Our Culture Mag’s at the BFI London Film Festival again. Director Alexandre O. Phillipe brings us an interesting look at the creation of 1973’s The Exorcist. In an extended interview with the film’s director, William Friedkin, we ramble through Friedkin’s thoughts and anecdotes on the film’s production. Whilst slightly aimless, we soon learn that this isn’t a straightforward narrative of how the film was made, but rather an eclectic selection of Friedkin’s thoughts, ethics, and perspectives.
Recalling his own experience making documentaries, Friedkin relates that the direction of documentaries is dictated by the unpredictable words of interviewees. Indeed, the same is true of Leap of Faith. Structurally, there isn’t necessarily a firm sequence of topics. We ease into the making of The Exorcist with anecdotes of how the original book’s author, William Peter Blatty, had pre-emptively written a screenplay for Friedkin – one which Friedkin found to be all wrong. Beyond this introduction however, the film becomes a varied collection of stories regarding different elements of the film’s construction.
This structure isn’t a detriment, however. As Friedkin’s interview progresses, the proverbial meat of the piece becomes clear. Much as Friedkin sees The Exorcist as a collection of themes centred around faith, so too is this film a collection of stories centred around Friedkin’s own perspectives on life itself.
Friedkin talks profoundly about what he calls “grace notes”, those little moments we never forget that have no apparent larger significance, but stay with us without explanation. Demonstrating his deep affection for cinema, Friedkin uses the example of Mr. Bernstein, in Citizen Kane (1941), recalling the lady in white he once saw on a ferry; someone he knew nothing about, yet hasn’t stopped thinking of decades later. That these moments stay with us, etching themselves in our memory is interesting. This discussion cuts to the core of The Exorcist and its focus on the fragility of faith. These “grace notes” call into question our ideas of what is of larger significance. If something as simple as inexplicable people or actions can permanently stay with us, do we really have any real understanding of what’s really important?
Much like Friedkin’s own comments on the intangibility of The Exorcist’s meaning, I don’t pretend that the above dissection is this film’s meaning. On the contrary, it’s just an interesting avenue of thought that Friedkin’s perspectives provoke.
Leap of Faith, playing as an intimate, autobiographical account of the film’s production, provides a great insight into what The Exorcist could mean. That this insight comes directly from the film’s director stating that there is no explicit, intended meaning, is fascinating. Friedkin doesn’t say that The Exorcist is meaningless. Rather, he refrains from attaching definitive interpretations, preferring to maintain his inadvertent predilection for ambiguity. Indeed, he explains that for several of the film’s elements, there was no conscious thought behind their inclusion and presentation other than instinct. Such revelations are exciting, actively inviting the individual to simultaneous certainty and uncertainty of how they view The Exorcist; certainty from knowing their reading isn’t contradicted by authorial intent, and uncertainty that theirs is just as fragile as Friedkin’s.
Leap of Faith is a fascinating look at the creation of The Exorcist. It finds humour in tales from the set, melancholy in the reactions of Friedkin and his collaborators, and poignancy in Friedkin’s frank relation of his perspectives. The dissection from its director provokes the re-evaluation and discovery of The Exorcist’s potential meanings, whilst Friedkin’s own experience of life, related through “grace notes”, provokes reflection on the things we hold important.
Tegan and Sara, Hey, I’m Just Like You: Indie pop duo Tegan and Sara have released their ninth studio album titled Hey, I’m Just Like You. It follows 2016’s poppier Love You to Death, which saw them being more upfront about their sexuality. It contains re-recordings of early demos that the twins recorded in their teenage years, including the singles ‘
Opeth, In Cauda Venenum: The Swedish prog rockers return with their thirteenth album, In Cauda Venenum, out via Moderbolaget and Nuclear Blast. Released in both a Swedish language version and an English language version, the album was recorded in November 2018 at Park Studios in Stockholm. “This is me,” frontman Åkerfeldt explains. “This is OPETH. I think by now fans will recognize—at least I hope they do—my writing style, our sound, what we do as a band. There are a lot of surprises on In Cauda Venenum from the strings and Swedish samples to Fredrik’s [Åkesson] solos and the Swedish lyrics.”
Girl Band, The Talkies: This is the sophomore album from the all-male Irish band Girl Band, out now via Rought Trade. It was recorded in November 2018 at Ballintubbert House, whose idiosyncratic architecture influenced the album’s sound. “In many ways the idea behind the album was to make an audio representation of the house,” they explain in a press statement. Listeners can expect “moaning and sawing guitars, atonal blankets of sound, abstractive lyrical repetition, chugging snare and ascending/descending snakes and ladders noise-rock guitar.”
Temples, Hot Motion: British psych-rock outfit Temples are back with their third album, their first for ATO Records worldwide. Following their acclaimed debut Sun Structures and 2014’s Volcano, the three-piece are reportedly exploring a darker, David Lynch-esque sound. “It felt like there was a darker edge to what we were coming up with and we wanted to make sure that carried through across the whole record,” bassist Walmsley explains.
An album with a title as bold as Why Me? Why Not., coming from someone with Liam Gallagher’s reputation, certainly sounds promising. The ex-Oasis frontman’s previous album and solo debut felt listlessly bland, unable to match his controversial persona with an equally impressive musical project. But alas: Why Me? Why Not. is simply an improved version of As You Were, attempting to polish the songwriting and production rather than take any risks by being self-reflective and introspective in any sort of uncompromising way. In fact, the best moments of the album are those where Gallagher, rather than taking a hard look at his life, instead shows a kind of soft sentimentality and nostalgia. On the standout ballad ‘Once’, he sings: “It was easier to have fun back when we had nothing/ Nothing much to manage/ Back when we were damaged”. While Gallagher singing about his fiancee following him around all day “like a halo ’round the sun” might leave a bad taste in your mouth, ‘Now That I’ve Found You’, a song dedicated to his daughter, is a wonderfully cheerful tune, and one of his best. Why Me? Why Not. is a straightforward rock record, with clear nods to artists like John Lennon (the title is a direct reference to two Lennon paintings Gallagher owns), and despite being a mixed bag, and not a particularly exciting one at that, it has its potent moments.
“We are like 1 person with 8 limbs,” BABii said of her relationship with Iglooghost in our interview with her back in July. This perfectly reflects how XYZ feels: less like the collaborative project of three separate artists and more the product of a single amalgamated being. Except this interdimensional being now has 12 limbs, and it’s called GLOO. While each member of this closely-knit group of electronic producers has their own unique style, their chemistry on here is incredibly palpable, the layers of sounds meshing in uncompromising, unpredictable ways that enhance rather than cloud one another. There are points where you can probably guess who contributed which idea, but the effort becomes more and more futile as you go along. Each member’s contributions are irrefutably as essential to the project’s success as any. Relentlessly frenetic and absolutely addicting, XYZ is composed of “one thousand drops, looming blasts, rapid thuds, blistering squeaks, and seven hundred and eighty-nine crystal-clear kicks in the face,” all tightly packed within 28 minutes. In fact, the album’s short runtime could have been its only weakness – you’re certainly left wanting more, but the manically hypersaturated nature of the instrumentals makes more sense presented that way, like a rush of adrenaline. It feels like the sound of some sort of post-digital age, and you’ll definitely wanna be part of it.
Despite the bad response singles like ‘Blame It On My Youth’ received from fans, Blink-182’s eighth (or, according to Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, ninth) album could have been a good one. Thematically, it’s more self-aware and mature in its emotional vulnerability, while musically it attempts to find the right balance between Blink’s early, punkier efforts and late-era, more electronic efforts. Matt Skiba also feels more in the right place as their new vocalist. But Nine wants to be the sound of a group of adults reflecting on their adolescence, despite the fact that their style hasn’t evolved or matured enough to feel like their perspective has in any way changed. When the band sings “blame it on my youth”, it’s as if this group of guys in their 40s are still in their teenage years, rather than reflecting on them, as they do in the verses. From a technical standpoint, the record is too overproduced and overly compressed to leave any distinct impact, while the songwriting feels unsurprisingly by-the-numbers and formulaic by pop-punk standards, which has the unfortunate effect of draining some of the earnest lyricism from its potential impact. There are a few keepers though: ‘Happy Days’ has one of the more pleasantly sticky hooks, ‘Generational Divide’ is a fun little inside-joke of a punk tune, and ‘Pin the Grenade’ features some of the best songwriting here, with Travis Barker’s drumming standing out, as it does throughout the record. Other than that, this will probably only work for hardcore fans.
Back from the misogynistic DIY scene that alienated them, fuzz-pop trio Vivian Girls return with their first album together since 2011’s Share the Joy. For the most part, the band stick to their guns, as if no time has passed: you can recognize the dreamy vocals, the poppy songwriting surrounding them, and Katy Goodman’s bass high in the mix. But there’s a captivating sense of nostalgia and maturity to the appropriately titled Memory: the production is more washed out and dark while the songwriting more layered, the tunes like hazy memories dug out of the back of the mind. This elevates the album from a nondistinct indie-pop album to a subtly conceptual one – Vivian Girls create this haunting atmosphere in a way that feels completely natural and nuanced. But of course, these are still catchy songs at their core, like the opener ‘Most of All’, the fierce ‘Something to Do’, or the grungy ‘Sludge’, one of the heaviest, most hypnotic cuts here. The cleanest track, ‘Lonely Girl’, is also the most evocative, while ‘All Your Promises’ is the most moving: “After it all crashed down / The seeds of love were all around / And some of them caught in time / And all they said to me, ‘You’re nothing, worthless’,” Ramone sings. On their strong comeback, Vivian Girls hold nothing back.
