Category Archives: Documentary

9 to 5 at 45 RPM: The Wrecking Crew ***1/2

September 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 21, 2015)

Image result for wrecking crew in studio

Full disclosure: I originally saw The Wrecking Crew (the 2015 music documentary, not to be confused with the 1969 “Matt Helm” caper starring Dean Martin and Sharon Tate) four chords and seven years ago, when it played at the 2008 Seattle International Film Festival. Wrangling over music licensing has since kept this marvelous film in mothballs, but it is finally getting a proper “official” wide release.

“The Wrecking Crew” was a moniker given to an aggregation of crack L.A. session players who in essence created the distinctive pop “sound” that defined classic Top 40 from the late 50s through the mid-70s. With several notable exceptions (Glen Campbell, Leon Russell and Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack) their names remain obscure to the general public, even if the music they helped forge is forever burned into our collective neurons.

The film was a labor of love in every sense of the word for first-time director Denny Tedesco, whose late father was the guitarist extraordinaire Tommy Tedesco, a premier member of the team.

Tedesco traces origins of the Wrecking Crew, from participation in co-creating the legendary “Wall of Sound” of the early 60s (lorded over by mercurial pop savant Phil Spector) to collaborations with Brian Wilson (most notably, on the Beach Boys’ seminal Pet Sounds album) and backing sessions with just about any other popular artist of the era you could throw out there (Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, The Righteous Brothers, Henry Mancini, Ike & Tina Turner, The Monkees, The Association, Nancy Sinatra, The Fifth Dimension, The Byrds, Sonny & Cher, Petula Clark, The Mamas and the Papas, Frank Zappa, etc.). Not to mention myriad TV themes and movie soundtracks.

Tedesco has curated fascinating vintage studio footage, as well as archival and present day interviews with key players. You also hear from some of the producers (Herb Alpert, Lou Adler and Jack Nitzsche) who utilized their talents. Tedesco assembled a group of surviving members to swap anecdotes (and as you can imagine, they have got some great stories to tell).

One of my favorite reminiscences concerned the earliest recording sessions for The Monkees. An apparently uninformed Peter Tork showed up in the studio, guitar in hand-and was greeted by a roomful of bemused session players, giving him a “WTF are YOU doing here?!” look before he slunk away in embarrassment.

One of the revelations in the film is bass player/guitarist Carol Kaye, a quietly unassuming pioneer who commanded a lot of respect in a traditionally male-dominated niche of the music industry. In a great scene, she modestly demonstrates a few signature bass lines that you may have heard once or twice; the opening riffs for “The Beat Goes On”, “California Girls”, the “Mission Impossible Theme”, even that subtle 5 note run that opens Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman”.

The documentary’s scene stealer is Hal Blaine, who may be the most recorded drummer in the history of pop music. Blaine was in attendance at the SIFF screening I caught in 2008, and did a Q & A along with the director after the film. I remember him telling the audience that he was then in the midst of compiling his discography ; he said so far they had been able to annotate “only” about 5,000 sessions (some estimates top the 10,000 mark). Blaine tells colorful and hilarious stories; he reminds me of another droll musician-raconteur…Pete Barbuti (who never failed to put me on the floor in his many appearances on The Tonight Show throughout the 1970s).

Tedesco’s film makes a nice companion to the 2003 doc Standing in the Shadows of Motown, which profiled another group of hitherto unheralded session players (aka the “Funk Brothers”) who backed nearly every Motown hit. I know that some people look down their nose at this “lunch pail” approach to creating music, but there is no denying the chops that these players bring to the table, and I say more power to ‘em, myself. Tedesco’s film is a joyous celebration of a unique era of popular art that (love it or loathe it), literally provided the “soundtrack of our lives” for some of us of a (ahem) certain age.

OK, since I brought him up…here’s my favorite Pete Barbuti bit:

Documentary, The Environment, Up the Workers

Popsicle toes: Antarctica: a Year on Ice ***

September 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 29, 2014)

For decades now, my long-time Alaskan friends and I have speculated as to why no one has ever thought to produce a documentary about the unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience shared by the thousands of men and women who worked on the massive Trans-Alaska Pipeline construction project back in the 1970s. From 1975-1977, I worked as a laborer on the project (that’s right…Fairbanks Local #942, baby!), doing 6-to-10 week stints in far-flung locales with exotic handles like Coldfoot, Old Man, Happy Valley, and the ever-popular Pump Station #3 (now that was one cold motherfucker).

These remote work camps, frequently the only bastions of “civilization” for hundreds of square miles in all directions, developed their own unique culture…part moon base, part Dodge City. It’s a vibe that is tough to explain to anyone who wasn’t actually there. Traditionally, I usually cite the sci-fi “western” Outland as the closest approximation. However, going forward I’ll defer to Anthony Powell’s Antarctica: a Year on Ice.

For once, someone has made a documentary about Earth’s southernmost polar region that contains barely a penguin in sight…or any sign of Morgan Freeman, for that matter. OK, there’s a wee bit of penguin footage, but no more than maybe 2 minutes total out of a 90-minute film, tops. And know that I have nothing but respect for Mr. Freeman, one of America’s finest actors, and his undeniably mellifluous pipes…but enough with the voice overs, already (leave some scraps for Martin Sheen, for god’s sake). The narration is from the filmmaker himself, who toiled 15 years on this labor of love.

While there are breathtaking time-lapse sequences (reminiscent of Koyaanisqatsi) capturing the otherworldly beauty of the continent, this is not so much standard-issue nature documentary as it is a kitchen sink social study of Antarctica’s (for wont of a better descriptive) “working class”. These are people with the decidedly less glamorous gigs than the scientists, biologists and geophysicists who usually get to hog the spotlight on the National Geographic Channel.

These are the administrators, store clerks, culinary staff, warehouse workers, electricians, mechanics, drivers, heavy equipment operators, etc. who help keep the infrastructure viable. Powell’s film not only serves to remind us of the universality of human psychology in extreme survival situations, but is imbued with a hopeful utopian undercurrent, best summarized by the very first line of Article 1 of the Antarctic Treaty: “Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only.”

Amen…and please pass the bunny boots.

Art world, Con Game, Documentary

Draw this pirate: Art and Craft ***

September 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 1, 2014)

It’s an age-old question: Who gets to call it “art”? Andy Warhol paints a replica of a Campbell soup can, signs his name to it (with no credit to the designer who originally created it), and it’s “art”, as opposed to “plagiarism”? Eye of the beholder, and all that, I’d reckon. Art and Craft, a documentary from directors Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, and Mark Becker, adds a new spin to the question: Does someone talented enough to reproduce classic works of art that are so indistinguishable from originals that even professional registrars are duped deserve to be called an “artist”? And if that said individual is donating the work, is it still “forgery”? After all…as Jonathan Richman once sang, “Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole.”

Such is the strange case of mild-mannered savant Mark Landis, who has the dubious distinction of being considered the most prolific forger in art history. Amazingly, Landis was able to keep his secret safe for 30 years, during which time he took on the role of a “philanthropist”, crisscrossing the country to donate his uncanny reproductions to unsuspecting galleries and museums. The breadth of the works is genuinely astonishing; covering the full spectrum from Charles Shultz to Picasso. His streak ended when Matthew Leininger, one of the registrars he had initially duped, caught on to Landis’ con.

The film is ultimately a fascinating portrait of two obsessive individuals; each one operating within a gray area. While there are certainly ethical issues that can be raised regarding what Landis does, there is nothing technically illegal about donating objects d’art. Besides, as one art expert conjectures in the film, who is to say that what Landis does isn’t a kind of “performance art” in and of itself?

In that respect, one could argue he is free to go about his business, as long as he isn’t hurting anybody (save the wounded pride of a few museum curators). Likewise, while it could be argued that Leininger (at least as observed in the film) is exhibiting classic characteristics of stalking behavior, there’s no law against him going on his one-man crusade across the country to alert any museums and galleries that he suspects may have Landis’ work in their collections.

Anyone already aware of the art world’s inherently schizoid nature will probably not be too surprised by the film’s most enlightening segment, which takes place at a gallery that has offered Landis his own show. The only original in the installation is a portrait Landis painted of his late mother; the rest are his reproductions. Several attendees ask Landis the obvious question, “You’re so talented…why don’t you do your own work?” The soft-spoken (and heavily medicated) Landis responds to such queries with enigmatic shrugs.

Someone else has shown up as well…Leininger (luckily, with his wife, who can be seen pulling him back several times when he looks for all intents and purposes like he’s seriously considering grabbing Landis and killing him with his bare hands). Inevitably, there is a brief (and obviously awkward) conversation between the two. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t been reading any of your emails, because I figured they would just be bad news,” Landis tells Leininger, “but if you want to send me any new emails, I’ll read them, because we’re all friends now,” and offers Leininger his hand. Leininger shakes, but still looks like he wants to strangle Landis. Everybody’s a critic, I suppose…

Documentary, On Politics, War

Goodnight, Saigon: The Last Days of Vietnam ***1/2

September 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 4, 2014)

Call this an intervention, but someone has to say it. America has an ongoing co-dependent relationship with the Vietnam war. Oh, I know, it’s been nearly 40 years since we were “involved”. And to be sure, as soon as the last Marine split, we wasted no time giving the war its ring back. We put our fingers in our ears, started chanting “la-la-la-la can’t hear you” and moved on with our lives, pretending like the whole tragic misfire never happened.

But here’s the funny thing. Every time we find ourselves teetering on the edge of another quagmire, we stack it up against our old flame. We can’t help ourselves. “We don’t want another Vietnam,” we worry, or “Well…at least this doesn’t seem likely to turn into another Vietnam,” we fib to ourselves as we get all dressed up for our third date.

But do all who use that meme truly understand why it’s so important that we don’t have another Vietnam? For many (particularly those too young to have grown up watching it go sideways on Walter Cronkite), the passage of time has rendered the war little more than an abstract reference. It’s too easy to forget the human factor.

Even for many old enough to remember, dredging up the human factor reopens old wounds (personal or political). But you know what “they” say…those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Which is why I would encourage you to catch Rory Kennedy’s documentary, The Last Days of Vietnam, precisely because she dares to dredge up the “human factor”.

Kennedy focuses on a specific period of time; literally the “last days” of American involvement in Vietnam, detailing the drama that unfolded at the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon in April of 1975, as North Vietnamese forces closed in on the city. The city defenses were virtually nil; U.S. troops had withdrawn (save a small contingent of Marines assigned to protecting the embassy grounds).

The South Vietnamese soldiers who remained were sorely under-equipped and in disarray. No word had arrived from Washington as to any official contingency plans for evacuating any of the South Vietnamese from the city (Congress was gridlocked on the subject…imagine that). It began to dawn on some of the embassy workers that time was running out for their South Vietnamese co-workers and friends. With no time to lose, they decided to go a bit…rogue.

Blending archival footage with recollections by participants (American and Vietnamese), Kennedy reconstructs the extraordinary events of those final days and hours that ultimately resulted in the successful extraction of 77,000 men, women and children (which is about, oh, 77,000 more than would have been able to escape had everyone just sat around and waited for an act of Congress…sometimes, you’ve got to break a few protocols in the name of basic human decency).

As you watch the film you realize what a tremendous act of courage and compassion this was on the part of those who spearheaded this makeshift exodus (it’s reminiscent of Dunkirk). For some participants, who refuse to accept any laurels, memories remain bittersweet at best; obviously they did not have the time or the resources to get everyone out, and that hits them hard to this day.

Of course, there’s that big question that remains: Why were we there in the first place? “The end of April 1975 was the whole Vietnam involvement in a microcosm,” one of the interviewees quietly observes as he wells up with emotion, “Promises made in good faith, promises broken. People being hurt, because we didn’t get our act together. The whole Vietnam war is a story that kind of sounds like that.” Sadly, as we now find ourselves chasing ISIS down the rabbit hole, this is starting to sound like a story without an ending.

Behind the Music, Documentary

Swimming to Soulsville: Take Me To the River ***

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 27, 2014)

Maybe I’m just jaded, but there’s a sub genre of music doc that is becoming somewhat formulaic. “(Insert director and film title here) is the story of (insert name of venerable American recording studio here), located near the banks of (insert name of venerable American river here), which has given host to the likes of (insert impressive roll call of venerable American musicians here), frequently backed up by (insert aggregate nickname for venerable American session players) who have collectively given us the soundtrack of our lives.”

There’s no other way to say it: Martin Shore’s Take Me to the River is the story of the Stax recording studios, near the banks of the Mississippi in Memphis Tennessee, which has given host to the likes of Mavis Staples, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Isaac Hayes, Otis Clay and William Bell, frequently backed by house band Booker T. & the MGs, who have collectively given us the, erm, soundtrack of our lives.

That’s not to say that it isn’t a damn good soundtrack, especially for those of (ahem) a certain age, who grew up digging classic Stax A-sides like “Green Onions” by Booker T., “Walking the Dog” by Rufus Thomas, “Walk on By” by Isaac Hayes, “Private Number” by William Bell and Judy Clay, “Knock on Wood” by Eddie Floyd, “Soul Man” by Sam & Dave, “Mr. Big Stuff” by Jean Knight, “Respect Yourself” by The Staple Singers, and…well, you get the gist.

Using archival footage and recollections by seminal Stax artists and producers, Shore traces the history of the label, from its founding in the early 60’s, through its occasionally stormy partnership with Atlantic Records, to its heyday as an independent label from 1968 to 1972 (he doesn’t dwell on the rough patches from the mid-70s through the early 1980s, which included bankruptcy and internal strife).

The good news is that Stax has enjoyed a second wind over the last decade (mostly as a reissue label). It is in the spirit of this revival that the director decided to frame the film by documenting the making of an inter-generational “duets” album that pairs up hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg, Lil P-Nut, Al Kapone and Yo Gotti with Stax veterans.

This leads to some interesting moments; in my favorite scene, the great Bobby “Blue” Bland offers some grandfatherly advice about the music biz to the 11 year-old Lil P-Nut, as well as a “tough love” tutorial on how to inject his vocal phrasing with real soul. Mavis Staples really lights up the room with her wonderful spirit and “that” voice. Another music highlight is an impromptu jam session featuring the soft-spoken blues legend Charlie Musselwhite, proving age is not a factor when it comes to blowing a mean harp.

The best part about Shore’s film is that it admirably aspires to connect the dots between the R&B “Memphis sound” and the contemporary sub genres that have evolved from it (like hip-hop and neo-soul). In this sense, the older artists who appear in the film (vital and soulful as ever) are literally “living history”.

One also gets the poignant sense of a legacy passing on, especially in a segment showing students from an associated music school working with veteran Stax artists on one of the sessions. An important element of that legacy is the colorblind factor; from its earliest days to the present, this has been a music scene (based in the Deep South, mind you) that remained happily oblivious to the very concept of a color barrier. All that mattered was the music that came out of the box.

The need to preserve that legacy of spirit holds more import once it’s revealed that several of the older performers have passed since principal filming. One of those late legends, guitarist Charles “Skip” Pitts (who provided those iconic wah-wah licks on “Shaft”) embodies this gracious spirit when we see him praise a young student drummer. “Watch this fellow,” Pitts gushes like a proud dad, “He’s already plugged in. Nobody had to tell him how to do nothing.” He gives the teenager a fist bump, adding “Love you, man. Hope you like what I did…I tried to put a little some-somethin’ on it.” Hey, that’s the best any of us can aim for before we shuffle off this mortal coil…puttin’ a little some-somethin’ on it.

Documentary, Heist Caper, True Crime

Prisoners of love: The Dog ***1/2

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 23, 2014)

And all he got was this stupid T-shirt: The Dog

On a sultry August afternoon back in 1972, a botched Brooklyn bank robbery morphed into a tense hostage drama that played out on live TV; and once rumors began to circulate that the ringleader, a Vietnam vet named John Wojtowicz, had engineered the heist in a desperate attempt to raise funds for his lover’s sex reassignment surgery, it became a full-blown media circus.

Wojtowicz’s accomplice didn’t survive the day (he was shot dead by FBI agents) and he earned a 5 year-long stretch in the pen for his troubles. The incident inspired Sidney Lumet’s classic 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon. Al Pacino’s iconic turn as Wojtowicz added shelf life to the robber-turned folk hero’s initial 15 minutes of fame.

Of course, Hollywood rarely gets it 100% right, even with stories purported to be “ripped from the headlines”. In a new documentary from co-directors Alison Berg and Frank Keraudren called The Dog, none other than John Wojtowicz himself appears onscreen to set the record straight. The first thing he wants us to know is that he’s “a pervert.” Okay then. But it’s also important for us to understand that he is “a lover” as well, because after all, in his lifetime he has had “4 wives, and 23 girlfriends.” Are we supposed to be taking notes?

Many unexpected twists and turns ensue. While it’s well established from the get-go that Wojtowicz (who died in 2006) was a riotously profane, unexpectedly engaging (if deeply weird) raconteur…he is not the only star of this show. The scene stealer? His dear (late) mother, who insists that “half of what (John) says is bullshit.”

Nonetheless, this is an absorbing film (a decade in the making) that works on multiple levels. It can be viewed as a “true crime” documentary, a social history (there are surprising tie-ins with NYC’s early 70s gay activist scene), a meditation on America’s peculiar fetish with fame whores, or (on a purely popcorn level) as a perversely compelling family freak show along the lines of Grey Gardens or Crumb. I’m giving it a three and a half out of four “Atticas!” rating:

“Attica! Attica! Attica!”

Documentary, On Politics, War(s) on Terror

All good soldiers crack like boulders: The Kill Team ***

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 16, 2014)

If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death, praying for war.”

– Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.

In an ideal world, no one should ever have to “go to war”. But it’s not an ideal world. As long as humans have existed, there has been conflict. And always with the hitting, and the stoning, and the clubbing, and then later with the skewering and the slicing and stabbing…then eventually with the shooting and the bombing and the vaporizing.

So if we absolutely have to have a military, one would hope that the majority of the men and women who serve in our armed forces at least “go to war” as fearless, disciplined, trained professionals, instilled with a sense of honor and integrity. In an ideal world. Which again, this is not.

And according to The Kill Team, there is an insidious culture of lizard-brain savagery within the U.S. military not far evolved from the old days with all the hitting, the stoning and the clubbing.

In his documentary, Dan Krauss artfully blends intimate interviews with moody composition (recalling the films of Errol Morris), coaxing extraordinary confessionals from key participants and witnesses involved in a series of 2010 Afghanistan War incidents usually referred to as the “Maywand District murders“.

In 2011, five soldiers from the Fifth Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division (stationed near Kandahar) were officially accused of murdering three innocent Afghan civilians. Led by an apparently psychopathic squad leader, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, the men were members of 3rd Platoon, which became known as “The Kill Team”.

Gibbs is alleged to have encouraged his men to score as many “kills” as they could get away with, devising a system based on windows of opportunity and keeping “drop” weapons on hand to implicate victims as combatants. As if that weren’t evil enough, participants memorialized the kills with photographs and videos depicting the cheerful perpetrators clowning around with the bodies. It gets worse…victim’s fingers were cut off as trophies.

Krauss puts his primary focus on Specialist Adam Winfield, a soft-spoken, slightly-built young man. While Winfield admits participating in one of the killings (he maintains that he was bullied into involvement, and purposefully aimed high and away from the victim) he was the de facto “conscience” of the squad.

Krauss suggests this through a recreation of Facebook chats between Adam and his ex-Marine dad, in which he expresses shock and dismay over the troubling culture of inhumanity within the platoon, and his growing personal disillusionment with the overall mission. “The army really let me down here…I find out it’s all a lie,” he notes, later offering this ominous assessment: “There are no good men here.”

The full implications of Adam’s moral dilemma obviously did not sink in right away with his father, who asks during one exchange, “Can’t you just ask for a transfer?” to which Adam replies that the infantry doesn’t work that way-especially when you’re on a deployment (eventually, his father did try to reach out to authorities…but was stonewalled).

Winfield alleges that once word reached Staff Sgt. Gibbs that he had been expressing concerns to fellow soldiers, there were strong indications that Gibbs and his co-conspirators began entertaining scenarios on how they might take him out….if need be.

While the director does seem to be taking pains to put him in the most sympathetic light possible, it should be noted that Specialist Winfield was not the “official” whistle blower. That was Specialist Justin Stoner (who also appears in the film).

Ironically, while he was well aware of the Kill Team’s murderous behavior (he was not directly involved in any of the incidents), Stoner’s initial complaint to superiors involved the squad’s insistence on repeatedly crashing his room to get baked on hash (despite his surname, he did not partake, but worried that the lingering smell would unfairly get him into trouble).

When Staff Sgt. Gibbs found out Stoner was the nark, he gathered up his goon squad and gave him a late night beat down in his room (as Stoner philosophically offers with a shrug, “Snitches get stitches.”). It was only during a subsequent inquiry regarding his injuries that Stoner spilled the beans about the murders.

This is really quite a story (sadly, an old one), and because it can be analyzed in many contexts (first person, historical, political, sociological, and psychological), some may find Krauss’ film frustrating, incomplete, or even slanted. But judging purely on the context he has chosen to use (first person) I think it works quite well.

At the time of filming, Specialist Winfield was involved in his trial (he was charged with involuntary manslaughter). Krauss lets us quietly observe the emotional toll on Winfield and his loving parents.

Granted, the nature of the actions that took place begs larger questions, regarding ultimate accountability. Were these men aberrations, as the military’s official line would have us believe? Or is there indeed a culture of barbarism built in to the military psyche?

After all, infantry soldiers are trained to kill, armed to the teeth, and generally thrown into combat situations at a biological stage of life where testosterone levels are running rampant…so what do we expect, right?

Then there’s that time-honored military tradition of scapegoating. As someone brings up in the film, why is it that no one above the rank of Staff Sergeant went to trial in this case? And historically, (aside from Lt. Calley in the My Lai Massacre case) when have any brass ever been held accountable? I guess it’ll always be with the hitting, and the stoning, and the clubbing…

Documentary, Movie Movie, Writers

Out there, in the dark: Life Itself ****

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 5, 2014)

When the long-running TV program At the Movies quietly packed its bags and closed the balcony for good back in 2010, I wrote a piece about the profound impact that the show had on me in its various incarnations over the years; first as a film buff and later on as a critic:

Back in the late 70s, I was living in Fairbanks, Alaska. This was not the ideal environment for an obsessive movie buff. At the time, there were only two single-screen movie theaters in town. And keep in mind, there was no cable service in the market, and the video stores were a still a few years down the road as well […] Consequently, due to the lack of venues, I was reading more about movies, than actually watching them. I remember poring over back issues of The New Yorker at the public library, soaking up Penelope Gilliat and Pauline Kael, and thinking they had a pretty cool gig; but it seemed like it was requisite to actually live in NYC (or L.A.) to be taken seriously as a film critic (most of the films they reviewed didn’t make it out to the sticks) […]

Then, in 1978, our local PBS affiliate began carrying a bi-weekly 30-minute program called Sneak Previews. Now here was something kind of interesting; a couple of guys (kind of scruffy lookin’) casually bantering about current films-who actually seemed to know their shit. You might even think they were professional movie critics […] In fact, they were professional rivals; Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel wrote for competing Chicago dailies […] This underlying tension between the pair was always bubbling just under the surface, but imbued the show with an interesting dynamic […]

One thing these two did share was an obvious and genuine love and respect for the art of cinema; and long before the advent of the internet, I think they were instrumental in razing the ivory towers and demystifying the art of film criticism (especially for culturally starved yahoos like me, living on the frozen tundra).

After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert kept the show going whilst essentially auditioning an interestingly diverse roster of guest critics for several months, with fellow Chicago Sun-Times reviewer Richard Roeper eventually winning the permanent seat across the aisle. Ebert remained a stalwart fixture until 2006, when treatment for his thyroid cancer began. Of course, Roger Ebert’s life journey didn’t end there, just as it had already taken many twists and turns before his fame as a TV personality. In fact, it is these bookends that provide the most compelling elements in Life Itself, a moving, compassionate and surprisingly frank portrait from acclaimed documentary film maker Steve James (Hoop Dreams).

The film covers the full breadth of Ebert’s professional life as a journalist; beginning with his fledgling days as a reporter and reviewer for The Daily Illini while attending the University of Illinois in the early 60s, to his embrace of new media during that personally challenging (and very public) final chapter of his life, wherein he was able to reinvent himself as a sociopolitical commentator (which he pursued with the same passion, candor and intelligence that defined his oeuvre as America’s most respected film critic).

Despite the fact that the film was made with the full blessing and cooperation of its subject (and his widow), this is not a hagiography. To be sure, Ebert was a gifted, amazingly prolific Pulitzer Prize winning writer, the premier film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013, an instantly relatable, beloved TV personality with a killer hook (“Thumbs up!” or “Thumbs down!”) and by most accounts an engaging raconteur and generally warm and empathetic human being…but he was, after all, a human being. He could also be arrogant, obstinate, and petty (James includes some eye-opening outtakes from At the Movies that are quite damning). He had a long-time battle with the bottle (which he freely admitted, in interviews and in his memoir).

Yet he also showed us, at the end of it all, how silly it is to sweat the small stuff, and how important it is to follow your bliss, in spite of circumstance. Ebert’s insistence that the director not shy his cameras away from the hellishness of his final months may seem morbid (and granted, the unblinking nature of that footage is difficult to watch and may even be a deal breaker for some viewers), but in hindsight I think it was his way of reminding us of the old proverb: “I cried because I had no shoes…until I met a man who had no feet.” Yes, he suffered terribly, and became physically unrecognizable as the same erudite, Falstaffian Everyman who sat across the aisle from Gene and bantered about the latest Scorsese film on my little 13 inch TV with rabbit ears and fuzzy reception all those years ago; but he never lost the muse, or his true voice, which came through in his prose.

I have to say it. I’m giving this film a thumbs up. Until next week…the balcony’s closed.

Documentary, Mystery

The big whirl of little atoms: Particle Fever ***

September 26, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 15, 2014)

What I know about particle physics couldn’t fill a flea’s codpiece. And if you’re like me (isn’t everyone?), I’d bet you don’t spend a good deal of your day contemplating quarks, hadrons, mesons or baryons (wasn’t he a famous English poet?). Nonetheless, I found Particle Fever, physicist-turned-filmmaker Mark Levinson’s documentary about a group of folks who do spend a good deal of their day thinking about such things, to be much more riveting than I had expected. Levinson documents the years of experiments and painstaking analysis that led up to the astounding announcement in 2012 that scientists had successfully identified the elusive “Higgs boson” (aka “The God Particle”), which could be the crucial key in proving that The Big Bang is, well, more than just a “theory”.

Levinson gives equal time to the empirical and theoretical schools of thought on this groundbreaking discovery. The former group is represented by the physicists who work at CERN, which houses the Large Hadron Collider (an immense complex that resembles the set of Metropolis), and the latter by academics and theoreticians. While largely concerning itself with the parsing of the scientific minutiae, it is the sometimes uneasy yet necessary yin-yang partnership between those camps that lends the film a very human center. One theoretical physicist sums it up best when he bemusedly wonders aloud if this discovery makes the previous 40 years of his life meaningless. Higgs boson only knows…

Behind the Music, Documentary, Jazz Musicians

Girls just wanna play 7th flat 9th chords: The Girls in the Band *** (& a Top 5 List)

September 22, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 15, 2014)

“I have a dream that my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Contextual to a curiously overlooked component within the annals of American jazz music, it’s tempting to extrapolate on Dr. King’s dream. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a nation where one is not only primarily judged by content of character, but can also be judged on the merits of creativity, or the pure aesthetics of artistic expression, as opposed to being judged solely by the color of one’s skin…or perhaps gender? At the end of the day, what is a “black”, or a “female” jazz musician? Why is it that a Dave Brubeck is never referred to as a “white” or “male” jazz musician?

Of course, in these (allegedly) enlightened times, these might be considered trite questions. But there was a time, not so long ago, in a galaxy pretty close by, when these questions would be considered heresy by some. For example, back in 1938, the venerable (and otherwise progressively-minded) music magazine Down Beat ran an article entitled “Why Women Musicians Are Inferior”.

That is but one of the eye-openers in an overall eye-opening documentary by Judy Chaikin called The Girls in the Band, which aims to chronicle the largely unsung contributions that female jazz musicians have made (and continue to make) to this highly influential American art form.

I know what you’re thinking. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington…they’ve had plenty of press over the years, right? Yes, they have. But (and not to denigrate those jazz giants) there is an important distinction…they are vocalists. Traditionally, as Chaikin points out in her film, that was a woman’s most accepted “place” in jazz. Piano? Sure, that was “allowed” (Hazel Scott, Jane Jarvis, Dorothy Donegan were early pioneers), but drums, vibes, guitar, horns, sax…fuhgettaboutit. Those take a man’s strength and stamina! But it turns out that female players have been acing it all along, having no problem keeping it (as my friend’s dad, a veteran jazz pianist, was fond of saying) “in the pocket”.

Utilizing rare archival footage and interviews with veteran and contemporary players, Chaikin has assembled an absorbing, poignant, and celebratory piece. Among the veteran interviewees, 88 year-old saxophonist Roz Cron gives the most fascinating perspective regarding the double roadblock of sexism and racism that she and her contemporaries bumped up against time and again (and not just from their male counterparts, who at times out-and-out mutinied against band leaders who invited female players to join or even merely sit in).

As the only white musician in the all-female outfit, The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, she experienced some Kafkaesque moments, especially while touring the deep South. Thanks to the pretzel logic of then extant Jim Crow “laws”, Cron was once arrested and jailed on a charge of “associating with Negroes”.

While things have since obviously (and thankfully) loosened up on the “judging by gender” front, some of the old prejudices die hard. One interviewee, composer/band leader Maria Schneider recounts one experience with an interviewer, who opened with “So, what’s it like to be a woman composer?” To which she replied “What’s it like to be a male journalist?” But there is optimism as well. As Schneider offers later in the film “I hope we get to the day soon where it’s not something people think about, and categorize.” I suppose you could say that Maria Schneider also has a dream…and it is a good dream.

In keeping with the spirit of jazz, I thought I would improvise a bit on tonight’s theme and offer all you hep cats and kittens my righteous picks for the Top 5 jazz movies. Dig:

All Night Long– Directed by Basil Deardon (The League of Gentlemen, The Assassination Bureau) this 1962 UK film stars Patrick McGoohan (still a couple years shy of achieving international fame as TV’s Secret Agent Man) chewing all the available scenery as an ambitious, conniving jazz drummer. Nel King and Paul Jarrico based their screenplay on Shakespeare’s Othello, with the action taking place in an upscale London jazz club over the course of one evening. While it’s quite entertaining on its own merits, the film’s rep is bolstered by the then-contemporary jazz heavyweights who appear onscreen (most notably, Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus). Richard Attenborough and Betsy Blair are also on board, and McGoohan proves that he isn’t half bad on the skins!

Jazz on a Summer’s Day– Bert Stern’s groundbreaking documentary about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival is not so much a “concert film” as it is a pristine, richly colorful time capsule of late 50s American life. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of gorgeously filmed numbers spotlighting the formidable chops of Thelonius Monk, Anita O’Day, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, etc., but the film is equally captivating whenever cameras turn away from the artists and casually linger on the audience or the environs (like showing sailboats lazily puffing past the festival grounds), while the music continues in the background.

The effect truly is like “being there” in 1958 Newport on a languid summer’s day, because if you’ve ever attended an outdoor music festival, half the fun is people-watching; rarely do you affix your gaze on the stage the entire time. In fact, Stern is breaking with film making conventions of the era; you are witnessing the genesis of the cinema verite music documentary, which wouldn’t flower until nearly a decade later with films like Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop, Woodstock and Gimme Shelter.

Let’s Get Lost– The life of horn player/vocalist Chet Baker is a tragedian’s dream; a classic tale of a talented artist who peaked early, then promptly set about self-destructing. Sort of the Montgomery Clift of jazz, he was graced by the gods with an otherworldly physical beauty and a gift for expressing his art. By age 24 he had already gigged with Stan Getz, Charlie Parker and Gerry Mulligan. He began chasing the dragon in the 1950s, leading to jail time and a career slide.

There are conflicting versions of the circumstances that led to a brutal beating in 1968, but the resultant injuries to his mouth impaired his playing abilities. While he never kicked the substance abuse, he eventually got his mojo back, and enjoyed a resurgence of his career in his final decade (he was only 58 when he died).

The nodded-out Chet Baker we see in Bruce Weber’s extraordinary warts-and-all 1988 documentary (beautifully shot in B&W) is a man who appears several decades older than his chronological age (and sadly, as it turned out, has about a year left to live). Still, there are amazing (if fleeting) moments of clarity, where we get a glimpse of the genius that still burned within this tortured soul.

The opening scene in particular, where Weber holds a close up of Baker’s ravaged road map of a face while he croons a plaintive rendition of Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue”, has to be one of the most naked, heartbreaking vocal performances ever captured on film. Haunting and one-of-a-kind, this is a must-see documentary.

‘Round Midnight– Legendary sax player Dexter Gordon gives a knockout performance in Bertrand Tavernier’s 1986 drama (set in the late 1950s) about an American jazz musician who is invited to Paris for an extended engagement. Gordon’s character, Dale Turner, has been fighting a losing battle with the bottle, which has led to a dearth of gigs stateside. Turner is initially taken aback, but soon bolstered by his apparent cachet among the French (it’s no secret that African-American musicians were held in higher regard and treated with more respect abroad in those days that they were back home). Still, every day is a struggle for an addict, and as they say, “Wherever you go-there you are.” Excellent performances and magnificent playing from Gordon make this film a winner.

The Warped Ones– The protagonist in this New Wave-influenced offering from director Koreyoshi Kurahara may not be a musician, but the film itself is permeated by a jazz soundtrack, and assaults the senses like the atonal screeches in an improvisational sax solo. Tamio Kawachi gives a surly and unpredictable turn as Akira, a jazz-obsessed young hood who bilks tourists at the seedy jazz club he hangs out at with his hooker girlfriend (Noriko Matsumoto).

A nosy reporter narks him out and he does a stint in jail. After Akira gets out, he and his girlfriend are tooling around one of their favorite beach haunts in a stolen car when they happen upon said reporter, strolling with his fiancée. On the spur of the moment, Akira runs the reporter down and kidnaps his fiancée; launching a spree of uninhibitedly anti-social behavior by this rebel without a cause. Not for all tastes (the film lives up to its title) but a prime sample of Japan’s unique take on the late 50s/early 60s youth rebellion genre.

…and here’s the “next five” that I’d recommend for your queue: Bird, The Gene Krupa Story, A Man Called Adam, Pete Kelly’s Blues, Sweet and Lowdown.