Arts Brand Upon the Brain!: No Love for the Locals
posted by on May 8 at 10:02 AM
I’ve bitched about this before , but this article by Dennis Lim in yesterday’s New York Times really rubbed salt into my tear ducts:
Two years ago Gregg Lachow, founder of the Film Company, a quixotic Seattle production outfit, invited him to make a film — any film — with the condition that he use a Seattle cast and crew. [Guy] Maddin and his writing partner George Toles dashed off a screenplay. The shoot lasted nine days. Within six weeks of the initial phone call he had a feature in the can.
(photo by Adam Weintraub)
The result was not just a film—it was an old-fashioned spectacle, a theatrical performance. As Lim describes it:
Conceived as a live spectacle without a pre-recorded soundtrack, it is also the closest he has come to a pure silent feature, not that purity is a pertinent concept in the case of the magpielike Mr. Maddin and his dense, crossbred melodramas.With “Brand Upon the Brain!” he tries to reinvent the silent movie as theatrical event. The film had its premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival with an orchestra, a singer (billed as a castrato), an interlocutor (a tradition derived from the Japanese art of benshi) and sound effects by Foley artists in lab coats.
After a few successful stagings—“Brand” was also presented at festivals in New York and Berlin and named one of the best films of 2006 by Manohla Dargis in The New York Times—Mr. Maddin is now taking his show on the road across America.
Where’s this grand tour headed, you ask? Fifteen shows in New York (with guest narrators like John Ashbery and Laurie Anderson, not to mention Lou Reed and Justin “Kiki” Bond), four in Chicago, one in San Francisco…
… and not a single one in Seattle.
And please don’t tell me the pale imitation print with a stupid recorded soundtrack is coming to the Egyptian on July 8, because the stupid film was—let’s return to the tape—“conceived as a live spectacle without a pre-recorded soundtrack”.
I want my castrato! I want my foley artists! I want somebody to pony up the cash and get this thing here immediately. SIFF, you’ve failed me. SIFF Cinema, you’ve failed me. Landmark, Northwest Film Forum, Town Hall, On the Boards, you’ve failed everyone in Seattle. Surely somebody could have made this happen.
What the fuck is the point of making movies in Seattle, Gregg Lachow, if you won’t even show them here? Not everyone has the luxury of jetting off to the Toronto International Film Festival to see the products of their fair city. I am deeply disappointed.
It's even got the wee Seiwerath ladies in it. And still no Seattle love???
WTF???!!!!!@#$#!@%!($%($#%#@!@#!
They filmed "Sleepless in Seattle" here and showed it here. I saw it 75 times. I love Meg Ryan, and the end always makes me cry.
And what about "Singles"? I swear that was about my life and the life of my friends. I'm the Bridget Fonda character and my boyfriend Todd is the Matt Dillon character. He plays in a band too!
This silent movie sounds kind of boring. I mean that was fine in the 1950's, but this is a new century. And I want to see some stars! Does it have any explosions or car chases? Todd is crazy about explosions and car chases.
I can't believe this isn't the gala premier at SIFF. This would get me off my lazy ass and spend the money to go see something (not directed by Quentin Tarrantino).
The show is incredibly expensive to put on. It's not on Gregg and the Film Company- they did their job. A real exhibitor with deep pockets needs to step up. SIFF is probably in the best position to stage the show as it should be presented, but they're not gonna. They've got the Anthony Hopkins retrospective to plan.
I'd rather watch this than Zoo.
Please don't throw anything at me, but I'm in New York and I'd like to see it...any details on screenings?
@6: http://www.branduponthebrain.com/
wow, cool, levislade!
I swear Guy maddin's film with Shelley Duvall at the Grand Illusion some ten years ago was my favorite for quite a long time. haven't thought about it in 4 years or so when i saw ads For the SIFF screening of his other/next? one, 'the lonliest night..without music"? something about drinking.
Hey Joey--it's at that theater on Second in the East Village at least, which is where I'm seeing it.
At some point in the future I think SIFF needs to do a retrospective of films shot in Seattle. Whether you think them crap or not, I can't help watching McQ or Cinderella Liberty when they are on the tube to see a pre-Kingdome Seattle, and see how sleazy First Avenue really was.
There are TWO PEOPLE in this town who are SERIOUSLY supporting independent film financially. They are the people who for the overwhelmingly large part funded 'Police Beat', 'Zoo', and 'Cthulhu'. In a town with 70,000 millionaires, there is NO ONE ELSE - we looked: it took us a year of searching high and low to raise the $1 million dollars it took to make 'Cthulhu', and now, with a world premiere scheduled at SIFF, we cannot even afford to apply what we learned at our test screening to the final cut. If we don't raise that money, the biggest, most high-profile feature to be made in this town will not be released at all. You're not alone, Annie, you're not alone.
Garrett: The Saddest Music in the World. Gorgeous, hilarious, wonderful film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366996/
last summer miranda july's site was about "assignments" aka doing something for the sake of doing something. i placed an ad in the craigslist platonic section in some funky script. and got One reasponse.
me and this woman hung out for awhile, going to a yoga class, having coffe near that eritrean restarant across from the park on yesler or jackson, and first meeting at Alki next to the mini-statue.
She took an amazing off the cuff the photo, not part of the assignments, neither of us submitted any of our few projects as far as I know.
i have not the photo, which is a drag, because I was delusionally convinced it could get in and win the venice Biennial. it featured a pink pony dropped standing stullen amongst beach people tugging lighting, staring to our backs aover the ruffled sSound, blippy thin myns in the diudstance.
i do, don't , shoot, just Checked My Pictures folder open window, of the other assignment. so about the saddest music, there was a ssignement about saddest songe, send in the msp#3, and i thought what the use.. i'll post pics usplaOad song neww etc in smalle emoderat amount to O VoX site in a minute or 5.
Vox link, any others Menmebers? i saw one Seattleite a fortnight befor elast holidays season, or after when did the sculpoture park open? she featured many nice pics.
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It won't let me do it correctly!!!1! DAMMIT!
Let me try.
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Yay!
Maybe the film stinks.
It's possible that if a film doesn't get programmed it's a criminal oversight on the part of several different organizations. But it's just as possible the film doesn't merit an exhibition.
@18: Uh, possibly. But Guy Maddin's track record includes Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary, The Saddest Music in the World, and Cowards Bend the Knee. The only one I mildly dislike is Cowards. Manohla Dargis, one of the best critics around (especially as regarding avant-garde shenanigans), put it on the top of her her top 10 list last year. And exhibitors are willing to play the cheaper version of the film, with the prerecorded soundtrack: It's coming to Landmark's Egyptian this summer. (If you don't live in Seattle, that's a huge theater.)
Even if it's not his best work, it definitely deserves to be seen. And I think Seattle would snap up tickets, even at $25-$30.
Hey Grant, how about the names and numbers of those TWO PEOPLE who support independent film financially? ;-)
Hey Grant, how about the names and numbers of those TWO PEOPLE who support independent film financially? ;-)
There's got to be a better way to finance independent filmmaking than begging rich people for money.
I'm confused. This whole silent film gag sounds exactly like Gregg Lachow's Silence!. Did they basically just apply the same production theme to a new movie?
hmm...
Does Brand Upon the Brain feature Tori Spelling raping a gay man?
Bless yr soul H.P., bless your soul..
Have you asked the local programmers about their foolish omission, Annie?
This is monumentally disappointing. The Saddest Music was a masterpiece. OK, I must respond to a couple of previous posts:
Judah (@23): there can only be one silent film performed with a live soundtrack made after the original death of silent film, and all the rest are "gags"? Did you just want to feel superior by dropping the Lachow reference and pooh-poohing BUTB? Please.
Mindy (@2): Are you retarded? 75? Bridget Fonda? 1950s? I have to believe this is a joke. Todd sounds dreamy, congrats.
Reg - "Gag" is a vernacular term relating to methodology. So, for example, there are many variations on the Spanish prisoner gag. I’m applying the term equally to two films that use similar methodology. They’re both using “the silent film gag.” And it was an honest question, along the lines of, “Hold on, doesn't Snatch basically use the same gag as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels?” The question implies a desire to be corrected: “Oh, no, this is totally different; this one’s got Brad Pitt in it.”
As far as your “superior” crack: no, fucknut, I wasn’t trying to be superior. I was honestly a little shocked (much as in the case of the Guy Ritchie thing) that Lachow would re-use the production method because it seems artistically lazy. Kind of like mimes.
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