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Robert Downey’s high desert head trip: ‘Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos’

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Robert Downey Sr.‘s stoned apocalypse Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight got its start in 1975 and then wandered all over the physical and psychic landscape tripping on counterculture mindgames, jazzbo attitudes and post hippie hipsterisms. This is Dada, surrealism and soap opera all mixed up in the salad bowl of your your brain.

The key to digging Downey is to understand that he was fucking with filmgoers expectations. People went to the movies to relax and enjoy the myths that solidified their world views, Downey’s movies are like explosions in some kind of postmodern nickelodeon, disrupting the linear flow at 24 fps. Approaching his films and expecting some soothing reality that reflects the real world is an exercise in frustration and possible nervous breakdown. What Jackson Pollack had done with painting, allowing the paint to paint itself, is what Downey does with film and narrative…he gives it the space to find itself. The result can be a series of happy accidents, genius or the ridiculous.

Behind it all, the music of David Sanborn, Jack Nitzche, and someone credited as Arica.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.11.2011
06:43 am
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