From: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org (avalon-digest) To: avalon-digest@smoe.org Subject: avalon-digest V7 #71 Reply-To: avalon@smoe.org Sender: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk avalon-digest Wednesday, February 27 2002 Volume 07 : Number 071 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [AVALON] The nouvelle vague [Bahi ] Re: [AVALON] Hear 'Cruel' from Frantic ["thom.wallace" ] Re: [AVALON] Hat eating time. ["Simon Galloway" ] To leave the list, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon-digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 04:38:57 +0000 From: Bahi Subject: [AVALON] The nouvelle vague It's still the same old movie That's haunting me But which movie would that be? It's time for me to begin rambling incoherently about film titles. Something of this sort happens just once every year or two; subscribers who are new to it can rest assured that they may safely press without missing any news or contributions to any current Avalon thread. Roman Polanski is a very Ferry director, despite rather than because of his use or abuse of the song Slave to Love in the film Bitter Moon. (Polanski, Slave to Love, use, abuse, Bryan Ferry and Bitter Moon - that would make for an interesting thread one day but Frantic seems to have us all bound under its spell for now...) Polanski made a film called Frantic, almost a homage to Hitchcock and shot in Paris around the time that Ferry was recording Bjte Noire. It's a good film. Perhaps more interestingly, Frantic (the title of an unreleased Ferry song, too, say well informed subscribers) is also the English name chosen for a Louis Malle film, the original French title of which translates as Elevator to the Gallows. Its score is by Miles Davis and like its Polanski namesake, it also owes a little something to Hitchcock and is also shot in Paris. (There may even be a few Day for Night overtones here: like Frantic, Day for Night was *also* the English name chosen for a French film - in that case, La Nuit Amiricaine, by Frangois Truffaut.) Now to the mysterious unreleased album. Perhaps it was the other-worldly setting of the film Alphaville that made the use of its title such a surprise - especially for both an album *and* a song; it was so specific, more the sort of thing that you might have expected to find alluded to somewhere inside a Ferry album and not written on its cover. It was the title for a Jean-Luc Godard film based on a character from an English writer but... set in Paris but at the same time, a different planet, a Paris far in the future, with people slaves to technology and computers. (This is a song by a man who has spent years mixing in 56 track, who switched to digital disk recording hoping to save time - the naivety, the naivety - and having his computer programmers burn out. ;-) As a reference, Frantic is more open, more debatable and perhaps more in keeping with Bryan's previous approach, albeit one that seems to have almost run its course with the much bolder references that we hear in things like Hiroshima (inspired by a French film, dating from the same time as Frantic) and Alphaville. The plots of all these movies - Frantic (new and old) and Alphaville - - say a lot about the state of mind and the situation of a writer who chooses to refer to them. Perhaps this movie-as-song-title technique provides a way for a songwriter - a very guarded, almost shy songwriter - to express something obliquely that would be too obvious, facile or even distasteful to express directly. But that's yet another thread. We have Paris, Hitchcock influences, Malle, Truffaut and Godard - if that doesn't cue a frozen chime or two, direct your withered gaze this way, and reflect: The number of cinematic references in new Ferry songs seemed to be in decline at around the time of Avalon but has steadily grown again and perhaps now indicates not just a songwriting technique but an obsession, though a very welcome one. A Ferry song that borrows from film invariably benefits from it - its setting much richer and more detailed as a result of the glamorous celluloid imagery on loan - but also seems able to return the favour; I can't watch The 39 Steps, for example, without hearing the Ferry song of that name playing in my head and enjoying it all the more for that. (It's the Eno mix that I hear - but perhaps that's just *my* head.) B ___________________________________________________________________________ The subliminable footer says: To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 07:24:01 -0000 From: "thom.wallace" Subject: Re: [AVALON] Hear 'Cruel' from Frantic - ----- Original Message ----- From: "N. S. Koff" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 11:55 PM Subject: Re: [AVALON] Hear 'Cruel' from Frantic > Can we at least agree that *anything* w/o backup singers is better than > most everything *with* backup singers? Yes, maybe, perhaps, but then again. You can also contact me at: TomWallace@vivaroxymusic.com ___________________________________________________________________________ The subliminable footer says: To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 08:52:41 +0000 From: "Martin Stockman" Subject: Re: [AVALON] Bahi's search for answers Bahi I enjoyed both your posts yesterday. A lot of these cinema-related themes intertwine and I wonder if there is a single picture that we can draw from it all. I too took the concept of "homage" as the starting point, Polanski/Hitchcock, Ferry/All Things American. Your astute recognition of the European cinema references may dash this theory. One link in all this is Orson Welles. 39 Steps / Citizen Kane. The concept of auteur - first coined by Truffaut - has certainly been applied to Welles and I don't think its such a leap to employ the expression in relation to Bryan. The remaking, remodelling and reworking of songs, themes, refrains, even melodies. (One man's homage is another man's theft - unless it All Tomorrow's Parties and then its vandalism !) All these great European cineastes share(d) Bryan's obsession with Hollywood and would doubtless relate to the sentiments expressed in Can't Let Go. All moths to the Tinseltown flame. As for your questions about co-writing in the canon. The self-confessed writers block endured by Ferry in the early nineties is well documented. Although he found it fairly easy to knock out a tune he found it nigh impossible to write a decent line. I can only think that it was during this period that someone pointed him in the direction of Sarf London wordsmith Chris Difford. Quite barmy. Difford's extraordinary tales of domestic strife are a million miles from Ferry's internal landscapes. Squeeze's wonderful kitchen-sink operas would sit most uncomfortably within a Windswept or a San Simeon !! "Simon, can't write a bloody word, who's the best lyricist in England ?" "Chris Difford." "Okay lets get him crosstown to Olympia and see what he's got." I doubt this whim lasted more than an afternoon. Off the top of my head I'd say virtually all the lyrics have been penned by the Maestro when there's a co-writer credit, although I've often wondered if ~Rock Of Ages" might be an exception. Regards Martini ___________________________________________________________________________ The subliminable footer says: To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 00:21:04 -0800 (PST) From: Aleks Kocan Subject: Re: [AVALON] Concord 2001 - --- "N. S. Koff" wrote: > * I am delighted to offer "Concord Great" to the > world. If you want it, > this one's for trade only -- no B & Ps. What are "B&Ps"??????????? Aleks Yahoo! Greetings - Send FREE e-cards for every occasion! http://greetings.yahoo.com ___________________________________________________________________________ The subliminable footer says: To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 08:49:40 +0000 From: "Simon Galloway" Subject: Re: [AVALON] Hat eating time. >>> "ncjones.lewis2" 02/26 11:58 pm >>> > As for the hat eating bit...I choose a straw hat, easier to digest you see. And they have the same effect as bran flakes! Nice. SimonG (who should be working really hard right now...) ___________________________________________________________________________ The subliminable footer says: To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ End of avalon-digest V7 #71 *************************** ======================================================================== For further info, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info avalon-digest