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Post by tannis on Sept 1, 2008 11:44:21 GMT
Yes, I think the wonderfully exaggerated expressions and dramatic visual emotion do indeed reflect Kemp’s style of performance - a unique and seductive blend of Butoh, Mime, Burlesque, Drag and Music Hall... Bush's early videos are more staged than her later ones. They are shot as though she were performing in a music hall rather than on screen. These early clips are long on charm, as Bush often exaggerates her facial expressions and incorporates dance into the production. For "Them Heavy People," she dressed in trench coat and fedora à la Bogart and danced with two other performers; it was very simple and quite entertaining. KB: "My videos are more film-influenced now. When I first started making videos, I was so obviously theatrically and dance-influenced. A lot of that was from Lindsay Kemp and dance teachers with whom I had been working. Gradually the more involved I got in video, the process of making films, the more I've swung around to film-making. It's a beautiful discipline, dance, and it can be lovely, but I guess I'm getting for more into filmmaking now." Option, "Perfect Vision", March 1990gaffa.org/reaching/i90_op2.html
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Post by tannis on Oct 23, 2008 15:30:26 GMT
KATE BUSH: The Woman In The Dunes The black and white photographic image to the cover of The Sensual World single brings to mind Suna no onna (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964). And the film's drumming music brings to mind tracks like Love And Anger and Running Up That Hill...
Kate Bush - The Sensual World gaffa.org/sensual/p_tsw2.jpg
Woman in the Dunes ~ SUNA NO ONNA(Japanese Movie) uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nySF-uM2XUg 1:09... From barbaric drum music through sensual sound like the sand's "breathing," Takemistu-sound is full of imagination and magic...Woman in the Dunes (Suna no onna, also translated as Woman of the Dunes) is a novel by Kôbô Abe and a film based on the novel directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara. An entomologist named Niki Junpei (played in the film by Eiji Okada) is on an expedition to collect insects in an area of sand dunes. When he misses the last bus back, a group of locals suggest he stay the night in their village. They send him down a rope ladder to a house at the bottom of a sandpit, where a young widow (played by Kyoko Kishida) lives alone. She has been tasked by the villagers with digging sand to be sold to the cities, mostly under the table (sand with salt should not be used for construction purposes), and with preventing the sands from destroying the house (if her house succumbs to the desert then the other houses in the village will be threatened).
When Junpei tries to leave the next morning he finds the ladder removed. The villagers inform him that he must help the widow in her endless task of digging sand. Because the sand drifts into the shack without cease, shoveling sand away from the sandpit is her primary daily routine. Junpei initially tries to escape; upon failing he takes the widow captive but is forced to release her in order to receive water from the villagers.
Junpei eventually becomes the widow's lover and resigns himself to his fate. Through his persistent effort to trap a crow as a messenger, he discovers a way to draw water from the damp sand at night. He thus becomes absorbed in the task of perfecting his technology and adapts to his "trapped" life. The focus of the film shifts to the way in which the couple cope with the oppressiveness of their condition, and the power of their physical attraction in spite of— or possibly because of— their situation.
At the end of the film Junpei gets his chance to escape, but he chooses to prolong his stay in the dune, in part because the woman is already pregnant with his child. A report after seven years declaring him missing is then shown hanging from a wall, written by the police and signed by his mother Shino.Suna no onna -- original Japanese traileruk.youtube.com/watch?v=WODbLjG4kzwIt is almost meaningless to try to ascertain any scientific or economic logic beneath the surface of this allegorical story (written by Kobo Abe). Such hairsplitting will only make you lose the merit of this work. The primary subject of the story seems to lie in a certain passive mentality to be called "mental inertia," mental acclimation, conformity, or something like that. "Mental inertia" is caused by "usualness" (or "dailiness"), and comes to dominate the subconscious in due course. Abe and Teshigahara metaphorically depict such "usualness" as the character of sand -- usualness formed in an unusual situation. The woman has a strong mental attachment to the status quo around her; despite the cruel fact that the sand has killed her husband and daughter, she prefers to stay there and not to change her life. This is the "mental inertia" of the work. The entomologist, too. He at first thinks the whole situation surrounding the woman absurd, and tries to escape it. However, he becomes accustomed to the situation day by day, and accepts such absurdity after all. By whom is he forced to do so? The villagers? No. Himself! He chooses to return to the sandpit and stay there even when he becomes free to leave. He becomes a captive in the dunes by "mental inertia" just as he has been in the city."Suna No Onna"."Woman in the dunes"."La femme de sable"uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WDjUPH5RqtU
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Post by tannis on Nov 20, 2008 23:47:40 GMT
KATE BUSH: Waking The Wicked Witch of the West
Waking The Witch brings to mind The Wizard of Oz (1939). The song features helicopter sound effects, and spins around like a windy tornado. After being struck unconscious during a tornado by a window which has come loose from its frame, Dorothy dreams that she, her dog Toto, and the farmhouse are transported to the magical Land of Oz. There, the Good Witch of the North Glinda advises Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road to Emerald City and meet the Wizard of Oz, who can return her to Kansas. During her journey, she meets a Scarecrow, Tin Man and a Cowardly Lion, who join her, hoping to receive what they lack themselves (a brain, a heart, and courage, respectively), all of this is done while also trying to avoid the many plots of the Wicked Witch of the West, in her attempt to get the ruby slippers that Dorothy received from the squashed Wicked Witch of the East.
And in the film, Dorothy wears The Red Shoes. The Ruby Slippers are the magical shoes worn by Dorothy (played by Judy Garland) in the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz. In the film, Dorothy acquires the slippers after her house falls on and kills the Wicked Witch of the East, freeing the Munchkins from the Witch's tyranny. In return for her unintentional good deed, Dorothy receives the slippers to protect her from the Witch's vengeful sister, the Wicked Witch of the West. Dorothy knows the slippers are magical, but she is unaware of their specific powers. Only at the end of the film does Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, reveal the slippers' secret: Whenever Dorothy wishes, she can return home to Kansas by simply clicking her heels three times and repeating, "There's no place like home".
So maybe The Wizard of Oz (1939) was an inspiration... "There's no place like home." For millions, Kate Bush has become the Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtain... The Sunday Telegraph (Sidney), August 14, 2005gaffa.org/reaching/rev_aer_aus.htmlTHE MORNING FOG
DOROTHY: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me? GLINDA: You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas. DOROTHY: I have? SCARECROW: Then why didn't you tell her before? GLINDA: Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself. TIN MAN: What have you learned, Dorothy? DOROTHY: Well, I -- I think that it -- that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em -- and it's that -- if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right? GLINDA: That's all it is! SCARECROW: But that's so easy! I should have thought of it for you. TIN MAN: I should have felt it in my heart. GLINDA: No. She had to find it out for herself. Now, those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds! DOROTHY: Oh.... Toto, too? GLINDA: Toto, too. DOROTHY: Oh, now? GLINDA: Whenever you wish. DOROTHY: Oh, dear -- that's too wonderful to be true! Oh, it's -- it's going to be so hard to say goodbye. I love you all, too. Goodbye, Tin Man. Oh, don't cry. You'll rust so dreadfully. Here -- here's your oil-can. Goodbye. TIN MAN: Now I know I've got a heart -- 'cause it's breaking. DOROTHY: Oh -- Goodbye, Lion. You know, I know it isn't right, but I'm going to miss the way you used to holler for help before you found your courage. LION: Well -- I would never've found it if it hadn't been for you. DOROTHY: I think I'll miss you most of all. GLINDA: Are you ready now? DOROTHY: Yes. Say goodbye, Toto... Yes, I'm ready now. GLINDA: Then close your eyes, and tap your heels together three times. And think to yourself -- "There's no place like home; there's no place like home; there's no place like home."
DOROTHY: There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like... There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home...
AUNT EM: Dorothy - Dorothy! It's me -- Aunt Em. DOROTHY: Oh, Auntie Em -- it's you! AUNT EM: Yes, darling. PROFESSOR MARVEL: Hello, there! Anybody home? I -- I just dropped by because I heard the little girl got caught in the big -- Well.... she seems all right now. UNCLE HENRY: Yeah. She got quite a bump on the head -- we kinda thought there for a minute she was going to leave us. PROFESSOR: Oh -- DOROTHY: But I did leave you, Uncle Henry -- that's just the trouble. And I tried to get back for days and days. AUNT EM: There, there, lie quiet now. You just had a bad dream. DOROTHY: No -- HUNK: Sure -- remember me -- your old pal, Hunk? HICKORY: And me -- Hickory? ZEKE: You couldn't forget my face, could you? DOROTHY: No. But it wasn't a dream -- it was a place. And you -- and you -- and you -- and you were there. PROFESSOR: Oh -- (others laugh) DOROTHY: But you couldn't have been, could you? AUNT EM: Oh, we dream lots of silly things when we -- DOROTHY: No, Aunt Em -- this was a real, truly live place. And I remember that some of it wasn't very nice.... but most of it was beautiful. But just the same, all I kept saying to everybody was, I want to go home. And they sent me home. DOROTHY: Doesn't anybody believe me? UNCLE HENRY: Of course we believe you, Dorothy.
DOROTHY: Oh, but anyway, Toto, we're home! Home! And this is my room -- and you're all here! And I'm not going to leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all! And -- Oh, Auntie Em -- there's no place like home!
The EndThe Wizard Of Oz Part 10uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf0TLr0q9M4
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Post by tannis on Mar 15, 2009 19:00:16 GMT
THIS WOMAN'S WORK and ALFRED HITCHCOCK
MARNIE: Of course I'm a cheat, and a liar and a thief, but I am decent.
In the Hounds of Love video, KaTe's suit is straight out of Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) or Vertigo (1958). Hitchcock's Rope (1948) features a discussion on the Nietzschean concept of "the Superman". Superman is prominent in KaTe's The Big Sky video; and so is Napoleon. In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov identifies Napoleon as the ultimate Superman.
After the killing of Marion Crane, Norman Bates takes his mop and his bucket and cleans the bathroom floor until it sparkles! Aerial is full of The Birds! And could the wink to the viewer at the end of Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976) have inspired Kate's wink to the viewer at the end of her Hitchcockian Experient IV video?
Hitchcock's Torn Curtain (1966) features a ballet scene (from 1:50:44). The ballet sequence uses fire effects which KaTe borrows for TLTC&TC (The Red Shoes, 1993). The Torn Curtain fire effects (1:54:57) inspire the Newman character to shout "Fire!" to evacuate the theatre. In the ensuing panic, Newman and Andrews are separated. Andrews is swept away by the crowd and reaches out for Newman, who has to fight himself through the crowd to reach her. KaTe seems inspired by this action (ballet/separation/reaching out) for the Running Up That Hill video. Also featuring in Torn Curtain (1966) is the 'Pi' symbol, which is used as the secret code. And if the tarot and light theory are correct, then KaTe's Pi is also used as a 'secret code'!
Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) opens with a fire at an aircraft factory (4:15). When we cut to Rogers giving an eye-witness statement, Rogers' hands are heavily bandaged, burned from the fire. In The Line, the Cross & the Curve (1993) KaTe's mysterious woman (Miranda Richardson) also has heavily bandaged hands, burned from a fire, just like in the Hitchcock movie.
And maybe, given Hitchcock's obvious influence on The KT Bush body of work, the compilation title, The Whole Story, was taken from Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)...
DR. RICHMOND: I got the whole story--but not from Norman. I got it--from his mother.
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Post by mariegriffiths on Dec 11, 2014 18:14:33 GMT
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