Yea, Though I Walk Through the Valley of the Dolls

By Tony Buchsbaum

Even after almost 40 years, Valley of the Dolls remains the camp classic it was practically created to be.

Based on the must-read novel by the master self-promoter/author Jacqueline Susann, the movie stars Patty Duke in her first adult role, the luscious Barbara Parkins fresh off the set of TV’s Peyton Place, and the soon-to-be murdered Sharon Tate. Each one of them seems to attack her role as if it were a matter of life and death—and maybe, at the time, that’s exactly what it was.

At just over two hours, Dolls follows the rise and fall of three ultra-determined women in the show-biz of the late 1960s. In New York, Parkins arrives ready to make the city her own. Her first day, she meet the viscious stage legend played by Susan Hayward in a part that once belonged to Judy Garland, until she flamed out. She also meets Neely O’Hara (Duke), just starting out; she’s got that early Streisand thing going, all voice and moves and desperate edge. And off in the shadows, if only for the moment, is Jennifer (Tate), a showgirl who follows the doomed Tony to Hollywood.

Hollywood, of course, is where all three girls end up: Duke leaves Broadway for the tinsel of the west, Parkins becomes a world-famous beauty-products model, and Tate finds herself widowed by Tony’s debilitating illness and left to care for Tony’s sister, played by Lee Grant (whose features are so severe that they look positively whittled). Trouble is, Duke’s hooked on pills and booze, Parkins can’t get her love-life together, and Tate has to do “art” films to pay the mortgage.

Needless to say, the elevator drops a lot faster than it rose, and all three girls are left to make their own way back to sanity after the Mack truck of life broadsides them but good.

Throughout, the film’s tragedy is laughable—but that’s pretty much the point. It’s perfectly distilled pulp fiction, only the crimes these women perform are all aimed at themselves. Needless to say, even among all the dolls and drinks, the real drug is ambition. It’ll get ’em every time.

Eventually, all three come to their senses just as the film begins to overstay its welcome. Perfect timing, perfect lessons learned.

As famous as Valley of the Dolls was, just as famous was its theme song, performed by the young Dionne Warwick, whose voice symbolizes the hopes and dreams and even regret these girls endure. The song has become a classic, and it’s used here not in the version we know, but broken up in verses and versions throughout the picture, almost as punctuation.

The first-ever DVD, recently released, features a beautiful transfer of the film, audio commentary by Barbara Parkins, dishy behind-the-scenes documentaries, photo galleries, trivia, screen tests, and more. Fans of the film would have been thrilled with just the flick; Twentieth Century Fox’s bonus gifts are a classy move.

A titillating snapshot of Hollywood filmmaking in the late 1960s, Valley of the Dolls is priceless entertainment. Much like its cousin Melrose Place and other entertainments of that lineage, you’ll love it…even as you wonder why.

Munich: A Tragic Event Becomes a Masterful Film

By Tony Buchsbaum

Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, is one of those films that comes back, long after viewing it, to haunt you. Focusing on the events following the murder of the Israeli Olympic team at the Munich Games in 1972, the film deconstructs that period’s political climate and seems to comment on our own, right now, at the same time.

Created in collaboration with playwright/screenwriter Tony Kushner—best known for his searing Angels in America—Munich is told to us through the eyes of Avner, a Mossad agent drafted by Golda Meir to build and lead a secret team of assassins whose sole mission is to exact revenge for the murdered athletes. In short, their job is to follow up leads and kill the men responsible for the massacre.

As portrayed by Eric Bana, Avner is a wonderfully sympathetic character, a man torn by his allegiance, on one side, to his country and its leader, and on the other side, to his wife and the baby they are just about to have. His performance is all in his eyes, which grow darker and darker as the film progresses. It is just about perfect.

Supporting him, playing the other agents on his team, are Daniel Craig, who has since been cast as the new James Bond, Ciaran Hinds, Matthieu Kassovitz, and Hanns Zischler. Geoffrey Rush plays the go-between, the administrator for whom murder is simply the execution of an order, not the ending of a life.

It is this distinction that drives the film. It’s not so much about the revenge killings as it is about the effect these actions have on the men who carry them out. What begins as a mission taken for God and country slowly becomes more ambiguous than anyone bargained for. Avner and his cohorts come to wonder what it’s all for. Is “en eye for an eye” getting them anywhere?

Spielberg’s direction is startling mostly in its invisibility. Sure, Munich looks and feels like a Spielberg film, but there are no special effects pyrotechnics here, nothing remotely like the alien machines that populate War of the Worlds, his other 2005 film. Here, the director seems to hang back, letting the scenes unfold at their own pace. The actors, each as different from the others as they can be, hit each other like billiard balls, and their interaction is fascinating. What killing means to one, it might not mean to another.

The heart of the film lies in one scene in which Avner and a Palestinian find themselves in the stairwell. The Palestinian is someone Avner’s group has targeted, but he has no idea who Avner is. The scene is vintage Kushner, a way to get both characters—who represent distinct sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict—to come clean, as it were. To present their sides to each other. When you emerge on the backside of this scene, you find yourself amazed that both sides have valid points. Both are right, both are wrong, both are at fault. It is a brave, revealing scene that seems to symbolize the questions Avner has about the job he has assumed.

As always, the score by John Williams stands out. This time, the music is anchored by the wordless humming—if not prayer-like moaning—of a woman. Is she meant to symbolize Avner’s wife’s sorrow at a job that places her husband in such danger? Is it Mother Israel? Such things are never pointed out, but somehow it feels right. If Williams had chosen a man to do this kind of chanting, I don’t know if it would have been as effective.

The recent DVD release of Munich contains featurettes that wonderfully illuminate the film. They cover the music and the cast, with deeper dives into the history and the era.

Munich is a riveting, sometimes shocking film that works as thrilling entertainment, but that strikes your heart as an unfortunate chapter of our history—and telling preview of the situation in which we find ourselves today.

Arvo Pärt: A Portrait

by Pedro Blaz Gonzalez

The trajectory of Arvo Pärt’s career as a classical composer is as interesting in its personal as it is in its musical dimensions.

Born on September 11, 1935 in the Estonian town of Paide, Pärt’s musical formation came about under the arbitrary, but rigorously censored strong arm of Soviet artistic control. But this, as far as Pärt’s mature music is concerned, would not be concretely felt until the mid 1960s.

Pärt has come to be known as a composer of religious music. To some critics Pärt is an imitator of Bach. Pärt, however, does not agree with the notion that all musical creativity must strive to be necessarily new or original. Nick Kimberley’s 67-odd page essay, which accompanies this double CD package, is very instructive for followers of Pärt’s music, as well as those just discovering this contemporary master. The author cites some very interesting things that Pärt has to say about his music. As for the often-fanatical need for originality that some critics demand, Pärt has some sharp ideas on aesthetics:

I am not sure there could be progress in art… Everyone understands what progress means in the technique of military warfare. Art presents a more complex situation…many art objects of the past appear to be more contemporary than our present art.

Kimberley’s commentary, too, is insightful:

That is a view which put Pärt at odds with the philosophy, not only of the Communist Party, but also of modernism, which has always lived by the dictum ‘Make it new.’

Ironically Pärt’s ideas on aesthetics are as original as those of any artist of the 20th century, ideas that in due time will eventually prove prophetic, as we continue to empty aesthetics’ coffer with ever more timely “techniques” and theories. Blending his diverse musical influences: medieval and Renaissance, scared, his early flirtation with serialism, his use of bells and choral music, Pärt’s compositions are equally marked by his distinctively individualistic pathos.

Spanning the musical styles for which Pärt has come to be known, this musical amalgam CD set comes about on the occasion of Pärt’s 70th birthday. With thirty-three selections in total, this compilation serves as an excellent sampler of Pärt’s musical creation. The first disc begins with Fur Alina, a short piano piece. This is followed by the second movement of Pärt’s Symphony No.1. Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten is replete with a melodic sentiment that couples harmonious strings with bells, an example of Pärt’s now well known “tintinnabulation,” that, because of its steady tempo, can only be described as a musical meditation. In some respects this piece reminds us of a canon in its mesmerizing fluidity. Also included in the first CD are six choral pieces: Passio (extract) “Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem,” Berliner Messe (Kyrie), Magnificat, Passio (extract) “Unde es tu? Jesus autem responsum non dedit ei,” Berliner Messe (Credo) and Beatitudes.

Of the several variations of Fratres that Pärt has composed, one appears on this disc, Fratres for cello and piano. This work is another example of his truly meditative “silences.” Summa for strings, a baroque-like piece is also included. The last piece that appears on this disc is an organ work: Annum per annum for organ.

The second disc starts with a shorter variation of Fratres titled Fratres for strings and percussion that is followed by Collage über B-A-C-H, which can essentially be described as a baroque duel for strings. The choral pieces included in CD 2 are: Cantate Domino canticum novum (Psalm 95), Triodion and Passio (extract) “Et ex illa hora accepit eam discipulus in sua.’” Pro et Contra for cello and orchestra, a work that is divided into three movements begins with an explosion of sound that quickly settles into the punctured silence rendered by cello and percussion. The second movement is marked by an agitated cello. The third movement is an allegro that is characterized by its ever-ascending tempo.

Pärt’s Symphony No. 3 (Third Movement) is truly tantalizing in its depth and richness, culminating in what can simply be described as beautiful music. This work showcases the composer’s ability to synthesize sounds that speak volumes as they tug at the listener’s emotions. Spiegel im Spiegel is a gentle piece for violin and piano that demonstrates Pärt’s stable technique of playing one note at a time, a tempo that is responsible for creating excruciating anticipation as the work progresses.

Tabula Rasa is perhaps one of Pärt’s most distinguished pieces. This work for strings and piano conveys the impression of movement, of a stream of consciousness that is perhaps best characterized as light. As the violin leads the rest of the strings, the piece becomes engulfed by a full sound that is fractured by a crashing piano that, like a dramatic hammer, seems to be conscious of keeping time. Again, this is Pärt’s ability to incite and engage the emotions.
Experiencing Pärt’s music, we are reminded of the heighten pathos that classical music can evoke. We are also pleasantly uplifted to realize that this compositional transmutation is taking place in the first decade of the 21st century. Admirable in his refusal to settle for popular, new age saccharine drivel or pretentious anti-vital minimalism, Pärt’s musical output, like all great art, is measured in its consistency and ability to fulfill the cultural and spiritual zest of those who seek it. And as for the limits of aesthetics, Pärt seems to challenge “post-modernity” into realizing that the western cultural heritage will always remain after the dust of modish vulgarity has settled.

Pedro Blas Gonzalez is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Barry University in Miami, Florida. Amongst his intellectual pursuits is his interest in the relationship that exists between subjectivity, self-autonomy and philosophy.

Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want

Today is the birthday of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell (A.K.A. Ginger Spice and, occasionally, Old Spice) and former it art boy Andy Warhol. Halliwell was born in 1972, Warhol in 1927. See: the same numbers. Different order. Spooky.

Warhol went to the big studio in the sky in 1987, a full nine years before the debut of the Spice Girls’ first hit single, “Wannabe,” knocked the world to its pop-starved knees in 1996. (“Oh... tell me what you want, what you really, really want...”) And 11 years before the toothsome British fivesome made the heroically awful movie Spice World. (Which is pictured above left and had absolutely nothing to do with Frank Herbert’s wonderful Dune books. You’ll have to have read Herbert’s books to get the reference.)

And, of course, the whole Spice Girls thing imploded years ago when birthday girl Geri left the group in 1999 for a solo career. She’s since released three studio albums and given birth to a daughter -- in May of this year -- whom she named Bluebell Madonna. Bluebell Madonna Halliwell. I’m not making this up.

But dontcha think Warhol would have loved the Spice Girls? Loved who they were and what they stood for? The synthetically created pop band that -- albeit ever so briefly -- ruled the world. It’s easy to forget it now but, for about a minute in the late 1990s, they were bigger than the Beatles, selling in excess of 50 million records in under three years.

Warhol would have loved the Spice Girls: loved how they looked and what they stood for. He would have loved their girl power costumes and the way they wore their shoes. Warhol would have made them into art. And nothing would be different.

Where Did Those Two Decades Go?

If the name “Rippingtons” means anything at all to you, you’ll likely be surprised that this month marks the seminal smooth jazz ensemble’s 20th anniversary. And if the name doesn’t mean anything to you, move along: you won’t find anything to grab your socks right here. (Smooth jazz does not inspire ambivalence.)

To commemorate their twentieth anniversary, The Rippingtons have released a special CD/DVD entitled -- appropriately enough -- The Rippingtons 20th Anniversary. The album -- the group’s 16th -- is supported by a national tour through August and September. Tour information is available here.