7.30.2005
robert frank, cocksucker blues
after years of curiosity, i finally saw robert frank's cocksucker blues. the film documents the rolling stones' 1972 tour for exile on main street, and its heavy emphasis on rock star debauchery (groupie fucking, coke snorting, heroin shooting, etc.) has prevented its release in the years since.
frank's foggy, deliberately incoherent approach wallows in the unglamourous. his camera shows up at every wrong moment-- the point of uncertainty, the aftermath, etc.-- and carves a sleepy portrait of rock excesses as challenging to get through as godard's (more interesting) one plus one. the defiant energy of rock itself is whittled to its spinal remains, leaving only appetite and exhaustion. its music goes unmixed; the performances are reduced to awkward schematics... one of the film's rare spinal tap-style laughs occurs when mick jagger can't find a satisfactory way to sing along with an oblivious stevie wonder, whose performance of "uptight (everything is alright)" involves a swaying head too unpredictable to split the mike with. but frank is less concerned with cheap laughs than with an atmosphere of exhaustion.
as a glimpse into the seedy world of the rolling stones, i found myself a bit disappointed with the film's approach. it amounts to a would-be neutrality-- lots of verite bells and whistles leading one to believe that its pervasive loathsomeness was all there was to engage with. but then i remember the album itself-- how good it sounds, and how inspired the stones seem to have been while making it. concurrently, frank's fatalism seems a bit reactionary. the film gets stuck in his misanthropy. 1972 seems an appropriate year for such sentiments, with nixon in office and the war in vietnam increasingly apocalyptic. and as one of the earliest attempts to, let's say, obliterate the sixties, it's certainly worth a look if you can find a copy.
watching the film in 2005, i considered the history of attacks on sixties ideology (and i'm sure you can name a few yourself), and what they've meant to me. and i'm not sure where to locate myself anymore accordingly. certainly the nihilistic antagonism of punk has been effectively co-opted... is deserving of similiar analytical abuse... and has even received such abuses in whatever form. and certainly i can learn from both attitudes, feeling an affection for hippie warmth one minute and punk angst the next-- all of which has served me well. but ultimately, i must admit to a certain (perhaps sadistic) pre-occupation with the moments where "the sixties" turned sour, in all their artistic forms, and i think that a lot of people feel it with me. i'm less convinced of its inherent radicality at this point, but not entirely convinced that it's useless either. i'm not sure what to do with it...
i leave you with raymond pettibon, perhaps the master illustrator of this very predicament...
frank's foggy, deliberately incoherent approach wallows in the unglamourous. his camera shows up at every wrong moment-- the point of uncertainty, the aftermath, etc.-- and carves a sleepy portrait of rock excesses as challenging to get through as godard's (more interesting) one plus one. the defiant energy of rock itself is whittled to its spinal remains, leaving only appetite and exhaustion. its music goes unmixed; the performances are reduced to awkward schematics... one of the film's rare spinal tap-style laughs occurs when mick jagger can't find a satisfactory way to sing along with an oblivious stevie wonder, whose performance of "uptight (everything is alright)" involves a swaying head too unpredictable to split the mike with. but frank is less concerned with cheap laughs than with an atmosphere of exhaustion.
as a glimpse into the seedy world of the rolling stones, i found myself a bit disappointed with the film's approach. it amounts to a would-be neutrality-- lots of verite bells and whistles leading one to believe that its pervasive loathsomeness was all there was to engage with. but then i remember the album itself-- how good it sounds, and how inspired the stones seem to have been while making it. concurrently, frank's fatalism seems a bit reactionary. the film gets stuck in his misanthropy. 1972 seems an appropriate year for such sentiments, with nixon in office and the war in vietnam increasingly apocalyptic. and as one of the earliest attempts to, let's say, obliterate the sixties, it's certainly worth a look if you can find a copy.
watching the film in 2005, i considered the history of attacks on sixties ideology (and i'm sure you can name a few yourself), and what they've meant to me. and i'm not sure where to locate myself anymore accordingly. certainly the nihilistic antagonism of punk has been effectively co-opted... is deserving of similiar analytical abuse... and has even received such abuses in whatever form. and certainly i can learn from both attitudes, feeling an affection for hippie warmth one minute and punk angst the next-- all of which has served me well. but ultimately, i must admit to a certain (perhaps sadistic) pre-occupation with the moments where "the sixties" turned sour, in all their artistic forms, and i think that a lot of people feel it with me. i'm less convinced of its inherent radicality at this point, but not entirely convinced that it's useless either. i'm not sure what to do with it...
i leave you with raymond pettibon, perhaps the master illustrator of this very predicament...
