Notebook Post - Hell with This Video, and Thoughts on Why

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Eighteenth-century satire became nineteenth century observation. In the twentieth century observation became surreal. It became an ironic sensuality, and the basis for satire, which was once moral, became irony. As if by attraction, or even kinship, observation, along with its concerns for sentiment and social justice, followed satire to sit on its new ironic base.

Guy Davenport, from A Balthus Notebook

-Late last year music critic Simon Reynolds wrote a terrifically ambivalent post for the Guardian, explaining why M.I.A. might be the artist of the decade. He suggests, more complexly than my summary will allow, that the amount of buzz over M.I.A. has more to do with a hunger among certain writers about music for a "redemptive populist voice" in the style of Joe Strummer or Bob Marley, something that has been conspicuously absent over the last ten years or so - but only when combined with a use of very web-based modes of distribution and hype that she seemed to use better than almost anyone not named Lil' Wayne.


-"Born Free" exists only thanks to a very, very 1960s/70s set of aesthetic choices. The central sample is from Suicide's "Ghost Rider", linked above. Suicide's name was not chosen in advocacy, but warning; the title character of "Ghost Rider" is "screamin' the truth/America America is killing its youth." Their style was bizarre, theatrical, edging close to performance art, and a kind of legend has surrounded shows were crowds would get outright violent, like the "23 Minutes in Brussels" tape, which ends with Vega's microphone being stolen by the crowd, the singer screaming at his audience. Even today Vega is a bizarre, uncomfortable presence onstage; his acting is both so focused and intense and so on the face of it "fake" that he causes a kind of cognitive dissonance in his audience. Its hard to think of any other now-Canonical rock band that, when viewing their live performances, you have to wonder if this is really any "good" in the first place.

-M.I.A.'s track, recorded in a mansion in 2010, sounds more "Lo-Fi" than the Suicide track, recorded in poverty in mid '70s NY. Why? Affectation. This, after all, is a day and age where someone like Wavves will slather his Garageband recorded tracks in post-production distortion to get that special authentic sound, just to sound closer to artists like Pavement or Royal Trux, who were considered ironic more than anything in the ear during which they emerged.



-The above is the only other track I can think of that cribs so openly from "Ghost Rider." You may recognize it from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Like M.I.A.'s track, it could be described as "kind of political, or something."

-The director of the video is Romain Gavras, son of Costa-Gavras, who made one iconic film (Z) in 1969, and followed it with a career that became increasingly irrelevant, film by film. I guess Romain is best known for this video, which treats content and treats imagery and material that would have read as definitely "retro" back in Suicide's day as completely and totally current.

-The main reference in "Born Free" (is reference the right word?) is Peter Watkins Vietnam Era Punishment Park; the trailer can explain the set-up better than I can.

-Watkins has a long, strange history as a film maker. His best known film is still probably "War Game," a fake documentary ("mockumentary" before the word) that illustrates the effects of a hypothetical nuclear strike on London. He thought that the government had mislead the population as to the true cost of nuclear war, and wanted to set things straight. The movie pulls few punches, and there was something of a scandal upon its initial release. Some years later he would make a film on the painter Edward Munch, combining the usual biographical drama with a very clear emphasis on how the troubled social realities of Munch's era are clearly reflected in his painting, and the emergence of Expressionism in general.

-The painting at the top of the post is by James Ensor, a Belgian painter, born in the 19th century, who managed to live through half of the 20th. This painting, "Banquet of the Starved," was done in 1915, and is more or less his expression of dismay at the Germans having invaded his country. The "Last Supper" reference is quite clear, and so is his commentary. But the painting has a strange, indelible quality; it's so attached to its time and place, but you cold almost imagine it standing in any year of the Twentieth Century. There is an excess, the thing that is left when the "meaning" is explained away, that stands proudly on its own. Watkin's films have a not dissimilar quality; he may not be at the same caliber as Munch or Ensor, but neither War Game or Punishment Park feels dated in the least. This may just be the sign of our time, but "Born Free" feels dated already, and more than a little threadbare.

-So as not to leave this on a sour taste, I will embed another video, a nearly current video even, that hits many of the buttons that M.I.A. and Gavras are missing. I wouldn't say I'm advocating this, not really. But I think that our "Banquet of the Starved," when we see it, will be dressed more in this style than the other.

Major Lazer "Keep it Going Louder" from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.