Les Blank has a short documentary called God Respects Us When We Work, but Loves Us When We Dance, and Sasha Wortzel’s How to Carry Water is all about the dance.
Another documentary, covering a different photographer than Florida’s Shoog McDaniel, would focus more intensely on the embedded idea that this is defiant dancing. How to Carry Water only brushes up against it: it’s not about the struggle but about the idyllic, ecstatic moments when the struggle can be forgotten. What is it like to be queer and fat in rural Florida? No: what’s it like to be free and beautiful, enraptured by your body and the bodies of those you love, an abundant part of an abundant natural world? “Down here,” says Shoog, who’s shooting their friends in a gorgeous watery reverie of trailing hair and billowing flesh, “my body is no longer something I have to carry.”
Shoog’s photoshoots, as captured by Wortzel, are a little like the love-in Blank was chronicling. They’re art, but, Shoog explains, they’re also time with friends, where everyone collaborates in constructing a kind of fairyland. If certain bodies–fat, trans, Black–are rarely captured on film, they’re still more rarely captured with this kind of lustful affection and–again, more rarely still–this kind of delicate dreaminess. The ethereal is usually reserved for the white, the slim, and the obviously feminine; Shoog and Wortzel find the mermaid and the goddess of fairyland in everyone. No one owns beauty, and no one owns a sun-drenched pre-Raphaelite swampland paradise, either.
Of course, neither artist would get very far without their subjects. This is not a talky documentary, but Shoog’s trio of subjects do get a chance for a bit of a say, and they’re well-aware of what art they’re creating and why. One, Anna, talks about realizing to her shock that if she desired another fat person, if she reveled in their body, then she too must be desirable; Mathias, who is Black and trans and whose body is therefore constantly, exhaustingly politicized, mentions this kind of self-embrace too: “I’m trying to enjoy existing in this body that I have right now, that has taken me so far and has been with me every step of the way. Ain’t nobody gonna stop me. Nobody ever has.”
But the wonder of How to Carry Water is still the moment when all those concerns disappear. We all know they’ll come back, just as everyone here knows they will. But in the meantime, there are colorful, elaborate outfits and flower-festooned nudity–choices made to celebrate and call attention to one’s existence, not diminish or apologize for it. In the meantime, there’s a disco ball out in the woods. And the beautiful people are here.
How to Carry Water is streaming on the Criterion Channel.
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Lauren James
Lauren James is a writer who wears many different hats (and pen names). She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two cats.
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Anthologized
The man who wants to live forever can't die soon enough for my tastes.
Anthologized
"Maybe there's only one summer to every customer."
Streaming Shuffle
Your host accidentally watched a new teen horror movie and got what she deserved for it.
Anthologized
Alone in the dark.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Justified, Season Six, Episode Two, “Cash Grab”
“Chasing easy money, best way to end up over your head.”
“No shit.”
“Jesus, Boyd, I was just sayin’ hello.”
The pieces are getting put into position, so I don’t have much to observe outside the little details; my sole big observation is that this show is so fucking cool. It puts the weaker last two seasons into perspective; this season has so much more heft and purpose to it that comes with being the last season and thus driven to wrap things up, but they were still so much fun to watch, putting this into the ‘bad [this show] is still better than good everything else’ category of television.
In terms of little observations, it’s interesting to have the latest dumb brute actually be mentally disabled, to the point that Raylan’s jokes seem a little cruel – in a better world, he’d be getting the care he needs. Though given I live in that world and have known disabled people getting their care, he’d probably still want to be the boss-man. Maybe you can see the people on the bottom of a society as a twisted parody of the ideals it espouses. If that sounds cruel, I think that would have to include me.
Oh man, the famous use of Sam Elliot on the cowboy show with no moustache! The reveal is like a jump scare.
Biggest Laugh: “Are any of those even things?” / “I’m mostly just makin’ shit up.” Tim officially taking over Art’s position this season.
Biggest Non-Tim Laugh: “You like the hills?” / “Not really. Just pussy versions of mountains.”
Top Ownage: Tim casually revealing he’s a Marshall to the crooks after he picks up Choo-Choo.
Choo-Choo gets more in the next episodes, needless to say.
That’s basically my wife’s opinion on hills as well.
Homicide: Life On The Street, “Three Men and Adena” – Was inspired by Moses Gunn’s performance as a piece of shit undertaker on Tales from the Crypt to watch his last screen role in a simply legendary episode of TV, and it was as unforgettable as when I’d seen it at 14. I did forget, however, that Campbell and the editor deliberately fuck with the blocking and the cuts, which at first seems like a mistake, then is very deliberate, disorienting the audience much like the cops deliberately barraging and breaking down the sleepless, stony Risley Tucker. It’s horrible and sad to understand the pain Risley feels at the end, an old man who, no matter what he has done, no matter the dark urges in his soul (ones he can confess to himself and others where Bayliss cannot), has lost the great love of his life. And Gunn is simply extraordinary in those last fifteen minutes.* (It speaks to his incredible range that he could play this old arabber and also portray a loathsome cheapskate on a silly/fun horror anthology.)
*He evidently hits a nerve with Pemberton and my friend observed how much his expression changes on getting called a “500,” the kind of upper-middle class Black man who can look down on poor Blacks like Risley.
The Battle of the River Plate (also called The Pursuit of the Graf Spee – At the start of WWII, a German “pocket battleship” called the Graf Spee was sinking cargo ships bound for the UK in the South Atlantic. Before long, three Royal Navy vessels found and damaged but did not sink the Graf Spee, which put into harbor at Montevideo, Uruguay. While there, its captain was tricked into thinking a larger task force awaited him, and he scuttled the ship. All of this makes up the backbone of this postwar film by The Archers, and while it boasts the usual gorgeous color vistas of earlier films (especially those filmed in Montevideo) and solid acting, it never really takes off. The battle scenes alternate between rather static shots of the ships (actual RN and USN vessels on loan) chugging along and occasionally firing their guns and closeups to various stage-shot scenes on the ships. It conveys the facts but not quite the feelings. Oddly, the film picks up some life when it turns to the intrigue of what will happen to the Graf Spee while the Uruguayan officials decide just how neutral to be. There is also the interesting decision to depict the German captain – Peter Finch in the best performance of the film – as a decent human being (an interesting counterpoint to the Nazi captain in Lifeboat), maybe overdoing it a bit. Look for Patrick Macnee as an aide of one of the RN captains, Christopher Lee inexplicably as the owner of a bar in Montevideo, and Roger Delgado for six second as an Uruguayan officer.
Elementary, “The Grand Experiment” – The title refers to what Sherlock calls his work with Joan, but even as he works to clear his brother’s name and to find the mole in MI6, he is increasingly sure the partnership is ending. A pretty good season finale but not in the same league as the first season’s. And a farewell to Mycroft, who has to fake his death. The season ends with Sherlock accepting an offer to work for MI6, but obviously that won’t last.
Frasier, “Boo!” – Annoyed with his dad trying to scare him, Frasier dresses as a clown and gives his dad a scare. And a heart attack! Which is really just a way to get Martin and Ronee to get engaged, just after Frasier admits that he is finally used to his dad living with him. Our descent into the end of show begins here, setting up the many changes that will come with the end. Some decent gags though this works better for the heartfelt moments. Oddly, we have two things that are sort of Simpsons shoutouts, Kelsey Grammer as a clown (though thankfully not made up to look like Bob Terwilliger), and Martin trying make a prank call, last name Rection.
I spent several days with my parents, which means we get a belated barrage of classic movies that I unfortunately won’t write up in much detail here (EDIT: I’m always saying this and then somehow going long anyway) because I also caught a cold and feel like my head is stuffed with cotton:
Dodge City
A fun western that never rises above “fun.” I subtract several points for the sadly genre-typical “our rambunctious-but-honorable heroes are all former Confederates” (at least one of them being a dickish sore loser about this leads to an amazing romp of a massive bar brawl) but add at least one point for “the hero institutes gun control, massively reducing the town’s casual violence.” Errol Flynn looks good on a horse. Alan Hale joins a Temperance League. Actually, the best part of this isn’t the cleaning-up of Dodge City or the traditional heroes vs. villains arc at the end, it’s Flynn trying to shepherd a wagon train and their cattle along and having to deal with Olivia de Havilland’s jackass of a brother. The small-scale, interpersonal stuff is more unusual and perversely has more weight to it.
Cause for Alarm!
It was my dad’s position that this plot was “crazy” because he would simply never be in this situation. He had no concrete suggestions for how Loretta Young could have avoided it, though. I feel like this dovetails with the fact that my dad doesn’t believe in false confessions or innocent people taking plea bargains because he doesn’t think he would ever do the same. Apparently, much like Sabrina Carpenter, my dad can’t relate to desperation.
Suspicion
One of my previously-unseen Hitchcocks! You get a great flash of ice-cold, Notorious-style Cary Grant in the scene where he watches his friend react to the brandy: Grant was a master of knowing when to turn the charm off as well as on, and how to stay absolutely riveting in all cases. Also a fantastic shot here of a potentially poisoned glass of milk, lit so it has an almost radioactive glow.
This is famously marred by a studio-mandated ending that wanted Grant innocent, but I think it’s successfully ambiguous despite that: I am definitely in the camp that believes he’s still planning on killing her at the end and has only temporarily convinced her otherwise.
The Pirate
Beautiful colors, wonderful dancing. The songs are an odd mixture of catchy and forgettable: I was singing them for the rest of the night, but they’ve mostly escaped me now. This is interesting when it comes to the intermingling of romantic fantasy and reality: Judy Garland’s Manuela (yes, she and Gene Kelly are both supposed to be Spanish colonials in this, complete with fake tans: is it brownface if they’re still playing some variety of European, albeit now settled down in the Caribbean? I’m honestly not sure) loves the colorful legends of the dread pirate Macoco, and the scene of her delightedly getting ready to be “kidnapped” by him while pretending she’s grimly sacrificing herself is one of the best in the movie, but Kelly’s Serafin is blunt (with Macoco, though interestingly not with Manuela, letting her have her daydream) about how unglamorously awful his piracy really was; Manuela ultimately chooses to join Serafin and “be a clown,” getting the life of travel she always wanted and entree into a world of shifting performances, safely embodying various fantasies. Sometimes play is better.
Anything involving daydreams is best shot in Technicolor.
The Roaring Twenties
Thoughtful and heart-wrenching, with an incredible and nuanced Cagney performance at its core. This is so my kind of thing. I’ll have to write it up, so I’ll just note in advance that this also has what instantly became one of my favorite romances that never actually happens.
Dial M for Murder
More Hitchcock. I’d previously found this a bit sleepy, but it worked much better for me this time around, even though it’s a shame Grace Kelly doesn’t have more to do. Maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for well-engineered crime plots that instantly go off the rails because of uncontrollable human variables, and this is That: the Movie. I love how that starts off as comedy–Milland’s frantic reaction to his wife casually deciding she might not stay in tonight after all–and then turns into high-stakes drama as things go even more wrong but he also starts rolling with the punches. The third act goes on a little long even for me, though.
Agreed on the last one, the highlight there is the (attempted) murder which is incredible peak-Hitch filmmaking stuff. (That and it requires multiple characters to be idiots about Milland’s very obvious motive for killing his wife.)
The attempted killer falling backwards and driving the scissors further into his body is CINEMA. I’d love to see a 3D rep showing of this.
Great last line in The Roaring Twenties, “He used to be a big shot.”
Twin Peaks, S2 E14: “Double Play” – some sulky James, lots of Cooper backstory, Leo on the rampage and the first appearances from Windom Earle and Thomas Eckhardt. Not a lot of good here, although Big Ed and Norma swooning over each other is sweet and Dr. Hayward has a good hat.
Ah, Windom Earle, had such a…great time with that loud, overbearing character.
HIS MIND IS LIKE A DIAMOND
Doctor Who: The Celestial Toymaker (animated reconstruction) – The First Doctor, Steven and Dodo are captured by the Toymaker and made to play a grueling series of games where children’s toys turn into horror. This is a notoriously problematic serial beginning with the horrible pun in the title due to yellow-face, and an utterance of the N-word. The animation allows for the yellow-face of Michael Gough’s Toymaker, originally presented very lightly with no epicanthic fold prosthetics or accent (unlike the later serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang), to be rendered without other offending mannerisms and more like the white British guy he is. The racist slur is excised from the soundtrack all together. Animated reconstructions vary in animation quality and this one took an episode to get used to, not the best and not the worst. The plot, screenplay and deadly game trope allow the animators to run wild presenting a strange world and absurd challenges for the companions. It’s good when the sinister Toymaker is on screen and Peter Stephens exudes menace as a schoolboy. But the challenges, which should be exciting, are slow, plodding and monotonous. This is the problem using the original soundtrack with its original screenplay and pacing coming through modern animation, more so here than other animated serials because the animators went so crazy creating the world. Another problem is Hartnell missing for long stretches after going on holiday and sidelined for two episodes. To make up for this the Doctor is made invisible and mute and forced to play a puzzle game by the Toymaker. All we see are pieces moving around by an invisible hand. Highly regarded by fans, this may be the holy grail of missing serials after the Abominable Snowmen. I found it just ok.
I could not get into this one. Under it all, it was just boring.