Heart of a Dog turns cinema into philosophical poetry on life and death — a film review
December 8, 2015
It has been almost 30 years since performance artist/musician Laurie Anderson directed a movie about herself. What a leap in perspective is Heart of a Dog, a cinematically poetic meditation on love, death, government surveillance, Buddhism and her own upbringing in a house of seven children.
Anderson recently endured some heavy losses in her life, her husband Lou Reed and her rat terrier Lolabelle. Death is a heavy thing and does not have meaning without life. Regrets, ghosts and Anderson’s upbringing as part of a large nuclear family with a mother she wasn’t sure really loved her, not to mention NSA surveillance, all thus heavily figure into this ingenious, free-associative documentary.
On her record albums, Anderson’s existential concerns have long been on display. On her 1982 avant-garde pop music debut, Big Science, song titles like, “Born, Never Asked” and lyrics like “You’re walking. And you don’t always realize it, but you’re always falling,” capture the simple but rich ideas Anderson has long experimented with. It may seem as though she has devoted her career to turning the big questions of life and experience into art. Her musings have grown much more sophisticated, even wittier over time but no less embracing of the great mystery of the ominous inexorable punctuation point to life and how these two notions weave together.
As with her thoughts, Anderson’s distinctive sing/speak voice is also present in the film with all its soothing character, kicking the film off with thoughts like, “What are the very last things that you say in your life? What are the very last things that you say before you turn into dirt?” She composed her own score whose melodies come from cello and violin but also feature samples of nature and helicopter propellers mixed with quiet, synthesized drones. The opening titles feature a minor key melody but also a bright quality, reflexive of the dichotomy of exuberance of life and the sadness of loss.
Visually, there is a similar musical quality to Heart of a Dog. The film feels like a sprightly montage of Anderson’s paintings, photos and video of Lolabelle mixed with liberal images of beautiful plays on light through the filter of decayed, damaged film stock or images of rain-speckled sepia windows. The worn still film images of Lolabelle in happier times frolicking in the meadow or home video of Anderson’s siblings on decayed 16mm home movies, slowed down to highlight blurry figures of people, also represent mortality in the decay, similar to the films of avant-garde filmmaker Bill Morrison.
Anderson’s voice, soft and clear in its delivery, over these expressive images feels like guided meditation. Anderson has always sung/spoken with a relaxed, staccato, even deadpan tone, but it has grown less antsy over the years. She also has an amazing sense of humor. Early in the film, she notes the notion that rat terriers are said to understand 500 words. After Sept. 11 — when the oppressive surveillance of Manhattan inspires Anderson to escape to seaside California meadows — she decides she will spend some time figuring out exactly what those 500 words are. Another fine example of Anderson’s humor uses a series of famous quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein, where she turns the Austrian philosopher’s thoughts that experience is limited by language, into one of the biggest jokes of the movie. This, in turn, becomes a triumph for her chosen medium of film and visuals to explore life and death.
Some viewers may find the tangents to concerns of Sept. 11, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the NSA rather oblique. But, as with anything by Anderson, everything is connected. There are inextricable links in the film’s perspective. The green and gray surveillance images are compared to how dogs see the world, linked to another sense: smell. Humans lost their acute sense of smell after learning to walk upright, notes Anderson. There is also a sense of humanity lost in the surveillance images, with their wide, all-seeing gaze on traffic. They take in so much information that is never processed as anything more than data, removed of the human experience that we filter through stories we tell, whose details, both chosen and ignored create false impressions. Both have detriments when taken on their own, but what if we were aware of both, could it make life and death easier to understand? Death matters. Images matter. Music matters. Stories matter. They are life and give death and love value.
Heart of a Dog runs 75 minutes and is not rated (it may have some rare cases of some salty language). It opens in our Miami area this Friday, Dec. 11, at the Coral Gables Art Cinema; further north, in Broward County, it opens at the Cinema Paradiso Fort Lauderdale. It continues its run theatrically in South Florida on Dec. 18 at O Cinema Wynwood and the Lake Worth Playhouse. On Dec. 25 it begins its run at the Living Room Theater in Boca Raton. Finally, it opens Dec. 27 at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. For dates in other U.S. cities, visit this link. All images courtesy of the film’s distributor, Abramorama. The Coral Gables Art Cinema provided a screener link for the purpose of this review.
Music is an essential component of filmmaking. It adds a layer of expression beyond words. A soundtrack (music or sounds), can envelop an audience in a particular mood. Indeed, creating an atmosphere is truly a work of art and certainly not a given in every film. Crafting a soundtrack is challenging, as it must not distract while also melding into the storytelling. Sometimes songs and sounds are too overt, calling more attention to itself than the action on the screen. Other times, the sounds are predictable and generic, making the audience all too aware of what is to come— enter the high-pitched soprano and some piano chords in D-minor to elicit tears, or the dissonant noises warning the heroine not to go there right before her throat gets slashed. Yes, all cinephiles know these commonplace sounds all too well. I can think of even more examples of sounds gone wrong or feeling too generic, which is why a good soundtrack is worth celebrating. This list represents a small taste of what an important character sounds can play in every film, and how they elevate our experience.
1. Lost in Translation
Sofia Coppola has a gifted ear when it comes to soundtracks. In Lost in Translation, we learn about the inner workings of confused souls in troubled relationships and about Japan! Rare new, ethereal solo music by dream pop pioneer Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine evokes a brilliant sense of lonely ennui of Scarlett Johansson‘s character. The sounds evoke the longing you feel being in a different country, and the contradictory emotions you find when being at a crossroads— from stillness to rapid-fire boom bips of the pachinko parlor. This is also a rare occasion to find the amazing Bill Murray singing Roxy Music at a Karaoke bar. How could it get any better?
Here’s another one of my favorite tracks on the soundtrack by Air, a band that worked closely with Coppola to score her debut feature, the Virgin Suicides:
Click here to own the soundtrack.
2. Submarine
Richard Ayoade’s 2010 film is a fantastic coming-of-age story, funny and complicated, complete with original music by Alex Turner of Arctic Monkey’s fame. The soft and melodious sound of Turner’s songs compliment the plot wherein Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) faces a mission to save his parents’ marriage and lose his virginity— an almost epic journey for a 15-year-old. Turner’s lyrics complement this saga in a soft way. For instance, in “Hiding Tonight,” Turner’s husky voice whispers: “Tomorrow I’ll be faster/I’ll catch what I’ve been chasing after/And have time to play/But I’m quite alright hiding today.” Though the lyrics suggest that hopeful bright future we both fear and cannot wait for as we are young, the music evokes a nostalgic feeling. The atmospheric quality this soundtrack brings to Submarine translates so well into living life.
Listen here to “Hiding Tonight” from that soundtrack:
Click here to own Turner’s EP for the soundtrack.
3. Old Joy
Kelly Reichardt’s 2006 small indie film Old Joy has the ability to transport the viewer into that wild terrain of unspoiled nature and masculine feelings. Old Joy captures the friendship between Mark (Daniel London) and Kurt (Will Oldham, a noted indie musician himself) who take a trip in the forest of the Pacific Northwest. The film is heavy with sorrow, regret and unsaid things that have mounted between these two men. Much of the genius of this film comes from an atmospheric quality. There are turbulent waters under the bridge between these two friends. The soundtrack by Yo La Tengo has a nostalgic quality, an instrumental rendering that elevates the film into that feeling of “Old Joy.” The album, They Shoot, We Score compiles the music from Old Joy, as well as Junebug, Game 6 and Shortbus, so it’s a one-stop-shop for Yo La Tengo fans or independent film buffs.
Here’s my favorite track from that album, which if you’re feeling any stress, you can just listen to and let it melt away:
Click here to own the soundtrack.
4. Rushmore
Melding with the storytelling, this soundtrack provides somewhat of an insight into the mind of Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman). For instance, the sprightly notes of “the Hardest Geometry Problem in the World” by Mark Mothersbaugh are reminiscent of Max’s scheming designs to open a million-dollar project to build an aquarium at Rushmore Academy to win a teacher’s heart. Mothersbaugh, of Devo fame, is in charge of most of the score with original instrumental music that truly adds to the action on screen. The rest of the songs give us a way into Max Fisher’s personality, the prep school reject who is also into writing theatrical plays, is also seriously partial to British pop, including the Who, the Kinks and even the Creation. The compilation plays like a fun mixtape that has some imaginative breaks at the hands of Mothersbaugh.
Here’s my favorite track from that album:
Click here to own the soundtrack.
5. The Squid and the Whale
Noah Baumbach’s 2005 family saga is full of drama, black humor and great music. Less rock and roll than the previous albums on this list, the Squid and the Whale soundtrack has a more folky vibe with songs from Bert Jansch, Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III. The original music comes courtesy of Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham, best known for headlining the indie band Luna or as the duo Dean and Britta. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this couple of musicians can write music so well for the complicated relationship between the two recently divorced writers depicted on screen.
Here’s my favorite track from that album (R.I.P. Lou Reed):
Click here to own the soundtrack.
What are some of your favorite soundtracks? What is it about music and film that moves us beyond our lived experience? Leave a comment below!
Forget Brian Eno, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. One of David Bowie’s most consistent and important collaborators has been his stalwart keyboardist, Mike Garson. Ever since Bowie’s 1972 tour as Ziggy Stardust, down to his final live performance in 2006, baring a few key albums, Garson has been there, adding a distinct flavor to many of Bowie’s songs. With his abstract, angular improvisations, Garson has helped define the sound of such iconic Bowie tracks going as far back as 1973’s frantic, glitter avalanche that was “Aladdin Sane (1913- 1939- 197?)” to as recent as the spare, atmospheric jazz-inspired number “Bring Me the Disco King,” off Bowie’s last album, 2oo3’s Reality (Support the Independent Ethos, purchase on Amazon).
Ever since he abruptly halted a world tour in support of Reality, in 2004, Bowie quietly sidestepped the spotlight. The catalyst of this slowdown happened on stage in Germany after he complained of pain in his arm while performing. He was soon rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery to clear a blocked artery (read the BBC article here). Bowie then gradually headed into a low-key kind of retirement following a smattering of appearances as a guest vocalist on other recording artists’ albums and a couple of one-off live performances. No full-length albums have followed nor any tours or full concerts. According to his wife, supermodel Iman, he is living the quiet life under his birth name as a family man in New York City. In a recent interview with the UK’s “Times Magazine,” she said, “I am NOT married to David Bowie … I am married to David Jones. They are two totally different people.” With Bowie no longer recording or performing, who knows if the rock star known as “David Bowie” even exists any more, slipping away through the ether of awareness like the otherworldly life form he has so often been described as.
Now comes Garson to step forward with a tribute album to Bowie, entitled The Bowie Variations For Piano (Garson will sign a copy of the CD for anyone that orders directly from his website). There is probably no other side musician more qualified to interpret Bowie’s music than the classically trained jazz musician who happens to be, as Bowie once put it, “the best rock pianist in the world because he does not play rock.”
I first met Garson in 2004 after proposing a “Goldmine” cover story that would encompass his years with Bowie. The cover would be granted should I have the chance to get some exclusive quotes from Bowie. However, Bowie’s representatives, who have always supported my coverage of their client since I was writing for a university paper in my undergrad years with advance listens to albums and free tickets for shows, would only allow me to speak with Garson. He had agreed to an interview backstage at the James L. Knight Center during the Reality Tour’s stop in Miami on May 4, 2004. We had 45 minutes, but wound up chatting for close to an hour and a half. Garson had even given me an after show pass and promised to introduce me to Bowie. But, right between the opening performance by Stereophonics and Bowie’s show, a local stagehand had climbed into the light rigging without a safety harness and plunged to his death onstage. Bowie cancelled the show and any festivities following it out of respect to the deceased.
With the release of The Bowie Variations, I got back in touch with Garson, and he spoke with me over the phone from his Los Angeles home, over the weekend. “I remember we had a very good conversation that night,” he said reflecting on our first meeting (NOTE: bookmark this blog post or subscribe to the right for the transcription of that entire interview coming soon). “It was just so sad that that unfortunate thing happened that night. In all the years of touring, I’ve never seen that kind of a thing.”
But here we are in the future, with blog posts allowing for more diverse audiences, unconstrained by the limits of print space, so here is a good chunk of our most recent conversation on the Bowie Variations for Piano, with more to come shortly:
Hans Morgenstern: What label’s releasing it?
Mike Garson: It’s called Reference Recordings, and they’re an audiophile label, very high quality. They do mostly classical stuff. They’ve done a few albums for me over the years. I might have had the highest selling of all their albums, jazz and classical, in the last 25 years, an album called Serendipity that I did with Stanley Clarke on bass, Billy Mintz on drums (Support the Independent Ethos, purchase on Amazon). It was a great trio album.
The release will be on the high quality HDCD format, but do they plan to release a vinyl version?
They plan on it, they’re looking for the right people who can do vinyl. It’s become a dead art, but they do release higher [quality mp3] versions on the Internet. There’s a way to do it, but iTunes can’t provide it, but they do offer a CD-quality one and then there’s the normal mp3.
Where did the idea to make such an album come from?
I had been thinking about the Bowie album for a very long time, and I was thinking of doing it as a jazz treatment with a band and guitar and sax, but that didn’t feel good. I was thinking of doing covers with a lot of great singers I worked with, and that didn’t fly for me. So each time I’d let it go for months and months. I even talked, 10 years ago, to Tony Visconti
[a longtime producer of Bowie’s albums] about a concept, and he was into it, but some record company at the time, I don’t know who they were, they didn’t have the budget I was looking for, and I was not going to do it with a small budget. It had to be done right. Then, a good friend of mine who’s a journalist in France and also a singer/songwriter and has written a book on David Bowie, his name is Jérôme Soligny, he said, ‘Mike, the obvious thing is playing solo piano. Just play the music how you feel,’ and I said, ‘Jesus, why didn’t I think of something so simple?’” (laughs).
Was the album recorded live?
Well, the whole album is an improvised album. There’s three or four tracks that has piano overdubs, as you probably heard on “Let’s Dance’ and “‘Heroes'” and on the “Tribute to David,” there’s a delay where the same track plays about a quarter to a half second later than the first track … very subtle, and “‘Heroes'” has three pianos and “Let’s Dance” has three pianos and there’s a crazy medley that, at the very end, I add an extra hand, like a third hand … but everything was improvised, even the overdubs, so I would record them when I felt them, and it was a very interesting process.
Your take on “‘Heroes'” sounds particularly layered, is there any influence there from the Philip Glass interpretation?
It’s funny you would say that. There’s that one piano part that goes on and on, like minimalist … and it’s never the way I actually play. Although, I’ve written a few minimalist pieces, but nothing the way Philip draws it out slowly and builds and builds and builds. But in this particular case I was able to just keep playing it and improvising around it. I varied it. If you listen very closely they change in and out. But a lot of repetition, and I just fell in love with it. I guess if I’ve ever been influenced by Philip it would have been just in that moment in time because I know his works a little bit but nothing very deeply. I just think that growing up in that same era it would have influenced me a little.
How do you think Bowie fans unfamiliar with your solo albums will react to this music?
You realize that even Mark [aka Total Blam Blam] who runs the Bowie site didn’t recognize most of the songs (laughs), and I’ve been experiencing this, case after case, so I knew that many people who are just my fans who have nothing to do with Bowie, I knew that they would hear it as Mike again improvising. There’s some jazz, there’s some classical, there’s some pop elements, some avant-garde, and then I knew the hardcore Bowie fans wouldn’t cease to stop listening to it till they heard it. For, example, if you go back and listen to “Ashes to Ashes,” all I’m playing is the three-bar hook on that song that was sort of done on a piano … I never played the song. That’s why it’s called “variations.” … There are certain songs that I paid much more respect to his melody and many that I turned inside and out. On “Changes,” I did a combination of both. “Let’s Dance,” I built most of it off the bass line. I did a lot of crazy improvising and ended up with a crazy stride piano at the end, which is reminiscent of “Time,” from Aladdin Sane, but much quicker. With the same bass line going. It has its own wildness:
Download Garson’s variation on Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” MP3 provided courtesy of Mike Garson
And here’s the original video from 1983:
One of the most interesting pieces on the album has to be your medley of some the later period Bowie songs.
On the medley, I actually use part of my solo from Earthling, on “Battle for Britain,” and I altered it and changed it. Then I did “Loneliest Guy,” which I played the accompaniment part on the Reality CD, but here I played a little melody and improvised very slow, and then on “Disco King,” I used some of the original recording material. I had some of my original MIDI files that I had of my playing mixed with some improvisations … That was the hardest work to put together cause it was the longest. It’s about seven minutes. And “Life on Mars,” the first two minutes of that, I make up my own piece, totally my own piece inspired by David’s song and then I go into the song. That one you can hear the melody pretty straight. “Space Oddity” has two versions, and they’re pretty self-evident, although the second one gets a little more adventurous. But because I’m an instrumentalist, and I’ve never focused a whole lot on lyrics, it’s very easy for me to hear it and see it that way, but a lot of people who are used to those words and his phrasing, I’m telling ‘ya, they probably wouldn’t recognize seven or eight out of the 11 songs. They just wouldn’t know it. Like “Heroes,” it was just some approximation of the bass line, and I hardly play the melody, and when I did, it was kind of tongue-in-cheek, and then I had that Philip Glass line going, and then I had all my improvisation above that. So it’s a very honest album, Hans … because that’s all I do. I’m an improvising musician.
Then there is one piece that doesn’t seem to derive from any previous Bowie track, “Tribute to David.” What was your starting point for that one?
Purely homage. A tribute to David. It was just my way of writing a piece for him that just came from my world, and that’s what came out.
What were your thoughts when you played it?
It was more the intention to write a beautiful piece that seemed to feel like him, from my viewpoint. Nothing else. The reason I know that is because it came out in one shot, in just three minutes or whatever the song is.
How did you choose the songs?
Well, I didn’t want to do any of the ones I was known for. If there is a Volume 2 of the Bowie variations, I would do “Aladdin Sane” and “Time” and “Lady Grinning Soul” in my own way because I’m known for those. I didn’t think that was fair on the first one.
But you are interested to see what it would be like to revisit those early Aladdin Sane songs?
Yeah… but … I was really being respectful to him as a songwriter. Even though they were done in my bizarre kinda way, I still respected his song. If the album is successfully received and people would like a second volume, I would do the ones I’m known for, but since it would be solo piano, I have to find a way to make them sound good without a bass and drums and guitar. That would be very challenging.
What was the last thing you did with Bowie?
The two last appearances that he’s done in the last six or seven years [including one with] just piano and voice, one was with Alicia Keys for an AIDS benefit, and we all did “Changes” together. She asked me to play the piano, and him and her sang it, and we used her band. That was never televised. And then we did one on television where we did “Life on Mars.” It was just me and him, and it was the first time he did anything after the tour, and that was his first performance he did after his problem with his heart. So, I was very fortunate to be part of those two extremely magical performances because they were both great in different ways, and nothing since then.”
Some shaky video exists of the performance of “Changes” with Keys:
For good measure, here is the Fashion Rocks show where Garson and Bowie performed “Life on Mars.” It aired on CBS in 2006:
Any plans to work together again?
We haven’t talked about anything like that. I know that when he feels ready, he’ll call, and if he feels ready. But the thing I’ve always liked about him is, if he’s not feeling something, he’s not going to do it. So, if and when he feels it, he’ll do it, and if and when he thinks I can contribute to something, he’ll call me. If he hears something else, he’ll call somebody else or not have piano. I don’t know any more than anybody else does on that. I haven’t been lead to believe anything either way … When you’re forcing doing music, when you don’t hear it in your head and feel it, which obviously he hasn’t in this last period of time, it would be dishonest, and that’s the last thing he would do because, one thing about him, whether you like his music or not, no one can say that he’s not honest because he does what he feels like, when he feels like it, how feels like it, and his body of work shows it … I think that’s what we do have in common. We’re both pretty honest to our music.”
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It was a nice conversation that, again, lasted longer than I expected and offered much insight into this original recording that seems to deconstruct music and build it back again as something altogether different. David Bowie Variations seems to compliment the découpage style of writing Bowie often employed in his lyric writing to nearly surreal effect.
For even more insight into Garson’s style and how it has grown and changed alongside Bowie’s own unique songcraft, as well as Garson’s history before and beyond Bowie, follow this link for the start of an early, extensive unpublished interview I had with Garson from 2004:
Independent Ethos 