Post-'69 Jazz Record Poll

As requested, here are PDFs of the Village Voice's "Post-'69 Jazz Record Poll," originally published for their "Miles Davis at 60" jazz supplement from August 1986. Note the number of recordings selected from the 1980s, despite the poll allowing for any recording released in the 1970s. And I thought the '80s was supposed to be a dry spot? Or is it just that many of these recordings are out of print? Hmm... Also note that many of these choices end up on the best of the 1980s poll republished at Destination: Out. To all of my jazz obsessives and record poll nuts: enjoy!

Best Jazz Albums of the 1980s at D:O

Today, Destination: Out posted the Village Voice's Best Jazz Albums of the 1980s, originally published in 1990. And to think I was just about to do the same! Anyway, perhaps if they don't post the Best Jazz Albums since 1969 (published in 1986), I'll have to post it. We shall see. Enjoy!

Reprint: Broken Flowers Reviewed

Ah yes, another find as I clean out my hard drives. This one was written for the Bay Weekly back when I was one of their occasional film reviewers. This review shares similar themes with the Bresson critique, but I think the language is better. You decide.

Broken Flowers by Jim Jarmusch
August 17, 2005

Broken Flowers stars Bill Murray as Don Johnston, a successful, retired computer entrepreneur and aging Don Juan who receives an anonymous letter claiming he has a 20-year-old son he’s never met. Coaxed by his sleuthing Ethiopian neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), Johnston revisits five of his former flames on an extensive road trip to solicit clues and find the author of this mysterious letter.

Each of his five stops—to a widowed personal closet organizer (Sharon Stone), a married prefab luxury home salesperson (Frances Conroy), an animal communicator (Jessica Lange), the angry wife of a rough backwoods mechanic (an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton), and a gravesite—is lush with eccentric characters, period details, cultural juxtapositions and deadpan humor. Like his first feature, Stranger Than Paradise, director Jim Jarmusch finds humor as much in what’s said as what isn’t said, so that awkward silences and physical comedy carry the bulk of the laughs. He uses plot to intermingle his characters, then enriches them with personal idiosyncrasies, gestures, props and sets.

Unlike Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt, another comedy about being middle-aged and dissatisfied, the emptiness in the lives of these characters is presented empathetically. Dora, the luxury home salesperson, was a flower child when she met Johnston, but now lives in a treeless suburb and cooks precut frozen carrots for dinner. This may be humiliating for you or me, but she’s not desperate—life requires compromise, and she seems to appreciate her stability and the love of her schmaltzy, doting husband.

Even at a young 28, I see how freewill, perseverance and pulling myself up by my bootstraps still doesn’t cancel out fate and circumstance. Jarmusch seems to embrace this as a worldview and find solace in it—his characters in this film and Down By Law, for example, find love and joy in unanticipated, and often unseemly, situations. Laura, Sharon Stone’s character, did not ask to lose her husband in a fiery wreck on a racetrack, but she did. Ingmar Bergman would film her life as a tragedy. But she’s half asleep next to Don Johnston the day after his visit, affectionately and awkwardly pasting her hand on his nose and cheek. She’s warm and funny, and grateful for what she has. Jarmusch understands that. So should we.

Dead Man is more poetic and Ghost Dog is a tighter and more satisfying narrative, but Broken Flowers is still the work of a master filmmaker in his prime. If you’ve never seen a Jim Jarmusch film, what are you waiting for?

Reprint: 2 or 3 Things I Know About Robert Bresson

Since I'm a media nerd and a neat freak, I chose to spend one of my few remaining days off sorting through and cleaning out my hard drives. I guess that's just how I roll. Anyway, I discovered a file of articles I wrote for a previous weblog, and damned if this one isn't interesting. I have not seen a Bresson film since I wrote this, so I can't say whether I still agree with my argument; besides, you know how polemical youthful arguments can be. Regardless, however, it is a window into the development of my current aesthetic perspective, as well as being a nifty, if derivative, piece of writing (the tone and structure is loosely based on Robert Christgau's famous critique of the Eagles). I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did revisiting it!

2 or 3 Things I Know About Robert Bresson
February 14, 2004

Today I caught Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard, Balthazar at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring. This is a “supreme masterpiece,” according to J. Hoberman, and “one of the 50 Great Films” according to the latest prestigious BFI Sight and Sound Poll. Jonathan Rosenbaum lists it in his Placing Movies collection as one of his dozen or so favorites, alongside Playtime, City Lights and The Tiger of Eschnapur, which are all favorites of mine that I discovered through Mr. Rosenbaum’s criticism. Besides being the brunt of a Christgau joke, I challenge you to find a critic or cinephile that doesn’t praise his work.

Like Diary of a Country Priest, which I saw last week by way of the gorgeous Criterion DVD, Au Hasard, Balthazar is presented simply—every scene is clear and narratively focused, and his themes are only just below the surface. I deeply respect how attractive his composition is without bringing attention to itself (though I found Diary of a Country Priest more attractive). And the editing is brisk, so that even when the themes are heavy, the filmmaking is not. And the acting (by non-actors supposedly) is beautiful.

I loved a scene near the end where the donkey, Balthazar, is employed by a circus, and Mr. Bresson cuts between one-shots of animals in cages and Balthazar being led to his trainer. We obviously never know exactly what Balthazar is thinking, but this scene is very moving—the proud and ferocious tiger and the energetic monkey are both kept from being themselves by these cages, and we sympathize through the eyes of this donkey who understands the pain of being held down. To top it off, the scene illuminates just how much we personify animals and objects around us, and how this is a very human and, given the creative liberties we allow our sympathy, a somewhat humorous thing for us to do.

That said, I now add that, like with the Eagles, what I find most interesting about these films is how much I dislike them. In a nutshell, and obviously over-simplified, Au Hasard Balthazar and Diary of a Country Priest are about the cruelty of the world and how that affects people. Mr. Bresson has very rich observations on the subject, and apparently they resonate with an audience. I admit that the endings of both films are movingly gentle, like Diary of a Country Priest’s “all is grace” finale. And I agree with Mr. Rosenbaum that they are accessible—except for the fact that I think they’re boring.

I’m paraphrasing from my notoriously faulty memory, but Godard supposedly proclaimed this film “reality in an hour and a half.” I don’t know about your life, but in mine, when life’s got you by the balls, you crack a joke. You smile to the cashier even when you’ve had a rough day, and miraculously, they smile back. You make terrible decisions then laugh about them over a beer with your friends or over the telephone. Unless I’m missing something in the translation, these films are humorless.

I didn’t like Diary of a Country Priest, but gave Au Hasard, Balthazar a chance (and an hour’s drive) because it has a donkey, and even if this donkey isn’t cute, at least he’ll be sweet—or maybe, I thought, since his role as a metaphor is blatant, Mr. Bresson will be blessedly obvious and maybe even playful. As a Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock fan, as a Joss Whedon fan, as a Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman fan, I prefer the obvious and playful, and usually sneer at taste—not because subtlety is bad, but because it’s less interesting. Mr. Bresson is oozing with taste—to the point where it feels antithetical to reality and actual human experience. And he’s a real bummer.

Who knows, maybe I’ll like A Man Escaped. Regardless, at least one good thing about not being a film critic is that I don’t have to like Robert Bresson. I’m not crazy about Ingmar Bergman either.