Monday, January 14, 2008

I'm still here

Meltzer :Here


Dylan : There

And it was on the 14th Day of Teshrei in the year 5478 of the Holy Calendar that lapsed Hebrew tribal-member and all-round legend -

Richard Meltzer - wrote in his holy tome THE AESTHETICS OF ROCK (which may have been written under the addled influence of mind-expanders, just like those bananas in the Mid-East did once upon a time many moons ago), that Bob Dylan - ‘the voice of the disaffected 60s generation and every generation until Armageddon’ or something like that - rather than give us meaning in his music, actually FREES us from meaning (I will quote the exact page and lines when I get home)…And so I sit in the ‘Common Era’ or A.D (After Death of Hesoos) date of 14th January 2008, in a $5.50 el-shnorrer session to see ‘the greatest film of the last three months’ as voted by every critic and semiotics student and cult of Humanities students preparing papers to justify their courses, ‘I’M NOT THERE’ take two-odd hours to tell me what Meltzer said nearly 40 years ago in less than one sentence! …So did I like this film?

Well, yes, it’s a kaleidoscope of bio-pic, post-modern hipster mix-mash of hip European directors like Godard and Fellini and Mark Lester and even Tarkofski, and well fill in the rest..The film blunders around a bit as the two ex-Aussies in it overact to buggery, and Christian Bale doesn’t get enough screen time, but it all looks nice and is so intricately pieced together that there’s really not too much to dislike. It makes Dylan an icon on top of an icon, it fiddles with Haynes’ ‘identity’ politics deal, and never once mentions or addresses his Judaism. I dunno, was Mel Gibson a silent investor in this venture? It’s basically SPINAL TAP, but about a ‘real’ person or something like that (am I making sense? It’s all so Deleuzian or something…)

..Then I sit down in front of the Cable-Babel TV and watch another cool film, ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, directed by Terry Zwigoff, who has now made three really good films, but hasn’t quite made a great one. ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL is basically a loose remake (or re-imaging?) of Fritz Lang’s great SCARLETT STREET. It’s also a semi-autobiographical story about EIGHTBALL legend Dan Clowes (who wrote it), and his struggle to get laid and respected as an artist with TALENT and SKILL in art-school. It’s very funny, very honest, has a bit of thriller/giallo action to boot, and a really sheyner shicksa with a nice toochus.

For a shlepper like me, what more could I need?

(Actually I'm gonna waste more time watching 'The Lab with Leo Laporte which makes things like Blogging seem 'sexy'. NOTE: It still hasn't got ME laid!)

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