From the Apr 10 – Apr 16, 2003 issue

Music

Classical, Jazz, & Avant

Visual Music

by Christopher DeLaurenti

Some might argue that film music should always serve the script, but as a musician, I prefer films and filmmakers with the courage to cast sound and the moving image as equal partners. Yet apart from music videos and a few scattered examples (Belle de Jour, 2001, Patton), most movies enchain sound and music in brute, narrative servitude.

Not all artists accept this lopsided aesthetic. A few filmmakers do create compelling work that engages the eyes and ears equally, which is why I'm excited that Anomalous Records and the Little Theatre have teamed up to unearth rarely seen films by Tony Conrad and Nam June Paik for two nights of the Visual Music Festival.

Tony Conrad has enjoyed a revival in recent years due to his seminal collaboration with composer La Monte Young at the "big bang" of minimalism in the early 1960s. Conrad made films, too--among them The Eternal Flicker and Straight and Narrow, which feature music by Conrad himself, John Cale, and Terry Riley. (Due to the colorful and hypnotic stroboscopic effects, the Visual Music organizers caution that these films might be hazardous to photosensitive epileptics.)

Nam June Paik, a pioneering video artist and associate of John Cage, is a legend in new-music circles. During the 1960s, Paik collaborated with filmmaker Jud Yalkut and enlisted Takehisa Kosugi, Charlotte Moorman, David Behrman, the Beatles, and Cage in his arresting experiments with video distortion and processing. One film, John Cage Mushroom Hunting in Stony Point, is what more films should be: respectful of musicians and completely silent. CHRISTOPHER DeLAURENTI

The films of Tony Conrad play Thurs Apr 10 and the collaborative films of Jud Yalkut and Nam June Paik show Mon April 14 (Little Theatre, 610 19th Ave E, 675-2055), 8 pm, $4.50/$7.

chris@delaurenti.net

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