Only someone with Ken Russell’s outrageous genius would have the balls to make a film like Dance of the Seven Veils. Sub-titled A Comic Strip in Seven Episodes on the life of Richard Strauss 1864-1949, the film depicted the German composer of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” as a Nazi. As Michael Brooke describes it over at the BFI’s Screen on Line:

Russell’s composer biopics were usually labours of love. This was the opposite: he regarded Strauss’s music as “bombastic, sham and hollow”, and despised the composer for claiming to be apolitical while cosying up to the Nazi regime. The film depicts Strauss in a variety of grotesquely caricatured situations: attacked by nuns after adopting Nietzsche’s philosophy, he fights duels with jealous husbands, literally batters his critics into submission with his music and glorifies the women in his life and fantasies.

Later, his association with Hitler leads to a graphically-depicted willingness to turn a blind eye to Nazi excesses, responding to SS thugs carving a Star of David in an elderly Jewish man’s chest by urging his orchestra to play louder, drowning out the screams. Unexpectedly, Strauss is credited as co-writer, which was Russell’s way of indicating that every word he uttered on screen was sourced directly from real-life statements.

Though Russell used genuine statements from Strauss, the film is in no way a factual representation, as Joseph Gomez explained in his 1976 biography of Russell:

What we have is Russell’s vision of the man - a vision which uses many of Strauss’s own words as found in his letters and the man’s music to shape a “metaphorically true” portrait of the composer. There is no attempt to explain anything about Strauss’s behavior; he is reduced to a one-dimensional comic strip figure - as the subtitle of the film suggests. The subject matter, the role and responsibilities of the artist, is deadly serious, but the treatment is devastatingly comic.

The content and violence of Russell’s film caused outrage after its first and only transmission on the BBC in 1970. Questions were raised in the House of Parliament, where 6 M.P.s tabled a motion denouncing the Corporation for transmitting the program. Britain’s self-appointed arbiter of the country’s morals, Mrs Mary Whitehouse attempted to sue the General Post Office for transmitting the film “over its wires”. But the damage was done by the Strauss family, which placed an outright ban on the film, which is still in place today and will continue until 2019, when the copyright on Strauss’ music expires.

Aided and abetted by the BBC, It was guerilla film-making at its best, as Russell explained to his biographer, John Baxter, Dance of the Seven Veils was:

a good example of the sort of film that could never be made outside the BBC, because the lawyers would be on to it in two seconds. I would have had to submit a script to the Strauss family and his publishers Boosey and Hawkes would have come into it, and it would never have happened. The great thing about the BBC is that the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Before anyone can complain, the film is out. But the price you pay with a really controversial film is that it’s usually only shown once.

It was also Russell cocking-a-snook “at the whole dramatized documentary idea”, as he explained to Baxter, which had “degenerated into a series of third-rate cliches”.

The film finished Russell’s long and successful career at the BBC, but this was of little importance, as Russell continued on from the Oscar-winning success of his 1969 movie Women in Love to become the greatest British film director of the 1970s.

Dance of the Seven Veils stars former dancer, Christopher Gable as Strauss, Kenneth Colley as Hitler and the marvelous Vladek Sheybal as Goebbels. Watch it now before the Strauss Family lawyers have it removed.
 

 
The rest of Ken Russell’s Dance of the Seven Veils, after the jump…
 

 
The War You Don’t See is a must-see documentary by Emmy-award-winning journalist John Pilger, who examines the news media’s failures, mistakes and crass ineptitude when reporting the truth about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In The War You Don’t See, Pilger, himself a renowned correspondent, asks whether mainstream news has become an integral part of war-making.

Focusing on the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, Pilger reflects on the history of the relationship between the media and government in times of conflict stretching back to World War I and explores the impact on the information fed to the public of the modern day practice of public relations in the guise of ‘embedding’ journalists with the military.

Featuring interviews with senior figures at major UK broadcasters, the BBC and ITV, and high profile journalists on both sides of the Atlantic, including Rageh Omaar and Dan Rather, the film investigates the reporting of government claims that Iraq harboured weapons of mass destruction.

Pilger also speaks to independent film makers, and whistleblowers, including the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange and to former senior British Foreign Office official Carne Ross to investigate why what he believes were key voices and key details did not figure prominently on the mainstream media’s agenda. The film also includes hard-hitting footage from independent media sources showing scenes in Afghanistan and Iraq, including footage leaked to Wikileaks.

Dan Rather, the famous CBS news anchor, and BBC World Affairs Correspondent Rageh Omaar both reflect on their own roles during the lead up to hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq and the lessons they have learned.  Rather speaks about pressure felt by journalists who face the danger of becoming what he calls mere ‘stenographers’. Rageh Omaar speaks about the proliferation of 24 hour news and the effects this has on war reporting, including his own experience reporting on the liberation of Basra.

Fran Unsworth, the BBC Head of Newsgathering and David Mannion, Editor in Chief of ITV News, both face questioning on their news departments’ reporting of the Iraq war and the scrutiny of George Bush and Tony Blair’s claims about weapons of mass destruction.

The documentary also focuses on the abuse of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers and speaks to Phil Shiner, a lawyer who is representing a number of Iraqi victims. It examines the notion that our media distinguishes between ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ victims of conflicts and how.

The War You Don’t See also looks at the balance of the media’s reporting on the hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis, with particular focus on mainstream broadcasters’ coverage of the Israeli attack on the aid flotilla in Gaza earlier this year.  Both the BBC and ITV are asked about the influence of Israeli government efforts to shape the reporting of such incidents on their coverage.

Now in his seventy-first year, Pilger has lost none of his investigative skill as journalist or any of his anger at injustice and falsehood, and while it can be argued that he has his own agenda, Pilger is a very much needed David, pitched against the dangerous Goliath of Fox News.  As Pilger once said:

“It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and the myths that surround it”

 
Parts 2-7 of John Pilger’s ‘The War You Don’t See’ after the jump…
 

 
Berlin has always been a bastion of innovative cultural work, and one excellent example of this is the Digital Tattoo Productions outfit.

Comprised of the husband/wife team of video artist and animator Edna Orozco and sound artist Dean “Tricky D” Bagar, Digital Tattoo have executed video-mapping-and-sound projects on historical sites in both their home countries of Colombia and Croatia.

They also recently worked on the body-centered dance theatre piece Quia, performed in Bogota and excerpted below. Check it out and keep an eye and ear out for these folks…
 

Digital Tattoo- QUIA from digital tattoo on Vimeo.

 
In 1966, among releases by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, and the Sandpipers, Jerry Moss—the “M” in the label name A&M—gave the OK to release a buzzy, growly cover of Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” by a cadre of misfits called Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band.

The single apparently became enough of a hit in L.A. to raise the eyebrow of Dick Clark, who features the tune for the kids to jump around to after a penetrating fan interview with Dear Leader below. Unfortunately, even though Clark had moved American Bandstand from Philly to L.A., Don Van Vliet & co. were kept at phone’s length for this “appearance.” One would think the band could have ambled over to ABC Television Center for an appearance, but who the hell knows what the circumstances were?
 

 
How do you capture the mystical, maddening and surreal world of Captain Beefheart within the medium of film? One way is to make an impressionistic documentary that has little reference point outside of its own surreality, which is exactly what film maker Anton Corbijn did with Some YoYo Stuff.

In 1993, Corbijn, known primarily at the time for his stark, grainy and beautiful photographs of rock stars, spent several days with Don Van Vliet (Beefheart) interviewing and photographing him. With the participation of Don’s mother and David Lynch, Corbijn constructed a film as dadaist as Captain Beefheart’s music. Van Vliet’s observations on life and his art are haiku-like in their succinct clarity and wit.

Penetrating the veil of Beefheart’s world was probably an impossibility. The best a documentarian could hope for is to approximate the mindset one enters in listening to Beefheart’s music. In other words, make a movie as trippy as the work of your subject. Van Vliet was remote, both figuratively and literally. As he got older he became increasingly reclusive. His writing and occasional communiques were like those of a modernist monk of the left hand school. He spoke in an ancient craggy voice that sounded like hollow bones being rubbed together. Corbijn’s film communicates the desert father aspect of Beefheart’s existence. There’s an otherworldliness about the whole thing that seems as though it is being beamed in from another planet.

Some YoYo Stuff is a fittingly offbeat tribute to one of the most uncompromising and innovative musicians of the 20th century. Captain Beefheart brought a kind of crazy wisdom to modern music.

Anton Corbijn describes the making of Some YoYo Stuff:

I love don. i knew very little about him when we first met in 1980, but after our meeting and subsequent photo shoot i went back home and started listening to his music, and soon started looking at his drawings and paintings. my respect for him grew as the years went by; we kept in touch, and i visited him and his wife jan a couple of times. these visits and the death of frank zappa were essential for me in terms of thinking about making some sort of film piece on don.

for shortly after zappa died, i was in a bookshop and realized how many books and bits of writing existed on him, and when i then went looking for anything similar on don i left the shop empty-handed. i felt that he deserved everyone’s attention and as i am not a writer, i figured i could maybe put something on film with him. it took me a while, but i did finally manage to say: ‘if you ever want me to make any sort of record or film about you, just let me know ‘cause i would love to do that’. he said: ‘yes, please’, and apparently had been waiting for years for me to ask, turning away others.

it was a simple affair to make the film: his mother sue opens the movie with the photograph that i took when don and i first met, saying: ‘this is don, my son’, and, apart from david lynch (famous film maker - t.t.) asking him a few questions via projected film, it is all don’s thoughts on various matters. some funny, some serious, but all sharp, poetic and beautiful. you really want to hear every single word he says - whether it’s about paint, miles davis, an ear (‘nice sculpture’) or the desert.

i recorded his words separately. and then filmed him sitting in front of a film projection i had made in and around the desert and edited it all together in a way that i hoped was in keeping with his world. he supplied me with two never-used bits of music, one of which is an instrumental that i made into a one-minute music-video without don, using a mackerel instead. this was the first bit of the film i showed him, and he was rolling around with laughter, and it was after that i dared let him see the rest.

apart from showing the world at large what a unique man and artist don is, i really wanted to make it great for hím, as he is also a warm and funny guy and i do think the film brings that across.”

 
In 1990, when Sinead O’Connor was at the absolute height of her fame, I was supposed to write about her for some magazine I can’t recall. I went to Austin, TX for the interview and I found myself standing at the side of the stage during the concert. She and her band (which included Adam and the Ants guitarist, Marco Pirroni) performed a handful of numbers before some computer they needed went kerblooey. Vamping while the roadies valiantly tried to fix the problem, O’Connor strapped on her acoustic guitar and did a spine-tingling version of “Troy” that brought the house down. In a lifetime of concert-going, I have never in my life seen such an intense live performance.

“Troy” is the gut-wrenching, first-person account of a woman, presumably O’Connor herself, walking in on her lover with another woman. Her execution of the song that night was brilliant, almost deranged with grief. As she sang it, you felt it was happening to you and those emotions washed over you. I was turned into jelly by the intensity of the performance. Everyone in that theater, I’m pretty sure had the same reaction as I did.

At the song’s conclusion, she ran off the stage and vomited up in a trash can right beside me. (Forgive me when I tell you that my reaction at the time was, “Wow, she’s really hot”—but she really was, trust me. Even puking).

Soon afterwards, the lights went on and the sold out house was told that Sinead had the flu and couldn’t continue with the show. Refunds were given out, but I’d have to say that if only for that one song, the crowd would gotten their money’s worth that night. The next morning they were off to another city and the interview never happened.

The official music video for “Troy”—which I am assuming was done by John Maybury, who also directed her video for “Nothing Compares 2 U,” because it looks just like his work—is how most people first caught a glimpse of the fragile, twenty-something bald Irish singer and it was a striking debut. But nothing… er… uh… compares 2 that song live, which is why I’m using this clip here instead. The intensity builds and builds, really a masterful performance.
 

More Sinead O’Connor in The Dangerous Minds Radio Hour

 
Fascinating new research study from the University of California titled Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy indicates that “the wealthy” have an “empathy deficit” compared to people on the lower end of the socio-economic scale. That’s right, poor people were found to have superior skills at accurately reading human emotions. The wealthy, not so much.

Rich people, because they don’t often need anyone else’s help, don’t use the empathy muscle much, and so it goes a bit flabby, I suppose… I know of someone who once bragged of eating a $500 hamburger to his staff who made much less than that a week and who didn’t have health insurance.

There are a hell of lot of societal ramifications because of these differences, obviously. Might even explain why some people watch FOX News or vote Republican!

Here’s the abstract:

Recent research suggests that lower-class individuals favor explanations of personal and political outcomes that are oriented to features of the external environment. We extended this work by testing the hypothesis that, as a result, individuals of a lower social class are more empathically accurate in judging the emotions of other people. In three studies, lower-class individuals (compared with upper-class individuals) received higher scores on a test of empathic accuracy (Study 1), judged the emotions of an interaction partner more accurately (Study 2), and made more accurate inferences about emotion from static images of muscle movements in the eyes (Study 3). Moreover, the association between social class and empathic accuracy was explained by the tendency for lower-class individuals to explain social events in terms of features of the external environment. The implications of class-based patterns in empathic accuracy for well-being and relationship outcomes are discussed.

 
Admittedly, I am a white-knuckled flyer. The idea of strapping myself into a rocket and hurling myself across the country, or the ocean, fills me with absolutely paralyzing dread. To the point where if I never had to fly again, I’d be extremely relieved. Thank god for Prince Valium, is all I can say…

Considering the fact that Boeing supplies many of the large aircraft flying America’s skies, this report, from Al Jazeera, makes me want to fly even less.

As of the time I’m posting this, only 16,000 people have watched this clip. This story really needs to get out there. The fact that no American news network is touching this story is telling.
 

 
Joe Albanese has put together an outstanding collection of classic rock picture sleeves on his Facebook page. This might be the best gallery of images like this I’ve ever seen. Truly outstanding stuff on display. These are but the tip of the iceberg.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Thank you, Douglas DeFalco!

 
Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart has apparently died at the age of 69 after many years of rumored ill-health. I’m in shock at the moment. He was one of my greatest musical heroes and one of the most powerful and distinctive vocalist/lyricist/composers of the last century.  Play Orange Claw Hammer (below), an a capella powerhouse from Trout Mask Replica as loud as you can and know that there was a real depth of feeling in the man’s work that went beyond weirdo freakishness. Bon voyage, good captain. We’ve lost a true original.
 
via Rolling Stone :

Don Van Vliet, who became a rock legend as Captain Beefheart, died today from complications from multiple sclerosis in California. His passing was announced by the New York-based Michael Werner Gallery, which represented his work as a painter. His Trout Mask Replica was Number 58 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. “Don Van Vliet was a complex and influential figure in the visual and performing arts,” the gallery said in a statement. “He is perhaps best known as the incomparable Captain Beefheart who, together with his Magic Band, rose to prominence in the 1960s with a totally unique style of blues-inspired, experimental rock & roll. This would ultimately secure Van Vliet’s place in music history as one of the most original recording artists of his time. After two decades in the spotlight as an avant-garde composer and performer, Van Vliet retired from performing to devote himself wholeheartedly to painting and drawing. Like his music, Van Vliet’s lush paintings are the product of a truly rare and unique vision.” Van Vliet leaves behind a wife, Jan. The two were married for more than 40 years.

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Leaving your holes open with Captain Beefheart: 1969 interview LP