A response to A Difficult Double Feature by Pia Santaklaus

Saturdate 11th Auguts 2007

The Vinyl Countdown

Heyl Brett,

While it’s fresh in the mind, some thoughts on today’s ‘Difficult’ Double Feature, WAVELENGTH (1967) & VINYL (1965).

I enjoyed both films and could sit through them again, WAVELENGTH being the preferred of the two. My interpretations follow; you may find them off this planet...please consider:

It’s a very long stretch, but I suspect the crux of Michael Snow’s WAVELENGTH is to make the viewer aware (in a most surreal fashion) of the plight of the endangered whales. Stay with me:

“No one I think is in my tree; I mean it must be high or low...
That is you can’t, you know, TUNE IN but it’s all right.
That is I think it’s not too bad.
Let me take you down, ‘cause I’m going to...”

By 1966, as whale-watching became popular, member nations of the International Whaling Commission banned whaling of some species in the North Pacific to protect them as numbers had severely dwindled.

Canadians have a reputation as staunch environmentalists.

I suspect Michael Snow (The Canadian topical Environmentalist?) understood the urgency of the whales enough to make a film about it…albeit it in his own way.

It was surprising and enchanting to hear a segment from the Beatles’ STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER as part of the movie soundtrack. I suspect Michael Snow (The Artist) appreciated the Beatles increasingly avant-garde output. Strawberry Fields is not traditional guitars and drums…the sounds include mellotrons, tape loops, eastern instrumentation and pitch-shifting experiments.

I assume Michael Snow used the song without official clearance from The Beatles as actual Beatles recordings are rarely, if ever, permitted for such porpoises (Ha!). In this new context, Strawberry Fields sounds even more alien, further compressed effectively by poorly positioned(?)/inadequate microphone(s).

I think Michael Snow deliberately placed STRAWBERRY FIELDS near the outset of the film offering bewildered viewers a map/introduction/explanation/instruction to the underlying meaning of his movie. Looking closely at the Beatles’ lyric...

Most likely, the Beatles’ phrase “it must be high or low” relates to a frequency and is taken up by Snow, translated via various evolving frequencies in his movie, particularly sound waves and their wavelengths. (A Wavelength is inverse proportional with the frequency).
Even the apartment is shot from such an angle that you can’t “know” whether it’s on the ground floor or on a higher level up in the building...still, we see ambiguous movement outside...“it must be high or low” [long shot].

The Beatles’ phrase “TUNE IN” and the movie title “WAVELENGTH” go hand in hand.

I won’t underplay Snow’s decision to use Strawberry Fields in the movie.

A very complex and haunting recording for the times (Released Feb 67, Lennon had written it in Spain in Dec 1966 during down-time from filming Richard Lester’s HOW I WON THE WAR), Michael Snow must have moved incredibly quickly in order to capture this very-recently released Beatles song on film.

Apparently Snow also filmed WAVELENGTH during December 66.

Incredibly, Lennon actually used the word “WAVELENGTH” on the earliest unreleased studio demo version of STRAWBERRY FIELDS where he sings:

“No one is on my wavelength, I mean, it’s either too high or too low;
That is you can’t you know, tune in...”

I wonder if and how the Canadian Michael Snow knew of Lennon’s unavailable demo. It seems impossible! The Beatles official, released version of STRAWBERRY FIELDS does NOT include the word ‘wavelength’.

How did Snow pick up the good vibration? Wavelengths were in the air...What a fluke!

In order to get to the main point of the movie (WHALES), the film progresses slowly over time, through a series of repeating units of sound, colour and light, ranging at first from cool, low, wavelengths, gradually heating up, zooming in, tightening...colours get ever-hotter (at one point they seemed white hot...even the yellow chair looks white). Michael Snow manipulates sound through a series of electronic noises to capture/offer life and intimacy where there are mostly only inanimate objects to be seen.

For most of the movie, life is where you cannot see it. The viewer cannot view humanity. Instead, the still-life objects in the room begin to take on living characteristics. The yellow chair and the telephone on the table become very real characters...with the film soundtrack they seem to be talking to us. (Although one buzzing noise might be a fly hiding beneath the phone on the table as we creep towards it – Ha!).

As a subplot, we hear something like gunshots in the distance...a man stumbles in, falls down, a lady spots him and fears he is dead...she talks into/with the telephone (by now such an object of focus that we are almost becoming acquainted with it), while the soundtrack builds to ever tighter wavelengths, melding a score from new forms such as bells, whistles, alarms and sirens - appropriate seeing there’s a man possibly dead in this “living” room. (Living-room).

We focus more and more towards the ultimate shot. Everything else falls away and is passed...no more distractions...we are faced with Michael Snow’s subliminal and ultimate point...The surface of the ocean! (in a photograph on the wall)...

We expect to somehow keep breaking through to submerge...We may again recall The Beatles’ earlier singing “Let me take you down”, but the image of the ocean surface cannot visibly break. We cannot go below from here...However Snow’s message keeps evolving aurally if we use our imagination. Keep watching. Keep Listening. You can still hear what’s going on below...
I wonder if you could see/hear whales vocalizing from a thousand miles away, (beneath the ocean surface), sending oscillations all the way to this still/dead room. LISTEN to the soundtrack. One might identify whale-song in place. Considered by some (far-out, trippy, greenie folk types) the most beautiful songs on Earth, perhaps WAVELENGTH considers the importance of whales by juxtaposing whale song with Beatle song.

Some points on WHALESONG: Whale songs have been sent into space to represent Earth.
Humans and whales produce sounds differently. Humans use larynx and vocal chords, whales make wavelengths of sound with air vibrating through tissue in the head. Unlike humans, whales don’t necessarily have to exhale to produce sound. Researchers have found that whales from similar geographical regions sing similar songs whilst whales from other areas sing very different songs.

Wow! Freaky n’ far fetched? Too much? I don’t know.

……………………………………………………………………………………

Now quickly to Andy Warhol’s VINYL, I didn’t know what to expect…its legend keeps growing. I found it mostly aggressive and opportunistic.

As a man of 42 living in Sydney in 2007, it still felt confronting. One can only begin to imagine its impact on a conservative audience of 1965. Warhol often forced and shocked his way to fame and for that I have never particularly respected or liked him (much like Yoko Ono).

Regardless, this 1965 film with poor acting and huge shortcomings, seems to have been extremely influential. I don’t know whether Kubrick ever watched it, but I’m willing to bet he did. I even think that Warhol’s Vinyl had a deep and profound effect on Kubrick. Not only did Kubrick go on to make his own A Clockwork Orange, but years later, for his final movie (Eyes Wide Shut), Kubrick used actors like doppelgangers of those used by Warhol in 65.

Take a closer look at Victor the ‘star’ of Vinyl (Gerard Malanga - particularly his left profile). How much does Tom Cruise resemble him? Same eyebrows, nose, mouth, chin and stocky body shape…An uncanny and incredible resemblance! Kubrick also employed Nicole Kidman; although not facially identical, has the poise, slenderness, fairness-of-skin, moderate acting ability and tight sculpted neatness-of-hair as Edie Sedgwick.

Kubrick mirrored the mismatched Malanga and Sedgwick in Warhol’s Vinyl with the equally mismatched Cruise and Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut.

Perhaps Kubrick was perversely trying to relive Warhol’s own directing experience.
I really can imagine an old Stanley K. trying to relive a slice of Warhol’s 1965 life with his very own Malanga & wafer-thin Sedgwick.

Re- Sedgwick, Warhol always believed the masses would appreciate a bunch of boys more if they were garnished with the presence of a charismatic female. (He recruited Nico to front an all-male Velvet Underground). For Vinyl, Warhol obviously used Edie Sedgwick to light up the foreground. Sedgwick looks like an “Extra” with a very important role; slim, well-groomed, the newcomer sits propped-up majestically to fill the foreground and supplement the action…obviously the male lead of the story wasn’t enough.

The music Warhol chose for Vinyl included at least a couple of gems from the then-current British invasion. The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time” and the Kinks’ “Tired of Waiting” link thematically…perhaps Warhol is sending out a message to one of his own. Perhaps he just had a crush on Jagger…who knows.

Oh, I also thought J.D.McDermott (the Cop) looked a bit like actor Richard E Grant (Withnail and I)

I’m not sure if anyone has picked up on this, but it seems Warhol was surrounded by the letter V: Vinyl, Victor, Velvet Underground, Viva, Utra-Violet, he suffered from St Vitus’ Dance, he was shot by Valerie Solanas…

Even his own name ‘Warhol’ is pronounced Vorhola in parts of Europe…(like Wagner is pronounced Vargner)

See ya on Saturdaze…