Tag Archives: richards

Apr 26

The Ongoing Conflict of a Voyeur

Le Viol (The Rape), René Magritte, 1934

 
 

The Rape, one of Surrealism’s most powerful images — Georges Bataille could never suppress a nervous laugh whenever he was confronted by this painting — likewise works with a subversive idea. The selection of the work’s title indicates the ongoing conflict of a voyeur; René Magritte comes very close here to Hans Bellmer’s erotic perversion, albeit without the latter’s sadness.

In 1935, Andre Breton published his speech Qu’est-ce que le Surrealisme? with Magritte’s drawing, Le Viol on its cover. The image, a view of a woman’s head in which her facial features have been replaced by her torso, was meant to shock the viewer out of complacent acceptance of present reality into “surreality,” that liberated state of being which would foster revolutionary social change. Because Le Viol is such a violently charged image and because of the claims made for it by Magritte for its revolutionary potential, the drawing has been the subject of many arguments, both for and against its effectiveness. The feminist community has had a particular interest in this image (and in Magritte’s work as a whole) not only because of the controversial treatment of the female subject in Le Viol, but also because of the ways in which our culture has been so easily able to strip surrealist images of their political content and subsume them back into mainstream culture for use in those very categories of social practice which Surrealism wanted to eradicate.

 
 

Single sleeve

 
 

Angie is a song by the rock band The Rolling Stones, featured on their 1973 album Goats Head Soup.

Contrary to popular belief, the song was not about David Bowie‘s first wife Angela or Angie Dickinson; nor was it about Keith Richards‘ first daughter, Dandelion Angela. The song was written before the sex of his upcoming baby was known. He says in his memoir, Life: “I just went, ‘Angie, Angie.’ It was not about any particular person; it was a name, like ‘ohhh, Diana.’ I didn’t know Angela was going to be called Angela when I wrote Angie. In those days you didn’t know what sex the thing was going to be until it popped out. In fact, Anita named her Dandelion. She was only given the added name Angela because she was born in a Catholic hospital where they insisted that a ‘proper’ name be added.”
(Life, p. 323, Ch. 8.)

 
 

To listen to this song, please, take a gander at The Genealogy of Style‘s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl

Sep 14

Musical Metamorphosis

The album’s cover art alludes to Franz Kafka‘s The Metamorphosis. Illustration by Linda Guymon. Artwork concept by Glenn Ross

 
 

Metamorphosis is the third compilation album of The Rolling Stones music released by former manager Allen Klein‘s ABKCO Records (who usurped control of the band’s Decca/London material in 1970) after the band’s departure from Decca and Klein. Released in 1975, Metamorphosis centres on outtakes and alternate versions of well-known songs recorded from 1964 to 1970.

In 1974, to give it an air of authority, Bill Wyman involved himself in compiling an album he entitled Black Box. However, Allen Klein wanted more Mick Jagger/Keith Richards songs in the project for monetary reasons, and Wyman’s version remained unreleased. Metamorphosis was issued in its place.

While the critical reaction was lukewarm (many felt some of the songs were best left unreleased), Metamorphosis still managed to reach No. 8 in the US, though it only made No. 45 in the UK. Two singles, Out of Time (featuring Jagger singing over the same backing track used for Chris Farlowe‘s 1966 version) and a cover of Stevie Wonder‘s I Don’t Know Why briefly made the singles charts.

May 21

A Behind-the-Seams Look at the World of High Fashion

 
 

Isaac Mizrahi can make things out of tulle or nubuck, but his most fabulous creation is the one he has made of flesh and blood. It is Mr. Mizrahi’s hilarious, happily Napoleonic personality that makes such a treat of Unzipped, Douglas Keeve‘s crafty valentine to the fashion world in general and this irrepressible designer in particular.

And intimacy with his subject — as both a fashion photographer and Mr. Mizrahi’s former lover — only heightens Mr. Keeve’s acuity rather than compromising his perspective. Of course in terms of objectivity, it helps that Unzipped has nothing to do with state secrets and everything to do with fake fur.

A smart, spiky documentary with just the right running time (76 minutes), Unzipped appreciates not only the loony excess that makes fashion such a high-stakes adventure, but also the monomania of Mr. Mizrahi’s creative process. Who else watches The Call of the Wild (William A. Wellman, 1935) and obsesses about the lip-liner on Loretta Young? As Mr. Mizrahi explains to the camera, if you’re going to freeze on the tundra, you might as well do it with your makeup un smudged.

A little while later, he is skillfully trying out the same anecdote on Polly Allen Mellen, a fashion arbiter who is enough to out-doyenne any and all of the characters in Robert Altman‘s Ready-to-Wear. (Comparisons between the two films are invidious but unavoidable. For electricity and fun, not to mention fashion sense, this one comes out miles ahead.) Ms. Mellen listens to Mr. Mizrahi in ways that make it clear his charm is working, and that charm counts for everything in this universe. For her part, Ms. Mellen advises him to “Be careful of makeup; be careful!” She sounds solemn enough to be warning Caesar about the ides of March.

Unzipped is filled with such telling moments and lively walk-ons, not only by power-brokers and Mr. Mizrahi’s business associates, but also by the celebrities who give the designer’s world its spark. It’s no small measure of Mr. Mizrahi’s talents as a born entertainer that he can chitchat easily with gorgeous, scene-stealing supermodels (Cindy Crawford talks about her pores, Naomi Campbell about her navel ring, Kate Moss about appearing in her underwear, etc.) and leave no doubt about who is the star of this show.

Unzipped is neatly structured to follow Mr. Mizrahi through the creation of a single collection, which begins in disaster. When first seen, he is crushed by reviews of his last designs (“Certainly his sense of how a modern woman dresses after 8 P.M. failed him”) and is about to start again at square one. The film understands that this process can look silly while being deadly serious. And it enjoys watching while a man who loves his work and lives vividly in his imagination — a fun place to be — tries out ideas. He’s not even really kidding when he daydreams about a fake-fur jumpsuit, perfect for dog-walking, that could work in one of two environments: Alaska or the Upper East Side.

Mr. Mizrahi is seen auditioning models, talking fabrics, working on sketches and gossiping madly about everyone he meets. (He does a dandy impersonation of Eartha Kitt, whose real presence is smoothly intercut with the Mizrahi version.) Throughout all of this, it’s also clear that he is driven rather than frivolous, controlling his employees and the camera crew with equal precision. When one scene finds him ambushed by upsetting news — Jean-Paul Gaultier has done a Nanook look before the completion of the Mizrahi version — he simply puts his face in his hands and refuses to move. That’s not as good as yelling “Cut!,” but it’s the next best thing.

The candor of Unzipped may be as contrived as the pouf skirts, but that doesn’t lessen its appeal. After all, in what other culture can you overhear people saying “punk and Hasidic” and have the slightest idea what they mean? (They mean a fashion gaffe by Jean-Paul Gaultier.) Even the film’s carefully controlled scenes can be revealing, as in its glimpses of Sarah Mizrahi, who beams at her boy and says “My Isaac made this” with motherly pride. She is all maternal encouragement until, when teased by Isaac, she insists: “That’s not funny at all. I have a very good eye.”

(Only Mary Tyler Moore in her Mary Richards days seems to rival Isaac’s mother as a feminine influence on him. Whatever that means, this film knows enough to leave it unexplained.)

Edited to capture the mounting drama of staging a collection, and filmed by Ellen Kuras in a fluent variety of camera styles (grainy black and white to accentuate the workaday fashion world, exuberant color for the finished clothes), Unzipped builds its tension until it reaches the big day. It looks on as Mr. Mizrahi changes from life of the party into drill sergeant, frantically finishing the clothes and insisting on a see-through ballet scrim to partly shield the models who are backstage. That idea itself becomes a theatrical triumph.

Then the crowd gathers and the show begins. It is alluringly “insane with color” (as Women’s Wear Daily will later gush), and yes, it is exciting enough to make sense of this whole enterprise. You may recall that Ready-to-Wear tried to lend thrills and meaning to this crowning moment by sending models down the runway stark naked. But Unzipped doesn’t have to be that unzipped. It knows why clothes work better.

May 12

The Concept of Travel in an Emotional Sense

“The Journey of a star, captured in a flash”. Annie Leibovitz and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Annie’s studio, New York

 
 

“Is there any greater journey than love?” Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi. New York

 
 

“There are journeys that turn into legends”. Sean Connery, Bahamas Islands

 
 

“Every journey began in Africa”- Ali and Bono. Uganda

 
 

“A journey bring us face to face with ourselves”. Mikhail Gorbachev, Berlin, Germany

 
 

“Some stars show you the way”. Muhammad Ali and a rising star. Phoenix, Arizona

 
 

“Three exceptional journeys. One historic game”. Pelé, Diego Armando Maradona and Zinadine Zidane. Madrid, Spain

 
 

“Some journeys change mankind forever”. Sally Ride, Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lowell. California

 
 

“A single journey can change the course of a life”. Angelina Jolie. Cambodia

 
 

“Inside every story, there is a beautiful journey”. Sofia Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola. Buenos Aires, Argentina

 
 

Louis Vuitton Core Values campaigns revisit the brand’s heritage with a completely fresh interpretation of the concept of travel in an emotional sense, viewed as a personal journey, a process of self-discovery. The campaign debuted in September 2007 in major international titles featuring no other but the former Soviet statesman Mikhail Gorbachev, the French movie siren Catherine Deneuve, the founding member of The Rolling Stones Keith Richards and the tennis power couple Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, among many other influential and famous people.

Pietro Beccari, Senior VP of Communication explains this shot: “Not only does it capture the unique quality of a father-daughter relationship, in which both are enriched by a shared experience, but it also evokes the heritage of Louis Vuitton with its suggestion of know-how being passed from one generation to the next.”

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first steps on the Moon, the ad features legendary astronauts Sally Ride (first American woman in space), Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11, first steps on the Moon, 1969) and Jim Lovell (Apollo 13) looking up in the Californian desert night sky.

In 2010 Brazil’s Pelé, Argentina’s Diego Maradona and France’s Zinedine Zidane all won football’s ultimate prize, and all wore the emblematic N°10 shirt. They met up in the Café Maravillas, a typical bar in Madrid, and were tempted into a game of table football. The image leaves the suspense intact, but clearly captures the atmosphere of fun and friendly rivalry.

Given the photographer of all Core Value campaigns personal and financial troubles in 2010, Louis Vuitton wished to offer support in the most positive way and suggested that Annie Leibovitz become the next campaign’s hero. She accepted on the condition that she appears alongside for friend and one of the foremost dancers of the 20th century, Mikhail Baryshnikov.

This is the first time U2 frontman Bono has appeared in an ad sans his bandmates, but instead with his wife Ali Hewson. It’s also the first time that a label other than Louis Vuitton is getting a fashion credit – the pair are wearing their own clothing line Edun, a line of ethical fashion. Proceeds from the sales will go to TechnoServe, which supports sustainable farming in Africa.

As the pioneer of the art du voyage, Louis Vuitton is always on the look out for the exceptional people with extraordinary journeys. The question is who will be next?

May 10

Some Journeys

Keith Richards photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Louis Vuitton 2008 ad campaign. “Some journeys cannot be put into words. New York. 3 am. Blues in C,” runs the slogan of the ad.

 
 


The founding member of The Rolling Stones was captured in a New York hotel room that he transformed by draping black Alexander McQueen’s skull-print scarves over the lamps and placing a skull on a bedside table.

May 10

Lost and Found Session

“They knew exactly where they were all the time, and were simply waiting to be found!”

Peter Webb, on his lost Sticky Fingers session negatives.

 
 

The big yawn (above), shown alongside a contact strip of three negatives, showing its place in the sequence. Note Peter Webb’s excited handwritten confirmation that the original negative of his classic album sleeve image has been found again.

 
 

It’s a story that would give any photographer sleepless nights. A classic photo-session for one of the biggest bands on the planet, The Rolling Stones, for the cover of one of their most critically acclaimed albums. Anyone who owns the Sticky Fingers LP ( the one with the Andy Warhol zipper sleeve) will recognise Peter Webb’s black and white image, which Peter calls The Big Yawn, from the inner sleeve. What people don’t realise is that this photograph is one from a complete lost session that came to light after a gap of almost 40 years (negatives went missing soon after the shoot, on may 1971).

Peter made a name for himself in the seventies as a multi-award winning advertising photographer, and was then head-hunted as a director for Ridley Scott’s commercials company. He later established his own company Park Village Productions, based in the magnificent Victorian Riding School and Stables in Regents Park, lovingly restored and converted by Webb himself. Park Village remains a leading production company, with Webb and his colleagues having set the bar by winning all the premier awards in the business over the years, including the Palme D’Or at Cannes as the top Commercials company worldwide twice. His 1971 session to photograph the Stones for their Sticky Fingers album took place at his Park Village Studios.

After graduating from university in the mid sixties, Peter took an extended trip to New York. During his stay, Webb’s brother-in-law, Bill Pierce, (himself a NYC based photographer) taught him enough of the rudiments of photography for Webb to blag his way into a job assisting the legendary photographer and director Howard Zieff. It was while he assisted Zieff, that he was entrusted with the construction of an extraordinary 20 foot “walk-in” strobe lighting bank, the concept of which Zieff had conveniently borrowed from his good friend Irving Penn. It was this enormous lighting bank that Peter would later employ himself in the intricate construction of his 1971 session with the Stones.

Webb returned from the USA, and subsequently was introduced to the Rolling Stones by David Puttnam, in his previous incarnation as a photographers’ agent in the early 1970’s. Puttnam had seen Peter’s plate camera portraits and had mistakenly thought they must be the work of Penn or Zieff, little realizing they were produced by a then unknown UK photographer who had assisted Zieff in New York some years before. Puttnam said the band were “looking to do some shots for a forthcoming album”, and that Webb should set up a meeting at their office in town. He duly appeared at the Stones office and was ushered in to meet Jagger, a daunting milestone in itself.

Peter explains: “I presented my concept for the session, based around the ‘surrealist’ type of advertising work I was in to at the time, heavily influenced by Magritte. I envisaged the band dressed in Victorian boating attire, posed with oars primed in a beautiful wooden rowing boat. However the boat would not be on any river, it would be in a Victorian Photography Studio, with an elegantly painted backdrop of a period Henley, their oars resting on a wooden studio floor. Alarmingly however, during the course of my presentation, Jagger produced a series of wide-mouthed yawns and seemingly by way of dismissal suggested I pitch my ideas to Charlie Watts in the next door office, and who was “into Art”. I was duly ushered in to meet Watts, whose monosyllabic responses made Jagger’s seem wholly enthusiastic in comparison.”

Webb duly retired to lick his creative wounds, and to consider another option ASAP. He had been hugely impressed by Irving Penn’s classic B/W studio portraits of Haight-Ashbury hippy families and Hell’s Angels for Life Magazine some years earlier, and decided he would photograph the band “as they were” on a suitably neutral studio constructed backdrop.

Webb continues: “I had also been advised by a photographer friend that the band “were trouble” to photograph and could end up throwing “V” signs etc. to the camera – an attitude I thought I would encourage with a moody distressed grey-toned backdrop, to capture the brooding streetwise image I presumed the band would like to project.”

Webb spent many days extensively testing both lighting and background tones. He adapted an extended ‘walk in’ lighting bank similar to the one that he had constructed for Zieff, and constructed of a large hand-painted backdrop. With the preparation all in place, the Stones showed up on the appointed day at Webb’s studios, the converted Victorian Riding School and Stables next to Regent’s Park in central London.

“They immediately registered disappointment that they were going to be photographed in their own clothes, and that there was no “idea” anywhere in sight. And far from being “trouble”, the band stood like lost schoolboys on the over-scaled backdrop, and were not only compliant to my instructions in arranging them, but even seemed somewhat camera shy – which was totally unexpected.”

Andy Warhol and his Factory designer Craig Braun came up with the Sticky Fingers “Zipper” concept, which relegated Webb’s intended album cover image to a grainy dupe on an inside sleeve. Despite the shoddy reproduction on the sleeve, it is instantly recognisable as a classic Stones group portrait, showing Jagger standing to the left of the frame, yawning, while the other four Stones gather on the right, Bill Wyman scratching his nose. Webb christened the image “ The Big Yawn”.

 
 

 
 

Falling Stones, a colour portrait shot by Peter on Kodak Ektachrome 120 transparency film, is one of the most famous photographs from the Sticky Fingers session – and this image, kept separately from the black and whites, has its own unique survival story. At some point in the shoot, Webb asked the Stones to act a little more threateningly, and Mick, Keith and the band duly obliged. Finally things loosened up to a degree, and as a one-off idea he lined up the band shoulder-to-shoulder, like a younger Dad’s Army, and encouraged them to lean sideways. Thankfully the 1,000th second exposure time-captured this one-off event, and the resulting image was “Falling Stones”.

Falling Stones survival is thanks to a completely random two frame laboratory exposure ‘clip test’. Peter explains: “I forwarded the bulk of my (relatively few) colour shots from the shoot to the Stones office, and onwards to my good friend Braun at Andy Warhol’ s Factory. I never saw them again, and as far as I was concerned, these colour images were truly lost and gone forever. However the procedure of taking a random two frame “clip test” from an unprocessed roll (to adjust the processing of the remainder), meant some unnamed and forever heroic lab technician had sliced the obligatory two plus inches from the tail of the exposed roll, a mere half an inch clear of this shot. And so it was saved – but only just!”

 
 

 
 

After the group session was completed, Webb invited the band individually to an upstairs studio set up with a 5×4 Sinar plate camera, whose depth of field was so slight that a wooden rod had to be placed at the back of each band member’s head, so there would not be the slightest movement backwards.

After more searching enquiries from the various band members as to the purpose of the portraits – “Passports, is it now mate?” – Webb photographed Jagger in a number of extreme close ups, with and without a stylish Irish cap and a long-collared paisley shirt, fashionable at the time. In between another serial attack of yawns, Mick enquired politely, “So… what happened to that great idea about the boat?”

 
 

 
 

In early 1972 Peter entrusted his photographer brother-in-law with the safe keeping of an unmarked folder of negatives, which was, as Peter recalls now, “…an essential detail which I had conveniently forgotten, in the excitement of being hired by Ridley Scott to direct commercials, and the dark room became a cutting room overnight.”

Webb continues “Bill stored them in the attic along with his own negatives, and only revisited them recently while hunting for negatives of a portrait of Joan Didion he had shot in the early ‘50’s. He called me to say he had found an unmarked bag of negatives amongst his own which “…could be the Rolling Stones” …

“I made him lock the doors and not let anyone in the house, and then I asked him to look for someone who could be shouting or yawning, standing aside from a group of four, one of whom was scratching his nose. After an anxious half hour, an email popped up, I opened the attachment, and as if in slow motion the group of four were revealed, with Bill Wyman adjusting his nasal passages, and Jagger standing apart from the group with a wide mouthed yawn. Eureka!! The Prodigal Stones had returned to the fold after an absence of almost forty years”

Contained in their pristine negative sleeves, were the strip containing the actual album sleeve image, all the best group shots from the session, and also an unexpected further delight: some individual plate camera portraits of Jagger and Richards which had never been seen before.

Now almost 40 years on, and with the Stones still touring, Webb has been persuaded by a younger generation of photographers, musicians and Stones fans alike, that photographing the Stones “as they were” at that exact moment of time, free from any overriding “concept”, was the best idea he never had.

May 5

The Rolling Stones’ Tour of The Americas

“And yet, despite the ultimate and monumental success of the tour, things did not always go smoothly. The trouble was not so much from within the group (though there were instances of stress and friction, granted) but from the outsiders: tourist-types, music-lovers, hero-worshippers, souvenir-hunters, run-away-teenies, young ill-informed musicians hoping to replace guitarist Mick Taylor who had recently left the group, and quite unaware, of course, that inside the house, at that very moment, the great Ron Wood was picking a line that would have set Bo Didddley’s top a ‘tappin’!”

Terry Southern

 
 

This was The Rolling Stones‘ first tour with new guitarist Ronnie Wood, after Mick Taylor had left the band. (A 14 April announcement merely said he would be playing on the tour; he was not officially named a Rolling Stone until 19 December 1975). Long time sidemen Bobby Keys and Jim Price on brass were not featured on this tour, being replaced by Billy Preston on keyboards and Ollie E. Brown on percussion. Bobby Keys made a guest appearance on You Can’t Always Get What You Want and Brown Sugar at the Los Angeles shows.

The Tour of the Americas ’75 was not tied to support of any newly released material, as it began more than seven months after the release of their last studio album at the time, It’s Only Rock’n Roll; therefore the compilation album Made in the Shade was released to capitalise on the tour’s publicity.

The mid-1970s were the era of extravagant stage shows, from the likes of Elton John, Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Queen—a new format for the Stones, with their usual act freshly aided by theatrical stage props and gimmicks, including a giant inflatable phallus (nicknamed ‘Tired Grandfather’ by the band, since it sometimes malfunctioned) and, at some shows, an unfolding lotus flower-shaped stage that Charlie Watts had conceived.

 
 

The Rolling Stones’ Tour of The Americas, 1975. Pictures by Annie Leibovitz and Christopher Simon Sykes

May 5

Don’t Forget to Put Roses

“..You can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave…”

Dead Flowers

Track number 7 on the album Sticky Fingers. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

 
 

Mick Jagger, Photo by Annie Leibovitz, Buffalo, New York, 1975.

 
 

Illustration by Sebastian Krüger

May 4

The Ideal of New Pop Art

 
 

Sebastian Krüger was born June 30, 1963 in Hamelin, Germany. After studying free painting with Prof. Dörfler at the Braunschweig University of Fine Arts, he made a stunning reputation as the designer of a number of cover spreads for the press in Germany and abroad and as an illustrator and creative designer of various LP covers.

He then stepped away from commercial work and devoted himself solely to free painting. In recent years, he has aesthetically moved away from a stylistic “star caricaturist” to New Pop Realism, pushing his rendered subjects into a psychological arena. His artistic visions are treasured and collected by other stars of the pop scene, like The Rolling Stones, who are friends of his, and by art connoisseurs all over the world.

In the quarter century of his creative career, Krüger has remained true to the ideal of New Pop Art, dedicating his art to a kind of game o deception, the interplay of identity and portraiture, of authenticity and fiction. This has enabled him to establish himself as a popular painter whose works draw large numbers of visitors to the galleries and museums. The defining feature of his work is the creative reflection about the apparatus of media presentation and the manic iconography of contemporary picture production.

 
 

May 2

No Stone Unturned

The Rolling Stones, a group that David Bailey called “the best rock and roll band that ever was,” pictured by him in 1968

 
 

Contact sheet from that photo session

 
 

No Stone Unturned is a compilation album by The Rolling Stones released in 1973. Eight of the twelve tracks had been previously released on single b-sides in the United Kingdom, and the rest had been released on EPs.

The song Sad Day is released as a single from the LP. Keith Richards said he didn’t mind them repackaging the old stuff but wished they would use a bit more imagination about it. He said that “putting out old flipsides as singles is shit”. He said the record company Decca were supposed to be making records “but they might just as easily be making baked beans.” Keith then bluntly called the record company “the biggest bunch of shits in the world”.

Jan 28

Infatuated with American Bluesmen

“The Stones’ music has inspired me greatly and became a basis for most of the work I’ve done in my movies, going from Mean Streets right the way up to Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino. Their music for me is timeless; it helped me form scenes, the energy and the atmosphere of the music, it created images in my mind.”

Martin Scorsese

 
 

Photo by Norman Norman Seeff, Los Angeles, 1986

 
 

Martin Scorsese has long had a knack for finding the right pop or rock song to kick a scene into the stratosphere. For every time he’s used a Bernard Hermann score or a Johann-Sebastian Bach sonata (“Wir setzen uns und Tranen nieder“, from St Matthew Passion, in Casino), there are a dozen instances when he’s employed vintage R&B, doo-wop, blues or British Invasion numbers – “the music we used to hear in the street,” he’s said – to liven up his films.

Director Scorsese’s relationship with the Rolling Stones and their catalog of songs dates back to his film Mean Streets, which included the Jagger-Richards composition Tell Me in a key scene. Rolling Stones songs Gimme Shelter, Monkey Man and Memo From Turner are heard in Goodfellas while The Departed includes both Gimme Shelter and Let It Loose.

 
 

Feel Like Going Home (2003). Scorsese pays tribute to the Delta blues, tracing the roots of the music by traveling through the state of Mississippi with musician Corey Harris and then traveling on to West Africa. Willie King, Taj Mahal, Otha Turner and Ali Farka Toure give performances of early Delta blues songs, along with rare archival film of Son House, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker.

 
 

 
 

They were a bunch of British kids infatuated with American bluesmen. He was an asthmatic teen surrounded by street-fighters in Little Italy. But there’s something about the volatility of their art that make for an ideal pairing. Scorsese has used so many of their songs in so many of his films, both originals and covers (notably Devo’s take on Satisfaction), that by the time he got around to making a Stones concert film, it almost seemed anticlimactic. But check out the livewire energy he channels in 2008’s Shine a Light – they’re still bringing out the best in each other.

 
 

 
 

“We tried to get the film as close as possible to the energy of a live concert. For me the Stones are all about energy, that’s why they are still so relevant today. Initially, we did think about a narrative structure for the film. We talked about doing something with the Stones and New York City – we could have had many different scenarios – but quite honestly, after 40-45 years, so many great filmmakers have worked with the Stones, what could I possibly add? “The Rolling Stones in New York”, some clever interstitial moments?”

Jan 27

Not So Unexpected References

The tagline is “Be unexpected.” The fragrance created by perfumer Jacques Polge debuted on fall 2010 preceded by a media campaign which include the short advertisement “Bleu de Chanel” by Martin Scorsese featuring French actor Gaspard Ulliel. Prior to Scorsese, Baz Luhrmann had worked on Chanel No. 5.

The Rolling Stones‘ She Said Yeah, from band’s 1965 album December’s Children (And Everybody’s),  propels the script of the short film, in which rising international star Gaspard Ulliel plays the role of a young actor whose artistic talent, rebelliousness and good fortune have thrown him into the public eye. However, he refuses to conform to the lifestyle and expectations his newly found fame has placed upon him. As he struggles with new pressures and expectations, he runs into his first love, who for years, supplied him with the passion and turmoil that fueled his work. Faced with a decision, he pushes aside convention to embody the bold energy and elegance of Bleu De Chanel by daring to be unpredictable and refusing to bow down to convention. Scorsese had directed the 2008 Rolling Stones concert film Shine A Light. 

The song She Said Yeah was recorded by the group in September of 1965 at RCA Studios in Hollywood, the very same place where the band’s anthem (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction had been recorded a few months earlier. She Said Yeah was written by the late Sonny Bono and West Coast rockabilly performer Roddy Jackson, and had been a single for Larry Williams in the late 1950s. Williams became known with such early rock ‘n’ roll hits as Bony Maronie, Dizzy Miss Lizzy and Slow Down, the last two of which were covered by The Beatles.

 
 


Still from Mishima, a Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader, 1984)

 
 

Still from short advertisement “Bleu de Chanel” (Martin Scorsese, 2010). The exploding screen wall seems to be inspired by Ishioka’s set design for Mishima. “We knew the old Hollywood system was gone, so we thought we could get in the cracks somehow. Francis was already at it — he was the big brother…”, Scorsese said about starting out with his friends George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. Rolling Stone Magazine 40th Anniversary (2007)

 
 

Gaspar Ulliel taking pictures to the woman he was chasing. This scene reminds the famous photo-shoot played by David Hemmings and  sixties model Veruschka in Blown-Up. In a piece called, The Man Who Set Film Free, Scorsese wrote about the sensation of seeing the Italian director’s L’Avventura for the first time, almost 50 years ago.

 
 

Movie Poster from Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)