"This Film Is About Death"

"No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have. I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition."

That's what Robert Altman said when accepting his lifetime achievement award at 2006's Oscar ceremony.

He died this Monday.

I'm really bummed, but I'm gonna try to find words for a eulogy even slightly worthy of a great artist who touched, awed and motivated me in my former life as an aspiring filmmaker, and in my current life as an aspiring decent fella.

Altman was both, a filmmaker and a decent fella. More, in my opinion: an extraordinary example of each.

His style of visual storytelling - that of the casual but deeply interested observer, sweeping his camera across shoals of interpersonal connection, collision and separation; sometimes zooming in like a voyeur, sometimes passing by and letting his eye (and ear - Altman painted as much with sound as he did with image) drift elsewhere, in search of something new - is an acquired taste. But like fine wine, once you've been exposed, it sure is tough to accept lesser substitutes.




My first exposure was in 1993, when another influential hero of mine, my dear friend Bill, took me out to see Short Cuts in its year of release (it may even have been opening weekend). It was our first year of film school, and this flick was one of only two (the other being Spice World) Bill and I saw outside the classroom and annual Toronto International Film Festival circuit. In other words, the only film in regular mainstream release, neither prescribed by professors (though in second year, a certain fellow introduced us to Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller in a lecture setting), nor selected from the Fest schedule with the intention of broadening our filmic horizons - which was, I assert, the most valuable end purpose of movie skool: to see what we had not seen before, and so be changed by it.




Well, that afternoon in TO I saw something I had not seen before. And oh, was I changed. I remain so to this day; Short Cuts holds up dazzlingly well across more than a decade. It's a remarkable film that renders bits and pieces of Raymond Carver short stories to the big screen with the same attention to detail and fascination with people (at their best, but more often their worst) that Carver exhibits in his fiction on the page. Such characters! Such situations! And an ending that haunted me then, and still haunts me today on repeat viewings (I'm happy to finally have Short Cuts on DVD, and I urge you to check it out for yourself).




Look at this cast: Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Lili Taylor, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Tim Robbins, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, Frances McDormand, Peter Gallagher, Lori Singer, Lyle Lovett, Huey Lewis, Jack Lemmon...

JACK. EFFIN. LEMMON, who delivers the finest monologue of the flick, a wrenching centerpiece that ties all the disparate stories (mostly about struggling couples) together in one crystalline moment. It's the iconic scene, as I see it.




Those kinds of moments, and that kind of cast, are par for the course in any Altman film. Even with his less noteworthy projects (Dr T and the Women, Pret-a-Porter), he attracts and showcases a palette of gifted performers, and there is always at least one scene that knocks you flat, taking you out of your world into another that nonetheless reflects back on your own cherished presumptions and certainties, reminding you that you're only human, flawed and searching like the rest of us, and even down in that muddy ditch (to channel Oscar Wilde), you can stare at the stars and find epiphany. In this case, movie stars. But I digress.

Did I mention Altman makes this kind of thing look easy?

Watch his films and you don't feel the pushy, controlling hand of say, a younger, less assured director who's convinced his way of wanting to see the world needs to be imposed (and enforced) with strict, tightly-composed shots; precise, affected editing; heaps of art direction. To Altman, it's the confluence of people that determines the rhythms and impressions of his narrative, and though he very clearly has an aesthetic - a "way of forcing his audience to see the world", as film is so good at doing - it never feels 'constructed' to me. In his finest moments, you're sure he just turned the camera on and watched actors be actors.

Which is another thing you should know about Altman: he loved his actors. Ask any of those who've worked with him and I think you'd find they love him back, deeply, because he let them do what they were born to do, and gave them the freedom to explore and define their own characters while sparing them the oppressive hand of a leader who doesn't trust his own team. More often than not, scripts were mere starting points for an Altman feature, if they were formalized on paper at all; then his fine ensemble casts took their cues and wandered off into inspired and emotionally satisfying improvisation.

Again I find myself coming back to the idea of painting, this practice of starting from basics and flowing outward, layering, to discover the possibilities within a work of art - letting that journey suggest its own ends. To trace the process into music, think of an Altman film as jazz, a tonally consistent sonic tapestry with featured tangents and solos to reveal the beauty contributed by each of its component parts, or players, as the mosaic grows and develops. I think he would appreciate this comparison. Altman was a team player, arguably more comfortable with the collaborative aspect of filmmaking than other directors of his stature.

Though Short Cuts was my introduction to the man and cemented my admiration for him, many other flicks from his oeuvre had an impact on me. The Player was perfectly timed to match my disillusionment with Hollywood, partway through film school. Gosford Park was a welcome Christmas gift toward the end of 2001. I missed The Company in the theater but adored it on video, particularly the wonderful rainstorm dance. And I was sure to catch what is now Altman's swan song, the gentle and loving A Prairie Home Companion, at the cinema.




Let me spend a few moments on what will be his final film. Though many have dismissed it as Altman-lite, I would argue it's a fine closing chapter to his amazing career because it captures, and preserves (as in warm, sentimental amber), those things he held dear: collaboration with a diverse array of talented actors, the creative process as an organic evolution of circumstance and incident, people as the catalysts for drama and story.




This particular tale follows a radio play troupe as their form of entertainment is coming to its historical end. Singers, dancers and voice actors, they do their thing (even acting out advertisements) live on stage to be broadcast over the airwaves. But turns out the gang's playhouse is being bought out and knocked down. We get to watch their final show as a whole era winds to a close. The movie's based on the work of author Garrison Keillor, who headlines himself in the film as emcee:




I'd recently read this interview with Altman in Entertainment Weekly, where the 81-year-old director laid out his upcoming slate of new projects and looked back with perspective on his career as a whole. He was riding a train cross-country, surrounded by castmembers from A Prairie Home Companion and other loved ones, including his wife. There was a wistful undercurrent to the piece which made it feel, to me, like a farewell. When I sat down to watch the film, I read the whole proceeding as a meditation on loss: of an age, of an artform, and sadly, inevitably, of an artist.

"This film is about death," Altman said at a news conference.

In the movie, one of the radio play actors passes on during their final show, and there on-site, presumably to receive his soul, is an angel played by Virginia Madsen. She interacts with the entire troupe before taking her leave, sort of easing them out of the world they are departing, and comforting them in their passage.




I would like to say thank you, Mr. Altman, for everything you've given me. I hope an angel as lovely as Ms Madsen comes to collect you and gather you home.

Undead

Earlier this year was the first time I saw Ed Wood.

My dear friend Lisa, an avowed Johnny Depp fan, marked it as the only of his movies she didn't like. Ditto for Tim Burton.

I couldn't feel more the opposite. I think it's easily Burton's best, and Depp's top performance to boot. Too often, I see Johnny's eyes inside the character he's playing, and it ends up as caricature because I notice how he much he's enjoying it.

Here, I bought him as the passionate, ambitious, and blessedly naive B-movie auteur Edward D. Wood Jr. Better yet, I was consumed by the masterful portrayal of our most venerable creature of the night, Bela Lugosi, by Academy Award-winning Best Supporting Actor Martin Landau. Lugosi was a collaborator of Wood's, and in Burton's biopic, the friendship between the two men is an emotional anchor that holds a lot of silliness together.

When Halloween crept upon me this year, I decided to remix one of the songs that had haunted me most across my celebrated Octobers. In choosing the song, it became clear I could attempt tribute threefold: to the post-punk musicians in question, Bauhaus; to their muse, Bela; and to the performer who channeled the classic horror star with such respect and dignity, Landau.

So Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus leads to

Bela Lugosi Lives via Mini Nerd.

Thank you, Lisa, for the gift of your Ed Wood DVD.

And thank you to everyone else who came trick-or-treating on our virtual doorstep this Halloween, especially those sent by Dr. John, who was kind enough to award Mini Nerd site of the day. I'm honored, flattered, and grateful for all the new visitors. I hope you each stick around, to see where we take the site in days to come.

First up: Down South wrapup.

Stay tooned.

Grooveyard

Yes, Halloween is over.

Yes, I'm in denial.

I've also had another one of those busy weeks that delayed my posting the final two entries in this year's monster mashup. So please bear with me as I extend Halloween to Halloweek, and take these next few days to complete the quintet.

About this first of the final two posts: I cannot take credit for the title. I owe it to this consummate performer, arguably one of our finest Canuck celebrities:



Rest his soul, Billy Van was responsible for some of my earliest (and most inspirational) childhood media memories, in the form of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, the trippiest, most wildly imaginative monster variety show I can think of (and honestly, I can't think of any others, so 'nuff said - this was sui generis):



Such an impression it had on me that I scribbled out my own comic-book ripoff called Super Monstrosities, and "hosted" a low-budget, bedroom-floor version of the program with the aid of a Snake Mountain microphone and my sister providing extra voices, particularly that of Grizelda - whom Van, I should mention, played on Frightenstein, along with almost all the other characters:



One of the notable exceptions to Van's one-man-cast was the poetically inclined Vincent Price, who provided the rhyming interstitials between segments as Van presumably changed costumes and personalities into the next character he'd play...



Such as the Wolfman (read: Wolfman Jack), who deejayed a spooky set called The Grooveyard while dancing in front of an oscillating tie-dyed background that'd surely cause intense paranoid experiences if viewed on mushrooms or ganja (and I'm not convinced Van wasn't on either while actually taping these segments - his haphazard, seemingly improvised style suggests assistance from some foreign substance or other).



To bring this meandering preamble as full-circle as I can manage, I've chosen Grooveyard as the title for this post because a huge part of Halloween, for me, is connected to music - and assorted scary sound effects too.

The love of sound effects I owe to a spectacular LP of nightmarish aural environments produced by Disney to accompany its equally excellent Haunted Mansion ride. The latter I had the pleasure of revisiting some years ago as an "adult" and, aside from the cacophony of kids SCREECHING in the elongated elevator as it began its dire descent, it retained a lot of power for me.

I haven't had a chance to revisit the album yet (sadly, there's no record player in my vicinity), but I must thank rreavell of eBay for selling me a copy. I'd lost my original somewhere around becoming a teenager; from then on, its role in mine and my sister's early Halloweens had become mythic. I'm thrilled to have it back!



For more recent haunting soundscapes, I've turned to the truly frightening "music" of Lustmord to accompany my front-yard decoration and front-door dispensal of candy. Turns out this stuff is usually too unnerving to entice children into those makeshift graveyards I've assembled (especially the one erected with an ex who was a fellow ardent perpetrator of All Hallows mischief). If you wanna dip your toe in Lustmord's deep well of horrific noise, I invite you to play this LP somewhere ALONE, with the lights off:



The other iconic collection of terrifying tunes that's been a part of Halloween celebrations for nigh on half my life, is a mixtape put together by my uncle Rod, for his beloved (my uncle Tim), while the two were separated by several states on this, the holiday they now celebrate together every year with yard decoration, nostalgic collectibles, and an assortment of fiendish foods!

Its origins are romantic, then, but its tracks are decidedly dark in tone - and they've scored all my nights roaming the streets of whatever city happened to be nearby in search of the Best-Dressed Halloween House (for which I'd present an award to the unsuspecting, usually hesitant owner) with my car (or van's) stereo cranked to full and blaring black beats from Rod's mix.

I won't post these songs here for your consumption, but I'll include the tracklist in the hopes you try yourself to find at least a few tunes. It's worth the search, and the mood you can establish for your own night of tricks and treats:

1) Everyday is Halloween - Ministry
2) Halloween - Siouxsie and the Banshees
3) Halloween - Japan
4) Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus
5) Love Like Blood - Killing Joke
6) Blood of Tin - Lydia Lunch
7) Mechanical Flattery - Lydia Lunch
8) Gloomy Sunday - Lydia Lunch
9) Tied & Twist - Lydia Lunch
10) Intro & Main Title from Phantasm
11) Main Title from Night of the Living Dead
12) Fear of Ghosts - The Cure
13) Crucify Me - Moev
14) The Devil Does Drugs - My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
15) Angels on a Balcony - Blondie

One selection that wasn't included in the above mix but really should have been is a ditty called Be My by St Che. It's a decent early industrial dance record with samples from a very chilling story called The Exquisite Act, read by Sian Phillips for the Royal Shakespeare Company. I would love to track this track down; for now, I'll be content with my tape copy.

And you may notice an appearance in the above tracklist by the most important band of my adolescence, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. Last year around this time I put together a megamix of their campy, creepy late 80s/early 90s period, which was a soundtrack not only for Halloween but also many an angst-filled night during my regular teenaged life. I did up this mix for my buddy Dave, a fellow fan. We once waited 'til two in the morning in downtown Toronto for the band and its blasphemous concert paraphernalia (e.g. t-shirts we'd happily buy before soundcheck) to clear customs and reach the venue where they were scheduled to play that evening. Unfortunately, we were too young to drive cars and had to leave before Groovie Mann and Buzz McCoy took to the stage - the final 2 AM TTC bus was our only way home.

Speaking of taking to the stage, one of my favorite horror comedies has made its way to Broadway, complete with musical (and sung vocal!) accompaniment. I couldn't be more pleased, and really hope it travels to a town where I can easily see it (if not sit in the first few rows to be drenched with spurts of fake blood - the over-the-top gore so endemic to this most revered of cult classics, I hear, remains fully intact in the stage version). Ladies and gentleman, I give you Evil Dead: The Musical.



I think that about covers it for this year's Grooveyard, but I've got one more post to make in the Halloween cycle that I'll hint at by saying its inspiration can be found within this post, and its dedication will be to this good fellow and his work:



After that's here, I'll reluctantly give up the ghost(s) and put away the pumpkins...

For now.

Hallowh'at?

It's just shy of The Witching Hour, but that matters little.

A sad few of us are WORKING tonight, which chills me to the bone.

It's still better than worrying about work, which my buddy Dave is doing. And yet, he finds time to carve a pumpkin that does a fabulous job of imitating a Beholder.

Check this, then:



And this:



Me, I'm at home WORKING and drinking gin and eating ANIMAL CRACKERS, my crappy excuse for treats on this particular All Hallow's Eve. But note: it's only midnight.

And there's more to come.