Pink Floyd's The Wall is an album, stage show and movie. You all probably know it. It's an album that keeps running into me, or I keep running into it even if it isn't one of my favourite albums. It follows me and re-appears through several key moments of life. It's not a perfect album. Don't get me wrong, it's a good album, just not flawless enough to get right up there in my personal canon. In my opinion Wish You Were Here is the best Floyd album, as its the last time the band was truly working together in the studio to craft a piece of aural art in a collaborative fashion. The cracks were showing but the machine was still working. After that it was all ego, money and the business and occasionally inspired art that comes with that. Roger Water's The Wall does manage to one of the more rewarding megalomaniac ego trips turned consumable entertainment. Its the larger media experience of The Wall, the imagery and the themes is what catapults it beyond the music (which is undoubtedly very good) found within. This experience is inseparable from the drawings, stage show and movie. Here's my little journey with Pink Floyd's The Wall.
I first became familiar with Roger Waters' narcissistic concept album as a child, listening to it via my Dad's music collection. I don't remember much from this listen, but I know I was already familiar with Another Brick In The Wall Part Two from the concert film Pulse which I'd rented out from time to time. I was probably between six and eight.
It wasn't until I got a tape copy of it around age ten that I fully delved further than Another Brick In The Wall Part II. To my ten year old mind however it was all a bit too much to handle. I love tracks like Mother now, they're great satirical folk/pop rock songs with a dark edge, but not something that did much for my adolescent mind. What I was really attracted to at this stage was the drawings and animations associated with The Wall. Growing up I often saw the animated clip from the Another Brick In The Wall segment of the school teacher crushing children through a meat grinder. The school teacher looked so nasty, the idea of crushing children into pulp left a huge impression on my young mind. I didn't get the symbolism behind the image, I was attracted to the sickening violence of the image. I would regularly walk past the VHS case at my local video store and stare at the image on the back, of the school teacher and also at the screaming face on the front. These were repulsive but at the same time attractive images.
Symbolism
Flash to me at 11 or 12 and it was now time for me to watch the film. Rented it on DVD yet this happened to coincide with me getting the flu. I was sick, already had a temperature and was having all the awful feverish dreams one associates with this kind of flu. Decided to watch The Wall in this state was not a good idea. My mum was definitely around to attempt to censor me, but I was stubborn. I didn't get past the trailer. Those dark three minutes of hammers, animated monsters, children's faces becoming those of identical ghosts, blood, religious symbolism and rock was enough for my young mind. I turned it off and went to bed, and would sat through no more of the film before returning the DVD. Following this, every time I went to the video store I would have to turn the case of The Wall around as I walked past it. I was truly bloody afraid of the screaming face on the front of it.
Soon the terror I initially felt upon watching The Wall became the very thing I appreciated about it. It took me a fair few months to again pluck up the courage to watch the film again, but when I finally did, I loved it. The film still disturbed me, in particular those ghostly masks on the school children, and the animated sequence to Goodbye Blue Sky, but it was the films disturbing yet elements that I now appreciated. The cluster-fuck of music, psychotic imagery, and the sometimes clashing contributions of Scarfe, Waters and Parker made for an awe-inspiring film experience. Like the album, the film contains its share of flaws, but these can be mostly overlooked and contribute partly to why the film is an interesting experience, such as the clashing live action/animation and musical elements. But the film certainly invaded my thoughts enough for me to come back to it frequent times over the next ten years. Most recently I watched it in preparation for seeing the Roger Water's The Wall stage show live in Auckland. This recent viewing once again reignited my appreciation of the film, as the music and images thrusted themselves upon my life a shotgun blast to the head. The riot of teenagers entering the fascist-like experience of the opening concert set to the tune of In The Flesh, the Jesus Christ pose of Bob Geldof during The Thin Ice, the dark anti-war animation accompanying Goodbye Blue Sky, the flower vagina fight and of course the marching hammers; the film experience felt as fresh and effective as it ever had. Apparently the making of the film wasn't an incredibly enjoyable time for any of the party's involved (Alan Parker particularly expressed his unhappiness during the films production). I guess sometimes a tense atmosphere creates the most interesting art.
Largely male perspective horrors litter the
film and stage show. Which is interesting
because a large proportion of the
audience were female.
Then finally, seeing The Wall live, In The Flesh in front of me; puppets, pyro, planes, projections, flying pigs and all, was the culmination of a saga lasting more than a decade, reaching back into early childhood memories of listening to Floyd for the first time and being exposed to graphic and inspiring images crafted for The Wall. Its not a show I ever expected to see live, it seemed so ambitious in its first live form that it seemed farthest thing from possible that Waters would decide to resurrect it. But he did, he brought the whole damn thing right to my home country. And I was there with my father, the man who introduced me to Pink Floyd as just a wee young lad. The music and the images were still as haunting and curious as ever, except seeing the school-teacher in fucking gigantic puppet size or watching the Gerald Scarfe animations projected on a wall covering an entire arena was a fully immersive experience, so much more so than listening to the album on vinyl or watch the film. Not that either of those experiences are to be scoffed at, as it is for those that I was introduced to this great, flaws and all, piece of modern contemporary art. Finally, my father and I got up and ran to the front for one of the final songs of the show, Run Like Hell. I'd like to say it somewhat echoed the riot of fans at the beginning of the film (though probably not as intense). Waters was right in front of us, and we were pretty sure he look and laughed as we crossed our arms in the marching hammer salute and thrusted them towards him. We partyed, to a work of art that had disturbed my little mind ten years earlier, in front of the very mind that created it in the first place.
Quite a good little journey really. Here's a video of that moment if anyone's interested.
The Wachowski sister co-directs with Tom Tykwer of Run Lola Run fame, the Wachowski brother co-writes with all three. More of a success than the failure it could have been if initial reviews and screenings are to go by, Rotten Tomatoes has already scored it a 74%, with 14 fresh reviews to 6 rotten, and given the potential this film had to completely polarize its audience that's a pretty good sign. The film is a sprawling epic, concerning how the actions of people throughout time impact the past, present and future. The film jumps from century to century, with the ensemble cast of Tom Hanks, Helle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Strurgess and Hugh Grant to name a few playing multiple characters, all who undergo changes depending on the period of time. Sounds like pretty complex stuff, the most ambitious film the Wachowski brothers have created since The Matrix and their most successful since the original it seems. Also looks like it returns to themes found within a lot of Tykwer's work, surrounding time, consequence, human relationships etc... Should be visually stunning and a thrilling ride, if a little over ambitious at times. But there's nothing wrong with that.
The Master New Zealand release date TBA
Paul Thomas Anderson's first film since There Will Be Blood will be great, no matter what your preference in film. Post World War II America provides the backdrop for a tale apparently inspired by scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard. Joaquin Pheonix plays a Naval veteran who is tantalized by a religious group called The Cause, the leader of which is played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The critics are raving, audiences are jizzing, its gonna be a good one. I'm hoping it will reinstall my faith in Hoffman as a good actor after watching The Boat That Rocked a few nights ago. That film sucked.
Looper New Zealand release date 27th September
Time travel thriller that sees Jason Gordon-Levittplays
Joe, a looper, who kills men sent by the mob from a future in which
time travel exists, yet is only available on the black market. The mob one day decides to close the loop, sending future Joe played by Bruce Willis back to be killed. Sounding kind of like The Terminator, giving off the vibe similiar to that of a Nolan thriller and featuring a director whose debut, Brick was as a modern noir comes, Looper has
so far recieved no bad reviews (out of 23) and looks likely to be a
spectacular event film. We don't get enough good time travel films, a
concept which is always a little difficult to pull off, so lets all
relish getting one as kick ass as this.
To The Wonder New Zealand release date TBA
Terrance Malick's next film and fastest follow up in history might very well be more difficult than The Tree of Life and stands the risk of appealing only to die hard Malick fans,but at the very least it's going to do something interesting with the language of cinema and for that I remain excited. Ben Afflick plays a committment hesitant man caught between a new love affair and the rekindling of an old one, in this tale set in Paris and the States. Initial reviews state of the lack of dialogue, the striking visuals and the subtle performances. Sounds like a good companion peice to Tree of Life. Unlike that film we won't have any massive excursions into the beginning of the universe, nor any CGI dinosaurs, but we have a unique cinematic investigation of love, fear and faith within human relationships. The film will probably make us work for it, but we don't always have to be passive spectators being guided along by the Hollywood machine eh?
Cosmopolis New Zealand release date 1st November
Ooohhhh yeah, Cronenburg's back with a brand new addition. Robert Pattinson plays Eric Packer, a Wall Street financial golden-boy who is ferried across NYC to get a haircut from his father's old barber, watching his monetary empire plummet during the course of the journey. Chaos meanwhile erupts around the city, imfringing upon Packer's virtual financial concerns. If the trailer is anything to go by the film looks to be a return to old-school Cronenbury weirdness. Maybe not the body horror, but it looks like there's going to be a lot of paranoia, some violence and probably some surreal imagery wrapped up in a plot obviously influenced by the contemporary political/global climate. It's already had a stateside release, and the reviews are mixed, but for fans of Cronenburg it should be an interesting watch.
Dredd New Zealand release date 21st September
Karl
Urban plays Judge Dredd in this film adaptation of the comic that
according to current US reviews - gets it right. Violent, stylish, with a
healthy dose of self-satire and humour 2012 is finally in for an action
blockbuster that will meet (or most likely excell) expectations. Fuck The Dark Knight Rises and Prometheus (Ok,
maybe not the former, but the latter can suck a fat one), this looks to
be the top Hollywood action release of the year. I was already curious,
given Urban's inclusion and also given the strength of the director
Pete Travis, who had previously helmed political thriller Endgame and docu-drama Omagh. Its usually a good sign when a director of a high budget, high concept action filmhas experience and perhaps intellect beyond that genre. Travis in this case looks like he's to Dredd what Paul Verhoeven was to Robocop.
