Dir.
Wim Wenders, Germany/USA, 90 mins
Cast: Laurence Fishburn, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, J.B. Lenoir Beck, T-Bone Burnett, Lou Reed, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Cassandra Wilson
For his story of The Blues, Wim Wenders focuses on Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James and J.B. Lenoir. Being a huge blues fan, Wenders already had many of their recordings but knew very little about their lives. In fact it was Johnson's Dark Was the Night that formed the main musical theme for Paris, Texas. Martin Scorcese's project gave Wenders the impetus to finally piece together the lives of the men who had influenced the many blues musicians to come.
Wenders tells his story using a fictional recreation alongwith archival footage, rather than just an endless stream of talking heads. The film opens with shots of NASA sending Voyager into space in 1977. Its mission is to travel the solar system, and then continue into deep space, never to return. The narrator, Blind Willie Johnson (voiced by Laurence Fishburn) informs us that should the spacecraft be intercepted by another life form, on board is a recording of life on Earth. On it is music spanning over many decades and cultures, and includes songs by Johnson himself.
Johnson takes us back to 1927 when he recorded Dark Was the Night, where we learn that at seven years old, he was blinded by his mother with some hot fat, simply because she was having a bad day; to James' mammoth recording session for Paramount in 1931 where he earned only forty dollars for recording eighteen songs, and never received any royalties; and to Lenoir in the 50s and 60s, a musician ahead of his time writing protest songs about black civil rights and the Vietnam war.
As there is no live footage of Johnson or James, Wenders re-enacts these moments with the actors miming to the recordings. In keeping with the look of the period, Wenders filmed using a Debrie Parvo - a hand cranked camera from the 1920s. The film does look authentic to the untrained eye. A nice touch from Wenders. For Lenoir, Wenders uses footage from two films shot by Rönnog and Steve Seaberg. Art students at the time, they hoped to bring Lenoir's music to the attention of the world via Swedish television. They failed.
Blues music is emotional, powerful, its lyrics documenting the highs of life and the depths of despair. Wenders enables his audience to feel the full force of the experiences behind the words by producing some haunting scenes: Lenoir's Alabama Blues is intercut with the Klu Klux Klan marches where protesters against the KKK are seen to be beaten and bundled into police vans; James' Hard Times is played to the backdrop of black farmers who were camped out homeless on the now famous Highway 61 having been priced off their land by developers to make way for the new road.
One of the most moving moments is the footage from the 1964 Newport Jazz festival. James had performed his last blues song in 1931, turned to Gospel music and just disappeared. Missing for over thirty-one years, he was found and brought back to perform at the festival to an audience who knew, played and interpreted his music, but like Wenders, knew nothing about the great man.
Interesting as the biographies of Johnson, James and Lenoir are, Wenders film is ultimately about the timelessness of their music. As Voyager goes deep into space, Johnson makes the point that time and distance does change perspectives, and no more so than in music. Wenders' presents archive footage of original performances, and then cuts them with modern interpretations. Johnson's Dark Was the Night is reworked by Marc Ribot, James' Devil Got My Woman by Bonnie Riatt and Lenoir's I Feel So Good by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. There are also notable performances by Beck, T-Bone Burnett, Lou Reed, Eagle-Eye Cherry and Cassandra Wilson.
Even if you're not a blues fan, it'd be difficult for you not to be enlightened and entertained by the end of Wenders' journey.
Sandi Chaitram
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