More Than Just I: Lou Reed's BERLIN at Forty

"He could have made Transformer 2, Transformer 3, "Walk on the Wilder Side", Walk on the Not so Wild Side" but, instead, he elects to take one of the bravest steps I've ever seen, in pop music history anyway, and he goes out to make a seminal work that digs deeper inside the soul of the artist than any other work that had been released, certainly into the American music scene, in fifty years."
                                                                 -Bob Ezrin, Producer-

 

Before I ever heard Berlin I had read it.  It was the fall of 1989 and I had just begun my sophomore year at Castle High School in Newburgh, Indiana.  My life had been forever altered a year or so previously when I had found Lou Reed's 1980 LP Growing up in Public in my dad's record collection and since then I had totally immersed myself in every Lou related recording, book and article I could get my hands on.  These were the days before the internet made everything so readily available and, while nearby Evansville had several solid record stores, I had been unable to track down Lou's 1973 concept album Berlin.  Finally, hoping it would push my family forward into the CD generation, I picked up a copy of Berlin and Deborah Harry's Def, Dumb and Blonde on disc at Evansville's long since vanished Track Records before we even had a CD-player.  With no way to play to play the disc I only had the booklet and lyrics to obsess over.  Early in that school year I would keep a copy of that Berlin booklet in my school folder and I immersed myself in Reed's dark tale of the doomed lovers Jim and Caroline like the great literary work it was at its core.  By the time I finally heard the time the album, later that year at a friends house who had gotten a CD player before me, I already knew all the lyrics by heart. 

 

 

Berlin isn't my favorite Lou Reed album, that distinction belongs to 1979's The Bells, but to deny that it is among the most important works in his collection would be extremely misguided.  Released forty years ago this month, Berlin remains one of bravest, most inspired, most influential and most daring recordings of the seventies.  It is an album that has inspired a countless number of artists from David Bowie to Bat for Lashes and it foreshadowed the post-punk movement by nearly a decade.  As popular music becomes more and shallow, plastic and unnecessary Lou Reed's epic tale of abuse, addiction, redemption and romance becomes more resonate and more mythic with each passing year.  I can't imagine my world without it and when I listen to it today it still infuses me with the same kind of passion and intensity it inspired in me more than twenty years ago when I first heard it. 

Critic Michael Hill pointed out in the liner notes that graced the 1998 remaster of Berlin that even though while rock listeners in 1973 were, "primed for a masterwork", Reed's album was, "met with confusion, revulsion and anger" upon its initial release.  Reed had scored an worldwide smash a year before with the David Bowie and Mick Ronson produced Transformer and, despite that fact that Rolling Stone predicted that Berlin would be "the Sgt.Pepper of the Seventies", the collection was indeed mostly greeted with indifference or outright hostility.  It was the most grown-up album rock music had ever seen and most were simply not prepared for it. 

Before the days of downloads and streaming, the first thing a listener would have taken in upon getting an album would be the sleeve.  The original LP of Berlin just feels HEAVY.  A gatefold with a pull-out booklet, Berlin was graced with a beguiling and mysterious design by Pacific Eye and Ear and featured a number of haunting Saint-Jivago Desanges photos.  Reed himself appears on the cover of this incredibly cinematic collection armed with a guitar and a look that could cut through steel.  As David Fricke of Rolling Stone would point out in the 1998 documentary Rock and Roll Heart, while other popular artists of the day were making records of the time Reed was making records, "of his time" and you can just feel the absolute audacity of Berlin before the needle even drops. 

Despite the fact that Berlin is one of the most cohesive concept albums ever made a number of its tracks had been recorded previously by Lou as far back as the mid-sixties.  Early versions of "Men of Good Fortune", "Caroline Says", "Oh Jim" and "Sad Song" had all been worked on by The Velvet Underground and an extended version of the haunting title-track had appeared on Lou's self-titled debut lp a couple of years previously. 

Certainly Lou's personal and professional relationship with Nico had informed the album as well.  Nico would later claim that Lou, "wrote me letters saying Berlin was me."  The album would really be a tribute to Lou Reed's literary background and his dedication to writers like Delmore Schwartz, Hubert Selby and Raymond Chandler.  Berlin would represent Lou's goal of presenting characters as sharply-drawn and well-rounded as those artistic mentors in the medium he was working with in 1973.  Reed would state that, "the real important thing is the relationship between the two major characters" and, "the narrator is filling you in from his point of view, and his point of view is not particularly pleasant." 

The behind the scenes tales of Berlin are as legendary as the album itself.  Berlin's brilliant producer Bob Ezrin discovered heroin while recording the lp and suffered a, "chemical breakdown", upon completing it.  He recalled that, "we were all seriously ill" and that Berlin, "put me out of commission for quite a while."  Reed recalled that, "we killed ourselves psychologically on that album", and that they had, "went so far into it that it was kind of hard to get out."

Berlin is indeed one of the most damaging listens in all of popular music.  From the mysterious distant echoes of the riotous birthday celebration that opens the album to the remarkable string section that closes it (a string section Ezrin would later revisit on Pink Floyd's The Wall) Berlin is an unbelievably intense work that never lets up its incredibly tight grip.  Lester Bangs would famously call it, "a gargantuan slab of maggoty rancor that may well be the most depressed album ever made" in the pages of Creem a couple of years after Berlin originally shocked listeners who dared to take its ominous journey. 

Reed and Ezrin created Berlin utilizing the largest cast of supporting players that Reed would ever work with.  Everyone from famed jazz musician Michael Brecker to Cream co-founder Jack Bruce to legendary Traffic leader Steve Winwood makes a contribution.  It's ironic that a recording that sounds as unbelievably out of step and isolated as Berlin had so many well-known hands in the mix.  Reed was thrilled with the results and he would state in early 1976 that Ezrin, "did a great job" and in fact, "everybody on that album did a great job."  While all the supporting players are indeed fine Berlin's shining stars are ultimately Reed (whose nearly always underrated vocal stylings have never been quite as effective and sinister as they are here), Ezrin (nobody produces with this kind of passion anymore) Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter (whose ferocious dueling electric guitar playing remains an absolute highlight). 

While Reed's lyrics for Berlin have been rightly celebrated time and time again one of the great things about it, that isn't stated enough, is just how well-played and produced it is.  It's a record that influenced generations of musicians and yet there still isn't anything that sounds quite like it. 

Years before the great Julian Schnabel finally made Berlin into a film cinematic connections were already being made.  One of the artists most effected by the album was legendary Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider, who would mention in 1975 that he felt, "Berlin is projecting the situation of a spy film, the spy standing in the fog smoking his cigarette."  Lou would say of the album in 1977 that Berlin, "was a movie in sound" and by 1979 he admitted that he would, "love to see Polanski make a movie" of it. 

 

Polanski never did make that movie but when Schnabel and Reed triumphantly revisited Berlin on stage and on film in 2008 it was fitting that it was Polanski's greatest creative and real-life muse Emmanuelle Seigner who would finally so brilliantly bring tragic Caroline to life. 

 

 

Who exactly Caroline was based on has been conjectured about for years.  Was it Nico?  Was it Reed's wife at the time Bettye Kronstadt?  Author Chris Roberts likely nailed it in his mostly disappointing Walk on the Wild Side: The Stories Behind the Songs that, "Caroline is a composite", that, "manifests as a fevered brew of vulnerability, paranoia, suffering and bullying."  She is certainly one of the most unforgettable characters in rock history and she inspired some of the most penetrating a memorable lyrics of Lou Reed's career.  Reed's understanding of the importance and power of the lyrics he penned for Berlin led him to reproduce them for the first time with an album.  He would later recall that even though, "people don't deserve good lyrics because they never listen to them" he chose to have them printed with Berlin.  Like the music they took rock to that very adult level Lou had been striving for since he first played John Cale an early version of "Heroin" in the mid-sixties.  Reed would state in 1976 that, "Berlin was an album for adults", and, "the whole thing started because (he) wanted to write songs about something that was relevant." 

 

 

Berlin is indeed relevant.  It isn't a stretch to say that without it the course of popular music would have been much different.  Would we have a Low, Lust for Life, Dub Housing, Metal Box, Psychocandy, Daydream Nation or Kid A without Berlin?  Perhaps but I doubt any of those albums would have sounded quite the same without Reed's visionary recording.  Lou Reed's pulverizing portrait of a lost couple in a divided city, he had never even visited before recording, had an effect that went beyond critical acclaim or mass commercial acceptance (although time often forgets it remarkably went Top Ten in the UK).  Berlin has never been an album for all tastes but those who are touched by it are never quite the same...

 

I was two months old when Berlin was released in the summer of 1973.  It's strange for me these four decades later to picture Lou Reed and Bob Ezrin finishing up touches on this piece of work, that would come to mean so much to my life, as I was first coming into this world.  While I am one of many who discovered Berlin in isolation an odd community has formed around the album.  While it is too corrosive and dark to take its deserved place among rock music's most celebrated albums, this community that holds Berlin close to their hearts share a special bond and when we pass down the sometimes ominous and dark corners of our lives we can greet each other with a knowing nod and understand, as Reed so eloquently wrote, that we are indeed "more than just I". 

                                                                -Jeremy Richey, 2013-

The quotes for this piece were taken from the American Masters documentary Rock and Roll Heart and the books Beyond the Velvet Underground by Dave Thompson, Lou Reed Between the Line by Michael Wrenn and Walk on the Wild Side:  Lou Reed The Stories Behind the Songs by Chris Roberts.

Coming Very Soon: Directory of World Cinema: American Independent 2

The newest Intellect Volume some of my work is being featured in will be available very soon for those interested.  I am very honored to have several pieces in the John Berra edited Directory of World Cinema: American Independent 2 including a chapter on James Toback as well as reviews of Maniac, Supervixens, The Addiction, Wendy and Lucy, Hard Eight, Desperately Seeking Susan, Lulu on the Bridge, and Switchblade Sisters. I just received my copy and John has done such a splendid job with it.  Other writers featured include John, Derek Hill, Rob Dennis, Neil Mitchell and many others.  It can be ordered at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, at Intellect's website and at The University of Chicago Press Books.  More information on this series of books can be found here.  Thanks!

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".

 

A further discussion of the amazing artwork was given to Q Magazine a few years back as well:

"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-

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.

 

***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-

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. 

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... 

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

 

 

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.

 

 

 

You wouldn't be reprimanded for thinking I was talking about Bill Murray's character from Sofia Coppola's extraordinary second feature Lost in Translation (2003). Coppola's underrated fourth movie, Somewhere (2010), also contains a similar character, action star Johnny Marco, played by Stephen Dorff. Stylistically and thematically, both movies are fascinating compliments to one another, although the earlier movie is more incisive about human nature, dreamy, and quietly poignant. Lost in Translation also contains one of Murray's finest moments on screen and a (so far) career-best performance by Scarlett Johansson, two difficult acts to follow. But regardless of the similarities between the two movies, and there are many important ones, Somewhere is its own distinctive, vital creation and not an artistic regression. It's also the first time that Coppola attempts to burrow into the male psyche for the majority of the movie, establishing the story's point of view through Marco's eyes. For a director whose movies tend to billow with images and emotional states that can conveniently be contextualized as delicately feminine, this change is significant.

 

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!***

(Operation Screenshot) Sofia Coppola's LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)