Conversations Ep.6- Griffin & Freilich on Faces Places by Agnes Varda

This time we review a current film.  Our podcast producer over at Nolascape.org says:

Agnes Varda’s delicious Faces Places (Visages Villages) had a brief run in Zeitgeist, then two showings in the French Film Festival at the Prytania last month. It is available on Amazon download now, for purchase or rental. It is rewarding to see, a few times.

Henry and Jonathan discuss the chemistry between Agnes Varda, with Godard the last of the Nouvelle Vague, and JR – a small woman of 89 years and an active, wiry guy of about 35. JR has a short, high, square van decorated as a giant lens equipped with a photo booth and a printer – I think they are called giclée – that makes poster prints about three feet by five feet that roll out through a  long slot in the side of the van. There is a lot more to this film than the photo van, of course, but making the process immediate and participatory, it catalyzes the interaction. The people are photographed in the booth or in outside scenes, the posters printed and the pasting up done almost immediately with the participation of the subjects and the village. Not just images, the photos are part of an event.

Several of the Agnes Varda films mentioned in the Conversation are on Filmstruck: Murs Murs, Vagabond, Cleo from 5 to 7, La Pointe Courte and Le Bonheur. Filmstruck has 14 Varda films – so far.

I learn a lot from Henry and Jonathan’s discussions, but to get the blend of simplicity and complexity in Faces Places – the visual and emotional charm and challenge of the places, the rapport of JR, who is about 35, and Agnes who is 89, their travels, projects and creative cooperation, somehow mixing successfully with visual and verbal reference to their own works and styles – try to see it.

The podcast is available on iTunes.  Here...

Also directly from Nolascape- here...

Conversations- Griffin & Freilich discuss Morvern Callar (2002)

Another episode of our podcast on film.  This week we are discussing the Scottish film, Morvern Callar.  A fascinating film that you may not have come across.

The podcast feed is available on iTunes, but best through Nolascape.org

They host and produce the show.  There is a growing collection which you can find links to by scrolling down this page.

Happy March to you.

Film Conversations Ep4: 40 Guns w/ Henry Griffin and Jonathan Freilich

40 Guns is a very strange and interesting western by Sam Fuller.  Nolascape, who produces and hosts our show says this:

       What a film.

        I had never seen or even heard of it until Henry and Jonathan put it in the frame for a Conversation.
         

From one point of view, it can look like a collection of horse opera clichés. A pace or two to the side to let the light hit it from another angle, and it is Sophocles set against the unfinished clapboard fronts of a prairie pioneer town instead of the columns of a Mycenaean palace. Are the two bath scenes just non-sequitur comedy skits with cowboy song musical accompaniment, or are they choral interludes in a play of destiny?

Henry and Jonathan will figure it out.

Indeed we will...and do.  And, you should too.  Improve your film buffery...get into the new film buffet- CONVERSATIONS.

CONVERSATIONS 3: PODCAST- POPEYE W/ HENRY GRIFFIN AND JONATHAN FREILICH

In this installment of the cool new podcast on film hosted by Nolascape, Henry Griffin and Jonathan Freilich discuss Popeye, the incredibly unusual 1980 film, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall.  It's art, music, and classic iconography all around.

Nolascape says-

Popeye – an inspired selection for our movies series. It’s hard to think of an aspect of the art of film that is not superb in Popeye: a great director on top form directing superb actors, the sets, colors, sound, songs . . . but I should quiet down and let Henry and Jonathan tell you about it.

If you have seen Popeye, I am sure you will enjoy our NOLAscape movie duo drilling down into it. And if you haven’t, I hope they inspire you to get access to a copy and see what you have been missing.

 

The podcast and further links are here...

Conversations 2: Podcast- In The Mood For Love w/ Henry Griffin and Jonathan Freilich

Nolascape is hosting and producing  film heavy conversations by Professor Henry Griffin and the author of this site.  This one on a great movie by the singular director- Wong Kar Wai.  The film is just beautiful to look at, and there is far more beneath the surface...

Nolascape says-

In this episode Henry and Jonathan discuss In the Mood for Love. If you don’t know this film or the work of Chinese director Wong Kar-Wei, I would suggest diving in. In the Mood for Love is a visual and auditory feast that you can watch over and over, like you look at a great painting or statue again and again. Color, sound, image, movement, quiet passion, powerful emotion powerfully restrained – it’s special.

Suggestion from the amateur (me): think about the title again after you watch the film.

Some intro facts:

• Written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai (sometimes Kar-Wai Wong)

• Main actors: Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, Maggie Cheung,

• Locations: Hong Kong, Cambodia, Singapore.

• Release date: 2000

• Available on Filmstruck

Wong Kar Wai

Conversations: New podcast on 'Tetro', with Henry Griffin and Jonathan Freilich

Last week the great blog, Nolascape, starting putting up the first in a series of conversations on films with Professor Henry Griffin and the author of this site.  The first is about Francis Ford Coppola's film, Tetro, starring Vincent Gallo.  A great movie filmed in, and featuring Buenos Aires. The photography is striking as is the subject.

The relationship between film and sound is right in line with the fascinations that drive this website.  Loving film, we hope you will take a listen.  The conversations cover a lot of territory and contain much reflection on sound.  The podcasts are in a more focused than the meandering and exploratory conversations with musicians that are hosted here at Jonathan Freilich Presents, and suits the nature of the silver screened subject.  We have already recorded a few for nolascape, and there are many more to come.  We will let you know as they go up.

As usual ours are also on iTunes.  The conversations on film are as well.

Great things at UNO

It has been hard over the couple decades or more, since arriving in New Orleans, to find much if any dialogue about what is new and most up to date in contemporary music thinking, let alone having that dialogue opened up to the freshest minds around town.  It was invigorating this weekend to catch up on what Yotam Haber and Henry Griffin and others had been putting together for student composers at UNO.

Professor Yotam Haber is a very interesting composer who gets novel and beautiful compositions played all over the world.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcX1lfASmKc.  It is a great thing that UNO has a fellow of this capacity in its music program- which, especially on the jazz side has been excellent- but Yotam Haber offers things for a whole other musical direction to be available to a city that has not often seen the possibility of training or even exposure to things in these directions.  His enthusiasm and vitality for the subject is palpable, and clearly inspiring for the students whom he champions in a great way.

On Friday we played the film scores composed by Yotam Haber's students, live, along with silent movies selected by Henry Griffin and Laura Medina. Griffin is massively knowledgeable about film and had selected some of very wonderful key films from the silent era for the students to score.  A great deal of effort went in to getting these pieces played with a good degree of finesse, and that is a great opportunity for young composers- and essential if they are to keep developing  or gain confidence to keep writing.  It was clear that they had been given exposure to a plethora of interesting techniques and had made their own choices about what to use and, some of the results were quite interesting.

Saturday evening there was a concert of pieces by the students and also by Yotam Haber and another faculty member from Tulane.   

I was called in to play guitar with the Contemporaneous ensemble that Professor Haber had brought in from New York.  I have little experience or comfort in playing in such ensembles so it was humbling to be treated so well despite my own short comings, and I must add that the young players in contemporaneous, including their conductor, David Bloom, were also extremely generous in giving me pointers to help the event go off smoothly. Not to mention larger picture issues from my old friend, bassist Doug Therrion. It was all very interesting especially because I am usually in the composer's seat having a piece played, not usually doing the playing.  My strengths as a player are often in other directions, but it was nice to be given an opportunity try to find some way to contribute, given my limitations.  Fresh challenges in music are a good thing.

It seems that with all this going on we might see a healthy crop of fine composers develop out of New Orleans which is something that has been in short supply here, and something that could make a  fascinating musical town, even more so.

New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars at Jazzfest 2011

Someone managed to get this shot of film maker, Henry Griffin demonstrating his classic Ot Azoy dance backed up by Stanton Moore.  this is really Fresh Out The Past.  WWOZ even got involved in The Big Kibosh!  This was a truly memorable highlight from the three 20th anniversary shows.  Also on stage here are bass- Arthur Kastler; Saxophone-Ben Ellman; Accordion- Glenn Hartman, Fiddle-David Rebeck; guitar- yours truly!