World cinema classics #48
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWHOhoFgs84&]
Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981) by Marco Ferreri [off-line]
I’ve been waiting quite a long time to be able to show a clip of Tales of Ordinary Madness by Marco Ferreri (La Grande Bouffe), one of the most devastatingly beautiful films to have crossed my retina when I saw it about 5 years ago.
Memorable scenes include Ornella Muti putting an oversized safety pin to some rather startling uses, and a listful cat and mouse game between Ben Gazzara and Susan Tyrrell which results in Gazarra’s arrest when you least expect it. Some hold the Ornella Muti scenes as some of the most erotic ever confided to celluloid, I’ll take the Tyrrell/Gazzara encounter any day.
The film’s title and subject matter are based on the works and the person of US poet Charles Bukowski.
See also WMC#13.
Update: a few hours after I posted the clip, it was taken down by the “user.”
Do not disturb
“Can desire, the anticipation of pleasure, ever truly be photographed? No one has done it as well as Chas Ray Krider, and no one has equaled his blend of salaciousness and subtlety.” — Esparbec, writer, Paris 2007
A new book by “Motel Fetish” Chas Ray Krider
Chas has a blog with photos like this one. His latest book, Do not Disturb, was published by French imprint/bookseller La Musardine. For a good Esparbec cover, click here.
She knows
Girl with a cup (1850), by Danish painter Constantin Hansen
It’s one of those paintings one finds on the web, they talk to you, you find them 2 weeks ago, they compel you to write about them two weeks later.
A little of Vermeer, Chirico and Balthus in this painting of a girl drinking from a cup. Her gaze is half interrogation and half wonder, but a defiant gaze nevertheless, as if she knows more than she’s willing to admit, and more too, than you would expect her to. There is quite a bit of sadness too, sadness not so much of a girl, but of a grown woman trapped in the body of a girl. As with many interesting 19th century works, it’s hard to tell, is it a kitschy guilty pleasure or just a good painting?
“I’d rather be lonely than happy with somebody else”
Discover Johann Sebastian Bach [1] through Nina Simone “Love Me or Leave Me“[2] (from 1:40 to 2:50). No, really.
Click the numbers to listen to the music.
Oblique “namesake” connection: Moodymann’s “I’d Rather Be Lonely”
MyTube
As I’ve probably mentioned before, YouTube satisfies most of my current music needs. Whether that says more about Jahsonic than about the quality of the current batch of YouTube footage, I leave up to you. This aside, I thought I’d let you know that from now on I will be favoriting both my audio and video finds on Youtube. The address is quite simply http://youtube.com/user/Jahsonic (I’ve even managed to give it the vintage clay/day-glo green Jahsonic.com color scheme).
I hope you enjoy and do let me know if you have an interesting YouTube channel.
This city is famous for, or, cult fiction #6
This post is part of the cult fiction series, this issue #6
“This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs and lesbians. If you have a moment, I shall endeavor to discuss the crime problem with you, but don’t make the mistake of bothering me.” –Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces
Introducing August Darnell
August Darnell aka Kid Creole (Montreal, Canada, 12 August, 1950) is a Canadian musician who has been involved in several dance-oriented projects in New York in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s. Projects include Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band[0] (led by Darnell’s brother Stony), Don Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band[1], Gichy Dan’s Beechwood #9, the “mutant disco” of Aural Exciters and, of course, Kid Creole and the Coconuts[2], as well as “solo” projects involving Andy “Coati Mundi” Hernandez[2,5], Taana Gardner[3], Fonda Rae[4]. and Lizzy Mercier Descloux[5]. Some of the more (and less)obscure offerings of Darnell have been released on an music compilation in 2008 by Strut Records as Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1976-1983.
Click the number to listen to the tracks, not all tracks are Darnell projects, but also just of the artists mentioned.
Fonda Rae in Machine’s “There but for the Grace of God Go I”[4] is world music classic 38, and has an interesting bit of music censorship history behind it, perhaps more on that later.
Haunted telephone booths
This film is the 47th entry in the category World Cinema Classics.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9cbKYGvfmo&feature]
La cabina (1972) by Antonio Mercero
A remarkable score which reminds of Bernard Herrmann ‘s screeching violins in Psycho (of course, it may as well be Herrmann’s original Psycho score set to a “La Cabina” slide show1). Very accomplished trailer. This film generally cited as an example of Surrealism and cinema.
Tip of the hat to the apparently defunct site Wayney of Chaotic Cinema, skeleton preserved at my wiki.
Update: 1. Yup, that’s what it was Youtube
Will you talk about yourself?
This post is part of the cult fiction series, this issue #5
The Swimmer (1968) Frank Perry
The famed John Cheever short story appeared in the New Yorker and people talked. Now there will be talk again. When you sense this man’s vibrations and share his colossal hang-up . . . will you see someone you know, or love? When you feel the body-blow power of his broken dreams, will it reach you deep inside, where it hurts? When you talk about “The Swimmer” will you talk about yourself?“