#19: THE TRIAL - FIRST COMES EXISTENTIALISM, THEN COMES THE MUSIC VIDEO

Anthony Perkins in Orson Welles' "The Trial"

This week, my brain found a way to actually connect the subjects of "Franz Kafka", "Britney Spears", "Orson Welles" and "Glee" within the same thought.  To be clear, the connection was from a visually interpretative perspective...not so much in shared ideals, behaviors and talents between these four icons.

Here's the source of this random connection:

While watching Welles' 1962 adaptation of Kafka's The Trial, there is a brief, nightmarish sequence during the film's climatic pitch that caused my attention to falter and fail.  Thinking I was completely immersed within the dreamy existentialism and social satire of Kafka's interpretation of a man cornered by the justice system without logic or clarity of his crimes, my attempt to concentrate on the sophisticated content was rudely pinched by that part of my brain that has been completely corrupt by mainstream pop.

First off, I've yet to really read Kafka's The Trial so my commentary and observation is more about the film's visuals and style as opposed to the philosophical context that has been adapted from its literary origin; I try to follow the philosophy "first the original, then the adaptation" when it comes to media, even if the latter trumps the former in quality.  Obviously, in this scenario, I've failed this mantra completely.

The cinematic version of The Trial leans gluttonously heavy (in a good way) on set design, lighting, mirrors and camera placement, depicting surroundings of claustrophobic minimalism to a rich, stylistic interpretation of a hoarder's dream: stacks of overflowing files, cabinets, papers, weighty furniture and crowds, packed underneath an infinitely unseen ceiling.  Just watching the film makes you feel like you're in a hazardous, death trap with no exit (many of the scenes are literally how I envisioned the last chapter of E.L. Doctorow's Homer & Langley).

 The scene that triggered my cross-media ADD was the moment after the main character, Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) goes to visit the painter Titorelli who, with farcical intent, is consider a close associate of the judicial system.  In the book, Titorelli lives in the attic of some form of projects littered with loitering, hunchbacked children who jokingly harass the painter through the walls of loosely bound wood planks.

Here is the description from the book:

...K. had been looking round the room, if it had not been pointed out it would never have occurred to him that this wretched little room could be called a studio. It was hardly long enough or broad enough to make two steps. Everything, floor, walls and ceiling, was made of wood, between the planks narrow gaps could be seen.

Here is Welles' interpretation of Titorelli's studio and the winding, rickety-looking hallway that Josef stumbles through when leaving the painter:

And this is the moment where I made the inattentive connection: this literally looks just like that Britney Spears music video.

Skeptical of this comparison?  Have a look a look at Spears' video, "Me Against the Music":

And as redone in the Britney-tribute episode of Glee:

Whether this is coincidental or a desperate stretch on my part, I like to think this visually pairing from my mental hiccup is a subconscious example that there can be depth within the pool of pop.

-MTK

#18: 6 SONGS OF (PASSING) YOUTH

Oh, sweet fleeting youth: you are my stealth future, unyielding present and dimming past...

Depressed yet?

Here are six songs on youth (and its poetic passing...):

1.  "Youth" by Foxes (video here)

2.  "We Can't Stop" by Miley Cyrus (video here)

3.  "Float" by Pacific Air (video here)

4.  "Youth" by Daughter (video here)

5.  "I Could Be the One" by Avicii vs Nicky Romero (video here)

6. "Despair" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs (video here)

  -MTK

#17: ALL IS LOST - FILM'S SUBMISSIVE WHITE FLAG

There is a somewhat blaring, metaphorical insinuation present in the trailer (and title) of the upcoming film All is Lost.  Its a movie that features a lone-man performance by one of the remaining celluloid icons and festival forefathers, Robert Redford, alone and lost at sea with the very possible prospect that he may not make it in the end.

Cue the nervous, tear-welling laughter.

Here is the trailer:

While the film's literal plot seems terrifying and tragic, the allegorical undertones of what this trailer suggests about the actual state of the film industry, and the crippling nostalgia and negligence of it's medium, aggressively looms like an unavoidably swollen elephant that will not leave the room (and who likes to remind us that TV is winning).

This particular year, the current truth behind film's culturally-laureled studio system has been magnified and exposed by some of the industry's most favorable idols and sources, all reaching a point of saying that film, once thought to be an infinite and evolving road paved with an otherworldly brilliance and beauty, is actually careening towards a deadening precipice.  George Lucas used the word "tired" regarding the direction of the industry.  Steven Spielberg's choice words included "meltdown" and "implosion".  Gore Verbinski calmly remarked that the industry was on a "crazy road to extinction", just before the release of his faltering summer lemon, The Lone Ranger.  Matt Damon commented on how the overblown budgets of broad, simplified studio films have drained the "mid-level" film of its "complexity and nuance".  Steven Soderbergh has announced retirement, Quentin Tarantino has threatened retirement and Harvey Weinstein has begun to weigh his risks and options in terms of theatrical box office turnaround versus the secure success of televised distribution, making sure subversive, original films such as Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra connects with the right audience.  

Bottom line: even the giants have turned cynical. 

However, our cynical giants are not saying that film is completely dead, but that it has surpassed irreparable corrosion.  Cinema's first imminent decline will be the disappearance of films like All is Lost, the character-driven, "mid-level" indie.  All is Lost (a title that makes me want to put on a black turtleneck and stare out of a seaside window with a forlorn expression a la Bibi Andersson) is a film that the studio systems are terrified of (did I mention the film has no dialogue nor any volleyballs for Redford to talk to).  There's too limited of a budget, too limited of a cast (sure its Robert Redford...but one guy in a boat without an analogous CGI tiger is a tough sell...) and too much dependency on character and story.  It's not just the independent film that has reached its peak but also the niche, story-driven film with a high yet modest budget (seven to eight figures, not the backbreaking nine), films that have been delivered by Redford (and through Redford's Sundance Film Festival), Soderbergh, Tarantino and Weinstein over the past three decades.  Even with the power of remaining "indie curators"-distributors Fox Searchlight, The Weinstein Company and Lionsgate (the distributor of All is Lost), there is the great possibility that these mid-level films will be quarantined by studios as a stagnant product, if not, a risk.  

Or...they'll just be passed on to cable TV...so, maybe not all is actually lost...completely.

-MTK

#16: GAME OF THRONES - THE REGRETS OF A CULTURAL LEMMING



R.I.P Robb Stark

Before I start, I probably should throw in a SPOILER ALERT since the aftershock of the most recent Game of Thrones episode, which, although waning, is still very much an open wound.  However, for those who are not aware of the guttural tragedy that has taken place (and this is coming from a sporadically engaged viewer who still doesn't know most of the character's names and motivations), I'm just going to assume that you're not interested...which is fine...and most likely means you mental state is currently tip-top and that you slept really well on Sunday night. 

In its second to last episode of its third season, HBO's Game of Thrones carried it's chain mail-shrouded weight (medieval reference!) in the ratings with a 3.14 in major cities and over 5 million viewers against AMC's Mad Men, which brought in a rating of .94 in the opposing 9PM time slot.  Curious...such an imbalance?  Well, its clear that GoT just knows how to get the international draw with an anticipated side of devastated reactions.  The secret: to graphically kill off your lead characters...in bulk, preferably.  At this point, Mad Men will have to randomly behead Don Draper in his next pitch to Chevy just to keep up with cable's primetime carnage, but I digress...

To be clear (and personal), this whole Game of Thrones thing...I really didn't want to have any part of it. I'm not really one for medieval fantasy (I've tried...sat through all "Lord of the Rings" films ...check...had an inquisitive conversation with an avid "D&D player"...covered ...) and was never particularly drawn towards the ruckus and mass infatuation towards the Game of Thrones series.  Much like Downton Abbey, that level of obsessive viewer participation is always a red flag that hints that pain and a dismantled reality would surely come. 

Unfortunately, being the "cultural lemming" that I admittedly am, I gave in and tasted the Game of Thrones juice (objectively, so I told myself) and the experience is a rough, abusive ride.  Sure, I see what can be so enticing about the series.  Endearing and tragic heroes! Putrid yet lovable villains!  Charles Dance as the evil voice of reason!  Prostitutes!  Beheadings! Zombies!  Incest!  Castration!  Hefty yet poignant dialogue with speckles of modernized humor! I saw it...I get it...and right now, I'm exhausted and especially bummed out.  These are the symptoms of the GoT viewer: the millions of passionately masochistic fans who just love touching the burning coils of the GoT stovetop over and over again, knowing that no matter how many times they go back, it will hurt more and leave a scarring mark.  It's like GoT fans are to television what Chicago Cubs fans are to baseball.

I don't think its necessary to reiterate what happened in the last GoT episode because about 75% of the universe has already expressed their feelings on the spectacular killings . However, if you're hankering for the gruesome breakdown of what is known as the "The Red Wedding", there are plenty of publicated recaps that you can check out or just ask anyone around you that looks depressed, unhinged or is arising from a fetal position...they most likely can tell you...

Yet, although regretful, what makes being a "cultural lemming" so ultimately satisfying is to be a momentary participant in the reaction.  And its clear that the harsher the abuse delivered by a series such as GoT (or Downton Abbey or The Walking Dead), the tighter the viewership camaraderie becomes and the more explosive the reaction is.  For example, look at some the Post-Mortem Tweets that followed Episode 9 of GoT; such a response is like the laughter that follows the collective screams from an audience during the climatic jump in a slasher film.  Its that shared moment when you all know you've had a severe shock to the system, lost control of your emotions, had a minor meltdown and just need to bond and share.  Oh, the things that bring us together...

Cryptic as it sounds, there's really nothing better then a stream of lead character deaths in a television series...especially in cable!  Although the fatalities may shatter your multi-season investment in a character and storyline, its the greatest way to keep viewers returning with self-inflicting anticipation (I guess we can thank Charles Dickens and the American soap opera formula for that discovery of the human pathos).  As sad as the deaths of...(get ready, I'm going to say their names) Robb, Talisa and Catelyn Stark are, one can only hope the effect of this twist will lead to a monumentally gratifying outcome. Yet, the brutality of this specific occasion is pretty rare.  The abruptness of the GoT deaths make the writers of The Walking Dead look like the most sensitive pack of puppies in Hollywood.  They at least (well, somewhat) prepared you for the deaths of some of their favored lead characters (Spoiler examples: Dale, Shane and Andrea).  And some shows were BEGGING to kill off some of their characters throughout their series (Battlestar Gallactica...I'm sorry, but its true...and the regenerating did not help...).

So what's next?  Retribution?  Probably not...because I'm pretty sure George R.R. Martin and the show's writers have a vision board that says "F#$& Retribution!" posted somewhere in their offices.  It's all about unpredictability, heartache and not so many conquering heroes.  For the season finale, I'm just going to expect William Wallace to make a surprise cameo, riding in from the dead screaming "Freedom for the North!!!!!!!  Justice to the Starks!!!", and then be violently executed AGAIN, then drawn, quartered and pureed by someone named "Lannister" or "Stannis".  I feel, at this point, that would make perfect sense.

-MTK

#15: THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY?



Sidney Pollack's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)



Oh, the humiliation...so horrible to experience yet so engrossing when at the expense of others.

Over the past two decades, our veracious addiction to "reality" fused with "entertainment" has become somewhat of an unwavering plague, keeping millions of viewers inexplicably and numbingly captivated.  From Survivor to Celebrity Rehab, Housewives to Honey Boo Boo, we thrive in an age of spectacle, drawn towards people's struggle, grotesque behavior and exposed vulnerabilities.  Although it could be considered an excruciating flaw in our current cultural direction, it's actually a cyclical phenomenon that seems to be embedded in our nature. In a word (or in a German word), it can be defined as schadenfreude: pleasure rooted from the misfortune of others. The attraction to this spectacle is the perfect form of the mob mentality.  It defines the human desire to repress all personal pressures and flaws, stripping away any ethically-driven characteristics and submitting to becoming a "face in the crowd", safely watching the carnage from the sidelines.



Michael Sarrazin and Jane Fonda in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)




Sidney Pollack's 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (based on the 1935 novel by Horace McCoy) is one of the most stylistic interpretations of the social symptoms of schadenfreud-ianism, using the bizarre and horrifying backdrop of a Dance Marathon at the Santa Monica Pier in Depression-era Los Angeles.  Featuring an ensemble cast of Jane Fonda, Gig Young, Red Buttons, Michael Sarrazin and Bruce Dern, They Shoot Horses is one of the earlier cinematic interpretations of disparate and flawed individuals that would soon molded the character-driven movement of American film throughout the 1970s.  The metaphoric title (given from the perspective of "Robert", played by the late Sarrazin), explores the cryptic parallels between the hardship of people broken with misfortune with the irreversible injury of a horse with a broken leg.  When a horse breaks its leg, the immediate outcome is to euthanize; however, when a human being is broken beyond repair, what happens then? 



Bonnie Bedelia, Bruce Dern, Jane Fonda and Red Buttons in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)

 The iconic style and theme of the film has been cultural inspiration for a variation of artistic reenactments, from Vanity Fair's "Ain't We Got Style" Issue to Alexander McQueen's 2004 Spring/Summer Collection, bringing a vivid despair to high design and haute couture.

-MTK



Kat Denning, Anton Yelchin, Maya Rudolph, John Kransinski, Elizabeth Banks and Hugh Dancy in Vanity Fair's
repurposing of famous dance marathon scene.




Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer Collection 2004, inspired by the film.





Photoshoot by Steve Meisel in Vogue Italia in 1997, dedicated to the film.





Photoshoot by Steve Meisel in Vogue Italia in 1997, dedicated to the aesthetic of the film.



#14: 2013 MUSIC IN MEMORIAM

Scissor Sisters in "Lets Have a Kiki" video

In the age of repurposed, nostalgic pop, two music groups who embraced the era of throwback sound and iconic samples (meanwhile, making each of their tracks incomparably their own), have sadly dispersed (one indefinitely, one permanently) before the dawn of 2013: Scissor Sisters and Das Rascist.

Himanshu Suri, Ashok Kondabolu and Victor Vazquez of Das Racist

Both products of the densely churning music scene of NYC's five boroughs  (S.S. of the Downtown nightlife scene; two of D.R.'s founding members are natives of Queens), Scissor Sisters and Das Rascist remain to be two of the more exciting and profoundly original groups throughout the past decade, each platformed within their own polytropic, multi-categorized (and somewhat self-invented) musical genre.

Babbydaddy, Ana Matronic, Jake Shears and Del Marquis of Scissor Sisters

Years before Lady Gaga brought the glamorous and bawdy kitsch of the underground, cabaret-inspired performance to the stadium-sized culture of mainstream pop, the Scissor Sisters had already introduced pop-driven theatrics to the music world on an international level.  Their image was an amalgamation of Freddy Mercury's showmanship, Elton John's contemporary vocalization while fused with the weighty attitude, rage and beauty of Harlem's 1980s "ball culture" (see post #6 on Paris is Burning).  They reveled in the nostalgia of the late-disco, early-techo sound, from the Grammy-nominated cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb (listen to the original here) to their seedy, late-century Manhattan tribute album, Night Work (featuring songs conceptually inspired by the film Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) while using the provocative work of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe on their album cover).  Scissor Sisters gave proof to the theory that when contemporary pop tunes are heavily laced with provocatively unbridled performance art, psychedelic imagery and satirical smut, the outcome turns the "music" into an "experience" (i.e. Exhibit A: Their performance at the 2005 Brit Awards).

You can easily make the assumption that with a name like "Das Racist", characteristics of politics and/or satirical humor will be looming subjects.  In a way, both assumptions are correct.  However, at the forefront, the trio--Himanshu Suri, Ashok Kondabolu and Victor Vazquez--had a brilliant understanding of producing a contemporary pop/hip-hop hybrid on an indie level, merging tight, memorable lyrics with audacious, pop-driven samples (listen to "You Oughta Know" and "People are Strange").  To appreciate the unrelenting force of Das Racist is to appreciate the track "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" (Hollywood Prospectus knows what I'm talking about).  In other words, you can hear that song (where the lyrics are only limited to repetitively talking about being at a Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell) and listen to it again, and again, unable to deny that its completely genius.

-MTK