August 25, 2005
Trickling down through the AP Wire today is a great little article on John Cameron Mitchell's new film, Shortbus. There's a brief synopsis -
The film revolves around a Gertrude Stein-style salon from the early 1900s, where artists, writers, musicians and intellectuals converged to share their works and discuss new ideas in art and politics.
- as well as confirmation that the movie is actually in production, and will be hitting the festival circuit next year.
Much of the article, of course, focuses on the sexual content of the film. Unsimulated sex in cinema certainly isn't commonplace, but I don't know think that it's quite as revolutionary as it was even three years ago, when Mitchell first began work on this project. Since then, The Brown Bunny and 9 Songs and various other films with real sex have passed through American theaters and drawn their fair share of audiences (all with no trouble from censors - as opposed to the situation in Australia) . The appeal of Shortbus is not the degree to which Mitchell focuses on sexuality; it's simply the fact that the director of one of the best American debuts of the decade is finally making his sophomore effort.
And I heard rumblings somewhere that Rufus Wainwright was going to be doing music for it....
Girish Shambu's latest post features a really wonderful page of a comic book he drew on jazz theory, along with a promise of a future post about alternative comic books. Although I don't read comic books (or graphic novels, since I always favored the collected format) too frequently anymore, they played an important enough part in my development as a filmmaker (especially the b/w ones) to warrant a post of my own on the subject - but I'll save that for some other time. Girish's work did inspire me to go dig out from under my bed the few finished pages of the last comic project I attempted, seven years ago or so - adapted from a short story I had written about, coincidentally, a jazz pianist (who falls in love with a lounge singer). I drew the last panel, before abandoning the project, a few hours prior to seeing Boogie Nights. I could probably find some minute paradigmatic correlation there...
Posted by David Lowery at August 25, 2005 02:52 PM
Comments
That's a really nice picture, David. You've got quite the eye.
Why, you should scan the whole thing!
Posted by: Matt at August 25, 2005 05:28 PM
What's that shit all over his face? Some kinda monkey mask? This is the worst goddamn drawing I've ever seen.
Posted by: jmj at August 25, 2005 05:57 PM
Oh wow, I love it.
That cross-hatching looks pretty intricate...
David, I bet there's more under that bed. You should retrieve it all. We'd love to see it!
Posted by: girish at August 25, 2005 11:18 PM
Of this piece of work, there are actually only three other pages, and two are just rough pencils.
Of the box of hundreds of pages of superhero and horror comics, drawn from ages ten to twelve, that reside in my attic, no one shall ever see a single panel - including myself (I'm too embarassed to look at them, but too sentimental to throw them away).
JMJ, don't make me tell everyone about the time I showed you From Hell and you complained about it being in black and white!
Posted by: Ghostboy at August 25, 2005 11:38 PM
"don't make me tell everyone..."
ouch.
Posted by: girish at August 26, 2005 07:04 AM
Here's a snapshot of the remaining three pages. I unfortunately don't have a scanner...it's on my list of much-needed computer accessories.
Posted by: Ghostboy at August 26, 2005 08:42 PM