#errol fuller

[sihaya74]

NEW The Lessons of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal S1:E2 -- WELL, THAT'S JUST TERRIFIC, GOD...

Lessons of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal

S1:E2 – WELL, THAT’S JUST TERRIFIC, GOD…

An amuse-bouche is the name for a small dish served in restaurants prior to beginning a meal. It is not an appetizer – especially not in the eyes of some Americans, who expect appetizers so large they are served on platters and perhaps with some sort of celebratory song or souvenir. An amuse-bouche can be eaten in one or two bites. A patron never orders an amuse-bouche – it is selected by the chef and usually provided to diners free of charge. It is meant to be a hint of things to come – the culinary equivalent of an elevator pitch. This is what you can expect going forward – this flavor profile, this style, this sense of weight or lightness, these notes, this feeling the food creates.

            “Amuse-Bouche” is also the name of S1:E2 of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal. The first episode was titled “Apéritif” – which is, of course, a drink served before dinner, usually alcoholic, meant to whet the appetite. Sometimes, the apéritif and the amuse-bouche are served together. In the case of Hannibal, they are not.

            Fuller wrote S1:E1 solo. SI:E2 was written by Jim Danger Gray, who also worked on Fuller’s Pushing Daisies (another one of the most beautiful and moving series ever filmed, in my opinion) and is best known for his work on Orange Is the New Black.

            If S1:E1 was meant to whet our appetites, it handily succeeds. If S1:E2 is meant to give us a sense of what to expect going forward in both Season 1 and the entire series, it succeeds mightily as well. Before I discuss the content of the episode and the lesson nestled in the savory morsels of this amuse-bouche, I must give a little context about “adaptation.”

            I often cannot decide what is harder for authors – to write completely original content that they dredge up from the basements of their brains, from the secret closets of their heart, out from under the beds of their childhood memories, scavenged from the garage sales of their teen and adult years… Or is it harder to adapt the original material from another author – to take something from the basement and closets of another person and try to merge it into something of their own. Take the original author’s coat and cut off the lapels and sleeves – add on more stylish sleeves without the old-school suede patches on the elbows (which I actually like and think we should bring back) and lapels with jazzy details and a bigger buttonhole to accommodate all the things the adapter would like to thread through it. I have not decided which is harder. I have done both. They both require a lot of research and patience. Considering all of human existence is one long story – considering each of our lives adds a new chapter to the Great Story as it is always being written – perhaps original writing and adaptation are the same thing. If we ever actually hit “THE END” of existence, maybe we’ll find out.

            I took a course on adaptation in grad school. It focused on the adaptation of the Robin Hood legend from the first ballads of the 1400s up until the most recent film and television adaptations – and all the Robins of Huntingtons and Loxleys and Errol Flynns and Sean Conneries and Kevin Costners and Jonas Armstrongs and Russell Crowes along the way – and there have been more and there will always be. One of the things we discussed with every adaptation we read or viewed was of course how the adapting author had changed the original content and then we set about guessing WHY… Often the reasons an adapting author changed content was simply time-dependent – incorporating new inventions and paradigms that had appeared in time since Robin first entered the Greenwood. But sometimes the changes made were deeply related to the new author’s own themes – the points he/she/they wanted to make with the characters, with the story, with the symbols. Trust me, a lot can be done symbolically with a bow and an arrow.

            And a lot can be done with a mentally unstable profiler and his cannibal psychiatrist who has become bewitched by his intriguing patient.

            Harris’ original content in the four books that comprise the Hannibal series: Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising – is so meaty and nourishing, an adapting author can cook with it for years and always have new meals to present to an audience. Though the books vary in quality (Hannibal Rising gets a bad rap – but I feel it has parts that flash through with Harris’ brilliance that make it worth a read), they are, as a whole, gorgeous and thoroughly enjoyable – especially for fellow English majors. Harris throws in the literary references like tinsel on a Christmas tree – the allusions sparkle with dazzling specificity that warm the English major’s heart. And if you might be an aspiring writer and want to know about ending chapters, go read Harris – particularly RD and SOTL. Good God, that man can end a chapter – some of them make you cry, some of them knock the wind out of you, some of them make you thrill with wonder at what a gift Harris has. He really is an amazing writer.

            I would imagine that one of the issues that always arose in Fuller’s writing room was what to keep from Harris and what to save for later and what was best not to tackle and how to change what was pulled out. It the metaphor is a dish – how to maintain the original flavor but tweak it – how to make it his own, and the own of the writers who cooked up the mains of each episode and added the garnishes with, I imagine, nervous love.

“Amuse-Bouche” is a perfect example of new content and original content blended into a new dish – a perfect succotash of theme and symbol that smacks of the Hannibal Lecter of the Harris-Times but is spiced with the umami of the Fuller-Years.

            The Will Graham is our same Will Graham of Red Dragon, although most of the content of the entire series of Hannibal is a prequel to Red Dragon, even though elements of all four of Harris’ books are interwoven and transformed. The Will Graham of “Amuse-Bouche” is still shaky after his killing of Garrett Jacob Hobbs in the family kitchen. He is shaky not about the act itself, but about the feelings he has toward the act – the subject of his and Hannibal’s discussion at the end of the episode and the scene in which the lesson I have chosen lies.

            One of the things I love most about Fuller’s Hannibal is the expansion into the crime scene investigators that assist Jack Crawford at the BAU. In Harris’ books, these investigators are given a little character development; Jimmy Price is most paid attention to. He even graduates from Red Dragon into The Silence of the Lambs, which is impressive. Clarice Starling studies as a Forensic Fellow under Jimmy. He teaches her everything he knows about fingerprinting. In case you didn’t know, Jimmy Price is the World Champion of Fingerprinting. He receives decapitated hands at the BAU every day from all over the country because he is just that good at pulling prints, even under the worst of circumstances. Brian Zeller and Beverly Katz get a little attention from Harris – a slight competitive rivalry between Will and Zeller is hinted at, just a breath of it, in fact.

            Fuller and the other writers take Team Sassy Science, as we #Fannibals call them (and Zeller and Price are alternately called Preller and Science Husbands 😊), and give them idiosyncrasies and agency and personalities. Zeller is a bit of a know-it-all who hates being proven wrong. Jimmy is an adorable ball of sarcasm and practicality. Bev Katz is badass, but sweet. It is she who makes the first overtures at friendship with Will, and I submit to you, she has the best chance of being successful. Zeller is jealous of Will and Jimmy seems too awed or confused by Will. Bev nails Will down to reality for a brief time. The Will-Bev friendship is truly one of my favorite things in the series.

            As is the plot with our murderer in this episode, Eldon Stammets. Stammets is named after real-life American mycologist, Paul Stamets, who is an advocate of medicinal fungi and founder of the company, Fungi Perfecti, which sells mushroom supplements for all the things that ail the human body and mind.

            If you don’t know about the mushrooms, I, being a mere layperson, cannot tell you. All I can say is, learn about the mushrooms. It will blow your mind.

            If there is anything that has been threaded through the buttonhole of this very fine jacket of an episode, it is a mushroom – new-bloomed and dotted with thoughtful dew.

            The killer, Eldon Stammets, is obsessed with fungi and their mycelium; he is deeply fascinated by how their structure mimics the human brain. It’s all about connection. He murders ten people by way of triggering diabetic ketoacidosis and then uses their bodies as the fertilizer and growth medium for families of shroomy fellows. Towards the end of “Amuse-Bouche,” Stammets kidnaps the comatose Abigail Hobbs. His intention is to “plant” the poor girl and sprout fungi from her decomposing remains; this, he believes, will allow Will Graham to communicate with her.

            Needless to say, Will does not buy Stammets’ human-to-mushroom translation theory, and he promptly shoots and wounds Stammets, who is then arrested, ending the killer’s reign of fungitastic terror.

            After Stammets’ arrest, a wobbly Will goes to see Hannibal, still disturbed by his thoughts. The hallucinations of Garrett Jacob Hobbs he has been experiencing since the beginning of the episode have ebbed away for the time being, leaving behind the detritus of Will’s feelings about the bloody scene in the Hobbs’ kitchen.

            This is where our lesson is from, my friends. The dialogue is as follows:

  HANNIBAL: It wasn’t the act of killing Hobbs that got you down, was it? Did you really   feel so bad because killing him felt so good?

            WILL GRAHAM: I liked killing Hobbs.

  HANNIBAL: Killing must feel good to God, too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in his image?

            WILL GRAHAM: Depends who you ask.

  HANNIBAL: God’s terrific. He dropped a church roof on thirty-four of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn.

            WILL GRAHAM: Did God feel good about that?

            HANNIBAL: He felt powerful  (Danger Gray 46).

In Harris’ Red Dragon, this actually occurs in a letter Dr. Lecter writes to Will – a letter Will reads after his family has escaped the wrath of Francis Dolarhyde, and after Francis has made a very charred example of Freddy Lounds. In his letter. Dr. Lecter makes it a point to refer to Will’s killing of Hobbs as a “murder.” Dr. Lecter writes, speaking of God, “He’d let you have Hobbs…He’d let you have measly Hobbs. He won’t begrudge you one measly murder” (Harris Red Dragon 342).

            In Fuller’s series, Hannibal is careful not to refer to Hobbs’ death as “murder,” but he does call Hobbs Will’s “victim,” which Will immediately refutes. Will is not yet ready to accept the killer instinct inside him, so Fuller’s Hannibal is rightfully more careful with his phrasing. Harris’ Hannibal, the gorgeous original, is a bit more of a rabble-rouser, even in the quiet moments. Either one will bite you in the face when you least expect it.

            The thing that most intrigues me about this dialogue is how Hannibal calls God “terrific.” This word is not used in Harris’ text. It was added in by Michael Mann, who directed, and also wrote the screenplay for Manhunter. And it might seem like one little word doesn’t make much of a difference, but I assure you it does. Why is God “terrific?”

            It is important to remember that “terrific” is one of those words that has been tarted up through the centuries to sound more pleasing than its initial definition. When we call something “terrific” now, we mean it’s something really good, amazing, awesome. That movie, that song, the winning goal at the end of the football match, all these things are terrific. But…there is the other, more sinister, more archaic definition of “terrific.”

            “TERRIFIC (adj.) – causing terror” (Oxford Languages).

            From the Latin, terrere – to frighten.

            I believe that Hannibal means that God is “terrific” in both senses of the word. God’s indiscriminate cruelty causes terror, but also is a wonderful thing to Hannibal because of its chaotic nature. Will’s killing of Hobbs feels good to him because he is dispensing righteous justice to a psychopathic murderer. But Hannibal compares Will’s killing of Hobbs to God’s dispatching of myriad humans. God kills randomly and almost ironically simply to feel his own power. And while Hannibal is very selective about his victims, all of his murders have an ironic edge sharp enough to slash throats with. Hannibal is not God, but he appreciates God’s sense of humor. By making this comparison, Hannibal is priming Will’s mind for future murders – simply by making the argument, “kill more people and you will feel like a god. Come. Come be a god with me…”

            And so, my friends, the lesson?

            It is a tried and true one, but it never loses its flavor.

            LIVE NOW. LIVE TODAY. DO IT NOW. There may never be a tomorrow.

            However you want to phrase it – “baby, there’s a bomb hanging over our heads” OR carpe diem or YOLO or whatever the kids say these days…the lesson is to live your life to the fullest. To experience everything – to take the risks, to make a fool of yourself, to go outside your comfort zone, to do the things you want to do no matter who or what gets in your way.

            One of William Blake’s themes that made its way into Harris’ work and then byway of adaptation into Fuller’s Hannibal is the eternal question – if God is a loving god, why does he let bad things happen to good people? Blake found an answer that suited him and he was good with it. The answer that Harris seems to come to and the one that is expressed into the episodes of Hannibal is that God is a lover of chaos.

            Not surprisingly, so is Hannibal Lecter. Barney Matthews, Hannibal’s orderly in the BSHCI (played by the amazing Frankie Faison in on-screen portrayals) tells Clarice in the book Hannibal, “Dr. Lecter has no interest in hypothesis. He doesn’t believe in syllogism, or synthesis, or any absolute;” when Clarice asks what Dr. Lecter believes in, Barney replies, “Chaos” (Harris Hannibal 89-90).

            The point is, whether it is God or chaos or a suave cannibal in a three-piece suit, your death is coming. Enjoy life now. All but too soon, a roof could fall on you.

References:

Danger Gray, Jim. Writer. “Amuse-Bouche.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 2, Chiswick Productions, 2012.

Harris, Thomas. Hannibal. New York, Delacorte Press, 1999.

Harris, Thomas. Red Dragon. New York, Berkley, 2000.

“Terrific.” Oxford Languages, 2022.

[allosauroid]

17 questions

tagged by @bloomduchas

Nickname: Really depends on who’s talking/referring to me.

Sign: this

Height: 5′4″ last time I checked.

Last google search: eBay.ca

Song stuck in my head: None at the moment (thank goodness).

Number of followers: A whopping 2,035

Amount of sleep: Rarely enough

Lucky number: Never had one

Dream job: Researcher monitoring an isolated population of sea birds.

What are you wearing: Pyjama shorts and an oversized sweater.

Favorite media: Old books about birds.

Favorite song: Washing Machine Heart by Mitski x

Favorite instrument: Have always been fond of the piano.

Aesthetic: I'm not perceived enough to have one.

Favorite author: Errol Fuller

Favorite animal noise: The coos of mourning doves.

Random:

“And in yon wither’d bracken’s lair,

Slumbered the wolf and shaggy bear;

Once on that lone and trackless sod

High chiefs and mail-clad warriors trod,

And where the roe her bed has made,

Their last bright arms the vanquish’d laid.

The days of old have passed away

Like leaves upon the torrent grey,

And all their dreams of joy and woe,

As in yon eddy melts the snow;

And soon as far and dim behind,

We too shall vanish on the wind.”

- Lays of the Deer Forest, 1848 x

tagging any mutuals who wanna do this !

[bamboomusiclist]

1/3 あけましておめでとうございます。Liz Story / Unaccountable Effect wh-1034 等更新しました。

Sonny Rollins / The Standard Sonny Rollins lsp3355 Sonny Stitt / The Champ mr5023 Erroll Garner / Paris Impressions c2L9 Blue Mitchell / Step Lightly lt-1082 Johnny Hodges / Blue Notes v8680 Curtis Fuller / Blues ette mg12141 Charlie Parker / At Storyville  BT-85108 Don Nelson / The Wind modlp116 Rosemary Clooney Nelson Riddle / Love R6088 渡辺貞夫 / The Girl From Ipanema rgp-1152 Perez Prado / Plays Mucho Mambo For Dancing lpm21 Jimmy Smith / Root Down V6-8806 Milton Cardona / Bembe amcl1004 John Lee & Gerry Brown / Chaser Marion Brown / Afternoon of Georgia Faun ecm1004st Pat Metheny / American Garage ecm1155 Pat Metheny / Offramp ecm1216 Liz Story / Unaccountable Effect wh-1034 Revolutionaries / Well Charged Vital Dub  v2055 Syd Barrett / Barrett Shsp4007

~bamboo music~ https://bamboo-music.net  info@bamboo-music.net   530-0028 大阪市北区万歳町3-41 シロノビル104号 06-6363-2700

[fischotterkunst]

it’s so weird to me how some days my research and work (focused on extinct animals) is so depressing i can’t bear it and i have to stop because my chest hurts so badly from it, and then there are days when throwing myself into the same research and work makes me feel more alive than anything else 

[holdmecloser-gandydancer]

cannot even express how badly I want some more dust episodes

[endlingmusings]

[ Illustration of a Schomburgk’s deer stag from “Cassell’s Natural History“ (1896). ]

“Extinct creatures often capture our attention. Every school kid learns the story of the dodo. There have been countless books written about the passenger pigeon, so many that most conservationists can recite the basic details by heart.

However, even in seemingly well-documented cases like the passenger pigeon, the actual evidence remains somewhat sparse. Many of the written accounts of passenger pigeons repeat the same basic information, based on a few firsthand accounts. The narrative gets repeated, and we accept it as fact. But the reality is there is a lot of the passenger pigeon’s story that is missing. We have created a myth to explain our loss.

That’s more than we have for many extinct species. Even a dramatic animal like the Schomburgk’s deer vanishes without a trace. It can seem remarkable today, as we track animals through camera trapping, remote-sensing technologies and citizen science.

Even without technology, European and North American scientists launched expeditions throughout the 19th and early 20th century, often specifically to collect specimens. Yet so many species were so poorly understood. Many vanished without being noticed.

Despite the presence of Schomburgk’s deer in zoos, there is only one photo of a live animal (it was a male on exhibit at the Berlin Zoo). There is only one taxidermy specimen, now at the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution in Paris.

According to Errol Fuller’s heartbreaking book Lost Animals, there are 490 Schomburgk’s deer antlers in museums and private collections worldwide. It’s easy to see why these antlers were collected: they are large and dramatic, with elaborate branching. The largest in existence has 33 points.

The antlers and existing photograph provide information on the male deer, but there is nothing about the females – not even a written description.

It seems we are left with just scraps…an antler here, a photograph there. It is not enough to answer my questions about Schomburgk’s deer. I am left only with my imagination.”

- Excerpt from “What Happened to the Schomburgk’s Deer?” by Matthew L. Miller.

[demi-shoggoth]

2021 Reading Log, pt. 9

41. Royal Witches by Gemma Hollman. Could use fewer royals and more witches. This is a biography of four noblewomen in English court politics in the 15th century, Joan of Navarre, Eleanor Cobham, Jacquetta of Luxembourg and her daughter, Elizabeth Woodville. All four of these women were accused of witchcraft as a political ploy by their enemies, although in the case of the last two it’s more of a footnote than a pivotal event in their lives. The goal of the book is to present a complex view of these women as people, not the saints or villains they’re often depicted as in propaganda. Although it is novel to see a woman dominated history of this period (Richard III is a side character!), and the book does a good job of using marginal data to create a full picture of these nobles as people, it falls short of what I was expecting. Based on the title, and the introduction, I was expecting a history of the perception of witchcraft in England in the late medieval period, before the Burning Times and the Malleus Maleficarum, using these nobles as focal points for attitudes and claims. I suspect the title was a marketing ploy, and it’s one that ended up disappointing me.

42. Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage and Manners by Therese Oneill. This is the first of the author’s cheeky surveys of bad Victorian advice, but I read them out of order (I found her book about Victorian childcare, Ungovernable, first). The book takes the format of a time traveler’s pointers to a 21st century woman who has been transported back, about how the fantasy of Victorian life portrayed in media was decidedly sexist, smelly and dangerous. The overall vibe is an etiquette guide written by a malicious genie. That’s fun, but the book really comes into its own as it brings in more of the Victorian era’s own words, as excerpts from mansplaining, moralizing or just plain bizarre books are brought out. They book is filled with many illustrations and photos from vintage sources, captioned in riffing fashion. It’s both very informative and very funny, which is a hard balance to capture sometimes.

43. The Chemistry of Alchemy by Cathy Cobb, Monty L. Fetterolf and Harold D. Goldwhite. I was expecting this book to be a history of how alchemy transmuted itself (hah) into chemistry over the centuries. I was not expecting this book to be filled with alchemical recipes and demonstrations. The authors are working chemists, and the book is filled with demos for how to make brass, perform redox reactions with metals, dissolve and purify salts, and other tricks of the alchemical trade. The demos focus mostly on the quest for gold and the philosopher’s stone, but some discussion of alchemical medicines and a little of alchemical philosophy comes through. These demos require a lot of high heat and commercially available acids—this isn’t kitchen chemistry, and I don’t know how many people reading the book are liable to try them. I know I’m not.

44. Lost Animals by John Whitfield.  Note that this is not the Errol Fuller book of the same name, which I highly recommend. This is a children’s book. It is not being sold as such, but the writing style is clearly at middle-grade level. It is a survey, seemingly at random, of extinct animals, with some discussion of endangered and rediscovered animals in the last 30 pages or so. The one word I would use to describe the book is “lazy”—the images are chosen from whatever was easy for them to get. This means there’s a handful of good paleoart, a lot of photographs of specimens in the Smithsonian collection (as this is a Smithsonian Books imprint) and a lot of terrible 3D models they could publish cheaply. Maybe the availability of images is responsible for what taxa were included. It’s not all bad—it’s nice to see a pop paleontology book that remembers that insects exist—but it’s not very good. I’m glad I was able to get a copy from the library; I would be very disappointed if I spent money on this.

45. The Hanging Tree by V.A.C. Gatrell. Yet again, the last book of a set is an enormous history, but this one read much faster than recent books on magic or the Bible. Gatrell’s topic is the “bloody laws” of the Hanoverian age, wherein in England there were dozens of hanging offenses, and hundreds of hangings, every year. The system failed, the book argued, because of the increasingly apparent absurdity and arbitrariness in which the codes were enforced—who was hanged, who was transported and who was pardoned was largely up to the whims of judges and the King’s council. The book is quietly radical in its insistence that state violence to enforce power is not a thing of the past, and that the modern (ish—the book is from 1994) prison system is as much an institution of violence as the old hanging codes. This is a must-read for people who are interested in British history, the history of crime and punishment and in how governments function. It is not a book for the squeamish or easily triggered—descriptions of crimes and punishments alike are in great detail.

[kwebtv]

TV Guide -  April 23 - 29, 1960

The cast of Laramie

John Smith (born Robert Errol Van Orden, March 6, 1931 – January 25, 1995)   Actor remembered in particular for his leading roles in two NBC western television series, Cimarron City and Laramie.  (Wikipedia)

Robert Fuller (born Leonard Leroy "Buddy" Lee, July 29, 1933)  Horse rancher and retired actor. He began his career on television, guest-starring primarily on Western programs, while appearing in several movies. In his five decades of television, Fuller was known for his deep, raspy voice and was familiar to television viewers throughout the 1960s and 1970s from his co-starring roles as Jess Harper and Cooper Smith on the popular 1960s Western series Laramie and Wagon Train, and was also well known for his starring role as Dr. Kelly Brackett in the 1970s medical /action drama Emergency!  (Wikipedia)

Hoagland Howard "Hoagy" Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981)  Singer, songwriter, and actor. American composer and author Alec Wilder described Carmichael as the "most talented, inventive, sophisticated and jazz-oriented of all the great craftsmen" of pop songs in the first half of the 20th century. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s and was among the first singer-songwriters in the age of mass media to utilize new communication technologies, such as television and the use of electronic microphones and sound recordings.

In the early 1950s variety shows were particularly popular on television. Carmichael's most notable appearance was as the host of Saturday Night Review in June 1953, a summer replacement series for Your Show of Shows. He was also a regular cast member, playing the character role of Jonesy the ranch hand in the first season of NBC's western TV series Laramie (1959–63)   (Wikipedia)

Robert Lawrence Crawford Jr. (born May 13, 1944)  Actor who portrayed the character Andy Sherman on the NBC television series Laramie in 1959 and 1960. He was cast as the younger brother of Slim Sherman, portrayed by John Smith, owner of the fictitious Sherman Ranch and Relay Station some twelve miles east of Laramie, Wyoming. Their co-star was Robert Fuller in the role of former gunfighter Jess Harper. Crawford's role on Laramie ended in 1960, when Andy Sherman was shipped off to boarding school. Crawford is sometimes credited as Bobby Crawford Jr., or without the generational suffix as Bobby Crawford or Robert L. Crawford

[fishandships]

Was tagged by @singingdeepinme and @rain-bouquet - thank you!!!

Nickname: Riv or Fischy (never Fish) Zodiac: Taurus Height: 5′7″ Last thing I googled: 'how to find your house minecraft’ Song stuck in my head: Sunflower by Post Malone Average amount of sleep: what’s sleep Lucky number: six  Dream job: self-employed zoological illustrator Currently wearing: sleeveless shirt with a sea otter on it and shorts (and a wrist brace bc carpal tunnel is a bitch) Favourite song: Hmmm it’s really hard to pick a favorite but Northern Downpour by Panic! at the Disco is a top contender Favourite instrument: i don’t really play any instruments myself but i like woodwind instruments and acoustic guitar Aesthetic: witch of the wilds Favourite author: i don’t really read a lot of fiction but one nonfiction author whose work i read a lot of is Errol Fuller  Favourite animal noise: cat startup noise 👏

tagging: i’ve been AWOL for a few days so idk who has done this yet but if you haven’t been tagged consider this your cue!

[oldmogg]

1861 Georges Méliès 1875 D.W. Griffith 1879 Victor Sjöström 1880 Tod Browning 1881 Cecil B. DeMille 1884 Robert Flaherty 1885 Allan Dwan / Sacha Guitry / G.W. Pabst / Erich von Stroheim 1886 Michael Curtiz / Henry King / John Cromwell 1887 Raoul Walsh 1888 F.W. Murnau 1889 Charles Chaplin / Jean Cocteau / Carl Theodor Dreyer / Victor Fleming / Abel Gance / James Whale 1890 Clarence Brown / Fritz Lang 1892 Ernst Lubitsch 1893 William Dieterle 1894 Frank Borzage / John Ford / Jean Renoir / King Vidor / Josef von Sternberg 1895 Buster Keaton 1896 Julien Duvivier / Howard Hawks / Leo McCarey / Dziga Vertov / William Wellman 1897 Frank Capra / Douglas Sirk 1898 René Clair / Sergei Eisenstein / Henry Hathaway / Mitchell Leisen / Kenji Mizoguchi / Preston Sturges 1899 George Cukor / Alfred Hitchcock 1900 Luis Buñuel / Mervyn LeRoy / Robert Siodmak 1901 Robert Bresson / Vittorio De Sica 1902 Emeric Pressburger / Max Ophüls / William Wyler 1903 Vincente Minnelli / Yasujiro Ozu 1904 Delmer Daves / Terence Fisher / George Stevens / Jacques Tourneur / Edgar G. Ulmer 1905 Mikio Naruse / Michael Powell / Otto Preminger / Jean Vigo 1906 Jacques Becker / Marcel Carné / John Huston / Anthony Mann / Carol Reed / Roberto Rossellini / Luchino Visconti / Billy Wilder 1907 Henri-Georges Clouzot / Joseph H. Lewis / Jacques Tati / Fred Zinnemann 1908 Tex Avery / Edward Dmytryk / Phil Karlson / David Lean / Manoel de Oliveira 1909 Elia Kazan / Joseph Losey / Joseph L. Mankiewicz 1910 John Sturges / Akira Kurosawa 1911 Jules Dassin / Nicholas Ray 1912 Michelangelo Antonioni / Samuel Fuller / Gene Kelly / Alexander Mackendrick / Don Siegel 1913 André de Toth / Mark Robson / Frank Tashlin 1914 Mario Bava / William Castle / Robert Wise 1915 Orson Welles 1916 Budd Boetticher / Richard Fleischer / George Sidney 1917 Maya Deren / Jean-Pierre Melville 1918 Robert Aldrich / Ingmar Bergman 1920 Federico Fellini / Eric Rohmer 1921 Luis García Berlanga / Miklós Jancsó / Chris Marker / Satyajit Ray 1922 Blake Edwards / Jonas Mekas / Pier Paolo Pasolini / Arthur Penn / Alain Resnais 1923 Ousmane Sembene / Seijun Suzuki 1924 Stanley Donen / Sidney Lumet 1925 Robert Altman / Claude Lanzmann / Sam Peckinpah / Maurice Pialat 1926 Roger Corman / Shohei Imamura / Jerry Lewis / Andrzej Wajda 1927 Kenneth Anger / Ken Russell 1928 Stanley Kubrick / Jacques Rivette / Nicolas Roeg / Agnès Varda / Andy Warhol 1929 Hal Ashby / John Cassavetes / Alejandro Jodorowsky / Sergio Leone 1930 Claude Chabrol / Clint Eastwood / John Frankenheimer / Kinji Fukasaku / Jean-Luc Godard / Frederick Wiseman 1931 Jacques Demy / Mike Nichols / Ermanno Olmi 1932 Milos Forman / Monte Hellman / Louis Malle / Nagisa Oshima / Carlos Saura / Andrei Tarkovsky / François Truffaut 1933 John Boorman / Stan Brakhage / Roman Polanski / Bob Rafelson / Jean-Marie Straub 1934 Sydney Pollack 1935 Woody Allen / Theo Angelopoulos 1936 Hollis Frampton / Danièle Huillet / Ken Loach 1937 Ridley Scott 1938 Paul Verhoeven 1939 Peter Bogdanovich / Francis Ford Coppola / William Friedkin / Glauber Rocha 1940 Dario Argento / Brian De Palma / Victor Erice / Terry Gilliam / Abbas Kiarostami / George A. Romero 1941 Bernardo Bertolucci / Stephen Frears / Patricio Guzmán / Krzysztof Kieslowski / Hayao Miyazaki / Raúl Ruiz / Bertrand Tavernier 1942 Peter Greenaway / Michael Haneke / Werner Herzog / Walter Hill / Martin Scorsese 1943 Roy Andersson / David Cronenberg / Mike Leigh / Terrence Malick / Michael Mann / Alan Rudolph 1944 Charles Burnett / Jonathan Demme / George Lucas / Peter Weir 1945 Terence Davies / Rainer Werner Fassbinder / George Miller / Wim Wenders 1946 Joe Dante / Claire Denis / David Lynch / Paul Schrader / Oliver Stone / John Woo 1947 Hou Hsiao-hsien / Takeshi Kitano / Rob Reiner / Steven Spielberg / Edward Yang 1948 John Carpenter / Philippe Garrel / Errol Morris 1949 Pedro Almodóvar 1950 Chantal Akerman / John Landis / John Sayles 1951 Kathryn Bigelow / Jean-Pierre Dardenne / Abel Ferrara / Aleksandr Sokurov / Robert Zemeckis / Zhang Yimou 1952 Jacques Audiard / Gus Van Sant 1953 Jim Jarmusch 1954 James Cameron / Jane Campion / Joel Coen / Luc Dardenne / Ang Lee / Michael Moore 1955 Olivier Assayas / Béla Tarr / Johnnie To 1956 Danny Boyle / Guy Maddin / Lars von Trier / Wong Kar-wai 1957 Ethan Coen / Aki Kaurismäki / Spike Lee / Mohsen Makhmalbaf / Tsai Ming-liang 1958 Tim Burton 1959 Nuri Bilge Ceylan / Pedro Costa / Sam Raimi 1960 Leos Carax / Atom Egoyan / Hong Sang-soo / Richard Linklater / Takashi Miike / Jafar Panahi 1961 Alfonso Cuarón / Todd Haynes / Peter Jackson / Alexander Payne / Abderrahmane Sissako / Michael Winterbottom 1962 David Fincher / Hirokazu Koreeda / Kenneth Lonergan 1963 Michel Gondry / Alejandro González Iñárritu / Park Chan-wook / Steven Soderbergh / Quentin Tarantino 1964 Guillermo del Toro / Kelly Reichardt / Andrey Zvyagintsev 1965 Jonathan Glazer 1966 Lucrecia Martel 1967 Denis Villeneuve 1969 Wes Anderson / Darren Aronofsky / Noah Baumbach / Bong Joon-ho / James Gray / Spike Jonze / Steve McQueen / Lynne Ramsay 1970 Paul Thomas Anderson / Jia Zhangke / Christopher Nolan / Apichatpong Weerasethakul 1971 Sofia Coppola / Carlos Reygadas Directors listed by key production country (Country of birth, if it differs, is listed in brackets) Argentina Lucrecia Martel Australia Jane Campion (New Zealand) / George Miller Austria Michael Haneke (Germany) Belgium Chantal Akerman / Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne Brazil Glauber Rocha Canada David Cronenberg / Atom Egoyan (Egypt) / Guy Maddin / Denis Villeneuve China Jia Zhangke / Zhang Yimou Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer / Lars von Trier Finland Aki Kaurismäki France Olivier Assayas / Jacques Audiard / Jacques Becker / Robert Bresson / Leos Carax / Marcel Carné / Claude Chabrol / René Clair / Henri-Georges Clouzot / Jean Cocteau / Jacques Demy / Claire Denis / Julien Duvivier / Abel Gance / Philippe Garrel / Jean-Luc Godard / Sacha Guitry (Russia) / Patricio Guzmán (Chile) / Claude Lanzmann / Louis Malle / Chris Marker / Georges Méliès / Jean-Pierre Melville / Max Ophüls (Germany) / Maurice Pialat / Roman Polanski / Jean Renoir / Alain Resnais / Jacques Rivette / Eric Rohmer / Raúl Ruiz (Chile) / Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet / Jacques Tati / Bertrand Tavernier / François Truffaut / Agnès Varda (Belgium) / Jean Vigo Germany / West Germany Rainer Werner Fassbinder / Werner Herzog / F.W. Murnau / G.W. Pabst (Austria-Hungary) / Wim Wenders Greece Theo Angelopoulos Hong Kong Wong Kar-wai (China) / Johnnie To / John Woo (China) Hungary Miklós Jancsó / Béla Tarr India Satyajit Ray Iran Abbas Kiarostami / Mohsen Makhmalbaf / Jafar Panahi Italy Michelangelo Antonioni / Dario Argento / Mario Bava / Bernardo Bertolucci / Vittorio De Sica / Federico Fellini / Sergio Leone / Ermanno Olmi / Pier Paolo Pasolini / Roberto Rossellini / Luchino Visconti Japan Kinji Fukasaku / Shohei Imamura / Takeshi Kitano / Hirokazu Koreeda / Akira Kurosawa / Takashi Miike / Hayao Miyazaki / Kenji Mizoguchi / Mikio Naruse / Nagisa Oshima / Yasujiro Ozu / Seijun Suzuki Mauritania Abderrahmane Sissako Mexico Luis Buñuel (Spain) / Alejandro Jodorowsky (Chile) / Carlos Reygadas New Zealand Peter Jackson Poland Krzysztof Kieslowski / Andrzej Wajda Portugal Pedro Costa / Manoel de Oliveira Russia / USSR Sergei Eisenstein (Latvia) / Aleksandr Sokurov / Andrei Tarkovsky / Dziga Vertov (Poland) / Andrey Zvyagintsev Senegal Ousmane Sembene South Korea Bong Joon-ho / Hong Sang-soo / Park Chan-wook Spain Pedro Almodóvar / Victor Erice / Luis García Berlanga / Carlos Saura Sweden Roy Andersson / Ingmar Bergman / Victor Sjöström Taiwan Hou Hsiao-hsien (China) / Tsai Ming-liang (Malaysia) / Edward Yang (China) Thailand Apichatpong Weerasethakul Turkey Nuri Bilge Ceylan UK John Boorman / Danny Boyle / Terence Davies / Terence Fisher / Stephen Frears / Jonathan Glazer / Peter Greenaway / David Lean / Mike Leigh / Ken Loach / Joseph Losey (USA) / Alexander Mackendrick (USA) / Steve McQueen / Michael Powell / Michael Powell (UK) & Emeric Pressburger (Hungary) / Lynne Ramsay / Carol Reed / Nicolas Roeg / Ken Russell / Michael Winterbottom USA (A-B) Robert Aldrich / Woody Allen / Robert Altman / Paul Thomas Anderson / Wes Anderson / Kenneth Anger / Darren Aronofsky / Hal Ashby / Tex Avery / Noah Baumbach / Kathryn Bigelow / Budd Boetticher / Peter Bogdanovich / Frank Borzage / Stan Brakhage / Clarence Brown / Tod Browning / Charles Burnett / Tim Burton USA (C-D) James Cameron (Canada) / Frank Capra (Italy) / John Carpenter / John Cassavetes / William Castle / Charles Chaplin (UK) / Joel Coen & Ethan Coen / Francis Ford Coppola / Sofia Coppola / Roger Corman / John Cromwell / Alfonso Cuarón (Mexico) / George Cukor / Michael Curtiz (Hungary) / Joe Dante / Jules Dassin / Delmer Daves / Brian De Palma / André de Toth (Hungary) / Guillermo del Toro (Mexico) / Cecil B. DeMille / Jonathan Demme / Maya Deren (Ukraine) / William Dieterle (Germany) / Edward Dmytryk (Canada) / Stanley Donen / Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly / Allan Dwan (Canada) USA (E-G) Clint Eastwood / Blake Edwards / Abel Ferrara / David Fincher / Robert Flaherty / Richard Fleischer / Victor Fleming / John Ford / Milos Forman (Czechoslovakia) / Hollis Frampton / John Frankenheimer / William Friedkin / Samuel Fuller / Terry Gilliam / Michel Gondry (France) / Alejandro González Iñárritu (Mexico) / D.W. Griffith / James Gray USA (H-L) Henry Hathaway / Howard Hawks / Todd Haynes / Monte Hellman / Walter Hill / Alfred Hitchcock (UK) / John Huston / Jim Jarmusch / Spike Jonze / Phil Karlson / Elia Kazan (Turkey) / Buster Keaton / Henry King / Stanley Kubrick / John Landis / Fritz Lang (Austria) / Ang Lee (Taiwan) / Spike Lee / Mitchell Leisen / Mervyn LeRoy / Jerry Lewis / Joseph H. Lewis / Richard Linklater / Kenneth Lonergan / Ernst Lubitsch (Germany) / George Lucas / Sidney Lumet / David Lynch USA (M-R) Terrence Malick / Joseph L. Mankiewicz / Anthony Mann / Michael Mann / Leo McCarey / Jonas Mekas (Lithuania) / Vincente Minnelli / Michael Moore / Errol Morris / Mike Nichols (Germany) / Christopher Nolan (UK) / Alexander Payne / Sam Peckinpah / Arthur Penn / Sydney Pollack / Otto Preminger (Austria-Hungary) / Sam Raimi / Bob Rafelson / Nicholas Ray / Kelly Reichardt / Rob Reiner / Mark Robson (Canada) / George A. Romero / Alan Rudolph USA (S-U) John Sayles / Paul Schrader / Martin Scorsese / Ridley Scott (UK) / George Sidney / Don Siegel / Robert Siodmak (Germany) / Douglas Sirk (Germany) / Steven Soderbergh / Steven Spielberg / George Stevens / Oliver Stone / John Sturges / Preston Sturges / Quentin Tarantino / Frank Tashlin / Jacques Tourneur (France) / Edgar G. Ulmer (Austria-Hungary) USA (V-Z) Gus Van Sant / Paul Verhoeven (Netherlands) / King Vidor / Josef von Sternberg (Austria) / Erich von Stroheim (Austria) / Raoul Walsh / Andy Warhol / Peter Weir (Australia) / Orson Welles / William Wellman / James Whale (UK) / Billy Wilder (Austria-Hungary) / Robert Wise / Frederick Wiseman / William Wyler (Germany) / Robert Zemeckis / Fred Zinnemann (Austria-HungaryJonas Mekas)

[allosauroid]

Can officially say I own a book on great auks large enough to beat someone over the head with !

[shemakesmusic-uk]

INTERVIEW: ALA.NI

UK-born, Paris-based artist ALA.NI will be releasing her upcoming sophomore album ACCA on January 24.  

ACCA consists primarily of dense, harmonically intricate vocal arrangements with sparse or no instrumental backing at all. It’s the followup to ALA.NI’s debut 2017 album You & I and while some critics made comparisons to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Judy Garland, the infectious beats and rhythmic tunes on ACCA owe more to Dr. Dre and Errol Dunkley than Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan.

ALA.NI initially envisioned her second album as a completely a capella project, and indeed ACCA is made up almost entirely of human voices (beatboxing serves as percussion, and she lowered her own vocals with an octavizer on several tracks to create the illusion of bass).

Along with Iggy Pop, Lakeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You, Atlanta, Get Out), makes an appearance on the album, but make no mistake: ACCA is pure ALA.NI. She wrote, produced, and arranged each song herself, layering up hundreds of vocal tracks in order to create an immersive, hypnotic world that blurs the lines between vibrating vocal cords, bowed strings, and blown reeds.

We had a chat with ALA.NI more about the story behind ACCA and the making of the record, collaborating with Iggy Pop, her struggles in the industry and more. Read the full interview below.

ACCA is dropping in just under two weeks. What is the record about lyrically and what does it mean to you?

"Lyrically, I speak on love of course, but from situations like the abusive relationship of a friend ('Hide'), my definition of love ('Wales'), a relationship in turmoil ('Van P'). 'Papa' was a poem for a friend that took a journey, via Mexico, into becoming a song. 'Le Diplomate' encounters a brief encounter with a french diplomate. I wrote about segments of my life."

You & I was written a capella but ACCA was created completely using a vocals-only technique which I think is so awesome and creative. What inspired you to make the record this way and what was your favourite part of the creative process?

"I always write a capella but with visions of instrumentation around it. With the ACCA album, the first song that made me feel confident that I could make a whole album based just around my voice, was 'Le Diplomate'. I wrote it for the man himself. It was not intended to be a song, but after I reviewed it and impressed myself with my mouth trumpet noises, I was convinced that I could conceive a whole album like this. I like working with parameters, so no instruments was a good one. Although after 3 months away from the studio recording process and some deep consideration and after being told by my mentor that it can't be "the ALA.NI show", I decided to add some subtle additions in the way of a male voice and low end instruments to the compositions. Accordion, bass clarinet, electric bass. Producing for me is like cooking. You add and taste, add and taste. Balancing the flavours out all the way.

"The process was...well I often used the words, "a brain fuck!!!!". It was a lonely process too. I had some stages with other musicians, but that was only for about 10% of the studio time, for the rest, it was just me and the engineer. My favourite part of the process was putting down the vocals. I love harmonising, so that was so satisfying....the rest has literally turned my hair grey! Ha!"

You & I had very much a a jazzy kind of vibe but the tracks from ACCA so far have a fuller and more upbeat sound.

"I never said ever, ever that I was a jazz singer. I have never wanted to limit myself like that, as I know I have many different ways and styles to express the music in me. The ACCA album allowed me to enter more into being able to move my body. I was stuck behind a stagnant mic for so long. I think that was the real reason for giving myself some beats."

You collaborated with legend Iggy Pop on a track for the album. How did that come about? We hear he is a big fan of yours?

"He is just too cool and cute and so incredibly giving of himself. I saw him perform recently in London and I felt so touched and happy and proud to watch this man at 72 do his shit! Damn! What an inspiration. He is a fan and I am so blessed to have his support. I literally got my people to ask his people if he'd like to collaborate and he simply said "yes". I went out to Miami to record him at his studio and it was one of the most surreal moments of my life. Directing Iggy Pop in the booth..."erm Mr. Pop, can you do that again please, the last take was shite!!!" Ha!

"He actually said this about me recently on his radio show...

"I worked as a guest once on one of her tracks and she came to America to produce it and brought a whole suitcase full of incredible microphones with her and she’s a perfectionist, her attention to detail is daunting and I had to toe the line, she’s tough."

"It's not true...honest..."

What do you hope fans will take away from ACCA?

"I have no idea. I can't control their ears or minds. I just made the music my heart wanted to make. I'm just happy to have them receive it...words from my heart. Whether they think its good or bad has nothing to do with me. You can't please everybody."

This is true! So, do you have plans to tour ACCA and if so, how will you translate the record on to the stage?

"This exercise too has been a head fuck. I have decided to go for cello, accordion and beatboxer for my live set up. Cello has a voicing that is very close to the human voice, so it works well and is so versatile as an instrument. Accordion has been a treat to work with. I never thought I'd be working with such an instrument, but it too is versatile and adds a very distinctive tone and texture to the music. I had to convert 300+ vocal parts into instrument parts, which was a fun (not) exercise. Beatboxer can do the most craziest things with his mouth. We are all learning to make mouth noises. Its a nice bunch of us on the road. I'm happy to be around good hearted, passionate people to make music with."

You've been in the industry a few years now. What challenges, if any, have you faced? And how did you overcome them?

"Hahahahahah!!!! It's daily and it seems to get worse the more I push to change the norm. Females are hugely under represented in the music industry, so its a daily struggle. I basically manage, produce, create myself, so its not an easy task I have given to myself.

"I don't have a tour manager, because I hate the fact that when I arrive at a venue, no one talks to me when I do have one. They only liaise with the "male manager" and not the artist. They are not used to dealing directly with the artist, especially a female one who knows exactly how she wants her gear set up. Oh, the fights I've had just to have my monitor where i like it. Its pathetic!"

That is absolutely ridiculous! But sadly, many women in the industry have similar stories. If there was one thing you could change about the music world today, what would it be?

"More tits, less dicks!"

Amen! You have had such an impressive career so far. What has been the biggest highlight for you to date and what are you looking forward to in 2020 and beyond?

"I remember nothing. I do the shit and I move the fuck on. I'm terrible like this. I like to be present and forward thinking.

"My career and life are so inter-twined, that for me, I keep it simple...I am just happy everyday to be alive and to be blessed enough to be able to do the work of my hearts calling. Thats all i ask for. To be able to continue to do the things i want to do....freedom."

ACCA arrives January 24.

Photo credit: Martin-oger Daguerre

[grandpadinosaur]

Last Of The Passenger Pigeons

Last Of The Passenger Pigeons

Male and female passenger pigeons, depicted by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

1914:Passenger pigeons once accounted for two-fifths of land birds in the United States: between 3 and 5 billion birds. The wildlife artist John James Audubon, who in 1813 witnessed their autumn migration, marvelled at the “countless multitudes” that crowded the skies above Kentucky for three days in a row. “The air was…

[soulbounce]

【衝撃】ユニバーサル火災でマスターテープが焼失したアーティスト一覧

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[scotianostra]

On July 3rd 1844 the last pair of Great Auks were killed.

I sometimes get a nose, or in this case a beak,  for history and this story took my interest when I found it on Wiki today. Now these two Auks were killed on Geirfuglasker (the "Great Auk Rock") off Iceland.It was from here I found out the story of the last Great Auk in Scotland.

In June of 1840, three sailors hailing from the Scottish island of St. Kilda landed on the craggy ledges of a nearby seastack, known as Stac-an-Armin. As they climbed up the rock, they spotted a peculiar bird that stood head and shoulders above the puffins and gulls and other seabirds.

The scruffy animal’s proportions were bizarre—just under three feet tall with awkward and small wings that rendered it flightless, and a hooked beak that was almost as large as its head. Its black and white plumage had earned it the title the “original penguin,” but it looked more like a Dr. Seuss cartoon.

The sailors watched as the bird, a Great Auk, waddled clumsily along. Agile in the water, the unusual creature was defenseless against humans on land, and its ineptitude made it an easy target “Prophet-like that lone one stood,” one of the men later said of the encounter.

Perhaps the men enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, or perhaps they realised its meat and feathers were incredibly valuable. In any case, they abducted the bird, tying its legs together and taking it back to their ship. For three days, the sailors kept the Great Auk alive, but on the fourth, during a terrible storm, the sailors grew fearful and superstitious. Condemning it as “a maelstrom-conjuring witch,” they stoned it to death. And that was that!

It was the last of its kind to ever be seen on the British Isles. Four years later, the Great Auk vanished from the world entirely when fishermen hunted down the last pair on the shores of that Icelandic Isle.

St Kilda was the only certain site and much of our knowledge of the species in life comes from the description given by Martin Martin following his visit there in 1697. Papa Westray in Orkney was another known haunt, with William Bullock gaining some infamy in the early 19th century for his attempts to capture the pair there, although there is no actual proof that they bred there. Bones are, however, common around early human habitations in Scotland and while these could have been brought from elsewhere, many paleozoologists suspect that there were several large colonies in Scotland which were largely wiped out by early Neolithic hunter-gatherers. As suggested by the scientific name, the Great Auk is also probably the original 'penguin', the name assumed to be from the Welsh for white head, referring to the white flash on the forehead. Early visitors to the Antarctic presumably transferred the name to the superficially similar but unrelated birds they found there. Nowadays, according to Errol Fuller in his book on Extinct Birds, there are just 78 Great Auk skins and about 75 eggs left in existence. The picture is from Wiki and the bird is on display in The Kelvingrove.

[eighthdoctor]

Book Review 41/72

Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record by Errol Fuller

Today on “books I checked out from the library on a whim that made me cry”. This book collects surviving photos of extinct animals and pairs them with short biographies of both the animal and circumstances around the photo. Some of them I’d heard of--most of them I’d hadn’t. Some may still be around; two were subspecies but included due to being very famous (i.e. the quagga).

Fuller says, in his introduction, that he wrote a previous book doing similar with paintings AND photos, and got consistent feedback from readers that while the paintings and writing were moving, of course, the photos were arresting. That the photos, more than anything else, communicated the reality and enormity of this.

And they did.

What an eye-opening, emotive book.

5/5