i. a public inditement of heart radio ii. lynch addendum iii. soundtracking iv. hard truths v. after school by Harrison Atlee
i. A Public Inditement of Heart Radio
Who knew it only took one bad night of sleep to utterly break my brain. Thoughts pile up like bodies in a mass grave. And so it continues, the morning after and the day after that. When things start to feel as though they are falling apart we look for a root cause, an amendment to misery. I had a few suspects. The top of this list was the time of year which always has a negative effect on me, however more violently this time around. Trudging into my job, trying to not give away how mental I feel, I was suddenly struck by the main contributor to my unrelentingly bad mood: Heart Radio Scotland. Day after day my workplace subjects me to the tinny sounds of the radio station’s catalogue of chart songs and classic pop from the 80s and 90s. It is always played at a low level, almost unnoticeably so, as if it’s being secretly transposed into my brain. Because it is played every day at the same time patterns begin to emerge. These patterns are not subtly encoded, playing the exact same songs at the exact same time of day. A like clockwork mode of programming that is perhaps supposed to be comforting however has had the unfortunate side effect of causing me to go insane.
I sometimes wonder what the DJs do during their time hosting as they barely have to say anything and obviously make no choices in the music selection. I wonder if they are subjected to the songs again and again or if thats only an endeavour solely granted to their listeners. As an occasional respite from the selective musical stylings and obnoxious advertisements are call-in segments in which a lurid cash prize is dangled in front of the audience. There is something quite insidious about these sections as people call in to answer questions, usually middle-aged women who are evidently bored, and asked jauntily by the host what they would do with the money. Their responses are usually “go on holiday” or “go and visit their children or grandchildren”. The way that the host constantly repeats the amount “500 thousand pounds!” teeters on the pornographic.
If I were to look on the bright side, there are some positives to this Guantanamo Bay style of music consumption. For one, it makes me appreciate the music I do like more. Any time I go on my break or finish work the joy of being able to put on my music to drown out Rag and Bone Man reminds me of the merits of my personal music taste in a whole new way. As someone who actually enjoys listening to music, I am not the targeted demographic of Heart Radio. This is not supposed to be an elitist jab at pop music but it is easy to argue that this is radio designed not to be listened but rather ignored, a cheap imitation of silence.
I suspect there is something quite classist about my ongoing tirade, as a member of the 6music middle class looking down on the terrestrial proletariat. But I am more annoyed by the fact that I am held captive by it more than anything else, hearing it all day every day. I require retribution or at the very least an outlet to have a moan. These are the actions of a desperate man. I am not a violent person but if I have to hear Benson Boone one more time I’m going to murder someone.
Despite the levels of crazy energy emitting from this piece, you will be happy to know that in the last couple of weeks my brain has returned to a sense of equilibrium. I have also convinced my boss to change the radio station to Radio 2, not an ideal alternative but I will take the small victories when they arise. The time will one day come when I no longer have to listen to the radio at work. Perhaps when I win that big cash prize on the call-in show.
ii. Lynch Addendum
The first thing I ever saw by David Lynch was the atomic bomb episode of Twin Peaks in a cinema for my film studies course. At the time I didn’t know what to make of it but since then have been very grateful for that unique entry point. I had always avoided his work up until that point because I misguidedly associated it with the intentionally annoying abstraction I had seen constantly copied, mostly by amateur filmmakers. Since then I have come to my senses and he has become one of my favourite artists, perhaps more than any other filmmaker giving me such pleasure in the viewing of his filmography.
The news of his death last month affected me quite deeply, a bereavement that caught me off guard. It’s rare that a celebrity death requires an introspective emotional response. When I spoke to a lot of my friends they expressed a similar level of grief for a man they had never met. Not only does this speak to the importance of Lynch’s work but also how much he himself is tied to it. His very singular personhood being inexorably part of his films, in a way that I don’t think exists for any other filmmaker. He was always the best advocate for himself and his art.
Because of this, I have decided to compile my favourite Lynch clips I’ve found on YouTube, trying to avoid the well-trodden classics like him with the cow or “Elaborate on that” “No.”. A friend mentioned how he found it weird the levels of para-social mourning he observed on the internet that positioned Lynch as just a good-natured weird guy. I can’t say I’m not adding to this discourse here, but hope my selection is somewhat elevated by showing the facets of him as an artist.
Scene-by-scene Interview
After the news of Lynches death celebrated film critic Mark Cousins reposted an interview he did with Lynch from 1999 for his BBC show ‘Scene By Scene’. Cousins, as ever, seems to ask the right questions and gets one of the most interesting and personal interviews I’ve seen from Lynch. It also includes a question that mentions Angela Carter which was a nice mental cross-over for me. His response to this question didn’t seem to really address the subtle issues expressed regarding his sometimes problemtaci representation of femininity but I never really think Lynch is the best at academically discussing these things, being much more based in the instinctual. There is also a moment where Cousins mentions the Japanese filmmaker Ozu and Lynch doesn’t know who he is, which is an amazing insight into how little of a film guy he is outside of loving the The Wizard of Oz. I was quite moved by this interview, especially towards the end as they discuss death and Lynch says “they say many things remains, its just the body thats dropped.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0a1IIY7b1E&ab_channel=MarkCousins
David Lynch on New Wave
I don’t really know the context of this clip or why I find it so amusing. It’s filled with these really obnoxious sound effects but Lynch himself gives a fun response using very beautifully graphic imagery to the banal question posed.
Lynch Talks to Kids
Another clip with quite annoying background music. Taken from the vastly intriguing behind-the-scenes filming of Twin Peaks: The Return in which David Lynch is trying to get a child to cry. Despite it being quite silly I think it is a good example of the passion and focus he had as a director, especially when you realise that the scene they are filming is a gag that lasts a couple of seconds in the actual episode.
David Lynch Talks Eraser Head in 1979
This might be the most fascinating of the videos I found on my archival dig. It’s made by a student at UCLA interviewing Lynch at the abandoned factory from the start of Eraserhead. It gives a great insight into the start of his career and really contextualises Eraserhead as this weird arthouse behemoth that took two years to intermittently shoot and wasn’t expected to be seen by more than a handful of people. Lynch also mentions a petrified cat that he ‘made’ for the scene that didn’t make it into the film as well as a hairless mouse. Another excellent insight provided from filmed reactions of people coming out of the cinema after seeing the film and encapsulates the way Lynch was viewed when he first arrived as a director, and in some ways is still very relevant to the discourse surrounding his work.
iii. Soundtracking
I’m standing outside a Tesco Extra adjacent to the gorgeous M8 that patricians the West End of Glasgow from the city centre. From my vantage point, I can see through the entirety of the shop. I spot acclaimed singer-songwriter Paul Forrest as he goes to the checkout. He buys sushi, a Danish and a vape: this man means business. We regrouped outside the shop and continued our way to his studio space where we were about to record the soundtrack for my soon-to-be-released short film ‘Resolutions’. The walk took us alongside the motorway, under an overpass and past a large ugly chain hotel. The walk is aesthetically depressing but in a kind of comically out of proportioned way. As we walk past the hotel I quietly make the assumption “I wonder how many people are having affairs in there right now?” To which Paul responds “yeah, probably quite a few.”
We arrive at his practice space which sits next to a shifty looking bar in a part of Glasgow I was unaware existed, looking more like how I assume a lot of people imagine Glasgow looks in its concrete spatiality. The building houses multiple practice spaces within airy sterile hallways, each a duplicate of the other. As we make our way through the corridors the sound of different musicians and musical styles seeped through the poorly soundproofed walls. We finally arrived at Paul’s room which was nicely decorated, complete with house plants and a sofa, two half-finished watercolours sit by a window that looks out onto the Clyde.
It is now perhaps worth mentioning for transparency sake that me and Mr Forrest live together and are close friends of the past 7 years. You would maybe think that this would make the collaboration easier however I am very conscious of the strain on boundaries that this extra dimension to our dynamic may cause. Because of this have elected to mentally pretend that Paul Forrest, which itself is a stage name comprising of the artist’s two middle names, is an entirely different person. This mental exercise in external personality disorder works rather well, leading me to treat Mr Forest with a much more professional demeanour than I would have otherwise. Paul had also worked on three previous scores for films of mine since we first met. Although, in the time in interim a lot had changed in my approach. For one, my filmmaking had progressed from the student films we had previously worked on with this new short having slightly more production value, however crucially not enough to afford any recording time in a studio or payment of any kind though I did buy a glockenspiel from a lovely lady off gumtree.
Another key difference in the collaboration this time around is that I am much more adept at getting things done and knowing what I want. Gone are the days of the lacking in self-confidence stoned young man (all three of these descriptions feed into one another) who awkwardly asked for favours. In his place was a mid-20s esteemed gentleman who had let some good luck and a handful of successes get to his head. Thats not to discount the work either of us did on the other films but I do have a distinct memory of us making the music for a film in 2020 and me and Dara, I mean Paul, getting really high and opting to watch the football instead.
The style of the music we decided upon this time around was synth and drum machine heavy, emulating the party atmosphere of the film whilst maintaining an emotional and somewhat twee sound, thus the glockenspiel. I made a list of inspirations that all fit this specific sound, including the Frankie Cosmos EP Fit Me In, Laurie Anderson’s Big Science and Dear Nora’s human futures. A key point of imitation/inspiration was the soundtrack for Miranda July’s 2005 film Me, You and Everyone We Know by composer Michael Andrews. Andrews’ score infuses this bedroom pop aesthetic with such weirdly wonderful touches and makes the film much better for it. My idea was to make something full of odd and exciting choices that would enrich the film within our pressent limitations.
With these parameters in place Paul had created some really fabulous pieces, five in total, that fit with the mood I was hoping to create. They included an opening track filled with bells and progressing percussion that announces the picture and speeds up the pace, a really lovely sounding track that uses manipulated choir singing and slowly transforms into an anxious rising melody and a final track that builds to a spacey end credit song.
The task now was to refine these tracks to fit the picture so it could be sent to our sound mixer and be incorporated into the sonics of the film. This proved to be more difficult than I was expecting and the best solution we found for matching the sound up to the picture was for me to play the edited film on my laptop whilst Paul composed on Ableton. It was an experience akin to whack-a-mole as we had to make every beat of the film match to a corresponding piece of score as Paul brought in and out aspects of the composition. Though somewhat manic in approach, I suspect there is a much more methodical way to sync the music that does not require two grown men hunched over their computers trying to press space bar at the same time, it did show me how different musical elements can work in elevating an emotion or narrative idea, building towards something all together newly conceived.
As we built this timing based symphony the distinct sound of a drummer in the room adjacent began and did not stop. It began to be quite distracting and somewhat hindering the laser focus of the exercise, So, after completing most of the song, we decided to call it a day and return home. We saw a few musicians exiting the space and gave them the nod of recognition, hoping they could not sniff out that I have no musical abilities whatsoever. I could hear the faint sounds of a full band performing a cover of a Fontaines DC song within one of the many rooms. It is quite a nice experience being in a space full of artists trying to consolidate their craft.
We left the building and before we could begin our grim commute home two men approached us and asked in broken English if we knew of any pubs in the area that would be open. It was just passed midnight so I said their best bet was to try and find somewhere in town. As I went to point them in the right direction I realised I still had no clue where exactly we were. The men informed us they were visiting from Germany and thanked us, then went off the way they came. As the pair stumbled off into the darkness I couldn’t help but wonder what they made of Glasgow from this limited view they were currently getting and if they were staying in that horrible-looking hotel we walked past earlier, unaware of the lovely things hidden just out of view.
iv. Hard Truths
Mike Leigh is a figure who I am constantly attempting to rip off. Less so in his practises of improvised character work informing narrative choices and more in how he allows small details to have maximum impact, how he can address uniquely observed aspects of the English psyche without it feeling preachy or saccharine. It is truly remarkable that a single filmmaker has been on the pulse of English culture from the early 70s to the modern day. His newest work, Hard Truths, continues this to riveting effect.
I find it quite funny in all the press for the film Mike Leigh has had to repeatedly explain the improvisation required for the writing of his scripts, a technique that feels quite abstract and indulgent in today’s film landscape but remains a powerful style of working that produces films that are so richly inhabited. Something Leigh is also very adept in is creating characters that in the offset feel huge and unsympathetic in their broad strokes of performance, think Jane Horrocks and Timothy Spall in Life is Sweet or Lynda Steadman in Career Woman, however, as these films progress they begin to feel grounded within the worlds they inhabit. Such is the case for Pansy, a woman completely at odds with everyone and everything from her dead mother to babies with pockets.
Pansy’s existence mirrors the lack of motivation and drifting nature of many of Leigh’s characters. Any time Pansy is required to do a simple domestic task like buying a new sofa or going to the shops it results in dramatics usually reserved for a films climax. She is a character constructed so explosively that when she goes to the dentist the promise of the setup is the most tense moment put to screen this year. It’s a performance that completely captivates and unsettles you. Everyone can relate to having an unfortunate encounter with someone whose negative energy utterly engulfs a room. It goes without saying that it’s a truly baffling decision by the Academy to completely snub Baptiste’s thunderous performance here. I find it more odd that so many festivals refused the film entry, including Venice and Canness, and perhaps speaks to how very British the film is or how it doesn’t really fit within the contemporary film climate.
Hard Truths is Mike Leigh’s first contemporary set film in 15 years and it feels deeply so. I think that this and Claire Denis’ Both Side Of the Blade are the only films I have seen address the pandemic and feel as though they are doing so tastefully and not being immediately dated. If we were to look at Leigh’s work purely from the perspective of social commentary, which I concede is rather reductive, then what Hard Truths has to say about modern Britain is truly scathing. It exists in a world that is deeply self possessed, dovetailing from the Thatcherite assertion that we do not live in a community that loomed over his early work. Class seems to be more obscured here, the London he presents is much more drab and unrelenting whether it is Pansy’s nieces working salaried central London jobs or her son Moses’ aimless excersions around central London, evidently a routine that started in lockdown as a way to escape his shackling home life. It is telling that all the children still live at home and feel emotionally stunted even outside of Pansy’s panicked grip. The inclusion of the unspoken isolation caused by the pandemic is even more interesting when you consider the film was supposed to be shot before the 2020 lockdown and after being postponed was further developed as time eloped, another example of the organic and richly built worlds Leigh is able to create through his unique process.
v. After School by Harrison Atlee
“Listen closely because this might be important later”. Despite this insistence, the attention of Mr. Hampton’s Year 10 class rested elsewhere. He hated teaching the last class of the day after everyone’s energies had been steadily whittled down. They were incrementally making their way through ‘Wuthering Heights’, which he had repeated multiple times would be included in their GCSE mock exam. This did not seem to phase most of his pupils who had better things to misguidedly ruminate on, such is adolescence.
Those in his class who did focus their attention on him he felt sorry for. They often misunderstood the meaning of Emily Brontë’s pros, leaving him to pick up the pieces of bad interpretations and guide them onto the talking points in the syllabus. The novel was one that he had always loved. However, the poorly read-aloud pros coupled with prosaic discussion made him question his affinity for the text altogether.
Today, he felt especially self-conscious and overwhelmed in his attempts to shepherd his class. There were more pressing things on his mind. Primarily, the painful and messy end of a six-year relationship that was taking its administrative toll as he moved his possessions out of their flat and into his parent’s home, and all the metaphorical damage this regressive act encompassed.
After the lesson had dragged itself to its conclusion, he had not got through all the slides he had prepared and instead gave out some exercises just so he no longer had to speak, Mr. Hampton sat marking this busy work. He stayed a few hours longer than he usually did. As he was leaving he saw Clark, the school’s head janitor, and made some detached small talk regarding him being in so late, disguising his cowardice for dedication. He liked Clark, although suspected he too would not have anything interesting to say about the Brontës.
This cycle repeated itself, as it often does, as less and less time was focused on his imminent state of limbo. There were only a few personal effects; a small table, his record collection and a few clothes left to be moved, but he didn’t particularly care. He would sit for hours on end in his classroom slowly going through exams and reports, purposely dragging out the time, extending it to its maximum potential before he had to leave. When he ran out of work to do he would sometimes watch a film or read, first work that was tangentially related to his teaching and then less so. What began as passing small talk with Clark began to take on a new prosecuting tone, “a late one again Mr. Hampton?”.
His students noticed it too, a detachment that far surpassing his usual calm ambivalence. They began to discuss amongst themselves his new affectation of being utterly incoherent in his thoughts as his sentences would stumble off into obscurities that were for the most part impossible to follow. In one particularly heightened moment, he scolded a student for not reading a chapter assigned to them over the break. It was an out-of-proportioned outburst that had left everyone feeling on edge and warping their perception of Mr Hampton, who up until this point they had regarded as a mild-mannered if underwhelming educator. The outburst was so egregious that the child’s parents had been in contact with the school and Mr Hampton was reprimanded by the head of English, who too had noticed his altered state as cause for concern.
What the head of English didn’t know, however, was that Mr Hampton had been living in the school for the past 3 weeks. This living arrangement had begun during the half-term and seemed to Mr. Hampton a logical step within unfortunate circumstances. It happened by accident in fact, almost as if it were clandestine. One night while making notes he had fallen asleep, despite being seated at his desk it was a deep sleep. The kind that had failed to materialise since things began to go wrong. When he awoke the next morning the silence of the school in the bright morning light filled him with a tranquility he forgot existed. He suddenly realised the school offered everything he needed. He could wash in the boys changing rooms and cook in the school cafeteria. He often moved where he slept for the sake of variety, sometimes in the gymnasium atop a crash mat, sometimes on the sofa in the staff room or the sixth-form common area, every time he awoke feeling balanced.
