Dear Listener

Last night I sat down with my friend Terry and watched a film on the same system I have used for the past eleven years.  I used a windfall of a few hundred quid to purchase a Kenwood Dolby Pro-Logic five speaker surround system in January 1997; I remember the salesman showing me the shoot out scene from Michael Mann’s ‘Heat’ to demonstrate its capabilities.  I have used these five speakers since before Tony Blair was Prime Minister, before anyone had heard of Monica Lewinsky, before Seth Rogen had made a film, before Arnie had played Mr Freeze or recalled a governor, before a Presidential election was ambiguously settled, before the Good Friday Agreement was signed, before Paul Thomas Anderson had written ‘Magnolia’, before I owned a house, before I had properly seen ‘The Exorcist’ on something other than pirate VHS, before I ever fell in love, before I knew what I was doing with my life (and so it goes, much of the time), before Van Morrison started making albums for the sake of it, before carbon emissions were everyday parlance, before Gene Hackman had announced his retirement, before the Rolling Stones didn’t, before I had written a published word, and before a serendipitous encounter at Belfast’s Queen’s Film Theatre when a certain Maestro and a certain Professor Doctor’s paths crossed when we walked out of the same bad film at the same right moment.  So you might imagine I have a sentimental attachment to my home cinema system.

But alas it cannot follow me on my impending long travels, so I have sold it.  To a friend, of course, so it will stay in good hands, and I may get to see it in use in the future.  I wanted to close this chapter of its place in my life with something special.  So I watched the recent film that I consider most likely to grow in my affections more than any other; one of the most visually astonishing films that US cinema has produced; an elegant poem about love and mystery, and the ultimate questions; indeed, something close to this generation’s ‘2001′.  My genial co-host and I tried to record a show about this film last year, but emotions were high and we decided not to release it upon an unsuspecting public; I fear the Maestro may never enjoy this film, never mind love it.  And so I am reluctant to name it; but I shall say this: it may sound naive or petty, but I’m sure most of us have developed a fondness for the equipment we use to watch movies.  I’m not a fan of spending huge amounts of cash on the latest upgrades - my Kenwood system has cost me approximately a hundred bucks a year to keep in constant service, and there’s no reason to believe it won’t last another decade or more; but I’ve heard more great movies through its speakers than anything else.  And so it deserves this eulogy.

And leads to these questions, Dear Listener: what piece of home cinema equipment are you most attached to?  And if you had only one more movie to watch on it, what would it be?

I’ve always had a soft spot for Crispin Hellion Glover ever since, as a young man, I saw his astonishing performance in River’s Edge and listened to his album The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution, The Solution Equals Let It Be.  I haven’t really paid attention to his ‘career’, or jobbing acting work I guess you’d call it, but was familiar with his now infamous appearance on the David Letterman show.

So my mental model of him was not clear - I suppose I thought him as the talented yet drug-addled child of wonderful character actor Bruce Glover and not much else.

But hearing that he’s to appear at the Belcourt Theater this Friday and Saturday night, bringing his impossible to see anywhere in ‘the cloud’ film ‘What Is It’ I had another look at his work.

And it’s brilliant.

He’s not just a talented actor, (or visual sculptor/motion-performer??), but an extremely clear thinker regarding the current state of corporate capitalism, (see clip above).  This statement in particular grabbed me:
“If something doesn’t fit into…corporate monetary conventions it’s (branded) insane”

Absolutely right.

Now, being excited that this ‘excitement’ was coming to town I managed to contact the Communications Director of the Belcourt, Josh Hayes, to quiz him on the event:

Recorded Call with Josh Hayes

If you’re in the area, (the American South), tomorrow or Saturday Dear Listener, then head over to the Belcourt - it’ll be good for you.

Crispin Gover at the Belcourt, Nashville

More LaFontaine goodness:

Cinema is Dead - Long Live Cinema!

Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene from pro on Vimeo.

From Snapshots, a 3-D View

Unwrap Mosaics: A new representation for video editing

The books you read in high school are unique - it might have been the first time in your life you were told to do something that you didn’t want to do, but unlike when you were younger, being a teenager grants a certain independence - you don’t just ignore the work, but may become actively annoyed at the fact that Jane Austen or William Shakespeare or Samuel Beckett or, in my case, F Scott Fitzgerald is being foisted upon us.  Of course, now I regret not taking the time I had - for free! - to read ‘Sense and Sensibility’, ‘Hamlet’, ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’ when a teacher was there to explain them to me.  Strike that, for as I write I remember that ‘Godot’ was pretty short, and therefore ideal territory for the schoolboy’s mind.  At any rate, I’ve had a relationship with ‘Gatsby’ for nearly 20 years now - first skim reading it in school, then seeing the 1974 Jack Clayton-directed, Coppola-written film version, and finally last year enjoying a plane ride with Tim Robbins reading it in my ear.

I’m not a literary critic, so at the risk of exposing the vulnerabilities in my analysis, let me say this: I shoulda read it when I was a kid.  The elegant sparseness of the language, the colour of the dialogue, the political implications of a narrative in which none of the characters - rich or poor - is likeable..that’ll do for starters.

So I sat down to re-watch the movie the other night and was sad to find it creating a new category for this blog: Old Films That Look Better Than They Actually Are.  There may never have been a film set in this period that looks more authentic - from Gatsby’s mansion to the gas station to the Eckelburg sign to the vehicles to the costumes.  Add a little Robert Redford/Mia Farrow/Bruce Dern - BRUCE DERN! - /Karen Black/Scott Wilson (another new category: Actors Whom Nobody Can Name But Everybody Likes); some cool old jazz standards; and frankly astonishing photography and what have you got?  A series of still images any one of which deserves to be hung on a wall, in the guise of an utterly flat film.  Maybe they were making a point about Gatsby’s personality, or about the shallowness of the relationships in the story; or maybe something went very badly wrong with the direction and the script.

So - dear listener - anybody out there want to contribute a suggestion for your own ‘Old Films That Look Better Than They Actually Are’?  I could get the ball rolling by proposing every film that Quentin Tarantino has made, but it’s a Friday, and I’m in a good mood, so I’ll just keep that to myself.