On a Hillside Desolate
Posted: 04 March 2021
Imported from substack so the formatting is messed up, it looks better on substack.
Hank Hill’s theme song (Bill’s is the real banger):
No essays on unrelated topics or footnotes in this issue! I was busier than usual.
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Index
Everything I really liked has a * in front of its name, everything else runs the gamut from stuff I liked to stuff I didn’t. Movie/book writing is spoiler-y.
Movies
* Jacques Demy - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Romance/Drama/Musical
Books
(Just Excerpts) Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary (1857)
Realist Fiction
Music
Worst Party Ever - Japan (2018)
Emo/Acoustic
* Worst Party Ever - here, online (2020)
Emo
* The Kinks - Something Else (1967)
Baroque Pop/British
No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom (1995)
Pop Punk/Ska
RADKEY - GREEN ROOM (2020)
Rock
D’Angelo - Brown Sugar (1995)
R&B/Neo Soul
* Pope - True Talent Champion (2017)
Indie Rock
* Grouper - Ruins (2014)
Experimental/Downtempo/Piano
Movies
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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Wow!!!! I loved this movie. The first thought I had the second the opening scene started rolling was “this movie is beautiful,” and that feeling carried through to the end. It’s romantic without being melodramatic, the characters are all sensible and likeable (this is really hit or miss in romance!!!), it never feels cheesy, and it’s incredibly human.
The movie spans several years and is broken out into three parts: we meet Guy and Geneviéve (our French lovers), we see what happens back in Cherbourg with Geneviéve after Guy is drafted to serve in the Algerian war, and we see what happens with Guy when he gets back. I liked the story. It didn’t fall into any easy clichés, the ending has gravitas.
This movie is all about delivering a message. It constantly throws conflicting ideas at you and makes them work. Sung voices don’t always match the feelings of the characters. Guy sings “I do what I please” to his aunt in a joyful tone while stomping around petulantly. There is a festival going on outside as Genevie´ve cries inside her mother’s umbrella store, wondering why she is still alive. Genevie´ve struggles with a difficult decision about marriage in a cartoonishly pink room. Despite being full of these odd juxtapositions, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg really beautifully draws you into its chaotic world, and everything clicks.
Do you know what else really stood out to me? Genevie´ve looks directly into the camera on four occasions! No other character does this! Except for Roland Cassard, exactly once, but I think it’s safe to say he’s looking at Geneviéve when he looks into the camera. She, I am certain, looks at the audience. Perhaps it is deliberately asking the audience: take a second here. What would you do? How would you feel? The movie knows that it is a movie. It wants you to know this as well: the choices it makes are deliberate.
These scenes where she looks directly at the viewer are also a little uncomfortable. Maybe they’re making us uncomfortable so that we welcome back the relentless assault of colors and sounds of the rest of the movie. They make the mis-matched nature of the movie more palatable and help suspend disbelief by presenting a somehow even more self-aware alternative.
The biggest recurring juxtaposition that The Umbrellas of Cherbourg throws at the viewer is that Cherbourg is a cotton candy town where dreams come true, and the rest of the world is drab and boring. Compare the umbrella shop:
Or the alley leading to Guy’s residence:
To the train station leading out of town:
The symbolism of bright colors representing idealistic dreams and drab colors representing “being realistic” is straightforward, but still interesting. The bright colors feel grayer and less vibrant in Act 2, as Geneviéve becomes depressed and disillusioned. The photo of Guy that falls onto Cassard’s postcard is sepia toned: everything is pushing her to make a pragmatic choice. She departs Cherbourg and it’s bright colors, forasking her childish dreams. I suspect that the colors don’t actually change much between acts 1 and 2. But as a viewer, I expect them to, and I do the work of imaging them as grayer where they remain bright. Very cool.
You can find meaning in the colors of the movie wherever you turn. Guy returns to Cherbourg wearing the same outfit and colorful shirt he wore when he left. The idealism is still with him, and his dream life (which he had talked about with Geneviéve near the start of the movie) eventually becomes a reality, overcoming his ennui.
But I don’t think the message of the movie is that if you stay in a fantasy world, your dreams will come true. Geneviéve doesn’t seem unhappy, her decision is not presented in a harsh judgmental light. I mean, it’s a little judgmental. Guy is betrayed and hurt, it’s hard to root for her when she breaks their promise. But she makes a totally understandable choice. She’s not painted as a villain. Maybe everything comes down to: making the right decision is going to look different for everybody, and sometimes people who you don’t want to hurt will be hurt. Life moves on: happiness will eventually be there for you, if you look for it.
It’s not a perfect movie. The characters lack any subtlety, making them feel less dynamic and nuanced than they really are. The constant mismatch of tone and content is hard to fully engage with. The lack of melodrama is refreshing, but without big surprises and dramatic flare-ups, the movie feel a little slow at times. I enjoyed it though! I liked what it was trying to do, and these nitpicks don’t get in the way of the movie. It accomplishes what it set out to accomplish.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg takes you on a carefully crafted visual and aural journey. It sinks its teeth into and engages with what a movie is capable of. It tells a meaningful story about love and about being human. It’s one of a kind.
Books
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(Excerpts) Flaubert - Madame Bovary
I’m still reading this. It’s long! But so far I’m enjoying it much more than Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, which I liked, but thought a little boring. I really like realist fiction.
Check out the sick semi-colon use here: twice in the same sentence!
Charles was a bit namby-pamby, not his dream son-in-law; but he was said to be reliable, thrifty, very well educated; and he probably wouldn’t haggle too much over the dowry.
She had to extract a kind of personal advantage from things; and she rejected as useless everything that promised no immediate gratification—for her temperament was more sentimental than artistic, and what she was looking for was emotions, not scenery.
She wanted to die. And she wanted to live in Paris.
Music
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Worst Party Ever - Japan
Emo/Acoustic, Emo
Florida (It says Seattle on their bandcamp page? But absolutely Florida in their bones) emo, baby. It’s good! I like this band. It’s tough to evaluate acoustic demos like this - we’re listening to the skeletons of songs, the finished versions could go in a hundred different directions - but they’re fun, they’re easy to listen to, the lyrics are great, the singing works. “Worst Party Ever” is such a good song. Their more recent singles are really really good too. Worst Party Ever rule. Actually, writing this made me want to listen to their more recent stuff, so I listened to here, online a bunch, and will write about that here, online:
Worst Party Ever - here, online
Emo
“False Teeth” on this EP is “Worst Party Ever” from Japan!!!! And it’s SO GOOD FINISHED!!! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!! I like the higher energy songs on this EP a lot, “Cross Country” and “False Teeth” and “Road Trip.”
I listened to this album like, 20 times. Worst Party Ever fill me with determination.
The Kinks - Something Else
Baroque Pop/British
“Harry Rag” might be one of my least favorite songs in the universe.
Rubber Soul had been out for two years when this came out. How do you compete with The Beatles? You double down on the harpsichord, and you sing about clowns and breakfast foods. To be honest I actually like this album a lot, it kind of makes me think of Cherry Peel-era of Montreal. It’s playful and whimsical.
The songs are really easy to listen to, but also have little stories for you to follow along with, should you choose. There’s something really nice about an album where each song takes you on a little adventure.
I looked this album up because the song “Waterloo Sunset” (a really good song!) is mentioned in White Teeth. Mod fashion is also mentioned, and whenever I think of mod, I think of goobers in bowl cuts and suits, but I googled it, and check out these cool outfits:
I feel like I’ve been transported to an Antonioni movie or something. I would gladly cut my own hair blindfolded if that’s what it took to take a beautiful lady straight out of an Austin Powers movie to a show at (googling “the kinks venues”) Ungano’s.
No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom
Pop Punk/Ska
Starts off strong but really falls off a cliff after “Just A Girl.” There are ballads on this album (“The Climb”) — ska is tough enough to handle, but they throw ballads into the mix and tank all my goodwill. This album is a little too experimental and too mired in musical direction I don’t really like. Stefani’s consistent and powerful vocals are a saving grace, but aren’t enough.
RADKEY - GREEN ROOM
Rock
It’s always kind of funky hearing contemporary bands playing music that’s closer to hard rock than alt or punk rock. Not quite as blues-y as Wolfmother, RADKEY are somewhere between them, Blue Album Weezer and Rated R QOTSA - rock and roll moving in a direction that isn’t obviously grunge or hardcore.
GREEN ROOM is a really consistent album: RADKEY lean a little punk or a little alt at times, but they never move too far from the sounds established in the opening tracks (“Seize,” “Two-Face”). The drums are consistent and reliable, every song has a cool guitar solo. The most successful songs feel familiar, but fresh; older rock sensibilities with modern attitudes and execution.
Maybe a big part of it is that the singer sounds like Danzig.
D’Angelo - Brown Sugar
R&B/Neo Soul
We live in a post-Brown Sugar world. Brown Sugar was monumental when it was released. D’Angelo’s musical sensibilities and incredible talent brought about the revival of soul music — his vision and execution rocked the music industry. It’s unbelievable that he was only 21 when he produced and recorded it. Echoes of Brown Sugar resound in the chambers of all contemporary music.
There’s a lot to like here. The music is groovy and funky in all the right places, but the focus always rests on D’Angelo’s passionate vocals. He is unprecedentedly honest and vulnerable. The songs all immediately feel intimately familiar. “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker” is an incredible track, probably my favorite on the album.
D’Angelo is at his best on this album when he is loosest, when it sounds like he is being carried away by the music. Compare “Jonz In My Bonz,” which feels constrained, to “Cruisin’,” where he soars like a bird. I want to join him on his journey. I want his music to be irresistable.
Brown Sugar is an excellent album that reaches great heights and offers glimpses of real beauty. You can see how D’Angelo took it and dialed everything to 11 on Voodoo: 5 years after Brown Sugar, an utterly transcendant album. You can hear it in every R&B album of the past 25 years. Brown Sugar was groundbreaking.
Pope - True Talent Champion
Indie Rock
This is one of my favorite albums, I love this band. Really great fuzzy indie rock out of New Orleans in the vein of Dino Jr. and Ovlov. The riffs are sick, every song on this album rules, they flow into each other seamlessly but still delight and surprise. Check Pope out!!!
The singer/guitarist, Alejandro, has a really good live acousic set on Facebook, recorded a year ago: [link].
Grouper - Ruins
Experimental/Downtempo/Piano
The sound of a lonely person living in a quiet swamp, gazing at cattails out of their window. A seagull flying by a cliff on an overcast day. Sad, but peaceful. Music about accepting. Music that will leave you haunted by a ghost that wants nothing more than to be left alone to read a book.
This is another one of my favorite albums.
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That’s it! Have a great day.