I'm about halfway into the Selected letters of Jack Kerouac, 1940-1956. I'm currently reading his long, confessional letters to Neal Cassady. A couple of things: Kerouac was a bright guy; even the letters he wrote at age 20 are impressive. I try to think of what I possibly could have written in a letter at that age. Not much. He was also a dreamer. He's constantly telling Cassady of his plans for the future, that they should work together on a ship going around the world, they should move to Mexico or they should live on a farm.
Reading these letters or the letters of Hemingway and Bukowski, Facebook suddenly seems like the silliest thing in the world. Will there one day be Collected e-mails, or Collected Facebook postings? If Facebook had existed then, back in the fifties, would the letters of Kerouac and Cassady be lost, never written? If Facebook broke down one day, I don't think people would automatically start writing each other long letters, but I can't help but think that something is lost when not written down on paper.
mercredi 16 mars 2011
mardi 15 mars 2011
Dead Man
It's Jim Jarmusch's western, starring Johnny Depp as an easterner who is shot, chased by a posse and travels with an indian named Nobody. Cinematography by Bobby Müller, music by Neil Young, also starring Lance Henriksen, Michael Wincott, John Hurt, Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop, Gabriel Byrne and hey, whaddayaknow, Billy Bob Thornton!
The first twelve minutes of this film are brilliant, pure visual storytelling. The first five minutes don't have any dialogue, it's just Depp on the train, and the others passengers slowly changing from cityfolks to cowboys and trappers. He then arrives in the city of Machine, walking down the main street, an image of hell on earth. When he has to run away from the city the film gets more episodic and uneven, it loses some of its focus. It becomes sort of a spiritual journey for Depp, but I'm not sure if the film is as deep or meaningful as it wants to be.
The first twelve minutes of this film are brilliant, pure visual storytelling. The first five minutes don't have any dialogue, it's just Depp on the train, and the others passengers slowly changing from cityfolks to cowboys and trappers. He then arrives in the city of Machine, walking down the main street, an image of hell on earth. When he has to run away from the city the film gets more episodic and uneven, it loses some of its focus. It becomes sort of a spiritual journey for Depp, but I'm not sure if the film is as deep or meaningful as it wants to be.
lundi 14 mars 2011
... and back cover.
The illustrations were a bit too big to fit on the scanner, so they are a slightly fuzzy.
Sling Blade
Billy Bob Thornton is released from an institution after having killed his mother as a kid. He has to try to make sense of a new world. Also starring Dwight Yoakam and Robert Duvall, directed by Billy Bob Thornton.
This is turning into a Billy Bob Thornton festival! The story is the kind of Southern Gothic that someone like Nick Cave could have come up with. Jim Jarmusch has a small role and might have been an influence in the long, static takes. Country and western singer Yoakam is a revelation in his role, and so is the kid actor, Lucas Black, playing a boy Thornton meets and befriends. Thornton himself is almost unrecognizable in his part. It's too bad he ended up in director's jail after the expensive flop All The Pretty Horses. Sling Blade is a great film, one of those magical times in the darkness of the cinema. Should have been 3D, though.
This is turning into a Billy Bob Thornton festival! The story is the kind of Southern Gothic that someone like Nick Cave could have come up with. Jim Jarmusch has a small role and might have been an influence in the long, static takes. Country and western singer Yoakam is a revelation in his role, and so is the kid actor, Lucas Black, playing a boy Thornton meets and befriends. Thornton himself is almost unrecognizable in his part. It's too bad he ended up in director's jail after the expensive flop All The Pretty Horses. Sling Blade is a great film, one of those magical times in the darkness of the cinema. Should have been 3D, though.
dimanche 13 mars 2011
vendredi 11 mars 2011
A Simple Plan
Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton and Whatshisname find a plane with 4,4 million dollars. They decide to keep it. They shouldn't have. Also starring Bridget Fonda, directed by Sam Raimi.
Since everybody has been talking about this film I guess I should re-watch the damn thing. It's Sam Raimi walking into Coen country. There's the snowy midwest, but also everything going wrong for the main characters. Raimi steps away from his previous style. There are no frenetic camera moves, like in his horror movies or his western, The Quick and The Dead, rather a classic, understated direction. The opening of the film, with Paxton going through the small town and saying hello to everybody also brings back memories of It's A Wonderful Life.
I had read the book the film is based on before seeing it the first time, so that sort of ruined it a bit for me, knowing already what would happen. And there are scenes in the book that I thought were believable, but that I had some trouble with in the film. Like the first death. It was just a bit hard to believe when put into images. There's another killing at the end of the book, maybe the most horrific, that they maybe wisely left out of the film. It's possible that Thornton overdoes it a bit as the idiot brother. It's not a bad film, though. It has an effective dread right from the beginning, and for the sequence with the FBI agent I think even Hitchcock would have nodded with approval.
Since everybody has been talking about this film I guess I should re-watch the damn thing. It's Sam Raimi walking into Coen country. There's the snowy midwest, but also everything going wrong for the main characters. Raimi steps away from his previous style. There are no frenetic camera moves, like in his horror movies or his western, The Quick and The Dead, rather a classic, understated direction. The opening of the film, with Paxton going through the small town and saying hello to everybody also brings back memories of It's A Wonderful Life.
I had read the book the film is based on before seeing it the first time, so that sort of ruined it a bit for me, knowing already what would happen. And there are scenes in the book that I thought were believable, but that I had some trouble with in the film. Like the first death. It was just a bit hard to believe when put into images. There's another killing at the end of the book, maybe the most horrific, that they maybe wisely left out of the film. It's possible that Thornton overdoes it a bit as the idiot brother. It's not a bad film, though. It has an effective dread right from the beginning, and for the sequence with the FBI agent I think even Hitchcock would have nodded with approval.
jeudi 10 mars 2011
The king of comics
This was a strip done for a Norwegian newspaper to illustrate an interview they did with me. A little explanation might be required: The Phantom, Donald Duck and Beetle Bailey are very popular comic book characters in Scandinavia and have their own magaines.
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