by Jaime Grijalba.
Will this be it? The definitive? The last one? The post that will shatter the expectations and destroy the ‘reputation’ I’ve been building online? Saying that ‘Donnie Darko’ (2001) was my favorite film of all time didn’t do it, neither did the huge blank spots in my film watching, nor the addition of ‘trash’ in my Top 20 films of 2010. Some people may know, but I think the majority of you don’t, I am 21 years old, I live in Chile (a longish country in South America) and I go to the Catholic University of Chile, in which I study ‘Audiovisual Direction’, in other words, I study Film, but they don’t like that name around here. Supposedly, the career I study would let me direct film, TV, commercials, music videos, also produce, write, shoot, connect, etc. Practicly, they aim way too high for a 4-and-a-half years studying time. So, what I am going to do is show you a piece of my work, a short film directed and written by me.
This one is called “Manifiesto”, which in spanish means “Manifesto”, it was shot, edited and uploaded in 2010. It’s 3 minutes long (the maximum allowed for the exercise) and was made in the context of the Documentary Workshop lead by the teacher, journalist and filmmaker Paola Castillo. Why I am so unsure about showing you this? Well, many reasons, but first of all, she (Paola) hated it and gave me a failing grade. Now, in no way I’m trying to get my revenge on her or anything likely, I’m just putting all I have out there and hope for the best, at least a couple of nods, maybe some hate mail, a bunch of inflamatory comments, just good moments. So, here you have it, give it a watch.
Notes on “Manifesto”:
· The first image, not actually pertaining to the film itself, is an obligatory intertitle that has to go in every work we do. It has some entertaining trivia. The section called “Autor(es)”, which means “Author(s)” should only have my name (Jaime Grijalba Gómez), but it also features the names of Sam Raimi, Wong Kar Wai, Dario Argento, David Lynch and Susan Sontag. Why? Well, that should be obvious if you watched it. Everything is a remix.
· Those are my hands typing on my now defunct keyboard, the shot reminds me of “The Social Network” (2010). My hands also take the book and throw it to the ground.
· Now, the “Film Socialisme” (2010) influence is clear, but it’s an strange kind of influence. At that time, I had just seen the trailers and read some reviews, nothing else. I finally saw the film two days before New Year’s Eve of 2010, so pure thought is in there. All through the intertitles to the plagiarized ending: “No Comment”.
· The first film is “The Evil Dead” (1981) and I see this scene as a metaphor of choping a film of its parts giving it a “No Formula” feel.
· “Influencia” would be “Influence”.
· The second film would be “In the Mood for Love” (2000) and “WKW” the director of that film.
· The hands cutting and doing that things to the chicken are my father’s. I like how, kinda, the movements synch up with the music.
· “Caro Antonioni” is an essay written by Roland Barthes which I had to read for a class. It was interesting, but I’d have loved it way more if it was called “Caro Argento”, and I say it here.
· The third film is “Suspiria” (1977), of course, and the shot that follows is a painting that’s hanging in my house, I liked how it looked with the orange light, quite “Argento”, and that’s the image that inspired all the images in this short.
· “Lynchiano” would be a rough translation of the word “Lynchian”, the shot that follows is a cranky zoom to one of those things, and obviously, the movie that follows is “Blue Velvet” (1986).
· “Sontag” refers to Susan Sontag, a fantastic essay author, and specially of “Against Interpretation”, one that really inspired me to do everything I wanted without looking for something behind every rock. The suffering book was “Film Theory: An Introduction” by Robert Stam, a book I’ve never read and I own for quite a time.
· “Lo Natural” means “The Natural”, as in the wilderness. And that would be my dog, is a she, and is called “Dotty” as in Dorothy.
· “No Comment” I was so tempted to answer to all the questions that my teacher made with that statement…
Finally, this is a Manifesto, a way of showing what inspires me and what kind of style I’ll have. Comment away lads, I’m prepared.
Click on names for archives
Writers/Founders
Jaime, the first question in my mind is, What was the assignment? You say this is for a documentary class, so one might guess the film was supposed to be documentary in nature.
I could say what my reactions were but feel that wouldn’t be important without knowing what had been expected of you.
A “no comment” response does seem a bit puzzling, though.
What was expected?
It was the “free” asignment, I could do anything I wanted, so I did a statement on my style.
Jaime, I love finch’s thoughts below. He/she seems to know much more about making films than I do.
The reason I wanted to know more about the assignment is because, as a student, you receive parameters of some kind for any given assignment. Therefore, what you submit is supposedly graded on how well you did within those parameters.
I liked the image of the chicken leg being skinned. It was sensuous. I also liked the shot of the dog and the clearly defined leaves on the ground, plus the gentle breeze on the branch. It evoked a specific mood for me. I also liked the musical choices you made to accompany the images.
If your purpose was to demonstrate your style, I don’t fully understand why you used the work created by other filmmakers. Maybe because of this, I didn’t get a sense of connecting theme or style. I think that in time, as you continue to experiment (as finch discusses so well), these qualities will become easier to express as you discover new ways to present them in conjunction with writing/narration, camera, and sound, including any music you choose.
Again, it’s too bad that your instructor didn’t have more to say. Would you feel comfortable asking her for additional feedback?
Good luck on your filmmaking journey!
(And by the way, one of my former bosses was born and raised in Chile and flies there often to visit family.)
Jaime,
I’m glad I picked up everything you included and the fundamental reasons why you did when I watched it.
I liked the idea for it, how it begins with the writer and travels through his mind, a mind open to the influence of art and life in general.
I like too how these elements are blended with the music that passes across scenes. The preparation of the chicken goes quite well with it.
I like that there seems a strong idea of what the writer wants, almost like he doesn’t want to be told (Caro Antonioni changing to Argento) what to be influenced by. More on that later.
I like how the changes in music and sound don’t jar (at least I didn’t notice the changes).
I liked quite a lot the image of the dog. It’s an attractive image and feels personal (I’ve just read now that it is your dog, you could sense that). Maybe you could have incorporated her name into it, given its associations – and that she had a dog!
There were things I found distracting and/or not quite right for me:
* The different image sizes for what you filmed yourself and what was taken from other films. I’m not sure if it benefits the film or not…
* The zoom in on the sockets(?) is (too) blurry, and it comes across a little bit amateurish through being unsteady and indistinct. That bit also doesn’t seem to have any atmosphere of its own, apart from being an allusion to Lynch.
* I’m not sure that the overtly Godardian structure does you many favours. I think it would have been better to have your own voice throughout (especially given the ‘Caro Argento’ correction). The ‘No Comment’ at the end doesn’t really say much to me. The film can feel a little pretentious in straining a little to be artistic or to take a cue from structures and compositions deemed artistic.
Again, that is as much a compliment of the scenes and images that feel more ‘you’ (the painting, the chicken, the dog) than a criticism. More Jaime would be nice because those bits I enjoyed.
It was very nice to watch something you’d made and thanks very much for posting it. I’ll watch it again and maybe give some more constructive criticism later.
Thanks for this Stephen!
The different image sizes would be a direct conscuence of my total lack of expertise in the editing of two different video sources on Avid. They don’t teach you that kind of thing. When you only use archive, the images are all the same (nevertheless the difference between the videos) and are seen as a whole (I have a Dracula video-essay- no narration, just visual- that works like that). Same goes when everything’s shot with the crappy camera they give you, but when those two mix, I don’t really know what to do. And that’s an inexperience from my part. But I kinda liked how it turned out, kinda.
Sockets! Should have looked that up. The zoom is indeed blurry and didn’t work that much due to the low camera quality, but I guess the idea wasn’t that good in itself for you.
Thanks for all.
I give you a lot of credit for your dedeication and free-wheeling ideas. I can’t see how anyone would react negatively in any way. I see “The Evil Dead” and “Suspiria” that’s for sure.m Good luck with your intended plans, and hope you keep making films to post here.
Thanks Frank!
I couldn’t care less what the assignment was or wasn’t. I would have given you top grades for the work. My favorite part was your dad skinning the chicken leg and the strangely appropriate soundtrack music accompanying it. To me the dog represented spiritual perfection as the Zen Master the little hairy guy actually is (he does everything he must do and perfectly).
I like the way you put the book down as well…only one thing: dump Stephen King.
You did an admirable job.
Had I been your instructor I would given you an “A”.
There’s something I’ve always wondered about Chile: what’s it like living in a country so long and narrow?
Thanks for that Andrei! An “A” is a grade I’ll never get with the things I do in my university, unless it’s a written test.
I love that dog, she’s wonderfully playful, and she’s a survivor. I had another dog and it recently died, he was 14 years old. They had six puppies together and then we just had her de-fertilized (or wathever the procedure is called).
Ha! I’m sorry, but Stephen King is a writer I admire way too much for me to ever dump him away.
It doesn’t make much of a difference if you live in a narrow and long country, the only thing that’s difficult are the trips, because they are sooo boring when you try to go to another city far away, it’s pretty much a straight line for hours and hours (they are slow trips too). That’s why I know so little about my country, northwise just until La Serena and southwise until Puerto Montt, which is really pathetic.
My grade would also be an unconditional A. The soundtrack is intriguing and there’s an acute visceral undercurrent. I am not so down on Mr. King as Andrei is, but perhaps Mr. Llosa would be a better choice. Ha!
You’re on your way my friend!
Thanks Sam, you already saw this some time ago and I’m happy that you liked it.
Llosa would have been a better choice, but I hadn’t read anything from him yet (his books are in the living room and that was my personal library).
I watched it three times, i like it, not because i “like” it but because i like you.
The three minutes had little impact on me because the assignment seems a little cryptic to me, but i get a little adrelalin rush seeing anything that a person has created from idea to product.
What I would say to you in my own opinion is this: Let’s say you were studying to be a pencil fine artist, then this piece is the equivelant of drawing a circle on paper, as in; you picked up a pencil and made a shape. No shade, dimension or shadow, just a circle.
The shots of your bookcase, dad’s hands and dog mean you’ve literally shot the nearest things you had access to.
Now, obviously your course content dictates what’s expected of pieces submitted to your school, but from here on in it’s time to put yourself into your shorts. 21 is an age when you live and breathe your inspirations to the point you adopt them as your own ideas.
But they aren’t, they’re someone elses, based on their inspirations and so on.
You have your own view of how composition looks best, your own habits, characteristics, experiences and intended purposes as an artist to be. (Assuming we’re talking artist, not just a functional TV studio cameraman)
Access to a camera and editing program is key, you need to now be in a constant state of producing, scripting and designing as many short pieces as is absolutely possible, if this means setting your alarm clock and getting less sleep, so be it.
I sincerely promise you, that what now you consider to be a source of pride, will this time next year seem a little blah, because by that point you’ll have grown as a maker of films and you’ll have a better point to make and will (subconciously) see your own unifying theme force itself into existence via your work.
I cannot stress how important this is. Make film after film, simple, cheap and rewarding and you’ll see things ‘click’ into place because anxious hoping for approval evolves into a confidence at your ability to convey images to a crowd and then, even the ‘i don’t like it’ doesn’t send you into spiral beacuse you know it’s own qualities and it’s flaws and another person’s subjective taste is nice, but, ultimately meaningless to your Deep Down sense of your work’s merit.
Then comes the sense of fulfillment, if your own efforts fulfill you, congratulations, the approval from others etc, is nice, but ultimately means little.
I made short films myself at the rate most people take photographs, since my fifteenth birthday (i’m 29) film (as art form) has dominated my thoughts from waking to sleeping and the dreams in between, whether by pre-deternination or whatever, social, geographical factors, familial influence, mostly it’s because people are the way they are for a reason. Something speaks to you (be it sport, art, crime) and your ‘seed’ self speaks back.
Talent tends to shine through when present, in my personal experience, after twelve years of script after script, false starts, promises, dodgy agents, a non-existent UK film industry and all other manner of obstacle, my aggresive persual of seeing my work ‘made’ has only recently, as in last month recently, began to get wheels in motion.
But anyway, my own advice to you in your sitaution is to use this as what it is, a first step of a million more – not to ‘making it’ but to gaining fulfillment as an artist/filmmaker
– You now take what you’ve learned about stringing images together, your choices of shooting (you have a close up, high angle and sort of mid to close of the book) and overlaying an accompanying soundtrack (which is excellent by the way) and you move on.
eg – in this, the peeling chicken, you could’ve kept that that shot for three, four seconds, before maybe having it shot from above, and cutting back to the original frame or even a shot of the skin landing in a bin when tossed. The book pages, i’m assuming this was the first and only time you shot it? If you was to redo that exact same shot today you would do it more measured, clearer emphasis on the title and page turning – and then – if you reshot the same thing again next week, it would be even more visually interesting than that, see what i mean?
As with the dog ( i liked the ambient sound of the birds tweeting and gentle breeze – this maybe was an intended nuance, or just happened to be?) but the framing of the dog looked like somebody about five foot ten was simply pointing a camcorder downwards, i know dogs don’t follow direction, but again, if you did that same thing now, you’d shoot a little bit of coverage, maybe lie on the ground up close and edit the one scene from a couple of angles.
Anyhow, if you typed How To Shoot A Short into a search engine you’d see a billion pages of tech know how… so my only point i;m trying to make, based on lots and lots of personal experience, is to make yourself happy by producing the absolute best your mind can conjur exceeding any restraints there’s seems to be. Don’t even really pay attention to what i’m saying, just pay attention to what you’re saying and elevate to a state of pride within yourself.
Ps, Donnie Darko, really?
Wow and I do mean wow, this comment is inspiring.
Right now my financial state doesn’t allow me to get afford of a decent camera, and my computer is broken beyond repair and can’t have an editing software installed (I wouldn’t do that to my parent’s weak computer), but the ideas don’t stop flowing… yet, I do have some things to say.
I have a tremendous problem whenever I come up with an idea. The 99.9% of the time is an idea that I want to write into a short story or a (few) novel, since writing and reading is my real pasion and fuel for living, while film just turned out to be my second favorite thing after books. So, I promised myself to not use any of my writing ideas for film, and viceversa, since I want to be a writer first, I want to do one (1) film, one that I’ve been writing for the past 3-4 years.
Obviously the short film ideas appear, even TV series, specials, film essays, whatever, and I plan on doing them as soon as I get hold of a camera, but these projects may not be considered a 100% serious, as most of the time they are experiments in genre or humor-filled sketches, far from what I want to do with my movie.
Maybe another movie will appear, everytime I read a book I try to imagine how I would film it, and when it turns unfilmable I throw it away and just keep reading. Maybe, even if I am a writer, I’ll end up adapting the stories of someone else (books, comics, stories, who knows), but that just hasn’t happened yet (oh, wait, it did, a short story by DFW).
I’m not proud of the short film I made, it’s clumsy and maybe a bit preachy, but I like it because it’s personal, that’s me on film, and I decided to keep myself in home and with the things I had near me so I could portray myself as best as I could. The teacher didn’t like it, gave me a bad mark, I didn’t care, most of my companions that have known me as I’ve made other stuff, recognized my “style” in it.
And that was what pissed the teacher off. I said it represented my “style”, yet she said that I didn’t have one, but as my companions said (I’m not even that much of a friend with them, they must be honest) that it was because she didn’t knew me and hadn’t seen my earlier stuff.
Anyway, if you achieve something big, just remember this guy down south. 🙂
Oh and two things.
First, Everything is a Remix.
Second, yes, Donnie Darko, which other movie touched my soul? None, and I’m not an angsty teen (I think).
only teasin about donnie darko, it’s good, even better considering Richard Kelly’s single mindedness about putting it out there.
but anyway, i didn’t realise you didn’t own a camera so what i will say is that your college is the most important thing you have because here you have access to resources that are important, people, a library, even paper and pens.
You must beg, borrow whatver you can. People, at least people who matter, love a self-starter and passion tends to win out when it’s genuine.
It’s cool to say money is no obstacle in art, but sadly it is, money is practical when enhancing the scale of your vision and quality of final product, money is important and a lack of it either forces you to wallow or think of a solution, again college resources are paramount in this. If you can lend out-of-hours or sign for lending basic equipment it’s a must, if your’e told no you ask again, and again, as soon as you have the camera you’ve hit gold.
Financially i came from a bleak council estate, no mummy/daddy chequebook or private schooling, no anything except a single minded determination to succeed with what talent i had, without talent i suppose my early-twenties crusades’d be a bit King Of Comedy.
In the meantime, writing writing writing is all you can do, until your bedroom is a city of stacked paper towers, sketches, concepts, brainstorms, ideas on napkins, post its, even access to a photocopier helps – at 21 you have time on your side, but these next seven or eight years are crucial in establishing your voice, repuation and visions. On a limited/no budget all i could rely on was a sense of composition, if you have a plug in desk lamp you can position sharp shadows that don’t compliment reality but help with a slight fable-ish take on a story.
example: i once hit a block, none of my scripts at the time i felt could be filmed in digital, too crappy i thought, so, with use of some grim lighting and a sepia font i suddenly shot a faithful version of the Little Matchstick girl, no fancy moves or cranes or dollyd, simply tried to capture sadness, at the student film festival amongst various Ninja, Tarrantino whatevers which looked like bad home movies due to students aiming too high on consumer equipment, mine got the silly little trophy beacuse people got teary at the end, i think this only worked because the camera was so restrained (not slow, remember, but subtle)
The more basic you treat basic resources the better it is. You do a mona lisa with felt tip pens so why try.
If you had the shittiest nineties model available i bet you could film naturalistic interviews with friends on the their hopes, lives, etc, then refilm the same people twelve months later, edit the footage and voila, a mini-documentary on the nature of hindsight versus foresight.
If you hear of someoneplanning a short you must offer to help, even it’s holding a jacket for an actor,anyway you can earn a favour is a good thing. Again, soak up and take notes on every article, interview and tidbit you can find. Resources are priceless, anytime you can possibly loan a camera or computer out of hours is priceless, with enough planning films can be shot in one night.
Example, when i was 17 and had the urge to do one i had access to; my little brother, a wheelbarrow, a nearby building which lit up at night (Haigh Hall in Wigan) a lake, my basement and some white mime masks i stole from the art department, so, i made a short about a child abandoned outside an orphanage in a wheelbarrow, within the orphanage kids were forced to wear clone masks because self expression and free will were forbidden, one time the kid finds an old pencil and becomes fascinated with his found contraband and so plans an escape, turns the wheelbarrow into a sailboat and tries to escape in a quest to find more pencils, alas the boat sinks and the mask rises to the lake surface, the end.
Using an old clunky vhs camera i literally had to shoot a bit, pause the tape, go to another position,resume action, pause, another location before the pause expired, play, move, pause and so on, shooting the whole thing in camera and the short is still shown at that school twelve years on as an example of what can be achieved with a sense of composition and colour pallette.
(Not patting my own back, these are just facts)
So i cannot say enough how important it is you remain in education (qualifications aside) more important is establishing contacts, potential future reference writers, book clubs, film groups, amatuer thearte and drama groups, anything and everything that helps you grow as a writer.
As said, creating contacts and friends is key, you mention to a few people what you’re intersted in and this becomes what you’re known for, the filmmaker writer guy, it intrests people because it’s intresting but (i m o) in your down time (at your age) its important to try the resist the lures of drink, pot and blow jobs because as good as this trio of activities is, as living life is important as to have some content on what to actually say in script, it’s also important to maintain that obsession – the cliched imaged on the lonely writer burning the midnight oil – this where artists are born… this site for example, these blogs and the dancing image blogs and bobs sci-fi page – if the internet consisted solely of just these sites i’d be happy, dedication to one’s craft CAN NOT and MUST NOT ever be underestimated.
Of all the hopeful writers and directors i’ve spent time with, slept on couches, sought out out rare screenings, Q&As etc, there’s a fine line (Gulf wide) between those who are finally fulfilled the obsession paid and tose who kinda strolled toward opportunities but ultimately fell.
So Jaime, i’m gonna basically repeat myself all over again, obsess. Exist in the frame of mind that if there’s a way in you find it.
one example of hundreds;
In my hometown of Wigan, small village type place, i once heard Ian McKellen was born here and held affection for the place, so i wrote him a dazzling part in a short i’d hope he narrate, his people said no, just an outright no way. So, i manipulated the letterhead, wrote to the BBC explaining Ian McKellen agreed to do it but at the last minute had a filming conflict so reccomended i contact bbc, bbc said no too, but their reader said since i’d intrested such a prestigous name with my script and package of designs, notes, etc that i should contact the north-west lottery funding body citing bbc referal, i did, bingo, £4’ooo cheque arrived. I was slightly deceptive but only as a means to the end.
Obviously this doesn’y apply to you but the idea of writing to anybody anywhere does.
After your exams to apply for runner work everywhere, offer to work for free, explain if given the chance to present yourself at interview you can explain why you’re determined to prove an asset. Whatever it takes, every second person wants to be a writer, most for the wrong reason, you, and the few, for the right reasons.
But, ideas that exist in your head mean little, ideas formatted on paper are king. These are documents. Your portfolio.
Your job is reworking and reworking until you get that goosepimple feeling where you sit and read your script and think: Fuck me, i’ve cracked it! You’re realsied potential stares back at you and then it’s time to go to work.
I’m only cheerleading you in these abstract terms because our countrys apart lifestyle means the ins and outs of UK financing aren’t of any use to you.
So, in closing, work work work at your ideas, your voice, style, what it is you actualy to say about life,human interaction and the dramatic conflicts within, be it gritty and nilhistic or fanciful and expressionist, you have a signature, but have been given the resources to floursish.
Your film is a start and your teacher’s no comment is actually a comment, on her positioning withing the teaching institution.
So pick up a pen and start drafting ideas that’ve been incubating sice your early teens and decide whether your other half formed ideas can be developed or binned. (not actually binned,just redeveloped)
We’ll no doubt come across eachother on the sites again, so in the meantime use your inspirations to full effect and write. Characters. Situations. Plots. Keep dialogue and story functional and almost basic for now and if there’s a story there you’llsee it,too many nowadays favour the smart-alec verbal fireworks style along with twisty-turny gimmicky plots, all this is very well, but buries whatever the STORY you want to tell could be.
Lastly, one last repeat: Use your every resource at your college, make the most of everything there, every teacher, piece of equipment, down time, seperate yourself from the crowd by making personal pleas for help where needed. Hone your talent and, i would say good luck, but as they say:
Luck is when preperation meets opportunity 🙂
Wow, another splendid comment, thanks.
Wow, I mean, so many things to say, but I’ll just clarify that it’s officially impossible to ask for down time equipments. First, no matter how damnedly expensive this is, the equipment is scarce and it’s always on full operation.
I am the delegate of my career, I take care of academic issues, like this one, and the search for a solution has been wide and the answers just barely acceptable. There’s a bureaucracy in there and it’s almost disheartening to learn how it all works from the inside (like the revolutionary that goes home destroyed after learning that the establishment is just too much, I hate the image, but until this one guy leaves the place it will stay like that).
But I’m doing my best so the stay in the university for those new wannabe directors is as peaceful as it can be, and not a hell as it has been for me, with obnoxious teachers and stupid bureaucracy. I can fight for that, and I find it more inspiring than doing anything for my career or myself.
I’ll write now. I’ll write, I’m inspired, love inspires, and even if now I can “live” a bit more, I will also be very strict towards my writing, which has been severely damaged by my classes and my voracious film watching and reading. Gotta priorize.
JAIME…
I can only say that Mr. Finch is absolutely correct on his points. A true artist ill prostitue himself if he truly believes in the worth of his art.
Beg, borrow and steal anything you have to to get it across. The truest artist is the one that lives and breathes art in everything he/she says and does. While I was not as prolific a creator of art as I had hoped to be I did, as Mr Finch suggests, get my foot in every door of help and donation by helping other filmmakers and fine artists at school. I held lights, I ran for coffees, I drove whole sections of crews all over the fine city of Philadelphia to help these chosen people get the work they so totally believed in done.
This dedication, combined with the lustful need to create is the very essence of living a live that is art.
I mean, don’t say no to the occasional night out for drinks, the occasional hit off a joint while listening to live music, or that occasional blowjob from a guy/girl friend (i don’t know what your orientation is so I’ll be fair here), comrade or stranger for these are the experiences, amongst others that not only shape life but add to the experieces that could help you in the construction of art. Live, look at everything, never say no to a new experience.
And…
Work, work, work…
It’s these things, all combined that add to our dreams and, as we know, it’s the dreams that become the true art…
“A true artist ill prostitute himself if he truly believes in the worth of his art.”
A less true statement has probably never been uttered on these boards.
Rather this is of better use:
“The general public has little concept of the true value of art, so it is our job to educate them by putting a fair price on our work. If I put a rock bottom price on my items, I then contribute to a public opinion of what this type of artwork is worth.” (Vernon DePauw)
I disagree…
Who is to say what an education in art really is. We’re not talking about identifying the art that others make but the realization that the soul is demanding the making of persoanl art. Art is, in its truest definition the extension of the artists inner sight, what he/she sees and feels from within themselves.
If one has to beg borrow or steal to create what is in him/her to get it out, then prostitution is valid if need be.
And as far as a tuer or untruer statements being leveled on the board are concerned, that is merely a matter of your opinion Mr. Uhler. No need to be snotty about it or ellude to saying that I am wrong.
I assure you that my beliefs are NOT wrong and the only thing wrong here is the way you go about making everyone feel that you are the be all and end all in every convesation we have here.
Now, while it is true that the GENERAL public doesn’t understand the true value of art there are, though you may feel few, many of us that do and are, at the very least, trying to learn on their own what said value is. One mans art is another mans garbage and in the end it’s decidely up to the individual to place the value on it.
As for putting a price tag on Art, that’s up to the Artist. However, you and I both know that most that consider themselves artists these days place far to high a price on allowing others to see, hear feel and experience the art they are making and WANTING to be seen, heard felt and experienced.
All the money in the world is minute if the real artist can get his message across to even one solitary person.
You have your opinion and you have a right to it.
However, I have a right to mine and I’d appreciate it if you’d keep from saying my opinion is untrue or wrong.
Frankly, I would never do that to you and If i did ,indeed, desire to disagree with you on a point like this, you can bet your bottom dollar I wouldn’t do it a arrongantly as you have to me here.
I didn’t mean to belittle your opinion Dennis, I hope you don’t really think that was my intent, and if you do my apologies. I hoped what I was getting at was clear enough.
I am speaking more along the lines of the reality of the artist, and his/her role in a capitalistic framework. When art is created, and it makes a monetary profit (which isn’t always the case) the artist should be the one who sees those rewards. I’m not sure you’d even disagree with this, but when you say something like a ‘true artist will prostitute himself’ it becomes a dangerous statement. Because those in money do look to reduce artists to mere prostitutes even when they fight it, so for an artist to readily reduce himself to the role of whore is demeaning to the artist, and therefore the art himself. You’ve spoken in metaphysical terms about the importance of the artist and what he/she produces, so why should that person be a whore? Surely if the work or the message is that important to its society, it shouldn’t be given away. Or, as jack White said, ‘you can’t be a pimp and a prostitute too’.
Much has been written by Marxist artists on these matters and it’s where I align my feelings. This isn’t to confuse doing someone a favor (‘getting coffee’ as you say) in the hope that a future favor assists you, but then an artist getting someone coffee isn’t an impeded act on his values or statements (unless of course his artist commodity or statement is ‘getting coffee’). And, even here I’m not sure it’s necessary as producing art, if one really wants to, isn’t an endeavor that needs much assistance outside the artist (all a writer needs is a pen and paper– no favors, a painter needs paint, a brush, and a surface– again no favors, etc). In the case of film actors and others are perhaps needed, but then the artist (creator) should then seek other like minded artists (ones who want to create for the beauty of creation) to collaborate with rather then those that do favors just so he can build a log of people that will one day have to return said favor.
Then we BOTH got our signals crossed…
So, my apologies to you as well, JAMIE.
By prostitution I meant that to GET the art done, to get what the artist NEEDS to create he must, if he has to, beg, borrow or steal. Hence, he will PROSTITUTE himself to realize his vision.
As for the finanacial reimbursement for art sold????
Oh, I agree with you 100% that the artist calls the shots there…
I happened upon this post about five hours ago and didn’t collect my thoughts on this until now.
This is a daring and original piece of work that I feel speaks volumes about the person that concieved and created it.
The disconnected imagery threaded together by the thematic choices of music reveal a personality that embraces art of all kinds but never distances himself from the life experiences that art instigates within his being.
The stripping of the skin off the muscle of the chicken reveals a disjointed view that Jaime obviously feels about the experiences of his life. Yet, particularly with the inclusion of the BLUE VELVET moment, he signifies his appreciation of art even in it’s most threadbare and quirky reveals.
Honestly, I have looked at this film now about a half dozen times and I find it refreshingly potent in its, sometimes, embarrassing honesty. And, by EMBARRASSING I mean, respectfully, that Jaime has taken the biggest and most potent leap and artist of any good merit can ever take.
He has revealed himself, naked and without hesitation, as HIMSELF.
This is one of the most exciting and wonderful things I have ever seen posted here on WONDERS IN THE DARK.
You are a brave man Jaime.
And, as only a true artist would know and communicate back to you, it’s that kind of BRAVERY that singles a true artist out from all of the so-called TRUE ARTIST wannabe’s…
BRAVO!!!!!!!
Dennis, thanks, these are among the most important words I’ve heard in my not-yet-professional life/career.
Though I know I should not conform with the result, this gives me hope and I feel that your opinions are honest and I believe in them.
Thanks a ton, I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
You are, like I should have, moving further ad further into the world of a person that creates art as an expression of himself and the way HE sees the world in all its complications and perverse and quirky beauty.
The expressions of an artist are singular and his own in a very personal way. But, the artist by nature, is a showman in a sense that he wants his expression and feeling about himself and this world and HIS life to be FELT by those that share this worlk with him. He is NOT trying to influence or lead the way. He is trying to enrich and give alternate perspectives to those that walk through this world and life and he’s trying to say there is yet another view that NOBODY has taken on what we all see and experience. The life blood of existance is in the diversity that is shared from one person to another and that, in itself, adds to the experience of being a human.
The difference between man and every other living thing in the world is that we have the ability to relish in stories. We live for stories and we forge new ones everyday for it’s stories that help shape our lives ad the perception of the world around us. There are, billions upon trillions of views we have in creating the stories that shape our experince of living and, though some may seem disjointed and cryptic, they are still another in a long line of interpetations each and everyone that breaths upon this earh add to the file of stories we take as a backlog for our own personal living.
Remember, particularly when your teacher comments, critically, on your work, that that is just an interpretation of your wok and that you are NOT wrong in the way you feel about the work or the creation and expression of the work. Your teacher is only expressing what he/she feels and is helping you to better tune the particulars that will help you speak easier with your art.
I am envious that you are at this point in your life. You have no idea, should you be really dedicated and driven to create art, where you are getting ready to go.
The artist, as Beethoven rightfully believed, is greater than that of Kings. He should be looked upon as the truly blessed and truly chosen for he has the gift that God has…
He has the power, with words or painted strokes or the imagery created by a camera, to create and to force a new perspective for the world.
Artists, in any shape and of any ideology, are greater than all men.
Also, I suggest you take it upon yourself to study some of the artists that, by the extension of their art, created a path to experience life from points of view that others would have never dreamed of looking at life through.
As crazy at this may sound, I suggest Vincente Minelli’s look at Vincent Van Gogh, as played by Kirk Douglas, in LUST FOR LIFE or Lisa Cholodenko’s brilliant metaphor on forced percetion, HIGH ART and, absolutely, Maynard Solomon’s probing examination of the life and artistic ideals of Ludwig van Beethoven (my vote for the greatest artist in history) with his book BEETHOVEN.
These are just a few of the many great representations of the artist as neither a financial success or failure expousing on what art really is and what are DOES both for the artist and the world of people that look, hear and experience art as another in the many ways of viewing the world and this thing we call life.
Art, as Beethoven again, so emphatically believed, is not something we diced to do but have no choice in doing (unless we’re lazy like me).
If you are a true artist, and I think you are, nothing will stop you from answering those innner calls that ring through your soul minute after minute like a sexual longing.
Interesting discussion here. I think Dennis is on to something quite profound. The true artist lives his art – the need to express an inner turmoil is married with the divine gift of talent – and this requires a dangerous bearing of the soul. As to whether the artist is greater than other men, I would say that the artist creatively expresses what others are unable to express. This does not make him superior but more usually cursed than blessed.
Tony-
“more usually cursed than blessed”
Well, cursed in the sense that very few true artists see financial and critical success in their life-time without selling their vision out. Though, in the case of someone like Beethoven, the curse is only one of inner turmoil brought on by a malady beyond his control. Beethoven is one of the extreme examples of an artist who not only lived by the mantra that the artist is greater than all Kings and Man, but saw a financial success within his lifetime because his art, made even more desired because of his insistance that he was great within the public realm, was so amazing that no person with half a brain would challenge the proof of his pudding.
Then, again, I am talking about the greatest artist the world has probably ever known. However, I feel Beethoven’s base belief in the divinity of the artist over all men is, in an altered form, really what drives the artist. When an artist realizes his own potential, and most likely in his formative childhood years, he/she realizes that they are different, wildly so, from those that are not possessed of the artistic nature. In short, these rare people are touched by their divine maker, they are vessels to prove that the divine truly exists. They are the magicians, the ones that prove that magic really exists in this world and can be seen on a daily basis.
Now art, of course, comes in all forms, but as working a machine in a soap factory might require a skill to maintain and, if done well enough times, might seem like art, that really isn’t the same as a fine artist (and in fine I mean painting, drawing, music, sculpture, architecture, film-making and writing). The fine artist can go to work, eat his supper, wash his dishes and sleep and all the while concoct his art in his head, working out the details again and again like Mr. Finch suggests and maintains in the comments above.
It is in this that the blessing of the true is most pronounced. If he were pulled away from his need to create, his need to communicate what is burning in his soul, then the blessing becomes a burdoning curse. But, If the mind functions and is able to use even it’s daydreaming moments to create even while going about general business then the blessing is fulfilled in its most minute form.
It’s the truly great ones, the ones that kick open the door and say “look what I can do” and then do it, that become immortalized. The truly great artists are the ones that will go to their death maintaining that they beyond question are touched with that divine spark to create from nothingness and enrich the world with a different perspective. With the written word, Shakespeare is the titan, he creates without regard for those who call themselves his supriors. As for music I believe that Beethoven (particularly), Mozart, Stravinski and, to a lesser extent, Bach posessed this belief in themselves. Van Gogh, Michelangelo and Picasso would be the most extreme cases of this belief in the field of “fine” art. As for film, masters like Chaplin, Keaton, Murnau, Renoir, Welles, Disney (at least in his early years), Bergman, Ozu, Tarkovsky, Powell and Pressburger and Kubrick would all be nominees fighting to get included with those mentioned previously as artists that breath the creative process like air. Some were (as in the case of Chaplin and Keaton) wildly successful) but all are successful in that they were able to bring their dreams, what they saw in their dreams, and felt in their souls to surface and to be seen.
Were any of these men, more than men, ever really cursed?
Not by a long shot. The curse is only a curse when they are stifled completely (as Welle’s almost was) from bringing the visions to the surface. No amount of money or accolade would ever compare with the elation of bringing the thought to physical life.
That “blessing” is all that really matters to the truest artist.
All artists hope for a mass success, accolade from the masses, but they never expect it and are truly satisfied just to complete the work to the best of their ability. If the score requires rewriting, then they rewrite it again and again till its as perfect as THEY feel it can get. Canvass after canvass will be cut till the image made in oils is the image that most resembles the thought. Take after take will be done, regardless of the pain the actor may have to endure, before “cut” is ever shouted and the directors vision is fulfilled to the best of HIS knowledge.
The true artist breathes his vocation and only bows to whatever maker he believes in for giving him that spark.
And, ask yourself this…
Are those that can create really the ones that are cursed or is it the ones that CANNOT create that really are?
It must suck to be a person that can recognize one that can create from nothing and know that they themselves have not been touched. I fully expect to see Beethoven and Mozart and Kubrick and Chaplin and Shakespeare and Picasso sitting at the table, closest to the big seat, when God dines.
Dennis, let me say I am not cultured nor an aesthete, and my life is largely untouched by art – apart from the cinema, literature, and popular music.
I don’t disagree with you, but art for me is subversive, carries risk, is rooted in a deep existential pain that more often than not is evoked in anguished tragic lives. Two artists who have influenced me most profoundly are Jack Kerouac and Jim Morrison. Their work comes not from some divine inspiration but a deep alienation and disconnectedness – the unspoken darkness and chaos at the core of existence. They weren’t singing hymns of praise rather beautiful strangled cries of despair. As Morrison wrote: “Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection”.
Nice post, I agree.
Though I would call myself an aesthete to a certain degree (went to art school, work in a creative field, go to art museums at least twice a month, etc), I do think art is the creative unleashing of the solitary individual to the world–one in which he/she has to create about yet probably cannot live within. Add in the difficult of attempting to communicate something real to a large number of people (something they couldn’t do straight away) only adds to the confusion.
I suppose I am also agreeing with Dennis (and you Tony) about the importance of the artist, but where I’m more with Tony is about the subversiveness of it all. Art is to replace God as man’s purpose, higher calling, and transcendent achievement. But it is a individual pursuit, if others are touched it becomes merely a bonus. (this is where cinema becomes such a tough form, as the finical aspect of it is different then most others– but this can certainly be minimized).
Their divinity comes from the fact that they can even create art. Both Morrison and Kerouac were touched as all artists are. The pain they sang and wrote about was merely the subject they chose to give the art that they were compelled to create. Kerouac, like Morison in particular, was like Beethoven and Picasso and Kubrick.
They were born to create. A darkness of soul and heart doesn’t cancel out the create spark handed down by that which has blessed them with it. Call it God, Buddha, the Devil or little green men from space…
Art is the forced perspective the artist gives to those around him, it is his vision, a different way of seeing what we all see, hearing what we all hear and feel what we all feel to a certain extent. To that extent, but in various degrees, an artist like Ozzy Osbourne is really no different from Louis Armstrong who is no different from Scot Joplin whos is no different from Sergei Rimsky-Korsakoff.
The difference is in how they interpret and the style in which they interpret the dream, the inmages and the sounds they feel and see in their mind and the stirrings they have in their soul.
And I mean this answer for Jamie as well as I do for you, Tony…
There is no divine force at work when creating art. Anyone can be some form of artist if they try hard enough. Some people are just more in tune with their inner selves and obsessive about producing something. Some have more drive and ambition. To use film as an example…. what makes Stanley Kubrick better than some average director is Kubrick worked harder at gaining knowledge and was intellectually curious to a fault. Also on a technical level he was ahead of everyone due more to persistence and insane desire. There is no fairy tale being who decided to give little Stanley some rare ultimate gift. This kind of thinking seems silly to me though I can understand the reasoning behind it. We all want to propel our heroes to some mystical heights. The truth is usually more mundane. Some artists are born with natural talent but that can be more attributed to why one sibling is born with blonde hair and one with red….. Luck of the draw.
And, speaking of the darkness of the soul…
All artists go through a period of “darkness” at some time in their life and their art will show this as well as the light, unless darkness is a specialty or the perferred realm in which the artist chooses as his/her style (for example: think of DON GIOVANNI by Mozart, the war paintings by Picasso or something as recent as, I don’t know, Woody’s Allen’s CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS).
Just because Kerouac and Morrison dealt with the darker aspects of life in their art doesn’t mean they were not driven beyond all things to create art. More than anything else, art was the great propellor…
It was the reason of their lives…
The creation of Art, like a persons sexual orientation is not something an individual who is a true artist chooses to do. It is something that has chosen them from their inception, it’s part of their DNA. A true artist, lets say my man Kubrick, is not thinking about whether he should be an artist but how he will execute his art. In Stanley’s case it starts with Photography and evolves into Film-making.
In Morrison’s case it starts with film-making and evolves into music and composition.
Some instinctively know what vocation they were destined for from the moment air hits their brain after the slap on the ass the surgeon wakes us with. Beethoven was, like Mozart, an heir apparent to music from day one. Louis Armstrong starts as a virtuoso trumpet plaey and slowly evolves into a performer/arranger/composer.
or, art is as Woody Allen says:
“I do the movies just for myself like an institutionalized person who basket-weaves. Busy fingers are happy fingers. I don’t care about the films. I don’t care if they’re flushed down the toilet after I die.”
Sort of pops the balloon huh?
No, it doesn’t pop the balloon at all and in the case of Maurizio’s argument that the artist that achieves pure artistry is one that works harder and eats, voraciously, the knowledge that is laid in front of him, for use to further his art and make it more perfect that too is a gift given and not the luck of the draw.
Luck of the draw is, indeed a factor, as Maurizio, rightfully alludes to, but then again isn’t the luck of the draw designated by the bigger forces at work. Is it not the luck of the draw that whoever or whatever is pulling our strings made sure that Mozart was born to a family of musicians and composers?
Luck, to us, is something that happens randomly. Luck, to the greater forces at work, is merely the definition we give to the machinations of those that we cannot begin to understand in 100 lifetimes. As I said before, like hair color, like sexual orientation, we do NOT choose our souls vocation in life, rather it is chosen for us.
The true luck is that, once plopped in front of us, we have the brains and the gumption not to ignore, out of laziness, what has been gifted upon us. Art is a divine gift. Magic is when that gift is used to it’s ultimate and final conclusion.
You can try to shoot down the ideas of a divine spark in atristry as hard as you want, but for those truly blessed with creative talent and the knowledge of their own creativity, the answer can only be that they were chosen to bring to the world an alternate perspective. They were chosen to live their art with every fiber of their being. Hard work and an intense hunger for knowledge didn’t make Stanley Kubrick an artist, that was planted in him in the womb. Hard work and intense hunger for knowledge made him a greater artist than he started out as. That, in and of itself, is a gift given from someplace that doesn’t exist here on this planet.
Woody Allen, amongst being a superlative writer and terrific film-maker, an artist, is also a paranoid and self depricating defeatest. I admire his work and am awed by his productivity. However, I find little outside of his work to be more than the sum total of a man that really doesn’t like himself all that much, shivers at the guilt of his own moral and ethical travesties and rebuffs great work of his own as garbage. He is a person that relishes in complaining about the shitty cards he has been dealt and most of which he has brought on to himself.
“Woody Allen, amongst being a superlative writer and terrific film-maker, an artist, is also a paranoid and self depricating defeatest. I admire his work and am awed by his productivity. However, I find little outside of his work to be more than the sum total of a man that really doesn’t like himself all that much, shivers at the guilt of his own moral and ethical travesties and rebuffs great work of his own as garbage. He is a person that relishes in complaining about the shitty cards he has been dealt and most of which he has brought on to himself.”
To paraphrase a recent title of his: “Whatever Works” for him. I’m with Maurizio, the calls to a ‘divine’ interference in art are balderdash, though it isn’t just ‘hard work’ and ‘craft’ either. We’re looking for simple talking points on where art comes from and the truth is none exist.
I would split from Maurizio and go further though– pointing to divine interference in ANYTHING is probably pretty foolish. But I’m a card carrying Atheist with a capital ‘A’.
As an atheist then, you’ll never truly understand that magic really, truly exists in this world.
I feel for you Jamie.
Yes, I’m saddened everyday that I’m unable to experience and see things that don’t exist. The art of Sartre, Reznor, Godard, Larkin, Nietzsche to name just a few is certainly missing something ‘divine’.
/snark.
Dennis, One doesn’t need Magic to pull a rabbit from a hat.
As a skeptical agnostic Dennis, I want the proof that you somehow possess of this wonderful magic that exists for artists. I will not take your word for it and until you provide indisputable scientific evidence of some higher force at work I must respectfully disagree. Some people are born with talent due purely on luck or science (DNA) period. If a god exists he has better things to do than designate talent and artistic prowess to certain individuals from a fluffy cloud in the sky. Lets reward human intelligence and perseverance over ancient fables when it comes to art.
To quote The Prestige… “Now your looking for the secret (magic). But you won’t find it because of course, your not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled”.
MAURIZIO-
This all, of course, comes down to faith. Faith in God or faith in a higher power. There is no scientific evidence of that as there is no scientific evidence as to why human beings are given the gift of rational thought and animals and plant life are devoid of such a gift.
We all have beliefs and mine are much different than yours. I see, rather clearly, that the gifts of talent are not just endowed on us through hard work and perserverence alone, and that hard work and perserverence are gifts from a greater power as well, and I truly believe that something of a higher order has everything planned out for each and every individual before we even take our first breath.
The other gift given to us is the ability to make our own decisions. Some of these decision boil down to whether we can see what is given or chose to deny the existence of a greater power.
I believe in magic, that the gift of creativity is something given and not found solely on our own. For each and every one of us alive there are things that are considered givens. The existance of the universe, life outside of our own world and death are just but a few we just accept.
I accept the notion that we are all here for the purpose of a higher order. I accept this with blind faith.
If you want scientific evidence then I say you should find it yourself. In the meantime ask how Beethoven heard music in his head randomly and wrote it down. Ask how something like the 9th Symphony in its completed form comes into the thinking of a man that can not hear at all. Ask how a man can hear completed music and then break it down, passage by passage, instrument by instrument and then present each individual stroke on paper in the form of notes to only be put back together by an orchestra to played for the world.
If that isn’t magic or a gift by a greater force, then i don’t know what is.
I find it hard to believe that you or anyone else here could challenge the words spoken by a supreme true artist like Beethoven or Mozart or Bach (particularly Bach who swears his compositions were directly given to him by God) who willingly and loudly presented their talents as gifts given to them by a higher power.
I’m content to beive they are right.
But, then, I am the one with the faith…
“I find it hard to believe that you or anyone else here could challenge the words spoken by a supreme true artist like Beethoven or Mozart or Bach (particularly Bach who swears his compositions were directly given to him by God) who willingly and loudly presented their talents as gifts given to them by a higher power.”
This is funny. I think it says more about the prevailing religiosity in the culture back then, where the vast majority of people believed in God because there was no alternative (or the alternative was being publicly ridiculed, exiled, or worse). So these guys claiming this really says little, to paraphrase Sam Harris on the matter, “also at this time the vast majority of house painters believed in god, are we also to believe that applying paint to a house is a supremely divine act”? Of course not, because you see the music created as extremely beautiful you’ll assert God in its place (which diminishes the role of the artist–someone you find all powerful btw). But using this logic all people back then were working with divine kinship and direction, including murderers, rapists, and thieves. Or do you want to attribute Gods almighty touch to just the worthwhile acts? It seems like you can’t have it both ways, and still be saying something with an ounce of truth in it.
And to Jaime since I haven’t commented on the piece in question, I’d urge you to speak more on yourself in your works. A piece designed to show ‘your style’ shouldn’t include other works as the main driving vehicle. It doesn’t show what your style is, or what you feel, just what Argento’s style is (for example).
I think since you want to use typography, this is a clear avenue you can think about. What do you think about type? How type presents ideas, your ideas? You’ve handled type like Godard does, but not as well… how can you incorporate this into your ideas? Cutting on a computer offers limitless possibilities. I’ve been reading a selection from a book on the Fall’s Mark E. Smith about his treatment of type and information on all the bands releases and other paraphernalia and I think maybe it will be of value to you (and I think it’s great): http://books.google.com/books?id=IoBlHSTfjy4C&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=Paul+Wilson:+Mark+E.+Smith%E2%80%99s+Handwriting+and+the+Typography+of+The+Fall&source=bl&ots=WY5rNr4K1l&sig=JkKJc0CKRyZDf7fIMivBMm72aaA&hl=en&ei=7xZTTbv1E8H7lwfaoeiNCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Paul%20Wilson%3A%20Mark%20E.%20Smith%E2%80%99s%20Handwriting%20and%20the%20Typography%20of%20The%20Fall&f=false
I’d be interested in if you know Patricia Highsmith’s work? I believe since you like Horror or macabre stories you’ll adore her ‘The Animal Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder’ that might also shake some stuff loose.
Keep working and good luck!
How cheaply can an interesting short be made? Hows this:
http://www.neublack.com/art-design/swinging-pine-cones/
Thanks for the comment and the recommendations. They’re noted.
” A piece designed to show ‘your style’ shouldn’t include other works as the main driving vehicle.”
The work, at its initial idea, was 50/50, I mean, it was supposed to be divided in two parts: Influence and Themes. The time restraint of 3 minutes didn’t came onto me until I was in the editing room and realized that I was clocking 2:30 without even starting the “Themes”, so I decided to cut and cut, but still to no avail.
So, I decided to play it more as an influence piece, a demonstration of what kind of movies, directors and shots inspire me. The other themes that were going to be included, and that’s besides “No Formula”, Sontag’s essay title and “Lo Natural” was going to be “Time/Space Disjoint”, “Light”, “Colours”, “Speed”… I don’t remember them all, and I shot the examples, but they ended up in the garbage bin (I still have the tape though).
Besides, I’ll repeat, Everything’s a Remix for me.
There has been an extremely interesting discussion on big things like “Art” and what it means to be an artist.
I don’t think I can manage to define that, but I do think that certain expressions are art while others aren’t.
And I do believe that inspiration comes from a place that isn’t within us, that there’s a higher power that makes us connect with our inner self.
Considering this entire thread was based on the work of Mr. Grijalba…
I think the final word on the work and where his inspiration and tendency to create art come from has been laid to rest.
Jaime, like me and many who have the faith, believes that inspiration comes from someone or someplace other than this world.
I’m done…
I was today re-reading a fascinating essay about Blind Willie Johnson and thought the opening paragraphs from writer Michael Hall would make a welcome coda to this discussion:
Texas Monthly December 2010
The Soul of a Man: Who was Blind Willie Johnson?
by Michael Hall
On August 20, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 2 spaceship on a one-way ticket to oblivion. Three weeks later, its sister craft, Voyager 1, blasted off with the same destination. Their mission for the first dozen years or so, as they cruised through the solar system, was to gather data from the planets. Their goal for the next 60,000 years or so, as they leave us far behind, is to carry a message in a bottle to the stars. Alongside an array of high-tech cameras, infrared instruments, and a large parabolic radio antenna, each Voyager bears a stylus, a phonograph record, and directions for playing it. The record isn’t Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours or Kiss’s Love Gun, both of which were top ten albums in the summer of 1977. This record is made of copper and plated in gold, created to last forever, to offer an audio and visual slide show of all things Earthly. This is who we are, it says. Or were. The record includes words (greetings in 55 languages), sounds (a train, a kiss, a barking dog), pictures (mountains, dolphins, sprinters), and ninety minutes of music. There are panpipes from Peru, bagpipes from Bulgaria, and drums from Senegal.
And at the very end, summing up the power and the pathos of everything that went before, are two singular pieces of music by two singular men who couldn’t have been more different. One was a deaf German whose song was recorded by a string quartet in a professional studio. The other was a blind Texan who played his song on a cheap guitar in a Dallas hotel room. The German is Ludwig van Beethoven, and he closes the album, befitting his reputation as the greatest composer ever. The Cavatina from his thirteenth string quartet was written in his last years, when he was dying. It is six and a half minutes of sweet elegy, music that says what couldn’t be put into words. This is it. This is the end.
Leading into it is a song recorded and played by a twentieth-century street musician, Blind Willie Johnson. The song is “Dark Was the Night—Cold Was the Ground,” a largely wordless hymn built around the yearning cries of Johnson’s slide guitar and the moans and melodies of his voice. The two musical elements track each other, finishing each other’s phrases; Johnson hums fragments of the diffuse melody, then answers with the fluttering sighs of steel or glass moving over the strings. Sometimes the guitar jimmies a low, ascending melody that sounds like a man trying to climb out of a mud hole. Then the guitar goes up high, playing an inquisitive, hopeful line, and the voice goes high too, copying the melody. There’s no meter or rhythm. In fact, “Dark Was the Night” sounds less like a song than a scene—the Passion of Jesus, his suffering on the cross, the ultimate pairing of despair and belief. The original melody and lyrics (“Dark was the night and cold was the ground, on which the Lord was laid”) may have originated in eighteenth-century England, but Johnson reinvented them. Occasionally his slide clicks against the neck of the guitar, and you remember that this was just a man playing a song in front of a microphone. You can hear the air in the room. You can hear the longing in his voice. This is what it sounds like to be a human being.
The slide guitarist and producer Ry Cooder, who used “Dark Was the Night” as the motif for his melancholy sound track to Paris, Texas, once called the song “the most transcendent piece in all American music.” In about 60,000 years, one of the Voyagers just might enter another solar system. Maybe it will be intercepted. Maybe the interceptors will figure out how to play that record. Maybe they’ll hear “Dark Was the Night.” Maybe they’ll wonder, What kind of creature made that music?