More Yelling

This time care of the late Polish artist Wojciech Bruszewski
(via A Sound Awareness).

Jarman’s Broken English

How is it that Leg of Lamb has only just discovered Derek Jarman’s ode to Marianne Faithful’s 1979 album Broken English?!  Made in the same year as the album’s release, the short, 12 minute film features 3 songs from the record:   ‘Witches’ Song’, ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ and ‘Broken English’ accompanied by a mix of found footage superimposed with strange, ritualistic scenarios and clips of the singer – imagery made all the more haunting given Faithfull’s contemporaneous descent into addiction.

Easy Rider

Above: excerpt from the film Easy Rider (1969), directed by Dennis Hopper

Viddies

Photographer Polly Borland and her Director husband John Hillcoat (of The Road and Ghosts of the Civil Dead fame) have joined forces to create a short film in collaboration with band IO ECHO for MOCAtv.  In it, found footage is spliced together with classic Borland figures, their features distorted by dowdy stockings and clumsy protrusions.

Hillcoat’s no stranger to making music videos, he’s directed them for the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Depeche Mode and a couple for his good pal Nick Cave (who Borland has photographed on a number of occasions).  Above is the latest Hillcoat/Cave collab – featuring Ray Winstone no less – for Cave’s new single Jubilee Street.

John Waters talks about troublemakers

AnOther take on Pina

Pina was unequivocally Leg of Lamb’s top film of 2011.  Director Wim Wenders’ homage to the late German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch (who died suddenly, two days before filming commenced) is an exuberant celebration of the artist’s life and practice.  In the film, members of the Pina Bausch dance company (the Tanztheater Wuppertal) perform excerpts from some of the choreographer’s key pieces in and around her home town.  Bausch embraced the big themes – love, joy, despair – with a disarming degree of sensitivity and humour, and the film is a moving testament to the dancer and her legacy.  The same can’t be said of a more recent tribute.

Late last year, AnOther Magazine commissioned a short film (above) featuring Rachel Weisz to coincide with the launch of their Winter issue.  Directed by Craig McDean, Weisz’s series of ‘non-narrative micro performances’ were directly inspired by Pina.  But let’s face it, whacking on some lippie and staggering around in a pretty dress just isn’t going to cut it…

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Three years ago, American director Alison Klayman began shooting  a feature-length documentary on Ai Weiwei.  Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry charts the Chinese artist’s preparation for major museum shows (including ‘Sunflower Seeds’ at Tate Modern), his down-time with family and his intensifying clashes with authorities. Ai’s incarceration in April this year was obviously a major turning point for the project, drastically altering its course and context. Now in post-production, you can contribute to the realisation of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry by making a donation here, and stay up to date with the latest developments on Twitter.

John Waters Talks About Contemporary Art

David Lynch, Pop Star?

David Lynch is releasing a solo album.  Coming out on UK label Sunday Best this November, it’s called – wait for it - Crazy Clown Time, and features guest vocals by Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ frontwoman, Karen O.

This isn’t Lynch’s first foray into music.  He’s created atmospheric numbers for several of his films, as well as writing and singing two songs for Inland Empire and contributing to Dark Night of the Soul, a collaboration between Lynch, Dangermouse and the late Mark Linkous (a.k.a Sparklehorse).

The filmmaker credits his love of music to longtime collaborator/composer Angelo Badalamenti.  Lynch says: “I just love musicians. They’re not all super-happy all the time, but when they’re playing they’re happy, and it’s such a beautiful thing. I also like them because they sleep late in the morning; they’re more like children.”

(Directed by Arnold de Parscau, the video above for the album’s  single Good Day Today  was selected by Lynch following an open call for submissions).

The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes

Above: an excerpt from ‘The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes’
(WARNING: not for the squeamish – seriously)

Leg of Lamb recently attended the IMA’s screening of  ’The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes’.  Made by Stan Brakhage in 1971, the half hour experimental film is comprised entirely of autopsy footage recorded in a Pittsburgh morgue.  To say it’s not for the faint hearted is an understatement, so be careful watching this – you have been warned.

Despite the subtly toned film stock and oblique camera angles – in part utilised to protect the identities of the cadavers – the film is confronting. One scene involves the removal of a corpse’s brain.  In so doing, romantic notions of imagination, memory, intellect – things we conceive of as infinite – are grounded in an inanimate mound of white flesh.  To witness this is humbling.  Brakhage’s film is a potent examination of mortality that, in all its gore, is curiously life affirming.  We’re all meat, we’re all going to die – so enjoy it while it lasts.