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Capone Review SURFWISE And GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS!!
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago, with a couple of choice documentaries to throw your way.
I know this site isn't as good as it should be when it comes to spotlighting docs, and I blame myself. I will travel far and wide to see a great "non-fiction" films (as Werner Herzog likes to call his docs). I've just always loved learning, and the less I'm familiar with the subject at hand, the more involved I become. So here are two excellent works making their way to an art house near you, I hope.
SURFWISE
One of the most captivating profiles of an American family that I've seen since CAPTURING THE FREIDMANS, SURFWISE begins by telling us the story of a man--Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, who grew up handsome, well off and gifted at nearly everything he did. He was an avid surfer, who always felt more at home on a wave than he did being a doctor or a husband in two unsuccessful marriages.
Dorian is an old man now with many health issues, who looks even older than he is thanks to leathery tanned skin. But when he was a young man, he was a bronzed Adonis with an arresting personality who yearned for a life without connections and with total freedom. So he married a woman who taught him how to have great sex, had nine children (eight boys and a girl) and lived a nomadic lifestyle that allowed them to live healthy, unattached lives and surf whenever they damn well felt like it.
Director Doug Pray (HYPE!; SCRATCH) does exquisite work here illustrating this family, who became folks heroes to many and attracted a media frenzy wherever they went in their 24-foot camper loaded with surf boards and dreams. As much as the Paskowitz family put on a unified face when the kids were still young, the clan began to fracture the older the kids got and the more famous the family became.
Living under Doc's dictatorial rules about eating and surfing, several of the children rebelled when they got old enough to understand that it was okay to rebel against the ultimate anti-establishment guru. Much as Doc predicted, the minute money entered their lives, their world began to crumble and family members stopped talking to each other. Still, nearly every son and daughter went on to be successful, including working as a surfware designer, musician, model and other pursuits. But the kids still resented their father because he never gave them the option of going to school or pursuing other ways of life.
SURFWISE features some fantastic archival footage of the Paskowitz family, and I was impressed with how much material there was on Doc prior to him building his legacy. He was the man who single handedly introduced surfing to the beaches of Israel. But it's the family stuff that really hits you in the heart. They were envied by so many—the first family of surfing, they were called--but are the children better off today as a result of their upbringing? Each one probably has a different answer, but I guarantee each response will be interesting. SURFWISE manages to be both a celebration of this lifestyle and a cautionary tale, and it's all worth taking in.
GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS
My first real awareness of Philip Glass wasn't even by hearing his music; it was hearing someone make fun of his music. On one of the first seasons of "South Park" (maybe even THE first season), the kids are forced to put on a non-denominational holiday musical.
To emphasize how droll the pageant is, the music and lyrics are said to be by "New York minimalist composer Philip Glass." The kids are all dressed in black leotards, spinning around while the singer sings, "Happy Happy Happy. Everybody Happy." I had no idea what it meant, but I loved it.
Since that episode of "South Park," I've certainly heard my share of Glass music in the scores of such filmmakers as Godfrey Reggio and Errol Morris, and films like THE HOURS, HAMBURGER HILL, CANDYMAN, KUNDUN, TAKING LIVES, UNDERTOW, THE ILLUSIONIST, NOTES ON A SCANDAL; NO RESERVATIONS, and most recently in Woody Allen's CASSANDRA'S DREAM. If you haven't heard his newly written scores for Bela Lugosi's DRACULA and Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, they're quite nice. And while I'm far from a hardcore Glass fan, I appreciate his talents more than I did when Trey and Matt poked fun at him.
NO RESERVATIONS director Scott Hicks (who's probably best known for helming SHINE) has taken his cameras inside the life of Glass and his work, peeling back the mystery behind his process and showing us that Glass is not at all the serious artist I'd imagined him to be. He's full of life, spiritual passion, an attentive family man and he might be the most extreme workaholic I've ever seen profiled. He is not a composer who treats every note like a precious object and seems exceedingly easy to collaborate with. Watching him work side by side at the editing bay with Woody Allen kind of blew my mind.
Even on a more substantial project like his opera premiere for "Waiting for the Barbarians," he seems relaxed and open to ideas (to a point). Always with five or six project going at once, Glass sometimes sacrifices time with his wife and two young sons to fly around the globe finalizing some work or another. With his dark, out-of-control curls and deep set eyes that still seem to pop out a bit, Glass is a favorite subject for portrait photographers and artist, including his old friend Chuck Close who painted his likeness on more than one occasion. But the serious mystique gives way to an easy laugh, open conversation and intelligence beyond my comprehension.
Hicks' profile (perhaps bordering a bit too much on the "tribute" category) is endlessly revealing, especially in off-guard moments from Glass's current wife, who admits their marriage struggles sometimes with his busy schedule. But that only makes him more compelling. I remember seeing a documentary not too long ago about avant-garde stage director, Chuck Wilson, which covered among other things his legendary collaboration with Glass, "Einstein on the Beach," which is also covered in great detail here as a pivotal work in Glass's career. It's always fun for me to piece together a person's life in my head via a thorough documentary like this, which takes my fragmented knowledge of Glass and turns it into something comprehensive.
I will probably never own anything by Glass outside of the occasional film score I receive in the mail, but for those of you who rip on his work regularly, this film might be more for you than the die-hard aficionado. I haven't grown to love his work because of this movie, but I have a much greater respect for him as a person and artist.
Capone
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maybe?
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no way...that retro stuff is very cool...
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and did a piece called "Rubric" (sic) I believe. I was only a kid, but the song was mesmirizing and catchy. I'm not going to say I've been a fan since then, but I've definately perk up when I see his name tied to something. I may have to check this doc out!
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at the Belcourt Theatre...Surfwise just ended yesterday, but Glass plays June 27-29. Belcourt is showing a nice block of docs this summer, like Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 with the director in attendance, and today they just started Standard Operating Procedure, Up The Yangtze and Tuesday starts My Name is Albert Ayers...so if you're in the Southeast, go check 'em out and support a local independent art house please...belcourt.org
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Elfman or Williams. Of course the assumed dark and gloomy composer Glass turns out to be this nice guy with a lot of drive. His only problem being that he works too much. Meh, sounds more like A & E fodder. I'm all for nice guys working in Hollywood and its good to show these, but for some reason I guess I was expecting more from Glass. Like a huge Ego, or some childhood riveral with another composer. Or strive because he's never as big as Williams or Elfman or Shore or Zimmer. I don't know. I guess what I am saying is that composer interest me, but I'd rather see some tv doc series about them or something.
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Phillip Glass did a version of David Bowie's song "Heroes". It's probably my favorite thing he's done. Very cool stuff.
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Great film and score by Glass (which stands alone very well when listened to and doesn't seem like "flim music").
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Sorry I meant great film and the score was composed by Glass. Paul Schroder wrote and directed.
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His noise - I refuse to call it music - is repetitive and cheesy-sounding, like a retard hitting a series of keys over and over and over again on some piece-of-shit Casio keyboard from the early '80s. Instead of adding to a film's power, I find the noise he creates plastic and distracting, and I cringe when I see his name attached to anything. I will see this documentary, if only to help me understand why people revere him the way they do.
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played the hell out of that cassette after I caught the movie on video. Brilliant score.
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do the soundtrack to Errol Morris' THE THIN BLUE LINE? I always thought he did, but now I'm not sure and too lazy to look it upanyways, thanks for the updates on these docs, as I live in a cultural wasteland and don't ever get to see docs in the theatre
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I don't know if this will help, but the reason people revere him the way they do is that everyone has different tastes in music. I don't care for or understand Jackson Pollock's paintings, but I know many people who love the guy. Glass's work on Kundun and Errol Morris's documentaries is, I think, brilliant (especially Kundun, where he avoids his typical arpeggio-based compositions). There are many, many, professional and gifted musicians who love his work. It's just one of "those things," I guess.
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I understand where you're coming from, but I can't even get behind the music on KUNDUN, man. It still sounds cheap and amateurish to me, more like something from a BBC wildlife documentary than from a Martin Scorsese religious epic. It doesn't feel organic to me.
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Yeah, Glass did the music for THE THIN BLUE LINE
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thanks, I thought Glass did and itkinda of surprised me then when Capone said that his first introduction to Glass' work was thanks to a South Park episode in...what 96? Just surprised me so I wanted to confirm that yes Glass did do the music for THE THIN BLUE LINEI saw that in 89, 90 (not sure when it hit VHS)...anyways my folks had a friend that worked our public library and she was always getting me into pretty mainstream books and movies but she puts this movie in my hand and aksed me to watch it and give her my opinion...whacked out experience for a 12, 13 year old to watch
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If you know what an Ozu film is. That is, they're both works of artistic minimalism. For instance, if you've ever seen an Ozu film, you may notice that from the outset, the narrative operates on almost even keel emotionally, not a lot of ups and downs. Then, if you've been paying attention, something small happens, a gradual shift in the narrative, nothing as big as a bomb exploding or somebody dying, but, like in Ozu's Tokyo Story, the grandmother has trouble, for a brief second, standing up. Because of the style of the narrative prior to this moment has been so minimal, that one briefest moment becomes monumental. The same with Glass music, it has a repetitive tone( based on an Eastern-influence rhythm a musician friend told me, I believe the Indian Raga rhythm), that is almost automative. In Glass's Einstein on the Beach, it was likened to a locomotive. But when the listener falls into the particular rhythm of the music, if they are open to it, the slightest shift in tone or introduction of a new element to the music, becomes, again, monumental in nature.
Philip Glass is one of the most influential musicians of the late 20th century. Ask any real musician, they'll tell you that. His style, if you look for it, pervades our media culture these days, most recently, in those 2008 NBA Finals advertisements that used "Everyday" by Carly Commando, an obvious Glass-inspired piece. -
(spoiler) The importance of the grandmother's trouble standing up leads to her eventual death later in the film. Again, in minimalism, the slightest shifts in the universe have the equivalence of earth-shattering proportions.
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Glass later adapted the musical themes of Thin Blue Line to the album Solo Piano, a beautiful, beautiful piece. If someone's not familiar with Glass, they might want to start with The Photographer. The final track is incredible-- orchestra and chorus playing a dozen notes in the time most compositions call for one or two notes. It's exhilarating. Everyone must have collapsed on the floor with exhaustion once the recording was finished.
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Your critical comparison of Glass to Ozu was fascinating! Who, outside the elite realm of "real musicians", could ever have guessed that musical minimalism would be so darned complex and difficult to ahieve? The irony of it all! Oh, well - I guess I'd better start enjoying listening to Phillip Glass' chintzy, monotonous, irritating shit, lest I be left behind!
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...is to make it emotionally interesting. That takes talent. Obviously, Mr. Glass must be doing something interesting otherwise he wouldn't be considered on of the most influential artists of the 20th century. And Mosquito March, you must obviously then be missing something. Maybe part of your brain?
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You don’t really know that much about Phillip Glass, right? I mean, I doubt you've listened to a wide range of his operas, symphonies, movie scores and incidental music. And that's cool. But you really aren't too familiar with this subject, right? (But that's cool.)
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But that heinous post by Chishu_Ryu was almost enough to ruin him for me. It certainly made me sympathize with Mosquito March. That was some extremely unnecessary cheesy bullshit.
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If you want to knock Philip Glass as not being in the same category or not as dark as Elfman or Zimmer, check out their bands in the 80's Oingo Boingo and Ultravox. Then go listen to Philip Glass's Glassworks from the same time period and see why Glass's initials should be OG instead of PG.
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Does note = inspired talent. I've listened to Glass and seen him live but haven't gotten him yet. Glass strikes me as an avante-gardist for those who are afraid of the avant-garde- kinda different but too vapid to cause distress. For camparison listen to Terry Riley who is relatively accessible but a much deeper talent. Riley in concert is an amazing, electrifying experience.
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I must admit that Koyaanisqatsi works pretty well. I don't think it stands without the film though. And the film itself is mediocre, being excessively preachy and delivering its one idea over and over with the subtlety of a pile driver.
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I was fortunate enough to see Terry Riley perform a couple years ago at my grad school. He was amazing. Although 'deep' is in the eye of the beholder. My avant-garde musician friends in the audience consider him cheesy compared to more hard-core experimenters (Marianne Amacher's name came up)--
AND HERE'S A GREAT GEEK FACTOID: Adrian Veidt name-drops Terry Riley as one of his favorite musician's in 'Watchmen'. In regards to Glass, I like some stuff, dislike other stuff. I liked his score to 'The Secret Agent' quite a bit. But I don't think he gets to 'shit on' somebody like Howard Shore. Shore's theme for 'Dead Ringers' is one of the all-time heartbreakers of film scores, right up there with Ennio Morricone's awesome theme for 'Lolita'. -
I never thought minimalist composors would be heavily discussed on the same site I come to to see Aaron Eckharts ever-deformed face. Since we've got Glass and Riley, we have to mention Steve Reich and John Adams as well. The thing with Glass's work is that it is not meant to be look at like songs, but peices, like as a whole. If the whole fluttering thing annoys you, check out Philip Glass Solo Piano. That's some stuff right there, I mean, to sleep to, but still...it's pretty damned good.
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That's how I found Glass too! It was on a re-run on Comedy Central in the summer of '98 and just happen to catch and it blew my mind. He did another song that had vocals in it. The name escapes me, but it was a short ride over to Tower Records after it was over.
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Naqoyqatsi kicks ass. By the way, this interview about the movie is FANTASTIC. I recommend you add a link to the article:
http://philipglass.typepad.com/glass_notes/2008/06/philip-glass-scott-hicks-interview.html#comments -
and possibly the most incredible song of all time (can u tell i love glass?)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K2YcFcunLF8&feature=related
the video is stupid, just listen to te music -
It was '87. I was in an Aladdin's Castle video arcade. This boy I kinda liked came up to me while I was playing Afterburner (the sit- down version) and just put these Walkman headphones on me and pushed play. It was Einstein on the Beach. I was just transported. I had this weird synchronous moment with the music and the game. Later, as we were dating, he would often put it on while we made love. I have some very good memories of that music, and that 17th summer of my life.
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