Combat Camera

Finally, someone’s asking the right questions in Iraq, like, “how’d they get that shot?” Virginia Heffernan reports in the Times on the ultimate embeds: the soldiers who go into battle armed with digital video cameras (“the camera is our first weapon”) to record US military activity. Like Saddam Hussein’s medical checkup, which includes shots–like the glowing underside of Hussein’s tongue–that Heffernan rates as high art.

Cameraman unknown, Video still from Saddam Hussein's medical examination by a US Army physician, image: nytimes.com, getty images
what’s the opposite of independent? Film, that is. image: nytimes.com/getty images

These combat camera crews use Sony PD 150’s, just like civilian photojournalists (and the rest of us). In fact, I bought my first camera, a Sony VX-1000, from a war-documenting friend (whose production company, no coincidence, is named Combat Camera), who was supposed to star in Souvenir November 2001 until he got pulled into Tora Bora (ahh, the memories).
Like most documentarians, these filmmakers have a hard time getting distribution; Pentagon suits are even tighter-fisted than Miramax. But if they make a real heartstrings-pulling story –like the Jessica Lynch rescue or the Hussein body cavity search–when it does hit screens, it opens verrry wide.

Millionaires of the world, unite! Throw off your billionaire oppressors!

This was in my mailbox:

From: BushCheney04@GeorgeWBush.com
Subject: Billionaire compares President Bush to Nazis?
…Liberal billionaire George Soros, who has compared President Bush to the Nazis [“When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans.” said the Hungarian survivor of Nazi and Soviet rule, and Jew] and said that defeating him is “the central focus” of his life, will now spend $25 million in special interest money attacking him! [That’s more than some people’s liquid assets!]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24179-2003Nov10
Friends of the President [and fellow oppressed millionaire underdogs] like you are all that stand in their [the billionaires’] way. And the President needs your help!
Help us overcome the Democrats’ liberal billionaire by making your contribution and emailing five [millionaire] friends today!

And here I thought millionaires and billionaires got along so well together…
Related: for your, ahem, Christmas shopping enjoyment, my Amazon list, “Books I’ve Read by Tycoons I’ve Known”

Filmmaking Interviews of Note

  • Vadim Perelman, first-time director of House of Sand and Fog, whose tantrums made many people angry in Hollywood (this is news? at least his were entertaining, as are his accounts: “”So I go to his [Harvey Weinstein’s] suite at the Peninsula, and he’s sitting there like Jabba the f–king Hutt with his Diet Cokes and his Marlboro Reds.”). And the film’s getting strong reviews. [Sean Smith for Newsweek, via GreenCine Daily]
  • Ray Pride pulls some information from Milos Stehlik of Facets Multimedia, the North American distributor for Kieslowski’s Decalogue DVD, on whether its jerking aficionados’ chains by releasing a barebones 2-disc version in 2000 and a better, more elaborate 3-disc version this year. [Movie City News, also via GreenCine. David, I’d be boring without you; instead, I’m a cheery mooch.]
  • Ed Halter’s Village Voice interview with Errol Morris about The Fog of War, his mega-interview documentary with Robert “Rumsfeld” McNamara. [bonus: J. Hoberman’s rightfully ecstatic review] [via, I found this one myself.]
  • But the Best Interview Awared goes to: Black Book’s riotous Inside the Actor Love/Hate Studio session between Paul Thomas Anderson and Lars Von Trier. [via Low Culture via Gawker, who I didn’t know cared about film.]

    • Bloghdad.com/Timing

    What fortuitous timing. Last week’s announcement of an Iraq-based, Iraqi-run tribunal to prosecute crimes against humanity, including “trying Saddam Hussein in absentia,” if necessary, was a convenient pre-emptive strike against too much international meddling. Nice to have those death penalty-friendly ducks in a row just in case, you know, your trail is heating up thanks to intensive intelligence operations and dollar bill serial number-tracking.
    Also, it sure is convenient that a former Secretary of State is just leaving on a heavy diplomatic mission when you announce that your current Secretary of State is being operated on for prostate cancer. Bush apparently was informed of the surgery two weeks ago.

    Talk about Psycho…

    Reading Lyn Gardner’s story in the Guardian about the tyranny of playwrights’ estates over reinterpretations of well-known texts, I’m all the more shocked and awed that Gus Van Sant wanted to do his shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.
    The film world has a nearly diametrically opposed view of remakes from the theater, which shows in the different perceptions of The Text. For dead mens’ plays, the text is all, sacrosanct; for studio films, the script–and the writers–are cogs that get replaced as soon as they show signs of wear or sticking. As I prepare to buy the film rights to a novel from the author’s estate, I’m sweating the interpretation/adaptation process. One saving grace: the author’s children now work in the film and TV business.
    Here’s my off-the-cuff advice for you playwrights who don’t want their creative legacy snuffed out by visionless accountants: create an advisory panel or artists, playwrights, theater people, creative people, who will decide how and when your works get reinterpreted, sampled, and reformulated after you’re dead. They’ll serve for limited terms, so you can get new blood and new perspectives with each generation. Perhaps such an organization could be created by, like, the Artists Rights Society, and they’ll provide artistic evaluations into the future. You can choose how daring or conservative you want them to be. Just a thought. ‘night.

    Artist Books for the Holidays

    If you’re still looking for just the right gift for your Jewish (you better hustle) or Christian friend (you have a little more time), try an artist book from Printed Matter. Here are my, ahem, suggestions:

  • David Hammons, The Holy Bible: Old Testament. The complete works of Marcel Duchamp, rebound as a bible.
  • On Kawara’s CD, One Million Years (Past), which covers the years 998,031 BC to 997,400 BC.
  • Erin Cosgrove’s take on romantic fiction as conceptual art project, The Baader-Meinhof Affair, which sounds like The Rules of Attraction if Bret Easton Ellis had gone to Williams instead of Bennington.
  • J. Meejin Yoon’s Absence, a simple, remarkable “portable memorial” of the World Trade Center. It consists of diecuts on 127 pages (one per floor, including the radio mast), which create sculptural voids in the shape of the towers when the book is closed. The perfect gift for the nonfinalist memorial competition entrant in your life.

    • Barnes Storm

    Over at Modern Art Notes, Tyler’s on a roll, posting frequently and furiously about the current court proceedings to decide the fate of The Barnes Collection, the greatest assemblage of modern art in the country. Tyler does his gadfly best, providing some very useful context (and a bit of foaming at the mouth) for this big, somewhat under-/mis-reported story.

    some cheesy Renoir pinup from the Barnes Foundation, image: abcgallery.com

    Barnes was a new moneyed crank with a voracious appetite for once-unpopular art (Cezanne, Matisse, Renoir, Soutine, etc.), which he frequently bought in bulk, out of the artists’ studios. He had an unparalleled–but not unbiased–eye; by cornering the market on cheesy Renoir nudes, for example, he forced generations of Third World dictators to decorate their palaces with much less desirable, generic soft porn. His collection, foundation, and vision were all mercilessly mocked by Philadelphia society the art establishment of his day, and he took great glee in their eventual comeuppance; he knew the world would have to come groveling back to his art someday.
    Now, though, after a couple of generations of pathetic mismanagement (“hundreds of items,” including a Matisse and a Renoir gone missing. Did you check the bathroom for the Renoir, your honor?); a feckless board; the inept defensiveness of Lincoln University (the historically black institution Barnes’s will put in charge of his legacy), and an utterly clueless-sounding judge, it looks like that same Philadelphia Establishment’s shameless attempt to take control of the collection may succeed. It’s all pretty ghetto.
    I haven’t thought it all the way through yet, but Barnes comes to mind when I see the sometimes clumsy, always entertaining, mega-collecting arms race in Miami right now. I doubt that Marty Margulies or his competitors are the Albert Barnes of the 22nd century, but I know that there are enough snotty art worlders who try to proclaim their own insiderness by mocking them behind their backs.

    Gus Van Sant’s Go-to Guy

    img_0091palme-d'or.jpg
    Gus Van Sant, Elias McConnell, and Dany Wolf
    at Cannes 2003, image: festival-cannes.com
    There he is, scorched in Death Valley and on the Saltflats of Utah; in a mold-closed school with a barebones crew on scooters; and on the Palais steps of Cannes, where he accepted the Palme D’Or this year for Elephant.
    Gus Van Sant? Sure, he’s there, too, but I’m talking about Dany Wolf, the producer. The guy who actually has to figure out how to make the movies Gus sees in his head.
    While I’ve been a fan of Van Sant’s since Drugstore Cowboy, I’ve been very interested in his recent bold filmmaking experiments, which coincide with my own entry into the field. I wanted to find out Wolf’s on-set experience and insight on making the films that are remaking film.
    Below, read my November 2003 discussion with Wolf, an exclusive feature of greg.org.
    [Note: No underage Filipino data entry workers were harmed in the transcription of this 3,000-word piece. Special thanks to Dany Wolf, Jay Hernandez and Jeff Hill, who aren’t doing so bad, either.]

    Continue reading “Gus Van Sant’s Go-to Guy”

    Gregger Stalker:

    On the (F) train to a private collection visit downtown, I stood next to the straight guy from Queer Eye, the rocker with the skank girlfriend (“the one with the hooker boots?” is how a friend remembered her). Net net: it didn’t stick. He looked as dissheveled and style-free as he did at the beginning of his show.
    For some people, it turns out, metrosexuality is nothing more than a phase, something they experiment with in college. Or summer camp.

    Cell phones are the new pocketwatches

    And since it’s socially acceptable to pull out your phone and fiddle with it–after all, you may be turning it off so you can better concentrate on the conversation at hand–sneaking a glance at the clock doesn’t hurt the feelings of your fellow guests.

    Amar Kanwar at MoMA Documentary Fortnight

    Ahh, that’s a better. Now I can endlessly praise the programming acumen of the MoMA Documentary Fortnight without it sounding like pure self-promotion.
    Three of Amar Kanwar’s most recent works–including A Night of Prophecy, which I killed my Friday night in Miami for, and his unsurpassed A Season Outside, a poetic Cremaster-meets-nuclear-brinksmanship documentary which was one of the greatest finds at last year’s Documenta XI–will be shown as part of MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight festival. Three films screen together on Sunday December 21. Be there.
    Related:
    Complete schedule for this year’s MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight
    A slew of Amar Kanwar posts from Documenta.
    A post about Souvenir November 2001‘s screening at last year’s MoMA DF

    V(S)IP at Art Basel Miami

    The S is for Self, as in Self-Important. And I wasn’t alone. Far from it. The most unnecessary question of the day was the endearing, “Do you know who I am?” It wasn’t unnecessary because the Swiss minions running the art fair were so gracious, but because people were always telling you how fabulous they and their taste are anyway. My VIP card didn’t score me an early private screening of the only piece I wanted to see in the video program; fortunately, though, the snow conspired to keep me in town one more night. I saw Amar Kanwar‘s 2002 A Night of Prophecy, which he produced for last year’s Documenta XI.

    Amar Kanwar's A Night of Prophecy production still, image: rennaisancesociety.org

    I left the tawdry spectacle of NY art dealers singing karaoke for what turned out to be basically a series of subcontinental music videos. Kanwar filmed people singing calls for caste revolution and protests of various ethnic conflicts. It was alternately moving and didactic, always poetic, but hopelessly at odds with the shiny-as-a-C-print materialist, money-soaked, elitistriving artfest that hosted it. The thirty people at the start of the screening dwindled to less than half that, with only about 8-10 of us pinko Gandhi-ists watching the entire thing. Why some people wouldn’t want to spend their Friday night in South Beach being called (in melodic Hindi) an exploitative thief living off the sweat of the poor is beyond me.
    (Of course, I’m writing this from the Delta Crown Room at the airport…the sweaty sunburned masses are already too much for me to deal with apparently…)

    about living and writing

    Offline occurrences, previously known as life, have preoccupied me lately, and I’ve been working, consuming, seeing, reading, and writing less, hence a lighter-than-usual posting volume. Well, actually, I did some writing last week, but I prefer not to post it here, at least not yet. It’s not that it’s irrelevant, just the opposite.
    For more information, please refer to my post of 11.24.03