Kansas City falls easily within the bounds of the gangster genre. There’s Johnnie, Blondie, Seldom Seen, a twist at the end, people “offed”, bad gangster imitation dialect, all the things we’d expect, no machine guns, though. Released in 1996, it’s the newest movie we’ve seen. So, it’s easy to see that, at this point, jazz has been canonized but is still squished into the same old types. It is noticeably different in the character of the jazz musician plays only a minor role, almost so small that he is almost lost in the background. We still get a performance by a character identified as Lester Young, but the audience wouldn’t have known this had it not been pointed out to them.
Jazz is, however, distinctly connected to the gang leader Seldom Seen. Most of his scenes are acted within the club or in the back of the club at the gambling tables he oversees. Jazz is still present in the sin filled den of iniquity. I can’t tell if jazz is included to further exemplify the time period, like all the discussion of motion pictures and an entire scene set in a theatre where the audience is watching a Clark Gable film, or if it is some more important part of the characterization of the narrative as a whole. It does seem mainstream, although the movie is supposed to be set in 1930’s.
There is an interesting bit of dialogue where Seldom Seen tells Johnnie he’s still alive because of the music. I can’t decipher exactly what this could mean. But, there’s plenty of talk about race relationships, even politics. In fact, Johnnie gives his race as the reason Seldom Seen should not kill him.
Kansas City is the hometown of jazz greats like Bird, and the soundtrack was heralded as an especially important work of Robert Altman. But, since I don’t know who Robert Altman is, I’ll just have to take that exertion how it’s presented.
Although there is not much call back to the importance of Kansas City to the jazz era, there are plenty of instances where the culture surrounding jazz pops up. There’s swing, gambling, the row of clubs, a cutting contest, and more. There’s plenty of political talk and discussion of race, including a monologue by Seldom Seen that includes the idea that white people are consumed with greed (i.e. they’re good capitalists), kill babies, rape women, colonization culture stuff.
Oh, and there’s the multiple Amos n’ Andy references. I’m sure we’ll discuss them in class.
Adios, guys.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
mo better? i don't think so
Alrighty. this week we take a long hard (hehe!) look at Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues.
I'll try not to repeat anything explored by Gabbard, but I'd like to talk to a few things he has to say. Before we get there, I'll talk a little about what I noticed about the movie.
Title
Mo' Better equals sex, somehow, in the dialogue (before we hear, "it's a dick thing"). So, we watched a film really titled Sex Blues, which makes a lotta sense right? About a little more than halfway through, i just blurted out "These poeple have a lot of sex!" and they do. After I was enlightened as to the real meaning of the title, the movie, and the sex, made more sense. In fact, this translation makes more sense that the title Gabbard tells us Lee originally wanted. The only place Lee’s title comes up is near the end with the quote, the quote that doesn’t really fit within the film at all.
Wordplay
I went back and forth trying to decide whether the dialogue was annoying or signified something more important. The first few scenes where Giant talks to the two guys outside the club that will later beat him up is a good example of at least three people talking at the same time, talking over each other, not really trying to be heard. It was annoying, and I could never understand what anyone was saying. It happened throughout the film.
In the scenes where the audience was allowed to clearly hear and understand the dialogue, usually those between Bleek and his lovers or between Bleek and Giant, it is full of wordplay. No one clearly communicates and says what he/she feels; for a simple “yes” or “no”, we hear anywhere from a few words to a few lines. And everyone does it. It’s not limited to a few characters who have this has a characteristic. We get lots of slang, street talk, stories, to give something as simple as an answer.
Under other circumstances, and maybe in a few scenes from this movie, I would say this is clearly some kind of encoding of signifying. But, I couldn’t clearly tell what was being encoded or signified. But, I guess that’s the point sometimes, right?
These instances did manage to draw attention to those moments when we could clearly understand the dialogue. In them, we hear repeated conversations on “ignorant black men”, various discussions on “love” and “lust”, how jazz is a black American art form but black Americans are not the ones listening to it, conversations about money, gambling, BASEBALL (Gabbard makes some good points about the presence of this American pastime in the film, but I say it existed outside the narrative completely and didn’t really serve any purpose other than saying yeah, black guys are interested in baseball too), etc.
Maybe it was just Lee’s poor ability to write a script, but we’ll talk about his contributions to the film next.
Poor Directing Skills
Wow, not good. In fact, really bad.
It was distracting. In one conversation, the camera actually panned across the room, back and forth, with no helpful interruptions each time a different person would talk. There were lots of slow motion moves; sometimes, people seemed to be floating down halls and toward groups of people- thinking moments. I get it. Oh, and the room spinning in the background. Classic. For what? Mostly, the directing was just distracting.
Misc.
Venue is no longer the smoky den of iniquity; it’s a class expensive joint.
French are still in love with jazz. In this film’s case, Lefty, a bandmember, has French girlfriend.
Okay, more creepy incestuous stuff. Spike Lee’s filming this right? Well, he’s filming his naked sister having sex. Ewww!
Everyone’s a type. Bookee is Hispanic. Club owners are Italian. Black urban boys. Any questions?
This in an impressive cast. Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington, the detective from Sister Act. Did everyone have to do some hard time in a Spike Lee film when they were young? This guy had to have some credentials in the community.
GAbbard
I can buy that the trumpet is a phallic extension of the self in the film. Hell, Bleek keeps his trumpet in bed with him while he has sex, and he undresses a chick with his trumpet. But, Gabbard didn’t have a lot of important things to say outside of what Adorno already proposed.
See all of you Tuesday, six sharp.
I'll try not to repeat anything explored by Gabbard, but I'd like to talk to a few things he has to say. Before we get there, I'll talk a little about what I noticed about the movie.
Title
Mo' Better equals sex, somehow, in the dialogue (before we hear, "it's a dick thing"). So, we watched a film really titled Sex Blues, which makes a lotta sense right? About a little more than halfway through, i just blurted out "These poeple have a lot of sex!" and they do. After I was enlightened as to the real meaning of the title, the movie, and the sex, made more sense. In fact, this translation makes more sense that the title Gabbard tells us Lee originally wanted. The only place Lee’s title comes up is near the end with the quote, the quote that doesn’t really fit within the film at all.
Wordplay
I went back and forth trying to decide whether the dialogue was annoying or signified something more important. The first few scenes where Giant talks to the two guys outside the club that will later beat him up is a good example of at least three people talking at the same time, talking over each other, not really trying to be heard. It was annoying, and I could never understand what anyone was saying. It happened throughout the film.
In the scenes where the audience was allowed to clearly hear and understand the dialogue, usually those between Bleek and his lovers or between Bleek and Giant, it is full of wordplay. No one clearly communicates and says what he/she feels; for a simple “yes” or “no”, we hear anywhere from a few words to a few lines. And everyone does it. It’s not limited to a few characters who have this has a characteristic. We get lots of slang, street talk, stories, to give something as simple as an answer.
Under other circumstances, and maybe in a few scenes from this movie, I would say this is clearly some kind of encoding of signifying. But, I couldn’t clearly tell what was being encoded or signified. But, I guess that’s the point sometimes, right?
These instances did manage to draw attention to those moments when we could clearly understand the dialogue. In them, we hear repeated conversations on “ignorant black men”, various discussions on “love” and “lust”, how jazz is a black American art form but black Americans are not the ones listening to it, conversations about money, gambling, BASEBALL (Gabbard makes some good points about the presence of this American pastime in the film, but I say it existed outside the narrative completely and didn’t really serve any purpose other than saying yeah, black guys are interested in baseball too), etc.
Maybe it was just Lee’s poor ability to write a script, but we’ll talk about his contributions to the film next.
Poor Directing Skills
Wow, not good. In fact, really bad.
It was distracting. In one conversation, the camera actually panned across the room, back and forth, with no helpful interruptions each time a different person would talk. There were lots of slow motion moves; sometimes, people seemed to be floating down halls and toward groups of people- thinking moments. I get it. Oh, and the room spinning in the background. Classic. For what? Mostly, the directing was just distracting.
Misc.
Venue is no longer the smoky den of iniquity; it’s a class expensive joint.
French are still in love with jazz. In this film’s case, Lefty, a bandmember, has French girlfriend.
Okay, more creepy incestuous stuff. Spike Lee’s filming this right? Well, he’s filming his naked sister having sex. Ewww!
Everyone’s a type. Bookee is Hispanic. Club owners are Italian. Black urban boys. Any questions?
This in an impressive cast. Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington, the detective from Sister Act. Did everyone have to do some hard time in a Spike Lee film when they were young? This guy had to have some credentials in the community.
GAbbard
I can buy that the trumpet is a phallic extension of the self in the film. Hell, Bleek keeps his trumpet in bed with him while he has sex, and he undresses a chick with his trumpet. But, Gabbard didn’t have a lot of important things to say outside of what Adorno already proposed.
See all of you Tuesday, six sharp.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
'round about movie
This week, we watch 'Round midnight. It's round about plot weaves between the bromance of a sax player and his French number one fan. I heard this word, bromance, from an article that discussed the straight couple from Scrubs, the Turk and J.T. characters. A "bromance" is when two straight men are engaged in a relationship together that would, under usual circumstances, be viewed as romantic in nature. I think it's fairly clear that Dale and Francis are a bit more than friends. Francis documents their relationship, watches the film obsessively, ignoring his daughter and gazing into the image of the sax player. He moves Dale in, finds a nicer, better apartment, even leaves his daughter and work to escort Dale back to New York.
Although the plotline consists only of a climax, Dale's death, and includes no rising or falling action, there is a few really lovely cinematograhic moments. The home movies that Francis shoots of Dale are moving, full of emotion, and simply human. They remove Dale from the performance of the Blue Note and its atmosphere. Outside of that environment, where he is incapable of caring for himself, we see him misplaced into a simpler world where he cares for Francis' daughter, playing with her on the beach and buying her treats.
But I kept asking myself why is this little white frenchman taking care of this adult man? Especially since I could never really define for myself why Dale needed to be taken care of. He did display symptons of a recovered/recovering alcoholic, sneaking drinks when Buttercup wasn't looking, wanting the drink that worked the fastest, i.e. the one that the guy had that fell out at the bar ( alittle dramatic, eh?). He talks once about noticing that he had bled on his reed after playing. He is also admitted to the hospital almost everytime he drinks, even if it's only a few beers or two glasses of wine. The only thing I could come up with was maybe stomach ulcers, if drinking so little causes so much of a problem that he admitted every time. As far as bleeding on the reed, that could be from stomach ulcers or it could be that he busted his lip while playing. He also talked to a mental health physician at one point, but the guy seems convinced that Dale is ok.
I don't know. I'll be happy to hear how the rest of you interpretted things on Tuesday.
I felt like I spent the whole film trying to figure out the things I discussed above. And, because I was trying to rationale what was happening, I couldn't really see the whole picture until the movie was over. But, hey, I'm still not saying that I get the big picture.
The language and voice of the film was hard to understand too. Gordan's voice was lovely, interesting, and original. It had tons of character. But it was not easy for me to understand what he was saying. I wanted the whole movie to be in subtitles, not just the sections of conversation that were in french. Gordan's voice did remind me of Louis Armstrong's performance voice, though. And, " I cover the Waterfront" was playing in the background of one of the scenes. It was sung as straightforwardly as ever, definitely not a jazz version. Hearing the mainstream version really made me realize the beauty and originality in Armstrong's voice, the command, the ups and downs, the emotion. It changed the song into a new animal for me, an interesting animal.
Even though I couldn't always understand the voice of Gordan's character, I was drawn to his acting. He was this lovable grandpa figure, telling stories of yesteryear (both uplifting and enlighteningly sad), sneaking drinks, still seducing young good looking women. He seemed like a lot of fun. He held himself in the most wonderful way. You could see his weariness in the slump of his shoulder, the way he laid himself on the bed, in the waving of his hand. The evident change in his posture around Francis' daughter showed the effect of youth on him.
But, it was still hard for me to justify his place in the film. Just by the time allotted him onscreen, he seems to be a more important character than Dale, but it his Dale that the story opens up on.
Last week we watched Space is the Place. I was prepared for it because of the setup of the articles, the repeatedly used adjectives like crazy, nutty, wacky. But, the narrative of Midnight was something new. It was trying at documentary with things like the plot simply reflecting a section of a life and the images of the film shot by Francis. But, we don't know what finally kills Dale. We don't know what he struggled with before the film; there's just no context.
That's all for now, I guess. Talk at cha later.
Although the plotline consists only of a climax, Dale's death, and includes no rising or falling action, there is a few really lovely cinematograhic moments. The home movies that Francis shoots of Dale are moving, full of emotion, and simply human. They remove Dale from the performance of the Blue Note and its atmosphere. Outside of that environment, where he is incapable of caring for himself, we see him misplaced into a simpler world where he cares for Francis' daughter, playing with her on the beach and buying her treats.
But I kept asking myself why is this little white frenchman taking care of this adult man? Especially since I could never really define for myself why Dale needed to be taken care of. He did display symptons of a recovered/recovering alcoholic, sneaking drinks when Buttercup wasn't looking, wanting the drink that worked the fastest, i.e. the one that the guy had that fell out at the bar ( alittle dramatic, eh?). He talks once about noticing that he had bled on his reed after playing. He is also admitted to the hospital almost everytime he drinks, even if it's only a few beers or two glasses of wine. The only thing I could come up with was maybe stomach ulcers, if drinking so little causes so much of a problem that he admitted every time. As far as bleeding on the reed, that could be from stomach ulcers or it could be that he busted his lip while playing. He also talked to a mental health physician at one point, but the guy seems convinced that Dale is ok.
I don't know. I'll be happy to hear how the rest of you interpretted things on Tuesday.
I felt like I spent the whole film trying to figure out the things I discussed above. And, because I was trying to rationale what was happening, I couldn't really see the whole picture until the movie was over. But, hey, I'm still not saying that I get the big picture.
The language and voice of the film was hard to understand too. Gordan's voice was lovely, interesting, and original. It had tons of character. But it was not easy for me to understand what he was saying. I wanted the whole movie to be in subtitles, not just the sections of conversation that were in french. Gordan's voice did remind me of Louis Armstrong's performance voice, though. And, " I cover the Waterfront" was playing in the background of one of the scenes. It was sung as straightforwardly as ever, definitely not a jazz version. Hearing the mainstream version really made me realize the beauty and originality in Armstrong's voice, the command, the ups and downs, the emotion. It changed the song into a new animal for me, an interesting animal.
Even though I couldn't always understand the voice of Gordan's character, I was drawn to his acting. He was this lovable grandpa figure, telling stories of yesteryear (both uplifting and enlighteningly sad), sneaking drinks, still seducing young good looking women. He seemed like a lot of fun. He held himself in the most wonderful way. You could see his weariness in the slump of his shoulder, the way he laid himself on the bed, in the waving of his hand. The evident change in his posture around Francis' daughter showed the effect of youth on him.
But, it was still hard for me to justify his place in the film. Just by the time allotted him onscreen, he seems to be a more important character than Dale, but it his Dale that the story opens up on.
Last week we watched Space is the Place. I was prepared for it because of the setup of the articles, the repeatedly used adjectives like crazy, nutty, wacky. But, the narrative of Midnight was something new. It was trying at documentary with things like the plot simply reflecting a section of a life and the images of the film shot by Francis. But, we don't know what finally kills Dale. We don't know what he struggled with before the film; there's just no context.
That's all for now, I guess. Talk at cha later.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Sun Ra's Mythmaking
Okay, guys, I'll try to keep it short because I can already see that end-of-semester weariness setting in everyone's eyes.
Our selection for this week, Space is the Place, could have easily been categorized in the nutty crazy section if not for the illuminating ability of Lock. I was also pretty disgusted with the general atitute toward women in the film, i.e. all women are hoes waiting for a good pimp, even women who go to school to become nurses will gladly undress themselves and their sistas' for a good pimp man. But, because I was generally impressed with Sun Ra's philosophy as explained by Lock, I did a bit o' research and found that we were watching the 2003 director's cut of the film. The original of 74 or so deleted the bitches and hoes scenes, with the director calling Ra "prudish". I think Ra's philosophies make a helluva lot of sense. And, how huge! He attempted to rewrite history. Unfortunately, he didn't succeed. But I sure as hell wish he did. The whole call back to Moses thing of slave songs and stories never made sense to me. A call back to Egypt as the mother land, the birthplace of humanity sounds so empowering and a beautiful way for the black community to unite in a new way. It's too bad it wasn't picked up during the civil rights movement. Judeo-Christian worldview was repeatedly used to keep slaves enslaved, to keep blacks on the low end of the social hierarchy. Traditional West African religions, by anyone's standards, more closely resembles what we know of ancient Egyptian religion and worldview.
And, hey, Sun Ra's from my hometown. Yeah!
Alright, that's it.
yip.
summary: awesome readings; movie doesn't give Ra the credit he deserves as a visionary
Our selection for this week, Space is the Place, could have easily been categorized in the nutty crazy section if not for the illuminating ability of Lock. I was also pretty disgusted with the general atitute toward women in the film, i.e. all women are hoes waiting for a good pimp, even women who go to school to become nurses will gladly undress themselves and their sistas' for a good pimp man. But, because I was generally impressed with Sun Ra's philosophy as explained by Lock, I did a bit o' research and found that we were watching the 2003 director's cut of the film. The original of 74 or so deleted the bitches and hoes scenes, with the director calling Ra "prudish". I think Ra's philosophies make a helluva lot of sense. And, how huge! He attempted to rewrite history. Unfortunately, he didn't succeed. But I sure as hell wish he did. The whole call back to Moses thing of slave songs and stories never made sense to me. A call back to Egypt as the mother land, the birthplace of humanity sounds so empowering and a beautiful way for the black community to unite in a new way. It's too bad it wasn't picked up during the civil rights movement. Judeo-Christian worldview was repeatedly used to keep slaves enslaved, to keep blacks on the low end of the social hierarchy. Traditional West African religions, by anyone's standards, more closely resembles what we know of ancient Egyptian religion and worldview.
And, hey, Sun Ra's from my hometown. Yeah!
Alright, that's it.
yip.
summary: awesome readings; movie doesn't give Ra the credit he deserves as a visionary
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