Rewind & Play

 

Director Alain Gomis

REWIND & PLAY                B                                                                                                 France  Germany  (65 mi)  2022  d: Alain Gomis

It brings tears to my eyes when I see the shit that my father was going through.                    —T.S. Monk Jr. from Rewind & Play - Forum 2022 

This is an oddly unorthodox little film that reveals the inherent harm in showcasing such a unique jazz artist in such a conventional light, entirely based upon two hours of unused archival footage from a December 1969 French television interview with Thelonious Monk before his final European concert tour performance at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, outtake footage we were never intended to see, where the utter indifference on display from interviewer Henri Renaud to the artist during the recording is difficult to watch, as the spotlight instead is on the sheer inadequacy of the white media who seem unqualified to tell his story, yet that doesn’t stop them from telling one anyway.  Throughout the interview on the French TV show Jazz Portrait, we painfully witness how Monk’s brief responses are immediately deemed unsatisfactory to his interviewers, and are interrupted, dismissed, spoken over in French, and edited out.  In stark contrast, the shots of him playing the piano allow his music to express the deeply complex humanity of the man, whose nature seems unfathomable to the television industry at the time.  Leaning over the piano, Renaud attempts to create an intimate setting, trying to engage the artist in an on-going dialogue, yet a production crew of at least a dozen are continually hovering nearby, walking back and forth, forced to endure retake after retake, showing a complete disregard for how they are affecting Monk’s curt responses, as the artist’s life is manipulated and trivialized to such an extent that in apparent frustration Monk gets up to leave at one point, but is convinced to stay through what appears to be hands-on physical restraint, revealing just how agonizing this insulting experience is to him, as he’s treated like a commodity they are trying to sell, like a packaged product, exposing the shocking disconnect between the black artist and the white media.  This is a film that is not for everyone, barely over an hour in length, yet it’s a reflection of the casual racism that existed in the 60’s, as the KKK’s influence in the American South was everpresent in the region, where arrests, bombings, and murders of blacks, as well as whites sympathetic to their cause, were all too commonplace, while France was fighting colonial wars in a misguided attempt to hold onto their control of black African colonies.  Made by the director of Félicité (2017), born of a Senegalese father and a French Guinee-Bissau mother, Alain Gomis studied art history and earned a master’s degree in cinematographic studies at the Sorbonne.  What this film exposes is how easily black history is erased, as one of the preeminent jazz artists of our time is literally silenced before our eyes, his words purged from the record, and replaced by a dismissive white establishment that prefers to tell a more palatable version to mainstream audiences that is free of controversy, but it amounts to censorship, an act filled with controversy, especially for artists who are the poets of each generation.  However, it’s an immersive experience where you’re in the presence of Thelonious Monk for one solid hour, yet it’s also a revealing look at how celebrities are packaged, and how black entertainers, in particular, are infantilized, placing words in their mouths supposedly to protect them from themselves, where what amounts to friendly intentions become misrepresentation, which, as it turns out, is fairly typical of the daily black experience even today.

The clips include his arrival at the airport, when passengers actually exited planes to the ground, walking outdoors to the gates, accompanied by his effervescent wife Nellie (wearing très chic eyeglasses), meeting up with Renaud at a bar for a quick drink before heading into the Montmartre television studio.  Easily the most watchable aspect of this film are the lengthy piano passages from Monk, as there is no one else on the planet who plays like him, universally respected by his peers.  We have seen rare glimpses of his massive talent on display mixed with his quirky personality in Charlotte Zwerin’s documentary portrait, Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988), which catches him in his element, friendly, honest, and gentle, with a brooding shyness when seen alongside personal friends and other jazz artists.  But those friends are missing here as he’s subtly demeaned and denigrated by an imperceptive TV crew, where it’s a shock how much he was disrespected, offering no window into his artistic vision, and no background whatsoever other than Renaud’s repeated attempts to fill in his own personal narrative, much of which is filmed after Monk has left, creating an eerie impression of just how thoroughly manipulative the media can be.  Instead Monk is left alone in this onslaught of casual disregard, peppered with absurdly meaningless questions, where his discomfort is etched all over his face, sweat constantly dripping under the lights, where his only refuge is quietly tuning them out while playing the piano.  The editing scheme reveals just how chaotic this experience must have been for him, as there are repeated stops, asking the very same question all over again, sometimes in French, each time expecting a different answer more to their liking, leading to lengthy periods where he is made to sit and wait while they sort things out in French, becoming a pointless exercise in futility.  Even when he offers extended, contemplative answers, they incredulously cut off what he actually says, with Renaud claiming “it’s not nice” to mention the bad experiences he had when he first came to France, promoted as the star performer yet he couldn’t bring along his own musicians and had to play with people he never met before, and was paid substantially less than the other musicians.  There’s a brutality to this experience, where honesty is considered far too real for television, as they continually reject what he has to say, yet he never loses his composure, even as it becomes evident that it’s absurdly impossible to say anything at all except what he can express through the piano.  Henri Renaud is not a journalist, but a fellow jazz pianist who has apparently spent some time with Monk in America, even been to his home, but the awkwardness between them is blisteringly apparent, with Renaud never making any adjustments in his style, never taking the artist aside to apologize for the delays or offer any degree of warmth or comfort, never asking how he feels, instead he blazes through each take with the same degree of callousness, turning the spotlight on himself, showing no regard to Monk whatsoever, an example of the formulaic struggles artists face when attempting to expand their audience.  The apt title mirrors the disordered interview style, yet also may be a reference to turning back the clock, suggesting conditions for minorities haven’t really changed in the last half century.     

To many whites viewing this film, they will see nothing out of the ordinary, wondering what all the fuss is about, likely seeing no signs of racism, but the condescending and paternalistic treatment of such a renowned jazz artist is simply astounding, showing no deference to his mood or what he has to say, as he is the star of the show, yet he is not treated like a star, where the studio’s suppression of his voice, never allowing him to express himself in his own words, and the demeaning, stereotypical treatment of such a jazz legend is shameful and deplorable.  Other than getting up to leave, Monk never loses his cool, remaining calm throughout the entire ordeal, occasionally questioning whether it’s actually worth it with the constant interruptions, thinking they’d make better use of their time going out for dinner, as this pretend version of “relaxed” is exhaustive, certainly taking its toll, leaving the artist fatigued after ten years of touring, with Monk making only rare public appearances after this.  Much of this is told in extreme close-ups, becoming a photo essay of the expressions on his face, rarely capturing this degree of intimacy with such a legendary artist, yet the distance between them is inescapable, with Renaud wanting to show admiration, yet the inept nature of his questions shows an innate insensitivity, while his aloof demeanor suggests a total stranger, offering no personal or musical insight, no hint of the artist’s sensitivity, where they may as well be on distant planets.  If truth be told, Monk was a misunderstood artist his entire career, with his angular, often dissonant, and percussive style of play, where it took him more than a decade to be recognized as one of the greats, yet this reputation for “difficulty” followed him his entire lifetime.  Surely Renaud is aware of this, as he was a musical consultant for Bertrand Tavernier ‘s film AROUND MIDNIGHT (1986), based on Monk’s most famous composition, yet he bulldozes through this material without ever paying honor and respect to the man himself, where there is an abyss between them.  It’s not Renaud who will be playing at the Salle Pleyel, it is Monk, the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, and a supreme artist at the height of his career, yet we never get this impression during the interview.  Instead it is beset with clumsy technical difficulties, which the director amplifies with an ungainly editing structure using outtakes, accentuating silences, deleting sound altogether, highlighting the repetitive technical glitches, where he’s forced to do yet another take, making this uncomfortable to watch, as viewers really want a taste of Monk, and they get it in beautifully extended passages of I Should Care, Thelonious, Crepuscule With Nellie, Ugly Beauty, Don’t Blame Me, Reflections, Epistrophy, Monk’s Mood, Round Midnight, Meet Me In Dreamland, Coming on the Hudson, and Nice Work If You Can Get It, but they also get the infuriating confusion associated with the so-called interview that goes awry.  A companion piece to Terence Dixon’s Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970), where a clearly defiant James Baldwin was angrily resistant to the direction the naïve white filmmaker was taking him, yet to his credit, Gomis edits the film in the manner of Monk’s playing, filled with the physicality, abrupt changes of tempo, and harmonic dissonances that define his unique style, never trying to appease listeners, instead shattering boundaries.  Not an easy watch, but one that opens our eyes to how easily history is eradicated at the expense of the truth.        

Bergman Island (2006)

list of demons or fears

 

Bergman with the director

Director Marie Nyreröd

Bergman experts Mikael Timm, Marie Nyreröd, Jan Holmberg and Maaret Koskinen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BERGMAN COMPLETE – made for TV                             A-                                                aka:  Ingmar Bergman – 3 dokumentärer om film, teater, Fårö och livet av Marie Nyreröd         Sweden  (174 mi)  2004  d: Marie Nyreröd                                                                              Three 58 mi documentaries on film, theater, and Fårö Island                                            (BERGMAN ISLAND is an 83 mi compilation of the three sections, released in the USA in 2006)

The rarely seen BERGMAN COMPLETE (2004) documentary consists of three 58-minute segments on film, theater, and Fårö Island, including Bergman and Cinema, which starts with FRENZY (1944) and ends with SARABAND (2003), containing unique behind-the-scenes material from Bergman’s private archive, Bergman and Theatre is about some of Bergman’s 125 theatrical stagings and about his delight with the TV medium, with successes such as Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap) (1973), while in Bergman and Fårö Island he talks about the childhood that shaped him.  BERGMAN ISLAND (2006), a shortened version released on Criterion in the USA, in collaboration with film festivals and television distributors, is a compilation of all three sections, also part of the special features on the Criterion DVD edition of The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) (1957), which can feel poorly edited at times (though Bergman helped make the edited selections), often cutting off vital details, yet the unsurpassed intimacy with this director is revelatory.  Interviewed over several months in 2003 by a longtime friend near the end of his life, Marie Nyreröd, given exclusive access, turns the cameras on Bergman, in his mid-80’s at the time.  Deep, revealing, and full of anecdotes about his work and personal life, Bergman sits mostly in the living room of his Fårö Island home, occasionally moving to a small screening room, critiquing either the focus or the framing, but always comfortable and at ease, reflecting back on significant moments in his life and career, which include at age 8 bartering with his older brother in order to obtain his first film projector, where a candle behind the celluloid was actually lit and the reels had to be advanced with a hand crank.  Bergman recalls mayhem on the set during his first stint as a director in KRIS (1946), where everyone turned against him for his rudeness and screaming (not realizing it was 4 am), where they appealed to Victor Sjöström, venerable Swedish director of silent films and the lead actor in Bergman’s later Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället) (1957), who took the young man aside and taught him etiquette lessons on how to treat people on a movie set.  As they recall his films, it’s interesting to note Bergman’s manner is relaxed, matter of fact, and completely accessible, amazingly lucid and succinct, able to explain his thoughts on complex issues with ease, without an air of pomp or pretension, where over the course of time that we spend with him, we actually come to know this man fairly intimately, including his God, death, marriage and fear issues, his utter lack of being a good father, to acknowledging his fondness for grandfather clocks, where we see a montage of clocks used in Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende), Bergman, Two from the 70's: Cries and Whispers (1972), and FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1982), mixing real life family memories with certain films, as early family photographs resemble the shoreline used in Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället).  He recalls childhood puppet shows that he performed for family and friends, or the highly anticipated festivities associated with Christmas, very much reflected in FANNY AND ALEXANDER, but also the isolation he experienced as a child, where he developed overt fears to nearly all things as well as a deep anxiety about death, which led of course to The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) (1957).   

Bergman gives us a tour of his beautiful home, some lingering glimpses of home movies showing a progression of beautiful women that graced the screen of his movies, his beloved wife Ingrid, his openly candid confession in his lapses as a father, and a discussion of his demons.  “Not a day has gone by in my life when I haven’t thought about death,” Bergman revealed, suggesting his films can therefore be seen as a product of his struggle with this topic and as his attempt to conquer this fear.  In one of the more surprising revelations, Bergman makes a list of his biggest fears and inner demons, actually writing them on a small piece of paper, and then making a film for every single of one of his fears, carefully reviewing each one of them on camera.  The epithet “demon director” was something Bergman acquired at an early stage in his career, and one that stuck with him throughout his career.  After SARABAND (2003), Bergman retired from the theater and films and retreated to Fårö Island where he never again left the island, acknowledging following a rigid routine, that without it a general disorganization overcomes him, becoming choked up when talking about his wife of 24 years, Ingrid von Rosen, who passed away 8 years ago.  Of his 5 marriages, most averaging about 5 years, Nyreröd asks why this one worked.  He described himself as a man of imagination, whose whims could take him anywhere in the world on the spur of the moment, but her feet remained planted firmly on the ground, a trait he greatly admired and needed.  Nyreröd noted a physical resemblance between his wife and his mother, but it should also be pointed out that early photos of Bergman himself very much resemble his mother.  One of the most interesting questions was about the relationship of Bibi Andersson, his former lover during the making of Persona, and Liv Ullman, his new love after the film.  Asked to describe his feelings in the matter, as archival film is shown of the three of them together during a 1960’s news conference, where they all look in the flush of youth, Bergman was genuinely perplexed and flabbergasted, in short, he never got around to answering that question.  Similarly, Bibi Andersson is fondly recalled throughout this documentary, while Ullman is nearly left out altogether, only featured twice, once in Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap) (1973) when her husband cruelly announces he is leaving her, and again in Persona when her barefoot character steps on a piece of glass that has been precisely left there by Andersson.

While the film is a journey of more than sixty years devoted to film, plays, and television programs, amusingly claiming he left puberty when he was 58, the works he was most proud to have made were Persona (1966) and Bergman, Two from the 70's: Cries and Whispers (1972), noting that he believed he altered the cinema landscape with those films and that he went about as far as he could go within himself.  Despite his international standing as one of the greatest film directors, knowing that his theatrical productions would receive much less attention than his films, he feels more proud of his accomplishments in the theater, which was his childhood ambition, having directed over 150 plays to perhaps 60 films.  Bergman designed or added input to most of his own stage sets and was painfully aware of how different the two art forms are and how time consuming being the director of a theatrical company can be, confessing that accepting a position actually cost him one of his marriages.   But he managed to balance his life around both art forms, filming mostly in the summer, using his theatrical ensemble for his films as well.  We see Bergman staring down at an empty stage from the most distant, highest level seats in the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm, which he one time headed and where he maintained an office for nearly forty years, revealing telling comments about how powerful the silence of an empty stage is, or we hear the difficulties he encountered directing Strindberg plays in German language, claiming Strindberg has the most beautiful use of the Swedish language, that despite his German language proficiency, words alone can’t translate this meaning, which is an accumulation of cultural experiences that are nonexistent in Germany.  Bergman discovered Strindberg at age 14 and early on purchased a prized collection of his entire works, maintaining a spiritual kinship with him throughout his life, restaging some of the same Strindberg plays as many as four different times in his career. 

Even though the film runs 3 hours, it barely skims the surface of much of his work and one could easily have watched 3 more.  Bergman was a bad husband with numerous and overlapping love affairs, who acted on his artistic impulses, yet he craved the recluse isolation of an island with less than 500 full-time residents, no school, no post office, no doctor’s office, but does have a supermarket and a church, having built a Scandinavian-style, architect-designed house in 1967, yet his desire now was to be alone, in silence with his internal “demons.”  While his father was a pastor in the Lutheran church, he was raised in the company of women, by his mother, Karin, naturally, but also a fond maternal grandmother, with her immense apartment in Uppsala, where among the most striking aspects of his art is the prominence he gave to women in his films.  In the company of Nyreröd, one of his closest friends, he engages in an easy conversational style, as she offers a warm and affectionate look at a guy most closely associated with gloom and doom, yet what she reveals is a shared intimacy from this accomplished director who lovingly shows us works of art, locations, theaters, and photographs, while at the end he reveals that the one fear he never had was the dread of nothingness, drawing an empty blank in his head, which is quite simply when the creativity of your imagination abandons you, when things get totally silent, totally empty, and there’s nothing there.  But he does share moments from his home projection room where he continues to watch movies every day, showing us a brief clip from PRIVATE CONFESSIONS (1996) – – yes, it was directed by Liv Ullman, but written by Bergman, where Max von Sydow plays a priest who elaborates on the holiness of man’s spiritual quest for knowledge and the meaning of life through the arts, drawing from theater, painting, music, literature and philosophy, constantly probing the deepest concerns of humanity, that even in the absence of a God qualifies as a human expression of God’s intent.  Mostly, BERGMAN ISLAND is an embracing, heartfelt film which offers a rare opportunity to get this close to a man who has profoundly affected so many others, who speaks here in everyday, ordinary terms, contrasting our notion of what has typically been described as Bergmanesque.  Publicity has never been his strong suit, so if you want self-revelation from Bergman, you must involve yourself in his works.  As a portrait of an artist as an old man, one already knows this man’s life will reverberate well beyond our lifetimes, so it’s simply extraordinary to get such an intimate glimpse of him before he died.