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Alexander Kaletski On Painting For Your Soul, The Beauty Of Cardboard And Much More

3/26/2012

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If there are two non-art related words that stand out in a conversation with Alexander Kaletski these are: communism and cardboard. Kaletski has a high opinion of one of these and a low one of the other. His story is a fascinating one, even in the long history of artist-immigrants to the United States.

Kaletski is first a painter but he was and remains a well-known actor in Russia. He just completed a self-produced film  in the USA (Song of Silence) with his wife. He is a musician and he has written several novels, including a best-seller.

At Art Miami, during Art Basel in Miami, some of Kaletski’s work on cardboard was on display. What drove him, after emigrating, to work in this peculiar medium? The motive wasn’t totally aesthetic.

“I always wanted to paint oil on canvas, when I came to America I had no money. I couldn’t.” he says.

But wandering around in New York, he saw something beautiful—and something scarce in Russia, or at least not piled up on the street.

“I saw, on the streets of New York, there was recycling, pieces of cardboard. Coming from Russia they looked so beautiful. There was no cardboard in Russia. Each box was a masterpiece in my eyes.” says Kaletski.

And Kaletski made many pieces from cardboard and continued to work with what we throw away, even after his finances improved and he could afford canvas. There is something in this about America and Americans—something sort of sad.  What we throw away others can find beautiful and make more beautiful. We take our beautiful junk for granted.

Kaletski didn’t, and doesn’t. He still makes his cardboard paintings. And it isn't just slapping paint on cardboard. He first applied white or black gesso (used to prepare canvas as well).

“You can put oil on cardboard but it eats cardboard and makes ugly spots. Sometimes I use pastel and you can mix that with gesso. When gesso is on cardboard you can put oil on top of it—whatever comes to mind and is nearby, glue…When I start with cardboard I never know what I am going to do. The spirit of the cardboard comes out of the box.” says Kaletski.


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These days Kaletski’s main work is oil on linen. He adheres to no specific style. In each new work he strives for something different and not only stylistically.

“All painting I tried to do is experimental, every show is different. I try to do something different technically.” he says.

He considers the oil work to be his experimental, serious work. While his oils are drying he works on cardboard pieces which he says are for “fun and the soul.”

Creating is what fuels Kaletski’s soul and even in a brief conversation you come to understand the challenges faced by a creative mind in the repressive system that was the USSR.

“When I was a child I was painting all the time—I won every children’s competition. When I was older I had to go to University,’ says Kaletski. “In Russia at that time you picked an area of training and that is what you did for the rest of your life.”

And if you decided to be a painter you didn’t run with your muse. You didn’t try to create something new; after all, you lived in a society that was already the perfect ideal.

“You had to paint Socialist Realism. You couldn’t paint anything except this style. They had even started to teach the style in the children’s classes.” he says.

He didn’t want to do it. More than that, given his temperament, his spirit, he couldn’t do it.

“I didn’t want to follow instructions” he says—a trait unlikely to lead to success in the USSR.

He also realized that the training would kill his love of painting. So Kaletski took a different tack. He opted instead to go to theater school—an exclusive one—and studied to be an actor. He could act and he could do it within the confines of the system because, while it is something he enjoys and excels at, it wasn’t part of his soul like painting.

“I became a successful actor involved in those stupid Soviet movies. I hated them.” he says

But they gave him money to live on and he kept painting and writing songs on his own. While making the films and being an actor he also lived a double life.

“I still painted and made collages of Soviet posters. They are always the same colors. I sold the drawings to foreigners. It was considered to be a crime. I was also writing songs. I would say songs of protest but very independent. It was about the same time, in America, as Bob Dylan,” he says. “It was parallel. Songs and paintings were underground. I got really involved in the underground—living in Moscow illegally.”

Being involved in the underground, selling paintings, writing protest songs was a dangerous thing to do. American singers of such music often feel put upon. In some cases they have been harassed but the situation in the Soviet Union it was far worse. Kaletski feared he might be caught with his art or music and sent to a psychiatric hospital. If you were against the perfect Soviet system? You were obviously insane.

He decided to leave the USSR.

“In America I first made living selling paintings, performing at colleges or at Russian Clubs. I sang in Russia. It was natural for me to do different things.” he says.

He also made money hand painting silks for boutiques. This is not so far, perhaps, from painting on linen in form. It clearly had to differ in style (alas fashion is not always art).

One of a series of five short films by Kaletski and Anna Zorina

The move was not easy for Kaletski. He emigrated and it was the hardest thing he ever did. He says if he had known how difficult it would be he would not have come. His language studies in school had been French and German, not English. His idealism also took a hit when he arrived.

“I was anti-communist and want to help America fight communism. It sounds idiotic now.” he says.

But it was his mission, fighting communism. He wanted to show people that the glimpses of freedom Russians had. He brought the underground to America. Yet it his ideal of America and the reality did not mesh. It was culturally horrible for him. He liked the country and the political system but day to day living was not what he had pictured. It took time but eventually he came to terms with his new home.

“I got past ideology and how America can be a tough place. I thought America would take me as a hero fighting communism but no one gave a shit.” he says, laughing. “Now I know what America is and I love America. Nothing is easy her but you can do whatever you want. Still, in my heart, I am a Russian idealist.”

Imagine being a movie star, an idealist, an anti-communist, who moves to the leading nation in the west and no one cares. Imagine you wind up painting on cardboard because you have no money. But also imagine being able to find beauty and wonder in the cardboard. It worked out. The cardboard paintings helped keep his soul intact.

They cost him little but no one wanted to buy them (at the time). He did it for himself, to satisfy his need to create. It is a lesson to artists. The best work isn’t what you create to hang in a bank lobby or a commissioned painting of a rich old lady’s poodle. It is what you create for no reason other than you feel compelled to make it.

Kaletski became something of a celebrity. He was on the Merv Griffin Show twice—once with Arnold Schwarzenegger. His wonderful quasi-autobiographical book, Metro, became a best seller. Griffin was taken with Kaletski and his story and therein is the origin of Metro.

“Once I was on his show as a singer. He said; ‘You have such a great story, let’s make a movie'.” says Kaletski.

They gave him a writer. Kaletski didn’t like what he was writing and asked for a new writer, He was told “no” and decided to write it himself. It took seven years. Metro became a best seller but the film was never made.

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Contemplation #41 (oil on linen) by Alexander Kaletski
Kaletski continues to sing, here and back in Russia. He has an exacting schedule. Kaletski rises early and first plays guitar and sings for an hour. Then he paints for five or six hours.

“Then I write to punish myself. Writing is the most difficult thing for me.” he says.

He writes for 40 minutes to an hour. He has written another three novels but painting has remained most important to him. It has not kept him from branching out further.

“I just finished a movie, acting as myself. There is my music, my story. My wife and I are finishing it in two or three weeks. It is fiction, a murder mystery.” he says.

Song of Silence premiered in New York City In February 2012.

He also still acts in Russian movies.

His main work, however, remains painting. It isn’t just work though. Painting is a spiritual activity. When he discusses his work, his process, you get the feeling you are talking to a mystic about some secret rite. But then his ease and good humor transform that spell.

Despite the effort he puts into it. Despite the hardships he endured to become an artist, Kaletski has, perhaps, a surprising view on what makes good painting.

“Good painting should be random. It should be accidental.” he says.

Art should be, perhaps, as accidental as finding beautiful  bits of cardboard that others, unseeing, throw away.

Alexander Kaletski is represented by Anna Zorina Gallery in New York.

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Dave Travis' "A History Lesson Part 1" Is Both Punk History And A Labor Of Love

3/15/2011

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A History Lesson Part 1, L.A. Punk

By Wade Millward

For more on A History Lesson Part 1

If you’re looking for a lesson in early West Coast punk, Dave Travis is your man. After all, before taking time off to edit his countless homemade videos of 1980s LA punk shows into a cohesive documentary, titled A History Lesson Part 1, he taught middle school and high school social studies.

“As a teacher I taught history, geography, and economics. I really like geography,” says the man who known to his students as just ‘Travis’. “I have a degree in geography. When I was video recording, I needed a source of stable income, so I got a position as a teacher because I like teaching stuff.”

Travis’s love for teaching shows. In conversation Travis can hardly contain his encyclopedic knowledge on punk and punk history. And with A History Lesson, Travis is able to share the rise of the West Coast punk scene from his own eyes with home movies he shot as a teenager in LA County. And there is no man more capable of assembling such a collection as Travis, who witnessed the punk emergence from different vantage points. Travis saw it from the venue floors as an audience member, he experienced it from the backstage as a roadie, and eventually he created it from the stage as a performer in his own right.

Travis got his first taste of punk after seeing an X concert at a venue called The Whiskey.

“Seeing X and getting exposed to punk really opened things up to me,” says Travis. “At the shows there were always 200 to 300 people, with no restrictions between you and the band and where you can be. X was the best band I had ever seen live—DJ Bonebrake is an amazing drummer. It made me feel at home, and it made me want to come back.”

Travis went back many times, as indicated by the sheer amount of footage he has acquired over the years. A History Lesson Part 1 is the first in a series of compilations of these homemade movies, and film screenings are taking place throughout California. The screenings are followed by performances from local LA punk bands—legend Mike Watt of The Minutemen, one of the subjects of the film, has even joined A History Lesson on occasion, as has Travis’s own group Carnage Asada. The most recent screening was at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center as part of a benefit to help save the KUSF is a community radio station at the University of San Francisco.

The film conveys a feel for the early 1980s punk scene in LA. Travis includes performances he shot of iconic bands The Minutemen, The Meat Puppets, Red Kross, and Twisted Roots. Travis was specific in his choice of bands for the focus of his first film. As the title implies, these groups have certainly earned their place in the history of not only punk, but also popular music for their influential experimentation.

“The psychedelic elements of the featured bands definitely influenced a lot of later bands and groups from that area,” explains Travis. “Redd Kross and The Minutemen were different from everyone else in hardcore punk. Their songs didn’t just use that one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four structure. They were more experimental; they were among the first punk bands to experiment and include different styles, not just hardcore.”

Dave Travis playing at an elementary school Halloween carnival.
Dave Travis playing at an elementary school Halloween carnival.
Like all good history lessons, Travis’s film acts as a link between the growing years of Generation X and its adult years.

“The Meat Puppets were a big influence on Nirvana, and they were one of the bigger acts who were able to travel outside the state,” continues Travis. “They played Washington, so they influenced those bands. The Meat Puppets just played wherever they could, just like The Minutemen and Redd Kross.”

Travis also picked those four bands for logistical reasons.

“I started chronologically. The first tapes I made were from 1983 to 1984, and the bands featured in the movie are from that early period,” says Travis. “They were chosen because they had the best quality video. Some of the bands from that period I couldn’t use because I couldn’t get permission.”

What separates A History Lesson from most rockumentaries is that Travis leaves his subjects’ performances in their original state: uncut and without voiceover. Furthermore, Travis’s film aesthetically captures the DIY ethic that is central to punk rock.

“The movie is really low budget. No one was hired, and I didn’t have anyone to help me,” says Travis. “The idea behind punk is that you do it yourself, otherwise no one else is going to do it, and that’s similar to what I did with this movie.”

In addition to live recordings, the film features interviews with members of each band.

“The interviews with Redd Kross, Twisted Roots, and The Minutemen are from 1994 to 1996,” says Travis. “That was when I was working with [Carnage Asada bassist] Dave Jones, who was working on a book about LA Punk. We taped the interviews for future use. For Meat Puppets, we just interviewed them when they were down here for a summer, that wasn’t too hard. Those weren’t the only interviews though. We interviewed whom we could; there were about 70 interviews.”

In the interview, viewers can see how the punk rockers compare to their onstage personas.

“The artists definitely become livelier onstage,” says Travis. “That’s common with the singers, like Jack Brewer and Keith Morris [of Black Flag]. It’s not that they become different people; they just become more energetic and livelier.”

Travis developed his interviewing style and learned the filming trade from his father.

“I worked with my Dad on shows like 60 Minutes and CBS News,” says Travis. “I worked on the sound, and while I was working on these news programs, I saw the interviews and that was how I learned journalism. I saw the questions they asked and learned how to interview. My Dad was the one who taught me the basic skills of using filming and video equipment.”

Mr. Travis never thought twice of how his son was honing his craft.

“My Dad just thought it was good that I was doing something,” says Travis. “He just wanted me to learn how to use the equipment, and the best way to learn is to practice. I was using hand-me-down equipment; I guess you could consider it on-the-job-training.”

Any editor, or teenager for that matter, would kill for the kind of training Travis experienced. The punk historian became a staple in the LA punk scene due to all the equipment he carried to live shows.

“I had on a VCR, like one you’d keep in a house, and I wore this lighting belt with motorcycle batteries and electrifiers that were used to power the camera,” says Travis. “It was not easy to shoot stuff and get around. The audience didn’t have any problems with me; at the shows I always saw the same people and they saw me. The bigger bands sometimes wouldn’t let me film them, but the smaller ones would want me to film them. My stuff would sometimes get messed up if someone would stage-dive on me. Now, people who want to film a show just use their iPhone to film shows, which I think is great.”

It is clear that Travis would have been grateful to have an iPhone for his filming his home movies, since technological constraints prevented his documentary from coming out sooner.

“Editing systems are so much better today, I was able to make the movie right on my computer,” says Travis. “Originally, you’d have to go from one VHS tape to another, and the tapes didn’t even have time codes, so you tracked your video by how the wheel was turned. This made editing very imprecise and you could cut off a fourth of a second of tape—but on a computer, you can get it really accurate, and when you need to try something else, there are different ways to edit a tape.”

All the equipment Travis had came in handy however, since the filmographer was able to participate in a southern California tradition: generator parties.

 “We would do these generator shows because when you’re under 21, it’s hard to get into some shows,” says Travis. “So we got our own generator and PA system and set up these shows. We’d go out on the beach in Malibu; we did a show in an abandoned missile silo; we also did one behind this restaurant. We put on these shows all around LA. One time someone suggested we do a generator show in the desert. So in the middle of nowhere we’d set up the PA and just jam. Redd Kross and Sonic Youth were doing that before I did any shows, but I saw how they did it and it was so simple. I was inspired, so I borrowed my Dad’s equipment and put on my own.”

Travis then explained the significance of generator shows to the southern California punk scene as a benchmark separating the true fans from the casual listeners.

“The shows were fun, and they are still done today,” says Travis. “Desert shows have a different feel from regular shows since select people found out that they were going on, and then not everyone was willing to drive to the desert and hike two to three miles to the show. There was nowhere to park, so that’s what you had to do, and the people who do that must be very dedicated. The shows would go on all night until sunrise, and you could get really close to the band. Or you could go off to the rocks and watch nature, and the since it was out in the desert you could see the stars so clearly.”

After gaining notice for his filming capabilities, Travis gained editing experience working his way from underground films to MTV specials. He worked closely with director Dave Markey, who started out with cult hits before moving on to documentaries. Travis’s first project with Markey was the punk schlock classic Lovedolls Superstar, done with Markey’s own studio We Got Power.

 “Dave had previously done Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, and for Superstar I helped with editing, shooting, and any other extra work,” says Travis. “I was still in high school at the time, but his friends had heard about me and they knew where I lived. When I was videotaping punk shows, it was not a common thing—not many other people were doing that. So word spread and Dave came to me.”

Travis’s work on the underground film showed the emerging editor how DIY was not just an onstage concept. Travis was able to see this DIY ethic in comparison to the work his father did for CBS.

 “It was different than working for CBS,” says Travis. “CBS is a corporation where everyone has one position and one job to do. At We Got Power, it was just Markey, Jordan Schwartz, and whomever they had to help them out with whatever they could. There are few people who do what they can. While shooting the movie, I saw that most of the lines were improvised, and it was really just a bunch of friends having fun making a movie.”

While with We Got Power, Travis was still working alongside family: his sister Abby worked on the Lovedolls Superstar soundtrack.

“The funny thing about that is, the movie was about a fictitious band called The Lovedolls, and then a real life Lovedolls band started up, and it included my sister. But, she wasn’t in the movie band at all; she just made a cameo appearance.

Also, on the soundtrack were Dead Kennedys and Sonic Youth. Even though Sonic Youth is from New York, they came to LA in 1985 and played at a desert party with Meat Puppets and Redd Kross, who did most of the Lovedolls soundtrack. They became friends with the guys in Redd Kross, and through them they met Markey, and through him they were able to get a spot on the soundtrack.”

On the other side of working with Markey, Travis participated in serious film work as well. The two were tasked with making a Kurt Cobain tribute for the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards.

“Making the tribute was heavy stuff,” says Travis. “We went through a lot of material, watching all their footage and interviews. Markey directed and I edited, and we were happy to do what the Nirvana people wanted. It was a heavy experience to being there with them and watching the footage, which they’d never seen before. They were good people to work with, even under those heavy circumstances. They were big stars, but they weren’t assholes or anything.”

It had only been two years since Travis finished working with Markey on the director’s magnum opus, the punk and early grunge documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke.

“After Markey accompanied Sonic Youth on their European tour with Nirvana, he came back to LA with all this footage which I edited and transferred to video, using each song as a video and the live audio recording,” says Travis. “It was a good project, and it was fun since it let me listen to Nirvana and Sonic Youth every day.”

Travis is not just an avid listener and documenter of punk rock; he also creates it. His A History Lesson project has not only given new life to his home videos, but also to his psychedelic punk group Carnage Asada. Through Carnage Asada, Travis is living the life he witnessed through the lens of his handheld cameras, and he is able to be an active part in keeping the alive the punk ethics of DIY and camaraderie.

“With the groups I play with,” says Travis. “There’ll be a guy who plays in two to three bands, and the guys in those bands play in two or three other bands. It creates a web. You come to understand a band better because you understand the people in them and you’ve jammed with them.”

Carnage Asada, as a frequent follow-up act to a History Lesson Part 1 screening, is gaining greater exposure and more work.

“We’ve been working on our new album,” says Travis. “We recorded the songs back from 2003 to 2004, and we’re in the process of mixing it now. Hopefully this spring we can record some stuff with our new guitar player Tony Fate.”

Carnage Asada is not Travis’s first experience travelling with a punk band, however. Back in the 1980s, Travis knew the groups of his hometown well enough that he would tour with them, giving him a firsthand account of the spread of punk across the West Coast.

“I went on tour with Killroy in 1984 when I was just 16 years old,” says Travis. “For that tour we went to all these small towns, and their punk scenes were different compared to that of LA. In LA, punk had been well established, but it was groups like Killroy were bringing punk to these small towns.

 In 1985, I traveled with Redd Kross on their tour. They were a better band and they put on better shows, and back then there were no restrictions on driving for kids like me. In 1991, I went on tour with Celebrity Skin, working as a roadie and a soundman.

As for interesting stories, I remember when touring with Celebrity Skin, their drummer Don Bolles was eating at a Waffle House with us, and someone from the band put $5 in the jukebox and played Waffle House songs until he cried.”

Travis continued to tour in 1990s, only by this time he had made a name for himself as a musician. It was his time to observe shows from the stage itself. 

“In the 1990s I joined this band WACO and played cello for them; we went on a few tours. It was always interesting to see different places, and the experience certainly made high school more interesting,” says Travis. “There were a lot of punkers right in LA; there always were.”

There always will be too, as Travis has learned during his time as a social studies teacher.

“I taught in South Central LA, and while I thought there were a lot of punk rockers there, there were more than when I was in high school,” says Travis. “When I was in school, it was new; punk rock was still catching on. Now, almost 25 years later, the younger students knew certain bands that had different influences. I saw high school bands forming between friends with common interests who just wanted to play. I watched as they started out playing at parties to getting their own shows.”

Travis’s students have returned the favor by serving as audience members at his History Lesson screenings.

“I do see former students at the History Lesson screenings, and I go to talk to them,” says Travis. “They’ll come to my Carnage Asada shows—as a teacher I wasn’t antagonistic or anything. We’re always happy to see each other. To them I never was ‘Mr. Travis’, I was always just Travis.”

The historian known simply as Travis will continue teaching his unique history lesson, as he already has a second film lined up.

“We’re working on A History Lesson Part 2, and I’ve learned some things from making the first movie,” says Travis. “For Part 1, I edited all the interviews first, then I tried to get the clearances. I profiled 12 bands originally, but I was only able to clear four of them. For Part 2, I have to figure out who I generally want to use and get them cleared first.”

The only confirmed band for A History Lesson Part 2 was Saccharine Trust, and Travis has a history with the South bay punk band’s eccentric frontman.

“Saccharine Trust will be featured in Part 2; they were another SST band that worked with Black Flag,” says Travis. “I worked with their singer Jack Brewer on this poetry record he did. He’s really cool, and the thing about the record was that all the songs, they were live recordings we did at the Hollywood Christmas Parade. We recorded him reciting his poetry on Hollywood Boulevard as the parade went by. He has such intense words; it was all pretty interesting.”

Until them, the Part 1 screenings and Carnage Asada shows don’t look like they’ll be stopping anytime soon.

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Another Fine Mess: A History Of American Film Comedy, Talking About What\\\'s Funny With Saul Austerlitz

7/20/2010

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by Patrick Ogle

“Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” goes the quote, often attributed to one actor or another on their deathbed. And whether some thespian, in his (and yes, it is always a man) final moments, actually saw fit to utter this immortal phrase, it is often repeated and widely given credence: except on awards night. If you are a director or actor and your ultimate goal is an Academy Award you may want to write about a cancer patient who finds a cure for obesity, and do so in all seriousness. A battle against alcoholism also works as does having a mentally handicapped lead.

Saul Austerlitz, a writer and critic living in New York, will shortly release Another Fine Mess A History of American Film Comedy and explore the history and the now of the American comedy. The fact that comedies are given short shrift at award time was part of the impetus to write this book.

“The types of movies that win Oscars are serious. I have nothing against those movies but think it is interesting how some performers are deemed ‘ineligible’ to win these awards,” he says. “Comedians understand how the game is played. Look at Jim Carey twisting himself into a pretzel to play dramatic roles.”

Austerlitz allows that Carey did a fine job in some of his more serious roles but adds; “It isn’t really his forte.”

Think of all the comedic talents, directors, actors and those who wore both hats that never won an Oscar. Charles Chaplin never won an Oscar. Honorary or “special” Oscars don’t count, those are usually, Oops-you-are-really-great-and-might-die-soon.” awards. The dearth of major awards for comedies is easy to trace. Go to the Academy Website.  Less so are the roots of American Comedy.

“The thing people might find surprising is the interconnection of people within the book.  It was more than an abstract idea but a sort of guild. One comedian passed on to another, stocked one another.” says Austerlitz.

Comedians also change and adapt over their careers.

“Jerry Lewis in the 50s began as an incredibly low-brow, eternal child to go solo and try to take on high comedy,” says Austerlitz. “I would probably argue that in his middle period work he was still playing, for lack of a better word, a ‘dipshit’ but he is taking on multiple roles, director, actor and more.”

Austerlitz says this is a reflection of the Chaplin influence. But how many of Lewis’ films really stand the test of time?

“There are probably two of them worth checking out again before he goes about being famous in France and telethons. His most successful film is Nutty Professor,” says Austerlitz. “His plays a second role, understood to be Dean Martin but a better way to reflect on the film is as two sides of Jerry Lewis. It has a lot of fun balancing those two roles.”

And it doesn’t suck like the Eddie Murphy remake either.

Another film Austerlitz recommends from Lewis is The Bell Boy.

“The Bell Boy is a much more low-key film. It is less hectic and loud. It is almost silent. His character has one line.” says Austerlitz. “The film is an attempt to bring back or update the silent film”

The film also has a dead ringer for Stan Laurel says Austerlitz and it is hard to imagine that is an accident. 

When the subject of another comedian, whose films seem to have suffered with time, Bob Hope, comes up, Austerlitz is equivocal. He notes that when Woody Allen talks about his love of Hope as a teenager, it sometimes makes modern film enthusiasts shake their heads. But there are still Hope films that can hit with modern tastes, including one often cited by Allen.

“My Favorite Brunette is actually a pretty good film. Hope was a self-deprecating one-liner machine.” says Austerlitz.

Today’s audiences can decide for themselves how well the humor stands up. One comedian/filmmaker who is universally thought to stand up is, obviously Charles Chaplin but he is more than just an actor or director. It is pretty unfair to compare other comedians to Chaplin and not just because of his control over his projects. Indeed, Austerlitz believes that an actor can influence a comedic film more than dramas.

“I don’t think anyone can be compared to Chaplin in his effect on film history and culture—or on American culture, period, with a very few exceptions.  But I think that, on the whole, an actor can, and have, had an enormous impact on the growth and development of comedy,” says Austerlitz. “Comedy is a performer’s medium, to a large extent, and a talented actor like (Bill) Murray can place his imprint on a film as much as, if not more than, their directors.  Rushmore and Groundhog Day and Lost in Translation are Bill Murray movies as much as they are films by Wes Anderson, Harold Ramis and Sofia Coppola.  There is a notable difference in the variety of the talents displayed by an actor-director like, say, Jerry Lewis, as compared to an actor like Peter Sellers, but I wouldn’t necessarily rank Lewis ahead of Sellers merely because he directed as well as acted.” 

Another example of a performer, “just an actor,” having a profound impact on films is the regrettably overlooked, Harold Lloyd.

“Chaplin is the ideal of people who did everything. Keaton did some of his own directing but advisors. Lloyd didn’t direct his own films but he put his own stamp on them. Lloyd, even though the least remembered, may have been the most successful. He had a studio, set of directors and gag men.”  says Austerlitz.

Lloyd was a producer and more and while he may have started out as a sort of Chaplin-esque character, he evolved.

Austerlitz says that his book doesn’t really have any “undiscovered” comedians in it for film buffs (although casual fans may not remember Lloyd). He does take time, however, to reconsider some comedic talents who have fallen into eclipse.  

One of these is Doris Day.

“She has become a punch line in movies about chastity. The movies she did with Rock Hudson were better than we remember. We think of them as Doris Day being chased around the room by some horny guy. They are quite modern for the times about young single, upwardly mobile people,” he says. “Doris Day is just as much an icon of 50s female sensibility as Marilyn Monroe. The time is ideal for Day to be recovered as a performer and not a ridiculous parody of herself.”

And where are the current non-painful romantic comedies?  The ones with no J-Lo?

“I think it is, in part, that there are not a lot of performers whose performances translate to that genre and the most talented directors are not making those movies. It seems like a genre that, for the moment, has run its course.” says Austerlitz.

The world really needs Christian Bale in a remake of Pillow Talk.

Though the romantic comedy may be in the creative doldrums, Austerlitz contends that another sub-genre is not: the trash guy comedy. Austerlitz credits Judd Apatow with rescuing this genre from simply being eternal remakes of Porky’s and Hollywood Knights. 

“I think Judd Apatow is unique in the way he has skillfully integrated raunchy guy comedy with a subtle emotional palette heretofore unknown to the genre.  The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up in particular, are hilarious, unadulterated comedies of masculine aimlessness that manage to capture something very real—about relationships, about contemporary life, and most of all, about the ways men relate to each other,” he says. “Apatow is a poet of masculinity, and his films demonstrate a remarkable understanding of, and sympathy for, his male characters. That said all of that would be enough, together with four dollars, to purchase a tall latte at Starbucks if he weren’t also blessed with the gift of writing exceptionally funny dialogue.  Knocked Up, in particular, is a gold mine of brilliant comic roughhousing.”

 And yet, getting back into the dearth of awards train of thought, how often have you heard Apatow’s name called on Oscar night? There should be a new high end award, perhaps “The Chaplin” (please don’t sue me Chaplin family) for comedies. They can give whoever directed Porky’s an honorary one to start things off right.

Beyond Apatow, Austerlitz singles out another group of contemporary comedians for special attention: Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller. 

“Ferrell is a personal favorite of mine.  He is, I suppose, a one-joke comedian—the cloddish boor triumphant—but hell if it isn’t a surprisingly flexible joke.  And didn’t W.C. Fields make his own version of that same joke last for an entire career, too?” says Austerlitz.

Stiller’s work is a different sort of creature to Austerlitz.

“It’s more inward-looking, more directed at skewering himself and his own delusions of grandeur.  If you look at the films Stiller has made like Reality Bites or Dodgeball or Tropic Thunder, he is often the butt of his own jokes,” he says. “Stiller refuses to wink at the audience—to acknowledge in any way that his portraits of odious strivers and petty tyrants are in any way meant satirically, or that the real Ben Stiller is somehow superior to the characters he plays—and that, ultimately, is his saving grace.”

Austerlitz notes a somber note in the book, one Chaplin’s protagonist in Limelight articulates.

“The slightly depressing undercurrent of my book is that nearly every major comedic talent eventually does stumble. Comedy is a fickle master, and even the greatest comedians eventually lose whatever mysterious spark it was that allowed them to succeed,” says Austerlitz. “Often, their time at the top of the comedic heap is surprisingly short—look at someone like Preston Sturges, whose brilliant run of films lasted approximately 5 years, or Buster Keaton.  Being funny, it seems, is not like being a skilled actor or a superb writer.  It is a skill that emerges mysteriously and disappears with just as little warning.  Comedians’ lives are often depressing to exactly the extent that they fail to understand the fragility of their gifts.”

Another Fine Mess: A History Of American Film Comedy Comes Out in September, 2010 through Chicago Review Press

Saul Austerlitz is a writer and critic for, among others, the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Slate, the Village Voice, the San Francisco Chronicle, Spin, Rolling Stone and Paste.  He is likewise author of Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes (Continuum, 2007). Money for Nothing is currently being adapted into a documentary film with a screenplay penned by Austerlitz. He resides in the borough of Brooklyn.
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Everything Strange And New From Director Frazer Bradshaw Is Both Strange And New

6/8/2010

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Picture
Frazer Bradshaw

by Patrick Ogle

Frazer Bradshaw doesn’t want you to just his watch movies. He wants your participation. Not in the Rocky Horror sense. He doesn’t want you to dress up like Tim Curry and prance about (although we doubt he would seriously object should an overwhelming urge to do so take you).He actually wants you to exercise your mind.

Bradshaw is a director and cinematographer. He has been cinematographer on 35 films and directed/editor five more (three of which he also wrote). His most recent film, Everything Strange and New is a narrative drama that uses both voice-over and music in innovative ways.

“Actually the music was part of the genesis of the film. The shot of the back of the character’s head looking out with cacophonous music is the visual moment that drives the rest of the film.” says Bradshaw.

The music, by Dan Plonsey and Kent Sparling, is a cacophony that stands in direct opposition to the sedate visual imagery. This disconnect is by design and, indeed, is part of Bradshaw’s philosophy of film.

“Music and voice over are things radically misused in films. To me music has to not support the film but offer something new.” he says.

The image and music in that first shot creates something you would not get with just the shot or the music alone. The feeling is expanded by the music. It means something more and something different because of the music. In Bradshaw’s film, and probably in every other film, music can change the relationship between people and landscape. And it does so profoundly.

“Music can change that relationship in a chemical way.” says Bradshaw

Bradshaw uses voice over in a way that is out of the ordinary as well.

“The voice over works much like the music. You never see a character when you hear the voice over. To me, that is the worst thing you can do. If you are seeing someone thinking it becomes false” says Bradshaw. “The voice over is never about what you are looking at.”

Like music he juxtaposes two things do not inherently have a relationship. It expands the movies ‘meaning palette’ he says and allows more interpretation by the audience. And that is a key to this film.

Bradshaw says that with studio films there is nothing between the lines. They are something you can watch and keep your distance. This is not criticism but an observation (Bradshaw often works as a cinematographer on studio films). Bradshaw wants his films to be a mirror for the audience. A mirror forcing them to be almost a part of the movie

“If I have one goal as a filmmaker it is to open things up to interpretation.” he says.

Whenever he has the opportunity to add or change part of the film the same thought comes to him; “I think about what are the implications for broadening or contracting of the film around the shot.” he says.

His films mean what they mean to you, to me, to anyone who watches, as much as they mean what Bradshaw was thinking while shooting. Indeed, this one thing is ever present in his mind is how to expand possible interpretation rather than restrict it.

If you want to see Everything Strange and New you may have to wait until a DVD release. Its theatrical run has been intermittent.

“It is not in any theaters, or it may or may not be but it is still, in theory, playing theatrically,” says Bradshaw; he then adds a tad of self criticism. “I made a mistake. I made a film about people who do not go to movies. People want to see movies about themselves which is a sad state of affairs.”

You may notice there hasn’t been much plot summary. There is a plot. The film is a “slice of life” about a working man, with two kids and a mortgage working to get by. But it is as much about the audience’s reaction to the life he and his friends lead. It is as much about the somnambulistic way he moves through his life and word and how the good blends with the bad.

The film is also not about what it is about (if that makes sense). And sometimes, we, the audience, like to be told how to feel and know, with certainty what the meaning of a film is. We are not used to being challenged. This film’s aim, and Bradshaw's, is a bit more esoteric.

“It is about the effect of watching the film. It is hard to talk about film as experience rather than a movie,” he says. “I need people to relate to the film in a way they would not normally relate to a movie. Ultimately it is not to tell a story but to give a visceral and emotional experience.”

The film was also shot on Super 16 and feels almost like a series of photographs. The “action” taking place as much in the character’s minds as in the physical action itself. This disembodiment of the characters likely comes from Bradshaw’s background. As a youngster he never thought about becoming a filmmaker. Bradshaw went to art school and became interested in film because he liked reflected light.

“I wasn’t one of those guys who saw Star Wars and wanted to make movies. I wasn’t interested in making films until college.” he says.

Unsurprisingly he wasn’t initially interested in narrative films but rather experimental ones.

“Generally I like to answer my biggest influences are directors I work for as a cinematographer.” says Bradshaw.

When the subject of influences arises he initially talks about various European directors such as Tarkovsky and Bergman. But his real influences come from his job as a cinematographer.

“Generally I like to answer my biggest influences are directors I work for as a cinematographer.” says Bradshaw.

He gets to see these directors succeed and fail, sometimes on a grand scale. They make his mistakes for him. Most directors do not have the benefit of such experience. Bradshaw learns what he doesn’t want to do as much as what he does.

“There is inherent risk in making a good film.” he says.

But he gets to take risks that are “less risky” because he has witnessed other directors making similar decisions.

As to what is next Bradshaw is writing something and is working on what he refers to as a “straight forward documentary project”.

Bradshaw was also cinematographer on the film, Babies. Whenever this film is mentioned to the cynical film snob they think it is about Anne Gedde. It is, in fact, more like a BBC nature film. He is also credited with being an “additional photographer” on the documentary about Townes Van Zant, Be Here to Love Me. He says (and makes a compelling case) that a “director of photography” credit would have been more appropriate. There was a break in filming and after that, there was a new director of photography.

“I made $93 a day as a favor to Margaret (Brown),” he says. “After six weeks we ran out of money. I went home. Margaret started dating Lee Daniel and when they started shooting again. Well, you can’t beat free boyfriend labor.”

And if you are into innovative, thoughtful filmmaking you cannot beat Everything Strange and New.

For more on the film go to the Everything Strange and New website.


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