Pass the mead, Jeeves

For anyone stimulated by US producer Ted Hope's recent speech (reported a few posts below) on the opportunities being created for filmmakers to reach audiences using social networking, this piece at Jim Emerson's Scanners looks rather more askance at the new mediscape, asking if it isn't opening up the way for the relentless self-promoters and colourful personalities to grab all the attention even more than they have done in the past.

Why, runs the argument, should a lively, interesting film need a colourful, articulate director to sell it? Isn't just making a good film enough? Can't we just leave the marketing to those specialised in that dark art?

My own feeling is that old media created plenty of opportunities for the egotists and motormouths to race ahead of the shrinking violets and that new media is creating new forms, new ways of holding a conversation and disseminating information and building the audience - even if that audience is destined to be a small one.

This is my last post for a while. I'm about to head to Europe for a holiday and work trip, where among other things I'll be staying with the clan in the splendid Welsh castle pictured above (and before you ask, no, it's not a family heirloom, I regret to admit).

I'll also be accompanying a group of Australian film and TV producers on a trip to meet German funding bodies to discuss co-productions. This will finish wth a visit to the Munich film festival , the second largest in Germany after the Berlinale. I'll be filing reports on the Goethe-Instut's Australian website.

For those of you in Sydney, have a stimulating time at the Sydney Film Festival - but you really must take a break from the festival to see Jon Hassell this Saturday.

Greatest living Irishman plays Sydney tonight

Mighty Irish singer Damien Dempsey is appearing tonight at the Sydney Opera House as part of the Brian Eno-curated Luminous festival. Sadly I won't be able to go due to work commitments but that doesn't mean you can't (assuming of course you are in Sydney).

If you've never heard of him, my capsule review of his most recent album (below) should hopefully put you in the picture. Dempsey has achieved great popularity and respect in Ireland and Rocky Road - mostly traditional songs performed just by him - is a folk masterpiece. Note however that tonight he's performing with his band. From what I've seen and heard of it, this material may not be as powerful as his solo work.

DAMIEN DEMPSEY
Rocky Road
IRL/ Clear IRL 038
(five stars)

With a voice that can pick you up, shake you and turn you inside out, folk singer-songwriter Dempsey is a star in his native Ireland and deserves to be everywhere else. He’s played with and/ or been admired by just about everyone who counts in Irish music including Sinead O’Connor and U2, but on Rocky Road Dempsey turns to covering tunes written by others, many of them traditional. Everything on this fifth album is irresistibly memorable and pumped full of passion and guts. It’s hard to pick a highlight but it’s hard to imagine anyone being unmoved by his passionate version of The Pogues’ Rainy Night in Soho. _ LB

(First pubished in Limelight, September 2008)

In the jungle groove (via Munich)

KARL HECTOR AND THE MALCOUNS
Sahara Swing
Now-Again/ Creative Vibes NA5035
3 and a half stars

It’s hard to credit that this sweatbox of jazzy, Afro groove styles is not a reissue from the 1970s. The tumult in the rhythm section, the turmoil of the horns and the lo-fi sound positively reek of the era – in a good way.

It’s also hard to believe that Karl Hector hails from a place as unmistakably non-jungly as Munich. Clearly out for a good time, these top session musos plunder the spirit of Nigeria’s Fela Kuti, Ethiopia’s Mulatu Astatke and the US’s Sun Ra, James Brown and Miles Davis circa Bitches Brew (check the Bennie Maupin-like bass clarinet) with aplomb. _ LB

(First published in Limelight March 2009)

SFF highlights to screen in Melbourne

Public service announcement: two Sydney Filmfest highlights are also going to Melbourne.

Canadian director Ted Kotcheff and editor Anthony Buckley discuss their work on 1971's classic Wake In Fright, screening in its recently restored 35mm state at the Cinema Nova in Carlton on Tuesday June 16, 6.30pm. More details at cinemanova.com.au/events.html.
This film, which I saw in its restored state on DVD recently, is going to open a lot of eyes. Hopefully it's going to inspire a new generation of filmmakers who have never seen it before.

In addition the SFF retrospective devoted to films by bold women directors of the 1960s-70s, including Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman, Barbara Loden and Vera Chytilová (Daisies, pictured above), will be screening at ACMI for a week starting Friday July 3.

Co-operation betwen the festivals and interstate film bodies makes sense given the cost of mounting retrospectives - see the Jean-Pierre Melville retro the SFF mounted in collaboration with Melbourne Cinematheque in 2006 for a previous example.

It takes a lot of work and money to put these events together and they deserve to be made as widely available as possible. It also means the cost of importing prints can be shared (at least, for as long as this 19th century technology is still in use).

Sorry for absence of link, but if there's any news of this retro on the crappy ACMI website I've failed to discover it.

Tarkovsky would have been proud

The 2009 Sydney Filmfest opened last night. The party, at trendy bar Establishment, seemed smaller than in previous years, and the food and drink ran out early, prompting many complaints. I took it as a sign of the economically straitened circumstances in which the festival is having to operate.

I missed Ken Loach's Paul Laverty-scripted soccer hero fantasy Looking for Eric - I can see it any time fairly soon - and headed down to the harbourside, where Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys was received with rapt attention by a 260-strong Dendy audience. (Click on the Ceylan tag below to see previous raves about this Turkish master).

Ceylan's slow moving story of a chauffeur talked into taking a rap for his politician employer after a road accident, the latter promptly jumping into the sack with the man's wife while he's in jail, has been billed as a film noir. This may be loosely true in suggesting its fatalism, its gloweringly dark style and mood, but doesn't capture its originality. This lays in the way it deliberately avoids depicting any of the melodrama, only the bitter aftermath of a fatal accident and its criminal cover-up, adultery and murder.

The first three shots of the film, which take place on an isolated road at night, and the final shot, are blindingly impressive. That final image, worthy of Tarkovsky, consists of a long-held longshot from a nearby building of a devastated man standing on his rooftop just before a thunderstorm breaks and pours over him and his ruined life. Anyone who sees it will not forget it easily. I was less impressed by the 10 minutes of brooding and staring that precedes it - an bold attempt to dispense with dialogue that ended up being somewhat laboured.

Three Monkeys is being released straight to to DVD so if you live in Sydney and have a chance to see its 2nd SFF screening, avail yourself of this final opportunity to see it on the large screen where it belongs.

Afterwards I headed to The Studio at the Sydney Opera House to see Brian Eno's video art installation, 77 Million Paintings. This is not at all the collection of video screens I was expecting, rather a large-scale elaborate screen , plus a handful of cones on the floor, featuring almost imperceptibly changing colours and patterns.

Watch and nothing seems to happen. But close your eyes and count slowly to 10, holding the image in your eyes. Open them and you find the image has dramatically changed - and to frequently stunning effect.

Don't go to see it when you're pressed for time, take at least half an hour and be prepared to sink slowly into its quiet rhythm, which is enhanced by one of Eno's ambient soundscapes.

Anagram of Enough = Eno Ugh!

My review of Rachid Taha's Sydney Opera House concert as part of the Brian Eno-curated Luminous music festival on Monday is online at The Australian.

Extract:
"...while certainly not lacking in credibility, his (Eno's) program's two African acts, Afrobeat bandleader Seun Kuti and French-Algerian rocker Rachid Taha, are relatively safe choices given the vast range of potential options available.

"They make me wonder how in touch Eno is these days with contemporary African music, much of which is overflowing with vitality, little known here and yet to get anywhere near an Australian live venue.

"Taha and his band gave a raucous and extremely loud demonstration of his brand of Arabic hard rock..."

Everyone I've spoken with who was there seems obsessed by Taha's apparent state of inebriation. It didnt bother me. I was more concerned by his band's exploitation of extreme volume levels to to bludgeon the audience into submission. That and Eno's attempt at dancing - ugh!

Downfall director joins Sydney jury

Oliver Hirschbiegel, the director of Hitler story Downfall, has been announced as the final jury member for the Sydney filmfest competition.

Jury president Rolf de Heer will also be joined by Wake in Fright director Ted Kotcheff from Canada, Australian actress Miranda Otto and Danish director Lone Scherfig (Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself). Wonder if there'll be any jury-room confrontations as tense as the one below...

Eno Top 15 - in alphabetical order

Couldn't get this down to 10. Pretty much everything here is a masterpiece or close to it.

All feature Brian Eno in at least one key role - producer, co-producer, musician, composer.

(Please note the list is NOT in order of preference, rather alphabetical order)

1. Achtung Baby – U2
2. Another Green World – Brian Eno
3. Ambient 4: On Land – Brian Eno
4 . Apollo, Atmospheres and Soundtracks – Brian Eno
5. Fear of Music – Talking Heads
6. Fourth World Volume 1: Possible Musics – Jon Hassell, Brian Eno
7. For Your Pleasure – Roxy Music
8. Heroes – David Bowie *
9. More Song About Buildings and Food – Talking Heads
10. Music for Airports – Bang on a Can **
11. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts – David Byrne, Brian Eno
12. No Pussyfooting – Robert Fripp, Brian Eno
13. Remain in Light – Talking Heads
14. Roxy Music – Roxy Music
15. The Unforgettable Fire – U2

* David Visconti is officially credited as producer but Eno is widely seen a strong influence.
** Not the original Ambient 1 album but the revelatory, greatly improved version by contemporary music ensemble Bang on a Can.

Eno bottom 5:

1) His dancing on stage with Rachid Taha at Sydney Opera House last night. Ugh!
2) His weedy vocals on anything.
3) Contradicting himself in his Luminous keynote address on Friday (see link two posts below) by declaring one moment unambiguously that governments should subsidise local artists, the next moment saying arts funding was hard to justify.
4) Before and After Science - Brian Eno. Quasi-prog rock.
5) His uninspired remix for Can's album of remixes, Sacrilege

Info Freako - no end to what we all want to know

Discussing Twitter with Eyes Wired Open readers reminded me of the remarkably prescient words to the Jesus Jones song Info Freako, which incredibly was released as long ago as 1989 - well before the PC/ Mac/ Internet 1:0 revolution, let alone Internet 2:0, iPods, 3G phones , Twitter, Facebook, blogging, etc.

You know that sleep is getting hard to get
'Cause you never know what you'll forget
And I've got to know of all the news
'Cause one day there'll be news for me
I never let a headline by
'Cause every one will catch my eye
And though it's tough to keep alert
You never know what could hurt me
But it gets me down
You know it gets me down
It really gets me down
Yes it gets me down
Info Freako,
There is no end to what I want to know
There's what you feel
And what you know
And it wasn't all that long ago
I found that Info Freako thing
Now nothing ever gets to me
But it gets me down...
Info Freako,
There is no end to what I want to know
But it means I'll have the edge over you
And it means I'll always have the edge over you
And you know there's nothing that you can do
Info Freako,
there is no end to what I want to know

Pretty amazing lyric, yes?

Eno on the genius of scenes

In today's The Australian I report on Brian Eno's keynote address on Friday for the Luminous Festival at the Sydney Opera House.

In his wide-ranging, 100-minute talk, Eno questioned whether arts funding could be justified to taxpayers, rubbished contemporary art writing, made frequent comparisons between the worlds of arts and science, discussed the purpose and definition of art, and proposed ways of tackling climate change.

Extract: "The title of the address, Scenius, is a made-up word referring to Eno's ideas about the collective 'genius' arising from 'scenes' devoted to arts and science. He'd begun thinking about this after visiting a London exhibition of early 20th century Russian painting. Before going he had the notion 'there were all these greats, and then a whole lot of other people,' but he found instead 'a seething mass of all sorts of interesting people' including collectors, writers and filmmakers. He had become interested in discovering the chemistry of a successful scene."

To find what Eno considers examples of successful "scenius" and what he thinks made them work, see the full article.