Here's a review I posted on another tribe;
Just got this documentary spanning about 15 years of his career. It was filmed lovingly by Claudia Heuermann in a style closer to public access, then a professional documentary, which I think adds to it's charm. It is almost as much her story of how she was captured by Zorn's music as it is Zorn's documentary.
The movie is divided into 12 sections, that zip around in time and space. She is given access to Zorn playing live and practicing with his many different incarnations. Zorn comes off as a witty, opinionated, and knowledgable interview subject. With his New York accent and quick mind, he ends up sounding like the Woody Allen of the avante garde jazz world. Some of the scenes of him describing what he wants of his musicians, end up looking Spinal Tap-ian. Even some of the muscians have a hard time keeping a straight face when he is describing what he wants them to do.
Seeing how all of his "games" actually worked made the music seem much more interesting. Especially since it was only for about 30-40 seconds. As a matter of fact, a good portion of his music seems better when tasted on a sampler platter as opposed to a full meal. For me, a lot of his work is conceptually fascinating, but musically overbearing. I would have liked to see more footage of live Naked City and Masada, but no such luck. They would have made nice extras on the DVD.
Overall, even if you are marginally curious about John Zorn, this movie serves as a good introduction.
Just got this documentary spanning about 15 years of his career. It was filmed lovingly by Claudia Heuermann in a style closer to public access, then a professional documentary, which I think adds to it's charm. It is almost as much her story of how she was captured by Zorn's music as it is Zorn's documentary.
The movie is divided into 12 sections, that zip around in time and space. She is given access to Zorn playing live and practicing with his many different incarnations. Zorn comes off as a witty, opinionated, and knowledgable interview subject. With his New York accent and quick mind, he ends up sounding like the Woody Allen of the avante garde jazz world. Some of the scenes of him describing what he wants of his musicians, end up looking Spinal Tap-ian. Even some of the muscians have a hard time keeping a straight face when he is describing what he wants them to do.
Seeing how all of his "games" actually worked made the music seem much more interesting. Especially since it was only for about 30-40 seconds. As a matter of fact, a good portion of his music seems better when tasted on a sampler platter as opposed to a full meal. For me, a lot of his work is conceptually fascinating, but musically overbearing. I would have liked to see more footage of live Naked City and Masada, but no such luck. They would have made nice extras on the DVD.
Overall, even if you are marginally curious about John Zorn, this movie serves as a good introduction.
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Hawaii
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Re: John Zorn's Bookshelf Across the Sky
Tue, November 9, 2004 - 5:04 PMI hadn't heard of this; thanks very much for alerting us. Looks like the full title is "A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories about John Zorn" for anyone else who goes searching for it. -
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Re: John Zorn's Bookshelf Across the Sky
Tue, November 9, 2004 - 5:14 PMOoops. Sorry about the mislabel.
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Re: John Zorn's Bookshelf Across the Sky
Mon, December 27, 2004 - 6:16 PMI just rented this and, out of respect for Zorn, I had to stop about halfway through. Despite some great live, studio and interview footage, this is among the worst films I've ever seen.
Really, it's less about Zorn than it is the filmmaker, her fangirl obsession with him, and how interesting she thinks it is to comment on the filmmaking process during the film itself. It isn't. Zorn himself is more than interesting enough, and with nothing to add to the discussion Heuermann interjects herself where she isn't needed.
This would have been great if it had been made by someone else. My advice is to skip it, and avoiding having bad memories associated with such great music. -
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Re: John Zorn's Bookshelf Across the Sky
Mon, December 27, 2004 - 8:00 PMI understand where you're coming from, although I didn't think it was that horrible. That's why God invented the fast forward button.
There is also a live Massada DVD out, which I think is a straight live concert. -
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Re: Masada live
Mon, December 27, 2004 - 8:04 PMThat I will have to look for. Thanks for the tip, again. -
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Re: Masada live
Tue, December 28, 2004 - 12:23 PMIt's called Masada Live at Tonic 1999. According to the back cover, it's an intimate three camera shot, but all the cameras were given to three year old toddlers, to get a more naive and innocent look at the band. Just kidding.
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