Alles ist Volkslied – dem großen Archivar und Volksmusikquerulanten Heino zum 85. Geburtstag

Ob Rap, ob Pop, ob Rock ’n‘ Roll
Egal, ich find‘ das alles toll
Doch mein Herz, das hängt, das weiß man ja
Am Volkslied, das ist doch klar

(Haselnuss, 1989)

1967, plötzlich war er da, der junge Konditor mit der Autorität von 1000 Leben und Meeren in der erst 28-jährigen Stimme. „Kein schöner Land in dieser Zeit“ – Fahrtenlieder, Seemannsglück, Seemannstod, ein bisschen Vergnügliches und wilde Gesellen, vom Sturmwind durchweht. Eines der idiosynkratischsten Debüts der volkstümlichen Musik im zeitlichen Umfeld von Ohnesorg, Sechstagekrieg, Summer of Love und der auch in der Bundesrepublik aufkeimenden Hippiebewegung greift inmitten der immer drängender erscheinenden Gegenwart ganz tief in die kulturelle Schatzkiste der Vergangenheit. Das traditionelle Volkslied als Wiedergänger in den kommerziellen Erwägungen der volkstümlichen Musik, die bündische Jugend, sie marschiert wieder durch die Lande? Für wen? Wilde Gesellen, die hat auch Degenhardt, der zertifizierte Anti-Heino, einmal besungen – mit an die Zeiten angepassten Text von Ernst Busch aus dem spanischen Bürgerkrieg, mit unweigerlich aus einer anderen Zeit gefallenem Text im Jahre 2000. Elektrisch zudem, wie Bob Dylan in Newport ’65. Weiterlesen…

Remembrances floating between two dates – Walter E. Sear (1930 – 2010)

Walter E. Sear in „Lurkers“ (Roberta Findlay, 1988)

To the eternal love of Walter E. Sear and Roberta Findlay

Between the the 27th and 29th of April 2020 the footprint Walter E. Sear left in the world of music, filmmaking but more than that human interaction lingers on especially dominant before gradually retreating again to where all things now unliving and carried on by fond memories alone reside. For today is stuck precisely between what would have been his 90th birthday and what will be the 10th anniversary, the first real milestone, the harshest one for most bereaved, of his passing. Sear, a New Yorker since practically ever, his family moved to Queens when he was only one year old, and forever, was a pioneering recording engineer and tinkerer on all things emitting peculiar sounds, a musician and composer, he produced films, wrote, scored, directed and sold them as successfully as he sold instruments. And that’s only half it, a person like him can only ever be measured in half truths and thinly veiled wonder. He was a true powerhouse of creative thought. Thought that must have connected him easily and even in fleeting everyday passing to another powerhouse of imaginative ventures when they first ran past each other in the decidedly non-romantic offices their different yet closely entwined lines of work made them frequent. Walter E. Sear and Roberta Findlay met in 1976, petty circumstances, while visiting a fellow yet inconsequential for theirs connection and they grew inseparable soon after. Weiterlesen…

‚The pain of being a woman is too severe!‘ – The films of Roberta Findlay: Psychogeographic coping on Fire Island

I’ll find a place somewhere in the corner
I’m gonna waste the rest of my days
Just watching patiently from the window
Just waiting, seasons change

BRIAN ENO – I’ll Come Running

Just keep on like I do and pay no attention. You’ll find that people always will complain about the atmosphere, either too hot or too cold too bright or too dark, days too short or too long.

FRANK O’HARA – A True Account of Talking to The Sun on Fire Island

Weiterlesen…

‚The pain of being a woman is too severe!‘ – The films of Roberta Findlay: Mascara (1983)

Deep in the heart of a lonely city
I wandered sad and all alone
Then in the heart of a lonely city
I saw the girl that I want for my own

(John Leyton – Lonely City)

Weiterlesen…

‚The pain of being a woman is too severe!‘ – The films of Roberta Findlay: Fantasex (1976)

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality

(Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody)

Weiterlesen…

‚The pain of being a woman is too severe!‘ – The films of Roberta Findlay: The Oracle (1985)

Two highly distinct approaches become discernible when taking a closer look at Roberta Findlay’s post-porn career in mainstream filmmaking. The, be they gritty or be they tender in nature, highly personal stories told in the quite straight „Tenement“ (1985) and „Lurkers“ (1988) as well as the madcap insanity prevelant in in the more tongue in cheek than anything else „Blood Sisters“ (1987) and this one, her very first film post transitioning. More in line with the snarky, self-deprecating public persona the introverted directress created for herself than her remaining filmography, they revel in a unique, utterly off-beat understanding of humor while falling somewhat flat in their more traditional conceptions as horror films. In contrast to some of her greatest achievements in Golden Age pornography, they are always two steps away from outright comedy, playing the game straight and yet sabotaging the expecations of a horror crowd with small, intentional but never narrative based acts of directorial transgression. Big guy John Fasano fleeing the scene in the most hilarious fashion imaginable and the way Elizabeth Rose’s glasses seem to prefer viewing directions of their own volition otherwhile – weird flourishes like these place „Blood Sisters“ in its own goofy corner equal steps adjacent to completely serious and satirical peers. Even more than Findlay’s sorority girl slasher „The Oracle“ utilizes these interfering agents to bridge what would otherwise be considered barren gaps in a drawn out horror narrative – with sound being, as per her unmistakable habit, one of the prime instruments. Weiterlesen…

‚The pain of being a woman is too severe!‘ – The films of Roberta Findlay: Lurkers (1988)

New York City possesses quite an interesting facial layout in Roberta Findlay’s cinematic universe – cheeks blooming with the brightest red excitation can muster up, planted right between them a pallid nose frozen stiff by sorrow and social iciness and throning above this dichotomy a pair of eyes filled with the marvel of discovery, experimentation, the ability to combine all these emotional extremes on the silver screen. She really was one of the great chronists putting this lively, in the good as well as the bad, mega city to record – and yet it does not seem to exist in her up to this day final theatrically released feature. Sure, pinpointing single shooting locations is easy enough to do, even for someone who’s never taken a bite from the big apple (like me). But in the end they’d still remain nothing but peripheral driblets of reality trickling away in the only real fairytale she ever told. There was a potent grittyness about her post-porn work in horror cinema that is inexplicably absent here. Much rather coated from head to toe in a vague uneasyness highly remiscent of her pornographic magnus opum „From Holly With Love“ (1978) it is quite fittingly another superb score by Walter E. Sear sounding the depths of human and beyond-human emotion in „Lurkers“. Weiterlesen…

‚The pain of being a woman is too severe!‘ – The films of Roberta Findlay: From Holly with Love (1978)

„La photographie, c’est la vérité et la cinéma, c’est vingt-quatre fois la vérité par seconde.“ – in a nutshell: Cinema is truth at 24 frames a second – is an often quoted wise saying by French cinema stylite Jean-Luc Godard. Well, when speaking about Roberta Findlay’s cinema though his German counterpart Rainer Werner Fassbinder seems to have been closer to the truth for once. „Film ist Lüge, 25 mal in der Sekunde.“ – Film is a put-on, 25 times in each second. It might not always be as integral to the appeal as it is in „From Holly with Love“, but Findlay’s flow of imagery is a lie, a beguilement involving just about everything – her intentions, feelings, the undersold wisdom that lies buried in her work – and extending to externa of her filmography. Golden Age of Hollywood smuggling as a coping mechanism for being forced to work on projects she took no immediate interest in or even found distasteful, the elaborate (and even I have to admit it: screamingly funny) stand up comedy routine „An hour of self-deprecation with Roberta Findlay“ most of her rare public appearances have a tendency to evolve into sooner or later – it’s all part of the deal. Weiterlesen…

‚The pain of being a woman is too severe!‘ – The films of Roberta Findlay: Snuff (1976)

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
And I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
And I get to the bottom and I see you again, yeah, yeah

(The Beatles – Helter Skelter)

Weiterlesen…

‚The pain of being a woman is too severe!‘ – The films of Roberta Findlay: The Altar of Lust (1971)

In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all.

(Bob Dylan – Love Minus Zero)

Weiterlesen…