Author: adamscovell

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Eroticism in the Music of Béla Bartók – Part 5 (Post-Modern Pulp).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Though of course subjective, the natural Kierkegaardian immediacy of the music is instantly on show.  Several sections of brooding along these themes can be read almost as seductions, with the build-ups working easily as well as the seduction segments from The Miraculous Mandarin.  The pairs of strings that seem to roll over each other as they begin … Continue reading Eroticism in the Music of Béla Bartók – Part 5 (Post-Modern Pulp).

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Film

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – Occult Sexuality

Strange undercurrents of sexuality pervade the films of Stanley Kubrick. Though not always present explicitly, the raw presence of dark desire and physical wanting seems scattered throughout his work. From Dr Strangelove‘s ideas of selective breeding based on the “sexual characteristics that will have to be of a highly stimulating nature” to The Shining‘s most surreal haunting of a man receiving oral sex from another … Continue reading Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – Occult Sexuality

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 3 (Acousmatic Concepts)

Part 1. Part 2. Emphasis on Acousmatic Concepts in Ross J. Fenimore’s “Voices that Lie Within”. “Psycho almost didn’t happen.  This is a unique case of music literally saving a film.” – Sullivan (2006, p.246). Like much literature around Psycho, Fenimore’s “Voices That Lie Within” begins its argument with setting the scene. “Psycho begins with a theft.”(2010, p.80) he begins as so many often do.  … Continue reading Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 3 (Acousmatic Concepts)

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Film

The Stuart Hall Project – John Akomfrah (BFI).

From its opening declarations, John Akomfrah’s documentary on Stuart Hall, The Stuart Hall Project (2013) explicitly acknowledges that it is going to be condensing fifty years of complex history and ideology into its relatively short running time.  Akomfrah achieves this in an unusual but extraordinary way by linking the ideas and history of the public intellectual with his passion for the music of Miles Davis.  … Continue reading The Stuart Hall Project – John Akomfrah (BFI).

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Deep End (1970) and the Musical Emphasising of Narrative (Jerzy Skolimowski).

This article contains spoilers. There are many aspects of distraction within Jerzy Skolimowski’s 1970 film, Deep End.  Its highly sexualised, sometimes seedy narrative, its vast array of colours and its crisp, sharp direction are only a handful of its hyper-active eccentricities.  Even David Lynch, a long-time pessimist about colour cinema, is on record as a fan of Deep End‘s array of powerful colours, and styles.  … Continue reading Deep End (1970) and the Musical Emphasising of Narrative (Jerzy Skolimowski).

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Uncategorized

Eroticism in the Music of Béla Bartók – Part 4 (Kierkegaard’s Immediacy)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Kierkegaard’s Erotic Immediacy and the Atonal Manifestation of Complex Erotic Identity in Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. “Sensuous immediacy has its absolute medium in music, and this also explains why music in the ancient world did not become properly developed but is linked to the Christian world.” – Kierkegaard (1843, p.71). Unlike the other pieces of music by … Continue reading Eroticism in the Music of Béla Bartók – Part 4 (Kierkegaard’s Immediacy)

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Film

Nietzsche and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

At this moment in time, I’m currently between two relatively heavy audio-visual essays.  The first (which is now finished and will be going online in segments from the end of the month) is about Andrei Tarkovsky’s film, The Sacrifice (1986) and how it has parallel aims with that of the Russian composer Scriabin and his unfinished work, Mysterium.  The second is looking at Stanley Kubrick’s … Continue reading Nietzsche and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

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Folk Horror, Literature, Television

The Tractate Middoth – Mark Gatiss (BBC Ghost Story at Christmas).

This article contains minor spoilers. It has taken a while for the traditional BBC ghost story to make a fully formed return in the 21st century.  This is surprising considering the popularity of the return of other genre television traditions from Doctor Who to Battlestar Galactica, but the singular ghost story at Christmas has taken some time to get right.  Before this recent M.R. James … Continue reading The Tractate Middoth – Mark Gatiss (BBC Ghost Story at Christmas).

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Landscape, Short Film

Music Video – Four Hills (John McGrath)

Making a video for a song without vocals has been an interesting and ultimately rewarding experience.  Without the ties to vocals that often mean music videos scream of publicity, making a video for guitarist John McGrath has given a freedom I’ll probably never enjoy again for other music videos.  McGrath’s music is at once refreshing; a mixture of percussive guitar and electronic delays; consider a … Continue reading Music Video – Four Hills (John McGrath)

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 2 (An Audiovisual Foreshadowing)

Part 1. Emphasis on Visual Cues in Scott Murphy’s “An Audiovisual Foreshadowing in Psycho“. “We can grasp in effect something which, already in nature, appropriates the gaze to the function to which it may be put in the symbolic relation in man.” – Jacques Lacan (1977, p.105). Scott Murphy’s “An Audiovisual Foreshadowing in Psycho” is already an interesting proposition in the context of its original … Continue reading Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 2 (An Audiovisual Foreshadowing)

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