Sounds in Sight
Music videos, performances, and docs are all part of LAFF
Danger Mouse: hip-hop
super-producer, one half of the U.K. chart-topping duo Gnarls Barkley, and Woody Allen fan.
That's right: In a conversation with KCRW (89.9 FM) DJ Jason Bentley at the Hammer Museum last Monday (June 12), the musician came out of the neurotic closet as he detailed his reaction to seeing his first Woodster film, Deconstructing Harry, at age 17.
"I couldn't understand why I related to this 60-year-old Jewish guy," confessed Danger Mouse, a.k.a. Brian Burton. "I totally understood this guy in a lot of ways that I never had discussed with my friends. It made me feel better about myself looking at this neurotic old man. I just fell in love with his stuff."
As the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival's Artist in Residence, he will honor that film and some of his other favorites, having selected three pics to screen among the event's 174 films: Harry, Richard Kelly's director's cut of Donnie Darko, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun.
Rock, pop, and hip-hop traditionally have a strong presence at LAFF, presented by indie organization Film Independent. Wu-Tang Clan founder the RZA served as Artist in Residence last year; Neil Young had the privilege in '04. George Hickenlooper's doc on L.A.'s own Rodney Bingenheimer, Mayor of the Sunset Strip, debuted at the '03 fest, and the annual Music Video Showcase has screened hard-to-find videos by the likes of the Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, Nine Inch Nails, and Beck. This year, the showcase will highlight the videos of Fatboy Slim.
"Music has always played an important role in the Los Angeles Film Festival," says festival director Rich Raddon. "We were one of the first film festivals in the country to screen music videos, and that spirit has continued with the live musical performances which we incorporate in the festival."
As for the latter, next Saturday, July 1, Sex Pistol and radio personality Steve "Jonesy" Jones will broadcast his Indie 103.1 FM show live from the Ford Amphitheatre before a screening of Julien Temple's Sex Pistols doc The Filth and the Fury. Local notables the Like and the Vacation will join in to perform - no doubt - a number of Pistols covers. This Saturday, the Ford will host a quieter bill of fare, screening Lian Lunson's doc, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, after a performance by Martha Wainwright.
Wainwright says she was asked to participate because the Cohen film includes footage of her, Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Laurie Anderson, brother Rufus Wainwright, and others performing at a tribute concert in Sydney, Australia. A longtime friend and fan of the veteran singer-songwriter, she's looking forward to attending the fest for the first time.
"This is very exciting," she enthuses. "What better place to be a part of a premiere of a film? I hopefully will be able to see some other things."
For Danger Mouse, the LAFF gig allows him to somewhat live out his filmmaking fantasy. "I started out doing music because I wanted to do film, but I couldn't afford the equipment," he told Bentley. "I wanted to do just music, but I wanted to do it the way a director would do film ... . I'm trying to create a director's role for musicians."
As with a film, Danger Mouse said he begins with a concept for a record, such as an album based on cartoons (The Mouse and the Mask) or the now legendary mash-up of Jay-Z and the Beatles (The Gray Album). He then casts a "star," such as Danger Doom or Gnarls Barkley vocalist Cee-Lo. Film references have also made their way into his visuals. At Coachella this year, Cee-Lo and DM took the sweltering stage done up as The Wizard of Oz's Cowardly Lion and Tin Man, and a recent series of PR photos feature the two impersonating characters such as the droogs from A Clockwork Orange and Napoleon Dynamite's title geek and buddy Pedro.
But Danger Mouse isn't ready to invest in that expensive film equipment just yet. "I don't want to have any disrespect for people who've been doing [film] for as long as I've been trying to do music," he said. "It's one of those things where, if I decide to do it, it'll probably be another 10 years before I did something.
"But don't hold me to that," he added with a grin.
Published: 06/22/2006
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