« November 2007 | Main | January 2008 »
December 12, 2007
David Cross as Allen Ginsberg on a Golf Cart
The design of this blog is nowhere near what I want it to be. I haven't had the time or energy to figure it out, but I've decided to not use that as an excuse to avoid posting. So here I go, forging ahead...
This is one of my favorite clips from one of my favorite movies of the year, Todd Haynes' I'm Not There. In it, Cate Blanchett plays Jude Quinn, one of the film's many incarnations of Bob Dylan, as he meets Allen Ginsberg, played by David Cross.
The film has received mixed reviews. The funny thing is that everyone seems to agree that it's densely packed montage of 60s and 70s cultural references, stacking layers of meaning, irony, sincerity and satire. The difference in the verdicts on the film depend on whether you think that sort of thing is brilliant or pretentious and pointless. I'm in the brilliant camp. Films are never isolated texts. The celebrity status of cast members always play into how we read their performances, and Haynes embraces this more than I've ever seen.
I was blown away by the film when I first saw it in September at the Telluride Film Fest (I also got a chance to talk to Todd Haynes!). I'm not sure why I waited this long, but I just bought the soundtrack. Wow. I'm not usually impressed with soundtracks, and this two disc set does have some rather banal tracks. But holy crap there's some great stuff on here. All of the Stephen Malkmus tracks are good, especially Ballad of a Thin Man. I just got it, so I haven't made it through the whole thing yet, but some others tracks that have jumped out at me, I'm Not There by Sonic Youth, Goin' to Acapulco by Jim James and Calexico, and the one that's really blowing me away, Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again by Cat Power!
Posted by kevinb at 1:54 PM | Comments (1)