Two fantastic pieces of art responding the Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans are coming out within a week of each other, and i just wanted to take a moment on this blog to stump for both of them.
First up is Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's remarkable documentary Trouble The Water. Manohla Darghis in the New York Times called it "One of the best American documentaries in recent memory," and although she's way more qualified to say that than I am (having seen way more documentaries) I absolutely agree. The film is built around the story of Kimberly and Scott Roberts, two residents of the 9th Ward who survived Katrina, eventually escaped New Orleans and then worked their way back to try to rebuild their lives. But that isn't the half of it. You see, Kim Roberts bought a camcorder shortly before the Hurricane hit and decided to document their experience of the storm itself.
Amongst the many amazing things about the film is the way it takes what has formally been the conceit of many horror films of late (the shaky-cam recording of traumatic events) and deploys it to put the viewer into the eye of the storm. I've seen a couple of different versions of the movie (Tia and Carl are very dear friends) and it's gotten better with every one. The latest print is as taut and compelling as a thriller, while carefully balancing a searing indictment of America's treatment of New Orleans with an amazing human interest story. There's one sequence in the film (That I won't spoil) that had the entire audience of the theater I saw it in burst into spontaneous applause for so long that they missed part of the next scene. Seriously. It's some powerful shit. It opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend. Please, please go see it, and if you do go see it, please please go see it this weekend because everything is about opening numbers in the biz these days.
A week after Trouble The Water opens, Ted Hearne's Katrina Ballads comes out on CD. Anne and I went to see Katrina Ballads (frequent commenter and guest blogger Herx plays piano on the CD) in the Village last year, unsure of what to expect (I had heard on track off of it) and were quite simply blown. the fuck. away. It's easily in the top 5 of concert experiences I've ever had. Hearne's music blends a whole series of influences from New Music to Big Band Jazz, and the way he sets the entirely-found-text libretto is really truly stunning. Katrina Ballads is ballsy, compelling, rockin' composing, and Hearne's ingenious genre play is present throughout, particularly in his setting of Bush's famous "Brownie you're doing a heckuva job" (repeated over and over again, changing time signatures and largely a cappella), Kanye West's improptu "George Bush doesn't care about Black people" speech (a triumphant, stunning Jazz epic centered on Isaiah Robinson's searing tenor vocal performance) and Abby Fisher's rendition of "Barbara Bush, 9/5/05" in which Barbara's comments about how everything has worked out well for Katrina evacuees is performed as kind of poisoned-honey softshoe. Seriously, check it out.
Thanks for the shout out, Isaac. Katrina Ballads is indeed awesome. One small caveat is that it is not being released on CD quite yet, but rather by download off the New Amsterdam Record's website on Katrina's anniversary August 29th. The physical copy will come sometime in the spring.
https://www.newamsterdamrecords.com/#Entry/NewAm_to_Release_Ted_Hearnes_iKatrina_Ballads_i_Online_for_Katrina_Anniversary
Posted by: Herxanthikles | August 21, 2008 at 12:44 PM