Perfect end to summer, inasmuch as it didn’t end at all. It was 85 and humid; Gnat demanded we fill the swimming pool, and had a friend over to try out her Slip ‘n’ Slide. (Caution: do not slide on knees. Slide only on stomach. Paralysis may result from improper use. Do not fill mouth with glass before sliding. Do not place end of Slip ‘n’ Slide against a concrete berm. Use of silicone sprays to facilitate slipperyness may result in child shooting through the hedge.) Around four we went to the Crazy Ukes’ for the Labor Day event, and the kids all gamboled and shrieked and made merry while the womenfolk chatted and the menfolk waved cigars like aromatic scepters. The dog drooled, but behaved. The rain threatened, but retreated. The heat took its foot off the gas but didn’t touch the brakes. Sunset took only a slice of summer, not the thing itself. Last year there was a brisk bite in the air, I think; this year seems too pleased with itself to leave. For the moment.
It’s a two-column night, so I have to fill with some pop culture stuff, prewritten over the weekend. Music first.
Blondie killed New Wave. It started with “Heart of Glass,” which sounded fresh and new-wavey when it debuted, but now sounds like music to wear Halston shoes by. It wasn’t New Wave, of course, but Blondie came out of the CBGB world, so they were grouped with Television, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, and other groups. I’m sure they fit the mold early on, but they went mainstream faster than any other group, culminating in the Great Sell-Out of 1980: “Call Me.” The idea that a CBGB group should make a record with Giogio Morodor, king of flaccid mechanical synth-pop, was heresy. Heresy!
I was working in a bar when that accursed song came out, and it played 10 times a night; every night, a stab in my heart! New Wave had been co-opted! No one who ever stood on the same stage as Tom Verlaine can sing “roll me in designer sheets” – somewhere, Lou Reed sat down, and yea he wept.
Well. The other night “American Gigolo” was on, and I watched it for the first time in (gulp) a quarter century. Even though it was shot in
’79, it’s very much a movie of the 80s - reasonable lapels, venetian blinds, pretty pictures set to synthetic music. The “Call Me” tune appears in 18,209 variations, but my ears perked up when I heard the Blondie version used in the credits. For a baseline, here’s the opening bars of the version we know and detest.
Straight forward guitar chords. Now here’s the movie version, again, by Blondie. Note the difference. The chords are different – augmented, I believe. Much jazzier, and somehow more elegantly corrupt. Almost makes it a better song, doesn't it? That's what radio was like in 1980: they had to dumb down "Call Me" to make it palatable.
This week’s noir is in colour, and I wouldn’t mention it all except for one thing: it’s a remake of last week’s featured movie, “Street with No Name.” This is “House of Bamboo,” a crime thriller set in Japan circa 1955. Directed by Sam Fuller. Didn’t do much for me, really; the bad guy, Robert Ryan, doesn’t have Widmark’s craaaazy look, and the setting – postwar Japan – isn’t as nasty and ominous as postwar LA. Same writer and cinematographer on both pictures. I might have expected less if it hadn’t been shot in CinemaScope; something about that gigantic size raises your expectations. There are a few interesting shots:
It’s a tracking shot that takes very nice advantage of the canvas size. Film school 101: follow that with a static shot, framed thus, complete with you-must-be-this-tall-to-shoot-crooks accent lines that draw the eye:
Perhaps one of the film’s problems: this guy below is one of the gangsters. Tremble as you face the murderous sociopathic cruelty of DeForest Kelley!
The inevitable climax takes place in an amusement park, where the bad guys applies the lessons handed down from year to year by wise criminal elders: when seeking to escape from police, climb to the highest point and fire indiscriminately down at the crowd. It solves nothing and wastes bullets, but at least it gives you that top-of-the-world-ma moment:
And here’s a handy note for cops: after you’ve shot the bad guy, don’t check for a pulse; just turn your back on him and walk away. If you can adjust your posture to a Praxitelean curve to follow the angles of the planetary rings propping up the dead crook, all the better.
And here’s a handy note for cops: after you’ve shot the bad guy, don’t check for a pulse; just turn your back on him and walk away. If you can adjust your posture to a Praxitelean curve to follow the angles of the planetary rings propping up the dead crook, all the better.
More domani. Small Screed update; no Fence; minor update in the Institute Archives. Hit the links below, and I'll see you tomorrow.
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