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1.Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World may change your understanding of rock music, of blues, and of jazz. Just as the music of native Indians significantly determined the nature of these genres of music, so it is that native Indian blood flows through the veins of many musicians and singers crucial to what our music of many kinds is. I remember when Link Wray’s Rumble first appeared on the rock & roll charts and how we all tried to duplicate, unsuccessfully, this unique, uncompromising, defiant, and haunting sound, as did a number of famous musicians interviewed in this film. Yes, Jimi Hendrix, Robbie Robertson, Buffy Sainte Marie, Mildred Bailey, Jesse Ed Davis, and Charley Patton (who some consider the most important bluesman in history) had some native blood in them. Yes, you can hear Indian singing in Charley Patton doing his blues, the influence of Indian singing on Mildred Bailey (Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett called her a major influence on them), the influence of Indian Link Wray on the sound of Pete Townsend and Jimi Hendrix. The white Christian conquerors of the Americas brought genocide and slavery and ecological disaster to North America, while Indians, their victims, gave them the roots of much of the music we listen to today.st watched I Am Richard Pryor for the at speaking unpopular truths the media machines of our culture spend loads
2.I Am Richard Pryor is another film full of insights and revelations, here about perhaps the most important comedian of all, a man who in spite of a media-constructed image of him and in spite of a terribly painful childhood and in spite of enduring racism all his life, set an exemplary model for what comedy of artistic quality and human truth should be. Pryor is shown as a tormented and perhaps a self-punishing individual, a sensitive and complex man who proved a genius while going down the road of his pain and imagination to create a comedy far above the going rate of white-bread America. He spoke many unpopular truths about life in this world that the media and its advertisers try to conceal. Many who knew him, like his widow Jennifer Lee Pryor and Lily Tomlin, share and clarify their experience of both the man and the artist, and we come away moved and laughing, though our laughter is now decidedly more imbued with human reality – and, no doubt, that’s how Pryor would have wanted it..
3.Director Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old uses never-before-seen and now in colour footage of the First World War of “soldiers as they faced the fear and uncertainty of frontline battle in Belgium.” We hear first-hand accounts from men who lived through the horrors of the war in fields of mud and blood and fragments of bodies everywhere. These are taken from interviews conducted in the 1960s and 1970s and it’s unsettling to hear accounts, albeit told decades after the war, that are matter-of-fact, accepting, and casual, although some are certainly not. One veteran recalls his comrade having his arm and his leg blown off and further tells how he shot his comrade as the most merciful option. And then he breaks down crying, even decades after the war. It’s too bad that Hollywood, in its gun-worshipping culture, tosses out Stallone’s Rambo nonsense instead of telling some truth, but then the Pentagon rules and so many stupidly follow – as patriots or as those who simply like to kill.
4.The four-part Punk, with Iggy Pop as co-exec producer, features informative and challenging interviews with many greats of the – dare I say it? -genre, like Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra, Iggy Pop, Joan Jett, Marky Ramone, Viv Albertine, Debbie Harry, and the now overweight, refreshingly media-critical, no-nonsense, and quite engaging John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten. The earlier episodes do show the music and the music’s attitude as an extension of the anger and hopelessness of a disregarded and forgotten generation, and the interview with The Clash for one seems even nobly defiant. Commercialism is always a lurking enemy, as are the poseurs, both audience or musicians, who are playing at punk or in it for solely violent and destructive ends -ergo the assertion that punk, a name many resented, was over by 1982. And yes, Malcolm does come across as a shallow and pointless twerp as do some TV interviewers. But the series contains much socially and musically valuable footage and the interviewees are articulate and committed in their telling.
5.Bertrand Tavernier’s My Journey Through French Cinema takes us into a director’s ongoing experience of the art in which he creates, and Tavernier proves to be an engaging and thought-provoking guide to films and their directors who influenced him, won his respect and appreciation, or who merit consideration because of the stature in the history of French film. Thus, we consider, with Tavernier, the films of, among others, Jacques Becker, Jean Renoir, Marcel Carne, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Melville, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Luc Godard. We also take a look at important non directors, like the archetypal French actor Jean Gabin and actor Eddie Constantine. Each section of the documentary provides revelations to think about – Jean Gabin who starred in Renoir’s La Grande Illusion sees the director as something of a genius in filmmaking and deeply lacking as a human being. Some directors Claude Sautet are new to me and encourage, though what we see of their work, further exploration.
6.One film I watched over and over for a time was Jewel Robbery, directed by William Dieterle and starring William Powell and Kay Francis, all in a manner worthy of and much like Lubitsch. It’s all very European in delightfully varied characterizations, in awareness of social class separations, and in a taken-for-granted sexual savoir-faire that delights at every pre-code turn. My treasured copy is part of a film series titled Forbidden Hollywood and it affirms what a childishly puritanical culture America often is, with its hesitation at sexual delight and blind eye to the realities that people actually live. It’s directed with a precision rich with playfulness and behavioral details and offers wit, gentle romanticism, and joie de vivre. All Movie Guide gives it just three stars – they just don’t know what they are missing.
7.As for Lubitsch, what turned out to be his last film, Cluny Brown, is also a thorough delight. One of its stars is Jennifer Jones as the niece of a London plumber and she lives to roll up her sleeves at every plumbing problem and with her wrench go “Bang,,,bang…bang.” This she explains very slowly, with a contained eagerness that oozes sexual innuendo. The film takes place prior to the Second World War and the setting is mostly the country home of rigid and unworldly snobs where Cluny meets again a handsome and charming Czech author, a refugee from the Nazis, played by a handsome and charming Charles Boyer. Like Boyer we are quite taken by Cluny – with Jennifer Jones’ in a memorably free-spirited performance. Of course, the “Lubitsch touch” is delightfully conspicuous in many details.
8.Nothing Like a Dame is a film record of some of Britain’s greatest actors, now old but quite lively and quick, having a collective chat one afternoon outside about their careers, their lives, and theatre, film, and television in general. The Dames here are Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith and each one is indeed a Dame. Each one is also a dame who can be quite biting, irreverent, touching, and funny in memories, comments, and observations. I was lucky at different times to interview Dame Judi and Dame Joan, almost blind now it here seems, and I’ve been fortunate to see each of the four on stage at least once, so this film is personally very moving to watch, and it’s fun to laugh along with these remarkable ladies who have long been distinguished in their art.
9. It’s very rewarding to see are From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses which here illustrates one of my personal favorites of books on film, also titled From Caligari to Hitler. It explores how a charismatic figure lures the collective masses into obedience and sees Weimar Expressionistic cinema as an indicator, with characters like Dr. Mabuse, of what lay ahead for Germany. What’s next? Caligari to Trump? Is a turd charismatic?
10. Finally, Concerto: A Beethoven Journey follows pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, in his four-year journey of exploring, performing, and recording the five Beethoven piano concerti. As promised, one does gradually see Beethoven in a new light through the course of this documentary and one is lured into the world of each concerto with new ears and a new heart. Andsnes is a man of profound passion in his music-making – and a top-level pianist – and the film is thus a celebration of Beethoven and of music, one we are lucky to share.
