Artists at work
Part documentary and part how-to. A struggling musician uses his PC to produce his own album and winds up with a stack of 800 CDs in his apartment. Now what? How does he get anyone to buy them? He turns his camcorder on, and records his journey into music promotion and small time marketing. He tries flyers, bar gigs, street corner handouts. Eventually he goes to a seminar for indie music promotion, and for the rest of the documentary he records the results of following what he learns at the seminar. It's a good crash course in Music Marketing 101, perfect for any indie band. You really should hear what works. I think there are enough general purpose lessons that any artist should watch this and learn. There's no formula. The film's seminar leader can't repeat too many times: it's all about tapping into the inner authentic you, doing things in a way that is appropriate for you and your creations. Following this injunction, the musician-filmmaker does sell out his 800 CDs by the end of the film. Now he has a stack of 800 DVDs of this indie film to unload, but he knows how to do that. For example, he got one to me.
-- KK
800 CDs
Chris Valenti,
2007, 84 min.
DVD, $30
Available from the 800 CDS website
You mean you've never had the urge to decorate your car? Add a few marbles to the hood, or plastic toys on the roof? Or maybe cover it in grass? Harrod Blank, son of artist parents, got that urge one day in the 1970s, and converted his VW Bug into an "Omigod" car. It was promptly singled out for tickets by the police simply because it was strange. Soon he found other art cars around the country equally ostracized and began to interview their creators on film about their mutual obsession. This film took 10 years to complete and is a film made for love about cars made for love. Both are cheerful testaments to creative impulses. The art car artists are wonderfully sane, fabulously interesting, decidedly unique, and full of life. I am left wondering why we all don't personalize our cars? The film has an upbeat spirit and solid countercultural perspective - even though art cars are less rare these days. Really makes me want to turn my old white van into a blaze of dreams.
-- KK
Wild Wheels
Directed by Harrod Blank
1992, 64 min.
$27, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
Posted on March 2, 2007 at 5:00 AM
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A famous movie director (Sydney Pollack) documents how a famous architect works. As Pollack struggles with his first documentary, Gehry struggles to be amazing again as he plays with paper models. Gehry is the renowned architect who designs the swoopy, crumpled, and absolutely non-rectilinear buildings such as the Bilbao Guggenheim museum. But he is almost an accidental architect, and certainly an accidental superstar. He started out driving trucks and wanted to be a pilot. The theme of this documentary is the fragile nature of creativity - how difficult it is to sustain for anyone, but especially for the already successful. Gehry is unexpectedly candid about his fear of failure and even lets his therapist profile him. Best of all is his openness to let us watch him as he comes up with lame ideas and stupid suggestions, on the way to finding something that works.
-- KK
Sketches of Frank Gehry
Directed by Sydney Pollack
2005, 84 min.
$20, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
Not many documentaries make me cry, but this one did. It recounts the unlikely rise, the predictable fall, and the final resurrection of a little-known rock musician. The Dolls were an early glam punk band partly responsible for reviving rock’n’roll in the 1970s by being outrageous and raucous. During their short-lived fame they inspired the Sex Pistols, the Stooges, and all the rest. But three of the six band members drugged themselves to death, and the fourth, bass player Arthur Kane, nearly drank to death. While Kane sank into alcoholic destitution, the other two survivors went on to rewarding musical careers, embittering Kane further. At a low point Kane saw an ad for a Bible and converted to Mormonism, eventually working as a white-shirt-and-tie clerk in a genealogical library of a Mormon temple. In his new-found spiritualism he had one prayer he refused to stop believing – that the Dolls would reunite. Thirty years later, somewhat miraculously, the band did reunite (with substitute new members) for a gala performance in London. This documentary follows Kane’s improbable come-back. We start with his humble job as a meek, almost angelic clerk. He’s so broke he can’t buy his own pawned guitar back. As his prayer comes true, he is suddenly catapulted onto the London stage in his place in the rock band that invented punk. To Arthur this was a divine appointment to make amends with the surviving members. The concert was a smash hit, and the guys were reconciled. Then in a cosmic ending, Arthur died within days of undetected leukemia. Above all else, this is a film about how every now and then someone does the impossible; they change.
-- KK
New York Doll
Directed by Greg Whiteley
2005, 78 min.
$18, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
Evelyn Glennie, from Scottland, is a virtuoso percussionist. Her musical performances are stunning and original. She also happens to be profoundly deaf. While we all can hear low vibrations with our body, Glennie has learned to hear high sound vibrations (and music) with her body instead of her ears. She literally "touches" sound, and what a touch! In constant motion and with infinitive child-like curiosity, she plays with sounds everywhere she goes, even though she has to lip-read to hear people talk. This unexpectedly visual film explores the soundscape. You begin to hear things you've not heard before, and then see things not seen before. The exquisite cinematography is so in tune with the sonic explorations, that you even begin to see the sounds as well; to in fact hear sounds as bodily things as Glennie does. This is an art film in the most accurate use of the term: it is a work art about artists. Two artists: Glennie and her incredible music, and the filmmaker, who has made the invisible visible and beautiful. As the film progresses, Glennie emerges as original visionary and world-class inspirational hero. I hear the world differently now because of her and this great documentary.
-- KK
Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie
Directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer
2004, 99 min.
$20, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
Posted on July 24, 2006 at 5:00 AM
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Astounding time-lapse photography of Picasso painting. You chiefly see his paintings (without him) as if they were organic organisms evolving, growing, and mutating. Picasso's relentless energy is overwhelming. You quickly realize that beneath every painting of his are 100 other paintings that have been painted over. As one image morphs into another -- all equally riveting -- you wonder, what is Picasso searching for? He seems to be hunting for something as he layers one variation over another. He's said elsewhere (not much dialog here; just time lapse film) that he is not looking for beauty but truth. I decided he keeps painting over until he does something he's never done before. In the spirit of this layering, the two independent commentary tracks by two art historians are worth listening to and much preferred to the corny music soundtrack. It's not often we get to see greatness at work. This film, made by a French director in the 1950s, is a stroke of genius.
-- KK
The Mystery of Picasso
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
1956, 75 min.
$30, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
Posted on June 28, 2006 at 5:00 AM
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You know those tiny ads for "songs wanted" in the back pages of magazines? This is the story of the people who succumb to this siren by sending in money with their late-night poems, and of the professional musicians who record them for a few hundred dollars, and of the avid collectors who prize this "outsider" art. Song-poems, as they are called, are a weird hybrid of silly lyrics and professional recording. It's like having one of your telephone doodles turned into a giant city-block mural. There's something inherently lopsided about them. The wannabe songwriters are of course, a wonderfully bizarre and sometimes clueless cast of characters. But just as interesting to me are the weathered musicians who make their living playing these stupefying songs. I was impressed by how serious they took each creation, giving it their utmost -- well as much as they could give in a half hour. Incredibly, many of the songwriters were repeat customers happy with the results. The third leg of this unusual triangle are the collectors, the fans who find this outsider music more interesting than the smooth releases of pros. This film does what I always hope a documentary will do: it respectfully immerses me into a world I had never heard of before and changes my view. I came away with more sympathy for the folk writers and the professionals who serve them than I would have thought possible. While the business may be a scam, it's a willing scam for all the parties. Nice piece of work.
-- KK
Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story
Directed by Jamie Meltzer
2003, 132 min.
$18, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
Posted on June 19, 2006 at 5:00 AM
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Made in the early 1980s, this film was the first to celebrate urban graffiti as true art -- at a time when everyone else considered the creators vandals, and their works a crime. We meet some of the kids and hear what they were thinking and why they "tagged."
-- KK
Style Wars
Directed by Tony Silver
1983, 70 min.
$21, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
Posted on June 15, 2006 at 5:00 AM
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The pain and agony of creation. An extensive 6-part window in to how to craft a world-class acrobatic extravaganza piece by piece. The price of pain and sacrifice that each performer must pay is revealed. Cirque du Soleil is the best show on earth these days; here is how they create it, from first pitch to opening night. The human drama of this series -- which acrobats or acts will stay in, and will they make the cut? -- captivated my family. They devoured the very addictive 5 hours in a couple of sittings. If you ever wanted to run away to the circus, you need to see this first. The lesson I took away was this: every great work arrives only after continuous near-death experiences of the whole project.
-- KK
Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within
Directed by Christopher Dyson
2004, 286 min.
$36, 3-Disc Series
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix
A fantastic look at the unfunny business of learning to be funny. Every artist battles the fear of failing. The more successful an artist becomes, the more they fear. Whether you are writer, filmmaker, musician, painter, dancer, comedian -- it never gets easier to create the next great thing. This paradox of success is made apparent in this documentary about the struggling comedian Jerry Seinfeld. After he leaves his eponymous mega-hit show, he returns to stand-up comedy as naked and anxious as a 20-year old first-timer. We follow him as he squirms, storms, and retreats while crafting a new routine, battles against getting bored, missing his timing, and being off. And yes, he harbors genuine doubts. As in anything else worthwhile, behind the apparent final ease is a journey of nerve-wrecking hard work -- wisely captured in this apparently easy film. There's some good laughs, too. I recommend this highly to anyone engaged in creative pursuits.
-- KK
Comedian
2002, 82 min.
Starring Jerry Seinfeld
$13
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix
Ingenious but useless mechanical devices
Cool and useless. That's my definition of art. A midnight engineer and MIT professor creates totally useless machines. They are exquisitely beautiful. They do absolutely nothing. At best they whir and click and shake. A genuine artist, he also has filmed his machines obliquely, only partially seen, behind a veil of mystery. You want to know how they work, what they do, how come? No answers. Only peeks at cool and useless machines in marvelous varieties and cleverness, turning, turning, turning. Utterly riveting, supremely inspiring, and very geeky. Show this at a party, and everyone stops transfixed.
-- KK
Arthur Ganson Presents a Few Machines: Created between 1978 and 2004
70 min.
$20
Available from Arthur Ganson
A pointed film about a most peculiar artist -- an artist too peculiar even for the New York art crowd. Ray Johnson had as much talent as Andy Warhol (a friend and colleague) but he really didn't want money or fame. He just wanted to make mail art and to amuse himself at home with whimsical and sly collages. (A goofy kilroy-is-here scribble bunny became his signature.) Soon, like Picasso, or a naive folk artist, everything in his grasp became art. Real artists grokked his stuff --if they ever got to see it, which few did. So he came by reputation to be the most famous unknown artist in America and then as a recluse he mysteriously disappeared, probably a suicide drowning. He left behind a huge master collage -- one clue pointing to the next in a complex recursive joke -- which turned out to be his life. In a delicious way I really enjoy, this documentary itself became an integral part of his grand collage to keep us guessing.
-- KK
How To Draw a Bunny
By John W. Walter
2002, 90 min
$37
Amazon
Netflix
One of the best films about art, by one of our best living artists. Drift in and out of the dreams of Andy Goldsworthy as he summons a cornucopia of temporary monuments -- an arc of icicles, a train of flowers, a hive of sticks -- from bits of leaves, twigs, rocks, ice and mud. He makes things you could easily make -- if only you saw the world as he does. By the end of this beautifully lyrical film, you DO begin to share Goldsworthy mystical vision of a world swimming in energy and flows. My favorite moment: when he despairs as his painstakingly constructed pieces fail before they are finished. But a little later, after he tries again, he watches in boyish glee as they naturally fall apart. There's an angelic sweetness about that switch.
(Since Goldsworthy sees his photographs of his creations as essential to his art, a gallery of his best work is available in several books. The best one to start with is Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature.)
-- KK
Rivers and Tides
By Thomas Riedelsheimer
2001, 90 min
$20
Amazon
Netflix
Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature
By Andy Goldsworthy
$35
Amazon
Posted on December 29, 2004 at 2:24 AM
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The deep pleasure in this DVD is watching an artist work, from concept to final execution, on two of America's finest modern art pieces: Running Fence and Valley Curtain. Running Fence was a 24-mile 18-foot fence of white fabric zig-zagging across farmland in northern California, till it ran down into the Pacific ocean; Valley Curtain was a huge orange drape hanging across a canyon in Colorado. Both extravagant structures were deliberately temporary -- 2 weeks. Nonetheless the relentless political opposition to these ephemeral public works, an opposition conducted primarily by misguided over-zealous environmentalists, became in Christo's hands, part of the artwork itself. This pair of documentaries spends much time on Christo and his wife's frustrating campaign to convince landowners, politicians, greenies, engineers, and even other artists that their work was art. Understanding this resistance elevates your appreciation of the magnificent land-art pieces when completed.
-- KK
(Both documentaries are on the first DVD of a series of three containing 5 documentaries about Christo's work.)
5 Films About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
By Albert Maysles
1973, 282 min
$54
Amazon
Netflix
Occasionally, the movie about making the movie is the better movie. Les Blank's Burden of Dreams is the better movie which documents the filming of Werner Herzog's fictional movie Fitzcarraldo. Herzog imagines that his film hero, Fitzcarraldo, employs a small army of native tribesmen to haul a steamship over a mountain in the Amazon, from one river to another. For reasons clear only to himself, Herzog decides this super-human scene must not be done with special effects. Burden of Dreams records Herzog's 4-year obsession in trying to film native American tribesmen hauling an immense steamship over a mountain pass in the deep Amazon jungle. He becomes Fitzcarraldo, or maybe Captain Ahab. Herzog's blind determination whips him from one disaster to the next, making this journey both astonishing and incredibly mesmerizing. Like Hearts of Darkness, this is a peek into how a movie can drive one insane.
-- KK
Burden of Dreams
Directed by Les Blank
1982, 95 min.
$40, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix
A film is like an invasion. Vietnam War's most memorable film, Apocalypse Now, like the war itself, nearly did in its creators. Francis Ford Coppola's wife filmed the director as his project sank deeper and deeper into sheer, irretrievable chaos. This is a strange case where the movie about the movie is just as good as the movie.
-- KK
Hearts of Darkness
Directed by Eleanor Coppola
1991, 96 min.
$15, VHS
Available from Amazon
This has to be the most honest portrait of an artist ever. Robert Crumb, the 60s underground comic genius, is revealed in all his pathetic neuroses and glorious brilliance. The tipping point is being introduced to his eccentric family which suddenly explains all.
-- KK
Crumb
Directed by Terry Zwigoff
1994, 109 min
$24
Netflix
Amazon
It ain't news that kids play the turntable as if it was a musical instrument but this fast-paced history of how DJ scratching was invented is pretty cool. Profiles of four famous "turntable-ists" give a clear picture of how remarkable their scratching skill is; they can essentially sing by deftly oscillating appropriate portions of several records. With fine detail the film reveals the scratchers extreme dedication to innovation, constant practice, and an obsessive knowledge of records. It's quite a trip, very geeky in many ways, but it increased my respect and admiration for this weird little achievement 1000%.
-- KK [recommended by Matt Vance and by Alexey J. Merz]
Scratch
Directed by: Doug Pray
2001, 92 min.
$23, DVD
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
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