Author: Esme Betamax

The Royal Road: GSFF Review

Esme Betamax | @betamaxer

In the run-up to Glasgow Short Film Festival’s online edition (17th – 23rd August) we have been treated to DIVE IN cinema. It’s a week of films curated by Africa in Motion, Alchemy Film & Arts, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Central Scotland Documentary Festival, Dardishi, GSFF, IberoDocs, LUX Scotland, Matchbox Cineclub, Scottish Queer International Film Festival, Screen Argyll and Take One Action.

My pick from this selection is The Royal Road by Jenni Olson. Screening five years after its initial release, it has a peculiar resonance with 2020. It is a diary of a road trip and a history lesson. Narrated by Olson, it is an account of self-discovery and self-reflection of a type common in the gay/queer community, and now popping up in the mainstream (Hannah Gadsby; Mae Martin). Olson cuts through the layers of history in San Francisco and the Royal Road (AKA El Camino Real), reflecting as she goes, and using cinema as her reference points. She likes to show her workings and provides multiple links to the history of the area on the film’s website, aware that her audience will likely want to dig a little deeper.

Everyone has some sense of what San Francisco is like. It has seeped into the common psyche through music, literature and film. But whether you draw inspiration from Armistead Maupin or The Grateful Dead, it’s cinema that does the heavy lifting.

Film locations are a funny beast. Some iconic: The Golden Gate Bridge in It Came from Beneath the Sea; some eerie: the former Sutro Baths in Harold & Maude; some pretending to be elsewhere altogether: San Francisco City Hall appears in Raiders of the Lost Ark as a DC government building. And many that all but the most dedicated fans would walk past without a second thought.

Olson seeks out corners of the landscape where there is beauty in the mundane, and captures them on 16mm to add to her collection. Sometimes they have significance to classic cinema. Other times they are simply a beautiful image. They are a visual accompaniment to her story of unrequited love. San Francisco is known to be densely populated, but these images are captured at quiet times, with sometimes only the slightest bit of movement captured. This is why The Royal Road feels connected to 2020 — urban space depopulated.

The Royal Road is nostalgic, and Jenni Olson has romantic tendencies. When that is paired with a fear of innovation, it can develop into conservatism. That’s when she brings in Tony Kushner. As the only point in the film when someone other than the director speaks—over halfway through—it feels striking. Olson refers to it as a “voiceover cameo”. It’s an excerpt from his lecture “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism with a Key to the Scriptures.” (City Arts & Lectures. San Francisco. 28 Apr. 1998). He warns of the perils of nostalgia, and she takes this very personally, as though he has exposed her. It’s a brilliant move to include his criticism and evaluate it. She realizes that although she has a deep love of the old, she does accept the certainty that the urban landscape will change over time. She no longer feels the need to fight it, because she has that piece of time and place preserved in her collection.

The landscape of “pure industrial beauty” never ceases to change, but for the most part, buildings outlive people, and that perspective shift sets the film’s tone. It’s reminiscent of Chris Ware’s Building Stories: people are fleeting but the building remains. The Royal Road is as much of a love letter to a place as it is a love letter to a person.

18th August 2020
Sheffield Doc Fest Features (Part 1)

Sheffield Doc Fest Features (Part 1): Keith Haring: Street Art Boy and The Vasulka Effect. Other features can be found at Sheffield Doc Fest Features (Part 2)

Esme Betamax | @betamaxer

Keith Haring: Street Art Boy

Keith Haring: Street Art Boy is a retelling of the artist’s short life as understood by his family, friends, and peers. It’s also told in his own words, amassed in his archive in the form of videos and voice recordings.

The director is Ben Anthony, known for Grenfell (2018) and 7/7: One Day in London (2012). Younger than Haring, and an ocean apart, nonetheless he grew up heavily influenced by Haring’s imagery. As the soundtrack unfolds it turns from Haring’s influences (The Monkees, The B-52s) to Anthony’s influences (Talking Heads, Davy DMX). It’s an eclectic and apposite accompaniment to Keith Haring’s visual style. Becoming an icon of the 1980s, the decade began as a time of freedom and discovery for Haring both artistically and personally.

Editor Paul Van Dyke’s quick cuts underline Haring’s high energy and opportunistic attitude, suggesting time is short. Even before the narrative turns to the AIDS epidemic, it’s clear that he had an impatience about him. But Keith Haring: Street Art Boy also reveals the depth of Haring’s character—a kind and thoughtful person who responded to his environment astutely. In one brief sound clip he sums up his work with a reference to Walter Benjamin: “[It is] art for the age of mechanical reproduction.”

The Vasulka Effect

The Vasulka Effect is a film by Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir, director of Svona Folk (1970-1985) , (a documentary about the rights of LGBTQ people in Iceland). It is a retrospective of the video art pioneers Woody and Steina Vasulka. They were early adopters of video, slotting into the New York art scene of the late 1960s, having relocated after meeting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

In New York from the 60s to the 70s, they were adjacent to the art world, always with one foot in, but often seen as ‘techies’ rather than ‘artists’. They crossed video and audio signals, which created new types of art and music. The Vasulkas founded The Kitchen in 1971. Serving as a studio and performance space for multimedia artists, The Kitchen was formed with inclusivity and collaboration at its heart. They wanted to create a space for experimentation in new media.

Woody and Steina explain that their artwork isn’t ever necessarily finished. Final pieces exist, for example Noisefields (1974) But their attitude is that it can all be reused and repurposed. They are always experimenting and inventing, unearthing treasure in the form of surplus military technology and their own enormous archive of footage. The art they create is a direct representation of their relationship, which itself is a type of feedback loop. Steina and Woody exist in a state of perpetual collaboration.

Appearing in Sheffield Doc Fest Rhyme & Rhythm Strand alongside Keith Haring Street Art Boy the curators have deftly juxtaposed two biographies with New York’s art scene as their nucleus. Twenty years their junior, Haring arrived in New York after Woody and Steina had decided to move further afield. His generation were immersed in video culture that the Vasulkas had pioneered, and it played no small part in propelling him to fame. It’s fascinating to watch these two documentaries as a double-bill, and to observe their similarities: How they create with urgency—artists in a constant state of play.

In contrast, we can see the results of fame and fortune. As Haring was thrust into the spotlight, enjoying celebrity, sex, drugs, money, but ultimately illness and untimely death, the Vasulkas continued for decades longer, flying under the radar. Their success is really a matter of perspective. They never stopped creating, which is crucial. Were they shunned by the art world or spared from it? Interesting that 2020 sees filmmakers inspired to make documentaries from both Haring’s and Vasulka’s archival footage. “Humankind is much more interested in archived past art than whatever is happening now” says Steina with a cheeky smile. Likely fully aware that there is only some truth in such a sweeping statement.

24th July 2020
Bring Down The Walls: Review

BRWC at Sheffield Doc Fest 2020: Bring Down the Walls

Esme Betamax | @betamaxer

Bring Down the Walls asks one question: How can we deconstruct the prison industrial complex? With prisoners numbering in their millions, the US has created a lucrative business model and a monster. Changes in police tactics and laws over the past 40 years have propped up a system that is heavily stacked against Black people.

Directed by artist and filmmaker Phil Collins, Bring Down the Walls is a multi-level project. He uses a former firehouse in Lower Manhattan as a community hub (school by day, dance club by night). Collins documents the stories that people share about prison, and the performances of formerly incarcerated DJs and singers. Collins’s previous projects share themes of music and overlooked people. This video, relating to his documentary Tomorrow Is Always Too Long (2014) gives you a sense of his motivation and interests.

Bring Down the Walls was filmed in two locations. The Firehouse, Engine Company 31, New York, in 2018, and Sing Sing Correctional Facility, New York in 2015. Correctional Facility. They don’t even call it a prison any more, and the power of language is one of the discussions you can hear at talks in the community. Collins’s decision to house the project in a firehouse is notable too–a public service dedicated to protecting people as the police are supposed to. (No one ever made a song called fuck the fire department)

There is no better time to talk about abolition, and Bring Down the Walls shows how these conversations can come about. It introduces concepts through the voices of people who have lived their lives in the shadow of the American penal system. With so many of them sharing stories of vulnerability, fear, and shame. This is a space where gay and trans People of Colour are able to speak openly about their trauma and find common ground.

The stories told in Bring Down the Walls are arresting, and necessary. They require reflection. In the context of the film they serve as an in-breath. The out-breath manifests in sequences filmed in the club, a pattern that repeats throughout the film.

Collins asserts that house music and politics are inextricably linked, originating in the late 70s, when this particular form of police brutality was on the rise. House music is at the core of the film, and it is a vital form of communication. They have produced a record, also called Bring Down the Walls. It is a double album of classic house tracks, covered by former inmates, and is available on Bandcamp. Bring Down the Walls is dedicated ‘In solidarity with the millions of human beings held in cages in US prisons and jails, and their communities and loved ones’

Watch the trailer here

19th July 2020
The Go-Go’s: Sheffield Doc Fest Review

BRWC is at Sheffield Doc Fest 2020 watching The Go-Go’s

Esme Betamax | @betamaxer

Director Alison Ellwood provides The Go-Go’s with a second chance to tell their story in full.

The Go-Go’s are the first all-female band to have a #1 album in the U.S. Forming in the late 70s, and bookended by The Runaways and The Bangles, their songs have hooks. Be prepared to have a couple of earworms after this.

Twenty years since the last documentary, the Go-Go’s have been reluctant to open up as they felt that VH1 did a bit of a hatchet job. They don’t look kindly on it for numerous reasons: Too negative, the tabloid style, a man’s perspective. The residual feeling from the VH1 documentary was that the girls were in over their heads or that women are simply not cut out for the rock n roll lifestyle. Ellwood’s new documentary counters that narrative with praise from members of The Specials, The Police, and I.R.S. label founder Miles Copeland. VH1 Behind The Music (2000) is available to watch here, complete with its cheesy voiceover.

The Go-Go’s bring up certain performances, notably their SNL appearance, as examples of their most debauched. However, with it being available online, Elwood chooses to leave out that footage and use photos instead. It’s a painfully slow performance. Like a drunk trying to pull up a zip. They get there in the end, but only through dogged perseverance. It’s more important to see the women laughing about it now.

The Go-Go’s (2020) is a compassionate film, thoughtfully arranged, in the same vein as The Punk Singer (2013). And as much as they try to distance themselves from the VH1 documentary, the simple fact is that the story remains the same: Charlotte Caffey was still a heroin addict; Belinda Carlisle would use anyone in the pursuit of fame; Gina Schock still wanted songwriting royalties for songs she didn’t write. Cutthroat in their ambition, jealous and bitter from betrayal, it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Carlisle proves to be the canniest of them all. Pulling the plug not long after Jane Wiedlin’s departure, and securing the Go-Go’s primary hitmaker Charlotte Caffey as songwriter for her solo career. Indeed, she’s the only one to continue at that level of fame. Lucky for Belinda someone else (Wiedlin’s replacement Paula Jean Brown) had stepped in and helped Caffey go to rehab in time.

Ellwood creates space for former members to speak, which gives the story a more rounded quality—not merely glossing over the past—and what comes out of it is a fondness for the LA punk scene of the late 70s. Although the Go-Go’s display greater or lesser degrees of regret about how they treated some people, there is no clear reconciliation with past members. Some of the emotions are still so raw for them recounting the difficult times, especially for their former manager Ginger Canzoneri. She invested everything in The Go-Go’s, including selling her belongings in order to get them on their UK tour. But, inevitably, their drive and determination for success meant her days as manager were numbered.

Caffey refers to The Go-Go’s as a marriage, and that’s what comes across. They are in each other’s lives for better or worse. The five have made peace with each other, if not with those they ditched along the way.

Alison Ellwood succeeds in putting the women at ease, partly through her experience (Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place, 2011, History of the Eagles, 2013, and simply because she is a woman. This is the documentary they wanted to make back in 2000. But they simply weren’t ready to tell a well rounded story then. In their 40s, the group was still too close to the chaos and drama of those formative years 1981-1985. Schock had sued the band only three years prior to its release, and Kathy Valentine was yet to file her lawsuit, so differences were far from being resolved.

The women are keen for people to understand that they have love and respect for each other. Now that they are in their 60s, and have put the lawsuits behind them, they have mellowed enough to look at the bigger picture. That in itself makes for better viewing.

The Go-Go’s is released on Showtime 1st August 2020. Alison Ellwood’s documentary Laurel Canyon, about the musicians and counterculture of the area in the 1960s and 70s, was released in two parts at the end of May 2020.

16th July 2020
Sheffield Doc Fest Shorts (Part 2)

Sheffield Doc Fest Shorts (Part 2). Esme Betamax | @betamaxer

Rhyme & Rhythm

Cinema meets sculpture, painting, dancing and drumming in this selection of short films from the Rhyme & Rhythm strand. From Croatia, Cuba, the UK and the USA, we immerse ourselves in the artistic expression of individuals and the joy of creative collaboration. The Sheffield Doc Fest Shorts programme serves to help us (re)discover artists from around the world, reminding us of the radical potential of the arts and the importance of collective cultural experiences and spaces.

Esme Betamax | @betamaxer

The Rhyme & Rhythm Shorts Programme includes 5 films, the first two of which are reviewed in Sheffield Doc Fest Shorts (Part 1). The rest are reviewed here:

Uproar

Diunis is the band leader of Rumba Morena, a nine-strong all women group. It’s an anomaly in Havana’s rigidly male Rumba tradition. Stemming from the Abakua religion, the men claim that the spirit of the drum (Ana) loses her power if women play it or even go near it. Diunis counters that it is simply down to “machismo”: The men don’t like the women to play.

It was not easy for Moe Najati to film Uproar in such an openly hostile atmosphere. Often their performances would be cancelled at short notice, or disrupted by people upset to see the group receiving any attention.

Najati gives a major proponent of the opposite view fair time to air his views on the matter, who wastes no time in backing up Diunis’s explanation that Rumba is traditionally highly misogynistic and homophobic. His reasons include his distaste for women wearing trousers, and that rumba is “profane”. He practically spits out the name Buena Vista Social Club, being offended as he is about their inclusivity.

Ultimately it’s heartening to hear from Diunis’s elderly father, who champions equality and encouraged her to follow her passion. His pride is palpable: “Cuban women are brave and capable people.”

The Business of Thought

Artists Space is an independent arts collective and gallery founded in 1972.

The Business of Thought demonstrates the passion and intensity required to create and maintain this type of environment. So often DIY arts collectives succumb to internal conflict or external forces (property developers). It is highly unusual for it to have survived, and thrived, for almost five decades.

The soundtrack is outstanding. It includes Arto Lindsay Trio, The Contortions, DNA, and Sonic Youth, all of whom performed at Artists Space over the years. It maps a line from No Wave, through Punk and Grunge and highlights the relationship that these genres are known to have with DIY art spaces. It has the potential to lead you down a musical rabbit hole, along with the likes of Brian Eno and Mars.

Director Sarah Pettengill chooses not to linger on any one aspect of Artists Space, which has seen several generations of artists call it home. Anti-establishment and not without controversy, a thorough history of Artists Space would require a change of pace. The Business of Thought is quickfire and multi-layered. It is impossible to take it all in in a single viewing. In using the raw materials she has—voiceover culled from 30 hours of archival cassette tape interviews over a 45 year period—this 11 minute film evokes the key to Artists Space: its spirit.

Material Bodies

What is a prosthetic limb? Is it a body part? A piece of clothing? An accessory? Director Dorothy Allen-Pickard puts this to a small group of people, all of whom have prosthetic limbs. Material Bodies is a short meditation on prostheses, the unique perspective of each person who has one, and the reception they have noticed from wider society: from fetishisation to pity.

Material Bodies is filmed in such a way as to emphasise abstract shapes. It offers a limited view of the subjects, with music, colour, and texture adding to this abstract visual.

The UK has a poor record when it comes to ableism, only seeing worth if Paralympic medals can be won. But Allen-Pickard’s 4 minute short does not speak in terms of value, simply a group of people saying “I exist”.

More Rhyme & Rhythm at Sheffield Doc Fest here.

14th July 2020