The Catcher in the Sand

Imi plac programele de vara ale canalului franco-german de televiziune ARTE. Este acolo cineva in directia de programe care are aceleasi gusturi muzicale ca mine, care este fascinat de perioada muzicala a anilor 60, cea in care mi-am format gustul muzical cu urechea lipita de radioul din care se auzea vocea lui Cornel Chiriac si muzica pe care acesta o dezvaluia tinerilor din Romania acelor vremuri. Impreuna cu alte perle cum ar fi documentare despre Janis Joplin sau festivalurile pe insula Wight, am vazut acum documentarul lui Philip Priestley despre The British Blues Explosion.

(video source Radge1965)

Cumpana deceniilor 50 si 60 a insemnat o perioada de schimbare in viata Angliei. Daca anii 50 sunt dominati inca de greutatile perioadei postbelice si ale generatiei care a trecut razboiul, la inceputul anilor 60 se aproprie de maturitate o noua generatie care nu cunoscuse ororile si rigorile celor traite de parinti si care isi cauta identitatea si mijloacele de exprese. Una dintre sursele de inspiratie este muzica americana, in special rock si blues. Mari blusmen cum ar fi Howlin’ Wolf ajung in turneu in Anglia. In sala in care canta acesta s-a aflat in una dintre seri si un tanar pe nume Brian Jones. Greu de crezut pentru cine cunoaste Londra cosmopolita de astazi ca la inceputul anilor 60 existau doar doua magazine de muzica in capitala engleza care importau discuri cu muzica de blues sau jazz americana, si ca daca intalneai un adolescent intr-o statie de metro cu un disc de blues sub brat sanse bune era ca el sa fie Mick Jagger (asa s-au cunoscut zice filmul Brian Jones si Jagger, restul este istorie, adica istoria lui Rolling Stones).

(video source Hamish500000)

Influentele nu intarzie sa se vada. De la muzica comerciala grupurile de foarte tineri muzicieni englezi evolueaza spre repertoriul american. Iata-i pe The Animals preluand House of the Rising Sun.

(video source mariomartino82)

In anii 62-63 grupurile engleze care se orienteaza spre blues devin din ce in ce mai populare, incep sa domine scena cluburilor londoneze si sa faca turnee in toata Anglia. Se impun nu numai prin muzica, dar si printr-un stil de viata, vestimentatie, tunsoare care devin emblematice pentru intreaga lor generatie. Printre cele mai interesante grupuri ale perioadei se afla The Yardbirds, unde canta succesiv Eric Clapton, si apoi Jeff Beck si Jimmy Page.

(video source johngpayne)

Au fost desigur multe formatii interesante rivalitatea cea mai pronuntata a epocii este fara indoiala cea dintre Beatles si Rolling Stones. In iarna dintre 1962 si 1963 Beatles devin deja celebri, in timp ce Stonesii pregatesc in apartamentul din Chelsea al lui Brian Jones campania care in jumatate de an avea sa-i aduca la varful piramidei. Un an mai tarziu Rolling Stones pleaca in turneu in Statele Unite, dar si aici Beatlesii ii devansasera cu cateva luni. Valul de popularitate al rock-ului si blues-ului englez cucereste America, si paradoxal readuce in atentia publicului alb de pe noul continent muzica originala a negrilor care era marginalizata intr-o nisa in America inca incomplet segregata. Formatii precum The Animals folosesc ocazia turneelor lor pentru a-i cauta in orasele indepartate pe adevaratii si originalii bluesmen, pentru a invata de la ei si pentru a canta impreuna cu ei. Se poate spune ca revolutia muzicala engleza, a carei origini stau in blues-ul american se intoarce in America si contribuie la revolutia nu numai muzicala dar si sociala americana din a doua parte a anilor 60.

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Ultima secventa a filmului preia un fragment din concertul din Hyde Park al Rolling Stones-ilor din 1969. Multe se intamplasera cu Stones, printre care moartea tragica cu numai cateva zile in urma a fondatorului formatiei Brian Jones. Multe se intamplasera si in muzica si cultura intregii lumi. Generatia adolescentilor de la inceputul deceniilor isi impusese stilul muzical si de viata. Libertatea lor in a face muzica a germinat dorinta de libertate si schimbare sociala a generatiei de pe baricadele lui 1968 la Paris, Chicago si Praga. Muzica se schimbase si lumea se schimbase in urma ei.

I am watching the PBS documentary series The Jewish Americans which is for me a fascinating look into the complex history of the Jewish community in the United States, with all the fights for survival, the identity dilemmas, the achievements and the contributions to the overall evolution of the American society and culture. The episode I reached talks about the first decades of the 20th century, and it amazing to see how the situation of the Jews in the US by that time was similar or maybe worse then of their brothers in Europe. Henry Ford’s antisemitism was a model that Hitler mentioned with admiration in Mein Kampf, numerus clausus was limiting the number of Jewish students in the major American universities prior to WWII, and ‘no Jews and dogs allowed’ was a common and legal restriction in many hotels, restaurants or social institutions in many American states.

source www.pianoparadise.com

Two major figures drew my attention in this episode. One of them was born in Russia in 1888 as Israel Irvine Beilin one of the eight children of a cantor. The Jewish music that he heard as a child can be felt in many of the compositions of the man who came in America as a five years kid to become one of the greatest American composers under the name of Irving Berlin.

(video source heeter71)

Starting his career in the sizzling Jewish musical theater atmosphere of the Manhattan Low East End,  Berlin became known in a few years by his dance compositions which combined Jewish and black musical elements in the popular ragtime style of the epoch. E.L. Doctorow’s novel with this name Ragtime is a wonderful rendition of the period. What better musical illustration than Alexander’s Ragtime Band sang here by Judy Garland?

(video source TheEdSullivanShow)

By the time the United States entered World War I Berlin was famous. He was however conscripted, but did not see too much action beyond waking up his fellow soldiers at the sound of his trumpet. Yet, he had time to write a musical to raise the moral of the soldiers. One of the pieces written for the musical but not included in the representations was a song that was to be premiered later and sang first at the 20th anniversary of the armistice in 1938 – God Bless America. Here is Berlin (who lived 101 years) singing this second hymn of the United States at the Ed Sullivan Show.

Louis Brandeis - source www.hillyer.org

If Irving Berlin was born in a traditional Jewish family in Russia and made his way through the American cultural and social establishment becoming the model of the American composer, the second personality I met in the episode walked to a certain respect the opposite path. Born in a family of Jewish emigrants who came to America in the first half of the 19th century, Louis Brandeis was a secular Jew, who encountered little discrimination as a young and talented lawyer. His judicial skills and strong social beliefs made him famous as ‘the lawyer of the people’ and the cases he fought for contributed to the creation of the workplace rules, insurance and anti-monopoly legislation in the first decades of the 20th century. However, when president Wilson nominated him as the first judge of Jewish origin at the US Supreme Court, the nomination was a shock for the whole judicial and political white protestant establishment of the time. For years at least one of his colleagues at the Supreme Court did not greet him, referred to him with disdain and even boycotted the traditional annual photo opportunities of the High Court. As a Supreme Court judge Brandeis is remembered for his rulings in defense of the constitutional freedom of speech.

It is however his Zionist activity that makes him remarkable in my eyes. ‘The highest Jewish ideals are American’ Brandeis is quoted to have said, and he saw no contradiction in being a faithful American and at the same time a strong and open supporter of the rebirth of the Jewish nation and of the formation of a Jewish state. He was a leader of the Zionist Organization of America , contributed to the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, was part of the American delegation at the Peace Conference in Paris  and visited Palestine. The kibbutz Ein Hashofet (Spring of the Judge) is named after him.

Veteran documentary director Leslie Woodhead filmed on the British pop scene since the 60s. He starts ‘How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin’ by telling how he filmed the four boys in Liverpool in 1962. He did not stop here, catching The Stones in the Park on film in 1969. Then, triggered by the events in Prague in 1968 his attention shifted to the processes in Eastern Europe, to the repression and the hopes, the birth of the Solidarity movement in Poland and the changes that finally led to the fall of the wall in 1989. Lately he was in Srebenica and in Beslan,with the attention still focused in the same geographical space, to be witness to the horrors of the post-communist world. ‘How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin’ represents the merging of the passion of rock in the first years of his career with the long term obsession with the history of the last decades of the Communist era.

(video source LPBTV)

Woodhead’s thesis is striking and daring. He says that it is not merely the cold war enemies or the economic situation that led to the melting of the Soviet system, and it was not Gorbachev either. More than everything else it was the four boys from Liverpool, the culture of freedom and the influence they had on the young generations of Russia in the 60s and 70s.

(video source TRIESTEFILMFESTIVAL)

And let me say that I believe that for a large extent he is right. I have lived that period in Romania. I had the walls in my room filled with posters of my rock music idols. I was circulating vinyl music disks obtained on the black market and I was copying music on tapes. I was listening to foreign radio stations and especially to Radio Free Europe, where we, Romanian, had the chance to listen between 1969 to 1975 to the fabulous music that was broadcast by the legendary DJ and professor of rock and freedom who was Cornel Chiriac. I knew none of the people who were interviewed by Leslie Woodhead for the film – Artemy Troitsky, Kolya Vasin, Iury Pelyushonok – fans, musicians, DJs, but I knew their stories because this was the story of my whole generation, a generation which was taught freedom of thought and beauty and joy of life by the Beatles and the rock music that followed, which refused to live according to the rules imposed by the system, and which eventually, when it grew up helped tear down the system. And I do agree with Woodhead when he says (in other words, but this is the essence) that when thinking at the fall of the Soviet system ‘Yellow Submarine’ was more important than rockets, and Paul and John played a greater role than Reagan and Gorbachev.

Exaggerating? Just a bit.

(video source yanros)

In one of the final scenes of the film, in 2004, Paul McCartney eventually made it to Moscow and sang ‘Back in the USSR’ in the Red Square. People wept. The circle was closed. The Beatles had won the cold war. Cornel Chiriac was also there.

Director Nahid Persson is born in Iran, from a family who was actively opposed to the regime of the Shah. As a young Communist she was among the million of youth who cheered in the streets when the revolution broke and the Shah and his wife, empress Farah flew the country. Although they lived in the same country, the two women were separated by huge social and political differences, and for Nahid as for many Iranians the fairy tale lives of the royals had become the symbols of corruption and repression. Yet, soon after the revolution the dreams of democracy and of a better life proved to be illusions and Nahid and her family found themselves again on the side of the opposition, and eventually had to flew Iran.

(video source seventheart)

Thirty years after the revolution the Sweden-settled Persson looks back in this documentary to the time of the revolution, and tries and succeeds to meet the former empress, now living as a refugee, but a different kind of refugee, in order to understand not only what she has become, but also her own feelings towards a woman who decades ago symbolized for her evil, and now is living at least from some aspects a similar life of longing for the lost country. The film includes the interviews with Farah, and these are more or less what you can expect. The former empress is living the life of a high-class, jet-style refugee. Her views did not seem to have changed too much in the decades since the fall from power of the Shah. Neither does the director want to push too hard questions on her. These are asked a few time off-screen, but they seem to have been shared much more with the viewers of the film than with the subject of the interviews. Maybe it’s a sign of respect, or maybe it is the strong and fascinating personality of Farah who wins the heart of the director, or maybe the shared fate of the two women is more important than any other story told in the film. Made and issued to screens around the time when many other documentary films about the fall of the Shah and the Islamic revolution were made 30 years after the events, ‘The Queen and I’ is one of the more interesting, and the human story occupies a better place in this film than the political one.

It’s quite difficult to understand what Mercedes Stalenhoef and the Dutch film team that made this documentary intended to do or say. One year or so after Borat made the big splash and ran for the Oscars they went to the Romanian village of Glod (which means ‘mud’ in Romanian) apparently to make a film about the life of some anonymous girl whose problem in life is that she is 17 and not married (apparently the wedding age for girls in the village is 16 or so they say) and who dreams to run away from the place. The villagers remember well the team of ‘Borat’ and vaguely know that the film made it big (which in their terms means a few hundreds of thousands of dollars or Euros, the currency is unsure and does not really matter). Lawyers show up and a delegation is hathered to go to Hollywood and claim from Sacha Baron Cohen part of the money. Of course, they fail lamentably, they actually do not make it farther than London as nobody cared to get an US entry visa for them.

(video source DOXAFestival)

Several films could have been made based on this idea. One could have been an investigative film about the Hollywood team cheating and showing disrespect and especially underpaying the locals. However, they never get tough on the lawyers (besides having them speak an unspeakable dialog about Jews and Gipsies sharing fate) and they never give a chance to the team or studios who made ‘Borat’ to explain their case. They could have also presented the village in its true light, somehow compensate the damage made to the public image not only of Glod, but of the whole Eastern Europe space villages. They did not follow this track either, and the film is actually as disrespectful to the local culture and human nature of the inhabitants of the village as ‘Borat’ was. “Borat’ was however at least funny, it was satire, it played according to rules of humor and satire, here in the documentary style it just looks in many instances rude. It also could have been the human story of the young girl in a remote corner of unified Europe but far from Europe at the same time, trying to escape her condition. This is the closest thing Stalenhoef’s documentary comes to be, but this thread as well is deformed by flaw story telling with the girl exchanging pretendents and than marriying in some kind of a happy end (?)  in less than ten minutes of screen time. With all these accumulated failures ‘Carmen Meets Borat’ (a.k.a. The Village that did not laugh about Borat) looks like one more tentative to squeeze a few drops from the lucrative ‘Borat’ venue. But ‘Borat’ was at least funny – did I already say it?

The European culture channel ARTE has recently dedicated a number of segments to the American saxophonist David Murray, one of the most interesting and spectacular artists of this instrument today. The cycle started with the documentary David Murray: I’m a jazzman written by Jacques Denis and Jacques Goldstein, and directed by Goldstein. It continued with two concerts of Murray recorded in the recent years – the first with Cassandra Wilson and  the Black Saint Quartet at the Jazz a Vienne Festival and the second with the Gwo-Ka Masters group of percussionists from Guadeloupe.

(video source zhanges5)

Goldstein’s film is based on an extended interview-confession with the artist. It is of course by listening to the music that we do understand best a musician. Yet I wish we can hear more such testimonies from artists speaking about their lives, their influences, and the way they relate to their art. Listening to Murray we have the opportunity to know the man and the biography and understand better where his music is coming from. We meet a man who is sincere and true in what he does, who explores not only musical territories but also his own self. We meet an artist who tries to make music that is representative to his times and reflects the influences of the world around as well as his personal background.

(video source shankiniteasy)

Born in Auckland California, Murray was influenced by a combination of tradition and social revolution. He attended church, and a precious film fragment from his personal archives shows him accompanying a group of women singing gospels in church, but at the same time his father was close to the Black Panthers movement and their protest ideas. When he took the trip in New York, mandatory to almost any American jazz artist, it was at the time of the pick of the Loft Jazz trend, and his principal influences became Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler. He borrowed the style of the later, and the long circular breathing phrases became a print of his own personal style. After more than two decades of activity in New York, Murray took a trip to Europe about which he speaks largely in the film. It is here that he has the time to reflect on his own origins and discovers the need to go back to the roots of the African music. The story of his meeting with the work and biography of the Russian poet Pushkin who also had African ascendancy in his blood is interesting by itself, as is the music he composed on this occasion.

Best words about David Murray in this documentary are being said by jazz journalist Stanley Crouch. He describes Murray as one of these artists who are capable to combine in their music the flame of passion of the primitives with the relaxation of the sophisticated instrumentalists who master their means. The documentary is an open invitation to cross the gate of knowing better the man and his art.

I do not remember exactly what was the day of the week that Cornel Chiriac was dedicating in the 60s and 70s to soul and R&B music in his Metronom broadcasts at the Romanian language broadcasts of Radio Free Europe – it must have been Wednesday or Thursday, one of the days in the middle of the week. With his rich musical culture that covered all musical genres from jazz to progressive and deep understanding of American music in general and jazz in particular Cornel had identified the black popular music as one of the principal trends he had to cover and worth one permanent day in his weekly broadcasts. How right he was we can see today, when soul, R&B and their more recent successor hip-hop catch constantly more than half of the top places in the American hit-parades.

(video source CFunkBaby)

The BBC documentary Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music provides a highly informative review of the evolution of the black music in a period of more than half century. It starts in the period following immediately the second world war with segments dedicated to Ray Charles and to Sam Cooke, in the period of evolution of black music from gospel and sectoral entertainment to the mainstream of American popular music. It continues with the story of the big record houses of Motown and Stax, the creation of the sound of soul music, and emergence of the generation of musicians who conquered the tops in the 60s – Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Diana Ross. It goes beyond the commercial pop period which is not very much appreciated (Whitney Houston gets some maybe undeserved bashing) to the soul origins of hip-hop seen a continuation of the emotional and social involvement of soul. As the show was made in 2005 Mary J. Blidge and Beyonce get most of the attention in the last segment, but as we all know this is a story that continues in our days. I would have liked a little more focus on the musical aspects and trends, this part of the commentary was quite thin, but was compensated by first hand testimonies from critics, historians and artists such as Etta James or James Brown. More interesting was the permanent presentation of the musical aspects on the background of the historic developments in the life of the Afro-American community. It can be said that the half century covered by the series saw not only the emergence of new genres in music that conquered the world, but also a historic change in the life of the black community in the United States. The two revolutions – in music and in the social life – happened together and this is well covered in these detailed and documented series.

I am not a great fan of the documentary series on History Channel, but the one I have seen today was really much above the average. It focused on Albert Einstein, maybe the greatest scientific mind that ever lived, and on the crucial years between the writing of his basic works describing the theory of relativity and nature of light in 1905, until the experimental proof that confirmed the theory of generalized relativity and the nature of gravity in 1922 followed by the receiving of the Nobel prize (but not for the theory of gravity but rather for the description of photons and structure of light.

(video source g33kqu33n)

These were years in which Einstein turned upside down all the science in place for more than two centuries based on the classical physics founded by Newton. These were years where the whole world turned upside down, empires in place in Europe for many years tumbled down under revolutions and new orders emerged predicting peace and welfare but bringing the seeds of more and atrocious human suffering. In the middle of all these storms Einstein succeeded to not only to create some of the most magnificent pieces of work that human mind ever conceived, but also kept a straight moral position, opposing war and nationalist fantasies.

source: www.haverford.edu

Whenever I look at his photos I cannot escape the feeling that I am looking at the images of a man who is still alive. His eyes are so deep and his stare is so intense and so human, that I almost expect him to talk to me. The fact that I know about the deep connection and support he felt to Israel only enhances my feelings.

The documentary at History Channel was smartly made. It brought on screen a battery of biographers, scientists and historians (Walter Isaacson, his most famous biographer among them) who talked about Einstein and his times, and succeeded to link their commentaries into a logical thread that built a story line that fascinated and kept me watching like at the best thriller dramas. All was explained clearly – the historic background, the biographic details, the science and the family life (yes, Einstein was no saint or family values model) and the reconstitution of the experiments that eventually proved his theories looked like a good and real Indiana Jones film. The ‘Einstein’ documentary set for me a model of what biography movies should look like.

This will certainly not be the last and ultimate documentary made about the events that precluded and picked that night of November in 1989 when the infamous Wall of Berlin fell, signaling that the process of ending the Communist rule in Europe had reached the point of no return. It was screened by the European culture channel ARTE a few months ago at the anniversary of two decades from the events. The timing was good and the main chance and value of the film is that it caught alive many of the protagonists of the drama that took place in 1989 and received direct testimonies from some of the heads of the former regime like Egon Krenz, Hans Modrow, Gunther Schabowski. No doubt that future documentaries will use the footage and especially the interviews.

Erich Honeker - source: www.knowledgerush.com

Although the end of the drama is well known, it is still amazing to get back in time in the last year of the German Democratic Republic ruled by Communists, to see and hear about a regime unable to cope with the reality, unwilling to talk and hear with its own people, caught in its own web of lies and propaganda, paralyzed and incapable to act. The focus of the film is on the individuals and the state and party apparatus that was leading the DDR. While some of the politicians at the top had at least a partial understanding of the problems of the country, there never was a real move towards reform and the change came too late and was thought as being too small in order to be able to save the system.

Egon Krenz - source: http://archiv.ddr-im-www.de

Some of the external aspects of the situation are less dealt in the film. While the relationship with the Soviet Union and the role of Mikhail Gorbachev is widely described, little is being said about the role played by Ronald Reagan’s United States or Kohl’s West Germany. The popular movement that started in the summer with the massive flux of refugees crossing the borders open in Hungary increased in intensity with the workers movements that shadowed the operatic festivities put together by Honecker at the 40th anniversary of the DDR, and culminated with the night of the fall of the wall and opening of free circulation in Berlin.

Checkpoint Charlie the night the wall fell - source: Bundesarchiv

The documentary is well made, but relies too much on the interviews, and film footage leaving an impression of monotony. These were great events in the history of Germany and Europe, and more emotion would not have been out of place. The rare moments that break the routine are the ones when the human dimension of the principal players of the drama is caught on screen, The policeman who arrested Honecker tells the story of the omnipotent leader of yesterday reduced to his feeble human dimension. And then the final image on which the credits are run showing Egon Krenz, the last leader of the party and of the politburo standing in the plaza in the center of East Berlin while bulldozers tear down the monstrous building of the Palace of the Republic, the ugly architectural symbol of the deceased East Germany.

Oded Lotan, an Israeli-born film-maker living in Germany dares to cope in this documentary film with one of the ‘holy cows’ concepts of the Jewish tradition – the circumcision. Interestingly, I did not notice or hear about this film having been screened in Israel until it was broadcast by the European culture TV channel ARTE, although most of it is filmed here.

Lotan starts by sharing his personal experience, which is very much about living abroad and being different, this being the starting point on a journey to seek the historic origins of the custom, as well as his own family history. His investigations go into two directions – one is a historical and demographic research which leads him to being aware that the custom is rather widely practiced in different parts of the globe because of religious or medical reasons.  More interesting are however the investigations he makes in Israel, questioning family, rabbis and mohels (the specialists who perform circumcision), people who oppose the tradition and chose not to follow it for their sons in a society where the ‘brith’ is norm, and people who approach it in an almost mystical manner.

There is no earth-shaking revelation for somebody who knows well the Israeli society and Jewish customs, yet the film is well made and the debate interesting and pleasant to watch because of the low-tone and humor of the commenter-hero-film-maker. The author is also openly gay, and his questioning of the circumcision adds taboo-breaking to taboo-breaking – without a tolerant and smooth approach the debate could have easily slid into controversy. The organization of the film in several short episodes ended by stop-frames transformed into graphics adds consistency and breaks the potential tension of the debate that could become too tense if taken too seriously. The interesting twist at the end of the film has the author aligning with the tradition, after questioning it all over the film. A final irony, taken in the same good spirit this whole documentary is being made.

I have found the film on YouTube, but it’s unfortunately only the German version. Here is the first episode:

(video source ElectricFlattery)