Jim Thompson on Acid
During the '90s, several auteurs emerged through the manipulation of a single genre. Alongside Hip Hop's chopping and sampling of history, we saw a rise in postmodern takes on noir. We went down Lost Highways, we buried suitcases in the snow and we lost ourselves in Pulp Fictions. A popular mistake today is to claim superhero movies have erased independent, arthouse and low budget contributions. There's festivals and government grants in place to support that nonsense year on year out. It would be more accurate to say they wiped out low to mid-budget thrillers off the map. Imagine a time when each week in the cinema you could see famous actors boning, scheming and killing one another, rather than geeks in capes. I'd take even the worst ones over half the MCU. Many of these were disposable trash but let's say you did have enough knowledge of cinema history and a few ideas of how to subvert genre theory with a post-structuralist approach then this stage was yours for the taking. You could be King.
Key to the process was using a familiar form (usually noir) and then finding your voice through experimenting with that pre-existing structure. There were those back then that expressed concern over a lack of creativity and referred to the likes of the Coen Brothers, Lynch and Tarantino as mere technicians mining and replicating cinemas past rather than celebrating them as the unique artists they are. Labelling them re-constructionists rather than deconstructionists. The same people may well make the same mistake with Rose Glass's latest Love Lies Bleeding, which I would declare to be an absolute masterpiece of modern filmmaking and for those who caught an early glimpse of it at the Manchester Film Festival, a real treat that plays well with a big audience.
It is as raw, unmatched and unflinching as anything you'll see on screen this year. In fact, the only thing that's going to stop this from being in my eyes a masterpiece is further films down the line from Rose Glass as she hones her craft in the same way that David Lynch did. After all, Lost Highway is a major improvement on Wild at Heart but it be wrong not have championed the hell out of the explosive and psychedelic Wizard of Oz inspired piece of insanity when it was unleashed in 1990. It's hard to know in the moment when an artist will necessarily drop their magnum opus and often it takes there to be a catalogue in place for us to compare. Sometimes, you just know when you have a winner who towers above the competition in a league of their own and with Rose Glass, I think we have found just that. For every clueless fucker like Emerald Fennell, we have a rare talent like Rose Glass. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
I regret to announce, I was late to the party with Glass's debut Saint Maud For years, it was positioned to me as a careless and misguided post-Gone Girl femcel response to the so called incel classic Taxi Driver. Hence, my persistent avoidance. Yet, this was a foolish considering such a stance is a total misinterpretation. Likewise, Taxi Driver is also misread today by naïve younger audiences. It's a film about (and even wrongly championed by) incels but the film itself is far more nuanced than that. The allure and horror of Taxi Driver is that it boldly invites you to feel the anger of societies degradation and to want to do something about it but to be clear it does not present a solution. It's a character study rather than an overtly political piece. Asking questions of its audience without necessarily giving the answers.
1
Ok, let's get this straight for those who still don't know, Taxi Driver is not strictly a clumsy right wing sicko namsploitation movie or a '70s vigilante revenge movie where puritan, conservative and even fascist views triumph. Not to put down the likes of clumsier efforts such as Combat Shock, First Blood, Dirty Harry, Death Wish and even other sleazy Schrader attempts including Rolling Thunder and Hardcore, which are all at the bare minimum thoroughly entertaining flicks for the grindhouse audience and genuinely more complex than they get for (if they weren't, we wouldn't still be discussing them) but Taxi Driver towers above the lot of them. It manages to be class conscious, aware of its central characters own racism and role of the media where the other films mentioned can fall at times to being clueless.
For example, in Death Wish, he picks his victims by flashing cash needlessly and enticing the desperate poor folks. Thereby failing to understand class in its violent pursuit of punishing sins such as theft. This action eradicates the possibility of Bronson's character being a watchful protector but instead someone a more active participant in causing crime to occur. On the other hand, Travis Bickle is revealed to be a far more deranged character changing his target with the roll of a dice going from political candidate to pimp, unable to choose his legacy and vastly altering how he is remembered by sheer accident. He has far less control in the crimes, allowing Scorsese to make a comedic point about the troubling side to the media in deciding America's heroes and folklore that dates back to the days of the wild west and Scorsese's love of the problematic John Wayne westerns.
Dirty Harry displays a slightly greater intelligence with its whole reaction to bureaucracy and near selling out back handed apology sequel that pits its titular detective against the vigilantes but Death Wish remains fun silliness firmly reserved to gorehounds and trash admirers. Scorsese is America's greatest ever filmmaker as he is masterfully able to reference both high art and low art with a smoothness that is unprecedented.
The harsh New York streets are a concrete jungle where the zombies of Romero's Night of the Living Dead roam and its isolated protagonist gives himself a self-deemed honourable mission that ends in total bloodshed like one of Kurosawa's samurai warriors. As for the incel supporting accusations, I'm pretty sure the scene where he takes a date to see a porno has always been intentionally funny with some today even viewing the film as a darkly satirical rom-com. The ending for me is pure fantasy that intelligently makes light of typically neat noir endings. A joke.
Rounding up all this ranting on Taxi Driver, what makes it arguably a strong contender for the best film of all time and one we must keep returning to is that it represents a period of time when the studio were brave, putting their faith in filmmakers and they allowed the audience to be engaged with the movie and draw their conclusions over who the hero of the story is and how heroic they are. Sadly, not a common experience in today's where the good guys are members of the avengers and the bad guys the destroyers of worlds. As clear as crystal with no audience participation that requires them to think. Even when the bad guy is doing something that starts to touch on being interesting morally or politically that could actually begin to stimulate a thought in your head, they are made unnecessarily evil with unjustified killings that serve no purpose to their goal, merely to avoid confusion. The impact of all this on audiences has been astronomical. We're dealing with an audience who have been told for so long that they are idiots, that they've started to believe it.
This is where I praise Saint Maud in going back to that kind of active and engaging experience. To be clear, both Taxi Driver and Saint Maud are about isolated individuals following what they perceive to be a righteous path but each step takes them further from reality. The filmmaker is always one step ahead and appropriately distanced from their material. They do not endorse their characters but ask you to learn from their flaws.
2
Not since Carrie has coming of age and religion been so hauntingly combined but what makes Saint Maud such a breath of fresh air is its maturity and superiority in comparison with modern horror. Whilst, there is some aspects of that overdone theme grief present, Saint Maud is actually a story about religion as a means of escape from supressed guilt. Not a particularly common idea being addressed today.
An on-going criticism appears to be that it doesn't spend enough time demonstrating its central characters understanding and practicing of religion. However, this is another misunderstanding off the films intentions. Glass does not waste time allowing the audience to make sense of the protagonist's religion because there's simply no sense to be made. As with Taxi Driver, it's not a film about how to deal with particular issues in society but why the characters are drawn to their chosen solutions which they carry out with strict discipline like a Kurosawa samurai on a mission or a Melville criminal on a job. Never do they highlight the task as a strictly moral crusade to be agreed with but rather a warning. A relatable journey in feeling but never in action.
To have a film so drawn to character in this day and age of excessive jump scares is a real pleasure. It favours the slow brooding and uses its camera in some of the most unexpected ways for a British piece. Casual walks in town are filmed in Dutch angles and drones that even go fully upside down all emphasise the characters withdrawal from the rest of the herd. By the close, you come out the other end: it re-iterates the point often forgotten that our soul saving tool may become as harmful as all our other vices (sex, alcohol, violence) beforehand; a monster of your own making. I see it regularly today, rather fittingly in the case of Love Lies Bleeding, with people who start to obsess over the gym following a tragedy. Be healthy but does it have to be a personality dominating your life until the point you literally can't do anything else and you start to become fascist nutcase Yukio Mishima?
Saint Maud also has the best ending of all time. If you know, you know, if you don't, get to know. My favourite thing about it is just towards the end when you think it's getting carried away with the fantasy elements, like Taxi Driver it has one final abrasive shot that confirms everything you need to know. Taxi Driver has a subtle flick of the rear view mirror revealing the mad man's eyes but Saint Maud's return to reality is unmissable. It's fucking brutal.
Following Saint Maud's outrageous ending, Monsieur Il Est Merde, Mark Kermode, declared it the film of the year, something he always does when there's a half decent British movie going. Despite, usually struggling to back his British bias (Is Mark Jenkin really all that?), I'm fully in support of Saint Maud, which was released at a similar time to that menace Ali Aster's Hereditary and should be discussed in the same breath. Both represent the top level of horror that emerged towards the end of the last decade. Even as purely a British film, it should be viewed as a classic of that period along with Kill List, Shame and Under the Skin. Keep talking about Saint Maud, cement its place in film history.
Now she's back with a hard boiled Jim Thompson influenced story that has a lot more style than the far more commercial and increasingly popular Thelma and Louise. Those who appreciate twists and turns of the crime caper will be shocked and amused by a Pulp Fiction like unexpected head shot mid-way through that caught every audience member off guard. From the outset, Glass establishes this as being in a gorgeous psychedelic and pulp cartoonish world of her own making with night sky stars that hover over the local gym and a synth score from Clint Mansell. Instantly appealing to any fans of Nicolas Winding Refn. There's even these flashback non-linear images that appear later with neon lighting showcasing people holding guns against a black backdrop.
3
The camera swoops down in one take to bring us inside the gym for the first time. Once inside we get a montage of our mighty hunks working hard to Gina X Performance. Allowing us the opportunity for our second body building satire from a Brit from the last few years. Gerard Johnson (Tony and Hyena) did a surprisingly phenomenal job of this with his low budget indie "Muscle", which is essentially a modern British Fight Club taking the piss out of the rise of 'bullshit jobs' and crippling masculinity. Glass presents a feminist spin with the unbelievably solid female beefcake (or is it 'cupcake?') Kathy O'Brian. Not seen such excellent and bizarre use of the female gaze in an action movie since Kathryn Bigelow did Point Break
Our two star crossed, doomed like the titular plant, lesbian lovers meet inside the gym. Where else would they meet in a film like this? Kristen Stewart plays O'Brian's girlfriend, adding another amazing role to her flawless filmography (we are Kristen Stewart stans here). Those wanting further evidence of Kristen's acting abilities see the phone call with her father where he asks whether she's threatening him, great work. Together O'Brian and Stewart hit the steroids like cocaine, using it as a little social ice breaker and then they get hooked quickly. Their initial sex scene is soundtracked by the undisputed King of Disco, Patrick Cowley. Never did I think I'd hear the GOATs music in a packed cinema. So thanks Rose Glass for making this dream come true.
As the intercourse takes place, O'Brian's muscles giddily begin popping out their sockets like something straight from a Hulk comic. This addition places the movie in the realms of body horror, which can never be a bad thing, at least with us anyway. If they hadn't already, things take a turn for the Cronenbergian when O'Brian randomly pukes out Kristen Stewarts entire body from her own mouth. Nothing better than when a director simply can't make a non-horror movie without adding some horror in there somewhere. The sign of a true artist. An unashamed artist.
What makes the scene even better is how moments beforehand it took a dive for the cheesy playing '80s synthpop whilst a bunch of lady beefcakes show off their immaculate bodies going for this lighter Flashdance atmosphere, so when the full body regurgitation happens, the contrast hits hard. Exactly the kind of direction that tends to win us over round here with shocking tonal twists and high to low art shifts.
In an interview prior to the film's release, Glass stated that her main influence was Showgirls and I assumed that was just a signpost of Camp. Considering O'Brian's character goal is to make it big in Vegas, it is clear the comparisons don't just end with style. However, there is definitely camp in abundance here. Stewart and O'Brians over the top argument by the tennis courts is all timer.
Amongst all the camp and artifice though is some genuine characters too. Harris and Stewart are part of a crime family with a whole history there that reeks of patriarchal dominance and misogyny that wouldn't be out of place in a Jim Thompson novel. Some critics have taken issue with the absurd departures that they believe undermine the gritty realism also at play.
Yet, if this is an issue for them they are at stake of completely misunderstanding the difference between auteur and craftsman. They have probably never distinguished between someone like J. Lee Thompson and Stanley Kubrick. This is where me and these people will differ because for me, Glass's departures from realism, such as going all Attack of the 50 Foot Woman creature feature mode at the end are its best points, they are precisely what gives it style and personality, as we welcome this new talent.
4
If you want strict by the book classical realism and formal purism as has been mapped out before then maybe technical expert Taylor Sheridan is more your man. About the closest he departs from formula to something personal is through the potential for fascist readings. Hence, why an auteur can really do something interesting with his material as is what happened with Sicario and didn't happen with either Wind River or Hell or High Water
Auteurs push film forwards, whereas craftsmen keep the ship steady. Genre purists and recreationists, I admire your unpretentious persistence and ever valuable knowledge but there is a hierarchy and a pecking order to this world which leaves you behind the leaders of the pack: the auteurs. With only 2 films to her name, Rose Glass has proven herself to be just that, an auteur. The fact she's emerged through the postmodern noir net as it was done when I was growing up, before all this uninspired Marvel rubbish, makes me warm to even more. There are still some who know how to play this old game and better yet add something new that wasn't here before. She's adding the femininity and a sense of parody to a fashionably masculine genre. As far as I'm concerned, she should be financially backed for life after Love Lies Bleeding. I'm declaring Rose Glass the future of filmmaking. She may go out with Martin Rev's Whisper here but truthfully, she's gone out with a BANG! Overall Score: 5/5.
5
The Chad Ethan Coen (and his Lesbian Wife)
The year is 1999. Belief in a government elected for the people by the people is at breaking point. Secret fractions exists within higher powers, whereby huge decisions for the many are made by the few. They meet in secret. Uttering the single world, "Fidelio", grants entry. Faceless corporate entities continue to profit from feeding us our own problematic addictions and hiding information on just how dangerous these addictions are. Scientists voices are silenced and journalistic integrity an impossibility.
We sold CBS to the highest bidder and now the access to information is a self-run beast that’s out of our hands. We corporatised everything, that was our mistake. Faith in the free market came back to haunt us. Turning on the television is a reminder that we no longer have control. It's individuals versus the system. And so the media constructs our own image for us. Shaping our culture and identity for years to come. Hollywood always promoted the idea of the individual and that is why we shall never win.
Despite our numbers, we are very much alone. Fear divides us. The cracks can be seen within but after spinning in and out of many circles, still the same conclusion. We no longer have control over our own lives. We are victims of decisions made long before our time. Inmates of an invisible prison. Multiple managers and deliberately complex progression schemes keep us from knowing who holds the keys. If we don't know our enemy, we cannot hold anyone accountable and so all thinking can be denounced to crackpot conspiracy.
Knowing all this, how is one to respond? Sacrificing all responsibilities and interest in labour like Lester Burnham? Living for the weekend like Jip and his gang? Resorting to sabotaging all work property like taking a hammer to an unreliable printer?
Escapism is the word of the day. With the on-coming millennium, technology improves daily even if it will bring us to our knees. We search for the sick. Losing ourselves in underground myths regarding the emergence of videotapes. Does snuff really exist? Is there genuinely a black market to meet all our twisted debased inner desires like that library Nic Cage and Joaquin Phoenix visit in 8MM? Did those young filmmakers looking for The Blair Witch really die up in Seneca Creek State Park? The footage is proof, right? It's real?
Space both real and imagined are of great importance. Anywhere authority still hasn't touched, this is where we shall roam. Through the free parties, we found a way to reconnect with one another without the need for cash to change hands. This enraged the establishment and they sent the cops with their dogs and bludgeons out to the fields. They simply couldn't fathom the fact that they weren't profiting from the events taking place. So they began to use those famous words, "acting within the interests of public safety". A famous get out jail card for when times called for it. For when the oppressors detected the slightest power shift. All the negatives were highlighted such as drugs, public intoxication, overcrowding, fighting and obnoxious noise. There was no time to address the positives.
The isolated youth take refuge on the ever expanding internet. An untapped world of potential right at their fingertips. Interactions take place screen to screen. Online forums act as the true public consciousness. Whatever people are thinking, whatever people are saying can be found here. It is yet to be polluted by bots. Our bodies no longer our own, we signed away the rights. Detachment is all that’s left and a million fist fights in dingy basements to Goin Out West just to feel a single drop of genuine emotion is not going to solve a fucking thing.
6
Developing an online presence is all that's left. Here we can be anyone and anything. Avatars provide us the body our minds desire. Disconnect between body and mind has never been so clear. Fantasy lands the only true saviour, the final retreat. The marginalised queer can locate their perceived community. The misunderstood trans individual can imagine their true form. For a doomed generation, there's no place to go but down the rabbit hole.
This is the world we enter in Ethan Coen's Drive Away Dykes. A movie of the likes, which has not been seen for decades and at the same time up to this point in time in many ways did not exist. Since, what we're dealing with here is a 60s sexploitation b movie throwback picture a la Russ Meyer or Doris Wishman but through a modern lesbian lens. Exactly where the so called, "Dykes", come in. Take note this is the street name I use. The studio has been trying to push its cleaner name, Drive Away Dolls, for fear that cinemas will not book it under its original name, which could be mistakably perceived as offensive but if you look closely at the end, the real title appears for all to see.
Before you get all hot, Ethan's wife, Tricia, credited as writer and editor of the picture, identifies as queer and suggests its usage is an attempt at reclaiming. Although, it's not my place to push it or comment, I will say I'm behind it, simply because dyke is such a funny word. But yes, let the queers decide this for themselves. Up to them what they call themselves as far as we're concerned.
Both Ethan and Tricia actually wrote this back in the '90s when this is set but couldn't get the backing for such a project. How could they? There was an obvious lack of support for the gays back in the '80s illustrated by how the government handled the aids crisis. Essentially, not giving a shit and stepping back to let the disease wipe out their enemies. The studios, who are often used as a force to pump out its governments agenda, were hardly going to turn round a decade later and release an easy going lesbian movie with lots of promiscuous sex simply made for fun were they?
No, there were rules back then. You want to make a lesbian movie, then you have to have some serious drama in there! Making the likes of Bound and Thelma and Louise revolutionary in their day just for existing as queer cinema but you see my point? Finally, we can make this just some trashy fun without having to justify its own existence through that vile thing called drama. Thank you to Ethan and Tricia for making this happen.
To be clear, Funeralopolis without hesitation utterly approves of the move here from Ethan Coen. For years we've made the mistake of thinking Joel and Frances were the ultimate power couple in these parts but it seems we were wrong. Ethan being in an arrangement where he stays "loyle" to his Capo and it is agreed that she can explore her lesbian tendencies whenever she feels like it is legendary. A man able to separate the lust from the love. "She just wants to be with the girls", as I think David Byrne says. If only more men could be like this and supportive of their wives desires.
About the most interesting thing to come from the Coen Brothers divorce, as I'm sure will be the same with the Safdie Brothers, is finding out more about their individual personalities and how the collaboration works. Having considered the evidence presented, Joel Coen is a fucking geek and Ethan is the cool one you go for a pint with. Virgin Joel with his highly talented thespian wife doing his Shakespeare shit for the suit and tie brigade. Chad Ethan and his gay wife making sexploitation throwback for the girls. Yeah, Macbeth is great and all as a play but what does Joel really do with the material other than give a completely solid rendition?
That no good nonce Polanski turned it in to near folk horror using the best part of the story: the witches and all the supernatural parts. Orson Welles, possibly the King of auteurs, pretty much did a Corman cheapie by working with Republic to allow greater control and emphasis on himself as the star and director.
7
Kurosawa basically turned it into another of his badass samurai flicks. Jarman never adapted Macbeth but if he did, I'm sure he'd have the Thane of Cawdor sucking on Banquo's ding dong and made the whole thing punk like all his other Shakespeare adaptations. What the fuck did Joel do? Oh and don't say he added some German Expressionism in there because I really don't care. Any other director I might praise it but where was my postmodern Coen Brothers take on Shakespeare?
Why didn't he turn it into this black comedy crime caper with the tone of Fargo? Macbeth engaged in some comedy of errors as he says, "Aw Jeez, is this a dagger I see before me?". The three all-knowing witches all played by Sam Elliott in his cowboy hat and boots as he says, "It was a pretty good story. Don't you think? It made me laugh to beat the band. Parts, anyway. I didn't like seeing Banquo go". That sounds far better, right? An artist's move rather than a sturdy technician's? A wasted opportunity. Denzel just being Denzel with these routine empty bland monologues to excite the academy. Half of it looks like it was a student film and even in its intentions it does come across that way too as some, "Ok, time to be accepted by the high arts community" bullshit. Not a move I support. Booooooooooooooooo.
The Chad Ethan Coen keeps up the postmodern side of the Coen name but this time he's let's say less interested in 40s noirs (now seen as respectable B-Movies) but rather the to this day not very respected (or at least not in the way Funeralopolis believes they should be) style of filmmaking: the '60s exploitation film. Open to study is the works of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Russ Meyer and Doris Wishman. Yet, not enough of you seem to be doing that because when I'm reading your negative reviews it's all becoming very clear. I mentioned this last month with the reception of Grindhouse (2007) and how Tarantino learnt that the audiences today just aren't well versed in the form. You think you can trust them to be in on the joke but maybe you can't.
Audiences have become too accustomed to the studios treating them like utter morons to the point they may have become just that. It's understandable that younger audiences may be ignorant but when you're seeing it from the critics then you're in trouble. They should be using their positions to educate the youth in exploitation. I don't know what film schools these critics went to but if they didn't teach exploitation cinema, they can't be a proper school.
Why am I seeing people saying they disliked the dykes for not providing a wholesome and moving cinematic experience? That seems to be a common criticism. What were you expecting? Is this part of a wider issue of where cinephilia has gone? Film appreciation has gone a lot softer these days focusing on really pathetic isolated emotional responses. We're losing a vital part of film culture in the collective experience here just so we can turn being depressed in to a personality. We need to stop crying alone and start laughing together. Cinema to me is not about looking at stills from films online with quotes that say like, "I love cinema" or "I'm so sad". If there is an intention or a goal involved in Funeralopolis it is to bring back the idea of film as getting the cans in, calling your dudes up and hitting the cinema every Friday night, taking in all its mystery and then going to a party.
Exploitation films, drive in films, grindhouse films, these were closer to rock'n'roll music and based on the idea of rolling up at the cinema with a few beers and just have a bloody good time with your mates. Akin to checking out a local band in the boozer. Good, bad, it didn't matter. It was the event itself. A championing of the act of cinemagoing. An attitude rather than necessarily a conventional narrative film experience that showed you things you didn't normally see, that society didn't think you should see. And so an absolute necessity.
8
So call up the guys, call up the girlies and tell 'em in the first 5 minutes of Drive Away Dykes, Pedro Pascal, credited only as the penis collector, gets stabbed in the jugular with a bottle opener and Margaret Qualley goes full Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS rocking one of those law/authority hats as she sits on a girl's face. We even get a lesbian bar where they play ESG's Dance as though its Cruising for women.
Fuck all that crying shit, leave it at home, this is a movie for dudes (male and female) who want to go to a bar and dance all night like ESG. Twisting and shouting 'til sunrise. There's even a point later on where Qualley does this sexy move running her hand through her hair that's sure to be talked about (by me) for years to come. Oh and a whole load of plot and drama doesn't get in the way of that like it did with lesbian cinema from the '90s. Finally, we have our priorities straight.
Notably, what does kick off the plot is a mysterious MacGuffin, a carefully selected suitcase of penises, so you know you're back in that '90s Pulp Fiction postmodern territory. Except, this time Ethan and Tricia completely reinvent cinema. It's a well-known quote, attributed to Godard, that for cinema, "all you need is a girl and a gun", but Ethan and Tricia in fact prove this to be wrong. As it turns out, all you need for cinema is a suitcase of dicks. Have that and you can propel the story in any direction you want to go in. So get that carved in the film text books along with Todorov, Checkov and all those other losers you hold so dearly when it comes to the concept of narrative cinema.
So in all of this light easy going cinema which is over and out in a brief 84 minute run time, is there any personality? Absolutely, Tricia's obviously adding her thing with all the horny lesbians on show that came to fuck. For those saying Qualley and Viswanathan have no chemistry, that's total nonsense. They contrast as characters but like come on the dude was the calming face of counterculture and Walter was an ex forces right wing violent lunatic. Opposites is chemistry, they can and do attract.
Qualley's character is overtly horny and confident, whereas Viswanathan the reserved quiet type gagging for a shagging. Also, those saying Viswanathan carries the movie and only addressing her performance don't understand how this kind of movie works. This game isn't about quality performances and never has been. Yeah, she's good and demonstrates her camp abilities with her excellent line reading when she gets flustered at an all-female orgy and wimps out to finish a book. But let's be clear, Margaret Qualley is the star here and there can be no discussion on this. That slick hand through the hair move, sorry.
Ethan's actually doing what I thought Joel normally does when they work together. As expected, Ethan turns the whole thing, that would typically back in the '60s have had a, no two ways about it, poor script merely doing its best to get from violent set piece to violent set pieces or from boob to boob, and turns it into a distinctively wordy piece with Slotnick and Wilson going all Carl and Gaer with their two goons. Ethan gets himself off to his own word play, enjoying the dialogue as much as the more visual and shocking elements of an exploitation film like when Tarantino put his own spin on carsploitation and slashers with Death Proof. Smoothing the gaps between the kicks and thrills, I'm all for it as long as you don't destroy the form.
As I said though, this is all to be expected from Ethan. My understanding of the Coen Collaboration is that Ethan is was always the more literary side of the two, providing the philosophy and Joel the more visually gifted and cinematically literate, hence he would go down as the director in the days when two directors couldn't be credited. However, Drive Away Dykes has all these unexpected surreal interludes that I thought were normally Joel's contribution. For example, the nude bouncing lady and scissor slicing in The Big Lebowski . Dykes has an instant classic of its own where a young Marian bounces on a trampoline too but then it goes into something like A Serious Man where with each jump we can see a little more over the fence and get a glimpse of a naked women sunbathing next door. Marian's first sexual awakening is dripping with sweaty sunbaked fresh fantasies to be decoded and belongs up there with the likes of Keoma, Wild Things and Duel in the Sun
9
There's always been that theory that the suitcase in Pulp Fiction represents rock'n'roll with its 666 combination but let it be known, it was Ethan Coen that made the link clearer with his acid influenced avant-garde day glo compositions, random gratuitous Miley Cyrus cameo and Maggot Brain that seep out the cases sides. The addition of George Clinton's mind melting Freudian apocalyptic magnum opus got a laugh out of my cinematic accompaniment for the evening, as the night before I was getting my black belt in kneeling at the altar and I might have decided to play that particular song. A move that was met with a shake of the head by my companion on the night in question, as it wasn't the first time one of her sexual partners had attempted to play Maggot Brain whilst donning the beard. Lack of originality aside, I hope I earned my black belt. Hey, this isn't the '60s anymore. The sexual revolution has come and gone. We've had the nudie cuties and we've had hardcore. Sex isn't necessarily a new thing but I think you'll agree we do need more of it in cinema. Overall score: 4.5/5
10
The Utterly Pointless Lou Bloomification of Road House
Ok, so Road House's leading man, let's focus on him. Between 2005 and 2014, Gyllenhaal was indisputably a reliable star, shying away from neither complex roles or popular entertainment. Whichever side he went, dark or light, Zodiac or Love and Other Drugs, the films were on the whole decent. Can't take this away from him. It seems Nightcrawler took too much of a toll on Jake mentally and he's been trying to shift the character's quirks from his performances for years. Despite a minor suggestion at a return to form with Nocturnal Animals , his role selection on the whole has been pretty poor over the last 10 years.
More recently, he's divided his time between two types of movies. Physically led roles that require no intellect, purely for the purpose of statues as he relies on the academies soft spot sympathies for redemption seeking boxers and the disabled (wimp behaviour). Alongside this, easy going comedies that require little effort. Whilst, his comedic chops can't quite match his romantic charms, I can appreciate his continued balance of light and serious to ensure both financial and critical success in a capitalist marker. A one for him, one for them policy.
What I can't tolerate is that the more challenging side to his work being in total decline. This is not what we agreed, Jake! His interests are no longer that of the outsider on the fringes of society but really dull and basic culturally bankrupt normie shit like UFC and Call of Duty. Begging the question of, where is that freak Jake Gyllenhaal? The odd fucker we grew up watching and loving. Sadly, the division between his roles (the art and the commerce) is becoming indistinguishable and not in a good way as both have a severe lack of depth. Even when he does gravitate towards his psychopaths they are far less interesting than they once were. Instead of being these fascinating characters ruining their families lives with their obsessive tendencies for criminal justice and compulsions for revenge, they have become these over the top caricatures, lacking any resemble to real people.
12
What am I to say of his co-star, UFC fighter Connor McGregor in his film debut? A man I utterly despise and repeatedly find annoying. Yet, he seems the only one at least displaying some vague awareness that he is in fact in a Road House movie. Getting his butt cheeks out for his entrance and chasing characters round manically so that both the good guys and bad guys are scared of him is all along the right lines. Still, don't take this as an endorsement or approval of his contribution. Let's not forget the original had Sam Elliot as the elder statesman, being challenged to fights and tossing off lines like, "well, I sure as hell ain't gonna show you my dick", before delivering dick punches. That's an unmatchable level of homoeroticism missing from this remake.
Doug Liman, step in to the ring, it's time for your beating. On what grounds, you ask? That would be the decision to include CGI effects for the fight scenes. Criminal and cowardly. Forever a flashy director and so this at first bizarre choice isn't a complete surprise. When it was the rave era, such gimmicks were appropriate as part of the aesthetic, hence why Swingers, Go and The Bourne Identity are all solid shooters. Breaking up the action and narrative was a decent stylistic choice back then as part of the postmodernism prevalent and dance inspiration. Every time he's attempted it since though has proved to be fatal. Jumper and Edge of Tomorrow are his science fiction efforts using similar tricks and are largely incomprehensible and head ache inducing with the plots suffering as a result. Now, he seems to think he can bring back his obnoxious visual gimmicks as part of the video game era. Sit back down, poltroon, we're on to you, your time is up.
Each blow in Road House is digitally assisted to ensure maximum cool. In actuality, the effect just takes you out of the action as they look like terrible video game cut scenes. Especially pointless when you have a real life UFC fighter as part of your crew and I'm sure Gyllenhaal has done enough action sequences by now to handle himself.
Part of the appeal of the original was the contrast in tone between the romantic comedy and the unexpectedly violent and well-choregraphed over the top kung fu from dancing king Patrick Swayzee. It combined a quotable mainstream crowd pleasing Howard Hawks type script with the loose violent exploitation fun of a hard talking ass kicking Hal Needham movie. This remake is inspired by nothing and nothing. Appeal and charm are non-existent. Look out, here goes another rushed flotsam and jetsam to wash on to the shores of streaming services.
About the only reason I would ever be sway(ze)ed by a Road House remake would be purely musical interest. There's little that could probably be added of substance so everything would just have to be a fun stylistic choice where you make the Road House your own personal hangout spot. For me, we're talking the blues. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James. Every night the numbers. Dancing and fighting. Cometh the moon, cometh the badass. Instead, we mostly get 'music plays in the background' type blandness. There's even some painful Post Malone songs (the bastard even gets a cameo). A real wasted opportunity to liven things up around here. About its only decent song choice is Cocktails summer banger Kokomo, producing the films single laugh for me, which was Jake Gyllenhaal casually driving a bunch of thugs he's just given a serious beating to the hospital in order to get medical attention.
From inception, I had a feeling this remake was going to a howler. Everything pointed towards that. Too many bad decisions. Therefore, I was surprised to see some people giving this a warm reception upon release. There will be those who try to defend it as some light silly fun worthy of a pass. I cannot share that sentiment because every new decision made strips this of the cheese and camp, reducing it to a dull and actually quite needlessly serious affair. Destroying the very movie you are trying to defend it as. So don't tell me to, "lighten up".
13
Everyone involved is far too in to what they're doing to find the humour in this. Even so with that method of putting competing macho men together, it doesn't accidentally become a parody of masculinity like Predator Let's remember, being stupid doesn't necessarily mean being self-aware. In today's day and age, this could have been updated to being Magic Mike XXL combined with The Raid and I'd have had a new favourite but unfortunately it's more like going for a pint in the Crossville, that infamous pub for the helpless who sit in quiet revolt away from society's passing gaze, reduced to the shadows, where they can hide from the consequences of their sins. Throughout this Road House's overly long 2 hour run time, I couldn't help but wonder, whys it so dead in here? Bell up the Coyote Ugly girls instead because Jake can't put on a show. The original Road House was a lively Friday night, this is more like a quiet Tuesday.
On this month's short story, we're taking you back to June 2019. The plane was to leave at 6:15 am, which meant we had to be up somewhere around 4am and so to get a full nights sleep we'd gone to bed just after 8pm. By we, I mean myself and my girlfriend at the time, who shall be referred to as Mary Harron. One of us was finding it easier to sleep and had been crashed out since lights out. It was now around 10pm and I was beginning to grow restless. There was plenty of tossing and turning going on with no such luck. This change in the sleeping hours was no good and I was completely unable to adjust and break our usual routine. On top of that a feeling I didn't understand and couldn't shake. After much debate, I decided to go back over to my place and join the boys who were in the midst of a late night card game. I turned off the bedside lamp and headed straight over.
Upon arrival, the guys were a little confused what I was doing there considering I had a flight to catch in a few hours. After mentioning that I couldn't sleep, they dealt me in on the next hand. Blackjack was the game of the evening, poker was too complicated after a few drinks and we lacked all the necessary equipment. We prevailed anyway though.
A few hours later, one of the guys girlfriends came down the stairs to fetch a glass of water. When they noticed me, they couldn't help but comment, "oh look, it's the boy who promises Paris and then takes you to Nice. A real charmer. A real ladies man". Hesitantly, I let out a little smile from the corner of my mouth. As much as I disliked the comment, I was not adverse to some comedy.
Nice had been picked for a reason. I'd been there as a child back in 2008, a good 11 years previously and I fell in love with the place. Silly street performers at all hours and a cool seaside breeze to escort you where ever you go. It was also the shooting location for some of the wonderful action movies I held dear growing up such as Ronin and The Transporter. Even Jean Vigo had a little travelogue on the place dating back to 1930.
We were also here to follow the women's world cup. I'd become enamoured with the idea of following a team internationally and what better time to support the women, who had under Phil Neville, developed a widely feared footballing side. Mary Harron was not a fan of football. Not even to support the women. That she made clear from the outset. In fact, she barely even seemed all that excited by the holiday. You'd think she was forcibly spending the next week at her grandma's, rather than visiting the stunning sun soaked French Riveiras.
Bill Mays dealt the next hand and asked, "is Mary excited about tomorrow?". "I don't know", was all I could answer. Far from a satisfying response, this led Bill in to a rant about Mary's mood over the last few weeks. She'd been arguing with anyone she could and when she couldn't argue, she moaned. Although, I hadn't said it aloud, I couldn't help avoiding the fact that something was definitely up. The red seas weren't thrashing against the fleshy barriers, no, this was something more than that. What had triggered it though was evading me.
14
Maybe I should have taken one of the boys with me on this one. This was to be my first holiday away with the girlfriend aged 22 and already the prospects didn't look good. Surely, it couldn't get any worse than the first lads holiday away aged 18, when we were exposed to drunken filthy Brits abroad constantly shitting, getting their dicks out in public and worst of all, playing that God awful EDM? For those wanting to know what the shallow 2010 partying scene looked like, see Spring Breakers for reference. I told Bill I'd keep an eye on it. He asked whether it was the right time for us to be going on holiday together. "I don't know", was all I could answer.
I finished my last beer around 2am and hovered back to Mary's place to get my head down for a couple of hours. My mind flickered back to an incident a few months ago that I was unable to recall first hand but knew its every detail due to Mary filling me in. Apparently, one night after seeing the boys and screening a double bill of Tango and Cash and Beverly Hills Cop, I'd become unruly and run over to Mary's for a late night screw. She says she found me outside her place with the neighbours bin screaming, "I've got your bin", over and over. After falling over, I picked myself and screamed so the whole neighbourhood could hear, "here comes Christ on crutches" I'm still unsure what I was trying to achieve with this act and why I was so thrilled to have a bin between my arms. I remember nothing of this event of course. I woke up in her bed with no memory. To make it worse, every time I woke up, about every half hour on the dot, I would ask with total beer fear, "how did I get here?". This really tested her patience.
I slipped in to bed next to Mary who was still away with the fairies and it suddenly dawned on me, we hadn't fucked in weeks, shit maybe months. Leaving me to wonder, was there any point to this relationship? It had grown out of a drunken slip of the fingers and it had come alive during men's world cup when Dua Lipa's One Kiss was being pumped out in to every beer garden in the country. The first 6 months had been pure pleasure. The last 6 months pure pain. Were the best times behind us? Always the back of the mind believes it'll spark again at some point but the reality was you had more chance of finding life on mars. None of this left me sad. None of this left me emotionless even. It only left me angry, at who or what remained a mystery.
No sooner did I crash, did the alarm bring me back to my surroundings. We picked up our pre-packed bags and headed to the airport. Mary was not up for conversation but that didn't matter because neither was I at such an early hour as this. At the airport, we quicky found a café and I bought us both breakfast. Still not much in the way of conversation but my attention had drifted towards a large orchestral band behind me who were currently playing Erik Satie's Gnossienne no.3 Hunched and looking over my shoulder, I stared in an existential stupor. "There's no time signatures", I mumbled. "What?", asked a confused Mary. "It's in free time. Gnossiennes, it was a piece by Erik Satie. Apparently, it's meant as a ritualistic dance to celebrate victory over the minotaur", I went on to explain. "Cool", said Mary unenthusiastically whilst digging in to her remaining mushrooms.
A brief plane ride later and we were in sunny France. Since the accommodation was a short tram ride away from the airport, we decided to stop off on the way for some lunch. Mary became a little more talkative when I discussed the finances for the trip. "I'm running low on funds at this point. I should be able to take care of things the first few days. Then maybe you can take over and pay for a few meals towards the second half of the week", I suggested. This small suggestion caused Mary to go ballistic. She aimed all her nuclear missiles at one target (your least favourite film critic) and launched an all-out attack that would have left even the mighty Godzilla briefly stunned. She couldn't for the life of her understand why she should have to pay for a single meal. When I reminded her who paid for the "entire fucking holiday", she let out an inaudible sound that could well have been a groan and decided to shut up again.
We were close to silence walking through old town until we reached our accommodation, a cosy romantic flat away from the tourists with a balcony, which caused us both to perk up slightly. Essentially, we were dealing with a one bedroom flat with a kitchen, bar area and toilet all arranged through air bnb.
15
The bed itself was actually a sofa bed but this didn't matter because we were more focused on the balcony that overlooked the entire city. During the afternoon, we had a mooch about without any strict plans and mainly sussed out the place. It was mostly the same with a few different street performers. When evening hit, we were lucky enough to find an Irish bar.
I couldn't put my finger on why I found the bar lady very fuckable. Attractive, I was unsure but very fuckable. For the life of me, I couldn't figure why I was so drawn to this woman. As though she would take all my problems away. A thought washed over me that life would be better if only I could sleep with this fine Irish woman. Has anyone else felt this way? But here I was, a prisoner to my own urges. Was it her confidence behind the bar? Was it her Irish accent? Maybe a combination of both. Either way, I was horny.
Before I could work out the reason for my attraction to the fraulein, two drunken men were arguing at the bar. Every few seconds, a man would loudly break in to singing Elvis Costello's She and the other man would demand he stop or fists would be thrown. Apologies would be made, they'd go back to normal regular conversation and then all of a sudden the Costello fan would get straight back to it annoying his drinking companion once again. No fists were thrown but the atmosphere remained intense. Later, we found a bar called, 'Back Street Crawler', providing some live music. A half decent singer was making their way through Dionne Warwick's Walk On By and I was on about pint number 6 doing some serious dissociating. That's when a Jazz band caught my attention.
They played Coltrane's Every Time We Say Goodbye beautifully with every note clashing and sounding like a brand new piece. Familiar and yet totally different. They were called the Clive Carter Quintet and they captured my interest. Jazz was relatively new to me at this point. I knew the main players but I needed to know more about the game. I'd have spent the rest of the night talking with the Jazz men but after a couple more numbers that girlfriend of mine was asking to be taken back to the flat as she was too drunk to stand. Another time Jazz men, I thought before slipping out the back door.
My awakening was far from peaceful. I realised we'd overslept and it was the first Lionesses game today. On top of that, I had no clue how to make it to the stadium. This caused a great deal of arguments between Mary and myself. Not a problem, I blocked her out playing Mingus's Boogie Stop Shuffle in my head on repeat. Perhaps, I should have checked where the bus was meant to pick us up from, perhaps a lot of things. It didn't change the fact we were late.
An expensive taxi ride around town was the only option. This may have caused further arguments. Mary's jaw went full Stallone and looked like it was about to fall off. A freakish image that I erased from my mind by thinking about Charles Mingus. A phenomenal musician, often unfairly left out of the conversation due to the likes of genre power houses Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Did he really write the theme song to the '60s Spiderman TV show? Listen bud, he's got radioactive blood! Snapping back to reality, I notice we have arrived at the stadium and hectically stumble out the taxi.
At the game, things took an unexpected turn: Mary and I were beginning to get on again. Personally, I'd put this down to the 2 pint cups they were serving round the stadium. These massive cups filled to the brim with beer had put us in a merry mood and we cheered on the Lionesses as they raced to victory. Pint after pint, goal after goal, we championed our women. The Stranglers Peaches was pumping through the ground and in between chanting Nikita Paris's name we sang along. Afterwards, we managed to find our bus back to town and I made a mental note of the stop for next time. Since things were looking good between us, I let my hands run wild, slipping them under Mary's dress. When my hands were brushed away, that's when I knew something was definitely up (and not just my beef whistle).
I threw question after question like an amateur detective. "How long have you felt this way?". "Did I do something wrong?" "Are we finished?" "Has the spark died?"
16
Each answer was met with reassurance that it wasn't me and just something that was going on with her at the moment. One where she needed to figure some things out. This was all bullshit of course, the real truth would come months later under heavy anger and contempt, when we would realise we had wasted our time together and she would rattle off faults that could fill the pages of a lengthy novel. For now, it was decided that it was nothing to do with me. As this was the case and in my mind at least, we'd pretty much broken up, I made a move towards the door and said that I was going for a "stroll to clear the head". She placed herself in front of the door, grabbed my arms and told me I couldn't leave. This baffled me greatly, she'd arguably exited our relationship and I couldn't leave the room. Had I become her prisoner? Was this holiday a mistake?
Days go by like a Linklater horror movie. We're waking and arguing through the streets of Nice. Accusing one another of being cold and calculated. Both avoiding the fools we had been. In the abrupt moments of silence between the conversations Theme De Camille fills my ears but not the sweet Georges Delerue version that you can hum yourself to sleep with. The one with John Zorn's piercing saxophone that is enough to ruin any ones day. I feel very much alone. I bury my head in books, sat on the pathetic pebble beach, losing myself in every page, wanting to be anywhere but here.
To distract myself, I check up on my paternity test results. Yes, amongst all this chaos and chance-medley, I was meant to be finding out whether a one night stand before Mary had resulted in a child for which I was the father. The test was done weeks ago and I had still not been sent the outcome. Digging amongst my spam folder, I found my answer: 99.9% DNA match, only Steve Jobs would deny it, this child miles and miles away was mine. I was a father.
Truthfully, I should have known the moment the child saw the opening credits of Pulp Fiction and started dancing to Dick Dale and his Del Tones surf rock classic Miserlou in his tighty white Huggies that kid was mine. The dude couldn't even walk properly yet but as if possessed he shuffled his way across the living room floor like he was Johnny Travolta. I almost destroyed the test kit then and there, it was useless. "So?", asked Mary. "He's mine. I'm a father", I stated. "What happens now?", she returned. "Now things are different. Can't avoid it any longer. There are things I said I would do if it came back this way. Things I had to do. There's no excuse. When I get back things will be different", I said. When I got back home things would have to change but for now me and Mary...
With the drop of the sun in the evenings, we would make our way to the Irish bar, where we sat in silence, a couple of drinks separating us and I would occasionally glance over at the bar lady. At every opportunity, I excused myself from Mary's company either to celebrate palm Sunday in the shower thinking of the bar lady or walked in to the shops to browse the deli sections and buy big baguettes whilst listening to Serge Gainsbourg. I was a spy on a mission, blending in with the locals and building up intelligence on a mysterious Irish lady. Emotional cheating? Perhaps, but as far as I was concerned things were all but over and the words had come from her mouth.
About the only thing that got Mary and I close to a truce was the news that a friend of ours, Seven Foot Steve, had gone missing and could possibly be dead. We were distracted by the safety of the missing giant who we wished more than ever would return home. We both wanted updates on the manhunt that was currently taking place back in Sheffield and so passed on information back and forth. More drama and this, as I kept telling myself, was supposed to be a vacation.
17
One afternoon, I drifted out to see, leaving Mary back on shore reading her book. I lay flat on my back, admiring the full coast of the French Riveiras. Suddenly, it all began to hit. Here was my first serious girlfriend, one year in, no weekend romance, looking all depressed and moody sat about 200 metres from me, on our first vacation away bought through my first proper job and I was officially a father now. That's when the controversial question struck: is this it? Is this the way it's to be? Was this what I left the bliss of childhood for? Working nearly every day of the year just to afford a couple of weeks away on a beach that looks the same as any other with a wife that fucking hates me? Forgive me for wanting the exit button on this life.
The order was all wrong. Too much working, not enough pleasure. Just another victim of hyper capitalism. I wanted to dedicate my life to the arts, to self-discovery and pleasure. To inspire others to do the same. To find the joys in living. Why was the majority of my time spent affording my own existence and not enjoying it? I should have been setting my own missions, searching for the meaning or reason behind it all and not imprisoned by my lack of financial security and given pointless orders that benefit no-one.
Working to the point of exhaustion, so that any free time was spent lazing about never developing any talents or truly learning about the self. What kind of life was that? The moon would continue its pull, the tides would go back and forth a few times and I'd be here in another sea in another part of the world in a year's time. I saw the future and I didn't like it much. Had I been on top of an adequately large building at that point in time, I hate to confess, I'd have probably jumped off. This place didn't even have the sand to build castles, how's that for Nietzsche on the beach?
In my near suicidal desperation, I decided that night to sneak out the flat, which had thanks to my girlfriend now become my cell and let my long restricted impulses run wild in the town of Nice. This led me back to the late night Jazz bar Back Street Crawler. I had to see the Clive Carter Quintet performing once more. Sure enough they were on again tonight as if predestined. I ordered a whiskey highball and took my seat in eager anticipation. They could have just started or been 3 hours in to performing Alice Coltrane's ShivaLoka. I don't think anyone knew. It was hard to tell, I was in a trance.
A wonky man with a pencil tash looking somewhere between David Arquette and David Schwimmer drifted over to my table introducing himself as Artie Pinkstiff. "They play so great don't they?", said Artie. I nodded and took another sip of my drink. "I come here all the time and they just take my breath away. Been coming for years. Originally I'm from Thousand Oaks, California. But I ain't been back there in a while. Came over here for vacation and just never left. Well, I was in between for a few years then I got a property out here. Now I'm a resident and a frequenter of the Back Street Crawler", added Artie. "Cool", I threw back.
Artie addressed the the history of the Clive Carter Quintet as the group themselves were in the middle of rendition of Mingus's Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting "He's from Mississippi. Grew up in a poor family but he had a natural talent for the tenor sax. From the age of 6 he was his family's main earner. By 10 he mastered the soprano sax. By his 20s he was bored. He'd played everywhere in his state and it had all come routine and boring. So he went and studied the greats. Davis, Coltrane, Mingus, Coleman, Sanders, Blakey, Armstrong. He became obsessed with this one guy, a legend in his eyes, sort of like an unsung hero called Slade Lee Pemberton. Yeah, he wanted to play just like him. If Slade went for an unusual chord changes out of nowhere, so did Clive. If Slade announced he was Hindu, so was Clive. Where ever Slade had been, Clive wanted to go", explained Artie.
18
Together we got drunk 'til the early hours discussing old jazz records and long forgotten cocktails. He told me he could get me talking with Clive Carter but that I was not to ask about Slade Lee Pemberton. "Why?", I asked. "Slade Lee Pemberton is a black hole. A waste of time. At best the collected tales of several Jazz artists. The final ramblings of a mad man. I shouldn't have mentioned it. Forget it", said Artie. I didn't say any more on the matter but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't itching to know more about this Slade Lee Pemberton character. At 5am, looking rather drunk and out of it, I stumbled back in to my flat, collapsing down in the cold space next to Mary.
The next day, Mary and I went on a walk, we were barely talking still but I felt rejuvenated in some way. Back to my old self. I held a secret she didn't know about and it felt great. Good times could be had that didn't involve her. in a whirl of joy, I entered a search on Spotify, "Slade Lee Pemberton" and was beyond disappointed to see nothing come up. Out of nowhere, the sudden thought came to me, what if last night wasn't real? What if I had dreamt the events of the Back Street Crawler?. Not possible, I refused to believe it was all a fantasy. It was too real.
As we made our way through the markets, I spotted him. Artie Pinkstiff was walking down some steps not too far away and heading in my direction sending a jolt down my spine. He couldn't be here. Not whilst she was here. This was two separate worlds I'd created. A paradise and a hell. They could not merge. I was having a brief but passionate affair with Jazz. She had me now. My girlfriend could not know about this. Luckily, Mary said she wanted to get some ice cream just in time preventing the imminent disaster. I told her I'd wait over by the tables and chairs. Artie plonked himself down in the available chair opposite. He asked me whether I'd be back tonight. I would. Having gotten all he came for, Artie waltzed off back to where ever he spent his sunny afternoons in the French Riveiras and left me with the devil herself. I was counting every second until I would return to the Back Street Crawler.
Upon hearing a single note from Mary's snout that would indicate she had reached the snoring stage, I climbed out of bed and back in to my best clothes. My wallet still had a few notes left. I counted the number of highballs that could be bought and as I did headed down to the Back Street Crawler, I could taste them on my tongue. Artie and I knocked back about 7 or 8 of them listening to Clive's set.
Afterwards, Artie asked if I wanted to speak to Clive. Of course I did, how could I say no? When the music finished, Artie led me to a table in the back where the band were sitting and smoking cigars. A waiter pulled back a chair opposite Clive and I nervously sat down. "Do you play?", asked Clive. "No", I answered. You don't lie to a man like this. "If you could play, who would you play like?", enquired Clive. "Ornette Coleman", was the first name to come to my head. Clive leaned back in his chair, hummed the opening notes of Lonely Woman and followed up with, "Ohhh, a man after my own heart"
Clive went on to explain his theories of Jazz. "The freer the jazz, the freer the person. And we must be free", stated Clive Carter. "Do you like spiritual?", he asked. "I think so", I mumbled. "Think so?", Clive threw back with a laugh. "Well, I dunno. Alice is alright I guess. And I'm not saying I dislike Sanders but you know The Creator Has a Master Plan? What's with all the fucking yodelling? Really takes me out of anything it's trying to achieve. Doesn't help either that it's just A Love Supreme rip off in many ways", I rambled on. "Not afraid to speak your mind, I see. Even if you could be wrong", said a smiling Clive Carter. "Well, I'm sure there are merits to that album that you know about that I could only dream of understanding", I replied.
19
Instead of addressing the comment directly, Clive went in to a more general comment with, "you know what I love most with Jazz? More than any other genre in existence? Jazz is constantly evolving. Always in motion, never static. Don't get me wrong, every genre changes with time. Every new generation puts something of themselves in to music. But Jazz evolves note to note. It's never the same. He plays a few notes like da da da da. Then you come in with your thing like de de de de de. A dialogue of the soul. It's all improvisation. That's the true human spirit. There and then. No strict planning 'til it becomes mechanical. Purely from the heart. Whatever you want to say, you say it. No searching for words in the thesaurus, only the true meaning as you intended. From internal to external. No compromise. Translated from mind to music"
"No two nights are the same. We get up one night play a song, tomorrow it sounds completely different. Most other genres have boundaries. Walls. They've been pigeon holed. They exist. Jazz does not exist. That's why it cannot be explained what it is. Every time you unpack your instruments, you're creating it for the first time. Trying to speak it in to existence like God himself. This is why Jazz cannot die because it has not lived. There has been Jazz as long as there have been musical recordings and there will be Jazz when my sons are sitting on Saturn"
After he had finished speaking, Clive nodded at a waiter like a common ritual. He rolled up his own sleeve as the waiter administered his nightly dose of heroin. He caught the eyes of a friend going past the window. He waved over and the friend came in the room. They talked about the set from the evening. The friend was very complimentary but Clive kept downplaying his performance and saying it was nothing in comparison with what Slade Lee Pemberton used to be able to do. The friend said everyone's a fraud if you measure that way. Clive laughed. When the friend left, I asked Clive the question: "Who is Slade Lee Pemberton?" Artie Pinkstiff looked in my direction and shook his head.
"Slade Lee Pemberton is a ghost. A long meandering story filled with red herrings and conflicting facts for old Jazz nuts like myself to get lost in after dark. Sharing tales true and false round the campfire. Trying to piece an image together of a man who once was", said Clive. "I tried searching for him on Spotify this afternoon but couldn't find him", I said. "You won't find him on Spotify. You won't find him in no record shops either. Simply because there are no recordings of Slade Lee's work. Live or studio. Believe me I've tried looking. You won't even find a God Damn bootleg. Some say he's a government psyop, some say he never existed but I know he did because I saw him with my own two eyes", declared Clive. "Why have I never come across him in the Jazz history books? No Penguin, no nothing. Not a single mention", I pushed further.
"You want to know The Bittersweet Ballad of Slade Lee Pemberton? Well, listen up because I will tell you everything I know from the years of assembling the jigsaw that is Slade Lee Pemberton. Slade Lee was born in South Carolina. Parents are unknown. They say he came on a wave from the sea, drifting on to the shores of Myrtle Beach. In high school, he started out playing alto horn but soon switched to saxophone after hearing the music of Benny Carter. For his 18th birthday, he received his first alto saxophone. Night after night, whilst other kids his age were chasing girls, he was perfecting his playing. He practiced 25 hours a day often falling asleep with his instrument still in his mouth. If he received noise complaints from neighbours, he'd take the instrument out of his mouth and work on his fingering. Anything to be one of the greats".
20
"After completing school, he got his first job playing in a cocktail lounge in 1945. This didn't last long unfortunately because Uncle Sam came calling. Slade Lee was tipped off that if he enlisted for the navy, he could avoid being drafted by the army. So he went and signed up voluntarily. Training was over quickly and like many African Americans of his generation, he was shipped to Manana Barracks. Whilst in the navy, he joined the service men swing band. Although, he was never officially listed as being a member, only a guest performer, as not to get the attention of his superiors, who might not approve of his inclusion. He played loudly to silence the racist remarks and when he wasn't on stage performing, he worked his ass off in the kitchen to maintain its spotless condition"
"According to the records, Slade Lee Pemberton was discharged from the navy in 1946. Many believe this was the end of his military service and the start of his proper professional music career. One door closed and another opened. I don't believe this story. I believe in 1946, he was recruited by the CIA as a government assassin. The music was nothing other than a cover story. Why would he take such a job? Do you know how hard it is for a musician to get regular work? Around this time he may have had his first wife and kid to feed too. He'd play live in some random town in Korea and then boom in that same town a high ranking official would be murdered. It's all there you just have to connect the dots. Where ever he played, bodies went down. He blew on his saxophone and out came a hail of bullets".
"After a while, all the murder and bloodshed really got to him. He wanted out. "Too bad", said Allen Dulles, reminding him he was under contract and property of the CIA. So he focused on all he had, his music. His anger came through, he wanted to speak out and the only way he could do that was through his playing"
"He had to fight to get it all in there too. Sometimes what he was going for wouldn't work out in eight notes, sixteenth notes or even triplets so he had to resort to uneven groups like fives and sevens to get it all in. If anything was getting too routine, too formulaic, he'd tell band members to play like you don't know how to play. Play like an amateur. Find new ways, new sounds. Just do not. Do not, whatever you do, play like a regular with a set idea of what Jazz should be. Anyone who didn't follow this mantra was soon kicked out of the band. He wanted real, he wanted raw. Nothing perfected or set. Forever chasing perfection but never reaching it"
"During this period of the late '50s, he was prone to mania. Pushing performances to extremes. Dividing critics with his aggressive style of play. He had an idea but he couldn't quite perfect it. He wanted to abandon harmony based composition, tonality and fixed rhythm. He was unsure what to do with the complex chord changes that gave him his name. Frustrated at his failings to fully cement his idea to sound, he fell in to heroin and alcohol addiction as a result. In 1965, after an assignment in India, he had what he deemed a, 'spiritual awakening', through the discovery of Hinduism. He found God, a universal one and he would spend the rest of his days explaining and attempting to conjure him through his music"
"He called what he was doing, 'Free Jazz', as each note took him from the constraints of modern life and his CIA contract and into some state close to Parinirvana. Electric instruments were brought in, rattling the purists but finding new fans in the more malleable youth. Between 65-70 is generally referred to as his strongest period, where he invented all the sounds that would later influence Coltrane and Coleman".
21
"Davis said he rejected Slade Lee's ideas but I saw him at the back of a few shows watching closely. Studying the work of a master. Shows were very exclusive events. A poster would go up a few weeks prior, a friend in the loop would write to you and tell you where to be on a certain date. And you'd fly half way round the world. The CIA kept it all out the papers. No critics were allowed to document them. No cameras at the venues. That's why you will never hear about Slade Lee Pemberton in the history books"
"Pemberton disappeared towards the end of October 1970. As in went off the face of the Earth. His last sighting was a live performance on October 23rd in China. Rumours had gone round that he was dying since '68. He'd caught a disease and was living out his last numbered days. A friend and I flew out to China the minute we heard where it would be. And we never forgot it. Slade Lee howled in to his soprano saxophone like a mad banshee scribbling his last will and testament. Screeching out his final words. Drowning out the piano. His greatest performance that nobody would ever hear again. Scientifically no one would ever be able to explain it, nobody this sick could have played this well"
"Bum bum bum ba da bumm bumm ba da. Rmmmmm Rmmmm. The sounds from the streets trickled in, car engines revving, market stall sellers screaming and you couldn't tell what was ambient noise and what was the band's output. Sounds collided as one. It was Metal Machine Music before Metal Machine Music. It was more haunting than anything Penderecki had ever conceived. Nothing like this could have existed before. The rules of music had been rewritten. it took us 17 minutes to realise he was playing his most famous number. Anything that should have been familiar was an alien's interpretation of the familiar. Slade Lee darted about on stage, crashing in to the front row, spinning on the floor and all whilst bleeding from a cut to his neck. His fingers grew tired but he kept playing as if possessed. He continued on without a care in the world. The walls began to crack with all the intense playing. Pieces of the ceiling dropped on to the crowd. And still he kept playing"
"Iggy Pop was there, James Brown was there. The posters had billed it all wrong. This was not the death of Slade Lee Pemberton, this was death of music. Everyone was gathered in attendance like it was the front cover of Sgt Pepper. The end is Nye. The cry was clear: Apocalypse Now. When he reached the end of the song, he looked out at the crowd covered in debris and the irony of his life's work and mission hit him. He turned to the trumpet player and said the last words he would ever utter in public again, "I have not vocalised God, I have conjured the devil""
My mind was blown by The Bittersweet Ballad of Slade Lee Pemberton. Things did not improve for my head either when I was shown another room inside the Black Street Crawler. Clive Carter's story left me in shock unable to speak. In fact, he spoke before I could, asking what I knew about, "true freedom". I tried to give a clear and concise answer but it was obvious that I was stalling and stumbling. Clive put his hand up, gesturing me to stop and asked, "do you want to know what true freedom is?" "Yes", I said without hesitation and I was led to another room with a logo above the door that was a red and black circle with a letter, "U", inside. The secret room was referred to as "Ouiseau Libre" and Clive Carter introduced me to a group of men wearing long wigs and suits from another era, calling themselves something stupidly French like, "Libertinage Erudit"
What I saw in this room will forever stick with me. Electric Masada's At the Mountain of Madness was in full swing at high volume over the sound system. Everybody raised their glasses and then were invited to strip nude. Hot tubs arose from beneath the floor. Inside them were gagged and bound women like lambs ready for the slaughter. Some tried to detach themselves, others were frozen still. On the tables were a vast selection of weapons ranging from whips to swords. Tools of light sexual torture to first degree murder. All designs could be made a reality. Numbers wise, there was enough for one woman to each man but the men soon grew tired and only became interested in each other. I watched and stared from the sidelines unsure what was happening.
22
When I saw a man slice another man's cock off with a 17th century dagger and shove it down one of the girl's mouths, I knew it was time to leave. Like something out of a Wiley the Coyote cartoon sketch, I nearly fell on my face sprinting out of there. Sliding in next to Mary, I'd never been more grateful to make it back inside my cell. She'd never looked so good. She took one glance at my petrified face and asked where I'd been. Instead of revealing the tales of the evening, I grabbed her face and began kissing her passionately. She was eager too, when I slowly moved my hand across her breasts and down her stomach, she yanked my hand inside of her. We fucked like we never had before.
The next day I was much calmer. Telling myself I'd dreamed the events of the previous evening. Slade Lee Pemberton didn't exist. The Back Street Crawler didn't exist. The Ouiseau Libre didn't exist. None of it could have happened. I put on Miles Davis's In a Silent Way, rolled over flat on my front and laughed at the stupidity of it all. "What a load of fucking nonsense", I said to myself.
Later that day, Mary and I went through old town to find a place for lunch. She glanced over a menu in the window and that's when I spotted it over my shoulder. On the wall behind me was a red and black circle with a letter "U" inside. My eyes widened in horror. They'd found me or rather I'd found them. Someone was on to someone. The Naked Lunch soundtrack went round my head on repeat. Throughout the entire meal, I couldn't take my eyes off it. Either the sex cult was real or I'd seen the sign and it found its way into a dream. Just when I was about to convince myself of the latter, Artie Pinkstiff appeared in the distance and he was heading this way. Freaked out, I called over the waiter for the bill, pulled Mary's card arm to the reader, paid and darted towards the exit in about 3 solid motions. Mary was confused over my actions and said we needed to talk. She'd been saying this all through the meal but I hadn't really been listening. "Back at the flat. Back at the flat!", I kept saying. Jesus Mary, I had sex cults to deal with!
An absolutely awful sense of timing. Back at the flat I was no less relaxed, pacing up and down, checking every room and staring out across the balcony for snipers. Did these people have assassins? Were they that powerful? Damn, you've lost it man. Who said that? Mary went into her talk with, "I think we should form a truce" "Yes, yes a truce", I agreed whilst still checking every window opposite us for potential sex cult members. I'd have agreed to anything at that point in time. "For the few remaining days of this trip, we should behave like a couple", she went on. "Fine with me", I said giving her a thumbs up as I tore my eyes away momentarily from the invisible enemies.
"Then when we get back, we can have a 2 week trial separation", she suggested. "2 week trial separation, check, check", I threw back. She then reached for the TV remote and tried to find the channel for her favourite sitcom: Friends. This caused me to have my biggest freakout yet. Paranoia reached its peak. She was one of them wasn't she. She was Libertinage Erudit. Or maybe some counter programme. Here to bore me to tears for all eternity. Either way the television was part of her mind control games. Ready to suck me in and turn me in to one of Romero's zombies. I knew what was going on. Well fuck her, it wasn't going to work on me.
A genius idea came to me. I would pretend to be fooled by watching along but I wouldn't actually be watching, only looking like I was. Staring at the ground, then when she checks on me, nodding and giving a smile, reminding her that the show goes on without interruption. That I am behaving in accordance with that of an adult man wired in like the rest of them. For the remainder of the week, we mainly sat on the sofa watching Friends. I stared forwards in disgust like Jack Nicholson frozen in the snow at the end of The Shining. But every now and then I'd grin and look at my reflection in the window. They could never catch me. They would never know I was faking.
23
On the final day, we packed our things, boarded the plane and then got the train back to Sheffield. I helped Mary with her bags and unloaded them all in to her living room still pretending to play the game of cooperation. Working man. Boyfriend. Ordinary citizen. Once, the bags were all safely back in Mary's house, I picked up my bags, said, "goodbye" and headed out the front door with honest intentions ready to commence our two week trial separation. "Wait. Wait, what are you doing today?", Mary asked as she followed me out on to the street. "Erm, putting my things down back at mine. Treating myself to a good nap. Making myself a sandwich. Then maybe I'll go check in on the guys down at the pub", I said. She nodded and followed up with, "I'm not doing anything. Do you want to come and chill round mine for a bit. No need to shoot off so soon". "Yeah, sure", I said, walking back in to her house and shutting the door behind me. Frank Zappa's Willie the Pimp was playing on the kitchen speaker. Overall Score: 1.5/5
24
