This is Werner Herzog’s latest film about Brad (Michael Shannon), a man gone crazy after a trip in Peru where he say’s having met god.
This is the kind of movie that begins at the end and gives you the rest as an explanation.
The film starts when Brad has just killed his mother with a sword and is besieged in his house by the police under the supervision of detective Havenhurst (Willem Dafoe). His fiancée (Chloé Sevigny) and a friend (Udo Kier) arrive and start talking about the man’s recent past and strange attitude, as the movie and the flashbacks go on we understand more about the main character.
This movie has everything of a Werner Herzog flic, in it's awkwardness and the importance of madness in the story.
Herzog’s quirky and nervous filmmaking (peculiar camera angles, mobile shots…), and the opressing music convey perfectly the feelings of weirdness and craziness of the story and characters.
The actors all play very well.
An other awesome film by a great director.
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Monday, 23 August 2010
Krautrock
Krautrock designates German experimental music existing roughly between 1968 and 1977 (between the hippy era and punk).
At that time young germans wanted to do music that was completely German without any influence from other countries’ music (especially English and American rock), they also wanted to forget and break from recent past of the Second World War to make something new. So they started experimenting with new machines (synthesizers, occilators…) and even sometimes everyday objects (concrete mixer…) to make music. The idea was to make something new and experiment new ways of making music.
The main influence of krautrock was the French Musique Concrète (with Pierre Schaeffer), but also the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Both Musique Concrète and Stockhausen used real sounds (from animals, machines…) and organised them to make music.
Krautrock later influenced British synthpop and post-punk (partly thanks to young Richard Branson and his independant record label Virgin who ditributed krautrock bands in the UK). One of kraftwerks songs was used by Afrika Bambaataa in his song "Planet Rock".
Krautrock was mostly popular in France, Germany and the UK.
The most important krautrock bands were :
-Can
-Neu !
-Faust
-Amon Duul II
-Ash Ra Tempel
-Tangerine Dream
-Kraftwerk
-Harmonia
-Cluster
-Klaus Schulze
-The Organisation
-Popol Vuh
At that time young germans wanted to do music that was completely German without any influence from other countries’ music (especially English and American rock), they also wanted to forget and break from recent past of the Second World War to make something new. So they started experimenting with new machines (synthesizers, occilators…) and even sometimes everyday objects (concrete mixer…) to make music. The idea was to make something new and experiment new ways of making music.
The main influence of krautrock was the French Musique Concrète (with Pierre Schaeffer), but also the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Both Musique Concrète and Stockhausen used real sounds (from animals, machines…) and organised them to make music.
Krautrock later influenced British synthpop and post-punk (partly thanks to young Richard Branson and his independant record label Virgin who ditributed krautrock bands in the UK). One of kraftwerks songs was used by Afrika Bambaataa in his song "Planet Rock".
Krautrock was mostly popular in France, Germany and the UK.
The most important krautrock bands were :
-Can
-Neu !
-Faust
-Amon Duul II
-Ash Ra Tempel
-Tangerine Dream
-Kraftwerk
-Harmonia
-Cluster
-Klaus Schulze
-The Organisation
-Popol Vuh
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Manchester music scene
Basicaly, everything started on july 20th 1976 when the Sex Pistols gave a concert at the Manchester lesser free trade hall, that gig gave a lot of motivation to some spectators because they saw that anyone could do music, record an album and do concerts without having to practice an instrument or singing for years.
Punk bands like The Fall or The Buzzcocks appeared in Manchester around that time.
Joy Division, one of the best known Manchester bands was created partaly thanks to that concert because Peter Hook the bass player and Bernard Sumner the lead guitarits of Joy Division decided to form a band after going to that gig. They put an ad out for a singer, Ian Curtis responded and joined the group.
The band really started to do serious stuff in 1978 when they started to do gigs like first parts of The Buzzcocks or John Cooper Clark. They released an ep called ‘an ideal for living’ but the sound quality was quite bad.
The band wasn’t always called Joy Division, their first name was 'The Stiff Kittens' (an idea of The Buzzcocks manager) but they quickly changed to 'Warsaw', a reference to a David Bowie song. Then in mid-1978 they changed their name to 'Joy Division' to avoid confusion with another manchester band called Warsaw Pakt.
That same year Joy Division did their first apperance on the local tv channel Grenada tv, in a show presented by Tony Wilson who was an important figure at the time because he presented a lot of local bands in his show and helped some to become known, around the same time he created his label Factory Records which produced many local bands like Joy Division.
Joy Division recorded their first album "Unkown Pleasures" in 1979, and their 2nd in 1980: "Closer". Both albums were quite dark and gloomy, the songs often dealt with alienation, pressure, coldness, failure, despair... Closer had extremly dark lyrics because Ian Curtis was depressed (and the fact he suffered from severe seizures worsend his despair), he commited suicide on May 18th 1980 ath the age of 23.
After that sad event the remaining members of Joy Division formed New order, which encountered success in the 80’s.
The Smiths, another great Manchester band was created in 1982, they chose this name because it’s simplicity differenciated the band from other bands of the time that used complicated names like Original Manouvers in the Dark.
Their Songs mainly deal with every day life in the Manchester of the 80’s, with little hope and despair in the lyrics, but at the same time some songs were humerous, ironic and made fun of every day situations. A lot of people could identify to that and it made the strength of the band.
The band started to gain success in 1983 with the singles “this charming man” and “what difference does it make” (at the time they went on top of the pops and Morrissey sung with a bunch of flowers instead of the mike because he despised the fact that the show used playback instead of real singing).
In 1984 came out the first album: "The Smiths"
In 1985 came out "Meat is Murder"
In 1986 came out "The Queen is Dead" after several months delay because of legal disputes with the label. An exausting tour made tensions worse and the bass player Andy Rourke was fired for using heroin.
In 1987 "Strangeways Here we Come" is released. The groupe splits soon after, at the time there were many disputes between the band memebers, epecially between Johnny Marr and Morrissey who continued a solo career.
Other important Manchester bands of the 70's were:
-The Durutti Column
-A Certain Ratio
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s appeared what was called the ‘Madchester’ scene, it concerned bands like the Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets... There were major influences of the previous Manchester bands. It was also the beginning of clubbing with the Hacienda created by Tony Wilson. House music, baggy style and drugs (especially ecstasy) became more and more important. This period was dubbed “the second summer of love” in 1988-89 because of the great number of raves, free parties and drugs.
Other bands from Manchester apeared in the 1990’s like the Verve, Oasis, Nine Black Alps, Oceansize, the Longcut or Starsailor for example. John Mayall the Blues-Rock musician of the 1970’s also came from Manchester
Manchester is one of those great music scenes that gave us many wonderful bands, like Seattle that gave birth to Jimi Hendrix and the grunge scene of the 90’s with Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chaines...
Punk bands like The Fall or The Buzzcocks appeared in Manchester around that time.
Joy Division, one of the best known Manchester bands was created partaly thanks to that concert because Peter Hook the bass player and Bernard Sumner the lead guitarits of Joy Division decided to form a band after going to that gig. They put an ad out for a singer, Ian Curtis responded and joined the group.
The band really started to do serious stuff in 1978 when they started to do gigs like first parts of The Buzzcocks or John Cooper Clark. They released an ep called ‘an ideal for living’ but the sound quality was quite bad.
The band wasn’t always called Joy Division, their first name was 'The Stiff Kittens' (an idea of The Buzzcocks manager) but they quickly changed to 'Warsaw', a reference to a David Bowie song. Then in mid-1978 they changed their name to 'Joy Division' to avoid confusion with another manchester band called Warsaw Pakt.
That same year Joy Division did their first apperance on the local tv channel Grenada tv, in a show presented by Tony Wilson who was an important figure at the time because he presented a lot of local bands in his show and helped some to become known, around the same time he created his label Factory Records which produced many local bands like Joy Division.
Joy Division recorded their first album "Unkown Pleasures" in 1979, and their 2nd in 1980: "Closer". Both albums were quite dark and gloomy, the songs often dealt with alienation, pressure, coldness, failure, despair... Closer had extremly dark lyrics because Ian Curtis was depressed (and the fact he suffered from severe seizures worsend his despair), he commited suicide on May 18th 1980 ath the age of 23.
After that sad event the remaining members of Joy Division formed New order, which encountered success in the 80’s.
The Smiths, another great Manchester band was created in 1982, they chose this name because it’s simplicity differenciated the band from other bands of the time that used complicated names like Original Manouvers in the Dark.
Their Songs mainly deal with every day life in the Manchester of the 80’s, with little hope and despair in the lyrics, but at the same time some songs were humerous, ironic and made fun of every day situations. A lot of people could identify to that and it made the strength of the band.
The band started to gain success in 1983 with the singles “this charming man” and “what difference does it make” (at the time they went on top of the pops and Morrissey sung with a bunch of flowers instead of the mike because he despised the fact that the show used playback instead of real singing).
In 1984 came out the first album: "The Smiths"
In 1985 came out "Meat is Murder"
In 1986 came out "The Queen is Dead" after several months delay because of legal disputes with the label. An exausting tour made tensions worse and the bass player Andy Rourke was fired for using heroin.
In 1987 "Strangeways Here we Come" is released. The groupe splits soon after, at the time there were many disputes between the band memebers, epecially between Johnny Marr and Morrissey who continued a solo career.
Other important Manchester bands of the 70's were:
-The Durutti Column
-A Certain Ratio
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s appeared what was called the ‘Madchester’ scene, it concerned bands like the Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets... There were major influences of the previous Manchester bands. It was also the beginning of clubbing with the Hacienda created by Tony Wilson. House music, baggy style and drugs (especially ecstasy) became more and more important. This period was dubbed “the second summer of love” in 1988-89 because of the great number of raves, free parties and drugs.
Other bands from Manchester apeared in the 1990’s like the Verve, Oasis, Nine Black Alps, Oceansize, the Longcut or Starsailor for example. John Mayall the Blues-Rock musician of the 1970’s also came from Manchester
Manchester is one of those great music scenes that gave us many wonderful bands, like Seattle that gave birth to Jimi Hendrix and the grunge scene of the 90’s with Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chaines...
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog is a German director and actor born in 1942.
He is best known for Aguirre the wrath of god and Fitzcarraldo. his most notable films are (amongst many more):
-Signs of life
-Aguirre the wrath of god
-Heart of glass
-Fitzcarraldo
-The wild blue yonder
-Rescue dawn
-Grizzly Man
-Encouters at the end of the world
-The great ecstasy of woodcarver Steiner
-Lessons of Darkness
He did a great number of films both in fiction and documentaries. He also played in some films like Incident at loch ness (that i greatly recommend) or Julien donkey-boy.
The movies he makes generally depict madness in any form, and at the same time you are touched by the characters' madness as it is often harmless for others but destructive for themselves.
His documentaries are beautiful and are often made in a way that gives a mysterious feeling to what is filmed (through the images, the music and the director's monologue).
He recently did a remake of Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant.
Werner Herzog is one of my favorite directors and i recommend all his films.
He is best known for Aguirre the wrath of god and Fitzcarraldo. his most notable films are (amongst many more):
-Signs of life
-Aguirre the wrath of god
-Heart of glass
-Fitzcarraldo
-The wild blue yonder
-Rescue dawn
-Grizzly Man
-Encouters at the end of the world
-The great ecstasy of woodcarver Steiner
-Lessons of Darkness
He did a great number of films both in fiction and documentaries. He also played in some films like Incident at loch ness (that i greatly recommend) or Julien donkey-boy.
The movies he makes generally depict madness in any form, and at the same time you are touched by the characters' madness as it is often harmless for others but destructive for themselves.
His documentaries are beautiful and are often made in a way that gives a mysterious feeling to what is filmed (through the images, the music and the director's monologue).
He recently did a remake of Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant.
Werner Herzog is one of my favorite directors and i recommend all his films.
Youtube Channel and presentation
For those intrested, i also have a youtube channel where i review films and music:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MLJK21
In this blog i will mostly review music and movies, i will also write about other stuff from time to time.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MLJK21
In this blog i will mostly review music and movies, i will also write about other stuff from time to time.
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