I usually get the clicker. I want to be clear about that. But sometimes I don’t. This evening F tuned us into a movie called ‘Mother Night’, right as it was starting. I’m really glad that she did.
The movie Mother Night by Robert Weide- starring Nick Nolte, and with a supporting cast that includes Alan Arkin, John Goodman, and a wee Kirsten Dunst – is based on Kurt Vonnegut’s book of the same name. To see a piece that Weide wrote about the film for Paul Krassner’s The Realist (Autumn, 1997), click here.
The film is about a writer who hides out from his conscious, serving in communications for the Nazi’s. He was a playwright before the war, and really doesn’t care one way or another for politics. What Vonnegut and Weide show very dramatically is that one does not have the option not to participate in the moral/social life of one’s times. That is an issue I deal with/am dealing with for my current project: All Good Men.
Mother Night makes very good use of some film music by Gavin Bryars. While his famous ‘songs’, well utilized in the dance world, develop lovely melodies, this music had the sheen and tension, but just…. kept… going. Somehow the in-monotonous almost beautiful tension filled the spaces just that little bit to help carry the images along without the one relying overly on the other.
My first rehearsal for All Good Men is Thursday evening, and I’ve been thinking about where to start the choreography. I had decided on the most thematically central ‘track’ to start with, thinking it would help us find some meaningful core. But I was unhappy with the choice cause it’s very fast paced, and to develop cast coherence I think something more moderate might serve better. Now I’m thinking of using an Adams track….
