewife, wasting away in rich suburbia, whilst her smooth businessman husband works too hard and consequently neglects her. Hipgnosis goes socially conscious. He is furious at being interrupted at work, again. How dare she! THe inner spread for the album it´s a paranoid nightmare about going to a crowded party and being totally unable to talk to anyone - better to be on the blower than face somebody directly. 10 cc themselves are in there somewhere as are the characters from the front cover".
Perhaps it is the interior of the gorgeous gatefold that accompanied How Dare You! that says it all about the content of the collection. 10cc are presented as four figures lost at a party that they clearly weren't invited to, Godley, Creme and Gouldman are on phones talking to presumably more accidental tourists while Stewart catches a light on his fag from another lost stranger. Nearly everyone in the crowded room is on a phone or lost in a daze of not communicating with each other. It may well be the loneliest party ever and even though the four members of 10cc stand out they still stand apart...very much apart.
How Dare You! opens with the title track, a thrilling travelogue instrumental that promises a great journey ahead. A Godley and Creme composition, "How Dare You" begins with an introduction that sounds like an impossible collision between Martin Denny and Kraftwerk. Powered by Kevin Godley's hypnotic percussion (drums, congos and bongos are featured) and Eric Stewart's stabbing guitar work, "How Dare You" is a perfect introduction to 10cc's most daring album. Keeping with how incredibly cinematic How Dare You! is from beginning to end, the title track was later used in a British teleplay called Barmitzvah Boy.
One of How Dare You's most hypnotic tracks "Lazy Ways" was also used in a film shortly after its release, by the legendary Polish director Walerian Borowczyk in his masterpiece La Marge. A rare track that veered from the accepted writing teams behind 10cc, this dreamy Creme and Stewart track worked so well in Borowczyk's film that it is hard to believe that it wasn't written for it. Still, it works perfectly well here for this concept album about a lost soul on a physical as well as spiritual journey. A lovely and yearning song, "Lazy Ways" features one of Stewart's best ever lead-vocals and has a surprisingly creepy and intense bridge dominated by the interplay between Gouldman's acoustic guitar work and Godley's drums. Culminating in a thrilling moog driven closing section courtesy if Creme, "Lazy Ways" is one of the great 10cc tracks and was deserving of an A-Side single release.
Penned by Godley and Creme with assistance from Gouldman, "I Wanna Rule the World" predates several of Pink Floyd's The Wall's efforts, stylistic and thematic, by several years. One of the most overtly experimental tracks on the album, "I Wanna Rule the World" is one of two songs that both questions and pokes fun of rock's aligning with the corporate world in the seventies.
If How Dare You! has a clear masterpiece then it is indeed "I'm Mandy Fly Me." Inspired by a number of promotional posters National Airlines put out in the mid-seventies this shimmering jaw-dropping number is as triumphant as any single The Beatles did in the late seventies and 10cc managed it without a George Martin at the console. Lushly orchestrated with some extraordinary Beach Boys inspired harmonies, "I'm Mandy Fly Me" is just exquisite from beginning to end and is a wonderful companion piece to "I'm Not in Love" as well as "Clockwork Creep" (a snippet of which opens the track). Powered by Eric Stewart's beautiful lead vocals and astonishing guitar work, 'I'm Mandy Fly Me" is one of the great Stewart and Gouldman compositions (although it should be noted that Godley chipped in his considerable songwriting skills as well). Gouldman recalled in a nineties radio interview how the song came about and how Godley's songwriting contribution came into play:
"So I brought it back, the idea back to the studio, where we were writing for the How Dare You! album, and put it to the guys: "Anybody interested in this 'I'm Mandy Fly Me'". I'd switched it to Mandy. And Graham said "yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I've got some ideas, I've got some chords. Let's slot those things in, try it, mess it around". We wrote it, and we didn't like it. We, we scrapped it. It just wasn't going anywhere.
But, enter from stage left, ha ha, the "wicked villain" Kevin Godley, twiddling his moustache, says "I know what's wrong with it. Let's sit down again." He said "I think it just gets too bland, it just goes on, on one plane, your verses and your middles and your der-der-der, they're all going on the one plane. What it needs is someone to go 'Bash' on the side of your head". So we changed the rhythm completely, and we put two whacking great guitar solos in there, in the middle of this quiet, soft, floaty song. Once we'd got that idea in, it, it just gelled into something else. Again, impossible to dance to, as a lot of 10cc tracks were, but once Kevin had put that in, he became the third writer in the song so we were quite democratic in that way. "
The main criticism over the years of How Dare You! is that the second half doesn't live up to the first. 10cc perhaps would have been better off placing "I'm Mandy Fly Me" towards the end of the second side because it really is a hard track to follow. It doesn't help that Side A's closer, "Iceberg" is probably the weakest song on the album but it does at least give the phone creepster pictured on the back of the album an anthem. "Iceberg" also contains strong hints of the Tin-Pan Alley and Brill Building aspects that played so heavily in the development of 10cc. It also contains an eerie pig-grunting conclusion that foreshadows Pink Floyd's epic masterpiece Animals by nearly two years.
Despite the fact that side 2 of How Dare You! has often been criticized, there is no denying that one of the albums greatest songs acts as its opener. A kindred spirit to Pink Floyd's stunner "Have a Cigar", Stewart and Gouldman's "Art for Art's Sake" confronts the notions of how art and commerce both interact and compete with each other. Opening with one of the most evocative segments found in any 10cc track, the six minute "Art for Art's Sake" is a triumph and was deserving of its top five British placing as a single in 1976. The multi-track backing vocals (that 10cc had perfected with "I'm Not in Love") are particularly striking here, as it Stewart's stinging guitar solo that carries the song through its final thrilling minute.
"Rock 'n' Roll Lullaby" return the band to the fifties roots that they had navigated so well on several of their early seventies recordings. Godley and Stewart trade off the yearning vocals on this Gouldman and Stewart penned track that states that, "childhood dreams are gone too fast", a devastating line that sums up the concept behind much of How Dare You! perfectly.
Godley and Creme's "Head Room" features much of the trademark lyrical double entendre that made them such an endearing musical team. Telling the tale of a young man's discovery of the opposite sex and the idea that, "a flick of the wrist" before leaving the house just would no longer do, "Head Room" is the lightest and silliest moment on the album but Eric Stewart's surprising slide guitar towards the end of the track give it a much more layed and compex feel than it perhaps deserved.
The original How Dare You! lp closes with one of the spookiest and otherworldly songs 10cc ever delivered. Godley and Creme's epic "Don't Hang Up" simply put sounds like nothing else ever layed down to vinyl. Both ambient and theatrical, "Don't Hang Up" is simultaneously nightmarish and lovely and brings How Dare You! to a wonderfully startling conclusion. Narrated by perhaps the same lost man who set off on a journey at the beginning of the album who realizes he, "never had the style of dash of Errol Flynn", "Don't Hang Up" is a fitting and chilling conclusion to the team of Godley, Creme, Gouldman and Stewart.
The gaps between the two distinct teams behind 10cc widened upon the release of How Dare You! in 1976. While it was another commercial and critical hit the shadow of The Original Soundtrack loomed over it. Godley and Creme both especially felt the band needed a break and they set out to record their mammoth Consequences while Stewart and Gouldman waited. Godley would tell Something Else that simply "too much planning" had went into How Dare You! and that he and Creme needed more of, "the element of surprise" back. The three-lp Consequences became a bit of a monster though (Godley would call it their Heavens Gate) and Stewart and Gouldman grew more and more impatient. Creme recalled the final days of 10cc in a 1997 Uncut interview:
The original line-up of 10cc split in the fall of 1976 after some final thrilling concerts that showed that despite the internal issues they were still at the absolute height of their powers as a live unit. A bruised but defiant Stewart and Gouldman re-entered Strawberry Studios in the winter of 1977 to record the first 10cc without Creme and Godley and much to everyone's surprise the album, appropriately entitled Deceptive Bends, became one of 1977's great masterpieces. Fuelled by the need to prove that Godley and Creme weren't the only two geniuses in 10cc, Gouldman and Stewart's follow-up to How Dare You! was nearly its equal (but that's another article).
Godley and Creme continued into the eighties with several incredibly distinct albums and many pioneering music videos for other acts. Gouldman and Stewart would continue with 10cc but after Stewart was badly injured in a tragic 1979 car accident the two could never again recapture the magic they had conjured with Deceptive Bends. A regretful Godley and Crème would later briefly reteam as side players for 10cc's 1992 Meanwhile LP but the magic was gone...the fire was out...the band was gone.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian celebrating the release of the box-sets Tenology and Original Album Classics Graham Gouldman emotionally stated:
"It's a tragedy that we didn't stay together. It was a flame that burned incredibly brightly, but we could have lasted so much longer."
I suspect it is a sentiment that each member of 10cc probably shares but perhaps ultimately the timing of the band's demise was right. This misfit band of geniuses needed a decade as open as the seventies for their impassioned and wild explorations. It is hard to imagine them outside of the decade and I imagine them very often...
-Graham Gouldman in The Quietus-
As consistently brilliant as Pink Floyd, as bold as Queen and as conceptually innovative as Roxy Music, 10cc remain one of the unsung essential English rock groups of the seventies. The original lineup of Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme remains one of the most dazzling and talented ensembles ever assembled and their greatest work becomes more and more invigorating, and necessary, with each passing year. Despite the genius that oozed out of the original 10cc lineup they remain Rock's forgotten boys, but two essential box-sets from the past year are helping introduce their chaotic and joyous prankster pre-punk to many eager young ears so desperate for music that holds the corporate leash rather than travels by it.
While 1975's astonishing The Original Soundtrack (powered by the most perfect pop song ever created "I'm Not in Love") is typically held up as the great 10cc album I would like to make an argument for the audacious and jaw-dropping follow-up collection How Dare You!, the final 10cc album from the seventies featuring the merry pranksters of the band Godley and Creme.
1976 was a pivotal year for British music. It was the year before punk exploded. It was the year of Bowie's Station to Station, Led Zeppelin's Presence and Queen's A Day at the Races. The great bands of the early seventies were beginning to fall apart in a dizzying downward spiral of addiction, excess, internal squabbling and even death while Lydon and Strummer were waiting in the wings gearing up to burn the whole bloody beast to the ground.
In hindsight 10cc were a more authentic punk band than most punk acts. This was after all a group that labeled themselves "The Worst Band in the World" years before punks bragged about not being bothered to learn play their instruments. If you only know 10cc through tracks like 'I'm Not in Love" and "Things We Do for Love" track down "Clockwork Creep" and "Speed Kills", songs that are both hilarious and sinister and out sneer Lydon at his nastiest. Alongside each album's perfect pop creations, there are downright dangerous and eerie elements to 10cc...they were like court jesters with Molotov Coctails hidden behind their backs.
10cc were riding high in 1975 after their landmark release The Original Soundtrack solidified them as both commercial and critical heavyweights, so the band should have felt on top of the world when they entered Manchester's Strawberry Studios in the late part of the year to record How Dare You! but the band was already beginning to splinter. Kevin Godley would recall decades later to Get Ready to Rock that by the time of How Dare You! the band had "lost their innocence" and that unlike in the beginning when the band did everything on their "own terms" they were now feeling the pressure of recording a "hit single" and that the album was "the beginning of the end of the band."
Perhaps it was the fragile state of the band as they entered Strawberry Studios to record their final album together that helped add so much to the collection's central concern of dislocation. Recalling The Pretty Things SF Sorrow and foreshadowing Pink Floyd's haunting The Wall, How Dare You! is very much a concept album only, unlike those other two classic recordings, it isn't a set cast of characters that are followed but instead it is a spirit that is channeled. This album is a portrait of lost souls all with "daydreams resting on the back of (their) eyes" all trapped in a self-imposed isolation that becomes especially suffocating when they attempt to break out of their comfort zones. From a wanna-be dictator, to a prank phone-caller, to a rock star who has been corrupted by cash, to a drowning man rescued by a mystical stewardess from the sky, How Dare You! is a bit like the Magnolia of seventies rock albums. It's a haunting, intoxicating and ultimately heartbreaking collection guided by the wicked sense of humor that was a running motif through all of 10cc's original catalogue.
It is that sinister sense of humor that can be felt in the incredible album design that Storm Thorgerson and the legendary team of Hipgnosis came up with. Has their ever been an album design that is so simultaneously baffling and fascinating? Thorgerson discussed the album's design in great detail in the book Walk Away Rene:
"It took a whole month before I was able to reduce 10cc´s "How dare you" to some workable bottom line. In this case it was that there were a lot of connections in the lyrics involving puns and unlikely word associations. As soon as I said that to Peter he suggested telephones (because they connect, of course) and we both immediately thought of that old film thing of split-screen phone conversations. The band rejected the filmic side of the idea, but liked the telephones because, unbeknown to us, they already had a phone song on the record (Don´t hang up). What a connection indeed! They wanted something modern and sophisticated so we did a style piece, a parody of Sanderson ads, full of tastefully furnished rooms occupied by very tasteful people, "Very Sanderson, very 10cc. We chose characters and situations from the songs and then added a sub-plot involving the couple that appear in every shot, in the desk photo or behind the blonde lady where we see them getting out of the car. This sad lady in the foreground is a gin soaked housewife, wasting away in rich suburbia, whilst her smooth businessman husband works too hard and consequently neglects her. Hipgnosis goes socially conscious. He is furious at being interrupted at work, again. How dare she! THe inner spread for the album it´s a paranoid nightmare about going to a crowded party and being totally unable to talk to anyone - better to be on the blower than face somebody directly. 10 cc themselves are in there somewhere as are the characters from the front cover".
"Of the four characters on the "How Dare you"
cover, three, alas, were not to be traced. According to Aubrey Powell,
co-founder of Hipgnosis, the girl getting out of the sports car was Mandy
Mills, an ex-wardrobe lady in Marc Bolan´s employment who also appeared on the
cover of UFO´s "Phenomenon". The guy in the same car was Bruno
Geffin, who Powell says shifted from property development to running a
lightning company, which supplied the lights for a Bruce Springsteen UK tour,
although his management weren´t able to identify him. The office bound male was
one Douglas Kent, who gave up acting and moved to Devon. "He was always
playing Zappy businessmen in commercials in the late ´70s", says Powell.
However, the housewife in the housecoat gripping the phone in gin-soaked misery
and talking to the suit was Helen Keating, actress and self-confessed player of
"Cocky, busty blondes, the tart with a heart." Keating was working
for a photographic agency when her first sleeve job arrived. The 10cc guys were
lovely. A smashing job. It was a lovely day, I remember. I just had to pose
with lots of fake tears, like someone had just had a go at me over the phone.
An unrequited love job, that was the mood. She no longer seeks album cover work
- "Only if the price is right. It´s not the kind of work you go looking
for."
Perhaps it is the interior of the gorgeous gatefold that accompanied How Dare You! that says it all about the content of the collection. 10cc are presented as four figures lost at a party that they clearly weren't invited to, Godley, Creme and Gouldman are on phones talking to presumably more accidental tourists while Stewart catches a light on his fag from another lost stranger. Nearly everyone in the crowded room is on a phone or lost in a daze of not communicating with each other. It may well be the loneliest party ever and even though the four members of 10cc stand out they still stand apart...very much apart.
How Dare You! opens with the title track, a thrilling travelogue instrumental that promises a great journey ahead. A Godley and Creme composition, "How Dare You" begins with an introduction that sounds like an impossible collision between Martin Denny and Kraftwerk. Powered by Kevin Godley's hypnotic percussion (drums, congos and bongos are featured) and Eric Stewart's stabbing guitar work, "How Dare You" is a perfect introduction to 10cc's most daring album. Keeping with how incredibly cinematic How Dare You! is from beginning to end, the title track was later used in a British teleplay called Barmitzvah Boy.
One of How Dare You's most hypnotic tracks "Lazy Ways" was also used in a film shortly after its release, by the legendary Polish director Walerian Borowczyk in his masterpiece La Marge. A rare track that veered from the accepted writing teams behind 10cc, this dreamy Creme and Stewart track worked so well in Borowczyk's film that it is hard to believe that it wasn't written for it. Still, it works perfectly well here for this concept album about a lost soul on a physical as well as spiritual journey. A lovely and yearning song, "Lazy Ways" features one of Stewart's best ever lead-vocals and has a surprisingly creepy and intense bridge dominated by the interplay between Gouldman's acoustic guitar work and Godley's drums. Culminating in a thrilling moog driven closing section courtesy if Creme, "Lazy Ways" is one of the great 10cc tracks and was deserving of an A-Side single release.
Penned by Godley and Creme with assistance from Gouldman, "I Wanna Rule the World" predates several of Pink Floyd's The Wall's efforts, stylistic and thematic, by several years. One of the most overtly experimental tracks on the album, "I Wanna Rule the World" is one of two songs that both questions and pokes fun of rock's aligning with the corporate world in the seventies.
If How Dare You! has a clear masterpiece then it is indeed "I'm Mandy Fly Me." Inspired by a number of promotional posters National Airlines put out in the mid-seventies this shimmering jaw-dropping number is as triumphant as any single The Beatles did in the late seventies and 10cc managed it without a George Martin at the console. Lushly orchestrated with some extraordinary Beach Boys inspired harmonies, "I'm Mandy Fly Me" is just exquisite from beginning to end and is a wonderful companion piece to "I'm Not in Love" as well as "Clockwork Creep" (a snippet of which opens the track). Powered by Eric Stewart's beautiful lead vocals and astonishing guitar work, 'I'm Mandy Fly Me" is one of the great Stewart and Gouldman compositions (although it should be noted that Godley chipped in his considerable songwriting skills as well). Gouldman recalled in a nineties radio interview how the song came about and how Godley's songwriting contribution came into play:
"So I brought it back, the idea back to the studio, where we were writing for the How Dare You! album, and put it to the guys: "Anybody interested in this 'I'm Mandy Fly Me'". I'd switched it to Mandy. And Graham said "yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I've got some ideas, I've got some chords. Let's slot those things in, try it, mess it around". We wrote it, and we didn't like it. We, we scrapped it. It just wasn't going anywhere.
But, enter from stage left, ha ha, the "wicked villain" Kevin Godley, twiddling his moustache, says "I know what's wrong with it. Let's sit down again." He said "I think it just gets too bland, it just goes on, on one plane, your verses and your middles and your der-der-der, they're all going on the one plane. What it needs is someone to go 'Bash' on the side of your head". So we changed the rhythm completely, and we put two whacking great guitar solos in there, in the middle of this quiet, soft, floaty song. Once we'd got that idea in, it, it just gelled into something else. Again, impossible to dance to, as a lot of 10cc tracks were, but once Kevin had put that in, he became the third writer in the song so we were quite democratic in that way. "
The main criticism over the years of How Dare You! is that the second half doesn't live up to the first. 10cc perhaps would have been better off placing "I'm Mandy Fly Me" towards the end of the second side because it really is a hard track to follow. It doesn't help that Side A's closer, "Iceberg" is probably the weakest song on the album but it does at least give the phone creepster pictured on the back of the album an anthem. "Iceberg" also contains strong hints of the Tin-Pan Alley and Brill Building aspects that played so heavily in the development of 10cc. It also contains an eerie pig-grunting conclusion that foreshadows Pink Floyd's epic masterpiece Animals by nearly two years.
Despite the fact that side 2 of How Dare You! has often been criticized, there is no denying that one of the albums greatest songs acts as its opener. A kindred spirit to Pink Floyd's stunner "Have a Cigar", Stewart and Gouldman's "Art for Art's Sake" confronts the notions of how art and commerce both interact and compete with each other. Opening with one of the most evocative segments found in any 10cc track, the six minute "Art for Art's Sake" is a triumph and was deserving of its top five British placing as a single in 1976. The multi-track backing vocals (that 10cc had perfected with "I'm Not in Love") are particularly striking here, as it Stewart's stinging guitar solo that carries the song through its final thrilling minute.
"Rock 'n' Roll Lullaby" return the band to the fifties roots that they had navigated so well on several of their early seventies recordings. Godley and Stewart trade off the yearning vocals on this Gouldman and Stewart penned track that states that, "childhood dreams are gone too fast", a devastating line that sums up the concept behind much of How Dare You! perfectly.
Godley and Creme's "Head Room" features much of the trademark lyrical double entendre that made them such an endearing musical team. Telling the tale of a young man's discovery of the opposite sex and the idea that, "a flick of the wrist" before leaving the house just would no longer do, "Head Room" is the lightest and silliest moment on the album but Eric Stewart's surprising slide guitar towards the end of the track give it a much more layed and compex feel than it perhaps deserved.
The original How Dare You! lp closes with one of the spookiest and otherworldly songs 10cc ever delivered. Godley and Creme's epic "Don't Hang Up" simply put sounds like nothing else ever layed down to vinyl. Both ambient and theatrical, "Don't Hang Up" is simultaneously nightmarish and lovely and brings How Dare You! to a wonderfully startling conclusion. Narrated by perhaps the same lost man who set off on a journey at the beginning of the album who realizes he, "never had the style of dash of Errol Flynn", "Don't Hang Up" is a fitting and chilling conclusion to the team of Godley, Creme, Gouldman and Stewart.
The gaps between the two distinct teams behind 10cc widened upon the release of How Dare You! in 1976. While it was another commercial and critical hit the shadow of The Original Soundtrack loomed over it. Godley and Creme both especially felt the band needed a break and they set out to record their mammoth Consequences while Stewart and Gouldman waited. Godley would tell Something Else that simply "too much planning" had went into How Dare You! and that he and Creme needed more of, "the element of surprise" back. The three-lp Consequences became a bit of a monster though (Godley would call it their Heavens Gate) and Stewart and Gouldman grew more and more impatient. Creme recalled the final days of 10cc in a 1997 Uncut interview:
"The pressure was in leaving the group to do it, not on what
the finished thing would be. It was really, really hard for Eric and Graham and
we knew that, but, you know, we had other things to do. We had loads of bravado
and confidence in those days because we'd left a band that was so successful.
We sealed ourselves completely from outside pressures of any sort. We
entrenched ourselves in the studios and indulged ourselves completely, had a
marvellous time. The pressure came when the record company decided it was going
to be a coffee-table boxed set which had to commercially compete with the punk
thing."
The original line-up of 10cc split in the fall of 1976 after some final thrilling concerts that showed that despite the internal issues they were still at the absolute height of their powers as a live unit. A bruised but defiant Stewart and Gouldman re-entered Strawberry Studios in the winter of 1977 to record the first 10cc without Creme and Godley and much to everyone's surprise the album, appropriately entitled Deceptive Bends, became one of 1977's great masterpieces. Fuelled by the need to prove that Godley and Creme weren't the only two geniuses in 10cc, Gouldman and Stewart's follow-up to How Dare You! was nearly its equal (but that's another article).
Godley and Creme continued into the eighties with several incredibly distinct albums and many pioneering music videos for other acts. Gouldman and Stewart would continue with 10cc but after Stewart was badly injured in a tragic 1979 car accident the two could never again recapture the magic they had conjured with Deceptive Bends. A regretful Godley and Crème would later briefly reteam as side players for 10cc's 1992 Meanwhile LP but the magic was gone...the fire was out...the band was gone.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian celebrating the release of the box-sets Tenology and Original Album Classics Graham Gouldman emotionally stated:
"It's a tragedy that we didn't stay together. It was a flame that burned incredibly brightly, but we could have lasted so much longer."
I suspect it is a sentiment that each member of 10cc probably shares but perhaps ultimately the timing of the band's demise was right. This misfit band of geniuses needed a decade as open as the seventies for their impassioned and wild explorations. It is hard to imagine them outside of the decade and I imagine them very often...
-Jeremy Richey, 2013-
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Notte E Misteri: Enzo G. Castellari’s COLD EYES OF FEAR (1971)
A solid, if slightly undercooked, thriller from 1971, Gil Occhi Frddi Della Paura is finally not one of famed Italian director Enzo G. Castellari’s finest works, but it is a good one and its recent re-release on Blu-ray, via Redemption and Kino, is very welcome news.
Castellari had just taken his place in the director’s chair a few years before Gil Occhi Frddi Della Paura, or Cold Eyes of Fear as it is more commonly known, came out in the Spring of 1971 to a mostly receptive if not overwhelmed audience. The stylish and smart filmmaker had worn many hats leading up to his career as one Italy’s favorite genre directors, including editor, assistant director and even actor, but by 1971 most of those had been forgotten and Castellari was correctly viewed as an artist to watch with talent to burn.
Cold Eyes of Fear is often labeled as a Giallo, but is bears very little similarity to the classic works of the genre that Castellari’s peers ranging from Dario Argento to Sergio Martino were releasing in this period. Instead it plays out like a fairly routine kidnap thriller, with the occasional nod to the German Krimi that had proven so popular and influential in the fifties and sixties.
Written by Castellari with prolific Italian Western scribes Leo Anchoriz and Tito Carpi, Cold Eyes of Fear centers on a kidnapping, ransom and finally the often corrupted nature of the upper class. Set in London and working up to a dark twist at the end, Cold Eyes of Fear has many of the elements of distrust, paranoia and resentment that fueled so many Italian productions of the period, as well as the style, audacity and wit that went along with them as well.
The main compliant lodged at Cold Eyes of Fear from fans throughout the years is that it is finally a bit too dialogue heavy, and this is a justified complaint as the film does meander along more than it should, a fact that makes its ninety minute running time seem much longer. Problems with pacing and discourse aside, Cold Eyes of Fear has some amazing moments throughout and Castellari has style to spare and clearly knows how to frame a shot, with some of the most seemingly uninteresting moments being saved by his intelligence and verve as a director. Add that on to the wonderfully colorful and at times near psychedelic work by cinematographer Antonio L. Ballesteros, and some imaginative costume design by Enrico Sabbatini, and Cold Eyes of Fear is visually a real winner, and its these pleasures that continue to give it resonance despite its obvious plotting and pacing problems.
Cast wise the film is extremely impressive. Playing the kidnap victim Anna is underrated and often overlooked Giovanna Ralli, a wonderful and distinct award-winning actress who continues to light up a number of Italian productions to this day. Ralli is gorgeous in Sabbatini’s costuming, plus her work is totally believable and it elevates the material in the moments where it needs it the most. Joining Ralli is Fernando Rey, who shot this film just before his legendary turn in Friedkin’s The French Connection, tragic and talented Frank Wolff, who committed suicide at the young age of 43 just over six months after this film was released, Julian Mateos, and a terrific Gianni Garko.
Appearing in only the first few minutes of the film but proving unforgettable is Moon in the Gutter favorite Karin Schubert, the undervalued and tragic German actress whose work in this period continues to be sadly overlooked. Schubert’s unforgettable scene here provides the film with some of the more visceral qualities fans might expect from a production like this, and I believe it's why the film is often mislabeled a Giallo.
Along with Karin Schubert’s explosively seedy few moments, the other aspect of Cold Eyes of Fear that invites Giallo comparisons is the stunning score from legendary Ennio Morricone. Conducted by the wonderful Bruno Nicolai, Cold Eyes of Fear is one of Morricone’s best and most experimental scores from the period; a startling work that is simultaneously dissonant and melodic. Fitting in perfectly with his scores from the early seventies thrillers of Argento, Fulci, and Dallamano, Cold Eyes of Fear is an amazing work from the maestro and it gives the film a deeply textured and important feel even in the moments it clearly doesn’t deserve them. Tim Lucas noted in his original mixed review of the film in Video Watchdog 48 that the impressive score is similar to Morricone's work on Argento's The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1969), and he wonders if some of the cues may have been, "culled from outtakes" from that more famous score.
Cold Eyes of Fear does finally feature too much talk and too few thrills to really be counted among the best Italian thrillers of the seventies, but it is very much a work worth searching down for fans of the period. Schubert’s appearance, Castellari's knock-out visual style and Morricone’s score alone make it a viewing necessity in my book, and I am more than pleased to have it back out on disc.
Redemption first released the film on DVD in the early days of the format in a colorful version sans title card, and with a last shot obviously copped from lesser source material. The 2009 disc was a mixed blessing as the same print was used, although it had been cleaned up in spots as Ballesteros’ color scheme was much more eye popping. Redemption's new Blu-ray is a major step up from their older out of print discs. The colors are much more vibrant and the whole film feels richer than ever before. Reasonably priced with a lovely cover shot of Ralli captured from the films original Italian poster, Redemption’s new disc is a welcome one although one wishes some extras outside the film’s trailer could have been included.
I like Cold Eyes of Fear and have been a fan since I first saw it in the late nineties courtesy of Redemption’s first DVD. While it’s far from perfect, the film has some exquisite moments and it finds one of Italy’s most interesting directors honing his skills. Within a few of its release, Castellari would begin one of the most fascinating and prolific periods of his career where he expertly mixed tense Italian police dramas, strangely mesmerizing Western productions and epic war tales with the ease of a skilled master. Many of the great stylistic flourishes that he would soon become known for can be found in Cold Eyes of Fear, even if they are still slightly works in progress.
-Jeremy Richey, 2009 revised in 2013-
Castellari had just taken his place in the director’s chair a few years before Gil Occhi Frddi Della Paura, or Cold Eyes of Fear as it is more commonly known, came out in the Spring of 1971 to a mostly receptive if not overwhelmed audience. The stylish and smart filmmaker had worn many hats leading up to his career as one Italy’s favorite genre directors, including editor, assistant director and even actor, but by 1971 most of those had been forgotten and Castellari was correctly viewed as an artist to watch with talent to burn.
Cold Eyes of Fear is often labeled as a Giallo, but is bears very little similarity to the classic works of the genre that Castellari’s peers ranging from Dario Argento to Sergio Martino were releasing in this period. Instead it plays out like a fairly routine kidnap thriller, with the occasional nod to the German Krimi that had proven so popular and influential in the fifties and sixties.
Written by Castellari with prolific Italian Western scribes Leo Anchoriz and Tito Carpi, Cold Eyes of Fear centers on a kidnapping, ransom and finally the often corrupted nature of the upper class. Set in London and working up to a dark twist at the end, Cold Eyes of Fear has many of the elements of distrust, paranoia and resentment that fueled so many Italian productions of the period, as well as the style, audacity and wit that went along with them as well.
The main compliant lodged at Cold Eyes of Fear from fans throughout the years is that it is finally a bit too dialogue heavy, and this is a justified complaint as the film does meander along more than it should, a fact that makes its ninety minute running time seem much longer. Problems with pacing and discourse aside, Cold Eyes of Fear has some amazing moments throughout and Castellari has style to spare and clearly knows how to frame a shot, with some of the most seemingly uninteresting moments being saved by his intelligence and verve as a director. Add that on to the wonderfully colorful and at times near psychedelic work by cinematographer Antonio L. Ballesteros, and some imaginative costume design by Enrico Sabbatini, and Cold Eyes of Fear is visually a real winner, and its these pleasures that continue to give it resonance despite its obvious plotting and pacing problems.
***The wonderful Giovanna Ralli a few years before The Cold Eyes of Fear.***
Cast wise the film is extremely impressive. Playing the kidnap victim Anna is underrated and often overlooked Giovanna Ralli, a wonderful and distinct award-winning actress who continues to light up a number of Italian productions to this day. Ralli is gorgeous in Sabbatini’s costuming, plus her work is totally believable and it elevates the material in the moments where it needs it the most. Joining Ralli is Fernando Rey, who shot this film just before his legendary turn in Friedkin’s The French Connection, tragic and talented Frank Wolff, who committed suicide at the young age of 43 just over six months after this film was released, Julian Mateos, and a terrific Gianni Garko.
***Stunning Karin Schubert, around the time she shot Cold Eyes of Fear.***
Appearing in only the first few minutes of the film but proving unforgettable is Moon in the Gutter favorite Karin Schubert, the undervalued and tragic German actress whose work in this period continues to be sadly overlooked. Schubert’s unforgettable scene here provides the film with some of the more visceral qualities fans might expect from a production like this, and I believe it's why the film is often mislabeled a Giallo.
Along with Karin Schubert’s explosively seedy few moments, the other aspect of Cold Eyes of Fear that invites Giallo comparisons is the stunning score from legendary Ennio Morricone. Conducted by the wonderful Bruno Nicolai, Cold Eyes of Fear is one of Morricone’s best and most experimental scores from the period; a startling work that is simultaneously dissonant and melodic. Fitting in perfectly with his scores from the early seventies thrillers of Argento, Fulci, and Dallamano, Cold Eyes of Fear is an amazing work from the maestro and it gives the film a deeply textured and important feel even in the moments it clearly doesn’t deserve them. Tim Lucas noted in his original mixed review of the film in Video Watchdog 48 that the impressive score is similar to Morricone's work on Argento's The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1969), and he wonders if some of the cues may have been, "culled from outtakes" from that more famous score.
Cold Eyes of Fear does finally feature too much talk and too few thrills to really be counted among the best Italian thrillers of the seventies, but it is very much a work worth searching down for fans of the period. Schubert’s appearance, Castellari's knock-out visual style and Morricone’s score alone make it a viewing necessity in my book, and I am more than pleased to have it back out on disc.
Redemption first released the film on DVD in the early days of the format in a colorful version sans title card, and with a last shot obviously copped from lesser source material. The 2009 disc was a mixed blessing as the same print was used, although it had been cleaned up in spots as Ballesteros’ color scheme was much more eye popping. Redemption's new Blu-ray is a major step up from their older out of print discs. The colors are much more vibrant and the whole film feels richer than ever before. Reasonably priced with a lovely cover shot of Ralli captured from the films original Italian poster, Redemption’s new disc is a welcome one although one wishes some extras outside the film’s trailer could have been included.
I like Cold Eyes of Fear and have been a fan since I first saw it in the late nineties courtesy of Redemption’s first DVD. While it’s far from perfect, the film has some exquisite moments and it finds one of Italy’s most interesting directors honing his skills. Within a few of its release, Castellari would begin one of the most fascinating and prolific periods of his career where he expertly mixed tense Italian police dramas, strangely mesmerizing Western productions and epic war tales with the ease of a skilled master. Many of the great stylistic flourishes that he would soon become known for can be found in Cold Eyes of Fear, even if they are still slightly works in progress.
-Jeremy Richey, 2009 revised in 2013-
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
The Re-Release of Radley Metzger's BARBARA BROADCAST is Just a Month Away!
One of the most important archival releases of the year is coming out on Blu-ray and DVD in July from Distribpix. Their Deluxe-Edition presentation of Radley Metzger's legendary Henry Paris production Barbara Broadcast will include two versions of the film, an audio commentary with Metzger, deleted scenes, documentaries and much, much more. Keep up to date on all the latest developments on this important release at Distribpix's blog and be sure to show your support by ordering a copy of this Seventies New York Independent classic.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Sending My Best to Lou Reed
Lou Reed, the biggest artistic, as well as personal, influence of my life is having a pretty rough time right now and I wanted to take a moment and send him, and his wife Laurie Anderson, my very best wishes. I wish for the fullest and speediest recovery possible for Lou, a man whom I know has many years left in him as well as much more work that will help transcend and transform us. I was so incredibly saddened to hear about my man's recent health-scare but I am confident that he will come out of this stronger and even more ferocious than ever...
Friday, May 31, 2013
Guest Post: Derek Hill on Sofia Coppola's SOMEWHERE
Today I am so happy to welcome one of Moon in the Gutter's oldest friends and greatest inspirations back, the incredible Derek Hill, author of the essential Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters. This guest post is a particular treat as Derek's book, which included a large section on Sofia Coppola, was published before the release of her Somewhere so finally getting to read Derek's thoughts on the film is really exciting. Enough of my rambling though...let's get to the good stuff!
Nowhere Man by Derek Hill, 2013
Nowhere Man by Derek Hill, 2013
An actor aimlessly roams through
the affluent, insular rooms and hallways of an upscale hotel, searching for any
kind of stimulus to relieve him of his emotional stasis, some kind of diversion
to occupy his time before he is whisked away to yet another press junket,
another photo shoot, another interview that he glides through with practiced
charm and ease. The actor is bored. Although comfortable within his cocoon of
luxury and unreality, he is starving for a real emotional connection with
someone. Anyone.
Viewers invested in the three-act
structure, clearly delineated plot points, and in characters that must undergo
some form of dramatic change, will only be frustrated with Coppola's movies.
That's not to suggest that Coppola's methodology is superior to classic
Hollywood storytelling (it's not), but for her, the rudiments of commercial
screenwriting 101 don't interest her. Not all movies need to chart a direct
path through the wilderness of narrative. For some adventurous filmmakers, the
detours from narrative are the most worthwhile moments of the trip, and it's in
those strange, seemingly unnecessary deviations from the throughline and
tyranny of plot when the cinematic poet blossoms. It's when the cinematic poet
relates how the world really appears through their eyes, offering us a moment of reality beyond the
artificiality of the screen.
Coppola, so unlike her father
Francis, doesn't approach story in broad strokes. She is interested in the
subtle nuances of character and visually lyrical epiphanies, allowing her
actors to reveal the nature of their roles through the slow accretion of
significant details. In Somewhere, we
go roughly 15 minutes before any real dialogue is spoken, and even then, what
is heard is banal and hardly illuminating. However, what we see is provocative
and precisely revelatory. It's in the visual where Coppola and her
cinematographer, the late Harris Savides, get down to business.
Although still gruffly
attractive, movie star Marco wanders through the legendary Chateau Marmont like
a hollowed-out relic of his better days. He's still on top of the Hollywood
food chain, but only for the moment. Age is slowly settling in and it doesn't
take a fortune teller to point out that the golden boy is going to show signs
of rust within a year or two. But he still goes through the motions for his
fans, colleagues, and entourage. Marco the party boy lazily roams through a
late-night party, lazily flirts with women (his pickup lines consist of either
"Hi" or "Hi, I'm Johnny"), and lazily watches two twin pole
dancers listlessly perform their routine for his arousal. He falls asleep and
they in turn pack up their gear and exit to entertain another happy customer.
Later, Marco pathetically (and hilariously) conks out with his face buried
between the thighs of his latest conquest. The man is psychologically and
physically spent. He's an emotional zombie.
It would be easy for Coppola to
eviscerate her characters, lampooning them for their absurdities and plunging
the venomous blade of satire deeply, then twisting it for maximum audience ridicule.
This world of hermetic affluence is one Coppola knows well, but she holds off
tormenting her characters. She is not filled with self-hate. Instead, she
observes her characters and their milieu with a sharp, cool perspective, but
never at the expense of their humanity. Humor undercuts many scenes,
particularly when examining celebrity culture, and there is a strong sense that
Marco's inner life is non-existent, or at least deadened, from his steady diet
of nothing. Coppola, however, is not a moralist. Her observations aren't jaundiced,
even when she does poke at the pretensions of celebrity.
Although their approach to
filmmaking and storytelling are very different, she does share with Antonioni
and Fellini that ability to dissect the world of privilege without murdering
it. It's no accident that Coppola has referenced Fellini's brilliant La Dolce Vita twice. In Lost in Translation, Murray and
Johansson watch the movie on television. In Somewhere,
Marco puts his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) on a plane after their night in Las
Vegas and yells to her that he's sorry he's been absent from her life, she
unable to hear his confession because of the roar of the plane's engine. The
scene is reminiscent of the finale of La
Dolce Vita, when a haggard Marcello Mastroianni slumps on a beach in the
morning sun after a long night of debauchery and engages a young girl he met
earlier in the movie. Her agonizingly touching expression of love for him goes
unacknowledged because he can't understand what she's saying over the crashing
waves and he's too bleary-eyed to comprehend the look on her face.
Coppola does not elevate the
scene between Marco and Cleo to the profound emotional heights that Fellini went
for, instead opting for her usual low-key preciseness. Later, when Marco self-pityingly
calls up a woman and cries on the phone to her, she cuts him off and our
wonderboy is literally left spending the night floating in a pool alone.
But Coppola does opt for a happy
ending of sorts, albeit tinged with ambiguity and a trickle of Hollywood
sentimentality. Marco has the hotel pack up his belongings and he hops into his
sports car, taking off for the open road. What gives some advantage to reading
this moment as optimistic for Marco, is that stylistically Coppola and Savides shoot
Marco's car rigidly in the center of the frame as he drives further away from
Los Angeles, our perspective always moving in a straight line… forward,
forward, forward. Jump cuts accelerate the passage of time as Marco heads out
into the desert. This is in direct opposition to the provocative opening shot
of the movie, which is a long uninterrupted take observing Marco driving his
car in a loop at a desert racetrack for several minutes, the camera stationary
and only picking up a portion of the roadway. The shot selection at the end, with
Marco breaking free from that interminable endless circle, and his life in
Hollywood, feels exhilarating.
The question remaining, however,
is whether Marco is truly up for the challenge. Marko finally pulls his car
over to the side of the road. The desert surrounds him. He looks tentatively
aware walking away from his abandoned car. But it feels like a movie moment, as
the music slowly gains piercing urgency. It feels like a moment from a Johnny
Marko movie, instead of the dead end it really is.
***Thanks again Derek!***
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Guest Post: Sheila O'Malley on Bill Murray and Sofia Coppola's LOST IN TRANSLATION
Jason Bailey recently wrote an article over at Flavorwire entitled 15 Great Female Film Critics You Should be Reading and my guest blogger Sheila O'Malley was rightfully featured on that list. For my own thoughts on Sheila, take away the 'female' in that title. She is, simply put, one of the best writers on film and music in the world and is a huge inspiration to me so I am so honored by her appearing here again at Moon in the Gutter. I don't know what to say about this piece on Bill Murray...like all of Sheila's personal pieces it is engaging, haunting, intelligent and poetic. I am beyond thrilled to present here today and thanks so much to Sheila for sharing it with us.
BILL MURRAY IN LOST IN TRANSLATION by Sheila O'Malley, 2013
It's the day before Bill Murray shows up in Tokyo to start filming Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, and Coppola, talking to the camera, wells up with tears in excitement. Even the way she says "Bill" shows her emotion about the man. She says, and she suddenly seems 11, 12 years old, "It's my fantasy ... I can't wait to see Bill in his kimono. I can't believe he's coming to do this movie. It's my dream." Bill Murray is famously elusive. He has no representation, no agent or manager. How did Coppola "get to Bill" with the offer of Lost in Translation? "Perseverance," she says. She has been open about the fact that he was her only choice for the role of Bob Harris, the sleep-deprived movie star shipwrecked in Tokyo. She didn't want to do the movie if he didn't play the role. Great things come out of such risks, such gambles, and often the great ones are the ones who have no Plan B. In a career as diverse as Murray's, there haven't been too many mis-steps, which is rare. Like Cary Grant, who managed his own career, Bill Murray keeps his own counsel, does what pleases him, and is self-protective to the point of being a total mystery. He started out in films playing weirdos, grumps, and detached anti-social anti-heroes. Ghostbusters shot him into the stratosphere, but for me, it was his sidekick role in Tootsie that showed Bill Murray's uncanny smarts about his own career.
It's a small role, but, in looking back, I think Tootsie was even more important than Ghostbusters or Stripes in Bill Murray's career. It helped to express what he was really all about. I started watching Saturday Night Live regularly during Bill Murray's first season. I was a kid, and much of the show went over my head, but there were two Bill Murray characters which struck a deep chord, both comedically (I understood why they were funny, in other words), and emotionally (I had a huge crush on him, in other words). The first one was the lounge singer, Nick Winters, whose gigs involve performing in truck stops outside the Vegas strip, a moving railway car, and other depressing venues.
Nick Winters is Dean Martin and Elvis Presley in his own mind, and he bellows out his songs with gusto and flourishes, the results often being totally ridiculous. But the trick is that he honestly believes he is playing at The International Hotel in front of thousands of people. Nick Winters is totally delusional, and yet the character is not tragic, we don't feel sorry for him. What I am left with, when I watch the Nick Winters sketches, to this day, is an overwhelming sense of Bill Murray's essence. It feels laid-bare there, in a way I don't get from his other popular sketches, like the Ex-Police, or the co-anchor on Weekend Update. A real key to Bill Murray's long-lasting appeal is in Nick Winters. The other sketch that made a huge impression on me was the "nerds" sketch, with Bill Murray as Todd DiLaMuca, the geek with the pocket protector, who was best friends with Gilda Radner's snuffling-nosed nerd Lisa. What is so great about both of their performances is that underneath the awkward nerdiness and bad jokes, what they are actually playing is an ongoing subtextual love story. Every time he makes fun of her flat chest, every time he grabs her and gives her a "noogie attack", there's a tension of what might happen next. There's a hope/fear that Todd might finally do what he has always wanted to do from the beginning, which is take Lisa in his arms and kiss her like a maniac. It's a character-based sketch, the kind I love best. Bill Murray and Gilda Radner got a ton of laughs as Todd and Lisa, but there are also moments where the sketches almost move into bittersweet poignant territory. In the sketch where Lisa is in the hospital for an operation to correct her "deviated septum", Todd visits her, but unfortunately another student, Charles (played by host Steve Martin) also visits her. Charles has brought Lisa's homework for her, and Todd tries to denigrate his rival's thoughtfulness by sticking his finger down his throat over how gross it all is. But what's really going on is Todd is bummed out that he didn't think to bring Lisa's homework. That nerdy girl lying in the hospital bed is the hottest girl in town: men are fighting over her. And finally, in the "coda" of the sketch, when the rivals have finally left her alone in the room, she turns off the light and lies there for a minute. Then, she turns on the light, gets out of bed, goes to a chair by the door to pick up her teddy bear, walks back to the bed, and crawls into it, snuggling the teddy bear close to her. It's sweet and quiet, and the silence of the audience as they watch her shows that they will follow these two characters anywhere. Would Todd and Lisa ever kiss? Would they ever break through the joshing almost-violent dynamic they have with each other? It's vulnerable work from both of them. And in Todd DiLaMuca, we can see Bill Murray as Leading Man. Not everyone is a Leading Man, but he is, he always was.
Bill Murray carries with him a slight potential of danger, we sense he could turn cruel at any moment. His detachment makes him a natural commentator on the human condition, but it can also isolate him, it can also make him unsympathetic towards his fellow creatures. Often comedians, so used to having to "get laughs", try to be likable in their film roles, they want the audience to be on their side. Bill Murray never had that problem. Groundhog Day tapped into his darkness, an essential part of him. Years of character parts solidified Murray's position as one of the most interesting actors working today, and Wes Anderson jump-started a third (or fourth) wave of his career with Rushmore. There we get Bill Murray's essence, too, only now shaded with middle-aged melancholy and sour cynicism. But what would have happened to Bill Murray's career if he hadn't been convinced by Sofia Coppola's "perseverance" to play Bob Harris in Lost in Translation, which brought him his first Oscar nod? It's not a given that a role like that would have come along for him, in the natural course of things. His days as a Ghostbusters superstar were seemingly in the past. Someone had to think it up, someone had to dream about him in that way. Coppola did. I always felt fluttery with excitement when Bill Murray showed up in a movie, and this sensation has lasted, what, 30 years? That's insane longevity. Coppola was very smart in how she utilized that in Lost in Translation. Murray had to recognize that this, this role ... this one would change things for him. He said that he read the script and immediately thought, "Yes. I know this. I already know this." Murray was right to trust her with his carefully guarded persona. She pulled back any veils that might be between us and him and revealed all of those elements we have sensed in him from the beginning: his caustic outsider status, his world-weary eye-roll (that could either be hostile or affectionately inclusive), his well-known ambivalence about his own fame, and his surprising capacity for piercing sudden tenderness (which is what I always felt reverberating beneath his shenanigans with Gilda Radner in the "nerds").
While there are so many moments I love in Lost in Translation, it is in the karaoke scene where, by some magic trick of mood, music, performance, and free-floating associations, we can see the history of his entire career, poured into the vessel created for him by Coppola. The first time I saw the scene, I honestly felt like I had died and gone to heaven. I couldn't believe it was actually happening. This ... exists now? If the scene had been self-conscious or arch in any way, it wouldn't have worked. Coppola loves him, and you can tell she does by what she allowed to happen in that scene. Let him go, let him be, let him be himself, and stand back. Marvel at him. You can feel Coppola marveling at him in the way she films that scene. And she doesn't give him just one song to sing. She lets him sing two.
The first song he sings is Elvis Costello's "What's So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding?" The first time I saw the scene, of course, Nick Winters from so many years ago flashed through my mind, and how happy Nick Winters was, in his own fantasy of being two steps away from being a member of the Rat Pack even though he's singing in a dive, wearing Elvis knock-offs and silk shirts opened to the navel. Bill Murray launches himself into Costello's song with gusto, and suddenly, somehow, the space gets tremendously emotional. It's almost chaotic. The emotions are there in how he sings the song, certainly, but it's how Coppola films him as well. It's almost like he's in a stadium, singing to the cheering masses. While you get the sense that this is the most fun Bob Harris has had in years, there is also a wild sadness underneath it, so wild that it is probably frightening to even acknowledge its existence. That wild sadness was always there in Bill Murray's work. It's never more palpable than in this scene. Scarlett Johansson, in her pink wig, then gets up and sings The Pretenders "Brass in Pocket", expressly doing it for Bob, who is so relaxed by this point that the openness of his face is actually a little bit heartbreaking.
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But Coppola is not done with this location, this event. We then see Scarlett, holding the mike, and saying, to an imaginary crowd in an ultra-serious voice, "Ladies and gentlemen. Bob Harris." He takes the mike, and admits to her, "This is hard." The way he says that line encapsulates everything I have loved about Bill Murray from the very start of his long career. Again, it's like he's Nick Winters, lost in the fantasy of being some tormented rock star about to sing a ballad he wrote that means a lot to him and it's going to be "hard" to get through it. Bill Murray knows it's funny, Bob Harris knows it's funny, and then, like quicksilver, the moment passes, and he starts to sing "More Than This", and this signifies a swoon into another mood, a quieter one. He's no longer standing, like he was for the Costello number, but sitting beside the pink-wigged young woman who has suddenly come into his life, and he hasn't slept in four days, and the way he sings the song makes it sound like it is coming from out of the dream he wishes he was having.
"I could feel at the time There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night Who can say where they're blowing
As free as the wind Hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide Has no way of turning More than this you know there's nothing
More than this tell me one thing More than this there is nothing."
Bill Murray has always been a little bit hard to pin down. I think he likes it that way. I think it's one of the reasons why his career has lasted so long, and has had so many interesting dips and turns. He resists classification, and has always stood a little bit outside of the normal path. If he is going to lend his persona to a director it has to be for a damn good reason. Sofia Coppola gave him a damn good reason. She had been dreaming about him for years. It shows. There's a reason why Bill Murray refers to her as "The Boss".
***Thanks again Shelia for this incredibly moving and wonderfully informative piece!***
BILL MURRAY IN LOST IN TRANSLATION by Sheila O'Malley, 2013
It's the day before Bill Murray shows up in Tokyo to start filming Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, and Coppola, talking to the camera, wells up with tears in excitement. Even the way she says "Bill" shows her emotion about the man. She says, and she suddenly seems 11, 12 years old, "It's my fantasy ... I can't wait to see Bill in his kimono. I can't believe he's coming to do this movie. It's my dream." Bill Murray is famously elusive. He has no representation, no agent or manager. How did Coppola "get to Bill" with the offer of Lost in Translation? "Perseverance," she says. She has been open about the fact that he was her only choice for the role of Bob Harris, the sleep-deprived movie star shipwrecked in Tokyo. She didn't want to do the movie if he didn't play the role. Great things come out of such risks, such gambles, and often the great ones are the ones who have no Plan B. In a career as diverse as Murray's, there haven't been too many mis-steps, which is rare. Like Cary Grant, who managed his own career, Bill Murray keeps his own counsel, does what pleases him, and is self-protective to the point of being a total mystery. He started out in films playing weirdos, grumps, and detached anti-social anti-heroes. Ghostbusters shot him into the stratosphere, but for me, it was his sidekick role in Tootsie that showed Bill Murray's uncanny smarts about his own career.
It's a small role, but, in looking back, I think Tootsie was even more important than Ghostbusters or Stripes in Bill Murray's career. It helped to express what he was really all about. I started watching Saturday Night Live regularly during Bill Murray's first season. I was a kid, and much of the show went over my head, but there were two Bill Murray characters which struck a deep chord, both comedically (I understood why they were funny, in other words), and emotionally (I had a huge crush on him, in other words). The first one was the lounge singer, Nick Winters, whose gigs involve performing in truck stops outside the Vegas strip, a moving railway car, and other depressing venues.
Nick Winters is Dean Martin and Elvis Presley in his own mind, and he bellows out his songs with gusto and flourishes, the results often being totally ridiculous. But the trick is that he honestly believes he is playing at The International Hotel in front of thousands of people. Nick Winters is totally delusional, and yet the character is not tragic, we don't feel sorry for him. What I am left with, when I watch the Nick Winters sketches, to this day, is an overwhelming sense of Bill Murray's essence. It feels laid-bare there, in a way I don't get from his other popular sketches, like the Ex-Police, or the co-anchor on Weekend Update. A real key to Bill Murray's long-lasting appeal is in Nick Winters. The other sketch that made a huge impression on me was the "nerds" sketch, with Bill Murray as Todd DiLaMuca, the geek with the pocket protector, who was best friends with Gilda Radner's snuffling-nosed nerd Lisa. What is so great about both of their performances is that underneath the awkward nerdiness and bad jokes, what they are actually playing is an ongoing subtextual love story. Every time he makes fun of her flat chest, every time he grabs her and gives her a "noogie attack", there's a tension of what might happen next. There's a hope/fear that Todd might finally do what he has always wanted to do from the beginning, which is take Lisa in his arms and kiss her like a maniac. It's a character-based sketch, the kind I love best. Bill Murray and Gilda Radner got a ton of laughs as Todd and Lisa, but there are also moments where the sketches almost move into bittersweet poignant territory. In the sketch where Lisa is in the hospital for an operation to correct her "deviated septum", Todd visits her, but unfortunately another student, Charles (played by host Steve Martin) also visits her. Charles has brought Lisa's homework for her, and Todd tries to denigrate his rival's thoughtfulness by sticking his finger down his throat over how gross it all is. But what's really going on is Todd is bummed out that he didn't think to bring Lisa's homework. That nerdy girl lying in the hospital bed is the hottest girl in town: men are fighting over her. And finally, in the "coda" of the sketch, when the rivals have finally left her alone in the room, she turns off the light and lies there for a minute. Then, she turns on the light, gets out of bed, goes to a chair by the door to pick up her teddy bear, walks back to the bed, and crawls into it, snuggling the teddy bear close to her. It's sweet and quiet, and the silence of the audience as they watch her shows that they will follow these two characters anywhere. Would Todd and Lisa ever kiss? Would they ever break through the joshing almost-violent dynamic they have with each other? It's vulnerable work from both of them. And in Todd DiLaMuca, we can see Bill Murray as Leading Man. Not everyone is a Leading Man, but he is, he always was.
Bill Murray carries with him a slight potential of danger, we sense he could turn cruel at any moment. His detachment makes him a natural commentator on the human condition, but it can also isolate him, it can also make him unsympathetic towards his fellow creatures. Often comedians, so used to having to "get laughs", try to be likable in their film roles, they want the audience to be on their side. Bill Murray never had that problem. Groundhog Day tapped into his darkness, an essential part of him. Years of character parts solidified Murray's position as one of the most interesting actors working today, and Wes Anderson jump-started a third (or fourth) wave of his career with Rushmore. There we get Bill Murray's essence, too, only now shaded with middle-aged melancholy and sour cynicism. But what would have happened to Bill Murray's career if he hadn't been convinced by Sofia Coppola's "perseverance" to play Bob Harris in Lost in Translation, which brought him his first Oscar nod? It's not a given that a role like that would have come along for him, in the natural course of things. His days as a Ghostbusters superstar were seemingly in the past. Someone had to think it up, someone had to dream about him in that way. Coppola did. I always felt fluttery with excitement when Bill Murray showed up in a movie, and this sensation has lasted, what, 30 years? That's insane longevity. Coppola was very smart in how she utilized that in Lost in Translation. Murray had to recognize that this, this role ... this one would change things for him. He said that he read the script and immediately thought, "Yes. I know this. I already know this." Murray was right to trust her with his carefully guarded persona. She pulled back any veils that might be between us and him and revealed all of those elements we have sensed in him from the beginning: his caustic outsider status, his world-weary eye-roll (that could either be hostile or affectionately inclusive), his well-known ambivalence about his own fame, and his surprising capacity for piercing sudden tenderness (which is what I always felt reverberating beneath his shenanigans with Gilda Radner in the "nerds").
While there are so many moments I love in Lost in Translation, it is in the karaoke scene where, by some magic trick of mood, music, performance, and free-floating associations, we can see the history of his entire career, poured into the vessel created for him by Coppola. The first time I saw the scene, I honestly felt like I had died and gone to heaven. I couldn't believe it was actually happening. This ... exists now? If the scene had been self-conscious or arch in any way, it wouldn't have worked. Coppola loves him, and you can tell she does by what she allowed to happen in that scene. Let him go, let him be, let him be himself, and stand back. Marvel at him. You can feel Coppola marveling at him in the way she films that scene. And she doesn't give him just one song to sing. She lets him sing two.
The first song he sings is Elvis Costello's "What's So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding?" The first time I saw the scene, of course, Nick Winters from so many years ago flashed through my mind, and how happy Nick Winters was, in his own fantasy of being two steps away from being a member of the Rat Pack even though he's singing in a dive, wearing Elvis knock-offs and silk shirts opened to the navel. Bill Murray launches himself into Costello's song with gusto, and suddenly, somehow, the space gets tremendously emotional. It's almost chaotic. The emotions are there in how he sings the song, certainly, but it's how Coppola films him as well. It's almost like he's in a stadium, singing to the cheering masses. While you get the sense that this is the most fun Bob Harris has had in years, there is also a wild sadness underneath it, so wild that it is probably frightening to even acknowledge its existence. That wild sadness was always there in Bill Murray's work. It's never more palpable than in this scene. Scarlett Johansson, in her pink wig, then gets up and sings The Pretenders "Brass in Pocket", expressly doing it for Bob, who is so relaxed by this point that the openness of his face is actually a little bit heartbreaking.
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But Coppola is not done with this location, this event. We then see Scarlett, holding the mike, and saying, to an imaginary crowd in an ultra-serious voice, "Ladies and gentlemen. Bob Harris." He takes the mike, and admits to her, "This is hard." The way he says that line encapsulates everything I have loved about Bill Murray from the very start of his long career. Again, it's like he's Nick Winters, lost in the fantasy of being some tormented rock star about to sing a ballad he wrote that means a lot to him and it's going to be "hard" to get through it. Bill Murray knows it's funny, Bob Harris knows it's funny, and then, like quicksilver, the moment passes, and he starts to sing "More Than This", and this signifies a swoon into another mood, a quieter one. He's no longer standing, like he was for the Costello number, but sitting beside the pink-wigged young woman who has suddenly come into his life, and he hasn't slept in four days, and the way he sings the song makes it sound like it is coming from out of the dream he wishes he was having.
"I could feel at the time There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night Who can say where they're blowing
As free as the wind Hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide Has no way of turning More than this you know there's nothing
More than this tell me one thing More than this there is nothing."
Bill Murray has always been a little bit hard to pin down. I think he likes it that way. I think it's one of the reasons why his career has lasted so long, and has had so many interesting dips and turns. He resists classification, and has always stood a little bit outside of the normal path. If he is going to lend his persona to a director it has to be for a damn good reason. Sofia Coppola gave him a damn good reason. She had been dreaming about him for years. It shows. There's a reason why Bill Murray refers to her as "The Boss".
***Thanks again Shelia for this incredibly moving and wonderfully informative piece!***
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