The Artist vs. The Art Itself

Richard Brody makes an odd claim in this month’s issue of The New Yorker.  He posits that because Alfred Hitchcock’s directorial technique was a direct offshoot of his “own ugly fury,” that it should be less revered by current directors and critics, and that the admiration of Hitchcock’s craft is a dangerous affair.  He writes:

The cult of Hitchcock, which presses directors’ ideas and critics’ taste toward his hyperrational craft and conceals his tormented frenzy, tends to thrust some filmmakers’ impulses, and the critical response to some of the best modern films, to the sidelines.

A pretty bold – and completely unsubstantiated – assertion.

Regardless, it raises an interesting question: should an artist’s personal life influence the way we view the art itself? 

I like the art of Jasper Johns, but I know nothing about the artist.  Not a thing.  Perhaps I should, and perhaps I’d be better for it, but would anything I discover change the painting that I admire?  It would still be the same art, the same use of colors, the same shading.  My perception of the artist might change for the better or for the worse, but I would hope not my admiration for the art itself.

I heard Beethoven’s third symphony for the first time in 1986 and over time began to admire it greatly (as a young rock and roller, classical pieces sometimes took their time).  Later, I learned that it had originally been dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte for his anti-monarchy idealism, only to be withdrawn.  Should this matter one iota to my admiration for the piece?

I think not.

Awards for art, movies and books should be viewed in a similar light.  Casablanca isn’t a better film for having won Best Picture, and Do the Right Thing isn’t a worse film for not having won the same award (or even nominated!).  They are both brilliant in their own right.

Then again, I can think of examples when my admiration for a song was actually enhanced once I learn the story behind it.  There’s no way you can tell me that Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” isn’t that much more beautiful, compelling and heartbreaking when you learn that it was written for his dead son, or that Lyle Lovett’s wonderful album, The Road to Ensenada, isn’t given a bittersweet tinge after learning that it largely chronicles his breakup with Julia Roberts.  One of my all-time favorite songs, Jackson Browne’s ”I’m Alive,” is even more compelling to me when I consider his breakup with Daryl Hannah. 

What can I say?  Pop music for me is sometimes a substitute for People Magazine!

On occasion I learn about the inspiration behind a song only to wish I hadn’t.  I recently read about the Ben Folds song, “Eddie Walker,” a wonderful tune for which I created my own story, and although the true inspiration for the lyrics isn’t in a completely different universe from my own interpretation, it still clouds the mental image I’d formed and will probably do so forever more.  For this reason, I admire artists who let songs be once they’re composed and refuse to offer insight into their origins.

And then there’s the ugly side.  Hitchcock’s purported sexual harassment, for instance. But many artists have an ugly side, and it would be silly for us to view their art through that lens. Roger Waters has said some pretty controversial and stupid things over the years, but I still think The Wall is still brilliant.  John Lennon used to hit his girlfriend.  I still love “A Day in a Life.”  I haven’t spent a penny on Elvis Costello since he told an audience at The Chicago Theater to “fuck off,” but I certainly can’t claim that I don’t still love his music.  Hell, you couldn’t pay me to see a Mel Gibson movie, but there’s no denying the fact that the guy can act and direct.

My father and I recently corresponded about this subject, and he wrote: “Does it matter what Brahms' psychotherapist thought was behind his compositions? Was Shostakovitch mentally ill or sexually repressed?  Who cares?  You love his 5th Symphony for what it is.  And Wagner: let's not even get into his politics.  Too much analysis and not enough appreciation and enjoyment.”

Too much analysis and not enough enjoyment.  There you are.  

Perhaps Richard Brody should do as I did two nights ago and rewatch Vertigo – perhaps with his daughter as I did – and enjoy it for what it is: a perfectly-executed telling of a creepy story.  If someone thinks it’s the best film of all-time, fair enough.

Amy: A Slow-Motion Suicide

In an effort to familiarize myself with next week’s Oscars ceremonies, I recently watched one of the five films nominated for Best Documentary Feature: Amy, about the British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse whose death in 2011 shocked no one. (To learn where to watch this year’s documentary nominees, start here.) Pieced together from amateur videos, photographs, interviews and performances, Amy is a difficult film to watch, not only because of the subject matter – in effect, a chronicle of a slow-motion suicide – but because of the lack of narration, at-times scattered direction, and heavy British accents that can take a few listens to understand correctly. Luckily the film includes subtitles of Winehouse’s lyrics and does a terrific job of identifying who’s talking, making even an unfamiliar viewer able to follow along.  As the film transpires, it becomes clear that while no one is entirely to blame for Winehouse’s death, no one is entirely off the hook. It took a village to kill Amy Winehouse, and a multitude of lessons could be learned from what transpires achingly on film, though I doubt they ever will be: the dangers of drugs and alcohol, the beauty of music, the trappings of fame, the fragility of life, the need for strong parenting, how the absence of religion might facilitate an aimless and narcissistic life, how society rejoices in the failings of others, how business and the almighty dollar trumps people’s well-being, how who you fall in love with is not always who you should spend your life with, how one’s insecurities are never far away, and how death cares not one iota how remarkably talented you are.

It’s a tough watch. But a worthy one.

Grey Gardens

During Rufus Wainwright’s show last week at City Winery in Chicago (a great show as always, though far too short), he played the song “Grey Gardens” from his second studio album, Poses.  The performance inspired me to revisit the song, and I’d forgotten that it begins with the following line of movie dialogue:

“It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present, you know what I mean?”

I probably first heard this line around thirteen years ago, but apparently lacked the curiosity to actually look up its origins until last week.  Many of you may already know the details, but for me it was news; turns out the dialogue comes from a film called – surprise – “Grey Gardens,” a voyeuristic 1975 documentary about Edith and Edie Beale, the respective aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who in the 60s and 70s lived a reclusive life in the decaying mansion of Grey Gardens in East Hampton, New York.  A few years prior to the film, the Beales were very close to being evicted due to health code violations until Mrs. Onassis came to the rescue by investing $32K to get the home back up to code.  It could be argued that it wasn’t money well spent; the film shows the mother and daughter living among cats who relieve themselves anywhere they please, papers and food scraps scattered everywhere, and open holes in the plaster through which raccoons and other animals enter (mostly because the younger Beale proactively feeds them).  It’s certainly an interesting film and one that achieved a cult following over the decades, though it’s not for all tastes, and the movie sheds little light on what made these two women decide to live largely cut off from the outside to begin with. 

Luckily, while searching for the documentary (which can be rented on Amazon for $2.99), I found another movie with the same title, a fictionalized version of the Edith and Edie Beale story starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore that first appeared on HBO in 2009 (and can also be rented on Amazon).  This film is outstanding, with pitch-perfect performances by the two leads.  In addition to giving the viewer a (fictionalized) glimpse of what the lives of the Beales may have been like prior to their fall from grace, it meticulously reproduces many of the more poignant scenes of the documentary.  It won three of seventeen Emmy nominations and two of three Golden Globe nominations.

The allure of watching previously wealthy eccentrics living in the shadow of missed opportunities must be somewhat universal, for the Beales's story was even captured in a successful musical, first off-Broadway and then on Broadway itself in 2006, winning three of its ten Tony nominations in 2007 and running for 307 performances. 

So in a nutshell: I learned a great deal and watched two interesting movies all due to a song - yet another example of how music can enlighten our lives.  Thanks Rufus.

If you’re interested in learning a thing or two about Little Edie and Big Edie Beale, a good place to start might be the Grey Gardens website.

A Lesson from St. Vincent and The Fisher King

** SPOILER ALERT *** If you haven’t seen these two movies, consider reading this essay after you do.

Watching Bill Murray’s film St. Vincent last week, I was reminded of another movie: The Fisher King, starring Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams.  Both the 1991 and 2014 releases are similar, not just because they’re manipulative and contrived, but because they could potentially lead one to view the more downtrodden among us differently.  How?  Well, that depends on how you look at things.  For some, the movies might invoke a spirited response similar to that of Christopher Tookey, who wrote of the Fisher King:

"The sagacity of the saga is diminished by screenwriter Richard LaGravenese's naively sentimental approach to homelessness and insanity.  Madness in this film can be cured just by knowing that someone cares about you, and homelessness is not a social problem, but a picturesque way that individuals have of coping with personal tragedy.”

Whereas Tookey feared people could stop viewing homelessness as a real problem, I remember walking away from The Fisher King with a more positive thought:  that its tale of a personal tragedy might lead people to view homeless in a more humane way, concluding that perhaps it wasn’t drug use, crime, or other poor choices that led their downfall, but rather a terrible event over which they had no control.

Never mind that generalizing a film’s depiction of a fictional character as a universal truth is unfair to a medium that’s primary purpose is to entertain.  After all, just because Robin Williams’s character suffered a horrendous tragedy doesn’t mean all homeless people have.  But it might be a positive step when we’re confronted with, say, a panhandler, to help use the movie as an example, and consider that this person asking for money may once have been living a full and rich life only to have a tragedy propel them downward (of course, you could argue that it shouldn’t matter one way or the other.  A person in need is a person in need, no matter what led to their circumstances).

St. Vincent walks a similar line to that of The Fisher King.  Its egregiously manipulative screenplay has the main character – who’s been a complete ass for most of the film – conveniently throw out the remnants of his nobler past just as a neighborhood kid watches through a window, thus casting the curmudgeon in a new light.  Like The Fisher King, this film seems to shout out, “Don’t judge a person too harshly – you don’t know what he’s been through.”

And as contrived as this message may be, this is exactly the default setting we should be employing in our lives.  When someone cuts us off on the highway, treats us inconsiderately at the cash register or demeans us at the doctor’s office, it’s easy for us to conclude that the person we’re dealing with is simply a low-life asshole who thinks of nothing but himself.  And you know what?  The easy conclusion may actually be right on the mark. 

But aren’t we much better served by assuming that the person who’s cut us off on the highway is in a terrible hurry because he just found out his spouse has cancer, or the inconsiderate cashier just discovered she can’t pay this month’s rent, or the demeaning physician just had to tell a patient that he’s dying.  Unlikely scenarios, perhaps, but possible, just like it’s possible the homeless person you encountered lost his wife in an unspeakably horrific way, and it’s possible that the cranky neighbor who everyone dislikes is a war veteran who’s been taking care of his wife with dementia for years.

It doesn’t hurt to assume the best in people, and it could even do a lot of good.  As Atticus Finch said, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”  It’s a difficult ideal to live up to, but it’s certainly one to aspire to, and movies like St. Vincent and The Fisher King are helpful – if a bit melodramatic – reminders if that ideal.

The Movie Boyhood: See it

The monumental achievement of Richard Linklater’s latest movie, Boyhood – in which he follows the fictional lives of a family for a dozen years – might be easy to overlook without first comparing to other art forms to put things into perspective.  Imagine asking a musical artist to record one song in one month out of the year for twelve years with the intention of making a seamless 12-song album.  The Beatles couldn’t have done it.  Led Zeppelin would have failed at this endeavor.  Michael Jackson?  Forget about it.  What about asking an author to write a chapter in one month out of the year for 12 years to create a tight, page-turning novel?  A near impossible endeavor.

Artists evolve.  Their interests change.  Their skills change.  Technology changes.  Artists immerse themselves in a project often at times to the detriment of everything else going on in their lives, and if they’re lucky, their myopic pursuits result in a near-perfect piece of art.  That Linklater was able to achieve the latter despite taking twelve years to do it is nothing short of remarkable.

In Boyhood, starring Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, twelve years pass before our eyes, as the characters evolve and age in mostly very ordinary ways.  Richard Linklater began filming in 2002 and wrapped up finally in 2013, all the while directing a number of other movies, including the second and third installments of the “Before” trilogy, which – like Boyhood – are also a study of time and the ordinariness of life. 

As the film progressed, I – far too accustomed to the typical movie experience – waited for tragedy to strike: a rape, a car crash, a stupid drunken accident.  And though the movie isn’t absent drama, it does illuminate what I wrote about just a week ago: that normal everyday lives are interesting in and of themselves.  Linklater sets up a few scenes where something awful could have occurred, only to proceed without fanfare.  I believe this was done on purpose, as it shows just how tenuous our lives are, as we take risk after risk after risk on a daily basis, only to find that most of the time, we escape unharmed. We manage to survive in spite of our carelessness.

At two hours and 45 minutes, the movie for me was about twenty minutes too long, and Arquette’s character’s inability to recognize a man’s shortcomings grew tiresome, but those are minor quibbles.  More important was an observation my daughter made about the main character, Mason, played by Ellar Coltrane.  She said that Mason was a walking cliché for the emo subculture, whereby every cynical, morose viewpoint is spouted as unique and interesting in spite of it being taken straight out of the emo handbook.  Here’s a summary from http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Emo

Emo is a type of subculture…loosely rooted around punk rock with its own distinct style of music, fashion, argot and other trappings in a desperate, though ultimately hopeless attempt to pronounce their uniqueness. As a rule of thumb, a person described as "emo" will often be from a comfortable, middle-class background with liberal parents. All of this is irrelevant to an emo who will consider themselves misunderstood and repressed regardless of reality…They all suffer from severe narcissism, leading them to believe that they alone know what pain is, and that no one understands them…on the plus side, emos have made great strides in the fields of photography.

Well, damn.  My daughter was spot-on!  The character of Mason is in fact a walking cliché.  But guess what?  So are a lot of the people we meet every day.  Sure, I think it would have been more exciting if Mason had been an outgoing guy who was into sports or drama or music, but Linklater needed to let the film evolve as the actors evolved, and my guess is that the fictional Mason wasn’t too far removed from the real-life Coltrane since the script was written over the 12 year-period and very much tailored to the actors involved.

That this film came to fruition is a minor miracle.  So many things could have gone wrong: actors could have died or decided they didn’t want to finish the project.  A major life event in any of the actors’ lives could have put the project on hold.  What would have happened had it turned out that the girl or boy couldn’t act?  Somehow Linklater keeps it all together, and manages to allow time to elapse before our eyes without editing flourishes; sometimes a new scene begins and only upon seeing an older Mason do we realize that a year has passed.  Linklater similarly avoids sentimentality (except for one completely unnecessary scene in a restaurant).  I imagine that in the hands of another filmmaker, Boyhood would have succumbed to the token flashback near the film’s end, whereby Arquette recalls the early lives of the children she’s sending off into adulthood.  Yes, I would have bought this type of flashback hook, line and sinker – I love that kind of crap – but I give Linklater credit for refusing the low-hanging fruit.

See the movie.