AFTER: Poetry Destroys Silence
Richard Kroehling
2024, 85 mins.
A marvellous collage of real misery and hope, one line at a time
Let’s be clear from the outset: this is not so much of a review but an appreciation.
Ostensibly, this film looks back at the Holocaust (and some other human travesties) through the prism of poetry—perhaps humankind’s best method of distilling all manner of situations into a few (compared to the atrocities) lines that—for those who care to read, their number remains too small—shines a spotlight on the “then and now” of the human (mostly) experience.
There is no shortage of poets: Janet R. Kirchheimer - “How I knew and When”; Walter Fiden – “Automatic poem”; Edward Hirsch – “My First Theology Lesson”; Cornelius Eady – “Anonymous Poet”; Géza Röhrig – “Auschwitz”; Christine Poreba – “Negative Miracle”; Anonymous – “Soll Ich Etwas Zur Shoah Sagen”: Rip Charles Carter – “The Man with the Movie Camera”; Yehuda Amichai – “Open Closed Open”; Paul Celan – “Todesfuge”; Richard Kroehling – “Lost Photo”; Alicia Suskin Ostriker – “Who Saves a Life”; Taylor Mali – “The Entire Act of Sorrow”; Sabrina Orah Mark – “A Kaddish”.
The readings, deftly punctuated by key lines on the screen, can’t help but cause thinking people to reflect on past events—and those who lived or died through them—in order to make some modicum of sense in our 21st century world.
Kroehling’s film couldn’t be more timely as so much of the planet lives/dies through death and destruction daily, even as too many of our leaders have no further ambition than to institute their selfish goals (or there never would have been a Holocaust to name but just one misguided “adventure”).
As good as this cautionary tale is (notably the string-infused music; composer Michael Gallasso featuring Laura Nathanson and Rachel Evans), like most poetry itself, too few will ever hear/read it, far more who do, will wonder what all of the fuss is about.
Let’s turn the tide: see this movie at all costs, then reflect on your own inner selves. JWR
Not Not Jazz
Jason Miller
2024, 116 mins.
You can always go deeper
Having been involved in music most of my life (clarinetist—classical/Dixieland, saxophonist jazz/pop, conductor and critic), how delightfully curious to make the acquaintance of John Medeski (keys), Billy Martin (drums/percussion) and bassist Chris Wood. It’s a group portrait that centres around a 2017 recording session in a swank, near-hotel size recording “booth’ in the Catskills. Keeping their melodic/rhythmic trains running is longtime manager Liz Penta.
Of course, the main star is their music—seemingly an endless search not for the tried and true but something perpetually new.
Playing together off and on for ~26 years (notably without a change in personnel—a singular feat all by itself), viewers are initially treated to the trials and tribulations of, literally, setting up a full-service studio in the middle of nowhere (three cheers to sound engineer Danny Blume for patiently solving the computer crashes wreaking havoc amongst their cymbal cousins!).
Most certainly not a through-composed approach to composition, the scintillating charts rely much more on taking a germ or two of an idea (lyrical or rhythmic) then repeat, revise, repeat again, riff and conclude.
Like all music documentaries, viewers/listeners are seldom afforded the opportunity to hear a complete work from stem to stern.
Most certainly, that is why the highlights of this portrait are the solos from all three members where in the sumptuous confines of the manor’s study—with a convenient Steinway available to do the honours—or, most marvellously, a singles set on the tennis court where the string bass makes every serve an ace.
For “not not jazz” aficionados and newcomers alike, this production will be time well spent and likely encourage a search online to download the complete products. JWR