Film Muse: Electric Earth

A lot of times I dance so fast that I become what's around me. It's like food for me, I like, absorb that energy, absorb the information. It's like I eat it. That's the only now I get. 

 That's the only now I get. 

 That's the only now I get.

After writing my "Stillness" post I couldn't quite get it out of my own head. If you haven't read that post I probably just sounded incredibly narcissistic (go read it here and then come back). Regardless, I still needed to understand why I felt so drawn to those images and those moments I described- beyond noting that they had a certain "stillness" to them.

What makes stillness?

I'd recently been studying Doug Aitken's work and felt like I was on the edge of dissecting this unnameable concept. Then, a mini epiphany occurred when I saw one of Aitken's short films called Electric Earth (1999). 

(link to short film - don't tell the cyber police)

Doug Aitken is a multimedia artist now parked in Venice/L.A. He has done some really cool multi-projection installations like Migration and Sleep Walkers (Tilda Swinton literally on the MOMA building). He has a really beautiful method of showing human consumption, everyday habits, and the energy that is still left behind after them. He thoughtfully breaks down patterns, nostalgia, and forgotten places instead of leaving them at surface level consumption. Stylistically, I saw a bit of Gregg Araki (and maybe a little Kubrick) in this particular film. I say that because Araki often searches for some type of raw truth in his works by taking back the scope and sharing a more existential perspective which I think is worth pondering on. 

Electric Earth is a short film about a man who doesn't have much of a pull except a drive for dancing. He finds his purpose in the broken down molecules of life: a bottle cap spinning in circles on the cement, the pulsing motion of a washing machine, and the jamming of a dollar bill in a Coke machine. "That's the only now I get" he says. The places and things he finds inspiration in seem desolate and void of recent human contact. It seems like flickering neon lights and pixels are the only objects that keep him company.

I noticed that these places were almost all self serving, literally and metaphorically: the laundry-mat, car wash station, convenience store, vending machine. They are the everyday spaces that we all monotonously use and abuse until they become out of date, vacated, torn down, and replaced. It is only when we don't occupy or use these spaces that they suddenly appear strange and off balance ("stillness").

Why is it that we always deem a man-made place "alive" and "normal" if it is occupied by numerous humans themselves? Like when you visit a strip mall along an old highway. It's usually seems so dumpy and hollow that you can't even imagine spending more than 20 minutes there, let alone fathom how a couple people spend their lives there working alone. Why does it feel so foreign and askew?

And then why are there those who are so attracted to these nebulous feelings (raises hand)? Why do we find such spirituality in these places, such nostalgia for something that we've never experienced?

This film answers it. The feelings of fascination, of nostalgia, and melancholiness comes from the untraceable energy of life itself.  

It's like at the end of The Virgin Suicides when you see the deserted house that once occupied the Lisbon family. It seems so cold, yet still full of unexplainable ghostly energy.  The carpet, the paint on the walls, they are still vibrating with life even though every explainable sign of it seems to be gone.

I think we feel this way because we are tapping into something more universal than we are taught. I can't even explain it correctly here because it's not in our language (or way of thinking) to comprehend it smoothly. This character in Electric Earth has transcended the typical way of experiencing life. 

Everything has frequencies running through it, but it isn't until we are gone (or when our presence is removed) that we actually mourn it. I mean, think about it: we build these grand places and memories only to leave them behind and then reminisce about them- as if our presence could only bring them back to life.  I mean, how narrow minded is it to think that just because our human presence leaves something that it becomes a dead object? A dead memory? A dead path and end to it's purpose? 

Or like when Jessica Lange's character in American Horror Story: Murder House (S01E6) is explaining to the supernatural to Violet:

"You're a smart girl! How can you be so arrogant to think that there is only one reality that you're able to see?"

I suppose this feeling of "stillness" I've been trying to get at is more than what I thought it would ever be. Trust me when I say I don't want to be an existentialist, nor do I want you to view this as a negative confrontation of life. Yet when discussing the roots of "nostalgia" and "stillness", we have to start to think that maybe these feelings are so ghostly because life itself  keeps going on in ways that we can't understand when we aren't present. It's more than just a "soft grunge" or "retro" photo you reblog on Tumblr. These places, pictures, and video leave energy and influence in the universe. We shouldn't mourn them, we should learn from them. I guess I'm starting to learn that every action and object we create serves a purpose and lives on in ways that we will never completely understand. 

-Lauren Rose

Curbside Fashion

(no, I have not had a recent acid trip)

Film Muse: Tropico

Hello Film Muse readers, today I'm going to be writing about Lana Del Rey's newly released short film Tropico directed by Anthony Mandler. I heard about this project back in the summer and was really pumped to see their vision. And it was sort of amazing. 

As many of you know, I'm a fan of Lana Del Rey. Although she is a frequent perpetrator of cultural appropriation (a different post), I couldn't help but being in awe of her work. When I first saw her come into the music scene, I was skeptical. I tried to find every excuse to discredit her work and her authenticity. Who does this woman think she is? Her use of stolen archive footage, making herself into seemingly docile characters and declaring her abusive relationship with Americana stunned me. She was everything I shouldn't of been and yet I couldn't ignore the passion I felt for her work. 

Then I realized that she was the first artist that embodied the same idea of nostalgia I and other millennia's fantasize about in our present era. The yearning to feel wanted, the lure of manic love, and the notion of cultural voidness that we desperately try escape in our mundane lives. Lana expressed all of the emotion I felt in a curated aesthetic that spoke to my soul. I've owned up to it, the good and the bad. Lana Del Rey is one of the greatest poets of our generation. 

(one of my favorite shots, Marilyn screaming as "Eve" bites into the apple)

In Tropico, the viewer goes on a musical narrative journey through three of Lana's interconnected songs ("Body Electric"| "Gods and Monsters' | "Bel-Air"). I was mostly excited about "Body Electric", a song in which Lana beautifully mentions her motifs/idols. Lana has no shame in glamorizing and molding her life after Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Jesus, and Monica Lewinsky (to name a few). I wonder if she read John Waters' novel "Role Models" for artistic inspiration.

I think the symbolic nature of Lana's character being cast out of the Garden of Eden into present day American hell is so powerful. This is the first time that I felt Lana really showed the pain of her character's oppression AS WELL as putting the spotlight on the perpetrators. This has been a motif of Lana's for a long time, but for some reason the transition of innocence packs more of a punch in Tropico.  

The two lovers bask in a beautiful paradise before sin slams them down to the lowest of American lows, podunk strip clubs and buzzing Kwik-E-Marts. Condemned Adam, wannabe masculine John Wayne cowboy, rings up junk food while Eve gets the worst of it (how fitting) by relying on her sexuality for a living. What did they (she) do to deserve such hell? The display of perversion on Earth is overwhelming in "Gods and Monsters"/the following businessmen scene. 

"Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from the woman. The womb, the tits, nipples, breast milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love looks, love perturbations and rising...Oh I say, these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul. Oh, I say now, these are the soul." - Whitman (?)* (Tropico)

I can't even touch the monologue above. It's too beautiful to break down.  

" 

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz..." -Howl by Allen Ginsberg (excerpt in Tropico)

"And so, being created in his likeness, and being banished for being too much like him, we were cast out. And the Garden of Eden transformed into the Garden of Evil.  Los Angeles, the city of angels. The land of gods and monsters, the in between rehlm where only the choices made from your freewill will decide your soul's final fate. Some poets called it the entrance to the underworld, but on some summer nights it could feel like paradise. Paradise lost. " - Lana Del Rey (Tropico)

"Just remember, I'm always there for ya" - John Wayne (Tropico) 

The film comes together in the end by the sinners metaphorically being baptized after paying for their sins. John Wayne's "America: Why I Love Her" is the last monologue we hear:

"Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies, way up high?

 Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky? ...

You ask me why I love her? I've a million reasons why. 

My beautiful America, beneath God's wide, wide sky".

I personally see it in this way: with all of the perversions of America, of life, there is still so much beauty to experience. 

Nostalgia? Our glamorization of the past, of things that we want to make beautiful, things that we want to cherish, even if we haven't  experienced them ourselves. Maybe it's not such a bad thing - glamorizing nostalgia - if it helps you get through life. We are lost, we need guidance. We need to know that there is beauty, that it wont always be this way. 

Presently, my brain is trying to stop me from wrapping this post up. It's something I still have to think about and linger on. Either way, I wanted to share my thoughts with you all out there right away. Sorry for the weird abrupt ending. 

-Lauren Rose

Curbside Fashion

Film Muse: Almost Famous (2002)

This post goes out to all of my rock 'n' roll lovers out there. 

May I introduce to you one of my most favorite films of all time - Almost Famous (2002)  dir. Cameron Crowe! 

Almost Famous is a coming of age story about a teenager who happens to get the opportunity to write a music review for the Rolling Stone magazine. He goes on a journey road tripping with the band "Stillwater" and meets their groupies, or "Band-Aids" as they like to call themselves. The movie unravels the pressure of musicians vs. the publicity, but most importantly, the strain of relationships of everyone on board.

 Love and rock 'n' roll, what more could you ask for? 

There are many things to love about this film. To start off, its pretty much a true story. Well, almost. Director Cameron Crowe actually toured with many rock bands of the seventies, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, and Led Zeppelin. Apparently, Crowe shared many of the same experiences that William, the main character, does in the film (those of which I will not spoil!). There is nothing better than having a director put his or her's heart, soul, and true experiences into a film. 

For me, the cast is what really makes this film. First of all, Kate Hudson - the perfectly fragile (yet head strong) groupie who acts as the band's muse, shines strongly. While we are talking about the "Band-Aids", I have to give it up to our girls Fairuza Balk (The Craft) and Anna Paquin (X-Men) as well. They played the most perfect blend of flirty and likeable characters, almost like "mama bears" to young William. Then we have Zooey Deschanel, who acts as the "cool older sister" type with impeccable music taste. But the real star of the film is Patrick Fugit who plays William. I think this was one of his first big acting debuts and this kid rocked it. Oh, and Jimmy Fallon is in this movie too. Basically no other film can be topped in terms of having an awesome cast. 

What I liked most about this film was the emotions that it embodied. You have the fragility of love- not just in us humans, but for the music as well. This ambience of the rock 'n' roll spirit blankets the film in a pure and nostalgic way. The viewer follows the heart break, the sense of longing, and uneasiness of the future in ALL of the characters. It's like you're going on this amazing ride for the whole film, but you know its going to end at some point - just like their tour. 

(Last words: I dig music!) 

Alright, I had to add this scene in really quick if you've seen the film (if not you might want to skip ahead). Can we just sit down and appreciate this part? The fact that a rock 'n' star could casually go to a party, jump off a roof and into a pool, and not be mobbed by fans is brilliant. I think this scene is perfect because it amplifies the RESPECT OF MUSIC. Not even the respect, but the love. I know it was common then as well, but our celebrity culture today really pushes the listener and the creator far apart. In this scene, they come together - even if the party goers still see him as "godlike", the amount of chillness is incomprehensible.  I just thought this scene was really humbling. 

Moving on. 

Overall, if you want to feel good - watch this film. Its heart wrenching and hilarious. The fact that a movie set in the '70s could be created like this past the year 2000 and still retain the original vibe is hard to achieve. To put it simply - this movie has soul. There is nothing more to say. 

Keep it cool, 

Lauren Rose

Curbside Fashion