No, honestly, kids, I have been cleaning up my iTunes folder…and learning that a bunch of Ellington could no longer be found in it means not only have I had to do some serious re-importing, but I’ve got Ellington on the brain a bit. So when it came time to come up with an image, if only to remind you all, and myself, that I am in fact still here, my mind went back to one of the inexhaustible documents/streams, Preminger’s epic 1959 Anatomy of a Murder, featuring a slightly harried-looking Duke as a roadhouse jazzman. He is flanked here by Mr. James Stewart and Ms. Lee Remick. The scene is my idea of heaven, in a sense.
Sorry for the light blogging, but as Kim Jong Il says in Team America: World Police, you have no idea how fucking busy I am…or something to that effect. Working on a “project,” as they say, about which more soon. Also had to see The Virginity Hit tonight, for an upcoming review at MSN Movies. It actually was kind of not bad, I found. Details forthcoming. Speak soon.
With Duke it’s hard to go wrong, but I feel it worth pointing out that the really radical stuff are the earliest recordings (say pre ’34, when the records were labeled “Jungle Music”) and then the final decade, esp. “The Far East Suite,” “The New Orleans Suite” and “The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse.” I don’t think I’ll ever wear “Ad Lib On Nippon” out, and Lord knows I’ve tried.
The Duke was obviously into his part: How else does one explain that awful jacket on one of the most elegant gentlemen ever?
The soundtrack for this movie was way ahead of its time. Even today, it’s pretty rare to find a score that isn’t a direct commentary or a parroting of what’s going on on screen, but, to be really inarticulate and cliched about this, in part ironizes what’s happening on screen instead, in part comments on the simmering tensions beneath the surface (that’s right, simmering tensions beneath the surface). There Will Be Blood’s score comes to mind and even that feels much more didactic. I also really love how Preminger opens a scene with a shot of the drum with the picture of the Pie Eye on front. Even in these throwaway moments, there’s always something a little unsettling about the film – why is he shooting this drum, what’s with the creepy eye? And thematically there’s something there too. It’s sort of a counterpoint to the shot of the trashcan at the end. Vision and blindness/darkness.