Self Conscious 'quirkiness'

[AWA]

Will Oldham doesn't think much of Wes Anderson:

AVC: You mentioned talking to Richard Linklater and Caveh Zahedi about your ideas on movie music. Can you summarize those ideas?

WO: Well, for a while, it seemed like you were always seeing movies where all the music was determined by the music supervisors and their special relationships with certain record labels. And I just felt like, “Wow, I’ll bet they spent months or years writing this screenplay, and I’ll bet they spent months shooting this, and I’ll bet they spent months editing this, and now they’re spending no time at all picking these completely inappropriate songs with lyrics to put under a scene that has dialogue.” How does that even work? How can you have a song with someone singing lyrics under spoken dialogue and consider that mood-music, or supportive of the storyline? As somebody who likes music, when that happens, I tend to listen to the lyrics, which have nothing to do with the movie. And then I’m lost in the storyline. Not only is that a crime, but it’s a crime not to give people who are good at making music for movies the work. It’s like saying, “We don’t need you, even though you’re so much better at it than I am as a music supervisor.” Like the cancer that is that Darjeeling guy… what’s his name?

AVC: Wes Anderson?

WO: Yeah. His completely cancerous approach to using music is basically, “Here’s my iPod on shuffle, and here’s my movie.” The two are just thrown together. People are constantly contacting me saying, “I’ve been editing my movie, and I’ve been using your song in the editing process. What would it take to license the song?” And for me it’s like, “Regardless of what you’ve been doing, my song doesn’t belong in your movie.” That’s where the conversation should end. Music should be made for movies, you know?

That's nice, but unfortunately Mr. Oldham has no idea what he's talking about and the point he attempts to make gets completely lost in his inability to understand film history. As if Wes Anderson, of all people, is somehow the root of some "cancer" by putting pre-existing songs into films. As if popular songs haven't been used in film soundtracks since before there was even sync sound in film. Good grief - and I'll be he really thinks that too.

[Gregory]

Also, Mark Mothersbaugh composed more music for those films than you can shake a stick at. I partially agree with what Oldham says, but he goes way too far.

[kaujot]

Man, Scorsese is such a hack. I bet he just goes through his record collection and goes, "Here, put this on this on."

[domino harvey]

Man, Scorsese is such a hack. I bet he just goes through his record collection and goes, "Here, put this on this on."

More like he goes right to his Rolling Stones Best Of CD

[AWA]

Also, Mark Mothersbaugh composed more music for those films than you can shake a stick at. I partially agree with what Oldham says, but he goes way too far.

That too. I wonder what Mothersbaugh would have to say in response to that? There's probably a great song in there somewhere.

I also at least partially agree with what Oldham says initially, but he clearly takes an interesting slant and turns it into one of the biggest and broadest brushes of criticism you could possibly conceive of and makes a right arse out of himself.

[domino harvey]

I understand Oldham's point as a musician who doesn't like to see his work used to bolster someone else's art. But that's how music works in films, so he's still a total dope (who hasn't made any worthwhile music since his underrated country album)

[kaujot]

I'll be honest. I don't even know who he is.

[knives]

He's a country musician that was in Old Joy, and I think other films.

[AWA]

He's a country musician that was in Old Joy, and I think other films.

Definitely not straight "country" per say... more like alt.folk.songwriter. Also famous for resembling Nietzsche.



Apparently not famous for his knowledge of film and film history.

I understand Oldham's point as a musician who doesn't like to see his work used to bolster someone else's art.

In that case, he should be equally angry with himself for having someone made a music video for his songs or someone design album artwork, both examples of that sin. It's just stupid, it doesn't make any sense at all. Quite unfortunate.

[swo17]

He's a country musician that was in Old Joy, and I think other films.

He was quite affecting as a young zealous preacher boy in Sayles's Matewan.

[Oedipax]

Oldham was one of the reasons I checked out The Guatemalan Handshake (others being its release on the Benten Films label, whose stamp of approval I typically trust, plus David Gordon Green's hearty endorsement). Anyway, it is a complete mess, and the most grating example of self-conscious quirkiness committed to film I've had the misfortune of seeing. Anyone wanting to get a handle on this topic must eventually confront this film, unfortunately.

[ryan11]

I'll be honest. I don't even know who he is.

Musically, he is probably best known for writing I See A Darkness, which Johnny Cash covered on American Recordings III: Solitary Man.

He has written some fine songs. Not sure about his film credentials, but I, in part, share his views on Wes Anderson. His films are Self Conscious 'quirkiness' personified. Having said that, The Bonnie Prince hasn't produced anything of subtance in years himself.

[Antoine Doinel]

I like Bonnie "Prince" Billy quite a bit, but his entire constructed persona as the eccentric alt-country dude is just as self-consciously quirky as anything he's railing against.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Persona that it is, it seems to work considering the musical company he keeps. I myself wouldn't call a guy who's friends with David Tibet to be someone playing the self-conscious quirky card. (Cue thread about Tibet's self-consciously quirky singing - ha ha.)

I agree with him on this attitude toward music - especially his idea of discovering it on your own - to some extent, but it also strikes me as a little naive. I understand what he's saying and appreciate it, but the member who posted that Mothersbaugh works with Anderson has a point. It seems that Oldham is reacting more to the marketing and appropriation end rather than the music itself. Somewhere on here, David Ehrenstein pointed out the way Anderson and Garrel used the same Kinks song in their films with differing results. In that way, Oldham would be right. I listen to a lot of John Zorn and it seems that he does well enough on soundtracks to validate some of Oldham's claims. Then again, Zorn is not the sort to deal patiently with A&R men either. Oldham's got an argument, but it got a little lost somewhere.

[Antoine Doinel]

Oldham's got an argument, but it got a little lost somewhere.

I think it's when he called Anderson a "cancer".

Also, if you've ever seen Will Oldham perform live, you might change your position regarding how self-conscious his persona is. I saw him open for Bjork and his set consisted of him playing an autoharp, while hopping on one foot. The previous night, he had apparently played quite a normal set in another city for a smaller, non-Bjork crowd.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Yes, good call on the cancer analogy. As domino pointed out, Scorsese can be as much of an offender as Anderson. I honestly forgot about his live performances, but that Bjork one sounds like an aberration. (I think Bjork will have to go in that David Tibet thread I proposed.) Although I have heard that he showed up to one gig in a pink parachute suit - which strikes me as a wicked joke nonetheless. Antoine, would you consider Antony Hegarty as self-consciously quirky? Granted, he's hardly as bad as Joanna Newsom and Bjork of late, but he seems like a candidate. I mean, Antony seems like he'd meet it, but I ask you because where can we draw the line? Twee and quirky perhaps? I dunno sometimes. It's just the air of self-importance that bugs me, I guess. Then again, I guess you could say the same about punk.

[Oedipax]

I agree with Oldham that source music is increasingly being used in a really lazy way in films and TV shows (I think it's even worse there) but his a priori rejection of anyone using non-scored music for films is pretty dumb. It wasn't artistically lazy when Kenneth Anger did it; let's not confuse the technique itself for those who don't put as much thought into it. I've had this image in my head for a while of a music supervisor for some episodic show going 'Right, we need 15 seconds to punch up this transition,' hopping onto the iTunes store, grabbing something absent-mindedly, then quickly negotiating a license and sending it over to the editor to be cut in. Of course that kind of scoring-by-numbers approach is going to be corrosive, but let's not go overboard here. I feel bad for the filmmaker who genuinely has a good use for one of Oldham's songs and gets flatly rejected because Oldham can't be bothered to consider it in context.

[Antoine Doinel]

I like Antony's records and I've seen him live, and he's the real deal. His live performance was utterly breathtaking and sincere. As for Bjork, she too is coming from a sincere place. I haven't liked her last two records, but they are borne from intriguing concepts nonetheless. As for Oldham, another friend recounted seeing Palace back in the day, driving to another city to see them no less, only to be greeted by Oldham performing the entire show with his back to the crowd. So, Oldham's quirks are not as aberrant as they seem. Again, I'm an Oldham fan but his Southern-gothic mystique is partially a schtick.

I guess quirkiness for me is borne out of insincerity or a grab for attention.

[Binker]

Antony's the real deal and Oldham's full of shit? ](*,)

[Fierias]

They're both the real deal, but I agree that Antony is the realer deal.

[Gregory]

This discussion made sense to me regarding a certain set of films, but it's all too easy to accuse any artist doing something genuinely unique -- or anything incomprehensible just to an individual -- of going out of his/her way to be weird or quirky. My question is, what specific criteria give this kind of statement any merit?

The example of Björk, mentioned above, is a good example of this, since she's consistently proven herself for well over two decades to be a genuinely eccentric artist who is often a few steps ahead of her own fans, following her own muse rather than pandering consciously to others' expectations of "quirkiness."

[eljacko]

Isn't part of Being John Malkovich all about how John Cusack's character is a creep and a lowlife who gets his comeuppance in the end? I liked the film, but I never at any point felt sympathetic to him.

[knives]

You're entirely right. Really Kaufman's career could be summed up as, "Kaufman is a terrible person unworthy of happiness," Adaptation plays with this a bit, of course, but generally his protagonists are at their best less villainous than the villains. Malkovich is probably the most on the nose in this respect, which I believe hurts the film a great deal. That may be for a different topic though.

[MichaelB]

This discussion made sense to me regarding a certain set of films, but it's all too easy to accuse any artist doing something genuinely unique -- or anything incomprehensible just to an individual -- of going out of his/her way to be weird or quirky. My question is, what specific criteria give this kind of statement any merit?

Well, it seems to me that Werner Herzog's My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? is a good example. God knows Herzog's credentials as a bona fide eccentric are rock-solid (and I'm fully aware that that's a major understatement), but it seemed to me that this particular film was straining for "quirkiness" rather too obviously and clunkily for my taste.

[domino harvey]

Recently watched an interesting indie that flew under my radar, Gil Cates, Jr's Lucky (2011), and found it brought something novel to the quirkiness table. The film starts off innocuously enough, with the delightful Ari Graynor (in a rare but well-deserved starring role) throwing herself at Colin Hanks' nerdy office boy who has just won the lottery. She does this via several silly "meet cutes" and it's all played pretty straight by the film and could have come out of any low-budget rom com with Sundance inclinations. Somewhere early in the midst of this courtship, though, the film flatly reveals that Hanks is a serial killer who murders women that physically resemble Graynor, and the winning lotto ticket was in fact left in his car by a previous victim. Thus the film goes into ultra-arch mode, with Graynor being goofy and scheming for his money, essentially performing in a different film from the one she's actually featured within. This notion serves as an interesting twist on the self-aware idea of competing and often contradictory tropes that black comedies often employ. Of course, once she discovers the secret, her ability to process and use this information cannot gel with her "role" in the actual film, and thus she continues down the required rom com genre-defined path regardless of this new information. Formally it's a bold maneuver, and a gifted comic actress like Graynor makes it work by refusing to acknowledge the disconnect for any considerable length of time. I'm not surprised that this didn't make any waves, as it's a film with an uneasy tone that calls to mind the great half-remembered classics we discussed in the Basic Cable Staples thread, but it comes highly recommended for those who are receptive to such pleasures!