tel aviv (20 juin 2011)

bob dylan in his jimmie rodgers hat and look/gonna change my way of thinking (from slow train coming, 1979)/cold irons bound
/thunder on the mountain/tangled up in blue/ simple twist of fate/things have changed/it's all over baby blue

hioghway 61/ forgetful heart/summer days

ALL OTHER TEL AVIV DYLAN SONGS ARE NOW DATED JUNE 13

the one kubrick worth seing

lolita/sue lyon, james mason, shelley winters, peter sellers (1962)

pinchik sings

1. pierre pinchik sings in yiddish/a briv fun amereike

שהחיינו2.

eileh ezk'roh (

(story of the ten martyrs/ 'these do i remember'. the prayer is part of the musaf (afternoon) prayer on yom kippur (day of atonement) and tells about the ten martyrs: ten rabbis who were cruelly murdered by the romans. ), pinchik's forgotten masterpiece, in between charlie chaplin and yossele rosenblatt

all along the watchtower/oslo,30/06

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER/dylan singing hendrix's arrangement

beyond here lies nothin' (oslo, 30 juin 2011)

great arrangements, great voice, when he was more alive than alive, in spite of his awful robin hood beard (oslo, denmark) ... i love him more and more ... he's obviously high ... .... but high on what? life or heroin, or cocaine, or a mixture of all that? ..



Beyond here lies nothin'

I love you pretty baby
You're the only love I've ever known
Just as long as you stay with me
The whole world is my throne
Beyond here lies nothin'
Nothin' we can call our own

I'm movin' after midnight
Down boulevards of broken cars
Don't know what to do without it
Without this love that we call ours
Beyond here lies nothin'
Nothin' but the moon and stars

Down every street there's a window
And every window made of glass
We'll keep on lovin' pretty baby
For as long as love will last
Beyond here lies nothin'
But the mountains of the past

My ship is in the harbor
And the sails are spread
Listen to me pretty baby
Lay your hand upon my head
Beyond here lies nothin'
Nothin' done and nothin' said

jeudi 30 juin 2011, oslo ....sony's web sherriff is going to take it off soon ... watch quickly ....
this is his best 2011 song (the only other really great 2011 song on yt is SHE ACTS LIKE WE'VE NEVEER MET... in close up pirate look and asthmatic voice) please please madame sony, please please mr youtube, leave it for a few days, a few hours, a few seconds more.... when he sings new material, like he does here, from his texas produced latest cd, bob's youger than ever ... now ....

dharma and greg, 1999

filming othello/filming lindon/work in progress

orson welles et son plus vieil ami, micheál macliammóir (othello)
le film d'alain cavalier n'a qu'un équivalent au cinema: filming othello, le plus welles, un film oublié en forme de testament minuscule, bricolé à partir de ses dialogues d'ivrognes shakespeariens avec micheál macliammóir(1899-1978), l'un de ses plus anciens amis, celui qui joue iago dans l'othello original..
ils parlent, ils boivent, ils mangent, et ils "théorisent" chemin faisant ce qui reste de la vie (et du cinéma); pas grand chose apparemment, mais ce "quelque chose" est sacrément vivant dans les yeux du vieux welles ...
orson welles inventait en direct, sans en avoir l'air, un art absolu de la mise en scène .... une manière de dire comme çà, en passant: regardez le magicien que je suis, plus fort que tout hollywood, je vous colle deux ou trois morceaux de plans, tournés à six ou neuf mois de distance, dans deux pays différents, en prenant pour suture, pour raccord, une simple bouteille de vin .. "

il y a dans pater (ce filming lindon rigolo, politique, bavard, gourmand, dont le programme minimal est d'éviter -tout en le suscitant- que la langue de l'acteur lindon ne fourche) et surtout dans la dernière séquence, une scène deux fois filmée, la seconde fois en champ contre champ, une rigueur de moine même pas défroqué .... c'est l'anti-roi bégue, en somme ...

cette virtuosité modeste, bricolée, de pater est la seule leçon de cinéma qui me fasse venir les larmes aux yeux, car il s'agit d'un art, d'usine évidemment, qui n'existe plus ...
If we do meet again, why we shall smile/If not, why then this parting was well made (brutus à cassius dans jules césar .... c'était la citation shakespearienne favorite de l'ami daney)

jack owens/or skip james?

hard times killing floor, one and two (1959/1962)..... /jack owens ... please compare to skip james' original version (1930)/two great artists from bentonia hills, mississippi

hey, look at young bobby dylan ...

The Coen Bros. have an urge for going to the New York folk scene

the Coen Bros told an audience at New York's Lincoln Center earlier this month that they were working on a music-related film, but didn't offer many specifics.

Now a clearer picture is emerging on the subject of that movie: the Greenwich Village folk scene partly through the eyes of its larger-than-life patriarch.

According to a source who was briefed on the project but who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on their behalf, the Coen Bros. are working on a script that's loosely based on the life of Dave van Ronk, a legendary musician who presided over New York city's iconoclastic coffeehouse period of the mid-20th century.

mensah, c'est ça/highlife

et mensah with victor olaiyah/the "evil genius" and the godfather of ghganaian highlife join forces on this fabulous gem ... (1983)

greatest highlife from accra (ghana, 1953)/films d'occasion prod

jack teagarden sings willard robison

old folks/in a little waterfront café/country boy blues, ultimate masterpieces written by willard robison, and sung by an oldand sick jack teagarden, who would die a mere few months later .... from his ultimate masterpiece, think well of me (1962), ultimate hommage to his old friend willard robison, the closest that ever came to hoagy carmichael (willard robison's biography plus music is now on june 13)

peggy lee sings willard robison ....

don't smoke in bed/a cottage for sale, two of the fabulously simple hoagycarmichaelian songs written and composed by willard robison

filming hoagy (1)

hoagy carmichael's original vocal version for stardust .... (around 1935, his first recorded version was purely instrumental)/bing crosby's original version of the song, with the famous john scott trotter orchestra(1930 or 1931)

willie nelson's classic country pop best seller (and the best version ever, with its django/country incredible sound .... maybe)

filming pater

vincent lindon parlait de pater dimanche au 20 heures de laurent delahousse, sur FR2, une belle leçon d'intelligence, de modestie ... d'enthousiasme, de clarté, de cinéma .... ..... une leçon de vie aussi ... (et c'est vrai qu'on mange tout le temps dans pater, plus encore qu'on ne parle ... tout comme dans son film jumeau, filming othello ...)

lindon était aussi très bien dans ce soir ou jamais, même si la complicité avec delahousse manque un peu

filming hoagy (2)

my resistance is low (man what a title ...)/jane russell and hoagy carmichael, in las vegas story (piano, backing vocals) ... and hoagy carmichael's version with gordon jenkins' lush arrangement (1951/1952)

willard robison (1894-1968)

he was the closest pianist/singer/bandleader/composer that ever came to hoagy carmichael, but his fame was sort lived ... in fact he's now just known by a few conaisseurs as author of more than ten lovely compositions, let's call them standards, as accomplished in their old fashioned way, as carmichael's very best: rural life, old folks, country melancholy, sensual romance, faithful memories ... there's not any vinyls or cds about him, just rare 78s ... some of them you may listen to on youtube (i'll tell you in 5 or 6 weeks what a new obscure compilation of his 20's work i've just ordered from a small re-releasing record company (superbaton), sounds like ... in the meantime, here's what the book has to say about willard robison ...

willard robison/munequita tango (1927)

Willard Robison was born into a Missouri family with a long line of preachers. He broke with tradition, to the consternation of some family members, and pursued a career in music. But he carried his religious values and the love of small-town, rural America into his songs. He was heavily influenced by Negro spirituals, and his early songs often had religious themes such as Religion in Rhythm, The Devil Is Afraid of Music (which the sheet music calls “a syncopated sermon”), and Truthful Parson Brown which appeared in a 1929 film, The Broadway Melody. He played piano, participated in college musicals, and formed his own band in 1917, The Deep River Boys, which toured the Midwest and Southwest. Paul Whiteman heard Robison in Omaha and signed him to a three-year contract.

In New York Robison recorded piano solos and vocals and made piano rolls for the Duo-Art Company. His singing style was straight-forward--like a Johnny Mercer or Hoagy Carmichael without the southern accent. He also played with Busse’s Buzzards, a group led by Whiteman trumpeter Henry Busse. Robison developed his own radio show, The Deep River Hour, on WOR in New York. By 1931 the show was running three times weekly. He signed a contract with the distinguished William Grant Still, one of the country’s foremost composers often referred to as the Dean of American Negro Composers, to write orchestrations for the band. Trombonist Jack Teagarden, who had played with the band in Kansas City in 1924, occasionally joined them to record. But after seven years Robison felt that commercial demands compromised his music and he quit the radio show.
Robison wrote the theme song for the Jack Tremaine Orchestra, Lonely Acres, and Whiteman’s first theme song, Peaceful Valley. In 1962 Teagarden recorded an album of Robison’s songs entitled Think Well Of Me, and he included two Robison tunes on another late Teagarden album, Mis’ry and the Blues, . In 1976 vocalist Barbara Lea recorded a Robison tribute album, The Devil Is Afraid of Music. The lyrics of the title song express Robison’s optimism: “When there’s music in the heart, you won’t find room for evil.”
Robison’s contributions to the jazz standards include Old Folks, written in 1938 with lyricist Dedette Lee Hill, which is the title cut of a Walter Bishop, Jr. CD, and 1929’s A Cottage for Sale, written with lyricist Larry Conley, which became a million seller in 1945 for Billy Eckstine and was memorably recorded by Chris Connor in 1956 (who also recorded Old Folks). In 1948 Peggy Lee had a hit with Don’t Smoke in Bed which was also frequently performed by Nina Simone. The song is variously credited to Robison or to Lee, her husband Dave Barbour, and Robison.
Although Robison often wrote of the simple life, his music was quite sophisticated. His arrangements, in which he often used strings and oboe, had a symphonic flare. He also composed the eight-part American Suite in the ‘20s, Six Studies in Syncopation for piano, and the five-part Rural Revelations.

willard robison, singing his own composition, the devil is afraid of music (1926),/i'm more than satisfied/for my baby /Bix Beiderbecke (c); Frank Trumbauer (Cms); Don Murray (cl); Frank Signorelli (p); Eddie Lang or ? (bj); Vic Berton (dm/harpophone), The Deep River Quintet (probably the Revellers) (voc) New York, October 20, 1927.

tangled up in blue (cork, 16 juin)/a hard rain's a gonna fall (london, 18 juin)

tel aviv (3)

blowin' in the wind/like a rolling stone

skorecki/cavalier

saw my very first film in two years ... alain cavalier's pater has no equivalent whatsoever, except maybe orson welles' best film, filming othello, made up of dialogues between ageing welles and his irish friend, michael macliammoir (1899-1978), who plays iago in the original othello ....
they drink, talk, drink, and theorize what's left of life and cinema (not much, it seems) ....
... .... et orson welles invente au passage, sans en avoir l'air, un art absolu de la mise en scène .... ce qu'il y a d'extraordinaire chez le vieux welles, c'est cette manière négligée de dire, comme çà, en passant, "regardez le magicien de cinéma que je suis, plus fort que tout hollywood -ce hollywood qui n'a pas voulu de moi- , je vous colle deux ou trois morceaux d'un plan-séquence, tournés à trois, six, ou même à neuf mois de distance, dans deux villes différentes, dans deux pays lointains, en prenant pour seul élément de montage, de raccord, une simple bouteille de vin ... "

cette belle leçon de cinéma (la seule qui me fasse pleurer), et en particulier la dernière séquence, une scène à deux, deux fois filmée, la seconde fois en champ contre champ,est l'essence même de pater, ce filming lindon rigolo, politique, bavard, gourmand, dont le programme minimal a l'art d'éviter -tout en le suscitant- que les langues de lindon/cavalier ne fourchent, le tout avec une rigueur de moine même pas défroqué .... l'anti-roi bégue, en somme ...

insister, quitte à se répéter: cette virtuosité modeste, bricolée de bout en bout, de la séquence ultime de pater n'est rien d'autre que la plus belle leçon de cinéma qui soit, une leçon embuée de larmes évidemment...

louis armstrong beats billie holiday

willow weep for me/best version is not billie holiday's, it's louis armstrong's 1957 fabulous turning around the melody (with oscar peterson, 1957) ... ... took me 45 years to appreciate it (the whole record, louis armstrong meets oscar peterson is one of the best vocal vinyls ever recorded ..)

how bob dylan changed ST JAMES INFIRMARY into BLIND WILLIE MC TELL

rare electric version of blind willie mctell (paris, 1993)///st james infirmary/louis armstrong's original 1929 song that dylan used as melody for blind willie mctell

god's voice

you send me/sam cooke, live/sam cooke's glorious demo (FILMS D'OCCASION)

bonus dieu/ willing to run (1948)/shine on me (1950) by rh harris, sam cooke's only known master (in the soul stirrers, and elsewhere (1948), closest ever living voice to god

king of crooners (bing with a beat)

there were only two authentic crooners (with the exception of anglo/greek/lebanese al bowlly, and some of the great primitive charm singers, russ columbo, gene austin ...): dean martin, and his role model, the one and only bing crosby .... now, you must understand that the greatest ballad singer ever, mr sinatra, NEVER was a crooner ....

bing crosby/dream a lttle dream of me (from his greatest lp; bing with a beat)/FILMS D'OCCASION PRODUCTIONS

skorecki/delpy

just saw two days in paris ... haven't laughed so much for years ... i just love the way julie delpy woodyallenizes the situations and the dialogues she hears in her head ... it's her own annie hall, only much funnier ... and probably a much better film altogether

black & white (2)

just one of those things/armstrong's 1957 version with oscar peterson (best ever)/lovely billie holiday (1957)/fabulous frank sinatra, live with bill miller (1962)

charlie parker /chet baker

hot house/charlie parker, dizzy gillespie, max roach (1952)/chet baker, arriverderci (1960)

charlie parker plays ... ... and makes fun of coleman hawkins

charlie parker, coleman hawkins/ballad /Celebrity (1950)/ with hank jones (p), ray brown (b), buddy rich (drums)

watch bird's amused expression as he watches hawkins solo, and also how he cuts off the older tenor man's solo ... although the musicians are filmed playing against tracks recorded earlier, it's still a fascinating and rare look at bird on film ...

this wallpaper is the best i could find .....

... as usual, i'd like to know which one you prefer, the old one or the new one?

bob dylan as white minstrel (2)

one more cup of coffee (for the road)/it ain't me babe ..... 1975

gunnar fischer, who has died aged 100 ... ...

.... .... .... could be said to have created the "look" of ingmar bergman's films, crystallised in three of the director's masterpieces: smiles of a summer night (1955), the Seventh seal and wild strawberries (both 1957) ... from port of call (1948) to the devil's eye (1960), 12 films in all, fischer was able to make visible bergman's visions ... his mentor there was the cinematographer julius jaenzon, who worked with the two great masters of swedish silent cinema, victor sjöström and mauritz stiller ... this put fischer in the direct line of the scandinavian cinematic tradition of the close relationship between the landscape and climate and the psychology of the characters.

His education was further developed by his work with the great Danish-born Carl Dreyer on Two People (1945), only his third film as director of photography. Despite the fact that this virtual two-hander, mostly set in an apartment, was disowned by Dreyer, Fischer claimed that it was a turning point in his understanding of stark lighting.

bergman and fischer's first mature collaboration was summer interlude (1950), in which a prima ballerina looks back on the idyllic summer she spent several years before on an island near stockholm with the boy she loved ... the affair comes to an abrupt and tragic end when he is killed in an accident .... fischer's camera wonderfully captures the limpid swedish summer in the early, lyrical love scenes, shifting to more shaded lighting for the present.

even more rapturous was summer with monika (1952), where an irresponsible teenage girl spends her holiday on an island with a young clerk, but gets pregnant and leaves him holding the baby ... bergman sees little hope for these adolescents in the winter of their discontent after a summer made glorious by fischer's camera.

it is no accident that three of bergman's films have "summer" in the title, and many others were set in that season, the only period of happiness for his characters before the encroachment of autumn and reality, the camera brilliantly recording the transient sun-soaked days ... .... sometimes fischer intentionally overexposed the film to achieve a hallucinatory or dreamlike effect, as in wild strawberries ... the shift from past to present, from memory to reality to dream, is signified by sharp contrasts in light. "I brought to Bergman a fantasy-like style," he explained. "It wasn't about making the scenes realistic but more theatrical, like a saga." In The Seventh Seal, whose luminous images derived from early church paintings, the change from one moral world to another is conveyed through lighting: a bright natural light indicates characters at peace, while heavy filters and backlighting indicate moral doubt.

In the sequence when the medieval knight plays chess with Death, Fischer used two powerful lights to throw the actors into sharp relief, which made it appear that the sky had two suns. When criticised for this, he responded: "If you can accept the fact that there is a knight sitting on a beach playing chess with Death, you should be able to accept that the sky has two suns."

Fischer and Bergman parted company after The Devil's Eye, which switched between an extremely theatrical Hell and the realism of a pastor's household, when the director failed to persuade the cinematographer to soften his lighting techniques. "i felt privileged collaborating with bergman," fischer recalled. "he was never indifferent to photography ... he could be upset if he didn't like what he saw ... why our collaboration ended with The Devil's Eye, i don't really know ... realistically it's most likely that he thought sven nykvist was a better photographer." thus began the bergman-nykvist era, the stylistic change demonstrating how influential the two cinematographers were to the director's oeuvre.

away from bergman, fischer worked on more mainstream movies ... for some of these, he was able to use colour, such as the pleasure garden (1961), with a screenplay by bergman, which was among the four films he made with alf kjellin ... one of the rare films on which fischer worked for a non-swedish director was anthony asquith's two living, one dead (1961) a low-key film noir, shot entirely in sweden with a largely british cast (including patrick mcgoohan and virginia mcKenna) but a mostly swedish crew. fischer also experimented with video techniques to record a series of provincial circus acts for jacques tati's parade (1974).

(adapted from the guardian, july 14, 2011)

sea of love

the sea of love/the heptones (long rare version of phil philips original doo wap hit, in 1959)/early sixties (films d'occasion production)

jonathan r./ymg

buzz, buzz, buzz (1978) / young jonathan richman/young marble giants: searching for mr right, colssal youth (1979) /à philippe l. (ordetblog) et ses quatre jonathan si jeunes , si émouvants (buddy holly, elvis presley, young marble giants)

my yiddishe mamma

yossele rosenblatt (1) (around 1930)

leo fuld's oriental version of my yiddishe mama (song starts at 2.50)/régine's own version

andré toussaint's fabulous folky creole version (nassau) ... and an even older yossele rosenblatt's version (around 1929)

al jolson in yiddish (remember the jazz singer, the story told, a jazzy vaudeville singer escapes from his father and his future as cantor .... it was the opposite story ...)

anita ellis/ellis larkins

i'll be around/anita ellis/ellis larkins trio (from the 1953 film, the joe louis story)

all the songs anita ellis and ellis larkins (he played with mildred bailey, and he's the best pianist for singers) did together are in a record costing a 100 dollars in cd ... i'm trying to find the original vinyl, which is surely less expensive ...

vaudeville (2)

sammy davis, 7 years old, king of vaudeville/ i'll be glad when you're dead (you rascal, you), 1933

sammy davis, 6 years old, king of vaudeville (1931)

bill 'bojangles' robinson, greatest tap dancer ever (and dancer king of vaudeville), according to fred astaire himself (from the film hooray for love, 1935), plus fats waller, plus the beautiful and legendary jeni legon ...

you better move on

you better move on/the rolling stones (arthur alexander)/february 8, 1964/arthur alexander's original version (1962)

tears of rage

tears of rage, a poignant version recorded in 1985, a few days before his suicide by composer richard manuel, who wrote the song with dylan ...

1955/1963/1964

hey, bo diddley/bo diddley(1955)/buddy holly (1963)/the story of bo diddley/the animals (1964)

bb & ab

gaby oh gaby/english version by original french author, boris bergman (2010) ... sounds like yiddish, eh?/original alain bashung version (early eighties)

skorecki voit des films (2)

j'ai décidé de noter au jour le jour mes très rares impressions de cinéma, sur les très rares films que je vois encore ... le plus souvent à la télévision ...

vu par hasard triple agent, l'un des derniers beaux rohmer, film étrange sous double influence biette/balthus ... sensualité vieillotte mais palpable, un mélange érotique enfantin et adulte, quelque chose de très rare au cinéma ... (à suivre)

nord (1960)

vous pensez bien que toute la nuit nous n'avons pas dormi lourd!... l'habitude!... l'habitude! il s'agissait de ne pas être surpris.. isis, la kretzer en isba... surveillées par les bidel... y avait de quoi ne pas être tranquilles... certainement elles allaient revenir!... elles s'échapperaient... et en colère!... alors?... kracht devait y aller trois fois entre minuit et six heures... à sept heures mon tour... on en avait pour un moment... quand il ferait un petit peu clair, je me lèverais... il faisait froid... par la lucarne il nous arrivait un peu de neige... je veux être sûr... un coup de "torch"!... oui!... des gros flocons... lili et la vigue dorment pas non plus... alors je demande... je veux le surprendre...

"dis donc, pote?

-quoi?

-tu te souviens?... ce qu'a dit la gitane?

-non!

-que t'as tué simmer, parbleu!"

je lui affirme...

"non! j'ai rien tué... tu inventes ferdine!... tu mens!"

j'ai toujours adoré nord, alors que voyage au bout de la nuit ou mort à crédit me tombent des mains ... mais là, ce voyage dérisoire toujours plus haut, plus au nord, (bientôt on sera au pôle ...) avec lucette, le chat et la vigue, cet acteur (robert le vigan) que j'aime infiniment ... j'ai même acheté les 3, 4 derniers livres pour y fouiner un peu ... moi qui n'ai jamais lu de ma vie (j'exagère à peine), qui n'ai jamais fait que relire (salinger, chandler, lolita de nabokov, jane bowles, leroy gourhan, jacob taubes, martin buber, ibn' el arabi ... et en ce moment l'intégralité des nouvelles d'isaac bashevis singer ... en anglais), voici que je m'y met ... skorecki avec un livre, et qui ne fait pas que lire une page par ci, une page par là, c'est vraiment une chose nouvelle, presque impensable pour moi ...

vintage

skorecki de passage sur la terrasse de libé, 7 juin 2011 (photo brigitte ollier)

casey/and the band played on/marie/once upon a time, 1995) who's more vintage? mandy patinkin's falsetto singing or skorecki's writing on music?

terry allen 2010

amarillo highway/greatest texas abstract country folk troubadour (juarez, 1975, same year as dylan's renaldo and clara, which features the same type of tex mex music, also used in peckinpah's 1973 pat garrett and billy the kid) singing one of his best songs/and robert earl keen's rocking live version in nashville ...

bonus terry allen (and the panhandle mystery band)/cocktail desperado (from david byrnes' 1984 film true stories)

black and white blues

dust my broom/howlin' wolf in pre-beefheart transe, with son house, completely drunk, dancing and enjoying (this is from an alan lomax film, in a fake juke joint built around newport, in 1966)

yardbirds' version (jeff beck on guitar, 1966)/canned heat's great live version (1968)/i took off the great slow arthur crudup version and the too famous robert johnson and elmore james ... can be listened to on youtube ..

vaudeville (1901-1993)

a short students' film about bert williams, the great negro acting as black minstrel as early as 1901 (his first records) ... just a pity the soundrack's invaded by contemporary rap music, until the very end when you can actually hear bert williams' charming and strangely dated way of singing ... what if this blackface was bing crosby's real music master?

lovesick blues/both versions, emmett miller's original (june, 12, 1928), and hank williams' one, twenty years later (1949) ...please judge and compare ...

watch for emmett miller's yodel at 0.42 ...(yes sir, mr bones, 1951)

just routine, you know, old vaudeville stuff ... but what a routine, man ... (1951)

shine/louis armstrong's fabulous minstrel vaudeville version, with young louis simultaneously playing the role of black man and of transvestite (from the film a rhapsody in blue, 1932)

sammy davis, aged 6 (1931 vaudeville at its best)

bob dylan acting as the only WHITE minstrel ever (tangled up in blue, from renaldo and clara, 1975)/a late vaudeville/minstrel version of mississippi sheik's blood in my eyes for you (1993)/and another splendid performance in WHITE MINSTREL make up (never let me go, from renaldo and clara, 1975)

jlg 1965

skorecki's favourite film

dodes ka-den (akira kurosawa)

skorecki's favourite films (2)

la nuit du carrefour (jean renoir, 1932, avec pierre renoir)

skorecki's favourite films (3)

les anges du pêché (bresson, 1943)

skorecki's favourite films (4)

stranger on horseback (joel mc crea/jacques tourneur, 1955)

skorecki's favourite films (5)

ruggles of red gap (charles laughton/leo mc carey, 1935)

skorecki's favourite films (6)

finis terrae (jean epstein, 1929)

ford-mizoguchi (7)

ford/mizoguchi (judge priest, 1934/la rue de la honte/1956)

jane bowles et moi ...

... c'est une histoire qui remonte à l'aube des temps ... le visage d'enfant de jane bowles, son visage d'ange blessé, claudiquant à travers des amours impossibles et des vies risquées, de vrais personnages, toujours tenus à bonne distance ... .... une littérature totale et minimale, aristocratique, américaine, juive, passionnée, idéale ... avec la musique de paul sous leur deux visages androgynes ...

dsk ou le retour de la cinéphilie

j'écrivais il y a dix ans que la cinéphilisation frénétique de la vie avait commencé le 11 septembre 2001, avec le besoin de se passer et de se repasser en boucle, par une sinistre addiction instantanée, les images des tours en feu ....
avec dsk, la même addiction aux images télé se reproduit, comme un sinistre feuilleton répétitif .... ce n'est pas le réel qui envahit la vie (comme on le croit un peu partout, à cannes ou ailleurs) mais bien la télévision et la cinéphilie de la vie qui brouillent une fois pour toutes le réel ....

l'invraisemblable vérité/beyond a reasonnable doubt (fritz lang, 1956)

things have changed, 2002/2000

two years after being recorded, things have changed still sounds fresh and lovely

shine, the vaudeville years

shine/bing crosby & the mills brothers (1931)
shine/louis armstrong's fabulous minstrel vaudeville version, simultaneously playing the role of black man and of transvestite (from the film a rhapsody in blue, 1932)

shine/freddy taylor singing with django reinhardt & stéphane grapelly (1936)/joe brown's great cockney vaudeville version (1961)

louis armstrong est le premier à donner à cette chanson anti-raciste (composée en 1910) des airs ouvertements ambigüs .... he's one of the best examples of BLACK MINSTREL VAUDEVILLE PARODY (at the same time a blackminstrel and a transgenre queen) ... .... .... ... .... .... C'EST QUOI UN BLACK MINSTREL? voyez ces images sublimes d'évidence sensuelle et théorique à la fois, où le très jeune armstrong joue au BLACK MINSTREL et au TRAVESTI: no use quoting nick tosches or jacques lacan, all is here: this is black minstrelsy in itself, as well as "travestissement" and queer theory... (joe brown représente ici la tradition anglaise du music hall cockney, vaudevillesque, pré punk)

gil scott heron 1976

angel dust/death of a lyrical & political & musical junkie/rip

san francisco, décembre 1965

bob dylan wakes up, laughs, gets funny, then gets nervous ...

l'invraisemblable vérité

law and order/new york, unité spéciale, starring jayne mansfield's daughter,mariska hargitay
every monday around 10.30 pm, DSK guests on new york unité spéciale, starring jayne mansfield's daughter, mariska hargitay (father was tarzan, she's been raped when she was small, that's why she's so hard on rapists) ... if you think it's an hallucination, you may be right .... or you may be dickwolfing, or cinephilizing again ....

way of a gaucho (gene tierney/jacques tourneur, 1952)

dylan 1998

love minus zero, no limit

blowin' in the wind/girl from the north country

godard 1964

jlg, du temps où il filmait des anges joyeusement blessés, presque aussi bien que son maitre, jean renoir (la nuit du carrefour, la chienne ...)...

donovan 1965

sunny goodge street/oh deed i do/catch the wind/three of donovan's most fragile, almost forgotten, early songs (oh, deed i do was written by bert jansch)

lately/david allyn/irene kral

forgetful (a lovely song by john handy, who wrote it in the boyd raeburn big band days, where david allyn sort of got his start ... someday, i may post the early boyd raeburn/david allyn version)/greatest baritone ever/rarest of subtle jazz singers

grown so ugly

bournemouth, 1998

don't think twice, it's alright

dylan envoie toujours une place ...

"dylan envoie toujours une place VIP pour izzy young... dylan sait qu’il est là ... dans la salle ... attentif ... à stockholm il donnera toujours un peu plus que les autres soirs ... à cause de la présence d’izzy ... il ne peut pas être médiocre à stockholm ... comme de jouer devant son père ..."

KMS

http://killme.sarahagain.free.fr/radio.blog/mp3/805d

(love sick, stockholm, 1998)

dsk sur TF1

every monday around 10.30 pm, DSK guests on new york unité spéciale, starring jayne mansfield's daughter, mariska hargitay (father was tarzan, she's been raped when she was small, that's why she's so hard on rapists) ... if you think it's an hallucination, you may be right .... or you may be dickwolfing, or cinephilizing again ....

law and order/new york, unité spéciale, starring jayne mansfield's daughter,mariska hargitay

Dans le système judiciaire,
les crimes sexuels sont considérés comme particulièrement monstrueux.
A New York, les inspecteurs qui enquêtent sur ces crimes sont membres d'une unité d'élite, appelée Unité Spéciale pour les Victimes.
Voici leurs histoires...

it's only a paper moon

it's only a paper moon/composed by harold arlen, written by e. y. harburg (and billy rose) in 1932 .... originally recorded by the fabulous cliff edwards (ukulele ike) in 1933, and by the nat king cole trio on january 17, 1944 ...

ballad of a thin man

from the same fabulous dresden concert, may 24, 2000

dis-moi que je rêve, maman ....

"quand j'ai vu dsk à la télévision devant le juge, humilié, à la dérive, je me suis dit: "ça, c'est une leçon de cinéma." ..... la vie est plus forte que la fiction ..." alain cavalier, le figaro, 19 mai 2011
.... ..... preuve qu'on peut être le plus intelligent, le plus fin des cinéastes, et se tromper sur le rapport du réel au cinéma .... dsk à la télé, c'est la preuve que c'est au contraire la fiction qui est plus forte que la vie .... ..... et qu'elle ne fait que signer depuis la destruction des twin towers il y a dix ans, le retour d'une cinéphilie aberrante, compulsive, addictive .... on veut voir et revoir l'homme humilié, les centrales nucléaires explosées, les tours en feu, perdre tout sens du réel, s'abimer une bonne fois pour toutes dans l'aveuglement cinéphile des images ...
personne n'échappe à la cinéphilisation du réel, personne .... ..... il faudrait être un saint (ou un aveugle) pour y échapper.... personne ne peut se passer de la drogue répétitive du réel lyophilisé, de ses boucles hypnotiques, de la lyophilisation cinéphile des images télé ....
la fiction est un cauchemar dont on ne se réveille pas ....
dis-moi que je rêve, maman, dis-moi que je rêve ....

dis-moi que je rêve, maman (2) ....

il est bien évident que l'idée de société du spectacle, aussi simpliste soit-elle, est maintenant dans le domaine public ...
.... celle de cinéphilisation du monde, que je réintroduis ici, dix ans après sa première apparition, est-elle si abstraite que personne ne trouve à y objecter ou à y redire?
.... ou mes neurones, à l'approche dylanienne de mes 70 ans, sont-ils singulièrement explosés?

(ou suffit-il de répéter une dernière fois à la face du monde la prophétie de mac luhan, datée 1964: the medium is the message/le message, c'est le medium?)
".....en réalité et en pratique, le vrai message, c'est le médium lui-même, c'est-à-dire, tout simplement, que les effets d'un médium sur l'individu ou sur la société dépendent du changement d'échelle que produit chaque nouvelle technologie, chaque prolongement de nous-mêmes, dans notre vie.
marshall mc luhan

bootsy's basic funk formula

cannes, vu de loin

comme chaque année je me saoule d'images cannoises sur toutes les chaînes télé .... à quoi ça me sert, direz-vous, moi qui ai le cinéma en horreur?
à rien ... à souffrir ... à m'éloigner encore plus de ce cinéma dont je suis déjà si loin ... à réfléchir dans la douleur?
deux ou trois remarques pour 2011: aucun film ne m'intéresse, ils ont pour seule habileté d'être plus intelligents -pas difficile- que ceux qui écrivent sur eux ... depuis 20 ans qu'ils s'y préparent, les cinéastes savent enfin parler 1000 fois mieux de leurs films que les critiques ...
les films sont livrés avec leur mode d'emploi ... plus de place pour le spectateur, plus de place pour le rêve, plus de place pour le cinéma ....

dégoût de la télévision

toute émotion m'a toujours été familière ....en même temps, toute émotion m'est suspecte .... pourquoi faire se rencontrer l'enfant aux cheveux verts, un losey brechtien de 1948, et le dégoût grandissant devant cette télévision/dsk que je ne peux pas me résoudre à ne pas regarder? ... disons que c'est ma cinéphilie à moi qui tourne en boucle, nauséabonde et fiévreuse ... ou quelque chose comme ça...

bill callahan 2007

hey man, bob dylan will be 70 next tuesday, may 24 ....

"you must be kidding, man .... that's the most depressing thing i've ever heard ..."

After a concert in March 1966, on board a private plane in Lincoln, Nebraska, bound for Denver, the singer told critic Robert Shelton: "I kicked a heroin habit in New York City. I got very, very strung out for a while, I mean really, very strung out. And I kicked the habit."
It has long been conjectured that Dylan suffered from a drug problem in the mid-60s, but the rumours have never previously been substantiated. "Death to me is nothing as long as I can die fast," he told Shelton. "Many times I've known I could have been able to die fast, and I could have easily gone over and done it.
"I'll admit to having this suicidal thing ... but I came through this time."
GUARDIAN, may 23, 2011

dylan/mingus

bob dylan/masters of war (from fabulous dresden concert, may 24, 2000)

fables of faubus (1960)/charles mingus, eric dolphy, ted curson, danny richmond

cannes vu de loin (2)

j'ai lu ce qu'eric neuhoff a écrit sur les dardenne dans le figaro d'aujourd'hui, je n'avais pas mangé, j'ai pourtant tout vomi ... je l'avais vu au club avec beigbeder, il ressemble de plus en plus à un mussolini qui aurait perdu toute sa graisse ... même maigre, ce petit fasciste de salon n'exprime que la haine et le mépris ... je l'aimais mieux quand il travaillait au figaro madame ... ça lui allait tellement bien ...

bukka white/howlin' wolf

bukka white laughs and sings his old rap/blues, howlin' wolf encourages him, alan lomax films the whole thing in a fake juke joint around newport ... (1966)

entre sylvia scarlett et yentl

entre cukor et singer/streisand, la jeune molly picon se déguise et chante en yiddish (joseph green, pologne/USA, 1936)

molly picon 1936

molly picon (מאָלי פּיקאָן; february 28, 1898 – april 6, 1992) was the most famous yiddish speaking actress ... on a very old photograph, taken before i was born, my mother looks somewhat like her ... on an even older photograph my father looks like gary cooper in a fritz lang thriller ... what a couple that would be: molly picon and gary cooper, speaking and kissing in yiddish ...

i'm always chasing rainbows

mandy patinkin/harry nillson (& gordon jenkins)...these two beautiful men have more judy garland in themselves than judy ever had ...

april in taïwan

sugar baby/old time minstrel lovely slow version

Isaac Bashevis Singer/Bob Dylan, une histoire d’amour

Quel rapport entre Isaac Bashevis Singer et Bob Dylan? Le premier a eu le prix Nobel, le second a failli l’avoir, c’est ça ? Ah non, pas du tout. C’est plus simple et plus tordu à la fois. Disons qu’ils occupent ma tête à plein temps, et en même temps. Il n’y a de place pour rien d’autre. Je lis et relis les nouvelles de Singer, surtout celles qui se passent au lendemain de la guerre dans les cafeterias des quartiers juifs de New York, où on ne parle que le yiddish, un invraisemblable yiddish mélangé de polonais et d’américain; en même temps, je ne cesse d’écouter et de réécouter les fabuleux concerts piratés de Dylan, surtout ceux de l’année 2000, merveilles inaccessibles dont la seule clé d’entrée sur youtube s’appelle aujourd’hui hollis1960 (dépechez vous d’aller y voir avant que le web sheriff de Sony/youtube en interdise l’accès, ce qui ne saurait tarder …). Pour le moment, il m’est impossible de penser à Dylan sans penser à Singer, ou de lire Singer sans entendre l’impossible voix nasale de Dylan.
Savoir que Dylan est né juif dans un patelin perdu des montagnes du Minnesota ne me sert pas à grand chose. Outre qu’il n’a pas eu d’éducation religieuse, il s’est publiquement converti au christianisme, et a même été chanter pour le pape, ce qui ferait ricaner Isaac Singer, qui se moque souvent dans ses textes des juifs polonais convertis, mais ni l’époque, ni le pays (la Pologne sous les nazis) n’ont grand chose à voir avec l’Amérique d’aujourd’hui. Je pourrais ne pas finir mon histoire et me contenter de penser qu’ils m’occupent la tête en même temps, un point c’est tout. Mais ce n’est pas suffisant pour l’obsessionnel que je suis. Il doit bien y avoir autre chose. En lisant encore, en écoutant davantage, je crois que j’ai trouvé : dans la musique des mots d’Isaac Bashevis Singer, dans celle du converti Dylan, quelque chose d’identique passe quand même. Pour Singer, c’est évident, c’est la mixture du yiddish et de l’anglais qui a une magie simple et pittoresque à la fois, un truc que n’importe qui peut comprendre. A écouter le Dylan de 2000, surtout celui du concert du 25 septembre à Portsmouth, on est bien obligé de constater que ce sont des larmes juives qui sortent de sa bouche. Des hoquets, des gémissements, des frémissements. Allez directement écouter sa version de Frankie Lee and Judas Priest de Portsmouth, on dirait qu’un diable, un lutin (un dibbuk, dans la langue de Singer) a pris possession de son corps.

frankie lee and judas priest (portsmouth, 25 septembre 2000)

PS. Si ces histoires juives un peu tarabiscotées vous passent par dessus la tête, et si vous préférez les histoires de crooners, de vrais crooners, procurez vous au plus vite New in Town/Glad to be There (GAMBIT/distribution Socadisc), qui réunit en un seul cd les deux somptueux albums qu’Ed Townsend a enregistré en 1960 avec l’un des meilleurs arrangeurs de Sinatra, Nelson Riddle. Tout y est, cordes, volupté, économie, standards susurrés …. Sans oublier l’essentiel: une voix à faire chavirer les filles, ou les garçons qui n’ont pas perdu leur cœur de fille. Un détail, qui compte : Ed Townsend était noir.

zelig & czarna

ten years before he died, here's what isaac singer had to say: "at its best, art can be nothing more than a means of forgetting the human disaster for a while ...

i am still working hard to make this "while" worthwile" ( july 6, 1981)

isaac bashevis singer venait de la même voïvodie, la même province de pologne que celle de mes parents, nés à peu près en même temps que lui (mais morts beaucoup plus tôt) ... le plus important, c'est qu'ils parlaient le même yiddish, ils le parlaient avec le même accent ... je me dis que zelig et czarna devaient avoir les mêmes souvenirs que lui ... mêmes souvenirs, mêmes histoires, mêmes odeurs, même yiddish ... je me souviens que la machine à coudre de mon père, à paris, était une singer ... ce petit bonhomme là parle pour eux, qui ont si peu parlé ...

(je me lasse pas de voir et de revoir ce petit film, d'écouter l'accent rusé, criard, fatigué, d'isaac singer, et je ris à chaque fois tout haut de ses réponses aux journalistes, des réponses qui rendraient les plus savoureux dialogues de woody allen d'une lourdeur de béton armé)

hank williams revisited

house of gold .... a great hank willams religious song, two lovely and very different versions: bob dylan's rare 1989 interpretation, and the secret sisters' recent one

look and listen well: this may be dylan's best concert ever (portsmouth, september 25, 2000)

only 3 weeks before dylan turns 70

A FEW DAYS AGO IN CHINA/a simple twist of fate/ just a song and dance man, as a friend just said, still under heavy emmett miller's vaudeville influence ...

birmingham, 1995

tears of rage/memphis blues again, lovely songs strangely revisited: new rhythms, new melodies, soft flamenco mood or what?

high lonesome bentonia style

same song, same time (around 1966/1986), different bentonia styles: jack owens on record (with bud spires on harmonica), skip james on film (alan lomax, staging a fake juke joint looking as real as a real one) ... who do you love?

mizoguchi 1956

les toutes dernières images du tout dernier film de mizoguchi, la rue de la honte (1956) .... son film suivant devait commencer par un cercueil, suivi d'un flashback

a few days ago in australia ...

dylan en chine