Musical Space

Every Quentin Tarantino film is a musicological event — a study in the use of soundtrack music — and his latest is particularly interesting, because he limits himself only to music heard when the movie takes place, in 1969. So, without divulging spoilers or trying to be a film critic, I really have to talk about Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood.

A couple years ago I was playing in an opera production; a famous Hungarian singer was slated to star — except that his visa application was held up because of a backlog, he couldn’t legally fly to the states, and the company had to hire a last-minute substitute. This kind of thing has been happening lately to international musicians, authors, dancers and filmmakers wanting to present their art in the U.S. using a special visa, the same kind used by athletes to compete and scientists to present at conferences. The paperwork is cumbersome and the decisions can be arbitrary. For the sake of the arts and international relations the process needs to be streamlined.

It looks like Apple is killing its music app iTunes. Introduced when mp3s were becoming the new medium, iTunes was a brilliant move for Steve Jobs, and perfect for the revolutionary iPod, and it soon made Apple the world’s largest music seller.

Canada Day is July 1, so I figured I’d send my browser to points north to find out what’s going on up there musically.

I’m seeing all kinds of good concerts coming to Wichita this summer. And the lineup is surprisingly free of washed-up acts trying to squeeze the last dollars from their fleeting fame. Instead, we’re being treated to musicians with a lot of hipster cred, including some rising stars.

Weddings are just about the only events where it is still traditional to hire a band. Sure, you can get by with a DJ or even a digital playlist, but live music is still classier - they’ll wear tuxedos for you - and this may be the only opportunity for your nephew to come face-to-face with a living, breathing, member of the ancient fraternity of professional musicians.

I’ve been talking lately about good film music, but what about films about music? I imagine it’s difficult to do - what can a movie say about music that the music itself doesn’t already tell you? - but great directors have turned their cameras on music makers in lots of different ways.Music biopics often fall flat for me - it’s hard to idolize a musician and tell an interesting story at the same time, but the Criterion Collection has some good ones: Sid and Nancy, about the Sex Pistols’ doomed bassist Sid Vicious and The Buena Vista Social Club, which brought some of Cuba’s best musicians to the attention of the world. Instead of riding on the fame of their subjects, these talk about the mixed-up cultures that the music came from.

The recent tragic fire at Notre Dame got me thinking about that building, and others like it. Music history is tied to a thousand years of cathedrals being at the cultural center of every European city.

A lot of movies use music as sonic wallpaper - just background sound to fill silence and fit the genre - but bold, memorable films tend to have equally strong and unforgettable music at the forefront. Great filmmakers have a way of merging images and narrative with the visceral power of sound. It happens a lot in art-house films, like those you can watch on the new Criterion Channel. I’ve been perusing their catalog lately, and lots of titles have come to mind.

There’s a lot happening in the movie biz: Disney just bought 21st Century Fox and will be launching their own streaming service later this year. More interesting to me, though, is what’s going on with the most important distributor of serious film - The Criterion Collection.